The Secret

by Armyidiot

The Hidden Thing

Luna finished the scroll, placing it alongside it's brothers and sisters. She set her quill down aside the inkwell and gave a sigh of relief. That was... 23? 24? Scrolls that she had written and placed in the cubbyhole since returning to the hobby. If Tia were to find out about it, she would never hear the end of it for all time. Literally, since they were immortal.

Luna yawned, taking a glance at the clock on the wall, noting it an hour past the time she normally slept. Packing her writing supplies up and closing the secret door hidden inside of her closet, Luna placed her regalia atop the adjacent alicornequin and climbed into bed, satisfied by her progress.

Twilight roamed Canterlot's very vain and prestigious castle, pondering why Princess Luna had summoned her. Maybe it was for magic training? Or could it be that she was going to reveal secrets known only to the alicorns? Or it might even be some form of test, designed to test her skills as Princess of Friendship!

While Twilight continued to worry herself frantic over what was likely a trivial or relatively unimportant matter, her wanderings brought her to stand directly in front of Luna's quarters. Two thestral guards bearing navy blue armor adorned with a moon stood stock still on either side of the door. Both saluted Twilight, who snapped out of her reverie at that point and noticed where she was and the guards. Slowly adjusting to the feeling of being recognized as a Princess, the purple alicorn nodded her head to both and pushed the door open, entering the space of the sister of her former mentor.

The room had a much darker and sleepy atmosphere than most of the rest of the castle. Contrasting the dark, cozy red of her sister's room, Luna had the walls of her room painted a warm midnight blue, decorated with small specks of white, red, orange, and many other colors which Twilight recognized as stars. Like her sister, there were many bookshelves stocked to the brim with varying titles. Aside the queen sized canopy bed was a large ponyquin, wearing dark blue armor and a scythe across the back. On the other side of the bed was a large desk, a neat pile of papers and writing materials waiting.

A large glass sliding door led to a marble balcony set with a table and pillow cushions. Noting the flower vase on the table, Twilight thought of the view, having seen it before from Celestia's balcony. Near the sliding door on the adjacent wall sat a door which Twilight assumed led to a closet. On the wall next to that were photos and paintings, some of Celestia, some of Luna, some of the two together, and a line of mares and stallions, each displayed wonderfully and nary a speck of dust on them.

While wandering the bedroom, Twilight slowly opened her magical eye, feeling through the many enchantments and Luna's own presence. Her lessons with some of her old teachers about sensing magic had done much to calm and soothe her frantic mind. The meditation of the activity proved beneficial to her anxiety as the ability to sense all of those around her in a large radius helped her paranoia. It was with such that she noticed Luna's magical signature leading through her closet and into a small room.

Twilight fought her wonderment for some time before looking at a clock and realizing that she was over an hour early to her's and Luna's meeting. She tried to make excuses as to why not, but she only managed to come up with even more reasons to look inside the cubbyhole. While the lack of respect for privacy flit about through her mind for a moment, her curiosity and thirst for knowledge prevailed over it.

Opening the closet, Twilight looked through it for a moment, marveling at the many dresses and items lied about. Some magical artifacts, others keepsakes, and even a bookshelf adorned with some very dusty tomes. Keeping her mind set about the cubbyhole for the time being, the purple alicorn walked to where Luna's magical signature led through the seemingly blank wall. After a moment of searching, she found the enchantment hiding the hole and disabled it rather easily, though not without remarking that any ordinary pony would have a much greater amount of trouble trying to work past it.

Twilight opened a small door, peaking her head inside. This space was obviously supposed to only be navigated by magic, considering the door's small stature. The inside of the room was dark, almost completely black. Twilight lit her horn and gasped upon the sight. Hidden in the alcove were thousands of scrolls, many having to had been written before Nightmare Moon. Only one of the shelves in the space had new scrolls upon it, those only showing from monthly age to some having been written quite possibly the previous night. Grabbing a scroll at random, one from the 'new' section, Twilight opened it and started to read, taking notice of Luna's hornwriting, being very neat and delicate.

The story inside was one of fraught danger, exciting perils, and unbound love. What shocked Twilight most, however, was that the main characters were her and Rainbow Dash. While excellently written, no doubt coming from many years of writing stories, it confound her as to why she and the sky blue pegasus were the ones of note here. Most startlingly, both of them were in almost perfect characterization! She could legitimately see her saying some of these things, doing some of these actions, even making love to Rainbow Dash like that! She couldn't even find any grammatical or punctuation errors anywhere in the work of fiction.

Barely believing it, the alicorn placed the scroll back with her magic, grabbing another one at random. It was a similar story to the last, except the main characters were now Fluttershy and Discord, titled Bride of Discord. This story was more romance driven and lengthy than the previous. Twilight couldn't help herself, the story was written so well that she teleported herself into the room and summoned a pillow to continue reading it.

Time seemed to slow down for Twilight, who cared naught but for the story which had her attention. So enraptured by it was she, that she didn't even notice when Luna teleported into her room and preparing for Twilight's arrival. Several minutes passed, with only the sound of scrolls being moved and some items being brought into Luna's room filled the air, until the Princess of the Night made a mistake and accidentally hit herself on the hoof with a table being brought in. A loud expletive erupted from her, cradling her hoof and almost throwing the table out past the balcony.

Twilight snapped out of her reverie at Luna's curse, almost shouting in response, though stopping herself before she could be revealed. Barely thinking about what she was doing, Twilight replaced the enchantment hiding the cubbyhole and grabbed several scrolls before teleporting out of the room.

Princess Celestia was relaxing in her study, enjoying a finely prepared salad and a fresh novel barely out from the author's mind. As she sat, calming her mind and easing her nerves from Day Court, she heard the sound of a teleport being done right behind her. Remembering that Luna and some of her students did so upon occasion, she reacted calmly and watched who it was. The teleport finished with her former student and now fellow princess Twilight Sparkle arriving, several scrolls in her magical grasp, alongside a pillow. The purple pony looked frantic before looking around and noticing Celestia sedately drinking a cup of tea while watching her, a small grin upon her muzzle.

Twilight startled upon seeing Celestia, launching into a small tirade of what happened that was stopped by a golden glow around her muzzle. After her former mentor had reminded her of what to do whenever faced with a stressful explanation, since she hadn't understood a word of the tirade, Twilight took a deep breath and started to more calmly explain what had happened. All the way from the letter she had received as to how she came into possession of the scrolls and pillow. While she was afraid the white alicorn might punish her, she kept her breathing level and waited.

To her surprise, Celestia grabbed a scroll from Twilight, unfurling it and recognizing her sister's precise and elegant writing after the title, My Little Dashie. She read through the scroll while Twilight propped the pillow under herself and started reading from a scroll, evidently relieved that she wasn't being punished. My Little Dashie, a story of a human living in a grey world that is brought color by a filly Rainbow Dash appearing in a box to him. Celestia read through the fiction, her expression changing from one of serene grace to that of squee, to glee, heartbreak that quickly switched to relieved sighs, and finally extreme sorrow. By the end of the scroll, she was completely in tears, barely holding her sobs back, having to bite both her tongue and lips to stop from doing so.

Taking large breaths, the solar princess looked up from the scroll to see Twilight had finished her's, also holding back tears but these of immense joy, evidenced by the wide smile coming from her. Both alicorns looked to each other before grabbing a hold and crying heavily, Celestia's tears of depression, Twilight's tears of euphoria. Sobs erupted from both, drowning out any possible stray sounds from the soundproof walls of Celestia's personal quarters. Many minutes passed, to which both quieted their cries, only faint hiccups and keens coming from the pair.

Celestia and Twilight stayed as they were, holding each other in their forehooves and wings, Celestia easily wrapping around Twilight almost completely. Having voiced their sorrows and joys, they separated and took to gathering the scrolls. Thankfully, none of them had been crushed or crinkled by the princesses, though some did have a little dust. The stories were placed on Celestia's desk and the pillow returned from wherever it had came. While both pondered on how to return the scrolls back to Luna without alarming her, Celestia had an idea and sprung for her advisor, Wysteria. She asked for the scrolls to be brought to a publishing company and made into novels or compilations.

A few weeks later...

Princess Luna awoke during the evening, due to her largely nocturnal nature. Everything seemed to be fine and running smoothly, but a feeling in her gut made her uneasy. Like something was about to happen. Shaking the feeling off for the time being, Lulu, as her sister affectionately called her, went to her desk, noticing a tray of some of her favorite breakfast foods. Scrambled eggs, peach jammed toast, hay bacon, and some freshly squeezed orange juice. Wondering what the occasion in the kitchens was, considering she normally ate with Celestia, Luna enjoyed the savory meal, looking over her regular stack of notes, laws, and orders while reviewing her nightly schedule. Greetings with Tia, Night Court for 4 hours, and then walking the Dreamscape, watching for nightmares and bad dreams. All in all, a rather normal night.

That is, until a snowy owl carrying a letter started pecking at the screen door to her balcony. Confused, since bird delivery was considered outdated and far too unreliable, Luna let the evidently female bird into her room, where she perched upon the desk and held a leg out, still carrying the letter. Untying it with her magic, Luna opened the letter while the bird flew back out onto the balcony and launched, presumably to return to her master. The letter she had carried was signed anonymously, and no magical signature of any kind could be found on the letter.

Lulu read through, thoroughly confused then realizing what had transpired. It was both a critique and admiration letter of her story, My Little Dashie. Somehow, somepony managed to find her stash of self-written fanfiction and had decided to publish them! There was only one pony she knew of that could have done such a horrible thing, and that was her sister, Celestia. Well, Celly, if you think it right to search through my belongings, then I will make sure you find the worst of them all!

Wysteria kept up with her diarch's pace, taking her time with addressing each issue of Day Court. Princess Celestia sat upon her throne, looking regal as ever until a scroll tied with a red ribbon appeared out of thin air in front of her. Acting out of reflex and habit, Celestia easily caught the letter and unwrapped it, quietly saying to herself that it must be Princess Twilight. Wysteria cautiously gauged her employer's reaction to the scroll, changing from the simple regal smile she always used to growing confusion and horror, heavily mixed with immense disgust. While the change was slow, it was noticeable that Celestia seemed to be turning a sickly green. After a few minutes of it, she threw the letter in disgust, running out of the throne room in a grand hurry. Just outside, loud retches could be heard as well as the panicked neighs of one of the guards. Utterly confused and baffled, Wysteria slowly crept upon the letter, sitting innocently upon the shining floor. With a tentative grasp of telekinetic magic, she grabbed the letter and read it.

The Royal Throne. It was a scat fiction about Celestia and Luna.