Lucy spent much of the day curled up in her room. She didn’t go anywhere near the bottle of pills, not when it involved interacting with her sister. She was so ashamed of herself. She had completely forgotten about her class and Tia’s job while putting her plan into action. All she could think about was getting her sister to understand what was wrong with her. Now it seemed as though Celestia understood only too well.

        The first time the phone rang she ignored it, and so did Celestia. The second time it rang she walked timidly into the living room to answer it, and arrived just in time to see her sister yanking the cord out of the wall with her teeth and biting down hard enough to cut clean through the wire. Celestia stared at Lucy for a moment with an exhausted expression, and then beckoned her over.

        “Come on Luna, you should take some medicine too...” She gently slid the bottle of pills toward her with a hoof.

        Lucy shook her head and backed away. “I... I’m not sure I want to right now...”

        With a sigh, Celestia trotted over to their communal computer, and with a flap of her wings she leapt into the chair.

        “What are you doing?” Lucy called to her sister from the safe distance of ‘across-the-room’.

        “I’m doing research, looking for dealers, trying to figure out where this comes from.” Her elder sister replied without turning her head. “Some of the specifics of it are quite fascinating.”

        “Oh?” Lucy’s meek demeanor did not waver as she crossed the distance between them. She rested her chin on Celestia’s shoulder and stared at the screen intently. “Isn’t it hard to use that without hands?”

        Celestia chuckled in the face of Lucy’s concern, and her horn cast a serene yellow light down on her keyboard. “Actually, I think I’m getting the hang of this ‘magic’ thing. In fact it almost seems more intuitive than hands.” She shivered at the very idea of using hands to browse the web. The keys clicked and clacked like they possessed a mind of their own, and Celestia tilted her gaze toward Lucy. “Luna, would you please take some medicine? You’re really starting to make me feel anxious.”

        “Why? Earlier today you never wanted me to touch this stuff again, now it’s almost like you never want to be human again...” Lucy lowered her head and wrapped her hands around her now unkempt tail. She didn’t have any issue with never being human again, she thought, but Celestia was moving so fast. It was like making her drop her mask had changed her completely. Sophia was just... gone without a trace.

        “And what if I don’t want to be human again?” Celestia responded with an inquisitive tone. “Luna, ever since I started taking this... this medicine, I keep remembering things. What if we were never human to begin with?”

        Lucy’s grip around her tail tightened and she yelped in surprise and pain. She took a step back. “I don’t know... what about Mom and Dad? They were human, right?”

        “Think really, really hard. Can you even remember that much about them?” Celestia frowned. “Because I can’t really remember anything, except that they existed. All I remember is the two of us being kicked around from home to home.”

        Lucy’s eyes widened as she struggled to remember anything about her parents. They didn’t even have a picture of them, the closest thing they had to a real connection was the music box Celestia had broken just that morning.

        “I... actually, I don’t remember anything about them, not even their names!”

        Celestia swerved in her chair and focused her attention on the monitor in front of her. “Luna, really, please take your medicine.”

        Lucy paced over to the bottle lying on the floor and carefully removed a capsule. She noticed with some dismay that there was already three less than when she had left Celestia alone.

        “Um... Soph- I mean Tia... How often are you taking these?”

        “That is something that has me concerned as well. Most individuals seem to report the effects lasting for hours, I’ve needed to take one every thirty minutes. At least, they didn’t last as long as the first once, and it seems like the duration is getting shorter and shorter.”

        “Well... I don’t think I’ve ever heard of somepony chaining them like this. I think most use it as a special occasion type thing.” Lucy finally swallowed the tiny capsule and took a seat on the floor. It didn’t take long before the inevitable changes swept through her like a tide. She had never taken two doses in such a short amount of time. Everything about her form felt more real, and there was something else as well. Luna could feel the distant tug of some far off force, like a kind of gravity. Instinctively she turned toward the window and noticed that the sun had begun it’s journey over the horizon. It would be night time soon.

        “Tia, I feel really weird all of a sudden. This is different than before.”

        With a soft rustle of feathers, Celestia left the chair and landed on the ground near Luna. She trotted forward with the skill of somepony who had been walking on hooves their whole life, and gave her sister an affectionate nuzzle. “I know, I can feel it too. The longer we stay like this, the stronger everything feels. That is why I am not so quick to believe that taking this in rapid succession is affecting its potency. Something else is at work here...” She sat beside Luna, and together they watched the sun’s descent over the horizon. “I’ve been thinking about your tail Luna.”

        Luna cocked her head and stammered. “My tail? What about it?”

        Celestia lowered her eyes and frowned, a soft hint of desperation echoed in her voice. “I’m not really sure what to say about it. But, I think it’s hope?” She leaned into her sister and wrapped a wing around her. “To me it is the hope that if we keep taking our medicine, eventually we won't need it anymore. Eventually we’ll be... We’ll be...”

        “Fixed?” Luna offered with a faint smile.

        “Yes! Exactly that!” Celestia hugged Luna tightly. “You always knew how to word things just so...”

        The two sat there for awhile longer, right up until their reverie was interrupted by the growling of empty stomachs. Luna and Celestia stared at each other with a mixture of embarrassment and mirth.

        “So, who’s making dinner?” Luna asked with a laugh.

        “I think you should! I’m a waitress, not a cook. You’ve always been better at it than me, and tonight is a special occasion!”

        Luna huffed and flailed her front hooves in the air above her. “But sissss... I don’t even know how to use magic! How am I supposed to prepare dinner using hooves?!”

        “That didn’t seem to stop you from... from teleporting me in front of that mirror earlier!”

        “Fine...” Luna began operation crocodile-tears in earnest. “But you need to help and give a few pointers!”

        “Of course, I’ll help you!” Celestia ruffled her sister’s mane with a hoof, and together they trotted into the kitchen.

        With a flash of magic, Celestia opened the door to their refrigerator and grimaced. “Ugh, I can’t believe I bought those nice steaks from the store... I guess they’re pretty much useless now.”

        Luna opened her mouth to ask “Hey, what are you talking about?” It didn’t seem like Celestia paid her much attention however. Her elder sister seized the apparently offensive food items in her magical aura and trotted toward the trash receptacle with them. She let out a cry of alarm as a blue blur sped through the air and tackled her, pinning her to the ground.

“What are you doing?! Don’t throw that away!” Luna cried out with a degree of panic that was comical.

        Celestia eyed her sister carefully from her subdued position. “Luna, we are ponies, we do not eat meat.”

        “Yes we do!”

        Celestia cocked her head and frowned. “Is that right?”

        Apparently aware that she had grappled her sibling to the floor, Luna backed off and ran a hoof through her fur, her gaze leveled at the floor. “Sometimes we do?”

        Celestia rose to her haunched and straightened a few feathers in her wings. “Luna, am I to believe these cows did not offer you the appropriate amount of candy this year?”

        “What?”

        “Forget it... So do you want to eat one of these steaks tonight, or are you just goofing around?”

        “Tonight! Tonight! I’d love to have one of them tonight!” Luna practically bounced up and down with glee. She loved the meat group as a human, and her enjoyment of it didn’t seem to change even if she was technically a herd animal.

        Celestia shivered. “You always were the morbid one back home, at least here we know you couldn’t hold a conversation with your steak in advance.”

        Luna tilted her head and fumbled with the handle of a skillet that had been clenched between her teeth. She lowered it gently onto the stove and made a face at the taste. “Nothing you just said made any sense, Tia.”

        “I know!” Celestia placed one of the steaks and an assortment of veggies on the counter before laughing hysterically.

        “So... how are you doing the levitating thing?” Luna gestured in the air with a hoof.

        “I imagine it’s the same thing you did with the teleportation. As far as spells go, it barely even qualifies as such. Just reach out with your ‘soul’ and want it.” Celestia stared at the ceiling more than her sister, and she waved her hoof about like someone who was nervous and unsure of what to do with themselves.

        Luna furrowed her brow and groaned. “Alright, here goes nothing I guess...” She stared at the dial controlling the stove burner, and puffed her cheeks out in concentration. Her horn radiated  a soft blue aura, and the two sisters stared at the knob expectantly.

        “You must be doing it wro-” Celestia was interrupted by a loud pop. The knob flew off of the rod and struck her in the eye. She flinched and cried out in shock more than pain.

        Luna trotted over and reached out to her sister with a hoof. “I must be doing it wrong,” she sighed.

        Celestia rubbed at her eyelid with a hoof before lifting the knob into the air and firmly placing it in its home. “Quite. I think I’ll do all of the finer actions for now...”

        Luna nodded in compliance, but as soon as her sister’s back was turned she began to experiment with the various spices. Some of them had lids that were twisted on, and there was just no way she was going to open them with her teeth. An unseasoned steak was next to heresy, and she was not about to give up after one botched attempt.

        Instead of concentrating, or forcing her magic to do the assigned task, she applied a new method. She thought about the juicy meal that awaited her, and how desperately she wanted it. From there her intuition took hold. It was less a show of mental force, and more a fine act. Gently she encouraged her magic as one might compose a work of fiction, or music. To her, it was as though the lid was being removed because ‘that was what had to happen’. The very activity threatened to overwhelm her with a wellspring of memories. She had never felt so intimately connected to the events surrounding her, and it was with unparalleled joy that she became certain that this feeling would never become a mundane chore for her.

        The soft applause of hooves against tile floor from behind her made her jump. She spun around to see her sister with a wide grin on her face. “Good job Luna! I’m so proud of you!”

        Luna’s heart leapt in her chest, she couldn’t remember the last time Celestia had ever spoken to her in such a way, and with that elated tone of voice. Truly this was shaping up to be the best night ever.

_________

Together the two sisters set their table, and ate in peace for the first time in as long as they could remember. Ordinarily Luna would be eating alone, and her sister would be stuck working until late, but tonight there were no such concerns. Tonight they were themselves again, and nothing could spoil that.

        “So Tia...” Luna levitated a fork and knife and worried away at her steak. “Did you come up with any ideas on how to make sure we have enough medicine to stay this way until...” She dare not complete the hopeful thought, and risk jinxing the possibility.

        Celestia raised a napkin to her face and dabbed at her chin with regal precision. “As a matter of fact, I have!” She beamed at her younger sister and lowered the napkin. “Did you know the girl who discovered the enzyme inhibitor lives in this city? She’s actually a bit younger than you.”

        “Ooooh...” Lune chewed pensively on her food, her teeth seemed a bit sharper than Celestia remembered. “So we’re going to go visit her then?”

        “I am not sure how well received we will be, but I certainly intend to make an honest effort!” Celestia frowned at her ill-mannered sibling. “Luna, please chew with your mouth closed, you’re really creeping me out...”

        “Sorry sis, I’ll try to keep the spectacle to a minimum!” Luna mumbled happily through another gruesome mouthful of seared meat.

If it were at all possible, Celestia would have grown even paler at her sister’s display. She quietly pushed her empty plate away from herself with a hoof and crawled down from her perch on the chair. “I think you’ll be doing the dishes tonight, actually. Come find me when you’re done...”

Luna groaned from the table. “But that’s not fair! I cooked!”

Celestia ignored her sister and headed back to the computer. She stared at the medicine bottle laying on the floor, and then made a cursory inspection of her body. That was most peculiar. It had been hours since her last dose and she appeared to be just fine. When she was upset and Luna was hiding from her, she had needed the capsules every thirty minutes. In that kitchen it was as though some great cosmic justice had come into effect. It had felt so good to be that happy with her sister again. It was always wonderful to see harmony once again descend upon the land.

Harmony...

Celestia quietly began to scan any of her notes for any mention of that word. She was about to give up when she stumbled upon a paper by the young girl who had discovered the the process in the first place. An investigative study on homeostasis. A body that was in-sync with itself. The harmony of natural bodily functions. It would appear as though this chemical’s presence in the body was a bizarre anomaly that only a few could claim. Celestia’s face scrunched up with disdain. The whole affair was very random and, and chaotic! It reeked with deceit. She ‘was’ Celestia, she was sure of it! Something was very very wrong here.

A soft popping sound broke her reverie, and she stared down in bewilderment at one of her white hooves. A large dark crack had started to form in it’s surface, and she could feel the flesh on the bottom spasm with discomfort. Panic seized her heart and she made a dash for the bottle of pills. She really did have no idea what she’d do if they ever ran out.

That would be just terrible, and was better off put out of mind.

Luna trudged her way into the room not long after Celestia finished another dose. Her face was an expression of misery, and she eventually came to a stop in front of her sister. She collapsed onto the floor and rolled onto her side. “Oohhh... My stars... It hurts sooo much...”

Celestia snickered, covering her mouth demurely with a hoof. “We told thee sister, we told thee about meat!”

“But it was so good...” she sighed in defeat.

Celestia trotted over to her sister and lay beside her, shielding her fallen sibling with a wing. “Hush little moon princess, take heed! Thy sister shall avenge thee!”

Luna let out a yelp of laughter, and Celestia could swear that her brilliant white fur was actually glowing. She couldn’t remember ever having felt this good in her entire life as a human. There was a nagging sensation at the back of her mind, a renegade thought passed through her mind and was narrowly defined. Laughter... That is important in times like these.

She shook her head before resting against Luna. “Thank you for being a stubborn foal and slipping me that medicine...”

Luna didn’t even bother responding, she was already drifting off to sleep. Celestia inspected her sister’s form for any imperfections, and couldn’t find a single one. Every aspect of her form was pristine and far from the dull discolourations that signaled what they both now feared more than anything. The erratic duration of the dosages was something that Teresa girl had recorded. Her comments indicated the possibility that stress had a massive impact, but Celestia couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being entirely honest with the public.

She lowered her head and rested her eyes. Such feelings were a problem for future Celestia to handle. Right now she wanted only to love and be loved by her sister.

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