Dulcinea Versus a Series of Expertly Crafted Desserts
Princess Celestia embraced her sister. For security reasons, Celestia blepped, her tongue touching Luna's face. "It's happened again."
"Excuse me?" said the nearest royal guard.
"Princess Luna has been replaced by a detailed model, made of CAKE."
"You're certain, your highness?"
"Certain as certain can be. Call Canterlot's best detectives, and activate the Changeling Trackers Squadron!"
"Yes, your majesty." The guard trotted away.
Celestia licked her 'sister' again. She sighed. "If only I could hire a patissier this skilled to work in the Palace kitchens."
***
A pegasus pony, her gray coat accented by a cutie mark depicting bubbles, descended directly in front of Princess Celestia's throne. As she landed, she bowed. "Princess?"
Celestia nodded. "And you are?"
"Dulcinea. I mean, that's my real name, for formal stuff. Visiting you here is formal stuff, right?"
"Yes."
Dulcinea's mouth pulled a parcel out of her saddlebags, and spat it out. The pegasus then presented Princess Celestia with a clipboard, pen already clipped to it.
Celestia levitated the pen, signing her name to the delivery receipt form.
With one eye, Dulcinea squinted at the signature. "It's a little different this time," she noted.
"Pardon?"
"Your signature. It isn't quite the same as it was last week."
"Try the other eye."
The pegasus's squinting eye closed. She used the other to look through. "Nope, still a bit different."
Celestia replied, "I'm very tired. A meeting ran all day and half the night."
"I'm sure that makes sense. But I just thought of something. How do I know you're not a changeling impostor?"
Celestia sighed. "I suppose you have a point."
"I do?"
"This month, we've had a lot of trouble with changelings. They abduct some important pony or other--"
"I knew it! I just don't know HOW I knew it."
"And in that pony's stead, hoping to obscure that pony's absence, they leave...an impostor."
"I double knew it!"
"In my case, they usually leave an ice cream sculpture."
"What?"
On her own throne beside Celestia, Luna chimed in. "And it's ALWAYS vanilla. I'm thinking of issuing a royal edict, that all vanilla ice cream in Equestria must be tinted some color OTHER THAN my sister's. Just ONCE, I'd like my fake sister to be a different flavor."
Dulcinea blinked. "You EAT the ice cream?"
"Yes. It's the only way to be sure. And it prevents ponies from continuing to mistake the impostor for the real princess."
Dulcinea slowly stepped forward. She licked Celestia's muzzle. "Tastes like...fuzz. Pony hair."
Luna nodded. "Very well. You may be certain, then, that we are faced with the real princess, my true sister. Not some imitation."
"Royal sister, not royal SUSSter," Celestia added.
Luna groaned. "Celestia, I wish you would cease certain modern innovations. That noisome, noxious slang."
Celestia replied, "Skip skip skippity!"
Luna groaned again.
Dulcinea said, "Sometimes, I make deliveries to Princess Twilight. Should I be worried about Twilight being replaced by an ice cream sculpture too?"
Luna sucked air between her teeth. "No. It's never an ice cream sculpture, not with her. She's only been abducted twice this month, and each time the fiends left...a full set of encyclopedias."
"Encyclopedias?"
"The changelings hoped nopony would notice the difference."
"Oh. Did it work?"
"Only temporarily. The substitution was soon detected, and our Princess of Friendship was successfully recovered each time."
Not knowing what else to say, Dulcinea remarked, "That's good."
"Yes," Luna agreed. "It is, indeed, good."
The delivery pegasus stored away her clipboard with its paperwork. She bowed again. "A pleasure doing business with you!" The pegasus unfolded her wings.
"Wait," Luna said. "It is time for Our Royal Lunch Break. And while you are here...it would be a pleasure to treat you to lunch. An opportunity for Us to commune with the common ponyfolk."
Dulcinea blinked. "Really?"
"Yes."
"Thank you so much! This is such an honor!"
Celestia smiled regally. "Oh, think nothing of it. Follow Us."
***
As the three ponies walked across a large room, Dulcinea said, "That's funny."
"What is funny?" Luna inquired.
With one wing, Dulcinea pointed. "An iguana, sitting in a chair."
Sitting in another chair next to the reptile, a unicorn hissed, "How dare you?"
"Excuse me?" Dulcinea said.
"How dare you call Spike the Brave and Glorious, Hero of the Crystal Empire, an IGUANA?"
Dulcinea blinked. She squinted. She walked closer to the chair, and poked the reptile with one forehoof. "It's obviously an iguana. Even though somepony's painted purple spots on it."
"Racist!" the pony hissed. "You're an ANTI-REPTILE RACIST! BIGOT! SCUM! PREJUDICED PEGASUS SUPREMACIST! VEGETABLE EATER! FILTHY MODERATE PRO-DEMOCRACY CENTRIST! THAT'S THE SAME AS BEING A COMMUNIST AND A FASCIST!"
Dulcinea told the iguana, "If you're really Spike the dragon, say something."
The hissing pony's mouth moved only a little, as a voice unlike Spike's mumbled, "You wouldn't know a dragon if he flamed your mane off."
Dulcinea laughed. "I've delivered letters and parcels to Spike and Twilight all the time. And your little lizard is cute, but it's no Spike."
"Lies! Slanders! I shall sue your feathers off!" the hissing pony threatened. "You're a Markist-Lemonist-Meowist, and a traitor to all Equestria! I shall lock you up on charges! You shall spend your next ten years in a prison camp for enemy aliens and physical defectives! Turning big rocks into little rocks, and then gluing them back together into big rocks so you can do it all over again! I shall have you deported! I'll have your citizenship revoked! And then I'll have you extra specially renditioned so you can be put back into prison all over again!"
Celestia interposed one wing between Dulcinea and the unicorn. "If I may?" she said.
"Yes! Throw that impertinent, wrong opinioned, ocularly inadequate lizardcaller into a dungeon! Equestria Uber Alles!" The unicorn started to sing.
Celestia gently rubbed the tips of her wing's feathers against the unicorn's belly.
"Stop that!" the unicorn protested. But he also...chirruped?
"Ha!" Celestia crowed. "A universal changeling weakness! Tickle their bellies, and they can't help but chirp!"
"I accuse you of lese majeste!" the unicorn shouted, its legs now visibly rubbing together. "Tyranny! Blasphemy! Heretical notions! Simonizing! Anti-changeling harassment!"
"'Anti-changeling?'" Luna echoed.
Four palace guards trotted up, grabbing the 'unicorn' and cuffing him.
As three guards dragged him away, the 'unicorn' continued to shout out increasingly incoherent accusations and threats, like "I'll have you shut up in a mailbox, forever!"
In a flash of green light, the fourth guard transformed into a tall changeling with orange 'antler' style antennae and a multitoned green body. He wriggled his dark red wings, and grinned. "Hi."
"Thorax!" Celestia and Luna hugged him. "So nice to see you again. And thanks for your help."
"Glad to assist. It's just too bad some changelings don't want to get along and be friends."
"I'm confused," Dulcinea said. "Thorax is a changeling, but he's good?"
"Yes," Celestia agreed. "He's a friend."
"But that other changeling wasn't a friend?"
"Not right now," Luna said. "But there might still be hope for him. We'll just have to wait and see."
"I guess I understand? Kind of?" Dulcinea said. "But one thing still really confuses me."
"What's that?" Celestia asked.
"If that's Princess Cadance over there, why is a trail of ants carrying away bits of her tail?"
Luna sighed. "Again!?"
Addendum
Don't take what the fake unicorn says too seriously. It isn't any real political platform...it's a smokescreen.
Author's Note
Characters I ~Stole~ Borrowed From Other Fimfic Writers, In Some Sense Or Other
It's not Estee's fault that I borrowed her non-nickname name for 'Derpy.' (story link)
Please Do Not Blame Any of the Following People (Except Me) For This Story
One day, looking at
https://derpibooru.org/images/3485976 (link)
Lofty Withers said
Luna: enjoying a wing hug
Celestia: chomp
GaPJaxie said
Celestia is just testing if Luna is cake
MockingBirb said
Evil changelings have tried this trick like three times alreasy
Abduct Luna, leaving increasingly realistic cakes in her place hoping no one will notice she's gone.
(someone) said
I would read that fic
Other Notes
My headcanon is, 'Fake Princess Cadance' is a candy sculpture, with spun sugar for the mane and tail.
