Luna's Hard Days Work.

by Phoenix Quill

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Luna, Comedy, Princess Celestia
Length: 6046

Luna just wanted some bits to go shopping with! Now, she's stuck cleaning out a room filled with a thousand years of tributary gifts given to her since her banishment. What a mare will do for some extra cash.

Luna has a problem. She's spent all of her royal allowance, and she wants to go shopping! What's a mare to do? Ask her older sister of course! But when she is shot down for her own idea, Celestia decides that if Luna's going to get some extra bits, she's gotta earn it.

And so, Luna's going to have to clean out a vault filled to the brim with a thousand years worth of tributary gifts. Gifts she didn't ask for, or know she had, or even want! What will she do? Well, when you need bits, you do as the ponies do. Roll up your figurative sleeves and get to work!

(Based on a dream I had. Yeah, I'm a strange one.)

Published 2014-03-06 17:50:06 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-06 17:50:06 UTC

A fool and her money...

Not too long ago, perhaps only a week or so to be precise, Princess Celestia was spending her afternoon the same way that she usually did. Meaning, that she was sitting on her throne enjoying a glass of her favorite iced tea.

She calmly sipped from the glass, not knowing that in the hall leading to the throne room, Princess Luna was practically skipping with happiness as she made her way to see her big sister.

Celestia took a long draw from the glass before sighing contently and giving the guards that were still in the room with her a wide smile. “You know,” she said with a smile to the pair of watching guards. “I have to admit that I always enjoy this part of the day. A few moments to myself, with no work or visitors.”

The two guards in the room smiled back as they helped themselves to cucumber sandwiches. “Oh yes your majesty,” Swift Shield said with a smile. “It’s always nice.”

The other guard, Lightninghoof swallowed down his sandwich before taking a sip of his own tea before speaking. “I almost wish everypony could have a moment like this with you. It’s so, well, normal.”

Celestia smiled before taking a sip of her tea and taking a bite from her own sandwich. “Well, you know how it is, the ponies expect certain things, so I let them see me a certain way.”

She followed the statement by taking another bite out of the sandwich, and as she was just about to swallow, Princess Luna had reached the doors to the throne. With a small blast of her magic, Luna slammed the doors open faster than the speed of sound, causing the room to vibrate, and almost cracking the glass in the entire castle. “Sister! I decided to come see you to say, are you alright?”

Celestia held her hooves to her neck as she desperately tried to either swallow, or cough up the bit of cucumber that had lodged in her throat. After several moments, she finally grabbed her tea, and downed it to help swallow down the bit of sandwich. She held up a hoof for Luna to wait as she caught her breath before giving a calm and collected smile to her sibling. “Now, my dear, sweet, precious, younger, sister. You know that I only have a fifteen minute break before I have to start working again, and I enjoy this bit of leisure to no end. With that in mind, what was so important, that you caused me to nearly choke on a sandwich?”

Luna smiled in embarrassment as she came up to Celestia with her forelegs spread wide. “I love you,” she said in her most adorable, baby like voice.

Celestia looked at Luna with a frown for several moments before opening herself up to her sister. “Oh Luna, you know I can’t stay mad at you. Give me a hug, come on.” As Luna and her hugged one of the guards carefully stepped forward, unsure of what to do. “Leave us please, my sister here would never harm me.”

The two continued to hug as Luna gave off a slight dawwing sound. The two guards smiled and began to head out, when Lightninghoof noticed Celestia was now frantically waving a hoof at him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Celestia slash her hoof across her neck with a comically horrified face as she continued hugging her sister, then pointing at him, then her eyes, and then Luna, signalling keep an eye on Luna. She then stopped as Luna backed away to look at her with a smile and she smiled kindly back before they hugged again, this time Celestia hugged her younger sibling with her wings as she continued signalling with her hooves and mouthing the words. Hide behind the throne, keep an eye on her, Mother knows she’s a walking accident waiting to happen!

The guard nodded in understanding before doing as commanded, as soon as he was out of sight, Celestia let go of Luna and gave her kindest smile, reserved only for the sister she loved unconditionally. “Now my dear sister, surely there was something more important on your mind than that you love me, now come on, what did you really want to ask for?”

Luna blushed, embarrassed slightly at how easily her sister can still read through her after all these years. “Well, now that you mention it. We,”

Celestia frowned slightly as she interrupted Luna. “What did I tell you about the royal we?”

Luna frowned for only a second before putting back on her best, most adorable smile she could manage. “I wanted to go into the market. I found this cutest little store, and they have such, what is the term, cool sunglasses. They also have the cutest little socks that I have ever seen in my life! They have little moons and stars! Oh sister, can I please have some bits so I can have them?”

Celestia frowned slightly at the question and sat up straighter as she started to go into another sibling lecture about money. “Now Luna, you know that we both get the same monthly allowance for free spending. What happened to yours?”

Luna’s ears folded back as she looked away from her sister. “Well, you see…”

“So this is the finest telescope money can buy?”

“Why yes your majesty, with this could see the mare in the, er.. I mean, that’s not there any more. Oh… and you are right here. What I meant to say was, with it you can stargaze with the greatest of ease with it’s adjustable aperture, it uses four mirrors to magnify things as far away as the horsehead nebula!”

“We’ll take two!”

Luna smiled as a blush continued to glow hotly on her cheeks. “So, you see… Maybe you can open the coffers just a little bit so I can buy these things.”

Celestia raised a hoof to silence Luna so she can speak. “Alright, first of all, I know you enjoy getting accessories, but how many sets of socks do you already have?”

“Only about five hundred, give or take. I tend to lose the left ones.”

“And what do you need so many socks for.”

“Well,”

In one of the many, nearly always empty rooms that are used to impress guests of the castle, all was silent. Suddenly the sound of a record starting echoed across the rooms walls, followed by the recording of a piano playing eight keys. As the piano did the same thing a second time, Luna and Discord slid towards each other, their socks letting them slide with ease on the polished marble floors. They looked at each other and nodded behind their matching sunglasses before turning around, each holding something in either their claw or magic like it were a microphone. “JUST TAKE THOSE OLD RECORDS OFF THE SHELF!”

“Nothing, important really.”

Celestia gave a half smile as she nodded. “I see, so you've exhausted your personal funds, and are now asking me to let you have some of the money needed to run this government, so our ponies can benefit from us, so you can have more socks?”

“Well, that and other cute accessories,” Luna replied with an embarrassed smile. “Sooo, can you?”

“No.”

“No,” Celestia said once again as she got up off the throne with a frown. She walked down the dais with her wings flared open, continuing to talk to her sister. “I’m afraid that if you want some extra money, you are going to have to get it the same way as everypony else.”

Luna gave a slight gasp at this as she trotted to quickly catch up with her sister. “You mean I’m-”

“That’s right,” Celestia finished. “You are going to have to work for it.”

The two walked in relative silence, only for Luna to occasionally bring up that she didn’t think that she should do the staff’s job, only to get a glare from Celestia as she spoke. “Do you want your trinkets or not?” That would cause Luna to shut her mouth and follow again in sulking silence.

Before she knew it, the two sisters were somewhere in the lower bowels of the castle, where simple cut stone made up the walls, torches lit the way, and the wooden doors were nothing more than a strong barricade to keep ponies out. “I think this room could use your touch,” Celestia said with a nod as she opened one of the doors.

Luna coughed slightly as a puff of dust expelled itself out the doorway, and as soon as she stepped inside, her nostrils were invaded with the odor of air that has grown stale over an immeasurable amount of time. As Luna tried to see into the dark room, Celestia searched the wall for something. “I believe that this room has an electric light in it, give me a moment, AH! There it is.” With the flick of her hoof, the weak and aged wires sparked a few times before a light came on in the room, revealing to Luna just how bad the situation was.

The room was huge, with boxes of who knows what stacked almost to the top of the vaulted ceiling along three of the four walls. It didn’t end there however, as in front of these stacks, were even more piles of crates and boxes, leaving a very narrow path to the back of the room. “I’m supposed to clean all this up?”

“Well, these are all your things in here,” Celestia said with a smirk. “A thousand years of tributary gifts offered to you during your exile by the ponies that still cared. I think that you might even find some of your things from the old castle near the back, so happy cleaning!”

“But, but that’s not fair,” Luna wined. “What am I supposed to do with all this stuff?”

“Oh, the room across the hall is empty, just take them one at a time across the hall to the other room and give them a good cleaning before you place them down.” She then opened the door across the hall and turned on it’s light to show that it was indeed empty, and already clean and ready for the stuff. “If you find something you don’t want to keep, just throw it out, and if you want to take some things to your room, feel free to do so.” With that said, Celestia turned and left with a small bounce in her step, singing a song about the joys of a hard days work.

Luna grumbled to herself as she picked up one of the sheets that was trying to cover what was beneath, only to be assaulted once again by a large cloud of dust. After her sporadic coughing fit, she growled at the room's severe lack of windows to let some fresh air in. Using her magic, she magically grabbed a stack of boxes and started moving it into the room across the hall. "How did I manage to get into this mess? All I wanted was to buy a set of socks, sunglasses and scarf."

She entered the empty room and unceremoniously let them fall to the ground before she turned around to grab another stack. As she made her way across the hall, the sound of approaching hooves caught her attention. She looked to her left and saw one of the castles cleaning staff was quickly galloping to her. "Ah, I see that the help has arrived to save me," she said with a smirk.

The maid was pulling a small cart that carried cleaning supplies, a broom and dustpan, a mop and bucket, and several bottles of cleaning solution. As she got closer, the mare slowed to a stop and gave a low bow. "Your highness, Princess Celestia sent me to-"

"Yes yes, I forgive you for being late," Luna said with a forgiving smile. "I see that you're here to help me in this momentous labor. Now if we hurry, I might be able to make it to Sundry's Sundries before they close. Now, I'll do the lifting, and you do the cleaning."

The maid frowned slightly as she undid the straps holding her to the cart before bowing. "Your majesty honors me by asking me to work with you. But I am afraid that I am under strict orders from Celestia to not help you, and to only deliver what is needed for you to finish your task."

"Wha- buh, that's all?"

The mare was about to trot away, when she suddenly shook her head and came back and bowed once again. "Forgive me princess, I nearly had forgotten. Princess Celestia has also told me to deliver this message," she cleared her throat before continuing. "Have fun, and happy cleaning." She then trotted away, leaving not only the cart behind, but an extremely flabbergasted Princess Luna.

Luna couldn't help but look at herself in disgust. Her coat was covered in sweat, her ethereal mane and tail had long since gone out and became normal hair once more, only to become fussed up and stuck to the side of her face in a mass of sweat while her tail drooped to the ground and began collecting dust everywhere she went. The dust in the air seemed to have decided that Luna is a perfect magnet for them to all collect on, as her sweaty body was covered from horn to hoof in grimy dust that had mixed in with her sweat. Needless to say, as ponies would put it today, she was a hot mess.

Princess Luna looked at the room that everything was being put into, and made a note on all the small trinkets that she had decided to keep and clean, but not bother to take to her room. There were mostly boxes of dresses that had fallen out of style anywhere from five hundred to eight hundred years ago, tapestries that, while flattering, she had decided were not appropriate to hang in her room, or anywhere else for that matter. But the thing that she found the most of so far, were globes of the moon. So many moon globes.

At first, she decided to keep one for her room, then she found another, soon she discovered that there were several boxes of them, and decided that one was enough, and she would keep the rest until somepony else either wanted it, or she broke the one she was taking to her room.

She continued to admire her work she'd done so far as she wiped the sweat and grime off herself with a clean towel. "I think I made some good progress." She turned around and looked into the vault behind her and frowned when she saw that she had only just now made a small dent in the massive mess. "ARGH! Who knew that having ponies admire you and shower you with gifts could be so annoying!"

She shuffled angrily to the next room and picked up another stack of boxes and took them to the next room. She dropped them and continued to grumble to herself. "I can't believe I have to do this, back in my day, a princess ran a country and fought battles, I swear to mother if these were different times, I'd make somepony else do this or start chopping heads." She dusted off the boxes and vaguely glanced at the contents of the top one. "Let's see, keys to something I don't know, more keys, alright, this box is full of keys to something."

She placed the keys back into the box and moved on to the next one. As she did she realized just how heavy it was. "What's this? Did somepony give me a bunch of rocks while I was away? I promise, if it is I'm going to start throwing these at my sis-" she stopped herself short as she looked the box over.

It was a simple hinged wooden box with a coin slot on top. Once the dust was cleared away from the box however, it wasn't the shape of the box that gained her attention, but what was on it. On the front of the box, there was a picture of the moon when she as Nightmare Moon still occupied it, leaving an image of a mare on it's surface. Under it it said in big bold letters, See the mare in the moon! Only one bit for three minutes on the telescope to see all the details of this legend up close with your own eyes!

Luna read the words again and again as her eyes lingered on the image of the moon with her altered visage on it. As she did, a few sparks glittered on the end of her horn, and her eyes flashed dangerously. Suddenly, her hair became a field of stars once more before they all seemed to go nova and catch aflame with an anger she had never really felt before.

Princess Celestia sat in her office as she read, and signed a seemingly endless amount of paperwork. It was mostly silent except for the lonesome ticking of a clock. "Princess, do you think that she found them yet?"

Princess Celestia simply laughed as she looked up from the paperwork she was going over and looked at Lightninghoof with glee. "My young guard, how little you seem to know the younger princess. When she finds them, we'll know."

The guard rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof as he flexed his wings nervously. "Yeah, I suppose so. How long do you think before she finds the first one?"

Celestia looked at her clock, and made a note of the time. "I believe we will know in, five, four, three, two, one." With one, she pointed down at the floor below her, and as she did it began to shake. Soon it became apparent that not only the floor was shaking, but so were the walls, and entire castle seemed to be vibrating with a terrible tremor.

The earthquake continued for a few more seconds, filling the air with a low rumble and nothing else before another sound began to fill the castle. It was a voice, louder than any voice should have reason to be calling out a name loud enough that no matter where in Canterlot you were, you could hear it. "CELESTIA!"

Celestia gave a wide smile as she clapped her hooves together. "Well that's my time. If you'll excuse me, I need to help prevent an apocalypse brought on from the wrath of Luna."

Luna was still seething with rage as she began to actively search through the pile of boxes, and had to her great annoyance found that there was more than one of those collecting boxes advertising her moon, and her past exile. To be exact, there seemed to be more of these than anything else in the room, and other than the first few rows of boxes that she had already cleared away, there wasn't much else.

Luna grabbed another stack of the boxes and tossed them into the hallway, and smiled sadistically as she heard the box split against the stone, letting the coins tinkle as they rained upon the stone ground. "Where is she, that... that... That overgrown child! How dare my sister make a mockery out of my banishment! When I see her, I'll, I'll-"

"You'll do what?" Luna whipped herself around and saw that directly behind her stood the cause of her anger.

"I'm, I'm going to kill you!" She gave a primordial shout as she charged her sister with her horn lowered. Celestia rolled her eyes slightly before stepping aside and letting her sister run headlong into the cart of cleaning supplies. "HEY! Stop moving so I can give you a piece of my mind!"

"Cool yourself," Celestia said with a careless flicker of her wings. "You had better listen to me before you decide to do something we'll both regret. Again."

Luna snorted like a mad mare as her mane whipped in an unseen torrent of wind. After a few moments of actively seething at her sister, she finally slowed down her breathing, and she regained control of herself. "You have had better have a good reason for, exploiting me in such a way. Or I'll send you to be my replacement up there."

Celestia gave her sister a half lidded glare, not quite tipping her hoof enough for Luna to tell what she was thinking. After a moment she pointed at the smashed box in the hall. "This project started a thousand years ago, only three months after you were banished..."

1/20/1011

High above the rest of Equestria an the sleepy mining city of Canterlot, there had been a lot of activity since the devastation of the capitol city of Everfree, and the Castle of the Two Sisters. In the wake of the worst disaster to ever befall not only the princesses, but also the government, there was a mass exodus of ponies. Seeing no choice, many followed Celestia as she tried to start anew in Canterlot.

Within the city, there were many things to occupy the free time of a hard working miner once they got off work. But among the most popular of places, there were taverns. The biggest, and most popular of which, was The Flaming Dragon. Within it's walls in a private back room sat the most powerful ponies in Equestria, bickering about the funding of the new capitol building.

"Now what I am thinking of doing, Your Highness, is we need to build a strong defensive castle, that is large enough to house yourself, and as much of the nobility as possible. If ever there is another attack on the capitol, this time we want to be prepared for the worst."

"Excuse me," Penny Pincher interrupted, "But what you are planning could deplete our country's coffers before we even have a chance to rebuild anything for the common pony!"

Blue Print sighed as he rubbed his forehead with a hoof, "I was going to get to that before I was so rudely interrupted." The light blue earth pony said with a frown, "I think that if we simply pull back on the plans to re-stabilize the Everfree Forest, we could use the funds from that, plus whatever would have been used as Princess Luna's stipend to make this work, with little effect on the common pony."

Silver Tongue stood up with her forehooves on the meeting table, "Are you out of your little pony mind?! That forest was home to thousands of ponies! If we pull out of that plan, then we would have to relocate nearly a thousand households into new cities and homes, maybe even found all new cities!" Silver Tongue then said something quite crass to Blue Print. At first, Celestia tried not to smirk at what was said, but quickly became horrified as everything erupted into a shouting match between the two ponies.

She closed her eyes and shook her head with disdain for the ponies she brought with her to help run the government from a new city, and when she opened her eyes she saw that she was looking at Ink Well. She sat to her right, and had been silent for the entirety of the proposals, and was instead writing something on a piece of paper. Curious, Celestia leaned over a bit to take a look. "What are you working on?"

The cream coated mare paused and looked up at Celestia for a moment, and blinked in confusion from how blurry she was before levitating her reading glasses off her face and onto the table. Finally happy with the view she pointed at the paper with the end of her pen. "Well your majesty, I was just thinking that there is a way that we can relocate the families to more permanent homes, and have a palace built. But I don't know if anypony here would like what it is."

Princess Celestia gave an understanding nod to her. "We," She paused to correct herself, "I think you should share your idea, after all you never know. Even if your idea is not popular, if it is a good one it shall be chosen. You are apart of this too, and every idea counts."

Ink Well smiled, and with the new found confidence injected in her, raised a hoof to interrupt the arguing ponies. "Excuse me," she said timidly. She never truly stood a chance as they continued to raise their voices louder around her.

Celestia saw this, and growing tired of the bickering going on around her, rapped a hoof on the oak table. "Everypony calm yourselves, I believe that Miss Ink Well has an idea." She then nodded at the bookish mare to her right, and she stood up to begin.

"Um, right. So, my idea is pretty simple, It is a program in several phases. The first phase is to start a relief program for the dislocated ponies. As incentive to donate, we offer that their investments will grow. The more they invest the more they will have returned."

The room echoed with the angry buzz of ponies questioning the idea to themselves. "Madness!" Penny Pincher shouted above the rest. "Bits don’t just grow on trees you know, the economy doesn't work that way!"

"Yes It does, its called inflation! As time goes on, the money that they invest won't be worth the same when we give it back, so we offer to give more back than they turn in. It will be the same value, but they won't realize that. The next phase is to hold a contest for contractors to build the castle, the best design for the least amount of money, in order to qualify, you must pay to enter a competition to win the grand prize. The castle would pay for itself."

"Well that's all fine and good," Blue Print shouted suddenly. "But what about me? I'm the Royal Architect!"

"You shall be one of the judges, and put in charge of overseeing construction of the winning contractor. Any more questions about this phase?"

Several ponies grumbled around the room before Ink Well continued, "The final phase will be after the fact, when everything is all done here, we start an initiative to make Canterlot grow into a bustling metropolis. We start a grant program to initiate new businesses in Canterlot. The businesses will generate income and create jobs, once our city is stable enough to do so, we can raise taxes for the better off ponies to spread the wealth to other cities that were hit hard by this crisis."

Celestia, satisfied with what was said nodded, "All in favor of enacting Ink Well's plan, raise a hoof and say aye." Out of a dozen ponies, eight raised their hooves. "All opposed?" Four ponies rose a hoof and said neigh. "The aye's have it, we will begin as soon as possible."

There was a sound of ponies murmuring to themselves as they either wrote something down, or placed papers in their folders. As they did so, Penny Pincher made his way around the table to Celestia and tapped the table to get her attention. "Your majesty, if I may, can I make a suggestion?"

Celestia ruffled her feathers slightly at him, but acknowledged him none the less. "The discussion is closed, but if I don't you'll only keep bothering me about it, so I suppose you may. What is it?"

"Well, it's just that I'm not so sure about this donation and incentive plan," he said nervously. "Something like this has never been tried before, I would like to suggest a back up plan."

Interested, Celestia turned from her seat to face the stallion directly. "Go on, you have my attention. If I like it, I'll let you know."

"Well, you see. I suggest that we can use the recent events of your sister's banishment to our advantage," he paused as Celestia raised an eyebrow at him, looking like she was a second away from doing something similar to him. "Uh, what I mean is, since your victory three months ago, legends have already sprouted across the land. Ponies want to know more! I suggest, we can allow ponies to view the moon closer with a telescope of some sort, and charge them a bit to see it up close. As they do, we can tell them the real story of what happened."

Celestia frowned deeply at him for several more moments. Finally, she gave a slight smile. "You are either very brave, or very foolish to suggest such a thing to me," she sighed slightly as she thought of what she normally would have done to him, but instead thought of what her sister would say before she went mad. "But, your idea can be useful, if not for this, then something else I have in mind."

Time marches on, and in the course of just over a year, it had turned out that Ink Well's plan was a smash success. Ponies all over were willing to donate a part of their own income to a tax so long as they got it back. They never once had to enact Penny Pincher's plan, and as such the paper with the idea sat on a shelf in Celestia's small office in The Flaming Dragon. It wasn't until after the laying of the castle's corner stone celebration that she finally dusted off the idea once again. Only this time, she wanted to fund something else.

From the day that the castle was completed in 1099, until a month before Nightmare Moon returned, Celestia enacted the collection ponies. In every town or city, there was at least one location that did this, and everywhere you went they did the same thing. Everything stayed the same for almost a thousand years, and by that time, ponies almost had attracting attention down to a science of it's own.

"See the mare in the moon, up close and personal through this amazing telescope, at the amazing price of only one bit! Isn't that right Flim?"

"Yes indeed Flam! Take a gander here and as you view, this magnificent marvel of Equestrian history up close, my brother Flam will tell you the legend of Nightmare Moon, and how Celestia defeated her!"

"You may have seen her before, but never quite like this! With this telescope, you can see every detail of every crater that makes up the image of the Mare in the Moon."

"Hear the tale of how Princess Luna became possessed with the dreaded Nightmare, and how it drove her past the point of sanity!"

A grey unicorn wearing a dark grey suit and tie tipped his fedora at the set of brothers. "Are you boys the Flim Flam Brothers?"

The two unicorns stopped and nodded. "Yes sir, are you the collecting agent from Canterlot?"

"Indeed I am boys," he said with a slight bow. "I'm here to take our equipment back to the palace."

The two brothers looked at each other with concern before they addressed the pony before them again. "But why? This is how we make a living, how are we supposed to get on without this?"

The unicorn sighed as he picked up the telescope and folded it away in it's case. "We're not entirely sure, but Princess Celestia has ordered that all collections need to come to a halt." He then grabbed the collecting box from around Film's neck and placed it around his own. "You best take your cut of the profits now, and consider your future."

The two ponies stood aghast at what was happening. As the pony continued to a cart not too far off full of several more telescopes and collecting boxes, Flim looked at Flam with a glint in his eye. "Do you know what I'm thinking, brother of mine?"

"I have no idea Flim, tell me," he said with a flat voice.

"What do you think we finally invest in something," he said with a smile. "We've saved up a small fortune in the bank, we could do something with it I'm sure."

"But what? What do you think we should do?"

Flim thought about it for a moment before a light came to him. "What do you think of the field of invention?"

"So you see, I had a very good reason for starting, and stopping the entire thing, and not once did I spend a single bit on anything for myself, or the government."

Luna growled slightly at her sister as she looked at the endless stacks of collection boxes around her. "So if you didn't profit off all these bits for the last thousand years, and you didn't use it for the government, then who did?"

Celestia smiled slightly at the question. "My dear little sister, can't you see? There is only one pony I would go through all this trouble to save for. Don't you remember who's stuff this is? Do you remember what I told you when I left? This room is full of things ponies gave in offering to you."

Luna blinked in surprise as she thought it over. "So, you mean to tell me, that you collected all these bits,"

"For you," Celestia finished with a gentle smile. "This is my offering to you, my hope that you will have a bright future in our new world."

Luna's jaw dropped as she looked all around the vast room. "There's got to be hundreds of these boxes.

"Hundreds of thousands actually," Celestia said with an even wider smile. "Each, filled to the brim with bits from the last thousand years." Luna picked up a box and shook it gently, feeling the weight of it in her hooves. As she did Celestia came up and placed a hoof on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry if you feel that I exploited you, that wasn't my intent. I wanted ponies to know the truth before things got out of hoof, and I figured that since as a government we couldn't save bits for you, I decided to take matters into my own hooves."

Luna put the box down, and began to feel her eyes water up. "But, but why sister? Why would you go through all this trouble for me?"

Celestia smiled as tears began to stream down her own face. "Because I love you little sister, and I wanted to ensure a future for you."

Luna began to cry now, feeling guilt for jumping to conclusions so quickly. "I'm sorry Celestia, I thought that you were making money off my misfortune. I, I could have hurt you!"

"I know," Celestia said as she wrapped her hooves around Luna. "But I knew the risks when I started the idea." The two of them simply held each other, crying softly with smiles on their faces. Finally after a few minutes, Celestia finally let go. "Well, I've got a lot of work to do upstairs, you think you can manage things down here?"

Luna nodded as she gulped down the last of her tears. "Yes, I think so."

"Good, now hurry up, you don't want to miss raising the moon." She then turned to leave, and started walking out the door. Luna looked at the treasure around her, not sure of what to do next when Celestia suddenly popped her head back in the doorway. "Oh and sis?"

Luna looked back at her with a small smile. "Yes, what is it?"

"Try not to spend it all in one place." She then gave a wave with her hoof and trotted down the hallway.

Author's Note

So, I had a dream the other night about Celestia and Luna, I thought that the moment was touching enough to make a story out of.

At first, I thought it would be too short, because it was just the last scene in this story, but I guess it grew into something!