Once Upon a Time, in the Comical World of Equestria...
Sweet Reads Bakery and Bookery was fairly typical as far as Ponyville businesses went: Locally owned and operated, mashing together two seemingly unrelated businesses, and named as whimsically as most other places that could see Canterlot on a clear day and thus be inspired by its rosy spires. Sweet Reads did go the extra mile in terms of architecture, looking like a giant stack of books that some giant knife had carved into, revealing that the books were in fact a cake. Which was a building.
It all made sense to Starswirl, and as he’d tell anypony in earshot, that was what mattered. Most days.
“Careful! Careful!” he cried, hairnets straining to contain both mane and beard as his horn flared brighter, stabilizing a wobbling layer of actual cake as he set it in place, applying frosting as mortar in an eyeblink.
“Sorry, Mr. Swirl!” cried Clover, who had squinted one eye shut as her own magic struggled to keep the rest of the towering stack of cake, pastry, and assorted candies from collapsing under its own weight. A bead of sweat ran down her green-coated neck.
“I’m not even supposed to bake!” said Stygian, who was struggling just as much. “You’ve said as much, sir!”
Starswirl gritted his teeth. “I’ve also said that we all have to band together when thing get desperate, one way or the other. That said, where is my dedicated apprentice baker? Celestia!”
“Here, sir!” A pink-maned pegasus zipped out of the storage closet and held up her plastic-encased white hooves. “Had to find the last box of hoof gloves. We really do need to order more.”
“So order more!" Starswirl shouted. "Nopony’s stopping you. But do it after you've helped me put the keystone in place. Quickly, before he Heavenly Confection collapses into a chocolate hole!” An enormous rune-carved hard candy bobbled in his telekinesis, nearly brushing against the rafters.
“Right away, sir!” Celestia took the sweet in hoof, dodging around assorted sugary obstacles getting put into their own places until she reached the containment unit. She barely even slowed down as she set the keystone inside the lattice of interwoven magic and shortbread crust.
The candy's runes glowed with a rainbow aura, and a pulse disrupted every unicorn's grip as the Heavenly Confection stabilized itself. Layer upon layer of the foundational pile rose and formed an accurate, edible planetarium that towered for half a dozen ponyheights and treated gravity as a quaint suggestion. A spun-sugar scale model of Equestria wove itself into existence over the remaining base even as the planets started orbiting the iridescent candy sun.
Celestia hadn't been spared from the pulse, her wings losing their magic just long enough for her to lose all control and slam into a wall. She slid down to the floor headfirst, which made the rainbows especially impressive. "Well," she said as she waited for the room to stop spinning, “At least we don’t have to deal with any customers today.”
Naturally, the door opened. “Goooood morning, Sweet… Stilton’s ghost!” Cheese Sandwich’s jaw dropped as he took in the gastronomical astronomy before him. “Wow, Mr. Swirl. When you said you were going all out for the National Dessert Competition, you weren’t kidding!”
Starswirl smirked at the compliment. At some point between Celestia setting the keystone and Clover helping her back to her hooves, he had completely recovered from the ordeal. He even had his usual hat back on. “I never kid, Cheese. Not when it comes to the two most important things in the world.”
“Magic and baking,” his three apprentices droned.
“Yes, yes, laugh all you want. But mark my words!" Starswirl thrust a hoof into the air. "This will give Sweet Reads the recognition we deserve!”
"And earning you five years on the judges' panel so you can tell everypony else what they're doing wrong," noted Clover.
"Merely a side benefit," said Starswirl, despite his growing grin.
Cheese beamed. “Well, I know Princess Pinkie’s gonna love it! I just have one question.”
“And that would be?”
“How are you gonna get it outside?”
Starswirl blinked, then flickered, briefly revealing a glimpse of a stallion who looked as disheveled as Celestia felt. A moment later, he reinforced the illusion, then looked back over his creation as though he'd only just seen it. “Ah. Hmm." He stroked his beard for a moment before nodding to himself. "Stygian! Go fetch Anna Kata’s Treatise on Teleportation Circles. Fillies, begin the nonstructural decorating.”
All three of his apprentices knew there was only one right answer there. “Yes, Mr. Swirl.”
Five reference volumes, three spell matrices, and a break for pancakes later, the Heavenly Confection was safely aboard a super-stable dining car that would see it and the competitors to Canterlot. Celestia's friends had gathered over the course of the process, somewhere between offering help in times of need and enjoying the street theater.
In Trixie's case, looking for inspiration was probably somewhere between the two on her list of priorities. She stuck her head in the car and looked around, her eyes wide with childlike wonder. "It's bigger on the inside."
"Time Turner's Tardiness Trumper," Starswirl said proudly.
Trixie reached out at the runes inscribed along the door of the train car with childlike heedlessness of consequences. "So what happens if Trixie scuffs this—"
Pride quickly gave way to self-preservation. "Out, you hellion, out!" Starswirl cried, magically grabbing Trixie by her cape and hauling her back onto the platform.
Celestia couldn't help but smile. "Not all magic is supposed to explode, Trixie."
"Then that magic isn't helping Trixie pay off her mortgage." She spun on a back hoof and trotted off, muzzle in the air. "Come, Soarin'. I have live-fire exercises for the show tonight and the mayor insists somepony keep a raincloud nearby."
Soarin' gave Celestia a high wing and took to the air himself. "Good luck! Sorry we can't be there. You comin', Boneless?"
The little phoenix gave an eager chirp and fitfully fluttered up onto Soarin's back. Celestia tried not to wince. She'd always been fascinated by tales of the majestic, undying birds who carried an ember of the sun's fire in their souls.
Then she'd met Boneless. He was a sweetie, but she could hardly call a phoenix with chronic alopecia "majestic." Molting was an awkward time for any feathered creature, as Celestia could attest. For phoenixes, it was even worse. But he was still a delight, and had fallen in love with the town just as much as Cheese had.
Cheese himself waved off Boneless with an even bigger grin than usual. "Have fun, little buddy!"
"Anyone else find that odd?" said Stygian.
"What," said Celestia, "that a phoenix likes being around a mare who constantly smells like black powder and has no sense of fire safety?"
That got a rare smile out of him. "Well, when you put it like that..."
"Sorry we can't come to see how you all do, " said Coloratura. "Some days it seems like there's too much to do Celebration Day."
Vinyl just gave her an incredulous look over her shades until Rara squirmed and said, "I did say 'seems.'"
That got a nod. The holiday that commemorated holidays was sacrosanct, after all. "I'll allow it. We still got a concert to prep for your class." Vinyl gave a single wave as she made for the schoolhouse. "Have fun stuffing Princess Ponka Po, guys."
"With something like that?' Cheese's smile found a way to grow even wider. "She'll love it!"
The conductor cleared his throat and looked pointedly at his pocket watch. "We really do need to get going, folks."
At that, Cheese and the competitors scrambled on board, settling in the still limited seating of the expanded car. Stygian found a dark corner and cracked open a book, which was his default state when Starswirl wasn't prodding him. The only pony Celestia had met who was better at finding somewhere shadowy to skulk was her own sister, and she had some plans for the two of them next Hearts and Hooves Day... assuming she could ever get Luna away from the family moisture farm outside of Las Pegasus.
On a related note, Celestia sat next to Clover, prepared to nettle her about gossip regarding her and Rara's brother Smart Cookie. But before she could start, Starswirl spoke up from the seats facing her. She reflexively fell silent and listened.
"Good to hear such confidence from the princess's student."
"Hey," Cheese said from next to him, "if I didn't know what Princess Pinkie liked, I wouldn't be a very good student, would I?"
Starswirl shrugged. "The magic of joy and friendship isn't exactly my field of study, but you do seem very capable in your chosen discipline."
Cheese tilted his head in thought. "I've been meaning to ask you that for a while now, Mr. Swirl. 'Why did somepony like you get into baking anyway?"
The temperature of the train seemed to drop a few degrees. Bucephalus shuddered in its orbit within the Heavenly Confection. Stygian briefly glanced up from his book. "And what exactly do you mean by 'somepony like me'?" Starswirl drew out the last three words with particular distaste, like black licorice taffy.
"You know, a fancy, big-time wizard!" Cheese threw his forehooves into the air for emphasis. "Seems like there's a big difference between teleport circles and cream puffs."
"Ah." The dread atmosphere faded as quickly as it came. Starswirl settled into his familiar lecturing cadence. "I thought the same way, once. Then I met Meadowbrook. After she pieced my heart back together, she showed me how a well-stocked kitchen has just as many possibilities as an arcane laboratory." After a moment, his tone shifted to the closest thing he had to embarrassment. "Though combining the two in the same room rarely ends well. Long story short, that led to my second divorce."
"I thought Meadowbrook was his third wife," Celestia whispered to Clover.
The other mare shook her head. "No, that was Somnambula. I was there for her."
"Didn't mean to touch a nerve, Mr. Swirl," said Cheese.
"I know you didn't, lad. It's just that..." Starswirl sighed and looked off into the middle distance. Celestia said nothing about the time she'd caught him practicing that look in the bathroom mirror. "Well, during my first National Dessert Competition, this horn of mine got some dirty looks."
Cheese's jaw dropped. "Really? In Canterlot? I've never seen another town with so many unicorns. I must have gotten called the names of fifty different coltservants in Princess Pinkie's School for Gifted Goofballs. And that was just my first week!"
"Oh, especially in Canterlot. Meadowbrook had to point out why; baking's an earth pony's game most of the time, even in the capital." Starswirl scoffed. He had even more practice with scoffs. "A lot of them thought I'd ruin the whole thing with dainty little petit fours and dessert forks."
Clover couldn't help but grin at that. "Yes, because if anypony's concerned with etiquette and appearances, it's you, sir."
"Watch it, filly," Starswirl snarled out, though without any real ire. "I still sign your paychecks. But yes, most of the competitors realized I'm not the typical muzzle-in-the-air Canterlotter when I unveiled my famous levitating beignets and offered free samples for everypony there."
Cheese nodded at that. "Fried dough, one of Princess Pinkie's twelve secrets of diplomacy."
A conductor moved through the car at that point, calling "Canterlot, next stop!" That got everypony to jump; the spell had kept any of them from even noticing as the train had begun climbing the Canterhorn. There was no more time for small talk during the frantic scramble to make sure the Heavenly Confection would be stable as they came out of the train terminal.
The whole system accounted for and underway before long, held aloft by three telekinetic fields with a spotter above and below. The strange procession didn't even draw that much attention. This was Canterlot, after all, home for cutting-edge magic researchers and Princess Pinkie herself. Five ponies carrying an edible, moving orrery probably wasn't the strangest thing they'd even seen that day.
As the group approached the main castle courtyard, the frosted spires of Castle Canterlot in clear view, Cheese spoke up again, so casually one would never suspect he was under a few hundred pounds of processed sugar. "So, what happened after the beignets?"
Clover and Stygian traded uneasy looks from the rear points of the traingle. Starswirl didn't even notice the extra distraction. "With that little misunderstanding cleared up, I was able to make several valuable connections in the industry." He frowned. "Though never quite enough to propel Sweet Reads to national renown. Still, just about the only pony there who still has a chip on her withers around me is—"
"Starswirl, is that you?" came a voice up ahead. The speaker glanced up at Celestia, and for all the altitude she might have had, she still felt like that mare was looking down her nose at her. "Goodness, I'd heard you were trying again with a pegasus, but I didn't think you'd go so much younger!"
"Spoiled Milk," Starswirl concluded. A cloud passed in front of the sun. The air seemed to cool far more than that could have accounted for. Celestia felt herself involuntarily climb a few more feet into the air. Sparks danced along her pinions, and they were nothing compared to the intense energy between Starswirl and Spoiled Milk.
"Ooh, is that a cheesecake?"
And just like that, the cloud moved. Celestia nearly fell muzzle first into the Confection from the sudden loss of tension. Clover gave a nervous giggle that she quickly stifled.
And Spoiled blinked at Cheese, who certainly hadn't been standing between her and Starswirl a moment ago, then looked at the cake balanced on her back, stretching from forelegs to tail. "Er, yes. Yes it is." She put her muzzle back in the air. "I normally delegate, but I could hardly call myself a wedding planner if I couldn't handle the catering."
Cheese gave an impressed whistle. "Weddings, huh? That's the advanced stuff. Never tried planning one myself."
"Ah. A party pony." Spoiled offered something that might pass as a smile in dim light. "How quaint."
"Cheese here is—"
"Oh, nopony special," Cheese demurred.
Starswirl raised an eyebrow. Celestia caught the tail twitch and zipped to the blind spot above and behind Spoiled, giving her master the slightest nod. He shrugged and said no more.
As Spoiled started to look behind her, Cheese spoke up again, shaking her hoof and drawing her attention enough for Celestia to get back in position. "Just here in town to see a friend and enjoy Celebration Day," said Cheese. "It's a day for fun, after all! We should all be having it."
"Of course," Spoiled said in the tone used by ponies who had no idea how to talk to foals when they were forced to. "You run along now. Don't want to keep your friend waiting."
"Sure thing." Cheese gave one last waved before trotting off. "Good luck!"
"How... sweet." Spoiled looked to Starswirl, her quasi-smile curdled into something much more sinister, and much more natural for her. "And so charitable, humoring your kind."
Starswirl sighed. "Spoiled, this tribalism was old long before either of us was even born. It isn't the Three Tribes Era, and you are a long way from Chancellor Cobblestone."
She fluttered her lashes in a maneuver that might have worked thirty years earlier. "Is it tribalism, or is it just concern for an old friend?"
"You made your thoughts on the matter abundantly clear when you found out I'd be marrying Meadowbrook."
Spoiled waved that off. "That wasn't because you have a horn, Star. I just thought she could do better. Besides, in my line of work, repeat customers are the last thing you want to see. It was practically my duty to warn her what she was getting into."
Starswirl narrowed his gaze, the magic along his horn spiking with suppressed anger. "Is it your duty to make a mule of yourself in front of the entire pavilion?"
"I do beg your pardon," said a passing competitor.
Starswirl doffed his hat to her. "And I yours, Mulia."
"Hmm." Spoiled glanced up at Celestia. Her grin somehow became even more unpleasant. "I suppose I could focus more on your recent dip into cradle robbing."
Starswirl just gave that a flat look. Celestia took advantage of the break in the back-and-forth to say "I'm just his apprentice, Ms. Milk."
"And far more capable with an oven than Somnambula ever was," added Starswirl.
"'Celestia.'" Coming from Spoiled, it sounded like the name of an exotic parasite. "Well. So kind of you to come down to our level. As much as you have."
Celestia blushed and caught herself shedding altitude just before her hooves clipped a candy-coated comet. "My parents like the classics."
"How appropriate that they found you a relic to apprentice under." Spoiled sniffed. "Not that I'd expect a real baker to give you the time of day."
Celestia landed hard enough to make her hooves ache, wings flared and muzzle scowling. "He is a real baker!"
"Of course."
A hoof on her withers was the only thing keeping Celestia from doing something she'd regret. "I can defend myself, Tia," Starswirl said to her before glaring at Spoiled. "I am a real baker."
"You're a busybody sticking your horn where it doesn't belong. The rest of the real competitors may look past that, but I am a direct descendant of Cup Cake the Aproned. Baking is in my blood." Spoiled turned away, muzzle in the air. "And if you'll excuse me, I've spent more than enough time disgracing the profession by associating with you."
"Why that, that..." Celestia sputtered as she watched Spoiled go.
"Whatever you're about to say, I concur." Starswirl shook his head. "Spoiled Milk has consistently been the worst part of the Competition every time I've entered. And her obsession with her own ancestry would put half of the unicorn nobility to shame. And really, if we want to talk about failed marriages—"
"Sir, could you please help carry this monstrosity!?" cried Clover.
"You let go somewhere around 'I am a real baker,'" Stygian added through gritted teeth.
Master and apprentice turned to see the other unicorns struggling with the weight of the Confection. "Of, yes, of course." Starswirl reestablished his grip and led the group towards the castle. "Come along, everypony. We're entry number 37."
"What is wrong with that mare?" Celestia said as she got back into position.
Starswirl chuckled at that. "Oh, we don't have nearly enough time to go through the whole list. Unfortunately, baking talent isn't on it. As she said, she's a wedding planner by mark, and so her talent includes catering."
"So that cheesecake—"
"Is incredible, yes, as I can attest from personal experience." Starswirl sighed. "A shame about the mare who makes it. She would've fit right in before the Windigo Exodus."
"Which you can also say from personal experience?" Clover said as the guards directed them to their spot in the gardens, where many other baked greats were already on display.
"I'm not that old, filly." Starswirl growled that out, but Celestia could still see his withers shake with unvoiced laughter.
"Has anypony seen Cheese Sandwich?" said Stygian.
That brought up the whole team short. At least until the Heavenly Confection began to dip and the unicorns all scrambled to get it on its display table. For her part, Celestia looked around from her higher vantage point. "I don't see him anywhere, but he does this sometimes. He always just says he was needed somewhere else whenever I ask."
"It's not hard to guess where the princess's personal student might be in Canterlot," said Starswirl. "For now, we focus on making sure the Confection is in top condition. And beating the gold jewelry off of Spoiled." He lit his horn, sending a beam of magic into the Confection's keystone to have it fully charged for the competition.
The keystone exploded instead.
And as planets fell and asteroids flew off into remote corners of the palace gardens, Starswirl could only stare at where his masterpiece should have been. "Oh."
Author's Note
“Hey FoME, do your stories share any continuity?”
And for those keeping track:
• Somewhere in the wide world of Equestria, there’s a unicorn wandering from place to place trying to be as good a baker/polymath/general day-brightener as the pegasus she met when she first ran away from home.
• Another mare goes from town to town offering adjustments, fittings, custom work, and, in less fashion-conscious areas, gem dowsing services. She provides a runway for any aspiring young models who want to strut their stuff and hers.
• Svengallop got his hooks in a young Apple Chord. She’ll drop him like a hot potato once she reunites with a foalhood friend.
• A pegasus chooses to let zoocore—a genre she invented, consisting mostly of remixed animal noises—speak for her.
• And another pegasus already flies with the team Soarin’s working towards after credible witnesses actually saw that first Rainboom.
