“Luna,” Celestia said. “I hate to be a bother, but there’s a small star in my bedroom.”
Luna didn’t even bother to look up from this week’s issue of Asstronomical Beauties. “Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll deal with it in a moment. I can fit you into my schedule somewhere in the... general summertime-ish area?”
“No, it actually is a problem. An immediate one. It just showed up out of nowhere; one minute I was sitting on the throne thinking about salamanders and the next, there’s a tiny star in my room! It may be small, but it’s giving off all the same heat and radiation as a normal sized one. I must say, for me it was quite pleasant, but the guards in the room were both reduced to charred skeletons! And the stone is starting to melt. Deal with it now, please.”
Luna sighed, dropping the magazine from her aura and squinting at her sister. “Fine. Not the first time I’ve had to do this. They do get lost sometimes.”
“Ah, that makes sense, I suppose.” Celestia paused. “Actually, I’m afraid it doesn’t in the slightest. What do you mean by ‘lost’?”
“Well, you know how stars hatch from giant belts of star eggs and swim around in space eating dust until they get big enough to settle down and attract a solar system?”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “Of course, anyone who’s taken basic astronomy knows that.”
“So, sometimes a baby star will get lost and get sucked down towards the planet at incredible speeds. This happens quite often, actually, I think it might have something to do with me.” Luna tapped her chin with her hoof, expression distant.
“Right, because of your cutie mark and magical abilities.”
“Aaaah,” Luna chuckled. “I see why’d you’d think that, but the truth is far more provocative. It’s actually because I was dating a star for a period of time while on the moon. Got quite lonely there, as I’m sure you recall from all my breakdowns. WR-102 was his name...”
Celestia blinked three times and then opened her mouth to speak, taking about four seconds after doing so to actually begin. “You... dated a star.”
“Say what you will, but he was the hottest.” Luna sighed wistfully. “He’s a Sagittarius too! You know how well I get along with them.”
“I’m not going to even attempt to unpack that.”
Luna cocked her head. “Honestly, I thought you of all ponies should know what it’s like!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You do date our star, do you not? Sol? You can’t hide it from me, dear sister, he told me all the illicit details while I was trapped up there.”
Celestia shot an uneasy glance out the window at the sun, which she could swear had somehow winked at her. Shuddering, she turned back to Luna.
“Alright, enough of this. Just deal with the baby star plea—” Celestia stopped dead, her pupils shrinking. “Oh no. Oh no. Luna, these aren’t yours—”
Luna visibly balked. “What? No! Have some decency, sister.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t...” Celestia took a deep breath, and rubbed the side of her head with her forehoof. “How does you dating this star—”
Luna’s eyes narrowed, and indeed, her whole expression had darkened considerably. “He has a NAME, sister, and he’s not just a ‘star’ (how you say it so filthy in your mouth like a slur), WR-102 could ionize hydrogen better than any multitude of the infinite stars out there! And I don’t care what you or his whore nebula think, there is nothing wrong with love between organics and elementals!”
She glared at Celestia in an uncomfortable silence, punctuated only by the ragged sounds of the younger alicorn’s breathing. Taking a deep breath, Luna composed herself.
“I’m sorry, some of the wounds are still fresh. It was not a mutual breakup.”
Celestia looked as if part of her were dying with each passing moment. “How does you dating—”
“There is a lot of racism in space. ‘Spacism’, if you will—”
“HOW DOES YOU DATING THIS STAR AT ALL RELATE TO THE ONE CURRENTLY INCINERATING MY BEDROOM AND BELONGINGS?” Celestia screamed, flecks of froth and foam sprinkling Luna’s face.
“Oh, they can smell me.” Luna wiped down her face with her hoof. “The scent of a star never really washes off after intercourse.”
“The fact that you used such a specific, technical term leads me to some very upsetting implications—” Celestia groaned and shook her head. “Whatever. Luna. Please deal with the baby star destroying my bedroom.”
Luna rose to her hooves. “It’d be my pleasure.”
“Be careful, by the way,” Celestia said as she and Luna stopped before the double doors to her bedroom. The two could feel the heat radiating out into the hallway, smoke and blinding light pouring out from any and all cracks that could be found in the splintering and blackening oak. “I think it’s mad, or something? It keeps making these squealing, screeching noises.”
“Probably just scared, poor dear,” Luna mused. “Alright, I’m going in.”
She swung the doors open, and immediately an intense wave of heat and light burst forth. Had either of them been anything less than what they were, they would have been vaporized instantly, just as the poor guards in Celestia’s chamber (may they rest in peace). This was followed by the pleasant pitches of intense screeching and whining, something most akin to what it might sound like if someone had dropped a lot of circular saws and whetstones inside of a woodchipper, but with a much more “starlike” quality. It’s something you really had to be there for, honestly.
Luna trotted forward, sublimating stone and pulsating plasma supporting her hooves just as easily as if there weren’t one of the universe’s most powerful nuclear reactors fusing hydrogen and helium like nobody’s business in the center of the room. In one quick motion, she raised her forehooves, and gently clasped the star within the space between their undersides. The temperature of the room dropped noticeably, and every geiger counter in Canterlot stopped screaming for the first time since the star’s appearance.
Celestia was beside her. “So what are you going to do? Just send it back into space, or something? Have them go home?”
“Oh, they can’t go home.” Luna had the same expression one might don if they had just been asked to use margarine as a substitute in a deep fried stick of butter. Which Celestia had only done once, mind you, and it sure would be great if Luna could stop bringing it up by wearing that face.
“And why is that, exactly?” Celestia coughed dryly.
Now Luna looked legitimately offended. “You think I’m just going to throw it back into space where any passing comet or astral dreadnought or void whale can just scoop it up for a meal? Absolutely not.” Luna cuddled the star in her hooves, smiling placidly at it. “I have to add them to my mane. Maximum safety and I can keep an eye on them, and whatnot. Besides, with this one I’ll have enough for Cassiopeia!”
Celestia watched in a vague, sort of dissociated horror as Luna raised the infant star to her mane. The rippling visage of the night sky wafted over her hooves like a blanket, and with the most unsettling cooing noises, Luna ushered the star into her mane. True to her word, a tiny little dot appeared in her mane, completing a little “m” shape with the surrounding pinpricks of light.
Celestia’s eye twitched. “I can’t put my hoof on it, but for some reason that felt horribly wrong. Is this where all the stars in your mane come from?”
“I thought you’d have known this about me by now,” Luna snorted, indigance clear. “You really should get to know me better.”
Celestia heaved a sigh heavier than a quasar. “Yeah, every time I learn something new about you I tend to want to spend less time around you. I am going to take a very long shower.”
Luna rolled her eyes, following her sister from the torched remains of the bedroom. “You’re very melodramatic, sister.”
But from then on Celestia could swear she always heard tiny, muffled screams echoing whenever she was too close to Luna’s mane, and she knew that Luna heard them too.
