Easy Lies The Head Without a Crown
"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land. They fought, as sisters do and one banished the other one to the moon for a thousand years, which most sisters do not. But it all ended happily ever after, and they became loving sisters once again. Hugging. Not smooching. That way lies ships and cooties. They welcomed two new alicorns to the world, Love and Magic. And for a brief shining moment, it was very good indeed. One big happy family. Then the Harmony they made turned against the sisters, and in fighting with it's enemy ended Love and bound Magic to it's will, then broke the world because Harmony is really a big meanie. Magic tried very hard with her friends to make it all better, but ended up breaking things even worse. And Magic's enemies made sure everyone knew it. Oh, how she cried about that! But she tried again, and blew things up and made big rainbows of light and happy to fix everything. Sort of. Well, at least it's not going to all get sucked into a big black hole and die, anyway."
"And after all that hard work, they decided to take a nap." A long clawed hand neatly tipped five painted pony figures into a big pink fluffy doll bed. "Nopony has figured out how to wake them up for months." A host of alarm clocks jangled furiously before vanishing into the ether.
"Dear Fluttershy, why won't you wake up?"
The tea party, on the other hand would go blissfully unrecorded, as it happened to lie beyond memory, time, and space in that little nook in reality even Pinkie Pie would miss, as she inevitably takes the left turn at Albuquerque. (If you asked, it'd because she isn't fond of sauerkraut.). A young unicorn. A large, black, bat-winged horror that seemed perfectly at home in the rather comfy-looking space.
A faint rumble sounded beyond a mist-filled window. The tea did need extra sugar, which a polite clawed hand offered, though it was easily big enough to fit the purple unicorn filly in it's palm. The soothing tones of a golden lyre intoned themselves from the mantel, in which a green-tinged fire was lit and the scent of mint tinged the air.
"I do believe it's time to wake up, Twilight Sparkle. Thine elder sister has been wise enough to unravel the tangles you placed your friends in. Remember, thou art but a child, once more...". A black, pointed ear twitched.
The unicorn suddenly found itself in a kindergarten desk, mid-swallow. The desk became rather cramped as the little unicorn found herself a grownup alicorn, tipping the desk over with a crash as the overburdened perch shattered. Trapped in the wreckage as indistinct fillies and foals giggled in ghostly tones, she looked up at the clock as it ticked, ticked, clock is ticking Twilight clock-is-ticking-ticking-ticking-tic
"...and to better serve our little ponies in these changing times, we have asked our two newest Princesses to place a new responsibility upon their hooves. We hereby grant Princess Twilight Sparkle the demesne of Ponyville as a Duchy, including therein the Everfree and Whitetail Woods...", Luna spoke with the formality of a herald, centuries-old speech of border-lines and gallop-wardens flowing like a calm stream. "...and to Prince Blueblood and Princess Sunset Shimmer, the demesne of Saddle Lake and it's surround, and lands thereabout as marked..."
Celestia had not trusted herself to be able to get it all out without choking. But Blueblood had been owed for what he had done and more importantly not done, Shimmer had earned it for...saving her. And Twilight. And her friends. And for what Twilight had done, and through Twilight, Celestia to her.
And with a joy-filled expression that hid the roiling mix of pride and concern, she lowered a five-pointed crown of gold and purple on Twilight's bowed head, even as it's silver and flame-tipped twin was bestowed by Luna.
"Behold, the Princesses! Behold, the Prince!"
On a day without a storm, thunder rolled from the hooves of the people and clattered their blessings upon the chosen. The crackle of fireworks soaring into the sky, the party cannon pointed at her nose by Princess Twilight and Sunset-
...wait, what?
The world vanished in a POP-BANG! of streamers and confetti.
The ceremonial carriage finally rolled it's way back between the gates of Canterlot Castle, and it's two occupants lowered aching hooves to wipe at the sweat-er glistening upon their forelocks. Celestia had made it quite the sunny day for a parade.
"The "who can wave to the most ponies" bet may have been a bit much, but I am a mistress of the arts of decorum, darling. Victory was never in doubt."
"We tied!", the elder (and yet younger) Princess declared. "Princess of the Fall Formal three years running means you get a LOT of practicing smiling and waving."
Sunset Shimmer and Rarity were helped out the door and began walking down the red carpet to Canterlot Palace.
"Would you like a drink of water, Rarity? That was such a hot ride."
"Oh, that would be divine! I am just a mite parched."
A torrent of icy water poured down in a pillar from the skies to douse the unicorn. Rarity, reduced to a mortified mess of lace and silks only managed a single despairing shriek before she melted into the carpet as a marshmallow-colored puddle. As if such a stain was an offense to the decor, it vanished almost immediately.
Looking to the source, Sunset gave the Shadowbolt holding a now very-empty cloud a hoofs-up.
"I also got a lot of practice pranking the competition."
"Hayez, oatez! The right honorable Court of the Moon is in session!"
At noon. Again. No earlier. It had been made abundantly clear that Her Majesty needed her morning naps following the Week of Coffee.
"Rise, my knight."
The purple-armored Pegasus unbent her forelegs and rose, her squire raising the rainbow-bannered lance point-high to follow.
"We require thine skills, loyal Dame Rainbow. Wilt thou-"
"Ooh! Is it another monster? Cause I'll kick it's flank!"
"Neigh, we-"
"A giant bug? A behemoth? Sombra? Cause I'll totally-"
"Ahem."
"Um....right..."
"We require thine swift wings and keen eyes, Dame Rainbow. Our Court Sorceress believes that she has found a way to WAKE UP!-", bellowed the Princess at a volume that sent her flying into the curtains in a flailing panic.
"OMIGOSHWHEREWHOWHAT..."
The Princess shared a meaningful look between squire and Princess as the noble knight bounced around the throne room like a clanking pinball. A rolled up scroll floated to the orange-clad squire, who neatly tail-tucked it into a satchel and guffawed.
*CRASH!*
"When Our knight has untangled herself from the tapestries, Court has concluded."
The dusky tapestries collapse into empty cloth, and the Court fades away.
It was very nice, being a tree. You had your hooves in the earth, all the birds and squirrels came by to gossip, and nopony paid attention to you. Only the forest creatures. And ooh! Her wooden heart melted a bit. Angel Bunny made a new friend.
The jackalope and Angel hopped up to the Fluttertree and parked their fluffy butts on a root, brushing a bit of dust off with their cutesy-wutsey little cottontails. They smiled, no grinned at each other, the yellow rheumy eyes of the jackalope meeting Angel's with a meaning only the two could share. Two branches rubbed against each other with a faint squeeeee! as she wondered what-
thump. thump. thumpthumpthumpthump. THUMPthumpTHUMPthump-
"Oh, my. They're having a contest for a...a...doe. "
Her roots began to shiver as the two powerful bunny-legs of Angel and his competitor played a beat, shuffling up and down until they'd found the perfect spots.
BoomboomBOOMboomboomBOOM
The vibrations sent tingles into every leaf- primal, warm tingles that spoke of...pollination. Something stirred in her trunk, and waves of sap quickened and rose like spring, buds forming and blooming into yellow-pink flowers.
As her boughs became wide wings of feathery flora, she could feel everything. The creatures in every direction, Discord and Angel doing the bunny love tap on-
The tree tore itself from the earth with a flowerly flap and vanished, it's leaves the colors of a fall maple.
And so, on the sixty-second day after the return of the Princess Twilight did she, Princess Celestia and their boon companions waken from their ardous trials with the cunning aid of Princess Luna and her boon companions. And the ponies of Canterlot did rejoice.
That's what the history books say, anyway. They leave out the first part:
The Royal Infirmary looked like a war zone, spots of violence that would make the castle's cleaning crew shudder with the thoroughness of the devastation to the tranquil order upon it's patients.
Twilight Sparkle, who had obliterated no less than four stallion-sized cloud pillows and a rather nice knitted blanket while crying out about being demoted to magic kindergarten. Spike was picking the tangle of yarn apart with his claws while sneaking in the occasional hug and a babble of happy noises flowed.
Celestia stood stiff-legged on wobbly legs, bits of party shrapnel adding color to her spasming wings and making her long horn into a festive maypole. Princess Luna was too busy nuzzling her to make much headway on cleanup.
Rarity was...well, fluffy. Or rather, covered from tail to nose in fluffy towels, and a somewhat contrite Sunset Shimmer alternating between apologizing and switching out the soaking wet towels for new ones. And trying not to smile too much while doing it. And shoving the now empty tub into a corner before Rarity noticed.
Rainbow Dash had been glomped and wrapped up like a pegasus burrito with a covering of Pinkie Sauce, said sauce saucily giggling dreamy details of Dash's dormancy into her tufted ears while drumming her hooves delightedly into the duvet-dungeon into which Dashie had been detained.
And last, poor Fluttershy, who was being cuddled unmercifully by a Discordalope and Angel Bunny as her wings stuck out like a big yellow sail. Understandably, she was a bit warm, what with the shaggy fur that had grown in that made her look more like a Shetlander than a Cloudsdale pegasus. It w-was just very warm in there. Really! Bunnies are very warm cuddlers.
A few hours of recovery (and recovery tea, except for Rainbow Dash) later, and the Royal Infirmary was mostly in order and a nest of comfortable pillows, tea trays, and friends had formed at it's center- Princess Luna.
"We had no simple time finding Our way into your dreams, friends. The Master of such had-"
"Is he...um, kind of big? Black? Scary but really nice?", Twilight interrupted. Fluttershy vanished behind Discord's tail at the word "scary".
"You have met the Master of Dreams, Twilight? Aye, tis' Diabolos. I had...some answering to do for what I had done as Nightmare Moon, but that he knew of one who had spoken well for me. Does the tea still need sweetening?"
"Usually two lumps. But he said more than that was too much for a filly."
Luna's muzzle curled up mirthfully. "I always snuck an extra lump.".
The rest of the herd just stared, save for Celestia.
"We trot off the track of history, sister. How did you...?"
"Twas' not simple. To coax thee awake, we had to push from within and without, and the same from both. A bit of disguise and trickery to slip into your dreams, and friends who could play the parts."
"Trixie does know how to put all the special effects together on a stage."
Pinkie piped up, a party-hat horn and cardboard wings dangling- "Princess Pinkie Sparkle and Squire Applejack!"
"Being a Princess of Canterlot High for a few years was close enough to being a High Princess of Canterlot."
"And nobody suspects the cute little fuzzy-wuzzy spirit of chaos. Besides, I made the first jackalop-urk!.", Discord got out before Fluttershy snatched him into a hug that would smother a bear.
"Shouldn't have c-c-changed shapes to make that point!" and his tongue rolled out with a "Fweeeeee!" as the panicky pegasus squeezed him a little harder. "Ugh, maybe that Tree Hugger pony would have been a better plan."
"Nay, we did need close friends, even if one from the Royal Menagerie's staff did volunteer to aid her. Even if they share a crystal-mark."
"A crystal mark?", Twilight asked. At that, the recently awoken were universally without a clue.
"Trixie certainly didn't know she had it in her, but...", and floated out a glittering, perfect duplicate of her cutie mark from under her hat.
"When you came back to us from...wherever you went...you also gave us these lovely things. All of us who were there, and some others across Equestria- and more that didn't get a "cutie crystal", but just that little extra "Twilight Sparkle" for our flank." Shifting a haunch, the wand-and-moon glittered in a stray sunbeam like crumbled glass.
"Ain't none of us with the marks who don't have a few new things under our hats, though we ain't sure how far that goes."- and with that, a ripple of power visibly surges across Applejack's body from end to end, a few lines of orange dancing across the floorstones and back to her hooves.
"So we're all like...double cutie-marked-extra-awesome now?", Rainbow added in. Her nose scrunched as she tried to summon up what would obviously be a superpower. Because duh. "And Spike's...well, he's just extra awesome now. I mean, look at him. We're totally gonna be flying buddies. This is so much cooler than when he got huge and tried to eat Ponyville."
Spike swatted her over the head and snorted. "I bet you didn't expect to teach Twilight either. But I'll take an awesome buddy to teach me how to be an awesome dragon."
"But they ain't bad things. If it weren't for Celestia, there'd be a lot of ponies pushing daisies up instead of praisin' the sun.". She pointed a hoof at a familiar pegasus, checking on a Guard stallion with both of his front hooves clearly in distress at the end of a line of five similarly injured ponies. "Speakin' of praise-the-Sun:"
Soarnus Methodus flapped his wings to rear up, up into a vertical stretch- a sparkling copy of Celestia's cutie mark the backdrop for his own snake-entwined cadecus. His face lit up with a serene joy, and words spilled out of his mouth as he stared at a light only he could see-
"Bless you, in the Sun's name!"
Motes of white light carried on a spring breeze circled Soarnus and sank into the battered forms of the ponies in front of him, and for a timeless moment, something sacred passed between pegasus and patient in that benediction. The glow and zephyr faded away into the ordinary as quickly as it had come, but the cries of relief from the ponies showed that it had taken their pain along with them. One of them kicked the sheets off and ended up hugging a ragged-looking Soarnus in joy.
Celestia's jaw met the pillows.
"That's a pegasus. He...he cast a healing spell- a high-level one. That's impossible.".
"Ain't impossible. Done seen an earth pony do it too. Luna's been hock-deep in old books, lookin' up "dead magic" that ain't so dead no more. Even some actual fancy-unicorn-war-magic-kinda spells- but that ain't somethin' everypony can do, or even figger out all of em if they can do SOME of em."
Luna's head dipped in an almost-apology. "Most of the spells I can manage are more destructive than healing- but then, you were always the better mender of the two of us. And my students, only some of those. Soarnus can only manage that healing spell of his once a day, like the other ponies who carry your mark."
"Trixie and I can conjure up blasts of stone and water and blind somepony, but only Princess Luna's marked seem to be able to learn all the spells she can, and none of the ones with YOUR crystal mark can cast any of them! We can do a few things with them she can't, but...we're like blind ponies ourselves. We have to try everything over and over again to see if we can use a spell, and only a few ponies know enough Ancient Unicornian well enough to help Luna's research. And having nearly every spell we can learn be for fighting? I...I don't like that. The Sunset that liked being able to just hurt anypony...when I came back through the mirror...*sniffle*...it felt like she tore off and flew away. "
A white cloud of feathers draped themselves over the suddenly miserable unicorn.
"I happen to know one very good translator that will gladly help her sister- and the kind of magic the unicorns of old used was very different from what I taught you and Twilight. It took having "patrons"- paragons of a kind of magical power - who crafted those spells, and when we were younger, Luna was one, as was I. That a non-unicorn can use them must mean that things aren't quite the same- but if Luna can do it, surely so can I. And if you and Twilight or any good pony can learn to use those spells, I will gladly teach them. In fact...Soarnus? Would you come here a moment?"
"Your Majesty...is that mare all right? She's crying...what's wrong? Move your wing, I can hardly get a look like-"
"It's sadness and a bit of frustration, Soarnus. I want to try something, since although you haven't become an alicorn, you seem to have figured a way around needing a horn. When I didn't even have a cutie mark or even much more magic than a horn spark, I learned a little spell for mending scrapes and bruises and little hurts- and I haven't used it for centuries, because...well, I gave it up for a greater good. First..."
With a quick nip, Celestia yanks a primary feather out and a dot of red begins to spread. "Has to have something to work on so I know it will work. Now, how did it go?"
"cura!"
With a brief sparkle of sunlight, the red spot vanishes as if it'd never been, a new feather forming where the old had been torn away.
Hooves clomped against the floor, only to stop when everyone turned to look.
"Trixie was taught it was polite to applaud when somepony managed a new magic trick."
"Now, if anypony here would like to try and learn this- I want you to focus on the tip of my horn."
Celestia's horn glimmered with the same warm radiance that had reformed her feather.
Every pony in the room turned their head to the sound of Celestia's voice, which was both quiet and yet found it's way across the room. A few with Celestia's mark found the glow almost irresistible, and gathered around the light.
"Feel the light of my sun. Let it reach inside you and find the light within your heart. Then, I want you to try and repeat what I say. Let what comes from it touch you and make your hurts melt away..."
"cura!"
A cacophony of ponies mostly mangling the one word in question resulted. Rainbow Dash actually managed to bite her tongue.
"Ow! Hey! Did one of you send me to the dentist when I was asleep? Cause...I usually have them do my teeth when I'm asleep. I kinda hate needles...is one of my teeth broken?"
"Um...no. You kinda grew fangs, though.", Fluttershy offered.
"Cool! I guess my superpower is...I'm BATPONY!"
"Let's try and make Rainbow Dash feel better, everypony. Again. "cura!" "
"Curra!" "Korra!" "Cure-ah!" "Cure!" "Kweh!"...
"cura!"
Rainbow's mouth lit up briefly from the inside.
"Very good, Soarnus!" - and Celestia's hooves stomped against the floor. The rest joined in without missing a beat.
The older stallion flew a quick joy filled lap around the room, chanting the spell once, twice on random patients...and then wobbled a bit.
"cura. cura. cura?" "Princess, I'm feeling a bit..empty? Is this normal?"
"Magic exhaustion! Take a break!", Twilight shouted across the room.
"The rest of you...let's see if you can manage to keep up with Soarnus."
To Twilight's mild embarrassment, two of the other orderlies (both earth ponies) with Celestia's mark managed to get the healing spell right before she did...and so did Trixie. However, she managed to keep casting it longer than anypony else by a good margin, followed by Sunset and then Trixie. Rarity, despite all of her trying just couldn't get -any- of the "new magics" to work: Celestia's healing cantrip, or any of Luna's spells. Nor could the rest of the non-unicorns.
"Well, perhaps some of use were not meant for such adventures. And my true talents remain uncompromised."
"Ain't much for fancy magicmatics either."
"Still Batpony."
"Ummm....sorry."
"Aww, don't worry Fluttershy. I'd have to stomp some horrible meanie a while to make ponies feel better!"
"What?"
"Noooooothing...."
