Chapter 17
Gosling was no stranger to hustle, but at the moment he was taking it to a ridiculous level so he could meet with Purple Party on schedule. No doubt, there was a lot to do and very little time to do it, because that was the natural order of things. Beans and Toast galloped along behind him, keeping up with his swift pace with no trouble at all on their part.
“Cor, that Prince Blueblood is a tosser,” Toast muttered while her hooves clattered against the marble tile floor. “What a right git.”
Unable to help himself, Gosling began to chortle. The twins belonged here in this place, and in time, he could see them becoming part of the family. The great big dysfunctional family that lived within this cuckoo’s nest known as Canterlot Castle. As the trio went in one direction, plenty of ponies were going in the other direction, and some of the passing guards saluted.
“I understand that you have a lot more royalty back home,” Gosling said to the twins, making an attempt to be conversational. “With no alicorns, there are only tribal monarchs.”
“Right,” was Beans’ soft reply. “All we do is bicker though, there is nothing but fighting and nothing ever gets done. None of the various royal families ever agree on anything and more and more they are relying on parliament to run the country.”
“Parliament is no better.” Toast’s voice was firm to the point of being a bit abrasive. “The earth pony parliament doesn’t want to talk to the pegasus pony parliament because they feel the pegasus ponies have been a bit too lax with the weather, and the pegasus ponies feel that the earth ponies are a bit too lazy and aren’t farming like they used to. Meanwhile, the unicorn parliament has turned our markets into an anarcho-capitalist nightmare and I fear we’re heading towards our own Mister Mariner incident back home on the isles.”
“Yeah.” Beans’ head bobbed up and down as he kept pace beside his sister. “You royals know how to get things done, which is why we want to stay here and become citizens.”
“You mean you don’t want to go home and fix everything that is wrong?” Gosling asked.
Toast snorted. “That’s an impossible task. I want results from my hard work. I’d rather stay here and work with royals that actually get things done. Prince Blueblood, he might be a tosser, but he’s a hard working tosser, and I’d be just as proud to be his assistant as I am proud to be yours.”
Thinking of everything that had been said, Gosling didn’t know how to respond.
Purple Party appeared to be a nervous wreck, and Gosling could tell after just one glance that the high strung unicorn hadn’t slept well. Guards shuffled around the room while various members of the castle staff entered and exited. In the center of the room was a massive map of Canterlot Castle, a magical map that displayed all manner of relevant data about all sorts of things.
There was a stopped up toilet in the barracks, for example, and a leaking shower in the north wing’s guest quarters. The pilot light on the trash incinerator that serviced the south wing had gone out. But none of this was as impressive as the sheer scope, scale, and size of the map, which left Gosling flabbergasted every time he viewed it.
“Sir,” Mister Party said with his ears held low, “there is a lot of work to do and we are a few weeks behind schedule. The castle needs to be decorated for the holidays. Some of the work has been done, but we are woefully behind schedule due to quite a number of circumstances beyond our control.”
“What’s the problem?” Gosling asked.
“Why, everything,” Mister Party replied.
“Well, start somewhere.” Gosling glanced at the map, a bell rang and there was another stopped up toilet, this time close to Blueblood’s study.
“Well, to begin with, there is the issue of actually decorating the castle, Prince Gosling. That’s an impossible task unto itself—”
“Over a thousand rooms,” Beans said in a soft voice, “sometimes even more, depending upon the current configuration. Over a hundred miles of hallway, but this can jump to well over two-hundred and fifty miles of hallway, again, given the configuration.”
Hearing this, Gosling let out a low whistle.
“Yes.” Mister Party gave Beans an appreciative nod. “We lack decorations—”
“Don’t they store decorations in some closet somewhere?” Gosling asked.
“Well, a few special trinkets,” Mister Party replied. “Most of the decorations are auctioned off after the holiday and the funds collected go to various charitable agencies, and all of the usual widows and orphans. Because of the budget crisis, we haven’t purchased much in the way of holiday decorations. I’ve had ponies hard at work trying to figure out how to decorate the castle with our available funds.”
“And no doubt, my unexpected request for the Winter Moon Festival messed things up.” Gosling began gnawing on his lip and he stared at the ginormous castle map.
“Sir, I wasn’t going to say anything,” Mister Party said in hushed tones.
While staring at the map, Gosling began to wonder, how was the Goose going to save Hearth’s Warming? The castle needed decoration, but funds were limited. They also needed more ponypower, so more work could be done in less time. It occurred to Gosling that he was going to need a holiday miracle to make this happen, and to get the Winter Moon Festival kicked off.
“Hang on, I’m either getting an idea or those scrambled eggs at breakfast are giving me gas!” Gosling blurted out, and it was Beans that began chortling while his sister gave him the sort of dirty look that only a disgusted sibling could give. “When I was a foal, my Ma and I made our own Hearth’s Warming decorations.”
“Sir, the castle staff are in short supply and time is short.” Purple Party narrowed his eyes and gave Gosling a calm, collected stare.
“Ah, but we have an untapped resource,” Gosling said to Purple Party with a crazed glaze in his eye. Reaching out one hoof, Gosling tapped the school wing of the castle, which made the map flicker. “We have all these foals, all these powerful little unicorns, and some of them are bound to be artsy-fartsy types. If we supply them with wagon loads of dried elbow macaroni and a ton of glitter, we’ll have our decorations. Even better, we’ll turn the little horn heads loose upon the castle so they can help the castle staff. We’ll sell the idea to Celestia as a hooves on experience.”
“Oh… oh my…” Mister Party gasped.
“And we’ll conscript the home-ec students as well, and those who take cooking classes, we’ll wrangle up anypony that might be remotely useful to our cause, and we’ll put them to work. Decorating, cooking, and preparing.” Gosling pulled his hoof away from the map and focused his gaze on Purple Party. “Now, I want to make it clear that I am in charge.”
“Sir, of course.” Mister Party nodded.
“So, if I do something crazy, I want to offer you some assurances that any consequences will fall upon my neck, and not yours. I’m not going to have you suffer for my goofball ideas.”
“Sir, goofball ideas?” Mister Party’s entire body quivered with dread, and the corner of his left eye had a frightful twitch to it.
“Hundreds of miles of hallway.” Gosling shook his head and let out a long, shrill whistle. “How much time is wasted just getting from one place to another?”
“Well, some of the unicorns on staff know how to wink to get from one place to another,” Mister Party replied.
“Yeah, but all these students and these other staff members, they’ll need a way to get from here to there as fast as possible.” Gosling returned his attention to the map and began to study it in earnest. “I think chariots will work—”
“Sir! Chariots?” Purple Party appeared as though he might faint. “Chariots… in… the… hallways?”
“Battlefield tactics.” Gosling’s eyes roamed over the map, looking for a strategic central staging area where he could send his conscripts out to do battle. “We need to drop our troops off, fresh and ready to go, with no fatigue from long marches.” Staring at the map, a plan began to form, and Gosling nodded his head.
“Oh… my…” With a loud gasp, Purple Party tumbled to the floor, his delicate sensibilities unable to take another word of Gosling’s plan, because he fainted.
Right away, Toast went to his side and began to look after him. Reaching into her saddlebag, she pulled out a towel—a big fluffy looking towel—rolled it up, and placed it beneath Mister Party’s head. Lifting her head, she gave Gosling a concerned look with one raised eyebrow.
“He’s out cold,” she reported, “and he clonked his gobbletyknock on the floor. He’s going to have quite a lump.” While Toast was speaking, several concerned maids came over to check on Mister Party. “When he recovers, he’s going to need a cuppa, so I reckon.”
“Right.” Gosling huffed the word out, then took a deep breath. “Let’s go and get Mister Party sorted out…”
Princess Cadance was giving him a strange look and Gosling wished that she wasn’t. He didn’t know why he was the target of the strange look, and to be honest, he didn’t want to know. Exhausted, Gosling just wanted a bit of a breather before lunch. Flurry Heart was yammering away to his mother, Sleet, and Moon Rose was having a quiet moment with her parents. Luna, awake during the day, was knitting in total silence, having said nothing to anypony in the room.
With a huff, he collapsed down upon a fainting couch and rested his head on the single arm. He had been all over the castle this morning, running to and fro. Without his wings, he was forced to walk everywhere he went, having to take the long way like some ground-bound schmuck. At least he was warm, and he was thankful for his soft, snuggly sweater.
It appeared as though Luna was hard at work on the second. Her tongue was sticking out and a look of supreme concentration could be seen on her face. Her ears angled out over her eyes, rigid, together, and her nostrils quivered with each click of her long, pointed needles. To say that Luna was focused would be an understatement.
Cadance’s eyes glanced over at Luna for a second, then shifted back to Gosling.
Closing his eyes, Gosling did his best to relax a little, knowing how important it was. In silence, he focused on his breathing, and the rigidness of his ears relaxed a little. Everything was fine. Other than a huge lump on his head, Purple Party was fine and was expected to recover. Beans and Toast were excellent helpers, and they were doing fine. He wasn’t in hot water with either of his wives, and that was fine.
“Nana Sleet, will Luna have foals?”
Suddenly, things were not fine, and Gosling opened his eyes as every muscle in his body tensed. The sound of knitting needles clacking together had ceased. Moon Rose’s soft whispers to her parents had gone silent. Cadance was snickering, and Gosling’s ears bounced with each one of her giggles. He heard his mother’s sharp inhale and felt the need to make his own.
“Where they come from?” Flurry asked before Sleet could answer the first question.
Panic was plain to see on Sleet’s face while she gave Cadance a pleading stare, but the cotton candy alicorn was too busy tittering to do anything to help. Gosling lifted his head off the arm of the fainting couch and looked at his mother. If Cadance didn’t step in, Sleet would spill the beans for certain, Gosling was positive of this.
Hazy Breeze whispered a few muffled words to Soprano Summers, but Gosling couldn’t make them out. His mother was taking deep, slow breaths, and Flurry stared at Sleet with wide, expectant eyes. Cadance meanwhile, had done nothing but giggle, and Luna had somehow resumed her knitting. No doubt, there would be a surplus of messed up stitches from this interruption.
“Flurry,” Sleet began, and then the stark white pegasus licked her lips with her vivid orange tongue.
“Foals are wrestling trophies,” Gosling blurted out. “When ponies who love each other very much have themselves a good wrestle, they both get a trophy they get to share.”
“How?” Flurry asked, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Uh…” Gosling sucked in a deep breath, and demanded that his brain keep going.
“Yes,” Cadance murmured, and a look of almost sadistic glee could be seen on her face. “How?”
“Special magic!” Gosling cried out and his voice cracked. “This is a special kind of wrestling that happens between ponies that love one another. Once they have a good wrestle, it sets off a special magic signal that goes and… uh… um…”
“Yes?” Cadance’s head tilted off to one side and the corners of her mouth almost reached to her ears.
“There’s a foal factory in Cloudsdale.” Gosling lifted his head a little more so he could nod. “Once they get a special magic signal, they make a brand new foal in the factory from leftover rainbows and stuff. It, uh, takes a while, but then the pegasus ponies from the postal department deliver the new wrestling trophy to the anxious parents.”
“Oh, neat.” Flurry blinked once and her ears waggled. “When’s lunch?”
Gasping, Gosling fell back, collapsing back down upon the fainting couch and going limp. Cadance’s laughter was almost hysterical, and he could hear his mother laughing too. The both of them were laughing fit to split and Gosling could feel himself sweating. Flurry’s innocence lived to see another day, thanks to his quick thinking.
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Hmmmmmmm, a little soapy water, and you could just slide wherever you wanted to go.
something tells me flurry may know already and is just messing with adults
8114172
Wax the hell out of the floors and give everypony socks.
That explanation at the end lol
8114209
With waxed floors and socks to help with sliding I'm sure a nice telekinetic shove could get somepony pretty far. Time pushes in different ways to take into account for corners and I'm sure you'll have some of them drifting thru the halls.
The absolute madman!
That's quite the clever solution, get the work done and make it endearing.
What Gosling forgot to mention is that the ponies who live in Cloudsdale don't get a delivery, they just pick up their trophy right at the factory. Convenient!
What? No cabbage patches? For shame, Gosling! For shame! A mother could just die!
Dear alicorns and their goddesslike posteriors....... Gosling is evil!!!!
Uncle Gossy, why do the mares get so chubby before they get the trophy and why not the stallions?
8114248
8114264 Who wants Flurry to ask this?
8114211
8114267
Also you can't defend her innoccence forever Gosling. She gonna have to learn soon enough.
Bureaucracy. BAAH <.<
WRESTLING TROPHIES.
BRILLIANT.
God DAMN it Kudzu, that's funny.
Do love that explanation wonder if someone is going to discuss it with Gosling later
8114172 8114209 might work for some things but sadly you have guards and the castle is a center of government.. Its like the White House, Capital Hill, Supreme Court, Pentagon along with a number of other government offices in the 1 building
8114338
Uh, sometimes, when wrestling, a stallion fights dirty because the mare is stronger. He does something bad, like bite her on the neck or tickles her a whole lot or he does something that makes her cry. If he does that, he has to give her a lot of chocolates to make up for it, and pamper her a whole lot.
I just woke up. My answer might be lousy. Derp.
8114695 He's gonna have to learn to stop fibbing to foals, he'll corner himself eventually. It never works with them.
8114695 Well it is the right kind of lousy XD
It makes more sense than eggs.
So, what we've learned is that the party planning pony did actually know something about the availability of party planning resources that he could command.
Gosling's idea to draft his wife's students to help is a good solution, though. I'm less certain about the chariot plan.
This isn't really that bad of an explanation for where foals come from. It's not inaccurate if you squint a little and take 'wrestling' and special magic as metaphors.
Well, up until this point that is, unless the metaphorical Cloudsdale is actually the mare and, uh, never mind.
Well, Gosling's answer isn't completely untrue.
Seriously though, Gos, next time something like this happens, just tell Flurry the complete, unvarnished truth. And make sure you stare Cadence in the eye the entire time. Oh, I have no doubt she won't be upset or anything that you told Flurry about the facts of life.
But I'm curious to see if your refusal to play her game gives her a conniption.
Wrestling trophies... thats a good one.
I wonder how damaging it is to simply remove the "magic of foalhood innocence" by providing straightforward answers.
you know, what with metaphorical magics being literal magics for equestrian ponies, makes me want to know what Kudzu's stance is on that aspect of his world.
Gosling is awesome. Chariots will definitely make the trips down the halls far more entertaining and quicker.
So Flurry's the WWE Belt, then?
8116151
D-beams are the signature spell of the Immortal Solars.
Can we address for a moment the 100-250 miles of hallways and configurations factoid?
I get that the castle is a bigger-on-the-inside deal, but really now.
There's probably no fat ponies working there.
Maybe there's whole enclave of office workers to be found somewhere in the tangle who've lost all contact with the outside for a decade.
Hell, the place could do with an internal transit system. Or perhaps there's one in place already, by linking different doors together in some stretch-dimensional ways.
Hmm. If the castle is breached by a hostile force, can it go into a defensive configuration and turn into a literal actively-shifting maze?
8116217
Pegasus ponies slip out of doorways and windows to fly from one place to the next and unicorns wink from one spot to another. Earth ponies follow the earth pony way.
Celestia and Luna actually take advantage of the long distance walk to cool off or collect their thoughts. Celestia believes the distance is a strategic reserve, as it gives ponies in power time to think about their actions before committing to them.
Everything works the way it does for a reason.
8116217
Yes, actually, this has already been planned. And if Celestia was feeling cruel and merciless, Celestia could, in theory, deactivate the extradimensional space with hostiles still inside the area.
There would be no remains, in such an event.
8116231
That's actually super-neat. Imagine trying to plan an assault where every map you get your hands (hooves?) on is automatically worthless, every objective is everywhere and nowhere at once, and any troops you bring can be reasonably assumed MIA as soon as they go around the corner.
"Hey you sass that hoopy Toast? There’s a frood who really knows where her towel is.”
8116255 so, Schrödinger's map, in essence, aye?
Dysfunctional in the best possible way, not like the Cardashians. I recall that proposal to allow the press into the castle to monitor the royal family to show how normal they are.
That map sounds ridiculously useful to the point where it seems impractical for any facility that could afford it to not have one.
Sounds like the basis for a popular book and beloved holiday special.
Oh god, the metaphors! I love them, so.
Once more Flurry serves her role as a tool to generate both cute and awkward hilarity. Again, she really doesn't seem like much of a character, but I still can't see a reason to complain.
Really, it's moments like these that truly make the story shine rather than the political commentary. Not saying you should stop, but I am pointing out my preferences.
8117193 Well sure it sounds great to have one everywhere, but it may not be so practical. It could be prohibitively expensive and/or complex, as just one example. Plus, what's to stop someone from making their own map of the Castle that could be used for nefarious purposes?
8117429
The map is alicorn level magic.
Need I say more?
8116976
Imagine assaulting a fortress that's built like a maze. A maze that, at any given point, can rearrange any part of itself you aren't actively watching.
Then realize this includes anything in the maze you are trying to find.
Then imagine this also includes the exits.
Then consider some parts of the maze, but you don't know which parts, can simply cease to exist at any moment. With you in them.
Now realize the futility of your endeavor and curl up to cry.
Kudz, how much fun do you have while making these chapters?
8117489
Noodle incident.
They're announced by a visit from the groaning ghosts then delivered 11 or so months later :p
Cerberus the Aardvark
He's dictating his memoirs & telling how to deal with a crisis and ends with
"....and you bang their head on the floor until they stop moving."
He says that the cabinet ministers insisted that he install deep pile carpeting.
This led to his First Great Crisis because the housemaid said that it was hard enough
to get blood off of marble but that she wouldn't even TRY to get bloodstains out of carpeting
"Cerberus noticed that it was easier to get cabinet officials than it was to get a maid
that would clean windows. The carpeting went"