//-------------------------------------------------------// High as the Glowing Ball -by Bro Dash- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// White Powder? //-------------------------------------------------------// White Powder? Celestia stared down at the case that the stallion had dropped, sprinting away in fear. It had opened on it's own, driven by metal springs and what seemed to be hydraulics. "What's this? He seems to have dropped a suitcase of...flour?" Celestia bent her head down, only looking a the suitcase closer. Using her magic, she cleaned up the mess as best she could and fit the suitcase just as it seemed it should, discovering that it was not entirely filled with loose flour, but, instead, in bricks, each covered in plastic. Sneezing as some of the flour had entered her air passage, she coughed for a second, then packaged the rest of it with a little less than utmost care. Packaging it in an antigravity field, she carried it with her to the small turn into the alley she saw the stallion run off to, but saw only a dead end, nopony there. Walking back to the castle, she found it slightly leaning to the left. Odd. She had never noticed this before. Walking into the courtyard, she stopped the nearest patrolling guard. "Excuse me, if you would answer truthfully, has the castle always seemed to lean a bit to the left?" "No, Your majesty, I have not seen the castle in a "leaning" position before." "You haven't even looked at it.", she pointed at him. He looked up at the castle, then back to her, "I am sure, my choice stays the same.", he kept a straight face. "Well, if that's what you see." Celestia walked off, the suitcase orbiting her. As she entered her study, she saw a book. Normally, you'd see many books when you enter, but her attention focused on one book. A yellow cover with an old imprinted logo on the front, which had little to no meaning related to the story itself. Approaching the book, she stared at it. "Why is there a book here?", she asked herself. Reaching to pick it up, she stopped with her hoof just above it and brought her head level to see just between her hoof and the book, slowly lowering it till it touched the yellow cover. "Sister?", Luna called. Celestia turned to look at her sister, her coat, blue, and her flank dark, with that same crescent white. "I do not recall a book being here." "...Tia this is the library." Celestia looked up, then aroudn ehr, spotting the several shelves, the several rows of bookshelves, and the open door at the far end of the room, which she entered. "Good. Make sure that you don't forget this book." Luna looked at Celestia with a bewildered look. "You seem a bit different, Tia. Are you alright?" "Peachy, fine, hoofed up, what is it they say nowadays? Something about a...flower?" "Celestia, are you sick? Did you hurt your head?" Celestia laughed, "Luna, I'm fine. Just make sure not to forget this book! Well, I'll see you some other time, I seemed to have walked into the wrong room." And with a smile on her muzzle, Celestia walked the long way out of the library, Luna staring at her with the same bewildered look. "...Don't forget the book...", she mouthed, levitating the yellow book over. Celestia stopped just outside the doors, looking at the wall directly in front of her, then turned right, walking down the hall as it seemed to try and twist to the right several times. The eyes of the paintings seem to follow her, then once she came upon the doors at the end, she stopped, looking at the painting above it. "Mother, I've told you at least a hundred and seven point three two nine times, do not give me that look when I want cloud cake. It's cloud cake. Blue, white, fluffy. Wow, cloud cake is simple. Do they just make it from real clouds?", she asked the painting. "And what about that sweet icing? Did they make it from pouring rainbows into sugar buckets? How would they make something like that so simple? Making a rainbow takes...takes weeks!" The painting didn't reply. It's a painting. "Well, fine, if you want me to just cut out the cloud cake, maybe I will! Instead, I won't have my chefs make me cloud cake. I'll them make themselves cloud cake then eat it myself!" The two butlers looked at one another, then one spoke. "Excuse me, your majesty, but, you requested us?" "What, are you here to bring me the cloud cake I ordered?", she turned around, not a single hint of proper language. "Princess, are you feeling fine?" "Fine?", she cocked an eyebrow, "Are you saying that just the sight of me flatters you?" "N-n-n-no, your majesty, it's just that you have never shown behaviors like this before." "Well, I can roam my own castle however I damn well please, can't I?" The two butlers gasped, looking at each other with astonished, scared looks. "Y-yes, your majesty!" "Good. Now, I want you to take this box of flour up to my room, set it on top of my bed, and get me a dragon egg. I want to try and hatch a dragon with my rear." Both butlers were completely baffled, jaws dropped. After a few seconds, the Princess blinked once, twice, her sight becoming hazy before she trudged off down the hall, headed for her room. As she set down on the bed, she set the suitcase just beside the bed, allowing her horn to dim. Looking at her pillow, she just lay there, able to stare at the white object endlessly. Till a blue mare broke her concentration. "Tia, I finished that book you told me to not forget. Though, it's a really short book. What purpose does it have besides explaining ways to build small birdhouses?" "What?", Celestia's head rose, turning to view the blue alicorn. "In the library, you told me to not forget this book. Weird, considering how you came to that. I suspect you want to build a birdhouse?" "Birdhouse? I was headed to my room to store this suitcase on the table, then continue my day. I found myself just now looking at my pillow as if I could stare at it endlessly." Luna approached her sister. "You walked into the library. You don't remember that?" "I remember walking into my private study, filled with books, and then I saw mother, we had an argument over cloudcake, and what it's properties were, then I walked up here, to my room, and laid down." "You...walked into the library, made a small fuss about a book on birdhouses, and if the butlers tell me correctly, you were yelling at one of the paintings fitted above the kitchen doors, in the royal canterlot voice." Celestia stared at her sister. "Tia, you know I'd never do such a thing as, lie to you." "I know, it's just...How could something like this happen?" "I...don't know...It could be a simple memory malfunction in brain cells. More than likely may never happen again. But, eh...do you really think that there is something important about this yellow book?", Luna held up the carpentry book. "Not a single important reason I know of." "Well then. I am guessing that it is fine to replace it in the library?" "Go ahead." "Thank you." Luna trotted out, the book floating behind her. Celestia gave a sigh, already planning the conference tomorrow. Stepping out of her bed, she noticed the suitcase beside it, and levitated it to the table, opening it. A few clumps of loose powder fell from the top of the lid onto a brick of...powder. "Flour? In a suitcase? Surely you'd not put flour in a suitcase for any reason. Is this really flour, or something else?" Leaning down, she sniffed at the white powdered a few times, then a few more, eventually taking in a few lungfulls of the substance, pulling her head up abruptly. "Hello!!" The case closed quickly, by her magic, and she threw it under her bed, opening the windows from afar as she ran out of the window, opening her wings to take flight. Colliding halfway into the large window side, she rolled out of the window and caught herself, flapping her wings uncoordinatively before righting herself and soaring off higher into the sky. "Cloud time!" Bursting through a small cloud just above the castle, she closed her wings, falling onto it's softness, and another pegasus, who struggled under her. "Wow, I never thought this would be something fun! Oooh! Is this a new unicorn tech massage cloud?" "Princess! Please get off!", the cyan pegasus asked, struggling under her. "Rainbow dash!", she smiled, rolling off of the struggling pegasus. Taking a few breaths, Rainbow Dash looked up at the majestic alicorn. "What the buckin buck?! Seriously?! I was sleeping up here! Don't you ever check for pegasi taking a rest on clouds?" "I don't know, don't you buck every cute stallion that comes your way?" Rainbow Dash blushed. Hard. Celestia broke into laughter, falling over onto her back, "I'm just kidding Rainbow Dash!" Rainbow dash didn't respond. "Hey!", Celestia rolled onto her stomach, "Wanna go meet the wonderbolts, have a party, and hose em all down with wine?" "Ce...lestia? Is that you?" Are you...feeling well?" "Yes it is, feelin peachy! So how about that offer? Nevermind! Let's jsut drop rocks onto unsuspecting ponies' heads!" Before she could refuse, the princess disappeared and reappeared with a sack filled with smooth stones. "Princess, I don't think that-" Celestia put a stone in Rainbow Dash's mouth. "Less talk, more drop!" Celestia began dropping stone after stone down, Rainbow Dash placing the single stone she had in the pile. "Oooh! There's that pink mare! Hit her for one hundred points!", she threw another rock. "Twelve counts of disturbing the peace...", Luna recited. "I wasn't that loud!", Celestia replied, a long grin across her muzzle. "Three counts of breaking and entering." "Oh, come on. It's not breaking and entering if you teleport!" "And not to mention teh fifteen resisted arrests! You resisted ARREST! You're the princess! How do you resist arrest!? You're the Princess Celestia!! You would have to seriously do something horrible to have the POLICE after you! Do you know how bad this is?" Celestia put a hoof over Luna shoulder, sniffing as she ran a hoof across her nose. "Just relax, I mean, it's a free world, everypony's happy, why not have some fun on your own? Did you forget that book?" "Ugh!", Luna levitated the yellow carpentry book to Celestia. Celestia Squeeled then opened the book, ripping the page out and folding it into the birdhouse displayed on it. "Perfect!" "Tia, your nose is bleeding..." Celestia put a hoof againt her nose, then wiped the blood on her white coat, making a sickly looking red-orange. "It's nothing to worry about.", she dismissed it. "Celestia, I think you should lay down for the night.", Luna suggested. "Oh come on, we haven't even played a game together yet!" "Tia, I don't think-" Celestia tackled Luna, digging her hooves lightly into the dark blue alicorn's sides, and receiving a few screams from her. "Stop it! Stop it that tickles!", Luna laughed. Then it stopped. Luna got up, panting slightly. Celestia was gone. The window wide open, and a few "Wahoo"s echoing through the streets of Canterlot. "What is wrong? It's two in the morning!" Shining Armor gave out a long sigh. "I guess it's another wrestling match..." "What?", Luna asked. "Well, she said that if I wrestled with her that...Nevermind, I'll just go get her..."