Xane's Life Anew

Xane woke to his bed-partner stirring. He was met with a face full of Luna's coat when he opened his eyes. Rolling over slightly he looked up to see Luna using her magic to move one of the curtains aside. She hmmmed for a second before her horn glowed strongly with magic.

Once she had lowered the moon she gave him a nuzzle before hopping out of bed and going into the bathroom to freshen up. When he had taken his turn they got dressed and headed over to breakfast.

As they entered the dining room Luna shifted one of the extra chairs next to hers. Celestia raised an eyebrow at this but held her remark until they both had sat down.

“I take it our guest will not be requiring the room you told me you were going to arrange.” She said.

Luna looked a bit sheepish as she replied “We had a lovely night out and I will admit having someone to share my bed with is pleasant.”

Celestia smirked, then stated “It sounds like you had quite the date last night. Should I start looking into a compatibility spell for you?”

Xane decided wisely to stay out of the conversation until otherwise brought in on it. Luna laid a wing over him pointedly before taking a bite of her breakfast. He smiled around the mouthful of food he was chewing and just basked in the contact.

After a moment they turned to business as Celestia discussed how her diplomatic dinner had gone. When they had all finished the solar diarch trotted over and used her wings to pull both Xane and her sister into a hug before leaving to tend her duties.

Luna led Xane off towards the residential wing of the castle. Swinging by a room she opened the door and trotted over to a section of the room that had been made up to resemble a forest. As she started to look through the branches Xane leaned against on of the trees. He jumped slightly when some movement caught his attention.

His marefriend rushed over and gently picked up the animal in her magic.

“Tibbers! There you are.” She said bringing the opossum over to herself.

She turned around to show off her pet while placing him on top of her head. Xane stepped over to her and watch as the sleepy animal nestled itself into the ehteral mane.

“I usually can only spend a couple hours a day with him so every so often I bring him along with me for a full day.” She stated before gesturing towards the door.

Xane nodded and followed along with her out of the room. Soon they found themselves in another room lounging on a couch as he was introduced to his new worlds entertainment. Luna had set up a room with a bunch of games. From board and card games to the latest in electronic gaming. She also had a large table set up for tabletop and miniature gaming.

They were playing one of the older game consoles. A popular role playing game that reminded him of one of his personal favorites. This started a long discussion of games of both of their worlds which eventually led to them just learning about each other.

After some time a guard informed them that lunch was being prepared and they saved the game and headed down to get some food. They ate and found that they were both getting tired so they cuddled up in Luna's bed for a nap.

As they walked to dinner later, having spent a couple more hours talking with each other, Luna's assistant informed her that night court was scheduled for tonight. She sighed as she let Xane know what that meant and how she wouldn't be able to spend the first half of the night with him.

Celesta had arranged for a beef stew to have been prepared for him to eat for dinner and both sisters had scooped some of the stew into bowls for themselves. Luna kept a couple pieces of meat in hers while her sister only left the vegetables in.

After dinner they held their ceremony for setting the sun and raising the moon. Luna then went off to prepare for night court and Celestia gestured for Xane to join her.

They ended up on a balcony with a table and tea set laid out along with various sweets. Celestia sat down as she set the teakettle on a small flame. Xane took a chair and popped a small piece of chocolate fudge into his mouth.

They sat in silence for a time before Celestia asked “I would like to know of your world. Another world's history is quite intriguing for me, and in return I'll give you a brief overview of our own.”

Xane took a couple minutes to think about how to shorten human history easily before taking a breath and starting on his long discourse.

“Well human civilization started roughly 10,000 years back. There's some stuff with prehistoric tribes and what-not with developing irrigation and beginning to domesticate animals but things only started getting interesting around the stone and iron ages. There a few conquerors and empires from there. Hannibal crossed mountains by dissolving a path through the rocks. Alexander the Great turned an island into a peninsula, a few hundreds Spartans with a few thousand other Greeks held off the Persian empire for a time.

“Of course there was more than just war. The Chinese dynasties invented paper, black powder, and a lot of science and philosophies. They used the black powder for fireworks, but also made cannons with it. They even built a wall spanning several hundred miles to keep out invaders. That also leads me to the Mongolians. They almost conquered the known world, only being stopped because tradition dictated that when their leader died, the body is returned to the capitol where the next leader is chosen.

“When Marco Polo explored his way on over to the east, he met the Chinese and begin a trade route between the western and eastern cultures. A few more centuries go by and they started to sail across the oceans. They 'found' the New World and those who lived there. However, they brought new illnesses as well which several devastated the inhabitants. It didn't help that one group had fought a civil war amoungst the various tribes which had whittled their numbers to near extinction.

“That was further exasperated with how the settlers treated the natives, just taking the land and purposefully infecting them. When the colonies separated from the original host country with a small war, they eventually made treaties with the natives granting them some land though largely the land belonged to the new government. People explored the new continent and with a few gold rushes spread built cities and towns all over it. Then some places started taking people from one of the other continents and making them slaves to work plantations. That led to a civil war with the slave keeping states segregating from the still new country. Luckily the original country won and laws started being instituted to end slavery.

“Once the industrial revolution happened things started changing quickly. New types of transportation started being developed, new technologies allowing for food to be better preserved and even advances in medical knowledge. Though rising technologies led to war once more. It quickly spread to engulf most of the developed countries of the world. Some remained neutral but most took sides. We had created planes allowing us to fly some time before but the war brought about great leaps in that technology.

“When the war ended several of the countries entered into an economic depression, which sadly helped bring about the next war. This war brought about rocket science. It also brought about the deadliest weapon humans ever made.”

Xane took a deep breath and accepted the drink Celestia offered. A few more minutes go by, mainly with him thinking of how best to explain what the weapon was.

“Do you know much about atomic structure?” He asked.

Celestia raised an eyebrow “A little. Some of our scientists have dabbled in it, and I know that the sun is powered by nuclear reaction.”

“Excellent. Then you should be able to understand what I'm about to say. The weapon we made was powered by nuclear fission. They developed it so that several hundred pounds of material to fuel that reaction. All said, 2 bombs were dropped, and obliterated cities the size of Canterlot here, roughly speaking as I don't know how many ponies live here nor the population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at that time.”

Celestia paused as she took in what he meant as well as just how much life was lost due to the weapons.

“Of course, with how much life was lost due to those singular attacks somewhat paled to the total death of the wars. An actual portion of the world's population perished during the 50 years both world wars spanned.

“After that things calmed down somewhat. A couple more minor wars, however nothing serious as the threat of the nuclear weapons kept things from escalating too much. Then two of the countries who had them started a cold war. Mainly spies and other subterfuge with a lot of economic and military buildup. During this time Russia put the first man-made satellite into orbit. They never broke into open war as the worry of a nuclear war between the 2 shadowed everything they did. It ended when Russia's economy collapsed from the constant buildup.

“One of the biggest scientific achievements was landing a human on the Moon, and their return. We did a few Lunar missions but their funding dried up and National Aeronautics and Space Agency, NASA, ended up mainly putting things into orbit. They eventually helped build the International Space Station, and astronauts would spend a few months stationed there. They also launched probes out away from the planet to scout the rest of the solar system, but also a few aimed towards the sun to check out the inner planets. We even landed probes on the next planet out as well as a comet.

“Some of what we placed in orbit were telescopes to better look at the rest of the universe. We had even began working on plans to land people on that next planet but there was a decent amount of worry about wars starting up again. There were a couple more fought but there was a fair amount of focus on the science.”

He felt glad to be able to end on that somewhat hopeful note, even if he did tweak it a bit to seem more hopeful.

Celestia then launched into a comparative lecture with her world's history. Talking about some of the battles between the three pony tribes before uniting together against the Windigos. Then she talked about how she and Luna took over their duties relating in raising and lowering their respective heavenly bodies. She also discussed some of the wars she had to deal with against some of the other species that inhabited the world.

Eventually she settled on discussing how more technologically advanced his world was, and how much he could remember of how some of them worked. She made several notes to hand off and see if maybe some of them could be replicated for their uses.

They ended talking for a couple hours and a yawn from one set off the other so they decided to get some sleep. Celestia gave him a nuzzle and he returned with a chaste hug before they went their own ways.

He was nudged awake. Looking up he caught sight of a fairly tired Luna noting that she wasn't in bed with him which he took to mean that her duties kept her up all night.

They went and got breakfast where she leaned against him as they ate. When they got back to the room she flopped down on the bed while using magic to shed her regalia. He sat next to her and began giving her a massage. As he worked the night's stress from her she sighed happily.

“You know with how well you do this, you could probably get work doing it.” She said, her eyes beginning to close.

She had fallen asleep well before he finished the massage.

Not feeling much tired himself he freshened up and took a walk. He wandered around the castle before running into Celestia on her way to the gardens. She smiled warmly at him and asked him along.

Soon he found himself walking the gardens around the castle as Celestia made several small required decisions, though most were okaying the decisions made by lower offices that tasks had been delegated to. They made small talk while walking.

“Why do you call it a kingdom when neither of you are Queens? Shouldn't you refer to it as a principality?” Xane asked.

“Well, it's a bit to do with vanity. Going by Queen makes me feel old. We refer to it as a kingdom because when the three tribes combined, the tribal council determined to become one. Luna and I just didn't want to change it.” Celestia remarked.

“It's a similar reason why we still refer to it as the Crystal Empire. It was once such, but it was ruled by a princess and now is far from what it was at it's height.” She finished.

Eventually they settled in to have lunch with Luna joining as they finished up their meals. Celestia left to continue her duties and Xane hung around while Luna ate.

Once she finished she dragged him out of the castle to the town. They walked around for a bit before Luna led him into a building. The exterior was fairly nice, but the interior was far more grand. She informed him that the place was a spa that primarily catered to members only so most common ponies weren't allowed.

She spoke with one of the employees before Xane found himself in a massage room with one of the spa ponies laying on a table. He applied a small amount of one of the scented oils, after checking to see if he could use them and was of a scent acceptable to her. He began working his hands along her body.

Xane gently massaged the body of earth mare and used his fingers and knuckles to help ease out the knots in her muscles. Once he had finished she commented on his skill while noting he could improve much with some training. She also said that with how dexterous his fingers were he was able to get her muscles better than the unicorns could.

He and Luna left the place with him having a job to fill up some of his time during the day. They swung by Donut Joe's to grab an afternoon snack and some coffee and hot chocolate. Luna picked up a couple extra doughnuts before they returned to the castle.

They found Celestia in an office going over some trade negotiations. Luna dropped the bag with doughnuts in it on the desk for her sister before informing her about their trip to the spa. She was happy for him before shooing them out of the office to focus on work.

Luna and Xane were waiting patiently. They had set up a prank for some of the Lunar guard and were now anticipating the payoff. Soon a small contingent of the bat-winged ponies marched around the corner.

That was when the prank was set off. First a blanket carefully stretched across the top of the corridor had one end fall down. A bunch of feathers floated down obscuring the vision of the guards and distracting them from the second part of the prank.

As the squad made their way out of the large pile of feather, some sneezing as a feather tickled their nose, it became obvious that each of them had their coats and armour dyed varying shade of pink. They soon noticed this when more than one had found their freedom from their feathery confinment.

The sight set Luna and Xane laughing and the guards stared at them for a moment before chuckling themselves. Luna gave them the rest of the day off to go get disenchanted.

They head back to Luna's room to grab a quick nap, sharing a kiss before climbing into bed.

Celestia met them in the dining room. They all had dinner and afterwards Luna headed off to get ready for her shift. Celestia stretched out to try and relax her body. Xane offered to give her a massage to help. She had him follow to a cozy room before she lounged out on a couch.

He moved his hands across her body as he worked the stress out of her muscles. He noted how much more knotted her body was than Luna's and suggested she try to pry some time in her schedule to hit a spa. Celestia gave a large yawn when he finished his massage and she left to go to sleep while he went to find Luna.