Adventure is Adventure, My Dear Sister
B_25 & Ploish
Princess Celestia beat against aching legs to take her quicker, faster along the barely paved path of dirt and grass and gravel—mindful of the branches sprouting out from the ground. The passing trees blurred in phases of brown, light and dark, greens of the leaves and foliage, their contrast the same.
Though it was foolish to do so, the princess glanced over her shoulder, seeing her sister, smaller but stronger, only a few hooves away. Much like her, Luna was dashing for her life and, due to the difference of height between them, pushing herself harder to keep up.
Celestia wished something could be done about that.
But, for the moment, getting out alive, somehow, was the only priority.
“Sister! Cease!” Luna's voice called out from behind, echoing all around, the words foolish—but the mare wasn't. Despite feeling like a bad idea, Celestia dug her hooves into the earth, slowing her speed as she spread the ground apart with her momentum, finding herself lagging into the middle of a kind of opening. “Do not move! They've surrounded us.”
Celestia came to a pause where she stood. The echoes of a call boomed from some distant bird. The hissing of snakes matched the sizzle of the sun not viewable underneath the dense foliage above. Inside, the jungle was dim.
Something brushed against her hind leg. Celestia gazed down at her sister, who was looking away, pointing a hoof in the same direction. She looked there was well, sloped walls of shadows marking the distance—eyes, glowing green, sparking in masses.
Celestia swallowed. The opening of eyes and the unleashing of lights spread across the distant darkness, revealing the bugs and beasts given them chase, now, trapping them close to their home. All around was the view of the swarm. That, and the two ponies caught in the middle of it all.
“Oh, dear sister.” Celestia shook her head with a sigh. She dared to close her eyes. “How did it ever come to this?”
Memory flashed to two weeks in the past, where the heat of the jungle had been swept away by the cool breeze up on the mountain Canterlot was lodged upon. It blew through the open window of the castle and into the long corridor—caressing the two sisters strolling down the red carpet.
“I've gazed down these halls more than a thousand times,” Princess Celestia began during her stroll, her muzzle swinging along, gazing at the place as though it were the last. There was some truth in that statement. “But none of those times matched the intensity I look at them now with. Suppose everything looks different, heavier, maybe even greater when you know it's the last time you'll ever see them again.”
Luna's response to her sister's woe, like all good sisters, was to groan. “Not like we can't visit.”
“Will we ever, though?”
“Could turn out that way,” Luna replied. “Or it could turn out whatever way you choose to be.” She then rolled her neck—eyes shooting then surprised at one too many kinks popping at once. “Weren't you the one that suggested retirement anyway? Thought both of us needed a break from seeing all of this to begin with.”
Princess Celestia. “I suppose you're right. Not seeing all of this would be rather nice for some time. That, and going home together.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Yay. Home.”
Why wasn't she more enthusiastic about that? Celestia fought the spark to question down the line of thought. They'd reach the towering doors where the meeting would take place. No guards suited on either side. Thank goodness for that.
“Come.” Celestia threw a forehoof over Luna's neck. She rubbed the spot. “Put on your best smile for me. The quicker we're through here, the quicker we can leave from here. That is what you wish, right?”
Luna sighed and looked around. Seconds passed. Then, with a huff, her lips pulled on either side, composing the most mechanical of smiles underneath the deadest of eyes. It suited her in a way. “That's my girl. Now let's get on with this.”
The doors pushed open with the gentlest pressure of the hoof. They spread apart to reveal the long wooden table situated in the middle of the area, cabinets and drawers set around the curve of the circular room.
“Princesses! You've made it!” Twilight had been sitting in the chair and peering into a book on the sound of their first step, her head shooting up, despite being immersed in the page. She stood and raced around at once, throwing herself up, swinging her forehooves over each of their necks. “It's so good to see you two!”
“It's good to see you too,” Celestia replied upon lowering her muzzle into the crook on the side of Twilight's neck, rubbing a hoof across her back. From her perched, however, she tossed a quick glance toward her sister. “And I'm sure Luna feels the same way.”
Luna growled a silent groan, rolling her eyes once more, slowly, hesitantly, patting Twilight's back. “You always evoke pleasant feelings inside of me, Twilight. Tis good to see you too.”
While Celestia glared, Twilight, however, didn't pick up on the robotic words spoken from a robot. Rather she pulled away with a smile still pleasant. And then she turned back to the desk—circling around that same book from before. “Now that you're both here, I wanted to share a... recent discovery of mine.”
Now it was Luna's turn to glare up at Celestia, whispering: “We came all the way back here for that?”
Celestia promptly swung her rump into her sisters, knocking her a foot to the left, causing her to scramble. With a satisfied grin, she strode forward, though, on seeing the familiarity of the book on the desk, froze.
“T-Twilight?” Celestia then gently coughed. “W-What is that book you were reading?”
“Exactly what I wanted to talk to you two about!” Twilight sauntered behind the book, flicking it closed with a hoof. In turning it around, she pushed it forward, the heavy sliding upon wood scraping on the ears. “Remembered this book from when I was still a student. I went back to rediscover some passages when something caught me about them.”
Celestia went pale. Paler than she usually was, that is. The book was banned many years ago. Personally burned by both her hooves and horn alone. She made sure to rally up call the copies. But maybe she had been one tick short after all.
“Sister?” Luna whispered into her ear. “You are ill.”
“Caught a sickness I'd rather not speak about,” Celestia whispered back.
“From the book?”
“Allergic to dust.”
“You lie.”
“Only for now.”
“Hua-hum!” Twilight cleared her throat with annoyed eyes set on the pair. Her head was tilted and her hoof was tapping against the wood. Both straightened up at once. How the student and the teacher had changed indeed. “If you two would pay attention now.”
Luna looked as if she fought to suppress a salute of a hoof and the uttering of an “Aye aye!”.
“Anyway.” Twilight peered back at the book with a smile. “I at first thought the book was fictional due to its narrative, but upon the second reading, the author states the events of being true. Locations and events and landmarks still held in our history are spoken about in the book. But then it starts to reach further than the reaching of any map.”
Celestia clenched an eye, though not out of any conscious effort. “Personally checked yourself?”
“To ever date and location marked and traced!” Twilight sang the words which scratched against Celestia's ear. It drooped while the rest of her body threatened to drop. “But if this book is true. If there really were events that occurred beyond the Known Lands.” Twilight's wings twitched open while she laid her hooves onto the desk. “Then surely it's up to us to go out and find these happenings out in the outer worlds so they may be preservedin history!”
Twilight was huffing with her body propped up on the desk, her tongue nearly dolled out, excitement enticing the air. Her gaze flicked between the two, praying for similar enthusiasm... only for Luna to be arching an eyebrow and Celestia purely unreadable.
“Of course, you two would be making history, of course.” Luna perked up at that. Her name being recorded in textbooks for a positive reason was always bound to perk her ears. “Unknown resources and creates and games beyond reckoning. You'd be the famous recorders of them all!”
Luna rubbed her chin. “Sounds like an adventure to be had.” She gazed over and up. “Wouldn't you agree, dear sister?”
“Our adventure was supposed to be the one back home,” Celestia fought back underneath her breath. Her long hair falling over her shoulders as her muzzle jutted down. “Those lands are more dangerous than you can know!”
“So do know of them.” Luna grinned. “I am glad to hear it. The more danger is to be had, the better the experience is, and the greater of a story that is to be told.”
“No no no!” Celestia nearly cursed every word. “Do not encourage this!”
“The book,” Twilight started up again as her voice drew both of their gazes, “was also written by the sole survivor of the last expedition ever sent there by Celestia.” Twilight's eyes blinked. Apparently, speaking of the former princess in the highest form was still a hard habit to break. “By you, I mean. Plagues and creatures and that of the unknown tend to wipe out everyone you sent.”
“About that...”
“Which is why I plan on sending you two!” Was she serious? Twilight nearly clopped her hooves together in glee. Celestia loved her dearly, but sometimes, she wanted to take those same hooves and stuff them into the mare's face. “Not only do you two possess great magical power and strength, but thanks to an alicorn healing factor, there won't be much to keep you down for much.”
Luna blinked and took a step forward. Her face was interested though head at an angle. Another horrible sign of serious consideration. Control your breathing, Celestia... control your breathing. “So you mean to send us into intense danger?”
“You're the only two the nation could spare capable of tackling such a project.” Twilight smiled upon settling a hoof atop the book. She pushed it toward the approaching Luna. “And something tells me you're craving a little adventure during your retirement.”
“Oh?” Luna paused before the table and the book. “And what makes you think that is so?”
“Because I've been there during the off-seasons.” Twilight grinned. “Nothing worse than waking up... knowing that's the best you're going to feel all day.”
Luna grinned. “My sister was right to leave you in charge after all.”
She then placed her hoof on the book as well. “Able to give dangerous order to the royal sisters you once admired... knowing we needed a kick to get us through our retirement... why yes. Yes. I think you'll prove to be the kind of princess this world needed.”
All muzzles turned over shoulders to Celesta. She rolled her eyes, leaning away her head, stepping forward all the same, lifting and dropping her hoof to the book. Three hooves dedicated inward to the contents of the book.
“I suppose a little adventure would sweep some air back into the lungs,” Celestia said.
“I merely worry for getting my heart-rate up again,” Luna added.
“And I'm just glad there wasn't need to enact a law to get you two to go!” Twilight said to the earned glares of them both. “The one where a princess can order a subject to do something if bettering the nation relies upon it? Like fighting a dragon? Maybe I shouldn't have told you this wasn't a choice to begin with.”
Both mares glanced at each other, nodded, sparking the tips of their horns.
“Uh, whoops?”
The royal sisters—now just sisters—sailed the next week. Nothing in their home needed to be changed as the dishes and laundry and cleaning had been done in advanced. Advanced of advanced. There wasn't much to do back at home.
Celestia had sat behind the wheel with a frown, resting her chin on a peg, unamused with the splendour of crashing waves rising and falling on the sides of the ship. Luna, however, stood at the mast, laughing and playing, striking a hoof to the great beyond, more than twice, as if playing captain.
Luna's joy was filly-like, unexpected of the mare, but delicious to experience. It was the only good thing about the trip. Seeing Luna like a kid again. Celestia ended up smiling a few times. Her chest pained to go and play and pretend to be a sailor as well.
But the glum of the destination kept her fixed to her chair.
There'd been a third to join them. The oldest servant of the sisters chose to follow them even after the lowering of their crowns. He stood at the back of the ship, dressed in the black attire of a butler, holding a tray of two glasses, each filled.
Many things were remarkable about the unremarkable butler. Always there but never seen. Something was always being offered by him and, due to the first fact, rarely anything was ever taken. He kept still despite the harsher waves. Not a drop left the glasses on the tray he was set to hold.
An amazing feat.
If anybody actually cared.
His name was Kibitz.
It was barely known.
Because hardly anyone asked.
Poor Kibitz.
“Kibitz!” Or maybe his luck was changing after all. “Drinks, please!”
The butler waited for a second, not out of disobedience, but rather, due to his age, seconds were required to process not every word, but rather, every syllable said to him. During one of Celestia's speeches, a full hour was needed before he had started clapping.
He'd been alone in the throne room, with the light off, clapping for ten minutes.
“Yes, princess.” He shambled over, limping, desperately needing a cane but having none. Somehow, the glasses kept perfectly balanced. The tip of her white wing wrapped around the glass's base, bringing it back to her muzzle for a sip. “Is there anything else you require of me?”
Remember.
Small words.
Say them slowly.
“The law Twilight proposed.”
Few seconds passed. That should have been enough to lead him. Celestia prayed it was.
“Written by your own hoof during the 'before-times,' princess.” Kibitz had been ordered to stop calling her by that title. But that command either went ignored out of love and duty, or rather, because so much had to be undone in his mind, it would take years to actually be followed. “None else would know of it except those knowing fully of your history. Faded text included.”
“Certainly taught her to be inventive to any possible detail, didn't I?”
“No choice but to follow through on your mission.” Kibitz pulled back a step. “The passage of 'the pineapples of immortality' caught my eyes.” Celestia narrowed her brow, knowing him to be blind. “Twilight has every right to pit you even against a dragon if she desired and could argue adequately for it. And it's now too late for you to re-write the rules.”
So he was aware of the change of power? He called her princess out of love, then.
It wasn't much, though enough to bring a smile out of the former princess, all while, out on the deck, the filly of a mare continued to play. The painted blue of the sky was buttery against the softly intense glow of the sun. Everything perfect.
Despite marking to the island in the great beyond.
Celesta was huffing even though the chase was long gone, the endless day becoming the endless night, the persistent rains, warm and cold, somehow, simultaneously, now pelting at the drapes of leaves in the trees and of the stone outside the cave.
Four hours of fighting and running and magical blasting had passed. Lifting above the jungle on the narrow lanes raising to the cliff of the mountain, the sister took inside to the cave, enough space to gather wood, setting a fire quickly thereafter, both of them lying on their stomach, their snouts inches from the flames.
Once recovered, the two dispatched differently. Luna had happily towed trees and rocks and few corpses of various animals during her treks beyond the cave. For a mare that never sung in the shower, she whistled to her own echo, playing a show all for and to herself.
And she crafted armour and gear, swords and spears, needing something like this to drive her will, give her purpose, a journey she longed to be on again. So long as she could fight and gather and create and then go back stronger—she'd be the happiest mare to have ever lived.
Celestia was busy with her snout now stuffed into a map. The merry tunes of her sister annoyed her terribly. And she felt terrible for that fact. But the heat, the rain, the scratches and itches across her frame simply cast herself in a foul mood.
“I swear there is no point in reading this map to begin with!” It wasn't like Celestia to throw a scroll against the ground, but, sometimes in life, Celestia needed to throw a scroll against the ground. “Discord could have composed this whole island for all we know! Our first target—Nitro Rice—isn't anywhere close to where the book said he would be.”
Luna stopped sewing the pieces of leather in her hooves together. “Doesn't sound all that bad to me. More time around the island means more monsters to put down. If we take on something a bit stronger—I can make even better gear out of it!”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “There's a chance we could be exploring this island for all entirety? Haven't you noticed something strange whenever we walk around? The jungle is here for a reason. Every step we take, the island shifts itself around us. Hard to tell when you can't see beyond the area you're stuck in!”
“Another trouble for us to overcome,” Luna responded. “Don't you miss this? Our land used to be like this. A long time ago.” She smiled as if swept into a memory. “But I still remember it fondly. You and I paved the lands so ponies could live peacefully.”
Celestia was forced to laugh as well, but, in the second chuckle, her eyes lowered. “Suppose those days of cleansing the lands were enjoyable in a strange way.”
“Better way of spending our retirement together.”
“Suppose you're right on that.” Celestia stood up and came next to her sister, assisting in making the sleeve of leather. “Why don't you worry about weapons and I'll handle armour? Exactly how we did it back then.”
Both sisters then smiled as they returned to work, happy to be together with a bounded purpose, the best essence one could hope to experience in life. It would take many months of many tries before they conquered this island.
But this sort of retirement suited them better anyway.
Author's Note
Always nice to break out into writing things that are bit more kind. This was a whip of fresh air into my lungs. Doing a whacky, zany, over the top adventure is something I didn't know I needed.
Once upon a time, it was my greatest desire to write a great adventure story, one that I've been playing in my head for far too many years. But now I keep to formats a bit shorter than great. But that hope keeps festering in the background. This tale gave me a glimpse of what could maybe be done one day.
And that is why I am thankful for writing it.
Hopefully, you had as much fun reading it as I did.
~ Yr. Pal, B ~
