With a good sleep, Celestia arose at her prescribed time and stretched awake, ready to start the day. Her horn glowed as she slowly and carefully raised the sun above the horizon, bringing on the warmth and light that signaled the start of the new day, while her sister repositioned the moon, indicating the end of the cool night.
“Always a joy to see you performing well, dear sister,” Celestia whispered with a smile, even though she knew Luna couldn’t hear her.
With the sun in place, Celestia returned to her duties, first going over her checklist and attending an early morning meeting, leaving her longboard tucked away under her bed for later.
The second line of paperwork wasn’t too bad, mostly just follow-ups and requests. With decades of experience, Tia ran through them all in just two hours. Glancing over at her schedule, she noticed there was a gap in her schedule that left a staggering three hours of free time between the afternoon and two events before sunset. A perfect opportunity to try out her longboard. Little did she realize what she’d be in for.
As the morning faded into noon, Celestia walked down the hallways to her chariot, with several thoughts deeply imprinted in her mind like burn marks.
Why would somepony send her a shaped wooden board with wheels?
What purpose, truly, did it serve?
Would the ‘longboard’, as it was to be named, be of any danger?
How did Hall Hunter come to pay attention to her vacation in such a manner?
Is Hunter a stalker?
After a brief internal analysis, Celestia quickly pushed that final question away as the doors opened for her. No way he was a stalker – if he really was, he’d be sneaking around the castle trying to snap photos of her and reported by guards already. Her large gold-plated chariot lay before her, with her super-strong pegasus guards ready to transport her to Manehatten, where she was due to attend a council meeting to discuss overcrowding and street crime.
During the long trip there, she pondered over the board and how Hunter had briefly mentioned how to ride it. But… how? How could such an action be related to her love for adrenaline and thrilling activities?
Admitting she had more questions than answers to formulate at the given moment, Celestia sat back and began reviewing her governmental notes. Questions and thoughts about the board would be best answered through practical implementation.
And so, once the meeting was over, Celestia hopped in her chariot and ordered her chariot-pulling guards to hurry back for an “urgent affair” back at the Canterlot castle.
“What’s… got you so…excited?” one of them stuttered through his pants of exertion.
“I just… remembered I have an important issue to deal with, and I need to take care of it right away,” Celestia replied quickly, before glancing over at the poor stallion’s sweaty face and burning muscles. Her heart felt awful. All this, over a single gift that so happened to be different from any other? No. She was not wildly eccentric or careless like Twilight Sparkle. She would uphold patience and wait for the right time to deal with it.
“I…I’m sorry,” Celestia said softly, giving a gentle kiss to the chariot-pulling guards and calling for a pair of sweat towels. “I should have been more considerate. It wasn’t even that important. But, to be fair, I did find myself getting a little excited over it.”
“Mmm-hmmm, what’s this?” a teasing voice came from the nearby doors.
Luna… Celestia grumbled under her breath. Aw, horseapples, here we go again.
“Is my big sis getting excited over something small and personal? Much like her faithful student?”
“It’s just something not too relevant,” Celestia replied quickly, trying to shrug it off. “Now, will you please help out these poor guards here? Clearly they’ve tried too hard to bring me back to the castle quickly.”
Please buy it, sister, please…
“Really? So you can attend to your excited “irrelevant” needs?”
Aw, shucks. Failed.
“Are you not considerate for the well-being of the royal guards?!” Celestia retorted aggressively. “Besides, that was an order.”
Luna held back an eye-roll. “Fine. But I will be asking later, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
I’ll be ready for you, then, Celestia thought, heading inside the castle to check for any submitted paperwork and check in on a few staff members. They all were doing fine – finance calculations were on par with purchase dates, and mail was being sent out on time. Rooms were also cleaned properly. Finally, with everything in order and no further obligations, she could check out the board.
Literally bursting into her room, Celestia opened up her curtains and pulled out the booklet from under her pillow. With the board in front of her, she began reading. The book began explaining the different parts of the longboard (trucks, wheels, axles, bushings, bearings, deck) and what purpose those parts served (complete with a few drawings), why it was called a “longboard”, and a general description of what longboarding is.
Celestia’s face lit up with a grin as she peered over the board, examining its components as described in the booklet. It looked like this was going to be fun after all.
“Hmmm, where’s a good place to ride…” she pondered, flying up and looking around the city from high above. It didn’t take long before she noticed a long, windy trail leading from a cluster of a few houses on a small hill to the city’s secondary centre. Most ponies gathered in the main city centre, so it seemed like a good route to avoid causing disruption. Or… what about Ponyville?
Celestia shook her head. Ponyville would cause too much of a disruption, and Twilight would make a big fuss over it. Besides, they had more important matters to deal with.
Flying back down to the castle, she re-entered the room, checked the trucks’ tightness levels, and teleported out of the room with a loud sparkly *poosh*.
Reappearing on a side road that led to the main road that led into the city, she set down the board on its wheels and gazed out to the city, before looking down at the board. Precariously, she stepped onto it with one hoof, then the other, leaving her other two hanging over. Feeling wobbly, she clumsily leaned back… and tumbled over backwards and sideways. The board shot off down the road, and she quickly yanked it back in the grasp of her magic.
“Okay,” Tia whispered to herself. “Okay, all right. I can do this. Just keep balanced.”
Firmly placing one front hoof on the front of the board, she leaned forward a little, placing her back hoof on the board, before kicking off slightly with her other back hoof. The feeling was crazy – just moving without using her legs felt unreal. Crouching slightly, she quickly realized how leaning one way or the other allowed her to turn. With the incline of the road, gravity just kept pulling at the board, making it faster and faster – and harder to control.
“W-w-whoa!” Celestia exclaimed in fright as the world around her started to become a little blurry. If she stayed parallel to the board, she’d just fall over. What about…
Ah! Tia realized, and swiftly shifted her weight, standing sideways. Now her body was perpendicular to the board and thus she had to turn her head sideways to see ahead. As the road levelled out, she extended a hoof out and gently pressed into the road to slow down a little, then returned to pushing with her back hoof. With more experimentation, she figured out a comfortable way to stand, push, and shift her weight. It really was a lot of fun.
Now a crest was coming up. Celestia, now more confident on her board, pushed harder and harder, increasing speed in hopes of getting over it smoothly – and she did. “This is much faster than walking, and more fun than flying!” she thought excitedly, rolling right into the city streets, not even caring for the million pony faces gawking at her. Feeling bold, she spread her back legs wide apart and rose up bipedally, quickly readjusting her centre of gravity by leaning forward a tiny bit and turning her head to look ahead.
“p-p-Princess?!” one stallion gasped. From his accent, Celestia knew who it was and turned her head in the direction of the voice.
“Oh, good afternoon Fancy Pants!” she called out with a slight wave, not even caring in the slightest to think she was standing on her hind legs, on a wooden plank with wheels, rolling through the streets of Canterlot.
Finding it hard to keep her balance bipedally, Celestia crouched back down on all fours and kept pushing, increasing her speed yet again to a good twelve miles an hour.
“Awww yes, I love this!” she squealed, weaving in and out of crowds, reaching out and giving an estatic filly who spotted her a brief hoof-bump, and hopping off the board and quickly hopping back on. It took just a good lean to shift direction, making it easier to come up with fun prances and even a cheerful dance in between hopping on and off, making the Princess of the Sun look like a joyful filly trapped in a regal adult ruler’s body.
Eventually, Celestia reached the castle, feeling a little out of breath, but joyful and motivated.
“You alright, Princess?” one of the entrance guards inquired.
“And what’s that?” another guard added, pointing to her board.
“Oh, that’s my longboard,” Celestia replied rather sheepishly. “Got it as a gift and loving it so far!”
Now that she was in the castle grounds, Celestia could return to her “regal” and “composed” state. She quickly teleported the board back into her bedroom and happily pranced inside, ready to have a nice snack and resume her royal duties. She burst through the castle kitchen doors… only to find a cross face staring straight at her.
“Oh, hehe, Luna! My dear sister! What brings you here at this hour?”
“Where have you been?” Luna interrogated. “There’s been quite the stir here. Maids, guards, and other staff have been bewildered.”
“I just simply took some time off,” Celestia stated flatly. “Ain’t nothing wrong with de-stressing.”
Just spill it and hope she doesn’t flip on me…
“You… you’ve got me. Let me tell, you, sister,” Celestia sighed, caressing Luna’s back with a wing hug and leading her out of the kitchen, grabbing two muffins as she did so.
“Now, yesterday evening, I received a package from a pony in Fillydelphia. A large one. I unboxed it and it was… something amazing.”
Celestia opened the doors to her bedroom to reveal her longboard, lying in the middle of the room.
“That’s a nice work of art!” Luna exclaimed! “So you, just stand on it and it moves?”
Celestia’s eyes lit up with awe. “Exactly, dear sister! Except you have to push with one foot to drive yourself forward. With more pushes, the faster you go. It feels really fun. And so, I went out and tried it, and I’m in love with it.”
“It’s deep blue, just like my night sky too!” Luna squealed, realizing the connection.
“Indeed it is, Lulu. And you’re welcome to ride it anytime with my permission, once I show you how,” Celestia said with a confident smile.
“Really?!”
“Really, dear sister. We can roll through the land with style. Say, do you have a moment before raising the moon this evening? I can show you then, if you’d like?”
“Absolutely! Yes, yes yes!”
Celestia’s eyes moved from her bubbly sister prancing and hopping down the hall, to the board in her room, and back again. Yes, this was the best gift she could’ve asked for.