"This is the train? Do the ponies in it come with it or are they sold separately?"

"I do not understand."

"I... nothing, it was a dumb joke."

Ahead of me sits the goofiest looking train I have ever seen, and it's not even close. This train is for real? Why is it shaped all funky, so many weird curves and shapes jutting out, there's no way this thing is aerodynamic at all. Why is the engine pink? And the train cars too! There's blue here, and pink there, some purple wayyy over there. Why is this one shaped like a cupcake?! There's even— wait, you've got to be kidding me. Are some of those windows shaped like hearts?

I shake my head and turn my gaze away before my eyes start to bleed from this abominable excuse for public transportation. Fortunately, the train station itself is relatively normal, matching the rest of the town's archaic architecture. I step towards the small line of ponies gathering in front of what looks like the ticket window, but Luna's form, still hidden and outlined in light blue, steps in my way and nudges me towards the front of the train.

"Hey! Wha—"

"Shh. Keep it down." Luna shushes me, still nudging away from the line of waiting ponies.

I roll my eyes, but lower my voice. "What are we doing? Don't we need a ticket?"

Luna scoffs. "Have you forgotten who we are?"

I blink. "I mean, okay, yes. But shouldn't they know the, uh, nation's supposed rulers are boarding their train?"

"No. Like I said already, we require discretion, hence the enchanted cloaks. There are still civilians around us. To reveal our presence now would make our efforts for nought."

"Fine, okay." My eyes dart around the short lines waiting at the entrance of most the train cars. I narrow my gaze at the windows of the nearest car, making note of the plethora of ponies piled within. "But being invisible isn't gonna do anything for discretion if we start bumping into all those ponies, they're gonna feel it!"

"We are not boarding those compartments. We are boarding this one." Luna proceeds forward to the front most train car, the one shaped most like a cupcake, but also visibly devoid of any passengers or waiting ponies.

I tilt my head in confusion. "What's so special about that one? And why is it, uh, empty? Is it a private car or what?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. The front compartment of every train is reserved for active duty guards and anypony they may be escorting." She gestures behind me, where I turn and spot our two guard ponies exchanging a brief word with the stallion at the ticket booth. He gives a curt nod, and they trot in our direction, followed closely by Twilight and Lyra.

They're looking pretty nervous now. Especially Lyra, eeesh. A pang of guilt strikes through me as I remember that she's only being dragged along with us because I decided to open my big mouth to her and tell her a bit of who I really am. Twilight seems a bit more confident, resting a hoof on Lyra's back as speaks what I can only assume to be reassuring words. Ahh, sorry for all this, Lyra. Still, I don't know, I feel a little more... comfortable knowing she's coming along. Heh, hopefully her roommate doesn't worry too much.

Luna stands to the side of the train car's door and taps her hoof on the ground once. One of the guards continues forward towards the door, forcing me to stumble to the side to avoid an awkward collision. His horn flares with a sparkly, golden glow, and the blue, crystalline star on the center of his armor floats up and presses against the door, just below the handle. Shortly after, a soft click rings out. The guard floats the star back onto his breastplate where it reattaches like it were magnetic.

So those stars on their armor act like security badges? How is that supposed to work? Is there a chip in there or something? Gah, technology here is so confusing. I watch as the guard somehow loops his hoof around the handle in an atrocious violation of my knowledge of horse anatomy and pulls the door open. He steps up and into the compartment, where I see him trot a full loop along its length through the window. Not long after, he hops back down and steps to the side, giving some sort of hoof salute in our general direction.

"The train car is secure, your Highness. No other ponies present."

Luna nods. "Thank you, Lieutenant Stone Shield."

I glance at the guard briefly. 'Stone Shield'? Another interesting name. Seems fitting for a guard too. Wait, did he have that name before he even knew he'd become guard? I—

Luna clears her throat from the entrance of the train car, snapping me out of my thoughts. She gestures with her head inwards and continues forward.

"Yeah, yeah, hold your horses." I stick my tongue out, suppressing a snicker at my incredibly lazy pun and climb after her, up the few short stairs and through the main door. I take no more than a second to scan the interior and immediately deadpan. Oh, so the outside of the train looks like a freaking row of cupcakes with wheels, but the inside looks actually normal? Well... at least relatively.

The compartment interior features a well balanced blend of cool colors that, for once, made it seem like the designer finally found their brain cells. Double rows of soft, beige cushions lined the left sides of the car, spaced graciously apart, divided by an ornate cloud-shaped pane of glass. The walls are covered in gently flickering torches similar to the ones from the castle, and the windows are half covered by some standard pull-down shades.

No hearts or bright colors? What a surprise.

As I trot further in, Luna taps her hoof against the floor, and I hear Twilight, Lyra, and the guards make their way into the compartment behind me. The guards position themselves on either side of the door, standing tall and alert.

Twilight looks around the train car, her eyes darting between the guards and the presumably empty space where Luna and I stand, hidden by our cloaks. "Uh... Princess Luna? What do you want us to—"

"Just have a seat and relax, dear Twilight. It will be some time before we depart, and even more time before we reach the station for Canterlot Castle."

Twilight opens her mouth to respond, but pauses. She exchanges a brief glance with Lyra before returning a nod to Luna. The two unicorns float their saddlebags onto the nearest cushion and make for the opposite seat.

"And Twilight?"

She perks up and spins back around blindly towards Luna's voice. "Uh, yes, Princess Luna?"

"I would be most grateful if you refrained from posing any questions to Lyra pertaining to what she knows of the current situation."

Twilight visibly pouts. "But I—"

"Not until we are at the castle. Understood?"

"... yes, Princess." Her expression wilts slightly. Lyra reaches up and pats her on the head, much to her annoyance, before nudging her to their seat.

"Guards, curtains." Luna calls out. Both guards' horns light up with yellow light simultaneously. All the pull-down shades glow the same hue before being yanked down over the windows, darkening the room slightly. The flames of all the wall torches intensify in response.

Woah...

Luna exhales rather loudly in relief and reaches up to pull back her hood. Immediately, the glowing outline around her body vanishes, replaced by Luna's now fully visible cloaked form. In one, fluid motion, she whisks off the entire enchanted cloak with a hoof and deposits it on a nearby seat's glass divider. I follow suit, but struggle immensely with untangling my body from my cloak, almost falling on my face multiple times.

After a brief tussle, I finally wrestle it off my back. I try copying Luna's motion to toss it to the side, but it just pathetically falls to the floor at my hooves. I glance around the compartment, taking in the once-again vibrant colors with the cloak no longer screwing with my vision.

Ahh, feels good to see my... uh... well, not MY body, but at least A body.

Luna rolls her eyes, her horn lighting up as the cloak floats from the floor to the glass beside her own. As the light blue glow vanishes from around the cloak, Luna lets out a quiet hiss, wincing slightly.

What was that? "Uh... Luna? Are you... okay?"

Luna waves me off tiredly. "Yes, I am fine." I focus my gaze on her. She trots over to the other side of the train and climbs onto one of the seat cushions, sitting on her haunches.

I focus my attention on her for a bit. Something about her is... off. Different somehow. I can't place it, but I'm so certain there's something... I follow after her and sit opposite from her, taking a bit of time to pull my limbs into a seated position on an elevated surface. Luna raises an eyebrow.

"Gimme a break, I'm still getting used to this, okay?" I finally match her position and let my body relax. "I didn't, uh, hurt you earlier right?"

Luna tilts her head in confusion. "Earlier when?"

"Um... back at the castle library? I, uh, threw some stuff at your face."

"...you're kidding, right?" She deadpans.

I put my hooves up defensively, though quickly place them back down to avoid falling off the cushion. "Hey, I'm just saying. You looked a bit hurt just now, and a book to the face can definitely hurt. Uh, sorry for that, by the way."

She rolls her eyes. "With such a weak throw as yours, a book could not pose any such significant damage to me."

Wow. Really? That's just unnecessary.

She lets out an exhausted sigh. "No, I am simply... weakened right now." She levels an annoyed glare at me, from which I cower slightly. "After you disappeared and left the sun down, I had no choice but to raise it on my own. Raising the sun takes quite a lot more power than raising my moon, power that I am not lacking of. But even then, there is a... technique to how my sister does it, one that has yet to teach me. Without it, I resorted to raising it by brute force, leaving me... significantly drained. Currently, I can barely even lift things with it. If I had gone through with cleansing Lyra's memories, I would not be able to do even that right now, not until my energy replenishes."

Oh, huh. So good thing I stopped her from doing that, right? A thought hits me. Now they can raise the moon, not just the sun?! Next thing you know, someone's gonna tell me they can move the planets too! My curiosity eventually gets the better of me. "Um... so... what did you use to raise the moon?"

Luna stares at me blankly. "Magic."

What. "Magic." I repeat, deadpanning. "Ha. Ha. Real funny, but actually what are you using?"

She tilts her head at me, slightly irritated. "My magic, as I already said."

"Your magic?" I cry out incredulously. "Like, the same thing that all these unicorns use to float stuff around?"

Luna raises an eyebrow. "Yes, that is magic. What are yo—" She blinks and her mouth hangs opens slightly. "You really do not understand what I speak of?"

"No, I get now that magic is the word you use for how you ponies with horns can do telekinesis or whatever, but I don't get how that same thing can move something as big as the moon! Or the sun, for that matter!"

"...Celestia, where are you..."

I hear her mutter something under her breath. "What?"

She looks back at me. "...nothing. Yes, it is the same magic, but... I am not in the physical or mental state to provide a lesson on magic." She turns and gazes out the window, behind the shades. "Celestia was always better at teaching anyway," she mutters once more.

With Luna sitting still and no longer obscured by the cloak, my eyes finally register what has been bugging me about her. "So your... 'magic' is drained right now? Is that why your mane isn't all... flowy right now?"

Unlike back at the castle, where Luna's starry mane and tail flowed majestically like it were submerged in water, now they both rest almost still, save for the barest hint of movement. I hadn't noticed when we were in Ponyville because she was already wearing the cloak over her body.

She glances at her mane, then at mine, billowing mysteriously and annoyingly to my side, then back to her mane. "Hmm. It would seem so." She idly pokes her hoof through it, appearing like a curious house cat for a moment.

Wow... I've been there. She's definitely gotta be running on fumes right now. I think back to our run-in at the house. That's probably why she seemed a bit calmer earlier. And why she kept dodging my questions. Hmm... A thought passes through my mind.

"Um... Luna?"

She glares at me wordlessly in annoyance.

I scooch back a bit. "Whaaaat?"

She stares at me for a little longer, then her expression softens as she looks away. "Nothing. I know you are not my sister, and thus I would usually ask that you use my title, but... whoever you are, you have her body and voice, among other things. It would not seem right to me."

Hmm... someone has sibling issues. I blink. "Ooooookay then. Uh, how did you find me so quickly? Like, you knew exactly which house I was in, and you were very certain of it too. I mean, I didn't even know which house I was in."

Luna straightens up a bit. "You can thank your— I mean, you can thank Twilight Sparkle for that."

I turn around to glance at where Twilight sits, chatting quietly with Lyra on the other side of the train car. "Her?"

"Yes." Luna nods. "Right after you teleported away, I attempted to trace the teleportation matrix to its destination, which usually would pose no issue. However, with the sheer volume of magic artifacts clustered in that part of the library, I could not discern the signature of your teleportation spell from that of the passive signatures of all the other artifacts mixing in the air."

Huh? "I didn't understand a word you just said."

Luna grumbles. "Normally, I can sense and follow where you teleported to, as I should be able to with any teleportation spell. But that part of the library has a lot of magic and spells filling the air. It would be like following the smoke trail from a candle in a hurricane."

My mouth falls open. "So I... teleported? Like disappeared and reappeared somewhere else?"

Luna smacks herself in the face with a hoof. "Ugh. Yes."

I look myself over in a panic. "That doesn't, uh, involve killing myself and transporting an identical clone of me to the destination, right?"

Luna recoils in horror. "What? No! Where in Equestria would you get that idea?"

I shift around awkwardly. "Um... I dunno, just read about it somewhere, I guess."

"Uh huh." Luna rolls her eyes. "After trying desperately to trace your teleport and failing every single time, I sought out dear Twilight, you— my sister's student, hoping she would know some way of tracking you down that I would not. Thankfully, Celestia had integrated an enchantment in her dragon whelp, Spike, that lets him send letters to her regardless of where she is on the planet.

A dragon... with the ability to send letters to someone no matter how far? It just never ends, does it?

"After a... painful wait for the two of them to reach Canterlot, she had Spike send a letter to Celestia, and I used most of my remaining magic to teleport her, me, and two guards to the house that it went to. I don't have nearly enough magic right now to teleport us all back, hence why we are taking the train instead. Besides, the travel time will help my magic rejuvenate."

"Oh... so that's what those weird sparkly smoke letters are? Like the one from the library that, uh, outed me to you?"

"That is correct." Luna responds tiredly.

So you CAN send letters through smoke here. Hmm, not as fast as just texting, but it definitely beats waiting for the mail. I pause and look at her for a while, trying to gauge her expression. She looks tired and completely out of it, but most importantly... not nearly as angry anymore "Why are you... like this now?"

She tilts her head. "Like what?"

"No trying to kill me, for starters. And answering my questions."

She lets out a dry laugh. "I will elaborate on that first one when we reach the castle. I would like to include Twilight in that conversation due to her expertise in magic. However on your second, I... no longer fully believe you have any hostile intents."

Oh, now you do?! "Well, of course I don't!" I cry out. "I was trying to tell you back at the library, but you kept trying to kill me!"

She scoffs. "My efforts were not to kill you, but to merely to incapacitate you."

"Um, those blasts looked like they were meant to be kill shots."

"If you were dead, I would not have been able to interrogate you on the whereabouts of my sister. And naturally, I would not be inclined to believe you given that you had been lying to me about your identity since I found you."

I pause and look away. "I... okay, fine, I guess I'd be pretty pissed off, too."

Luna's muzzle scrunches in disgust. "I do not understand how that would make one urinate."

Bruh, are you kidding me. "Really? I—" I pause. No, I'm not doing this right now. "Sorry, I meant I'd be pretty mad, too."

"Yes, indeed." She replies sarcastically. "However, I saw how you acted at Lyra's house. As if you were trying to protect her. That, and all your reactions and incessant questions, I refuse to believe any infiltrator would take on such an... ambitious task with little to no knowledge of just about anything, or have any care for our ponies."

"But, uh... why aren't you interrogating me right now? About where the real Princess Celestia is? Because I know damn well I'm not her, so she's gotta be somewhere, right?"

"Indeed." Luna replies promptly. "Like your question before, I would like to wait until we have gathered privately at the castle. It is an... intriguing case and I wish to be in a more stable setting before briefing all of you on this."

"Isn't this train car stable enough of a setting? Why not just get it over with now?"

"Because I'm tired."

I blink. That's probably the most realistic answer I could've gotten. "Alright, fine— woah!"

I'm cut off as I feel the entire compartment lurch forward, then gradually begin to accelerate. My back presses against the glass divider, and my wings twitch upon the cool contact.

"We are departing." Luna states, relaxing slightly on her cushion. "It will be a while until we arrive. By the time we do, my magic should be strong enough to teleport the four of us across the much shorter distance between the Canterlot Castle's station and my quarters."

Ah, what do I do now then? I sigh and lean back against the glass divider of the seat. I turn around and spot Twilight and Lyra talking about something in earnest. Twilight's horn is glowing a bright purple, and several shapes of violet light float in front of her, as if accompanying a story. I try to squint my eyes, but I can't make anything out other than one of them looking like a star.

I spare a glance back at Luna, but her eyes are already shut, her forelegs folded to her chest oddly similar to how a human would cross their arms. Okay, seriously, what even is the anatomy of these ponies? I open my mouth to ask another question, but freeze. I... I don't want her snapping at me again. But, regardless of that... from what she describes, and how she looks, I'd imagine she's suuuuper exhausted. I wouldn't wanna be bothered right now either if I were in her shoes.

Eventually, I take notice of the pattern of blues and greens flying past behind the thin shades of the window. Careful as to not make much noise, I scoot closer to the window and lift a hoof to the shade, drawing it past just enough to give myself a view of the outside.

I feel my jaw hang open, my eyes widening, my ears perking up.

Wow...

Fields.

Vibrant, green fields, rolling to the end of the horizon.

And forests.

And mountains.

And rivers.

There are no tall skyscrapers blocking the land, no planes or jet trails clogging the skies, no huge cargo ships filling the waters.

Just pure, untainted nature as far as my eyes can see. And my eyes can see far.

This place really is... beautiful.

Author's Note

New chapter! :D Think I'm gonna settle with the 2-week schedule.

Lynser, you mad genius