After it was over, somepony had (somewhat irritably) asked her why she didn't just use earplugs, and Celestia had very patiently explained that when you were half of the executive branch for a nation which typically reacted to self-destruct attempts with 'Let's try that again!', you dreamed of earplugs. Other ponies would use the nightscape for visions of power, the chance to meet their ideal mates, and trips to places which existed only in imagination: Celestia's dream self liked to curl up, sleep a little more deeply and, in the most cherished of fantasies, sleep in. She didn't use earplugs because a country which was calling for her attention needed to be capable of doing so without screaming, and she was still hoping it would eventually try keeping things down to a relatively dull stampede.
So the thunder woke her up. And when it did, her first thought was unscheduled storm, followed by huddling a little more tightly under her blankets and hoping to quickly drop back into sleep.
Then she remembered that it was Canterlot. The palace. There were no unscheduled storms. Anything which dared to break through from the Everfree was generally advised to do so by appointment --
-- the thunder hit for the second time. But it was more than that. There seemed to be a certain... echo within the burst. Something of a --
Oh, no...
She reluctantly raised her head, rotated white ears towards the nearest window. Focused until the other sound reached her consciousness, and immediately regretted everything.
If it had to be described, it would have gone something like bum-dum-dum-scum-dum. It vibrated fur. It shook the borders of her semi-tangible tail. It was actually very easy to describe and after having done so, the typical pony brain would just keep going with it until one of two things was eliminated: the source or the pony.
The beat moved into her head and began to set up a cot. The next burst of thunder arranged for a terrace view.
Fine. Because it wasn't or rather, in about five minutes, it wasn't going to be much of anything.
Celestia's hind legs kicked out, and two layers of autumn blankets slid down the opposing wall.
Four pegasus Guards moved into formation around her as she flew towards it: Solars who hadn't quite gone home three hours after Sun-lowering, because most of the Lunar staff was away. They kept silent watch over her during the approach, or at least that was what she presumed they were doing. Just about the only thing she could truly hear was the in-flight musical anti-entertainment, which occasionally used the pauses within the beat (because the beat always paused just long enough to make her think it might be stopping, and then it laughed at her) to talk about sex and sex and sex and sex and, just for the occasional change of topic, makeup sex. Two minutes in the air was enough to convince her that it had been the only way for the composers to locate any words which rhymed with each other and somehow, they'd still messed up the meter.
And the whole time, she closed in on the single thunderhead cloud which was drifting along just outside the city borders. The flat-topped one.
It was something of a patchwork job. Pegasi were capable of combining individual efforts to create greater magical effects, but learning how to do so without having disparate personal signatures clash took care, practice, and having had access to your full magic for more than five moons. In this case, the cloud had clearly been assembled by at least eight fully inexperienced weavers: the molding was holding everything together, but she could spot the seam lines and so had a very good idea as to when it was going to stop. Fortunately (or not), there was enough accumulated power there to keep the whole thing intact until a little after Sun was raised.
The cloud was patched together because the occupants needed the extra room. It was a flattop because cloudwalking spells existed, and it was a thunderhead because one of the major requirements for being an adolescent was deciding that you were rebelling in a manner so individual that everypony (and in this case, everyone) around you would just have to copy it. This particular rebellion was sufficiently unique as to only come along every fifteen years (much like some of the adolescents), and she felt it was safe to assume that this group had the same reasons for using this kind of cloud. Because it was black, and black was edgy. Because it said they were bold. Daring. Fully immortal, just like every generation before them and this one hadn't been proven wrong yet. But mostly because they'd decided the beat needed something extra behind it, and so they'd added thunder. Which, as a natural side effect, also meant lightning.
More horizontal bolts flashed within the cloud itself, illuminating the structure from within and putting the moving silhouettes of those atop it into sharp relief. It also helped her pick out some of the parts which weren't moving, and she distantly wondered what the one big cube was for.
Glimmerglow swooped a little closer, all the better to speak directly into one nearly-flattened ear. "Princess --"
"-- hang back," Celestia tersely ordered, because it had been three hours after Sun-lowering had ended an all-too-typical Equestrian day, the Zoology Conference was approaching, and she had just gotten to sleep. "Stay visible, but let me do the talking. And watch the edges, just in case. Pass that on to the others."
Her Guard nodded, and Celestia flew across the remaining distance. Hovered just above the level surface at the cloud's leeward edge, and waited for someone to notice the alicorn who wasn't quite in the room.
They didn't. They danced under the light of Moon and glowing devices, at least so far as the flailing of limbs occasionally managed to line up with the beat. Two griffons were using silver wire to connect gramophones with huge hollow cones: she presumed they'd succeeded at the moment the semi-music got that much louder. A minotaur was swapping records in and out, with multiple ponies rooting on his efforts until the young bull mistimed one motion and set off a hoof-splitting screech: this made them cheer more. There was a dancing yak, which was truly unusual because yaks generally didn't do that in public. Two undersized zebras were working with cauldrons, and the scents told her exactly what they were mixing: the local legality had already been memorized. And they were all focused entirely on themselves, on the music and the moment and (for the pegasi) triggering more lightning at strategic moments and in no way the alicorn who just wanted to get some sleep.
She took a breath. The intake of air realigned two vital vocal chords.
"Good evening."
They were adolescents, and so she would not have been surprised if some of them managed to ignore the Royal Voice. It was the reason she'd simultaneously ignited her horn on a level which, for two crucial seconds, nearly brought Sun back.
Several of them turned. Four froze. The record scratched again. And one pegasus smirked.
"Hey!" the might-not-live-long-enough-to-become-a-stallion called out to his companions. "Just like we thought, right? And planned for. Keep going. We're fine." This was followed by a dismissive tail flick, which served as an unsubtle signal to resume.
Several adolescents looked at Celestia with visible doubt.
"I'll handle this," the pegasus overconfidently declared, already casually trotting towards her hovering position.
Several consumed troughs' worth of liquid collectively decided he was up to it, and the dancing resumed.
She waited for him, eyes carefully surveying the poorly-altered form. In this case, echoing, oft-repeated 'uniqueness' had said that metallic colors were cool and spikes were edgy: the combination had seen the male both dye and spike his fur, doing so across the whole of his body. A certain lack of skill had given him the approximate appearance of a feathered pyrite semi-sapient furry goosebump, and it still wasn't enough to conceal his identity. Not when she'd seen him meekly trailing behind his mother as the representative headed for yet another meeting of the Day Court.
"Hello, Noctilucent."
"Nox!" the youth shot back. "I'm --" and stopped, lest the aura of Coolness be disrupted. "Hello, Old."
Spells to read minds are one of the worst concepts to ever exist, and that's why I don't know any.
I've never had any talent for prophecy.
And I still know exactly what he's going to say next.
She was also completely certain about what was helping him say it, and that some portions hadn't been aged enough.
"So you're here about the party," he smirked, and did so on the downbeat as lightning strobed the black vapor below his hooves. "Because maybe you think we're a little loud. And you don't like that we've been drinking, not when we're supposedly underage and all that horse apple smear --"
EQ 7:2:19.
"-- but I read EQ 7:2:19," he declared to the night, doing so with the confidence of a pony who was still young enough to know everything. "Every city sets their own drinking rules! They stop at the border! And for drinking in the wild, we just have to be accompanied by an adult!" His tail indicated the minotaur. "And since Mazein lets you vote as soon as you pass the tests, by their law, he's an adult!"
"Hello, Turnbuckle," Celestia called out across the cloud.
"...hello, Princess," the ambassador's visiting nephew awkwardly replied, hands moving behind his back as twin horns dipped. "Um..."
"I recognize most of you," Celestia observed, maintaining the placid hover as sonic waves blasted against her feathers. "Just about all, actually." The children of legislators, nobles, foreign dignitaries...
"Sure you do," Noctilucent smirked. "So you understand how we all know each other --" paused, hiccuped a few times, rudely burped and gave her a view of his mouth --" which is how we got together for the party. Which is on our property, since we put the cloud together. No trespassing! And I'm calling it a rave. Because the only reason anypony wouldn't like it was if they were stark raving old."
Angry drunks. Happy drunks. Gentle drunks. One very obvious non-meek drunk.
Drunks for whom I know where all of their parents live.
"We're outside Canterlot," the youth stated. "The police don't have authority once you leave the borders. We're just having fun."
Fun provided by rookie zebra bartenders who, judging by the green coating on your tongue, haven't mastered the hangover-free portion of the craft.
"So if the cops can't stop us," a great deal of alcohol continued, "then I guess you can't --
"-- who's your designated lander?"
He blinked at her. The beat had taken over that too.
"The what?"
"You obviously found somepony to cast a cloudwalking spell on everyone who needed it," Celestia patiently said. "This doesn't change the fact that your party has an edge, and relatively few attendees possess wings. The ones who do may eventually become too drunk to properly use them. Any mixed party needs a designated lander to get everyone home, or to keep them from reaching their home in seven seconds or less. At least one safety scout. Preferably five. So where are they?"
"We don't need anything like that," Noctilucent declared. "Why go to a party if you can't drink? No one's gonna make that kind of sacrifice on my watch! We've got something better! Hey, Farscape!" One of the unicorns looked up. "Dive for me!"
The yellow pony grinned, broke out of the dance and moved into a full gallop, leapt over the edge as a frantic Glimmerglow went into a full swoop --
-- red flared at the center of the flattop, and a lasso of light plummeted over the rim. Three seconds later, it dragged a laughing Farscape back onto the vapor, then reeled itself back towards the source.
Celestia was vaguely impressed. You didn't often see enchanted items rendered from teak, although she suspected most of the big wood cube was an outer layer designed to look artistic: it was possible to make out metal during the lightning flashes, along with a carefully-wrapped pattern of power-channeling silver wire.
"New device!" the pegasus grinned as an equally relieved and exasperated Glimmerglow came into sight again. "It knows when anyone goes over and hauls them back! Didn't even need to pay for it! I just had to test it and sign some stupid paper which said I wouldn't be mad if it did work!"
"Did," Celestia carefully repeated. She was also watching a donkey proposition a zebra, because being a donkey adolescent was partially about soul-crushing rejection and so it was best to start early.
"Something about 'whiplash'," Noctilucent derisively said. (Some distance away, Farscape was trying to realign most of his spine.)
"And how does everyone get down when the party ends?"
"I checked the weather schedule. We're gonna keep this thing going until dawn."
Because you know all the parents are too busy preparing for the international Zoology Conference, with the majority already in transit to the site. Which is how so many of you were able to get together in the first place, and also why I really need sleep.
"And a little after Sun comes around," four mugs added with self-satisfaction, "so does the humidity. We pick up mass, this thing goes fog, and we sink down on our own. All planned for. Including the part where nopony can do anything to stop us."
A truly vast amount of premature consumption regarded Celestia, and did so just long enough for the portion flooding the knees to express some minor doubt.
"Careful, Nox!" called out a minotaur. "It looks like you two are fighting! You know what that means!"
"You want," a yak inquired, "I should get torch?"
"SHUT UP!" the pegasus logically countered. "You jerks know she's Old!"
"You had poster in bedroom --" the yak noted.
"-- SHUT UP!"
The children of the influential. Safety has been covered. Hangovers are guaranteed. However, visiting their parents after I explain why I decided to break this up --
-- all night.
Maybe several nights.
Plus waiting for most of them to get home.
There were ways in which she understood. Those who always had to remain proper, because their parents insisted that no action occurred in any degree of vacuum. That everything the child did somehow reflected on the generation before. And when the parents were distracted (or better yet, away), all that pent-up need to simply be could erupt in exactly the wrong direction.
She generally understood. She even had a little sympathy. She currently didn't appreciate the results.
"You're outside the borders," she agreed. "Your noise isn't. And it's reaching more than just the palace."
"Noise," he snorted. "Anypony who can't appreciate the music is suffering from a terminal case of old. And you can't haul us over the line unless we say so." That declaration was a little more uncertain. "Because it's -- kidnapping? Because we're --" and he recovered to "-- young!"
"Buffalo music."
"Yeah! It's the trend!"
It comes from a culture which, over the course of twelve centuries, has assembled what it feels to be a comprehensive musical catalog. Consisting of exactly four backbeats, one of which tradition only permits to be played at weddings. Music which is literally designed to be droned until wedded bliss is found or the bride and groom decide eloping is easier. Due to the number of couples who can't stay awake for sixty hours, this eventually created the original ground-based portion of Las Pegasus. Which, broken down by population, is twelve percent buffalo and one percent renegade ministers.
She was tired. She wanted to sleep. She'd had enough buffalo music for a lifetime or, when it came to Celestia, for his.
He was young. He thought he knew everything and at the moment he failed to notice how the pattern of her wingbeats had shifted, he was proven wrong.
"One more question," Celestia said, "and then I'll let you get back to it. Are any of you carrying money?"
The alcohol blinked at her.
"It's our party," several confused mugs answered. "Everything's paid for. Why would we need money?"
She shrugged. "Just curious." Her head inclined slightly to the left. "You're actually rather lucky, you know. Having Princess Luna visiting Trottingham tonight."
Snidely, "Because that would be double the old?"
Celestia silently continued to hover. And the adolescents partied, because whatever Old was doing wasn't important.
Of course, Old also meant Old Enough To Tell When Somepony Was Arranging A Shift In The Wind.
Because she would shove you out over the Everfree. Stay with you most of the way, merrily talking about just how many monsters you were floating above, along with providing exacting descriptions of the ones which were capable of reaching you. Then she'd remember something she had to do in Canterlot, probably right about the time you were at the center, and fly off while everyone was pretending they were too brave to be thinking about it.
About twenty minutes after that, the monsters would attack.
Probably an illusionary attack.
If she was in a good mood.
However, scaring up a few of the smaller ones towards you and arriving just in time to stop them is also an option.
"But you've got me," Celestia smiled. "The older one. Old enough to know what a hangover feels like and when Sun gets close, that's going to make you very old indeed. But do you know what I find helps with that?"
The smile had confused the mugs into temporary silence. Feeling the entire mass of vapor abruptly jerk west dispelled it.
"HEY -- !"
"-- a nice long walk home!" Celestia called out across the quickly-increasing distance. "Enjoy the party!"
She watched the cloud recede, just long enough to enjoy Noctilucent's outrage. And then she turned, faced the palace, and began to fly towards her bed.
It took a moment for the Guards to catch up.
Glimmerglow's voice was easier to make out now, with the noise going away. She could even distinguish the concern. "Princess..."
"They'll be fine," Celestia declared. "I set up the weave. Their cloud will hold until morning, he was actually right about the fog, we both saw that the safety device is working, and they're going to be following the train tracks. Protected by all the magical defenses built into that area. They'll just have to trot back in the morning, since they can't afford tickets. With my having eventually sent some morning scrolls to their parents, who can arrange their own discipline. Oh, and they'll be hungover, with Sun in their eyes." With open satisfaction, "I guarantee that last part."
"Following the train tracks," her Guard worriedly said. "Going west."
Celestia didn't understand why. "Yes. Maximum safety. Good night, Glimmerglow."
"Princess --"
There had been several means of dealing with the partiers. Given the existence of that retrieval device, she'd chosen the one which allowed them to effectively punish themselves. It was over.
"-- good night, Glimmerglow," declared as she got ready for the kind of wing acceleration which left Guards behind. "Wake me up when the nation tries to explode. Or ten minutes before Sun-raising. Whichever comes first."
It didn't take long for the party to resume. Sure, part of the original point had been to Rebel Against The Old and that was why their half-understood collection of laws had placed them near the palace. (On another level, it had been so that if they were stopped, they could declare Not Having Been Understood, The Unjust Rule Of Greyfurs and, even better, None Of Us Can Admit We're Unsure About This, So If She Stops Us, Then Not Having This Work Wasn't Our Fault.) But nothing had been broken up: simply -- relocated. And did it really matter where the cloud itself was, as long as the drinks were still on top of it?
So the party moved west. At first, it did so at a fairly decent clip: the Princess had set up the wind for a good initial burst of speed, and the youths played several kinds of tag with the train passing below. But then everything began to slow down, became more of a gentle drift as still more mugs full of bravery, confidence, and total reassurance in the drinker's immortality were consumed. Oh, and also alcohol. This had a number of consequences, one of which just kept happening to those who'd never consumed before and so hadn't understood that some things passed through more quickly than others. And, given that it was the first time any of the pegasi had put together a cloud on this scale, kept passing through.
The cloud slowed, threatened to stop. Lights appeared on the horizon. This was taken by the partiers as a cue to play the music louder.
And then there was a balloon.
It took most of the attendees a moment to recognize it. A few had never seen one before, while others were two mugs away from mistaking it for a descended Moon which had decided to make an ill-advised fashion statement.
"Your pardon," emerged from between the teeth of the white unicorn: one of three ponies who were riding in the basket.
Several adolescents blinked at each other.
"'Pardon'?" repeated a disbelieving griffon.
"She didn't even say 'pardon'!" declared an earth pony.
"Wow," Noctilucent decided, staggering hooves already picking out a path towards that edge of the cloud. "That, is like, ultimate Old."
The white mare's inhale was also pulled in between her teeth, and so made a sound very much like a hiss.
"Based on the evidence visible beneath your ill-advised coating of trend and spillage," she softly said, "I am, at most, ten years older than you."
He thought about that.
"Oh. So you're actually dead --"
-- and just barely jumped back in time, as the blades of a rising pedal screw came through the cloud's edge.
"Sorry!" declared the sweating pink earth pony at the controls. "I haven't used this in a while! My steering is off!"
"A lot of things are off," said the primary occupant of the now-visible second balloon, who possessed just enough (lack of) height for him to see striped bangs and a purple horn. "Like the beat. I've heard buffalo music, long enough to memorize it. That's twenty seconds, by the way. Per beat." With an audible wince, "So sixty seconds total, since no one got married while we were there. Plus three moons for them to stop showing up in my dreams. And that's why I'm pretty sure the scum is out of place."
"Based on his accent," another voice declared, "by about one gallop of distance." A voice which had emerged from next to the very small mare, and also from nothing --
-- Noctilucent squinted, and did so at the same moment that other basket occupant opened her eyes. It took a few more seconds before he could resolve the outline of exceptionally-hued dark fur as a horned shadow within the night.
"Welcome to Ponyville," said the shadow. "Or just outside it, as your cloud has now stopped moving. We heard you coming."
"With the thunder!" shouted a cyan pegasus as she flew into view, forelegs already crossed as her wings beat a furious hover. "I don't know what's worse: the lightning which isn't always staying inside the cloud, your molding on this thing, or that stupid excuse for music -- hey, you! Yeah, you with the horns! No, the one kid with the two horns! Pull those records off right now! We're gonna talk, and I don't feel like doing it through buffalo beats!"
"And what's wrong with buffalo beats?" yelled the entirely-expected buffalo. "Are you some kind of --"
"Don't start with me!" the prismatic-maned mare yelled. "Did you ever fight in a war for your tribe?"
"...huh?"
"I did! Take the albums off the needles or I'll wind-blast them off! The records, not the needles! Because that's harder to do!"
Three partiers, who had been using the ride to discover the kind of entertainment which can only propose itself to a mind with actively-drowning brain cells, chose that moment to repeat what they'd been doing since they first saw the train, cheering themselves all the way down. And then part of the way back up, at least after they relocated their throats.
"Well," the shadow sighed, "that would account for some of the train sightings."
"Bungee!" screamed a just-retrieved zebra. "Bungee!"
"And what does that nonsense word mean?" huffed the still-irritated white unicorn.
"If I had to guess," the purple one proposed, "'I am too drunk to know what I'm doing'." She reared up a little, enough for curious eyes to peek at the device. "Zebra language can be pretty compact. So is there any way I can go get a look at that --"
"Focus, Twilight," the shadow gently suggested -- then surged into a more authoritative tone. "As I was about to say before Rainbow appeared -- you are just outside the border of Ponyville. Your racket crossed some time ago, and woke a good part of the town. Including me." The outline reared up, planted nearly-invisible forehooves on the basket's rim. "My name is Miranda Rights, and I'm the local chief of police. Would anyone care to explain this?"
"Police?" called out a yak. "Why police? No police! Was told no police! My father --"
"It doesn't matter," declared a pegasus-shaped liquor container. "We're outside their border! EQ 7 -- 7 -- she knows what it is, she's a cop!" He hiccuped again. "And your dad is the Yakyakistan emissary! She's just a cop! And they --" He squinted again. "-- who the buck are you, anyway?"
"We," the cyan one immediately declared, "are the Element-Bearers!"
He blinked.
"Yeah. I'm gonna keep going with 'Who?'"
Her wings flapped. Two albums died. (The left-side one made a particularly fine screeching noise as the blast of wind shot it under the needle, and received applause accordingly.)
"HEY!" Noctilucent shouted. "That's our stuff! That's illegal! You can't just break stuff in our party!"
"Then come across the town border," a new, younger voice (but too young to be cool) stated. "File a complaint."
He stared towards the source, which was somewhere around the purple unicorn and shadow --
-- the former reared up, planted her forehooves on the basket's edge: it was just enough to give him a view of her flanks. The new voice's owner simply used his claws on the rim and hoisted himself into view.
Everyone stared.
"Alicorn," Noctilucent eventually said.
The purple one nodded.
"Dragon."
Spines bobbed.
"We are so drunk," Noctilucent proudly declared, "that we are seeing alicorns. And dragons! We are good!" He awkwardly thrust his left foreleg towards the air, which took some time because he couldn't initially remember which of the four that was. "PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!"
The rest of the kids began to take up the chant. (It was short, easy to memorize, roughly coordinated with some of the lightning, and might just serve as a spell to banish Old.) "Party! Party! Party --"
"-- it's not a very good party, is it?" decided the pink earth pony.
The chant stopped. So did the lightning. The zebras ceased to stir their cauldrons, and one yak placidly slipped over an edge before getting dragged back again.
"-- what?" the Host With The Most (Mugs Consumed) whispered.
"Well," the pink mare said, sweat continuing to saturate her fur, "parties shouldn't hurt. Not for whoever's attending them, and not for the ones who didn't want to go. You don't care about anyone who isn't on the cloud, so you don't care about waking ponies up. A good party is considerate. It's a guest, because it can't stay forever. So it wants to leave everyone happy, and yours won't. You won't even be happy when it ends, because I can smell the cauldrons from here: I know the mix isn't right!" (Several small zebras instantly adopted postures of total defiance.) "But it's not too late to save it! I can moderate things for you! We'll adjust the brew, find a nice place for the cloud to float, maybe bring up some different records --"
"-- moderate."
"Yeah! Twilight, can I get a cloudwalking spell, please? Fast. Because I really really haven't done this in a while, and I think I'm starting to cramp --"
"-- Old moderates! Because Old can't party!" Challenging, "What do you know about parties?"
A curly tail briefly encircled the colorful mark.
"Then you're too stupid to be in one of those," the satisfied teen declared. "And you're on the screw instead. The only screw you'll ever get." A few blood cells moved out of the way, because the brain needed oxygen to create the next insult and chemically, alcohol had some. "Because you're fat. And you obviously don't know anything about parties."
The rather cute, slightly-overweight mare (usually by about a tenth-bale, currently somewhat less after all the sweating) narrowed blue eyes.
"Don't kill him, Pinkie," the white mare cautioned.
"I wasn't going to --"
"-- because I am calling dibs," the virtual corpse added. "Also, I will need that cloudwalking spell. First, if you would."
"...I don't need one," claimed a soft voice from that basket. (Several partiers looked, and even a few of the non-ponies got caught up in the whistling.) "...um... I..."
The beautiful head sank below rim level again. The last occupant cleared her throat.
"Ah really don't care who does the kickin'," she stated, "as long as somepony's gettin' kicked. An' someone, for that matter, 'cause it seems like bein' kicked is currently sort of a, how should Ah put this, equal-opportunity thing. No bias at'tall."
The adolescents looked at each other.
"Did anypony understand that?"
"No."
"Anyone?"
"Barely understand you," the yak announced. "Sentence structure too weird. Also, this sound like fight. Need torch? Torch for the yellow one?"
The pedal screw used the debate for carefully moving closer to the balloons, and did so as the cyan mare went to hover nearby. And since the Old wasn't paying attention any more, the party put on some of the backup albums and resumed, with none of those attending listening to the next words.
"Young an' dumb. An' drunk," was the first soft statement. "Ain't a good combo."
"Rainbow," the shadow asked, "is that cloud going to hold?"
"Until a little past Sun-raising," the cyan expertly announced. "Then it'll sink on its own. It'll reach the ground before it comes apart."
"Did anypony else recognize a number of attendees?" the white inquired. "I acknowledge that I spend the most time examining the various levels of social strata as captured in magazine photography --"
"-- tell us, Rarity," the shadow requested.
The briefing didn't take long.
"So we're looking at the next generation," that silhouette said.
"If'fin they live that long," the orange pony muttered. "Ah get that their folks got power. Why don't we jus' show 'em how little we care? Arrest, then haul 'em down. There's equality in holdin' too."
"There's a few reasons," the shadow sighed. "I'd be willing to deal with the repercussions from the various embassies, but I still have a jurisdiction issue. Unless they're in crisis, we can't just shove them across the town border against their will."
"I can shove," the cyan darkly said. "But it'll take a while with something this big."
"Also," the dark mare added, "this isn't the largest town. I have exactly twelve holding cells, and the majority are single-occupancy. Would anypony like to keep a few dozen drunk kids in their homes for me, just until the booze wears off?"
They all looked at each other.
"Right," the police chief sighed. "So we know who they are. That means we also know where they came from. I'm guessing they decided they wouldn't get in trouble if they just did this away from their parents. Let's prove them wrong." She looked up at the cyan mare. "Rainbow? Get the night weather team together. I want you all to blow this thing towards Canterlot. And make sure it follows the train tracks."
"Yeah!" Wings began to blur -- then paused. "Gonna be rough for the night trains, though."
"Why?" the dragon asked. "They won't be under the noise for long."
"Under is the problem, Spike."
"I don't get it."
"You ever wonder why you can walk under the bathroom in my house and never get hit by anything?"
"...no."
"Neither did they. And the magic for it doesn't arrange itself. So straight through. Bet they've never even done a decent swagger-lair before. They don't know how cloud structuring really works. Amateurs..."
"Closed windows and hoses for the train," the shadow decided. "That'll be enough. Go get the team, Rainbow. The capital sent us their trash? We're sending it back."
Beat-accompanied thunder crashed into Celestia's ears and in doing so, knocked her out of sleep, dream, and a nightscape-hosted nine a.m. where she'd still been in bed and the blankets had just reached that level of perfectly-wrapped warm cocoon.
I, she rather reasonably decided, am going to kill them.
Her still half-dozing rationality eventually totaled up the prospective number of resulting international incidents, then kicked in the domestic ones for a coda.
I am not going to kill them. Mostly because it's too much paperwork. However...
It took seconds to cross the distance, and she reached the cloud before any Guards could think of moving.
"What are you doing here?" Celestia demanded. "You're supposed to be gone!"
A mind which was running short on sleep and long on rage failed to consider the obvious. For the youth's part, three brain cells, clinging to a raft near the top of the skull, united in their final effort.
"Windy," the self-titled Nox declared. (He was almost sure he'd had another name once, and was somewhat less certain about his ability to remember it.)
"Is that a condition," Celestia asked with false patience, "or a name? Because with ponies, there's a certain occasional difficulty --"
He squinted at her hovering form. Bleary eyes roamed across the whole of it, which took a while.
"You're really big."
She didn't say anything. Technically, declarations of war had to be written down.
"Really big. And you've gotta horn. Horn and-and-and-and wings. Wingy-dingies. That's weird. You're big weird. And old."
Celestia's forehooves slammed together.
"Go. Away."
"M-m-make me."
So she did.
"Look," the cyan reasonably proposed, "I'm not saying we should murder all of them. Just enough to set an example."
"They're kids, Rainbow," the alcohol-created alicorn insisted. The insistence was audibly less sincere than it had been two hours ago.
"So smaller coffins." With a surge of decibels, "I just got back to sleep, Twilight! Do you know what it's like, when you just get back to sleep and then this noise --"
"-- most of this side of town knows by now," a shadow sighed. "Rainbow, they rode woven winds back, didn't they? Is there a way to keep them from changing their own course again?"
The cyan frowned, then surveyed the dance floor or, given the current level of activity, the freeform stagger. "No. Not if they have enough pegasi to take the team's weave apart, and it always falls away on its own eventually." With a small frown, "I don't even know how they're pulling it off. I don't think any of them can fly straight, and there isn't enough residue left to really read. What's there almost feels like one effort..." She thought it over, then shrugged. "Maybe they're catching a natural current just when ours wears off?"
Rain didn't fall from the cloud. It would have been so much better had it been rain.
"Shove harder," the police chief ordered. "And shove east."
By the time the cloud once again reached Celestia, the party had begun to lose a certain amount of cohesion. Keeping things going all night required youthful exuberance, a large number of friends to have fun with, and decidedly less alcohol. The music, however, was continuing in the way which only buffalo beats could: infinitely.
"You know," Celestia wearily told those who were mostly beyond language, "it takes a very rare sapient to truly consider pursuing an interspecies relationship." The fur along the fringes of her ears vibrated. "Or, after three full cauldrons, just about anyone. You really should have waited a little longer, Dejection."
The donkey ignored her. Forming some sort of connection before the night ended was vital and if he just kept trying, then the vomit bucket eventually had to talk back.
"Also," she considered, "I admire your group luck. I really do. Because Princess Luna might have declared war by now."
Two griffons decided the contents of their mugs were unsuitable (which they were, as that cauldron now had a zebra dozing in it) and got rid of them by randomly slinging the liquid towards the edge or, in this case, directly into Celestia.
"Luna," the last of the dripping alicorn's patience eventually decided as steam boiled off her form, "might actually have a point there. I have been trying to protect you all night, everyone. And right now, what I am mostly protecting you from is me." The wind began to surge. "Anything to say?"
The lone kudu said something and because Equestrian wasn't his first language, he did so in fluent Drunkenese. The hovering mare translated.
"Third-degree burns," Celestia peacefully told him, her psyche swirling within the eye of the inner storm. "Guaranteed. Good night! And good riddance!"
"I'm starting to feel a little irritated," declared a small purple possibly-phantom alicorn. "I get grouchy when I don't sleep." The corona around her horn surged to another level, then added two more layers of glowing spikes. "I wonder why."
"...it's getting close to morning," the yellow mare noted. "They're going to be descending soon."
"Not. Soon. Enough," stated the cyan. "Sun and Moon, just let us go to bed..."
The dark mare looked oddly thoughtful, or would have if anyone on the cloud could still reliably distinguish expressions. "I know it's been a long night, Rainbow. But I have to ask you all for just a little more. Especially you, because we can't keep the balloons in line without you, and Pinkie really needs to be in one of the baskets." She glanced at unevenly-rotating blades, then moved down until she reached the froth-coated pink body. "Starting from two hours ago."
"Keeping the balloons in line?"
"Right. I want to see how they keep diverting their course back to us. They should be too drunk for magic -- but they're also too drunk to think of anything new. So this time," the police chief declared, "we're following them."
Five.
If we institute the draft to increase our military forces, Equestria can be involved in a five-front war and still have some chance of winning.
Also, if all else fails, I can simply threaten to never raise Sun again.
Sure, some sapients will just say that I'm killing everything on the planet out of pettiness, but they'd be missing the point. It would also let me get some sleep.
She'd taken off at the first distant rumble of thunder, aided by the fact that she hadn't had to get up this time: spending most of the intervening duration between 'visits' in pacing her bedroom in a desperate attempt to calm herself enough for sleep had granted the benefit of giving her a direct galloping launch off the balcony. It meant the cloud was noticeably further away this time. But she was the Solar Princess, she could fly faster than just about anything living, and she was closing the distance while getting a significant lead on her own Guards. (Given the hour, some of them were just beginning to come on shift.) And she wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do when she reached the party, but she was no longer a solitary Princess: it seemed to indicate a minor possibility of getting Luna to pardon her.
She flew faster and faster, her vision going tunnel as she fully ignored anything which wasn't the cloud. And she accelerated under brightening sky as the moment for formal Sun-raising got closer (with the chance to be somewhat delayed, depending on just how entertained she was at the time), she restructured a number of sibling-designated pranks while formulating any number of horrible acts of fresh vengeance (none of which were going to happen because she was the Solar Princess, but she was allowed to dream or rather, she had been until the bucking party showed up), and she completely missed what was happening on the trailing side.
"You," she shouted as she got within vocal and Voice range. (It woke up most of those who had passed out, forced them into some level of temporary awareness and made them stagger to hooves, paws, and feet. The Voice tended to do that, and it was another reason why using it was generally a mistake.) "No more pushing you out! I am going to be creative with --"
She wasn't entirely sure what 'creative' meant, and she never got the chance to find out.
"-- so that's it!"
The small purple form streaked out of the balloon's basket, overshot the party, and forced Celestia to pull up short so as not to hit her: desperately-braking wings just barely managed to execute the full stop at the cloud's eastern edge.
"It was you!" the much smaller alicorn declared, tones ringing with the sleep-deprived righteous anger of a pony who would probably only work out all the implications of the outburst after several hours of nightmare-interrupted sleep. "You were pushing them towards Ponyville! Over and over! Why would you do something like that?"
The partiers were watching now, interest blurred somewhat by the tide of poorly-brewed drinks which were sloshing within every pupil. Those in and around the balloons were simply staring, and most of that was with frozen horror.
There was a part of Celestia which instantly realized what had happened. That a significant portion of the full events had been her fault, that she owned a few apologies of her own, and the relevant part made a weary note upon an ignored corner of the inner checklist before it slumped into an exhausted coma.
"Well, Twilight," the remainder stated, "as a ruling Princess who's responsible for the well-being of a nation, I find a certain amount of rest is vital to maintaining stability. And my sleep is therefore somewhat more vital than anypony else's. Wouldn't you agree?"
It should have worked. Had the same confrontation taken place years in the past, before Ponyville and Nightmare, it would have worked. But that had been a lot of scrolls ago.
The little alicorn hovered in front of Celestia, wings keeping up a furious beat. Her eyes blinked to the rhythm of the records, because some things were hard to completely block out for long.
"Well --" Twilight began, narrow ribs heaving as the spikes of her corona thickened "-- no."
Celestia stared.
"...no," the oldest mare in the world carefully repeated.
"No," Twilight doubled down. "Because you pushed your problem off on the place which hosts the mares who have to regularly go out and save that nation. Sometimes around two in the morning, which means that we sort of need all the sleep we can get. Naps sometimes included. Especially as how, you know, we can't really expect the pony who issued the mission alert to help us, since she just sends the scroll and goes back to bed --"
"-- Twilight," a suddenly-shaky Rainbow desperately tried to cut in, "I appreciate that you're coming around on naps and all, but --"
"-- shut it, Rainbow," shouted a mare who really wasn't at her best without sleep.
Rainbow (temporarily) shut.
Celestia took a breath. A large white barrel moved in multiple directions, most of which made it seem as if the older alicorn was actually getting larger on the spot.
"I can't go into the field most of the time." It wasn't the Voice. The Voice would have been better than the near-hiss. "I can't expose myself --"
"-- oh, right," Twilight growled. (She would be dreaming about that growl for the next six weeks, and most attempts at therapy would be broken up by Luna's desperate giggle fits.) "I forgot about the one time you actually showed up. And then went down. In one hit."
"-- because somepony needs to make sure the cycle keeps going! It's why we have Bearers --" which was when the words finally sunk in. "One hit? One hit? Do you even know what taking a dive is? Making the enemy underestimate you, learning more of their plans, getting into position for --"
Several of the parties were slowly approaching the edge, their eyes wide with wonder. Three of them had gone in the opposite direction.
In abrupt, belated, and fully sincere pain, "-- I had to watch that! You didn't tell me what you were doing, you never told me, I had to watch you go down, I thought it was... I thought you were dead, I thought everything was over and --"
It barely reached the edges of the building fury before rising heat turned the words into temporary ash. "-- I've been doing this a little longer than you have, I can't teach you every trick while I'm balancing on my hind hooves, and you think I don't want to be out there? I'd be there every time, if it wasn't for a few little problems called 'nation' and 'Sun' and 'Luna's fully capable of running everything, but I don't want her to lose me and besides, just try telling Equestria that'!"
Thunder exploded through the air, doing so for the last time that night. The watching ponies barely noticed, and so paid no more attention to what was happening at the center of the flattop. The real explosions were still taking place.
"But you don't talk to me about it! If you just told me anything about this, about how you feel, if you ever told me anything instead of just sitting on secrets about things that happened a thousand years ago, only mentioning them if something's going to happen again --"
"-- because I'm still trying to give you some level of normal life and you can't have one if you're just worrying about the past all the time --"
"-- maybe you should be writing the scrolls!"
The words reached every ear. (The twitching versions possessed by those at the party mostly had the implications drop deep, immediately followed by drowning.) Those within the balloons closed their eyes, or held their breath because there was no way anything worse could happen now and so there was a certain need to patiently wait until something proved them wrong. The alicorns simply stared at each other, for words had already done enough. And a rather young, very drunk bull who would remember exactly none of it stepped forward.
"YEAH!" Turnbuckle happily shouted as the first billow of smoke ruffled his short fur. "NOW KISS!"
And then they were staring at him.
"Come on!" he openly rooted. "Everyone knows that when two people fight like that, they're in love! That's how it works in my country! Ponies can't wrestle, so they just argue! And now you've gotta kiss!"
"Truth is constant," said the yak. "Crosses borders. Saw you fighting. Heard you. Call it -- carrying a torch. Because anger and love both burn hot."
"Klishe's right!" the minotaur drunkenly announced as he held his right hand high. "So here you go!"
It was one of those acts which created a change in the world. Everypony was now staring at what he was holding.
The smoke drifted into Twilight's mane. With Celestia's, it simply went through.
"Take it," Turnbuckle insisted. "I know you don't have hands, but you've both got horns --"
"-- that's teak," Celestia unevenly said. "I can see that's teak. I can smell it."
A natural backcurrent wafted across the central source and blew more smoke towards the balloons. Their occupants blinked away stinging fumes, looked.
"Yes," Klishe agreed from the heart of anti-sobriety. "Needed real torch. Traditional. So Static set off lighting one more time, going up. Turnbuckle break wood. Made torch. Take."
Two sets of pony eyes slowly moved towards the new bonfire at the center of the cloud.
"You broke the device..." Twilight whispered as a full flock of Guards began to close in from the east.
A cloud which suddenly looked much thinner.
Rainbow took one breath.
"YOU MORONS!" A blur of wings brought her in front of Noctilucent, who could no longer remember any name and was just a few hours away from praying for his mother to forget his. "You don't know anything about putting cloud structures together, do you? No swagger-lairs for practice, nothing past basic molding! It's why you couldn't manage the waste pockets! And you didn't think about the most basic thing --"
Black vapor began to grey as Sun approached. This change was mostly missed because it happened at the same moment the dance floor sagged, sending multiple gramophones tumbling into the fresh pit.
"Tell me something, genius!" Rainbow shouted. "One quick fact from the pegasus who thinks his friends can stand on nothing! How much heat do you need before a cloud evaporates?"
He blinked at her. The last brain cell fired, and more liquid fell through the cloud.
Then other things began to fall.
Wings and coronas blurred.
"-- that's all of them," Celestia announced as her corona lowered the trembling kudu onto the gentle Sunlit grass of the palace gardens. "Any injuries?"
"None for ours," a sleek Guard told her as he shook moisture from his feathers. "They're just shaken. What about the ones the Bearers snagged?"
"Fine," Twilight exhaled. "They're fine." Her own corona carefully deposited the final shaking load, most of whom had just realized that the 'immortality' thing hadn't worked out for any other adolescents either. "Just drunk."
"...but we lost the records," Fluttershy told everypony as the balloons touched down. "...and the cauldrons, and -- if it wasn't alive, it crashed."
"Good," Celestia stated. "That means we prioritized." She looked down at the fetal curl of goosebumps near her hooves. "Interestingly, Noctilucent --" and smoothly stepped back at the instant before he vomited "-- when hauling somepony across a border because you're trying to save their life, the state of the rescued party's desires doesn't legally apply. And as the gardens were a safe place to deposit all of you -- welcome back to Canterlot."
The Solar Princess thinly smiled.
"Which has statutes concerning underage drinking," she added. "I could quote you the numbers, but you probably won't remember them after you wake up in the juvenile holding area. However, on the bright side, you'll be sleeping it off with company. Just don't expect all of your parents to fetch you immediately, because so many are away from Canterlot."
There was a level of drunkenness which would have prevented the kids from understanding that. It was known as 'death,' and her next words made them wish for it.
"And as I need to get some sleep," Celestia brightly told them, "I may wait a little while before contacting them. For the local ones, that would be 'personally'." She nodded to the most senior Guard. "Please fetch the police. They'll be in a shield bubble until then."
"...what..." Klishe barely managed. "Is no shield --"
The dome of sunlight unceremoniously dropped on top of him.
Celestia looked at most of her Bearers, and gave a little attention to the police chief from whom she often asked so much. She regarded the deflating balloons. But she couldn't meet Twilight's eyes, and the closest pass found the little alicorn looking away.
"I think we all need breakfast," royalty decreed. "Everypony, go to the nearest of the Solar kitchens: I'll meet you there shortly."
They started to move.
Old eyes briefly closed. "Twilight -- with me."
Her former student paused, almost glanced back. But her head dipped, and her legs began to shuffle --
"-- please."
"I tell myself that I have an excuse," Celestia said as they moved through a section of the gardens which had been themed to the west coast. "Or two."
"...really?" It was almost timid.
"Solar alicorn," the old white mare shrugged. "I do about as well under too much Moon as Luna does with excessive Sun time. Plus I didn't sleep. It's nice to have excuses, isn't it?" She stopped for a moment, looked at a slow-blooming pink flower. "They keep you from actually having to think about things."
"Sounds like something for a scroll."
Timidity hadn't applied.
"I think," Celestia decided, "everypony needs to send a scroll now and again. At least to themselves." Back to trotting.
Silence for a moment under morning Sun, and then a flurry of hooves: Twilight's shorter legs were straining to keep up. "Did you ever send one?"
Celestia snorted as she dropped her pace. "You think we had scrolls? Scrolls hadn't been invented yet! We notched words in tree bark. With our teeth. After marching two gallops to a message tree. Through the snow."
This "...really," was considerably more dubious.
"Uphill. Both ways."
Two mares giggled.
"We just talked to each other," Celestia finally said. "Scrolls..." The white head dipped. "...would have been easier."
Eight hooves began to move across a miniature bridge, fording a small stream.
"We're talking now," Twilight pointed out.
"I know," the elder dryly noted. "Scrolls are still easier. And don't say you didn't mean any of it, because that's the coward's way out. Besides, sleep deprivation is more than a little like being drunk. Things -- slip."
"You really want to go on missions with us?"
"All the time," Celestia softly told her companion. "Except for when you need stealth, because I'm exceptionally bad at that. Being twice everypony else's height doesn't help."
"Having wings to go with a horn doesn't help with that either," said the voice of recent experience.
"It doesn't help with a lot of things."
They both paused. Stared down at the whispering water.
"Talking like this," Twilight decided, "is weird."
"Yes. Do you want to stop?"
"I want to sleep," the librarian decided. "And then I want to talk. Is that okay?"
"The same. So yes."
A few fish swam by, paying the alicorns no notice as they did so. Air events weren't important and besides, by a certain definition, they were always drunk.
"Want to share the bed?" Celestia proposed, and kept every word encased within a completely false innocence.
As far as sounds went, "..." was the closest approximation of Twilight's breath locking down within her throat.
"It's a big bed. Since it fits me. There's a little room left over."
"...ggggg..."
Placidly, "I can also make my own torch."
Her former student kicked her.
It wasn't much of a kick: a minor side strike against her right foreleg. The battle equivalent of an annoyed nudge. But it was still a kick.
"Stop teasing."
"Fine," muttered equally false discontent.
"And -- keep talking. Please."
Celestia looked down. Nodded, and the mares finished crossing the bridge.