Luna smiled as the two stallions looked around the hall with obvious anxiety at the prospect of more energetic than normal party, while Barbara seemed to only have eyes for Elusive. It seemed that certain things were always the same; the dragon assistant was in love with the Element of Generosity and the Element of Laughter’s party was still the mind defying results of that mare- stallion as he was here.

“Gentlecolts, please be at ease,” Luna said softly, trying to put them at a more relaxed state, despite the obviousness intimidation in her own voice. “I am quite sure that any party that your friend has planned will be…” she paused, trying to find the right words. “Interesting to say the very least.” She smiled again, a bit uncertain about the ‘fabulous, wondrous, super-duper welcome lunch party’ planned for her. Despite this Bubble Berry having done nothing to her, and Pinkie Pie had matured in her approach to parties according to Twilight, the old phrase once bitten, twice shy came into her mind.

“Oh, of course Princess!” Flare Scout said, with a bit of a forced smile. She got some disapproving looks from the other guards, causing her to flinch slightly. She knew why she and he got so much flak from everypony; it was well known that Dusk Shine and Twilight Sparkle had gone off on some important duty for their crown and physical Element of Magic, and when the new alicorn had come back, a guard saw the unicorn turned alicorn talking with the new recruit. A chain of miscommunications led everypony to believe that the guard was trying something with a socially inept pony, and that was a big no no.

She feared the day when Twilight went on her first date; she wasn’t sure who would be worse, the guards, Shining Armor, her friends, or Celestia. She knew something would happen that day and she would be as far away from it as possible while still being able to observe it. Maybe with Discord, it would be safe enough…

“Sh-she’s right, your highness.” Dusk blushed, trying not to look at the pegasus, who was very subtly shooting death glares at the prince. Luna sighed, wondering if Artemis had had the same talks with her that she had gone through with Flash Sentry. She had seen his dreams; filled with a wide range of negative emotions directed right at the princesses. She had spoken to him about it when she caught him telling off Twilight in a very vulgar way in his dreams.

He had told her that ever since he had the unfortunate luck to run into Twilight, his military career had been hell. All of a sudden he got insultingly basic recruit level assignments, he was getting disciplined over matters that would normally be overlooked for any guard of his years and every attempt to talk to his superiors about this sudden change was met with sharp rebukes about him not fulfilling his duties and being a miserable guardspony.

He soon put it together, and when he realized what happened, had gone to Shining Armor about the whole matter in an attempt to clear things up with the head of the Crystal Pony Guards. He’d nearly made it until Cadance came into the room with a letter from Twilight talking about her time in the human world and the pegasus stallion’s counterpart she’d met in great detail. Then everything went to Tartarus; everything became stricter for the poor pony, to the point where Cadance and Shining Armor had to have him transferred over to the Royal Guards at the castle in attempts to make things easier and fairer for him again.

Needless to say it didn’t last, as guards did gossip and his unwanted reputation followed him there, and things went to Tartarus again. It did not help that there were some feelings from the new alicorn, alicorns as it were the case, towards the pegasus, or pegasi or whatever!

Luna did not know how many times she’d had to comfort the pony in his dreams and try her best to keep Celestia in the dark about it as her sister was a tad overprotective at times.

“Berry’s parties are the best thing!” Dusk smiled, nodding his head towards the orange mare; a mean prank that some unicorn had done, removing the disguise spell that all guard’s armor had to make each of them appear near identical to one another and refused to put it back once the news broke.

Flash Sentry got in a lot of trouble over that as he usually couldn’t find a unicorn to recast the spell and once he did find one, the spell never lasted long enough for him to escape punishment details. He had nopony to go to about it, as Luna was usually asleep and he was smart enough to avoid Celestia. Luna had promised him that she would try to do something about the whole problem and she was influencing the dreams of the guards to make them aware that Flash Sentry was a decent and innocent pony.

Flare Scout did her best to give him a stony glare, but her clear annoyance at the pony that was affecting her life ruined it. She stood in front of the door, pausing to collect herself, and knocked on the door. “Prince Solaris, Princess Luna, Prince Dusk Shine,” there was a very subtle change of tone, one that Luna picked up on, “Sir Elusive and Lady Barbara are present. Shall I send them in?”

“Yes, yes, please send them in, Flare Scout,” Solaris’s voice called out, causing the mare to pull back very slightly. Luna saw, to her displeasure, that this minute sign of emotions got very pointed looks from the guards around her. Faust above, Luna needed to talk to her sister about this, and make sure that Solaris knew about this whole problem. “I don’t think Bubble Berry can wait much longer.”

Two unicorn guards stepped in front of the small group, using their magic to open the doors. Luna braced herself for the onslaught of the insanity from surely out-of-control-

“Princess?” A concerned voice broke her out of trance, causing her to blink at the pink pony in front of her. “Are you okay?”

Luna looked around the room. A grandiose, and perhaps overly abundant amount of streamers hung from every truss, an assault on the eyes with weapons of color and pizzazz. Balloons floated across the ceiling, drifting in a breeze from the open window, and everywhere there were the five male ponies and the female draconequus that she'd come to know in the brief time there.

There was one key feature of the whole celebration that caught her attention, and it stood out above the rest: the colours and theme were that of the evening. It was subtle touches here and there, a window covered there to bring out some nice shadow effects that she only saw in the old moving pictographs that Celestia once showed her and an open window brought a nice breeze that reminded her of nice midnight so long ago when things were a lot simpler, and many other thing that made her heart swoon.

Subtle order hidden in chaos. Only Pink- Bubble Berry could do that.

“Yes, Bubble Berry,“ she smiled gently, “I am most assuredly fine.”

“That’s great!” The pink pony grin grew. “I didn’t have nearly enough time to get my in-case-of-alternate-selves-party ready, but I hope you enjoy it!”

“Well, I-”

“Woah, Luna!” Eris floated over to her, eyes trailing up and down her form. “You look amazing!” She then leaned over the tailor unicorn and gave him a very generous pat on the back. “You really outdid yourself this time, L!”

“Thank you Eris,” the stallion’s eye twitched, no doubt at the nickname. “It was a pleasure to make an outfit for somepony who doesn’t complain about standing still for more than five seconds.” All of the stallions, including Prince Solaris, looked at their hooves at this unsubtle jab. Butterscotch simply stood up and walked over to the draconequus. Eris instantly folded inwards, muttered a soft apology to the unicorn and lifted the pegasus back to his seat, going back to hovering over his head.

“Please, Elusive, it takes years for one to learn any measure of patience, let alone the ability to stand still for a fitting,” she chuckled, rolling her eyes at the stallions and how this Butterscotch had tamed this draconequus! “It amazes me that Celestia has so many dresses, considering how much she hems over her ponies during her fittings.”

“Well, I suppose takes a true princess to have such grace.” Elusive smiled, nodding his head and walking over to an empty chair on the far left.

“To be fair, Sir Elusive,” Prince Solaris chuckled softly, clicking his tongue. “Most of the time I am trying to imprint the notion that I am a normal pony to most of my little ponies when getting a suit, with a few eccentricities.”

“A few eccentricities does not explain why Celestia, or you as I am willing to guess, had such trouble with a pony named Slim Fi-”

“Sweet Faust, do not bring that up!” Solaris threw his hooves up, telling her the exact same incident had happened to Solaris too. Well, not the exact as she seriously doubted he would need a girdle for a dress… “Please, take your seat Luna, I think one certain pony is dying to start this little party for you.”

“YUP!” The pink stallion bounced in front of her. “Come, sit so I can get out the cake for you!”

“T-thank you, Bubble Berry.” Luna nodded her head, blushing slightly. “Let me go sit down so we can start this party of yours.” She quickly walked around the table, moving towards the last two empty seats on both of Solaris’ sides. One was equal in height to his own and sitting directly in the middle of the table length, slightly off to the side like the Diarch’s own chair was. The other one was shorter, down the left side of the table.

She gave Solaris a look, and he simply nodded to the tall chair. With his horn glowing, he pulled out the chair for her, causing her to widen her smile. Sitting down in what she realized was Artemis’s usual chair, she had to refrain herself from taking too deep of a breath of air; she was really curious about how he smelled for some reason…

“Goodie!” The pink stallion bounced over with a wide grin, seeing that all the ponies were sitting down. “Now the party can begi-”

“Uncle Solaris.” Luna blinked and turned her head to see a very dainty and well groomed unicorn mare sauntered into the room. Her blond mane was well brushed and was glistening; the fur around her hooves was very well maintained. Even though she was wearing a form covering lovely dress, Luna could tell that this mare was well toned and did not have a single inch of fat on her body. Her cutie mark was-

Oh sweet Faust, this was Blueblood’s female self!

“Oh, I did not see you were having company,” she giggled softly, which rubbed Luna’s coat the wrong way in an instant. She stole a glance at Elusive, wondering if the situ- Yes, it was as the tailor was practically glowering at the mare. “Hello, dear heroes of Equestria,” she gave a soft nod to all of them. “Tailor.” She all but spat out the word, causing the white unicorn’s coat to bristle. “Oh, hello there dearie, who might you be?” She turned her eyes to Luna, causing the alicorn mare to blink.

“Princess Bluebelle, please meet Princess Luna,” Solaris stood up, flexing his wing in a seemingly open and flippant manner; Luna, Bluebelle and probably Elusive saw it as a protective manner. “She is Prince Artemis’s new friend and will be staying here for a period of time.”

“Oh, good,” she flashed a seemingly friendly smile; Luna knew when a noble was eager to play a card in the Grounds. “I do believe it would be good for Uncle Arty to have somepony to help him relax.” She gave a hearty chuckle with Luna barely able to restrain herself from banishing this mare to the moon.

“Bluebelle, I do believe Prince Artemis has made it clear on numerous occasions that he does not care nor wish to be called as such.” Solaris frowned, the disapproval from his voice causing the ponies in the room to flinch. “Also, I do not appreciate your insinuations about my brother’s new friend.”

“But Uncle Solaris, it would be good for Unc-,” she gave a fake, innocent chuckle that told Luna how much that this mare was enjoying this! By Faust’s horn she thought Blueblood was bad, but he had nothing on this pony! “It would do him good to find some sort of way to relax. I mean, he was so tense yesterday that he completely disregarded my perfectly good plans for a new summer-”

“My, it seems that you need some rest, my dear,” Luna spoke, taking a sip of the tea that was suddenly in front of her. Turning her eye, she saw the pink pony give her a grin and a shake of his puffy mane told her that he was responsible. “I do believe that Prince Artemis told you that this little plan was denied, in the Day Court, correct?” The mare nodded her head, opening her mouth to speak again, but Luna pressed her point. “It was a sealed matter, I do believe and that there were some prohibitions on bringing it up again, correct?”

“Y-yes, but you see-” she stuttered, obviously taken back by Luna’s assault, leaving herself open for counters to her play.

“Solaris,” she turned her head perfectly ninety degrees, pausing to take a sip of her perfectly blended tea. “I do believe that she needs some medical assistance if she could not remember such a decision made only yesterday.”

“I think you are right Princess Luna.” His smile twitched, showing that he was enjoying this as well. “Bluebelle, I insist that you go to the royal doctors for a complete check up.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” the unicorn backed up, shaking her head. “I am sure that is truly unneeded, I do not wish to waste their time.”

“No, no, I insist,” the alicorn of the day leaned his head straighter. “Guards, if you could please take Princess Bluebelle to the royal doctors, I would truly appreciate it.” He nodded to the two guards that were on both sides of the annoyed noble. “Make sure that they test for everything, as I truly care for my dear niece’s health.”

There was complete silence until the double doors closed, at which point everypony let out their laughter.

“Oh my, this is the best party I’ve been to in a long time Bubbles,” Eris flew over to the pink pony and gave him a raised paw. He gladly gave her a hoof bump which caused her to grin more. “Three cheers to Luna!” She held out a glass of chocolate milk, which Rainbow Blitz instantly clinked with his own glass of wine.

“Indeed,” Elusive said with a simple smile, shaking his elegant mane. “It was very enjoyable seeing her put in her place.” Clearing his throat, he raised his glass. “Three cheers for Princess Luna-”

He gasped as he saw her horn and eyes glow, with her looking around with fear.

“Luna, what’s wrong?” Solaris leaned over, panicking as he held the mare in his hooves. “Tell me!”

“I- dream realm.” she muttered, her eyes closing. She then fell asleep, muttering one word.

“Artemis.”

Author's Notes:

Brought to you by Noble Thought, my friends and dedicated to my friend who got me my new game

https://docs.google.com/document/d/159So7u9h4uoFo0HEwmQWCZp40L8mllRg8zllj1rwj0s/edit?usp=sharing