//------------------------------// // The Philomena farce // Story: Celestia Gambit // by mm1145 //------------------------------// Celestia, Royal Princess of Equestria, walked through the door to the office of the Mayor of Ponyville. The Mayor got up from behind her desk and bowed deeply. “Your Highness, thank you for making time to see me today.” “Not at all Mayor,” Celestia replied. “I am always ready to meet with the officials of the towns of Equestria and sort out any problems they may have.” She turned to the members of her royal guard. “You may wait outside.” The two pegasi nodded and backed out, closing the door behind them. “Celestia,” the Mayor said when the door had closed. ”Silver Scroll,” Celestia replied. “I really am sorry for dragging you away from the party,” the tan-coated earth pony said as she gestured to one of the seats. “The Cakes are very generous guests and of course Pinkie Pie is always excited about parties. Can I get you some tea?” Celestia winced a little. “I think not at the moment.” She walked over to the large window in the office and looked out over the main town square of Ponyville. “You have a lovely view from your office.” Down in the town below she saw a small pony shape furtively duck out of the door to the local bakery and cake shop and dart round the corner. She smiled to herself and turned back to the room. “It always pays never to underestimate a pony, does it not.” The Mayor looked out of her window as well. “Yes, we have found it wise never to underestimate our Fluttershy.” Celestia took the offered seat. “Did you hear about her and the cockatrice?” Celestia nodded. “Twilight is very dutiful is keeping me up-to-date with her friendship reports and I heard the basics. Our new friends the cutie mark crusaders where involved?” Celestia ended the sentence with a slight questioning tone. Silver Scroll smiled. “Yes 'cutie mark crusader creature hunters' or was it 'cutie mark crusader chicken rescuers'? I forget. A lot of ponies in this town wish they would try 'cutie mark crusader pillow testers' or even 'cutie mark crusader sit down and do not touch anything'.” “You still think they are going to be important?” Celestia asked. Her friend was convinced that the cutie mark crusaders would eventually mature into a force for shaping the future of Equestria. From what she had read in some of Twilight's letters, Celestia was half convinced that this would be by blowing up a large part of it. “Even more so than before. I saw their show at the talent contest. Other ponies may have missed it - Trix would not have - it is faint but it is there. They are bonding; you can see the subtle reinforcement of their talents from their friends. Incidents like the cockatrice will just forge them quicker.” “I thought they did not know what their special talents were?” Silver Scroll laughed. “They may not, but I think everypony else in Ponyville does. But they are young and all foals are allowed to be a bit blind to the obvious.” “They seem a little impetuous. Fearless maybe - they could do with being a bit more careful.” “Caution is something you learn as you get older,” the Mayor said. “I overheard Miss Scootaloo inquiring where she could find two hundred meters of rope and some harnesses earlier on today. I am sure whatever that is about will prove to be... educational.” There was a knock on the door. “Enter,” the Mayor called out. The door opened and Winged Sword stepped inside, nudging it closed behind him. “Ah Wing,” Celestia said. “I think it is about time that you and your colleagues went and 'discovered' that my beloved pet Philomena is missing.” Wing bowed low in mock obeisance. “And where would your Highness suggest that we start looking for the foul miscreant that has kidnapped your beautiful pet?” “I would suggest that you start looking in the library. She is not there of course, but it would be silly to start the search where you know she is now wouldn't it?” “Of course your Highness, I will start the search immediately.” Wing bowed again and left the room. “I am sure that between them Wing and Philomena will manage to keep most of our little ponies occupied for the rest of the afternoon.” “They have a similar sense of humour, Wing and Philomena, don't they?” Celesta thought about this for a bit. “You mean mischievous?” “Yes,” Silver Scroll said flatly. Celesta gave her friend an enquiring look. “You do not approve? Only a few minutes ago you were tacitly encouraging the antics of three young foals that nearly got one of the most important ponies in Equestria turned to stone. Not to mention themselves.” “That is different Tia,” she responded defensively. “They are just foals.” Celesta smiled. “While he may be a fully mature stallion Winged Sword has never really grown up. Maybe that is why I like him so much.” A thought crossed Celestia's mind. “Maybe that is why Phili and I have such a mischievous sense of humour. To us everypony seems a foal and eventually you start to become one again yourself. When you have an eternity you realise that you must either laugh or cry.” Memories floated through her mind. “Did I ever tell you how I got Philomena?” Sliver Scroll shook her head. “Ah, well that is a story.” ---------- Sheet Lighting was dead. Celestia tried to pull her mind back from the painful thought and concentrate on the business at hand. She was sitting in the throne room of the new Canterlot palace, one of the few buildings that had been completely finished. She had not been totally happy about that - she had argued that perhaps they should concentrate on the more useful buildings like a hospital or housing - but the elders of the pegasus tribes had been insistent that if she was going to meet with leaders she needed a room to show off the strength of the new pony nation. She had disagreed but Sheet Lighting had finally changed her mind Sheet Lighting was dead. No, she had to stop dwelling on that. She had to be strong, she had to be the Princess today. The throne room was full of the ponies that made up the new court and nobles of Equestria. A lot of them wore the black cloth of personal mourning across their hind quarters. It lay over their backs, draped across their flanks and covered their cutie marks. Celestia was not. Today she had to be the Princess of Equestria and forget she had just lost a friend. Sheet Lighting was dead. The memories came flooding back to her. She had not been with Sheet Lighting when he had been killed. It was not a raid or a fight, it was just bad weather. She had been in Canterlot when they had returned, carrying his body on a litter between them, his dark coat charred down the left side by the lighting. NO, she must not cry, she must be strong. Regal. She clamped down on the pain and looked out at the sea of pony faces. She saw a lot of her friends there. Her six brave little foals as she called them, standing in a group - although by now they were far from foals and most of them had foals of their own. They were always easy to pick out; Twisted's odd stance always made him stand out in a crowd. Today his useless forelegs were strapped up under his chest and as usual he was using his wings to keep himself hovering just above the ground. Just past them was Sunrise with her two foals, the elder standing by her side and her latest curled up on her back. Nether of Sunrise's foals had acknowledged sires and this had caused a few murmurs round the court - especially as the one resting on her back sported a pair of pegasus wings and a dark stripe in its yellow mane. Celesta knew that Sunrise preferred it this way - she was like that, fiercely self determined and strong minded. The court seemed to be assembled so Celestia gestured for the pair of guards at the doors. They used their magic and the doors opened, the sound silencing the court chatter. Right Time the court steward walked forward. “Your Highness,” he started, using his magic to amplify his voice so it could be easily heard, “nobles of Equestria. Galrex, speaker for the chief of the griffin clans, wishes an audience with the Princess of the Sun.” So much formality for such a new nation Celesta thought as she gave her formal assent for the griffin diplomat to approach. Sheet had always sniggered at the formalities and protocols but Celestia knew they had their place and uses. Sheet Lighting was dead. She pushed the chilly thought away and concentrated on the business of the day. A group of griffins entered through the double doorway. There was a stirring and rustling from the ponies of the court as the group made their way towards the throne. She could see a lot of the older pegasi flare their wings and paw at the ground in anger and worry. This was one of the uses of formality. It enabled centuries long enemies to be in the same room without going for each others' throats. The pegasi had every right to be distraught. They had been hunted by griffins for most of those long years before Celestia had returned; seeing their ancient foe walk in front of them was putting them on edge. “Speaker,” Celestia announced formally when the elderly griffin and his retinue had reached the bottom of the steps to the throne. The speaker for the chief bowed low. “Your Highness I bring greetings from Taxon, chief of the griffin clans, to Celestia goddess of the sun and moon and Princess of Equestria.” Yes, formalities had their uses Celestia thought, as the acknowledgement of her title and the very fact of the existence of Equestria calmed a lot of the more excitable ponies. “I am also instructed to bring our sympathies on your recent loss.” Sheet Lighting was dead. Celestia again took refuge in the formalities while she suppressed her grief. “Now I assume that you had important affairs to discus,” she said after she had finished mouthing the formalities and was in control again. “Yes your Highness, but first if we may we have a more personal matter to attend to.” Celestia gestured for him to go on. “As you know it is part of griffin culture to repay all debts and obligations that we think we owe. Whether these are formal or informal.” Celestia nodded, griffins had a strong code of honour. “You may also know that when we believe we owe a debt that is imposable for us to repay it is customary to give a gift as a symbol or acknowledgment of this debt.” Celestia nodded again, although she could not actually remember ever being told this. There was a movement behind the speaker and a young griffin stepped out from amongst the retinue. There was an intake of breath from the assembled ponies. The new griffin was young, Celestia thought, it could not be more than a nestling and it was severely injured. All the feathers on its left side and been burnt off and its wings were strapped to its sides. It walked forward awkwardly, balanced upright on its rear legs, carrying a bright yellow egg in its front claws. “This is Rafdor,” the speaker continued, “she is a nestling from the Redclaw clan. A few days ago the nesting site of the Redclaws was battered by a severe thunderstorm. Many nests where lost.“ The nestling had reached the bottom of the ramp to the throne and started too slowly and with obvious pain to climb up. “The damage would have been much worse but fortunately a flight of pegasus ponies were in the area and setting aside all thought of personal safety they set about calming the storm.” Celestia's breath caught. No, she thought, it cannot be. “Rafdor's nest was in the centre of the storm and at the storm's height was threatened by many lighting strikes,” the speaker said. “The nest would have surely been lost but for one brave pegasus stallion, he risked his life to divert the worst of the lighting strikes while the griffin matrons got the nestlings to safety. All of Rafdor's nest siblings escaped, but in saving them the valiant pegasus lost his life.” Sheet Lighting was dead. It took all of Celestia's control to hold back the tears and maintain her regal composure. “In these situations the debt belongs to the family and as we were told that you are the closest family the valiant pegasus had, Rafdor insisted that she make the journey to Canterlot as she is the only one of her nest that is fit enough to travel." The nestling had reached the throne and laid the egg at Celestia's hooves. “My nest,” the young griffin started to say, its voice weak and cracking. “Offers this gift in recognition of the debt that cannot ever be repaid.” Sheet.... Lighting.... Celestia could not stop the tears now even if she had wanted to. She let them flow down her cheeks as she looked at the egg. “It is the egg of a phoenix,” the old speaker continued, “very rare. The phoenix does not age and die like other creatures, instead it must occasionally renew its self by burning to ash and then being reborn from the ashes.” Through her tears Celestia could see Rafdor back down the ramp and return to the group of griffins. “It is a fitting gift for an immortal and symbolic of your work.” Through her tears Celestia looked at the egg sitting in front of her, but her thoughts were filled with Sheet Lighting. A young colt sitting by the fire in her cliff-side cave home. Riding on her back as she travelled the sky gathering the scattered tribes of the pegasi. Leading a wing against a dragon in the assault. By her side as they flew over the lands. Dancing with her far into the night. Lying dead at the entrance to the palace. She took each memory examined it fondly and put it away. He was gone and she must go on - she had begun this work with him but she always knew that some day she would have to carry on alone. She used her magic and picked up the egg. Maybe not alone. She tucked the egg under her wing. “Thank you,” she began, her voice cracking. She took a grip on her feelings. “Thank you,” she finished. Noting that the young griffin had again disappeared back into the group, she shook herself and again took refuge in formalities. “Now you said that you had important affairs of state to discuss?” Galrex cleared his throat. “Indeed your Highness. Taxon, chief of the griffin clans believes that the time has come to put aside old enmities and to forge closer ties with the ponies of Equestria. Too many have died needlessly on either side, he believes that now is the time for the senseless violence to cease and for us to work together to build a better future.” There was a collective intake of breath from the assembled court. Celestia looked at the assembled ponies and griffins. She could feel the phoenix egg, strangely warm against her flank. “Yes,” she said after a while. “Yes, it is time to put the past behind us and to start a new stage in our history.” Under her wing the egg rocked. ---------- “We have been together ever since,” Celestia finished. “More than eight hundred years. Ponies have come and gone but that little phoenix had always been there.” Celestia and the Mayor sat in silence for a while. “Well that aside we did not arrange this meeting to mull over the distant past. There are more pressing matters.” She looked at the Mayor of Ponyville “Diamond dogs.” “Yes, diamond dogs,” the Mayor repeated. “When I was last in Canterlot I warned you that they had been getting more aggressive and now we have this latest incident.” She broke off. “Fill me in on the details,” Celestia prompted. “Twilight's letter concentrated only on her part in it, I need the full story.” “Well,” the Mayor started. “Miss Rarity needed some more gems for a commission and she had gone hunting for them. The local tribe of diamond dogs saw her and decided that she would make shall we say 'a useful addition to their workforce'.” Celestia knew a lot of ponies where understandably horrified with even the remotest idea that anybody would think of keeping them as slaves and beasts of burdens, mainly because this had been quite common in the far past and even the recent past in lands where Celestia's influence was less felt. But one of the things Celestia was very firm on was stamping it out. It had been one of the things that had shocked her back to her senses nearly a thousand years ago, to realise how much in her despair she had abandoned her ponies. Over the centuries she had taken some quite determined actions to try to stamp slavery out, but to her dismay it kept remerging. Unfortunately in these days political niceties meant sometimes she had more limited options. “Fortunately,” Silver Scroll continued, “she had taken Spike along to assist her with the more messy jobs involved in acquiring gems.” The Mayor smiled at this - Rarity's repulsion from dirty things was almost as big as her attraction to shiny ones. “When the diamond dogs tried to seize her, Spike was able to put up quite a spirited defence and apparently they thought he was too much trouble to be worth taking as well so they left him. Equally fortunately Spike has quite a sensible head on him and instead of running off to try a one dragon rescue of his beloved he returned to Ponyville to raise the alarm. Fortunately - or maybe not - he encountered Twilight and the rest of her friends in the main square and they quickly rushed off to affect a rescue of their friend.” Celestia nodded again. While the bonds of friendship did make you stronger they sometimes made you more impulsive as well. The correct decision was not always the right decision, and this was the perfect example. The correct decision here was to have alerted the town authorities and then for there to have been a proper expedition mounted in force. But that would have taken hours and all that time your friend would have been in danger. How could a good friend have sat round and done nothing all that time? No, a good friend would have done exactly what they did which was run off and rescue their friend immediately despite the danger it put you in. But how many ponies would have made the correct decision as opposed to the right one? Celestia thought she would have. Hundreds of years of statecraft had drilled that lesson into her. Sliver Scroll would have as well, she could be as cool as Celestia. But Sunrise would not have. Would Winged Sword? Would Trix? “It was at that point the situation came to my attention,” the Mayor continued, “when I realised what had happened I sent out an alert to the militia and sent word to you as well. Fortunately the situation resolved itself and we did not have to take further immediate measures.” “But that leaves us with a problem,” Celestia finished. They both knew the problem but Celestia let her friend put it into words. “There needs to be action taken. We cannot let this act go unpunished. We need to send an unequivocal message that this sort of behaviour towards ponies is unacceptable. But...” Celestia finished the thought for her. “But this is now not an immediate reaction. If they still held Rarity or if they had made good on their action to take the rest of our friends as “workforce” then there would be no question. We would have taken the militia and the Canterlot guard and dug them out of their hive regardless of who or what got in the way. But now any action of that kind we take looks vengeful, almost spiteful - and puts ponies in harm's way for no solid reason. It is one thing to attack an enemies' castle when there is a damsel in distress quite another to do it just because he has angered your princess.” “But if we do nothing we look weak. It is an almost open invitation for other creatures to see ponies as a source of “workforce”. We could have roving packs of diamond dogs running amuck all over Equestria.” “I think you may be exaggerating there a bit.” The Mayor shook her head and then smiled. “Maybe a bit. But Ponyville is not as safe as ponies like to think. Remember as you said you did nearly lose your prize pupil to a cockatrice.” “I think Twilight would have recovered eventually, cockatrice paralysis is rarely permanent. But I get your point.” They both sat quietly for a few minutes. “It is your town Silver Scroll,” Celestia said eventually. “What does the Mayor of Ponyville suggest?” There was more thoughtful silence from Silver Scroll. “Well let's look at the usual options for dealing with an incident. One, diplomatic. Send a strongly worded protest or summon someone and shout at them.” Celestia shook her head. “There is no central diamond dog government or any sort of formal leadership, each hive is its own state and even that is being generous. In short there is nobody to shout at.” Celestia actually preferred it that way the few times in history the diamond dogs had united behind a strong leader there had been outright war with the ponies and it had not been easy. “Okay then. Two, economic. We stop selling what we sell to them and buying what we buy of them.” Again Celestia shook her head. “We do not do either. If we did than they might not feel the need to take ponies to help them mine gems.” “Maybe we should? It might make them more amenable and make this sort of thing less likely in the future?” “Been tried before.” Celestia shook her head. “They have even less of a relationship with the concept of barter and trade than they do with the concept of dental hygiene. Anyway, it hardly sets the precedent we are looking for does it? 'As a punishment for kidnapping one of our ponies how about we sell you some gems'.” “Maybe not,” the Mayor admitted. “So three, military. And we are back to where we were before - we either do nothing and look weak or we act and look spiteful and what would we actually tell our ponies to do? So ponies, this group of diamond dogs tried to take one of your fellow ponies as a slave.” Silver Scroll shuddered as she said that. “but don't worry, they do not actually have her or anypony else held captive now - and as far as we know they do not plan on doing anything as stupid in the near future. But we need to appear strong, so what we want you brave ponies to do now is charge in there. Risk your life. Wreck the place and kill a few of them or at least severely injure them and maybe that will teach them a lesson.” The Mayor finished her sarcastic monologue and looked the Princess in the eye. “Celestia, that is the sort of order I do not think I can give.” There was another knock on the Mayor's door, she gave permission to enter and Winged Sword's head popped through the opening. “I believe it is nearly time for you to make an appearance your Highness,” he announced and then left with a salute. Celestia got up from her seat and walked over to the large window looking out over Ponyville. In the town below her she could see a purple unicorn and a yellow pegasus running frantically round town while a very tatty and dishevelled phoenix perched on top of the fountain making faces at their backs. “Well, it looks like our time for discussion is finished,” she said, turning back into the room. “I think that this decision will have to be deferred to a more complete meeting of our friends. In the mean time I am going to detach some of the Canterlot guard to Ponyville incognito. If you could arrange for them to have a reason to be always near the area where this hive is then maybe we can deter them some more or if not, then at least there will be some trained, reliable ponies close at hand.” Silver Scroll nodded. “They could start a rock farm there or something, it is good rock farming land. That will keep them close enough to the hive to keep an eye on it. I will await a more full discussion over the diamond dog troubles and see if we can find a proper solution. Maybe something will have happened in the meantime to make such a decision irrelevant.” Celestia shook her head. “I do not think it will my friend,” she said. “Life is never that nice. Anyway,” she said, walking over to the door. “I have an evil miscreant to punish. Do you think I should throw her in a dungeon or should I banish her from Equestria?” The Mayor of Ponyville put on a mock serious expression. “Perhaps you should banish her from Equestria and then throw her in a dungeon in the place that you banish her to,” she said. “It is after all what she deserves.” “Maybe I will my little pony,” Celestia said with a smile, “maybe I will.”