Her new bedroom was an almost exact replica of her old chambers in the Castle of the Two Sisters back when they'd ruled from the Everfree Forest; Celestia had always found the shades of turquoise and lavender to be cold and uninviting, but to Luna's more abstruse way of thinking they'd always represented safety and stability, peace and comfort. Calmness amidst the storm of dark magic surrounding them. The perfect environment, she'd thought, to relax in.
Sleep, however, was proving to be especially hard in coming this evening; every few minutes or so, Luna felt herself starting to drift off, but the sudden pounding of her heart or a strange, pressing sensation in the middle of her head would rouse her once more from the land of fitful dreams that she sought. One minute she was too warm, and the next, after shrugging off the blankets, she would suddenly find it to be far too cold. She twisted and turned, her long, sinewy legs becoming enmeshed within the perspiration-stained covers, desperately wishing that she was actually tired enough to fall asleep instead of being burdened with the crushing awareness that she was only tired enough to realise how tired she was. Every now and then, Luna managed to roll into one of her old pools of congealed sweat, and she grimaced inwardly as the shocking wave of wet coldness that thrilled through her brought out a series of goosebumps along her spine.
An impassioned sigh escaped her muzzle, but Luna suppressed it as best she could by burying her face deeply into the fluffy, silk pillow of her crescent moon-shaped bed; she breathed deeply, inhaling an odd musty scent mixed in with the sweet lemony fragrance of the detergent used to wash it. It took her a moment to realise that the smell was her own body odour.
Makes sense. I haven't showered in a thousand years or so.
Luna sat bolt upright, rubbing her weary eyes with the pointed tips of her hooves; she wanted to cry, but she didn't have the energy, so she settled for rocking back and forth. She wished she could pretend that it was her mother coddling her just as she'd done when she was a filly, but such fantasies were beyond the reach of her imagination at the moment.
Most of her thoughts were fixated upon the distant past and the immediate future.
Getting up off the bed and sinking her hooves into her slippers, she padded in the direction of the window that dominated one wall of the bedroom; she pulled aside the red velvet drapes and looked out on to the night, her keen beryl eyes taking in a few lonely points of light that punctured the otherwise pervading darkness surrounding Canterlot. The worst thing about the tiredness, of course, was that it lowered one's mental defences: all sorts of wayward thoughts – thoughts that she'd rather not have to deal with at all, let alone when she already felt incredibly vulnerable – fought for dominance. Silently, Luna pleaded with them to give her a moment's respite, but they refused to listen.
If only I could put them all in a box and banish them to the Moon!
The Moon was as beautiful as ever, and the ugly black stain that had marred its surface for a thousand years was finally beginning to dissipate. Still, Luna found it difficult to look at it. After having been trapped inside its coiling embrace for a millennium, she actually found herself feeling a trifle uneasy to be on this side of it again. As if … the masquerade might fall away to reveal that it had all been a cruel dream: her escape, Nightmare Moon's final defeat, her sister's desire to reconcile.
Almost as if she'd planning for this exact moment, a voice said, “Luna, am I interrupting anything?”
“Yes, Celestia, you are,” replied Luna, smiling thinly though her sister would not be able to see the expression on her muzzle from her vantage point by the doorway. She twisted her long neck around until she was able to see the outline of Celestia in the threshold: the waxy moonlight wreathed her tall, slender form, surrounding her with a pale aura. The passage of time had affected her – externally, anyway – very little, save the formation of a narrow, cautious cast to her purple eyes. She couldn't imagine what the years alone had done to her on the inside, though she was still as beautiful, as radiantly majestic, and as self-possessed as ever. Her ethereal, multi-hued mane flowed dramatically despite the absence of any prevailing current to affect it.
“I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it. I'd hoped that we might finally talk after you'd had a good night's sleep, but-”
“-But you sensed that I was unable to sleep and thought that I might need your company?”
“Yes,” said Celestia, lifting a foreleg but not moving an inch. She wrinkled her nose as the stuffy aroma reached her nostrils; though her cheeks reddened somewhat, she made no comment.
Turning to face her sister, Luna said, “Do you remember when I was younger? How much I enjoyed being on my own?”
“I remember.” A look crossed Celestia's face, as if a memory that had been buried for a long, long time had suddenly resurfaced. “I remember our parents had to practically kick you out of the house to make you socialise with anypony.”
“It seems like only yesterday to me,” said Luna wistfully, recalling their parents' frustration over her desire to remain safely tucked away in the library.
“I know it must seem very strange to you,” Celestia said, “but-”
“-But?”
Smiling crisply, Celestia discreetly scratched the back of her neck with a golden-shod hoof and said, “Actually, I don't know how to finish that sentence. It's just strange. I can't imagine how you must feel, being so … out of time.”
“I don't know how to feel either, but what I do know is that I don't want to be alone any more,” said Luna quietly, eyes half-closed. “I've had quite enough of that for one … actually, scratch that. For several lifetimes.”
“I can only imagine.” A tinge of guilt shaded the normally-reassuring cadence of her voice, but she forced herself to set her feelings aside: she'd had very little choice, and what was important now to welcome Luna back with open hooves. Changing tacks, hoping to lighten the oppressive mood that was developing, she said, “I thought you'd like to know, by the way, that I've started the legal processes to restore your title of Princess of the Night. There are some, ah, formalities to get through, but they shouldn't be too much of a problem. I don't think.”
Sagely, Luna replied, “Such a decision does require much time and thought. One imagines, however, that certain events will count against me. I would go so far as to say that particular individuals might never fully trust me again, and-” she stroked her chin thoughtfully, scrutinising her sister's expression for some kind of a reaction “-perhaps that would be for the best? One does not simply walk back into a position of power after … such a calamity as befell me.”
“It might help,” said Celestia carefully, not rising to Luna's bait, “if you were to speak to the ponies of Equestria. If they were to get to know you, see that you are not the monster of legend that Nightmare Moon has come to be regarded as, it would certainly help your case.”
“Dear sister, no amount of honeyed words would be enough to sway them, in my opinion,” Luna said sluggishly, her eyelids feeling heavy. “I could spend another thousand years convincing them that Nightmare Moon is no longer a part of my psyche, but it would only take one mistake, one misstep, one accident to undo everything. It would be better for all concerned if the affairs of state were to be left in your capable hooves.” She flashed a quick smile at Celestia. “From what I've heard, you haven't done so badly in my absence.”
“I think you're being a little bit unfair, Luna. They believe in me and I will tell them what I think: that you're more than capable of resuming your duties. Twilight Sparkle and the other Element-Bearers may also wish to speak out on your behalf having been responsible for your safe return. The ponies of Equestria will have no reason not to trust you.”
“Fear,” said Luna simply, offering her sister a slight shrug. “Fear itself has always been a justification to not trust somepony. I may have been out of touch for a while, but something tells me that equine nature won't have changed that much over the years.”
With a grim look, Celestia conceded the point with a sharp intake of breath. “Is fear also the reason why …? No, actually, let's not go into it right now.”
“Is that not why you really came to my chambers this evening, Celestia?” asked Luna a little too forcefully. She strove for calm, taking a deep, cleansing breath in order to relax herself. She didn't want to fight with her sister, but she did not want to be patronised by her either. “Yes, I may be a little fragile still following my return, but please don't hold back on my account. As it happens, the answer is, in part, yes.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean-”
“-I was afraid of being forgotten,” Luna said, carrying on as if her sister hadn't spoken. “Fear of never being appreciated, of never being seen as my pure, perfect sister's equal, led me down a very dark, very twisted path and the truth of the matter is that my recovery – should it happen at all – will not be swift. The shadows adopted me as one of their own, lending me their power, unity and sense of purpose, and I freely admit that it was such an attractive prospect to see myself lording it over you, Celestia, but-” she felt the prickle of tears forming behind her drained, empty eyes “-what I did was so terribly wrong that no amount of apologising, no amount of talking to the ponies of Equestria, will ever make up for it. I deserve to be punished for what I tried to do to you and to the land I'd sworn an oath to protect at all costs.”
“It wasn't you,” Celestia said, “and I think you've been punished enough for what Nightmare Moon did.”
“Is that what you truly believe, or only what you wish to be the case?”
“It's what I believe.”
For a long moment, silence reigned between the two sisters; finally, Luna could stand it no longer and she sat back on her haunches, releasing a long-held breath as she did so. It would take time to process everything – doubtless, she would have to talk to somepony to unload her many conflicting thoughts and get them into some semblance of order – but the simple fact of the matter was even she wasn't sure that she knew what the truth of Nightmare Moon's existence was any more. Or of the events leading up to her battle with Celestia that had so thoroughly destroyed their old castle and resulted in their long parting. “All I remember is so much anger, so much bitterness and resentment.” She looked at her sister again, a reproving look creasing her muzzle. “Please, Celestia, will you stop lurking in the doorway like a servant awaiting one's leave. Come in. Sit down. The bed's quite comfortable.”
“I wasn't sure if you'd welcome my intrusion,” Celestia said, doing as her sister had requested. With a certain amount of trepidation, she sat down on the bed, placing only the minutest fraction of her pale rump on the mattress. Even sitting like this, looking for all the world like a mischievous filly sent to the principal's office, she still managed to retain some of her regal and imposing air. “I hope you like the room. It was difficult recreating it from memory, and some of the details may not be as you remember-”
“-It's fine.” Luna approached the bed at a slow crawl, suddenly unable to meet her sister's inquisitive gaze. “I've endured ten centuries without your presence, dear sister, and I can bear it no longer.” Once she was close enough, she threw her forelegs around Celestia's slender, alabaster neck and held on for dear life. “Could things ever be as they once were between us? Even if I am unable to, for whatever reason, stand at your side as I once did?”
As Luna's head pressed against her breast, listening to her heartbeat as she'd done on occasion as a filly when she'd needed comforting and hadn't wanted to go to their parents, Celestia recalled their formative years; nothing had made her happier than those rare occasions when they'd be together, whether it was exploring the castle or the surrounding forest, or testing out their newly-acquired magical powers on each other, or driving their parents to distraction by staging food-fights at meal-times. Or even quarrelling tempestuously as even the closest of sisters did once in a while.
“My dearest Luna,” Celestia said soothingly, stroking her chin and guiding her head upwards until their watery eyes met, “nothing will ever be as it was, as life is a continual process of change. But the most important things, such as my feelings for you, will always remain the same.” With that, she wrapped her forelegs tightly around her sister, determined to never let her go again.
In Celestia's strong yet tender legs, Luna was finally able to fall asleep. Celestia brushed her sister's matted blue hair softly, making gentle cooing noises as she did so. “Welcome home,” she said softly.
Rainbow Dash's crackly, throaty giggle was the only sound to puncture the stillness of the night; though the contact was slight, the kinetic jolt of magic blossoming through the delicate flesh of her hooves as she struck the dense white mass of the cloud obscuring the sky ahead was enough to send a ticklish wave surging throughout her entire body.
The first time it had happened to her she had only been a child and she'd spent the intervening days racked with worry that there was something hideously wrong with her, but a conversation with her parents had quickly informed her that it was simply an uncommon side-effect of a pegasi's weather magic at work. It was rumoured that there were far more interesting reactions than just that, but they'd been strangely reluctant to clarify what, exactly, that meant and Rainbow Dash had thought it best not to press them.
She paid no mind to the fact that her silky coat was left soaked by the death throes of the bursting cloud; it was a hazard of the job, and she would soon dry off as she continued her exercises. Craning her neck, Rainbow Dash smiled in satisfaction as she saw the moisture drop away from her gently flapping wings in a thin, slick curtain.
Her sinewy blue body flowed easily through the darkness, leaving a polychromatic trail in her wake bringing with it a brief false dawn that lit up the grassy plains over which she flew; a few sheep looked up, startled, before losing interest and returning to their grazing. A smirk broke out across Rainbow Dash's muzzle as she remembered how she'd once practised her stunts above Ponyville until the citizens had banded together one day to tell her that her prismatic light shows were robbing them of sleep.
Why would you sleep when you could bear witness to all this?
Only the moon, hanging so high above yet also giving off the curious impression of being close enough to touch, with its silvery, pearlescent glow was able to compete with the pegasus for attention; while Rainbow Dash knew that she could temporarily blot out its brilliance with her spectacular backwash, the moon had permanence and was quickly able to restore its rightful position as the brightest object in the skies of Equestria, regarding the pegasus as nothing more than a pest rather than as a challenge to its dominance.
Extending one wing higher than the other in order to carefully adjust the pattern of the breeze swirling around her, Rainbow Dash soon found her body twisting itself smoothly into an inverted position; it was as if she was doing the backstroke in a swimming pool, though it had been quite some time since she'd last done that. Pinkie Pie and her beach-themed parties ... wet feathers were just the worst.
The effulgent moon, the shimmering stars, the multi-hued streamers of the distant Horsehead Nebula itself extending themselves like the undulating tentacles of a nightmarish monster, were all reflected in her brilliant cerise eyes and Rainbow Dash's already substantial grin increased as she soaked up the ambience. “The day is overrated,” she said out loud, trying to take in as many of the constellations as she could. Dimly, she remembered how she had been made to memorise all their names for a quiz in flight school one day, but that information was now long buried in the dusty recesses of her mind just as it was with everything else that didn't involve the Wonderbolts, flying or her friends.
A plaintive wail shattered her dreamy introspection; Rainbow Dash perked up her ears and slowed her pace down to, what was for her, a crawl and listened intently. It wasn't the dramatic, over-the-top sobs of a Rarity that she heard, but the quiet, tugging-on-the-heartstrings lament of a Scootaloo. For a moment, she almost thought that it was the filly weeping somewhere out there until she got a grip on herself and remembered that it had only been a matter of hours since she'd personally escorted Scootaloo to her home after an evening of flight practice.
Besides, she would know better than to sneak out to the Everfree Forest in the middle of the night alone.
Knowing that the cry was coming from that abomination of a realm gave the pegasus only a second's pause; now that she was closer to the source, she knew for sure that it was a pony in distress and not simply a wild animal trying to bait her. If they were trapped there … well, as the Element of Loyalty, wasn't it her duty to render assistance to a pony in need? Rainbow Dash descended through the thick canopy of trees, wincing slightly when the thorny vines and gnarled branches took careful aim at her body as they competed to see which could leave the biggest gash in her coat.
After a few tense moments of following the course of surging river, making sure to keep high enough that any nasty water-dwellers couldn't pluck a pegasus out of the sky for a midnight snack, Rainbow Dash decreased in speed as her sensitive ears triangulated the source of the whimper; apprehension gave her a nasty sucker punch to the gut, however, causing her to nearly stop dead in mid-air as her mind questioned her suitability for this task. Surely a Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie, or even Twilight Sparkle, would be so much more suited to this job. The ignorant, tactless flygirl with her head in the clouds, as she was often described by those who knew her, was notgenerally noted as a bastion of sympathy by the five new friends she'd made following the incident with Nightmare Moon.
“Hello?” she said, her voice cracking just that bit more than it normally did as she approached the silent form, its largeness amplified by the shadows it was swathed in. Her usual cockiness was only marginally subdued by an element of wariness. They were sitting on a rock, their head bowed, apparently studing themselves intently in the glistening pool of water. “Are you … I mean, I heard … oh, Celestia, I suck at this.” It took Rainbow Dash a moment to realise that she was still talking and she flushed hotly.
A startled gasp escaped the figure and they turned to face Rainbow Dash.
“Luna?” As smoothly as she could, the pegasus affected her best impersonation of a formal bow. “Er, Princess Luna, I mean.”
The Princess of the Night dabbed at the sides of her eyes with an elegantly-shod hoof. “I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met before?”
“Uh, I'm Rainbow Dash,” she replied, fighting down her natural impulse to be angry at the fact that somepony didn't immediately know who she was. “We, uh, we've briefly met a couple of times.” Not in the best of circumstances either, but I probably shouldn't mention any of that.
“Rainbow Dash.” Luna mulled the name around her muzzle for a moment or two before the stray memories clicked themselves into place. “Oh, of course, my apologies, Miss Dash. One of the six Elements who rescued me from my purgatorial state and-” her eyes narrowed as her face contorted into a reproving glare “-the troublesome prankster who brought such disarray and near-disaster to my visit to Ponyville on Nightmare Night.”
“Er, yes,” said Rainbow Dash, grinning in a mixture of pride and embarrassment, rubbing the back of her mane gently as she did so. “In fairness, however, you did get me back pretty good,” she added, remembering the painful electric shock she'd received from the playful princess at the end of the night. Her butt still had phantom pains whenever she thought about it.
“What brings you all the way out here so late at night?”
“Practicing.” Rainbow Dash extended one wing boastfully, giving it an impish shake. “Gotta keep these things in shape if I want to be a Wonderbolt, right?” Shaking her head, remembering why she was here, the pegasus asked, “What brought you out here, Princess?" Remembering who she was talking to, the pegasus quickly added, "Um, if you don't mind my asking.”
The Princess of the Night turned away, her head lowering once more as she uttered a heartfelt sigh.
“What's wrong, Lu-Princess?” asked Rainbow Dash, her stubborness not allowing her to back down despite the difference in power between them. Even though Luna was a princess and she could zap her with a lot worse than a measly bolt of lightning. She approached the sitting alicorn carefully and placed one foreleg on her chest as she puffed it out. “It's okay to tell me, you know? I'm the Element of Loyalty and on my honour I promise that nothing you say will-”
“-Celestia hates me-”
“-be heard by any… what the what?” Rainbow Dash's eyes went wide at that.
Luna wiped at her eyes again, let out a world-weary sigh and a dense cloud of mist hung heavily in the air in front of her. The words had tumbled out of her, unbidden, and she so desperately wished that she could suck them back up. Everypony in Equestria loved Celestia so, and it would be difficult for them to believe that she had any faults. Why shatter their pretty delusions of their illustrious leader? “Ever since my return, things have been … different. I mean, I didn't expect our relationship to pick up from where it had left off, but she's become so cold and distant since my return, as if I'm just another troublesome thing that she has to deal with and not her sister. I thought that-” she cast her mind back to the night following her return and her heartfelt apology which Celestia seemed to have accepted “-I don't know what I thought.”
On sudden impulse, Rainbow Dash's foreleg snaked out hesitantly to embrace Luna's withers; the gesture made without the princess' leave might have, on another night, got her sent to the stockades - or worse - but this was not any other night. Luna seemed to relax somewhat at the touch. Her shoulders were certainly less visisbly tense, anyway. “Sisters don't always get along with each other,” she said knowledgeably. She couldn't even begin to imagine what problems two eternal goddesses might have, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to know either. “They fight, bite and argue, but deep down they love each other and nothing will change that.”
Princess Luna's beryl eyes hardened. As if a thousand years of strife could be so neatly packaged. She shrugged herself out of Rainbow Dash's grasp. The pegasus was doing her best not to show her annoyance at this behaviour, though if it had been anypony else it was likely that she'd be preparing for war now. “What would you know of such things?”
“More than you'd think,” Rainbow Dash said, her own eyes moistening as emotions, long repressed, bubbled to the surface.
“Oh, is that so?” asked Luna, the dismissive edge to her voice also containing with it a note of challenge.
“There are two ponies that I consider to be as close to me as sisters, Princess." Rainbow Dash, poked listlessly at the ground with her forelegs. “One, I have cared for since we first met as fillies. I did my best to protect her from all the bad stuff in the world. I suppose I'm still doing that even now.” She looked down for a moment before continuing. “I think, sometimes, she considers me to be a reminder of a past that she'd rather forget, but our bond is one of the most important things to me. I think, I hope, it's as important to her as it is to me.”
Luna's eyes softened, guilt gnawing her as she realised that, in her anger, she'd misjudged the pegasus and done her a terrible disservice. “And what of the other?”
“A young filly from Ponyville." Rainbow Dash's felt her eyes flit ever so briefly in the direction of Ponyville. "Much like I was at her age, she's full of fire, desperate to prove herself, but she's also oh, so brittle and afraid of letting anypony else see that. Her parents are away a lot because of work, so I check in on her as much as I can. She, uh, can't fly yet so I've been trying to teach her. No luck so far,” she said, finishing in a rather flat, defeated tone.
“Do not blame yourself for that, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said quietly, putting both forelegs around the other pony's neck. She'd seen countless dreams of pegasi who had yet to truly stretch their wings and her heart ached for all those who would never get to do so. “It just happens that, every once in a while, a pegasus is born flightless.”
“I haven't given up yet. Not Giving Up is my middle name.” Rainbow Dash, perhaps emboldened by the princess' embrace, found herself nuzzling into Luna's side without really thinking too much about it. When she realised that she was snuggling one of Equestria's rulers, a faux pas that might've earned rebuke on another day, she quickly stopped and, smiling abashedly, said, “Hey, I was supposed to be comforting you. Not the other way 'round.”
“You have taken my mind off the issues that have been bothering me, Miss Not Giving Up Dash.” Luna said with a soft smile, disentangling herself somewhat awkwardly from the pegasus. “Consider me comforted. Celestia is a most complex individual, and there is a chasm of a thousand years separating us. Like you with your friend, however, I consider my bond with her to be the most important thing in my life and I will do what it takes to restore it to its former glory. My own ill feelings aside.”
After a moment of companionable silence had passed between the pair, Luna unfurled her own majestic wings, prompting an envious look from Rainbow Dash.
The Wonderbolts would accept me in no time if I had those puppies attached to my sides.
“Fly with me, Miss Dash,” Luna said, flapping gently until she was hovering a few feet off the ground. “It has been a long time since I have … just flown with anypony. I miss doing so.”
“Rainbow."
Luna gave the pegasus a questioning look.
Rainbow Dash chuckled softly, cracking a wide smile. "You don't have to be so formal with me, Princess. You can just call me Rainbow. I feel like I'm back in primary school every time I hear the words Miss Dash.”
“Very well." Luna felt her lips curve upwards in an exuberant smile. "In that case, you may call me Luna.”
“Okay, Luna,” said Rainbow Dash, trying to ignore the strangeness that she felt at referring to a member of the Royal Family by their name. Shaking her head free of these unimportant thoughts, the pegasus spread her own wings to their apex, then took up a flanking position alongside the alicorn. “Where to, then?"
“Up,” replied Luna simply, favouring Rainbow Dash with a radiant smile.
Together, they flew; they wheeled, they arced, they chased, spinning in and out of each other's paths as if they had been doing this all of their lives. They continued to climb until the air became thin and specks of frost formed on their noses.
“Wanna see something really cool?” asked Rainbow Dash, calling to Luna who was hovering a few metres away from her. Once upon a time, the thought of doing what she was about to do in front of a princess would've scared the Tartarus out of her, but now it all seemed so easy.
Luna's head turned to face the pegasus. “Cool? Isn't it cold enough up here already?” she asked, confusion creasing her muzzle as she felt a shiver run through her body that made her hairs stand on end.
Laughing her crackly, infectious laugh, Rainbow Dash said, “Cool as in Awesome, Luna. Stay there. Keep your eyes on me the whole time, okay?”
“Very well,” the Princess of the Night replied uncertainly, a sense of trepidation creeping its way along her spine as her new friend prepared to do whatever mysterious task she was about to perform.
With a speed unmatched by anything in nature, Rainbow Dash shot toward the ground, leading with both forelegs extended as far forward as possible; a lump formed in Luna's throat as she did some quick maths and realised that, no matter how acute her reflexes were, there was no way for the pegasus to pull out of her dive in time to avoid becoming a filthy blue smear on the landscape. In her stupor, the thought of teleporting into Rainbow Dash's path and trying to slow her down telekinetically didn't even occur to Luna.
She almost couldn't watch as Rainbow Dash drew ever closer to the cold, unforgiving terrain below, but in the split-second before collision, the pegasus suddenly banked sharply upwards causing a strangled cry to escape from the princess' taut throat as the Laws of Physics were defied by nothing more than a spunky attitude. Almost as soon as Rainbow arched, a brilliant prism of light shattered the darkness, the concussive force of the shockwave spreading in every direction. Trees were ruffled, almost uprooted, by the blast, the contents of the river flared upwards in a mushroom-shaped column, and the animals which had been lurking nearby scampered deeper into the forest in fright.
Luna felt the tingles of the outward edge of the sonic rainboom permeate her body; it was as if something electrical was surging through her, tickling her from the inside-out. A side-effect of the pegasus and alicorn magic mixing, she guessed. She laughed. Not the delicate, musical chime of her sister, but an uproarious bray that cut through the darkness. Something mad, unbelieving, erupted from her throat. When Rainbow Dash returned, panting heavily, Luna applauded the show. “Most spectacular, Rainbow Dash!" A little more crossly, she added, "Please, do not frighten me like that ever again, however. I thought for sure that you wouldn't be able to pull out of your dive in time.”
Wiping the sweat from her brow, not able to respond right away due to the toll that stunt had taken on her, Rainbow Dash acknowledged Luna's praise and censure with a self-conscious smile. When she finally could speak, she said, “ Sorry about that, but I'm glad that you enjoyed the show all the same.” Sucking in a great lungful of air, she added, “Phew, that was a tough one. I don't always get it right.”
Smiling sadly, Luna's head turned in the direction of Canterlot Castle, faintly visible to their eyes through the clouds as nothing more than a mere pinprick on the horizon. “It's getting late. I should probably be returning home now before Celestia sends the guards out searching for me." She faced Rainbow Dash, smiling warmly. "But I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did, Rainbow Dash. It has been a long time since I've felt the kindness of another pony.”
“You're welcome,” said Rainbow Dash, feeling an acute sense of embarrassment course through her as her cheeks turned a rosy red colour. This mushy-mushy stuff just wasn't her, even if the nuzzling hadn't been ... entirely unpleasant. “I had a lot of fun, too. Uh, if you ever want to hang out some time …?”
“If my schedule permits, I would be honoured to hang with you, as you say.”
Luna crossed the distance between them quickly and pulled the pegasus into a tight hug that utilised both legs and wings. It took the startled Rainbow Dash a few seconds before she was able to respond in kind, her muzzle practically glowing in the murky white light as her wings extended of their own accord.
Breaking apart after a moment, Luna said, “Good night, Rainbow Dash.”
“Good night, Luna.”
As they parted in opposite directions, a curious sense of completeness followed both of them on their respective journeys.
