The Night Princess and the Day Off

Chapters

Chapter 1: Monday
Chapter 2: Tuesday
Chapter 3: Wednesday
Chapter 4: Thursday
Chapter 5: Friday
Chapter 6: Saturday
Chapter 7: Sunday

Chapter 1: Monday

Luna Implaccibilis, the Unrelenting Moon, She Who Kept the Secrets of the Dying, surveyed the carnage that she had wrought. All about her foes lay about, damning her eyes and beweeping their losses. Her triumph would be sung by the heralds and told of in tale and song for generations to come. Truly, she was great and terrible in victory, reigning supreme over all that she did survey.

Figuratively, of course.

Rather more literally, Princess Luna had managed a victory, but only in the political sense. Many were the ponies that had forgotten that Equestria had once had warrior queens – before a certain softening had been called for. Rule by consent and compromise was less efficient, but far more effective. So while it was still allowed, legally, for the diarchs of Equestria to simply declare that a new law was so, with a constitutionally backed ‘wanna make something of it?’, things tended to be much more friendly if one followed the processes outlined for legislation in Equestria Law.

It was a right pain in the flank, mind you. Both the Commons and the Lords had to approve a bill, and then ratification by the Senate. Both Luna and Celestia had to approve it also – they were still the reigning diarchs, thank-you-very-much – but given that the piece of legislation in question had been drafted by them(1), that was hardly a hurdle to surpass.

(1) With the assistance of a team of lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats that had taken upon themselves the affectionate nickname of ‘Draft Horses’. They were a hoot to do crosswords with.

Getting a Workers’ Rights bill through the Commons was so simple as to barely bear description. The good ponies of Equestria were politically minded, and their elected representatives, if they failed to represent the interests of the common pony on the street, would be out on their flanks so quickly that their cutie marks would likely be temporarily replaced with skid marks. Whether their successors were any more successful in their roles was rather an academic question, really. Likewise, the Senate, although an appointed position, was filled by ponies who, although theoretically representing the chamber of sober second-thoughts, realistically did very little indeed to block the passage of legislation that was not obviously criminal.

As for the Lords’....

It wasn’t that the nobility of Equestria was unconcerned about the common pony. Some of them were surprisingly egalitarian, even by modern standards. Nor were they, as a whole, especially cruel, or corrupt. If pressed upon the subject of rights, they were all for them, applied in moderation. “À chacun son goût,” as they said in Prance. In practice however, they were the most miserly and jealous bunch of argumentative souls on the face of the planet, incapable of giving up a single scruple of power without having it all but wrung from them. And from their perspective, the bestowing of new rights upon the ponies under their authority was a diminishing of that authority.

After all, the argument went, the nobility of Equestria held the reins of the nation. They had been schooled from birth – and indeed, for generations – to administer justly and fairly, showing neither hesitation before difficult tasks, nor indeed pause before sacrificing all for the good of the nation. By ceding authority, it was quite clear they would be creating a world in which ponies with no idea what was best for them would risk endangering themselves with rights that they neither understood nor could properly utilize. It would be like giving a foal a sword.

Celestia had, evidently, only managed to abolish serfdom in Equestria by virtue of couching that same argument back at them, with ‘the authority of blooded nobility’ replaced with ‘the authority of the crown’. Chastised, the House of Lords had been humbled before their ruler, vowing to remember the lesson for all the years to come.

Regrettably, that lesson in humility had been six, or in some cases seven generations back, and had not bred true.

In truth, it wasn’t as if the employers of Equestria were as a rule harsh in the treatment of their employees. Nevertheless some of the inherent rights that everypony possessed had lost some of their meaning in the years since. True, everypony was still allowed days off on official holidays, but as Diarch – or later Celestial – worship had waned, many of these had been stricken from the calendar, reducing the guarantee of at least a day off every week or so to Hearthwarming, Hearts and Hooves, and the Summer Sun celebration, along with a few various and sundry other holidays that even Celestia, who had her hoof in their creation, could recall neither the meaning nor origins of. Nightmare Night, while still widely recognized as a festival, was not actually a holiday recognized by the State. Luna had objected to that on general strength of principle.(2)

(2) There were no shortage of Nightmare Moon cultists who held it to be a holiday. Checking work absences had therefore been a shockingly effective tool for discovering their identities, which pained Luna. Having cultists which she neither needed nor wanted was bad enough. Having stupid cultists, somehow, was worse.

The new bill guaranteed limited mandatory hours. It guaranteed safe working conditions. It guaranteed a fair minimum wage. And thanks to a combination of political string-pulling, the careful setting of various factions against one another, occasional compromises with the most dissenting voices, and in one case something which would have greatly resembled blackmail if the relevant authorities had seen fit to prosecute one of their diarchs, it was guaranteed to pass the House of Lords.

Of course it was a Monday. What better day for such a victory than the day of the moon? And what more symbolic a day for deals made under the cover of darkness? For the good of all, of course.

How strange that rule by constitution is in its own way, no less fierce than rule by the sword. Luna reflected. On the other hoof, definitely less time spent cleaning one’s mane afterward. Less wear and tear on weapons and armour. Probably a trade up, on the whole.

The vote came and went, and the carefully orchestrated dramas that served as guarantors of success played out precisely as orchestrated. Almost.

Lord Clearing House, recently removed from public service due to inconsistencies in a routine audit for the committee he had chaired, was nevertheless entitled to his seat in the House of Lords, to the great exasperation of the majority of the House. Nevertheless, his small bloc of supporters had been badgered into voting ‘properly’, and it served him no particular good to show any dissension within those ranks.

The bloc as a whole, hated Luna. She had a fondness for numbers that Celestia had previously hired other ponies to crunch for Equestria, and hunted down dishonest accounting like the most tenacious of bloodhounds. Since her return, Clearing House’s bloc of Lords had gone from ‘getting away with many of their cartoonishly self-serving plans’ to ‘getting away with very little’, and had been subject to a great deal of scrutiny besides. In equal measure, the Day Court received petitions that Luna be denounced as the tyrant Nightmare Moon, and that her oh-so-valuable services might be better utilized doing most anything other than subjecting them to that scrutiny. And the petitions arrived at a rate of three or four per week.

Clearing House himself had the ambitions of a megalomaniac, the greed of a dragon, and just about sufficient combined charity, good will to ponies, and brains to fill a walnut. A small walnut. Still, he was no novice to political interplay, must have known that he had been played, and yet... was smiling.

There was a word, in Old Eponian, which bore no concise translation in modern Equestrian. The nearest translation that could readily be found would be ‘the feeling that you get when, upon finally lowering your defences enough to gather water from a nearby oasis, you realize that the stones upon which you kneel have a particularly alligatorish quality to them’. It wasn’t the sort of word that one said around children or the faint of heart, and while Luna regretted that it had no modern day analogue on general principles, she found herself missing it in particular at just that moment.

“Truly,” Clearing House began, claiming the floor after the vote, “we have seen the virtue of non-partisanship today, with differing ponies with differing sets of values putting aside their differences for the greater good.”

It is just as well, Luna reflected, that my bid for Equestrian domination, once upon a time, was unsuccessful. Otherwise, I might now be in a position to simply have someone arrested for cold-bloodedly using the term ‘the greater good’, without the slightest comprehension of its literal definition. She paused. Which would be a bad thing. Obviously. For some reason.

“Indeed, under the provisions of the act,” Lord House chuckled, “even our own beloved diarchs might have to take a little bit of well-deserved time off.”

What?

“After all, no pony is, under this act, allowed to do more than twenty-four hours of work in the course of a single day. The ‘Starswirl the Bearded’ clause – and as rare as time manipulating magics may be, their abuse would no doubt do great harm to those ponies under our guidance.” The lord smiled. “And while I’m sure that our diarchs wouldn’t dream of messing around with time, I can’t imagine how else they get so much done! Please, join me in a round of applause for our diarchs and their forward-thinking policies!”

There was a course of laughter through the House of Lords, and a round of applause. Luna’s mind was racing. Being a Princess of Equestria was a twenty-four hour job. Even asleep, Luna was still technically doing it. It wasn’t like she ever really stopped being herself. But with the part-time shifts that she picked up at Starsbucked, she was doing a second job at the same time – and by drawing a wage, even a small one, she was double-billing. Any argument to the contrary could be easily dismissed with a very basic knowledge of the numerous separate occasions where she had helped to ensure the defence of the realm while grinding beans and brewing coffee.

Also known as: doing more than twenty-four hours of work in a single day. That unutterable slime ball.

But that was the fact of it. Never mind that she had gotten the House of Lords to agree on a matter, considered by some to be one of the qualifications for divine status (in addition to her immortality, and control over a heavenly body). Never mind that she had cajoled, pleaded, bribed and threatened for the good of the nation. Lord Clearing House would take her to task because her having a part-time job offended him. Because, when it came down to it, her existing offended him.

Luna Implaccibilis, The Unrelenting Moon, looked upon the field of a battle that she had thought won, and saw, in place of conquest, an awful lot of alligators.

* * *

It was later. Celebration had happened, among the lawyers and the legal experts, the bureaucrats and the busybodies, all those who had helped to arrange for the coup of getting a major step forward for progressive treatment of workers in Equestria. Luna had gone, although Celestia had begged exhaustion. Tied as they were to the celestial bodies that they controlled, the sisters had difficulty functioning well past the rise and fall of those bodies, although caffeine and centuries of practised willpower could carry them a considerable distance.

Luna had excused herself over a stomach complaint. Mostly an imaginary one, but a combination of anger and stress made good the lack.

Paper Weight, Luna’s social secretary, had accompanied her to her office and quarters in the palace. The dark blue mare had noticed the Night Princess’ mood, and had excused herself to follow after her. Although initially serving as Luna’s minder in a world that was complicated and new, she had proven quite capable of managing a princess’ appointment schedule as well, and her neat copperplate hoofwriting was considered vastly superior to that of her employer by an order of magnitude. In short, she had made herself indispensable to the Princess, both as an aide as well as a friend and confidant.

Luna had felt bad that Paper Weight was missing the party, but upon reassurance, had begun grousing at length. Paper Weight reflected, not for the first time, that semi-divine though the sisters of Night and Day might be, they had their faults. Celestia was notably lazy at times, and Luna...

Luna held a grudge like nobody else. Not surprising, really.

“So you’ll have to give up your job at Starsbucked?”

Luna frowned. “Aye. That or face scorn for failing to abide by my own legislation.” The frown deepened into a proper scowl. “I’ll not give him the satisfaction of running me out of my own job! But... I also can’t go back on the legislation. I can’t do that to the ponies that are relying on it, and I can’t do it to all of the ponies who helped us to get this far.” Pulled between poles, and one of them obviously the weak one, but while Luna wasn’t above losing in the short term for the good of the long term, losing to that idiot rankled her every nerve.

Paper Weight sighed. “So why not just issue a proclamation that this law doesn’t apply to you? You’re clearly not working yourself into a state of exhaustion, and you set your own hours. The fact that there’s some kind of sophistry through which you’re in violation of the legislation is pretty much just a fluke.” Or enemy action. It would probably be possible to go back through the minutes of various meetings and find out exactly how the ‘Starswirl the Bearded’ clause had come to be included in the Worker’s Rights act, but Paper Weight was willing to wager a month’s salary that Clearing House had a hoof in it. It was fairly uncharacteristic for the aristocratic stallion to read a bill he was voting for, and the fact that he had been able to quote it without even having it in hoof sent shrill klaxons skirling in her brain.

Luna’s scowl deepened further, to the point at which she rapidly approached ‘more scowl than pony’. “Then they’ll say that I lack conviction, and use it to score political points on me every time I try to accomplish anything for the next century or two. And the press will probably run with the idea of ‘Princess Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do’ if one of those buffoons gives it to them.” She gave a rueful grin. “I would rather think myself to be a hippos-crat than a hypocrite.”

Paper Weight declined to give Luna the groan that her wordplay unquestionably warranted, but to the Night Princess, the extremely patient look that her subordinate gave her was just as good, if not better in some ways. For the first time since her retreat to her private chambers, Luna grinned a little, the humour flowering on her face, before wilting again into a sour look as the realities of her situation returned to haunt her.

Paper Weight ran a hoof through her mane. Long, unwieldy, and inclined to the ‘just rolled out of bed’ look in all cases short of containing enough product to qualify as a can of hairspray, the mane immediately flopped back to its original shape. “You could try taking a day off? It’s not like your sister can’t cover for some of your duties, and she would probably be willing. She doesn’t like Clearing House much better than you do.”

Luna began to reply, and then paused, considering. “I could do that. There’s no reason I couldn’t. I’m only really doing occasional shift-work at the coffee shop right now. I wouldn’t even have to take that much of a break in order to come down under the twenty-four hour limit, on average.” She nodded, the idea building steam. “Yes, I believe it can be done!” She flashed her secretary a fearsome grin. “I think I have a copy of the Equestrian constitution on the bookshelf. Pull it out, and let’s see what kind of behaviour I have to avoid in order to qualify for having taken ‘a day off’.”

Paper Weight busied herself at the bookshelf. Yes, there had been a reversal, but the day had been a good one. And now that Luna had a plan, it promised to be an interesting week.

Author's Note

So, getting back on the horse(1) a bit. Ideally, the remaining chapters will be up over the next couple of weeks. I'm trying to get back into writing ponywords a little bit before taking another blush at the final chapters of Night Watch, because while I have been writing pretty constantly in my hiatus, I have somehow fallen out of my own style.

This was originally going to be a single-chapter fic, like the previous two, but the natural segmenting that arose from the structure of the piece begged for separate chapters, so this is where life has brought us.

Hopefully you enjoy.

(1) In my head I'm funny.

Chapter 2: Tuesday

It came as little surprise to most anyone that you didn’t become a Princess of Equestria for collecting bottle caps. In case there had been any question in the matter, a brief survey of the Equestrian constitution, weighty in both historical significance and also physical mass could tell one otherwise.

What came as a germane shock, even to Luna – who had, since her return, been charged with executing said duties – was how many tasks were assigned to the role. Many of them were rarely called upon – Luna doubted that even during Celestia’s thousand year solo reign, there had ever been cause for her sister to ‘retune those heavenly bodies that produce the music of the spheres down one semi-tone’, something that was evidently a duty of any reigning princess, upon personal request from the Spirit of Perfect Song. And as for 'standing in defense of all causality'...

That, at least, was a task that would prove easy to avoid.

Indeed, the Equestrian constitution didn’t possess a full list of the various and sundry duties and obligations that the sisters or Celestia alone had agreed to over the years. What it DID possess was a library index number. A brief perusal of the Library of Equestrian Justice produced a tome. If anything, it was thicker, and heavier, than the constitution.

“The Alicorn Accords.(3)” Luna frowned. “No, hold on a moment. I signed the Alicorn Accords, about two thousand years ago, and change. It was a sheet of paper, listing the lands we weren’t allowed to just up and invade if we felt like it. In exchange, we got trade deals.”

Not to be mistaken for ‘The Alicorn Code’, a fanciful work of fiction by Canterlot writer Bran Down in which an Earth Pony historian and expert in symbols destroys priceless cultural artifacts in an effort to keep a vaguely nefarious foreigner from getting their hooves on Princess Celestia’s baby book. Entertaining drivel, but not really relevant.

Quiet Corner, the librarian that was helping Luna and Paper Weight, shook his head. “In the centuries following that, the slow build-up of rule of law in Equestria saw more and more duties, many of which could only be performed by magical prodigies, added to the Accords.” He cocked his head to the side. “I would imagine you’d know about some of them. You signed a fair number personally.”

Luna grinned sheepishly. “Really, who reads everything that they sign?” There was a distinct lack of sympathy from her audience. “Fine. Look, we were warrior queens, okay? Celly did most of the admin work, and I made sure that the treasury stayed full. She said ‘sign this’, I signed it.” Luna gestured vaguely. “I’m sure I glanced over it, but how many ponies do you know that can accurately remember what they had for lunch a month prior?”

Paper Weight made a heroic effort to steer the course of discussion back to the present day. “Is this a complete listing of the duties of the Princesses?”

Quiet Corner shook his head. “No, this is the next-to-last edition. The most recent edition came out a few years ago. It’s currently on loan to the Prince Consort of the Crystal Empire, Captain Shining Armour. He’s the current leading expert on the duties of Alicornkind.” The librarian rubbed his chin. “I understand he first started looking into it to help his now-wife, and then when his sister grew wings, he was already fairly expert in the subject. Really, he’s one of the first ponies to take a decided interest in the matter in well over a century. I checked.”

Luna’s eyebrows flicked heavenward. “It so happens that Shining Armour and Cadance are visiting right now. They’re staying in one of the guest suites at the palace.”

Paper Weight allowed herself a cautious smile. “Then that’s where we head next.”

* * *

Tracking down Luna’s adoptive niece and nephew-in-law did not prove to be especially difficult. While the weather was temperate during springs in Canterlot, a certain measure of scheduled rain still had to fall, and the imperial couple had elected to put off any plans to go out and visit the city until the weather teams had finished their task.

Likewise, it didn’t take long for the task that lay before them to be explained. Neither Shining Armour nor Princess Cadance were novices at the exacting political manipulations of the Canterlot gentry, although their suggested approaches differed.

“I still say you should drop subtle hints about headsmen, and give them nightmares for the next three or four years.” Princess Cadance opined, generously.

Luna gave her a wry look. “Princess of love?”

“Tough love is a thing. Look it up.”

Not for the first time, Luna wondered whether Cadance was getting out enough in her newly reclaimed empire. Then again, she had reclaimed it by way of coup through force of arms and magic. Plus, there was the battle with the imposter queen, Chrysalis. Perhaps the next generation of rulers in Equestria and her sister states were more akin to herself and Celly when they had been young than she had thought.

Come to think of it, Twilight Sparkle regularly deployed weapons-grade friendship cannons on threats to the realm. Maybe Luna herself had gone soft?

Shining Armour cut in. “Looking at the more... diplomatically apt solution that you’ve come up with, I think I can help you out a bit. The duties that define the status of ‘Alicorn Princess’ basically fall into three categories, and you really only have to worry about one of those.”

Luna frowned, but gestured for the former guard captain to continue.

Shining did so. “First, you have the duties of everypony in Equestria, that are basically only outlined in the Accords because the royalty aren’t supposed to be above them. Be fair and just, uphold the constitution and the laws of Equestria... pretty basic stuff. You don’t have to break the laws or anything just because you’re actively trying not to pursue your duties as a Princess, you just have to do what anypony else would do.”

Luna nodded. “Got it. So, no mandatory treason.”

Shining smirked at that, but continued. “Secondly, you have the things that technically apply to everyone, but are specified as things that alicorn princesses in particular are forbidden from doing because they’re probably the only ones who can. No plunging the world into eternal night,” a wince, “or summoning forth dread beings with too few vowels and too much punctuation in their names. I suppose there’s a technical difference between not doing something because you can’t, and not doing something because you can but have agreed not to, but it seems pretty academic.”

Luna nodded a bit more slowly at that. “So since those are things nobody is supposed to do, not doing them isn’t particularly transgressive anyway.”

“Right. Mostly the things that you have to avoid doing are category three: the ones that are active tasks that are relevant to your rule. You can’t make huge, inventive leaps in the discovery of new magical techniques, for instance, since High Magic is considered the providence of alicorn-kind. Technically, when on vacation, you’re not called to the defence of the realm, either. And no acts of governance – although if there’s one part of your vacation that I imagine you won’t find grating in the least, it will be laissez-faire to avoid holding court or dealing with the parliamentary system.”

Luna thought about all of this, and then smiled. “I don’t think I’ll miss that in the least, no.” She paused for a moment or so, and then found her feet. “Well, no time like the present to get started.”

Paper Weight glanced at her sovereign. “Where are going?”

“The Canterlot library. I’m going to catch up on some popular fiction.”

* * *

Luna didn’t see the appeal of the ‘Daring Do’ books. She had found her way to the Canterlot public library, and asked the librarian behind the counter what was new and popular. It was reasonable, she supposed, for the librarian to consider the series to be ‘new’ when dealing with someone who had only been back in Equestria for the past year and change after a thousand years away, but if this was popular literature, then there was a bit of a culture gap going on.

“Ancestors lend me strength.” It was clear that this Yearling mare had done a considerable amount of research, but the idea of an ‘abandoned’ city still inhabited by ‘savages’ smacked of both triablism and imperialism. Particularly when Luna was pretty sure that she could identify the civilizations in question.

Still, the adventure narrative was mildly diverting, if you liked that sort of thing. For Luna, it was a little too much like real life. Sure, fighting a dread beast from the netherhells sounded exciting the first time, but familiarity bred contempt. Despite herself, Luna’s telekinesis flared up, and she idly doodled on a bit of scrap paper with a pencil, her mind wandering as she perused the novel. Yes, she remembered this city. Some bright minds, but pride, hubris, and if not a downfall per se, then at least a significant drop in local property values. Still, there had been that one particularly clever Earth Pony mathemagician, and his work with fundamental runes...

It wasn’t long before Luna realized that she had completely lost the plot. Daring Do was now talking to somepony called Bell Clock about their respective takes on the archaeological method. It looked like it was an argument? She could always go back a couple of pages and read the exposition, but it seemed like more effort than she really wanted to invest in the book. Fine for some, but not her cup of coffee. Oh well.

Luna glanced at her doodle sheet, and then went white as a sheet herself. “Oh, buck me.”

* * *

“It’s a solution to Rye Mare’s Hypothesis!”

Luna was gently but repetitively bonking her head against one of the sturdier pillars on the University campus. What the pillar thought of this has, tragically, been left unrecorded, but Luna was far from the first pony to use it as a frustration vent. This WAS Canterlot U, after all. If it thought anything of having been touched by equine royalty, it would probably be confusion; thesis defence wasn’t usually for another couple of months.(4)

As an unexpected side-effect, a touch of woodworm and a nasty case of erosion were miraculously cured. Ponies looking for a reprieve from scrofula would have been disappointed to learn that the ‘touch of royalty’ actually fixed the ailments of architecture.

“This will change how we understand multi-dimensional theory on a fundamental level!”

Luna had considered tossing the notebook into the fire. She’d always had a knack for mathemagic, and letting her mind wander – onto that problem, posed all those centuries ago – had been a mistake. She’d already torn the page from the notebook and had begun looking for a nearby hearth, when it occurred to her that having the solution would actually do modern magical theory some good. And, as no good deed went unpunished...

“This is one of those problems that has been pondered for a millennium! What a prize!”

Shining Armour looked bemused. “You know, when you said you were going to the library, I had imagined you were going to pick up a trashy romance novel like Cadance reads, not.... ‘fundamentally rearrange our understanding of magical resonance’, was it?”

Luna gave the stallion a Look. “I’m guessing that this qualifies as ‘work’?”

The former guard captain had the good grace to look abashed. “Actually, it goes a bit beyond that. Technically, this qualifies you to be crowned a princess of Equestria.”

Luna closed her eyes, and counted backward from ten in her brain. She made it as far as three before she trusted herself to speak. “Oh goody. How novel. Wherever shall I place the tiara, I wonder?”

A chorus of excited scholars drifted in from the background. “Hail, the Princess of Pure Math!”

Shining Armour shrugged. “You can always try again tomorrow.”

Luna brightened. Tomorrow was indeed, another day.

Author's Note

Don't you just hate it when you're bored and accidentally solve a fundamental question of reality?

Anyone?

Ah, just me I suppose.

Chapter 3: Wednesday

It was a good day to be Butterscotch Ripple. An atypically warm day for spring, and Canterlot Beach had been packed in the morning, so the enterprising mare had dusted off her ice cream cart, and trundled it down the winding paths most directly connecting her small storefront to the road leading to the beach. There had been a pretty good noontime rush, and she’d have been turning a tidy profit even if she hadn’t sold another frozen novelty all day.

She’d been set up right outside of the North Gate to the beach, and catching the ponies as they came and went. The winter long, being an ice cream salespony was about as popular as retailing fleas to diamond dogs, but then the sun, the blessed sun, sweet gift of Celestia, would come back and heat the world, and suddenly there was nopony more popular, nopony more beloved and respected. If this was an indication of the kind of summer that they could expect, she might be able to afford that ski vacation this year after all.

And then the Miracle had happened.

Ponies, earth, unicorn and pegasus, had come streaming from the beaches. The waterfront had been closed, for some reason, and everypony there had been evicted until it was safe again. Some were grumbling, some were groaning, many were still wet from the lake, but all of them had wanted something to do on the off chance that the beach might re-open. And ‘something to do’ rapidly became ‘enjoy a frozen treat’ as soon as Butterscotch Ripple started ringing the little bell on her cart.

Butterscotch wasn’t sure what had closed the beach, exactly. Really, nopony seemed to know – well, everypony ‘knew’, but unless the number of beach-closing disasters that had occurred was equal to the number of ponies present, Butterscotch was willing to wager cold hard bits that some ponies were guessing, someponies were speculating, and someponies were just pulling stories out of their... picnic hampers.(5)

It bears mentioning here that Butterscotch, while not bothered by strong language, was aware that her shop served as a hub for colts and fillies after school hours. Her language was so scrupulously clean as a result that even her internal expository monologue found suitable substitutions. So no, not actually picnic hampers.

But on this, a day in mid-spring, usually still down-time for an ice cream pony, Butterscotch Ripple was selling out.

As a result, she caught only snips and pieces of the conversations happening around her. It wasn’t as if she was deliberately eavesdropping, after all – and it would have been impossible to do so, anyway. All of the points of quiet in one conversation were filled with excited jabbering from another one. Still, a basic narrative slowly began to take form.

“So I was standing down by the hayfries cart, when suddenly a massive explosion from the water-”

“Did you see that creature?”

“Eeeyup.”

“Three stories tall, and covered in tentacles...”

“Dread Nx’Y’pthtklyp, arisen from their watery tomb!” Butterscotch noted that group of ponies were all wearing slightly soggy cultist robes. Well, it took all kinds...

“And then someone screamed...”

“Yeah, the Princess!”

“Eeeyup.”

“She screamed ‘Are you kidding me?’”

“Wait, Celestia was there?”

“Eeeenope.”

“No, it was the other one, her sister.”

“The pink one?”

“No, hay-for-brains, her sister. Princess Luna, of the night? Formerly Nightmare Moon? It was in all the papers...”

“So who’s the pink one?”

“Don’t you follow politics at all? You live in Canterlot for Ancestors’ sakes!”

“And then the monster started to wade up onto the land...”

“I think it came from the Lost Continent of Seaponies!”

“Lost Continent of Seaponies?”

“Yeah, see, it was lost when it sank beneath the waves because of hubris! I read about it in my conspiracy fanciers magazine. Princess Celestia hushed it up. It’s amazing the things that they don’t tell us.”

“Sure, sure. And the palace contains a portal to other worlds.”

“It does! My cousin who knows one of the janitors...”

“If it’s a continent of seaponies, then they didn’t lose it because it went underwater. If anything, that’s the Gained Continent of Seaponies.”

Butterscotch tuned out the rabble to deal with a pegasus who couldn’t make up her mind between rainbow swirl and cotton-candy flavour, quite certain that the debate about the naming of Terra Incognito would go on for a bit. So one of the princesses of Equestria had visited the beach? That might have explained the hubbub so early in the season. Canterlot was a government town, and while only the society elite were social climbers per se, everypony would turn out to brush shoulders with royalty, given the chance.

When her attention was once again free – or at least, free enough, as she could handle most transactions with about twenty percent of her active attention – it became clear that she’d missed a vital narrative step among the raconteurs. It was possible that somewhere in the crowd, the bit she’d been distracted for was still being told, but the milling ponies had shifted, and it wasn’t within earshot.

“With a HUGE blast of magic...”

“And the monster howled, and every piece of glass on the beach shattered at once...”

“And she flew down and plucked the ponies from its tentacle-grasp!”

“Eeeeyup!”

The cultist ponies again. “Really, I think it’s for the best. That was not what I thought it was going to look like. Did those tentacles look like frogs to anyone else?”

“And then she kicked it RIGHT in the spines!”

“What, like a porcupine?”

“No, I think it just had like... four backbones. And two heads!”

“And she was like ‘Pew, Pew! Trouble not the mortals under my protection!’”

“She actually said ‘Pew, Pew’?”

“I need a drink.” Butterscotch Ripple didn’t realize that she’d spoken out loud until her voice reached her ears amid the slurry of other ponies’ voices. Sure, she’d made a lot of bits, but there had been a monster attack, on Canterlot Beach? Even if Princess Luna had defeated it, Butterscotch Ripple was a quiet pony, who liked ice cream and sharing it around for a healthy profit. She didn’t go on adventures, she avoided the darker and scarier parts of one of the cleanest and most crime-free cities in Equestria, and she held her breath during the scary parts of movies. Having been that close to a major incident rocked her.(6)

The rum raisin called out to her. But there wasn’t much of it left – or anything, really. The ponies had fallen upon her considerable stock like a swarm of parasprites, leaving only empty tubs and a considerable pile of bits in their wake. Well, that was one mark for ponies above parasprites – the little pests never paid.

Butterscotch had been out of town during the Changeling Incident, and well-meaning friends had gone to considerable trouble to shield her from it.

“And then she was like ‘By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!’”

“Bound the big critter up like it were just a huge birthday gift!”

“Eeeeyup.”

“And then, having smote the beast, she did banish it back to the hellish dimension from whence it came, ne’er to be seen again... an we be favoured by fortune.”

“’From whence it came’? Who talks like that?”

“It be the tongue of the sea, ye scurvy land-lubber!”

“And then the captain of the guard was like ‘thank you, Princess Luna, for your stalwart defence of your subjects!’”

“It WAS nice of her to lift a hoof to help. Seriously, why do we even pay taxes in this town?”

“And then she just sort of... looked broken, and left.”

It was a considerably wealthier, but extremely thoughtful Butterscotch that pushed her cart back up the steep, winding paths that would get her back to her shop in time to close up for supper. It was true, crises happened in Equestria with alarming regularity for a place that was considered by many to be a very safe place to live. On the other hoof, nopony ever really seemed to get irreparably injured, and if there was one thing to be said for crises, it was the way that everypony clubbed together to do right by their friends and neighbours. It was almost... nice. Terrifying, mind you, but nice. It reminded you that there were ponies out there that cared, enough to put themselves to inconvenience, or even... even to risk, on another pony’s behalf.

And of course, there were the diarchs. People sometimes wondered what they did, all the day long, living in the palace like the divine beings that so many thought them to be. Maybe there was more to it than that. Clearly, the ponies at the beach had been impressed. Maybe she would go and sign up for one of those first aid courses. Be able to lend a hoof, if needed... Talk less, and do more.

So lost in thought, Butterscotch barely noticed that she had a customer waiting for her when she got back to the store. A consummate professional, she didn’t let surprise or shock show on her face even when she realized that the pony standing patiently in front of the counter was none other than the Night Princess herself.

“Y-your majesty?” Luna was dripping slightly, although a dark blue unicorn with a towel was carefully mopping up behind her. The Princess of Pure Math’s mane had lost some of its ethereal quality, as well as much of its volume, charred in some places and matted to her skull and neck in others.

“Pray. Tell me that you have some of the rum raisin left?”

* * *

Shining massaged his temples. “I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that acts of heroism, in defence of the realm while technically the purview of all ponies, ‘be they true of heart and noble of spirit’, are very hard to spin as ‘un-princesslike’.”

Luna tried very hard to look chagrined. “It’s true. But... well, as we said yesterday, ‘tomorrow is another day’. I’ll keep at it. It needed to be done, of course. An aspect of a Dread Beast isn’t anything to be taken lightly. And besides...” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “You never know what a good example might accomplish in a weary world.”

Cadance popped another fig into her mouth. They were sitting in one of Canterlot’s most successful bistros, in a private room – and she had little doubt that the main dining room was now packed, after word of their reservation had spread. “So, Auntie... what’s up next for the Mare Who Can’t Take a Break? Extreme sports? Some distant tropical island paradise, where you won’t be tempted by the day-to-day grind in Canterlot?”

Paper Weight had seen the Smile before. It was tired and triumphant, the smile of a mad genius who was sure that this was the plan that would get her a job in time for Hearth’s Warming this year. It cracked a little manic around the edges. Inwardly, where nopony would ever see, she sighed. She liked her employer. A lot. As an employee, a subject, and a friend, she would be there for her. But the Smile didn’t usually precede plans that were conventionally successful, or even conventionally sane.

“No, Cadance. Tomorrow... I do my laundry.”

Author's Note

And we're on a roll! Next chapter should be up soon!

Chapter 4: Thursday

Luna Implaccabilis, The Mare in the Moon, unconquered in any ambition but one, had a new goal. It was a strange goal, and curiously more difficult for one of her vaunted prestige, position, and power, but it was one that most ponies managed sooner or later. The trick to accomplishing difficult tasks, she had found, was to break them down into simpler tasks, and approach them individually. The first step came first, and in this case, the first step was convincing the various ponies that were assisting her that all of this was really necessary.

“Alright...” Cadance was chewing on a multi-hued strand of her mane. “I mean, I understand it. Sure. Why not? But explain it again for Shining’s sake.”

If the prince consort resented being used as an excuse for exposition, no trace of the resentment betrayed itself on his face. Instead, he sat back in the overstuffed armchair that had become his semi-permanent roost when visiting Luna’s chambers in the palace, and looked on attentively. Luna knew from conversations and experience that the former Captain of the Solar Guard was far from an idiot, but perhaps hours upon hours of watch duty had served as suitable training for the rather more patience-wearing task of being the pink pony princess’ conversational prop.

“Simple. I have attempted, heretofore, endeavours that are solely focused around my leisure. As I am sure that it is easy to see, I am not easily disposed toward leisure. Enjoyable as many modern pass-times are, my favourite hobbies fell out of vogue some centuries ago, at the very latest. Thus, it behooves me to set my hoof toward more productive endeavours.” Luna smiled. “When I spoke to the mare in the ice cream parlour, and asked what many ponies do on their days off, she told me that they were frequently filled with chores, such as laundry.”

Paper Weight raised a hoof. “Point of order, your highness? You don’t really... wear clothes. I mean, you have your regalia, but that’s more something you’d take to an armourer than a laundromat.”

“Of course I do not wear clothes. I have not yet done my laundry. You would not ask me to wear filthy clothing, would you?”

The navy blue social secretary rubbed her temples. “Why wouldn’t it be clean, if you never wear it?”

Luna smiled triumphantly. “For that I have not taken a day off to wash them!”

You couldn’t argue with that logic, Paper Weight reflected. It would be something like trying to box with an invisible, intangible pony. Possibly from several rooms away.

Now, Cadance was frowning. “Um... Auntie, do you even know how to do laundry? I mean, what with having servants and all for most of your adult life, and modern washing technology, and all of that?”

“Eh, how hard could it be?” Luna’s telekinetic aura flared to life, and she brought forth, from her closet, three large laundry baskets. “Alright, I’m doing a dark load, a light load, and a precious metals load. Anyone who wants in, put it in the right basket.” Her official raiment of state ended up in the third, and, after a moment, was joined by Cadance’s.

The Pink Pony Princess of Love shrugged at her husband. “It’s not like it couldn’t use a wash.”

* * *

The reader may be excused for sharing Cadance’s belief that Luna had never once done laundry in her life. As a foal, growing up under the reign of Discord before eventually overthrowing the Chaos Tyrant with her sister, the state of one’s clothing had little social impact, and it was impossible to ensure that any soap bubbles that might form when generating suds for the chore would not turn out to be carnivorous, or worse. Later, when at the shared helm of the growing principality of Equestria, there had been servants to do what cleaning was necessary, but as far as social mores had gone, beyond some basic personal hygiene, cleanliness had been next to goddessliness only in a particularly ambitious game of Scrabble.

Nevertheless, the Night Princess had long been renowned for certain eccentricities. Along with royal statues of ‘thou shalt not place yon midden next to yon town well’, and ‘all courtiers shall bathe at least once the fortnight preceding their audience in court’, she had been known to have a particular fixation with her personal cleanliness.(7) Troubling the servants about it during times of extremity, she had therefore considered to be an unfair use of her royal prerogative.

Pony historians often attributed historical reluctance to bathe to the harsh, unpleasant nature of the soaps available prior to about 200 A.B. After all, they argued, soaps were made with extremely caustic solutions that left the skin dry and treated the hair harshly. This, like many such historical explanations, was just a cruel lye.

Luna hadn’t just done the laundry once in her centuries of life. She had done it four times.

True, she could count her experiences in doing the chore on her limbs without taking into consideration her wings or horn, but sometimes quality could make up for quantity regarding the educative level of an experience. And boy, had there been some lessons learned.

During the early days of Equestria, legend held that Luna had called a terrible storm upon a battlefield, forcing both pony and gryphon forces to retreat to higher ground within the contested area. Too tightly packed to have a proper battle, the soldiers of each side had found common ground – or at least sufficient liquor that both sides enjoyed to make up the difference – and rampant peace had broken out. Lauded by the diplomats and later by historians as an insightful blow that brought lasting peace to the troubled region, Luna had actually just gotten some blood on the shirt that Celestia had just given her for her birthday, and a bit of weather manipulation had seemed the apropos way of finding enough time to get it rinsed before the stain set.

When the Fire Jötunn had descended upon Canterlot, bringing with them ruin and despair, seeking to snuff the nascent empire that would someday stand as a bulwark against them before it could take full shape, Luna had posed as an old washermare, and learned enough of their culture to play the leaders of the enemy force against one another. She had also learned valuable lessons about ironing finery. Which of these proved more useful, history had remained curiously silent upon.

Once, legend had it, when washing her battle-garments in the stream, Luna had encountered a bean neigh, a washerpony spirit portent of death, washing the blood from the battle raiment of ponies destined to die in battle to come. Not only did she steal those clothes, sparing those doomed to die a grisly end, but before doing so, she had learned a good deal about difficult-to-lift stains from the grim messengers.

And then, there had been the curious incident of the Soap Saboteur, scant decades before Luna’s Nightmare Moon issues had come to a head. Everyone knew that the best lye soaps came from Gryphonstan, but the products that had come to Equestrian markets had been tainted, causing rashes and mane-loss. Luna, along with a team of her hoof-picked specialists had discovered the political group responsible, who were trying to sour trade between the nations in a strange bid for protectionism of Equestrian markets. The resulting conflict had flooded the warehouse of untainted goods; in the suds that had followed, the slippery and sliding saboteurs had found it impossible to make a clean getaway. Luna had promised to clean up the corruption in the town; it was difficult to argue that she hadn’t at least made a good stab at the docks district.(8)

What history does NOT record is that Princess Celestia had only done laundry all of once, and had fallen in. The red clothing she had been cleaning had bled dye like a gut-shot ink bottle, and it had just so happened that was the day that the Royal Portrait Artist had finished designs for the Celestia Action Figure. Another historical mystery solved.

* * *

It was difficult to posit a new challenge to one who had seen as many centuries as her contemporaries had seen years, Luna reflected. Even if not all of those centuries had been productive ones, novelty was found in inverse proportion to experience, and experience she had in abundance. Still, many of the things that contemporary ponies took for granted had proven new and exciting upon her first return, and there were still joys that Luna discovered every once and a while that were only incredible with the proper outsider’s perspective.

It stood to reason, in a way. Ponies whose parents had grown up with the quick match (still known in some circles as the Nightmare, even though her powers, even augmented, had never been particularly infernal), or the typewriter never really considered that these were recent inventions. Toilet paper still stood far above the crowd as her favourite invention of the past two centuries, for reasons that were either too obvious to warrant explanation, or too grandiose to allow for a succinct one.

The modern laundromat was another such.

It was airy, well-lit, and comfortable enough to spend an afternoon in, although not so comfortable as to promote lingering beyond the span of a load or three of wash. The machines were, evidently, in good repair, if a bit new-fangled for Luna’s tastes. Still, Paper Weight was, as ever, loyally at her side, and there were instructions printed above the machines; Luna was confident that she could figure it out.

What was strange was how many ponies were staring at her.

It wasn’t the number, per se. She frequently had ponies stare at her when she went places, to say nothing of bowing down in respect to their sovereign. Frequently, fear was involved. But despite her adopted air of nonchalance, she noted with an increasingly chalant mind that there was an awestruck demeanour, more than a reverent or fearful one, to the others around her. Not like ponies encountering their Princess, more like...

“Hail, Nightmare Moon! Hail the Conquering Darkness! Hail, the Eternal Night!”

... Cultists. They popped out of the woodwork every once in a while, for both Celly and herself. The difference being that, whereas Celestia mostly got pleasantly well-meaning ponies who worshipped the sun, spread hope and prosperity in their own slightly daffy way, and only occasionally practised pony sacrifice, Luna’s own cultists tended to be Nightmare Moon cultists, discontents who believed that the coming of eternal night would be a good thing for them. It was unfortunate, and not a little embarrassing, somewhat like having your teenage diary read as scripture by some future generation.

And now there was a laundromat full of them? Luna hoped against hope that, unlikely as it seemed, this was a group that worshipped her as some kind of goddess of hygiene. It was definitely better than ‘we had to wash all of our cultist robes because they were covered in blood’.

“Welcome to the temple of Eternal Night, oh glorious Darkbringer!”

Luna sighed. “Your temple is a laundromat!”

One of the pony cultists had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Well, in the sacred text, it said ‘Ensure that Soap Flakes May Be Bought’.” There was a cheer from the crowd. “So we did! And then, when we had all of the soap flakes that we could possibly buy, we decided to buy a laundromat to use them in! As far as temples go, it’s nice to have one that pays for itself.”

Luna frowned. “Did this ‘sacred text’ happen to also have a list of vegetables on it?”

“Yea, verily! And following that, the most holy commandment; ‘talk to sister about feelings of anxiety and loneliness’! It was the only one on the list without a check-mark next to it, so we knew that it must be important and special.” There was a cheer. “Those of us without sisters do find this difficult, oh Gracious One. But we thought it might be more... metaphorical. About the importance of discussing our emotions, and working through them. To be the best us that we can possibly be!”

Alright then, not your teenage diary. Your to-do list. Which had apparently benefited from dogmatic interpretation. Really, these were loony ponies, but they seemed harmless enough. Then again, they always did, at first.

Luna was in a crux. On the one hoof, she really wanted to do her laundry. Like so many other things, it had become a matter of principle. On the other hand, one of the duties of a princess was to be a good role-model. The longer that she spent time here, the greater the possibility that one of two things would happen; she would say or do something that would inspire these ponies to greater levels of lunacy, or she would snap and tell them to get on with their lives. That would be ‘being a good role model’, and dispersing one of the cults to her darker persona would probably get trotted out as doing the duties of a princess. Something to be avoided if at all possible.

“Well... You seem to have everything in order. You do you.” The Night Princess did her best to come up with some other vaguely encouraging platitude that would be empty enough of meaning as to not be interpreted as ‘become a cannibal cult and take Canterlot by force’. “Carry on? And, uh... could someone help me with one of these laundry machines?”

* * *

Celestia smiled at her younger sister, as the pair took tea in the pleasant, open concept sunroom that adjoined her quarters. “I’ve heard you were quite busy today, Sister.”

Luna gave a rueful chuckle. “Oh, nothing much. Just had to deal with some of the Lunatics.” Those under the influence of the moon, indeed. “But I think I got away without either being a good or bad influence. They seemed mostly harmless.”

Celestia’s smile deepened and became somehow sad, and Luna’s heart dropped. Her sister knew something that she didn’t. Not that this was an unusual state of affairs – they were pretty well the only two who could still surprise one another, Discord excepted, and Celestia had a millennium of practice on her – but in relation to the conversation that they were having, this could mean anything.

“Yes, it was good of you to humour them. Apparently you even left behind some divine commandments for them?”

Luna frowned. She hadn’t done any such thing. Then again, she had been making sure that none of her stockings had ended up squirrelled away as creepy ‘holy relics’ or similar... Oh ponyfeathers. “My laundry list?”

“And the to-do list you kept in your breastplate, apparently. They are now devoted to the concept of ensuring that all members of their faith take a reasonable amount of time for self-improvement every day, a good number of them are planning to attend the university, and a fair hoofful have made plans to see their doctors. And of course, many of them intend to do their laundry only on Thursdays now.” Celestia adjusted her own tiara, now squeaky clean and shiny with polish. “I will say, you did an excellent job.”

Luna sighed. “I suppose that could have gone worse. But one bit will get you ten that it’ll get trotted out as ‘being a good role model to those who have elected to serve the sisters two’.” She scowled. “There are times when I miss ‘by this axe I rule’. Life was simpler.”

Celestia sipped her tea. “It was. Messier, though.”

Luna shook her head, a bit of rueful amusement escaping her in spite of herself. “Messier, though.”

Celestia glanced upon her younger sister with sympathy. “Lulu, are you going to keep this up? You don’t have to. I’ll sign a bill exempting you myself, if you want.”

Luna shook her head. “No, Celly... I’m seeing this through to the end. One way or another, I’m not going to let Clearing House win or name me a hypocrite. I’m just going to have to have the most boring day ever. Tomorrow, though.” Celestia’s eyebrows flicked heavenward, and Luna continued. “After all, no one knows better than us: tomorrow is another day.”

Author's Note

Rounding a corner, picking up speed...

Chapter 5: Friday

In Gryphonstan, Paper Weight had heard, Friday was a part of the weekend. In Yakyakistan, sufficiently nice weather occurred rarely enough that the nation’s legislators would declare sunny days to be civic holidays. In Prance, a province of Equestria for Ancestors’ sake, the two hour lunch was considered a tragically short necessity. And yet...

And yet none of these people, be they gryphons, yaks, or eccentrically accented ponies, seemed to work as hard at taking time off as Luna did.

True, they weren’t doing it to prove a point, and they weren’t doing it to serve some vital purpose. They were doing it to spend time with their families and loved ones, and because they found relaxation and enjoyment of their leisure time to be a worthy priority. Luna, if anything, seemed more wound up after three days of ‘days off’ than she had before she had begun this endeavour. If the alicorn mare had been a pocket watch, she would have been two winds short of gears and springs exploding out the back of her, under enough torque to cause the sun to rise in the west for a change.

As a loyal vassal, dutiful employee, and friend, Paper Weight did her best not to criticize her Princess’ plans. The ways of alicorns were generally inscrutable anyway, and fairly frequently, acts or decisions that seemed aberrant or strange had some deep-seated mystically significant meaning. So when she nervously thought that the most recent arrangement seemed ‘unwise’, the social secretary did so silently, handling the term as would a dowager duchess picking up after an overly pampered pooch during walkies.

Her job, when it did not entail social counselling or being a camp follower for one of Luna’s oddball crusades, was to handle the Night Princess’ schedule and appointments. So, she thought to herself, this more or less fit. Luna had descended to the royal dungeons, unused these past several centuries excepting as a tourist attraction, and had cleared out the tourist bricabrac. Then, floating in a bit of furniture with her powerful telekinetic aura, she had explained.

“I am going to lock myself into this closed, sound-proof cell.” Luna had explained. “Where I will sit quietly, practice my meditation, and play mindless yet distracting video games.” Paper had nodded. It seemed like a sensible set of precautions, given the... unexpected hiccups that had come along so far. Luna had continued. “Under no circumstances short of an Equestria-threatening emergency am I to be disturbed. Do not open this door until one full day has passed.”

Right.

If it came down to it, Equestria HAD managed to survive on the figurative horsepower of a single princess for a millennium, and with Cadance in town, and Twilight Sparkle only a short flight or train-ride away, there was enough alicorn power to sustain two or three additional heavenly bodies. And really, it wasn’t the first time that Luna had empowered Paper Weight to deal with her royal appointments as the secretary saw fit. The trick, really, was to remember that Luna had full faith in her to manage whatever crises arose, and to handle it with poise and grace.

Put another way, the secret to success came down to two enormous lies. ‘I know what I’m doing’, and ‘Luna has briefed me on this sufficiently to make a good decision.’

It was less than five minutes, by the clock, before the first peculiar thing occurred.

There was a ripple in the air, the sound somewhat like the crunching of strangely organic tinfoil – not a teleport, something far stranger – and there was a Royal Guardspony and what looked like an academic mare that Paper Weight vaguely recognized from one of the University’s galas as Stop Watch.

The pair were smoking slightly, and there was a sense of otherness behind them, as if there were more ponies standing right around a corner that was, unpleasantly, directly in the middle of the hallway. The guardspony’s eyes were frantic. “Have we been here yet?”

Paper frowned. “In general? I’m quite sure. Everyone takes the tour sooner or later. Today? No, this is the first I’ve seen of you.” It was a rather odd question, but between the Extremely Experimental Laboratory in the University’s Inadvisably Applied Magic department and the ever-present threat of changeling invasion, it was hardly the first time that she’d heard it.

The nattily-but-tattily dressed academic adjusted her bow-tie nervously. “Ponyfeathers. I think we went back too far. Calibration errors.”

The guardspony gave Paper a forlorn look, the usual stoic determinism marred by wild eyes. “Right. Thank you, Secretary Weight. I suspect we’ll be seeing you shortly.” As swiftly as they had come, the pair departed.

It would be easier to say ‘that’s not something you see every day’, Paper Weight thought to herself, if tenure season hadn’t just ended. She shrugged. Things would resolve themselves. Somehow, the world, nation and capitol had all managed to get themselves through any and all crises that had arisen before Princess Luna’s return to Equestrian soil. There was a plurality of princesses to pinch-hit for her. No need to bother her sovereign.

This had all been a great deal more comforting before the next crisis had arisen.

“A small contingent of royal guardsponies have gone... missing.”

Paper Weight frowned. “Missing how? And missing why?” And where, and who, and...

The Palace Librarian looked distressed. “Well, they were wandering through the Star Swirl the Bearded section of the library, since there was word that some university ponies were fooling around in the stacks. We think that they may have been lost in L-space... All the thaumaturgical weight of those temporal manipulation scrolls.” She was wringing her forehooves. “It’s possible that they’ve been... temporarily temporally misplaced.”

Paper Weight was put to mind of her old equush. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Well, in theory they watched one another. The idea that the palace guards had to be guarded from holes in time was somewhat brain-bending however. You could employ ponies to guard the guards, but then you’d need to employ more ponies to guard those guards. Obviously those ponies would require further guarding, and eventually you were employing every pony that had ever lived, and making heavy investment in colt futures.

On the other hand, this had a distressingly familiar ring to it. “Right. Go to the university. Find out who their specialist in time manipulation magic is. When you find out it’s...” What had been the mare’s name again? Stop Watch. “Professor Stop Watch, tell her that the fate of Equestria hangs in the balance.”

The Palace Librarian paled, an impressive feat for an already white pony. “It does?”

Paper Weight shrugged. “If it doesn’t already, it will sooner or later. On the balance of things, you’re just playing the odds.”

The Palace Librarian galloped off, and Paper returned to her novel, sitting on a chair outside of Princess Luna’s cell. For now, crisis averted. Really, if that was the worst that the day was going to throw at her...

She would have stared at herself in horror, had it not been anatomically impossible.(9)

Even in the security of her own thoughts she knew better than to let something like that cross her mind. She wasn’t a superstitious pony – well, she had met ghosts, and the odd zombie, necromancer, bad luck omen, and so forth, but that was just ‘being Princess Luna’s secretary’, rather than believing in things that didn’t exist – but she had a degree of enforced savoir faire that emerged from being dragged along in the wake of the Princess’ adventures. One Did Not Think Such Things. It was tempting, if not fate, then that more worrisome motivating force, narrative.

It was too late. Another pony was barrelling down the narrow stone corridor of the dungeons, and it seemed unlikely to be anyone from the tour.

The laconic Daunted Hex, now approaching yet another anniversary of refusing to defend his dissertation, was well known for keeping a calm if somewhat strained head in a crisis. This feature had served him well, both as a student and as a barrista at the University campus coffee shop (the night shift was murder), and it was well-known that there were few things that would cause the pony to move at more than a comfortable mosey.

He was running now, a fact made more distressing by his status as one of the senior student researchers in the new High Energy wing of the University’s magical energy research facility. Paper Weight might be the personal secretary to one of the land’s sovereign rulers, but common wisdom held that a magical ordinance expert at a run outranked a senior secretary standing still.

He timed his stop well, skidding to a halt a foot or so from Paper Weight. “Paper!” Then he paused, gasping for breath. The problem for only running for crises was, when a crisis arose, you didn’t tend to be very good at running.

“Daunted, what is it?”

The stallion glanced over his shoulder, as if convincing himself he hadn’t been followed by anything. “Well... you remember the new High Energy Building?”

Paper Weight frowned. Luna had just funded the building. Today seemed a day for ‘odd questions that became distressing the more they were investigated’. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that I do.”

“Well... as Princess Luna is one of the honourary chairs of the department, I have some news about some pressing... re-designations.”

Paper frowned. “Re-designations.”

“Yes ma’am.” Daunted was more deferential to Paper than he was to Luna. The princess was a co-worker. Paper had, with him at least, the stern demeanour of an unpleasant second grade teacher he’d had as a foal. “As of ten-oh-one this morning, an attempt to utilize applications of the new proof Princess Luna discovered led to it being the Quite High Energy Building. At ten-oh-seven, a meeting of the university council re-designated it the Absurdly High Energy Building. Between ten-ten and ten-eleven, it held the status of High Velocity Building, followed by just plain High Building.” The red unicorn paused for breath. “Shortly thereafter it resumed status as High Velocity Building, and, upon making impact with the ground, is now the High Surface Area Building.”

Paper Weight stared at him. “Are you telling me that the High Energy Building has been destroyed?”

Daunted looked at Paper, and made the mistake of attempting to use humour. “Well, more... spread out a bit. It’s a good deal shorter, true, but in fairness, it’s a lot wider now.”

“Was anypony hurt?”

Daunted shook his head. “No. Professor Doubt says that it’s likely due to an unexplained property of the Narrativium that was being experimented upon, but the senior researchers always say that when something they don’t have an explanation for happens. It’s like the archaeologists and anything that they dig up without an obvious use claiming ‘votive purposes’.”

Paper pinched the bridge of her muzzle. “Right. Right. I’ll sign a writ, just get construction teams there to start rebuilding any parts of the university that were damaged. Anypony that was involved in the experiment, promote for not dying. We need lucky ponies these days... no one else lives to make it to tenure.” She frowned. “Wait. If the crisis is over, and nopony was hurt, why were you running?”

Daunted looked sheepish. “Well, the falling building might have... clipped a few of the other university buildings on the way down. Nothing serious. But... a few other experiments might have been disrupted. And released.”

* * *

A massive lizardlike bunny, three stories tall with burning red eyes, tromped through downtown Canterlot. With the sound of tearing organic tinfoil, a small contingent of guardsponies and an academic in a bow-tie found themselves right in its path.

“WHEN ARE WE NOW!?”

* * *

It was later. Crises had happened. Solutions had been found.

Actually, Paper reflected, crises were still happening, and solutions, while definitely found, were being implemented as new crises reared their ugly heads. That damned guardspony team was still missing, meaning that the palace was short-staffed as the events of a bad Neighponese kaiju flick took place outside of the palace. Briefly, she took a moment to envy her employer, who was, if anything, probably bored inside of the cell in which she, steadfast, waited out the day.

The magical disturbance that had so remodelled the High Energy Building had wrought mystical mischief across Canterlot. Clocks were running backward, the apple trees in a rather fashionable neighbourhood had grown pears which had then chased the neighbourhood dogs off, barking and snarling, and every member of the Canterlot Stallions Chorus had become magnetically attracted to one another.

And all of that discounted the giant creatures, breathing – she was assured – non-radioactive fire at one another. As mildly comforting as it was to learn that, unlike what popular cinema had suggested, the fire was non-radioactive, it somewhat paled in comparison to the reality of everything else that had happened.

And yet, Paper Weight found herself oddly relaxed.

Maybe it was just the result of having manageable crises for a change. As unshiftable as the problem of giant monsters and magical weirdness was, it moved like a well-oiled cart when compared to Canterlot politicians. Yes, some of the stopgap measures that were being hastily thrown into place would cause budgetary problems later on, but for now, that was tomorrow’s problem, the second best kind of problem.(10)

Paper Weight took a sip of her coffee, and addressed the crossword in front of her. It wasn’t as if she was well-suited to fighting giant monsters rampaging downtown, and it took the experience of a practical, career bureaucrat to realize that there were some problems you aided with best by simply staying out of everypony’s way. You paid the bills as they came to you, you offered the best advice that you could when it was sought, but if you could do nothing else to help, trying just created more problems. Besides, if she was figuring the pattern right...

A now very familiar Canterlot guardspony galloped down the corridor. “Miss Weight! You’ve got to help us! Our unit was in the Star Swirl the Bearded section of the library, and we got lost, and...”

Paper held up a hoof. “Try to get to the University. Professor Stop Watch should be waiting for you.” She paused. “Shouldn’t you be smoking?”

The guardspony frowned. “Not when I’m on duty. Why would I be?”

Paper shook her head. “Never mind. I think I got ahead of myself somewhat.” The guardspony vanished with the wavering of spacetime, and Paper went back to puzzling over a seven-letter word for a logical impossibility.

“Miss WEIGHT!”

Paper closed her eyes, and counted slowly backward from ten, as the pencil in her telekinetic grasp snapped in two. “Yes, what?”

It was one of the ponies tasked to monster containment duty. “There’s been a development that I thought you should know about!” He was stammering a little bit, which promised to be unpleasant. With the number of magical mishaps the university was budgeted for in the average year, anything that could move their more veteran staff to stammers boded ill for the less resilient of spirit. Paper gestured that he should speak on, and he did so. “One of the parasprite containment units has failed.” Ponyfeathers. Parasprites in downtown Canterlot. “And the parasprites, in consuming some of the residuals from the High Energy Building, grew enormous in size!” Oh horseapples, that wasn’t better. “And then they knocked a cider wagon, which hit the distillery building, and, well, long story short...”

“All of the monsters are now drunk?”

The researcher waggled a hoof. “Most of them. And... quite a lot of the containment crews. It’s kind of hard to avoid swallowing any of it when a tidal wave of whisky starts down the street.” He brightened for a moment. “On the other hand, they seem to be enjoying the overtime work a bit better now!” As day turned to night, the brightness of the expression crested the horizon, and darkened. “Collateral damage has increased a bit, though.”

Paper Weight rubbed her temples. “A bit?”

“Well, the whisky IS flammable...” the stallion trailed off.

Paper carefully schooled her expression, taking pains to reduce her level of Ambient Searing Rage to ‘mildly perturbed’. It took a lot of willpower, but if there was one thing that being Luna’s secretary had taught her, it was how to avoid visibly expressing the desire to strangle the pony in front of one. “What, pray tell, do you wish of me? I am, admittedly, neither a firefighter nor able to instantly sober up a pony.”

“Well... we heard that there was a missing unit of the Canterlot guard. Having a full unit available and sober could help us get things under control a lot faster.”

Paper frowned. “Actually... I may have an idea in that regard.”

* * *

Daunted looked at Paper. “Run this by me again?”

Paper gestured at the area of the old Canterlot dungeons. “If I recall my magical theory correctly, there are strong ties between expressed magical energy and emotion? Hence why the adrenaline that comes from fear or anger can boost a unicorn’s telekinesis, for example.”

Daunted shrugged, and nodded. “Certainly. Given everything that’s happening at street level, we could probably manage a Minor Working through ambient terror alone.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Not that we really need MORE magic right now. A good deal less might be helpful, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

Paper smiled wanly. “Right now we have a shift of guardsponies that are displaced in time. I want you and your various colleagues...” she gestured vaguely at the scholarly ponies that she had gathered together in the dungeon “to use a specific frequency of emotional resonance to provide them with an anchor. Some place that they can safely come back to.”

Daunted shook his head. “It’s not a bad idea in theory, but there’s too much interference. No high emotion that we could tap into that isn’t being expressed all across the city right now.”

Paper grinned. “I bet there’s one.” Daunted looked at her, puzzled. “We are currently sitting on the only source of boredom in the city, at the moment.”

* * *

“And so, while technically my actions did provide the needed ingredients for the salvation of the capitol, it was truly necessary.” Luna laughed, a trifle bitterly, as she sipped coffee while she caught up with her sister. “They retrieved the guard unit, which helped to get the biggest problems under control. I helped, as a princess must. No closer to the goal, mind you, but at least there’s still a Palace. And a capitol city, come to that.”

Celestia sat placidly, and shook her head. “Only you, Lulu. I’m quite certain that not every picnic that Twilight Sparkle arranges is interrupted by a city-wide event.”

Luna eyed her sister, recalling some of the friendship letters that she had read over the tuition of Celestia’s pupil. She wasn’t sure even that much was true... “No regrets though. I’ll keep at this even if it takes me a month.” She paused. “Ancestors, I really hope this doesn’t take a month.”

Celestia sighed. “I think I may have an idea for tomorrow.”

“It’s another day, after all.”

“That it is.”

9: Really, the best most anypony could do would be to stare at a mirror in horror, and few mirrors truly deserved that.
10: The best kind of problem, of course, was one which belonged to somepony else. Tomorrow’s problem was LIKE somepony else’s problem, except that sooner or later, somepony else was you.

Author's Note

Saturday is already planned out, Sunday has been written since I started this fic, and the next chapter of Night Watch is underway but slow going. It's been a busy little while since last I updated, and most of it revolves around writing work I might actually get paid for, but I DO want to finish what I started.

Chapter 6: Saturday

Consider, if you will, the unusual figure of the Equestrian political protester.(11)

Political activity alone is hardly unusual. Equestrian elections are demonstrably short, vicious, and enjoy an average poll attendance of almost ninety percent of eligible voters in most areas. Most elections are predominantly issue-focused, and voters are, if anything, too informed for the preferences of most of their candidates. Even in the higher echelons of power, however much nobleponies may wish to win the game, no one would consider breaking the board if they didn’t. After all, that made it harder to win the next game.

Politicians do their best to serve not only the platform that they campaigned on, but the needs of all of their constituents. The biggest difference, as in most places, is the conflict of opinions of how best to spread a limited public purse among the various social issues in need of bits to resolve. Seeing the other pony’s point of view tends to be encouraged, and with the hard work of the civil service, elected officials, and the royals working in concert, the social programs that make Equestria a nice place to live for the average pony, and even for the least fortunate ponies, a tolerable one.

Politics in Equestria is therefore something of a strange beast to certain neighbouring realms, but the same could be said for the Equestrian way of life in general.

Protest takes time, often takes bits, and, in a political system which is only mildly corrupt, is quite difficult to sell to ponies who would much rather be following their special talents, breaking out into spontaneous musical numbers, and having urbane get-togethers with tea and cucumber sandwiches. Ponies with special talents that focus on political discourse end up either as politicians, civil servants, or occasionally teachers of political theory at the University. It is therefore a very specific subsection of the Equestrian population which has the time, energy, and dedication required to be protesters.

Some of these ponies are more competent than others.

Ponies, as a rule, do not do things by half-measures. Ponies that bake bread practise until they can create masterful loafs. Ponies that create pieces of jewellery study styles dating back centuries, trying to learn from the greatest of their forebears and then adapt those styles and techniques most pleasing to them in an effort to create their own unique method. There are of course, the odd virtuoso prodigy or slacker, but it is, after all, the purpose of a cutie mark to give a hint as to what a pony might excel at.

The very best – or at least, most vehement and obsessive, which tends to lend a degree of skill, grown the old fashioned way by watering the talent tree for long enough – political protesters in Equestria set their sights high. They protest the Princesses.

This, it bears mentioning, does not lump them in the same grouping as those who simply opposed the princesses. Those seeking to advance their own goals at the expense of the good of Equestria found themselves opposing the princesses relatively swiftly. And many of those same opponents might, upon occasion, propose a system of governance which would greatly reduce the political power of the royal sisters. It would, among other things, make their efforts of self-advancement considerably simpler.

But protesters against the princesses – of which there are a fair number, all things taken into consideration – are not merely self-serving. The self-serving generally have more accessible windmills against which to tilt, not least because it’s hard to argue with the ponies who cause day and night to occur. But, as the princesses, on the balance of things, do their level best to be accessible and approachable, and to foster freedoms including the rights to assembly and speech, they go largely untrammelled for their ineffectual pains.

Until quite recently however, very few of them had ever had any actual face time with their sovereigns.

* * *

Luna looked out her window. Yes, they were there. It was a Saturday, after all. Some ponies were working of course, but the idea of a week-end had apparently caught on some centuries prior, and those ponies that worked primarily in the financial and other secondary industries had adopted it as a time of leisure, in which one’s hobbies could be pursued.

Hobbies such as picketing the castle, for instance.

As far as actually disrupting hoof-traffic in and out of the palace went, the protesters had given up some time prior. They had a nice sheltered area, out of the rain, that was specifically set aside for them a luxury afforded by Celestia some years back, which Luna was quite certain some of them resented. She certainly did. Sure, they weren’t blocking the front door, but they were close enough to her window that she was more regularly woken by calls for her removal than by the morning lark.

Today however, she intended to set aside her differences of opinion, and try to see things from the perspective of somepony else.

Taking a painstakingly hoof-painted sign in her telekinetic grasp, Luna went out to join the protest.

* * *

“Down with Princess Luna! Down with Princess Luna!” Hounds Tooth and Tight Wire tended to get the most passerby support with their march. While a great number of the ponies of Canterlot had taken Princess Celestia’s injunction to treat her sister with the respect due a royal, there were no small number who feared or mistrusted Luna for her actions during the Summer Sun celebration when she had first returned. Not enough that there were any more than the two of them standing out in front of the palace’s side entrance, but the occasional nod of respect or agreement kept the fires of protest burning nicely.

What they were unaccustomed to was outright support. A new voice had taken up their cry.

“Down with Princess Luna!”

Tooth looked over at the new protester. Sort of a darkish blue mare, with a horn, wings, and a moon cutie mark. She was carrying a sign that had that same cutie mark in a red circle, with a line through it. He blinked, and did a double take.

“... Wire?”

The pegasus protester accompanying him boggled a little at that. “Well, that’s... new.” Luna had produced a megaphone from somewhere, and was experimenting with the settings. There was a shriek of feedback as she learned that it was unwise to combine with the Royal Canterlot Voice, and a few sparks preceded a slow trailing of smoke from the now ruined device.

Hounds Tooth considered this. Strictly speaking, this was good, wasn’t it? Their protest was clearly making progress if they had gained an additional member. And, if you got down to it, that new member was a high-ranking official in the government, somepony capable of enacting real change! It worked... as long as you didn’t actually say the words ‘Princess Luna is protesting herself in government’. He sidled over.

“Erm. Your majesty?” Luna didn’t seem to notice him, as she was busily shaking the megaphone, as if through an act of percussive maintenance she could encourage both sparks and smoke to return to the ruined electronics, and restore it to working order. “Princess Luna?” Now the disregard he was being paid seemed more studied. “Hey, you!”

Luna looked up. “I am on my day off. As such, I am neither princess nor majesty.” She paused in consideration. “I am still a ‘hey you’. And I suppose you can be forgiven for picking up on a certain inherent majesty.”

Hounds Tooth frowned at that. “Your... day off?”

Luna nodded sagely. “Oh yes. Very important, the odd day-in-lieu. I think it’s important to stay politically active too, don’t you?”

Hound rubbed his eyes. “By protesting... yourself?”

Luna shrugged. “What can I say? I was moved by your enthusiasm.” She tilted her head. “Out of idle curiosity, what about me do you find particularly objectionable?” She leaned in and stage whispered. “I’m pretty sure I can pass along the information to somewhere that it will do some good.”

Hound was a little frazzled. In a sense, this was nothing new; he and Wire fairly regularly had people taking the piss out of what some called their quixotic(13) crusade. On the other hand, perhaps there was something to the old saying about those the princesses wished to destroy... “Well, ah... we feel that, in light of the whole ‘attempting to steal the throne of Equestria’ thing a year or so back, that Princess Luna – that would be you, that is – should be more carefully watched.” He sat. “After all, it’s really intimidating to have to deal with yet another powerful pony sorcerer capable of rending the world asunder if she doesn’t like what’s happening.”

Luna preened. “Agreed.”

Hound blinked. “What.”

Luna shrugged, leaning her protest sign over a shoulder. “Well, Celly and I do our best to do right by our subjects, of course, but it’s easy for a monarch or diarch to get distracted by the day-to-day struggles in politics. The best way to ensure a healthy system of governance is through a politically active populace, which of course includes oversight.” She nibbled her lower lip a moment. “And of course, watching me in particular is a good thing. I’m terribly sneaky, you know.”

Wire chirped in at this point; the pegasus mare had flapped over when she had seen Hound floundering. “And of course, there’s the whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ thing. Tyrannical governance through night unending is something to avoid rewarding. Think of the precedent it sets!”

Luna nodded solemnly. “Right again.”

Wire frowned at that. She wasn’t used to being agreed with. “Right. Failed conquerors should not be awarded the throne of Equestria.”

Luna’s eyes sparkled. “Well, technically Equestria’s throne is empty. Celly and I are Princesses Elect, although the last general election was about twelve hundred years ago.” She tilted her head. “I’m fairly certain that when Iron Fist the Conqueror called for elections for ‘ruler for life’, he wasn’t expecting us to run against him. Still, it beats having a successful conqueror on the throne, am I right?” She nudged Wire in the ribs with a wing.

Hound rallied gamely. “I feel as if you’re not taking us seriously, your m-” one of Luna’s wings was pressed up against his lips. She shook her head. Right, no majesty. “Pr-” the other wing now. “... You.”

Luna sighed, and leaned on her sign, grounding it on the cobbles. “Actually, I’m taking you very seriously. I agree. Our system of governance is better than many, but it is the duty of any good leader to listen to the concerns of their subjects and to constantly strive for better and more effective methods of leadership.” She glanced at her sign. “Admittedly, when I first came out here, I was intending to cock a snook, because frankly, that bedroom up there?” She gestured with a wing. “That’s where I sleep. During the day. And it’s not especially pleasant to have to try to sleep through people calling for your head.”

Hound blinked. He had hoped that he would be heard, of course, but somehow he had never realized that he had been. “That’s...”

Luna gave a bit of a melancholic smile. “But the thing is, I understand. I don’t cut a very approachable figure most times, and flitting about from crisis to crisis, or what have you, I suppose I must seem very distant indeed. And I genuinely do believe that it’s important to have ponies like you, helping to keep me honest. A crown is a mark of authority, to be sure, but it is only the authority that is invested in us by our little ponies to lead them with care and what passes for wisdom.” The night princess gave a rueful chuckle. “I won’t say that I’ll agree with all of your points. For obvious reasons. But I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at least take your concerns to heart. Besides, if nopony ever disagreed with me, I’d never hear any better ideas than the ones I came up with.”

Hound and Wire blinked. This was more thought than they usually got from the ponies on the street. To have it from one of Equestria’s rulers – and in particular, the one under protest...

Hound hesitated. “I... suppose we misjudged you, Princess Luna. Can you find it in your heart to forgive us?”

Luna scowled at that. “Come now. Don’t go soft on me now.”

Wire considered this. “Curse you Nightmare Moon?”

“That’s the spirit.”

* * *

Luna sat back in her office, lazily doodling on a piece of scrap parchment with a telekinetically grasped quill. She had performed good governance, it was true, but the sting of failure that had accompanied her previous attempts at subversive vacation-taking wasn’t there. She had made a meaningful connection with her subjects, and she was starting to think that she had come to understand them a bit better as well.

Besides, the protesters had given her some ideas. Luna gave a wicked grin. Tomorrow was another day.

* * *

The anti-Luna protest had changed its tune. It focused now more on accountability and transparency in government, and while it still focused on Luna, it was calling for her to be more accessible and available. The protest had also grown in scope, with dozens of ponies pitching in, either with their own voices adding to the chants and cheers, or in more subtle ways, with baked goods and hot coffee serving as the grease on the wheels of political change.

Perhaps the single greatest contributing factor to the change in fortune for the small protest – a carefully calligraphed plaque that read ‘With the Support and Approval of Luna Implaccabilis’.

11: Consider also the ruthless nature of a fanfiction author who begins a chapter with ‘consider if you will’ in cold blood. They might be capable of anything. A maniac, I tell you! Best placate them with upvotes.(12)

12: This nested footnote brought to you in part by the metahumour awareness fund.

13: A term coined for famous knight-errant Donkey Hotey, who in days of yore slew no fewer than three giant changelings masquerading as windmills, hoping to exploit the famed pony love for mechanized agriculture.

Author's Note

The next chapter will complete both the week and the fic. I'm also moving at the end of this week, so there may be a slight lag in the coming of the last chapter, but not much - I just need to edit it, because things have varied slightly from where they were first planned to go when this story first sprang into my brain. Hopefully you have enjoyed, and will find the conclusion satisfying.

As an aside, this chapter has a deliberate nod to Ghost of Heraclitus' story 'Whom the Princesses Would Destroy''. Ghost is an excellent writer, and I recommend his fiction to anyone who wants a good chuckle and some solid wordsmithing. Link below.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/54117/whom-the-princesses-would-destroy

Chapter 7: Sunday

Sunday

It was the seventh day, and the Day Court was in session.

While Celestia was the ultimate arbiter of the Day Court, the solar diarch had long ago established a court structure that ensured that her role was largely symbolic. This wasn’t due to any apathy, but most of the cases presented did not, in fact, require the wisdom of centuries. Indeed, property disputes, arbitration in most civil matters, and the odd appeal to one of the tied ‘highest courts’ in the country were really better served by the judges and barristers that had trained for their whole lives in contemporary legalese, and were well-versed in modern case law.

But Celestia was still physically present because at the end of the day, the bit stopped with her. Her word, while still subject to appeal, was law in effect. And to give her credit where it was due, she viewed her obligations to the court as a privilege and an honour. Some claimed that she had perfect recollection of every case she had ever overseen, over the thousands of years since the practice had begun.

Others claimed that she had a team of historians prepared to brief her if some historical precedent that she needed to know about ever came up. But those were silly ponies with no sense of romance in their souls.

And so, Celestia sat, regally but uncomfortably in her chair. All of the other seats in the courtroom were padded, some quite decadently so, but the throne was bare, spartan, stone. This too was deliberate, intentional, symbolic. This was the seat of power, and no one should grow too comfortable sitting there. In place of hubris, all one grew on such a throne was piles.(14)

14: There were many layered myths about how only Celestia could sit comfortably on such a throne, because she was Righteous and Good and Just. The princess herself maintained that it was because with considerable practice, one eventually developed an ass of steel.

Indeed, a great many traditions of the court were symbolic, so much so that the meaning of many of them had been lost to time, as the ponies that had developed them had faded into obscurity – and, if one was being entirely honest, some of the symbols weren’t really all that apt. The casual observer would know that the Plinth of Destiny represented something, but only because there was a small brass plaque that named it the Plinth of Destiny, and that was too good a name to waste on something that didn’t represent some higher concept.

Chief Justice Iron Heart – who received no end of teasing for his name and title combination, but who was really quite kindly and understanding, an earth pony from a traditional family in the mining and smelting industries – stood solemn vigil over the Day Court today, as with most Sundays. He was, in Celestia’s opinion, the perfect pony for the job. Thoughtful, experienced, patient, and expressing a wisdom that, in her modest opinion, most ponies didn’t reach in their first century.

Right now, it was clear that patience was being strained. Badly.

Lord Clearing House had stood before the court for a full ten minutes now, and the pony would not. Stop. Talking. Bad enough that he was slandering a member of the Royal House – for all that Luna was being exceedingly patient, and even looked vaguely amused – but he was doing so poorly. Everything from suggestions of fostering Nightmare cults to reckless endangerment of the university in the pursuit of knowledge was being lain at Luna’s hooves.

“Lord House.”

The noblepony froze, clearly poised to rebuke the judge for the interruption, but then equally clearly thinking better of it. It was possible that the rumours of the House family fortune diminishing with rapidity due to gambling losses were true, especially if that was the kind of poker face that the current foal of a noblepony possessed. The Chief Justice took a moment to roll that thought over in his mind, before chastising himself for savouring it so.

“Your honour, I-”

“Will be silent.” Iron Heart was, broadly, respected within the Equestrian legal community, but it was a respect that was tinged with the slightest hint of fear. An encyclopedic knowledge of legal and historical precedent, a lifetime of experience, and the fact that he had taught law to most of the barristers operating on the level of the royal court at the University meant that anyone who knew what they were doing in the Equestrian justice system was aware that the Chief Justice had certain lines, beyond which it was inadvisable to push him.

Iron Heart had heard the expression about ‘those who couldn’t do, teaching’. He had set forth in a dedicated effort to prove his personal theory that this was mostly said by those who couldn’t do or teach, and principally he had taught respect for the court of law, and particularly a court adjudicated by himself.

“I have listened to your frankly pathetic attempts to slander your sovereign for the past...” Iron Heart checked a large pocketwatch. “Eleven minutes and forty.” He frowned, returning the watch to the pocket of his robes. “Princess Luna has generously ceded some time to you when you sought to object to her announcement that she had met your requirements for the passing of the Worker’s Rights bill. As unusual as this was, I decided to allow it. I will admit, when doing so, I had been hoping that you had anything of substance to declare.”

There was a pause.

Luna cleared her throat. “With permission... while I will admit that it’s never fun to hear ill of oneself, I felt it best to allow Lord House the opportunity to plead his case.”

The experienced courtiers, well familiar with the art of courtly speech, quite clearly heard Luna say ‘allow the pompous twit to make an ass of himself’, and yet the stenographer’s record recalled nothing of the sort. On such a knife’s edge, the world can turn.

Iron Heart raised an eyebrow, now dashed with salt and pepper as the inveterate judge approached his fiftieth summer. “I see. And now that he has done so, you intend to rebut his points? Such as they are, I mean.”

“I do not.”

This set the court to murmurs and rhubarbing, as crowds were wont to do. Technically, since all ponies present were either born into privilege or elected to high office, they were ‘discussing sotto voce’, which just goes to show that you can get away with gossiping like a fishmare if you have a title and are willing to call it something in another language.

Iron Heart’s brow raised further, threatening to join his maneline. “You do not wish to answer this direct insult to your house and honour?”

“I see no insult in what he has said.”

The murmurs raised in volume, becoming too loud to warrant the title of ‘quiet aside’, and just becoming speculative gossip. Even a title, wealth, and pretention will only carry a pony so far.

* * *

Cadance and Shining Armour, watching from the Visiting Royalty section which held only the two of them, exchanged glances. Cadance’s was worried – Shining’s, amused.

“How can you smirk at a time like this?” Cadance hissed at her husband.

“I always loved cartoons, growing up.” Shining smiled, clearly basking in the warming rays of nostalgia. “My favourite were the ones with animals chasing one another.”

Cadance blinked at the non-sequitur. “What.”

Shining put a calming hoof on his wife’s shoulder. “The best part was when the goofy predator looked down, and saw that he had just run off of a cliff.”

* * *

Iron Heart had returned the courtroom to order. That was his job. If he couldn’t maintain order in his own courtroom, then discord would reign.(15)

15: Well, probably not. The constitution had a specific provision for Discord never reigning again, and the villain was mostly reformed at this point. But ‘things would briefly be chaotic’ lacked a certain rhetorical flourish.

It had admittedly not taken much effort for him to do so. The Chief Justice of the Solar Court knew where the bodies were buried, and knew who had buried them. Rumours abounded that he knew what everypony in court on a given day had eaten for breakfast, and while this seemed unlikely, he did occasionally greet regular courtiers with a cordial ‘Porridge!’ or a pleasant ‘Apple slices with cinnamon in milk!’. It never hurt to keep abreast of the intelligence reports, after all.

The judge turned to Luna. “You understand under Equestrian Law that as a peer of the realm, his statements, if left uncontested, could damage your reputation?”

Luna smiled. “Quite on the contrary. He has simply taken some fifteen minutes of the court’s time to disprove his own point.”

* * *

Cadance looked at the blotter that Shining Armour had been doodling in. An unflattering caricature of Lord Clearing House had just stepped off of a desert cliff.

She hated it when he knew something that she didn’t.

* * *

Iron Heart looked at Luna, perplexed. Alicorns could go a little funny sometimes, he knew. It came with the long lifespans, massive magical reserves, and semi-divine stature. Still, she seemed competent enough... “Please, elaborate.”

Luna graciously accepted the floor. “Gentle mares and stallions, six days ago I stood before parliament and put forward a bill that would protect the rights of workers in our country. I was told that I was in violation of my own legislation upon technicality, and would have to cease to serve my community or nation if I wished for my bill to pass. That I would have to take ‘a day off’. I stand before you today to say that with the aid of Lord House, I have successfully done so.”

“Preposterous!” The lord leaped to his hooves, evidently not sensing a trap when anything less than neon signage was used to indicate it. “She has done nothing of the sort!”

Iron Heart scowled at Clearing House. “If you interrupt this court again, I will have you ejected. I will not instruct the bailiffs to open the window first.”

The audience considered this. They also considered the fact that the court room was not on the ground floor, and that Clearing House was not a pegasus. They considered the apparent disposition of the Chief Justice, and hushed up, but good. Even Clearing House himself seemed suitably cowed, an achievement that in another context might have earned Iron Heart a knighthood in his own right.

“Not at all preposterous.” Luna continued smoothly. “For you see, my secretary has documentary evidence that a bloc of lords from the House of Lords, approximately a tenth of the number that regularly cast votes in that house, have, approximately half the time, put forward opinions much akin to Lord House’s recent...” hateful screed “... declarations. As these ponies are all peers, their demands for investigation into my character have of course been taken seriously.”

Paper Weight helpfully levitated three large bankers boxes, containing the documents mentioned, on the table next to Luna’s seat. They were clearly stuffed with parchment and scrolls.

Luna smiled, and this time, the alligator smile was hers. “Of course, no EIS investigation has uncovered anything untoward about my character, else I would not be here before such an august body as yourselves. But I have a certain fondness for math, and if my calculations are correct – and of course, I have just been named the Princess of Pure Mathematics by the University council – then those votes, no doubt cast in good faith by honourable and just ponies, simply seeking to defend the realm and uphold the public good, work out in a very interesting way. You see, it would appear that approximately one twentieth of every month, I am a usurping tyrant, attempting to overthrow the good of Equestria, and... oh, what was that other thing?”

“Instill a tyrannical reign of Eternal Night.” Paper Weight supplied helpfully.

“Right. That. I don’t see how it would be helpful, but give the people what they want, that’s my motto.” There was laughter from the crowd now. There was a fickleness to the mob, but Luna had them eating out of her hoof. “So, if I am attempting to overthrow government, et cetera, et cetera, then I am clearly not fulfilling my duties as a Princess of the Realm during that period. I am, of course, extremely lazy in ruling the land with an iron hoof, to the point where nopony but these wise nobleponies have noticed, but what can you expect from a failed usurper?”

The lights of comprehension began to flicker with slow life in Clearing House’s eyes. Too, too late.

“I believe that constitutes a breach of my royal duties. But, just to be sure, I brought along an expert in the duties and laws pertaining to Alicorn Royalty. How am I doing, Shining Armour?”

Shining rose from his seat. “All seems to follow, your majesty.”

“And in failing to fulfill my duties, by noble statute, I am, in fact, only on the clock ninety-five percent of the time. Meaning that I take off approximately eight hours every week.”

There was thundrous applause, and Iron Hoof wondered precisely when his court room had been replaced with a stage showing an implausible legal drama.

* * *

Celestia reclined on a very, very soft pillow, and sipped her afternoon tea. As was her usual wont, Luna had gone for an espresso.

“You realize that your solution only gives fodder to your critics, don’t you, Lulu?”

Luna shrugged. “At the end of the day, I suppose so. But I was reminded that ponies of integrity will call me to account if I should lose the way, yesterday. And that what I was fighting for was worth more than just my pride. Clearing House and his cronies will be back, I’m sure. There’s always some other lie that they can spread, or challenge that they can make that will be based on flimsy pretense to mask their own ambitions.”

Celestia considered this a little bit. “So they lose here, but they try again upon another field of battle.”

“Ideally one that has lower stakes, yes.” Luna frowned. “I admit, it’s different from being a warrior queen. You gain some ground by ceding it. It’s... strange.”

Celestia smiled at her little sister. “It’s what helps us get from today to tomorrow.”

Luna smiled back. “And tomorrow... tomorrow is another day.”

Monday

Author's Note

And that, as the fellow said, is that.

Thank you to all of my readers for the support that I've received while writing this fic. It's meant a lot to me, and I'm glad you've enjoyed it.

Next up: Night Watch concludes! ... Soon.