Login

A Chance Meeting of Two Moons

by Evilhumour

Chapter 8: Chapter seven Artemis

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Chapter Seven - Artemis

There was a dreadful silence as the heroines stared at the two ponies on the bed. The six of them looked at the empty ice cream tubs, then the stallion who had wings, horn, a moon on both his flanks and an ethereal mane, then the princess who had a black eye. The six ponies waited for their princess to explain this situation to them in her usual elegant manner.

“Umm…” Celestia drawled out, trying to figure out what to say to her little ponies.

“My goodness!” Rarity gasped, seeing the black eye and stained coat. It was like some fool had tried to dab it out, but just made a mess of things. “What happened to you? Who gave you that black eye?”

“Uh, I did but I can explain,” the stallion said hesitantly, stepping away from the princess. “You see-”

“I don’t think so bub!” Rainbow Dash shouted, flying to tackle the jerk that would dare to hurt the princess!

It was in vain as he pushed her away with a quickly raised shield, sending her into a wardrobe hard enough for it to topple over forwards, trapping her inside.

He turned his head back to the other ponies, trying to defuse the situation. “I can explain-”

“No dice sugarcube!” Applejack said, causing the stallion to focus on her.

Which turned out to be a diversion, as Rarity used the blankets from the bed to pin his wings to his side, sending everything off the bed to the floor with a large thud. Applejack took this opportunity to lasso his legs together, only for him to bite the rope with his mouth. He then tugged it, throwing Applejack into Rarity, causing the remaining pegasus to meep and dash away as they came close to crashing into her.

“Please, let me expl-” He meeped as he got blasted backwards with some kind of pap- it was confetti and party favours which meant oh buck me there’s another Bubble Berry!!! He whimpered at the thought of another pony like that one.

With two groans of pain, he blinked upwards to see the dazed look of Celestia before she turned her attention to the ponies in her room, with the wardrobe bouncing around as a certain mare tried to escape it.

“Get away from the princess!” Twilight shouted, grabbing him with her powerful magic and cutting off his magic before he could use it against her. “Guards, guards!” She began to carry the strange pony out of the room and away from the princess.

ENOUGH!” Celestia shouted, causing everypony to freeze, and even the wardrobe that was halfway up to the ceiling came crashing back down with loud curses coming from within. “Twilight, release Prince Artemis immediately!” she snapped, feeling truly angry at herself. She did not know why Lulu’s coltfriend was here but buck it, she was going to make sure he was okay for her! She could do that much after that mess-up this morning!

“Your highness?” Captain Ironhide walked into the room, and she realized how bad it seemed. “What did you do now?” He frowned at her, clearly disappointed with her. All of her ponies that she had passed had given her a look and shook their heads in disbelief. Oh, the downside of being seen as everypony’s mother figure. You do one bad thing, one really bad thing, and all their fear and respect of her went out of the window.

Well, she wanted to be treated like an average pony and kissing her sister’s coltfriend’s brother was pretty bad in her female heavy country’s eyes.

“Nothing Captain Ironhide, just that Princess Twilight and her friends decided to pay me an unexpected visit, and managed to get through your guards without any notification.” She frowned back, not in the mood for him treating her like this. “Prince Artemis decided to pay me a visit as well to try and settle things between himself and I, and the ladies mistook the situation as something else.” She watched her captain straighten his back, remembering his position. “Now, if you can make sure there are no other unannounced ponies in the castle, I will explain this situation to them.”

“Yes your highness!” He snapped to attention and marched out of the room, with the guards outside going back to their positions.

“Good, now Twilight,” She was back into her usual tone of speaking, taking a breath of air to steady herself. She resisted the urge to rub her head, feeling a headache coming on. She looked at the stallion who was still rolled up in her blankets, spitting out some party favours that came from Pinkie Pie’s party cannon which she refused to acknowledge for her own mental health. “Please-”

“HAHA! FREE-” Rainbow shouted, flying out of the back of her wardrobe with several of the fancier dresses hanging around her body, hitting the ceiling of her room. She then ricocheted towards the princess of the sun, who let out a yelp of shock and created another shield, sending her into the closet with a loud crash, indicating she had knocked everything down. “DAMN!”

Princess Celestia could not help facehooving with everypony in the room. “I will help Artemis, you help Rainbow Dash come out of the closet.”

It took her a second to realize what she had said before she blushed with the rest of the Elements of Harmony, who were trying to decide whether to laugh or gasp at her with the stallion trying to edge away from the hooves of the approaching pegasus who was clearly trying to help him out of his trapped state.

With an eye twitching, she excused herself and flew to the one place where she could scream without shattering every glass object on the planet.

After all, nopony could hear you scream in space.


After flying back down to her room, she was presented with a semi-respectable scene. Rainbow Dash was sitting the corner of her room, pouting as Twilight pulled broken wood chips out of her wings and back. Fluttershy and Applejack were fixing her room up which was nice as she didn’t want her servants to find out as they would take it that she had tried to sleep with Artemis and been caught in the act. Pinkie Pie was eating her secret stash of cakes which was not fair! But where were Rarity and Artemis?

“Hello my little ponies,” she gave a weak smile, wondering if Artemis had told them- yes he had, judging by the glares she was getting from all of them. Even Fluttershy was glar- GAH, do not look at the eyes Tia. She sighed, sitting on her bed. “Please, before you get it out of your systems, can you tell me where Rarity and Artemis are?”

There was a dreadful pause that caused her to gulp and think to herself So this was what it felt like to be an average pony. before Twilight spoke, pulling a thick splinter from Rainbow Dash’s flank, causing the pegasus to yelp. “Artemis asked her if she could get him something to wear.” She paused in thought, leaning on a splinter. “He really seemed to be uncomfortable about it…”

“Yeah, the guy seemed to be on a verge of an egghead-like panic at-GAH!” Rainbow Dash yelped, either from the wing smack or the splinter pulled out of her. “That hurts!”

“Sorry!”

“A-hem, now that that is dealt with, please get it out of your system.” She braced herself, but it was needed. “We cannot move on until we-”

“How could you!” Celestia scooted backwards, seeing Fluttershy leap onto her bed, with everypony staring at her. “That was so mean to Princess Luna! How could you-”

“Please my little pony, let me say that I know I did a terrible wrong to my sister and her new friend,” she sighed, looking down at her bed. “And I do plan to do everything in my power to fix this and set things right between my sister and Prince Artemis.”

“That’s good ma’am,” Applejack nodded her head, still frowning at her. “Ah mean, your highness!”

There was a bit of laughter coming from outside her door and she watched Prince Artemis walk in with Rarity by his side and Spike sitting on his back. “So I would guess that your Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Blitz is it?” the stallion nodded with a grin, with Spike leaning close to hear the story. “Is none too good when judging to use her, I mean his, speed either?”

“As I told you, the day after of the Gala last year, I found him in my studies with a pot stuck on his head.” Everypony looked at Rainbow Dash, who was blushing, remembering that something similar had happened to her, but it was not her head that got stuck in a pot. “I believe it was due to doing a Sonic Rainboom to show off to everypony and camera flashes throwing him off balance.”

“Sounds like a real dumba-GAH!” Rainbow Dash shouted, as more splinters were pulled out.

That caused the stallion to pause in the doorway, dressed with a fine informal torc covering his chest. It was an elegant dark blue that really stood out on his coat, as it was not dark to the point of being black. He was wearing black shoes that went fairly up his legs, a fine choice for a pony that saw fights often enough, although she hoped that he wouldn’t go looking for one while he was here. He was wearing a modified helmet of her guards, changed into an old fashioned Romane version with gold highlights on the silver rim at the back of his head. She had no idea where he’d gotten it from as she doubted Rarity would approve of such a thing, nor did she expect him to take any of her guards’ helmets away for something so trivial that he wasn’t even wearing it properly.

His mouth hung for a moment before Rarity elbowed him, causing him to blush and shake his head. He bowed to them; it was a bow of apologizing to close friends, or that’s what she thought as it was from the old Equestrian way of bowing. She was glad she had done away with most bowing, just one to show respect was enough for her.

“Rainbow Blitz- I mean Rainbow Dash, I do apologize for my more than necessary roughness in subduing you.” He gave a weak smile; he was clearly uncomfortable about something. It was not about the fight or hurting the pegasus, Celestia could tell that much in how he acted and from what she saw of him before. He was a warrior and probably didn’t put much in those who tried and failed to attack him. He also wanted to get something on himself, and seemed to be at ease when he came in dressed. How od-

Her thoughts were interrupted when Artemis spoke again. “I should have more restraint and awareness of my surroundings.” He walked over to her, taking wider steps around the mares in the room than a pony would normally do, and stared at the pegasus. “May I? Solaris and I were in countless battles together and my brother would be hard pressed to tend to his wounds, so the duty fell to me.” His horn started to glow, with more wood chips flying out with ease and little shivers coming from Dash now. Spike decided to hop off of the stallion and back onto Twilight, who backed up into the side of the bed.

“Luna spoke the same to me when war was common enough for us to participate in, and I would be willing to wager that Solaris protested on the notion that you needed more medical assistance?” His ears darted upwards in surprise and his cheeks reddened slightly as she guessed the truth, probably remembering similar experiences of her own.

“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” he grumbled, sending a small wave of healing magic over Dash. “Yet he would not be satisfied until he gave me a full inspection,” he grumbled as he sat down on the floor, with Rainbow Dash turning around, shaking her body to loosen any wood chips left. “At least I waited until we were alone to inspect him, it was not needed nor proper to do it in front of the soldiers,” he grumbled, sitting down on the floor.

Instantly, Celestia felt terrible. She realized how humiliating that must have have been to him, and she had done the same to Luna without any regards to her own pride back then. All that mattered to her was that Luna was fine, not bothering to think how her sister might take it to be pushed over, stripped of her armor and inspected for any serious wounds, as she did have several bleeding stab wounds once, in front of all their soldiers. And she had brushed off her sister’s protests as her simply being too stubborn to get the medical aid right away.

“Celestia,” her eyes snapped to focus, looking at the stallion who was staring at her. “If I were to wager, I would bet that you realized of some pain you inflicted on Luna in the past.”

She nodded numbly, feeling depressed as she started to think about each time her sister had protested about something, wondering how valid those complaints were. “I’m such-”

“Oh shut it,” he snapped, rolling his eyes. The mares in the room gasped at him, disbelieving that a pony could be so rude to her. “We both know the truth of the matter is that we alicorns are not the most balanced creatures, our long lives makes us a bit more unaware of the feelings of others lest we get too attached.” He stared at her, pausing to collect himself. “The best advice I can give is not to wallow in your failings but to talk to Luna. Properly.” He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly wishing for only the best for Luna. Meet her twice and he was already fiercely defensive for her wellbeing.

“Like you and Solaris have done?” She raised an eyebrow at him, causing him to blink and pull back. She would not let him off that easily, despite his good intentions.

“I must admit that my brother and I are not that good at conversing our feelings or problems to each other without one of us resorting to blows…” He looked to the side, indicating who was the first to resort to physical confrontations.

“Man, you guys need a shrink or something,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, flapping her wings into the air. “Uh, sorry I didn’t mean anything wr-”

“A what?” Artemis blinked confused at her, stepping backwards as the mares started to come closer to her bed.

“A ‘shrink’ is another way of saying a doctor that special-” Twilight started to explain, going into her lecture mode.

“I need not another doctor,” Artemis said from the outside of the small group of mares, eying them with some wariness, his breathing seeming to be a bit quicker to Celestia. “I mistrusted Solaris’s word that a ‘check up’ after my thousand year absence would be needed and a simple affair,” he shuddered, biting his lip. “I don’t think making sure that I was completely intact nor injecting me with things were part of a simple ‘check up’.” His wings fluttered, as he shook his head.

Both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie laughed loudly at this, with Applejack shaking her head at her friends’ laughter. Rarity seemed to be in the process of patting him on the shoulder but stopped herself. Fluttershy hid behind her mane with Twilight and Spike looking at her. Celestia blinked, pausing long enough to collect herself. She was really thrown off by this whole sister’s-coltfriend-suddenly-being-here-and-everypony-knowing-she-kissed-his-older-brother problem.

“A ‘shrink’ is a pony that specializes in helping other ponies overcome their problems by talking about it and I do realize how helpful that could have been with Luna and myself now that I say it.” She let out a sigh, another mark against her.

“To make errors is to be living, and to be living means there is a chance to fix the mistakes.” Artemis spoke, smiling at the mares. “As one to have my past, I know that it is possible to overcome the darkest of errors with the help of others.”

“Wise words, Prince Artemis.” Celestia smiled at him. Things were better now, now that her most trusted ponies were here. She was sure she could trust them to help her with this matter.

Soon, everything would be fi-

A loud grumble caused all of the ponies, and the dragon, to turn their attention to the blushing stallion, who was rubbing his hoof into the floor.

She smiled, raising an eyebrow at him. “I am curious, Prince Artemis, have you eaten anything since waking up?”

He unwisely shook his head in front of one party pony and one farm pony that came from a close knit family. He stood no chance when they grabbed his front legs and started to drag him off to the kitchen, with the rest of the ponies, and dragon, from the room following them.

Author's Notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ydyeJ6M_o2jmUuhloye_jL8hTZxC1Zd0B2tRu0NFJA/edit?usp=sharing

Next Chapter: Chapter seven Luna Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 26 Minutes
Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch