//------------------------------// // Sleep Is For The Weak // Story: M.O.P. (Mothers Of Patience) // by Inferno demon Dash //------------------------------// In all honestly, Luna should have just turned around and gone back to bed. She had woken up to get a snack, perhaps a chocolate bar or two, when she walked into the dining room and noticed her sister and her old friend, Twilight Velvet sitting at the table with many different colored papers spread out before them, not bearing any resemblance to the other and in no particular order making the Alicorn of the night half heartedly grab one of the papers in her hoof, Velvet sipping on some tea as Celestia kept looking back and forth from each paper with a glare. By sheer luck the paper held in Luna's hoof turned out to be one of the copies of the group Twilight Velvet was taking very seriously to start as Luna read the words quickly before placing it back on the table with a confused look. "Your group's name is Mop? Sounds a bit sexiest and unusual for a group of mothers, doesn't it?" She asked quizzically causing Velvet to nearly choke on her tea as Celestia snorted, looking up at her little sister with a smirk. "That's what I told her, but she keeps saying that it's one of the only titles to fit our certain...agenda. I think it's rather silly and for a famous writer such as herself, a bit unoriginal but who I am to get in the way of an amusing pun, if nothing else. Would you like to help us, Luna? We are trying to decide on a back story for me and-" Luna cut her sister off in surprise, both forehooves on the table as she raised herself up and sat in one of the chairs near it, her weariness forgotten for the moment. "You plan to attend these meetings as you are? And on top of your regular duties? Don't you have enough on your plate already, Tia?" Luna interrupted causing Celestia to frown and doubt herself, the fraction of unwinding and sharing laughs forgotten before Velvet placed a hoof on her side with an award winning smile. "No, Lulu. She won't be as we see her when we attend the meetings, she'll be a completely different pony, sharing all kinds of different experiences to the females who show their faces and being able to talk freely about her son...although he obviously won't be talked about as a dragon, and we may have to make a rather elaborate and complicated spin of yarn in order to really sell it and of course she won't be an Alicorn...we didn't really think this through, did we?" Twilight Velvet sighed with a groan placing her head on the table as her forehooves covered the back of her head in stress. She was already starting to regret this. But Celestia, the patient and optimistic mare that she was wouldn't let her friend give up on all her hard work just yet, besides, Celestia herself was actually really excited to just be able to freely talk about Spike around those who were not family and not having to worry about the scorn of the Canterlot Council, even an Alicorn was not above the law if it was for personal gain and despite having thousands of years in knowledge and experience, she worried what the masses would think if they learned that a creature not even of their own species would one day rule over them, if he wanted the crown at all, that is. Celestia felt a burst of pride at Spike's accomplishments and she knew that between his amazing cooking skills, self taught with his photographic memory and passed down from recipes from both the Sparkles and the royal sisters, his music which he thoroughly enjoyed, taught by Celestia herself and Night Light even with some tips from Cadance, and his desire to explore many more parts of the world beside his two homes and expand his knowledge that Spike the dragon could very well not even want the crown or the desire to rule Equestria for a very long time. He was only fourteen years old, by pony standards after all and his species lived to be nearly ten thousand years old, barring disease or war. She had loads of stories to talk about watching Spike grow up, even more so with what he went through now and like any good parent, wanted to brag about it as often as she could. Plus it would be nice being somepony completely different for a change, and with her age she literally had a fine number of options to chose from, all this thinking had Celestia nearly bouncing with joy as a large smile appeared on her face and she wrapped a wing around her friend. "We have already come up with a rather solid plan so I wouldn't be overwhelmed with my duties and so that I could enjoy some time off, even if it is only two nights a month. I'm having a local editor make some extra copies of Velvet's final draft as we speak to be delivered throughout Canterlot, Cloudsdale and Ponyville respectively to test the waters so that poor Velvet's house doesn't get to crowded and after some time we might find another area to accommodate more of our guest, maybe if we are lucky something like this could even be taken nationwide or-" "You might be getting ahead of yourself, Tia. Let's start out with a small group and slowly work our way from there, it's only Monday after all, the first meeting won't be for another two days, does that sound fair?" Twilight Velvet interrupted with a smile and roll of her eyes making the solar princess blush in embarrassment as Luna couldn't help but chuckle and summon a servant to get the chocolate she so desperately wanted and sighed loudly. She wasn't going back to sleep for some time, that's for sure. Six hours later, upon which Celestia had to attend to three nobles, a Changeling ambassador from King Thorax and an ambassador from Saddle Arabia and each of the girls were still arguing over which portion of Equestria they wanted Sunny Skies to hail from, as well as what race of pony they wanted Spike to be. "If we make him a unicorn he'll obviously have to perform magic. If by some miracle we have our kids show up to the group they might think he's on par with Twilight and Shining, we can't put that sort of stress on a fourteen year old magic dragon just to impress other mothers and children in the herd!" Twilight Velvet shouted, her fourth half empty glass of wine swaying in her front left hoof as she practically growled in Luna's face who snarled. "And if we make him a Pegasus, he'll be forced to learn flight, air currents, knowledge of Cloudsdale and it's history-" "Sunny Skies and Flame Heart came from Fillydelphia, where Sunny is an established assistant from the mayor and divorced, she moved from her home town to experience the splendor of Canterlot only a week ago-" Velvet practically screamed before being rudely interrupted by Luna who was on her six cup of wine at this time. "No, she and Flame Heart are from Baltimare where she lost her second child in a miscarriage and worked in a newspaper print, trying to scrape together all that she could-" "How can she afford to move to Canterlot if she can't even afford to take care of her son and herself?! She would barely be able to afford the train ride let alone one night in a hotel! They need money-" "And writing a lot of fake documents and having her have experience working in a political office is any less time consuming then saying she can't be homeless for a few nights?!" Luna screamed back, as she bent down and pressing her muzzle rather firmly into Velvet's own who glared at her as though she was Tirek himself. "I can't believe you would have your own sister and nephew be homeless even for a wild and outlandish backstory, Luna-" "That's Princess Luna to you-" "Calm yourself Star Face, we both know your title means nothing when I'm around." Velvet all but roared as Luna nearly lowered her head and stabbed the other mare but groaned feeling a headache coming on and slammed her head into the table in front of her instead, her horn getting stuck as she only huffed. "Tia, what do you think we should do?" Luna asked, attempting to take another sip of her wine, her foggy mind not even registering that her face was basically stuck in the table as the wine poured about a quarter of it's liquid in Luna's mouth and splashed about the same amount onto the side of her face as she only groaned. Celestia all but ignored the two who were screaming at each other for hours with nearly six bottles of wine around them as she adjusted the glasses on her snout and tried so very, very hard to read the wooden carvings that Spike and Twilight drew when they were younger underneath the table, her wings sprayed out completely and an entire bottle in her right front hoof, tears streaking down her face at all the missed opportunities of not being there for Spike when he needed her as she hiccupped and attempted to wipe her nose with a hoof, despite an empty tissue box and multiple amounts of tissue scattered all around her. "She can't hear you Lulu, she's gone into reminisce mother mood." Twilight Velvet sighed deeply as she tried to lower herself down gently to help her friend out of whatever funk she was going through now but her brain had other ideas and chose to get there a faster way as her legs gave out and she slammed face first into the carpet. "Tia...we need an idea." Velvet whispered, reaching a hoof out to stroke Celestia's wings making the Alicorn of the sun suddenly get an idea and have the urge to hurl at the same time. Grabbing the tissue box next to her she barfed into it, which did absolutely nothing since it was upside down and a small box as she didn't noticed her front hooves were covered in vomit as she slowly caught her breath and nearly used her Royal We to give her friend and sister her idea. "Spike and I, Celestia of the sun-" "Flame Heart and Sunny Skies." Both Luna and Velvet corrected simultaneously as Celestia ignored them and continued. "Hail from Vanhoover. I was born to a blacksmith and ice cream sells mare with my sister...Luna what's your name again?" Celestia questioned as Luna shrugged and forgot that her sister couldn't see her before attempting to splash more wine in her mouth and answered. "Milky Way." Came the reply and a shout of pride as the alcoholic beverage spilled into her mouth by complete accident. "Yes, Milky Way and worked to the bone to save up for college as we were a poor family. I got my degree in science-" "Oh so now you super smart, huh?" Luna yelled angrily as Celestia once again ignored her. "And I gave birth to a healthy son named Spike the dragon-" "So many things wrong with that sentence. But a couple of questions, Tia. One, his name is Flame Heart in this scenario, how do you keep messing that up? And two, you can't just have a foal without a stallion, so how are you suddenly pregnant and giving birth?" Velvet asked as she spat out what she swore was blood and licked her top teeth with her tongue. "Actually-" Luna tried to speak but Celestia intervened...again. "I will provide for him in the coming days, you'll see mother, I'll be a better mother than you could ever be!" Celestia screamed as she slammed her front hooves into the bottom of the table, hitting it so hard that it shook and manage to set Luna free who dropped onto the floor with the other mares and slowly brought the bottle of wine to her lips with a sigh. "Did Celestia have an issue with her mother?" Twilight Velvet asked slowly to Luna who snorted and rolled her eyes, but only succeeded in what could basically be described as a wink...not even directed at Velvet but a suit of empty, metal armor. "You kidding? Mother was the kindest, most gentle mare we ever known, she loved us with every ounce of her heart. Celly here has just been listening to too much soap opera radio again and thinks the characters in the story are her in some way...she does this when she's drunk off her ass. And any second she's going to go nearly supernova and start racing to apologize to Spike for not being a good mother, but he's used to it." Luna tried to speak very clearly and thought she was giving out all the details her mind was taking the unicorn but all Velvet heard was something about radio characters and Spike going supernova. "He can do that?!" Twilight Velvet shouted loudly in horror as both Luna and Celestia nodded vigorously as if there life depended on it. "We...we have to save him. He can't be...this awesome!" Velvet slurred as Celestia rolled over and attempted to stand up, banging her head hard against the wood of the table as she hissed and unfurled her wings once more, walking slowly backwards out of the table and dragging Twilight Velvet out from underneath by her tail with her mouth. "We have to save our babies!" Celestia screamed into Velvet's face and flew off with every ounce of her power to Twilight's Castle of Friendship, dragging Velvet once more by her tail in her teeth as the unicorn started screaming about Twilight getting cavities if she didn't brush her teeth right now, not even being aware that she was be held upside down by a drunk Alicorn. Luna finally finished the rest of the remaining bottle held in her hooves and looked to the loyal bat pony guards coming to rouse her for her own duties of the night as she looked up at them and winked. "Did you get that?" She asked as they glanced at each other and face hoofed, the three mares had been alone in the dining room for hours so nopony, especially the drunk mares were writing anything down. Meanwhile it took about two hours to finally reach Twilight's castle since they got lost in the Everfree and chased by a hoard of Timberwolves but at long last they had arrived...or at least Celestia did, Twilight Velvet threw a rock into Fluttershy's house and broke in to cuddle with the Pegasus, making the extremely tired young mare terrified and very confused on why exactly Twilight's mother had broken into her home. Fluttershy was about to get up and ask but unfortunately as soon as she lifted her head off her pillow, Twilight Velvet  flung a hoof out to proclaim that she had come to save her daughter and accidently knocked her out. Velvet, in her drunk mind had assumed that Twilight wanted her to cuddle like she did when she was younger, so she grabbed the young mare whose nose she broke in her hooves and snuggled, falling asleep instantly, despite the mud, blood coming from Fluttershy's nose and twigs in her mane, fur and tail. Mother knows best after all. As this was going on, Celestia had after an hour of wandering the castle, found Spike's bed and attempted to wake him up, she didn't notice that she had passed the dragon himself walking down the halls to play cards with Twilight, Starlight and Trixie but once Spike himself saw his own mother nearly gallop like her life depended on it to find his room, he gave chase. This had to be the third time this year that she had done it and he felt guilty not visiting her as he should have but this was just getting ridiculous. After stopping to catch his breath, he looked into his room and found the co ruler of Equestria passed out drunk, snuggling his blanket and pillow and snoring making him chuckle. He could get a camera and take a picture to blackmail her, but that wouldn't be very nice or fair. So he settled for telling Twilight by whispering into her ear, saying goodnight to the others and falling asleep next to the mare who raised him as if he was her own flesh and blood. Mother knew best after all.