All Things Holy
By iAmSiNnEr
“Luna?”
Moonpies. Crescents. Dreams. Nightmares.
“Luna!”
“Go away, Mother,” a blue hoof stuck itself above the covers and waved the rainbow-maned alicorn away. “It’s not yet nighttime. It’s still bedtime for me.”
“Luna!” A yellow aura tugged at the sheets and covers, pulling them off the midnight-blue alicorn. “It may not be nighttime yet, but that’s the point! We’re late for your press conference!”
Luna peered blearily at the fuzzy white blob in front of her, blinking at the sudden onslaught of light. “P-press wubba what now?”
“Press conference,” the white blob slowly focused, and Celestia was looking at her with disapproval. “I know you haven’t adjusted fully to Equestria yet, and I’m truly sorry for that. But in order to make sure our ponies know you are their princess, it’s time for a press conference to explain who you are.”
“Why couldn’t you do it?” Luna complained, tugging the covers back over her head. “You know I hate speaking publicly, sister. Or at least I do now. Or maybe Moonshine Twinkle, Starlight Sparkle...whatever her name was."
“Twilight Sparkle, you mean?” Celestia suggested gently.
“Yes, her!” Luna gestured. “She’s the Element of Magic, why couldn’t she do it?”
Celestia pursed her lips. “Well, first of all, she’s several hours away from us, even by pegasi chariot. Friendship lessons in Ponyville, remember? Secondly, Twilight’s much worse than you when it comes to public speaking.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fine. What time do I have to be wherever you want me?”
“Actually, right now,” Celestia’s yellow aura dragged the covers off Luna and set her upright on the bed before she sat down next to Luna with a mane brush. “I’m afraid we don’t have time to do much about your bedraggled expression and shot eyes, but I can help with your mane. Maybe a spell or two to hide those bloodshot eyes.”
“Where did you learn to brush manes?” Luna raised an eyebrow.
“Young Twilight was never great at brushing her mane,” Celestia explained as she ran the brush down Luna’s mane, straightening the ends that were sticking out. “I learned how to for her sake. Then taught her.”
Luna gave a small smile at the sentence, before wincing as Celestia brushed down a rather stubborn strand of her mane. “Ow! Watch the ends!”
Luna watched the skies as the sun reached its peak in the sky, bathing the lands in a warm, sunny aura.
“A perfect sunny day today, huh, Tia?” Luna murmured as she watched the pegasi clear the skies, kicking at clouds to dissipate them or dragging the larger, more stubborn ones with them. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen pegasi do weather work.”
“You are correct, Princess Luna,” A bespectacled white unicorn mare said from beside her. “Her Majesty ordered perfect skies from the weather pegasi today. In exchange for that, the next two weeks will have light drizzles every other day.”
Luna turned her attention to the mare, whose aura held a clipboard. “Raven Inkwell, correct?”
“The very same, Princess.”
“I seem to recall a Raven Inkwell a thousand years ago too. Might that be you?”
“I can’t presume to say, Princess,” Raven said as she adjusted her glasses. “I live to serve so as long as Her Majesty has need of me. But I can say that there has been a Raven Inkwell serving Her Majesty for the past thousand years.”
“Intriguing,” Luna said. “Mayhaps I shall ask further of this matter with my sister. How long before I am expected inside?”
“Seven minutes,” she consulted the clock on the wall. “The reporters are getting ready. They’ll be ready for you by eleven. However, Princess Celestia wants you inside in a minute.”
“Six minutes early?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“She said that you needed to set a statement as a Princess of Equestria,” Raven replied. “That you wait for nobody, and that your time is precious. She’s suffered fools for hundreds of years, I don’t think she wishes for you to experience the same.”
“Dear old Sister,” Luna murmured. “Always the same politicking mare, I see.”
The clock’s minute hand moved.
“That’s your cue,” Raven said as she ticked off something on the clipboard she held. “Good luck, Princess!”
Luna gave a sigh and pushed open the doors to enter a room full of babbling ponies, the noise a crescendo in her ears.
At the far end of the room, her sister stood there and gave her a thumbs-up motion with her wings, motioning for her to take the stand as the babble died down at the sight of her. She could feel dozens of eyes lock onto her, watching her every move as the door closed behind her.
No way to escape. Perhaps teleportation-?
Luna clamped down on her thoughts as she took the stand, clearing her throat.
“Good morning, my little ponies. I’m sure you all are wondering who I am. My name is Luna Asteris Solaris, and I am…”
When she finished, she let out a deep sigh of relief. She had done it.
The hush was broken as a stallion’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say a rather confusing phrase.
“Holy cow, we have a new princess!”
Holy cow?
“A new princess!” another voice cried out.
“Princess Luna, can we take your comment on the Elements of Harmony from your—”
“No comments,” Raven said firmly as she entered the room, ushering Luna out of the room, tugging, pushing, whatever she could do to get the alicorn to move. “All questions will be directed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Princess Luna has already given her speech, and that will be all you get today. Good day!”
The door shut behind them, and the sound of the questions died down as Luna turned to look at Raven.
“Raven?” Luna’s voice sounded strange to even herself. “I have a question.”
“I live to serve, Your Majesty.”
“Why has my sister declared cows holy?”
A slow blink. “She hasn’t.”
“Are you sure? I distinctly heard…”
“Perhaps you heard wrong, Princess.”
“A princess does not hear things wrongly!” Luna shouted with the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice, before flinching and turning down the volume. “I apologize. I know I should use my inside voice.”
“Maybe you should look at a dictionary, princess?” Raven suggested as she adjusted her glasses, them having been blown askew by the force of Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice. “I would think the dictionaries have all the phrases you would ever need to check. Try Dew’s Dictated Dictionary.”
“Pray tell, Raven, I apologize for pushing your patience this far, but what are dictionaries?”
Unfortunately for her, the arcane tome of knowledge known as the dictionary did not yield any results. Even after perusing Dew’s Dictated Dictionary, the Sinner’s Storage of Synonyms, weird name, that, she still had not gotten an answer as to that weird phrase she had heard earlier.
Holy cow!
Her brow furrowed, she trotted down the staircase, ears pinned back as she heard a couple of maids talking nearby. It wouldn’t do to eavesdrop. However, a few words managed to float through to her.
“Really?”
“Yep!”
“Holy macaroni, I can’t believe Angus is having a foal!”
Luna froze where she was.
Holy macaroni!
Another holy object. It didn’t help she didn’t know what macaroni was.
She levitated the dictionary out of her bag, before flipping to M.
Mac, macabre, aha! Macaroni!
NOUN. A type of pasta formed into narrow tubes.
How does that even help me? How is a type of pasta holy?!
She put away the dictionary, before trotting up to the two maids. Forget eavesdropping, she needed to get to the bottom of this. She cleared her throat. “Ahem.”
The two of them jumped, startled. “Oh! P-princess Luna! W-we were just taking a break from our duties for five minutes—”
“Please don’t fire us!” The other one yelped. “I need this job! We’ll go back to work immediately—”
“No, no,” Luna interrupted. “I don’t mind if you need a break. Heavens know that the castle is too big for a staff of twenty to clean every day. I just wanted to ask a question.”
The two of them visibly relaxed. “Oh!” The one who first spoke said. “Well, ask away. We’re here to serve, Your Majesty.”
“Firstly, what are your names?” Luna gently asked.
“I am Ivy Cassia, Your Majesty,” the one on the left gave a curtsey.
“And I am Zinnia Marigold,” the one on the right curtsied too. “How may we help you?”
“Why is macaroni holy?” Luna asked with an entirely straight face.
Silence hung in the air.
Then the two maids burst into laughter.
“Sister!” Luna pounded on Celestia’s door, dictionary floating beside her. “I need to ask you a question!”
Said alicorn opened the door just as Luna’s hoof came down again for another knock against the door.
The result? Celestia sprawled against the desk, crown askew as her mind tried to catch up with who had just punched her in the face.
“Oops,” Luna stared at Celestia for a good five seconds, before readjusting Celestia’s crown properly. “There.”
“What…hit me?” she groaned.
“I believe that was me,” Luna cleared her throat awkwardly. “But never mind that! I have a question for you!”
Celestia propped herself up, groaning as she sat on the desk chair. Her magic bobbed open the mini fridge, before pulling out a bag of ice to rest on the spot where Luna had punched her in the face. “Ask away, Sister.”
“I have had the most bizarre day,” Luna said as she brandished the dictionary. “I need you to explain why you declared macaroni and the bovine creatures that are cows holy.”
Celestia stared at her. “This is a prank, right?”
“If it were a prank, you would not see it coming,” Luna answered impatiently. “Now, why did you make a royal decree that macaroni and cows are holy?”
Celestia put down the bag of ice. “Sister, are you feeling alright?” She lifted a hoof to put it on Luna’s forehead, but Luna batted her hoof away.
“Yes, I’m feeling all right!” she cried out. “Explain yourself, Sister! Or is this a giant prank by you?”
“Cows and macaroni are one hundred percent not holy,” Celestia said softly. “In fact, I encourage ponies not to hold many things in reverence like a god. It tends to end up in world-destroying cults. Especially if they’re cults about…well, Nightmare Moon.”
Luna’s ears pinned back. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, hush,” Celestia hugged her. “It’s more my fault, as I already told you. Besides, I dealt with them. Now, who put the silly idea of this holiness into your head?”
“Some reporter and two maids by the names of Ivy Cassia and Zinnia Marigold,” Luna said meekly.
“Very well. I will get to the bottom of this, rest assured.”
“The maids didn’t mean any harm!” Luna protested. “When I asked them, they said it was a phrase and said they thought I was joking with them.”
“Hmm. Well, I suppose if you just came away with a misunderstanding…”
“Only a misunderstanding, yep!” Luna nodded, standing up. “Thanks for clarifying.”
“Of course,” Celestia replaced the bag of ice. “You know my door’s always open to you. You don’t have to knock.”
Luna gave her a genuine smile. “Thank you, Sister. Sorry about punching you in the face.”
Celestia gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s all good. No lasting damage done.”
Luna nodded, trotting out of the room, before shutting the door behind her. As she did so, a group of foals with their teacher noticed her, and the foals started pointing excitedly at her.
Most likely a school tour.
As she trotted off, she froze as a sentence from one of the foals floated to her.
“Holy shit, is that a new alicorn?”
As the moon rose into the sky, Celestia snored away on her bed, chest rising and falling rhythmically. The white alicorn was at peace, the stars glimmering in the sky.
That is, until a shadow loomed over her.
“SISTER! WAKE UP!”
Celestia awoke with a start, her head slamming into the pony leaning over her as she sat up in her bed.
“OW!”
Celestia’s horn lit instinctively, bathing the room in a wave of light.
Luna had a hoof to her eye, which was bruised by the force Celestia had slammed into her. “Why did you do that?” she whined.
Celestia rubbed at her eyes. “Wha…why are you here—” she glanced at the clock on her bedside table. “At two in the morning?”
“I HAVE FOUND OUT THE SOURCE OF THE HOLINESS!” she cried out in true Royal Canterlot Voice fashion. “I HAVE SEARCHED LONG AND HARD, BUT I HAVE DISCOVERED THEIR ORIGIN!”
“...” Celestia stared at her. “It’s too early for this shit. I’m going back to bed.”
As she lay back down, Luna’s blue aura wrapped around her and dragged her back up. “NO! YOU CANNOT GO BACK TO BED—”
“Volume, Sister,” Celestia grumbled as she rubbed at her eyes. “I think you just woke up the whole castle. Alright, fine, what did you find?”
“Well, after I interrogated the colt about the language he used—”
“Hold up,” Celestia interrupted. “You interrogated a colt?!”
“Yeah, he said, and I quote, holy shit, unquote,” Luna said, flipping through what looked to be a mound of notes in her aura. “So I interrogated him and his teacher. The teacher said it was a swear word, so I did some research on swearing. I was wondering why he would take an oath to, well, excretion, so I did research in true research fashion.”
“Wait,” Celestia blinked. “The school tour was two days ago, Luna. And the press conference too. You’re telling me you’ve been doing this for two whole days?”
“Two whole days and nights!” Luna announced. “And a lot of coffee! Coffee is a marvelous invention! I haven’t slept a single minute!”
“I think you need to sleep, Sister,” Celestia said as she tried to get Luna to lie down. “Come, you can use my bed—”
“I think not!” Luna pushed Celestia off her. “This is a conspiracy! And I have found the origin of it! So, I researched holy cows in the library, and guess what I found? SIX INSTANCES OF COWS BEING REVERED!”
Celestia sighed. “Luna, those cows were either dictators or didn’t exist.”
“Yeah?” Luna jabbed a hoof at her. “What about Kamadhenu? The goddess of cows?”
“...no comment on religion.”
“Yeah, you see my point now!” Luna cried out. “And then I researched macaroni. That one was harder to track down, but I found out the first published record of macaroni was by author and epicure Maestro Martino from Valle di Blieno in the Duchy of Milano!”
“Milano isn’t a country in Equestria, Sister.”
“I know!” Luna nodded. “It’s actually part of Hoofitzerland now!”
“And?”
“So I went to Hoofitzerland, and checked out how they revered macaroni!” Luna nodded. “So did you know making pasta is actually an art in several countries? And then I found out about pizza, and decided to take a detour—”
“Let’s not go there,” Celestia rubbed at her temples. “I’ve heard too many arguments about pineapple on the pizza or not. Get on to the point.”
“So I found out that ponies believe the ancient Greek god Vulcan invented a device that made strings of dough — the first spaghetti!” Luna exclaimed. “And some actually do revere pasta!”
“...Luna I think you’re sleep deprived.” Celestia groaned. “Please, just, go to bed. The Greek gods are a legend we tell the foals so they eat their vegetables. Or more accurately, the monsters they killed.”
“Hmph!” Luna flipped her notes. “And then I did more research! There are many other things that are revered as ‘holy’. Holy cheese, holy fuck, still don’t know how an action is holy, because I sure as heck would not want to revere the act of the horizontal tango, and stuff like the holy sweet mother of Celestia’s butt.”
Celestia tilted her head. “What was that last one?”
“I heard someone say ‘Holy sweet mother of Celestia’s butt in Marelaysia,” Luna read from her notes. “So I took it down.”
Celestia pursed her lips. “Luna, I think you can leave your research here. I’ll take a look. DId you happen to get the address of the pony who said that phrase?”
“Yep! It’s on my notes!”
“Good. Leave them here, I’ll read them seriously.”
Luna beamed. “Really?”
“Really,” Celestia confirmed. “Now I think you need some sleep.”
“Sleep is irrelevant. Finding out the origin of the conspiracy is forever.” Luna had a wild grin on her face. “Read my research, and I will hunt down the perpetrators!”
“Luna, wait—”
And with a flash of light, Luna disappeared.
“You see this, Philomena?” Raven levitated the newspaper up for the phoenix to read. “I swear, the Princesses get up to all kinds of wack if I’m not there to rein them in properly.”
The phoenix gave a squawk of affirmation as she read the newspaper.
Raven sighed as she adjusted her glasses. “Like, really? Luna starting a club which is totally not a cult of Holy Words, and a pony in Marelaysia waking up with the word ‘BUTT’ tattooed all over him? I know the Princesses sometimes can be immature, or ignorant, but this takes it to the next level.”
Philomena squawked again.
“You’re right. We should find something else to care about than the Princesses’ crazy shenanigans. They can live forever, we can’t. Actually, you might be able to.”
Philomena nodded.
“I admit that it was funny, though.” Raven had a slight smile on her face. “Telling that colt what to swear on that school tour as Luna came out. I know you’re a good prankster, Philomena, but this? This takes the figurative cake. You owe me two phoenix tears for that. I only did it because I thought it’d help Princess Luna to fit in, but it is kinda funny.”
Philomena’s beak somehow curled upwards.
“Greatest. Prank. I’ve. Ever. Seen.”
The door slammed open.
“WHAT DID YOU DO, PHILOMENA?!” Celestia roared.
“HOLY FUCK SHE FOUND OUT—”