Don't Count Your Chickens
Author's Note
Those of you expecting my usual fare had best look elsewhere. I have taken a brief vacation from the grim darkness of the 21st ponypunk century to bring you a short, wholesome, family-friendly comedic one-shot. My completed stories column had one too few regrets and I sought to remedy the situation. Dunno if it's any good, since I've never done comedy before, but I'm sure you will all tell me.
Cheers.
Don't Count Your Chickens
The pager inset in one of the throne’s armrests emitted two low tones, followed by Raven’s voice.
“Your Ladyship? The new applicant is here.”
Princess Celestia took one last swig from her coffee mug (#1 Diarch), and handed it unhurriedly to an elderly servant, who promptly bustled away to empty, scrub, buff and reapply the ceramic glaze to fully prepare the mug for the next morning.
On the way to the interviewing office, Her Ladyship stopped by the lunar bedchambers to collect her sister.
Princess Luna was bedraggled and irate as was her wont at this early hour. There were noticeable bags under her eyes and her mane was messy and shedding stars like a bad case of dandruff. As the two Royal Sisters walked, they were trailed by an entourage of janitorial staff who busily swept the fallen stardust from the palace tiles.
“I apologize for getting you out of bed so early,” said Celestia. “It seems that our most recent job applicant has arrived and I’d appreciate your insight.”
“Yes, okay,” mumbled Luna, stifling a yawn. “I still don’t see why we’re hiring another alicorn so soon. There was Cadance at the end of season two, and now that Twilight’s ascended I don’t see us wanting for another princess for a while.”
At this last, the Lunar Princess looked around surreptitiously.
“Where is Twilight, anyway?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her around the palace lately.”
“Ah, yes.” Celestia abruptly remembered her most faithful student. “She’s decided to remain in Ponyville for the time being.”
“Really? Ponyville?” Luna swept her rebellious locks out of her face, casting another shower of sparks onto the decadent crimson carpet. Behind her, one of the janitors departed for the vacuum cleaner in the utility closet. “I mean no offense, but I would hardly consider Ponyville a settlement befitting royalty.”
“I don’t fully grasp it myself,” said Celestia. “Twilight said it was to facilitate her mission to ‘spread friendship across Equestria.’”
“Friendship needs… spreading?” Luna asked hesitantly.
Celestia chuckled. “She seemed so enthusiastic, I didn’t have the heart to turn her down.”
A massive crystal tablet was spread between the seven thrones, supporting an intricate holographic replica of Equestria’s topography. Most of it, anyway. Something was conspicuously absent.
“Where’s Trottingham?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
The five other ponies surrounding the tablet suddenly went poker-faced.
Twilight got impatiently out of her uncomfortable solid diamond seat and skirted the edge of the circular tablet. A chunk of crystal was missing where Trottingham had been.
“Are these teeth marks? Did somepony—?” Realization dawned. “Spike!”
The young dragon stopped picking his teeth. “Whuh?”
“We went over this during our visit to the Crystal Empire: structural supports, crystal ponies and furniture are not food.”
Spike’s eyes fell. “Sorry.”
Twilight thrust a forehoof toward the door. “Corner. Now.”
As Spike shuffled forlornly out of the throne room, Twilight turned back to her friends.
“As I was saying, you can see from this model that the land between Fillydelphia and Trottingham is occupied by the followers of Camaraderie. This is completely unacceptable.” She brought her hoof down on the model to emphasize the point, crushing the entirety of Appleloosa and much of the surrounding desert. “You are all hereby dispatched to spread the good word of Friendship to these sun-forsaken lands.”
The other ex-Bearers of the Elements exchanged worried glances as Twilight continued.
“I will expect no less than a dozen converts from each of you come dusk. Anypony unable to reach this quota will be subject to… reeducation.”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t quite quell an involuntary shudder. She’d already been reeducated once. She could recite the entirety of season one in her sleep.
Applejack raised a forehoof.
“Yes, Applejack? Something to contribute?”
“Yeah, uh. I have relatives ‘n Fillydelphia.” Applejack chewed on her lip nervously. “They’re not, y’know. They’re not really what you’d call open-minded.”
The doorbell was ringing. With the aid of his walker, great-uncle Honeycrisp slowly but surely made his way to the entrance. When he finally opened the ancient mahogany door, he was greeted by a nervous-looking pastel-yellow pegasus.
“Um… Good morning, sir. H-have you achieved your salvation by embracing the Magic of Friendship?”
The pegasus mare thrust out a collection of pamphlets, almost as though she was taking cover behind them.
Great-uncle Honeycrisp squinted at the collection of parchment, and donned the reading glasses hanging from his neck.
“Wossat? Are you selling Filly Scout cookies?”
“What? N-no, I—”
The reading glasses slid from great-uncle Honeycrisp’s muzzle like a midsummer mudslide. “Then I ain’t in’ersted.”
The door slammed shut, blowing most of Fluttershy’s pamphlets from her grip and into the cobblestone street, where they were promptly trampled by pony-drawn carts that may have been standing there specifically awaiting the opportunity.
“Hmm. Yes, I see your point,” said Twilight. “Don’t worry, Applejack. If we can’t have the land by virtue of the good word alone…” She levitated a heavy diamond-plated glaive from a nearby weapons rack and brandished it, startling the other five. “Then we will have it by the sword! Consolidate the Ponyville militia! Gather the warbeasts! We march the heathen-strewn streets of Fillydelphia come sundown!”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Twilight. I thought friendship was about… kindness and compassion?”
Twilight pivoted sharply to face the other unicorn. Her eyes were wild. “But don’t you see? If they won’t accept friendship willingly then we have to force them to accept it! By installing a puppet regime loyal to us, we can secure a brighter future for the backwater slum!”
“This isn’t about oil, is it?” Pinkie asked. Her companions looked at her blankly.
“Uh. Oil?” Twilight stumbled, losing her momentum.
“Yeah. If we’re gonna go full-throttle into this slapdash political analogy thing, you gotta mention how Fillydelphia is sitting right on top of vast untapped reserves of oil!”
“Is it really?” asked Twilight, intrigued in spite of herself.
“I dunno.” Pinkie shrugged. “It sounds good though, doesn’t it?”
The two princesses sat opposite their new applicant, a chubby, freckled alicorn mare whose light brown mane was reminiscent of plumage. A pair of thick-lensed corrective spectacles was mounted high on her muzzle and she adjusted them with a frequency that implied a compulsive tic. She fidgeted in her chair, her movements jerky and erratic.
“Now Miss… Poltrus, am I pronouncing that correctly?” Celestia began. “Princess Luna and myself have reviewed your application and are tentatively considering advancing you to the next tier of qualified applicants.”
Poltrus sat up, a smile spreading across her features. “R-really? Oh, thank you, I promise you won’t regret—”
“Before we finalize our decision, however,” Luna interrupted, “we have to clear up a couple of outstanding issues.”
Celestia leafed through a three-ring binder spread in front of her, digging out the application in question.
“Where do you see yourself in two hundred years, Miss Poltrus?” she asked.
“Um.” Poltrus looked at each of the princesses in turn and found no help. “With respect, Your Highness, I don’t, uh, I don’t think I’m going to… live that long?”
Luna whispered something in her sister’s ear. Princess Celestia chuckled good-naturedly.
“Pardon me, I’m forgetting that not all alicorns are immortal. That’s quite alright, we can put you down as a temp. What’s your experience regarding governing?”
“I was class vice-president in my elementary school,” said Poltrus, adjusting her glasses. “With, uh, with my leadership, the student council was able to… negotiate two additional potato crisps on our lunches each day.”
“I see,” said Celestia after a pause. “Is that the full extent of your experience in this field?”
“To be fair,” Luna broke in to address her sister, “we elected Princess Cadance and Princess Twilight with far less.”
Princess Celestia harrumphed. “Some professionalism, please. Excuse me, where were we?”
She rustled some of the loose-leaf in the binder flamboyantly. Luna contented herself with an exasperated sigh.
“I can’t help but notice that you have failed to include an image of your cutie mark,” said Celestia. “Nor did you specify on your application what your special talent actually is. It’s all well and good that you’re sociable, organized and a hard worker, but what new skills can you bring to the table if we accept you into the royal family here in the Canterlot palace?”
“Oh geez, sorry,” said Poltrus, running a hoof through her mane. “That’s. Really unprofessional of me. Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“Answer the question, please,” said Luna.
“Well, I…” Poltrus smiled sheepishly. “I can influence chickens, turkeys and associated fowls.”
The room felt suddenly chillier. Luna couldn’t detect any significant change in her sister’s face, but Celestia’s eyes seemed to mist over and her smile turned glassy and vacant, like she’d had to hold her expression for an incompetent photographer who was taking too long.
Then she got out of the chair.
“Excuse me, please.”
“Sister, wait,” tried Luna.
Without another word, Princess Celestia turned toward the exit and walked out of the interviewing office, firmly closing the door behind her.
Luna turned toward Poltrus who was likewise frozen in her seat, staring at her with lips locked and pupils dilated . She patted the younger alicorn apologetically on the shoulder.
“Give us ten minutes. The water cooler’s right outside, if you’d like to refresh yourself. Restrooms are down the hall.”
She found her sister on the balcony, gazing despondently at the sunbaked ivory of the Canterlot skyline.
“’Tia? Are you alright?”
Princess Celestia didn’t answer. Luna sighed and took her place by her sister’s side.
They stood there in sullen silence for what felt like ages—Luna started to get flashbacks to her millennial exile on the moon. Finally a voice broke in, but it took her a couple of moments to recognize that it was her sister speaking.
“You know…” said Celestia. “Being an alicorn meant something once.”
Luna grunted noncommittally as her sister continued.
“First it was I; moving a vast, distant, incomprehensibly massive body of burning hydrogen and helium across our sky. Then you came along, and although your respective celestial body was much smaller, closer, and all-around less important, you still performed your job admirably. It was still respectable.”
“Thanks.” Luna rolled her eyes, a modern expression she’d picked up from Twilight. “It’s good to feel appreciated.”
“Everything started to sour when we provided asylum to some two-bit aristocrat with a crystal pony heritage…” Celestia tore her eyes from the capital and gestured helplessly with a forehoof. “I mean, honestly. What is Cadance even the princess of?”
“Love?” Luna hazarded.
“Oh is she? Really?” Celestia arched an immaculate eyebrow. “Just because she’s the only married noble she’s entitled to the title of Princess of Love? In my day we had to work to earn our status.”
“And when was your day, sister?” Luna asked quietly.
Celestia sighed and pulled her gaze back towards the distant spires.
“Now my most faithful student has finally ascended to royalty and the first thing she does is wage jihad on Fillydelphia in the name of friendship. It’s all so painfully small-minded. And it’s not going to get any better.”
The Solar Princess leaned on the balcony railing, jaw working.
“Maybe you’re right, Luna; you saw that filly in there. That’s the next generation of alicorns, that’s what the world’s coming to. Maybe I’m looking to the past through rose-tinted shades. Maybe I’m getting too old for this. Maybe Equestria has no need of royalty like us any longer.”
“Sister… You can’t mean…”
“I think it’s time I retire, Luna. Time I buy a mountain-side cottage or a yacht and live out the remainder of my ostensibly infinite lifespan in peace.”
“I… I guess it’s not my place to try and stop you,” Luna said dubiously.
Celestia gave her a warm smile and wrapped a foreleg around her in a gentle, sisterly embrace. “I had a feeling you’d understand. Good luck, Luna. I leave our kingdom in your capable hooves.”
It was two weeks later.
The Lunar Guard barracks were cramped and smelled of stale sweat, but their subterranean location afforded Princess Luna some much-needed darkness. The stained glass windows above were ever-luminous and their light had taken to giving her migraines.
The bat-winged guard sitting opposite her laid down his hand. A pair of deuces, a duke, a princess and a jester. Luna put her own cards down, two pairs and a six. She’d be the first to admit that she wasn’t a particularly good player and she was beginning to suspect that her opponent was throwing the game on purpose.
“Just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean you have to—”
A young unicorn in Lunar Guard plate burst into the room, panting and badly sunburned. Luna hastily got out of her seat.
“Is that you, Libra? By the moon, you look dreadful. Sit down. Dipper, fetch him some water.”
“Milady.” Libra tried to catch his breath. “I beg forgiveness for my lack of punctuality; I was accosted by pegasi bandits on the incline to the palace.”
“It’s alright,” said Luna. “Tell me, what news from Ponyville?”
“The assault on Fillydelphia has wilted like the surrounding vegetation, milady. Much of Princess Sparkle’s militia have succumbed to insomnia, severe sunburn and heatstroke, skin cancer and a number of other disorders.”
Luna nodded. “And what of the land?”
Dipper returned with a cool glass. Libra took several greedy gulps before continuing.
“It’s undergoing rapid desertification as projected. The earth is drying out and much of the greenery is slowly dying. Motorcycle and ATV-mounted gangs of pegasi roam the countryside robbing unwary travelers, looting and ransacking for precious resources and participating in intense vehicular combat. The earth ponies, meanwhile, have locked themselves away in massive species-exclusive subterranean enclaves to take shelter from solar radiation.”
“What about the unicorns?” prompted the princess.
“I haven’t run into very many that were still around,” said Libra. “This is purely hearsay, but I understand that the unicorn population has departed the rapidly filling coast and now roams the oceans on scavenged watercraft. They sustain themselves entirely on fish and recycled urine and squabble violently with one another for remaining dry land.”
Luna grit her teeth. Meanwhile, if the reports from the zebra tribes were to be believed, the opposite half of the planet was quickly devolving into a permanent frozen tundra. In retrospect, letting her sister retire may have been a terrible idea. This was getting ridiculous.
“Dipper, relay my message to the court: dispatch the Queen’s Reach. I want Lady Celestia found and returned to the palace immediately.”
She started toward the door.
“Milady,” said Dipper. “Where are you going?”
“I need to have a word with Princess Poltrus.”
