White and Pink

Pinkie Pie buried her head on the pillow. Why was it so bright here? In the white, soft depths her forehead furrowed; had her room ever been this bright?. There was something wrong, she could feel it; besides the lump she could feel pressing against her forehead, of course, though that was wrong too. First thing in the morning, fluff the pillow.

She tried to figure out what the other thing troubling her was, but she was too tired to think. I will find it out when I wake, no problem...

“I’m late!” Pinkie rolled out of the bed —

And fell to the floor with a gasp, her bed sheets tangling around her body; the bed ended a good half roll before it should. Massaging her rump, she looked around; slowly her eyes grew to the size of saucers, her jaw hanging slack, as she scanned the unfamiliar room from behind the bed.

The room was about the same size as her workshop and bedroom, but that was it; everything else was different, and Pinkie was certain that whoever decorated this room loved sunny vistas. The ceiling made her think of a perfect summer day, azure with a large yellow, wavy, sun drawn in the middle; the walls were taken by large, clear windows, with large and varied bookcases, ranging from ancient to modern, filling almost all of the remaining space, with so little of the wall itself visible that Pinkie had to search for a while to find that, yes, the walls were white; the floor around the bed was covered by a thick green carpet, from where Pinkie half expected Gummy to burst out at any time chasing a turkey.

Then there was the rest of the furniture, most of it in a dark wood that looked like… She looked at the bed frame; it looked like cherry wood. But if it was really cherry it was so dark, so old, that even Granny Pie would have called it ancient. And the polish, thought Pinkie, making faces at her distorted reflection from the round bed pole and laughing at how it made her look like a different mare; Every single piece was polished to a mirror finish, from the bed with yellow and blue sheets Pinkie fell from to the ornate dresser, from the utilitarian nightstand to the large desk almost buried under book piles and stacks of paper. It was like standing in the middle of a yard sale of slightly used ancient furniture.

Pinkie took a hoof to her chin. This couldn’t be anywhere in Ponyville; Pinkie knew everypony in town, including where they lived, and this room, with all those windows, couldn’t fit in any of their houses. Well, perhaps it could fit in Filthy Rich’s villa, but Pinkie was sure he would have something in a bits motif, and there was nothing of the kind here; instead, this room’s decoration screamed of...

“Celestia!” The door flew open, a dark blue alicorn entering. “Why didn’t you raise the sun? Are you feeling unwell?”

“Celestia?” Pinkie looked around, kneeled to look under the bed, and, dragging the bed sheet still tangled on her torso, trotted to the wardrobe, which she nonchalantly inspected. “Nope, not here. Are you playing hide and seek? Can I play too? I’m really good at it!”

“What manner of game are you playing, sister?” said Luna, narrowing her eyes. “And what did you do to your mane?”

“We are playing hide and seek, silly. We are looking for Celestia. And what do you mean, my mane? It’s the same way as —”

Pinkie stopped, looking at the familiarly puffed mane. A mane in bands of blue, green, and pink, that she was propping up with a white hoof.

By reflex she turned to the nightstand, stopping stunned when she didn’t find what she was looking for. Mirror, mirror... She looked around the room and desperately set off towards the dresser, and the mirror atop it; the face that stared back at her was white, sleek, and she finally discovered what the bump against her forehead was.

Pinkie inhaled deeply…

Luna was looking incredulously at Celestia as the Princess of the Sun, Sol Invictus, Dawnbringer, Defender of the Realm, and more titles than she cared to remember, known across all of Equestria and beyond for her collected calm in the face of disaster, glanced at her own mane and started running across the bedroom like a noble fleeing a tax collector.

She almost didn’t notice Celestia’s pupils shrinking until her eyes were nearly white, though, or even the flaring nostrils. From the moment Celestia flared her wings in shock and dislodged the bed covers, Luna’s eyes were glued at a single spot on Celestia’s hindquarters. The place where her cutie mark was.

Three balloons; two blue, the middle one yellow.

Her reverie was broken by that most dreadful of sounds, a fully grown alicorn inhaling deeply to scream[1]. The prospect of an Alicorn-power scream kicked Luna’s combat training into action, all the decades of it, more than most ponies have to live.

An instinct Luna had to fiercely fight down; all her training told her to shield herself, which, while a wonderful idea on a battlefield, would be disastrous inside the castle. The sheer intensity of what the royal sisters now called a Canterlot Tantrum[3], released in a confined space, would turn her sister’s bedroom into a mess that would make Discord’s Chaos Capital of Equestria look tame in comparison, and put at risk every member of the castle staff that were in, at the very least, the same wing of the castle.

Besides, Luna’s own bedroom was just behind the wall Celestia was facing, in the path of the presaged scream.

She considered a silence spell, dismissing the idea in less than a moment; it would take too long. So, in a desperate bid to save both her room and her hearing, Luna went for the next best thing: diving into Celestia’s bed and pressing the pillow over her own ears, while throwing a magical shield around Celestia (or would it be Pinkie Pie?).

The scream seemed to go on forever. Luna lay there, pillow firmly held in place, until the ringing in her ears got low enough to make sure that, yes, the scream had ended, and no, she wasn’t deaf. Removing the pillow she was pleased to see that her magical shield had held, which was always a good sign, even if it had barely held, judging by the cracks.

Luna glanced around the room; no visible structural damage, which hopefully meant that the roof wouldn’t collapse on top of them anytime soon, though the ceiling mural was cracked across the middle, and piles of glass shards stood in place of the windows and the mirror; large shards for the windows, and very tiny shards for the mirror, which Luna had, in her hurry, left inside her shield.

Luna’s eyes softened with concern as her gaze passed over the white alicorn, still looking at the now empty frame of the mirror; many of the shards from the mirror found a home within the mane of the white alicorn, but, apart from that, she seemed unharmed.

And, just as important, the wall shared with her room was intact, despite the sonic blast having knocked nearly every book down. Luna released her breath and closed the door with her magic.

“Did I really do this?” said the white alicorn with a soft, timid voice, moving her head slowly but erratically, scanning the broken windows.

Physically unharmed, at least, thought Luna, watching the puffed mane deflate slightly. Now that the crisis is past, what in Equestria —

“Your highness? Is anything wrong?”

Luna recognized the voice as Celestia’s aide. Good. If Celestia trusted her, she should be discreet. Perhaps I can explain —

Loud clanking cane from outside; armored ponies running to the door, and not few. That was bad, really bad; Luna wasn’t sure yet what was happening, but no matter what was wrong with Celestia, even the speculation that Equestria’s perfect ruler had anything more serious than a cold would spread panic like wildfire. And the palace guards were known as much for their gossip about the princesses[4] as for their skill.

So, they would see Celestia with a cold.

Luna glanced towards the balloon shaped cutie mark. First task, hide it. Luna lifted the still immobile white alicorn with her magic, and…

The tinkling of glass shards falling from her mane stopped Luna; in the morning light the puffed up, multi-hued mane, with all the bits of glass, looked like one of those obnoxious gaudy party wigs, spreading reflections across the whole room. Luna had to remove all that glass before laying her ward in Celestia’s bed, at least if she wanted to avoid glass cuts, but taking the shards out one by one would take long enough. By the noise outside the guards were already edgy; any longer delay and they might decide to break down the door before that — or send a pegasus to enter by the (now nonexistent) windows.

Now how was that multiteleport spell again…

“Your highness?” This time the voice came with frantic knocking and soft clinking.

“Yes! I mean…” Luna, her eyes firm — though she suspected she let a bit of desperation show — looked at the alicorn suspended in her magic; the alicorn’s eyes, previously moving wildly in all directions, assumed a calm but mischievous appearance as she nodded, opening and closing her mough and pointing to her throat.

Luna, a grateful look in her face, nodded back and turned to the door. “Celestia is indisposed. She had a nightmare and lost her voice after that last scream.”

“May I come in? Princess Celestia has a full schedule today. We need to discuss any needed changes as soon as possible.”

“Just a moment.” Luna concentrated, tiny pinpricks of magic appearing across the impossibly puffed mane and tail, with a few more on the alicorn’s coat. In a moment a small shower of glass shards materialized a few hooves above the dresser, falling with a soft tinkling sound. Gently shaking her ward’s mane, and satisfied that no more glass fell from it, Luna tucked her into the bed.

As an afterthought she concentrated again, encompassing the unruly mane and tail with her princess-strength mane untangling spell, and gave a smile at the result.

“Do come in,” said Luna, opening the door.

Outside the door was a small group of guards, most uncomfortably moving their ears; from their middle a young, bespectacled white unicorn, her dark brown mane and tail set in the same bun shape Luna often saw in grandmothers, entered, a large stack of scrolls trailing in her pink magic aura.

Luna closed the door and looked at the unicorn. The newcomer, despite her apparent youth, had an air of antiqueness; perhaps something of Celestia had brushed on her. Behind her dark glasses her eyes were alert, scanning the room as if she was already taking inventory of everything damaged or destroyed. Her cutie mark, a pen and an ink pot, proclaimed to the world that she wasn’t stranger to the written word.

She looked around, respectfully kneeled towards Luna, and went to the bed, concern in her eyes.

“Your highness…”

The white alicorn lying in the bed pulled the covers over her muzzle; moist eyes looking back at the unicorn, she started coughing and sneezing loudly, shaking the whole bed in her fit.

“Raven, isn’t it?” Luna paced to the unicorn’s side, doing her best to present a concerned smile, which was not hard given the circumstances. “My sister is not feeling like herself; she had a nightmare and, after that shout you indubitably heard, can not speak. She might not be able to attend her duties today. Would it be possible to clear her schedule?”

Raven looked from one alicorn to the other, finally settling her eyes on Luna. “Not without grave consequences, I’m afraid. The ambassador of the Griffin Empire would call it a personal affront; the cabinet secretary believes he is attempting to set back the negotiations about citizenship and immigration to the starting point, and any cancellation or delay might give the embassador the excuse he needs.”

Raven shifted her glance to the white alicorn. “There’s also a meeting with a noble that would take a changeling invasion to postpone, and Princess Celestia has left standing orders to never shift this specific noble into your own schedule, Princess Luna. Besides that, there is the usual assortment —”

Luna sighed. “Very well. Prioritize the meetings and bring me a list, with the briefings for the ones that must absolutely be dealt today by a princess; I will take those, but only in the afternoon. I need to take care of my sister first. That unbending noble will also have to wait until the afternoon to know if the meeting will still happen; we will give our answer then, according to how my sister’s health progresses.”

On the bed, the white alicorn nodded slowly.

Raven looked more closely at the alicorn in bed, her eyes going soft. “Shall I call a physician?”

“NO!” Luna, taken aback by the surprised look in Raven’s face, lowered her voice. “I mean, nay. My sister’s ailment is magical in nature. I will be personally summoning —” The white alicorn’s mane suddenly puffed up, drawing Luna and Raven’s gaze. “— the most qualified pony to deal with it as soon as we are done here. And say, do you know how Celestia deals with bad mane days? My own spells seem ineffective.” Luna finished with what she hoped was a disarming smile.

“Understood. There is nothing else that requires your highnesses immediate attention; I will make the proper arrangements and bring the documents and information you require. Now if you excuse me.” With a bow to each alicorn Raven left the bedroom, taking the unopened scrolls with her.

Luna gently closed the door after the aide, adding a silence spell around the room for good measure, and looked kindly to her ward.

“Am I in trouble?” came the voice from the bed. Luna could hear some apprehension in the voice, though not as much as she expected, given what she could guess of the circumstances.

“Not from me, if you answer truthfully.” Luna unknotted her brow and smiled, already anticipating the answer to her next question; that pony could be turned into a goldfish and she would still be unmistakable. “Are you Pinkie Pie?” The white alicorn nodded once, slowly. “Do you remember what happened?”

Pinkie nodded again and got out of the bed. “I woke up, and there was some bump on my forehead, then you came in —”

Luna lifted a hoof. “So you woke up like that.” Pinkie nodded, her mane becoming puffier by the second. “Do you remember what happened before? Or why you look like Celestia?”

Pinkie lifted a hoof, eyes gleaming. A moment later she closed her mouth and furrowed her brow, scratching her head with her hoof. “I don’t remember. The last thing I remember is that the sun was setting and I was helping close Sugarcube Corner for the day.” Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Oh, Wait. If I’m Celestia, is Celestia me? Shouldn’t we go help her? If she is super confused like me she could use some help!”

“It’s Celestia we are talking about. She can take —”

Memories of what happened just after one fateful Summer Sun celebration, when Luna first met Pinkie Pie and her friends, came back to her. Her favorite cup laying broken, coffee spilled everywhere, when her magic faltered; being stuck up a tree after ferocious wing cramps she hadn’t had in centuries; stumbling every time she went through some stairs because her very height felt wrong. Though she hated to admit it, she wouldn’t trust herself to get from her bed to the gazebo when she was as weak as when the nightmare was ripped from her, much less to get from Ponyville to Canterlot.

And Celestia had several centuries more getting used to being a tall, seemingly omnipotent alicorn, with powerful magic and capable wings. If Celestia switched places with Pinkie…

Luna shuddered and quickly conjured paper and ink. “Dear Twilight Sparkle, it is of utmost importance…”

Celestia was flying over Canterlot, enjoying the sunrise she had just conjured. Giddy with childish delight, she selected a sunbathed overhang in the cliffs above the city, where she could bask while enjoying the view.

From her vantage point she glimpsed as far as Ponyville, the land between spreading below her in a mosaic of greens, blues, and browns. The sound of Canterlot’s streets reached her as only the softest murmurs; Celestia closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, smiling as she imagined the ponies, her happy subjects, waking up for a new day and looking in awe at her dawn, a quite fine one if she might say so…

“Chocolate cake?” she said, her nose twitching at the pleasant, but unexpected, smell.

Celestia looked around, eyebrows knitted together. She should be too high for the city smells to reach her, at least until later in the morning when the thermals started going up the mountain. Moving to the edge of the overhang she jumped towards the city, majestic as an eagle taking off.

Though the wind on her wingfeathers felt dreamingly, Celestia blocked all her senses apart from her sense of smell, trying to follow the delicious aroma back to its source. It was of no use; the scent seemed to come from everywhere at once. And now the smell of cake wasn’t the only one anymore; Celestia could identify blueberry muffins, cookies, strawberry cupcakes… when she briefly closed her eyes, she could imagine that she was inside a bakery, and a particularly well stocked one, if not for her wings beating rhythmically. She could almost picture it, a bakery she had visited in the past...

She opened her eyes, slowly at first and then with a start, missing a wingbeat as she registered the changed scenario. It was still Canterlot, with all its landmarks visible, but this canterlot seemed to come from the dream of a crazed baker; streets paved with toasts, streetlights and even towers made of stacked donuts with colorful glazings, shingles made of cookies, walls of cake, colorful details made with icing.

A stray thought entered Celestia’s head as she glided down; either Discord decided to let his power loose on Canterlot, or…

Her thoughts were interrupted when, as she approached the ground, a pair of voices became clear. She looked around, searching for the interlopers, but try as she might she couldn’t find the speakers. Or anypony else, for what matters.

“We were worried when she was late. She always wakes up early, so full of energy! But when we came here to call her, her mane was like that, and when that happens she is never well.”

“I can help, but I need to talk to her alone. Can you give us a few minutes?”

Celestia recognized that last voice. Unless Discord was finally learning the difference between chaos and creativity, this was a dream, and a shallow one where the real world could intrude. Time to use that little trick Luna taught her; Celestia closed her eyes inside the dream and, with an effort of will, forced her true eyes open, in time to see a blue mare answer the previous question.

“Of course, Princess.” She glanced one last time towards Celestia; their eyes met for a few seconds, and Celestia could see the concern draining from the blue mare’s face before she turned around and descended the stairs with a sigh of relief.

Stairs with a red and white railing that looked like twisted candy. It was familiar, but Celestia couldn’t quite place it. A few candy stores in Canterlot had a similar motif, but...

Twilight Sparkle stepped in front of Celestia, a scroll floating in her magic; she kept looking at the stairs for a few seconds after the other pony disappeared, then looked at Celestia, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. “Princess Celestia?”

“What —” Celestia got up, or at least tried; the bed cover, unexpectedly, didn’t respond to her magic and tangled her hind legs, throwing her out of balance. She attempted to use her wings to correct her stance, to no avail, tumbling to the floor like an upside down sack of potatoes. She let escape an undignified yelp as she landed, blushing slightly when she imagined how ridiculous she must look right now.

“Princess! Are you alright?”

Celestia slowly picked herself off the floor, laboring to disentangle her hind legs from the bed covers until Twilight’s magic floated them away. Meanwhile Spike made his presence known by burping another scroll.

“I’m fine, Twilight. Though there seems to be something wrong with my horn.” Celestia gave a small hop. “And wings.” She looked back at her flank, pink and devoid of wings, and her face froze, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Well, You don’t exactly have a horn or wings right now.”

Unfreezing, Celestia looked around; she noticed a small round mirror atop the nightstand, hurriedly stepping in front of it. She was greeted by a frowning pink face, with a straight and darker pink mane; definitely an earth pony. She looked back to Twilight and spoke, urgency in her voice.

“You know something about what happened. Talk.”

Twilight unrolled the scroll she was carrying in front of Celestia. In the writing of her sister, flourished even when hurried, was the request to go find Pinkie, who should be treated as Celestia, taking Spike together and waiting for further messages. The second scroll, which Twilight read together with Celestia, told the tale of how Pinkie Pie awoke with her, Celestia’s, body, nearly destroying Celestia’s bedroom with a Royal Canterlot Voice-powered panic scream, only contained by one of Luna’s shield spells.

Celestia sniffed. The smell of cakes wasn’t merely a dream, and a place finally came to her mind.

“I presume I’m at Sugarcube Corner, Ponyville.”

Twilight silently nodded.

Celestia looked around, noticing the stairs up to the inner balcony and a door leading outside.

“Let us go to Canterlot,” she said, already galloping up the stairs.

She was already going through the door, and galloping towards the outside railing, when she heard Spike say, “Isn’t that the outside balcony? How will she get down?”

What is he talking about? I need to go up, not down, thought Celestia as she jumped the railing, opening her…

Oh, horse apples. No wings.

She was ready to scream when a purple aura arrested her fall. Her moment kept her spinning, and soon Twilight came into view, her forehooves clinging to the railing and panting as if her heart was going to jump out of her mouth.

Luna walked down the hall, nodding back to the curtsies, while ignoring the surprised faces of the ponies she met. Was it so strange to see her about in the early morning, that everypony else seemed to be rendered speechless?

Well, perhaps that was so, decided Luna. The last time she had been up and alert at this time, apart from an Equestria-wide emergency, was before… what were ponies calling it nowadays? The “Great Celestia/Luna Rift?”

Things were progressing, at least. Twilight Sparkle had sent a note back; she was bringing Celestia, who was stuck inside Pinkie Pie’s body, to Canterlot, despite some early incidents she declined to elaborate upon. Luna’s meeting with her hoofpicked agent had also gone well; if fortune smiled upon them, she would know exactly what happened with Pinkie Pie last night, and hopefully also with Celestia, before the day was over.

Now, thought Luna, I just have to find the time to do all the meetings that couldn’t be postponed, devise a way for Pinkie Pie to fool whichever noble insists on seeing Celestia unless the sky is falling, invent an excuse for why Celestia is not doing any of her usual paperwork, and, of course, figure out a way to undo whatever befell on Pinkie Pie and my sister.

She sighed, passing through the last few rooms before Celestia’s bedroom and ignoring the guards scurrying about. Perhaps she should make the sky fall upon that impertinent noble in a very literal sense — no, that would just make things worse. Besides, she had to find a way to make Pinkie-as-Celestia as inconspicuous as possible before the first of the rescheduled meetings, a task she suspected —

Luna stopped, her ears swivelling, and glared at a door to her left. It was the door to Celestia’s private study.

Raucous laughter was escaping it in bursts. It didn’t sound like Celestia’s voice, but still…

Luna opened the door slowly, and was rewarded with, besides a faceful of streamers and confetti, one of the most ridiculous scenes she had seen since her return: Celestia — Pinkie Pie, Luna hastily added in a mental note — in the middle of the room, her mane and tail still fuzzy like a clown’s, dressed in a jacket that imitated a Zebra’s coat, and black…

Luna blinked. Pants! When did Celestia even got pants? At least they covered Pinkie’s switched cutie mark.

The room itself looked almost normal, if one ignored the streamers and confetti spread across the floor. Besides the usual utilitarian desk and cabinet Luna could see a portable black board, with scribbling she couldn’t make sense of, and a sampling of party decorations and supplies strewn around the floor and over the desk.

Luna cleared her throat loudly. “What in Tartarus is happening here?”

Finally noticing the intrusion Pinkie Pie turned to Luna, her eyes alternating between panicked and pleading as she gesticulated. One hoof kept making gestures towards her own throat, the other pointed at a corner of the room. Luna glanced at where the stretched hoof was pointing, ignoring the alicorn losing balance and falling forward; she saw an apprehensive lime pegasus mare there, collecting a stack of scrolls and envelopes.

Luna glared at Pinkie; she had just to stay in her room and keep out of trouble. That wasn’t too much to ask, certainly. Luna suppressed a growl as she turned to the pegasus. “What happened here?”

“I…” The already trembling pegasus seemed to shrivel under Luna’s scrutiny. Luna wondered if she had gone too far…

And then Pinkie was besides the lime pegasus, a white wing touching her reassuringly, a smile directed at her. The pegasus stopped trembling at once, swallowed, and nodded at Pinkie.

Luna was rendered speechless. This was not how Pinkie was supposed to behave; she had read all of Twilight’s friendship reports, at the insistence of her sister, and couldn’t remember a single time a scene like this was described.

But Luna had seen a scene like this many times. She knew a pony that, with but a gesture and a smile, could reassure others, give them confidence.

Her sister, Celestia.

“Your highness?”

The lime pegasus was looking expectantly at Luna, now with but a hint of fear in her blue-eyed gaze; even her green mane seemed less wild, though that could be pegged to how much she was trembling before. Luna reminded herself that the pegasus was not at fault and allowed a smile to show. “Continue.”

The pegasus glanced furtively at the white alicorn that was currently Pinkie, who gave a little nod back.

“I came to deliver the reports your highness asked for,” the pegasus said, taking two envelopes from the pile she had been assembling. “Raven also asked to bring Princess Celestia’s paperwork; she said it might help her pass the time. Princess Celestia told me she wasn’t allowed to use her magic until she got better —”

“Told you?” asked Luna, turning to Pinkie; the white alicorn raised a small blackboard on a stick with a single “Yep!” written. Despite the gravity of the situation, the sheer absurdity wrestled a genuine smile from Luna’s face. Turning back to the pegasus, Luna said, “Continue.”

“Well, Princess Celestia picked up the planning of the Spring Festival and asked me to help with the writing. We came to her study and started working on it.”

Luna turned to Pinkie. “The rest of the planning will have to wait. I have urgent matters to discuss with my sister.”

“Uh…” the pegasus raised a hoof. “We already finished the planning. Or Princess Celestia did, I just wrote for her. I’ve never seen something like it, it was as if the princess had the whole party planned in her head even before we started.”

Luna blinked, jaw agape. She left Pinkie alone for less than an hour. Celestia usually needed half a day to finish the plans for a festival as large as this; there was no way plans rushed to such a degree would stand to scrutiny. “Let me see what you have got.”

The pegasus passed a small stack of paper, the sheets covered in a neat, blocky writing. She wondered if she should try to soften the blow when she told Pinkie how she wasted the time…

But those plans weren’t bad. In fact they might impress Celestia herself. There were a few flaws her discerning eyes could notice, such as how the floral arrangements spelled “go home” in the Zebra flower language and the foreign dignitaries seating arrangement would probably spark a border conflict or two, but Celestia could fix those issues in a few minutes when she arrived.

And, Luna realized, Pinkie had just given her the excuse she needed to have Celestia refrain from doing any more paperwork for the rest of the day.

“This is looking good, but it still needs work. Celestia and I will finish it afterwards. Now, about those other reports…”

Luna put the festival plans aside and took the two presented envelopes with her magic, examining them. The first one had Celestia’s schedule and meeting notes, as she had asked; the other had…

“A report on Celestia’s hair styling through the ages?”

“Uh,” the pegasus looked uncertain, “I didn’t understand it either, but Raven told me to bring that to you, your highness.”

Luna glanced at Pinkie, and her unruly mane. Oh, right. Bad mane day. Looking back at the pegasus, she asked, “What is your name, pray tell?”

“Green Haze, your highness. I’m Raven’s junior assistant.”

“Please tidy up this room before you leave.” And now, thought Luna, time for some damage control. She put out her best smile. “And after you finish you may go knowing that you pleased both your princesses. But I must ask something else of you; Celestia’s condition is to remain a secret for the time being. Can we trust you with this secret?”

Luna could see the glimmer in Green Haze’s eyes becoming stronger as the praise and trust were laid on her. She hated manipulating others like this, but it was needed.

“You can count on me, your highness!”

Luna left the room, Pinkie in tow, leaving Green Haze in a flurry of activity as she collected all the wayward party supplies. As the alicorns were entering Celestia’s bedroom, Luna turned to Pinkie. “Where did you even find streamers?”

The white face formed an enigmatic, but silent, smile. Truly there was something of Celestia in Pinkie, and it was making Luna uneasy.