In Which The Field Is Guarded
The field of wheat ripples in the breeze like a thousand twitching curtains, each stem murmuring rumours to the others as the wind brushes through. They bow and bob and bend and wave, nodding warily up at the blue pony standing guard atop a hill roughly near the centre.
Princess Luna cares for them not. Her eyes are pointed upwards.
The midday’s sun glimmers off her black crown and slight pinpricks of perspiration cover her like dew. Her ears revolve from side to side, shivering. Her light-blue mane hangs short above her shoulders, and it does not twirl with the breeze.
There is a scarecrow next to her, and it is a run down, raggedy old thing. Straw bleeds out of its chest and poorly moulded head, and a stick pokes from its neck like a bad accident made worse. Buttons form a loose smile across its face.
Luna has taken to calling him Jimbo, though the two of them never speak.
From out of the quiet whispering of the field, there’s a sound, a squawk. Her ears swivel, angling to a forwards tilt as her head swings round. There, a little way off, a black shadow is coming in to land.
Eyes throbbing white with power, Luna raises a hoof and bellows:
“Think not to take my crop from me, thou winged vermin! This land is held under sacred trust, and I, thy Princess of the Night, command thee to leave this corn unpecked and unassaulted!”
The field before her bends, bowing away from the sheer force emptying out her lungs. The crow catches the full of it mid-flight, and tumbles upward-backwards before vanishing into a cloud.
Princess Luna watches the hole he left for a long while. It has been the first crow for quite some time now to try her patience on the field. Most of the others have wisened up and started to feed off of the fields adjacent to Luna's own. As too have the farmers: no-one disturbs her now.
Even after the shifting winds have eased the cut away, Princess Luna keeps on watching, moving only when Jimbo’s shadow climbs over her form.
It has been a long fortnight.
It is nighttime, and the clouds the pegasi missed are ink blots against her perfect sky. The only earthward light for miles around are the ones pouring out the farmhouse two and a half miles off. Eventually, as night stretches out, those vanish.
Jimbo shudders in his post beside her as something heavy lands nearby. Princess Luna does not turn to look; she knows who it is, and knows she need not keep this one away.
“Hello, Little Sister.” Celestia’s voice is a smile made sound.
Warmth trickles down her neck as fuzziness rubs above. Celestia’s mane is a soft thing that covers her like a blanket, and her scent is that of jasmine, cake and home. Luna nuzzles back into her, revelling in the touch. It is always, always too long.
“And hello to thee, Big Sister.”
Her head rubs down and meets with coldness: the golden torc upon her sister’s neck. She freezes, stiffening. Jimbo creaks beside her as she shuffles out the embrace.
Luna swallows. Her sister’s eyes skim over her, a faint smile held upon her face just so. There is a tenseness to them both.
“Your field is looking very lovely tonight.” They look out across it. The wheat is growing good and tall and strong, but no more so than in any other. A few stems are still broken, a few others wet with rot. Princess Luna only keeps off the crows.
“You must be keeping an excellent watch over it.”
“I thank thee for thy praise.” Celestia shuffles, her wings folded into her sides. Luna does not move, but remains staring upwards.
“Little Sister, I... Luna.” She does not look down. “Luna! How long are you planning to watch over this field?”
Crickets chirp within the silence left; an occasional owl hoots louder, more greedy in his share. Luna moves her head down and considers the horizon.
She then looks over, blue eyes meeting purple, and Celestia’s breath catches faintly, going from an atonal rhythm to a calm, harmonious one.
“Autumn,” Luna says, quietly, her voice more of a sigh. “My time here will be at its end come the Autumn and the Harvest Moon.”
Celestia does not nod and Luna looks away. The two of them stand in silence as the stars wheel up above and the moon slips ever down.
The crows have been eating at the wheat nearest the field’s edges, sneaking through the fences and nibbling away. Not flying, but hobbling along the ground, hidden from Luna’s sight.
Her fury was a thing best unbeheld.
The crops for half a yard away from her field are flattened, blown utterly apart. Crows and their feathers litter the razed ground like ashen stains on the broken landscape. Luna no longer stands by the scarecrow, but marches furiously around the field, ears twitching and eyes darting about.
The farmers no longer approach any of the nearby fields. The dead crows are beginning to stink of rot, and above them is the buzz of flies. Dirt and feathers and loose ears of wheat stick to Luna’s body, rubbing wrongly as she walks.
She pays them all no mind, watching only up above and all around for any signs of movement. Occasionally, she returns to the centre and stands in place with Jimbo, her head forever turning.
The treetops of the few oaks growing within the distant hedgerows are beginning to char from the top down, their leaves blossoming into a dark bracken-brown before peeling off like the trees are moulting.
Summertime is ending.
“Thou may surroundst thyself with guards nowadays, Big Sister, but do not think that I require them also.”
Luna is midway through her hourly stomp around her great circle. Half the moon dangles in the sky, big and white and shining. Her sister is beside her.
“I can guard myself. I am not some babe in need of pampering from a contingent of mewling stallions. I am not some unfettered Princess, untried and untested and forever in danger of dying. I am in need of no guard!”
The last part is spat heavy out into the air, her tongue lashing at the syllables as if glad to see them go.
Celestia’s response is short: “That is not the sole meaning of guard, Little Sister. There is a difference between the guarding of and the guarding from.”
The words stop Luna in place and then rob her of knowing where to look. Her eyes are flighty and uncertain, resting here and there and there. Her breaths are a quick and shallow thing, but they never grow fast enough to break into a pant.
With a huff, she resumes her pacing, eyes darting occasionally back to rest on Celestia’s chest. A few seconds later, and her sister follows after.
“No,” Luna says, and does not clarify what she means. “No.” Her hooves scuff dust and brittle feathers from off the floor.
Celestia says nothing, but her horn erupts with light.
The torc round her neck lifts off, wrapped in a purer yellow than the gold could ever be. Luna has stopped once more, and she swallows as she watches, eyes wide and fixed and fierce.
The bare whiteness of Celestia’s chest is shown. Her coat is trimmed short, the hairs fine and white, each curling in the swirls that drift over her body. A black lump just above her heart mars it all, the flesh beneath the colour of a scab unhealed, of dried blood still protruding.
It is not a wound that will ever heal: magic of that ilk seldom does.
The air teases out their manes as they pause, each watching parts of the other. Bats in chase of insects swoop overhead, the moths drawn by the horn-light towards an impression of the moon.
“One week,” Luna whispers. “Just one week till Harvest Moon. Please, Big Sister. Let me guard just this. Let me guard this at least.” She breaks the gaze, head bowing, eyes closing. “Please.”
Their eyes do not meet again, but Celestia slowly nods, her hair falling oddly around her face.
The Harvest Moon is an orange smudge inside the sky, a jealous blur of the setting sun. The fields for miles around are carpeted with constellations of the flash off scythes and sickles. Dying stems flop to the floor as the air is filled with dust and sweat and calls from mare to colt.
Luna’s horn is aglow, her field bowing before her in a permanence of respect. Celestia is sat by Jimbo, a cut of stalk held in her teeth and her wings stretched languidly out.
There is a murder of crows perched on one of the root-branched oaks, a black fungus on the sleeping green. Luna watches them always, though her ears still swivel and her lips curl back every now and then in a test of the air.
She does not know why they are waiting, or what it is they are waiting for. But they have been here also, been with her through all of this. She is content to let them watch.
Then all the stalks are cut, and the heart of the field lies horizontal. She wrestles it into bundles with ropes like snakes weaving across the landscape. The night sets ever faster.
At long last, she is done. The crows caw loudly at her, but now their croaks seem like applause. She laughs, and it is a silver thing inside the dusty air, bold and bright and beautiful to behold.
Princess Celestia smiles at her, and her cheeks bend up under the strength of it, lines and wrinkles running over her perfect face. Princess Luna smiles back, a quick flash of crescent moon across her face.
Jimbo smiles the same smile that he has always smiled, but Luna no longer cares.
With thudding wingbeats that agitate the dusty floor, the two rise and fly off, leaving the field far, far behind them. And when they are distant blurs against the umbral haze of the sky, the crows descend, and Jimbo cannot stop them.
The piece of prose you've—hopefully—just read has been pseudo-grafted here into poetic form because I'm on a poetic high at the moment without really having a defined place to defecate.
I think, oddly, this version's actually clearer in what it means. Enjoy, I suppose.
She stands beneath the molten sky
With sweat like dew upon her coat
Stands on a hill ‘midst fields of oat
Or are they wheat? Or are they rye?
No matter, for the sunlight scattered
Patters down like drops of rain
Refrained, the same is not the same
But nothing’s changed, no, nothing’s changed
How could she know which way to go
When knowing shows too many roads?
The crows of woe crow out their goads
But still, she holds—Oh still!—She holds!
And guards the fields from being meal
With scarecrow Jimbo by her side
Teal eyes reveal naught else abides
She sighs, and knows not what to feel
Hers is the choice and hers the voice
That makes her stay till wheat makes hay
Through dark and day, she does not cave
But braves away the long divorce
The bond that broke ‘neath fire and smoke
When night eternal owned the sky
That’s why she sighs and guards the rye
Or was it wheat? Or was it oat?
No matter: batter down the doors
And shatter war by drawing swords
No more caw the crows of woe
But pause for what they know’s foresworn
She does not break, but still they wait
And sate their hate through mocking fate
Thou must break; thou hast before
Bring back the war! Break now, they caw!
She holds, although she knows not why
For her black night should take the sky
Regret won’t let her mind forget
Eyes dry, she sighs, and guards the rye
The autumn comes, and ‘neath its sun
She wonders if her blunder’s done
Where are the crows? Where did they go?
Awake, she hates, and slowly breaks
But knows it—knows it!—knows she’s breaking
Holds, though holding’s her unmaking
Bides, though 'side her Jimbo’s quaking
Smiles, as Harvest Moon’s awakening
A second sun in thunderous rise
Lights up the skies from side to side
Her pride and bride beside the Sun,
She’s almost won—yes, almost won
The dark held back with her intact
She kept the wheat throughout the weeks
Complete—unbroken. Not quite total
Enough, though, to have earned their trust
To show that she can guard her ponies
Guard her land and guard herself
Watch her health and know herself
No longer break by waiting lonely
Harvest Moon is soon to noon
As midnight bright alights her night
The yield of field lies horizontal
At last, her task dies with the grass
She’s laughter after chaff is shed
No longer treads with thoughts unsaid
And songs become her wrongs undone
Sweet guardian Moon returns with Sun
