Fluffle Puff, the Princess of the Day and Ruler of Tacos (and Equestria), jerked up in her fluffy pink bed. The Sun was calling.
She quickly hopped off her bed, spinning several times in the air as she did so, then darted to the balcony, the glass doors there instantly opened as she passed through. Below her lay a slumbering Canterlot, though such was not to last.
The mare felt the Sun just below the horizon and focused on it, standing stock still as her fluff started to tingle and glow from the magic that started to flow through her body. Soon enough, she started to vibrate while the glowing turned golden and brightened, enough power flowing through her that the large ball of flaming custard in the distance started to peek over the horizon.
The vibration grew faster and the glowing brighter until she seemed a phasing duplicate of that which was now dawning, the sheer power of the Lord of Fluff would surely blind anyone that would gaze upon its majesty.
After some time, however, the movement and light slowly ceased, leaving Fluffle once again as a ball of fluff, though now it was tinged with the heat that had flown through it, forcing the next step of her schedule.
The Princess dashed back out of the balcony, the doors shutting instantly behind her as she flew into the washroom, the wide and deep bathtub quickly flooding with water as the faucets saw the magnificent form before them with the black tint that must be rectified.
The pony herself wasted no time in bouncing up and down, quickly dribbling like a basketball to bounding half the height of the room, eventually blasting off the floor straight up to hit the ceiling, and stay there. Using her magical sticky fluff, she rolled along the ceiling to arrive above the bathtub before cutting of her stickiness to fall into the water, splashing a lot of it across the tiled washroom floor.
Fluffle then spun around madly to fully coat her thick fluff with water, pausing only to glare at the soap dispenser so that it may spray its slick foam into the water. Spinning around even more now, the water quickly mixed with the soap and seeped into her fluff, quickly cleaning it from the black tinge that the power of the Sun had wrought upon her when she wrangled it into the sky.
After finally cleaning herself, the pony burst forth from the bath and landed onto the tiled floor with a large splat, displacing only some of the soapy water in her fluff. She was quick to remedy that however, hopping into the air and using her magical gravity-defying powers to float while spinning madly once again, the air rustling through her wet hairs and slowly drying them off.
Eventually, she was finally dry, allowing her to free gravity from the basement she trapped it in so that it may pull her back to the floor, her glorious fluff now seeming to glow all on its own.
The pink princess quickly dashed back into her bedroom, for she had no time to waste, rapidly flying into the open chest that sat beside her bed and wriggling around within its stuffed volume for a few moments, eventually bursting back out with the royal golden tiara, peytral, and slippers worn in their proper places as she blasted out the door.
The large golden and indigo doors of the Princesses’ tea room slammed open as the Diarch of the Day entered, stopping to survey the room before her.
The two guards by the doors (one solar and one lunar, as normal for the neutral rooms) remained still and out of the way of the doors that would have otherwise hit them.
The waiters were putting her meal onto the table, also having hardly flinched at the doors suddenly bursting open, which was good, for if they had ruined her Super Sunrise Tacos (filled with the appropriate amount of solar and fluffening magic), she would have shoved them into her fluff to banish them to the shadow realm.
At last but certainly not least, Princess Chrysalis sat at the dark blue chair beside the grey table, her silky turquoise mane flowing like water across her dark chitin face and down to her purple-striped barrel and pseudo-saddle, the similar tail sliding partially across the long legs that ended with the purple heart-laden slippers.
Fluffle Puff’s stomach growled. Right, breakfast was calling and even her wife could stand to wait.
The earth pony dashed forward and slammed her face into the taco-laden tray as the waiters went back into the kitchen, leaving the rulers alone with but the guards to keep them company.
“So, how were your dreams, Fluffy?” The changeling Princess asked her spouse in her silky sweet voice while keeping her tea floating just in front of her with her violet magic.
Fluffle raised her head from the tray and chew for a few more moments before swallowing, then replied, “Pfflt.”
“Mm, I imagine so,” Chryssi said while the mare resumed eating, the fluff language she used being easily understood by her lover, despite the difficulty that most creatures in the palace had doing so.
The mare in question lifted her face again and wiped off the crumbs from her fluff with a forehoof. “Fpplt?” She asked calmly while reaching for the large glass of sugar-water on her tray.
“Oh, it wasn’t too eventful,” The changeling replied and sipped daintily at her tea, “It’s just that the Gryphons are still being pretty testy. Their weather manipulation has being doing no good to Novo lake and the sea ponies that live there.”
A couple moments passed in relative silence as Fluffle Puff drained her glass before she squinted her eyes slightly and said, “Pppblt.” Her wife nodded solemnly at the notion, but stopped when the pony continued, “Pppfppblt ffpt pppfppllt.”
“Of course,” Chrysalis with a cool smile, but soon put her tea down and stretched her legs. “It’s just stressing me out a lot, and feels so dull...”
“Ppphflt,” The solar Princess offered as she stood up.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” The darker creature asked with strain as she continued stretching.
Fluffle shook her head and said with half-lidded eyes, “Pppblblt.”
“Oh?” Chrysalis replies, slightly surprised, but quickly gains a smoky expression of her own. “Mmm, of course, puffball~” She then says before pouncing on her wife, making the guards blush and leave the Princesses to their own devices, more used to this situation that would ever be comfortable.
There was many perks to being a Princess of Equestria; the large and magnificent palace with an incredible view, the free tacos (and other foodstuffs) with numerous staff members to deliver and clean it, the ability to go wherever she wanted and noone would stop her, et cetera.
However, those benefits came with many detriments, such as everyone irritatingly trying to touch her fluff (No, not that way, you perverts!), the reverence which everything she said was held, and the very dull and boring bureaucracy.
Ah well, ‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ As the amazing Spoder-Mane’s uncle had once said.
Of course, with the day court Fluffle Puff was currently in, it sometimes felt like that responsibility outweighed the power.
“...and, of course, I’d imagine that you’d like to have a bit more light streaming in there. The lower halls will obviously need artificial lighting, but from our designs, we’ll make the building have a lot of perimeter relative to its area, so many more rooms will be able to have windows...”
...Definitely outweighed the power.
The solar pony slouched a bit more in her royal bean-bag (sometimes called her ‘throne’), forcing her eyes open as to not fall asleep while keeping her ears slightly perked if something were to pique her interest.
For a while the rambling continued on, going into details about colours and furnishings for some reason, despite the fact that the Princess would never really use the building she was being asked permission to construct. Eventually though, the architect stallion finished up with a few glances through the notes held in his magic, “...and that’s about it. What do you think?”
Fluffle looked back towards him, scouring her memories for any real fault, but found none. “Pppplppt,” She said in rather bored assent, waving a forehoof.
He lightly gasped, apparently not expecting her approval. “T-thank you, Princess. I shall see to it that the structure is soon to be built and we would be honoured if you would attend our finishing ceremony,” He said with slightly frayed nerves before briskly trotting out of the room.
“NEXT!” One of the guards shouted into the anteroom.
After a few seconds, a rather lanky earth pony stallion with some sort of weird translucent green hat on his head walked in and bowed. He then cleared his throat before speaking, “Princess Fluffle Puff, as the accountant for a business that imports seaweed, I am distinctly aware of the issues plaguing the sea ponies as of late.”
Great, an accountant. This was sure to be entertaining. At the very least, Fluffle was decently aware of what was happening at Lake Novo, which was obviously the area of interest.
“Now,” The accountant continued boringly, “I may not have any authority within these chambers, but I can at the very least inform you of some more details of the situation so that you may make a better decision.” He cleared his dry throat; apparently even his esophagus thought the lecture so boring as to fail producing anything. “The last few years, our input of seaweed has been ten kilograms per day, but this year it has been eight kilograms so far, and assuming that all of Lake Novo’s exportation is linearly downsized, that would mean that about twenty percent of seaweed has been lost. It would be best to assume that anyway, though of course, the sea ponies may have merely increased their consumption of the seaweed, but a spike like that seems unlikely.
“Now,” He said again, briefly making the Princess wonder if her fate was to forever listen to a time-looped lecture until the end of time, “Given the gryphons’ recent weather manipulation around the lake, it seems that they are to blame for this slight loss in seaweed.” Okay, so no time loop, but still boring as heck. “The gryphons don’t seem to be stopping any time soon however, and with the slow degradation of other exports such as sea cucumbers and sea salt, I think we need to take some sort of action against them, perhaps slowing our trade with them? They most def-”
The stallion was cut off by a quick, irate inhale of the solar Princess, who now held a slightly angry expression, making him nervously lick his lips and ask, “U-um, what is it, your Highness?”
“Pbbplt pppplblppt Ppbplt, ppt pblpt,” Fluffle Puff stated, getting an even more nervous look from the accountant.
He then started shivering in fear as the fluffy mare stood up, slowly stomping over to him with a mien that would make any terrify the life out of any foal as she glared at the stallion with Solar might that threatened to burn his face off. He looked as though he was about to piss himself as the other pony stopped just before him, their faces barely not touching as Princess Fluffle Puff, the Dawnbringer and veritable Lord of Light, stated with all the vitriol of a rioting mob, “Ppblt, Fbt."
The accountant could not hold his terror back any more at the flaming wrath and shrieked in undignified panic, immediately galloping out of the room and eventually out of the castle, though his cries could still be heard for some time.
Princess Chrysalis watched as her wife slept in her large, plush bed, her fluffy pink body raising and lowering slowly with regular breaths that held no trace of the peppy energy that the mare usually displayed. The black hoof that raised to press into the light fluff felt the softness even through the hard layer of chitin, making it exceptionally difficult even after all these years to not just jump into the bed herself and snuggle the night away.
Unfortunately, the changeling was not permitted to do that by her lunar nature, and had the Night Court in a few hours. But during the time being, she had a little something else she would like to go to so that would help curb those irritating thoughts...
Heavy music pulsed through Chrysalis’s ears as she trotted down the dark stairway into the night club below the cheeky music shop that lay on the surface. Multicoloured lights streamed under the basement door to light the hall as the changeling approached, a light scent of sweat and alcohol seeped in, giving her a sense of anticipation as she grabbed the door handle with her magic and turned it.
Bracing herself a bit, the Princess then pushed the door open, a flood of blaring music, a cacophony of rainbow lights, and a mix of sweaty scents slamming into her, making her feel truly alive in a way that the sterile and sparse halls of the Canterlot Palace couldn’t. Adding to the disparity was the densely packed space of the dance floor, many of the lights of the room coming from the floor itself, tiled with glowing lights of all different colours that filled the room with colour even more that the few disco balls hanging from the ceiling did.
She quickly headed inside, the deafening music preventing her from hearing the door close behind her as she went forward into the thick mob of ponies and changelings that were too engrossed in their energetic dancing to notice the royal presence. She was thankful for that, as she didn’t want anyone groveling at her hooves for their ‘disrespectful culture’, even despite how most of those in places like these tend not to be so shallow.
Chrysalis pushed and weaved her way through the pack masses over to the bar, as being a little tipsy made this place all the more fun, though too drunk and she wouldn’t do too well in the Night Court to follow...
Although, perhaps that would be rather interesting? She didn’t have anything especially important in those meetings after all...
“Chryssi!” A voice shouted through the blasting sounds, breaking the changeling from her thoughts and wrenching her view to the bottle-laden counter near her and the large pony behind it.
“Celly!” The Princess called back as she reached the bar, her eyes caught on the stark white alicorn standing behind it, blacks and purples striping through her mane, fading through her wings, and piercing through her eyes, the various piercings across her nose, ears, and eyebrows along with the spiked bands wrapped around her neck and fetlocks only adding to the image.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Celestia remarked as she twirled a couple bottles about with her violet magic, preparing her friend’s usual drink, having remembered it from the previous occasional times they’ve met. “Haven’t been gettin’ into anything too nuts these days, yeah?”
Chrysalis chuckled lightly as she sat on one of the stools, replying with a volume still enough to be heard over the background blare, “Not too hectic, though it has been rather stressful as of late.”
The other mare scoffed and quipped back with mock annoyance, “Drop the formality, gal! You’re killin’ the mood!”
“Sorry,” The Princess apologized before slouching down in a very casual position, “I’m still pretty used to it.”
Celestia merely chuckled and waved it off. “So,” She started, then slammed a glass full of green ooze onto the bar table, “What’ve you been up to, bar all the royal crap?”
“And besides this, you mean?” The changeling asked while waving a hoof to her surrounding environment.
“You don’t get out that much, do you?” The alicorn observed, making her friend smile sheepishly in a mixture of shame and disappointment while grabbing her drink with her magic. “Eh, it’s a’ight,” She waved it off again, “You’ve already spoken at length about how stressful it is up there.”
Chrysalis smirked and rolled her eyes at the teasing, though sighed in slight exasperation and replied, “Yeah, it’s just with everything going on, it gets really hard to have any free time.” She took a large gulp of the fluid before putting the half-empty glass back on the table. “Once I’m done with this stuff though, I think I’ll have enough to make trips like these more regular.”
“Oh yeah?” Celestia replied with some excitement, but then drifted into a saucy smirk as she said, “Well, I was fixin’ to get some more of that thick plot of yours...”
The Princess blushed slightly and giggled a bit. “You’re just lucky I’m in an open relationship,” She replied slyly, taking in the rest of her drink to mellow herself out before standing up.
“Well, I’m gonna milk it for all it’s worth!” The pony exclaimed as the empty glass and some bits were placed on the counter as her friend rolled her eyes and trotted her way into the main floor to finally let loose after all this time kept in what felt like a stasis in the castle.
The world flashed black as Princess Chrysalis entered one of her subject’s dreamscapes to cleanse it of its nightmare, the void quickly parting to reveal a nearly pitch-black cityscape that seemed to resemble Manehatten, though the buildings were far taller.
‘Vertigo or size-wise insignificance, then,’ The changeling reasoned for the dissonance as she fluttered her wings and flew off into the middle of the city, ears perked for any sign of the dreamer.
Soon enough, a loud shriek echoed through the buildings, alerting the Defender of the Dreamscape and making her turn and fly towards its source, weaving through streetways and tunnels with a deftness most would not think her wings capable of.
Eventually a dark streak off in the distance caught her eye, seeming to have found the tormentor and flying faster towards it. She turned many corners, the streak always seeming just out of clear sight, but the numerous glimpses of it seemed to have it in the shape of a pony, a rather large one at that, with cobalt armour and a mystical mane and tail.
‘Queen Luna of the thestrals,’ Chrysalis identified, recalling her encounters with the diabolical mare and her schemes to plunge the world into an eternal night. It was hard to imagine the dark monster as the sister of the peppy punk pony she met with just this evening...
Another shriek flooded the city, forcing the Princess to up her speed yet further, a rather uncomfortable proposition given the fragility of her wings, but the dreamscape held no internal logic, so the wind blasting across her did no real harm. Of course, the psychosomatic aspect of it still prevented her from going fast enough to catch up with the stronger-winged alicorn, despite their owner’s experience in this realm.
“You cannot escape me, little filly...” The evil pony’s voice echoed around, her tone while perhaps not visceral, definitely held a dark intent.
‘A foal; that would explain the size, though there’s no way a foal would be able to outrun or outfly Queen Luna, even though she is moving very fast...’ Chrysalis thought as she rounded a few more corners, getting closer now and holding the black alicorn in near constant view. ‘Teasing. A fear only natural for foals, whereas older creatures fear things more sudden and intense.’
A dark chuckle sounded through the streetways before a sudden shout told of the alicorn dashing at the victim, loud and high-pitched wails and cries erupting from the no doubt suffering filly. The Princess followed the sound to its origin, soon finding the armoured thestral on top of a small, lightly coloured pony, who was writhing and flailing with her cries.
Something quickly struck the changeling as off however, noting the tone of the wails to be slightly more upbeat than she expected while she flew closer to the scene of the crime, where the position and movements of the mare and filly reminded her of something.
“Is that... tickling?”
Chrysalis stopped to clear her buzzing wings and the whipping air from the cacophony of noises, and finding that, yes, the diabolical Queen Luna was tickling somepony.
For a few moments, the Princess remained still in bewilderment. ‘This is a nightmare, I saw the darkness on the outside...’ She shook her head. ‘No matter,’ She thought before shooting a purple bolt from her horn at the ebony alicorn, soon hitting her and making her shatter like glass, freeing the oddly terrified foal.
The changeling then flew up to said foal, who was resting on the ground and panting in fear, not even mustering the energy to look around. “Are you alright?” She then asked concernedly, making the pony startle and jerk up to see her approaching savior.
The filly didn’t reply, however, instead gasping as her eyes widened, no doubt in wonder at the royal in her presence. The royal in question merely adopted and warm smile and rolled her eyes at the response, happy that the dreamer wasn’t hurt.
“Hello my little pony, I trust you are now alright?” Chrysalis asked in that same warm tone as an icebreaker of sorts.
The pony then blinked a few times before she seemed to come back to the ‘real’ world, nodding in slight embarrassment.
The Princess then took in the filly pony, a white coat with no visible cutie mark on her flank, a white ruffled mane with black ends that somehow made it look like a drawing, along with a delightfully adorable paper hat atop her head.
“Well,” The royal then started, “Now that you are safe, I do believe it is time I take my leave from this dream.”
“Dream?” The pony asked in bewilderment.
“More of a nightmare,” Chrysalis replied. “It is my sacred duty to help my subjects out of their nightmares, though,” She adopted a pensive expression while holding back a snicker, “I wasn’t expecting tickling to be something to be truly afraid of.”
The foal shuddered a bit at the mere mention of it. “I don’t like it,” She said with a slight pout, “Being trapped and... forced to laugh until it hurts... laughing is supposed to be fun...”
“Mm,” The Princess grunted in assent, trying her best not to pounce on the poor pony from her sheer cuteness. “Yes, such a juxtaposition can often be frightening; something safe being turned on its head like that...” She mumbled in thought.
“What?”
“Pay it no mind,” Chrysalis replied offhoofedly. “Regardless, I have other subjects to attend to.” She flared her horn in its signature purple in preparation to leave this dreamscape and added, “Farewell.”
The filly quickly got up and waved to the changeling. “Bye, Princy!”
“‘Princy’?” Said changeling responded, slightly baffled. “...Is that supposed to be a nickname?”
“Yes!” The foal replied ecstatically, “Princess Chrysalis, so Princy!”
Chrysalis laughed heartily at the adorable statement before clarifying, “‘Princess’ is not my name, it is merely my title.”
“Oh,” The pony responded in slight embarrassment, though paused in thought and then called, “Um, bye-bye Princess Chryssi!”
The Princess merely giggled and rolled her eyes while finished her spell, then flying back out of the filly’s dream. ‘I’ll let that one slide...’
