"There, you see! You're having a lovely time, aren't you?"
The Eternal Princess of the Sun, bountiful and benevolent ruler of the Equestrian Empire, shook her head with pouting lips. Her refusal to accept that actually yes, she was enjoying the walk now she out, was evident.
Luna rolled her eyes. "Really Celestia, you're making this far more difficult than it needs to be. We've been going for evening walks every day for hundreds of years - well, perhaps not hundreds, but at least six. It's a wonder you haven't grown to just admit that you enjoy our walks."
Celestia, still sulking, said nothing. She stomped along, eyes on the ground, and if she had had a hoodie, it would have been over her head. As it was, hoodies were a new invention in Equestria, and until they were generally acknowledged as 'cool', the Princess wouldn't be seen dead in one.
Sighing, Luna made a second attempt at inducing conversation. "What do you think of the Gryphons' chance against the Yaks in the latest of their spats?"
Celestia merely frowned in imaginary annoyance, and stomped even harder.
Luna was beginning to lose her temper. "Oh, for goodness sake, Celestia! You're hardly cutting a regal figure right now, are you? Remember what happened the last time we had a disagreement?"
Celestia opened her mouth to argue, but thought better of it. The memory of how she and her sister had disagreed over who had control of the television remote, the upshot of which had been Luna's millennial banishment, was something of which she was far from proud. She looked away in embarrassment.
And lo! What was that shop, over in the distance? Something about the shopfront caught her eye - whether it was the bulletholes in the door, the copious amounts of red ink which seemed to have been hastily (and unsuccessfully) scrubbed off in the very recent past, or the way all the other ponies out for an evening stroll appeared to be crossing the street, ducking down side alleys, or otherwise giving the building a very wide berth, will never be known - and she found herself trotting towards it in unfathomable fascination.
Luna groaned. "Now where are you going?"
Celestia, who by now was close enough to read the sign which swung gently above the doorway, replied, "I'm going to Fat Pony's Legitimate Baked Goods Emporium!" Even the name sounded interesting.
The Princess of the Night hastened to keep up with her excitable sister, muttering, "From now on I'm getting Twilight to take her for walks. . ."
When she caught up, Celestia had her whole face pressed up against the heavily scratched windows, eyes open wide in a heady mixture of enthusiasm and arousal. "Look. . .", she whispered.
Luna - despite her misgivings regarding the name of the shop's proprietor - did as bidden, standing next to Celestia and peering inside.
What met their four collective eyes was a veritable paradise of cakes - an emporium, in fact. There seemed to be some sort of strange gurgling noise; Luna glanced around for the source and discovered that it was coming from her sister Celestia, who was drooling copiously. Normally Luna would immediately have quashed such unprincesslike behaviour, but as the windows were in need of a good clean she said nothing.
After almost a full minute of overawed silence, Celestia murmured, "I need those cakes. I need all the cakes. I need them NOW."
Luna was concerned. "I see. . . you do remember, don't you 'Tia, that we're just a little short of money at the moment? You wasted- sorry, spent most of it on the cinematics for Twilight's graduation-to-princesshood ceremony."
"And I regret nothing!" her elder sister shouted, making appropriate use of the Semi-Regal Canterlot Voice (a mere two steps down from the Royal Canterlot Voice).
Ears ringing from the percussive wave of sound, Luna waited a moment before responding. "Of course - but that does mean that we can only afford one cake. One cake, 'Tia."
Celestia nodded, appearing to understand for all of about three seconds, before changing to a confused shaking of the head.
Luna attempted to explain. "We currently have, between us, eleven bits. Eight of those bits are mine, and I'm saving them to buy a bike. So that leaves you with three bits, which is only just enough for one of those cakes. You can pick any of them, though," she added as an afterthought.
The Princess of the Sun 'ahhed' in understanding. This left her with several options.
First, though, she would have to remove the nasty cakes from the equation. No cheesecake for me! she thought, mentally striking it from her list. Not after what happened last time.
Unfortunately, that was about all she could remove from the equation. Aside from cheesecake, she loved all cakes pretty much equally - even carrot cake in a pinch - which, though helpful when cake was in short supply, was less useful when she had as much choice as a bull in a chinashop. That makes no sense, she thought.
What to choose? Well, she'd always been partial to a nice, colourful bit of Battenberg cake - something about the yellows and pinks was calming, somehow. Yes, she thought. Let's go with Battenberg.
But then her eye was caught by that oft over-used cousin of the Battenberg - Angel cake! Though disadvantaged by having its colours in rows, rather than pleasing squares, it did have three colours, rather than just two, which made the Battenberg look almost stingy in comparison. Angel cake it was to be, then.
But wait! For just next to the Angel cake was a Victoria sponge! Two thick layers of plain sponge, enhanced by icing sugar (up to about yea high), jam and cream. And Celestia did so like the word 'sponge'. And, on the top, a single, glorious cherry!
That settled it - Victoria sponge was to be the cake of the hour.
Ah! But then. . . what about that magnificent looking fruitcake, over in the corner? Don't be daft, thought Celestia. Fruitcake is for ponies who like to pretend they eat healthily.
Moving swiftly on, she espied a rich, velvety trifle. Eurgh, trifle! But what was next to the trifle really made her stop and think - marble cake. . .
Chocolate, with chocolate icing, and chocolate filling, and chocolate swirls on the inside! What could possibly be more delectable than that? She had almost made up her mind, when:
"Oh, but the Battenberg!"
Luna jumped about three hooves in the air (which isn't particularly high, really) at this sudden outburst. "What about the Battenberg?"
"It's so colourful!"
Luna raised her eyebrows, and said nothing. She knew this mood of Celestia's - it was better to keep quiet and let her work through it.
Which in this instance took rather a while. Almost an hour had passed before Celestia next spoke, which was to announce that she had come to a decision. "I have decided", she declared, "to ask the nice shoppony to give me a small piece of ALL the cakes."
Rubbing her chin, sore from where she'd been resting it on her knees, Luna yawned. "Fine. Let's just get this over with, shall we?"
Celestia nodded, and together - after Luna had rather painfully stood up, and massaged some feeling back into her aching legs - they went to open the door.
Unfortunately, the door was locked.
"It appears," stated Celestia, in an entirely matter of fact tone, "that the shop is now closed."
With that, she skipped lightly off down the street, disappearing into the gathering gloom, as though she hadn't totally just wasted over an hour on choosing a cake she couldn't even buy.
Luna sighed. It was going to be a looooong millennium.
