Chapter Forty-One—Wherein things are finally explained

I was filling water bottles from a serene river in my second week in the forest when I found something else: A giant water dragon thing.

I handled that exactly as one would expect a knight of Equestria to: I freaked and tried to run away. I mean, what are the chances of getting a friendly dragon twice in a row? His hand shot out and grabbed me before I made it three paces.

"And what are you, cute little ape thing?" the dragon asked with a bit of a lisp. Oh god it's gay and thinks I'm cute. "I say, with a little bit of work we might just make you presentable!"

"Uh… Hello," I said. He jerked back; I don't think he was expecting me to be able to talk. "I don't… I don't suppose you could put me down?"

"A cute winged ape thing that talks!" he gleefully said. "Oh, this is just wonderful! Tell me, what do you think of my mustache?" The way he pronounced mustache… I wanted to punch him.

I looked at it. Half of it was orange and straight and half of it was purple and curly. I looked back up to his large eyes. "It looks a bit mismatched," I commented. "Hell, that half looks like Rarity's tail. Now, I don't suppo—"

"You know Mistress Rarity?" I flinched when he called her mistress. "Oh, she's such a dear! This is her tail! Or rather, it was. She helped me out of a fashion emergency a few years ago, and I've been wanting to repay her ever since!" God, his accent was so flamboyant!

"That's nice. I don't suppose you could set me down? Or at least loosen your bloody grip?" One of my arms was trapped and I couldn't get to any of my main weapons. I'm surprised he hadn't broken my crossbow.

"Set you down? But you tried to run before! How do I know you won't dart away again? It's so… lonely… out here." The way he said that sent shivers down my spine. That isn't… that isn't even possible. Surely he wouldn't try.

"What would you do if a giant popped up out of nowhere and scared you?" I asked. "I thought you were about to attack!"

"And why would I do that? You're much too cute to attack!"

"I don't know, I figured you might have been hungry."

That was the wrong thing to say, after I thought about it. He licked his lips and loosened his grip, looking me up and down. His eyes settled in a place I wasn't comfortable with. "It has been a while since I had a snack…" he mused.

I gulped. "I'm uh… I'm already in a committed relationship," I said.

"It's just you and me and the forest," he said with a small sigh. "No one else has to know…"

"She's a unicorn that can see through my eyes. She's probably watching right now, actually."

"She?" he said, surprised. After a moment he sighed. "The good looking ones are always taken… Still, I don't suppose you would mind keeping me company for a while? This forest gets so dull."

"You could move. There's plenty of water in the world."

"Oh, I know, but the water in this forest makes my skin shine so!" He twirled in the light, scales reflecting light all over the place. He was obviously fishing for compliments.

I didn't say anything.

After a moment, one of his eyes twitched and he went back to talk, "Besides, most of the races in this world don't appreciate my absolute beauty!"

"That's… interesting," I said warily. "But I really must be going. I have somewhere I need to get and I'm already running late. I just stopped by the river to fill up my water bottles." I lifted my wings, ready to take off.

His grip tightened around me again. "Leaving so soon?" he asked, his voice dipping a bit in what I have come to recognize as a sign of insanity in this world.

"I suppose I could stay… for a little while," I said, my hand struggling to reach one of the knives trapped under his hand. I looked up in the sky. Few hours until dark. Luna always watches, even if Celestia doesn't.

His voice returned to normal as he said, "Excellent!" He proceeded to talk my head off about fashion, hair, and scales for hours. He also mentioned my feathers a few times, which gave me horrifying flashbacks of Kat. Every time he reached down to gently stroke one of my wings I flinched, and he did it a lot. Apparently it's relatively common knowledge how sensitive pegasus wings are. Never once did he loosen his grip though I asked several times. Each time he brought the topic close to how cute he thought I would look wearing so and so, I casually mentioned my unicorn girlfriend.

As soon as the sun started going down, I started muttering, "Help me Luna," over and over, just low enough that I was hoping the dragon couldn't hear me. The way he was constantly talking, I'm surprised he could hear anything at all.

I wasn't paying attention to him at all so I was surprised when I felt his grip tighten suddenly. "I know!" he said, much louder. "Let's play dress-up!"

Oh fuck no. My hand finally pulled the dagger from the sheath and I slashed his fingers with it. He dropped me with a yelp and I fell into the river, my body too numb to fly or move. Before the river carried me away I disappeared.

And landed, wet, cold, and miserable, in the royal palace. In front of a startled griffin envoy and Princess Luna. I tried to sit up but I couldn't move my body after being held in his tight grip for so long; I had barely been able to pull the dagger out.

"S-s-s-sorry f-f-for drop-p-ping in," I muttered, shivering.

"What is the meaning of this?" the lead griffin demanded. "Why is your armed knight here?"

I let my dagger fall from my fingers. Luna saw the state I was in and called one of her guards up. "Remove him," she demanded, pointing to me. "Take him to the infirmary. Put a guard up. He is not to leave."

The guard bowed. Luna used magic to lift me to his back. My dagger flew to her throne. That's when I closed my eyes, letting the guard carry me along. I heard Luna give some manner of apology before we were out of the room.

When the doors swung shut behind us, I managed to say, "Just set me down wherever; I'll leave when I can move again."

"Sorry, sir. Princess Luna's orders supersede yours. You're going to the infirmary, where you are not to leave," the guard answered. Fuck.

We went the rest of the way in silence. Thankfully, it wasn't that long of a walk; this guard's armor was digging into my stomach, now that some feeling was starting to return.

He took me to a familiar room with a segmented bed. "Can you move yet, Sir?" he asked.

I gently slid off his back and barely held myself up. "I think I'm… good," I said. I stretched my wings and arms out a bit, feeling circulation painfully returning to parts of my body. "Yeah, I'm good. I won't leave, so you don't need to worry about a guard." He looked at me like I was an idiot and walked out. I knew if I looked outside there would be a guard.

I started taking my wet clothes off. I used a towel I found in one of the drawers to dry me and all of my blades off. All that done, I slid into bed, waiting for Luna to let me leave. My clothes were dried and back on me by the time she sent for me.

"Come on, Sir Navarone," the royal guard said, stepping in. "Princess Luna wishes to see you."

I stood and stretched a bit. "Where is she?" I asked. "I'll save you a bit of time."

"She's in her room. But she asked that you be led there, so you don't think to wander away. Sorry Sir, but we have to follow her orders."

"I understand. Lead the way."

He led me right to her door and knocked on it. It opened quickly. When Luna saw us standing outside, she said, "Come on in, Nav. Thank you, Sunshine. You may return to your post."

"Wait, Sunshine?" I asked. "A night guard named Sunshine?"

He blushed lightly. "Sunshine Smiles, sir." He saluted and left.

I entered Luna's room, shaking my head slightly. I turned to shut the door.

And when I turned back I found myself staring down my own dagger. "I had a lot of appeasing to do for you, Nav," Luna said in a somewhat angry voice.

"My apologies," I answered, holding my hands in a placating gesture. "I was trying to get your attention for nearly an hour. I finally had no choice left. That damn water dragon was trying to get me naked for lewd purposes."

She smiled at that. "Isn't that what I do? And a few of your… friends?"

"Yes, but it's a lot more enjoyable when one of you are doing it. He would kill me trying anything."

She rolled her eyes. "Either way, I feel like you owe me for this."

"Uh… Okay. Do you mind lowering the dagger?"

"Sit, Navarone," she said, the dagger jerking toward a couch. I slowly walked over to it, the dagger following me. I sat stiffly. She used magic to pull a couch close to the one I was in and she sat. The dagger didn't move.

"So what's with the dagger, Luna?" I finally asked. "You know I'll do anything you ask as long as I find it reasonable, and I think we both know you won't ask me to do anything too unreasonable."

She glared at me and the knife came closer. I tried to lean back to find that I couldn't move. "It seems to me that you aren't able to do much unless it's forced," she said, anger entering her voice. "And you certainly aren't willing to tell me much unless you have no choice. So I'm not going to give you one."

Oh shit, she remembered the talk she wanted. This didn't make it into the… well, regular journals, so I'll repeat it here: Luna was pissed at me because of intimacy issues stemming from being raped too many times. The irony of this was lost on her.

Here's a basic run down of the night this all occurred in: She turned into Nightmare Moon. Things got rough. She told me to stop her if she went too far. I tried but she didn't listen. I stopped trying. She got mad. We got interrupted before we could discuss it. I assumed she had forgotten. Apparently she hadn't.

"And you're willing to kill me?" I asked. The knife moved closer. "Name your subject then, and let us talk."

"I think you know what I want to discuss, Navarone," she said.

"Okay… So what's up with a night guard named Sunshine Smiles? That's just ridiculous!"

She looked at me blankly.

I sighed. "I have issues, Luna. I have been abused way too many times. You went way too far that night and when I mentioned that I wasn't comfortable you ignored it. So I didn't bother after that because if you ignored me the first time then why would you listen the second? I have found that resisting in the face of a more powerful adversary just means pain before you are defeated. So I just took the defeat with the hope that it wouldn't go on for long."

She looked like she was about to cry. Maybe it was the matter-of-fact way I said it. Maybe it was the fact that she knew she hurt me. Maybe it was the idea that I've learned to give up so easily. Who knows?

The knife dropped to the floor. "You're afraid of me, aren't you?" she whispered.

I knew what the right answer to that was. I was supposed to say Of course not. I pulled her into a hug and whispered, "Yes, I am." She tried to pull back but I didn't let her go. "I didn't want to say any of this, but you asked me," I whispered. "You told me to tell you if you hurt me. I did. You kept going. And the entire time you were terrifying me." She was crying, still trying to pull away from me. "I'm not going to let you go, Luna," I said. "I… I want this to work." It wasn't until the words were out of my mouth that I realized it was actually true. "And being honest is probably the best way to do that right now."

She was silent for a while. Eventually, she whispered, "And… you're just willing to… forgive me? Just like that?"

"I've forgiven others for worse. I accepted your deal knowing that I might be asked to do things I wouldn't enjoy. That doesn't make what you did right, but I agreed to do whatever you said."

"And would you, again?" she asked, a twinge of hope entering her voice.

"Not without laying down rules. And not without teaching you more. Now that you know what you know about me, I have less to worry about, but still. Every time you opened your mouth you scared me more and more, which is not the point of bedroom talk. We can go over all of that later, though." I pushed her away so I could look in her eyes. "There's just one thing I need to know," I said. And this is the point of no return. I absolutely had to do this.

"Anything."

"Have you been reading my journals?"

She blinked. I don't think she was expecting that. With a blush she answered, "Yes."

"When did you start?"

She smiled lightly. "As soon as you left for Maris. When you dropped them off, basically." And there went my heart.

I nodded slowly. "So it's all been a game for you and Celestia both." I let her go, grabbed my knife, sheathed it, and stood. "I'm going back to the forest."

She looked at me, confused at first. Then I saw a look of recognition, which immediately turned to heartbreak. I slipped my ring on and turned to the door.

"Nav…" she whispered.

I stopped. "Yes, Princess?" I didn't face her.

"Look at me." I turned. Her eyes were red from crying so much. "How did you know?" she whispered.

"You gave yourself away the night we danced. I've known ever since." I turned to go again. "I'll be back in Ponyville in a few days, if you want to change my orders." I got to the door, to see that it was blocked by magic.

I was wearing a magic-proof ring. I easily opened it. I heard air squeezing to occupy an instantly emptied space and Luna appeared inches in front of me. I stared at her impassively. "You knew, and you played anyway. Why?" She was still sad, I realized. She actually came to love me. As I did her. A shame.

"Because I didn't know the rules. Because I feared if I didn't I would be killed. Because I wasn't positive. But tonight… We came to the point of no return. It was either cross the line or admit to knowing. I don't know—and I don't really care—whose idea it was to do this to me. But it wasn't necessary. Now, Princess, I think I need to get back to my duty."

She didn't move. After a moment of staring into my eyes, she sighed. "Will you give me a chance to explain?"

"I will, if only because I came to love you. I'll let you explain, but that doesn't mean I'll believe you." I didn't move, though.

"Inside, if you would," she finally said. I backed into her room. I didn't feel comfortable sitting anywhere now, so I just stood. After a moment I pulled a small knife out and began to clean my fingernails, staring at Luna as she slowly walked back to the couch. She looked up at me when she was down but decided not to ask me to join her.

After a moment she began. "When Twilight began to report on the history of humanity, Celestia and I decided that we wanted you as a servant. A loyal, faithful servant. You were a one of a kind species, so we knew you had nowhere to go. But we wanted to make sure you stayed here with the ponies, where you were needed. You know we aren't warriors, Navarone. We need servants like you to advance our interests in ways we are unable to do so in. Despite the public claims of Celestia, not all of our problems can be solved with diplomacy." She paused. "So we needed a servant. Somepony violent but easily controlled. Young enough to be taught that ponies are friends. Young enough to be controlled through… love." She sighed. "But think of us what you will: We are not cruel. We would never ask any of our subjects to pretend to love you. And you were never to know of the illusion, thinking to your death that you were loved. We knew it had to be one of us… And Celestia was too respected by the ponies. I was relatively unknown, having just gotten back from the moon." She blushed slightly. "I'll admit, I was hesitant to accept; I had read all of Twilight's reports, after all. She claimed you were a well-educated gentle-colt. But the history of your species said otherwise. Still, I thought it would be nice to actually meet somepony." She stopped.

I didn't say anything, just kept watching her. After a moment I slid the knife back into a sheath and crossed my arms.

"You were crafty. You were lonely. But… You didn't want to be loved. Nor did you want to love. You even told Celestia you weren't capable of it. Not that humans weren't, but that you weren't. We didn't think for a moment that you were telling the truth. We had to dig up lie detecting spells to figure out you really meant it. By then I had already dived to save you in the rodeo. When I finally realized how you felt, I decided to terminate you under the reasoning that somepony that can't love is nothing but a monster. I knew that if you were as warlike as your history claimed you to be, you would try to fight the monster I sent and you would have died." She looked down. "You didn't. Didn't even try. You ran away as fast as a pony would have." She looked back up. "Celestia was not pleased that I took matters into my own hooves."

So she really had tried to kill me. Interesting.

"She didn't want to punish me, but she knew she had to in order to keep you placated. But she was always the schemer of the two of us. She saw how to manipulate you without love. She still saw potential. And when she explained to me what she wanted to do… That's when I started to really fall in love with you. Your selflessness, Navarone! You were willing to pretend to love me so that I would be happy. That isn't a common virtue. So Celestia let you pretend to love me. And I began to truly love you. I read more and more of the letters Twilight sent regarding you, and reread all the original ones in a more favorable light. And I began to rethink all of our encounters. I realized that I had been wrong about you from the start."

She looked like she wanted to stop, or wanted to ask my opinion. I just stared at her impassively, waiting for her to continue. I didn't know how to take this or if it was true or if it was part of the game. I knew how I could find out, though. I mentally checked my pockets.

"You weren't a pony, but I realized that wasn't a bad thing. You were kind. You helped me. You were in a new world, lonely in a way that I had been lonely. And yet you were still happy." She gave a shuddering sigh. "I don't want to explain everything that made me fall in love with you." She looked down again. "And then Celestia decided to take you on a test run. Egypt. None of us had any idea of what to expect there. And Celestia threw you into the mix to see what would happen." She paused again and gave another sigh. "You exceeded our wildest hopes. You proved yourself not only a warrior but also a thinker. And," she said, blushing, "a well-trained lover."

I felt my fists clenching at that and my eyes narrowed.

She saw that and hurried on. "So we decided you were what we were looking for. But by then, I had actually fallen in love with you. I was unwilling to admit it to myself until I saw you again on your return from the Middle East. Modest but defiant. Broken but confident. I knew you were worried about meeting me and feared Celestia finding out, but you did it anyway to keep up the illusion that you loved me. And that's when I knew that I wanted you to truly love me." She sighed again. "But I had no experience courting and we were not supposed to see each other. But when I hesitantly told Celestia, instead of being angry as I expected she actually seemed happy! Happy that her sister was feeling that emotion. So we worked together to find a solution of sorts. A solution that might allow you to properly fall in love with me, instead of just pretending."

Why would Celestia be happy that her sister was going to be heartbroken when I died? Or were they expecting me to take the deal of eternal life?

"So we got you to admit that you didn't love me out loud," she continued. "And I overheard you. I really didn't mean to throw you that hard, but I knew if you were able to get up and talk you would ruin the entire thing just by being you. We were given permission to… date. But you. Still. Did. Not. Love. Me. Didn't even want to think of the concept of it. You said you would think about it and fled. That hurt me, Navarone."

Because this entire thing had no chance of hurting me. Right, that's real fair.

She drew another shuddering breath and continued. "Then you ended up in Egypt again. You proved you could be cruel. You proved you could be heartless. You proved you could be exactly what I thought you were in the beginning. I was heartbroken." She smiled lightly. "And then you proved just how little we understood you when you found Taya. You went beyond the point of no return… and you returned. As simple as that."

Taya, my redeemer. I had not thought of her as that, in all honesty, but I can see how that would fit.

I saw her smiling nastily. "Imagine my surprise when Celestia told me her plans for your return. I was disappointed that Celestia thought I was inadequate to contain you myself. I still think she's just jealous, but don't tell her I said that." She shrugged. "I knew I had to make the offer first. You can't know how much it hurt me when you not only refused to listen but did not hesitate in the slightest to shoot a real bolt at me. By then… Well, I knew you would refuse to even hear of the wager since you would deem it unfair that you won without the game even happening. So I conceded defeat, allowing my sister her… turn at you."

This is getting kind of dark.

"Where I had forgotten that I was a princess and could actually force you to listen, she did not. She knew you wouldn't have heard of her wager and so offered you the choice to listen or be made to listen. And then she spun a sob story for you. All of it is true, of course, but it was just as true for me! More so, in fact, as I had been on the moon for a thousand years!" She shook her head. "But you took her up on it. Did more than that: Offered to give her what she wanted even if you decided not to take the bet." She smiled nastily again. "I'm glad you did take the wager. It did her good to get publicly embarrassed like that. Especially since her own little student was involved."

Ah, sibling rivalry. Always a fun subject. It's a lot less fun when you're trapped in the middle, between two incredibly powerful women that both seem to want you. I'll have to work on that, if I survive long enough.

"But I knew I couldn't just let her win like that. So I threw caution to the wind and let the entire scheme be risked by talking about it in front of that insufferable student." She gave another smile. "And I'm very glad I did. Being a human is odd, but… it was worth it." Her smiled dropped. "And then Taya almost killed you." She stopped, unsure of how to continue.

I couldn't give her any help. That was the one thing I had been thinking about: Did they do it on purpose or were they really forced to do it?

"I know you want to ask, Navarone. The answer is… we don't know. We honestly thought we were saving your life, but we just don't know. We both knew you would be upset about it, but what could we do? At that point I was in love with you and Celestia still wanted me to be happy. With the aside that she could occasionally use you, of course. When you finally practically admitted that you loved me at your anniversary party, I knew I had finally won… But you weren't fully mine. I realized somewhat quickly that you were still pretending because you thought I was falling for you again." She blushed a bit. "Either that or humans think a lot less about sex than we do in terms of relationships. You didn't change a bit that I saw after that night." She gave me a bit of a glare. "And you still haven't."

Now that got me to speak. "You just admitted to forming an entire plot to get me to fall in love with you using trickery, lies, and deceit. And you are mad at me for getting some action on the side? And that is after you basically told me to do what—and who—I pleased until the seven years was up."

There wasn't much she could really say to that, other than, "I thought love would be enough to tame you."

"I didn't realize I loved you until a few minutes ago. And you are giving me several very good reasons to rethink that."

There was silence as we just looked at each other. She broke it. "Now you know the truth. And now you know that I truly do love you. The question is… Do you still love me?"

I uncrossed my hands. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my key. "Do you know what I learned about this key, Luna?" I asked.

She looked at it without concern. "You can use it to make anypony tell you the truth," she said.

I concentrated. "Do you love me?" I asked.

Her eyes went blank. "Yes." She blinked and looked at me, smiling.

Should I forgive her? For lying? For trying to murder me? For plotting to use me as a slave of love?

Should I forgive her? A philosopher could debate that forever.

All I could do—as clichéd as it felt—was follow my heart.

I took my ring off and let it fall to the floor. "I love you," I replied.