4: Snowball
Celestia knocked on the gates of Yakyakistan, her winter coat flowing in the winds as she waited for a response. Before she could knock again on those heavy doors, it was opened wide enough for a head to peek through. “Hello,” she said with a smile, “May I come in?”
The Yak who opened the door blinked. “Pony Princess? Why you here?”
“Can you or someone tell Prince Rutherford that I like to visit him please?”
“Why?”
Her smile widened a little. “I wanted a favor to ask of him.”
The yak told Celestia to wait while he goes off to tell the prince about it. A few minutes later, horns were heard as the grand, giant gates were opened to let her in. Of course, a few of her Solar Guards did flank her as they follow her into the wintery city-state of huts and curious yaks that were puzzled why a well-known alicorn was here. The yak that opened the gate leads her through pass huts until they came to the biggest one where the prince of the Yaks was in. Pass a curtain, and there by a fire in the center of the hut was Rutherford.
“Sun Pony?” He asked as he got up. “This unexpected. Why is Sun Pony in Yakyakistan?”
“Good morning to you, Prince Rutherford.” Celestia nodded to him. “I know this is last minute, but I was hoping if I could ask you a favor given the circumstances, I’m in.”
He nodded. “There rumors saying Princess of Sun dying. This be a joke, right?”
“Afraid not.” Celestia shook her head. “I have only less than a week to live. But I wanted to come by today to ask if you would do me a big favor.”
“What that be?”
“Hoofwrestle with me.”
Rutherford paused as he processed what was said. He reached up to his cloven hoof to part some of the hair that dangled in front of his eyes. “What?”
“It’s something that I’ve never really been able to do.” She explained. “Well, one of two things I wanted to ask you, really. You see, I have seen this activity among my guards for centuries in which I actually admired their sense of competition behind it. Of course, the problem was that I can’t do it with my guards as partly they won’t ever agree to it and partly because I think it might be too easy for me to win if I did. So, I’m here to ask if you would do it with me. After all, Yaks are known for their strength and I was hoping if you would indulge me with such an activity.”
There was a chuckle that escaped the Yak prince’s mouth. “Pony Princess, hoofwrestle me? Seem unfair for Yak to do to Sun Pony to be at disadvantage.”
Celestia got up to his face. “Oh? And what does that supposed to mean?”
Rutherford backed up. “Yak mean… that wouldn’t seem fair. Yak may overpower pony. Perhaps Yak could get someone just as-”
“What’s the matter?” Celestia said with a sly smile. “Afraid that I might be able to beat you?”
The Prince frowned. “Oh, Sun Pony did not.”
“Sun Pony did. I challenge you to a hoofwrestle, in public in the center of Yakyakistan.”
A confident smile came across Rutherford’s face. “Very well. Don’t say yak didn’t warn pony.”
Soon enough, a sturdy table was called for in the center of the city in which the Prince had his subjects gather around. Although there was a sense of confidences from both Rutherford and the more aggressive males in the crowd, Celestia herself didn’t seem fazed at all as she calmly took a seat right across from the Prince, putting her right foreleg on the table.
“Yak apologizes for humiliating Pony Princess,” Rutherford said as he put his right hoof on the table. “Yak did try to warn Sun Pony.”
“On the contrary,” Celestia retorted, “I think it should be you to be concerned over.”
A chorus of “Ooh!” was heard all around as the two of them raided themselves by grabbing the other’s hoof and putting their elbow on the table. One of the Yaks, acting as a referee placed his hooves on both of theirs. “One round only.” He said. “Whoever puts hoof under own, wins.” Rutherford snorted but had a confident grin while Celestia, a simple smirk. “Ready… Hoofwrestle now!”
Immediately, shouts from the crowd cheered for their Prince as he used his strength into his arm. His muscles bulged, his arm shook, and he groaned as he tried to put his all. As for Celestia, however, she stared at her solid hoof still stiffly still. “Is something supposed to happen?”
“C-C’mon…” As much as the Yak tried to push that foreleg into submission, it wouldn’t budge. It was as if he was trying to move a mountain in which it stubbornly refused to move. He was putting every ounce of strength he could, but the look on Celestia’s face was mild-confusion. He was breaking a sweat the more he tries to push it, but she didn’t seem to be relaxed with her grip. His hindlegs tried to bring more support and leverage, but even then the foreleg refused to budge.
“You know the funny thing is?” Celestia asked. “I’m hardly doing anything. So… give up?”
“Never!”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay…” Then before anyone knew it, she brought her foreleg down, breaking the table and flipping Rutherford over and creating a creator in the ground. In that stunned silence, Celestia craned her neck over the newly formed hole she created. “Too much?”
At first, Rutherford didn’t respond, and Celestia was about if he was alright until he began to crawl out of the crater. Once he was able to get to the rim, he parted his hair, giving the princess an angry glare. “Sun Pony cheated.”
“What?” Celestia asked as innocently as she could make it sound. “I didn’t do anything besides beating you.”
The Yak prince snorted. “No pony that strong. Pony must use magic. Pony cheated.”
“Or maybe you just won’t admit defeat.”
Within that stunned silence, Rutherford grabbed a hoofful of snow and flung it at Celestia. Gasps were heard as the loose snow landed in her face, even the Sun Princess flinched at this sudden outburst. But with the tip of her wing, she slowly brushed it off of her, before flinging it back at Rutherford’s face.
“Well, if you won’t admit defeat,” Celestia said with a smirk, “then you sir, have left me with no other choice.”
He shook the snow off of him. “What that?”
Celestia suddenly opened her wings in which she flew straight up in the air, took in a deep breath and let out her Canterlot voice:
“SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!”
Next thing the Yaks of Yakyakistan knew, from every direction, snowballs fell from the sky like a freak blizzard. However, at the exact same time, they realize that they were under siege. Thus, a war between Celestia’s forces and the Yaks have begun.
What the Yaks didn’t know that the very moment Celestia had arrived at the doors of the city-state, legions of the Equestrian military (and some of the Crystal Guards) in winter camouflage were not only making their ammunitions of snowballs behind their carefully placed snow forts, but the catapults were being loaded, the pegasi were given bags to be dropped when they make their carpet run, slingshots waited for their signal, and all eyes and ears were waiting for the Sun Princess to begin the siege. Once Celestia had shouted the signal did they began to rain down on Yakyakistan.
“Welp, there goes decades of peace treaties we tried to solidify.” Shining Armor remarked as he watched the snowballs descend through his binoculars. From where he was, he was overlooking from the mountains that overshadowed the city-state below. His attention wasn’t on what was going on from the Yaks, but rather on Princess Celestia that was flying up to join him.
“Well, that was easy,” she commented, “all I had to do was beat Prince Rutherford in a hoofwrestle contest in front of everyone, have a few flimsy insults in the mix before tossing snow in my face. It’s rather amazing how easy it is to start a war.”
“Yeah…” Shining put down his binoculars. “Remind me again why you’re doing this? I mean, we just barely got the Yaks to open up in international relationships and now you’re doing this?”
“Oh, they’ll be fine. This is a snowball fight, after all. Look around you, not one of ours is using any real weapons except for packed snow. And- oh! Look! They’re fighting back now. Good, it’s just begun. Now what was I saying…? Yes, this whole fight is harmless. There’s no causalities to be have when we’re engaged in one that requires nopony dying.”
“But why?”
She sighed. “For two reasons, really. First is to be involved in a snowball fight as I never really get the chance to do one of those in my life time, if you can believe it. And the second, I want to have a harmless war that is short, painless, and fun to be involved in before I die.”
Shining blinked. “You have a very peculiar bucket list.”
“May I see your binoculars?” After being handed over, she peered into them and hummed. “Looks like they’re getting out their own catapults as well… Oh good, they’re putting in snowballs as well.” Setting the binoculars aside, she then asked for a slingshot from Shining and told him to send in the pegasi.
And so, the battle picked up the pace as the pegasi carried up bags of snow up in the air to let them be dropped upon the huts, and the Yaks were fighting back. Some of the Yaks strapped rubber to pairs of horns in order to act as lines of living slingshots to fire even slightly bigger snowballs at the Ponies. While both sides were getting hit by the flying snow, they still kept at trying to subdue the other.
Despite the battle, Shining couldn’t help but notice how much Celestia was enjoying herself. Between loading up snowballs into her slingshot and shouting, “Yes! I got one!” he couldn’t help but think how much enjoyment she was having in this childish version of war. However, as he turned his attention towards the battle, he noticed that neither side has gained any traction over the other.
“C’mon Cade,” he muttered, “where are you?”
While each side tried to cover the other in snow by their catapults, Shining caught a glint of light coming up from the pass. There entering into the valley was the hope their side was waiting for – the crystal tanks. Poking her head out from one of them was his wife Cadence, and his daughter hugging her neck.
“Shining,” Celestia inquired, “What is Flurry Heart doing here?”
“Don’t you know? Sunburst is sick and we couldn’t find a foalsitter at the very last minute before you declared a snowball war.”
The Sun Princess blinked. “Fair enough. So what are they going to do?”
“Just watch.” He said as he raised his binoculars again. On the battlefield, the tanks had drifted past the barrage of snowballs, pressing forward until it got up to only a couple of yards from the walls of Yakyakistan. Then, out from their shiny cannons, a stream of snow leap onto the very bottom of the wall. At first, Celestia was confused at this until she realized that they were piling more snow onto the side of the walls.
“Oh that’s clever,” Celestia commented after she fired a snowball, “they’re building a ramp.”
Shining nodded. “It’s always wise to use the elements of your surroundings to your advantage.”
“Fair enough, although I didn’t know that Cadence could drive a tank.”
“You’d be surprised how boring the Crystal Empire can get at times.” He replied before taking up a slingshot and begun to fire snowballs too. “I mean, between the paperwork and making sure our subjects don’t set the kingdom on fire, you just gotta have a hobby.”
“That reminds me,” Celestia said as she and Shining ducked from a storm of snowballs that were thrown right back at them, “will the three of you be coming to the funeral on Monday?”
“You’re asking me now?” Shining questioned, “When we’re getting bombarded?”
“Why not? I’m gonna be dead in five days.”
“Okay, how are you this calm?” The prince questioned as he peeked over after the barrage had ceased, given enough time for the both of them to retaliate. “I mean, you know you don’t have much time, and yet you’re taking it as if it’s nothing.”
Before Celestia could reply, she saw the Yaks were now dumping cauldrons of boiling water over the walls in hopes to slow the snow ramp down. “I never said that it isn’t a big deal. Because I know that it is. However, given the time I have left, I figured that before I go, I want to spend my remaining days with those that I care for the most. And doing those fun things with my family and friends when I still can.”
“Yeah, but why are you calm?”
“Because if you know what’s going to happen,” she answered as she reloaded and fired another snowball, “why fear it?”
So for several hours, the battle between the Ponies and the Yaks raged on. While the yaks did all, they could to not only combat the surrounding forces by their catapults, slings and dumping hot water upon the piling snow ramp, they quickly found that as soon as it was dumped, the water would freeze, thereby solidifying the snow ramp. The Crystal Ponies that were in control of the tank decided to instead of piling snow from several ends, they’ve decided to focus on one part of the wall to project their stream of frost upon. From above, the pegasi continued to bombard the Yaks with snow, although there were several times in which they would get hit and fall outside its walls. Meanwhile, a few units tried to make a charge towards the fortress city, but as they couldn’t climb the walls, each attempt failed as they would get beaten with snowballs that were the size of boulders.
However, a breakthrough came when the takes that spew snow towards a single spot of the wall had finally managed to pile up snow high enough that it went over the wall. This was the opportunity that the Equestrian forces needed as Shining gave the order for all of them to charge towards the ramp before he and Celestia joined in the swarm that gallops straight towards the fortress. With the Solar Princess giving out a battle cry of, “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU THROW SNOW IN MY FACE!!!”
The Yaks were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of ponies that poured into Yakyakistan like a living flood. Snowballs had been thrown in their warrior’s faces before they could smash them. The front gates were unlocked and pushed wide open for the rest of the Equestrian forces to fill in space. And quickly they’ve captured Prince Rutherford, even though he tried to stand his ground by throwing snowballs, even he too was overwhelmed.
At last, by near sundown, Celestia, Shining, Cadence with Flurry came into the city in triumph as the soldiers around cheered their victory. The Yaks meanwhile were in despair as this was the first time in their proud history that they have been defeated and humiliated in such a way. In the center of Yakyakistan, Rutherford was brought out before the victors.
“How has this happened?” The Yak Prince asked in disbelief.
“I asked if you’ll accept defeat in that hoofwrestling match before you rudely tossed snow in my face,” Celestia answered. “So, now that we’ve managed to win a war with you in a day, there’s only one thing left to do.”
The space became quiet as everyone from Yaks to Ponies watched to see what Celestia was going to do. She calmly walked up to the prince, as Rutherford tried to put on a brave face for whatever fate was about to come. However, she suddenly stopped and offered up a hoof. “Good game.” She said as she took his cloven hoof and shook it.
Rutherford blinked. “What?”
“That was hooves down the most epic snowball fight that I’ve ever been a part of. You and your Yaks fought well, but I think you guys need some practice though.”
“What?”
“I mean really, thank you for giving me for doing something so fun! Do you think we could make a tradition out of this for future generations to have this kind of snowball fights? Perhaps I could get Luna doing this again next year.”
“What?”
“Again, thank you so much for this!” Celestia grinned as she turned around. “C’mon everyone, let’s go have some hot chocolate at the Crystal Empire!”
The ponies cheered as they all rushed out of the front gates with Celestia leading the way, leaving a humiliated if a not confused population of Yaks behind. Even after all the ponies had gone and out of the valley, not one said a word. All of them waited on the Prince to hear what he had to say about this. However, he was just as stunned as the rest of them. He expected to be executed, his kingdom being taken over, his subjects enslaved or have their huts pillaged.
However, Prince Rutherford did say something after the sun had set. Something that would no doubt go straight into the history books of Yakyakistan.
“What actual buck just happened?”
“So how was Yakyakistan?” Luna asked while sipping on her hot chocolate. Her older sister had returned to Canterlot late at night, but judging the giddiness on her face, it was almost unnecessary to ask her that question.
“You should have been there!” Celestia beamed, “Snowballs were flying everywhere, and the Yaks had catapulted to toss boulder size snow at us. But when Cadence came in with those tanks, it made it so much easier to get into the city and flood in with our troops until they’ve surrendered.” She finished by flopping onto the bed. “All in all, it was a good day.”
“Don’t you think the Yaks are going to be a little upset that you’ve essentially invaded their kingdom and humiliated them?”
“That’s why we have Blueblood, he’ll sort it out. Plus, it would make his job easier to calm them once I’m passed away.”
“Still, I’m glad you had fun,” Luna said as she nuzzled her sister. “So what are you planning on doing tomorrow?”
Before she could answer, there was a knock on the door. Luna used her magic to open the door in which Dr. Orange Juice there. “Pardon the intrusion, Your Majesties,” he bowed to them, “But could I speak to Princess Luna for a minute?”
After excusing herself for a moment, Luna stepped outside to follow the doctor into a room that was several doors down from her sister’s chambers. After walking into a broom closet and putting a sound proofing spell, Luna turned to the doctor who was glaring up at her.
“How long do you want to keep this practical joke up?”
“Only until Monday morning.”
“But don’t you think that maybe this is starting to go a little too far?”
Luna blinked. “What are you referring to?”
“Gee, I don’t know, having her spilling her personal secrets on public radio and declared war on the Yaks for a day (which I may add might endanger whatever international integrity the country so fragilely has) that this joke of yours is starting to become incredibly cruel. Even for you! That you made me lie to her to make her think she’s dying so she’s off doing these crazy things, I mean… have you no shame?”
The night princess frowned. “Doctor, I think you’re overlooking one, particular thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Good doctor, if I played this joke on anyone else, then yes, you have every right to call it cruel to make them think that they’re about to die. Even for me, if I found out that anyone else plays that same joke on anyone else except for my sister, even I would be the first to call them out on something so cruel. However, you sir, are overlooking one, important, fact…” She leaned forward. “She can’t die.”
The doctor tilted his head. “How does that make it any better?”
“My point is that in any other circumstance, if this joke was done to someone that was mortal, then, of course, it would be incredibly cruel of me to do this prank. But when you consider that my sister is immortal, who is convinced that she isn’t… it’s hilarious in what she does. Besides, I think it’s good for her too.”
The doctor’s jaw dropped to the floor. “How is any of this good?”
“Because in all the centuries that we’ve been living, neither one of us truly lived. For Celly, it's worst as she’s a slave to routine and expectation. Everything is planned out for her from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to bed. And in-between, she has to put a façade to convince the whole world that everything is fine when I know, deep down, she wants nothing more than to be free of all that. And even if it’s for about a week, we’ve just given that precious freedom to her. But for me, I just wanna see what she does with it.”
“You do know that she might explode at you when she finds out, right? She might end up killing you.”
Luna deadpanned, “You do realize that I can’t die either, right? And before you say that she’s gonna banish me to the sun, don’t worry, that’s already covered.”
“What do you mean?”
“She signed a law the day after I returned to the Moon.” She smirked. “It states that it’s now illegal for anyone to be banished to any celestial body which includes the sun, moon, or the other planets in the heavens. So, if she does so, she’ll be breaking her own law. Of course, I know I’m gonna get punished for it. At least I won’t be leaving the planet anytime soon.”
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Well, at least Luna has her bases covered.
She's right. This is a cruel but great joke. Though I wonder what everyone one else on the planet will think afterwards.
Oh, Luna how nayvy of you. Even if she couldn't banish you in the other planet above the sky, that doesn't mean she can turn you in a stone or banish you in a helm inside of the planet, like your dream helm forever.
Planets .. though now my headcanon is Celestia included that misspelling in the law, so Luna can then be banished to a random asteroid .. though not a random geranium or other plant.
Mare's got a point. Though I have a feeling Celestia will start turning into a blubbering mess sooner or later and then Luna will just drop the joke entirely.
9292656
Black Holes aren't Celestial bodies so I found the loophole... :3
I wish I was there during that snowball fight
This story is so crazy and I love it.
question is, when Celestia finds out, is it going to be an anger then sisterly love reaction, or anger and I break my own law...?
overshadowed
is
Celly
I question the true immortal status. Not ageing sure. But un-killable. I doubt it.
I think that this is actually a great lesson for all of us
You can’t speak parentheses. While this story is great, that’s one of my biggest pet peeves in FiMFic stories on here.
Same.
10522805
a war happened a SNOW war (i read only half since nothing made sense like TANKS???? WHAT????)