//------------------------------//
// Interlude - Paint The White Roses Red 
// Story: A List of Things Ponies Aren't Allowed To Do (AKA Celestia and the Paperwork that Wouldn't Quit) 
// by Nickel Alloy 
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"I'm working," Celestia growled as she flung open the door. She wasn't usually this irate, but she was dealing with a large mound of paperwork from Yakyakistan that mostly consisted of "NOT PERFECT!" 

"S-sorry, y-your m-Majesty," said the meek pony standing outside the door. "I just w-wanted to know if you'd l-like to c-come and see?" 

Celestia sighed. It was Invisible Ink, the castle mail deliverer, who was so nervous that everyone not a pegasus nor an earth pony was going to smite him for doing a bad job that he constantly stuttered. 

"What is it?" No doubt something about that infernal list... 

"U-um, it's the C-Cutie Mark Crusaders...." 

"Say no more." Celestia had gotten numerous reports from Twilight about the CMC, usually about how they'd nearly destroyed the town. As she stalked through the hallways, she imagined what they had done this time. Or how'd they'd even gotten to Canterlot. 

When she arrived at the garden, she saw the three fillies being chased angrily by both their older sisters and a team of palace guards, trailing a red paintbrush behind them. She stepped in front of the fillies, cornering them, and stared down at them disapprovingly. 

"And what do you think you're doing?" 

Two fillies pushed a small white unicorn forward. Was this Scootaloo? No, she was a pegasus. This was....Sweetie Belle, right. The loud one. She wasn't so loud today, apparently, because she mumbled something Celestia couldn't hear. 

"What was that?" She tried to seem kind, but everything today was getting on her nerves, so it came out as the kind of thing a mother uses to reprimand a very small foal. 

"Um," said Sweetie Belle. "We, um, snuck on the train because we wanted to hear the rest of the list...." 

"I haven't finished writing it yet. It's the god-forsaken MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT." 

"Well, while we were waiting we decided to become Cutie Mark Crusader Gardeners...and I'd read in a book how this really mean princess made her gardeners paint the roses red...and we thought maybe you'd like that?" 

"You thought," mumbled the orange one, Scootaloo. 

"No, we thought," said Sweetie Belle, shooting a look at her friend. "But then our sisters found us. And so did the gardeners. And they may have gone the teeniest, tiniest bit nutty." 

Celestia massaged her temples with one hoof. "Okay. Why don't you and your sisters find a nice hotel room to stay in, and we can talk about this in the morning. Ok?" 

"Hey, don't talk ta us like we're--" 

"We understand," said Sweetie Belle, cutting off the third one, a yellow filly with a bow in her mane. "We'll go now. Raaaaaarity!" 

"I'm. Right. Here," groaned Rarity, who had been standing right behind the fillies and had gotten the full force of the yell. She herded the fillies away, and Celestia trudged back to the castle to finish her current paperwork. 

Damn you, Hoovis Carroll...