Half The Site Would Now Like To Speak With A Moderator
Normally, upon seeing a representative from a previously-unknown species furiously march into the throne room, the sisters would have examined its anatomy. There would have been an instinctive, fully-internal dual review: comparing it to everything they'd seen before in an attempt to work out just how this newest of sapient moved, worked, and potentially thought. Because to some degree, anatomy could determine destiny -- although it was possible for this kind of evaluation to make mistakes, as with the siblings already committing the error of having decided this creature was sapient.
They would have looked at the configuration of limbs, the placement of the eyes, and some consideration would have been given to any glimpsed arrangement of teeth. In this case, both alicorns got stuck on the hair.
It was the approximate color of straw, as long as that straw existed somewhere in the vicinity of a chemical dump. The resulting hue did not arise from nature, although the biped currently storming in was prepared to swear on the central book of her religion that her color was entirely natural. (Blatant lies which advanced your own cause didn't count as sins, and she could be entirely certain of that because the best way to know what a religious text was supposed to say was through never, ever reading it.) To look upon that shade of yellow was to ponder the nature of urine, bile, and a number of other noxious substances which the biped both continually generated and expelled: all in gaseous form, through the mouth.
The hair was the approximate color of straw, much in the same way that pouring every vaguely-edible concoction known to ponies into the same vat would produce the approximate flavor of cherry. It was also equally brittle, would have shattered rather than bend and in order to prevent that, had been stabilized into the configuration of a wave shifting across a toilet trench. This had been done through the application of additional chemicals, possibly binding glue because a book which wasn't going to be read had to be good for something, and sixteen coatings of clear-drying denial.
None of the hair moved when the biped did. The arms, however, swung in a way which suggested someone was trying to beat the air into submission. (The carried pamphlet would have normally served as a weapon, but it was dangling from the very tips of the heavily-lacquered nails, as if the biped could not stand to truly touch it.) Feet didn't plant themselves so much as they offered critiques of the flooring. And the respiratory cycle was entirely unique. The alicorns understood how breathing worked, and knew that air had to reach the lungs in order to be effective. You couldn't absorb oxygen without taking it all the way in, or survive afterwards unless the resulting carbon dioxide was just about fully expelled. It should have been impossible for any living being to subsist on a respiratory cycle which was roughly 80% sniff, but that was the new species for you.
It made her face give off the impression of being about 90% nose, and that was after 95% of it had been surgically removed.
The white mare decided to make an effort.
"Welcome," Celestia smiled. "I understand that you've only been here for a very short time, and some disorientation is natural. A longing for home, and we'll do our best to help you there. But until that time --"
The biped stomped to a halt. The world's only properly-cut skirt attempted to vibrate and found itself blocked by a precise barrier of starch. Tottering heels clicked on marble, which instantly regretted it.
"I demand," the female redundantly demanded in her most natural tones: full screech, with an overlay of sniff, "to speak with the manager."
The sisters momentary glanced at each other --
"-- look at me," the biped demanded, because she really didn't need much else in the way of speech descriptors. "Don't look at each other! I know what it means when you look at each other!"
The younger alicorn took a very slow breath. Five degrees of local temperature were effectively confiscated.
"And yet it would seem we do not. Do educate us."
(She had been absent from the world for a thousand years. It entitled her to a few mistakes.)
The biped sniffed. "It means you're planning something. I won't allow that. I am here to speak with the manager."
"If you're looking for authority," Celestia tried, "we'd normally suffice. Again, I understand that you're a little disoriented: you have every right to be. That's why we had the pamphlet printed: to explain certain basic realities of the new environment --"
"-- I read the pamphlet," the biped declared, because it was rather difficult to demand that and besides, skimming counted. "That's why I'm here. Because I was told that the answers to my questions about how I would be hosted here were in these pages. Which are very poorly written. I would expect things to be held to a certain Standard when it came to the writer's perspective."
"Which would be?" asked the younger, somewhat smaller, and I-went-through-ten-drafts-on-this pamphlet writer.
"That the writer should always consider the perspective of the reader and match it exactly," the female sniffed. "Otherwise, how could it ever be valid? Now I'm made to understand that your sun and moon are directly controlled? Along with your seasons and weather?"
"Yes," said the older of the two operators. "This can give our new arrivals some trouble --"
"-- no more full moons," the biped snidely demanded. "From this moment on. Forever."
The siblings glanced at each other --
"-- stop that!"
"Our apologies," Luna lied. "We simply found ourselves in the presence of a rather unique moment."
"And stop talking like you're better than me! Because you're not!"
"We have been alive for -- some time," the dark mare carefully ignored her. "A situation which has proved no small amount of experience. And yet, until that exact second, neither of us had realized it was possible to snidely demand something. No more full moons, you said? Might I inquire as to the why?"
"Faking your vocabulary doesn't make you sound smart," the biped sniffed. "It just tells everyone how stupid you really are. Because only intellectual elitists need to use long words. So they won't sound stupid. Because only stupid people do intellectual things. And now it's the same for stupid ponies."
Luna's expression suggested a careful evaluation of her previous sentences.
"Long words."
"Yes."
"Such as... apologies?'
"See! There you go again! 'Such as!' A normal person would have used 'like'! Or 'you know'! Or both!" The straw failed to shift with outrage, although several nostril hairs were doing their best to take the load. "And apologies are something which only inferiors do! That's part of how I know who they are!"
"...ah," Luna eventually decided. "So. As to stopping all full moons. May I inquire --" and just ahead of the next sniff of outrage -- or rather, ask why?"
"Because full moons make stupid people even stupider," the biped declared with open self-satisfaction, bringing no new knowledge into the world because the siblings had always known it was possible to do that. "It's a proven fact. All of the best Facebook posts say so, and why would so-called scientists try to deny something unless it was true? So if there aren't any full moons, maybe it'll be possible to make them a little less dumb." With what she clearly (and falsely) considered to be a shrewd look, "Smart enough to go get the manager for me. Why am I still talking to you two? Who's in charge?"
Celestia found herself rather awkwardly shuffling on the throne's cushions. "If you were sent in here," she tried, "then I'd imagine somepony must have told you that we --"
"Also, no new moons," the biped announced policy. "Because that's too dark. Almost full is fine. Keep that going all that time, and pay for my blackout curtains since you're the reason I need them at all. But you should rotate the moon, or pay for some repairs. Showing a side with craters on it just makes it look like you don't care about the quality of your product."
Luna took another breath. Three supernovas went off at the tip of her tail, and the biped ignored all of them because only intellectual elitists would have known what those were.
"Is there anything else?"
"Seasons," the biped immediately said. "Stop those at once. Why should I pay some filthy immigrant pony a dollar an hour to rake my dead leaves? It's better if there aren't any leaves at all! And snow? The world can live perfectly well without that! So late spring. Forever. I'd be amazed that none of you had thought of it before, except that you're all ponies and clearly stupid. But I will accept a certain amount of rain, as I plan on having a garden. And somepony to take care of it, because that is status. Now who do I speak to about the rain schedule? Because I have very specific requirements."
Celestia would have normally found herself on the verge of asking 'Such as?' But she was trying...
"Like, y'know?" the white mare attempted, and immediately regretted it.
"I want to have roses next to orchids," the female announced. "Within a foot of each other. So one inch of rain per week on the roses, and two ounces during the same period for the orchids. I'm sure any reasonable party would be willing to entertain that. And nothing on my path, because I intend to have artistic paving stones. They should never be slippery. So where is your manager?"
They didn't look at each other. Instead, half-tangible tails briefly touched, and the biped didn't notice that because tails weren't proper and no one should ever have one.
"If you don't bring me the manager right now," the biped demanded, "there will be Consequences!"
"Such as?" Luna inquired, because she had never been much of a people person and still hadn't decided if the biped was either one.
The female took a breath. Something under the blouse just barely shifted in a way which flesh didn't, because if you were going to go for artificial rigidity, you might as well go all the way.
"I will go online and tell everyone about you! -- stop looking at -- !"
"Online," the white mare carefully said.
"YES!"
"...you're going to find a line and stand on it?"
"The INTERNET!" screeched a biped who had the same password for every site, because that was the best way to confuse hackers who kept looking for different ones. "I'll tell all of the real people about just how horrible your service is! And then they'll all boycott you! No one like me will ever come here again!"
Luna's head tilted slightly to the left.
"A means of communication which prevents more of your kind from arriving?" she mused. "We may have to look into acquiring one."
The biped blinked a few times. Several fake lashes responded to the stress through breaking in half.
"You don't have Internet access."
"I'm not quite sure what that is --" Celestia began to admit.
"I will only live in an area which has 5G!" And instantly reconsidered. "Which has been inspected by a fully-neutral party in order to remove all of the mind-control frequencies." She sniffed again. "At least, the ones which install Wrong Thoughts. So much could be done with that technology in the right hands."
"...truly?" Luna eventually decided to risk, mostly for lack of non-fatality-creating options.
"Because it's not as if you understand anything you use, now is it?"
"We don't?" Celestia asked, because the biped's next sentences were coming anyway and putting a few words between them (wrongly) felt as if it would do something to break up the insanity.
"You have windmills," the biped sniffed. "I saw them. Don't you care if people get cancer?"
"I may be missing a correlation," Luna continued to lie, because she was a professional politician of some sort and if nothing else, it was good practice. "You believe that windmills --"
"-- where's the manager? I demand --"
"The two of us," Celestia carefully interrupted --
" -- AND DON'T INTERRUPT ME!"
"-- comprise the Diarchy," she valiantly continued. "Most would say that makes us the leaders of this nation. So when it comes to 'managers' --"
"-- I don't recognize your validity," the biped sniffed.
The white mare blinked.
"...come again?"
"How do I know the election wasn't rigged?"
"Election," Luna repeated.
"It's not as if I got to vote in it!" the biped snidely sniffed, because she was going to do that eventually. "Even if I did vote. Which I don't, because all elections are rigged unless the candidate I support wins, because all real people would vote exactly the way I would have. Which means that any other result means non-real people were allowed to vote. Or that the votes were fake. Or cast by ponies, which clearly means non-real. I will only accept the results of elections which go through a fully-independent neutral audit run by people I choose personally who agree with me in every way. I wouldn't have picked the two of you. So you aren't valid."
The siblings knew there were things they could have said in response to that, and also recognized that all of them were pointless.
"Is there anything else?" Celestia asked, mostly to get it over with.
"Magic," was the next fully-expected sniff. "Stop using it. Only Satanists use magic, not that any of you could be proper Christians in the first place. Or have souls, since you aren't human."
"Ah," Luna seized on the one piece of actual information. "You are a human. Where exactly --"
With what anypony would have considered to be an odd amount of open happiness regarding the topic, "-- so you're all going to wind up burning in Hell for using magic."
Luna paused.
"Allow me to work this out from context," she attempted. "We do not have souls. And yet we would still find ourselves in some part of an afterlife intended for punishment."
"But you'll go there anyway," the biped said with still more satisfaction.
Not without true curiosity, "How?"
"Since you're ponies. Anyway, the proper thing to do is to have a human in charge." With the smallest of volume drops, "Not just any human, of course! You're lucky to have me, you know!"
"Are we?" asked the white mare with some doubt.
The biped looked to the left. Then the right. And finding no one with a skin hue other than her own, risked the rest.
"You need someone who's white!"
Both alicorns squinted.
"You're sort of pink," Celestia considered. "Except for all the parts you've put powder on. Some of those are more of a deep beige. Exactly what does color --"
"-- so as the human," the female sniffed, "I will be assuming authority eventually, once I understand how your elections work and can tell everyone why they aren't legitimate unless I win them. Oh, and I'll be needing organic food, which means it's grown without magic and with pesticides, because that is the way things should be. But for now, I'll settle for speaking with your manager. Where is he?"
"We have been trying to inform you," Luna stated as frost began to form on the edge of dark wings. "Authority lies with us. Now, if I may explain the nature of seasons to you --"
"-- when I speak to the manager," the biped demandingly stated, "I'm going to have you two fired. Because it's clear that no one would ever put horses in charge, and lying to a real person should cost you your jobs. Forever. I have demands. They are sensible. They are the first sensible things to reach this so-called society since me. I will have someone write a book about that, and no one will be allowed to criticize it in any way because that's censorship. Horses can't be in charge of anything. Only people. So you are going to take me, send me, I don't care, to the authority above you. The ultimate authority in charge of everything about this idiotic place, so that weather and the moon and seasons can be properly settled once and for all. Because I can get a lawyer."
She smirked.
"And if you don't give me everything I want, I will sue you."
"...really," both siblings chorused.
The smirk got wider.
"I'll sue you to death! You don't know who you're messing with! This is war!"
Purple and dark blue eyes fully opened.
"Is it now?" Luna asked.
"YES!"
"All right," the elder breathed with open relief. "So you're standing in front of us, in the heart of our nation, declaring war."
"And," the younger added, "in order to have your war's demands met, you would like us to send you to the ultimate authority. Would this be a good time to do that?"
The biped blinked.
"You're going to send me to the manager?"
"The ultimate authority," Celestia corrected.
"As best we can," Luna concluded. "With the understanding that results may not be guaranteed."
The biped squared padded shoulders.
"The manager always agrees with me," she sniffed for the last time. "If they want to still be the manager. I demand that you send me there right now!"
Physical labor was a good way to relieve stress, and so the sisters were doing the work together.
"This is a very stubborn stain," Celestia muttered, grinding a forehoof against the polishing cloth.
"I expected no less," Luna grimaced. Another bucket of cleanser was tipped across the marble.
They were cleaning together. It was better that way, especially when it came to preventing anypony else from seeing the evidence.
"We may pay for that one," Celestia considered as she worked a little bit of char away from the edge.
"A benefit to supposed immortality," Luna offered as she filled in one of the cold-induced cracks in the marble, "is that payment can be postponed. Additionally, any such theoretical 'ultimate authority' would have been dealing with her for some time. This would seem to exponentially increase the chances of our being forgiven."
More scrubbing.
"Do you think she made it?"
"I am uncertain. But then, I have never had true faith in the existence of deities. However, as we did our best to send her there..."
The physical labor continued. Some of the plastics had melted into each other. Celestia blamed herself.
"What if she gets a god in pony form?" the elder eventually asked.
Luna considered.
"I suppose she would appeal to an even more ultimate authority? Unless, of course, the deity was pink. And poorly decorated with powders which encouraged deep beige. And agreed with her in every way, because that is the only way to determine whether authority exists. Sister?"
"Yes?"
"This 'Internet' thing..."
"...yes?"
"Despite the obvious benefits suggested by keeping more of her away, I somehow feel we are better off without one. Hmm. Are you sure you put forth your own best effort?"
Irritably, "Do you know how much heat it takes to turn bone into powder?"
With just a hint of mockery, "Regardless. But I will accept the possibility of a chemical shield. The skeleton may have been reduced to ash, but based on appearance alone, I would have sworn her hair was flammable..."
