Sisters

She thinks of her sister.

She thinks of what’s been lost.

The Royal Guard is a poor substitute. Luckily, she has lots of them.

He’s on her back, throbbing inside her, and then it's over, another Guard spent.

*****

“Lucky,” she heard some of the other Guards whisper when she chose him, but they don’t know what the cost is.

Their regalia is spread around the bed, his and hers intermixed, almost like it was all those years ago with her sister.

He’s sound asleep, his tousled mane covering one of her pillows, his coat stained with sweat and her cum and the bed smells of lust and sex and if she’s being honest with herself, failure.

A princess has needs.

The Guards try, they do their best and is it strange to think of them as sons trying to please their mother?

She gets out of bed. Some nights she kicks them out after, other nights she wants the company, but either way it’s a poor substitute for what she really wants--what she really needs.

She makes her way to the balcony, stands on the chilly flags--barehooved--and looks up at the moon, looks up at the Mare in the Moon.

“I’m sorry.”

Every night she looks up to the moon, and every night she apologizes to her sister, and every night they’re not reunited. The Elements of Harmony don’t hear her plea.

*****

A hundred times, give or take, that’s how long it takes for something to become a ritual, that's how long it takes for a thing to become part of Palace lore.

That’s how long it took before nightly ‘armor inspections’ became something else, that’s how long it took before Commander Iron Shield realized that Princess Celestia wasn’t actually looking for the best soldiers but instead the best lovers.

That was about how long it took before she started noticing that a new kind of soldier was standing at attention before her every night.

They were easy to pick out; they didn’t have quite the same bearing as the regular Guard.

*****

She didn’t always pick Guards. Even with Commander Iron Shield’s unit ‘improvements’ there were times that she thought somepony else might fill the hole in her heart. After a while, there was a depressing sameness to the soldiers, and the castle had plenty of staff.

Part of the problem was that it was too easy. Some nights she’d think about that as she looked longingly at the moon. A chambermaid would never say no to her princess.

There were a few years that she went mad with her power, didn’t care who she hurt or how she hurt them. Nopony would dare say no to her, but she could see the fear in their eyes; she realized that her pillowcases were sometimes wet with tears and she resolved to be more careful in the future. Castle staff got relocated with generous bonuses and for a while she just stuck with the special unit of the Guard.

But it wasn’t the same.

Her loving subjects never would have broken her rule into phases, but she did. Never out loud, but it was always in her mind.

None of those phases did anything to fill the hole in her heart.

She changed slowly, and she was eternal in the eyes of her ponies. She watched over a constant cycle of fillies and colts playing in Canterlot and then growing to serve in the castle, until they grew old and retired and eventually died.

There were occasional wars and skirmishes and mostly peace and nearly every night she took a different pony into her bedchambers and then after went out on the balcony and looked up at the moon longingly.

Several hundred years post-banishment, she strongly considered absconding her throne, giving it over to somepony else. Some of Princess Platinum’s successors were grumbling that they ought to be in charge and it would be a welcome break to give them a chance at it, but she didn’t.

She did fuck Princess Platinum’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson completely senseless for an entire fortnight, along with three Royal Guards and a scullery maid and even that didn’t fill the hole in her heart.

*****

She didn’t always limit herself to ponies, either. There were plenty of other sapients in Equestria.

That came with its downsides, of course. After a six month assignation in Zebrica, her Guards adopted the brush-cuts that the zebras favored.

At least they didn’t try and paint stripes on themselves.