Betwixt Silver and Gold 2:
But Wait...There’s More!
Canterlot is a city set apart from every other in Equestria. This is not because it has such stunning open-air architecture, or because it has the highest concentration of unicorns of any city, or because it is where Equestria’s aristocracy live for half of every year, or because of its long pre-Unification history as the capital of a powerful kingdom. No, the reason why Canterlot stands alone is because it is the permanent place of residence of Princess Celestia. In other cities, the Princess visits for official occasions, planned far in advance, but in Canterlot, one is more likely to bump into Celestia during the course of an average day than a mail pony. Every day, the ponies of Canterlot must find new answers to the problem of living next door to an ageless goddess. As a result, life in Canterlot is nearly as fast-paced as in Manehatten, and far more unpredictable.
The adjective most-commonly applied to residents of Canterlot by outsiders is “cynical”. It would perhaps be more accurate to use the term “nimble”...
—from The Equestrian Handbook, 2nd Edition, by M.J.P., Chapter 4
- Prologue -
The Sun had set, the Moon had risen, and Princess Celestia decided she wanted to try curling her mane before getting her beauty sleep.
With great deliberation, a strand of the princess’ shimmering hair was separated from the rest and magically wrapped around a roller made from a sea sponge. A second strand of hair was wrapped, and then a third. Celestia used the large mirror in her bedroom to look over her work so far, and at her long flowing tresses still remaining, sighed. This is going to take a while, she thought.
“Tia,” a voice said quietly from the other side of the room’s door. “Tia, are you still awake? I am in need of your counsel.”
The goddess of the sun turned to face the door. “I’m awake. You can come in, Luna.”
The door was opened to reveal Princess Luna who, after making sure nopony was in the hallway, stepped inside her sister’s room and closed the door.
“I pray you do not consider me forward, sister, but there is something in your...” the younger princess began, gesturing with one hoof at her sister’s head. She was still more comfortable talking with the speech patterns of a millennium ago.
Celestia laughed. “I’m trying something new with my mane.” She then noticed the expression on her visitor’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you familiar with an interview featured upon the face of the daily news publication dubbed The Clarion?” Luna asked, magically waving one of the nearly one hundred different newspapers printed in Canterlot each week.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Celestia answered with a touch of sadness in your voice.
“Said interview purports to be the result of a personal conversation between the writer and yourself conducted last Friday afternoon, but you and I both know you partook of no such converse.”
Celestia sighed. “Yes, it’s a rather nasty habit the papers have gotten into during your absence, of inventing things about me. I expect they’ll start doing the same to you before long, not unlike some of the stories and customs invented about Nightmare Moon in the last thousand years. This particular fabrication looked harmless to me, so I won’t bother to deny it. From what I skimmed, they were just repeating statements I had made in press statements over the last couple of years.”
“So you shall not refute the error?”
Celestia put a gentle hoof on her smaller sister’s shoulder. “Let me put it this way: if I were to ‘refute the error’, I’d have to tell the press where we actually were on Friday.”
“Is that such a daunting undertaking? All you need do is to inform the public that we were abroad visiting...visiting the...the...”
“See, you’re having so much trouble saying his name, and you’re a goddess. There are holes in our schedules that we simply cannot explain to the public. You could say that the press is helping to ease the minds of the populace, by filling those holes with activities of their own imagining.”
“Well, I suppose...” Luna suddenly shook her head in disagreement. “No! You cannot allow this particular lie to stand! Unlike you, I have read this article in detail, and the author uses part of it to slander a young inventor, and puts that slander in your mouth.”
Celestia frowned. “That changes things. Let me take a look.” Luna passed Celestia the paper and she started reading. At first she was smiling a little, noting how much her personality was being mangled by the author of the piece, a pony who clearly could not build a proper sentence if his life depended on it. But then she reached the section Luna was alarmed by, and her face fell. “Oh dear,” she muttered, “that poor unicorn. I’m so sorry.”
“So you will do something about it?”
“No, seeing this convinces me that I made absolutely the right decision not to stop this article from being printed. Thank you for pointing it out to me.”
“WHAT?!” Luna shouted, outshining even her Royal Voice. Birds from as far away as Ponyville suddenly took to the sky in alarm. “Will you do nothing to help a subject wronged?”
Celestia sighed. “I’m afraid my wings are tied, my horn is corked, my...the earth ponies were your department, Luna—do you remember the appropriate metaphor for them?”
“Celestia, please be serious! Why can’t you step forward and correct this injustice?”
“Luna, don’t you recognize who it is the article is slandering?”
“Should I?”
“Prophesy 3186,” Princess Celestia informed Luna, as she closed her eyes. “On the 7015th year of the Solar Alicorn’s reign, a blight upon the sun shall render the Princess powerless, and the claws of dragon armies shall trod upon the sacred steps of the palace. In this time of need, the tide will be turned by the sightless musical unicorn, a unicorn who will sacrifice all, despite having suffered nothing but indignity at the hooves of the Sovereign of Light. Thou shalt know this savior by her white rose coloration, the marks of music upon her flank, the cheap cyan coloring applied to her mane, and the personal music machine she invented.”
“Oh, yes,” remembered Luna, “3186. I always thought that one to be oddly specific. The solar minimum is next year, then?”
“Yes, and I am bound by that prophesy.”
“While I am not.”
“Luna, you’ve only been back for less than a year. Could you please put off undermining our united administration for at least the next decade?”
Luna shook her head. “Sometimes I cannot tell when you are joking, sister.”
Celestia smiled gently. “The prophesy said this unicorn would be my savior. I think she’s capable of taking care of herself; especially from what you have to admit is a very silly slander. Now be a dear and bring me the tax code revision you finished for the Port of Manehatten, so I’ll have something to look over while I continue the curling. I believe you had moved the property threshold down to the 23rd percentile?”
As always, the thought of numbers marching in geometric precision brought Princess Luna out of her funk. She produced the document in question and her trusty abacus and quickly flicked a few beads. “22nd percentile, actually. The distinction between shingle and thatch-roofed dwellings, of course, has become completely irrelevant...”