Two Unicorns walk into a village

by Georg


Epilogue

Two Unicorns Walk Into a Village - Epilogue


Princess Celestia sat happily at her lunch, carefully buttering a roll while humming a happy tune. Not even a morning of meetings with grumpy bureaucrats, touchy diplomats, or even a brief visit by her nephew Blueblood had put the smallest of dents into her happiness, and she was completely oblivious to the resulting stream of agreeable diplomats, effective bureaucrats, and — well, Blueblood was at least unchanged. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she said to nobody in particular.

“What, may I ask, is wonderful, My Princess?” asked the nobody in particular, who happened to be a dark green unicorn servant with a stack of paper for a cutie mark. (a theme that unfortunately ran rather strongly in the Royal Castle)

“Oh, Papercut. You must have heard about my sister last night?”

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of—” Papercut sniffed “—that ‘Party.’ There has been pilferage.”

Celestia happily burbled on, oblivious to the stack of paper the servant was trying to show her. “When she flew home last night, she simply insisted on raising the moon, all by herself. She’s been so afraid lately. I had thought that terrible monster had hurt my beautiful sister, and I might never see that side of her again. But now…”

The Royal Princess — giggled. Papercut was aghast, but tried to keep his face straight.

“She still smells a bit like watermelon and some other fruits. At first I thought she was drunk, but it smelled a little like the scent from the wagon that blew up a few days ago. Don’t you think so, Papercut?”

“I would not know, Your Highness. I did not go about 'sniffing' after the event. Anyway—”

“And then after she raised the moon, do you know what she did?”

“Stars?” ventured Papercut.

“Stars!” exclaimed the Princess. “A thousand years I’ve been doing stars, and I just don’t have the touch for it, I’m afraid. Oh, its sooo good to have her back.”

After waiting for a moment to make sure the Princess was done, Papercut started, “Anyway about the pilf—”

“And after we finished looking at the stars, we went back to my room and we talked, and we cried, and we talked until late. And we fell asleep together like we haven’t done since we were foals, for heaven's sake.” She looked off into the distance, and took a bite of her roll. “It was marvelous. I’ve been back to check on her twice now, she’s just sleeping with her face stuck in my pillow. And smiling.”

“Very nice. Perhaps after Your Highness finishes lunch, you could go check on your sister again?”

“Oh, don’t be silly.” She chewed for a bit and then swallowed thoughtfully. “Well, maybe just once more.”

“Before that, Ma'am, would you care to hear my report? We have a thief in the castle.”

“Go on,” Celestia switched to a piece of toast and began covering it with jam, trying to keep at least one small fragment of her attention on the annoying unicorn servant.

“The trail started after the animals that the — yellow terror set free in the castle had been rounded up and returned to the gardens. Zircon, one of your Royal Courier service, was seen leaving the scene of the cleanup before the task was complete.”

The faint memory of the event penetrated the happy fog that surrounded her mind. “Oh, yes. We had found several eggs that the gardeners were unable to match up with any of the nests. I sent him off with a ‘Please see that these are taken care of until they hatch.’ Do you know where he took them?”

“Possibly. Over the course of that day, a number of rather peculiar events have been reported. For one, a Royal Chariot is missing. Two, a pair of Royal Guard on leave are missing, last seen talking to — Zircon. Three, the pegasus mailmare that was suspected in the ‘Fruitbombing’ incident over the city is missing. She was checked out of Canterlot General on the authority of this same Zircon by the same two Royal Guards. Four, a rather valuable telescope is missing out of the Royal Gift Depository.”

Celestia blinked. “How can you tell? That room is gigantic. There must be thousands of items in there.”

Papercut removed a note from his pile and floated it over to the Princess.

I owe you One Telescope, Signed — Courier Zircon

Princess Celestia chuckled. “His grandfather was a hoot. Did I ever tell you—”

“Princess!” gasped Papercut in shock. “He stole from you!”

“Well, the Royal Couriers exist to transport Royal Things from place to place. Perhaps he was under orders.”

“Well, you didn’t order him to take it, did you? Then he must have— Oh. Yes.” He made a small mark on his paper. “I shall inquire with the ‘other’ Princess when she wakes. Anyway, there are a few other minor items, a similar note was left in the place of a stack of books in the Canterlot library that was supposed to be transported to Ponyville before the unfortunate incident with Fargo and Wells.”

“Ah yes, that again. We must find a way of repeating the incident safely. It was quite lovely. And fragrant.” Celestia gave a long sniff, as if reliving a pleasant memory before turning back to the irritated unicorn. “So my sister appears to have visited Ponyville, with one of my trusted Royal Couriers as a guardian, and had the foresight to take along a pair of the Royal Guard and transportation, just in case. I shall ask her about her trip on her awakening. Is there anything else?”

“Just one more note.” The last piece of paper drifted out of Papercut’s stack and over in front of the Princess, who unfortunately had just taken a mouthful of tea.

I owe you One Royal Army, Signed — Courier Zircon

-----

The HMZ Thunder had been the pride of the Canterlot Royal Guard and the absolute queen of the Zeppelin fleet for over twenty years. Now with many times those years weighing heavily on her sagging fabric sides and fragile spars, she had been consigned to the one branch of the Guard she had never been designed for: Training.

Still, she was a gigantic presence in the sky, fully twice the size of even the most modern airships and able to carry hundreds of troops on lightning (well, slow lightning) strikes deep into any section of Equestria. Today her mighty bulk hovered almost effortlessly over the brilliant green leaves of a giant sea of flowering apple trees, unicorn forged steel chains leading to two huge anchors sunk deeply into the ground to counter any breezes that might slip past her air wing of pegasi. The main troop deployment ramp dropped with a clang into the dark and fertile dirt of the Apple farm, and a multicolored line of ponies with identical stiff manecuts began to march out. Normally Cadets in the Royal Academy wore their training armor everywhere until the day of graduation (and subsequent bleaching), but for this day’s exercise, the Cadets were glad to be free from the oppressive weight. They had no idea how much they would be wishing for the relatively light load of steel armor in just a few hours.

Directing the movements of the Cadets was Drill Sergeant Chert, a sturdy chestnut earth pony with a brilliant white mane. Rumors among the Cadets about his history were split; some thought he had simply pried himself loose from a mountain, and was made of primordial flint and obsidian. Others considered him to have been created in a volcanic forge by Princess Celestia out of discarded armor scraps and shattered weapons. In either case, he had a voice that needed no megaphone to make itself heard.

“All right you foals, Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup! Lift those hooves, try to make it look like you raw recruits may have seen the inside of a real soldier’s barracks at least once. You there! Dress that line! Echelon right… March! Hup! Hup! What do you think you’re doing there soldier! Which of those is your right hoof! I could give you four chances and you’d be wrong each time, when are they going to send me some soldiers with some brains! Doubletime, march! HupHupHupHup!”

The area the Apple family and their guest had picked out for observing the exercise had just enough elevation to look over the field, and was nicely grassed for chairs or blankets. Zircon got up from his chair to get more refreshments while watching the chaos of the milling mass of hefty ponies being sorted into lines and columns by loud officers. “More juice, Miss Apple?”

“Well, thankie kindly,” Applejack took the glass as it floated by and took a deep drink before settling back in her own chair. “Ahh. We make a fine product. How about you, Granny?”

“Whatsat? Nooo, I’m just fine. Just fine,” she trailed off as she watched the young stallions line up, sweat glistening from their pristine flanks.

“Now listen up, all of you! This training exercise is designed to see how you operate in teams! I don’t care if you’re the hottest flier in the country, can bench press an entire barracks, or lift the sun all by yourself AM I NOT MAKING MYSELF CLEAR THERE CADET!” The unicorn in question stopped whispering to the pony next to him and both seemed to melt in the chill morning air.

“You will break up into four teams, each team will elect their own leaders. Each team will be responsible for the uprooting and removal of one designated stump and transporting it over to the disposal pile. Successful teams will then be broken into smaller teams and the process will repeat. You will be graded on speed and efficiency. In addition…”

“Tain’t right,” grumbled Big Macintosh as log chains and harnesses were dragged out of the airship and began to be strapped onto the cadets.

“What’s wrong, big brother,” asked Applejack. “You jealous or sumptin?”

“Nope. Just that them city ponies are gonna get their long city tails caught up in that gear. Somepony’s gonna get hurt.”

“You know, I didn’t think of that. Very good catch, Mac.” Zircon stood up and waved at one officer, pointed at Big Macintosh, and began waving in a structured manner. "Hope they haven't changed signals since my time in the military," he muttered.

“Attention!” Drill Sergeant Chert bellowed, then paused until the recruits had all stopped. “Due to the unfamiliarity of most of you with this equipment, and the rocks in your head, we have a civilian auxiliary who will be supervising your use of the equipment to ensure safety.”

“That’s your cue, Big Mac. Go on.”

The big red pony stood stunned for a moment, before walking out into the field, accelerating as he went. By the time he reached where they were putting the cadets into harnesses he was nearly trotting with a little skip in his stride.

“I hain’t seen him run like that since he was a little one,” mumbled Granny Smith.

Hours later it seemed as if the whole population of Ponyville had turned out to watch the event unfold. Teams of trainees strained at stumps, sweating heavier as the ponies behind the traces became fewer. Where a dozen cadets working together could pull a stump as easy as pie, by the time the contest had boiled down to teams of four, it became much, much more difficult. And when it was down to just pairs, the contest hit a fever pitch. With only two mismatched stumps left in the field, one pair of ponies after another failed to uproot the smaller stump, until finally the last pair, a huge crimson earth pony and a massive snow white unicorn with a long spiral horn ripped it free from the ground and carried it over to the giant pile where the rest of the extracted stumps sat. There was a pause in the competition as the pair were unhitched and each set in their own gear. During the wait, one of the officers walked over to the Apple’s observation area.

“Courier Zircon, just wanted to say thanks for finding the cadets a little light exercise. This batch of cadets was about to drive us all crazy with all their petty little fights and squabbling. I was afraid we’d have to throw the whole batch out and start over.”

“My pleasure, Sergeant-Major Shining." The old grey stallion stood and exchanged salutes. "Oh, pardon me. Shining Armor, I’d like to introduce the rest of the Apple family: Big Macintosh is out the field. This is Granny Smith, Applejack, and their youngest, little Applebloom.”

“I'm charmed to meet such lovely ladies.” The unicorn stallion formally shook hooves with Applebloom before taking Granny Smith’s hoof and bowing over it to give it a light kiss, repeating the gesture with a blushing Applejack.

“Twilight has written about all of you, but I was beginning to think we’d never meet. I take it you were the one responsible for that delightful cake at the Gala? And its placement?”

Applejack chuckled and blushed even more. “Oh, it was an accident. Honest. I shoulda realized what could happen with Pinky Pie around and been more careful.”

“Oh no! The only thing wrong is you didn’t hit old Bluenose right in the face.” Shining Armor looked around. “Have you seen Twily around anywhere? Oh wait. I see her.” In the crowd of ponies that surrounded the field, there was one lilac unicorn hopping up and down, waving like a maniac. “I’ll talk to you later, I better go talk to my sister before the last stump gets pulled or she’ll never forgive me.”

After Shining Armor trotted off to his sister, Applejack turned to Zircon. “Last stump gets pulled? Heck, that’s Big Betty, she was about twenty trees all knotted together til she died. Them two big fellers was just barely able to pull out one stump, now they’re gonna pull out one ten times its size solo?”

Zircon settled in his chair with a worried smile. “It was Shining’s idea. Just watch.”

The white unicorn went first, digging in his hooves while using the magic of his horn in combination. The creaking of wood could be heard in the dead silence as every pony held their breath, then a massive sigh of disappointment as he quit, leaving the massive stump unmoved.

Then the crimson earth pony hitched himself up, digging all four hooves deep into the rich dark earth and leaning into his harness with a groan of tortured wood. Deeper and deeper he dug, heaving his shoulders into the yoke with little flecks of foam, shaking right, then left and then — nothing. A second moan of disappointment swept the crowd.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” said Applejack.

“Shh,” said Zircon. “Wait.”

The massive white unicorn gave a shout of frustration and darted forward to the red stallion flank-deep in the dirt. He attached his yoke to the chain, and then dug in beside his fellow cadet. A chestnut brown stallion followed, hooking himself up to the chain also, then another cadet, and another, until every cadet in the field was straining against their common foe; pegasi lifted, unicorns used their magic to pry, and earth ponies dug in and pulled. Long moments passed where even the officers flung themselves into the fray, grabbing at chains and heaving until there was a loud crack. Then another. Then a whole series of snaps as the giant stump came sliding out of the hole to the deafening cheers of the entire town. A wave of ponies seemed to pour out onto the field, unhooking cadets, spreading hugs and kisses, bringing water and other refreshments, and one pink pony screaming ‘Street Party!!!’

Zircon leaned over to Applejack, and spoke loudly to make himself heard over the chaos. “Now, that’s it.”

* * *

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today my brother showed me that sometimes the rules we set up can get in the way of getting a job done. And sometimes actually getting the job done is more important than following the rules when your friends need your help.


Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

----

Twilight Sparkle looked at the scroll and scowled, trying to ignore the noise from the street party that seemed to have spontaneously broken out after the final stump was pulled, and spread through the entire town.

“Spike, I just don’t feel right, sending a letter to the Princess about how breaking the rules can be good. I mean she’s the ruler of all Equestria, she’s the one who sets up all the rules.”

“Not all the rules. Don’t you remember our visitor yesterday?”

“Yes, but… It’s not really the same. She’s a Princess too.”

Spike pondered the Moral Relativism of the problem. “If using the Elements of Harmony had been against the rules, would you still have saved Princess Luna and defeated Nightmare Moon?”

“Why yes, of cour— Oh.” Twilight Sparkle looked at the letter, and rolled it up. “Go ahead and send it Spike. Along with the rest of the mail.”

* * *

Princess Celestia quietly opened the door and slipped into her bedroom. It was still several hours until the sun was scheduled to set, giving her several blissful hours to simply sit and luxuriate in the presence of her sleeping sister. The faint etheric twing of an incoming letter tingled in her horn, and moments later, a curl of smoke materialized into a scroll — with a bundle of crude letters and drawings that scattered across the floor.

What in the name of Equestria? Celestia quietly gathered them all up while reading the scroll from Twilight.

Then she looked at the rest of the papers with a growing sense of puzzlement.

“Dear Princess, thank you for the telecsope we used it last nite to see the stars and moon.”
“Deer Princess thanks for coming to our school and making sure mommy got home.”
“Dear Princess we liked the stars and plantes and stuff, could you make one blow up next time.”
“Dear Princess. Our teacher says I should write you a thank-you note for the telescope, even though it isn’t nearly as good as the one my father says he’ll get me.”

I didn’t go to their school.

Then a smile grew on her face as she looked at the drawings and realization sunk in. The school budget for dark blue and black crayons must have been totally destroyed, but it was well worth it. Drawings of her sister flying across the sky, drawings of her with the children. The faint chill of dark memories a millenium old briefly tightened her chest before being flooded by the warmth of love shown in the pictures. She arranged them so one was on top, a beautiful drawing of her sister with her wings unfolded posing with a group that could only be a self-portrait of the school fillies. And one happy grey pegasus with slightly offset eyes, holding a muffin.


Oh well, she thought. Duty before pleasure. Celestia summoned a quill and scroll and began to write.

Dear Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student,

Thank you for your letter, and please inform your brother that he should have my army back to Canterlot by tomorrow noon.

Princess Celestia

A puff of smoke later and the letter was on its way, leaving the Princess to sit in her room and quietly watch her little sister peacefully sleep.