“Sister… Must I REALLY engage in this farcical exercise in folly and madness? You know well my own… “Position” in this matter. I stand firm in this… And as I think, HE would stand firm as well, in all vehemence and other suitable positions.” Luna strolled beside her sister, accompanied by a silent unicorn mare with a lime green coat and pale green mane, down the halls of the Canterlot palace.
“I’m sorry, my little sister. But, these are traditions that have survived from ancient times, despite all we may do to cancel them. Unpleasant as it may be, we still have to deal with this situation.” Celestia shook her head and opened a door to a small audience chamber, containing a small throne on a raised dais, and a square of alabaster before it standing out on the granite floor.
“Hmph! And why are you so immune to these inanities and tediums? How is it that you have not been hounded endlessly with courtings?” Luna took a seat on the throne, looking imperiously down at the alabaster square, while the unicorn took up a spot at her right side.
“As single ruler, I was left alone after I rebuffed courtship. They have respected my wishes, even though the nobles greatly desired to get themselves ingratiated into my graces. But now you are here. You are young and suitable, and they believe you might be a little… Desperate after your time on the moon. And like that horrid distant relation of ours, they want power to flaunt and bits to squander.”
“Desperation be but an excuse for poor decisions made without thought. One doth not need carnal delights as one requires meat and drink. They are mere pleasures. To be sure, greatly pleasurable, but mine hard choice was made amidst honeyed words and gentle understanding. Not a mere fire in my loins that needed cooling. Fie. Let this idiotic carnival of errors commence. Bring forth these ignoble noble ponies and their short-shrifted spawn (1).” Luna stroked her chin with a hoof and suddenly smiled aside at her maid, Lime Sherbert, who returned the smile. “Indeed… Let these highborn low-life creatures come. Quean or becco (2), I will teach them the price of their ambition.”
“Oh sister… I almost feel sorry for them.” Celestia winked at her sister. “Almost. I’ll send them in.” Celestia walked out of the room by a set of double doors, leaving them open after she had passed through. “All suitors, please come through one at a time or with accompaniment as needed.”
“So, your majesty, you could not just exercise some kind of royal privilege and stop this whole thing?” Lime Sherbert leaned over and whispered to Luna.
“I had considered it. But my sister was quite correct. I must answer these suits, even if I must waste my precious time with… But learn by example with this coming piece of dried stuff.” Luna sat up straight, staring at the new arrival to the room.
The first one into the room was a stallion, primped and preened into ideal perfection. He was large and built like Blueblood, sturdier than the average and flashing an amazingly bright smile. He looked like a focus group vomited up the cover of a Gentlemare’s Magazine, with touch-ups. His glossy coat was glistening ice blue; his mane was fluffy cyan waves. He wore a white tuxedo jacket with a night-blooming cereus as the boutonniere. Even his horn was polished. It was almost amusing. He trotted grandly onto the alabaster square and bowed deeply to the princess. “Good day, your majesty. My name is Ice Bleu, twenty-seventh Count Bleu originally of Chevalier, Percheron. I have come to court you. I am well-versed in the arts of courtship and have made it my mission to impress you.”
Luna considered the great unicorn, tracing over his form with her eyes. “Well, thou be’est well-timbered. (3) But such is said of ships. And no mare would throw herself into a lumbering bark in expectation of ecstasy or of close comfort. Vex us not with thy empty promises, thou foundering hulk (4); show us thy wits, if they not be kept in thy cod. (5) Thou art claimed to be such a fine courtier. Make thy case with all thy capability.”
Ice wasn’t sure what to think about that. He was expecting a kind and gentle response from the younger sister. He thought of her as a dainty, delicate flower, lonely after a long time on the moon and separated from the world. But he pressed on, placing a fetlock on his chest and standing proudly. “Dear Moon, heart of my desire, I have…”
“Stay. And go.” Luna pointed to the door with a haughty huff. “If all thy wit be born in dry repeating of the pieces put together from the leavings of others, without spark that means anything of thee, we have no use for ye. Be gone.”
As Ice turned around and clopped heavily out, looking both crushed and angry, Lime leaned over to Luna. “But what of your… Favorite? Doesn’t he repeat the things you like to hear?”
“Nay, my maid. He spake to me in words of his own devising when first we met. That stallion had wit enough to know the thoughts come first. When later on, in hours long together, when there are free moments and speech is in more than breathy pants and cries of delight, then may one repeat ancient texts, as compliment to one’s own wit. One doth not make supper of the spices that compliment one’s true meat. I have heard too much of this ancient hymn to the moon. I am not the moon; I am Luna.”
While Luna had been speaking, another courtier had arrived and taken a place at the alabaster square. This time it was a mare, wearing the kind of ruffled monstrosity of cream and mint crepe that could only emerge from one of the design houses that was not concerned with style and instead worried that the wearers might look insufficiently like a cotton ball. The mare beneath was another unicorn, a light pink lass with a flaming red mane. She looked competent, but overly confident. Her burning eyes were already sizing up the princess; Lime noticed, with some distress, they strayed over to her as well, broadening the smile on her face. “Good morrow, your royal and majestic highness…” The poisoned-tongued smiler bowed grandly, nearly scraping the ground with her horn. “My name is the Marquise Morning Star d’Venus, manageress of the March d’Venus of Prance, Percheron. It is a great pleasure to make your…”
“Morning Star, is it?” Luna cut in sharply, distrusting the mare even more immediately than the large stallion.
“Yes, my regal majesty.” Morning fluttered her long lashes and almost imperceptibly licked at her lips, with the quickest motion possible.
Luna’s horn glowed, summoning music from the air. But it was not the courtly music of strings and woodwinds, but music born of common fair pipes and squeeze-box reeds. Improbably, she also began to sing with the lusty energy of a country troubadour at a harvest festival. “The moone embraced her shepherd/ And th’ queen o’ dawn her scholar,/ While the first doth horne the star of morne,/And the next the heav’nly farrier! (6)”
As Lime Sherbert politely applauded, Morning Star looked on with confusion, some concern, and no more wanton looks and subtle motions. “Y-your highness?”
Luna pointed out the door sternly. “We doth cornute (7) thee ‘afore thou had thy chance to tilt or tup (8). Be thee gone.”
“Princess, if I may…” Morning trotted forward slightly, almost leaving the square of alabaster.
“Art thou uncomprehending?!” Luna called on the Royal Canterlot Voice, projecting powerful waves of speech down at Morning Star. “Thou art a cornuto (9), an egregious wittol (10), thou hast a passing high forehead (11) and thy eyes must needs be sore (12) beyond all words! Leave us to Aegisthus (13) and return to thy pandery! (14) Make the maids and stewards of thine own demesne tremble at thy presence but trouble not our household! Be thou GONE! Phewt!”
As Morning Star ran wildly from the room, Celestia stuck her head into the room with a barely-suppressed smile. “I heard that. Don’t tell tales like that. We have our secrets we keep. I’ll see how many are left.”
“Oh… Your majesty… That was very… Forceful.” Lime was visibly shaken, looking up at Luna with almost awe and fear.
“Mm? Oh, my apologies…” Luna heaved a sigh and shook her head. “But that mare… I could read her soul in the fire in her eyes. There was no wholesome warmth in her gaze. It was pure wantonness. I fear for the stallions and mares in her employ. And we may do little but wring our hooves and know they are there, in her clutches.”
“Goodness…” Lime shivered a little and leaned heavily against the throne.
Into the room stepped two figures, an older pegasus mare in subdued finery and a rather thick-built pegasus stallion with a bow tie. Both were pale blue with white manes. The stallion took up a place in the alabaster square while the mare spoke. "Greetings, my princess. My name is Lady Windemere, this is my son, the heir apparent to be Baron Windemere, Breeze. He is greatly interested in your favor, my lady."
Luna regarded the pair for a moment and shook her head. “We are sorry for thy ill favor (15), Lady. For how long has thy son been dumb (16)?"
“What? Oh! Your majesty means in the archaic sense…” Lady Windemere laughed politely but insincerely, looking up at Luna then aside at her son, who appeared to be looking at the wall behind Luna. “My son can speak. But I thought it proper to do the introductions. Go on son, say hello.”
Breeze mumbled out, “Hello.”
“Very good, dear. Now, tell her majesty how you feel about her.”
Breeze quickly looked at an ill-hidden piece of paper taped to the back of his fetlock. He read it with an embarrassingly affected accent and laughably stilted delivery that would have shamed the worst novice actor attempting to be intentionally bad. “Most beau-ti-ful and glori-oos Princess Luna, I am moved with love. I love you so much I cannot tell you. Please look on me with fa-… Favor and ad-or-ation. I need your love like air.”
Luna looked hard at Breeze, then turned her gaze on his mother. “Astounding! Thou hast trained this carven mineral to speak as though a sensate being! But perhaps we give thee too much credit. What proof have we that thy mineral offspring be gifted with the intellect necessary to mock words as a common myna or jackdaw (17)? How may we be certain thou hast not thy hoof manipulating some hidden wire to make it move and speak as if some puppet play? Please, leave us. We have no desire to be courted by a dishonest mare that will not speak her desires nor by a stallion we may not distinguish from masonry.”
Lady Windemere and Breeze trotted out of the room, the mare softly berating her son, whispering hard words to his drooping ears. As they left, an older stallion entered. He was possessed of a great, flowing beard and a gnarled horn, his suit many years out of date. His movements were slow but deliberate, and he regarded the princess with a steady eye. "Good day, your highness. My name is Count Oak Spear, of the County Oakenfield. I am come to claim thy hoof in marriage..."
"Dost thou mean good sooth? Dost thou think thou canst make us thy distaff (18) to make thy acorns (19)? We may be well-aged, but we be young at heart. And one thousand years passed as a dream for us while we were upon the moon. Meanwhile, thy sands are nearly run, if they be not gone (20). Must we take thee as earnest, signore pantalone (21)? Answer us." As a quick aside to Lime, Luna said, "Prorsus inutilis ad thorum." (22)
"I take your meaning, princess. But I was here to bring suit for my grandson, who will be rightful heir because I have rubbished my own son for his inability to act as a proper nobleman. He has disgraced us all with his constant visits to common establishments and his friendliness with common ponies..."
"Have done! Have done! Hear any more of thy words and we shall be driven to great choler. It be too late to wish thee stricken with a cotquean (23) that shall make thee a golden calf or mad ox (24) if that be more to thy understanding. Thy son offendeth thee? Thou offendeth we! To disown thy own flesh and blood for the crime of daring to leave thy rarified air be the lowest form of petulance. Cocytus (25) shudders in its icy grip at thy incontinent love! Begone from us, and know the royal seat shall ever only acknowledge the legitimacy of thy son!"
Lime leaned across to whisper to Luna, "Hit a little close to home, did it?"
"Such creatures must needs be watched and made mild. Such unkindness be the opposite of all sensible reason. But thou art correct. I carry that bitterness in my heart over such injustice. And while HE may be an unspleened dove (26) to such an abuse now, the choler still rises in my veins. Had I only the phlegmatic temper to counter that ire."
"Your majesty... Such anger will not help you, especially in such formal settings."
"True, my maid. But such anger reminds me of what I now lack. And, no need to be worried about this situation. I am certain to have many more chances to see such stallions and mares as these. I have no dearth of flesh (27); thus my annoyance at this farce. Why must my best parts (28) be offered like common produce to these inferior rogues and scoundrels? (29) I seek only an honest (30) stallion, if my meaning is taken."
Celestia poked her head into the room and smiled. "I think you may like this one. And he's the last one for the day."
Luna nodded and smiled to Lime. "Omnia bene. (31) Bonis avibus..." (32)
The last pony into the room smiled brightly, but not with such luminescence that he overpowered himself and ruined the effect. His coat was a delicate light cocoa brown, with a dark purple mane that hung in thick cascades over both sides of his neck and head. His eyes were shining light purple, and filled with intelligence, looking to Luna with a fair interest but lacking the lascivious hunger others had shown. When he looked to Lime he was polite and even nodded, a proper deference to a married servant. He was dressed in a pressed tuxedo jacket and white shirt, with a black bowtie. He stepped onto the alabaster square and bowed grandly, his horn just lightly tapping the floor. "Your majesty. My name is Lord Alto Primero, of Gascoa, Cavallino. I am here to seek your kind favor."
"We have no favors (33) for thee. Thy fond (34) desire for such serves thee not well." Luna looked on Alto with a curious expression. He was certainly better than the others. But there was something about him she just could not trust.
"Oh no, Princess. You misunderstand. I mean only that I wish the kindness of your consideration. I am here to seek your hoof, after the appropriate time has passed and we have learned about one another."
"Neither wilt thou have our hoof. We will not mutilate ourselves for thy delight."
"Ah, yes. Then... Let me say it this way. I want to have your happiness. I wish to give you happiness and see it radiate from you."
"Well... Thou art well-spoken. And thy mind be calm in the storm of words. Thou hast more to recommend thee than these other nobles. But still, thou art but another suitor, in a line that must needs stretch long and end only in tedium. Do not think we will fall to thy palaver so readily."
"No, I did not think that at all. I know that you are not enthusiastic about being courted by eager nobles that want bragging rights and status. I'm in earnest here. I don't want all that. I only want the chance to try my luck with you."
Luna stroked her chin lightly. "Thy luck would always be found wanting (35) if thou attemptest what thou desirest. We admire thy earnest honesty, but we have no desire to give in to the wants of those that come to seek us."
"So this is a lie? Are you saying that you're doing this just to do it with no intention of following through no matter what? Just to yell at the suitors and lay your insults around?"
Luna grunted softly, the accusation cutting deeply. She tapped her hoof nervously on the ground and responded. "Thy words be... Too quick (36) for thy purposes. Nay, we do not... Merely rain bile upon our suitors. We find little to recommend our suitors to us. We have little cause to think kindly of these leeches and their pickthank tales. (37) Should any decent suitor appear we would be only too glad to take unto them. To have a perfect lover... I would become a great mare (38) in sooth, to be joined to an honest partner."
"I could be a good partner to you. All I need is a chance. And since you're being sincere, that means you'll give me that chance, right?"
Luna paused, breath catching in her throat. No answer seemed acceptable at first. She was only able to make backdoor admissions that she was scamming her way through it. How oddly appropriate. "Thou seest..." She suddenly spoke, eyes calm, body set firm, "Our will be final arbiter of our choice. We must obey what we feel deep inside. And we do not feel thou hast moved us sufficient to take thee at thy word. We applaud thy skill and thy sly words. Such may be admirable, but thou art not the picture of our desire. And it be, in the end, our choice."
Alto nodded slowly. "What is your desire? Maybe I can tell your future suitors if they're wasting their time or if they should keep trying."
Luna responded by rising. "We have our secrets we keep... Sister."
Alto grinned broadly and slowly faded out into a hazy nothingness, while Celestia trotted into the room. "Very good, sister. What gave me away?"
Luna sighed slowly. "I would tell you I detected your duplicity. But I only presumed in the end. I found it curious that he was so perfect. His form, though colored differently, made me think of naught more than he whom I miss. Faced with such a stallion, with his wit, my fidelity was... Unaffected. Sister, do you try me in earnest, or for your own amusement? I tell you, I am loyal."
"Oh Luna... You too? Where does this idea come from, that I play tricks just to try to make ponies confused for my own amusement? No... As you put it, I try you in earnest. You're going to meet charming ponies in this exercise. You need to know how to deal with them. You're faithful. But be faithful sensibly. Don't give anything away, but do what you need to."
Luna nodded and stepped down from the dais, Lime stepping down with her. "Indeed, sister. You speak well. I will practice this. Were you speaking true when you said my suitors all had fled?"
"Your high-volume rejection of Morning Star took the wind out of a lot of sails. The sharp rejection of Breeze and Oak got rid of the rest. Good work showing how shallow they really were. And just in time. I received word that you had visitors in your private receiving-chamber."
"Huzzah! The day has become glorious! Lime, thou mayest be on thy way if thou wishest. Though my meeting be private, I do not wish to be unkind to thee."
"You are too kind, your majesty. But I don't wish to intrude. And after all this, I just want to go be with my husband."
Luna chuckled softly. "Ahh, how well we know. Thou did pass through joy, truly, when thou did pass under the same joy. (39)" Celestia hid a laugh behind her hoof while Lime just looked confused.
"Good day, miss Sherbert. Come on, sister, I'll walk you to the chamber." Celestia took up position beside her sister, the two trotting out the double doors while Lime went out the back door.
"T'was a cruel jest, sister, but an excellent trial by fire. Flesh and blood would cut all the deeper, but I will work with what I have learned. I must find a means to lie with a truthful face and clean smile."
"You've learned well, Luna. I think your private experience has been good for you."
"Aye, you speak good sooth. Services have been rendered with great quantity, rewards have been few. Would that I could see him 'get some just reward. (40) There be no shortage of belly sports. (41)"
"No shortage, you say? That's all up to you. You know as well as I do that you control that particular aspect of your biology. It's your choice."
Luna nodded slowly, humming softly. "Yes. I know. Much as I feel I would be a fine feeder of pedigrees (42) I would not leave a foal with but one parent. I would wish the sire there. But Aeolus (43) hath not seen fit to leave the breezes still."
"Wind calms, eventually. You'll have what you want soon enough." Celestia stopped before a set of double doors. "Here we are. Go ahead. I'll see you later, sister. Be well." Celestia leaned her head down and pressed her neck against Luna's.
Luna left her neck against her sister's for a long while, a huge smile on her face. "Your presence is my comfort. And I thank you greatly, sister." Luna lit her horn and the doors opened, revealing the receiving chamber.
Like the other room, it was an opulent room, with beautiful friezes on the walls and polished granite floors. There was a small dais on which was just a pile of pillows; before it were other plump pillows. Resting upon those cushions were two figures. Applebloom, curled up and almost napping was on one, while on the other was Zecora, softly stroking Appleboom's mane. The moment the door revealed Luna she stood stiffly and adjusted her golden bracelets. "What honor brings us here to Canterlot?/ No word came when the guards came to my home./ Make no mistake: begrudge you I do not; But I could not leave Applebloom alone./ So I brought her here; love is such as thus./ Princess tell me, what need have you of us?" (44)
Luna crossed the room slowly, grandly, head tall, mane and tail flowing beautifully. When she reached the cushions, she looked across at Applebloom, who was stirring and looking around with bleary eyes. Luna smiled and embraced Zecora tightly, causing a gasp of shock from zebra and filly alike. "Thou wast not thanked for thy service when thou served me without thy knowledge. Thou saved a most precious life with thy cunning art. Without thy help... I dare not think of such a fate. But more than that..." She looked to Applebloom, who was looking up with a mix of awe and surprise, and smiled at the little filly. "Thou art not only a mistress of physic; thou be, in time and by heart... family..."
The End
Glosses and notes
1: Bawdy, emphasizing “short”
2: Quean: Morally questionable woman; Becco: horned goat, metaphorically a horny and bestial male with secondary implication of cheated-on
3: Well-built
4: A huge person, oaf; an old, worthless ship
5: Stallion-parts
6: The section itself is a modification of traditional ballad “Tom o’ Bedlam”; In place of “dawn” was “love” and “scholar” was “warrior.” Originally a reference to the legend of Venus and Adonis, it now says something about Celestia. It is also a bawdy double entendre: Luna, the “moone” has embraced her shepherd (a reference to the legend of Endymion and a call-back to a prior story) and thus, even before a relationship, “hornes” or cuckolds, the “star of morne” or Morning Star.
7: Horn, implying cuckoldry
8: Tilt: Run at in jousting, with bawdy suggestion; tup: butt like a ram, or fornicate
9: Cuckold
10: Uncomplaining cuckold, implying that even if Morning understands what is being said, she won’t say a word
11: A broad forehead for a set of cuckold’s horns, but an askance reference normally disguised as a compliment about being high-browed
12: Cuckold horns were said to root in the eyes and make them sore; Morning Star’s eyes must be extremely sore
13: Lover of Clytemnestra, implying that Morning is in the role of Agamemnon and thus the romantic loser.
14: Bawdy wantonness, saying that she knows Morning is very over the top when it comes to relations
15: Bad luck, with an archaic secondary meaning of “ugly.”
16: Mute, with the snarking implication of stupid.
17: “Mock” in the archaic sense of copy; Luna implies an especially harsh assessment of Breeze’s intellect, as jackdaws cannot actually mimic speech, they only make chaotic noise, thus Breeze lacks capacity even to babble.
18: The distaff is a piece of equipment used in spinning thread. Traditionally it is considered a female representation, and is often the representational counterpart of the spear, thus being a pun.
19: Punning off of "oak" in his name.
20: His life is running out, also a bawdy reference to impotence.
21: Mister Pantaloon, a Pantaloon or Pantalone being a stock character, an old man that tried to marry younger women; Luna is saying that, while she is chronologically older than him, she is younger in bearing.
22: Completely useless in the marriage bed, a legal pronouncement indicating impotence, used in a harsher tone by Luna
23: A nagging housewife, with bawdy suggestion of immorality
24: 'Golden calf' means rich idiot; 'mad ox' puns off of that, meaning cuckold
25: One of the rivers of the underworld; in Dante's "Inferno" it was the lowest place in hell, a frozen lake which held the souls of traitors.
26: Exceptionally mild and kind person (Spleens were said to be the seat of anger, and doves were considered the mildest birds because it was thought they had none.)
27: Lack of suitors, with a bawdy hint at not lacking more intimate flesh in her single lover.
28: Best qualities, with bawdy intimation
29: Both intimating they are inferior to her, but also that they are inferior rogues and scoundrels compared to the one she loves
30: Truthful, but can also mean worthy
31: "All is well."
32: "If the luck holds out." (Literally talking about birds of good omen.)
33: Tokens of affections given by ladies such as handkerchiefs and gloves, with double entendre meaning carnal favors.
34: In an archaic definition, "foolish."
35: Interpreting "try" defined as "put through a trial."
36: In both the modern sense of "fast" and the more archaic sense of "alive" or "active." She's backhandedly admitting the accusation has legs.
37: Sycophantic tellings
38: Powerful and well-regarded; bawdily implies pregnant as well.
39: Both Lime and Luna passed through joy when they were "under" their respective males. Luna is guessing what Lime intends to do with her husband when they are together.
40: "'Get" as short for "beget", meaning make an heir apparent, a good reward.
41: Carnal interactions that could produce children
42: Producer of children
43: God of the winds; her partner is drifting like the wind.
44: Zecora uses the Venus and Adonis stanza, a Shakespearean type done with the rhyme scheme ABABCC in iambic pentameter. It is very formal and of set length, appropriate for the meeting with Luna.
