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A Princess' Steed

Chapter Seven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Chris Silverhoof

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Poking his head around the door to Celestia's bed chambers from a side he was unused to, Kevin peered out into the corridor. There were no guards and he exhaled, sides heaving. The coast was clear, or at least clear for a moment. If he didn't want to be seen, he would have to be swift.

Closing the door quietly behind him, he slipped into the corridor and set off at a brisk clip.

"Kevin."

He skidded to a halt and whirled to face the disapproving muzzle of the last blue alicorn he would have wanted to run into at that time. Luna flicked her gaze between him and her sister's closed door, tail stiff and clamped down as much as it would over her hindquarters.

"What were you doing in my sister's bed-chamber?" She pressed her lips together into a thin line. "Has she been taken ill?"

Kevin gulped.

"Oh no, nothing, nothing really," he fumbled. "Just...well... She had some tasks for me to do today and I wanted to get an early start."

It was a lame excuse and he knew it, but it was the only one he had to give when put so on the spot. As Luna advanced, a scowl forming, he did the only thing a pony could do in such a situation.

"Got to go - sorry, bye!"

Calling speed to his hooves that he had not known he was capable of - really, he was simply impressed that most of the time that he managed to remain upright - Kevin fled the hallway, only skittering on the edge of the carpet once. Luna stared after him, not bothering to chase when she already had all the answers she needed.

She could not slumber that day, instead pacing the castle hallways in search of a sister that seemed intent on avoiding her at every turn. Kevin, she noticed, no longer cleaned the suits of armour, which had been on his roster for that day, but was to be found instead reading in the library under the studious eyes of the librarian pony. That in itself would not have been such a terrible transgression if the other servants and guards of the castle had not noticed and been exceptionally vocal in their lack of support. After all, why should the strange pony get a day off - heavens, he was not down for any work at all! - when they had to continue on? It was not a holiday!

Placating them the best she could while giving Kevin the evilest side-eye she could possibly manage as Princess of the Night, Luna tracked her sister's path at every turn, eventually cornering her where she could not evade without undue notice.

"Celestia!"

The princess whirled to face her sister as the alicorn trapped her in the gardens, her hindquarters up against her hedge. Her eyes flicked up and Luna scowled, the princess' expression dark.

"Don't you even think about flying away. You have been avoiding me all day long and you know exactly why I am looking for you, sister."

Celestia smiled sheepishly.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Luna glared and prodded her in the chest, making her jewellery bump uncomfortably into bone.

"Perhaps, but there seem to be many discontented ponies in the castle today. Do you have any idea why that may be?"

Celestia bristled.

"Kevin had a late night and I gave him the day off from his duties," she shot back. "It is unfair to have him working more than other ponies when he has already done so many extra hours within the castle."

"A late night caused by you, no doubt."

"What I do is none of your business, sister," Celestia said flatly, wings tense and ruffled. "And I believe I was fair. I will deal with the ponies who are upset at the change of events and explain my reasoning. Perhaps I should have been clearer initially, though I did not think there were so many eyes on him."

"Thank you," Luna sighed. "Then perhaps I may finally sleep. Though I warrant my night will be busier than ever if you're off prancing with that colt."

Celestia grinned mischievously.

"I'll make my dreams extra loud for you, if you prefer that!"

Luna reared and flung her front hooves out towards her sister, closing her eyes against an image that only she could see.

"By the stars - please don't! Wandering into one is enough!"

Dropping back to all fours, Luna fixed Celestia with a serious look, wings folded back in smoothly to her sides.

"Sister, you know this cannot go on, don't you? He is so much younger than you and the ponies will talk. There has already been talk - negative talk. Too many whispers will sour Equestria when you and I both walk in the sunlight and the moonlight of all... Respectively."

Celestia drew back, eyes speculative. The wind lifted her mane and it swirled for a moment before settling back into its usual undulating waves.

"Luna, my personal life is not the business of Equestria," she said after an unduly long pause. "If Kevin and I enjoy one another's company, we will continue to do so."

"It is not the right way for a princess to be consorting herself."

"Then what is the right way, in your eyes?" Celestia slammed a hoof into the finely manicured lawn, startling a songbird from the tree behind her. "There is no right way for a stallion and a mare to be together, only what they determined."

Luna lowered her head, levelling her gaze.

"There is a right way for the princess to consort herself. You must not show favouritism to _any_pony."

The sun princess scoffed and waved a hoof.

"I showed no favouritism, only I feel you are far too picky in whom you consider to be an appropriate suitor for me! I still haven't forgiven you for setting me up with that stallion from Saddle Arabia."

"There was nothing wrong with him!"

"There was everything wrong with him! Perhaps not for you, if you had wanted to court him, but for me he was all wrong. I would never have chosen such a stallion for myself."

"And now you are choosing Kevin and making the greatest mistake of your long life."

Celestia pressed her lips together, the lines on her horn shining as if the magic within her wanted to break free.

"I have no words to reply to such a remark, sister, but I hope you shall reconsider once you have had some rest."

Without another word, she stalked away, every muscle in her body tense and head held stiffly high, though she couldn't quite wipe the glow of magic from her horn. It crackled a hair's breadth beneath the surface and Celestia exhaled softly, striving and failing to release it in a manner that could at least ease the throbbing from the front of her skull. Maybe a trip to the palace doctor was in order. He would only be too happy to make her day just a little easier.

As Celestia hid a yawn and resolved inwardly to speak to her sister at a more calmer point in the day, a pony with a silver mane and tail clip-clopped down the path. A casual observer may have thought that Wilda was simply out in the palace gardens enjoying the scenery, but there was not a single thing Wilda did without purpose. A thrush in the trees flitted deeper into the branches as she joined Luna at her side, watching Celestia's retreat with a little too much interest for comfort.

Unconsciously, Luna shifted her weight away from the other alicorn, leaning onto her opposite two hooves.

"I see your sister has an admirer."

Luna sighed.

"Indeed. Though we shall have to see how this interlude plays out in the hooves of Equestria. There is little I may do to remedy the situation."

"Oh, Luna, there is everything you can do," Wilda said smoothly, brushing her shoulder with a hoof, just above her foreleg. "You are her sister, after all. If she does not take counsel from you, whoever would Celestia turn to in a time of need?"

Hanging her head, Luna's ears drooped.

"She doesn't realise," she said in an unduly small voice, sounding more foal-like than she had in many years. "She needs to think of the needs of Equestria. She can't go off with whichever pony takes her fancy. She has to think of her kingdom."

Luna twisted her lips and shot Wilda a look, words flooding from her muzzle like water, a rising tide that could not be stopped once it had begun.

"Did you see what she posted on the barrack boards?" She hissed lowly, thrusting her muzzle closer to the other alicorn. "He's going into training with the new recruits - for the royal Canterlot guard nonetheless! Just what in heaven and earth is that pony thinking? He is hardly trained or suitable for such a purpose! He has no cutie mark to direct him and no talents that should even point towards a life in the service of royalty."

The alicorn paused, considering her own words as Wilda nodded sympathetically.

"I know, I know," she murmured, yet Luna hardly heard her. "It is not how things should be done."

"Granted, he has the height on his side, but his co-ordination is lacking. However is he to defend Canterlot or his princesses? He has no magic to support himself either. The guards are talking."

She inclined her head back at the guards stationed by the side entrance to the palace, their expressions twisted and distrustful in the warmth of the day. Sweat beaded on their brows and yet they still held their posts, determined to do their duty as they had promised, saying their oaths with solemn faces and a hoof held to their chest before the princesses.

"Take these fine colts, for example. All the years they spent training and applying to join the palace guard and for what? So that Kevin can come in from nowhere and take a place that could have gone to one that had coveted it from foal-hood. He may have talent, yet they do not see it as fair. And I cannot say I do either, Wilda. Not in the slightest."

Luna yawned, twisting her head as tiredness wove tendrils into the corners of her mind. Her eyelids drooped and she shivered. It would only be a few hours before she would be required to rise again to protect the night.

"Luna, as much as I would adore speaking with you further, you really must sleep."

Wilda pushed her side lightly and the alicorn stumbled, suddenly as shaky as a newborn foal.

"You're weak from taking on what should be Celestia's duties," she continued, more gently than she had ever spoken to the princess of the night. "Go to your bed chambers. Rest. The night will call you when it is time to raise the moon."

"Yes..." Luna struggled against another yawn, even wider than the first. "You are right, Wilda. I shall have to ponder this come nightfall."

Bidding her farewell, Luna lowered her head and began her trudge back to her chambers, seeming barely able to carry the weight of her own body back to the comfort of her bed.

"Thank you, Wilda," she called back softly over her shoulder. "I should not have known what to do without somepony to talk some sense into me from time to time." She paused, eyes flicking away. "Perhaps we should converse more than we do."

The silver-haired alicorn smiled, yet the warmth of the false look did not flicker into her eyes or release the stiffness from her hindquarters. They should speak more? That was rarely said. And perhaps it was so, but Luna was not her goal. Luna's night, as beautiful as it was, was far from the prestige that Wilda coveted with all her heart and soul.

With Luna well on her way back to slumber, Wilda turned to the guards, who eyed the princess obviously as she departed.

The perfect targets...

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Standing before them with wide, innocent eyes that could not possibly mean any harm, Wilda spread her wings and smiled charmingly.

"If you are displeased with how the princess is handling her affairs, I have another option for you," she murmured, too low for the retreating princess to overhear. "Would you spend the time and walk with me? I could so use the company of a pair of fine, strong guards on my walk today."

Tipping his head thoughtfully to the side, the nearest guard nodded slowly and followed a step back from Wilda's withers as she told him with a silver tongue of all the ways she could make his life better, the ways of Equestria and the fairness that had run oh so very rife with Celestia ruling. Luna had no sway, it had to be said, and, really, didn't the guards deserve better treatment than they had been receiving? Their barracks should only take in the best of the best and not just any old riff-raff from the back streets. Kevin had no place in the world of Equestria and should be shut away or assigned to the most menial, demeaning of tasks until he could be sent right back wherever he belonged - for good.

And thus she had another recruit assigned to her cause with the promise of more, the second guard trailing behind with his suspicion melding into hope as he listened and listened, saying nothing. Wilda smiled.

All was coming together in her plan.