Because Luna Needs Celestia To Know It Even Louder (In a Very Literal Sense)
A Personal One-Pony Patriotism Parade
By: The Grey Pegasus
A section of brass instruments played away their tune to the open air.
The collective conversations of the large congregation of festivity attendants added to the backdrop.
And one momentarily silent group of ponies, eyes fixated on two of the group relaxing from a triumphant pose.
Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn foreigner in the small audience currently sitting, broke the silence.
"While I admire the displays of culture I've witnessed here thus far," Twilight said, "certainly you, Miss Luna, of all ponies, would have something much more substantial to profess your patriotism than anything you've shown up until now."
Luna, now with all four hooves back on the ground, leaned towards the unicorn as if on the verbal offensive. "Oh? Is that an accusation of being shallow?"
"No, no. I'm just highly curious, as I expect a pony of your age would have more ways to impress ponies of other nations regarding your own country."
Luna leaned back on her hooves as if physically struck by Twilight's words. "Celestia! Does your student insult me?" she asked with mock offense.
"I believe Twilight would just like to experience more... authentic displays of Amareican Independence Day patriotism," Celestia replied with a slight smirk. "Unless, of course, you don't have anything more profound than the ones she seems to find unimpressive."
Twilight sheepishly shrank back.
"I may be inclined to agree," Celestia continued smugly. "It would be a shame if you had nothing to show for one-hundred fifty years of silence between us, except a devolvement into a stereotype typical of your countryfellows."
"Devolvement?!" Luna said, now standing beside Celestia.
"Nothing but a caricature," Celestia said with the same smirk she had been holding all that time. "To be clear, I think this is simply about you, the pony who, for Twilight, up until recently, was simply a legendary figure from the history books and occasional subject of the papers."
"Hm." Luna pondered it briefly. "So I disappointed expectations?"
Celestia giggled slightly. "Perhaps. We haven't been shown otherwise."
"Well then!" Luna stated. "Then a true patriotic display from me you'll receive!" She leaned close to Celestia's face. "But, only to you."
"Now a personal matter, I presume?"
"One that I had already planned," Luna replied. She stood upright and addressed the rest of the table. "You mares!"
The five mares that had befriended Twilight in the previous month stood at attention.
"While I attend to my sister's request personally, I'd like you Ponyvillians to show Miss Sparkle around the grounds. It's a wonderful evening, so treat her to a fully-Amareican Independence Day experience before the finale!"
"Um, Queen Celestia?" Twilight was clearly surprised by the turn of events.
"Have fun, Twilight," Celestia assured the unicorn.
"We'll give you such a great time, Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed. "There's still tons of food you need to try!"
"But—but—" Twilight began protesting as the others dragged her out of her seat.
"Griffon scones!" Rainbow Dash suggested.
"Apple pie!" Applejack added.
"Truly an essential part of Amareican cuisine," Rarity noted. "You simply must have a slice before the evening ends, darling."
"... More... food?..." Twilight trailed off as the others coaxed her forward, leaving the two alicorn sisters alone.
"And alcohol, if that's something you'd like," Fluttershy said. "It's been hard to come by for a while now, but I'm sure that at an event like this, there must be moonshine or something."
Celestia turned her attention back to her sister. "So, what did you have in mind?"
And with that, Luna teleported themselves away in a flash of magic.
:::::
The two alicorns appeared at their destination with another flash of magic. Right away, it was evident that they were far from most of the festivities. Celestia looked around.
"The river?" Celestia noted.
"Yes, there are less crowds here, at least in this part of it."
Celestia looked around again. "You're not suggesting we take a swim, only for you to drown me, are you? There are still ponies that can see us."
Luna chuckled. "You jest. No, I have something much more entertaining and fulfilling in mind."
From behind a nearby tree, Luna telepathically lifted up various instruments, and in a foreleg she took hold of a flagstaff adorned with the Amareican flag of thirteen stripes, forty-eight stars, and one moon.
Celestia raised a brow. "Oh?"
"I will ask for revised judgement about how cultured I am afterwards," Luna said, beginning to grin.
Celestia smiled softly. "Very well then. So what shall it be, your national anthem first I assume?"
Luna lifted a flute to her smile, then began a beating the drum. Her flute joined in, and it familiarized as a song dating to even before she left Equland a century and a half ago. 'Yankee Doodle', the march was known, and it was a song that floated around the Revolution with various lyrics, and was even played at the final surrender.
It was a song with an interesting history between their two nations. One which the Braytish in days long ago sang as mockery, and during the Revolution, the Amareicans sang as defiance, and with different words sung to the tune at differing occasions. Now, it was about some pony with a feather in their hat, but between the two alicorns, it was reminscence of more... interesting times.
Celestia commented upon it once Luna had finished. "You had to bring it up one more time?"
"I thought it would be an interesting start to my little patriotism display," Luna smirked. "Something to pick at our memories."
Celestia rolled her eyes; Luna wasn't wrong with the intended symbolism. "Have you prepared any other strange choices that I might be familiar with?"
Obliging, Luna began playing another tune familiar to both of them.
Her sister's expression was a mix between intrigue and a smirk. "Save the Queen, hm? I'm not sure why you would show off with a Braytish song—"
Luna took that as her turn to smirk, for while Celestia wasn't exactly wrong, Celestia wasn't right in this instance either. She had taken the chance to play a few notes to tune her magical flute playing. Now that that was taken care of, Luna started over.
"My country, 'tiiis of thee, sweet land of liiiberty, of thee I sing!..."
Luna continued leading Celestia at the pace of a leisurely stroll as she sang the song, accompanied by the flute and drum.
The white alicorn listened intently to the changed lyrics. She couldn't help but admire its praise of their land, as opposed to the version she was accustomed to, which was an ode to herself.
Upon finishing the song, Luna glanced at her sister. "While you were correct in a sense, the lyrics are of a more relevant subject matter."
"So they were," Celestia said.
"I myself am impressed that, by chance, you had not heard it played here during your visit."
"Any other songs more about the sights?"
"You need only ask." Another soft instrumental began playing. "O beauuutiful, for spaaacious skies, for amber waves of grain..."
Celestia took in the proclamation of the land's beauty word by word, enjoying the visuals up until the very end.
Luna held a short moment of silence, letting Celestia enjoy the previous song. "And now, a personal favorite!"
Luna's small band of instruments began playing a lively march, this time with an emphasis on the brass. "Let martial note in triumph float, and liberty extend its mighty hoof! A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers, the banner of the Western land!..."
While Luna got into the song, Celestia scrunched her face. "I've heard a couple of bands play this tune already..."
The thought lingered for a bit, but her younger sister's gleeful march was quite entrancing. And the song's lyrics were rightly in tune with Luna's spirits that evening. "... The red and white and starry blue, is freedom's shield and hope!..."
The song went on as an elated ode to what their flag meant to them. Combined with the ecstatic blue alicorn, it was quite the display of patriotism. Celestia found herself moving in time with the march.
"... Other nations may deem their flags the best, and cheer them with fervid elation, but the flag of the North and South and West, is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom's nation!"
To Celestia's amusement, that seemed to be the end of Luna's singing—ending on a bragging note in line with Luna's recent attitude.
Finally, Luna stopped moving, the drum and horn faded out, and Luna was left waving the Amareican flag in high spirits. "And that concludes what I have prepared for you in this short length of time!"
Celestia smiled and applauded. "It was wonderful, Luna." She paused, still wearing a smile. "Although, you refrained from your own anthem?"
The objects in Luna's grasps disappeared in a flash. "But of course! I have reserved it for the Army, for they shall play it prior to the fireworks! And I know not whether it shall be 'Hail Columbia' or 'The Star Spangled Banner', for both are quite popular. Come, let us return to the Ponyvillians."
And with that, the two alicorns vanished from where they stood in another flash of magic.
:::::
"Queen Celestia! How was your time with Miss Luna?"
"It was wonderful, Twilight," Celestia replied to her student. "My sister gave me a heartfelt show of music, a showcase of both her culture and talent. A one-pony parade, as it was."
Luna put it in more clear terms.
"Proving that a true patriot can single-hoofedly do justice to the glamourous United States of Amareica!"
Author's Note
The schedule slip shifts even further than last year's, because wow it's getting harder to come up with something interesting to do. And I've been a bit too busy to properly get some thinking time for this story. (I literally finalized the idea with only five hours in the day to spare.)
Seriously, the series was based off of a fairly simple gag: the old 'New Lunar Republic' idea applied to US history. Unfortunately, I already exhausted the easy, actual 'real, original' ideas (the first two of the series) and the previous one was created in nearly the same circumstances as this.
Oh yeah, also, my computer decided to crash and corrupt not only the cover pic file I was working on, but also the backup file. Yeah, screw that. So that was about an hour and half of work undone, and I had to restart from a slightly earlier save point that I had by luck (thank you, ten year old Macbook, for continuous stalwart service).
That's the actual reason, actually. Once that happened, I kind of got really bummed out and just got swept out of the mood to finish this. But now it's basically the end of July, and I've wasted away the mid-season break, and I should really get back in the scene somehow because I don't really want to miss out on the fun on the new episode.
Anyways, basically, this was too important not to do, and I got it in while it's still July in the US. 'MURICA.
Oh yeah, and stuff about the story.
The songs that Luna plays are Yankee Doodle (played in-story as just instrumentals), My Country, 'Tis of Thee (kind of obvious there), America the Beautiful, and The Stars and Stripes Forever. I was working within word count constraints, which made it a tight fit, especially since I wanted to add one more song. I actually ended up having to find about a hundred words to cut out, since when I started writing, I didn't expect to end up with a fairly long introduction section. Not only that, I didn't have much ideas at the time of starting the writing on what to do with the singing part, so I didn't expect that to need much space anyways.
Fortunately, I only had that hundred-or-so words to find and cut out, one of which was a somewhat interesting but non-essential bit in the beginning about festivities the story assumes they have seen (and a note about cultural dishes, quote, "pony, griffon, and more").
That's because I did a bit more reading while writing the singing section and found an excuse not to have that extra song. I intended for Luna to also sing Hail, Columbia, and 'reserve The Star Spangled Banner for the fireworks', but my fun short research revealed that I could have Luna make that excuse for both songs! Because The Star Spangled Banner wasn't actually the official US national anthem until 1931!
If that last point confused you, you should read a little closer into the details of this story, or read the prequels.
