Twilight lay in the grass, looking aimlessly into the star speckled void. Her foalhood memory was laced with nights such as these. Dedication and excellence took a higher toll as she grew older; demands of nightly, intensive research had left her little time to spend with her beloved night sky. Stars, complex, vast, and intricate as they might be, did not change in an average pony’s lifetime. Well… I suppose I can’t really call myself an average pony then, can I? Remembering the moment made her want to squeal. It was almost impossible to even think about her favorite constellation now without devolving into a giggle fit. ‘My very own star. The tiny purple sister star of the Gemini. Squeeeeeee-‘ A flash of blue in her peripheral vision revealed that her stargazing companion… wasn’t exactly gazing at the stars. Twilight instantly tried to quell her ‘geeking out’ wiggles, the unflinching gaze of the beautiful pony laying just out of foreleg’s reach brought a heat to her face.

The illusion was not perfect, unfortunately. Despite a small breeze ruffling the tall grass around her, it left her untouched, her coat completely still. Frowning, the unicorn tried to ignore the small break in her suspension of disbelief. You should be happy Twilight, this is enough, isn’t it? By all rights it should have been. Luna’s initial reveal had left her entirely overjoyed… but small, temporary moments of unhappiness had been more frequent of late.

Self-doubt was the culprit. Something about the entire series of events felt so unbelievable, so unreal. Luna was real enough, and even though the nature of their relationship was long-distance, the fact that she received dream visits almost every night from the royal mare should have been confirmation enough… yet during the day, doubt surfaced time and time again, leaving a small part of her paralyzed in fear. The months preceding their rendezvous had been some of the loneliest and most miserable of her life, even if the exile was self-inflicted; What if she had just snapped? What if these dreams were an incredibly realistic manifestation her mind had created to deal with the isolation, the trauma of being pushed away, discarded by yet another motherly figure whose duty came before her daughter, surrogate or otherwise. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, Twilight grit her teeth: this is real; this is reality, even if it’s a dream. I would never think of Luna like this otherwise, I couldn’t. I-
Abruptly, the rustling grass beside her and accompanying warmth of somepony drawing close simultaneously reaffirmed her faith, while spiking her pulse significantly.

“My dear Twilight,” the voice quivered uncharacteristically, “invading the privacy of thy thoughts was not our intention, but as we are more… attuned to this realm, the struggle in your heart radiates like an aura.” Having already picked up that Luna’s relapse into measured, formal Canterlot speech indicated a significant amount of personal discomfort, Twilight looked up, a dismissal dying in her throat at the sight of the other mare. Luna had always been the very ponyfication of tranquility; now involuntary shudders in the shadow of the alicorn’s deep blue silhouette that hovered over her temporarily took her breath away. From the current angle, though only for a moment, a portion of the night sky itself appeared to shake.

“We… apologize. We put you in a position where you could not in good conscience, decline our advances. We took advantage of your good nature, and perhaps presumed too much.” Had Luna been looking at Twilights face, rather than deeply into the ground, she would have seen the lavender unicorn desperately trying to force words from her lips. Twilight had never seen the princess so ashamed, all attempts at forming a cohesive sentence died in her throat, deemed either inadequate or overly condescending. Silence only worsened the situation, as Luna drew the entirely wrong conclusion from it. “We will take our leave now, and trouble your dreams no further-“

“NO!” Twilight lunged to her feet. Having tripped over her tongue enough times to imprint hoofprints into it, the desperation worked against her, taunting, seeming to dangle coherent speech just out of her reach. “I-… I- I- I-“ Stuttering only earned her a confused look. “It’s not- I’m not- your missing- rather-I.” Pausing, she cleared her throat, but the realization that the princess was likely holding back tears seem to knot it back up instantly; it’s result was an awkward series of grunts and unsuccessful attempts to relieve the tightness. Combined pressure from the hurt and distance in Luna’s eyes finally broke the bind on Twilight’s tongue, though the content of the outburst would have knocked anypony off balance: “OH FOR CELESTIA’S SAKE- HORSEFEATHERS! APPLE BUCKING TARTURAS DAMNED MATRIARCH MASTICATING MOUTH AND VOCABULARY ISN’T WORTH A FORNICATING FOAL’S FANNY WHEN I NEED IT MOST!” For a few moments, all Twilight could do was sit down, panting, relieved that whatever foul magic of fate responsible for holding her tongue was now finally dispelled. Wait… She heard that. Every word of it. Hoof covering her mouth in horror, she turned, not particularly looking forward to Luna’s reaction. With a posture mirroring hers almost identically, Luna sat across from her, watching silently, her expression almost a bit too emotionless. Seeing that she was no longer going to be imminently abandoned was enough for Twilight, however, sending a visible wave of relief through the lavender mare’s entire body

“We will wait for thee, to recover thy scattered faculties.” The sing-song, half rhyming nature of the old dialect made Twilight rather certain she was being made fun of, the slightest beginnings of a smile playing across Luna’s muzzle; a shadow of amusement that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

‘Living for thousands of years would do wonders for my eloquence too, miss smarty hooves...’ But now wasn’t the time for jibes. Trotting over to her, Twilight turned around, sitting gracefully with her back between Luna’s slender legs. The alicorn started slightly, unable to contain her surprise at the gesture, but she did not pull away, leaning into the smaller mare ever so slightly. Dramatically as their relationship had begun, mutual shyness had kept their progress at a complete standstill. Even though it was simple, and fairly innocent in nature, this new level of intimacy was not lost on either of them.

I felt how humiliating and frustrating it was for you. A year after I was accepted into Celestia’s magic academy, I had a brief period of downtime, in which I ran into some old friends from kindergarten on my way home. I just wanted to talk, but they saw everything I said as bragging, completely fixated on the idea that I was only trying to talk down to them. Even my attempts to apologize for whatever I did to offend them were seen as condescending. No matter what I said, or how many ways I tried to fix it, they refused to see any of my efforts in a positive light.” Old as the memory was, Twilight hadn’t expected it to move her as much as it did. Coughing in an attempt to clear the pain from her voice, she felt the nuzzling again.

“I was so frustrated, Twilight. Intense as I may have seemed, I was overwhelmed the moment I arrived Ponyville. A thousand years, and I had missed so much… so many borderline familiar faces hovering just beyond the edges of my vision, ponies that looked similar but were so very different. It was invigorating, frustrating, and exhausting all at the same time.

Shaking her head, Twilight smiled. The alicorn was completely oblivious of her own strong points. “That’s the thing though. See, unlike me, you pushed on, discouraging as it was, refusing to give up. It was mind boggling to me that you weren’t willing to let the misunderstandings stand, even for a second. I know it’s a weak parallel, but …I never tried to talk to those kindergarten friends again. Just didn’t bother, even though I occasionally saw them around Canterlot. It was too discouraging, too hard… too painful. In your place, I would have flown back to the palace and waited a few centuries, relatively speaking, before even bothering to try again-”
Luna’s caresses were no longer focused on her back, rather her beginning to focus on the front of her body, intensifying the smoldering feeling in her stomach. If she didn’t know better, she would be under the impression that the alicorn was intentionally trying to drive her off topic.
Twilight’s head began to hurt, most likely from the strain of consistently failing to get the point across, her natural talent for conciseness seemed to have taken the night off.

“I don’t know,” Luna teased gently, “judging from what you’ve said it… just sounds like you got little crush on me.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve had crushes before.” Twilight rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Luna’s hoof was consistently trailing lower. “I may not be the most experienced mare, I but I know the difference between a crush and… whatever it is I’m feeling now.”

“So what is it that separates the two, dear Twilight? What sets me apart from...” my sister. She may have not said, it, but it didn’t keep the lavender mare from receiving the message. It was a difficult question, but not an unfair one. Luna knew of Twilight’s infatuation with Celestia, the subtext was plainly obvious in her letters, though it was a subtext her sister was either oblivious to, or had habitually ignored.

“You let me in.” The unicorn’s voice was full of self-realization, emotions ravaging a shaky voice, the words as much of a revelation to herself as they were to the Luna. Tentatively, the alicorn wrapped a foreleg around her shivering waist, pulling her closer. “You didn’t try to shield me from your emotions, or try to hide them from me.” As dreadfully inappropriate to mention Celestia as it might have been, she wasn’t sure she could stop the torrent of words even if she wanted to, years of repression seemed to dissolve with each passing sentence. “Celestia would claim that I’ve aided her countless times, that my friends and I have been instrumental in ‘saving the future of Equestria,’ and that all our experiences together have been valuable lessons to both of us. The only thing I’m truly certain of is the latter. Whether they originate as threats that are real, exaggerated, or manufactured, as paranoid as it may sound, every conflict we’ve been through feels like it was pre-evaluated to be a carefully vetted learning experience with a proverb at the end. If there was ever a true threat… some part of me doubts she’d even bother to tell me.”

Luna winced guiltily at the all-too-accurate estimation, saddened at the contempt of the sentiment. She found only a small relief in the fact that their current orientation didn’t require her to hide the reaction from Twilight.

“If you were the same way, always maintaining a controlled and calculated distance, I would have never seen the similarities between us. I would never have fallen for you… the real you. Even though we have much in common… I don’t think there is anypony else like the real you.”
Luna’s left foreleg linked around hers, carefully lifting the other mare her onto her hindlegs, while gently pivoting her so their eyes could finally meet; It was a single smooth motion, almost dance-like in nature

Staring hungrily at the unicorn’s lips for only a moment, Luna suppressed the temptation, lowering the vulnerable Twilight gently to the ground, pushing her softly onto the grass; the unicorn stared up at her, as if worried that if she broke the visual link between them, the princess cradling her gently might vanish forever. Pliable in the alicorn’s hooves, Twilight surrendered her heart completely.

Gazing into the enraptured violet eyes beneath her, Luna was relieved she hadn’t relented to her yearning and spoiled this moment with something as pedestrian as a kiss. Certainly, a part of her wanted to kiss the lavender unicorn deeply, along with a whole host of other things, freely giving in to the throes of passion. But a pony could miss so much with closed eyes… Luna would have given up every star in the sky to avoid missing this perfect moment

In a life-altering instant, Luna saw into Twilight’s soul. It was a beautiful picture of the jaded intellectual, finding hope despite previous abandonment of all naivety; she wanted luna, and everything she represented: Love, companionship, someone who understood her completely. And in that brief omnipotent span of time, she had no doubt that Twilight saw into her soul as well… saw everything: Saw the fragments of nightmare moon that still resided within her, saw the moments where she sat on the moon, cursing Celestia’s name, and watched in amazement as Twilight accepted it all in an unconditional embrace. It was something she had never experienced with anypony else. The gaze went unbroken as Luna reveled in the long forgotten joy of experiencing something wonderful for the first time. There would never be another pony like this one… never in a million years; In Luna’s mind, that wasn’t the slightest hyperbole. She would make this pony was hers and hers alone. Hiding the emotions swirling within her was only partially successful, as her voice tremored, both soft and insistent:

“Then what worries you so deeply… fair mare of the moon?”

Twilight was ashamed of the foalish doubt now, after they had bonded so closely. Closing her eyes for a moment, she decided Luna deserved the truth. “I just can’t get it out of my head that I’ve not actually seen you since this all began. I’m terrified that maybe I’ve finally lost it. It’s such a good thing that it’s difficult for me to believe… the very fact that I ‘wake up’ from all our encounters is a little scary.”

I shouldn’t have told her.

Twilight sat in her desk chair, completely awake, with a blanket wrapped across her shoulders, currently in the process of beating herself up over a mistake. A princess has responsibilities, you should have left things as they were. Speaking of which, where’s your responsibility, you stupid filly! What were you thinking telling her something so needy, what exactly did you expect to happen, that she would just shrug it off and tell you it would all be okay?” There was no easy explanation for her actions. For once, analysis and logic and flown completely off the table, and in that moment of weakness Twilight Sparkle had made the terrible mistake of telling the pure, undoctored truth. She fully expected Luna to get angry, or at least irritated. After all, it was the worst, most idiotic, unscientific excuse she had ever had the displeasure of hearing. ‘I know you already gave me an irrefutable piece of evidence I can use to prove this one way or another, but I’m too scared to look at it.’ Not her finest moment.

Shockingly, Luna hadn’t shown the slightest hint of irritation. Twilight couldn’t believe the look of relief on the other pony’s face as the royal princess of Equestria looked halfway torn between laughing and crying. “How silly of me, of course; I didn’t even think of how odd our interactions must have felt from your perspective, dear Twilight. Because the realm of dreams is such a natural extension of home to me, I often forget how duplicitous it can be for anypony not equally attuned.”

Ears drooping with the realization of how silly and nonsensical her concern was, Twilight had opened her mouth to apologize and amend it, but she was cut off in the form of a caress, falling silent as the princess’ dark hoof stroked her muzzle.
“Shhhhh. Not another word. In a matter of moments, you will wake up. You will go to your balcony and open the window, and then you will sit in your chair and wait.” It finally dawned on her what the princess intended.
“Please don-“
Her words were cut off by the sudden reappearance of her bedroom. Kicking herself all the way, she had followed the instructions, and now waited, unable to keep still. I might as well do something productive while I wait. Twilight lifted a nearby book of the shelf with Telekinesis. Remaining sleepiness had caused her to drop the book on her desk a bit too roughly, raising a mini cloud of dust-

Wait …
…
…
…
“NONONONONONONONO! SPIKE! GETUPGETUPGETUPGETUP!

As the resulting shrieks rang out from the library, neighboring ponies quivered in their beds, praying to Celestia that the scary, screeching creature from Tartarus would leave peacefully, preferably without killing the local baby dragon, who, for whatever reason, seemed to be the tragic focus of its rage.

Spike wasn’t upset. He got upset when Twilight did something unfair or excessive, like making fun of his crush, or the one time she had made him make a checklist, for checklists that counted her checklists of checklists. Meta-checklist aside… ‘Upset didn’t even come close. Throughout the entire period of what Spike considered to be unapologetic dragon torture, a single thought ran through his mind.

“Cleaning, at 4:00… on weekend morning… Twilight… you’re a monster.”

The abnormal heart palpitations had started around half way through the flight. Luna had entertained the notion of turning back, eventually decided against it. She would be fine, it was the same distance to Canterlot as Ponyville at this point, and the only true advantage Canterlot would have held was her sister’s magic… which she knew all too well was not a viable option. Pushing through the pain, the palpitations had gotten worse, until they took on a panicky, familiar beat. She knew it all too well; it was the same beat she heard within trapped within Nightmare Moon, the moment the elements began the process of removing her, draining her corrupted magical power to practically nil. Celestia had raised both the sun and moon for over a thousand years… there’s no way I’ve exhausted my power in the paltry few months I’ve held them both.

Ponyville library was a welcome sight, though she found it a bit odd all the lights were on at such a late hour. The landing was less than ideal, the harsh stop jarring her spine. She heard a faint muttering coming from the stairs. A few moments later, a baby dragon in a particularly sour mood came up the stairs, grumbling to himself. She wrapped her wings around herself, in an attempt to avoid the awkward questions her appearance would raise. It looked like she would remain undetected, when the baby dragon flicking a glance her way; Two seconds later, Spike did a double take, his eyes widening significantly.
“AHAH! A curtain disguised as an alicorn! I won’t be falling for your tricks anymore, four-thirty in the morning…” Luna didn’t know Spike very well, but she was starting to get the very firm impression that he was not much of a night dragon. As he turned to leave, Luna breathed a sigh of relief… or tried to, her lungs convulsing in a coughing fit. Collapsing on bent forelegs, she gasped raggedly, a brief pitter-patter of claws on wood her only indicator that Spike had returned. “Pr-… Princess!” the dragon trailed off, running back out the door and down the stairs, hopefully looking for Twilight. I did promise to see her, after all…
After the convulsions ceased, attempting to sneak in a wheezy breath resulted in a more severe coughing fit, one that further restricted her flow of oxygen, darkness narrowing her vision to the width of a pinprick. Hoofsteps thundered up the stairs, a moment before the darkness engulfed her entirely.

AN: Just to ward off any immediate confusion, whatever is wrong with Luna is not in any way related to Celestia’s more permanent condition. While another chapter focused solely on Twi/Luna was not my intention, I’m in the process of bringing the characters closer together, so most chapters will be better integrated from now on. Also, Chapters 1-7 are in the process of being freshly edited and updated, thanks to awesome new editor Tricky-Step. If you’re at all interested in Gilda as a character, or even if you hate her as a character and would like a decent explanation to why she’s kind of a jerk, his ongoing story: Griffon a Hard Time, is highly recommended.