Eventually, Gilded Lily recovered from her shock.

“Um…so…hello, Princess Luna.” she started slowly and awkwardly. She bowed, the same way her brother had earlier. But with Princess Luna laying on the ground before her, it felt so awkward that as she stood up straight as soon as she was bid. “I’m, um, Gilded Lily…as you already know, apparently.”

“I can learn anypony’s name by merely entering their dream.” Luna told her, stopping the rambling before it could start. Even though that wasn’t how she’d learned this pony’s name, of course. But that fact wasn’t relevant at the moment. She also took the opportunity to extend one wing, inviting Gilded to lay beside her.

“Oh.” Lily nodded, as she accepted the invitation. “Um, may I ask why you’re here, if it’s not to punish me for the, uh, twin…threesome?” she finished slowly, confused by how to refer to what she’d just dreamt.

“I have only very rarely punished ponies for the contents of their dreams.” Luna reassured her. She didn’t bother to mention that most such punishments were delivered to those she felt showed fanatical love for Celestia, during the lead-up to becoming Nightmare Moon. The other mare’s fear was ebbing; no need to refresh it, after all. “I have frequently tried to convince repentant criminals to turn themselves in, or directed investigations onto unrepentant criminals, based on their dreams. But that is only for crimes much more grievous than non-abusive incest.”

“So, you weren’t offended by what you saw?” Gilded asked, disbelief clear in her voice. At that, Luna didn’t even try to hide her chuckle.

“I have committed far more extreme acts than straightforward twincest in my time. And when it comes to things seen in dreams?” the princess continued. “I have seen hundreds of erotic dreams just in the time since my return. I do not think there is even a word for the number I saw in the centuries before that.”

“You mean you could see dreams even while you were…um…” Gilded Lily stumbled a bit over how to refer to Nightmare Moon. She finally settled on, “While you were on the moon?”

“No. And I was not on the moon, but in it.” Luna corrected automatically. She’d spoken to several scholars and researchers who had all made the same mistake, and she’d gotten into the habit. “Not even Nightmare Moon could have survived the surface of the moon for a millennium.”

“How could you survive in the moon any better?” Gilded asked, before immediately following up with the equally baffling, “Actually, how’d you even get in the moon in the first place? Unless the moon is hollow, like in that Journey to the Center of Terra series, by E. R. Burrows.”

“No, it is nothing so fantastical as that.” Luna started. She didn’t normally talk much about her time as Nightmare Moon, but she’d raised the topic, even if unintentionally. And not only did that mean Gilded kind of deserved an honest answer, but extending this trust now could only make her coming offer easier to believe and maybe even accept. “As Nightmare Moon, my body could turn into a cloud of pure magical energy for brief periods. It took a lot of magic to maintain, however, and could not last more than a few minutes at a time.” Luna looked down at Gilded Lily and saw her nodding, too invested in the explanation to offer any remarks. “When the Elements of Harmony struck me, that transformation was forcibly triggered, and then the cloud was directly infused into the moon’s leylines. They sustained me for the entire duration of my banishment.”

“Wow. I never knew the moon had leylines.” Gilded eventually said.

“It does. As does the sun. My sister’s and my magics interact with them to make the cosmic bodies move. And even then, it takes nearly unrivalled might to reach across the void, and a specially-crafted spell to bend them to our wills. Not even the full population of Equestria could budge them, else.”

“So could anypony with enough strength learn the spells? Like the unicorns before Hearth’s Warming?”

“They would also need an affinity for the task, like those unicorns of old.” Luna added. “One which Princess Cadance is lacking. Princess Twilight does have the affinity, however, but it is largely untrained. In time, she will pick it up.”

That was the only reason Celestia and Luna were willing to turn the throne over to Twilight. By the time the device they intended to leave with her had worn down—physically or magically, whichever came first—she would have learned to move the cosmic bodies on her own.1

“That’s…heh, that’s good to know.” Gilded said, chuckling a little at the degree of understatement. Then her mind moved to a more relevant topic, as she felt wetness oozing out of her slit. “But, Princess, are you really not bothered by…by incest?”

“Not at all.” Luna confirmed. “In truth, that is one law Celestia and I do not support, but we do not remove it because most ponies want it to remain. Also, it is one of Equestria’s foundational laws, having been written by the First Triumvirate, and those are cornerstones of the nation’s legal system, so are very hard to repeal.”

“The First Triumvirate?”

“Princess Platinum, Chancellor Puddinghead, and Commander Hurricane. They taught Celestia many of the things she needed to rule, and their successors ruled alongside the pair of us for centuries.”

“For centuries? No, that can’t be right. Celestia has only been raising the sun for a little over eleven-hundred years. Princess Twilight’s students put on a play to celebrate that just last month.” The event had made the papers—mostly to explain why there’d been a sunrise in the middle of the evening—and Sugar Belle had told many of the ponies in Our Town about it in detail.

“Yes, I was in the audience. But Miss Pie, who started the whole thing, was mistaken.” Luna explained. “Celestia first raised the sun and became an alicorn weeks after the first Hearth’s Warming. She actually predates the official founding of our nation by several weeks. She and the three senior founders initially ruled together. She was born a common village-mare, after all. She knew no more about ruling than I did, when I came along a few decades later.”

“Wait, does that mean…that you and Celestia aren’t—”

“We are kin, or close kin as it’s referred to, now.2 After all our centuries together, it ceased to matter that we are not blood-kin even before Discord first appeared. Which is the next part of the story.” Luna said quickly, preempting any questions Gilded might’ve had. “Discord first announced himself by flinging both sun and moon backwards across the sky a dozen times, then bouncing them across it, like ping pong balls. That set the pattern—or rather, non-pattern—for his rule perfectly. While we never lost our sense for exactly where the sun and moon were, at some point we did lose all track of where they should have been. I can not say how soon or eventual it was, since there was no trustworthy way of keeping track of time while we hunted for any way to defeat him, but we finally discovered the Elements and defeated Discord some eleven-hundred years ago.3 Since then, the average pony, and even many an amateur historian, has conflated the first sunrise after Discord’s defeat with Celestia’s very first.” Luna concluded.

“…Whoa.” Gilded eventually managed. It took a few more minutes to wrap her mind around just how much of the history she’d always known was wrong. Some of it was even stuff she’d been taught in grade school! Which did bring to mind a question. “Why isn’t this taught in school?”

“After my banishment, Celestia had trouble coping. With both my absence and the veritable flood of extra work that came with it, so a lot of things slipped her attention in the process. Including a couple of revisionist history books that had become some of the most influential by the time she noticed them. And which remain so, even today.”

“That’s…terrible.”

“It is worse than you know. Young Twilight Sparkle learned history from my sister directly, and had to be excused from the school’s history classes. It was not until the courses covering my sister’s sole rule separated from those concerning the time periods before that, that she could take them without failing large portions. And even then, she needed to be careful about how much she depended upon my sister’s teachings.”

“But that’s changed, right? And, if Princess Twilight knew it had been more than eleven-hundred years, why did she put on that play?” Gilded had only met Twilight a couple times—and only for a few minutes each—but she’d heard enough from Starlight and Sugar Belle to know she wouldn’t put up with something like that.

“She did correct Pinkie Pie’s misconceptions, but went along with her plans since she accepted that most ponies still believed the version taught in schools. She also wanted to do it for my sister, who is like a second mother to her.” Luna explained. “In regards to your first question, however, the answer is ‘not nearly enough.’ The EEA is harder to move even than the cosmic bodies. And that is not an exaggeration.” she added, irritably. “The only reason I am even in the most recent schoolbooks is because Celestia and I both spoke to them and informed them in no uncertain terms that there would be no way to hide my existence.”

“You must be kidding?” Gilded asked, aghast.

“I only wish I was. They have gone from safeguards of educational integrity to sole and undisputed arbiters thereof. Like the worst kind of scholars, they had become absolutely assured that their pet theories were correct, no matter who or what might have tried to convince them otherwise. If I had my way, I would replace them all with ponies who actually remember the importance of the ability to change. If she did nothing else, at least Cozy Glow convinced them they are not all-knowing and infallible, though they are still too slow to change.”

Gilded Lily shuddered at the memory of those few days without her magic. After a minute or two of silence, she finally thought of something to say.

“So, did you meet Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy?”

“I came to know Pansy almost as well as Celestia did, but I only met Hurricane a few times. He had retired by the time I started living in the palace, but Pansy—who had been promoted to lieutenant by that time—had taken over the pegasus seat on the triumvirate. Incidentally, she was the only pegasus to hold that seat without also holding the rank of Commander. You also might be interested to know that Hurricane was the one who insisted on the anti-incest laws.”

“He was?”

“He was. Pegasi have always had the strongest reactions to the subject of incest.”

“Huh. Why?”

“Have you ever wondered why the ancient pegasi were a stratocracy?”

“A strat-what?”

“A constitutionalized military government.” Princess Luna explained. And when Gilded shook her head, she continued her history lesson.

“The ancient pegasi had an emperor at one point, millennia ago, and for a time, the dynasty was strong. But then they became obsessed with purity of lineage, which led to increasingly inbred rulers. It eventually got so bad that no member of the imperial family was born without some defect, physical, mental, and/or magical. The ones who were not physically deformed were made the official heirs, but they were usually even worse, mentally. They were so twisted and broken that their guards would have to put them down to protect the empire.”

“They actually killed their kings?” Gilded interrupted, horrified and wide-eyed.

“From what Hurricane and Pansy told me.” Luna confirmed.

“But…But that’s like…” Gilded balked. “It’s like trying to picture the royal guards trying to kill Princess Celestia, or you. I just can’t see it.” She could barely even bring herself to say it. Even though she tried, the murky shapes that formed before them proved she was speaking literal truth.

“The way Hurricane and Pansy described it to me, even Sombra was a better ruler than the last half-dozen Emperors of the Sky. He at least had some measure of sanity, before the dark magic consumed his soul.4 They ended up so deformed that there was a…well, Hurricane said it was supposed to be a joke, but even he believed it to be in bad taste. It said that griffons were descended from the last emperors. A few of the strongest believers in pegasus supremacy even said that the quote-unquote “magicless” earth ponies came from the magically crippled imperials.” Princess Luna’s dark tone made it perfectly apparent what she thought of that.

Gilded just whistled in surprise. “That…sorta makes sense, I guess, but I still can’t imagine guards turning on their, oh, what’s the word? It starts with ‘s’?”

“Sovereign.” Luna provided. “And as distasteful as it was, if there was any truth to it, it was an unfortunate necessity.”

“You think the what they told you it wasn’t true?”

“It’s possible. History is written by the winners, after all. And the last emperor had been deposed more than six hundred years before Hurricane was born, which was more than enough time for the winners to rewrite it any way they chose. But in any case, the pegasus tribe as a whole has had a zealous aversion to incest ever since.” “Of course, there are always outliers in every population.” Luna added mentally, discreetly glancing at the pegasus under her wing.

“But not the unicorns or earth ponies?”

“Neither of them could be said to like it, exactly. Unicorns were largely ambivalent about it, in truth. Contraceptive magics had largely removed the danger of inbreeding, and therefore the stigma of incest. Especially amongst the upper classes. Among the royalty in particular, certain kinds of incest were extremely common.

“For instance, the royal harem was shared by all members of the royal family—parents, children, grandparents, cousins; the whole family. And in addition, any bastard foals were inducted into the harem at birth—though they were off-limits for sexual duties until they came of age, of course. Which was their first heat or rut, like nowadays.5 & 6 They were kept in the harem so that they could learn to rule, and be kept abreast of the state of the kingdom. So that just in case there ever came a time when there were no legitimate heirs to take over, there would still be somepony who could claim the throne, who had some idea of what needed doing, and how to do it. According to Princess Platinum, that had actually happened three times throughout Unicornia’s history. It was how her own line came to the throne, she claimed.

“I’m not sure if that’s really true, of course.” Luna said as an aside. “She was self-important and haughty from the day I met her until the day she died. And claiming even a bastard for an ancestor allowed her to add the former dynasty’s legacy to her own, and granted her a little more legitimacy.7 Though you may want to take that with a grain of salt as well. After all, I was quite young when I first met her, and that first impression stuck with me, somewhat. It colored my opinion for as long as I knew her. And it may still.”

“How young were you, if I may ask?” Gilded asked tentatively, in a small voice.

“I was so young, that…” “I did not even have my cutie mark, yet.” the princess almost answered. But then something occurred to her. So instead, she continued with, “I was so young, that I asked Celestia, in public, where the rest of her tribe was.”

“You did?”

“I did. And when she explained that she’d been born a unicorn almost half a century earlier, but then she’d changed to have the magic of all three tribes…” Luna looked around, theatrically checking for eavesdroppers, before leaning in a little and pitching her voice at a stage-whisper. "I called her an all-in-one-icorn."

“No.” Gilded breathed.

“And many ponies, including Celestia herself, thought it was so cute that it stuck.”

“No.”

“And over the years, it got abbreviated, until by the time I’d fully grown into my power, Celestia and I had been permanently labeled as alicorns.”

“No-o-o wa-a-a-ay.” Gilded gushed, her eyes alight with the laughter that leaked into her voice. “I never even thought about it before, but it is kinda funny how we use the same word for the princesses and the stuff horns and feathers are made of.”

“Entirely unintentional on my part, I assure you.” Luna insisted, mock-gravely. “Would you like to hear something else funny?”

“Absolutely.”

Her plan successful, Luna settled in for some good, old-fashioned gossip, with a now totally at ease Gilded Lily.

After several minutes of easy chatting, like any two mares, the princess subtly led Gilded Lily back around to the topic of incest.

“So how did the earth ponies feel about incest?” Gilded asked.

“They frowned upon it generally, but they weren’t particularly bothered by it. Somewhere between the pegasi and the unicorns. Appropriately enough, perhaps. Of course, nowadays, ponies have all moved towards the pegasus’ viewpoint.”

“Not everypony.” Gilded said uncomfortably.

“No, not everypony.” Luna agreed easily. “There are always exceptions.”

“That’s right, you said you don’t approve of the laws against incest earlier.” Gilded remembered. “Would you really repeal them, if you could?”

Celestia—my sister—and I have lived a very long time. Far longer than most any creature not imprisoned in Tartarus. Except for Discord, of course. But he is an entity, rather than a being, so does not really count.8 And during those centuries, our relationship has been many things, some of which it continues to be. Siblings. Comforters. Casual. Secret. To most, at least.” Gilded just stared, overwhelmed, for a time.

“Who else knows?” she finally managed.

“A couple members, each, of our closest, most trusted staff. And the other princesses have known since they ascended.”

“Princess Cadance knows?”

“Indeed, and she is conflicted about it. Everything about her upbringing tells her it’s wrong, in all regards. That it is a crime, against both nature and equines. That it is unhealthy and dangerous. But at the same time, her gift tells her that for as complicated as it is, it is as true as hers and Prince Armor’s. It is well-balanced and stable. Her magic even tells her it is necessary for our continued well-being. And to further complicate things, while she has heard the stories and reasons behind our relationship, and she understands them rationally, she has not experienced enough to understand them fully.”

“So there’s only half a dozen ponies who know about this?”

“And there are several guards who at least suspect, I believe. But that might just be the natural paranoia that any secret is more obvious and widespread than it truly is.”

“And now me.” Gilded said slowly, too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice what the princess just said. As possibilities started trying to bubble to the surface of her mind, the sky—which had been darkening for the last moment or two—suddenly started roiling. And while there was no hint of lightning, a constant, low rumble filled the air, a hint of ozone teased her nose, and her whole body prickled as every sense warned her of the coming storm.

“Why?” the deeply unnerved pegasus asked. “Why me? Actually, why are you even in my dream? I wasn’t having a nightmare, was I?”

Princess Luna impressed her will on the dreamscape, just enough to adjust the barometric pressure back to where it should be, before speaking.

“Earlier this night, I encountered a rare thing. A sexually-charged nightmare. I immediately went to the dreamer’s aid, because Princess Cadenza and I do agree that sex should never be defiled by unwanted fear.” the princess explained. “I was thus confused when I entered the dreamscape, only to find a pair of ponies making love, as tender and romantic as any starry-eyed filly might wish. Until the dreamer called his partner, ‘sister’. He tried to pretend it was just a random dream, and while I did not correct him, I knew it was not. It was obvious to me that the stallion genuinely loved his sister, in a way our society would not condone. So when the stallion could not keep himself composed in my presence, I decided to go looking for his sister, to see if, by any chance, you reciprocated Salmon Run’s feelings.”

Gilded was left speechless that her twin brother apparently felt the same for her as she did for him, and needed a moment to process that. Looking up at the sky, she noticed the oppressive atmosphere had vanished, and recalled it hadn’t lasted long in the first place. It made her suspect the princess may have had a hoof in it. And that led to other suspicions.

“Princess Luna, can you control dreams?” And when the princess confirmed her suspicion, she asked the question she really needed an answer to. “Was I really dreaming about my brother?”

“You were dreaming about two anonymous stallions who had no true identity.” Princess Luna admitted. “There was some similarity to your brother, however. I merely made it less ambiguous. If you had shown any distress, I would have immediately reversed the changes.”

“But why? What does it matter, whether our feelings are mutual, or not?”

“My relationship with my sister has proven that just because society has villainized incest does not mean it need be inherently wrong. And since your feelings are mutual, I would like to give you the chance to make your dreams a reality. So to speak.”

“…How?” Gilded eventually asked.

“I can escort you to his dream, so that you can share the night, if you wish. And if all goes well, there might be more.”

“I do want that.” Gilded quickly decided. “As long as Salmon really wants it, too.”

“Then I shall be right back.” Princess Luna said, standing up.

“What?”

“I need to check to see if Salmon Run is currently dreaming. Ponies spend only a fraction of their sleeping hours dreaming, after all. If he is, I shall return to collect you.”

“And if he’s not?”

“Then I shall return to let you know as much. And we shall try again later.” Luna quickly reached inside her to determine the location of the moon. “Tomorrow night, most likely, considering the time. I have tarried here longer than expected.”

“I’m sorry, Princess.”

“Do not be, Gilded Lily. I enjoy helping ponies come together. Before my banishment, and before Princess Cadenza came along, my sister and I were unofficial avatars of love. Celestia, who brought light, and life with it, was associated with both motherhood and sexual love. Perhaps paradoxically. While romantic love was ascribed to me, because of my connection to the night and the moon. They have long been considered quite romantic, after all.” And with that, the princess disappeared from the dreamscape. But before Gilded could do much more than blink, she had returned.

“He is dreaming, and of you.” Luna said, lighting her horn. “Let us go.” A glowing path of stars appeared, leading up towards a moon that hadn’t been there until now, and both ponies trotted up it, leaving Gilded’s dreamscape behind.

Author's Note

1. I never even thought about the fact that the device the sisters gave Twilight would eventually break, wear out its parts, or maybe just run out of magic until literally as I was writing that bit. Scary thought, huh?

2. Kith and kin used to be words for describing, respectively, something more than friends, but not exactly traditional family—like brothers-in-arms, for instance—and ponies who were family of the heart, and sometimes by law, but not by blood. Like Twilight and Spike, for instance. Nowadays, the terms are kin and close kin.

3. Before they found the Elements, they met a mare who had gotten pregnant and given birth, but not weaned her foal. So their best estimation is one to three, maybe even four years, but that really was the only clue they ever got.

4. So, apparently, Sombra is Equestria’s Hitler. Just with dark magic, instead of syphilis. Who knew? I sure didn’t, until I noticed the parallel a few hours after writing that sentence! Although, in retrospect…

5. Stallions don’t really go into a proper rut, like, say, deer do. But when a mare goes into heat, she produces unique pheromones that affect any stallions that have any attraction to mares. These effects include being more easily aroused, increased potency and aggression, and production of certain pheromones of their own—and stallions who are exclusively attracted to their own gender will react to these pheromones, instead of those produced by mares. So even though they’re not reduced to a mindless, Pon Farr-like state, ponies still refer to it as a rut.

6. Ponies only have one age of majority, that covers everything—drinking, smoking, gambling, sex and voting—and it’s when they enter their first season. The average age of which is seventeen, plus or minus a year, usually. Two, at most, and that’s vanishingly rare. As in, only three ponies during Celestia’s reign have been recorded coming into season at fifteen, and four at nineteen. And for those like Twilight and Sunset, who never experience heat, age twenty is when they can legally declare themselves adults.

7. And apparently, Princess Platinum is more Diamond Tiara than Rarity. It’s strange the connections my mind makes and the places it goes.

8. A being is any creature, sapient or otherwise, that has all the characteristics of living things, whereas an entity is anything that only meets some of them, like viruses. And Discord, who—despite being able to copy himself at will—only produces perfect copies of himself, instead of a truly new and independent lifeform, so is not considered to “breed,” in the scientific sense.

In case you're curious, stratocracy. You gotta love it when the puns come premade.