The Affection of Princess Nightmare Moon
Part 14: INTERMISSION
“Have you got everything, Spike?” Twilight Sparkle asked as they approached the cave entrance. “Everything you need?” The wildlife had long-since cleared out, the moss and waters burned and boiled away. The whole place was warm like summer.
“Of course!” Spike said, patting his mistress as they walked. “You made the list and filled my pack yourself!” They came to the huge double doors. “Welp, I’ll see you in a few hours!”
“Hey, erm…” Twilight shuffled one hoof, looking at the ground a little. “Hug her for me? Everypony needs hugs.”
“Of course,” Spike said, smiling as his brow knitted. “Everything’s fine. We planned for this, remember? That’s what this cave is for!”
“R-right, she’s just never used it in either of our lifetimes,” Twilight murmured, looking longingly at the doors. “I wish I could go in with you.”
“I know, but we’re doing our best. I’m the only one that can withstand that much heat, so it’s gotta be me. Heat resistant magic doesn’t reach that high on the scale. Doesn’t paper burst into flames at four hundred and fifty degrees (332*C)?”
“Four Hundred and Fifty-One, officially,” Twilight said automatically.
Spike smiled at her, and sent her on her way. When he was alone, and very sure nopony else was around, he knocked. “Princess Celestia! It’s me, Spike!” There was a slight shuffling, he could barely hear inside. “It’s okay, it’s just me! I’m okay to let in!” he offered.
The doors unlocked from the inside, a heavy stone mechanism with magic weights on it to match. Oven-like heat blasted forth when it cracked open, then slide wide to allow him entry. Spike’s dragon heritage protected him, and he toddled inside. The doors slid shut behind him, relocking. “Heya Princess! I brought the dominos! Steel, like you wanted!”
“Hullo, Spike,” Celestia sat on a little island surrounded by boiling water. Leaning a bit, she dipped her still-glowing horn. The water HSSSSSSS’d in protest, but she held herself there for a moment before sitting upright gain. “Forgive me, I’ve not strained my body this hard in a long time.”
“Everypony thinks you’re taking a few days sabbatical,” Spike said, setting his things down and hopping the watery gap to hug her. She was hot to the touch, but his dragon scales allowed the happy embrace. Then he sat across from her and open his thick pack. He set a pan to one side, globs of dough dotted across it. “Cookies! If we wait a bit!” he grinned. Celestia smiled despite herself. He took out a canteen, which was already hot, and downed most of it before putting it aside. The rest of it would probably boil away soon. Finally he got to the hot metal box that contained the steel dominos.
Dominos were simple, fun, and never changed all through the ages. Celestia liked them almost as much as chess. But asking for a steel chess set seemed like a bit much to her, and poor Spike would not have stood a chance against her. At least with dominos they would have an element of chance and giggly fun. “You’re very kind, spending time with me, Spike. I was content to sit in here for a few days and cool off alone.”
“S’okay!” Spike waved a clawed hand. “By the way, why didn’t you just jump in a lake, or find an empty field outside? Wouldn’t that be easier to cool off than holing up in here?”
Celestia turned and checked a little oven gauge that Nightmare Moon had given her on the way into the cave (“You will know when you are done, you great turkey!” she’d said, kissing her sister’s cheek and burning her lips. The explosion of swearing alone had made it all worth it.) “My body temperature is slowly falling from around a thousand degrees (537*C). Plant-life and other such things might’ve burst into flames around me. I didn’t want to hurt anypony or the wild-life. How is Twilight?”
“Worried about you, mostly,” Spike poured out the dominos and separated them, then put one on the floor between them. Celestia straightened hers so he could not see them, and he did the same with his so she couldn’t see his. “She’s been holding short Noon-Day courts, and only staying on the throne when she has to.”
“As she was groomed to do, wonderful.” Celestia smiled with approval. She lost a feather and blushed, levitating it under her barrel and out of sight. As soon as it separated from her body, it curled and browned with the heat. She clacked down the first domino, a 9-7 face. An aggressive move to start with.
Spike put down a 1-3, spanning off the other way. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked with all seriousness. “I saw the big ditch you burned into the land from the Neigh Hoover Dam…”
Celestia smiled a little, then nodded, “I’m just not used to straining myself so hard as I once was, is all. These are peaceful times, and for that I am thankful.” She folded her wings for comfort. “The waters are all flowing correctly? The weather teams redirected the fumes out over the sea so that the foams would absorb them and disappate any posions?”
“Yes. Twilight said to tell you…” Spike thought for a time, sorting through Spike’s fancy language. “That all fume damage was minimal, the fire teams had everything under control, and that the saturation rate of any fumes were holding under 80% at the edge of the sea.”
“I do hate polluting things on purpose,” Celestia sighed a little guiltily, putting down a 7-3 at the end of her other domino. “But if it will help my sister get her stallion back, and ease the tensions between us and the Badlands… I suppose I had to make the exception.”
“Maybe,” Spike said, putting down another 3-1 domino at the end of Celestia’s chain. “What’s he like? Nightmare’s coltfriend, I mean. I think I’ve only seen him a couple of times, but he lives in the palace like Twilight and I do.”
“Oh you’d like him, Spike. He’s very kind, caring, and keeps my sister reeled in from her… enthusiasm, sometimes.” Celestia smiled at him sideways, which made the dragon grin at her. “He even likes Ponies and Castles, just like you!”
“Sounds like a nice guy,” Spike said, watching her place another domino.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
When Princess Celestia emerged several days later, she was of normal temperature and no longer over-heated from her magical strain. Twilight Sparkle awaited, standing with Nightmare Moon and Spike. “H’ohh, it’s good to be outside again!” she said with a toss of her ever-flowing mane. The breeze kissed her skin and she tilted her head back to feel the sun on her face.
Spike came forward with a little pillow, holding it up. Taking the crown, he tossed the pillow to one side and held it up to her. Smiling with mischief, Celestia knelt before him like she was being knighted. Spike went scarlet in the face and Twilight tittered with laughter. “And so it was that Spike, mighty dragon of the main-lands, passed down his powers and vestments to one white mare, Celestia Equiness, so that she might rule with a gentler touch than he and--!”
“Nightmare!” Twilight squawked.
Celestia chuckled, letting Spike quickly put the crown back on her head. She rose, her vestments and golden horseshoes melting back into exhistence. “Shall we go see how the river is doing?” she asked.
“I’ve been monitoring it very closely since you carved the new bed to divert it,” Twilight said, shuffling into her saddlebags for the right map and charts. Celestia rolled her eyes good-naturedly as the four of them got onto a carriage to be taken there. When they arrived, Celestia stood on its shores. The water flowed clear, blue and true. With three routes to go (The Park River, the Golden Thread River, and now the… Badlands, river? It hadn’t been named yet.), the waters were a bit lower than before, but holding nicely in their natural order. “Given its current rate and three paths, the dam won’t even be necessary in a few years…” Twilight said softly, watching the waters rush by. “Dams don’t absorb water anyway, just delay it, but with three ways to go instead of two it would keep anyplace from flooding, even during our serious storm seasons.”
“That’s good to hear,” Celestia said, dipping a dainty hoof into the cool waters. “Perhaps in a few decades we will dismantle the dam itself and use the materials for something else.”
“Isn’t it a historical landmark?!” Twilight said, aghast.
“For a time, but nothing lasts forever, Twilight,” Celestia said gently. “A hollow shell of stone, counter-weights and mortar will do nopony any good. I would rather the stone were used to build roads, raise a dozen homes, or shore up the defenses of a fort.”
Nightmare Moon’s eyes flicked over at her sister at the last suggestion. There had been no sign of Bandaid, nor the Equestrian Envoy Noble Cause in some time. Noble Cause would need time to reach the hive, yes, but with the addition of the river and X-amount of time having gone by… they should’ve heard something by now. Nightmare’s lack of stallion told Celestia the envoy had not returned yet. It made her all the more nervous. She didn’t want to believe it, but trouble was no doubt brewing in the south.
END OF INTERMISSION