The Reflecting Pool

by Strangeling

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, Romance
Length: 1598

Luna sits lakeside, musing that her unplanned defeat was better than any plans she might have had

Following Nightmare Moon's defeat at the hands of the Elements, Princess Luna sits lakeside with her most loyal bodyguard, musing that Nightmare's unplanned demise has turned out better than all the foalish mare's victory plans ever could have. Luna's guardsman, however, is not so sure. He has given up much for the mare, home and family not least among his sacrifices, and he is left to ask, "can I ever recoup my losses?"
Nopony would be more surprised at the answer, perhaps, than himself.

Note that this is a complete, self contained, shoe polished and spit shined story, but that it is also a teaser for a much larger story that I plan to write.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-28 08:30:01 UTC

Lake Country

Aeneas and Luna sat after their defeat by a warm Equestrian lake deep within the Everfree forest. The land was such that it opened up about the lake. Brambles shied from the shore’s edge and one could sit upon the rocky coast, unmolested by groping branches, and see, as across a meadow, the phalanx of cedars guarding the far shore.

Willows and hoary firs bowed in reverence for, and the clear water was still in deference to, the bright moon, whose light all the country received with pleasure and honor. Only white steam was haughty enough to rise to whiter moon. Luna forgave it this, for naught else could the steam do but rise, so hot were its waters with love.  It was not a wholly unpleasant forest after all, mused Luna. She was, in fact, resting on the shores of one of the pleasantest lakes in Equestria. Nopony else was mare enough, however, to brave the Everfree to visit it, so it was her little secret.

The moon was luminous. Celestia’s face, much pleased at Luna’s conversion, had shone brightly upon the Lunar Princess, as the sun now shone upon the moon; and so the land was silver lit well enough for sight. Luna, therefore, gazed at and was transfixed  by her now much younger reflection. Sudden ripples broke the reflection. Aeneas stirred restlessly.

Luna and her most faithful body guard had had their backs to each other and were sat very comfortably upon mossy stones, so Luna did not turn to face him, but spoke to the disturbed water.

“I have never been so happy… with a defeat, my captain.”

At this Aeneas’ chest heaved, and heavily, though not for his black breastplate, whose forged-in abdominals and graceful likenesses of the winds carved in curlicues about the chest, he still wore.

“But I still lost the battle for you, my dear” he said with an audible sigh.

“Excuse me?” said Luna, sitting up straighter.

“—My Lady” Aeneas corrected himself.

Luna turned, and the white train of her silken dress mingled with the moon’s white light in the lapping water. The dress was a simple affair, pure white, unadorned, but smart and tightly fitted, with a more translucent fabric around the neck and shoulders that opened into a V at the chest. It was seamless, and sleeveless below the shoulders; in truth it was a nightgown.

Luna had been tossing, sweating in a fitful nightmare of jealousy and hurt, when Nightmare Moon took final hold of her. This gown was what the Princess was last wearing when that maleficent mare wrenched her from her bed screaming, stole her memory for one thousand years, and with her sad envy bore away Luna’s crying heart.

“What worries thee? About what hast thee to worry now?” she asked.

Searching for a cause (for he was still somber in spite of the positive turn of events) Aeneas replied, “Well, my reputation is gone. Will men follow he that lost the battle for his Princess? And to a rainbowed mare no less, that fight, which lost, left the maiden of the moon alone to fend off six magic warriors.”

Luna was now fully turned and stared intently at her captain’s back as he spoke, as focused as if it were into his eyes and not her own convex reflection, in his polished cuirass, that she then stared. When Aeneas had finished she giggled, which surprised them both, and she said, through a sly grin, “An alicorn princess unable to face six young mares is so much less embarrassing than an earth-pony guard unable to face one.”

This elicited a raised eyebrow from her guard, who now turned himself half of the way towards his Princess.

After a pause Luna spoke again, this time in a more royal tone, “You should have remained at home this time. Your term was served: colt of seven to stallion of thirty seven. This campaign was not yours to fight; you could have retired with honor.”

“Home is a quiet place for me, too quiet for my liking.” Aeneas replied, wistful eyes resting on the full moon.

“You should have been a father then,” Aeneas didn’t answer, “you would have been a good father… “

“It does not do for a soldier to have such attachments,” he said finally, “What would have become of my career if I had some fillies or other to care for, huh? The time lost to their care, the manly vigor lost to domesticity, no,” he huffed, “I will leave the child rearing for the mistresses and the maidens, and the maids…”

Luna shook her head a bit, but she was a marelike pony and so measured her response, “I suppose next you will tell thy princess,” at the word ‘princess’ she drifted into the Royal Canterlot Voice, “that we ought to have stayed at home and made ready the beds and cooked the Shadow Bolts dinner, while they alone fought our war?” Both Aeneas and Luna were now facing the same direction. Side by side they sat. Luna sat herself up straight as Nightmare’s statue, with one leg crossed tightly over the other. In the water her reflection was now taller than Aeneas’. “Mares need adventure, Aeneas, my captain, my guardsman, thou canst trust us there.” said Luna. “I know,” she continued more softly, “I know that we need it as much as stallions need a colt or filly to love.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have left,” said Aeneas shakily. “What if I had died in the battle? A corpse can’t very well settle down! The opportunity to have all that I ever wanted from life would have been gone… but if I hadn’t gone I could’ve lost y—" he cut himself off, and thought to himself  I thought I did loose...

When I lost the battle, I thought I had lost it for good.”

Aeneas continued his thought out loud, not minding the radiant mare with the light blue hair beside him. That mane no longer had its regal flow, but rather its ethereal glow had dissipated. That unmagicked mane now fell in locks of brilliant but natural aquamarine all about its owner’s forelimbs, a beauty not seen in ten centuries.

“Lost what dear captain?” whispered the mare, but she already knew the answer. And settling her head into an inviting crook that lay between the neck and broad shoulder that were beside her, she began to hum, and then softly sing,

“Hush now, quite now, time rest your sleepy head,

Hush now, time is now, for cap-tain to take her hand…”

She finished with a sigh ,“… And wed.”

A tear or two streamed down Aeneas’ face, but before they could fall into the lake their course was diverted by a huge smile. Noting the goofiness of his agape mouth in his reflection, Aeneas quickly squashed the expression. His face was again as stern as it ever was, for fear of Luna’s seeing his stark naked emotion.

He shouldn’t have feared for she was asleep now. The soothing vapors of the hot spring fed lake proved an obstacle too great for her to overcome (Celestia would have to set the moon this dawn). Princess Luna would not have cared, however, if she were awake. She would rather have found it charming, as she found all her guardsman’s blushing and posturing.

But such is the way with Stallions I suppose. They have buck enough when they find their mares far off, have them only in dreams, and speak to them only in fabricated tales told after too much cider. When they have them under their arms, though, when every chuckle from them would melt their beloveds’ hearts, and but looking into their mares’ eyes would be enough pleases and thank-yous and I-love-yous for a lifetime, then they fear to make offence as if it were the cutie-pox-plague.

The Ballad of Things to Come

And how did Princess Luna and Aeneas come to sit by a lake in the Everfree forest?

Of great wars

And battles do I tell.

Of a scale beyond reckoning

Even by hell.

Fierce fights that ensued,

From a fierce family feud,

Stained red the ground,

And with war trumpet’s sound,

Cracked the sky.

‘Fly, pegasi!’

Railed the Lunar general on high,

As they assaulted the phalanx, golden,

Of Celestia’s pride;

Her army, that of a goddess,

Was nevertheless not a match,

For one of equal worth,

Raised by one of equal birth,

Elector to province Lunar

Who was yet of greater wrath,

Who endeavored Equestria’s crown, perforce,

To snatch.

We all know how it ends, but not half how it goes,

For one thousand years, took it, to fully unfold.

‘Bold sister, who grows every day in her pride!’

‘Hail Luna! the crowd, in response, did cry!

Rail against corruption and intrigue did she,

Princess Luna, elector to Lunar,

But to her rebellion there was much more, you will see.

Flee did millions of stallions and mares,

From poverty and pestilence,

Born of Cestial court’s impudence,

Queen, crowned Princess Celetsia’s potence,

Justice, judge’s, and law’s impotence.

But envy is a mistress cold, and jealous Luna intended not to help

Mares, her minions. From a source more frozen, came her words so bold.

We all know how it ends, but not half how it goes,

For one thousand years, took it, to fully unfold.

Thank Jupiter and Jove that one man was there,

An English Professor, a man, alone in a Equestria

alone of all mares;

And from his own journal

His tale will be told