//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Celestia's Hangover // by Aryn240 //------------------------------// Celestia’s Hangover by Cade YYZ Aryn240 Goldey Editors/Prereaders: Mark Garg Von Herb Regidar Other Considerations: Stringtheory SNAP! “Well, buck!” Celestia, the Princess of the Sun, cursed at her luck. Her favorite quill, broken. And right in the middle of a sentence. Drat the luck. This day… Ugh. The white alicorn shook her head side to side and levitated the broken quill with her magic, raising it in front of her. The break was too intricate to repair; even as she watched, a drop of leftover blue ink fell from the lower edge of the hollow tube and splashed onto her desk, pooling on the exotic imported mahogany. Sighing, Celestia carried the black feather to her balcony, and opened the door, shrinking briefly from the biting wind that assaulted her with its needle-like cold. Pushing forward, she allowed it to whisk her broken quill off the edge and send it whirling off into the distance, lost to herself and… “And a prisoner of the gusts that do blow through this land we call Equestria.” Celestia said, finishing her thought out loud. As the feather disappeared from sight, the Princess shed a single tear at the loss of her old standby. “You will be missed, Pheather. You’ve served me well, throughout my ages…” “A bit dramatic, don’t you think, Sister?” Celestia started in surprise, then closed her eyes in exasperation. “Luna! How many times have I asked you not to do that?” The Princess of the Night moved to join her sister as silently as she had entered. She had been blending in to the shadow cast by the tower from which the balcony they were standing on was attached. “My sincerest of apologies, but you seemed to be quite engaged, so I didn’t wish to disturb you… until I deemed it amusing.” She chuckled. “A funeral for a quill? One that came from Nightmare Moon?” The elder white alicorn led the way back inside, closing the large, inlaid double doors behind them. She gave another sigh. “It’s been that sort of day, Sister.” “Pray tell, what sort of day is that?” asked Luna in a playful tone. Celestia sat down on one of the cushions she kept on her office, and rubbed her eyes with her hooves. “I can’t even begin to explain it. Everything seems to be against me today. It took me hours to figure out how to start the next chapter in my book, and the moment I did, Pheather snapped in half. It’s been cold, windy, and dark all day; why the pegasi had to pick today,  I don’t know. All in all, it’s just…” She sighed yet again. Luna was smiling when the white alicorn looked up. Celestia was irritated. “What? What part of this is so funny to you?” The Princess of the Night’s smile grew. Without saying a word, she moved to her older sister’s fine mahogany desk, and inspected the drawers. Pointing a hoof at each one in turn and closing her eyes, she began to sing: “One-pony, two-pony, three-pony, four I-think-Tia’s-day-was-a-bore! Five-pony, six-pony, seven-pony, eight I-think-the-Princess-needs-a-little-break!” On ‘break’, she opened the last drawer her hoof pointed to. From it, she pulled a full bottle of  a golden, slightly viscous liquid. Applejack Daniels. A smaller bottle of regular Vodka and a very large, alicorn-sized shot glass also came out of the impossibly small drawer. She turned to her sister, a triumphant smile on her face. The Princess of the Sun had stiffened in slight embarrassment, her face turning a fairly dark shade of red, contrasting with her white coat. “That’s…Um... I keep that in there for when I’m entertaining guests, of course. Yes, that’s it. Some of the elder anti-reform ponies expect a drink in a meeting. You remember those days.” Luna didn’t respond, but instead placed the bottles and glass on top of the desk. She turned to look at the other alicorn, the smile still playing on her face. She adopted a more formal tone, but Celestia could hear the laughter underneath her jaded words. “Of course, dear sister. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must set about preparations for the night. I do hope your day- “ she shifted her eyes to the alcohol, then winked at the older Princess- “gets better. The Grand Galloping Gala is only twenty-four short hours away. Farewell!” Luna smiled again- a sisterly smile, this time, not evil- and departed, closing the ornate door behind her without so much as a whisper. Celestia watched her go, and then sighed to herself for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. “BUCK! The Gala is tomorrow!” She really had had a bad day, of course. No pony could deny her that. And dear Luna had only been trying to help, even if she had been enjoying it a little too much. That was her sister, always full of merriment once out of the public eye. The Princess of the Sun rose and trotted to the desk, eyeing the two bottles. What was this in the glass-? Trickster Luna had even conjured a few whiskey stones when she wasn’t looking. It really wasn’t fair to let that extraordinary effort go to waste, now was it? “Oh, buck it all,” she said. One drink couldn’t hurt… But only one. She poured out a mixture of Applejack Daniels and Vodka into the tankard-sized shotglass, and, lifting it with her white aura, put it to her lips. “But only one...” *** *** *** Author’s Note: Hi, I’m Aryn240, and I wrote this Prologue! And if you sang Luna’s little song out loud, I’m proud of you. This note is just to mention that, as the author list suggests, this is a collaboration. Credit for the original story idea goes to Cade YYZ! There should be a more thorough explanation of how this cooperation is going to work at the end of the next chapter, so keep reading. Do it!