Princess Twilight had a problem.
Normally, Twilight loved problems. They were challenges that let her stretch her mind and maybe trap a villain in a four hour long lecture about friendship. They gave her excuses to send Celestia letters and reports on what she was doing every hour on the hour. More often than not, they just let her be a magical badass and made ponies love her.
Unfortunately for her, nopony would love her for dealing with this problem. Hypothetically. Unless there weren’t any hard feelings in the afterlife. Which she really hoped was the case, because she hated ghost stories, and being the main character in a ghost story was at least seven times worse. And this was the perfect story to have ghosts in it.
Princess Twilight had accidentally killed the entire population of Ponyville.
Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. Given enough time, books, and caffeine, Twilight could find the answer to any problem, even one with dubious moral quandaries and necessitating dark magic. You know, the kind that would require her to spend fifteen years studying for a master necromancer’s license and demands bold font. While Twilight normally would be happy to spend fifteen years studying new spells and adding another diploma to her rolodex, a necromancy degree required at least three years’ worth of ectobiology classes, and again, Twilight hated ghosts. But Twilight was not a paranormal racist, or at least so she claimed; she hated ghouls, zombies, and skeletons just as much as ghosts. And everypony else, for that matter.
But today was the Summer Sun Celebration, and Princess Celestia would be here soon. Very soon. The decorations had all been hung up, the food had been prepared, and Twilight had checked and double checked every checkbox on her checklist, including checking the checkbox to check every checkbox on her checklist before checking that checkbox. Everypony had shown up to do their part, but now they’d gone and left their bodies scattered all over the place. There wasn’t a checkbox on her checklist for that. She’d had to dig through her study and unearth checklist U-276-01.4c to find the one that had ‘accidentally kill all of Ponyville’ as its second to last item. Which was immediately followed by ‘somehow make the problem go away before Princess Celestia kills me too.’
Unfortunately for her, she still had an entire town’s worth of corpses to deal with. Literally. They were lying in the streets, sitting on benches, slumping at tables, even hunched over in outhouses. Thankfully the pegasi had stopped falling out of the sky a few minutes ago. That was one weather phenomenon she hoped she’d never have to deal with again. For some reason, rain boots and an umbrella just didn’t cut it. At the very least, the few splotches on the ground would make an interesting case study in fluid dynamics and would contribute invaluable knowledge toward the medical treatment of pegasus impact wounds sustained at near-terminal velocity speeds.
Silver linings, right?
Still, as Twilight stood among the carnage in Ponyville, the remains of Pinkie Pie’s “All Night Summer Sun Celebration’s Eve Celebration of the Summer Sun” party scattered all around town square, she realized that she needed a plan. She had no doubt that she could fix this—eventually. But what really mattered was making sure Celestia didn’t find out when she came to visit. A quick glance at a nearby clock showed half-past four. Celestia would be here in an hour to raise the sun. Somehow, Twilight had to deal with all these bodies in under an hour.
“Oh, Spike, what am I going to do?” she wondered aloud, before remembering that Spike was dead, too, his lifeless corpse lying face down in a pool of his own punch. That was problematic in its own right. The corpses she could deal with, but how was she going to get the punch stains out of the tablecloth in time?
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and she gasped, equal parts hopeful that maybe somepony had survived The Incident and terrified that this was the start of the zompony apocalypse and she was first on the menu. But it was just Rainbow Dash slouching over in a chair, her stiff hoof still wrapped around a mug of cider, a smug half-smile frozen on her face right before she got to deliver the punchline to a joke. Judging by Pinkie Pie’s body leaning halfway over the table toward her, it was one hell of a joke; one that Rainbow had taken to the grave with her.
Twilight stood there for a moment, remarking at how lifelike her friends still looked in the final moments before she’d accidentally snuffed out their lives like a candle in a tornado, and an idea hit her. This would work. This would definitely work. Not because it was a good idea, but because it was the only one Twilight could hope to pull off in an hour, and sheer desperation meant that it had to work.
She just needed a lot of props.
An hour later, the royal chariot descended from Canterlot. Both Celestia and Luna looked magnificent in their dresses, hoof-made (or rather, horn-made) by Rarity herself for the occasion. Their chariot touched down in front of a statuesque marching band playing tinny music that sounded like a bookworm with no understanding how brass instruments worked was trying to recreate a fanfare. The crowd waved and cheered in robotic movements, skeletal smiles fixed on their faces. Somewhere, a tumbleweed rolled across the street before it was frantically knocked away with a blast of purple magic.
Twilight galloped out of the crowd of stiff ponies, waving her limbs and putting on the biggest, sincerest, desperate-est smile she could possibly manage. “Princess Celestia! Princess Luna!” she exclaimed, sliding to a stop in front of the chariot. “So good to see you! How are you?”
It turns out the answer to Calihornia’s drought crisis could be collected from Twilight’s profusely sweating forehead.
“We are doing well, Twilight, thank you,” Princess Luna said, helping Celestia out of the chariot with a wing and a shoulder to lean on. “I trust that the pink one’s party was as wild and enthralling as ever?”
“Yup! Yup yup yup!” Twilight’s horn nearly flew off her head as she vigorously nodded. “You know Pinkie! It was wild!” She nervously laughed like she’d just dropped an ABAC rhyme in the middle of an ABAB rhyme scheme within earshot of Zecora (who was conspicuously quiet next to a nearby box of donuts) and made a show of stretching her legs. “We, uh, did a lot of dancing, so everypony’s a little… stiff! Aloe and Lotus are going to make a killing off of all the massages they’re going to do later!”
“I can only imagine,” Luna said, her eyes surveying the crowd gathered around them. She shuddered a bit and began to trudge forward with Celestia and beckoning for Twilight to lead the way. There were so many bright smiles and wide, unblinking eyes. She pondered for a moment whether or not she had accidentally slipped into the dreamscape on the ride from Canterlot. Was it just her, or were the citizens of Ponyville looking decidedly more ghoulish than usual?
“Yup! We’re all looking forward to getting the ceremony out of the way so we can all go eat and go back to bed!” Twilight suddenly stopped and darted off to the side, putting her hooves on the shoulders of Ponyville’s listing teacher and helping the mare stand up straight again. “Some of us are going to have awful hangovers, isn’t that right, Miss Cherilee?”
“You betcha, Twilight!” Cherilee said in a voice that assuredly wasn’t Twilight’s.
Luna chuckled into her hoof. “Much like my sister,” she said, placing her hoof on Celestia’s chest. “She had too much to drink during the royal feast in Canterlot. It is a miracle that I was able to get her out here this morning.”
By her side, Celestia moaned and hung her head slightly, a set of cheap sunglasses perched on her muzzle sliding halfway off her face. Luna helped them back over her eyes with a careful nudge of her hoof.
Twilight darted away from Cherilee and smiled at the royal sisters. “Well, I’m sure we can get this over with quickly, then!” she exclaimed. “Right this way! The stage is right over here!”
The stage was an engineering masterpiece—quite possibly the first that Ponyville had ever created. The next in an infinite series of barns that the Apple Family could raise over the course of two minutes and twelve seconds certainly didn’t count. Twilight had designed the entire thing herself and then outsourced the construction to the less-important ponies of the town, but it was simple enough that it would survive their best attempts to sabotage it over the course of setting it up. It was sturdy enough that it could probably withstand Tirek and Chrysalis joining forces to defeat it. It would’ve been the Element of Reliability had those still been things ponies cared about. But really, Twilight considered anything that could survive more than two episodes in Ponyville a marvel of engineering.
It was really only offset by the banner that read “Welcome Princesses Celestia and L” above it before the painters had run out of cloth to finish Luna’s name. Twilight had fixed that by tacking on the last three letters of the moon princess’ name underneath it with parchment and a stapler. It was good enough; Luna had been on the moon so long she probably didn’t know how to read modern Equiish, so why spend the time changing the banner if it wasn’t going to be appreciated?
“This is very nice,” Luna said, her eyes drifting over the stock-still and attentive bodies standing in front of the stage. When nopony turned to acknowledge her or Celestia, she frowned and looked to Twilight. “Why are they all staring forward?”
“They… don’t want to miss a thing!” Twilight exclaimed, waving a hoof. That hoof just so happened to nervously have several locks of her mane wrapped around it, and she ended up tearing a significant chunk of indigo out of her scalp. Apart from a wince and a single tear escaping down her cheek, she didn’t seem to notice, instead grabbing Luna by the leg and dragging her toward the stage. “How’s about we get this show on the road, okay? We’re already late as it is!”
Luna in turn dragged Celestia toward the stage, and the larger, whiter alicorn accidentally struck Zecora and knocked her out of her seat, spilling donuts everywhere. This would’ve ultimately resulted in a racially charged headline about how Princess Celestia is a racist bigot who hates zebras, given her lack of an apology afterwards, but the tabloid journalists were too busy staring into their notepads to notice anything unusual going on. Or maybe they were too distracted by the flies buzzing around their heads.
Rainbow Dash fell off of a nearby rooftop along with a few wooden rods.
“Is she alright?” Luna asked, eyeing the daredevil mare lying face down in the dirt road.
“She’s fine, she’s fine!” Twilight exclaimed. “She’s just dead tired, that’s all! She’d normally be asleep for another eight hours!”
“She doesn’t seem to be waking up,” Luna, largely regarded as one of the most observant mares to have ever lived, thoroughly observed.
“S-She’s been in worse accidents in her sleep!” Twilight stammered. “I’m sure she’ll be fine!” She hurriedly turned Luna’s attention back toward the stage and escorted her up the last few steps. “Alright, let’s just get this show on the road!”
Luna flustered a little as Twilight roughly shoved her and Celestia into center stage. Celestia, for her part, merely played it cool, absolutely unfazed by Twilight’s marehandling, which wasn’t really that good. Twilight would claim that she was much better at stallion-handling. Rainbow Dash, had she not been face down at the moment, would’ve claimed that Twilight only knew how to handle herself. Had she not been lying on her face when she said that, Twilight would have soon rectified that issue.
Twilight spun in place and approached the edge of the stage, where she was greeted by at least a hundred lifeless stares. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she cleared it and began to speak. “Fillies and gentlecolts, it is my great pleasure to welcome Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to our town for the raising of the sun and the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration. I know you’re all dying to see Celestia raise the sun, but please hold your applause until later. Okay? Okay. Good.” She turned to Luna and beamed at her. “They’re ready!”
Though Luna may have been a little bit confused by the blank looks and dead faces of the crowd, she figured it must have been just a Ponyville thing and decided to get on with it. Spreading her wings, she lifted herself into the air, holding Celestia close against her side, and their horns lit with a pale blue glow. Down came the moon, and with it, the final night of spring. After several moments to rest and enjoy the pre-dawn glow of the land, the sun rose shortly thereafter, high and bright into the sky. A single mare cheered in as many different voices as she could muster, and Luna and Celestia landed back on the stage.
“The ceremonial raising of the Summer Sun has been completed,” Luna declared, sweat trickling down her face. Celestia’s sunglasses nearly fell off hers, but Luna shoved them back on at the last moment. “And though we would both really like to stay and feast with all of you, we are both exhausted and would not like to be a burden on your town. So, we will bid you a farewell, and hope that the rest of your day is just as splendid as the first sunrise of summer.”
The two hobbled off the stage, Celestia’s hooves dragging with every step, and there they met Twilight, who hurriedly jumped out of her seat to meet them before they could get too close to the crowd. “That was fantastic, thank you so much for coming!” Twilight said as quickly as she could manage. “Come on, let’s get you two back to your chariot!”
“That would be for the best,” Luna agreed. “Both my sister and I are tired, and we will need the comfort and luxury of our beds in Canterlot to recoup our strength. I hope our early exit will not insult the good citizens of Ponyville.”
“No, no, not at all!” Twilight assured her. “They’re completely understanding! Maybe we’ll have you again when they’re a little livelier, okay?”
“That sounds good to us,” Luna said, and Celestia nodded with a little bit of shaking from Luna. They found their chariot right where they left it, and Luna helped Celestia into it, who immediately slumped against the side. “It was an excellent festival, Twilight Sparkle. I particularly loved the banner. The extra effort that went into it was particularly nice. I didn’t know ponies still spelled my name from top to bottom instead of left to right. It was enjoyable to see.”
“Well, you know, anything for you, Princess!” Twilight more or less shoved the Royal Arse of the Moon into the chariot and closed the non-existent door behind her. “Take care back in Canterlot! Hope to see you soon!”
“And you as well.” Luna then turned to the honor guard responsible for pulling the chariot and tapped her hoof against the frame. “Let us return, stallions.”
With that, the chariot once more departed Ponyville, swiftly taking the princesses with it. Twilight smiled and waved as long as the chariot was still in sight, which was an unfortunate amount of time, as it was more or less a straight shot to Canterlot from Ponyville by wing. By the time the chariot faded into the distant background of the capital, Twilight had to use her telekinesis to physically pull the smile off of her face. Sighing, she turned around and looked behind her, where the stench of the dead was really starting to become a nuisance. Her shoulders sagged and she marched back to her castle where she had an army of spellbooks at her disposal to solve the problem. “I knew reading that ‘The Uninomicon and You: A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality’ book was a bad idea. I can’t believe it was in the foals’ section, though. Wonder how it got there…” But like most questions involving anything related to Ponyville’s youth, Twilight simply decided to blame it on Applebloom and her friends and call it a day.
“At least I can finally enjoy some peace and quiet,” she muttered to herself. Hey, it was all about those silver linings.
Luna finally let out a sigh of relief as Ponyville disappeared behind her. She didn’t know how much longer she could’ve kept that nonsense up. At least Twilight was understanding and let her go early. If she’d have stuck around any longer, the young alicorn almost certainly would’ve started asking Celestia questions. And though Luna was many things, first and foremost among them beautiful, mysterious, intelligent, gifted, cunning, resourceful, powerful, lovely, and many other adjectives as befitting her regal stature, she was hardly a ventriloquist.
She removed Celestia’s sunglasses and got a good look at her sister’s bulging eyes. She was so glad she’d found these before anypony had noticed. Otherwise there might have been… problems.
"I told you not to eat the cake so quickly, sister,” Luna said, frowning. “Now I’m going to have to fix this before anypony notices.” She tapped her chin for a moment. “Maybe I can ask Twilight for help later. She should be able to help us after she finishes resurrecting all of Ponyville.”
Celestia’s lifeless corpse just stared ahead, the wad of cake she’d choked on still lodged in her throat.
In fairness, the Heimlich maneuver was invented after Luna was banished to the moon.
Author's Note
