breakingdreams | my little pony; Monsters Under the Bed

Title: Monsters Under the Bed
Friendship: Pinkie Pie & Luna
Wordcount: 1876
Summary: Discord is defeated. Equestria is celebrating. But when Luna decides to sit out of the festivities, she doesn't realize that her sister won't be the only pony who notices. After all, Pinkie Pie would never abandon a friend!
Disclaimer: I don't own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in any shape or form.
Notes: If I had never come across this, this story would have never been written. I'm... not entirely pleased with the beginning, but since the Luna episode will be coming out soon (so excited!!!), I figured that I should post this before canon completely contradicts it. Finally, I guess that I should mention that I've never seen a single episode of Gurren Lagann. I don't even know what it's about. The only thing I know about it is what I referenced here.

Monsters Under the Bed

It was a beautiful night.

How could it not be? Luna tried to make every night special, but on this particular night it had to be beyond her usual. The night sky could not be anything less than perfect on the night when Canterlot, if not Equestria itself, gathered in order to honor the six ponies who had saved Equestria from utter ruin— again.

The first time, they'd gotten a pair of 'thank you's and a stained glass window.

This time, they'd gotten a slightly more formal thank you in the form of a ceremony, and a feast in their honor.

Oh, and yet another stained glass window.

Luna hadn't attended either event.

It wasn't that she wasn't grateful. The last thing she wanted was to let Discord run loose— it had been hard enough to contain him last time, and she shuddered at the thought of having to do it again. She was more than grateful, and she had been sure to do her part. Preparing the night sky had been the least of it. She'd ended up taking the overseeing of the feast preparations into her own hooves— no small feat— and it had been her who suggested that they'd stay the night in the castle, and had made the preparations for that as well. It was most definitely not because she didn't care.

She just didn't think that the ponies would care to have a reminder of the reason they had to save the world from ruin the first time just when they were celebrating having defeated the reason for the second.

That wasn't what she had told her sister, of course. Her sister was sensitive to all slights made towards Luna, most of all those coming from Luna herself. She was forever trying to raise her sister's confidence, trying to make her feel— accepted, again. Loved. Needed. She suspected that was part of the reason that Celestia had insisted on the festivities taking place at night.

Pre-banishment Luna would have been offended by the gesture of pity.

Post-banishment Luna just appreciated the show of love and support.

And it was a beautiful night. She didn't need Celestia's whispered compliment, slipped to her before she left to make her speech, to tell her that, although the gesture was appreciated. She'd put her heart and soul into the sky that night as her own silent thank you, and the view that night reflected that.

If only she could do more.

"What 'cha thinking about?"

A bright pink head popped out of nowhere, dangling upside-down from the top of the window frame. Luna let out a rather squeaky 'eep!', automatically jumping away from the head and back into her room. She stared, wide-eyed, momentarily blank.

She knew her, if not well. It was Pinkie Pie. Element of Laughter. Twilight Sparkle's friend. One of the six that had defeated her, Nightmare Moon, and, later on, Discord.

Luna knew who she was. That didn't explain what she was doing dangling upside down from her window frame.

More importantly, it didn't explain how she was doing it. Wasn't she an earth pony?

Pinkie Pie didn't seem to notice that she was defying the laws of physics as she grinned and waved at her.

"Hi!"

"...Hello?" Luna tried, uncertainly. Then, because she really wanted to know, she asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here 'cause you're here!" was the enthusiastic response.

Luna blinked. "Ex...excuse me?"

Pinkie Pie didn't answer right away, choosing instead to drop from... wherever she was. In a maneuver that Luna was positive she'd never be able to replicate without wings, Pinkie Pie flipped herself in the air and landed on all four hooves inside of Luna's bedroom, raising her head with a broad grin. Without skipping a beat, she answered, "I came to see you, silly!"

Luna blinked. Again. "...Why?" she asked, after a moment's hesitance.

Pinkie Pie took a deep breath.

"Well, it was getting reeeealllly boring but I promised Twilight that I wouldn't do anything crazy and you should never, EVER break a promise—" here her happy-go-lucky expression morphed into something dark and determined, just for a moment, before popping back to her usual cheer. Luna stared, fascinated by how quickly her mood had morphed, until she realized that that Pinkie Pie was still talking and she was missing it. "—and then I thought, hey! candy apples! and then I saw you and though, oh no, she looks sad! And Pinkie Pies are GREAT at making ponies happy, so I thought, what should I do, and then I thought, a PARTY!

But I was the only other pony here and the best thing about parties are friends, and then I thought, friends! Friends always make me happy— well, friends and sarsaparilla and cupcakes and rainbows and lots of other things, but friends are the best! Well, except for maybe parties, because then you have friends AND cupcakes AND everything else and they're lots of fun! But other than that it's definitely friends. So here I am!" As she said this last bit, she threw her front hooves into the air, a shower of confetti raining down on her.

"...I'm...not sure if I got that all," Luna said after another moment of silence, "But... did you say, 'friend'?" The word felt wrong in her mouth. She must have misheard. They had never spoken with one another before this moment— had never even interacted, really, unless one counted their battle and the obstacles she had put in her and her friends' way back when she had been trying to bring eternal night to Equestria.

"Yup!" Pinkie Pie nodded. "Don't tell me that you didn't know! Silly, of course you're my friend." She paused for a moment, bringing her forehoof to her chin. "Well... I guess I can see how it can be confusing— I haven't thrown you an official Pinkie Pie party yet, but how can I throw a party for somepony who's not there? Then it'd be a friends-who-are-not-here party! Omigosh! I should! And then after that you can come to Ponyville and I can throw a friends-who-are-here party and it'll be the biggest party of your LIFE and then you don't have to be confused anymore!"

"But..." Luna shook her head. "How... how could I be your friend? We don't know each other... and I was so awful to you before.. to all of you... How could you just forget about that?"

Pinkie Pie's smile never wavered. "That's okay! We all make mistakes. The other day I was trying to make blue cupcakes for a party for Dashie and I accidentally made Rarity blue instead, and BOY, was she MAD! But she forgave me 'cause we're FRIENDS and that's what friends do!"

Luna kept on shaking her head. "That's hardly on the same scale as what I did. And— even if you could forgive me for trying to bring on eternal night— how could you be sure that I won't do it again? That I won't become Nightmare Moon again?"

Pinkie Pie's eyes narrowed, and her smile dropped away.

"...Pinkie Pie?" Luna asked, nervously. She may have been an immortal alicorn, but the determination rolling off of the other pony in waves was scary.

"...Follow me!" Pinkie Pie declared, walking past Luna and deeper into the room. Confused, but curious as to what she had planned, Luna followed.

She stopped abruptly in front of her bed, of all places. Luna blinked. Yet again. It was really getting to be an awful habit of hers. "What—" she began, but cut herself off with another 'eep!' when, without warning, Pinkie Pie grabbed her hoof and dragged her under the bed with her.

"There!" Pinkie declared once they were both squished under the bed, all traces of her serious demeanor from earlier melting away. "You're safe now!"

"Er...safe from what?" Luna couldn't help but ask.

"Nightmare Moon, of course! If we're both under the bed, then she can't crawl out from there and get you!"

Luna stared. "You... do realize that I am Nightmare Moon, do you?"

"Nu-uh!" Pinkie Pie declared emphatically, shaking her head. Bits of her frizzy mane got into Luna's mouth, and she tried to spit them out as discreetly as she could. "She might come from you, but she isn't you!"

"...I don't think it works that way."

"Of course it does, silly! It's simple! We've all got our not-so-nice sides, even a fun, party-loving pony like me! And lemme tell you, she's mean! But I'm not her, and if I don't have to be her, then you don't have to be that black snooty either! It's that easy!"

Luna looked down at her forehooves. "I... I don't know."

"Why?" Pinkie Pie cocked her head. "It's easy-peasy! All you have to do is believe you're not her, and then you're not!"

Luna's head drooped. "I can't," she whispered softly. And Celly knows how much I've tried, she thought.

"Then believe in me, 'cause I know you're not her! Believe in the me that believes in you!"

Luna peeked up at her. "What?"

"Oops, wrong canon!" Pinkie Pie giggled. "Sorry. But it's still true! Nightmare Moon's not coming back 'cause you're better than that big meanie pants!"

Luna raised her head, looking at her for one long moment. Then, she looked down again. "You really think so?" she whispered to her hooves.

"Of course!" Pinkie Pie jumped up and out from under the bed, narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the frame. She whirled around, offering her hoof to Luna. "And you wanna know what?"

Luna took the offered hoof, and let Pinkie Pie pull her out from under the cramped space. "What?" she asked with a slight pant, stretching her cramping limbs.

"If you ever get scared of that black snooty again, then there's something even better than staying under the bed to keep her away! My granny taught it to me! All you gotta do is—"

"Laugh," Luna said softly, remembering the song Pinkie Pie had sung, when Nightmare Moon had turned the trees of the forest against them, and the way Nightmare Moon's shadow retreated from the brightness of their laughter.

"Exactly!" Pinkie Pie hopped up and down in place. "See? You've got it already! And if you ever can't laugh— which would be just awful 'cause who can live without laughing? It'd be really sad and horrible and just not right! But if you can't, or even if you can and just want to laugh more ('cause there's no such thing as laughing too much!), then come down to Ponyville, and I'll throw you the biggest party ever and it'll be lots and lots of fun and that big mean Nightmare Moon won't even think about bothering you again! That's a promise!"

"...I think I'd like that," Luna said, softly, quietly. Then— "Thank you." She lifted her eyes to meet Pinkie Pie's. "For everything."

"No problem! What are friends for, anyway?"

"Friends," Luna repeated. This time, the word did not feel so heavy on her tongue. "Friends." She raised her eyes to look at the moon hovering in the sky, spilling its pale light on the pony before her.

"Yes," she said, and smiled.