"When you play the Game of Porcelain Thrones..."
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"When you play the Game of Porcelain Thrones..."
Glossy manuals and booklets littered the walls and corners of the spacious bathroom, several floating in the air in shimmering fields as Princess Celestia’s exasperated gaze traveled over them. “Exactly which pony made porcelain so hard to manipulate with magic, I wonder.”
“…you, dear sister,” Princess Luna replied, rubbed at her temples. She had the flush chain looped around one of her hooves, the tank’s cover resting just under her. “T'was after last time when Discord thought it a good idea to switch the cakes in this room with the ones in the pantry. Then after you brought over Prince Blueblood for a taste-test, you-”
“-swore that I said nopony else should know of this the last four slips of the tongue ago.” Celestia pointed to the brunette-maned earth pony next to them.
“Wait, that waswhy Minuette ran out of hygiene stock and toothpaste for a mon-?” Celestia’s eyes turned to slits as she rounded on Raven. “-Eep! Clearly not, i-it was an emergency in the Crystal Empire as officially stated. Poor Prince Shining!” Her sheepish grin finished the look.
“Thank you, Miss Inkwell,” Celesta turned back to Luna. “Now let us continue fixing this… device. It should not take so much time-wait, what is this?” Before Luna could seize the rectangle of parchment floating in the air, Celestia took acquisition. “Who is this from? And why does he talk of being late for a…’polishing’ with you?”
“It is… my pen dragon.”
“Pardon, sister?”
“Leave my time as Nightmare out of this, she is my little pen pal dragoni!” Luna’s exasperated voice rang through the room. “She hath spoken to me again, from beyond our dreams!”
“Which I must consider you still must be if you are busying yourself with this in the middle of so crucial a duty!” Celestia shot back. “Why did you even enable dragonfire notices to appear here, anyways? When will we be on this loo deciding ‘Alas, a suitor has brought me tales to warm my heart, just as our time sitting here ends with a fa-”
“-perhaps, sister, I would not need to use this ‘throne’ to talk to admirers if you would give me one of my own in the main chamber!”
Celestia loomed over her fellow diarch, her next words falling like paving-stones. “Sixteen. Different. Linen. Choices. And no final decision for months on end! The last time I saw such indecision grip somepony so close to my heart, it involved Galloping Gala tickets!”
“Wait, so those stories of Fluttershy screaming of love were true?” Luna’s jaw dropped. “I thought you were getting even for my Nightmare Night outrage!”
“The joke cookies I had Dash slip into your room with your candy; that was me getting even for Nightmare Night, sister.” Celestia’s s hoof pointed to the destroyed toiled, pieces now finally all swept away by Raven Inkwell. “This, right here, is getting even for your Headless Pony prank on me the day after. Now please, assist me with seeing if anything inside the tank is damaged.”
Luna chuckled, midnight blue waves falling over her face as she peered inside the tank.“Is me having a secret admirer so hard to believe? I am still an alicorn,” “Who, unlike some I could mention, do not need to cuddle everypony I meet for them to have hearts in their eyes upon seeing thee.”
“Flattery, sister?” tittered Celestia. “I would think you'd know better. Plus, with flanks like yours, I would have thought you were more into letter-opening, instead of sending.”
“Oh hush!” Luna playfully swatted at her sister’s left shoulder. “That you’ve a millennia’s head start and I still have more game than thee shows which of us is more desired.“
Or the Canterlot Hospital’s burn ward, considering the reaction it had on Raven Inkwell’s face. Excusing herself, she quickly rushed for the door, slamming it shut behind her. The stifled guffaws that emanated from it reminded Celestia to replace the doors in their palace with sturdier stuff.
Assuming the biggest knob in Equestria would stop smirking at her.
Celestia briefly reconsidered giving her sister the Princess Celestia Summer of ‘107 ‘Allllll of This” lecture, then decided against it. Knight-Commander Spearhead was still recovering from the nosebleeds, and rolling her generous hips as widely as she did during the ‘alllllli’ were what started these toiletry troubles in the first place. “Pegasi, huh? How have I not seen this... admirer before.” It was not a question.
To be fair, Luna’s response was barely an answer either. “She is from another isle. Thou would not know her, sister,” The ebony alicorn sniffled as her attention turned back to the contact at the other end of the ethereal pipeline. “She… she wishes for me to explain my actions further.”
“We are fixing a toilet. It is cutting into parfait time.“ Celestia was getting a little wary of why her little sister was paying so little attention. “Fin.”
“No, sister, that was but a summation,” replied the dream-walking diarch. “The action, it is… rather interesting to it. I think… my pen dragon is attracted to physical labor!”
Another blank piece of paper replaced that floating one, Luna’s magic soon conjuring up a quill. A saucy smile pulled at her face as she wrote, Celestia’s attempts to see the notice previous causing her to twirl around to nonchalantly avoid her. “Yes… I am… holding…. A wrench. I … also, have chains… available.”
Almost as soon as she sent the notice, another one sprang up. This time, the albino alicorn was facts lunging to grab the missive. Still, the recipient had no name under the hastily scribbled words, but what was there turned Celestia’s cheeks so scarlet, Luna feared she’d brought the sun down on Canterlot.
Celestia’s quill was out within seconds, scribbling under the notice. “To Whom It May Concern: Luna cannot speak right now. Please write back later, assuming you’re not modeling Rarity’s Winter Wrap-Up line now! With care, Princess Celestia.” Her recital immediately spirited the message.
Luna pouted, sticking out her tongue as Celesta clambered off the lip of the sink and eyed the broken circle of shards and rent piping that used to be a functioning bowl again. Then another missive appeared before her, Celestia only reading for a second before her quill nearly cut through the parchment. “And never you mind what I’m wearing, worry of what I’ll strip off you before I pin you to the ground!”
The reply was sent in a crack of magicso strong it sent Luna’s hooves to her ears. Sighing heavily, Luna returned to the packing box next to her, slowly unwrapping a new gleaming bowl from its bubblewrap-cushioned depths.
“I am not a softie.”
Celestia and Luna were busy holding down the new toilet’s bowl with their magic, it being a luxurious black-and-white with twirling decals shining as it wobbled slightly in their embrace. Raven had finally returned, keeping the heavy chunk of porcelain down. “What brings this about again?”
“We are before the very thing that brought this about,” huffed Luna. “I may have Guards to assist me for any need, but some things are a job anypony can do. And I could do very well without others doubting this talent, after a millennium of survival on my own celestial body.”
“The very thought of us being incapable of handling repairs in our own home is a joke, Sister.”
The meek voice from Raven was almost swallowed up by the squesquesqueaking of the large bolts she was drilling underneath them, tying porcelain to the floor. “Was this why Cadance giggled so much after Celestia called you to confirm your hooficure appointments, Princess Luna?”
“Thank you for keeping me from containing this issue earlier by the way, Miss Inkwell…” Celestia’s stance was suddenly eerily still after Raven’s words.
“Sorry, my lady.” Raven’s head couldn’t bow any lower without carving a rut in the tiled floor.
“It is not your fault, Miss Inkwell.” Celestia said. “I daresay, I’d been avoiding the problem for a while myself.”
“Permission to speak, Luna?”
The pair of midnight-furred rear-legs to the left of the assistant pony shifted slightly. “Granted, Inkwell.”
“W-was this why Shining giggled after you pricked a hoof getting a toolkit out from the Guard’s briefing room, Prince-?”
“-and summarily retracted, Inkwell.” A meep below her signaled the reaffixing of their new toilet once more. ‘Silencing the newlywed’s titters over our assumed insufficiencies is worth everything here.”
“I would rather you’d stop pestering my assistant. We have had… much too many broken things to fix as of late.” Celestia’s tone sounded more tortured than before –and the strain of keeping the bowl upright was no longer the sole reason for it.
“Is this because of her saying she had the manuals to help us replace this seat you shattered?”
Celestia’s short snout crinkled. “It is not. In fact, that she has to make defenses on our behalf is its own issue, sister.”
“And why not?” asked Luna. ”We are sharing the responsibility for Equestria’s stewardship – as we should, considering our past follies! It is why you handed custody of the Elements to Twilight and her friends to liberate me from Moon, why I oversaw that Nightmare Night after, why we poured through every letter Spike sen-”
“Sister.” It was not often that thrumming edge of the Royal Canterlot Voice elapsed from the maw of the alabaster diarch. Luna took notice of this change in tone. Even now, the room felt ten degrees colder than it should have been, goosebumps sparkling her raven fur. “That is not why I am seeing this through, and I highly doubt it is why you did as well.”
“Oh, Sister…”Luna’s head rose up to meet her fellow princess’s. Even the turning of bolts felt an eternity away – a feeling Luna still experienced too often with Celestia these days, despite them sharing sleeping quarters. “Those injuries from that accused bug healed long ago.”
“And the nightmares from that invasion were expertly restrained,” replied the alabaster diarch.
“I should have been there regardless, sister. Seeing you as you were slipping into unconsciousness… what you thought Chrysalis was doing after you fell. It reminded me too much of…”
“It should not. Those times are behind us both.” Celestia leaned on the bowl now, enough of the screws set to allow her the chance to weigh it down without a balancing act required. “And so long as we tackle everything with this immediacy, it will stay that way”.
Luna chuckled for a short spell – enough to mix with her actual spell that summoned a black towel to wipe the sweat away from both their faces. “How I understand, sister! But… this should not be something that should be stumping us.” A grin tugged away at her lips. “The last challenge we should ever tackle on something like this is using one, not fixing one.”
“Speaking of such, sister...” Celesta, all too proudly, affixed the top of the tank to it, finally tightened the screws on the new device with her igniting horn, and the last nut was screwed into the base of the new toilet as Raven Inkwell stepped back.
“Now for the final test.”
Princess Celesta, after a brief second, clambered onto the sea, lid still down and budging only slightly around her haunches. Princess Luna then motioned to Raven, who took a feather stuck in her main and twirled it around Celestia’s upper barrel. A warm, generous rumble of whoops and chuckles shook not only her frame but that of the black-and-white contraption underneath her. But both princess and porcelain held firm, the smile on Celestia only growing grander at the news.
“It works. The base is stable!” Luna was studying the toilet from all sides. ”And so will this town’s faith in our ability!”
“And our circle is restored.” “Again, in Canterlot, the ability of Alicorns –and their wondrous assistant – can still reign supreme.”
Celestia then turned to the beaming white pony beside them, as much an ally in their home repair as they were. “You should have the honors of the first tank test, Miss Inkwell. As an assistant of mine, let this above all show what happens when the Two Sisters of Equestria put their all into a task.” Raven gave a small smile as she tugged at the chain. And miraculously, the water swirled down into the drain with no issues.
“YES!” Three whoops from the ponies around the bowl, and Canterlot’s plumbing was back in full flow once more.
Turning to her sister, Luna’s gate of pearly teeth belied a welling sense of gratitude. For the chance to just be with her, doing these silly yet satisfying things again. For the success in doing so that had so doggedly evaded them times ago for…. well, the harmony that now resided in their recesses where hatred had once razed. “I would like to celebrate together with my sister. With some… sponge cake, if you have it.”
“And I with you, sister…over a nice nap in the garden later.” Celestia shook her hoof. “To us!” Luna was proud to bop her hoof with Celestia’s, as the mid-morning sun shone between in the elaborate frames of their window.
KA-BLAM!
Only for it to be drizzled with water. Weather factors had no factor in this, however, as the rocking hunk of pulverized porcelain and processed pipes propelled out from the roof in the barracks several dozen meters from Canterlot Castle. “Sister, quick question. When we were reaffixing the pies, which did you connect them to?” quietly asked Princess Celestia.
“There was a usable set of one next to the Guard’s briefing room here, why…?” Luna’s face paled.
“Yes. There was.” Because it was the old runoff pipe to the Guard’s quarters.” Celesta, wide-eyed, turned to Raven. “Miss Inkwell….”
“Parasprite’ll be planted on the grounds within the minute, my ladies.” Raven galloped out of the room.
“Circle. I said that this was a circle.” “And yet it now feels like a death spiral -- with our reign going down… that drain.” Her eyes turned back to the toilet, as if expecting an apology from it for 86ing their home repair efforts. No such reply was forthcoming.
“Well, bright side, sister – we shall not need to inform the Guard of this predicament now.”
Celestia’s look back to her sister was withering, usually reserved for only the most troubling of baked goods and/or Discord and/or Discord tampering with her baked goods. “You have the number of your new squeeze available?”
“I… do not think you will access it easily, but why-?”
“So I can hide there for the next few days, sister. Feel free to join me.”
“I… may take you up on that offer.” “Tartarus only knows how much heat our actions today have drawn.”
“What’s going on? I heard noises, and after your trip to Equestria, I had to-Ember?!”
Lord Torch’s clambering into his daughter’s room had his eyebrows raising at the spectacle before him.
Ember was pitched over on the restone-ridden ground on her back, legs still stuck in a sitting position, paper within her claws gripped in an almost rictus-induced pose. “I’ll… be up in a minute.” she squeaked. At the top of it, on the name Princess Celestia was visible among the crinkles.
