//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 (Psychology) // Story: Princesses Don't Potty // by CDRW //------------------------------// Princesses Don't Potty Chapter 9 By CDRW “Right.” Twilight wearily shuffled a pile of papers as she, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash gathered round the card table once more. All three ponies wore the blank-eyed, disheveled expression of a shell-shocked soldier who’d just been informed that he was pregnant; as well as the crinkly, wan pallor of a hungover squid stuck in the Calamari Desert, using every ounce of strength left in his squiggly little arms to pull himself inch by inch, mile by mile across the sand while Celestia’s cruel sun beat down upon him, and no companions to distract him from the painful realization that he had made some incredibly poor decisions in the past twenty-four hours. Things could have been altogether worse, though. The threesome’s crack-of-dawn meeting had turned into a three-in-the-afternoon meeting and Rarity had been planning to come over for tea right about then. If she’d seen the state of their manes, the screams would have been heard in Canterlot, and Twilight would have been especially put out. Terror-screaming always drew Celestia’s attention. Fortunately for everypony involved, Rarity kept up-to-date with the tabloids and news of princess Celestia’s daring new fashion statement had rampaged through her plans for the day like a fluffy pink Ursa Major. She was too busy revamping her planned clothing line for the next forever to stop for something as trivial as tea. Eventually, when Twilight could shuffle no longer, she cleared her throat and dove into the first item of business. “So now we know that the tea works wonderfully, but while the taste isn’t horrible, it’s still noticeable and we’ll need to do something about that quickly. Hopefully, lowering the dosage will be enough because we’re short on time.” She glanced up at Pinkie Pie for a second before returning to her papers. “On an unrelated note, Pinkie Pie is no longer allowed to handle food or beverages inside the library, even on party-related business. It’s an insurance issue, all the books and stuff.” “What!” Even the combined force of Twilight and Rainbow Dash’s glares wouldn’t normally have been enough to quell Pinkie’s protest, but after falling afoul of both poison joke and an overdose of pee-herb tea, even her considerable emotional fortitude was waning. After a few seconds of withering eye-fire, she huffed, folded her forelegs and grumbled, “Fine.” Twilight nodded in approval and levitated the pile of papers back in front of her face. “Where was I? Ah yes. On another unrelated note, when we’re done here please remind me that I need to write a stern letter to Toilets and Tables Incorporated to inform them about the appalling state of their paresthesia prevention research. I may also have a few dozen patent ideas they’d be interested in.” After that, a long, awkward pause filled the air. Twilight figeted around in her seat, shuffled her sheaf of papers a couple more times, cleared her throat, and then asked with all the careful nonchalance she could muster, “Last of all, would anypony like something to drink?” She just managed to get out “It’s punch,” before Rainbow Dash made it to the door, but not quite fast enough to save the folding chair from it’s crushing demise against the far wall. The somewhat twitchy pegasus chuckled self-consciously as she let her hooves touch down on on the floor, glancing once at the twisted remains of her chair. “Oh. Punch? Not tea?” When Twilight nodded her head in confirmation, Dash took a step towards the card table. “I guess punch is alright.” She narrowed her eyes. “As long as it doesn’t have any tea in it.” “Of course not!” Twilight huffed. “It’s extremely important that we all rehydrate before we do any more testing.” She stuck her nose in the air and continued, “Besides, I’d never slip a pony an untested and potentially dangerous drug without their consent. It violates at least three ethical regulations on scientific protocol.” At that, Pinkie cocked her head and squinted at Twilight. Then she cocked it the other way and raised her eyebrow. Twilight sighed and asked, “What is it, Pinkie?” “Isn’t that exactly what we’re planning to do to Princess Celestia?“ “No. The drug will be neither untested nor dangerous by the time we slip it into her tea.” “Oh.” Pinkie paused. “What about consent? She can’t give that if we’re not telling her about it.” “Uhh…” Caught off guard by the piercing question, Twilight suddenly found herself floundering for words while a tiny drop of sweat began to bead up on her forehead. “I… Um… Well, if some of the experiments I’ve seen in the Equestrian Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Social Psychology Quarterly are anything to go by, consent isn’t strictly required if getting it would undermine the experiment, so long as there isn’t any possibility the participants may be harmed.” “Neato!” Pinkie smiled and reached for a glass of punch, but halfway there her hoof froze in mid air. “Wait, what abou—” “My actions are logical and internally consistent!” “Oh! Ok then!” Pinkie Pie downed her glass while Twilight took a moment to catch her breath. Rainbow Dash—who was standing awkwardly in the place where her chair had once been—took the momentary silence to pitch in her thoughts. “Bwhuh?” Pinkie Pie leaned towards Twilight and whispered loudly, “Don’t worry, Twilight, I got this.” “She’s saying that warning the prankee ruins the prank, so you only have to do it if your prank might hurt them. That’s why we’ve got to make super-duper sure that the tea is safe, otherwise we couldn’t give it to the princess. What if she flooded Canterlot? All the doughnuts would be ruined!” The expression that stole over Rainbow Dash’s face spoke volumes about her feelings. Specifically, the feelings it spoke of landed somewhere between “Double bwhuh?” and “I don’t care how gross Pinkie gets, she’s not ruining lemon-filled doughnuts for me.” That was only what her expression said though, and her mouth wasn’t going to let her face steal the show when it had something to say. “No, I mean, where the heck did that come from, Twilight?” She looked at her accusingly. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Twilight’s expression could have melted kittens. “Of course it’s not! It’s a terrible idea! It is officially the worst idea I’ve ever had! This idea makes the Want-It-Need-It incident look like the height of reason!” Twilight’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, only to be wiped away with a flick of her eyelids and replaced by a gleam that could only be described as ‘maniacal.’ She lunged across the table, catching Rainbow Dash in something between a stranglehold and a desperate hug as she babbled on. “But I have to know! You can’t imagine what it’s like in my head, Rainbow. The pictures. The wondering. The hours and hours and hours of thinking, pondering, calculating. Calculating! I have trajectories! “You know, I always used to wonder why curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity is great! How could it ever hurt anything? But now I know. It’s because curiosity ate the cat from the inside out, clawed at its brain, put images in its head, and those images just kept coming. They never stop coming. The cat knew, it knew, with every fiber of its being that the curiosity would never be satisfied until it gave in. So the cat did something unbelievably stupid. And then it got caught, and then it was banished from Equestria, imprisoned in the place it was banished to, and sent back to magic kindergarten in the place it was imprisoned at. Then it died. Of magic kindergarten. But when it died, it died happy, because the curiosity had released its grip on her soul. “I know what you’re thinking, Rainbow Dash. You’re thinking that we should call this off before it’s too late. Well it is already too late. It was too late the instant Luna opened her mouth. No! The instant she showed up at Applejack’s. She toppled the Bestpony from her pedestal and shattered her into a million pieces; and with what? A joke! “I have no choice, Rainbow, no choice but to try and glue those pieces back together into a comprehensible whole or go insane trying! I will do this. I must! It is as inevitable as the heat-death of the universe! The only question left is ‘Will Twilight get caught?’” Twilight took a deep breath and stared deep into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was low and slow, and filled with untold yearning. “I need you, Rainbow Dash.” The wailing voices of a thousand unholy things cried out at once from the depths of Rainbow Dash’s mind, singing a lullaby of lu— “I need you to help me make science, and not get caught doing it.” The unholy things mewled in confusion, unsure if they should continue to rise or sink once more into the slimy depths from whence they came. After a brief conference, they decided that sinking was the better choice all around. Rainbow Dash returned Twilight’s stare for half a second, then put her hooves on her friend’s shoulders and said. “Whoah, Twilight. Chill out for a second.” The purple pony opened her mouth to protest, but Rainbow took her mouth between both hooves and pressed it closed, shaking her head. “Chill.” Slowly, the maniacal gleam faded away from Twilight’s eyes. She cast her eyes around the room, looking at Pinkie Pie who was staring at her with her jaw dropped, at the stern expression on Rainbow Dash’s face, and down at herself, sprawled across the table with her front legs wrapped around Dash’s neck. Awkwardly, she released her hold and slid back off the table, slumping down into her chair with an expression of profound embarrassment on her face. “Okay, Twilight,” Rainbow said, her voice brooking no argument. “Here’s the deal. You remember how after that whole thing with Miss Smartypants we promised not to brush you off even if you’re being crazy?” “Yeah,” Twilight said softly, her eyes locked on her own hooves. “Well I’m not going to break that promise.” Twilight looked up, unable to keep a glimmer of hope of her face. “I’m still going to help you. But—” She raised her hoof, stifling Twilight’s cry of joy. “—I’m laying down some ground rules right now.” Twilight gulped down what felt like an egg-sized stone in her throat and managed to squeeze out. “What…” “The first one’s the hardest, but if you can’t do it, everything’s off. I’m going straight to Celestia and spilling the beans. Got it?” Twilight nodded apprehensively. Rainbow Dash nodded. “Good. Now here it is.” Twilight braced herself. “No more crazy stuff.” Twilight instinctively flinched before realizing that she didn’t understand. “I… What?” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated puff of air. “I mean no more of this. No ranting. No getting stupid and carried away. No paranoia. No hiding in the library while everypony worries about you.” She narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “And most of all, no more trying to blow up the universe. I can’t join the Wonderbolts if you blow up the universe. That would officially make you a bad friend.” Twilight looked down and rubbed her leg. “Sorry.” “Yeah, yeah I know. Just don’t do it again and we’re square. But I need you to Pinkie Swear on this, Twilight. No more crazy.” Twilight thought about it for a moment, but then looked away and said, “I’m not sure I can.” Rainbow Dash eyes narrowed even further until they were nothing but angry slits, but before she could say anything, Twilight looked back and her own eyes widened in horror. “No no! I didn’t mean it like that. I want to, but I can’t do that until I know how. I’m not… I’m not exactly the best judge of when I’m getting out of hoof.” “That’s alright, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie jumped in. “Auntie Pinkie’s here to tell you when you’re getting silly!” “Yeah…” Rainbow Dash gave Pinkie Pie a sideways look. “Like Pinkie said, we’ll both be here. And we’ll let you know when you need to reign it in. But then you have to actually do that, no matter how hard it is. Got it?” Twilight nodded solemnly and then started into the movements. “Cross my heart, hope to fly.” She gulped once before asking, “What… what are the other conditions?” “Just one. You asked me and Pinkie to help you because we’re experts in pranking. That means you gotta listen to us. We know when these things are good and when they’re about to go to Tarturus. If we pull the plug on a plan, then the plug is pulled.” She brought her hoof down on the table, making everypony jump, and continued before Twilight could work up the nerve to protest. “And then we re-group when we can and make a new plan. It’s not about giving up, it’s about playing things smart so we don’t get caught. If we work together, we’ll come up with a plan that’ll work, but you gotta trust us when we say something’s not right, okay.” Silence crept into the room while Twilight thought about that. She didn’t like the idea of handing over authority over the plan to Rainbow Dash, but what she said made sense. Neither Dash nor Pinkie were the types to back out of something either, even when they should, so if one of them said a plan was bad, then it probably meant something serious. After nearly five minutes of analyzing it from every angle, she slowly nodded and said, “Okay.” “Good.” The smile on Rainbow Dash’s face turned positively evil. “Now let’s finish making those plans.” Two hours later, Twilight handed Spike a letter and told him to send it to Celestia.