Celestia Learns the Importance of Proper Dental Hygene
Maybe all those cakes weren't a good idea
Commissioned by Alexwarlorn
Princess Luna gave a loud yawn, sitting at the royal breakfast table. Or at least it was for her sister, it was currently her dinner table. Thus was the difficulty of one sibling being diurnal and the other nocturnal. This often caused trouble for the kitchen staff, as they normally ended up creating one meal for one sister and one meal for the others and due to their nature, they were typically large ones. For example, Celestia was currently eating a rather tall stack of pancakes with lots of syrup and every sweet thing imaginable while the younger sibling was eating a triple hayburger and extra large side of fries. She credited Twilight for her liking of this particular food. And Pinkie Pie for describing it so delectably.
“Ow!”
Luna looked up from her meal to see her sister rubbing her jaw. “My sister, what's wrong?”
The Princess of the Day lowered her hoof from her jaw. “Oh, nothing, Lulu, just a sudden pain in my jaw...” she said before taking another bite of pancake...and reacting the same exact way. “There it was again...”
“Sister, do you have a toothache?” asked the Princess of the Night, seeming slightly amused by the idea.
“A toothache?” Celestia asked, as though her younger sibling had suggested Equus orbited her sun and not the other way around.
“Yes, to my knowledge they are things that they are something ponies get when the enamel wears down. In fact, recently I had to provide aid to a young filly who was having nightmares of being chased by a monstrous dentist out of fear of her upcoming visit to deal with one,” Luna replied.
“Sister, I know what a toothache is...” the solar princess replied with a chuckle. “But I haven't had one in centuries! And that was before toothpaste was invented! I've brushed three times a day since then!”
“And I washed my coat daily,” Luna replied, then got a flat look. “Neglecting cleaning my mane as well resulted in a tiny sapient race evolving in it and declaring war on each other in my tail, if you recall. Being what we are doesn't mean we are immune to such things happening to us. Merely resistant.”
“Oh come now, Luna, I'm sure it's just a piece of food stuck in my gums or something,” Celestia replied with her own jovial nature.
Luna rolled her eyes. “Sister, with all due respect, I believe you are being foalish.”
The next morning, Luna looked across the table at her sister, who was once more trying to eat pancakes, each bite earning an 'Ow!' from the Princess of the Sun and a cringe from the Princess of the Moon and the Royal Guard. “Sister, you must see a dentist.”
“Sister, are you...” Celestia started, then yawned. The ruler had not looked this tired since before her younger sister's return from the moon when she'd been stuck with both their duties. “Are you still going on about that toothache?”
“Yes, because you have one,” the younger Princess replied bluntly. She motioned for their guard to depart and leave the two to talk in private. “Look at yourself, sister! You barely slept last night!”
“Whatever gives you that idea, Lulu?” the Princess of the Day asked, giving another yawn.
Luna simply gave a flat look. “Because you didn't dream last night, Tia. I would know, I was there...I'm still learning about 'snarking,' how was that?”
Celestia gave a sigh, in her tiredness having momentarily forgotten her sister's rule over the realm of dreams. “...You're right, my sister. My tooth was hurting-ow!...and it kept me awake,” she muttered, holding her painful jaw.
Luna got to her hooves and trotted over, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “Sister, why is it so difficult for you to accept this? This is not like you.”
The Princess of the Day looked over. “It's humiliating. This is something that -ow!- happens to foals. Several thousand years old Princess of Equestria and somehow I get a toothache! Imagine what the tabloids would say!”
“Sister, Canterlot's favorite tabloid reporter is a guise you created so that you could covertly expose corruption in the nobility and deflate their egos.”
“I know, but I'm not the ONLY tabloid journalist in Canterlot...” Celestia replied. “And it's not me I'm worried about. I couldn't care less about how they see me. I'm more worried about Twilight. You know how she takes ponies thinking ill of me.”
Luna nodded. “Yes, Princess Twilight is very loyal to you, my sister...but if you do not address this problem, it will only grow worse with time, as all problems do. I am speaking from experience on that matter. Though somehow I doubt you not treating a toothach will somehow threaten Equestria's very existence.”
“Knowing our luck, it will -ow!- find a way...very well, Luna, I suppose I should have it treated.”
Minuette hummed happily to herself as she cleaned the dentist office at which she worked. While her Cutie Mark was based on time, dental hygiene had always been a passion of hers, and the reason some of her friends remarked it was probably why her mane 'looked like toothpaste.' Of course her last name being a brand of toothpaste probably didn't help with that assumption. The annoying part was when foals assumed it tasted like toothpaste.
The mare turned as the bell over the door gave a resounding ding, singling a customer's entrance. “Hello! Welcome to-” she said in her normally excited manner...then losing her composure completely at who was standing at the door.
Princess Luna cleared her throat. “Ah, I take it you are Miss Minuette Colgate?” she asked with authority. The mare merely nodded, still silent from shock. “Good. We need your assistance. Preferably in private tomorrow morning...you can stop staring now, my little pony...My little pony?”
Luna wondered if now was a good time to mention this was Minuette's dream. She definitely was one of Twilight's classmates.
“You...you want me to what?!” asked Minuette, now standing in the treatment room the next morning. With two Alicorn Princesses. Who were noticeably cramped in the room typically intended for a dentist, the patient, and some times an assistant.
“Yes, Miss Colgate,” Celestia replied, giving a reassuring smile, keeping a hoof cradling her aching jaw. “I-ow! Ugh...I need a dentist to look at my toothache.”
“I heard that, but...me?! Not that I'm not flattered and excited and can't wait to tell my coworkers about it, but why me?!” the mare asked, in a mix of cheerful excitement and confusion.
“Please keep the details private if you tell them, Minuette. As for why you, Luna arranged that,” the Princess of the Day explained, looking to her sister. “Why was that, Luna?”
Luna looked at the mare. “Because, from what knowledge I could acquire, ponies are generally more relaxed around ponies they know, and dentists often speak to their patients to relax them during the procedure. Miss Colgate was a student at the School for Gifted Unicorns, so by that logic, she is the perfect dentist for you, my sister.”
Celestia chuckled. “That's not exactly how it -ow!- works, Luna...but it is a good idea. Minuette was always a good student and I know I can trust her.”
Minuette blinked. “You remember me, Princess?”
The Dayarch put a hoof on her shoulder. “Of course I do. I remember every student at my school.”
“...T-Thank you, Princess...Um, if you want to get started get in the chair and I can start looking...just if-”
“No, if you mess up in any way I will not -ow!- banish you, imprison you, or imprison you in the place I banished you to...” Celestia reassured, trotting over to the chair.
“...You get that a lot, don't you?”
“More than I would like.”
Minuette nodded. “Sorry about that...” she replied, rubbing her head...then blinking at the sight before her.
Celestia, one of Equestria's rulers and immortal Alicorn, was struggling to fit comfortably into the dentist's chair designed for normal ponies, not somepony who towered over them in size and stature. “...This is why I have to bring my own chairs to events...” she muttered, her head and neck extended far above the head rest and her hindquarters seated where most ponies hind hooves typically rested.
“I'll get the one we have for minotaurs...”
“My, this has changed so much since the last time I saw a dentist,” Celestia said, now more comfortably seated in a larger chair...that was also considerably wider that she was, given it was made for the huge muscles of a minotaur rather than the slender body of an Alicorn Princess. She looked up at the array of magic, crystal lights above her and the sterile, white office.
Luna was no longer in the room, both for politeness and due to the room being way too crowded for the dentist to work properly.
“How so?” asked Minuette, producing her shiny, chromed dentist tools and began examining the Princess of the Day's teeth. Namely using a mirror and dental explorer (or as most ponies knew it, the 'hook thingie dentists used') to check her teeth. The blue dentist was wearing a white mask over her muzzle and a mane cap on her head to keep things sanitary.
“There are dentists,” Celestia replied in a joking tone to try and take her mind off the throbbing pain in her tooth. “Back then we just had barbers.”
Minuette blinked. “Really?”
“Yes, they were the ones who first started practicing it,” the mare replied, trying to keep her mouth open for Minuette could examine her teeth.
“No, I meant that's the last time you saw a dentist...” said the dentist, beginning her examination in depth.
“Toothpaste wasn't invented yet, but I've been taking care of my teeth since then, so I have no idea how this -ow!- could have happened...” the Princess of the Day noted with a hint of frustration.
Minuette tapped her chin as she poked around Celestia's teeth with her telekinesis and tools. “...What about flossing?”
There was no reply for several moments. “...Flossing?”
“Yes. How often do you floss?” the dentist asking, the sound of scraping resounding as she tested something.
“...Well...” Celestia muttered, blushing a bit. “Never...”
“What?!” asked Minuette, staring at her wide eyed.
The mare looked up at her, unknowingly driving Minuette's tool into the inside of her cheek. “In my defense, it wasn't invented until about two hundred years ago...”
“...Princess, you just stabbed yourself with my dental explorer...” Minuette replied, looking on in horror.
“Really? I didn't notice.”
The dentist cautiously removed it...and found that it hadn't gone into Celestia's skin at all despite its sharp point. “...Never mind...” she muttered, going back to the examination and giving a gasp of shock. “Princess, you've got tartar build up I've only ever seen on dragons! This is why you have to floss! Or else stuff like this will happen!”
“...Minuette, you just talked back to me...”
The dentist eyes widened in horror, and she instantly genuflected. “Sorry! I won't do it again!”
Minuette blinked as Celestia reached down with a hoof and lifted her head to look into her kind, warm eyes.
“Don't be sorry,” the Princess of the Day replied, giving a smile. “I made a genuine error from the sound of it, you're just pointing it out. I respect that. Ow!...Ugh...I want friends and subjects, not sycophants.”
The dentist was completely silent for a few moments. “T-Thank you, Princess...”
“You're welcome. Now what is this about flossing?” Celestia asked, returning to blushing at the thought she'd overlooked one of the most basic aspects of dental care from the sound of it. “How could just moving some string between my teeth possibly do more than brushing?”
“It doesn't exactly,” Minuette replied, regaining her composure and returning to checking over her Princess's teeth and once more finding it shocking how much tartar existed between the Dayarch's teeth. It was an advanced stage to the point, as she'd said, she'd only seen it in dragons before. Thankfully, the Princess's breath smelled far better than a dragon's even with the tartar buildup, though her body temperature was a higher than average. “It reaches the places were brushing can't. Like between your teeth. Not flossing means-”
“Ow!” Celestia yelled as an intense pain shot through her jaw at Minuette's last poke.
“Between your teeth can still get nasty cavities, like that one,” the dentist explained, seeming to get her energetic nature back talking about this particular subject. “You've got a terrible one. I'm going to need to do some drilling.”
“Oh, is that all?” Celestia asked, laying back down on the chair.
“...That's actually a better reception than I expected. Normally ponies take learning they need work like this badly. Like 'freak out' badly.”
“I believe I've had worse than some drilling...” the dayarch replied with a thoughtful look. “Have you ever had somepony cut you with a sword?”
Minuette winced. “No...”
“Good, then I've done my job keeping the country a good, safe place to live. Though it does perplex me how a little hole in my tooth can cause me this much -ow!- pain...what now?”
“Well, we're going to need anesthetic,” said the gifted unicorn, going over to check her tools. “Now to figure out how much to use...how much does it take to get you drunk? That should give me an idea of how much it'll take to numb you long enough to do this. Last thing we'd want is for me to get it wrong and you to suddenly be in a lot of pain. Trust me, seen that happen thanks to rookies, not fun. Though sometimes it can be funny...But never for the patient.”
Celestia put a hoof to her chin in thought. “...The entire salt store...”
Minuette stared back with wide eyes. “T-The entire...”
“Yes. On a solar eclipse.”
“...I'm going to need the dragon level pain killers...” the blue dentist muttered, trotting over to a cabinet with a big, dragon-themed lock on it she undid and producing a few things. Including a welder's mask and pillars she used to pour the strong anesthetic into a glass and filled the needle with it. This particular type was meant for the occasional dragon visiting Canterlot on delegation duty from Dragon Lord Torch (now Dragon Lord Ember) who decided to have their teeth looked at. “Open wide, your majesty...”
Celestia obeyed and then felt a slight tickle in her gum near the toothache. “Was that all?”
Minuette pulled her syringe back, held in her telekinesis...to find the needle had bent. A drop of the anesthetic dripped out and ate a hole in the floor. “...I'm going to need a dragon needle.”
After finally managing to get the anesthetic in Celestia's gum (much to the Princess's relief), Minuette moved on to the rest of the procedure, which went well until drilling time came.
Namely, this lead to the drill pushing ineffectively against the Dayarch's tooth, sparks that Celestia didn't seem to notice flying until the drill finally shattered without leaving so much as a scratch.
“Oh dear! Sorry about that, my little pony! I'll pay to replace it!” Celestia quickly offered, clearly not wanting to get one of her subjects in trouble with their superiors for her sake.
“It's fine!” Minuette said quickly, her horn glowing. Celestia blinked as Minuette seemed to reverse like running a film wheel backwards, the drill reassembling itself back to how it had been 15 seconds ago. “See? Good as new!”
Celestia gave a proud smile. “Minuette, you can go back 15 seconds? I think that's a new record! Your time magic is as impressive as it was when you were at my school!”
Minuette gave a chuckle. “Thanks! I practice it a lot! You would be seriously surprised how often time magic comes in handy during this kind of stuff! That and I never forget how long I need to wait before the anesthetic or laughing gas kicks in!” she replied. She then looked to the drill. “Or reversing my personal position in time to before I broke the equipment on a nigh invulnerable patient...”
“I should have warned you. This reminds me of the time I allowed myself to be kidnapped...”
“What?!”
Celestia gave a chuckle, looking up at the mare. “Oh they couldn't hurt me even if they weren't the most incompetent criminals I've ever met. Though one of them is a great massage therapist...But as I said, they couldn't hurt me, I'm rather durable. Them trying to knock me out felt more like getting hit with a pillow.”
“I can tell...which raises a question...How much sugar did you eat to do this?! Your teeth are so durable I'm seriously wondering how the bacteria didn't die of old age before they got through your enamel!” Minuette exclaimed, looking at her teeth in disbelief.
Celestia blushed a little at that thought. “...How much sugar is in forty cakes?”
Minuette blinked. “A year?”
“...A week...”
The gifted unicorn's eye twitched. “You...you eat forty cakes a week?!”
“In my defense, my magic does burn through the amount of calories most ponies eat in a day in a few hours,” Celestia pointed out. She was tempted to tell her about the 'Century of the Chubby Celly,' but this was embarrassing enough as it was. “But yes, I eat forty cakes...is not flossing after that bad?”
“Yes! It's as many as four tens! And that's terrible!” Minuette's brain finally caught up with her mouth as she realized what she'd just told her Princess. “Sorry, your majesty! I'm just really into dentistry and I can kinda get carried away!”
The Dayarch chuckled. “It's fine, I understand...I don't have to give up eating cake, do I?” she asked, as if that were as horrible a prospect as Tirek, Sombra, and Chrysalis showing up and attacking Equestria all at once.
“No, you don't, just floss between meals...” Minuette replied, shaking off her momentary spot of terror. “I'm going to need the big guns for this...” She then went back over to the dragon cabinet and putting on a pair of welding goggles. Celestia's eyes widened as she produced a large, industrial strength drill with a diamond tip bigger than herself from inside, struggling to hold it in her telekinesis, after undoing multiple locks keeping it in there. “Now open wide, Princess.”
The Princess of the Day gulped. “...Okay, now I am a bit nervous...”
Luna sat out in the waiting room, reading a magazine with several guards from both their branches. The Night Princess yawned, not used to being up this 'late' from her perspective, and mainly using the piece of literature to keep herself awake. “...I did not know there were so many varieties of toothbrush...” she said, raising an eyebrow. “There are even ones for Sea Ponies...How does one brush their teeth underwater? At least fireproof toothbrushes for dragons make sense.”
The Princess and the guards jumped a few feet into the air as what sounded like construction work began to roar out from inside the treatment room. “...Is that a normal sound to come out of a dentist's room?”
“Alright, your majesty,” said Minuette, opening the door to let Luna in with a bit of pride. “I've fixed the cavity and cleaned out all the tarter...” the dentist said, shuddering. “So much tarter...” she said, looking at the sink the patient spat into. Which was presently clogged by a literal pile of destroyed tartar.
Luna blinked. “...My word, that's more dirt than came off me when I first took a bath after my thousand year banishment!”
“Yeah, well that's is what happens when you eat forty cakes a week and don't floss,” the dentist pointed out, going over and locking back up the industrial strength dentist drill. The tip of it had cracked. “Seriously, that was the worst case of tartar build up I've ever seen. And I've treated dragons!”
“Well, my sister, I hope you have learned your lesson...” the Princess of the Moon said, then blinked as her sister turned to her with some strange thing covering her teeth, a small magically powered device stuck inside making a suctioning sound. “...What is that?”
“Just one last little thing to finish the cleaning process...” Minuette replied. “She's almost done...”
“I see...” muttered Princess Luna replied, then noticed a nearby jar with a lump of tartar that looked like a small city. “And what is that?”
“Oh, that's just a tiny civilization of magically mutated bacteria I found growing on Celestia's left molar,” the dentist replied as if that were the least strangest thing about this day. “I'm sending them to the School for Gifted Unicorns for study.”
The lunar princess looked closely at the tiny civilization, hearing hundreds of tiny voices speaking an unknown language. “...At least no war was declared in my sister's mouth...”
Minuette gave a blink. “...What?”
“Nothing...just a personal, embarrassing past event...”
The dentist removed her dental devices from Celestia's mouth and gave her a cup of water to wash her mouth out with and spit. “There you go, Princess. Don't eat for a few hours and don't forget to floss. You may be sore for awhile though.”
The Princess smiled. “Thank you for your help, my little pony. And believe me...I will...” she muttered, looking at the sink full of tartar. “This is not an experience I desire to ever repeat.”
A few days later, the Princesses again ate their breakfast/dinners, though this time it was evening and their roles reversed.
Luna finished her pancakes...and blinked as Celestia devoured several cakes for her dessert. “...Sister...” the lunar princess muttered sternly.
“Oh don't worry, Luna,” said Celestia with a small smile as she finished and produced her toothbrush and a pack of dental floss. “I learned my lesson.”
The End
