The Royal Snitting Room

"Sister, I swear, if your solution to this is another cup of tea..." Luna grumbled as they descended into the bowels of the castle, lit by guttering torches.

"Ah, you misheard. It is modern parlance, I suppose. Another term for a temper tantrum," Celestia explained.

"... You believe I am throwing a tantrum," Luna said, pouting adorably.

"I believe you would like to." They arrived at a pair of great stone doors. Luna reflected on the prescient conversational timing granted by a millennium of traipsing around the same castle. "This room doesn't see quite so many guests as the Royal Sitting Room," Celestia finished as the doors began to grind open under the power of her magic.

It was only a room in the barest sense. A perfectly cubic void in the mountain's heart, twice as tall as the throne room, and littered with caches of weapons, headless training dummies, and... a pile of watermelons.

Celestia followed her gaze and smiled. "You know," she said, walking over to the fruits, "I never found the skill for art you have." With a brush, she began to paint black lines on a watermelon's rind. "But I've found quite the passion for caricature." Her work finished, she turned the fruit to face Luna.

She stifled her laughter at the foalish mockery. It was a depiction of the mare who'd insulted her in court, the one she'd... set upon, before Celestia stopped her. She pushed it aside. "Unless you will allow me to show her this, it's barely helping."

Celestia floated the fruit over to a dummy and speared it on a spike in its neck. "Perhaps this, then."

Luna looked at the noble's effigy with barely-veiled interest, then glanced back at Celestia. Celestia nodded down at the pile of weapons.

Luna bounded forward, grabbing the haft of a huge hammer in her mouth and sweeping it in an arc unimpeded by the dummy, which sailed into the far wall and exploded into splinters and chunks, bright red flesh dripping down from the impact. Luna's blood sang. She spat the hammer out and grinned back at her sister.

But memories of court quickly soured the feeling.

"The way they looked at me..." Luna sighed. "Not a trace of the admiration a challenge once drew. In my time, a pony who spoke like that to us would have been drawn and quartered, not drawn on watermelons," she grumbled, kicking a shard of the offending fruit.

Celestia glanced to the side guiltily. "I'm sorry, Luna. I didn't cover the way our little ponies' views of violence have changed."

"Even if you had told me... What could I do? I am violence." Luna raised a watermelon in her magic. "Even when you began to hold court, I was keeping the marauders from our strengthening borders. I see now that their love for me diminished as their need did. Now, a thousand years later, I am left behind entirely.

"It's as if they can smell it on me," Luna continued. "The guards at my doors face inward, not out! My maids creep like shadows, terrified to draw my gaze!" She sent the watermelon flying to the far wall with a flick of her horn, not even bothering to look as it splattered wetly. "When I practice the distance expected of a goddess, they forget me!" She stomped both forehooves down on the watermelon pile, painting her legs red."When I exercise the strength that inspired our ponies in ages past, they fear me!" She squeezed her eyes shut and encased the entire pile in crackling blue aura, slamming it into the ceiling.

Luna fell to the floor under the red rain, her legs folding under her as the tears finally broke. "What is left? No matter what I do... They do not love me."

"Sister..." Celestia began, walking to her side.

"Fret not. I do not begrudge them your peace, or you their love. I thank you for all you have done to prepare my place here. Quarters of my own, servants who stay into the night, even this room..."

Celestia picked up a spear in her magic and, not taking even a moment to weigh it, buried it in the wall so deeply that only the tip of the haft remained.

"I did not make this room for you." A dummy jerked into the wall with a golden flash, smashing into pieces which littered the ground. "You're right. I have worked to prepare a place here. I have toiled for centuries," she said, lifting up a cluster of swords. Luna trembled with a mixture of fear and awe at the singular focus in Celestia's eyes.

Rippling heat poured off her in waves as she superheated the metal into slag. "And now, after all I've done for them..." She whipped around, hauling the molten metal around into bright arcs which splattered against the wall. "They dare to reject my only sister!" Celestia screamed.

She stood there, panting, coat lathered with sweat, then closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

"We are both still of that time, Luna. In our minds, violence is still a tool, even though the modern pony sees it as abominable. But we live in their time, and we can learn. It is as our parents said. An alicorn has four hooves: past, present, future, dreaming."

Luna finally recovered herself and nodded. "So long as you teach me to temper it as you can, sister. This... snit has helped."

"Of course. You'll find there is plenty good in change, dear sister. Would you like to accompany me to a festival tonight?"

"A festival? With food? And games?.." Luna asked, as if even something so sacred as that had changed as well.

"Indeed," Celestia responded.

"... At night?" Luna asked in abject wonder.

Celestia laughed. "Indeed."

"Yes!" Luna shouted. "Ahem. Yes, I would certainly accompany you, sister."

Celestia flicked a bit of loose watermelon off her fetlock. "... Perhaps a trip to the baths, first."