Celestia groaned as she forced her body to get out of bed. Her mane was a disheveled mess, but she chose to ignore that fact as she made her way out onto her balcony. To her dismay, Luna had already almost completely lowered the moon which meant that she was behind schedule just moments after waking up. With another groan, she used her magic to forcefully throw the sun up into the sky. Probably not the smartest way to handle the situation, but at least it put her back on track to have a normal day. Or so she hoped.
As she stood in front of her mirror attempting to fix the disaster that was her mane, Celestia took a couple deep breaths. Just because she had woken up a few minutes late did not mean that her entire day would be terrible. She was just overreacting to a minor mistake. Nopony had been harmed, so she had nothing to worry about. With a nod of satisfaction to her reflection, Celestia finally stopped brushing her mane. To everypony but herself, it would look the same as always which was good enough for today. Quickly, she put on her regalia and took another calming breath before walking out of her royal suite.
She had only taken a couple steps in the direction of the royal dining hall before her personal attendant appeared at her side. “Princess,” her attendant said, “I’m sorry to come before you’ve had a chance to have breakfast, but I’m afraid there is an urgent matter that needs your attention.”
“Oh,” Celestia asked in surprise, “What might this urgent matter be?”
Her attendant swallowed nervously before replying, “An ambassador from the Griffin Kingdom says that he must speak to you about the Equestria Games.”
Celestia sighed, “Alright, take me to him then, if you would.”
The attendant curtsied, “Of course, Princess. Follow me please.”
Groaning inwardly at her misfortune, Celestia followed trying her hardest not to show how she really felt about this impromptu meeting. Her attendant stopped in front of the door to her study. Celestia balked, “You led him here? To my personal study? What in Equestria possessed you to do so?”
To her credit, the attendant managed not to show her fear as she said, “He was threatening to harm somepony if he was not given someplace private where he would be able to talk to you as soon as you could be found.”
Fighting the urge to facehoof, Celestia said in a deathly calm voice, “We’ll talk about this later. My study is not an appropriate place to bring anypony, no matter who they are without my express permission. But, I don’t have time to cover that now; it appears to be extremely important that I see what this ambassador wants from me.”
Without waiting for a reply from her cowed attendant, Celestia threw open her study door and strode in, very nearly slamming the door behind her. Sitting in a chair in front of her desk was a very irritated looking griffin. Celestia cleared her throat before asking, “What is it that was so urgent that you could not wait to get an appointment to meet with me?”
Rising out of his chair, the griffin retorted, “We’ve been trying to get an appointment with you for months, and we have not received even one reply to our many requests! It seemed that if one of us did not come to force a meeting with you that you would be content to ignore any attempts that we made to do this the proper way.”
Steeling herself mentally, Celestia replied, “I’m very sorry that you feel that you were being ignored. I assure you that that wasn’t our intent. But, seeing as you are here now, what is the issue that you wish to discuss?”
“The rings for the relay at the Equestria Games! They were made to offer all pony competitors an advantage over the griffin team. They were much too small for any griffin, even a child, to be able to fly through normally whereas they did not hinder the ponies at all. This was obviously a blatant attempt at sabotage!”
Raising a hoof for the griffin to cease his tirade, Celestia sighed, “I’m sorry that you feel that way. Sabotaging our griffin opponents was the last thing we intended to do. It was merely an oversight on the part of those who designed those rings. The best I can do is allow a griffin to come to Equestria to have a say in the design of the relay rings for the next Equestria Games.”
“That is not good enough! We demand something to compensate for our inconvenience in the most recent Equestria Games! The relay must be held again with rings that are a fair size for all competitors, not ones geared to the advantage of ponies!”
Just as Celestia was about to reply, a knock sounded on the door of her study. She turned to face the doorway as she used her magic to open the door. Looking sheepish, her attendant said, “I’m very sorry Princess, but if you don’t come with me right now, then you will be late for your first scheduled meeting of the day.”
Nodding to the attendant, Celestia walked over to her while saying to the griffin ambassador, “Influence on the design of the rings for the next Equestria Games. That’s the only offer you’ll get. Take it or leave it.”
Obviously fuming, the griffin said in a tight voice while walking out of Celestia’s study, “Fine. We’ll take it.”
As soon as he was out of sight, Celestia turned to her attendant, “I’m glad he’s gone. Now, who is the first pony that I’m supposed to meet today?”
“The mayor of Cloudsdale,” her attendant replied.
Celestia walked over to sit behind her desk, “Show her in, if you would.”
Her attendant bowed and hurried away. She returned a few moments later with a pegasus mare behind her. Immediately after her attendant left and closed the study door behind her, the mayor of Cloudsdale said, “Princess, I would very much appreciate it if you would explain to me why charges are not being pressed against whoever destroyed the Cloudsdale Weather Factory not long ago.”
It took all of Celestia willpower not to facehoof at her own stupidity. “I’m very sorry about what happened to the weather factory, but, you see, there’s nothing we can do in regards to pressing charges. We can’t even be certain of who caused that series of unfortunate events. Therefore, it would too easy to wind up pressing charges on the wrong pony.”
The mayor glowered at her in response. “Are you serious? You’re the Princess of Equestria. I’m sure that there’s some way that you could manage to find the criminal and convict them while be certain that you got the right pony.”
Her muscles tensing, Celestia replied, “Excuse you, Mayor, but, last time I checked, it is not up to you to question how I run Equestria. You were given ample funds to compensate for the damage by Princess Twilight, so, pardon my confusion, but why are you so interested in sending somepony to jail?”
The mayor of Cloudsdale stood speechless. Snorting half in amusement and half in anger, Celestia stood, “That’s what I thought. You’re wasting my time.”
With that, Celestia strode out of her study, leaving the mayor still standing in the same position. As she walked through the halls of Canterlot Castle, Discord appeared next to her. She groaned, “What is it Discord? I’ve had a bad day already, and I haven’t even been awake for an hour yet. It's probably the shortest bad day in the history of Equestria.”
Discord chuckled, “Oh Tia, you’re so silly. If nothing is going right, the solution is simple.”
Celestia looked at him, “And what is this oh so simple solution?”
“Why, you go left of course.”
