It was yet another sunny day in Canterlot; a sunny exciting day, the sort of day that had lured Princess Celestia out of her throneroom and out to protect her ponies from a maniacal mad pony that had once again terrorised Canterlot.
It was a worrisome development. Princess Celestia’s little ponies were easy to spook. Sometimes, all it took was a couple of rabbits and all of society would crumple like damp cardboard. A loud voice might cause a stampede. Distracted, Princess Celestia thought about her sister, Princess Luna. Luna needed to learn how to keep her voice down. When Princess Cadance and Shining Armor had married, Princess Celestia had no choice but to ground Princess Luna to her room and forbid her to come out. That hadn’t worked out quite as well as Princess Celestia had hoped. The wedding was crashed by bugs, and Princess Luna might have been helpful, but she had refused to come out of her room for fear of being sent back to the moon.
Sending Princess Luna to the moon had been a little extreme, but, Princess Luna had raised her voice. Such was the fate of rabble rousers and voice raisers. Princess Celestia had to set an example, and she knew that her sister understood. Princess Celestia would have been fine with all of the death threats and proclamations of usurping the throne had Princess Luna just kept her voice down and not spooked the little ponies. They could have dealt with the issue like sisters.
“Captain, are there any injuries?” Princess Celestia asked.
The captain, a pegasus, looked up at Princess Celestia and shook his head. “No, Majesty, all are unharmed, just like last time. Although quite a few are spooked and some have fainted.”
“Fiendish villain,” Princess Celestia muttered. Her eyes narrowed with fierce determination. “All of these rogue types… you would think that we would have come up with a way to punish them by now.”
“Like Trixie Lulamoon?” the captain asked.
“Trixie Lulamoon got her just desserts. She was forced to make a public apology.” Feeling a little miffed, Princess Celestia let out a disdainful sniff. “She was in my school… she should have known better than to behave like a little scruffy ruffian.”
“Well, nopony made any attempt to catch him when he escaped, so he’ll be back.” The captain craned his head to look up at Princess Celestia, his golden armor shining in the sun. “Don’t worry, we’ll be ready!”
“Just like the past few times?” Princess Celestia asked.
“Yeah!” The guard gave an enthusiastic nod.
The regal alicorn of the sun was forced to bite her lip to keep from making a disparaging comment. Her little ponies had tender egos and sometimes, a starchy word was enough to send them spiraling into an endless funk of despair.
After inhaling, Princess Celestia’s cheeks puffed out, and then she exhaled in a huff. She looked at the wall that had been vandalised. Vandalism… really… in this day and age. Tilting her head, Princess Celestia checked the message for spelling and grammar, trying to determine the state of the Equestrian education system.
The Sun shall be mine and the night shall last forever!
Hmm. That was a peculiar message that didn’t make a lot of sense. Princess Celestia had some trouble making out if it was wrong somehow, or just cryptic. The spraypainting was pretty good though, some little pony had been practicing, and showed some artistic talent. If they were caught, perhaps they could be rehabilitated as an artist if they could be made to stop talking about being evil and taking over the world. Princess Celestia contemplated the graffiti with puckered lips. Could this be a prank and could Princess Luna be behind it? It was impossible to determine the grammar of the message without understanding the context of the message.
“Captain, did you catch any of his ranting?” Princess Celestia asked as she turned to face the pegasus standing guard beside her. She raised a hopeful eyebrow.
The pegasus shrugged. “He said something about dragging the sun into the darkness. Or something or other.”
“Anything else?” Celestia waited for some kind of useful reply.
“Something about red licorice,” the guard replied.
“How curious.” Princess shook her head. “We still do not know his name. He remains a menace at large. Captain, I worry that we may be about to experience a crime wave.”
The events of the past few days were worrisome indeed. The criminal in question was competent; competent enough to elude the guard and keep escaping. He would pop up somewhere in Canterlot, begin ranting, and then vanish, only to pop up again later.
The guard were confident that they would catch him, and while Princess Celestia tried to be encouraging, she had her doubts. They hadn’t done a very good job so far, but Princess Celestia, the eternal optimist, believed in their promises to improve. She couldn’t just fire them… that would be… tyrannical, while robbing them of a vital chance of self improvement.
The graffiti was disturbing too. There was plenty of graffiti, all of it quite cryptic. Princess Celestia was baffled. The villainous unicorn seemed to be gearing up for a no holds barred showdown. The graffiti had started off innocuously enough, but the last message was cause for alarm.
The Sun and I shall go down together. That particular message had been written in bright red paint, which caused Princess Celestia to worry about things that made her squeamish, like blood. Blood was worrisome indeed. It was almost impossible to get out of her pelt unless she used considerable amounts of club soda.
“Princess? You look distracted,” Twilight Sparkle said as she looked at her mentor, concern and worry upon her face.
“A villain is on the loose.” Princess Celestia turned and looked at her student.
“Should my friends and I try to stop him?” Twilight’s lips pursed together with fierce determination.
“Well, the guards… the guards are a little lacklustre at this task so far…” Princess Celestia’s lips formed a perfect moue, it had taken her seven centuries to perfect and the mere sight of it caused artists to collapse into fits of weeping, knowing that they could never capture its perfection upon canvas. Every mare had to have hobbies.
“Um, Princess Celestia, if you don’t mind me asking, why do we have the guards, anyway?” Twilight Sparkle’s ears pitched forwards and she waited for some kind of meaningful reply, not knowing if she would get one.
Irked by the question, the corner of Princess Celestia’s eye twitched. She regarded her former student and thought about her answer. She had to be careful with the answer, because Twilight Sparkle’s brother Shining Armor had been in the guard and—
“Princess Celestia, can’t you just be honest with me for once?” Twilight demanded.
“The guard are a collection of nattering boobs! They had to be employed somehow, there are entirely too many idiots and not enough villages to disperse them… population control issues have brought us to this terrible state!” Princess Celestia watched as Twilight Sparkle’s mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ of horror. Her former student was kind of cute when she did that, but an open mouth catches flies, as the old saying goes. “In the old days, we’d send the guard off after dragons or what not, they would get devoured, and then Luna or I would go in and save the day and look like heroes. But the dragons got wise to the ‘free lunch’ signs that Luna would leave near the villages.” Princess Celestia’s ears perked, hearing a sound that was almost a whistle. She realised that it was Twilight Sparkle sucking in wind. Princess Celestia let out a fatigued sigh. There were consequences for sucking in that much wind. All of that air had to go somewhere.
Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were far too wide and Princess Celestia was worried that she might have to resort to emergency eye narrowing measures before something awful happened to her former student.
“Twilight Sparkle, go and do a book report on agrarian tax codes,” Princess Celestia commanded. She watched as Twilight Sparkle made an instant recovery, and her former student’s eyes glazed over with happiness.
“Yes Princess Celestia, right away!”
Annoyed beyond measure, Princess Celestia landed, but did not fold her wings. She kept them out for maximum intimidation. She tried to look fierce, but not too fierce, she was trying to make a point, not make little ponies wet themselves.
“And just what do you think you are doing, my little pony?” Princess Celestia’s voice was the icy tone of a frustrated foalsitter taken away from her softcore bridle ripper romance novellas. She looked at the graffiti upon the wall. I will not take no for an answ The brazen little pony had not stopped what he was doing, and was still painting the e and presumably would paint the r and perhaps an exclamation point as well.
“Progressing my grand plan to foalnap you!” the little unicorn replied.
“Foalnap me?” Princess Celestia shook her head. “I am most sorry, but what?”
“No no no! I must follow my checklist! Now is not the time!” The little pony threw down his spraypaint can upon the ground, his e and his r now finished. “I shall return to finish you off later, subdue you, and abscond with you!” Bowing, the unicorn gave Princess Celestia a salacious wink, make a clucking sound with his lips, and then took off running.
Blinking, rather stunned, Princess Celestia eyed the graffiti and then watched the fleeing unicorn. “You forgot proper punctuation, you felonious malcontent!” The alicorn of the sun heaved an exasperated sigh. “What is this world coming to?” She looked down at the spraypaint can. Littering, Princess Celestia thought to herself. When she caught him, she was going to give him a thorough scolding for littering. Princess Celestia was the forgiving sort, but littering was a crime against nature. She could not take a soft stance against such a heinous act. Discord had spent a thousand years as a statue for his little infraction.
“What in bloody Tartarus does that mean, anyway?” The pegasus, a lantern jawed individual, looked at the graffiti painted in a garish purple. He read it aloud: “I shall plunder the wine cellar of the Sun and drink deep of her heavenly nectar!”
Rubbing her temple, Princess Celestia summoned all of her patience. “I do believe it is a failed attempt at saying something poetic and meaningful.” She looked at the graffiti, felt more than a little disturbed by what she saw, and then noticed the smaller letters at the bottom of the wall. Sorry for my lack of punctuation.
Oh, that was too much. He was sorry for his lack of punctuation, but not for graffiti and littering. Or being a public menace. Princess Celestia realised she was dealing with a hardened, well educated criminal. The worst sort. Unrepentant. Unrelenting. The sort that could run circles around the guard and might even give Twilight Sparkle and her friends a run for their money.
“Private Parts, go and fetch me some rope,” Princess Celestia commanded in the voice of an irritated babysitter that had reached the realisation that she must now do her job before something awful happened.
The pegasus guard began to snicker, his armor clunking as he stood there unmoving.
“Private Puzzle Parts, will you please go and fetch me some rope?” Princess Celestia commanded once again, her eyes narrowing and blazing with an intense inner light.
“Yes, Majesty, right away!”
Stomping down the cobblestone street, Princess Celestia headed for the hardware store. There was a pleasant little wooden sign that let everypony know where it was, a hammer and saw criss crossed over one another. Tucked beneath Princess Celestia’s wing was a coil of rope.
She paused and stared up at the sign. This seemed like a good place to start. She yanked open the door, causing a bell to ring, and looked at the old stallion sitting behind the counter. He looked rather concerned and Princess Celestia realised that she might be on the verge of spooking him.
“Do you sell spraypaint?” Princess Celestia demanded.
“No, I’m sorry!” The stallion fell off of his stool, landed on the floor, covered his head with his front hooves, and began to cower. “We can start selling spraypaint though, we can get it, I promise!”
“My apologies. I shall look elsewhere for what I need,” Princess Celestia said as she exited the establishment. The bell rang once more, and she could hear the sounds of gibbering as she departed.
Perhaps a friendship pep talk from Princess Twilight Sparkle would help the poor fellow calm down. Princess Celestia made a mental note and added this to her to-do list.
How many hardware stores did ponies need, anyway? Princess Celestia thought to herself. She stood in the doorway of the one she had just exited, which happened to be the fifth one today, looked both ways, and then crossed the street. Setting a public example was important. Ponies had to look both ways before crossing the street, because expecting a pony with a wagon to stop or slow down was just plain unreasonable.
She had witnessed many accidents, all of them tragic. The street crosser freezing in panic, eyes wide, a scream of terror escaping from their lips as they watched the wagon pulling closer and closer, the wagon puller also wide eyed and screaming as they approached. And then, BAM! Tragedy. Sometimes, there were even spilled vegetables.
The worst was spilled milk. It was impossible to make little ponies stop crying after the loss of such a precious commodity. They would sob, they would sniffle, they would weep for the spilled liquid lactate extract of hooved mammals.
Little ponies were adorable, loveable little creatures, but they were difficult to live with. Scowling, Princess Celestia shoved open the door of the next hardware store to question the clerk.
“Have any spraypaint?” Princess Celestia asked.
The mare behind the counter didn’t blink an eye. “Nope.”
Disappointed, Princess Celestia changed her line of questioning. “Do you carry spraypaint?”
“Yup.” The mare then yawned and picked up a newspaper.
The alicorn of the sun’s eyes narrowed. “Is there any particular pony that comes in here and buys spraypaint… a lot of it?”
“Yup.” The mare began to read her newspaper.
“Who?” Celestia asked in the voice of a foalsitter tired of playing games.
“A little fella. Kinda stumpy. Real polite. Has good grammar,” the mare replied.
A smile of pure, uncorrupted goodness curled around Princess Celestia’s muzzle, horrible, terrible, awful goodness, the sort of smile that might appear upon a foalsitter’s face just before she locked you inside of the super-funtime-happy-timeout-room and made you think about what you had done. “Good grammar you say?” Pleased to know the education system was working, Princess Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she continued her questioning. “Do you have his name and do you know where he lives?”
“Yes.” The mare, reading her paper, let out an annoyed snort.
“I need to know where he is so that I might speak to him,” Princess Celestia said in the cold, calm voice of a foalsitter peering over the very edge of her limits. Her wings fluttered and the corner of her eye twitched at speeds invisible to mortals, leaving her perfect, serene face looking both perfect and serene.
“His name is Dewey Divide. Go to the back of the store. Open the door. Follow the stairs up. He’ll be in his room. Tell him his mother says that he needs to clean his room, it is atrocious. Maybe he’ll listen to you, but I doubt it. He’s been rebellious lately.”
“Thank you,” Princess Celestia said as she stomped off to the back of the store, her rope at the ready. “You have been most helpful. Excuse me while I go and deal with your son.”
There were privileges to being a Princess. Princess Celestia had been most joyful to send a copy of said privileges to Twilight Sparkle. Of course, Twilight had received the Junior Princess Edition of Privileges, but Twilight Sparkle didn’t need to know that. Such was the privileges of being a Senior Princess.
One such privilege was never having to knock. Grunting, Princess Celestia opened the door with a dainty, princessly kick that caused the door to explode into splinters. She heard a frightened yelp and then Princess Celestia realised that she had walked in at the most inopportune moment possible. The scent of lavender lotion hung heavy in the air. Dewey was sitting in a chair, his eyes wide with terror, a box of tissues sitting on the arm of said chair.
“We weren’t supposed to meet like this!” Dewey screamed as a photo of Princess Celestia drifted to the floor, falling down like an autumn leaf, drifting and flipping in the air.
Princess Celestia wished that she had not engaged her privilege and had knocked. She squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head back. She stepped backwards out of the room, shaking her head as she retreated. “Some things cannot be unseen,” she muttered to herself. Princess Celestia cleared her throat. “I can still hear you.”
“Point of no return,” Dewey replied in a strained voice.
There was no door to slam shut. There was no escape. This was nefarious villainy at its highest form. Princess Celestia was trapped, forced to endure the sounds that she could not make go away.
“I swear to the sun, if you get one drop of magical unicorn mayonnaise upon me, I will end you,” Princess Celestia said through clenched teeth.
“We weren’t supposed to meet like this,” Dewey replied in a breathless voice. “But seeing you in pony is so much better than looking at your picture!”
Horrified, Princess Celestia understood what the young stallion was doing right now. Looking at her. While he did what he was doing. Oh, this was unbearable. She could hear him grunting and the sounds of his heavy breathing quickened.
And then, it ended. There were a few whimpers. Disgusted, Princess Celestia did not dare to open her eyes. She stood there, not quite knowing what to say at a moment like this, but knowing that something had to be said anyway. She took a deep breath, and then spoke:
“Get yourself cleaned up. You and I need to have a little talk.”
“Are you comfortable?” Princess Celestia looked down at the stallion trussed up in rope. He was cowering and he wiggled around a bit. She hoisted him up into the air to have a look at his cutie mark, to see what it was that she was dealing with. She heard the stallion whimper in fear.
0÷0
Well, that explained a great deal. No wonder everything had gone wrong. She dropped him back down to the sidewalk with an unceremonious plop and gave him a stern glance. “Do you wish to explain what in bloody Tartarus is going on or am I going to have to resort to torture?”
“Torture?” Dewey blinked.
“Fine, torture it is then,” Princess Celestia replied. With a pop of magic, a fireplace poker appeared. She held it up in her telekinesis. “Now, where do we begin?”
“NO! I’ll talk!” Dewey cowered and wiggled, but the ropes held him fast.
The fireplace poker vanished. “Start talking, bub.”
“I had a carefully formed plan… I had a plan… everything went wrong!”
“It sure did!” Princess Celestia narrowed her eyes.
“I wanted to meet you—”
“Well, now you have met me!” Princess Celestia barked.
“Nononononono!” Dewey shook his head. “No, I wanted to do more than meet you, but you, you’re a princess… so I started reading all these books on what mares like… I parsed the data into something useful… mares like a bad colt… mares like rebellious figures… mares like stallions in power. Mares like public displays of affection!”
“None of this is making any sense, time for the fireplace poker—”
“NO PLEASE!” Dewey squeezed his eyes shut, fearful of the iron instrument of impalement’s return. “I checked all the data a million times… I was supposed to become a villain that you couldn’t resist, a powerful villain, a social rebel, so that maybe I would have a chance to talk to you and you’d notice me and maybe like me and maybe go on a date with me!”
“What?” Princess Celestia lowered her head until her snoot was inches from the trussed up stallion. “Why not just come and talk to me? Why all of this?”
“Look at me… I’m a pathetic loser that lives at home with his mother… I was trying to figure to figure out how to make a profit as a villain as I gained power… I was supposed to have a secret lair constructed and then foalnap you and make you like me because I would be irresistible and then you’d realise I wasn’t so bad and then you’d go through the trouble of trying to redeem me because that is what mares do with bad colts. They can’t help themselves, that is why bad colts get all of the mares and nice colt types always get ignored all through high school, never getting a date and I thought if I was going to be a loser then I was going to be a loser with big dreams and I set my sights on you and then I…” Dewey collapsed into blubbering and fell over on the sidewalk.
All of Princess Celestia’s anger disappeared with a snort. She stared down at the poor wretch trying to wiggle away like a caterpillar while he sobbed. This wasn’t what she expected at all.
“You know, nopony ever just comes up to me and talks to me. Everypony has to have elaborate schemes, or plans, or some ruse… everypony has to have some contrived means of reaching me. Everypony remains afraid of me, none of you little ponies ever bother just coming right out and asking me. All of this bowing, all of this scraping, it all gets so tiresome. For once, I would like it if somepony would just come right out ask me if I would like to go on a date. If I would like to go out for supper and a movie. Or if maybe I would like to attend the symphony with them. But nopony ever does. Instead, I have to deal with elaborate schemes, public vandalism, dreams of supervillainy, and walking into somepony’s room while they are playing with their pickle.” Princess Celestia shook her head. “Do you know how tiresome this gets after a few centuries?”
Princess Celestia watched as Dewey opened his eyes and looked up at her. She saw a faint glimmer of understanding upon his face, followed by a moment of deep shame. She saw his eyes close, he then went limp, becoming still. After a long moment of silence, she heard him say, “I’m sorry.”
After hearing his words and weighing them in her mind, Princess Celestia found herself believing him. Tears were still spilling down his cheeks, but he made no sound. She lifted her head high and took a deep breath. Sorry didn’t always make it so.
“Do you have any final requests before I drop you into the deepest, darkest hole in the deepest, darkest, most horrible spider infested dungeon that Canterlot Castle has to offer?” Princess Celestia asked.
“Just one,” Dewey replied.
“Well then, out with it,” Princess Celestia demanded.
“Will you go on a date with me?” Dewey looked up, his eyes pleading.
“Why you cheeky little pony… I… you… after all of the trouble you caused! After I walked into your room and found you castigating your carrot! I do not know what I am going to do with you!”
“Are you enjoying your salad?” Princess Celestia asked. She looked over at her companion and checked to make certain that his ropes were still tight. He was propped up in his chair, his eyes still red and bleary from crying. There was a piece of walnut and a raisin on his nose, just above his lip. He was looking at her with wide eyed adoration. Celestia caught a whiff of lavender in the air.
Dewey nodded.
“Sorry, but I cannot untie you. You are in trouble after all. This is the only way you will learn. I think they will be bringing out the hot appetisers very soon.” Princess Celestia set her salad fork down upon the wrought iron bistro table. She lifted a napkin in her telekinesis and then went to work, wiping Dewey’s face.
When Princess Celestia was finished, Dewey smiled and then sniffled a bit.
“So, when we get done here, where do we go next? The symphony or a movie?”
Author's Note
Well... I feel better.
