Moondancer

“So, seeing as there’s no chance of either of us sleeping tonight, and as we can both conjure lights, can we finally explore the spooky castle?” asked Moondancer.

“Nope!” said Twilight, still looking down at her map.

“What?!”

“I know you’re eager to explore, Moony, but we really need to do things in the right order. We need to plan our itinerary. If Princess Celestia had a sister living here with her, she should have had rooms and so on, and they would likely have been left untouched, so as not to upset the Princess. If we’re lucky, she may have left a diary that has hints of what happened. Otherwise we may find ourselves rooting through a thousand-year old chest of drawers, hoping that she wore monogrammed socks…”

“I heard the other stuff you said, but: ‘Moony’?”

“Well, as we’re friends, and we’ve had sexual intercourse several times now, I thought we could start to use nicknames for each other. Or was that presumptuous of me? I don’t want to be overly familiar. Maybe I should have discussed it with you first? I mean we don’t really know each other that well, and I don’t really know the rules about using or assigning nicknames, so I really should have asked, or just kept on calling you Moondancer, it really is a very pretty name–”

“Breathe, ‘Twily’.”

“Eeee! You called me ‘Twily!’”

By the time that the girls had freshened up and redressed, the moon had risen, covering the castle in silvery light and dark shadows, making it look far more intimidating.

“Oooh, spooky! Bet you it’s haunted.”

“Moony, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Then why are you standing so close to me?”

“No I’m not,” said Twilight, quickly stepping away.

“Don’t worry, Twilight, I’ll keep you safe. I know! You can have this. It’ll make you feel better.”

Moondancer fished something out of her pack and gave it to Twilight. It was her old seige wand. Twilight glared at Moondancer. Moondancer snickered.

“Moony, if there were such a thing as ghosts, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t hit them with this wand!”

“But ghosts don’t exist, Twily. So you’re fine.”

Before Twilight could give (or throw) the wand back, Moondancer strode to the doors. Twilight sighed, stuffed the wand into her pack and chased after her friend.

The castle had withstood the steady grind of time well, but after a thousand years, it was showing it’s age. Past the entrance the ceiling was intact, but the entire place was pervaded by a slight stench of decay.

“Odd,” mused Twilight, “Still no signs of the Thought-Eater den. I’m sure that they would have sheltered in one of the accessible buildings, close to the bridge, but nothing.”

Twilight sent her light into the corners, trying to find their spoor.

Moondancer completely derailed this train of thought by grabbing her from behind.

“Ah!” jumped Twilight.

“Gotcha!” said Moondancer, before running further into the castle.

“Get back here!” shouted Twilight, chasing after her.

Moondancer slowed down when she burst through the double doors and into the throne room. Twilight was close behind her, but drew up short when she saw the great banners above the twin thrones.

Noticing that the light that Twilight was carrying had stopped, Moondancer turned to see her staring gape-mouthed.

“It’s true!” Twilight whispered, “The sun and the moon, separate…”

Moondancer remained unthunderstruck.

“I know! Cool, right? Ooh, I wonder if these thrones are comfy!”

Moondancer skipped to the Lunar Throne and made to seat herself. She was bare inches from her chosen seat when she was held frozen in a purple aura. Unable to move a muscle, she found herself floating through the air towards a red-faced Twilight Sparkle. Moondancer couldn’t tell if Twilight was scared or angry.

“Moondancer! You can’t sit on the royal throne! It’s for the Princess! Princesses. You’re not a princess!”

Moondancer’s posture was frozen at the point where she was sitting down, but Twilight had subconsciously angled her forwards so that they met eye-to-eye. Moondancer noticed that this left her with her butt sticking up high in the air. It was a posture she was very familiar with, and associated with a lot of fun and excitement.

“I mean we shouldn’t really be in the throne room anyway, unless court is in session! What were you thinking?!”

Moondancer tried flexing her fingers, or kicking back with a leg, but they were held fast. Aficionados of restraint had, over long history, explored the possibilities of magical bindings. They were at once the ideal that some people strived towards, and yet generally held in low regard, as most spell-casters could not even carry the weight of a person, let alone deny them any movement at all. Twilight Sparkle was not ‘most spell-casters’.

Moondancer moaned. She was the removal of a few minor pieces of clothing, and the application of a paddle, away from the gates of heaven.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Punish me?” suggested Moondancer, hopefully.

“That’s right! I’m going to punish you, because sitting on other people’s thrones is wrong. And your punishment is… is… you must cook supper tonight! And tomorrow as well!”

“What?”

Moondancer was deposited gently on the slightly rotted carpet. Twilight turned to head towards the side-exit.

“Twilight!” cried Moondancer in disappointment.

“Don’t try to argue, Moony. My mind is made up.”

“Argh!”

Moondancer clenched her fists and stalked in front of Twilight.

“Twilight! Court has not been in session here for over a thousand years. Those decaying chairs haven’t been sat on for just as long. There isn’t a princess in existence who would want to sit in them, or care if I did.”

“But… but we’re archaeologists! Those thrones are priceless relics! Sitting on them could damage them!”

“Twilight.” said Moondancer levelly, “They have survived in an open-top throne-room for over a thousand years. They can take my weight for a few minutes. Anyway, their previous owners abandoned them, so they’re anyone’s property now. I could sell them at the Sixthday flea market if I wanted.”

“You can’t do that! Those thrones can tell us so much about life back then. Crafting techniques, the preservation magics they used, where they got the wood from…”

“Twilight, if you want to know any of that, you can just ask Princess Celestia. She has an hour a day she dedicates just to tutoring you, and answering your questions. I’m sure that you could spend fifteen minutes asking about ancient woodworking techniques without compromising your studies. It’d be a lot quicker than trying to take that poor chair apart and counting the rings in the wood.”

“Um, we should treat all things with respect? The chairs might be protected by strange magics? This is a strange and spooky castle and we need to be careful?”

“Twilight?” said Moondancer.

“Um, yes?”

“You’re panicking. Breathe.”

“Okay.”

“Good girl. Now, holding me in your aura in a non-sexual fashion was not respectful. As such I think that it is only fair to punish you. Having heard rumours about your cooking ability, I don’t think you’re going to be cooking anything whilst I’m around–”

“Hey! I’ve seen the castle chefs cook stuff lots of times. It can’t be that hard–”

“Definitely not going to be cooking anything while I’m around. So we’ll have to have a different punishment. Something topical, I think…

“I know,” continued Moondancer, “We are going to go looking for the Princesses’ bedrooms, to try and find something belonging to this ‘Princess Luna’, preferably her diary. When we find Princess Luna’s bed, we are going to have sex in it. Messy sex. All over the priceless, historic, relic-y sheets.”

Twilight went beet red and speechless. Moondancer grinned.

“Don’t worry, we’ll do it very respectfully.”

Twilight whimpered. Moondancer strode off to the corridors behind the thrones, and Twilight followed.

“I bet you want to find the bedroom now, huh, Twilight?”

“I– I don’t know.”

Moondancer laughed. She had just spotted some stairs.