Celestia Abroad

"As I said, this was long ago. Back then, I shouldered the entire burden of ruling Equestria alone. It was I who dealt with the nobles, and made the laws and took care of all the other things that went into running the country. I'd left the most boring garden party in the history of garden parties," Celestia said. "However, I had still had to go to a fancy ball being held that evening by Prince Blue Blood's ancestors. I was dreading that party. As I was out raising the moon, I saw a shooting star. Now, I've always held that wishing on shooting stars grants wishes, so I made a wish to be in the most interesting place in all of the worlds. At first, I thought that like my wishes for Luna to come back it wouldn't come true. But, in the next instant my nose told me something was wrong. Very wrong."

"Hold on a minute! You want us to believe that you made a wish on a star one minute, and you were someplace else the next?" asked a orange pony.

"I've never understood it myself, Applejack," Celestia said. "Such things don't work for anypony but I think that my special connection to the heavens may have had something to do with it."

"What did you smell? Was it cake?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"No Pinkie, it was the foulest most terrible smell you've ever smelled. It smelled like..." Celestia said, struggling to put the stench in words that wouldn't require talking about things that would keep her sister busy dispelling nightmares. "It smelled like somepony had filled Froggy Bottom Bog with milk and let it rot,"

"Why would someone do something like when they could use that milk for baking?" Pinkie Pie replied.

Celestia sensed that arguing with the party pony was futile. She could win the argument, but that would require explaining that baked goods weren't considered one of the primary food groups in much of the rest Multiverse. She'd promised Fluttershy that this wasn't going to be a horror story, so talking about the smell of rotting meat was right out of the picture.

Celestia regained her train of thought, and continued. "So, I opened my eyes. I was no longer on the balcony at Canterlot. Instead, I was in the most disgustingly muddy stream that you've ever seen. I had mud covering my coat, almost up to my neck. Around me was a massive factory complex. It stretched away, almost as far as I could see. At the edge of the stream, stood this strange hairless creature. He was wearing a suit and a top hat, which was completely spotless. He called out to me: "Miss, are you alright?"

I was, but I was too startled by this creature's appearance to speak. I just nodded my head. He offered me his handkerchief, and I declined. Once I'd calmed down a bit, I asked him where we were.

"These are the legendary Chicago Union Sto.. Apple Yards," He replied.

You see, this was all a giant apple pie factory, and I'd just so happened to end up in the place where they dumped the bad apples. I'd find out later that it was called bubbly creek, on account of the bubbles caused by the rotting apples."

"Well, they must have had a bad vampire fruit bat infestation if they had that many bad apples," Applejack replied.

The mention of vampire fruit bats made Fluttershy shift nervously. "So what kind of animals did they have in this Chicago place?"

"They had all kinds of animals, Fluttershy," Celestia replied. "There were bunny rabbits, and cows and pigs. Really they had any animals that you could imagine."

"Were there any ponies?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "I'd surely like to meet a pony from another world."

"There were horses, but they couldn't talk. The hairless things were the sole intelligent creatures in this world," Celestia replied. "The creature, well they called themselves men, introduced himself as the owner of one of the pie factories. He said that if he didn't watch what his employees were doing, they'd end up wasting more apples than they used. So he went out every morning, and made sure that they used everything but the squeal err stem. Everything but the stem."

Luna flicked her ear. Celestia guessed that she was starting to guess what kind of place that Celestia had been in. For the sake of the innocence of her little ponies, Celestia hoped that Luna had learned to be a little more tactful. The last thing that Celestia needed was for Luna to explain how in some other worlds, the inhabitants ate meat, and in some cases even ponies. Especially not this close to dinner. Not that remembering what had happened hadn't already ruined her appetite

"So the man offered me a tour. I took it. It was a fairly interesting tour, but seeing how they make apple pies in factories just makes you appreciate the love and attention that ponies like Applejack put into their baking," Celestia said.

Celestia had accepted the tour of the stock yards out of a sense of politeness, and a hope that whatever the smell had been it hadn't  been coming from the factories. She'd been wrong. It had. Celestia held that a bit of her innocence had died that day. She still had nightmares about what she'd seen. Luckily, they came less frequently now and no longer included Celestia butchering Luna.

She seen humans cutting pigs up like a pony would cut a pie. They had no concern for what had been a few seconds before been a living thing. She'd been shocked by the pride that the man had used as he described how he'd created the fastest and most efficient slaughter house in world. She couldn't imagine any sane creature being proud of such an insane thing. But, here was a man that seemed to be perfectly normal discussing the industrial slaughter of other beings like he was talking about a bumper crop of apples.

At the time, she'd been too shocked to imagine that anything short of insanity had been the man's driving force. But after thinking about for a while, she'd decided that the attitude was a product of lacking beings that talked back. It was easy to decide that a cow was a piece of property if it didn't talk back. Of course, Celestia was also aware that some creatures did have a need for meat in their diets. She'd used magic to allow any creature that wished to go without, and she dealt severely with any animal stupid enough to even try to eat one of her ponies.

She'd barely made it out of the factory, eager to be out in even the foul scented miasma that passed for fresh air where she was. She'd been so eager to get as far away from this place as possible, that she was almost hit by a train. This was the first time that Celestia had seen a train, and she couldn't help but marvel at the thing. Trains, now there was a non meat related thing that she could use to keep this story from turning into a horror story.

"So, I should mention that this was before we had trains in Equestria. Settler ponies like Applejack's family had to hitch themselves to wagons, and set out across the vast Equestrian interior. But, in this Chicago place, they had trains. In fact, as I was leaving the pie factory I almost got hit by one of the trains," Celestia continued. "That had been the first time I'd seen a train."

"Hold on a second there Princess. I don't mean to be all disrespectful and all, but you ain't gonna tell me about how these things were able to make apple pies that fast? Now I know that it seems like us Apples are virtually a pie bakin' factory sometime, but if these men things could make pies that fast, maybe there'd be a few tips I could pick up," Applejack said.

Luckily for the sanity and appetite of all involved, the princess's servants choose that time to bring dinner.