Heavy lies the Head the Wears the Crown
Heavy lies the Head the Wears the Crown
By "Bradel"
Twlight sighed. She sighed long. She sighed loud. She sighed, it has to be said, the most sighingest sigh that ever was sighed.
"Oh me, it's so hard being a beloved princess." Twilight put a hoof to her head theatrically. Then she sighed again. Louder.
"Ahem! I said--"
There was a squeak from outside the door, and a sudden pitter-patter of hoofsteps, and a bright green unicorn came tripping and flying her way into the room.
"I'm sorry your highness! I'm so, so, so, so--"
"Too late."
There was a flash, and the echo of a long, drawn out "Oooh noooooo--" and then a sound very like five hundred pounds of pony hitting very dusty firmament.
Gently weeping, Twilight pulled herself out of bed. "So unfair. Everything I do is wrong!" She opened the door to her chambers, theatrically holding a wing to her head as she gave another little sob. Then she looked around the castle at the opulently appointed drapes and thick, plush carpets. "AND WOULD IT KILL YOU TO GET YOUR PRINCESS A CUP OF FRAPPEMOCHACHINO!?"
Instantly, almost faster than the tetchy alicorn princess could blink, another four-hoofed sacrificial lamb zoomed up with a steaming cup held tightly in his hornfield. Twilight snatched it, slurped it, took a deep breath, and sighed again. This time with happiness. The nameless unicorn stopped trembling.
"I-is it to your liking, Princess Twilight?"
"Yes. It will suffice."
The nameless unicorn visibly relaxed. Then glowed brilliantly white before collapsing in upon himself, his ears staying roughly the same length while almost everything else shrunk.
"And don't do it again!" Twilight admonished the bunny.
It twitched its nose as if to say 'what did I do?' but it wouldn't have got much of an answer in any case. Princess Twilight had left the East Wing of Ponyville's newest building: Princess Twilight's Modest Sanctum Sanctorum, the new and improved Castle Twilight, currently occupying the spot where the Books and Branches library used to be.
And it had dungeons and torture chambers specially built for late returners and book losers.
Princess Twilight stretched one wing lazily whilst Aloe - or was it Lotus? She wasn't sure. It didn't matter anyway - gently teased her metatarsals and kneaded away the stress in her wing muscles. Next to her was a white unicorn with a purple mane, trying very hard - yet absolutely failing, though with style - to look relaxed.
It was so hard being a princess. Why did nobody see that? All that media attention, the constant complimentary gifts and the ceaseless waiting on wing and hoof…
"And then I had to wait a whole thirty seconds for my morning cup of coffee!" Twilight said, slamming a hoof down on the massage couch. The spa pony gave a fearful squeak, shared a glance with Rarity
"So dreadful, darling," agreed Rarity, smiling brightly and nodding. She was showing a lot of teeth. It looked like the smile hurt. "Practically atrocious."
"It didn't help with my mood during the griffican diplomat trade delegation at all."
"Oh my! I h-hope you didn't let them walk all over you, you know h-how your bargaining is not at the best when you've not had your favourite cup of cof--"
Twilight laughed brightly. "Of course not, Rarity."
The white unicorn sighed happily, putting her head down on the couch for Lotus to see to her neck. "Oh, that's a relief. I--"
"I sent them to the moon, then invaded Griffonstani."
"Twi--"
"Well, less invaded, more conquered." She pointed to herself with one dainty hoof. "Alicorn, after all."
"Oh, my, well, i-it can't b-be helped I suppose?" stammered Rarity, her voice hoarse.
"And now…!" Twilight put a hoof to her muzzle, tears bright in her eyes. "And now I'm the princess of the Griffons too! It's just so unfair! I've got a dozen reporters coming to visit me for my inaugural address as empress and I just know they're going to ask me about how I wear my feathers! I just can't! It's too much!"
"There, uh, there, Twilight…" replied Rarity, gulping. She was going to need a sip of the special medicine she kept in the top cupboard behind the canned beets, once she got home. At least things couldn't get--
"Ugh, I've had such a day!" intoned a new voice. Princess Celestia flopped down in a mud-bath and extended a hoof. Moments later, three entirely new spa ponies flocked to the new princess, where they set about rubbing in sweet-scented oils and filing her hooves. "I swear, nopony understands me. You make one remark about tea, and everypony wants to brew you a cup. Let slip that you do sometimes prefer coffee and whole swathes of the Equestrian beverage market end up in the red."
"I--" began Rarity.
"Honestly, it's enough to make you want to banish to lot of them. Should I, perhaps?"
"Umm… perhaps… not?"
"I could make an example of somepony. Maybe this town. After all, it was a thousand years ago I put my own sister in a timeout, apparently a thousand years is enough for everypony to forget."
"!" managed Rarity.
"Oh don't mind me - Rarity, I think it was? - I'm just a little bit grouchy. I had to listen to an entire trade delegation of zebras moaning about weather patterns and crop rotation. I got so bored I had their stripes fall off. Who would have guessed some zebras are white with black stripes, and some are black with white stripes?"
"Bunny rabbits?" piped up Twilight.
"Naked mole rats," Celestia replied.
"Good choice," Twilight agreed.
Rarity felt her eyetwitch return, the one that usually only showed up when the CMC were on their almost-daily mobile disaster causing expedition. The choice was somewhere between keep smiling and get out of the spa with her hide intact and all four hooves on the ground or end up some form of rodent and quite possibly on the moon.
She could deal with this, she'd managed more than five whole minutes with Blueblood, after all…
"Princess Cadance! Princess Cadance! You have to--"
"KNOCK NEXT TIME!" roared the princess of love as she bent over her desk, wings curled protectively over and around her important princessorial belongings.
"I, er, I'm… sorry." The guard swallowed. Nervously. "Very, very… very sorry. Your highness. Cadance. Princessness." please don't make me fall in love with any of the following, it will be very hard to explain to my parents: cows, pigs, sheep, goats, turtles, bats, dogs, cats, rakes…
"Th-that's quite alright." Cadance remained hunched over the table. "Did you, uh, see anything?"
The guard's adam's apple bobbed nervously as he contemplated his next words. The wrong ones would see him fixed. If he was lucky. "Uuhhh, no, your highness. I, er, didn't see you playing with your dolls again."
"Minifigures," the princess hissed. "With brushable manes and tails, animal companion and fashion accessory. They are collectors items!"
"O-of course, Princess! I didn't see you playing with your collectable minifigures again." He eyed the pink alicorn carefully. "Uh, there are strange things, uh, happening… in Ponyvi--"
"GET OUT!"
"Yes your highnessness!"
The guard fled. Which, given that he was still attracted to mares and not vacuum cleaners or garden gnomes was probably for the best.
"Now, where were we? Ah, yes, the spa playset. Who next… maybe Big Mac needs a day at the spa! Even yucky, cootie-infested boy ponies need spa days… eeeyup."
The princess took hold of a little plastic red pony in her magical horn-field and bounced it along to the cheerful plastic spa playset. Elsewhere, a large, red, apple-inclined clydesdaleish farmpony found he had an unexpected, uncontrollable urge to get a hooficure.
This was the third time that week…
Cadance sighed happily. Finding that mirror had been the best thing ever. And who knew that shopping 'online' - whatever that meant - could be so easy, and so rewarding? This would make playing cupid come springtime so much easier. And fun.
