Princess Luna: Palace Flipper Extraordinaire
The room was a complete and utter ruin.
In all of her years of existence, Princess Luna had not seen a room in a more sorry state than the one that she now gazed in shock and revulsion at. It was, to put it as frankly as she could manage, sickening to observe and terrifying to behold. Should any being of a lesser will than hers comprehend its form, they would likely go mad from the sheer dreadfulness of what they saw.
It was the tackiest room that Luna had ever seen.
For one, the sense of style was all wrong. The carpet was teal. Teal. And it didn’t even match the drapes! Which were red! Since when did teal ever go along with red? Since never, that’s when! And that couch—cross-hatching? Really?
But that did not even scratch the surface of what was wrong with this room. No, the layout was atrocious as well. Apparently the designer had never heard of a little thing called “feng-shui”. What kind of deviant saw it fit to place a couch that faced the wall? At least throw up a nice painting, or something! Honestly!
And by her own name, the DUST!
“We can stand it no longer!” roared the Lunar Princess. “This room is unfit for our usage! We demand the situation be rectified, posthaste!”
Her sister, whom stood beside her, threw Luna a perplexed look. “What is wrong with it?” inquired Princess Celestia, quirking an eyebrow.
“Art thou blind, sister?!” roared Luna, angrily flailing a hoof between several points of obvious fault. “Just look at this room! It’s… it’s…” She paused, mulling over something. “…we’ve yet to even invent such a word to describe its depravity! We return home after one thousand years, and THESE are the private quarters that you provide us with?!”
The Princess of the Sun shook her head. She was so very happy to see her sister again and all, after an entire millennium of separation. But already, it seemed, friction between them was beginning to occur once more…
…and it just had to be over the style of her personal chambers, didn’t it?
“Sister, I’m very sorry that it does not suit your tastes,” she consoled, mentally sighing with exasperation. “But, please recall; your room had been left exactly as it was since those thousand years ago. Untouched. You did not complain about its style then, so why would you now?”
Luna was struck silent for a moment, and then stammered, “T-time’s change! Style and décor advance with the years! Do not expect us to be satisfied with the same design forever, sister!”
The taller princess sighed deeply. “Then what would you have me do, Luna?”
“Fix it! Remodel! Renovate—oh, you know what we are referring to, sister!” the lunar princess groused. “And do something akin to a more Art-Deco style, preferably; perhaps with an essence of Victorian to go along with it for good measure.”
“…” Princess Celestia closed her eyes. “Sister, are you familiar with the acronym “D.I.Y”?”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “Of course we are. We are not some common imbecile. It means ‘Do It Yourse—” Luna cut herself off, and gawked at her sibling. “…what?! By OURSELVES?!”
“If you want something done right, naturally,” Celestia said, a tiny smirk beginning to form as she took her leave. “I must be off to a meeting with the councilors… again. Have fun, dear sister.”
“Wait, you can’t just—!”
The door was slammed shut in her face before she could finish. Luna pouted indignantly.
“FINE! We shall take care of this disaster zone ourselves!” she declared, stomping the floor. “And it shall be glorious! Our subjects will come from far and wide just to get a hope of glimpsing these chambers after we are finished with it! Just watch us, sister!”
The Princess of the Night turned to face the room, resolute defiance in her eyes. Such a horrid room would likely shatter any lesser laborer’s will to work in an instant; perhaps her sister had a point in suggesting she do it herself.
…But, no matter. At least this way, Luna would make absolute sure that the finished room would suit her tastes to a T. After all, how hard could interior designing be? Surely a princess such as herself, the regal ruler of the moon, could bring herself to perform such a task with very little difficulty.
She panned her gaze across the to-be-renewed chambers, disgust etching into her features as she took note of the tacky and dust-covered items within. The dresser, far too archaic... The end-tables, appearing barely able to keep their own weight up, much less anything else's... And the bed... oh heavens, the bed! Luna could hardly imagine what foul things settled into its fabric in the past millennium. The thought made her want to gag.
Ugh... First thing’s first, then: remove the unwanted furnishings.
And so, with a flick of her horn, everything that wasn’t nailed down in the room was lifted up, and brutally cast out the window.
It took several minutes for the dust to settle (and another three for Luna to stop coughing), and by the end she noticed that, to her satisfaction, the room was now completely empty.
There was, however, now a significant and gaping hole where the only window in the room once was.
“No matter,” she muttered idly. “I didn’t care for bay windows anyway.”
The Princess of the Night then turned her gaze to the walls, glowering threateningly at them.
Next: dispose of that positively disgusting wallpaper.
Once more, her horn glowed blue, and the paper was unceremoniously stripped off in a huge sheet, peeling off from the walls around the room. Unfortunately, as the walls surrounded her, the wallpaper stripped off and surrounded her as it was removed as well. Before Luna realized her blunder, she was quickly enfolded by the paper; caught completely off-guard.
“GAH! WHAT IS THIS TREACHERY?!” she roared, struggling about in vain as the wallpaper obscured her vision and hindered her movements. “Treasonous rag! Cur! BEGONE!”
Another pulse of magic surged forth from her horn as she mercilessly tore the wallpaper away from her body, crushed it into a ball, and threw it out of the widened hole as well.
For good measure, she also set it on fire.
Luna smirked, indulging in a laugh at her tiny victory. “Ha! Perhaps that will show the so-called “designers” of our room what we think of their “professionalism”!” A passing thought occurred to her that those ponies probably weren’t even still alive anymore in this day and age, but she shrugged it off. No sense condemning the dearly departed, after all…
She looked at the floor beneath her hooves, and groaned distastefully. Ugh, and that carpet has got to go.
Her magic almost made these tasks far too easy. Again, she managed to rip out the terribly-teal carpeting from underneath herself (being careful to hover out of reach this time), crumple it up, and toss it out what was once the window.
Finally, the room was barren. A clean slate, for the Princess of the Night to style as she pleased. There was only one issue, however.
…Where are we supposed to acquire the items to make our chambers livable?
While her magic might have been the optimal choice for the demolition of her chambers, they weren’t quite as flexible for doing the opposite. That is, creating objects, rather than splintering them apart.
Summoning objects from nowhere is virtually impossible, and while she could fix things that were broken, she couldn’t create any parts out of the ether to repair objects that needed them. No, an item would have to already exist, and be taken away from another location. That was all well and good, but where would Luna find the comfortable furnishings she required?
She bit her lip, looking over the barren and still-quite-ugly room. While not the atrocious eyesore it was but a scant few minutes ago, it was still a far cry from anything that was aesthetically suitable for a noble deity such as herself.
Or a common earth pony, for that matter.
Princess Luna hmm’d fretfully for a moment, looking around the room. Seeing as how she had already disposed of all of the furniture and whatnot that adorned her bedchambers out (what used to be) her window, she could not fathom where she could acquire such—
She straightened up suddenly. Then, right then, she had an idea.
“Oh… yes, that would work.”
~O~
Princess Celestia walked quietly down the hall. She thought less about the dreary topics the counselors had brought up at the meeting, and more on the task she had more-or-less “assigned” to her sibling a few hours ago. The princess honestly didn’t expect Luna to make too much progress, especially seeing as how she had no access to proper tools—or even basic knowledge of remodeling to begin with.
“Oh well,” she said to herself, chuckling gently. “Perhaps this might serve as a learning experience for my sister, if nothing else.”
Just as she decided to make her way to check on Luna, she happened to pass by a pair of Royal Guards carrying another guard on a medical stretcher. The stallion appeared in a poor state, with many bandages wrapped around his head and a glazed, distant look in his eye. As they passed by, the princess could hear him mumble, “…the apocalypse… tacky furniture… falling from sky…”
Celestia wasn’t sure what to make of this, letting the guards move their injured comrade to a medical room. How strange, she thought, but quickly shrugged off the occurrence without much contemplation. He appeared delusional; perhaps there was a fluke accident in the training grounds.
Satisfied with that conclusion, and mostly disregarding what the guard had said, she continued on her way. Celestia soon reached the doorway to Luna’s bedchambers, and politely knocked.
“Ah, sister! Do come in!” came her sister’s immediate reply, which surprised the princess to some extent. Luna sounded rather cheerful; had she come around and accepted the state of her room as it was? Whatever the reason, it was indeed a good sign.
Smiling, Celestia opened the door. “Hello Luna, it’s good to see that you are—” She stopped, and her eyes widened. “—settling… in…”
“Greetings to you as well, sister!” said the lunar princess brightly, having just finished dusting off the dresser. “As you can see, we are making ourselves quite comfortable in our chambers, having now suited it to our needs.”
Princess Celestia couldn’t believe it. The room was practically transformed. No longer was it the chamber that no one had seen nor touched in a millennium. It was so… chic.
The walls, no longer bearing the boorish and dated wallpaper, now sported a more contemporary coating of midnight-blue paint and cloud patterns. Why, she had even gone to the trouble of painting the night sky itself on the ceiling! (However, as such a thing as basic coloration was easily accomplished with magic, it wasn’t too shocking. Though the detail was certainly impressive nonetheless.)
Gone was the teal carpeting, now replaced with tiled flooring; each tile bearing unique designs that produced a spectacular pattern all over the floor. She had even replaced the window with something much more open, and inviting—was that a balcony? Celestia could hardly comprehend her surprise. Decorating and construction? Will wonders never cease?
And then there were the furnishings. The dresser that Luna had just finished cleaning was elaborately-carved, made out of some type of oak. And that bed looked… plush. As in, she almost wanted to run and jump into it right at that instant. Violet gossamer curtains surrounded the grand, pillared bed, offering both privacy and seclusion to those sleeping inside. The sheets, she noticed, were a just a few shades of blue lighter than the walls.
That wasn’t all. The décor was astonishing. A few well-done paintings hung from spaces on the walls, each one accentuating the theme of night and day—but mostly night. Plants set in pots — strangely familiar plants in strangely familiar pots — were placed at strategic points around the room: near the doorway, the balcony window, and the bed. A circular rug was placed dead center in the room, which, for some reason, had the image of a navy blue and white… sun? Or perhaps it was a moon. She couldn't quite tell, though such fluidity in design may have been intentional for all she knew.
Princess Celestia was very surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nevertheless. In the span of but a few hours, her sister had manage to completely flip an entire bedchamber with almost no tools nor material, besides magic. Though even with magic, renovation and aesthetics of this caliber was not something to be sneezed at.
But, even so, something about the new room’s design and furnishings bugged her. She didn’t know why. Something about it was… familiar. Almost overbearingly so. However, in favor of supporting her sibling’s obvious effort, Celestia decided to ignore the feeling in her gut altogether.
“Why Luna,” she began to say, “this room looks… astounding. I don’t know how you managed it, but somehow, you’ve far surpassed any expectation that I would have set for you.”
“Why, we appreciate the praise, sister!” said Luna, beaming proudly.
“To be honest, I did not expect you to make any progress at all,” admitted the eldest princess, a smirk beginning to form on her face. “I probably would have just done it all eventually, anyway. At the very least, you’ve saved me some labor work.”
Luna’s smile vanished and her gaze narrowed. “Sister…”
The princess laughed at her glare. “I’m kidding of course,” Celestia assured. “But of course, I am very proud of you, Luna. Very proud. Consider me quite impressed by your handiwork.”
The Princess of the Night slowly began to smile again. “Thank you, sister.”
“Of course. I’ll leave you to your new room, then; if you have need of me, I’ll be in mine.”
Nodding to her sister—not noticing the sudden look of unpleasant realization on her face—Princess Celestia left the room, and continued down the hallway. Not much further than a dozen meters, and she was already at the door to her bedchambers.
It’s nice to see that Luna is taking such responsibility and initiative, she thought, pushing open the door and stepping inside. Now, if only I can get her to clean up around the Palace more oft—
For the second time in as many hours, she was forced to stop herself. The Princess of the Sun gaped at the sight before her.
Her bedchambers had been completely gutted.
The walls—barren. Floor—gone. Furniture? Forget about it. Everything that had once been in there was gone; stripped away by some unknown perpetrator. And to add devastation to callous thievery, there was an ungainly, very unsightly hole where her balcony used to be. She could feel a cold breeze blow in through it, further cementing the horrendously-ransacked state of her personal chambers.
Celestia didn’t know what to feel, or how to feel it. Who could have done such a thing? And in so little time, too, somehow escaping the guards' notice?
After several moments of blank and befuddled contemplation, her mind finished connecting the dots. She knew that there was a reason that Luna’s new room had such a strangely familiar air to it… The paintings, the bed, the plants, the balcony, the rug...
Just then, Princess Luna poked her head around the door, grinning nervously as she saw her sister’s shocked expression.
“We may have been required to borrow some things, sister…”
