"The sky is beautiful tonight." Masculine, yet tepid, the voice washed over him like lukewarm water.

Artemis felt his lips curl upwards.

There was a pause in conversation. The fluttering of wings were twinned with the thumping of large feet. Small tendrils of dust swirled up in the mockery of a breeze caused by the miniature wing beats, the particles floating for a bit, before settling back onto the cold, stone road underfoot.

"Even now, you insist on playing the role of the flatterer," Artemis replied. He felt a tug at the base of his throat; a giggling fit that he had been suppressing for the majority of the night swelled up, fighting to escape him.

"Why stop? Messing with you is fun—not that what I said wasn’t true,” The man said with a shrug of his shoulders. His suit was in shades of indigo from bright to dark and resembled that of a bachelor, albeit far more ornate and decorative in that it looked worked by hoof. He was most certainly the source of conversation at every little shop and loitering place on the road to Canterlot Castle, if the blatant stares and the whispers of talk dancing along the breeze were of any indication, though Artemis wasn’t certain how much of that was him, or how much of it was him being held in his friend’s arms.

Thinking about it made him blush and gasp softly.

"You gonna be alright down there?" Tony’s hazel eyes strayed to his. Mirth and amusement danced merrily within them, and his mouth was quirked upwards in a lopsided grin.

Artemis cleared his throat as he draped his head over his shoulder. "I am alright, Tony," he assured his companion.

"Your brother would kill me, Arty, if anything happened to you. And your father would probably hunt me in the afterlife to kick me out so Sol could do it again."

Artemis barked out a quick laugh. "You over-exaggerate."

Tony thumbed his nose and sniffed as he looked down at the pony in his arms. "You only think I do. Sol is a force of nature, in his own right." Tony grinned. He wasn't that afraid of Arty’s brother. Still, he had an obligation to him to get his brother home say—preferably dropped as few times as possible, since he had lost that stupid bet, and had come into town carrying Arty, as per the terms of his defeat.

Artemis had nearly turned in his arms, his wings skewed as he looked back the way they had come.

"I do not see any… What was the word? Stalkers? I do not see any stalkers from the direction in which we came. It appears luck spared us of the most aggressive fanfare,” Artemis said as he turned back around, nestling himself into his companion’s arms—a quick glance upwards revealed that Tony made no notice of it; if did, he didn’t show it at.

"I don't either—and fanfare? Maybe for you," Tony agreed with a light laugh, though he never turned around. Perhaps, he was telling the truth when he had told him that he had eyes on the back of his head. Or, he could have simply been lying about not seeing any stalkers, because when Artemis had inspected him, he had seen no eyes with which to see besides the two parallel to his nose. "We should be able to make it back before Solaris eats all the cake; I was keen on winning that bet so we could’ve had it all to ourselves!”

"I suppose," Artemis sighed. “I still think we should have purchased more for this little game. He probably ate it all by now. He gets… peckish quite quickly, even after eating a ridiculous amount of food.”

"Peckish. More like prickish." Tony laughed at his own joke.

As they rounded a corner, Artemis shifted himself within his friend’s grasp, eyeing the rapidly approaching castle. So close, yet he almost felt a pang of disappointment at the thought of their arrival, because that meant that game was over; his friend would have to put him down. That thought made him ineffably sad, for reasons he couldn’t yet piece together.

The road began to show little signs of wear and tear, the winding path leading up to the Castle being clear of everything; ponies, houses, and all. The only thing occupying his view now were the rows of perfectly aligned fauna, planted to supplement the Castle’s already significant majesty.

Tony pulled a sip out of a water jug he had tied to his side, as they arrived at the entrance proper. “So, how much you willing to bet it’s all gone?”

“My life.”

“That’s a big bet.”

“I’m confident,” Artemis responded, though internally, he dearly hoped he was wrong. That cake was too good to be wasted on his brother.

And then, the castle was upon them, or rather, they were upon the castle; at the gates, to be more specific, though specificity wasn’t particularly important unless it was the kitchen, because that was where the cake was.

The guards didn’t hassle them one bit, only sparing a glance to eye them up and down before returning to their vigilant, yet boring “let’s see who can look more like a statue,” charade.

With brio, Tony bounded up the steps of the castle entrance, threading his way up towards the door, where he pushed it open with his shoulder.

“And, we’re back!” Tony craned his neck downwards, directing his boring gaze into Artemis’ closed eyelids. He could practically hear his friend arch an eyebrow. “This is where you get off.”

Popping an eye open, Artemis stared down the human for a moment before huffing and tossing himself down to the ground, landing perfectly on four hooves.

“To the kitchens?” Though what he was really saying was, “to the cake.”

“To the kitchens," Tony agreed.

Artemis perched himself on the lip of one of the kitchen counters, his mouth suddenly insufficient to turn any thought into words. “He… I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that he had the courtesy to spare us even only two slices.”

Laughing, Tony tugged himself onto the counter alongside him. “I don’t know why you were expecting anything different. You said it yourself on the way back that he had probably eaten everything.”

“W-well, I was clearly being facetious!” Artemis spluttered out, ruffling his wings in frustration. “That cake could have fed an entire family! My brother is- he is a pig!”

“Hey,” Tony lightly hit him on the shoulder. “That’s a bit much—” he paused, grinning a bit “—however accurate it may be. And chin up Arty, we still have our two slices!”

“Chin up,” Artemis said blandly, locking eyes with his friend. “You’re seriously going to tell me to chin up?”

Tony shrugged playfully. “That’s what friends do.”

“Be—what is it the ponies of this era call it? A pain in the flanks?”

“Hey, you need to be a little bit of both if you want to sustain a healthy relationship,” Tony said before shoving him off the counter, precariously snatching the plate that held their cake, and dashing out of the door and down the corridor from which they came.

“H-hey! Y-you fiend! Come back!” Artemis quickly recovered and hastily righted himself onto his hooves. Pumping his wings, he launched himself through the doorway in pursuit.

Air pulsed wildly within his ears as he shot down the hallway at record speeds, eyes narrowing down on the rapidly approaching form of his human companion. The banners fluttered violently as he passed, the air singing with the beat of his wings. He locked eyes with Tony, who had taken a quick glance over his shoulder, almost dropping the cake in the process. Primaries tilted upwards, slowing him into a turn as Tony turned into an adjacent corridor.

His positioning was true; Artemis opened his hooves to tackle the human, but at the last second, Tony pivoted, angling a muscular arm and parrying him into a banner. He could feel the fabric on his teeth, he could smell the expensive material through his nostrils, and he could hear the infuriating laughter tailing a swift departure on two, thundering feet. Growling, he untangled himself from the banner and after taking a moment to triangulate onto Tony via the now subtle whispers of mirth still left in the air, he shot off in pursuit.

Down many corridors they went, all the while his friend eluded him utilizing the dirtiest of tricks and handfuls of luck at every turn, to the point that Artemis began pondering on the logistics of balancing a cake-laden plate in one hand, while artfully—or ridiculously, depending on how one looked at it—misdirecting him at every confrontation.

Only once they turned into the hallway that lead to his chambers did the pursuit finally come to it’s artificial conclusion.

Artemis barely had time to register the wall of white in front of him before he crashed into it, tumbling to the floor underneath—or rather, the Tony underneath. Landing with a soft “oof”, his wings flapped awkwardly in an attempt to correct himself, which in turn had him face to face with Tony.

A glance into his eyes, and then a glance down; following Tony’s gaze, Artemis regarded the lanky hand grasping at a half-smashed slice of cake dumbly, only registering what was happening when the front bit was stuffed into his friend’s mouth.

Gasping, he acted on pure instinct, shoving his snout downwards to capture the disappearing shaft of the cake, his eyes closing as his mouth exploded with flavor. Taking a moment to savor it as his teeth made quick work of the tasty morsel, his tongue shot out to reel in whatever remnants remained, but only when it met something warm of similar size, did his eyes shoot open.

Hazel eyes stared back into his, all iris. A muffled, confused cry vibrated up his jaw through their now locked lips. His mind was frozen, as his tongue practically melded itself to Tony’s, only straying idly to perform the task it had previously been assigned.

Reigning back control of his body, Artemis retracted his neck, leaving only a sticky strand of saliva containing bits of cake within it between them.

“Woah,” Tony mumbled, rubbing the corner of his mouth. “You coulda just asked; I would've given you some...”

Artemis remained silently, focusing on his friend’s face as his mouth continued to move. Hard-lined and bony, with a close crop of stubble spread along his chin. Fluffy eyebrows above almond-shaped eyes, lined by thin lashes. Brown hair, messily splayed every which way. A thick neck, leading down like a tree trunk, into a burly, yet athletic frame.

Tony Iglacies: Local human and his best, and only real friend, since his return from banishment. Sole ambassador, from a home he could never return to. An estranged soul.

Like me, he thoughtas he weakly made to say something relevant, but he slurred his words and lost it. Tony understood enough of it to look at him with playful understanding.

“All good; I proba—”

“Ahem.”

Deep, and powerful; a voice that belonged to neither of them, rang clear in his ears. A voice that was familiar.

Scrambling off his companion, Artemis eyed his brother up and down. The white wall from earlier, though he was of no need of reminding. Why would there have been a wall in the middle of a hallway anyway? He cursed himself internally.

There he sat, several feet away from them, sat back on his haunches as he lazily munched on the other wayward slice of cake.

“Your face is red, brother.”

Using every bit of his willpower, Artemis wrested control of his mouth from the cooling, withered hooves of his now-deceased psyche. “It was an accident.”

Solaris shrugged, finishing off the last bit of cake in his magical grasp. “I believe you. I would’ve done the same for a piece of that cake,” Sol finished, before shooting a wink at him. The color that had just been at the brink of fading, exploded back in full force, consuming the entirety of his face.

Huffing in annoyance, Artemis scooped up his dazed friend from off the ground with his magic. “C’mon Tony, let’s go to the gardens.”

“Art—”

“Hush, we’re leaving.”

Levitating Tony behind him, Artemis turned around and started walking back to the hallway intersection, each step ringing with a new, adversarial criticism and complaint, his entire face burning all the while.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, you hear my Artemis?”

“Shut up!”

Artemis awkwardly shifted himself on the bench, ruffling his wings nervously, his gaze fixed to the dark sky above. The cool metal below kissed his coat like ice, the breeze gently blowing into his face, though it did little to alleviate the burning remnants of embarrassment still left from his earlier encounter. Whatever adrenaline he had previously possessed was now gone, replaced by the empty clasp of tired confusion.

Why did I do that? He would think, yet his brain couldn’t contextualize a single reality in which his actions would’ve been warranted and or appreciated by either party, regardless on if he was thinking straight at the time.

“The sky is beautiful tonight,” Tony said, his tone warm.

He turned to his left, eyeing the human who sat on the bench next to him. “You said that earlier,” he mumbled.

Tony sighed and then chuckled, meeting his gaze. “Well, I thought it needed restating.”

Artemis rolled his tongue in his mouth, casting his gaze back over the garden. Ranks of hedges divided tangled overgrowth into an orderly fashion; pleasing to the eye. Flowers of all kinds interspersed weeds and grass, providing an ample cushion of greenery all along the ground. It was beautiful, in a naturery kind of way.

“C’mon bro. You’ve been silent ever since you dragged us to the gardens. What’s on your mind?”

“What do you think?”

“You said it yourself, it was an accident.”

Looking back towards Tony, he met his gaze once more. “And if it wasn’t?”

Tony was silent, his face devoid of any emotion for several long moments, in which Artemis felt his core chill, strangely. It was an accident, right? Then why am I asking these questions?

Then, Tony smiled, snaking an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into his side. “I’m not sure, but I do know one thing with absolute certainty: I’ll be by your side, no matter what. I can promise you that.”

Artemis felt a warmth fill his soul, as well as his cheeks—amazing as it was foreign. Hesitantly, he leaned his head onto Tony’s shoulder. He felt his companion’s breath graze the tip of his ear. “Already getting comfortable, are we?”

“It’s cold,” he retorted.

“Mmm. Whatever you say, bro.”

Artemis snorted, a tiny smile adorning itself upon his face.

“So,” he felt Tony’s eyes on him. “How’s life treating you? We haven’t really talked in like, a week, what with that new job Solaris helped me get; beyond this little excursion, but we didn’t really talk much—nervousness and all that. I’m sure we’ll be in the news tomorrow.”

Artemis sighed. “I received several more ponies at my night court than usual, which is zero, so I suppose that is worthy of mentioning.”

He could practically hear Tony smiling. “I mean, that’s a good thing, right? Why do you sound so glum about it—some ponies are better than no ponies.”

“Because they’re just the overflow from my brother’s court, almost akin to refuse leaking out of a disposal bin. Those who did not have the privilege of talking to my brother, so they went to the lowly moon prince, for surely he would grant their wishes, so lonely and useless was he,” Artemis ended bitterly.

“Hey, I don’t want to hear you talking like that, you hear? You don’t know why they came; maybe, just maybe, they came for you. You ever think of that?”

Artemis snorted. “I appreciate your attempts at consolation, but they told me.”

“Told you what?”

He grunted in annoyance. “What do you think? They told me that they came because day court had adjourned before they had the chance to take whatever business they had up with my brother, so they went to me.”

Like a wave, Tony’s shoulder moved his head upwards in a shrug. “So what? By things like this happening, maybe the general populace will see what I see.”

“And what is it you see?”

“I see a pony who has so much love in his heart, for his own subjects. I see a pony who is not what the legends make you out as—that you’re not some foal-theiving tyrant, who wants to kill ponies for his own enjoyment; maybe, they’ll see you for who you really are: A kind, loving prince, who is willing to give all that he has for them. They’ll see that they can start coming to you, not just because they couldn’t see your brother, but because you’re just as good of a ruler as him—if not better.”

Artemis felt almost a bit choked up. “Y-you really believe that? That I’m a better ruler than Solaris? Do you think they’d believe that, if I-I showed them?”

Tony rubbed his shoulder, his other hand mussing with his mane, almost akin to a child, though he paid it no mind. “I can’t tell you what they’d think, only what I do.”

“And how is it that you think?” He felt like he knew, but he wanted to ask anyways.

“I think that you’re a thousand times better than Sol, as a ruler and a pony—don’t tell him I said that though. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great pony. Wonderful guy, really. But you…” Tony rubbed his shoulder again and smiled. Artemis smiled alongside him; small, but real.

“Anyways, what I’m trying to get at here is that you’re a good pony. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different—“ Tony paused, turning to look him in the eye “—because, you're so much better than that.”

Then, silence settled, but this time, it was a silence Artemis found he could appreciate. Tony was here. Everything was alright.

“I love you, Tony.”

“I love you too, bro.”

And he found, as he leaned his head back down on his human’s shoulders, that somewhere deep down, he desired to be loved, not as a bro or a friend, but as something more. But for the time being… It was enough.

He closed his eyes.

Author's Note

An story I needed to write, liable to be dropped at any time, because I am me.