In Which Several Speech Attempts Are Made
Several years after they had stepped down from the high rulership of Equestria, Celestia and Luna went to live in a small cottage off one of the byways that stretched through the woods surrounding Ponyville, under a thicket of tall pines called “The Grove of the Ancient Heroes” according to folklore. They had endured a brief stay in Silver Shoals; there, looking out over indigo seas, they had felt the itch of their imaginations, which had grown capacious from a life of high ceremony and world-shaping political will. Living by the water, they themselves became two lapping skiffs on the silent tide; and so, one clear morning, they removed themselves to the wooded hill, with its small-paned stationery shop, where every envelope, steno pad, and erasable ink pen bore the intoxicating whiff of new adventure.
This news had reached their successor, Twilight Sparkle, amidst a maelstrom of more serious matters. A dispute had emerged between the griffons of the Frosted Ridges and the yaks, who alleged an ancestral claim to the flats there where the griffons hunted. One of the old poohbahs, the yaks said, was buried in the pastureland; and the foreign minister of Canterlot, who was a griffin, had recused himself from participation in the affair. Twilight was considering the task of appointing a subaltern when the letter of the old princesses passed under her notice. She regarded it with fleeting curiosity and a little bemusement, first because she was busy, and second because Ponyville was an old thing to her. It was only during autumn of the same year, when she was traveling on a diplomatic mission, that she remembered her old mentors were close by; and, seeking their inspiration and encouragement, set aside a delightful hour to see them.
She passed through the market and filled a basket with the best turnips she could find for making soup, then wended toward the part of the forest where she read the princesses had made camp. The place she found was a little hut underneath an evergreen canopy forty feet high, at the end of a winding dirt pathway. There were no other domiciles for a five-minute walk, and pine needles filled the air with a rich sweet scent.
The interior appeared to be in shambles. Two filthy mattresses occupied the small front room. Scattered throughout the cottage were drinking cups filled partway with dark potations, positioned, it seemed, to be available in any conceivable activity and at any time. Cooking pots inundated the stove and kitchen counters. The seat of activity was a folding table stationed toward the back. It was a plastic altar covered in pamphlets with scratched-out figures, fabrics, used plates, and paintbrushes wrenched and brown from overuse. A breeze blew in, forming rings of cool air around Twilight’s legs—the back door had been left open.
Out in the yard, Twilight found the princesses. They were having a dispute next to a pile of pine needles; Celestia’s voice echoed in the trees as she levered the handle of a rake in one hoof. “It is your turn to pick up the needles, Dark Prophetess!” she said. “Harken to the wren that warbles in yonder hemlock—its chatter cuts through the tangled boughs of your deception, and reminds us that it was I who went to the well-pump three days this week, to fetch us water for baths and sponges.”
“Come on the racoons, and come on the newts, and come on all the other creatures which steal away into dark recesses,” Luna replied, fussing under a gigantic burlap vestment, “and let them tell the tale, Rogue Princess, of Our two-fold expedition to the pump, and the several breakfasts conjured by Us thereafter!”
“Eggs do naught to buff the experience, Eyeless One.”
“And naught for brains, forsooth,” shouted Luna, “though yours were evoked upon many scramblings.”
“Perhaps,” retorted the older, “if you spent more reflection on your skirmishes, and not in the skillet, your combat would be much improved.”
“Fi and gadzooks! Then let Us journey to the ravine to find a troll, or a land-wurm, with which to practice the steady shot of Our bow, and We shall leave the raking of the vegetable patch to thee!” said Luna, upon which declaration the argument appeared to have been settled.
She turned and made wings for departure.
“Do as you please,” said Celestia. She went back to working in the yard.
“Good speed to you, Rogue Princess…” said Luna, making a quarter turn.
A stillness fell over the Grove of the Ancient Heroes. The scrape of Celestia’s rake made the only sound as she waited underneath the freckled light of the forest for Luna to depart. The hush of the great trees became present.
Luna stamped her hooves and reared herself for take-off. But then she seized a moment when Celestia looked away, and leaped backward with a cry that startled several nearby songbirds into flight.
“ARROW!” she yelled, thrusting a blue-black hoof at her sister.
Celestia threw the rake to the ground. “SHIELD!” she returned, throwing up her forelegs to cover her face.
They finished and unfolded parchment sheets from satchels they were carrying, making small and precise notes using pencils that they maneuvered with their teeth. All enmity between them seemed to melt away. They might have continued in this way, it seemed to Twilight, had she not drawn attention to herself; for the other two had still not observed her arrival.
“Ahem.”
Celestia and Luna broke off and flashed their big and bucky smiles at her.
“Well-met, Twilight Sparkle!” Luna hollered from underneath the oversized hood. “We welcome you to the Grove of the Ancient Heroes.”
Celestia approached. “It is good to see you again, my faithful disciple. I sensed your coming in a dream.”
“You sensed no such thing, Sister,” Luna exclaimed, “for what you call ‘dreams’ are nothing more than the plenum of fantasies to be found in Neck Collar Digest.”
“Indeed,” Celestia replied, “I can think of an issue that would interest you especially, Dark One. It gives a history of the Summer Sun Celebration, a holiday made in my honor by the townsfolk, like Nightmare Night, but for adults instead.”
“I shall take it to the outhouse with me,” Luna replied, with a voice that broadcast over the grove, “and it shall serve a purpose, one way or another.”
“Speech attempt made with twenty-five percent chance of failure,” Celestia said. “I did not hear you—perhaps you were too soft spoken.”
“Mine ARROW speaketh in deadly murmurs!” Luna fired back, leaping backward into the air.
Celestia threw up her forelegs to cover her face. “SHEILD!”
They began jotting on their papers again. This time Twilight, despairing of a formal reception, asked them, “What are you doing? Why are you bickering and keeping score? Is this some kind of exhibition? Who put you up to this?”
Luna flipped her hood back. “No one has put us up to anything. We are roleplaying in real time, Twilight Sparkle. It is a most serious work.”
“And very dangerous work, I see,” Twilight replied.
“We love beauty,” Celestia said, lifting her gaze to the rustling tree branches, “and the love of beauty is a dangerous and deadly thing.”
“Oh, that is a good line!” said Luna, so that she might be heard in all corners of the wood.
Celestia nodded. “I have discovered that it is good to talk to pumpkins to improve speech. Unlike ponies, they do not tire of your overtures.”
“Please forgive my saying so,” Twilight resumed, “but coming here I thought I might have found you in a better state of affairs. Why are you out here, spending your time scrapping in the yard? Why do you live in a cottage which is too small for you? And why, now, do you find it useful to talk to pumpkins, when there are so many troubles which we might talk about, instead? Have you run out of money? Look, I brought turnips for you.”
She dropped the basket on the grass and gave it a kick, causing a bulb to roll onto the ground.
“For turnip and carrot soup. You do remember how to make that, don’t you?”
She heard the breeze again in the branches and felt the chill of the afternoon air under her belly. She bent down to pick up the stray turnip.
“Don’t feel bad for us, Twilight Sparkle,” said Luna after a moment reflecting. “We are writers now.”
“It would be worse for us to linger in Silver Shoals,” said Celestia, “whose sands are like the count of faces come and gone, and whose sight line is flocked with forgotten beliefs, like waterfowl around a potato fry.”
“I must join you in the pumpkin patch one night, Sister,” Luna whispered indiscreetly. “Please do not forget to take me along.”
“I’d like nothing more than for you to be writers,” Twilight replied. “You have lived extraordinary lives. The stained windows of your palace towered above the mountains. A rill ran from your throne room down to a valley of cataracts. You have seen more of the land, and the ponies in it, than some of the folk in this village might see in a lifetime. Beauty must be as deadly as you say, or—”
Luna leaped backward. “ARROW!”
“SHEILD!” boomed Celestia, throwing up her forelegs.
They were at their papers again.
“Apologies for interrupting,” Luna excused herself as Twilight waited for her and Celestia to finish with their tabulations. “I thought that my sister had stopped paying attention.”
“Ong musk be pupared for anythin.”
“She cannot hear you with a pencil in your mouth, Sister!” roared Luna.
Celestia spit it out and wiped the saliva from her chin. “I said, one must be prepared for anything. Would you like me to say it louder, Dream Walker?”
“I would like only for you to show a little decency to our revered guest, who is making profound remarks for us.”
“I suppose you deserve the most decency of all of us, Creature of the Night,” Celestia answered, “for she is a guest in our hut only, while you would dine in every ear nearby.”
“YOU ARE SO CLOSE TO AN ‘ARROW’ THAT 'WE' CAN HARDLY BE FAULTED FOR LACK OF RESTRAINT!”
“ENOUGH!” said Twilight, interceding between them. “Look at you! Muddy hooves, unkempt quarters. It seems to me that you spend all day, now, looking for ways to annoy one another, and carrying out a life that is less noteworthy, less noble, less sanitary, even, than that of any pony of the intervales. I’m very busy. But if you’re willing to clean up on my advice I will block out some time to help you. Come on. We will make soup, and catch up.”
She picked up her turnip basket and motioned for Celestia and Luna to follow her into the house. She noticed her hasty, stiff movements as she trotted the grass going back to the cottage, and turned to add as a final argument, “And you can no longer say that I don’t have the experience to understand your decisions.”
She felt the cool, golden sunlight on the back of her neck as she marched on, determined to listen for obedience and not to look for it from the old monarchs. Then she was paralyzed—everything around her was halted by a cry which reached her from behind like the smarting slice of a razor.
“ARROW!”
Twilight whipped around. “Excuse me? Did you just—I mean, for me? An arrow? Really? That’s not even fair, or warranted!”
“Did I not try to warn you,” Celestia said, “about being prepared for anything?”
Twilight dropped the turnips. She began heaving. “I-I can’t believe this! I just feel like we’ve been through so much together. I wasn’t expecting…”
“Your confidence has cost you twenty health points, Twilight Sparkle,” said Luna, fetching her tally sheet. “Hopefully you have learned that you must never turn your back on a lawful evil prophetess.”
“Take it back,” Twilight snapped at her.
“Take what back, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Your arrow. If you value our relationship, you’ll do it.”
Luna and Celestia exchanged glances. “What’s done is done,” the former replied with grave seriousness. “The wind blows daggers for us royalty. What are We to do, un-dagger you?”
“You should have used ‘shield’,” Celestia interposed.
Twilight threw up her forelegs to cover her face. “SHIELD!”
“It’s too late for that now!” thundered Luna. “You must suffer the scorn of Neglect, who is a cruel mistress to those who serve her.” She finished scribbling, and added, “But if you are desperate, Purple Mage, We can always sell you a magic potion.”
“You’re missing the point—er, Prophetess,” Twilight replied. “I would never shoot you with an arrow, even an imaginary one. Let me ask you—because I want to hear from your own lips—what were you thinking when you fired it?”
“Of your welfare. If you were hit—as you were, my dear inquisitor—you would have learned what to do when in the company of rogues and soothsayers, such as We are. If you blocked, it would have been good experience for you, since We have such a high archery level.”
Twilight interrupted her. “Would you let me do something for your welfare? Even if you have to suffer through it, as I have done for you?”
A gale came in and scattered the needles that Celestia had collected into a pile. The cold wind wrapped under Twilight’s ribs and belly, and she began to shiver. It was autumn.
“Twilight,” Celestia said, sitting down by the rake, “the marble spires to which you alluded—that lovely image which you used to give shape to the past—are only a suggestion of things. I hope you understand. Waste yourself in some lanai, give up the breath of the spirit of magnificence and magnanimity, and then you will see what is best for our welfare. Have you reflected on the qualities of a princess, lately?”
“I’ve had no time,” Twilight replied. “My duties have made them clear enough, without much pondering.”
“Good. And when Luna and I asked ourselves how we would live like princesses all the time—and not just during speeches—the vision came to us of a hut. It was only here—finding courage in modest surroundings—that we could prove to ourselves that our nobility was something eternal, really within ourselves and not attached to calcareous times and traditions, or even the force of our own powers. Duty here would teach us, as duty in Canterlot has taught you.”
Twilight could see a cart passing down the road in the distance, past the mossy cabin. She began to think again of her travels and of her business in the Frosted Ridges, and of her intention of seeing other ponies during her brief stay in Ponyville.
“Take these, then,” she said, grabbing the turnip basket which had been left sitting in the grass. “Consider these ‘love roots’. They grow very tall, like these trees, but it takes many, many years. Their taproots have properties which make them useful for enchantments. They say that when you taste one in a stew you can see a dear friend at every stage of their life, but only for an instant.”
The gold began to dim into orange.
“Next time I see you two,” she said, “we will clean up the kitchen and go on another adventure together. And it will be like we haven’t been apart for very long, thanks to our special magic vegetables.”
“It will be a grand adventure, indeed,” said Luna, smiling at her. “And a grand luncheon.”
“Heh, yes—we will have to have lunch, of course,” said Twilight.
Luna took the turnip from her, then drew and imaginary line from the belt around her garment.
“A grand luncheon… Served with a side of CLOSE RANGE RAPIER!”
