Who wants to wait for another to bake, really?
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Equestria's Greatest Treasure
Who wants to wait for another to bake, really?
“Very good. My lords and ladies, court is adjourned.”
Princess Celestia carried herself to the royals’ door with a small, gentle grin and regal poise. The other nobles filed out, muttering amongst themselves about the daily proceedings. Celestia suffered herself a quick glance at them. None were watching her. Still, she maintained her even pace and elegant posture as she opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind her. She remained so for exactly twenty paces past the door, where the hall came to a t-joint, and she turned left. Two paces later, out of sight from her audience chamber’s door, Princess Celestia broke into a dead sprint, licking her chops as excitement overtook her face. The sweet aroma filled her nostrils; its smooth taste was on her lips. Surely Luna would heckle her for being preoccupied with confections, especially while holding morning court, but that hummingbird cake was just so gosh-darn good.
Celestia pushed open the way to the Royal Kitchens. The head chef bowed first, as did the rest of the staff. Celestia acknowledged them on the move, toward the pâtissier and her station. Amidst the prepared bagels, croissants, breads, muffins, and other baked good sat a glass cake safe: a halo, beacon, and bastion of all that was right and good in the troubled world, both inside and outside Equestria’s gilded borders. Within this sacred citadel stood one, and only one, slice of cake...a taupe torte with angelic white icing, hallowed pecans, blessed bananas, and pineapple tidbits that, if Celestia were to borrow a catchphrase from Rarity, were simply divine. Celestia approached this altar with due reverence for the sacrament of cake-eating.
As Celestia magically reached for the safe’s lid, another aura abutted against hers, a pale blue against her yellow. She lifted her gaze and found her sister standing there, staring back with equal confusion.
Princess Luna blinked at the sight of her sister. Celestia looked stunned. Luna’s eyes flicked between Celestia and the cake, while two auras held the lid. Luna felt her mouth water. She had come to enjoy cake for the work art it was, each such pastry a different expression of confectionary beauty and love. This particular cake was a masterwork, an artisan’s crowning achievement, something meant to behold and savour, it demonstrating the artisan’s view of the world. Here was a sweet that mirrored a metal ore, or a diamond in the rough, that its outside belied the wonder, grandeur, and value inside, a rejection of external appearances, and how true beauty lies within. Truly, she beheld a baker’s perfect work of her art and trade.
The lid clattered as both auras released in unison. Blinking, Celestia asked in bafflement, “Luna? You’re awake??”
Luna nodded slowly with a raised eyebrow, “Yes, sister, I awoke early feeling peckish, and thought a quick snack would do nicely. Are you not supposed to be holding morning court at present?”
“We had just adjourned, all matters presented had resolved themselves quicker than expected, to nopony’s complaint,” Celestia answered. She sighed, then diplomatically said, “Go on, dear sister. Enjoy the work of art you’ve come to appreciate.”
“Nay, ‘Tia. ‘Tis your beloved ritual,” said Luna. “Go. Eat.”
“It’s okay, Luna. I have partaken of most of the cake. You should have the last piece,” Celestia offered.
Luna smiled graciously, but shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, sister, but it was the cake you requested. I insist.”
The pâtissier bowed before diplomatically gesturing between the two, and said, “Your Majesties, we have all the ingredients to begin another hummingbird cake at once, may it please you.”
Celestia shook her head slowly, and said, “No, but thank you. You said you woke early from hunger; you need your strength for watching over the dream world.”
Luna looked around, and blinked at her sister in disbelief. “We are standing in a kitchen the size of a small village; many are the options laid out before me. It would sadden you more than it would me to forego the final slice.”
“Lulu, you need not spare my feelings over one slice of cake,” Celestia began. “I admit I’ve had more than more share of it, and more than one pony alone should have eaten.”
“‘Tis no concern that you have partaken of so much more of the cake; it is well with me, Celly,” Luna answered. “Go on, enjoy your favourite.”
Celestia frowned slightly, ignoring the pâtissier’s gestures in an attempt to get either of their attentions. She said diplomatically, “I appreciate the offer, sister, but you need not make it sound as though I wantonly consume confections.”
The pâtissier frowned, saying, “Your Majesties, please do not forget the peace you both have enjoyed resulting from Her Ladyship Starlight Glimmer’s visit.”
“While not quite what I meant to convey, but by your own words, you...,” Luna began, then stopped suddenly as her eyes widened at the stark realisation of what brash implication her sister would derive.
Celestia frowned. “Oh, I see, dear sister! You think I’m a glutton! A sugar addict who compulsively devours any and all cakes in sight!”
“Tia, you’re jumping to conclusions in the extreme!” Luna protested.
“But you were thinking it!” Celestia yelled back.
The pâtissier sighed, muttering, “Didn’t we already go through all these shenanigans once last week?”
Luna hesitated. At this, Celestia grumbled, “That’s what I thought.”
“Actually, no,” Luna said quietly. Barely audible she muttered, “Much stronger than that....”
“What was it!?” Celestia snapped, taking step toward her sister.
Scoffing and starting toward her team, the pâtissier said, “Cuirasses, everypony....”
Protests immediately came from her subordinates. “Again!?”
“Oh, come on!”
“We just did this Friday!”
“Not even a whole week, eh?!”
“I bloody hate that thing....”
As the pastry-makers began strapping into their breastplates, Luna said unhappily, “It’s...just that too many sugar is...detrimental, to your filly-like figure, sister. I really—”
“You’re saying I’m fat?” Celestia grouched.
Luna hesitated yet again, then as one sugarcoats, she said, “Do remember, sister, that my relatively recent return from your exile means I remember clearly how you looked back then, as compared to now, and I suggest the sugar—”
Gritting her teeth, Celestia growled, “You’re saying I’m fat!”
“I...,” Luna began sheepishly and looking away, then just frowned irritably and barked back, “Yes, Celestia, you’re fat. Pancakes every breakfast and layer cakes daily certainly caught up with you! You look like you packed on a good forty kilos at least!”
“Well aren’t you just precious! All this because I have the lithe, feminine body, while you are built more like a stallion!” Celestia fired back.
Luna’s nostrils flared. “More like an overweight, grandmotherly body! Sounds to me, dear sister, that you never got over that I have always been the better athlete! Probably goes back to your insatiable sweet tooth! We had to allocate funds for the purchase of stock in the sugar manufacturers, flour mills, and dental insurance providers simply to recoup some of the costs!”
One of the pâtissier’s assistants, a unicorn stallion with a red maple leaf behind a syrup dispenser for a cutie mark and a Vanhoover accent, muttered irritably as he fastened his armour’s final buckle, “At least they’re not on about how much easier the other’s duties are, eh?” with his ‘about’ sounding more like ‘a boat.’
“But they’re still fixin’ to make a heap of trouble,” answered another unicorn stallion in aggravation, this one with a cutie mark of a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon and two sticks of butter sticking out above the brim and much more of a drawl to his voice. “Ain’t no sense in it, ‘specially after Starlight was just here last weekend.”
“Oh, take off! Last weekend??” responded the Vanhooverian, his head jerking upright while his last buckle clicked in place and Celestia’s right eye twitched like she was in the middle of an aneurysm. “Friend, your sense of time is broken.”
“Ain’t hardly been three days,” retorted the other, pulling out a mixing bowl.
“That was three weeks ago, you hoser!”
Snarling, Celestia barked at her sister, “Funny, you’re the athletic one, is that right? All the running, jumping, and flying you can do, isn’t it just delightful what one can do, spending all their time in the dream realm!? How about the real world?!”
A ray lanced from Celestia’s horn at Luna, but she slid to her left. In a pale pinkish aura floated a foil-wrapped block, rotating near the spell ray. As Celestia’s attack ended, this block returned to the pâtissier’s second-in-command, who announced, “Cream cheese is softened!”
“Thank you!” answered the pâtissier as her team had finished measuring out different dry ingredients, throwing flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, salt, and cinnamon into the metal mixing bowl in front of her as she stirred them together.
Part of the wall went to pieces, along with the implements that were close by and mounted. While the cooks and support staff near the blast sighed and hung their heads, Luna passive-aggressively applauded with a snarky faux-surprised smile. “You can hold your cake, but you can’t hold your aim...what’s a chubby Philistine like you to do about it? Smile? You do it just about the rest of the time; at least those muscles are in shape!”
“Perfect! The sinner drives the point home: you look like a male, you have the subtlety and tact of a male, and you have the memory of a male, too, since you forgot how much more there is to my job than smiling!” Celestia roared. “Maybe you should study why you’re in the dream realm, hmm?! Maybe then you could get to the bottom of how to be a lady!!”
Luna openly laughed before glaring again. She snatched an empty metal measuring cup with her magic off of the pâtissier’s counter and threw it into the soft front of Celestia’s nose. Sneering at the yip it earned, Luna fired off, “Yes, you would be the expert about the bottom of things! Never could put much behind you, could you?! Maybe that’s why nopony ever told you that they don’t see the sun rise in the morning; it’s just your flank blotting out the sky, and the little foals mistaking your cutie mark for the real thing!”
A deep scowling etched Celestia’s face as she turned a virulent crimson. The pâtissier’s second-in-command muttered, “In 3, 2....”
“Celly’s got a big butt! Celly’s got a big butt!” Luna called out in an elementary school-worthy singsong voice, wagging her hips goadingly.
“GUARDS!!!” Celestia screamed.
Luna cried, “Guards, here, now!!”
“Rats! Early by a few ticks,” grumbled the lieutenant pastry chef, giving a small coin purse to her Vanhooverian subordinate, who appeared most-pleased with a wager’s results.
Two lines of guards rushed in opposed to each other, one wearing golden armour, the other in periwinkle. While many faces were of fierce warriors, or attempts to look like a fierce warrior, the majority had sighed, rolled their eyes, or both. Heads shook everywhere else while the two sisters exchanged daggers with their eyes. The pâtissier asked, “Where’s that pineapple?”
“Almost done coring it,” answered some other assistant.
“GO!!” ordered Celestia, “Hold this ground! Let nothing fall into the hooves of blasphemers!”
“Stop her!” yelled Luna. “Secure this station from those uncultured ruffians! Equestria depends on it!”
Both lines of guards rushed at each other, thrusting spears and hurling spells, yet there was a distinct business-as-usual tone to their voices. The entrenched pairs nearest the pastry station were talking very calmly, despite attacking each other with spears. With one duo, the day guard spoke first, “Hey, Sirius. How was your little girl’s recital?”
Sighing, the night guard parried another thrust and answered, “Aw dude, Brig, she choked. Stage fright got her. She bawled for an hour backstage afterwards....”
Two spears were knocked aside, slamming on the counter near the assistant who had just finished coring a pineapple. He held down the spears, using their bladed heads as a mandolin slicer on the pineapple as the night guard asked, “Did either of you catch the game?”
The assistant grouched, “Yeah, what were they thinking!? Throwing a pass like that just before halftime??”
“I know!” answered the day guard as the assistant turned the pineapple rings ninety degrees and used the spears to cut the rings into small wedges. “Gave up a score and all the momentum going into the locker room, and they never recovered!”
“Sure hope we do better against Manehattan,” said the assistant, letting go of the spears. “Thanks, guys.”
“No problem!” both guards answered in unison, before going back to jabbing at each other.
“Pineapple’s ready!” yelled the assistant, bringing a bowl over.
Celestia locked horns with her sister while the pâtissier vigorously mixed the bowl and another assistant greased a trio of round pans. She yelled at Luna, “Why don’t you try out for the soap operas, saying things like ‘Equestria depends on it’ and such rot!”
“No worse than you, Your Hindness!” Luna snapped back. Her eyes flicked away for a second, then she let out a soul-piercing shriek! All the fighting stopped. Luna’s eyes turned misty as she feebly pointed. “But...but....”
Celestia followed her sister’s hoof, and gasped in horror. There, at the cake safe, hovered little Princess Flurry Heart. She had removed the lid, and magically hoisted the last slice of cake, eating bites off of it and happily babbling to herself. At the door stood Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, her face one of stupefied shock, and Prince Shining Armour, who was struggling to not burst into laughter. Celestia began to sob, “That...was the last one....”
The pâtissier spooned the batter into the pans while the royal sisters held each other, beginning to cry. The guards all shrugged at each other and left, many saluting Shining Armour on their way out, or giving him an appreciative clap on the shoulder. Cadance sputtered, “Auntie...wha...what in the world...??”
“Meh, this is nothing unusual; happens whenever they both go for the last slice at the same time. How do you think I got so much experience commanding troops inside castle walls?” Shining answered her, snickering. “Another last-slice-of-cake day, but Flurry takes the last piece instead...ha!”
Putting the three round pans in the oven, the pâtissier turned her attention to the icing while two princesses wept in each other’s embrace, a third gleefully chattered baby talk between bites, the fourth shook her head slowly at an utter loss for words, and the one prince could contain his guffaws no longer.
Author's Note
Hummingbird Cake
- 3 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 8oz. can crushed pineapple, not drained
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 2 cups chopped bananas
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs and oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened; do NOT beat. Stir in vanilla, pineapple, pecans, and bananas. Spoon batter into three greased 9-inch round pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
- 1 8oz. package cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter (or, one stick), softened
- 1 pound confectioner's sugar (icing sugar)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Combine cream cheese and butter, beat until smooth. Add confectioner's sugar and vanilla, beat until light and fluffy. Sprinkle pecans on top after icing the cake.
Sometimes siblings get rather intense over the last slice of cake...brings out a side of them that otherwise would remain hidden. Seen it get pretty strange, and rather mean, but not as bad as these two. Yeesh. 
Thanks for reading. 
