She really should have known better
She really should have known better. Even still, Luna wasn't quite sure how it had happened. A clear culprit was her complete immunity to cold, and her affinity with winter. Had she been a normal, mortal, pony she would have noticed that it was much too cold for anyone sane to be outside. Unfortunately, due to her comfort in the coldest of temperatures, she hadn't realized exactly how desperately, numbingly, dangerously cold her clear winter morning walk had been.
It also wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't been sipping hot tea before her early morning jaunt. But she had sipped that tea and it had been glorious. She wouldn't change that. No, what she would change, if she could change the past, would be the infuriating ice melting salt.
Salt had used to be a rarity in the old days, and it confounded her when her ponies threw it on the ground to melt snow of all things. A thousand years ago that would be seen as some form of insanity, but now it was apparently common sense.
She hadn't asked about it because she didn’t want to appear simple, but she still had questions. Was it really salt, or was that just what ponies called it? Was it some similar chemical mixture that happened to look the same and melt ice the same? Where did her little ponies get so much salt they could literally throw it around and walk all over it? What sort of inane debauchery was this? Was she simply mad?
In the early morning darkness, before others had woken up, she had decided to answer one of her questions. She had been walking, enjoying the castle courtyard, when she noticed the falling snow land on the salted pathway. The grainy substance crunched under her hooves. A desire grew withing her, and she had to know if it was real. A truly wise pony would have ignored that desire. But Luna’s urge only continued to grow. She glanced around once more, nopony else was here to see her. On the other hoof, there was no way in the deepest pit of Tartarus that she was going to be caught licking it directly off the ground.
Disguising a casual glance, she inspected the courtyard. It was decorated for Hearth's Warming, and the crisp snow was gently falling to the ground. The muffled air was brisk, swirling around her hooves in light flurries. Most importantly, there was no other ponies up quite yet. Even if somebody was peeking from a window, no one would see her through the falling snow and the only light was a few softly glowing electric lamps ontop metal lamp-posts.
Luna nonchalantly walked next to one of the posts, and looked closely around. She should have known then, the snow was collecting on the salted path. Clearly it was too cold for the salt to work anymore. The temperature must have been somewhere between bone chilling cold, and true depths of a frozen hell cold.
She could have done many things different. She could have picked up a pinch of salt, and taken it back for inspection later. Maybe sprinkled it on Celestia's breakfast. She could have at least made a snowball and scooped some salt with it, taking it away from the lamp and into the darkened corners of the courtyard. But instead she had attempted to be completely nonchalant.
The salt had been splashed haphazardly around, and some stuck to various objects around her. Luna had decided, in her infinite wisdom, to simply lick it off something head height. A second's distraction would be harder for an invisible stalker to notice than an awkward dip and bow as she scooped some off the floor or a telltale glow of magic.
Moving quickly and casually, Luna had licked the salt spray off the nearest surface, the metal pole. To her infinite surprise, it was actually salt and tasted as it should—salty.
More surprising still, it stung as she pulled her tongue away. That was when she had realized that something had gone wrong—terribly, terribly wrong. The reality of her situation came crashing down on her in a cold dread.
Luna's tongue had been instantly frozen to the pole, the thin coating of salt doing nothing to stop the instant freezing of the spit on the frozen metal pole.
Realizing her folly, Luna frowned, and looked around the courtyard. No one was here yet, and there were no guffaws of laughter. Just the muted fall of snow, and the soft rustle of a frigid breeze. It was a good thing too, she looked like a simpleton, or a foal. Luna’s tongue was stuck out, with her snout barely touching the pole as a few snowflakes tumbled down around her.
This was not good.
She glared angrily at the pole as realization struck her. She was stuck with a choice. Tear the skin off her delicate tongue, or wait until help arrived.
Luna's frown deepened into a scowl. She should have known better. Princesses do not lick things. Celestia and her had come to that agreement when they were young, while arguing over food. Luna had broken the rule a few times over the years, usually with no repercussions. When it did come back to bite her, it had never happened so fast and hard as this—aside from one particularly night with a mare called Nightingale Dreams. Luna scowled some more.
Celestia would never let her hear the end of this. Luna cursed silently. Getting caught was not an option. Pulling gently, she tried to pry her numb tongue off the pole, only to find it wasn't as numb as she had thought. It felt like somepony was trying to pull it out of her mouth, and it both stung and ached.
Luna snorted, blowing warm air over the pole. She glanced around, dreading that someone would see her in this decidedly not royal state. No one was here, not yet at least.
Luna tried breathing, panting heavily in an attempt to warm up the pole. Minutes passed, and then more as she panted desperately over the frozen pole. She thought about using magic to free herself, but she specialized in ice and void. She could make a light, but not a fire. Luna kept breathing heavily, getting lightheaded and tugging desperately on her pained tongue. Blinking, she waivered to the side for a moment.
Her moist breath began to freeze around the pole, surrounding her tongue in a small thin layer of frost. Luna breathed harder and harder as she tried to warm the mess up. The pole slowly looked as though it was spinning and she began to get dizzy, blowing over her tongue and pulling hard. A panicked thought ran through her mind—she had to get free.
Luna's mind wandered beyond her panic as she blew. The reason for blowing was forgotten as she heaved breath after breath over her tongue. It didn't feel cold to her, nothing felt cold anymore. Some things felt warm though. Luna blinked, remembering something warm. Her vision darkened, And she began to fall asleep. She giggled as the world focused into a pinpoint and she began to pass out. A sharp pain jolted her from unconsciousness as her head sagged, and pulled roughly on her tongue.
Luna cried out in surprise at the stinging pain, letting her breath return to normal and her blood flow back into her head. Squinting, she focused on the pole in front of her. This whole thing was stupid. She was being beat by a lamp post. She had nearly made herself pass out from a lamp-post. Angrily she sat her rump down, facing the pole and thinking about her options. Celestia could not know what had transpired. If she couldn’t get free, she might have to kill anypony that found her.
Luna imagined that for a while, creating a vortex of ice and death in the courtyard. It seemed almost like a good plan, but Celestia would no doubt investigate, and then it would all be for naught. Luna chuckled darkly. Maybe she could just keep Celestia from waking up. If the sun never rose, then Celestia wouldn’t either.
Luna fantasized for a while, imagining how she’d make the ponies bow to her, and respect her icy might. But then she realized what they’d call her—Nightmare Tongue? Nightmare Pole? Luna scowled again. That wouldn’t do. She began to lightly tug, hoping that it would work itself loose.
Pulling her tongue off hurt, and she didn't want to tear the skin. She couldn't make fire with her horn, and teleporting like this would be disastrous. Luna briefly wished she was Nightmare Moon again. Moon would simply destroy the lamp-post and be done with this debacle.
Luna willed the lamp-post dead, but only succeeded in causing the electric light to flicker when her magic accidentally ignited it.
Luna stopped and sighed. Her morning walk had taken far too long. Celestia was due to wake up soon, and icicles were beginning to form under her chin.
Fuck it.
Luna channeled the moon.
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Celestia sat across from Luna, their mutual breakfasts in between them. Luna was nonchalantly eating berries and cream while Celestia eyed her warily.
Eventually, Celestia coughed. "Ahem. Sister, I'm afraid I have to ask you something."
Luna looked up from her breakfast, curiously. "Yes?"
"The.. ahh.. courtyard. I'd heard you decided to redecorate it?"
"Oh. Yes." Luna looked back down to her cereal.
"It's just that… well, other ponies find the light from the lamps comforting. And while I know you like the dark, for others it's a bit… intimidating." Celestia nervously sipped her morning tea.
Luna rolled her eyes. "Oh, they'll be fine. It's perfectly safe. Besides, it's just one lamp."
Celestia hummed before answering. "Well, be that as it may, there are request forms for redecorating. Our little ponies are going to just put that lamp right back where you ahh… took it from… if you don't fill out the forms." Celestia sipped again, and Luna groaned.
"Why is everything paperwork?"
Celestia ignored her, and continued, "And the lamps were all connected. When you took that one, they all went out. So there was that as well."
Luna just shrugged, and went back to eating her berries.
Celestia sighed and put a hoof to her head. "Luna, why did you do that?"
Luna groaned, and then softly spoke. "Honestly…. I got a little angry, sister. I decided that with no one to watch, I could take my frustration out on the post. This modern world vexes me, so I removed that modern post."
Celestia leaned back, closing her eyes in silent frustration. "It's okay Luna. We all get a little salty about things every once in a while."
Luna looked at her sister in abject terror, but Celestia kept her eyes closed in frustration. Quickly, Luna glanced back at her breakfast, hoping her sister wouldn't notice her lingering blush.
"I have to ask, Luna, where did you leave it?"
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Spike shuffled around the basement of Twilight's castle. He was trying to get to his secret comic book stash, but the basement was nearly impossible to get through. He wasn't sure why Twilight kept so much junk!
Just last week he'd cleaned and sorted it, and already there was more stuff. A broken cart, a damaged grill, a toaster with its guts torn out, a large industrial fan with a suspiciously hoof shaped dent in one of the blades, and a whole new assortment of Neighponese teas. He looked at the tea again. When had Twilight bought that? He’d been reorganizing and cleaning, making a path to his comics but he was nearly done and had a forbidden comic in hand.
He turned to leave and spotted something just laying on the floor, blocking his path out— A dented and battered lamp-post, with a torn Hearth's Warming bow on it. Salt and snow was smeared messily all over the floor, along with wet hoof prints that hadn’t been there a second ago.
Spike fell to his knees in disbelief. “But… How? When?”