In exactly twenty seconds, a servant with a noticeable limp will enter through the south door, pushing a tea trolley.
The Princess will lower her newspaper as the servant approaches, concern written in her expression. By the time the mare reaches halfway across the floor, it will be all the way down and forgotten, and she'll be leaning forward slightly.
You've gotta give her something to worry about. That's how she works.
She was always doing it, even when she was running the country. You couldn't go near the throne without her Highness picking up on your problems, like a radar or something. You couldn't hide it, either; she'd know, somehow. Maybe it was a radar, all the little issues lighting up green like a laser show. I wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway.
The Princess will clear her throat, quietly, with all the grace she's learned over the centuries softening it into a polite, almost demure gesture. The tea mare will stop, of course, and go into a low bow. She'll shake too, always afraid around the Princess, who'll soften her expression and ask if there's something wrong.
The servant will deny it, of course, try to carry on with the trolley. And she'll find it hard, 'cos the Princess is holding it there, asking the servant to tell her if there's a problem. Says that "My little ponies are more important than my tea".
Yeah, that's a quote. Verbatim. Well, almost. You don't get the... radiance, or something, when I do it. You know, the expression, the, uh, the light goes funny, and you know everything's going to be alright, that she'll help you fix it.
That's not on our end. She did that in real life too, apparently. Took weeks to get it right.
What? No, the servant mare spills the beans fairly quick. It depends, see: we can't have the exact same thing every day, otherwise she'll get used to it and realise eventually that things don't add up. But it's gotta be roughly the same, 'cos we don't have all the equipment for a proper random experience. Still waiting on some tapes and processors, I think.
Well, it makes a nice surprise, doesn't it? I mean, they were always hiding it from her in real life, got shouted at by the butler if they let on, for "causing her majesty distress" or something. Besides, it saves space on the tapes. We don't have all that much at the moment. We don't get all that much money, the House of Lords keeps vetoing the budget increases 'cause she's "technically dead" or something.
It's disgusting, really. After all she did for us, they just want us to dump her into the void and get back to baking their books for them. At least Blueblood sees sense. Saw sense. Whatever. Shame about that.
The rest of the day? More of the same, really. The servant gets time off to heal, she reprimands the butler (who she never liked much, between you and me), then it goes onto the next tape. It's all modular, see, so we can cut bits out if they break or change up the order. The time of day's just handled by this tape here, the main tapes just hold, like, feelings or experiences or something. They've all got backups, so if they break I can-
Sorry, I'm rambling again. I'll stop.
Uh... sort of. You can look through this window, if you like. We're not meant to go in without clean suits, 'cos of infection, you know. They're not so invincible when they're half rotten.
Yeah, she's rotting under that lot. Literally. All brown and falling to bits. We control it as much as we can, so she's not, like, gonna fall apart at any time anymore. I'm not too clear on the medical stuff, I'm just the tech guy, but apparently those grey tubes carry some kind of magic infused water or something to keep her flesh alive. The red ones, predictably, are the blood. The wires are my department, like I said, they hook into the ACI box in the next room, but for the rest you'll have to ask Twilight. She put all that lot together.
Oh, sure. It's just through here. Don't trip on the wires.
Today's tapes are a little out of order, sorry, you'll have to excuse the mess, we're renovating that drive. We've cut the main 1-2 PM material so we could pause it for you (actually, better start that going again, hold on...). We'll run a 'catch up' tape for that slot, that's this short one here. Gives her a sort of fast-forwarded version so she doesn't get time skips.
Really? Well, alright, one last question. Shoot.
Well, several reasons. I'm good at it, firstly, and there's not too many jobs going in this field right now. Second, I want to push this as far as it'll go. Imagine if, when you're about to die, you get put in one of these and live a second life in the few hours you have left? We're experimenting with user input, reckon we'd get there with more powerful hardware. S'only a matter of time, and I want to be in on the ground floor when it comes.
And lastly... like I said, it's giving something back. She did so much for us, for all of us, it'd be wrong to just let her drop off into nothingness. I heard Twilight, sorry, Princess Twilight talking about something once, how alicorns don't get to go to the regular afterlife until their magic runs out, how their mind degrades in the time between. In Princess Celestia's case, that's until the sun goes out.
No, we have it under machines now, but it's still hers. Common misconception. Couldn't break that join with an atom bomb.
But, until the sun dies? That's a long time. Too long. She's too good for that. You know, I saw a changeling colt playing with a Guard's son the other day. Who else would have let that happen, after what happened between her and Chrysalis? We can't just let her mind go after that. We can't.
No, I'm fine. Really.
And to you. It's been nice.
Author's Note
Right. Several things to say. First should be that this is my first story here. This is likely painfully apparent, so let's talk about it; constructive criticism is welcomed, if you don't mind, that is.
Secondly, I got the idea for this while reading a Terry Pratchett short story from 1990, called "#ifdefDEBUG + world/enough' +time'". It's from a compilation, called "A Blink of the Screen", and it's really rather good. (I also got the title from said compilation.) I did at least write the bit between the title and here.
Well, thank you for reading this.