“Taking in a bit of history, sister?”
Celestia nearly dropped the crown hovering in her magic. Given that it was currently suspended above a display of priceless historical artifacts, some of them quite fragile, that would have been a bit of a bother. Still, Celestia managed to only roll her eyes a little bit. “Hello Luna. I haven’t crossed this off the list yet. Are you getting psychic?”
Luna chuckled. “No, merely nocturnal as usual. I was taking a break from dream herding, so I heard you leaving your rooms.”
“Ah. Well, let me put this in place. Then we can compare notes.” Celestia turned her attention back to the crown and finished floating it to its new place in the miniature museum. “There. Bets on how long it takes someone to notice?”
Luna chuckled. “Ponies can be quite unobservant. A week at the least, I think.”
“If Twilight happens to visit this wing, until that point.” Celestia grinned. “Otherwise I say closer to a year.”
“Hah. Indeed.”
“Here, let me cross this off.” Celestia pulled a little notebook out of her mane; it had her cutie mark on one cover and Luna’s on the other.
…and bring it home to put on display.
“Excellent.” Luna produced an identical book and flipped it open on the side with Celestia’s cutie mark, revealing an identical list. The last item was just finishing crossing itself off.
“I saw that you finally got Lady Hinnylane into that hat,” said Celestia, giving her tail a cheerful flick.
Luna tossed her head and gave a laughing whinny. “She looked absurd! It was glorious. I assured her that she was the height of fashion.”
Celestia laughed. “I wish I could have seen it. I have an idea for your next task, too. I think you’re ready for a bit of a challenge.”
Luna lifted one eyebrow. “Knowing you, I feel I should be afraid.”
“Considering what you just had me do, oh yes. I had to steal this thing,” she jerked her head at the crown in the display, “four times! Including once after getting it into my luggage, when an oh-so-helpful servant tried to help me pack and found the ‘misplaced’ crown. That one ended up requiring an emergency teleport to pull off, and I hate teleporting while playing. It feels like cheating, even if it’s not against the rules.” Celestia shook her head, then gave Luna a downright wicked grin. “I’d say you have your hoof back in now, so I’m not going to go easy on you. Of course the small ones are still quite fun. I’ll add one of those as well.” Celestia flipped her notebook around, to the side with Luna’s cutie mark, and opened it. After “Make Lady Hinnylane wear a sunhat” she wrote “Get Fancypants’ hooves wet” and “Make an ambassador spit their tea.”
“Oh, that first shall be fun,” said Luna, looking at her identical list, where the tasks had appeared. “And the second… I believe I know just who and how to try it.”
“Let me just add one more.” Celestia scribed one more line in her neat, looping hornwriting.
Luna looked at her notebook and shook her head. “Oh, fie! You know ‘tis always busy there.”
“I trust you can do it.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps if I take it in bits, after dark. Though there is still quite a bit of night time traffic. And setup…”
“There’s a tea house right there, and I happen to know they don’t lock the back door. You can steal all the plates and cups and so on in one go.” Celestia smiled.
“How gracious of you to give me a hint.” Luna chuckled. “Although that is not the difficult part. But very well. Challenge accepted! A full high tea shall be had, sight unseen, in the midst of Trotfalgar square. Now, for your next challenge, sister dear…” Luna grinned, downright sadistically.
“Why am I suddenly worried?” said Celestia, still smiling.
“We have ‘messed with’ many ponies, but we have never had a task targeting your delightful former student,” began Luna.
“You wouldn’t!” said Celestia in dismay.
“The rules say that no one, neither pony nor gryphon nor even dragon, is exempt from being targeted.”
“Yes but… Twilight! Asking me to pull a prank her is evil, sister. Evil, evil, evil.”
“Well, and are we not horrible alicorns?” Luna’s grin only grew more broad. “Fear not, I shall give you a few other tasks as well, sister, but rules are rules. No one is exempt, and using your veto crowns us the winner by default for the entire year.”
Celestia hesitated. Targeting Twilight… She gave a little shudder at all the ways in which that could go wrong. But letting Luna declare a win when the year wasn’t even halfway through? No, no, she could do this. “Very well. Do your worst.”
Luna only cackled and got out her pencil.