Pancakes

by Petrichord

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Princess Luna, Princess Celestia
Length: 4646

Princess Celestia has an unpleasant conversation with Daybreaker over pancakes.

For the past few weeks, Princess Celestia has been quite used to Daybreaker tempting her in her dreams. Unfortunately for Daybreaker, Celestia doesn't have much use for even greater power or the terrified fealty of others, and even threatening Celestia doesn't seem to perturb the princess in the slightest.

But Celestia wasn't prepared for a dream about making conversation over pancakes with Daybreaker. And she certainly wasn't expecting the loud-mouthed and melodramatic alicorn to be horrifyingly effective at crushing her will with breakfast and cold, twisted logic.

Now featured on Equestria Daily! (4/19/18)

All of my thanks to Door Belle, Garnot, Pearple Prose and Pascoite for helping me write this. I'm profoundly thankful for their help.

Indirectly inspired by the works of Boundlessanon.

Published 2017-06-23 18:50:07 UTC
Last updated 2017-06-23 18:50:07 UTC

Breakfast before dawn

Celestia found Daybreaker’s nightly visits comforting. If it would have surprised anypony, it would have surprised Celestia most of all, but truths are seldom obvious and rarely plain.

The dreams could have been scary, of course. Daybreaker embodied Celestia’s loss of control, her refusal to accept responsibility or demonstrate empathy. But Daybreaker’s nighttime intrusions started stale and grew duller with every visit; every night, Daybreaker spat invectives and epitaphs, half-demanding and half-begging that Celestia let go of her inhibitions. And every night, Celestia turned away Daybreaker’s grandiose blathering, melodramatic statements and puffed-up pontifications. Every night, as Daybreaker stormed out of her dreams in an infantile huff, Celestia allowed herself to relax and bask in the knowledge that she couldn’t be tempted anymore.

It was a good feeling.

It had gotten to the point Luna was mostly absent from her dreams, content to let sleeping sisters lie. And honestly, Celestia hadn’t slept so comfortably and so consistently in a very long time.

So when Celestia fell asleep that night and almost immediately found herself somewhere else, she should have been relieved. After all, regardless of where she was—a small, desolate planetoid (last Sunday), the middle of a blazing inferno (the Friday before that), or even the wreckage of Ponyville (the first Tuesday of this month)—it would be another opportunity to refuse Daybreaker’s advances and luxuriate in her moral superiority.

But she hadn’t expected to find herself in the Royal Canterlot Dining Hall. She hadn’t expected to be sitting down, looking at a large stack of steaming-hot pancakes practically drenched in maple syrup and butter. She had felt many things in her recent dreams, from fear to annoyance to self-satisfaction, but she hadn’t expected to feel like she hadn’t eaten in weeks.

“You haven’t touched your breakfast, Your Highness,” said a voice from across the table.

Celestia looked up. There was Daybreaker, leering over a massive stack of pancakes and licking a set of stiletto fangs. Celestia watched as Daybreaker jabbed the top pancake on the stack, syrup and butter squirting out like blood from a jugular, and crammed it into her mouth. Then Daybreaker bit down on it, a cat crushing a mouse’s head between its jaws, and when she swallowed, it was with all the unspoken finality of an anaconda devouring its prey.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Daybreaker asked Celestia as the flame-maned alicorn licked a faint dribble of butter from the corner of her mouth.

“Of course not,” Celestia replied, before her stomach immediately betrayed her with a hollow rumble.

“Of course you aren’t.” Daybreaker smirked and stabbed two more pancakes, shovelled them into her gaping maw, filled the dining room with loud smacking sounds. As flecks of batter and syrup dripped from Daybreaker’s jaws, Celestia reached down and tactfully tried to push her plate away from her.

Nothing. Celestia pushed a little harder, but the plate might as well have been fused to the table. Daybreaker gave Celestia another razor-sharp smile, grabbed a pancake from the table with a forehoof and shoved it down her own throat.

“See? Isn’t it nice?” Daybreaker chortled. “I bet you’re starving over there.” A gaping, gnarled pain squeezed Celestia’s stomach like a buzzard’s claw. Stifling her subsequent wince was harder than it should have been.

“It’s not going to work,” Celestia replied. She had expected Daybreaker to snarl, expected her eyebrow to twitch, her hoof to curl, something. The smug smile Daybreaker offered instead made Celestia more nervous than she had been in weeks.

“What isn’t going to work?” Daybreaker leaned down and tore another pancake in half with her jaws. Her throat constricted like a snake as she swallowed, and sticky fluids dribbled down her throat and chin.

“You’re trying to tempt me into giving up my decorum. You’re trying to make me feel like I would be prudish not to imitate you, and shame me for having a modicum of pride. It’s an entry-level tactic, Daybreaker.”

“Oh, you don’t have to eat like I am.” Daybreaker shook her head. “But you want to eat, don’t you?”

Celestia wanted to eat. Oh, how she wanted to eat. Hollowness bloomed in her bones, and a weightless feeling in her skeleton sent an uncomfortable thrill up her spine. “I can eat later.”

“I’m not asking if you can eat later.” Daybreaker stabbed the other half of the pancake and shovelled it into her mouth. Crumbs stuck to her chin. “I’m asking if you want to eat now.”

A growl erupted from Celestia’s throat, echoed by another growl from her stomach. “It isn’t going to work, Daybreaker.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Daybreaker impaled three—four—five pancakes at once, wedged them between her teeth and swallowed. “You’ve always prided yourself on negotiation and compromise, Celestia. Why won’t you talk to me?”

“You don’t want to converse. You want to convince.” Celestia tried to punctuate her nonchalance by pushing the plate away again. Just as it had before, the plate stuck fast to the table.

“And you don’t want to respond. You want to reject.” Daybreaker leaned forward, and Celestia noticed that her stomach had begun to bulge. “You think we’re behaving differently, aren’t you? It’s superficial. We’re doing the exact opposite things, but with the exact same motivations.”

“You’ve tried to convince me of such many times before. What makes you think tonight will be different?”

“Because this isn’t about the end of the world, or utter domination, or control over those who wanted to bind us.” Daybreaker rolled a pancake into a tube and bit into it like a spring roll. “It’s about breakfast. You’re hungry.”

“That isn’t relevant.” Celestia leaned forward and rested a foreleg on the table, the better to discreetly push the plate away again should the possibility—and opportunity—arise. It took all her effort not to gasp in surprise as she looked down at her foreleg.

Which was a perfectly reasonable reaction to discovering that her body had shriveled up to virtually nothing but coat, skin and reedy bone.

“On the contrary, it’s the reason I’m here.” Daybreaker replied. “It’s the reason you’re here. Tonight, it means literally everything to me.” Daybreaker popped the rest of the pancake into her mouth and licked her sticky hoof. “Mmm. Delicious, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know.” I want to know, Celestia’s husklike body begged her. Please let me know.

“You could. There isn’t anything stopping you.” Daybreaker punctuated her sentence with a belch that echoed through the room. “Except yourself.”

“Correct.”

“You’re hungry.”

“I don’t want to eat.”

Daybreaker grinned, her teeth glazed with syrup. “Liar.”

“I won’t give you the satisfaction.” A spear-like stab of hunger jolted through Celestia’s stomach. “I will be happier when you leave.”

“You’ll be happier to deny yourself, then?”

Celestia frowned. “You’re twisting my words.”

“I’m telling you the truth. I know you want to eat. I can hear your stomach. I can see your face.” Daybreaker forked a couple more pancakes and shoved them in her jaws, staring at Celestia appraisingly as she chewed. After fifteen seconds that felt more like fifteen minutes, Daybreaker swallowed, and her gut bulged a little more. “But you think it’s ‘for the best’ if you don’t let yourself be satisfied by anything.”

“I have been ‘satisfied’ for centuries, Daybreaker. Don’t presume to know how I feel.”

“Then why are you dreaming of food?” Daybreaker belched again. “You’ll wake up tomorrow, prepare breakfast for your sister and watch as she won’t eat it. You’ll make yourself an amount carefully calculated to look normal and top it with fruit to make it look cheerful and make yourself look whimsical, and you’ll keep perfect composure as you eat it. And nopony will appreciate how you’ve acted or what you’ve done. And you’ll go to work hungry again, as always.”

Celestia gritted her teeth. “It’s the thought that counts. I do this because I care about other ponies. Breakfast tastes better when I share it with others. Do you know how that feels?”

“Breakfast? What breakfast?” Daybreaker chortled, dragging a hoof across a puddle of maple syrup and butter on her plate. “All I see is a pony, hours away from collapsing into dust, desperately hoping for somepony to share a meal with. And they never do, do they? Not in any meaningful way.” Daybreaker licked her hoof, her sticky, crimson tongue probing like a tentacle to extract every last droplet of liquid sugar.

“The gesture is meaningful,” Celestia replied, dimly aware that the warmth in her voice had begun to fade. “Without it, I’d be mindlessly stuffing my face, turning into some… some disgusting, slovenly glutton with bad teeth and a tacky mane.”

“Oooooooh! Somepony’s got a temper, I see!” The flames in Daybreaker’s eyes flickered a little brighter than before. “Is your dull abnegation making you feel a little cranky? Should I fetch you a baby bottle and put you down for a nap?”

“I can feed myself,” Celestia snarled. “I’m merely waiting to share breakfast with ponies I care for. This doesn’t include you.”

“Ponies you care for! How noble.” Daybreaker’s voice took on a faux-simpering tone before she broke into raw, vitriolic laughter. “Admit it. You want them to care back, don’t you? You can pretend otherwise, but you want ponies to feel gratitude for how you act and what you do. Pity that they don’t, huh?”

Daybreaker forked a pancake and held it upright like a dumpling on a stick, taking an absentminded bite from the edge and chewing with enviable nonchalance. How many had she eaten now? Twelve?

“Of course they do,” Celestia replied quietly.

“Your sister eats fruit rinds and ignores your meticulous preparation. Your advisors practically suffer from cardiac arrest if your mane is out of place. You never, ever get to enjoy a pancake just because it’s a pancake.” Daybreaker stuffed the rest of the pancake into her mouth, and syrupy strands dribbled down her lips as she mutilated, pulped, swallowed. “Don’t you want to?”

Celestia stayed silent. Crumbs flecked from Daybreaker’s lips as she jabbed at another pancake, chomped down on a sizeable wedge and ripped off a juicy hunk with her fangs.

“You’re disgusting,” Celestia whispered.

Daybreaker swallowed. “And yet I’m full.” The mare patted her distended gut. “I could always use magic to make this weight disappear. I could shift the weight about to make myself curvaceous and beautiful. I could simply not care. And yet you starve yourself. Not from power, not from glory, not from fear and love. You starve yourself from pancakes.” Daybreaker snorted derisively. “Coward.”

Celestia’s belly growled again. “Be quiet,” she replied, unsure of whether she was talking to Daybreaker or her stomach.

“Denying the needs of your body? Or denying the needs of your heart? Either way. You know as well as I do that you won’t resist forever. Either you’ll wither to a lifeless husk without enough strength to push a plate, or...”

Plunking an elbow down, Daybreaker dangled the sticky fork into her mouth and sucked. Juicy slurping noises echoed across the table, and Daybreaker broke into a malevolent grin as her tongue oozed between the fork’s tines. Abruptly, she pulled the fork from her mouth and pointed it at Celestia’s untouched meal. “Or you’ll eat.”

“I’ll eat when I want,” Celestia spat. Dimly, she was aware that her hoof had begun to slide towards her fork.

“Just like I do. And you’ll eat what you want, too.” Tiny flames in Daybreaker’s eyes flickered and danced. “Just like I do.”

“I don’t want to eat anything right now.” Celestia’s face flushed. A jolt of lightning seared her back, tailbone to skull, and she fought the urge to squeeze the fork in her hoof.

“Of course. You want to desire to eat nothing. And I want to eat a breakfast that we deserve. I think you want to eat it, too. Or are you really willing to hurt yourself because you think your personal well-being is something to be ignored?”

The fork was in Celestia’s hoof. It was inching towards her plate, towards the pancakes. Celestia bit back a reply, clamped her jaws shut. She wasn’t listening to Daybreaker. Wasn’t. Listening.

“I’m not saying you have to be me,” Daybreaker chortled, curling her lips back into a sticky-mawed sneer. “But surely it couldn’t hurt to have a little taste of what I feel. Just enough to keep you warm. Just a pancake.”

Celestia’s hoof convulsed, impaling a pancake on her plate. It wasn’t her that was lifting the pancake to her mouth. It couldn’t be her, couldn’t.

“Just a little taste, Celestia.”

The pancake dripped with juices, steaming like a freshly slaughtered soldier, less than a meter from her mouth. Getting closer. Closer.

“Just a bite…”

“Tia?”

Needle-like prongs still inches from her lips, Celestia turned her withered neck. Luna stood, face blank, mouth slightly open as if seeing her sister and Daybreaker for the first time.

“Luna! So glad you could make it!” Daybreaker interrupted, leaning back in her chair with a contemptuous smile on her face. “Do stay awhile and—”

The flame-maned alicorn tilted her neck as a beam of cerulean light drilled a hole through where her head had been a fraction of a second ago. Daybreaker tilted her neck again as a second ray of light arced just above her left shoulder, leaving a puddle of molten clay and charred lavender where a potted plant had been hanging.

“—interrupt me, I guess. Tch. Where are your manners?”

The third time Luna tried to fry her, Daybreaker didn’t even bother to dodge. A curl of light flecked off of her horn and batted aside Luna’s energy stream as if parrying a weak sword thrust, and Daybreaker continued to lounge about in her chair as Luna gasped for breath.

“Are you done?” Daybreaker asked.

“Get away from her, you monster.” Luna snarled, baring a mouthful of gritted teeth.

“Oh? Me, a monster? Takes one to know one, I suppose.”

Daybreaker sat up as a tendril of her magic effortlessly parried another lance of blue light. Her eyelids narrowed a fraction of an inch, and Daybreaker’s tendril doubled, then redoubled in size. Faster than Luna could blink, the tendril lashed out and caught her squarely in the face. Celestia gasped as the force of the blow lifted Luna off of her hooves and sent her spinning into a marble column with a meaty thud.

“Now are you done?” Daybreaker asked again.

“Go away.” Luna mumbled as she struggled to rise.

“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes.’ Be a good girl and stop talking, will you? The adults are having a conversation. Now, Celestia…”

A sudden surge of energy coursed through Celestia’s veins, and she dropped her fork and tried to pry herself out of her chair. It pulled at her, as if she was wrapped in chains, but Celestia lifted her bottom an inch off of the chair, then two…

“Hey. Easy there, Princess.” Daybreaker held up a plaintive hoof. “Don’t you want me to answer your question?”

“I—don’t—have—one.” Celestia struggled.

“Of course you do. You’re probably wondering how I did that, right? How I just beat the princess of the night like she was a toy drum?”

“No!”

Celestia didn’t want to know. At all. The chair pulled her back down with a solid smack, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about Daybreaker’s question, didn’t care about anything but helping her sister, absolutely wasn’t curious in the slightest. She wasn’t.

She was.

“Look, the thing you need to understand is: she may be able to go into dreams, she might be able to guide wayward fillies and foals, but she doesn’t get to dictate what happens,” Daybreaker continued. “Nopony has that power, not even over children. And if she can’t control a snot-nosed blank flank, do you really think she could control the most powerful alicorn in the world? Do you really think she has any power over you?”

“I’m not the most powerful. I’m not.” The energy drained from Celestia’s bones, as quickly as it had come. “We share that power evenly—”

“Come, now. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that garbage, do you? If that was true, your baby sister might have actually put up a fair fight. And you know who I am, Princess Celestia?” Daybreaker leaned over the table. “In the end, I’m you, and you’re me. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“No. You’re nothing but a monster.” Against her will, Celestia’s hoof drifted towards her fork again.

“I’m honest. You’re too busy lying to yourself to see who you really are. You’re so used to holding yourself back that you forgot what you could do if you genuinely tried. If you stopped thinking in terms of self-sacrifice and saving other ponies and just tried to win for the sake of winning, there’s nothing we couldn’t defeat. There’s nothing from stopping us from making the world exactly as we want.”

“You won’t win. You can’t. I… I won’t let you.” Dimly, Celestia grew aware of the nasally whimper in her voice.

“Of course we can. Of course we will. You know that we’re unstoppable, Celestia. You know that, deep down, you never wanted to hold back at all. You know how strong we are.”

“It’s true.”

Celestia and Daybreaker turned as one. Luna still hadn’t risen to her hooves, but she nonetheless stared at Daybreaker, cyan eyes brimming with something Celestia couldn’t quite recognize.

“Oh?” Daybreaker raised an eyebrow. “What’s true?”

“She’s… she’s always been the strongest pony I’ve ever known. Her and… and you, I guess. I’ve always been…” Luna coughed, phlegmy spittle flecking the floor. “I think I’ve always been jealous of that. Jealous of her.”

“See? Even your sister agrees,” Daybreaker added as she turned back to Celestia. “You wouldn’t contradict your beloved sister, now, would you?”

“B-but I still love her,” Luna continued. “I still respect her. Respect that. She’s so strong, outside and inside—”

“I thought I told you to stop talking,” Daybreaker snarled as she twisted back towards Luna. “Don’t make me do something we’ll all regret.”

“So strong that even… even a fraction of her could stand up to anypony. Stand up to you. And win.”

Daybreaker’s tendril of power lashed out again, lifting Luna bodily into the air and bashing her into the ground, over and over again..

“I thought. I told you. To stop. Talking!” Daybreaker roared, punctuating her sentences with the thud of Luna’s body hitting the floor. Desperately, Celestia struggled to rise, focus on her magic, do something. Her eyes flicked over the table, Luna’s words still ringing in her ears even as Luna’s shrieking filled the air.

She’s so strong, outside and inside.

Even a fraction of her could stand up to anypony. Stand up to you.

Celestia froze, eyes locked on her untouched plate of pancakes.

And in that moment, Celestia understood.

“Daybreaker?” Celestia cut in, her voice loud enough to echo through the dining room. Daybreaker froze, tendril still suspending Luna in the air as she turned towards Celestia.

Celestia stared evenly at Daybreaker, and without another word she impaled a single, oozing pancake with her fork.

“What are you doing?” Daybreaker trailed off.

Feigning serenity, Celestia stuck the entire pancake in her mouth and chewed.

It was

Delicious

Flavor practically exploded in her mouth, sugar and fat and wheat and more, blending in an intricate collage, washing over her tongue with the passion of an impressionist painting. A moan slid from her lips as tongue and teeth alike immersed themselves in a culinary bliss literally impossible to match in the waking world. Celestia could practically feel warmth and energy pouring through her, down her throat and into her stomach…

And then she swallowed and calmly licked her lips.

The waking world could have treated eating a pancake for the mundane affair that it was. But the world of dreams was another matter.

“What,” Daybreaker muttered, face slowly contorting in rage. “What did you just do?”

“Had a snack. It wasn’t half bad. You were right, by the way,” Celestia replied as she looked down.

Normal. Her legs looked as normal as they did during the day. The hunger pains and hollowness were gone, replaced with a blush of health as radiant as the sun itself. But her hooves weren’t clad in orange, her mane didn’t smell of smoke, her canines didn’t jut into her lower lip. She was still herself, the best herself she could be.

Just as she had thought.

“You… no! That isn’t how it’s supposed to happen!” Daybreaker screeched. “You gave up! You gave in! You’re mine!”

Celestia shook her head. “On the contrary, I feel completely like myself. Thank you, by the way. You were quite helpful.”

“Helpful? Me?” Daybreaker’s mane climbed higher, from a torch to a bonfire, as she hefted her bulk up and dropped Luna like a stone. “Don’t you dare condescend me, you insufferable wallflower!”

“Oh, this isn’t an enigma.” Celestia mused. “You’re right that needless self-sacrifice is bad. But it isn’t bimodal. I don’t become a hedonist if I indulge myself from time to time. And I can’t protect other ponies unless I give myself the strength to protect them. That power has to come from inside.” Celestia licked her lips and chuckled. “And I’ve been getting that mixed up in my head the entire time, haven’t I? I’ve been thinking that I need to starve myself from pleasures until I’m physically in pain, if I have to, as long as it means that I can feel like a good princess instead of a hedonistic queen.”

Daybreaker stamped her hoof. “You are a hedonist! That’s what you’ve always been, that’s what you always will be! Embrace it!”

Celestia gently shook her head. “No, I am not. I don’t have to hurt myself or make myself feel miserable in order to be responsible. I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not mistaken! You just aren’t playing by the rules!” Daybreaker snarled. “You’re cheating!”

“Life doesn’t have many rules,” Celestia chided. “Dreams have even less. If you were actually stronger than my sister, that sort of simple thinking should have come easily to you.”

“You’ll… you’ll come back to temptation! You’ll come back to me!” Daybreaker yelled, red in the face. “This isn’t the end, you simpering do-gooder wannabe! In your heart, you’ve already lost!”

Celestia hooked a hoof to the side of her plate. “My self-control is mine to determine, and mine alone. And in my heart…”

Celestia flipped her plate into the air.

Pancakes hurled themselves like ungainly saucers into the air, while the white porcelain disk of the plate traced a perfect parabolic arc in the air. It shattered directly behind Daybreaker, filling the air with a pleasant tinkling sound as sodden pancakes flopped over the table, chairs and floor.

“I’ve already won, Daybreaker,” Celestia concluded.

There, across from Celestia, her alter ego stared at her, expression obscured by a stray pancake that had landed almost directly across her face.

Daybreaker erupted, screaming at a pitch almost high enough to shatter glass. The alicorn flung the pancake off of her face and lunged at Celestia, but she grew paler with every inch she moved forward, and before Daybreaker was halfway across the table she had vanished into the air.

Celestia blinked, waiting with bated breath, but Daybreaker didn’t reappear. Then Celestia pushed herself up from her chair and ran over to Luna, who was still trying to stand.

“Lulu!”

Luna gasped, forehooves weakly lifting her chest off the floor. Celestia hooked a foreleg around her and wrapped Luna in a hug.

“Lulu, you’re going to be okay. Just lean against me and—”

“I’m sorry!” Luna gasped.

Celestia froze. Luna dragged her other foreleg up and hooked it around Celestia’s shoulder, caught halfway between extending the hug and trying to drag herself upright.

“Shhh.” Celestia nuzzled Luna’s shoulder. “Everything’s fine, dear. She’s gone.”

“I-it’s all my f-f-fault! I c-came here and I thought… I didn’t do a-anything! We almost—”

Celestia took a deep breath. “Luna. I need you to stop crying and listen to me, okay?”

Silence fell, save for Luna’s ragged breathing.

“Thank you, Luna. I know you’re not going to believe me right now, but you saved me. Honest. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I think…” Celestia gulped. “I let her get inside my head. You helped me figure out how to get her out of it. I’m sorry that… I’m sorry that I’ve been making you feel jealous. We’ll talk about that when we wake up, okay?”

Luna whimpered.

“But. But I was right, Lulu. We do share our strength together. I’m not any stronger than you are. And I needed you, Sister. If you hadn’t helped me feel like I could stand up to her, if you hadn’t shown me how strong you were and how I could try to be as strong as you were, I would have given up. Don’t you see that?”

“I…” Luna sniffed. “I don’t understand.”

“You’ve fought off Nightmare Moon, Luna. You’ve fought off the Tantabus, you’re used to fighting your inner demons, you’re even used to standing up for yourself. All the magic in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have the courage to stand up for yourself, even when things look impossible. And fighting Daybreaker without a second thought? I think that was the most courageous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Luna didn’t reply. Celestia still smiled as she heard Luna’s breathing grow more steady, as if no longer trying to fight through a lungful of shame and phlegm.

“It was such a silly thing to forget, wasn’t it?” Celestia chuckled. “That I’m allowed to make myself happy, so long as I can still protect other ponies.”

“Y-yeah.” Luna took a deep breath, then pulled away. Gingerly, she raised one hind leg, then the other, and stood in front of Celestia: perhaps not fully stiff-backed, but certainly unbowed. “Of… of course you should be happy. E-everypony deserves to smile. Especially you. I… I should remind you of that.”

Celestia chuckled. “Dear, I think it’s something I just remembered for myself.”

“No. That’s remembering. I’m going to remind you.” Luna sniffed. “Whenever I think you’re feeling down, or stressed, or something’s wrong, I’m going to help you feel happy. I’m going to help you feel strong.” Luna coughed, then swallowed. “And I’ll make sure that the other ponies in the castle help, too. And the ponies in Canterlot. And Equestria. I don’t… I don’t care if I have to do more paperwork or stay up until noon or try to learn how to cook. I’m going to do it. You deserve it. Don’t… don’t ever forget that, okay?”

Celestia blinked a little harder than was necessary and leaned in to nuzzle Luna’s cheek. “I won’t, Lulu. I promise. And the same goes for you, okay?”

Luna paused, then looked up at Celestia with a genuine and heartfelt smile. “Okay, Tia. I’ll...I’ll remember. I promise.”

“Then it’s settled.” Celestia stretched her wings. “I suppose the only thing left to do is wake up. Or is it still nighttime?”

“A little early, I think. But not much.” Luna rubbed her eyes. “Why?”

“A little early is fine. I’d rather not have to stay in this dream is all. And… if it’s not a bit much to ask, I thought we could have breakfast together before you go to bed.”

Luna sighed with relief. “I think I could do that. Spending a bit more time with you sounds lovely, actually. I can stay awake for—”

Luna froze.

“Dear?” Celestia said. “Is something wrong?”

“What… what were you planning to—?”

Celestia grinned. “Eggy bread with blackberry jam, for a change. I think we’ve had quite enough to do with pancakes for a while, don’t you?”