Spike waddled across the room, a stack of books piled up past his forehead balanced delicately in his arms. He heaved them onto a table that was too high for him and said, “Found, like, twenty more books on pre-classical Equestrian architecture, Twilight.”
Twilight, without looking up from the book she was currently leafing through, waggled her hoof a bit. “Good work, Spike. Just leave them there on the desk. I’ll get to them in a moment.”
Spike glanced at the pile he’d just placed on the desk. “Okay. Anything else you need me to get?”
Her mouth twitched as she paused reading. Twilight was silent for a moment, then said, “See if you can find anything with first-century lunar motion charts. Something with detailed drawings, if you can find it.”
Cocking his head to the side a bit, Spike said, “So, are you planning on telling me why you need all these books, or…”
Twilight sighed. Turning her head to look over her shoulder at Spike, she replied, “I don’t get to visit the Canterlot Library as much as I used to, so I need to stock up on as many books as I can before I have to leave again.”
“We come here, like, every month,” said Spike, frowning.
“Exactly!” Twilight clicked her tongue. “What am I supposed to do during that month if I don’t have books to read? Go outside?”
“Uhh...”
“Ha!” Twilight shook her head, chuckling quietly to herself. “The very idea.” She turned back to her book and began flipping through the pages at a fast pace again.
Spike rolled his eyes, also turning away. “Right, well I’m gonna go look for those, um, lunar motion things, or whatever.”
Leaving Twilight to her rapidly-growing pile of books, Spike disappeared into the cavernous library, probably to go find his spelunking gear. Twilight could just barely hear his little feet padding against the cold stone floor as he turned a corner, out of eyesight and, soon, out of earshot as well. She let out a tiny sigh, closing the book she’d been looking through and carefully placing it back on the shelf. “Darn, another boring book. Oh,” she whispered to herself, catching something just at the edge of her vision, “what’s this?”
Furrowing her brow, Twilight moved her hoof towards a book that was up and over a few sections. The spine showed no title, and there were no recognizable markings on it. She bit her lip as she tried to yank it out, but it was stuck tight. Frowning, she lit up her horn, and tugged on the book a little harder. With a bit of effort, the book finally popped out. The only problem is that most of the rest of the shelf followed along with it.
“Ah!” Twilight cried out, quickly overtaken by a minor book avalanche. She groaned, pushing stray books to the side as she slowly managed to extricate herself from the pile. Once she’d gotten out of the pile, she noticed that her head felt heavier than normal. Her horn burst to life again, and she found that a book had managed to land on her head.
She was about to toss it away when she looked at the cover. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, which she blew away with a little puff of air. “What in the…” Twilight squinted, trying her best to read the heavily faded cover. “Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria,” she said slowly. “Huh, wonder what this is about?”
Twilight opened the book and read the inside of the cover where a short synopsis was written.
Equestria, now regarded as one of the most respectable societies in the known world, wasn’t always so. Throughout the years, certain laws and edicts have been passed, by one entity or another, that have given rise to some very… odd customs. Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria seeks to chronicle these maligned misadventures in as thorough a manner as possible.
She wrinkled her brow. This was odd. She'd never heard of there being any odd laws before. Everything always seemed like it had made perfect sense. She flipped past the table of contents and went right to the first chapter. "The Meteoric Rise of Sir Limon". With a little shrug, Twilight settled herself in for some reading.
Celestia tapped her hoof against the desk while she rested her chin in her other hoof. She watched with detached disinterest as members of the Equestrian Senate engaged in what had to have been the thousandth argument this week. Despite the fact that nearly twenty years had passed since the banishment of her sister, Celestia still found it difficult to sit through these meetings alone. At least Luna had provided some entertainment.
"As a member of the Weather Pegasus Union, I am offended by your accusation of incompetence, Sir Boulderdash," said Fair Weather, a rather boorish pegasus stallion with droopy ears and a bad mane. “We do our part to keep the rains from being too strong and the sun too hot. It's no fault of ours that you earth ponies can't grow your crops."
Boulderdash gasped. "Sir! How dare you shift the blame to us." Adjusting his ill-fitting suit, he added, "And I'll thank you to refrain from such onerous accusations. After all, it was not we who brought snow and ice upon the beets."
"Snow and ice are hardly unusual for this time of year."
"It's spring!"
Celestia groaned as the thousandth and one argument broke out. With a heavy sigh, she stood up and banged her hoof on the desk. "Silence! All of you, silence!"
The room immediately quieted. All the gathered senators looked up to see an angry Celestia, her mane like roiling water as it tumbled about.
"The senator from... Worthington…shire…fields…ville would like to speak," said Celestia in her booming voice.
Several senators raised their brows, but none spoke, all of them searching for this mysterious senator. When nopony presented themselves, they turned back to Celestia, questioning looks on their faces. She merely returned their gazes with a playful grin. As she reached under her desk, a few more eyebrows rose, then finally she procured a small white plate with a single piece of lemon cake sitting on it, half-eaten by the looks of it.
Celestia nodded to the cake. "Senator Limon has the floor."
Stunned silence filled the room, a change that Celestia quite liked, though she wasn't done yet. She placed her hoof on the cake, and started moving it up and down while speaking out of the corner of her mouth in a ridiculous voice that sounded like she was chewing on asphalt. “As the distinguished senator from Worthingtonfieldsvilleshireton, I have some concerns about the efficacy of—”
“Princess, please!” shouted a lanky senator near the front so loudly that his monocle almost popped off. “What is this… this… farce?” He slammed his hoof down. “This is a place of deliberation, not party tricks!”
Celestia’s lips curled into a scowl, and she shot the senator a look so fierce that, had he not been wearing fireproof pants, likely would’ve caused him to spontaneously burst into flame. He quickly looked down at his hooves, which were far more interesting anyway, he assured himself.
“Now, as I was saying,” continued senator Limon, “as the senator from Worthingvillefieldstonshireton, I have some concerns about the efficacy of our legal system, and as such, I would like to propose a few… changes.”
Celestia grinned like a wolf as she watched the senators start glancing between each other worriedly.
“And so senator Limon rose through the ranks of the Senate, eventually being named the head of the body through popular approval. Just six months after his debut, senator Limon was named Emperor of Equestria’s first—and only—Bakerarchy. However, this period was short-lived, only lasting about a month or so until Celestia finally got tired of the whole thing and the government collapsed, eventually being rebuilt a week later just like it was before,” read Twilight as she flipped to the last page in the chapter.
When she’d finished, she found that she’d somehow contorted herself into a position where she was beneath a rather elaborate book castle and was holding Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria in her hooves. “Huh,” she muttered. “How come I’ve never heard about this before? And a ‘Bakerarchy’? I don’t think that’s even a word.” She flipped the book over. “Who even wrote this?”
Unfortunately, try as she might, she couldn’t find the author's name. Underneath the title, where such things are usually found, the print was worn so much that it was impossible to read or even make out a stray letter. She frowned. This was rather perplexing, but, she figured, in the name of proper research, she should probably continue reading. Purely for research purposes.
She flipped to the next chapter, which was titled “Moongazing”. Settling further into her book fortress, she started reading.
There was a knock at the door. Celestia sighed, setting aside the paperwork she was filling out for the orphanage, then she muttered in her sweet voice, “Come in.”
The door creaked open, letting light spill into the room that, since there was already a window open, was already pretty bright to begin with. A guardpony with a prominent cowlick sticking out the face holes in his armor strode into the room. His eyes shifted about, and he shuffled his hooves nervously. She raised her eyebrows.
“Princess Celestia, your highness,” he said, bowing his head a bit, “it’s about the sympathizers.”
Celestia stared silently for a moment, blinking slowly, then she groaned. “What did they do this time?”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Well… you see… the thing is—”
“Before I die, please.”
“They’ve started moonlight vigils, Princess.”
Celestia took a long, slow breath. She chewed on her words for a moment, then said, “Moonlight vigils?”
The guard nodded, tipping his helmet forward a bit. “Yes, Princess. They gather on the outskirts of town and stare at the moon, offering her gift baskets and chocolate. Begging her to return.”
“Do they now?” Celestia drummed her hoof against the desk. “Fine,” she said, stopping suddenly. She stood up and walked over to the window. Staring out at the regal city of Canterlot, the breeze flowed through Celestia's mane. She let the wind play with her for a bit before she turned back around. “I’ll make it illegal then.”
The guard raised an eyebrow. “Princess?”
“Moon gazing, I’ll make it illegal.”
“Princess, I don’t think—”
Celestia’s fiery eyes lit up as she swooped in on the guard. Hovering right around his face, she leaned in well within his personal space and said, “You don’t think what, Captain? Don’t think it’s a good idea to make moon gazing illegal? Or perhaps you don’t think I should be the ruler of Equestria anymore?” She leaned in so close that her snout was in his ear.
He was trembling now, and a bit ticklish, what with Celestia’s face inside his ear. “No, Princess, I would never suggest that you weren’t fit to be ruler. I merely think that making looking at the moon illegal wouldn’t be the best way to, um, alleviate tension.”
Lifting her hoof, Celestia started running it through the guard’s mane, which made him recoil a bit. She whispered into his ear, “Am I not a fair and just ruler?” Her hot breath against his ear made it twitch. “Have I not been kind to those who supported my sister?”
The guard adjusted the straps around his neck, moving around awkwardly. “Well, um, there were only, by my estimate, a total of seven supporters, and had them all thrown into the Pit of Unspeakable Agony.”
“Oh,” said Celestia, backing away suddenly, throwing up her hooves. “I didn’t realize we were going to bring up that.” She started pacing around the room, mumbling to herself. “You put a few ponies in a little pit, and suddenly you’re a monster. I let them out, didn’t I?” She nodded. “I let them go free, didn’t I?” Again, she nodded. She rounded on the guard. “I let them return to their homes, didn’t I!?”
The guard’s ears flattened against his head. “Yes…” he said quietly, “...after eleven years and three months.”
“Well, I didn’t make them serve their full term, did I!?”
“Their sentence was fifty-six thousand years, Princess.”
Celestia stamped her hoof. “Nothing is ever good enough for these ponies.” Rushing back to her desk, she pulled out a quill and parchment, then wrote something down. When she finished, she ripped the parchment from the lectern and handed it to the guard. “From now on, anypony caught looking at the moon will serve a mandatory million-year sentence in the Pit.”
“Princess, doesn’t that seem a bit… harsh?”
Her lips curled into the deepest scowl feasibly possible, Celestia growled, “One billion years!”
“Luckily, the ‘Don’t Look at the Moon or I’ll Throw You in the Pit Act’, as it was often referred to by locals, was repealed twelve hours later when Celestia looked at the moon by mistake and didn’t want to serve her billion-year sentence. Only one pony was ever convicted, and legend has it that the poor soul still resides in the Pit of Unspeakable Agony to this day, though now it is referred to as ‘Social Services’.”
Twilight rolled over, now inside a book city that she had absentmindedly constructed while reading. She stared at the ceiling of the library, tracing the lines of whatever plaster they’d used to repair it over the years. “What the hell…” she muttered.
Shaking her head, she flipped back over and returned to the book. With an inward shrug, she thought, I’ve made it this far. Might as well see how far the rabbit hole goes.
With more than a bit of trepidation, though it was tinged with a bit of guilty excitement, she flipped to the next chapter and read the title aloud.
“The ‘Cake Incident’.” Twilight shuddered a bit. “Here we go…”
The fork glowed a bright yellow as Celestia lifted it up to her muzzle. She twirled it around a bit, letting the fragrant scent of a spring afternoon hang about her snout like a wreath. With a delicate and practiced motion, she opened her mouth and slipped the fork inside. Immediately she was hit with the sweet, yet subtle, taste of the dandelion cake as she closed her mouth and pulled the fork out with a pop.
She reveled in the taste, savoring every second that it spent sitting on her tongue. With a soft moan, she shut her eyes and swallowed the cake. “ Mmm," she mumbled, licking her lips with a wet smack. She opened her eyes again, a satisfied smile creeping across her face.
Looking down at the plate, she saw what was left of the cake sitting there, untouched, unsullied. She suddenly got a wild look in her eye. Without another word, or a sound, or really anything for that matter, she shoved her face into the cake and started scarfing it down like a rabid wolf. Bits of icing and cake flew all over the room as she brutally eviscerated the helpless cake.
Just then, the door swung open.
"Princess, I have a question about..."
The mare stopped, her hoof halfway in between pushing up her glasses and straightening her notepad. She watched with a small amount of horror as Celestia’s face slowly lifted from the sugary remains of the cake. Crumbs tumbled off her cheeks, and her muzzle was plastered with icing. Her cheeks bulged from the cake already stuffed in them, and threatened to explode if she tried to fit any more inside.
"Yesh?" said Celestia, more crumbs falling out of her mouth as she spoke.
The mare glanced over her shoulder, then back at Celestia, like she wasn't sure if she was being serious. “ Uh, I can, er, come back another time if you're busy?"
Celestia gave her a look that spoke more than her stuffed mouth possibly could, and it said, "Do I look like I want you to come back later?"
To which, of course, the mare knew the answer. She sighed under her breath, then continued. “Princess, we've recently discovered that there's been a severe overestimation of some of our food stores." She gulped. "Namely, we're lower than we thought on flour, eggs, and milk."
Celestia’s eyes drifted down to the cake, her face still full to bursting. She stared at the mess on the plate for a moment, then looked back to the mare, Celestia's eyes wide with terror. “Thish ish terrible!"
The mare pushed up her glasses while staring intently at her notes, and doing her absolute best to avoid making eye contact. “Well, according to some of the farmers, and a few of the merchants in town, this isn't really a major issue. We will have to scale back production on most baked goods and breads, but we've got more than enough vegetables to last us the few months we might have to go. So," she said, still not looking up, "I wanted to ask you about what you think we should do." She bit her lip, deciding to take the risk to look up. When she did, she breathed a sigh of relief. Celestia had finally swallowed her food, though there was still icing streaked across her face and crumbs stuck in her fur.
Celestia ran a hoof through her mane, shaking her head slowly. “No, no, no, this is bad. This is really bad."
"It's really not a huge problem, prin—"
Celestia shot up and grabbed the mare by her shoulders. Shaking the poor girl around like she was trying to get the prize out out of the bottom of the box, Celestia shouted, "Not a huge problem!? Not a huge problem!? This is an earth-shattering problem! Our very existence hangs in the balance, don't you see?"
"Princess, it's just just a few baked goods that we'll be low on, nothing we can't live without."
Pressing her snout so close to the mare's that they were touching, Celestia said, “You haven't seen me without my afternoon sweets." Throwing herself off the mare in the most dramatic fashion she could, Celestia added, "If you thought Nightmare Moon was bad, you don't want to see, uhh... Daymare... Sun!"
The mare covered her mouth, coughing quietly. Celestia could've sworn she heard a laugh, but she was too busy being crazy to notice it.
“Princess, I'm sure you'll be fine. It should only be a month or so until we can replenish our stocks."
"No," said Celestia, turning away. "This calls for more... drastic measures." She turned back to the mare, her eyes hard and her face stern. "Execute Order 66."
A tiny gasp escaped from the mare. She covered her mouth. She paused for a moment, then a look of confusion came over her. “Wait, which one was Order 66 again?"
"It's the one, you know, the one with the, um, shoot..." She frowned. "Okay, so a new Order then. Order 67, all confectionary goods are now considered a national treasure, and we will take the proper safeguards to ensure that all cakes, brownies, muffins, cupcakes, etc. shall henceforth become the property of the Equestrian government." Her face curled into into a grimace, she stomped her hoof. "Send out the Royal Guard.”
The hours ticked by as Twilight continued to read. She occasionally stopped to shake her head, or let out a little gasp, stare incredulously, scratch her butt, or just mumble, “Whaaaaaat theeeee heeeeeell.” Eventually, when she reached the end of the book, she closed it with a sigh, just in time to see Spike walking back into the room.
“Sorry it took me a few minutes, but I found some… more…” He stopped, letting the books in his arms fall down. Staring at the book metropolis Twilight had built, he raised an eyebrow, pointing at a particular skyscraper. “Uhh…”
“Oh, that,” said Twilight nonchalantly, waving her hoof, “yeah, don’t worry about that.” She held up Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria. “Have you ever heard of this book, Spike? Insane Edicts?”
“What?” Spike waded through a sea of books to get to Twilight. He took one glance at the book, then said, “Nope, never heard of it. What is it?”
Twilight shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Spike. It’s madness… utter madness.”
“Uhh…”
“Did you know that it was once declared that the moon is made of cheese and that nopony should be allowed to visit for fear that they would eat it?”
Spike’s brow rose higher. “I… did not know that.”
Twilight nodded. “Neither did I. Did you know that cake was once given citizenship, and no one was allowed to eat it anymore?”
“I had no idea.”
Patting the book with a hoof, Twilight nodded slowly. “Yep… I think I need to go talk to Celestia about some things.” She stood up and walked past Spike, adding, “Clean up this mess for me, will you?”
Spike watched her leave, still somewhat in shock. It was only after she’d left the library completely that her request hit him. He looked around at all the books that littered the floor, the last remnants of a decaying book castle. “Oh man…”
Twilight raised her hoof to knock on the door, then paused as if to reconsider this action. She lowered her hoof and pushed open the door to Celestia’s room without knocking. As she walked in, she said, “Celestia, I need to talk to you about something.”
Celestia had a soft smile on her face as she turned away from the window she’d been looking out of. “Oh, Twilight, what a pleasant surprise. What is it you wanted to talk about?”
Twilight shuffled her hooves, hiding the book behind her back. She took a deep breath and pulled the book out, holding it up in her magic. “Well, it’s about this book I found.”
Celestia’s eyes went wide.
“There’s some… things in it that I think maybe you can help me under—”
Twilight was silenced midsentence as Celestia lunged forward and grabbed the book from Twilight’s magic cloud. In one fluid motion, she plucked it from the air and spun around, tossing it out the window as hard as she could.
“—stand,” finished Twilight, her shoulders slumping.
Celestia whipped back around. “I thought I had all the copies of that burned!”
Twilight’s lips curled into a frown. “Well, that went well.”
Her eyes narrowed into thin slits, Celestia leaned forward and said in a harsh whisper, “We must never speak of this again.”
Twilight rocked back and forth on her hooves. “So… cakes, huh?”
Groaning, Celestia rolled her eyes, massaging her temple with a hoof. “Yes, Twilight, cakes.”
It was just like any other day for Lucky Find. He was strolling through the gardens outside Canterlot Castle, simply enjoying the breeze running through his mane, not really expecting anything out of the world other than the simple beauty a cloudless day like to today afforded him. He went to suck in his breath, to enjoy the cool afternoon air, when something struck him quite hard in the back of the head.
Rubbing the back of his head, he turned around to see a book lying in the grass. “What the…” he mumbled. He leaned down to pick it up, noticing the title as he did, “Insane Edicts: A Legal History of Equestria”.