Princess Celestia's Yak Problem
Princess Celestia wanted to let Twilight handle the Yak diplomats, but she wasn't sure her former student was ready for it. Sure, Twilight was now the princess of friendship, and she wanted to feel like her job was important, but sometimes friendship and foreign relations were very different.
So instead of letting Twilight greet the yaks alone, Celestia had Twilight and her friends stand alongside her and Luna so her former student could watch and offer help if necessary. With this many ponies to handle the greetings, even diplomats from a reclusive nation like Yakyakistan would feel at home.
Of course, to ease the process, Twilight suggested they present the diplomats with Yakyakistanian pleasantries like their food, which was why a banquet table with traditional Yakyakistanian food sat off to the side of the hall.
The group waited nervously for the yaks to arrive.
Suddenly, the doors to the hall burst open and three yaks strolled in. "Greetings, ponies!" They yelled.
Celestia trotted up and met them half way. "Greetings," she repeated cheerfuly, "On behalf of my ponies, I welcome you to Equestria."
The Yak in front didn't change his stance one bit. "Me honored. Hope for great friendship between ponies and yaks." Then, suddenly, he yelled. "Friends for a thousand moons!"
Princess Luna smirked, both at the loudness of the message, and the usage of moons for measuring time.
Celestia smiled. "I hope for that as well." She gestured to the banquet table. "Now, before we discuss our future friendship, you must be hungry after such a long journey. We've prepared some traditional Yakyakistanian food so you may feel more at home."
Prince Rutherford inspected the table, sniffing it. "If things not perfect, yaks get mad!" He said.
Celestia raised an eyebrow.
The prince engulfed one of the mochi before immediately spitting it out. "Fake pony food make yaks mad!" He said before flipping the table and attacking everything in sight.
Celestia gazed in stunned horror as everything fell apart in the blink of an eye. She had to do damage control! First she would have to make sure that the yaks weren't destroying anything too important. Next, she had to make sure no one would respond adversarially to the aggression... Luna!
Of course Luna wasn't going to stand for this! In her times, such actions would've warranted war, but the ponies weren't ready for or desiring a full scale war now.
Just as Luna flew over the stampeding yaks, readying her horn for destruction, Celestia caught her. "Stop, sister!"
"Why?" Luna growled, struggling in her sister's grasp. "Why do you tolerate this?"
"It's just belongings, Luna. There's no need to endanger lives over them." Celestia carried her sister back down.
Luna still growled. "Those are not mere belongings, Tia. Would that it had been merely the banquet table they smashed, but no! They destroy the furniture we welcomed many guests in, and they destroy paintings that ponies donated to us out of gratitude! They spit on our culture!"
By now, the yaks had already stormed out of the room.
"It is only spit, Luna. It's not worth blood!" Celestia repeated.
Seeing that the princesses were still enveloped in their conversation and the yaks were ready to do who knows what, Twilight and her friends chased after the yaks.
Standing back up, Luna narrowed her eyes. "You would let a nation walk all over you out of fear of their hooves striking you down? It would be no different than living like slaves under Sombra's rule!"
Celestia glared back at her sister. "I very much doubt these yaks intend to take advantage of us like Sombra would. It's entirely possible this is just a cultural misunderstanding, and starting a war over such a misunderstanding would make us the ones who spit on their culture!"
Luna tried to come up with a retort, some way to justify her anger, but in the end, she had to admit her sister was right. Hurting the yaks because they misunderstood pony culture would be hypocritical at best.
Luna sighed. "Very well, but what can we present to them that would satisfy their criteria of 'if not perfect, yak smash'?"
Celestia, Luna, and the mane six tried everything they could think of to get the yaks to enjoy their time in Equestria. Rainbow Dash and Luna agreed that a personal wonderbolts show would show them how awesome Equestria could be, but when one of the members couldn't handle the unfamiliar Canterlot weather and crashed, Rainbow Dash barely managed to save the Wonderbolt's life before Prince Rutherford tried to smash him. Fluttershy, finally having found some animals near Canterlot that she could befriend, tried to show off the animals and their cute little yak horns to the yaks, but the yaks took offense to the fake horns and tried to smash her animals. Pinkie, with her friends begging her for a party that would make up for their failures, had left a note that she had departed to Yakyakistan to learn their ways.
Finally, Celstia, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash managed to convince the Canterlot weather team to make the weather more like Yakyakistan for a day, in the hopes that the similar weather would help stop a war.
Celestia looked at the yaks just standing in the snow, hopeful that this would live up to their impossible standards. After all, snow was the same no matter where it came from.
She watched in anticipation as Prince Rutherford stuck his tongue out and let a single snowflake fall on it. Instead of the smile she expected, he just grimaced. "This not yak snow!" He and his buddies proceeded to stampede around, attempting to smash anything that had snow on it, which included the ponies of Canterlot.
That was more than Celestia would take. Her ponies would not be put in danger. "Enough!" She shouted. At the same time, she cast a powerful to rid Canterlot of the horribly cold Yakyakistan weather. There would be no more catering to these bullies.
The rest of the ponies around her took that as a signal, and pounced on the yaks.
Prince Rutherford awoke behind steel bars. Gone was the princess of friendship and her friends. Only Celestia and her sister stared back at the yak and his buddies.
"We haven't had to use these prisons for years," Celestia stated, her gaze dead of emotion and her words too calm. "It saddens me that your visit marks their first usage in so long."
Luna nodded. "Truly not the best first impression."
Prince Rutherford stood. "Ponies insult yaks with lies and failures, then imprison yaks? Ponies no friends of yaks! Yaks declare war!"
Celestia's face somehow got even more harsh at the mention of war, but Luna only stared at them, dumbfounded. "How are you going to declare war from inside our prisons?" Luna asked.
Rutherford glared at Luna. "They will hear my call!" He started to take in a huge breath.
But before the prince could finish, a golden aura enveloped his head, and his neck snapped.
The other two yaks, seeing their leader disposed of before he could send his message, quickly readied their breaths, but a blue glow enveloped their muzzles.
"Now," Celestia continued, "If you try to start a war like your prince did, I will see to it you are also left paralyzed and held indefinitely in the wonderful care of our Canterlot hospitals. However, if you would truly like friendship with us as you said, you will help us, and you will be treated like proper diplomats. First: how long before the prince is expected to return, at the latest?"
One of the yaks held firm, but the other was shaking as he looked at his fallen prince. "Three suns, your highness." It shuddered.
"Coward!" the other yak yelled.
"Good." Celestia smiled, ignoring the other yak.
The first yak couldn't stop talking. His fear forced words from his mouth. "Prince Rutherford would never agree on friendship now! Ponies and yaks will never be friends! Yaks destroy not-yak ponies!"
Celestia stayed calm despite the outburst. "Though, If he did agree, how would he act?"
Luna perked up at the unusual question. Why would knowing how he acted help? It wasn't as if there were any Equestrians that could be passed off as yaks. There were hardly any neighboring species that could be passed off as yaks, except...
"Sister, surely you're not going to ask her for help."
Celestia bowed her head. "I'm afraid we have no other choice if we wish to avoid war. Chrysalis was good enough at impersonating that I passed her off as my own niece. If anyone could pull off an impersonation that lives up to the yak's perfect standards, it's her."
Luna stared at her sister as if she had grown a second head. "But the changelings are monsters! They feed on love and life, and would have trapped hundreds of ponies in their cocoons until those ponies were no more than shriveled husks of their former selves!"
"Luna," Celestia stayed patient with her sister, "how many ponies died in the last war?"
Luna blinked. "A little over a hundred thousand."
"Isn't a few hundred deaths of those who would be responsible for the war better than a hundred thousand deaths of completely unrelated ponies and yaks?" Celestia asked.
Luna just stared back. Asking changelings for help still didn't sit right with her, but she couldn't actually see anything wrong with her sisters plans, so she stayed quiet.
Celestia continued, "We'll need to find out where she's hiding. Once we do, I want you to ask her for help. If you don't agree with the plan after you've met with her, then we'll see about making our own disguises."
With that taken care of, Celestia readied her horn so she could teleport Prince Rutherford to the hospital in time.
And so, ponies and yaks shared a powerful friendship, one that lasted even longer than a thousand moons. Though, no yak could figure out why, but ever since the prince came back from Equestria, working in government became such a tough job that yaks there started to lose their love of all things yak. Perhaps governing was harder when it wasn't just about their own nation, or maybe pony life was good enough that yaks started to like it more than their own home.
Author's Note
I was a bit annoyed at how Celestia wasn't delegating properly, so I had to write this.
Things wouldn't necessarily go better, but it's best not to let something that could hurt your nation go to someone still learning about their work.
