‘Navarone, if this prank had been on anypony other than my sister I would congratulate you for winning beyond all expectations. However, this was my sister.’ The ink here was darker, as though the pen was pushed in hard. ‘She came to me in tears. She was bawling her eyes out. I hope you’re happy, Navarone. She thought she had happiness in sight for the first time in a long time, but you had to ruin that for her. In a way, I suppose I should thank you. I warned her a long time what would come from loving somepony mortal. You proved me right.”
Huh.
I read the other one from Luna. It was covered in dark water spots. The text was barely legible. All it said was, ‘You win. I give up.’
“Welp.” Now I felt like shit. I expected Luna to be angry, not sad.
“Good news?” the naga asked.
“Nope,” I answered. “I’m going into town.”
“Daddy, you stink,” Taya said.
“Okay. I’m taking a shower and then going into town. Is Cadance here?” She nodded. “Is she mad?” She shook her head. “Good, she doesn’t know.” I folded my two letters up and jammed them in a pocket. I carried Twilight’s letter upstairs and set it on the bed as I hastily undressed and took a very quick shower.
Less than ten minutes later I was on my way to Twilight’s house, Taya following close behind me. I had tried to get her to stay behind, but she was having none of that. “I haven’t spent much time with you in days!” she said. Even if it wasn’t going to be much time she could spend with me, at least it could be some.
We talked about her studies and my time in the forest while we walked. She seemed to have hit a stone wall of sorts, and was no longer progressing in strength. It was also taking her much longer to learn some of the spells Twilight was trying to teach her. Taya was not the sort to take failure that happily, and did her best to ignore Twilight’s teachings on how friendship increases magical strength. She instead poured her time into practicing and reading as many magic texts as she could.
We got to Twilight’s house to find… nothing! Or rather, no one. There was a note on the table with Twilight’s very well-planned schedule if anyone needed her. And her creepy owl watched our every move until we get back outside, heading to Sugarcube Corner to hopefully catch Twilight.
We found her there with Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity.
Of course, Pinkie was immediately in my face when I walked in the door. “Oooh, hi Nav! Where ya been? I’ve been trying to find you to tell you that I was planning a party but I couldn’t find you so I couldn’t tell you and I tried looking everywhere but you weren’t anywhere and now here you are! I’m planning a party in a few days and you’re going to be there!”
“We’ll see.” I gently pushed her down and walked around her, allowing Taya access into the shop. Rarity and Fluttershy seemed to be trying to talk Twilight into joining them at the spa, since they were going there soon after they left the shop.
I interrupted their little conversation by giving Twilight her letter. “Who’s this from?” she asked.
“The princesses,” I answered. “I found it in a letter that was addressed to me.”
When she heard it was from them, her eyes lit up and she tore it open, quickly reading it. Her face paled and the light in her eyes disappeared as she gulped. “Well girls… I can’t make the spa trip.” Her voice sounded nervous and morose. “Nav and I have been summoned to Canterlot. I need to find Spike…”
She jumped out of her chair and ran out of the shop. The three of them turned to me. Rarity said, “Nav, is everything alright?”
“Fine and dandy,” I answered. “I should go with her. Rarity, do Aloe and Lotus cater to fillies?”
She nodded. “They’ve been known to, yes.”
I tossed her a coin pouch. “Spa’s on me. Taya, go with them.” Taya opened her mouth but I kept going. “No, you don’t have a choice. Rarity, make sure she gets the deluxe treatment, or whatever is the best for someone her age. If she fights back more than is necessary, let me know. Now, I gotta jet.” I ran out the door before anyone could say a word.
I had no idea where Twilight was, but I did know that when she was in a panic she didn’t worry about any kind of mess or anyone’s feelings. That in mind, I followed the trail of upset looking ponies, running as fast as my legs would take me.
I found Twilight at Applejack’s apple stand, shaking Spike back and forth and babbling. I rolled my eyes, walked over to her, and began scratching her behind the ear.
She calmed down almost immediately, dropping Spike to the ground. He looked up from his perch on the trodden earth and asked, “What’s going on?”
Without stopping on Twilight’s ear, I said, “Go get some paper and write out a quick message to Celestia telling her that Twilight and I are ready for a chariot to Canterlot.”
“But what about the apple stand?”
“I’ll watch it until you get back,” I said. “Go.”
He shrugged and started running to the library. When he was out of sight, I stopped scratching at Twilight’s ear. Her mane immediately frizzled out and she gave me the insane look. “Nav, Celestia knows!”
“I know.”
She curled into a ball on the ground, using a hoof to pet her tail. “She’s gonna be so disappointed and I’m gonna be punished for pranking her and… Oh Celestia, what if she disowns me?!”
“You knew the risks when you decided to prank her.”
“She wasn’t supposed to find out!”
I shrugged and took my place behind the apple stand. With Twilight rocking back and forth on the ground, I didn’t get any patrons.
Spike came running back soon enough. “Letter sent!” he said before noticing Twilight. “So uh… What’s wrong?”
I answered for Twilight, who seemed incapable. “Twilight decided to prank Celestia and she went way too far. Celestia is summoning us to Canterlot because of that.”
“Ooooh… Have fun with that.”
“Yeah, thanks for the support. How do I get Twilight back to the library?”
Spike walked over to her and started poking her. “Twilight, you in there?” Her crazy eyes locked on him and he flinched. “You need to go back to the library, Twilight.”
“It won’t be my library for long,” she said in a crazy voice. “The princess is gonna disown me and I’ll lose everything! You, the library, the books… I’ll have to move back in with mom and dad!”
Spike looked up at me. I rolled my eyes and joined him next to her. “Twilight, you are fucking retarded. The princess isn’t going to disown you. She’s going to give you an Aesop about why what you did was wrong and tell you that if in the future you have any problem with her talk them out instead of pranking her. Then the two of you will hug and you’ll forget this crazy episode ever happened.”
“You don’t understand—”
Spike’s turn. “He’s right, Twilight. Princess Celestia would never do that. You may have made her angry, but you’re still her number one student. She isn’t going to disown you.”
“But—”
“Chariot’s here,” I said, looking up. “Time to go, Twilight.”
She whimpered and curled tighter.
“Spike, grab her back legs.” He did. I grabbed her front ones. “On the count of three, we lift her up and put her in the chariot.” He nodded. “One, two, three.” We lifted her up and tossed her in the back. “We should be back shortly,” I told him, stepping into the back of the chariot.
“See you then, Nav,” Spike said as he walked back to the apple stand.
One of the guards pulling the chariot looked back at me. “Sir, is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Let’s go.” He shrugged and the two of them took off. On the way there, I tried getting Twilight to a more dignified position than huddling on the ground. “What will Celestia think if she sees her prized student like this? I imagine she’ll be quite ashamed that the student who faced down Nightmare Moon is huddling on the floor like a filly.” That might have been the wrong thing to say. She whimpered and curled tighter.
I sighed and began doing dirty things to her, since I knew that tended to calm her down at least a little. It worked, and she did the roly-poly act of slowly uncurling and twitching her legs around.
When I was done, she was slightly drooling and we were just about to land. I cleaned my hands off and stepped out of the chariot when it hit dirt and stopped. “Twilight, you coming?”
“You bet I did!” She shook herself. “I mean, yes!” A blush crept down her face as she got to her shaky legs and removed herself from the chariot. As we walked past the two guards, they winked at me. I just grinned. Not long after we started walking to the palace entrance, Twilight quietly said, “Nav, if… If Princess Celestia does disown me… You wouldn’t leave me, would you?”
“Of course not, Twilight. Not that we’ll have to worry about it, though.” Although if Celestia did kick her ass to the curb I could probably scoop her up for my trip around the world. That would be useful.
“Right. Of course…”
We continued in silence up to the throne room. There was no line, so we were let in immediately. Twilight shuffled her way up to the front of the room, looking down the whole time. I had an encouraging back on her hand. Since Twilight wasn’t looking up, Celestia was giving me a look that promised divine retribution for me later.
When we got close enough, Twilight stopped and fell on her stomach, probably trying to beg forgiveness or something.
“Twilight, rise.” She slowly stood up, still not looking at Celestia. “Twilight, if you ever have a problem with me or anything I do, come and tell me. We can talk it out together. Now, while what you did was wrong, you will not be punished for it this time. Just please, in the future just talk to me.”
Twilight sniffled and mumbled, “I’m sorry, Princess.”
“I forgive you, my dear student.”
And that was enough to get Twilight running at Celestia for a hug. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, waiting for Twilight’s little moment to end. When it did, Twilight took a spot next to Celestia and stood there, beaming. Celestia looked disapprovingly down on me. “And you, Navarone? Would you care to explain yourself?”
“I suppose I could. I realized immediately that you and Luna swapped back. Different mannerisms, not important. I knew you were planning on turning the prank around on me instead by making me go on a date with Luna. So I decided to take the initiative and hit you two first.”
“I see. And how, exactly, did you expect this to end?”
“Luna would come home pissed and slightly embarrassed that I saw it coming. I expected her to fly to my house and try to hurt me.”
“Navarone, the point of what we did was not to prank you. It was to show you that Luna is not what you think of her. She is capable of love, affection, and being a good special somepony. She wanted to go on a date with you, Navarone. She did not want to prank you.”
“Oh…” Well, now I did feel bad.
“Navarone, you need to apologize to her.”
And now I was pissed. “Hell no! I did nothing wrong! Celestia, you betrayed me. And then you set Luna up to deceive me. You know I want nothing to do with her. She knows that I want nothing to do with her. What I did may have been extreme, but that does not mean it was wrong. I didn’t mean to hurt her like this, but I will not apologize for it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You would go so far to prove that freedom of choice is more important to you than the happiness of you and everypony around you?” It took me a second to draw the connection between what I said and what she said. It was not my choice to go on a date with Luna.
“Yes. To me and my people, freedom of choice is more important than anything.”
She pointed to the double doors. “Then explain that to her.” I looked back and saw Luna standing there with a tear-streaked face. I should have made funeral arrangements before coming here.
“Hello, Luna.” She didn’t say anything, just stared at me with a somewhat terrifying intensity. “I was not expecting your reaction to what I did. My plan was that you would be angry, not sad. I suppose it’s somewhat fair for deceiving me.”
She looked behind me at Celestia before turning around and walking away without a word.
I turned back to Celestia. “There, happy?” Sometimes I wonder just how smart I really am. It’s obviously not very if I keep saying things like that.
“Navarone, get out of my castle.” I shrugged and left. I waited until I was on the front steps before removing my ring and flying off back to Ponyville.