In the Pale Moonlight

Chapters

Luna Prima
Luna Crescens
Luna Dimidia
Luna Gibbos
Luna Plena

Luna Prima

A gentle wind swept through the dark, chilled night. The only sound that could be heard was the rustling and shifting of the world beneath as the moon hung low in its midnight perch, surrounded by the twinkling of brilliant stars of all colors and hues.

A soft blue aura engulfed a handful of stars and plucked them right from the sky. Rarity brought the glowing lights before her eyes and scrutinized them. She turned back to her latest project with a deep hum of thought. The pitch black evening gown and its companion cavalier hat flowed around her mannequin in the silent breeze.

Her brow furrowed as she put the stars up to her model’s neck, a string of the night sky weaving through them into a necklace. Their glow flickered out to reveal a string of sparkling sapphires.

“No, no, that’s not right,” she said with a shake of her head. “Rubies would go with her eyes much better.” The gemstones turned from midnight blue to crimson red. “There we go,” she said with a smile and a nod. “Now what to do with that hat…?”

After a few moments of thought she let herself sink from the sky above to the ground below. She hovered inches from the ground as she perused the selection of feathers of all colors sprouting from it like grass. “No, no, no, no… maybe?” She magically lifted a peacock feather from the velvet earth and looked it over. “The mare is awfully full of herself, and she does like vibrant colors…” She furrowed her brow before tossing it aside. “No, wouldn’t fit with the rubies. Though I have no doubt she would get a kick from all the puns she could wring out of it. Cardinal might be better.”

She plucked a cardinal feather, scrubbed of its murkier tones and left a bright, candy red, from the ground and examined it. “Then again… she does love her sunglasses. Would she even take them off during a formal affair? In which case, maybe I should be coordinating the colors with her mane instead… hrm, decisions, decisions.”

Rarity looked between the two for a few moments before clapping her hooves together with a happy gasp. “I’ve got it!” She swept over the sea of plumage and plucked out a single parrot feather, in all its vibrant reds and greens and blues. “A bit gaudy, but she isn’t known for modesty or subtlety.” She let out a curt whistle, and within moments her mannequin had galloped up to her side. The parrot feather slid into place in the cavalier hat’s band. Rarity allowed herself a little satisfied sigh for a tasteful decision made, but went right back to concentrating as she scrutinized the dress. “Now, what pattern on earth would be appropriate here…?”

“Miss Rarity?”

“Yes yes, one moment, I’m in the middle of-” Rarity bit her lip and looked over her shoulder to see the tall figure of a certain midnight blue alicorn sitting behind her, the demi-goddess’ mane flowing behind her like her own personal night sky. “Your majesty!” She almost stumbled over her legs as she turned around and lay her front end to the ground in a bow, her mannequin mimicking the gesture. “So sorry; I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t… okay, the fact that anyone else was speaking in my dreams should’ve tipped me off, but I was quite distracted,” she gushed, trying to sound as dignified as she could as she groveled. “My deepest apologies.”

Rarity looked up and to her relief found the princess with a soft smile on her face. “I could tell. Though I must say, I am impressed that you can tell you’re in a dream at all. Ponies so often forget meaning, context, and basic logic when they fall asleep. I take it you’ve trained yourself to lucid dream?”

Rarity blushed softly as she stood upright and cleared her throat. “Yes, I have. Gives me more time to think and muse on my work. I was in the middle of a new commission just a moment ago, in fact.”

“So I see,” Luna said with a hint of the rumble of worry in her voice. “That’s actually why I decided to make my presence known, Miss Rarity. I-”

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Rarity fretted, her mannequin lowering its head in shame as she fussed over its wardrobe and pulled out the feather in its cap. “Oh, I knew I should’ve gone with the peacock feather! Where did I put it?”

Her panic was replaced with embarrassment when she heard her guest giggle, a toothy smirk on her muzzle. Her horn glowed with an aqua aura as she put the parrot feather back in place. “You’ve barely even started; it looks fine. Besides, it’s your artwork, not mine. Please, take a seat and relax; the velvet ground and feather grass is quite comfortable.”

A soft heat graced Rarity’s cheeks. She nodded and followed instructions, daintily sitting her plot down on the floor of her dreamscape.

“I’m here because I’ve noticed that your visits to my realm have become more erratic and shorter in length,” Luna continued. “I know you’re here in Canterlot on business, but I fear you may be working yourself into an early grave.”

“I appreciate the concern, your majesty, but I’m doing just fine,” she said. “I have many events to attend and even more orders to fill, is all. As an Element of Harmony and a friend of Fancy Pants himself, my time is in very high demand. Any gathering worth having has me on the guest list, and every pony who’s anypony wants my designs. This is the life I’ve always dreamed of!” By the time she’d finished gushing, she was positively beaming with stars sparkling in her eyes.

Luna’s smile diminished and she hummed in thought, taking a sledgehammer to Rarity’s enthusiasm. “Very well, if you think that’s best. I have one question, however: How many hours do you work or socialize a day lately?”

Rarity blinked as she added the hours in her head. She let out a nervous chuckle and admitted, “Eight…teen.”

“And judging by your sleeping patterns, you fall right into bed and fall asleep when you’re done,” the princess added. “And you spend those six hours dreaming about your work. Does that seem healthy to you, Miss Rarity?”

“Not in the strictest sense of the word, no,” she replied with a nervous smile, tapping the edges of her front hooves together. “But it hasn’t lead to any complications before, so I don’t see any reason to change.”

“Twilight sent a letter to my sister and I after your last trip to Canterlot outlining an incident where you fell asleep mid-word into your afternoon tea,” Luna said flatly.

“I…erm…well…” The fashionista sighed and flopped forward, the mannequin turning into a couch and catching her before she hit the ground. “Alright, alright, I don’t get enough sleep. I’ll try to clear up my schedule, your majesty.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem for tomorrow,” Luna said with a small smile.

Rarity looked up from her bed of melodrama and asked, “I beg your pardon?”

“Truth be told, I think you’re not only sleep deprived, but relaxation deprived,” she explained. “What do you normally do to relax?”

“I go to the spa with Fluttershy once a week, and… um…” She blinked and furrowed her brow with a frown. “Not much else, now that I think about it.”

“Precisely,” Luna said with a nod and a knowing smile very reminiscent of her sister. “And while you’re in Canterlot, Fluttershy is many leagues away. I propose that you cancel all your appointments tomorrow and simply take the day to relax.”

Rarity bit her lip. “Oh, your majesty, I’m not sure I can do that. There’s just so much to do, so many ponies to see, and-” She caught Luna looking at her with an “I told you so” raised eyebrow. “Alright, but still, what would I do with that time? I don’t exactly like going to the spa alone, and I don’t know the spas or the spa ponies here in Canterlot. Back home, Aloe and Lotus are very good friends of mine. I can’t imagine a day just doing… nothing.”

Luna hummed in thought, her head tilting ever so slightly. “Well, my sister has been urging me to take a day off as well. Though that’s akin to the ocean telling the sea to stop being so wet, I suppose I wouldn’t mind. Perhaps you’d like to spend the day with me?”

The heat that spread through Rarity’s face was not as gentle as before. “A day with you? I mean, of course I’d love to, your majesty, it’s no offense to you, but why me of all ponies?” she stumbled over herself. “I mean, you’re royalty, and I’m just… me. Don’t you have much more interesting things to do and ponies to spend time with?”

“You did say that anypony who was anypony wanted your time, right?” the princess chuckled. “I’ve spent some time getting to know Twilight’s other friends, but I’ve hardly gotten any time to get to know you properly. And if you think a whole day would be too much, then how about lunch and we’ll see what we feel up to from there?”

Rarity’s lips pursed and her brow furrowed as she weighed her options. On the one hoof, so much work to get done. On the other hoof, sweet Celestia a lunch date with royalty! But again on the other hoof, so much work!

Rarity took a deep breath. “It’s a date then, your majesty. What time and place?”

“I’ll make the arrangements later and send a messenger pegasus your way,” Luna said, her smile promoted to a small grin. “You get back to your musing; I have other dreamers to visit before the night ends. Sweet dreams.”

With a small flash of light, the mistress of the night was gone, leaving Rarity alone in her dreamscape once more. Her dream self had no heart in her chest, but she felt as if it were pounding away in there. She let out a sigh of relief and climbed off her fainting couch, which promptly turned back into her modeling mannequin. “Alright, let’s make the most of the rest of the night.” She looked her model over once more and sighed. “Now that I get a good look at it, I think black would make her plot look big… confound it all.”

“Sorry, excuse me, coming through, oh that’s a very nice dress, where did you- gah, no, late for a very important date, sorry!”

Such was the long string of apologies that Rarity spewed as she galloped down the halls of Canterlot Palace, weaving around, under, and sometimes over the guards, servants, and other guests. She heard many of them start to protest behind her before they realized who she was. Then they promptly apologized for being in her way. Being famous for all the right reasons had that perk.

After a leap over a patrolling guard and a slide under a maid that let out a Fluttershy-like squeak, Rarity skidded to a halt outside the double doors to her destination. The two bat pony guards flanking the doors looked the panting unicorn over with their reptilian eyes before the mare of the pair asked, “Miss Rarity, I presume?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she huffed, holding up a hoof. “One second.” Her horn glowed, her magic grabbing a brush and a hand mirror from her saddle bags. The two guards raised a brow to each other as she straightened her mane and tail with the efficiency of a veteran busybody. After she was satisfied that she didn’t look like she was in a panicked hurry, she took a deep breath and shot a charming smile at the pair. “Sorry. Let’s not keep the princess waiting any longer.”

The two shared another look, the colt’s look saying, “Mares,” and the mare’s saying, “I know, right,” before they pushed open the door with a rear hoof each.

Rarity trotted inside with as much poise as a mare who’d just done a thousand-yard dash across a crowded palace could muster, which in her case was the picture of pretention. What greeted her eyes was the sight of a room that could clearly hold ten ponies, but there was only a table large enough for one pony and an alicorn. Said alicorn looked up from a rather bulky book on her end of the table and greeted, “Good afternoon, Miss Rarity. Sleep well after our meeting?”

“A bit too well,” she said with a sigh as she approached the table across the stunningly smooth and luxurious midnight blue carpet. “Sorry for being so late; I only woke up a short while ago.”

Luna tilted her head before turning it toward an ancient looking brass clock. “You’re only five minutes late.”

“Fashionably late is for soirées, not for friends and royalty,” Rarity said as the doors closed behind her. “Do you mind if I take my saddlebags off?”

“Not at all; allow me.” Luna’s horn glowed, followed by the sudden loss of weight on Rarity’s back.

“Thank you, your majesty,” she said with a bow of her head as she sat on the available cushion. She glanced over to see her saddlebags get hung on a rack next to the door.

“Think naught of it,” Luna assured. “Very beautiful bags, by the way. One of your designs?”

Rarity beamed and nodded. “Naturally! It’s hard to make canvas look fashionable, even black canvas, but I think the gold embroidery did the trick. I even sewed on the five-pointed star of the Elements of Harmony myself.”

“A very natural choice,” Luna chuckled. “I think I may commission a design from you myself one of these days.”

Rarity’s eyes widened and sparkled. “Oh, I’d be honored, your majesty! Of course, you could simply request an outfit; I wouldn’t dream of charging you a single bit.”

“Please, call me Luna,” the princess insisted. “You did say we were friends, right?”

Rarity blinked. It took her longer than it should have to realize that Luna was referring to her comment on fashionable tardiness. “Why, of course,” she fibbed, trying not to be rude. “Any friend of Twilight’s is a friend of mine.”

Luna’s ears lowered and her lips took an earthward curve. “Yes, most of your other friends still haven’t quite warmed up to me, have they?”

The proverbial dropped piano of making the wrong conversation decision crashed on Rarity’s head. “They will eventually,” she said hastily. “Don’t you worry about that. We’re a really friendly sextet once you get to know us.”

“So I’ve heard from my sister and her letters from Miss Sparkle many times,” she said, her enthusiasm curbed as she levitated the book in front of her back onto the shelf. “Though I still have yet to forgive Miss Pie for making me think I was still horrifying to children in a bad way last Nightmare Night.”

“I love the mare to bits, but I must admit she isn’t the most… sensitive of ponies,” Rarity said with a sigh. “Or the most prudent. She is still sorry, you know, and I must say I’m terribly sorry on her behalf.”

Luna shook her head. “No need. You weren’t even there on Nightmare Night, if I recall. I take it you were busy?”

“I was actually on a date with a stallion by the name of Twilight Sky on the other side of town,” she admitted. “I didn’t hear that you’d visited until later.”

“Must have been pretty far on the other side of town,” Luna said with a raised eyebrow.

Rarity blushed. “We were kind of… preoccupied, in the kissing sense of the word.”

Luna giggled. “I’ve lived for generations; no need to be shy around me when it comes to romantic aspirations. How did it go?”

“The date went well. The relationship did not,” she huffed. “He was a very sweet colt until the second you disagree with him. Then he had his head rammed so far up his plot he could see up his own throat, pardon my crudity.”

“There will always be colts like that. I’ve met and dated a few in the past. You’re better off without him,” Luna assured.

Rarity opened her mouth to respond when an ominous rumbling cut her off. Her cheeks turned pink when she realized it was her stomach. “Erm, excuse me, your ma- I mean, Luna. I slept through breakfast.”

The alicorn giggled. “I think it’s time we get to the lunch part of this lunch date.” Her horn glowed, her aura picking up and ringing a little golden bell. Within seconds one of the castle’s staff cantered through a side door. She was a pretty young mare with an eye-catching electric blue mane tied into a braided ponytail that offset her dull grey coat.

“What can I get for you, your highness?” the servant asked with a bow.

“The usual for me,” Luna said with a small bow of her head in return. “Miss Rarity?”

Her stomach rumbled again. “I could eat a horse right about now,” she joked through her blush, “but a large salad with lilacs, forget-me-nots, and raspberry vinaigrette would be just lovely. Oh, and some apple cider, if you have any.”

“Of course, ma’am; we’ll have your food ready right away,” their server said with another bow before scurrying off.

“Now, what were you about to say, Miss Rarity?” Luna asked.

“Please, if you insist I call you Luna, I must insist in turn that you just call me Rarity,” she said with a wave of her foreleg. “I was just about to ask you to elaborate.”

“On what?” Luna asked.

“You said that you’ve dated a few stallions like that. I mean, you’ve lived so long you would at some point, but I admit I am curious about your romantic experience. Perhaps you would have some tips for a mare that’s not having any luck?” she asked hopefully.

Luna smiled, though it was a somber one. “Any advice I could give probably wouldn’t apply to this day and age. All of my courtship experience is from a time long gone.”

A second proverbial piano crashed on her head heavier than the first. “Really? I’m surprised you haven’t had many suitors yet. You’re the picture of beauty and very kind, eloquent, and elegant to match,” Rarity reassured.

“Thank you for the compliment,” Luna said, her smile growing a mite more relaxed, “but it’s not that I haven’t had many; it’s that I haven’t had any. Ponies aren’t exactly jumping at the chance to court the mare they’ve been taught since birth is lurking in their closets or under their beds.”

The proverbial pianos kept falling, loaded with bricks just to punish Rarity for being so careless. “I don’t have the authority to apologize on behalf of all of your subjects, but I am deeply sorry,” she apologized, hanging her head low in penance. “I’m sure an open-minded and kind hearted stallion will grace your doorstep someday.”

For the first time in the entire conversation, Luna broke eye contact. “Yes, of course…”

Rarity raised her head again and was about to question Luna’s hesitation when she was interrupted once more. Not by her stomach to her relief, but by their server waltzing in with their food balanced on her back. “Lunch is served, your majesty,” she chimed with a bright grin.

“Thank you, Silverpoint,” Luna nodded, levitating their food off her servant’s back and placing Rarity’s in front of her. “That will be all.”

“Enjoy your meal,” the mare said with another bow before leaving the two alone again.

“Thank you!” Rarity called after the servant girl before the door slipped shut. “She seems like a nice mare.”

“She’s my personal attendant; she was scared of me at first, but she’s warmed up to me more than most of the staff,” Luna said with a wistful smile. “Her passion is pencil art, but she works here to pay the bills.”

“Lucky for her; she has one of the best employers in all of Equestria,” Rarity giggled, raising her glass.

Luna smiled back and clinked her glass of what looked to be pink wine against Rarity’s before bringing it up to her lips. After a refined sip she said, “Thank you. But enough about me and my life; what’s going on in yours?”

“Not much aside from all the high-life soirées and commissions, and I’ve told you all about those,” Rarity said with a chuckle. “The details aren’t terribly interesting.”

“I doubt you’ve told me everything,” Luna said, taking a bite out of a fresh pear. “Who’s the commissioner of the piece you were working on in your dreams last night?”

Rarity hummed, taking a sip of her cider. “I’m really not supposed to tell, but as a princess I suppose you have state secrets to worry about, so a little secret like this won’t get out. Ever heard of Vinyl Scratch? Or ‘DJ PON-3’ as she’s called onstage.”

“I’ve heard of her, yes. Not sure if I like her music, or even if I can call it music,” she said hesitantly. “I never would have guessed that she’d be the type for such an elegant dress.”

“She isn’t; according to Octavia, trying to get her to wear any clothes at all is an uphill battle,” Rarity giggled before digging into her salad. “The dress is for Vinyl, but Octavia commissioned it. She wants an outfit that will fit in at a high-class function, yet be something that Vinyl would want to wear. It’s one of my more challenging commissions, to say the least.”

“Octavia von Clef, yes? The cello player?” Luna asked. “I’ve had her visit for a private performance a few times; very talented young mare. I never would have guessed that she would be friends with such a radically different performer.”

“Marefriends, actually,” Rarity corrected without really thinking.

Luna broke eye contact with her again, choosing instead to focus on her food as she ate it. “I see,” was all she managed to say.

For a while the only sound was the ticking of the clock and the chewing of produce. Rarity glanced around uncomfortably, trying to focus on the gorgeous mahogany walls and the many relics that adorned them. The princess seemed to have a love for frescoes, as many of the paintings on the wall were pictures of the night sky and twilit landscapes in that style. The centerpiece of the collection was a mounted stone mural of a stylized Discord fighting Luna and her sister in a clash of fire and arcane flash. After an eternity of perusing the art gallery with her eyes as she ate, she glanced back at the clock.

Only ten seconds had passed.

Unable to bear the silence, she took a deep breath and said, “Terribly sorry if that made you uncomfortable. I know you’re from a different time, but it didn’t occur to me that such a thing might still bother you.”

Luna raised a hoof and shook her head, looking Rarity in the eye again. “It doesn’t. I am from a different time, yes. Celestia and the public at large have changed their minds on many issues in the millennia I was gone. All the same, I have no qualms with such relationships. I was accepting of it long before my sister, in fact. It’s just that it wasn’t a topic brought up in polite company, so I really don’t know how to talk about it, if that makes sense.”

“No, I understand perfectly,” Rarity assured with a smile and a nod. “Some subjects are hard to discuss if you haven’t talked about them before. Just don’t be nervous about it and say whatever you would about a more traditional relationship; they really aren’t all that different.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Luna said with a courteous bow of her head. “Do you… speak from experience, if I may be so bold?”

Rarity didn’t have to look in a mirror to tell that her cheeks had turned fire-engine red. “Oh heavens no! Not that I wouldn’t. I mean, if I wanted to, if my stable door swung that way, but it doesn’t! I… I think I’ll stop talking before I say something offensive,” she muttered, looking away.

What came out of Luna’s mouth was something between a giggle and a cackle. “No, it’s perfectly fine; keep talking. You stumbling over your own hooves is quite amusing,” the princess teased with a Cheshire grin.

“The only reason I’m not telling you to hush is because I’d probably find myself hilarious too,” Rarity huffed, a smile tugging at her lips in spite of herself. “But no, I’m straight, though that isn’t exactly working out for me. I spent so many years pining after a dream date with Blueblood that I-”

“Wait, Prince Blueblood?” Luna cut in. “Tia’s brat of a great great grandnephew?”

“That’s the one,” she said with no shortage of venom.

“I apologize for that; Celestia can only parent her descendants so much,” Luna sighed. “Look at it this way: the fact that you realized what a twit he is and decided to leave him means that you’re not shallow and at least have a decent taste in stallions.”

The smile tugging at Rarity’s lips pulled them all the way up as she nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Luna.”

“Think naught of it,” Luna giggled.

“Who is Blueblood’s ancestor, by the way?” she pressed. “I must admit, I have to wonder how far the apple could’ve fallen from the tree.”

“Not by much, I’d imagine,” Luna said with a small snort. “Apparently his sire was a unicorn named Blue Rose over a century ago. It's royal custom to call our descendants past a few generations our nieces and nephews to preserve a virgin facade. Anyway, I naturally never met him, but though I love my sister to death, picking lovers that were good for her has never been her strong suit. In today’s slang, I guess you could say she has a thing for ‘bad boys.’”

“Really now? Though, we better move on before she somehow figures out we’re talking about her behind her back,” Rarity giggled in return through a sip of cider. “Besides, I don’t really have a good taste in stallions, I don’t think. After my disastrous date with Blueblood at the Gala, I didn’t know how to swim when that ship sank. I just hadn’t had a real date or a relationship before, and every sad attempt since has just been me floundering.” Rarity’s smile deflated as she looked at her reflection in her cider. “I’ve given up for the time being. I don’t have much time for a relationship as it is, anyway. The romance tree is bearing no fruit, so I’ll wait for it to be in season, as it were.”

She looked up to find Luna’s cyan eyes looking much more intensely into her own. It didn’t give off a look of hard scrutiny; it was much more like deep worry. “A wise policy, I’d say. But worry not; there will be someone for you, someday. You’re far too attractive, talented, hardworking, and kindhearted for someone worthy of your time not to come along.”

Rarity’s smile widened as a weight lifted off of her chest and mind she didn’t know was there. “Thank you very much.” She giggled and added, “Though I don’t know about suitors, as far as friends go I’d say you’re more than worth my time, Luna.” She raised her half-empty glass and tilted her head, her smile refusing to fade.

Luna smiled in return and clinked her own glass against her guest’s. “It’s an honor.”

Rarity pulled her glass back and gulped down the last of her cider. “Now, enough about me; what’s going on in your line of work?”

“Nothing I’d want to bore you with,” Luna said with a wave of her hoof. “It’s nothing but politics. What’s the point of living in a diarchy if a citizen like yourself can’t just let the diarch handle the political zoo?”

“No, please, go on. You let me have my time to speak; it’s only fair that I let you have yours,” Rarity insisted. “Besides, I know a thing or two about politics. Back when I actually had time to read, a lot of the romance novels I read were also political dramas.”

“Why anypony would want to read about what I have to handle every day for leisure, I don’t know,” Luna chuckled. “But I suppose, if you really want to know…”

And so Luna talked about the issues of her work day and the issues she was trying to work through, from the oil trade with Saddle Arabia to the threat of Egryph seceding from the dominion of the Griffon Confederacy. Rarity interrupted and voiced her input when she felt necessary, but beyond that she kept her mouth sealed. Not out of boredom; she just found the voice of the princess strangely… hypnotic. She just wanted to listen as much as she could.

Luna Crescens

Rarity’s horn glowed bright as she sat on the kitchen floor, her magic trafficking objects over her head. Various bottles of sauces and spices were shaken and splashed and dashed across the sizzling pan; milk cartons poured their load into glasses she’d chilled in the fridge beforehand; a peeler and knife worked in tandem to skin and slice fresh apples she’d bought from Applejack the night before. The coordination of so many tools left Rarity’s brow furrowed in obvious strain, but a satisfied smirk was splayed on her lips.

With the ding of her timer, the breakfast orchestration came to an end. “Sweetie Belle, breakfast is ready!” Rarity called, flipping their omelets onto their plates before setting the table.

“Coming!” her sister called back, followed by the sound of galloping hooves down the stairs. Sweetie pranced in, her fur and mane still damp from the shower as she sniffed the air. “Wow, that smells great! What’s the occasion, sis?”

“No occasion,” Rarity said with a giggle. “Just feeling industrious this morning.” She sat in her chair and smiled a bit wider as she saw the gears in her sister’s head turn to remember what ‘industrious’ meant.

When the gears finally clicked, Sweetie asked, “You sure? You’re looking very happy this morning.” She trotted up to her seat and climbed onto it, her hind legs flailing for a second to scramble on. “You’re almost never a morning pony!”

“Well, I have made some progress on a frankly brutal commission. Other than that, it’s the same as usual,” Rarity mused with a bite of apple slice. “Well, and Princess Luna paid me a short visit in my dreams last night, but that’s becoming standard.”

“Lucky, getting to talk to a princess,” Sweetie mumbled. Her melodramatic sulking was gone the instant she put a forkful of omelet in her mouth. “This tastes great! Who is he?”

Rarity’s eyes went wide and she almost gagged on her milk. “Wh-whatever do you mean?” she asked, lightly thumping her chest and setting her glass down.

“Well, you’re really happy and not grumpy, it’s morning, and your cooking is a lot better than usual,” Sweetie listed off. “You’ve also been really happy all over lately. This always happens a few days before you get a new coltfriend.”

“Am I really that obvious?” Rarity asked with a blush and a nervous smile. She shook her head and added, “Even if I am, that’s not the case. There really isn’t a stallion in my life right now. The only one I even talk to is Fancy Pants, and he’s dating Fleur Dis Lee.”

“Really?” Sweetie asked through a mouth full of egg with a raised eyebrow. “That’s too bad. I was hoping this one would be cute.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and was debating scolding her sister when the doorbell rang. “One moment!” she called out as she cantered to the front door.

Through the door’s window was the face of Derpy Hooves, her normal dopey grin firmly in place and her walleyed gaze not firm at all as she waved to Rarity. The moment the unicorn opened the door, she sang, “I brought you a letter!” She reached into her saddle bags and produced her delivery between her teeth.

“Thank you, Derpy,” Rarity said with a nod, taking the letter with her magic. “You could have just put it in my mailbox, though.”

Derpy shook her head. “Couldn’t; I got orders to make sure that you saw it ASAP.”

Rarity blinked and looked down at the envelope. “Any idea why?” She then spotted the seal, a three-pronged crown with a diamond-shaped amethyst embedded in the center. “Fancy Pants?”

“What’re pants?” Derpy asked, her head tilted and brow furrowed.

“Never you mind, Derpy,” Rarity said with a wave of her hoof as she set the letter down on a nearby table. “He’s just a friend of mine. How’re your girls doing?”

“They’re both doing fine. Dinky’s getting the hang of multiplication, and Sparkler started dating this really nice boy last week; he’s coming over for dinner tonight,” she said with the smile of a proud mother. “But I should get going; lots more letters to deliver.”

“Glad to hear; I’m sure Sparkler chose well,” Rarity said with a nod and a smile of her own. “Fly safe!”

“I’ll try not to break any windows this time!” the mailmare joked before flying off.

Rarity giggled as she closed the door and picked up her letter. “Now, I wonder…” She peeled the seal off and pulled the message out of its envelope. The cursive writing was flowing and sophisticated, but put more emphasis on the circles within the letters and the ending strokes; Fleur’s handiwork, not Fancy Pants’.

Dear Rarity,

I know you were planning on visiting Canterlot today and most surely have plans for the day, but I must insist that you clear your schedule up. You see, I am in dire need of a dress for an emergency I was going to lead you on, but I can’t stand it anymore; bottom line is that Fancy Pants finally proposed! I said yes, of course, and though we have yet to set a date for the wedding, I would like to coordinate with you on a wedding dress today. My husband-to-be decided that asking you to design both our outfits would be too much for you, so he asked another friend of his, but for my dress I really couldn’t dream of asking anyone other than you.

Enclosed in this letter is a roundtrip train ticket to Canterlot. I’ll be waiting at the Sugar and Spice Café at two o’ clock for your arrival. I know this is short notice and will require a lot of work, but you can expect at least a five digit paycheck for your trouble, deary. See you in Canterlot!

Your friend,

Fleur Dis Lee

Rarity’s horn sputtered out, letting gravity have its way with the letter. Her eye twitched. She calmly reached out and pulled her melodramatic fainting couch next to her.

She then proceeded to actually faint on it.

Her mane still somewhat wet from when her sister dumped a bucket of water on her face, Rarity read over the letter for the umpteenth time. "Five digits," she muttered to herself. "What could I possibly spend all that money on? Some of it is going into Sweetie Belle's trust fund, of course, but what in the world would I do with the rest...?"

Her thought process was ground to a halt as the train did, the screeching filling her ears as it pulled into the station. "Pulling into Canterlot Station," the speakers stated. The moment the train came to a complete stop, Rarity jumped off her seat and scrambled for the train doors. The other passengers seemed to beat her to it, causing a backup at the exit. Her instincts as a lady and as a busybody sparked as they told her to both wait patiently and rush past the slowpokes. The conflict went back and forth in her brain while she pranced in place behind the crowd. Her decision was heralded by a white blur rushing out the door and a bunch of disgruntled train goers knocked on their rears.

The streets went by in a blur of multicolored fur, protests from ponies pushed out of the way, and the murmurs of bystanders. Rarity could feel her ears burning already from the rumors that hadn’t even started spreading yet. Or she would, if her chest weren’t already on fire from her mad gallop over cobblestones that were doing no favors for her hooficure.

Rarity put the potential reputation and beauty damage to the back of her mind when she screeched to a halt around the corner from her destination. She took a minute or five to straighten out her mane again with her brush and mirror and catch her breath before calmly cantering into view of the Sugar and Spice Café. Fleur Dis Lee spotted her from her table under a gold and white striped awning and waved her over.

“Fashionably late?” Fleur’s silky smooth voice asked as Rarity trotted up with a giggle.

“Just plain late, I’m afraid,” she sighed with an apologetic smile. “Terribly sorry. I just had trouble getting started this morning.”

“No huge rush,” Fleur assured as she drank from the cup in front of her. “Please, sit down. I got you white tea, as always; don’t worry about the bill.”

Rarity nodded gratefully and took a seat across from her friend and set her saddlebags in an empty spot. “So, I believe congratulations are in order,” she said, her smile and tone taking on that of a giddy gossiping girl. “You’re finally engaged!”

“I know!” Fleur said with the exact same look. “I mean, I knew he would eventually, but he finally did!”

The two shared a celebratory squee and hugged each other over the table.

“Oh, you more than deserve it, Fleur,” Rarity said as she pulled away. “And you more than deserve the perfect dress for the perfect day. Have any ideas or requests in mind?”

“All business with you, no?” Fleur said with a chuckle. “Please, just relax for a while. I haven’t seen you in months.”

“I saw you on my last visit,” Rarity said with a raised brow.

Fleur waved a foreleg as if swatting a fly. “Oh, you know what I mean. I haven’t seen you outside of some party or another. We so rarely get to talk one-on-one these days, and you know how quiet I am in crowds.”

“Fine, fine, I admit, I haven’t had much free time lately,” Rarity sighed. “I’ve been caught up in my work for the past year, though I’m trying to not book myself so tight that the bindings come undone.”

“So I’ve heard,” Fleur purred with a smirk behind her teacup.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rarity asked, eyes narrowing and head tilting.

“Oh, just some things I’ve heard about what you’re spending your time on instead,” she said coyly with a flutter of her eyelashes.

“Don’t toy with me, Fleur,” Rarity said firmly, yet unable to keep from smiling at her innocent act. “What’s the grapevine saying this time?”

The older unicorn leaned in, her chin cradled in her hooves and her smirk only growing. “It says that you’re spending a suspicious amount of time with a certain Princess of the Night.”

“Luna? Well, yes, we are getting closer; I daresay she’s becoming a good friend,” Rarity said, her confusion plain as she took a long sip of her tea. “I fail to see what’s so suspicious about it, however.”

“The same way that two ponies spending a lot of time together is always suspicious in the gossip circles,” Fleur giggled. “They’re saying that you two are dating.”

Rarity gagged and covered her mouth with her napkin before her quite expensive tea sprayed all over the table. After taking a hard, painful swallow, she sputtered, “Wh-what?”

Fleur giggled harder, covering her mouth to avoid outright cackling. “Exactly what I said: word has escaped the palace that you two have been getting together a lot the past few months, with few other details. Everypony’s just filling in the blanks with steamy, scandalous details.”

“Well, I’d daresay that my personal life is none of the grapevine’s business,” she huffed, crossing her forelegs. “Just, the audacity!”

“You’re famous, Rarity; everything is the grapevine’s business,” Fleur said with a roll of her eyes. “And I’m not hearing a denial, deary. What I am seeing is a blush.”

The heat on her cheeks only intensified when she realized it was there. “That’s because I didn’t think I’d need to deny it. You know I’m straight; everypony knows I’m straight.”

“So is spaghetti until things get hot,” Fleur teased with a wink.

Rarity batted a hoof at her friend. “Oh, stop it! There’s nothing going on between us, hot, cold, or otherwise. I’ve retired from the dating scene for now anyway, and I plan on keeping it that way for a-”

“There you are!”

Rarity heard the familiar hiss of reforming mist behind her, along with every pony in sight bowing their heads to the ground. She slid from her chair and turned to see the Princess of the night herself before her, sans the alicorn’s ceremonial armor.

“Luna? What’re you doing here?” Rarity asked.

“I came looking for you, of course,” Luna said. “You were horribly late for our usual lunch date. You weren’t in your room at the palace tower, nor had the gate guards seen you enter, so I had feared something had happened to you.”

Rarity blinked right before her hoof met her face. “Oh dear. Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry; I completely forgot. See, my friend Fleur here is getting married, and she asked me to come over right away to start discussing her wedding dress. She commissioned me, of course.”

Luna looked behind Rarity and said, “Ah, Miss Lee! I believe I’ve seen you floating around the palace during social functions. Congratulations on the engagement.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” she replied through tightly restrained mirth.

“Again, sorry Luna,” Rarity repeated, bowing her head.

“No need to apologize,” Luna said, nuzzling under her friend’s chin to lift her head up again. “I think I can allow you to put your work first when it’s for a friend.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have forgotten our lunch date like that. Please, I insist that I spend dinner with you instead; it’s the least I can do,” Rarity persisted.

Luna smiled warmly. “I think that can be arranged. Shall I see you after I’ve raised the moon, then?”

“Oh, most definitely,” Rarity said with a nod and a smile in return.

“Then farewell and good luck to both of you on the wedding arrangements.” Luna shifted back into her midnight blue vapor form and flew off into the afternoon sky, snaking back towards the palace.

Rarity waved after her, but every muscle seized when she heard Fleur burst into a hail of giggles. “Nothing going on, huh?” she managed to say through her snickers.

“Yes, nothing going on,” Rarity repeated, turning back to her friend. “I fail to see what’s so funny.”

“Oh Rarity, Rarity, so naïve,” Fleur giggled, walking around the table and putting a foreleg around Rarity’s shoulders. “You’re on a first name basis with the princess from a thousand years ago who would yell at most other ponies who fail to address her properly, you frequently get together for ‘lunch dates,’ and when you’re late for one she gets so worried that she makes a public appearance just to find you when she normally never shows her face outside the palace. Even if you fail to see it, something is going on between you two.”

Rarity shrugged off Fleur’s leg and huffed. “Now you’re just reaching. Luna is just a really good friend; nothing more. Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie or Fluttershy would do the same since I’m normally so punctual. Besides, Luna is straight as well, so the grapevine’s bounty has gone sour yet again.”

“And you know she’s straight how?” Fleur asked with a wide grin. “Did she say so?”

Rarity opened her mouth to respond, then promptly closed it again and furrowed her brow. “I…I just always thought she was. I mean, she is, isn’t she? I just thought it went without saying.”

Fleur said nothing and just grinned wider through her giggles.

Rarity shook her head. “Alright, enough teasing; you’re just doing this to get under my skin and you know it. Do you want a wedding dress or not?”

Fleur reclaimed her seat with a melodramatic sigh. “And it was getting so fun, too. But if you insist we get back to business, we shall.”

“And ponies call me a drama queen,” Rarity mumbled as she sat back down. “Now, what ideas or preferences do you have for your dress?”

Fleur brought her hoof to her chin. “Well…”

Silence choked the palace corridors as Rarity cantered through them. The carpet muffled the sound of even her own hooves as she made her way to the dining room. The only sound she could hear was her own breathing and the breathing of Luna’s night guard while they watched her pass. The beauty of the soft moonlight filtering through the stained glass windows helped take the edge off the eerie feel of the place, but only so much.

Diagrams and plans for a certain fashion model’s wedding dress continually tried to push and shove their way into the forefront of Rarity’s mind, but she pushed them back harder. She took a deep breath and muttered, “Calm down, Rarity; you’re here to relax. No worrying about work right now.”

The fight to keep her workaholic instincts under control kept her preoccupied until she reached her destination. Or so she thought, anyway. “Is this the princess’ joint dining room?” she asked one of the guards.

“Yes, ma’am,” the bat pony mare answered. “They’re expecting you.” She nodded to her partner and the pair pushed the doors open. The two princesses were already inside, true to the guard’s word, and had both turned to the opening doors.

“Good evening!” Luna greeted with a grin, waving Rarity over to the only empty seat. Set in front of it was a tall glass of cider and Rarity’s favorite type of salad already prepared. “Sorry we started without you, but the hour grows late and sister needs her sleep.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault then?” Celestia giggled. “I’m sure your love of wine had nothing to do with it.”

Luna let out a rather tipsy-sounding giggle. “Oh shush, Tia; you know it helps me sleep.”

Rarity let out a small giggle herself and took her seat at the round table, Luna to her right and Celestia to her left. “It’s really no problem; royalty shouldn’t have to wait for little old me, after all. And thanks for ordering my food in advance.”

“Oh you shush too, Rarity; you’re a good friend, and that goes beyond social class,” Luna said with a smile. “And no problem at all. Tulip and daisy salad is your favorite, right?”

Rarity nodded and smiled back. “It is; you really have grown to know me too well, haven’t you?”

“I try,” Luna giggled.

“It’s good to see you two getting along so well,” Celestia said with a warm smile. “Luna’s told me how much she enjoys your company.”

“And I enjoy hers, your majesty.” Rarity took a sip of her cider and paused. She furrowed her brow, inspecting the glass. “Is this hard cider?”

“Vintage,” Celestia confirmed, “from back when Sweet Apple Acres was still young. Luna told me that a friend of yours was getting married, so we figured you might like to celebrate.”

“You need to unwind anyway, Rarity,” Luna giggled, a small booze-fueled blush spreading across her cheeks. “Got a lot of work ahead of you, right?”

“Though if you want, we could get you some normal, fresh cider,” her sister added.

“No, it’s fine,” Rarity said with a booze-less blush of her own. “You can’t very well go to a Canterlot elite function without imbibing a bit regularly, so I’m no stranger to drink.” She took another sip, less because of the sweet taste and more to prove that she wasn’t kidding.

“If you’re sure; I’m fairly certain Sweet Apple Acres makes their brew a mite stronger than Canterlot vintners,” Celestia chuckled before taking a bite of her salad.

Luna drank the last dregs of her wineglass before pouring herself some more. “So, what’s the artiste got planned for her next big project?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Rarity admitted as she started eating. “Fleur gave me some general guidelines and suggestions, but said that she trusted my artistic judgment above all else. Flattering, yes, but also a bit intimidating.”

“Fancy Pants’ fiancé?” Celestia asked. “So that’s your friend that’s getting married. My, don’t you know some famous ponies.”

“Knowing everypony worth knowing is part of the job,” she replied with a flip of her mane.

“Oh, so I’m just part of the job, am I?” Luna teased, leaning over.

“No, I know you purely for pleasure,” Rarity giggled.

“Don’t I feel special?”

The pair giggled in stereo, Celestia rolling her eyes with a loving smile.

“Nothing going on, huh?”

Rarity blinked and shook her head as if the words were clinging to her face.

“Is something wrong, Rarity?” Celestia asked while her sister got her giggles under control.

“Y-yeah,” she fibbed, “I’m fine. I think the cider’s getting to me already.”

“Your cheeks say as much,” Celestia chuckled. “No liquor is quicker than Apple Acres cider from what I’ve seen, though I’ve never seen it act this quickly.”

“Maybe little Rarity’s just a lightweight,” Luna practically sang, her booze blush growing brighter.

“I am not,” the unicorn huffed. In her moment of indignation and slight inebriation, she missed her mouth with a forkful of salad and smeared dressing on her cheek. “Oh, confound it…”

“Here, let me get that,” Luna offered with a big smile. Before Rarity could protest, a cloth napkin was dabbing at her cheek. She silently glared at her friend, though while her eyes were on Luna’s face she took in her charming cyan eyes, her flowing starry mane, her adorable blush…

“Th-thanks,” she said meekly, her face getting hotter as she shook her head once more.

“Luna, she’s not a foal, you know,” Celestia chided with a giggle.

“Sister, everypony is a foal in age compared to us,” Luna reminded as she pulled her napkin back. “And I’m not hearing Rarity protest.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to be rude,” Celestia suggested.

“No, really, it’s fine,” Rarity insisted with a wave of her foreleg and another swig of cider. “I’m fine, really.”

“Your face says otherwise,” Celestia hummed. “Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”

Luna wasted no time in putting her hoof on Rarity’s forehead. “It doesn’t feel hot to me…”

“L-Luna!” Rarity stammered.

Celestia’s magic glow engulfed Luna’s hoof and pulled it back. “Sorry; she gets a bit straightforward when it’s close to bedtime,” the older alicorn apologized. “Frankly because of all the wine.”

Luna giggled nervously and rubbed her offending hoof. “My apologies… I really don’t think things through when I’m like this.”

Rarity couldn’t muster up any anger no matter how hard she tried, so she just sighed and smiled. “It’s fine; I think we could both stand to think a little less, I’d say.” Her hoof covered her mouth when she realized what she said, and she could muster up plenty of anger at herself.

Luna tipped her tipsy head. “What do you mean?”

“Yes, do go on,” Celestia urged with an amused smirk.

Rarity uncovered her mouth and giggled nervously. “Well, it’s just that we’re both very high-class girls in a high-class city, and sometimes I just think I’d like to… forget that sometimes, you know?” she started. “I mean, I’ll always be a Ponyville girl, and I’ll always admit that, and I learned my lesson about shunning my friends in favor of the high life, but I really am a true lady on the inside and sometimes that gets tiresome, you know? Sometimes I just want to do things and not really care what other ponies think and be myself and…and…” She held up her empty glass of cider, just noticing the complete lack of liquid. “And I think I’m barreling towards being drunk and should leave before I say anything too embarrassing.”

Celestia smiled and gave her sister a look, but Luna seemed to not notice, and for once in her life Rarity could not decipher nonverbal look-language. She was a bit too distracted by the smile Luna was sending her way. It made her feel warm all over in a way she was fairly sure cider couldn’t accomplish.

“I’ll walk you back to your room,” Luna said, getting to her feet with surprising stability and urging Rarity onto hers.

“Th-thanks,” Rarity mumbled, no longer able to feel her face from how hot it felt. “Pleased to speak to you again, Princess Celestia.”

“And you as well, Rarity,” the alicorn nodded.

Luna draped a wing over Rarity as she got to all fours, and lead her out of the dining room. For a while the pair walked in silence, basking in the glow of Luna’s moonlight tinted by the stained glass in a cascade of color. Rarity’s stride was fine for a time, but got more and more unsteady as the cider filtered through her system.

“Yeah, I’m on my way to drunk,” she grumbled. She almost stumbled onto her face, but Luna’s magic righted her again as the princess had the tipsy unicorn lean on her for support. “How come you aren’t?”

“I only ever drink enough to get to sleep easily,” Luna yawned wide. “Just a bit tipsy, never more.”

“I’d never think that the Princess of the Night would have trouble getting to sleep,” Rarity said with a slightly dopey grin that said her drunken mind thought it had made a witty observation.

“It’s less the getting to sleep and more the sleeping,” Luna admitted. “It helps with the nightmares.”

Rarity blinked slowly while she processed what she heard. “Nightmares? But… don’t you get rid of nightmares?” She looked up to her alicorn friend and saw her frowning.

“Don’t worry too much about it; you’ve got plenty more to worry about,” Luna insisted, nudging Rarity’s nose with hers.

Rarity frowned as Luna opened a pair of doors for them. “You know I will anyway. I don’t like seeing you sad.”

A shadow of a smile graced Luna’s lips. “Thanks for the concern, Miss Worrywart.”

“Hey, you’re my friend,” Rarity mumbled, nudging Luna’s side. “Of course I’m going to…” She blinked and looked around to see the stars staring down at her and the statues and hedges of the garden surrounding her. “Why’d you lead me outside?”

“Because I think you’re too far-gone to risk the stairs,” Luna giggled. She lowered her belly onto the grass. “Climb aboard; I’ll fly you to your room.”

The thought briefly crossed Rarity’s mind that maybe a tipsy mare shouldn’t be flying a drunk one anywhere, but that thought quickly sank under the cider churning in her gut and it suddenly seemed like an incredibly sensible idea.

It didn’t seem like a sensible idea ten seconds later when Rarity was on Luna’s back, her forelegs wrapped around the alicorn’s neck for dear life while she was doing loops in the air.

“Luna, slow down!” she wailed through closed eyes as the world somehow span faster than her mount did.

“But this is so much fun!” Luna cackled with glee as she pulled out of the loop and did a corkscrew. “What happened to wanting to do things without caring what other ponies think?”

“This isn’t what I meant and you know it!” Rarity whined, kicking her hind legs as they were tossed about.

“Oh very well, killjoy,” Luna giggled. Her corkscrew came to an abrupt halt, Rarity laying flat on Luna’s back with a groan of thanks that the flight was finally level.

“You’re a real jerk sometimes, you know that…?” Rarity risked opening her eyes and let out a small gasp. Luna was spiraling around the tower in a slow ascent, the marble rushing past them as the ground got further away while the stars sat still in the sky. Rarity pulled back a strand of mane that got in her eye as the night wind whipped it about and could only whisper, “My word…”

“What were you saying?” Luna said coyly with another flap of her wings.

“It’s beautiful up here,” she breathed, hugging Luna’s neck a bit tighter. She looked over the other side to see the lights of Canterlot city go by. Just over the horizon she could see the small motes of light that was Ponyville fly by while her ride circled around the tower.

“You’ve never flown before?” Luna asked.

Rarity shook her head. “Not this high and not at night…” She reluctantly closed her eyes to make way for a wide yawn. “And both those other times I was falling to almost certain death.”

Luna giggled. “I’m surprised you aren’t afraid of heights by now.”

“I’ve kicked a manticore in the face; a little thing like altitude isn’t going to make me scared,” Rarity giggled back.

“And the wailing and flailing before was for what, exactly?” Luna asked, looking back at her passenger with a smirk.

“Oh hush, you,” Rarity huffed with a smile before giving Luna a small kick to the flank with her rear hoof.

Luna just giggled as she circled around the top of the tower. “We’re coming in for a landing; hold on tight.”

“As if I’m not already,” Rarity mumbled with a giggle, nuzzling close into Luna’s starry mane.

The landing was so soft that Rarity barely felt Luna’s hooves touch the marble of the tower’s highest balcony. “We’re here,” she said softly.

“Thanks, Luna.” Rarity nuzzled the back of Luna’s neck before climbing off her back.

Rarity then promptly tumbled onto her stomach with a small yelp.

Luna could barely restrain her laughter. “Here, I’ll help you.” The balcony doors opened and Rarity was lifted off the ground with a soft cyan glow, the princess trotting towards her bed.

“No, no, I can do it,” Rarity whined, flailing weakly in the air. “Let me go!” Luna did just that, dropping Rarity on her bed and letting her faceplant into her pillow. “Thanks,” came the dry, muffled reply.

Luna giggled and nuzzled Rarity’s neck as she pulled the covers over her. “Sweet dreams, Rarity,” she whispered, kissing Rarity lightly on the cheek.

All sorts of alarm bells pierced the drunken veil in Rarity’s head, her face growing bright pink and her whole body going red hot. “Um, L-Luna?” she stammered, turning her head to Luna as she was trotting to the balcony door.

Luna looked over her shoulder before turning back around. “Yes, Rarity?”

Feeling the heat of the spotlight, Rarity started to sweat. “Are you… that is to say, what’s your… have you ever…?” Rarity stammered as she looked into Luna’s deep turquoise eyes. She fell silent for a few moments, lost in the princess’ gaze, before letting out a sigh. “Never mind, Luna. Sweet dreams, and hope to see you in mine.”

Luna smiled once more as she opened the balcony doors. “I hope the same.”

The alicorn had dived off the balcony and flown away before Rarity could point out that she didn’t know how to dreamwalk. Before she could think too hard about it, the haze of sleep wafted back into her mind. She pulled the covers tighter over her as she smiled softly into the night. What little cognition she had worried what others would say if they heard about what had just happened, but it quickly decided that she didn’t care all that much.

Luna Dimidia

Rarity hummed a little tune to herself as she cantered down the long hallway. As composed as a lady like herself preferred to be, she allowed herself a little spring to her step and a sway to her hips to show off her pride to a job well done. And as humble as a country girl like herself preferred to be, she also let herself hold her nose up high and put a smug smile on her face. Thankfully nopony was around to see either set of indulgences, each door tightly shut and none of their tenants wandering about, until she reached her destination.

Her magic glow took hold of the brass knocker on the hotel door and rapped it against its mount.

“Come in, it’s unlocked!” came the graceful voice of a Canterlot mare.

Rarity bowed slightly out of reflex and opened the door. She crossed the threshold from a high-class hotel into a home of clashing styles. The apartment’s mix of modern and antique furniture and decorations had the feel of Luna’s personal dining room yet the comforts of home, while the intricate designs painted onto the walls themselves with their bright colors and string-of-consciousness designs looked like Manehattan street art collided with Canterlot fine art.

The soft sound of hoofsteps came down from the second floor of the apartment as Rarity closed the door behind her. Down the spiral staircase in the corner of the room came Octavia, her trademark white collar and pink bowtie fastened to her neck. “Ah, Rarity! I was wondering when you’d grace us with your presence,” she greeted as she climbed off the stairs. “Enjoying your stay in Canterlot, I hope?”

“I come to Canterlot for business, not to enjoy myself; I come here for pleasant company,” Rarity said, her smile less smug and more warm.

“I’m hoping you haven’t forgotten your business here, though,” Octavia giggled as she trotted up to her friend. “Do you have the dress?”

“I have it right here,” Rarity said with a nod, pulling a box out of her saddle bags before she hung them on a nearby rack. “Again, sorry it took so long to complete. I’ve had so many other projects lately, and truth be told this has been the most difficult.”

“I never said it would be easy. Pleasing Vinyl so often is when it comes to this sort of thing,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes with a loving smile. “Why do you think I didn’t give you any sort of deadline?”

“Hey sweetcheeks, who is it?” Vinyl called down from up the staircase, sending a blush straight into Octavia’s face.

“It’s Rarity, Vinyl,” she called back over her shoulder. “Would you kindly come down? It’s rude not to greet guests.”

“I know, I know, I’m coming,” the DJ grumbled more than yelled in return.

“You still let her call you that?” Rarity giggled behind her hoof.

“Yes,” Octavia sighed, her cheeks still pink. “Truth be told, I find the pet name endearing in a strange sort of way. Don’t ever tell her that, though, or she’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“My lips are sealed,” Rarity promised, making the zipping motion with her hoof.

Instead of the sound of hoofsteps coming from the staircase, there was the sound of fur against polished wood as Vinyl slid down the railing literally by the seat of her plot. She hopped off when she reached the bottom, a cocky smile on her face along with her violet-tinted shades. “Good afternoon, Rares. How’s it hangin’? Whatcha got there?”

“How many times have I told you not to slide down the stair railing like that?” Octavia huffed. “It’s undignified and unsanitary.”

Rarity could see Vinyl roll her eyes behind her glasses. “Tavi, sweetcheeks, you of all ponies should know how clean-”

Rarity loudly cleared her throat before Vinyl could go further, sparing Octavia from her head popping like a cherry from how red it was getting. “What I have,” she said pointedly, “is a commission from your marefriend here.”

“Another dress?” Vinyl said with a raised brow, turning to Octavia. “You’ve already got, like, a bajillion of them!”

“I have eight,” Octavia said flatly.

“And I get by without even one,” Vinyl huffed, plopping down on her plot and crossing her forelegs.

“And that is about to change,” Octavia added with a smug smile.

“Come again?” Vinyl asked, peering over her glasses.

“Octavia commissioned it, but it isn’t for her. It’s for you,” Rarity explained, levitating the box over to the DJ.

“Oh no,” Vinyl said hastily, pushing it away from her. “No no no no no no, not happening, nuh-uh, not going there.”

“I had her design it specifically to your tastes, not mine,” Octavia assured, pushing it back into her lover’s lap. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Have you seen it yet?” Vinyl asked, a brow raised again.

“I haven’t had the chance to,” Octavia admitted, “but-”

“Then how in the hay do you know I’ll like it?” Vinyl cut in.

“I was going to say,” Octavia said pointedly, fluttering her eyelashes and nuzzling her cheek against Vinyl’s, “that I’d rather see it on you first.”

Vinyl’s cheeks went pink. “Fine, I’ll try it on,” she mumbled, taking it in her magic grip and taking it with her back upstairs.

After she was sure that Vinyl was out of earshot, Rarity let out a hail of giggles. “My word, do you know how to tame that wild mare!”

“She’s hard to please when it comes to clothes and music. For everything else, she’s a simple mare with simple pleasures,” Octavia giggled back with a knowing smirk.

After the two shared a good laugh and Vinyl called down that she could hear them, Rarity stifled her mirth and gulped hard. “Um… while she’s trying her dress, mind if I talk to you about something a tad… personal, Octavia?”

Octavia’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, but she nodded all the same. “Of course; come and sit down,” she said, ushering her guest over to the circle of chairs, pillows and a couch around the unlit fireplace. “What’s on your mind?”

Rarity hesitated, but followed her host. The two stood at an impasse, both of them motioning for the other to take up residence on the couch.

“You’re the guest, you take it,” Octavia insisted.

“Yes, but you’re the host. It’s only right that you have the best seat,” Rarity insisted in return.

“You took months out of your time to make a dress for Vinyl, the most anti-clothes mare either of us has ever met. I at least owe you this tiny favor.”

“And it did take months when it could have taken less time, though, and besides, I’m getting paid for it. You don’t owe me anything besides bits.”

The two looked hard at each other for several seconds, the silence only broken by a grunt of frustration and a thud upstairs.

“We both take it,” Octavia said.

“Agreed,” Rarity nodded.

The two mares climbed up and laid their stomachs on the antique cloth couch, facing each other.

“So, what’s on your mind, Rarity?” Octavia asked as she settled in.

Rarity closed her eyes and pulled her lips taught in a thoughtful frown. “Oh, how do I put this tactfully…?”

“Living with Vinyl has made me used to a lack of tact,” Octavia dismissed with a wave of her foreleg. “Just let the words flow.”

“Okay.” Rarity took in a deep breath and braced herself, looking Octavia in the eye. “How did you first realize you were a filly fooler?”

Several agonizing seconds passed between the two, Octavia looking bewildered at her guest before she said, “If this were any other setting and you were any other pony, I’d ask if you were a tabloid journalist.”

“I’m serious!” Rarity asked, her tone a bit more pleading than she wanted it to. “How did it first come to mind? Did you always just know, or did something happen, or did it hit you like a bolt of inspiration, what?”

Octavia hummed in thought, her gaze going past Rarity and into a different time and place. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“As long as you feel necessary,” Rarity said over another irritated cry from Vinyl.

After another second of humming Octavia said, “For a long time I suppose it didn’t really occur to me at all. The von Clef family is very traditional, you see, and I was sheltered to an absurd degree. I never thought I wasn’t straight because I didn’t know there was an alternative. After spending most of my adolescent years dating stallions and just not getting along with them, I at first decided to blame my luck. I just assumed I hadn’t met the right colt yet. After a while, I eventually started blaming myself. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

Rarity felt her chest get tighter and her heart ache in far more than sympathy.

“I can’t really pinpoint an exact moment when I realized what I was, or rather what I am,” Octavia continued. “It was very gradual. I became very close with a friend of mine from the Heartstrings family, and one night during a sleep over, in the heat of the moment, we kissed. I was horrified at first, and avoided her for a while, but over time I realized that I rather liked it. We started dating in secret. Obviously, in the end, it didn’t work out between us, in a very bad way. She decided to move from Canterlot to get away from me.”

“I’m very sorry; I didn’t mean to bring up memories like that,” Rarity mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Octavia said, holding up her hoof and refusing to wipe her glistening eyes. “Time has a way of healing a lot of wounds, and it was mostly my fault to begin with. But enough about that; I’m curious as to why you wanted to know.”

Rarity bit her lip and took another bracing breath. “In all honesty, I think I’m starting to question my orientation as well. I’ve gone through quite a few stallions, and even the ones I liked just didn’t feel right. And now there’s a mare who I’m really close to that does feel right, and I’m not really sure how to handle that. I don’t even know what her orientation is.”

“If one believes the tabloids, you and the other Elements have been getting comfortable for a while,” Octavia chuckled.

“The tabloids are always making things up about the six of us,” Rarity huffed, lifting her nose as if the word “tabloid” was in the room emitting a noxious smell. “And besides, it isn’t them. They’re my best friends, and though I’d gladly fight beside and risk death for any one of them, I just don’t feel that way about any of them.”

“And I was so sure it’d be one of them. Am I allowed to know the identity of your mystery crush, then?” Octavia asked with a conspiratorial smile. “Maybe Vinyl’s seen her lurking in a filly fooler bar.”

Rarity giggled nervously. “I think I’d prefer to keep her identity anonymous for now. Besides, I’m not sure Vinyl would be able to keep a secret like that, no offense. I don’t want anypony getting wind of this until I’m absolutely certain.”

“No, I understand,” Octavia sighed with a smile. “The mare’s always making a fool of herself in front of the paparazzi, so I wouldn’t trust her either if I wasn’t-”

“Finally figured out how to put this thing on!” Vinyl groused from above, her hoofsteps coming down the stairs. “I’m coming down, and you better appreciate this, Tavi!”

Rarity looked at the stairwell and back to Octavia. “Has she ever even worn clothes before?”

“As far as I’m aware, never,” Octavia giggled.

The two mares turned to the stairwell to see Vinyl step down from the stairwell. A midnight blue evening gown swirled around her hooves as she walked forward. Bands of cloth that changed every color of a neon-charged rainbow with each movement adorned the dress in elegant swirls and patterns that formed musical notes and her cutie mark on each hip. A similarly blue cavalier hat with a parrot feather tucked into the band sat on her head, the brim also decked with a shifting rainbow.

Vinyl cocked her hips half-heartedly, a grudging frown on her face. “Well? How do I look?” she asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Octavia breathed. “Rarity, get a mirror; Vinyl, you have to see this!”

Rarity smiled and did as she was asked, taking a full-body mirror off the wall with her magic and hovering it behind Vinyl.

“What, it’s blue with some pretty colors,” she grumbled as she turned around. “It can’t possibly be that… woah.” Her eyes went so wide and her jaw went so slack that her sunglasses dropped to the carpet, her bare candy red eyes staring at her own reflection.

“You didn’t look closely at the pattern, did you?” Octavia guessed with a knowing smile.

“Not really, but who cares! This looks awesome!” Vinyl squeed, posing in the mirror in ways ranging from heroic to sultry.

Rarity giggled behind her hoof. “I’m glad you like it. Let’s just say that I’ve been looking at the night sky a lot recently, and inspiration hit me when I remembered the northern lights; flashy, colorful, energetic, but beautiful and elegant. I thought it would fit.”

“Hay, it even goes great with my hips!” Vinyl celebrated, wagging her plot at the mirror. “You sure you didn’t make this to Tavi’s tastes?”

“Minus the elegant part,” Octavia muttered through her blush.

Rarity blushed a bit as well, but she hid it behind her hoof with a giggle. “I don’t think I even have to ask if you want to keep it.”

“I’d be crazy to give this thing up,” Vinyl giggled. “I mean, just look at me!” She took a few steps away from the mirror and started strutting up to, with her eyes half lidded and a sultry smirk on her lips, like a fashion model down the runway, or a cat that cornered a mouse, or much more realistically an amorous mare that cornered her marefriend.

…wait. Fashion model.

Everything in Rarity’s brain came to a screeching halt. “Oh…oh no,” she said through a slack jaw. Her horn flared to life, dropping the mirror to the carpeted floor and picking up her saddlebags. “So sorry, have to go, just remembered something terribly important, I’ll expect your cheque in the mail, bye!”

She was a blur of white and purple streaking down the hall and down the stairs before either of the two musicians could say a word.

The two stared at the door, then stared at each other before Vinyl asked, “What poked her in the plot?”

Twisted sheets, shifting pillows, soft groans, tightly shut curtains and snuffed out lights leaving the room in the tight embrace of the dark… all telltale signs of an unhappy, brooding Luna. The Princess of the Night shifted in her bed again with a sigh, flipping one of her many pillows over and laying her head on its colder side.

Her eyes turned to the wall. Among the few portraits of herself and her old friends and confidantes that managed to survive a millennium of absence, she focused in on one in particular. The only one left of… her.

Luna’s horn glowed gently in the dark as she took the painting off the wall and brought it up to her face. It was a life-sized portrait of a young mare’s face in front of Canterlot palace, a charming smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. Though it was likely that Luna’s memories were inventing those; no brush or magic could capture the real thing. The princess reached out and ran her hoof along the mare’s cheek, almost feeling her hoof against fur instead of canvas, stroking her face again across centuries of time and the barrier of death.

The sound of the lock clicking open caused Luna’s eyes to snap wide and hastily put the picture back on the wall. She raised her head and shielded her eyes as the doors opened. The sudden introduction of light to her shadowy lair blurred her nocturnal vision, but the size of the silhouette in the door could be only one mare.

“Luna, it’s time to raise the moon,” came the soft voice of her sister. “We’re almost five minutes late as it is.”

Once her eyes adjusted, Luna turned to look at the clock. “My apologies; I just wasn’t keeping track of time.” She slid out of her bed with an earthward gaze and a half-hearted attempt of her normal regal grace.

She didn’t have a chance to take a step forward before Celestia raised her hoof for her to stop. “No; sit back down,” Celestia insisted as she came forward instead, closing the door behind her and lighting a few candles with her magic. “The moon can wait a bit longer.”

“I’m fine, sister,” Luna assured, though her voice was weak and soft. “I can perform my duties just fine.”

“A troubled heart in the family is more important than the changing of heaven’s guard,” she said, speaking with the old eloquence of a Celestia from many centuries ago. “Please, sit down. It’s quite clear that something is bothering you.”

Luna couldn’t help but smile, but it faded quickly. “You could always just ask, you know.”

“Would you ever open up to me if I wasn’t persistent?” Celestia asked with a smile, nuzzling their cheeks together.

“I suppose I might not,” Luna admitted with a sigh, setting her hindquarters back on her bed. “All the same, I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”

Celestia climbed on the bed and laid on her stomach, her eyes surveying the room closely. “It’s about her, isn’t it?” she asked softly, her eyes squarely on the portrait.

Luna looked up at her sister, wide-eyed. “How did you-”

“You put it back on crooked,” she cut in. “You were looking at it before I came in, weren’t you?”

Luna looked back to see that, indeed, the painting was at an extreme slant. “Damnation,” she spat under her breath as she fixed it. She let out a sigh and laid down next to her sister. “Yes, I was. But it isn’t about her. Well, it somewhat is… it’s hard to explain. I’m not even sure I know myself yet.”

“I don’t think I’d lose any bits if I bet that part of it is that you miss her,” Celestia said.

Luna bowed her head, avoiding eye contact. “More than you know.”

She felt her sister’s cheek against her own as Celestia whispered, “I know. And I can’t apologize enough for… everything.”

Luna pushed her away gently and shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It was a different time; you had no reason to think differently than you did.”

Celestia shook her head in turn. “No, that’s no excuse. It was a different time and a different culture, but you’re still my sister. I should’ve stood by you. I should’ve defended what made you happy… instead of trying my best to destroy it.” Her lips were pulled taught as her eyes narrowed. “I was a fool.”

“Please, let’s not dwell too much on the past,” Luna pleaded, pulling her sister into a tight hug. “There are only dark memories there.”

Celestia wrapped her arms and wings around her little sister and hugged her tight in turn. “Very well; if that is what you want, Luna. I’m sorry if I dug up memories you wanted left buried.”

Luna pulled away slightly and nuzzled her. “It’s really no trouble at all.” She looked into her sister’s grateful eyes for a few moments before taking a deep breath. “Thank you for trying to help, but my troubles are less about the past and more about the present, truth be told.”

Celestia broke the hug and sat in rapt attention. “Am I allowed to know what they are?”

“Do you have the password?” Luna teased with a shadow of a smile.

Celestia grinned back and tapped her hoof to her chin. “Would it happen to be… poison joke salad?”

“I still have yet to get you back for that,” Luna giggled, trying to scowl but failing. “I was invisible for a week! But yes, that’s close enough.”

Celestia smiled and nuzzled her nose against Luna’s. “So, what really is troubling you?”

Luna’s smile faltered, but it didn’t invert. “Well… let’s just say that I know a mare who I may be interested in. Who I may be feeling about the same way I used to for, well… you know.”

“Twilight or Rarity?” Celestia asked flatly.

“Rarity,” Luna said just as flatly with a sigh.

Celestia giggled behind her hoof. “You know, there’s little use beating around the bush when you only have two really good friends who happen to be mares.”

“Hush, you,” Luna said, lightly batting her sister with her hoof. “As I was saying, I’m really interested in her. I mean, I’m not head over hooves in love, but I do remember feeling this way at first for my last love.” She sighed and flopped on her side. “But she’s straight, and even if she wasn’t, I know next to nothing about modern courtship. I know that dowries no longer exist and the marrying age is no longer thirteen, and that’s about it.”

Celestia hummed in thought, her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“No love potion,” Luna said flatly.

“Blast,” she spat with a joking smile. “But no, I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking that maybe I could persuade Twilight to keep an eye on Rarity and perhaps probe her for her exact feelings on you. Twilight’s a bright girl, and she’ll do essentially anything I ask.”

“You really need to get that mare to stop worshipping the ground you walk on if she’s going to be one of us someday,” Luna said with a roll of her eyes. “She’ll need to know some autonomy to be a ruler.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Celestia assured with a wave of her hoof. Luna just rolled her eyes harder. “But even if she ends up not being interested, you still need modern courtship lessons for when the right mare comes along.”

“Lessons? I was hoping I could get a book,” Luna said with a frown. “Lessons involve… interaction and socializing.”

“You have more in common with this generation than you think,” Celestia deadpanned. “But no, most books on the subject are rubbish, written by what I hesitate to call authors who just have a quota to fill. Trust me, I’ll provide what you need.”

“Though I shudder to think what will come of this, thank you for the help, sister,” Luna said, nuzzling her nose to Celestia’s one more time.

“Think nothing of it,” she said, sliding off Luna’s bed. “Oh, and before I forget, I’ve been told that Rarity was seen scrambling up to her room in a panic earlier today. She has yet to come out. I think it would be wise if you checked in on her after we raised the moon.”

Luna bit her lip before she climbed off the bed and fell in line behind her sister. “Very well, but let’s make it quick. If Rarity’s been in a panic for hours, there’s no telling what sort of shape she’s in by now.”

“Oh why oh why has my muse deserted me in my time of need?!” Rarity wailed as she shook a mannequin by the shoulders. It unsurprisingly did not answer her question. If it had, she would be certifiably insane. She almost wished she was just so she could have an answer, even if that answer was that her muse was hiding from her at the end of a rainbow hidden in Celestia’s plot.

She flopped backward into a pile of crumpled and discarded design sketches. The waste basket had long overflowed with her perceived failures, and she felt she didn’t have time to take it out to empty it, so the floor would have to do. She rolled back and forth in the balls of parchment as if they were the physical manifestation of her frustration and woe. “Oh, this is absolutely hopeless,” she whimpered, covering her face with her hooves.

“Is this the aftermath of one of those ‘sonic rainboom’ things I’ve heard about?”

Rarity shot upright to see Luna on the balcony, cautiously opening the door and pushing aside a cluster of paper balls. “L-Luna! Um, so sorry about the mess, I meant to clean it up after I was done, I swear!” She scrambled onto all fours and her horn flared to life, magically stuffing and packing down paper balls far beyond the point they were meant to. When her magic failed to force more in, she started stomping down on it with her hoof to a chorus of crinkles. “Confound it all!”

She felt a sudden weightlessness, and was lifted up into the air. She was brought face-to-face with Luna, whose crooked lips seemed torn between amusement at Rarity’s antics or concern for the exact same reason. “Rarity, I think you need to take a moment to calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down?!” she cried, flailing her legs in the air so hard that she managed to turn herself upside down. “I put off Fleur’s wedding dress until I completely forgot about it, and the wedding is in a week!”

“A lot can get done in seven days,” Luna assured.

“You just don’t get it,” Rarity snapped. “It takes a week to just put a really high-quality, intricate wedding dress together, and I haven’t even settled on a design!”

“That I can see as being a problem,” Luna said, her eyes widening and her brow furrowing.

“I’ll never get it done in time!” Rarity sobbed, tears running down her forehead and onto the floor. “I’ll let Fleur down and completely ruin her special day!”

She closed her eyes tight and covered them with her hooves. She felt her plot and hind legs get set down on the floor, blood no longer rushing to her head, as a pair of legs and wings wrapped around her. “It’s going to be okay, Rarity,” Luna whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No it’s not,” she sniffled, pushing her face into Luna’s soft, furred chest. “Fleur will be heartbroken, Fancy Pants will be disappointed in me, and I’ll be known as the mare that couldn’t put a dress together for the biggest celebrity wedding in the past fifty years. I’ll be ruined!” She gasped and her eyes snapped open. “Oh sweet Celestia, how will I support myself? Hay, how will I support Sweetie Belle?! Without commissions, I don’t have any income, and after this who in their right mind would want to associate with me?! I’ll have to move back in with my parents, or ask for a loan from Celestia, or-”

Her hysterics were cut off by a hoof placed gently but firmly on her lips. She looked up through her tears at Luna, who was looking down at her with a warm smile. “I said it’s going to be okay, and I shall make it so.”

“H-how?” Rarity asked through Luna’s hoof.

She removed her hoof from Rarity’s lips and trotted over to her drafting table. “I know more about fashion than you think.” She motioned for Rarity to take a seat next to her. “Tell me what ideas you’ve had so far.”

Rarity took a deep breath and wiped the tears away before shakily joining Luna’s side. “That’s just it; I’ve had pretty much none. I’ve just been trying out styles and themes and color schemes at random in desperation. The only real idea I’ve had is the use of lilies, since the symbol fleur de lis is a stylized lily, but such a simple idea does not a dress make, let alone a wedding dress. Besides, I feel like she’s expecting it, and…” She took another deep, rattling breath. “And I’m not really feeling all that confident that whatever I can come up with will be good enough for her.”

“She’s your friend; I think she’d appreciate the effort all the same,” Luna assured.

Rarity shook her head. “I know that. It’s that I’m not sure that I’ll be satisfied that it’s good enough for her, you know? That's why I put it off for so long; nothing felt good enough. Fancy Pants and Fleur have stuck by me even in my most embarrassing moments, and have had the spine to stand up to the other Canterlot elite even when I didn’t. They’re both really nice ponies who have been very good to me, and I owe them so much. What kind of dress could I possibly make that would be worthy of those kinds of friends? And if I’m having so many doubts about Fleur’s dress, I shudder to think about how crushed I’ll be when I have to design a dress for the wedding days of any of my best friends.”

Rarity suddenly felt Luna’s cheek against her own, eliciting a blush from the smaller mare. “Sometimes, Rarity, you just have to believe that your work is good enough,” Luna said softly. “Even if you don’t think it is. Even if others don’t think it is. As an artist, sometimes you have to just be satisfied that you followed your vision and gave the world the beauty you wanted it to see. Even if you don’t think they appreciate it enough–even if you know they don’t appreciate it enough–because sometimes, belief in yourself and your work is the only thing that can keep you sane.” She paused and added, almost unheard, “Believe me… I know that from experience.”

Rarity hung her head low for several seconds of deafening silence. She nuzzled Luna back and whispered, “Thank you, Luna. I think I needed to hear that.”

Luna smiled in return. “I only wish I’d heard it a long time ago.”

Rarity smiled sadly back before flipping her mess of a mane. “So, what are your thoughts?”

“I’m thinking Roaman,” Luna mused as she looked over Rarity’s madmare notes scrawled on the latest attempt at a design. “Are you familiar with their fashion customs?”

“Republic or Empire?” Rarity asked without skipping a beat.

“I was thinking Empire,” Luna said, sounding very impressed. “I remember an absolutely gorgeous wedding dress I saw at the wedding of the… tenth emperor, I think.” She picked up a quill and started drawing. Her style completely broke everything Rarity learned about constructing a diagram, but she could plainly see the picture come to life. “I think the elegant simplicity may suit Miss Lee.”

Rarity hummed and tapped her chin and pulled out another sheet of paper and quill, scribbling down a design of her own. “Now that I really think about it, what do you think about the Prench Baroque style? Fleur is of Prench ancestry, and the fleur de lis is most commonly associated with the country.”

“I don’t think the wide-brimmed hats and ruffled collars would suit a wedding,” Luna chuckled.

Rarity smiled and rolled her eyes. “I know that. I was thinking more the general aesthetic of ruffled and layered fabric to give the illusion of extravagance, since it makes the dress look like it’s made of a lot more cloth than it actually is.”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Luna admitted.

“Never let it be said I was ever quite conventional,” Rarity said with a cocky smirk. “But I do like the idea of the simple design of a Roaman style dress. It’s iconic, unexpected without being bizarre, and will save me a lot of time.”

“Shall we mix the Roaman style with the Baroque aesthetic and a lily motif?” Luna suggested.

“I was thinking exactly the same thing,” Rarity said excitedly, pulling out another sheet of paper and hurriedly scribbling the image of the design that was so sharp in her mind.

The two talked and schemed and brainstormed clear until Luna had to leave to turn darkness into dawn. By the time she left, the horde of discarded paper balls had increased by leaps and bounds, but each was less a different sting of failure and more a different experiment with a good friend. Bags hanging under her eyes, Rarity staggered over to her bed and fell in. With a big smile on her face and growing warmth in her heart, she allowed herself the peace of sleep, eager to get to Luna’s realm once more.

Luna Gibbos

On most days, the palace was a place of regal serenity. Nobles and commoners alike came and went to see Celestia during the day court and Luna during the night court, the stone-faced guards keeping watch over the grounds day in and day out with the monotony of security seldom breaking.

The past few days had not been “most days.”

Even though the sun had departed and the moon was hanging overhead, the palace was abuzz with preparations. Earth ponies were hard at work in the courtyard making sure everything was just so, and everything that was not just so would either be fixed or disposed without a trace by the next day. Pegasi zoomed overhead, keeping the flow of mail and messages going until each had probably carried a whole forest in a single day. Unicorns milled about every public inch of the palace, setting up decorations, replacing decorations when the wedding planners changed their minds, and sitting in a corner to help themselves to some Canterlot vintage while they waited for their employers to change their minds again.

Naturally, that made getting anywhere a herculean ordeal for anyone who wasn’t in one of those groups.

“Are we almost there?” Rainbow Dash griped above, ducking under yet another messenger pony that almost took her head off.

“Not that far,” Twilight called from the front of the single-file line that they were forced into by the traffic, hugging close to the hallway’s wall.

“Twilight, are you sure your old room can hold all of us?” Fluttershy asked from towards the back.

“I’m positive,” Twilight assured over her shoulder. “Trust me; it’s much bigger than the library’s bedroom.”

“It’s not like we have much of a choice,” Applejack huffed in front of Rarity. “Whole town’s booked for this weddin’. I mean really, this is ridiculous just for two ponies tyin’ the knot. They ain’t even royalty!”

“They’re the next best thing,” Rarity chimed in. “Fancy Pants got to the top of the social ladder through sheer charisma, and Fleur is the most successful and charitable fashion model of the century. I have no doubt that some ponies would recognize Fleur on the cover of a magazine more readily than they’d recognize Celestia.”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “Yeah, if that magazine was full of cl-” She let out a yelp when she was sent into a wild spin by a messenger that blindsided her. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” She was about to go after the offender when Fluttershy held her back with a bear hug.

“I don’t know why you’re so belly achy,” Pinkie Pie said, suddenly popping up from under Applejack’s hat and sitting on her head. “We get to have cake. Wedding cake! You’re only allowed to be belly achy if you eat too much cake, AJ!”

Applejack reached up and pulled her hat back down to her head, banishing Pinkie Pie back to the rear of the line. “I know, I know. I guess I’m just a bit wary, is all.”

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked meekly, fluttering up to her cowpony friend.

Applejack waved her off. “I’m fine. It’s just that every single time all six of us are here in Canterlot, somethin’ goes wrong. First it was the Gala, and then it was Cadence’s weddin’. I’m not exactly eager to go three for three here.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Rarity said with a huff and a roll of her eyes. “This is just a celebrity wedding, not a political affair, so I doubt any villains like Chrysalis will show up. And since the Gala, we’ve all greatly improved on our manners, so there won’t be any embarrassing mishaps that’ll get us all blacklisted like last time, right?”

The other five gave assorted mumbles of agreement.

“Right?!” she snapped, a fire flaring in her eyes.

“Right!” they all squeaked in unison, their ears shooting up in surprise.

“Good,” she said calmly, her ladylike exterior coming back to the forefront. The others were frozen in place, but she just held her head high and trotted ahead.

“Rarity scares me sometimes,” Pinkie whispered, shivering in Fluttershy’s bangs.

“You an’ me both, sugarcube,” Applejack agreed as they all willed their legs to move again.

“Er, anyway,” Twilight said hesitantly, cantering ahead of Rarity to take the lead again, “right this way.” She turned a corner into a much less crowded hallway and led them past row after row of doors until they reached the end. She turned to face them and opened the door with her magic, proudly saying, “Here we are!”

Rarity stepped through first, and was the first to have to catch her breath. Inside was a suite that was easily as large as Octavia’s, and Octavia’s could hold a pretty decent rave mosh pit before she banned Vinyl from doing that anymore. The carpet was a lush lilac purple that matched Twilight’s fur, and the walls were coated with wallpaper that had her cutie mark arranged like the stars in the sky. Seven beds were lined up against a wall to the side, each with a different color scheme to show who was supposed to sleep where.

“Woah,” the five of them collectively sighed in awe, the other four peeking around Rarity. The quintet quickly scattered to explore the den of decadence up close.

“You used to live here?” Rainbow Dash gasped as she flew up to the ceiling, which had a wall-to-wall star map plastered on it.

“It’s like a funhouse for eggheads in here!” Pinkie giggled as she made funny faces at herself in the reflection of various test tubes, flasks, and other chemistry equipment sitting on a long desk.

“I gotta admit, Twi, I knew you must be pretty well off, but I never expected this,” Applejack admitted from the center of the room, looking around like a foal lost in the mall.

“Well, I sort of lived here. This is where I stayed during the week for lessons, and on the weekends I went back home to mom and dad,” she explained. She trotted in behind them and shut the door behind her, adding, “Wow, they really weren’t kidding when they said it was just how I left it…”

“If I were you, I’d never want to leave,” Rarity said as her eyes browsed one of the many, many bookshelves scattered about the room. Her eyes fell on one shelf, and a light heat touched her face as she read the titles. “Erm, Twilight, why do you have so many ero-”

The entire shelf’s contents were suddenly grabbed by Twilight’s magic aura and tossed into her closet with a loud crash. “Wh-whatever are you talking about?” she said with a nervous smile and chuckle.

The others, minus Pinkie who was giggling her plot off, shared a look before Rarity said, “Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Anyway,” Twilight said pointedly, barricading the closet with a bookcase or three, “just relax until Fleur gets here. Make yourself at home. And no, Pinkie, that does not mean you can start baking things with my chemistry equipment.”

The pink party pony’s giggles stopped and she looked up at the already bubbling retort. “Um, I’ll share?” she said meekly.

Twilight sighed and facehoofed.

“Um, Twilight?” Fluttershy said quietly from the suite’s box garden. “What plants are these? I recognize mindfang and redglare, but I don’t think I’ve seen the others.”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked!” A wide grin found its way on Twilight’s face as she cantered over to start babbling botany with the nature girl.

Rarity tuned the science talk out and stared at the starry sky on the ceiling. The attention to detail was breathtaking; every star looked like it was ripped straight from the sky itself, still twinkling as it was placed in Twilight’s bedroom. The longer she looked, the more the stars seemed to genuinely shine down at her, the more she felt a cool night breeze on her fur, the more she felt soft lips against hers…

“Hey, Rare, you okay?” Rainbow Dash asked, gliding over and knocking on her noggin. “You’ve been staring up for, like, five minutes and you look like you just walked in on somepony in the shower.”

Rarity blinked and shook her head, just noticing how hot her face felt. “I-I’m fine, dear, perfectly fine.”

Pinkie popped up from the aether below her and put her nose right against Rarity’s. “You sure? Because you’re looking almost as pink, as, well, me!” She gasped dramatically and put her front hooves over her mouth. “Oh my gosh, maybe you are turning into me! Maybe the curse of the werepinkie is real! Don’t let me bite anyone else!”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she landed and put her hoof over Pinkie’s mouth. “Ignoring Pinkie’s pinkie-ness, you sure you’re okay? You’re not lookin’ so hot. Do you have a fever?”

“I assure you, I do not,” Rarity huffed, sitting back and crossing her forelegs.

“You sure?” Applejack cut in, trotting over and putting a hoof on Rarity’s forehead. “I think Rainbow may be right.”

Rarity swatted the cowpony’s leg away. “Honestly, what is with everyone putting their hoof on my forehead when my face is a little red? There is such a thing as personal space, you know.”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack shared a confused look while Pinkie voiced their thoughts, “When did anypony put their hoof on your forehead, Rarity? Because if somepony touches you in a place or in a way that you don’t like, that’s no good, you know!”

Rarity’s face got hotter as she insisted, “It’s nothing I feel the particular need to discuss, now shoo! I think whatever you’re cooking is burning or something.”

Pinkie gasped and rushed over to the chemistry set with a cry of, “My brownies!”

Applejack stared after her for a few seconds before asking, “Is there even any flour in here? Hay, is there even any chocolate?”

“Don’t question it,” Rainbow said flatly, patting Applejack on the shoulder.

Rarity tried to tiptoe away while the other two were distracted, but was stopped with Applejack grabbing her by the leg. “Oh no you don’t, Rare; you still haven’t told us what’s up with you,” she said sternly, dragging her back in place.

“Nothing is ‘up,’” Rarity pouted, glaring at the two nosey mares.

“Yeah, you’re a worse liar than Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “Twilight got a letter the other day saying that the last few times you came to Canterlot, you were spending all your time in your room and kept avoiding the princesses. And now that we’re here again, you’re acting all weird and spacey. What’s going on?”

“Curse social networking,” Rarity spat under her breath.

Applejack put a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “Look, Rare, we know it doesn’t seem like any of our business, but we worry about you,” she explained with a small smile. “We’ve heard you’ve been gettin’ along great with Luna, so we just wanna know if anything’s wrong, okay?”

Rarity looked into her friend’s emerald eyes and couldn’t help but smile herself. “Well… nothing’s wrong per se-”

“Sorry I’m late,” Fleur said as she gracefully burst through the door so hard it strained the hinges. “The traffic out there is positively insane!” She flipped her mane and bumped the door closed with her hip. “So, shall we get this bachelorette slumber party started?”

“Party?” Pinkie squeaked, her head popping out of Fleur’s saddlebags. “I was told this was a sleepover! Oh my gosh, sleepovers are parties?! This changes everything!” Her head disappeared back into Fleur’s bag before she came back in with her trademark cannon through the front door. “Party over here, woot woot!”

“No party cannon in my room!” Twilight barked, magically shoving said artillery and its owner back into the hall and slamming the door.

“Awww…” Pinkie Pie popped back in under the sheets of Rainbow Dash’s bed and slumped to the floor, her plot in the air and head on the carpet.

“How…how did she do that?” Fleur asked, her jaw slack.

“It’s Pinkie Pie, you learn not to question it,” Rarity assured as she trotted up. “So glad you could make it, dear; just one more night before the big day!”

The two unicorns squeed and shared a hug.

“And these are your friends, right? The other Elements?” Fleur asked as she broke the hug.

“Mhm,” Rarity nodded, turning around and pointing to each of her friends in turn. “Fleur, meet Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight Sparkle. Girls, meet Fleur.”

The other girls crowded around and extended their hooves for Fleur to shake, giving assorted greetings and congratulations.

“Fluttershy… thought I recognized your name,” Fleur said with a small smile as she shook hooves with the yellow pegasus. “You were a fashion model for a while, no? I kept hearing from my entourage and my manager that I’d have to watch out for you.”

“I was,” she admitted with a blush. “But I retired; being a model wasn’t really for me, I don’t think.”

“Such a shame,” Fleur sighed. “I think your figure would knock stallions dead if you just learned to flaunt it.”

Fluttershy squeaked and hid behind her mane. “R-really?”

“Really,” Fleur giggled.

“Told ya,” Rainbow Dash snickered, playfully elbowing Fluttershy.

“And you’re Rainbow Dash,” Fleur said, shaking her hoof. “Honestly not what I expected.”

“Nopony can ever expect the awesomeness of the real thing,” Rainbow Dash boasted, puffing out her chest.

“Well, it’s more that when Rarity and my fiancé first met, she lied and said you were the Wonderbolts’ personal trainer to impress him,” Fleur snickered.

Rainbow Dash blinked before her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “She what?!”

“It was over a year ago!” Rarity giggled nervously, hiding behind Fleur. “Spur of the moment white lie, you know?”

“I’ll give you spur of the-” Rainbow Dash yelped when she was lassoed and dragged away by Applejack.

“Calm down Rainbow; not the time for temper tantrums,” Applejack chuckled.

“Applejack,” Fleur mumbled, tapping a hoof to her chin. “Part of the Apple family, or just a coincidence?”

“Apple family and darn proud of it,” Applejack said, puffing her own chest up and putting her hoof on Rainbow Dash like she was the biggest catch in a hunt.

“Hey, hooves off!” Rainbow Dash spat, wiggling against her bonds.

“Make me, sugarcube,” the cowpony taunted back.

Fleur giggled. “It’s good to be part of such a huge family. You all do good work. And I can appreciate a gal who knows how to use a rope, if you catch my drift,” she said with a wink.

Applejack’s face turned from her normal orange to Big Mac red. “Um…I…uh…thanks ma’am…?”

Fleur and Rarity leaned against each other as they cackled, both quickly running out of breath. “Oh Fleur, you’re absolutely horrible!”

“You love me that way and you know it,” the fashion model said as she stifled her giggles.

Twilight cleared her throat, her face pink as she stifled her own laughter. “P-pleased to meet you, Miss Lee; Rarity’s told us a lot about you,” she said, extending her hoof.

Fleur nodded through her giggles and shook the offered hoof. “I bet; there’s much to say. And I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Sparkle. It’s hard not to hear about the sister-in-law to the ruler of the Crystal Empire and Celestia’s magical savant of a student.”

Twilight’s blush deepened. “Oh, I’m nothing really special,” she mumbled behind her foreleg. “Right place, right time, right rainboom.”

Pinkie hugged the stuffing out of the purple unicorn and gushed, “Oh, she’s just being a silly filly; Twi’s the most specialest pony I know! Well, all my friends are the specialest. Specialest pony hug!” Her arms stretched out and pulled the other five mares into a group snuggle to a chorus of crushed lungs.

“Pinkie, air!” Rainbow managed to wheeze out.

“Oh, right, sorry.” Pinkie dropped them in a heap of fur with a blush and a giggle. “Sometimes I love my friends too much.”

“There are worse flaws to have,” Fleur snickered as she looked at the fluffy carnage. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Pie.”

“Please, call me Pinkie,” she said as she took Fleur’s hoof and shook it with both of hers. “I grew up on a rock farm, so don’t be so formal with this party pony!”

“Don’t ask about the rock farm; it’ll just hurt your head,” Twilight groaned as she got back on all fours.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Fleur said as she helped Rarity back up.

“So, Fleur,” Applejack started as she propped her lassoed trophy back up, “why’re you here instead of with your friends? Wouldn’t ya wanna party with them?”

“When you’re in my line of work, ‘friend’ is a very loose word,” Fleur explained. “It’s really hard to tell who’s spending time with me for a regular view of my to-die-for body, my money, my influence, or is just a paparazzo in disguise. The only ponies I really consider friends are my fiancé and Rarity, so here I am.”

Pinkie gasped, her eyes tearing up. “Only two friends? How do you live with that?!”

“I get by; I’m normally very quiet anyway,” Fleur said with a small smile. “It helps keep me from saying anything that can be misquoted and plastered on a headline.”

“You won’t have to worry about that with us,” Fluttershy assured with a shy nuzzle. “We understand. Nothing we say in here will leave this room, promise.”

Fleur smiled and nuzzled back, earning a small squeak from the pegasus. “Thanks. I think I like you girls already.”

“Told you that you would; a pony couldn’t ask for better friends,” Rarity said, lightly bumping her hip against Fleur’s.

The other girls, even Fleur, d’aaawed, save for Rainbow Dash who just blushed and struggled against Applejack’s lasso. “Is anypony gonna untie me, or are you all too busy being mushy?”

“I don’t know; I kind of like you like this,” Applejack teased.

“Oh, let her go,” Fleur said with a wave of her hoof. “Besides, she’ll need her hooves free for the refreshments.” Her horn glowed a soft pink and her saddlebags opened. Out came a large collection of wine bottles, the unicorn teasingly sloshing them side to side. “Hope you girls can hold your alcohol…”

That night was just like any other night for Luna. Whispers of wishes, curses, and sweet nothings in a chorus of millions of voices drifted through the void of swirling color, half-formed faces, and twisted monsters as she performed her nightly rounds. It was the world only she knew; the world between dreams. It was a place that she could never fully describe to anyone, but if she had to try, it felt like drifting in a tumultuous sea, with each dream a small bubble floating in the foam.

She exited one such bubble, licking her lips as she rejoined the flotsam of the collective unconscious. “That Derpy girl always has the best sweets ready for me,” she mused aloud to the formless void. “I really should think of a way to bring some muffins with me over to Rarity’s dreams sometime. I think she’d like them…” Her musings came to a stop when she felt a dream drift by bearing the blight of fear and anxiety; a nightmare, or a dream ready to descend into one. She dove in, shape and sound and color reasserting themselves in a comprehensible form around her.

The white halls, stained glass, and wooden pews of the palace’s chamber of ceremonies came into focus. She was standing far in the back, at the entrance, in the shifting shadows that covered the pews and the crowd. At the altar stood Celestia, and the bride and groom to be, Fleur and Fancy Pants. A quick search was all Luna needed to tell that Fancy Pants the dreamer, and the others just props in his dream.

The married couple-to-be were placed atop wooden stands like figurines on a wedding cake, locked in place by an unseen force and bathed in the glow of spotlight. The mirage of the bride looked like the picture of a mare excited for her new life, but trying to stay composed, while the dreaming groom’s legs shook as he locked his eyes desperately on her and only her.

She trotted down the aisle, through the darkness that covered the attendants and saw their true nature. A porcelain mask covered every single face, all of them different in decoration, but each wearing the same unnatural grin from ear to ear. Behind the masks lied not eyes, but camera lenses, each one zooming in and out in a chorus of buzzing electronics as they all went off with disorienting flash after flash.

“Nervous about the big day, are we?” she said softly as she stepped out of the darkness.

Fancy Pants’ head snapped to the intruder. He blinked, his eyes blank, uncomprehending. “Wh-what do you mean? Why’re you here, Princess?”

Luna channeled her magic at the foot of the altar, the soft cyan glow of her horn flooding the room. The shadows and the masked mockeries and the mirages faded away like dust, leaving only the two of them. “Just getting rid of another nightmare; I didn’t know that tomorrow troubled you so much.”

Clarity came to the stallions eyes, and he shook his head as if the nightmare were clinging to it. “A nightmare… yes, just a dream.” He shakily stepped down from his wooden stand and sat at the top of the altar. “I guess you could say that I’m troubled, yes.”

“Cameras for eyes and porcelain masks; that imagery is new for you, I must say,” Luna mused, sitting at the foot of the altar. “Doubting the sincerity of your entourage again?”

“That implies there’s any sincerity to doubt,” he sighed with a bitter laugh. “You won’t find a viler breed of leeches than the ones who cling to celebrities.”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose,” Luna chuckled mirthlessly. “It was the same before my banishment; I doubt it’ll ever stop being so.”

“Sad, but true,” he said with a wave of his hoof as if it were a white flag. “But appearances must be kept up. I must be my charming, kindly self despite the shortage of ponies around me worth being kind to. I’m sure you understand, being royalty.”

“I do, though I suppose I have more leeway to give others a piece of my mind,” she giggled, much more relaxed. “Though I am curious about the stands you and Fleur were perched on… does this whole affair feel artificial in some way? Actors playing their parts?”

The stallion winced and looked away. “I will admit I have had my doubts. I know that I’m deeply in love with her, but when you’re in my position you always have to wonder if it’s properly reciprocated. Am I really what she wants? Does she want me for the right reasons? Will she love me after we get old and grey? Will this just end up like all the celebrity marriages I heard about growing up that never lasted longer than a year?” He scoffed and shook his head. “The worst part is that I know that she could reasonably be wondering the exact same things about me.”

Luna nodded with a soft hum. “Love always counts on a lot of trust, and a lot of faith. And when one is in a position of great power or influence, both can easily be in short supply. Sometimes you just have to make yourself believe what your partner says and hope things will work out for the best.”

“I suppose you would know best, Princess,” he said with a small smile, laying down with his front legs hanging over the top step. “You certainly seem to know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve properly been in love,” she admitted, shifting in her seat, “but after living so long, you learn a lot about the subject.”

Fancy Pants’ smile grew into an intrigued smirk, an eyebrow raising. “Interesting qualifier there, your Highness; ‘properly’ in love… what about ‘improperly,’ if I may be so bold?” he asked.

Luna felt a soft heat grace her cheeks as she shook her head. “It’s nothing I care to discuss; it’s my duty to help my subjects through their psychological trials and hardships, not the other way around.”

“So it’s a trial and a hardship, is it? I daresay you must be quite smitten with somepony you shouldn’t be, it sounds like,” he purred with his infuriatingly disarming smile.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “You are entirely too clever for your own good.”

“I get that a lot,” he chuckled. “All the same, I don’t really mean to pry. You’ve already helped me a lot by just forcing me to come to terms with my own anxieties. You help so many get through every single night so they can face the day. I feel it’s only fair that I offer to listen to your problems; with the way this country still thinks ill of you, I have little doubt you have much to tell and few ears willing to hear.”

Luna sighed in defeat. “I believe ponies these days call what you’re doing ‘buttering me up,’ and I daresay it’s working.”

“No, that would involve a lot more compliments about your eyes, your smile, your figure, etcetera,” he said with a wave of his hoof. “I just want to try to return the favor you paid me tonight, and perhaps remind you that not all your subjects fear you.”

Luna scanned her eyes over the dreamer for the slightest hint of dishonesty. It was much harder, nigh impossible, to hide intentions in the realm of dreams. Finally she sighed in defeat and conceded, “I may just be desperate to get this off my chest to someone other than my sister or Twilight for once… but fine, I’ll trust you.”

“I’m honored,” the stallion said with a bow of his head.

“Don’t push it,” she said with a smirk. “The truth of the matter is that for the first time since even before my banishment, I feel my heart stirring for someone else. It’d be foolish of me to say I’m in love just yet, but I feel its early stages setting in. We have much in common as artists, though with very different mediums, and no matter what we talk about or what we do I always find myself wanting more.”

“Then why not tell this mystery pony how you feel, ask them out for a date or two, and see where it goes from there? It seems straightforward enough,” he said.

Luna bit her lip. “The issue is that the object of my affections is of the… female persuasion. And everything I’ve heard and everything she’s said indicates that her orientation isn’t aligned with mine at all. And if I directly asked her, what exactly could she say? Even though it’s perfectly legal to turn my sister or I down in this day and age, I imagine there’d still be an unholy amount of pressure to say yes. I don’t want to put her in that position.”

“And yet you do want to put her in that position because the uncertainty is driving you up a wall,” Fancy finished.

“Yes,” she groaned, hanging her head. “Before I was banished, such romances were beyond taboo, so this may be the first time I’ll ever have a significant other I’m comfortable with and be able to just enjoy it without fear of judgment. And yet the moment I think that, I’m unsure whether I like her for who she is, or what she could be to me, namely my first romance where I don’t have to be afraid of being dethroned for my nature. My feelings on the whole affair are just a mess.”

“I see,” Fancy said evenly, stroking his moustache. “Now that we’re deep in the rabbit hole, mind if I ask who this mare is?”

Luna furrowed her brow and averted her eyes for a few moments before admitting, “Miss Rarity.”

The stallion let out a soft chuckle. “I had suspected as much. Call it a hunch.”

“I fail to see what’s so amusing,” she said flatly, looking up at him with narrowed eyes.

“Just that of all the things that could be the truth in a thousand lies that the grapevine produces, it would be this,” he explained.

“I’ve heard what the Canterlot gossips have been saying. What’s more infuriating is that I can’t exactly refute it,” she huffed.

“Never a good feeling is it? But enough about that,” he said with a wave of his hoof. “What we need to do is somehow glean Rarity’s true feelings for you, along with her orientation. If both answers are favorable, then you can simply approach her and ask her out on a date.”

“But I already know that she’s straight as an arrow. She’s said as much,” Luna repeated with a raised eyebrow.

“Self diagnosis can sometimes be misleading,” he chided. “Besides, though she is a young adult, ‘young’ is the keyword. She may still be discovering things about herself. Who knows? Maybe you’ll help her discover them.”

Luna’s face heated up once more. “It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I believe you have a point. All the same, I don’t exactly have a plan of action.”

Fancy Pants’ grin grew, and she could have sworn that his mustache curled mischievously. “You don’t, but I think I might.”

“And then, and then, and then do you know what I told him? I told him he was too small to ride!”

The septet of mares burst out into a chorus of tipsy laughter as they lay in a circle on the floor, not a one of them feeling up to properly standing or sitting up. Emptied wine bottles were cast about like leaves to the wind, and each of the mares had chocolate smeared on their lips from the copious amounts of brownies Pinkie somehow managed to bake.

“Fleur, darling, you are just, just horrible,” Rarity giggled as she took another dreg of wine. She was lying on her belly with her legs outstretched. She liked to think she looked perfectly composed like a Prench model, but alcohol tended to do that.

“He probably n-needed ice for that burn,” Rainbow Dash snickered, flat on her back and kicking her legs in the air.

“Or for the bruise on his plot from where the door hit ‘im on the way out,” Pinkie giggled, her cheeks red and a lurid grin on her face.

“I need to write that one down,” Twilight mumbled with a giggle, her forehead against Applejack’s neck. For support or because she was a cuddly drunk, none of them seemed to know or be sober enough to figure out.

“After you get so many bum coltfriends, you learn after a while how to burn them,” Fleur smirked with another swig. Even she was long past the point of sipping from a wine glass.

“I think I’m *hic* done,” Fluttershy, the real group cuddly drunk, said as she pushed away a half-empty bottle while she was snuggled up against Pinkie Pie. “I know this ish mean and I shouldn’t find it funny.”

“Y’all are a bunch of lightweights,” Applejack chuckled, by far the most clear-minded one. She tilted a bottle back and drained the last of its contents before setting it in the small pile of bottles she’d already emptied.

“Hey hey hey hey,” Pinkie stuttered with a pleading wave of her hoof. “D-don’t throw that bottle away, AJ! I gots me an idea!”

“Pinkie, we are not playing spin the bottle,” Applejack sighed. “Not everypony here swings that way.”

“I-I don’t think I’d mind,” Fluttershy muttered, her face turning Big Mac red.

“Oh rawr,” Pinkie purred, her grin widening and turning back to her cuddle buddy.

Applejack facehoofed. “Not helping, Shy.”

“S-sorry,” she squeaked, hiding her face in Pinkie’s mane.

Pinkie suddenly shook her head. “No, wait, no distracty pony for you! I wasn’t gonna say spin the bottle.”

“For the fifth time,” Rainbow said snidely.

“I thought it would be the sixth,” Twilight mumbled.

Rainbow Dash looked at her hoof as if there was something on it to count with. “No, I’m p-pretty sure it’d be five…”

“Oh hush, I wanna hear this,” Fleur giggled, waving Rainbow quiet.

“Thank you, Fleury,” Pinkie said with a truckload of sweetness. “I was gonna say that we play Truth or Dare, spin the bottle style!”

“That actually sounds kind of fun,” Rarity admitted, setting her bottle aside.

“That could be fun too,” Fluttershy mumbled through Pinkie’s curly hair.

Twilight pulled out her slumber party guide and flipped through it, her eyes narrowing into slits. “The book says it can be a good bonding exercise… I think. The letters are kind of moving.”

“I guess I can get behind that,” Applejack said with a smile and a shrug, setting the bottle down in the middle of the circle.

Rainbow Dash rolled onto her stomach. “I can take anything you girlsh can throw at me!”

“As the bride to be, I call first spin,” Fleur said with a parody of her normal formality. She smacked the bottle with her hoof, when they all were suddenly reminded of the principle of friction and that nothing spins very well on plush carpet.

“I’ll fix it!” Twilight almost sang, her horn glowing.

Applejack put her hoof on Twilight’s horn and got to her feet. “No drunk magic for you, sugarcube. Remember last time?”

“Which last time? Time no longer feelsh leenee… lineeay… straight,” the unicorn slurred.

“If only a few other things around here weren’t straight,” Pinkie giggled under her breath, getting a small snort out of Fluttershy.

“The time you thought that your drink could use more apple and decided I was apple flavored,” Applejack deadpanned before she took a thin hardback off a nearby shelf.

Twilight groaned and shivered. “Getting my stomach pumped wasn’t fun…”

“I’m going to be nice and assume that’s the booze talking. Otherwise I’d smack you so hard your head would spin for that bein’ the first thing that comes to your mind.” She plopped back down next to Twi, letting the unicorn lean against her again despite the threat, and slid the book under the bottle. “Okay Miss Fleur, your go.”

“Oh, you’re too kind.” With another giggle, Fleur smacked the bottle again. It went round and round like a record until finally the business end landed squarely on Rainbow Dash. “Okay, Rainbow, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Rainbow snorted, narrowing her eyes defiantly.

“Dear, you’re going to regret that,” Rarity said as a sinisterly thoughtful grin graced Fleur’s face.

After a few seconds, Fleur said, “I dare you to lick the chocolate off Fluttershy’s lips.”

The yellow pegasus squeaked and the blue one’s face went bright red while the other girls devolved into a hail of snickers.

“The look on your fahace!” Twilight wheezed as she pointed at Rainbow Dash and laughed.

“Lucky,” Pinkie pouted, her ears going flat.

“That just ain’t right, partner,” Applejack said as she hid her own snickers behind her foreleg.

“Y-you’re pulling my tail, right?” Rainbow asked, eyes wide and pleading.

“Nope,” Fleur said with an evil smirk. “What, are you chicken? Chickens can’t get into the Wonderbolts.”

“Hey, that’sh racist,” Twilight slurred with an accusatory wave of her hoof. “Birds’re people too!”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed into slits as she rose to her feet. “I’ll show you chicken,” she huffed. “Flutters, c’mere.”

Fluttershy squeaked. “D-don’t I get a say in-”

Rainbow Dash grabbed Fluttershy by the shoulders and pulled their muzzles together, the former’s tongue flicking out to clean the latter’s chocolate smudges. Fluttershy’s eyes went wide, her wings snapped to attention, and her face was redder than one of her pet cardinals.

While the other girls were letting out scandalous “ooos” and laughing their plots off, Rarity felt some heat rise in her own cheeks. Her eyes refused to tear away from the scene. Instead of her funny bone getting tickled to death like she felt it should, an odd warmth spread throughout her as her heart pounded in her chest. Her gaze fell on Fluttershy’s cyan eyes, and the drunken haze that clouded her mind turned the owner’s coat from butter yellow to midnight blue and her partner’s to white, until the two standing there were Rarity herself and Luna.

The soft thud of Rainbow Dash letting Fluttershy go snapped Rarity out of the mirage. She shook her head to see Rainbow flop back down in her spot and Fluttershy lay there, her erect wings twitching as Pinkie Pie dragged her back to her side.

“My turn,” Rainbow huffed while Fleur wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. She smacked the bottle, sending it into a spin until it landed on Applejack. “AJ, truth or dare?”

Applejack’s laughter died in her throat when she noticed the bottle pointing at her. “Erm… uh, truth,” she stuttered.

“Pansy,” Rainbow spat before humming in thought. “Okay, does Big Mac live up to his name, if you catch my drift?”

Applejack scowled. “Now why in tarnation do you think I would know tha-”

“Yes he does!” Pinkie blurted out with a drunk smile.

“Pinkie, you didn’t!” Applejack scolded, her face bright red while the other girls howled with laughter.

Pinkie Pie giggled nervously. “Oops…”

Applejack grumbled and lowered the brim of her hat. “Mac an’ I are gonna have to talk about this when I get home.” She smacked the bottle, sending it into a spin so hard that it flew off the book and hit Fleur square in the chest. “Oh, sorry Fleur!”

“It’s fine; guess that means it’s my turn,” she said as she muffled her laughter, putting the bottle back in place. “Dare.”

Applejack put her hoof to her chin in thought. A smirk of her own grew on her face. “Alright, I dare ya to stick a beer bottle on your horn and not take it off until you’re about to walk down the aisle.”

A chorus of awed “ooos” filled the room again, even from Fleur. “I admit, didn’t expect that from the country gal,” the fashion model said, levitating up an empty bottle and sticking her horn through the top without hesitation.

“I can be inventive when I wanna be,” Applejack chuckled.

“Fleur, you’re not seriously going to go through with it, are you?” Rarity asked with a groan. “I’d like to see you in the dress I made without something so…so silly!”

“Rules of the game, Rarity,” Fleur shrugged off. “Besides, it’s me. Everypony will think it’s a fashion statement and be doing the same thing by next week.”

Rarity opened and closed her mouth, each time failing to find words to fling back. She finally sighed and conceded, “You’re probably right…”

“You know I am.” Fleur giggled and gave the bottle another spin. It came to a stop pointing squarely at Rarity.

Rarity looked to Fleur’s face to see an evil smirk already fermenting there. “Truth!” she blurted out.

“Drat,” spat Fleur. She hummed and narrowed her eyes, her head tilting slightly as she thought. After a few moments, her mischievous smile grew into a wicked grin the likes of which Rarity had never seen before, one that could probably get her past the gates of Tartarus if she wanted. “Do you have any romantic feelings for Princess Luna?”

Rarity’s face grew red hot and she felt sweat form on her brow, despite the fact it felt like her heart also stopped. Her eyes darted around the room to see the other girls casting questioning glances at both her and Fleur.

“Now that’s just a silly question,” Applejack said to Fleur with a wave of her hoof as if she swatted a parasprite. “Everypony knows Rare is straighter than the trunk of one of my trees.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t ask her something juicier?” Rainbow added.

“Shhhh, let her answer!” Pinkie said with a hurried flail of her foreleg. “Just look at her face!”

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you, Rarity?” Rainbow asked, tilting her head at her friend.

“That ain’t no fever,” Applejack stated, looking the frozen unicorn over.

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked meekly.

Rarity’s eyes soon found all of her friends’ eyes on her, the weight of their gazes crushing her harder than even her most insane luggage loads. She gulped and took a deep breath, wiping the sweat off her brow.

“Yes…”

“I’m sorry, what? Speak up,” Fleur said coyly, putting a hoof to her ear.

“Yes…!”

“Still a bit quiet, there, sugarcube,” Applejack said, rubbing the edge of her hoof in her ear.

“Yes!” Rarity blurted out. “Yes, yes, for the love of Celestia, yes! I can’t take holding it in anymore! I have the hugest crush on that accursed, gorgeous, marvelous mare and it’s driving me nuts! She’s just so kind and alluring and modest and assuring and inspiring and…and…!” She pulled her fainting couch to her side and climbed onto it, burying her face in her forelegs and pulling a pillow over her blushing head.

She heard the hum of magic, and due to a lack of any fingers to grip the pillow, it slid right off her head to reveal Twilight’s face inches away from hers. “Issat why you’ve been avoiding her?” she said with a concerned frown as the other five mares peeked around her with similar looks.

“Yes,” Rarity half whined, half sighed. “I had a, shall we say… romantic dream about her recently. I’ve been feeling funny around her for a long while before that, but the dream made me realize it. I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to her, or be around her, or anything, because I was afraid of making myself look like an idiot… and I suppose afraid of how she made me feel.” She rolled over and flopped onto the floor, kicking her fainting couch from whence it came. “I’ve felt so much safer and happier and just better around her than I have around any of my past coltfriends. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I feel a lot better around you girls than I did my coltfriends in the end, but this is different. And I don’t know what to do about it, at all.”

“Just tell her that you like her, silly filly,” Pinkie giggled, nudging Rarity’s side with her nose. “Trust me, it isn’t that hard.”

“Being straightforward is always easy for you, Pinkie,” she deadpanned. “This situation is delicate. I don’t know her orientation, and she’s royalty, for goodness sake! Why in the world would a princess want to date a country girl with pretentions of class like me?”

“Maybe because you’re one of the most likable and hardest working mares out there?” Applejack suggested as she trotted over and lay next to Rarity.

“And helped save Equestria several times,” Rainbow reminded, flapping over to lie on Rarity’s other side.

“And love making other ponies happy with your work,” Pinkie added, hopping on Rarity’s back.

“Not to mention you’re passionate about it and treat every dress like your magnum opus,” Twilight slurred and giggled, nuzzling her cheek.

“And you’re very pretty,” Fluttershy mumbled with a blush, nuzzling Rarity’s other cheek.

“I think the other girls pretty much covered it,” Fleur giggled with a warm smile, trotting over and laying in front of her. “You doubt yourself too much.”

Rarity smiled back as her heart calmed and embarrassed heat turned to loving warmth in her chest. “Thank you; you’re all the best friends a mare could ask for.” She pulled all six of them close into one big cuddle pile of fur, earning aws from the other girls who hugged her back.

“Don’t thank us yet,” Pinkie piped up. “We haven’t helped you get her yet!”

“Beg pardon?” Rarity said, looking at the party pony blankly.

“Yeah, we gotta help you confess your undying love in the perfect romantic way so you two can fly off into the sunset,” Pinkie explained as if it were the law. “That’s just how these things work!”

“Pinkie, darling, it’s not undying love; it’s only a crush thus far,” she mumbled through another blush.

“Still, I do like that idea,” Fleur purred, pulling away from the cuddle pile. “A bunch of girls helping their friend come to terms with who she is and confess her affections… straight out of one of your romance novels, isn’t it Rarity?”

Rarity’s face grew hotter and she cast her gaze downward. “Well, yes, it certainly is, but-”

“Nuh uh, no buts unless you have a tail to go with it,” Pinkie interrupted. “Tomorrow night is Fleur’s wedding reception, and there’ll be lots of dancing and slow music and that other schmaltzy waltzy stuff. It’ll be perfect!”

“I like the way you think,” Fleur giggled, putting a foreleg around Pinkie’s shoulder and pulling her in conspiratorially.

“Yay, somepony who understands how I think!” Pinkie squeed, hugging the stuffing out of Fleur.

“As cheesy as it sounds, I kinda like this idea too,” Applejack admitted, pulling away. “Ya said you don’t know what to do, but if we put our seven heads together, I’m sure we could come up with something to knock the princess right off her hooves!”

“Yeah, and Twilight’s a good friend of Luna’s, so she could totally make a plan with that egghead brain of hers!” Rainbow added with a smile.

Twilight giggled shyly. “Aw girlsh, I’m not that smar-” She then somehow managed to topple over on her side even though she wasn’t moving. “Woah, what happened to gravity?”

“After she sobers up,” Rainbow corrected.

Rarity bit her lip and poked the edges of her front hooves together. “Girls, I’m still not sure about this…”

Fluttershy hugged her middle and nuzzled her side lovingly. “Don’t worry, Rarity; we jusht wanna help. It’d make you happy, right?”

Rarity looked down at the tipsy pegasus, with her soft booze blush and big cyan eyes, and couldn’t help but feel a bit lighter. “Oh, okay, if you all insist…”

“Yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed, pumping her hoof in the air. “We are making this happen, girls!”

The other six started excitedly chatting amongst themselves, coming up with a wide range of romantic gestures and procedures and hare-brained schemes to get Rarity and Luna to have “a moment” and “fall for each other.” As she joined in on the scheming, Rarity couldn’t help but smile. Her friends were all smiling, laughing, and helping her get the mare she wanted. Everything felt right with the world.

Luna Plena

The sun was approaching the horizon, waiting for its mistress to bid it to leave, by the time the wedding had ended. To the collective relief of the city and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, no ancient evil that everypony had forgotten about had sabotaged or crashed or otherwise interrupted the ceremony itself. Vows were made, a kiss was shared, applause was had, rice was wasted, and nary an invasion force in sight, though many betting pools were disappointed. All in all, it was a pleasant day lacking any sort of incident.

No, that was saved for the reception.

The reception was held in the banquet hall that had held Twilight’s little birthday party way back when Fancy Pants was just an unreachable icon to Rarity. The reception was far from small or personal, however. Everypony that was anypony had shown up, and in Canterlot there were a lot of anyponies to be had. Copious amounts of food both delicate and decadent lined buffet tables. The guests each gave the graceful groom and blushing bride their congratulations, well-wishes, and petty Canterlot politics hoof-kissing. Anypony with a camera was taken to see the nice guards with their friendly spears to be investigated as an uninvited paparazzo or press photographer. Typical celebrity wedding, really.

Trouble was brewing at a small, out of the way table that seated six certain national heroes.

“This plan is stupid,” Twilight said flatly to her gathered partners in mischief.

“Hey, it was your plan!” Rainbow Dash shot back through another bite of wedding cake. “At least… I think it was your idea. Last night was kind of a blur.”

“I doubt that I could come up with anything so stupidly simple even when I’m not sober,” Twilight grumbled. “I mean, really? Loosening Luna up with liquor and getting her to dance with Rarity? That was the best we could do?”

“Sugarcube, we were so plastered that we wrote our brainstorming down on the label of a wine bottle. We should be thankful we had the presence of mind to write a plan down at all,” Applejack said, taking a swig of hard cider. “And that Pinkie’s calligraphy somehow gets better when she’s drunk.”

“What can I say? I’m full of surprises!” Pinkie chirped before shoveling another hoof full of sweets into her gob from the mountain of them she gathered on her plate.

“Not so loud, please,” Fluttershy groaned, nursing her head with both hooves with her chin on the table. “I can still hear my heart pounding in my head…”

“You really need to work on holding your booze, Shy,” Rainbow Dash giggled, patting her on the back.

“I’m never touching alcohol again,” she whimpered.

“That’s what you said last time,” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes.

“Focus!” Twilight hissed, tapping her hoof on the table. “Look, this really isn’t a good idea. One, I repeat, this plan is stupid. Two, this plan could go really wrong since Celestia’s told me that Luna’s the type of pony that loses the barrier between brain and mouth the more she drinks.”

“Well, duh!” Rainbow said with a facehoof. “That’s what we’re hoping for!”

“Look, girls,” Rarity chimed in softly, “I really appreciate the concern, the acceptance, and the assistance, but… I’m still unsure about this. Maybe this is the wrong time.”

“Rarity, you’re so anxious and unsure of yourself that there ain’t ever gonna be a right time,” Applejack said with a smile of sympathy. “It’s not the best or the most elaborate plan, but it’s what we’ve got, and we’ll take care of it. Just wait until they announce that it’s time for the couples to take the dance floor. If you see Luna there waiting, you’ll know what to do. One way or another, we’ll find out what’s what.”

Rarity smiled nervously and nodded. “Thank you, darling.”

“Speaking of which, I think I see her over by the south exit,” Rainbow said, standing in her chair to look over the crowd before plopping back down on her plot. “We’ve still got a lot of time, but we better get started. Pinkie, you’re up.”

Pinkie nodded and wrapped her tongue around the rest of her haul, dragging it into her mouth like a chameleon and swallowing thousands of calories of sugar like a snake. She licked her lips in bliss before saluting. “I’m on it!” she said before diving under their table and vanishing only to pop back up under a table on the other side of the room.

“And we better get to the liquor buffet before Pinkie drags her over there,” AJ said, climbing out of her seat along with Rainbow Dash.

“I think I’ll stay here,” Fluttershy mumbled, cradling her head back and forth. “Not going anywhere near alcohol.”

Rainbow sighed and tossed Fluttershy onto her own back with a squeak. “You don’t have to drink, you just have to be there. Just need to keep Luna talking, that’s all.”

Twilight sighed and got out of her seat as well. “Fine, I’m in, if only to make sure this doesn’t go horribly wrong.”

Rarity shifted uncomfortably in her seat and opened her mouth to speak, but AJ beat her to it. “Just go out and mingle, Rare. Talk to Fleur and Fancy; have some fun with your friends,” the cowpony said over her shoulder as the troupe trotted off.

Rarity smiled to herself and took a deep breath. “Might as well,” she mumbled, climbing out of her seat and scanning the room. She spotted the couple off to the side, dealing with ponies who no doubt just wanted to get on their good side. Fancy and Fleurs’ smiles seemed genuine, but she spent enough time around them to know it was the smile of simply tolerating the company they were forced to keep.

As the fashionista cantered through the tables and the crowd, she stole glances at Fleur to admire her work. Her and Luna’s vision brought to life, it was. The shape was simple but graceful; loose, bundled, white fabric around the shoulders of the forelegs to hold it in place with a flowing dress behind her and a wreath of pink lilies atop her head in the Roaman style, and copious elegant embroideries of gold depicting vines and lilies to mimic the Prench baroque aesthetic. Nevermind that lilies didn’t grow on vines; art and reality only have a passing relationship of awkward glances.

“Ah, there she is! Everypony, make way,” Fancy Pants said as she approached. The nobles who made triple her salary obediently parted for her to pass, though not without some grudging glares. She smiled wide and sauntered past like she owned them.

“Once again, Rarity, you do not cease to impress,” Fancy greeted when she arrived. “Fleur’s dress is absolutely gorgeous. I’m not sure what I expected, but the dress of an ancient empress certainly blindsided me.”

“Oh, it was no trouble at all,” Rarity fibbed with a charming smile. “You both deserve to feel like royalty on this very special day. I’m just glad I could make it happen.” She could just feel the waves of jealousy coming from all sides and reveled in them. Fleur was choking back laughter from the looks on their faces, and Fancy smiled all the wider.

“It was worth every penny, I say. You really should lower your prices, though; at five digits asking price, nopony short of nobility can afford your work,” he lied in return with a sly grin.

Rarity’s smile grew in turn. The nobles around them were hanging on his every word, and in turn her own. Time for a bit of advertising. “Oh, that’s only for my major commissions for celebrities like yourself and Octavia von Clef. I pour in so much time and work into them, I wouldn’t expect a single bit below ten thousand,” she lied right back with a nonchalant flip of her mane. “My average special orders fetch for a fifth of that, if not lower. As long as the money is worth my time, though, the Carousel Boutique can provide anypony a masterpiece.”

“As you keep proving,” Fancy nodded. “I look forward to seeing more of your work here in Canterlot.”

“Why, thank you,” Rarity said with a small bow.

Fancy Pants glanced to the side to… Rarity wasn’t even sure. “Speaking of your work, mind if I have a small chat with you? Outside, if you would,” he said, his smile not leaving him.

Rarity looked to Fleur for some sort of sign, but she seemed as lost as Rarity was. “But of course,” she said happily, hiding her confusion.

“Very good. This way,” Fancy said, trotting off with Rarity close behind. Rarity kept her eyes on his face as she followed. His own gaze was sweeping around the room, looking for someone or something, the same way a pony would look when looking for lost keys when already late for a date. His smile faltered with each passing second. Whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t in its proper place and he couldn’t find it.

His composure was back in place by the time they left through the southern doors into the banquet hall’s garden. Luna was nowhere in sight near the door, so Rarity assumed that Pinkie had succeeded in dragging her away by then. A few small groups were outside, scattered among various glass tables that only the decadent Canterlot would even dream of leaving outside to the elements and partaking in food from the buffet. Several of them broke from their conversations and looked to her and Fancy, but the older stallion shot them looks that told them that it was not the time for ingratiation. Suck-ups that they were, they obeyed his silent commands without a fuss or a word.

Fancy led her to a small patio within a copse of trees within earshot of the banquet hall. He took a seat on one of its antique-looking-but-still-obviously-new chairs and silently motioned for her to take the one across from him. She did as she was offered with a little bow and a smile, though her smile was more nervous than she wanted.

“Now that we’re away from prying ears,” Fancy started, a genuine grin back on his face, “I really do have to say from the bottom of my heart that you did a marvelous job on Fleur’s dress. I used to think she couldn’t ever be any more beautiful to me than she already was, but you proved me wrong! Keep up this standard of work, and they’ll be studying your style and methods in art schools in a few decades.”

“Oh, my work isn’t that great,” Rarity said with a bashful smile and blush. “But it’s most kind of you to say so. And I really must thank you for the opportunity to advertise myself. I didn’t dare break eye contact to check their faces, but I really hope they bought it.”

“I’ll bet money that they did, and that they will,” he chuckled. “If I were you, I’d get used to the idea of five digits being your new monthly earnings.”

“I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with that much money besides to put into my little sister’s account,” she admitted with a shaky sigh. “I learned my lesson about letting fame and reputation going to my head; I don’t want to learn the same lesson about wealth the hard way.”

“Charities are the best way to get rid of excess riches to avoid the temptation; help the world while helping yourself, really,” he said. “But don’t fret over hypotheticals. Should the time come where I will be privileged to associate with you instead of the other way around, I’ll give you some pointers about how to handle stardom and not self-destruct. For now, focus on your work and let your reward come when it may.”

“If only it were that simple.” She sighed and slumped a little in her seat. “Truth be told, I barely managed to finish Fleur’s commission. I was so paralyzed with fear that anything I could come up with wouldn’t be good enough for her that I put it off until last week. If it weren’t for Luna… this whole day would not gone nearly as well,” Rarity confessed, her ears flattening.

“Oh really?” Fancy asked, his ears perked at attention. “And what exactly should I thank Luna for?”

“For getting my plot in gear, to be frank,” Rarity chuckled. “She stayed up all night to help me brainstorm and for me to bounce ideas off of, and kept me going after I’d lost faith in myself.”

“That was awfully kind of her,” he said. “Not many ponies would believe her capable of that sort of generosity.”

“Many ponies are quite mistaken, to put it charitably,” Rarity half sighed, half grumbled. “Luna doesn’t deserve a single ounce of the distrust that the public still harbors for her. She still has much to get used to about modern life, but beneath it all she’s a kind, funny, clever mare who just wants to be loved again.”

“You sound like you know her very well,” he said with a somber smile.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t heard about Luna and I spending time together,” Rarity said with a small roll of her eyes.

“I have,” he admitted with a small bow of his head in concession. “I’ve also heard frankly scandalous stories involving the two of you, alcohol, and her bedchamber. Can’t say that I ever believed a word of them, though.”

“Thank you!” she blurted out, raising her forelegs as if beseeching the heavens. “Finally, somepony in Canterlot who isn’t making presumptions about my romantic life based on hearsay! I love Fleur to death, but even she was pestering me about it.”

“Oh, in her case, it was just teasing,” he chuckled with a grin. “Besides, everypony knows that your fondness lies with stallions alone.”

Rarity’s anger faded and her face went blank. “Well… eheh…” she giggled, suddenly very sheepish.

“Yes?” Fancy prompted with a wave of his hoof. “What is it?”

She shifted in her seat and hummed, choosing her words carefully. “They do say that there’s a grain of truth to every myth, don’t they?”

“I have yet to meet this ‘they’ that ponies go on about when speaking of general hypotheticals, but yes, that has been said,” Fancy Pants joked with a very calm mirth.

“Well, that still holds true for those rumors that have been going around, though I didn’t exactly realize it when I first heard about them,” she said.

“Go on,” he prompted.

She paused and bit her lip. “Mister Fancy Pants, you’re a very good friend of mine, and I daresay that you’re akin to the likable, understanding uncle I never had. But please understand that what I’m about to disclose is information I would still very much like to keep hushed up until I’m ready to bring it to public attention myself.”

“My lips are sealed until you say otherwise,” he promised with a nod.

Rarity took a deep breath. “The truth is that in the time I have spent with Princess Luna, I have discovered a few things about myself. Namely, in the time I’ve spent with her, I’ve found her more charming and irresistible than I’ve ever found any stallion. Not to say that I have lost my attraction to the opposite sex or anything, but…” She trailed off and cringed inwardly, unable to make sense of what she was feeling and put it into words.

Fancy chuckled with a wide grin. “Say no more. The word you’re looking for is ‘bisexual,’ Rarity, and there’s no shame in it. In fact, that’s what I was hoping to hear, though in different circumstances.”

Rarity’s face went blank again, staring at her friend. “I beg your pardon?”

“I called you out here for more than small talk; I was hoping to extract that exact information from you. This was to be a set up, and yet it looks like my conspirator has vanished,” he admitted with a slightly worried frown, looking about. “Princess Luna was to slip outside behind us and lurk in the shadows in that vapor form of hers, watching and listening as close as she felt comfortable. I was to give a signal as to your answer if she wasn’t in hearing range, and if your answer was favorable, she was to reveal herself and admit to her growing affections.” He chuckled nervously. “This is actually quite embarrassing, but… I think we’ll have to track her down, forgo the thematic dramatics, and just tell her how it went. I have not the faintest idea where she could be; this all seemed terribly important to her.”

Rarity froze, save for what felt like her eye twitching, but she felt like she wasn’t even inside her body anymore so she couldn’t really be sure. “I… think I have an idea where she is,” she groaned, covering her face with both hooves.

“Rarity, are you alri-”

“Do not dare presume that you know what I went through!” boomed a thunderous, otherworldly voice, the windows of the banquet hall rattling.

“What in the world was that?!” Fancy Pants asked, hooves over his ears.

“Oh no,” Rarity breathed. She leaped out of her seat and galloped towards the banquet hall faster than she thought her legs could ever take her. She burst in to find the hall stunned into silence, all eyes on Princess Luna. The alicorn’s cheeks were red, though whether it was more from rage or from booze she couldn’t tell. Most of said booze was scattered on the floor and on the buffet table where it used to be arranged and stacked, more than likely shattered or knocked over by the force of Luna’s voice. Backed up against the table was a very scared and quivering Rainbow Dash. The other girls had backed away, Fluttershy behind Pinkie Pie and even the bubbly party mare looking afraid.

“You had it easy, you pampered whelp!” Luna yelled into Rainbow’s face. “You all had it easy!” She rounded on the other guests, the crowd tripping over themselves to back away. “I saved the filthy hides of your ancestors from Discord’s reign of misery, and what was my reward? To suffer in silence for centuries, knowing every single day of my wretched life that to pursue love as I wanted would have me exiled and disowned by the very people I saved, and my lover jailed to be ‘cured’!” She turned her head to Celestia, who among the crowd had not backed down or shrunk away. “Even my thrice-damned sister did everything in her power to rob me of my happiness when she found out, under the guise of doing it for my own good!”

Celestia bowed her head, but said not a word of protest.

“And after the hateful, small-minded little ants that sired you drove me to the breaking point, drove me to a point where I listened to forces dark and terrible in the hope of getting the smallest taste of love and respect and banished for my weakness, what is my reparation for all I’ve suffered?” she asked, sweeping her head across the crowd again. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Not an ounce of sympathy, not a single dreg of kindness from my own people. Even in this brave new world where I could find love and happiness, you will not allow me to have it. No, I get naught but paranoia and distrust for an act that I didn’t intend, nor did I do of my own free will. In the papers, in the streets, in the whispers behind my back in my own palace, you all have made it abundantly clear that I am not welcome here! So you know what?!”

She raised a hoof and swiped off her own crown, sending it clattering to the floor as tears fell to the ground.

“I resign!”

Luna turned to vapor with a violent, angry hiss, and the cloud rushed out of the room like a tempest wind, slamming the doors open and knocking much of the crowd to the floor.

Silence took its hold over the banquet hall. Murmurs started stirring among the crowd, hushed whispers and terrified undertones, as Rarity trotted through the masses over to her friends. The walk felt like a moment and an eternity both, the warped sense of time one would feel in a surreal dream. However long it took, eventually she found herself by their side, picking up Luna’s discarded crown in her hooves.

“Are you okay, sugarcube?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash, helping her back to all fours.

“Are you hurt?” Fluttershy added, quaking as she crawled out from behind Pinkie Pie.

“I’m f-f-fine,” Rainbow lied, badly, as she trembled and brushed them off. “Just fine.”

“I knew we gave her one drink too many, but… I had no idea,” Applejack trailed off.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tall, alabaster pillars that were Celestia’s legs walk into view, but she didn’t pay much attention. Her eyes wouldn’t leave Luna’s crown.

“Celestia,” she heard Twilight ask. “It’s not true… is it?”

“I wish I could deny it, but she meant every word. Especially the ones about me,” Celestia confessed, a heavy sadness weighing down her normally regal air. “Equestria has not always been a good country. Our time under Discord did nothing to cure old prejudices and bigotry from before he arrived, and his imprisonment did not magically make them go away. Even my own.”

“But… you couldn’t have… what did you do to her?” Twilight stuttered.

“A lot of things. But I did more to the love of her life. I stole her from Luna, for which I don’t think she’ll ever quite forgive me. I don’t forgive myself either.” Celestia let out a weary sigh, and she suddenly looked very… old, in a way words couldn’t describe. “I’ve never been a perfect mare, or a perfect ruler. I just do the best I can to not repeat the same mistakes. I’m sorry you had to realize that like this, Twilight… all of you.”

“But she can’t just quit… can she?” Pinkie asked. “She’s a princess! She just can’t stop being a princess!”

“There is no official, legal procedure allowing either of us to step down as princesses, but I don’t think it’d be right of me to stop her,” Celestia admitted.

“If you won’t, I will!” Twilight insisted, a hint of desperation in her voice. “She’s my friend; I can’t let her do this to herself! I’ll talk her out of this, I promise.”

“You won’t, Twilight, and that’s an order,” Celestia said firmly.

“Wh-what?” Twilight stammered.

“Because this time you simply aren’t the mare for the job,” Celestia explained. “A friend can’t mend this kind of hurt. This takes a bond greater than that.”

Rarity felt eyes on her, and she looked up to see that it was Celestia’s. “Me?” was all she could bring herself to say.

“Yes, you,” Celestia said with a small, hopeful smile. “She’s told me several times of how fond she is of you… in a romantic sense. And the way I’ve seen you look at her, I think I can safely say that you return the feeling.”

“Fond, yes, but I… I don’t think I’m in love yet. This whole thing is so new to me,” Rarity said, avoiding eye contact.

“Then you need to tell her as much,” Celestia said. “She needs a heart to heart right now, with you more than anyone. Let her know how you feel, and if you both should move on or not. Right now she needs some closure and sincerity, at the very least, which only you can provide.”

Rarity shook her head. "But... but what about Fleur and Fancy Pants?"

"What about me?" Fleur asked behind her, nudging her cheek with her nose.

Rarity jumped in her skin and turned around to see Fleur standing tall behind her, a sad smile on the bride's face. "Oh... oh Fleur, I'm so, so sorry! I didn't mean for any of this to-"

Fleur held up a hoof to silence her. "Please, don't grovel. It doesn't suit you, Rarity. Don't worry about us. Honestly, I was hoping for something to happen to interrupt the drudgery and insincere flattery. I'm just sorry that it was something that's causing you and your friends so much pain."

A shadow of a smile crept onto Rarity's face as she stood upright and pulled Fleur into a hug. "Thank you, Fleur... you're a great friend."

"Thank me when you get the girl," Fleur teased softly, pulling back and nuzzling her nose against Rarity's. "Fancy and I are already well on our way to a happy ending; do me a favor and go get yours started."

"I'll try." Rarity swallowed hard, her throat feeling dry. “Very well,” she said, turning back to Celestia. “Where can I find her?”

“In her room,” Celestia said simply, trotting past the group. “Twilight, teleport her there. Fleur, let's get started on damage control."

"Of course, your highness," Fleur bowed, following close behind the princess.

The six mares mumbled various goodbyes and salutations as they looked over each other. The five that had faced Luna’s wrath were covered in booze from shattered bottles, along with a few cuts from the flying glass. Rainbow Dash had it the worst, and was still trembling harder than Fluttershy, who held her tight and refused to let go.

Rarity took a deep breath, lowered Luna’s crown, and turned to Twilight. “We better get going,” she said, a pained smile on her face. “Don’t want to leave her alone for too long.”

“Okay,” Twilight mumbled, a nervous frown on her muzzle. Her horn glowed and then discharged in a flash of white light. When it cleared, the two of them were outside Luna’s bedchamber. The two anxiously looked away from each other, only occasionally making eye contact. “Just… make sure she’s okay? She’s my friend too.”

“I’ll try my best,” Rarity said, pulling Twilight into a gentle hug. “I promise.”

Twilight smiled and hugged her back before teleporting away, leaving Rarity alone to face an angry, hurt demigoddess.

Rarity closed her eyes and breathed slowly, taking a few moments to compose and steel herself. She raised her hoof up and knocked, flinching in advance of the shouting she expected.

No such shouting came, nor did any noise at all.

Rarity blinked and waited a few seconds, a weight settling in the pit of her stomach. She knocked again, only to be met with more silence. She nervously swallowed and pushed the door open, peeking inside. The darkness within was absolute, and silent save for the sound of quiet sobbing.

“Luna…?” she asked softly, taking a step inside.

“Leave me be,” Luna whispered.

“Not just yet; we need to talk first.” Rarity shook her head and walked all the way inside. Her hip bumped against the door, opening it just far enough for the outside to reveal Luna sprawled on her bed. The alicorn shifted and turned over, but not before Rarity got a glimpse of her tear-soaked face. Gone was the thunder and fury, and in their place heartbreak and despair. Rarity could feel her own heart cracking as she closed the door, letting darkness take them again.

“About what?” Luna spat weakly. “About how I ruined your friends’ wedding day? About how I slandered my sister in front of hundreds? About how I just gave the public more fuel to their hatred of me?”

Rarity sat down, her head hung low. “No; I…” Her voice died in her throat, words failing her.

“Then what?” Luna choked out. “What do you want?”

“For you to be happy again,” Rarity said, without thought or filters. Muscles relaxed she didn’t even know were tense.

Luna was silent for a few moments. “That’s very kind of you, Rarity, yet… I don’t think that such a thing is going to happen.”

“If you think that’s going to make me leave or give up, then you don’t know me as well as I’d hoped,” Rarity said with a small smile.

Luna chuckled. Though it was strained and was followed by a sniffle, it was something at least. “I would expect no less. Still, I would very much like to be left alone.”

“You don’t sound like you do. You sound like you want someone to stand by you more than ever,” Rarity said. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the dark. She was able to see Luna’s outline, at the very least.

“Maybe… I don’t really know anymore,” Luna admitted.

Rarity shifted her weight on her forelegs uneasily. “Well… I do know about your little stake-out plan with Fancy Pants. He told me about it after he found out what he was after, but you were nowhere to be seen.”

“Pinkie can be very insistent,” Luna scoffed bitterly. “I had hoped to mingle with yours and Twilight’s friends for only a few minutes and be back at my post in time, but… you saw how that turned out.”

“Yes… I did,” Rarity mumbled. “I knew you were troubled, but I hadn’t the faintest idea you had so much bottled up all this time.”

“Very few do. It was a long time ago, in an age that the history books like to gloss over or forget entirely,” Luna sighed. “Nobody in that room but my sister knew, let alone your blue friend, and yet… and yet I cannot help but feel enraged that life and those around me continue to stamp me into the dirt, and yet I’m expected to just let it happen and pretend that anyone understands what I’ve been through.”

“I can only imagine,” Rarity said softly. “I just… I really hope I haven’t made things worse for you.”

“You haven’t,” Luna assured hastily. “Made things more complicated, though… yes. But it’s nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I should apologize for dragging you into my insecurities and… oh, what’s the modern phrase… emotional baggage.”

“Please, don’t,” Rarity said with a shake of her head. “My life has become much more complicated since you and I started speaking, yes, but I don’t regret a moment of it. I’ve discovered a lot about myself since then, and I have you to thank for it.”

Luna shifted in her bed, curling up tighter. “You’re just saying that, Rarity.”

“I say it because it’s true! I won’t pretend that I’m head-over-hooves in love with you, but you make me confident and comfortable in my own skin and assured about my life in a way no colt ever has,” she gushed. “I care deeply about all my friends, but the way my heart feels when you look at me or laugh at my jokes or compliment me or my work is a sort of warmth I’ve never felt before. And I can’t begin to describe how devastated I felt when I saw you so angry and hurt, how heartbroken I feel now to see you sad and crying. I just… I feel for you in a way that I think could turn into something truly beautiful if you’d just give me a chance.”

Rarity rose and took another step, then another, her heart leading her and her mind not objecting. What she was doing was bold, scandalous, and borderline blasphemous, but she found herself no longer caring.

She climbed onto Luna’s bed and lay behind her, holding the alicorn close with her head in her starry mane and her chest against the princess’ back.

“I truly, deeply care about you… so please, let me help you,” she begged softly.

Luna moved and shifted, but not to pull away. She came closer, pressing her back against Rarity’s front. “You already do.”

Silence settled over the two of them, a comforting presence instead of a smothering one. Rarity felt Luna’s heartbeat through her hooves wrapped around the alicorn’s middle, along with her rising and falling chest. She breathed easier than she thought she would, nuzzled into Luna’s mane. It felt ethereal as it looked, at once physically present and yet less substantial than air. Rarity relaxed, and she felt Luna relax along with her, her breath slowing and muscles loosening and heart calming.

Luna broke the silence first. “The next few weeks are going to be very difficult because of my outburst,” she stated.

“I know,” Rarity mumbled.

Luna sighed. “And I’ll have to profusely apologize to your friends… both the ones I yelled at, and the one’s whose wedding day I ruined.”

“It’d only be right,” Rarity said gently.

“And if there was a single journalist that snuck in, this will be plastered all over the papers… and even if it isn’t, the news will still circulate by word of mouth and end up on headlines anyway,” Luna continued.

“I know,” Rarity repeated, nuzzling the back of Luna’s neck.

“News of our relationship will make waves as well… if you want to make it official, that is.”

“I have my worries, but... I think I'm ready to take that step. I'm happy to be with you, and don't want to hide my feelings anymore,” Rarity assured, giving her new marefriend’s neck a little kiss.

Luna hummed happily, backing up further into Rarity’s embrace. “I… think I’ll retract my resignation,” she muttered. “How much do you want to bet that many will insist that my words were binding to get rid of me?”

“To the pits of Tartarus with them, I say,” Rarity cursed. “You’re a better princess then they deserve, but they’ll never drive you away.”

“Thank you.” Luna was silent for a while longer, but eventually she said, “I haven’t been this close to anyone in a long, long time… I think I’d like to show you something.”

“What would that be?” Rarity asked.

“My dreamscape,” she answered. She turned over, facing Rarity as they lay together, resting her forelegs on Rarity’s shoulders. Her horn glowed with cyan magic, lighting up the face of the two new lovers. Luna’s cheeks were still matted with tears, but a meek smile was on her face. “I’ve seen your dreams, and I’ve seen the dreams of millions, but… only a select few in all of history have ever seen my mind from the inside. I think you deserve to see it.”

“Luna… as excited as you must be, that’s an incredibly personal thing to share and sounds like a huge step in a relationship,” Rarity cautioned with a worried frown. “Let’s wait for a little while, okay? The last thing I think either of us should do is rush this.”

Luna’s smile faltered in the soft glow. “Very well, Rarity. If you think it best,” she mumbled.

Rarity smiled in return, wrapping her forelegs around Luna’s shoulders. “We don’t have to take it too slow, though.”

Luna blushed, and the heat that graced her cheeks told Rarity that she was blushing to match. She sparked her own horn to life and leaned in slowly, gently. Luna wasn’t so much in the mood for dramatics or savoring the moment, quickly pressing her own lips against Rarity’s and holding her close.

In the glow of magic and the cover of darkness, the two kissed, and Rarity at last tasted ambrosia.

Author's Note

And at last, this story draws to a close. I'm so sorry it took so long, but life has not been kind to me or my muse. I hope you enjoyed the finale. I have not had the chance to finish many multi-chapter stories, so I rarely get the chance to write finales.

Some closing thoughts: Overall, I really enjoyed writing this story. It by far isn't my most successful, but I think it's what I had the most fun with. I was very proud of myself for every connection I could find and make between Luna and Rarity, two characters very few ever even considered being together, a very nice challenge. It was also fun to exercise my imagination for Rarity's fashion creations, drawing upon my own limited art education in college and doing some research of my own, along with some ideas of my own. If you know me personally, you can also see several passages that mean a lot to me in sentiment and in content, particularly about the struggle and the frustration and the drive of an artist. And of course, though I only have a few readers and commenters for this story compared to my others, I really loved seeing your excitement and interest. I only hope you walk away satisfied.

Please tell me what you liked, and what I could do better. Be on the lookout for my planned companion piece, an AU romance between Rarity and Nightmare Moon. The working title is "In the Dark of Midnight." Due to radically different circumstances and character, plot points will be just as different. Hope to see you there when I release it!

And finally, a big thank you to Lighty for inspiring this story, and Jackie for getting my own plot in gear to get it finished. You're both great people, and I hope to work with you in the future.