Loonie
The statue stood there in the middle of the battlefield and the chocolate-turned grass around it melted away beneath the sun that revealed it’s face above, leaving behind a large, ugly, brown patch of land in the middle of the crater. The two gazed at the statue, readying themselves for him to emerge out of it as if nothing happened, just the way he would always do it.
But Discord didn’t move. He wasn’t just coated in stone, like he had thought they would do, no, for all his crimes he had been turned into stone. Hopefully the rocks of the land wouldn’t put it against them later on, the younger princess thought. Her eyes looked at him. The great spirit of chaos was still in the midst of his mocking tune, he had probably thought to take it. Maybe he hadn’t even seen it coming.
She let her guard down and just inhaled deeply. For the first time in her life, she felt truly safe. The bright blue dyed moonmetal armor, as well as her parts of the Elements of Harmony that were embedded in it, glistened in the sun just like that wonderful starry mane of hers. She had felt powerful when they had finally understood what the elements were, but now they had defeated Discord...with Plan A. They weren’t just powerful, no...harmony had prevailed and no longer would he harm the ponies of this land. Not her or any other beast.
She looked down from the rock they stood on, gazing at the crater and the dragonequus-statue in the middle of it. Her thoughts were only broken when from behind them, a loud cheer shattered the silence that had come after the storm. The mare turned around immediately and found all the other freedom fighters along the ponies of Equestria. All who had been turned into diffferent species’, kinds of candy and whatever else, they had returned to their normal form. For the first time in hundreds of years Equestria was normal again.
There was Swift Arrow with his brown mane and red coat, yelling something incomprehensible like always. There was Baked Good, waving his giant spoon around in the air and Raincloud beside him, hovering a bit over the ground and cheering louder than any other pony. There stood Archmage Clover the Clever alongside Chancellor Smart Cookie and Commander Pansy, the leaders of the Equestrian Empire, staring in disbelief at the two young ponies who had achieved what none of them could have done and they, too, starting cheering after a few moments.
Luna did not know what to say or how to react to seeing everypony alive and well. It wasn’t just those she knew. There was an old pony, shrunk and wrinkled, she had never seen that one before but it filled her with joy to see that she had still seen the end of Discord’s reign. Then there was a family of five, a blue stallion and his green mare, their foals ranging over all the colors in-between. This was what the victory meant, they had saved all those lives.
The dark blue mare cried tears of joy at this moment, for this had been the reason why they had come here and they had made it happen. Her sister probably felt like that, too.
She turned around and looked at her.
The four-colored mane moving in a ghostly wind and a golden crown upon her head, standing taller than any other pony, she looked truly regal at this moment. Her white coat looked well in the light, like snow. Really, she looked like the perfect leader. Though Luna noticed, like always, the details. Her sister had that confident smirk on her face that told her that she hadn’t been prepared for this kind of moment herself. Her eyes were swelling with tears, too but her expression showed a bit pride at the achievement, too. Celestia had earned it, though. After all, defeating Discord in one go would go down in the history books forever.
She strode beside her sister and the cheering grew louder. Both fillies, no, they were mares now, looked at the ponies and waved at them. Then it happened, the fateful event. For a moment, Luna did not know what happened when the ponies swarmed them, but suddenly they were thrown into the air and the ponies below them yelled something. The little alicorn did not understand it at first but then it hit her.
“Princesses! Princesses! Princesses!”
The victors of the war against chaos, the first alicorns to appear in centuries and bringers of order, the day and night given form. The ponies had accepted them as saviors and now they accepted them as their sovereigns. Luna hadn’t expected that, she had expected a small thank you and then she and her sister would have been allowed to go.
She had always thought that defeating Discord had been their purpose but maybe the ponies needed guidance. She did not know. She never knew what to do under such circumstances.
“YEAH! PRINCESSES!” She suddenly heard Celestia yell at her. The mare giggled and threw her arms up to the sky, once more seeming like the child she had been back in the Everfree Castle. “I always wanted to be a princess. Loonie...” again with the nickname, “LET’S DO THIS!”
The ‘shout-while-only-using-your-normal-speech’-Spell - she really had to find a better name for it - overshadowed all the cheering but the ponies took the yes as such and the cheering somehow became even louder than it already was. Luna simply smiled. Tia was right, this might do. Maybe together they could pull it off and build a shining new era out of the ravages of the war.
As she was thrown up again, though, her gaze unwillingly fell at Discord once more, down in his crater, surrounded by chocolate-coated earth, one arm lifted to the sky and his mouth wide open as if in song. For a moment the world seemed to come to a halt and the mare was there, mid-air, looking at her life-long nemesis, the one she had sworn to defeat.
She remembered the days back in the Everfree Castle, she remembered the burning forests, she remembered the drums and the screams, the clouds of candy and ponies turning into the weirdest things and then, Discord's laughter. It was still there, in her head...And then that she realized that he wasn’t singing.
He still laughed at them.
-----
Luna hit her head against the table, yelling in anger, before she swiped the paper away. The princess tried to calm down but the heat irritated her to no end. How could her subjects enjoy this warmth? What was so wonderful about these temperatures? She didn’t get it. Her hooves scratched across the wood of her workplace. The mare concentrated her magic to generate a bit of wind in the room.
The next moment papers flew around, against her bed, out of the window, one even smacking across her face. The princess smashed her hoof onto the table and with a shout the papers all dissolved in blue flames.
She breathed heavily, watching the table without even blinking once. It took her a moment or two before she realized what she had just done.
The princess of the night looked at her room. How many thousands of plans had she made this year? Small things, big things, lots of smart things that would’ve helped everypony. And she had just incinerated everything... Worst of all, the room wasn’t even clean. Beneath the papers had been dolls she had ripped apart in anger, food she had never touched and so much dirt. It was a good thing her sense of smell had long since left her. Anyway, didn’t they have personnel for that?
Luna remembered, she had thrown that idiot out of the window when she had dared to disturb royalty. Princess Celestia had scolded her in front of everypony then, like she was the bad guy. There were rules to the world. She was the princess of the night, she was the dark and the light both. The night belonged to her...
She was Princess. Princess Luna. That’s what Princess Celestia always said, right? The one time she acted like it and it got her scolded like a filly.
The darkblue mare sighed and moved towards her bed, stepping carefully around the pieces that came from a glass she had broken in a fit of rage, and then let herself fall on the once so comfortable mattress. It felt hard, damp and drove the rage even further. So, she pulled a pillow unto her face and yelled into it. She did that, loud and long.
As she lifted the cushion from her face she said to herself, “What the hay am I getting angry for.”
The stuff she had just burned had all been rejected by her royal snootiness, the great empress Princess Celestia anyway. She had told her that she had everything under control, there was no need for those political abominations she called plans. Luna sighed, maybe she should just start a coup...
Her eyes widened, “No, no, no, no... Stop thinking like that, Luna.”
As of late these kinds of thoughts had come easily to her. It had just started one day after she had visited the remnants of the short-lived project to help her subjects. Somepony had apparently thought it would be wiser to station soldiers in the Everfree to guard the new founded villages and Princess Celestia had agreed. That pony was as incompetent as a ruler as she was a bad sister. Truly, she hadn’t even listened to Luna’s side of the story. No, child abductions in the middle of the night, that was against the law. Royalty shouldn’t break the law.
She remembered the foal beneath the bridge. A foal, not a pony that would soon have a cutie mark but a foal. The image had burned itself into her mind and Celestia had told her that it had been wrong.
Luna had shouted at her and begged and cried but in the end the foals had been sent to ‘their respectve homes’, which apparently referred to the run down buildings that the elder of Ponyville had defined as ‘appropriate’.
The dreams didn’t help. As of late she had slept badly through the days. Even when she tried to rest she would just dream of Discord, the war and the foal under the bridge. She had read books about how these things were called but she had dismissed them. The Nightmares had died out a long time ago.
Even so she was abandoned, left alone by everypony. She once had friends who would’ve helped her but they had died and their children and their children’s children, even her new friends had died. While Princess Celestia had her wonderful court, Luna had the stars and they didn’t speak, they couldn’t aid her. The filly didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore.
I, of course, the voice whispered, but Luna didn’t listen this time, she just stared at the ceiling. She had cancelled the magic, she didn’t want to see the outside, she didn’t want to see the night or the nightsky.
Everypony was probably asleep. Only one night of the year they would spend awake. The Summer Sun Celebration they called it. They didn’t stay up for the stars or the moon or the striving meteors but the light of the sun at the end of it. They thought that the sun was better than the moon nowadays. No, they always had.
Tia hadn’t, but Tia was gone now, probably forever. Luna sighed. She remembered the bold pony with the pink mane who would have faced the lord of chaos alone and probably would’ve won. She missed her.
Instead the realm had Princess Celestia. After Luna’s initiative to make the council’s word powerless in court, she and Tia had taken over the steering wheel and the land had started thriving like never before. The council now took care of the small things the ponies came for and Celestia and Luna could both do what they were meant to do.
In the beginning it had gone so well, too. Manehatten had been started to be built and they had started with the paving of the roads between the largest cities. She had even finally gotten through to Tia to check on the Flutterponies, since it had been a long time since they had last heard of them. The council had obstructed that notion, as they had obstructed to anything that could challenge the Status Quo.
Yeah, Luna remembered, for forty years it had gone wonderful, then came that one Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.
“Princess Luna,” she had said, after she had heard the younger princess giggle at the narrators mispronounciation of the word ‘Windigo’, “We’re royalty, we do not giggle like foals.”
She had no idea what had happened but Tia’s smile vanished once more. Not because she was tired but...royalty.
Later she would tell Luna, “There are rules at court which we have to keep, we are bound to our position.” And bound her royal snootiness was.Because Luna didn’t style her hair in the latest fashions Celestia would confine her to her room. Because she didn’t move her behind the right way Princess Celestia had declined her to visit the orphanages to check on the ponies. Because she had ideas that weren’t ‘agreeable’ with the ‘nobility’ Princess Celestia refused her council.
Yes, Princess Celestia refused her council. They had grown so distant over the years.
Good old Tendertwig, the royal gardener, had laughed at that notion but at one point, when she was busy working on the old carrot patch, she told Luna: “The court rules developed kinda unexpected over the last decade. They even got rules how to sneeze right now, darn fools. The princess was against it in the beginning but bowed to it, since they wouldn’t take her seriously afterwards and it snowballed from there. You’ve got to understand, she always tries her best to adjust.”
Luna hadn’t understood, she didn’t now. She would never understand what had happened because there was no court at night. There was only the princess called Luna, the lonely princess and maybe her loyal guards.
After the council had been depowered she had thrown out most of her old guard and replaced them with ponies who cherished the night as much as she did. It hadn’t taken much to notice that the night guard now consisted of less than half the ponies the solar guard had.
Tia had been taken over by Princess Celestia, the ponies only saw the night as the time to sleep and to rest, her loyal guard were too few souls and outside there were still ponies out on the streets.
Luna looked at the pillow again, the anger rose again. I would be able to change all that, she thought, If Princess Celestia will not listen to me, then I shall make her listen. I am in possession of half the elements and with the surprise on my side, I have enough strength to take the kingdom.
Luna looked at the pillow and suddenly started to smirk. The smirk turned into a smile. That smile transformed into a giggle which then turned into laughter. It only took a few seconds for Luna to roll around the bed, tears streaming from her eyes.
She stopped her laughter immediately after a few moments. “Heavens help me,” she said in a hollow voice.
What the realm needed wasn’t a coup d’etat, especially when the two involved were sisters. Luna stood up and went over to the mirror she had broken in a fit of rage a few days ago. The shards of glass still were on the ground. Nopony had entered her room since the incident with the cleaning-pony.
Luna looked at herself in the shards. She could roughly make out that her coat had turned into an even darker shade of blue and her pupils had changed a bit. She figured it was from sleep deprivation and lack of care. With all those boiling emotions she couldn’t really do much but throw tantrums. If she didn’t, she threw ponies out of windows, or bathtubs.
Worst, she wouldn’t even feel bad about it. There was a joy in destruction nowadays and that scared her, because sometimes, in the dreams she would stand in Discords palace, before him on his mighty throne. Tia was on the ground. Not Princess Celestia but the bold filly with the pink mane, wounded and without hope, looking up to her.
In the dreams she always spoke with such anguish, “Help me...Loonie.”
She lifted her hooves, Discord started laughing and then she hit the broken and hurt Tia. Just once and just in the moment Tia opened her mouth to scream, the princess would wake up, crying and scared. Nopony ever came to comfort her.
Luna had tried to figure out a way to stop all of this. The bad dreams and Princess Celestia, the ponies without home and the rules of the court. She had come to but one conclusion. She needed to fix only one thing and from there everything would be fine again. She couldn’t return to the days at the Everfree Castle, buildings snow ponies and pranking the caretakers. She knew that but that had been the time both of them had been happy. She needed to talk get through to Tia. Tia would understand, she could make Princess Celestia go away and fix all the bad things. Bold Tia with her confident smirk and her mane always full of mud and dirt and branches. Yes, she could save everythng.
Then Luna stood before the door of her room and pondered for one more moment, asking herself wether she should wear her crown. Princess Celestia hardly ever allowed her to walk about without it. That thought was enough to swoon her. If she wanted to talk to Princess Celestia she’d wear a crown but this beef she had with Tia and she would don nothing but the truth for this occasion.
The night outside was dark and cloudy. Luna hadn’t scheduled any rainclouds but of course Princess Celestia had changed the schedule. “It shouldn’t rain on the Summer Sun Celebration,” she had told Luna when she had marched into court midday after she had found out her plans had been messed with.
At least she had finally gotten to use the ‘Royal Canterlot Voice’ on Commander Windspike. That foal had thought to joke about her. Hurricane and Pansy would have never done that. It had felt good, somehow. She had been half-asleep and angry as the warden of Tartarus and when she had turned up the volume the dear Commander had immediately lost his wit and had run out of the throne room. For a moment then, Tia had come back.
This night, too. She’d jump up and down on her sister’s bed if need be. She’d get her to listen. She had to.
One of her guards got her out of her thoughts. The grey coated mare named Snowflower, she had wondrous white hair and her eyes reminded Luna of a batpony.
“Lady Luna,” the armored mare greeted. Luna had begged them to stop calling her princess, with all the stuff she had to put up with that title left a really bad taste in her mouth but since they still felt the need to give her some form of a proper title every guard now called her ‘Lady’.
“Snowflower, had I not ordered you to see that our citizens sleep well tonight?” the princess asked curiously. She used most of her nightguard to protect the realm. She never had needed a personal guard and she didn’t want one either. Discords ‘Dastardly Damagers’, still hung about her and she always felt that guards should serve the realm and not it’s rulers.
“Well, your sis’ insisted that we protect you. She said she didn’t want you to leave and go steal children,” Snowflower said half-joking. Luna’s look let her smile disappear, “She probably meant that they’re done cleaning the streets up and you didn’t need to-”
“If I’d steal children,” Luna asked, looking to the grounds, her voice hollow again, “would you really stop me?”
She had thought that Snowflower would need a moment but the pegasus instead gave her an answer she hadn’t expected: “You’ve done so much for the realm and I have never seen another pony give up as much as you for Equestria. My lady, I vowed to serve you and I shall keep these vows and oaths of mine without regret for whatever you do, it would serve the realm.”
I could do it. They’re loyal to me. One order and then I could save the realm, the voice whispered in her head but Luna just smiled a smile of dignity.
“Thank you, Snowflower. I hope you are right in your conviction,” she said before turning to the colorful corridors of Canterlot. They were the last good thing about this place, really. Whenever she found the respite of a lone night she could just walk down the palace for hours.
For example, when she went down from her tower she came down to a long floor, one one side were windows from which one could see the entirety of the royal garden. The stone statues stood there, each one with a history of it’s own. Some were funny, some sad, some inspiring and some even terrifying. She knew all of them, of course. The maze could be seen, too. She remembered it to be Tendertwig’s greatest achievement. In the middle there was a well and on the inside was the true story of the ‘stealing of children’ Luna had committed.
She missed sweet Tendertwig.
As she walked past the first window, where she saw all that, her gaze went over to the other side. A pony of earth brown and grass green looked her in the eyes, a bright grin with crooked teeth and an incredibly silly felt hat adorned with feathers from every bird in the Everfree Forest. The princess stopped before the picture and looked at it. Tendertwig never had cared much for her teeth but she had been honest about it, too. When the artist had wanted to give her white teeth on the picture, she had told him off. She had been honest like that even towards those who proclaimed themselves ‘nobility’ somepony had then wanted her head and found himself down on the street of Canterlot with a letter saying ‘Thanks for the good work’ and all his lands and titles gone.
Nowadays Princess Celestia ruled so she wasn’t sure whether the outcome would be the same. Luna moved on.
She stopped in front of every picture on the long walk, the way she had done it the first time she had walked down here the first time. There were pictures of important ponies, like Chancellor Puddinghead, the self-named ‘greatest thinker of all time’. Luna had never known her but from what she had heard from Smart Cookie, Puddinghead certainly had been a pony of ideas. The other founders of Equestria were on the same picture, each having a hoof on Puddingheads shoulder, like true friends. Hurricane had been a hard pony throughout her life but the life in Equestria had taught her laughing, on the picture she looked like a kindly old lady. Platinum stared right into Luna. The unicorn princesses were of the same lineage as the princesses she had heard.
“Are you supporting me, or my sister, Platinum?” she asked but of course, the fabulous painting of the pony didn’t answer, so Luna moved on.
The next picture that triggered a memory was when she halted before the picture of a fierce looking griffon. He had black headfeathers with grey tips on the edges, where his orange and black striped fur was. His golden eyes looked so brave and daring. Luna couldn’t help but smile a bit. Gerald von Windzipfel had been the first ambassador sent by the griffons, he had come in their times of need and during the beginning of...well, the dreams.
He had always been like that, just as he was depicted in the picture, posing and looking brave, while in truth he had been a true noble. He hadn’t thought himself above anypony and had shared his meals gladly with the strangers. It had been his notion to open a united Flight School.
She needed to be brave now, too.
After the long corridor there came the castle. Painted in gold and rose and white, with floors of red and ceilings colored in the changing colors of the sky it was truly a place she could feel proud to call her home. The spires she walked past had golden vines emblazoned on them, while stories were painted on the floor of another hallway. The whole thing was a marvel to look at.
Then finally she opened a side-door which lead to the greatest hall in all of Equestria. A giant room with place enough to fit in thousands of ponies. The windows were made of stained glass and a giant red carpet with golden edges laid on the floor. Truth be told, if Equestria had anything grand, it was this hall.
And outside ponies froze in the cold of winter.
Luna scoffed. She hated this place so much. If she would rule, she’d change it. She would make everything right. She shook her head again, the voice really got to her. She had to be quick, before she lost her mind completely.
She moved past the giant columns that held the ceiling and unto the red carpet. She had to get across and through the other door. Her sister surely slept. She looked towards the front gate, noticing that there were no guards. The pony princess frowned, adjusting the patrols was one thing butif she had the gall to throw her guards out...No, even Princess Celestia wouldn’t do that.
The spark was still there. As long as it remained everything could be saved.
Halfway through she heard something from the other side and halted immediately. Turning her head she found Princess Celestia sitting on the throne, looking down on the blue pony.
“Princess Luna,” she called in the royal Canterlot Voice. Her mane was done in one of those extremely elaborate hairdos and a golden crown adorned her head. Luna could spot that and all the other golden pieces of jewellery from across the room. Still, she moved towards her sister.
Celestia wore a fine dress, rose colored with puffed sleeves and a whole lot of laces, it’s edges embellished with sapphires, smaragds and rubies, Luna figured it to be one of her sister’s simple one’s. Still, laces had never suited the tomboyish Tia.
She felt the anger rising by the time she reached the steps of the throne. Princess Celestia wasn’t just looking down on her from her throne, no, she was looking down from whatever elevated moral position she felt herself on. Was it too late to talk to Tia?
“You’re not asleep,” Luna said flatly.
“And you left your room, without your crown and smelling like a peasant,” Celestia threw back.
Luna raised an eyebrow, “That supposed to be an insult?”
Celestia looked sternly at her, “This is the throne room, it’s in the palace.” Luna rolled her eyes, exactly knowing where this was going and so it did, as Celestia continued: “We are the royalty and nobility expects us to behave as examples to them by-”
“insulting the ponies that grow the food for our table?” Luna interrupted sarcastically, the anger rising, “If so, then I have an even better idea. How about you call upon every pony in the country and call them bad names in front of the entire court. These ponies here would certainly love you for it.”
Now it was upon Celestia to rise up in anger, “They are our nobility!” she shouted. Luna looked grim at her sister. Tia had always been quick to anger.
“Nobility? What nobility?” Luna asked, “When I handed my plans to rebuild Ol’ Pegasus to the ‘Grand Baron Lord Marshall’ or however he calls himself now he simply laughed and threw them away!” she shouted, using the full capacity of the royal voice, the ground shook beneath her feet and in the gardens, birds started chirping. She had probably awoken the entire castle.
Compose yourself, Luna, she told herself, inhaling deeply. Even Celesita looked taken aback, although she regained her posture.
“Ponies build cities during the day,” she then said, “they sleep at night. You should just tend to the stars.”
The sisters looked at each other for a moment. Luna’s eyes widened, her mouth threw itself open but no words came out. What had her sister just said? What had the sweet Celestia just said?
“Y-you,” Luna started. The anger was rising.
“You heard me, Princess Luna,” Don’t call me Princess, “You may go to your room now.”
Celestia stood up and moved down the stairs, with that graceful royal canterlot stride and walked past Luna, “Good Night.”
The blue princess stared into the nothingness. Was everything lost? Had she just lost her last chance? What had happened with Celestia? Why wouldn’t she listen. Sweet Tia, the little bold tomcolt with the pink mane, always in the mud, always on the front. She needed to get through to her.
She’s lost, fallen to her own court. Only I can save Equestria now.
“TIA!” she yelled and turned towards her sister who was meters away now, “Did you forget why we’re doing this? We became the princesses of this realm to help the ponies build a working world for themselves. We always worked together. When you were at you lowest I covered for you, but I still heeded your wishes when you spoke to me. I still listened to you. When that council lied to you, I tried to fix it, in both our names. I didn’t steal those foals back then. There was a foal beneath a bridge, broken and abandoned, with snow covering it’s coat.
“Celestia, this realm... Equestria is rotten to the core, these nobleponies here in Canterlot rule only for their own benefit, you’ve got to see that. The true nobility always lied with ponies themselves, and not their blood or inheritance and true harmony can only be achieved by those who work towards it. You’ve got to stop listening to them and start listening to me. Tia, please.”
Celestia didn’t look back, for a second she flinched, though. For that one second, Luna believed her Tia was back, everything would be fixed, the voice would vanish, everything would be fine.
“Do not slander my court. You think you’re smart, you think you’re kind but you’re neither. You lie, you cheat and you break everypony that comes close to me,” Celestia said, stone cold, “If you have nothing but filth and lies and stink, then leave my Equestria.”
My Equestria.
Celestia left Luna alone in the throne room and the blue mare sat down on the edge of the throne, breaking down in tears.
She turned mad and sooner rather than later everypony will pay the price, I have got to stop this. I need to fix this. If Tia is not coming back, then I have to do this on my own.
The voice didn’t sound sad, Luna didn’t feel sad, she felt the anger boiling.
She breathed in and looked at the ground before her. The carpet was red. A bad color. Luna needed to do something, she didn’t know what would happen next. She needed to act fast, since this would soon go completely out of control. She knew she could still save Equestria.
Luna stood up, knowing how ragged and weak she must’ve looked but she didn’t care. There was a fire burning inside of her and she just knew she could do it. She strode past the decors, past the garden, past the pictures, ignoring all, until she met with Snowflower before the staircase.
“Milady,” the grey pony said, looking worried as she saw Luna approach, “What happened?”
“It’s all worse than I expected. Is the Nightguard loyal to me as you are?” she asked.
“I-I think so...Why?” Luna saw the look on the pony’s face and now she noticed how different it looked from the one of a warrior during Discord’s reign.
“Snowflower, I think the members of the court are manipulating my sister. It could just be years of whispering in her ears or even foul magic,” she confessed, the guards expression turning from unwitting to outright shocked, “I need you, Snowflower to tell my guards and I will send letters to lords whom I trust. We need to be ready by the Summer Sun Celebration.”
“For what, Luna?”
“Our Coup D’Etat.”