It was a beautiful day outside and Celestia was drinking some tea at a table by the balcony. She had made sure to make today particularly sunny for this very occasion. She understood it was a bit greedy to make today especially beautiful with excess sunlight simply for her own benefit but she knew that it was unlikely for anyone to complain. Though perhaps the weather ponies might mumble something about it on the next weather scheduling report. "Due to an unforeseen weather complication," Celestia imagined the report saying in her head, "we were unable to successfully predict the need for an extra supply of rainfall this week" With this she chuckled. It was a polite and subtle way to bring up a complaint and she was very happy the Canterlot weather team was elegant enough in the way they operated to use this method rather than formal ones.
She sipped some tea and looked out the balcony. Across from the castle on the street fillies were playing. Celestia smiled and then turned her head to look at the chair situated directly across from her.
Celestia knew. She knew that mear moments from now somepony would knock on her door and wish to come in. She knew who that pony was and she knew what she would want. "Twilight" Celestia thought, "almost time Twilight".
The sun seemed to move just a tad just as she said that. Precisely then, the moment Celestia was waiting for came.
*knock* *knock* *knock*
"Come in" responded Celestia.
The door creaked open to reveal a lavender pony behind it. "Yes, Twilight?" asked the celestial being, "How can I help you today?" She hadn't even turned her head to check who it was.
"oh, nothing much. I just wanted to talk.", responded Twilight.
"Come in then. What is it you want to talk about?" Celestia asked. She already knew, of course, but she had to ask for the sake of politeness. Besides, it is best not to assume.
"Mostly, I just want to ask you about your plan," Twilight informed while making her way over to Celestia's table.
"My plan?" asked Celestia. She knew of course what Twilight was referring to but talking about it without asking her to clarify might give her a hint that Celestia knew what she had on her mind.
"Yes, princess. More specifically, I want to know how you rule Equestria. I want to know how you manage to deal with the day to day each and every day and yet seem to do so effortlessly to the point where ponies have this crazy idea that you aren't even doing much at all this whole time." Twilight explained.
"Well Twilight" Celestia began, "the answer is simple".
She then leaned in close to Twilight as if to tell her a secret and said, "I do almost nothing".
Twilight recoiled. A look of shock sprang across her face and she said "How is that even possible. You and Luna run so many things. How can you not be doing much while...well...doing so much?"
Celestia chuckled. She knew her student would be shocked by this.
"Well Twilight," responded Celestia right before taking another sip of tea, "I make sure to be efficient with what I do and leave as much to everypony else as possible."
Again, Twilight recoiled, "huh? Then how can you lead if you don't lead?"
"Not everything needs excessively detail instructions Twilight" responded Celestia, "My job is to look at the big picture and not the small grains on the picture".
"Could you explain in more detail?" pleaded Twilight, "I think I understand but I want to make sure".
"Explaining is simple Twilight." Celestia said, "Understanding is hard".
Celestia stood up. She moved to the doorway and simultaneously said, "Why don't we go for a walk? I think we could use the change in scenery".
With this idea, Twilight agreed. They proceeded to make their way outside of the room and into the hallway where they went on to walk down the corridor. They made their way to the end of the hallway and then turn to start walking down another. Some time passes.
"Celestia?" asked Twilight.
"Yes...yes. Where was I?" responded Celestia, "Ruling Equestria is a large task Twilight. Even when the duty is shared, it still takes a vast amount of time to do it properly. Without offloading most of the work to other ponies it wouldn't even be possible".
Twilight still looked confused, "If it takes so much of your effort, then why does it look to some ponies like you aren't doing much at all?"
Celestia responded in kind, "The reason this is true is because most of the work that is offloaded to other ponies is the execution of the plans my sister and I make. We look at the information available to us and make the decisions which we give to a class of royal workers below us who split up the task even further and so on until everypony can do their part".
By this point, the princesses had started descending down a staircase. A guard who had previously been snoring loudly at the exit point of the staircase was nudged by his fellow friend guard to wake him up on account of some ponies being heard coming down the staircase. Both guards suddenly looked alarmed when they saw who it was and breathed a sigh of relief when the princesses walked on by, thinking they got away with sleeping on the job.
Celestia chuckled. She knew.
"Princess?" asked Twilight, "Where are we going?"
"We are heading outside" was the princess' response, "I need to spend some time walking outside".
Just then, the alicorns came up to the main entrance to the castle. The guards opened the doors and they walked outside. The sun was even more beautiful from here then it was from upstairs. Light streamed into Celestia's area from the balcony but here it simply bathed her.
"Oh what a wonderful day." thought Celestia, "What a wonderful day to play in the sun. Those fillies from before must be so happy".
Celestia looked happy herself and Twilight noticed this in the princess' face. She began to ask how Celestia felt in an effort to continue with the story, "are you-?"
"Yes." answered Celestia "I am happy".
Just then, Celestia noticed some fillies playing nearby. They were the same ones Celestia had noticed from before on the balcony. Twilight realized what her teacher was thinking by the way her eyes kept glancing at the fillies playing across from them. She decided to try and make her teacher even happier, and hopefully more talkative, by asking her to partake in an activity she could tell Celestia was interested in.
"Would you like to go play with the fillies Princess?" asked Twilight.
"Yes" responded Celestia, "I would like that very much. Thank you for asking Twilight".
With that, the princesses made their way over to the fillies to take part in a game of tag. It wasn't too easy to beat them of course but Celestia and Twilight both gave in every once in a while to keep things fun for the fillies.
"Tag!", yelled one of the fillies.
Celestia had just been tagged as "it" and was starting to gallop (really trot) over to try and tag the filly that just tagged her.
"That's not fair", giggled the filly "you have to tag somepony else now. Everypony knows you can't tag the pony that tagged you".
"Oh really?", chuckled Celestia "well I guess I'll have to just go and taaaag YOU!" Just as she finished that last word, Celestia took a sharp turn to her left and dashed for a little colt who was hiding from Celestia behind a tree.
"Aaah!", yelled the colt. He had dashed out from the cover of the tree as he saw Celesta begin a mad dash towards him and was now in an open field.
Celestia, at this point, was in an actual gallop towards him and thought in her mind, "perfect" as she adjusted her course and continued to make her way over to him.
The colt began to run directly ahead of Celestia to try and get away but it was no use. Celestia reached the colt and gently tapped on his head as she used her wings to gently glide about a foot above his head in order to avoid any danger while tagging him.
With a defeated look on his face, the young colt began to make his way to another filly who was simply sitting in the grass and was looking at great lengths at a flower. She had been part of the tag game but had gotten distracted by a flower during the middle of the game and had plopped down to examine it. The little colt went right up to this filly and gently tapped her head and yelled, "You're it!" before making a dash to get away from her.
The recently tagged filly sprang up very quickly after this and rejoined the game. All of the fillies were having a wonderful time and, besides a few bumps, everypony was happy.
Celestia and Twilight broke away from the activity some time afterward and began to talk again. They found themselves walking down a quite walkway in a garden. The previous conversation continued.
"So, how do these ponies know how to do the things you ask of them in the way you want them to do it?", asked Twilight.
"They have been trained in their roles and know what possible orders and tasks may be asked of them", answered Celestia "it is up to my sister and I to ensure we give orders compatible with that training."
"How does that work", Twilight questioned.
"Here is an example", answered Celestia "If I were to ask my nobleponies to construct a town on a hill, it would be up to them to figure out how to accomplish such a task. I know they have been trained on how to do so and I planned the construction of that town as part of a larger plan to construct a new railway, with multiple stops, from the Crystal Empire directly to Canterlot".
"Ok princess, that sounds like a very efficient system but what about the challenges and quests that need to be done and what about me?", asked Twilight as she razed an eyebrow.
"Oh Twilight", Celestia began "you answered both of those questions by including them in the same sentence. You are the solution to the adventures and quests that have to be taken for the benefit of Equestria. Before you, Luna and I had to be the ones to take such tasks. For over a thousand years this held true. We couldn't do as much to help Equestria in other ways because of these time sensitive tasks. With you, Luna and I could begin to focus more exclusively on our ruling duties. We became better leaders for it. The type of training you needed has long been known to involve quests and adventures anyway so this change in quest duties was to the benefit of both of us. I will admit, we do still occasionally go on a quest or two when we want to have some adventures fun but this is mostly done under disguise to keep things discreet." With that last part, Celestia broke into a blush and Twilight snickered a little knowing her teacher had just admitted a guilty pleasure of hers.
The Sun had passed the highest point by this time and was beginning to make its way downward to make room for the moon. Luna was starting to come to the end of her nap and was preparing for this routine change. The sounds of the fillies from before had stopped. They had either begun to make their way back home early for dinner or were simply too far away now to hear. Which of these was true was unknown but certainly one or the other had occurred. The path they were on did not seem to have a beginning or an end from the Princesses' points of view at this time. They had walked far enough from the entrance to be able to see it anymore.
Twilight affirmed her new gain in knowledge, "I'm beginning to understand a lot about what your duties as princess require but can you explain again exactly why it looks like you aren't actually doing anything when you are clearly busy with the running of Equestria?"
"Giving orders and drafting treaties doesn't look like a lot of work. This is especially true when it is mostly done behind closed doors. It just doesn't look like it takes up that much time.", responded Celestia.
"Wait...couldn't you have just told me that from the beginning and avoided this whole talk about...", Twilight said. She then realized something and stopped walking down the pathway. She realized her teacher had slipped in a lesson this whole time about ruling Equestria.
Celestia had not stopped walking during the entire time Twilight had spent realizing this. At this point, she was a little ahead of Twilight and had curled the right side of her lip. She knew Twilight had just figured it out.
Twilight continued to run down the logic tree. She figured out that, this entire time, Celestia was teaching her a life lesson but something was still bugging her. She had to have had the lesson planned to have integrated it so seamlessly into their conversation. But to have it planned she would have had to....she would have had to know. The realizations continued to dawn on Twilight as she figured out how this entire day had gone down. Twilight realized Celestia knew she was coming. Twilight realized Celestia knew she was going to ask the question she did. Twilight realized Celestia had planned out this entire conversation long, long before she had even begun to think about it.
Twilight began to walk again. She caught up to Celestia. Celestia knew. Twilight knew. Celestia knew Twilight knew. Twilight knew Celestia knew she knew. Twilight's lip curled. Celestia's lip curled more.
As they walked down the garden path, they began to laugh. This was the big game Celestia wanted to play today. It began with the intent to simply teach Twilight a lesson she would soon need about leadership but it ended with Twilight and Celestia having fun over the whole thing. Twilight had learned a very important lesson and Celestia had taken an opportunity to unwind a little bit before the start of another day as a leader of Equestria. The sun was almost completely set at this point. The moon had begun to take the sun's place and Equestria was beginning to prepare for a nighttime slumber. The fillies from before had surely gone to bed by now and Twilight and Celestia began to make their way back to Canterlot Castle for some slumber of their own.