• Published 24th Mar 2017
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The Perilous Gestation of Swans - kudzuhaiku



Princess Celestia struggles to be the princess that Equestria believes her to be.

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Chapter 33

Grinning, Gosling was in the mood to ‘seize the day.’ Yes, seizing the day and squeezing the daylights out of her sounded like a splendid idea. He strutted, thinking about how his wings would soon be restored, and today, for some reason, he was just full of vigour. The morning report had been stimulating, he had caught Luna just before she had gone to bed to say a few kind words to her, and now he was about to investigate reports that there was a nervous white alicorn loose in the castle.

Strolling through the hallway with his assistants trailing on either side of him, Gosling threw back his head and started to sing: “Straight outta Hooflyn, crazy motherplucker named Go-Sling… from the gang called Pegasi With Attitudes. When I'm called off, I go and caw off, kick some plot and bodies are hauled off. You too, colt, if ya fronk with me, the police are gonna hafta come and get me—” When he heard a guard sniggering, Gosling paused, smiled until his teeth were showing, and waggled his ears.

“Keeping it real,” he shouted as he threw open the door to Celestia’s preparation room. “I have arrived. Everypony can bask in my glory!”

Raven growled down deep in her throat, not in the mood for shenanigans, Celestia began tittering while covering her mouth with her wing, and Cadance facehoofed hard enough to make a curious sound. Flicking his tail, Gosling pranced just to give Celestia—and everypony else—something to look at.

“I heard there was a nervous good-lookin’ mare.” He approached the throne tossing his head from side to side and walked with an exaggerated high step. “I understand she needs some pep in her step because she has to give a speech in front of a bunch of stodgy parents.”

“Have you come to rescue me, my beloved cockerel?” Celestia asked as she tried to contain her giggles. “I heard you singing before you entered. Is that what passes for music in the inner-city?”

Angling his head back, Gosling puffed out his barrel and his neck and was pleased when he saw a faint blush creeping up Celestia’s neck. “I’ve come to inspire you, Sunshine.”

“Something is different about you this day, Gosling.” Celestia’s regal eyebrow arched as the creeping pink overtook her face. Nostrils flaring, she tittered for a time and the tip of her orange tongue could be seen peeking out from between her lips.

Beans stepped forward, bowed his head, cleared his throat, and then said, “Marm, he drank some of Night Marm’s coffee—”

“Quick, Raven, we’ll need an antidote!” Celestia’s joke failed to impress and Raven stood scowling while shaking her head from side to side.

“I’m having second thoughts—”

“This was your idea, Raven.”

Raven clucked her tongue to get Gosling’s attention, and focused her steady stare upon him. “Gosling, Celestia is a little… emotional right now and has a terrible case of the jitters. She is about to give a speech in front of about two thousand or so ponies in the school auditorium”—Raven paused while Celestia let out a startled-sounding whinny and looked Gosling right in the eye—“and I need you to do that thing you do… you know… that thing you do that leaves a pony happy. It works on Luna and now I need you to do it for Celestia, so she can be at her best when she gives her speech to all those ponies.”

“That thing I do?” Gosling asked and just as he was about to continue, Raven cut him off.

“Don’t be coy, this is a serious matter. You have an observed talent for making ponies happy. That is your talent, or it seems to be, though there is still some debate on that issue. I for one, am convinced of your ability due to my own observations. Now, Gosling, get with the happy making so I can pull Celestia up to that podium and she can give her speech to all of the concerned parents of the foals who attend her school. Chop chop!”

“This is like trying to pee while somepony is watching,” Gosling remarked as a warm tingle tiptoed up the vertebrae of his neck.

Chortling, Celestia made a broad, sweeping gesture with her wing. “Oh, you don’t have a problem with that.”

Descending from her rightful place at Celestia’s side, Raven approached Gosling with a stern, hopeful expression upon her face, and her eyes blazed with a great intensity behind her glasses. “Prince Gosling, I need you to do your job. Right now, you are being tapped as a strategic resource. You have a unique, exploitable talent that is beneficial to the Crown. You were summoned with a purpose. Do what you do best. I am only asking you to be you. How hard could that be?”

“Well, when you put all this pressure on me like this—”

“Oh bother!” Raven rolled her eyes, stomped her hoof, and then retreated, perhaps hoping that giving Gosling some room might help. “Just you be you and do that thing you do!”

Shuffling from side to side, Gosling looked up at Celestia sitting on her throne and tried to look past the alabaster mask for signs of trouble. “Sunshine, are you having a rough time?”

“Yes,” she confessed without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m skittish and anxious… more so than usual. I feel bloated, my stomach hurts, and I’m having a much harder time managing my feelings about being in front of a crowd. Twilight is going to be out in that crowd, worshipping me and adoring me, hanging on my every word, and this speech is going to be about heroes… about her… and all of this has left me far more emotional than I thought it would and I spent all of this morning thinking about all of the many accomplishments of Twilight Sparkle, and I worry that I won’t have enough good things to say, or enough meaningful things to say, or that my words might sound insincere, or come off as base flattery, or—” Celestia sucked in a deep breath and then let everything out as a squeak.

Gosling—who was wearing his charcoal black and labial pink sweater made for him by Luna—did his best to look dignified, calm, cool, and composed. Silent though he was, he had not lost any of his good mood or swagger, he was just withholding it for now while he tried to figure out the best approach to this problem. He glanced over at Cadance only to find that she was staring at him and her eyes kept darting over to Celestia in a silent plea to please do something. Seeing the look on Cadance’s face said more than Raven ever could about the seriousness of this situation.

Celestia had more than the jitters… she was having some kind of mare moment.

What sort of mare moment remained to be seen. Introversion, pregnancy, emotion, having an off day, or maybe her spirits were lower than she was letting on and her current smile was a sham. Maybe this event had come at such a time where Celestia needed a day off. And Celestia did need a day off. Full time teacher, full time school administrator, full time princess, full time guardian of the astral realms, full time defender of threats that Equestria could barely conceive, and chief diviner, one of the chosen, precious few that could peer into the mists of the future to get something of an idea of what was coming.

She was also his teacher, his lover, and his wife; though he was uncertain where these priorities fell, because she mixed love and lessons so interchangeably that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other picked up. Gosling was starting to believe that Celestia was incapable of separating the two, and love in some form crept into every lesson she taught. This was true for Cadance, true for Twilight, and it held true in his own experiences and exchanges with her. Of course, for Cadance and Twilight, it was a different sort of love, though with Cadance, she had done an exceptional job because Cadance had become the Princess of Love.

He sighed—a breathy sound—causing every ear in the room to twitch and Gosling realised that everypony was waiting for him to say something, say anything. Somehow, he was supposed to fix this. Celestia was looking at him funny, and he noticed that her crown was somewhat crooked. Unable to recall if he had ever seen her crown crooked before, he thought about what this might mean. An ominous portent? A bit of neglect?

“When all of this is over,” Gosling began and he said each word with as much eloquence as he could muster, “you and I will retreat to where the world cannot reach us and I shall seize the day.” For good measure, he waggled his eyebrows.

“Oh, do go on,” Celestia replied as she leaned forwards with a mild look of amused interest upon her face.

Gosling knew that he was going to have to step up his game. Licking his lips, he took a moment to collect his charisma and then in a smoldering voice he spoke: “Our love will be a rare summer’s day in winter, a day of warmth and light. You will be the summer sun rising up above me, and I shall be the cold ground beneath you, dependent upon you to warm me and give me life.”

When Celestia’s eyebrow raised, Gosling swallowed and knew that he’d have to try harder.

“Our love will be a summer’s race through the verdant lands, hot, sweaty, and breathless. It shall be a reckless romp”—a quick assessment revealed that Cadance was nodding, Raven was rolling her eyes, and Celestia, the target of his charms, was hanging on his every word—“through many splendid peaks and valleys.”

Raven, looking disgusted, began to mutter, “Metaphors and analogies, very good, Gosling. With luck, you’ll pass secondary school composition for your strained sophomoric efforts.”

“Go forth into the savage lands, face the crowds, and return to me my love, so that I might worship you and adore you,” Gosling continued, undaunted. Dropping his voice down an octave or two, he put on his best saucy smirk and threw the full force of his charisma into his words. “Come back to me successful, having swayed the hearts and minds of many, and I will be your noble steed… a thoroughbred destined to be saddled, to be ridden hard—”

“Gosling…” Celestia bit her lip and the corner of her eye began twitching.

“—and if I am to be your noble steed, you… you will be my crotch jockey—”

“YOUR WHAT?” both Celestia and Cadance said together in unison.

“My noble crotch jockey,” he repeated, undaunted. “And you shall ride me from horizon to horizon as we explore the lands that are our love.”

With a terrific, whooping honk that filled the throne room, Celestia exploded and then began laughing so hard that she fell from her throne. After a moment, she choked, coughed, sputtered, and still, she struggled to draw enough air to keep laughing, unable to stop herself. The entirety of her body turned pink, first a light shade that suggested the dawn, then more of a cotton candy pink, then a vibrant shade, until at last she rivaled the labial pink of Gosling’s sweater. Whooping and honking, she rolled over onto her back and Raven, who did not look amused, had to scramble to get out of the way.

“We’ve got a code pink,” Raven deadpanned, “and the speech begins in eleven minutes.”

“A crotch jockey?” Cadance, looking both confused and amused, shook her head. “That is so incredibly foalish that I have no idea what to say. Good job, Gosling, you’ve outdone yourself and your maturity levels have hit an all new low. Congratulations. Of all of the words you could contribute to the Equestrian lexicon, you will be remembered for ‘crotch jockey.’ Auntie will see to that, no doubt.”

“I do my best.” There was a muffled whump as Celestia rolled down the first carpet covered step and Gosling had to sidestep her unfurled wings, which flapped from Celestia’s explosive mirth. For all intents and purposes, Celestia appeared to be drunk with laughter, her eyes were red, and she was crying. It was a job well done, and Gosling felt more than a little pride.

Lowering his head down, he darted in, gave the big white mare a quick peck on the cheek, and then scooted away before he was clubbed by a flailing limb. As he made good on his escape, she looked up at him with such an intense look of love in her eyes that it took his breath away.

Now, she began rolling in earnest, as if the carpet around her throne was sweet summer’s grass. Kicking her legs about, she rubbed her croup and her withers against the soft nap of the carpet. She snorted, an impressive sound capable of spooking a steam locomotive, and then began grunting as she really got into scratching her croup.

Raven, frustrated, shook her head hard enough to make her ears flap. “She’s acting like a—”

“A pony?” Gosling finished. “Raven, for you, sometimes I think Celestia is a component in your daily objective or a means to get things done. She gets tired of being a mouthpiece. A means to an end. She’s more than a portable oration device that gets dusted off and dragged out to important social functions. Princess Celestia… portable pony phonograph—”

“You’re right, Gosling,” Raven huffed and she took a moment to watch Celestia have a good roll on the floor. “It was the constant adherence to unchanging routine that contributed to her breakdown. You know what, Gosling, there has been a change in schedule.”

“There has?” Something about Raven’s demeanour worried him. Raven simply did not deviate from the schedule.

“You’re going to take Celestia away and see that she gets pampered. This is your assignment for the day. She needs a day of rest so that she can be at her best for the school gala tomorrow night.” Raven’s imperious tone was commanding and left no room for argument.

“What about her speech?” Cadance asked as she watched her aunt wriggle on the floor.

“Well,” Raven replied, “you just so happen to be a princess and a hero. I have Celestia’s index cards. You’ll have to wing it, Cadance.”

“I can do that.” Cadance’s muzzle now had a nervous smile plastered across it and her eyes glazed over with anxiety. “It’ll be fine. Just fine. Everything will be fine.”

“Good,” Raven replied, “we should be going. Now…”

Author's Note:

Updates should be a bit more regular soonish.