When Celestia awoke who knows how long later, she was quite refreshed and significantly less cranky.
Hmm, I didn't realize how badly I needed that nap until now. I don't think I've slept that good since I was a foal! Speaking of foals, now that I'm in the calm, well rested presence of mind to enjoy an awoken Luna... wait. Where's Luna?
It was at that moment that Celestia realized that in place of a cute, sleeping blue filly nuzzled against her there was just a cold blank space of nothing but air.
"Oh snap... LUNA!!!" Celestia screamed, full well forgetting her room is soundproofed and Luna would thus have never heard her anyways. Even if she had heard her sister screaming, there was no response or Luna coming back to her room. "Darn that magic inhibitor spell didn't last nearly long enough," Celestia panicked as she searched the palace with x-ray vision to see if she could locate her mischievous little sister.
Since the dawn of her very existence, Luna has been a bit of a prankster or, at the very least, good at messing with ponies through disappearing acts and jump scares. Oh Faust I hope she doesn't decide to jump scare me right now, I'm still waking up a little... Celestia mentally groaned.
Meanwhile, a certain little blue filly was spontaneously teleporting around the castle. She didn’t really know what she was doing, all she knew was that every time she did it, she was in a new place to explore with new ponies who seemed to really like her, and that made her happy.
Luna didn't quite understand what they were saying, but this "Celestia" name seemed familiar. Perhaps it was that massive white pony creature that fed her and cuddled her in the night prior. If that was the case, she decided she was happy to hear the name. In response, she giggled and smiled a smile that would have killed with cuteness if such things were possible. Then she decided to do her little trick again and see where it would take her.
Somewhere in the distance Luna heard a familiar voice, but disregarded it in leu of this strange pink pony in front of her. She wasn't as big as "Celestia," but she was still bigger than herself. Luna craned her neck up curiously to look at her before a very (happy?) high pitched squeal escaped the pink pony's lips followed up with Luna being swept up into her hooves and cuddled relentlessly.
Perhaps the initial shock scared Luna and she fought a bit, but when the pony's voice calmed down a bit and the snuggling became more gentle, Luna didn't mind it as much and cuddled back. After all, no one can resist good cuddles.
A few minutes later, this pony introduced herself as "Cadence" and asked Luna if she could repeat after her. Obviously, Luna could not and just stared at her blankly before mentally storing that information for later. Maybe she'd understand when she was older.
"Cadence" then began to play a game of peek-a-boo with little Lulu, which initially confused her. But then she grew to like this little game of pretending to disappear and Luna joined in, hiding under a pillow and then appearing out of it again. Just before Luna was gonna up her game and use her unpredictable little trick again to actually disappear, the big white pony entered the room and shouted what seemed to be her name. Luna at least responded to it, so it must be so.
"Luna! Oh thank goodness you're safe. Nothing's burned down yet and you aren't crying so I think all is well," Celestia said as she quickly replaced the magic inhibitor spell on Luna before she could disappear again. "I see you've met Cadence."
"Auntie Tia, when were you gonna tell me you have a foal?" Cadence asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I was going to tell you this morning, but then I couldn’t locate her. Though, it seems she's introduced herself to you already," Celestia smiled, glad to see them get along so well. I wonder how she would've reacted to Cadence as an adult? Perhaps they would still get along. They both love foals dearly. "Cadence, meet your aunt Princess Luna of the Night Skies," Celestia introduced with a tiny bit of fanfare.
"Aunt Luna?... I thought she'd be... older?" Cadence confusedly stated. "What happened?"
"My best guess is that Harmony has a strange sense of humor. I suppose, yes, Luna is no longer full of the bitterness and hate that caused her to become Nightmare Moon, but this is a bit... much," Celestia explained to her niece.
"I see..."
"The palace staff and I are already planning to discuss how to get her back into her adult form."
"Aaaaaw, can't she stay a filly a little longer pleeeaaaase? She's so precious and squishy at this stage," Cadence pouted a bit as she held up a smiling little moon princess who stuck her tongue out a little simply because "why not?".
Celestia couldn't deny that Luna was most likely the cutest little alicorn filly she'd ever seen. True, she may be a little biased since it was her sister, but her opinion still stood. "She can't stay a filly forever. We don't even know if she'll age in mortal years, alicorn years, or some strange mix of both! Hay, we don't know if she'll age at all! She may very well be a filly forever if we don't do something. So no, she needs to be returned to normal."
"How long could that take?" Cadence asked, hopeful that it would be long enough to enjoy time with her baby auntie.
"I don't know, days, weeks, months, years? We'll find a way..." Celestia guessed. "If you don't mind though, could you watch Luna for the day? I still have duties for the day (ugh) that I can't exactly reschedule. I'll make time to spend taking care of Luna myself sometime tomorrow."
Cadence withheld her excitement with all the grace and subtlety of a coffee mug crashing explosively on what is clearly not the kitchen counter in a formerly sleeping household at 4am.
"YESYESYESYESYESYESYES OF COURSE!!!!"
"heheh, glad to hear it..." Celestia said as she rubbed the glee out of her ears. Before she left, she said one more thing.
"Oh also, I suppose we'll need to baby-proof the castle for both Luna's sake and the sake of those who do not want their wing of the palace to spontaneously combust. Okay bye!"
"Wait what? How do you even baby-proof an entire castle?! Spontaneously combust?!?! How long does that magic blocking spell last again?! Tia!!!"
does Celestia have a plan in case Princess Luna's age-return spell returns her to Nightmare Moon?
The conflict may not be over yet.
11809171
Canonically, probably use the elements again and hope it doesn't age regress her (again). In my story? I'll go ahead and give a "spoiler" to say that that won't be happening. I don't intend to bring back NMM in any form in this story.
Spoilers
(Obvious correction, that plan changed LOL! Filly Nightmare is a big part of the story heheheh)
All I can say is that you did a great job on this latest chapter. The exchanges, characterizations, general cuteness and future chapter set-up are well done. Yeah, I could see Celestia being in a better mood after a good night's sleep before noticing Baby Luna sneaking off and meeting Cadance. At least Cadance did a good job watching over Luna and keeping her entertained. The chat about the possible counterspell was some good additional information, including how long it could take to find the spell, much less find a way to cast it safely.
REALLY looking forward to more of this.
11809176
Aw, thank you so much! I surprised myself with this chapter 😂 I think I'm finally getting my writing muscles back in shape (I used to write before my mom made me delete my account. I considered myself a good writer at the time, but I'd like to hope I've improved since middle school LOL).
this is just a general question How long do you think Alicornias is because I think that one regular year is 100 alleconias years, this kind of also leads into my Luna is Cadence's mother had Canon but the reason why she at least appear to be a teenager when she was full sitting Twilight is because in Alaikum Toms she was That's why elocons aren't usually ascended until the adults it's just celestia panicked when Cadence's other parent died and just want to make sure that she didn't have to show her sister her daughter's grave, i personally think Cadence was 10 when she was turning to an Alicorn, and the sisters were 21 and 25 respectively i don't know who ascended them but I think it was another Alicorn cuz I personally had Ken and that only alleconias can make alleconias
One small thing to note, in this and the previous chapter you used the term "Arms" instead of "Hoofs" or "Hooves", but I don't think this is a story with the Antro tag in mind.
Good Story
11809204
It’s not anthro, I just call their front legs arms because honestly I don’t know what else you’d call them. The imagery that comes to mind when I try to say legs or fetlocks doesn’t quite line up with what I mean.
Just realized I could change the term to forelegs… thank you for making me question my terminology I’ll make the edits later
Hope you enjoyed the story!
That was a perfect chapter 2, and Cadence is probably happy to be babysitting again, or foalsitting as the case my be.
11809221
You're not the first author to use "arms" instead of "forelegs." The general opinion seems to be that it's okay to call them "arms" when they're being used as arms, but "forelegs" sounds better. The Department of Redundancy Department would suggest another edit:
That's just a bit awkward. I'd suggest "Meanwhile, a little blue filly was spontaneously teleporting throughout the castle."
I'm loving the story so far! Thanks for the reminder to add it to my Faves. How often can we expect new chapters?
11809197
I couldn't completely understand your entire comment (looks like it was written with speech to text 😅) but my personal head-canon is that 100 years=1 alicorn year biologically speaking. So Luna's 1,000 year banishment to the moon would be 10 alicorn years, which seems about right (Celestia would be roughly in her 30s while Luna would still be in her 20s from being in stasis on the moon. Oh yeah, I also go with the fan theory that Luna didn't age on the moon). In this story though, we'll see how things go after this quick commercial break
11809261
you'll correct that comment was speech-to-text, and I also personally think both Discord and Luna didn't age in there respective prisons
11809255
I know, that's why I'd used the term assuming it'd be okay, but the change is good too.
As for the redundant phrase, thanks for catching that! I'll fix it. I usually write in a way that tries to minimize typos and necessary editing as much as possible (i.e. type slowly, edit every sentence as needed while typing instead of after I've typed everything, etc.) I edit as I go so that about the only mistakes left behind are not obvious at first or need to be pointed out by someone who didn't write the story (like you awesome people/ponies!)
I'll update whenever I have actual ideas for the coming chapters (I have a rough outline, but the meat between the skeleton of an outline I have is something I'll have to come up with as I go. Besides, I want this story to be a little bit of a slow burn).
I'm very tempted to just write and post another chapter for this story right now, but I have two other stories I'm writing that also need updates (My Sofia the First crossover and another story ITW. The ITW story will be complete on post and the "First" will most likely be my biggest ongoing project with this story being the second biggest project)
11808319
Yeah this has to the baby Luna return from nightmare moon story that I've ever read and so far so good. Can't wait to see what trouble a baby Luna can get into. I know baby flurry was a huge amount of trouble.
Better get a suppressor ring for her horn...
11809277
I just reread Chapter 1, and found this near the top:
Should probably be "pulled." If I may be so bold, I'd suggest changing the line to "Awww, it's a family reunion! Let's celebrate!" Pinkie shouted as she pulled out her party cannon.
From where did she pull it? Who knows!? That's why it's funny! Unless you meant that she pulled a hoof-held party-popper from her mane.
The next paragraph needs a period after "anything)"
11809549
Good catches! I do read the entire chapter right after I post (to iron out any immediate mistakes I missed) and again just for pure enjoyment (I may notice more mistakes then too), but like I said, as an author I know what I meant and can accidentally skip over weirder sentences like that one you told me needs rephrasing
Life lessons for the bystanders: Authors are humans(ponies/griffons/beings?) that make mistakes! Because...
🎶WE'RE NOT FLAWLESS, WE'RE A WORK IN PROGRESS!!! WE'VE GOT DENTS AND WE'VE GOT QUIRKS, BUT IT'S OUR FLAWS THAT MAKE US WORK, YEAH!!!!🎶 (not me just casually belting this in comment form... I may send an audio recording of me belting it in my Discord server now just cause...)
I can only imagine what sort of damage Luna does when her magic breaks through.
Considering what Flurry did... it will be major.