Despite what many ponies choose to believe about Celestia, it was undeniable to those that personally knew her that she was NOT a morning pony in any sense of the word. Most pictured her to be completely graceful and the symbol of Equestrian beauty one hundred percent of the time. This couldn’t be any further from the truth though, as Celestia tended to look very shaggy-looking when she first wakes up. Her usually-flowing mane stops completely from being tangled and out of order, and she sometimes has bags under her eyes from waking up so early. And she had a tendency to snore.
Nothing un-graceful about this at all.
It was one of those times where Celestia had unintentionally woken up at somewhere around three in the morning and was unable to bring herself back into the bliss of slumber for a few hours. Just when it was starting to look like she’d be drifting back to sleep though, her alarm clock blared loudly in her ears.
“Mmmmmph…” Celestia groaned as she turned her alarm off. “Even after a few thousand years, getting up this early never gets any easier.”
She struggled to sit herself up and drag her body out of bed, her mind telling her she needed to wake up, but the rest of her begging to go back to bed. She walked over to her bedroom window and slowly opened it, the window making a loud, creaking sound. Celestia looked up at her sister’s moon, which was already starting to be lowered by Luna from her own room. Once the moon was out of sight, Celestia lit up her horn with magic and the sun began to make its way into its place in the sky for the upcoming day.
Getting the sun up was easy for Celestia. Getting HERSELF up was an entirely different story altogether.
‘Now that that’s taken care of, I need to get some caffeine in my system or else I might fall asleep on my throne. That’s happened one time too many.’ She thought to herself. She tried to force a smile as she went into the royal kitchen downstairs, ensuring any passing servants that she’d handle her making her own coffee. She might’ve been tired, but she wasn’t helpless.
After a few moments of her coffee brewing and taking a sip out of it, she gagged a little. How anypony drank this completely black was beyond even her. She’d tried and failed to do so several times now, and it never tasted any better. If she was going to get this down, she needed creamer, on the double.
Celestia trotted over to the fridge and opened the door to it with her magic, hoping to find coffee creamer in there…
The last thing she’d expected to see was a cream-colored earth pony filly with an orange mane tied up in pigtails sitting in her fridge, drinking hot sauce straight out of the bottle. A few drops of said hot sauce had managed to make its way onto the bright pink hoodie the filly wore.
For a moment, Celestia was pretty sure she was hallucinating from exhaustion and she blinked a little. “…Um…can I help you?” she asked gently.
The filly stopped drinking for a minute to look up at Celestia, giving her a cute smile. “Howdy! Don’t mind me, just pretend I’m not even here.” She said, going back to drinking her hot sauce. Celestia narrowed her eyes a bit to get a better look at the label on the bottle.
"The Fires of Tartarus" Hot sauce.
Prepare to suffer thou mortal swine.
Warning: Do not let contents of bottle come in contact with skin.
This was one of the bottles that Luna kept in a tiny safe at the back of the fridge so nopony else would get their hooves on it. How exactly did this filly get-
Celestia looked deeper into the fridge where Luna usually kept the safe and saw the door had a huge hole that looked to be melted into it, leading right to the contents inside. ‘…Well this leaves me with quite a few questions. What does she have a blowtorch somewhere in that hoodie?’ Celestia thought. She used her magic to quickly swipe the bottle out of the filly’s hooves before she got a chance to react. Heavens knows what Luna would do if she found out her safe had been raided.
The filly seemed very displeased with this and reached for it, letting out a little whine. “Nnnnoooo.” She said with a slightly adorable frown.
Celestia saw the filly’s current face and her heart nearly melted at the sight of it. The filly’s big puppy-dog eyes combined with the adorable whine was nearly too much. “N-Nnng. Sorry, but you really shouldn’t be drinking this. It could make your little stomach hurt.” She said, making an attempt to be stern. It was looking difficult though, considering the look she was giving her.
The filly’s ears folded and she whimpered a bit. “Nnn…fine…I drank four bottles already anyway.”
Celestia’s eyes widened a little at that. ‘FOUR?! WHAT IS THIS FILLY?!’ Celestia internally screamed. She shook her head quickly. Now wasn’t the time to try and understand this filly’s tolerance of spicy food. She had other things that needed to be asked.
Celestia kneeled down to the filly’s eye-level once she hopped out of the fridge to hopefully make her more comfortable talking to her. “Do you mind if I ask you what you were doing in my fridge miss…?” Celestia quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Honeysuckle. My name is Honeysuckle.” She said, giving that adorable smile again. The filly turned around and showed her hoodie had a symbol of a few flowers and her own name sewn to the back of it. “It even says it on my hoodie! My daddy made it especially for me! Do you like it?~” Honeysuckle asked.
Celestia giggled a little. She’d seen many fathers that were skilled enough in sewing to do something like this, but this was simply much too adorable. “Very much. It looks good on you.” She said with a smile. “So anyway, could you tell me why you were in there?”
Honeysuckle turned back to face Celestia and lightly kicked the ground. “Well, I just had a real craving for something hot, and my search brought me here. My dad normally doesn’t let me have hot things that much. He says they’ll burn a hole in my belly.”
Celestia felt genuinely disturbed at the sound of that. ‘Well, that sounds rather morbid’ she thought to herself.
The filly brought a hoof up to one of her pigtails and lightly twirled it around her hoof, seemingly nervously. “That…and I wanted to maybe meet you. I’ve never met a princess before, and you seem really nice.” She said, trying to find her words.
“Well, that’s really sweet to hear Honeysuckle.” Celestia said, lightly patting the filly’s mane. “But you know there are other ways to meet me besides sneaking into the castle.”
Honeysuckle blushed a little in embarrassment and buried her face in her hoodie. “I-I know. But this just looked like the easiest way. The guards seem to let anyone in if they stare hard enough.”
Celestia made a mental note to train her guards in cute-resistance, should any future evil threats just happen to be this cute. She was going to press even further on the matter of how she managed to get into the safe in the fridge, but didn’t get a chance. This was because another question had come to mind at that moment, when Honeysuckle let out a quiet sneeze.
“A-Achoo!” she squeaked. At the same moment her sneeze had come out of her mouth, Honeysuckle’s mane and tail seemed to disappear entirely, and had been replaced in an instant by a large and burning hot flame. The entirety of where her mane had been was engulfed in fire, letting off a near-unbearable heat to overtake the feeling of the room.
Understandably, Celestia was very taken back by the sight, and she backed away from the filly’s flaming mane. “OH MY GOSH, HONEY WHAT HAPPENED?!” Celestia yelled in fear for the filly’s safety. Honey tilted her head a little and her mouth made an “O” shape, seemingly in confusion.
“What? Do I have something on my fac-…Oh.” Honeysuckle said in realization, looking up at her mane. “I’m sorry. That happens when I sneeze sometimes.” Honeysuckle’s blush of embarrassment grew a little deeper at that and she looked down at the floor.
That was it. Celestia needed answers. First a filly ingesting four bottles of health-hazardous hot sauce, Luna’s private fridge-safe being broken into via melting, and now her mane turning into fire. This weird combination of adorableness and insanity had gone on long enough. “Okay, Honey I really need to ask you something important.”
Honey nodded and sat on her haunches, looking up at Celestia with her tongue slightly sticking out of her mouth. “Okay. What is it?”
Celestia put a hoof to her chest and tried desperately not to succumb to what felt like a heart attack being induced by Honey’s curious face. “N-Ngh. I need to know. Why does your mane catch on fire like that? That’s very…ooh what’s the word for it…unusual for an Earth Pony.”
Honey’s ears folded a little and she frowned. “I-I don’t know. I get it from my dad. His mane is on fire all the time, is that bad?” she asked.
And with that one sentence, Celestia realized just what this filly was and where she was from, and it made her eyes widen and jaw drop in shock…
Celestia stood at the front gates of Tartarus, which were being guarded by a couple dozen dark red ponies with sharpened teeth and bat wings carrying spears. The entire path leading up to the gate had hot, boiling lava on both sides and was infested with lava sharks. She banged on the large wooden door with the skull-shaped knockers attached to it several times. “Hades! Open the door!” She shouted, hoping to get a response.
Honey sat idly on Celestia’s back, eating a bar of chocolate Celestia had given her that was starting to melt in Tartarus’ intense heat. She didn’t mind it though. Chocolate was chocolate.
“M-Mmph. Maybe he’s not here.” Honey said with a full mouth and chocolate on her face.
Almost immediately, Honey was proven wrong, as the door slowly creaked open, revealing who was on the other side. He was tall, red unicorn stallion that had a pair of bat wings that spread across an impressive wingspan, and had piercing green eyes that looked very similar to Honey’s. The most notable feature of the stallion was that his mane and tail were made entirely out of free-flowing fire.
This was the ruler of Tartarus himself, Hades.
“What is your business here, your highness?” he asked in a deep and intimidating voice. Celestia didn’t respond at first and instead picked Honeysuckle off her back and held her out to him. Honey seemed very happy at the sight of Hades and gave him a big smile.
“Hi daddy!~” she said, giggling a little, having not swallowed her chocolate yet.
“Could you do me a favor and keep a better eye on your daughter?” Celestia asked with a deadpanned expression at him.
Just then, Hades looked down at his giggling filly in Celestia’s hooves, taking in what she just said. He couldn’t come up with a very witty response for a statement like that and instead gave a sheepish and embarrassed smile, showing off his fangs. “…Ehehe…right, sorry…” he said nervously, picking Honey up and nuzzling her cheek. “I can’t take my eyes off you for one second can I? Don’t go anywhere without letting me know again, or you’re grounded missy.”
“Awwww daaaaaaad.” Honey whined.
“Don’t give me any of that Honey. If you got lost and didn’t come back, your mother and I would be devastated.” Hades said, gently petting the filly’s mane. “Now go up to your room, I’ll be up there to talk to you in a minute.” Hades put Honey on the ground on the inside of the gate, letting her trot to her room on her own. “And no torturing the wicked tonight!” he shouted to her.
“Oh come on! I was going to tell the prisoners about how beautiful the outside world they’d never get to see again looked in excruciating detail too!” Honey groaned as she trotted out of Celestia’s view. She looked up at Hades and rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t take the punisher of the eternally damned for the fatherly, hoodie-sewing type. You surprise me.” she said.
Hades rubbed the back of his head, still sheepishly smiling. “Ehehe, I’m just trying to be the dad she deserves and keep her safe. Thanks for making sure she was alright. Hope she didn’t cause you any trouble.”
Celestia shook her head. “Oh no, not at all. She was a delight. Although, I am going to need to explain to Luna why a lot of her special hot sauce is missing.” Celestia shuddered a bit at the thought of what would happen when that occurred. Luna was serious beyond all comprehension about keeping that from anyone else.
Hades chuckled a little. “She can really hold her spicy food I guess. Good thing too. She vomits magma.”
Celestia looked behind Hades to see if she could get a good look at Honey again, but unfortunately, she couldn’t. “I’m just going to go out on a limb and say her name wasn’t your idea. ‘Honeysuckle’ doesn’t exactly scream hellspawn.”
Hades rolled his eyes a little. “I know, I know. It was her mother’s idea. Apparently she thought my ideas would make foals afraid of her. In all fairness though, if I’d gotten my way she’d have to explain why the word ‘Diavolo Doombringer’ was written on her application for college sometime down the road.”