"Wake up!" a guard ordered Twilight.
The lavender unicorn groaned and rolled onto her side in protest. The guard narrowed his gaze and dived below the bed line. Twilight ignored him, hoping he went away, but she was sorely mistaken for the only thing that happened was her being rolled up in the blanket of her bed and pushed onto the floor.
"Hey!" she shouted. "What's the big idea?!"
"It's dinner time. You slept a day, practically."
"Oh, food? Alrighty then!" She hopped up and practically melded with her armor and spear. "Let's do this."
"If you'll follow me."
Twilight went back through the deep corridors of the castle and enjoyed the cool wind blowing into her face when she reached the incomplete, lower hallways. Finally, she was brought in front of a room kept behind deep brown, wooden doors with rounded tops. The mare pushed the doors open, or, more accurately, smashed them open, eager to see her meal. Her eagerness was quickly replaced by disappointment, although her nostrils were assaulted by a variety of crispy and deliciously sour aromas. Within was a very large, rounded table with ample space around it for at least three ponies to walk side-by-side. Celestia sat directly across the entrance and was flanked by many ponies, griffons, and even some rams. On the table was a wide assortment of different plants and fruits, ranging from meals made with the more common apples to those made with more exotic fruits like the smelly durian. They had all been stuffed into fancy bowls made of blue and green crystals or put onto plates of a china with little flower motifs on their surface.
Twilight scratched her head in confusion. "What's this supposed to be?" she asked.
"Humph. Who is this pony, princess?" a mare asked. She was wearing a wide dress whose sleeves and bottom were lined with frills.
"This is Twilight Sparkle. She..." Celestia paused for a moment and withheld her stress as best as she could. "She is a dragon hunter."
A loud brouhaha between the nobles erupted at the table discussing the matter. Twilight ignored them and prodded some jelly and watched it wobble. She looked towards Celestia with both a disgusted and baffled expression. "This is food?"
"Yes, Twilight. It's jelly. It's a tasty dessert."
"Really?" The mare kept her left hoof under her chin as she scanned the table, then poked at something else. "And what 's this?"
"Th-that's hay," a ram answered her. "Were you born in a cliff? Did you eat rocks?"
"Sir, manners!" Celestia chastized. "Twilight, you don't know what hay is? It's very common."
The pony shrugged in response, giving Celestia an idea. She grabbed a nearby plate and pulled it in front of Twilight.
"Do you know what these are?"
"No."
"These are apples."
"What? But these are yellow."
"They come in many shades and flavors, Twilight. They're a favorite of most ponies." Celestia pulled the plate away and pushed another where the last had been. "And what about this?"
The unicorn shrugged.
"This is tomato soup. This is one of the most basic fruits available."
"Um, I don't mean to interrupt, but a tomato is a vegetable," one of the ponies interjected.
"No. We've been through this." Celestia moved her forelegs in stiff, horizontal motions. "It's a fruit, not a vegetable."
"It's a vegetable! What kind of 'fruit' doesn't taste sweet?"
"You're basing the flavor on the botany?"
"Yes!"
"That's not how it works! Tomatos grow above ground. Most vegetables are roots!"
"Then what the hell is a cabbage?!"
"Uhhh--"
"Oh hey, a griffon."
"GAH!"
Twilight had sneaked up towards a white griffin with black claws and a black beak wearing black armor over his torso. He was befuddled by Twilight's actions.
"Oh hey! Griffons. You know, we used to have griffons, then they were killed by the ejge after their nests were attacked." She jumped onto the griffon's back and grabbed his wings.
"Let go of me you lunatic! What is she even talking about?!"
"I know this one thing you can do with griffons."
An audible crack resounded and the griffon fell flat onto the ground with his eyes set apart and his tongue sticking out.
A white griffon with a blue tip on her beak and claws pushed Twilight away. "You killed him!" she accused.
"Pfff," Twilight brushed the statement aside. "He's fine. He's just paralyzed." She looked back at the female with a gleam of evil sparkling in her eyes. "I could o it to you too, you know?"
The griffon's lower beak trembled and she slowly backed away from what she perceived as a threat despite it being Twilight's way of 'playfulness'.
"Twilight! Behave yourself."
"Why? What's wrong?"
Celestia groaned loudly and facehoofed. "What did YOU eat, anyways?"
"None of this weird," Twilight lifted a leaf drenched in dressing and let it sloppily fall back onto the table. "goopy stuff. We didn't have access to the surface lands."
"Wh...Then what did you eat?" the same mare from earlier asked.
She leaned forward against the table, eager to hear the tale. That eagerness was ill placed.
"Well, since we lived next to a cave and had a minimum of land to work with, we mostly ate things from there."
"Like?"
"Mushrooms, moss, lichen, and bugs."
They were startled. "B-BUGS?!" all the members yelled.
"Well, yeah," Twilight shrugged nonchalantly. "They're a great source of protein, and they're EXTREMELY juicy and crunchy." Twilight licked her lips in response to the idea while the guests and even Celestia started turning green. "One of my favorite meals is a scarab patée. The dough is soft, but the insides are ALLLLLLLLLLL crunch and full of tasty mushrooms. It's especially fun to pull the wings off and nibble at them. They last a while, so you can suckle on them as well to help you go through hunger later on."
The vast majority of the ponies there had vomited their entrails while a few others had passed out. Celestia, on the other hand, was somehow paler than usual. An extraordinary feat considering she was completely white.
"Okay, Twilight. We-Hurk!" Celestia put a hoof to her mouth and swallowed. "Eugh. We don't need to know more."
"Why? I really don't understand your problems, I mean, spider-cicles. Mmm-mmm!"
That pushed Celestia overboard, causing her to vomit what one could assume were rainbows. As for the dragoness that passed through the temporal tear, she had reached the village and was admiring how life was like back when. Her favorite past time was taking a cup of tea with some cake just outside a quaint little café with a back area allowing the pony to see the grassy hills flowing with life and being brushed by the wind as it flowed forth. It reminded her so much of the ocean untainted by the aquatic dragons and water ejge.
She took in a whiff of her tea and sighed in satisfaction. "I did miss this sort of life. The altercations between those draco ponies for my favors are so...annoying and become routine after a time."
A servant pony with a pale blue coat, and a deep, blue-purple coat, approached the dragoness. He wore a tuxedo and had so much cologne that it was a wonder the dragoness could smell at all. The stallion lifted up a fancy, white tea kettle with one hoof and raised it over the mare's tea cup.
"Would you like more tea, madam?"
The dragoness raised a hoof and shook her head. "No thank you. I have yet to finish this and I want to savor the flavors."
The stallion bowed and backed away slowly. "I am just pleased that a legendary kirin chose my humble establishment for her rest. You have brought great luck upon my establishment."
The 'kirin' laid her head against her hoof and smirked a bit. She felt both bemused but also insulted. "I'm not really a kirin, but..." The kirin sat back on her haunches and started mixing in the cubes of sugar she just added to her tea. "Well," she spoke as she bit into her slice of cake. "I like your abilities with baking and tea preparation." Some team slid down her mouth to clean the cake stuck in her throat. Licking her lips and wiping her mouth soon after, the mare stood straight in front of the waiter, towering over him. "What if I could promise you a better life than this? You would be granted great power and would have a rich assortment of..." She looked away momentarily and mumbled under her breath. "What was the currency again? Of mitts!"
"You mean bits."
The dragoness looked off to the side, embarrassed. "Right. That's what I said."
"No, you said--"
The stallion found his mouth covered by a clawed hoof of his favored 'kirin'. "Do you accept or not?" she asked him. She watched his eyes move about as he thought harder and faster with every pressure applied to him by the mare.
He pushed her hoof down. "What is my assurance that you aren't just promising more than you can deliver or that you simply didn't escape from the nut factor?"
The dragoness looked at the café behind them and; with a terrifying and echoing, low-pitched growl, spat out a torrential cone of fire that engulfed and destroyed the café with ease.
"Oh. I accept your offer."
"Good. I'll assimilate the others here as well so that you don't feel 'lonely'," she teased with a devilish smile.