Waiting for Twilight
By Windy Echo • 2016 • [Celestia] [Luna] [A Total Lack of Twilight]
Waiting for Twilight
Two sisters wearing long travelling cloaks, white and blue, Celestia and Luna, sat at the side of a country road in the middle of nowhere.
"Sister," Luna said. "Doth you believe Twilight shall come soon?"
"I know not, sister Luna," Celestia replied while staring into space. "Perhaps she shall come around presently, or perhaps not."
"Perhaps she has been detained," Luna suggested.
"Giant monsters, perhaps?" Celestia guessed.
"A crowd of twenty or more," Luna hazarded. "Monsters that stomp, tower and roar?"
Celestia scratched the side of her head. "Or perhaps she stopped at the library," she said.
Luna thought for a moment. "Can you really ever take a book out from the library?"
"Look here, sister," Celestia said, reaching into her cloak and taking something out. "In my hoof, I hold a book I plainly took from a library." She held it up. "Hark, it says 'Food for Thought'. Do you see it?"
Luna narrowed her eyes. "How do I know you have truly taken it from a library?" she asked slowly. "Thou might have stuck a sticker on it yourself, that you might fool me."
Celestia gasped. "I did no such thing, fair sister!" She opened the book to the last page. "Look, in the back, there is a date sheet."
Luna snorted. "There is but one date on the sheet! You must think me a fool."
"I do not," Celestia retorted indignantly. "Where would I print such a sheet? I possess no printing press."
Luna pointed. "You might have purchased the sheet, or stolen it from a library."
"So you think a library a room full of date sheets?" Celestia asked.
"I do, sister," Luna said, nodding. "Better a true room of date sheets, than a false room of books that cannot be taken."
Celestia grunted. "Do you think Twilight will arrive soon? She would know," she said. "She was a great frequenter of libraries, and would thusly know."
Luna itched her side. "If she is coming, why is she late?" Luna looked her sister in the eye. "Have you known her to be late?"
"I have not known her, but I have taught her," Celestia answered.
Luna frowned. "Are they not the same?"
"There are a great many teachers who never know those they teach," Celestia said simply.
"A foolish endeavor," Luna said, looking to the horizon again. "How might they come to learn what their pupils have absorbed?"
Celestia shrugged. "They might sooner wring them like a sponge and examine what they have come to know."
Luna did a double-take and craned her neck. "Sister. I see a traveler approaching! Is that her?"
Celestia craned her neck as well, although not as much, being taller. "It must be, for they are purple, and Twilight is purple, and so this must be Twilight."
Luna looked back at Celestia. "Thusly?"
"Yes, of course." Celestia waved a hoof. "Ho, traveler! Be thee Twilight, for whom we wait?"
The approaching traveller slowed to a halt, her cargo on her back clinking softly. "Nay, I am not," confessed the purple mare. "I am only a humble merchant."
"What have thee to sell?" Luna asked.
"Trinkets," the merchant said, before clearing her throat. "Nay, priceless, wonderful treasures." She reached into her bag, and withdrew a glass globe containing a small mountain and mock snow suspended around it. "Do you see this?"
"I see," Luna said.
"Do you behold it, truly?" the merchant asked, holding out the snowglobe. "Gaze, then, gaze into it's depths, and see the answer to your question."
Luna took the snowglobe, and peered at the mountain within. "I see... I do see the fair Twilight! For who we wait!"
"Thus, she must be coming!" the merchant concluded. "She will arrive soon."
"What manner of name does thy treasure have?" Luna asked.
"Made in Pegxico, it says on the back," Celestia mused, lowering her head to look at the base.
Luna snorted in surprise. "Thou lied to a Princess!" she exclaimed.
"Was thy question not answered?" asked the merchant, holding up a hoof quickly.
Luna hesitated. "T’was," she admitted.
"Would course of action be to wait here for Twilight if you knew she would not make it?" the merchant asked.
Luna nodded slowly. "T’would."
The merchant bowed her head. "Then it was a white lie, and not important." She straightened. "I must away." She gestured. "Please, keep it as a token of friendship."
Luna watched the merchant leave and snorted. "Not important, he says! Friendship, he says!" She rounded on Celestia. "Sister, would thou lie to a friend?"
Celestia closed her eyes wisely. "Of course, dear sister. There are many things you must lie about among friends."
Luna shook her head in disapproval. "I have never lied to you a day, in a year, in all the decades of my life."
Celestia opened her eyes in surprise. "Not once?"
"Nay!" Luna said, holding her head aloft. "Not even a singular time."
"What do you then think of these overalls that I wear?" Celestia asked, turning her body. "Do they enlarge my posterior?"
"Of course, sister! Your moon is as round as my own."
Celestia slapped Luna, sending the smaller mare onto the ground.
"Acrimony!" Luna exclaimed, clutching her face and scrambling upright to an elbow. "Acrimony and banishment, and waste!" She looked at her hoof, and then at Celestia. "What was that for?"
"My butt is not that large," Celestia said bluntly, sitting upon it.
Luna grumped. "You asked my opinion, and I gave it," she said, getting up.
"Perhaps you should not have, then?" Celestia asked.
"Would'st you have me lie?" Luna countered.
"What would you say then, if Twilight arrived this moment, and asked what you thought of her
lateness?"
Luna didn't hesitate. "I would tell her she is a lot late, and less than a trifle polite."
"And so she would take her leave, and you would not see her again," Celestia said simply.
"Huff!" Luna exclaimed, turning up her nose. "Folly it would be, to leave royalty."
Celestia snorted. "You fancy yourself royalty?"
Luna gestured at herself. "By my crown, and by my horseshoes, and by all ornate metal fashionings I bear, I am a princess!"
Celestia looked at Luna's bare chest. "Which thee have forgotten at home."
"Left at home," Luna corrected. "My horseshoes I wear within a boot, for they would have gotten muddy in the streets and the ditches and the hovels and the fields in which small foals cavort improprietously."
Celestia indicated Luna's hooves. "Are thy boots not muddy? Would not a passerby think you a peasant?"
"Nay!" Luna exclaimed, indicating her back. "I have covered myself in the flag of the castle, so that all might know me for royalty."
Celestia shook her head. "I cannot see it."
"For it is under this cloak," Luna said.
"Remove thy cloak," Celestia challenged, "and let the countryside know who you are."
Luna thought about it. "Nay, I shall not."
"Then do me this thing," Celestia asked.
"I might."
"You will," insisted Celestia.
"I might'st," Luna said. "If it pleases me."
"Remove thy boots," Celestia said.
"This boot?" Luna asked, raising it.
"The very boot upon your hoof."
Luna made a show of trying to take it off. "It is stuck," she claimed. "It budges not, and I fear it would take my whole hoof with it if I tried."
"Pry it," Celestia suggested. "With thy magic."
"'Tis on the fritz," Luna lamented. "Even the clouds above do not wish me to remove my boot."
Celestia snorted. "I think thee a peasant, then."
"Sister!" Luna exclaimed. "You are royalty!"
"So I am," Celestia agreed.
"Then so am I, thusly," Luna said.
"I have never met you before, Sister," Celestia denied.
Luna pursed her lips. "Twilight would not like to hear you say that."
"She is not here. And I have not met her," Celestia added.
"You taught her," reminded Luna.
"I did not."
"You have lied to me, then?" Luna asked.
"How would thee know if I did?" Celestia asked, holding out her hooves. "What is truth?"
"Truth is that which is upon my boot," Luna said, smearing her muddy boot upon Celestia.
Celestia looked at the brown smear now marring her white coat. "You have deemed me truth, then?"
"Nay, sister!" Luna exclaimed, frustrated.
Celestia held out her hoof magnanimously. "I decree that all is true, and not," she declared. "Would'st that Twilight was here, so she could see me ascended to truth-hood."
"You joke," Luna said bitterly.
"Hark!" Celestia said suddenly. "A traveller approaches!"
"Where?" Luna asked, looking around.
"There, upon the road," Celestia said, pointing.
"I see no traveller," Luna said.
"You are not the truth," Celestia said. "I see him before us, in rags and tatters. Hello, good sir!"
"You mock me!" Luna said hotly.
"I don't," Celestia said, waving a hoof in dismissal. She paused as if listening to somepony. "He asks you if you are a single mare."
Luna choked on air. "The nerve of such a stallion!" she exclaimed.
"It is quite reasonable of him to ask!" Celestia defended. She leaned in close. "You would be well to humor him," she added in a low voice.
"Sister!" Luna said, recoiling.
"The truth says that love is greater than truth," Celestia declared. "And the stallion before us has told me to kiss you."
"Lies!" Luna insisted.
"No," Celestia said, feigning helplessness. "For his and your love is the purest form of truth there is!"
And with that, she lunged forward, kissing Luna on the cheek. Luna shoved her away, and they both fell over in the dirt, Celestia laughing and Luna cursing.
"Twilight should surely be here by now," Luna grumbled. "And would tell you of your folly."
"She's not here," Celestia reminded.
"Perhaps you lie about that as well," Luna challenged, "and she is?"
"I don't, plain as the kiss on your cheek," swore Celestia.
Luna rose up, looking around. "Twilight! Fair Twilight, please reveal yourself and tell my sister to act becomingly."
"'Never', she says," Celestia claimed.
"Do not speak to me," Luna said. "And we shall wait."
"Are you still not speaking to me?" Celestia asked.
"Neigh," Luna said, staring determinedly at a sprout of grass.
"Good," Celestia said. "For I do not wish to be disturbed from my reading."
Luna resisted, but there was only so much staring at grass one could do. "Sister! You must tell me of thy book at once."
"‘Tis a book of recipes," Celestia said.
"We have no stove," Luna pointed out.
"I can see the future in its pages," Celestia explained, gesturing at the book.
"Truly?" Luna asked.
Celestia cleared her throat and held her book aloft. "You shall soon come into a great deal of money," she predicted.
Luna waved a hoof dismissively. "I have done so already, for we share the treasury of Canterlot."
"More money, then," Celestia said. "Your weight in gold."
Luna snorted. "What could food know of the future and gold?"
"See here, on this page," Celestia said, pointing with a hooftip. "Common hayfries, but in the lines… hay of the finest gold, placed upon a hearth, stirred thrice at the proper moments."
Luna frowned, and shook her head. "I do not see."
"You will," Celestia said.
"Give that here, sister," Luna said, grabbing the book. She turned it over, and quickly flipped to a new page.
"I will tell your fortune," she said, clearing her throat. "Stewed carrots say thusly: you shall never find thy finest silks in the place thou hast left them. Thy servants shall wear them instead."
Celestia nodded. "Why, of course they shall, I have arranged for it to be so."
"Neigh!" Luna exclaimed, surprised.
"I speak the truth!" Celestia reassured. "For they look finer dressed in such to my eye than a thousand of me."
"Treachery," Luna breathed.
"Honorable tomatoes speak only goodness," Celestia said.
A moment passed. "I prefer those vegetables that do not squash when chewed," Luna said.
"Twilight prefers the celery," Celestia said.
"Is she a wizard, then?" Luna asked. "Celery is the choice of wizards."
"Plainly upon her forehead, she is a wizard," Celestia agreed.
"Wizards might also be treated as a vegetable," Luna said.
"Washed and cleaned?" Celestia asked.
"Eaten for being late." Luna said darkly, looking around. "Where has she got to?"
Celestia closed her book. "I have an idea."
Luna looked at her. "Speak it, so she may come sooner."
"We must hold a picnic," Celestia said, holding up her hooves, "so that she will come to eat."
Luna shook her head. "We have no food, and no cloth to put it upon."
"Thou art a wizard," Celestia said.
"Neigh," Luna denied.
"Plainly upon your forehead, you are," Celestia insisted.
"Lies," Luna said, pausing. "Thou art also a wizard, then."
"Then we are both wizards," Celestia said. "And should cause food, and a cloth, to appear."
"Fine, then," Luna said. "We shall."
The two bowed their heads, and began to focus their power to a hum, but no other effect.
"Concentrate," Celestia said.
"I am doing so," Luna said with her eyes closed.
"Concentrate harder, for I see a glow upon thy forehead," Celestia said.
"Do not talk to me, then," Luna said tersely, "so that I may do so."
"How will you know if you succeed then, with your eyes closed?" Celestia asked.
"Twilight will arrive, and we shall feast on the food that I have wizarded."
"I shall leave you alone, then," Celestia said.
"See that you do."
Celestia inhaled, and exhaled deeply. "Have you quite finished?"
"It has been a single second," Luna said, cracking one eye open.
"Quite enough time for a princess, I should think," Celestia said, reclining.
"Nay, ‘tis not," Luna corrected. "Leave me be."
A moment passed, before Celestia broke the silence again.
"Thoughts for food, I think this is," she said. "Rather than the usual way around."
"Neigh!" Luna exclaimed. "Be quiet, sister!"
"You have done it!" Celestia exclaimed suddenly.
"I have?" Luna asked, not looking. "If this is lies, sister," she warned, "I shall muddy thy coat again."
"‘Tis not," Celestia said. "Eye the feast before us."
Luna opened her eyes to see no cloth upon the dirt, nor the picnic she had imagined.
"Wench of a sister of mine!" she exclaimed. "There is no food!"
"There is!" Celestia exclaimed, leaning forward and pointing. "See the corn and the peas below us?"
"Neigh," Luna said.
"Seeds in the ground!" Celestia exclaimed, smiling. "You have done a miracle worthy of Starswirl."
Luna sighed. "For a wizard, I am hungry still, and shall muddy your coat for cleverness."
Luna rubbed her boot on Celestia again, adding another smear to the white princess' coat, which she paid no heed.
"Twilight will bring us food," Celestia said with certainty.
"Will she?" Luna asked.
"She knows herself, and she knows that others are like herself, and she knows that she is hungry, and so others ought to be too," Celestia reasoned.
"Then she shall bring only fattening pastries," Luna said, "if she thinks of others as she does herself."
Celestia smacked her lips and stared longingly at the horizon. "I would like a pastry."
"It would seem you have liked a great many pastries," Luna said, eyeing her sister's hindquarters.
"And I should like a great many more," Celestia said, paying the commentary no heed.
"You would eat thy own sister if she were a pastry," Luna said, disbelieving.
"Are thou a pastry? I ought to make sure," Celestia mused. "For I think of others as I think of myself, and if others are not truly flesh and blood as myself, but are instead pastries, then I could solve a great many of my problems more simply."
Luna waved a hoof in dismissal. "Do not think of me as a pastry, for I am flesh and blood, same as you."
"Perhaps I should check," Celestia insisted.
Luna sighed. "Do I crunch when I walk as a pastry would be ought to do?" she asked. "Do I smell of raspberries from a bush?"
"You may," Celestia said. "I have not thought to check for such a thing, and so it may be true."
"Then make your test," Luna declared, holding her hooves out, "for I am no pastry."
Celestia shook her head. "Grant me three answers instead."
Luna nodded. "I will."
Celestia held up a hoof. "Are you filled with something softer and more delicate than your outside?"
"I am," Luna agred.
Celestia shook her hoof. "Have you frolicked in the fields in spring?"
"I have," Luna said.
"Have you been tasted?"
"Impiety!" Luna exclaimed, blushing as she recoiled. "You would ask me that?"
"I must know, if I am to find out if you are a pastry," Celestia insisted.
"Not all pastries have been tasted," Luna retorted.
Celestia looked around, and pointed. "Hark! There comes a traveller."
Luna looked and saw the traveller this time. "They wear strange clothing."
"‘Tis an officer of the law," Celestia identified.
They watched the officer draw near, and Luna raised a hoof, hailing him.
"Ho, officer!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps thee can answer our question."
"If it be within the law and my abilities, I shall," he agreed.
"Is my sister a pastry?" Celestia asked.
"Clearly not, your highness," he said.
"How can you be so sure," Celestia asked, "when you have not checked?"
"Because I am a stallion of observation," the officer said simply. "And I have not observed her to be a pastry."
"Show us the path of clever deduction you have taken," Celestia demanded.
The officer gestured at Luna. "She moves and speaks as a pony. Pastries do not. She does not look on the outside like a pastry, and does not crunch as she moves."
"See, sister!" Luna exclaimed, pointing.
"That is not enough!" Celestia exclaimed. "For you have taken her at her appearances. How would one know a pastry except by its smell and taste?"
The officer shook his head. "What manner of accusation is this, truly?"
"How might I know if someone is what they seem to be?" Celestia asked, holding out her hooves. She indicated the officer. "Might thee be a pastry?"
"If I had my druthers, I would not be a pastry," the officer insisted.
"But how would I know you are not?" Celestia asked. "And perhaps pastries do not wish to be pastries. What test could prove otherwise?" Celestia put a hoof to her chin, pondering. "Am I to taste all those who I think to be pastries?" she asked.
The officer shook his head. "Thou would be wise not to taste officers of the law."
"What of pastries of the law?" Celestia asked.
"Those neither," the officer said. "Taste no ponies, your highness, even if you think them to be pastries."
"I shan’t," Celestia agreed. "I would not risk losing even one pony for the sake of tasting a pastry," she added.
"Good."
"Is Twilight here yet?" Luna asked.
"No," Celestia said.
"Then help me with this boot," Luna grunted, prying at it in earnest now.
Celestia watched her work in bemusement. "Dear sister, why not leave what is good where it is?"
Luna sighed and let the boot go for a moment. "For there is a rock in my boot and I wish it removed."
"A trouble underhoof," Celestia said sagely.
"If only I could remove it," Luna agreed, prying at the boot again.
"Then what?" Celestia asked. "What would’st you do if you could remove it?"
Luna hesitated. "I would’st not tramp mud upon thy coat."
"Truly?"
"Yes."
Celestia's horn glowed, and Luna watched as her boot was torn from her hoof and sailed into the air over nearby fields and vanishing with a distant rustle.
"It is done," Celestia declared proudly. "Your boot is gone."
"Thou scoundrel!" Luna exclaimed in surprise. "That was my best boot!"
"Your hoof is no longer pained! Is this not good?" Celestia asked, gesturing dismissively. "And besides, you have three boots left."
Luna turned her head away, stoically suppressing tears. "None so beautiful and perfect as that boot."
"Truly?" Celestia asked. "What made it so special, that you would reject three equally nice boots, trampling them in word as you do in fact?"
"T’was perfect, that boot," Luna lamented. "Not that I have lost it, I see how fine it was. The softest down in its center, and the smoothest fabric on its outer."
Celestia tilted her head. "Then the three that remain are worse?"
Luna looked to the sky. "Truly, none can compare to the one I have lost."
"Then off with them."
With another three flashes of energy, Luna fell onto her rump as her boots were torn off, and she sat up just in time to see the join her other lost boot in the field beyond the road.
"She-Wendigo! Demon! Devourer of love!" Luna cursed, pointing angrily at Celestia. "Thou have tossed my three second-most favorite boots where I may not find them!"
"But those were the worst boots you owned, thou said thyself," Celestia said innocently.
"I did not mean it!" Luna exclaimed. "For as I am separated, I see the beauty of my boots – if only they could be returned!"
"‘Tis a field of grain," Celestia said, waving a hoof. "Retrieve them!"
"I dare not muddy my shoes," Luna said, wriggling her now-revealed platinum shod hooves. "And I am most comfortable here."
"Truly."
A moment passed in silence, and Celestia looked pointedly at Luna. "Perhaps Twilight not ought to show up after all, or she would be cast out and forgotten as soon as she was here."
"Neigh!" Luna exclaimed. ‘Tis not so!"
"‘Tis so, dear sister!" Celestia exclaimed, pointing. "For you have cast her out with your boots, in leaving them to their fate!"
Luna sagged, and bowed her head. "Forgive me, my boots! Forgive me, Twilight!"
"There is no forgiveness!" Celestia intoned dramatically.
"There must be!" Luna exclaimed. "I deserve it!"
"No!" Celestia cupped a hoof to her ear. "Do you hear your boots, crying in hoofless pain, in the fields?"
Luna shook her head. "No!"
"You do!" Celestia exclaimed. "You have betrayed your most faithful servants!"
"I would never!" Luna raised her head, pointing at Celestia. "You killed my boots, tossing them into the Everfree grain fields!"
"Be still, sister," Celestia said quickly, holding up a hoof as her ears twitched and conveniently setting the issue aside. "I hear a traveller approaching!"
Luna perked up. "Is it Twilight?"
The pair watched, and oddly, a gigantic, over-sized boot wobbled into view around the corner, bobbing up and down as it travelled down the road alone.
"‘Tis a giant boot," Luna said quietly. "Seeking revenge for its fallen kin."
"Of course." Celestia waved at the boot. "Hello, giant boot! I am sorry Luna betrayed your kin, I tried to stop her, but to no avail!"
Luna bristled, and grabbed Celestia's shoulder with magic, trying to pull her closer that she might slap her sister for her untruths.
While she did so, the boot set itself down on the ground, and with a rustle, a window in the side was opened, revealing a freckled orange mare, who even in the giant boot costume, was wearing a clearly well-loved farmer's hat.
"Ho, fellow travellers," she said. "In what strange manner do you beseech me?"
"My sister has done me a great wrong," Luna grunted, letting Celestia go with no success. "Would'st thou kindly venture into the fields and retrieve my boots?"
The mare shook her head sadly. "I cannot, for those fields are owned by a bitter and cruel stallion." She looked around surreptitiously, lowering her voice. "I have heard he beats those who trespass, and none escape unscathed."
"Such depraved retribution!" Celestia exclaimed. "He must not escape unpunished. We must stop him. Where does he live?"
"I do not know," the mare admitted. "It is said he simply appears when those who are not welcome step in his fields."
Luna sighed. "My boots are truly out of reach, then."
"It is so," agreed the mare.
Luna straightened, and indicated a prime patch of the ground next to her. "Stay with us a while, good traveller?"
"I cannot stay," declined the mare. "For my own boots were cast into fields in the dead of night, and I must venture to a town to purchase more."
"I am sorry," Luna said.
"‘Tis not your fault," the mare said, waving a hoof. "But my marefriend’s, who declared my sequinned boots so last season." She cleared her throat. "I leave you now."
"Depart bravely, traveller," Celestia said.
"I shall," the mare said, closing the window of her costume. With a muffled grunt of effort, the boot rose from the ground once more, and wobbled on orange legs into the distance.
Luna looked at Celestia, gesturing. "See, it is a cruel thing you have done to me," she said. "My boots were unsequinned, and did not deserve their fate."
Celestia shook her head. "You hid thy perfect hooves inside them, dear sister, and they had to be freed."