My dear friend Twilight,
I treasure our friendship and the many enjoyable outings we have had together since Nightmare Night. Tonight, a rare lunar conjunction shall take place. I would be honored if you would join me to observe it. Enclosed, please find a spell which will be necessary if you wish to join me, as well as a map. Please be at the indicated location at sundown. I look forward to your company,
Sincerely, Luna.
The letter had been delivered by Spike that morning, wrapped in a blue ribbon and sealed with silver wax. It had indeed included a map and a spell. The map showed a spot on the eastern coast, just north of Baltimare, but the spell had been a strange one. Twilight had dutifully learned it--it was fairly simple—but she had no idea what it did. It was quite similar to the cloud-walking spell she already knew, but the ‘water’ terms in the first circle had been switched out for references to light. The idea of walking on light was absurd, though. Clouds were less substantial than solid ground, but they were as dense as lead when compared to light. Still, the spell had done something when she'd practiced casting it.
Now she stood on a sandy beach, with the sun just touching the hills to the west, and scanned the shoreline for her fellow princess. She soon spotted a distant, dark speck standing far out on the beach. Twilight took to the air and soared across the stretch of barren sand to where Luna stood with the waves washing around her fetlocks. Her horn was glowing, and ahead of her the moon had just edged above the horizon, even as the last of the sun vanished behind her.
The sky above was clear and cloudless, tinted every shade of pink and purple and indigo. They were Twilight's colors, and she felt again the tiny little tickle of delight that she felt every time she noticed those colors in the sky—ever since the day her mother had first explained what "twilight" was. The air was still, with the barest hint of a breeze coming from the ocean. The water was nearly still, the waves that lapped at the shore small, their sound a quiet shushing.
Twilight landed next to Luna, her hooves digging into the damp sand. A wave came up, the water cold and shocking as it washed around her feet. Luna nodded a silent greeting, but said nothing, her horn still glowing as she eased the moon up above the horizon. The silence was peaceful. Even when Luna had finished, Twilight didn't say anything, she just stood and looked out over the water at the newly-risen moon. It hung, pale and full, a ghostly shape against the pink and purple sky.
Luna, too, stared at the moon. Her coat was dark in the dimming light, a blue so deep it was nearly black. Her colors deepened and faded as her power waxed and waned with the moon, Twilight knew. Her height also changed, ranging from barely taller than Twilight to nearly as tall as Celestia. Even her mane was sometimes almost that of a mortal pony, pale silver-blue specked with a hint of starlight. Now, though, it flowed in a shimmering nimbus from her head, and the stars that flecked it looked nearly real. She was at the height of her powers, a creature of inequine grace and beauty.
As a wave ebbed, Luna took a step forward onto the newly revealed wet sand. She stood again while the next wave washed about her hooves. Twilight stood beside her, curious but willing to remain silent and enjoy the peace of the moment for now.
Every few waves, Luna moved forward just a hoof's length, never stepping into the foaming surf, but always onto just-revealed wet sand. The tide was going out, and the princess was going out with it, it seemed. Twilight followed, her curiosity growing, but after being silent for so long, she was reluctant to break the stillness with speech.
Soon Luna halted, and said, "It turns now." Even as she spoke a wave foamed higher over her hooves, the water reaching well above her ankles.
It clicked in Twilight's mind, and she knew. "The spring tide," she murmured.
"Yes," said Luna gently, solemnly. "Not merely a spring tide, but a king tide."
Twilight nodded, understanding. The moon and the tides were tied together, so of course the tide would be important to Luna. But tonight's would not be just any tide. The moon was full, so this was a spring tide—a tide when the low water would fall lower than normal, and the high water reach higher. When the moon was at perigee—its closest approach—as it was now, that would also drive the high tide higher, and the low tide lower. Together, they made the king tide. It was at its lowest point now. It would rise until midnight, when it would be the highest tide possible, save for a storm surge.
The stars were beginning to come out now, as the last of the sunset light faded. The stars in Luna's mane, too, were glimmering more strongly. Silence returned, save for the faint hiss of the waves. The moon seemed to glow more brightly, now that the sunlight had retreated, and it laid a silver path along the ocean from the horizon to their hooves.
Luna's horn glowed once more, a deep, lambent blue. She cast a spell that settled around her hooves. She lifted first one, then another out of the water, and stepped onto the silvered path.
Wordlessly, Twilight did the same, understanding now exactly what the spell she'd learned was for. She followed Luna towards the moon as the night deepened from indigo to velvet black and the last of the stars emerged overhead.
Slowly the sound of the waves on the beach faded behind them. The surface of the silvery path was not as slick as Twilight would have thought; her hooves had no trouble finding purchase on it. At first it moved and swelled beneath her hooves as they walked out over the waves, but eventually they reached deeper water, where the waves were so long and gentle that they could hardly be felt.
The pair walked on in silence while the moon rose higher in the sky. The silver path shrank slowly as the moon rose, no longer stretching to the horizon. When it was nearly midnight, Luna halted. The silver path was no longer really a path, but a shattered reflection of the moon itself beneath their hooves. They had long since left land behind entirely; only ocean lay around them. Above, the moon presided over a star-strewn sky. Below, the ocean swelled so gently it was nearly flat, stirred to faint ripples by a whisper of a breeze.
The breeze faded. The moon slipped higher. It was midnight, and the ocean lay as smooth as glass, perfect and still all around them, the stars reflected in its sublime mirror. The moon lay beneath Twilight's hooves, a perfect silver disk, brighter than she had ever seen it.
She looked over at Luna, and inhaled softly in shock.
Luna was tall now, as tall as Celestia, and her coat was jet black, almost vanishing into the blackness of sea and sky behind her. Her mane and tail were haloed in a shimmering indigo aurora, but were also black, and strewn with stars as real as those that shone down above, as though they were a window to the night itself. She looked back at Twilight, her aqua eyes a startling splash of color in the black and silver interplay of moon and night, of sea and stars.
She was the most beautiful thing that Twilight had ever seen.
"The moon is full, and the tide is about to turn again," she said, her words falling into the perfect stillness of the night like crystal beads into a well. "My power is as great now as it ever can be. The king tide was high the first time I gave in to hate and madness and became Nightmare Moon, long ago." She looked through Twilight, her eyes focused on some distant memory.
"I never knew that you had power from the sea," said Twilight. It felt a little strange to speak after being silent for so long.
"It was not always so." Luna heaved a great sigh. "The sea once belonged to another alicorn. Her name was Salacia. She was the color of waves by sunlight, with wings of palest seafoam. Her mane was every shade of the ocean's blue. She was beautiful, and I loved her."
Twilight tried to think of something to say, but could not. Luna looked away from Twilight, up to the stars above, and continued. "She loved me too. We were happy together for centuries. Then Discord came. Celestia and I were the only alicorns to survive his reign."
She fell silent again, while Twilight scuffed a hoof against the ocean, watching the tiny ripples it sent out. "Salacia somehow passed her power to me when she died. I still do not know how. No other alicorn has managed it, before or since. Perhaps it was only possible because the sea and the moon are so tied together. It was that which first drew us to each other, so long ago." Another pause, and Luna looked down from the stars above to stare past their reflections, looking into the black depths beneath her. "I used that power to attempt to bring eternal night. She would never have helped me, had she lived. I abused her gift to gain power, and failed even at that. I still cannot understand how I have been so easily forgiven by my sister and her subjects."
A tear dropped from her eye and fell into the sea, the single drop mingling with the infinite ocean, leaving nothing behind but a ripple.
Twilight could stand by no more, she moved to embrace Luna, standing on her hind legs and wrapping her forelegs around the princess's shoulders. "Of course we forgive you," she said. "You made a mistake, but all ponies make mistakes. I've made plenty! And you're a wonderful, smart, amazing, beautiful pony. Ponies like you. Nopony has any reason to hold a grudge against you."
"Ah, Twilight... Some of them do, I know. And even should they not, I know they still love and admire my sister more than I. I am not so blind that I cannot see how all ponies—even you—venerate her."
Twilight shook her head, still hugging Luna. "She's my teacher. Even now that I'm technically her equal, she's still my teacher. I'll always look up to her. But she's not you. You are..." Twilight's heart beat a bit faster at the thought of saying what she thought—what she felt—about the princess of the stars and seas. She swallowed and said some of it anyway. "You are special. You are so creative, and so wise and so beautiful. I love the way you change with the moon. I love the way you remember books that every other pony has forgotten. I love the way you can write poetry at the drop of a hat. I can't write poetry at all." The rest of the words that Twilight wanted to say trembled on her lips, filling her mouth with an imagined bitterness at the way she lacked the courage to utter them. If I could write poems, I would write them to you...
Luna embraced Twilight suddenly, sitting on her haunches and wrapping her forelegs around her tightly. She folded her wings around her as well, encasing her in a cocoon of shadows. Perhaps it should have felt restrictive or alarming. Luna currently looked almost exactly like Nightmare Moon. Yet instead, it felt warm and welcoming. It felt right.
It also made her heart race, which pounding only increased when Luna bent her head and nuzzled at Twilight. For one electrifying instant their horns touched, sliding gently against each other in a way that sent a shudder through Twilight's entire body.
"Twilight," whispered Luna, slipping into the archaic and intimate form of address she seldom used any more, "thou art my dearest friend and mine only true confidant. I invited thee here to tell thee a fragment of my past, yet also to share my present and perhaps... perhaps if thou art willing, to ask thee to share my future as well."
Twilight's thudding heart skipped a beat. She lifted her head, looking into Luna's eyes, her muzzle hovering just inches from Luna's. She struggled for the words, wanting to say just the perfect thing, but nothing came. Finally all she could do was blurt out, "I love you."
She could feel Luna's breath catch, the other mare's body trembling against hers. "Oh Twilight... I love thee," said Luna, and then their muzzles met in a soft yet fervent kiss.
Above them the silver moon looked on, and the diamond stars scattered around it bore witness, while below their reflections shimmered in the serene sea and danced around the reflection of the alicorn pair--entwined in love's first kiss amid silver and shadow on the night of the spring tide.
Author's Note
If you would like to read more, there is more here:
Midsummer's Eve
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