Celestia's Day Off
As the morning sun rises, Celestia wakes up in a state of panic. She runs straight into a wall and hits it hard, awaking her housemate, Alex. He gets up and runs to Celestia's room and checks on her.
"Celestia!?" He shouts. "What's wrong!?"
"Oh…" She groans before getting up. "I overslept! I'm supposed to raise the sun!"
He stares at her for a moment before saying, "… What…?"
Celestia looks out the window and saw the sun had come up on its own. Surprised and slightly embarrassed, she gets up calmly and brushes off the dust. "N-Never mind."
"Bad dream or something?" He snickers as he walks out of the room. "I'll have breakfast ready. Just get some more rest and let your muzzle off a bit. I think you made a hole in the wall."
Celestia's face reddens in embarrassment. She looks over to the wall and becomes silent. As Alex leaves, Celestia ponders at what has happened so far.
I'm stuck in a world that is not mine. I am housed by a human that I do not know. He is treating me like a clumsy filly. So far so good. She grumbles at the last part.
Taking the chance, Celestia looks outside the window to see a wide grassy field, vast among the eyes can muster. Farther away seemed to be an area with buildings, similar to Manehattan or even Canterlot. They were somewhat tall, but they were not skyscrapers. Celestia continued to question if this is her world or not.
"Celestia!" Alex called. "You want to use the shower?"
She tilts her head with a thought. Who in the world would suggest something like that so casually?
"Why not?" She accepts.
"It's in the room to your right. That's the bathroom."
Following his directions, She leaves her room and goes to the bathroom. Entering the quite spacious room. The towels are neatly placed on the rack, and the soaps are placed neatly inside, and the controls for on and off seemed as simple as they can be. There were two knobs. One red, one blue. Turning them on, she allows the water to splash onto her body. It rinses off the dirt she had received so far in her stay. The wing that was said to be injured tingles a bit more than the other, but remains relaxed on the rest of the shower. She levitates the bar of soap and lets it soak her fur. As she finishes up after about half an hour, she exits the tub and levitates a towel. Alex comes in abruptly and says, "Celestia, I was wondering if…"
Alex pauses as Celestia throws the towel at his face, blinding his vision. She then screams at him.
"What is wrong with you!? Don't you know how to knock!?"
"You ponies don't usually wear clothes." Alex remarked as he took off the towel from his face. "I was just going to ask if you needed to know how to use the hair dryer."
"Hair dryer?" She repeated.
Alex nodded and pulled it out of the drawer. He revealed Celestia the device and turns it on. He points it to her hair to let her feel the warm air coming out of it.
"What… is this magic?" She wondered.
"Not magic. This is an electrical device." He explains. "There are all kinds of electronic devices we have here on earth. They all however have a weakness of shorting out in water as well as can be a hazard since it can electrocute you. So please handle with care, but don't stop yourself from using it if needed."
"Electrical device?" She said with surprise. "We may have harnessed magic, but not the power of a cloud without the pegasus's help. How were you able to achieve this?"
"I'm not the guy who invented it." He chuckled. "I'm just one of the many who happen to use it."
"Quite limited, are you?"
Merely shrugging, he left the bathroom. "After you finish up, I'll let you try some French toast."
"I am familiar with toast." Celestia remarked.
"I'm sure you are." He replied.
Letting her alone in peace, Celestia uses the hair dryer to let the wet mane continue its natural, flowing motion. Yes, that's natural apparently. She walks downstairs and sees the toast sliced up, next to a small plate of syrup. Alex is waiting for her to sit down. As she did, Alex gave an example of how it was eaten. He took a piece and dipped it in the syrup before eating. Simple enough, right? Of course it is! Celestia was getting annoyed by how Alex kept treating her like some kind of filly who didn't know anything. To call him on his example, She levitates the syrup into a ball of sweet liquid. The toast is lifted and slowly going through the syrup, allowing it to be fully soaked in the wonderful dip. Celestia then levitates it to her mouth to eat. Though in hopes to impress Alex enough not to treat her like a young pony, she loses her grip as the toast she placed upon her tongue. She jumps at the sweet, delicious, sensational taste quivering her jaw. The loss of magic ends up splashing the ball of syrup onto the table, on Alex's shirt and face as well as Celestia's clean fur. She looks down in embarrassment of how this was going.
"So uh… You like it?" Alex asked, ignoring the syrup on his body.
"You cannot say you don't have magic." She inquires. "This is magical. No logic can explain it without the use of an enchantment."
"Oh, it's perfectly logical." He claims.
"Please enlighten me."
He leans in close and grins. "Some nice…"
He leans even closer to Celestia's face. "Sweet…"
Even more, he pressures Celestia to withdraw. "Wonderful."
He sticks his tongue out and finishes the sentence. "love."
He is currently licking his arm from the syrup Celestia had spilled earlier with a smile. "Yep! Some love and some cinnamon. All it takes!"
After breakfast, Celestia bows her head a bit and apologizes. "I'm sorry for my earlier behavior. I didn't mean to get you dirty."
"I don't mind." He states. "I'll just rinse off the syrup from the skin, and get a new shirt. Problem solved."
The clock places its needle closer to 8:00. Alex widens his eyes a bit before realizing what it meant. "Whoa! Almost late for work!"
"Work?" Celestia repeats.
"This house don't pay for itself." He says with a smile. "I gotta go change, hold on."
As he left upstairs, Celestia took the chance to check the house. Scouting about, she finds the living room from before. She looks outside once more to see the backyard with the rock from before. Among the walls outside of the house, she sees a garden of fresh vegetables in the backyard. The front yard had a flower bed, and nice pavement road. Leading out of the driveway was a massive door. Celestia can only wonder what lies behind it. Heading back inside, she inspects the kitchen once more to view two fridges, a large island of counters, and the dining table nearby. It was a fairly small house, but of course, she had yet to venture into what was beyond the hallway with the gray door. She also hasn't seen Alex's room yet. As she planned out her next move, Alex came downstairs with a new white shirt. He heads down the hall way and opens the gray door. Before he leaves, he looks out to Celestia.
"One more thing. If you need anything to eat, open the fridge on the left. The one on the right is mine. If you want to read, I have some books on the shelf there. Other than that, make yourself at home."
As he shuts the door, Celestia now has the house to herself. Not expecting to on the next day of her stay, she once again delves deeper into the house of Alex. She was still thinking, there must be something he's hiding. Now that she has the chance, she heads upstairs and enters Alex's room. His bedroom was not too different from hers. Only difference was that it had a desk with papers and a lamp. The closet had clothes neatly racked up on hangers and head boxes placed underneath them. As she inspects the room further, she finds herself pondering the drawers of his desk. When it opens, the contents revealed were folders. Folder after folder, and there was a lot. A hundred, maybe more? Opening the first one, she finds a picture of a aqua green unicorn. They were files, or recorded history.
This must be the ponies that came here before me. Celestia thought.
Reading the documents of the first folder, she finds out the date goes back as far as three years ago. It was a well kept folder, and it even seems like she was reading the first pony that came here.
Name: Lyra Heartstrings
Type: Unicorn
Talent: Harp Music.
I currently have found a brand new species of the horse! It's a sentient, colorful pony! It has a horn and I recently learned that it can use it to utilize magic! It's beyond fascinating. It's simply, dazzling. She was outside of my house, cold and hungry, with no idea how she got here. I along with Rochelle have decided to take her in. She has nowhere to go at the moment, so why not?
Down towards the bottom of the paragraph, it was only a week. The document is at the time wrinkled for some reason.
Lyra left today. When the portal to her world opened in our backyard, I was surprised. I didn't expect her to leave so soon. We have gotten used to her by now. She felt the same too, and even said she'll miss me dearly. We hoped to see each other again, but I know this is for the best. Funny, makes me think of Rochelle.
"Who is this Rochelle?" Celestia wondered.
She took a look at the picture and saw a picture of a younger Alex, the fore mentioned unicorn Lyra, and another human, possibly Rochelle. She had a younger appearance than Alex even though she had white hair. Her red eyes are shinier as well, and she wore that of a tomboy. Jeans and a red jacket. As Celestia analyzed the picture, she rummaged further to the other folders. Each had a document similar to the last. The name, the type, and the talent. The bios was heartwarming and lovely, until she reached the 13th folder. Opening the folder, there was nothing there. Confused, she looked around if she had possibly dropped it or misplaced it. However, it's just not there. Celestia raised an eyebrow at this.
"Why is it empty?" She inquired. "This Alex must be disorganized in some ways I presume."
Her stomach rumbles, and she begins to feel the urge to stuff the delicacies from earlier into her mouth. She puts away the folders neatly and exits while making sure it looks like no one was there. Going downstairs, she enters the kitchen and looks to her left to find the two fridges. She opened the one on the left just as she was told. She then finds a plentiful amount of cakes, cupcakes, yogurts, salads, and other desserts of a equine. Thrilled to see all of this, she levitates them and heads to the living room to pig out. As she without hesitation, stuffed her face with cake, she lays on the couch feeling like a real ruler of the domain.
"Maybe this won't be so bad as I thought." She admitted. "I'll stay here for a while, then it's back to Equestria for sure!"
Alex came back driving in his garage. He exits the car and opens the door for another companion. Charles was a man who looked to be Alex's age. He was at the time wearing a casual business suit, with the blue jacket open. He was scratching the back of his short brown hair, looking nervous if anything.
"So another one?" Charles asked. "It's been a couple weeks since the last one."
"I still miss every one of them." Alex claims. "But I'm just gonna have to look forward."
"So what type is she?" Charles questions.
"Hmm… I forgot the name of it." Alex replied. "But you can see for yourself."
Alex opens the door and the two enter the living room, seeing the sleeping horse on the couch. Around her were empty bowls, some food scraps, and books lying around. Charles was staring at Celestia with much surprise as he muttered a single word.
"Alicorn."
"Pardon?" Alex spoke.
"This is an… Alicorn, isn't it?"
"Oh yeah… she is." Alex replied. "A messy one at that."
Charles leaned in for a closer look before accidently waking her up. "Oh, sorry about waking you! Hi! I'm Charles. Alex's friend."
Celestia sits back up immediately and uses her magic to teleport her mess to the trashcan. Though it was too small to hold it all, she stuffed it pretty nicely. She blushed and said, "Oh! Alex didn't say he was having friends over…!"
"She's pretty embarrassed about the mess that was here." Charles quoted.
"And why are you looking at me like that?" Alex questioned. "Don't tell me you think I make messes when I leave the house."
"Well, anyways, how are you… uh… Her name was what again?"
"Celestia."
"Right!" Charles nodded before turning back. "Hello Celestia!"
Pulling his hand out to her, Celestia raises her hoof and places it on his greeting. "A pleasure to meet you."
"So Celestia, Alex says that he thinks you're a princess."
Celestia widens her eyes as she looks over to Alex. He scratches the back of his head and explains. "You mentioned about having to go back for your kingdom or something, didn't you?"
"Why, yes…" she admits. "A small kingdom…"
"How small? Is it just a town?" Charles asked.
Celestia hides her face behind her mane. Alex puts his hand on Charles and nods. "Let's stop badgering her. We should treat her the same with every other pony. Let them choose to tell us or not."
"Right, right, sorry about that." Charles apologized. "It's just… um…"
"What?" Alex asked.
"Eh… never mind." Charles puts his hands in his pockets and looks away. Celestia raised an eyebrow at his behavior, which was far more out of character than Alex's. She chose not to mind it however.
"So, how was it having the place to yourself?" Alex asked.
"It wasn't so bad." Celestia admitted. "It'd be nicer if I had known you were bringing a guest over."
"I'll call you to warn you next time." Alex assured her.
"And how would you do that?"
"You use a phone." Charles answered. He showed Celestia his phone and looked over to Alex. "Alex get out your phone."
"Right." Alex pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and dials a number. Celestia watches closely before seeing the other phone on Charles hand vibrate and play a tune. He opens it and places it to Celestia's ear.
"Um… Is this some sort of sea shell?" she wondered.
"Not really." Alex said from the phone.
Celestia jumps back, amazed of what she just heard. She ponders at Charles phone and said, "Alex? How did your voice get in here!?"
"It's not." Alex chuckled. "This is a device that allows us to talk to each other from afar."
"What sort of magic is this?" Celestia questioned.
"It's kinda like our hair dryer, except this is used for communicating from afar, and much quicker as well as more convenient than letters."
"Electronic… Devices?"
"Yeah, exactly that." Charles nodded.
"You'll be using the house phone. I'll teach you how to use it to call me and Charles. For now, I think I should get dinner ready."
"Oh, I love your cooking Alex." Charles said warmheartedly. "But I have to go check up with the others. You coming to Pony Plaza on Wednesday?"
"Yeah, see you later." Alex waved.
"Alright then, bye!" Charles said as he left through the door.
Alex scratches the back of his head and sighs. "Why did he want me to drive him to my house if he was gonna walk home so soon? That guy…"
"Again, tell me when you're having guests over." Celestia said shamefully. "It was very embarrassing being caught doing… that…"
"Well feel free to act however you want. I'm not gonna try and boss you around. I can clean and cook so long as you don't go waltzing outside freaking out the world."
Celestia smiled a bit and nodded. "Alright then. I'll stop complaining."
"Good. Now go wash up. You somehow got your coat dirty again."
"I thought you said you weren't going to boss me around." Celestia whimpered.
"It was a recommendation, and-" Alex paused as he took a glimpse at Celestia's pouty face. "Seriously?"
She kept doing it as if she didn't want to go upstairs to freshen up for dinner. Alex kept staring at her, feeling the usual strange sensation when the other ponies from before did that. Insecurity. He did not falter however, it had been years since it started, and years he had been going through it. He simply grunted and said, "Alright, how about you at least give me some time to actually cook. By the time I'm done, you'll be clean."
"But I already took a shower!" She whined as she rolled on the floor flailing.
"Are you serious…?" He said in surprise. "I thought you were an adult."
She pressed her face upon Alex's and said, "This isn't even that dirty. This is a simple stain on my coat. I just need a napkin, and it will wipe off."
"Prove it." Alex said while crossing his arms.
Celestia held her head up high and levitated the foretold napkin. She places it on the frosting stain upon her coat and said, "Watch as I just wipe it off without effort."
The napkin smears the frosting and makes an even bigger stain. Celestia widens her eyes as she continues to wipe the spot. It just gets bigger and bigger until her chest was a pink sticky mess. Alex closes his eyes and nods.
"Just… Just wash up…" Alex chuckles. "I swear, you are just so silly Celestia."
Celestia gave a glare. She still felt she had little respect from Alex. This was not a matter of royalty, but a matter of mutual acknowledgement. She just wants to yell at him by now. However, this was not her proud moment to shine to stand her ground. Right now, she just made her chest a pink frosty mess only Pinkie would do on purpose.
Alex had finished cooking spaghetti. It has been seasoned with numerous spices, but not so much to make ones throat choke and sneeze out the nose. It had meatballs, special marinara sauce, and a little secret extra, just for a better pinch. There were two pots of them. One of them however was completely relieved of meat, the way Equestrians like it. As he gets a plate full for Celestia, who happens to come downstairs at that moment. She takes a long sniff before saying, "Spaghetti?"
"Yep." He grins. "You're not gonna make another mess are you?"
"I can assure you that I do not make messes." Celestia claimed.
"Well, today doesn't really suggest that." Alex joked.
"I'd appreciate it if you stop teasing me so freely." Celestia stated. "While I can tolerate such behavior, I do hope that you'll make sure to check yourself for how far you're going."
"Now I find that a bit strange." Alex says as he takes a bite of his meal.
"Whatever do you mean by that?" Celestia questions.
"I know it's only been a day, but you've been switching from a mature mare to a childish filly." He stated. "You haven't noticed?"
"Please explain." She says sternly, taking half of this as an insult.
"Today, you've been showing some assertive and adult like behavior like when I came in the shower this morning. When you've been telling me to warn you about guests. It's like you're trying to keep up some image." he says before taking a meatball into his mouth. "Then, the other side of you is childish. You literally rolled on the floor just because you didn't want to waste time taking another shower. You pigged out of the fridge and in the living room while I was gone. Heck, you even been snooping around the house when I was changing."
"How did you know-?"
"I saw you outside the window." He wipes his mouth before continuing. "What I'm trying to ask is, are you okay? You did say you were a princess after all. Ruling a whole country, you must keep a clean slate to show the masses how capable you are. But when you finally have time alone, you can enjoy yourself, can't you?"
Celestia was silent. She looks down and ponders into the past. Going through one big change after another. A thousand years of ruling, and she has yet to have as much freedom to express her casual side. It was always work most of the time. Day court, Luna's rehabilitation, Twilight and Ponyville, Cloudsdale and weather control, taxes, citizen response, it was a long list of troubles she had to go through daily before finally having the time to be with her student, or sister, and not to work. To be herself and not some princess no different than a horse behind a desk in a cubicle. She sighs and admits it.
"You… have a point…"
"How about we spend some time together?" He offers. "I don't have work tomorrow. We can hang out in the house or have a picnic outside."
"We can?" She smiles a bit. "I'd like to spend some time outside."
"Sure." He replies. "We can have a picnic in the backyard. The scenery isn't too bad."
"Alright then." Celestia agrees. Going back to the spaghetti, she takes a bite and her eyes pop again. "Once more, you've outdone yourself."
Alex and Celestia laugh. It was the first step to a friendship. Celestia, though older than Alex, has not felt this much warmth of bonding compared to Alex.