//------------------------------//
// Bonus : Royal Ramblings 
// Story: Phoenix Dust 
// by Sunny 
//------------------------------//

	"Luna, Luna, Luna...LUNA! My...whoa. My head. It's like. Whoa. Okay, okay, lemme just make the room stop spinning here -" Celestia's horn lit, and sent a bookcase - and its contents - tumbling to the floor. "Okay, okay...that's better. Right, right, so. The sun. Do you know what ponies think about the sun?"

"Uhhh...we don't...wait, we mean I...or...we...or...hayseeds!" Luna scrunched her muzzle up, and tried to focus upon the ceiling. "Do ponies even think at all, Sister?"

"Twilight thinks," Celestia snorted back. "But, okay. So. The sun. Look, right? Have you ever thought how big the sun is? Like, how does it work?"

"...No."

"Well, I have, uh. I mean, some ponies wanted to know. So I looked. Gotta....had to...they wouldn't shut up. Teleported. And it. It's like. Fire. And stuff. A lot of fire. And stuff." She fell silent, having remembered that she had cake in front of her face, and it became much more pressing to smear icing across her muzzle.

Luna sat a moment. Her already wrinkled muzzle soon further resembled a crushed accordion. "...Huh."

Celestia lifted herself from the cake. "Lots and lots of fire," she elaborated. "So I said that, and...and the ponies, like, wanted to see too. They built, uhm, a boat. For...for seeing the sun. To fly. To it. Then they went." She paused to lick her lips clean of icing, and ended up losing herself chasing a bit caught just beyond range of her tongue, neck twisting further and further till she fell on her side and finally gave up.

"Then what?" Luna finally wondered.

Celestia opened her eyes, and her gaze grew distant. "They burned up." She blew air through her nose in a long snort. 

"Not enough sunscreen," Luna suggested.

"Mm."





"Sister? Sister!"

"Mmph?" Celestia started from a half-awake haze.

"Hypothetically. Hypothetically. If I teleported. But, uhm, I ended up in a pocket dimension'

"Mm-hmm?" Her eyes fell shut once again.

"And it were full of peaches."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. Luna rambled onward.

"But then I found a door. To our bathroom. And the peaches fell in after. So our bathroom was full of peaches."

Celestia opened her eyes just enough to roll them.

"Would it matter if it was?"

Celestia thought. "No," she finally said. "I like peaches."

Luna let out a sigh of relief. "Oh. Good. Very good. Uhm. Because. Uhm. Right now? Peaches are in your bed."

Facehoof.





"Luna? Am I fat?" Celestia's voice broke the silent haze that had enveloped both.

"Uhm, what brings, uh, this on?"

Celestia licked her lips and thought a moment. "The cake," she said finally. "I think I ate double."

"There is nothing wrong with two slices, Celestia," Luna lazily mumbled.

"No, uh, like. Double. Cake. Two whole cakes. Minus, uh, whatever you ate."

"We're alicorns," Luna breezed, "Like, that makes us, y'know, weird."

"Just, uhm, okay, so, it was a newspaper. The Foal Free Press. That started it."

Luna wriggled a hoof. "Wasn't, that, uhm - how long...like...a really long time ago or...a few months? A while! It's been a while!"

"But am I fat?"

Luna raised her head to blearily stare at her sister through reddened eyes. "No," she said finally. "I don't think so."

"Oh. Well, what about my butt? Is that fat?" Celestia put her head between her legs.

Luna squinted. "No," she said again. "Not for how tall you are and - uh...uhm. Why. Why are you crying?"

"Because you said it's thiii-hiii-hiiiiinnn and that m-m-means Pinkie Pie still won't like me!" Celestia had broken down blubbering, even as Luna's jaw fell open and caught a fly or two. If the flies were a pair of cookies. A mare had to eat.

Once she had swallowed..."Why would you, like, ever think she won't like you?"

Celestia sniffled. Rubbed her muzzle with a foreleg. "The last party. Remember? She sang to everypony after, uh, Spike spiked the punch. That she likes big butts and she cannot lie."

Luna broke down into gales of laughter and only spoke once she could breathe again. "Tia! Tia...Tia! You...dumb. That's a, a, a song. On the uh, radio-thing. She was singing, like, that modern thing. Karoake."

Celestia blinked. "Oh." There was a minute of silence. "Maybe I should ask her out. It's like, when I see it, her smile. It's...twice as bright. As. The sun. To me. What do you think?"

"My hoof is so big," responded Luna absently, having gotten distracted in the interim.





"The yaks forgot my birthday this year."

"Everypony forgets your birthday. You, like, remember? Had it redacted. Got tired of giant parties."

"Yes, uh, but. They still forgot."

"...Fine. Yaks are rude."

"And they break things. And are bad neighbors. I was thinking, uhm. So. Thinking. That we should. Go to war. Just us. And like. Take it over. And populate it with seaponies."

"Seaponies," came flat reply.

"Yes. Give them snowshoes for their wiggly-things. Fins. Yes."

"Going to war is bad. You said so, sister."

"But I really want to see Seaponies on Ice."

"...That's Bridleway, you foalish nag."





"Tia, I have a question."

"Uh. Okay. Sure."

"Tis, like, an awkward question."

"Luna, okay, see. I'm like. Higher than the sun right now. You could ask me about the dream I made you swear to, you know, never talk about unless like, you wanted to be sent to Caribonia."

Luna shuddered. "The worst place. Caribou." She made a face. "All that...uptightness. No sense of humor. All about 'moral purity' and 'Meditation' and, like, pacifism. How haven't they been conquered?"

Celestia frowned. "Nothing worth taking?" she suggested.

Luna thought. "Full of monsters. Rocks everywhere. 'Least they destroyed that dumb crown...that stupid....goat, right?"

"Grogar," Celestia added after a moment.

"Right! Grogar. Broke his canny crown or whatever. But! But. Question. I wanna ask."

"Yes, like...yes. Go ahead."

"Okay, so, uhm. Right. How come you always lose?"

Celestia blinked. "Huh?"

"Lose. You know. Me. Discord. Bugs. Snow. Vines. You lose."

"Uhm," Celestia added, "So did you."

"Well. Yes. But. Remember? We, like, once...totally awesome."

Celestia thought a moment. Nodded. "Sex," she said finally.

"Huh?"

"Sex. Think 'bout it. Cadance's wedding? She and Shining? But us? We're like, all the ponies are all 'Nuh-uh, not them, too Princessy!'"

Luna thought. "But what about Twilight?"

Celestia coughed. "She, uh. Has. Well. You know. She has books."

Luna made a face. "Books?"

"Don't ask. Just...books."

"So if we -"

"Yes."

Silence. Then. "But if nopony...what if we...uh...how does....if Twilight, and books, then if we...together?"

"Sisters! No! B, b'sides. Twilight? Her student, uh, whassername. Starbright Glimmy? Glim-Glam? Sunset....Shimmer?"

"Starlight Glimmer?"

"Right! Her! So, Twilight, books? Starlight, uh. Well. Not alicorn. Can fight Twilight. Do the math."

Luna thought for but a moment. "So. Then. How many times a day...?"

"Ten."

"Huh."

"Indeed."

Together, they stared at the remnants of Philomena curling about the ceiling.

"How long before she...?"

"Iunno. Soon." Celestia stared at her hoof. "Whoa. So. Big."

"So if, then, you know, how come you don't?"

"It's relaxing. Being captured. Ponies never shut up. Cocoon? Break. Vines? Break. Wanna get turned to stone if I can. Maybe piss off a cockatrice."

"...We need a vacation."

"Huh. That could work too."

Luna snored loudly.