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// Princess Celestia Eats Breakfast 
// Story: The Random Pictures to Fiction Collection 
// by Pics2Fics 
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Based on this image:






The cereal makes a distinct tinkling noise as it falls and clinks against the hard plastic sides of the bowl. As the opaque white waterfall of milk falls upon the bowl of sugary loops, Princess Celestia smiles upon her breakfast. Folding the milk carton back closed, her magic lifts it back into the refrigerator and closes the door. Lifting the spoon with her hoof, she prepares to dine.

A spoonful of the newly milked cereal rises towards her. Opening her mouth to permit the spoons entry, she wraps her lips around it and pulls back to deposit the food onto her tongue. The sweet taste along with the cool temperature of the milk flows overs her tastebuds as she shifts her mouth’s contents into one cheek and begins to chew, finding satisfaction in the delightful crunch.

Lifting up another spoonful, her eyes drift onto the cereal box. Or rather, the back of it where a number of brainteaser puzzles are printed such as word searches, mazes, a couple spot-the-difference pictures, and a cut-out folding project. She contemplates and decides a few early morning mental exercises wouldn’t be a bad way to start the day.

With no scissors readily available, she starts with the maze. Beginning where the box says to start, her eyes enter the labyrinth of colorful walls. Following the paths, she runs into a couple deadends which she backtracks with her sights and follows another way. After a final couple twists and turns, her gaze is led out to the finish.

Crunching another mouthful of cereal, she begins on the wordsearch. Only eight words in total, all fairly short in only a six by seven space of letters. Word one: Dog. Her eyes begin scanning each letter, looking for a D. As soon as she sees one, she looks at each of its surrounding letters, looking for the next letter in sequence. After the third letter, she finds the O in front of it and the G thereafter.

Next word: Cat. Beginning again, she searches for a C. The second one she finds also has an A next to it, but no T. However, she notices something about the A. There is an N below it and a K above. On either sides of that column of letters is also S and E. She looks to the list of words she was supposed to find, and sure enough, Snake is listed as one of the last ones. She grins to herself in a bit of self-satisfaction, having found one she wasn’t even trying for.

A few more moments and bites of cereal later, she has found all the words within the jungle of letters and starts on the the two pictures with very minor differences. Can you find five different things about these pictures? it asks above the pair. Her eyes scan over one, and then the other. A couple are obvious: one is missing the cat sitting on the fence and the color of the flower in the other is purple instead of pink. The rest take her some time to find, even making her pause in her eating. She’s able to see a pony that has their eyes closed instead of open and a snake that has its tongue out in one, but not the other. However, as many times as she goes back and forth between the two pictures, she cannot find the fifth and final difference.

She brings the bowl, now devoid of cereal, up to her lips. The milk is now as sugary sweet as the contents that once floated in it. As it pours down her throat, she sets it back down, wipes the leftover milk mustache off with a hoof, and turns back towards the pictures. If she didn’t defeat this challenge, then she knew it would only be on her mind later.

A couple more minutes pass and she still could not find the last difference between the two. Looking up at the clock, she notices the time. She had some noble representatives meeting with her soon so she had to prepare. With a sigh, she admits defeat and turns the box to its side where all the answers to the puzzles are printed. There was the maze she completed with ease, the word search that posed no challenge, but there was the puzzle that had bested her. She read off the answers, each one she recognized as have founding, but was confused when only four were listed. A little message was printed underneath:

These are all the differences between them. The question was ’Could you find five differences?’ The answer is NO!

"Oh, pfft!" Celestia vocalizes, dumbfounded. Her eyes narrow upon the cardboard box that dare fool her, albeit with a smirk. At first she thought is was mean for a foal’s cereal to have such a mean trick printed on the box, but as she ponders it, she begins to nod. A bit crude, but it shows a child to look past the question initially asked. It employs an outside-the-box tactic and teaches a lesson in critical thinking that Celestia can agree being important to developing young minds.

Lifting the cereal box up with her magic, she places on the shelf in the cabinet. Such a reliable early morning friend, it would sure to be pulled out again, same time tomorrow.