Into the Belly of the Beast
Bored. Bored, bored, bored.
Luna sat in her room, looking out at the late afternoon sun and counting down the minutes until she’d need to raise the moon and take her turn at watch. An echoing sound of three sets of hoofsteps in a distant hallway finally provided her a brief respite from tedium.
Judging by the length of stride, the loudest belonged to Celestia. Nopony else had legs that long. The other couldn’t be anypony else but Twilight Sparkle, with her characteristic high-stepping exuberance while with her mentor. The last was vaguely familiar, but definitely not common. The sound of carefully timed hooves gnawed at Luna. Where had she heard that sound before? Applejack? No. Fluttershy? Maybe. More hoofsteps clattered, closer now, right behind. Who was that third pony?
“Good afternoon, sister!” she said, not even turning to face them as they stood in the doorway. She still hadn't finalized her guess. “And Twilight Sparkle!" The third pony had to be Mayor Mare. "And...” Finally whirling around, she found her predictions were woefully inaccurate. Luna gave a frustrated snort. “Rarity! What brings all of you here?”
“Oh, we were just visiting,” Twilight said with a cheerful smile. "I wanted to say hello on my way out. Are you busy?”
“I’m afraid not,” Celestia answered for her sister. “She finds herself at loose ends these days.”
The beginnings of a glare formed on Luna’s face, but she soon relented, nodding as she looked at the floor.
“You just need a hobby,” Twilight said. “I love reading, as I know you do. Why don’t you try the other side—writing?”
Luna held a hoof up to her mouth for a moment, but still wore a frown. “But what do I write?”
“Oh, just have fun with it,” Rarity chimed in as she stepped to the front. “Do what everypony else is doing.”
“Oh, that’s just beating a dead horse!” Twilight replied with a grimace.
What a dreadful thought! But if that’s what ponies want...
Luna sat in front of her computer, looking over the highest-rated recent novellas released for public consumption rated by The Canterlot Times viewers. “Luna Uses a Toothbrush.” “Luna Discovers Crabgrass.” “Luna Eats Her First Fluffernutter.” She appeared to be a subject of choice. It was odd, but when in Rome... And with a dead horse, no less.
Her first idea forming already, Luna began typing on her word processor, sending her words flowing onto the screen.
Luna was soaring over the forest at night on her patrol route when she encountered a gruesome sight: a limp body lying on the crude path below. She landed next to it and prodded it with a hoof, but there were no signs of life. Pressing an ear to its chest, she could detect no breathing or heartbeat, and the smell soon convinced her that she was far too late to be of any help.
She pulled a golf club from her saddlebag and gave the body a solid whack. It did nothing to revive the poor beast, but it didn’t seem to be any the worse for wear, either. She hit it again and again, to no useful effect, but it wasn’t any less gratifying than her monotonous sentry duty. It was an average evening.
After stretching it out to a few pages, Luna submitted it her publisher; he'd get things out in the public eye as soon as possible. Time to wait. Soon, she had a reader recommendation. Then five. Then ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched her rating shoot up until she was at the top of the Canterlot Times daily recommendations. Front and center, for all Equestria to see.
“Well... that was easy.” She clicked on her own story and scrolled through the first few comments.
“Zomg no way that is real Luna!”
“MOAR!”
“Please continue this story!!!!!!”
Luna shot out of her chair and ran to the window, her heart racing. A sly, one-sided smile crept onto her face until a trace of her sense of responsibility returned. Casting a cursory glance around the moonlit lands below her window, she saw no obvious signs of invasion. Surely the guards could see to it on their own for one night. She strolled back to her desk, leaned this way and that to crack her neck, and opened a fresh document.
Luna found herself trotting in the desert near Appleloosa for no apparent reason, and happened upon a desiccated corpse. Some hapless traveler had fallen from the train without any source of water, no doubt. In the stillness of the noonday heat, she lowered her head and drew her mouth into a frown.
Her respects paid, Luna pulled a crowbar out of her saddlebag and beat it against the body’s flank. No life returned to the empty husk, but neither had its predicament become any more dire. She took another swing, producing nothing but a cloud of sandy dust from the bleached hide. A disapproving buzzard looked down from the overhanging cliff, but it left after considering its options, once Luna had gritted her teeth and brandished the pry bar at it. All in all, the afternoon turned out to be unproductive, but at least the evening coolness had set in by the time she bored of it, making the remainder of her journey pleasant.
With a giddy smile plastered on her face, Luna watched her story climb the rankings until it joined its predecessor among the top recommendations. She didn’t even bother reading the comments this time, as her sales ratcheted up faster than she could track.
No time like the present. On to the next one.
Luna soared over the ocean, reveling in the beautiful starlight reflecting off the waves. She glided low, allowing her hooftips to trail through the water and kick up a fine salt spray. Just as she was about to tilt into a steep bank for the return trip, she spotted an object bobbing like a cork on the surface. A badly sunburned stallion had apparently clung to that life ring until the very last, but in the end, it had been for naught.
She pulled a pipe wrench from her saddlebag and clocked him on the skull in the hope that she could overcome the astronomical odds against its being the right course of action. It was not. After a few more impacts, the body slid through the ring and appeared no more. A wasted hour, perhaps, but Celestia could no longer harangue her about the pointlessness of toting a pipe wrench along on her patrols.
Luna clapped her hooves together as her name now occupied the top three places in the “What’s Popular?” box. Her high was broken by a high-pitched ding. Clicking on the icon that had popped up, she scanned over an email from TwilightSparkle.
Luna? Is that you? You do know that “beating a dead horse” is just an expression, right? You made it work, though. Why don’t you try self-referential humor? You know, like a story about you writing a story about you writing a story? Ponies seem to go crazy for those, too.”
Luna slouched in her chair as she shook her head and held a hoof to her forehead. Indulging in a brief chuckle at her own expense, she did a search on such stories. Her eyes brightening, she scooted a little closer to the keyboard.
Bored. Bored, bored, bored.
Luna sat in her room, looking out at the late afternoon sun and counting down the minutes until she’d need to raise the moon and take her turn at watch. An echoing sound of three sets of hoofsteps in a distant hallway finally provided her a brief respite from tedium.