It was a beautiful day outside, birds were singing, flowers were blooming, on days like these, somepony wanted to take a walk on the gardens of Canterlot Castle. But this wasn’t just anypony, this pony was the princess of the sun herself.
Princess Celestia was in the mood for some fresh air today, but that wasn’t the only reason for this particular activity of hers. You see, these last few days pastries of all types started appearing in various locations of the Royal Gardens without any logical reason. At first she thought Discord was pulling another stunt on her; but after some letter exchange with her faithful student and fellow princess, Celestia discovered that Discord did not leave Ponyville recently. So she discarded that possibility soon after, but mystery or not she wasn’t going to let those delicious snacks go to waste if she could do something about it.
I wonder from where those pastries come from, I know it’s strange and needs to be investigated, but I’m not complaining. After all, those are the best cakes I ever tasted, she thought as she let out a giggle while trotting through the gardens scanning them for any sign of her sweet preys and soon enough she found something.
There in front of the garden’s fountain stood a little plate with a napkin over it, hiding something from plain sight. Celestia approached the plate and levitated the napkin with her golden magic, taking it from where it stood covering her sweet prize, but what she found on the plate wasn’t what she expected.
Celestia raised an eye-brow at the sight of a fish-shaped form laying on the plate, it wasn’t like any fish she had seen before; and it definitely wasn’t alive if the strong smell of pancakes the fish was emanating gave her any clue.
Hmm, this is new-, she thought while levitating the ‘fish-cake’ in front of her, -this certainly is an imaginative way to present a pastry. I never saw something like this before, the baker surely has an open mind to come up with something of this nature, she continued ‘inspecting’ the fish-cake rotating it in different angles to see all of its features.
At that moment she heard a noise nearby which snapped her from her staring contest with the odd cake. Celestia's ears stood high in full attention to register any and every sound. Soon enough Celestia heard the little branching noise again, she then turned to see a set of bushes a few feet away from her. Hearing it again and being sure these bushes were the source of the noise, she walked towards them to take a look while still levitating her fish-cake. When she got there, Celestia was confused for what she saw behind the little bushes.
Lying on the soft grass was a little creature, a little bigger than a filly sleeping peacefully making soft snoring sounds. Celestia took this opportunity to take a closer look, taking care of not make any loud noise that could possibly wake up the little critter.
Celestia quickly noticed this creature was wearing clothes, more specifically a dress. A purple dress covered most of its body with white details on its sleeves and bottom end, with brown boots on its hind legs and a hat as purple as its dress with a white band where little metal triangles hanged out on both sides adorning its blue manned head. At first she thought this may be a minotaur foal, but that thought died fast because this ‘foal’did not had any minotaur traits. It had no horns, no fur as far as Celestia could tell which probably is why it wears clothes;and had a pair of white cat ears and tail which ended up in purple tips.
After inspecting the little creature for some time, Celestia returned her attention to her odd ‘fish-cake’ as she was mentally calling it. Seeing as this would be a good moment as any other, she took a curious bite of the fish-shaped pastry. Her eyes widened and let out a moan of delight as she tasted the chocolate filling the fish-cake had inside it.
“Mmm, this is delicious!” she quickly put a hoof on her mouth having said that more loudly than she had planned to, Celestia then looked down at her little ‘guest’ to see if her outburst had woken it up. To her surprise it kept sleeping as it had been doing so far.
“It sure has some heavy sleeping habits, it reminds me a little of Luna-,” Celestia thought out loud with a chuckle, moments later a loud sneeze could be heard from far away, and that’s how the Royal Canterlot Sneeze was created; “-anyways, what could this creature be, it doesn’t resemble any known species from Equestria or any other country on Equis,” she kept searching in her memories for any clue that could help her identify this strange little creature, and between thoughts she would take a bite of her fish-cake getting in a state of bliss with each bite.
When the fish-shaped cake was almost done Celestia said “I can get used to this fish-cake, I wonder how it is made.”
“It’s called taiyaki, which means baked sea bream, even if some of them doesn’t look like a bream at all myu;”- Celestia turned her head to look at the ground in front of her -“it’s easy to make, you just need pancake or waffle batter, a fish mold and filler of your liking myu,” said a soft voice from where she was looking.
Sitting in front of Celestia was the now awake little creature rubbing its eyes and looking up at her with a tired expression and a gentle smile on its face. Now she could see its big light-brown eyes. Celestia was stunned not so much for the fact that the creature was capable of speak her same language, but more because of how calm it was despite the situation they were in.
“Is there any problem miss?” she said with a soft yawn, yes Celestia figured it was a female for its voice so ‘she’ was the correct way to call it until Celestia could learn its name if it has one.
Knowing that the staring contest lasted long enough Celestia said with a calm and motherly tone while lying down to be at eye-level with her. “Oh, excuse me for my rudeness; I was a little surprised from your capacity to speak as well as how calm you are in this situation.”
“Situation? what situation, myu?” she asked completely missing the point.
“Well, you don’t seem to be from this country; and I don’t think I ever saw anypony of your kind on Equestria before, are you lost little one?” asked Celestia worried that this creature was lost and invaded the castle's gardens in search for cover.
“Myu?-” she said tilting her head to the side and giving Celestia a confused look, then she looked at their surroundings confirming that she was in fact in an unknown place. She looked up at Celestia “-I think I am myu,” not a single hint of worry or fear was in her soft voice.
This surprised Celestia even more, how could she be so calm in an unknown place with unknown inhabitants, thought Celestia for a moment; but thinking too much about it seemed pointless at the time, “well we can figure out the details later, for the moment I think introductions are in order; I’m Princess Celestia, Monarch of the Sun, and co-ruler of this country known as Equestria alongside my younger sister Princess Luna, Monarch of the Moon. We bring the day and night to our land and make a priority of the well being of all of those who call this place home,”- Celestia said with pride, before changing to a more delicate tone, -“now may you introduce yourself, little one?.”
At that moment the little girl got up on her hind legs showing that she was almost as tall as a full grown mare on this position, dusted her dress, and what she did next surprised Celestia. She lifted the side-ends of her dress slightly with her hands and tilted her upper body downwards a bit to do courteous bow with her head, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance your majesty, I am Takamura Rinna, but just Rinna is fine your highness,” Rinna said in a polite tone while lifting her head to look at Celestia.
“Then just Celestia is fine too little Rinna, there is no need for such formalities. Now, will you be willing to come with me to the castle so we can talk in more comfortable conditions, perhaps with some breakfast?” asked Celestia while getting up.
“As you wish, Celestia. By the way you can end the taiyaki now before it gets too dirty,”-said Rinna with a smile on her face as she walked to Celestia’s side, -“lead the way, myu.”
Celestia nodded with a smile of her own while finishing her taiyaki, and the two walked towards the castle, not knowing that this could be the beginning of a great friendship.
But unknown to all was the fact of a new threat making its way to Equestria, in the form of a green-haired cat-girl nyo.