Princess Celestia had a very interesting private court. To her right was a very hungover Captain Shining Armor and a very annoyed Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, shooting glares at her fiancé and Princess Luna, while to her left sat Luna, Spike, and Twilight Sparkle. The latter of whom had come up from Ponyville in part to provide moral support for Princess Luna, but also to help locate her brother when it had become clear that his “pub crawl” with Princess Luna had somehow managed to lose their discrete guard detail. Oddly enough, once Twilight had been fully apprised of the situation, she had immediately composed a short list of seven probable locations, went out herself with just Spike, and had found them at the third site on the list: the cellar of a comics and games shop where Captain Armor had been helping Princess Luna generate an Ogres and Oubliettes character, surrounded by a small group of players who had been watching the process with the sort of morbid fascination that one gets when you just know that you are watching a disaster in progress but simply cannot look away.
Oddly enough, from what Celestia understood, her sister’s character, Moon Pie, had actually been shaping up to be a fairly respectable first attempt at a starting level thestral Bard.
Whatever Captain Armor’s character was supposed to be had yet to be determined as, unlike Luna’s slightly wavering hornwriting and occasional alcohol induced misspelling, his character sheet had been all but indecipherable.
All in all, Celestia had concluded that it could have gone much much worse had the two not been distracted from their tavern trawl by the prospect of a harmless game. After all, with her alicorn constitution, the bar tab required to get Luna past the slightly tipsy stage would have been staggering. As it stood, it was merely inconveniently high.
“I trust we have all learned a valuable lesson last night?” Celestia prompted.
“Indeed we have, Sister,” Luna replied. “Shadow Dancer would have been a much better choice of names for my thestral scald. Moon Pie sounds like she could be related to one of thine student’s companions.”
“Actually,” Spike interjected, “with the stats you generated, you probably would have been better off making Moon Pie an Earth pony. Her flying stat was kinda low.”
“I think that was the point, Spike,” Twilight commented. “Flight is still an advantage, even when the associated stat score is low, and a bard doesn’t need good flight speed or aerial agility - just the ability to stay out of the enemy’s reach while providing support.”
“Exactly my thoughts, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna confirmed.
“Since when did you know anything about O&O, Twiley?” Shining Armor muttered blearily as he gazed at his sister with bloodshot eyes.
“WHAT WAS THAT, SHINEY?” Twilight asked loudly. “I COULDN’T QUITE HEAR WHAT YOU SAID!”
“Gah! Twiley! Not when I have a hangover!”
“SORRY! IS THIS ANY BETTER?”
“No… Please stop… have mercy…”
“ARE YOU EVER GOING TO GO BAR HOPPING AGAIN LIKE YOU DID LAST NIGHT?”
“Never! I swear! Just please stop with the yelling!”
“Okay, I forgive you,” Twilight finally relented.
Shining Armor sighed in relief.
“Well I’m not sure that I’ve forgiven you yet!” Cadance declared at a respectable volume, earning another pained whimper.
“Twilight, Cadance, that’s enough,” Princess Celestia chided gently. “I’m sure that Captain Armor has learned his lesson quite thoroughly.”
“Yes, Princess Celestia,” Cadance and Twilight chorused.
“I’m also sure that Captain Armor knows better than to take my sister out on the town like that again, right?”
Princess Celestia’s tone was almost light and chiding. Almost. Like a velvet glove over a steel beam is almost soft.
Captain Shining Armor blanched. Which is quite an impressive feat, considering that he was already white and had just noticeably gotten even more pale.
Satisfied that Captain Armor seemed to know how much trouble he was in, Celestia let out a sharp whistle as part of her sister’s punishment for not inviting her along. It was an effective punishment as the only other pony in the room that could hear it happened to be Luna (as an ascendant, Cadence had the potential to improve her senses as her alicorn physiology continued to mature, but there had been no signs of her adopted niece developing enhanced hearing as of yet). Luna squinted her eyes briefly, and though her body shook from how shrill it was and how deeply the sound pierced her alcohol wracked head, she shook it off well enough to prove that she hadn’t quite managed to overindulge to the equivalent state that her companion had reached.
She chuckled; Luna had managed to get far more inebriated than this in the distant past. Most notably near the end of the Griffin War when she had found her sister surrounded by over a dozen or so beer, wine and cider casks, each!, and it took at least two weeks for her to sober up that time.
At least now the bars, brewers, and… basement dwellers? knew that they could place their faith in Luna, for she had won their hearts last night.
Three factions of society down, a thousand more to go.
“So, my little ponies, how did my little sister do?” She turned her attention to the two bureaucrats from yesterday standing in front of her with fear on their faces, and trying to hide the envelope and the law book. Perhaps it was because there were three Princesses and the Captain of the Royal Guards present that they were scared, but that didn’t seem right…
“Well, you see, your highness…” The stallion looked at the other two Princesses in the room. “es, it was made aware to us that a few of the question were not that fair, as they were focused on the time after Pr—Princess Luna’s ba-banishment.” His eyes darted to floor, biting his lip.
“A few, he says,” Luna muttered under her breath with a snort, drinking some tea to help her headache, causing Shining Armor to laugh a bit before the pain from his own headache silenced him. Princess Celestia shot her sister a look, with Cadence and Twilight doing the same to Shining Armor.
“…Yes, well we only realized that after we graded it and we’re morethanwillingtogiverheranewonePLEASEDONTBANISHUSTOTHEMOON!” the mare squeaked out, bowing on the floor in fear.
Celestia frowned, lifting the envelope to her face and opened it.
Lulu had failed horribly. Possibly the lowest grade she had seen from somepony that was truly trying in a very long time.
Sighing, she scanned the pages and saw that while Luna had managed to fill in the parts about the implications perfectly well, it was all based on guesswork from a single point that was very obvious. That had hurt her grade tremendously; not counting the blank segments that would be easy for anypony that studied but impossible for anypony just thrown into the whole matter. How was Luna supposed to know about Adam Stables at all, or the worth of Nigmund Freud on the pony mind? They were right, it was not fair for Luna, and certainly after some preparing-
“Nay.” Blinking, Celestia looked to see her sister examining her own test, seeing all the red xes on the paper she’d written last night before spending the remainder of the night getting as distracted as possible with Shining Armor in an attempt forget it ever happened. “We shall not banish thee for Our failure.” She stood unevenly on her hooves, eyes shut again from suddenly moving again. “We have failed the test. What are the repercussions?”
The mare gulped, and then prodded the stallion forwards. He shot his fellow bureaucrat a dirty look but he looked resolved at the Royal Sisters. “Normally, failing this exam would require the student to do another year of their current educational standing.” He paused, waiting for the nods of approval from Celestia and the other sober alicorn in the room. “However, therein lies the problem your highnesses.” He nearly squeaked that last part out.
“We do not see what thou art talking about…” Luna frowned, taking a careful step forwards.
Celestia’s eyes went wide, seeing what he was alluding to. So did Cadance, if the grin replacing the shocked face she’d had a moment ago was anything to go by…
“He means, Aunt Luna,” Cadance’s grin was growing larger now. “That you would need to repeat your current level of education before you could take the exam again.”
“And?” Luna frowned, more than likely wondering why the other two alicorns were trying not to laugh their wings off…
“I don’t think there was an education level when you were around, was there?”
“N-no…” Luna was slowly piecing it together, fear slowly seeping inwards.
“That means, dear sister, you do not have any real place in the university education system, nor anything lower,” Celestia said while discreetly pushing one hindhoof over the other, causing herself a bit of pain in an attempt to stop herself from laughing.
“Thou cannot be saying what We think thou art saying…” Luna’s eyes were growing wide, her fears nearly realized. Her instincts were telling her to run and hide under the bed, or somewhere that Celestia could not find her.
“Yes, we are.” Celestia was barely holding back her giggles now, a few slipping out in poorly hidden grunts. “This law would require you to go to magical kindergarten and work your way up.”
Shining Armor was the first to laugh, rolling on his back with his fiancée leaning against the wall to support herself while she let out laugh after laugh. That was all it took to let Celestia fall over in her seat, laughing fully for the first time in over a thousand years.
The two bureaucrats were looking at the scene with fear and confusion, rooted in the spot.
“Stop that!” Twilight scolded them all, striking her hoof against the table loudly to gain their undivided attention. "The answer is simple. If there was no educational system in place when Luna was growing up, then by definition she was homeschooled and is entitled to test for a General Equivalency Diploma. Just hire a tutor to bring her up to date, let her apply for her GED, and then she can take the civil service test again next year."
"That's a wonderful Idea, Twilight!" Cadance beamed, earning a smile from Twilight.
"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job, Twilight," Princes Celestia congratulated her student with serine pride.
“Ah-bwuh?” Twilight.exe took this turn in the conversation with remarkable grace… 
"HUZZAH! MY THANKS, TWILIGHT SPARKLE! I SHALL BE THINE DEVOTED APPRENTICE FOR THE NEXT YEAR!"
"Um… Princess Luna, I live in a library. Perhaps your first lesson could be how to speak in a library..." Twilight suggested sheepishly even as the volume finally knocked her brother out cold.
"MY APOLOGIES! IS THIS ANY BETTER?"
"Not... really..." Twilight replied, placing a hoof over her face...
Author's Note
This story stemmed from an omake I had posted under Evilhumour's story: A simple test from the bureaucracy of Equestria, which Evilhumour liked so much that he literally asked that I turn it into a divergence of the other sequel: Back to School for Lulu. As such, this prologue chapter has sections that were copied and edited from A simple test from the bureaucracy of Equestria with Evilhumour's explicit permission, although I did try to change things up here and there so that it wasn't a complete cut-n-paste.
Now... Does anyone think that either Cadance or Shining Armor remembered to inform Twilight of their engagement during this... incident?
"Wait! They're engaged!?"
"Um... Surprise?"
"Why didn't either of you tell me!?" 
"It sorta never came up?"
"I was right there..." 
