Princess Luna's Real Royal Duty

by hccpu

Unexpected Revelation

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were seated for dinner in the royal dining hall discussing the events of the day. They both looked like they always did. They were currently having some decaf tea waiting for desert when the topic of her most faithful student had come up.

“Twilight Sparkle has told that she organized a trip to the beach with her friends for tomorrow. It should be a lovely trip at this time of year.” Stopping for a quick sip of tea. “I imagine she will end up cataloging sea shells though.”

Princess Luna could not see how anypony would enjoy walking on the hot sand under the afternoon sun collecting sea-shells. “We would think she would find it too hot to be on the beach collecting sea-shells.”

Realizing the slight misunderstanding. “They are leaving tonight. The mornings by the sea are always pleasantly cool with the ever present breeze.”

“Why would she plan to visit the beach during the morning if she wanted to collect sea-shells? Did she not ask when would be the best time to go?”

Despite being looking up to Celestia like a mother, Twilight was more of capable of choosing when she would go on a trip. “No, she didn't, why would she?”

Luna sighed at the joke Celestia would likely drag her through “You personally taught her as a filly, wouldn't that include all of your duties?”

Celestia was ashamed Luna's prank appeared to be so poorly thought up. “Luna, you know that everypony is taught just what it is that we both do.”

“We just thought that maybe you forgot to include my duties that you were in charge of at the time into the curriculum.”

What could have caused Luna to bring up such a touchy subject for herself over tea. Wait when did the cake arrive. “Now Luna, you know, she knows full well about the beautiful night sky you make for us.”

Luna was beginning to get upset that the joke continued when neither party seemed to be enjoying it anymore. “We are glad you think we look good doing it, but we don't make the night sky every night just for the sake of having a night sky every night.”

The royal chef arrived with two slices of cake one chocolate moose and the other was pound cake with a banana on the side. He placed them before their respective owners. “...” Luna appeared to now be in a less than thrilled mood. Perhaps he had taken too long to prepare the dishes. As such it would not be a good time to speak up so he opted to leave.

Luna decided that the fastest way to end the false amnesia would just get to the point already. “The closest beach to Ponyville will be at high tide until noon then low tide by sunset.”

Celestia was not sure how this joke was supposed to be funny but continued to play her part “How do you know?”

Finally Luna could take no more of the pointless charade. “Dear sister your joke has gone on long enough.”

That was a clear sign that something was wrong. “What joke?”

“You know we are in charge of the tides of the sea and must do our best to protect the sailors who travel it.”

Celestia opted to eat a banana while she gathered her thoughts. Suddenly the thought of getting upset at the constant effort to protect sailors and look good doing it for years without anypony thanking her made a lot more sense. In fact sometimes ponies of the sea were heard to thank Celestia for their safe return during a dangerous voyage.

Seeing her sister's suddenly downtrodden mood Luna felt bad for ruining her sisters attempts, albeit in poor taste, at an attempt at a friendly joke. “Celestia, it is fine. We know that court is boring and you like to entertain yourself whenever possible. You must learn when it stops being a joke and becomes bullying.

“Luna, I am sorry it is just...”

“Really it is fine, dear sister. Just be more careful about choosing the subjects of your jokes.”

“No, it is not fine. I really wasn't joking and for that I am truly sorry.”

“So all this time everypony just showed me respect because we were related. Do you mean to tell us that for all this time you thought we became Nightmare Moon because no one one paid attention to my pretty picture I drew like a spoiled filly. ”

“... uh... no.”

“How could you do our royal duty for 1000 years and not even know what it was? Well, it could be worse, its not you like are my sister who was with me when we were being taught our royal duties and should remember or ignored the visits I would pay to important ships before they embarked on their voyage. Oh wait! That’s right there is no excuse for your not knowing of just what it is your sister does. It is almost as bad as claiming to love somepony but be completely unaware of the significance of their cutie mark.”

Luna stormed out of the room without ever touching her cake. Before it was somewhat understandable to never get thanked as the only ones who would go sailing often enough for them to be thankful would be unable to make the trip to the castle to thank her. Now she knew the entire reason was that no one had ever known all the hard work she did, because her sister had such a bloated ego that she couldn't even consider somepony else doing something important. It wouldn't be surprising if Celestia had no idea what it was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza did.

There was only one logical way to get over her 1000 year timeout for being a spoiled brat whose paintings were not complemented despite being put on the fridge, she must go visit the pirates who lived and died by the sea to drown herself in rum.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Clearly the point might be lost a tad because of the 1000 word minimum.

Comments

[La Barata]

Wow... Ok.

First off, excellent premise.

I never really thought about that, and your characterization of both Luna and that bitch who likes bananas (Yes I saw what you did there) is prettymuch spot on.

However.

There's not quite a grammar holocaust here, closer to a grammar ethnic cleansing, but it's close. I highly recommend you find yourself a prereader or an editor. Sentence and paragraph structure are all over the road, and punctuation's curled up crying in the trunk.

Please don't be discouraged, you have an excellent idea here, and the bare bones of a good story, but it really does need a lot of work.

[RaisingShad0ws]

Wow... That was kinda harsh, but I understand what this is trying to get at. Without the moon, there would be no tides. I think that the idolization of the night was the hypothetical, "straw that broke the camel's back," So to speak. This story just needed to be a little bit longer, but it gets the point across quite well.

[Vargras]

true royal duty

i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2011/5/17/89ee4800-0c65-4e84-923c-2789d7a628b8.gif

You're essentially trying to say that the entire fandom overlooked your headcanon, and nothing more.

Yes, the moon affects the oceans and the tides. Yes, this also means that the seas are more or less under Luna's jurisdiction as well. This does not mean that this is her 'true' duty. Within the show, she's been titled as the 'Princess of the Night', and has even referred to herself as such. Her own cutie mark is a moon.

Side duty? Maybe. True duty? Absolutely not.

In addition to this, your fic is riddled with numerous grammatical and spelling errors.

[theRedBrony]

The story was ok, executed well for what it is. But your grammar does kinda suck. I think the thought crossed my mind before, but I didn't invest much brain resources in pondering it. Makes perfect sense though.

Here, have a thumb.

[TwilightFox]

Plenty others have already mentioned the grammar concerns, so I won't bring that up again.

But I love the idea behind it. Just so you know, I did read (ok, ok "hear' on a fan-reading) another fanfic that addressed Luna's connection to the seas, but that one dealt more with sailor ponies navigating their way home by the stars when they got blown off course by a storm than the actual tides. Awesome concept there, my friend.

I give it a hoof-up!

[StormyVenture]

1541991
Why does everyone make Celestia out to be a bad pony... I just don't get it. Although I'd say she's clearly considerably ignorant on some subjects.

1542044
I concur. Still I should she has every right to be mad that Celestia wouldn't notice such a big chunk of stuff involving the moon.

It's an interesting notion, but if it were me, I'd make it so that Celestia's casual moon raising had made the seas not safe to travel. I.e. she puts more attention to the sun than the moon or raises the moon at exactly the same time all year so that the tides are mucked up somehow.

“We are glad you think we look good doing it, but we don't make the night sky every night just for the sake of having a night sky every night.”

It's not like the moon is up there solely to makes tides... I'd insert another word in there, see above.

In any case, Luna and pirates seems potentially interesting. I think you should play up that bit about Celestia maybe not even knowing what it is that Princess Cadence does though, maybe as a side plot?

[hccpu]

To all it concerns:
1)I thank you for the grammar fixes and I have fixed those brought to my attention, (it was rushed more than I should have allowed)
2) this is marked complete and was practice at characterization and testing the waters for a pirate Luna endeavor. Luna would not have a way to know if sailors suffered and Celestia would not know to look.
3) The act of moving the sun and moon would not be easy and if it did not accomplish something useful would they really continue to spend all that energy on it.
4) all I did was apply physics to the rules that have been stated as canon.
Tilt in earth orbit around sun causes seasons-> Celestia's sun goes around equestria = Celestia makes seasons
sonic boom= sonic rain-boom -> whips break the sound barrier when cracked... (Lots of fun to be had with this and RD)

[BenRG]

Are you suggesting that Celestia is self-absorbed to the point that she doesn't really think about what any of the other gods and goddesses do? If so... well, you're probably correct.

[Foals Errand]

I reviewed your story tonight you can find it here