Author's Note

Note: Like the other futa horse words I have written the ponies in this have human facial features. (no muzzle etc) they have pointed elfin ears and have a thin covering of fur over their whole body. Lower legs are digitigrade with hooves like a satyr I suppose. Hands have three fingers and one thumb. In this one the unicorns don't have horns and magic is cast from the hands.

This particular story isn't going to be updated as quickly as the ones in the past I'm afraid, I just don't have the same free time, but I know where its going so shouldn't be too bad.

Vicariously, I.

Luna rose from her throne, I could see from my position beside her that she was tense, her neck and shoulders were bunching under her silken fur and there was subtle tremors flicking across her wings.

“Night court is adjourned, please seek out my equerry if you wish to bring your matters before me in tomorrows court” she said in an, if you knew her well, terse voice. She disguised it well enough though and most of the ponies left waiting quickly turned to Heath, Lunas batpony assistant, to book their hearing.

I was bewildered for a moment, wondering at her sudden change in mood before I heard the side door to the east wing of the castle open and Luna passed through it. I dashed over and ducked through the doorway as it was closing and kept a fast pace to keep up with her. Luna you see is quite a tall specimen of the pretty pony populace, and with her long legs her strides far outmatch my own. She is a good foot taller than me. Now I am not tiny by any stretch, I am pretty much average height I think, for a human anyway, somewhere between five and six feet tall, closer to six than five, although my slight frame makes me look smaller than I am. Luna by contrast must be about six and a half feet, probably taller! With an immaculate athletic build. When I first saw her I was honestly pretty intimidated, her long steps force me to almost skip to keep up when she is walking with a purpose.

Which is pretty much all the time, truth be told.

We walked through the cavernous halls, me trailing just behind. Night was slowly beginning to give way to dawn, through the windows I could see a pink glow on the sparse cloud cover in the distance, it was probably about another hour before she would push the moon over the horizon. It looked like it was going to be a nice day, not that I would see much of it. Since I met My Princess I had adjusted my sleeping pattern to more closely match hers so I would be asleep for most of it.

She ducked in to her 'cooling off' room as I liked to call it. I followed her in and closed the door. She turned her head at the noise of the door closing, flicked an ear and let out a breath. The cooling off room was a plainly decorated little chamber which had foregone furniture in favour of a smattering of cushions spread on the floor and some old looking tapestries on the wall. Luna's stride did not let up until she stood before the largest of the cushions in the middle of the room, dropped to her knees, and proceeded to punch the living daylights out of it.

Thankfully it was a sturdy sitting cushion so there was going to be no flying feathers.

Her punching also probably explained the lack of expensive furniture. As I said before, she was a specimen, i'm sure her punches could penetrate castle walls.

“Oh Luna,” I said. “whats gotten inte' tha head uh yours” I said in my geordie lilt with a little smile. It was, I had found, best to let her work out her frustrations for a moment or two before I helped her relax a little.

She grit her teeth as her punches became softer. “Damn and hellfire to those rapacious kowtowers and their jannisaries” she hissed out “do they think me a troglodyte? The obsequious fools!”

“Ah” I said, “s'one a 'those' is it chick” I said to myself with a little giggle, she had a habit of reverting to an archaic speech pattern that was honestly really cute when she was fed up. Not that I understood what she was really talking about, but a look at her pouting face, now that her public royal frown had dropped, told me that the patronizing tone of the pony bureaucrats were the cause of her mood. It wouldn't have been the first time and likely wouldn't be the last. Her face was a book that I felt I could read like no other by now.

She had finally punched out her frustration though, and turned and plopped her rump down on the now lumpy cushion and pressed her face firmly to her hands. She was like this sometimes, not that I didn't understand. She wasn't having an angry moment, more a frustrated moment where she needed to vent. The ponies, as lovely as most of them were, saw the princesses as not ponies but as rulers. There, I suppose, is nothing more isolating than that. Court this evening was nothing out of the ordinary, I expect the boredom and the repetition of the evening had finally ground her down. I knew she wanted to feel included, a part of something, not separate and above her little ponies.

I think she was just as lonely as me, to be honest.

“Let us chill yah oot babes” I said and moved behind her and kneeled at her back. I brought my hands to her tense shoulders and began to knead gently her knotted muscles and massage out her tension, whilst simultaneously delighting at the feel of her soft fur on my fingers.

She let out a soft sigh as the pressure was rubbed from her and her shoulders slumped. I leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek. “Yer gonna send yasel ta an early grave if yeh divvnt chill oot y'kna” I said with a pensive smile. “get yasel some pals hun” I moved my hands to her temples and circled with my fingertips, hoping to alleviate the probable headache she was likely brewing up.

We both stayed like that for a few minutes as her breathing slowed and she began to relax a bit more. It was getting close to her bedtime and she would be tossing and turning all day if she tried to sleep stressed out.

With her finally fully relaxed she rolled her shoulders and brought herself back to her hooves. I rose with her and followed her to the door.

She let out one final huffing sigh and stepped back out to the hall and set off in the direction of her chambers.

I trailed her from further behind this time and admired her gait. She was beautiful and graceful. There was an almost feline quality to her movements, precise and calculated, maybe like a ballerina?. Her long navy blue dress hugged her curves at her hips, chest and torso and billowed around her legs and drifted like the wind. Her exposed back allowed her wings to flutter behind her and allowed me the sight of her athletic musculature at the base of her back above her tail which rolled and curled as she stepped from hoof to hoof along the hallway. The deep periwinkle of her mane and tail trailed like the milky way with stars blinking into and out of existence and fading at the borders in an intangible mist.

She was without a doubt the most beautiful person I had ever seen in two worlds.

Maybe that was why she intimidated me so when I first saw her?.

I had never believed in love at first sight. It seemed so banal. I don't think I ever really believed in love at all to be honest, in my mind love was more of an abstract thing that happened to other people. Or maybe what other people told themselves they felt when they found a partner who they actually liked a bit more than you would a friend.

I was ashamed of myself when I finally realised the depth of my love for her. What could I possibly have to offer someone who is so wise and beautiful? Not much is the answer. Still I stood by her and spent my days being her guardian angel, ready to lend a helping hand wherever needed.

I would give pretty much anything for her to feel the same for me, but that clearly was never going to happen.

I had come to realize though, that I could live with that. I was happy to be her pillar, the one who always stood in her corner and preened her frustrations and massaged her tensions. It was at the time when I realised this, that I also realised that I was in love. Who would do as I have without loving so completely and devotedly?

Nobody would ever know.

She pushed through the door to her chambers and turned to close it. I drifted through so as to not slow her over much.

She moved over to her writing desk as I moved to the expansive bathroom adjoining the expensively furnished study.

It was a bathroom fit for a princess, of course. A large white marble bath was the centerpiece, recessed in to the floor in the middle of the room. I walked around it to the sink and vanity and gave my teeth a quick brush. A glance at the mirror showed me my chestnut coloured hair was in need of a good brushing, I hadn't paid a visit to a stylist for quite some time now so it was long, at least half way down my back. I ignored that for the moment. I finished cleaning my teeth and slipped the brush back in to the cup in the unit under the sink then filled the sink with some warm water and gave my face a rinse then patted down with a fluffy blue towel.

I grabbed a facecloth from the shelf and dampened it in the warm water, then moved back to the study and grabbed another fluffy towel on the way.

I moved towards My Princess as she sat on her stool and wrote in that crazy pony writing that made absolutely no sense to me. I brought another stool and sat behind her and started to massage the base of her spine to persuade the oily gland there to produce so I could preen her. I wanted My Princess to look her finest, and I found that preening in the evening while she works is best, it was impossible to get her to sit still for long enough when she woke in the morning.

After finally coaxing enough of the oily stuff to rub between my hands I began to move my fingers through her right wing, paying attention to any loose feathers and coaxing anything out of place back to where it should be. It didn't take long if you did it daily, and it was worth it. Her wings were beautifully glossy and had a bright reflective sheen to them. I had heard the compliments whispered about them as she passed by ponies so I must have been doing something right.

I moved on to the other wing after moving back to her spine and applying more oils to my hands and repeated what I had done with the other wing. Luna gave a little sigh as I removed a loose feather.

I popped it behind my ear with a smile.

I stood and inspected my handiwork, giving a little touch here and there to make sure that every feather was tended and seated as they were meant to.

Then finally to finish the job I picked up the damp facecloth and wiped the oils from the fur on her back, giving her a soft pat with the towel to dry her off.

Just perfect.

She looked like she still had some work to do so I busied myself with brushing out her mane and tail. I didn't want to style it at all but it would be more comfortable for her to sleep if it was freshly brushed out.

Her mane grew to the base of her neck. If I had copious quantities of hairspray I could have amused myself by styling it like those punk rockers in the eighties, but it was long!. There was a good two feet of length all the way from the front to the back. To the sides of her mane was slightly longer fluffier fur coat that I liked to run my fingers through, it felt like stroking a fluffy puppy. I straightened that out with the brush too.

Finally done with the evenings pruning and brushing I walked in to her bedroom adjoining the study. I stepped to her wardrobe and pulled out a silk nightie and placed it on the bed for her. I grabbed a smaller washed out cotton nightie for myself and undressed.

My jeans were looking pretty worse for wear, I would have to find something to replace them with soon. I discarded them in the corner of the room and pulled off my strap top. It held up surprisingly well, there was a couple of scuffs here and there and it was feeling a little loose but it would be fine for a while longer. I pulled down my panties and bra and let them fall to the floor. I cast a glance at the full length mirror and cringed a bit at the lines of shadow cast by my ribs and breasts in the low light. I was looking a little thin, I should have been eating a little more but keeping up with My Princess was a full time job. My face was looking a little thin and drawn too.

Ugh.

I pulled the nightie over my head and tied my hair up in a pony tail. I would give it a brush in the morning after the bath.

I grabbed my undies' and bra from the floor and walked through the study to the bathroom and plopped them in the sink to soak them then started scrubbing with a lavender scented soap bar.

It smelled of her.

Once done I unplugged the sink and rung them out as firmly as I could, then gave them a little shake to straighten them out and hung them over a towel rail.

Early morning duties done!.

Now the main event!.

Luna was just finishing up whatever crazy pony hieroglyph writing she was working on and put her quill away and stoppered the ink bottle. The parchment was placed on the side of the desk. She stopped for a moment with a queer look on her face before unstopping the ink again and picking up the quill once more, she took a blank sheet and quickly scribbled some more crazy writing. Not much though. Once she was happy with that she ripped the part with the writing away from the sheet and placed it beside the chess set in the corner of the room which was in the middle of a game we had been playing. I gave the set a thought and decided to make my move in the morning. I wasn't very good but I liked to play anyway. I looked back to the piece of paper wondering what it said. I didn't bother asking.

Weird.

Finally done with her evenings work she moved to the balcony and looked over to the balcony her sister would be stepping on to. 'Tia emerged a few moments later and smiled in our direction. Luna replied with a small smile and nod of her own.

They both cast their eyes to opposite horizons.

Luna lifted her hands and a pale glow thrummed from the palms of her hands. A light ringing in my ears and a wave of power washed over me from her direction. My knees shook as I fought to keep standing and watching. Being so close to My Princess while she played cosmic conkers with celestial bodies was a visceral reminder of who I was standing next to. The glow in her hands intensified and the ringing in my ears increased with the power she was displaying. After a few moments her hands raised and the light in her hands shot out in the direction of the moon and it visibly responded to her. I could actually see the moon moving now, dipping over the horizon.

I let out a breath I had not realised I had been holding.

My hand reached out and grasped Luna's.

Once done Luna and I turned and watched the same display of awesome power from her sister, and only moments later the dawn had come.

I wiped a single tear from my cheek.

I would not have traded this moment for the world.

Both sisters faced eachother with a smile and a tiny dip of the head.

I released Luna's hand and moved back in to her chambers and waited in the study while she went in to her bedroom and changed in to her night wear. I gave her a couple of minutes to change then I followed her in.

She was crawling under the sheets as I entered wearing the nightie I had placed out for her. I moved to the other side of the bed and pulled the sheets back to get in myself. Luna lay with her back to me with her wings tight against her back so I moved against her, rose up on my elbows and kissed her on her shoulder.

“Love ya”

I fell quickly asleep pressed in to her wings with a hand on her hip.