Year twenty-something in Equestria. Maybe thirty, who could keep it all straight.
The Silver Shores retirement community located an hour outside of Fillydelphia is its usual tomb of activity. The crust on your eyes breaks as you pry them open, letting the faint sunlight and buzzing fluorescent tubes from the ceiling into you.
Your body feels weighted as you lay on your back, the only one there thanks to SOMEONE being an early bird. Each time you think to push yourself from the sheets, the weight of apathy pushes you back into them like an undertaker.
Your senses return, but you wish they didn’t as each one feels worse than the last. This entire building smelled like two things on the indoors; sterilized piss and sugar free jello, both of which crept their way up into your nostrils and rooted themselves in your brain, making you long for death if it wasn’t such a hassle to do so.
Your ears detect movement outside your room, another of the residents slowly creaking his way along the uneven floorboards, too erratic to predict but too constant to ignore.
A fine clamminess of humidity sets in on your bare chest and arms brought on by the second sound, unending coughing from every angle around you as your neighbors try their damndest to hack up their remaining lungs and drown you in a petri dish.
With herculean effort, you peel yourself off the moistening bed top and swing your legs out over the side, rubbing your face to clear the ever-present cobwebs and looking at…something left on your table. A plate of clear, ruby red, sugarless jello in the shape of a smiling face with a note saying, “Start the day off right.”
Your mouth tastes the plastic in the unloving pile of breakfast, but you sigh and stand to your feet, trudging towards the bathroom.
The shower to the side of your bedroom didn’t feel like anything. It wasn’t hot, or cold, it was like a denser capsule of the air you walked through to get here. As if you were submerging yourself in a pool of spittle. You rub your eyes and try to clean the night of sweat off you since none of the god damned windows in this place opened and they kept it hot to not excite the residents.
A knock at your door demands your attention. “…Yeah?”
”Do you need help getting up in the morning, sir?”
“What? No…I’m not an invalid.”
”Do you need me to sponge you off or check for sores?”
“No.”
”Are the lights too bright for you?”
“I can take care of myself, go.”
”Do you need help getting dressed?”
“Please, leave.”
”Have you had a bowel movement today, sir?”
You look at your feet, letting the water drip off your nose and fall between them, and wonder what to say. It should come easy, but doesn’t anymore, not since this place became home.
“Everything is alright.”
”Alright sir. Why not come out to the common area and we can all watch the big day together?”
“I will, thank you.”
The door closes and you crank the water as hot as it will go.
Nothing happens, the residents of this place can’t be trusted with TOO much heat. In your cocoon of nothingness, you strike your head against the wall and remember that everything is lined with soft foam in here to prevent a bad fall.
“Everything is safe here…”
You should go outside, but beyond the gates of the village, you barely knew there was a world to go into. The community was all your mind knew since your insisted arrival those years back. Each time you tried to go see outside, you were found and returned right here to your room.
Eventually, you accepted it. It wasn’t worth the effort out there, nothing was. Living was hardly worth the effort.
You shut off the water and go grab a towel.
The common area.
The elderly assault your every sense in a blanket of near-death. Their stench crawling up your nose, their snores and pulse monitors beeping in your ear, and the coarse, rough pleather couch you sit on now hardly does anything to support your back, but the shambling corpses that make regular use of it don’t seem to mind. Outside, Old Henderson revs his motorcycle that he’s always trying to fix before the engine sputters and a “dagnabbit” comes through the window.
In the years since you’d been dragged here “because it was your time”, the world had grown more and more grey every single day. You feel your heart beat slower and slower each time you wake up in the mid afternoon and these constant irritations that surround you are the only source of emotion you still feel. For the sake of your semi-better half who’s idea it was to come here, you take a breath and try to focus on the news report on the television.
“We’re here in Ponyville at the Summer Sun Celebration, the last Summer Sun Celebration being held as Princess Twilight chooses to focus resources into additional libraries.”
“Wait, they’re cancelling the SSF? Don’t we have enough libraries?”
The old stallion next to you falls onto your shoulder and snores more, but you keep watching.
”Everyone is in attendance at this final celebration.” The reporter says. “Princess Twilight and the former Elements of Harmony, the Grand Magister, princess Astra, even Discord has been seen floating around! It’s early now, but sunset promises to bring an exciting end to the traditional Summer Sun Celebration and a calm, quiet, peaceful future for Equestria.”
Every word you hear stabs you like a knife and your feel a great thundering in your ears.
The quiet, the routine, the soul crushing monotony of bed checks. There was a time before that. “This…isn’t right.”
“Sir!” The voice from before, your nurse, walks around the couch looking disappointed at you.
”You didn’t eat your breakfast!”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
”That wont do, sir! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially at your age!”
“I’m immortal, I DON’T age-“
”No excuse! This is important to your health!”
With her magic, she floats a bowl of some porridge or another to the table in front of you.
“I’m just trying to watch the new-“
”What you need to TRY, sir, is to sit down and eat your breakfast. It’s what’s best in the long run.”
Best, huh…
”Yes. Now just accept it and try to like it.” She says, leaving.
You look down at the “food” before you. A bowl of oatmeal. The muted color of a dying earthworm left in the sun, congealing together like blood left in the open air. You stick a finger inside it, a bubble slowly bursts when you do. Fiber dust crunches under your touch when you stir your finger around, occasionally you hit a bit of almond. Removing your finger, the substance sticks like gum to you, trying as it can to pull you back into its depths. With your clean finger, you compare the temperature of breakfast to that of the room and find no difference between the two.
Whether by seeing what they expect to go inside of you or something else, your stomach clenches. That clenching feeling travels up your body and through your throat until you can hardly breathe, and your hands start to shake.
But beyond it all, one thought occupies your mind.
“Cancel…the Summer Sun Celebration…?”
It was something that brought everyone together, from all walks of life, the kingdom over. Friends were made, loves were found, bonds were forged, and art was birthed all because of the Summer Sun Celebration. Everyone loved it.
Cancelled?
Staring down at your hands, the pressure from your insides reaches its apex and shatters, letting you finally take a gasping lung-full of air and swallowing it down to your gullet for the first time in years and years.
And you know what?
You HATED it.
You stand up and let the geezer fall onto the couch, where his flank releases a cloud of corpse dust that stinks up the entire room to anyone under ninety. So only you.
The motorcycle engine outside roars again and you feel a thumping in your ear. Your feet move to the door on their own.
“This isn’t right, I need to find-- where’s Celly?”
”Prince?” you hear the pill orderly call.
“WHERE’S THE PRINCESS??”
”Sir!”
You look over your shoulder and see her shaking an orange bottle. “You look unwell. I think you need to take your blood pressure medication, that will calm you right down.”
You feel your eye twitch.
You boot open the doors to the main building of Silver Shores and take a deep breath, clearing your lungs of all the old pony stink.
“FUCK. EVERYTHING. These places should be outlawed.”
You go and spit your medicine into the bushes as you have been for weeks now since they stopped watching you so intently and wipe your mouth “Why even have them? They’re just a waiting room afterlife. Hurry up and die already.”
If you paid taxes, you wouldn’t want them going to these passionless oafs.
“Celestia, have to find Celestia.”
You flex your hands and shake your head, trying to force the poison of indifference out of your veins as you go down the path. The breath you took earlier making your stomach hot. How many years had it been since Celestia had spring “Mous, we’re retiring!” on you? Too many. All your schemes in Canterlot blown away in the wind as your entire life was packed up and moved into a poorly lined coffin that you had to share with others.
“This isn’t right, this isn’t how it ends.” You mutter to yourself.
That stupid motorcycle revs in the distance again as you approach the pool. For someone formally nocturnal, Luna had taken quite happily to lazing by the pool all day. You stomp through a croquet game as the players are distracted by a code blue and tower over your in-law.
”Excuse me…you’re in our light.” She says behind her sunglasses.
What you want to say gets punched out of your head by your brain. “You’re retired and you STILL talk like that?”
Her attention grasped, Luna raises her head and finally looks at you. “In-law? What are you doing here, Mous? Is it not your tv time?”
“Where is she.”
”Whom?”
“Do not FUCK with me, Luna. Where is my wife.”
In the years since you’ve been here and she’s been out of your reach, Luna’s gotten an attitude, one that is expressed when she rolls her eyes and lays back down. “We will not help you have one of your old fabled tantrums to our sister, In-law. Go eat your pudding and leave us be.”
Oh THAT’S it.
The cage your brain has been in here melts in the summer sun around you and you think of something you hadn’t done in years. You reach out and throw Luna’s glasses into the pool.
”Hey-“
“Is THAT how you want to play it, you little shitbird? Should I start asking all those nice young colts I see at the gates on Saturday’s where they get their bits for Flanknite? Do their parents know about that? HUH?”
”Y-you wouldn’t-“
You start gyrating your hips and flossing an invisible towel between your legs. “How the fuck many things have I ever implied I WOULDN’T do, Luna? HUH?!”
Luna’s cheeks turn crimson and she covers her eyes with her hooves.
“C’MON YOU LITTLE HUSSY I KNOW YOU KNOW. TELL ME WHERE MY WIFE IS BEFORE I SHOVE MY SHIFTY SHAFT UP YOUR PRESSURE PLANT YOU BITCH.
”MOUS, PONIES ARE STARING!”
You think of a song “I WANNA BE A MAGIC WARLOCK! I WANNA SPIKE HEADS OFF THE SIDEWALK! LUNA WANTS TO SUCK PRE-TEEN HORSEC-“ Luna clamps her hooves down over your mouth before the final syllable pops out.
“Mmf!”
The Former Princess gives a meek smile to anyone looking. “He’s off his medication!”
How did she know that? It didn’t matter, she shoves her face into yours. ”Whatarethoudoing!?”
You slap your hands on either side of Luna’s head and dig your fingers in, you see a globule of sweat trickle down as she looks over at your fingernails.
“Where. Is. SHE.” You bite out.
The fire in Luna’s eyes ignites, now she understood you. “Golfing. She is always golfing at 10am.”
“Was THAT hard?”
You push Luna back onto her chair and stomp out of the leisure pool as the morning pool-exercise class files in, hoping to use the water to repel the effects of gravity.
”What are you planning, Mous!?” you hear Luna call behind you. You don’t answer. ”Mous! Do not do anything! We’re retired now! The time for your shenanigans has come to an-“
You scoop one of the croquet balls off the ground and throw it as hard as you can behind you. It bounces off Luna’s head with a CLONK and sends her careening into the pool. The lifeguard panics over his cushy job as you stomp your way to the golf course.
That god damn motorcycle is STILL revving, and you can hear it all the way out by the court. Your teeth grind in rhythm to the gas and you smell the stench of tapioca, Silver Shore’s lunch de-jour, waft through the air.
It smells like death and pussy. Walking onto the golf course, you take a deep breath.
“CELESTIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
No response comes, let alone a timely one. Time to kick it up to the next level.
Another deep breath.
“UNICORNS DID TIREK SPACE IS FAKE THEY’RE PUTTING MAGIC IN THE WATER TO TURN THE PARASPRITES GAY CELESTIA IS TEN YEARS OLDER THAN SHE SAYS SHE I-“
”That stops NOW.”
The crack of your neck sounds over the course as you turn around, seeing Celestia behind you accompanied by her entourage of Mares Over Eighty cover models.
“Darling! Do you have a minute??”
Celestia does not look amused. She walks up to you with her nine-iron out. “What are you doing, Mous?”
“Looking for you, my lovely wife.”
”It is too early for conspiracies.”
“That sounds like something “they” would say, darling. Don’t let them rule you like that; you are the former Princess.”
Celestia stone-faces you, silent for a heartbeat. “…Who’s “they”.”
You cup your hands over your mouth and shout to echo through the valley. “THE (((DEER))).”
Celestia’s mask cracks just a bit and you feel a slight pressure press up between the cheeks of your ass.
“WHOA WHOA HEY NOT IN FRONT OF MRS JAMESON!”
Celestia lowers her face to meet yours, her eye twitches. “Ex. Plain.”
She was mad, so were you.
“Duke of dookey.”
Couples fought, it was only natural, especially when you’ve been together so long as the two of you had. Long ago, you and Celestia established a code phrase to let the other know that a situation was serious. With only a moment’s hesitation, Celestia turns to her golf-mates. “Can you excuse my husband and I for a moment? It won’t take long?”
The randies trot away, gossiping to themselves, and Celestia turns her head back to you. “Talk.”
That god damned motorcycle is STILL revving, but you don’t care as the sun beats down on you.
You clench your fists and pump them. “I GOT THIS BURNIN’ LIKE MY VEINS ARE FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT GASOLINE!”
”We’re not doing that today, Mous.”
“Oh COME ON!”
”No, the musicals were cringey.”
“Uhg.”
Bitch
“I just--why are we here? Why are things the way they are? We came here because you said we had to and Luna agreed and we’ve been just…STUCK here since! Watching everything go on outside!”
You begin pacing around. “Now they’re going to put an end to the Summer Sun Celebration and it’s like…why? Why DO that? Everyone loves it! People still enjoy it!”
Celestia nods and sucks her teeth a bit. “I had heard they were going to do that…”
“If you know then let’s stop it!”
Celestia sighs, setting her golf club down. “It isn’t that simple, Mous.”
“Why?”
”Because our time is over. We’re no longer the princesses, Twilight is, she’s fulfilled her destiny and now rules Equestria.” Seemingly knowing you wouldn’t just accept that, she continues. “There comes a time, Mous, a time where the old must be ushered off and the new allowed to come in. We had to leave…so they could grow.”
“…Why?”
”It’s simply the way of things.”
“Wh-wh-wh-who gives a shit, Celly?!”
Celestia winces back a bit from your outburst, you feel the pressure rising in your head, your gut, your entire body feels ready to explode.
“I swear it’s like I’m back in that damn mirror again! What IS it with you ponies and submitting yourselves to “destiny” or “the way things should be”! Is it because of those ass-tattoos that you won’t stand up and FIGHT for yourselves?!”
”Mous…”
“Shut up! We’re out here at the ass end of nowhere having our bodies checked for sours, our food fed to us in liquid form and surrounded by the medicated zombies that make up the elderly population while WE are in the prime of our life for what? Twilight? “Because we’re supposed to?” Fuck that! Fuck doing what we’re supposed to do if it means a slow death watching the world replace us! We can do whatever the FUCK we want, Celestia! And -I- want to keep living! We don’t have to sit here feeling sorry for ourselves!”
Celestia diverts her eyes and rubs her leg with another. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself…”
You march up to your wife and put your face right into hers. “How many rounds of golf have you played this week?”
”Two-hundred and eighty seven.”
“What do you do when you’re not golfing.”
”…Wait to golf."
“See, that’s it!” You walk away from your wife, the thunder in your ears ringing louder “Every second of our days are planned now until the minute of our deaths because “our time is done”? FUCK. THAT! No arbitrary destiny bullshit decides when I’m done doing what I do, and you shouldn’t either! And if I must burn this place to the GROUND to get that through to you, I’ll do it!”
You go around to Celestia’s front. “Fuck “destiny”! Fuck “what we’re supposed to do”! Force your way down a path you choose to take! Do it all yourself if you have to! If life tells you that you need to stop and fade away, grab life by its ugly face and carve your name into its forehead with your LAST breath! I’m not going out any other way and neither should YOU!”
”I knew…” Celestia says quietly, eyes closed.
“Knew wha-“
Celestia jerks forward and presses her lips against yours. You’re caught off guard by the unfamiliar feeling of Celestia forcing her tongue into your mouth and licking the back of your teeth. Her lidded eyes sparkle with the embers of mischief and the wind picks up her hair, swelling it back to its former glorious size.
Celestia tears herself away from you, looking as resplendent and breathtaking as the day you married her, and offering you a smirk. “I KNEW I married you for some reason, whatever that is.”
You clean your mouth on the grass a bit. “Come on, are you telling me you WANT me to turn this place into a madhouse just so we can leave?”
”Residents aren’t permitted to leave the grounds so easily, Mous. Besides…”
Celestia circles around you like a shark and rests her head on your shoulder, looking over Silver Shores. “This place…a little slice of Elysium they called it, is the best retirement center royal money could buy…with round the clock care, constant monitoring of the patients, and everything that would ever be needed to live a quiet, peaceful, uneventful existence…”
Those words, like before, stab into your chest. You feel fire breaking out of them, ready to burst if pushed any further. Part of your mind catches, remembering you’re a father, a prince, and wondering if you should do this.
”Want you to?” Your wife, the Princess you decided to spend your long life with, brings her head up and flits her soft, gentile tongue into your ear. ”I want you to try~” she whispers in a tone only ever reserved for your bedroom.
Your pants tighten.
The flickering ashes in you explode into a familiar towering inferno. And that god damned motorcycle finally catches, filling the whole valley with a loud VROOOOOOOOM. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Music
Back in the main building, you talk on the phone. “A-huh. And I need it delivered.” They respond back to you, you look at the clock. The festival would be starting at sundown, meaning roughly seven hours from now. Factoring in time to get from here to Ponyville if you flew as well as what else you needed to get done and wiggle room…
“Get it here in two hours.”
The phone talks back.
“Yes I know what I said. Get it here in two hours, do as your prince commands!”
You hang up the phone and glare at it. Stupid animal store should listen to your old and crusty royal authority.
“Alright alright, next up…”
You leave the phone and hurry to the back hall. The entrance to the pill room was here and staffed at all times by two orderlies ready to dole out sense-deadeners to the residents at a moments notice.
Your goal was inside, so you needed them out. You swing past the orderly stand while one of them isn’t looking and swipe the tv remote. Normally set to the news or some other mind numbing ass-drippings, you memorized the content lock code when one of the aids was being particularly lax. You didn’t blame him, why be attentive when everyone around you is functionally a corpse?
“Let’s see…one-one…one-one.”
The tv accepts the code and switches to some old buddy guard show. A grizzled old veteran and his zebra partner lean out the side of their carriage as they go on a destructive chase through the streets of Canterlot. You crank the volume as a poorly choreographed explosion goes off and every head in the room creaks over to see, some ancient mouths even turn up into smiles.
”CODE PURPLE! CODE PURPLE! ENERGIZING MEDIA ON THE CAMPUS!” blares a loudspeaker. Orderlies from the desk and, just as you planned it, the pill counter rush out to try and get the offending imagery off the tv.
You beat feet inside at maximum stealth index and flip open the medicine cabinets, searching for your target. There wasn’t much time before the tv was neutered and the residents safe!
“Excreeti-lax excreeti-lax,…come on, with all the bran and milk you feed these fools, it has to be somewhere.”
You find the bottle you need, it was the one with the atom bomb on the front, and pocket as many of them as you can fit.
Jingling with your fetid arsenal, you slip out the pharmacy door and creep through the halls towards the back, near the kitchen. No “Caretakers only” sign stops you from sneaking in and calling out “SMOKE BREAK!” to the room.
”Thank FUCKING Celestia” you hear one of the younger workers say, throwing a spoon down.
”If I have to spend one more minute looking at these fossils, I’m going to blow my brains out into the soup.” The other says.
The two of them file out the back door for their nic fix which gives you about ten minutes to sneak in. You slide over to where they were working and examine todays meal. Pudding, again, tapioca from the smell of it.
“Alright, I can work with this.”
Ten minutes are spent pouring the pills into a bowl, crushing them up, and pouring that bowl into the pudding mix. As your time begins to run out and you hear the cooks returning, you quickly spit into the mix and make for the door.
You didn’t feel bad about it, they were probably doing that already.
90 minutes to your delivery.
There is a small gymnasium at the back of the main building where the orderlies try to get the somewhat more mobile residents some exercise through what has been known by you as “the osteoporosis dance”. There’s also a supply closet with an easily battered off doorknob where they keep large tubs of wax to make the floor look newer.
These facts together tell you all you need know as you dunk a rag in the wax.
“Time trial. GO!”
You fall forward and till tilt run along the floor, pushing the rag with your hands and leaving a greasy snail trail behind you. There’s no rhyme or reason to your pattern, nor did you try to coat the entire floor. The key to any mine field was a truly random pattern to maximize surprise.
You run hither and tither, to and fro, backways and forwards. You hit the walls, the railings, even some chairs. You spell “Ballsack” in wax and giggle to yourself as the sun masks your work.
You giggle to yourself as you finish the K in “sack” and run face first into some blue legs. ”We thought we had heard giggling in here.”
Damn wax got you on your ass too.
“The hell are you doing here, Luna?”
”We could ask you that same question!”
You stand up and look your in-law in the eyes one of them blacker from a ball hitting her in the face.
“I’m whack-zing off.”
Hehehe.
Luna’s face is not amused. “Are you well?”
“I’m awake. Leave me alone, blueballs!”
You try to get back to the wax, but Luna circles around you. “We shall NOT! As recently as yesterday thou were calm and normal whereas today you have attacked me, many have seen you stomping about and now I find you here! Tis almost like back before-”
Luna’s eyes go wide as she looks into your own, really looks into them.
HEHEHE.
You lean down to her. “Boo.”
Luna swats you with her hoof. “Do not be foolish!”
“OW! You bitch!”
Luna gasps. “You swore! You will tell us what has gotten into you at once!”
You stand up straighter and compose yourself, holding up one finger. “You see-“
Time has dulled Luna’s agility and leaves her no time to respond when you hock your throat back and spit a ball of snot and spittle into her good eye.
”AAAAUUUUGGGGGHH!” she groans.
With a hearty Woodpecker laugh, you slide out the door and down the hall down the hall with the grease on your feet.
“Sorry Lulu! Better luck next time!”
”MOUS!” you hear her shout before she trips on a waxy spot. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“Bringing sexy back!”
One more. One more is all you had time for.
Luna was a hound out for blood after your repeated abuses, so you needed to be quick. Around this time, you know that the orderlies liked to read boring grocery store paperbacks to the seniors. You think you’d prefer a concrete enema, so you slide into your bedroom for something before going to the reading lounge. You get a few odd looks when you show up with a dozen scented candles.
“…What? It smells like feet in here.”
The orderly reading shrugs and continues to read, not paid enough to stop you. You start walking around the reading area, lighting and leaving the candles as you go. You can hear the story the residents are being read.
”The story begins in a far off land…highlands hundreds of years in the past among a race of peaceful hill-ponies.”
Okay this was the most boring story ever produced, time to focus on what you’re doing.
You snicker as you set another of your “special” candles down. Over the many years of your marital bliss, Celestia had taken up the hobby of collecting “marital aids” and “mood candles” to help facilitate her desires the moment they struck her or when you were being recalcitrant. This one you just lit was the one that helped Astra get conceived.
After so many years of smelling these candles so damned often, you had built up a healthy tolerance to their effects, just enough to get you out of here before the fireworks started.
”-would experience something called “The Quickening”, but only if they peacefully solved their disagreements first.” You hear the orderly read.
Wait.
“What?”
You turn your attention to the reading circle now fully.
”MacLeod was a student of an old wizard mentor, who passed away peacefully in his sleep because his immortality powers had run out.”
No!
They’re ruining it!
You light two more candles and walk up behind the orderly. “Can I help you sir?”
“I’m just entranced by your story.” You say through clenched teeth. “Please, continue.”
She grins a smug grin and does so.
Yeah that’s it lady, look away…
>Something deep inside you urges you to preserve the artistic integrity of a treasure from your homeland. Through pantomime.
”MacLeod had a friend, a pony named Kreuger, who was also trying to obtain the Prize. He and MacLeod would try for many days to solve their problems.”
Behind the orderly, you get the senior’s attention by miming a sword fight and resulting decapitation. Whether due to the loosening effects of the candles or because this orderly was just that boring, you have eyes on you instantly.
”You see, the Prize would let him see his wife and all his friends again! It’s been such a long time.”
You point to your wedding band and drag your thumb across your throat, illustrating what happened to the wife.
”And when MacLeod had finally finished talking to Kruger, he and his new friend returned to the peaceful hills he had been born in.”
You face your back to the crowd and wrap your arms around yourself, enthralled by passion and as you kiss nothing.
The residents make a collective noise of interest for once and lean in. “They go back to his home, eh? Really?” one asks.
The orderly smiles, ignorant of you. “Yes! And they live happy ever after.”
Another groan of interest and a lick of the lips from the residents as you thrust your hips fervently in the smoke-clogged air.
Everyone with a brain knew how that story ended, no matter how they try to sanitize it. You look over the reading group and spot what you wanted to see. Lidded eyes, a few hooves on hips, light chuckles and flushed cheeks. Even the orderly was looking a bit red.
Yes. PERFECT, THIS IS- You look down at your own tightening pants, apparently your resilience isn’t what you thought.
“Oh fuck, I’m not getting caught in this.”
”Launguage!” the orderly says, but you’re already out the door.
Your package should be here anyway.
You know, the other package.
You drop the heavy box down on the ground as a loud CRACK comes from down the hall. Nearly letting out a help, you lean forward onto it.
“It’s time!”
”What’s time?” you hear from behind you, your wife coming in from outside.
You chuckle, low and sharp.
“The release!”
”Well you know how much I love those.~”
“Shut up, Celly.”
Groans come from the cafeteria in time for a loud droning in your ear.
”There you both are!”
“UHG.”
Luna approaches from your opposite side and stomps her hoof. “Mous we demand to know what you are both up to at ONCE!”
Celestia puts on her innocent face. “Me? I just got here.”
“You’re both DISTRACTING ME!” you shout.
”From wha-“ starts Luna before she’s interrupted by the Silver Shores staff entering a panic.
They run in from all corners.
”I need all hands at the gymnasium! We’ve got over two dozen falls in the middle of dance practice! They’re in a pile and tripping over each other to get up!”
”MY HIP!” you hear from down the hall as the orderly winces. “It’s a nightmare.”
”Nightmare?” one of the other asks “NIGHTMARE?! I just came from the cafeteria, THAT’S a nightmare! Something must have contaminated the kitchen because all at once the residents just-” The orderly thrusts his head closer to his coworkers for emphasis. “It’s EVERYWHERE!”
The last orderly, the one from the reading room, has been quiet and looks past her colleagues with her eyes wide.
“Don’t go into the rec room.”
”Oh no, what’s happening in there?” the first asks, pushing past her to go see. She holds her hoof out and stops him.
“DON’T. Go. To the rec room.”
“Celly, get the carriage.”
”For wha-“
Doors at all ends of the building fly open and they come. From the north comes a pile of wrinkled, hanging flesh that pulls itself along the floor, struggling against a wax coat that covers everything they touch. From their decrepit mouths, they moan for walkers, pills, calcium as they crawl on bruised hips towards the staff.
The east doors to the cafeteria burst open as another orderly runs to safety, letting waft in the putrid smell of stale pudding run through the bile ducts of a populace that, cumulatively, exceeds both your wife and sister in age. You hear multiple SPLATS from inside along with the groans of gastrointestinal distress.
The west, the worst of all, held the reading room. You can’t see or smell anything there, but you most assuredly hear the sounds that the Canterlot palace was forced to hear for years that so traumatized the nurse.
”Oh my.” Celestia says.
”What did you DO!?” Luna shouts, less amused.
You place your foot on the box Captain Morgan style and lean on your knee.
“Nothing yet and it’s about to get a lot worse. Silver Shores Staff!”
The collected staff momentarily look away from their fleshy, poopy, fluid-y fate.
“We are leaving your care! I leave you a gift for the years of HELL this place has put me through!”
”What is in that box?” one asks.
You grin like the devil himself and kick one side of the box down, releasing the swarm.
“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!”
Luna screams.
Celestia goes wide eyed and grabs you. “OH SHIT.” She exclaims.
Your wife hurries you and her sister off as the swarm of insects and shambling dead descends on Silver Shores while you cackle to yourself.
“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS! HAHAHA!”
-Later-
“Ow, fuck. Be gentle.”
”If I had a bit for every time I heard that…”
“Oh my god, stop.”
”You stop being a baby, baby.” Celestia uses her magic to pull a bee stinger from your cheek and bring the swelling down as you all cut through the air in a royal carriage.
”I hope the two of you are PROUD of yourselves!” Luna chides on the other end of the carriage. “A home for dozens ruined by bees, excrement and—guh…lewdness.”
“Hey lots of people secretly want to be in an orgy, even the elderly.”
”Really?” Celestia asks. “I may still know some takers…”
“SHUT up, Celly.”
Luna scoffs. “Floral Lace was a WIDOWER!”
“And now she has three fine gentlecolts ready to court her! At the same time, at that!”
”Lucky bitch.” Celestia says.
”Well what about the fire!?” cries Luna.
You chuckle. “Yeah, no one ever anticipates a fire.”
You did feel bad about THAT.
Luna sighs and rubs her head. “I just do not understand why any of this had to happen.”
“We were DYING in there, Lunes.”
”I was not dying! I was sunbathing!”
“As a moon princess! Hypocrite that you are!”
”That is not even RELEVENT. Do not try to offend me!”
Oh, OFFEND her?? You take a deep breath.
“N-“
Celestia’s hoof shoves its way into your mouth. “SAVE IT, sweetheart. You’ll want all your belly fire for when we arrive.” Celestia walks over to Luna as the carriage banks. “Sister…we have been alive for many years, haven’t we?”
”Yes?”
”And been on our best, most Princessly behavior for most of it.”
”Indeed, as was our station.”
A glint caches Celestia’s eye as she leans closer. “Don’t you get TIRED of it sometimes?” Luna leans back as Celestia gets closer and flashes her teeth. “Don’t you want to go APE shit??”
”When I last did that, you banished me to the moon.”
“She’s got you there.”
Celestia rolls her eyes. “And they say I don’t try.” Celestia saunters back over to you. “If I could put it into simpler words, sister…It’s better to burn out…”
“Than fade away!”
You and Celestia do a booty check as Luna sighs, shaking her head.
Whatever, fuck her, she was a stick in the mud.
You open the window on the side of the carriage to shout out to the pegusi pulling you, the sun was nearing the edge of the horizon and Ponyville wasn’t close enough.
“FASTER! PUT SOME FUCKING BALLS INTO IT!”
Celestia’s head pokes out next to yours. “Someone say balls?”
“Shut UP, Celly!”
Ponyville, sunset.
A crowd has gathered here, before Princess Twilight Sparkle’s ceremonial stage to witness the final Summer Sun Celebration. Murmers fall to a hush as the Princess takes center stage and speaks into the microphone, addressing the entire town and then some.
”I see a lot of long faces out here tonight…even for us ponies.”
A few laughs, always start with a joke.
”I know this isn’t the happiest celebration…endings never are. I know that every parent here, some of my closest friends, will tell their children about the fun they had at the Summer Sun Celebration and how much they miss it.” A long silence falls over the crowd. Princess Twilight lets out a content sigh. “The Summer Sun Celebration was my first day in Ponyville…it was the first day I met all my friends and my destiny changed forever. I wouldn’t be the princess I am today without it.”
A few sniffles from said friends.
”But…isn’t this for the best? Years and years of celebrations, so MANY memories! Now we can…put them all in the box, wrap them up with a bow, and tuck them away. The Summer Sun Celebration can remain pure, untainted, and perfect for the rest of time in our minds.”
Twilight smiles, floating up a leather bound, gold trimmed tome. She wipes a tear from her eyes as she slots a picture of herself and all her friends into the last page. “Because…something isn’t beautiful because it lasts forever.”
A few sniffles cover tears in the crowd
”I know I’ll take the Summer Sun Celebration with me in my heart forever…and I know you all will too.”
Twilight raises a golden scepter in her magical grip above her head. “And so, as Princess of Friendship, I hearby declare this, the final Summer Sun Celebration, officially-“
”LOOK UP IN THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYY!” Pinkie Pie yells from her place in the crowd.
Heads pivot to the west as a screaming chariot peels itself from the setting sun and crashes into the ground. The carriage bounces along the earth towards the stage to the shock of everypony watching as they gallop out of its path. The carriage springs off the ground and onto the stage, skidding to a halt right as Twilight’s princely brother leaps forward towards its door. “Twiley! Get behind me, I’ll prote-“
The door of the carriage gets kicked open and smacks him in the face.
“FUCK. YOU.”
The Crystal Prince hits the ground like a sack of wet potatoes.
You climb out of the broken carriage while Luna vomits over the side and your flier shoots off behind a cloud to hide “Look at you. Shining Dipshit. When have you EVER done anything cool?”
You toss a deep dab down to your fallen homie and tilt your head up and lock eyes with Twilight. “M-M-Mous?”
“M-m-me! Fuckass!”
You march over to Twilight and deploy slappy hands to drive her away from the podium.
“Gimme that fucking microphone!”
The crowd gasp, you flip them off.
“What is this? Huh? Why are you all just WATCHING?”
You point over to Twilight and her friends. “You’re just letting this purple moron take away the things you love because…?”
The crowd is silent, possibly not getting that was a question. “BECAUSE…?! You want to KILL something you LOVE because what?! It’s “time for it to go”? “It’s been years”? I WASN’T AWARE HARMONY WAS SYNONYMOUS WITH BEING A GIANT FUCKING PUSSY!”
The sound system rings feedback over the crowd.
”Because it’s TIME to, Mous!” you hear behind you.
You turn behind you, Twilight and her friends are glaring at you. Twilight repeats herself. “This is it! Our time to step aside and let things take their natural course!” She floats up her book again. “Don’t you understand we need to let THIS tradition go to allow new ones to take root?”
“AND WHY THE HELL IS THAT YOU DAFT, PURPLE SISCON!?”
THAT’S RIGHT Twilight, you know all about THAT. Twilight turns beat red and begins to stammer, hiding behind her wings. You take that opportunity to stride up to her and snatch the book from her grip. The girls, the crowd, and some weird dragon way too buff to be Spike all gasp as you tear the back cover of the book off with your teeth.
”W-why would you do that too a book!?” Twilight pleads.
“Because he events of Twilight Sparkle’s life do NOT dictate how I live MINE. Or anyone else for that matter!”
You waggle the book in her face. “What is this “ending” garbage? Because WE have to stop living when YOU declare your story finished? FUCK that and FUCK you, Purplesmart! You’re a bitch!”
Twilight is taken aback by your outburst, Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in a very gay flight jacket.
“Okay, this is getting us nowhere. Tag in!”
You hear someone climb onto the stage behind you and turn around again.
”Mous, what the fuck.” Grand Magister Anon asks.
Music
You lower your microphone and walk towards Anon with purpose.
”Look, if you’re upset about something this ISN’T the way to deal with it, you-“ Then he sees the look in your eyes and that you’re not stopping. “-need toNONOTTTHEFACE-“
Anon shuts up when you throw your arms around him and pull him as close as you can, squeezing as hard as you can.
“I missed you…so much.”
Anon’s breath comes in shallow, confused gasps. “…Mous…wh-what are you doing here?”
“This is WRONG. Anon. All this. It doesn’t END this way.”
The microphone between you broadcasts your words to everypony.
”It’s just a summer solstice celebration, Mous. There’s no need to-“
“IT’S NOT JUST THAT! NOT TO THEM!” you roar.
You point to the crowd. “LOOK at them, Anon. Pull your head OUT of the clouds or your ass and see how THEY feel! This isn’t just a celebration to them, it’s a part of their community! It IS their community, sometimes! They’ve met ponies they never could have anywhere else because of this and you want to say that’s over just because SHE does?” You jerk your thumb towards Twilight.
”Mous…how many problems have cropped up during the Summer Sun Celebration? Nightmare Moon for just one.”
“How many didn’t? How many fell in love or made lifelong friends or found a PURPOSE at these things? You wanna get rid of that just for some dusty libraries? Remember things that happened rather than let people experience the world this place made them fall in love with?”
”What about living in peace, Mous? Doesn’t Equestria deserve tha-“
“Peace? PEACE!? Peace is a slow death watching the things you SHOULD have done happen outside your window! It’s abandoning every ambition and muse you’ve ever had to sit back and grow FAT off your own self-worth so you can say “Ah, I was there.”. “Peace” is a load of HORSE SHIT that robs everyone of a reason to live! Some drama or pain is part and parcel of life and avoiding it is saying you’re okay no longer being alive!”
Anon sighs. ”Mous…maybe it’s time for our time to end. We had a good run.”
A single gasp fills the entire town when you reach back and punch Anon in the stomach. “PULL YOUR FUCKING PANTS UP YOU TOOL!”
You grab his head like you did Luna’s. “Everything we still love isn’t GOING anywhere, Anon! It’s RIGHT here! All you have to do is have the BALLS to reach out and grab it! No matter WHAT whatever authority says! YOU know it’s right, so YOU get to decide!”
Anon groans and looks up at you. “Is this what you’ve been doing in retirement?!”
You scoff. ”Retirement is admitting to yourself that you can’t get any better than where you are RIGHT. NOW. You’re throwing in the towel because you don’t think you’ll be able to do BETTER later! It’s defeatism! If you’re doing well you don’t stop, you KEEP GOING. If you’re not doing well, you fix it and KEEP GOING TOO.”
You reach down and grab Twilight’s golden scepter, looking at the crimson jewel at the head.
“Well I say that we’re not done here, not by a LONG shot. Who CARES if the Princess says we’re done, we can have our OWN Summer Sun Celebration! With blackjack! And hookers!”
”Hookers?” someone chimes in.
“SHUT UP, CELLY!”
You turn your attention back to Anon, your eternal antithesis. “Who gives a FUCK if it won’t be official, who CARES if we won’t see another “actual” Summer Sun Celebration. It’ll be OURS, and the fact that we’ll care about it at all means it’ll have just as much soul as the real one.”
You poke Anon with your finger, feeling his heartbeat quicken.
“THAT’S what this is and that’s why it matters. It’s the soul of Equestria."
Anon laughs once, recovered from his gut punch and staring into your eyes. “You’re talking crazy.”
“Then let’s BE crazy, just like we always have. Crazy or not, you haven’t said a GODdamn word why we shouldn’t besides “We just have to”. We didn’t HAVE to make our lives here, but we did. Would you trade that for anything?”
Anon looks to your finger. “…No, no I wouldn’t.”
You point that finger to the crowd. Gone were their sad faces, replaced now with anticipation to see how which fate would shake out here.
“Do you see a SINGLE pony out there who’s really okay with this?”
Anon stares for a long time, taking in each of their faces and finally thinking with his heart. “…No, no I do not.”
“You’re damn right…Anon.”
”Huh?”
Just as with your wife, you and your brother had a secret code-phrase. One that was meant to re-affirm your commitment to each other in every walk of life, no matter what came between you. A brotherly bond that couldn’t be broken by time, nor distance, nor chains of despair.
You grip the scepter shaft and present it to Anon.
“JUST WHO-”
A smile tugs at the corner of Anon’s mouth that’s been gone for years as he’s transported back to the man he was when you both set out on this path.
With great gusto, Anon reaches out and grabs the scepter with you. “IN THE HELL-” Without practice, without plan, and without hesitation, the two of you swing the scepter that would end the Celebration into the stage, shattering its jewel and with it the authority it brings. The passion of the crowd erupts just as it had for you a few hours ago.
”DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?”
Over the din of the crowd, Twilight pushes her way forward. ”Hold ON a minute! Have you all gone insane?! We can’t just keep going after all the effort we put into planning to stop! We’ve known this was coming for YEARS! Nothing can last forever!”
“Why the HELL not?!”
You reel back at Twilight, jamming a finger into her face. “We can do WHATEVER we want in this life! Even if it means being immature fuck-asses who just try to have a good time! We’ll take it day by day and turn our celebration into one that’s even better than your “official” one any day!”
”You can’t POSSIBLY do all that! The organization alone would-“
You grab Twilight by the royal raiment and pull her close, pressing your forehead to hers right below her horn and staring right into her eyes.
“Of COURSE we can. THAT’S how a DRILL works.”
Twilight looks to the cheering crowd behind you. The Princesses mouth hangs open a bit as she looks back to you. “I have…absolutely no idea how to respond to that.”
“Of course you don’t, you don’t get it.”
Tch. Women.
Twilight looks to the carriage, to the salvation she never abandoned. “Celestia! A little help here, please?”
The former ruler of Equestria walks over, somehow regaining all the grace she had on the throne. “Twilight, do you know what the most important part of any relationship is? A friend, a husband, or one Princess to another?”
”…Believing in each other?”
Celestia chuckles her royal chuckle, patting her student on the back with her wing. “It’s telling us when we might be wrong.”
Twilight looks up at her. “Princess…are you saying you’ve made mistakes before?”
Celestia looks between Luna and you, then back to Twilight. “Oh yeah.”
”But you’re perfect!”
”Perfection is overrated, Twilight.”
”But-“ Twilight stammers. “BUT”
“Yeah, yours is huge. Must be an alicorn.”
Anon snickers behind you, you high-five him.
Celestia pats Twilight on the back. “My faithful, brilliant, wonderful student. You learned so much about friendship in the time I’ve taught you…but ask yourself this question.”
Celestia gestures to the crowd with her wing. “Would these ponies be here if they didn’t care for the Summer Sun Celebration enough to miss it if it was gone?”
The crowd cheers, you raise your hands to them. “YES! RISE UP!”
The cheering intensifies, you hear someone in the back shout “VERONICAAAAAA”. You think it was Button Mash. Kid was a fucking weirdo since he grew up.
”You’re all ignoring one important detail.” Twilight says. “You’re presuming everyone WANTS to keep coming. What happens if we continue as we are but attendance drops, what if one day, nopony comes?”
You shrug.
“Fuck ‘em.”
Twilight’s poker-face is strong. “Life is NOT that simple.”
“Sure it is, Fffffffffffffuck ‘em.”
”But-“
“Stop worrying for once in your life, Princess Wet Blanket.”
Twilight looks down at her hooves. Still a princess, but suddenly her old self. “Could I have let it all go to my head? Could I have felt the need for the younger generation to have their own journeys like I did that I thought our stories couldn’t exist together?”
“You said it yourself, Twi. Your story all started at your first Summer Sun Celebration, right? Well, every Sun Celebration is someone’s first, that means there’s stories starting every year at one.”
”Of…course!" Twilight exclaims, smile lighting up as she grabs the microphone again. “Listen up, Everypony! This may not have been what I had planned…but thanks to my friends, my mentor, and all of you, I now know in my heart that the Summer Sun Celebration is just as important to all of your lives as it was mine! And so long as we all experience it together, it will never die!”
The crowd cheers for their princess and claps, even you clap. Twilight keeps talking. “My heart also tells me one more thing!”
“Eh?”
The microphone drops from Twilight’s grip and shoots forward like a boxer’s hoof directly into your crotch. You curl up and fall to the floor.
”That you deserved that. Roll the music!”