Canterlot Palace never entirely slept. All the same, just at sunset it wasn’t exactly bustling, so Twilight didn’t encounter many ponies as she trotted confidently through the halls. She estimated that she had a perfect seven and a half minute window to complete her mission.
Her nerves were thrumming with excitement and her pulse was pounding with terror. She was playing a prank! She was doing something against the rules on purpose! She was participating in Celestia and Luna’s game! Her ears flicked up and down unpredictably as the mixed emotions swept over her.
After an anxious eternity—or perhaps it was much too fast?—of trying to walk through the halls with a normal, confident stride, Twilight reached her first goal, a stretch of corridor with dropcloths strewn about and cans of paint, sealed up for the night, stacked against a half-painted wall.
She plucked two of them from the stack, along with a paintbrush, and floated them behind her as she continued on her way.
The throne room was unguarded, and Twilight just barely managed to resist a hoof-pump: she’d timed it perfectly. Celestia’s day guard had gone, and Luna’s night guard hadn’t turned up yet. The intensity of the excitement that rushed through her at realizing she was almost certainly going to succeed surprised her.
With a tiny little giggle of scandalized delight she pulled one of the big double doors open and darted inside. After shutting the door behind her, she trotted up the long run of red carpet to the dais where two thrones, sized just the same but designed quite differently, sat side by side.
“Decorate Luna’s throne,” read the impeccably horn-written line in the little journal Celestia had magicked for her.
“What, with flowers and balloons?” had been the first thing to come out of Twilight’s mouth after seeing Celestia’s first task for her.
Celestia had laughed, that gentle, knowing laugh of hers. “Oh Twilight. Always so literal. No, the tasks are…indirect sometimes. Part of the fun is figuring out exactly how they are meant to vex ponies. Or how you can best interpret them to do so. Would balloons vex Luna?”
“Confuse her yes, so maybe a little, but…” Twilight had frowned. “Not really vex, exactly, no.”
“What sort of decoration do you think would vex her?”
Twilight thought. “Hmm. Something that would be more than just strange. Something that would needle her specifically in some way…” A grin spread slowly across Twilight’s face. She knew exactly what she needed to do.
Now she set down the cans of paint, one white, one gold, and set to work. It was a quick and dirty job; she didn’t worry too much about perfect edges. Time. Was. Ticking! Indeed, she’d only just set down the brush when she heard hooves in the corridor outside.
With an almost manic grin on her face she scooped up the paint cans in her magic and teleported out, using the air-swap method to remove the tell-tale “pop”, so that she vanished silently and without a trace.
She re-appeared in Celestia’s rooms and immediately caroled, “I did it!”
“Shall we scry and see her reaction?” said Celestia, with an indulgent smile.
Twilight danced in place excitedly. “Please! Yes! Hee!” She felt herself nearly vibrating with a forbidden thrill.
With another chuckle, Celestia lit her horn and cast a scrying spell, opening a circular window into the throne room. Luna had obviously just stepped inside, and was standing, flanked by a pair of guards, and staring at the pair of white-and-gold thrones. The expression of surprise on her face made Twilight feel like she might explode. How was something so small so exciting?
Then Luna looked directly at the scrying window, her eyes narrowing, and said, “This indignity shall not go unanswered, sister.”
Twilight saw Celestia flush, and she shut the scrying spell down. “Oh dear. I fear I have inadvertently restarted our old prank war, through you.”
With a small, serene smile Twilight reached out and patted Celestia’s shoulder. “Luna can’t prank you directly, right? I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
Celestia frowned faintly. “I suppose.”
“Don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, I won’t participate in letting things get out of control.” Then she couldn’t help her grin. “That was so much fun, though. Her expression! Hee!”
Celestia let slip a little giggle. “It was, wasn’t it? You see why we play?”
“I do! So, let me cross this one off.” She pulled out her notebook, with her cutie mark on one side and Celestia’s on the other, and with a sense of deep satisfaction, drew a line through her completed task.
Decorate Luna’s Throne.
Some time later Twilight carefully shelved the magical notebook on a shelf that contained various personal journals and notebooks that she’d filled over the years. Then she pulled out a second small book, shelved next to it. Things had gone very well this evening, and she felt she was ready to fully commit to the game.
That meant checking the other book, the one that she’d received after getting a second opinion on the nature and history of the game. The one that held her own cutie mark on one cover and Luna’s on the other.
She opened it up, and saw that though her side of the book had been blank when Luna had given it to her, a task had since appeared there.
A broad grin blossomed on her face. This was going to be such fun.
Make Celestia go barehoof