//------------------------------// // May the best Persian win // Story: Twilight Gets a Puppy, Season 2 // by TDR //------------------------------// Twilight Gets a Puppy Season 2 By TDR May the best Persian win [ Canterlot] “ Not that we are complaining that thou wishes to' hang out' with us.” Princess Luna began looking at Rahs as he poured over a stack of books Luna had presented him. “ But are thou sure thine sister can be left alone this long without trouble? We have found ours cannot.” Celestia looked up from the other end of the table frowning as she had been studying the Element of Loyalty. “I did fine for a thousand years, thank you very much.” Celestia snorted. “ I'm still a little annoyed you convinced me to break into vault thirteen. All that is in there are my oldest journals. At least the ones that survived the great fire of 32 ANM. Most of them are just day to day court information. I've already gone over most of them before when I was looking into Rahs possible species, and I'm quite sure there's nothing in there on Witch Wolves.” Celestia noted her sisters flinch, though rather than get angry as she had done before, she simply looked at Rahs. “At any rate, no the Element of Loyalty is not broken.... well the chain snapped, but it looks more like it simply parted as there doesn't appear to be any damage.” Princess Celestia frowned. “ Still this explains Twilight's letter a bit better.” Celestia narrowed her eyes at Rahs. “I will only let you hang onto it if you promise not to try and eat it.” “ As if thou even have permission for that. We were the last to wield that Element. We used Loyalty, Honesty, and Magic. Thee had Laughter, Generosity, and Kindness.” “I believe you are mistaken Lulu.” Celestia frowned. “ I had Loyalty, Magic, and Compassion. You had Laughter, Generosity, and Honesty.” “Tis Kindness, not Compassion. And even thou admit we bore Honesty, so we are not speaking false in what we bore.” Luna snorted. “I didn't say you were lying, I said you are mistaken, clearly your old age has caught up with you and you remembered it wrong. “ Celestia corrected. Then the bickering started. Rahs hadn't really asked for the history of why Luna became Nightmare Moon, something Luna had responded favorably too, but he had been insistent to learn as much about Witch Wolves as he could. The results had not been positive. Princess Luna hadn't known a way to turn Rahs back if he changed again and Celestia had never tried to talk or do anything with the ones she had met. With everything that had happened after Nightmare Moon had been banished, Celestia had no choice but to take a 'scorched earth' policy in dealing with them. Princess Celestia hadn't let Twilight look through these old books personally before, though after the Discord incident she was planning to send the older, less incriminating ones, to the Ponyville Library for Twilight to look through to see if she could find some hint of what the prophecy foretold. Celestia was also looking through some other tomes here and there that were hidden or sealed away. Really though the library's collection was rather small, a large portion of older books had been lost in the fire, or had been somewhere else that was no longer accessible. Celestia was also going to allow Twilight to investigate the former Royal Castle of Whinnyshire in the Everfree to see if anything might have survived. When Nightmare Moon had attacked, much of the structure was destroyed and given that afterward Celestia was too busy with negotiations and removing the last remnants of the Nightmare army, the nobles took it upon themselves to build a new capitol on the tallest mountain around. In their rush to get away from the rapidly encroaching Everfree and build Canterlot, they left a number of things to rot away in the old castle. In fact they had gone out of their way to leave anything behind at all that mentioned or had relevance to Princess Luna. Luna was not happy about that. These journals were going to wind up being sent to Twilight as well, but Rahs had insisted he get first crack at them. Mostly to annoy his sister that he got to read something first. So far it had been a boring week of going through the old books. Unlike his sister Rahs wasn't a fan of EVERY book, he preferred stories with drama, and action and romance depending on the mood. So most of this was dull. Rahs let out a small groan setting the book he was reading down and rubbing his eyes. Nothing they had found that survived the fire or exodus told him anything new about Witch Wolves. The only thing of note was Princess Luna had only added that there were only a few hundred of them created, and the way to do so was currently lost. Princess Celestia argued that her forces had fought thousands during the two wars. That devolved into a petty argument where one sister declared the other needed to learn to count and the other smacked the first with a copy of 'Foals first numbers'. It went down hill from there for a while cumulating in a hoofy slap fight before lunch was served. A slappy hoof fight that had resumed now and was quickly building towards the Princesses beating each other with their seat cushions. While Rahs enjoyed seeing this sort of argument from the outside, seeing two Gods with their history do it was a little unnerving, even if they did make up quickly. [ Canterlot Cadence's quarters.] The Princess of Love's ears perked up as she looked around her room. Her 'sexy pillow fight sense' was tingling. After a moment more of nothing she shrugged and returned to her charts, clearly it had been a false alarm. [Ponyville.] “You know if he stays in Canterlot too much longer I am not against heading up there to apologize personally.” Rarity frowned, picking up the offered mug and taking a sip of her coffee.” Thank you Spike.” Spike nodded trundling back off into the kitchen. Pinkie Pie had been banned from it after the cake batter flood and Twilight had been banned from the kitchen for trying to fix the cake batter flood. This had left Spike as the primary chef of Golden Oaks Library. Something he was highly amused by. Though he wouldn't say where he had gotten the chefs hat, nor the ridiculously large fake mustache. Rarity was sitting at a round table with Twilight directly across from her. The purple mare had her nose in a book. Evidently once she found out she had access to the Starswirl wing, she had checked out nearly half the contents. She was only stopped from borrowing them all by the caretaker, Dewy Decimal, threatening to revoke her card if she didn't return them on time because she couldn't read all the ones she borrowed in time. To Rarity's left sat Applejack. The orange mare had poured herself into her work after the Mare -do-Well incident. Given how close she and Rainbow were it wasn't much a surprise she was taking it so hard. Rainbow Dash's words likely struck harder on her given Applejack's issues with pride in the past. To her right sat Pinkie Pie. The mare was far more despondent than the others. She and Rainbow Dash had been getting along rather well as of late and to have it suddenly blow up in her face like this. Well Pinkie had given her self a month on the black list because of it. Rarity herself was upset, but not to the level the others were. She knew and dealt with Dash the least, and while she wanted to apologize to Dash, she wasn't going to let herself fall apart about it like the others were. Nor was she going to go over board in trying to apologize like Pinkie was planning. In truth Rarity thought Dash had gone a bit over board with her outburst. Rahs had as well, and while she planned to apologize to him, she was also going to twist his ears until he apologized to his sister. This whole mess was ridiculous on both sides of the issue. Certainly they had gone too far, but so had Rainbow Dash in being a braggart. Rarity hadn't expected the mare to be humble, but she had spoken with some of those around Dash's rescues. The stallion on the runaway cart had been quite annoyed at Dash for grandstanding, as had the mother of the foal she saved. Not to mention she was still signing autographs while a balloon fell from the sky. The seamstress' real focus however was on the events themselves. Truthfully Rarity wondered what might have caused all of those sudden accidents. It was odd even for Ponyville. Was it just the after effects of Discord's magic? Or was there a third party involved. A pony who's talent was ballooning suddenly having their air bag pop with enough of a hole that the redundencys were made useless. A foal cart careening down a cliff, might simply be parental error, but the mare swore she had put on the brake. The cart was an odd thing too. The pullers leads all broke off at once on a sharp turn and then the cart's breaks failed? Some gears stripped inside a crane and a whole structure is knocked down. Then there was the hole in the dam. That thing is checked daily by the maintenance ponies and a crack the size Rainbow Dash had reported shouldn't have burst out the whole damn like that, the lake behind it didn't have enough pressure. One or two could be accidents. Three or four, plain bad luck, or a Tuesday. More than that however, well that seemed intentional. She knew Rainbow Dash hadn't done it to earn more praise, she also knew that the girls hadn't done it to add to their lesson for Rainbow Dash. That meant that it was likely an unknown third party seeking to harm Ponyville, or at least those in it. Rarity had no proof of anything, but she was also keeping her eyes open. It was during these musings that the final member of their little pity party arrived. Fluttershy had taken the news the hardest simply due to her being Rainbow Dash's oldest friend. Frankly she had been far more of a wreck than usual. Rarity had been more worried about her than any of the others. She had planed to confront Rainbow Dash and take sole responsibility for brow beating Fluttershy into the Mare-Do -Well situation just so she and Dash could remain friends. Rarity could deal with a pony disliking her, it was the nature of the business she was in sometimes. Fluttershy was far too sensitive about it. As such, to see the mare come in with a large smile on her face peaked Rarity's interest immediately. The others it seemed had yet to notice. “Well you look chipper today. Did something happen?” Rarity asked causing some of the others to raise their eyes to look to the yellow pegasus. “Oh yes... Rainbow Dash came by my house.” Fluttershy offered before, crying out as she was mobbed by the others asking questions. [Canterlot, after Dinner] Rahs smiled slightly as one of the Guards brought him a newspaper. Honestly the joke with this simple act had him giggling a bit longer than he should have been. “What, no slippers?” Luna smirked and the Night Guard in question rolled his eyes. “So how does it look?” Princess Luna questioned shifting on her throne to lean over the arm rest to where Rahs had planted him self leaning against the side of the throne. The throne room was as usual empty during Luna's Night Court so no one really cared about Rahs being there. In fact it had been beneficial when Prince Blue Blood had come in earlier. Luna had expected the day shifts crowd to force a few nobles into appearing tonight. The few times Prince had come before her he had been stiff and as formal as every other noble with a log up their arse. Upon spotting Rahs and seeing no one else to bring it up he had dropped into a much more friendly manner speaking with him before presenting his case in the quickest manner she had ever seen a noble do so. He had allowed Twilight to borrow a rather expensive cart of his during the attack by Discord and the bit counters had refused thus far to reimburse him for it. Evidently the THUNDERHEAD was currently a eucalyptus tree, on Sweet Apple Acres now. Complete with it's own Koala. An animal that Fluttershy actually seemed to want to be rid of in truth. Despite having all the enchantments and parts for the Sulky cart itemized the royal accountants were still giving him grief. Upon hearing Rahs' confirmation of the incident Luna had the accountant woken and the vault opened to payback Prince. While the bits were not an issue for a Blueblood the acknowledgment that he had contributed in some small way to the defeat of Discord put him a bit further ahead of some of the other nobles, particularly since he now had proof. Also he really liked that cart. Princess Luna wasn't used to speaking with one of the nobles who acted, well normal. Tia and Cadence had said he wasn't as bad as others, but she had never seen anything from him but more of the same until now. He had retired an hour or so ago and the current interest of the moment was the newspaper headline from Manehatten. The front page had a photo that showed a mare in a purple cloak, hat, and mask lifting up a wagon that was being used by some robbers as a getaway vehicle. Said cart was being smashed into a rock outside of town while several other ponies scattered away from the scene in panic. The Decaff Brigade thought the event was over the top and excessive. Rahs thought the image was properly dramatic and perfectly heroic. Luna thought the pose was from a bad angle and made her flank look big. [Ponyville] “She adopted the turtle?” Pinkie Pie blinked. “Tortoise.” Fluttershy corrected.” And yes Tank and Dash hit it off fairly well after she got hurt and he carried her out of Ghastly Gorge.” The group stared at Fluttershy for a moment more before Twilight spoke up. “Did she actually forgive you for the whole Mare- Do-Well thing?” “Not entirely I think. But we both apologized to each other. She's still mad and hurt, but I think we patched everything up fairly well.” Fluttershy smiled. “Rather surprised yah let her have that race through Ghastly Gorge. Them Quarry eels ain't no joke” Applejack commented. “Well I didn't plan to, but the animals were all for it even though Tank had some doubts. “ Fluttershy commented. “Rainbow Dash is already working on getting a habitat for him made out of cloud-crete in her house so he doesn't fall through the floor. Still Tank is not exactly designed to keep up with her.” ”I may have something for that, an old science fair project of mine. The original is destroyed, but I can recreate it, it was initially designed as a way to move large rocks without need of magic or muscle, but it was too inefficient.” Twilight pondered.” I lost out to Moon Dancer who translated Guard Cant into eight other languages for creatures with hands, claws, or fins. Given how helpful it's been for deaf creatures, I can't feel bad for the loss.” “Well then it seems we can indeed be forgiven with time and some effort.” Rarity smirked.” So perhaps every pony can stop being so mopey now.” [Canterlot.] The Princess pillow pygmachy proceeded protensive. Plush palisades and pronaos, protected pony posteriors, procephalic parts, and papilla. The plethora of puniceous pillowy paraphernalia peppering panting princesses, perhaps poised ponies to ponder properly the perchance of ponies placed in a paedarchy presently. Rahs thus far had avoided the massive pillow fight, and had continued to look through the books before finally giving up. His amber eyes darted back and forth as the pillows flew across the table colliding in the air or doing little damage to the two pillow forts set up on either side of the room now. Both sides seemed to be ready to up the scale of the conflict as Luna had amassed a large collection of pillows, likely from every room in the castle, while Celestia had clearly raided the ambassadors wing given the odd collection of shaped pillows she had as well as the massive bed sized pillow the Saddle Arabians liked to sleep on. Both were poised to fire and Rahs realized he was still in the middle of it just as the ammo was released. The Moon Dog let out a yelp as the massive pillow and the swarm of smaller ones collided and burred him under the impacted ammo. “Rahs!” Luna shouted. “Oh dear.” Celestia winced having gotten carried away. The two Princesses rushed over to the massive pile of pillows were Rahs had been sitting, tossing the pillows aside to unbury the Moon Dog. “I believe we might have gotten carried away there Lulu.” Celestia winced. “Indeed. We hope he is alri.... gone?” Luna blinked looking at the bare floor under the pile. Before either Princess could react a pair of pillows thrown from the other side of the table Rahs had crawled under smacked both of them in the face. “Bork!” The Princess blinked looking over at Rahs who had a wide grin on his face before the pair of them grinned again and levitated more pillows as Rahs dove for cover. And the great pillow war resumed.