If there was one good thing about ponies, it was that they had lots of places for sticking knives. Or anything else along those lines. Twilight knew she was supposed to spout off some tripe about friendship, but that was just for the masses. She’d grown past that nonsense long ago, hadn’t believed it since before she’d become an alicorn. Which was five months ago.
Five tiresome agonizing months of being a princess. Of dealing with the public. And now she was immortal too, no escape. She’d had no idea what hell she was agreeing to at the time. Hell. Twilight felt as if she’d signed her soul to the devil, but she’d sold it to Celestia and that was worse. The devil would at least have the mercy to spare her the public appearances. Every official announcement, every ceremony, every school visit, every fucking dinner party. She was forced to attend as the prestigious new fourth princess.
And every time, a crowd of marble-eyed ponies swarmed to ask just the stupidest questions. Are those wings real? Does being royalty entitle you to free cabbages? What’s your new dental plan? That crown looks like it should be edible? And she always gave the wrong answers, which resulted in more questions.
Twilight hated ponies. She knew better now, never left her trash can. She’d had it brought into her room from the nearest whatever-place-had-a-trash-can and had hopped right in. It’d been a week now marinated in contempt, regret, and spoiled scraps. Twilight figures she’ll soon smell like an onion and sometimes pretends to be one. And when that doesn’t work and a pony approaches to communicate anyway, all she has to do is put on the lid until the voices stop. It looks to be a bright future ahead. Mare and trash can, an inseparable matrimony.
Princess Celestia is greatly distressed about Twilight’s response to stress. Not good for Equestrian politics at all. It’ll be a public relations nightmare if the press finds out about the princess refusing to leave a trash can, she’ll never be accepted then. Not to mention the ridicule of Celestia’s own judgement, being the one responsible after all, having hoof-picked the new Princess herself. And she hadn’t had favorable press lately anyway with everything since her sister’s return. It would be the final straw, they’d pin the blame firmly on her shoulders and she’d bear the weight for decades.
The maids were already whispering. This needs to be dealt with before anyone else finds out. By someone else. Celestia can’t persuade Twilight out herself because of politics. The few other ponies that knew weren’t acquainted with Twilight and had already failed. Cadence couldn’t leave the Crystal Empire. So she is going to send Luna next even though it leaves a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and Luna has botched every royal assignment she’d been given. Celestia had faith in her sister and that is worth sentimental value.
Poor Luna is not fit for this job at all. Not any actually, since she’d fallen off the moon. It’d be fair to say Princess Luna didn’t really know much of anything. She had spent the past two years in her room eating chips and smoking cigarettes from the wrong end. The pounds were accumulating. She’d stitched together a gown to conceal it but it looked like tattered dirty washcloths.
Celestia had held grand plans for the reintroduction of her sister into society once she returned from time out, but those plans were scrapped now.
Luna is in the room now. It smells like lavender incense mixed with rabbit carcasses so she wrinkles her nose. The scent is visibly wafting from the trash can in the center of the room, near the foot of Twilight’s bed.
She approaches the rusted cylinder with trepidation. Even the Princess of the Night, aka That Other Alicorn, Before Two More Popped Up, knows she is pretty much a miserable failure.
“Twilight, are you in there?” Luna asks even though the lid is not on the can. She can see Twilight quivering in garbage.
Two equine eyes pop open, bloodshot they shift back and forth, then fix on Luna.
Luna gasps and takes a step back. She was not expecting things to get weird so soon and the dark irises are staring. Air is chilly. The princess clutches the edge of her makeshift gown and looks anywhere but at Twilight. But she has to put her best foot forward.
“Twilight Sparkle, I am here for your health,” she says. “This is not a sustainable condition, you’re quickening the general decay. I will do something about it.”
Luna speaks the truth. The whole area was already tinted filthier than her nicotine-stained room, an obvious symptom. Everything becomes dark and musty if the general decay gets accelerated too much.
The once-purple alicorn scowls. “Je m’appelle. Je m’appelle. Je m’appelle.” Everything becomes French too.
Luna gasps again but puts on a brave face and changes attitude. Something intimidating. “I can smell your piss,” she says.
Twilight looks down, sniffs, then pokes her head out. “I will sit in it and there will be no questions.”
Twilight’s hair looks lice-ridden and soggy, but at least she is talking. Luna is encouraged at that, she seems to be doing something right, since she actually has another pony talking to her. Even the worker of the royal snack counter when she buys her chips does not communicate with her but merely holds the bag out at her with a tyrannosaurus grabber toy.
So Luna puts on a happy griffin face to facilitate the interaction. “That’s fine. I will ask no questions. But you’re not an onion and I can clearly see something drove you into pretending you were.”
“It is the sin of the masses. Their cotton rotten brains cannot be endured.” Twilight explains and her right arm juts into the air in exclamation. “I’ve ascended into an enclosed cylinder of abscess where they can never touch me. Nothing can touch me.”
She might succeed yet. Luna steps close again to the can. “You’re wrong, you’ve been drugged on the ichor of spite.” Her foreleg perches threateningly over Twilight. “I could touch you right now if I so desired. With my hoof.”
Twilight ducks her head a little and clutches the rim, but does not back down. It is nice to see someone with convictions. She squints. “You wouldn’t dare, haven’t the nerve. Wouldn’t matter despite. I’m not coming out.”
“You have to eventually, the can will decay away anyhow. Let’s solve this before it gets to that. Tell me what you want.”
“What I want?” Twilight’s voice crystallizes, eyes looking ethereal like ghost oysters.“I want to die, I want to defy, I want pants of pain, I want to bring about the black apocalypse of scorn from which there is no salvation.”
“Death!” The mention of such a serious subject which ponies have no business talking about reminds Luna how much she has no idea what she was doing. She’d once tried to persuade the worker of the royal snack counter to stock spicy chips and had ended up vomiting battery acid for weeks. “Twilight Sparkle, no pony can die! Well they probably would if we tried hard enough and really squeezed their throats, but Celestia will be endlessly furious!”
Twilight hisses, “Bah, the sugary breath of life is not fit for their sickened throats!” Then the mare whispers, “It will be okay, nobody will find out if we just blame it on a hydra or something.”
Which makes enough sense to Luna so she nods her head and agrees. “I didn’t understand. It’s okay if a few ponies die, perhaps we can work something out with arsenic.” She’d never wanted to see the sunshine herself.
Twilight’s head bobs in the can as she shakes it. “No, too many questions. Pile them in a pit, pile all the questions in a heap in a pit and burn them.”
Luna almosts voices approval at that but bites her tongue. This was decisive, so she should actually devote it some thought. With heavy steps, for plenty of reasons, the mare moves to look out the single window. But it’s too filthy to see through so she just pretends. And Luna thinks thoughts of death. Tortured masses of ponies writhing in pits of flames. A mass burning still seemed rather on the extreme side for her, truth be told she was more comfortable with a number under ten. Easier to count as well. It was why she’d suggested the arsenic. But it still must be better than the general decay going unchecked with Twilight bathing in refuse. That was the important thing to be avoided, general decay. Yes, Luna nodded. This was her solution, this was how she would save Equestria and not mess up.
Princess Luna turns back to Twilight and stands tall. Her washcloth dress flows in nonexistent wind. “Okay. I know what it means to be a dreamer. I know what it means to be alone. I know exactly how I want it to feel. All undesirable or inconvenient questioners will be incinerated.”
And not another stupid question was asked ever again.
