Epilogue : Boons
The following morning saw the delivery of a special free edition of the Manehatten Times to my front door. Titled: ‘Don’t Be a Spoiler’, it offered advice when it came to dealing with the new princess and advised readers not to give her everything she wanted. The second page held a guest article by somepony named Iron Will titled, ‘No Means No: Standing Up for Yourself’.
Both Vinyl and I were curious about what was happening back at the palace, so once we’d both had breakfast we set off.
A few street cleaning carts were making their way up and down Canterlot’s streets, gathering up confetti from yesterday’s coronation. Other ponies were pulling banners down, and Canterlot was quickly returning to normality.
In the palace courtyard, the statue of Dinky was being loaded onto a heavy cart for removal. It’d probably end up somewhere near Discord in the gardens. We followed the main hallways of the palace, leading to the throne room. The doors opened as we approached and a grey coated pegasus left the throne room with Princess Dinky on her back. Dinky was waving back at her ‘aunty’ standing on the other side of the door.
Once Dinky had gone, Princess Celestia looked toward us. “Ms Scratch, Ms Melody, please come in.”
“So,” Vinyl ventured. “You’re okay now, right?”
“Indeed,” the princess said as she led up toward one of the side doors of the throne room. “Once I ‘snapped out of it’, I returned to normal with little adversity.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “What about Dinky, isn’t she still dangerous?”
Celestia nodded. “She is young and still has much to learn until she’ll be able to control herself. So until she does, I’m sending her back to Ponyville with some forewarning. My own student will see to her magical education and I’m confident her mother will have no trouble finding a flight instructor for her.” Celestia smiled. “When she’s ready, I’ll have a role for her. Perhaps as a diplomat, I’m rather curious to see how the griffons would react to her asking them to be nice to each other for a change.”
The princess opened a side door into an antechamber. It was an enclosed room, the door thick and the windows double glazed. This was the sort of secret back room that important deals were done in and secrets exchanged. When the doors shut, the sounds of the palace and birdsong outside dwindled to silence. The room was sound proof, and the windows likely enchanted for privacy too.
Luna sat in a dark coloured recliner probably tailored to her. The table in front of her held a coffee cup and a tea set. She held up a hoof. “Octavia, and Vinyl too, ‘tis good to see the both of you. Come sit.”
I followed Celestia and took the guest sofa across from where Celestia sat on her own recliner beside Luna’s. Vinyl hesitated. “Sorry, Princess Luna,” Vinyl said with a bob of her head. “But I’m not sure if we’ve met…”
Luna smiled from where she lay. “We haven’t, but we have heard of you. No pony who enjoys the night so much should escape our notice.”
“Luna,” Celestia said quietly, “You’re slipping.”
Luna glowered at her sister. “One does not break lifetimes of habit quickly, Celestia.” A smile crept back onto her face. “Admit though, that you do enjoy hearing us speak thusly.”
“We do,” Celestia smiled at Luna before turning her attention to Vinyl. “Vinyl, please sit. You don’t need to be formal with us here.” Celestia nodded toward the other side of my seat.
“Vinyl,” I said. “You’re being more formal than I am. Ponies would be shocked.” Pushed into action, Vinyl jumped over the arm of the seat and lounged across her side of the sofa. I was forced to move over so Vinyl had room to rest her head against the back of the seat, rather than my arm.
Vinyl took a biscuit from the plate by the teapot, bit a chunk out of it and said, “What up?”
I elbowed her in the side. “Now you’re just overcompensating,” I said under my breath.
Celestia and Luna laughed lightly. For a moment I was struck when I saw that Celestia was sitting formally and that Luna was somewhat less so as she drank from her coffee cup. It was a bit of a parallel.
Celestia was the first to speak. “We’d like to take this chance to personally thank the pair of you for what you did yesterday. You both went above and beyond the demands expected of you, doing us and Equestria a great service.”
“So,” Luna said sat herself up. “Custom dictates we reward you with something fitting: land, titles, boons...”
“As a starting point,” Celestia mused. “Octavia, perhaps your quartet would like to be selected to perform at the Gala?”
I sat up a little straighter. “Thank you, Princess but—”
“Sister,” Luna interrupted. “Tis hardly a boon at all, you said yourself that they’d already earned it. Better they receive titles and land. I recall that the scenery in the northeast is quite stunning.”
Celestia frowned. “Luna, I’m afraid all of that land has long since been bought or parcelled out.”
I tried to speak, “While that would be—”
“Position then,” Luna said, “Something chiefly ceremonial like a Timekeeper, or indeed, a Mistress of Ceremonies.”
“An MCship?!” Vinyl rolled forward and put her hooves on the table. “I’ll take it!”
Celestia looked toward me. “What sort of reward do you think is appropriate, Octavia?”
I thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t want to think I’d gotten a position I didn’t deserve, the Gala performance should go to the most talented.”
Celestia nodded slowly toward me. “Well said, my little pony.” I suddenly got the feeling I’d just passed a test. “Indeed, you had earned it, Luna was correct in saying it isn’t much of a reward to give you something you already earned.”
“I think that would be enough,” I said. “More would probably seem too much.”
“I did discuss something with Luna last night.” Celestia turned around and lit her horn, bringing up a document folder from behind her seat and placed it on the table. “You have proven yourself capable and trustworthy, so perhaps this may be in your interests. I need somepony to act as an ambassador for Equestria on a trip. Not too stressful, indeed the sparse itinerary and culture appreciation portions almost make it a holiday.”
I blinked a couple of times, and my jaw loosened. I was being offered an all expense paid trip. “That sounds wonderful.”
Luna grinned at me. “We thought so too.”
“Tavi,” Vinyl leant back and whispered in my ear, “Totally jealous.”
“Of course Vinyl can go too,” Luna added casually.
“Buck yeah!” Vinyl yelled out, and I elbowed her again to silence further crowing.
“Princesses, we’d love to accept,” I said formally. “Where would we be going to?”
Princess Luna leaned forward and brought her hooves together. “Under the Sparkling Sea. To where you’ll meet the mermares and seaponies.”
“No!” Vinyl and I cried together.
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That was a very fun, short adventure story. And extremely creepy mind control.
Vinyl and Octavia make for quite the adventuring pair.
I definitely liked this. A solid adventure full of wacky hijinks, with the fate of Equestria at stake. Vinyl and Octavia were a solid adventuring pair too.
Adore Dinky. All glory to her.
Oh goodness. Dinky in charge, you say? Equestria's about to get an overdose of super cute adventure time.
Mah heart!!
Delightful! Any day I get to see the devious DJ in action, well, that's a good day. Fantastic story!
I like your premise.
*Grins and applauds* Bravo.
Bravo. Bravo.
Truth: When something looks too cute to be natural... kill it quickly before it spreads.
I can completely see this happening...
I knew I didn't trust Dinky for good reason...!
Well done! This was highly enjoyable!
That final part of the description made me go to YouTube to see what a baby harp seal was. I think it fits Dinky well.
Damn… I found a sorta winningverse fic I actually liked.
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/117/814/are-you-wizard.jpg
My god, this is...there are no words.
You sir, are a genius.
I will forever bow to your awesomeness for making this the perfect idea for a comic. thanks man
Amusing, cute, and rather clever. I like how wrote something that offers a plausible explanation to what happened and a reasonable way to overcome it. Also, I like how even Celestia and Luna are subject to hubris. :)
hmm cute eh?harpseals.org/images/sealing/clubbing1.jpg so cute I just want to beat her.
Princess Nyx could beat the cutie crap out of that filly any day.
th05.deviantart.net/fs71/200H/i/2013/051/b/2/nyx_is_best_alicorn_by_scootaloooo-d5vmimv.png
CURB-STOMP THE BLITHERING CHILD OF THAT NUMBSKULL OF MULE!!!!!!!
I noticed Celestia had a statue of Shadow Kicker in her head-space. :D
3884316
Allow me to help. FIMfiction uses BBC coding which works like HTML tags, to get images you enclose a link, like yours above, within [ img ] [ /img ] (without spaces).
The result is:
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg
3884332
The C in BBC stands for code. Just call it BB code or BBCode.
Heh, Gendo!Luna.
3884387
If we're going to discuss semantics. The context I used, 'BBC coding', refers to the use of a coding standard rather than the name itself, Bulletin Board Code. This is similar to me saying 'a post should be Bulletin Board Code coded.' Though strictly speaking I should say 'You can embed images using BBCode's [ img ] tags'.
English can be such fun.
3884182 3884346 3884351 3884429
It is in fact, Zelda's Lullaby. Though you could call it Luna's Lullaby here.
Have a sample on cello. I wrote a lot of this with this video on a loop.
3884412
I just didn't want anyone unfamiliar with it to think it was related to BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Dinky, why?
Look forward to reading this.
3883134 That comment crosses the line twice
3883893 I agree she's the cuter one, but I don't think they should resort to beating. They should merely love and Tolerate each other.
3886602
Welcome to the Lunaverse
We have a baseball bat with Love and Tolerate carved onto it, so you can do both at once.
It was very enjoyable
Are you going to write about their trip to the seaponie?
3884083 Of course. She has to have something to remember her old bang-buddy by.
3886973
Imagine that you lived your entire life with only one princess, naturally you start thinking she's the one who makes everything work. Without any major changes to Equestria that can be labeled "Luna's idea", nopony is really going to take much notice. Not that Vinyl Scratch has ever been super attentive to anything outside her area.
3887134
Strictly speaking, I'm limited to text format, so rather than writing D... F... C... B-C D... F... C... I figured I was better off using Solfège (Do,re,mi) so that a reader could try it aloud to pick up the tune. Which meant I could hide a sound based easter egg in plain text, which is kinda awesome.
3882856
Thanks for picking that up. The lost 'we' was returned safely to its parents, who were glad it was found.
It is more like the Tyranny of King Washington from Assassin's Creed 3.
3886583 Like kittens.
pics.rofl.to/pic/evil-kitten/download/www.rofl.to_evil-kitten.jpg
Absolute evil.
Does that come with a free Wii strap?
Dat ending!
th05.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2013/096/a/3/shoo_be_doo_by_arrkhal-d60p9kz.png
3891548 ya dat ending!!!
What's the matter Vinyl? Don't want to go to Atlantis? Or whatever the ponified name of Atlantis would be.
3902412 Coltlantis?
Atlant-hoof? (Insert various pony parts[and not the gross ones either you sick minded bastards!])
3910558
Actually it's Aquastria according to 'Under the Sparkling Sea'.
3910580 AH! That is sensible! Adore Dinky.
She is just so awesome!
Brilliant and funny. Well done, Rodi.
I'm not sure if Luna was just trolling Octavia and Vinyl or if she was serious, it's funny either way.
This was a fun read.
24.media.tumblr.com/a257ad5165644b1f79354634dfdee284/tumblr_mqo61uYbwk1rj6vd5o1_400.png
4051307
Thank you very much.
4051311
You're welcome
Sorry about the wait: we've been backlogged.
4365654
It is.
And thus the filly shaped threat was dealt with. Just goes to show, not all threats to Equestria are butt ugly insects in disguise or loony unicorn dictators. Some are subtle threats that even the one causing them are aware of.
By the way, nice story!
5/5