The Donut or the Bagel
Chapter One: Donuts
By: TheCrazyAsian A.K.A. Feasttalon
Princess Luna stepped up a few stairs,the plush red carpeting comforting her hooves and bright technicolor lights beaming on her face from the stained glass window in front of her. She looked up and squinted, trying to adjust to even this small amount of light coming though the window as the sun was setting. Eventually her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw her sister sitting on the throne as to be expected. She gave her sister a curt nod and without saying a Celestia's horn started to glow and the sun sank below the horizon it had so desperately been clinging to; though it would appear once again tomorrow morning.
With the sun now below the horizon it was Celestia's turn to get some rest and prepare for raising the sun tomorrow, and as according to custom she must step down and let her sister assume her place for the night. As Celestia walked past her sister she said something almost inaudible voice, "Good night sister."
"See you when the sun rises," Luna replied. With that Celestia walked down the hall, opened the double doors and left the room; leaving Princess Luna to her own devices for the rest of the night. Luna took her seat on the throne but before she lifted the moon she craned her head back and looked at the stained glass window. It was a depiction of Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony defeating her alter-ego NightMare Moon. It was a constant reminder to her of what she had tried to do and done, but it also motivated her to redeem herself.
Princess Luna then turned forwards, towards the doors and with one flash brought the moon above the horizon, signaling to all the ponies of Equestria that night has begun. Now with the moon up it would travel by itself through the sky until it reach the other side of the sky; when it reached that point it would once again be her responsibility to lower it. Now Luna was in for a boring wait for the rest of the night, sitting there with nothing to do. Unlike her sister, Luna had the unfortunate job of the "Graveyard Shift" where nopony other than the guards, would ever come into the room. Celestia on the other hand spent her shift dealing with the various bickering of everypony in Equestria; she would trade this silence with that in a heartbeat.
Luna rested her hoof on the side of the chair and started starring off into the distance, daydreaming, or maybe she could call it nightdreaming. She went deep into her mind, deep into the sea of thought where she was by herself and no one could bother her. She had had lots of experience surrounding herself in a protective layer of her mind when she was on the moon. Something to pass the boredom at the least.
A few minutes later there was a subtle "Beep. Beep. Beep." that steadily grew louder. At first Luna didn't even notice it in her sea of thoughts all she saw and heard were her ideas. But eventually the sound grew louder where it overpowered her mind; one eye opened as she looked for the source of the sound. Her eye wandered around the room looking for anything that had changed, but after a few seconds she saw that there was nothing.
She closed her eyes again and tried going back into the sea of thoughts but was once again stopped by the strange beeping sound. Instead of just opening her eyes this time she stood up and began to walk to the door. Another flash of magic appeared and the doors slammed open. Luna gazed down the hallway in front of her and saw a red light flashing. She made her way down the hallway; the sound of her hooves muffled by the soft carpeting.
When she got to the window she saw a truck parked outside the castle, the back end sticking into the side on the building. Luna wondered to herself, "What's a truck doing here right now? Shouldn't they be asleep or something?" Then a rather gruff looking pony stepped out from the front part of the truck; his cutie mark was some sort of round shaped thing. "I wonder what that is," Luna thought to herself. When Luna looked back she saw the pony talking to one of the night guards and then he drove off.
After the truck left Luna watched several of the Royal Guards heave some large crates onto their backs and carry them into the castle. After a few minutes the last of the guards went back inside the castle and Luna was left staring into the night; it started raining a shortly after the last guards disappeared from view. Rain. Night. Window. Memories came flooding back, especially one particular night. It was back when she was younger, the first time she raised the moon. She could see herself back those years ago, the pitter patter of the rain eventually brought her back to reality.
The outside of the castle was now soaked in rain; the rain on the window blurring the view of the outside and of her moon which was now well above the horizon. The delivery truck, that stood out in her mind. Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was just out of boredom but she wanted to find out what were inside those crates. The truck had unloaded somewhere in the bowels of the castle, a place she was rather unaccustomed to being in let along finding her way around.
The only thing she knew about it was that she could get there through one of the many servant's entrances in the castle; the only problem was that she didn't exactly know where those were either. It's not as if she could look a directory on the wall to find them. Luna closed her eyes again and immersed herself in thoughts again. It was as if she was floating in a crystal clear pool of water with her thoughts and memories floating around in the water. She looked around rapidly searching for one memory that somehow involved the servants. The moon, no. Talking to Celestia, no. Tea time, yes!
Bright lights of every color began flashing in Luna's mind; then there was a burst of white light that almost would have blinded her if it had been real. Then nothing, only black; after a few more seconds light began to slowly filter back into her mind and the scene in front of her began to unfold. Luna saw her sister sitting at the table; she was saying something Luna couldn't here. This was her chance, she had to find where the servers came from. To her left Luna saw nothing, just a few potted plants bathing in the sunlight coming from a large window. She looked behind her, no servant door, all she saw was the large double door she would use to go in the room. She looked to her right and there it was, cleverly camouflaged in the wall was a small door.
Luna let go of the memory; it was like she was sliding out of a comfy bed that was made of clouds. There was another bright flash and the world was black as the dead of night. The pitter patter of the rain hitting the window was louder and more frequent that before. When Luna tried looking out of the window all she could see was a blur.
After a few minutes Luna got up from the plush red carpet of the floor; still slightly dizzy from her trip into the sea that is her memories. A smile crept onto her face and her eyes had a sparkle to them; she looked almost deranged from the look on her face. Know she knew where to go.
The servant's door was enveloped in the blue glow of magic as it swung open revealing a dimly lit passageway that went left, right and down. The passageway was designed to be traversed by regular sized ponies so for Luna it was going to be a rather uncomfortable fit. Luna lowered her head and she tried to get the front of her body into the narrow hallway.
The sound of muffled groans as Luna jumped back from where she was standing. She hadn't seen anything scary but she had scraped her horn on the ceiling of the passage. It felt as if someone was driving a metal spike into her horn and punching he head in between hits. The throbbing transfered from her horn down into her skull, it was as if her horn was reverberating the hit on the wall into her brain.
A few tea cups shattered on the floor and filled the air with the sound of glass breaking, one of them fell onto the princess' head as she laid on the ground clutching her head. Luna cringed at the new wave of pain sent through her head. Luna just curled up in a ball, with her hooves on her head, shaking from the pain.
The waves of pain eventually slowed down and declined, from being a tsunami to being something more comparable to the sea shore on a calm day. She slowly uncurled herself from the ball she was in and opened her eyes and took a look around. Through the window on the far wall she could see that her moon was about one third across the sky, shower a soft light on all the surfaces of the room.
Luna slowly stood up and stretched her limbs. The teacups around the room flew back into their places on the table after being engulfed in a blue aura. After Luna finished cleaning up the room, making sure that no one would know somepony had been in the room, she took another try at getting into the servant's door.
The princess craned her neck down, making sure that her horn was well below the ceiling this time. After that she stepped forward very slowly, making sure that she wouldn't get stuck between the walls. She cautiously walked down the hall to the end of it where it diverged into three different paths. Luna thought for a second about which direction to head. Going right was definitely out of the question because she could see that the hall in that direction ended in a door labeled "Kitchen".
That left two options left, left or straight and then down. "Hmmm. Fifty-fifty chance isn't bad," Luna thought to herself. The sound of her hoof reverberated down the hall as she stepped forward. She wanted to go forward, but what if going left was right? She could spend the rest of the night wandering around aimlessly in the bowels of the castle.
A large blue colored ball streamed down the left hallway at an almost super-sonic pace, lighting the hall as it went along. The princess of the night looked down the hall as the ball of light traveled down the hall, paying attention to the doors along the way. After a few seconds there was a small boom sound as the ball of magic shattered into a million pieces and scattered along the floor, walls and ceiling.
The end of the hall was now lit up with a blue lite everywhere, everyone of the small shard was glowing the same color of Luna's magic. Now with help from the blue glow all over the end of the hall she could make out some small words on the door, it said "Kitchen". "The kitchen?" Luna thought to herself. She never knew that the kitchen was that close to the dining room, then again it would make logical sense to put the kitchen near where people ate. But a kitchen was a not a place people would store things and even if they did there were too many drawers and cabinets to go through all of them before the night was over.
That left one path open the princess, forwards and straight down a flight of stairs to another level of the catacombs within the walls of the palace. The princess trotted down the stairs and to the second level of the hidden passages, the only problem was that she couldn't see. It's wasn't just dark, it was pitch black impossible to see through. Darker than a night with no moon seen through the eyes of a pony with his eyes taped shut while under a pool of tar.
Then at the base of the staircase there was a faint blue glow that gradually dimmed over time; like what she did in the floor above Luna had shot a ball of blue magic down the hall. This hallway like the one above went straight for a short distance then diverged into three different hallways. The blue ball of energy kept traveling down the passage as before and smashed into a thousand pieces of broken glowing crystal. The writing at the end of the hall was now barely legible to the princess who was still standing at the bade of the stair case.
It said "Pantry" in a smaller text than the ones upstairs; the princess mused to herself as to why that would be for a few moments before returning to the task at hoof. She trotted forward to the door, the clop sound of her hoofsteps resonating through the hall. The door swung open revealing a rather large room filled from head to hoof with crates, barrels and boxes full of food. In the far corner, near a large roll down door, Luna could see the cart that had been outside; the water from the rain still not entirely dried.
Luna wanted, with all her strength, to run through the room and rip the tarp off of the cart and see what it was that was inside, what was it that she had seen the guard eating but there were stacks and stacks if food in her way, and she couldn't just run through them. What she did have to do was to find her way through the labyrinth in front of her and make her way to the cart full of proverbial gold on the other side. Remember that this room supplied all the food for everypony in Canterlot Canstle, it wasn't some small pantry that you would find in a small restaurant, no a better comparison would be to a large warehouse.
In front of her were four paths two paths which then lead to many other aisles the each lead to another aisle and so on and so forth. It seemed pretty straight forward to the princess as it was a rather simplistic grid format that she could navigate just by walking to the end of the aisle in front of her and then turning left. But after the princess had walked for about half a minute she saw that some boxes had collapsed down into aisle in front of her, piling up to the top of the shelves.
To Luna this seemed like a simple obstacle, the room was organized into a grid which makes finding a new path as simple as pie. The princess of the night backtracked a few steps and took a left at the first turn she could find and continued down the path until she saw an intersection between two paths. As the be expected by a grid, she had three choices ahead of her. The one going right made no sense, it would take her back to where she began. That left her with the choice of going straight or to the left, either one making as much sense as the other to take.
After tossing the proverbial coin in her mind the princess trotted forwards past the intersection and down the hall. From where the princess was standing she could see the end of the hallway, or at least what she thought was the end of the hallway. There was something rather strange about the wall; it seemed rather irregularly shaped and bumpy, not something to be expected or a wall, or at least a properly built wall. Between where Luna was standing now and the wall there were three other intersection where the princess would once again have the choice of direction to take.
The princess thought the simplest choice would be to just walk down the hall then turn left
