//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Celestia's Hangover // by Aryn240 //------------------------------// Chapter 8 The entrance hall to Canterlot is large and has a very high, arched roof. There are multiple entrances and exits around the perimeter, and a few more at the top of the wide set of stairs that dominates the far end of the hall. Through one of these top entrances galloped Octavia and Vinyl Scratch, glancing in all directions as they went. Octavia stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down. “They’ve not yet made it inside, thank goodness.” “What are we gonna say?” “I don’t know! We need to figure out where to send them, what to tell them, how to explain.” “Okay, how about this? ‘The Princess had a wild night of drinking and partying. We’re unsure of how many ponies banged last night, but most of them are just now waking up, so howzabout we just take all that stuff for the Gala and push it somewhere else?’” “Vinyl, honesty is not always the best policy.” “Oh. Then how about we just take all their stuff and run with it?” “We need to be serious!” “I am being serious! I always want new stuff!” “Well, we can’t do that. Why don’t we- now, who can that be?” *** *** *** “Ha! Beat you.” “That’s because I showed up in the wrong place the first time!” “Hey, Snails, who is that?” “I dunno. Where’s the pudding?” “Forget about the pudding! -Wait, no, don’t. Maybe we can find the kitchen.” The two alicorns had just entered the main hall and were looking around. Snips had pointed out two mares standing at the top of the stairs looking at them. One, an earth pony, was grey and very refined looking, and the other, a unicorn, was white and sported a pair of large shades. “Well, maybe they know!” “Good thinking!” Snips said. He called up to the mares. “Uh- Excuse me! Do you know where the kitchens are?” The unicorn called back. “Yeah, through that door, into the main hall, through the back door, down a flight of stairs, then take a-” The other mare, an earth pony, jabbed her with a hoof and continued to stare. She whispered something in her ear. The white mare’s head whipped back around to stare at the two. Her mouth dropped open. The earth pony called down. “Who-who are you two?” Snips waved cheerfully. “I’m Snips, and this is Snails. Hi! We were just looking for breakfast. Could you finish your directions?” The mare ignored what he had said. “Where are the princesses?” Snips shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would we know?” “Because you’re-” The grey mare was cut off as the unicorn motioned for her to be quiet. She trotted down the stairs slowly, and approached Snips cautiously. He watched her, confused. She gestured for him to bend his head down, and he did. All of a sudden, she jabbed his side with a hoof and tugged on his horn with her magic. The hoof in his side went directly into his wing painfully, and the pull on his horn jerked his head up quickly. “Ow!’ The white mare backed up a few steps, removing her shades to reveal an expression of abject shock. “They’re both real!” Snips glared angrily at her. “Well, yeah! How else could I have flown in here? That hurt! C’mon Snails, let’s get out of here.” He spread his wings. From the top of the stairs, the grey mare yelled to the white one. “Don’t let them get away!” Snips yelled back, “Lady, I don’t know who you are, but we’re going!” He beat his wings once and shot off towards a door at the end of the hall. Behind him, Snails’ horn had already glowed white-hot, and, within seconds, he was sitting at the door holding it open for Snips. The latter swept through, and with another bright white flash, they were both gone, the door sitting wide open. *** *** *** “Come on, after them!” yelled Octavia. “Why?” asked Vinyl. “They’re bucking Alicorns! We couldn’t catch ‘em anyway!” “Never mind! We’ve got to try! They have to know something about last night!” Octavia rushed down the stairs to join Vinyl, who had replaced her shades on her face, in the middle of the hall. She nudged her in the direction of the door, then set off at a gallop for it. At the same time, the front door of the hall opened again, and a very wealthy-looking pony trotted in. She immediately moved to Vinyl, extending her hoof. “My name is Carrie deCash. I represent the caravan outside here to set up for the Gala. I presume you’re our contact? Vinyl gaped. “Here, I have the money. For the use of Canterlot property to sell our goods?” She held up a fat sack of gold coins. Vinyl’s mouth dropped open even further. She began to reach for the sack. “VINYL! Come on!” “But Tavi...” “No! I forbid it!” Vinyl looked longing at the gold, which the now-confused mare was still holding. Reluctantly, she tore herself away and trotted after Octavia, tossing a few longing glances back over her shoulder as she went. Halfway to the door, she stopped and turned back. “How about you just wait there, and I’ll be back to take- er, assist you with-” Octavia grabbed her partner’s ear in her mouth, and, painfully, dragged her through the door. Carrie stood still for a second or two, gaping where the two of them had disappeared. A few of the coins in the bag jingled loudly in the silent hall. She looked to the left, then the right, then behind her. Seeing nopony, she slipped the bag of coins into her saddlebag, then turned and went back to the front door. Throwing it open, she shouted, “Alright, I paid her! She says come on in and get set up!” *** *** *** “Ah, there we are!” “Did you have to make it so rough?” “Quiet, Sister. Your headache is your own fault. Luckily, I can teleport 3 ponies easily when we’re not a mile underground.” Lyra looked around curiously. “Where are we now?” Luna gave their surroundings a glance. “Some unused bedroom, I think. There shouldn’t be anyone in here. Actually, this may be one of those ones that doesn’t show up on the map. Now.” She turned to her sister. “What do we do about getting the Sun back in place and the Gala back in order?” Celestia was still rubbing her head. Her headache was starting to subside again, but not fast enough. “I don’t know. The sun had a failsafe on it. I would have had to disable it manually to have it get out of sync like that. Why would I do that?” Luna and Lyra exchanged a glance. “What? What do you know?” Luna ignored this. “Well, how do we reset the failsafe?” Glaring, Celestia said “I’d have to find whoever I transferred the spell to and perform the counter.” Another glance. Lyra said, “We’re gonna have a problem.” “What? What are you two talking ab-” From behind them, a loud crash came. They turned, startled to see a light blue earth pony along with a large sousaphone fall out of a wardrobe  across the room. The mare stumbled to her feet, and blinked blearily at the trio staring at her. “G’morning” she mumbled, and trotted a few steps over to the bed in the room. She kicked at something under it. “C’mon, get up.” There came from under the bed some grumbling, and then a light brown stallion with an off-white mane and tail stood up and shook himself. He in turn crossed to a closet against the wall and bucked it, hard. It banged loudly, and a second later, another stallion with a purple coat and blue mane burst out, eyes wide. “What? What? Who? Where? How? When? Why?” The other stallion, the brown one, held up a hoof. Counting in the air, he said, “Get up, get up, you, Canterlot, by getting off your rump, now, and because I said so. Did I miss anything?” The blue mare giggled and turned towards the door, catching sight of the other trio still standing there. Her eyes bulged. “Pri- Princesses! How long have you been there?” “Long enough to hear you making an ungodly amount of noise.” answered Celestia, still wincing. “What are you three doing in here?” asked Luna. The brown stallion stepped forward. “I’m Frederic Horseshoepin. This-” he indicated the mare- “is Beauty Brass, and this clumsy one-” he indicated the purple stallion still rubbing his eyes of sleep- “is Harpo Nadermane. We’re part of an ensemble set to play at the Gala tonight- er, it is tonight, right? We didn’t sleep through it, did we?” “No, you-” “And one other thing.” He glanced around at the other two. “We’re missing a member. Grey mare, purple eyes, talks like she’s classier than Fancy Pants’s pants. You haven’t seen her, have you?” *** *** *** “This way! I smell food!” “Oh boy!” Snips and Snails burst into the kitchen, in much the same way as Octavia and Vinyl had earlier. They froze. Looking back at them was a large crowd of royal guards, sitting, standing, drinking coffee, or enjoying Bonbon’s french toast. All had tousled manes and looked slightly hung over. And all were staring, unbelieving, at the two alicorns that had just entered. Bonbon’s voice came from the back of the kitchen, in a closet. “What happened? You all got quiet out there!” She trotted out of the closet, carrying a package of powdered sugar in her mouth. She froze just like the others at the sight of the two in the doorway. The package fell to the ground. Snips stepped forward very slowly. There was a large platter of french toast sitting on the countertop nearest him, and cautiously he stretched out his magic to lift it up. “We’ll just be leaving-” he started. One of the guards broke his stupefaction. “Hey! They must be the reason the sun’s all wonky!” Another stood up. “Let’s get ‘em!” They began to move in. Snips backed out of the room very quickly, pushing Snails behind him and carrying the platter in his magic. He slammed the door closed, but saw it begin to open again almost immediately. “RUN!” he shouted to Snails. The two of them took off down the hall, the platter flying ahead of them. Down the hall, up a flight of stairs, through a small sitting room, back into a hall and- “Hey! There they are!” Snips whirled to see the two mares from earlier charging at them. Without thinking, he picked up a few pieces of french toast and hurled them at the pair, then dashed off again, Snails right behind him. He heard one piece hit and had barely enough time to grin before more shouts of “There! I saw them!” came from down a flight of stairs to their right. The guards again. He glanced around. They were just down the corridor from the large entrance hall they had first seen the two mares in. “Snails! Get us out of here!” Snips yelled, turning to his friend. “How?” Snails looked panicked. “I don’t know! Teleport us!” “Where?” “ANYWHERE!” “Uhhh, okay...” He closed his eyes, his horn beginning to glow. Snips felt a strange sensation in his body. He was jolted, dropped the platter, blinked and found himself now at the top of the stairs in the large entrance hall. To his right, he could see down the hallway they had just come from. The guards could see him, too, and began charging down the hall, jumping over the platter of breakfast he had unfortunately dropped. “Snails! Farther than ten feet! We gotta get away!” “Oh! You didn’t say that!” “Well I’m saying it now! C’mon!” Snails concentrated again, and they were gone in a flash. *** *** *** “Mmmm....” “Vinyl! You let them get away!” “Well, I couldn’t let this breakfast get away! ‘Specially when it was flying at my face!” “Hmph. Well, what do you suppose we do now?” “I dunno. Go find more french toast?” “No! Oh, Celestia, we still haven’t dealt with the merchants. We really need a royal touch to deal with them. The princesses...” “What about Bluebeanie?” Octavia stared at her. “That’s... actually a fine idea.” “Well, with an intellect like mine-” “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I just hope that settler pony hasn’t offended him to death.” “Aww, they’ve only been alone together for 15 minutes or so. What could they possibly have gotten up to?” *** *** *** ***Author’s Note: And they found out that nothing dirty had happened? Oh wait, you don’t know if that’s true yet. Oh well. ;) So I was supposed to start writing with Cade again, this chapter, if he’d RETURN AN EMAIL. IF YOU SEE THIS, CADE, I’M LOOKING AT YOU. Anyway, normal apologies for the lateness of this chapter. Nearly the end of the school year, you know. I’ll try harder for the next one, I promise. As always, thanks for reading, faving, and commenting. Seeya next chapter. :) Aryn