Unconventional Paneling

by FanOfMostEverything

Alicorns, Amulets, and Antagonists: Cometing

Another ruinous bolt of darkness sent rubble flying from the once-pristine hall. A part of Celestia not yet lost to despair and adrenaline noted that it had destroyed that horrid Yakyakistani urn that nopony liked.

The rest of her was trying to survive and get through to whatever her sister had become. "Please, Luna! You don't need to do this!"

A bitter, humorless laugh echoed through the increasingly ruined castle. "Don't I, sister? Do you not see how your own actions have led to this day?"

"What do you mean?" Celestia looked around. The corridor made Luna's voice echo until it seemed sourceless, and she couldn't see her sister in the unnatural night. "What did I do?"

"What did you do?" Luna whispered, suddenly an inch from her ear. A savage blow sent Celestia flying across the hallway, then skidding along the floor face first. "What haven't you done!? Every waking moment, you have outshone me. Think back, sister." Regular stomps told of Luna's approach. "I defy you to name one time you did not deliberately make me look like your inferior."

Celestia did think back. She rummaged through every memory she could call up, seeking something she'd missed that might explain how any of this could have happened.

And then she found it. The one moment that explained everything. She staggered to her hooves, favoring her left front leg, and looked straight at the entity before her. She saw no scrap of empathy, no hint of the sister she so loved. But it could bear her grievance in Luna's place.

"You stepped on my cake."

Lu— No. Nightmare Moon flinched back for a moment, eyes wide in surprise, before it glared back at her and spat, "You shoved me!"

"You stepped on my cake." Celestia spread her wings and vaulted over the Nightmare, dashing for the entry hall, those same wings giving her the speed lost from what would otherwise be a rapid limp. A carefully coded thought triggered the greatest of the sisters' jesting mechanisms.

"You started it!" Nightmare Moon screeched as it pursued her. Celestia's magical senses felt the darkness gather in the monster's horn. "Die, you sow!"

There was no more time for regret. That would come in time, as Celestia came to realize the magnitude of her deeds. In this moment, as she gathered the Elements and forced them to act, her revenge was as sweet as the cake she avenged.

Author's Note:

It's like snowballing, but bigger and in space.

In any case, this was inspired by a single fateful comment during this panel on writing quality villains: The story of Celestia and Luna can be 99% identical yet completely different depending on whether Celestia's greater popularity truly was unintentional, or if she did it because Luna once spilled her milk when they were foals.

Obviously, milk isn't enough to justify a centuries-long campaign of passive aggression. But cake...

Comments

[Malandy]

That reason! Cake!

And oooh! Alliteration!

[Lurks-no-More]

I believe this chapter goes under "Slice of History".

[FanOfMostEverything]

9088063
Can't take credit for the alliteration; that was the name of the panel.

9088701
Biographies of Celestia are infamous for being either unreadably long or abridged to the point of uselessness. Many say that the best compromise between detail and accessibility is actually a seemingly unrelated five-volume set, Slice of History: The Legacy of Baked Goods in Equestria.

[Georg]

Cake? The fiend!

[Speckle]

The cake is a lie.

Did I use that quote properly?

[PresentPerfect]

canon