Chapter 1: A Life In The Day
“Hark, foul demon, and say your prayers!” the valiant stallion said before his foe. The stunning male was adjourned with armor of the most fabulous variety, with gold trimmings and silver plates that made him positively sparkle in the bright light shining conveniently behind him.
The demon in question hissed and spit out a foul, acidic drool that splattered harmlessly on the stallion’s glamerant armor. “You should be the one praying, worm!” the demon snarled, cackling under his breath. Rising up to an intimidating height of twelve feet tall and just as wide, the putrid stench arising from this abominable behemoth could make any lesser stallion faint. “For when I am done with you, your only exit shall be death!”
“Your overconfidence in your weakness,” the stallion laughed, pulling out his bright and shining sword from his sheath that was illuminated from the blessings of the heavens themselves. “For I have traveled far across the lands, battled countless armies and foes and trampled upon the bones of my enemy just so I can spill your guts upon the earth! The time for death is now, and I can assure you that it will only be yours that shall be your exit!”
The demon roared, charging on its multiple limbs to strike down upon the stallion. Standing still before the approach of pure evil incarnate, the stallion raised his sword and prepared himself to fight in a battle most epic indeed.
“Hey, Sheath, are you listening to me or what?”
The demon spawn blurred and finally disappeared, only to be replaced with the much more terrifying face of the captain of the royal guards.
Sheath moved on instinct and slammed his hoof to his forehead in a salute, accidentally hitting his helmet which caused his overbearing headgear to ring and his skull to rattle. “Sir, yes sir!” he quickly shouted, the statement almost like breathing to him.
The captain narrowed his eyes. “So, what are you going to do?”
Sheath gulped, throat temporarily clogged by fear. “What… you just said, sir.”
“And what, exactly, was that?” the captain asked nice and slowly.
“Wouldn’t you already know that, sir?”
Sheath was positively choking on terror, and soon he was about to drown once the captain chewed his ears out and spit out their remains on his face.
Luckily, his savior came in the form of Princess Celestia herself, who seemed to glide down the hall like a saving boat for a sinking ship. “Oh captain,” she called, stopping before the pair of guards with a warm smile on her elegant face, “would you be so kind as to report to the guard quarters at once?”
The captain’s mouth opened and closed, like a floundering fish out of water. “Whatever for, your majesty?”
Celestia hummed for a short second. “Let’s see… because I said so?”
Opening his mouth again, but unable to find the words to counter her statement without making either a fool of himself or committing insubordination, he bowed and muttered, “Very well, your majesty,” before walking away from the pair with an angry stomp in his hoof.
Glancing down at the stunned guard, she grinned slyly and winked. Without another word she left him there to his own devices, which were amazement that the princess just saved his hide from being skinned and dread at returning back to the guard quarters.
The ballerina bowed and extended her back hoof far above her body, so much so that her front hoof nearly touched the ground as she leaned forward. Holding this pose for several seconds, which mounted high on one another to build up tension for the crowd and for her muscles, she released herself to begin her dance.
Like a spring shooting forward she flied through the air, her tutu spinning around her like she was the eye of a bright pink hurricane. Elegant yet fierce, she danced in what appeared to be a storm of flying legs and spinning hooves. The audience was completely enthralled by the performace, those not on the edge of their seats sitting up to get a better look.
The daintiness of the ballerina’s hooves were only matched by her fine skills at moving them to and fro, as if they were the wind and the stage the fields of grassy plains she breezed past through. Every leap and bound created a building crescendo of sharp movements that captured the attention of every living soul that witnessed it. It very well seemed to be a dance of life, of nature, of the universe and the complex questions none can answer. But further more, it was a dance that only she could perform and only she could pull off to perfection.
Round and round the stage she went, like the hands of a clock that moved in perfect form and function, right on the dot in precise unity. Reaching the high point that led up to the climax that was sure to leave some of the crowd in tears, the ballerina stopped center stage, and with her hooves raised high she spinned and spinned and spinned.
It was a tornado of the utmost grace. With a single hoof raised to the heavens the ballerina hugged her body with the other and prepared for the final act of her performance.
Unfortunately for her, the spin was cut short by a premature death when she accidentally ran into a table.
The maid fell not so pleasantly on the floor, the table falling atop her in a crash that took her breath away. Her eyes spinned in their sockets while her mouth hung open to deliver a low moan. Eventually, she was called back to the land of the present when the sharp pain in her side where she hit the table provoked her to hiss under her breath and rub at it furiously.
“Stupid Pearl! You should have looked where you were going!” she yelled at herself, kicking off the table from her body.
Getting back to all fours, she hastily smoothed out her maid’s uniform to make sure not a wrinkle or smudge could be seen on it. It costed an entire week’s pay if she ruined it from neglect, and she was short a couple of weeks already from stunts very similar to this one.
Glancing back to the table that was still sitting on its side, she discovered with quick realization that it was in fact the priceless wooden table used by Starswirl the Bearded that all the servants were told specifically not to touch unless for cleaning. This is what she got for volunteering to clean up in the library section of the castle again!
“Oh no, no, no, no! This isn’t good!” Pearl muttered in a panic, quickly pulling the table back up to standing position. But that wasn’t the end of her troubles, for scattered letters and scrolls thousands of years old littered the floor from where it fell. “Not good at all!”
Pearl picked up pages in a flurry of activity in an attempt to right her stupidly risky wrong. Pearl muttered to herself, “Why do I have to be so stupid? I only had to dust the shelves, nothing more, and now this! I’ll be lucky to keep my job by the end of the month if this continues.”
“Need some help?” Princess Celestia asked behind her.
The pages in Pearl’s hands dropped like an avalanche as white papers yellowed by age surrounded her hooves again. Turning back quickly to the waiting princess, she couldn’t believe her eyes at the sight before her. Celestia was holding the fallen papers and scrolls in her magic, and had already picked up what Pearl had dropped before.
“Why—erm, yes, of course… m-my majesty,” Pearl stuttered, afraid her tongue would pop out of her mouth. “I am so, so, so, so very and terribly sorry for creating this mess. Really, I truly am.”
Celestia tucked the scrolls and papers back in their proper drawers in the table. “It is no trouble, my dear,” she spoke calmly, her words soothing Pearl of her fears. “Everypony makes mistakes every now and then. It is how we learn from them that truly matters.”
“Oh, I really learned my lesson here, I swear it!” Pearl said in haste, never believing her luck that the princess came to her aide and wasn’t even mad at her. “No more volunteering for cleaning in the library from now on!”
“That’s… fine, I suppose” Celestia agreed. Looking to the clock hanging high over the doorway, she said, “Well, I must be off. Have a pleasant day, fair citizen.”
“Oh, I’ll be sure to be, your majesty!” Pearl said, along with many other thanks she had to hold back to not overload herself or the princess. Wait till the other maids hear about this!
The stallion winced at the sharp sting of plastic against flesh. Pulling on his other glove, he winced once again as the stretchable material slapped against his skin.
Walking on his hind legs to the operating table, a nurse adjusted the surgical mask over his muzzle so it wouldn’t intrude with his field of vision.
“Status on the patient,” the surgeon quickly ordered.
The nurse lifted out a chart with her magic and began to list off the diagnos, “Records say high loss of blood, most likely internal since no obvious wounds can be found on the patient’s skin. Bone fractures in the torso, mostly contained in the ribs on the lower left side.”
“So the most likely case of the internal bleeding is one of the fractures of the ribs piercing an organ,” the surgeon quickly concluded.
The nurse nodded. “Most likely. But the patient just arrived not fifteen minutes ago from what has been reported to having been them being run over by a cart, and which organ was injured is still unknown. And the longer we wait—”
“The more blood the patient loses. Yes, I already know.” The surgeon inspected his work area before him. The patient was completely covered by a sheet, except for a square opening revealing a badly bruised and bloody from multiple scrapes chest and lower abdomen. From the odd patch of dark pink coat poking out here and there on the minefield of lacerations, the surgeon guessed the patient was most likely female. “We need to operate, and fast. Nurse, get me my tools!”
With exact precision and predomination over the his craft, the surgeon cut open the patient to get to work. Grisly it was, but you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. With loud barks to the nurse for whatever tool he needed for the current job at hoof, the surgeon parted open the skin and muscles and eventually reached the gooey, icky yet oh so dependant organs that the pony had.
In a flourish of accurate beyond belief cuts and adjusting the organs out of the way, the surgeon quickly found the source of the patient’s life endangering dilemma.
“Nurse, one of the kidneys has been pierced by a sliver of the ribs,” the surgeon said.
“Do we have a proper replacement on hand?” the nurse asked, wiping off a sheet of sweat from the surgeon’s forehead.
“No time,” the surgeon replied, already adjusting the scalpel in his hoof. “The bleeding must stop at once, or else we’ll lose the patient!” And with this, the surgeon dived into the patient’s body with a hoof armed with her saving grace and resolution and will to save whoever was on that operating table no matter what.
“Pierre! Pierre! Where is that no good scoundrel!” a heavy and almost bloated sounding voice called from the end of the kitchen.
Pierre blinked and looked down at the ruined remains of the potato he was supposed to be chopping up. Now it resembled mashed potatoes more than anything.
Turning back to catch a glance, Pierre’s pupils shrunk at the sight of the fat yet not so jolly head chef of the kitchen waddle his wide girth towards him. Lifting up his ladle with his magic, the chef shook it in the air and said, “Pierre! Step forward at once!”
The unlucky stallion could only do as he was told, trudging to the head chef with his own head held low before the sight of the ladle. Like a prisoner and a dungeon master, many of the other chefs in the kitchen compared the ladle to a whip the head chef would smack with a sadistic glee on the head of any neglectful worker. Pierre had felt the stung of the ladle far too many times to count, sure that he had its bottom lip ingrained on his skull after so long.
“Yes, head chef?” Pierre asked with rising tension building up at the pit of his stomach.
“Where are those potatoes I wanted peeled and cut up for my soup?” the head chef asked, holding the ladle up high like he was the judge and Pierre the guilty convict, ready for the swift hammer of justice to fall.
“Uh…” Pierre looked to the mushy mess of the potatoes. “They’re… nearly finished.”
“Unacceptable!” the chef screamed. Pierre had to fight back a wince as spittle coated his cheeks from the chef’s not really appealing smelling mouth. “My soup must have the potatoes now, and if they don’t, then the entire dish is ruined! And do you want to ruin the dish, Pierre? Do you want to put all of my hard work to waste with your foolishness? Huh?”
“No, of course not, head chef,” Pierre answered, though whatever came out of his mouth may as well as have been Gryphonian to the chef, who was nearly berserk for his easy to start rage.
“Well, I can tell you right now…” The head chef raised his ladle, ready to strike down a bitter and very painful lesson on the more inexperienced chef.
“Tell him what?” Princess Celestia asked behind the head chef. All the chefs immediately stopped what they were doing, the sudden appearance of the princess a rare sight inside the kitchen walls.
The head chef halted his tirade and looked over his shoulder with fearful eyes at the grand and glorious figure of the princess. If there was ever an opposite to the chubby and squat chef, Princess Celestia was probably it.
“Tell him… t-tell him… what?”
“You were about to tell him something,” Celestia reminded him. Grabbing ahold of the chef’s ladle with her own magic, Celestia made her way to the head chef’s soup and took a sip of it using the ladle. Smacking her lips, she sighed in content. “Mmmm... tasty.”
“I was about to… to… to tell him wonderful job as always!” the head chef quickly made up on the spot. Smacking Pierre’s back hard and fast with hoof, he said, “Pierre, thanks once again for being such a skilled chef!”
“Um… you’re welcome, head chef,” Pierre said slowly, buckling under the head chef’s strong hoof.
Nodding her head, Celestia laid her ladle down and returned back to the pair. “Well, that’s excellent to hear. And since Pierre is such an skilled chef, you wouldn’t mind him cooking tonight’s dinner while you serve the dishes, would you know?”
The head chef smiled a grin that hurt to look and was probably an attempt to hide his approaching tears. “Why, of course I wouldn’t, your majesty. It would be an honor!”
“Say what now?” Pierre asked, turning his head to and fro from Celestia to the bumbling head chef.
“Wonderful.” Celestia walked past the two, smiling a charming smirk at Pierre. “I am sure I can expect a delicious meal tonight.”
Working with it, Pierre smiled and nodded his head quickly. “You sure can, your majesty!”
Celestia left the kitchen, now with a humiliated head chef and an uprising lower chef. Pierre definitely didn’t expect his noggin being saved from a knocking from Celestia of all ponies.
The pegasus soared across the crystal clear skies with a trail of thundering clouds following her wake. The sun shined high above her, yet it was so close she could swear she could touch it with her hoof if she just went a few feet farther. That would have to wait another, however, got her only direction now was at the opposite end of the sun.
Down below, so small they looked like lice that would bother the head of an ant, a crowd of ponies cheered for her descent. She couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the wind billowing around her near the atmosphere, but she knew once she completed her trick the throng of ponies screaming and applauding will leave her near deaf.
With a final flap, she hugged her wings to her sides and fell like a stone. She positioned her body straight and rigid, her eyes protected by her goggles but her lips spreading apart from the g-forces blasting directly in her face. Keeping her hooves in front of her took more effort than she ever thought possible, the pull of the wind wanting to throw them at her sides. But she held true and continued to point her hooves at her target. A small hoop—impossibly tiny from this height—which she had to go through just right while she rapidly accelerated through the air at speeds so fast she felt like her mane would tear itself from her scalp.
Faster and faster, and closer and closer she was arriving at her target. The perfect finisher by narrowly avoiding crashing into the ground while hitting the hoop right in its center. It was said to be impossible and unbelievably life-threatening, but she knew she could pull it off without a hitch.
So close now that she can catch the faces of individuals of the fans in the stadium, it was at this point she knew it was her time to shine. Ready to flap her wings out in a snap to change the direction of her dive, she counted the seconds down.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One…
“Sister?”
Celestia shook her head, eyes rapidly blinking as she turned her head to Luna, who had spoken over her shoulder. “Oh, Luna, I did not hear you.”
“You were staring into the distance for about five minutes now,” Luna said, taking a seat next to Celestia at her conjoined throne. “Is something troubling you?”
“Oh, no, nothing at all,” Celestia replied, grinning to Luna to reassure her. “I am quite fine.”
Luna nodded, sharing a smile with Celestia as well. “Good. I was just wondering how your day went. Anything out of the usual?”
“No, I don’t believe so. It was pretty typical.” Celestia stared at the official down below the steps leading up to her throne, who was off to the side scrawling notes and other royal related doctrines on parchment. “But please, don’t let me bore you with the trivial details. How was your night yesterday?”
“Oh, just as typical as your day, I suppose. Traveling through the dreams of the slumbering Equestrian ponies can be quite the hassle, but something I am used to.” Luna grinned merrily. “It always is a joy looking into what a pony dreams about, late at night. You don’t know what will happen, but it’s sure to be an interesting experience.”
The pegasus mare was not writing at the time. Instead, her chin was resting on her hoof while her head was tilted to the side. Her eyes seemed to be staring at something that wasn’t there, while a small smile could be seen on her cheeks.
“I’m sure it is,” Celestia agreed, smile growing wider. She could still hear the cheering of the crowd, so far away yet so close at the same time. “I’m sure it is.”