A brilliant flash enveloped the throne room of Canterlot Castle, blinding everypony within. When the light receded, the occupants of the room saw a dizzy and singed Twilight Sparkle standing in the center of the area. "Princess Celestia!"
Said princess, who was previously pacing in front of her throne, approached her faithful student. "Twilight Sparkle, I am so very glad you could make it on such short notice." She somehow ignored the fact that Twilight had probably teleported from her library in Ponyville straight to the throne room several miles away; an unprecedented feat.
"Well," the purple unicorn started, "you sent a letter that just said "HELP". I'm sorry that I couldn't bring my friends with me, but a teleport of this magnitude was straining enough with just myself. The others will probably be here by tonight."
Celestia blinked. "...While I won't chide you for asking your friends to come along with you, I must ask, why?"
Twilight blinked right back. "Well...You need the Elements of Harmony, right?"
The princess of the sun was about to ask how her student could have possibly jumped to that conclusion, before she remembered the contents of the note she sent. "...Whoops," she chuckled sheepishly, "I...guess my letter did imply that there was an immediate threat."
Her pupil raised an eyebrow. "You mean there isn't? Then...why the urgency?"
Celestia sighed and floated over a letter that was laying on the seat of the throne. Though the parchment looked ancient, the ink was fresh. "I received this this morning. It should explain everything."
Delicately, Twilight used her telekinesis to pry the letter from Celestia's yellow aura of magic and brought it to her face. The message on it was short, but as the unicorn read each line, her eyes widened more and more.
Dear Celestia,
Greetings, dearie! It's been much too long since we've seen each other. I've heard that Luna's finally been brought out of her time-out, so I decided that it's about time I visited again!
Now, I know you'll get all bent out of shape about my coming, so I'm sending this out a day in advance. That way you'll have time to get ready. You've always been an adorable neat freak.
Oh, maybe you can invite your student, too! I've wanted to meet her up close for years!
Toodles,
Your mother.
The letter fell to the floor, but Twilight was too shocked to care. "You have a mom?!"
THE MOTHERLOAD
Chapter 1: A Letter.
Twilight was pacing even harder than she was, Celestia noted to herself. "Oh jeez this is bad bad bad! I mean, things have to be perfect when you come to Ponyville! Now we have to figure out what comes after perfect!"
"Twilight..."
A few locks of the unicorn's hair started to curl out of place. "Super-perfect? Ultra-amazing? Double-A-plus-plus!?"
"Twilight."
"What does she like!? Maybe we can ignore the mega-perfection requirements if we can meet her personal standards!"
"Twilight!"
"Maybe if we duplicate the castle we can have double the perf-"
"Twilight Sparkle!" The student froze mid-pace. Celestia never liked using The Royal Canterlot Voice, but she knew when she had to use it to get one's attention. "Please, calm yourself. Nothing can be done if we just run around and panic."
Twilight's eye twitched. "Panicking? Who's panicking?! It's not like your mother, who you never told me about, by the way, is coming over to visit! I mean, if you're stressed out about her visit, then there's no reason why I should be! Also, how did she know about me?! It's alright for you to tell her about me, but not the other way around!? What the hay is up with thaaskfaseg." She collapsed to the floor, fast asleep.
Celestia's horn ceased glowing. "Guards." Two of her dutiful protectors quickly flew in front of their princess and saluted. "I have put her under a sleeping spell. Please take her to a guest room. And station the captain at her room at around 3:00, she'll be waking up by then." The two gold-clad guards saluted once more and took the lightly-snoring unicorn out of the throne room.
As soon as the doors to the room closed, the princess groaned and rubbed her forehead. She didn't expect her student to react that badly to the news. "Maybe telling her was a mistake," she mumbled to herself. "Maybe this whole thing is a mistake. I should just write back to Mother, tell her not to come." She snorted in irritation. "Not that she'll listen."
Suddenly, the doors to the throne room slammed open, revealing a frantic Cadance, her horn glowing blue with a spell at the ready. Celestia was startled out of her funk at the sudden entrance. "Auntie Celestia! I heard yelling, is everything alright?!"
The elder princess sighed. "Yes, Cadance. It was just Twilight."
Cadance quickly switched gears as she ceased charging her spell. "Twilight is here?"
"Yes, I called her in to assist with the situation I told you about earlier. Regrettably, she overreacted, and to prevent another Smartypants incident from occurring, I had to cast a sleep spell on her."
"...Smartypants incident?"
"She'll tell you about it if you ask nicely." Celestia chuckled. "You know, that was a pretty good response time to a possible threat. Maybe you could teach that husband of your's a thing or two."
"Auntie, be nice. Shiny is the perfect guard. I'm sure any second now, he'll burst in here, shield spell at the ready to protect you."
As if on cue, the blue-maned captain of the Royal Guard burst into the room, a purple barrier magically conjured in front of him. "Twily! Don't worry, your BBBFF is here...to..." It took Shining Armor a moment to realize that his little sister was nowhere to be found, and instead he faced his wife and his princess. "...Umm..." The barrier quickly dissipated as he blushed furiously.
Cadance nervously laughed. "Hehe, well, I was mostly right."
Once more, the doors to the throne room were violently thrown open as the Princess of the Night flew in, horn at the ready.
"BACK, FOUL BEAST! YOU SHALL not..." Luna searched the room for the violent noise that had woken her slumber. "...We are puzzled. Was there not loud shouting coming from this very room?"
Shining Armor saluted the moon princess. "I'm just as confused as you are, Your Majesty."
Cadance giggled. "Don't worry about it, it's all just a large misunderstanding."
Celestia looked about ready to have a heart attack. Luna was the one pony she wanted to keep her predicament a secret from for as long as equinely possible. The sun princess must have severely underestimated her student's vocal cords. She knew she should have lined the walls with a silence spell.
Luna raised an eyebrow and asked, "Then what is the issue, if I may ask?"
"Oh, it's nothing," Celestia interrupted, "just my student overreacting to a minor problem, nothing more."
"...Sister, why are you panicking?"
"Who's panicking? I'm certainly not panicking! Shining Armor, are you panicking, because I'm not!"
The captain was starting to become nervous at Celestia's increasingly frantic behavior. "...Umm..."
"Another thing;" Luna inquired, "why is Twilight Sparkle here? That was she I heard, yes? From the sound of things, and it was a very loud sound, that was not just a casual visit."
Before Celestia could think up a single lie, the youngest alicorn in the room spoke up. "Oh, it's because Auntie Celestia called her here to help wi-mmph!" A magical zipper suddenly materialized over Cadance's mouth, preventing her from speaking another word.
Luna glared at her sister. "What are you hiding, sister?"
"I'm not hiding anything! Isn't that right, Cadance?"
"Mmmph!"
"See? Nothing is being hidden and everything is perfectly fine!"
Celestia's sister narrowed her eyes as she slowly walked up to her. "Sister, I've known you for several millenia, I know you're a much better liar than this. Furthermore, I was the one who wielded Honesty back when we were the bearers of the Elements; I can tell when a pony is lying." Luna jabbed her hoof at her sister. "Now tell me, what has you so flustered that your famous composure is shattering like a thin sheet of ice and why are you hiding it from your sister and co-ruler?!"
"I'm-that is-you see-"
"TELL ME, TIA!"
Celestia was about to throw out another attempt at diverting her sister's focus, before she remembered that Luna would stop at nothing to figure out what was wrong. "...Mother is paying us a visit tomorrow." Before her sister could parse the information, Celestia turned to the other two occupants in the room, who were trying their hardest to pretend they weren't listening to the ruler's argument. "Captain, take Cadance and leave this room immediately. Place your strongest anti-sound barrier around the throne room when you leave."
Shining Armor hesitated. "Wh-"
"That's an order, Captain!"
The couple were out of the door before she could blink. The signature violet-red glow of Twilight's family magic surrounded the closed door, barrier in place.
Now was the hard part.
Celestia faced her sister again, seeing exactly what she feared: an enraged Luna so livid that she could have sworn that steam was coming out of the night mare's ears.
"Here we go," Celestia groaned as she placed her own anti-sound barrier around her head.
The next few moments would remain the talk of the town for years to come. The windows to the throne room blew out, a huge shockwave emitted from the castle, and an enraged yell of pure fury, so loud that zebras in their home land halfway across the world heard it, erupted from Luna's throat.
"....cess..."
"Mrglefmf..."
"Princ......estia!"
Celestia slowly opened her eyes, seeing a large pink blob standing above her. "...whuh?"
Suddenly, a loud honk! came from the blob, which startled the princess into clarity. The blob was, in actuality, Pinkie Pie, and the noise came from the air horn she held in her hooves. "Good morning, Princess!"
The princess of the sun winced as she slowly sat up, a loud ringing in her ears. She was in her room, laying on her comfortable bed. Surrounding her were the six bearers of the Elements, several of the guards, and a few of the castle's staff. "What are you all doing here?"
"Well," Twilight spoke, "after the explosion, Shining entered the throne room, Princess Luna was gone, and you were unconscious. We brought you here after the doctors said that there was nothing wrong with you other than your damaged eardrums, which were healed."
Celestia quickly deduced that the ponies that weren't her student and her friends were there to make sure she recovered quickly. "Thank you all, for your concern, but I've had much worse than Luna's shrieking damaging my ears. There's no need to-"
Rainbow Dash gawked. "That was LUNA?! Sweet skies above, we heard it on the train, and it sounded like a bomb that could've taken out all of Canterlot!"
The princess smiled wryly. "Yes, my sister has quite a set of pipes." She looked around the room for a clock, before she remembered that she banned any usage of clocks in her room after an unfortunate accident with an unruly alarm. "How long was I out for?"
Twilight was about to report the time down to the second, before Pinkie jumped in front of her. "I told you, silly!"
"...Pardon?"
"Okay, see, I was going all "PRINCESS CELESTIA WAKE UP PLEASE WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP" but you weren't waking up so instead I decided to try cake 'cause I know you love cake but even that wasn't working so I said "OH NO WHAT EVER SHALL I DO" and then I remembered that I brought my emergency party kit which has an air horn in it so then I air horned and said "Good Morning, Princess!" and then you asked-"
Celestia frantically stumbled out of bed. "Morning?! As in, the day after yesterday?!"
"Well duh! Well, not exactly. The day after yesterday is today, unless it's yesterday in which today is tomorrow and yesterday is today."
Celestia quickly ran about her room, putting on her golden regalia. "Oh no oh no oh no! My mother will be here any minute and nothing is ready!"
"Don't fret, Princess," Rarity assured, "In the wake of the expl-I mean, after your sister blew out your eardrums, Twilight here managed to organize everypony to turn the ballroom into something even the mother of a princess could adore." Her eyes narrowed. "And then Pinkie and Rainbow Dash decided that everything was too "frou-frou" and painted half the room with rainbows."
The rainbow-maned pegasus huffed, "What else were we gonna use the rainbow paint Pinkie found in her party kit for?"
Pinkie nodded. "She has a point."
"Regardless, we managed to move everything salvageable into the gardens."
The princess nodded. "Gardens, got it." Then, with a flash, she teleported out of the room.
When she next opened her eyes, she saw exactly what she didn't hope to see: a milky-white alicorn with a straight red mane and tail, turquoise eyes, and a quill-and-inkwell cutie mark. Said alicorn was currently stuffing her face with a cupcake. She noticed the princess blinking into existence and waved at her with a icing-covered smile on her face. "Celestia, dearie! You should try these cupcakes, they're almost as good as mine! But these weren't willed into existence so I guess I have to give Pinkie some props for that. Ohh, have you tried the cake yet? It's simply divine! Well, almost. It hasn't grown wings and can't use magic, but I bet it's close!"
Celestia groaned to herself. This was going to be a long visit.
