"Why haven't I been attacked yet? I deserve it too!"
Twilight suppressed a pout and tried to stand straight and tall. Around her Royal Guards were securing entrances to the ballroom, searching for more attackers, comforting the traumatized, scraping pies from the wall and generally running around in mild panic.
Celestia stepped to her side and put a wing on her back. "Why would you want to be involved? This is no laughing matter."
"Indeed it is not. It is an insult, that is what it is." Luna raised one of the pies the perpetrator hadn't had time to use and examined it closely. "I remember quite well in the old times. Assassins had manners and good taste back then and used daggers. That was proper fun, not"—she catapulted the pie at the wall, scattering screaming guards—"this."
Celestia’s said with a thin smile, “Luna, we talked about the meaning of the word fun. You are misusing it again."
"I am certainly not." With one foreleg Luna grabbed a passing guard; with the other she made a grand, sweeping gesture. "I would walk through the palace, an assassin would jump out of the shadows and stab me, the blade would break, I would laugh, he would laugh, I would throw him through the nearest window." She sighed and smiled. The guard squeaked. "They knew how to do those things properly. It was fun."
Twilight stared at Luna, then looked up to Celestia who shook her head mouthing Don't encourage her. She looked at the panicking guard in the iron grip of the night Princess and decided that it would be another entry for her already overflowing mental Don't Ask folder.
Celestia said, "Misguided ideas of my dear sister aside, as I was saying, this is nothing fun or desirable. I can't see why you want to be involved in this whole situation." She stepped over to one of the sobbing guards hit by a stray shot of whipping cream and cleaned his muzzle with a napkin.
"It's…” Twilight gesticulated wildly. “You have been attacked five times this year alone, Cadance dodged two pies last month and Shining Armor fought them at his birthday. Even Flurry Heart got a cupcake, and she can't really do much more than drool and destroy ancient artifacts of power. I admit that in the last case it was delivered with a little congratulations card and not thrown, but my point stands. I’ve had my crown for a while now; I’ve fought ancient horrors and brokered truces. I am a Princess too, and I want ponies to understand that. I deserve an attempt at my position like everypony else!"
"But this is not some kind of validation of your role, Twilight. Look, Luna hasn't been attacked either."
Twilight glanced over at Luna, who was making stabbing motions and laughing in front of two covering guards. She really wasn't sure when Luna had grabbed the second one, but it seemed that the budget for psychologists would have to be expanded. Again.
She muttered under her breath, "That kind of drives my point home."
Celestia turned to her ex-pupil and asked, "What?"
"Nothing." Twilight sighed and sat down. "Say, if it has nothing to do with the title, why exactly are there ponies throwing pies at royalty while screaming ‘Gloup! Gloup!’? I thought it was some kind of anti-monarchic movement."
"Hah, we had real enemies of the crown back then! I remember when they poisoned our midnight snacks. I longed for centuries to find that spicy undertone again."
"Hush, Luna. And stop traumatizing the guards." Celestia turned away from her sister, who had added another armored pegasus to her captive audience. "You see, Twilight, the Internationale Pâtissière and I go a long way back." Celestia sighed. "It began with an argument between me and Le Gloupiere—that was my chef back then—about the appropriate amount of vanilla ice cream near a piece of apple strudel. Then things went out of hoof. I made some unkind remark on the futility of the whole argument, how they were wasting my time and about his and his staff's competence. They swore vendetta until I would apologize. That was three hundred and sixty-five years ago."
"Wait, how does that involve Cadance?"
"Things became more complex with time. It evolved, among other things, to a stance against 'arrogance and telling ponies how to do their jobs'. They hit Chrysalis too as far as I know."
Twilight blinked. "How?"
"Well, Chrysalis sent me a long and ranting letter about it."
"No, not that. How did they hit Chrysalis?"
"Oh, that, we don't know. It seems they became masters of disguise in the last few centuries."
"In my time, real masters of disguise would pose as lamps on my nightstand for days before—"
"Luna!" Celestia stomped her hoof, cracking the granite floor.
"What?"
"Would you please let me finish here? And what are you doing to the guards?!"
Luna looked at the distressed pony in front of her, who was wearing a makeshift cloak made from a curtain while pointing an ancient-looking dagger at a cross that was recently painted on Luna’s own princessly flank. "Recreating some happy memories?"
Celestia sighed, and Luna pouted. "Spoilsport."
Twilight closed her eyes and rubbed a hoof on her temple, then looked up at Celestia. "You are telling me a sect of subversive confectioners, who are also masters of disguise, is waging war upon you for an unfortunate comment you made?"
Celestia nodded. "It's not that simple, but that's the gist of it."
"So, if you apologize for that remark, then it's over?"
Celestia stood straight, iron in her voice, her mane ablaze. "I don't negotiate with pastry-terrorists!"
Twilight raised a hoof and opened her mouth to reply, but then shut it again. She studied the fierce determination of her old mentor, looked around at the pies clinging to the walls, then glanced at the impromptu rendition of the siege of Stalliongrad orchestrated by Luna, three reluctant members of the royal guard, two maids and a small dog with a paper crown. She slumped down and said, “Maybe we should become a republic.”
The setting sun shone through the window of the bakery, framing the newspaper in warm light. A picture of Twilight was on the front page below the title Princess Twilight Sparkle Declares Century old Feud Ridiculous and Foalish. On a side column a pundit ranted about the scourge of out of context quotes.
The mare glanced at it briefly as she scooped a large glob of whipped cream and held it over the pie crust. She hesitated. How could it come to that? Why had Twilight—no, Princess Twilight—taken a stance? Why did it have to be the wrong one? They had had so much hope for her. She could have been the Princess on the right side of history.
There was no other way now.
With a decisive gesture, the whipped cream landed in the crust and Mrs. Cake took another scoop. A tear ran down her cheek as she whispered, "Gloup Gloup."
Author's Note
Thanks to CoffeeMinion for editing and to Noël Godin for existing.
