Shift with the Tides

Celestia was watching Luna pace back and forth between the sides of the throne room.  The princesses had cleared the area of any guards so that they could have some time to themselves to speak about what to do next regarding the recent events.

“Pregnant.  I’m pregnant,” Luna said as she paced feverously across the floor of the throne room.  She abruptly stopped and looked up from the ground, and turned to look at Celestia.  “I’M PREGNANT, SISTER.  PREG.  NANT.”

“Yes, I believe we’ve established that by now,” Celestia replied with a hoof on her chin as she sat in her golden throne.  “Luna, if you continue to pace like that, you’re going to dig a groove into the floor.  Please, take a seat next to me and rest.”  She showed to Luna the moon princess’s own royal seat to the right of Celestia’s.  Luna sighed and obeyed, slumping into the chair with another loud groan.

“Ugh, there’s so much to do in such a short time span,” Luna said, diving her face into her hooves.  “I’d LIKE to figure out how the heck this happened in the first place BEFORE I go and tell all of Equestria, but the longer I wait to let the secret known, the more our subjects will doubt me and think that I have something to hide.”  She turned and looked at Celestia, desperation in her face.  “I have NOTHING to hide, Sister…!”

“I know, Luna,” Celestia replied, trying to keep a level tone, to stay strong.  “And I would give anything to know the truth, as I’m sure would you.  But you said so yourself: the top priority is to tell Equestria of these newfound events.  I really don’t know the consequences that could come of it, but if that’s what you want, I won’t deny you to do so.  So let’s get the Board together.”

Luna rubbed her eyes and nodded to Celestia.  The alicorn of the moon leaped off her seat and walked into the adjacent hallway, to a phone at the far end near a set of stairs.  Luna picked up the phone and began to speak.  “Hello?  Ah, yes, hello Bubbles.  Yes, I’m fine now, thank you for asking.  Anyways, I need you to call up the entire Board of Directors, each and every one of them.  Along with that, I need you to call upon an extra pony to attend, as well…”

“Uh, Miss Mayor?” Twilight finally mustered up to say to the earth-pony sitting across from her in the round, roofed carriage, being pulled across the sky by two pegasi guards, “I know this sounds kinda dumb, but…where exactly are we going?’

“To Canterlot Castle,” the Mayor replied in a mildly-serious tone.  “Princess Luna has called upon an urgent meeting across the entire Board of Directors.”

“Wait, we have one of those?” Twilight questioned.

The Mayor nodded.  “It’s mainly a board made up of the mayors of each Equestrian town and city.  With my being the mayor of Ponyville, I’m naturally a part of it.  Since we live so close to Canterlot, we’re going there in-person, but a majority of the other mayors will have to communicate on-screen, since the meeting was scheduled on such short notice.”

“And…why am I here?” Twilight asked.  “I’m no mayor, last I checked.”

The Mayor shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s because you’re Celestia’s student—perhaps Luna trusts you and your skills.”

“My skills?” Twilight questioned.  “Whatever for?”

The Mayor shrugged again.  “I’m simply making guesses here.  There’s no telling what it is that the Princesses find so important that they need to call upon an emergency meeting for it.  Oh, look, we’re here.”

The carriage descended down to the small runway next to the castle.  Twilight looked out her window and saw a couple of other carriages outside, too.

“Those must be the rides for the mayors of Hoofington, Cloudsdale, Trottingham, and Manehattan,” the Mayor pointed out to Twilight, noticing the young unicorn’s interest in the ponies walking out of the carriages.  The prestigious ponies were of earth-pony, pegasus, unicorn and earth-pony race, respectively, and each walked out across the tarmac and met with Luna, who was standing at the very edge of the runway, right next to the Castle.

“Hey, there’s Luna!” Twilight exclaimed.  Then she squinted a bit as she tried to zoom her view in on the alicorn.  “Hmm, there must be something on her mind—she looks really out of it, from what I can tell.”

“Let’s hope that’s not the case, Twilight,” the Mayor replied as she hopped out of the carriage.  “We don’t want a princess to call an emergency meeting without being completely prepared to make their announcement.  Come, let’s go and meet up with Princess Luna.”

Twilight also jumped out of the carriage and onto the tarmac to greet the princess of the moon.  Luna’s face lit up slightly when she saw Twilight approach.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle, it’s been too long,” the alicorn said with her hoof outstretched.

Twilight raised her own hoof to shake with Luna’s.  “It’s only been two weeks since we last met, hasn’t it?” the unicorn replied with a chuckle.  “…Yeah, the day we all saw the eclipse.”

“That was quite the sight to behold,” the Mayor chimed in as she reached out her own hoof to shake with Luna.  “Make sure to give Princess Celestia my regards, and of course to you, too—our citizens enjoyed the eclipse very much.”

“Oh, well you can give my sister your regards in just a few minutes.  She’s going to be at the meeting too, you know.”

“Umm, Luna?” Twilight asked, having wanted to know the answer for the past hour, “Why am I here, for a meeting between the Board of Directors?”

Luna paused for a moment, staring into and past Twilight as she considered an answer.  “I would like to have your insight, Twilight Sparkle, for help in what I will announce in a few minutes,” she said with a small smile, and she walked away to escort the small group of mayors—and one Twilight Sparkle—into the castle.

“Told you,” the Mayor whispered in Twilight’s ear just before they started moving.

“Everypony that couldn’t make the carriage is already seated at their monitor and ready to begin downstairs,” Luna said.  “Unfortunately, we still haven’t fixed the issue with Las Pegasus’s transmitter ever since it shorted during the last meeting, so they could potentially cut out at any time, just so you know.”  The dark-blue alicorn continued to lead the six ponies into the large lobby of Canterlot Castle, and then to a nearby elevator.  Her horn lit up with a deep-blue, and the elevator doors opened.  “Come, step inside.”

All but Twilight didn’t hesitate to go into the elevator; obviously, they were no strangers to the whole meeting thing.  After Twilight quickly skipped inside, an aura surrounded Luna’s horn again and the doors shut, and the elevator began to descend.  Once the screen in the elevator read “B3F”, it abruptly came to a halt.  The pegasus mayor of Cloudsdale cleared his throat uneasily when the sudden jolt came with the elevator’s stopping.  “I never do get used to that,” he said as the doors opened and the ponies stepped out into the underground hallway, which looked exactly like the upstairs, save for the fact that there were neither windows nor natural light.

Twilight looked and saw Celestia waiting at the end of the hallway for the seven ponies.  As the group approached, the white alicorn smiled warmly to Twilight, and then turned to the rest of the group and said, “Welcome.  I realize that we called you all on such short notice, but this is an issue both Luna and I feel must be addressed immediately.”  Celestia opened up the large arched doors behind her to reveal a room beyond that contained a very large circular table made up of a light pink marble stone.  There were about three dozen or so seats, but a majority of the spots for a pony instead had a monitor set up on the part of the table in front of it.  On each monitor was the face of a pony, a mayor on each from cities both near and far; the talking between the multiple mayors died down quickly as the doors opened, and the ones that could see the newcomers from their angle on the table turned to look.

“Ah, good to see you, Celestia,” a mare on one of the monitors said at the sight of the alicorn.  “We were all beginning to think that neither you nor Luna was even going to show up.”

“Well, we’re here, so please give us the floor now,” Celestia replied, not even acknowledging the playful mocking that the mare implied, which was out of Celestia’s nature to do.  The mare looked a little confused at the alicorn’s reaction.

“Are you alright, Celestia?” she asked.

“If everything was alright, Archive, then we wouldn’t really have the need for an emergency meeting, now would we?” Luna replied in an irritated tone, not appreciating the unicorn mare’s lighthearted attitude.

“Er, sorry Princess,” the mare replied.

“Well then, quit stalling!” a pegasus stallion said from another monitor.  “If what you have to say is so urgent-*BTHZTHB*-out and say-*KLRKLTHZ*—”

The screen was transitioning from the video input of the pegasus to black and white static, before finally giving up and turning into a plain blue screen.

“…Aaand we just lost Roll,” another pegasus said.  “Reception isn’t the best out in Las Pegasus, is it?”

“That said fact aside, Roll does have a point,” Luna said from the center of the circle, as the table only goes out about a yard or so before ending, leaving a circular area in the center for one of the Princesses to stand when addressing everyone else.  “I can’t really think of a way to say this without being extremely blunt about it…”

“Twilight,” Celestia whispered to the purple unicorn standing next to her at the doorway, the only one besides the alicorns that hadn’t taken a seat, “You may want to sit down for this.”

Slightly confused and worried, Twilight started for the nearest open chair on the table, when Luna went outright and said:

“Everypony, I am currently pregnant—as in, I’m carrying a child.”

“…………”

There was a combination of sound effects heard in the meeting room the second following Luna’s statement.  If one listened closely, they could’ve heard the couple of spit-takes, several of the mares gasping, a pony quickly standing out of their chair, one of the colts screaming “WHAT?” and even the sound of a pony falling onto the ground—more specifically, Twilight Sparkle, who had just pulled out the chair to sit down in it.

One of the spit-take ponies, a gruffly earth-pony stallion, hacked and coughed for several seconds before saying, and being the first one to say, “Is this some kind of sick joke, Luna?!  I’ve heard about some of the crap you and Celestia pull on other ponies, along with each other!  I will not tolerate such a blatant wasting of my time!”

“I assure you,” Celestia said coolly as she walked out from the wall to join Luna in the center of the room, in the eyes of all of Equestria’s mayors and higher-ups, “We are nothing if we aren’t serious—about this issue, that is.  Luna is most definitely pregnant; we wouldn’t go so far as to call a meeting about it if we weren’t completely positive.”

“And just why the hell are you calling a meeting just to tell us this?” the stallion shot back, still coughing roughly between every couple of words he spoke.

“Perhaps you didn’t see how everypony reacted just now when I said this,” Luna replied.  “We cannot just go and announce this info to all of Equestria, or go and simply pass out fliers from the sky.  We need to plan our way through this, to make sure that nothing bad comes of it.”  Luna took a turn with each of the ponies at the table, looking them straight in the eyes, each time the other pony looking away from the princess’s gaze.  “I suppose a majority of you are now going off on your own wild tangents of thought on just how this happened.  Well, that’s exactly what the common citizens will be doing as well.  And I don’t think they will be as merciful with their accusations as all of you are being right now.”

The mare called ‘Archive’ spoke up again, “…Princess Luna.  If you don’t mind my asking: how DID this happen?  If you want to stop any bad thoughts and rumors, all you have to do is tell us the truth.”

Luna looked up at her older sister, who only gave back the same sad expression Luna was giving her.  “I…I have no idea.   That’s the problem here—I don’t know how I became pregnant!”

At this, everyone stood up from their chairs and began speaking, monitor or not.  There was an incessant chatter going on between all the ponies, and Luna and Celestia watched on without a word.  Twilight got up from her chair that she had recently regained the strength to crawl into, and she walked up to the two alicorns.  “You ‘don’t know’, Luna?  You can’t honestly be serious!”

“Trying to tell your country that you’re pregnant without any understandable explanation is not something that will be easy to swallow for anypony,” Celestia said softly to Luna and Twilight.  Raising her voice to speak over the Board, she added, “We sent for you personally, Twilight, as well as everypony else here, to discuss and try to understand both how this could have happened to Luna, and what we’re going to do about telling the general public.”

“Can’t we just keep this under wraps?” a unicorn asked.  “If such a thing will cause so many problems, wouldn’t just be best if we didn’t actually tell anypony?”

“The longer we go without letting it known, the worse it will be for all of us when it does become known,” Celestia replied.  “Even if Luna was somehow able to prevent anypony from knowing about her pregnancy for eleven whole months, I think the worst-case scenario would be everypony’s reaction to Luna suddenly owning a baby afterwards.  Like I said: the longer the wait, the worse the public’s opinion will become.”

“So how would we even go about telling everypony?” Archive asked helplessly.

“Well, it seems as though we’re facing two major problems here at the moment,” Twilight said, gaining her footing on the entire case, “One: how did Luna become pregnant?  Two: how do we keep the public from looking at this news negatively?  Firstly, we should focus on number two—according to Luna and Celestia, that is.  Honestly, though, I think the solution is quite simple.”

“Is it, now?” the Mayor said, intrigued.  “Well, out with it then—what do we do?”

“We just have to prime them for good news, and they will receive it as good news,” Twilight replied triumphantly.  “It’s basic psychology.”

“Huh?” grumbled the gruffly earth-pony stallion from before.

“Well, think about it, in a hypothetical situation in which Luna is to announce this news on a podium in front of half of Equestria: If she trudges onto the stage, keeps looking at the floor, and has a sad and strained expression on her face, the entire crowd is already expecting bad news, and anything you say to them will have a more negative impact.  If you go skipping up to the podium with a giant smile on your face as you hum merrily to yourself, everypony will be expecting very happy and uplifting news, and whatever you say will have a more positive impact.”

“So all Luna has to do is pretend like she’s ecstatic about being pregnant?” Archive asked.

“Well sure, there’s still going to be a fair amount of skepticism, I assume,” Twilight replied, “But I believe that that approach would give the best outcome.”

Celestia smiled at her student’s intellect.  “Makes sense to me,” she said cheerfully.  “What say you, Sister?”

Luna looked at the ground as she weighed her options in her head.  Turning up to look Celestia in the eyes, she replied, “It’s as good a plan as any other.  But keep in mind—we’re still not out of the woods yet,” she said, mainly to a majority of the mayors sitting restlessly in their chairs in front of their monitors.  “As Twilight Sparkle has just said, there will still be many ponies that will spread rumors and tell gossip.  That’s where all of you come in—make sure you stop any bad story in its tracks, but make sure not to raise suspicion or overdo it.”

“Can do,” a random pegasus mare on a monitor replied.

“Okay, then,” Twilight began, “Back to the first problem; how in Equestria did Luna become pregnant?”

“I just don’t understand it,” Twilight said to her five pony friends, and only to them.  Luna had given Twilight permission to discuss the issue with only Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.  “How does one become pregnant without even knowing?!”

“Well, no offense to her,” Rainbow started, “but if you ask me, I think she’s just covering up for some one-night-stand she must’ve had some night.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight, Rarity and Applejack all yelled at the same time, and with the same emphasis.

“I said no offense!”

“Princess Luna would NOT EVER do such a thing, period.”  Rarity was completely on the princess’s side on the matter.

“But it doesn’t change the fact that she has somehow become pregnant, without a single rhyme or reason as to why!” Rainbow rebutted.

“While ya do have a point, Rainbow,” Applejack said, “I gotta side with Rarity on this one.  I jus’ can’t see Luna ever getting involved in such activities.”

“Perhaps I’m not all that off,” Rainbow started up again.  “Perhaps Luna DID get pregnant the ‘traditional’ way, but she’s not telling anypony; for different, darker reasons.”

Twilight turned around and glared at the cyan pegasus hovering in the air, her gaze cold and quizzical.  “Are you really suggesting that Luna was…r…rap—”

“That’s quite enough!” Rarity interrupted before Twilight could finish the word.  “Rainbow Dash, if you continue on this wild tangent of mortifying thoughts and suggestions, I will not hesitate to kick you right out of this house!”

“Uh, Rarity?” Twilight said, “This is my house.”

“Okay—okay, jus’ stop and slow down, everypony,” Applejack said, taking a deep breath, “Let’s try and think as rationally as possible here, otherwise we shouldn’t even bother discussin’ the topic in the first place.”

Pinkie hopped up in front of Twilight and Applejack merrily.  “How about we ask the readers what they think?” she suggested with a smile.

“The…the ‘readers’?” Twilight asked, confused.  “Who are the ‘readers’?”

Pinkie’s smile dampened slightly at her own thoughts.  “Then again, the readers probably have as much of a clue as we do, so I suppose they wouldn’t be of any use, after all!”  The pink pony skipped back to the chair at the table that she had been sitting in, next to Fluttershy.  “We could always try asking Deltamelon, since he’s the only one who really knows what’s going on, but he probably wouldn’t tell us anyways—y'know, with him being the author and everything.”

“Wh—‘Deltamelon’?  Pinkie, what on earth are you talking about?!” Twilight exclaimed.  “Who is this pony?  How does he know what’s going on?!”

“Never mind, Twilight; I was just thinking out loud.”

Twilight looked on at the party pony, her mouth half-open in bewilderment and her left eyelid twitching ever so slightly.  Rainbow hovered in close to Twilight’s ear and whispered, “Just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie, Twi.  Just let it go, she has no clue what she’s talking about.”

“Let’s get back to topic now, please,” Rarity spoke up.  “What methods are there of a pony getting pregnant?  Do you think this was…not what Rainbow suggested, but perhaps some other form of sabotage?  …Actually, I always hear about the pranks those two alicorns play on one another…”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa,” Rainbow interrupted.  “So what I was saying was crossing the line, but when you go outright and say that it was CELESTIA who thought it’d be a FUNNY PRANK to INSEMINATE her SISTER—”

“Perhaps you’re right, Rarity,” Twilight said dryly.  “Maybe we shouldn’t all be having this conversation, not now at least."

'Based on your guys’ ideas, I can only imagine what’ll be in store for us when Luna goes public with her info…'