Princesses and Stepladders

Duskwind stared at the unfurled scroll held in the serious looking Royal Guardspony's teeth, taking a moment to pull the actual content from the royal flourishes. It was written in an irritatingly flowery court scribe's lettering style, with each S looking like an F, and so on.

It read:

Your presence is requested in Canterlot Castle, at the pleasure of Her Majesty, Princess Luna the First, by the Grace of Harmony, Ruler of the Night of Equestria, Mare Noctum, Equestrian Territories Beyond the Seas, and Her Other Realms and Territories, High Duchess of the Isle of Pony, Defender of the Faith, Official Nightmare Night Frightener of Ponyville and Associated Regions.

You will present yourself at the Ambling Gate on the fifth hour after noon on this day, to join Her Grace for refreshments and carousing.

It was signed in a different writing style, We shall see thee then, Dusky. XOXO, Luna, et cetera

Duskwind sighed and thanked the Guardspony, taking the letter with a sigh. He closed his front door and carefully set the scroll in a box with the others. Even though they had been... perhaps “dating” wasn't the right word. Even though he had been a royal consort for almost a month, Princess Luna seemed to be oblivious to some things, like how formal her scribes made everything sound, or how off-putting it was to be summoned on short notice. To top it off, the finely written gold trimmed scrolls were just too nice to throw away.

“But what can I do?” he murmured to himself as he levitated a brush through his mane and tail with a faint glow from his horn. “One doesn't turn down a princess.”

Fortunately, he didn't actually want to turn her down. She seemed to genuinely like him, even if she did offhandedly take him for granted sometimes. She was funny, kind, affectionate, and - there was no escaping it - beautiful. Only one thing troubled him: However well she treated him, in a situation like this it was just not possible to know what, if anything, he actually meant to her. She had never treated him like a toy, but when she tried, in private moments, to treat him like an equal, there was no way for it not to seem like a bit of a sham.

At five minutes before five o'clock (because the librarian unicorn had always valued being early, because one never knew what might come up), he cantered up to the palace's Ambling Gate, wearing the small silver crescent moon pendant that the princess had given him several weeks ago.

He didn't recognize the guards on duty, but they either recognized him or the pendant, because they opened the iron bound oak door and one escorted him inside. The guard led him down a plush hallway and through several intersections. Duskwind was thoroughly lost, but by now he had gotten used to it and simply followed where he was led.

A thought came to him as he walked through the maze of the palace. “Who could ever believe that being taken to a royal audience could be boring?” He chuckled slightly to himself, but his escort seemed not to notice.

As usual, he was passed off to another functionary, and led into a well appointed sitting room. He wasn't sure he had seen this particular one before; they were all more or less the same.

He sat down and prepared for a wait, but for once Luna was on time. She stepped into the room and his heart fluttered. He sprang to his hooves and grinned at her, all annoyance at the hasty summons forgotten.

The midnight blue princess was a vision, from the gleaming hipposandals on her hooves to her dark and waving star-filled mane. Something about her seemed different, but he couldn't put his hoof on what. Had she styled her mane differently? His slightly panicked guessing was interrupted when she addressed him with a broad smile on her lips and her head held high and proud, “Hello, dear Duskwind. So good of thee to join us.”

He beamed and stuck his chest out, saying “Hello Luna. It's good to see you again so soon. I even wore the necklace you gave me.” He gave it a flick with his hoof to emphasize his point.

She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrank back slightly. “Err, yes. Thank thee very much. We are glad thou wearest our sign. Anyway, we are glad thou art here.”

He trotted up to her, momentarily pushing images of an eager puppy from his mind, and smiled up at her. It was hard to get used to how much bigger she was than him, but he generally tried not to think about that unless he was actually in the process of climbing onto a stepladder.

He bowed theatrically and said to her in his best slightly overwrought Middle Equestrian, his eyes lowered, “I am best pleased to be graced with thy presence. Shall we retire to the gardens for refreshments? A glass of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou?”

To Duskwind's disappointment the princess seemed slightly taken aback, and looked down at him in momentary bemusement. Perhaps, he thought, she didn't like this game of him using archaic speech as much as she had seemed to the last few times.

“Umm,” Luna said with momentary uncertainty, before batting her eyelashes and lowering her face until it was right next to his, her sweet breath warm against his cheek, smelling of ripe wheat and warm, fertile soil. “No... we thought that perhaps we could skip eating this time, and get right to the... dessert.”

A sense of disquiet crept over the unicorn. His lover was not usually this... aggressive. She knew what she wanted, to be sure, but she usually wined and dined him first. And there was something else, creeping at the back of his mind. He shuffled his feet and looked down at her gold clad hooves and said, “Of course, Luna. I only want to please you.”

She nibbled the side of his neck, making him shiver, and whispered, “Of course you do, little pony. Of course you do.”

He closed his eyes and nuzzled her cheek, pleasure and excitement mixing with his increasing sense of unease.

Then it hit him, like a splash of water to the face.

Gold clad hooves.

Luna's hipposandals were gold, not silver. Celestia wore gold.

He pulled his head back slightly and stared into her hungry eyes, quivering in confusion and fear. “L... Princess? Is everything... I mean, you seem...”

He was saved the effort of untangling the situation by a door behind him being thunderously kicked open and a familiar booming voice shouting, “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Luna jumped back from Duskwind in surprise, and the fury of the Royal Canterlot Voice literally knocked him over. He landed on his rump and stared as Princess Luna walked into the room.

The silver-shod Luna who had just entered the room glared at the gold-shod Luna who had just been taking liberties with him, who grinned sheepishly. The former shouted at the latter, “SISTER! WHY MUST THOU DO THINGS LIKE THIS?”

The Luna...well, the one who was, by now, obviously Celestia, tossed her head and replied, “It was just a bit of fun. Why must you be so touchy?”

The real Luna advanced on her slightly larger doppelganger, with her ears folded back. “He is our boyf...consort, and though thou may be the elder sister thou canst not help thyself to whatever and whomever thou wishest.”

Celestia-as-Luna raised a hoof to her chest, looking affronted. “I didn't see him complaining.” He looked at both of them, afraid to speak. She gazed at him through lowered eyelids and tossed her faintly glowing mane before adding, “Maybe he wants to be shared. Hmm? Two princesses? Maybe even two Lunas?” She winked and licked her lips.

Both princesses regarded him expectantly. His mouth dried up, his teeth chattered, and he felt like he could barely breathe. After what seemed like years, he muttered lamely, “Celestia, you are really ni... majestic and wonderful, Your Majesty... but,” he swallowed hard and took a deep breath before continuing, looking meekly at the floor, “I'm really a one-mare kind of pony, begging your forgiveness, Princess.”

“But my dear little pony, we ARE one...” Celestia started to say before she was cut off by a loud and significant cough from her sister.

Celestia-Luna's horn glowed and she shook herself as if she had come out of the rain, and her illusory dark countenance dissolved in a mist around her. The two alicorns glared at each other, their horns crossed, and the real Luna muttered between clenched teeth, “Dearest, pray adjourn to the antechamber.”

Though it was phrased as a request, she clearly had no thought that he might deny her. Duskwind stood and bowed to both princesses. With a deep and slightly shaky bow, he croaked, “Princesses, I beg your leave,” and without waiting for an answer, turned and almost galloped through the door that a guard was already holding open for him. A small part of him marveled at how those ponies always seemed to be where they were needed. The guard followed him and closed the door behind them.

Duskwind sat, fidgeting, in a well appointed reception area, where the guard, a pegasus in gilded armor instead of the gate guard's plain steel, stood with great poise and self importance in front of the large door.

The fretful librarian's ears twitched and he listened to the sound of muffled yelling from beyond the ornate door, but the guard either didn't notice, or was excellent at pretending not to hear things. On reflection, the latter explanation seemed more likely.

After an uncomfortable several minutes of not quite hearing the fracas in the next room, the unicorn snuck a look at the guard, who was staring calmly straight ahead of him, and not at Duskwind. Deciding he could risk it, he summoned up an amplification spell, using it so weakly that he hoped the faint glow of his horn and on his ears would be easy to miss. His eyes closed and he focused on making out the faint voices.

“Why dost thou always do this, sister? This is just like what happened with Flumple before my exile!”

“Please, calm down. Can't you just get another?”

“We like him! He is nice! We do not want another, as thou bloody well knowest!”

“Sure, I guess he is nice, but there are lots of nice ones. I'm sure you can find some other little pony to brush your mane and tell you how pretty you are.”

“Thou merely wantest him him because thou may have him not!”

“Sun and sky, you are the most selfish sister ever! Why can't you just share?”

“DAMN THOU, HE IS OURS!”

“FINE! HAVE IT YOUR WAY!”

The last exchange he could have heard even unamplified, and was followed by the loud stamping of hooves and the slamming of a door that shook the floor.

After a few minute's silence, a tiny bell over the door tinkled and the armoured pegasus looked at Duskwind and said, “I believe the princess will see you now.”

The guard pulled the door open and Duskwind gingerly crept inside. When he entered, he saw Princess Luna, (the real one, he presumed) sitting on a cushion on the floor, looking down despondently. When he approached her she looked up and shot him a momentary glare that nearly made his heart stop. Before he could do more than cringe her face softened, and she patted another cushion next to her with a hoof.

“We beg your pardon. It was not thy fault. Perhaps thou might have noticed if thou had expected such deception... but the fault was not thine.”

Unsure of what to say, he rubbed her back affectionately with a forehoof. She leaned against him slightly and went on, “Ofttimes our sister forgets that anything matters besides what she wants. It is infuriating, but she just cannot be made to understand.”

The princess heaved a sigh and kicked a hoof on the floor petulantly, to Duskwind's surprise and discomfort looking almost like an angry child, for all that she loomed over him. He'd never seen her this upset.

They sat together in silence for several minutes, while he wracked his brain for something to say that might help. Finally he put his foreleg around her waist and smiled at her, saying, “If you're still mad and want to get some of it out...” He lowered his voice conspiratorially and went on, “you could play Nightmare Moon again tonight. I promise to be extra scared...”

“That is not...” she started to say with a bit of ire before she softened and kissed him on the cheek. “We aren't in the mood tonight, Dusky, but many thanks.”

He squeezed her waist and perked his ears up, trying to be as perky and pleasant as possible. It had become clear over the past few weeks that making the night Princess happy was more or less his job, but that didn't mean he didn't also genuinely care. The thing that troubled him was not really knowing how she felt about him. She obviously cared, but did she care about Duskwind, the completely overwhelmed librarian unicorn, or was he just a thing for her to care about, like a living teddy bear? Perhaps it was both, but he was afraid to ask, and unsure if she herself even knew.

With a deep breath he filed his worries away for another time and cheerfully suggested, “Well, dinner then? I'm starved, and the only thing better than palace food is eating it with you. After that I can go home, or stay for a bit of a cuddle.”

He stood up and extended a hoof to her, as if he could somehow actually help a pony twice his size to her feet, but she smiled and took it as she hove herself up.

Grinning down at him, her mood seemingly much lightened, she said “That sounds lovely. Come, we shall dine.”

She was gone when he woke up, as she usually was. He let himself take his time, waking up slowly as morning light filled the room. It was odd, he thought as he stretched and slothfully flopped about in the huge, plush bed, he was actually glad that “dinner and a bit of a cuddle” was all that last night had been.

Five weeks ago he would have called anyone crazy if they had suggested that he could possibly feel that way in a situation like this, but frankly, the pressure to perform was overwhelming at times. It could feel like that with any mare, of course, but Luna was a princess out of legend, and it was hard to forget that. It also didn't help that since she didn't know her sister's temporary make-an-alicorn spell, he was... built to a different scale than her.

She had never seemed to mind, but that didn't stop him fretting for a single moment.

The rumpled purple unicorn sat up, stretched, retrieved the pendant of his necklace from his mane (where it had gotten tangled as usual), and looked for the note. There was always a note. Even though every Royal Summons was written by a scribe, the morning bedside notes were always penned by Luna herself. Whenever he worried that he might just be playing the part of someone who cared, he remembered that he kept all of the notes. Not really to read them again, but mostly because they smelled like her.

The note began:
Fair Dusky,
As usual, we must needs arise early, as all of the kingdom's statecraft is still done while the sun shines... for now.

To Duskwind's surprise, Luna had started to write the usual "Your presence is requested..." line, but had crossed it out and written instead:

We would love it if thou wouldst accompany us to a small formal dinner this evening. It is an official function, but formal attire is not required. Thy company would be most nice.

The note was signed with her usual "XOXO" and a crescent moon.

He set the note back on the table and slid out of bed. While brushing his mane and humming softly to himself, his face broke into a grin as realization hit him: He seemed to have the run of the palace, more or less. Perhaps this morning he would see what the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the palace library had to offer in the way of transformation spells...