Millennium Tokens

by Ice Star

Chapter 2: Dolls

"Oh," Princess Celestia murmured, "thank you two so much for staying. Now I have somepony to share the fresh air with!" The Alicorn smiled down at the two ponies, her wings folded neatly at her sides in a gesture that matched the politeness of her expression. Her mane flowed uninhibited against the bright blue sky. The shadows of distant airships were distant from their balcony seat, yet still closer than they would have been from the ground.

"Of course, princess!" Twilight said. She nodded enthusiastically while Rarity mirrored the gesture from her seat across from Twilight.

All three mares were situated on the large pillows so commonly used as seats by ponies. The midday breeze was stronger this high up, but Rarity certainly didn't mind. In fact, it gave her the perfect opportunity to sneak glances at how majestically her mane looked when it was tossed about at intervals, mingling with the trails of steam from her tea.

"Whatever did you need our help with?" Rarity asked, her words coming out in between careful sips of her drink. She ignored Twilight's magic letting a sugar cube fall into her own cup and the plop that followed each movement of telekinesis. "Has some diplomatic error occurred? Is Luna not available to stand in for an absence that is requested of you on such dreadfully short notice? Is somepony wearing beige?"

Twilight Sparkle nearly swallowed a sugar cube whole. "Rarity," she whined to her marefriend, "that was only one time!"

"Twilight," Rarity gave a little whispery hiss to her tone, one chock-full of obviously faux anger. "Darling. My dearest love. We may share many things, and many noble commitments — but!"

"But what?" Twilight echoed back, licking a few stray bits of sugar from her lips.

"But! But! One time — one time — is still a crime to the fashion police. And a misdemeanor, if I do say so myself. Surely, such a dreadful thing won't happen again, will it, my dearest heart?"

"No." Twilight's muzzle crinkled as she spoke. "I Pinkie promised it wouldn't, and of course, I'd never break a Pinkie promise."

Rarity giggle-snorted once she set her tea down. Next to her, Princess Celestia permitted herself a soft noblemare's laugh.

"Well," the princess began, "I don't wish to disappoint, but nothing so drastic has happened. And, as I understand it, your Cutie Map didn't summon either of you here?"

Both of the other mares shook their head.

"That's what I thought," Princess Celestia murmured, tapping a hoof along the table's edge momentarily. "I hadn't really given the problem much of a chance to manifest, you see. So it's no wonder that you two weren't summoned and no greater magic was disturbed and alerted you two. My problem concerns yesterday."

"Which is why we were here, darling." Rarity conjured her red glasses, polished the cat's eye frames with a hoofkerchief, and set them neatly upon her muzzle. She peered closely at Princess Celestia. "Canterlot is truly one of the most romantic destinations on both of the Eastern Continents. Twilight's parents prepared such a wonderful lunch for us. Oh, and for dinner, I had such a lovely time with her! Why I simply hadn't realized how little of Restaurant Row I had explored!"

"That it is," said Princess Celestia as she stirred a whorl of cream into her own tea, "and my ponies work hard to make that so. I'm glad you two hadn't come all the way to Canterlot yesterday just to learn about millennium tokens. Hearts and Hooves Day is a poor time to be running errands, and the atmosphere that my city takes on during such important festivities is a gift to everypony who can share in them. I just... missed that chance yesterday."

Rarity gasped sharply, drawing a forehoof to her chest. "Oh, heavens! Whatever could you mean, darling? Has something happened between you and Discord?"

"Is he causing too much chaos?" Twilight Sparkle asked hurriedly. Her ears swiveled to the side and her eyes dilated with sudden panic. "Do I need to get the Elements of Harmony and the rest of the girls?"

The princess gave one long, slow shake of her head in a very firm 'no' before she spoke. "I can promise the both of you that nothing of the sort has happened, that would be even worse than, ah, somepony wearing beige. I'm just... in a bit of a pickle..."

The words of the goddess had grown softer as she spoke, and whatever Rarity heard sent her into sudden distress. Her pupils were pinpricks behind her glasses, which made her look closer to deranged than contemplative.

"SOMEPONY WAS WEARING A PICKLE?!" She gritted her teeth and shuddered. "THERE WAS SOMEPONY ABOUT DRESSED LIKE A PICKLE?! OH PONYFEATHERS! OH, GODS! THAT IS MUCH WORSE THAN BEIGE!"

All Princess Celestia could do was try to keep her tea from spilling as Twilight Sparkle dove from where she sat to pull her marefriend into a calming hug. "No, no. That's not what happened, Rarity. You misheard her. I promise, she said she was in a pickle—"

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," Rarity stammered, "that was about all I heard, and goodness gracious — my mind just went for the worst possible thing, Twilight!"

"Everything is alright," Princess Celestia said, stiffly offering Rarity a pat on the withers that the anxious mare didn't notice. "Normally, I would have written a letter — but I was lucky to see you two yesterday and to have a brief tea with Twilight. Maybe I should have written more in... oh... oh well, I suppose I'll... just... be honest..." Her throat trembled with a visible swallow, and the gesture was slowed by how much strain she put into trying to suppress it. "I couldn't find a proper gift for Dissy yesterday... he thought that the dinner we had was my gift to him but that wasn't my intent, I wanted to get him something, you see..."

"Oh gosh," Twilight gasped, "I'm so, so sorry, Princess Celestia... is there anything we can do to help?"

It was like Twilight had spoken an incantation; her words magicked the princess back into her ever-calm default state. "Oh, Twilight Sparkle, that is what I wanted to talk to you and Rarity about! You see, I'd been struggling to think of the perfect gift for Dissy, one worthy of a millennium. I hadn't had the time to dwell on as many ideas as I would have liked in the days up until yesterday — I'd just been so busy. He got me flowers. He knows how much I love flowers, for any occasion... but I want to be..." she hunched over the table just a bit conspiratorially, and whispered, "I wanted to get him something surprising — he'll never expect it! Not from me!"

"I think," Rarity said, her eyes sparkling with gleeful inspiration behind her glasses and her voice a familiar sing-song, "I might have just the right idea!"

"Goodness, no," Princess Celestia said, shaking her head sadly. "I'm afraid that would not be a very interesting gift to Dissy. As uncanny and very much in his spirit as it is, these are the kind of props that provide the same entertainment ponies do for him."

Rarity nodded in understanding, and her magic replaced the ventriloquist dummy. She took extra care to ensure that none of the strings were tangled as she did so. Meanwhile, Twilight stood idly by, watching her marefriend and slurping a hay smoothie loudly. Nearby, Princess Celestia was pretending in an all-too-obvious way that such a borderline toddler-like display of unmannerly conduct was not occurring. A glob of the stuff had even managed to escape the straw and remained as a sloppy smudge on Twilight's cheek.

"Darling?" Rarity called, turning her head around. "Do you have any idea what Discord might like? I'm going to need to think of something if my most obvious answer is ill-fitting towards our chaotic friend."

"Hrm-ulp?" Twilight Sparkle grunted in surprise.

Rarity tsked, the sounding coming out as more of a hissy, quiet exhale than a clear, sharp click. "What I said was—"

Any attempt to make the conversation progress was swiftly ended as Twilight let out a sharp whinny. Her half-chewed straw had jabbed the back of her throat, and the sound was enough to make even the near-perfect emotional mask of Princess Celestia ripple in a wince.

One of them began laughing, a snort growing into something more. Who it was, neither of them could say. But eventually, all three of them were giggling loudly, paying no mind to the soft chatter of other customers in the store. Just a few aisles ago, Rarity had caught sight of a colt with a laugh as gleeful as theirs, but far clearer. It had been evident that his mother was buying him a mark mitzvah present, his puppeteer mark on clear display, and various party goods poking out from under his saddlebags. The only difference in joy was how much clearer his youthful noise had been compared to Rarity, the princess' modest chortling, and her marefriend's own cheer.

"No, no," said Princess Celestia eventually. "These puppets are all lovely, well-made things." To show this, the princess brought one gold-shod hoof up to caress the painted blush of a knightly stallion. "But I just... it's... very difficult to explain. When you have lived as long as Discord and I, there is something too artificial about this art." She bit her lip. "Or maybe it's just me... either way, a puppet is too out of the realm of what brings discord joy. Puppets do not get displeased. They do not give interesting answers to riddles. Puppets have no quarrels that are unplanned. There is no surprise in their eyes or unexpected cues they offer to learn from."

Throughout the time she had been speaking, Twilight Sparkle had been nodding along to the words of Princess Celestia. It was entirely unprompted, as the princess had not asked for such a display of obedience and affirmation. However, Twilight had long grown used to punctuating everything Princess Celestia offered as an explanation with such approving gestures when she wasn't listening to the goddess-teacher with wordless reverence.

Rarity, however, adjusted her red glasses in a thoughtful gesture. Her focus was on a puppet, either scrutinizing the faux alchemist props it carried or seeing past the design — after all, there were few trades in the whole hemisphere more common than alchemists and apothecaries. One saw them as often as teachers, royal guards, weather pegasi, and town criers waving about the editions of the latest papers from whatever cluster of towns that they traveled between. There was little that a puppet depicting the occupation could show that Rarity would not have seen before — even down to the fine embroidery on the edges of the hood that marked this one's divine allegiance as devoted to magic under Princess Luna's domains, peddlers of sleeping potions, means of easing depression, fog-brews to break down night-clouds, and more.

"I see..." she murmured. "I must admit, I was struck by the idea when I was thinking about the stained glass windows in the castle halls. Who is to say that Discord would expect us to get something so harmless and sweet from such a small detail? That was my line of thought."

"And that was extremely inspired of you. Thank you very much, Rarity..." Princess Celestia smiled so big she had to close her eyes. "I imagine if we were shopping for anypony else, this would be the perfect gift. Discord is just... well, himself. I've stuck with flowers and small, normal gifts for so long because he'd been surprised by those at first — you see, he had told me that nopony ever got him such conventional things like flowers and candies until I did. But now I just feel the need to do something more special, maybe even something daring, like getting him—"

"Twilight?" Rarity asked, turning to her marefriend quickly, her eyes shining brightly behind her glasses. "Twilight, dearest, do you happen to have any idea what we could get Discord for a proper present?"

"—an entire set of mismatched socks!" The princess finished with a happy little gasp to her tone. "Think of the novelty of getting an odd number of socks, not a single one matching in pattern, and the length of every one of them being different too. It would be world-shaking in the history of surprise gift-giving; I can't think of a single white elephant event that I have been to since those started that could possibly compare. Oh, and just think — the socks could be extra..." Princess Celestia swayed on her forelegs slightly, "...extra, extra..." Princess Celestia bit her lip, lowering her tone to a near-whisper, the kind used to hide something from foals, "...extra darn cozy," she finished, blushing faintly.

Twilight was able to preserve the remainder of her smoothie from spilling — and catch her marefriend in a magenta glow just before Rarity hit the store's floor as she fainted.

"Oh goodness!" Princess Celestia gasped, "I hadn't meant to be so vulgar!"