“Sister.”

A tall, pale, shapely woman with lavender eyes and multicolored hair that seemed to have a mind of its own stood over a figure who slept in a nest of pillows and thick blankets. A white horn jutted from her forehead, and a magnificent pair of wings, covered in titanium white feathers, were folded behind her back; rather large back and shoulder muscles that gave her torso something of a triangular look were what provided her with the strength to fly. A hand went to her hip as she sighed through her nose.

“Sister,” she said, with a somewhat louder voice.

The one on the makeshift bed gave a bit of a stir, but was otherwise silent. Her own skin was contrastingly bronze to her sister’s porcelain tone, and her hair, while it was just as dynamic as the conscious one’s, was navy blue with pale indigo streaks. Both of their manes glittered as though they shampooed with diamond dust, although the darker lady’s hair sparkled more brilliantly. A broad, midnight blue wing was wrapped over the curled body of the sleeper, covering all but her face, from which a matchingly colored horn protruded, and her feet. A tired groan could be heard.

“Luna, wake up this instant!” barked the standing woman.

There was some stirring, and then Luna sat up slowly, her eyes barely opening. She gave a yawn and a stretch of both her arms and her wings, which gave a bit of a flutter before settling into their idle position. Her body was quite similarly shaped to her sister’s, but she was neither quite as tall nor as busty. Pouting a bit, she asked groggily, “What be the time of day, Celestia?”

Celestia glanced out the window at the fading golden light of dusk. “Nearly time for you to perform your duties. You should awaken early more often, it gives you a chance to wake up properly before you raise the moon, and perhaps some time to eat as well.”

“Very well…”

Blinking the tiredness from her argon blue eyes, Luna finally got to her feet, wearing little but a pair of silver, silken night pants. Celestia, who wore a blindingly bright white halter top gown held around her neck with a gold chain attached to a similarly gold choker and a cloud blue sash with gold threads woven into it, caught herself staring for a second or two at Luna’s exposed breasts. She quickly averted her eyes, giving a small cough to nonverbally remind her sister to put some clothes on. Luna did so, and was soon wearing a uniform that could be described more accurately as ‘princely’ than anything else. Her own clothes consisted of a blue-black jacket even darker than the night sky, with shoulder pads, a button-up front, and a high collar, as well as a form-fitting pair of fine, storm blue suede pants, the entire suit having hems and seams highlighted with silver. The back of her coat was open, so as to allow her wings to fit.

Among their many other contrasts, the fashion senses between Celestia and Luna were nearly opposites. Celestia typically wore long, flowing gowns and dresses while Luna held preference to coats and pants. They both enjoyed footwear with heels, but Celestia could usually be found wearing high-heeled sandals, whereas Luna wore the classic boots of a cavalryman, the heels of the sole being somewhat short and very thick, ideal for keeping hold on a stirrup. Given her wings, Luna never had to make use of a mount, but she still held the style in high regard. Her shoes of choice were thigh-high boots with large cuffs that folded downwards, the edges almost reaching her knee from halfway up her thigh. They were Alice blue with blue-gray soles and silver trim, and made a soft thud with each step, nearly being completely silent when she stepped upon the carpet.

Celestia shook her head with a smile. “Ever so proper, aren’t we?” she said jokingly. “It isn’t as though you’re going to a ball, you go out to simply make night come. You hardly need to dress so… royally, really.”

Luna made a scoffing noise. “Why would that be? Should we be seen, ‘twould be best for us to make certain we are seen as naught but magnificent, yes?”

She supposed that she had an unfair advantage in the matter, being that she had been exposed to the ever-changing culture of Equestria for a thousand years more than her sibling, but that Luna still spoke so archaically was something she was determined to amend. “If you wish, I suppose there’s no stopping you. But honestly, extravagance is still unnecessary; you may be a princess, but there is a humongous difference between utilizing some finery and dressing as though you aim to make a multi-billionaire look like a vagrant.”

Both of Luna’s hands went to her hips as she struck a confident pose and grinned smugly. “Thy words are ones of envy, methinks.”

Celestia’s palm went to her forehead. “Just… go. The sky is still waiting for you.”

~♪~

Drifting somewhat lazily through the cool night air, Luna admired what she claimed as her domain. She imagined that she would never tire of it, although she was still troubled at how few still enjoyed the black-blue sky and its myriad stars shimmering alongside the moon, her most prized ‘possession’. As a goddess, it was at least part of her portfolio, though saying it was her property may have been pushing it.

Such whimsical ponderings aside, the divine princess began her nightly patrol for troublesome dreams. Not all of them were visited directly, and she could get a general ‘feel’ for what the dream was about without actually delving into the minds of those deep in slumber. Canterlot Castle seemed to be at peace enough, and so, considering that part of the kingdom taken care of, she moved onward. Luna arrived at Ponyville not long afterward; she may not have been able to fly as fast as dedicated, well-trained wingfolk, but her sheer magical power made such skill unnecessary. With the proper application, Luna could make dimensions fold and travel miles in but an instant, though longer distances would take more time to prepare.

Luna hovered in midair for but a second, spreading both her arms and her wings outward as they began to pulsate with temporal and spatial energy. A slight whoosh and zing later, and Luna found herself hovering over a town several leagues south of Canterlot. Ponyville, so it was called. She had been exiled to the moon long before the town’s conception, and so she found it umpteen times more interesting than Canterlot Castle and the sprawling city beneath it. It was so rural yet busy compared to her home, people bustling about and doing their business. Even nighttime had activity of note. She had seen it once during daytime, and the streets seemed to writhe with life, as though the place was an organism in and of itself. Still in the air, Luna flitted about the sky just above the rooftops, her own mind grazing over the surface thoughts of those who slept.

One thing that Luna took pride in was her superiority over her sister when it came to their psychic prowess. She could determine one’s surface thoughts, as well as emotions, hidden or otherwise, with little more than a glance. Her capacity for empathy and telepathy was indeed impressive; the only downside, in her opinion, was that it was a much more subtle power than most, and she felt that made it underappreciated, simply because it was not bright and flashy. She gave a harrumph at the narrow-minded folk who could not see what a gift it actually was, but otherwise paid such thoughts no mind. She scanned about for those suffering from bad dreams, but did not find any as she combed through the center of town. A twist of her wings, and she was on her way to the outskirts.

There was a distinct lack of psychic impressions in the area, but that was to be expected. Luna even took a liking to the locale, as the auras were far less tangled and chaotically melded into a giant blob of thoughts and feelings. The scarcity of people meant clarity, and that made more thorough checks far easier. She passed over an isolated cottage, and then sported a frown. She recognized the building, the leafy, still-growing thatching and myriad animal dens built into it and the yard around it giving it an organic look that was unmistakable. This was the residence of Fluttershy, a wingmaid so oversaturated with kindness, humility, and fear that Luna had no idea how she had survived her teenage years. It was Fluttershy, however, who had shown Luna how to speak without using, as the commonfolk called it, the “Royal Canterlot Voice”, and for that she would be eternally grateful. A goddess so much as muttering a word with the entirety of their divine voice could force an entire unit of men to their knees, rattle a small tree to its core, and break glass. Louder and longer utterances could do even more damage, shattering bones like brittle ice, collapsing a boulder into dust and fine gravel, and scattering a house to the winds like a hurricane. Luna had only once ever yelled at someone with baneful intent, and the disturbing sight of the poor soldier’s flesh peeling from their bones like an orange before they disintegrated into nothingness convinced her that she should never do so again unless absolutely necessary.

At least, mused Luna, she had only been employing a small fraction of her godliness when she typically spoke, even when using her Voice. Had she not moderated herself by then, she would likely have had to fear for Fluttershy’s very life.

Her mind drifted back to the subject at hand. There was a disturbance of some kind at Fluttershy’s cottage, some troublesome night terror, and that was a problem Luna decided she should fix. After all, she owed Fluttershy a great deal, and soothing a few bad dreams was nothing in comparison to better control of the Voice. Giving her majestic wings a few light flaps to soften her landing, the princess touched down by a window. She closed her eyes, broadcasted her thoughts, and began to reach. There were a great many minds within the building, however small. Almost all of them were those of animals, simple creatures dreaming of simple things. She soon found the psyche she had been searching for, that of Fluttershy. Strengthening the connection, she could feel what was going on inside Fluttershy’s head. There was dread, confusion, horror, and sadness, which were typical of nightmares, and so when Luna projected herself into Fluttershy’s dreamscape, she expected a rather easy problem to fix, not the mess she saw inside.

~♪~

Fluttershy had no idea what was happening. The sun shone bright, the grass was lush and green, flowers were in bloom, animals were gaily chittering and chirping, and a soft spring breeze highlighted everything with its gentle touch, twirling her pink hair along with it. Part of her ritual that early morning was to sing alongside a chorus of a few birds to rally the others into song. What reverberated in her throat was not the music she had intended, but a queer, alien noise that seemed to twist the very world around her. The previously white-gold sunlight dimmed to a dusty, reddish-dun glow. Grass and flowers became dull, lifeless, wiry husks, animals ceased to exist, and the wind became sharp and bitter. When she tried to speak, rather than sing, the strange voice she had continued in her normal voice’s stead. The earth dried and cracked, becoming salty and infertile as she spoke further, and tears began to flow from her eyes at the sight of what of the world she could see being condemned to such rapid decay for no reason but the eerie tongue with which she sang. Despair overcame her, and she fell to her hands and knees, silent for fear that giving so much as a whimper would only cause more destruction.

Unseen, Princess Luna watched the events unfold. Both darkly wonderized and profoundly discomforted by what she saw, the goddess of the night was confounded at just how one such as Fluttershy knew of the Sound. It was a language that had at one point been labeled Deathspeak, for those who were less adept with its precise and exacting pronunciations had made all around them, and eventually themselves, wither and die. It was the speech of the Old Gods, the primal beings who formed the world aeons ago, and disappeared long, long before the princesses came to be. They were words of power that could either consecrate or desecrate the world around it, bringing life and energy in abundance or waves upon waves of entropy and damnation. The departure of the Old Gods was not regarded to be a tragedy.

Luna herself knew but a few words of it, though she dared not speak them, especially while within the dreamscape of one she personally held so dear. The dream was not beyond salvation in consideration to her other powers, at least. Remaining out of Fluttershy’s sight, she willed for something small yet magnificent to happen to start, and from the split earth at Fluttershy’s bare feet sprouted a singular plant. It looked to be no more than a weed, and blossomed a singular, simple flower with azure petals. From the cracks in the ground around it sprung tufts of soft, tender, bluish grass, though sparsely. The scarlet and brown sky soon was awash with swathes of swirling cool grays that ranged from the paleness of fresh salt to the darkness of the densest thunderheads. A bolt of lightning struck the ground not twenty paces ahead of Fluttershy, and it was followed by a shower of rain that wet the thirsty earth. More flora began to bloom as the landscape was moistened, the lone blue flower soon being joined by a veritable field of it. The dead, wretched mockeries of trees began to swell and then crumble away as new trees, tall, thick, and mighty, burst from their topiary corpses. In what felt like both an instant and an eternity, it looked as though three millennia in growth and rejuvenation had passed. Fluttershy wandered the new woodlands, the damp air clinging to her skin and cooling her throat and lungs as she breathed in its heavy, refreshing wetness. The rose-haired maiden’s tears were soon replaced with shimmering awe at the sight, marveling it in all its glory. It was as though the Everfree Forest had broken free of its boundaries and consumed nearly half of Ponyville.

She was, out of nowhere, jostled to consciousness from her nightmare-turned-reverie when a pair of hands grabbed her shoulders; in her dream, she had turned just in time to see Princess Luna’s glowing face before her real, physical eyes opened. She looked around her bedroom, seeing naught but herself and her sheets occupying her bed or the room around it, and gave a shiver that made her butter yellow wings ruffle. A glance out the window told her that it was nigh sunrise upon awakening, the skies turning the pale cerulean that preceded the golden radiance of the morning sun. Fluttershy was usually awake not long after this hour, but she decided that it would be time to get on her feet, lest she oversleep by falling back into slumber. As she went downstairs to prepare some breakfast tea, she gave a little smile. Luna did not bless many people with more than one visit in their life, and she felt so privileged to be granted multiple visits to her sleeping mind.

~♪~

By the time that Fluttershy had risen from bed, Luna was long gone, flying away to finish a rather uneventful night’s worth of surveillance. The moment between the end of a dream and actually waking from slumber could span hours, after all. Even when it came time for her sister to perform her own duties as the goddess of the sun, Luna wished to linger about Ponyville, but begrudgingly decided against it, and lowered the moon to make room for the warming orb of day before returning home. She did not teleport, despite her having some desire to do so, if only because the morn’s coming was still not yet there, and the remaining coolness of the air was a very pleasant thing to feel under her wings.

It also gave her time to reflect upon her feelings for Fluttershy.

While she would not consider it love, Luna admitted, at least to herself, that she felt something more than mere acquaintanceship with the wingmaid, though she could not quite place where it was on the scale between friend and lover. From Fluttershy’s end, all that Luna was aware of was reverence, but that was something that came from, in essence, everyone who was not an enemy, and it was so disappointingly impersonal that she saw little hope for her own feelings to be reciprocated.

It was of little matter, she supposed. She was Princess Luna, a magical diarch of the greatest kingdom in the world, gifted with a divine spark that left her nearly unmatched in power, save a select few that she could count on one hand! The very idea that a mortal would treat her more as a person than a goddess was preposterous.

The idea’s appeal, however, was not lost on her as she fluttered to a stop on her chamber’s balcony. Handlessly casting the doors of thick glass open, Luna began to remove her opulent garments, stripping back into nudity before drawing the drapes of her balcony doors shut, leaving the doors themselves open; the breeze that flowed in was comforting, and she then nestled back into her bed of pillows, not bothering with a blanket as she let her wings cover her and went to sleep.

Author's Note

So, first chapter, tell me whatcha think. I'll tell you from the beginning, I'm a slow writer, so don't expect me to be pumping out a chapter a week, or even a chapter a month.