“Achoo!”
The castle rumbled a little.
“Aaa-choo!”
Somewhere a Royal Guard fell over.
“AAAAAA–”
Before Luna could release an ear-shattering sneeze again, her sister rushed in through her doors with an ominous box and a sparkling, pink tissue, and pushed it against her nose. The sneeze was muffled to an inaudibly minimum; yet that didn’t keep Luna from twitching painfully afterwards.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Celestia confessed, frowning a little. “Apparently we were out of sound-nullifying tissues so I had to enchant a few new ones in a haste.”
“I know. I’ve invented these tissues.” Luna sniffled and looked into Celestia’s eyes with her own bloodshot ones. “Urgh, sorry for that. I’m just not in the best of moods right now, as you can probably tell.” She rubbed her head with her hooves.
Celestia chuckled. “No worries, Lulu.”
Seconds elapsed as Luna looked at her sister. “Uhm, the tissues, Tia.”
“Oh, uhm, right. Here.”
“Thanks.” Luna pulled a tissue from out of the box with her magical grip, throwing the previous, completely soaked one into a nearby trash can. After blowing her nose out without a sound again, she asked, “Do you know how late it is, Tia?”
“Yes, it’s somewhere around nine.”
Luna’s eyes sprung open and her jaw dropped. “Oh, no, no! I need to raise the moon!”
“Lulu, it’s no big…” She trailed off as she saw her sister’s eyes closing and her horn lighting up. She facehoofed. “You do realize using astral magic when you’re sick gets you terrible headaches, right?”
No response.
She sighed. “I guess not anymore.”
Celestia went to a nearby chair and sat down, smirking a little as she watched her sister.
Who began to twitch. “Ow.” A little at first. “Ow!” Then a little more. “AHH!” Luna’s horn stopped glowing immediately and she fell over on her bed. Her hooves once again raced up against her head. “MY HEAD!” she screamed with eyes wide open, shaking violently around and trampling her legs around.
“Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”
Luna moaned, got up a little, and glared at her sister with half-opened eyes. “Keep your comments to yourself, Tia.” She let herself lumpily fall down on the bed again. “I think you need to raise the moon again tonight.”
“Oh, uhm…” Celestia looked down and blushed a little. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Say what now?”
“Uhh…” An embarrassed smile appeared on her face. “You see… when you returned I kind of… lost it all.”
Luna blinked. “Lost what?”
“My connections with the moon.” She looked at Luna dumbfounded. “I kinda… ‘threw them away’ when you returned.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, Tia…” Luna said, double-facehoofing.
“Hey, to my defense, how was I supposed to know you’d get so sick you can’t even lift a measly seven trillion tons-heavy rock up to the night sky?” She chuckled a little and her blushing increased.
Luna rolled her eyes. “How about I kick your sweet solar flank to that rock so you can lift it up with your body?”
The two sisters stared at each other, but then began to laugh in unison. “AAAAA–” Luna started, interrupting her laughter, and pushed another tissue against her muzzle.
Celestia looked at the box. “I think I’m going to enchant a bigger supply later on…”
“I’m afraid so,” Luna agreed. “Anyway, what do we do about the moon? I know ‘The day should last forever!’ could be an interesting twist of irony, but… you know.”
Celestia cocked her head. “You have a strange sense of humor, you know that?” She blankly looked at a wall, putting a hoof to her chin. After a while she said, “Lulu, do you think you still have enough energy to share your alicorn abilities to somepony else?”
Luna gasped. “You don’t mean the ‘Astral alicorn for a day’ spell, do you? Tia, you know exactly how risky that spell is. Think of what could happen when the wrong pony gets hit by it!”
“Then tell me what you think is a better idea to get that rock up there. Also, please don’t talk to me like I’m a foal just because I’m younger and sick.”
After a while Luna sighed and nodded. “I believe we don’t have any other options, I’m afraid. I bet Twilight Sparkle was who you were thinking of?” Celestia nodded. “Very well then. Although…” A droplet from her running nose fell onto her sheets and she smiled sheepishly. “I think you should write the letter.”
Less than an hour later, the doors towards the castle’s main halls burst open and a purple pony ran inside. “Twilight! I’m so glad you could come,” Celestia said with a welcoming smile, inviting her student into a hug.
Twilight embraced her mentor. “I came as fast as I could after I got your message. How’s Luna?”
“She’s seen better times, but she’ll be fine.”
“That’s good to hear.” They broke the hug and Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “No time for chatting though. Where is she?”
Celestia nodded. “Right up her room. Follow me.”
As they reached Luna’s doors, Twilight didn’t hesitate to burst them open too.
“Has anyone in this castle ever heard about how to open a door gently?!” Luna screamed from her bed.
Twilight took a step back and shrank a little. “I’m sorry…” she squeaked between a sheepish smile.
Luna sighed. “No need to apologize.. Just… please don’t do it again.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
Rolling her eyes, Luna waved to Twilight, inviting her over to her. Twilight did as told.
“So, what should I do for you, Princess Luna?”
Luna cleared her throat and threw another moistened tissue against the wall, which Twilight ignored with a perfect smile. “Well, I’m sick.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. So I can’t control the moon and the night anymore,” Luna said. “Thankfully, I got enough power left to temporarily share these powers to any other pony. Since you are the smartest of all of Ponyville, I’ve figured you’re the perfect choice for this task.”
Twilight blinked but then nodded. “I guess I can.”
“Good. Position yourself over there and we can start.”
“Okay.”
Then Luna fired her shot and aimed at Twilight but Pinkie came out of nowhere (saying that she wanted to throw a get-well-soon party for Luna) and accidentally got hit with the shot, which is bad because she was not intended to get hit by this shot at all and all ponies in the room gasped and did their last prayers, but Pinkie only laughed and wondered if the moon was really made of cheese, so she brought it down to Equestria and caused a huge tidal tsunami that destroyed everything ever.
The moon wasn't made of cheese.
The end.
