Vacation Gone Right

Celestia realized something was amiss when the set ended and the music stopped but Luna was nowhere to be found. She tried to spot her amid the jumping and clopping crowd, whistling, propping the DJ to groove on. Pinpointing Luna right now among the agitated crowd veiled by the venue’s smoke and gloom was like searching for a black cat in a dark room.

With smouldering cheeks and jaws tightly clenched Celestia proceeded to the exit. She did her best to keep her cool despite raging all inside while trudging through the mob and asking “May I pass, please” every other step. By the time she saw the exit and the buffed pony to its right, Celestia understood why Luna had been so frustrated with the music and the place.

Finally Celestia stepped from the gloom of the club into the gloom of Cloptroit at night. To her delight, Luna stood perched against a rail on the other side of the road. She looked lonely against the background of an empty walkway and cones of white light illuminating it every hundred hooves. Celestia’s heart twisted and she regretted being mad at her little sister. After all, she had dragged Luna against her own will and then coerced her to join the fun inside.

Celestia crossed the road, her eyes focused on her rebellious sister. Maybe it was the excitement from the club still rushing through her veins, but Luna looked extremely cute without the royal head and footwear staining her beautiful blue frame. He tail, usually flowing, was curled into a ball of different shades of blue. And her slender well curved flanks along with her groin, usually concealed, now totally revealed…

Yes. Definitely the club talking. So exciting and intense.

Celestia stopped right behind her little slender sister. Luna looked left, said hi, unperturbed, then returned her stare back to the hithering and thithering waters of the lake on which the reflection of the full moon shimmered and rippled.

Luna was pissed. Expect a storm.

Celestia walked to Luna’s right and stared at Luna’s stern face and piercing stare.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice steady. Calm.

Luna glared at her. “You’re sorry?!”

Celestia closed her eyes and nodded.

Luna stretched her face up and as close as possible to Celestia’s muzzle. “After I missed Deephoof presents Neighospace on the closing day of Cloptroit techno week – something we’ve never visited even once – you dare to apologize?!”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Celestia said.

“But it was bad! Too loud. Too fast. Childish samples. No melodies. No chords. No feeling of space. Retarded music for retarded mares.”

Celestia felt her cheeks swelter. “Like yours is so much better. Monomare? Plink ploink, drops of water on a beat. Basic Pony? So basic you can fall asleep. Trottechre? The sound of washing machines mating.”

“At least it requires skills to make,” Luna said, her voice rising.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “So much skill for such boring music. You know what the party there has that the music you like doesn’t? Fun!”

“You know what really angers me? Instead of going to see acts that Cloptroit is famous for, you dragged me a hardcore party that you could’ve enjoyed in any city of Equestria. Once again, you forgot about me and mine part of the list.”

“Oh, please,” Celestia scoffed. “And you’re a little selfless pony all innocent and nice. How many times did you complain that I was not considering your interests this week alone?”

Luna rolled her eyes up then stared fiercely at her sister. “Once. This one’s the second time.”

“But you’re fuming all the time. I see it.”

Luna sighed, stepped back, turned around. “It’s pointless for me to complain because you drag me everywhere. Let’s go skyjumping. May I stay here on the ground? No. Waterskiing? I’ll just look from the shore. No. But when it’s my turn you complain trough the whole deal or just sleep.”

Celestia, embarrassed, smiled. She walked to and fro. “I was tired after the night before.”

Luna turned back around and stared at her sister. “No surprise. First, zorbing in Broncolizod, then speedracing through Cloptroit, and then sneaking our way into a goat trance party in the evening and dancing to that monotonous bass till the early hours of the morning.”

“It was fun.”

“I’ll rather enjoy Warhoof and Marevich than engage in hazardous sports.”

“So what’s the problem?” Celestia asked. “You enjoyed the museum. I had a little nap.”

Luna sighed and dropped her head down. “Don’t you get it?”

“Excuse me.”

“Why do you take me everywhere?”

Celestia smiled. Her eyes sparkled.

“Because I like seeing you nearby,” she answered. “Watching you scream is kinda cute in a certain way.”

Luna glared back at her sister, her eyes piercing. Penetrating. “But why do you forget about me, then? Can’t I have the same treatment in return?”

Celestia, still walking, scoffed. “What do you want from me? That painting is nothing but but some lines on a canvas. How deep that is. That’s just a black square. Nothing more. If I want to see fruit I’ll go to the market and stare at some. That’s what you want to hear?”

“It’s better than you snoring away,” Luna, her voice dropping, said.

She turned away and went down the alley, the lake to her right, the lamps and benches to her left.

Her heart twisting, Celestia followed her.

“Sorry, sis, but you’re so boring,” Celestia, apologetic, said. “Everything you like is so static and mundane. From art to music - all of it feels like paint drying. What happened to you? I remember the time when I had to search for you in the Everfree Forest and found you engaging with monsters as if they were your best friends. Don’t you remember what you did to our castle? All the traps and tricks to make us steer away from the boredom of routine? You used to frighten me. Remember the Mothmare? The hoax that had Canterlot shaking in fear for a few years?”

Luna frowned, turned her head back, and pointed with her right hoof at the crescent moon in the blob of ink black that adorned her flanks.

“This happened,” she said.

“I don’t get it. Aren’t dreams exciting?”

Luna sighed, turned around to face her sister’s inquisitive stare. “The night before our vacation I had to stop a brawl in a bar where all the customers wanted the owner dead because he did something wrong but nopony knew what. For some reason the bar kept turning into a ship in the middle of a tempest, and I had to deal with that.”

“That sounds exciting!”

“Exhausting, really. After that I had to calm down some bookish boy because all the fillies in the play focused their attention on his sporty cool friend. It took a long time and when I thought the issue was resolved his father or teacher boomed like thunder and called all of them back home. He didn’t look pleasant at all.”

“Well, it’s definitely better than listening to the same old nobles making the same old argument day after day,” Celestia, annoyed, said.

“It messes with your head. It feels very confusing when the landscape keeps forever changing and ponies turns into different things. Like the two gossiping mares that walked down a stream on its opposite sides and then the stream turned into an estuary and the mares into a trees and stone and I had to unfreeze them. And their gossip. Oooooh, tell me about her. Do you know her? Well, you know her? Yes, of course, we aaall know her. Tell me all. Tell me now. And that’s not the worst of it.”

“What takes that special place in your boring routine?”

“Astral projectors. We don’t have to protect ponies from themselves but from intruders, too. That last night I had to deal with four pesky old horses that kept spying on dreams of the most intimate kind. Twice! And all of this happened within one – just one – night. So every night feels like a never-ending ride through the most most fantastic place ever devised. But you know what’s the really hard part?”

Celestia shook her head.

“The day’s over and you’re back in it again.”

Luna paused, looked at the lake.

“The first year is exciting,” she resumed. “Then it feels like a never ending roller-coaster and you long for the goahead adventures and cut and dry life of the wideawake world. After drifting through shifting landscapes where rules are suspended every other second, you want something solid. It may be boring to you but the way Equestria works – the small processes behind everyday stuff like the post office, the train station, the newspapers, stuff like that – brings peace to my soul after the kaleidoscopic reveries of dreams.”

Celestia lowered her head toward Luna and slyly smiled. “I thought you found my duties not up to your taste.”

Luna turned toward Celestia. Her stare was still scolding. “Its the tranquillity that attracts me. Everything being predictable and slow. Once you’ll get tired of being constantly excited, you’ll understand my simple joys. Now can I have a moment alone?”

Luna turned around and started walking down the alleyway again.

Celestia, however, didn’t consider her sister’s need. She walked to Luna’s right and, frowning, said, “Why didn’t you tell me all of it before?”

“What’s the point? You never listen to me anyway?”

“Because you don’t speak!” Celestia flared. “Instead of explaining your problems to me you prefer to brood and boil like a kettle till it whistles and then we have those awful arguments that end up tearing us apart. It happened with the pancakes. It happened when we were dealing with Canterlot’s security. It happened a thousand years ago and you know how that ended. Why don’t you speak?”

“Like you would have done things different” Luna said. She sped up her walk.

“Well, I would’ve tried,” Celestia said. “When we went mountain climbing you didn’t say anything but fumed beneath me and acted like dead weight. Before boarding the plane for the jump you didn’t ask to stay on the ground. The same with barrel jumping.”

“Did I have a choice when you dragged me?”

Celestia sighed. “I wanted you to get safe on shore and then got over excited and carried away, but you didn’t shout for me to stop. I can’t understand how you feel and what you want if you don’t speak.”

Luna stopped, turned around again. She looked calmer but her eyes burned fierce. “Now that we are talking, what do you propose for dealing with our predicament?”

“Something that won’t end with us going separate ways,” Celestia, sad and hopeful, said.

She looked at the night lake and the skyscrapers, glittering white, and the streets lit by yellow lights on the shore opposite to theirs. Celestia placed her right hoof on her chin and paced to and fro. Suddenly she stood still and smiled.

“How about we make an effort to enjoy each other activities?” she said. “You choose something, and I’ll do my best. When we’ll do my thing, try not to dismiss it at hoof.”

Luna looked down then back at Celestia and nodded. “Agreed.”

Celestia, smiling, closed her eyes. “Wonderful. See, some little communication can take us far without blaming and shouting at each other.”

“I guess,” Luna said.

To take Luna out of her funk Celestia lightly booped her nose. “Don’t be so gloomy. You look better when you smile.”

To seal her words Celestia lunged and placed a soft, light, peck on Luna’s nose. Celestia shuddered when she felt Luna’s warm breath, of some exotic fruit smelling, blow over her muzzle, nose, and cheeks. Caught by the tingling excitement rising up her spine from between her thighs, she rubbed her muzzle up and down Luna’s neck, enjoying the streams of warm air going down her head and nape and lightly rustling her mane.

When she disengaged from Luna Celestia looked into Luna’s eyes, softened and warm, and exhaled her own warm breath, longing, loving, on Luna’s face.

“I promise to be awake,” she said.

Luna winked. “I’ll remember this.”

Celestia giggled.

Luna looked so beautiful tonight…

Dark blue coat, deep as night sky, sparkling like diamonds under the glow of lamps. Mesmerizing eyes that shifted from light blue to light green depending on the light and reminded Celestia of the crystal clear waters of southern atolls and resorts. The flow and lustre of her mane with star dust waving and scintillating through its manifold ebbs and tides of all the shades of blue.

And the melange of her smells…

Celestia’s nose tingled from the fruity warmth of Luna’s breath, from the lavender shades of her mane, from the bitter punch of sweat mixed with barely perceptible whiffs of her most intimate and musky scent.

That was definitely the club talking.