Eclipse was not happy. He had considered running before the Celestia came back to bring him to dinner, but Luna was sitting across from him, keeping a close eye. Celestia had been able to follow him after he teleported, so it wouldn't be any use to try and get away, so he resigned himself to roasting more Parasprite fruits over the fire.
"You really have nothing to worry about, Eclipse. Celestia and I are not going to let anything bad happen." Luna smiled at him reassuringly.
"Worried? Ha! Who said I was worried! What is there to be worried about?" Eclipse's sarcasm fell like a rock as his fruit obviously began to overcook. "I'm only going into what I've considered to be deep enemy territory for the past thousand years... To eat dinner with the two ponies I thought were going to kill me for the past thousand years... In a castle filled with other ponies who are deathly terrified of my near-twin and would probably attack HIM on sight, and therefore have no qualms about hurting ME..." The fruit he was cooking burst into flames and fell off of the stick, which was shaking badly in his grip. He looked up at Luna with a twisted grin. "What's to be afraid of, right? Piece of cake!" A plate with a slice of chocolate cake appeared in his lap, which he began to hastily and nervously eat.
"Eclipse, you're overreacting..." Luna moved her seat closer to his. "First of all, Celestia and I are your friends! That's why we're asking you to come have dinner with us! Secondly, Celestia are going to seal the room ourselves, there's no chance you'll be spotted. Not to mention, if you were, they would probably just hide from you. Discord terrified them." She gave him a friendly pat on the back. "You can trust me when I say, it's going to be fine. It's just dinner, what could go wrong?"
"I hate that question." Eclipse rolled his eyes as Celestia reappeared in a flash of light.
"Everything's set! No pony is coming through those doors, and the meal is ready!" She cheerfully reported as she walked over to the pair. "It's just waiting for us to come and eat!
All in all, Luna was happy with how things had been going. After Eclipse had inspected the doors, the spell holding them shut, and the spell that had blacked out all of the windows, he had finally settled down into a chair.
"I have to admit, the food does look good..." Eclipse smiled as he looked out over the huge table that had been set. "But isn't it a bit much? I mean, it's just the three of us, and I'm not really that hungry..."
"Well, Luna and I thought that it would be best for us to pick out a lot of foods, that way you could have a lot of choices!" Celestia smiled and picked up a large salad bowl. "Not to mention, Luna had me so worried, I didn't eat all day!" She spooned out a large helping, added a bit of vinaigrette dressing, and began to eat.
"And I was working on a little surprise for you while I was locked away in my room..." Luna winked at Eclipse. "I got so absorbed in my work, I forgot to eat, as well!" In stark contrast to her sister, Luna filled her plate with sugary pastries and a plethora of apple fritters.
Eclipse, not wanting to be rude, picked out a few sweets and fruits and, after some inspection, began taking paltry bites. He soon discovered that he had a liking for nectarines and peaches, and devoured several helpings of cobbler.
"You know, you two hardly look as if you've aged a day in a thousand years!" Eclipse pointed to each Princess with his fork. "What's your secret?"
Celestia laughed. "Just the nature of being an alicorn, I guess. We don't grow beyond maturity, and we don't die of natural causes..." She looked over at Luna, who nodded in agreement. "If you're as old as Discord, I would say you have the same secret!"
Eclipse shrugged. "I never really saw it as strange. Discord and I never had any others like us to gauge our age against, so we decided not to, heh, 'look a gift horse in the mouth.'" Eclipse snickered. "Sorry, that expression just strikes me as funny when I'm talking with ponies."
Celestia looked at him with a blank expression. "You know, that's not funny."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it would offend you..." Eclipse looked down at his lap, a bit embarrassed.
"That's not funny. That's PUNny!" Celestia laughed, "Oh, cheer up, Eclipse! I was just pretending! You're so gullible!" She tossed another dried apricot from her salad to him, as she had been for the whole meal.
"Yeah, well, at least I didn't fall of the old, "caterpillar in the salad bowl" trick!" Both Eclipse and Luna burst out laughing as Celestia's grin dropped from her face. She began to hastily inspect every leaf in her salad, turning them each over individually and setting the ones that she had checked in a separate pile.
"It's not here... It's not here! Did I eat it?" Celestia's expression changed from one of anxiety to disgust as she tried to look at her own tongue.
"Celestia, you're so gullible!" Eclipse laughed even louder as Celestia pulled her tongue back inside of her mouth, giving him an acknowledging nod from one joker to another.
After that, a barrier seemed to fall from all three of them after that. The food was exceptional, as always, and he was even laughing and joking with them about how old the three of them were getting.
"Yeah, and that was when I told the village elder that I was 300 years old... and he passed right out!" Eclipse and Celestia burst out laughing, and Luna knew that, at least for now, life was good. It was good to see her sister laughing without abandon. She usually did her best to stay aloof and professional around the castle servants, but she was really relaxed here.
Maybe we should have private dinners more often... Everyone seems to be having a great time! Luna levitated a large platter up into the air. "Well, I think that it's well past time for dessert!" She sliced up several pieces. Eclipse eyed it warily, just as he had every other food, then took a large bite. "It's my favorite dish, straight from Sweet Apple Acres! Zap Apple Pie!"
Eclipse let out a loud retching noise and grabbed his throat, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head. "What?" He managed to rasp as he began violently coughing. His tail began to wave back and forth spasmodically. "Zap Apples?" All of the color drained from his body and he fell to the ground.
"What's wrong? What is it?" Luna jumped out of her seat and ran to Eclipse, who was doubled over with coughing.
"Eclipse? What happening?" Celestia was instantly next to them, choosing to teleport, instead. "Are you choking?" She stomped a hoof down on his stomach, and a large piece of zap apple came flying out of Eclipse's mouth and stuck to the wall, covered in a tar-like substance. She looked at Luna, completely confounded.
"Are you allergic to zap apples?" Luna asked out of desperation, looking for some kind of answer from the writhing draconequus. Between fits of coughing, Eclipse managed to pull out another parasprite fruit. He pointed at Luna, then at the fruit before collapsing into another fit. His body began to shake, and it was all he could do in the next lull of his reaction to point at the pie, and himself.
In that moment, Luna understood. I'd offer you one, but it would probably make you VERY sick. They're more food for creatures of chaos... "He can't eat zap apples! They're a food for creatures of order, not chaos!"
"What does that mean? What are we supposed to do?" Even Celestia was panicking at this point, and Eclipse's coughing was growing weaker.
"I- I don't know!" Luna watched as Eclipse placed the parasprite fruit in his mouth and began to weakly chew. "He needs foods with chaos! Somehow... He needs chaos!"
"Chaos? We can make chaos!" Celestia lifted all of the plates and food into the air and threw them at the ceiling. She looked back to Eclipse as pieces of china and bits of food rained down. Eclipse was looking grayer and grayer, and Luna was shaking her head.
"I don't think that's how it works, Tia..."
"Well, do you have any ideas?" Celestia bent down, placing her ear on his chest. "His heart sounds alright..."
Luna continued shaking her head. "Celestia, I think that what we need is a doctor. Like it or not, Eclipse is going to be making some new friends tonight..."