It was morning in Canterlot, ponies began with their daily preparations, some of them walking in the streets with no apparent reason, more than one pony sleeping on the side of the road for drinking too much last night. In the castle everypony was up and getting ready to welcome a new day, Princess Celestia was serving the pancakes she diligently made, she put one of the plates in front of her sleepy looking Sister, “Lulu, you should get some sleep after breakfast, we have an appointment with Twilight and her friends this afternoon and I would hate for you to fall asleep in the middle of it,” Celestia said while nuzzling her sister’s cheek.
The younger alicorn giggled and moved her head away from her sister, “dearest sister, should I remind you that I’m no longer a little filly.”
“Aww, you are never too old to receive love from your older sister, how are the pancakes?” Celestia said while sitting down to eat her own breakfast, picking up the newspaper.
After swallowing her food and drinking some juice, “as always your cooking is heavenly, sister of mine, I love the little drawings on top of pancakes.”
“I’m glad you like them,” a warm smile adorned Celestia while savoring her breakfast, she drank a bit of coffee, “hey guess what? Canterlot Times will run popularity contest with a poll, ‘who is the best princess’ they are calling it, isn’t that silly?”
Luna laughed at the mere premise, “the silliest, Tia, completely pointless if you ask me.”
Celestia lowered the newspaper and looked at her sister, “indeed, no doubt we know who will win anyway, right Lulu?”
“ME!” both said at the same time and then time stopped, not a single bird dare to break the silence between them.
Finally Celestia was the one cutting the awkward silence with a short quick laugh covering her mouth with a hoof, “Oh Luna, I’m sorry I thought I heard you saying you could win a popularity contest against me.”
An annoyed Luna tried piercing her sister with her gaze, “well dear sister mine, I know for a fact that I’m well loved by most of the populace,”
“Yes that is cute an all Luna, but you need to understand that I have been their ruler for several centuries, is practically programmed in their heads to love me.” Celestia said while putting her hooves on the table.
Luna in exchange, stepped on the table extending her wings, “Well that was until I came back, now they have me to gaze upon, I am the moon after all,”
Celestia copied her sister on top of the table, showing her impressive wingspan, “and I am the sun, bringer of light and life, I am the face of Equestria.”
Both approached each other until they were face to face, “you are the boss of Equestria, but I am its protector, they love you because they have to, but they love me because I’m there for them when they need me the most.”
“They wrote poems and songs about me in the past,”
“Well they dream of me in the nights on the present.”
“What?” that broke the tension, both alicorns retreated, “I actually don’t know if I feel jealous or relieved for that information,” the older sister said sitting on her chair.
Luna also went back to sit on her own chair sporting a blush on her face, “Yeah I suppose that’s not something I should be too proud of,” she giggled a little bit, “were we actually fighting about a silly popularity contest?”
Celestia blushed as well and gave a small honest smile, “I guess we were, I wonder what would they say if they could see us now?”
“Well we can only wait until they show the results, in the meantime I believe I need to take a nap, otherwise we might be late to meet Twilight and her friends,” with that, Princess Luna left the room, leaving Celestia to clean the dishes.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
That afternoon, the mane 6 plus Spike and Starlight were gathered on Twilight’s studio, instead of just the table and pillows, they arranged sofas and a bigger table with some decorations and filled with snacks and drinks.
Pinkie kept trying to pick snacks from the table meanwhile Spike was doing his best to stop her, Twilight was preparing the console while everypony else was just sitting around or talking to each other, “ok, this should do it, now we just need the princesses and we can begin,”
Pinkie approached Twilight with a cookie on her hoof, Spike still by the table protecting the rest of the cookies from the pink menace, “wow Twilight, you are not freaking out at all, you are growing,” Pinkie said munching on the cookie.
Casting a spell, Twilight summoned a towel and cleaned her face, “yeah? Hadn’t noticed, besides, is not like it would be the first time the princesses come to Ponyville, they are just here to listen to my report and one or two songs, nothing can go wrong.”
Pinkie swallowed the cookie pulling from her mane a glass of milk, “okie dokie loki, is not like the music box will randomly pick a song that might or might not offend or threaten the princesses and they deem it completely unsafe and lock it or destroy it, right?” Pinkie left and sat on one of the sofas, leaving Twilight with a frozen expression and one of her classic eye twitches.
Everyone looked at Pinkie while she sat on a couch, “what?” she asked, oblivious of what she just caused.
Spike let go of the plates and facepalmed, “ah crap, here we go again, three… two… one...”
Twilight snapped and ran around the room, “OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT! If something comes up and insult the Princesses then they will hate the music box and will probably destroy it, so we will never learn anything else from it,”
“Ok, see what you did Pinkie? Now we got to calm her down before the princesses arrive,” Spike said, annoyed by the whole thing.
Pensive Pinkie scratched her head, and began bouncing to the door, “I know the right pony for this, be right back I’ll go get Green Blaze.”
At the mention of their dealer Fluttershy and Starlight turned to the door to stop Pinkie but a multicolored streak of light passed between them and stopped Pinkie, “HEY! Pinks, maybe that’s not a good idea,”
“Why Dashie?”
Rainbow Dash put her hoof around Pinkie’s shoulder and dragged her to the table, “two things, one Green Blaze is out of town for the next week and two,” she grabbed Pinkie’s ear and whispered something.
Pinkie’s face went from confusion to surprise and finally to understanding, “OOoooh, I see, then never mind,” both Fluttershy and Starlight looked at Rainbow who winked at them.
Applejack, Spike and Rarity watched the entire thing and were just confused, “right, anyway we still need calm Twilight, ok girls we got a Twilighting level 4, commence operation 33-12, you know what to do,”
Rarity went for a glass of water, Applejack brought a scroll and some quivers, Fluttershy called her birds and they were playing a calm tune, Starlight fluffed Twilight’s pillow, Spike gave her a massage and Rainbow came in flying in a hazmat suit, “Rainbow, I said 33-12 not 23-19, you were supposed to bring a plushie,”
“Oh right, be right back,” she flew out and back in, in a matter of seconds bringing a huge plushie of an ursa minor, with all their efforts they were able to calm Twilight.
Twilight gave a long sigh, ”ok, now we got to think, what can we do to avoid the music box being destroyed?”
Applejack refilled Twilight's glass of water, ”Ah reckon you are exaggerating, sugarcube, the princesses would never do something like that, besides we all know the music box is harmless, Ahm sure they'll recognize it as well.”
”We don't know what could come out of it, it's random and for all we know the next thing could be a declaration of WAR!” Twilight said drinking the water in one gulp.
Rarity refilled Twilight's glass again, ”the music box wasn't the only gadget that huge ball had inside, maybe you can show them that,”
Twilight grabbed the water and gulped it down again, ”most of what was in that thing were stuff you can find on this planet, the only thing different is the music box,” Twilight showed the glass empty waiting for it to be refilled.
Fluttershy picked the jug and poured more water on Twilight's glass ”if you are so afraid of them listening to something, why don't you just explain how it works without playing a song?”
Twilight sipped from the glass ”no, they specifically requested to hear a song or two,” she finished yet another glass of water.
It was Rainbow's turn to pick the jug and refill the glass, ”WEEELL maybe you can play one of the songs we already heard, they wouldn't know the difference.”
Twilight was starting to slow down drinking the water, her belly feeling bloated full of liquid, ”no Rainbow, that's a terrible idea, you don't lie to your friends for something like that,”
The jug levitated surrounded by a golden aura and filled the glass once again, ”I'm glad you think that way Twilight, why don't you just speak with the princesses, I'm sure they will understand,” said Princess Celestia.
Twilight made an effort to drink it leaving the glass half full, ”I know but I can't stop thinking that there might be something that will trigger a bad response on them,”
Another aura this time dark blue picked the jug and copied everyone else, ”come on Twilight, the princesses are not made of paper, they have lived for centuries and wouldn't snap for something like that,”
Twilight Tried but couldn't even put her lips on the glass, ”How can you be so sure? um... oh...” Celestia and Luna laughed at Twilight's expression, ”how long have you been here?”
”Since the 'war declaration' from this aliens,” said Celestia making air quotes.
Twilight shrugged stepping off the chair, ”please understand, this is probably one of the biggest discoveries, ponykind has ever made, but it also gives random information, we won't know if there is something that might or might not offend anypony.”
Luna held Twilight's face with a hoof, ”friend Twilight, as I said before, we are not made of paper, we won't tear apart your machine because it could offend us,” this calmed the purple alicorn.
Finally calmed down, Twilight picked some papers she had ready for her presentation, ”alright, in that case why don't we get this started,” she stopped and her legs trembled, ”but first I need to go to the filly's room,” she teleported away returning after a few minutes, ”too much water, ok everypony ready?” everyone in the room nodded, ”good, now before we turn on the music box, I wanted to explain some things. As I mentioned in my letters, the music box as we have decided to call it, is a very sophisticated piece of alien technology, as far as we know it was meant to provide information but for some reason it only plays songs right now. To turn it on we press a button, this one with the triangle,” she levitated the music box so the princesses could see it, ”then the music box starts playing, but since it's an alien language we can't understand it, I managed to adjust Bocafloja's translation spell to translate alien languages.”
“Oh Bocafloja el Parlero, I remember him when he visited the palace, we could talk all day and he won’t shut up for a minute.” Celestia’s face filled with nostalgia.
Surprised Starlight asked the princess “You knew him? Of course you did.”
Changing from nostalgic to dreamy face Celestia mumbled, “he also had a nice flank, muscles tight as a tiger,” everyone in the room stared at her, “did I say that out loud?”
Twilight cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention, “Anyway, as I was saying, so far we have learned that this aliens are obviously sapient for creating technology this advance, I’d say they are more advanced than any species in planet Equum, they seem to share similarities with the non-magical species on the planet, especially with minotaurs for using technology instead of magic, having highways and using terms like man or woman to differentiate genders.”
Out of nowhere a popcorn hit Twilight’s head “BOOOOO that’s boring, let the music begins!” Rainbow said while throwing another popcorn.
Twilight sighed, “fine, let me just double check the spell,”
Pinkie clapped her hooves, “Oooh I hope there is a lot of ado,”
Twilight went back to the podium, “Ok without further ado,”
On the background you could hear Pinkie “OH FOR LICORICE SAKE!”
Twilight resumed saying “ok… hey! Since they are our guests why don’t we let the princesses press the button?” everyone agreed.
“Why don’t you go first Luna? Youth before popularity after all” said the oldest alicorn.
Luna snorted, “you are going to begin with that again? I assure you that I’ll win and then rub it on your face for the next millennia, so I just need to press the button on this gadget?” Twilight nodded and Luna pressed the button and a calm guitar played.
Luna stepped back enjoying the tune, “this is beauti-... of course it’s going to be about the sun,” she looked at the sister who showed a smug on her face.
Picking a cookie from the bowl with her magic and dipping it on her coffee, Celestia said, “well it seems that even aliens know the importance of the sun,” she bit the cookie.
Rolling her eyes, Luna picked an apple and bit on it, “I guess, but I must admit that the song is ratter joyful, it appears that they also have similar weather than us, being the end of winter and all.”
”It still seems a rather simple song, don't you think? it's already repeating itself,” Rarity stated meanwhile she removed the prunes from her muffin and putting them on Applejack's.
The orange mare picked the muffin with extra prunes and gave it a bite, ”if fain haff fo fee fombfib-” Applejack was interrupted by a glass of water levitating in front of her.
”Please darling, it is such bad manners to talk with your mouth full,” Applejack drank the glass and Rarity cleaned her mouth with a napkin.
”What Ah was sayin' is that it ain't need to be complicated to be nice,” everyone else nodded in agreement.
With the song over, the group gathered their thoughts, ”so you are saying the music box plays a song and then stops until you press the button again?” Luna asked at which Twilight nodded, ”that seems rather inefficient, why would they make it that way?”
”We'll probably never know and we already showed that flashback on a previous chapter, so why worry about it? it give us the chance to pick turns to play a song,” the pink party pony said, receiving yet another weird look from her friends.
Celestia approached the music box with a shine in her eyes, like a filly opening a gift on Heartswarming, ”well if it's ok with you, I would also want to press the button,” Twilight showed the right button to press, Celestia rubbed her hooves before pressing it, the music box played a soft song.
Celestia returned to her seat enjoying the tune, ”this is also beautiful, I wonder what's abo- oh well I guess we are even little sister,” Luna covered her snout covering a blush since she didn't expected an alien culture to dedicate a song to the moon, and even less one so beautiful.
Everyone was quiet enjoying the song, it was simple and the message was clear enough, ”they appreciate the moon and it's beauty, they watch it like the brightest thing in the darkest night, ready to protect her children the stars,” Luna was really moved by the song, a single tear could be seen on her face for a second before she cleaned it.
Celestia's heart melted at her sister's reaction to the song, she put a wing around her, ”It appears that they also have the belief in deities and I agree, the new moon is a sight that takes the breath away, always watching and protecting us from darkness.”
Luna laid her head on her sister's chest, ”I can admit that after a cold night, the sun is a welcome sight, it warms the heart and feeds life to every creature in the planet.”
With that the song ended everyone was quiet, not daring to break the sacred silence and stayed like that for a few more minutes until Celestia cleared her throat, ”I guess you are now waiting for me to talk right?” Twilight was profusely sweating, ”don't worry Twilight, I wasn't planning to 'destroy the music box' like you thought, even if I didn't liked what heard, this discovery is too important and let's be honest, it would be silly to get angry at mere words and even worse from a creature that we might never meet.”
With a quick movement, Rainbow flew in front of Celestia, ”does that mean that we can share music with everycreature now?” excitement filled her by the prospect to be able to use the song from the previous session.
Celestia giggled at Rainbow's request, ”I didn't say that either, I'm aware that you want to use one of the songs, I still think that the amount of ponies knowing this technology should be kept at a minimum, but I suppose that if you trust them with the secret, you can share it with them, but also in regards of you rainbow, I would suggest using the tune without the lyrics, I believe you can do something about it right Twilight?” the purple alicorn nodded, ”ok then I believe this has been cleared, and we should take our leave, but before we leave, would it be ok if you send us a copy of those songs?” Twilight nodded and then the princesses of the sun and moon waved goodbye to their friends, teleporting to the castle in Canterlot.
Twilight let out a breath she didn't know was holding, ”that went better than I thought, I suppose we can invite some friends to listen to the music box from now on,” Rainbow grabbed Twilight by the shoulder and shook her softly, with a face that said please all over it, ”alright, alright Rainbow, I'll take care of the song you wanted.”
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
It was morning in Canterlot and the birds were singing, ponies of every color walked in the streets, preparing their business to begin the day. At the castle, the royal sisters were enjoying their breakfast, “so Lulu, have you met yourself on somepony’s dreams lately?” teased her sister.
Luna almost choked with her food, grabbed some orange juice and gulped it down, “TIA! I knew I was going to regret telling you about that,” her face sported a blush just as bright as her moon.
Laughing, Celestia picked up the newspaper, “the results are in, do you want to know who is the ‘best princess’ little sister?”
“Does it really matter, dearest sister?” Celestia put the paper down, “just kidding, let’s read that.”
“Ok, let’s see, so by a long margin the most popular princess of Equestria is… Cadance?”
Both princesses remained silent for a few seconds until Luna spoke, “should I prepare the troops, Tia?”
Celestia put on a warm smile, “oh no Lulu, we won’t go to war for this silly contest… we will just boycott them by closing their borders to all trade, that’ll teach them.” both Celestia and Luna laughed at the joke, after that they resumed their respective routines, meanwhile in the Crystal Empire a pink alicorn just got the chills for a moment.
To be continued