Raucous applause sounded out, from hands clapping as much as hooves stomping, as several lights from above lit up a decorated desk in the middle of a large studio stage. A smarmy looking man sat there, making winning gestures at his audience.

“Thank you, thank you. Welcome to Too Damn Late! I’m Rick Lately, and it’s wonderful to see you all here tonight,” the host yelled over the noise. The stage lights stopped their little blink-and-twirl, leaving a single, neutral flood in their place. The host, Mister Lately, was your typical late night talk show funnyman, with a deceptively smart suit, hair lightly slicked back, and a toothy yet disarming grin.

“We’ve got a wonderful show lined up for you today, ladies, gentlemen, fillies, gentlecolts, and perverts,” Lately announced. One camera panned past the audience as he spoke, ending squarely on recurring hero Martin, who flipped the bird to the camera man, Rick Lately, and the viewers at home in one fell swoop.

“And that confirms it. I don’t know who you are, but you just outed yourself on national TV.”

“Blow me,” Martin said, even though there was no boom mike to pick up on it.

“Off to a good start! Now, our first topic tonight is sort of related, it is of course the human-pony marriage act that’s been all over the news recently.”

An image appeared behind Lately, showing a cartoon pony with a bridal veil. “Art department couldn’t find an actual mare willing to appear like that and their Photoshops won’t start. Something about licensing servers and Anonymous, I’m not entirely certain on the details. Anyway, with us here is our correspondent in all things pony, Pipsqueak!”

The camera pulled back to reveal a lanky pinto seated near the right edge of the desk, dressed in a billowy white shirt that reminded of a classic swashbuckler and nothing else. How he got there was obvious to the studio audience, but the viewers at home could only hope they guessed right.

“’Ello again, Mister Lately,” Pip greeted in his stereotypical brogue, which the audience couldn’t quite determine if it was exaggerated for the show or not. “So, the marriage act? Where do I even begin?”

“Well,” Lately considered, “why not any famous people, or yourself?”

“I can’t roitly say a’ve any personal experience, Mister Lately, consid’rin’ me luv’s roit dere in d’stands”, Pip deflected, pointing a hoof at a particular mare in the audience. “’n I’m not exactly ‘ware o’ any famous people jumpin’ d’species barriah.”

Lately pointed behind him, where the image of the pony in a veil had been replaced with a photo of President Pudding Pop kissing her rival in the recent election; Senator Creed. The audience gasped.

“Ah, that one doesn’t count, guv. That was a little consolation prize.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Lately grinned.

“Swear it on me mum. Bu’ anyway, there’s guvmintal institutions all o’er sayin’ it’s okay, even if it’s as useless for procreation as, f’r example, gay marriage.”

“It’s funny, you know,” Lately recalled. “Back when gay marriage was such a hot issue in America, there were certain groups who warned that next, people would want to want to marry their pets, or horses. A slippery slope argument if I ever saw one. I don’t mean to be too insulting here but in a certain way those people were almost right. I remember way back then I saw them on the news and I thought to myself, ten or maybe twenty years from now we’ll look back at this bullshit and laugh.”

“Yeah but really, Mister Lately? Not two days ago this one couple wen’ and got married, a Dutch lady ‘n a unicorn stallion? I’m told the reception set a record or summin’.”

A video came up showing the reception in question. The pastor who’d married the lucky couple was huddled in a corner with a very stiff drink and the bride was trying – and failing – to ride the groom, dressed in something straight-up Tolkien. It was rather unclear why she couldn’t mount the strapping unicorn; it could be the fact he was just a little pony, their mutual drunken state, and/or the lady’s long, billowing dress.

“Leave it to the Dutch, people,” Lately deadpanned when they cut back to the stage. “Thanks for your input, Pipsqueak.”

Behind Lately, the image was replaced once more. It now showed the official logo of Celestialism, the single most common religious belief among Equestrians, a slightly altered version of Princess Celestia’s sun mark. “Our main attraction today, ladies and assorted creatures, is in a class all of her own and she’s here to discuss religion, politics, and basically anything the viewers at home throw at us on the Internet – please welcome Princess Celestia YAY!”

Normally, a studio light would track the guest as they entered stage left, but not this time. The guest, you see, was luminous enough on her own. As her theme music played in a subdued fashion (and stark contrast with an inhuman stomping noise from the audience), she calmly trotted up to the left side of the desk where a stage hand quickly put down a large fluffy pillow.

“It’s good to have you here, your highness,” Lately smiled.

“It’s good to see the old clichés are still going strong, my dear Mister Lately,” Celestia countered.

“Now, one thing I noticed, right,” Lately opened, “is that you apparently have your own religion.”

Celestia smirked and rolled her eyes. “I just want to make this clear right now; I did not found Celestialism. My little ponies came up with that on their own shortly after I took charge and laid down some ground rules.”

“Ah yes the, eh… tenets, you mean?”

Celestia nodded solemnly. “The tenets, yes. They found out soon enough that my sister and I would not grow old, inferred that we were immortal, and the next thing I knew we’d been deified.”

Lately recalled his pre-show studies, and how one of the marines who made first contact had railgunned Celestia through the skull. “I understand alicorns – is that the right word? – are notoriously hard to kill, so I think I can accept immortality… are you immortal, though, or just very long lived?” he asked carefully.

“If it’s long enough, the distinction becomes meaningless,” Celestia half-answered.

“You heard it here first, boys,” Lately winked at the males in the audience, who laughed and clapped in approval. “So tell me about these tenets. We humans have the commandments and such, and I’m just sitting here wondering how they’re different.”

“That’s quite elementary. I’ve seen these commandments, and I think I prefer the tenets.”

“Of course you would. You wrote them.”

“Take for example the first one,” Celestia offered as she pulled a small plank-like piece of wood from under her wing and hovered it within reach of Lately. “I thought I’d bring one with me, though you, nor even anybody else in this room is likely able to read it.”

The small piece of wood was a beautiful dark red, with a lacquered surface and beveled edges. On the front, a sentence was written in an odd, angular script. The glyphs had been lightly etched in, then burned. All in all, it seemed written by horn.

“So what’s it mean, highness?”

“Please, call me Celestia.”

“Only if you call me Rick,” Lately smirked.

“Very well, Rick. This is the first guideline. From top to bottom, it reads ‘thou shalt treat hoofed creatures with due respect.’”

“No respect for humans, then? I see how it goes,” Lately said with a mock glare.

“That’s one difference between the tenets and your commandments, Rick. Yours are unyieldingly set in stone,” Celestia argued calmly. “This is merely the first, original version of that particular rule. Ponies follow only the most recent version of a given rule.”

“Oh? Then, how many revisions are there?” the host asked with genuine interest.

“This particular rule has been amended five times since, in the last three thousand years. Others have been adjusted much more often, though it’s not an easy process.” Celestia frowned. “I also noticed about half or so of the commandments are specific to certain religions.”

“Wait, hold on. When did you read Exodus?”

“Deuteronomy actually,” Celestia corrected with a smile, “shortly after my little ponies got here. The tenets, on the other hoof, make no references to me.”

“Missed a good chance there, ma’am,” Lately joked.

“Was my implication not obvious enough? We were deified. That doesn’t mean we have to accept it, let alone act on it. When a religious human breaks a commandment, that human, I’m given to understand, is doomed to go to Hull upon their death.”

“That’s ‘Hell’, ma’am.”

“Ah, thank you Rick. But when a pony, religiously-minded or otherwise, breaks a tenet, they just…” Celestia paused to find suitably strong words. “…piss me right off.”

Lately flinched. “Ouch. Then what happens?”

“That depends on what they did, obviously. But whatever the punishment is, it is exacted soon enough,” Celestia said with a threatening undertone. “What matters is; I consider myself something of a mother to my little ponies. I love them all, unquestionably. And a mother has to spank her children sometimes, when they act up.”

“Right. What’s particularly interesting is that there are humans who turned to Celestialism,” Lately remarked.

“They’re welcome to do so,” Celestia smiled. “I had a website set up with the latest revisions if they want them.”

“Now, I just got word that our first write-in questions have been submitted and picked out. Would you like to answer some questions from the viewers at home?”

Celestia smiled and nodded.

“First question… ‘Frigo’ asks, ‘why do you still enforce a monarchic society instead of seeing reason in thousands of years of human socio-political development and switch to something preferable?’”

Celestia turned to face the camera and closed her eyes in thought. “There is a saying common to humans and ponies, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ For any political system, its success depends entirely on its execution. The Equestrian diarchy – and it’d serve you well to remember my dear sister is as politically powerful as I – might be outdated or even suboptimal, but we’ve been on our thrones for thousands of years, and there have been little to no complaints from our subjects, even as society around us changed in the wildest ways.” She paused to take a quick sip of water. “There has been dissent, of course. It’s unavoidable. We would allow representatives of the opposition to sit with us and talk. They never last. Except for that one time where Luna and I gave them the political power they wanted and went on vacation. All we did for a week was raise the sun and moon, and by the third day they were practically begging us to come back.”

Lately was awestruck by the anecdote. “You are a manipulative plothole when you want to be, aren’t you?”

Celestia chuckled lightly. “You should’ve been there when I sent Twilight Sparkle, who was my faithful student at the time, to Ponyville, ostensibly to help prepare for the Summer Sun Celebration and make some friends while she was at it. Everything went as planned.”

“That’s… that’s horribly awesome. It’s a good thing you’re not evil. ‘Hibachi’ asks, ‘what’s your birthday, and how old are you?’”

“I first assumed this form on the twentieth of June,” Celestia answered vaguely. “You might recognize that date. I’d say how old I am, but after thousands of years I’m afraid I’ve lost track. Before you ask, I do know that Luna came to be shortly after me, say… fifty years or so, and skipped a thousand years while on the moon.”

“You don’t look a century over twenty, your highness. That same guy as before, ‘Frigo’ asks, ‘what was your worst fuckup as a tyrant?’”

“I’m starting to dislike your sense of humor, Frigo. I am not a tyrant. As for the rest of your question, that would be when I found myself forced to lock my dear sister in her own moon.”

Lately carefully thumbed his earpiece and quoted what was whispered to him. “Dear Princess Celestia. Hugs? Signed, Pink Pony in Ponyville.”

Much to the surprise of both the host and his audience, Celestia promptly reached out to the left of the frame, revealing a sudden Pinkie Pie in her forelegs. They hugged for a solid minute as Rick Lately watched on in confusion. Pinkie suddenly jumped onto his desk, gave the host a comical smack on the lips, then disappeared behind the desk, leaving naught but a single cupcake behind.

Celestia sighed happily. “I needed that.”

“How did she…?”

“I would suggest you don’t dwell on Pinkie Pie too much. The human mind can’t possibly withstand such things.”

Lately coughed in an attempt to recover his composure. “A certain ‘Accel’ asks, ‘my little filly is marrying a monkey.’ Wait, seriously? This question? ‘Assuming they’re able to conceive, will my grandfoals be freaks of nature?’” He scoffed and dropped his earpiece on the desk. “That’s just… Wow.”

Celestia, at least equally angered, turned back to the camera. “Ponies and humans”, she said putting stress on the proper terminology, “can’t interbreed without a whole lot of purely theoretical assistance. There’s no telling at this time what their hypothetical offspring would be like.”

The studio lights dimmed on their own accord, leaving only the glow of an angered demigoddess. “That was also incredibly racist and I will not sit by idly. You’d best prepare yourself for a personal visit, Accel, for your daughter’s sake.”

“Princess Celestia, ladies and gentlemen,” Lately called out as the studio lights came back on. “Don’t cross her or she’ll have words with you.”

As the audience applauded and the cameras pulled back in preparation for a quick commercial break, Lately turned off his microphone and leaned in towards Celestia. “How’d you do that thing with the lights? Magic?”

Celestia smirked. “No, just bribed your crew.”

“But how could you know…?”

“A lady’s got to have her secrets, Rick.”

Author's Note

Name notes: Rick Lately was named by Alphacat. Thanks Cat!