Princess Celestia was, unquestionably, the most elegant, regal, and graceful pony in all of Equestria. The very pinnacle of style, bearing and propriety. That was what anypony who was anypony would tell you.
Except...
Except, Rarity pondered, leaving the thought hanging as she waited for the servers to bring the hay course.
The dressmaker was attending a great banquet in honour of the opening of the new Marefield Park General Hospital in Canterlot, proceeds to be donated to sprucing up the new foal’s wing of course. Princess Celestia herself had invited Twilight, probably as an excuse to see her student again, but the invitation had extended to Twilight’s six close friends.
Naturally, Rarity had accepted immediately, occasions such as this were perfect for forming new contacts in Canterlot. As expected, Applejack and Rainbow had declined, as had Pinkie after Rarity made it clear that this party would be similar to the gala. She had managed to drag Fluttershy along on the promise of seeing the Canterlot Gardens and Spike was always enthusiastic about a chance to show them around his old home.
So here she was, eating a meal that would run to nine courses, being seen in a position of great honour near Princess Celestia herself. It would be doing wonders for her reputation. Unfortunately, she’d managed to end up as the lemon of the table. To her right, Fluttershy was deep in conversation with a charmingly inoffensive young stallion who was probably the son of somepony.
She’d poke that in the right direction later; right now they were acting just too cute to interrupt!
Well, yes, anyway, to her right Fluttershy was busy and to her left Twilight and Spike were both reminiscing with the Princess about events back when Twilight had lived in Canterlot, which was fine except Rarity wasn’t really able to contribute much. So for the moment, she had been left with her own thoughts.
So. Princess Celestia. The most graceful pony in all of Equestria. Except Rarity had been taking the opportunity to study the princess closely with her very practiced eye, and now she wasn’t sure anymore.
There were certain mistakes that tended to be made by pretenders that would give them away, even if they had made a study of proper etiquette. It wasn’t enough, for example, to simply know which fork was which, one had to know instinctively. One mustn’t pick up one’s cutlery too hesitantly, or too eagerly, as if one had something to prove. Rarity knew these tells. She was, after all, a pretender herself.
So when Rarity had spied a slight—oh so slight—look of bemusement on the princess’s face as she surveyed the bewildering array of culinary implements surrounding her starter, Rarity had begun to think. Indeed, a part of her mind had been quietly mulling the implications of her observation ever since.
How old were the standards of table manners practiced in Canterlot and other cities? Actually, she could give the answer for Canterlot exactly. Just yesterday she’d been giving a panicky Twilight lessons from her copy of the book in question. The Pony's Guide To Perfect Gentility, which most later guides had been essentially cribbed from, had been published a mere eighty years ago. Enough time to become ingrained in the collective consciousness of several generations of upper class ponies. But how old was the princess?
Ah, now that wasn’t exactly a proper question to be thinking about. But it was true that mom—mother talked about Celestia being the princess back when she had been a foal. And Celestia had occasionally appeared in various history lessons from her youth, so she’d gotten the vague idea that in some sense, Celestia had always been about.
Only after the events of last year’s Summer Sun Celebration had Rarity been made acutely aware that Princess Celestia was, at the very least, one thousand years old. She predated the publishing of Guide to Perfect Gentility twelve times over, give or take. The very bedrock of social propriety and customs that Rarity had spent her late fillyhood studying must seem like a passing fad to the princess.
How many times had standards of manners and etiquette changed? Would Celestia really have bothered to study the minutiae? Wouldn’t she have better things to do?
Rarity shifted her attention back to the room again; five impeccably dressed unicorn servers were levitating the hay course towards the tables. As she watched them, an idea began to form.
In a nine course meal such as this one, it was expected that one should use particular forks for particular courses. It just so happened that the fork for the hay course and the fork for the floral course that would come after looked very similar. Confusing them was a mistake even practiced social climbers might make.
So as the servers reached the high table and lifted the lids off the plate covers, Rarity struck. She interjected into Spike’s account of some mischief or other with a polite question, just at the right moment so that Celestia was looking at her when she levitated her fork. Her floral fork. She was rewarded with a very slight expression of puzzlement and uncertainty from the princess, there and gone so fast she would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking for it. And then, miraculously, the princess, the standard against which gentility itself was measured, copied the actions of Rarity the Unicorn, a daughter of a tiny and unsophisticated nowhere village, and picked up the wrong fork too.
Because Rarity the Unicorn was the very pinnacle of good grace and manners, wasn’t she? Or at least, impressionable young Twilight would have described Rarity as such in her letters. And the princess wasn’t known for doubting her faithful student very often. It had been too easy.
So then, Celestia, you’re a pretender too.
She should have been more surprised, but somehow she wasn’t. Not after everything she had seen since the day she had met Twilight. She did find herself feeling strangely guilty at the sight of an oblivious Princess Celestia eating her hay with a floral fork.
Fear not, Princess, your secret is safe with me.
Thankfully, the chances of anypony noticing were slim. The two forks did look very similar and nopony would be looking for that kind of mistake from Celestia anyway.
Rarity turned back to her own food, and mulled over the meaning of what she had learned, if it even meant anything at all. She was, of course, stuck with a floral fork too. A fitting punishment, then, for her minor act of betrayal.
Though all things considered, it did a perfectly adequate job on the hay.
