Chapter Six

Celestia was sitting in her room, drinking a soothing cup of hot tea. While usually her day was overwhelmed with near disabling levels of work and her tolerance would usually run on thin ice by the end of the day. About the only things that truly got her relaxed were, well, relaxing in general, and sleeping.

Not to mention binge eating a bit of cake, but as Celestia raised a hoof to her mouth to hide a smirk, she decided no one needed to know about that. Though she did suspect her sister, Luna, knew something of it. Although, Luna was more of a inside pony, so it came no surprise to Celestia she enjoyed all manners of boardgames and a drink every now and then. Not that she was addicted in any way, but every month or few months a bottle of wine would go missing from the Royal Wine cellar, and Celestia would find a grouchy Princess of the Night with a screaming headache, literally, the next morning.

As hard as she tried to hide her habits, Celestia knew more than Luna may think...

...and of course she took precautions to make sure they never get out of hand, like watering down the aged wine, and those that had higher alcohol contents. She smiled to herself.

Sadly, the day was only half over, and she assumed Luna and Marceline were sleeping, talking, arguing or all three. She shook her head, somewhat unaware to the not-so-simple situation that was coming hereafter.

Luna was laying on her bed, attempting to get a small amount of rest while she could. However, each time she did, another small creak and movement came from the woman beside her. Marceline, while not having much etiquette in terms of speaking or most manners, she definitely didn't have any while having another person in the bed.

She was rolling around annoyingly, yawning loudly at times and kept hitting Luna on accident only for Luna to separate them both with her magic, or try to, and fail with a small grunt. Her horn wasn't nonfunctional, just extremely hard to use. It seemed her constant use of magic the past few days with high end spells caused Luna's horn to resent any spells, or most with any real power behind them.

While the Princess of the Moon continued to try and sleep, she couldn't help but wonder what Marceline was doing when she rose out of the bed, as she assumed a vampire would. That word still bothered her, 'vampire'. She remembered making such creatures long ago when Luna wanted more subjects to respect and appreciate her night as they did now, however, they usually referred to the 'gift' as a curse.

She could understand easily why they did that so, as it's rather annoying not able to go out into the sun or do anything during the day, almost. Though the increased strength and speed were good, it still came at too many prices to actually become good. Much to Luna's relief though, Celestia had cured most of the vampires of their ailments and made sure they could adjust again by giving them new names and lives. However, some of them still have attributes and powers of one, while not having the hunger of blood.

The 'hybrids', as ponies called them, were not well known and very docile so it wasn't a problem. Still, it bothered Luna.

And somewhere in the distance, a certain pink Earth pony giggle-snorted.

What bothered her even more at the moment though was what Marceline was doing. She'd been moving around the room as far as Luna could tell, but not doing much. With a rueful groan, Luna cracked her eyes open. What she saw made no sense for a few moments, before she opened her eyes wider.

Marceline was floating around the room, not taking things but simply looking over almost everything she touched, some of them being artifacts that Luna would rather not have touched. Does she always act as a curious child? Thought Luna as she slowly pushed herself up, only to realize Marceline now held a book. It was a brown, generic-looking golden bound book.

It was her own diary, and Luna felt herself get an immediate shock before she said quickly, "Marceline, what art thou doing touching our personal items?!"

The Vampire Queen looked up, smiling sheepishly and setting it down, "Oh, sorry to wake you Luna, I was just uh, lookin' around. Trust me I wouldn't look through your diary, I swear." A look of uncertainty crossed Luna's face as she sighed.

Waving a hoof towards the bed, "Just come to bed Marceline, we'll be heading out on our...'vacation' tonight, towards Ponyville. It shall be a quaint place to wait while the concoction and items are collected."

Groaning with obvious fake annoyance, Marceline slipped into the bed effortlessly, lifting the covers up due to her floating instead of actually laying down.

Deciding it was good enough, for the time being, Luna turned on her side that was facing away from her acquaintance and laid her head down, yawning as she curled up against herself and the blanket in a rather cute fashion before letting sleep take herself.

When Luna awoke, Marceline's loud snores still rung throughout the bedroom, so she felt a smile tug at her lips. While Marceline wasn't a bad person, per se, just childish at times. Thankfully she knew when to act serious, though she was thinking herself in circles trying to generalize how Marceline acted.

Standing up on her two frontal hooves, she stretched them forward, then came her back legs, which did the same, only backwards this time. She walked about her room, looking over certain things and containers to make sure all of her belongings were safe and sound, and all she needed would be on her work desk near the door.

After spending ten minutes gathering supplies, a small pile of seemingly random items sat on her desk, and careful measurements of the items needed to make the potion were in a small, brown knapsack. She tied it tightly, hanging it off her saddle bag which she had put on mere moments ago.

Next, she quickly took out an empty pot, or rather cauldron, and hung it on her person as well. Smiling, she was almost ready to go, now was to find things she wanted to take with herself so the week, or weekend more or less, would be more enjoyable.

Luna meandered around the room, grazing around the area to find things she would like to take. She left her regalia, as they weren't needed for the time being. However, she did take a potion for the trip itself and anti-venom and put them in her saddlebags. While she doubted that they'd need something for health, you could never be too careful, and something happening to Marceline would be even worse.

Then, Luna remembered Marceline's rather strange appetite, and looked through her drawers. She kept a lot of old clothes, and the ones left from so long ago were still there, mostly. Just hidden below all the new dresses and gowns, not to mention a large bathrobe big enough to fit two of Luna in it.

She took some random pieces of clothing that were shades of red, and deciding to make it less awkward, she took a pair of scissors from the bathroom, which even that strained her magic, as she used it to snip the sleeves and straps off the fabric in order to avoid the awkwardness of saying something along the lines of, 'Here, have our clothes!'

Shaking her head at the thought, she closed her saddlebags after setting the scissors into them as well. While they weren't full, she wasn't going to be gone long, so it wouldn't matter. Looking out the window, Luna saw that the moon was already high in the sky, which made a strike of guilt hit her like a bolt of lightning. She made her Sister, Tia, raise the moon again.

Grumbling to herself, realizing she would be doing none of that her whole trip away, and she wouldn't have a travelling partner while she was away after Marceline left, she decided to make some plans with another pony. Tia couldn't come with her, and Twilight would be busy, though being Luna, she'd send a letter never the less to be certain. She did say it'd take a few days after all, and she was certain that Spike could handle himself for a small time.

Then, once Marceline was sent back, they could spend a few days and nights together, maybe go for a walk about. An unbidden smile came to her lips as she looked over to the framed picture on the drawer of Twilight and her friends, the six ponies who made her whole without Nightmare's influence any longer.

While she didn't see anything special about them just in a picture, when in their presence something felt just inherently good about them, the air around them, the sky above and grass below. Wherever their hooves set place, a sort of calming wave or good will follows through, and no matter the challenge it seemed that the six ponies could overcome anything, no matter the difficulty.

What perplexed her about their traits is the ability to simply be so nice in the first place. While Equestria may not look it at times, it can be a cruel place from the view point of the poor and sickly. The thought that her Sister hadn't paid too much attention to them shocked her greatly, and if she had the mind to, would probably overthrow Celestia herself.

However, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and these were the moments where that phrase was used to it's fullest extent. It wasn't a good thing, but it's what Celestia had to do to keep peace in the general areas. Then again, she was rambling on about her problems more than she had to, and she'd been staring at the picture of Twilight and her friends for a few minutes now and simply thinking about other things.

With a shake of her head, she walked over to Marceline and poked her with her hoof. Not a sound.

Another poke, a small mumble, and with a small shake Marceline slowly began to open her eyes to allow the moonlight to penetrate her sleep. With a long and loud yawn she stopped floating and sat up, her hair a mess and eyes having dark circles under them. As Luna raised a hoof to speak, Marceline shushed her and got up, floating off towards the bathroom and closing the door. How quaint. Though, how Marceline even knew where the bathroom was is yet to be known, other than intuition.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the sound of a shower was heard, at least one turning on. Knowing that Marceline would want to have something to eat, most likely anyhow, Luna walked over to the other curtain that hadn't been drained of color and used her magic to pull it loose.

Luna began to fold it into a neat little square so that Marceline could unfold and refold it as she drank away the color, or perhaps it'd be a simple one-go situation. In either case, Luna loved being prepared instead of being caught off guard, almost like Twilight, but not to a level where she'd enter a mild psychosis if she wasn't ready.

Sitting at her work desk, she began shuffling through the paperwork, opening drawers and putting them in their proper folders and niches, as she wasn't going to be here for too much longer, and she'd rather not give anypony an easy way into her things. Locking the desk's contents tight, she put the key under the lamp in the small space that was carved out for it long ago.

Just as the lamp was put back in place, carefully, Marceline came back out with her clothes on. Just as she opened her mouth, Luna handed her the smooth cloth and smiled, thus she then closed her mouth, but not before uttering a thank you.

As Marceline drank her fill of the red tint and looked over the few things she had, Luna finally decided it was time to get a move on. She opened her closet and took out a tent, of course folded enough so she could carry it, and attached it to her saddlebag. She nudged Marceline, who then set the curtain on the desk haphazardly and followed her out, hovering behind her as always.

Just as Luna set foot outside the castle, she looked around, then took out the potion she had put away in her pack and gave it a small swig, and almost instantly, her form shrank downwards slowly until she was just an inch taller than the average pony whom only had a horn.

However, her cutie mark had been replaced by a symbol of a wand with three stars around it and a small swirl of what she assumed was magic, her coat had also turned a light blue, as well as her mane changing to a somewhat darker version of the new coat with white streaks flowing through the hair that seemed to shrink into a somewhat simple hairstyle, her tail becoming the same colors, only a bit messy.

Blinking a few times, Luna's blue eyes shifted to a purple hue. Once it was complete, she stretched her jaw a bit and sighed, her voice less demanding and harsh, now sounding a bit nasally, if she had to describe it, and younger. She looked to Marceline whom had simply watched the strange change, "Come now, Marceline. We have to go on our way before anypony sees us in this way."

And with that, the two set off out of Canterlot, taking some back alleys and other such hidden ways to get to an easy means of not being seen and walking towards the Everfree, though Marceline mostly floated.

However, just as they left the city, Luna remembered something she had to send, and pulled out the letter with her now light blue magic, and with a flick of power that tinted her mask of magic purple again, it was sent in a blaze of green fire to Twilight's assistant, Spike.

No doubt she'd have a nice reception to the town, after all, the potion almost assures a pony that they will be incognito for as long as it lasts.

Author's Note

Blah, I know it's been almost two weeks but I kept procrastinating and couldn't pull myself together to write. I finally got it out, it's short but hey, I'll have more, this is just to tide you peoples over.

Have a nice day/night/evening.