Chapter the First, and Thankfully Last.
Princess Celestia, Alicorn of the Sun, smoothly rotated her croquet mallet in the golden glow of her mageía as she pondered her next move. This particular croquet field had been frozen in time a thousand years ago, its unfinished game awaiting the return of the other player. Now that she was back and able to continue, and the field in question had been gently airlifted from the Old Castle and brought to the gardens of the New, Celestia was determined to play only moves that were worthy of this potentially immortal game. Her mind was filled with angle calculations usually only performed by billiards players. Luna had left her with a difficult position last evening, but if she could bank her ball precisely against the edge of the wicket as it passed through, she stood a reasonable chance of scoring two extra shots…
“Celestia?” Twilight had appeared over the nearest hedge wall. “Your seneschal said you were in the gardens… Oh—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Celestia smiled and lowered her mallet. “It’s quite all right, Twilight. What occasions your visit?”
Twilight landed, folded her wings, and brought forth a sheath of papers. “Well, I’ve been studying the history of Hearth’s Warming Eve, and I couldn’t help but notice something very odd. It’s about the six most prominent ponies of the era; the ones represented in the play. The historical records contain plenty of information about their lives… up to a point. But at about -1 AE, Alicorn Era, all mentions of Private Pansy, Princess Platinum, and Smart Cookie… just disappear. There’s no indication of them going on any sort of journey, or dying. They just stop being talked about, and no ancient writer mentions why. It’s as if they simply dropped out of existence!”
Celestia carefully refrained from meeting her pupil’s eyes. “How very interesting, Twilight. That is indeed rather odd.”
“And just a year and a half later, Commander Hurricane, Clover the Clever, and Chancellor Puddinghead… they drop from the records too!” Twilight frowned. “Now, one could argue that with you and Luna making your appearance at around that time, those six ponies simply became less worthy of mention, but that can’t be the whole truth; they were too prominent. It’s just too much of a coincidence. Do you—do you know what really happened to them? May I ask?”
Celestia gently tapped her mallet on the ground, her gaze playing over the towers of Canterlot gleaming in golden sunshine as she recalled those ancient years, and how many scribes of that era had been bribed or otherwise enjoined to silence. She wondered how much she could safely tell, even now…
One fine summer’s morning, in the silver pre-dawn light, Commander Hurricane stood upon the cloudy parade grounds, her soldiers surrounding her in fierce rows. All attention was focused upon her, and upon Private Pansy, who stood at her side, curiously bloated and shivering.
Commander Hurricane was halfway through a rousing, stirring speech, and the assembled troops hung upon every word.
“…and so I said to Chancellor Puddinghead, ‘No bucking way! You can really light a fart? That’s bucking amazing!’ But then Clover the Clever, she started talking about methane, and somepony named Captain Ethel Mer or something—don’t know what sea ponies have to do with it, but long story short, she didn’t think it could be done.
“But I said it could, ’cause if it was true, it would be so totally radical! And I made a bet with her that you can so totally light a fart. And I was floating kinda high on all the Salzbier and honeymead we’d been knocking back, and I kinda bet her a whole lotta bits… So, what it comes down to, is we gotta make this happen.
“So, Private Pansy, you know why I made you eat only beans for the past week and a half?”
Private Pansy started. “Uhm, because I like beans?”
“No! You know why I made you stick a cork in your plot, too?”
“Because I lik—er, uhm, because you like to make me look silly?”
“No! Yes! Uh, no, because we’re doing this for… sciencey stuff. We’re gonna out-clever Clover the Clever. We’re gonna prove once and for all that you can LIGHT A FART! Okay, Pansy, present your posterior!”
Trembling, Pansy bent forward and lifted her tail.
“Private Spearholder, bring that torch close to her butt!”
He extended the torch, which was tied to a long pole, and held it under her tail, illuminating it in a dancing orange glow.
Commander Hurricane smiled. This was going to be good. She could feel it. She spoke the final order.
“Private Rhoda Rooter… REMOVE THAT CORK‼”
Moments later, the parade grounds were clear. A large crater in the cloud surface roiled with smoke.
And Private Pansy, with a jet of flame streaming from her rear, and a noise like a thousand lawnmowers with bad sparkplugs splitting the air, was screaming as she was propelled, jet-assisted, towards the distant hills.
Commander Hurricane, upside down and half-embedded in the wall of a nearby building, having been flung there by the blast, looked up and smiled.
“That. Was. Mega. AWESOME!”
***
Several miles away, atop a broad turret on the majestic castle of the unicorns, a daily ceremony of great importance was taking place. The assembled unicorns, led by Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever, combined their powers into a shimmering cloud that swirled around their heads. Sweating and chanting incantations, they poured their full efforts into their important task.
And soon, the magic cloud overhead shone brighter and brighter, until a dazzling beam shot forth and reached to the horizon. And at that instant, a golden glow spread over the hills as the edge of the sun peeped over the distant mountains. The sun had been risen once again!
Princess Platinum sighed. “Another stellar job—aheh!—at raising the sun! I thank you, my fellow unicorns. Let us all now show our deep respect to the powers of the heavens! May we ever receive warm blessings from above!” She knelt with her front legs, facing the sun, with her rear pointed skywards… as a flaming, screaming comet of despair came shrieking over the parapet behind her—Private Pansy, with a long jet of fire streaming from her rear, along with a noise like a chorus of dying bullfrogs.
Before anypony could react, Private Pansy plowed head first into Princess Platinum’s prominently-presented plot! The two of them sailed skyward on a column of flame. Princess Platinum in her shock barely heard Clover exclaiming, “Oh my! So you can light a fart! I thought…” Her words dopplered and faded in the distance.
Princess Platinum’s face turned red and her eyes crossed in pain and shock. “OOOooaaAUUUgggHUH! My word! Ouch! OUCH! HELLLLPP‼” Princess Platinum screamed, with Private Pansy’s head firmly and very deeply lodged in her posterior.
“Mmmfffmmf mrrrmmfmf mmmffmmrrm!” screamed Private Pansy, whose bad day had gotten even worse. It was just as well that she couldn’t see where she was.
Terrified, the two squirming ponies, legs and tails flailing helplessly, buzzed off into the distance like a drunken hornet, leaving a pungent smoky contrail behind them.
***
“Oooh,” said Chancellor Puddinghead, as she trotted with Smart Cookie along a flowery lane under the growing sunrise.
“What’s wrong?” said Smart Cookie.
“I just got a Tickle Tail.”
“A what, now?”
“Well…” The Chancellor paused, thoughts winding through curly mane hairs. “First, I have to explain about time skipping. Like, do you ever feel that you may just be skipping through time, like a flat rock you skimmed on a lake?”
Smart Cookie was sufficiently familiar with the Chancellor’s ways to take the question at face value. “Can’t rightly say that I do. What’s it like for you?”
“Well, it seems to me that I’m here now, but also later in the future I’m going to be there, and the me that’s there will sometimes pretend to be me from now, because she’s pretty understanding that way. But also, that things she does then can pass back to me somehow now, and that’s why I can feel a Tickle Tail!”
“Uh-huh,” said Smart Cookie patiently. “So what does it mean, that you got this Tickle Tail?”
The Chancellor considered. “I think it means that something glorious and terrible is going to happen. And, uhm, also that it involves butts somehow.” She paused expectantly, scanning the horizon with pigeon-like jerks of her head.
Nothing happened for a long moment. But then, suddenly, a thrush burst into song in a tree nearby.
The two ponies shrugged and trotted on.
“Oooh, is that a cookie I see there, on the ground?” said Smart Cookie.
“Where?”
“Right there. That brown lump. Maybe somepony dropped it on the way to market. Can’t rightly tell; it might be something else. Lemme check it out.” Smart Cookie bent her forelegs and sniffed at the object, her rear pointed up at the sky, her tail swaying back and forth…
“Whoof. Nope, that ain’t no cookie.” She straightened up, and the two ponies set off again down the lane. “So, is there anything special we need to do about this Tickle Tail thing?”
“There’s not much we can do. It will just happen when we least expect it.”
“You can’t, say, make it hurry up a bit and get it over with? I gotta busy day ahead of me.”
“That’s not aaaaallways wise,” said the Chancellor thoughtfully, “But we can try. Let’s see… you could start by standing on one back hoof, with your right fore tapping the top of your head and your left fore rubbing your muzzle.” She demonstrated. “And you sing ‘Blabble-fargle-wubble-blat, Ducks are bathing in my hat.’”
Smart Cookie tried it, with some difficulty. ‘Blabble-fargle-fubble-blat—’”
“Wubble-blat, with a double-you. Try it again”
The explosion of dirt knocked the Chancellor off her hooves.
A minute ago, Princess Platinum and Private Pansy had struck the soft dirt a mile away, burrowing into it, and thanks to Platinum’s horn had tunneled through it to emerge right under Smart Cookie at the silliest possible moment in her pose. She now rose into the sky on top of them, her eyes bulging and her ears flattened in shock, for Princess Platinum’s horn and head were deeply lodged in a very intimate area.
“MMMMHHHhhh!” screamed Princess Platinum, who had most unfortunately come to share Private Pansy’s point of view. “Mhff ff thr Mrrft. Mrrrfffhbll. MHHHNG!” She’d had no idea that Earth ponies were mostly corn-fed, and was deeply regretting finding out.
“mmrrrrggghh!” squeaked Private Pansy.
“WHOA NELLY!” shrieked Smart Cookie as she soared into the clouds. “Too much pitchfork, TOO LITTLE HAY‼ My barn door don’t swing that way‼ WHOOOOAAAAHH—”
Squirming into the sky, highlighted by the soft golden light of the dawn, the equine centipede twisted and writhed in shock and horror, rising to the blue zenith like a flabbery noodle balloon.
And then, with a long drawn-out blaaaaat, a sputter, and a final forlorn tuba-like poot, Private Pansy ran out of gas.
The three ponies reached the apex of their flight, passed it, and sailed gracefully down, towards the side of tall, desolate Mount Canter. Only one of them could see what was about to happen, and she could do nothing but scream. The other two nonetheless picked up upon her gut-wrenching terror in some manner or another that was probably best left unmentioned. In a partly muffled harmony, they sang the song of fear as they slammed into the mountainside. There was a bright white explosion, and an enormous and terrible noise.
PLOTZ!
Rocks rained down the mountainside, then all was hideously quiet.
The impact had left a deep and smoking hole in the mountain that glowed dully red at its edges.
And deep within that hole, something lived. Something moved, pushing aside the fragments of splintered rock.
Something emerged. A tall being who bore the white coat and horn of Princess Platinum, though smudged with filth from the impact. It had the wings of Private Pansy, badly in need of preening, and like her, its ass was still burning. And it had the stolid hooves and stubborn will to live of Smart Cookie. It was as large as all three of them put together.
It looked upon itself for a long time, then turned its head to the sky, facing the glorious sunrise. It spoke.
“Buh. Bribbuh buhbrrr. Splahdort.”
Its thoughts were a mess of conflicting memories, of plates of beans, of Clover’s voice fading in the distance, of ducks taking a bath in one’s hat. It would obviously take a long time to sort everything out and learn how to speak properly again.
And then, the fitful flame on its butt flickered and went out, and at the same time a glowing symbol appeared on its flanks, a symbol of the fire that had given it birth…
“Spaaahdoooh…?” it said. “Flughuuub. FLUGUUUUUUUBB!” It rapidly jumped up and down and flapped its wings like a chicken. “FLUGUBOOOOOOOooooooooo…‼”
Obeying some primal instinct, it spent the next few weeks building a rudimentary nest of rocks around the impact site, chattering and cooing nonsense to itself. By then, its mind had recovered sufficiently for it to venture down the mountain, to command the awe of the multitude of ponies around it, and to take control of the sun, and the land, and the future, and the anniversary of that day became the first Summer Sun Celebration…
Celestia blinked, her mind returning to the present. It had been so long since she had visited the deep foundations of the original Castle Canterlot, and the oldest stones there which still remained of her original nest. She had made no alterations to it in millennia. It was her hole, after all; it was made for her.
She turned to face her expectant protégé, who had come into her own powers in such a more elegant and prepared manner. She told Twilight of how Princess Platinum had developed an experimental spell, working with Clover the Clever, and how the complex spell had gone awry with unpredictable results, merging the destinies of three separate tribes into one shining symbol, a being who exemplified all the virtues of each. She told, mostly truthfully, of how long it had taken to replicate that spell, with multiple attempts being made by Clover and Hurricane and Puddinghead, until the event was recreated on the date of the Winter Solstice to give rise to Princess Luna…
“Nowadays, Twilight,” Celestia summed up, “we have better ways of doing these things. You may trust me that there is little to be learned from those early fumbling attempts.”
Twilight was looking at Celestia in awe. “So you were born from Pansy, and Platinum and Cookie. Are they… still in you somehow?”
Celestia thought about a tired old hat, which would be dust by now had it not been preserved in thaumically-stabilizing crystal in her private sanctum. “They do live on in me. One never entirely loses touch with one’s origins, no matter what one does. Do you not remember that little unicorn filly who once made bold to jump on my bed? She lives on in you as well, does she not?”
Twilight giggled. “I think you’re right. Thank you, Celestia. You’ve given me a new sense of what it’s worth, to be an Alicorn!” She took her leave and flew away, teleporting to Ponyville once she had it in line of sight.
“A hill of beans,” said Celestia quietly, turning back to her game. “It’s worth exactly one hill of beans.”
The Last Chapter For Sure, This Time: Celestial Seasoning
Author's Note
There’s only so much I can do with fart jokes, so let’s try some world building.
The Last Chapter For Sure, This Time: Celestial Seasoning
Part I—Insipid Inception
Mount Canter, a desolate and uninviting spire, loomed like a grim gray tower over the landscape of the newly-founded lands of Equestria. Though one might think that a unicorn would admire its similarity to a horn, Clover the Clever had always found it and its icy peak to be an uncomfortable reminder of the frigid lands they had left behind.
Yet she was even now being borne towards the lonely mountain by an armed and armored team of flying Pegasus charioteers, who had brought an urgent message from Commander Hurricane; a message that had been frustratingly sparse on details. By Clover’s side was the irrepressible Chancellor Puddinghead, who was cheerfully letting her tongue flap in the rushing wind.
As the chariot drew closer to the mountain, a dot streaked through the sky, approaching with great speed. Soon, Commander Hurricane had matched speeds and was flying alongside the chariot, nimbly dodging Puddinghead’s saliva trail at the last second. “Regent Clover, Chancellor Puddinghead,” she said. “About time you got here!”
Clover bit her lip. She’d been appointed regent after Princess Platinum’s disappearance, and she was just managing to hold things together. However, without Platinum’s power and expertise, it had been much harder for the unicorns to raise the sun that morning, and Clover was feeling more irritable than usual. She cleared her throat and called into the wind. “Commander Hurricane, you know that we are all very busy in the search for Princess Platinum and the others…”
Hurricane sighed. “Look, Regent Clover, I’m just as busy as you. We’d never let a fellow soldier down. We were immediately on the trail of Private Pansy…!”
Clover raised precisely one eyebrow.
“…Well, just as soon as we all stopped laughing. The point is, we’ve been searching around the mountain since we heard Chancellor Puddinghead’s story of where the three of them, uh, went, and… uh… we have a development.”
“Have you found them?”
“Uh, no, not really…”
“Then please don’t waste more of our time.”
Hurricane rolled her eyes. “I am not wasting your time; I’m saving your time. You’re just not gonna believe it until you see it for yourself, so words are pointless. Hang on, we’re almost there!” She swiftly darted ahead, flying off around the curved side of the mountain. The Pegasus team sped up to keep pace.
As they closed on in on their destination, Clover drew a breath of astonishment. Mount Canter had been marred on one face by a small crater, a divot about the size of a large house, and there was an odd gray object at its center. The crater was shaped roughly like a bowl turned on its side, and the Pegasus charioteers landed on the lowest surface, near the rim. They stood at attention and readied their spears, warily looking around them.
Clover stepped carefully onto the blackened and shattered rock of the crater, and looked uphill to the pile of gray rock at the crater’s center. It had been built into a rude shelter that nonetheless had rudimentary crenelations, and something that was either an overdone chimney or the beginnings of a mage’s tower. And all around it, etched into the crater’s floor and walls, were radiant circles of scribbled lines that glowed a dull orange even in the daylight. Smaller lines circumscribed and wove around the main lines, annotating them in Talmudic proliferation.
Puddinghead glanced over the whole pattern. “Oooh, a maze! I love mazes!” She dashed into it, running only in the spaces between the lines. Clover closely inspected a line that ended at her feet, and gasped in delighted surprise. It was a mathematical equation! She started to read it, following its path as it swirled and swerved in towards the shelter, her expression growing more and more concerned.
By the time she finally reached the line’s end, at one of the unfinished walls of the crude stone shelter, there were worry-wrinkles between her eyebrows. “The inverse cube of the thaumic radiative constant is certainly not… pebblecheeks!” she exclaimed in irritation. “What does this even mean?” She raised her head and suddenly found herself nose-to-nose with a peculiar equine presence; a very large white unicorn pony of slender proportions, white-coated with a close-cropped mane of light-green and blue, who had stuck her head over the wall. Her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s, and a small string of grayish drool hung from the corner of her lip.
Clover politely but cautiously sniffed the stranger’s breath; it smelled like mud and worms. “Uh… hello?” she said.
The stranger turned her head swiftly, and spat a huge wet mouthful of rocks onto the unfinished wall, filling in a gap. She turned back to Clover with an odd expression—perhaps just a hint of an enigmatic smile—then hopped into the air, spreading a pair of wings, and alighting gently on the outside of the wall.
Clover sat down heavily. Wings and a horn… a creature of pure mythology, but present in the flesh. As she stared up at the being in shock, her head was suddenly and firmly turned aside by Puddinghead, who stared solemnly into her eyes.
“You got to the center first, but you walked on the lines so it doesn’t really count!” admonished Puddinghead. “But that doesn’t matter because we’ve got a new friend! A whole lot of new friend! And…” she spotted the wings and horn on the stranger, and the curls of her mane twanged like springs. “…and such variety!”
“What is she?” muttered Clover. “I can’t detect any illusion magic. A Windigo? But no, it can’t be…”
“I dunno just what she is,” said Hurricane as she flew up to join them, “But she’s got something to do with our missing ponies. She’s, like, absorbed them or something. We tried to make her let them all go, but… that didn’t work out so well. So we brought you guys here to see what you could make of her.”
“Absorbed them?” asked Clover. “What makes you think that?”
Commander Hurricane indicated one of the stranger’s wings. “Well, first, her wings are just like Pansy’s, only larger and white. Plus, she carries her wings just like Pansy did—see how the covert feathers fold over here by the primaries—?” She reached out to touch the area.
The stranger swiftly whipped out a huge hoof, clouting Commander Hurricane’s jaw so hard that both of the Commander’s eyes got smushed to the same side of her face, like a flounder or a Pegasso painting. Still, there was only a moment’s pause in the Commander’s speech.
“*hOOF*—You thee? Thee’th altho got Panthy’s bottled-up fruthration that we were alwayth intenthifying, trying to get her to let it loothe, you know? But there’s thomething elthe there in that kick—thee buckth a lot harder.”
Chancellor Puddinghead inspected the hoof-shaped dent that deformed Hurricane’s face. “That’s an Earth-pony buck, delivered with Smart Cookie’s style. It’s one of her Hammer Slammer Kicks—I’d recognize that kind of pugilistic impaction anywhere.” She suddenly bit the Commander’s snout and pulled it out like a rubber band, letting it pop back with a wet smack, thereby restoring the Commander’s face to normal.
Commander Hurricane shook her head and blinked, champing her jaw as her tongue felt around for loose teeth. “So yeah, that’s why I say absorbed. Any better ideas, Regent Clover?”
Clover studied the stranger more closely. The white coat and horn… a certain look to the eyes… “Princess Platinum…?” she asked. “Is that you?”
The stranger looked thoughtful, rolled her eyes, then gave a small nod, then shook her head, all while waving her hoof in the air.
“Both yes and no, then? Are you able to speak at all?”
“Arhuu smubtig bri gabbuh!” she said cheerfully, in a voice that echoed through the crater, sounding something like the offspring of an elephant and a canary.
Clover blinked. “…I’ll take that as a no. But you can understand my words?”
She nodded.
“Good. Please pardon me for questioning you, but I need to be sure of your identity. On a certain date this month, we discussed, in private, adding a new floor to one of the towers of the castle. If you would, please give me the number of that day, expressed as day of the month, modulo the number of unicorns whose headpieces you said were unforgivably pretentious at the last gala.”
“Huh?” said Commander Hurricane.
The stranger thought a moment, then tapped her forehoof on the ground three times.
Clover showed no expression, but proposed three more obscure questions, all answerable by integer numbers. The stranger patiently tapped out her answers.
“That… That all checks,” said Clover. “If that’s not Princess Platinum in there, it at least has access to her memories.”
“So what shall we do?” said Chancellor Puddinghead. “Smart Cookie’s family are really worried about her! How can we get her out of there?”
“We’ve got to try to put things right, somehow,” said Clover. “We need to get her—them—back to my castle laboratory for further study!”
“Uh, good luck with that,” said Hurricane. “I mean, I really want to get our Private Pansy back, but whatever part of her is in there isn’t a pushover anymore. She doesn’t react very well to persuasion, and she doesn’t seem to want to leave this crater. Some of my troops haven’t woken up yet from our last attempt.”
“How about we invite her to a ‘Just got some super-cool wings and a horn’ celebration?” said Puddinghead, running up to the stranger. “Smart Cookie, you always love my pineapple sideways cake—”
“I’m sure that I can make Princess Platinum see reason, at least” said Clover with confidence. “Princess! I’m sure that you’re as anxious as we are to get this deplorable situation resolved. Please, come with us—”
“BRIGI GALABUH FRUMPTARB!” the stranger suddenly shouted, picking up all three ponies in her mageía and juggling them rapidly in circles.
“Ah! Look what you did now!” shouted Hurricane, struggling vainly in the golden glow.
“This would make a super cool ride! WHEEE!” yelled Puddinghead.
“I am about to be violently sick!” called out Clover. “I shall try to aim my head so that the path of my vomit will not intersect with anyone’s face or hraaallph—”
Suddenly, the stranger whirled about, staring intently at her shelter. An orange glow within it was growing brighter. In a second, a flaming sphere had risen from within, sputtering and spitting sparks. It hung insultingly in the air like a balloon made of lava, emitting a contemptuous greenish flash from its top that made it resemble the Orange of the Apocalypse.
“BRAPPO HRUNBIBBLE!” the stranger shouted, dropping the ponies in a confused heap. “FRIBULLOOO!” She flew swiftly and tackled the fiery sphere, punching and biting it frantically. In turn, the sphere started to bounce about, making a rude buzzing noise and smacking her against the walls of her shelter, sending rocks and pebbles flying all over. “YABBOLI BRI DINGJOURB!” she screamed as she held the sphere tightly in her hornfield and pummeled it with all four hooves. “FRIBULLOOOOOOOO!”
Commander Hurricane recovered first. She took up her companions by their neck scruffs and swiftly bundled them aboard the chariot, and gave the Pegasus team the order to withdraw. They took to the sky with all possible haste.
Clover looked over the chariot’s rear railing at the shrinking scene, frowning as she wiped her chin. “Wait! Go back!” she cried. “We can’t just abandon them like this!”
Commander Hurricane looked back. The stranger was jumping up and down on top of the orange orb, waggling her tail and howling like a wolven Whitney Houston. The orange orb, undaunted, grew brighter, and the rocks around them started to glow from the heat until the crater was obscured with clouds of hot smoke and steam.
Hurricane shook her head. “Regent Clover…? Whatever it is they’re doing, I think we just gotta leave them to it.”
The chariot flew off as a column of hellish smoke arose from the eerie peak of Mount Canter.
Part II—The Risible Sun
Weeks later, the unicorns of the nascent nation of Equestria were standing atop the tallest castle tower and having a terrible midsummer morning, or, more accurately, failing to have one. Their magic, pooled together in a glowing aurora over their heads, had beamed its supplicating ray towards the horizon again and again… but the sun had been getting harder and harder to reach as time went on, and on this day, it entirely refused to respond. The sky remained silver-gray, with desultory stars sparkling overhead.
The unicorns were growing weary, and Clover was feeling especially drained. She straightened up and drew a deep breath. “Okay, stand down, everypony. There’s no sense in over-straining our magic and risking a backlash. We’ll…” she swallowed. “…take a short break, and then…”
“A short break?” called up an Earth pony from a concerned crowd at the base of the tower. “The sun is an hour late, and my roosters are lazing around like a packa good-fer-nothin’s! We can’t grow any crops without the sun!”
“Yeah, Clover, this is seriously uncool,” said Commander Hurricane, representing the Pegasus contingent from a nearby cloud. “Most of our weather patterns rely on the thermals from the sun’s warmth. It makes it a lot harder for us if the sun doesn’t rise!”
Clover tried to swallow her frustration. “We’re doing our best!” she called out. “Do you think I want eternal night? Do you think any of us would ever want that?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, and Clover felt the weight of the stares from the assembled crowd.
“You know, there’s an old Earth pony ritual to make the sun come up,” said Chancellor Puddinghead. “You wear a crown of rooster feathers and daisies and dance around a fire, and you jump up and down really, really hard to encourage the horizon to move down. And it works best if you slather yourself in a paste of month-old guacamole and orange peels—”
“…Look, Regent Clover, maybe you just can get some extra help this time?” suggested Commander Hurricane. “Like, that old guy who used to tutor you, Tar-Twirl or whoever he was…?”
Clover shuddered. I hope I don’t have to go and bring… Starswirl into this, she thought, but what other choice do we have? It wasn’t pleasant, but you sometimes had to do unpleasant things as a leader…
At that moment, a glorious glowing light, brilliant white and leaving a trail of soft green and magenta behind it, streaked up into the sky from the spire of Mount Canter. Shimmering golden mageía surrounded it, and a bright beam shot from it towards the distant mountains. Where it touched them, a red glow appeared, broadening into orange and growing broader, brighter, until the rim of the sun rose over the edge of the world and bathed the assembled ponies in rich, beautiful, heartwarming sunlight.
Clover’s jaw dropped, and the assembled crowd gasped, wide eyed, outlined in orange sunshine. Wild hope bloomed in Clover’s heart. She had made multiple attempts to contact the strange being on the mountain, and had been ingloriously rebuffed each time. Was Princess Platinum at last returning to her home?
The white glow sailed towards them, and it was indeed the winged and horned stranger, the “All-in-one-icorn” or “All-icorn” as some had already dubbed her. She hovered over them, brilliant and resplendent, white wings flashing in the sunlight, her mane and tail now long and streaming behind her like a comet’s tail, though one that pointed towards the sun and not away from it. The sun waxed behind her, and her shadow amid the rays of the sunrise stretched across the sky to the opposite horizon, an awe-inspiring sight that remained etched into the memories of the assembled ponies for the rest of their lives.
She landed gracefully upon the tower, majestic and terrible, and as if by instinct the assembled ponies felt the urge to bend at the knee. They all bowed.
“We are all most grateful to you for raising the sun,” said Clover, daring to rise and speak to the All-icorn. “May I ask how we should address you?” She mentally braced herself for another outburst of ‘pismo flabboo’ bibblebabble.
The All-icorn smiled gently. “We are settled at present in one identity,” she said in a soft but carrying voice, “but We retain the prior title borne by one of Us, the title of Princess. It is obvious, is it not, that one such as Us, who embodies all the tribes in one personage, and who has gained dominion over the sun, is destined to rule?”
The crowd nodded, almost to a pony. Clover, for her part, was vastly relieved that her apparent successor was being so lucid. That strange interlude on the mountainside was perhaps just a temporary phase.
“However,” the All-icorn continued, “We shall not take the name of any of the ponies who constitute Us. We have chosen a name befitting Our present powers, and have styled Ourselves as… Celestia.”
“Princess… Celestia,” said Clover. “I shall prepare the papers necessary to resign the regency within the hour, Your Highness. Have you any other desires? How may we accommodate you?”
“Thank you, Clover. It is Our desire that a small residence, unpretentious and plain, be built at the site of Our most strangely fortuitous birth, but this may wait. In the meanwhile, We shall resume residence in Platinum’s apartments, with periodic visits to the cities of Nimbopolis and Dirtdale. Please have the Pegasus ponies, Cloud Lily and Daisy Wisp, informed that they need not grieve, as their offspring yet lives on in Us, and invite them to an audience to be held this afternoon. Likewise with the Earth ponies Fortune, Tough, and Tosser.
“But at the moment, Clover the Clever, it is Our desire to meet privately with you, Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead on a matter of the very gravest importance…”
***
Soon, in a closed session held in Platinum’s throne room, Clover, Hurricane and Puddinghead listened as Celestia calmly explained the full circumstances behind her Ascension. As she finished speaking, the astounded ponies all started to talk at once.
“No. Way!” exclaimed Hurricane in excitement. “That is the most radical fart story since King Bronkthunder held the pass at Thermoponae with only three hundred troops and a chuck wagon full of cabbages…!”
“It’s completely insane and disgusting, yet it fits every condition of the facts!” said Clover, her eyes sparkling. “I have to know more! Do you remember anything of the impact? Could there have been a resonance interaction…?”
“My Tickle-Tail was right!” said Puddinghead. “It’s such a neat story and you look soooo pretty and tall and I know you’re gonna be the super-duper bestest Princess…!”
“…and he, like, turned his butt to the Caspian horses and yelled his famous line, ‘THIS… IS… FARTAAAA!’ And he totally blew them all off the pass with…”
“…Dry Dust’s theory of dystropic hyperinsertions, but if so that would contradict Maybelle’s Postulate and we’d have to refactor for…”
“…inflatable pants, of course! Which wouldn’t work, except that it was Tuesday and there were a whole lot of bells inside it. So I put the salamander in the—”
“My little ponies…” said Celestia. “Please pay attention. We have an urgent matter to discuss.”
Her voice was gentle and soft, but it carried a note of command that was difficult to deny. They fell quiet.
To be continued… in an even laster chapter, I guess.
And we’re back to the fart jokes again. I would apologize, but at bottom I’m not really feeling it.
