·
Chapter 3
Luna vs. The Mail
·
Princess(?) Luna reappeared in front of town hall.
And now, to sort these things out.
She opened one of the saddlebags and snagged a few fliers. The first thing she noticed was what they said.
Everypony Remember
March 1 is Derpy Day!
Please Consume Muffins Responsibly
Below that was a picture of Derpy. She was in a fancy dress and there were muffins in the background.
Derpy Day? Really?
Luna sighed, wondering what sorts of other holidays Discord may have created—and then she did a double take.
What the?!
In the picture, Derpy had a horn.
Discord made her an alicorn?
Those gears in Luna’s head turned a little more.
I’ll deal with this later. Right now I have a job to do.
So she put her Derpy speculations on the backburner and focused on the task at hand.
Okay, now where to start?
Luna checked out the addresses on the filers.
101 Main St, 103 Main St, 104 Main St... seems simple enough.
She looked around.
Wait... where is Main Street?
It was then that she realized Ponyville had no well-laid-out streets. The houses were just arranged in a hodge-podge fashion.
She took out a few more fliers, and looked at their addresses as well.
This one says Main St, these few are for Mane St, here are some for Baltimare Rd, and some for Baltimare Blvd...
She looked through a few others.
302 Pony St. Oh, nice. Real original. Let’s see what other gems we can find...
206 Pony Lane. 309 Pony Ave. 84 Pony Court.
Seriously! Who planned this city?
(The Apple Family, that’s who! Someone should ask Granny Smith what the hay her parents were thinking.)
Luna began to wonder how anypony could actually deliver the mail on time. But regardless, she put the fliers back in the saddlebag and decided to give it her best shot.
She soon realized that she was on Main Street, as it ran right through the center of Ponyville. She traced the road across town, delivering fliers as she went. This was not an easy task, as the road swerved every which way with no rhyme or reason, but in the end she got it all done. She breathed a sigh of relief... and then went to find all the other streets.
The process as a whole was a total pain. She did it, though. She managed to find every single house and deliver to it the appropriate flier.
Except for one.
42 Canterlot Court. Where the hay is 42 Canterlot Court?
She hadn’t seen anything close to that address before. In fact, she didn’t remember any of the other fliers being addressed to Canterlot Court at all.
She was mulling this over when a realization struck her. Working on a hunch alone, she leapt into the air and flew halfway across town.
She landed next to the cottage she and Celestia walked out of that morning. She checked a nearby street sign, which told her their cottage was indeed on Canterlot Court. (In fact, it was the only cottage on Canterlot Court.) She checked their mailbox—it did indeed say 42.
“Aha!”
After delivering the flier to herself, she took to the skies. Her job was done.
·
·
Back at the Ponyville Post, Reg sighed. “Welp, best address some more fliers.”
He’d written the earlier set off as a loss. At this point he was simply glad to have gotten the strange alicorn out of his hair. True, they were looking for a new mailmare, but Luna was just a bit odd for his tastes—and he doubted she could actually do what she said.
“REG! She’s back!”
Huh?
Reg walked up to the front of the post office. And there, standing before him, was Princess Luna. Her saddlebags were empty.
Reg was skeptical. “You got them all?”
Luna nodded. “Yes, sir. Also, I can give you my address for that form now.”
Reg gave her a funny look.
“I, er, just moved into town,” explained Luna sheepishly. “I’m still getting used to everything... including where I live.”
“Well you know, we really need our mailmares to be familiar with the area.” He walked over to a counter and retrieved Luna’s application form. “So it’s not normal to hire someone who just moved here.”
“Also, this—” he handed her the form “—is just downright bizarre. Supervillian? Astronaut? What’s that even supposed to mean?”
“Well... it’s a long story.” Luna replaced ‘Some random cottage’ with ‘42 Canterlot Court’ and handed the form back to the pegasus. “I’d rather not go into it right now.”
“Normally I wouldn’t do this,” said Reg. “This is probably the strangest application I’ve ever seen. But you did deliver those fliers in a reasonable time, and we do need somepony to replace our old mailmare, so consider yourself hired.”
Yes, I have a job! Luna was elated.
And then those gears in her head turned once more. Something was off.
“Wait... your old mailmare?”
“Yes, ma’am!” said Reg. “We had a single mailmare who was pretty much holding our operations together by herself. She left very recently, and now we’re not sure if we can reliably make our rounds on time.”
“Huh.”
The gears in Luna’s head clicked, whirred, and spun freely. Her whole mind upshifted, and the world around her stopped as she turned her consciousness inwards.
Time to unravel this thread.
·
· ·
“Greetings everypony!” Within the confines of her mind, Princess Luna sat before a congregation of... well, other Lunas. “This Lunar Meeting is hereby called to order!”
The others nodded affirmatively.
“We will begin by taking roll.” A scroll materialized in front of Princess Luna.
“Gamer Luna?”
“Here!”
“Emo Luna?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Trolluna?”
“Not here!”
“Well I’ll just have to mark you abs—”
Oh wait, duh. Trolluna giggled. Princess Luna facehoofed.
“Anyway!” she continued. “Temporally maladjusted Luna?”
“We are present!”
“Woona?”
“Heeaww!” A small Luna filly jumped up and down, waving her forehooves.
One by one, the various facets of Luna’s personality chimed in as Princess Luna went down the list.
“And that’s everypony,” she proclaimed at the end. “Good, we’re all here.”
“Well, except for—”
“We’re all here.”
“But—”
“ALL. HERE. Now please have a seat, Pedantic Luna.”
“Awww.” Pedantic Luna reluctantly sat down.
“Anyway,” said Princess Luna, “I think we’ve all noticed some strange... inconsistencies in this world Discord has created.”
A few of the Lunas nodded. Some of them looked confused.
“Consider this,” said Princess Luna to the confused-looking ones. “First off, it appears almost nopony recognizes us anymore. True, we’re usually overshadowed by Sister, but Reg should still have acknowledged that we look familiar. At the very least, he could have noted our resemblance to Celestia, but he didn’t.”
“In addition!” Princess Luna looked around to make sure the others were listening. “We saw those fliers commemorating Derpy Day. This all suggests that Discord made Derpy the ruler of Equestria, and that nopony—save for a few, such as Sister and us—remembers things ever being any different.”
The other Lunas murmured among themselves.
“And that’s by far the most likely scenario,” Princess Luna appended. “After all, a change of power by conventional means would never go over so quietly.”
The others continued their murmuring, with some of them nodding in agreement.
“However!” Princess Luna exclaimed, startling the group. “There are also some events which contradict that scenario. Reg stated several times that one of Ponyville Post’s mailmares left recently. This is likely Derpy! But, he conspicuously avoided mentioning her by name.”
“Well, maybe he just doesn’t remember her name? It happens, you know.”
“Thank you, Skeptical Luna. But consider this: Reg said that all of the post’s operations were essentially held together by that single hypercompetent mailmare. Why wouldn’t he remember the name of somepony so important?”
“Because Discord made him forget?”
“Possibly, but I don’t think it’s that simple. It looks more like Discord has altered our world en toto.”
“I still don’t get it. We pretty much knew that already, so what’s the big deal?”
“Oh, don’t you see Skeptical Luna? There shouldn’t be evidence of Mailmare Derpy in any form! And yet there is! And consequently, Reg now has inconsistent memories!” Luna looked around at the group. “I’d say it looks like our friend Discord... has gotten sloppy.”
“So!” she clapped her forehooves together, addressing the group once more. “What do you think we should do?”
“We should examine the situation further.”
“Excellent suggestion, Science Woona!”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I fear that if we search for inconsistencies we may well unravel the world as we know—”
“Thank you for your input again, Pedantic Luna, but a decision has been made!”
· ·
·
Luna came back to reality. Hardly a second had passed.
“Thank you,” she said to Reg. “Although if I may ask, what was the name of this mailmare you held in such high regard?”
“Well her name was... uh...” Reg gave her a puzzled look. “That’s weird, I don’t seem to remember...”
Sloppy, Discord. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
“Don’t worry about it, then,” said Luna. “It’s not that important.”
She smiled. “Although if you’re having trouble doing business without her, I might be able to help get the Post back in shape...”
·
×