Chapter III: The Inspection and the Events Thereof
Her Most Immaculate and Serene Majesty, Princess Celestia of Equestria, was a bit of a trickster at heart, though few would ever dare suspect it. Of course, her current occupation had some perks, an army of servants and an army of armed stallions come to mind, but, more than once, she had found herself fantasizing about once again showing herself into the courts of kings and queens, making a muck of the status quo, and flying off into the sunset to reconvene with her family. Sadly, though, her family was a bit small at the moment, small as in she, herself, and her.
Shaking her head to dispel the darkening thoughts, Celestia lifted her head to see the next checkpoint coming into view. “Guards?”
Two “Your Majesty?”’s rang out in perfect unison.
“What are those ponies doing, up ahead?” Celestia asked with a tilt of her head toward the ponies in question.
“They seem to be practicing the mating call of the damned, Your Highness.”
“I agree with the Lieutenant, Princess. I am agog to see where this might lead.”
Both of these answers were vocalized without hint of emotion and without falter of voice. Celestia hoofpicked her personal guards, and was very well acquainted with them, she would go so far as to call these two fellows in particular friends.
“I see. Well then, let’s investigate, shall we, gentlestallions?”
Two “Of course, Your Highness.”’s rang once more in perfect unison.
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Sergeant Mossy Stones was not a happy pegasus.
In fact, one might venture so far as to call her a really really upset meanie pants, if one were so inclined to use such profanities.
Sergeant Stones was usually very genial, she had a cushy station, the guards under her were easy enough to handle, and she could practically hear her Lieutenantship calling her, despite the fact that she was a preferred punching bag of the Commander of the Canterlot Province Guard himself. Some contemporary events had obviated her normally ubiquitous jovialness, however. Chiefest of these contemporaries was the rather painful angle her head was now forcibly stuck in.
That and the hilariously pitiful moans and cries of her guards. There were the usual profanities and cries for matriarchal figures, as well as some truly creative expletives involving hair anatomically impossible to grow on Celestia.
Unfortunately for the Sergeant, Celestia decided to make her presence known, via polite cough, after the quandam expletive was vocalized with some intensity.
“I can assure you that I have never had such hair, nor has my mother. Sergeant Stones and subordinates, I assume?” Celestia, flanked by her stone-faced guards, uttered this with a matter-of-fact tone and a nearly imperceptible frown.
“P-P-Prin-? ATTENTION!” With this the Sergeant and her guards quickly and precisely stepped into a consummate attention stance. Or, rather, they would have. Instead, nearly half of the guards rammed their snouts into their disabled neckpiece, with predictable results, some quarter of them simply tripped and fell over eachother, having their eyes in the air and all, and the rest just fell over, presumably dead from exposure to unnaturally high levels of absurdity.
And the poor Sergeant was left staring Celestia straight in the eyes, from the angle her head was forced into.
Celestia inched her head forward, slowly closing the gap between her snout and the Sergeant’s.
“This would be, quite possibly, . . .”
Seven inches.
“. . . one of the most disgraceful things . . .”
Six.
“. . . I have seen. . .”
Five.
“. . . in the last two-hundred years, . . .”
Four.
“. . . were it not for the fact . . .”
Three.
“. . . that the two foals responsible. . .”
Two.
“. . . are literally children . . .”
One.
“ . . . and in your saddlebag.”
Zero.
With their noses practically touching, Celestia laughed uproariously, by noble standards, that is to say that she actually laughed more than a petite giggle, took a few steps backwards, and said, “Oh my! I do apologize, Sergeant, but I haven’t had the chance to do something of the kind since the Second Moon of Nine-Eighty-Seven, Third Age.”
One of the guards spoke up, “One month ago. I do believe you may have reverted, Your Majesty.”
“Did I? Ah! Indeed I did. I must get out more, all those dusty old books are beginning to manifest themselves in the most awkward of ways.”
By this time, the Sergeant had renounced ever being able to sleep, or show her face anywhere, ever again. Though she found the strength to ask forgiveness, “Your Majesty?”
“Oh, my apologies once again Sergeant, I seem to have been ignoring you.”
“Yes-I MEAN NO. I mean, uh, my deepest apologies, Your Highness, me and my guards have failed.” The Sergeant hung her head in shame, or would have, if not for, you know. Unfortunately for the poor mare, fate had decided that she was not quite punished enough for the gross negligence of her armoury; and so introduced two foals, whom the Princess had mentioned, but the Sergeant was too preoccupied having a furtive heart attack to comprehend.
Out popped a white horned head. A white horned head with a mouth that promptly sucked in a lungful of fresh, foal free air.
“VINYL!” And out popped an orange horned head. Though instead of breathing, it berated its compatriot head.
“Ahhhhh, that’s better. It’s not that you smell bad, Fair, it’s just hard to breath with my snout in your side.”
“What? That doesn’t matter, Vinyl, we’re suppose to be hiding.”
“But I’m not good at hiding when I can’t breath. I just make a lot of noises.”
“Ponies don’t make noises when they can’t breath, they just kinda twitch around.”
“Nuh-uh. Uncle makes a lot of noises when he takes his big yellow pills. He says they go down like bricks, and I asked him how he knew one time, and he told me it was a figure of speech and I asked him what figure meant but I said it like figger,” this was accompanied by Vinyl waving her hooves about, and making appropriate facial expressions. It was really, really cute. That is all, “and he spent an hour teaching me to say it right, and when he was done he looked at the bottle and mumbled something and took some more pills. And then he got in his chair and slept for a long time. I drew a cat on his pillow.”
Fair was completely unfazed by his friend, unlike everypony else, and simply said, “I don’t know. Your Uncle is kinda weird.”
“Yeah, he is.” With this, they both fell into a deep pondering pose, with their hooves under their chins. “Oh, I know! Let’s ask the Princess.”
“Princess?” Fair took glance around, found he was being watched by over a dozen ponies, yelped, and fell against Vinyl. Vinyl, in turn, fell against the side of the Sergeant, who was in such a state of shock, that the weight of the two foals sent her careening to the ground. Vinyl and Fair tumbled out of the saddlebags when the Sergeant hit the ground, and wound up at Celestia’s forehooves.
“I’ve seen a lot of spies in my day, but these are definitely some of the most effective. To think, they not only infiltrated an armory, disabled an entire squad’s armor, stole away inside the commander’s very saddlebags, and ambushed the same squad from within, they actually made it to my very own hooves. You two aren’t assassins are you?”
“Do assassins use fire?”
“Fair what’s an assassin?” Both of these queries were simultaneous, and complete gibberish to the ponies present.
“I don’t know Vinyl. Miss Princess, do they?”
“Hmmm? I suppose some do, though that certainly doesn’t seem very effective.”
“Oh.” He turned to face Vinyl, “I still don’t know.”
“Princess, what’s an assassin?” Vinyl asked, full of curiosity.
“An assassin, young Miss Scratch, is a pony who tries to kill another pony for money.”
“That doesn’t sound very nice.”
“I agree, my little pony. Not very nice at all.”
“Princess, how do you know my name?”
“Don’t you know? I know all my little ponies’ names.”
Fair piped up, “That sounds really creepy, like when mommy calls daddy a stud at night.”
For a few moments there was absolute silence. The awkwardness and apprehension was palpable to everypony, except the two foals.
Then Celestia broke out into a true laugh. In fact, it was beyond a laugh, it was a cachinnation. Everypony, excepting the foals who just looked around confused, let out a small sigh at Her Majesty’s laughter, and her two personal guards had to blink more than once in ten seconds to release the energy building inside them for a laugh, or sprint to safety.
“*snigger* Ahem. I am sorry my li-” Celestia let out a petite giggle more befitting of an immortal goddess able to call down the fury of the Sun to any who dare oppose her, and resumed, “I apologize. I do believe you are the first to observe and say such to my face. And, in actuality, I know both of your names from your recent conversations, and, I must apologize again, it is terribly rude of me to eavesdrop.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Okay.”
Celestia looked confused for a moment, or as confused as an immortal monarch, use to hours of nobles and aristocrats petitioning her, can look. This was the first time in perhaps over a decade that someone had actually accepted an apology from her, and not just pass it off as an automatic response conditioned from centuries of “prominent” soirees, which, in fact, it was. It was humbling to see these foals treat her as if she were no different than a classmate of theirs.
“How would you two like to come with me for a tour of the castle?”
“That’d be fun, but mom and dad might get upset if I’m not back before dinner.”
“Yeah, and Uncle says he can’t take his other pills until I’m in bed and he’s locked the door. And those are his favorite pills.”
“How responsible. I daresay you and your guards may be able to gleam some lessons off these two remarkable young miscreants.” Until this, the Sergeant had been hoping that Her Highness would completely ignore and forget about her and her guards’ ignominious situation.
“I-I, yes. Of course, Your Majesty.” Once again, any possibility of hanging her head in shame was crushed by her armor’s indefatigable refusal to give way to her mandible.