A Most Wondrous NightBy: The Accursed One
‘Why don’t the ponies of Equestria love me as much as they do my sister? What does she have that I don’t?’ Luna, the youngest of the two royal sisters, thought to herself. Checking a nearby calendar, the princess noticed that the Hearth’s Warming season was almost upon Equestria. It was that moment when Luna had an idea: she would do something for the children. ‘But what, exactly? Maybe a large Hearth’s Warming party? Another, nationwide, pageant? How about appearing in towns the day of, and just wishing all the ponies well? No, those won’t do… Aha! I’ll give presents to all the children!’ After figuring out the idea she wanted, Luna went to Celestia as quickly as possible.
“Sister, I wish to buy presents for the nation’s children. May I make a deduction from the surplus funds?” The princess of the night asked her sister.
“Let me check,” Celestia replied, “and I’ll get back to you.” After a few minutes, the solar princess returned, saying, “Yes, you may. There’s a thirty bit limit per pony, though. We don’t want to run our surplus too dry.”
Luna practically squealed with delight upon hearing the go-ahead for her plan. She set to work immediately, gathering information on all the children while they slept so that the perfect presents could be picked. Hearth’s Warming was only a few weeks away, anyways. There could be no delay in preparation.
Instead of getting generic gifts for all the children, like an action figure for the colts and a doll for the fillies, the princess of the night wanted to get individual gifts for each child. She waited until night, then activated her dreamwalking power to slip into each pony’s mind, looking for and taking notes on what they wanted, and what the parents were getting their children so that Luna didn’t accidentally buy something that one of her subjects was already getting.
After looking to see what everypony wanted on Hearth’s Warming, then waiting for the next morning, when markets were open, Luna put on a magical disguise. She now looked like an average unicorn resident of Canterlot, and headed to the market with her large bag of bits. The only reason that Luna used a disguise was because she didn’t want the ponies to get their gifts on the gratuity of a shop owner, who was losing money by giving the gifts away for free. Remembering her thirty bit per pony spending limit, the princess of the night started walking to the market, hoping that the owner of the toy store was the haggling type.
Walking into the market, the scents of peppermint and hot chocolate graced Luna’s nose. She walked through the various stalls selling fruits, vegetables, hats (A pony holding a baseball bat was buying a rabbit mask, strangely), and other trinkets, looking for the toy store she was hoping to find. After a few minutes of searching for the shop in question, she found it.
Luna entered the toy shop, her list and money in tow. If anypony asked why Luna had such a large shopping list, she’d just reply that she was buying gifts for her extended family, as she had recently came into some wealth and wanted to do something nice with it. Walking down the aisles, Luna grabbed everything she saw that was on her list, and added up the cost in her head. The total was 106,583 bits for 3,489 ponies, but that was over her spending limit. Hoping the shopkeep will be able to lower the price to under 104,670 bits, she walked to the checkout.
“The total that I’ve accumulated is a little more than I can afford to spend. You think I could just give you 104,000 bits?” Luna asked hopefully.
“So sorry, ma’am, but that’s a little too low for me. I could do 105,000, though,” the shopkeeper replied.
“Still a little too high. How about we meet in the middle. 104,500 bits,” the princess offered.
“You have a deal. Be glad it’s Hearth’s Warming season, or else I might not have been so generous.”
“Thank you,” Luna said as she handed the clerk the money and walked out. She could swear she heard a cash register sound as the clerk counted out the money he was given.
With her surplus money, Luna also decided to buy some wrapping paper and tags for the gifts, leaving her with about five bits, which she used to buy some hot chocolate to drink on her way back to the castle. Once the pony got back to her home, she dropped her disguise and headed to her bedroom. She started wrapping the gifts and writing a personalized message for each, signing them, “~From P.L.”
And now came the hard part: delivering the gifts. Wrapping everything and putting a tag on all the gifts took her until the day before Hearth’s Warming. She waited until she had the cover of darkness and everypony was asleep, then cast a muffle spell on herself and teleported to the first house. She left the gift at the house, then teleported to the next. This repeated until all the gifts were delivered.
Luna almost got caught a couple times. The first close call happened at Sweet Apple Acres, because Apple Bloom happened to wake up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. Luckily, the princess could teleport away before she was caught. Her second close call occurred when she went to the home of Diamond Tiara, who decided she and Silver Spoon should try to stay up all night. She literally escaped by milliseconds that time.
On the morning of Hearth’s Warming, Luna woke up, hoping her plea for acceptance had worked. She was truly rated as highly as Celestia that day, and all the ponies in Equestria, especially the foals, loved her. After all, love from the children will become love from all her subjects. “I should do this again next year,” Luna said to herself.
And so ends the story of Princess Luna’s successful plea for acceptance by the ponies of Equestria. Every year she gave gifts to the children, and every year the ponies loved her more and more.
