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The Chapter Is A Lie

4 Hours Later

Canterlot Gardens - Annual Cake and Confection Festival

It was barely 11:00 in the morning, and there was still no sign of Luna. Celestia had, naturally, gotten rather nervous as the morning had dragged on in its usual monotony with no sign of the princess of the night, but the elder sibling had gradually relaxed.

As Celestia entered the gardens, and the guards parted for her, the trumpets announcing her presence, and her little ponies cheering, she smiled, waved… and saw past them to the glories beyond. What lay past their smiling faces was truly a glimpse of heaven.

Ovens of every kind had been built, stacked, or wheeled in. Tables next to them were arranged with decorative tablecloths of every size and color.

And on them were cakes.

The sugary, warm fluffy scent of batter and icing and various confectionaries caressed her nostrils, and her heart fluttered. There were cupcakes, with frostings of all colors and probably flavors. Donuts with yet-to-have-been tasted glazings and fillings. Some which may have only just been invented for this occasion. Pound cakes stacked up. Funnel cake was there, and in her opinion it was quite welcome. There were sticky toffee pudding cakes, there were lemon tarts, there were lava cake… some with actual lava, presumably for the guests of the draconic variety. There was a gloriously stacked truffle, cake-like puddings and pudding-like cakes. Biscuits in all shapes. One pony had recreated the Castle of the Two Sisters in sugar dough.

Everyone would want her to sample them. She loved cake, and had never hidden this fact. And her approval meant others would approve.

They would approve, and her belly would approve. For this end Celestia knew that she had to taste everything at least once. And for this reason she had eaten only the barest hint of breakfast, and hardly eaten anything the day before.

There was the usual hoof shaking, the smiling for the cameras, the obligatory thanking of those who had arranged it. Again in front of the cameras. You get a lot of patience, when you practice it long enough. And it wasn’t something Celestia minded.

To her it was the cake equivalent of foreplay.

Sitting on a pillow of purple velvet was the golden plate and spoon, with which she would cut the first bit. No pony touched a cake before she did. Already she could see some frantic young unicorn bakers putting on their final touches and arranging their displays. Each hoping she’d sample theirs first. The first cake was a rare honor, and only one cake recieved it every year. The baker of that first cake then would likely spend the next year telling all of his customers how Celestia had chosen him or her over everyone else, and milking that moment for all it was worth.

Eventually her eyes settled on a brilliant cake that was made to look like Canterlot Castle itself, complete with hedge maze in the back. The two bakers manning the table were currently preoccupied with their two children, who were running around the legs of the table and behaving most foolishly, ignoring the pleading cries of their parents to behave. She was sympathetic with them. Their table would be first.

Having made her decision, she began to approach the table. She caught the eye of the bakers, and they immediately stood up straight, the children continuing their assault on the tablecloth. As she slowly made her way towards the plates, seeing the eyes of the ponies following her, she was only distantly aware of the guards behind her moving in formation.

She was almost at the delicious cake, but before reaching it, the trumpets sounded again.

“Announcing her Royal Highness, Princess Luna.”

Oh, no.

And a silver plate was added by some batpony guards, on another pedestal next to her own golden plate. There were gasps from some of the ponies. The cake festival was always during the middle of the day, meaning an appearance by the younger princess was unprecedented. And just like that, the princess of the night strode in, during mid day, sipping gently and elegantly of some strong coffee.

“Sister, I thought you would be asleep,” Celestia said. A bit shocked to see her sister even standing. Luna could sleep through literally anything, even an attack on Canterlot.

“I’ve decided to assist. Don’t worry, you’ll get the first bite… as long as I get second,” she said and offered a cup of coffee to her sister. “I had five cups already, I made one too many. A little bitterness before the sweet? Cake and coffee go like donuts and… oh, what goes with donuts? Donuts and… diabetes?”

Celestia was a little suspicious, but the coffee looked good, and Luna did seem to have a little bit of caffeine hyperactivity to her. And she couldn’t allow herself to be overtly critical of her sister. Not in public, with all eyes on the two of them.

The princess of the moon offered the princess of the sun a cup of coffee. There were cameras. There was no choice. Celestia sipped… nothing happened. She relaxed, and sipped again. It was a bit… bitter, and had an unpleasant aftertaste. In fact this was definitely guard pony coffee. The freeze dried kind. An utterly genderless, bland coffee, meant more for carnal need than to tickle the tongue. No wonder it had taken five cups to have any effect on Luna.

Celestia smiled to her sister, and sipped again at the coffee, for the sake of appearances. “Refreshing.” She didn’t care for it, but it was a better response than risking insulting the guards who had to drink it every day.

The ponies looked at them with great anticipation. Celestia levitated her plate and spoon in front of her. Luna did likewise.

Celestia decided diplomatically that she’d sample from the great Canterlot cake, as it clearly had required the greatest amount of effort. And she was certain the journalist ponies would enjoy the pictures of her and Luna in front of it.

Up close it was even better than when viewed from a distance. So many types of pastry had been brought together here, that Celestia wasn’t sure where to stick her spoon in first. Into the glazed waffles that made up the spires? Into the deliciously mushy looking hedge maze?

Well, a princess shouldn’t be too indecisive, she let the spoon drop into the creamy courtyard. She could hear cameras snapping away the moment that she lifted it up. The two bakers and their children would be retelling this moment for months, filled with pride and honor at having produced the first cake to be sampled.

Luna followed suit, and took out a spot right next to her sister. “You first,” she said with demure sisterly affection. More cameras snapped away.

How proud Celestia felt at this moment for her sister. It was really a moment worth sharing.

Then the cake hit her mouth… for a moment, an altogether brief moment, it had tasted the kind of creamy sweet frosting she had expected… the next moment it tasted like something altogether yet not quite unlike alfalfa. In fact it tasted exactly like alfalfa porridge. A horrible, lumpy taste.

She took another spoonful, studying it for a moment. Creamy, white, with little crystallized fruit bits in it. Into her mouth… alfalfa porridge. It took a moment for Celestia’s mind to fill with dawning horror, and she turned her attention slowly on her sister.

Luna on the other hand dreamily swallowed her own bite. “My goodness, this is reminds me of a good buttercream filling,” she said. “Isn’t buttercream your favorite, Celestia?”There was a wicked look in her eyes for a moment. “Let’s see what other cakes there are.”

For a fleeting moment Celestia wished her sister was back on the moon. I’m going to banish her all over again.

Alfalfa biscuits, alfalfa donuts, alfalfa liquorice, alfalfa jello, utterly unsweet toffee… that tasted like alfalfa. No matter what she put in her mouth its taste was replaced by the utterly bland and boring. Meanwhile Celestia was forced to keep face, she couldn’t dare tell the little ponies that she couldn’t actually taste their baked goods. She gazed down the line of cakes and pastries, dozens of them, dozens of bites waiting to be tasted, and every single one of them requiring a smile on her face.

Yet Celestia wasn’t one to tell a lie either, so she kept her opinions evasive and kind. Mostly she commented on appearances.

“I can really see the hoofwork you’ve put into it.”

“Oh I’d love to sample these again some other time.”

“It’s good to see that the Gryphon Kingdom still maintain their tradition of eclairs.”

“You used your magic to stuff this donut?”

At one point she started running out of ways to compliment cakes without actually mentioning their taste. Then came more quiet requests for samples of this or that confection to be delivered to her servant ponies, and whether a slice of that or this cake could be delivered to the kitchen.

This was supposed to be her favorite day of the year, the one day where she got to stuff her face with all the things she enjoyed eating, and Luna had turned into into an alfalfa convention. She will pay dearly for this.

But there just wasn’t a moment to scold Luna for this clearly out of the line prank. A prank which exceeded the limits of good humor and bordered on downright maliciousness. There were cameras, there were a few diplomats, and a giant red dragon with an ego that was easily hurt if it wasn’t suitably stroked and reassured. If there was anything in the world they did not need right now, it was an upset dragon.

Big Red, as Celestia thought of the otherwise nameless draconian, was the mastermind behind the lava cakes with genuine lava. A pleasing yet very species-specific dish. By pure coincidence, and unknown to Princess Celestia this unlikely baker was the very dragon who had the misfortune of being kicked in the face by a particularly hot headed rainbow pony some years prior.

The lava cake was very hot… and clearly labeled.

Celestia smiled with dawning brilliance, and before her sister appeared, and while the dragon was looking slightly away. She took a quick spoonful of the pony version, and switched the name labels on the cakes. All at once, the lava cake was labelled chili cake, and the chili cake was labelled lava cake.

The lava version was a pudding monster of a cake, was bubbling, alive, steam rising off it, with many pleasant chocolately aromas. For the sake of appearances, the chili cake was almost identical, and employed magical effects to bubble harmlessly along with its sister.

To Celestia it smelled like wet alfalfa, but she could see her sister enjoying it. And she bit her lower lip, as her sister took a hefty sponfull, bigger than Celestia’s, not noticing the silver spoon threatening to melt from pure heat as she delivered the contents into her mouth.

Luna froze the instant she closed her mouth around it. Sweat appeared on her forehead, across her flanks, seconds later dripping down her wings. Ponies around her looked stunned, they could see something was wrong. But all their eyes were on the Princess of the Night, and it would not do at all to spit it out and offend the dragon who had worked so hard on it.

Trapped, Luna swallowed it.

There was a short silence, and then she yelled out at the top of her lungs, actual fire coming out of her throat in a burst of flame. She first trotted, then galloped, then bolted, and then finally jumped headfirst into the large ice cream cake, four crystal ponies diving out of the way in terror as the Princess of the Night buried her muzzle into it.

The cake melted before everyones eyes, pooling into liquid pools of dairy. The bakers of the ice cream cake just stood by as their creation melted, looking absolutely mortified at this unexpected turn of events.

Celestia quickly and subtly changed back the labels, before Big Red discovered they had been swapped.

Big Red looked nervous, and scared, his great claws clacking against each other. He was a reptile of few words, and did not fancy the idea of being held responsible for all this. He looked worried. The last time he'd wound up in a confrontation with ponies, he'd wound up being yelled at and kicked in the face.

“Don’t worry, my sister tries so often to one-up me, I think she bit off more than she could chew,” Celestia smiled kindly to the draconian. "You are in no trouble whatsoever. Be at peace, friend." She spoke these words, and the dragon relaxed visibly.

Luna approached, her bat pony guards quickly wiping off the excess chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and orange ice cream off her mane. Steam was rising from her nostrils, she tried to speak but only a hoarse rasp came out.

“It’s quite alright Luna. Spicy foods aren’t for everyone,” Celestia said casually.

Luna was not angry, in fact there was a gleam in her eyes that suggested she was actually quite impressed with the retaliation. She coughed “Quite right, dear sister,” she finally managed to say. “Quite right. But we hope you will remember that when one rattles the cage of a snake, the snake will often bite back.”

This cryptic response confused many of the journalists who had gathered to watch the event, but Celestia picked up on it at once, and smiled back. The two alicorns winked at each other, then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon fussing and apologizing over the great ice cream cake which had been the unfortunate victim of the afternoon's shenanigans.

The afternoon was drawing to a close, and though the pranks would likely fizzle out by the end of the day, the sisters would actually grow closer together by their mutual love for each other, and for the pranks they had been exchanging.

There was still time yet for one more.

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