Speak to the Silence

by LysanderasD

What Seemed to You an Instant

Speak to the Silence

A My Little Pony fanfic by LysanderasD

Three: What Seemed to You an Instant

She was half afraid that when they finally made it back to Canterlot that morning there would be crowds waiting at the castle gate demanding answers, answers she would be obligated to give: why had the night lasted so long? Why was there another alicorn? Who was she? Was that really Princess Luna? Princess Luna, who’s that? Who?

Thankfully, there were no crowds. The castle grounds looked cold and empty from the chariot she was in, looking down as they passed over them. The action caused her to have to let go of her sister (oh, thank you, Mother, her sister, her sister was back) for only a split second, and she hated it. As soon as she had ascertained that there would be no raucous rally waiting to mob them the moment the wheels touched the ground, she leaped back into the confines of the vehicle, such as they were, wrapping a wing insistently about Luna’s shivering form, drawing her sister close.

She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t, really; the open chariot that had arrived to bring her (and her sister) back from Ponyville exposed them to the wind, stripping away any sound before it had gone very far past their lips. But it was more the spirit of the thing: she never tried to say anything. She couldn’t, and not just because of the wind. While she had protectively, desperately, obsessively kept her little sister close to her on the trip back through the Everfree Forest, while she had not let her move more than a body length away during the proceedings in Ponyville, she had not yet said anything directly to her since they had left the old castle.

What was she supposed to say?

It was not the first time that question had crossed her mind since she had felt Luna rush up to her, sobbing. What do you say to someone you haven’t seen in a thousand years? Someone with whom your last interaction had been a vicious argument? “Hi, good to see you, how was the moon”?

The idea made her chuckle with uncharacteristic darkness, and the wind tore the sound away before it reached her ears.

Luna hadn’t said anything either. Her mouth had remained firmly shut after they left the castle, and Celestia figured she knew why. One thousand years gone by--she was an alien in her own world, half-forgotten by the ponies she used to rule. On top of that, she had been weakened tremendously by the Elements: they had not only drained the Nightmare, they had drained almost all of her strength. Her steps had been uncertain and she had been, still was, trembling, shaking, shivering. More than once, Celestia had looked down at her and thought she saw tears, born of relief, but perhaps also born of complete, frustrated exhaustion. If it weren’t for the fact that the darker alicorn was still shaking violently, vulnerable to the cold, Celestia would have thought her asleep now.

The pegasus guards that flew her chariot had been hoof picked for their speed and precision, ex-members of the Wonderbolts and teams like them. They knew, better than anypony else, how to land a chariot; as the wheels touched the stone surface of the castle, there was the slightest of bumps and nothing more. Despite this, she felt her sister jump, tensing tremendously under her wing, before realizing that everything was alright and falling into a crumpled heap, most of her weight on Celestia’s side.

She didn’t even wait for the carriage to come to a complete stop. There was no time for that; the thought did not even cross her mind. As the pegasi were slowing their trots, she was busy worming her way under her sister, careful not to puncture her with her horn, not deigning to disrespect the action by doing it with magic. Soon enough she felt she had the smaller (...smaller) alicorn atop her, balanced carefully, and wordlessly she stood, moved off of the carriage, and went indoors, Luna still shaking atop her back.

Guards and servants, crowds of them, were waiting for her inside. As one, when they saw her, they rushed forward.

“Are you alright, Your Highness?”

“We were so worried--”

“Who is that pony, Your Highne--”

“Is that... could that be Princess L--”

Enough! she snapped. She could feel Luna turn slightly when she heard her sister’s Voice, but still nothing, no words, no confirmation. At the force of her Word, every single pony took a step back, and then hastily moved to get out of her way as she stalked forward impatiently, leaving them behind.

---

For the first time in a millennium, the doors to Luna’s chambers swung open. Alder wood, coated in a dark finish, inlaid with silver mythril in the shape of a crescent moon. Celestia hadn’t been here since the... incident, except to cast a preservation spell over the room (because Luna would be back one day, she knew, she knew it, and now here she was) and to seal the doors tight against both physical and magical intrusion.

The spell had held, as she had known it would. The hinges on the doors, unused in centuries, swung open without a sound, and a crushing wave of memory rushed to overtake her as she saw what lay beyond it. Tears rushed to her eyes.

It was bigger than her own bedchamber; Luna had always valued space, had hated crowds and being crowded. The floor was a very dark mahogany, tinged red, almost sparklingly clean, standing out in sharp contrast to the rest of the room. The walls were coated in blue of various shades, lighter toward the floor and progressing toward, but never quite reaching, black toward the ceiling; paintings, old enough to be one-of-a-kind antiques, sat, proudly displayed, on the walls, some of them done by Luna herself. The sole window on the west-facing side of the room looked out on the clear, cloudless sky. Her bed sat against the far wall, a tremendously posh, soft affair, cotton lined with clouds, the bedspread the color of the night sky, a deep, hearty violet sprinkled with stars. The pillows, arranged somewhat obsessively at the far end, ranged from a light blue to deep violet, the colors of dusk. Nestled against the centermost pillow were two plush toys, intricately-detailed phoenixes, one red-orange (Philomena), one deep blue and pale cyan (Selena).

The entire room was dominated by the massive chandelier strung from the ceiling. It was carved from one huge diamond, glittering brilliantly because of the white candles above it. For now, during the day, it was clear, but at night, when the moon rose, the chandelier would glow gently, displaying the same phase as the moon outside. Surrounding it, even during the day, was a glittering image of the night sky. The room was light enough that the stars that sparkled against the velvet indigo backdrop could not be seen, but she remembered spending several nights in this room, watching her sister paint the stars.

Her gold-shod hooves let out deep, resounding thumps as she walked forward, at least until she reached the rug that ran around the edge of her bed, the color of the sky just after the sun passes the horizon, the frilled edges lined with cloud as well. The material was soft enough and deep enough to encompass her hoof and nullify the sound.

She walked up beside the bed and rolled her sister carefully off of her back. At some point as she’d been walking down the hallways she’d felt Luna relax, her breath steadying and deepening, her younger sister finally drifting off to sleep. As far as she could tell, looking down at the dark blue pony, she had not woken up despite Celestia’s admittedly clumsy, magic-less attempt to get her in bed. Nevertheless, despite missing it for a thousand years, her body seemed to remember the bed, reaching up to pull Selena close, squeezing it gently between her hooves. Celestia made to leave.

Except that she couldn’t move.

She found herself frozen, now, staring down at Luna, and now that the younger, smaller alicorn was at peace and asleep, the elder found herself trembling. Something was stirring inside her; her heart was hurting in a way it hadn’t in ages upon ages.

She seemed so small, lying there as she was. Small. Luna had never been small, or at least not terribly small; Celestia was older, but they’d always been nearly the same size. Now, the Princess of the Moon was almost frighteningly small, the size of a regular pony, even smaller than she had been when... when...

She forced her eyes shut, partially to stop looking at this pitiful filly that used to be (still was, would always be) her sister and partially to get rid of the tears she knew were already forming. Smaller or not, this was her sister, her sister was back, she was safe and sound after a thousand years...

“Tia...”

Her eyes snapped open. One of Luna’s teal eyes had cracked open, staring up at her, her snout buried in the phoenix plushie.

“Art thou going to fuss over me like a physician, or leave me to my rest?”

Celestia blinked. “What?”

“My dreams this past fortnight have been troublesome and I am in need of rest,” Luna continued, with the kind of slow patience that meant she was out of patience. “But if thou’rt going to stand over me, trembling and pacing and worrying--”

She trailed off, one hoof leaving the doll long enough to rub frustratedly at her head.

“I’m very tired, Tia,” she said in a very small, foal-like voice, in a language that Equestria hadn’t heard since its early days. Celestia almost didn’t understand at first, until the sounds lined themselves up in her head. “I’m very tired and I’d like to sleep and I can’t because you’re making me nervous.”

“I’m worried about you,” she breathed.

The silence came back, terrible and awkward and tense.

I’m worried about you even though I know you’re safe, I want to let you sleep but I don’t dare let you out of my sight at all because I’m afraid that if I do you’ll disappear again or the Nightmare will come back and I’ll have to banish my sister to the moon again, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I just got you back

Celestia said nothing.

“I hurt, Tia,” said Luna finally, curling into a smaller shape, Selena squashed almost completely flat between her hooves. “I hurt and I’m tired and I know this wasn’t what you wanted to talk about but will you please just let me sleep, we’ll both feel better in the morning...”

“No!” she snapped defensively, automatically, her wings snapping up.

“I haven’t had a good night’s rest in a week--”

“ A week!? A week!?” Celestia heard herself screech. Luna stared back at her blankly.

“Maybe it was only a week for you, a week filled with nothing but anger and bad dreams, but for me, Luna, for me it was a thousand years. A thousand years! Decades' worth of worry and frustration and depression and I didn't dare show any of it to the public. Do not think you are the only one in pain, Luna! What seemed to you an instant was to me an eternity."

She wrenched herself away, turning and stomping frustratedly toward the door. She’d just made a mistake, and she knew it; she’d let the perfect, calm image snap and fall away and she’d screamed, she’d screamed at her own sister--the first conversation they’d had in a thousand years, merely an echo of the last. The doors to Luna’s chamber were wrenched open by her magic and she was halfway out the door before a quiet voice, a small magical nudge, stopped her in her tracks.

“Tia, wait.”

She stood in place, shaking, the tears flowing from her eyes freely now, leaving dark, wet spots on the floor that sizzled and fizzed away as the preservation spell found them.

“Come back? Please?”

She turned. Luna had half-risen, staring plaintively at Celestia, frowning slightly.

“I...” she started, hoof dragging at the floor.

“Please?”

She found herself turning, slowly, almost mechanically. She wanted to leave, or part of her, the small part that was Princess Celestia and was concerned with maintaining her image, and that part was pushing at the back of her mind and screaming let her rest.

The part of her that was a sister, the part of her that was Tia, ignored the part of her that was the Princess. Before she was quite aware of what had happened, she was back, half-crawled onto the bed, one wing out and over her sister, pulling her tight, and this time they were both shaking and both crying, and Tia didn’t care.

You’re back.

You’re back and that’s all that matters.

I’m never going to let go of you again. I promise.

At some point, together, they both quieted and stilled, and before long, she could feel Luna’s breathing slow, the smaller alicorn’s body relaxing against hers. Tia didn’t dare move, for fear of waking her up. She wouldn’t, though, have traded that moment for anything else. Not ever.

Not ever.

I love you, little sister.

Welcome home.

---

Author’s Note

What’s this? Where are the fillies? What happened to last chapter? Worry not: they will return.

I extend gratitude to A. Muffin and Azathoth of Rock once again, for reminding me that longer does not always mean better.

The My Little Pony franchise and all related official material belong to Hasbro et al, and I am in no way affiliated with them. No monetary compensation is expected or will be accepted for my work in writing this fanfic.

Comments

[Cloudhammer]

A very moving chapter, nicely written, only spotted one issue, there's an instance of her that i think should be here, the sentence it's in was:

"Celestia hadn’t been her since the... incident, except to cast a preservation spell over the room (because Luna would be back one day, she knew, she knew it, and now here she was) and to seal the doors tight against both physical and magical intrusion."

[LysanderasD]

132620

Prompt! Fixed. Thanks so much. XDD I can't notice everything.

[Cloudhammer]

132629 I know the feeling friend, I keep finding things in my own chapters I messed up all the time
Sorry if I occasionally come across as snippy about it, just my inner proofreader sometimes steals control of my fingers and says whatever it wants