She Did What?!
Celestia let out a content sigh as she levitated the final scroll to her right, signed, sealed, and ready for her proclamation. It landed like a planted flag on top of a mountain of other scrolls by her side, causing an ominous groan from the table under it despite its recently reinforced legs. She sighed, rubbing her well-used horn and slumped back into her chair, and stared out towards her sister's rising moon.
It had been a long and gruelling day. Tax reforms did not write themselves, despite what her sister kept insisting. They weren’t allowed to just shout out constitutional changes from their beds on a whim like grandfather had done, whenever he was too tired to walk down to the streets and shout them at terrified passers-by.
Times had changed and so too did government, if it was to stay relevant. She glanced with tired eyes back at the mountain of scrolls which seemed poised to bury her in an avalanche of modest spending cut proposals with the slightest movement.
But like gardening in the baking heat of the sun, it had been a hard day's work to be certain, but ultimately fulfilling. Not that she had ever actually done gardening, mostly because half the nobility would be in a frothing fit if she even touched a flower that wasn’t on a dinner plate and served with a confusing array of forks. But still, other than all those things it was like gardening… she imagined anyway.
She wore a proud smile as she finally allowed herself to switch off from work. She was now well and truly free for the weekend. Her work (and a lot of her sisters) was finished. She could do as she pleased, well, she was about as free as a co-Monarch of a disaster-prone country could ever consider themselves free. She might even be able to sleep with both eyes closed for once.
But that was not the real reason for her smile, no the real reason was that as of right now, she was alone. Her sister was away on a diplomatic tour, her niece was off in the Empire and her student was hopefully not awakening an ancient terror for at least the next seven hours.
That meant just one thing. Finally, she could indulge guilt-free in one of pony-kinds' second oldest traditions. Getting blackout drunk and there was no one to stop her!
Igniting her horn with magic, a flash of golden light lit one of the few inches of clear space on her table and brought with it a dusty, old wine bottle the colour of seaweed, a yellow label stained with time materialised onto the desk and next to that an empty modestly sized wine glass.
Celestia blinked, tilting her head in confusion then ignited her horn again, casting the same spell as before on the bottle, but it stayed exactly where it was, unmoving, unchanging.
It was only after the fifth attempt that she came to the shocking realisation. The bottle she had taken from her special collection according to the label was over fifteen years old.
But that could not possibly be right, she had remembered the day he had snuck down to the docks and secretly ordered it, she had remembered bartering with the shady smuggler for a hundred bottles, all for a peerage, (more fool him, he could have bartered for a princehood for that amount.)
The wine itself was black tar from Minatoria, each bottle contained one hundred and seventy percent volume of alcohol. It was so strong one sip took the drinker beyond drunkenness and somehow went through the back end of sobriety by the end of the bottle. One drop of it was enough to tranquilise a herd of elephants; it was banned in over seven countries, including her own.
But that had only been a few months ago, surely? She had remembered that she was going to break open her first bottle after she took that dragon egg to the school for gifted unico-
She blinked very slowly, then suppressed a shudder as a depressing realisation dawned on her. She had not enjoyed one of her precious few pastimes in over fifteen years! If that was truly the case then this simply would not do, not at all!
Another spell was cast, the wine glass vanished into everspace, the glass that replaced it did not ring as it hit the table but gave more of a dull thud, like an anvil falling from a second-story roof. The thing was too big to be called a cup, too big and too thick, too heavy, and too rough, it was more like a hunk of iron.
This monstrosity, a bastardised version of a pint glass and a wine goblet was forged from melted-down swords and axes of fallen warriors and embroidered with poorly chiselled emeralds from the crown of kings and was perhaps Celestia's favourite possession.
“There, that’s much better,” Celestia whispered, her smile taking on an impish quality. She loved the ugly behemoth of a cup and cursed herself for not swapping to it sooner.
She had won it from a half-mad, half-genius Minotaur who had goaded her through playful insults into a game of legion. A game in which one was to drink a shot of gut rot mead (which strangely tasted like honey and cyanide as most minotaur drinks do) every minute for a hundred minutes. By the end of the dare, Celestia had staggered her way through the bet with one hundred minutes, whereas the minotaur had passed out in the foetal position, after reaching ninety-eight. Though, at the end of it all, nobody truly won, not after the sun rose four hours late and she had spent the rest of the time sleeping with her head resting on the edge of a toilet seat.
But regardless, it did win her the cup, the admiration of the Minotaur tribe and a new title, which in Equestrian, loosely translated, as ‘The Wine Beast’ or something to that effect. Actually, come to think of it, it might have been ‘The Wine Bit-‘
She paused, just before the cast iron steel reached her lips, as a sound rang out through her chambers.
She knew that sound, it was not something most ponies can really hear, like how ponies can’t hear a dog whistle, but a ruler of a country, at least one as old as her knew it well. It sounded like dread and foreboding cracking their knuckles for a pummelling of a lifetime. It sounded like responsibility had come for last month's rent with a baseball bat hanging menacingly over its shoulders, and by the way that it was stomping down with reckless abandon into her tower, it was not going to take an I.O.U this time.
“I swear if this was her idea of a prank, I’m going to--”
“Sir the princess is not to be disturbed!”
“Shut it, Copper Hoof, I’m in no mood for your goody-two-shoes garbage at the moment!”
“Hey man, I’m only doing my job.”
“Oh just get out of my bloody way, I swear she-“
“You shouldn't refer to the princess as ‘she’ Silver, it’s rude!”
“Oh, oh I’m thinking of referring to her as something much worse right now, and I swear if she actually did do this as a prank, she going to need that spinning crystal heart, those elements of harmony, and that blasted Discord to save her from what I’m going to do to her, now where is she?!”
Celestia stared at the wine, then at the door, considered as she often did of just teleporting away to some far-off land for a few hundred years, then sighed as she set down the goblet instead. “I’m in my bed chambers Silver Tongue, reliving my halcyon days. But if you’ll be so kind as to give me, say? Ten minutes, to collect all of those things I’ll need to escape your wrath, I would be most grateful.”
The request was met with a stomping of hooves on the marble floor that suggested they were going to need replacing. Both golden guilted doors of her bed chamber flew open at the same time, slamming and cracking the wall behind them, she wasn’t too surprised though. Earth ponies were naturally very strong creatures when pushed, even ones like Silver Tongue, who probably never saw a gym in his life, and shuddered at the mere thought of the word.
The above-average-sized stallion, which was currently wreaking havoc on every door frame in Celestia's castle, was what one would call a stallion who was comfortable with himself. He wasn’t exactly fat, that would not be the word to describe him, the word was too small for a start. He was more a stallion that exuded heaviness, someone that seemed to fill anything he was wearing like water filled every space that it flowed into, you couldn’t dress Silver in the conventional sense you simply poured him into a suit and hoped the buttons could take the strain.
But that was not his defining quality. Because before noticing his size, one would first notice that every extra inch of him was maintained with an almost fanatical degree of care. His slicked-back mane style alone probably took hours of meticulous planning. Every follicle of fur was sculpted into place like an action figure, suit, and tie were pressed so sharply they could have cut through diamond and his cologne bottle collection was so vast it needed its own sommelier. Silver Tongue was by the definition of the phrase a stallion with style for miles or style for circumference in this case.
That was the golden rule in Canterlot. Celestia raised the Sun, Luna raised the moon and Silver Tongue looked fabulous.
So when Celestia saw Silver Tongue at the egress of her chambers, matted fur covered in what looked like reddish slime, pieces of lettuce, yellowish egg yoke, and yes, even half a wedding cake with a fish head on his rump. This was not helped when also coupled with his mane which looked like amorous pigeons had nested in before being savaged by an over-eager cat. She was for once in her very long time shocked, to the point of stunned silence.
Silver Tongue looked terrible. The golden rule was broken.
Practically paralyzed with shock, Celestia could only watch as the hefty stallion locked eyes with his target, then moved over towards the table, pulled a chair right up to her, came right up to her muzzle, opened his mouth to scream at her, then instead glanced down at the cup in her hooves and snatched it from grasp.
He stared at it in puzzlement for the briefest of moments then drank the contents of the cup until not a single drop was left.
Something that also shocked Celestia. Silver Tongue never drank, ever. Something was terribly wrong.
After a moment of intensely awkward silence, as Silver Tongues' chins vibrated with indignation. Celestia felt like she needed to break the silence. That and because she had to know what exactly that awful smell was that was currently wafting off the stallion.
“...So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Luna’s diplomatic tour did not go so well?”
A long, low, guttural growl rang out from his jowls and spoke more words than a thousand volumes as he reached over to the wine bottle and dumped the remainder of the potent black liquid into the cup, and continued drinking.
“...I see.” Was her reply as she glanced everywhere but at her advisor, for once in her life she felt like the underling and he the scolding head teacher.
Whilst it was true, she employed him, Silver Tongue enjoyed a very unique relationship with the two princesses. He was their Public Relations Advisor, which meant that he got to enjoy a more relaxed relationship with the princesses and was one of the few ponies on Earth they had to listen to. Mostly because he had it amended in his contract, in bold capitals after the last scandal.
But this went far beyond informality; what Celestia was feeling from the stallion at this moment was straight-up contempt.
“I suppose you thought that was funny, didn’t you?!” Silver Tongue snarled out, every word practically dripping with venom.
Celestia paused before answering, taken aback slightly by the ferocity of the accusation. “Well… I suppose that I would be a rotten liar if I were to admit that this whole situation wasn’t at least a tiny part amusing, if only because of how risible it all is.”
Silver Tongue took those words and as many people in positions of power and authority seemed able to do when faced with an answer that did not conform to what they wanted to hear, deleted it from existence. “And I suppose, because there is nothing I’ve done to deserve this level of cruelty and embarrassment in recent years, this is your childish idea of payback after last year's diet I ‘advised’ you to take.”
To be fair, she had been mad at that a tad. Especially after he had somehow managed to pass it through court and make it legally binding. But she had already gotten him back for that by sticking literally hundreds of images of hardcore pornography strategically around his office during inspections week, But she wouldn't be this cruel, Silver appearance was everything to the stallion. Celestia knew the limit.
“Now Silver, it would be beyond sadistic of me to go out of my way to actively punish you for doing the job I’m paying you to do. Especially whatever it was that left you so very... what is that exactly?”
“Last week's leftovers from Griffonstone castle. I can’t say for certain what it is exactly, I’m too afraid to check because if I do I’m probably going to faint.” Silver stated in a robotic tone, devoid of any emotion as if his mind had left his body, refusing to go back until it had sorted itself out.
It was a strange feeling Celestia was having right now, for the record, first and foremost she was worried for her little advisor, and long-time close friend and what had done this to him. But on the other hand, she was also trying not to fall down laughing and simultaneously trying not to retch from the smell. Speaking of.
“Let’s do something about that shall we.” She spoke in a motherly tone, fixing a spell on the stallion.
“What did you just cast on me?”
“A small spell to nullify the smell. Also, the spell slowly cleans the body, it takes a bit of time however, considering a normal cleaning spell would be useless with this much mess, so while you wait why don’t you give me the full rundown, of your tour with my sister...Speaking of, how is she, she's not in the same state you’re in is she?”
“I can still smell it.” Silver said as he leaned down and wrinkled his nose in disgust. His tone shifted somewhat as the wine quickly went about doing its job. At the very least his anger was melting away slowly. Which was a plus in Celestia's eyes.
“Yes… that part's more for me, don’t worry the cleaning spell will get rid of that soon enough, now Luna how is she, she’s safe I presume?”
And suddenly, with that one name, Mr. Anger was back in spades and soon to be tag teaming in with his best buddy Sir drunken surly rage. “Oh, she’s the picture of health course, couldn’t be better, in fact, she’s asleep in her tower as we speak, cause why wouldn't you sleep after something like today?” he growled, slightly undermined by a hiccup.
Celestia's eyes widened for a moment, unsure of where this rage was coming from but now having a good idea of who it was directed at now at least, “Oh… that’s good I suppose, but then, how come--”
“I’m covered in my worst nightmare?” Silver slurred, lifting his arms up in horror. “We-ell, when you don’t have magic to teleport yourself away from a political suicide, that you just caused, in front of every sun damned griffon in Griffonstone, you have to use un-un-unconventional methodsss. Like the garbage shoot.” He paused as his mind seemed to rebel against that reality for a moment, “then, then!” he continued after it caught back up, “you flee through the farmers market, whilst an angry mob chases you... And throws market food at you, as you realise that you shouldn’t have overindulged in the banquet table before hoof, and you should have remembered where the train station was a little better, and then you start having some sort of exis-exce-existential crisis about where your life has gone and how even now in your mid-forties you're running for your life from an angry--“
Celestia knew where this was going and didn’t like it one bit, she reached over with one of her wings and softly stroked the least slimy part of his back. “Okay, Silver Tongue slow down, easy now, take a deep breath, everything’s fine now, you remembered your inhaler yes?”
Whatever it was that Silver Tongue was rampaging towards in his verbal diatribe stopped as he looked up at Celestia and blinked. “I-I,…don’t have asthma though?”
“I know Silver, I was trying to get your mind off of things.”
Silver Tongue looked down in thought and hiccupped. “Now that you mention it...Maybe I should check, I don’t go to the doctors enough, and my left side is always itchier than the right and, and also when I wake up in the mornings sometimes I have this really weird--”
Celestia grabbed him more firmly in her wing hug, “I’m sure that’s all perfectly normal,” she added hurriedly, “you’re fine, well, you could stand to lose a little bit of weight and you really shouldn’t use so much mane gel but besides that you’re fine.”
“Hey, that’s not...Ah, you’re right... Nice trick by the way, where did you learn it.” He muttered lamely, sagging his shoulders.
Celestia nodded sagely. “When you teach a pupil like my little Twilight you find unconventional methods to be your only option.”
Silver Tongue despite himself chuckled a little, remembering what the little filly was like, and to an extent still was. Then his nose got a whiff of his body and he was back to straight-up contempt again as he threw off Celestia’s wing from his back.
“So tell me Celestia, because I’m having a very hard time working this out in my mind, as to why you would advise me to place Giffonstone on the list of the royal tour that I and Luna was to take. Right in the middle of their most important holiday. Which, need I remind you, is about as important to them as the bloody Summer solstice is to Equestria, given that your sister is, how shall I put it nicely? The worst pony at dealing with griffons I’ve ever seen before! Oh and before I hear the excuses, there is no way that you did this by accident. No? Not answering...Well fine, you might as well enjoy your little prank now, because by next week a political hellfire is going to rain down on all of us like confetti from a clown's ass!”
Celestia stayed perfectly still again, upon hearing those words, save for a lightning bolt shiver that went from the back of her neck to the base of her tail. What she thought to be nothing more than a little misfortune from her advisor and her sister was apparently something much uglier.
Silver Tongue was no doubt the best stallion at his job, somepony who could turn a common thief into a modern-day saint overnight, and in one case actually did. With just a few words and a few little news articles if he was so inclined. He had been the one to direct Luna's own return into the public eye and had done such a good job of it that by the end of the month no pony seemed to remember she had ever even left. So when he said somepony messed up, they messed up big time.
Celestia felt her hooves go up to her face, muttering out a soft. “Oh no, what did she do now?”
Silver Tongue opened his mouth to speak, he had all of the neurons in his mind firing up to counter any argument against some sort of counter-accusation he thought Celestia would throw at him. So when he got the reaction he actually wanted he was not quite sure what to do with it.
“Y-you, wait you really didn’t do this, this wasn’t just some sort of prank the both of you planned together, was it?”
Celestia rubbed her eyes, feeling them to be very heavy at that moment. “Silver Tongue, I can honestly say that whatever transpired at Griffonstone was not a prank, at least on my part.”
Silver Tongue, unlike his name suggested, found he had no words just then. All at once he seemed to sober up, his eyes darted around as if calculating several scenarios, none of them good, “Oh...oh dear, somehow that’s actually worse.”
“If it’s as bad as you say, Silver, how can it get worse?” Celestia asked.
“Well, it’s better to say it was a very poorly thought out prank at your advisor's expense than it is to admit that the co-monarch of this country and the mare who raises the very moon is a bigot.”
B-Bigot?” Celestia stuttered out, almost lifting off her chair as she did so.
“Celestia,” he said slowly, “you know I’ve done public relations work for some real narcissistic ass’s and some actual narcissistic ass’s, like real donkeys. And I’ve worked with ponies who are, let’s just say, biased against other species. Heck I mean do you remember I had to do some PR work for the Elements of Harmony after that whole affair with the Zebra got out? Having to convince the masses of Canterlot that they actually didn’t know what a Zebra was and making it seem like a genuine misunderstanding, was one of the hardest tasks I’ve ever had to do in my life. I mean really, none of them except Twilight knew? Didn’t they read a foal’s book when they were little!? That’s like the first couple of things you’re taught about Eques besides the alphabet and colours.”
Celestia rolled her eyes as she realised the drunk stallion to her right was rolling off onto another tangent again. “Yes yes Silver Tongue, and thank you, again, for that, but could you please get back to the point where you were talking about my little sister.”
“Right, sorry Celestia, where was I?”
“Something about my baby sister being--
“Ah yes! One of the worst frothing-at-the-mouth griffon haters I’ve seen in my life. I mean, if I was compiling a list of the top five in my head, she’s at least third, on the list only below the leader of the anti-griffons movement, that turned out to be a huge misunderstanding when the logo was misspelled and was meant to read the anti-grifter movement. And it was later revealed that the pony who was commissioned to design the banner ironically was one of the biggest con artists in living memory.”
Celestia resisted the urge to roll her eyes a second time, this was why you did not give good wine to lightweights.
“And my uncle, who suffers from dementia, who thinks that griffons come in the night and steal his pudding cup. But then, sometimes he blames it on dwarfs or the nursing staff.”
“For the love of all that is holy Silver tongue please stay on point.” Celestia snapped.
”What I’m getting at Princess is that your sister does not like griffons, at all, she is a bonafide and avid speciesist!”
Celestia winced as that dreaded word resurfaced, suddenly the room was getting too hot for her liking. “S-Silver Tongue, I simply cannot believe what you’re saying,” she chuckled light-heartedly, it was about as convincing as a third-grade rendition of Shakespeare, “to imply that my sisters, my loving free-spirited sister, is anything but a progressive forward thinking mare, who respects all cultures and --”
Silver Tongue lifted his hoof up, which stifled Celestia immediately. He reached into his ruined coat pocket and produced a small red notebook that somehow had miraculously stayed in perfect condition. “Would you like me to go through the list of reasons why me and every griffon in Griffonstone, can attest to the contrary because I took notes of today's events.”
“E-Every griffon?!” Celestia said, her voice raising several octaves before she managed to get it down to low vibrato, “O-of course Silver Tongue, I will gladly listen to them and pick apart these awful allegations as mere hearsay or simple misunderstanding.”
Silver's long deadpan glare was an almost unspoken dare at that, “Okay then, let’s go through my personal experience of Griffonstone, my one and probably only day I’ll ever have in the capital. Ah-h, let’s see, yes here we go, nine o’clock am, we arrived at the station. Nine o’ five the conductor, a griffon I should add, comes out to personally welcome Luna himself. In his native tongue. Luna responds with ‘Yes yes meow-meow, hiss-hiss to you too,’ then walks off the platform without so much as a by your leave.”
Celestia’s neutral expression could have won an Oscar for best acting at that moment. “W-Well she’s never been good with the Griffonian language.”
“Cat noises Princess? Tell me what part of Griffonian sounds like hiss-hiss to you?”
Princess Celestia's gulp was almost audible, “Perhaps when griffons talk about cats?”
Silver Tongue could only stare at her with the best deadpan expression he could muster. “Celestia, is there something you maybe want to add to this?”
“I-I don’t follow you Silver?” She smiled back showing too much teeth.
“Maybe Something about you knowing Luna’s distaste for Griffon's perchance?” He asked, “you know I can tell when you lie, your lips move.”
“Silver, really now, i-if I knew about this sort of thing d-do you honestly think I would have sent her there?”
Silver Tongue bit his lip in thought mulling it over. Other than thinking it to be the worst prank in the history of his kind, he couldn’t answer that, yet. “That's what I’m trying to work out, but I know you’re hiding something and I don’t think you’re just going to tell me, so I’m just going to have to continue with this until you realise the gravity of the situation.”
Celestia almost screamed out a ‘please heavens no!’ but caught herself just before it jumped her tongue, instead she just meekly waved her hoof signalling for him to continue. Silver simply shook his head.
“Ten am, oh you’ll love this one princess, your always one for a play on words, we arrived at the palace, and we were greeted by the Emperor himself, Emperor Richard Fafhrd Hydric the fifth of his name and his Wife Empress Ingrid Gunnhild Hydric the first of her name. Celestia, do you know what Richard is short for?”
“Um, Rich?” Celestia asked, coughing as her throat and mouth suddenly went very dry.
“No, no it’s Dick.” He said with an utterly fake chuckle “get it? Your sister did, and she found no end of humour in knowing this, as she finds all griffon names funny as I learned, she kept pointing it out to him, it went something like this, ahem, ‘hello king Dick, You must be a hard ruler, Dick, It must be tough growing up as the only Dick in the family?’”
“I see, yes that is--”
“‘Did you run into complications with all the other Dicks around growing up?’”
“I suppose I can see how that would be a prob--”
“‘What's it like being married to the strongest Dick in this land?’”
“Yes okay Silver, I think I got the gist of it!”
Silver reached back massaging his brow as he read the notebook, having at least fifteen more of those that he could recall just off the top of his head, yet knowing there were far far more than that. “Celestia, if it wasn’t for the fact the emperor is near deaf and his wife doesn’t speak our tongue we’d probably be at war already.”
Celestia’s left eye was twitching at this point, something that only happened when the perfect mixture of embarrassment and unbridled rage boiled inside her chest.
Silver cleared his throat as he flicked a few pages further into the notebook. “One agonisingly long hour later, we began the tour around the upper echelons of Griffonstone's famous market district. Luna, as I recall, was amazed over the lack of bird baths in Griffonstone, And when I, stupidly now I look at it in hindsight, asked her why that was so strange, she came to the conclusion that it probably wasn't so strange, and that’s probably why they all smelled so bad.”
“Could she still have been referring to birds? I mean there are some lovely ones in-”
“Oh, sorry to but-in, but I forgot to actually write this in, just as a little side note to this, she also had me stand at her back the entire time we were in the market, because she wanted me watching her saddlebags, in case one of them got it in their heads to try something, because, and I’m quoting her here ‘that’s just what they do, they see something shiny and they can’t help themselves’” Silver Tongue stated, using his hooves as quotation marks.
“S-She...Wait, she didn’t actually have you do that, did she?” Celestia stated practically stunned by the bluntness of her sister.
“I could go on with all of the little details, but why not skip to all the bigger ones shall we?” Silver Tongue stated in a sarcastically lecturing tone, as he flicked a few pages further into his planner.
Celestia resisted, with all her might, the urge to grab the duct tape in one of her desk draws, wrap it around her wings and jump out of her tower.
“Noon, Lunchtime, oh you’ll love this too. Apparently now, not only am I the royal public advisor, but I’m also the royal taster, a task that I didn’t think existed anymore, except for when Luna visits her favourite species.”
“W-well uhh that, that doesn’t sound so bad? You like food don’t you?”
Silver Tongue rolled his eyes so hard they threatened to look back into his skull. “I don’t like being thought of as a poison tester. Not that I thought any of the food was tampered with, but she certainly thought that was the case.”
Celestia slapped her head with her hoof. “Please tell me she was at least subtle about it?”
Silver Tongue just laughed at her, “She was, right up until she still blasted a hole in the table, because she thought she saw something devious in the soup.”
“I mean, all of that can be explained away, Luna has come back after such a long time, of course, some of her habits will seem somewhat antiquated,” Celestia stated with a hopeful smile, “really this might look bad but it's nothing that can’t be handled with a little, how do you say spit shine in your department right Silver?”
Silver Tongue's dower expression suggested the stain of Luna's visit could not be buffered out with anything short of an axe. “Yes, yes perhaps if it had been just those things I could have done something to dissuade them of your sister's blatant speciesism.”
Celestia's twitching eye could have rivalled a humming bird’s wing for motion. “Could you stop referring to her like that?”
“What, a bigot? I think we clearly established at this point that she is, isn’t she?”
“Ye--no no, she’s not ah,” Celestia lips seems stuck, unable to form the words she wanted to say, like they refused to say something so blatantly untrue. “she’s just, just, umm morally biased, to certain avian species.”
“Isn’t that the same thing, only said differently?”
Celestia opened her mouth to deny it, fought her tongue to say the words for a moment then sighed deeply, defeated once again, “...It sounds less damning.”
“Ahah!” Silver roared, “So you do admit Luna has a problem with Griffons!”
Again, Celestia pressed both hooves to her forehead, as she leant against the table with both forelegs and let out one long droning groan. “I thought this tour might have cured her, I thought that maybe, just maybe if she went to their homelands and saw for herself that they weren't these greedy, bestial, predators plotting to attack us at every turn, but just another peaceful nation like Equestria, she’d knock this nonsense off, she's been so good up until now!”
Silver Tongue frowned down at Celestia, he was a pony who enjoyed being right, especially when it came to Celestia who seemed to enjoy it that little bit more. But he was not a vindictive pony at heart and Celestia despite being his employer and ruler was also someone he considered a friend and right now she looked like she could use one. Despite his righteous anger, he took a deep breath and let it out in one long breath.
“Don’t you think that that's a bit optimistic on your part Princess?” He stated in a more sympathetic tone.
“Yes, perhaps, but nothing has worked out so far,” she muttered through her forelegs, “I assumed that maybe after a thousand years away she would have a different perspective on griffons! I tried everything! I mean everything! Introducing griffon friends of mine, going to griffon council meetings, suggesting recent griffon literature, everything! It didn’t seem so crazy when it was about meeting other species. In fact, the only reason I tried this tour to begin with, was because I was inspired by our Idea about setting her up for Nightmare Night, that was a resounding success, I hadn’t seen my little sister so giddy in years!”
Silver leaned back on his seat, looking down as he tapped his hooves together in thought, doing his best to ignore the squelching noises coming from them. “Yes, I can see the thought process, and despite being first on a long list of ponies who will suffer for the repercussions of this, I will reluctantly admit, it was a solid base for a plan. I just wish you would have come to me for this idea. We could have hashed out the finer details, perhaps approached something a little smaller than the capital city of the Griffon Empire, baby steps as they say.”
It took a moment for the princess of the sun to calm herself, unbeknownst even to herself she realised she had been keeping this pent-up for some time. But now that it was out, she felt the stress in her soul flow out of her, at least she had been able to confess this to her friend first before the news came lunging at her with allegations of today's events. “So…” She started hopefully. “Now that this is out and in the open, can I concur that we are quite done with this, and we can begin with ideas concerning damage control?”
Silver Tongue shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry princess, but it's best you hear about this from me now, considering what she did, because it’ll be unending in about three days time when the news reaches back to Equestria. That’s not adding all the milk and mouse jokes by the way.”
“Another feline joke I take it?” Celestia said dryly.
“How did you guess?” Silver said, matching her tone.
“Well, it seems that this was reason enough for you two to make a quick getaway via, the garbage disposal was it?” She said, grabbing for the wine bottle.
“No, that was just me, she teleported, remember.”
“Right of course she left you with an angry mob, I’m guessing this is the part where she caused one am I right?” Celestia sighed, deciding just to drink from the bottle itself.
Silver nodded, “You know about Fornt Dag? Union Day, the very very important ancient festival for all Griffons? The one with the four staff’s that they take very very seriously and don’t take kindly at all to anyone interrupting, using as a back scratcher and then breaking.”
Wine splattered the wall, wine that had only a second ago been in her mouth, “What was that last part?”
“Well, its tradition as you know for the four staffs of the great houses of the Griffon alliance to be placed in their allotted slots on the stone floor on the hill of union, thus symbolising the birth of the Griffon Empire atop Griffonstone. Well Luna being -at the time at least- a welcomed guest of the country, was given the prestigious honour of being the fourth staff holder…”
“Which she did respectfully and without incident?” Celestia pleaded in vain.
Silver Tongue laughed again, without a hint of mirth in it at all. “No, why would she do that in front of two thousand griffons, their nobility, and their beloved royal family. No, instead, she used it to get at an itch that apparently couldn't wait, off her back, and once the crowd started to protest… Well, that's when things got… I don’t know how to describe it other than…weird.”
“Weird?” Celestia parroted, that was not the words she was thinking, enraged, arrogant, explosive even, but not weird.
“Yes, she had been acting strangely all day, twitchy, uncomfortable, but now that I think about it, at that moment she seemed… I don’t know, when she was in front of the crowd she seemed shaken strangely, considering how little she cared about them before that moment. She seemed um…”
“Aggravated?”
“No…scared, do you know what I mean?” He asked, Celestia shook her head, she had never thought her sister could be scared of anything. She was always in fact the fearless one of the two. The very idea she could be afraid of anything made Celestia strangely uneasy.
“It was only for a moment,” Silver said, “perhaps I’m just imagining it, but whatever it was it was gone in a second, then the old Luna came back. You know the fire and brimstone Luna. Before I could say anything she screamed at them to shut their filthy beaks, she called all of them brainless rodent chasers, unfit to govern themselves, and then as the young kids are saying these days, ‘peaced out’, via teleportation. But the worst part of it all, the worst part was she dropped the ceremonial staff onto the ground.”
Another shiver seemed to move through Celestia now, unlike before this one felt like a snake slowly shifting behind her back, this wasn’t shock, this was nameless dread. “Silver, please tell me that she didn’t break the staff.” This was going beyond a diplomatic incident, there had been wars started over less.
Silver Tongue went over the memory in his head, straining his thoughts in order to remember. “I can’t say Celestia, I didn’t exactly get a chance to check I was in garbage at this point.”
“...Because Luna left you.”
“Left me in front of about two thousand five hundred incredibly angry, incredibly mob-like griffons, who assumed one of their greatest national treasures was potentially broken by some outsider. It's a miracle I escaped with my life. I’ll probably never be able to look another griffon in the eye, not without flinching anyway.”
Celestia blinked slightly as the words and the events of the day rummaged around her all too sober mind, all she had wanted was one day of peace, not even that seven hours, could she not have seven hours? Now, they were looking at something so big it might be another ten years before she could even think about wine.
It was all too much, something in the celestial princess’s mind broke. Silver Tongue shivered as her blank expression morphed into an eerily calm smile.
Neither too quick nor too slow to betray her mood, she walked over to her bed, grabbed a medium-sized white pillow, examined it for a moment then nodded to herself and walked past Silver towards her bed chamber door.
“Um ahh, Princess, where are you going with that pillow?”
“Hmm? Oh, excuse me a moment Silver,” she said with a smile that somehow displayed the very antonym of its usual intended purpose, “I’m just going over to my sister's room, where I plan to smother her to death with this pillow, then myself, before the embarrassment of this sets in and kills me. Please tell Twilight and Cadence to make a modest funeral for me, no big ceremony and make sure they serve ice cream cake, not that store-bought rubbish, the real stuff, I’ll know if they don’t.” Celestia stated softly as if she was excusing herself from dinner.
Now not to negate his anger at the nocturnal princess, because Silver Tongue was furious with her. But she was also his friend all be it a strained one at the moment, but more importantly she was the ruler of the country, so the last thing he wanted to be was the instrument in a murder-suicide of the royal sisters.
He didn't want to escape two angry mobs in the space of one day. Also, he certainly would never get a job again if two of his (royal) clients died, and considering tomorrow's press, they were the only ponies on the planet that we're going to hire him for many many years.
“Princess! Wait, aha, let's not do something too rash now!” He sputtered, leaping from the chair.
Silver Tongue ran forwards, which had the effect of looking like gelatin sliding off a plate fat shuffling in the suit as he managed to catch up to her right as she was reaching for the doorknob. She wasn’t even listening to him anymore, he tried in vain to push her back, but all he seemed to be doing was pushing himself along with her. Despite his above-average size and weight, it might as well have been the pillow itself that was trying to stop the Princess’s murder spree.
“Oh and Silver,” Celestia stated, that almost sing-song voice made her haunting smile that much more terrifying, “Be sure they don’t play any of that dub wub stuff at the wake, I can’t stand that noise. Classical music only, please. Or perhaps some old-school metal, but only Black Saddle, or Judas Prance perhaps? The early stuff, if you please.”
She pushed him like a cup across a table with a foreleg, and grabbed at the door knob, where no doubt not even an army could have stopped her. The pillow fluffed ominously, the entire weight of a country's future was set in its dainty tassels.
Silver wracked his brain, he was a stallion that worked best in high-pressure situations, he had to be, his extra weight made everything higher pressure. His brain slammed desk drawers and filing cabinets of his brain cells looking for long lost plans and strategies that would save his hide at that moment, bribing officials, spinning stories, good old fashioned blackmail, the friend of any Public relations advisor, but none of them would work. This was all too big for conventional strategies.
What could you do when the stakes were this high, nothing sane would ever solve the issue?
That was when it hit him. Well not so much hit, the idea did not strike him like a lightning bolt, mostly because his blubber had too much insulation for that to take any effect, this came to him in that second as he watched Celestia's guided hoof turn the handle of the door almost like the punchline to a not very funny joke.
Indeed it must have been a joke because the idea at that moment seemed insane, the idea of it would have been dismissed in a nono second had he been thinking clearly. But through the wine, through the stress, and the sheer magnitude of the day, it seemed then like a lifeline thrown in a stormy sea when the boat was sailing into the distance, a PR plan so utterly demented that it was only to be used as a last desperate resort and had a ninety-nine percent chance of failing.
But one percent chance of success sounded like pretty good odds next to the one hundred percent certainty of regicide and job loss he was facing now.
“Wait,” he bellowed, the ideas still forming in his mind even as he was talking, “what if I told you I had another less ‘murdery’ Idea that might help Luna and this whole situation!”
That caused the princess to pause a moment, she turned her head only slightly towards him, flicked an ear directly at the Stallion as she lowered the pillow an inch. Which he took as a good sign to speak quickly and fast.
“N-now hear me out, because it will sound crazy,” Celestia's hoof began to turn the doorknob “Wait, wait! It might sound crazy, but it may be the only thing to save your sister's image and more importantly, keep Equestria safe!”
Thankfully, again, the princess did not make a move for the door, but she still kept her hoof on the handle.
“Now I’m not sure how you’ll take it, considering I apparently don’t know if you have any um how did you put it, Moral biases?”
Celestia's head turned slightly more towards him and she growled morosely.
“Okay, okay, I just had to be clear here. Up until this morning it never even crossed my mind to ask Luna if she disliked certain species, but here we stand.” This was good, he could work with this, as long as nobody was getting smothered he was doing something right. “Now I’m asking this because what I’m proposing might mean perhaps a new, ahh addition to ah-ha oh how do I put this subtlety?” Silver bit his lip as he moved slightly closer to the princess, trying his hardest in his drink-addled mind to pitch this in the correct way.
“Princess, how do you feel about some fresh young blood around Canterlot castle?”
Celestia's brow creased ever so slightly as she turned to face him fully, lowering the regicidal cushion to the floor. “...I don’t get your meaning Silver, there are lots of youthful stallions and mares around Canterlot castle?”
“Yes, yes I know that, I’m referring to young blood, like very young, younger than any mare or stallion in this castle, foal like to be exact...or perhaps err,” he swallowed, this was the crux of it all, he hesitated only slightly then looked up at her, “hatchling if you want to use the correct terminology?”
Celestia blinked very slowly and in a very calculated manner as she sat down on her floor and stared thoughtfully into the air before turning her gaze back to Silver. “Okay Silver Tongue, you're right, that does sound completely insane. But, I’m going to go back to my desk and you're going to tell me this insane plan, and then, based on if I think it will work or not, I’m going to decide whether to go with it, or go with the pillow, I’m still leaning heavily to the latter. So I advise you for the well-being of us all, make it good, and explain it thoroughly.”
Silver Tongue brought a hoof to his collar to loosen his noose-like tie, a heroic effort in itself considering he had to find the hem inside of the neck folds. “R-Right, no pressure... how about some wine first though, shall we?”
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I laughed from this man that pillow is gonna have a story to tell
Doubly so, when you consider that letter Z in the alphabet is often represented with a zebra when being taught to children.
You know, it actually figures that Celestia would be a fan of metal.
Black Saddle! I love it! I wonder what Ozzy would look like as a pony.
Nice to see this idea of explored again, I do so love seeing Luna the Moon Racist.
And Pipsqueak is somewhere happily hitting a griffin plushie with his toy sword, "Die! Die!" with a smile on his face.