Luna had always felt that calm was overrated.
Years before, in elementary school and even junior high, Luna had found herself a frequent guest of the student counselor, due to her having had a slight issue with the fact that all her classmates were obnoxious morons that impeded her ability to learn. The sessions proved mostly fruitless, due to the counselor also being an obnoxious moron impeding her ability to learn, but Luna had done her best, out of resigned obligation, to earnestly take his advice regarding different methods of calming and self-control. Breathing exercises had had some success, being based in a rough form of actual science, but other methods, like picturing calm settings and thinking positive thoughts, were utter hogwash that illustrated why that insipid fustilarian was dispensing his pseudowisdom to children rather than running his own practice.
Luna’s teenage years, despite adding puberty to the mix, had seen her mellow somewhat without really trying. Certainly, she had plenty of contemporaries worthy of the label obnoxious morons, but, with multiple classes per day to cycle through, the amount of time each of them had to find their way under her skin was limited. More impressively, some people she’d met during her time at Canterlot High had not only avoided that designation, but also earned a bit of her respect as well. And that seemed to have been enough to temper Luna’s once-eternally-fiery demeanor to the point of being acceptable in public. Somewhat to her surprise, she’d even managed to reach the point where much of the school found her likable.
Or at least likable enough that she had been elected to the office of Student Body President the past spring.
It had been a rather natural progression, on the surface. Two years before, she’d narrowly won her first student government election, for Treasurer, an unexpected development given she’d only run for the sake of a personal favor and made little effort to campaign. After taking a liking to her role, she’d then run with far more enthusiasm for Vice President the next year, and finally, heading into her final year of high school, for President. Those elections had been a sweep, having run unopposed for Vice President after her opponent dropped out of the race, and then having faced two inexperienced and unserious candidates in her bid for the presidency. In any case, the congratulations she’d received upon the results being announced were enthusiastic and sincere.
An outsider might have thus assumed that Luna had proven her transition from class hellion to class heroine complete.
That outsider would be wildly incorrect.
The key to Luna’s self-control wasn’t any bogus meditation technique, nor even any of the mildly useful breathing exercises, but that simple, basic knowledge that she wasn’t the sole functional human being in the room. That there was at least someone there to talk to, relate to, express things to… and, most importantly, had the capability to listen when she spoke.
Disagreement with a peer was one thing. Disagreement with imbeciles was entirely another.
And on this particular day, that being the day of her first meeting of student government as President, she’d realized, too late, that her new Cabinet had a serious sanity deficit.
Not all of the faces were unfamiliar. Their familiarity had made things more infuriating, at any rate. But the key issue was that there was a core face missing, one belonging to someone who had been vital to keeping meetings – and Luna herself – running smoothly.
And as Luna, moments after throwing open the back doors of Canterlot High so hard she’d half-expected both of them to fly off their hinges, began her furious trek towards the nearest phone booth, she found herself reaffirming her observation that calm is overrated.
Because even if Luna wouldn’t be physically seeing her sister’s face, she knew it was going to feel very good indeed to have someone actually listen to her screams.
The walk had been entirely too long.
The wait outside the booth as some grating idiot held what was surely an insipid conversation with no one had been entirely too long.
Luna had no intention of putting her frustrations on hold. As soon as the box opened up, she’d stormed inside, which had drawn a quizzical stare from the departing simpleton that she’d purposefully ignored. After a brief yelling fit while trying to withdraw the correct coins from her handbag, she’d deposited the requisite amount, snatched up the receiver, and mashed the buttons.
Sweat dripped down her palm, the receiver momentarily slipping within her grasp as she stood there, waiting for the dialing to cease and the voice of sanity to replace it. Classes there would have finished by now, Luna knew, and thus she’d almost certainly be back in her dorm room and ready to pick up–
“Hello?”
The moment had finally arrived, as Celestia’s voice crackled into her ear. Luna quickly met it with a barrage of her own.
“Sister!” she boomed. “You would absolutely not believe the sheer onslaught of utter and complete stupidity I have just endured! In all the years we have been in student government, in all the years anyone at Canterlot High has been in stu– no, in all the years Canterlot High School has existed, I can assure you that the levels of asininity that just befouled the library’s Annex B have never before been achieved!”
The need to take a breath created just enough of a gap in Luna’s words for Celestia’s voice to squeak one word in. “Luna–”
“And it was not merely incompetence that derailed what should have been a simple introductory agenda-setting for the school year, no no. It was mutiny! Everyone in the Cabinet, both new and returning, may as well have openly spat in my face! In fact, a cooling mist of saliva may well have been a courtesy from how much my blood was boiling! It was not simply stupid, it was not merely a mutiny, but it was a stupid mutiny! The absolute worst kind!”
Looking out the tall windows that lined all sides of the booth, she could see that a prospective patron had briefly stopped to wait their turn, only to gawk as the torrent of fury was unleashed, slowly backing away once Luna’s gaze met hers.
Her sister, on the other hand, seemed unfazed. “So, how was your day?”
Luna’s lips curled. “A most bemusing query. Right now, I am standing in a dingy phone booth with a less-than-felicitous odor. It seemed safe to presume that using one of the school phones in this manner would have landed me an unpleasant session with Vice Principal Cookie.” She scoffed. “‘Decorum unbecoming of my office,’ I feel certain the phrase would have been.”
“And the same issue at home, I’m guessing?”
“That, and the likelihood Father would be using the confounded Canternet again,” Luna grumbled, stepping backward against the side of the stall. “I would prefer to not suffer through the shrill torture of dial-up modems while I am already on the verge of twisting heads off!”
“I see. Well, I’m glad you at least had the foresight to find a more private venue before jumping right down my eardrum.”
“I cannot help that you absconded to a university across the state, and that consequently I must concentrate all my emotions into one call every undetermined interval. Now, may I continue? I did not pay for an unlimited session in the booth, and I do not presume to be physically capable of holding off the angry mob that will surely form if I spend an inordinate amount of time here.”
There was an audible groan through the receiver, before a reply that made it impossible not to visualize Celestia dragging her hand down the side of her face. “Proceed…”
By this time, the first of Luna’s would-be successors to booth occupancy status had slunk off to greener pastures, but they had since been replaced by a pair of middle-aged women waiting their turn, seemingly oblivious to Luna aside from recognizing that the box was occupied. They were chatting with each other, noisily, and Luna found herself elevating her volume in kind as she began the unloading.
“Yes, I do suppose you are quite used to ‘Luna being Luna’ about all this. But I must begin by saying – I tried, damn it! I went in with the same mindset I always have, that you helped cultivate when I was Treasurer and Vice President – take things lightly, accept disagreement, focus on solutions. And I made a plan. A thorough plan, with contingencies. I planned based on what I knew – or what I thought I knew – about our Vice President and Secretary, while also accounting for the limited assessment I had of our new Treasurer. And as for our Public Relations–”
“I thought you were on limited time.”
“Oh I do apologize, am I wasting yours?” Luna retaliated, stepping back into the center of the box. “Well, suffice to say, what ensued was a disaster worthy of chronicling in myth. Every last proposal I made, every last piece of my agenda – the very things I campaigned on – trounced, tabled, ‘saved for next time.’ It was as though they had coordinated the entire thing, mind you, as each item was never initially objected to by the same person twice in succession. They took turns sabotaging me. It would have been clever had it not been so stupid.”
“I’m confused. One person complaining isn’t enough to force a tabling motion. You’d have to put it to–”
“Oh, they did, I assure you. Because here is the real bit of treason and mutiny – my Vice President seconded all the objections. Each and every one besides her own, and our Treasurer was sure to second those in obvious gratitude. I do not know what game my supposed second-in-command is playing, but Raven Inkwell has now tossed a spanner into a process that should have been done in a day, but could now take weeks!”
That seemed to do the trick in finally getting Celestia to take her seriously. “Wait, Raven? Seriously, Raven of all people?”
Luna laughed, mirthlessly. “Yes indeed. It seems our quiet former Secretary was something of a tiger hiding her stripes. And there was– there was indeed a point where I could not take it any more. A few minutes before the end of the meeting time, I simply had to know where this had come from. And what did she say to me?”
Her body tensed, free hand clenching into a fist, nails starting to dig into her skin. She grit her teeth and practically snarled as she continued.
“Well, let me tell you exactly what she said. She said, ‘I don’t want the vice presidency to just be a rubber stamp.’”
“What?”
Luna grinned a wicked grin of vindication. “Ex-act-ly. I mean, was that what I was to you? What people saw me as? Just a rubber stamp for the Celestia administration, ignoring any and all dissent and ensuring my sister got her way? Because that is absolutely not how I remember it!”
“Me neither.”
“I objected last year, did I not? On several occasions!”
“Quite a few, yes.”
“And I do not regret doing so. Developing a petition for the principals to move the Friendship Games forward a week was always a doomed venture and a waste of time. If anything, it simply assured that that new highbrow Crystal Prep principal would be out for blood. And then do not get me started on that incident with the Math Club and the salamanders–”
“I am very purposefully not getting you started. Please continue.”
Grimacing, Luna glanced out the side of the box, where the two women were still chatting, but now peering in every so often. There was a brief moment of eye contact before Luna turned herself to face the keypad. With her free hand, she pulled out her handbag and withdrew a few more coins, depositing them into the machine. One of the women audibly huffed, but Luna ignored it.
“The point is, Raven is being absurd. You raise objections when they are sensible, and sustain the objections of others if they are warranted. You do not simply approve any and all ridiculous complaints simply for the sake of proving a point!”
Stepping backward, she slumped slightly against the wall behind her.
“I just…” Her voice finally started to cool, the anger smoldering into a potent hurt. “What can I do with these people? I do not wish to be a monarch or dictator, but if this Cabinet is going to be this unreasonable and short-sighted the entire year, I may find myself brushing up on my Neighpoleon history lessons!”
“It’s just student government. You should know as well as I do how little that actually means.”
“That is not the point.” Luna grit her teeth. “The point is… the point is that none of them are looking at me and seeing a leader. Or even seeing me. They just see your shadow. All I am to them is… their chance to prove that they can take on the great President Celestia, even just by proxy. They know that without you, I as one person cannot fight back with the process. I can only get angry. The way you never would have.”
There was a pause, and Luna looked over again. Now there was a third person, a man in his thirties, behind the two women, who were now looking actively annoyed.
Celestia’s voice snapped her back into the conversation. “I do get angry, Luna.”
“Not like me.”
“No, not like you.” Another pause, with what sounded like a chair scooting in the background. “But I get angry.”
“Simply put, I…” Luna stammered. “I believe what I am coming to understand is that I can only be at my best with you around.”
“I don’t believe that.”
The response had been immediate, and that immediacy caught Luna off-guard. “Well, I mean–”
“No, I get where you’re coming from, I do. It gets under your skin sometimes, wondering just who people really see when they think of you. I’ve been there.” Luna heard a sigh on the other end, then silence.
She only had a brief few moments to fumble for a response before ultimately losing the chance.
“Look, I know that, well, we’ve always been a team. Basically as long as I can remember. I mean, I knew people at school who thought it was weird that I talked about you like a friend, because that just wasn’t what siblings are supposed to be to them. It’s supposed to be about rivalry, upstaging, proving yourself the best one, and all this other dumb nonsense like the world is a badly-written movie or something.
“Hmmph,” Luna scoffed. “Nothing truer about our age group than viewing the world through the lens of silly media tropes. And that person clearly never witnessed our little spat at Camp Everfree.”
“Yes, you and your sudden attack of heliochronomentrophobia.”
“And I am still waiting on my answer for precisely who benefits from measuring time in this day and age with a sundial, Sister. Particularly at night.”
“It’s not about– ugh, forget it. The point is, that’s why I asked you to run for Treasurer in the first place. It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident I could be President as an eleventh-grader, even if the other candidates kept telling me I had to wait my turn. But I knew I needed someone I could count on, trust, anything in that Cabinet. You know as well as I do there’s two kinds of people who run for student government – the ones who just think it’s a popularity contest, and the ones who are way way way too hardcore about everything and just like being rules lawyers.”
“Indeed, though I have always presumed you particularly wanted someone who was not a twelfth grader resentful of you taking their rightful place at the top.”
There was a slight laugh, the first earnest one of the call. “That too. It’s just… we’re anomalies, as leaders. Not the same kind of anomaly, but complementary. It was more obvious when you were my VP last year, but even before that, during that first year, it meant a lot having you there.”
Luna took a breath, then stepped forward into the center of the box. “I must admit I am rather intrigued to know what you feel I contributed as Treasurer beyond my official duties. As I recall, any time that student government came up at home, it generally was in the form of a bitterly sour comment by myself over the unintelligence demonstrated by the supposedly superior older students.”
“And you have no idea how grateful I was to hear them.”
Luna pondered the remark. “The id to your superego.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But you’ve never been shy about calling out horseapples when you see them. It felt vindicating, to hear you say what I was thinking.”
After a blink, Luna shut her eyes for a moment, clenching her fist. When she opened them, her eyes were narrower. “But if a team is what we are, then why encourage me to run for President at all? You knew you would not be there with me – you knew I had concerns – but you pushed me to reach for it, to take the leap. And now I have to wonder if I am even capable of leadership on my own.”
She swallowed.
“You were always the face, even when I was the one on the ballot. Maybe students at CHS do not dislike me, but you were the popular one. I do not have to wonder who people saw when they elected me. They were not voting for a first Luna term. They were voting for a third Celestia term.”
Her head dipped, eyes drawing down to the ground below. Her grip loosened, and the receiver had nearly slipped past her ear by the time her big sister’s voice came through.
“Look, Luna, I’m not going to pretend that there’s no truth to that. We both know there is. I wanted you to succeed, and I used my face to give you what help I could. But… I think you’re forgetting something big.”
Genuinely unsure where this was going, Luna could only respond with “What?”
“I wouldn’t be Celestia without you. I never have been. Whatever social and political capital I had to throw around comes from what I’m able to do, and there’s not a whole lot I can say I’ve done without you in some shape or form. We’re sisters, Moonie, to the end. Maybe people see a bit of me in you, but I think they see you in me too. And I’m perfectly content with that.”
For the first time during the call, Luna smiled. The world around her slipped away for a moment as the comforting words washed around her, soothing in their embrace. There was an instant where Luna carried the recognition that, below the surface, there had been a quite different motivation to her call than merely to yell. That understanding that Celly would always have the right words to say, that could break through the walls of fury and bitterness and lift her spirits.
Then she realized she was still in a phone booth, still holding the receiver, and the voice on the other end, wisdom or no wisdom, still had skipped a key thing Luna had asked.
“That is nice and all, Sister, but… you have not answered why you recommended that I press on alone this year. In what is, important in the grand scheme of things or not, the most visible student leadership position in the school, unless one assumes I am subordinate to the monarchy produced by the school dances.”
Celestia chuckled at the dry wit. “I guess because, well, like it or not, we’re apart this year. We might be apart a while longer. And I thought you deserved the chance to make the most of that opportunity. You can do this, Moonie. I know it. I know it’s frustrating, and I know we’re on this call because you and frustration don’t mix well. But I believe in you.” Her voice swelled. “You can bring those mutineers in line. They want to take on Celestia? Too bad for them, because they don’t have her. They have Luna. And Luna can handle herself a lot better than anyone in that Cabinet thinks. Maybe even the President herself.”
Luna had the mental image of Celly marching up and down the length of her dorm room delivering her speech in the rousing manner of a military general, and that brought a grin to her face. Especially when that image extended to the idea of an exasperated roommate nearby trying to ignore the whole thing. She had a sneaking suspicion the visual was very close to reality.
“Fair enough. I guess I–”
There was a sudden rap on the side of the box to her left, and Luna whirled about to face the two irate women, one of whom was angrily pointing to her watch while the other stared at her with eyebrows furrowed.
Her rage reserves immediately rising to the surface, Luna’s eyebrows knit so tightly they practically formed a unibrow as she exploded. “Why yes, I have noticed you two, thank you very much! And since you both have been so committed to using this specific payphone when you could have found one a block away at any point, I firmly believe you have the capability to spare one lousy minute more waiting for me to finish!”
The excess fury thus depleted into the atmosphere, Luna smirked once more as the duo’s eyes widened, backing off. She then let out an embarrassed laugh as she realized she had neglected to take the phone off her ear, and thus poor Celly had heard all of that at full volume.
“I… I should probably wrap things up.”
“For the sake of my auditory faculties, that’s probably for the best.”
“A-apologies,” Luna stammered, before a pause to take a breath. Then another. “I just… I suppose I miss our team already.”
“I do too.”
“And I will take your advice, and show Raven and the others that I have no intention of not being my own person. But even so, I feel little doubt that I will look back on being Vice President more fondly than being President.”
“More than understandable. Anyway, I’ll let you go, but next time we’re talking about my stuff. There’s a lot of stuff at uni here that I really think you’d be into. Or at least worth giving a chance.”
Luna shook her head. “You are probably the only one with even a chance of interesting me in a career in education, of all things.”
“Hey, if you wanna keep being a team, I’m just saying…”
“Goodbye, Celly.”
“Talk to you later, Moonie.”
Luna hung up the receiver, slid open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, making sure to look the two women in the eyes before walking past, taking satisfaction as they scurried inside. The man who’d been behind them was still there as well, seeming nonplussed by the whole affair. An unreasonably calm attitude that Luna had a bit more respect for than usual at the moment.
She strode off toward her apartment, letting her own feeling of calm and inspiration feed and ferment ideas for how to bring her rebellious Cabinet in line.
After the following week’s meeting, there was a clear sign of progress. Luna only nearly tore one of Canterlot High’s back doors off its hinges.
