The Royal We

by Tauria

Watching the Stars

Watching the Stars
Tauria

Luna had never been scared of the dark. She liked watching the shadows dance, to make shapes out of the many things looming about her in her room. She liked to imagine spooky things, to get her heart racing. It made her giggle - and how she could have forgotten this on Nightmare Night was a mystery to the Alicorn. She chalked it up to being nervous... to being out of touch with the world around her.

She had always loved the nighttime, ever since she had gotten her first glimpse of the stars. Every night, she would sneak out of their little cottage just to sit down and stare at the sky. She would watch as the stars twinkled and danced, while the moon watched over the world with a kind and loving face.

No, she wasn't scared if the night, nor the dark, nor most of the creatures she encountered in it. The timberwolves didn't scare her; not even when they got near the magical border surrounding their home. The manticores didn't scare her, even when they looked upon her with hungry eyes.

Well, the cockatrice had scared her... but who wouldn't be scared of a creature with the body of a snake and the head of a chicken, with glowing red eyes that could turn you to stone?! Nobody, that's who!

However, despite Luna's love of the darkness, her older sister did not share that with her. But Luna knew that Tia didn't hate the darkness either... she was just afraid.

Luna could vividly remember how Celestia always ran upstairs about an hour before sunset, just to escape the coming darkness with slumber. However, she always failed. She always ended up staying up - she loved the sunset, and the sunrise - and always ended up hiding beneath the blankets of her bed. Her heart would race like she had just run a marathon, and sometimes she would let out a whimper at some sound she heard.

Luna would then walk over to brush her hair, humming her sister's favorite lullaby until she fell asleep. She put her sister before her star-visits, and always would.

But tonight, Luna would make Tia see that the darkness wasn't something she needed to be scared of, though. She would show her!

But first, she needed to get Tia to get out of bed, and to follow her outside.

"Please, Tia?!" Luna pleaded, clasping her hooves together in a begging motion. "Please come out and look at the sky for me! You don't have to stay for any longer then a few seconds if you don't want to. Just come look at the stars with me?"

"No!" Celestia shook her head, burrowing deeper underneath the blankets. Luna would never understand this - if her sister was so scared of the dark, why hide her head underneath a darker blanket? "I've seen the stars before, and I didn't like it!"

"You didn't even look at the stars, Tia! You just kept watching the barrier for monsters," Luna pointed out.

"...I did so look at the stars!"

"That's not the point! It would really mean a lot to me if you would just come with me this one time. Then I'll never, ever ask again if you don't like it."

"No."

Luna mentally sighed. It was time to play dirty. "I'll give you my desserts for a week."

One of Celestia's violet eyes peeked up at her from the blanket.

Now I have her attention, Luna thought. "Okay, how 'bout two weeks of desserts?"

The white filly pushed her blankets off and sat up. "Two weeks?"

Luna nodded. "Two whole weeks of cupcakes, pies, and whatever else gets put on the table."

Celestia bit her lip in thought, but Luna knew she had her sister. If there was anything Tia would go outside for, it was two weeks worth of sweets. The older filly had a penchant for anything made with sugar, and Luna knew that. She didn't use it against her often, but she had to tonight.

"Okay," she nodded. "But you have to bring the brush."

Luna absolutely beamed. "Okay!" She grabbed Tia's brush off of the nightstand, and then led her sister outside to the prime place for looking at the sky. They sat down, with Luna pressing close to her sister's shaking form as a way of comfort. She began to slowly drag the brush through her hair, while Tia turned her glance from the forest to the expansive sky.

She gave a sharp inhale. "Wow... the stars are so pretty! And the moon... it's so big."

Luna giggled slightly. "Yeah. They are really pretty, aren't they?"

"I think I kind of understand why you come out here at night."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. This is definitely worth two weeks of dessert, though think I might have taken only two nights worth."

"Is it too late to change the deal?"

"Much too late."

"...I'm not going to have to bribe you every time I want to be out here with you, am I?"

Tia snorted. "No."

"Good, 'cause two weeks without desserts is going to be torture."

"...you can have seconds, if we're allowed."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think that's fair. And... I might be willing to let you have half of the dessert."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. But ya gotta do something for me first," Celestia turned to grin at Luna.

"What?"

"Promise we can do this every night?"

Luna's grin hurt her cheeks. "I promise!" She threw her hooves around Celestia, and the older sister wrapped her hooves around the younger filly in return.

"Good."

After a few moments of silence, Luna stood. "We should probably go back inside now."

Celestia pouted. "...can't we stay out here just a little longer?"

Luna giggled. "Okay." She sat back down beside her, and the two leaned on each other as they stared up at the sky. Celestia's brush lay in Luna's lap, not needing to be used anymore since the older filly was just as relaxed as Luna.

They looked at the stars together every night after that, just enjoying the companionship of another sister. Arguments were even forgotten in favor of those precious moments; they could always be returned to the next morning.

These nights were something precious; they were something to be savored.

~ ~ ~

Luna stared up at the sky from the castle observatory, reflecting on a past that seemed so far away. The stars twinkled just the same as they did every night, but they were brighter now, and arranged in new patterns from when she and Celestia had been fillies.

She heard the steady clip-clop of hooves behind her, and turned to face the same mare she had grown up with, though there were many changes. She offered a slight smile.

“It’s been a while since we just sat and looked at the stars together, Luna.”

It seemed that Celestia had been thinking similar thoughts as Luna.

“It has.”

Celestia walked over and sat down beside her sister, and Luna followed suit. Together, they stared up at the sky in a way they hadn’t for many, many years. The silence remained unbroken for what seemed like forever.

“Why did we ever stop doing this?” Celestia whispered.

Luna shrugged. “We – I – do not know, dear sister.” She did know, and Celestia did too. After they got their cutie marks and found the Elements of Harmony, things had changed. They did not have time to sit around and watch the stars anymore. They were busy with Discord, Nightmare Moon, getting accustomed to ruling a kingdom…

Perhaps during the latter they could have made time, but they had been so used to not having time that they simply did not. They had also grown apart, during that time. Luna had drifted down a path she would always regret, while Celestia had been too busy with the kingdom’s affairs to notice. Both were things they regretted.

But they had enough time to make up for it.

“We should go inside. It’s getting late,” Luna said softly. It was more of something Celestia had to be concerned with, since Luna usually slept all day.

“Can’t we stay out just a little longer?” the older princess turned pleading eyes on the younger sister.

“Of course we can,” she smiled.

These nights were something precious; they were something to be savored.

Author's Note:

That last bit, where we go to the present? Yeah, that wasn't going to be there. Then it was. Magic, I tell you.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed, and I hope that I got the sisters in character.

(While not my first fanfic or piece of writing in general, it is one of my first MLP fanfics. Constructive criticism is welcome)

Comments

[Hyacintho Ignis]

Not a bad attempt. I'm waiting to finish my own story as well. Just a couple things you need to fix like the coding issue with the italics.

I'm gunna follow you now. Everywhere...

[Twilight_Crow]

So cute!
Just one thing, I got a bit confused and wondered if this was in present Equestria when you mentioned Nightmare Night, it broke the immersion for a moment.
So, you are going to write several stories like this about Celestia and Luna? Have All my Favorite.

[Luz]

This is great. I love it.

[Tauria]

2429763 Thanks! I knew there was something I forgot to fix… I'll go do that!

2429830 Sorry about that. The scene where she's trying to get Celestia to watch the stars is a memory of Luna's, though I probably should have done more to separate the memory from the scene at the end, which takes place in present time.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, though! Yes, I will be making more stories about the sisters. (All of my ideas seem to concern them anyway!)

2429926 Thanks! Glad you liked it!

[Bradel]

This is a nice little piece, though I'm having a bit of a hard time piecing together much comment on it.

Your prose shows a lot of promise. There are a couple issues that another editing pass could fix (one or two word errors, a few spots of close word repetition), but overall the flow of the language is very nice. There's not a whole lot of surprise in your sentences, though, so as good as the flow is, it often doesn't really grab my attention. My instinct says that the best solution to that would be richer action and/or richer description.

I'm going to agree with 2429830 that the first paragraph feels out of place. It's temporally disconnected from the rest of the early passage, and it's also directly revising canon. I'm largely fine with revising canon as needed for story purposes, but I do think it's a bit dangerous to do it so openly and so early (although I can see a bit of advantage to just getting the issue out of the way). That said, I think the more important issue inre Luna's attitude toward Nightmare Night is that it really doesn't require reinterpretation in the context of this story. Celestia's fear comes off as very nearly crippling. That makes it all the more believable that Luna wouldn't be able to recognize that other ponies actually enjoyed being scared.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story itself. It was a very sweet vignette, and I like both the big sister / little sister interplay between them and the little touches with Celestia: her love of sweets, how mane-brushing has a calming effect, etc. I don't think Luna gets quite as much of this little characterization here, which is a shame since the little characterization is quite beautiful. Her thoughts in the first paragraph with the canon revision are really the only thing that stood out to me on the characterization side. I always like seeing authors' visions of Celestia and Luna in the pre-rulership years, and I think you have a very nice image of that.

All in all, quite enjoyable and I'm glad I dropped in to read this. Thumbs up.

[vazak]

It was a fairly nice story, it feels a bit rushed and it is a bit hard for me to imagine Celestia acting in such a manner in the early part of the fic, but later she seemed perfectly in character. Have a thumbs up.