Smiling, Celestia carefully folded the parchment she had been reading and tucked it away into a hidden fold in her dress. Twilight and her friends would be able to make it after-all. 'It', of course, was attending the upcoming Masquerade Celebration of Commerce. Celestia anticipated that this time they would have much more fun then the last event they had been invited to. While it was still dominated by stuffy nobles and elite due to ticket price, those tickets were at least open to the public making for a more diverse crowd, and the general nature of celebrating another year of prosperity and success helped to lighten the tone a bit.

Of course, two of Twilights friends had particularly good reasons for attending. Rarity had seen significant success lately, no doubt helped by Fancy Pants and Sapphire Shores being rather public with their praise with her work. And of course the Apple family, who had always done well with Applejack guiding them though the year, had seen a massive surge in success since the Element Bearers had formed their friendship.

Of course, recognizing the Bearers turned Councilors' success was only a small part of Celestia’s current good mood. In truth, she was simply happy to have Twilight and her friends in Canterlot for something other than business, and had quietly arranged for both Luna and herself to have extra time off for the time surrounding the gathering. All that was left was for Cadence and Shining Armor to respond to her invite, so that the whole 'family' could enjoy time together minus a disaster.

'And should some upstart get any ideas, I think I'll have to invent a new 'creature in the moon' legend this time around.', Celestia thought to herself, sick of only having such gatherings during times of emergency, or for such emergencies to decide to interrupt what would otherwise be an enjoyable time.

Sighing at the thought of yet another gathering being ruined, she decided to move on with today's business to take her mind off of such thoughts.

"Jenkins!"

"Yes your Highness." Came the usual reply, the grey on grey Earth-pony appearing from just out of Celestia's peripheral vision, despite that corner of the room being unoccupied a moment ago.

Celestia turned her head towards the stallion, hoping for once to find something out of place in his appearance, but as usual the castle's head butler somehow managed to appear to have more in common with a statue then the overworked head of staff. "Please inform the council attendants that I am attending to a few matters of high importance, and that I will be at most only a few minutes late."

"Very good your Highness," he replied, bowing slightly at the waist before scuttling off towards the throne rooms main doors. HOW he managed to move so quickly without running, or even really changing his posture from his perpetual 'at attention' stance, was something that continued to baffle Luna, much to Celestia's amusement.

"I Don't Understand!" Came an almost pained whine from behind Celestia, causing her to turn and smile as she saw her sister approaching with a frustrated look on her face.

"Where did he come from?! I was standing in the only doorway, and he wasn't there a moment ago, but the second I turned my head, out he comes, as if he were standing in the corner the whole time!"

Celestia had to stifle a laugh at the antics of her sister, who's eternal quest to 'catch him in the act' thus far had only resulted in frustration, and the occasional property damage.

"You need to stop harassing him and let him do his job, you know how hard it is to find a head butler who can handle the responsibility without resorting to shortcuts." Celestia admonished, somehow managing to keep her tone even despite her urge to start teasing Luna.

"But he DOES take shortcuts," Luna whined, "there's no way he can get around the castle as fast as he does without skipping entire buildings."

"You know what I mean, now come along, we have a few things to discuss before I have to meet with the financial councilors to discuss 'how much money we're wasting' on the masquerade this year."

"They're still complaining about that? Can't they be happy that it also means they themselves have something to celebrate?"

"They seem to be under the impression that one celebration, even one who's tickets help recoup the cost, is capable of bankrupting the entire Kingdom."Though she kept a straight face, inwardly Celestia rolled her eyes, wondering what happened to the days when politics and bureaucracy hadn't seeped into every part of her days.

With that the sisters headed towards Celestia’s private office to make a few last preparations for Twilight and her friend's arrival, interrupted by the occasional grumbling of Luna about finding more trustworthy staff.

Author's Note

I've always liked the idea that Celestia's whole 'perfect leader' thing is really an act, one that Luna get's in on to at times, and that underneath it all they have more normal ranges of emotions and thoughts, just they've learned to 'put on a face' to ease ruling Equestria.