The Old Switcheroo
Well isn’t that just the most majestic sight.
Luna had to work to stifle a laugh. She needed to be quiet. Making too much noise now would destroy moons – hah, ‘moons’, she was funny – of careful scheming and scheduling. And place her in mortal peril besides.
Actually, the ‘mortal peril’ part was an almost inevitable consequence of her plan. A minor thing, though. Anyway, it was a later part. She had things to do first.
I am so glad I’m not mortal. Anyway, concentrate.
It occurred to her how undignified she must look: biting her lip hard to bring her grin under control. That nearly set her off again and she had to retreat a small distance, where she giggled into a hoof; safely releasing a fraction of the bubbling mirth she needed to keep restrained. For now.
Celestia kept snoring, blissfully unaware, flat on her back. One of her wings was splayed out messily across the giant bed, the other was curled forwards and around, over her own barrel. Celestia held it tucked beneath her forelegs in a sort of self-cuddle. It was adorable. The kind of cuteness that would make kittens jealous.
The blankets had been scrunched up and pushed to the edge of the mattress, in serious danger of being tipped onto the floor. A thin film of drool leaked onto a pillow.
You are making this more difficult than it needs to be, sister dearest.
Luna took a couple of slow breaths to master herself. Let the giggles subside. Put on her ‘princess face’.
Later. Laugh later. Right now you need to cast the spell. Before somepony wakes and catches you in the act.
She took a couple of careful steps back closer to the bed. Celestia made a ‘hhhrnk’ noise. Luna froze. One of Celestia’s back legs kicked a couple of times and Celestia ungracefully rolled onto her side – facing away from Luna. She went ‘fff-pthh’ and settled back into a steady pattern of deep breaths, the snoring replaced by periodic ‘whuff’ noises.
Luna forced her anxiety down. She could do this. She could do this and get away with it.
She gently lit her horn, framing the required spell in her mind, and cast it.
A gentle, silvery light wound it’s way towards her sister, where it gathered like a cloud above her head. Once it reached sufficient size, Luna stopped channeling it power. It settled slowly, feather-light, dropping like a misty mask over Celestia’s head and horn. Luna watched it gently sink into her sister; Celestia seemed unperturbed.
Luna gave the magic some time to take effect. She counted slowly to ten. Then she counted to three, just to make sure. She carefully reached over with a hoof and touched her sister, tentatively, on the withers.
When Celestia made no response, Luna tried again: She pressed more firmly, whispering, “Sister?”
This soft-stepping is tomfoolery. Either the deep-sleep spell took or it did not. You need to actually test it.
Luna sighed, braced herself. With both forehooves she shoved Celestia hard, unceremoniously dumping her off the bed entirely. She landed heavily on a pile of displaced blankets and rolled onto her back again.
“Hath that roused thee from thy slumber?”
Celestia made a brief grunting noise, but after a few seconds it transmuted into simple – if loud – snoring.
“Good.”
Luna trotted around the bed for a better view and then levitated Celestia back onto the bed, setting her down rather more carefully this time.
“I know that thou art a heavy sleeper, Sister, but I am afraid that in this case I simply could not afford to risk to chance.”
Luna fetched a scroll from across the room and laid it out on the bedsheets. It curled partially back up, so she shifted one of Celestia’s hooves to use as a paperweight on a corner.
“Why, my thanks to thee. Most kind.”
She read the scroll, double checking the forms the spell needed to take in her mind. It was a complicated spell – right at the limits of her abilities. She look a deep breath and began to channel power for it.
Light shone from her horn. She took her desire. Shaped it. Sculpted and moulded the ætheric field to match her will. Fixed the shapes she needed in her mind, and then in her reality. She set the spell to work. Energy burst forth from her horn – looping and swirling. It wrapped itself around. It encompassed Luna, the bed and her unconscious sister; surrounding them in a cylinder. It began forming a network of luminous strands.
Luna poured more power into the spell; this was the easy part – just add energy. She hoped she hadn’t made any serious mistake in the æther-weaving. Incomplete or malformed spells sometimes had nasty side effects. She could do without changing colour again.
The spirals twining around the pair, and bed, thickened and merged until the gaps between the bands of magic disappeared entirely. The universe started to whine in protest. Luna added just a little more magic to the spell. For luck. She closed her eyes. Activated it.
They fell. Upwards, or maybe sideways, but not really in any direction at all. Not a true direction. Luna clamped her wings hard to her sides, fighting to control the reflex to spread them and catch air. Because she wasn’t plummeting through space – but time.
They fell for so long – if that had any meaning – that when they stopped Luna didn’t, at first, realise they had even ceased moving. She’d been expecting a lurch, or a snap, or something. But it seemed they had slid smoothly to a halt.
The magic curtain around them faded away, dissolving into nothing. A warm, tangy breeze blew through Luna’s coat; it gently ruffled her feathers. Her mane stubbornly ignored it – it blew for no wind but its own.
She blinked in surprise a few times. She looked around. She and Celestia (still snoring) lay on her sister’s expansive bed. The bedroom had vanished. Canterlot castle was nowhere to be seen. Neither was canterlot.
“Ooh,” Luna said, taking in the view. They were on the coast; a pebbly shale beach. To her left, small waves periodically broke against the shore. Giant ferns thrice her height lined the inland half of her field of view, perhaps fifteen metres away. They swayed in the wind, rustling against each other in a papery sort of way.
She took a sniff, caught hints of iodine in the thick, almost tropical air.
The sun moved overhead. Not in a precise, controlled movement. It was just tracing a lazy path across the sky. All on it’s own. At its current rate… Luna had no idea when it would set. She couldn’t find the moon. The feeling was deeply unsettling.
Don’t touch. That’s not why you’re here.
She checked on Celestia: peacefully asleep. She fired up another spell, which tugged at her. It wanted her to travel along the coast.
“Aha! It worked! Yes!”
Luna trotted on the spot. Spun excitedly in a circle. Struck a triumphant pose.
“It worked! In thy face reality. Luna Invictus commands, and it is so! I am thy master and thou shalt bend at my whim!”
She laughed maniacally. Her spell tugged at her again.
“Yes, yes. I was just getting to that,” she told it.
She hopped down from the bed onto the beach. She took a deep breath of the warm sea air. Listened to the snare of waves on stone.
“This is quite pleasant. Mayhap I should vacation here some other time. If ‘here’ still exists in another time, that is.”
Luna closed her eyes briefly to get a better sense of where her spell was leading her; she spun and let it guide her to face her goal. She opened her eyes, made a quarter turn and started walking up the beach. The spell’s pull swung slightly off the perpendicular as she moved.
“So, I am close… Excellent.”
She turned back in the direction the spell wanted and started to trot, leaving her sister to doze in the… whatever time it was... sun. She slowed to a walk almost immediately as the pebbles shifted and pressed uncomfortably underhoof.
“Mayhap I shall not vacation here after all,” she announced. “Unless this has all been worn to sand by then, hah!”
A short walk along the beach, no more than a few minutes, she came to the edge of a tidal rock pool. She reduced her pace as the guidance spell swung slightly downwards. She frowned.
Down? Are they swimming? In a cave?
She slowed and moved more carefully, trying not to disturb her quarry. As she reached the edge of the pool she heard a faint ‘guh’ noise. She peered around a rock outcropping, expecting to see a pony. Well, two ponies. Almost ponies – perhaps.
Two small, reptilian-looking creatures sat on adjacent rocks. One was slightly larger than the other. It went, “Guh.”
The smaller one looked – blinking, perhaps curiously – at the larger.
Oh. Well, I seem to have missed. Luna thought. By a few million years. Too much reality bending, I suppose.
She paused to consider for a minute. The larger reptilian went, “Guh,” again. The smaller one started to inch towards it.
No matter. The principle is the same, I am sure.
The smaller reptilian cautiously crossed from its rock to the other one, to join its companion.
It went, “Guh,” again.
The smaller one went, “Leh,” in response.
Oh, I uhm, mayhaps I do not have much time. The irony!
Luna ducked back behind her rock and started to form another spell. This one she’d been able to practice, not that the guard had been terribly happy with her about that. Luna didn’t know why; she’d changed her back in the end.
She poked her head out from her hiding spot and shot two pinkish beams, one at each creature, in rapid succession before ducking back into cover. They each rose up in the air, spun about briefly and then flashed with arcane light before dropping back down. Confused, maybe, but unharmed.
The larger one went, “Leh,” and the smaller looked at it.
“Guh?”
“Leh.”
“... Guh.”
The smaller one crawled down to be a little closer to the larger one.
Yes! Luna succeeds again! Best princess, no contest!
The smaller reptilian sidled up close to the larger one.
Oh, time to give you some privacy.
Luna silently crept away from the pool and its occupants. She heard a faint, “Leh,” as she left. She smiled. She headed back towards Celestia, who she could see in the near distance. Her sister hadn’t moved, not enough to leave the bed at least.
“Nicely done, Luna. Neat. Efficient. Hard to detect.”
She had another go at trotting on the pebbly beach but the surface wasn’t up to it. Maybe in a few hundred thousand years.
“Although…” Luna said, “Talking to myself in the third person? That is a bit cliché. Villainous, even. What do you think, 'Tia?”
When Luna reached the bed she saw that Celestia had rolled over onto her front. A bead of saliva ran down her chin. The snoring had stopped for now, but she was clearly still asleep.
“Yes, rather too much, I agree. Your wisdom knows few bounds and I defer to it on this matter.”
Luna leapt up onto the bed. She placed a hoof gently on her sister’s shoulder.
“Ready to go home?”
Celestia didn’t respond. She was asleep.
“Very well then.”
Luna began to spellcast.
“I wonder if that actually takes time, or if it merely feels as though it takes time?” Luna pondered to herself.
She and Celestia were back in Canterlot castle. Back in the present, Luna assumed. The room looked the same. She got down from the bed and checked the stack of paperwork on the writing desk. It appeared unchanged. The same unloved and unfinished draft of a diplomatic missive she and Celestia had been trading back and forth for days: in the hope that eventually one of them would think of a way to – politely – inform ‘The Storm King’, whoever that was, that he could stop sending them strange and threatening letters now. He should either come ‘Conquer Equestria’ in person or just fuck off back down whatever hole he crawled out of.
One word was different. Exactly as planned.
A good sign! Nothing else seems changed. One more test should suffice.
She trotted over to the door to her sister’s chambers. Reached out and casually swung it inwards. She stood on the threshold and looked at the guard posted to one side. The guard pivoted, with a confused look, to face her. They stared at each other for a few seconds.
“Princess?” the guard asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We chose to visit upon our sister this fine morn.”
“Uhm. I guess… That’s a thing you can do?”
“It is.”
“Yes. I… didn’t see you go in though,” the guard looked nervous. Understandable: Luna hadn’t used the door to gain entry.
“We did not wish to disturb thee in thy vigil.”
“I uh, I’m not sure I like the implications of this.”
Luna put on a serious expression, “Thou worriest for the safety of our sister?”
The guard took a second to compose herself, chose her words carefully, “Not if you’re here, Princess, obviously. But–”
“Excellent!” Luna grinned, “For I have no nefarious intentions whatsoever.”
“Of course not,” the guard said, her voice wavering only slightly.
“We observed thee, however.”
“... Pardon?”
“On our way in. We saw thee out here. Guarding. And we didst not wish to trouble thee. Or,” Luna gave the guard a pointed look, “for thou to troublest our sister during peaceful sleep by awaking her to admit us. She requires her rest, after all.”
“Oh. Yes, that… that makes sense.”
Luna caught the hesitation.
“It does. Tell me: In thy duty this night, hast thou noticed anything amiss?”
“Amiss?”
“Unforeseen changes in thy situation. Any alteration of thy surroundings from thine expectations. Subtle differences in everyday… things.”
The guard looked puzzled, and a little worried, “No, Princess. Should I have?”
“We rather hope not. We wish for a quiet and uneventful morning!”
“Uh, ‘No’ then. Nothing.” The guard tapped a hoof uncomfortably on the floor.
“Good. Well, we shall take our leave then,” Luna began to swing the door closed. The guard, rather bravely, moved a hoof to block it.
“Princess,” she asked, “I hope this isn’t, uh… How did you get past me?”
Luna smiled; shook her wings out and gave them a slow, deliberate flap.
“Oh.”
“The air contingent is aware of our presence,” she lied. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I have found that they are quite reticent to knock on windows to announce my arrival. Please do not take offense; I do not mean to impugn thy sense of duty. But I occasionally like to visit my sister, without making an occasion of it.”
Luna added a wink, to sell her story. The guard didn’t need to know that she had a passkey to the teleportation wards on Celestia’s chambers. Not this guard; not any guard.
The guard sighed with relief and smiled.
“Of course. Protocol is… Well, I won’t delay you further then,” she took her hoof away from the door.
“I thank thou. For watching over my sister.”
“You’re welcome, Princess.”
Luna swung the door shut and walked back to the bed.
Smart guard. Might have to promote her. Him.
She hopped up onto the mattress.
“Well, I am all done then. Sweet dreams, dear sister. I shall see you upon the morrow.”
Luna bent down and gave Celestia a quick sisterly kiss on the cheek, dissipating the sleep spell into silvery mist. Celestia made a contented little noise and smiled. Luna took a small step backwards and teleported out of the room.
Princess Celestia awoke just before dawn. She yawned, stretched her wings, patted a hoof about, tried to find her blankets.
I must have had an active night and kicked them off completely. Again.
She brushed some sleep from her eyes with a wingtip. Ran a quick blast of magic through her mane and tail to make them nice and wavy. Raised the sun. Wiped some congealed drool from her lower jaw with the back of a hoof.
Ick.
She down looked at her pillow. A damp patch marked out roughly the shape of her muzzle.
Some ponies took it as a good omen to see ‘the face of Celestia’ in mundane everyday objects. Toast. Grass clippings. Coffee grounds. Stains. Celestia herself simply sighed and stripped the pillowcase from her pillow. She roughly balled the pillowcase up, reached over with her magic and lifted the lid off a wicker basket. She tossed the bundle of fabric across the room; it bounced off the floating wicker lid and landed neatly in the basket.
Three points. Again. Maybe I should start doing trick shots?
Princess Celestia replaced the lid of her laundry basket. She retrieved the blankets from the floor and made her bed – except for the naked pillow, missing its case. She knew that Moon Daphne or Rosey Stone… no, not Rosey, she’d retired recently… Fubuki! That was the new maidservant’s name. One of them would come by before lunchtime and change all her bedding regardless.
But Celestia just wasn’t the sort of pony who was comfortable having a messy bed – when she was conscious and had a say in the matter. It reflected poorly on one’s character to have a messy bed.
She tucked the last corner in and stepped back from her work.
Much better.
She turned and trotted into her en-suite to brush her teeth and preen her wings. And to take care of ordinary pony things – like fixing her coat where she’d apparently dribbled on it while asleep. She smelled slightly of salt, but she didn’t have time to run a bath before breakfast.
It was nice to have a little time to herself, before the day truly began. Before the weight of ruling a country pressed back down on her like… Actually she didn’t think she had any pressing concerns today.
She had a breakfast-dinner ‘appointment’: Twilight Sparkle was in Canterlot for a couple of days, trying to garner local support for some sort of faire. It would be nice to spend some informal time with her ex-student – if only she could teach Twilight what informal meant. Still, it would be nice to see her friend.
Apart from that she only recalled having light Princess duties for the day. A quick meeting with her scientific advisor. Luncheon with the dean of the School for Gifted Unicorns; an excuse to check on Inkwell, really. A short dedication ceremony for a new civic building. A ‘surprise’ visit to the foal’s ward of Canterlot Hospital. She dropped by there every five or six weeks to read to the children – the staff would be expecting her any day. Lower the sun. Dinner-breakfast with Luna – not a duty, she just liked to remember that she could talk with her sister again. Open a bottle of Moscato and continue to ignore some minor paperwork. Take a nice, long bath.
Her wonderful sister had helped to move some things around in her event calendar to give her more ‘easy days’; this was one of them. If she felt like it, she could cancel – well, reschedule – everything planned for the day right now and just stay in bed with a book. She had a – frankly filthy – romance novella she could finish.
The most severe consequence would be ‘not having her name on a plaque’ somewhere at the Lower Canterlot Water Management Offices. The horror.
But that would hardly be sporting. It wasn’t like she didn’t have some free time amongst the tasks, and half of them were thinly disguised social visits anyway.
Celestia reflected: It’s good to be the Princess.
She finished her morning ablutions and looked in the mirror. She was struck by an odd thought; she wondered how she’d look if she added a few barrettes to her mane.
Pretty – obviously – but how would you get them to stay in place?
She dismissed the notion and returned to her main chamber. She retrieved her peytral from a hat stand and slipped it on. Her tiara, much to her chagrin, consistently fell off the hat stand when she tried to place it there; it instead rested, along with her other raiment, on a cushion on the floor. She finished dressing herself.
A sharp hoof-rap on her door informed her that she had a visitor.
“Come in, Luna!”
The door opened but Luna stayed at the entranceway. Celestia quirked an eyebrow.
“Coming in, sister?”
“Nay. I fear that other demands have been placed upon my time this morning.”
“Oh?”
Luna shook her head. Her pet opossum clung to her mane.
“Twilight Sparkle does not appreciate it when one is not punctual with one’s arrival at an appointment. If I enter thy demesne, perchance you wouldst ravell me in some fashion of sororal japery. Were we to be much delayed, I might incur her wroth rebuke for waylaying thee from thy repast.”
Celestia stared at her sister for a moment.
“You’re laying the Middle Equestrian on a bit thick today, don’t you think?”
“Forsooth?”
“Are you… nervous?”
“Nay. I mean, no.”
Celestia took a moment to study her sister’s body language. At some point in the past she had been convinced she could read her sister as easily as she could read Furthak. She’d been… incorrect.
Mind you, how many hundred years has it been since you last tried to read the elder runes? You’ve probably forgotten how to do more things than most ponies ever learn.
She got subtitles these days; Tiberius had balled a tiny fist and nervously stuffed it in his mouth.
“Is it because–” Celestia was pretty sure about this, “–we’re having Twilight over for breakfast-dinner?”
“Our fellow Princess shall make a goodly dining companion, I am certain.” Luna put on a smile that was a little too broad. She was hiding something.
“That didn’t answer the question. You are worried, and about Twilight at that.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Luna quickly insisted, “Twilight Sparkle is a treasure and a friend. We should make haste, or we will be late.”
Celestia relented – for the time being. She walked over to her sister, who stepped away from the doorway to allow her out into the corridor, then they turned and set off.
Celestia pondered.
What has Twilight done to make Luna skittish around her?
Luna lead her on a slightly circuitous route to the small dining room where she expected to meet with Twilight over breakfast. And Luna over dinner. She kept up a brisk pace, not quite hurried but more than the usual saunter.
It was a quiet walk. They only passed one guard on patrol: an orange pegasus mare with a blue mane who Celestia didn’t recognise. It was nice to see more mares in the service recently. Since Luna had come back. Celestia had heard rumors that she kept herself an all-male force on purpose. For reasons.
Honestly. That’s laughable. It’s not as though there’s anything wrong with a mare in uniform. Stallions are just… well, they have certain qualities.
No, Celestia tried to keep those thoughts out of the selection process.
I may need to try harder, that’s all. Or I can just let Luna fix it.
Luna kept looking away from her, avoiding conversation. That was fine. Celestia would work out why over pancakes. With Twilight. With…
She looked at Luna. Luna who was suddenly nervous because they were meeting Twilight. Luna who had a secret. A secret at a meeting – a private little daily event. The sort of private event when secrets could be revealed, in confidence.
No.
Luna seemed to giggle, almost. Was that a blush?
No?
It was hard to spot when her dark coated sister was blushing. Perhaps Celestia imagined it?
I mean… Luna does like purple...
Twilight had really been coming into her own, as an alicorn, recently. She was more confident in herself, ever since she’d earned her own castle.
Confident enough to… Does Twilight even like mares?
Of course she does. She had a crush on you for years.
Well that was a good point, and Celestia carefully ignored it.
So… She looked at her sister. Luna and Twilight, eh? Well.
It made sense, really. Twilight had returned Luna from exile, saving her from loneliness. And then she’d gone further; offering friendship during a time when Luna had still been unsure of her place in a changed world. She knew Luna was grateful. She knew Twilight had always been fascinated with stars and the night sky.
Actually... What’s taken them so long?
Celestia smiled to herself. Pleased she’d solved the mystery.
I wonder which one of them asked? I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.
She twisted her neck to look at Luna. Tiberius chittered and her sister quickly found something very interesting to stare at, off to the opposite side. Celestia grinned.
Oh sister. I’m happy for you. You don’t want to be late? Perhaps you want to be early, because Twilight surely will be!
Celestia found a little spring had worked its way into her step as they approached the door to the breakfast room. She nodded at the guard – another mare she noted, now nice – standing there at her post.
“Good morning!” Celestia said to the guard, giving her an affable smile and pulling open the door. “Is Princess Twilight already inside?”
The guard blinked. “Twilight Sparkle? Yes...”
Celestia ignored the guard, really. It was a little rude but she thought she had a right to be distracted this morning. She nodded absent-mindedly as she trotted through into the dining hall. She was busy paying attention to Luna. She wanted to catch the look on her face when she saw Twilight Sparkle.
Luna didn’t look at Twilight. She was watching Celestia back, closely now. That was… Why was she doing that? Celestia was confused, and therefore especially surprised when she received a warm and friendly hug from a lilac alicorn prince.