//------------------------------// // Mistakes and Mayhem // Story: The Bearers of Harmony What??? // by RebelNarrator45 //------------------------------// Princess Celestia prided herself in being able to react calmly and rationally in and to any situation. She could keep a level head, focus, and do what needed to be done even in the thick of battle, if need be. And she prided herself in the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, shocked her. Until now. Not only had Celestia been shocked, but she had been shocked speechless. She stared at the group of ponies in front of her, her eyes wide, mouth agape, struggling to speak and failing mightily. At long last, she managed to formulate a single question...just barely. "YOU...DID...WHAAAAAAAT???!!!" She shouted. The ponies in front of her cringed. "Well, um, you see, it...I...well...we...uh..." poor Twilight cowered as her mentor narrowed her eyes and leveled her with a stare that almost rivaled Fluttershy's Stare. Almost. She gulped. "I...we, we kinda, um...that is, I..." She gave up, knowing she was never going to get anything out at the rate she was going. "I...we're sorry..." Celestia paced a short distance from them, back to them, and took deep, visible breaths to calm her rising anger. The last thing she needed was to react in a violent manner and smash the entire group through several walls. They were the Element bearers, after all...she needed them. "Would you care to explain how in Equestria you managed to destroy six buildings, obliterate ten cloud houses, put fifteen ponies in the hospital, and, oh yes...SEND MY SISTER TO THE MOON???!!!" The full power of the Canterlot voice came through on that last line. (Her sister's moon still being in the sky was now explained at least). The ponies facing her wrath just barely managed to hold their ground and not run for their lives. Except one. Fluttershy eeped and made for the door, only to be captured in a golden glow and levitated over to dangle before Celestia. "Fluttershy." The princess, mindful of the pegasus's timid and easily frightened nature, spoke softly but firmly. "I may be very angry, but I'm not going to hurt you. At least, not you, specifically." She glared at the others. "The others I am not so sure of." Fluttershy gulped. "I...I...we...you...I..." she stammered. She paused to take a breath, then finished hastily. "If...if you punish them, then, you...you are just going to have to...to punish me too!" Her friends gaped, not having expected that. She was, after all, timid...and to volunteer for punishment, not knowing what it was, well, that was gutsy. But Fluttershy wasn't done yet. "And if you're going to keep yelling at them, then...then you better yell at me, too!" She eeped and clamped a hoof over her mouth, unable to believe what she had just said. Celestia had to work hard to keep from smiling. "Very well." She said, placing the trembling pony gently next to her friends. Dash instantly draped a wing over her, pulling her close to her side in a rare and uncharacteristic display of protective affection. Celestia focused her eyes on Twilight. "Twilight Sparkle. How did you manage to cause so much damage last night?" Twilight gulped audibly. "Well...you see, Princess, we, um, we..." Twilight was desperately searching for any explaination except for the actual one. Seeing this, Applejack removed her hat and met Celestia's gaze herself. "To be honest, Princess, we were partyin' up a storm cause Pinkie threw a really good one, an' well, we all had too much hard cider..." she confessed. "You got drunk??!" Celestia stared. But at Twilight. "Yes..." her faithful student whispered shamefully. "And I kinda went crazy with my magic..." "And I kinda went nuts with my new cloud busting tricks I was showing off..." Dash muttered. "And Ah was apparently showin' off my apple buckin' styles...by buckin' all sorts of stuff. Includin' ponies and buildin's." Applejack confessed. "And I covered ponies in all kinds of chocolate and candy and cake and whipped cream, and sent them up in the air on balloons!" Pinkie burst out. Her mane deflated some. "Which is how three of those fifteen ponies got hurt. The balloons popped. And they fell." Celestia didn't even want to know why she had felt like covering ponies in chocolate, even if she was drunk. "And I...am not going to reveal in detail what I did." Rarity said, turning red. "Suffice it to say, I did not destroy anything except a marrige. At least, that's what I was told." Celestia fought back the urge to laugh at Rarity's obvious discomfort. Her gaze went to Fluttershy and her eyebrow arched slightly. "And you?" She enquired. "What exactly did you do?" Fluttershy wilted under her gaze and pressed closer to Dash's side. "Leave her alone, Princess!" Dash snapped out angrily. "Yell all you want at us, but leave her alone! I don't care if she did tell you to treat her the same as us! Nopony yells at Fluttershy. Not even you!" Celestia stared hard at the cyan pegasus, both eyebrows raised high. "R...Rainbow Dash!" Twilight gasped out in shock. "Did...did you just...yell at the Princess?!" "Darn right I did!" Dash said. "And I'll yell more if she keeps scaring Fluttershy!" At this, her yellow friend slowly sat up from under the protective blue wing and took a deep breath. "I..its ok, Rainbow Dash." She said, bravely. "I'm ok. I...I'll answer. Um...I think." She gulped. Ceslestia waited, curious as to what she might say. "I pushed Luna into the path of Twilight's magic." That was it. Celestia blinked. "It was an accident, Princess!" Twilight exclaimed hastily. "And it wasn't what got Luna sent to the moon! We were having a magic duel, I guess, and, well, somehow I hit her with a banishment spell." Celestia huffed. "Was my sister as drunk as you girls?" Nopony wanted to answer that at all, let alone truthfully. She looked directly at the one who she knew would answer honestly. "Applejack?" The farmer sighed, bowing her head. "Eeyup. She was." Celestia groaned. "Please, can you get her back?" Twilight begged. Another groan from Celestia. She was sorely tempted to leave her little sister on the moon for another thousand years for being a part of such...drunk and disorderly behaviour. But one look into her student's eyes, and she knew she couldn't. Twilight would blame herself for every single second Luna spent on the moon, even if Celestia herself chose to leave her there. She walked to the library window, lit her horn, and concentrated on the shadow on the moon. Minutes later, it vanished, and Luna appeared before them, looking a bit dazed and rather hungover. "Ow, my head." "Oh, in a bit of pain, are we?" Celestia said sarcastically. "I suppose its what you get after a night of getting so smashed you challenged my student to a magic duel and got yourself sent to the moon!" Luna winced at the volume of her voice. "Owwww...sister, please...not so loud!" She pleaded. "And...wait. Your student sent me to the moon??! I thought perhaps I did it myself somehow." Twilight blushed. "No, Princess Luna. I did it." She confessed. "Impressive." Luna said, grimacing at the pain in her head. "That is a fairly complex spell." "Forget the spell!" Celestia snapped. "What I am interested in is the fact that you, all of you, caused such havoc in town last night! I mean, really! If you are going to get drunk, at least make sure you do so where ponies don't get hurt...and where you, Luna, do not end up on the moon!" She huffed. Her sister and the others cringed. "My apologies, sister." Luna said, rubbing her head. "I should have cast a protection spell on the town or something before we partook of so much cider. Then nopony would have been...wait. PONIES GOT HURT??!" "Fifteen, to be precise!" Celestia said. Luna blinked. "Oh dear." "Oh dear is right!" Celestia said. "I am disappointed in the lot of you. And I have some appropriate consequences in mind." The other shivered. "You are going to apologise to everypony for what you did, clean up the mess you made, and rebuild every single bulding and cloud house you destroyed. And I am strongly advising you to leave alcohol alone for a very long time." "Is that an order?" Luna asked. "Its a very strong suggestion." Celestia said sternly. "And it would do you well to take it. Because if anything like this happens again, I'm sending all of you to the moon for a month!" She looked at Luna as her sister groaned. "With the exception of you, Luna. You've spent more than your fair share of time there already. So for you...I will just take away your dessert!" Luna gasped. "Sister, no! That is just cruel!" She cried. "No...that is what I call...just desserts!" With that, she shook her head and left the Golden Oaks Library. Luna groaned. "I believe I had better go with my sister." She said. "Farewell." She too left...rather unsteadily. Twilight slumped to the floor. "I'm never getting drunk again!" The others couldn't help but agree...mostly. "It'll be a long time before I do!" Dash stated. "Ah bet Celestia never got drunk before." Applejack muttered. "Mad as she was, Ah am pretty sure she hasn't." ********************************** (Late that night) The tall white unicorn, wearing a dark cloak, plunked her empty mug down on the table in front of her for probably the fifteenth time. "Another." She rasped at the bartender pony. He turned to her. "Haven't you had enough?" He asked. "With the day I had, no. Keep them coming. Today was so stressful I just want to forget it." A new mug was put in front of her. "Thank you." She stared into the dark contents and scowled. 'Ugh. What a day.' And Celestia drained the contents of the mug before slamming it down and demanding yet another.