//------------------------------// // Giant Two-Headed Fairies // Story: Shining Armor Saves Everyone // by 42Zombies //------------------------------// The ponies of Canterlot were upset, and it was not pretty. Shining, Thorax, and Flash Sentry looked down from the balcony of Canterlot Castle. The gardens that the balcony stood over had been filled with an ocean of panicked equines. There were too many of them to count, even if you could count really high. They were all yelling up at the balcony at once, their voices blending together into a chorus of bad sounds. Everypony was trying to talk over each other, and their words blurred together into indecipherable mush. Shining had never seen so many upset ponies in one place at the same time. They looked like they were on the verge of a riot. Some ponies were so upset that they were even shaking their heads in disapproval. Other ponies were starting to wave around picket signs that said things like ‘WE DON’T LIKE THIS MUCH AT ALL’ or ‘THE CURRENT SITUATION IS BAD’. It was terrifying. “Everypony!” Shining tried to yell over all of their horrible voices. “Everypony, quiet down! Please, remain calm!” It was no use. They couldn’t hear him. In fact, the noise actually got louder when several ponies in the crowd tried to politely ask Shining Armor what he said. Shining looked at Thorax and Flash Sentry. “Can either of you quiet them down?” Thorax tapped his chin with his hoof as he pondered Shining’s question over. Flash Sentry, meanwhile, didn’t tap anything with anything. He already had an answer. “Yeah, sure.” Flash raised his hoof and pointed at Flurry Heart, sound asleep in her chest-mounted baby-carrier. “Hey, guys?” He whispered to the crowd. “I know you’re scared, but the baby’s sleeping. Could you please quiet down?” The crowd’s hysteria quickly died down into quiet mumbles. That was better. If Shining were still Captain of the Guard, he would have given Flash Sentry a raise. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he decided to address the crowd. “Okay,” Shining Armor said to the crowd. “I realize that you’re all scared. But we can’t let our fears get the better of us. We need to calm down and remember that we’ve already faced, like, a dozen world-ending catastrophes in the last few years. We made it through all of those, didn’t we?” The mumbles of fear from the crowd turned into the mumbles of reluctant agreement. “Now, my sister’s friends are already looking into all of this,” Shining said. “They’re going to find the princesses and bring them back.” “Why aren’t you helping them?” Somepony in the crowd abruptly yelled. Shining paused, his momentum suddenly swept out from under him. He looked down into the crowd and did his best to hide the irritation already bubbling up within him. The prince put on his best smile and chuckled politely. “Well,” he said testily, “I… didn’t really have anything I could contribute to the search. More importantly, I—” “And you’re okay with that?” The same pony yelled. “Like, your wife and sister are missing! Aren’t you upset? I’d be pretty upset! I bet you’re upset!” Shining grimaced. He felt like his composure was about to go out the window. They were on a balcony, though, so they thankfully had no windows to worry about. Shining breathed in, breathed out, and gave the crowd his biggest insincere smile. “As I was saying…” Shining said through gritted teeth. “I promise all of you that this is not the catastrophe it seems to be. Equestria’s best and brightest are working hard to keep the kingdom running despite the princesses’ absence. There’s no need to lose our heads.” “Who’s going to move the sun and the moon?!” Somepony in the crowd shouted. “It’s been dawn for, like, six hours! I’m upset about that!” “It’s perfectly natural to be upset about the fact that the sun and moon aren’t moving,” Shining said to the big baby who’d voiced their concerns. “Starswirl the Bearded is putting together a team to work together to raise the sun and moon. It’ll be up to a team of unicorns, just like in the old days.” “What about our dreams?” Another pony asked. “If Luna’s gone, who’s going to make sure that we don’t dream anything that’s illegal?” “We got along fine for a thousand moons without Luna monitoring our dreams,” Shining pointed out. “Also, I’m pretty sure that’s not why Luna keeps watch over our dreams.” “But how can Equestria survive without Celestia and Luna?!” Another pony asked. “They’ve been around practically since the beginning! If they’re gone, Equestria’s doomed!” Shining blinked. He was starting to realize something about the ponies who’d gathered in the garden. “You… You all know the princesses have been planning on retiring, right?” He asked worriedly. “Like… They won’t be in charge for much longer. They’re stepping down. Did… Did you not know that?” The awkward muttering from the crowd told Shining that they had known, but had forgotten. Shining sighed and shook his head. He understood that the ponies were worried, but he just didn’t have a lot of patience left after all the nonsense he’d already been through. His head was starting to hurt. “Okay,” Shining said testily. “Equestria has been through tough times before. We’ve survived and persevered, even when things looked bad. Heck, this isn’t even the first time all of the princesses have gone missing. We’ve been through worse, and I promise all of you that we will see this through.” The ponies in the crowd murmured and looked amongst each other. Some of the panic had left their voices. They were still uneasy, but it looked like they weren’t as close to freaking out as they had been. Shining felt like he was getting through to them. “Just go back to your everyday lives,” Shining continued. “I promise you, the world’s not going to end because the princesses are missing. Equestria will be fine.” The crowd seemed to be finally placated. Slowly, ponies began to leave the royal gardens. There was still a large crowd, but it was very slowly dispersing. As the numbers thinned, Shining Armor let loose a sigh of relief. “Finally,” he muttered. “Yeah,” Flash Sentry nodded. “What a well-mannered and reasonable mob of panicked ponies.” “I was worried we’d have to sing a musical number,” Thorax chuckled anxiously. “I’m no good at that; I’m terrible at improvising lyrics.” Shining had to agree with the others; that had gone much better than he’d expected. It was a good thing that ponies were so easily-swayed. Otherwise, they might have been on that balcony for hours trying to get them to calm down. All things considered, it looked like everything had gone pretty well. Just as Shining Armor, Thorax, and Flash Sentry were getting ready to head back into the throne room, however, a voice cried out for them to stop. “Stop!” A voice cried out to them. Shining Armor turned to see that an incredibly old pegasus had left the crowd and flown up to the balcony. He was panting from the exertion he appeared to be going through, his wings flapping rapidly as they attempted to carry him closer to Shining and the others. Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, the pegasus’ hooves touched down on the balcony. “Don’t you go trying to brush this off!” The pegasus said with a voice like a million cobwebs. “You think I don’t see what’s happenin’?! I was there when it happened the first time!” Shining stared at the pegasus in silent confusion. “I… beg your pardon?” Shining asked. “You’re not getting any pardon from me!” The pegasus snapped. “I told you fools that this was gonna happen again, but nopony listens to Ol’ Dusty Draft!” Shining blinked. “Well, I—” “That’s me, by the way; I’m Dusty Draft,” the pegasus said quickly. Dusty Draft. There was something familiar about that name, but Shining couldn’t put his hoof on it. He was too tired to put any real effort into remembering it. In any case, he couldn’t quite make sense of what this old guy was trying to say. “What are you talking about, Mr. Draft?” Shining asked. “Do you have some sort of information?” The tragically old pegasus scoffed. “Information? Information?! Sonny, I got a whole book’s worth of information! And here’s the first chapter: it’s called ‘The princesses disappearin’ is just the tip of the iceberg and things are only gonna get worse!’” “Sir, please calm down!” Thorax said. “You need to think of a better title for the chapters in your book!” “Don’t tell me how to handle the writin’ process!” Draft snapped, hovering up off the ground so he could look Thorax in the eye. “And I’ll calm down when Equestria ain’t headin’ to heck in a hoofbasket! We’ve got a genuine crisis on our hooves, and you brats aren’t making things better by tellin’ folks there’s nothing to worry about!” Shining cast a worried glance out towards the ponies who were still in the garden. The crowd hadn’t completely dispersed, and there were still quite a lot of ponies crowded together. Thankfully, thought, it looked like they couldn’t quite hear what Draft was saying. That was good—Shining didn’t need everypony panicking again. “Look, just… keep your voice down!” Shining whispered as he grabbed Draft and lowered him back down to the ground. “What do you know about what’s happened? It sounds like you’ve seen something like this before.” Draft turned around and gave Shining Armor the grandfather of all stink-eyes. “I told you all!” Draft whispered in a threatening tone. “I said it’d happen again! When powerful ponies start goin’ missing, it can only mean one thing…” Shining leaned forward in suspense. Thorax and Flash both waited eagerly for Draft to fill them in, as well. Flurry Heart, who was somehow still asleep, did not care at all about this old man. Her apathy would have been palpable if she was a little bit older. Draft’s eyes darted around at his audience. He gestured for them to lean in, which they were already doing, and then whispered conspiratorially. “Evil fairies,” he said certainly. Shining needed to take a moment to make sure he hadn’t misheard. Once that moment was passed, he still wasn’t positive what Dusty Draft had said. Not only had his answer been needlessly vague, it had also made no sense. “F… Fairies?” Shining repeated. “Evil fairies,” Draft emphasized manically. “Evil fairies with crazy magic that wanna wipe Equestria off the map!” “Do you mean Breezies?” Thorax ventured. “Those little, er, butterly-looking things?” Draft snapped his head around and glared at Thorax. “Son, if I meant Breezies, I’d’ve said Breezies!” Draft said, jabbing his hoof at Thorax’s buggy chest. “I’m talking about giant, two-headed fairies that live deep beneath the sea!” Draft looked around at the three stallions, waiting for their reaction. Nopony said anything. After a while, Shining exchanged a look with Thorax and Flash. They were just as much at a loss as Shining Armor was. With no idea of how to respond to this, Shining looked back down at the expectant pegasus. “That’s a…” Shining struggled to find a polite way to say ‘crazy’. “… Unique theory,” he finally settled on. “What made you come to this conclusion?” Draft narrowed his eyes at Shining. “You don’t believe me,” he accused. Shining rubbed the back of his neck. “It… is a little farfetched.” “Maybe we’d be more likely to believe you if you made the effort to sound less like a crazy person,” Flash offered politely. “You’re kind of just screaming and rambling at us and it doesn’t really lend any credibility to your claims.” “Bah!” Draft said, even though it wasn’t a word. “You kids today care too much about things like ‘proof’ and ‘things being real’! Just because the fairies I’m talking about might be imaginary, that doesn’t mean they didn’t abduct the princesses!” “Sir, who even are you?” Shining asked dryly. “Are you just some random citizen? How did you reach this conclusion? Please show your credentials.” Instead of citing his sources, Dusty Draft gave the prince an old-man scowl. His face was an angry raisin that nobody wanted in their cookie. “Why is it nopony every listens to me anymore?!” Draft snapped. “Nopony listened to me when I said there was a cult of gazelle livin’ in the sewers! Nopony listened to me when I said that the griffons were tryin’ to steal our taffy recipes! And sure, I was wrong about both those things, but my point still stands!” The migraine that had been threatening Shining all day was starting to come on. He raised a hoof to his temple as he felt the pain slowly beginning to build. He wanted to cuss, but couldn’t do that with a Flurry Heart strapped to his chest. “Flash, please escort Mr. Draft off of the premises,” Shining said through clenched teeth. Flash nodded. He put a hoof on Dusty Draft’s shoulder and then gently threw the elderly pegasus off of the balcony. He fell down to the crowd of ponies still gathered in the garden below. One pony managed to catch Dusty Draft, and everypony got very excited. They all waited eagerly to see if any more old men would be thrown for them to catch. “Well, that was the opposite of helpful,” Thorax mused. The three stallions walked back into the throne room while Shining rubbed his head. “We actually get people like that all the time whenever there’s an emergency,” Flash Sentry said embarrassedly. “A bunch of ponies who think they’ve stumbled onto the secret explanation for what’s really going on. They mean well, I guess, but they’re… kind of always wrong.” “I agree,” Dynamite Dangerous said. “Also, I am still here in the throne room.” As Flash Sentry carried Dynamite Dangerous to the balcony so he could be thrown to the crowd below, Shining Armor sat back down on Celestia’s throne. He felt awful, which wasn’t surprising considering how bad this day had been. And Shining knew he still had at least a dozen more meetings to get through before the day was done. It seemed like things would never end. Just as Shining thought that, though, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Through the open balcony doors, Shining saw something changing outside. The navy-colored dawn sky that Equestria had been stuck with for the last few hours was starting to brighten. The moon was slowly, haltingly lowering in the sky, and the sun was rising up to take its place. Starswirl had done it; he’d gotten together enough unicorns to raise the sun. Shining had started to worry that they’d never be able to get that problem fixed. He never should have doubted Starswirl, he knew that. The old wizard had literally moved the sun and moon for Equestria in the princesses’ absence. And if Starswirl could do that, Shining could deal with a little frustration, right? Filling in for Celestia and Luna wasn’t the worst thing in the world—Shining was letting his worries get the better of him. He could do this. No matter how frustrating things got, or how worried he was about Cadance and Twily, Shining could do this. Flurry Heart cooed, finally starting to wake up from her nap. Shining looked down at his daughter with a small smile and finally started to feel a little bit of hope. And as Shining took Flurry out of the chest-mounted baby-carrier, he allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, everything would work out for the best. Three weeks later, the princesses still hadn’t been found.