A Face Full of Pastry

"I've heard the stories you know," Dinky said to the blue unicorn mare, "Element of Magic, hero of Oaton, savior of Moonville, and undefeated in any competition of liquor."

Trixie rolled her eyes, she was doing that again.

"Dinky," Trixie said, dipping her head out of sight of the stallions who were arrested and covered in fruit filling, but otherwise capable of listening in, "You know me, I know you,  we don't have to do the story telling thing every time we meet someone new." Ditzy, Dinky's mother, gave Trixie a sideways look, and she quickly added, "And cut the part about drinking contests, that was kinda dumb, to be honest."

Dinky caught wise to the shared look, and pouted, "But you said the expedition-"

"Exposition"

"Ex-magician parts were the best part, and you made me get the voice right like five times!"

Ditzy audibly cleared her throat,  signaling Trixie that now was not a good time for a filly to be in the room and she should be escorted out, by her mother, immediately. Trixie rolled her eyes, and Ditzy, not to be undermined, rolled her left eye around and round in that way that guaranteed victory in a staring contest against any opponent in Equestria. Ditzy won, and Dinky was escorted off the premises. Having been literally browbeaten, Trixie turned her attention back to the captives, testing their restraints with her unicorn magic, and removing the muzzle on the lead horse's mouth.

"So," she started, but was spat at by the stallion. It took her a good fifteen seconds to levitate the spittle, then painstakingly place it deep within the offender's nasal cavity, but she figured that time was well worth the point she was trying to make, and the stallion seemed to have calmed down, so she continued.

"I would like to know about Corona's plan, if you'd please."

The stallion considered another rude gesture, but a cold twinge in his nose served his interest otherwise, and there wasn't a whole lot he could say to that effect. "I don't know anything."

"I didn't ask you about your qualifications for being an moron. You were at the attack on Her Highness, the Princess Cadence's engagement party, there was some sort of enchanted food that got loose, and you were the caterer. Was there anything, anything at all you can tell me."

"I'm not a moron..." The stallion looked down at the floor, somewhat dejectedly.

Trixie sighed, "Gonna assume that's the pie talking, the yeast takes the brunt of the vegetable brainwashing, leaves you a little loopy but otherwise gets it out of your system." Then she exited the room, leaving the stallion to ponder if his hooves were always that color or if they changed in the past fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, while the Elements we getting nowhere in their interrogations into what was going on, Corona wasn't faring much better in her efforts to turn this situation into her favor. In short, maybe spiking the engagement party with enchanted vegetables as a smokescreen was not her best plan ever, but in a short amount of time, it would all be worth it. She didn't have the faintest idea on how, but as the proverb of the Flutterponies who stole undergarments says, achievement will come to those who work for them, and this goal in particular was the biggest find since Corona was locked in the sun.

When the royal couple announced the engagement party, word had spread that a fabled Vorpalberry Pastry would be Equestria's wedding gift to the royal couple. Under normal circumstances, Celestia would have wished them well, and had been on her way. Getting banished for a thousand years under charges of high treason, having the Elements of Harmony taken out from under her, and dealing with incompetent henchponies had not sated her hunger for vengeance, nor pastry for that matter. The plan suffered a minor setback in that the Vorpalberry Pastry was not presented at the engagement party, and the zebra's vegetables of obedience were for naught. Nevertheless, the plan was on track, Corona figured, as the pie could not be hidden forever, and the vegetables were gaining influence over the population.

Celestia was always a nervous eater, and as the Lord High Goddess and Tyrant Sun focus was upon her sister, and there was no royal degree of fitness or diet in play, Corona found herself free to gorge on any food her heart desired, her Alicorn Metabolism taking the brunt of whatever binges she could throw at it, and all was well. But then came the Pie, the Vorpalberry Pastry, that awoke a hunger in her unseen in Equestria for millenia, as that there was in Vorpalberry. A lust so powerful, that it would consume the mind if left unchecked, and a thousand years with her palette unwhet had her in a pie lust such that the very words set her aflame. It was most serious business, and required the utmost brilliance of planning to acquire.

Unfortunately for the poor soul Corona was using to deliver messages, he returned as she was in the middle of a binge such as described, with pies of all varieties trying to satiate her hunger, but all of them failing and only making her more irritable.  Worse still, he brought news of the ponies using the starch and yeast reaction of their own pastry pies to nullify the effect of the cursed vegetables, and this was not the news she wanted to hear. Especially not now.

As Equestrian scholars tell that story, the messenger was offered a slice of Banana Cream Pie, but was never heard from again.