//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Thursday // Story: The Night Princess and the Day Off // by Crossed Quills //------------------------------// Luna Implaccabilis, The Mare in the Moon, unconquered in any ambition but one, had a new goal. It was a strange goal, and curiously more difficult for one of her vaunted prestige, position, and power, but it was one that most ponies managed sooner or later. The trick to accomplishing difficult tasks, she had found, was to break them down into simpler tasks, and approach them individually. The first step came first, and in this case, the first step was convincing the various ponies that were assisting her that all of this was really necessary. “Alright...” Cadance was chewing on a multi-hued strand of her mane. “I mean, I understand it. Sure. Why not? But explain it again for Shining’s sake.” If the prince consort resented being used as an excuse for exposition, no trace of the resentment betrayed itself on his face. Instead, he sat back in the overstuffed armchair that had become his semi-permanent roost when visiting Luna’s chambers in the palace, and looked on attentively. Luna knew from conversations and experience that the former Captain of the Solar Guard was far from an idiot, but perhaps hours upon hours of watch duty had served as suitable training for the rather more patience-wearing task of being the pink pony princess’ conversational prop. “Simple. I have attempted, heretofore, endeavours that are solely focused around my leisure. As I am sure that it is easy to see, I am not easily disposed toward leisure. Enjoyable as many modern pass-times are, my favourite hobbies fell out of vogue some centuries ago, at the very latest. Thus, it behooves me to set my hoof toward more productive endeavours.” Luna smiled. “When I spoke to the mare in the ice cream parlour, and asked what many ponies do on their days off, she told me that they were frequently filled with chores, such as laundry.” Paper Weight raised a hoof. “Point of order, your highness? You don’t really... wear clothes. I mean, you have your regalia, but that’s more something you’d take to an armourer than a laundromat.” “Of course I do not wear clothes. I have not yet done my laundry. You would not ask me to wear filthy clothing, would you?” The navy blue social secretary rubbed her temples. “Why wouldn’t it be clean, if you never wear it?” Luna smiled triumphantly. “For that I have not taken a day off to wash them!” You couldn’t argue with that logic, Paper Weight reflected. It would be something like trying to box with an invisible, intangible pony. Possibly from several rooms away. Now, Cadance was frowning. “Um... Auntie, do you even know how to do laundry? I mean, what with having servants and all for most of your adult life, and modern washing technology, and all of that?” “Eh, how hard could it be?” Luna’s telekinetic aura flared to life, and she brought forth, from her closet, three large laundry baskets. “Alright, I’m doing a dark load, a light load, and a precious metals load. Anyone who wants in, put it in the right basket.” Her official raiment of state ended up in the third, and, after a moment, was joined by Cadance’s. The Pink Pony Princess of Love shrugged at her husband. “It’s not like it couldn’t use a wash.” * * * The reader may be excused for sharing Cadance’s belief that Luna had never once done laundry in her life. As a foal, growing up under the reign of Discord before eventually overthrowing the Chaos Tyrant with her sister, the state of one’s clothing had little social impact, and it was impossible to ensure that any soap bubbles that might form when generating suds for the chore would not turn out to be carnivorous, or worse. Later, when at the shared helm of the growing principality of Equestria, there had been servants to do what cleaning was necessary, but as far as social mores had gone, beyond some basic personal hygiene, cleanliness had been next to goddessliness only in a particularly ambitious game of Scrabble. Nevertheless, the Night Princess had long been renowned for certain eccentricities. Along with royal statues of ‘thou shalt not place yon midden next to yon town well’, and ‘all courtiers shall bathe at least once the fortnight preceding their audience in court’, she had been known to have a particular fixation with her personal cleanliness.(7) Troubling the servants about it during times of extremity, she had therefore considered to be an unfair use of her royal prerogative. 7. Pony historians often attributed historical reluctance to bathe to the harsh, unpleasant nature of the soaps available prior to about 200 A.B. After all, they argued, soaps were made with extremely caustic solutions that left the skin dry and treated the hair harshly. This, like many such historical explanations, was just a cruel lye. Luna hadn’t just done the laundry once in her centuries of life. She had done it four times. True, she could count her experiences in doing the chore on her limbs without taking into consideration her wings or horn, but sometimes quality could make up for quantity regarding the educative level of an experience. And boy, had there been some lessons learned. During the early days of Equestria, legend held that Luna had called a terrible storm upon a battlefield, forcing both pony and gryphon forces to retreat to higher ground within the contested area. Too tightly packed to have a proper battle, the soldiers of each side had found common ground – or at least sufficient liquor that both sides enjoyed to make up the difference – and rampant peace had broken out. Lauded by the diplomats and later by historians as an insightful blow that brought lasting peace to the troubled region, Luna had actually just gotten some blood on the shirt that Celestia had just given her for her birthday, and a bit of weather manipulation had seemed the apropos way of finding enough time to get it rinsed before the stain set. When the Fire Jötunn had descended upon Canterlot, bringing with them ruin and despair, seeking to snuff the nascent empire that would someday stand as a bulwark against them before it could take full shape, Luna had posed as an old washermare, and learned enough of their culture to play the leaders of the enemy force against one another. She had also learned valuable lessons about ironing finery. Which of these proved more useful, history had remained curiously silent upon. Once, legend had it, when washing her battle-garments in the stream, Luna had encountered a bean neigh, a washerpony spirit portent of death, washing the blood from the battle raiment of ponies destined to die in battle to come. Not only did she steal those clothes, sparing those doomed to die a grisly end, but before doing so, she had learned a good deal about difficult-to-lift stains from the grim messengers. And then, there had been the curious incident of the Soap Saboteur, scant decades before Luna’s Nightmare Moon issues had come to a head. Everyone knew that the best lye soaps came from Gryphonstan, but the products that had come to Equestrian markets had been tainted, causing rashes and mane-loss. Luna, along with a team of her hoof-picked specialists had discovered the political group responsible, who were trying to sour trade between the nations in a strange bid for protectionism of Equestrian markets. The resulting conflict had flooded the warehouse of untainted goods; in the suds that had followed, the slippery and sliding saboteurs had found it impossible to make a clean getaway. Luna had promised to clean up the corruption in the town; it was difficult to argue that she hadn’t at least made a good stab at the docks district.(8) 8. What history does NOT record is that Princess Celestia had only done laundry all of once, and had fallen in. The red clothing she had been cleaning had bled dye like a gut-shot ink bottle, and it had just so happened that was the day that the Royal Portrait Artist had finished designs for the Celestia Action Figure. Another historical mystery solved. * * * It was difficult to posit a new challenge to one who had seen as many centuries as her contemporaries had seen years, Luna reflected. Even if not all of those centuries had been productive ones, novelty was found in inverse proportion to experience, and experience she had in abundance. Still, many of the things that contemporary ponies took for granted had proven new and exciting upon her first return, and there were still joys that Luna discovered every once and a while that were only incredible with the proper outsider’s perspective. It stood to reason, in a way. Ponies whose parents had grown up with the quick match (still known in some circles as the Nightmare, even though her powers, even augmented, had never been particularly infernal), or the typewriter never really considered that these were recent inventions. Toilet paper still stood far above the crowd as her favourite invention of the past two centuries, for reasons that were either too obvious to warrant explanation, or too grandiose to allow for a succinct one. The modern laundromat was another such. It was airy, well-lit, and comfortable enough to spend an afternoon in, although not so comfortable as to promote lingering beyond the span of a load or three of wash. The machines were, evidently, in good repair, if a bit new-fangled for Luna’s tastes. Still, Paper Weight was, as ever, loyally at her side, and there were instructions printed above the machines; Luna was confident that she could figure it out. What was strange was how many ponies were staring at her. It wasn’t the number, per se. She frequently had ponies stare at her when she went places, to say nothing of bowing down in respect to their sovereign. Frequently, fear was involved. But despite her adopted air of nonchalance, she noted with an increasingly chalant mind that there was an awestruck demeanour, more than a reverent or fearful one, to the others around her. Not like ponies encountering their Princess, more like... “Hail, Nightmare Moon! Hail the Conquering Darkness! Hail, the Eternal Night!” ... Cultists. They popped out of the woodwork every once in a while, for both Celly and herself. The difference being that, whereas Celestia mostly got pleasantly well-meaning ponies who worshipped the sun, spread hope and prosperity in their own slightly daffy way, and only occasionally practised pony sacrifice, Luna’s own cultists tended to be Nightmare Moon cultists, discontents who believed that the coming of eternal night would be a good thing for them. It was unfortunate, and not a little embarrassing, somewhat like having your teenage diary read as scripture by some future generation. And now there was a laundromat full of them? Luna hoped against hope that, unlikely as it seemed, this was a group that worshipped her as some kind of goddess of hygiene. It was definitely better than ‘we had to wash all of our cultist robes because they were covered in blood’. “Welcome to the temple of Eternal Night, oh glorious Darkbringer!” Luna sighed. “Your temple is a laundromat!” One of the pony cultists had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Well, in the sacred text, it said ‘Ensure that Soap Flakes May Be Bought’.” There was a cheer from the crowd. “So we did! And then, when we had all of the soap flakes that we could possibly buy, we decided to buy a laundromat to use them in! As far as temples go, it’s nice to have one that pays for itself.” Luna frowned. “Did this ‘sacred text’ happen to also have a list of vegetables on it?” “Yea, verily! And following that, the most holy commandment; ‘talk to sister about feelings of anxiety and loneliness’! It was the only one on the list without a check-mark next to it, so we knew that it must be important and special.” There was a cheer. “Those of us without sisters do find this difficult, oh Gracious One. But we thought it might be more... metaphorical. About the importance of discussing our emotions, and working through them. To be the best us that we can possibly be!” Alright then, not your teenage diary. Your to-do list. Which had apparently benefited from dogmatic interpretation. Really, these were loony ponies, but they seemed harmless enough. Then again, they always did, at first. Luna was in a crux. On the one hoof, she really wanted to do her laundry. Like so many other things, it had become a matter of principle. On the other hand, one of the duties of a princess was to be a good role-model. The longer that she spent time here, the greater the possibility that one of two things would happen; she would say or do something that would inspire these ponies to greater levels of lunacy, or she would snap and tell them to get on with their lives. That would be ‘being a good role model’, and dispersing one of the cults to her darker persona would probably get trotted out as doing the duties of a princess. Something to be avoided if at all possible. “Well... You seem to have everything in order. You do you.” The Night Princess did her best to come up with some other vaguely encouraging platitude that would be empty enough of meaning as to not be interpreted as ‘become a cannibal cult and take Canterlot by force’. “Carry on? And, uh... could someone help me with one of these laundry machines?” * * * Celestia smiled at her younger sister, as the pair took tea in the pleasant, open concept sunroom that adjoined her quarters. “I’ve heard you were quite busy today, Sister.” Luna gave a rueful chuckle. “Oh, nothing much. Just had to deal with some of the Lunatics.” Those under the influence of the moon, indeed. “But I think I got away without either being a good or bad influence. They seemed mostly harmless.” Celestia’s smile deepened and became somehow sad, and Luna’s heart dropped. Her sister knew something that she didn’t. Not that this was an unusual state of affairs – they were pretty well the only two who could still surprise one another, Discord excepted, and Celestia had a millennium of practice on her – but in relation to the conversation that they were having, this could mean anything. “Yes, it was good of you to humour them. Apparently you even left behind some divine commandments for them?” Luna frowned. She hadn’t done any such thing. Then again, she had been making sure that none of her stockings had ended up squirrelled away as creepy ‘holy relics’ or similar... Oh ponyfeathers. “My laundry list?” “And the to-do list you kept in your breastplate, apparently. They are now devoted to the concept of ensuring that all members of their faith take a reasonable amount of time for self-improvement every day, a good number of them are planning to attend the university, and a fair hoofful have made plans to see their doctors. And of course, many of them intend to do their laundry only on Thursdays now.” Celestia adjusted her own tiara, now squeaky clean and shiny with polish. “I will say, you did an excellent job.” Luna sighed. “I suppose that could have gone worse. But one bit will get you ten that it’ll get trotted out as ‘being a good role model to those who have elected to serve the sisters two’.” She scowled. “There are times when I miss ‘by this axe I rule’. Life was simpler.” Celestia sipped her tea. “It was. Messier, though.” Luna shook her head, a bit of rueful amusement escaping her in spite of herself. “Messier, though.” Celestia glanced upon her younger sister with sympathy. “Lulu, are you going to keep this up? You don’t have to. I’ll sign a bill exempting you myself, if you want.” Luna shook her head. “No, Celly... I’m seeing this through to the end. One way or another, I’m not going to let Clearing House win or name me a hypocrite. I’m just going to have to have the most boring day ever. Tomorrow, though.” Celestia’s eyebrows flicked heavenward, and Luna continued. “After all, no one knows better than us: tomorrow is another day.”