Luna Discovers Italian Food
From her point of view, one moment she was fighting against her sister in the Castle of the Two Sisters and the next it laid in ruins. One moment Celestia won the battle and banished her to the Moon and the next she let her banish her to the Sun.
Once Nightmare Moon was vanquished, Celestia took time to explain that a thousand years had passed, but for her, it was only a blink of an eye. The old city was no more, overran by a wild forest. Instead now stood proudly Canterlot, a huge city built along the flank of a mountain. Most of the old villages were gone, replaced by cities that could host millions of ponies. Where the ponies’ population of Equestria could be counted in the hundreds of thousands now lived tens of millions.
She woke up in the inside a bed she wasn't used to, new beds are never quite right. She looked outside and found the Moon high in the sky. Celestia told her she needed to rest and she took care of raising it, as she did for the last thousand years. Luna always been a night pony and right now she didn't feel like sleeping, she lost so much time already! Right now, her stomach reminded her important information, even a princess needs to eat.
She jumped off her bed only to trip and her face made a rude contact with the carpet. Since Nightmare Moon had been removed from her, she had been reduced to the size of a very young mare. She would have to get used to the short legs, at least until she would grow back with her power. The fireplace was diffusing a faint golden light as she got up. She trotted to the door looking around, everything looks so big when you're half the size.
The castle was huge and she didn't have the chance to get use to its layout. She gamboled around the corridors, hoping she would find the dining room. She could only notice how Canterlot's castle was much prettier than the old castle. This one was all marble, gold and ivory while the previous one was simply made of crude blocks of dark rock. This ‘future’ sure was pretty, she had no doubt she would like it a lot. Her mind still had a hard time wrapping itself around the idea that she missed so much.
She was surprised to see no guard on her path. She found two huge doors that once pushed open with a little telekinetic spell, revealed a huge dining room.
"Oh!" she let out.
The table in the middle of the room could host easily three time the ponies that used to live in the old castle. It was made of a dark red wood and golden leaves were engraved in it. But what really caught Luna's eyes were the huge stained glasses windows that covered the walls. The Moon's light bathed the epic scenes displayed on them. She actually found it hard to get her eyes off the windows, the colors and the details mesmerizing her.
Her stomach quickly brought her back to reality; a dining room meant a nearby kitchen and with luck, a cook. But as she left the dining room for the adjacent room, which she found out was indeed a kitchen; the only source of light was the moon. There was no cook, waitress or any worker in sight. It made some sense, after all Celestia had never been a night pony and never really needed food at midnight. She wouldn't hire a cook to stay up all night for a millennium without any pony to feed at those late hours.
Luna smiled, it would be like the old times when she and Celestia had to make their own food. She always enjoyed making food, even if in her memories of the last few hundred years she didn't really have to. The kitchen looked quite different from what she was used too, everything was shiny, clean and in some kind of weird metal. It looked like steel but it was brushed. Large work tables took most of the place while tools and pans hanged around. It was huge, obviously made to have dozen ponies work at once.
Her first goal would be to find raw food that she could prepare. She started opening doors seeking the pantry or any place ponies were storing food now, without much success, only finding more pots, knives and cutlery. She came to a stop in front of a huge metallic door, a large handle securing it in place. She pulled it with her magic.
She jumped back in surprise, ran back and hid behind a table. She slowly raised her head above it, trying to see what startled her. The bright light that was coming out of the door wasn't there when she started opening the door, she could have sworn it. Could the pantry be protected with some kind of magical ward? Was it made against thieves? The door was only opened by a hoof and the light coming out of it was quite bright, much more than what a candle could produce, it had to be magic of some kind.
She went slowly around the table, keeping her head down. She gently pushed the door and just about it was about to close the light disappeared. She jumped back once more, looking around but she was truly alone in the kitchen. She pulled the door open more quickly and not missing a beat, the light was back! It was quite an impressive spell as she never saw something quite like it. Somehow it was bound to that door and made the light react if it was opened or not. She wonder what spell could make such bright light. Young unicorn learns a basic spell to make their horn glow, but even that was no match for that brightness. She wondered why the castle was light by candles and fireplaces if ponies had that kind of spell.
As she opened it fully, a cold breeze washed over her face. She took a few steps back, surprised that the room temperature had drop sharply. Was that some kind of ice ward made to freeze trespassers? If it was the case, it wasn't working very well as it would take a much lower temperature to stop her. The cold air was now obvious as small puffs of cold vapor rolled on the floor to her hooves. She was impressed at how complex the spell casted on that room was, only to protect some food. But she was the princess of the night, she reminded herself, she could overcome any spell.
While being only half confident, she moved inside the cold room, looking for any traps or other signs of defensive spells. Instead she found all kind of aliments stored along the walls. She was stunned that she couldn't even name some of them. She quickly understood that the low temperature wasn't for some invaders, but to keep the food from perishing. She was impressed with the idea of freezing food, ponies sure came up with some amazing spells! She had no idea how she could replicate such a complex magic. Did ponies become much more powerful? After all, Nightmare Moon was defeated by six normal young mares.
She found some milk and eggs, her eyes widening at the idea that just sprouted in her mind. "Pancakes!" she cheered while levitating the ingredients out. On her way out, she noticed blueberries and she quickly added to her blue aura. She grinned, it had been literally centuries since she had blueberries pancakes. She brought her discoveries to one of the large oven at the back of the room.
She opened the lower compartment of the oven and stood there staring at it for a good minute. Why was it empty and so clean? Where were the logs? Maybe they cleaned the chimney lately. That would explain why it was so clean. They sure did an amazing job at keeping any spot of ashes away. She looked around and failed to find any logs. What kind of kitchen had no reserve of wood for the fire? She checked the other ovens with the same result. Was she missing something or did they clean the oven every day? Was it another kind of magic unknown to her?
It didn't matter, she knew very well where to find wood. She sprinted back to her room and got a few dry logs from her own stack. The cook would be happy that she saved him the trouble of resupplying his own cache. She put the logs in the oven, lit them up and closed the panel. It would take a little while to warm up the oven, but she had to prepare the pancake mix before. She liked how she could watch the wood burn through that large window.
Just as she started to mix the flour and the milk she noticed something was wrong; there was black smoke coming out of the oven. She could see it with the light still coming from the cold room. She frowned, why was the chimney not draining the smoke? Maybe it was broken? That would explain why it was so clean to begin with. There was a lot of smoke and it was quickly filling the room. Somehow her small size allowed her to stay under the level of the smoke, but it still started to tickle her nose.
As she came closer to the oven to inspect it, her ears twitched at a high pitched noise. It was a kind of whistling. She looked around but couldn't spot where that noise was coming from. It only got louder, making her step back in pain. What kind of creature could make such a sound? Was the oven alive? Just as she looked back at the oven, it exploded and the door flew toward her at incredible speed.
The moment later, she was against the wall beside the kitchen's doors and she pushed the heavy plate of metal off her. Her ears were ringing from the explosion and her head was spinning from the impact. She quickly looked around; there was smoke and fire spreading everywhere, but she was still in one piece, if not covered in bruises. The oven was sliced in half and was spitting torches of blue fire around. That fire was unnatural, she could feel it! Just as she started to panic, a torrent of cold water came cascading down from the ceiling. Was that another spell? It sure did look that way as the water was spraying all over the kitchen. It was no doubted the most cursed kitchen she ever saw.
She had no idea what was happening or what to do. That kitchen was foreign and dangerous! She hated this stupid future! With tears in her eyes, she ran out of the kitchen, burnt, hurt, wet and coughing puffs of black smoke. She stopped in her track almost bumping into a long white leg. She raised her head and met her sister's eyes staring at her.
"Tia! There's a demon... or a curse... or something in the kitchen, it attacked me!" she explained in one breath while jumping from one leg to the other.
Before Celestia could answer, four guards rushed in the dining room. "Princesses, are you alright? We heard an explosion!"
"Please calm down, we are both alright," Celestia answered. She turned to look at Luna. "Now dear sister, what happened?"
Luna sat down and started to explain in detail everything that took place minutes ago, but as her story progressed, she could see Celestia had a hard time to not laugh. She had one of those smile that always got on Luna's nerves. When she explained how the oven exploded, Celestia put a hoof on her mouth and closed her eyes, but her shoulders betrayed her chuckles.
"That's not funny!" Luna shouted, annoyed that Celestia wasn’t taking her seriously.
Celestia was about to answer when one of the guard came out of the kitchen. "Princesses, I'm afraid to say this, but we might have lost the whole reserve as the refrigerator’s door was left open. Smoke, fire and water have contaminated the food. And I doubt anything will be prepared in the kitchen for a while."
Celestia lost her smile. "Well, this is a problem. Lot of ponies eats here every day."
"And I'm still hungry," Luna whispered while drying herself off with a towel one of the guard brought her.
"Majesty, if I may?" a guard asked while raising a hoof. Seeing Celestia nodded in his direction, he continued, "My brother owns a pizzeria nearby and it is open all night long. If your majesty is hungry, I could call for some food."
Celestia's smile came back to her lips. Luna lowered her head, she knew very well that smile; her sister had something in mind and a thousand years ago, it never meant something good for her.
Luna was sitting at the table with a flat square white box in front of her. On top was printed the image of a stallion with a large ridiculous mustache and a white hat while under was written 'Ponyno's Pizza, ready in thirty minutes or free!'. Celestia and the guards had called that a pizza and the logo on the box proved them right, but she had no idea what to make of it. She opened the box with her magic and her nose received a delicious, but unknown smell.
To her surprise, it did look like a kind of very large pancake. However, to her knowledge, pancakes were best when made with small fruits while this one was covered in molten cheese and vegetables. She was quite sure there wasn't anything like that 'pizza' a thousand years ago. She frowned while eyeing the vegetables. Was that some kind of joke? Would the guards themselves prank her?
She looked up and noticed Celestia was staring at her with that same smile Luna learned to identify when her sister was in a mischievous mood. It put her in a defensive stance as she knew very well her sister's pranks were never a good thing. However, the smell of cheese, something she liked a lot, reminded her that her stomach was desperately empty. What was the worst that could happen? There was cheese at stake!
She levitated one slice out of the box and eyed it. After a few moments looking at it, she decided the best would be to start by the tip. It would be a smaller and easier bite and if she had to spit it, at least it wouldn't be a large chunk. The cheese started to flow out of the slice and she bumped it back with a little push of magic. As she brought the pizza to her mouth, she noticed her sister's smile widening, obviously not a good sign.
With a brave look on her face, she bit. The cheese and something she hadn't noticed before, tomato sauce, rolled in her mouth in a perfect harmony of warm and salty. The crust wasn't soft or hard, just the perfect texture to support the topping while not being hard to chew. Just as she thought it was perfect, she chew on a vegetable and to her surprise, didn't taste out of place with the cheese. Taken separately, she liked those ingredients, but put together, they were marvelous.
A moment later, she opened her eyes, unaware that she had closed them the whole time she ate that bite. She stared at the levitating slice in surprise. Why they didn’t have that kind of food a thousand years ago? It didn’t taste like anything she ate before and it was good! Celestia, staring at her, was once again on the edge of laughter. She was obviously waiting for Luna's verdict.
"We like a lot this... Pizza!" she said with a large smile, before taking another much larger bite.
Celestia started laughing. "Happy you enjoy it. Now, if you won’t be blowing up anything else, I'm going back to sleep."
Luna tried to wish her good night, but she didn't manage to make an intelligible sentence with her mouth being full. She focused her sight back to the pizza. The future wasn't so bad after all, at least it did taste good. How many amazing other recipe did they create while she was away? She didn't notice one of the guards leaning toward another and whispering, "Wait until she tries a taco."
The kitchen stayed in repair for the whole week. For that time, Luna discovered she could choose her own toppings from the nearby pizzeria, and all was good in Equestria.
