//------------------------------// // Wedding Night Jitters // Story: (The Most Inappropriate) Hearthswarming Stories for Foals // by Biochi //------------------------------// Princess Cadance entered the large guest suite that the Elements of Harmony were sharing during this holiday visit to Canterlot.  She had heard about the holiday-story fiasco from a distraught Luna.  In between hoof-fulls of chocolates, the lunar mare had explained to the pink alicorn why her sister-in-law and her five best friends were conspicuously absent from the celebration.  Luna’s story also explained why Celestia and her sister were, not nearly as subtly as they each believed, avoiding each other.   After recounting the dangers of developing a habit of stress-eating to the younger of her two “aunts”, citing Celestia herself being a prime example of this behavior and its consequences, the pink pony princess had departed the celebration for the tower that held the highest-status guests and the room she was now entering.  From where she stood in the entrance hallway, she could hear what sounded like quiet snuffling from one mare and occasional moans from another.  “Twilight?  Girls?” she called.  “It’s Cadance, may I come in?   After a moment’s pause Twilight replied, “I’m sorry Cadance.  I don’t think that’s a good idea.”   At this range, the alicorn of love could easily detect the emotional distress that filled the room ahead of her, therefore she chose to ignore Twilight’s request and entered the room anyways.  “I’m sorry sweetie. I asked more for politeness’ sake than for permission,” Cadance said as she strode into the suite’s lounge area.   Six of the nine ponies she most cared for were scattered about the room, expressing various stages of grief.  Fluttershy was laying on one of the rugs insulating the stone floor, curled up around what appeared to be an empty flowerpot.  Applejack and Rainbow Dash were seated across from each other, playing a game of cards, while seething in anger.  Pinkie Pie was draped over the back of one of the chairs, taking the posture of a discarded blanket far more accurately than was biologically possible.  Rarity was filing a hoof while staring out into space, removing far more of the keratinous material than was actually warranted.  Twilight, predictably, had her snout in a book.  The title, however, is what grabbed Cadance’s attention:  Hearth’s Warming Tales for Foals.   As Twilight looked up from the book, Cadance gave the young mare a gentle smile.  “Trying to purge the effects of Luna’s story, I see.”   Rainbow Dash answered the princess before Twilight could open her mouth.  Without looking away from Applejack she replied, “I guess Luna told you about her latest attempt at ‘Holiday Cheer’.”   “She is very upset about it,” said Cadance.   “Well so am-.  Uh…so is Fluttershy.  That’s not cool,” retorted the angry pegasus.   Cadance decided to allow the momentary slip of honesty to go by unnoted, allowing Applejack’s eyebrow to deliver all the commentary required at this time.  “I know it isn’t.  I’d like to help.”   This time it was Twilight who answered, “How?”   Cadance gestured to the foal’s storybook Twilight still held.  “How about another story?  Something to get the taste of the other one out of your mouth.”   All six pairs of eyes met hers with suspicion.   “You girls get to pick the type of story,” Cadance added. “Something about unicorns this time?” requested Rarity.   “Something about Princess Celestia?”  Twilight asked.  Everyone else groaned at her predictable request.   “Something romantic, maybe with a wedding?”  Fluttershy’s whisper was oddly amplified by the flowerpot held beside her muzzle.   “Something funny?” Pinkie asked, almost begging.   “If it’s about someone we know, like the princess, then make it something juicy,” requested Dash.   “Hay!” Twilight shouted as an objection.   “How about something true, historical and the like?” was Applejack’s request, going last and managing to smooth over the incipient quarrel between Twilight and Dash.   Cadance was silent for a moment processing the six, very different requests.  Only one story came to mind.  She continued to pause, weighing the benefit of sharing the story with the consequences of resurrecting the old tale.  “Okay, I think I have one that fits everyone’s request.  I wasn’t there for the events themselves but I’ve heard enough bits and pieces over the centuries that I’m pretty sure I have the whole of it.”   “Long, long ago, some decades after the founding of Equestria…” ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna walked quietly into the room where her sister waited.  Gray stone comprised the walls, ceiling, and floor.  The stonework surrounded them, prison-like, hemming them in on every side.  The unicorns used tapestries and rugs to disguise the fact that they were inside an artificial cave but, to Luna, those embellishments made no difference to her perception of the place.   Her sister sat upon her haunches, staring out an unglazed window.  The opening was barely more than a glorified arrow slit, like all windows within the stone redoubt of the great unicorn fortress.  Celestia either did not notice her intrusion or chose to ignore her.  Either way, the pink maned alicorn continued to stare out at the barren mountain scenery, silently crying.   Luna’s face took on a sympathetic expression as she saw the tracks of sodden fur on her elder sister’s face.  She approached and nuzzled her sister’s much larger barrel, trying to give comfort.  The action mussed the filly’s pale blue mane, something for which her sister would normally chide her.  Instead Celestia unfurled a wing and wrapped it around Luna, pulling the smaller alicorn against her. “I don’t want to do this Luna,” Celestia said, stating the obvious. “I know.  But we promised,” was Luna’s reply, muffled by a thick blanket of feathers. “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t go through with it, just that I didn’t want to.”  Celestia’s normally clarion clear voice was thready with barely constrained dread.   “Oh,” was all the younger alicorn could think of to say in reply.  She could feel that something more was needed so she pushed herself deeper into the hug. After a minute Celestia broke the silence.  “Today, I envy you your filly-like appearance.” For Luna, the reverse was nearly constantly true.  She pulled back from the hug so as to be able to see her sister as she talked to her and said, “Why?”   “General Nimbus is yet unwed.”  Celestia’s reply was short but was heavy with implications. Luna’s eyes widened.  Fear and gratitude coursed through her.  “I am millennia older than he.”   “But you look very young to them, childlike.  Ineligible for marriage...and the rest of it.”   Luna looked up at her sister’s face and saw how much this course of action was costing Celestia.  “We could run,” Luna suggested.  “We can just fly away to somewhere else and leave this whole thing behind.” “And then the war would start again,” Celestia answered in a flat, emotionless tone.   “That’s sad but it isn’t our fault,” implored the younger of the pair.  “What they do with themselves is their own choice.  Our responsibility is the sun and the moon, nothing more.”   “So you would leave the three tribes to their fighting?”  Celestia answered her with a question, much to Luna’s irritation.   “Why not?”  said Luna.  “They will fight, some will win, some will lose, and then they will eventually make peace on their own terms.” “Every day this war continues, more ponies die.  We have the power to stop that.”  Celestia’s tone began to solidify as she explained her reasoning to her sister and herself. “Celly, they’ll die anyways.  They always die.  Eventually they’ll get sick, or eaten, or just get old and die on their own.” “I’m sorry Moondust passed away,” Celestia replied.  “She was a good friend to you.” “She has nothing to do with this,” Luna said in an even but seething tone. “Yes, of course.”  Celestia conceded immediately.   “Stop doing that!” Luna said with rising volume.   Celestia finally looked away from the window with a confused expression on her face.   “Every time you think I’m being a silly-filly you say ‘Yes, of course’,” Luna accused.   “I don’t want to fight, Luna.”   “Maybe we should,” Luna’s voice held iron that belied her filly-like appearance.   “We are sisters.  I love you.  We shouldn’t ever need to fight,” was Celestia’s answer.   “I think you’re wrong,” Luna simply stated.   “Yes, of-.”  Celestia cut the automatic reply off as her sister’s eyes flashed with righteous anger.  She tried again, “Fine, Lulu.  We can talk about this more later.  We have too much to do today to have this conversation.”   “Better.  Not good, but better,” was Luna’s reply.  “What about the wedding?  We can’t wait to talk about that.”   “I’m going through with it,” Celestia admitted to both herself and her sister. “But he’s awful,” Luna pleaded. “As you pointed out, he’s mortal.  He will pass from life very soon, no more than a few decades.  I can tolerate him for that long.” “He’s going to want to…”  Luna refused to say the rest. “I know,” Celestia said, grimly, “but he already has children from his first wife.  This arrangement does not require me to foal.  The rest…I can endure.” “I don’t want you to have to endure, Tia,” Luna entreated.  “I want you to be happy.” “I am happy, Luna.  I’m happy knowing that I’ve ended this war.  I’m happy saving the lives of my little ponies.” Luna’s brow furrowed, “They aren’t yours to save, Tia.” “In about ten minutes, they will be,” was Celestia’s answer. ---------- The royal rump ached. Efforts were made to prevent this.  Royal cushions were placed between her dock and the throne but even the fluffiest of pillows could not change the fact that the damned chair was carved from a single block of stone.  Nor could any combination of silk, satin, and down change the fact that Queen Platinum had spent the last five decades of her life sitting upon its implacable surface.  No cushion, leach, or apothecary could do a thing about the fact that she had gotten old. The arthritis in her hips was only one of a multitude of indignities age had heaped upon her, the queen reflected.  Her mane that had once been the shimmering color of her namesake was now reduced to a dull and lifeless gray.  Her long and graceful neck, once a source of pride and the topic of courtly poetry, had been disfigured by time into something that would look more at home on a turkey.  But the worst humiliation of them all was the sad and reduced state of her family. Her father, King Aurum, had never made the exodus to Equestria.  He had sent her, then just a princess and barely even a full-grown mare, in his stead.  From the last of the reports to escape the encroaching ice, he had been trying to develop some magical system of holding back the cold using crystals.  Presumably, he had failed.  He died doing what he loved and Platinum despised him for it.  Her father could have lived, could have made the journey and spent the remainder of his life beside her.  Instead, the old king had chosen to stay and die with his toys of brass, tin, and quartz rather than spend a lifetime with her. Despite her father’s dereliction, perhaps in defiance thereof, she had made a life for herself.  While her crown was her birthright, nopony would ever dispute the fact that she had earned her title many times over.  With Clover at her side, she had worked tirelessly for the benefit of her people. During the decades of peace while the Harmonious Triumvirate ruled, her people had prospered.  She had even allowed herself to believe in the future.  As a result, she had taken a consort and foaled a pair of colts. Her firstborn son, Argentum, had been the very image of unicorn nobility.  He had come of age during the fraying of the Triumvirate, after Hurricane was forced into retirement by younger and more ambitious pegasi.  When the war (now named by poets as the Reign of Discord) started, he was a full grown but still young stallion.  The old grey mare cracked a lopsided smile at the memory of her beautiful son, resplendent in silver-plated armor, blade gripped in his aura, standing tall on the battlements.  The all the unicorns loved him.  There was nothing he could request from his soldiers that they would not provide, up to and including their lives. Platinum sighed and the smile broke as she thought, “T’was only fair.  For that was what he gave for them, in the end.” Her second son, the one that lived, she had named Cupric.  He was only a two years younger than Argentum but comparing the colts was as if comparing the moon to the sun.  Platinum felt that in her eldest son, her most noble elements had been refined.  Argentum had been gracious, generous, and brave to a fault.  Cupric, she admitted in the darkest of nights, had inherited the balance of her soul.  In him she saw her venal and petty tendencies empowered by a sharp wit and unrestrained by any conscience or ethics.  Perhaps, she wondered, she had made things worse by shunning the younger son in preference to the elder but being in Cupric’s presence had always been unpleasant for her.  To Queen Platinum, looking at him felt like staring into a cursed mirror that only reflected one’s flaws. “Of course he was the one to live,” Platinum mused.  While she was disappointed that fate would rob her of her favored son, she had no problem admitting that Cupric was a consummate survivor.  If she had been pressed to bet on which son would have lived to middle-age she would have begrudgingly placed her money on the younger of the pair. She looked over to him, her one remaining son, standing in his finest court attire.  “Lurking,” she mentally corrected.  Even standing in the open, in broad daylight, on his wedding day, her son somehow managed to lurk.  His muscular frame, covered in a gleaming white coat was just beginning to soften with age and his blond mane and tail was sprinkled with gray hairs.  His face was handsome, but only if you examined him the same way as one looked at a portrait.  In person, his eyes ruined the hansom and noble facade he so carefully cultivated. The deep blue orbs never showed any warmth or affection; when not actively luring somepony to their doom, they were as lifeless as a doll’s. Trumpets blared, announcing the usurpers, and the great double doors swung open to admit the goddesses.  Queen Platinum scowled at the pair of alicorns as they approached her and bowed. “Rise, Celest,” Platinum commanded. “I would prefer it if you called me Celestia, Your Majesty,” the white alicorn corrected. “Celestia is the name of the goddess of the sun.  Celest is more appropriate for an unwanted daughter-in-law.” Celestia swallowed, trying desperately to regain control of her stunned face.  “Of c-“ The smaller, blue alicorn cleared her throat, interrupting her sister. “You may call me ‘Celest’ if it pleases you, ma’am. The queen snorted, “I would be far more pleased if this whole fiasco was unnecessary, but here we are.” Celestia’s mouth hung open as she struggled for anything diplomatic to say in response. “Were it up to the ingenuity of the unicorn race, then we wouldn’t be here, would we? My father used to say, ‘Unicorns could move the sun and moon were they but made of brass and tin.’” “All acknowledge the skill and ingenuity of unicorn craftsponies.” “As a girl I used to dream of that day.  A lifetime later, the sun still obeys this pony-shaped creature in front of me and I cannot find a clock that will keep the time.”  “I…I-“ Celestia desperately searched for a polite response. The old mare snorted and shook her head at the amateurish attempt at court banter.  “Mountaintop snows don’t grow wheat, so my soldiers grow thin on a diet of lichen and pine-cones.  We must surrender to you.” “The other two tribes surrendered as well,” Luna interjected. Her sister was still rendered mute by the rapid twists and turns the conversation was taking. “Chancellor Puddinghead will still be a chancellor tomorrow.  General Nimbus will still be a general tomorrow.  Will I still be a queen on the morrow?" “I’m sorry?” said Celestia, confused. “Yes, yes.  You’re sorry, I’m sorry, my son is a particularly sorry specimen.” The stallion, standing only a few feet away from his mother, smirked. Platinum continued after Celestia failed to produce a reply.  “As per the terms of the treaty, we will accept your authority over all three tribes, including the unicorns.  In exchange, you will marry my son Cupric, thereby preserving the nobility of my line.  Nowhere within the agreement did it say that I had to like you, which, as you may have noticed, I don’t.” “Have…have I done something to offend you, Your Majesty?” the alicorn asked with a shaking voice. “Your existence offends me.  Your necessity offends me.  Your ageless grace offends me,” the unicorn answered.  “You are ancient but will never be old.  You will never know loss as a mortal does.  You will never know the horror of dying inch-by-inch as the years pass you by.  You will never witness the death of your son.  You are a thing, no matter how pony-like you appear.” Celestia stood silently as the old mare heaped insults upon her.  As Queen Platinum paused, panting for breath after the long diatribe, the alicorn answered with a voice calm and clear.  “My mother is dead and buried, Your Majesty.  I have heard tales that such things are a common occurrence among mortals.” Platinum made an amused snort, “My, my, my.  She can bite.  Maybe there’s hope for you yet.” Celestia could only make confused expressions in response to the ill-gotten praise. Queen Platinum explained, “Wandering about the countryside answering prayers and lugging about celestial objects is not relevant training to be the head of state.  If my gentle barbs leave you flustered and wounded, you’ll never be able to withstand the intrigues of court.” Celestia lips curled as an idea took form, “Perhaps, if Your Majesty would be willing to teach me how?” she asked. “You presume that I want this treaty to last.” the Queen said, archly.  “Why should I not just sabotage you and ruin your aspirations at royalty.  Given a few years to stockpile food, perhaps the unicorns would fare better in the next war.” “I don’t wish to take your crown but it was the only way to get all three sides to agree to the treaty.  If milady recalls, her own nobles were quite adamant that I marry into the royal family.” “I believe they called you ‘a jumped-up solar tart,’” Platinum smiled like a cat spotting a mouse, “if my aging and feeble mind can accurately recall their statements.” Celestia, rather than allowing her voice betray her agitation, silently nodded. You’re telling me that you have no wish to be queen?  That you are doing all of this for our good?” the queen asked as if the answer was obvious. “That is correct, Your Highness,”  Was Celestia’s simple answer. With a face deliberately projecting doubt, Platinum replied, “If that is indeed the case, then I have a proposition for you; an addendum to the treaty, if you will.” “Um, the other two tribes have already agreed and signed the treaty as prepared,” Celestia was clearly unsure about altering the delicately negotiated armistice. “This will not affect any of the other tribes.” the monarch claimed.  “I’ll agree to tutor you in the art of politics if you allow me to keep my title.” “The other two tribes only agreed to follow me and my sister if your people did the same,” Celestia immediately answered. “I did not say that we wouldn’t,” Platinum said with a thin smile.  “I only ask that you not style yourself as queen.  If what you say is true, wouldn’t the title of reigning princess be enough?”   Celestia thought on this for a moment and then answered, “Dowager-Queen for yourself and Duke of Canterlot for your son. That is as far as I can go.  I wouldn’t want ponies to get confused as to who is in charge if I am to go around as Princess Celestia.” Queen Platinum’s brow rose in pleasant surprise.  “Dowager-Queen Platinum, the last monarch of the unicorn tribe does have bit of a ring to it,” said the old mare.  She rolled the title around her mouth, getting the taste of it for a moment before agreeing.  “Very well, it is done.” “I am glad we could come to an agreement,” said Princess Celestia.  “Should we begin the ceremony?” “Oh deary, do please keep up,” Platinum teased.  “The it that was done was your marriage, I am a queen after all and expedite things at my pleasure.  Welcome to the family, for all that it’s cracked up to be.” “Oh,” was all Princess Celestia could say in response to the news that she was a married mare. Cupric, the Duke of Canterlot, formerly styled Prince Blueblood the first, winked salaciously at his bride and trotted up beside her, making sure to touch his flank against hers as he guided her towards the large double doors. “Happy honeymoon,” said the dowager-queen as the couple exited the throne room together, leaving Platinum and Luna behind.  Turning her eyes to the indigo alicorn remaining within the room Platinum asked the filly-like goddess, “So, both you and your sister are princesses now, equal in rank.  I wonder how that’s going to work out?” ------------------- “There!” exclaimed the pink alicorn.  “I’m sure that story was much better than the travesty Luna shared with you.”  As she brought her focus back to her audience she noticed that their expressions were not what she had been expecting. . . . A few moments later, Princess Cadance burst through the guest suite’s doorway at a full gallop fleeing an intense volley of pillows, cushions, a few cupcakes of unknown provenance, and a flowerpot full of sick.