With the snap-flash of teleportation magic, Celestia appeared in all her shining glory standing silhouetted before the morning sun coming into the library through a large window. Her mane of shifting rainbows formed an irregular halo around her head, and the gleam of one eye caught the golden sunlight. Spike, Twilight, and Fluttershy were all suitably impressed by her entrance, that they could not help but stop their conversation in awe. And then, she took a step forward from the shaft of sunlight, and dripped red liquid on the wooden floor and a small rug.
Spike couldn't help but laugh. The red liquid made a red bib beneath her chin than ran in irregular streaks down her otherwise pristinely white coat to follow her front legs down to the ground. When she walked, she left little red horseshoe-prints. From the half-disgusted look on her face, she knew that she left undignified tracks behind her, and was trying to avoid overmuch gesturing which would only spread the stain further on her alabaster fur.
"Does this," Celestia asked, levitating an empty glass from behind her wing, "belong to anypony?"
Fluttershy shrank slightly, envious of Tank's ability to hide inside his shell when she found nothing to hide behind. Celestia raised an eyebrow at her, and Fluttershy forced herself to croak out "Um..." while slightly raising her front hoof. With a resigned sigh, the princess floated the glass towards the little cowering pegasus, and placed it on the table nearest her. Fluttershy muttered out a thank you so quiet that the princess almost didn't hear it.
"I'm so sorry Princess!" Twilight said emphatically, drawing out the 'so'. "I know Spike didn't mean to throw a glass of mystery liquid at you!"
Effecting the gaze of an offended soveriegn, Celestia stared at the little dragon who had laughed at her moments ago. "Is this true, Spike?"
He shrank down to match Fluttershy under her gaze, while muttering, "I ah... It was... Not... Sorry, Princess! You see, I sniffed the red stuff that's all dripping down your nice white fur, and it made my nose all buzzy, and I ... ah... sneezed. Sorry..."
She continued to fix him with a glare that she normally reserved for clearing the petty nobles out from her Court.
"Um... do you want a towel or something, Princess? You're kind of dripping on the rug... so..." Spike pointed beneath her.
Celestia rolled her eyes and relaxed her imperial pose. "Am I still dripping?"
"I'll go get a towel!"
"You know Spike, I was in the middle of Court business. Receiving a report on apple prices from a growers' association."
Spike was nowhere to be seen, so Twilight spoke on his behalf. "I'm sure he didn't know that. We don't even know what that liquid was, maybe it was a sneezing potion of some kind. It seemed harmless enough. Sorry you had to come all the way out here Princess."
"Well, there's nothing for it now."
"Here, let me clean you up." Twilight's horn glowed dimly in the bright light, and Celestia was momentarily glowing more magenta than normal. With a flash, Twilight looked up at her mentor with a look of satisfaction. Instead of a bright clean coat like she had intended, Twilight saw that the cleaning spell had done nothing to cleanse the Princess. Her smile fell, and her brow furrowed. Had she cast the spell wrong? Maybe it wasn't powerful enough. Celestia's face showed mild surprise as her prized pupil suddenly began casting a much more powerful spell at her. Twilights horn glowed magenta, then white, and errupted in a torrent of light towards the unsuspecting Princess.
The room was quite spotless when Spike came back with purple towel. Everything smelled like lemons to him, and Twilight and Fluttershy both had fresh fluffy manes---looking like they just took a nice hot shower. Celestia herself just looked confused, as she continued to slightly drip red liquid onto the rugs. So long as she wasn't glaring at him, he was happy. He walked up to her, and held up the towel for her to clean herself up with.
Twilight grit her teeth and grunted as she saw that her spell had failed to clean Celestia's coat. "Stubborn stupid stain! What kind of freaking magic does it take to clean it!?"
"I think that it should come out if you dab it up with that towel and maybe put some club soda on it." said Fluttershy, before she realized that she'd spoken. "I mean... unless you know a better way to get out juice stains..." she dropped her gaze to look at the horseshoe prints on the floor.
As she cleaned herself with the towel, Celestia asked "Twilight, what was that liquid?"
"I..." she had to force herself to blurt it out, "I... I don't know! Fluttershy found it mysteriously at her house after she had a dream about the Everfree Forest."
The Princess looked to Fluttershy, who quietly nodded. When the Princess continued to look at her, she spoke unsteadily "I had a dream... with um this liquid in it... I don't know what it is, but I did find a glass of it on my windowsill this morning."
At Twilight's prodding, Fluttershy related the dream she had previously told Twilight about. For her part, the Princess of the Sun patiently listened to the odd tale. From her expression, it seemed that she didn't quite know what to make of it. Twilight continued the story, relating to her the tests she had done on the liquid up until it became a royalty-seeking projectile.
After hearing all of that, Celestia made the same confident face she always did when she didn't know what to do, but knew that everypony was looking to her for guidance. "Well, with semi-magical liquid and a name that sounds like its from a dead tongue to go with, I think you should go and see if anyone else had a similar dream. If they did, and you can figure out how to get back to this island in the Everfree, then you should go see if there really is a dancing creature." She nodded, inwardly pleased that she had found a nice solution that required no more of her time.