Princess Celestia strode onto her balcony just as the last sliver of the moon was slipping below the horizon. Lighting her horn and spreading her wings, the Princess of the Sun gently pulled her solar orb up into the pale dawn sky. Her pastel mane sparkled ever so slightly as she did so, and continued to have a faint glittering aspect even after Celestia released her magic and lowered her hooves back down to the balcony. A small smile graced the Solar Diarch's lips as she looked down at the streets of Canterlot, beginning to bustle with early morning activity.
The Princess of the Sun stood there, motionless, for a couple minutes longer before she turned to go back inside her chambers upon hearing a soft knocking on her doors. Using her magic to open the double doors, Celestia greeted her secretary with a smile, "Good morning Crystal Scroll. How are you this fine day?"
With a quick bow and a smile of her own, Crystal Scroll replied, "I'm doing very well, Your Majesty. I think you'll like what's on the schedule for today as well, if I may?"
Upon seeing her Princess's nod, Crystal continued, "As it has been fairly quiet recently, you have no appointments for today aside from running Day Court as usual."
A small smirk appeared on the secretary's face, despite her attempts to hide it, "I believe then, that today would be a perfect day for the little surprise you had planned for your sister. You have a couple of hours before Day Court starts, and I'm sure Princess Luna would appreciate spending some extra time with you as well."
Celestia beamed as she made for the doors to her chambers while putting on her regalia. "You are absolutely right, Crystal. Today is just perfect for this. Well, so long as I make sure Luna gets some coffee. I love her dearly, but she is the exact opposite of a morning pony."
As the two ponies stepped out of Celestia's chambers, Crystal giggled, "Way ahead of you Princess. There's a fresh pot of coffee waiting in the Royal Dining Hall."
"What would I do without you, Crystal? Hmmm?"
"Oh, I'm sure you could figure something out Your Majesty. You are one of the rulers of Equestria after all, so you must be capable."
Just then, the two ponies arrived at the doors to the Dining Hall. Crystal gave another small bow as she turned to take her leave, "I'll leave you two to enjoy your time together, Princess."
Celestia nodded, "Thank you, Crystal. Please come let me know when it is half an hour before Day Court starts. Until then, you may do whatever you wish."
"Thank you very much, Your Majesty."
As she watched her secretary disappear around the corner, the Princess of the Sun shook her head and mumbled to herself, "What would I do without you indeed, my dear Crystal?"
Pushing open the doors with her magic, Celestia saw with relief that her younger sister had not yet arrived for breakfast. As she walked towards her seat at one end of the absurdly long table, Celestia levitated the freshly made pot of coffee along with a black mug that had Luna's cutie mark on it. Just as she was pouring the coffee for her sister, the Princess of the Night threw open the doors and dragged herself into the Dining Hall. Before her little sister could sit down, Celestia gave a cheerful greeting, "Good morning dearest sister! How was your night?"
"It was long, but fairly uneventful," Luna paused as she yawned, "Only three ponies had nightmares, so I spent most of the night simply watching the stars."
Reaching her seat, the Lunar Diarch blinked in surprise, "No pancakes, sister? Or any food at all? Is something the matter?"
"Not at all, Luna. I just thought that we could spend some time together before I have to go to Court this morning since I do not have any other appointments. If you're up to it, I'd like to teach you how to cook. No offense, little sister, but those pancakes you tried to make me a couple weeks ago were absolutely dreadful. Wonderfully thoughtful of you, but, well, completely inedible to be honest."
Luna stopped walking and looked down the table at her older sister, "I don't know, Celestia. While I would love to spend some time with you, I am still awfully tired."
Encased in golden magic, Luna's coffee mug floated down to hover in front of her, "I have an entire pot, just for you, and I'm sure we could make some more if you needed it. Though if you really don't want to-"
The coffee mug took on a blue glow as Luna interrupted her sister, "No, no, coffee is perfect. I can't wait to see what you're going to teach me."
Celestia laughed as she got up from her chair, "I was thinking that we could start simple. Since you tried pancakes already, I figure that I could help you get them right. And it certainly doesn't hurt that I just love pancakes as well."
Luna's deeper laughter joined with Celestia's as the two walked into the Royal Kitchen. "Will we be making anything else to go with them, dear sister?"
"In the spirit of keeping it simple, I thought we should just stick to doing pancakes and some tea." Celestia turned her head to wink at her sister as she added, "Of course, if we can get the pancakes right, then perhaps we could add some fruit faces to them."
Having already drained her first mug of coffee, and in the process of pouring a second, Luna smiled, "Well, I'm ready whenever you are sister. How do we begin?"
Levitating two aprons, a pan, a stick of butter, a measuring cup, and a box of pancake mix, Celestia went to stand by the stove, "By putting on our aprons and reading the instructions of course."
"Instructions? Are those hidden somewhere in here? I couldn't find any when I tried to make you pancakes before."
Laughing, Celestia floated the pancake mix over to her younger sister, "The instructions are on the back of the box, Luna."
Luna stared blankly at her sister, "I see. I did not use a box."
"Then where did you get pancake mix?"
"I was unaware that they came already mixed. I tried to make my own batter out of flour, eggs, milk, and baking soda."
Celesta facehoofed, "Oh dear, this is going to be harder than I thought, isn't it?"
Luna smiled sheepishly at her elder sister over the rim of her coffee mug, "Well, it can't get any worse, can it?"
Oh, it could. It most definitely could.
Crystal knocked gently on the door of the kitchens, which immediately became encased in a blue glow and swung open. Peering inside, Crystal's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as she took in the scene before her.
The walls, floor, and ceiling of the Royal Kitchen were dripping in soupy pancake batter, smoke wafted throughout the room, most of it originating from various pans that were scattered around the stove, the rest emanating from what looked like it had once been a tea kettle, yet now more resembled molten lava. Dozens of empty boxes of pancake mix were scattered throughout the entire kitchen, along with the crumbled, charred remains of what might once have been pancakes. Shaking gooey batter off of her wings was Princess Celestia, whose apron had long since disappeared beneath a veritable mountain of half mixed pancake batter. And standing in the center of it all was Princess Luna, who turned calmly to face the new arrival as she took a sip from her tenth mug of coffee.
"Oh my," was all Crystal could manage as she stared at what used to be a pristine, functional kitchen. "Has Discord perhaps been helping you?"
Raucous laughter burst from Celestia, "Oh no, my dear, my sister is just this bad at cooking."
With a nervous chuckle, Crystal found her voice, "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but it is half an hour before Day Court is due to start Your Majesty. And if I may, I think you will need every minute of it to get cleaned up."
Looking down at herself, Celestia sighed, "I would say that you are most certainly right about that Crystal." She turned to Luna and continued, "I'm sorry, Luna, but we will have to continue this another day. I cannot appear for Day Court looking like I just fought a Pancake War."
"Too bad, considering that that's exactly what happened," Luna flashed a wide grin at her sister. "I do apologize for being so bad at this, and costing you breakfast as well. I will take care of cleaning up this mess so that none of the Chefs have a heart attack when they arrive."
"Thank you very much, Luna. However, I will make sure that the Chefs know to use the Main Kitchen for today. Just to be on the safe side, in case something else happens to explode in here."
"That is a wonderful idea sister. I hope Court is easy for you today as well."
Smiling at her little sister, Celestia walked out of the Royal Kitchen with her secretary in tow. Unbeknownst to the Solar Diarch, a smirk had appeared on her younger sister's face as soon as she turned her back. As soon as Celestia and Crystal were well out of sight, Luna poked her head outside the doors to the Royal Dining Hall and asked one of the guards stationed there to come with her. He hesitated briefly, but figured that directly assisting one of the Princesses was more important than guarding a door.
As soon as the two were back inside of the Royal Kitchen, Luna turned to him and asked, "What is your name?"
He saluted, "Lieutenant Iron Wing at your service Your Highness."
Luna smiled, "I need your help, Lieutenant."
"Anything, Princess."
"Teach me how to make a cake."
His eyes slowly traveled around the disaster that the kitchen had become, "A cake, Your Highness?"
"Yes!" Luna beamed, "For my sister. As an apology for the mess."
Iron Wing gulped, "Well, then I suppose we should get to work, Your Highness."
As she poured another mug of coffee, Luna added, "There's no need to be so formal Lieutenant. After all, you're the teacher, and I'm the student!"
Looking up at the ceiling, which still dripped pancake batter, Iron Wing prayed silently for his safety and his sanity. Bringing his eyes back to the Princess of the Night, he was about to speak again when she said, "Oh, it might be a good idea for you to remove your armor. Metals and fire don't really mix well, just in case."
He froze, standing even more still than when in the Guard's usual pose. Well, I'm royally screwed, aren't I?
Day Court had ended, and it was time for the sun and moon to exchange places in the sky once again. However, something was amiss. Luna had forgotten to raise the moon, and Celestia had had to do it for her. As she walked through the halls of the castle towards the Royal Kitchen, Celestia thought to herself, I'm sure it's nothing. She probably just overslept after cleaning up the kitchen from this morning.
Still somewhat lost in thought, Celestia's magic enveloped the doors to the Royal Kitchen, and she walked in, only to be instantly jolted out of her thoughts. Somehow, the kitchen was in a worse state than when she had left it that morning. The mess from the pancakes appeared to have congealed and dried in a crusty layer atop every surface on which it had wound up landing, and on top of all that was an oozing mess of a completely different kind of batter. Some of it was thicker, while some was almost like water as it ran all across the floor tiles. The kitchen also appeared as if it had been dusted in ash, and smelled strangely of burnt vinegar.
Or not.
"What in Equestria happened in here?"
Luna's head popped out from the midst of a mountain of charcoal colored round objects, the intended identity of which Celestia was entirely uncertain of. "Oh, hello sister. Is it nighttime already?"
Blinking rapidly a few times to restart her brain, Celestia replied, "Yes, it is, sister. Luna, you forgot to raise the moon. What have you been doing in here?"
"I was trying to learn how to bake from the good Lieutenant Iron Wing, sister. I must admit that that appears to have been another terrible failure of mine today. And thank you very much for raising the moon for me, I really should have been paying more attention to the time."
"Have you even slept at all, Luna?"
"No, I've been trying to make you a cake, Celestia. But, well, you can see how that turned out."
Celestia shook her head at her little sister, "Yes, I certainly can. I don't think I have ever seen somepony fail so spectacularly at cooking, Luna."
Luna grinned, "Well, there is one thing I managed to make today, though it was entirely by accident. But still, I'd like to think that it counts."
"And what is that, Luna."
A strange reddish colored object floated in front of Celestia's face, held aloft by her sister's blue magic. "Deep fried pickles! They actually taste surprisingly good, even though they're coated in cake batter. Here, you should try one!"
"I'm sorry, Luna, but did you say deep-fried pickles? Why did you even have pickles anywhere near cake batter in the first place?"
"Well, you see, I took them out while I was trying to find some other ingredients, and-"
"Stop, Luna. Please, just stop," Celestia interjected as she facehoofed, "I'm sorry, but I really don't want to know the whole story. I think it is better for my sanity if I don't. I am just going to go ahead and turn in for the night. See you in the morning, Luna."
With a last shake of her head at the mess, Celestia walked out of the Royal Kitchen and straight to her chambers. Luna watched her go for a moment before turning to Iron Wing, "I think I broke her, didn't I?"
Pulling himself out from underneath a couple dozen attempts at cakes, he nodded, "Yes, Princess Luna, I'm afraid you might have done just that."
A determined look spread across Luna's face, "Well then, we're going to fix this Lieutenant. Would you please go out to the best cake shop you know and get a red velvet cake with buttercream frosting?"
Although slightly confused, Iron Wing was not about to question one of his Princesses. "Of course, Princess Luna. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to clean up this mess, and hopefully you will have returned by the time I am finished."
Saluting, Iron Wing left the Royal Kitchen to head out on his mission. Luna turned to face the disastrous appearance of the kitchen as he did so, "I will fix this, sister. I can make this right."
The next morning, after raising the sun, Celestia nervously walked towards the Royal Dining Hall and the Royal Kitchen beyond. Neither smelling nor hearing anything odd, she cautiously opened the door to the Royal Kitchen and walked inside. A huge sigh of relief passed her lips as she saw that it had been returned to its usual immaculate condition.
Well, almost.
In the center of the counter, Celestia saw what looked like a cake box with a short note on top of it. Picking the note up in her magic, a smile spread across her face as she read it.
Dearest sister, I'm deeply sorry for the stress my nonexistent cooking skills caused you yesterday. In the future, I think it would be better if we spend time together doing something that isn't cooking. That aside, I know buying a cake isn't the same as having made you one myself, but, well, at least this one will be edible. And though it isn't fruit faces, I hope you appreciate the decorations. I did them myself, the only way I could think of that wouldn't lead to more disaster.
With love, your little sister, Luna
Curious as to what Luna could have done, Celestia carefully opened the cake box. A tear came to her eye as she saw the sparkling image of her and Luna embracing beneath the words I love you.
And the icing on the cake, both metaphorical and literal, was that the design had been made from stardust.
