• Published 23rd Feb 2014
  • 10,066 Views, 293 Comments

A funny thing happened on the way to the throne room - Kaelzoroden



A series of Celestia shorts.

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On the Density of Alicorn Skulls

Celestia couldn't help but wonder if there was any problem that couldn't be made more manageable after a few slices of cake. In the centuries of her rule, the Royal Pâtissiers had passed down and meticulously refined several cake recipes, the end result being an array of desserts tuned precisely to the Solar Goddess' tastes. On the days where she allowed herself to have some (the Royal Waistline had to be maintained, after all) they were usually one of the major highlights.

Of course, Equestria didn't run itself, and Celestia was by this point quite used to multitasking. A slice of cake hovering in the air beside her, she walked on through the marble hallways of the palace, mouth full and eyes glued to her itinerary. Let's see, I'll need to keep the meetings with the petitioners brief if I'm to see to the trade meeting and the Royal Guards' drills- Her train of thought was interrupted as her horn connected painfully with something. Wincing and looking up, her eyes widened as she saw the scaffolding reaching high up to the vaulted ceiling, construction materials piled high on its many layers. I completely forgot about the repairs to the roof here! I should keep an eye on where I'm going. Stepping to the side, she made her way past the teetering structure, focus returning to her list.

Unseen to her, her collision had produced more of an effect than she had assumed. High atop the rickety looking structure, a pile of metal pipes shifted, causing one to slowly begin to slide forward off the edge of the scaffold. Too preoccupied with her cake and itinerary to hear the quiet sound of metal sliding over metal, Celestia was completely caught off guard as the heavy pipe fell a few stories to land end-first on the back of her head.

Cranial trauma is a curiously unpredictable thing, especially in cases where the head in question is simply too durable to crack like a melon. The metal pole succeeded in pile driving Celestia's skull into the marble floor hard enough that her jaw left an imprint on the hard stone. Her eyes had rolled almost completely back and one of her hind legs was twitching sporadically- one could almost hear the tweeting of the birds flying around her head. After a few moments of unconsciousness, her eyes fluttered and refocused, and she sat up with a groan, rubbing her head.

If any of her servants were around, they would likely have already noticed that something seemed off. Celestia normally had an almost motherly aura to her- one could almost feel her compassion radiating like heat from the sun. It suffused her words, her expressions, her posture and her movements.
Or it used to, at any rate.
The mare looking around at her surroundings now had a steely glint in her eye and her mouth was set in a hard line. Her shoulders, normally relaxed and at ease, were tense and squared, the posture of somepony ready for conflict. With a confused expression, she looked down at her regalia, her brow furrowing as she scrutinized the delicately wrought golden peytral and horseshoes. Scowling, she turned and looked up the corridor.

"Hark! Wherefore art Our servants? Thy Princess requires aid!" Almost snarling at her golden finery, she wasted little time in removing it and casting it aside as though it was little more than a foal's costume instead of ancient and enchanted relics. Leaving her crown but nothing else, she stormed off down the hallway. "Bring forth Our armour! 'Tis most unseemly for thy Ruler to go about thusly unprotected!"

----------

The figure sitting on the Throne of the Sun bore little resemblance to the gentle creature the Nobility were used to. Her posture seemed closer to that of a Minotaur Warlord than a Pony Princess, as she leaned sideways in her throne, a foreleg resting on the raised side. Her armour, fished out of storage and cleaned with a wave of heat that would melt any normal metal, added a shocking amount of bulk to her already large form, making her look every bit the image of a mercenary chieftain from before the Unification of the Clans. As if all that weren't enough, a massive hammer sat next to her throne, the deep engravings on the head seeming to burn with an unnaturally slow and wispy white fire. The power of the thing was evident to any Unicorn in sight of it, and to any of the other ponies who happened to notice that it had heated the floor it was sitting on to a glowing red.

"Send in the next petitioner!" Gulping, an Earth pony of summer hues walked towards the throne, a shake in her hooves betraying her nerves.

"H-hello your highness, my name is Cottonwood, and thank you so much for taking the time to-"

"Prithee, cease thine pleasantries! What is it thou hast need of?" Cottonwood quailed under the booming voice of the Princess of the Sun.

"I r-represent the farmers from Appleoosa. It's been a very hot summer, a-and the ground is baked. We were hoping you could tone down the heat over us if you can and have the time but I don't want to be a bother and you're probably busy..."

Reaching over, Celestia gripped the massive hammer and raised it slightly before dropping it back down, making an echoing boom as the marble cracked under the ancient artifact.

"The Sun shall recede from your farms! Take heart noble peasant, and know that We shall handle this matter henceforth!" Cottonwood shuffled backwards awkwardly, not daring to come out of her deep bow, all the while muttering her thanks in a small and terrified voice. Celestia allowed herself a somewhat lopsided grin.

"Send in the next petitioner!"

If the Cottonwood had been nervous, the one behind her looked as though she were about to have a nervous breakdown. Her belly nearly on the floor as she slowly scootched forward, it was hard to say if she was too terrified to come out of a bow or too terrified for her legs to support her own weight. Possibly a bit of both. Celestia stared at her, one eyebrow raised.

"O-oh mighty Princess of the Sun, please, I ask you-" Celestia held up a hoof, looking around the throne room. Head up in the air, she sniffed, looking around curiously until her gaze settled on the pony in front of her. She looked at her with an expression of intense scrutiny, before igniting her horn and emitting a pulse of illusion-disrupting magic.

The sudden reveal of the Queen of the Changelings laying prostrate in front of Celestia distracted the nobility from the fact that several of them were suddenly revealed to be balding, several were in fact a bit heavier than they let on, and one was actually a completely different gender all together.

Chrysalis let out a terrified yelp before covering her head. She didn't have stores of power at the moment, and knew that she couldn't hope to match Celestia in a duel- and that was BEFORE the appearance of her armour and strange, giant hammer.

"OH FAUST PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Celestia had some dim memory of Changelings attacking Canterlot, but for the love of her could not place when it happened.

"Speak, Changeling, and let thy cause be known. Thou hath risked much coming before Us, and We would hear what thou has to say. If it is particularly good, We may even refrain from having you de-horned and wing-clipped." Celestia leaned forward. "We could use a good laugh."

Chrysalis, at this point, was suddenly enveloped by the calm that comes with knowing that one's doom is at hand and there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Her shoulders sagging but her shaking gone, she got to her hooves and looked at Celestia with resignation in her eyes.

"My kind are dying, Celestia. I come here today because we have no other choice." resolving to meet her fate with some dignity, she forced herself to hold her head high and look Celestia square in the eyes. "I will not apologize for what we did- it was necessary. There was no other way to keep all of my Changelings fed. There are... less of us now though." A brief flicker of grief crossed her face. So many less. "Less enough, perhaps, that we might, at your mercy, live alongside your Ponies."

There were several things that Chrysalis was bracing herself for- anything from a cold dismissal, the kind she might have received from the Princess circa five hundred years ago, to the warm let-down that seemed more likely of her modern behaviour. She did not, however, expect the sharp, barking laugh that she received. In shock, she watched Celestia get to her hooves and walk down the steps towards her.

"Thou dost raid Our city. Thou imprison and impersonate Our Ponies. Thou art a leech in everything but name, and thou wouldst beg mercy?" Celestia stormed forward until their noses were almost touching- they might have, if Chrysalis hadn't flinched back from the firestorm in her eyes. "The grief and pain that thou hath caused is both unforgettable and unforgivable. Thine ambitions would have left Ponykind as a slave race! A generation hath been traumatized- We know of the nervous glances that strangers in once-welcoming towns now receive. For all the ignoble and incorrect actions you have taken, why should We grant you anything other than Our wrath?" Chrysalis was trying to not cower before the fury in Celestia's voice, as the Alicorn's tirade had somehow mounted into an even louder crescendo as she had continued. She had no answer to the enraged sun-goddess, and her silence was the only response she could give. Celestia continued to stare at her intently, and when she next spoke, none of her anger was gone- but the volume had lessened.

"Thou hath come here utterly unrepentant for thy crimes. Were the clock to be turned back, thou wouldst no doubt act the same. Through it all though, all the horrors thou hast visited upon our Ponies were not done out of spite, but to provide for thine Changelings. The means thou used to pursue this end were all wrong, but thine intentions were laudable." Holding her gaze for a moment, Celestia turned and returned to her throne. After a moment of deliberation, she sat up straight.

"The Changelings shall not be pardoned for their crimes against Ponykind. Forgiveness for such acts shall not be given freely-" She looked down at Chrysalis, a calculating grin playing across her features. "-but it may, in time, be earned. The Changelings will be allowed to enter and reside in Equestria. They may not use their illusions to pass as anything that they are not- any Changeling found to be masquerading as any other creature with the intent of deception shall be summarily keelhauled on a sky barge. The same fate shall befall any Changeling who uses their abilities to manipulate, coerce or otherwise interfere with Ponies." She leaned forward, staring at Chrysalis with a cold flame in her eyes. "If thou wouldst live on love, thou must earn it justly. Let your Changelings learn to live as Ponies do, alongside Ponies. We would not absolve thee of thine actions, but if thy conduct and the conduct of thy Changelings proves acceptable, Equestria may come to accept thou and thine insectile ilk."

Chrysalis was moving her mouth, but no words were coming out. She wanted to thank Celestia, but she was still trying to wrap her head around what had just happened.

"Celestia, I-" She was interrupted by the thunderous sound of Celestia's hammer once more impacting the floor.

"Send in the next petitioner!"

----------

The guard that hastily but respectfully entered Princess Luna's chambers was aware that the lunar diarch snored, but the volume caught him quite off guard- he was surprised that the windows weren't rattling. His attempts to call her name were utterly drowned out by her, and it wasn't until he was almost yelling in her ear that she finally responded. Sitting up with a start, she looked around frantically for a moment before remembering to remove her sleeping mask. Her flowing mane had partially come out of its tied back ponytail while she slept, somehow leaving it a frizzy ethereal disaster. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she turned to her guard and tried to gather all the regality she could muster in her half-asleep state.

"Whuzza-huh?" To the guard's credit, he recovered relatively quickly from seeing the Princess in such a dishevelled state.

"It's your sister. She's acting strange, wearing armour and talking like- well, like you did when you first came back! Volume and everything!" Hearing this news, Luna found herself waking up rather quickly. Her brow furrowed in concern.

"We were afraid something like this could happen. Fortunately, we- ahem, I have formulated a completely infallible contingency plan." Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for what needed to be done. "Fetch the Royal Pâtissier."

----------

Her time for visiting with the petitioners having been completed, Celestia moved on to the next item on the itinerary that she did not remember writing: the trade meeting. As she approached the conference room where several delegates from other nations were waiting, an aide refreshed her on the situation: It was the annual summit to revisit several rather major trade agreements between many of the major nations of Equus. As Griffonia had hosted it last year, it was now Equestria's turn. A brief skim of the current terms of Equestria's agreements left Celestia wondering how they had ever allowed themselves to wind up in such a clearly unfavourable situation- the goods that they were trading were subject to some of the most ridiculous tariffs and restrictions she had ever heard of, and what should have been an incredibly prosperous deal had been reduced to a barely profitable trickle. She had quite firmly resolved to do something about that. Chrysalis was, at Celestia's request, accompanying her- the Changelings were a sizable new addition to the population of Equestria, and Celestia believed that the presence of their Queen could be a useful tool at the upcoming meeting.

She didn't wait to be announced before entering the conference room. She didn't even open the door gently, instead giving it a telekinetic flick that knocked it wide open with a resonating crash that silenced the idle small-talk from within. Ignoring the questioning and worried looks at her armour, she marched to the head of the table and sat down heavily. Chrysalis quietly came in after her, and meekly sat down on her left.

"We have come to discuss and correct these laughable treaties. We will not allow the riches of Equestria to be plundered by common brigands." She slowly dragged her gaze across those assembled before her, silently daring any of them to speak back to her. Though several mouths hung open, no responses were forthcoming.

"We would review first the outrageous taxation on iron being shipped to the Minotaur Principalities." She rounded on the Minotaur ambassador. "Thou knoweth fully that Equestrian iron is not only more pure than the ferrous grit mined from your mountains, but more receptive to enchantments as well. Thy principle use of Iron is in the crafting of weapons and armour, things which require the highest quality metals and the most robust enchantments. Thine options are thus simple: Either waive these ludicrous tariffs, or stop receiving Equestrian iron." She leaned forward, resting her jaw on her hooves. "We are curious to see what thine mercenary bands would think of having to make due with sub-par weapons and lacklustre armour. Looking at the lands under Minotaur control, the available options would be to mine ore from ancient, depleted mountains or the ocean floor between islands. What, then, wouldst thou prefer? Impure rubble, more granite than iron? Rusted garbage good for little more than slag? Or pure, Equestrian ore, some of the most magically receptive metal in the world?" She leaned back in her chair. "We trust thou will make the correct decision, and give Equestria it's due." The Minotaur ambassador opened his mouth to reply, but was silenced by the raising of an armoured hoof.

"We would next address the Griffon Kingdoms. There has been unfair dealings on both sides, for which We would apologize and correct. Our limitations on the import of Soarwood serves none but the sole Equestrian conglomerate capable of producing such materials. While profitable for them, this limitation is harmful to Equestria as a whole as it hugely restricts the number of airships we are capable of building. We would lift these limitations if thou, in turn, lift thy limitations on the import of Equestrian foodstuffs. We are well aware of the pride and fortunes of the few Griffon farming guilds, but We are also aware that thou skirt the borders of famine. Thy lands are not well suited to grazing, and the amount of livestock thou are capable of supporting falls far short of demand. Equestrian grain can more than make up this deficit, if thou wouldst but trade at a reasonable price. Are thou willing, then, to remove the limitations on both our sides? Equestria and Griffonia can both usher in a new age of prosperity, and all that is needed of thou is a signature."

The Griffon ambassador, just as blindsided as the Minotaur one, numbly nodded his head.

"Good. Lastly, We would address the Ibex Emirates." Her gaze settled on the long-horned visage of the ambassador of the Goats. To the shock and moderate horror of most assembled, a snarl crossed her features. The ambassador flinched back for a moment, before squaring his shoulders and raising his jaw.

"How dare you. How DARE you! Equestria served as the refuge of thine entire species for a hundred years, and thou wouldst round on us and attempt to bring us to ruin! But thou wouldst not bring armies, no, no..." Celestia rose up, stomping a hoof on the table and shaking it dangerously. "Armies are the weapons of honest foes who would admit to wishing ill upon Us. Armies are what We would expect should we go to war with the Minotaurs, the Griffons, the Dragons, any of the cultures with an ounce of decency! But thine battles would not be fought with steel and blood, thou would fight thine battles with bureaucracy and coin! Do you think Us blind?" There were a few muffled gasps as the Solar Diarch hopped up, standing on the table and marching towards the Goat ambassador. "Do thou think Us to be a foal? The laundry list of restrictions and taxes that thou hast imposed is nothing short of an attempt at daylight robbery! Thy lands are rich, yes, but if thou wouldst seek to do trade with Equestria, than thou should make thine terms rational! We would be more than willing to sever all trade with the Emirates if basic courtesy and respect should prove too high a demand! There is not a single commodity that we ship that thou doth not tax to unprofitability, and not a single commodity that we import that thou doth not charge absurd fees for!" she was, at this point, shouting in the ambassador's face. "Thou art a fool if thou think we need lamp oil so desperately that we would pay the costs thou demand! The spices thou doth export are used in precious few foods, and if thou think for a MOMENT to bring up the grace period that We allowed for the Emirates to become self-sufficient, We would remind thou that that took place over SIX CENTURIES AGO! If thou are not self-sufficient by now..." the anger in her voice was more than clear, and it was obvious that her face was making a valiant effort to find the next stage after 'snarl', "Then perhaps thine entire race should return to being slaves to the Griffons. We are sure that, were it required, Equestria could make a fine profit rounding up thy traitorous race and returning them to those who were once their masters."

She didn't bother to note that the Griffon ambassador seemed horrified to be dragged in to the this aspect of the debate.

"We would suggest that thou get thine act together and draw up some treaties that show Equestria the respect it is due. Barring that, We would suggest that thou brace thyselves for a rather vengeful embargo-" a completely joyless smile spread across her face, "an embargo that We would be all too thrilled to bring about, given thine coercive history. We will give thee a two-week period from today to bring forward new trade terms. Should thou bring nothing, we shall cease all trade with the Emirates. Should thou bring terms that smack of the same disrespect that thou hath shown us for centuries, We shall ensure that the Emirates are economically crippled for generations to come." She stood tall on the creaking table, her armour, poise and intensity more than negating the awkwardness that might have been created from her standing on the furniture. "We would say that we trust thee to make the correct decision, but given thine history we honestly don't. We would, however, be rather thrilled if thou proved Us wrong." She turned, and with a flick of her tail returned to her seat, hopping down with more grace than most others could have managed while wearing that much armour. In the deafening silence that followed, she shuffled some of her notes.

"To the ambassadors from Zebrica and the Diamond Dog Republic, we have no objections. We deem the treaties we currently hold with thee to be fair and equitable, and would be quite happy to see them maintained as they are for another year. Thou hath proved reasonable and honest in the past, and We would trust that thou would continue that trend into the future, in the interest of the prosperity of all of our nations."

Celestia shuffled her papers in the ensuing silence, aligning them and laying them orderly against the table.

"Worth noting is that the Changeling Monarchy is now under Equestrian protection, and would be categorized as a dependant. We understand that the Badlands have fewer material goods than Equestria, but we would advise those assembled here to visit the same respect upon the Queen of the Changelings as thou wouldst upon this Princess of Equestria. Should thou not, there will be repercussions." Laying the now-aligned papers in front of her, Celestia stood up. "That is all We have to say. In the curious event that any of those present would have any objections to bring before us, thou may visit us during our regular peitioning hours to make thy case be known. I trust that those present are mature enough to handle the debates between thyselves in Our absence." Standing up, Celestia looked around at the assembled ambassadors, most of whom were trying not to cower in their seats. "We bid thee good day. We have other matters to attend to, and trust that the remaining issues can be worked out between thyselves." Head held high, Celestia trotted out of the conference room, leaving an extraordinarily nervous Chrysalis and an astoundingly cowed group of ambassadors.

----------

Flaky Crust was the latest in a long line of Royal Pâtissiers. If there had been an ancestor of his that had not been a baker, they must have lived before the Unification of the Tribes and the beginning of proper record keeping. He, like his mother and the rest of his ancestors before him, were exceedingly skilled with the workings of the oven, the pan and the rising of dough. Today, he was faced with the duty that had been entrusted to his line- the restoration of the Princess of the Rising Dawn, She who Holds the Star Above. It was a sombre duty, one that would most likely see him stripped of his position before the day was out. He didn't enjoy his fate, but he accepted it with the calm detachment that the Royal Pâtissiers had been known for for generations. When Luna had come to him and told him to ready his stoutest cake tin, he had understood the true meaning of her orders. Though few could tell with his unflinching facade, he was deeply shaken by the need to perform this most important duty. With a heavy heart, he set about preparing for that which his line was bred for, the dark duty that the Royal Pâtissiers had been sworn to since time immemorial.

----------

"Again! Faster!"

The Royal Guards were still unsure what they were dealing with. It was common knowledge that today was Inspection Day, and to that end they had all fastidiously cleaned their armour and practised their sharp salutes. None of them had expected to be called into the sparring ring against their Princess however, and fewer still had expected to be as handily defeated as foals before a trained swordsmare.

For the last half hour, Celestia had been calling them forth one at a time and briefly duelling them. She had opened by stating that anypony who should land a blow against her would be immediately promoted, and then wading into the combat with her massive hammer clutched in her telekinetic grasp. The first few guards had been afraid to actually attack her, and their reluctance had left them covered in bruises and in once case a fractured jaw. Those currently standing against her were desperately trying to protect themselves, so far out of their league that they weren't even trying to launch an offensive.

The current opponent was fighting in the traditional Unicorn style of three levitating swords. Against most foes, this would provide enough offence to keep an opponent reeling, barely able to defend themselves, let alone counter attack. Against the Mistress of the Sun however, such tactics were old hat.

"Thou dost fight well! Hast thou reviewed Lady Twilight's study on blade arts? Thou might find her thesis on bladed rings to be most insightful!" Her hammer spun forward, the haft catching one blade while the head of the weapon knocked another one free of the unicorn's telekinetic grasp. "For now though, We bid thee a fair sleep, and a wish that thou recovers quickly!" With the odd movements indicative of the re-allocation of mass, the Princess's hammer swung in an unusually sharp arc to crack the side of the soldier's head. He fell like a sack of potatoes to the ground, out cold. "Who is next? The inspections are not yet over!"

"I am next, sister!"

Luna stepped towards her sister from the sidelines, drawing the attention of Celestia and the conscious remainder of the Royal Guard. Her weapons were two dimly glowing short swords, held facing towards herself in a strange style not seen in countless years. "I see that you have remembered the strength of your past! I wonder though, how would you fare against one who is still familiar with it?" For all her efforts, Luna was unable to keep some of the formality out of her voice. Next to her sister though, she seemed positively modern. Celestia's face split into a wild grin as she widened her stance, her forelegs moving apart until her horn was pointed straight at Luna while Her hammer thrummed with power.

"It is good to see thee, sister! Perhaps thou may show the guard what is required to stand against one of us! Faust knows they could use a lesson in what violence actually is!" Not waiting for any signal, Celestia charged forward. Her hammer arced through the air in an downwards arc, leaving a trail of glowing white plasma. Luna reeled back, deflecting the blow with the hilt of both her swords as the contact sent sparks flying. She didn't try to hold the impact though, instead letting the force of Celestia's blow spin her blades around like a pair of buzz saws and almost catching Celestia in the face. The elder Alicorn hastily reversed her assault, switching quickly to the defensive as she closely avoided her sister's blades. "We see thy skills have not diminished! We wonder though, how thou might fare against a less direct attack..."

Rearing up, Celestia raised Her hammer before bringing it to the ground in a thunderous blow. Energy arced through the ground, fracturing the cobblestones in a line towards Luna before erupting around her in an earth-shattering show of force. The energy involved would be enough to shatter almost any shield spell and still be able to reduce flesh into soup, but as the dust cleared Luna remained standing there cloaked in a pearlescent shield.

"Sister, I have no wish to harm you. Please calm yourself and cease your attacks so that we might talk- I have important matters that need your attention!" Celestia let out a rakish laugh.

"Prove thy sincerity, sister! If thy cause is so important, then best Us in combat! It is unlike thee to hold so long on the defensive- that was always Our gambit! If We were the shield of Equestria, thou wert it's sword!" Her hammer swung forward time and time again, each blow either blocked or avoided by Luna. "Where is the steely wrath of the moon? Wherefore art the barbs and blades that thou once brought to bear? Surely thou hath not forgotten the arts that thou created!" Her hammer slammed forward, stopped barely an inch before Luna's face as the younger Alicorn's swords caught the ancient weapon. The struggle was clear, the tools of war they wielded shaking back and forth as both poured their will into their telekinesis. "Thou once fought Us to a standstill, sister! The world has barely healed from where thine sorrow clashed against Us! We know that thou hath greater strength than what you are showing here!" She leaned forward, Her face close to Luna's as their weapons sparked against each other. "So where then is the wrath of the Nightbringer?" She was clearly still in the middle of waxing poetic, when Luna suddenly broke into a beatific smile.

"Right behind you, sister."

----------

When Celestia woke up, it was with a throbbing headache. She remembered walking through the palace halls and reviewing her daily itinerary, but then... nothing. With a start, she remembered that she had some very important appointments today, and could hardly afford to be sleeping. Climbing to her hooves, she groaned as a wave of vertigo hit her, swirling around her headache and leaving her a little nauseous. It felt like her legs were as heavy as iron, and her body seemed to weigh a ton- the simple act of standing took far more effort than it should have. She let out a rather un-princess-like yelp as she looked down and realized that in place of her regalia, she was wearing the armour she had used before the Unification of the Tribes. It was forged of what modern scholars referred to as Olde Iron, a strange alloy from the ancient world that defied all efforts of re-invention. Nearly impenetrable, the only thing that Celestia cared to remember about it just now was that it was excruciatingly heavy. Just as puzzling was the presence of her old hammer laying near her head- the one she had created during the period where she had experimented with tying the power of the sun to inanimate objects. How it got out of storage she had no idea, it was supposed to be under high security, barely under that of the Elements of Harmony themselves, before they had been returned to the tree. Looking around, she started to take in her surroundings with eyes that were having a hard time focusing.

Alright, Luna was standing in front of her, also wearing ancient armour and looking fairly concerned.

That was odd, the Royal Guard was present, and they looked either terrified or injured. She wasn't supposed to be seeing them until later in the day.

Most inexplicably, the Royal Pâtissier Flaky Crust was standing there, looking proud yet resigned. At his feet seemed to be a cast iron cake tin with an imprint of... she wasn't honestly sure, but it looked like the back of a pony's head. Why on Equus would the Royal Pâtissier have a pan in that shape? She was quite certain she had never had a cake in that shape before. It wasn't a normal shape either, it wasn't round enough to be the head of one of her subjects. It was larger and more narrow in proportion, looking more like...

"Luna, did the Royal Pâtissier just hit me in the back of the head with a cast iron pan?"

She watched as Luna's posture relaxed almost immediately, her horn glowing as she banished her pthalo blue armour.

"I am sorry sister, but you must have suffered a blow to the head earlier. You were acting like you were the same pony you were back during the Bad Old Days." Celestia's eyes widened.

"Oh no, I hope I didn't injure anypony! Is everything alright? What did I do?" There was a moment of silence as Luna's face became a display of internal conflict. After a rather awkward moment, she spoke back up.

"Well, you apparently accepted the Changelings as an indentured people, you revolutionized Equestria's trade agreements in a way that looks like it will bring us unparalleled wealth, and you seem to have quite thoroughly roughed up your guard." Celestia became acutely aware of the groaning of the soldiers who were beginning to regain consciousness. "Fortunately, I was able to hold your attention long enough that Flaky Crust was able to hit you with the Solar Cake Tin."

Celestia looked down at the cake tin in question, a quite thoroughly nonmagical object that was really only remarkable due to its startling thickness- it was as though a cast iron pot had gone through a mid-life crises and decided to become a baking implement. At least, that HAD been its only remarkable quality, there was quite a good chance now that it had a dent in the shape of the back of her head that some overzealous pony would buy it and keep it as some form of sacred relic. Turning to face Flaky Crust, she tried to stop her head from spinning and seem as majestic as she usually did.

"Flaky Crust, today you have committed assault against one of the Princesses of Equestria-" she smiled internally as she saw his composure crack. "but you did so in the best interest of Equestria and her ponies. For this, I and Equestria thank you. I would gladly grant you a boon as reward for this service. Noble title, land, please, ask what you wish."

Flaky Crust had honestly been expecting banishment at worst, and a reprimand at best. A reward was far enough out of his expectations that he wasn't really prepared to deal with it. After a moment of confused shuffling in place, he found his voice.

"Well, I'm going to need a new Solar Cake Tin, and I suppose I wouldn't mind if we got our flour shipments twice a week rather than once a week- we often run low by Tuesday." Celestia blinked at him, trying to comprehend the fact that he was choosing to use his Royal Boon for kitchen supplies for his job. After a moment, she let out a melodic laugh, the kind her subjects knew and associated with her.

"Why certainly my little pony! I will personally make sure that you never run short of supplies again! In fact, I may even-"

She had missed the guard behind her waking up. The guard waking up behind her had missed the recent events. Celestia missed the crunch of gravel behind her as the guard sprung into a ferocious ambush, the back of his sword cracking her in the temple. She rose a moment later with fire in her eyes and a smile on her face.

"Underhanded trickery! We applaud thee, but wonder how thou might fare when faced with Our full attention!" With a surge of power, Her hammer once more flew to her side.

Luna sighed. It was going to be a long, long day.

Author's Note:

This sat at 900 words for like a month, then I sat down and banged out the other five and a half thousand words or so in one day. If you see errors, let me know!