“Celestia! Celestia!”
It was nearing the end of the day, heading rapidly towards the point where the jurisdiction of one sister would end and that of another would begin. The sun was low on the horizon, casting brilliant shades of red and orange over the rolling hills and valleys of Equestria, and the first impatient stars of night had begun to flicker into existence for their usual show.
Princess Celestia, whom at present was finishing up hearings with her audience but yet had a few last minute stragglers, was at once alarmed by the call of her younger sister, who was usually just waking up at this hour. She excused herself from the proceedings, promising to return swiftly, and rushed up towards what Luna affectionately called her ‘Tower of Darkness’, which was essentially just a winding spiral staircase with a guard posted at the bottom and Luna’s chambers at the top.
Luna herself was in her bathrobe, mane still pinned up from her shower, and was standing next to the telescope that jetted out from her window. Her eyes were bright, however, and full of excitement. The younger sibling was in charge of the night sky, and had clearly found something exciting.
“Sister, hurry, thou must see this at once!” She had slipped into her old accent again, a side effect that occurred when she was particularly excited. “Look, look quickly, before thine chance is lost!”
Celestia saw Luna’s excitement, and her alarm slowly gave way to curiosity. She trusted her sister’s judgement and gazed through the telescope, peering out into the darkness speckled with pinpricks of light, but saw nothing that would qualify as unusual or cause for such an interrupting.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Dost thou not see it?”
“See what?” Having pulled away from her audience thinking something was wrong, she sounded vaguely annoyed now.. Celestia pulled away from the telescope and peered at her sister.
Luna appeared dismayed, and proceeded over to the telescope to peer through the lens herself. After a moment's inspection, she gave an idle, nonchalant shrug. “We observed a meteor,” she said seemingly disappointed. “It must have burned out. It was quite the sight. Apologies, Celly.”
Celly. Drat that old childhood nickname, which to this day held the power to vanquish all anger. Celestia sighed, but it was a sigh of infinite patience. She knew her sister grew excited over celestial displays -no pun intended- and meant no harm. “No matter, dear sister,” Celestia said. “Give me a few moments to wrap things up downstairs, and I’ll be right with you.”
“Take your time,” Luna said, and when she turned her back on her sister, unknown to the elder sibling, there was a growing smirk on her face.
Celestia returned downstairs, and took her seat on the golden throne at the end of the audience hall that was matched only in glamour by the silver one, currently empty, that sat next to it.
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” Celestia said. “Now, about that deed to your farm, Ocean Breeze-” She paused, and blinked. There was a significant amount of giggling and muttering coming from the lingering guests.
The daytime ruler frowned. Such frivolity was uncommon in her chambers, and it was certainly a change to the atmosphere which had preceded her brief absence.
“What?” Celestia asked. “What do you all find amusing? I enjoy jokes, please do share!”
“Oh, nothing,” said a particularly stuffy looking stallion in the front row of chairs. He himself was flanked by a Griffonstone ambassador, who held up a handheld mirror in the avian fist that Ocean Breeze did not have.
Gilded Claw, the gryphon ambassador, and everyone else for that matter, saw the princess of the Sun, her royal Highness of the diarchy of Equestria, Sol Invictus, Celestia look at him innocently… with a large black ink circle around her left eye.
Celestia felt said eye began to twitch at once. It must be noted that when you were over a thousand years old, pranks upon each other were a common occurrence, and there had been days, neigh, weeks even, through which the two sisters continued to try and one-up each other through constant gags. IN PRIVATE. But to embarrass her in front of her audience, the younger sibling would pay dearly for this.
Celestia composed herself, and laughed along with the others. She had never been AS good at pranks as Luna, and whatever she devised would likely be not as effective nor as decimating, but there would be something.
Oh, yes. There would be something.
Luna came downstairs the following morning approximately ten hours after the incident with the ink, after a particularly unfavorable and unremarkable night. Some shifts were better than others, but the previous evening had been a total snoozefest. The monotony was broken only by her remaining amusement over what she’d done to her sister, harmless fun. She was desperately looking forward to some much needed sleep, but routine was routine, and breakfast was last on her list, just as it was first on Celestia’s.
“Good morning!” Celestia said cheerfully. There was no hint of the slight anger which might have been consequential of the previous night’s shenanigans.
“Good...morning…” Luna said slowly. She was instantly on alert by Celestia’s good humor, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She knew that a prank like the one she’d pulled would not go unchallenged, and knew that she had to be on alert for anything. “Are there any Moon Bites left?”
Celestia looked up from her bowl of oatmeal with crystal raisins, reading a levitating a copy of The Canterlot Chronicles. “There should be. They’re a bit sugary for me. I think you should consider eating something with greater variety.”
Luna shrugged, and took down a box of Moon Bites, her favorite cereal. Now with 20% more moonmallows! the box proclaimed. Her horn lit up with its aural glow, the box lifting up off the table and turning on its side to shake its semi-nutritious contents into a bowl. The contents consisted of very dry looking cereal bits, disgustingly artificial moon-shaped marshmallows, and one very large, very hairy, realistic looking black tarantula.
Luna just stared at it, without issuing so much as a flinch.
“Come on now, Celestia,” Luna said. She sounded not just disappointed, but almost insulted. “Was this really the best you could do? A rubber gag?” Her horn lit up and snatched the spider, giving it a shake. Its rubber legs wobbled back and forth, its swollen abdomen squeezing in and out. Luna laughed.
As Luna was laughing, however, a Macro Tarantula straight from the tangled depths of the Everfree, approximately the size of a hippo was slowly lowering itself out of the cabinet, mandibles drooling and clicking. It hung suspended on a cord of thread the thickness of a bungee rope and stared at the back of Luna’s head with six glistening red eyes.
Luna, meanwhile, had begun to turn around again, still laughing. “Really, Celestia, you should know better than to-” she turned around, and saw the abomination inches away from her face. All the color drained out of her at once in a cartoonish effect that could only be pulled off by magical horses, leaving her coat a solid and angelic white.
The Princess of the Night SHRIEKED.
Immediately, the sounds of running guards echoed outside the hallway, Luna backed up at once, not looking where she was going, and backed into the table. She tripped over one of the legs, and went sprawling. The bowl of Moon Bites skittered across the table, which was more regally and elaborately decorated for appearance rather than functionality, and overturned, the bowl landing upside down on the younger sibling’s head and sending milk and wet cereal and moonmallows everywhere.
The giant creature ascended its silken line, and disappeared back into the cabinet just as guards poured into the kitchen, many wielding their spear-like weapons.
“What’s the matter, dear sister?” Celestia teased. “Have you had a tangle with a cereal killer?” She came up with that all by herself, and looked pleased.
“Thou hast contaminated our supply of sacred cereal!” Luna exclaimed, quickly regaining her composure and dropping back down to the floor again,dripping with milk and huffing with indignation. “A pox upon thee!”
“We don’t use poxes anymore,” Celestia reminded her. She merely stuck her tongue out, and crossed her eyes, an image which The Canterlot Chronicles would have absolutely sold its soul to get plastered on the front page of its weekly edition.
“Thou hast blasphemed against thine own sister!” Luna exclaimed. “This is treason! This is mutiny!”
“Thine own sister will remind you that you started it,” Celestia reminded her calmly. “This is merely retribution. If you wish to continue, I will be glad to keep going. As long as you know you’re going to lose.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
Luna gasped. She sputtered several nonsensical phrases for a moment, but briefly seemed unable to form actual words. “Well!” She said finally, and stormed off towards her bedroom.
Celestia waited patiently for her sister to realize what she had already figured out, and there was a smirk of delight on her face when the younger sibling slowly inched back into the kitchen. Her blue horn lit up, and snatched her box of cereal off the table.
“...I forgot my breakfast,” she muttered, and then stormed off again, though the serious impact of her first exit was significantly diluted.
Celestia merely sipped her morning tea, and after a moment, went back to preparing for the day.
She was content. And the day had only just started.
Author's Note
The second part is finished just hasn't been edited yet
Please let me know if there are spelling mistakes my dominant finger is wrapped in about two pounds of bandages and I keep hitting the wrong keys
4 Hours Later
Canterlot Gardens - Annual Cake and Confection Festival
It was barely 11:00 in the morning, and there was still no sign of Luna. Celestia had, naturally, gotten rather nervous as the morning had dragged on in its usual monotony with no sign of the princess of the night, but the elder sibling had gradually relaxed.
As Celestia entered the gardens, and the guards parted for her, the trumpets announcing her presence, and her little ponies cheering, she smiled, waved… and saw past them to the glories beyond. What lay past their smiling faces was truly a glimpse of heaven.
Ovens of every kind had been built, stacked, or wheeled in. Tables next to them were arranged with decorative tablecloths of every size and color.
And on them were cakes.
The sugary, warm fluffy scent of batter and icing and various confectionaries caressed her nostrils, and her heart fluttered. There were cupcakes, with frostings of all colors and probably flavors. Donuts with yet-to-have-been tasted glazings and fillings. Some which may have only just been invented for this occasion. Pound cakes stacked up. Funnel cake was there, and in her opinion it was quite welcome. There were sticky toffee pudding cakes, there were lemon tarts, there were lava cake… some with actual lava, presumably for the guests of the draconic variety. There was a gloriously stacked truffle, cake-like puddings and pudding-like cakes. Biscuits in all shapes. One pony had recreated the Castle of the Two Sisters in sugar dough.
Everyone would want her to sample them. She loved cake, and had never hidden this fact. And her approval meant others would approve.
They would approve, and her belly would approve. For this end Celestia knew that she had to taste everything at least once. And for this reason she had eaten only the barest hint of breakfast, and hardly eaten anything the day before.
There was the usual hoof shaking, the smiling for the cameras, the obligatory thanking of those who had arranged it. Again in front of the cameras. You get a lot of patience, when you practice it long enough. And it wasn’t something Celestia minded.
To her it was the cake equivalent of foreplay.
Sitting on a pillow of purple velvet was the golden plate and spoon, with which she would cut the first bit. No pony touched a cake before she did. Already she could see some frantic young unicorn bakers putting on their final touches and arranging their displays. Each hoping she’d sample theirs first. The first cake was a rare honor, and only one cake recieved it every year. The baker of that first cake then would likely spend the next year telling all of his customers how Celestia had chosen him or her over everyone else, and milking that moment for all it was worth.
Eventually her eyes settled on a brilliant cake that was made to look like Canterlot Castle itself, complete with hedge maze in the back. The two bakers manning the table were currently preoccupied with their two children, who were running around the legs of the table and behaving most foolishly, ignoring the pleading cries of their parents to behave. She was sympathetic with them. Their table would be first.
Having made her decision, she began to approach the table. She caught the eye of the bakers, and they immediately stood up straight, the children continuing their assault on the tablecloth. As she slowly made her way towards the plates, seeing the eyes of the ponies following her, she was only distantly aware of the guards behind her moving in formation.
She was almost at the delicious cake, but before reaching it, the trumpets sounded again.
“Announcing her Royal Highness, Princess Luna.”
Oh, no.
And a silver plate was added by some batpony guards, on another pedestal next to her own golden plate. There were gasps from some of the ponies. The cake festival was always during the middle of the day, meaning an appearance by the younger princess was unprecedented. And just like that, the princess of the night strode in, during mid day, sipping gently and elegantly of some strong coffee.
“Sister, I thought you would be asleep,” Celestia said. A bit shocked to see her sister even standing. Luna could sleep through literally anything, even an attack on Canterlot.
“I’ve decided to assist. Don’t worry, you’ll get the first bite… as long as I get second,” she said and offered a cup of coffee to her sister. “I had five cups already, I made one too many. A little bitterness before the sweet? Cake and coffee go like donuts and… oh, what goes with donuts? Donuts and… diabetes?”
Celestia was a little suspicious, but the coffee looked good, and Luna did seem to have a little bit of caffeine hyperactivity to her. And she couldn’t allow herself to be overtly critical of her sister. Not in public, with all eyes on the two of them.
The princess of the moon offered the princess of the sun a cup of coffee. There were cameras. There was no choice. Celestia sipped… nothing happened. She relaxed, and sipped again. It was a bit… bitter, and had an unpleasant aftertaste. In fact this was definitely guard pony coffee. The freeze dried kind. An utterly genderless, bland coffee, meant more for carnal need than to tickle the tongue. No wonder it had taken five cups to have any effect on Luna.
Celestia smiled to her sister, and sipped again at the coffee, for the sake of appearances. “Refreshing.” She didn’t care for it, but it was a better response than risking insulting the guards who had to drink it every day.
The ponies looked at them with great anticipation. Celestia levitated her plate and spoon in front of her. Luna did likewise.
Celestia decided diplomatically that she’d sample from the great Canterlot cake, as it clearly had required the greatest amount of effort. And she was certain the journalist ponies would enjoy the pictures of her and Luna in front of it.
Up close it was even better than when viewed from a distance. So many types of pastry had been brought together here, that Celestia wasn’t sure where to stick her spoon in first. Into the glazed waffles that made up the spires? Into the deliciously mushy looking hedge maze?
Well, a princess shouldn’t be too indecisive, she let the spoon drop into the creamy courtyard. She could hear cameras snapping away the moment that she lifted it up. The two bakers and their children would be retelling this moment for months, filled with pride and honor at having produced the first cake to be sampled.
Luna followed suit, and took out a spot right next to her sister. “You first,” she said with demure sisterly affection. More cameras snapped away.
How proud Celestia felt at this moment for her sister. It was really a moment worth sharing.
Then the cake hit her mouth… for a moment, an altogether brief moment, it had tasted the kind of creamy sweet frosting she had expected… the next moment it tasted like something altogether yet not quite unlike alfalfa. In fact it tasted exactly like alfalfa porridge. A horrible, lumpy taste.
She took another spoonful, studying it for a moment. Creamy, white, with little crystallized fruit bits in it. Into her mouth… alfalfa porridge. It took a moment for Celestia’s mind to fill with dawning horror, and she turned her attention slowly on her sister.
Luna on the other hand dreamily swallowed her own bite. “My goodness, this is reminds me of a good buttercream filling,” she said. “Isn’t buttercream your favorite, Celestia?”There was a wicked look in her eyes for a moment. “Let’s see what other cakes there are.”
For a fleeting moment Celestia wished her sister was back on the moon. I’m going to banish her all over again.
Alfalfa biscuits, alfalfa donuts, alfalfa liquorice, alfalfa jello, utterly unsweet toffee… that tasted like alfalfa. No matter what she put in her mouth its taste was replaced by the utterly bland and boring. Meanwhile Celestia was forced to keep face, she couldn’t dare tell the little ponies that she couldn’t actually taste their baked goods. She gazed down the line of cakes and pastries, dozens of them, dozens of bites waiting to be tasted, and every single one of them requiring a smile on her face.
Yet Celestia wasn’t one to tell a lie either, so she kept her opinions evasive and kind. Mostly she commented on appearances.
“I can really see the hoofwork you’ve put into it.”
“Oh I’d love to sample these again some other time.”
“It’s good to see that the Gryphon Kingdom still maintain their tradition of eclairs.”
“You used your magic to stuff this donut?”
At one point she started running out of ways to compliment cakes without actually mentioning their taste. Then came more quiet requests for samples of this or that confection to be delivered to her servant ponies, and whether a slice of that or this cake could be delivered to the kitchen.
This was supposed to be her favorite day of the year, the one day where she got to stuff her face with all the things she enjoyed eating, and Luna had turned into into an alfalfa convention. She will pay dearly for this.
But there just wasn’t a moment to scold Luna for this clearly out of the line prank. A prank which exceeded the limits of good humor and bordered on downright maliciousness. There were cameras, there were a few diplomats, and a giant red dragon with an ego that was easily hurt if it wasn’t suitably stroked and reassured. If there was anything in the world they did not need right now, it was an upset dragon.
Big Red, as Celestia thought of the otherwise nameless draconian, was the mastermind behind the lava cakes with genuine lava. A pleasing yet very species-specific dish. By pure coincidence, and unknown to Princess Celestia this unlikely baker was the very dragon who had the misfortune of being kicked in the face by a particularly hot headed rainbow pony some years prior.
The lava cake was very hot… and clearly labeled.
Celestia smiled with dawning brilliance, and before her sister appeared, and while the dragon was looking slightly away. She took a quick spoonful of the pony version, and switched the name labels on the cakes. All at once, the lava cake was labelled chili cake, and the chili cake was labelled lava cake.
The lava version was a pudding monster of a cake, was bubbling, alive, steam rising off it, with many pleasant chocolately aromas. For the sake of appearances, the chili cake was almost identical, and employed magical effects to bubble harmlessly along with its sister.
To Celestia it smelled like wet alfalfa, but she could see her sister enjoying it. And she bit her lower lip, as her sister took a hefty sponfull, bigger than Celestia’s, not noticing the silver spoon threatening to melt from pure heat as she delivered the contents into her mouth.
Luna froze the instant she closed her mouth around it. Sweat appeared on her forehead, across her flanks, seconds later dripping down her wings. Ponies around her looked stunned, they could see something was wrong. But all their eyes were on the Princess of the Night, and it would not do at all to spit it out and offend the dragon who had worked so hard on it.
Trapped, Luna swallowed it.
There was a short silence, and then she yelled out at the top of her lungs, actual fire coming out of her throat in a burst of flame. She first trotted, then galloped, then bolted, and then finally jumped headfirst into the large ice cream cake, four crystal ponies diving out of the way in terror as the Princess of the Night buried her muzzle into it.
The cake melted before everyones eyes, pooling into liquid pools of dairy. The bakers of the ice cream cake just stood by as their creation melted, looking absolutely mortified at this unexpected turn of events.
Celestia quickly and subtly changed back the labels, before Big Red discovered they had been swapped.
Big Red looked nervous, and scared, his great claws clacking against each other. He was a reptile of few words, and did not fancy the idea of being held responsible for all this. He looked worried. The last time he'd wound up in a confrontation with ponies, he'd wound up being yelled at and kicked in the face.
“Don’t worry, my sister tries so often to one-up me, I think she bit off more than she could chew,” Celestia smiled kindly to the draconian. "You are in no trouble whatsoever. Be at peace, friend." She spoke these words, and the dragon relaxed visibly.
Luna approached, her bat pony guards quickly wiping off the excess chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and orange ice cream off her mane. Steam was rising from her nostrils, she tried to speak but only a hoarse rasp came out.
“It’s quite alright Luna. Spicy foods aren’t for everyone,” Celestia said casually.
Luna was not angry, in fact there was a gleam in her eyes that suggested she was actually quite impressed with the retaliation. She coughed “Quite right, dear sister,” she finally managed to say. “Quite right. But we hope you will remember that when one rattles the cage of a snake, the snake will often bite back.”
This cryptic response confused many of the journalists who had gathered to watch the event, but Celestia picked up on it at once, and smiled back. The two alicorns winked at each other, then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon fussing and apologizing over the great ice cream cake which had been the unfortunate victim of the afternoon's shenanigans.
The afternoon was drawing to a close, and though the pranks would likely fizzle out by the end of the day, the sisters would actually grow closer together by their mutual love for each other, and for the pranks they had been exchanging.
There was still time yet for one more.
The events of the afternoon were standard procedure when the two siblings got into one of their prank swings. Such days were always done tastefully and never with harm in mind, for of course they both still loved each other, and it was out of love that they traded insults and challenges back and forth. When you lived to be thousands of years old, it was absolutely necessary to constantly find new ways of entertaining yourself.
Luna and Celestia walked into the main audience hall together, both glaring at each other and laughing and in relatively good spirits, only to have their carefree attitudes quickly diminished. While the events of the cake festival were going on, a long line of ponies had formed in the main aisle, waiting to have their problems heard and financial situations improved. None of them were being attended to, and none of them seemed happy about being made to wait.
Celestia blinked. “Didn’t you put out the BACK SOON sign, Luna?” She whispered. "Surely these residents should have known that'd we be at the confection convention today!"
“The daytime is your responsibility!” Luna hissed back. I'm not usually even awake at this hour. I thought you did it!”
“I was at the cake festival!”
The two sisters exchanged a glance, and quickly made their way up to the front of the audience hall.
“Well it’s about time!” A mare near the front of the line exclaimed. She had a bright red coat and was clearly annoyed having to be made to wait in such an undignified fashion. By the look of her mane and Canterlot apparel, she was of the higher end of society and not used to being made to wait for anything.
Luna and Celestia both approached the upraised stage of the audience chambers, Celestia breaking to the right towards a small set of stairs, and Luna to the left, to a similar incline. They drew back together, a rare appearance for both princesses to be on staff at the same time, and sat on their respective thrones. Casting their pranks briefly aside, they intended on teaming up together to take care of remedying the situation before it grew out of control. As they sat down together, there was the sudded and unexpected sound of ridiculously loud flatulence. There were several gasps from the audience, then gradual laughter.
The two siblings stared at each other in combined horror, their faces turning the color of overly ripe tomatoes. Both alicorns narrowed their eyes at each other at the exact same time, with a look of ultimate, paralyzing suspicion.
“Did you…” Celestia hissed.
“I would never!” Luna hissed back. “Did you?”
“Certainly not!” Celestia looked appalled at such an idea.
“Well if you didn’t, and I didn’t, then who?”
Off to the side of the main chamber, unseen by either of the two sisters, a single one of Celestia's royal guards stood on sentry duty. He had only recently been promoted to Captain, and as such was in charge of security when Princess Celestia was holding her audiences. It was he who would likely bear the weight of the scolding for the mishap of allowing such a line to form when the Princesses were not around, but so distracted in their jobs they were that neither of the two alicorns noticed the Captain slipping a pair of very rude noisemakers into the saddlebag of his uniform.
A passing private in uniform paused at the entryway, saluting the Captain. The Captain saluted back.
"Everything alright in here, Shining?"
The Captain grinned.
"Just fine, Private. Just fine."
