A faint buzzing noise was emitted from the light bulb which illuminated the vending machine in the night. The machine was installed in one of the halls of the castle recently. It contained many treats, from lollipops to hay sandwiches to even ice cream, it had a magical crystal infused with frost spells to keep the product in it fresh for all to enjoy with just the flick of a button.
It was installed by the orders of Princess Celestia herself when she noticed the stomach growls of the guards. The cafeteria was far away from the throne room so it was a challenge for the guards to both eat and keep guard at the same time.
So she brought in this state-of-the-art machine that was invented in Manehattan. It was an instant hit in the castle, the staff liked it so much that it had to be restocked every six hours. Everyone loved it, except one particular moony and gloomy pony.
A head poked out from the corner of the hall that contained the vending machine. It was none other than Princess Luna’s head. Eyes filled with contempt, she bore into the machine…from afar of course. After a few minutes of hate-filled silence. She took a step forward and cooly walked through the hall.
She slowed down when passing by the box of foul magic, and kept her eyes on it the whole time, she wouldn’t show weakness to it. The machine responded in kind by buzzing even louder with its light bulb.
Luna gasped and put a hoof on her mouth in shock and anger. But she kept her rage contained, she would not be so easily goaded into doing something stupid.
‘’Humpfh! Our energy would be wasted upon the likeness of thee.’’ Luna said with a hint of annoyance in her voice, and she started walking away from the machine. The machine didn’t say anything because it didn’t have any vocal cords. Even if it did say something it would be stupid anyhow.
So Princess Luna began to leave the hall slowly, making sure to look behind every millisecond so as never to show weakness to the cursed creation of steel. She was almost there, just a few steps more and she would be free from its unflinching gaze. She looked back again and it was still standing there ominously…
Just before the last step into salvation, a sound stopped Luna. It sounded as if a whale was dying, or was it the screech of a goat? A mixture of both seemed to suit it. Luna’s cheeks went red and she froze in her tracks. This ungodly sound was coming from her stomach.
It was the result of eating just a banana for breakfast…and that was it for the whole day. She ate nothing else for the whole day, and it was now midnight. And as normal biology states that the pony's body requires food after a long time, though Luna would care to disagree going by how usually she would spend the whole day with just a cup of coffee.
She quickly snapped her neck back to the machine with cheeks of crimson. ‘’T-thou heard nothing! W-we bet it was from thee!’’ Luna said with a voice filled to the brim with embarrassment. The machine said nothing but continued just standing there, but Luna knew.
It was mocking her.
So with a righteous and totally not delusional line of thinking she turned back and marched right back to the front of the slight gray box and with a booming voice, she spoke.
‘’Thou shalt stop thy incessant mocking or we shalt do it for thee, knave!’’ She stared deep into the glass panel of the machine, diving deep into its soul to make it submit to her will…or that is what she tried to do at least. It didn’t really work since the vending machine didn’t have a soul…right?
If anypony looked into the hall they would see a furious Moon Princess pressing her face into the glass of the vending machine while huffing angrily and cursing at the machine in her weird language. Who even taught her to speak like that? Weird.
After cursing the entire bloodline or the circuitline of the vending machine into the deepest pits of Tartarus, the now cursed vending machine’s light still buzzed but it was now subdued. Luna could hear it, she could feel it too. She was satisfied.
So with a triumphant grin, she pulled back from the glass which revealed a red spot on her forehead from the prolonged eye contact with the machine, it was a worthy sacrifice, Luna concluded, but yet again just before she could take a step back from the vending machine, the unthinkable happened. Her stomach growled, again, with more force this time.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the packed food in the machine which was just beyond the glass. Would she do it? Would she sign a deal with her worst enem- She spotted a container with the words ‘Ice Cream’ on it.
…
She sighed and turned around to face the vending machine buzzing all smugly, she didn’t have the upper hoof this time and it knew this. Her usual strategy was to speak hard and carry the biggest stick around, but this time she would speak softly…and still carry the biggest stick.
She was not nervous, if somepony said she was nervous then they were a traitor to the state harboring dangerous ideas and, should be reported to the nearest guard. She was so not nervous that she even threw her hair back with style which was totally not a way to wipe the sweat forming on her still bright red forehead.
Diplomacy was her forte, she was so great at it that all the diplomats from the other nations only needed to talk to her once, and she never saw them again. Clearly, the negotiations had gone so well that she didn’t have to meet with them again. Truly marvelous.
‘’Listen here, insignificant chunk of metal, and listen well! We propose a trade deal that would only benefit thee.’’
Luna knew how the machine hated her without any reason at all and she played into it. She would make it seem as if she was losing and then sweep the imaginary rug under it when it least expected.
Her horn glowed and a few bits that had both Luna’s and Celestia’s faces minted on them appeared, she caught them and held them up towards the vending machine, which looked at it with hungry eyes.
‘’Thou requires these to keep on surviving no?’’ She jingled the bits in front of the machine, making no effort to hide them, because she was not trying to hide them.
The vending machine didn’t say anything but the light bulb was beginning to flicker. Luna’s cool and collected smile became even more cool and collected, she had gained the upper hoof back…of course, she would, the machine didn’t even have hooves. She had already won this from the start.
‘’We’re glad we could reach an agreement.’’ Luna said, smugness dripping down every word. She picked one of the bits that had her face on it and presented it to the vending machine.
‘’Well? What are thou waiting for? Take it.’’
Nothing happened. Strange, did the box not eat the bits? Hmm. Aha! She remembered how it was supposed to be.
Luna was once again on one of her reconnaissance missions, trying to figure out a weak spot in the machine.
She saw two guards walk up to the machine and put bits down a small hole to its right, pushed the equally small buttons to its side, and after a thud they both reached into the chamber bellow and got what they desired.
Luna searched around for the small hole and she found it extremely fast, she definitely found it faster than those guards too. Again she picked the bit with her face on it and slotted into the hole, but just as she put it, the same coin fell down into an even smaller hole under the first one. Was this machine not accepting her bits just because it had her face on it?
No. It didn’t accept it because the bit was chipped but Luna didn’t know or didn’t care.
She almost blew up again but she contained her justified and totally not unfounded rage deep inside her. It was for the ice cream, she told herself. So she once again adopted the cool but now no more collected smile and took a bit with Celestia’s face on it. She slowly slotted the bit into the same place and waited.
Nothing happened. Why? Oh right, she didn’t press the buttons. With a surgeon's precision, she slammed all of the buttons at the same time. Again, nothing happened. Curious.
So Luna used all of her available brain power to think of a solution, it took a few minutes but she finally understood. Luna using her infinite wisdom and after some very serious deliberation of this problem brought her hoof forward and again with precise movements she pressed only one button this time. The button’s number matched the tag under the ice cream, so it only made sense.
Slowly the machine whirred into action, some ponies might say Princess Luna flinched when it started…we call those ponies foolish. Because Luna did not flinch, she was full-on shaking like a washing machine.
The ice cream was slowly pushed towards the glass, and so the fear had replaced itself with anticipation of the incoming sweet relief for her stomach. It got closer and closer until…it stopped. What?!
The ice cream was stuck just on the edge, just a single millimeter forward and it would fall. But alas! The cream of ice was not a single millimeter forward.
‘’Dost thou have no respect for our agreement?! Betrayer! Deceiver!’’ Luna screamed at the vending machine whose light shone a bright pompous color. It was just white.
In her now unleashed anger, Luna used her magic to materialize a big club, and with unparalleled rage and hatred toward her enemy, she swung it at the glass with the force of a thousand moons.
Good thing she didn’t let go of the stick before. Diplomacy was for the weak anyhow. The strong decide the nature of sin and Luna had decided that the vending machine was a sinner.
The glass shatter-no, explodes into a million tiny bits that fly everywhere, and all million of those tiny bits miss Luna. It seems like even the corpse of her enemy is scared to touch her. The tub of ice cream started to fall but Luna using her superior reflexes caught it, with her magic of course.
‘’Huzzah! Victory for us!’’ She laughed, jeering at the now glassless vending machine, its light was still on although it was dying and within a few seconds, its bright and comfortable light which helped many a pony had been snuffed out.
Without wasting any more time Luna quickly opened the tub of ice cream and began to eat it as if she were eating something for the first time in her life.
She raised her head back as fast as it went down. Her mouth was covered in vanilla ice cream. Her eye was twitching; one could almost see the steam coming out of her ears and even compare it to a train whistle.
She faced the now dead and broken vending machine again. Its lightbulb flickered back into life once and died again. Luna’s eyes widened. It was laughing at her with its last breath.
The vending machine was enveloped in a dark blue glow.
Broken Spear was going back to bed after a full shift of endless guarding. It was a hard job. He had to stand around Princess Celestia and look tough…and that’s it. What? You thought that he was going to be actually guarding the Princess? No way, if something came that even Celestia couldn’t handle what was he going to do? Poke them with his spear?
His stomach gurgled and he gently rubbed it, soothing it. He hadn’t eaten in an hour so he was quite hungry. Oh! He should get some of those hay sandwiches from the new vending machin-
He heard a loud crash above his head, and immediately looking up, he saw a dust cloud forming from the castle's high walls and the aforementioned vending machine falling right towards him. Quickly throwing himself back he narrowly avoided becoming pony paste.
‘’HOW DAREST THOU SERVE US VANILLA!?!’’
He heard the shrill screech of Princess Luna from above, not wanting to be in her way he quickly scurried back to where he came from, picking up a crushed hay sandwich in the process.
Hey, a stallion’s gotta eat.
