77. Forked Destiny - Part Five
Letters From a Little Princess Monster
Forked Destiny - Part Five
“Hello, Discord.” Princess Luna strode forward through the ragged grass of the statue garden until she was nearly up to the statue. There was little emotion shown in her stance except for the way she held her jaw clenched to near immobility, and the way her eyes flitted across the moonlit surface of the statue. The sight of a stubby peppermint stick protruding out of Discord’s mouth made her hesitate in her inspection for a moment, but there were no flakes of stone coming off, or indications of true flesh under the petrification spell. The shadows around the rest of the clearing likewise gained her introspective gaze, from uprooted weeds to raggedly pruned hedges in a mix of organization and chaos that felt oddly comfortable after spending so much time in the painstakingly organized castle.
“We see thy residence is kept well, although we would have expected our sister to have entombed you in a mineshaft and filled it with lava as I suggested, instead leaving you in this fresh air and sunshine.”
There was no response from the statue other than a few bits of dried grass blowing on the evening breeze. Luna did not look as if she had expected a response, but she did wait for one nevertheless. It remained fairly quiet while a few moths flew by, pursued by a bat in search of breakfast. Some distance away, the sounds of happy ponies at a riotous party faintly drifted up to her ears. She let out a low nicker of frustration and sat down on the freshly mowed grass, then got up with a sharp hop and pulled the dead thistle sticker out of her rump before settling down more cautiously this time.
“Typical,” she muttered.
The statue, as before, did not respond, although if a keen eye were watching, the shadows beneath it seemed to be watching back.
Luna had very keen eyes.
“How did you live with yourself?” asked Luna after a period of silent contemplation of her beautiful night and the stars spread across the sky. “One cannot believe you were so calloused as to not care about the ponies you injured or frightened. You appeared to consider our little ponies to be toys for your entertainment, to play with and discard when they broke, but I had much time over the years to think upon your antics. At the time, we considered ourselves lucky that no pony died from dancing to your desires. Luck indeed.”
A brief breeze blew a dry leaf through the clearing, swirling and twisting as gusts caught it and bouncing twice against the hedge before wobbling out of sight to whatever statue occupied the next clearing over.
“We saw you laugh,” said Luna slowly once the leaf had departed. “Oh, you were filled with glee until it spilled out all across our land, but have you ever cried? Did you ever feel the pangs of loss?”
She let out her breath in a short huff. “No, of course not. That would require you to care for another, something which is beyond even your power. I cast that away when I became Nightmare Moon, and know what it is like to care only for your own desires. It is a hollow, empty thing. A trap in which I was ensnared by my own foolish decisions.”
Luna walked forward and laid a hoof upon the cold stone of the statue, standing for a long time before returning to her seat with a shake of her head. “Still, I cannot believe your heart of stone is completely devoid of regret. Joy and sorrow are two sides of the same coin, and to have laughter in such abundance means somewhere in there, you may have space for another.”
There was a brief glow from Luna’s horn that died out into darkness again. “Still, I bear you no ill will of mine own. Were it within my powers to gift you with an immortal bride and watch the two of you depart into the infinite cosmos, I would in a heartbeat. What loneliness you must feel, being the only one of your kind. Building a bulwark of impenetrable darkness around your heart, taking great effort not to open it to any creature. If you cannot love, you cannot lose that precious gift of love and have to live with the pain for an eternity.”
Several stars glowed brighter as Luna looked up, greens and blues and yellows gathered together for companionship among their plainer peers. Her gaze passed from one to another in turn, the expression of sorrow growing on her face until a single tear trickled down her cheek.
“Then again, perhaps you have the right idea. You are never to know the touch of one who cares for you, so why should you care in return? With all of your powers, all of your ability, and in this regard, you are as helpless as a newborn foal. There is but one of your kind—”
Lowering her head, Luna traced small circles in the dried grass, and her voice got very quiet. “Mortal flesh can give but temporary solace to immortals such as us. The darkness lies without, ever patient for our return. Eternal vigilance is our terrible burden, else we too shall tread the path of madness again, and—”
She broke off abruptly, standing up and turning her back to stalk away along the fresh path. Something stopped her when she reached the gap in the hedge, and Luna cast one last look over her shoulder at the shadowed statue.
“Goodbye, Discord.”
The sharp chirps of crickets sounded in the shadows, and Luna stood in silence for a time to listen to their chorus. Then after a few minutes, she turned back around and approached the statue again.
“Do not pretend you cannot hear us, Trickster. And cease with thy insectile chorus!”
The crickets cut off mid-note, leaving the chorus unfinished.
“Better.” The stern expression faded from Luna’s face, and she once again settled down onto the grass, only this time she took a small mouthful from a nearby tuft and chewed thoughtfully. “Mint,” she mused to herself.
A cricket gave a sharp chirp in the grass.
“It’s just that I expected it to be chocolate, or perhaps bubble-gum flavored,” said Luna. “You have a reputation, after all.”
The absence of cricket noises sounded vaguely insulted. Luna chuckled and took another bite of grass, wrinkled up her nose, and began spitting vigorously until every last blade had been expelled.
The cricket chirped once.
“Oh, that’s vile.” Luna spat one last time and left her tongue hang out to dry in the night air. She lit up her horn, considered the masticated plant with a grunt of recognition, and moved closer to examine the specific details. “Milkweed, of course. And a cocoon in the remainder, I see. ‘Tis good that I did not bite that. The butterfly within should be near to hatching.”
Several crickets around the clearing began to chirp, joined by other night-dwelling insects until the resulting cacophony was nearly deafening. “Stop it,” she called out with her hooves over her ears. “I swear upon the heavenly firmament that you shall drive me—”
The noise abruptly turned off just as Luna said, “—mad.”
A cricket chirped once. Luna stepped down with a firm hoof. Then there was no more noise other than the sound of her quiet steps as she left the clearing, headed at a slow walk back to the castle.
~ ~ ✶ ~ ~
It took a while for Luna to calm down enough to return to the bedchambers where the young students were sleeping, but when she poked her nose into the room, her heart sagged in disappointment. The vigor of the young had failed, leaving all of them snoring away in a giant fuzzy lump across one huge bed. She watched for a while with a twinge of regret in her heart that she would have to give them all up in the morn and send them back to their own parents, both genetic and adopted. Certainly they would not mind if she kept one or two for a while. But who to select? They all looked so sweet and innocent in the wan illumination of the night lamps, with the faint glitters of gold coming from their precious Elements of Harmony toys they had worn into bed. Even Twilight Sparkle wore her toy tourimine-crowned tiara, a beautiful example of the craftsponyship of this Land of Fun which was of such quality that for a moment, Luna thought it was real.
Then that twinge of regret in her gut lurched, and Luna fled the room at a rapid but quiet pace before finding an unsuspecting potted plant in the hallway for her to retch bitter bile into, most probably from that cursed milkweed plant. It was a physical infirmity in her immortal flesh which irked her while she returned to her duties. There was the Dreamscape to patrol, and miles of empty corridors to walk before dawn would break and her sister would rise to her duties with her sun.
Slumber had become a burden for the Princess of the Night. Admittedly, there were better things to do in bed than to toss and turn beneath sweaty sheets, and the aftereffects allowed her some respite from her guilt, but there were only so many mortal stallions with that special gift of a compassionate heart. She needed an immortal guardian, a strong sentinel in the night to keep her from roaming into the temptations of darkness again.
The arcane tomes she had researched gave Luna hope that she would be able to craft such a working, a tiny sliver of her own dark soul to stand watch over her dreams and remind her of the unpleasant truth. A companion closer than her sun-loving sister, who she only saw for a few hours a day at most.
Tomorrow. After the children had departed for their carefree lives and her sister was occupied with affairs of state. Then she would have the privacy to do the rituals, to create her guardian, her eternal jailer.
Tantibus would be an appropriate name.
* * ✹ * *
Dawn came and went without incident. Celestia was her normal ebulant self, cheerfully serving each of the little ponies and big ponies alike a heaping stack of pancakes with fresh fruit faces. Luna did not break her fast with them, but instead made her excuses for a long night and retreated to watch their progress from the tower. The colorful little ponies and their adult escorts were easy to pick out of the crowd, and she watched all the way until they boarded the train and began the long trip down the mountain. She was so enraptured with her dark thoughts that the quiet tread of her sister nearly eluded her attention, and Luna was barely able to get turned around and put on a false smile before Celestia strode into the room.
“Are you still up, Luna? Tell me you are not coming down with something.” She placed one warm wing over Luna’s forehead, which was quickly shaken off.
“No, dear sister. I am fine. I was just considering… him.” It took only a step to look down from the balcony at the neat squares of the hedge maze⁽*⁾ around the statues, and the slightly darker square where Discord was residing.
(*) Technically ‘maze’ was a bit of a misnomer, due to the large number of directional signs.
“Don’t be a silly-willy,” said Celestia with a giggle. “He’s good and locked up in there, regardless of what Trixie might fret about. Oh, and that reminds me. Cadence told me after breakfast that she met a unicorn named Tempest Shadow, one of the Storm King’s lieutenants, here in the castle yesterday.”
“The Storm King?” Luna’s false smile faded. “The insane yeti who strives to conquer our southern reaches? That is good, indeed. With her locked in our dungeons—”
“Oh, she’s not in the dungeons,” said Celestia with some of the levity fading from her. “Cadence had her over for lunch, and they talked all afternoon. Wonderful conversationalist, it seems.”
“So… she’s a guest?” Luna was starting to get that throbbing pressure right under her horn again that happened every time the world began to look sideways to her perceptions.
“Not quite.” Celestia shrugged. “She slipped out of the castle before dinner. It’s a pity. I was so looking forward to talking with her. Twilight Sparkle told me she was going to be a wonderful friend, in the future.”
The pressure at the bottom of her horn was getting harder to ignore. “Our little Twilight certainly seems to be making friends.”
“All of her little friends are just such a joy to be around,” bubbled Celestia. “I’m just so happy to have spent some time with them this morning. You really should have been there.”
“You are far too happy, sister.” Luna arranged her most bland glare. “Are you certain you did not keep one of them behind to spoil?”
That only sent the elder alicorn into a fit of more giggling, and with a kiss to the cheek, she merrily trotted off to inflict her good nature upon the rest of the morning employees at the castle.
Luna made as if she were going to retire, but once the door to her bedchambers was closed, she settled down on the cool floor. The rituals for preparing the ‘Tantibus’ were stark and clear, far too stark for Luna’s own security. If indeed there was any small fleck of Nightmare Moon hiding in the secret places of her heart, it would be foolishness of the greatest sort to give it form in the Dreamscape and place it to watch over her sanity.
Common sense at least prescribed a period of silent meditation, an inward-facing ritual to search the deepest recesses of her body and soul, seeking any other entities within. It would take several hours at best, but she would not proceed with the rest of the ritual until she was certain. A thousand years trapped with that hellish beast of her own creation was more than enough.
After entering into her meditative trance, she wondered why it had taken so long to do this. True, it did not remove any of the tensions or worries from her life, but it allowed her to look at them from a different angle.
After a time, images of McIntosh floated through her mind, a gentle soul in a large package, then the tricky and sideways-thinking Green Grass. Wit such as his would have been welcome in the sharp and witless court, but at least his handsome brother Graphite was still about. A linguist beyond compare, gentle and welcome with his teachings about language in this strange modern era, both the languages of word and passion. Two were out of reach now, but the third would be most welcome when this blazing heat of summer passed, much as he had been a welcome tutor of many lessons after her return.
Reluctantly, she turned her mind back to the task at hoof. There would be time later for his quiet, passionate embraces to distract her from crimes long past. Now was the time to look for the Nightmare in her own heart.
And then… something deep inside of her looked back.
* * ✹ * *
Celestia was having the grandest time at court, without a care in the world. The only pickle in the ice cream sundae was a faint whiff of estrus in the air, as if one of the servants had not been careful enough with their dosage of medication during that special time of the month. It was the simple matter of a deodorizing spell to make it less distracting for herself, and would be worth a word to her morning secretary once the first petitioners thinned out and there was a little slack in her schedule. There was always some young mare from a farm background who came to work in the big castle and did not read all of the conditions of her employment contract. The guards were getting the worst of it, with quiet glances between themselves and more than one strategic rearrangement in order not to expose a certain something to Her Highness.
It brought a bubbly bit of distraction up in her mind, because now that Big McIntosh had been released from his passionate princess partitioning, it would not be unpleasant to find another young stallion to share that kind of personal intimacy with. Somepony strong, intelligent, passionate, and not Shining Armor like her mind kept wanting to wander. Certainly not a member of the nobility, because whatever house she favored with physical affection would get entirely too greedy in other matters, and likewise, most commoners in court would be overwhelmed by the attention and become less than what she wanted. Perhaps if she spread her affections out across several of them…
“Your Highness,” hissed Raven, her personal morning secretary, distracting Celestia from her woolgathering between petitioners. “What are you doing?”
Not responding at once, Celestia gave a cautious glance around the throne room while a sense of understanding began to soak in. Then it hit her with the force of a bucket of ice water.
The scent of estrus was coming from her.
“This can’t be,” she whispered to Raven. “I’ve taken my medicine and I have a spell going! Besides, I haven’t cycled in centuries!”
“Spell and medication?” Raven bit her bottom lip, and Celestia could see tears in her eyes, although if they were repressed laughter or tragic horror at the thought of the Sun Ascendant having her foal-making equipment going through a test cycle.
“And I treble the dosage,” Celestia added in protest of the universe’s sense of timing.
Or… a certain draconequus and his sense of humor.
“Cancel my appointments for the rest of the morning,” said Celestia in her most calm voice. “I must go speak with someone. Oh, and notify the museum that I’ll want to check out Mister Smashy at once.”
Raven hesitated in the note she was writing, with her rapid abacus-like mind accessing facts at a blinding rate. “Mister Smashy?”
* * ✹ * *
Luna was an alicorn princess. The moon and the stars above bowed to her will. At night, she ruled all of Equestria.
During the day, she felt very naked and powerless.
This morning, it was far worse than normal.
She strode along the corridors of the castle, questioning guards as she found them in order to locate where her sister had gone after fleeing court. That in itself was odd, but far odder was the thin-lipped and intense expressions of concentration on each of the guardstallions she passed, some of whom indicated Celestia's path with a tense-winged point before she even could open her mouth to ask. Her brisk pace took Luna outside under the blazing sun and along the path leading to the Royal Statuary Gardens, an even odder destination considering the contents of...
Oh.
Luna hastened her pace into the gardens until she was nearly galloping, slowing when she approached her sister. Celestia was not running, but proceeding deliberately down the path, one hoof after another as if she were carrying the weight of the world on her back. In a very alicorn way, it was not an inaccurate description. Mister Smashy rested quietly on Celestia's back, tucked between her wings with the handle of the massive hammer sticking out over one shoulder where it could be grasped by teeth or magic, depending on the degree of personal interaction the Goddess of the Sun wished to impart on whatever had drawn her ire.
Walking more cautiously, Luna strode up behind her sister while making plenty of noise. Celestia looked... tense, and the last thing Luna wanted this morning was to startle her and wind up catching a dense chunk of dwarf star matter in the face. She had just opened her mouth to ask what had set Celestia off when a chance breeze brought the answer to her unasked question, and explained both the unusually warm day and her sister's tension.
"Heat?" asked Luna quietly while falling into step beside her.
"Yes," said Celestia from between clenched teeth.
Luna cleared her throat, and when Celestia gave her a terse glance, pointed up at the sun.
"Oh!" The blazing heat of the morning lessened somewhat until it became more appropriate to the season. "Sorry," she added while obviously trying her best to keep from clenching her teeth again. "It's taking most of my concentration to keep from... never mind."
Luna eyed Mister Smashy. "I see you have determined the reason for the season, so to say? I too have an issue which needs your input, but we shall wait until you hath dealt with Discord."
* * ✹ * *
Celestia wanted to hit something. Actually, she really wanted to hit on something, but she was keeping her focus by a thin hair anyway, so that aspect of her wants and desires was being firmly held in check.
It had been many years since she had visited Discord’s silent tomb. After Luna had been banished to the moon, it had become too painful to stare at his laughing face, but the passage of a few decades of time had brought Celestia back to his isolated leafy cell. It was one of the few places in the castle complex where she had somebody safe to talk with. Well, talk to. She had spent many, many long hours in his silent company, unburdening her heart in a place where her little ponies could not find out the fragility of their monarch. If the god of chaos was actually still alive and cognizant in there, and going to free himself as Twilight Sparkle had predicted, Discord would emerge with enough material to write several tell-all books and go on an Equestrian tour to publicize them.
If only it were that easy.
Under her bright sun, the statue of Discord looked much as she remembered it, only the fresh scent of cut grass and the sight of scrubbed clean stone showed that somepony had made a last-minute cleaning ahead of Celestia’s visit. She came to a halt a respectful distance away from the statue’s plinth — otherwise, all she would be doing is looking up his nose — and regarded him with grim determination.
“He did not respond directly to me, Celly,” said Luna when no words seemed to be forthcoming. “Other than a few insects. I doubt that he has freed himself enough to do more than annoy us.”
“Oh, Little Loony,” sounded a deep voice as the shadows beneath the statue stretched, and Discord’s profile regarded the two alicorns. “I could do far more than annoy you. And as for you, Hot Stuff. Is that a hammer, or are you just glad to see me?” The shadow twisted into the silhouette of a draconequus reclining on a chaise lounge, which abruptly gained a large hammer planted right in the middle of it.
“Good to see you too,” wheezed Discord’s voice. The shadows flowed around the hammer, turning into a shadowy hospital bed with a heavily bandaged draconequus patient holding lillies on his chest. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
“Old friend?” Celestia gave the shadow a sharp look, which cut off when Luna nudged her and took a quick glance at the sun. “Speak, Discord,” she snapped.
“As if you could ever stop him,” muttered Luna.
“I’m hurt, Celestia. Really.” The shadows of a machine behind Discord gave out a flat beep and began to trace a straight line, then changed back into sharp peaks and valleys. “I thought you would be overjoyed to see me alive again.”
There was a very long silence.
“Fine, fine,” grumbled Discord’s shadow. “You take all the fun out of things. I’ll talk, you listen.”
The shadow convulsed around until it turned into a chalkboard, with white lines tracing across it.
Elements of Harmony
Friendship vs. Chaos
Rules:
Three falls, best two out of three wins
No interference by Royal busybodies, other than the cute one
Both Celestia and Luna stared at the shadowy board until Luna asked, “Why rules? You never bothered with rules before.”
“I’m far wiser now,” said Discord’s voice, coming from all around them. “You see, all of the other Discords from all of the other worlds have dropped by after they were freed. I’m the last one, and every single Discord has discovered something new about ourselves. I have to find something different than all of them! Do you know how much peer pressure that puts me under?”
“I have no idea,” said Luna flatly.
“See!” declared Discord. “Even Little Loony agrees with me. You really need to loosen up, Celly. Settle down. Have a few foals.” The grass around Celestia’s hooves poofed into a shadowy pillow with the silhouettes of a dozen cribs around her, each with their own mismatched Discord creature peeking out over the top.
“Discord!” Celestia stomped one hoof and all of the shadows vanished. “I will not tolerate your interference! I defeated you before—”
“We,” said Luna very quietly.
Celestia stopped cold, her neck held rigid and unwilling to look back where her sister was silently sitting. “We,” she eventually managed to force from between tense lips.
The shadowy chalkboard coalesced, with ‘busybodies’ underlined twice.
“You’re too easy,” purred Discord. “No, I’m not interested in playing with you anymore. I have new toys that practically play by themselves. I mean, I don’t even have to wind up your student before she goes off and does something that even I can’t anticipate. What I’m going to do is give her three totally unrelated challenges, all of which relate to your failures. After all, she overcame your worst failure—”
Luna bristled, but held her tongue.
“—so three lesser tasks should be well within her abilities. With her friends.” The last word fairly dripped with contempt.
“Do not underestimate friendship.” Luna stepped forward to stand directly beside her sister. “Were it not for the love of my sister, I would be lost. You said each of your other selves discovered something new about yourself. Can you tell me that none of them discovered friends?”
“They all did,” growled Discord’s voice from around them. “Each and every one of them. Do you know how annoying that is? Oh, we have to go, Discord. We have a tea party every Tuesday and we don’t want to be late! Bleah!”
Celestia snickered, earning her a disbelieving look by her sister. “Sorry,” she added. “It’s just I never thought we’d be talking about tea with Discord.”
“Or friendship,” added Luna. “When I was informed that Discord was returning by—” Luna flickered a look at Celestia and picked up the unspoken inference “—your student, I expected for us to fight again. Tea, even as bitter and bland as Celestia demands, would be much preferred.”
A third line appeared on the shadowy chalkboard
No tea
Celestia raised one eyebrow. “Changing the rules already?”
“I approve,” said Luna. “My sister’s student can overcome any of your challenges without tea. What she cannot overcome is your meddling.”
“Me?” Discord’s voice rose. “Meddle? My dear Little Loony. Do you want me to stop interfering with causality? And I do mean casualty.”
The loud ‘ching’ of a falling coin sounded, and a single bit landed on the statue’s stone plinth, rolled to the edge, then just hung there over a fall to the grass below.
“Would it be fair to my sister’s student and her challenges?” asked Luna before her sister could say a word. “No pony yet has died due to your machinations. If another had lost her life upon my return, we would be vexed night and day with guilt. You may not understand now, but upon my name I promise you. Cause but one soul to pass into the darkness and you shall regret it forever.”
“Ah, the voice of sanity from the one least likely to give it voice.” The bit vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. “Very well. For your sake, I shall hold this challenge until its proper time. But in return, I ask for one thing.” The voice in the shadows of the hedges chuckled, less ominous and more humorous than before. “Oh, the waiting shall be so much fun. So much chaos, and you won’t be able to blame me at all!”
Something in the shadows faded away, and the statue appeared to once again be nothing but another of the many scattered around the gardens, although with the massive warhammer still embedded in the ground in front of it, sticking haft-up out of the scrubby grass.
“Just give him one or two whacks,” muttered Luna. “I know it won’t do any good, but it will make me feel so much better.”
“Also,” agreed Celestia before turning and striding away, leaving the hammer behind and only breaking into a rapid gallop once they were out of immediate sight of the statue. Despite her speed, Luna stayed right on her flank as they bolted into the castle, through the startled ponies in the museum wing, and only skidding to a halt at the Vault of Harmony.
“I thought the rules included no interference by Royal busybodies,” said Luna while panting for breath.
“I’m the cute one,” gasped Celestia before inserting her horn into the lock and muttering the pass phrase. Once the doors opened, she hustled forward and grabbed the storage box with the six padded chambers inside. “If Harmony favors us, the Elements of Harmony will let us use them on our little problem, and we’ll be good for another thousand years or so.”
Celestia flung open the chest’s lid and both alicorns stared at the contents. Five gems in small necklaces suitable for small ponies stared back, along with a pinkish-colored gem atop a golden tiara.
Or more correctly, a golden-colored tiara. Made of plastic, and bearing the words, “Authentic Element of Magic, Funland(llc)” just like all the rest of the necklaces.
“The First Rule,” breathed Celestia. Her baffled expression lightened with the briefest of happy grins, then the stoic look that Luna was so used to slipped back down over her face like a glass mask. “I’m afraid the Elements will not respond to us,” said Celestia in what sounded like a mournful tone, but concealed a note of pure mischief to anypony who knew her well.
Luna wanted nothing more than to pin her sister to the wall and shake her until she made sense, but that could have taken days. Still, it was the Royal Sisters against the world again, no matter what tricks of misdirection Celestia had picked up from her theatrical braggart of a student, and…
Oh.
“I fear you are correct, my sister,” intoned Luna in her most doleful voice. She touched the plastic Element of Honesty where it had become discolored from Sweetie Belle’s egg-hatching activity. “Nary a spark. We shall have to resolve our problems in a different fashion.”
“Agreed.” Celestia turned and closed the box around the faux Elements of Harmony, then closed up the Vault before setting off with a brisk stride. “First, of course, to the Royal Physician. Perhaps I was too swift to condemn our involuntary guest for my predicament.”
“Yes, quite possible,” said Luna, lagging behind until Celestia came to an abrupt halt and rounded on her.
“Hold on, Luna. You’re never up at this hour of the morning.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed despite her best efforts. “Don’t tell me you too are cycling.”
“No,” said Luna in a very small voice. She forced her hooves to start moving again, making Celestia follow for a change. “The explanation will wait until we meet with the chirurgeon.”
* * ✹ * *
Doctor Horsenpfeffer was a chatty pony this morning, greeting her royal guests without a single revealed clue that she suspected them of being patients too. She hustled them over to where Philomena had made a temporary nest in a bedpan, took a few moments of mutual admiration for the colorful peeping chick, and then stopped with a curious sniff.
“Oh,” said the doctor, which Luna was starting to think was the phrase of the day. “I see.” She moved over to the office door and locked it before coming back to the Royal Sisters, looking chagrined. “I’m sorry, Your Highnesses. Things have just been so chaotic lately with Philomena’s chick and that baby dragon and Cadence was up here again with her friend—”
“Tempest Shadow again?” Luna tried to restrain a scowl at the doctor’s brief nod, but Celestia breezed into the conversation with her usual grace.
“Doctor, please focus. My sister has something far more important bothering her than my discomfort. Luna?”
Confession was supposed to be good for the soul, and Luna did feel a little better after she let her worries out, about Discord, about her lingering guilt, and most of all, dancing carefully around the idea that some small portion of Nightmare Moon still lingered inside her. Doctor Horsenpfeffer followed along, nodding where she should and looking properly thoughtful, not even flinching at the idea of either a god of chaos out in the garden or a goddess of nightmares sitting in her oversized patient chairs.
“Alicorns,” she muttered at the end of Luna’s long dialogue. “I’m glad I only have three of you for patients,” Horsenpfeffer added nearly under her voice while tapping her forehoof against her chin.
With very little mane dye, the young physician could have been the spitting image of Twilight Sparkle at an older age, sans wings, of course. The sight comforted Luna for some reason, as if that shade of purple were a way the universe proclaimed “I’ve Got This” in a loud and unmistakable voice.
“Indeed.” Luna swallowed back a lump the size of a breakfast pineapple. “So, do you have some medical mechanism which might capture this maleficent essence infesting my being?”
It was a question that Luna had reason to regret asking in short order. The physician must have had a second career as some sort of torturer, because nopony in their right mind kept a chamber of sufficient size to contain a princess with reinforced bronze walls and a giant door that closed like a bank vault. There was a window, not for the unfortunate victim to peer out, but rather for the torturer to watch while adjusting various dials and buttons to inflict the correct amount of whatever pain or poison was being induced into the sealed chamber.
“No,” said Luna.
“It’s perfectly safe.” Doctor Horsenpfeffer scurried into the hollow interior in order to point out various fittings. “I made it large enough to hold Princess Cadence and a surgical team in case she has a magical surge during labor. The sensors that I built into it can pick up even the slightest disruption in your magic field, and various magical dampers and buffers should be able to contain even the most powerful alicorn’s magic.”
“Or Nightmare Moon,” said Luna, who had set her hooves into the carpet with enough force that the flooring was up to her ankles.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” The doctor scurried back out of the infernal chamber and checked some of the dials. “I never did get a reading of her power, but I presume it would be somewhere near yours, Princess Luna. If you would step inside, I can get a few readings and set your mind at ease about—”
“No,” said Luna. She took several shallow breaths and regarded the bronze prison chamber. “Never. I would rather live through eternity with that beast breathing over my shoulder.”
“Now, now.” Celestia patted her sister on the shoulder in what should have been a reassuring fashion. “I’ll go first, to show you that there’s nothing to fear, just like I did when you got your vaccinations.”
“Those were mere needles,” whispered Luna. “That is a cage. I shall never be caged again.”
“Honestly, Luna.” Celestia began to walk forward into the chamber with her tail tucked directly against her rear. “If Doctor Horsenpfeffer says it is safe, you’ll be perfectly fine. Go ahead, doctor.”
The heavy door swung shut behind Celestia and the doctor began to confidently push buttons on the control panel.
Then there was a sizzling noise.
A bright flash of light.
And the room went pitch dark.
Luna hesitantly lit her horn and regarded the thin wisps of dark smoke leaking out from under the control panel, as well as the doctor’s new frizzled manedo. Doctor Horsenpfeffer coughed once, and began pulling off panels with her magic to inspect the circuitry under them.
“Just a minor surge, Your Highness. I’ll have the fuses replaced in a few minutes—”
The bronze door gave a twitch, but remained solidly closed.
“—and it looks like the door is just a tiny bit welded closed,” continued the doctor. “I’ve got a prybar around here somewhere. Don’t worry, it does this every time Princess Cadence gets checked. I really need to get larger fuses before her due date because it only has an occupancy limit of one alicorn, heh, heh...”
The doctor blanched, her periwinkle coat suddenly looking just as pale as her wide eyes. “Oh, my! Your Highness, I didn’t know! How long have you been… with foal?” The last words came out of the doctor in a low whisper that Celestia most certainly could not hear with the smoke still trickling out of the intercom speaker.
“My sister is not pregnant,” said Luna through gritted teeth. “She is providing a refuge for a small denizen of the sun until it can recover enough to be returned to its home. It is fairly harmless, as long as it has an alicorn to tend to it, because our natural magical capacity is high enough to contain the creature. Celestia is also in heat. Badly.”
“That’s…” The stunned doctor’s face shifted into an expression of pure curiosity before her professional ethics (and the sound of thumping from inside the chamber) restrained the questions obviously bubbling up behind those sharp blue eyes. “Let me get your sister out of the test chamber first.”
* * *
A few minutes later after Doctor Horsenpfeffer had pried the door open, Luna was not feeling one bit better about the concept of having her corporal being ‘scanned’ by the arcane device. She kept her hooves firmly planted and her neck hunched, oblivious to the plaintive entries about how safe the process was and how ‘science!’ would advance with a few minor tests. Finally, Celestia shooed the eager doctor out of the room and settled down uncomfortably on her overheated hind end in front of her jittery sister.
“Luna, if you do have a fragment of Nightmare Moon still in you, I have not seen its influence. All I see is my dear, sweet sister, who has always been hesitant to embrace what she does not understand.”
“Do not condescend to me, Celestia.” Luna swallowed back more biting words and settled for touching horns with her taller sister, who was even taller since Luna had her hooves planted so deeply into the room’s floor that there was a danger of penetrating to the next room below. “I shall not set one limb in that prison—” she swallowed again “—unless it can be proven safe by one of our kind.”
“Well, according to the doctor, Cadence seems to be shorting it out as much as Junior here,” said Celestia. “And the only other alicorn—” She cut off abruptly with a flicker of her eyes toward a shadowed corner of the room.
“We shall not burden young Twilight Sparkle with such a test,” said Luna firmly, regardless of the possibility of draconequus eavesdropping. “If I am put off by the device, she could easily react with less restraint.”
“Junior is being more of a problem than I expected,” mused Celestia, touching her barrel with the tip of one hoof. “It jumped when the doctor turned on her machine, but other than that, the stellar wisp has been very quiet.” She twisted, and ground her teeth briefly. “I can barely feel it in there over my screaming hormones.”
“Do you think it injured?” Luna peered at her sister, but could not tell anything different other than the way she looked more flushed than usual, and her swishy tail.
“No, I don’t—” Celestia’s thin-lipped grimace brightened into a blinding smile. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”
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So nice that Trixie has a new friend to play with.
Who is Mr. Smashy?
8816354
See Author's Note on the chapter. Celestia's favorite Mjölnir expy, from this story, which we will continue to poke at horizon until he finally does whatever it was he was going to do with it to make it right and proper for a fimfiction release.
Discord finally moved his piece. How Twilight and Trixie would respond to it?
8816354
Obviously, some blunt instrument used to beat on things. Sledgehammer, Warhammer, something of the sort
8816376
....the hammer? is That Mister Smashy?
8816411
Yes.
Picture of Celestia with a spiked mace, not a hammer, but I think it would also be called Mister Smashy.
derpicdn.net/img/2013/8/20/405268/medium.jpeg
Best fictional hammer I have come across was in the Boneyard series of graphic novels. It was dubbed “Careful Thought”.
8816423
Didn't know someone did a comic series for that story.
8816667
Just that scene, short and unfinished, but yeah it's pretty good.
8816354 8816376 8816393 8816411 8816423 8816597 8816622
Yeah, Horizon just *rocked* the November 2015 writeoff, and we're all still waiting for the publication. You can tell how 'Quality' that particular writeoff was, because my own On The Natural Rise and Fall of Celestial Bodies only placed 8th, and it's currently ranked 290th on Fimfiction. Horizon wins the award for best character intro/hook hooves down with *this* as a start.
Clover was approaching Queen Platinum's throne for his usual Sunday morning report when a boom split the air and the Great Hall's seven-thousand-pound iron door sailed past his shoulder.
"I am Imperatrix Celestia Invicta, Slayer of the Dragon Legions, Tamer of Tartarus," a voice thundered from the doorway as every pony in the room froze statue-still. "And alla you prancers better clear on out, because you're raising the sun too rutting early, and I've decided I'm gonna take over and do it myself."
And, of course, the introduction to Mr. Smashy.
"Who said I was here to fight you, Imperatrix?" Clover couldn't quite keep a smirk from spreading across his muzzle. "On behalf of my liege, for the right to rule the sun and moon, I challenge you to a drinking contest."
The alicorn's eyes lit up.
In a single fluid motion, she whipped a foreleg down on the handle of the warhammer, catapulting it into midair. A shimmering gold field enveloped it, sending it rocketing downward like a bolt of lightning. With a boom that made Clover flinch, the hammer landed between them, leaving a small crater in the hall's marble floor. Celestia lifted both forelegs, crossing them over the handle of the hammer, then set her muzzle atop her legs.
"You're on, Frumpy," she said.
And Luna has a spear called "Miss Sharp."
Is literally made out of stars.
Did Celestia forgot herself saying a few chapters earlier that holding the Wisp might make her fertile again?
8816878 Um, because scroll up, click, scroll up, click, scroll up, click can pick up a few extras? And love. Lots of love.
8816857 Fixed. Sheesh, people.
8816819 Hold onto that thought. Next chapter proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Baroness Milk has no idea what she is getting into, and Celestia is *not* pregnant. And there are only six chapters in this arc. Honest. Would I lie to you?
8816898
Do you prefer those sort of comments in message form?
Or not at all?
Wasn't my intention to annoy.
I hope Celestia and Luna both have a baby Apple in them. I can just see Big Mac staring at two alicorn foals and being told they're his children. He'd nod, give each foal a kiss, then quietly leave the room to go buck the Everfree Forest into submission until the world makes sense again.
Luna at the very least needs a foal and Celestia could clearly use one as well.
For good weapon names, Agatha Heterodyne deserves an honorary mention. One story has a oversized wrench named "Complaints Department" hanging in her business office. Another has a death ray named "Sweet Reason," to make highway bandits 'see reason.'
And this is just Samarkand's fan fiction. Cannon Girl Genius has a hand-cranked runcible gun that goes 'spork' when it fires.
And so the Discord contest begins! Plus a guarantee that Green Grass will be ok for now. I can't wait!
8816935 Amen!
3.bp.blogspot.com/-9A1kntj6Ick/UWLCnRZjq6I/AAAAAAAAH6I/2J0zkqRhwJo/s1600/motivator6399675ar0.jpg
8816907 Ahem. Don't forget princips prima nocte, or droit de seigneuse.
8816902 I love all my commenters and their comments.
This part strongly reminded me of this old video:
Nice chapter, good work.
8816935
i.pinimg.com/originals/16/a8/a6/16a8a6a97a24ff663adf65b7b23bbbd0.jpg
Indeed.
nice
Mr. Smashy is best Warhammer. Number 1 of 40,000.
I read somewhere that 'Mr. Smashy' is the literal translation of 'Mjolnir'.
So, why isn't Luna completely cleansed of Nightmare Moon?
8823789 Keep reading....
8817066 I did a story based on that once.
Mr. Smashy: a good name for a hammer used for smashing stuff.
Celestia your aren't the cute one Twilight Sparkle is the cute one.