****

Luna

That was one of the stupidest things I had ever done.

Returning to Equestria hadn’t been hard, the god hadn’t followed me, or if he had, he had decided not make himself known. The night had been routine after that. There were still more nightmares than before the law had started, but it was changing. Since we had announced the coming amendments there was more happy dreams, filled with hope, with foals. I came to the realization of how many mares wanted foals but had no means to have one, it hadn’t occurred to me exactly how many were wishing, were trying for them and failing. Ari’s amendments were already making a lot of mares, a lot of families happy.

After I had finished with the last of my duties, I slowly pulled my astral body from the dream world; I had been expecting some magical fatigue from pushing myself so hard. The sensations I had felt on my core as I pushed past my normal borders were not a good sign, in fact I was amazed that they disappeared soo quickly when I was within Equestrian borders.

But I had practice concealing pain from my sister. A little fatigue would be-

“UAAAGHH!”

My body felt like my nerves were on fire, burning through my limbs from the inside out and causing my body to spasm under the magical distress I felt my core experience, aertheratic lines constricting to the point that I felt as weak as a newborn foal...My legs had given out. I couldn’t stand or even manage words as I clamped my muzzle shut, holding in my agony.

“Princess!” Something was poking my muzzle, “Princess can you hear me?” I opened my eyes, they had closed sometime in my torturous return to this plane.

Moonlit Echo, my personal guard, stood before my spinning vision. He called for me for what felt like an agonizing five minutes before I could manage a weak response, “F-fine…”

It had not even occurred to me how he had entered my room, why he was there, till what felt like an hour had passed. During that time, which being the dedicated colt-guard that he is, he stayed by my side waiting for a more affirmative answer than my feeble ‘fine’.

Although it had only been ten minutes time had passed slowly as my body quieted, the spasms were stilling, and the fire cooling to a slight sting that traveled along my whole body.

Standing had been interesting, but I had finally stood, and I had persuaded…Commanded really, my loyal guard pony to let me leave my own chambers to attend breakfast. I loved my lunar guard dearly but now was a bad time for their care to be seen. Tia had to remain unaware of my excursion and of the sights I saw, as interesting as they were. I knew I would be deafened in my waking body if not worse for my foalish actions.

That brings us to the present.

I have a happy smile plastered to my face as I try to focus on appearing normal. Right…Normal was enjoying my sister’s pancakes, pineapple topping them to make the pancakes appear to be sticking their tongue out at me.

“Do you not like them? I could always have the chef prepare some-“

“No!” Sister’s ear twitches as she looks at earnestly now, I had answered with a little too much force. “Tia, I am just tired from all the extra nightmares since the law’s reintroduction. It is beginning to catch up to me.”

“Surely there must be fewer nightmares since we announced the amendments? Every pony was ecstatic Luna, you saw their tears of joy!”

“Yes, but there is still a great deal of upset and anxious ponies out their sister, one announcement that has not even been cleared by those mules in suits is not going to alleviate all their worries. What of the already conscripted?” I sighed and clenched my jaw as another round of needles ran through my battered nerves. “This is a difficult time sister.”

I know part of the reason those mules in suits existence was because of my…absence. It had doubled the workload on my then distraught sister. So she had done the rational thing and created more committees to ease decision making and a royal legal team to assist in the making and amending of laws…But perhaps they should go, I was back to stay after all.

Hatred was a strong word for what I felt towards them, although irritation seemed too much of an understatement.

I had made one jest of bringing back the cake prohibition and suddenly I’m the under scrutiny for the possible ramifications of such a thing, now my decisions were immediately sent to them. Whether it is the simplest decision it still made it to them, unlike my sister’s choices. They didn’t fear that she would crack. No, I was the loose cannon, there was presidence for my ability to become something else. Why does no one ever consider that she is just as flawed as me? She just hid it better. Anyway, they had gone on and on about how the parties that would need new catering protocols, and let us not forget the uprisings at the economic losses in bakeries across the country…They couldn’t take a joke.

You can assume my pranks have been significantly lower compared to the time before those mules existed.

But I had no energy for mischief at the moment, keeping my muzzle set in a normal expression as opposed to the grimace it wanted to twist into was taxing enough. The ache was now a throbbing headache and by some good fortune my mane was still flowing despite how hard I pushed myself last night. Why mother would ever have to-

“LUNA!”

I jumped in place and folded my ears back, I hadn’t even told her and she was using the royal Canterlot voice on me!

“Yes Tia? There is no need to shout.” Unless you want to ensure that I may never hear Ari’s angry voice when he arrives.

“What did I say before that then?”

Horse apples, she had me there, “I do not know…But I just a lot to think about, this shall pass…”

She looked at me doubtfully, my skill in hiding things was lacking apparently. I looked down to my pancakes, the face mocking me. Taking the pineapple that made up the tongue I munched on it as my sister sighed.

“I can’t make you share your thoughts with me but…Just promise me you will tell me if you feel upset. I am here for you…I-I don’t want to lose you Lulu.”

And now she was upset again, her smile gone. “Tia it is nothing like that! I would tell you if I was upset with you…Well now that you mention it…” Tia leaned forward over her breakfast slightly as she tried to hear what I was going to say. “You have been rather distant with this whole law debacle; we haven’t had tea together in quite awhile.”

She slumped back onto her seat with a relieved sigh, “We can do that,” a smile breaking across her muzzle, “Perhaps you can help me respond to Cadence’s letter then.”

Crisis adverted, “Of course, it can’t be too hard can it?”

The rest of dinner went by without anymore prying question, sticking to more banal topics such as the ridiculous petitions we were still receiving in court despite our daily redirections to more appropriate venues. Ponies looking for a loan for a new business? Go to the bank. The protocol for the proper amount of cupcakes to be present for a cupcake-cake? I was dumbfounded that somepony actually thought of such a question. But even with all the common conversation returned sister still suspected something was up, her eyes following every bite I took, and her focused ears were subtle. I will give her that but they were not invisible to me. Thankfully she did not press the subject anymore but I felt that the dreaded questions would return later…

She learned patience from the best of the best after all. Mother could withstand the idiosyncrasies of the yaks far better than father ever could, Tia said I took after him in that way. Whenever they reopened their borders Tia has made it perfectly clear that I am not to engage in conversation with them beyond the required greeting.

My mask aside, pain was my constant companion right now, so when I was finally able to retire to my chambers again I was more than eager to.

However, my display from earlier wasn’t exactly forgettable and Moonlit Echo seems to have spread the word around his fellow lunar guards. That was the only reason I could think for me to be flanked my six of them at the moment, my chambers weren’t that perilous or far.

Perhaps I use this to my advantage though.

“Moonlit Echo?”

“Yes your highness!” He promptly saluted me, eyes wandering over my face and body, both of which I’m sure weren’t hiding my pain well to his trained eyes.

A sudden hesitancy hit me, would this request make it to my sister’s attention?

It was unlikely, if I worded it right no pony would be the wiser of my true reason.

We were in front of my chamber doors now, tall, grand, and embossed with my crescent moon insignia. Behind these doors I could finally gain some sorely needed rest, I will not try to make anymore visits to Ari till I felt normal once more, he wasn’t worth robbing myself of the ability to do my duties.

“I would have a task of ye…If thou feels up to it.”

“Of course your highness, say it and I shall do it!” Moonlit looked really eager to do something for me. His monotony of patrolling must be quite boring I reminded myself.

“Come inside, secrecy is of utmost importance. The rest of you are dismissed, we thank ye for your diligence.”

The remaining guards reluctantly left us as I closed the doors, leaving me alone with the only witness to my moment of weakness. I had to do something while I waited for Ari to arrive, and a fortnight is too long for any apology to wait.

****

Somewhere in the Multiverse

Aphrodite

I had gotten involved in this ‘crisis’ completely by accident, in fact my husband is the one who made this very annoying molehill into an Olympus size problem.

Here I had been peeking in on various couples, enjoying their special moments, their smooches, and then I ran across the strangest thing.

On a little planet, in the middle of a desert, a mare was displaying herself to her intended stallion in front of what looked to be some sort of guard. It was beautiful! I of course stuck around to see how it turned out. Would he rut her then and there? The feelings of love and lust coming off of him almost made me think so but he surprised me and resisted her.

I would have ended my viewing then and there with the possible scandalous scene diffused, a bore was no fun to watch, but I noticed something odd about this stallion. That is, his mind was rippling like a shirt that had been stretched and couldn’t return to its old shape, he had been altered. When I focused my magic to see his past state I couldn’t see any shimmers on his form, like I could on the mare’s form, she was hiding her true self from him.

Did he know?

Better yet, why was his mind altered?

As I pondered whether he had discovered some great secret like some unfortunate mortals had before and required adjusting or whether it was another one of Faust’s experiments. They were popping up a dime a dozen now. If that sick son of Gaia liked anything in his eternal existence it was creating, well, I saw it more as experimenting since all the universes had been set up to regulate creation themselves now.

My pondering didn’t go unanswered, before I could even blink into the next universe the sick excuse for a god showed up.

“Enjoying the show?! Well this planet was-.”

I won’t bore you with his ramblings but the point of it was he was meddling where he shouldn’t be…again. That should have bothered me more than the mild annoyance it caused but you get used to your siblings after a while, I could have done without this brother though.

Eventually I just left, he didn’t even notice for once, completely enraptured in his own grandeur.

As I zipped along the multiverse I eventually ran into my existence partner, he was watching earth, or more specifically the new machines the humans had made for their welding.

Whipping around his astral body I settled above him, magic touching as I felt his stable presence.

“What is the matter?”

“…Nothing much...”

“Hermes?”

“NO! I’m done with him, you know he fancies Zeus, I won’t get between two gods feeling true love!” He grunted at that.

“Hera needs to find a new partner anyway…Oh that’s too funny what if I paired her with Faust?! I mean they both are crazy right?”I couldn’t help but giggle at that, they ‘hated’ each other, it was perfect!

“What did he do this time?” Turning away from Earth his magic focused on me.

I think that’s where it got out of hand, explaining Faust’s latest stunt. Hephaestus got angry, he told Apollo, who then told his sister, and we all know how she is like. She then flew into a rage and…Well let’s just say Apollo got the short straw in that talk, and as her brother was stuck on ‘watch the poor mortal’ duty.

Faust didn’t take our interference with his meddling well, so what started as a little guard duty quickly escalated in to full blown duels. When he went after me during the last duel I had had enough, he was being ridiculous about this whole thing! With a weary feeling in my magic I finally called in Zeus, I really didn’t want to, we all had times in our existence where the temptation to skirt around the rules he laid down occurred. For the most part we humored each other, avoiding calling down the big lightening, but this was the thirtieth year in a row with Faust sticking his magic where he shouldn’t.

It was out of my control now, Zeus can discipline him, and hopefully fix the poor human.

****

Ari

My mind was still going a mile a minute throughout dinner, mostly the thought that I was going to be a father. Wow I never thought I would say that, ‘father’, well I had never thought I would be an Alicorn nor have a herd before now. Although the eye rolls and ‘get a room’ comments suggested my new level of joy was not as widely received. But what mattered to me was that Chrissy enjoyed the attention and from her trills I knew she did.

I’m sure there was some small talk but I couldn’t remember it even if my life depended on it. There was so many questions I wanted to ask however with my brain was still coming back online from the amazing news, there was going to be a lag time.

True to her word Kapera got straight work.

“Snap out of it stud, just because you can’t keep your dick in your sheath don’t mean yah can forget about the world.” Kapera was ahead of us again, stoking the forge. Looking annoyed with our pace, ears back and teeth peeking through in a small snarl, “I didn’t agree to help you so you could suck face, get over here and try Dinny’s prototype out. Let’s see if she is correct.”

With that we stopped kissing and took a seat around the forge, everyone full from dinner except Chrissy and I. Our herd arrangement was nice if a bit odd with Lyric beside Chrissy instead of beside me, but since I was blueballed from feeding her that particular way this was going to be the arrangement.

Dinari got up. Returning with what I assume had been the long strip of metal she was engraving this morning. Now it was in the shape of a ring, narrower at one end to imitate the horn shape, and had five gates.

With little warning she slid it down my horn.

It the Diamond dogs all over again, except I wasn’t awake when my magic was contained then. Boy am I so glad I wasn’t awake then too, it was like all my energy and all my will to move was gone, slowly draining into a place I couldn’t access it from. I laid my head down on my hooves as the sensation of what I can only call ‘blah’ washed over me.

Chrissy started cooing to me, giving my mane nibbles, while Lyric looked worried at Kapera, “Is that normal? I know magical inhibitors are supposed to leave ponies feeling drained but this seems…more.”

“He hasn’t even tried fighting the inhibitor yet! Don’t worry about him.” She turned to me, “So stud is this really all you can do?! Fight against it, an Alicorn, even one as weak as you should be able to handle five suppression rings!”

Weak? I wasn’t weak, this awful magic inhibitor just made my body feel like I was trying to swim through syrup. “How do I fight a magic inhibitor?”

“Reach down your aetheratic channels and force more magic to your horn than usual, like you are charging a really powerful spell!”

I snorted at her, pinning my ears back, it seems she doesn’t understand that I don’t understand magic. It was like jumping into astrophysics around me, of course I don’t get it, and I wasn’t going to get because she willed it so.

The nibbling on my mane stopped, “Ari, I need you to close your eyes and feel for a thrumming deep inside, it will feel faint but if you feel anything like that try to latch onto it okay?” She rested her head on my neck as I closed my eyes.

Darkness covered my world.

The back of my eyelids danced with flashes of color as I tried to focus on my internal ‘aetheratic channels’ as Kapera had put it. Colors eventually turned to patterns and my feeling of emptiness grew, there was no magic channels appearing in my mind or senses, I didn’t even know how they should look like. The only feeling I was getting was frustration, this wasn't a simple think and point 'spell', and quite frankly I didn’t know what feeling to follow in my body. There was no thrumming.

“I-I can’t feel any thrumming. What should a channel even look like? I don’t think I can do this, I couldn’t even break out of a standard magic inhibitor before.” I knew my voice sounded weak but I really needed help, a giant arrow to what to do. Everything had been fairly easy to pick up before. It was all modifying my focus and intent. Levitation, simply focus on the object and want it to. Astral projections like my staircase and weapons, imagine it, will it to be, and voila it exists. Locating objects? Just more of the same steps as the other magic I learned. Even teleportation was more of the same thought and determination, nothing more than one variation of one process.

Dinari was frowning at me before heading over to the bookshelves, Lyric had her ears splayed out at my statement and Chrissy had begun grooming my mane again, while Kapera looked thoughtful.

“How did you think you were going to test our work? Did you think that I would risk the lives of innocent foals to test- no, you didn’t know then I suppose. Tell me then: what do you know? From what I gather you were given to us by a god, a great being of magic, for some reason. Although I can’t fathom why any god would choose you now, sure you are a Alicorn. But what can you even do besides rut and wave your magic around as carelessly as a foal?!”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

She was right.

My knowledge of everything on this planet was limited and the goal of impossibly big to me still. When all things were considered I was hoping that the generosity of others would help, that others would see my goal and help out of the good the completion would bring. But I knew a little on economics. Kapera and Dinari weren’t receiving anything for their time and expertise, not to mention the expense of housing us. As of right now I could be an insane oddity for all they know, I know I certainly didn’t seem like much of anything compared to them, especially a world saver. I couldn’t smith, couldn’t weave runes in metal, and I most certainly wasn’t from here.

Perhaps I was not a Changeling as Dinari had first thought. I used to be human, a magic less being, with my biggest worry being if I could have eventually have kids.

My words still held a touch of fantasy to them, a little unbelievable, and weren’t even my own. That was why I didn’t just fly myself over to Canterlot in the beginning, there was that small doubt that I was just a meaningless pawn in a god’s chess game, that I was really a experiment with nothing more to my existence.

But then I always asked myself why and realized it made no sense to send me on this big journey, that I had seen the changes that were happening firsthoof, and that I had met the people behind the goal. There were real people of different forms that were in the dark still to why their lives were ruined.

“He is trying! I would like to see you adjust to the knowledge that something-.”

Raising my head, I tiredly kissed my mare, it was sweet to defend my ignorance but Kapera was right in the fact that I know nothing. Ignorance shouldn’t be defended. Chrissy’s ears flicked forward again as I turned back to Kapera, “You are right…I am not the hero I’m sure the world needs.” Taking a deep breath, I look at her, “But I’m willing to try-.”

“Try?! You don’t try to save the damned world you, you… Wajinga!” At this point Kapera was in my face, her lips pulled back, with spit flying and hitting my muzzle at the end.

Just as fast as she was in my face she was gone, flying up the stairs, “Kwe nini nilikuwa nimekwama nay yeye!” The words were unknown to me but the meaning was clear I had angered her, whatever hope Kapera had that I would succeed was dwindling, and she wasn’t necessarily wrong. It was unlikely, especially now that she hadn’t removed the inhibitor.

My thoughts were interrupted as a thin book dropped down in front of my hooves. It had a sketch of a foal levitating an apple on the cover. Chrissy leaned forward and hummed at Dinari’s choice of literature before giving me a slight nudge, looking at the book then back at me.

“Hey! What’s got her tail in knot Dinari?” Lyric was scowling at the stairs, looking very much like she would like to follow her up. “Ari can’t help not knowing this. He has only been here for two weeks!”

“But he can learn.”

After that I grabbed the book in my hoof and started to Dinari’s room, our temporary home. Chrissy and Lyric were in their old positions now, pressing into to me. But their support wasn’t touching the feeling the truth or the inhibitor was giving me. The feeling of being out of my element, which I was, a human woman turned Alicorn stallion.

Why had I thought I could do this again?

By some miracle I had run into a friendly face, well she wasn’t really then, but she was open to being my friend. I had received some explanation, done some things by accident, and then I just let my new instincts take over. Of course that would bite me later. I just assumed it would be after the world was out of peril, not when I’m just starting out. But my instincts couldn’t learn new things, they were ingrained in me as were the instincts of my mares, and they couldn’t solve everything.

I’m sure the god, the princesses, and even Dinari don’t let their instincts take over.

There was a planet that needed saving, countries that needed ruling, and work that needed to get done. All of that needed the full attention of my mind, not the small portion that said ‘mare smell good’. Here I was thinking that I was going to save a whole fricken planet, enjoy a nice life, and not have to really worry about stuff like this. I had time right?

Kapera was right.

Dinari was right and she had given me a chance to improve, to do more than try to save a planet, my planet now.

Lying down on the blanket, I placed the book down in front of me. “Would you mind helping me read this?”