Limerence

Chapters

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Part I

The Princess of the Night had a good reason to avoid Manehattan.

It was not that she had never known a city like it in her time. So many new advances in both technology and society had occurred while she was still on the moon. So many things that still bewildered her even now, years after her return and redemption. The ones that allowed a million ponies to live cheek-to-muzzle, flank-to-flank, crammed into the city’s apartments and tenements were hardly the most disquieting.

It was not that, at night, the streetlights drowned out the feeble pinpricks of her beloved stars in the firmament. Reducing even her mighty moon to a co-starring role in the urban constellation, muscled from its privileged place by the brightness of neon lights and incandescent bulbs. A part of her took a perverse pleasure in having been proven right, in a small way: that the ponies of Equestria did not, after all, really need the light of the natural sun to relish and play in.

She avoided Manehattan because of what the city looked like from the Dreamlands.

It was the reason why, despite her purview being all of Equestria, the Princess of the Night only visited the dreams of ponies in places like Canterlot or Cloudsdale, whose inhabitants numbered in the thousands or tens of thousands. The stories that their dreams told about each other were simple enough to be legible. Few enough for her to feel like she could truly know them. To be able to be the guardian, mentor, or friend that they needed.

But Manehattan was a city of a million ponies. A million ponies with a million dreams. A million mindscapes melding together into a thick forest, dense and gnarled and twisting, blending together their wishes and wants and pains and doubts. So many dreams at once for her to process that she could not help but see the patterns and commonalities between them. Could not help but feel somewhere deep in her mind that these wonderful creatures were not each unique and singular souls, but rather simple animals of predictable desires and fears.

She could not stand it. She could not stand seeing them this way, and the feelings that regard brought about in her. But she also could not stand admitting to herself that to her, Equestria did not truly include the places where most of its inhabitants lived. That she thought about the sleepy little farming town of Ponyville far more than grand cities like Whinnyapolis, Fillydelphia, or Baltimare, each a hundred times its size.

So the Princess of the Night chose to turn her gaze towards Manehattan once more, expecting to see what she had seen on all the previous nights. That thick forest of dreams, stretching out in every direction, filling her vision and sense of space, disorienting her until she was overwhelmed enough to concede, telling herself that she had tried her level best, and that there was no dishonor in admitting defeat.

But this night was not like most nights.

This night, from deep within Manehattan’s dark tangle of a million reveries, one dream shone in particular, bright and strong and clear. A passionate vision of sparkling white and brilliant diamond and rich indigo, piercing the murk and mire with its dazzling strength.

Intrigued, the Princess of the Night turned to it.

The Element of Generosity shone brightly like always.

Not in a literal glow, but in the way her words floated up and down the tonal range as that theatrical timbre infused her voice with an effusive energy. It was a version of her that was distilled down to the essence of her traits, as ponies met in dreams often were. All in all, a brilliant performance by the subconscious that summoned it, taking up so much space that Luna, for a moment, forgot that she was here to find the dreamer, not the dream.

She was easy enough to spot, being the only other creature in this recreation of Rarity’s Manehattan shop. A demure young earthpony of light pastels: a cream coat, an adorable lavender collar around her neck, and a bob-cut cyan mane. And cyan eyes. Eyes that were clearly only for the subject of her dream, gazing at the apparition of Rarity with an unspoken longing as the unicorn chattered on and on about some reconstructed anecdote.

“So,” the image of Rarity intoned, “that is why my return to Ponyville is delayed for a day. Can you believe it, Miss Pommel?”

The earthpony simply nodded silently, as Rarity continued in her dramatics.

“The worst! Possible! Thing! An entire day in Manehattan without a single thing planned! And it would be so outré to make new ones at the last minute. Oh, what-ever shall I do to fill my time?” She flopped herself expertly onto a chaise-longue that had appeared out of nowhere in a fit of dream logic, placing the back of a hoof on her forehead in a classic woe-is-me. With the hoof still on her forehead, she turned to look at the dreamer directly.

“Have you any ideas, Miss Coco?”

Luna saw the earthpony open her mouth to speak, as well as the worry in her eyes when no words found their way out of her mouth. The worry became a shrunken-pupil terror as the silence stretched into an uncomfortable length.

The image of Rarity spoke with annoyance in her voice. “Miss Pom-mel, I do believe that I have asked you a question, and the only polite thing one can do in such a case is to give a response. What-ever shall-I-do?”

She closed her mouth and opened it again, as if the action would reset something in her, but there was no apparent change in that frozen expression of uncertainty. Luna frowned, the discomfort in the air getting strong enough for even her to feel secondhand, as the expression on the image of Rarity’s face soured further.

“Miss Pom-mel,” she spat, with uncharacteristic venom. “I have hired you as an assistant to assist me, which includes speaking when spoken to! If you are suddenly unable to perform even the most basic of your duties, then I see no reason for us to continue our professional relationship. I will expect you to clear out your personal effects from the back office immediately, and--”

The image of Rarity froze mid-sentence, her mouth still half-open in her contemptuous snarl. Luna could see the confusion in the dreamer’s eyes as she took a moment to process what had happened. Then, the shock as she recognized the image of the alicorn in front of her.

“Princess Luna!” the young earthpony exclaimed. “Oh, I thought that you never came into the dreams of Manehattan ponies--”

The dreamer closed up her mouth with her hooves, horrified at what she had just said. Luna just gave her a chastised smile.

“Yes, it is true that it is rare for me to visit the dreams of the ponies of these lands. But that does not mean I never do. Now.” She pointed at the brilliant apparition with a wing. “Do tell me about her. And yourself.”

“Oh, that’s Miss Rarity! But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Luna nodded. “Our paths have crossed many times, and I am honored to be able to call her a friend.”

“Oh, of course!” the earthpony marveled. “She is such an amazing pony, of course she would know the Princesses personally!”

Luna smiled. “I assure you, knowing me personally is hardly an amazing feat.” But from Coco’s reaction, Luna could tell she did not believe those words. Well, of little matter. “Now, from what I have seen so far in this dream, I take it that you are one of her assistants, Miss… Coco, was it?”

“Coco Pommel!” she confirmed brightly. “And yes, I am! Shop assistant, design assistant, well, every type of assistant, really! And it’s such an honor for me. To be able to work so closely with such a brilliant mind. I mean, look!”

Despite her lack of unicorn magic, with a wave of her hoof, Coco conjured forth an array of dresses from around the shop to display themselves in front of Luna. Such was the power of the Dreamlands.

“Aren’t these designs absolutely genius?”

Luna looked them over politely, but did not voice her thoughts. Her thoughts about how they so profligately used the gemstones and silks that were much rarer in her time to the point where they no longer held the sacred meaning that scarcity imparted. How their unfamiliar cuts struck her with a deep sense of impropriety if she imagined them on the ponies of the Grand Galloping Galas of old. How they used their shapes and patterns as mere ingredients to be stirred and mixed at will into a batter by taste, instead of letters of an alphabet to be carefully assembled into words, words into coherent sentences, sentences into flowing poems.

Instead, she just gave the excited earthpony an apologetic smile.

“I must admit, I do not have the best eye for these things. My sense of fashion is, well, about a millenium out of date, I’m afraid.”

“Ah!” Coco realized. “Of course, that makes sense! I mean, that’s okay.” With another wave of her hoof, she made the dresses disappear. “I guess you aren’t here in my dream to talk about fashion.”

“Indeed, I am not,” Luna confirmed. “What drew me to your dreams was her.”

She gestured at the frozen image of Rarity, still somehow glowingly radiant despite the scowl on her face.

“The way she appears in your dream. All brilliance and splendor. It is not mere admiration. It is something more, is it not?”

“Something more?” Coco asked quizzically. Then, her cheeks flushed. “Oh! Well, I mean… I suppose…“

Luna laughed comfortingly, and laid a wing softly on her withers. “Worry not. What I see within these dreams is strictly confidential. It would be a stain on my honor as the Princess of the Night for it to be otherwise. I am here to help you.“

Coco blinked. “Help me? With what?”

“With learning to speak your feelings.“

With a practiced shimmer of her horn, she manipulated the dream to take on the form of Rarity, as Coco looked on in surprise.

“Now, Miss Pom-mel,” she spoke, relishing the emphasis on the second syllable. “It appears as if a mixup has caused me to delay my return to Ponyville for a day. Can you imagine? An entire day with not a single thing on my social cal-en-dar! Oh, what-ever shall I do to fill my time?”

Coco’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but once more, not a single word found its way out. Luna batted Rarity’s eyelashes at her expectantly, which at least elicited an “I… I…” from the struggling earthpony, but nothing else. Frowning, the Princess of the Night cast off Rarity’s form and voice, and spoke gently with her own.

“Now, Coco. For you ponies, this is the purpose of dreams. A chance for your minds to simulate and face the challenges that await you in the waking world, but without the frightening consequences. The only wrong thing to do is exactly what you would do in waking life.”

“I’m so sorry, Princess Luna.” Coco frowned. “It’s just that you sound just like her!”

Luna could not help but beam at that. “Back in the old days, my sister and I shared a love of the theatrical arts. Though I was by far the better actress. But I do apologize. I should be more encouraging. This is your opportunity, Coco. Do not be afraid to take it. Now, let us try this again.”

Donning the form of Rarity once more, Luna looked deep into the sky-blue of Coco’s eyes, and smiled. “Now, Miss Pom-mel. I do believe you were meaning to tell me something before we were so rudely interrupted. Ticket mixup. No train. Empty schedule. What do you have to say about that?“

Coco stammered. “I… I…”

Luna held her smile, even when it looked like the silence would stretch on into an interminable length once again. But then, after a nervous swallow, a bit of steel found its way into Coco’s eyes, and she began to speak with a surprising passion.

“I think about you every second that you’re not here! You are the sun in my sky! I never even knew how gray and dull and mediocre my life was before meeting you! You are a shard of brilliance that fell into it, like a crashing comet from a world above this one, a world I never thought I would ever have a chance to even touch, let alone be a part of, even if it’s in the small way that I am! And I have nightmares every night about losing you, because I know I can’t possibly compare to what your brilliance expects and deserves! I can’t even let myself dream that I could ever deserve you!”

Luna’s face fell, which meant Rarity’s did as well.

“Er… aouhweoh,” she said, very realistically, before switching back to her original form and voice.

“Perhaps it would be better to say something on the order of proposing a pleasant evening together. A stroll through Manehattan Park. A play at Bridleway. Something along those lines.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry Princess.” The bright red on Coco’s cheeks contrasted strongly with her pale coat. “I, uh, got a bit carried away, didn’t I?”

“A little bit. It was something perhaps better reserved for beyond the first date. A good deal further.”

Coco hid her face with her hooves. “Oh, I must have sounded crazy! I don’t think anything I said even made sense! I’m so embarrassed!”

With a comforting smile, Luna patted her gently on the withers with a wing, until Coco was able to peek back at her from between her hooves.

“Do not be ashamed. It was actually a very passionate declaration. Why,” she chuckled, “back in my day, I have heard many similar speeches that have stirred my heart. Yours would have ranked among them.”

“Oh!” Coco’s eyes widened in surprise, and she laughed nervously, which caused Luna to frown.

“What is so funny?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Princess Luna. I just have a hard time imagining an Alicorn Princess being interested in such things.”

“Ah, yes.” Luna blinked. “Yes, that’s right. You would have a hard time, wouldn’t you?”

From the look in Coco’s eyes, Luna could tell she did not have an answer, but to be fair, it was not a question Luna expected an answer to. She smiled gently.

“Well. Rest assured, I actually have plenty of experience in such matters. Now.” With a glow of her horn, she took on the form of Rarity once more. “Why don’t we try this again?”

The Princess of the Night dreams during the day.

She does not get nightmares on her own, like ponies do, their own minds punishing themselves for their guilts and fears so as to better prepare them to face the challenges and dangers of their waking life. The mind of an alicorn does not work that way. All the better, for what it takes to create alicorn nightmares is too powerful. Too dangerous. Too prone to leaking out into the world of the awake—a lesson that she had learned all too well.

So the Princess of the Night allows herself to dream. Hardly anything to note on most days, when her dreams are tranquil and featureless landscapes with nary an other soul.

This day, like many other days before it, she dreamt of something wonderful. Starting so similarly to all the other times. The gentle caress of a hoof on her coat, the preen of a mouth on her wing. A soft muzzle, pressed against her ear. A breathy voice, whispering sweet nothings into it. If only it had ended there.

If only she had not seen those familiar eyes, staring into her own, the most intimate trust and vulnerability radiating from them. If only she had not heard that familiar voice, so gentle and loving, speak those familiar words she had heard so often before. Those three words that cut at her, deep into her soul.

The Princess of the Night jolted awake, anguished.

The Element of Generosity smiled at her assistant.

Behind the mask, Luna smiled genuinely. Coco had progressed wonderfully over the past few moons under her guidance, and their little simulations had become more like improvised plays, with Luna relishing in how she got to really sink into her character of Rarity the Unicorn. And was this more confident Coco a character as well, being played by the shy, shrinking young mare that she had first met?

Did it matter? Luna waved away such thoughts, and sank back into her role. She could believe that she and Coco really were sitting here on a bench on the edge of Battery Park. She really could feel the breeze coming off the Cudson River, hear the background chatter of the anonymous ponies passing in front of them on the path. See, in a new light, that sense of admiration in Coco’s eyes. She was Rarity now.

“Oh, what a wonderful evening it has been, Miss Pom-mel!” Rarity intoned. “I was afraid that a day without a schedule would be a day wasted, but who knew that a simple stroll through the city streets without a worry in the world would be exactly what I needed?”

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful how the city opens up to you when you are here without a fashion show to enter in, or a friendship problem to solve?“

“Ah, yes! Playing the flaneuse has been oh-so-much fun!“ Rarity beamed. “You have truly shown me the beauty of the city today, and I cannot thank you enough for it. ”

“Well.” Coco smiled at her. “But that’s what you do every day, isn’t it? Bring out the beauty you see in the things around you. That’s your gift to the world.”

Rarity laughed airily, and fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh, Miss Coco! How could I possibly accept such a generous compliment?”

“Ah, Rarity.”

Rarity blinked, a bit taken aback by the firmness of the reply.

“I think ‘Coco’ is just fine. We know each other well enough now, don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes. I suppose you are right.” Rarity frowned. “Perhaps I have been thinking of you more as my assistant rather than a—”

“Friend?”

“I was going to say colleague, but yes, friend as well.” Rarity looked down guiltily. “Oh, to still think of you that way after the wonderful day we shared. I do hope you forgive me. I realize now that we have known each other for years, but I hardly know about you in the way that you know about me. That while I would often go on and on about the troubles of my personal life back in Ponyville, I would never ask you about yours.“

“Oh, it’s not your fault, Rarity. Honestly, I was more than happy to just listen to you talk about yourself. You tell the story of your life with such flourish. Like every little incident was the scene of a grand play.“

Rarity giggled her exaggerated little giggle. “I must say, Coco, that is the most complimentary way anypony has ever called me overly dramatic.“

Coco laughed. “But it’s true! And I couldn’t imagine anything I had to say about my own life could be nearly as interesting. So it took me a while to find my voice.”

“Well, I am most glad that you have, Coco.” Rarity smiled at her. “I must say, it has been unexpectedly refreshing, seeing this side of your personality. I just wish that I could have helped bring it out earlier.“ She sighed. “But it is exciting, this new prospect of getting to truly know the mare that has been at my side for all these years.”

“Oh, but you already do know some things, Rarity,” Coco insisted. “You know about my love of community theater.”

“Yes, and it took my cutie mark magically glowing before I showed such an interest!“ Rarity despaired. “That day should have been when it started. Seeing the possibility of reviving something so wonderful. I should have seen the potential in you. I should have gotten to know you better then. But I practically ignored you after the ‘mission’ was done!”

“But I understood. You had somepony else on your mind at the time.”

Rarity smiled an embarrassed smile. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

A stretch of silence passed between them. Rarity shifted her eyes nervously, but Coco gave her a steady look until they could meet her gaze.

“Rarity. Have you ever considered that you belong up here?”

Rarity blinked. “Whatever do you mean, Coco?”

“Every time you visit, you gush to me about how wonderful it is to be in a place so lively, so teeming. How much prouder you are of Rarity For You than your other stores, because the competition is so much fiercer here. Every time you leave, you despair about how long it will be until the next time you can come back. So why leave?“

Rarity frowned. “But Ponyville is my home. I grew up there. It’s where I started, with the Carousel Boutique, being Ponyville’s ambassador from the world of haute couture.”

“Exactly!” Coco agreed. “You’re the town’s fashion horse. Everypony trusts you to make their dresses and gowns beautiful.” She added a bit of steel to her voice. “Just like they trust the town’s baker to make them a delicious cake.”

Rarity frowned, and turned her eyes away, even as Coco gently laid a hoof on her back.

“But is that where you were really meant to be? Those tastemaker ponies you admire, like Photo Finish and Trenderhoof, that your whole little town gets excited about when they deign to visit? They live here. And you’re their equal, even though you don’t talk about them like you are.”

Rarity felt Coco taking her hooves into her own, and finally turned to look at her again.

“Up here, you can be around ponies who truly appreciate you. Ponies that see you for who you are, and celebrate it, instead of trying to hammer you into the box that they need you to be in.”

She saw the passion in her eyes.

“Yes, I suppose that does sound quite wonderful.” Rarity sighed. “To be understood, and not dismissed as quirky, needless, and impractical. Emotional.”

“Yes!” Coco held Rarity’s hooves tighter, and brought her face closer. “And you deserve somepony who makes you unafraid to be who you are. Who understands your field, instead of thinking that Stinky Bottom's Discount Hat Emporium is the height of it. Who would do anything to help you reach your potential, because she truly believed in what you are doing.”

“That… That does sound nice.”

Their muzzles were almost touching now, and Rarity could see how the brilliant cyan of her mane, reflected in the cyan of her eyes that seemed now as deep and as refreshing as a waterfall pond on the hottest summer day.

“Yes, that does sound quite wonderful.” Her eyes drifted to Coco’s lips, so round and soft and inviting. “As is this sensation of meeting you anew.” Her own voice softened to an almost whisper, as they approached—

“This would be a good place to stop, don’t you think?”

Luna blinked, suddenly remembering who she was. “Ah, yes,” she said, in Rarity’s voice for one last time, before casting off the unicorn’s image and speaking with her own. “Yes, we did both agree on that, didn’t we?” She tried to keep her voice from sounding flustered. “I admit, I was able to fall quite deep into the performance. It is a testament to how far you’ve come.”

Coco giggled, bashfully averting her gaze, Luna noted how the confident Coco of earlier had seemingly reverted a bit just now.

“Ah, yes, ‘performance’ is the right word, isn’t it?” Coco said.

She smiled, and Luna could see that not everything had reverted: the intensity with which the earthpony was looking at her did not seem much different from earlier.

“Yours was truly amazing, Princess!” she marveled at an almost-whisper. “It really was like I was talking with Rarity the whole time. It was almost perfect. But, uh.” She cast her eyes down. “There was one thing that you could never manage to get right.”

Luna frowned. “There was?”

“Yes.” Coco looked up and smiled at her nervously. “Your eyes.”

“My eyes?” Luna puzzled. “But no, their color should have changed with the spell.”

“Oh, they did! I mean, moderate cyan to moderate azure, at least!” Coco got out with confidence, before averting her gaze again. “But, uh, it was more than a color. No matter what, there was always a deep sadness in them. A true depth that Rarity’s never had. And though I originally meant the things I wanted to say for Rarity, I, um…” She swallowed nervously, and turned her gaze back to Luna. “I’ve come to realize that for a while now they were really meant for you.”

Luna stared in shock as she processed this. As she did, she saw something in Coco’s eyes, looking back at her. Something familiar. Something she had been seeing all along, but did not want to admit that she had. Nor to think about it.

And in Coco’s eyes just now, something else flashed. Recognition.

“Princess Luna,” she began, with a bit more confidence in her voice. “Like I said, I’ve always seen your true self in your eyes. I saw that you were more than just acting. You feel it too, don’t you?”

She should have denied it flatly, but could not bring herself to. Instead, she was only silent.

“So you do feel it!” Coco gave an excited whisper. “Don’t you, Princess?”

She should have looked straight into her eyes and lied, but could not bear the thought. Instead, she closed her eyes and said, “Even if I do, that does not mean I can act on it. I cannot allow myself.”

“But why can’t you, Princess?” Coco reached out to gently place a hoof on her cheek. “Why can’t you let yourself?”

She should have pushed her away, but could not reject the softness of her caress. Instead, she said, “I am afraid.”

“Afraid?” A shocked sympathy filled Coco’s voice. “What could you possibly be so afraid of, Princess?”

Even without opening her eyes, Luna could sense Coco bringing her muzzle closer to Luna’s own. The offer of her mouth.

“It’s just the two of us here, alone. Isn’t this the purpose of dreams?”

She could imagine the softness of her lips. She could imagine pressing her own against them. Of tasting them. Of tasting—

A sob broke out of her, ragged and sharp. “I simply cannot,” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry, Rose.”

Realizing what she had just said, the Princess of the Night grimaced, and slowly opened up her eyes to the sight of Coco looking back at her in confusion.

“Rose?”

Part II

The Princess of the Night dreamed the same dream again.

A dream of a dream in the Dreamlands. It seemed absurd, on the face of it, but there was no reason for such experiences to not form the raw material of a dream themselves. Sometimes she wondered if her waking life was a dream as well, and that some day she would finally stir from it. Sometimes she wondered if that would be for the best.

Like always, her mind tried to give her the most pleasant of visions. A fantasy where that dream she had walked in moons ago had gone right. If she had not finally turned away, told that enticing young earthpony mare that their time together was at an end, and fled from her mindscape like a frightened foal.

Her mind gave her the sensations she would have felt if she had accepted that kiss, the taste of those lips. But her mind did not know what those lips would taste like. So it substituted the closest thing she could imagine. A familiar taste. A familiar feel.

Suddenly, the form of Coco’s was that mare, and the Princess of the Night recoiled. With such strength that the dream around her, the dream of that dream, the dream of that dreamer, all began to dissolve back into the roiling depths of her subconscious from whence it came. As she felt herself being yanked into the waking world once more, the Princess of the Night could not help but come to a realization about something she had just seen.

The dream did not need to change Coco’s eyes.

The Keeper of the Archive frowned as Luna approached her.

In a dramatic flourish, the Princess laid the book in her aura down and open on her desk, then jabbed at a section with a wing.

“Surely, this cannot be it? Only a single paragraph? And what is the meaning of this?” She pointed her wingtip to the numerals that were printed underneath the name. “‘Seventy-eight A.C. to question marks’? These numbers are meant to be their lifespans, are they not? What kind of a number is three question marks?”

The Keeper of the Archive looked at the spot where Luna was pointing, then looked up at the Princess and spoke apologetically.

“I’m afraid that this reference is actually compiled from a secondary source, itself compiled in the mid-5th century from the few Palace documents that had survived the, ah, Occultation.”

The Keeper of the Archive winced at her own words, and Luna understood why. She had learned, quickly enough, the capitalized academic term that was used to describe the gap in the historical record left by the emergence of Nightmare Moon.

“They simply must have not had records of the Royal Couturière’s death, and thus could not fix a date for it,” the Keeper of the Archive explained.

“Yes. Of course.” Luna blinked. A part of her wondered if there was hope. Hope that she had indeed lived a life past that point in time. Lived a wonderful life and died, anonymous and happy. Should the idea make her glad?

She considered that as she read the words she was pointing to again.

Rose Bardot
78 AC - ???
Born in the town of Chevallerault in 78. Represented the Barony of Patteau in the Grand Galloping Gala of 98. Joined the Lunar Convent as Royal Couturière in 99.

Three sentences. The only mark that she had left behind in history. Nothing about how soft her muzzle felt in Luna’s wing. Nothing about how her coat smelled of lavender and chamomile in the mornings. Nothing about that adorable way she would misinterpret common sayings, then awkwardly try to use them in conversation. Nothing about how her lips tasted of honey when she kissed her each time. Nothing at all.

Something came to her.

“You said secondary sources. Does this mean that there were primary ones?”

“Yes, I do happen to know that, actually.” The Keeper of the Archive looked at her nervously. “As a Royal Couturière, her sketched designs would have been preserved by the Keeper of the Archive at the time. Unfortunately, the originals were lost in a fire in the 7th century, but prints of them were collected and published before then, though extant copies of such an obscure book are, ah, fairly rare now.” The Keeper of the Archive frowned. “I, uh, don’t suppose, you would like to request that as well?”

Luna considered for a moment, then frowned. The thought of seeing her work again, knowing what would await her in those pages...

“No, I would not,” she declared, to the Keeper of the Archive’s odd relief. She considered something else.

“On second thought, I have also changed my mind about requisitioning this tome. It would do well to undo your earlier ritual.”

“Ah, of course!” The Keeper of the Archive opened the book to the inside of its front cover, and with the ritual seal, affixed the proper sigil next to the one she had just placed minutes earlier, though this one in a different color. “And I can return it to the shelves, no worries, Princess Luna. It is my job as the librarian, after all.”

“Very well. I thank you for your most gracious assistance.”

She turned away, already plunging herself into rumination and regret. There was a reason she had never tried to look her up in the historical records before. For the same reason she had never looked up Bright Oats, or Arca Pluvia, or Illuminance, or any of the others.

Yes, three sentences was far less than she had expected, and this had surprised and dismayed her. But what if it had been three paragraphs? An entire book? An entire shelf of books?

If there had been an entire building’s worth of books dedicated to her, if a thousand scribes spent a thousand lives describing every facet of her wonderful existence in every immaculate detail, would she have been satisfied with what she found then?

It would not be enough to bring her back.

The Princess of the Night dreamed of something wonderful.

It pained her to see it, as it always did. The image of Rose, looking exactly as she had in life. Every last, wonderful detail, a betrayal of her own mind against herself. And worse still. She spoke to her, and the Princess of the Night could not turn her ears away as she could her sight.

“She has my eyes. The colors of my coat and mane. My voice. Do you ever wonder?”

The Princess of the Night frowned, at last giving in to the illusion. “Perhaps.” She sighed. “But I have never seen her in the flesh. I have yet to peer into her coil.”

“Well, I hope that you do.” Rose smiled at her beatifically. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a part of me again?”

“To repeat history? That is hardly something I would want to do,” Luna said sadly. “It has been a thousand years, Rose. Even if a part of you is in her coil, what meaning could it possibly have after so much time, so much mixture?”

“Oh, but that’s exactly it! Don’t you see? This means something more than a mere family resemblance could. How couldn’t it?” She smiled sweetly. “Besides, in any case, she would not be our descendant. You never did see fit to give me foals.”

Luna’s voice was filled with regret. “You were still young. You had yet to finish your great work. I wanted to wait. Had I known what would happen—”

“No. Do not regret that. Never regret that!” Rose insisted with a smile. “Haven’t you tortured yourself enough for it?”

Luna could not bring herself to agree. She could hardly bring herself to look at her.

Rose frowned with concern. “I worry about you, Luna. You are hiding yourself away, even when the world is offering you something wonderful. You hide yourself away from Coco, and even in here, you hide yourself away from me. You do not let me touch you the way I had in life.”

Rose softly reached out with a hoof, and was gently rebuffed by Luna’s wing.

“Because I cannot,” she spoke.

Rose pouted. “But why not?”

“Because you are not really here.” Luna swallowed a sob. “You are the impression that the real Rose left behind in my mind. I am not doing anything more right now than talking with another part of myself.“

Rose gave her a serious look. “Luna. That impression I left behind is all I ever hoped to be. Look at me! My voice is still alive in your head, centuries after the last pony who ever remembered me as more than three lines in the Royal Archives drew their last breath! Isn’t that wonderful?“

Luna felt the touch of Rose’s hoof on her wing. So familiar. So welcoming. She fought back the tears in her eyes.

“My touch is still alive in you. My taste. You can feel it all again. If you just—”

“I cannot,” Luna sobbed, pushing her away. “I cannot allow myself to!”

“Why not?”

“Because!” Luna roared. “You are more than my memory of your touch! You are more than my experience of you. To accept the touch of your image would be to betray the pony you actually were. To admit that you are less meaningful and real to me than the impression of you in my mind, because it is still here and you are not.”

She looked beyond Rose, to the row of mares standing, patiently, absurdly, behind her in the dreamscape. Lovely horns and soft wings and beautiful coats of all the colors of the rainbow.

“And it is the same for all those who came before you as well.”

The Secretary of the Night approached her Princess hesitantly.

Having worked her way up the ranks of the Palace staff for decades, she had seen so much in her career that Luna had very rarely seen the look on her face that she was wearing now. Befuddlement.

“My office has received a request for a special audience from you, Princess Luna. A personal one. ”

Luna blinked. It was rare enough for a pony to request such a thing from her and not Celestia. Rarer still for the Secretary to deem it appropriate for her attention. “A personal audience?“

“Yes, Princess. An apprentice fashion designer from Manehattan. Named Coco Pommel.”

Luna could not keep the shock and dread from her face.

“I was surprised too, your Highness,” the Secretary spoke, not registering the dread. “Few craftsmares would have the audacity to simply request a personal audience to convince you of their wares, especially one so early in her career.” The Secretary frowned nervously. “But you will have to trust me, my Princess. You will want to see what she has done.”

Luna considered refusing. She could have done so easily, of course. A single word to banish this apparition of flesh and blood before it ever had the chance to appear in front of her. Yet, she could not bring herself to. Some part of her was sickened by the very idea.

So she did not refuse, and spent the rest of her morning pacing her office alone, trying to distract herself from the coming hour. But there was not much to distract herself with. In old Equestria, she would hold court in her chambers, surrounded by her personal artifacts, the very space itself imbued with a sense of her life and past. Her office, despite her having used it for years, still had no such adornments. The only way to tell it was hers at all was the dark-blue-and-black color scheme of its interior design, and the lunar sigil adorning the top of its standing mirror.

At last, the appointed hour came, and Luna put on a cordial smile as the earthpony entered the room, pulling a dress horse on wheels behind her, itself covered with a white shroud.

“Princess Luna. It is so wonderful to meet you in the waking world!” she greeted, a happy smile on her face. One that was no less radiant to Luna for having seen it so many times in the Dreamlands.

Luna smiled, and returned the greeting. “As it is for me to meet you, Miss Coco. My Secretary says that you have created something for me?”

Coco nodded, gesturing to the dress horse. “It’s something I have been working on for many moons now. You’ve helped me so much, Princess Luna. I could not stop myself from creating something to express how I feel about what our time together meant to me.” She spoke with a familiarity that betrayed nothing of what had happened in the last minutes of that dream they had shared together last.

Luna played along. “I am glad that my counsel has been of such help to you. But there was never any need to burden yourself with such a task. Knowing that I have aided one of my subjects in my duty is reward enough for me.“

“Oh, Princess Luna!” Coco laughed. “This was hardly a burden! I was inspired. And I would like you to come closer for this. You will want to see the details.”

Trying not to show the hesitance in her steps, Luna approached her and the dress horse, getting close enough to Coco to make out the individual hairs in the coat of her muzzle. It was all Luna could do to keep her face cool and steady. She had steeled herself, for Coco looking and sounding exactly as she had in the Dreamlands. For the timber of her voice and the sky-blue of her eyes to recall the ones that Luna had lost so long ago. But her scent. She did not expect it. That lightest of musks. Lavender and chamomile. Just like hers had been.

And if she peeked with the delicate magic of her horn, she could see her coil. See if she—

No. She shook her head.

“Are you all right, Princess Luna?” asked Coco.

“I am, Miss Coco. No need to worry,” Luna assured with a forced smile. “I have simply been working my duties quite hard as of late, and have found myself less than at my full capacity in these morning sessions.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay,” Coco said sympathetically. “I just hope you are there enough to appreciate this!”

With a theatrical flourish, Coco pulled off the white shroud to reveal the dress underneath.

Luna gasped.

A heavy fabric of rich, dark blue, almost black, studded with diamonds, instantly making her think of her beloved stars scattered across her night sky. Because they were those stars, arranged in their familiar constellations that she saw every night, the luster and size of each gemstone corresponding with their counterparts in the sky. And peering closer, she could even see the minor stars between the bright, named ones, represented by the tiniest of gemstones or, for the smallest, diamond-impregnated thread, stitched and spliced into the fabric. The kind of stars you could not even see in the night sky above old Canterlot, for even the faint light of their torches were enough to drown them out.

It took her a few moments of stunned marveling to realize the most impressive detail.

Coco spoke, as if reading her mind.

“Getting the position of the stars right was the hardest part. When I first tried to complete your Royal Couturière’s sketches, the stars all seemed off from each other in all these little subtle ways. But then I realized it! They must have drifted from the positions they had when the sketches were made! So I took the time to figure out where they had been a thousand years ago, and was able to finish her work.”

And indeed it was her work finished. As if that unfinished dress Luna had seen in the position of most importance in her studio so many times over the years was suddenly in front of her again. That same black fabric. The placement of those first, major constellations.

“Would you like to try it on, Princess?”

Luna nodded silently, and with an expert mouth and hooves, Coco draped the dress over Luna’s back and got it closed around her. She rolled out a mirror, and Luna looked herself over in it. How she disappeared into its shape, becoming the night sky itself. How the dress vented over her flank, perfectly exposing the moon of her cutie mark, as any proper piece of formal wear should.

“It fits perfectly,” Luna marveled.

“Yes, it does,” Coco agreed. “I based it off of the measurements in the Royal Couturière’s sketches.” To Luna’s surprise, Coco then ran a hoof along its perfectly-fitting neckline. “She must have known your body well.”

Luna’s eyes widened, and she realized she must have been blushing slightly. Coco’s eyes were fixed on hers.

“And through her work, I saw what she must have seen in you, Princess Luna. I felt like I understood her. She wasn’t just trying to recreate your familiar night sky. She was trying to express what it represents.“

Coco gestured at the windows up above, the light of the freshly-raised morning sun pouring through them.

“During the day, a single sun dominates the sky. The stars are still there, as they always were. They are just rendered invisible. Buried deep underneath the sunlight, as if they never existed in the first place. As if a single object is so great and powerful it can dictate what is seen and what is not.“

Then, with a hoof, she swept the expanse of the dress on Luna’s body.

“But at night, it’s different. At night, the moon rules the sky, but she does not bury her subjects in her light. She lets us see them as they truly are. She lets us see that some stars shine far more brightly and strongly than others, but all stars, no matter how small and insignificant, still have their fixed position in the tableau. Each a stitch in the tapestry, each contributing its light to its natural beauty and patterns. Each knowing their place in a part of something greater. “

She placed a hoof gently on Luna’s cheek. The Princess did not shy away.

“And that is beautiful. And far too few ponies see that beauty. Far too few ponies appreciate it like it deserves to be. But she did, didn’t she? That is why you were her muse. ”

Coco was right in front of her now, her face so close their noses were almost touching, her voice lowered to a whisper.

“I see it too, Princess. I see the world-defining beauty inside of you. Something that takes this chaotic universe and just makes sense of it all. Cleaves it at the joints, between the fabulous and the unfabulous. Something that makes my mind feel at ease. And I want to lose myself in it. If you will let me.”

The Princess of the Night stared into those sky-blue eyes. She saw an echo of a refuge that had once been open to her. A glimmer of that calm and peace she once felt so many years ago. They called out to her, beckoning, welcoming her into them again.

She turned herself away.

The Princess of the Night dreamed of her again.

Her voice, now that she was allowed to speak again, took on the familiar contours it had followed in life. Disapproval, tinged with exasperation.

“A second time. First, you push her away. Yet she crawls on her belly across a thousand years, toils countless hours over many moons, just to prove to you her devotion. Then you push her away a second time?“

“I did not push her away. She is in a guest chamber for the day, to await my reply. But I should not have even granted her that.” Luna closed her eyes. “Even that is giving in to temptation.”

“‘Giving in’?” Her frown was audible in her voice. “What more does she have to do to prove to you that she truly sees you? Loves you? Wants you? Truly and freely?”

“She thinks that she does. But she does not.” Luna looked at her. “She is still but a filly.”

“She is the same age as we were when we met!”

“And you were but a filly then, as well.”

Rose frowned, her voice dripping with offense. “I was certainly not! Don’t you remember how I first caught your eye? Representing the Barony of Patteau at the Grand Galloping Gala? Do you think that the Baroness would have chosen a mere apprentice, or even a journeymare, to represent her demesne? I had been a master designer for three years by then!“

Luna blinked. “No. No, that is not right.”

“What do you mean?” Rose shouted. “You even saw that in that history book! I really did--”

“No. This is what you at first thought was the way you caught my eye. But I remember the conversation where I told you the truth.“ She gave her a sorrowful look. “It was not your work that caught my attention. It truly was stunning, the best of the entire Gala, which was especially impressive for somepony from such a backwater province. But I had seen dozens of equally impressive designers over the many decades of presiding over the event.”

She looked into Rose’s eyes. A perfect, clear sky-blue that reminded her of another’s.

“Your work was not what drew me to you. It was how you had your grandmother’s eyes.”

Rose blinked at this realization. A silence fell between them for a moment, until she spoke.

“Yes, that’s right. That is how I caught your eye, isn’t it?” Rose chuckled softly. “But do you remember what I said in that conversation?”

Luna did. “That you were so very glad, then, that I had your grandmother before you, for that is what had brought us together.“

“Yes. And I meant every word. Truly.” Rose smiled at her sweetly. “So why were you afraid?”

Luna frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Why were you afraid to look at her coil? Didn’t you want to know? If a part of me survived in her?”

Luna grimaced, her only reply.

“Does it bother you? The idea of me having foals with another?”

“Of course not,” Luna said flatly. “That is what I was hoping to find. That you lived without me and moved on. Found love again. Lived the rest of your life happy somewhere. I would give anything to know that was the case.”

“Luna.” Rose sighed disappointedly. “You and I both know that’s not true.“

“But it is!” Luna insisted. “I want to know.”

“Luna. If finding that out was really so important to you, there is one thing you would have done right away.”

Luna’s face fell as she realized what she meant. She began to protest.

“No. I couldn’t possibly bring this up without talking about everything else. And I couldn’t possibly--“

“Luna.” Rose’s voice was stern. “You have been back for half a decade now. It’s time you talked to her about it.”

The Princess of the Night closed her eyes, and sighed in defeat.

The Princess of the Sun gave Luna a pitying look, and said the words she had expected, in a tone she imagined her sister had used many times before in her long life.

“I am sorry, Luna. I cannot help you with this.”

They were in Celestia’s office, a space more intimate than the grand hall of a throne room in which they gave court, more fitting for a personal audience. In a way, Luna supposed, this was indeed her own personal audience with her sister.

“But I do not understand. You have never shied away before from telling me of what happened to the other ponies we both knew then. What makes this so different?”

“It is better to let some parts of the past remain buried. What use is there to bring up those that have long gone to rest? They can only bring pain with them when unearthed. “

“Pain?” Luna frowned. “Don’t talk to me like I am one of our subjects, Tia.”

This caused Celestia to frown as well, and take a step back. Luna continued.

“Yes, we feel our connections with the ponies in our lives just as strongly as any of our subjects do. We celebrate with them their triumphs, mourn with them their losses, and share with them the little nothings that make up their day-to-day lives. But as alicorns, we do not remember those that have gone from our lives like they do.”

Celestia looked at her in silence for a few moments, before walking up to an ancient painting, its pigments faded despite the many times it had been restored over the centuries. She gently put a wing up to the figures inside, and smiled.

“We do remember them well, do we not? But we do not remember our departed like they do. We only feel the joys of their having been with us, and not the pain of their present absence. How else could we function otherwise? When our long lives fate us to have every inch of space we move in come with a reminder of a pony of our past?”

It was only then that Luna recognized the architectural detail of the arch overhead, and realized where they were. This had once been the room where they held the Evening Court: more private than the ceremonial throne room where they received dignitaries, more fitting for running the actual mechanisms of the state. As she surveyed the floorplan, her mind filled in the details of the space as it had existed a millennium ago. As well as the details of the ponies that had once filled it.

Arca Pluvia’s steely smirk as she gave her reports from the front lines. Hovering in the same place, Tonitrus’s confident, booming voice. Greyhoof’s reluctant chuckle on the few occasions that Celestia managed to get him to laugh at her deliberate antics, as well as Sage Brush’s smile at every one of them. The same joke the Venerable Steed always told about how he was too proud to use a sledge for his atrophied legs. The curious wonder in Bright Oats’s voice as she told of her latest discoveries, unchanged in the mare of three-score-and-ten from the filly of fifteen. The way Timid Quiver covered her own face with a wing, the way Citronnier did not pronounce the “r”s at the ends of her words, Grape Galette’s bright smile, Illuminance’s airy laugh…

And she remembered how they mourned.

She had seen the sorrow that flickered across Sage Brush’s face every time she saw that the peonies were in bloom, her late wife’s favorite. How Tonitrus wept after giving his first report, feeling unworthy of being in the place of his mentor. She sympathized with them and gave them her support, but could not empathize. She could not feel as strongly as they did, for all of the countless ponies that had been in her life and were no longer.

Luna realized that neither she nor her sister had spoken for a very long time. Looking at her, she could see the same wistful smile she imagined herself as having sported. She realized that for every such memory Luna had, her sister would have ten times as many. She realized that they were both doing the same thing. Remembering them. The closest an alicorn could come to mourning.

Well, mourning most ponies, that is. A shard stuck in her. A longing for the caress of Arca Pluvia’s wing, to feel the stern battlemare melt in her embrace once more. A throbbing wound that was the sense of unfairness, stitched deep across the fabric of the universe, that she would never truly feel it again.

Celestia spoke, giving her reprieve from that wound. “Yes, you are right, Luna. That is how it is supposed to be for us and the ponies of our past. But for you, it is not that way for all of them, is it, dear sister?”

Luna heard the concern in Celestia’s voice, and realized that she must have seen that flicker of pain.

“You are as attached to them in their death as you were in their life. But we were always different in that regard.” She moved on to another painting. All mares this time, a mix of pegasus and unicorn and earthpony. Their coats were in all the colors of Celestia’s flowing mane, but they wore identical plain, white cotton shifts, which were each emblazoned with a golden circlet where their cutie marks would be underneath. A conspicuous caption described them as the Celestian Convent, 93 AC.

“I did love them. Of course I did. Just as I loved every one of my subjects. Each a unique soul deserving of a good life, peaceful, and in harmony. I did what I could to make them happy. I shared in their joys.” She looked at Luna. “But that was all I took from them. I never felt the desire to make it anything more. Not like you.“

“And that is why you found it easy to end the practice once I was gone.”

“Yes.” Celestia gave her sister a firm smile. “Of course I did. You saw what it was doing to our subjects. How it was already distorting their incentives. The most ambitious families, offering up their daughters to us as if they were the prize fruits of the harvest. No matter what we did to discourage such things, no matter how many punishments and regulations we put in place, our ponies always seemed to find a way of obeying the letter and not the spirit. That is what parenthood does.”

Celestia frowned.

“Could you imagine if we valued our progeny like they do? What hope would the common pony have of advancement or redress, if we clogged up the highest ranks of our society with our descendants? What hope would our descendants have of wholeness, raised in such privilege? Could you imagine? An aristocracy based on heredity, and not merit? But even with our hooves on the other end of the scale, that is where we were headed. No. It could not be allowed to continue.”

Luna frowned as well, realizing that they were now talking about everything, as she had feared. “But you did not simply stop at establishing the tradition of the Celibate Queen. You distorted our history until it seemed as if it were always thus. Erased what they truly meant to us. Or rather, what we truly meant to them.“

“Yes.” Celestia gave that firm smile again. “Easier to create a new system of morality, when it is not being dragged down by the memory of the old. Easier to bury those roots so deep that our little ponies don’t even know where their wedding traditions came from.”

With a single look, Luna instantly understood what she was referring to. The last time they had spoken, if obliquely, about these issues. Or rather, fought.

“What greater proof is there, of how deep I managed to bury those roots, but Princess Cadance? She’s truly a mare of her time. The Equestria of now.”

Luna grimaced, spitting out her words. “It was all I could do to hold down my bile, when I saw the Alicorn Princess being the one dressed in white, being given a golden ring by a stallion.”

Celestia smiled at her. “You were always the better actress between the two of us, weren’t you? But no, I do not wish to make light of it. I understand that despite how far you’ve come in adapting to the modern age I’ve created, seeing that must have been the most difficult. I truly do appreciate everything you have done for the sake of living in this time. But that is exactly why you must leave the past where it belongs.”

“That is easy for you to say, sister. These paintings, these bookshelves. They are filled with your past. The past you have gotten to live for these past thousand years. Why do you have this right, but not I?”

Celestia was not taken aback, and had an easy answer. “It is because I do not long for the past.” She took a thick tome from her shelf in her aura and showed it to Luna, the pages inside clearly ranging from the most ancient vellum to relatively pristine.

“This is a collection of the final letters from my faithful students, at the end of each of their long and fruitful lives. You will not find a greater and more profound collection of meditations on the nature of mortality. Each a distillation of the life’s work and philosophy of the queendom’s brightest and most curious minds throughout the ages. I read through it from time to time, and when I do, it is as if my beloved students are alive before me once more, eagerly telling me of their latest discoveries.“

She smiled warmly, idly flipping through the pages before closing the book and replacing it on the shelf.

“But when I am not doing this, I do not feel the pain of their absence. Their memories do not intrude on my thoughts. They do not appear in my dreams. I do not try to find them once again among the ponies of the living.”

Luna sighed, preparing to concede defeat. But there was something in the look Celestia had on her face as she had gone through those pages.

“But what if you had never gotten one of those letters?”

Celestia gave her a quizzical look. Luna continued.

“What if one of your students had not lived a long and happy life in your peaceable queendom, but rather had disappeared one day, to live out the rest of her existence somewhere beyond your knowledge? And what if you had a chance to get that last letter after all? To be told of all she had learned and seen? Wouldn’t you do anything for that?”

Celestia frowned as she considered this, but did not reply. Luna insisted.

“Because not all of those letters are happy ones, are they? And when they are not, you feel the sorrow in their words, don’t you?”

Celestia conceded. “Yes, many of my students never reached a point of accepting their ultimate fate. They put all of their passion and eloquence into expressing their rejection and horror of it. And I do feel their anguish with them when I read their words.“

“But you read them just the same. And you would do anything for that letter, even if it caused you such pain. You would do anything to know, wouldn’t you?“

Celestia nodded in silence. Luna pressed on.

“You do not have to feel the way I do to understand that I need to know. That nothing could be worse than not knowing. Please, dear sister. Tell me what happened to her!”

Celestia looked at her in silence for a few moments, a solemn expression on her face. She then walked over to the western wall, and placed a wing on one of the rough-hewn stones.

“We still had access to the original quarries that Mistmane had used to build these walls, so the restoration was perfect. By the time depictions of the castle appeared once more past the Discontinuity, it was difficult to tell the extent of the damage that had been caused during it. But it was quite thorough. This entire side of the castle was completely destroyed. Your side.“

She gave her a sorrowful look.

“There were no survivors.”

Part III

The Princess of the Night could not bring herself to face her.

But she knew that Rose was facing her. Even in her dream, she could not stop her from speaking.

“Do you remember now?”

“Yes.”

Without opening her eyes, Luna still knew that Rose was giving her that familiar and warm smile.

“Do you remember how you tried to make yourself forget?”

“Yes, I do.” Luna sobbed. “A thousand ways to hurt the ones closest to me. To be then destroyed in turn and to deserve it. A thousand versions of that night, in every permutation, with every mixture of the ponies in my life both past and present. It was not to hurt myself out of guilt. It was to drown out the real memory in a sea of fake ones. To make me think that I was remembering the fragments of a dream.“

“But it wasn’t a dream, was it?”

Luna opened her eyes. Her voice was weak. “No.”

Rose smiled at her. The same smile she had given her that night. No different from any other loving smile she had given her throughout their time together. But it should have been.

The words that she said to her that night had been no different than any other time she had said them. Those same three words she would whisper to her at the end of whenever they would make love. That same reverent tone.

“I am sorry.” The words seemed absurd. How could mere words said to the mere shadow of the pony in front of her possibly mean anything? But she could not help but say them over and over as a desperate litany, a supplication for a forgiveness that would never come and never be deserved. “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

Rose frowned at her, concern deep in her sky-blue eyes.

“Is this why you have been so afraid to love again? Because of what happened to me?”

“How could it not be? How could I possibly love again? Let myself love again?”

Suddenly, Rose began stroking Luna’s wing with a hoof, and Luna felt surprise at herself acquiescing. The softness of Rose’s fetlock was exactly how she had remembered. The way it calmed her, too.

“You are not the mare you were then. You will not make the same mistake again.”

Luna could not meet her gaze. Her voice was choked with sobs. “How could you possibly know that?”

Rose spoke steadily and calmly. “Look at what it has made of you. A poor and broken thing, hiding from her own memories. Hiding from her own people. You know the consequences now, deeper than you could have ever imagined. Down to your very bones.”

She placed a hoof on Luna’s chest.

“You will not make the same mistake again,” she repeated. “And that is what we must take from the past. What is the point of guilt? What is the point of feeling pain? To remind us to avoid what is bad for us. Any amount beyond ensuring this is needless. Especially when there is no restitution to be made. What would feeling one more pang of guilt ever do for me? I have been dead for a thousand years. All that is left of me is three lines and a few rough sketches in old history books nopony reads. That, and what is left of me in your mind.”

She smiled sweetly.

“And you knew me well enough, Luna. Well enough to know that I would not want you to feel guilt about what you did to me. You know that, don’t you?”

Luna did not speak. She could not bring herself to agree.

Rose sighed sadly. “You have so much life in front of you. Do you really think that I want to be the last one you have ever loved? To spend the rest of your millions of days flagellating yourself over me? We spent ten wonderful years together. We were always fated to share no more than fifty. Will you start letting yourself love again, then? When you have tortured yourself for longer than I would have been alive? If one lifetime is not enough, how many are? Ten? A hundred?”

“None could ever be enough. I could never cast you away as if you were nothing. As if your death meant nothing.”

“You won’t be! Don’t you see? What better sign could there be? That your first love after me is practically my reincarnation?” With a wave of her hoof, the dress Coco had made appeared in front of them, shimmering and ethereal.

“What better way to give my life meaning than to love and cherish the pony that completed its greatest unfinished work? For me to live on, not only in your head, but in hers as well? And not only hers.”

Another wave of the hoof. A constellation of dresses, elegant fabrics and delicate lacework, ornate patterns and elaborate motifs.

“A pony of her talents, who understands both this strange, modern world of fashion and the world of our time. Who better to bring this tradition back to life again, with the imprimatur of the Royal Couturière? Can you picture it? My designs living on, in a world of the distant future I never could have possibly imagined. My legacy, far more than three lines in a chronicle and a few rough sketches in a dusty old book.”

She took both of Luna’s forehooves in her own.

“And they truly will be my designs, because they will be coming from the same source. The same font of inspiration.“

With the tip of a hoof, she booped Luna gently on the nose.

The Princess of the Night tried to hold back a smile, but could not prevent one from flashing across her face, if only briefly.

“I…” she began, trailing off. She closed her eyes. “I wish that I could. But I can’t stop feeling the guilt. Even if I wanted to stop. Which I still don’t.”

“You don’t have to stop, or even want to stop. But wouldn’t it be awful if you let your guilt over me stop you from doing what I would have wanted you to?”

“It… It would,” Luna admitted. “But I don’t know. How could I love again, knowing that in a mere pony lifetime, she will age and die“—she turned to look at Rose, and past her as well—”and join your eternal ranks?”

“Oh, but that was always the deal! We were always to be drops of water, fated to create a ripple that spreads across your surface for a while, until the ripple is no more and its water joins your ocean.”

She stroked Luna’s chest with a hoof.

“But don’t you see what is wonderful about that? How generous? We are here for a fraction of your lifetime, but you fill ours. From the moment of our betrothal to our dying breaths, we get to know we will be with the one we love and worship for every second of it. What a marvelous gift to give! How cruel it would be to deny it out of fear!”

She looked deep into Luna’s eyes.

“And yes, you will feel sorrow when we pass. You will feel regret when something reminds you of our short time together, and how you wish you could have made more of it. How you wish it could have been longer. But it would never have been enough, would it? I could have lived to be a hundred, always by your side, and the sight of me in your dreams would still give you that aching hole of longing in your chest that you feel right now.“

She tapped Luna’s chest for emphasis, giving her a determined look.

“But don’t you remember the joy as well? The sensation of my touch, the taste of my lips? You can have those joys again with her, discovering them in all their wonderful uniqueness. Do not despair that you know you will outlive her, that you can already imagine her becoming a memory. Cherish the time that you have with her. Love her as fully and as deeply as you can, for as long as you are able. And when that all-too-precious, all-too-short journey that you will share with her finally ends, let her join our eternal ranks.”

She placed herself against Luna’s side, nestling herself between her body and her wing.

“Let us not be these formless specters to haunt you during the night. Let us comfort you in death as we once had in life. Let us be with you as we once were in flesh and blood, here, in the Dreamlands. That is all any of us would have ever wanted. To live on in your mind, to keep giving you our love unimaginable centuries past our dying breaths.“

Tears filled Luna’s eyes as she felt the warmth of Rose’s body against hers. That familiar sensation. That urge to take her deeper into her embrace, to feel her kiss. The knowledge that, yes, the real Rose that had been dead and gone for a thousand years had truly thought all of these things, and even said as much. That the thought of Luna imagining her now, long after her death, taking comfort of her assuaging words and touch, would have only brought her the greatest of joys in life. That she truly did love her in this way.

And that Coco would as well..

She opened her eyes, and though she was looking through a vale of tears, Rose’s adoring, sky-blue gaze still shone brilliantly through them.

The same sky-blue as Coco’s.

Giving in, she met Rose’s soft lips with her own, tasting them, luxuriating in that soft hint of lavender and chamomile.

The same scent as Coco’s.

Breaking the kiss, she blinked away her tears, and smiled softly at Rose, who was smiling softly back. A familiar sight she had seen countless times in their years together. Not a single iota less beautiful for its familiarity.

In a loving voice, Rose spoke to her.

“I am so glad. That you are choosing to truly live again. That you have changed. You’ve finally accepted what our love means. What all of our love has always meant. It took you so long, but you finally did it.”

She looked at her with love and adoration in her eyes.

“You are not the mare you were then. You will not make the same mistake again.”

“I am not the mare I was then,” Luna repeated after her, a teary smile breaking across her face.

In the eyes of this image of Rose, Luna saw the exact same eyes as she had in the memory she had dreaded for so long. That look of ultimate trust and devotion.

“I will not make the same mistake again. I will never betray another as I have betrayed you so awfully.”

Rose did not reply right away. But even in the silence before Rose spoke, Luna could feel an odd tension in the air.

“Betrayed?” Rose asked, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“The look you gave me that night. The words that you said.” Those three words. “You trusted that I would see your love for me, and that it would be enough for me to stop myself. It should have been enough. I’m so sorry that it wasn’t.”

Rose frowned. “You thought that is what I meant by those words? You thought that I was begging you for my life?“

Luna frowned. “What else could they have been?”

Rose smiled at her sweetly, and stroked her chest again.

“I saw what the transformation was doing to you. The raw power that was surging through you, an amount beyond your ability to control. At least, beyond the ability of what you once were.”

Rose looked deep into Luna’s eyes.

“I knew then that my death was inevitable. I was telling you that I was perfectly okay with that. I was expressing to you the depth of my devotion. That your will be done, even if that will end my life.”

An icy hand gripped Luna’s chest. Rose giggled airily.

“Can you imagine what most ponies are fated to? They are cursed to live their little lives of mundane mediocrity. They are cursed to love their little loves for each other. Cursed to never know the true depths of love’s devotion. The true fullness of love’s joy. That is the gift you’ve given me, my Princess. The gift that you’ve given us.”

A cold dread suffocated her lungs, contrasting sickeningly with the warmth of the mare on her chest. And not just her. Behind her, came the members of the eternal ranks, and the sensations they brought with them. The gentle brush of Timid Quiver’s wing on her own. The firm massage of Citronnier’s callused hoof on her thigh. The shine of Grape Galette’s eyes, as blue and bright as those of her granddaughter’s next to her.

“We are but drops in your ocean. Breeding stock, raw material, for you to do with as you wish. For you to use to enact your will, as is your very right. We all knew this. We all wanted this. And you know this. Deep in your bones.”

Each caress and kiss, unique and meaningful and familiar. Melding into each other, forming a revolting tangle of devotion and love. Suffocating her. Sickening her. As Rose spoke, her voice was joined by those of the others. Each one full of the personality of the mare they had belonged to in life, each speaking in unison.

“But the ponies of this time have been made ignorant. They may be materially rich, but they are spiritually poor. You must give back to them what they have been deprived of. Give back to them their talents and bodies being used for a greater purpose than the anomie of their individual lives. Give back to them the joy and peace that true love and devotion and obedience brings. Give back to them the ancient songs that hum in harmony in their very blood. Give back to them their place in the great Chain of Being, and the sense of rightness woven into the fabric of the universe itself that comes with knowing that a deserving, immortal ruler unafraid of Her own power sits at its very head.”

Their voices melded into each other, singing their words to her in time with the throbbing pulse of the blood in her body as her dread built on top of dread.

“You are not the mare you once were. You will not make the same mistake again.”

At last, too late, Luna realized what voice was emerging from that hollow chorus. That familiar, echoing timber. Visions of a sky cast into eternal night.

“Your sister will not be able to defeat you a second time.”

Part IV

The Secretary of the Night puzzled at the visitor’s frown.

“You should be happy, Miss Pommel. A Royal Warrant at such an early stage of your career is hardly heard of! The Princess must have been quite impressed by your work.”

“But ‘zero dresses per year’?” Coco glanced over at the dress horse that the Secretary had brought in, returning to her the dress she had earlier offered.

“Oh, but that is the best part! The prestige of a Royal Warrant without an actual obligation to deliver. What more could an artisan ask for?”

The mirth on the Secretary’s face fell off as Coco continued to frown.

“Ah, but I do not wish to make light of your disappointment. I know that not all of you artisans are mere social climbers, and do actually care if the Royal Household uses your work. But please, do understand. It was a great gamble to gift her such a thing. The Princess is rather sensitive about the time of her reign before her banishment. And as reactions go, moving her to the point of never wanting to see it again is quite a testament to your skill. Please, do take comfort in that.”

Coco simply nodded silently. She hesitated, before asking, “And was there anything else that the Princess wanted to let me know?”

“Ah, I am afraid not,” the Secretary replied apologetically. “She was quite firm on that, and that any further correspondence that you may wish to have with her is to be routed through my office.”

Coco did not need it to be explained to her what that meant. And despite the pleasant smile on the Secretary’s face, she clearly knew it, too.

“And with that, I am afraid this does mark the end of the Princess’s official audience with you, Miss Pommel. Please do be kind, and make sure to clear out your personal effects from this guest chamber by the mid-afternoon today.”

This night, like every night, from deep within Manehattan’s dark tangle of a million reveries, one dream shines in particular, bright and strong and clear. A dazzling vision of sapphire blue and scintillating stars in a sea of darkest black.

This night, like every night, the Princess of the Night stands on that dream’s precipice. Feels the comforting warmth of its enticing glow on her soul. Reflects on the fact that a single step forward would be all it would take to join herself to it. Lets herself imagine, just for a moment, the peace and calm and joy it would bring her.

This night, like every night, the Princess of the Night turns away.