The castle is huge. Like, really damn huge. I thought the building I worked in was huge, but Sweet Tap-dancing Christ, was this castle huge. I know castles are supposed to be huge, but walking up each flight of stairs makes me wish it was a small cottage.

26,788 Steps. It takes 26,788 stair steps to reach Celestia’s room in her tower. I've personally told her that she's stupid, her castle’s stupid, and each stair is stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I love exercising and just walking around in general, but not having some background music to listen to, or really anything to look at, it starts to grate on my nerves.

Luckily, I still had the same pack of smokes since I arrived here. It was a shock to me too, after that spell Celestia cast on my belt, everything in it seemed to never run out. So now I’ve got an endless supply of razors, nails, and cancer sticks.

At first I thought I was just counting wrong. I would pull the pack out of my belt and take a cigarette out, then put it back into my belt. The problem was that I definitely smoked more than twenty five, but they just kept coming. One night when I was resting in the room Celestia gave me, coincidentally next to hers, I decided to find out the extent of my new magic pack. I opened it up and dumped it out onto my bed. When I closed it and opened it back up, it was full again.

I spent an hour doing this, covering my bed in cigarettes. And then Celestia walked in. ‘Clean, could you plea-’ and she stopped. I just looked at her like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

‘Want a smoke?’

I laugh at the memory, lighting one of the cigarettes and putting it my mouth. I was actually pretty stressed; it had been too long since I asked for time off. I didn’t have much of a need to. If anyone needed me, or if my kids came to see me, they knew where I was, but just the thought of the memory put me in a better mood.

If there's one thing I learned in this place, it's that there's magic. Big shock there, I know. Fortunately, most of the magic doesn’t affect me. I’m like a rechargeable battery: I can suck up magic but I can’t actively use it. It's like a prompt actually, like I’m playing a videogame or something along those lines. Whenever something casts magic on me, I feel like I’m deep underwater. There's pressure, but I also feel like my body is floating and my feet are stuck. If I wanna ‘accept’ the magic, I just think it. The same goes for ‘denying’ the magic.

But I’m getting off-subject, there's a couple magics that I can’t control. One of those magics, is the magic of music. I can always feel it coming on, there's a itch on the back of my head. Then it upgrades to chills down my neck. If I try to keep it in, it gets worse. My knees get weak and my legs feel like jelly. Then my arms get the same treatment. Lastly, is the shakes. It's like the music is trying to force itself out of me. I can feel it in my bones and it's horrible.

I can already feel my legs getting wobbly. I light up another smoke and try to fight it. I refused to be subjected to such torture.

“Brook is going to offer you a ride, it’s imperative you accept.”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Morning Dew. If you fucking start siii-hing!” The last word gets shaky as I feel the magic take over more. I glare down at the dark green mare with a darker purple mane. Her fluffy bat ears are swiveling around and she’s grinning a broad, fanged grin.

“So... Do you wanna ride?~” Morning Dew sings while swishing her hips and grinning more as she sees my knees quake.

“I fucking swear to every goddamn deity in this world, I will shove my mop so far up your plot I’ll be able to swab those fangs.”

“Clean… Do you wanna ride, do you wanna ride, do you wanna ride, wanna go far?~”

“Do you wanna ge- NO! I won’t fu- Do you wanna get insi- No!” I have to smack my face to stop myself. I could feel my arms getting more and more wobbly. I couldn’t keep it up much longer. I knew I should have never taught her songs from my world.

“Do you wanna get inside my mother’s car!~”

“Drive it on home, dontcha say no. Dewey, can you be coerced?~” Fuck it, the more I try to resist it, the more it hurts. You know what they say, when in Romeaneigh, do as the Romeponies do.

Morning Dew and I wrap our arm around each other, but I still can't help but glare at the mare that's causing me all my problems.

“Uh! UH!~” We both sing at the same time, bumping into each other.

“Call me a snatch, only one catch: we gotta stop for frozen yogurt first!~” We were close, almost touching our noses and I held her up.

She looked at me seductively with half lidded eyes, and I whispered into her ear…

“Pinkberry…” and promptly dropped her onto the floor.

“Ooof! What was that for, Clean?!” She looked up at me with teary, light green eyes.

“Stop with the crocodile tears, they don’t work on me.”

“Awww, I just thought we could have fun.” She got up and brushed herself off and huffed.

“You know I hate singing and dancing. It's annoying. I don’t even know why I taught you any music from my world.”

“But it's good music! Well, not all of it, but I love that song!”

“You just love it ‘cus its sexual, you perverted bat demon.”

“Be that as it may…”

“Shut the fuck up, Dew.” I sigh and light up another smoke. “Want one?”

“No, Clean. Unlike you, I prefer being alive.”

“Suit yourself. So, what are you doing here?”

“My shift starts soon, so I was heading to Princess Celestia to see if she needed anything.”

“Fair enough, I’m going there too. Gotta ask her for a week off or so, gonna go visit some family and help some mare with building a fence.”

“That Spoiled Milk mare? I heard about her earlier; apparently she got pissed off and trashed the fifth floor resident hall.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you kill her?”

“No, Dew, I did not kill her. I actually had her help me clean the floor then told her I’d help her out.”

She looked at me, shocked. “You’re telling me, THE Mister Clean didn’t kill the mare that trashed his floor? I don’t believe you.”

I flicked her ear and she winced. “Believe what you want to believe. I’m happy with what I did.”

She ran in front of me and put her hooves on my shoulders. Scrutinizing me with her huge eyes. I just grab her hooves and flip her over onto her back.

“Ow. Yup, definitely Clean.”

“Did you really have to be sure? Oh well, here’s the door. You wanna go first?”

“Oh, what a gentlestallion. Since you are so kind, I shall go first.”

I opened the door and let her in. Celestia waved her in but visibly perked up when she saw me behind her.

“Captain Morning Dew, Clean, please, come in!”

I closed the door behind me, and approached the saluting pony in front of Celestia. I saluted as well, albeit a bit less serious.

“Hello, Morning Dew. Anything you need to report?”

“We’ve located the cause of the sonic rainboom. Apparently a blue filly known as Rainbow Dash was racing for her friend’s honor. In an attempt to beat the other two racers, she performed a sonic rainboom.”

“Interesting, any information about those two I should know about?”

“Nothing special, just typical school bullying.”

“And the two fillies?”

“They’re both fine, no damages to self or property. Interesting note, however, both found their cutie marks at the same time. The same as Twilight Sparkle.”

Celestia seemed shocked, “You don’t suppose that more ponies got their cutie marks at the same time?”

“Three ponies getting their marks at the same time isn’t a common occurrence…”

I jumped into the picture, I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “You don’t think that those three will be the next elements, do you?”

“I do not know, Clean, but I can only hope.”

“Celestia, you told me years ago about your situation, and I know you’ve told the Solar and Lunar Captains to keep an eye out, but this isn’t the first time you thought a pony would be the next element bearer.” I walked over to Celestia and put my arm around her, stroking her ethereal mane, “You remember what happened with Starswirl Lightchaser, or, as he later dubbed himself, ‘Starswirl the Bearded’”

Morning Dew had to interrupt. “Wait, what happened to Starswirl?”

“Oh, check this out. Before I even arrived here, he was a regular unicorn, but Celestia mentioned the elements, and Starswirl spent years improving his abilities trying to become the next element of magic. Celestia continued to further his research in hopes that he would find out the secrets of the element.”

Celestia was blushing with embarrassment and hiding her face with her wings, trying to hide her discomfort. “Please, Clean, I thought you would forget about that.”

Morning Dew, on the other hand, was loving my story. “Did he ever find out the secrets?”

“Hell, nah; he was a smart unicorn, but those elements were always a fickle bunch. He did find out that they were connected to a tree called the ‘Tree of Harmony’, but past that, he just made a shit-ton of new spells and even some that caused disaster after disaster. He made one spell that would give any pony wings for a short time.”

“How does that work?”

I lit up another cigarette, opened up one of the windows and pointed towards the sky. “If you flew too high, they would burst into flames. Not a very good idea, as it turns out.”

“Oh.” was the only thing the batmare could reply with.

“‘Oh’ indeed. But back to the subject at hand: Celestia, I don’t want you to go searching for more ponies.”

“But Clean-!”

“But nothing, Celestia. Fate works for a reason. The elements will find their rightful ponies, and everything will be alright. It's not good to tempt fate, and it will serve you well to remember that. Same to you, Dew.”

Both ponies were shocked, but Morning Dew spoke up first. “Clean, I don’t think I ever expected you to say something so… smart.”

“Well, that’s rude, but I can’t argue with that.” I flicked out my smoke and started walking around the room. “This world’s full of magic, you know that, but if theres something this world definitely has, it’s fate. Bad guys lose and the good guys win. That's how it will always be here for some reason, pretty boring if you ask me.”

“Well, I prefer it this way, makes my job easier.”

“To each their own Dew, to each their own.”

Silence filled the room, and Celestia broke it by clearing her throat. “Well, I suppose that's all we can do then. Captain Morning Dew, I would like you to keep an eye on those two and to get me a list of all the ponies who got their cutie marks on the same day that the sonic rainboom occurred, but do not try and interact with the fillies in anyway. Clean has a point, and I’d rather not tempt fate.”

I walked back over to Celestia and patted her on the head. “Good girl, Celestia. Who wants a treat?”

Celestia playfully slapped my hand off her head with her wing, “Don’t patronize your princess, Clean, or you’ll end up in shackles.”

“Oooh, kinky; guess that means no cake for you.” I said, walking over to one of her drawers and pulling out a slice of chocolate cake and a bottle of scotch.

“Clean, why are you hiding alcohol in my room?”

“The better question is, why AREN’T you hiding alcohol in your room?”

Both Celestia and Morning Dew just stared blankly at me.

I opened the bottle and started to drink; after a long swig, I formulated a response. “Jeez, tough crowd.”

“Aaaanyway,” Celestia said drawing out the ‘A,’ “Please go do that, Captain; I believe Clean and I have something we need to discuss.”

Morning Dew opened the door and started to walk out, outside we could hear one of the guards outside say to the other, “Ooooh, somepony’s in trouble.”

And with that, both the doors closed.

“So, Clean, what was it you wanted to discuss?”

And my nervousness returned. “Well, I kinda wanted to ask for a week off…”

Celestia’s ears folded back, “W-why would you do that?”

“Remember that mare from earlier today? I said I would help her with her fence.”

“B-but you can’t!”

I steeled my nerves and prepared to say my speech that I had planned all day. “Celestia, I’ve worked for you and with you for years. I’ve been to multiple schools, colleges, and universities to learn about you and your ponies. I’ve done nearly everything you’ve asked of me; even got multiple PhDs as you asked. Now I’m just asking for a week off.”

“Clean, I’m asking you as a friend, you don’t want to leave this week.”

“Celestia, if you don’t give me a reason, I’m going to leave anyway.”

“Clean… They told me not to tell you, since they wanted it to be a surprise…”

“Celestia, you know I hate the pronoun game, who is ‘they’?”

“Your foals sent me a letter; they wanted to surprise you for your birthday. They’re sending your grandfoals up to Canterlot. I’m sorry, I wanted to surprise you as well.”

I was shocked. So shocked I dropped my bottle.

“M-my grandfoals? My grandfoals are visiting?”

“Yes, Clean. They asked me not to tell you because they wanted it to be unexpected.”

I smiled. I smiled really hard. My smile threatened to break my face. That's when I let my feelings out.

“MY GRANDFOALS ARE VISITING!”

Author's Note

"Update twice a week" I said.

"It'll be easy" I said.

I am so wrong. Hope you enjoyed another chapter. Already workin on the next one.

If anyone has any ideas or ponies they want me to add in, just lemme know. I'll adopt them. Clean adopts everything. He can't help it, its like an addiction.