Princesses Celestia and Luna sat on the balcony of the Canterlot castle. Their manes flowed in the air although there wasn't any breeze. It was late afternoon and Luna was getting ready to raise the moon.
“Ready?” Celestia asked.
“Yes, we are. I mean, I am.” Luna said, but she didn't seem all that focused. She was staring at something across the courtyard instead of the night sky.
Celestia frowned. Her sister had been so focused on making sure to raise the moon the second it became nighttime ever since she had been freed of Nightmare Moon. She did it to impress the citizens of Equestria and hopefully get them to trust her again. She also tried to improve her speech it make it normal, instead of speaking loudly and saying 'we' instead of 'I'. Sadly, none of this had caused any of the citizens to like her.
The sun started to sink as Celestia's horn glowed. Soon, the sun was below the horizon and all was dark. However, it would be lighter any moment.
Any moment.
“Luna.” Celestia said.
The night princess wasn't paying attention, still staring across the courtyard.
“Luna.”
Luna had a small smile on her face.
“Luuuuuuna.” Celestia followed Luna's stare, and found what was drawing the younger sister's attention. A handsome, gray unicorn stallion guard stood, watching all the animals in the courtyard below. He was off-duty, so he was enjoying himself by watching the wildlife.
“Luna, please focus on your job and not the crush.” Celestia poked her sister in the side, drawing her attention. Immediately the younger princess blushed deeply and her horn glowed with magic. The star started popping up in the sky and the moon slowly rose over the horizon.
“And for the record, I was not staring at him.” Luna turned and trotted back into the castle. Celestia followed, a sly smile on her face.
“I never said you were. But yeah, you were.” she said. She hummed to herself. “Loony has a crush on a guard.”
“We do not!” Luna shouted. “I mean... I do not. And don't call me Loony.”
Maybe I shouldn't make fun of her. Celestia thought. She doesn't really have the choice to date him; Princesses can't have romantic relationships with anypony when there are more important duties at hoof... oh, what the heck? “Loony, Loony, Loony.” Celestia said, jokingly. “Maybe I should go tell the guard about your first coltfriend...”
“NO!” Luna shouted.
“You don't even know the story I was gonna tell.”
“If it has something do with my first coltfriend then it can't be good.”
Celestia nodded. “It was going to be about the time -”
“It doesn't matter.” Luna interrupted, “I don't know why you're even teasing us- me. He already has a fillyfriend.”
“Because teasing you is just so much fun.”
On the other side of the castle, the guard in question, Shade Spell, sighed as he watched the animals below. He heard hoofsteps behind him and turned to see a beautiful orange pegasus mare with yellow eyes and hair. “Shady, there you are.” she said.
“Hello, Sun Cloud.” Shade greeted his fillyfriend.
“I was worried!” Sun Cloud growled, suddenly changing from worried to angry. “You were supposed to come back home after your shift was over! You said you would, but here you are, watching dumb squirrels eat nuts!”
“Listen, Sunny.” Shade explained, “I'm sorry, but they might need me during night shift. I have to stay close.”
“You should have said.” Sun Cloud immediately calmed down and hugged the guard. “Just please tell me next time so I don't have to worry.”
“Okay...” Shade pulled away from the hug after a few seconds, hoping it wouldn't cause Sun to freak out. Thankfully, she didn't go crazy again and just kissed him on the cheek.
“See you at home later.” she said. “Love you.” then she fly off into the night sky. After she was above the castle, she realized something. “He didn't say 'I love you' back!” she gasped. “He must hate my guts!” She turned and dove back for the balcony.
She missed it, but thankfully stopped herself before falling into the courtyard and smashing Luna's tiger lillies. She flew up to Shade, who really didn't seem all that surprised. “Why do you hate me?” Sun Cloud cried. “Why don't you lov-”
“I'm sorry I didn't say that I loved you.” Shade covered her mouth with a hoof. “I love you, now stop worrying and please go back home.”
Sun Cloud nodded and flew back over the castle.
Once she was safely out of hearing distance, Shade muttered, “Whackjob. I have to break up with her.”
Luna curled up on her bed like a cat, waiting for sleep to come. She was exhausted and sad. Nothing had gone right since her return. Nopony liked her; they all feared and hated her. She couldn't even have a pet. Celestia was allergic to dogs, or so she claimed. Luna thought that Celestia had lied about being allergic to dogs because she was afraid of them.
A rustling of paper caused the night princess to sigh. She was now completely awake, and might as well go check what the rustling was.
She stood from her bed and followed the source of the noise. It had stopped, but she knew where it had come from; Celly's room.
Carefully opening the door, Luna scanned the room. It was dark and her older sister was asleep, but Luna had wonderful night vision. Finally, she found where the noise had come from.
A scroll of parchment was lying on the sun princess's floor, obviously just delivered via magic. The only pony that Celestia contacted through letters was Twilight Sparkle. Luna smiled mischievously and she picked up the scroll with magic. She had always wondered what Celestia and her dear student always talked about. Surely all the letters couldn't just be about friendship.
Of course, it wasn't a wonderful prank or something like that, but it was something she could do to relive the boredom of her life. The only thing that could be better would be in she found a magazine or something in Celly's room that she could blackmail her with...
Luna turned to continue searching her older sister's room. However, she heard the sleepy mumble of , “Lulu, get out of my room.” the younger princess ran for the door.
“Don't call us Lulu, either.” she whispered before slipping in her her bedroom.
Luna sat on her bed, levitating the letter towards her. She un-scrolled it and her jaw nearly dropped open when she saw the length. Just how much does Twilight write in each letter? She wondered.
She started reading out loud, whispering. “Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned that just because your friend... blah blah blah... friendship... blah blah blah.” the lunar princes sighed. “This is is so boring.”
She dropped the letter on the bed, used her magic to flick off the lamp, and tried to sleep again. This time, she drifted off much easier.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that just because your friend has other friends than just you doesn't mean that they don't value you as much as they do the other pony. You should never be jealous of other ponies' friends, even if you don't like them. And even if they're fire-breathing or like to swim in lava. I won't go into much detail as to what happened, but I might need a replacement for some burned books.
Also, I've been trying out a new spell. Do you know the Heart's Desire flower? I've been trying to simulate it's powers into a spell form, but I've had no luck. Do you think you could help at all? I cast the spell on this letter to see if you could test it and check what I'm doing wrong...
Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle
Sun Cloud awoke and yawned. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to open them and burn her eyes. There was a window right in front of the bed, causing the sun to burn her eyes every morning. She had asked Shade Spell to turn the bed and fix it, but he never did.
But she would never force him to do it. That would make him hate her, and she loved him and didn't want him to hate her at all.
She rolled over and pulled the covered over her face. The bed seemed incredibly comfortable, more comfortable than usual. And was it her imagination, or did she not feel the familiar warmth of the sun on her face?
She blinked open her eyes to find that the blanket she had covered her face with was not her own. Had Shade Spell gotten new sheets? This blanket was black and had little white spots like stars all over it.
Sun Cloud tossed off the blanket and almost gasped. She didn't recognize this room at all! It was huge! It would have been magnificent if there weren't cans of soda and random dresses strewn all over the floor.
Where was she? The last thing she could remember was pretending to go home, but instead hiding above Shade Spell's balcony. She had had to watch him to make sure he wasn't cheating on her! But she must have fallen asleep on the window ledge she had been watching him from.
But that still didn't explain where she was now. What if... somepony had kidnapped her?!
The mare hopped out of bed and immediately felt something wrong. She felt taller than usual. But that didn't matter- she'd been kidnapped by some rich, messy pony!
She ran towards the nearest door and kicked it open. It opened into a hallway filled with guards. They looked like the royal guards, like Shade, that protected the princesses. Whoever had kidnapped Sun had hired the royal guards! Even the guards who protected the princesses couldn't be trusted!
She raced down the hall, not noticing the guards asking what was wrong. “Help!” she shouted. “Somepony, help me!”
Luna awoke to the blaring sun. She cracked open and eye and nearly had a heart attack. He wing flared out to catch herself as she nearly fell off a window ledge and into the courtyard far below. She hovered in the air, hoof on her chest as she waited for her heart to beat normally again.
Why was she out here? Didn't she fall asleep in her bed? It's probably another prank courtesy of Celly. She thought.
But Celestia wouldn't almost kill her sister by putting her on a window ledge so high up. There was something more to this. Luna turned to sit fly back to her bedroom when she caught her reflection in the window.
She stared at it, mouth hanging open with shock. Instead of her normal dark blue color, she was a bright orange. Her eyes were a blond-ish yellow and so was her mane. Instead of the moon cutie mark, her cutie mark was now a cloud passing in front of the sun. But strangest of all, she was a normal pegasus. Not an alicorn, but a pegasus!
“What is going on?!” Luna shouted. It took her a few minutes to recognize who the pony in the reflection was. “Wait... I'm Sun Cloud! Shade Spell's fillyfriend!” She flew as fast as she could towards the wing of the castle where Celly's room was. She could find a way to fix this.
Then something occurred to her. “I'm Sun Cloud, Shade Spell's fillyfriend.” She whispered in amazement, stopping dead in midair, causing her to fall a few feet before she caught herself. “I'm Sun Cloud, Shade Spell's Fillyfriend!” she shouted joyfully.
She got a few strange looks from the guards passing below int eh courtyard, but she ignored it. “Right now, I'm a normal pony.” She whispered to herself. “I'm not hated or feared, and I don't have to be princess. Plus, I'm my crush's fillyfriend. Surely, one day playing Sun Cloud wouldn't come back to haunt me...?”
After thinking for a few minutes, Luna dove down to the guards in the courtyard. “Have any of you seen Shade Spell?” she asked kindly.
“What's wrong, your highness?” the guards chased after Sun Cloud, who kept running.
“Get away from me, you traitors!” she shouted. “Somepony help me! Please! I've been kidnapped!”
“Kidnapped?” one of the guards asked.
“Tratiors?” another asked.
“Your highness, you haven't been kidnapped!” a guard panted, racing to catch up with Sun Cloud. “this is where you live! The castle! Please, stop causing all this commotion!”
“I don't live here!” Sun Cloud panted, still running through the mazes of hallways. “I live in my nice, small house with my wonderful coltfriend!”
“Should we contact Princess Celestia?” one of the guard near the back asked.
“I'll go.” a pegasus guard volunteered. He turned and flew towards the princess's private quarters.
Luna walked down the hallways of the castle casually. No pony bothered her, and whenever they did it was usually just a guard asking who she was. She would say, “I am Sun Cloud, fillyfriend of Shade Spell!”
And they would always let her pass, giving each other odd looks. Luna thought nothing of it. She just kept trotting down the hallways until she got to the main part of the castle.
Shade Spell was said to be patrolling here.
And so he was.
Luna spotted him, walking back and forth through the hallway, spear in telekinetic grip. She flapped her wings and took off, flying at him at full speed.
“Shady!” she shouted happily.
“Uhh...” Shade grinned, and Luna didn't notice it was fake. “Hi Sunny.”
Luna wrapped her forelegs around him in a big hug, then kissed him. He returned the kiss, but possibly reluctantly.
Sun Cloud raced down the next hallway, hoping to find a way out soon. The guards were getting closer now. If they caught her, they would take her back to that messy room and the kidnapper would threaten Shade that if he didn't pay ransom that Sun would be killed!
She had to escape, for both Shade's and her sake!
The guards were advancing on her, almost there, when she turned one last corner. Speaking of Shade Spell...
Sun stopped in her tacks, many guards crashing into her after the sudden stop. Her mouth was agape, too focus on the strange occurrence down the hall.
She was kissing Shade Spell. But she wasn't kissing Shade Spell. Sun Cloud could see herself, clear as day, down the hallway, kissing her coltfriend. But it didn't make sense. She was right here, standing in the middle of a pile of momentarily shocked guards! What was going on?
But before she could jump to any more conclusions, A large white figure appeared in between the two Sun Clouds.
She took one look at the Sun Cloud kissing Shade, who had actually kissing him and was now watching Princess Celestia with a guilty blush on her face, then one look at the real Sun Cloud. Then she turned to the guards. “You are dismissed, I have the problem under control now.”
The guards nodded and left, including Shade Spell. That just left the three mares standing in the hallway alone. Celestia turned to the other Sun Cloud and sighed. “Luna, I'm not sure what you've done but whatever it is, it's causing chaos.”
“Luna?” Sun Cloud blinked with confusion. “Princess, what's going on?”
“Let me explain.” Princess Luna stepped forward, the guilty blush still present on her face. “Somehow, we switched bodies.”
“That doesn't explain much!” Sun snapped. She looked at her own hoof, then felt her forehead and back. She was an alicorn alright, and was dark blue. They had switched bodies! But... “You little!” Sun Cloud shouted at Luna. She raced over to her , gathered her fury, and tried out her first spell.
It was an explosion of power that sent Luna flying backwards, only barely catching herself with her wings. “What was that for?” Luna gasped for breath.
“You little Whorse!” Sun Cloud snapped. “You switched us so you could get at my coltfriend!”
“No, we didn't do it!” Luna shouted, not bothering to fix her speech. The outraged Sun Cloud shot another burst of magic at the now pegasus, who had to serve away to avoid getting hit.
“You liar!” Sun Cloud growled. “I saw you kissing him!”
The guilt grew deeper on Luna's face. “Okay, maybe we did kiss him, but we-”
“Why are you even talking like that?” Sun snapped. “Can't you even talk straight? Or are you playing dumb?”
Suddenly, all guilt on Luna's face was replaced with rage. “Maybe we talk like this because we were trapped on the moon for a thousand bucking years, while the worst suffering you have been in are your silly anxieties!”
“That's no excuse for stealing my coltfriend!”
“We are sorry!” Luna shouted, dodging another blast. “We are sorry for kissing your coltfriend!”
“No, you're not, you whorse!”
“If you call us a whorse one more time...”
“Whorse!” Sun Cloud shouted. “What are you going to do? I'm the alicorn!”
Luna narrowed her eyes and grinned evilly. “I'm going to break you and Shade Spell up.”
Suddenly, all the fury in Sun Cloud faded and was replaced with genuine fear. “You... you wouldn't!”
Luna took off, flying as fast as she could down the halls in the direction Shade Spell had gone. Sun Cloud took off after her, wobbling in the air. She wasn't used to such big wings.
Celestia put down the popcorn she had been eating while watching the fight. “I'd better follow them.” she sighed.
Luna spotted Shade down the hall and flew even faster. Sun Cloud wasn't far behind, she had only a few seconds. She raced down to meet him. “Shady! Shady! I have something I need to talk to you about!”
Shade looked up at her and tilted his head with curiosity. “What happened to you?”
“No time to explain.” Luna said hurriedly. “I just don't think that it's working out and we should br-”
“No you don't!” Sun Cloud shouted from behind. She tackled Luna, rolling them both into the wall behind Shade.
“What in the name of Celestia is going on here?!” Shade shouted, but got no answer.
“I think we should-” Luna tried to say, but Sun kicked her in the face and cut her off. In retaliation, Luna flapped her wings until she hovered in the air, blowing the dust from the floor into her face.
“Eww!” Sun Cloud jumped back, wiping the dust away.
“Germaphobe!”
“Whorse!”
“I told you to quit calling me that!”
“What can you do to stop me?”
“I can-” Luna stopped mid-sentence. The world seemed kinda woozy, and everything was pain. Her vision faded for a moment, everything going black. She couldn't feel her body anymore, and couldn't even groan with pain. She tried to shout “Help!” or “What's happening?”, but she didn't have a mouth anymore. She was nothingness, floating in space.
Then she felt the world put itself back into place. The pain faded, she could feel her body again, and her vision was returning. When all was right again and her eyes could once again see, she saw dark blue hooves.
Her hooves.
“I'm me!” she shouted joyfully.
“I'm me!” Sun Cloud shouted as well.
Celestia trotted gleefully up to them. “I guess that was what's wrong with Twilight's spell.” she stated. “It doesn't last long enough.”
Sun Cloud jumped up and hugged Shade. “Oh, my dear Shade!” she exclaimed.
However, she felt something sharp poking her chest and let go. Shade Spell was holding his spear to her with an angry glare in his eyes. “You're under arrest for attacking a princess!”
Sun Cloud looked as if he had really stabbed her. “But... I love you!”
“I don't love you.” The guard poked the pegasus with the spear again. “You're insane and I should have broken up with you long ago!”
“I'm out.” Luna jumped up and flew as quickly as she could down the hallway before Sun could rage at her again. Celestia quickly followed.
“I think I should write a letter to my student.” the sun princess smiled.
“You do that.” Luna glanced out the window. “I'm going to raise the moon. On time.”
Shade Spell is still in therapy and Sun Cloud has been insanely beating the bars of her cell ever since. All guards involved signed secrecy contracts, and I threatened Luna that if she ever reads my mail again I will turn her into a shrew.
I would suggest you stop your work on the Heart' Desire spell and leave it to the potion makers. And seriously, if this situation should ever happen to anypony ever again, let's hope they don't go for the coltfriend.
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia
Celestia finished the letter and sleepily dropped the quill. She wasn't doing anything fancy with how she signed her name like she usually did, she just wanted to get it sent and go to sleep. She opened the window and held the letter in her telekinetic grip.
Using her magic, she turned it into a wisp of green smoke and it flew off into the distance towards Ponyville. Celestia sighed with relief and laid down on her bed. She pulled the sheets over her head and was almost drifting off to sleep when...
poof
There was a green flash and scroll of parchment fell on the floor of Celestia's chamber. Groaning, the princess grabbed it with her magic, un rolled it, and began to read.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I'm so sorry that my spell casting caused such chaos, and I wish there was a way I could make it up to anypony involved. Sadly, I'm kind of busy right now. Remember my previous letter about always trusting your friend's choice of friends? Well, long story short since then Fluttershy's tiger-griffon-wyvern-hybrid friend has completely destroyed my house so I'm living in Cloudsdale. I also have a feeling she ordered it to destroy Town Hall tomorrow.
I think Fluttershy's gone insane with power and is going to kill us all. Please help.
You're Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle
“Should I go help her?” Celestia wondered out loud. Then she glanced outside at the moon. “No, I think I'll just sleep.”
A few minutes after Celestia fell asleep, a familiar yellow pegasus flew by, riding the strangest creature ever seen in Equestria.
Yes.
The End
