Luna wants to surprise her sister by raising the sun and letting her sleep in. Celestia watches her from inside, heart weary of holding onto a lie for all of Luna's young life.
Luna is a happy filly, and wants her sister to be happy too. She doesn't know why Celestia cries at night, so she's going to raise the sun and let her big sister sleep in.
Celestia watches her waiting to raise the sun from inside her chambers, torn between a love that she wants to acknowledge and the machinations of politics that have kept her from doing so.
To the other fillies her age, the Hall of Hooves was a scary place. Even colts, full of bravado and pride, hesitated to follow Luna when she traipsed down the hall filled with ancient armor. To them, it was a place where ghosts of the past lingered, and reaching hooves lined the walls, ready to ensnare them.
To Luna, it was a place where the past lived. She’d read all about the armors, or her sister had told her about them, and the armored forelegs reaching out from the walls were just the canted legs of hidden stallions and mares, their heads held high and proud as the celestial sisters walked its length.
Few knew its secrets better than her. There were even a few that she was almost certain Celestia knew nothing about. Like the tiny tunnel, too small for anypony but a filly to squeeze through, that led to a culvert which, in turn, led to a high archway and then to a tiny little cistern, long disused, with a crack where she could see into her sister’s bedroom.
It was in that little room that Luna hid when she wanted to get away from the stares and the whispers, or when she wanted to be closer to her sister. It was in that little room that Luna had first heard her sister’s muffled weeping, almost a year before.
She never knew why Celestia cried, but the sound of her sister crying, and trying to hide it under a pillow or, sometimes, in the chest of the captain of her guard, made her want to cry with her. But, whenever she went to her sister’s room, even if she knew that ‘Tia had been crying not minutes before, she was always serene, calm, and collected.
It irked her that ‘Tia never let her in while she was distraught. She could be just as strong. Celestia was always there for her. Why couldn’t she let Luna be a sister, too? Well. If she couldn’t be there for her in the open, she would have to find a way to be there for her in secret.
She covered up the crack with a hoof and leaned back from it. Celestia had stopped crying finally, and fallen asleep. A plan began to formulate in her mind while the favorite line from her favorite adventure book played back through her mind in Celestia’s voice.
“And so the young filly began a journey fraught with peril, not knowing to what end she might find herself, or to where she might go. So began the Mysterious Mission.”
The next day dawned too early for Luna, who’d been up far past her bedtime, listening to the moon. Few ponies knew that the moon sung at night. Celestia knew. She could still remember the way her sister sang to her in the moon’s voice, drifting out of a dim memory from the cusp of sleep while she lay nestled under the warm, white, feathered blanket of her sister’s wing.
A yawn tickled at her throat, threatening to alert the tutor that she was barely paying attention. She’d heard the history the tutor was going over half a dozen times already, from the guard ponies who were there. The Razing of Cantercourt was a popular tale of heroics among the guards that were tasked with protecting Luna and her sister.
Of course, they went on about the battle, not the reasons for it. Those were boring. But the creatures the corrupted unicorns had pulled up from another dimension. Those were interesting. If a little terrifying. Okay, a lot terrifying.
Shining Light’s torn ear was a constant reminder to her that it had been a terrible battle, hard won, with the guard captain barely escaping with a dozen of his finest before the final spell misfired, leveling the city.
That had been the day Star Swirl died, staying behind to halt the terrible ritual. Now that she thought of it, maybe that was the reason Celestia cried so much at night. Star Swirl had taught her sister everything she knew about magic. Well, almost everything.
Twenty years was a long time, though. More than twice Luna’s age. She couldn’t imagine holding onto grief for that long, but she supposed it was possible. Her sister was at least three times that old. Or something like that. Just thinking about that long of a span of time was making her yearn for sleep again.
Luna puffed a breath and pushed back the yawn again. The sun drifted lazily through the sky, perfectly framed by a window high in the school chamber. Whatever it was that made Celestia so sad, Luna had to find a way to make her happy again.
“...daydreaming, again?”
The voice startled Luna out of her thoughts.
Gilded Page, a golden coated unicorn with a white mane, the history tutor, was looking down at her. The lecture notes Mrs. Page held up in front of her, the notes that Luna had been doodling on without even thinking about it, showed her sister’s cutie mark with a tear falling from it.
She looked around to see all of the other fillies and colts, the other born to rule ponies, trying their best not to stare at her. That was worse than if they’d pointed hooves and laughed.
“I expect an answer, young lady.”
“I was thinking about my sister.” It was the honest truth, but it didn’t seem to satisfy Mrs. Page. “I want to make her happy.”
“We all do.” The tutor’s glare eased. “You can make her most happy right now by paying attention, Luna.”
“Yes, Mrs. Page.” Luna took the notebook back from her and turned a new page. The rising sun in the window beckoned to her, though. Its song was no less sweet than the one sung by the moon at night.
She blocked out the music thrumming through her horn and tried her best to focus on the boring lecture about the history of the Alicorn Amulets: why they had been pivotal in the Ascendancy War, and why the war had so nearly brought about the end of everything at the Razing of Cantercourt drifted over her.
Boring history stuff.
She stifled another yawn and wished she could hear it again from Shining Light, who’d been there. Maybe she could ask him next time she snuck into the barracks.
Later in the day, sitting with her sister at the dinner table in Celestia’s quarters, Luna had a question she wanted to ask. But she wasn’t sure how to ask it. So, instead of trying to figure it out or blurt something nonsensical, she poked at the steamed broccoli and tubers on her plate.
“Why can’t we have something with hay? I’ve never tried hay before.” Luna prodded what she thought might be a steamed carrot, or a small sweet potato. It was so covered in a mushroom sauce that she couldn’t tell. It smelled wonderful, of course. Nothing Flaky Crust ever made tasted bad, but it was always so rich and decadent.
“It wouldn’t be seemly,” Celestia said, smiling down the table at her. Celestia looked to the left and right, then leaned forward and the princessly mien slipped away for a moment of quiet laughter. “You’re not missing anything, Luna. I’ve tried hay. It’s very bland.”
Her big sister, giggling? Of course, there weren’t any servants in the room. This was one of the few times that Celestia would not budge on privacy. It was special, these dinners.
“I’d still like to try some.” She lifted a branch of broccoli and sniffed it. “The guards all eat hay and oats. Shining Light—”
“Shining Light has enough troubles, Luna. I know you like him, but please—” Celestia just stopped talking and smiled. “Don’t take too much of his time.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Luna.” Celestia took another bite of her meal, but Luna thought she saw something cross her muzzle, a purse of the lips, a slight furrow of the brow. Nothing more than a ghost of an emotion, quickly wiped away.
Her vegetables didn’t look any more appetizing. The most appetizing thing was the mystery of Celestia’s strangeness. She couldn’t have been the only one to notice it, but none of the other ponies that spent a lot of time around Celestia seemed to pay any attention to her odd moods.
Luna tried to think of anypony else who might have noticed that she could talk to. Shining Light knew. She could see it in the way he looked at Celestia when he thought nopony else would see him, but he kept Celestia’s secrets closer than his own skin.
The nobility of the Solarium had almost certainly noticed, but Celestia had made her opinion quite clear about them in the few unguarded moments after a meeting gone bad. No, she definitely couldn’t talk to them about Celestia’s moods. The rest of the castle staff seemed mostly oblivious to the sisters and their daily routines. They had their own lives that dominated their attentions.
She frowned at her plate and held back a sigh.
Across the table, Celestia looked up. “What’s wrong, Luna?”
“I love you, ‘Tia.”
Celestia opened her mouth, brow furrowing again for less than a blink of the eye, and then warm, but still serene, and calm big sister ‘Tia was back.
“I love you too, Luna.”
The mysterious mission was becoming more mysterious by the minute. She bent back to her vegetables and tried not to stare across the table to try and figure it out. The weight of something unsaid pressed down on her, something as mournful as the moon’s song when it went back to sleep, yet also joyous like the sun’s waking serenade.
“‘Tia?”
“Yes, Luna?”
“Can I raise the moon tonight?” It wasn’t what she wanted to ask, but Celestia smiled all the same. It was a genuine smile, not the court smile she wore so often.
“Of course you may.”
A glimmer of an idea began to dawn in Luna’s mind.
Luna concentrated on the form of the spell that Celestia held still for her, shifting her horn around the source of the subtle vibrations distorting the ether. It was complex, with loops of trailing vibrations that whispered across hair thin filaments of something she couldn’t quite feel. It was also elegant, with each bit feeling like it needed to be there, wanted to be there.
“Can you feel it?”
Luna looked up at the sun, still descending slowly towards the horizon. It amazed her that Celestia could focus on two such complex spells simultaneously and not flub either one. Then again, she did have a lot of practice. Luna, by contrast, had had to sit very still for a long time before she could feel the spell and even begin to examine it.
“I can!”
“Good.” Celestia released the minute binding of magic holding it together, letting it vanish with a slight, audible pop. “Now try to recreate just the form of the spell so I can look at it.”
It was difficult, at first, to remember the correct order of the forms of the spell. But once she started, it was like the ether wanted her to go this way or that, and so she did. Her will traced along the pull of the ether, and she only had to stop so she could block out a new ethereal noise. The sun certainly wasn’t helping either, its nighttime aria to the world washed around the fragile construct that would, hopefully, call its sister.
Once she was done drawing her will through the ether, she paused to feel the form of the spell and pushed the tiniest bit of magic into the weave to keep it steady.
It took all of her concentration just to hold the form. The ether helped. Once there was power thrumming through the construct, it didn’t want to move until she put an effort of will into it.
“Very good, Luna. However, you’re missing the most important part.” Celestia let go of her remaining spell as the sun drifted below the horizon and turned her attention back on the spell Luna was trying to keep from being washed away by the sun’s mournful farewell. “Can you tell me what it is?”
Missing the most important part? She probed the spell with her horn, head swinging back and forth slowly as she traced the careful arc of the moon’s path, and the ties that bound it to the center, each one just perfectly balanced with each other. It was all in balance, and she could almost feel the moon’s presence.
She blinked. The moon’s song!
Letting go of the spell, she stilled herself completely and listened to the ebb and wash of the ether against her horn. The moon wasn’t up, but that wouldn’t stop her from hearing it. I hope.
The background noise of the magics in use all around her began to fade away: the unicorns and their focused, sharp notes; the sweeping, unfocused thrum of pegasi flying through the air; even the feel of the deeper, almost basso rumble of the earth pony gardener tending to his personal vegetable patch.
All of it faded as she listened to the weaving of magic throughout the world. The loudest and most compelling, therefore the hardest to ignore, were all examined and discarded. Then, faintly, she could hear the sound of the moon, idling far away, its song muted by the distance, but not silenced. She listened to it for what felt like a long time, then opened her eyes and looked up.
Celestia was staring down at her, an unfathomable expression of… It vanished, but had been so like the same expression she’d seen at dinner.
Celestia retreated behind the mask again before Luna could even begin to guess at the reason for the sad, lonely expression.
“‘Tia...” Ask her, silly. “Is it the moon’s voice?” She could have slapped herself, but instead smiled up at Celestia.
“Yes it is.” Celestia’s smile, at least, was genuine. “Now, do you need me to show you the construct again, or do you think you can manage it this time?”
“I can do it. Just watch me, ‘Tia!” She turned away again and closed her eyes, intent on the spell again. She didn’t see Celestia watching her as she laid the spell out in a more precise manner, the effort of her will more directed this time with the sound of the moon’s song still fresh in her memory.
Tears streamed down Celestia’s cheeks. The mask had fallen off completely, and she didn’t even try to put it back on. Her heart was full to bursting with pride. She couldn’t hold it back any longer, even in spite of the potential consequence of showing too much pride.
I am, Luna. Oh, sweet Celestials, I am so proud of you.
Luna woke early and excited. It was going to be a special day: the day she let her big sister Celestia sleep in and not worry about raising the sun for once.
Something was bothering her, and Luna was determined to find out what. She did sit on the Throne of Mysteries, after all. It was her job, boring though it was, to watch over the courts and ensure that justice was done. Ferreting out the secrets that plaintiffs and defendants tried to hide was a part of that job.
Celestia did most of that, though. Trials and judging were boring and scary at the same time. She didn’t even want to think about how that worked.
She glanced over the edge of the covers at the crack between her door and the floor. Two shadows flickered back and forth in the feeble torchlight outside.
She had a plan. It was long before dawn, at least an hour, and her sister would be sleeping soundly in her chambers down the hallway, past guards and watch-golems and creepy, set her mane on end spells. There was no way she was going down the hallway.
Instead, there was a tiny little window that had once been used to let in messenger birds, before the formation of an organized mail corps. It was just big enough that Luna could squeeze through, and small enough that the castle guard didn’t even bother to set a watch-ward spell on it, just a simple locking spell that Luna had broken apart just last night.
Next, she had the little doll that Celestia had made for her. Well, not so little to the eight year old Luna, but that was a good thing this time. Maybe the silken, Luna sized ‘Tia doll would satisfy the guard when he poked his head in to check on her.
The door creaked and a streamer of light poured in, followed by the head of her personal guard, Quicksilver. Luna scrambled to the far side of the bed before the light could reach her.
A light shone through the room briefly, illuminating every shadow, then winked out. “Is everything alright, Princess? I thought I heard something.”
“E-everything’s okay, Quicksilver. I just had a funny dream.” It was an effort to keep from laughing out loud.
She could almost see Quicksilver trying to stifle a grin. “If you say so, Princess. Try to get some more sleep.” He paused, and she almost did see him smile. “Your sister isn’t even up yet.”
Good to know! She waited for the door to close and listen for the sound of his hooves scraping the stone as he settled back into his steady, ready guard position. She waited a moment longer, and heard the solid thunk of his halberd coming to rest on the floor. Whatever else he was, kind soldier and friendly, he was serious about his job.
She kept an eye on the shadows under the door as she slipped from around the bed on slippered hooves, careful to keep not step on any of the myriad of mostly imaginary things scattered about the room. ‘Tia’s still, glassine eyes watched her from the pillow.
“Good ‘Tia. Just wait here and don’t worry. I’m just going to surprise my sister.”
She dragged out a small sack from under her bed and looked inside. Everything was still there, all the necessary items for the Mysterious Mission. and glanced at the door one last time. The shadow of her protector hadn’t shifted one bit.
Mysterious Mission is a go! She fluttered her wings and took off for the window high above the floor, the one she’d left unlatched the day before, and slipped out into the night.
The castle grounds were full of hiding places, but most of them were ones that she wasn’t supposed to be in when nopony else was around. Not after that incident in the Hall of Hooves when she’d gotten trapped in the secret room for who the hoof knew how long. Celestia had found her first, and she’d learned later that there’d been a castle-wide search for her, almost ready to spread into the surrounding town. That had been the first, and thus far only, time she’d seen her sister actually close to a blind panic.
It’d been the first time her sister had openly wept in front of her. They were tears of relief, but they’d hurt Luna no less for having been the cause. That didn’t stop Luna from exploring to her heart’s content. Of course not. She was, aside from being a curious filly, the Lady of Mysteries. It was her job to learn secrets others wished kept hidden.
Like the fact that Mrs. Pastry put sours into Verity Song’s milk after she’d said something nasty about the chef’s daughter. Or that Verity hadn’t drunk milk since. Little secrets. Nothing like what it felt Celestia was trying to keep hidden from her. But she was happy to let that mystery go for a little longer. Celestia would tell her in time. The Mysterious Mission wasn’t one of discovery, but relief. She was going to be the mystery for her sister to figure out.
She stifled a giggle and landed carefully on an eave just under a frightening looking gargoyle. Luna’d named him Gigglepants when she first saw him. He didn’t object to it, so the name stuck. Now, she waited in Giggle’s shadow and watched for the pegasus patrol to pass by, regular as the rising and setting of the sun and moon.
When they passed, she slipped out of the shadows and braved the moon’s silver glow until she reached the next gargoyle in the line facing outwards. Snortleface was kind enough to have big, wide wings that she could nestle under and wait for the ground patrol to pass by underneath her.
And so she crept around the eave, ducking into the shadows and hiding from the patrolling pegasi sweeping the air and ground bound earth ponies and unicorns sweeping the grounds. She’d spent enough nights up past her bedtime to know their patterns, though, and she stayed out of sight until she came to the balcony where her sister stood to raise the sun each morning.
She waited. This part, she knew the least about. Celestia had often let her stay here in the early morning hours, but she was always focused on the sun’s welcoming aria and her sister’s joyous accompaniment to it, not to the guards around her.
There was a guard standing at attention just at the edge of the balcony, his horn aglow. She could see his face, barely, and peered closer. He turned just a bit so that his muzzle was in profile and his torn ear clearly silhouetted against the paler white marble of the balcony’s paving stones.
She almost flew down to meet him, but waited. He was her sister’s Captain of the Guard, after all. What if he decided that letting Celestia know that Luna was awake was more important than surprising her?
It was a risk that she would have to take. Setting her jaw, she swooped down to land on a broad cornice.
“Shining Light!” she hissed. “Hey, Shining Light!”
He turned, a frown on his face. When he saw Luna, the frown turned into a smile and he waved her over with a hoof. “You’re up early,” he hissed back at her when she landed in front of him, crouching down to slide back her hood and muss up her already messy mane. “Way too early.” He looked toward the glass walled entrance to Celestia’s chambers.
“Shhh. I know I’m up early, Shiny. But I want to be nice to ‘Tia and let her sleep in. Can you let me try to raise the sun for her? I just want to so badly.” She stared up at him, her muzzle set firmly. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t!
He sighed and shook his head, “Woona, I can’t—”
“My name is Luna, Shiny. I’m not just a foal anymore. I raised the moon last night!” She puffed up her chest and lifted chin, holding him still with her stare. At least, that’s what it was supposed to do. It seemed to work better when ‘Tia used it on the court.
“So you did.” He smiled down at her and ruffled her mane again. She could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes. He glanced between her and the glass wall once, then twice more before his head drooped. “Alright. Just this once, okay? And don’t go telling your sister on me.”
“Yes!” She clapped her hooves over her muzzle, and felt her ears flush. “Thank you. I won’t. Tell, I mean. I promise,” she whispered under her hooves.
“You’re welcome, your highness.” He bopped her nose lightly and straightened back up. “But you’re still an hour early to raise the sun. Celestia will be out here in about half an hour.”
“What?!” She could feel her plans crumble around her. It was going to be such a nice thing. She was going to raise the sun, then jump into bed with her sister and—
She actually hadn’t planned that far ahead. Sneak out. Raise the sun. Happy sister. Something else was supposed to happen maybe, and then—
She paused. Cookies?
Sniffles threatened, and she hid herself behind the edge of the cape. Shiny wouldn’t understand. ‘Tia was always there for her, always there to pick her up. She wanted to show ‘Tia that she could be just as strong, and be there for her too. It’s what sisters were supposed to do. She’d read that somewhere, or ‘Tia had read it to her.
It was something she had to do. She puffed up her chest again and nodded imperiously to Shining Light.
“Please, good Shiny—Shining Light. Can you distract my sister? I just need a little time.”
“Of course. It would be an honor to assist, m’lady.” He bowed, smiled, and ruffled her mane before leaving. He was so sweet. He was the only guard that bothered to treat her as anything other than a princess. She supposed being captain of the guard meant he could be a little less formal with her.
Inside the royal chambers, Shining Light approached Celestia’s bed quietly. The head of state for the Equestrian nation appeared to be sleeping. He knew better. She had trouble sleeping some nights, and he’d been out on the balcony ostensibly to keep watch, but he couldn’t watch her trying to pretend to sleep.
It hurt to watch her struggle to sleep. Celestia, once Summer Dawn, was the mare who’d faced down darkness and fear, and brought hope to his heart and the hearts of so many others. It wasn’t that he thought she would be ashamed of her inability to find rest. He had trouble sleeping for the same reasons she did, and being close to her while she struggled with them also wasn’t good for his heart.
Celestia waited, listening as the hooves stopped just shy of the bed. Her breathing sped up, and she sighed. “What is it, Shining?”
“Luna wanted me to distract you.” He slid into the bed behind her, resting his muzzle across her neck.
She was quiet for a long moment, then lifted her head off the pillow. “She did? Why?”
“She wants to let her sister sleep in, and raise the sun for you. Should I tell her you’re already awake?”
She groaned and spent a moment listening to the ether whispering past her horn. The sun was still waiting for her call, its song one of sleep, and the moon was just beginning to settle its song.
“No.” She twisted about for a moment, then resettled herself facing him, one wing extended to cover his side. “Let her give it a try. She might be able to. After all, she’s watched me do it often enough.”
He kissed her nose. “She might just, at that. She is her mother’s daughter.”
“And she has her father’s dogged determination.” Celestia kissed his nose in return and laid her muzzle alongside his horn, staring out at Luna, standing at the railing and looking up into the sky.
Outside, Luna leaned against the railing, her forehooves tapping back and forth between two of the stone supports. The stars above marched their steady, predictable path across the sky.
Inside, Celestia lay next to Shining Light and watched her. The rare moment of close companionship with the father of her foal was at once touching and painful. Even with them hidden by darkened glass, there were still small proprieties that had to be observed. Shining Light did have duties of his own, and he had to at least have an alibi were his absence questioned.
“Shining Light, could you please see to the changing of the guard?” She didn’t want to ask him to leave, but if the shift change was coming and a guard not loyal to her were outside, scandal would be the least of her worries. There were enough whispers about her circling the pompous parties and quiet salt rooms of the rich and powerful. At least she had friends enough in those same rooms that the rumors reached her. Counting them as friends was probably not wise, but she had little choice.
“Of course.” Shining Light knew it as well as she did.
It was hard, letting him go, maybe to leave her chambers completely. But it was a necessary subterfuge. Rumors they might have been, but rumors could ruin a reputation as quickly as the truth. That the rumors were mostly true made no difference. It was for Luna’s sake, not her own, that she had to remain a sister.
She heard the click and snick of locks and bolts and relaxed. The sounds came from inside the room. She risked a glance, and saw his horn flicker and go out, the bolts on her door latched once more. Faintly, she heard the sound of humming from outside, a quiet tune that barely reached her ears.
“Velvet Shield is outside, and I’m ‘patrolling the grounds.’“ He sighed, ears lowered and glanced back at the door.
“How is her limp these days?”
“Getting better. Or worse. It depends on when I ask. She’s happy for the sedentary guard posts, but I think she misses the long patrols and the hard nights.”
Sometimes very hard. The unspoken thought lingered between them.
Celestia’s mind roamed back briefly to those hard marches by day and the uncertain safety of darkness at night. In those early days of the war, she’d been there alongside them, the Rising Star, apprentice to the great Star Swirl the Bearded, archunicorn of Cantercourt. But those days were long gone. She would likely never get to, or be forced to, endure such hardship again.
Shining Light’s muffled hoofsteps on the plush rug stopped too far from her.
Celestia brought herself back to the present and looked outside again at their daughter, then up at the sky.
Pegasi guards, not wearing the gold-trimmed, white barding of her personal guard, wove a tight perimeter patrol over the walls of the castle. Half of them would be eyes and ears for the Solarium, the other half for their own family, or city, spymasters.
“I hate this.” She looked aside to Shining and stretched a wing out to coax him closer, then guided him to her side, sidestep by sidestep until she could tuck the wing comfortably over his back.
“I know.” He drew down her muzzle with a gentle spell and kissed her, light, chaste, and lingering just long enough to rekindle the ember in her heart.
She broke away first and rubbed nose to nose before looking back at their daughter. Celestia would have given nearly everything back if she could just live a life of quiet peace with her daughter. But she could not, nor would she waste regrets. Nor would she abandon the ponies who looked to her for something so selfish.
“Do you regret anything?” The words slipped out of her mouth. This road again.
“Not one thing.” He bumped against her side. “Well, I do regret this morning’s coffee.” He made a face. “Honey Mead Hill makes great mead. But their coffee tastes like muddy water.”
“Heretic. Long live tea and ale!”
They shared a laugh that faded away too quickly, leaving the uncomfortable silence behind again.
“I wish I could hang it all and start over.” She looked out the window and nodded to Luna, prancing in a circle and singing something that Celestia couldn’t hear. She wanted to. “Just you and me and her, living a simple life. None of this.” She lifted her wings and looked to the mannequin standing in its corner, bedecked with the royal regalia. “Or any of that.” Though, the robes of office had assisted with masking her pregnancy. Perhaps she could learn to like them, given that they had made Luna’s birth more of a surprise, and allowed the mystery of her heritage to go mostly uncommented on. Not in public forums, anyway.
“I don’t wish that.” He sighed and leaned harder against her. “Do you remember when you were standing atop the hill in the shadow of the old temple? Just before you went wherever it was that you went?”
“I do.” She tightened her wing around him as the memories of the night when she’d been visited in her dreams and woken to face the future resurfaced to haunt her again. Shining Light had stood second watch.
It had been a hard night, and not just because of the rogue thunderstorm. Camping so close to where she’d been born, so close to where all of the things she’d known as a filly had been taken away in the sweeping rush of flood waters.
Apple Hollow, or what used to be Apple Hollow, was little more than another part of the plains by then. The memorial stone standing in the empty field where the town square had been was covered over with vines. Little else remained of the town: foundations, a stubborn bit of wall, a pile of rubble overgrown with grasses.
The ruins of the old temple to the Celestials still stood atop the high hill where a young Winter Rose had sheltered with the few survivors of the catastrophe. Its pillars had withstood centuries of neglect and another twenty years hadn’t done them any more harm than letting the grass creep in, slowly turning the pocked marble floor to gravel.
She’d found Shining Light standing in the lee of a pillar, sheltered from sight and driving rain. He turned to her as she approached, and they’d shared a light kiss.
She came back to the present and looked down at Shining Light. Twenty years had changed him significantly, but she could still see the once eager city guard turned somber soldier there.
“Do you remember what you told me?”
“Of course.” He was going to say it anyway. It was an old song and dance, that not quite argument, well rehearsed. She already knew where it would end.
“You told me that you would give your life to save the land. Well, you are.” He lifted the crown from its mannequin with a spell and settled it atop her head. “You are giving your life to make sure the land that we both love continues. You meant that you would die for it, but I want you to live for it.”
“It’s not easy.” She took the crown off and stared at the golden, jewel crusted shackle. She recognized it for what it was. She nevertheless set it back atop her head. Shackle or no, it was necessary.
“Nopony ever said it would be.”
They held close to each other while watching their daughter wait for the right time. Luna glanced back, almost directly at them, several times, but the magically darkened windows kept them hidden from her. Celestia wanted so much to walk out and raise the sun with her daughter, to just toss away the trappings of state, let the gossipmongers feast, let the rumors multiply like parasprites. Even if Luna thought she was her sister, it would have to be enough just to be close.
“She’d understand, you know.”
“Which? That I’m her mother, or the reason I’ve hidden it from her?”
“If you went out to teach her. It’s what a sister would do, and that’s what you do, isn’t it? You are a guide and teacher. That’s why you took your name, Celestia.”
“Don’t call me that. Not in private.” She rolled her eyes to catch a glimpse of the golden burden on her head. “I fell in love with you when I was still Summer Dawn. I’d still like to be your warm Summer, like I used to be.”
He sighed, shook his head, and smiled up at her. “I did fall in love with you then, but I fell in love with all of you. Who you were, who you are, and who you will become. My point still stands in any case. If I could change one thing about the way the war ended, I would have asked you to marry me the moment you set hoof within earshot.”
“I would have said yes.”
“I know.” He sighed, smile slipping away. He nodded to their daughter again. “She would understand why you haven’t told her. She has to know how much you love her. She already looks up to you as a sister. How far is it to...”
She glanced at him when he didn’t finish the thought. “It’s a long way from sister to mother, Shining.”
He grunted, but didn’t belabor the point, and only looked at her.
Outside, her child was sprawled out on her back, waiting for the right moment to raise the sun. Her hoof traced wide circles in the air, and Celestia recognized, in part, the forms of the spell she cast every morning. Pride warred with the ache in her heart.
A flight of pegasi passed by in the distance, a different group making a slow circuit of the castle walls.
“The heavens only know what they’ll think of her out there alone right now. The Solarium will be breaking fast with conjecture this morning. I can almost hear them now, prattling.” she sighed and shook her head.
Shining Light glanced at her, then at the pegasi in the distance. “That’s an interesting way of putting it.” He chuckled. “I wonder how much of a breakfast they’ll have with me being here.”
“Not much, I’m sure. How often do you ‘go on patrol’ and are nowhere to be found? For how long? That bread’s gone stale years ago.”
“It may be stale, but any soldier knows that you just need a little stew to make it palatable again.” Sighing, he tapped the ground. “Why would they worry about her, though? She’s your ‘sister.’ Doesn’t being family grant her some sort of exception?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” That was the heart of her worry. “When their spies report back, what will they think? She’s almost nine, Shining.” Just saying it felt unbelievable. Not that long ago, she had been a newborn foal nestled under her wing. “Still sleeping in her sister’s bed to keep away the monsters, probably.”
“She’s still just a foal, Summer.”
“A foal? In appearance, yes, but half the nation thinks she’s a Celestial, ageless, wise beyond the appearance of age.” She snorted. “Most of them think that I never was Summer Dawn. Celestials aren’t supposed to fear anything. Celestials are meant to be perfect representations of the element they represent.” She snorted again and scraped at the rug with a hoof. “If they only knew the truth.”
“There may be some truth to that, Summer. But I didn’t fall in love with Celestia, Element of Hope.” His hoof settled atop hers, stopping its restless motion. “I fell in love with Summer Dawn, a strong willed mare who wouldn’t let the darkness catch hold of her heart the way it did for so many others. You brought hope to those around you just by being you, and there was nothing divine about you then.” He made a show of craning his neck to nibble under the crease between cheek and neck. “The only things that are different about you now are that you got a little taller, and grew some wings.”
She grunted noncommittally. “Not the only things.”
There was always the issue of her apparent immortality, something he always glossed over with a joke and a smile. Shining Light was showing all of his forty years while she still appeared to be in her forties, despite being nearly sixty.
She’d not aged a day in the almost twenty years since she returned from the ethereal place where the Celestials had given her the choices of futures: personal peace and happiness, or happiness and peace for her people. She would still have made the same choice, knowing what she did.
Seeming to sense her darker mood, he leaned against her, but let her think. That was the best thing about him: he didn’t try to fill silences with inane babble. Well, not the best thing. She nipped his torn ear, then tucked his head under her chin, holding him close. No, immortality wasn’t what she feared.
She’d come to terms with Shining Light’s death long ago. She’d thought him dead more than once during the war. Losing him would hurt, more than she wanted it to, but that pain was already familiar, and she refused to let it color the time she had left with him.
Harder to come to terms with was the political situation that kept her from openly being a doting sister. Worse, the potential for unrest that kept her from acknowledging Luna as her daughter. She did what she could to fulfill both the role of sister and mother, but she only had the one chance to get it right.
Have I been a good sister?
Outside, Luna was bobbing her head to the tune of the moon’s parting song, her horn glowing as she completed the spell of farewell on her own.
Summer’s heart soared with pride, and she wanted so much to rush out and scoop her up to show her how proud she was. Worry cropped up, dimming the glow of pride in her heart.
Have I been a good mother?
His hoof found hers again. She couldn’t quite recall how many times he’d sat beside her, watching an empty balcony before the sunrise, her thinking those exact thoughts. The old song and dance, the old not quite argument, ended almost as it always did.
“Of course you have, Summer. You’ve done the best you could.”
“Have I? She barely knows me.” Her smile, already waning, slipped away.
“She knows you. Probably better than you think. She’s a sneaky filly, and she understands secrets. She’ll understand that you were protecting her.”
Silence fell again, but like a warm blanket. Outside, Luna stilled her hoof waving and appeared to nap, but the little flutters of her wings and tail told Celestia otherwise. For long minutes, they watched her, and the ache in Celestia’s heart only grew stronger the longer she stood there.
Shining Light’s body under her wing told a similar story. Small sighs too quiet for her to hear, the way his shoulders tensed, then relaxed and tensed again.
“I should go.” Shining Light stood and shook his head. “I’d rather not give the Solarium anything more to eat, even if it is just stale bread. The more I am ‘on patrol’ without anypony else seeing me...” He let the implication hang in the air.
She didn’t let go of her hold on him completely, but her wing loosened over his back. The heat of him close felt good against its cup, but he was right. The more he waited, the more likely it was that somepony would come looking for him.
“Thank you for spending the morning with me, Shining.”
He smiled and looked up at her, then nodded back to Luna, still laying out on the balcony. “I would like, just once, to hear her call me dad.” He sighed. “It’s selfish, I know.”
“Not selfish. You’re her father, Shining. Every father should be able to love their children.” Tears blurred her vision. “You’re a Celestial’s damned hero, Shining. You’ve more than earned the right to be a little selfish.”
He shook his head. “Heroes don’t get to be selfish. I’d rather just be Shining Light, captain of the Royal Guard. Then I can be selfish.” He stood and made his way to the door, but stopped before he opened it. “You’re not a hero either, Summer. You’re the mare I love.”
“Shining...”
“I’m tired of the subterfuge, Summer, but I know why we need to do it.”
“Do we? Completely?” She stood and turned to face him. “You’re right. I’m not a hero. I want to be selfish. I want to hold my daughter close and never let her go. I want to announce to the world that she’s ours.”
He whispered something to Velvet Shield, then stepped back inside, closing the door and relocking it.
Outside, Velvet Shield began to hum a jaunty tune that Celestia could have sworn came from a bawdy ballad she’d heard too long ago.
“I thought, with the castle getting close to waking up, maybe we could use a little more privacy.” He nodded towards the door, a flush in his ears. “I wish she’d chosen something other than Star Swirl’s favorite drinking song.”
“So that’s where I remember it from.” She laughed and met him again in front of the bank of windows. Luna was stirring again on the balcony, kicking her hind legs. The sun would have to come up soon.
In a more serious tone, she continued. “We need to talk about this. Because you’re right, Shining. It’s not just selfishness, though. Imagine if the truth were to come out later. The damage that it would do to Luna. She might never speak to me again.” She shook her head and sat, but didn’t offer a wing for him again.
He sat beside her and leaned up close. “I’d rather she not face that. If one of your enemies in the Solarium got a hold of your foal book—”
“They won’t.”
“If they did,” he continued in a still calm voice, “half the nation would stand with you, and the other half would be cheering because they love you. You may be well insulated against the opinion of the common pony up here, but we guards are not. I get free drinks at the tavern most nights because I’m the captain of Celestia’s guard. You mean more to the common pony than I think you realize.”
“It’s not the common pony I’m worried about. They don’t control the flow of trade or handle relations with our neighbors. The members of the Solarium do. I hate that I had to make that concession, but at the time it was the only way. They would have demanded that I marry from within their ranks if I hadn’t given them more power, and used my marriage as a bridle with which to guide my actions. And that, aside from personal feelings, would have only divided the nation more.”
He grunted and shook his head. “I’m glad you’re the princess and not me. I was there for half the negotiations and I still barely grasp the reasons for half of what you gave them.”
She laughed. “You would make a very odd looking princess, Shining.”
He laughed with her, but quieted quickly with a glance at the door. Velvet’s humming had shifted to singing badly off key, and some of the very ribald lyrics began to filter through the door. As soon as their laughter died down and stayed quiet, the singing returned to humming.
“What would change, if we were to tell her? Could we be more open? With her, at least.” Shining nodded towards Luna.
“They would latch onto the change in behavior and put us under even more scrutiny. Even if we were perfectly behaved, lies are easy to manufacture and with the right seasoning they taste like the truth to any who willingly dines at their table.”
“Who would dine with them? You have a lot of clout.”
“The cities that look to me as their sovereign wouldn’t. But those who listen to members of the Solarium would gladly pay for a feast of lies.” Shaking her head, Summer sighed. “Trade would begin to suffer, old feuds between cities would get scraped open. I’m afraid that might only be the beginning.”
“And this is why I hate politics.”
“It’s necessary.”
“Are they, though?” He shook his head. “Forgive a soldier his bluntness, but they seem to do more harm than good.”
She shook her head. Not all of them were that bad. Some were sympathetic, but she’d bucked tradition clean out the window, along with a goodly portion of their sovereignty. Those old families, the ones with hooves cannon deep in wealth and power, hadn’t liked it one bit.
But it’d been necessary. Half the nation had been devastated, populations decimated or worse by famine and disease, crops burned or spoilt. By contrast, the eldritch horrors had done relatively little direct damage. She’d cajoled, rallied, promised, and sacrificed to bring the nation together.
But never threatened.
“They are necessary. Everything was. Our history is so twisted, Shining. All the way back to the founding and beyond.” She swept her free wing through the space in front of her. “Ties between families lay like a gryphon’s net, knotted all together and ready to trap any who blunder the wrong direction. It’s a part of our strength, those ties, but also our weakness.”
Shining Light sat silent, looking at his daughter. He didn’t reply to her immediately, and she was glad for that. Blunt soldier he might be sometimes, but he was not without his brains.
“I know you’re right,” he said finally. “I know it because when I look at her, I can feel the tie between us. It might be shallower for them, but no less important for that.” He fell silent again and stroked her hoof with his. “Sometimes, when she sneaks into the barracks, I just want to treat her like a daughter, and not as a curious filly who captured the heart of an old soldier. The veterans would understand. Half of them as much as know I’m her father. But the new guards wouldn’t. It’d be across the city faster than a pegasus with her tail on fire.”
“Rumor.”
“Gospel truth, to hear the common pony talk. There would be rejoicing in the streets, ponies declaring a national holiday, and my hoof would wear down to a nub for all the hoof bumps. Oh, scoff all you want, but I’d be in a cart for a month, unable to walk. Just the guards alone would spend a week congratulating my ‘new’ fatherhood status.”
Summer laughed and tapped his hoof. “As much as I value the common pony and the guards, they are not the ones holding the purse strings for the kingdom, or the keys to the border. Nor are they the ones I am worried about accepting us as a family.”
“Family.” Shining Light smiled and leaned against her. “I would like that. I know, it’s selfish. But I want her to know I’m her father. I want to be able to show my affection for her without reserve. I want to be selfish and treat her like a proper father should.”
“I know. So do I. We still need to tell her first.” Summer glanced outside where Luna was just starting to focus on the horizon. “Celestials only know how she’ll take it.”
“She loves you. Focus on how much you love her, not on how much it hurt to keep it from her.” He set his hoof atop hers and leaned in close. “Are we really going to tell her?”
Celestia chewed her lip, and looked aside. A lot of uncertainties remained, more than she cared to think about, but she finally nodded. “She deserves to know, outside of our own desires.” Worry lingered, gnawing at her. “I’m scared, Shining. What if she doesn’t accept me as her mother?” She leaned into him, her wing sliding more around him.
“She will. She already loves you so much. You didn’t hear her out there when she asked me to distract you. Summer, she would be ecstatic. Daughters can be closer to their mothers than sisters can. Don’t you think she would love to be closer to you?”
And so would I. “But not in public. The Solarium would have a feast of supposition and rumor after this.” She caught herself going down the same train of thought again, the same path of arguments that would inevitably lead back to this same situation. Instead she stamped a hoof, and snorted. “I say let them feast. Let them choke on it. They daren’t do more than prattle and sashay around what they want to say without proof.”
She stood up and looked down at Shining Light. “I’m going to tell her. And you’re going to be there with me.”
But first, there was the sun to raise, and a daughter to raise it with.
Then, her daughter had a father and mother to greet for the first time.
The glass door stood in front of her, both beckoning and warning her away. It had seemed so simple just seconds ago. But now that she was at the threshold of the future, her heart fluttered. Possible outcomes raced through her mind, too quickly to grasp hold of and examine, and others all too possible that lingered and stabbed at her.
Luna screamed her hatred at Celestia. She laughed, and said she always knew. She abandoned Celestia to eternal solitude. She blamed herself for everything. They were all possible, but none of them helpful and too many of them bleak.
Behind her, Shining Light coughed. “Remember that you love her. Don’t think about how much it scares you. You aren’t important right now.” He nodded towards Luna. “She is.”
She glanced back at him, a wan smile passing across her lips while her stomach fluttered. “I know, but it’s hard to let go of the fear.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” He took a hesitant step forward, but she saw his eyes flick to the edges of the window. “I can, but I’d rather not give the whisperers any more fuel too soon.”
“I want you to.” She turned her attention back to her daughter, but her eyes also scanned the sky, looking for the patrol of pegasi that would be coming by soon. “But you’re right. I’d rather not give the Solarium more food than is necessary.”
Still, she hesitated, and glanced back at him. The selfish part of her wanted her first moments with their daughter to be by herself, but she also wanted him to be there, and damn the Solarium.
“Think of it like this, Summer: it’s like giving birth to her again. You can relive your first moments together, all over again. Nopony should be there yet. Let her know you as her mother first, then I can be there too.” He nodded to the door and opened it with a spell. “Go to her, Summer. I’ll be here.”
She took her first steps into the future as a mother, walking along the traditions of the past.
Luna frowned at the horizon. The forms and order of the spell she was trying to remember felt jumbled somehow, and the ether wasn’t being particularly helpful either. She tried to start the spell several times, but it felt like she was starting at the wrong point.
Stop stalling, Luna. Shiny won’t be able to keep your sister occupied forever.
The spell, then. She closed her eyes and focused back to the last time she’d listened to her sister calling the sun. It started with a spark, the waking call, wrapped up in a memory of warm light and the golden red glow peeking above the horizon.
Finally, the ether accepted her will and guided her through the first part of the spell, describing the sun, but then the guidance faltered when she started trying to describe the arc of the sun in the sky. It felt like the ether was uncertain. Her own memory was no help. The description of the motion of the sun was the part she always lost track.
‘Tia didn’t need to build the construct first and then power it, she built the construct and powered it as she went. The moment when the sun first came above the horizon was where Luna lost track every time, when its song became one of harmonious joy at being greeted by an old friend again.
The spell began to wither as her concentration faltered, and Luna pushed more magic into it to keep it steady, but it only faded faster the more she pushed into it.
“Careful, Luna. You don’t want to—”
She jumped and pushed away from the railing. She lost her balance and fell backwards as the spell overloaded, sizzling in the air. There was a flash of white feathers and a golden haze as her sister’s wing swept over her.
The spell snapped apart, flinging hot streamers of magic against the quarter dome of golden light hovering above the outstretched wing. The smell of singed stone and burnt leaves drifted through the air, swiftly fading in the pre-dawn breeze.
“‘Tia! You scared me!” She shoved the wing away with a rough hoof to see her sister staring down at her. Why is she crying? A soft patter of tears fell onto her cheeks. The Mysterious Mission was a failure. Except that Celestia was also smiling. Why?
“I’m sorry to startle you, Luna. I had to come out here.”
“You were supposed to be asleep! Or at least distracted. Shiny— Shining Light told me he’d distract you so I could let you sleep in and surprise you later.”
“I know, sweetie.” Celestia stroked her cheek. “He told me.”
“B-but he said—”
“I wasn’t sleeping, Luna. I have trouble sleeping some days.” A bit of Celestia’s rose hued mane, wrapped in golden light, stroked away the tears.
“I know. I’ve seen you crying. But you never let me comfort you.” She jabbed a hoof up at her sister, brushing aside the mane. “You always comfort me! Aren’t sisters supposed to help each other?” She hooked her hoof around Celestia’s and held it close. “Aren’t they?”
“Sisters are, yes. Good sisters, at least.” Celestia looked away. Luna could see the pain in the set of her jaw. “I haven’t been a very good sister.”
There was something underneath that statement. Luna could just feel it. “You’ve been hiding things from me.”
“I have.” Celestia looked down at her again, and let go of a heavy sigh. “Far more than I should have. I want to tell you everything, Luna. And I will. But first, we need to raise the sun. I’d rather not have the Solarium wondering why I was late to bring it up.”
“We?” Again, Luna could feel the weight of something important unspoken underneath her sister’s tone. The Mysterious Mission was back on, and more mysterious than ever.
“You and I. Together.” Celestia stepped back and bent down to nuzzle her and push her up to her feet.
Luna rolled over and stood, fluttering her wings to get the dust off her back. “I would like that, ‘Tia. But I’ve never done something like that before. Is it hard?”
“Not at all. You can feel the ether better than I could at your age. Follow my lead and put everything you have into the spell. No construct this time, just the spell.”
Celestia stood quietly while Luna cleared her mind again. It was hard. There was so much swirling around in her mind, so many questions that she wanted to ask, that it was hard to let them all go and focus on just the memories of sunlight and warmth that she would need to put into the spell.
But she managed it. “I’m ready.”
Celestia’s horn lit up and Luna felt her will press into the ether. Celestia was putting all of her magic into the spell as well. She could feel the ether humming, nearly audibly, against her horn. She’d never felt it that powerfully before, not that she could remember.
A second passed, then Luna called on her magic and pressed her will into the ether right behind her sister’s and followed along, amplifying the golden light with her own midnight blue.
The mix of colors was awe inspiring, and it felt like the sunrise was glowing right in front of her, not inches away. The humming as well increased, and she began to hear the music of the sun. The spell was calling right then to the sun, and it was responding to them just as immediately.
The more of the spell they finished, the louder the hum became and the brighter the light swelling between them grew. More than that, she could feel Celestia’s love for her glowing in the trail she left behind for her to follow. Her sister was putting much more than magic into the spell, she was putting a part of herself into it: the love she felt for Luna.
It hurt not to focus on that warm feeling, but it wasn’t something that she would, or could, ever forget. It went deeper than she could have thought, and she could feel something else just below the surface. It infused Celestia’s magic and, through the spell they crafted together, it poured into the sun.
Then the sun rose above the horizon, and the sound of its music spread across the land. Luna could feel it, touching every living thing, and when it touched her finally, she wanted to weep for its beauty. Luna couldn’t remember another sunrise quite like it, and she burst into tears when the first light touched her face, an almost physical presence. It felt like her mother’s love, reflected back to her from the rising sun.
Mother?
“Yes, Luna.”
She hadn’t realized she’d said it aloud. So many things fell into place at that moment: Celestia’s constant mothering, her blind panic when Luna had gotten lost in the castle, and the way she always tried to be strong when Luna came to her.
I have a mother.
“And she loves you so very much.” Celestia’s voice cracked and she gasped a sharp breath.
She hadn’t spoken it out loud. She realized, then, that her magic and Celestia’s were so entwined that she could hear her mother’s thoughts as well. They were anything but neat.
They were chaotic, ranging from grief over the time lost between mother and daughter, and worries over whether she would accept her mother, to feelings of love that warmed Luna’s heart, and a fear of loss that chilled her soul.
Then the spell faded and Luna was left alone with her thoughts. She looked up to see Celestia looking down at her, eyes shining and trails of tears winding down her cheeks. There was everything she’d felt in the magical wash of emotion there, on her mother’s face. She knew it was true.
“Mom?”
Celestia nodded, her smile breaking. “Yes, sweetie.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?! Why?! Why couldn’t—?!” She leapt forward, hooves raised. But she couldn’t. She pressed her face in her mother’s chest instead, eyes closed and breathed in through a nose that felt too stuffy. Why does it hurt so much? Sobbing, she clutched her legs around Celestia’s.
A strong, but shaking, hoof on her back pulled her closer. She tried to say something, anything, but every time she opened her mouth, all that came out was another sob. Her mother’s chest shook under her cheek, and she realized that Celestia was crying too, as hard as she was. The pitter-patter of tears on her mane told her that her mother was hurting too.
She’d come to make her sister feel better, and now her mother was crying harder than she’d ever seen. She wanted to say something, but so much wanted to come out, so many things she wanted to say, and ask. But nothing came when she opened her mouth to say them except another sob and a twist of pain shooting through her chest.
But the pain bled away with her tears, and the rising sun with its steady warmth on her back reminded her of the spell and the mixing of their emotion and thoughts. The sun’s song through the ether still played a muted reminder of that first moment of realization. Whatever else happened to make her keep the secret so long, her mother loved her. She knew that.
And Luna loved her back. Sister or mother, she loved Celestia. That had to be enough. Somehow, she felt it would be, in the end.
The sun rose farther, and two more patrols went by before Celestia felt she was calm enough to say anything coherent. The Solarium was going to have a lot to say to her later, but they would wait. Her daughter, and Shining Light, came first.
“We can’t stay out here too long, Luna. Your father is waiting to meet you.”
Shining Light waited in the chambers, watching mother and daughter meet for the first time. The bond between mother and daughter was special, and he was glad that it had been so special. He was also jealous of Celestia for being the first to greet her. Not greatly jealous, since it was his idea for her to go alone at first. It still hurt, but some sacrifices had to be made.
But the sun’s raising that morning had been something wondrous. He felt again the rising of the sun, the sense of absolute joy pouring over him, and warmth beyond the light of the sun that spread throughout his whole being. If that was what Celestia felt every morning when she raised the sun, then it was no wonder that she was always happiest right after the sunrise, and why her smile when she stepped out of her chambers was so radiant and her voice so cheerful.
For her, it usually lasted until the first meeting of the day. He would hold onto it for the rest of his life.
He checked again the spell he’d woven across the door to dampen sound. It wasn’t his best spell, but it would have to do.
Celestia and Luna finally parted their embrace and looked at the bank of windows. His heart almost stopped beating. He stopped his restless pacing for all of the half a heartbeat it took for Celestia to say something he didn’t hear, and then they were coming.
Another quick check of the spell told him it was stable. He paced back to the center of the room. Then sidestepped to the left. He glanced at his daughter, then sidestepped to the right again and planted his rear. Steady yourself. This isn’t going to end badly.
He closed his eyes for the length of a long, deep breath, and opened them again when he heard the glass door open.
There she was. His dark coated daughter, tears still streaming down her cheeks. He laughed, then took a step forward and stopped.
“Shining?” Luna’s voice quavered and broke. “You? You’re m-my dad?”
The world blurred, and he quickly blinked away the tears, only to have more come forth. It shouldn’t be this painful! I see her almost every day!
Another part of him chimed in, It’s not every day that you get to greet her as your daughter for the first time.
“Yes!” He choked the word out and didn’t bother to blink away the tears. They would just come back anyway. “Luna, I love you so much!”
She rushed him, her wings fluttering, and threw herself at him. He caught her, just barely, in a spell, and rolled backwards to hold her above him. He laughed, tears streaming down his cheeks.
She laughed and cried with him. “Shining! You’re my dad!”
“Yes, Luna. I’ve wanted so badly to tell you, all these years.” He let the spell fade and wrapped her up in a tight hug. Everything else he wanted to say, all the excuses just fell out of his mind with his daughter held close. His throat felt pinched, but he wanted to say it again. “I love you so much.”
“I know, dad.” Her voice shook, and cracked.
Luna lay between her mother and father on the bed, surrounded by a love she hadn’t known was missing until she had it. They were sleeping, she thought, napping in the early afternoon. It felt good. It wasn’t without its peril, of course, just laying in the afternoon sun doing nothing but being together.
Celestia had sent a scroll out, stating she was feeling ill and would be putting off her appointments for the day until she felt more at ease.
Later, Shining Light had snuck out to make an appearance around the castle and be seen elsewhere before he went to consult with the princess, quite openly, about matters of the guard’s disposition that he insisted just couldn’t wait.
It hurt that they had to tiptoe around the truth, that they had to make up further falsehoods just to be a family, and that they had made it very clear that this was between them only, for now.
But now she had a father. She had a mother. She had a family besides a sister. She even knew a little of why they hadn’t told her, and little bits and pieces of dialogue that she’d heard in her seeking out of mysteries and secrets began to make sense. Members of the Solarium who stared at her, then whispered to each other behind a close hoof or a not so discreet wing.
They made sense, knowing what she did after her mother’s revelation and seeing her father for the first time. Shining Light was the best father she could hope for. He’d always tried to be a father to her, she could see. It hurt her that he couldn’t in public still, but it made sense.
It made sense why Celestia had had to move Luna to her own private chambers after she’d gotten her cutie mark.
It even made sense why Celestia hadn’t thought she could tell Luna the truth before.
But it still hurt.
She settled her head down between her parents and felt them stir. She lay awake, trying to push aside the hurt she felt. But it clung to her heart, a pall on the happiness that suffused the rest of her. But, she had a mother.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?” Celestia shifted onto her side and stroked Luna’s cheek with a hoof.
“I want to just be happy that you’re my mom.” She pressed her cheek into the hoof and looked up. “I don’t want it to hurt. I know why. But I don’t want it to.”
“It will hurt, my sweet child. I am so sorry that it does, and I wish it didn’t. I have wished so much that I could just give up the throne and be your mother. It would be so simple. So easy to just be your mother, only.” Celestia’s smile told her that it wouldn’t be that simple.
“It’s not though, is it?”
The smile on her mother’s face slipped away. “No. I wish it were. But, Luna, there’s so much that I wish. But we can’t have everything we wish for. Not even most of what we wish for.” Celestia’s hoof on her cheek slowed, then dipped and lifted her chin up. “We have to make do with what we can have.”
What can I have that would make me happy? A thought came to her, of something that might make Celestia happy too. Maybe. Nopony could resist them.
“Can I have some cookies?”
Celestia burst out laughing. It was the happiest sound that Luna had heard come out of her mother’s mouth. “Yes, you can have some cookies. We can bake them together, if Flaky Crust will let me take over her kitchen for an afternoon.”
“Let you? But it’s your castle and your kitchen!”
Celestia giggled. It sounded weird coming from her mother, but it made Luna smile all the same. “It may be my castle, but if I tried to claim Flaky’s kitchen for my own, there would be a battle that I’m not sure I would win.”
“Does she know?” She wanted Flaky to know. She wanted somepony she could talk to besides her mother. She liked the chef, and she knew that the chef liked her. Why else would she let Luna lick the blueberry muffin bowl clean?
Celestia frowned, then shook her head. “Yes. But Flaky is special, Luna. Do you remember the story I told you about Apple Hollow?”
“That was where you got your cutie mark. Where you raised the sun all on your own, for the first time.”
“Yes. Flaky Pastry was there, and she’s been with me for most of my life. Besides her nopony but Velvet Shield and a few others of the Royal Guard know.”
“Who else?”
“Luna. This is important, and I want you to listen very carefully to me. Unless we are alone, I am still your sister. We know better, and I praise the Celestials that I can call you my daughter now, that I can let myself think of you that way.” Celestia closed her eyes and tucked her chin close to her neck.
Luna leaned against her father, feeling his slow, deep breathing and the steady thump of his heart under her shoulder. It felt good, to be between them. It felt like she belonged there.
“Do you remember when you got trapped in that pitfall in the Hall of Hooves?”
Luna nodded. It’d been dark, and lonely, with only a tiny patch of light that led nowhere she could reach. She’d called and called until her voice was hoarse, but nopony came until Celestia found her, somehow.
“Do you remember how scared I was when we finally found you? Your father was little better. I thought somepony had taken you. Luna, if it were commonly known that you were my daughter, somepony might try to take you from me for real.” Celestia lifted her chin and drew Luna closer with a leg draped over her back.
“I made a lot of enemies uniting the nation. Ponies who would rather that the old ways be adhered to, ponies whose livelihoods relied on their sovereignty. They would see you as a tool, not as the wonderful little filly that you are. They would hurt you because of me. They would hurt you to hurt me.”
“But I was your sister before. What’s different now that I know I’m your daughter?”
“Nothing now that you know. But you’re going to look at me differently. I’m going to treat you differently because you know. I don’t want to take back what you learned. I would never want that. But think, Luna. We are always watched, you and I. The smallest things are remarked on and examined.”
Luna looked away. She knew. She did the same things. She watched ponies, she tried to understand them. She tried to learn their secrets. She’d always thought that was just because she was the Lady of Mysteries, but what if there were other ponies out there who did the same things she did? Everypony suddenly felt like a potential threat, and nopony except her parents who she could confide this secret in.
“Wouldn’t they have tried anyway?”
“Maybe, but the love between sisters is different than the love between mother and child. I would do anything, anything, to keep you safe.” The fierce look in Celestia’s eyes terrified her for all of the half a heartbeat it was there. “If they knew, for certain, who you are, I am afraid of what they might try. I’m so terrified, Luna. It scares me just to think about what might happen.”
The world felt darker and larger than she could have imagined, knowing that Celestia, of all ponies, was afraid. There had to be more than just her parents and a few guards and a chef she could trust. It was a large world, after all, and a good one. Even accounting for all of the flaws that she was becoming aware of the older she got, it was a good world.
“How do I know who to trust?”
Celestia touched her chest with a hoof. “Your heart can help you.” The hoof touched her forehead next. “But use your mind, most of all. You are incredibly smart, Luna. Use that intellect.”
“I wish...” Luna sighed and bumped her muzzle against her mother’s hoof. She wished for everything that Celestia had just told her couldn’t happen.
“I do too.”
“I have a mother.”
“And I have a daughter.”
“And I’m chopped parsley?” Shining Light’s groggy voice broke in.
Luna screeched as she was hauled away in the blue haze of Shining Light’s spell. Her screech turned to laughter when he tousled her mane and began to tickle her.
Celestia watched them, laughing to herself, and smiled when Luna broke out of Shining’s spell and dashed away to hide from the tickle monster behind Celestia. The warmth in her heart pushed away all of the other worries that came up.
I have a family. Right then, that was all that mattered.
“Did you remember to grease the pan this time?” Luna stood on a stool, looking at the cookbook that was currently smeared with flour and not a little bit of chocolate.
“Yes! I remembered to grease the pan this time.” Her mother glared at the oven, then at the pile of blackened atrocities that she had tried to call cookies. Luna had politely disabused her of that notion. Well. Maybe calling them abominations to the idea of cookies hadn’t been too diplomatic.
“Did you remember to— Eek!” She jumped away from the spatter of cookie dough Celestia tossed at her. Most of it ended up on the cookbook. “You are so childish!”
“We’re making cookies. I’m allowed to act juvenile.” Celestia sniffed and lifted her nose.
She also had her eyes closed, imitating a haughty so and so from the Solarium. That let Luna ambush her with an egg to the butt. Her screech was satisfyingly loud, but the return sally of dough made Luna duck behind the dubious cover of an empty pan.
“And just what in the name of all that fell into Tartarus is going on in here?”
Another egg sailed through the air, caught just in time by Celestia’s spell. Not so was a blob of cookie dough that sailed through the air to land at Flaky Crust’s hooves.
Considering that the fight had just started, the mess wasn’t so bad. But Luna’s earlier attempts to stir the dough and mix the flour sat here and there around the spacious countertops.
To Luna’s surprise, Celestia actually blushed and looked away. “We’re making cookies.”
“You’re making something, but it’s not cookies.” There followed a not insignificant pause. “Your Highness.”
“You don’t have to call me that, Flaky. Not after all the years that I’ve known you.” Celestia pulled a broom out of a pantry and began to sweep the floor while a smaller brush began to scoop the loose flower on the counter into neat piles.
The elderly cook dragged over a stool and propped it against the door, then sat down. “Luna, can you help your mother clean up the kitchen?”
Seeing her mother doing so without even being asked made her curious about their relationship. A little more effort would be worth learning more. “You knew Cel— mother back when she was a filly, right? Mom won’t tell me all of what happened.”
“You haven’t told her, then? Don’t you think she deserves to know who her grandparents were and who you were?” Flaky Crust clucked her tongue and waggled a hoof at the ruler of Equestria.
Luna fought back a giggle.
“Flaky, you don’t have to tell her. I know how hard it is to remember.” Celestia swept a pile of flour and oddments of dough into a waiting bin.
“No harder than it is for you, Winter Rose.”
The laughter faded. She remembered the story of Apple Hollow, and the name sounded familiar, but Luna couldn’t place it right then. “Winter Rose?”
“Is your mother’s filly name, back when she was only a few years older than you, little Lulu, before she took the name Summer Dawn. She and I lived in the same town of Apple Hollow. A little more than forty years ago, wasn’t it?”
“It was.” Celestia stopped her cleaning and sat in a cleaned spot on the floor.
“I was your mother’s age, or a little older. Me and my folks, we were gathered up on the old hill to watch the sun rise when all of a sudden there was this great wall of water that rushed down the valley, tall as any of the houses and wide as the hills.
“Nopony knew what to think at first. Shock, I think. But we could see the crowd gathered in the town square start to panic. All of a sudden your mother appeared, teleported up onto the hill by her parents, just seconds before the wave swept through the square. I had to jump on her to keep her from rushing down to meet her doom along with them. It wasn’t easy.”
Celestia looked up from cleaning up a pile of flour. “You saved my life, Flaky.”
“Maybe I did. But it was you who saved all of us. You raised the sun, not an hour after watching your parents get swept away. Winter— Bah. Summer, I saw in you then a greatness that would light the world with hope. Your parents may have been the lord and lady of Apple Hollow, but it was you we pledged our hearts to.”
“I did what I had to do. I’m still doing what I have to do.” Celestia glanced around the kitchen at the mess that still remained to be cleaned. “I’m just taking a little break to be with my daughter.”
“I’m the last of Apple Hollow’s survivors, aside from you, and I am glad that I lived to see the day when you finally got over your stubborn belief that keeping Luna from knowing you were her mother would somehow keep her safe. I can tell the others that you stopped being such a hoof bitingly frustrating mare to be around.”
“Have you met my mother?” Luna pointed a hoof at Celestia.
Flaky laughed and slapped the stool between her legs. “You have a point.”
“Har-de-har.” Celestia glowered at the two of them and rolled her eyes. “I admit it. I can be a little stubborn. I’ve been working on that.”
Luna leaned on the table in the middle of the kitchen, and drew her hoof up next to her muzzle. “She has gotten better. Just yesterday she admitted that she might possibly enjoy a cup of coffee. Some day.”
“Your mother? The tea fiend?”
“It’s your father’s fault! Why does coffee have to smell so good?!”
While her mother and the chef laughed and talked about old days gone by, Luna pondered. Something about the story that Flaky had told her didn’t settle right. The darkness that swallowed Apple Hollow sounded very much like the darkness that her mother had overcome later, during the war.
Couldn’t they see it?
Luna looked between her mother and Flaky. They had to see it. Her mother knew so much, saw so much. She tried to push the nagging worry away and listen to them reminisce about the first years they’d spent in Cantercourt, the Archunicorn Star Swirl, and the mostly peaceful times before the war and the unification.
Maybe I’m being paranoid. It came with the station of Lady of Mysteries, but she couldn’t banish the nagging doubt that something was missing from the story they were telling her. Celestia could be brilliantly insightful, but Luna had watched her in secret and up close long enough to know that her mother had blind spots in her hindsight.
