Princesses Don't Potty

by CDRW

Chapter 5 (Cleanliness is next to Goddessness)

Fluttershy reacted to the sound before she was even awake enough to realize what it was. With a scream and a gasp, she pulled the blankets up over her head and curled into a quivering ball. The mare had every intention of staying there forever, up until her brain started working enough to make out hooves banging on her door and the pitiable voice of a pony in distress calling out to her.

"FLUTTERSHY! WE BESEECH THEE! GRANT US SANCTUARY!"

Timidly, Fluttershy poked her head out from underneath the blanket and looked towards the open window that the voice was coming in through. It was really, really dark out there, and she couldn't see anything at all, but her ears perked up in recognition when the voice came again.

"WE WILL GRANT THEE A BOON, ANYTHING THOU ASKETH IS THINE! JUST HIDE US FROM THE WRATH OF OUR BELOVED SISTER!"

"P-princess Luna?" she asked quietly.

Fluttershy's words were so soft that she was sure the pony waiting in the darkness couldn't hear, but her heart was beating really hard, and it was so dark and scary outside, and she just couldn't make her voice go any louder.

"YES, 'TIS US! OPEN THE DOOR, FOR THE SUN WILL SOON RISE AND WE DARE NOT BE CAUGHT OUTSIDE LEST THE FIRES OF HEAVEN RAIN DOWN UPON OUR HEAD!"

The very first thought that flashed through Fluttershy's sleep-fogged, but terrified mind nearly sent her diving under the covers again, because the only sort of pony she could think of who would be afraid of the sun was a vicious, bloodthirsty vampony. They had big, sharp teeth, and they couldn't come into your house unless you invited them. They had really good hearing too, good enough to hear a scared little mare whispering in her upstairs bedroom from the front porch. And they were vicious and bloodthirsty.

"PLEASE! IF THOU HAST EVEN A SHRED OF KINDNESS IN THY SOUL, THOU WILT NOT IGNORE OUR PLIGHT!"

"Oh dear..." Fluttershy's legs started moving all on their own, gently drawing aside the covers, carrying her out of bed and downstairs, coming to a stop by the front door, where the vicious, bloodthirsty vamprincess awaited, ready to sink her fangs into Fluttershy’s tender neck.

She felt a thrill run through her body as she reached a shaking hoof towards the handle. "I... I guess it wouldn't be so bad. Y-you promised a boon?"

"YES!"

"Oh. Okay. Um, then if it's alright with you... Uh... P-please be gentle when you do it. ...It's okay if you don't want to, though. I guess I don't mind."

There was a pregnant silence as Fluttershy slowly turned the knob and pulled the door open, revealing a very confused looking princess of the night. Fluttershy blinked, then Luna blinked, then Luna opened her mouth just enough for one word to slip out.

"What?"

The Royal Shower would have been counted among the wonders of the world if Celestia was the sort of pony to allow tour groups to go traipsing through her bathroom. When she had it built, she made sure that all the construction workers signed a nondisclosure agreement, because she really didn't want a constant stream of ponies traipsing through her bathroom. To this day, the only thing they could say about it without finding a few ponies in black suits and sunglasses on their doorstep was, "All of the showerheads are made from old firehose nozzles." Among the many things they weren't allowed to repeat was the engineer's original sales pitch, "At full power, this baby will deliver four cubic feet of water per second at temperatures hot enough to make your little pet phoenix there say 'Dang, filly! Going overboard much?'"

Her shower was the absolute, unrivaled pinnacle of hydrodynamic technology, and it was getting its flank handed to it by a pot of tomato soup.

Celestia groaned in utter despair when she turned off the water and looked down at herself. Not only had she completely failed to throttle her sister, she had managed to stain her perfectly white coat with pink blotches for the trouble. With all the frustration a multi-milennium-old being that lived under the same roof as Luna could muster, she raised her eyes to the ceiling and asked, "Why has nopony invented a stain-removing spell yet!"

She hated this. She hated that she had actually lost count of how many rounds of full-body shampooing she'd gone through, she hated the fact that she'd spent literally the whole night in the shower, she hated the really weird feeling of pruney hooves, and most of all, she hated the fact that she felt altogether too much like Rarity.

No offense. Celestia mentally apologized to Rarity.

She would be darned if she was going to be pink when she showed up to court though!

No offense. Celestia mentally apologized to Cadance.

She very carefully didn't think about Pinkie Pie at all as she lathered herself all over with the last bit of shampoo in the bottle and turned the water on again to full power. She didn't think about the fact that she looked like Pinkie's big sister, or the fact that the mare would probably be laughing her flank off if she could see the princess right then, or the fact that Pinkie was directly responsible for Twilight's resolution to investigate her bathroom habits.

The only ray of light in all of this was that Celestia might be able to get the pink splotches out of her mane and tail. That was one of the perks that came with having a magically imbued, half-etherial head of hair, it was easy to clean and hard to ruin. Nothing short of dye was going to stay in her mane for long.

When Celestia turned off the water again, she very nearly had an apoplectic fit as she looked down and saw that the pink on her coat was still as pink as ever. She threw the bottle of shampoo down and stomped on it before opening the magically reinforced glass door of the shower and throwing it into the trash can next to the toilet.

Poking her head out into the steamy bathroom air, she aimed her horn at the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink and opened it with her magic, floating another bottle of shampoo out and over to herself. She slammed the shower door shut and squeezed the whole bottle out into her mane, lathering furiously to work it into every hair.

Celestia was coated from head to hoof in suds before she noticed the strange aroma rising from the shampoo. It reminded her of salons, and Rarity, and for some reason, Mayor Mare. She felt like she was on the verge of realizing something very important when a knock on the door broke her concentration and somepony called out, "Uh, princess? Are you almost done in there? It's, um. It's almost time to raise the sun."

"One second!"

"So, umm..." Fluttershy said as she lightly pulled aside one corner of the curtain and peered out to make sure nopony was there while a skittish Luna took a seat on her couch. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you here? Not that I mind you being here, but it's a little strange that you're here in the middle of the night. Oh, I'm sorry! Was that offensive? I didn't mean to make it sound like it's strange that you would be awake in the middle of the night! It's just that most ponies are sleeping during the night so it's a little weird to visit then, not that I was asleep or anything. Well, actually, I was, but that doesn't mean I always sleep during the night because the night is a really good time for not sleeping, like when you're thinking about all the scary things that could happen to you tomorrow, or how sometimes you still feel really lonely even when you're with your friends and you just want a hug. Oh dear, that doesn't sound very nice does it? I still think of good things when I'm awake at night too, like fluffy bunnies. Please don't turn into Nightmare Moon again."

Instead of answering her, Luna chose to take a deep breath while she put her hoof on her chest, and then let it out, straightening her leg and pushing her hoof away in the process. When she was done, she opened her eyes and said, "I fear that I may have committed a most egregious error, Fluttershy. It seems that while I was drunk and hungover—" Luna shuddered. "—I sent Twilight a letter informing her of some of Celestia’s more personal quirks, quirks that my sister was... a little unhappy to learn had been divulged. I escaped her initial retaliation only by virtue of my keen sense of danger and quick reflexes."

"Oh my." Fluttershy brought both hooves to her mouth as she took wing and fluttered over to sit next to Luna on the couch and laid a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "That sounds really scary, and not like Princess Celestia at all. She sounds..."

"Vicious and bloodthirsty?" Luna asked with a smirk.

Fluttershy ducked her head and blushed like the sun.

"Fear not, my little pony,” Luna went on. “My sister is every bit as benevolent as she looks, but being a princess is a stressful occupation, and she doesn't get many chances to express herself. I am willing to put up with her eccentricities if it helps keep her happy, within reason of course, and this time was no different. I was simply going to wait out the day in some remote location of the castle until she'd calmed down enough to remember that anything I say or do while drunk doesn't count, but then I realized something.”

"Doesn't count? I mean, realized?" Fluttershy asked.

Luna's face grew fierce, and she waved her hoof in the air. "That I am the princess of the night! I do not simply stand aside when somepony tries to strangle me, even if that pony is my sister and she might be a tiny bit justified in her annoyance! Instead of hiding like a coward, I enacted my revenge! It is only a matter of time before she falls afoul of the ingenious traps I laid!"

Fluttershy very nearly ran back up to her bedroom and took cover under her covers, but before she had a chance, the fight seemed to drain out of Luna. The princess looked down at the couch while a surprisingly adorable hint of shame bloomed in her cheeks. "I fear I may have gotten carried away though. Due to the... err... location and nature of these traps, she will likely think that I planned the events at Sweet Apple Acres. She is already upset about that, and it was not wise of me to push the matter further.”

"Umm..." Fluttershy said, resisting both the urges to hug Luna until she felt better and politely ask her to leave before Celestia found out she was there. "I'm not sure I understand. What sort of traps did you lay that would make her so mad?"

"Well," Luna said, tapping her chin with her hoof. "There was..."

Celestia stared at her reflection in the mirror, rendered mute by shock. Every hair on her body, from her mane to her coat to her tail, was colored the most sickeningly pastel shade of pink imaginable. Even her cutie mark hadn't escaped the cursed color, now displaying a slightly red-tinged version of the normally resplendent golden sun that graced her hiney. This was no tomato soup. This was...

"Dye."

If any word could be physically infused with shock, anger, despair, and pure, unadulterated desire for revenge, that one would have struck deaf every living creature within a thousand miles.

The princess was yanked out of her reverie by a knock on the bathroom door and a pony calling out worriedly, "Princess Celestia? Is everything alright in there? We really need you to come out and raise the sun soon."

"Coming!" She said in her most artificially cheerful voice, the one that she usually reserved for meetings with parliament.

"She always hated pink."

Fluttershy was doing her very best not to giggle, and she didn't understand why. Putting dye in Celestia's shampoo was bad, and she should feel bad.

Luna smiled impishly at her from across the couch. "Then there was..."

"Arghhh! Why does my toothbrush taste like vegemite!"

A squeak squeezed around the hooves clapped tightly over Fluttershy's mouth.

"And then there is the real kicker..."

Celestia eyed her toilet with suspicion. The way the morning was going, she would have already been on edge, but having just learned that Twilight was investigating her bathroom habits a few hours ago... It would probably be better not to take chances until the crisis was solved.

Of course, that left the problem of figuring out an alternative.

Her musings were cut short by a frantic banging on the door. "Princess! You're ten minutes late on the sunrise! Blueblood is demanding that somepony notify the Elements of Harmony that Luna’s snapped and had you beheaded!"

"I can just hold it for now," she muttered, steeling herself for the day. If she had to confront Equestria with a pink mane, foul tasting mouth, and uncomfortably full bladder, then so be it.

"Oh my..." That last one wasn't funny.

"'Oh my' is correct. By the time I realized I had gone too far, it was too late. Celestia had locked herself in the bathroom tryin to wash the soup stains out of her coat. I do not know what she will do if she catches me, but it will be most unpleasant.” Luna looked Fluttershy straight in the eyes and her voice turned ominous. “I am not the pony that the dragons are speaking of when they say, 'Do not meddle in the affairs of alicorns, for they are subtle and quick to anger.'”

A chill ran down Fluttershy's spine and lodged in her intestines.

"Please, Fluttershy. Agree to hide me until it is safe. I was not jesting about the boon. It will not be easy, it will not be safe, but I promise that you will be rewarded for your kindness."

"I'm terribly sorry about the delay," Celestia said with a practiced smile as she opened the door, doing her best to ignore maid's bewildered double-take at her new, ruddy palette.

Rainbow Dash was flying on her way to the Golden Oaks Library when she was forced to land in the road by the biggest yawn of her life. She squeezed her eyes so tight a few tears came out, while her mouth opened wide enough to fit her hoof all the way inside.

When Dash finally finished the oral exercise and opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of Pinkie Pie right in her face. "Hiya, Pinks." She said, too tired to be fazed by her friend’s randomness. "Twilight rope you into coming over too?" She yawned again before continuing. "I still don't see why she wanted to have a planning session at dawn, and with me of all ponies."

"Yup!" Pinkie Pie said, way more cheerful than anypony should be at that time of day as she waved a hoof at the brightening horizon. "She wanted to do it now because it's thematically appropriate. The sunrise symbolizes both Celestia and the beginning of this new chapter in Twilight’s—"

Pinkie's words were cut off as she suddenly froze and stared into space.

"Uh, you okay there Pinks?" Dash asked, wondering if she should be concerned or let it go as just Pinkie being Pinkie. She was starting to lean a little more towards concern when Pinkie Pie started twitching.