"So, I take it you had a pleasant night?"
Luna blushed bright red at Celestia's question. The fact that the princess of the sun had a knowing smile on her face when she asked it made it clear that she was not referring to how well Luna slept (She slept like a foal, thank you for asking)...
The morning had gone well enough, she supposed. She and Pan had discussed a few minor trifles, and after wishing each other a pleasant day, the two had parted, so that they might take care of their respective duties. A short walk later, she had reached the balcony, lowered the moon, then made her way to the royal guest chambers, and was immediately hit by her sister's rather embarrassing inquiry.
Rather than try and answer her sister's question with any amount of detail, Luna decided to simply nod, then changed the subject. "May I ask why a filly is sleeping in my bed?" It was rather curious, especially since said filly was none too clean. In fact, Luna could not say for certain if the filly was naturally brown in color, or if she was so dirty that it obscured her true color pattern. The little one was sleeping peacefully, a contented smile upon her face. It was, admittedly, rather adorable.
Chuckling, Celestia said, "Actually, she's sleeping in my bed. I had planned on spending the night interviewing the new emperor. Imagine my surprise when I found you and he were both engaged in intercourse of a different nature."
Blushing brightly, Luna again dodged the issue, asking, "And why is she in the palace in the first place?"
Obviously not fooled, but willing to play along, Celestia smiled knowingly, then said, "Pan found that she had no parents, and had been living on the streets since well before Sombra's reign. Moved by her tragic state, he decided to let her spend the night in the palace, and work out what should be done for her today."
That was... incredibly kind of him...
"Well," Luna said, her expression neutral, "I had a rather fruitful evening." After Celestia finished laughing, the princess of the moon continued, stating, "I was able to get several important pieces of information about Emperor Imperator, and his species. Would you be interested in hearing them?"
Suddenly all business, Celestia nodded enthusiastically, then said, "Definitely. I was able to get some information myself. We can trade notes before we step out for breakfast."
-------------------------
Pen Stroke's expression was one of pure and simple disbelief as he asked, his voice far louder than necessary, "YOU DID WHAT!?!"
Perversely thankful that his radiant glow hid the fact that he was blushing like mad, Pan admitted, "I bedded the princess last night." Thankfully, the two were alone in the throne room right now: The only thing that could make this worse was if the entire city heard about it.
Incredulously, the chancellor exclaimed, "You're joking! Princess Celestia did not leave the festival until late last night, and the castle staff would have noticed if she had not been in her room this morning."
His eyes narrowed, Pan asked, "Oh? And there's only one princess in Equestria?"
Pen Stroke's jaw dropped, and after a moment, the pony closed it with an audible click, then said, "I, ah, I did not consider that. When anypony says 'the princess', they generally mean Celestia..."
Sighing loudly, the changeling said, "In spite of the fact that she works just as hard as her sister? Right. Well, I suggest you begin correcting a few preconceptions, Pen: There is a strong possibility that she'll be my..." Queen? Empress? Would she want to stay a princess? Pan wasn't really sure. After a moment, he went with the safest option of, "...bride very soon. You might not think of her first when you think of a princess, but provided the events of the next couple of weeks go well, we may have a wedding this time next year, on top of the coronation."
After a moment, Pen Stroke cleared his throat and said, "I understand, milord. Before we go any further, however, there is something that needs to be addressed." Picking up an empty bottle that he had set on the ground when he had first walked in, the crystal pony asked, "Do you recognize this bottle, milord?"
While it seemed rather nondescript, Pan had a good memory when it came to wine bottles, and immediately said, "That's the wine bottle that Luna and I were drinking out of last night. Well, she did more drinking than I did: I had one glass, and she emptied the rest of it herself." After a moment's thought, he added, "I asked for a local vintage from one of Malted Barley's apprentices. Odd how he wasn't at the celebration, though..."
"I feared that might be the case: Malted Barley has no apprentices, milord. You've been deceived," Pen Stroke said, his expression now gravely concerned. "When I found this bottle an hour ago, I had noticed an odd smell emanating from it. I took it to be examined by an alchemist that I know of old, and had it tested. She was able to confirm my suspicions: This bottle was tampered with, the contents far different from what was advertised. The original label had been removed, for the sake of hiding the fact that it was a vintage with an older, and far darker, reputation. There was an ingredient in this wine that can be quite hazardous when ingested."
His eyes widened, Pan asked, "Poison?" While not concerned for himself (As a member of House Scorpion, the changeling had practically been bottle-fed poisons to the point that he could laugh off almost all save the most exotic toxins, and crystal meth, but that was a chemical reaction, not poison), Luna had been hitting that bottle so hard that even the legendary constitution of the alicorns might not be enough to shrug it off.
"In a way," the chancellor admitted, now seeming to be slightly uncomfortable. "The old king's grandfather was an ugly old stallion, and his wife was young and quite lovely... and was rumored in some circles to be rather promiscuous. In order to ensure that his wife would remain faithful, and that any fruit of their union would be his beyond a shadow of a doubt, he hatched a plan. He secretly applied a potion to a wine that he knew his wife drank once a year, in celebration of Hearth's Warming Eve. The potion was one that made it impossible for her to consider any other stallion as a mate, as well as made her rather... frisky each night for the year to come. It also ensured that it was impossible for her to leave the palace unless he went with her, as she could not bear to be more than a hundred hoofsteps from him at any given time."
Pan gulped, then said, "You're joking." That kind of thing was practically unheard of in the 'modern' era. Mind control spells and potions were extremely dangerous, and even changelings hesitated to use them, except when absolutely necessary. In fact, Celestia had put laws in place that heavily regulated their use. This was for the protection of both the intended targets, and for foalish amateurs who tried to use them: These spells could often go horribly, horribly wrong. Pan had read in a newspaper, just prior to the invasion, about a stallion who had cast the 'Want It, Need It' spell on himself, then walked into the mare's changing room at a summer swimwear fashion show. Sadly, he didn't think things through: 'Want It, Need It' causes an overpowering desire to possess, rather than simply a base desire to mate. Had only one mare been present, he might have simply spent the rest of his life chained to a wall (or a bed, had he not been fat and fairly ugly), but the changing area had been filled nearly to capacity with physically fit swimsuit models. Fifty supermodels at once would be far too much for even the most athletic stallion to handle, even if the mares had been willing to share (or willing to mate with an obese grease ball with a face that would have considered grotesque a compliment). Admittedly, the mares had ended up sharing, in a manner of speaking, but definitely not in a way the stallion had intended. The police found him in fifty very messy pieces an hour later.
But this was a different time, and such things were much more common...
Pen Stroke, his expression grave, said, "I wish that I was. After their son discovered what his father had done, the newly crowned king had demanded all of the bottles destroyed. I fear that one was missed..."
Having difficulty controlling the tone of his voice, Pan asked, "You mean to tell me that Princess Luna and I both drank a love potion?" While it wouldn't work on Pan (Again, epic level poison resistance is your friend), the average pony had little resistance to love 'poisons', and while no normal pony, Luna may very well prove to be susceptible herself.
Celestia was going to kill him...
Nodding, Pen Stroke admitted, "Not just any love potion, but amongst the strongest ever brewed... and so far as I know, there is nothing that can can be done to negate it."
For a few seconds, Pan considered the implications of this... then he took a deep breath, and...
-----------------------------------
"Well, I admit, that is interesting news," Celestia said, nodding. A creature sustained and empowered by love. Remarkable. Had she not heard it from Luna, and seen the emperor with her own eyes, she would not have believed it. She was about to ask for more information when she noticed something...
Concerned by her sister's change in expression, Luna asked, "Something wrong, sister?"
Celestia suddenly clutched Luna's face, and looked deeply into her eyes. After a moment, Celestia began to grit her teeth, then released Luna, her expression furious. Before Luna could say anything, Celestia pulled a small mirror from a nearby dresser and said, "Look yourself in the eye, and tell me what you see."
Luna looked into the mirror, and after a moment, her expression turned to one of shock as she saw what Celestia had noticed...
A small, pink heart in the middle of each of Luna's pupils... one of the classic symptoms of having consumed a love potion.
Unable to believe it, Luna asked, "But... but when?"
Celestia, angry, asked, "When do you think?" The princess turned around, made to storm towards the door, then stopped herself. Visibly trembling in fury, she said, "The only reason, and I mean, the only reason, that I'm not going to walk right up to Pan and rip his head off with my bare hooves is because there is a small chance that he was unaware of..."
Suddenly, she was cut off by a shout, one so loud that it caused the entire Crystal Empire to shake with its fury. It was a single word, but said with such emotion that even one who knew nothing of griffins could tell that it was a curse of the highest order.
"...PLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!"
"Okay," Celestia admitted, with a sad sigh. This entire situation was now a lot more complicated. "Maybe a better chance than I originally assumed. Still, there will be consequences for him, whether he was aware of this or not..."
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"Drat," Scarlet Wake said, quietly but with feeling, as he read his spy's report that afternoon. The unicorn had been counting on the emperor's already impressive reputation for drinking spirits in high volumes to cause the creature to consume the entire love potion in a single go. Once consumed, it should have caused him to go into a rutting frenzy with the first mare (or stallion, if he swung that way) he saw afterwards. Unable to focus on anything other than mating with the target of his affections, the emperor would be kicked off the throne in short order. Instead, he'd shared the bottle with the princess, and while the emperor had turned out to be immune to love potions, Luna was not. While the potion was not taking effect quite as ferociously as it might have with a normal pony, the damage was done: For the next year, Luna and Pan would be an item, whether they wanted to be or not.
While relations were now tense between the Emperor, Luna, and Celestia, this meant that Luna was likely to remain in the Crystal Empire for an entire year, unless a cure to the potion could be found. The fact that the bottle had been found to be tampered with (Curse you, Pen Stroke, you meddling busybody...) meant that the royal trio would be on the lookout for another move like this one... and would be actively searching for whoever was responsible for the attempted poisoning of the new emperor.
However, while subtlety had failed, a more... direct approach would not. A wise noble makes certain that he has more than one arrow in his bow.
Turning towards his aide, Scarlet asked, "How long until the pawns will be ready?"
The aide, an utterly unremarkable beige unicorn named Nopony, shrugged, then said, "I'll need at least another two weeks, maybe three. While I have twenty young mares and stallions chomping at the bit to make their mark on the history of the empire, full indoctrination takes time. I can't risk setting them on their true mission until they're fully 'in', or they might turn on you." After a moment's thought, he added, "If you're willing to forgo training them on how to use weapons effectively, I can have them ready by the end of the week."
Nodding, Scarlet Wake said, "Do it. I don't expect them to be able to kill the emperor, especially with Luna dogging his every step. However, even incompetent assassins have their uses..."
----------------------------
Winter sat outside the Crystal Empire, an over-sized bowl of popcorn in its hooves. While he could not pass through the barrier yet, he could finally see everything going on within... and this was starting to get entertaining. As he chewed another mouthful (It didn't really give him sustenance, but it was more for the look of the thing), he admired the work of his offspring: Already there was a wall of snow surrounding the city more than twice the height of a pony. By this time tomorrow, it would be solid ice... and a firm foundation for the cage that would soon entomb the entire city, trapping both Luna and Celestia inside until the end of time...
In the meantime, he had dinner and a show.