Moondancer

Twilight was calmer now. Moondancer was taking the castle very casually, but at heart Twilight knew that she had a point. If there was anything that Princess Celestia wanted from here, she would have retrieved it by now. No tourists would hazard the dangers of the Everfree Forest just to take photos of the place. The archaeological implications of the place were vast, but not really tied to any one thing. Sitting on a throne was fine. Searching the castle for clues to the past was fine.

Twilight was working her way up to ‘Moondancer trying on Princess Luna’s hats was fine’, but she wasn’t quite there yet. She decided not to stop Moondancer anyway, as the ‘punishments’ were sounding all too tempting and she did have some self-respect.

They had found Princess Luna’s rooms with ease, the great doors emblazoned with a silver crescent moon reminiscent of the one on the Equestrian banner. The lockless doors opened without resistance, the hinges still smooth after a millenia of neglect. The rooms beyond were high-ceilinged and airy, particularly so now that most of the roof had gone.

Moondancer had gasped with delight when she saw Princess Luna’s antechamber. Beautiful, elegant furniture lay about the room. Chaise-lounges were positioned beside small decorative tables, a squat credenza ran along one wall. It was still supporting crystal ornaments once highlighted with silver, now blackened by age. Tall, corroded, mirrors lined the wall where others might have hung paintings. There were the remains of a writing desk up against one wall, which looked like it had been smashed to pieces, and then set on fire, a thousand years ago. Some weapons hung on a rack near the desk, their steel still shining bright after all the long years. Despite the lack of a ceiling the carpet was mostly intact, and there was a faint odour of fresh lilacs hanging in the air, not the faint stench of rot that pervaded the rest of the castle.

Moondancer was quick to check out the drinks cabinet, and disappointed to find it empty. She moved swiftly on to a nearby wardrobe, searching for consolation somewhere inside its haphazard stack of hatboxes. She had tossed aside her bandana and was engaged trying on the various hats, inspecting herself in the small clear spot on a partially blackened mirror.

After some rationalisation, Twilight was able to leave her friend and wander deeper in the chambers. Moondancer’s sub-voclaised grumbles about the difficulties in finding a hat that matched her hair faded behind her.

Twilight found the bedroom passed the antechamber. The room had doors leading further back to the ensuite bathroom, now mostly covered in rubble, and a pair of towering veranda doors leading out to a balcony.

The great bed was huge, easily large enough to support half a dozen entwined bodies. The deep blue canopy had apparently protected it from the worst of the weather, and judging from the rocks resting on it, from falling masonry as well. The silken bedspread, cornflower blue shot through with silver thread, was pulled back in welcome.

Twilight decided that the decorative style could best be summed up as ‘intimate’, with the light she was holding showing dark-hued furniture, paintings showing romantic encounters, and a few strategically placed hangings and screens.

There were no books visible, but a blue crystalline pyramid sitting on a chest of drawers caught Twilight’s eye. The tetrahedron was about the size of a grapefruit, with runes around the base that hinted at magic. She leant in to inspect it more closely, very careful to not touch.

Moondancer, now styling a dark blue sun hat that was a thousand years out of fashion, joined Twilight to survey the bedroom. She quickly caught sight of the pyramid, and joined Twilight in inspecting it.

“Wait a moment, I think I know what this is! I remember this from an ancient stock book at home. It’s a scene recorder!”

“I haven’t even heard of them.”

“Ancient magical device. Required the combined work of several highly-skilled artisans. Bit like a video recorder and a projector all in one,” Moondancer set the pyramid on the dresser and tried to turn the thing on, “I wonder if it has anything stored… Hmm, mostly empty… Here’s something… Argh, stupid… Nearly had it… Wait a moment…,” Moondancer gave the pyramid a carefully calibrated blow with the back of her hand, “Ah hah! Here we go!”

An image appeared over the bed. It was flickering, slightly, but showed a great, dark-skinned woman with black-feathered wings mounting a bat-winged man who was lying on his back, with his legs over the foot of the bed. The woman was straddling the thestral, kneeling on the bed and riding his bucking hips. His face was twisted in concentration, hers was calm, almost serene.

Twilight was entranced, staring at the woman. She had high cheekbones, piercing cerulean blue eyes, and her hair was a midnight cascade of stars flowing down her back. Her lips were full, her smile commanding, and her powerful fingers looked dextrous. She lazily traced the well defined muscles on the man’s chest. Her every movement had a fluid grace, as though she was dancing to music only she could hear.

The woman, the princess, turned her head to look at something to behind her.

“You may begin,” she said in a beguiling contralto.

Two more naked people entered the flickering scene. One was a thestral woman with short-cropped black hair, wide hips and skin even darker than her mistress. The other was an aerial, his white skin and golden wings and hair a shocking contrast to the others. Graceful hips and compact body, he was not supremely well endowed but that didn’t seem to stop Moondancer’s approving looks.

Both man and woman were clearly aroused. The woman climbed onto the bed, straddled the thestral’s chest and began to minister to her mistress with long fingers and luscious lips. The aerial came up behind the princess, positioned himself with care and slowly thrust forward. The princess permitted a faint moan of approval to pass her lips–

“Shut it off! Shut it off!” shouted Twilight, her blazing face the same colour as Moondancer’s hair, waving her hands in front of her face in an attempt to not see the scene in front of her.

Moondancer laughed at Twilight, but she found the control to turn off the projection anyway.

“Now there’s something that wasn’t on your list, Twily,” said Moondancer, teasingly. She continued to make adjustments to the pyramid.

“Well,” said Twilight, ignoring the flaming blush on her cheeks and Moondancer’s comments equally, “We now know what ‘Princess Luna’ looked like. Phew.”

“And you like what you see,” said Moondancer, the faintest trace of sadness in her voice, staring at the pyramid, not looking at Twilight.

Twilight was slow to respond, “Well, she was certainly beautiful. And that voice! I could see a bit of Princess Celestia in her, I think. The cheekbones, the nose, the aetherial hair, of course…”

“And about as well endowed as well,” said Moondancer with a grin and a particularly inappropriate gesture around her chest region.

“Moony! What a thing to say!”

“Come on, admit it. You’d bang her in an instant.”

“Well, yes,” said Twilight awkwardly, “but we should still respect her privacy. Anyway, I’ve had enough of wasting my time mooning after someone unobtainable, and she’s trebly so. She died a thousand odd years ago, she was a princess, and judging by what we just saw, she wouldn’t have looked twice at someone as boring as me. Even if she were alive today, she’d be way out of my league.”

“The implication being that I’m not?” asked Moondancer, finally turning to face Twilight with a brittle smile and arms akimbo.

“Um, you are. You were. I thought you were. You are, aren’t you?”

“Twilight?”

Twilight took a deep breath and raised her head to look into Moondancer’s blue eyes.

"Moondancer, I've had a crush on you since we first met. I was afraid to speak to you: I was terrified you would reject me. Today... today has been amazing, thrilling, a dream come true, and beyond anything I imagined. You're an amazing person. And I was hoping, if you wanted, you know, you might, we might..." Twilight was cut off by Moondancer's finger on her lips.

"Twilight, I'm flattered. You're pretty amazing yourself. And I also had a crush. I jumped in with both feet when this plan– when I thought of this plan..."

"I'm hearing a 'but' here." Twilight said sadly.

"But, look, Twilight. Here, things are nice and simple. When we're back in Canterlot, life gets complicated, and gets in the way. We have different needs. I need someone who will go out with me to parties, I need someone who I can chat with for hours, I need a shoulder to cry on when things go bad. I can't stand silence; you sitting and reading a book for hours on end would drive me insane.

"You need someone who can keep up when you start talking about magic. You need someone who doesn't need your constant attention. You need someone who will know what to do when one of your experiments goes wrong and the world is about to end. You need someone who can keep you grounded when you get into one of your panics.

“The sex would be fantastic, but we both need more than that."

Tears were in Twilight's eyes, but she understood. Moondancer held her in a tight embrace for a moment.

"Don't worry, I'll still keep inviting you to my little parties. Just because we won't be an item doesn't mean we can't have fun."

"Ahem, um, thank you for letting me down easy, *ahem*,” said Twilight, clearing her throat, “So, uh, what's next?"

“While we’re here, we work through as much of your naughty little list as possible, and we become ‘friends with benefits’ when we get back.”

“Uh, what’s ‘friends with benefits’?”

“Hahaha! Don’t worry Twilight. I’ll explain it all to you. You’re going to love it, trust me. Friendship is Magic.”

“Okay. So, uh, what do we do with the pyramid? It’s the proof that there was a second princess here a thousand years ago. We can use it, even if it is the Princess’ bedroom video. I’m sure the Professor can view it with academic detachment, but getting him here safely might be tricky.”

“We can take it with us. With the way that this room is falling apart it might not last another century anyway.”

“Good point. To be honest, I’m starting to wonder what we could look for that we haven’t already found. I mean a diary would be good, we could look for that, but otherwise I’d say we’re done. We ask the Princess for permission, obviously, and then show our findings to the Professor. You get your ‘A’ and I, I get to come back as a proper archaeologist, hopefully.”

“You know what? I think you’re right. I’ll look for that diary and then we can say that the job is complete, either way. Which means we can spend the rest of our time here working on your reward.”

Twilight blushed, and idly trailed a finger along the counterpane, but didn’t argue.

With economic efficiency Moondancer tipped back her hat and started rifling through drawers beside the bed, and, when that turned up nothing, started working through the vanity.

Twilight slung her pack off her shoulder, resting it against the wall, and sat down on the great bed, happy to get the weight off her feet. The feather-stuffed mattress turned out to be in good condition, much to her relief; Twilight had no doubt that she would not be leaving the room before it was put to the test.

Twilight sighed quietly. She finally had a moment to think. Moondancer really was rooting around in the drawers like a vandal in a vicarage. It was impressive, but something wasn’t quite right. Twilight’s mind went back to the energy drinks. She hadn’t recognised the alchemist’s mark on the energy drinks they had so casually consumed hours ago. If Moondancer had been careless, she could have gotten them from some shady fly-by-night backstreet vendor.

It was possible that the cheap drinks required their imbibers to be energetic. Failure to do so could cause side effects, such as discombobulation, distractibility, and unreliable decision making. This could be dangerous in a castle that had not had its structural integrity surveyed in centuries.

The excess energy could be adjusting their priorities, Twilight reasoned. Twilight was very glad that her own mind was clear and unaffected, or they could both be in trouble. Her gaze drifted to Moondancer’s shapely butt. It almost seemed as if the moon had been perfectly positioned to shine light through the hole into the ceiling to emphasise just how good that butt looked.

“Ha!” said Moondancer triumphantly, holding up her prize, “Socks! Lots of socks,” she turned the long, midnight blue, thigh-length sock around in her gaze, “Not monogrammed though. Pity,” she stuffed the sock back in the drawer with its fellows.

Moondancer had to kneel down to root around in the bottom drawer. She also had to lean in, stretching her arms. This naturally gave Twilight an excellent view of Moondancer’s behind. It was very distracting.

Twilight needed to work out why Moondancer was acting strangely, with no thought for consequences, but doing so was impossible with that magnificent bottom within grabbing distance…

Before Twilight could do more than reach out to touch the heavenly sight, Moondancer suddenly sat up. Twilight snatched back her hand.

“Nothing. Oh well. Let me have a quick check of this pyramid to see if there’s anything else on here. Just in case.”

Twilight shifted uncomfortably.

Twilight thought hard. They both were bursting with energy. Moondancer was acting erratically. If Twilight’s hypothesis was right, things could get worse. They both needed to do something strenuous, to burn off the excess energy. Running around the castle in their current state and with the poor lighting would not be safe. They weren’t wearing the right clothes for jumping jacks. Moondancer really did have the most enticing smirk when looking at that pyramid…

Twilight stood up.