“It is a beautiful night is it not?”
“Its average, I guess,” replied a playful voice.
“Average! I’ll have you know...ah you are pulling on our proverbial leg. It is not fair Twilight. I am not as accustomed to modern word play as you are.”
“Nonsense you’ve made wonderful progress over the past few months despite how cute your little slip ups are.”
Twilight nuzzled Luna before trotting in from the balcony they had been observing the night upon. Twilight would have continued to enjoy the night had it not been for the fact that it was freezing cold. Canterlot had always had a greater disadvantage in terms of winter weather due to the altitude it was built at. Twilight ruffled her wings to warm up her sides.
“You could have told me you were cold, I could have provided us both with adequate warmth,” Luna said as she followed Twilight back into the suite. She caught up with Twilight after a few long strides before catching her view. Luna raised her wing and winked as she followed Twilight back inside to emphasise her point.
Twilight snorted and turned her head and held it high as if Luna’s suggestion offended her but her slight smile betrayed her true feelings on the matter. Luna rolled her eyes at Twilight’s acting which was in truth as poor as her nephew’s mannerisms.
“How scandalous darling, it is inappropriate for us princesses to act in such a manner. As ladies we must hold ourselves to higher standards,” Twilight mimicked in a poorly done if not recognizable imitation of a certain white unicorn. Luna giggled into her hoof at such a ludicrous display. She decided to play along with this farce.
“Oh how unbecoming of me. I beg for thine forgiveness oh great and powerful alicorn goddess Twilight Sparkle. I should be punished for my actions.” Luna trotted ahead of Twilight bowing mockingly before shaking her flank slightly. Luna savoured the reaction Twilight gave as she could almost see the gears running through Twilight’s head. Still the way Twilight’s mouth parted like a goldfish looking for water was in truth hilarious if not adorable.
“Eh maybe at a later time,” said the red tomato that had replaced Twilight Sparkle’s face. Luna had to steady herself from laughter yet again as Twilights to tried and failed miserably at passing off a blush with an obviously fake cough.
“You may be a genius without equal and the greatest sorcerer of this age yet I can say for certain that thou fail utterly when it comes to the romantic aspects of life, dear Twilight.” Luna chuckled fiercely as Twilight was engulfed by her blush again and this time was not given time to conceal it as Luna egged on a reply from the young alicorn.
“Hey Leave me alone you big bully. I’m a nerd okay. I wasn’t the mare getting any….It’s just I like books okay,” said a pouting Twilight. She looked at the floor and kicked the ground slightly with her forehooves. Luna cooed at her adorable nature before going in for a nuzzle which she missed much to her disappointment as Twilight had pulled back scrunching her face and sticking her tongue out and smacking Luna with her tail as she turned away again. Luna spat before giving a stern look to the back of Twilight’s head.
“That is not a fair assumption Twilight. What about Flash Sentry? I hear thou had quite the blush when you encountered him when you returned from the mirror from what Pinkie has told me.” Luna smirked as Twilight stopped completely and twitched her tail showing her agitation with the subject. The trap had been set. Twilight groaned furiously and rubbed her head with her hoof.
“You’d think my friends let that go, one time crush okay.” Luna raised an eyebrow as Twilight turned her head when she didn’t receive a reply. “I’m serious.” Luna somehow raised her eyebrow higher. “Stop that, it was a passing interest. I’m into you now.”
“Really, national hero Twilight Sparkle into mares, the media will have a field day.”
“It’s a bit more complex than that and anyway did you just reuse my joke from earlier?”
“I don’t know he was a cute stallion.”
“Luna!”
“As you said dear, its complex. Who’s to say it’s wrong not to appreciate both the male and female form.”
“This conversation is over.”
“Oh, am I touching on some hidden feelings miss Sparkle?”
“If you weren’t a princess I’d swear I’d be tempted to…”
“To what? Send me to the moon?”
Twilight’s gasp was the only reply. Shock and horror evident on her muzzle as she tried to find an appropriate response but it seemed that Luna’s joke had caught her off guard. Twilight raised a hoof to reply but then retracted it and repeated the process several times before shaking her head furiously. Luna rolled her eyes in exasperation and trotted over to Twilight to give her a quick peck to the cheek to revive the seemingly non-operational mare. Twilight’s response was immediate.
“Luna! You shouldn’t say things like that!”
“What about my own punishment? I believe it’s my right to think about from time to time.”
“I’m just saying you shouldn’t joke about it! I always thought it was a sensitive subject for you.”
“It is but joking about it means I can show we’ve moved on from it. It lightens the mood in a way. Ponies don’t need to worry about offending us because of it. I’ll admit that it is our burden to bear but I’d rather see it as the end of an old chapter of my life and the beginning of something better.” Luna started at Twilight and beamed a smile to indicate what she meant.
“I suppose…that kind of makes sense but like I mean…look I didn’t just come here to cuddle and talk about the night, as much as I wanted to do all that stuff,” replied a sheepish looking Twilight.
“I kind of deduced that by the en masse of bags, books and quills that you have brought along for our so called ‘romantic’ night in the castle.”
“Oh…I wasn’t that blatant was I?”
“Of course not dear.” Luna couldn’t supress a giggle at Twilight’s expense again. The new alicorn was about as adept at the art of subtlety as a brick to the face. At least she was better than Discord was at his desk job. Luna still had no idea how the marmalade had ended up in the barracks but that was a story for another time. But she still occasionally had nightmares about the bees. She shuddered slightly.
“It’s just that…you know me being a new princess and all… and you being a significantly elder within the profession…that we could like discuss…the things.”
“Oh right, well when a mommy princess and a daddy prince are in love they…”
“That joke is terrible and you should feel terrible about it. I’m talking about what it’s like.”
“You wish to know about our profession?”
“Yes. Well if that’s okay with you and such?”
“We were under the impression that you discussed the whole being a princess thing with Tia.”
“I thought about it but I woke up one morning and I realised something. I don’t know a lot about Princess Celestia. Well at least as much as you know. I mean I know she’s your sister and she raises the sun and all that but outside of that I know nothing about her if you get down to it.”
“Our sister is a secretive mare. She likes to ‘keep her cards close to her chest ‘as one would say but in truth she has hidden very little from you. The Celestia you see is generally the way she is contrary to the rumours of being a cruel overlord or a sexual deviant. The only rumour I can honestly say is true is her tendency to pull the occasional ‘prank’.”
“So she doesn’t have any painful secrets hidden away.”
“Well of course she does. She has her burdens to bear as much as I do mine. I have seen much suffering Twilight over the years. Discord and Sombra were not the only tyrants running around during our early days. In some cases they were not the worst. Thank Faust that you never had to grow up in the environment we had to. But still I don’t understand the sudden need to know everything about being a princess, Twilight.”
“It’s just its so much responsibility for me to be saddled with and compared to what you and Celestia have done. I feel …inferior. I know I did that stuff with my friends and I ousted a changeling or two but I didn’t reunify a shattered nation. I’ve not been in a war or fought great monsters. Besides the wings I’m still a unicorn, I’m still…fallible. I’m not really…princess material if you know what I mean.”
Luna shook her head and walked over to the pile of books that Twilight had brought. She regarded each title before sighing loudly and trotting over to her own collection. She bid Twilight follow with her wing. Twilight obediently did so. Luna pulled out a various assortments of books from each of the shelves. Some were battered and old; others were pristine and relatively new. Luna took each of them with her magic and presented them to Twilight.
“If I told you that each of these books were recorded mistakes made by me and our sister would thou believe me?”
“But there must be over fifty books here,” Twilights gasped.
“Sadly this probably only makes up for a fraction of the true number.”
Twilight moved in between each one holding her hoof to her face in stunned silence. She would examine each name briefly before moving onto another until Luna shoved one right in her face. “The Battle of the Peak?”
“One of our many mistakes. Who could have thought that war would emerge over a trivial piece of land belonging to the griffins? In retrospect it was pure hubris on my part. I sent so many ponies to their deaths that day.”
“Luna I don’t understand.”
“Here’s another, one I’m sure you’ll recognize, the story of the love potion and the prince if I remember correctly” Luna proceeded to flip through the book with a lopsided frown fixed upon her muzzle. She occasionally stopped to look over certain pages.
“Wait. You were responsible for that?”
“No but Celestia and I could have stopped it at any time and saved the collapse of an entire kingdom. We only saw them as rivals to reunification. Because of our lack of action, Equestria’s borders grew rapidly and we soon experienced an economic boom for a short time. Yet the entire royal family of that nation were driven into poverty living off miserly state pension.”
“That’s troubling Luna if I’m to be honest to myself. I just never thought you two could be so callous like that even before you know …”
Silence reigned as the two ponies tried to put their thoughts together. Twilight was deeply conflicted about her this new set of information. While she was always aware of the terror of Nightmare Moon’s reign but she had been completely caught off guard by the fact that some of the decisions made by the monarchy had not always been selfless. Luna was now conflicted about Twilight’s reaction. She was unsure if Twilight would be upset or disappointed but either way Luna was lamenting the destruction of their perfectly romantic evening over some old history books. Twilight was the first to break the silence.
“I still don’t understand why you showed me some of these books.”
“Even our greatest achievements Twilight have been marred by mistakes and foolishness that I can honestly say makes you twice the princess that we were back then. We made terrible deliberating mistakes from time to time Twilight, some unavoidable others less so. Yet we did our best with what we had. We tried to avoid the same failings. We succeeded most of the time and came out stronger for it. The Equestria you were born into was forged through trial and error not the brilliant strategic mind of two puppet masters.”
Twilight moved to Luna as each of the books returned to the shelf except this time it was her magic that returned each of the books to their proper place within Luna’s private library.
“So it’s like a learning curve. You just make a mistake and you just move on as if it never happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Seems like an inefficient form of government to me.”
“As I said we didn’t have the liberties of peace and a steady educational upbringing like you did.” Luna sighed deeply and rubbed her temple with her hoof as the onset of headache formed.
“It still seems odd to me. The books always portray the founding of Equestria as this harmonious coming together of ponies under one banner.”
“The books are not always right Twilight, Nightmare Moon was not alone in her war against Celestia and the acts she…I committed were far from just taking the sun away. Once again my apologies for bringing it up if you are not comfortable with it.”
“You I won’t judge you Luna. I’ve kind come to that point within our relationship. I care for you Luna and nothing will change that even in the darkest of days. As you said it's time ponies moved on from it. I'm not afraid of your past Luna. In a way it makes all the better."
“Thank you Twilight,” sniffed Luna slightly.
“Hey don’t mention it Luna, I’d be a bit of crummy marefriend if I just abandoned you at first chance. We’re a partnership here. Anyway I just never thought it had started out so rough and vague for Equestria.”
“Often most nations are after times of great turbulence. I’m just glad that I have lived to see the day where ponies no longer are insecure over their futures. That I have lived to see such wonderful ponies like you Twilight give hope to the masses. The day where I can stand side by side with my sister and not resent her for being who she is. The day when the magic of friendship that you have spread throughout these lands shatters the hold the dark things have over this world.
You are more than worthy to be a princess, Twilight. Fear not for the mistakes you have yet to make dear but rather focus on what you feel is right. Unlike us you will not be alone in your task. If you make a mistake then we shall cross that road when we meet it. Whether as your partner or as your friend.
I am not perfect Twilight. You already know of that. Neither is Celestia but through our mistakes we’ve found greater happiness then we could have ever thought possible. I try not to dwell on the past as I have sadly done tonight because the present is what as you said truly matters.”
Luna moved over to Twilight and nuzzled her gently. She laid her head against Twilight’s mane taking in scent. Twilight merely moved into the nuzzle, closing her eyes as she did so. The two held the pose for a while before mutually separating.
“So I suppose that’s my curiosity sated.”
“Well that’d be a first.”
“Hey, watch it you. You are still going to get it for teasing me about Sentry.”
“I look forward to the challenge.”
Twilight yawned loudly at that as she began to finally feel the effects of their late night and the earlier activities of the court. Twilight shook her head and attempted to slap herself awake but her eyes kept drooping and her head began to tilt to the side as if it expected to hit a pillow at any moment. Luna could only grin again as Twilight mimicked a kid who wanted to stay up late but was failing miserably at doing so.
“The hour is late. It is time for bed.”
“Nonsense the night is young Luna we have so much-yawn- to do.”
“Tis half the hour past three, you have been awake for almost an entire day. Come you may take my bed.”
“No that’s fine I can…” Twilight’s yawn intervened before she could finish her sentence and Luna took Twilight under her wing again as she slowly guided the mare to her bed. Twilight flopped with the grace of a rock as soon. “Goodnight Luna,” she muttered as her thoughts drifted towards sleep.
Luna placed a kiss on her forehead before relaxing by Twilight’s side. She was not tired and she had suspended the night court for tonight but she enjoyed the time next to her comatose partner nonetheless. Looking back over her long life and the regret she bore for her own failures both political and personal all seemed inconsequential next to the lavender occupying her side.
Author's Note
I feel odd about this to be honest. I feel like I have done something i've done before but I haven't. It's honestly a bit annoying. This story was annoying for me at points. Romance is not my forte but I LOVE TwiLuna. They are very compatible characters.
Hope you enjoy this story. Could use a bit more work but I am content. Once Criticise if you feel it's not up to scratch.
Also the title could reflect the chapter better than I thought if I continue to slack off in my editing skills.
