Trust
Celestia glanced around her study. She was alone at last and had been so for about an hour. Instead of screaming out her frustrations she contented herself with lighting some wood in the fireplace. This time "lighting" was more like "throwing a giant ball of fire at it". Those taxes! They were just... so boring! She had employees to do these kinds of tedious tasks.
Yes, for some strange reason, Luna loved to do this stuff. But Celestia had decided to do it herself this time. Now, five hours later, she was starting to regret this. She had tried it just to see what Luna saw in it, but she had totally failed. She just couldn’t understand why Luna enjoyed it! But at least Celestia accomplished something - she found out that taxes in Appleloosa needed to be cut and that some rich families tried to avoid taxation.
The sun princess decided to take a break. Only a few hours remained before she had to set the sun. It was not a good idea to do that when she was in a bad mood. She hadn’t received any friendship reports from Twilight in a while nor any intel from her Ponyville spy, Pinkie Pie. Celestia had her doubts about using her at first. But after the pink earth mare had busted the three royal spies she sent she just decided to tell Pinkie everything and, for some reason, she ended up hiring her.
Because Pinkie was expected to act odd, she was the perfect spy. The "Pinkie Pie" promise assured she would never tell Twilight or any of her friends. Unless, as Celestia herself had clarified, that information absolutely had to be revealed to avoid a certain death situation.
Now, what to do? Maybe a relaxing bath would help... or she could spy on Twilight herself. Even better she could fly there, share some time with her faithful student and... No, she couldn’t do that! A quick flight over the town to ensure everything was going well was one thing, but if she planned to stay things would get... complicated.
"Ok, two hours, thirty minutes until sunset... I wonder if Luna is awake," Celestia thought. She walked to Luna's chamber and gently knocked on the door. While Celestia was a bit of a prankster, one joke she'd never do was to wake up Luna by surprise. "Luna, Sister, aren’t you awake yet?" No answer, Luna must still be asleep. Only two hours, twenty-one minutes till sunset. Being the sun goddess, Celestia had a perfect sense of time during the daytime. She was a perfect, living sun clock that worked even when the sun was covered with clouds.
And right now, she was a perfectly bored living sun clock. She decided to not annoy her sister and take a relaxing bath instead.
"Oh, poor Princess Celestia, she wants to take a much needed bath. Will Her Highness have to do it by herself?" Celestia said in a half mocking tone. And she waited.
A dozen servants quickly appeared. They had been avoiding her because she had asked to not be disturbed before she had started her work on the taxes,
Meanwhile...
In Ponyville's library, Spike the dragon had just finished organizing and putting away all the new books that had been received that day. Princess Luna was drinking tea with the unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle.
"So, let me get this straight. You left without telling your sister. And after you raise the moon you want me to do a complicated spell that will lower your powers and turn you into a regular unicorn for a few hours?" Twilight said, not liking where this was going.
"Yes, that is the general idea. But don’t worry, I will prepare everything. All you need is to channel your magic in the mystical circle I will draw, and I will do the rest."
"Princess... I... I don't feel very comfortable doing this. I am flattered you trust me enough to have me perform such a complicated spell. But first of all, I really think you should tell your sister about this, and second, if things go wrong, I... I don’t want to be banished to the Everfree Forest!" Twilight Sparkle replied.
"Miss Twilight Sparkle, if anything goes wrong, I will take all responsibility. And you will be with me!" Luna reassured her.
"What?" Twilight screamed. "You mean I am going to be walking you around Ponyville, pretending you are a mare I know from Canterlot or something like that? Well, it’s not like I never wanted to spend some time with you but..."
"Something like that will be just fine. Besides, as I will provide much of the magic for the spell, it won’t be much different from the simple spells you have in one of your books. Or at least, not more complicated than giving wings to your friend Rarity."
"You know about that? Eh, of course you know! May I ask why you are doing all this?"
"For fun, and being a regular pony for a few hours will help me to understand how mortals see things. I can do it on my own, but it would be cheating because I’d just be holding back and pretending to be normal. With the spell active I won’t have any other choice but to just be a unicorn for a few hours. Besides, I might think about tutoring you if you do this small favor for me. " Princess Luna looked at Twilight’s eyes, smiling.
"Are you bribing me with private lessons in exchange for doing a spell that will make you a regular unicorn for a few hours? Any reason you can’t do the spell alone?"
"Because if things go wrong, only the caster will be able to easily undo the spell. And if I cast the spell, even my sister would have trouble undoing it. If you are the one that does the spell, things will just be less risky."
"So, on one hoof, you praise my talent with magic and in the other, you said you picked me because I am weak?" Twilight said, then covered her mouth with her hoof "I... I am really sorry Princess! I didn’t... I..."
"It’s okay, I just cast a sincerity spell to know if you would do this on your own, and not only because I asked you. Now, it doesn’t have to be today and I bet your friend Pinkie Pie is tired of being frozen as a statue. Bye, Miss Twilight, I must leave now."
"You... did... what to Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asked, enraged. "Just because you are Celestia's sister doesn’t mean you can... dammit! The spell is still going on, right?"
"Goodbye, Miss Twilight. And don't worry, as soon as I leave your friend will be fine," Luna said before leaving the library and a confused unicorn behind.
After sunset the moon was raised and after all the stars were in place Luna went to her sister’s bedroom. She knew Celestia wouldn’t go to bed for another two hours, and she felt like they really needed to talk.
"Tia... we need to talk," Luna said softly. The bedroom door opened and the gentle face of Celestia greeted her.
"Now? What could we possibly talk about? How you sneaked out without telling me? Or maybe how you turned Pinkie Pie into a living statue until you left Ponyville? I don't really think we have anything to talk about."
"This is exactly what we have to talk about! We are supposed to rule together, like we used to. But since I... came back, I can’t go anywhere or do anything without you spying on me! Why won’t you trust me?"
The sun princess stared at her sister for a moment before moving out of the way. "Ok, come inside." Once Luna got into the room, she closed the door.
"Luna, I could go on and on saying I just look out for you. Oh, I could say many things. But I am tired of lies and manipulations. I need somepony I can talk to, and if I can’t do that with my own sister, I will start to go nuts!"
"Wow, you... are... being honest?" Luna said, shocked.
“We are family, right?” Celestia said and hugged her sister, for a moment Luna let her big sis hug her, but then moved away.
“Tia... no, Celestia. What is going on? You are not only spying on me, but also on Twilight and her friends, why don’t you trust her?” Luna asked. “I... I know I don’t deserve to be trusted. But she and her friends, that’s different.”
“Well, I do trust Twilight. But... Twilight is becoming famous, ponies everywhere are starting to know that my best pupil, one that I hold close to my heart, hangs around pretty much unprotected in a small town.”
Luna’s eyes opened wide. “What? But this era seems so peaceful, are you saying you... we... still have enemies capable of killing those we love?”
“I am sorry to say that yes, we still have enemies capable of doing that. But don’t worry, from now on there will be no secrets between us. I tried to ignore it, but you have lost your innocence. Now, how do you feel about Twilight?”
“She is a nice mare. The first time we met, she was so nervous about messing up that it was kind of funny. But now we are starting to become as close as a high-class pony and one of the two rulers of Equestria can be. Why?”
“Would you kill to protect her?” Celestia asked. Luna looked at her sister, eyes shocked. She wasn’t joking; Celestia didn’t have the sly smile she had when she was joking.
“I... I don’t know. We aren’t that close and even as Nightmare Moon... I never killed anypony. Maybe I have killed some bugs by accident, but that was it.”
“Luna, I don’t like it, but my hooves are covered with blood,” Celestia said, and for a moment Luna saw her sister covered with blood, her eyes full of rage. That really scared her, thankfully the vision soon faded away.
“Sister... I... I didn’t know you had to... kill,” Luna said, shocked. “So, that’s why... you lied to me. You tried to preserve my innocence... and I... I ruined it!” Luna started to cry, finally realizing what Celestia had done for her and Equestria. She had been so selfish, complaining about ponies not admiring her beautiful night when her sister was getting her hooves dirty so Luna didn’t have to.
Celestia stepped closer to her sister, but Luna moved away.
“Tia... does this mean that someday... I will have to kill? Even when I was Nightmare Moon, I didn’t face anypony with the intention of killing. In fact when... one of them almost fell off a cliff, a small part of me felt horrified,” Luna said.
Celestia’s eyes focused on Luna, Luna could see her sister crying. That was quite a shock for Luna, especially since she couldn't recall ever seeing her sister doing that, not since they were little fillies.
“Luna, there will come a time when you will have to fight to protect this kingdom and those you love. It won’t be easy,” Celestia said and hugged her sister, this time Luna hugged back.
“I... I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to become... her again,” Luna cried. “The elements of harmony purified my heart... just so that it could get corrupt again?”
“Luna, part of ruling a kingdom is making difficult decisions. I tried to protect you, like any good sister would, and I would have liked to preserve your innocence a bit longer. But... the time has come for you to start learning what it truly means to be one of the two rulers of Equestria.”
Celestia’s words were kind and sad; her mane stopped moving, turning pink.
“Your mane is... normal?” Luna said and then nuzzled her sister gently “But you HATE pink. I only ever saw it like that when you were sleeping, and sometimes, not even during your sleep”
“I know you like pink a lot, dear sister,” Celestia said, smiling.
“No, I don’t, not anymore, but... thanks.”
Luna knew that despite some illustrations in old fairy books showing her sister as pink, most ponies of this era probably didn’t know what her real mane looked like.
“So, will you trust me now? No more spies?” Luna asked, fearing the answer.
“Well, I can’t leave you unprotected; you are still my little sister!” Celestia said and started to tickle Luna.
“Hahaha, stop that, we aren’t fillies anymore!” Luna startled to tickle back, and soon, both sisters were having a pillow fight, just like old times.
After all the pillows had been destroyed, both alicorns ended up flopping over the huge bed close to each other.
“We... we haven’t played like that in...” Luna said, staring at the roof.
“Thousands of years...” Celestia said, a bit surprised herself, as, for the first time in a very long time, she had done something without planning it in advance. “It sure helped to break the ice.”
“Yeah... Celestia, Twilight Sparkle your faithful student... she really has potential, did you make her or something?” Luna said, in a more serious tone.
“Well, if by making her you mean manipulating the unicorn clans and inspiring a bit of racism to make it less likely for a unicorn to not marry a nonunicorn... Yes I did.”
“A bit of racism? I have read the records of that time. Things did get ugly for a time...”
“Well, it took a few hundred years longer than I had planned, but I got you back, right?” Celestia said, a smug smile on her face.
“Are you drunk?” Luna asked, surprised at how open Celestia was.
“Hay yeah, after five hours of tax paperwork I kind of needed it. But I am not drunk enough that I don’t realize what we are talking about. Damn, I think I am starting to feel sick...”
"Eh... should I leave now?" Luna asked. As it was night time, Luna had work to do. She worked during the night because she mostly slept through the day.
“Yes, if you want...“ Celestia said. “I might start doing crazy stuff unless I get some sleep. And... I hope you get a date someday...”
Luna blushed and quickly ran out of Celestia’s bedroom. Celestia looked around at the mess they had made. She smiled and then let herself fall into a deep sleep.