"They have to be told."

Perched on a couch close to the edge of a steaming, bright-blue pool buried in the living rock of the mountain that was their home, Luna stretched out her forelegs and let out a luxuriant sigh. She opened her eyes as the last echo of Celestia's words faded between the gilt marble pillars and frescoed walls of the Royal bathhouse – a structure obscenely large compared to the simple saunas and open-air springs Luna had enjoyed before her banishment – and peered at her sister across the pool.

"Who, sister? And what?"

"That we—did it."

"Ever the prude," Luna murmured, laying her head down once again. She waved a hoof at a trio of servants hovering nearby and spread her wings as they approached. One of them, a mare, approached silently. "They will know, in their hearts. That aside, I had rather gained the impression you wished to keep this aspect of our role a secret in this age. Something about those newsletters everypony seems to enjoy reading."

"Newspapers."

"Purveyors of intrigue and trivia. Were there any justice at all they would be no more than street gossips and bawdy singers, and I would be throwing rotten fruit at their heads."

Celestia snorted and shook her head. "Even so, our ponies wouldn't understand. When they look at us they see sisters, Luna, and little more. Sisters don't have sex in public."

"We could hide in a bush," Luna said. The mare at her left reared up, pressed both hooves against Luna's back; Luna stretched beneath the massage and sighed again. "It would be dark. They'd never suspect a thing."

"They'd find out. They're always trying to find something scandalous about me. The worst they've managed recently was a slice of cake and an unfortunate remark about Griffins a few years back, but that hasn't stopped them trying. If they could accuse me—us—of incest, I can't even imagine what would happen. We'd be deposed at the very least."

Luna's laughter burst across the chamber like a canonshot, causing Celestia to flinch visible, though leaving the servants unperturbed. It wasn't long before Luna's mirth died away, though; she saw Celestia with her nose buried between her hooves and her wings draped carelessly against the floor like a wilted flower.

Only the steady tinkle of flowing water followed, and the quiet rustling of hooves against Luna's coat as her massage continued. She waited for the masseuse to finish with a particularly troublesome knot before turning to look at her. The mare looked back after a moment, smiling and twisting her ears. Luna held up a hoof, circled it once and pointed toward the Celestia.

"You have still to explain the contradiction in your desires, sister," Luna said as the masseuse made her way around the pool. Celestia's reply was a short, grumpy sigh and a lazy flap of her wings. "You wish to keep secret our renewed bond, but you want to tell everypony—"

"Not everypony."

"Ah. Then Cadance," Luna replied. She smirked. "And the delectable Twilight."

Celestia nodded. She glanced up at the approaching masseuse and then at Luna, but made no effort to move away. Even a deaf pony could hear the creak of her bones, the tension in Celestia's body was so obvious.

"You were never so squeamish of such matters in the past." Luna waved at the other servants. They approached with a pitcher of wine and a simple cup, though perhaps 'simple' was the wrong term to use when the whole thing was made of gold.

"As I have said so often, those were different times."

"Truth, sister," Luna said, raising her cup. She took its contents in a single, deep swallow and held it out for a refill. "Better times, I feel, free of the burden of this puritan isolation beneath which our subjects labour. We were free, then, to make love amongst the forests of the wild lands, atop the highest peaks of the world and amongst the very clouds of the sky. The cries of our ecstasy filled the world from soil to sun. Do you remember?"

Again Celestia was silent, while Luna supped her wine and thought of freer times. When her cup was empty she cast it aside and dismissed the servants with a wave. She slid from her couch and circled the pool. The masseuse was sent away with a single look; she skittered toward her compatriots, laughing silently, her body twitching the language of the deaf as the three retreated from the chamber to their quarters.

A final creak of the chamber doors left the pair alone. Celestia took a breath and let it out slowly, as if she had no enthusiasm even to breathe. Her eyes rolled toward Luna. "Different times," she repeated quietly.

Luna ignored her for the moment. She stepped around behind Celestia and placed a hoof on her back, just behind her wings. No magic was required to feel the bristling tension in Celestia's back. Tutting quietly at the state her sister had brought herself to, Luna ran her hoof along Celestia's back to her withers. "We have lived together through many an age, sister."

"But they're the product of this age," Celestia murmured. Luna hummed a response and leaned over Celestia's back, working a hoof down each side of her sister's neck.

"I trust so that will understand."

"Cadance might accept the idea. Twilight..." Celestia heaved and groaned as Luna's hooved dug deep into her flesh. She stretched out her neck, nickering quietly as the tension worked out of her shoulders, then fell back against the couch.

"She is an intelligent mare."

"Perhaps so, but Luna, for most of her life she's treated me as akin to a god! I can't predict how she will react when I no longer live up to that image."

"But you are kin to a god." Luna's hooves moved back toward the shoulders of Celestia's wings. "Or a goddess."

Celestia pounded a hoof against the couch. "That's not the point!"

"Then what is, dear sister of mine?"

Luna paused in her ministrations. She was sure she had felt a flush of heat beneath her hooves. Curious, she leaned close to hold her cheek over Celestia's withers. Warmth flowed from Celestia, a heat unusual even by Celestia's often expansive body temperature.

"She is dear to me," Celestia finally allowed. She shifted beneath Luna's hooves, bringing the pair closer together even if she didn't know it. Or perhaps she did. Luna allowed herself to fall a little closer to Celestia's body in return. "I don't want to lose her companionship."

"She is a good friend," Luna replied. "But I suspect that is not the meaning you wished to convey." Celestia snorted, and Luna couldn't help but smile. "White was never good for hiding such emotions, Celestia. I recall a time when with but a single word I could turn you pink as the dawn. But you forget..." Luna pressed herself closer still to Celestia, reaching her head up to whisper in her sister's ear. "In a thousand years, she too shall be your sister."

"Not like you." Celestia turned her head, seeking out Luna's face and lips with her own. Their kiss lasted only moments, but it was enough for now. Luna lowered her head against Celestia's side with a heartfelt sigh.

"Not like me," she said.

"I still have to tell her."

"You could explain to her that we are sisters by convention. We are, after all, two goddesses of the heavens themselves. Who is to say what we may call one another?"

Celestia shook her head. "No. If I am to tell her the truth then it must be the truth. We are sisters, Luna, bound by blood, or whatever godstuff might flow in our veins. She has to know everything, or nothing at all. Either she will accept it..." She closed her eyes and swallowed. "Or I will have eternity to seek her forgiveness."

"Then so be it." Luna wrapped her forelegs around Celestia's neck and draped her wings across both their bodies. Sweat and heat and little else was all that lay between them. She rubbed her ear against Celestia's jaw. "But remember, beloved sister, I at least will not leave you again."

Celestia bowed her head. "Thank you."

"Nor shall she," Luna continued, allowing her eyes to close as the warmth overtook her. "I cannot believe otherwise. I shall welcome their companionship."

Author's Notes:

The follow-up to Fizzle, which never made it into the collab.