Strange, how something as small as an overheard chat could darken a good day. Luna moved quietly about the castle in the evening hours, shunning large gatherings in favor of careful observation and the personal touch. She gave orders to guards and courtiers, sharpening Celestia’s grand edicts with clarifications they often lacked to keep the government smooth and herself visible. Once long ago she had disdained a public role entirely, and so fell to jealousy when ponies naturally came to look only to her sister. No more.

Still, being visible alongside Celestia brought its own problems. So it was when she wandered in earshot of a palace maid chastising one of the royal jewelers.

“You ninny, this is Luna’s! It’s a good thing I caught you before it was delivered.”

She held up a necklace that would barely have fit down Celestia’s neck. But the jeweler shook his head, protesting. “It’s gold, can’t you see? Luna wears silver or black.”

“And I suppose there’s a law saying that?” the maid clucked. “Luna has gold regalia and her sister silver, it’s just not their norm. But here, look at this thing. Imagine trying to get it around Celestia’s floof.”

The jeweler stared a moment, then burst out laughing. “Aha! I see what you mean, my dear. Yes, that would pinch Princess Celestia something fierce. Princess Luna is a good deal more petite.”

It was a polite word – ‘flat’ was perhaps more common lingo, but somehow the careful phrasing pricked at Luna’s anger. She slunk off scowling, with the pair none the wiser.

Luna was a public princess, these days. Countless ceremonies caused her to stand alongside her sister for all to see. There couldn’t yet be a pony in Equestria who didn’t know Luna was shorter than Celestia. Her eyes, not as bright. Her rump, not as round. Her tail was smaller, and her floof…

Well. There was no contest at all. Luna looked self-consciously to the floof poking out above her regalia necklace. Really, it wasn’t bad. It was downy and warm, thick enough to be gripped like a pleasant little hoofwarmer. For a normal-sized mare, it would be floof to be proud of. But Luna was not normal-sized, and her tall height always made the floof look small in photographs.

And Celestia was definitely not normal-sized in any direction. Her floof spread across her chest like a majestic pillow, thick enough to suffocate lucky stallions in the most wonderful death one could imagine. Songs had been written of its touch, downy like angel feathers, and rare was the party where Luna could not find at least one pony staring without shame.

Before, even in darker days, Luna could loom above a pony and demand supplication. Now, seen publically with her sister so many times, the effect was lost. She was the smaller princess. The petite one.

“Goodness, what has you in a huff?”

The voice broke through her moping – kind, pleasant, and assuredly not what she wanted to hear right now. Luna looked up and was greeted with a face-full of white floof. Surely, hidden alicorn magic worked to keep it raised and perky.

She recoiled with a cry, waving her hoof. “Sister, personal space! We–”

Her limb brushed against the floof, tickling at her senses. She blushed fiercely and jerked it back. “Ah! My apologies.”

“None needed,” Celestia said. She stepped back far enough to remind Luna just how conveniently placed the floof was – Luna need only tilt her head forward to become buried in heavenly (if incestuous) bliss. “I’m sorry, Luna. I tried saying ‘hi’ but you were lost in some anger. Please, what is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Luna huffed, crossing her forelegs and scowling petulantly. “I am not turning into Nightmare Moon, if that is the concern.”

Celestia peered down to her, though Luna could only glare at the floof. “My feelings for you begin far ahead of such grief. What ails my sister this evening?”

“Tis silly,” Luna said through grit teeth.

“Perhaps you will let me be the judge of that,” Celestia offered. “And… Luna? My eyes are up here.”

“Sorry,” Luna snapped. “Your floof draws the gaze like gravity.”

A melodic chuckle came. Celestia gathered the floof in her magic and pressed it upwards, bringing fresh pink to Luna’s cheeks. “It has that effect, doesn’t it? You should see me with the griffons.”

Luna forced her eyes away, scowling for all she was worth. “Good for you. I swear, it’s like mother gave you all the floof in her gene pool and had none left over for me!”

A gentle, yet humored smile crept to Celestia’s lips. “Is that what this is about?”

“I told you it was silly,” Luna growled. “But what do I know? I’m the petite one.”

Celestia shook her head, yet could not quite suppress her smile. “Oh Luna, big floof is not all it’s cracked up to be. I can’t sleep on my back or chest, for instance. It gets dreadfully hot in the summer, and I can’t ever be seen without my regalia because then it would droop and look ridiculous. Even on days off I need to support it else it’ll ache between the shoulders, and for heaven’s sake, sometimes I must speak of serious national matters with a stallion and all they can think about is my chest.”

Luna sneered bitterly. “You enjoy it, don’t lie. If my floof ever grew larger than yours, I daresay it would be you who’d be jealous.”

A knowing little twist came to Celestia’s smile. “I would still find myself beautiful. Just like you are…”

Luna’s mood softened at the words, and that would have been the end of things had Celestia not added a few more.

“…For there is nothing wrong with being petite.”

“There is nothing wrong with having small little filly-floof,” Luna said in mocking impression of Celestia’s voice. “You have petite little hoofwarmers next to my sun-sized floobs, but I’m a good role model who loves you just the way you are. Bony butt and flat chest!”

“Well, no more!” Luna reclaimed her regal voice, looming triumphantly over the box of magazines in her room. Such had been invaluable – history books told her what ponies did since her banishment, but magazines let her know who they were in the present. She remembered very clearly the ad in one of them, thinking it strange at the time yet now knowing it was her only hope.

Blue magic flipped through the options with familiar efficiency until Luna found her mark: a fashion magazine with some vapid mare on the front. She was tall, white, and had pink hair and thick floof. Luna stared an extra second, grimacing at how her sister affected the very idea of beauty simply by existing.

The deck was stacked, just like Celestia.

The tide, however, was about to turn. Luna’s prize beckoned on page seventeen, perhaps the most boring one in the magazine. Little greeted the reader but the image of a smiling doctor and a vomit of text advertising his services. Most offered procedures were cosmetic, appealing to common readers, and one…

Luna took note of his phone number. Too late to call this evening, she would wait til dawn.

She wrote it down on royal stationary, alongside his name (Doctor Oggle), and the procedure to be scheduled. She copied its technical name from the magazine, but couldn’t resist adding and circling what the rest of the world called it.

“Floof job.”

Of course, if Equestria learned its night princess sought such treatment she would never live it down. Ponies would only care until the next scandal, but Celestia – heavens, even the thought of her sister learning almost made Luna cancel. Yet she rallied, steeling her nerves and reminding herself sternly she was princess of the darkened night. Deception and disguise were second nature to her.

So it was that Luna burst into the doctor’s office in sunglasses, wearing a fake moustache. “PEASANTS! WE REQUIRE FLOOF!”

Fortunately, the waiting room was empty, and the secretary appeared to care for nothing but closing time. The prim young mare looked up with a bored expression and belated smile. “Are you the four o’clock appointment?”

With the entrance made, Luna approached more sedately. “Um… yes.”

“I need a name, please,” the mare said with customer-service politeness. “When we asked your name on the phone, you started coughing hard and then disconnected.”

“Ah… of course.” Inside, Luna cursed. She knew she forgot something. “My name is… Moona.”

“Moona,” the mare repeated.

“Indeed.”

They did not pay the mare enough to be curious. “Alright, Moona. Fill out these forms and have a seat, Doctor Oggle will be right with you.”

Luna had visited enough doctors to know ‘right with you’ meant waiting one to two hours. Such was life. She flipped through magazines as the appointed time came and left, and was not terribly annoyed when the short, shroom-haired doctor came out to greet her seventy minutes later. “Miss Moona? I’m Doctor Oggle, follow me.”

He cast a glance backwards as they went through a small maze of examination rooms. “You sure you want a floof job? You have nice floof already, like cute little hoofwarmers.”

Luna considered smiting him on the spot, but reasoned another doctor might not be so timely. Seventy minutes was honestly quite reasonable. “I don’t want hoofwarmers, I want the max. I paid for D-floof and that is what I expect.”

“You’re the boss,” Doctor Oggle quipped, drawing a snicker from Luna. He did not know how right he was.

The room he lead her to was cold, but they always were. The examination table was awkwardly tall even for her alicorn height, and as she laid upon it her limbs stretched far enough to dangle off. Doctor Oggle began pulling bags of faux blue floof from the drawers and holding them up to compare colors with Luna’s coat.

“Want anything special? Glitter, nip-and-tuck, travel pouch?”

Luna shook her head. “No. I want this to appear natural.”

Doctor Oggle gave Luna a bit of floof as an example, and she whinnied her approval. It matched her coat without flaw, and felt wonderfully soft. Already she could picture it – stallions walking into walls as she turned their gaze. Newspaper pictures revealing she was ever-so-slightly bustier than her sister, and Celestia smiling with just the tiniest undercurrent of jealousy. Celestia would be the ‘petite’ one, and Luna would maturely remind her there was nothing wrong with that.

The doctor delicately put on hoof-gloves while Luna turned to lie fully on her back. He reached in another drawer and pulled out the final piece: a small, white bottle with a narrow orange top. After one last check of Luna’s certainty, he upended the bottle and began drizzling thin lines of white glue across her floof. He then added the faux floof and another layer of glue, alternating the two until Luna’s chest rose out magnificently. She could scarcely follow his instructions to lie still until the glue set, such was the excitement in her mind.

Eventually, Doctor Oggle gave her the all-clear. Luna stood, feeling the weight of victory pull down from her shoulders, large enough to be seen in her peripheral vision. She strode from the office a new mare, feeling the floof bounce pleasantly to each side as she sauntered to the palace.

Initially, Luna planned to tell anyone bold enough to ask (meaning Celestia) that the floof grew overnight. Such could not be easily disproved, however Celestia was cagey enough that Luna resolved to stay discreet for a few days. She could avoid ponies for that long, and the extra time would make her story more believable.

That first day was… a little rough. Luna settled down to sleep on her back as she always did, yet the extra floof proved too unbalanced to stay in place. If it flopped upwards, the weight on her neck smothered her, and when she brushed it down it squeezed on her chest. She awkwardly shoved it to the side, but all that did was pull and unbalance her until she gave up and rolled to lie on her belly.

Luna woke up less than ten minutes later. Trapped between her body and the bed, the floof pressed against her chest leaving her hot and short of breath. Laying on her side brought the only relief, but such was not natural for her. Sleep proved a long time in coming.

The night itself fared no better. It began at breakfast, taken privately in her quarters. Luna’s mind wandered to another magazine, she turned to get it, and her massive floof knocked the orange juice all over her plate.

Even walking across the room left her aching and nearly out of breath. The new load threw off her balance, though such she could get used to. What wasn’t so solvable was the mirror – without her regalia, the floof sagged from her chest in a way that reminded her of an old mare. A large problem, but not a new one, for Luna’s old floof did the same to a lesser degree. She retrieved her black regalia necklace, strapping it on to prop up the load.

Rather, she would have if it still fit. The clasp could no longer close behind her neck, not with so much floof in the way. Luna tried another necklace which had always felt a little big, sucking in her breath and straining to close the circle, and succeeded. She sighed out in victory, causing the clasp to burst apart.

Well. She had a trump card, embarrassing though it was. The jeweler from the other night was not the first to mistakenly think everything silver belonged to Luna. One of Celestia’s regalia necklaces had been placed in her closet by mistake.

Luna retrieved it, frowning steadily as she weighed the metal in her horn’s glow. Thick and cumbersome – did Celestia really wear these every day? Moving around had already brought a low ache to the base of Luna’s neck as it worked to support the unfamiliar bulk. Adding a piece of what was practically plate mail on top of that seemed like torture.

She sighed. Perhaps it would not be so bad.

If nothing else, at least it fit. Luna adjusted the necklace in front to catch and support the floof, then latched it at the base of her neck. Immediately the sense of pain in her back dimmed, though it was replaced by the tug of obnoxious, weighted metal.

She looked in the mirror. Grinned. Oh yes, Luna had it going on. a veritable bundle of floof, thicker than Celestia’s. No petite little hoofwarmers, no sir! This was so worth it.

She posed, making a duck face with her mouth. The motion slammed her floof into the lamp, which fell and smashed the mirror, leaving her in darkness.

This was not worth it.

Luna was a stubborn pony, who knew the truth long before she admitted it. It took no time at all for the necklace to chafe, inflicting soreness where her neck met her back. Nearly as bad, the condensed floof it held up grew sweaty and hot under the pressure, bringing Luna to undignified scratching fits. Removing the necklace gave her gasps of relief, but such never lasted. The unsupported weight of her floof then dragged on her back until she gave in and put it back on.

She kept to shadow and dream, performing her duties away from prying eyes. It would not do to let ponies see her like this – huffing and sweating like a pregnant mare, stumbling everywhere she went. The accursed floof had broken so many dishes Celestia sent a note asking if she was angry about something, to which Luna gave a guilty negative. “Just a little ill,” she wrote back, and Celestia did not press.

Trying to sleep was exhausting. She began looking on her debut with hesitation, then horror. Could she even tolerate, say, a formal dinner? Three hours with no scratching, huffing, or removal of the necklace? No fidgeting with her floof to make it mildly less uncomfortable for the next five minutes? It would be a scandal to shake the nation, and Celestia would never let her forget it.

“Celestia…” Luna growled after her dream patrol during the third night. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

The anger faded even as she asked. Celestia did tell her. And it’s not as though Luna sought her opinion on the floof job.

No – it was Luna who made the choice. And now, after another sleepless day and painful night… it was time to fix it. She walked to her dresser and retrieved a small, silver object. A pair of sewing scissors.

It was a little shocking, how utterly certain Luna felt. But with the stubborn denial at last crushed, all she wanted was to rid herself of this insufferable burden. She carefully positioned the scissors just beneath the bottommost layer of glue and began to snip. Her floof would be shorter than ever, but if she was careful there’d be barely any loss at all.

And Luna indeed was careful. One steady, confident snip after the next, the scissors unwavering in her aura’s glow.

Her aching back sang with relief as a clump fell off. Then two more, and Luna was free. She breathed in deeper than ever since this began, feeling the air tickle and cool her once-blanketed chest. The pain in her back and neck began to fade almost at once. Celestia’s damn chest-plate was hurled to the floor.

She put on her own necklace, feeling the familiar weight settle comfortably into place. Her petite floof seemed light as a feather. Luna laughed with the raw joy of existence, merrily making her way to the door. She would fetch her own supper today – it was the least she could do after all that trouble with the dishes.

Luna would not try to deny that she was a mare of impulse and mood-swings, waxing and waning like the moon itself. Sometimes it lead her to absurdity, like the jealous antics of last week. This evening she found herself overcome with fondness for her older sister and resolved to do something nice for absolutely no reason at all. She offered a back rub and Celestia accepted, lying to stretch her long body across a parlor couch.

Luna gave a tiny snort of amusement as she watched Celestia fold her forelegs beneath her, propping up her chest so it did not rest painfully on the floof. And her ears pricked up at the quiet sigh of relief Celestia gave when Luna unhooked the necklace from her back. They chatted idly as Luna worked, sharing news and gossip, with Celestia every bit as refined and dignified as her norm.

Such suited Luna perfectly. She pressed her warm hoof where the necklace rested – where the weight of the floof was held, and the muscle beneath was a knotted cord – and rubbed.

She watched Celestia’s mouth fall open mid-sentence and release a low, ecstatic groan. Luna kept rubbing at the spot, grinning puckishly as her sister briefly transformed into a smiling, stupid puddle of happiness.

“Yes,” Celestia finally managed. “Right there.”

Luna giggled, speaking with feigned innocence. “Goodness, Tia! You’re so tense, is there some ‘weight’ on your mind?”

“Nothing I’m not used to,” Celestia hummed. She settled in to a more thoughtful enjoyment of the massage, yet seemed unable to resist a few base instincts. One of her legs kicked adorably, and her tail flicked out in gentle rhythm.

Luna kept at her work, but her eyes drifted to the tail. How could they not? Celestia’s tail was nothing short of fantastic, so thick it wobbled behind her as she walked. It naturally drew the gaze, or at least so claimed many a stallion who’d been caught staring. Luna could believe it – her magazines said as much, ‘tails make the mare.’

Her smile began to falter. She glanced back to her own – a fine tail, to be sure. But not as thick, long, or colorful as her sister’s. Nor did it have that sensual bounce which made rooms very quiet when Celestia left.

Such could be fixed. Luna recalled many magazines with ads for the answer: tail extensions, customizable to any need.

She’d learned her lesson from the floof job, of course. All she needed was a small, reasonable extension to make her tail not seem so blah when they stood together. Nothing ridiculous, just enough to be as long as Celestia’s.

…Perhaps, just a touch longer.