August 16, 2015
Four days is a long time to wait in a hotel room in Montpelier. If my phone wasn’t broken, I would have spent most of it dodging calls from work. I was supposed to have been back by now.
I used Maria’s phone to let them know I was alive, but was cagey with the details, not mentioning more than a problem with my vacation.
Luna worked on her spell, but made no headway. Perhaps Tirek was more careful now that he knew we were after him. Maybe he had made his next jump out of her detection range.
I had a lot of questions, including where he and Celestia were when they weren’t being detected by Luna. If she knew those answers, she wasn’t telling.
I would describe the attitude in that hotel room during those four days as a slow boil. Discussing it with Maria, we decided that we needed to speak to Luna.
We broke the subject by withholding Netflix. Luna had told us that she couldn’t afford to be distracted, but after endless days without headway, she had started sneaking peeks of the cartoons.
“So you refuse to ask anypony for help,” I began. I saw Luna’s nostrils flare and quickly continued. “But what if we got some help from Earth?”
“Who knows the situation better than you?” Luna asked.
“It’s true that Maria and I have been working on this for a while now, but there are experts that could help us.”
“Your pal Rolling Thunder?” said Maria.
“Maybe, though Hawking isn’t much for field work. Still, we could ask him a few questions.”
“If we were to utilize your associates, where is the closest one?” Luna asked.
“I don’t have many in this part of the world,” I admitted. “But you’ve seen our telecommunication capability. We could have the equivalent of a face to face conversation from right here.”
“Could any of them tell us where Tirek is right now?”
“Maybe my buddy in the NSA, but that would be breaking all kinds of laws and would take a little while to make a secure drop.”
“So you have this idea, but what do you plan to do with it?” Luna said. I could detect a little irony in her tone. She knew she was turning our argument from a few days ago back on us.
“We could start reaching out to people. In a day or two, we might start making real progress. It’s not an instant solution, but we aren’t making any headway with your method.”
I probably should have said “with the current method.” Yes, it was Luna’s method, but my tone sounded like I was blaming her. I kind of was, but I should have been more polite.
Luna didn’t take it well. She might have been about to go on another Royal Canterlot Voice fit when a scroll popped into the air beside her.
She frowned as she grabbed it, pausing before breaking the seal. It was a short message, her eyes flicking left and right only twice.
“What does it say?” Maria asked.
Luna looked like she wanted to be contrary, but replied, “Twilight wishes to know the location of Celestia and myself.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “And what are you going to tell her?”
Luna re-rolled the scroll. “Nothing for the moment.”
“She probably sent a message to Celestia first,” I pointed out. “And receiving no reply, has now tried for you. You have to say something.”
“I could leave you to write a letter to Princess Twilight in my stead,” suggested Luna. “As a brony, you’d like that, correct?”
Yes, I would. Boy, would I. But I tried to keep that out of my expression. “And tell her what? You and Celestia are too busy cavorting around the country right now?”
“It is not a lie,” said Luna.
“Really?”
“Really.”
I let out a sigh that lasted perhaps five seconds before picking up the crappy hotel pen. “Fine.”
The parchment was just as thick and lovely as I expected. I hoped the ink would be legible.
Dear Princess Twilight,
Princesses Celestia and Luna are cavorting about the country and are currently indisposed. Earth is quite taken with them - or perhaps they’ve been taken by it. Don’t worry, they will be back to Equestria eventually.
Sincerely,
Sandy West
By Direction
Luna reviewed the letter and sent it away with a flash of magic. “There. That should keep them calm.”
“I still think it’s wrong to intentionally misdirect your fellow princesses. Did Celestia ever do that to you?”
Luna glared at me.
“Oh, is that it?” I realized I was onto something. “Does that make it okay?”
My mouth gets me in trouble from time to time. When Maria touched my arm, I realized that was far enough. If that didn’t do it, Luna made it quite clear.
“Do you know how it feels to be over one thousand years old and still be treated as the little sister?!”
“Well, as an only child-”
“Not only do I have to prove myself to Celestia, but Cadance and Twilight - barely adults! - do not trust me!”
“I think-”
“And you! This is my affair, not yours, and you will respect my decisions!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Maria argued. “If you’re going to scream and complain, maybe you deserve to be treated like a kid.”
“That’s a good point,” I agreed. “You know, if brings me to mind of something. Sorry, my mind makes strange connections sometimes. When Maria said ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ I mentally changed a word or two and it reminded me of an old Air Force expression that pilots said when they found out they were supposed to fly towards known missile sites and be bait. They even had patches embroidered with their new catchphrase: YGBSM - you’ve got to be shitting me.”
I intended my non-sequitur to descalate, but I think Luna might instead have taken the Royal Canterlot Voice to a whole new level if her head hadn’t suddenly snapped around. “Tirek has reappeared!”
Regardless of what else was going on, that got us to drop the subject. The room was in shambles, but we got our stuff into the car in record time.
Luna consulted the compass. “North!”