Chapter Two
Celestia was observing another fine morning on the balcony of her private bedroom. Today’s sunrise was particularly ordinary, much like those of the past several hundred years. As glamorous as it may sound, raising an entire celestial body every day was certainly a chore, not to mention how extremely taxing it was. Most ponies thought that Celestia kept an air of secrecy around herself to project an omnipotent and benevolent image upon her loyal subjects. In truth, she was sleeping.
In days past, Celestia recalled that there was a time that was darker than Discord’s reign. It was right after his defeat, actually, when the fledgling empire was still re-establishing itself. Many events happened during that time, but one particular detail of the period remained rooted in her mind: bureaucracy was hell. Peace and harmony was all well and good, but Celestia found that blasting prominent political figures vying for power (with love and rainbows, of course) was considered socially… looked down upon, unfortunately. Because such magical love beams were a no-go, Celestia had to endure 30 long years of blathering bureaucrats and prissy politicians until she made an important (and sanity-saving) discovery: those ponies were as brainless as their propositions and policies. (A modern-Equestrian equivalent would be Prince Blueblood’s bid to tax the population in order to create a heated, crystal, diamond-encrusted, plot-massaging, wifi-enabled toilet seat cover.)
So, after some tentative experimentation, a life-sized Celestia balloon came to sit on the throne during day court. Nothing drove fear through the court more than the plastered on smile of an inflatable balloon. Molly-pop, as the stand-in’s name came to be, menacingly floated on the throne, silently ignoring the mares and stallions who came to her. In fact, Molly-pop was ignoring Blueblood’s sixth attempt at passing the uber-seat bid this very morning.
Thankfully, Celestia was resting on her balcony instead. She took another quaint sip from her mug, a hearty-sized piece of ceramic that had a picture of Twilight happily smiling while reading a book. Big, blocky lettering splashed out above the picture, reading “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, HAVE TWILIGHT SOLVE IT”.
“Silence is such a rarity these days,” Celestia pleasantly thought.
Moments of peace like this were what Celestia enjoyed the most; the stuffy strain of being a prominent ruling body coupled with the incessant presence of the press left little time for solitude.
Then Luna entered the room. The doors would have cried, protested against the injustice brought unto them, but, alas, they were shattered and strewn on the floor from the force of Luna’s arrival. Luna was clearly frazzled; her hair was singed and still partially on fire, and her eyes were haggard and bloodshot, darting around the room, desperately looking for Celestia. Her eyes glinted upon seeing her sibling, still silently sipping from the mug. Once she spoke, it was clear that her voice was strained from overuse.
“Tia, TIA! We have a problem! Th-” Luna managed before being cut off.
“Luna.” Celestia’s voice was calm and steady, much like the moment she was having seconds ago. “What has happened that you must breach my room and violate Rule 47?”
“W-well…” Luna stammered out. “The Guard has collapsed, and I have a full damage report on the cause, but I felt it necessary to inform you of the other numerous disasters occurring at this very moment, so I-”
“Although troubling, nothing yet seems to have violated Rule 47. I love you, Luna, but I must remind you that few things are pressing enough that they bypass this rule. Is there anything else that you need to tell me?” It seemed a tad harsh, but to Celestia, maintaining such regulations ensured the protection of all of Equestria.
“...Very well, sister. I will try to regain control of the situation.” Luna made for the door, floating a hastily compiled report on to Celestia’s bedstand. “I leave you with one last message from Main Course: Code Orange. Farewell, dear sister.”
Luna left quickly, the remnants of the door hinges creaking in rage as she hurriedly trotted by. Celestia, on the other hoof, became as still as the statues of the palace gardens at the mention of the news. Her mug was frozen, floating near her lips in mid-sip, and her eyes became slits, focused and sharp. “I see.” Celestia whispered to herself, setting her mug down slowly in realization. “It’s unfortunate, but to deal with Code Orange…” Celestia muttered, hoof rubbing her chin in contemplation.
Celestia left the balcony and trotted to her writing desk. It was a desk of beauty; the frame was fashioned from marble and had a generous amount of space for Celestia’s needs. A few gemstones sparingly decorated the outer rim, but the one in the center was Celestia’s favorite. It was a shimmery, white opal; it wasn’t the rarest, most expensive, or the biggest gem, but Celestia wouldn’t forget the day she received it, all those years ago. She sighed as she recalled the memory, the world fading to sepia.
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The palace gardens, over a decade ago. A strong breeze was blowing through the shrubs. Celestia stood over filly Twilight as she listened to her mentor while resting on a gravel path.
“Now, my faithful student, the most important aspect of being a magician is being aware of your surroundings. Magical skill and power mean nothing if you cannot assess and handle your environment properly.” Celestia said knowingly.
Filly Twilight was so enraptured by the lesson that she focused intently on the ground in front of her. She inspected the gravel thoroughly, trying to acquire the information it held; it’s texture, heat level, relative position, chemical composition, smell, everything. After several intense moments of prodding and prying away at the path, Twilight stopped and turned towards Celestia, happily smiling.
“I think I know whatchu mean, Cewestia,” filly Twilight said with her adorable voice. “You can compare tha tempwatures of tha wocks to figure out tha heat index and compare tha coasness of tha wocks to infwer how much cowosion they went thwew.” The little filly nodded sagely at her insight.
“Very astute, my dear student,” Celestia praised her before continuing. “but do you know everything about this gravel?” A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of Celestia’s lips like they were being pulled along by a playful puppeteer’s strings.
Filly Twi’s eyes widened with shock. Could she have missed something? Was she going to be tested on the various compositions and effectiveness of certain types of gravel? Was she going to have to demonstrate proper gravel production and filling techniques in order to-
“Calm down, Twilight.” Celestia said, concerned. Twilight was already hyperventilating and rubbing her now-unkempt mane and tail for comfort, ears and eyes twitching. “I meant is there anything about the gravel that you could possibly know more about?”
“Oh. Haha…” Twi laughed nervously, blushing a bit. “Well… I guess I don’t know… how tha gwavel tastes?” She mused.
Celestia’s devious little grin returned again. “Perhaps you should figure that out. For science.”
Twilight’s ears perked up at the mention of her favorite word. “Yeah! For science!” She quickly faced the ground, millimeters from touching it with her snout. “Uhh…”
Celestia motioned for her to continue with a circular wave of her hoof, the other stifling her fillylike giggles.
Reassured, Twilight brushed up against the stones, opened her mouth and…
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That was the day Celestia found out that Twilight liked to eat rocks.
Later, when Twilight was having another helping of gravel (her teeth were surprisingly strong for a little filly), she munched upon the opal. She promptly spat it out and gave it to Celestia, muttering about how it wasn’t as good and crunchy as the other stones.
Memory remembered, Celestia shook her head to steel herself for the upcoming task. She began to pour a smidge of her celestial magic into the opal, revealing the intricate rune lock sealing the solution to Code Orange. Three circular inscriptions resided along the vertical axis of the opal, each projecting a small sphere of glowing, pulsating magic. The three spheres darted around playfully before coming to rest as Celestia raised her hoof to them.
The tip of her hoof tapped onto the center sphere, and a note softly but clearly rang out into the room. (The chamber would have been perfectly attuned to the note, but unfortunately, there was still an...unforeseen auditory outlet that had to be considered. Thankfully, the built-in receivers were still functioning properly.) In time with the first note, Celestia moved to tap the sphere on the right, ringing out another echoing sound. (The second note was actually a minor third above the first- fun fact!) Continuing on, Celestia pressed the center sphere to ring out the original note before moving onto the left sphere. This new sound was sadder and lower in pitch (a major second below the first, actually), and Celestia held onto it for a tad longer than the previous three. After lingering on the penultimate tone, Celestia moved towards the far right sphere to have it ring out the final piece of the lock.
As the jingle echoed (sort of) throughout the room, a soft rumbling could be felt as the gears and inner workings of the lock mechanism unhinged. Two panels on the floor unlocked and gave off a comical hiss as the hidden chamber depressurized, each panel sliding off in a different direction. A pedestal was slowly elevated to fill in the gap of the tiling, and after a minute of transit, the floor locked back in place, hiding the depths underneath.
The pedestal itself was not terribly large; it came to rest just under Celestia’s chest when she stood at her full height. The rugged, stone base supported a single tray, flanked by four similar pillars of marble. On top of each pillar floated an orb of magical energy, each of them an ominous shade of deep, navy blue. Underneath the tray was the solution to Code Orange, the key piece needed to resolve the situation. Celestia’s brow was furrowed, caught up in the tension and stress of enacting her be-all, end-all plan. Sweat beaded down her head, carving trails of water as she moved her hoof closer to the handle of the tray. There was a small flash of light as the lid came off to reveal…
...a lone cake.
The last cake in Canterlot, actually.
Considering how ponies had such a high affinity for sweets (Celestia doubly so), the kitchen staff had to properly supply and maintain sugary foods for the palace. So rare were cake shortages that when a dearth of them occurred, civil disobedience was an understatement of the situation. In fact, the last time cakes and pastries vanished from the market, a certain lunar rebellion took place- but that’s a story for another time.