'Holidays in the Sun'
There were times when Princess Celestia greatly missed her sister.
There was always a dull sort of longing mixed with a tinge of regret and melancholy, naturally, which often bloomed into a full despair on the nights where the moon was full and raising it particularly difficult. This was the type of missing, an emotional missing, that any pony would assume of Equestria's monarch were she to speak aloud of Princess Luna's absence.
And then, Celestia thought as she eyed the formidable stack of paperwork in front of her, there was a completely different kind of practical missing that wished her royal workload could be once again divided between two ponies.
There were settlement disputes and title claims and trade arrangements and non-aggression pacts, which Celestia had charged a team of scribes to summarize and then a second tier of scribes to summarize the summaries, and still she didn't seem to be able to approve or decline or negotiate them fast enough. Then there were the memorandums about when to amend her schedule to accommodate an appearance at a gala here and a festival there, where she would of course be expected to say a few words to the crowd (she did not envy her speech writers, who needed to make her almost-daily proclamations at such small events sound like fresh material in spite of her repeating the same basic platitudes over and over) and then furthermore to exchange simple pleasantries one-on-one with nearly every pony attending. She had concocted in her mind a marvelous game which the various nobles, dignitaries, and officials could have played, in which they compared the content of what she had said to them against each other; any two ponies finding they shared phrases would be winners. And then there were the countless personal petitions, most of which she regrettably had to turn down for very good reasons that the pony writing directly to her usually didn't know about, and letters, mostly from little fillies and colts asking questions of her like what her favorite color was or what she liked to drink in the mornings or what she was like as a little pony. Celestia had considered publishing the definitive answers to questions like these in an official biography of sorts, but she knew she would never be able to cover all the conceivable questions curious ponies had nor would she be able to go more than a decade before wanting to alter half of her answers--plus she doubted she could get everypony to read such a tome unless she directed them to, which would seem rude if it were the stock response to a letter and doubly rude if it were made a part of the school curriculum. So the petitions and letters all had to be answered personally, as she had found no way to correctly instruct a scribe to write responses in her stead.
All she wanted was a simple holiday! Just one day a year that wasn't booked with appearances and councils and salutations and wax seals and repetitive smalltalk, where she could sit in the warm sun and read a book and maybe have a drink with a little umbrella and a lot of alcohol in it. Unfortunately, all the days that were least busy for her subjects were the most busy for her, requiring a royal visit in many places across Equestria, all in a tight timeline that allowed little leeway for sun, reading, or drinking.
Perhaps she could declare a new holiday. National Please Don't Bother Your Princess, She's Trying To Unwind Day. She'd think of a better name for it later. This would no doubt stir up a whole lot of rabble from how unsubtle it was, as there was a certain vocal minority that appeared without fail through every generation of her reign to complain vociferously about every little change she made and sometimes about little changes she didn't make, and she'd hate to give them something to latch on to each year to rally around. Plus, it would no doubt sour her mood to have to attempt to placate these perpetually-unsatisfied protesters on her vacation. So National Please Don't Bother Your Princess, She's Trying To Unwind Day was a failure before it even began.
What she needed was something more subtle. Another obligation she needed to attend, where nothing was required of her. One where, instead of trying to not say the same thing to the same pony she had met at the function last year and the year before that and the year before that, she could take with her a crime novel, a beach umbrella, and a Mai Tai. One also where she could say to her council of advisers that she was terribly sorry she couldn't attend this year's Northern Festival of the Something-or-Other, but it would conflict with the Royal Celestia Is Not Talking To Anypony Today Fundraiser Banquet.
Again, she would try to think of something else to call such an event.
As cosmic luck would have it, just as Celestia was thinking these things over she unfolded an official document from Rainbow Falls requiring her royal seal of authority to approve the new charter governing the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange. She had always enjoyed being in the town of Rainbow Falls: the rainbows were nice to look at, it was small, and its location in the high hilltops allowed for conveniently discrete entrances and exits even with the royal carriage. And the Traders Exchange was a fun event, with many ponies too preoccupied on trading away or trading for that one rare item that event an event as momentous as a visit from Princess Celestia could get second billing.
And every time she had attended, the weather had been wonderful.
That settled the matter. She withheld her seal of approval and instead drafted a quick addendum to the proposed charter, suggesting that a line be added about the required presence of a princess of Equestria.
Had Celestia been as omnipotent and all-knowing as some of her subjects believed her to be, she likely never would have attempted to make herself a fixture of the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange, as she would have foreseen what an annual hassle it would become.
-/-
The first year a mishap in the weather department had blanketed all of Rainbow Falls in biting rain for well into the afternoon. Celestia tried fruitlessly to read, but it was impossible to keep a spell to hold the book, a spell to dry the rain, and a spell to quell the wind active at the same time. In the end, she gave up and watched the pony running a stall full of umbrellas make out like a bandit.
The second year a trade dispute took nearly the entire day to resolve, the result of which was a lot of shouting between the two parties involved ending in the infinitely frustrating realization that one had misheard the other and they were actually in complete agreement the whole time. Celestia returned to Canterlot that year with a sour disposition and a splitting headache, both of which persisted into her peace talks with the Griffon Kingdoms the morning after and neither of which helped matters at all.
The third year some boor of a pony had spotted the novel she had been planning to read and gleefully gushed over how good he thought it was, recounting all the major moments and the surprise ending, none of which she had yet to read. Celestia spent that year not even opening her book and instead drinking too many drinks with umbrellas in them, and went home with an even more splitting headache than the year before.
The fourth year a highly dangerous and highly illegal wyvern escaped and set fire to half the stands, requiring an emergency journey to Tartarus and for the Traders Exchange to be closed for the day.
The fifth year Celestia was called away in the middle of the third chapter in her book to resolve a border dispute with the griffons that stemmed back to the poor peace talks three years ago.
On and on it went, a new and fresh misfortune every year. Celestia grew to dread the yearly appointment at the marketplace more than any inane function or tedious ceremony. It was during the year that a stand with nothing to trade but gigantic and particularly odious jars of pickles had been set up right by the royal box that she had an idea. A bold, dare, dare she say so herself brilliant idea. One that would allow her to slip free of any obligation to appear at the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange without offending any of the residents of Rainbow Falls. The charter called for a princess to be present, a standard form dating back to when she had co-ruled with her sister but now was mostly synonymous with putting her name. Mostly synonymous, but not completely.
All Celestia had to do was to make another princess.
-/-
It wasn't easy, slowly siphoning off the magic of her very essence and directing it to bleed into the pony she had selected after months of vigorous research, all while remaining subtle and unseen in her operations. Alicorns were not things to be created lightly, and there were all sorts of pesky laws in place that even she was powerless to overturn, so it was very important she not get caught. But now, finally, she had standing before her a new princess of Equestria, whose first official duty was going to the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange, while she planned on staying in her chambers reading trashy novels and eating cake.
"And if you have any troubles," Celestia said, completely confident that she would not, "I will be only a message away."
"I'm sure I'll be able to handle it," Cadance said.
-/-
Celestia tore through her bulky dossier on Cadance. How could she have overlooked something so simple, so basic? Moral qualities she had checked, magical strength she had measured, character had been tested time and time again, but had she thought to question if Cadance had rainbow allergies? Somehow, Celestia had found the only pegasus whose face puffed up and turned bright red in the mere proximity of a rainbow, secretly promoted her to an alicorn, and sent her off in her first official capacity to a town named after its rainbow cascades.
She rubbed a hoof to her temple. She was never going to escape the Traders Exchange. She was going to be stuck going there until the end of time.
Celestia would not have believed how close she was to having another opportunity to avoid Rainbow Falls slip through her hooves.
-/-
As knocking on her sister's bedchamber door had produced no results, Celestia pushed it open, making sure to apply just the right amount of pressure to produce maximum squeakiness.
"Luna," she asked the still room, "are you awake?"
"Nnn," came the response from the bed.
Celestia stepped into the room. She still felt a little on thin ice with her newly-returned sister, but... "Today is the day of the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange," she gently reminded.
"Thou said our presence was required at six," Luna mumbled from beneath the covers.
""And it is already half-five, and there's time needed to prepare for--"
"Now? But 'tis morn..."
"Well, yes. The Traders Exchange lasts all day."
Luna stuck her head up, one eye half-lidded and the other doing its best to glare at her. "Day? Sister, neigh, we thought thou needed us at night."
"Why would the Traders Exchange run through the night?" Celestia asked.
"Why wouldst thou ask the Princess of the Night to preside over a daytime affair?" Luna countered. "The day is thine domain."
She dropped back into bed and pulled the cover back over her head.
"We beg, let us rest," came Luna's muffled voice, "for the hour is early and we need our sleep."
Celestia left her sister's room, her eye twitching ever so slightly.
-/-
The next year, as she sat in the royal box, Celestia wondered how it was that she kept ending up at Rainbow Falls. She thought she had everything covered this time, now that Cadance was well equipped with a new anti-allergy medication (the research and development of which may or may not have received a substantial financial backing from the royal purse), but it was all in vain as at the last moment she had come down with some kind of stomach bug that caused the need to slink off somewhere private and quietly retch every half-hour. Perhaps, Celestia mused, she had just had the misfortune to select a pony prone to illness, though she had read over her updated dossier on Cadance and nothing in her medical history suggested it was so.
It was only at the end of the day that she realized there may be some weight to all those rumors that kept cropping up in the less-reputable papers of Cadance having fallen pregnant after all.
-/-
This year. This year was the year. The year she broke her curse with Rainbow Falls. It's true, Celestia could have arranged a personal day with ease at nearly any other time of the year, now that she had three other princesses to call upon (in theory), but this day had become a private mission of hers. It had a vendetta against her, and taking another day off would feel like losing the battle.
Twilight Sparkle was nothing if not tenacious, resourceful, and thorough. When she encountered a problem, she didn't rest until it was solved. She had proven herself capable in crisis situations time and time again. She was the perfect pony princess to handle the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange.
Plus, she had no allergies and woke up quite early in the mornings. Celestia had triple-checked these facts in her Twilight dossier.
-/-
Celestia sat on a deserted beach made of pure white sand and lapping waves, beneath a broad umbrella with a dog-eared paperback at her side and a glass with ice and a liberal amount of coconut rum in it in her hoof. Everything was exactly as she wanted it.
So it was only natural that a scroll manifest itself before her in a burst of green flames.
Sighing, Celestia unfurled the scroll to see what had gone wrong. She placed a bet with herself for a plague of some kind.
Princess Celestia, the scroll read, I had to make an official judgment on whether a trade was fair or not at the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange. I'm so sorry for breaking the record of princess non-interference with trades! What happened was that Rainbow Dash--
With great satisfaction, Celestia tore the scroll in half and pushed her sunglasses back up her muzzle. She didn't need to deal with this.
After all, she was on vacation.
