The pause for breath was entirely figurative. They’d spent more time than Luna could keep track of exploiting their very lack of a need to breathe. How does one keep track of time by their heart’s beat when the beat came faster than one could count?
It was unclear where Twilight’s voice came from, now, they were too intertwined in the tent. Everywhere, maybe. “I just figured it out. You have a praise kink.”
“A what?”
“A-” Twilight thought hard about it, face scrunching up from the effort. Her eyes opened again. “Okay. So, you know how there’s that theory that a lot of our… interests stem from our anxieties? I think- Well. I think you might like emotional validation a lot.”
Luna blinked. “Yes, who doesn’t?”
“No, I mean…” Twilight thought hard about her words. “Okay, so you want to be recognized by someone whose recognition matters. And before about an hour ago, that was probably just Celestia right? Except, as much as I love her - and that’s a lot - she’s really, really, really bad at that, right?”
“I know how dear a sister I am to her.” Luna said, guardedly. “She is forthright with that.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying, remember the time I was under so much pressure from her, back when I was still a unicorn and didn’t know she was grooming me for the whole Princess thing, which she never told me she was doing? I snapped so bad I put a mind control spell on Ponyville just to have something to write a report about to her, and when she learned about how badly I’d just broken under the stress she’d put on me, she made it feel like my fault for having a breakdown. I’d never seen her so mad and I was scared of how badly I messed up, but…” Twilight shook her head. “I had my friends as well. And I don’t think you did.”
“I had friends.”
“You turned Nightmare because you got mad everyone fell asleep at night.” Twilight pointed out. Luna grimaced.
“You make it sound quite irrational, put so simply.”
Twilight kissed the tip of Luna’s nose. “Do you, Princess Luna, recognize me as a rightful and just authority, of great wisdom and countenance, worthy and able of judging you? Do you recognize me as one who will take solemn pride in her deliverance and utterance of all things she deems true of you, and do you recognize that it must be true if I am the one saying it of you?”
Luna felt very small suddenly. Like the entirety of her being was compressed down into a tight ball in her stomach, and the rest of her body was just a puppet of that little ball of gut. Like something great and dreadful would happen to her if she said yes, but any other answer would be a lie. “I do.”
Twilight nodded. “Well. Let’s start with the obvious. You’re very beautiful. Tall, slender, just a very uniquely lithe build that I’ve never seen on anypony else. It suits you. Even other alicorns like Cadance are - well Cadance is gorgeous, but we’re soft, right? I think even though I’m bigger than you now, you’re still obviously stronger than me just because of how tight and athletic you are.”
Luna squirmed. “You think that so obvious?”
“Yeah, a mirror could tell you the same thing.” Twilight kissed Luna’s cheek. “That was enough to set you off, huh?”
“Well, I put great work into my health.” Luna admitted. “And I know alicorns are known for our beauty. I just had not considered… I had not thought that I might be considered especially beautiful among them, no. I know I am a shadow to my sister, certainly, but-”
“I like you more, honestly.” Twilight said. “Physically. I think your mane’s way prettier, with the flowing night? I was kind of disappointed when I kept growing and I realized I was just going to end up more like her shape, honestly. Well, now I have yours to myself, I don’t mind so much.”
Luna lost track of time again, of her racing heartbeat. No, Twilight definitely was on to something about how she would receive compliments. She had not realized the physical effect they would have on her - her mouth dried, her calves cramped from the force of suppressing her uncomfortable squirming, she wanted to run out the tent and never be seen again. She wanted to be buried in the deepest hole she could dig for herself and never emerge again. Yet she could not pull herself away from hearing more. “You have less obvious things to say about me, as well?”
Twilight grinned. “I know that you’re self-conscious about your speech still being pre-modern, but I honestly really like it. That whole thing I did asking if you trusted my judgement? I’d never say it like that to anyone else, but I knew you’d appreciate it. It’s not just that it’s dramatic, it’s that it’s really specific. There’s so much intentionality to everything you say, like you put so much care into being understood. I admire it a lot.”
“I- Well, yes, that is a difficulty I’ve had in adjusting to more modern speech.” Luna admitted. “It does feel a lot more like I must speak vaguely and trust the listener to simply understand what I mean. Yet, somehow, others seem to be able to. I… feel so much more self-assured when I know I can speak with clarity.”
Twilight hugged Luna tight. “See, this is what I mean. I tell you that I like that clarity, and it’s like I’m hurting you. Or like I’ve caught you stealing something from me?” Luna nodded because yes, that was far more what it felt like. It did hurt a little, but only because it hurt to get caught taking something which you did not earn and did not belong to you. “A compliment is not owed a confession, Lunana bread. I like that you’re telling me about yourself, it’s interesting, but I don’t think good things about you just because you’ve tricked me. Or maybe it’s more like you’re trying to explain why you haven’t earned the praise, yet?”
Twilight had her dead to rights, that’s exactly what it felt like. With every wonderful, lovely kind word Luna felt the praise so wonderful she could not imagine anything she had done that could possibly justify this positive opinion of her. She became increasingly fearful she would do something to disappoint or betray this too-wonderful view of her, that the compliment must come from a place of misunderstanding that needed correction. Still she craved it more than she knew possible.
Through the drunken, heady haze she caught something more important still.
Luna cocked her head. “Did you truly call me Lunana bread?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking about it, it just kind of came out.” Twilight flushed. “I’m new to the girlfriend thing, I don’t really know how to do pet names. Is it bad?”
“Awful.” Luna giggled. “I did not hate it, this once, but best not to make a habit of it.”
“First try!” Twilight cheered. “Anyway, it’s really cute how good you are with children. Foals love you. I think it always says something really good about someone, because kids are people you can’t get anything from, just give to. I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be as good with them as you are without enjoying selflessness for its own sake, and that’s really sweet.”
“It’s just that, the children so often are more understanding of me than their parents. That makes for pleasant company.” Luna blushed from the tips of her ears and down to her neck. She was burning hot, now.
“They just have less preconceived notions.” Twilight lifted her chin and pulled Luna’s head to be tucked underneath, warm against her. “It’s not your fault. Everyone who doesn’t have an idea of what a pony ‘should’ be like clearly likes you for what actually ‘is’.
That one actually brought Luna to tears, much to her own surprise. She didn’t notice it at first, not until the bit of sniffle had started to run down the back of her throat. Only then did she take a heavy blink to test her eyes, and felt her eyelashes sticky and wet.
Twilight pulled back. “Too much?”
“When one is hungry for too long, they no longer feel the pain of it.” Luna said. “I should be saying kind things about you as well.”
“Nah,” Twilight dismissed, bringing Luna tight against her chest again and stroking her mane. Long, slow and patient strokes with the tip of her hoof pressed against the back of Luna’s neck in a most wonderful, most soothing way. “I already know how good I am. Actually, I’ve decided I’ll be quite cross with you if you try.”
“Whatever for?” Luna suddenly felt guilty about making Twilight’s chest damp, so she turned her face away as she pressed against her. She wished they were on a proper bed, now, instead of the large camping cot on the tent.
“Because then it’d be too much like you owe me anything for saying this, and you’re trying to find ways to pay me back.” Twilight faked sounding like she was stern, fake even to Luna’s ears. “How could you owe me for the truth? The truth could only ever be a debt that we are owed.”
This, Luna thought, is what she got for making out with a legal scholar. She tried to say as much with all the sarcasm she could muster, but found herself too burdened by Twilight’s sincerity to manage it. “Surely the debt is paid, then. I cannot imagine any more that could be said.”
“You are such a brat.” Twilight kissed the top of Luna’s head. “You ready for a really big one?”
Luna nodded, though inside she screamed. With a hoof she twirled a handle of the thin sheet over Twilight's cot and gripped it tight to prepare herself.
Twilight whispered mischievously in Luna’s ear, as if she were letting her in on a wicked secret; “Just because Celestia’s better with ponies, and everyone loves her so much, doesn’t mean it’s your fault when you feel neglected or like you’re a disappointment. Sometimes it really is just her fault for making you feel that way, and she does feel bad about that because she’s bad at that. You don’t deserve to feel that way, and you never did.”
“No, I-” Luna started to correct Twilight immediately because what she said had to be wrong. There was no alternative. “These are my mistakes, my failures. I will not offload the burden of them onto my sister for…” She stopped. “I cannot blame Tia for- She is not the one who turned into a Nightmare.”
“Yeah, and I mind controlled a town with a stuffed doll because she didn’t notice how badly she was messing me up, and I loved her and admired her so much I took it for granted when she yelled at me, I just blamed myself too.” Twilight said. “I’m still the one that did the mind control, you’re still the one that embraced the Nightmare. Celestia… just makes the kind of mistakes where other ponies get the blame for it. Talking to Sunset Shimmer really helped clear my head on this.”
Luna winced. “It had not occurred to me how many of my sisters’ students turn to madness. I had thought the only fault was that she had made bad choices in students.”
“That wouldn’t explain why her wonderful, really cool sister is crying because I started complimenting her.” Again Twilight whispered in Luna’s ear, but this one was soft. As if the words themselves were so harsh and heavy that Twilight had to let them down with as much gentleness as she could. “Just because you’ve been starved of recognition doesn’t mean it’s all you deserve.”
“Tell me more?” Luna begged, and with her face still tight against Twilight’s chest, she felt Twilight’s smile against her ear as her widening lips pushed against it.
“I like your poetry. The way you can go between grim stoic severity and excited playfulness is extremely charming. Your magic really is beautiful. The way you act as the guardian of dreams shows how talented you are with that magic, but it also shows your kindness and your selfless dedication. It’s something that, if you stopped doing it, nobody would be physically hurt by it. There’s almost never any physical danger from it. But you still treat it with the same sense of urgency as if they would, because even that much suffering is unconscionable to you.”
“Thank you.” Luna was shivering. She was completely burning up, now, her stomach filled with every species of butterfly imaginable. Nobody had made this much of an effect in all her long years, and never with such simple words uttered so plainly. They could not have been so potent otherwise - if she had detected even a single thread of flattery at which to pull at, the entire thing would have unravelled. Twilight was very careful to limit what she was saying only to exactly what she meant, without hyperbole.
“I like the way your cutie mark takes up so much of your butt.” Twilight said. “I know it’s a weird one, but it’s interesting to me. Your writing’s really pretty, too, the way you do calligraphy? I like that you’re an amazing kisser, because I have been uh, I’ve been really self-conscious about learning.” Twilight’s confidence crumbled a little at that, as she admitted it with a blush. “I think that’s all I can think of right now though. I think we’ll have to spend some more time together, so you can remind me of everything else, and I’ll tell you when I remember.”
Luna nodded, basking in Twilight’s desire for more time together, and she untangled herself to make a request. “Might I kiss you, now? Not because I feel you are owed a reward for your kindness, but because I desire to kiss someone so kind?”
“I’d like that, too.”
And because Luna had asked so sweetly, she got to be the one to kiss Twilight.
Aim for the stars because even if you miss, you'll have fought her on the moon
There were so many stars you could only see from the dark side of the moon. It was like someone had scattered the chipped corners of every sort of gemstone across the black, the spiral of distant galaxies like the tiniest fossils of ancient seashells. Here was where Luna came to relax.
It was only under the light of those stars that there were a lot of monsters it was really, really fun to kill.
She could see them when the stars moved. If you dragged them out into the light you’d see them, they’d look like colossal amoeba filled with glittering white stars, twice as large as she was. Against the dark side of the moon’s surface, those glittering stars were all you could see of them. It wasn’t until they moved that you could see them against their camouflage of night, and even then…
Some stars moved. Luna’s face split wide with a grin. She had been walking for hours - hours! - without finding one, and she was growing restless that her hunt would be bereft of quarry. No, this one was quite old, its stars fading to a deepening red. Gracious, but it was a large one too.
She twirled her battleax beside her and watched. Yes, it had definitely seen her. Yes it was - Fast? Fast. No hunt, no pursuit, it was coming at her like a locomotive down a straight, taking long leaps across the calcium surface, like powdered bone. The- Wait.
She’d fought these things a thousand years and never waxed poetic about how the surface of the moon was a calcium-rich feldspar composite. Luna’s grin slackened, twisted into a scowl. And why not?! Fighting monsters on ‘something like powdered bone’ was so rich and wondrous in gothic poetry potential! How could this possibly be the first?
Ah, yes, because it was something Twilight Sparkle had to tell her, and she hadn’t met her yet. Yes, there was the want of the nail for which the poem was lost. The nail she was in want of, perhaps?
While Luna was thinking about this, the monster she had completely forgotten about charged her in the ribs, and it felt just like being hit by a train too.
The monster sent her flying upward with its charge, flicking her like bulls do when they gore you with their horns. The moon monsters, flowing and loose in their shapes, did not have such sharp surfaces to gore with. That was a plus. The brutal uppercut served another purpose. The gesture more resembled flicking popcorn up so that you might catch it in your mouth.
She hefted her ax for the way back down. Yes, this was how it went sometimes when they managed to surprise her - the moon was silent after all, devoid of atmosphere to carry sound, so such sneak attacks were inevitable. But her double-bladed war ax, two long crescents of sharpened night fastened to a mithril haft, would come down with the full force of a comet strike and split this thrice-damned monster in twain all the same. She would-
Was that smoke on the horizon?
How was there smoke up here? What fire-breathing monster had managed to make landfall upon her demesne and slip beneath her notice? What slackness and derelicton of duty had-
Luna was swallowed in her entirety by the monster she had forgotten about again while staring out at the white smoke rising from the horizon.
Well, if she were at her best that day, she wouldn’t have needed to find some monsters to take it all out on, would she? It was no wonder she would be so prone to irritability and distraction.
This was where things got difficult. Magic was fairly useless inside these monsters, gorged on it. Most of the time they were happy to filter-feed on the cosmic background radiation. Fluttershy had compared them to sea sponges, which was how Luna now thought of them. But when they got a Princess in their gullet, well, they were quite happy to swallow every last drop that tried to come out through her horn.
The ax too was a problem inside the amoeba-form. Couldn’t get anything resembling a good swing on it from the inside, even though the blade did still cut it. Without that range of motion, it was like merely holding a knife or sharp sword in your wing. The sharpness needed that motion to make anything resembling a cut.
Fortunately, the solution that had taken her an hour to first learn took only a moment to remember. The trick to it was to grab onto the handle of the axe and, with everything she had, rub at the inside of the damned thing like she was brushing it with a big toothbrush.
This giant old creature held at far longer than most, and Luna had to be impressed with it for its resilience and endurance. But she was more patient still, and with every exhausted twist and push of her ax, the inevitable drew closer.
Yes, the monster spit her like Jonah from the whale, and Luna bounced and skittered across the powdered bone surface, soaked in its gelatinous digestive liquids. She cheered in triumph even though she was the only one that could possibly hear it.
Then, she lifted herself up, taking but a moment to wince at just how she definitely had a broken rib from that blow to the chest. It would take at least a couple of minutes to heal, which was not worth waiting for. She ignored it to counter-charge the creature back, and smote it.
She smote it lots, and lots, and quite goodly at that. Ha ha. Ha ha ha!
Then, when it was cleaved in twain and then cleaved in twain again she smote it a little bit more, and then a little bit more again, and then only when it was diced into itty bitty pieces did she jump up and down and stomp all those little pieces into the dust.
This lacked a lot of the gravitas on doing it on Equestria, because it lacked a lot of the gravity. That is to say, it’s hard to properly stomp on something when you bounce like a bunny rabbit and come down like a dandelion on the breeze. One cannot get a good and proper smiteful stomp down on something when one floats.
Alas.
Luna, red-faced and sweating, allowed her head to snap up to the point of the horizon whence she had seen the smoke. Yes. That would be her next quarry before home.
She dragged her ax in the stone behind her, letting it bite and score the darkened surface as she stalked towards her quarry. The sharpened night, once sharpened, could never be blunted.
Luna crouched at the edge of night, where the dark side of the moon met light. From just behind this penumbral curtain she stalked her quarry until she was certain - yes, that her strike would strike true, and then…
Hmm.
Luna debated whether ‘knew’ or ‘slew’ were better words to use here. To emphasize that it never knew what was coming for it, or that it was just another body in the pile of already-slain. No, it must be that her strike would strike true, ‘and then it would be over before the beast ever knew’. She had no interest in resting on laurels or past glories. Her favourite hunt was always the next one.
This hunt was most strange indeed. She found huge hoofprints in the lunar dust, too large to be that of a pony. Maybe a taur like Tirek could be large enough to leave prints like this, but Tirek was safely imprisoned. Smaller than Celestia, but larger than Cadance… Like hers? Yes, like hers but not. Such a mistake would be quite droll, though; there were far too many shadows on the moon for her to afford to be jumping at her own.
The trail snaked and winded into the dark side of the moon before doubling and switching back. She followed those, along the route at a bounding gallop. And why not? There was no sound to hear her by, no need to conceal the footsteps. More important that she did not tarry and let her mark get away. She galloped with her neck low to the ground, careful to see the shallow prints in white dust.
They crossed to her side of the darkness again, and too late did Luna see the motion of their owner. Had they started hunting for her now? Then they had found each other!
Luna lept with a wide overhead swing of her ax, her mouth open in a battlecry that only she would ever hear.
Then, remarkably, she stopped. This was not a gentle stop: Luna had a sudden empathy for the birds that flew into glass windows.
Twilight Sparkle carried her back out of the darkness, Luna still plucked and held above her head. Luna blinked down at her. Yes, Twilight Sparkle would, in fact, be a pony about her size. Twilight Sparkle also did not, to her knowledge, breathe fire. How had she become her quarry?
Also, how had she stopped Luna’s strike? She found herself rather put off by this. It wasn’t that she actually wanted to have struck Twilight with her ax, no, it was just… Well. She’d thought it was a rather good swing, actually, and she’d definitely seen Twilight first.
Twilight’s horn glowed, and Luna felt tingly. Then Twilight reached out to shake Luna’s hoof.
“Hi,” she said, amused.
“Hello?” Luna said back. She looked down at herself, still slick with monster gore, fur matted and soaked by the violence of it, having taken a flying leap with her battle ax at the Princess and been stopped short. She must look quite the sight. “Just what is this spell?”
“Sound amplification. We can use bone conductivity to talk as long as we’re touching each other. Shouldn’t matter what’s touching, but I thought the hoofshake seemed appropriate.” Twilight continued to walk in the direction her hoofprints had come from. Still carrying Luna.
Luna reached down from above and touched Twilight on the tip of her horn. “You know I am perfectly capable of walking, yes?”
Twilight blinked, and dropped Luna, who at least fell slowly. Twilight blushed and poked Luna’s withers when she landed. “Yes. Right. Sorry. Duh. Mind’s totally elsewhere.”
Luna rested her wing tip on Twilight. “Is this enough to hear me?” Twilight nodded, good, wings were easy while walking. “What are you even doing- Wait, I beg your pardon, but what is all this?”
She found the explanation coming over the horizon. Twilight had set up a campsite near the dark side border, complete with a tent, a sleeping bag on a folding cot, and a burning campfire. The most remarkable burning campfire, with crisp white logs. Well, there was the smoke. “I come up here to get away from things sometimes,” Twilight said through her own wingtip. “Want to toast some marshmallows with me?”
“Yes,” Luna said, and she was so excited she forgot to say it while touching her wing to Twilight. This didn’t seem to matter, because she was so obviously excited that Twilight hadn’t needed to hear her. She pulled out a pair of sticks and a bag of marshmallows, and held her own very low over the flame to toast it. Luna sat next to her and pulled out her own.
“It’s a modification of napalm I made for this,” Twilight explained of the burning logs. “Self-oxidizing flames. These babies will burn like this even if you stick ‘em underwater, they’re great.”
“How have we never run into each other up here, before?” Luna marvelled. “This is where I come when I am in need of some private moment as well.”
“You were on the dark side of the moon to relax?” Twilight balked. “But that’s where all the monsters are- Ah.” Twilight stared at Luna’s wide-eyed grin and gory visage. “Right.”
“I assumed you would understand, and yet.” Luna tilted her head. “I followed your tracks to the dark side as well, far from here.”
“Stargazing.” Twilight said far too quickly.
“Then why not cross over from here? The lunar monsters are not so intelligent as to understand to follow you.” Luna said it to be helpful, only realizing after she had said it that she had caught Twilight in a lie. “Twilight, why-”
“I don’t want to have to go all the way back to Equestria just to pee, okay!” Twilight snapped, poking Luna hard with her wing to say it. “... that’s what I used to do but it was way too much effort to teleport from here just to come back again.”
“Well. That explains the, the first crossing.” Luna tried very hard not to laugh at Twilight’s embarrassment. “But what of the second?”
Twilight relaxed at that. “I was trying to figure out what was stupid enough to be stalking me out here.”
“You think me stupid?” Luna asked. Twilight Sparkle was many things, but she was not a coward for saying it, that was certain.
“In general? No, you’re probably one of the smartest ponies who’s ever lived,” Twilight said, without needing a second of thought. “In specific? You’re lucky I figured out it was you when I did, otherwise you’d be dead right now.”
Luna scoffed. “Thou think thou capable of killing me so easily?”
She did not expect Twilight to just laugh at that, but laugh she did. “Oh my gosh, yes, duh, obviously!” She rolled her eyes and threw her forelegs up in exasperation. “Luna, I was already way stronger than you back when I was a Princess in name only. I hate to say it, but real-Princess-me is to you what unicorn-me was to Rarity. Like, nothing against-” She nearly said ‘nothing against Rarity’, but her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Nevermind. I’m just saying.”
Luna stared at Twilight, really looked at her and considered this. While Twilight could be quite arrogant in her perception of the situations she was capable of addressing, she was remarkably humble about her own capabilities. This was an assessment Twilight was making honestly, with neither pride nor malice. Luna remembered the effortlessness which Twilight had plucked her from air mid-strike and considered it might be true. “Fascinating.”
“What?”
“I have enjoyed relinquishing so many of my duties as Princess to you, that I might spend more time adventuring in defense of Equestria. Such duties binding me to Canterlot prevented me from being a proactive agent, allowed rogues such as Chrysalis her chance. Now I wonder if it was unjust to burden you of those duties, when you were clearly more suited-”
“No!” Twilight shouted in panic, and Luna stopped, and they both blinked at each other. Twilight’s feathers on her wings had even fluffed like a cat’s tail when threatened. “Please?”
“My gravest pardons?”
“I hated being Defender of Equestria! Are you kidding me! Like, I’m proud of it, all of the Elements were. We just, we only did it because nobody else could. And now you can, so I don’t have to! You actually liking fighting monsters is the only reason I get to rewrite the tax codes!”
“Yes, that is what I am saying. My gallivanting about has left you with jobs so tedious and menial it forces you to flee here! For rest and solace.”
Twilight blinked. “Are you kidding me? I love rewriting tax codes! Some nights I can’t even sleep because I’m trying to figure out if I can implement a Geoism land tax system for a few decades, just to see what happens! I’m like, two thirds of the way through the redraft implementation but I keep it under my bed so nobody can stop me from working on it. I think-” She stopped herself. "Why does the incremental tax threshold for personal earnings use median earnings, but the property and land tax code use averages? Why median and average?"
Luna snorted in memory of doing that. "I realized halfway through that median was the much smarter thing to do and could never be bothered going back over the last few scrolls and updating it."
"That was a few hours of work and they haven't changed in a thousand years." Twilight had to try saying it twice. The first time she was in such utter disbelief she forgot to put a wing on Luna’s side as she said it.
Luna shrugged. "The tax code made Celestia's eyes itchy. I don’t believe she changed any of it while I was away, that were not necessities her ministers insisted on. She hated the duty more than I did, it was just…”
Twilight blinked. “Wait, so you wrote most of Equestria’s laws? By yourself?”
“Yes, well.” Luna shrugged. “It needed doing.”
There was a moment of silence between them. Then-
Twilight grabbed Luna’s wrist, and Luna grabbed Twilight’s grip back. “Why is it illegal to keep a grocery cart next to someone’s cow paddock?”
“Ponies used to use that trick to steal dairy cows by claiming the cows stole themselves going after the fruit. How do you deal with wyvern venom?”
“Woah, that’s so interesting. Uh, soap, water, ice and if you can, a bandage out of boiled icthymas bark. But really just a lot of soap. Why is the definition of a mine six entire pages long?”
“I had not thought it would be so simple… Yes, right, uh, mining. We had a problem where ponies would do things that were obviously mining, but if it was to make a tunnel then it was a construction site instead. They kept trying to use the least restrictive or strenuous safety regulations for whatever it was they were doing. Mining was always simply the most common thing for ponies to try to insist they weren’t doing. How do I kill Koshei the Deathless?”
“Wow, that makes so much more sense. I was wondering why there was a whole paragraph about basements and root cellars. Uh, Koshei? You don’t, but if you dig a deep enough hole he doesn’t really have an answer to that except to spend the next few years digging his way out of it. If you can get over his head and then hit him down hard enough, the hole usually makes itself. How can-”
“Wait? You bested Koshei so easily? You could get o’er top of him and pin him so thoroughly to drill him down like that?”
Twilight blinked. “I mean, Rainbow helped with that one, but she was mostly busy kicking all the skeletons, so I think that one was just all me, yeah. Sorry, can we get back to law things? I really wanted to ask about the legal definition of fish, and that whole thing about lobsters crawling instead of swimming?”
“I do not want to talk about the lobsters. There was almost a war over that one, and it was utterly ridiculous.” Luna shook her head. “You speak of these fights as if they are such simple, practical matters. There is no passion in your heart, no adrenaline that shakes you. Where is the song of it?”
Twilight stared back. “I feel like I’m being asked to describe color to a blind person. Like, blue is something that feels like it’s so obvious you’ll never have to explain it, and then the first time someone tells you to you realize it’s like… What the heck is blue?” She took a deep breath, even though there was no air and nothing to breathe. “Yeah. Fighting monsters for me is just an engineering problem, solve for death. And I hate engineering. I mean, I’m good at it because I’m good at all the pieces of it. I’m good at magic, and being good under pressure and stress. I just wish I never needed to do it.”
Luna nodded. “Yes, that was me with law and statebuilding. Celestia took the politics side of things, such as they were—diplomacy and the day-to-day, if you might pardon the pun. The writing of law can be done in solitude. Writing itself is very solitary by its nature. It was just something that needed to be done, and if done wrong…”
“Ponies got hurt.” Twilight finished for her. “Yeah. I just, I love it because it’s this invisible binding that affects the incentives behind everything. It’s like the loom that shapes the social fabric, it’s like… it’s like tapestry weaving. On the one hand there’s the art of seeing yourself expressed in the tapestry at the end, but in the moment to moment of writing it there’s the zen of like… sewing. Does that make sense?”
Luna took the next marshmallow from the bag and held it low over the flame like Twilight had for hers. It needed to be pushed almost directly into the burning logs in front of them to start to heat, but once it did it was most satisfying. “Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me, because I also always hated sewing. I never found the zen in it. For me monster hunting is the joy of supremacy, of challenging yourself, the anticipation of the climax. The flexing of muscles, the strain of opposition, the threat of violent consequences to yourself, the euphoria of avoiding them. Does your heart not sing with any of that?”
“Ha, that sounds like chess for me, and everyone hates it when I play chess.” Twilight laughed, and Luna chomped her toasted marshmallow. The inside was frozen, she noted, but the outside was perfect. “I don’t get joy out of proving I’m better than anyone, or anything. I just get depressed or pissed off when I’m not. Like, if you’re supposed to be the best, then either you’ve met expectations or you’ve failed them. Yuck.”
Luna snorted. “Please. Nobody expects-” But then she stopped and considered that her sister had, in fact, been grooming the foal from a very young age to replace the both of them without ever explaining this to her, at any point, and considered what effect this might have on a child’s psyche. “Ah. I suppose I should instead ask, if that was not the problem then why are you up here?”
Twilight snorted. “Okay, you’re lucky you’re asking this now, because a couple hours ago I was going to be way too mad to explain it.”
Luna sat up straighter on her little sitting log and shuffled closer again. “Oh?”
Twilight gave Luna a strange look, and cast a spell on her so finally, finally, she was not entirely coated in moon-monster gore. Then Twilight leaned so they were shoulder to shoulder, warmly pressed together instead of poking and touching to get their words across. “So, now I’m less mad about it, this is way funnier. But you know how I’m like, the only pony in Equestria who can teleport across the continent?”
“Yes?” Luna had not known this, and pretended not to be intimidated by it.
“So sometimes my friends ask me for things. Like, instead of having to take a train to Canterlot, can I pick some things up for Pinkie’s party planning? Or can I grab some apple cuttings from Appleoosa for Applejack’s birthday? That kind of thing. And Rarity, Rarity asked me for some food from the Tasty Treat in Canterlot, since she’s friends with the owner - she’s lovely by the way, very sweet girl. And I’m like, okay, that’s fine, I’m happy to help.”
“I understand so far.” Luna nodded.
“She was having a booty call!” Twilight shouted. “I show up with the food and she’s too busy making out with this cute pegasus girl to even say hi! And I’m glad I could make the trip for you to impress your date, you clearly didn’t need the help though!”
Luna burst out laughing, and while she broke shoulder contact to do it their knees were still touching enough that Twilight heard every single peal and gasp of it. “No!” Luna wheezed, scandalized. “No! She didn’t!”
“She did.” Twilight folded her hooves across her chest and sighed into the vacuum. Strangely, the sigh didn’t carry through the spell in sound, just in shape. The motion of the sad rise and fall of Twilight’s chest, the slight parting of her lips. “She totally did.”
“Is this why your attention lingered on every other girl in this story, perchance?” Luna asked, amused. “Or did I truly need to know how sweet the owner of the Tasty Treat is, to understand the scope of Rarity’s betrayal?”
“Shut up.” Twilight snorted and punched Luna’s arm playfully. “She is, is all.”
Luna stood suddenly and took a step back, raising her battle ax. “Thou darest strike us? A duel it is, then, Sparkle!” she declared. Twilight stared at her in confusion and cupped her ear. Luna felt very, very silly as she took a step forward and tapped Twilight’s head with a wing. “You struck me! Now we duel!”
“I didn’t mean it like that! I was just-” Was all Luna heard Twilight say in a panic in the moment she pulled her wing away. Then she saw Luna’s expression, the way she was twirling her ax, and she understood. She said something Luna couldn’t hear, and then Luna cupped her ear and Twilight rolled her eyes. She got up off the log and tapped her head for Luna to place her wing back. “Is it still going to be fun for you if you lose?”
“I want to see you defeat me,” Luna answered. “Would that not be fun for you?”
“No,” Twilight answered. “I’m probably going to hurt you, and I don’t want to.”
Luna considered this, and everything she knew about Twilight Sparkle. “What if I told you it is because I wish to learn what you might teach me?”
Twilight froze solid. The problem with people understanding us is that it means they are capable of giving us the things that we want. “Teach you,” Twilight echoed, Luna’s wing on her head.
“Yes.” Luna flexed her wing. “Now. If you wish to tell me more, it must be through striking me. Do you need a weapon or would you prefer I sheathe mine?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Twilight shrugged, as if Luna had asked if she took sugar in her tea.
This caused Luna to look at Twilight in a new way. Yes, she had always been impressive, yes, she had always been the pony that had saved her from the nightmare for which she would always be grateful, and yes, she was just a nice person who also appreciated sarcasm. And astronomy. And staying up all night. And coffee, and reading, and books, and magic, and-
Yes, look. They had a lot in common, they always had, but they had seldom had opportunity to express that, and never before had they really had a chance to explore that as equals. Something had changed. What was it? She couldn’t quite touch upon it.
Luna hefted her ax and made a reckless charge at Twilight again, to see what she’d do. Twilight stepped to the side and grazed a tip of her wing against Luna as she swung past. “Touch,” she said.
Luna pirouetted and swung her ax at Twilight’s ankles, and Twilight simply jumped onto the blade. The timing was impressive - she had nailed it even with lunar gravity giving her a smaller window of time to pull it off. She took a step along the haft of Luna’s ax to flick her nose with a wingtip. “Touch.”
Luna flipped the ax and Twilight jumped off. Her wings didn’t work in the vacuum, so she landed instead a fair distance away. Luna considered her strategy and circled Twilight slowly, ax trailing the ground. Her reflexes were ridiculously fast, her moves calculated. How was her ability to multitask?
This was an advantage of a weapon with an uneven weight distribution, unlike a sword. Luna threw it at an arc one way so that the blades curved through the air in a parabola, bending far to the right only to come down on Twilight from the side. Luna leapt to the left and bounced hard back again, coming at Twilight’s other side from the left trying to hit her with the shoulder.
Twilight took three steps backward, and Luna was forced into a backwards slide to catch her ax by its handle, rather than get caught on its blade. Twilight then took three steps forward and put her hoof down on Luna’s neck. “Touch,” she repeated, smiling.
Ah, yes, that was the problem. Luna could only see beauty from an angle. That is to say, she could only find someone attractive if she was beneath them, looking up. Until now, for all that there were missed opportunities at a platonic best friendship, Twilight had always looked up at Luna as a Princess, and Luna down at her at Equestria’s Champion to be aimed, guided and led.
It was a distinctly uncomfortable realization that Twilight now looked down at her, and was correct to do so. Not just in the literal way. It was a discomfort that made Twilight’s company all the more thrilling, compelled Luna into proving her own worth.
“Ha ha! See! You do enjoy yourself, do you not?” Luna sang through the hoof on her throat.
Twilight shook her head, her smile adoring. “I just love how much fun you’re having. That’s what makes it fun for me.”
Luna swiped at her with the ax, and Twilight didn’t even dodge it this time, she just caught it with her magic. Luna pressed on it as hard as she could, sweat beading down her forehead, but the older and wiser Princess Twilight was terrifyingly strong in her magical grip.
She kept her hoof lightly on Luna’s throat, careful with the pressure even as she resisted the ax. “You could beat me at a hoofwrestle, though, if it makes you feel any better?”
It did, actually. “I have no need of your pity.”
“What, pity?” Twilight balked, taking a step back and yanking the ax out of Luna’s telekinesis entirely. Then she realized they were no longer in body contact. Luna narrowed her eyes for the fight and Twilight realized she wouldn’t be allowed to finish her sentence without it. She tossed the ax far over her shoulder and where it silently twanged in the white feldspar.
Luna backed away from Twilight and kept her form low, ready to receive. Of course she knew that Twilight didn’t pity her, of course she knew that. She also knew that nothing panicked the poor girl more than her need to explain something correctly when she had been misunderstood. That, more than anything else, would draw her into a reckless offensive.
Twilight kicked the ground hard, sending moondust flying. It didn’t hang in a cloud in the way that it would on Equestria, no air to catch in, but the low gravity still gave it more effect than none. Luna’s eyes darted side to side to see which direction Twilight would move around it, but instead she charged through, directly through the cloud, and dove between Luna’s legs.
Luna tried to step forward and over Twilight, but before she could, Twilight had gripped her around the thighs and was rising. Luna slammed down into the moonrock face-first, snout pressed into the dust, Twilight wearing her around her shoulders like a cape.
“I don’t pity you at all!” Twilight insisted. “I used to think Celestia was the reason Equestria ran so well, because Equestria runs so well and she was the one running it. But then when I became a Princess and had to actually see what she was doing…”
“It is a miracle that there was an Equestria to come back to after a thousand years, yes.” Luna laughed, pushing herself back up off the dust. She tried to work out how to regain position from this.
“It wasn’t a miracle, it was you!” Twilight gushed. “You made a system of government so resilient and well-structured that it could survive a thousand years without you! You’re a genius!”
“Yes, well, again,” Luna had a plan, now, just pulling into a forward roll… “Things did get rather lonely at night, it was good to have something to keep myself busy with. I don’t suppose you’re about to say you wish you could do the same?”
“Well, I mean, I think I’m better at that, too,” she admitted. “I just don’t know anyone else who comes even close.”
Luna squeezed Twilight around the neck with her thighs suddenly and rolled forward. Twilight had no answer for that, her eyes went wide as she was pulled up, over, and slammed down like a hammerstrike into the rock in front of Luna. The second before impact, though, she teleported and Luna’s empty legs slammed into the rock without her. Twilight stood over her again, and held a foot to Luna’s chest.
“That one nearly got me,” Twilight complimented. “Touch.”
“I had hoped you’d be too surprised to do that,” Luna admitted.
“I’ve just been going so easy on you that it felt too mean to do it, until now.” Twilight beamed down at Luna. “Learning anything useful, yet?”
“I rudely interrupted you complimenting my genius.” Luna grinned, trying to suppress a groan of pain. She had carried all of Twilight’s weight down with her until the last second, and carried that momentum expecting to invest it all into a softer target than her back.
“Yeah!” Twilight broke the hoof contact to jump in excitement, then put the hoof right back down over Luna’s heart and pushed hard on it, pinning her. Luna stopped writhing. “It’s not even just that you did it though. It’s that you did all of it even though you didn’t want to. Like, it sounds like you might have even hated it. There’s something… I don’t know. I want to say that I like how noble that feels, that it was that self-sacrificing, that you did it because it needed doing. But honestly I think it’s more that it’s kind of-” Twilight shut up and bit her lip until she thought of literally any word other than the one she nearly said. “It’s amazing to see someone be this good without trying, do you know what I mean?”
Luna looked at the hoof on her chest of the only pony who had ever defeated her in single combat, and had only done so as a means to carry a conversation. “I believe I may understand you completely.”
Twilight blinked. “What, me? You’re talking about me, right?”
“No,” Luna lied.
“You’re so talking about me.” Twilight grinned.
“How could I?” Luna said. “When you so clearly try your best at everything, when would I have had opportunity to see you be good at something without trying?”
Twilight considered that seriously, and then looked down at her hoof pressing down on Luna’s heart. Luna realized her mistake when she realized Twilight was feeling her heartbeat and giggling at her. “Wow. I didn’t take you for a brat.”
Luna’s brow furrowed. “What’s a brat?”
“It’s-” Twilight had to think about it. “It’s someone who tries to get a rise out of you because they want you to go harder on them, to use more of your strength against them. Like, I dunno, maybe you insult me just to see if I can shut you down, because you kind of like someone being able to.”
This sounded like an accurate description of Luna to her own ears, which was unfortunate because it was hideously embarrassing. Especially in the context that it had to be explained to her. Especially because the one explaining it to her was the one that she desperately hoped would not have learned this about her. Especially because her hoof was still pressed down on Luna’s heart. “This is most unfortunate.”
“Luna, are you into this?” Twilight giggled, and pressed down with her hoof harder. Luna grabbed the hoof, threw it off her and rolled in the dust, pushing herself back up to standing.
“No,” she said, and realized now they weren’t touching and Twilight hadn’t heard it. Twilight stood patiently, wing opened invitingly, for Luna to touch her - a thing that she would have to do to deny herself to Twilight right now. It was a masterful play, worthy of a master tactician. Luna threw a spinning kick at Twilight’s face instead, timing her “No!” with the impact against Twilight’s effortless block.
Then Twilight picked Luna up with her magic, and Luna had no counterspell capable of breaking it. Twilight held her high and walked underneath her, looking up. This was another angle of beauty that Luna could appreciate, she decided - someone who was looking at her from a position of such superiority that they were capable of achieving it even from such a position beneath her.
Twilight held her hoof gently against Luna’s heart again, just to emphasize its role as lie detector. “Now,” she said. “Princess Luna, as of kicking your butt up and down the moon, do you like me?”
“Of course I do. You are a charming and valued friend.”
Twilight shook her head. “Right, pre-modern dialect. I meant, has me besting you in righteous single combat afflicted you with romantic interest?”
Luna flinched, but this time there was no pulling away. Twilight could have done the telekinesis at any time before this, but had simply been toying with Luna, allowing her a chance to play. It hammered home just how much Luna’s best had been a game to her. “Of what interest to you is my answer?”
“Consider it a boon,” Twilight said. “That’s how it used to go, right, with duels? Winner got a boon from the loser? Well, that one’s mine, I’d like to know.”
Luna’s blood chilled. “I see you know your history. I would not have invoked the sacred rite of the duel had I known you also understood what it meant. In truth, in modern parlance, I considered it a jest.”
“It was funny!” Twilight agreed. “So?”
Luna nodded. “Fair is fair. Yes, to my great shame, I find this most attractive and I extend that attraction to you for it. Is this to your liking?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and let her hoof fall away. She stood in front of Luna and said something Luna couldn’t hear without the hoof on her heart. Twilight blinked, then lowered Luna closer to the surface and cupped her cheek instead to repeat herself. “I was saying,” Twilight said, “I wasn’t trying to be mean about it. I just came up here because… I don’t know if you’ll understand what I mean here, but have you ever tried to be alone to avoid feeling lonely?”
Luna nodded hard. Yes, she understood that all too well. “That it is not that you need company. It is that you cannot stand being aware of so many around you who have no desire for yours.”
“Yes!” Twilight let a breath out in relief. Even though there was no air on the moon, tension still made things such as holding one’s breath a force of habit. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here, right. I got jealous of getting ignored for a booty call, so I was up here being that special kind of lonely. So what I’m saying here is, basically, there’s a tent over there if you wanna make out.”
That- Luna stared at Twilight for ten unbroken, unblinking seconds before she was capable of speech. Ever since she had met her, the girl had exceeded all of her expectations. She did not even think that making a proposition so bold and forthright was a matter that would come up that she would need to doubt Twilight’s capability - she had never once considered Twilight would intend to make one.
That was to say, she was at a complete loss as to how to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to such a question. The question seemed forbidden despite Twilight’s asking of it, an answer would be doubly so. “That I enjoy how we have sparred, you would propose courtship? Dating? So suddenly? On such fickle and flightful feelings, in so sudden a moment?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I dunno about that. Depends on how good you are at making out, I guess?” She let go of Luna’s cheek and released her, letting Luna fall to the moon’s surface, and grinned like she’d made a truly excellent joke.
The joke, Luna realized as she touched the surface, was that whatever answer she needed to give would need to be made by her initiating touch with Twilight again. Twilight was curious to see how she’d do it.
Luna leaned in for the kiss.
Twilight hopped a step backwards.
Luna took a step forward, and Twilight took another step backwards, smiling even wider.
Growling, Luna lept again, flaring her wings, striking out to at least touch her with a wingtip, anything - and Twilight just stopped and braced and took the charge instead of leaping back like Luna expected. Her wild strike had relied on the backwards momentum, with an emphasis on speed. It was formless, liquid, absolutely unprepared to be accepted head-on, and Twilight simply leaned into it with a shoulder for Luna to crumple at Twilight’s hooves again.
Even though the blow grounded her, she understood the truth in what Twilight had said, that Luna really would beat her in a hoof wrestle. Twilight hadn’t needed to be stronger to pull that off. She had simply needed to understand Luna well enough to predict her, and to leverage herself masterfully against what she had correctly predicted.
It was quite possibly the hottest thing she could have done, regretfully. Even before Twilight leaned down, cupped Luna’s muzzle, and kissed her first.
“You’re not kissing me,” she explained through her hoof cupping Luna’s chin. “I am kissing you. When I asked if you wanted to make out I was just asking for permission.”
“What ever happened to Celestia’s meek student?” Luna complained. “The little shadow at her heels, the attentive and eager puppy? Where is that in the monster I see before me?”
“The student became the master, I guess.” Twilight’s eyes glittered when she said it, for only a moment, before she scowled at that. Then the scowl, too, became something thoughtful. She tapped her chin with the tip of a wing, so as to keep her balance while cupping Luna’s chin. “I don’t like ‘master’ though. Or sir or ma’am or mistress or any of that. It just kind of makes it weird for me.”
“Well.” Luna gulped a throat that was dry for reasons that had nothing to do with the dust or the lack of air. “What do you like?”
“I think I like… You.” Twilight finished, and kissed Luna again. Twilight pulled back in shock. “You are a way better kisser than me.”
Finally, finally Luna could grin in her own right. “I am still Princess of the Night,” she declared, and her thoughts went wonderfully fuzzy as Twilight’s hoof trailed from her jaw down to her throat again and squeezed. “And this will be the one thing you do not best me at, are not my better in.”
“Will it?” Twilight asked, and Luna froze up under that hoof to her throat. It was like she’d finally landed a strike just for the riposte to be infinitely more devastating than the blow had been worth. Even when she won, she lost. What a masterful opponent. What an effect that such a simple question had upon her.
Luna stretched her neck forward to kiss Twilight again, and Twilight pressed the hoof against Luna’s throat harder, and kissed her instead. She had almost forgotten she was still entirely in Twilight’s grip everywhere else, the telekinesis. For all that it was everywhere, only the grip at her throat felt so total.
But for all that, Luna was still the better kisser. When Twilight leaned back, Luna knew it in triumph.
“Okay.” Twilight swallowed at nothing. “It’s even worse when neither of us need to breathe, I just realized we could keep going forever if we wanted to.”
“Truly?” Luna asked, impressed. She had thought it a temporary spell.
Twilight nodded. “Surgically implanted magical artefact about the size of a marble, for me. I’m guessing for you it’s just a moon princess thing, but I used to worry about getting swallowed by a whale or something. We’re getting off topic.”
Actually, Luna took a note. She could only breathe like this on the moon, she would drown if she were to be swallowed by a terrestrial whale the same as any other, she just presumed she would best it if it were to ever occur. Twilight’s level of preparedness remained fascinating. “I was not aware there was a topic to deviate from?”
“This is happening rather fast, isn’t it,” Twilight admitted.
“It is.”
“I mean, totally platonic feelings until about an hour ago, right?”
“And I as well.”
“So like, this isn’t going to make things weird, is it?” Twilight asked. “Like, we can be not weird about this right?”
“I believe I have learned, since my return, we cannot,” Luna admitted. “I do not believe either of us is capable of ‘not being weird’ under any circumstances, least of all these.”
“Drat,” Twilight mouthed. “Right. Okay, so can we be weird about this in a way that’s fun for both of us?”
“What does weird even mean, in the context in which you are asking?” Luna asked, and the hoof moved off her throat and back up to cupping her cheek. Curiously, Twilight still kept her firmly in her levitation. Before it merely felt restrictive, but now it felt oddly possessive. Luna took a moment to be proud of her kissing, for that was surely the cause in the shift.
“I dunno,” Twilight admitted. “I’ve uh, I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”
Luna blinked. “What, really?”
Twilight nodded. “Yeah, this has all been playing it by ear. That was kind of my first kiss just now.”
They stared at each other, and Luna replayed the entire events of the last hour back to herself. What struck out to her was just the bizarre level of confidence Twilight had in every gesture, moment and step despite all of it having been for the first time. The idea she could so thoroughly make Luna melt like this without practice was… most frankly terrifying. What this mare would be capable of with experience, she shuddered to think.
“You would ask us to your tent so casually,” Luna said in utter disbelief, “for your first?”
“I didn’t want anyone to see it with a telescope if it turned out I was bad at it! But then you tried to kiss me and I was like, okay here we go then!”
“That’s not what-” Luna stopped and tried to work out what it meant, that that was what Twilight thought she had meant, and decided she couldn’t. “You offered such a thing without a pretense of courtship!”
“You’re cool!” Twilight’s hoof slipped down from Luna’s neck to her heart. “I was just, I was lonely, and you’re you, and you were looking at me like that, and I’m like… I still want to be able to still talk about law stuff with you after this if it turns out I’m bad at this, okay? Like if we don’t date, we can’t break up, and if we don’t break up we can’t be awkward exes, and if we never become awkward exes then we never have a reason to stop being friends.”
Luna processed that. Again, Twilight had the most impossible ability to plan and prepare for adverse situations that Luna would never consider anything other than a moment-to-moment approach for. Such an answer would be unlikely to satisfy her, however, and she was beginning to feel naked without that grip around her throat. “Would it be best, then, that I take the lead?”
“What?” That blessed hoof was tight to her throat again, and Twilight voiced herself through it. “No, of course not. We’ve been over this, I love leadership and you hate it. I’m not going to make you do that.” She smiled, and Luna flushed bright pink because that smile had the most delirious intentions to it. A wonderful decision had been made, when Luna’s offer had been interpreted as permission, it seemed. “I know what I want now. I just don’t know how to make a plan for what happens if I get it.”
“So don’t.” Luna nuzzled the hoof around her throat with her cheek as best as she was able. “Though perhaps it may be better if we return someplace where we may speak more freely to continue?”
“No.” Twilight was firm, and finally, finally did she drop Luna back to the surface of the moon. The hoof went back to Luna’s cheek to talk, tenderly. “I kind of want to start some place neither of us have to breathe and, besides. I’m happy to keep touching you for as long as we’re up here.”
When she put it like that, Luna could find she had no further objections herself.
