//------------------------------// // I Engage in a Pretty Pony Slumber Party // Story: I Am The Night(mare)! And so is Luna? // by LordBrony2040 //------------------------------// It was late into the night as I stared at the white alicorn sitting across from me with a frown, her own features frozen with an iron resolve. Thunder boomed outside the shelter we had taken. Rain continuously pelted the windows with its unending but mostly harmless fury, and firefly lamps provided illumination for all of us to see. Although she seemed hesitant, we all knew it was over. Fate had determined that she had no choice in the matter, and all of my decisions that had led us down this path could not be taken back. “So, that’s the way it’s going to be then?” Celestia asked me and Luna as we continued to grin at her with our evil smile, full of predatory teeth. “Yes Sister. Now complete thy duty, as you know you must,” Luna told her as I spread our wings to remind her what should happen if she didn’t. As if it was waiting for just that moment, the lightning flashed outside again a second before the thunder boomed. Celestia sighed and lowered her head. “Very well then. If there is no other way,” she said before leaning down as if to pounce towards us. And then, she moved and flailed her hooves in a practiced motion born from centuries of experience as she from one position to another! “Sunshine sunshine, ladybugs awake!” the goddess of Equestria chanted with an extremely bright smile as she went about performing the foal’s exercise. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake!” It took all my willpower not to laugh at the sight of the biggest butt in Equestria being swung around Twilight’s library while Celestia capitulated to my demand rather than take the terribly ticklish torture that would have been brought by my pegasus feathers, had she decided to take the penalty. As Cadance finished giggling at the sight of Celestia doing the ladybug dance, she held the bottle sitting in the center of our six pony circle steady as the big alicorn sat down. “Okay Auntie, your turn.” The big pony sat on her jiggling white cushion, and then spun the bottle, the end of which pointed to the dazed purple unicorn sitting between the equally stunned orange earth pony and white unicorn that was trying her best not to giggle at her goddess. “Well Twilight, what do you want? Truth or dare?” … … … Oh! if you’re wondering how things got to this point, it probably started…well, I guess it all began the night before, when me and Luna were just laying alone in bed…together…naked. There were times when I laid awake at night as Luna went over…modern educational junk, thinking about my place in the world. Not this world of course, I knew my place in this world was to be Luna’s driver until I figured out how to get out of her body and…well…whatever came next. What I wondered was mostly about all those important questions. Like who I was. What I did. Was I pretty? Was I rich? Was I pretty rich? Was I even really a girl? A lot of my thoughts seemed pretty damn masculine. And then I threw all the idiocy aside. Screw the old human me! Old me, with its world full of pollution and so much double talk from our leaders that if we actually bothered attaching a bull shit detector to any of them, it would explode with enough force to wipe out the western hemisphere. I was a pony! Or...possessing one at any rate, which was close enough. So I was going to worry about pony things. The top of the list being my inability to fly. The second thing on my list being a lack of a good flight teacher, something I would need to fix once I got to Ponyville. Oh, Cadance had offered to teach me, and there was always Luna, but… Cadance was apparently ‘rusty’ at flying, despite the fact that she had actually been a pegasus before her horn sprouted. As for Luna, when she couldn’t hold my hand and guide me through things like she could with my horn…her teaching methods got rather…loud, and shouty, and threatening-y. So, we had decided to find a better instructor. But the question was: who? Although the Wonderbolts were skilled, my experience with FiM warned me to stay away from those assholes as much as possible. While I didn’t think they would be stupid enough to down-talk a princess, I was afraid of them putting their noses so far in-between Luna’s cheeks they came out brown. No, there was only one pegasus worth teaching phantom possessing royalty how to fly, and as soon as I got to Ponyville tomorrow, fan-squealed over her for a bit, and managed to collect myself, I would be getting me a new flight instructor that could observe from the outside and actually tell me what I was doing wrong. And then there were the other times, the ones I actually did end up thinking about important shit in the way they needed to be discussed. Like… “Hey Luna?” I asked cautiously as I noticed her finish a page, judging by the movement of our eyes. “Yes?” she replied with our mouth. I gulped, and looked down at our hooves to fidget with them a little. “Is this…okay? Being like this I mean. I know it’s not really fair to you after being trapped for so long. And…I just…I’m sorry.” It was an apology a long time coming. And if there was something I was apparently talented at, it was procrastination. “I’m not,” Luna replied gently. Which made me blink. “W-What?” “Nightmare, do you know what I would probably be doing if not for you?” she asked. Drawing a blank, I just went, “uhhhh…” “I would be here, in this room, reading the books my sister gave to me,” Luna told me. “And I would never leave. I would still be hiding from the servants that look at us with fear. Nor would I have been able to see Shining Armor or Cadence, or at least not as I know them now. And I would most definitely not be going to see our friends tomorrow.” Which, made me feel a bit better. I knew Luna was a bit of a wallflower, making me take the reigns whenever we had to deal with anyone who wasn’t an alicorn...or sleeping with one in Shining Armor’s case. “So do not feel regret for this situation, my other,” she consoled me. “For without you, I would still be trapped, and the experience would not be nearly as lovely as it is for me now.” I found myself both relieved, and the tiniest bit disturbed by what Luna said. On the one hand, I had just been handed a guilt pass for running around in Luna’s body. On the other hand, Luna was apparently using me as a social crutch to either just get by, or maybe…get out of her shell. I know the last one was probably just wishful thinking, but…sometimes wishes came true. All the proof I needed for that was to look in the mirror. After all, I was a fucking alicorn princess in Equestria with no baggage. Couldn’t get any better than that. The afternoon we were set to go to Ponyville, I got up, took care of all our morning business with Luna, then met with the lovebirds to head towards the dinning room. To be honest, I was feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, and pranced down the hallway more than walked. It had taken a lot of work for Celestia to clear her schedule for one day of all the whiners. Cadance had chipped in where she could, but I had a feeling she didn’t like politics all that much. Still, Tia had gotten everything we needed done, and after we all devoured the unholy child of breakfast and lunch and making sure a few last minute details were handled, we would be heading to Ponyville! Brunch was the usual affair. The four of us, Celestia, Me/Luna, Cadance, and Shining sat at the center of the table while Nightwing stood off to the side, being his usual dour self. I would have invited him to come over, but Luna insisted that some proprieties be observed when in relation to the guard. Shining apparently got out of being lumped into that category because he had met Cadence before joining the guard when they were at Canterlot Academy, which was the equivalent of Equestria’s high school. And once again, I was stuck eating a horse omelet. Which was a mix of human and pony foods wrapped up in a scrambled egg. Aside from that, I also had a small bowl of oatmeal and various fruits in a nice spread. Things tasted quite a bit different than I thought they should have, but that still didn’t mean I was going to eat anything made from hay. Thankfully, Luna was one of those super elitists, and hay was one of those commoner foods she wouldn’t touch. The food was good, but as always, the real juicy things we had for bunch were the conversations. “Okay so I’ve got to know. Just how in the hay is somepony like Blueblood related to the two of you?” It was a question that all the bronies had been wondering since forever, and with the answers literally all around me, I decided to find out. Shining Armor looked up from his food. “I’m actually curious about that myself. No offense Princess Celestia, but Blueblood is just…not what I’d expect from somepony that’s related to you.” “Well if you want to be technical, Blueblood shares no actual relation with neither me nor Luna,” Celestia said before she looked over to me, or more likely, Luna. To be honest, I’m pretty sure Celestia did her best to pretend I didn’t exist. “Would you like to take this one. It was your idea after all.” Luna put down our silverware and cut her control of our horn to move it to our mouth. “During the first few years of our rule, after we had become friends with Platinum at any rate, several of the noble houses of old Unicornia did complain most heatedly of our rule. The reason they stood behind to try and oust us from rulership over all of Equestria was a lack of any position within a noble household,” the Goddess of the Night said as she smiled. “So to fix that, Princess Platinum adopted us as her daughters.” Beside us, Celestia let out a little grown. “You make it sound like a good thing,” she deadpanned. “I know you and her were best friends, but that little unicorn never let me forget I had agreed to call her Mommy in public.” Luna giggled. “Ah yes, those were the days,” she said before her smile disappeared and she sighed. “Oh Celestia…I miss Platinum and all of our other friends.” As Luna went back to managing our horn’s magic and spoon feeding us, I looked over to Celestia between bites. “So uh…Celestia…when was the last time you’ve been to Ponyville, aside from the Sun Celebration, I mean.” “It’s been several years, I doubt more than a few ponies who live in Ponyville today would still be there,” Celestia replied as I reminded her and Luna about that whole problem immortality gave the creatures that couldn’t die a second time in less than fifteen seconds. Yay me. The last five minutes of eating was done in silence. Then we had the servants clear everything away and took a few minutes to let our food digest. Trust me, flying on a full stomach was not the way to go. And that was when I was the one in charge of moving, I was certain taking a chariot would make things worse. A single week of training under the princesses had left me a worse flier than alicorn Twilight. About the only things I could do was glide wildly, bob up and down, and perform precision landings on my face. Luna had started using our horn to keep me from the harder crashes, but…she thought that pain was a good deterrent against failure. Then, after lunch, we had to spend a few hours making sure the palace would get by in our absence. Celestia had even sent for Spike so he could deliver messages to her if anything was really wrong. By which I mean she left him specific instructions not to bother her unless Canterlot was being burned to the ground. Once we were ready, Celestia led us to where the royal carriages were parked and getting ready to go. Tia’s was that giant golden eyesore with the pink cushioning in the back and pearl-white front bumper while a light purple flag on top of the back that I had seen many times before. The damn thing was actually painted bright enough the real version just looked like a 3D version of the cartoon one. Luna’s was much cooler. Thanks to the different coloration of Nightmare Moon’s coat, we went with a much darker hue than what it originally had, and the fact we were as big as Tia meant the size was a bit off from the thing that had been shown on television as well. I managed to talk her into a few minor changes as well to make the thing a bit more aerodynamic, raise the fins on the side a bit, and went with a different design on the front instead of a green version of Sauron’s evil eye. Instead, we went with a dark red insignia that honored her bat ponies a bit better than the slit pupils of their eyes: a picture of a pair of lunar pegasi wings spread wide painted in a nice yellow paint. So…yeah, I basically talked Luna into redesigning her chariot into the Equestrian version of the bat mobile. As for Cadence, she got…a regular chariot. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice chariot. The damn thing was made of gold for crying out loud! But…it was still just a normal chariot, for a princess that had been around for years. Twilight had gotten her own personalized one in less than ten seconds after she put a crown on, and Cadence was riding around in the bare bottom basic model? So of course I just had to open Luna’s big mouth. “So uh…where’s your custom chariot Cadance?” Despite the impossibility, I think Cadance actually managed to turn a shade pinker around the cheeks, and Shining Armor had turned to look the other way. “It’s um…being cleaned.” I…blinked…and then turned away from the founding members of the Equestrian mile high club to wait for my bat ponies to hook up to Luna’s chariot while silently praying she didn’t start asking questions about what was going on between those two. Ancient immortal she may have been, but social isolation had made her pretty slow on the uptake for certain things. As Cadence got into her chariot, Shining leaned forward to give her a kiss, and I blinked before he trotted away from her. “Wait…you’re not coming?” Sure, I was ditching my captian of the guard for this trip, but Twilight was Shining’s sister. Plus, they had a damn engagement to tell her about. Shining Armor froze at my question, and then turned to look at me. “Uh…no. I’ve been away from the palace so long that work has piled up. Besides…a bunch of mares…this is about what you need. Not me.” While that did touch my heart just a bit, I narrowed my eyes too. “So now we have to keep our mouth shut about the engagement, huh?” Shining Armor winced. “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Yeah well…just don’t wait until the last bucking second to tell her. Trust me on this one. It won’t go well.” And with that, I was off. About five minutes into the flight, I knew something was very wrong. It wasn’t one of those vague mystical feelings of tingling dread. No, I just saw the gigantic black cloud hanging over Ponyville. And I’m not being metaphorical, there was a giant black storm cloud hanging over the entirety of Ponyville, stopping right on the edges of town. It was…kinda creepy really. I mean, it was one thing to be underneath the clouds in Canterlot that just suddenly showed up to take care of some quick watering the streets needed, but it was another beast entirely to be above the clouds and looking down. For starters, the cloud was all packed in perfectly. There wasn’t even a little tuft of clouds slowly separating from the main mass at all. And even if that wasn’t creepy enough from how my brain told me clouds were supposed to behave, the fact that the storm had completely surrounded the town like someone had put up some kind of net to catch the weather and hold it there was just…freaky. “That’s odd,” I heard Cadence say just fine despite us speeding through the air. “Why would there be a thunderstorm scheduled for the same day we’re supposed to be visiting Ponyville? I would have thought there would have been a parade or something.” Celestia guided her chariot in closer to me and the pink pretty pony princess. “Well that would be the case, if they knew we were coming.” Both of us looked over to Celestia in confusion. Cadance also got to talk. “Um…what?” I shared her confusion. World leaders just didn’t show up at places unexpectedly. The amount of security that was put in place for the President of the US walk down the street and into a restaurant was massive and took hundreds of people and days of planning to accomplish. The amount of panic and chaos that Celestia would create from just showing up with no warning would be…exactly something a troll like her would do. “Cadance, you’ve seen how it is whenever I go anywhere outside of Canterlot,” Celestia countered as she looked in our direction with her tiny smile, like she knew she had already won the argument. “Ponies set up parades, throw streamers, and have some big event where they drag me up on a stage to gawk at.” She shifted her gaze ever so slightly. “Does that sound like something you would enjoy, Sister?” Although her body language was pretty much a non-factor with only one limb under her control at a time, I could tell what Luna’s answer would be before she even spoke. “No. That does sound rather…unpleasant.” Celestia clapped her hooves once in that ‘things are decided’ kind of way. “So, it’s settled then. We’ll head into the library, have Twilight gather her friends for an afternoon of visitation, and then we’ll leave after the storm ends. All the while, the rain will keep the crowds away from the tree and allow us our peace.” I had to admit, it was an interesting way to ensure our privacy. Considering how all the kids went gaga over the princess that actually lived in town, and what happened at the annual swap meet and other big Equestrian events, I was pretty sure a visit from the god empress of ponykind would draw a crowd composed of every single pony in Ponyville. It wasn’t something Luna would enjoy. As we came in for a landing at the edge of the storm cloud, I blinked at the sight. Ponyville was…completely empty. With the dark cloud looming overhead, the whole thing looked pretty…creepy. Sure, the logical part of my brain knew that if a town of creatures with no arms to hold umbrellas had a one-hundred percent perfect weather schedule to tell them when water would fall from the sky, then it made sense that nopony would be caught out in the rain unless there was some major scheduling problems. Hell, I doubted most of the stores would even be open. Still, empty town and ominous black cloud. Creepy. Once the four of us disembarked, Celestia turned back to the chariots. “Thank you for your service gentle colts. You may return to Canterlot now. We’ll send word once the storm has passed.” The guards nodded and did as they were told while I looked over to Celestia. “Uh Tia, you sure that’s a good idea?” “I’m not going to make them just stand around outside Ponyville, Nightmare,” Celestia replied. “And the library will be cramped enough as it is with the four of us visiting Twilight and her friends.” Since I really didn’t feel like pressing the issue, we walked into town. Cadence actually ended up taking the lead thanks to me and Tia’s little conversation. Directions weren’t really a problem. Where we were going was tall enough to be seen all over the town. Of course, there were a few ponies that noticed the presence of three goddesses just walking down the grassy streets. Ponies looked out of their windows at us in shock at the presence of the creatures that moved the sun and moon around as well as…the one that did…whatever the hell Cadance did before she got stuck up in the frozen north. Luna apparently didn’t like the attention. “Could we not have simply push aside some clouds and made our way into Twilight Sparkle’s tree from above?” As Celestia remained silent on the issue, I felt the need to get rid of Luna’s stupid fears settle on my shoulders. “Oh come on Luna, this isn’t Canterlot. I mean…remember how the ponies treated us when we came here the last time?” “Do you speak of the time when you condemned them all to eternal night, or the day after, when we did spend a whole five seconds in town before Sister dragged us back to Canterlot rather than attend the festivities?” she countered. Celestia’s face became a little pained. “I do apologize for that, to the both of you. I did not know how benign you would be Nightmare, and surrounded by the little ones as we were…” I found my mood a little dour by the fact something had changed from the way it should have been according to my memories of what was supposed to happen. Like the fact that Luna hadn’t been there to get a wreath put around her neck and whatever the hell else Ponyville was supposed to do for the Summer Sun Celebration. I also didn’t give Celestia a nod to show her I understood, but rather, looked around at the few ponies that were looking at their windows at us. I also just decided to fix this whole stupid thing right now, and scanned the houses that had onlookers gawking at us from the first floor. It was the adorably cute light purple unicorn foal with the sandy mane that caught my eye. Although I was still having a little trouble telling pony girls from pony boys without a view from the rear, or telltale things like makeup and facial hair, I was pretty sure the foal I saw watching me was a filly. She was looking at me and Celestia with eyes that were full of wonder and amazement. So, I decided to just make that little filly’s day, or week, and possibly her whole month. I trotted over to the window and smiled. “Hello little one, what’s your name?” I asked the little pony with a bright smile. And…that’s when everything kinda started to go downhill. The loud crash of thunder and flash of lightning accompanied the upward turn of my mouth as I…showed the girl my predatory teeth. That was probably what caused the little filly let out a scream and ran away from the door shouting. “I’ll eat my vegetables! I’ll eat my vegetables Mommy! Just don’t let Nightmare Moon eat meeeeeeee!” I…blinked. A tiny bit of moisture impacted my head. Celestia walked up to stand next to us. The rain started to fall. Luna let out a long sigh, and I turned our head to look at Celestia. “Might we go and meet with Twilight Sparkle now? I wish avoid any more such incidents.” And then the rain became a downpour. Thanks to my limited bank of spells that numbered about…three, it was Celestia that put up a small dome of a shield above us to keep us from getting even more wet as we finished the trek to Twilight’s house and place of business. Since Cadance had ditched us, she had apparently made it there with enough time for Twilight to get over the surprise of her just showing up out of the blue and onto the more important things. “Sunshine sunshine, ladybugs awake!” Cadance and Twilight said at the same time as a floating purple dome kept them both dry.Hanging out with Shining Armor all the time had let Cadance pick up some of his skills. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake!” The of them laughed and hugged like only family could. Then when the moment of cute was over, Twilight got back on all four hooves to smile at Cadance. And with her soaking up all of Twilight’s attention, it was pretty obvious that she hadn’t noticed me and Celestia approaching from her side. “So what are you doing in Ponyville? I haven’t heard from you since I got my cutie mark!” That…was the kind of thing I just couldn’t stay silent for. “Wait…really?” I asked in disbelief. Which was probably the reason why Twilight turned her head to look in my direction as I threw my hoof out towards Cadance. “You and Shining Armor have been together for years, and she’s just now hearing from you again?” “Pa-pa-prin-princess,” Twilight stammered. Cadance had the decency to clear her throat and look away from me while she rubbed one of her forelegs with a fetlock. “Well um…it was a…long distance relationship for a long time, and I didn’t want to make Twilight feel bad about me spending all my free time with Shiny.” “P-PRINCESS CELESTIA?” the little unicorn shrieked. “W-What are you doing here?” The goddess simply giggled at her poor student’s near heart attack, and smiled. “It’s good to see you too Twilight. And as for your question, at the moment I’m getting rather soggy hooves,” she replied with a smile. “Might we come in?” As Twilight’s eyes went wide from the fact that she was making Princess Celestia stand out in the rain, I had to feel a bit for the poor purple pony that once again panicked at the drop of a hat. “Of course! Of course come in! Come on in!” Celestia walked up to the door with me behind her as Cadance went on inside. She paused halfway the entrance to leave me and Luna in the rain, and looked down to the unicorn. “Although the real answer to your question is that my sister and Nightmare Moon wanted to see you and your friends again,” she said before her caring smile turned the slightest bit guilty. “And to be honest…I did too. Letters are nice, but it’s no substitute for talking face to face. Plus, I would like the chance to get to know your friends as well.” “Oh!” Twilight exclaimed before she  walked into the library and I had to wait for Tia to fit her fat ass through just to see anything while the little unicorn continued talking. “Well, you picked a strange day for it, but then again…Rarity and Applejack are already here so…” As Twilight trailed off, I heard a voice with the telltale twang speaking from inside. “Yeah, Rainbow Dash messed up the weather schedule just a mite last week, and now we’ve got this doozy of a downpour to make up for it.” And…I…stopped at the entrance when Celestia finally moved her big booty out of the way so I could see Applejack and Rarity standing there. I had one of those moments. You know, those moments where everything clicks and your head, and you come to a realization? Not a good realization. A bad realization. Terrifying, really. That realization: I had landed in the middle of a friendship problem. One of those special moments early on in the relationships between Twilight and her friends where they learned to overcome difficulties, accept each others differences, or just learn to forgive pony X for being a complete and total dumbass. And while later friendship problems were…meh, thanks to the girls being such good friends, the earlier ones were the much needed proverbial foundation for the friendship castle that that would later become the eyesore of Ponyville. In short, they were things I didn’t want to touch with a ten-thousand foot pole. “Is something wrong Luna?” Celestia asked with her head turned back towards us. I briefly thought about saying something was indeed wrong, and I couldn’t be in the treehouse with Twilight and the others because…well…uh… Coming up with an excuse would have been so much easier if the entirety of the pony universe wasn’t depending on my ability to think on my feet-turned-hooves! PRESSURE WAS NOT A FRIEND OF THE LYING PART OF THE BRAIN! Luna sighed. “Nightmare, wouldst thou hurry it up and get us inside? Our hooves are becoming pruned.” I my head bowed in defeat, and walked through the door…in defeat, because I was defeated. And in my defeat, I could only take a moment at the door to remove my horseshoes in that special defeated way, and took a seat next to the pair of ponies that had defeated me. Then, to top it all off, I let out a sigh of defeat. Beside me, Applejack looked over to the white giant pony in the room nervously. “Pardon me yer Highness, but…what’s wrong with her-er, them?” Celestia regarded me and Luna for a moment before answering. “I’m afraid Luna and Nightmare attempted to befriend a little filly on their way here just a few moments ago,” she explained. “It didn’t work out.” “We sent the foal running away from us in terror Sister,” Luna elaborated with a sigh. “Aw shoot Princess-uh-es, ya’ll can’t let a little thing like one bad experience get ya down,” Applejack told us before reaching over to put a hoof on our shoulder. “Why…if Ah had a bit for every time a pony thought something bad about me, Ah’d be richer than Rarity.” The unicorn cleared her throat. “Indeed. A few bad experiences shouldn’t deter you from trying darling,” she added before getting a little bit of a guilty look on her face. “And to be honest…I was a bit terrified of you at first.” It was then that Twilight decided to join in. “I think everypony would be Princesses.” She walked up and smiled up at us. “You are pretty much the physical embodiment of all ponykind’s fears after all. Give everypony a chance to see that things have changed. I’m sure they’ll open up to the two of you if you give them another chance.” The sheer level of sap that was being extruded by the three ponies held me in place and kept me from countering their arguments with the facts of life as I found my mouth moving without my consent. “Do you…truly think so?” While both of the unicorns saw fit to simply nod their heads, the earth pony apparently felt the need to speak. “Believe it!” I tensed, and then looked at the creature with the orange coat and blonde hair. “Applejack…never use those two words like that around me again.” “Uh…alright,” she agreed, clearly confused. But…it was worth it to avoid any the tiniest relation to…that thing. Silence descended on the library, only to be broken by Celestia a few seconds later. “By the way Twilight, when exactly is this new storm going to end?” she asked. “The copy of the schedule I looked at in Canterlot is apparently a little out of date.” “That’s right,” Cadance spoke up with a little worry in her voice. “We were planning on leaving after the rain ended.” Twilight’s eyes widened, and she looked back at her mentor. “Oh…um…about that Princess Celestia,” she replied nervously. “This rainstorm is supposed to last…all night. In fact, Rarity and Applejack were going to spend the night with me rather than walk home in the rain.” I sighed in relief as everything became right with the world again. “Well, it looks like we’ll be cutting our visit a bit short then. Wouldn’t want to stand in the way of you girls having your bonding time, right? Nice talking to you girls, I’ll be sure to keep reminding Luna to keep hope alive and all that.” And then, the most terrible of things happened. Worse than anything to occur in the history of all things pony. Celestia opened her mouth and said, “A slumber party? That seems like a wonderful idea! Might we join you for the night Twilight? It would be a good chance to catch up and…have a little fun. Now that you’re not living in the palace, I think I can afford to relax a bit more around you.” It took about half a minute for Twilight to remember she needed to breathe. Even then, her brain didn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders. “What? It um…” As for AJ and Rarity… “Pardon?” “Haba?” …they fared about as well as could be expected. Luna took the opening that my frozen terror provided. “What pray tell, is a slumber party?” It was a question Cadance apparently had the answer to. “It’s all right here,” she told the Night Goddess as she plucked an open book up from the stand and giggled. “Twilight, you actually have a book on slumber parties? You’re just as adorable as I remember, aren’t you?” The complement knocked Twilight out of her stupor. “Oh um, yes! It’s all right there. We just got done with the makeovers when you showed up Cadance!” she said before running over to her book and the shelter that instructions provided her. Apparently, she could deal with Celestia’s presence as long as instructions were involved. She grabbed the book out of Cadance’s magical grasp, and brought it in front of her muzzle. “So let’s see, the next thing to do on the list is…oh, a ghost story!” Celestia let out one of her refined giggles, and looked over to me. “Well then, it’s a good thing that we have an actual spiritual entity with us here tonight…isn’t it?” I gave Celestia a half-lidded stare. “Seriously? Luna and I are trying to get over the fact that we might have traumatized a filly, and the very first thing you suggest is that I do my best to try and give them nightmares?” Tia rolled her eyes. “Oh very well Nightmare,” she said before laying down on her stomach. “Gather around my little ponies. I’ve got a story for you all.” I will say this, Celestia knew how to tell a tale. Even the fact that it was coming from the most benevolent creature Equestria had in its stable of cuteness didn’t seem to deter the terror it inflicted upon the other ponies. The whole thing ended with lighting bolt that happened right on cue, making Twilight seek shelter under Cadance’s wings while Rarity and Applejack engaged in actions that would have added so much fuel to their ship. But the real success was that I think it let the ponies loosen up just the tiniest bit around Celestia, which she then followed with some rather impressive magic that cooked marshmallows perfectly without the need for a fire and placed the three parts of a s'more together perfectly while making it look like she was just throwing the things together willy-nilly. Of course things weren’t one-hundred percent perfect in the way they should have been. Applejack actually managed to eat with some manners in front of the princesses, but it was better than what happened with at the tea party. Rarity was too busy gasping at my chewing habits with an unfamiliar mouth to comment on anything. Or maybe the thing that helped ’humanize’ Tia was when Cadance had a stroke of brilliance and asked her auntie to see how many of the giant marshmallows she could fit into her mouth. I wasn’t exactly counting but…if I had to guess…it was a least half a Raritys worth. Which brought us to the third activity of the night… “Truth or Dare,” Twilight read carefully before a frown appeared on her face. “Huh. It gives the name of the game, but no instructions.” Cadance rolled her eyes. “Oh it’s simple Twilight,” she said before finishing off a bottle of water. “We sit in a circle with an empty bottle placed on the ground, and one of us spins it. Whomever the bottle ends up pointing towards has to pick if she wants to answer any question posed to her by the bottle spinner truthfully, or perform a dare. And if you don’t there’s a penalty you have to pay.” What with that being how Cadance put things, it was no surprise that Twilight followed up it with a question. “Uh…how much?” The Alicorn of Love spread her wings and bent them towards Twilight in a threatening manner. “Oh, I’m thinking a good minute and thirty seconds of tickle torture will do.” “Okay, okay everypony get into position and let’s do this thing,” I said before snatching the empty container away from Cadance and setting it down on the ground. Once everyone was ready, I placed my hoof on the thing, and gave it a good twirl. Round and round it went, spinning in a complete circle one, two…five…eight times until it slowly came to a rest, stopping with the mouth of the bottle pointing directly at the white alicorn across from me. Which of course made both me and Luna…well… “Hehe, haha, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Luna laughed as lightning flashed and thunder boomed outside, and I threw our head back until she was done. “Oh what good fortune! Finally, Sister I shall learn the truth behind-” “I choose dare,” Celestia said before Luna could finish. While Luna drew out mouth into a pensive expression, I frowned at the alicorn a second before she spoke. “Give us a moment to converse.” And…well…you know what happened then… Unfortunately, the truth or dare game broke down after the first few rounds. Cadance and I ended up forming an alliance made by visual gestures when Celestia ending up being the recipient of the bottle again with a choice of truth. So, Cadance asked her what the most embarrassing moment in her long life was. Which in turn led to Applejack getting Rarity to reveal her most embarrassing moment that involved coming back into town after having being dragged half a mile of dirt and mud by her horn, something Applejack didn’t think was all that bad. Then there was Applejack’s most embarrassing moment about attending some ‘ritzy’ party as a filly where she stuck out far too much, which Rarity rolled her eyes at the fact Applejack mentioned crowing roosters in a high-class conversation. Then Tia decided to step in, and we ended up just listening to Celestia and Luna go on about their first few years as Equestrian princesses. There were a few thinly disguised smartass comments made by Rarity and Applejack that anyone who knew about the two of them could see as plain as day. Which…nobody in the library really did, much to my unease. “And then Luna actually shouted ‘Vile fiends, thou dost roast thine own unborn? Have at thee!’ before she attacked the chef with his own spatula,” Celestia said in an overly dramatic fashion as she finished the story of their first diplomatic mission to Griffonstone. While everypony broke out into laughter at Luna’s expense, the black alicorn that was us let out a humph. “They said the griffons were cooking their eggs. How could I have known that they were simply speaking of the eggs they owned, and that griffons did not lay eggs?” she asked whined. “Tis a common misconception! Do they not look like eagles?” As Twilight recovered from her laughter, she looked over to us. “Princess Luna, griffons are mammals,” she said before blushing. “Or at least their um…back ends are.” And…maybe I wanted to join in or the ribbing too. Sure, I thought that griffon’s had laid eggs as well. But there was no better way to cover your own idiocy than mocking those that shared it. “Yeah Luna. Would of thought you would have noticed that.” “Pardon me for my common decency! I am not as obsessed with rears as thou,” Luna countered. Celestia giggled as everypony else looked at me with quizzically raised eyebrows. “What’s this about?” I clamped my jaw shut and looked away from the group. But Luna wasn’t having any of that, and hijacked our mouth. “Oh, nothing much. It is simply that my other tends to focus our vision upon a pony’s posterior more often than not. Yours more than most Sister.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Celestia’s grin turn devilish. “Really now?” With only seconds away from my reputation being completely ruined by Luna’s evil lies, I reacted as quickly as I could. “T-That’s just for comparison purposes!” Which, judging by Celestia’s barely controlled laughter, didn’t help my image much. “Comparison purposes hmm?” she said between giggles. “Tell me more.” “Was that what you were doing in front of the mirror two weeks ago?” Cadance exclaimed as she broke into giggles as well. Even if I couldn’t really blame her for laughing, I did give the currently littlest alicorn a good glower for both her bringing it up, and the invasion of privacy that was her walking in on Luna’s bedroom while I had been shaking my ass in front of our mirror to see if it had the same…jello-ness about it that Celestia’s did. We were both the same height after all, although she looked slightly more like a horse that was built for power while the body Luna and I had was a tiny bit thinner in all the right places to make it more of a speedster style. Whether that was because Luna had endured a thousand years of dieting on the moon while Tia ate tons of cake to fight her depression, or something else, I didn’t know. “Well then,” Celestia said as she stood up and shook around a little bit to get the kinks out of her system. Laying down as a horse didn’t help the circulation much. “Let’s find out.” A very odd feeling of not-quite-dread-but-close-enough came over me. “Uh…what?” I asked, or maybe it was Luna. I’m pretty sure we both had our disbelief thoroughly tested by what she had just said. Because Celestia couldn’t be implying what it looked like she was. Even Trollestia wasn’t that bad. “Which one of us has the bigger plot to trot around Canterlot,” Celestia went on as if she were talking about the most natural thing in the world. “Now get up and come over here, we should stand side by side for this.” Luna got control of our mouth to do the protesting. “Sister, I have noticed thy humor has become quite aberrant since I returned, but this is a new low.” The goddess rolled her eyes. “Luna, you can’t honestly tell me that you are not curious about your new measurements.” “Ugh. So I have gained a foot and a few pounds. Tis not a concern,” the younger sister replied. I looked over to my shoulder. “Oh come on Luna, please?” I asked before putting on a cute puppy dog pout face on pure instinct, and then realized that Luna couldn’t actually see any of it a second later. Still did the trick though. “Very well,” Luna agreed, if reluctantly. “If only to end this foalishness once and for all…and put any questions to rest of our innate superiority.” As I got us up and carefully walked around the girls, Cadance studied our body with a scrutinizing eye. “What do you mean, gained a foot?” she asked as I got us next to Celestia. I looked over to Cadance while Luna answered the question. “Dear niece, thou did not think that my sister’s gigantic size and long life were natural, did you?” “You know, you’re just as tall as I am now,” Celestia deadpanned before her expression lightened up a bit and she looked at Cadance. “And yes, Luna used to be much closer to your height than mine. When she joined with the Nightmare…” I groaned and turned around. “Yeah yeah I gave little Lulu a growth spurt and some cooler teeth and wicked eyes. Okay, enough of the downer stuff,” I said before smacking my rump against Tia’s. “So how we doing this?” “Well, I suppose we’ll need a judge,” Celestia said “Somepony with a keen eye for detail, somepony who checks and double checks everything to-” As the Sun Goddesses gaze fell upon Twilight, the unicorn’s eyes widened, and she quickly downed the last of the soda in her half-full bottle before doing her best to hold in a belch. “Oh look at that, I’m out! Let me just go get another, and go to the bathroom, and um…reorganize my towels while I’m here! It’ll take a few minutes, so…just go on without me!” Twilight beat a hasty retreat, and Celestia let out a long sigh. What was weird was that I could tell it was of relief, not disappointment. “Finally. I thought she’d never leave,” she mumbled before looking back to the two wingless ponies in the room. “Now, Applejack, Rarity…” While Applejack tensed up, Rarity managed to speak. “Um, Princess Celestia, while I would be more than happy to take your measurements if I had a proper tape-” She silenced the four-legged marshmallow with a glare. “What the hay is going on between the two of you?” Rarity shut her mouth, and Applejack opened her. “P-Pardon?” “Do you honestly think I haven’t seen the way to two of you have been looking at each other all night, rolling your eyes at each others stories, and generically being antagonistic?” she clarified with a stern voice that reminded me of a mother addressing misbehaving children. “So what the hay is going on?” The two of them glanced at each other for a second and then… “Rarity just fiddled around when we were sposta be trimmin’ trees…” “Applejack didn’t even clean her hooves off before she came inside…” “…can’t stop fussin’ over every little thing…” “…spit on her hoof and shoved it in my face…” “…...prissy unicorn, that’s drivin’ me crazy with her unnecessary neatness…” “……rude, inconsiderate pony that can’t seem to think about anypony besides herself…” “………and the way everythin’ has just got to be just impossibly fru-fruey!” “………how she just seems to go out of her way to annoy me!” A few seconds after they both finished, one right on top of the other, Cadance looked over and up at the two of us. “Um…did anypony catch any of that?” I sighed and pointed a hoof at the unicorn. “Rarity’s mad at Applejack because AJ doesn’t care about getting herself or her surroundings dirty,” I told her before turning my hoof towards Applejack. “And Applejack is mad at Rarity because her attention to detail usually means she loses sight of the big picture.” Cadance blinked. “Oh…that…” On a roll, I found myself unable to stop. “Although it also goes a bit deeper than that. I mean, judging by what Celestia’s investigations found on all of you and that little story Applejack told everypony about her most embarrassing moment…I’m guessing she’s had some deep-rooted resentment towards the upper class that Rarity tries to emulate since she was a filly.” Not to mention she had chosen farm life over all the glitz and glamour that Rarity was working towards, backing up her own ideas of the superiority of her lifestyle with personal experiences. “Well…Ah wouldn’t quite put it like that,” she mumbled before looking away from the unicorn. Ignoring the comment, I went on. “Then Rarity’s probably got the same thing going on with her aversion to dirt in some way, especially considering how she got dragged through the countryside. And that’s not even getting into the fact that her white coat must allow even the tiniest bit of soot to stick out. Having something like that for your entire life in a lifestyle that’s big on outward appearances would make anypony a neat freak.” All of a sudden, every eye in the room was on me. Even Celestia looked surprised, and if Luna had been able to, I was pretty sure she would have been staring at me too. “Princess…” Rarity said as she looked over to the goddess. “You have, um…files, on us?” Celestia cleared her throat. “Well…yes,” she admitted with barely any shame. “Please understand, I may know Twilight Sparkle as well as anypony…but the rest of you are near complete unknowns. Yet you wield the Elements of Harmony. Still…the reports aren’t that detailed.” I shrugged and came up with the excuse I had thought up weeks ago if someone started asking. “Hey I may not have any of my memories, but I still have all my old intelligence, and you ponies are easy to figure out. I mean hay…look at what I did with Luna…um…a thousand years ago.” Kind of hard to bring it up, but it needed to be said if I wanted to cover my ass. Luna snagged out mouth muscles in her intangible grip. “Nightmare, you aren’t the same creature as before.” “Indeed,” Celestia agreed before she looked over to the little ponies in the room. “And as for the two of you…” Both of them froze and shrunk in on themselves. “Since the moment the three of us arrived, just how much have your differences stopped you from getting along?” The two ponies looked at each other hesitantly. “Um…” Rarity said. “Well…” Applejack added. “And how much of your animosity is just the two of you not willing to let some silly little things go and respect the other’s differences?” Celestia continued. “Things that, let’s be honest…aren’t really all that big a problem in the big scheme of things, are they?” I raised an eyebrow. “I dunno, the deep-rooted dislike at the core of the problem seems pretty important,” I said before Cadance gave me a little glare, which had me making some course corrections to my speech. “But uh you know…that’s just all misplaced aggression. I mean…just how many times has Rarity gone against your lifestyle Applejack, or vice versa with you Rarity?” Once again the two of them shared a look, let out a sigh at the same time, and gave each other a little smile. “Ah guess not cleaning off mah hooves before commin’ in was a bit rude,” Applejack admitted. “Shoot, if Granny had seen me tryin’ that in the house when I was a filly, she would’ve turned my bottom redder than Big Mac’s coat.” Rarity cleared her throat and looked away. “Yes well…you were trying to get out of the rain, and would have had plenty of time to do that if I had just pulled down tree branches like I was supposed to.” As the power of their little ‘dawww’ moment enthralled me, I fell back on my plot and gave a few claps that were actually accompanied by Cadance and Celestia before I pointed my hoof at the pair of ponies. “Now kiss!” Then, when everypony looked at me, I cleared my throat and looked away. “And uh, makeup, I mean…you know…because that’s how the saying goes.” In the ensuing silence, Twilight finally poked her head out from the door leading to the kitchen. “So um…did I miss the uh…contest?” Celestia giggled and turned her head towards Twilight. “Oh we decided to postpone it till morning, when we can go to Rarity’s shop for a proper measurement. So, what’s next on the agenda?” Using my rather bad control of magic, I snatched the book from the stand Twilight held it on, and brought it up in front of me. After running my eyes over the page, and then turning the page a few times so that Luna could read the rules for our next step upon a silent request from her… “Ah! The tome of slumber festivities doth suggest a grand melee tourney in which we all are armed with the sleeping cushions for our heads!” Luna exclaimed before I got control of our jaw again and she took over working the horn. “Sister, do you mean a pillow-oomph!” Celestia managed to say before one of the glorified bags of feathers rammed into her head with enough speed to knock the alicorn on her side. Luna let go of our horn long enough to let out a laugh. “INDEED! And I do believe the term is, caught you napping!” she said before using our horn to grab two more pillows. Unfortunately, that also gave everypony else time to react, with Cadance proving that Equestrian princesses weren’t just there to look pretty. “Twilight quickly! Prepare book fortifications for a prolonged siege! Applejack, Rarity! Hold off Nightmare Luna until we can ready a counter attack!” The commands from the Alicorn of Love knocked the little ponies out of their the stupor of seeing their goddess being felled by a fluffy bag of feathers, and they moved into action, with Twilight grabbing as many books off the shelves as she could to construct them into a hasty wall, while both Applejack and Rarity moved in to attack together.     The battle had lasted a good thirty minutes, with Celestia getting back into things once thirty seconds had passed of her simulated death. After the pillow fight, Twilight was left to stare at Celestia with wide eyes and become very nervous over the fact that Tia reminded her we were going to spend the night, as the storm was still going on. We giggled over a short panic by Twilight as the unicorn went on and on about how she only had one spare bed for five guests, three of which were royalty before Tia pointed out she could simply conjure some clouds for Cadance, herself, and Luna/me to sleep on. After that, we bid the girls goodnight and headed downstairs to where more than a dozen boxes waited to be unpacked on the far side of the room, but there was still more than enough space for the three of us. Tia’s horn lit up a few seconds later, and I was once again introduced to the wacky weather of Equestria as three clouds were just brought into being, inside Twilight’s basement. Despite the near perfect darkness, my Nightmare Moon/Lunar Princess powers allowed me to see just fine in the lack of light and…I found the presence of three tightly packed balls of fog mildly disturbing. “Whelp, time to hit the fluff,” the pink alicorn said before she leaped up into the air with a single flap of her wings and came crashing down onto the cloud with a light poomph. And I’m not joking, it actually did make a sound. Which brought my levels of disturbed from mild to extreme. Yeah, okay sure, I had seen pegasi move cloud stuff around from far away, and knew from the show that they could walk on them and everything. But there was a BIG difference between watching cartoon ponies sit around on cartoon clouds, and Cadance just snuggling into a real one. I mean, it was a real, solid pony, laying on a real, not-solid cloud. I could almost see through the damn thing for crying out loud! At the edges anyway. The rest of it looked pretty thick. After a few seconds, I actually reached out and poked the one meant for me and Luna with our hoof, and I do mean poked. The cloud reacted like a solid mass of…something as it floated a little bit away from me and Luna. “Nightmare? Is something wrong?” Celestia asked. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” I went. Caught on the spot and all, I couldn’t really think up a lie to save my ass. So I had to go with the truth. “Well, I’m not really sleepy, you know.” Celestia stared at me with wide eyes for a moment, blinked once, and then raised a hoof to tap the side of her head. “Oh right. Sorry, I forgot you and Luna stay up all night,” she apologized before giving me an apologetic smile. “Would you like me to keep you company so you’re not up alone ?” “Sister,” Luna spoke up. “There are two of us here, you know. We’re never alone.” Another light laugh came from Celestia’s mouth. “True but-” Whatever Celestia was going to say was cut off by the sound of a loud crash from upstairs that shook the whole tree down to its roots. Which, we were kind of near. “What the hay was that?” I looked up at the ceiling with a frown. “Well, judging by the preceding sound of thunder, it was either a tree falling, or a…uh…” I let out a sigh. “Look, I’ve done enough snarly remarks to last a week. Whatever’s going on, I’m sure Twilight can take care of it, right?” “Agreed,” Celestia said after a moment of thought. “And...there’s something I’d like to speak with the two of you about.” Luna took over talking. “That being?” The sun goddess sighed. “After tonight, it’s...become apparent to me that I haven’t been spending enough time with you.” “Sister, we tin together twice a day, tis plenty,” Luna assured her. To which Celestia shook her head. “It’s barely more than what we had before, and I’m not going to let barely better be our relationship. So once a week, I intend to make the whole day for us, like what today was. Does that...agree with you, Luna?” We smiled. “Yes, it sounds most agreeable.” The three of us spend the rest of the night making plans. The morning after the thunderstorm, the six of us that had slept at the library the night before, with me getting a nice three hour nap, came outside to greet the dawn, despite the fact the sun was in the noon position. The ponies of Ponyville were out in force with rakes, leaf bags, and various other lawn care tools to help with the cleanup. It was actually rather amazing to see the entire town chipping in to help take care of the mess rather than just wait around for someone else to do it for them. Well, at least until they saw Celestia, Cadance and Luna/me. Then they went all wide-eyed before putting their faces in the grass. Celestia did her best to ignore it, although Luna kept nagging me to assume the proper ‘royal walk’ I ignored her with a reminder about what usually happened whenever she tried to do the walking and how falling flat on our faces would be even worse than going around with our nose in the air. As for Cadance, she was… “Anypony have a spare bag I can use?” she asked while her magic continued to collect the numerous branches and other things that had fallen down. I gave her a jealous look. Not that I wanted to do yard work or anything, even magical yard work. But her ability to just pick up a few little things already had the ponies from all over town coming around with friendly smiles on their faces. As for me, I just watched ponies give me nervous looks as I waited for Celestia to come out of Sugar Cube Corner. At the very least, being a demigoddess of darkness meant I wasn’t going to be bothered by any ponies. “P-Princess!” Unless of course fear actually caused one of the ponies to come forward like a sacrificial lamb. Mayor Mare was about of an average height for a pony, with the same coloration she had in the show. Although I hadn’t seen many older ponies since coming to Canterlot aside from the really old former members of the palace staff that Celestia gave room and board to in the servants quarters as part of their retirement packages, I was pretty sure the mayor was a bit too young to be seriously considered for a position that had her running a town as tough as Ponyville. It was no wonder she died her hair gray. And since she wanted to talk to the princess, Luna got the job. “Ah, you are the official overseer of this hamlet, are you not?” she asked in a normal voice. A few weeks of threatening to run around Canterlot while shouting embarrassing things had gotten her to drop the RCV except for special occasions. As soon as ‘Nightmare Moon’s’ gaze fell upon the mayor, she froze up and quickly bowed her head. “I-I’m so sorry Princess! I didn’t receive any word that you and the others were coming! There must have been some kind of communication problem. If we had known-” “Okay Luna, be nice now, calm and soft-spoken,” I reminded her, muttering barely loud enough for my own ears to hear. Luna raised a hoof to stop the mare from babbling, and then took our mouth to talk again. “No apologies necessary little pony. Our visit to thy hamlet was a personal matter. It was scheduled with the rain to avoid causing too much of a commotion. The only annoyance was the ferocity of the storm. A minor thing.” All and all, I think it was a good interaction with the lowly elected official. And before anything could go wrong, Celestia came out of the store with a bag of baked goods. “Ah mayor,” she said when the elected official looked up at Celestia. “”I’ll be free to speak with you in a moment, but there is a pressing matter that my sister and I must deal with first.” The mere mortal mayor bowed and backed away as Celestia trotted down the stairs. “Come along Luna. We need to hurry and get this done quickly. I received a letter from Spike while inside, and it seems Blueblood is raising a fuss in Canterlot that I need to deal with.” While I took care of the walking to catch up with Celestia, Luna handled the talking. “What pressing matter is this, Sister?” Instead of just out and telling me, Celestia remained silent until we turned a corner, and she pointed ahead. The object that was indicated by her action was a small, single story dormitory with somewhat worn walls and a thatch roof in need of slight repairs. It was a place I had seen before on my way into Ponyville...and in Luna’s nightmares the night before. Luna gasped. “The home of the foal! Sister, I would suggest our course need to be altered in order to-” Celestia ignored us and actually stopped in front of the house's front door, then tapped her hoof against it. “Has madness taken hold of thy mind?” Luna demanded. Celestia sighed and looked over to us with half-lidded eyes. “It’s a foal, Luna. Now hold these,” she deadpanned before I was forced to grab the bag Celestia had in her magic. “And we did frighten her with our visage!” Luna countered. “Best to be gone and allow the little unicorn-” The opening of the door quickly shut Luna’s mouth, and the had me freezing in wide-eyed awe of the mare that came to answer it. To most, she would seem an unremarkable pony. Her legs and body didn’t possess any special characteristics beyond some lingering fat that most mothers would have. Nor were her wings as fluffy as Fluttershy’s, or as sleek as Rainbow’s. And while her sandy blonde mane was combed and well within regulations for any job, it had neither the style of Rarity’s or Rainbow’s awesome coloration. As for her coat, it was just a drab gray. But what did set this particular pony apart from the others were her golden bright eyes, one of which was wandering off to the side, and the mailmare uniform that was only halfway put on that had a name tag that said FUCK YOU SOCCER MOMS, with the letters D-E-R-P-Y on it. And then, the most beloved little pony in all of Equestria looked up at the three of us with wide-eyes. “Uh...Princesses?” Somehow, Celestia managed to avoid fan-squealing over the presence of Derpy, and simply smiled down at her gently. “Please, pardon us for the intrusion my little pony. But last night, a rather unfortunate set of circumstances caused my sister to accidentally frighten your filly, and she would not let us leave until she had set things right.” Derpy’s eyes widened. “Oh...so that’s what that was about. I thought she was just frightened of the thunder,” she mumbled at the end before looking back into the house. “Um, Dinky! S-Somepony’s here to see you.” A few seconds later, the adorable little filly came running up to the door. “Who is it Momma-eek! Nightmare Moon!” she shouted before cowering behind her mother for protection. And...I may have fallen back a little bit...behind Celestia. “Dinky!” Derpy scolded her daughter. Celestia just laughed at the sight and walked forward, denying me and Luna of our cover. “It’s quite alright Ms...Derpy,” the goddess said with a look to the pony’s badge before she lowered herself onto the grass and looked past the gray mare to her daughter. “Now now little one. I know my sister can look a little frightening, but if you give her a chance, I think you’ll find that she is a very nice pony. She didn’t mean to frighten you the other night, and even brought you a treat.” I took that as my cue to open the bag and reveal what was inside. “Muffin!” the little filly squealed before she ran forward, after getting a nod from her mother that it was okay. Luna let out a tiny laugh as I laid us down on the damp grass to watch Dinky eat her treat from close up as she took the muffin that was nearly as big as her head in her front hooves and plopped down to eat it. She looked up at me and Luna after taking the first bite, and gave us a smile that was framed by crumbs caught in her coat. The cuteness attack froze me quite solid. Luna managed a smile, mouth closed this time. “T-Thank you Princess,” Derpy said. “With everything that’s going on this morning, I haven’t been able to fix breakfast, and I just heard the school's been closed for the day because of water damage, and now I’ve got to go to work, and there’s nopony to watch Dinky-” “Oh,” Celestia spoke up, making Derpy stop talking with a single syllable. “If there are foals that need to be watched over, I think I know a pair of ponies that can help with that,” she said before looking over me and all around us. “In fact, I’m sure Princess Cadance and my sister would be more than happy to look after all of you.” The conversation took me away from my internal daaaawing, and looked up at Celestia with wide eyes. “Say what?” “Ohh, ohh! Princess Luna, may I have a muffin as well?” an English accented voice asked from behind me. “Her name’s Princess Nightmare Moon!” a female voice added. “And can I have a muffin too?” “Nuh-uh!” a third voice added. “My daddy reads the papers, and he said it’s Princess Luna Moon! And I want one too.” I blinked, and stood up to turn around and see just what the hell was going on. A large crowd of foals, and several of their parents had gathered around me and Celestia, their approach hidden by the soft grass. Apparently, it was impossible for a pair of goddesses to even walk down the street without attracting a crowd these days. “Well, I guess you know what this means,” I mumbled to my backseat driver. “Indeed,” Luna replied before taking a deep breath. “MUFFINS FOR ALL!” And so, Luna had us stick around until noon, by which time the schoolhouse had been repaired and the children had to return to school, much to their disappointment. Afterwards, Cadance decided to stay the rest of the day and get to know the rest of Twilight’s friends while Luna and I headed home to get some sleep. All in all, it was a pretty good ending, considering how I had nearly doomed all of Equestria by showing up on the same day as a friendship problem. Because of that, I would need to cut down my visitations to Ponyville, even if Luna wanted to go back as soon as possible. However, Celestia and I managed to talk her down to one, or maybe two days a week if there was some kind of festival going on. Sure, there was still a chance I might run into one or two little things that might have happened but… Well, what were the chances of something important happening every time me and Luna paid Ponyville a visit?