“Taking in a bit of history, sister?”
Celestia nearly dropped the crown hovering in her magic. Given that it was currently suspended above a display of priceless historical artifacts, some of them quite fragile, that would have been a bit of a bother. Still, Celestia managed to only roll her eyes a little bit. “Hello Luna. I haven’t crossed this off the list yet. Are you getting psychic?”
Luna chuckled. “No, merely nocturnal as usual. I was taking a break from dream herding, so I heard you leaving your rooms.”
“Ah. Well, let me put this in place. Then we can compare notes.” Celestia turned her attention back to the crown and finished floating it to its new place in the miniature museum. “There. Bets on how long it takes someone to notice?”
Luna chuckled. “Ponies can be quite unobservant. A week at the least, I think.”
“If Twilight happens to visit this wing, until that point.” Celestia grinned. “Otherwise I say closer to a year.”
“Hah. Indeed.”
“Here, let me cross this off.” Celestia pulled a little notebook out of her mane; it had her cutie mark on one cover and Luna’s on the other.
…and bring it home to put on display.
“Excellent.” Luna produced an identical book and flipped it open on the side with Celestia’s cutie mark, revealing an identical list. The last item was just finishing crossing itself off.
“I saw that you finally got Lady Hinnylane into that hat,” said Celestia, giving her tail a cheerful flick.
Luna tossed her head and gave a laughing whinny. “She looked absurd! It was glorious. I assured her that she was the height of fashion.”
Celestia laughed. “I wish I could have seen it. I have an idea for your next task, too. I think you’re ready for a bit of a challenge.”
Luna lifted one eyebrow. “Knowing you, I feel I should be afraid.”
“Considering what you just had me do, oh yes. I had to steal this thing,” she jerked her head at the crown in the display, “four times! Including once after getting it into my luggage, when an oh-so-helpful servant tried to help me pack and found the ‘misplaced’ crown. That one ended up requiring an emergency teleport to pull off, and I hate teleporting while playing. It feels like cheating, even if it’s not against the rules.” Celestia shook her head, then gave Luna a downright wicked grin. “I’d say you have your hoof back in now, so I’m not going to go easy on you. Of course the small ones are still quite fun. I’ll add one of those as well.” Celestia flipped her notebook around, to the side with Luna’s cutie mark, and opened it. After “Make Lady Hinnylane wear a sunhat” she wrote “Get Fancypants’ hooves wet” and “Make an ambassador spit their tea.”
“Oh, that first shall be fun,” said Luna, looking at her identical list, where the tasks had appeared. “And the second… I believe I know just who and how to try it.”
“Let me just add one more.” Celestia scribed one more line in her neat, looping hornwriting.
Luna looked at her notebook and shook her head. “Oh, fie! You know ‘tis always busy there.”
“I trust you can do it.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps if I take it in bits, after dark. Though there is still quite a bit of night time traffic. And setup…”
“There’s a tea house right there, and I happen to know they don’t lock the back door. You can steal all the plates and cups and so on in one go.” Celestia smiled.
“How gracious of you to give me a hint.” Luna chuckled. “Although that is not the difficult part. But very well. Challenge accepted! A full high tea shall be had, sight unseen, in the midst of Trotfalgar square. Now, for your next challenge, sister dear…” Luna grinned, downright sadistically.
“Why am I suddenly worried?” said Celestia, still smiling.
“We have ‘messed with’ many ponies, but we have never had a task targeting your delightful former student,” began Luna.
“You wouldn’t!” said Celestia in dismay.
“The rules say that no one, neither pony nor gryphon nor even dragon, is exempt from being targeted.”
“Yes but… Twilight! Asking me to pull a prank her is evil, sister. Evil, evil, evil.”
“Well, and are we not horrible alicorns?” Luna’s grin only grew more broad. “Fear not, I shall give you a few other tasks as well, sister, but rules are rules. No one is exempt, and using your veto crowns us the winner by default for the entire year.”
Celestia hesitated. Targeting Twilight… She gave a little shudder at all the ways in which that could go wrong. But letting Luna declare a win when the year wasn’t even halfway through? No, no, she could do this. “Very well. Do your worst.”
Luna only cackled and got out her pencil.
Oh... that is going to end poorly. I'm calling it now
Please don't lock Twilight in the phone booth
Neat, an explanation of what the **** is going on here. You didn't have to do that. (Note: not being sarcastic)
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It's mostly here as a setup for the next chapter.
Steal a book from Twilight
...that she is currently reading
...without getting caught.
I want this to end in twilight getting involved like seriously that would be hilarious
The fact that Luna's in on this, and that they give each other new tasks is beautiful.
Trim the award winning rose.
Now this is the kind of thing I love to see, sisterly bonding amidst rampant prankage.
"it's a lovely evening in Equestria, and you are a horrible alicorn"
Of course Luna is in on this.
Make no mistake, this is so much fun, but somehow I should've known she was involved in this too. Are we going to get a glimpse at some of her tasks too?
For tasks the sisters have done, I think one of them has to be to swap contents of two saddlebags without using magic. The game had tasks that confused people, so switching stuff in unsuspecting ponies' saddlebags would fit right in.
Now, let's see what Luna has in mind for Celestia to do with Twilight.
"orderve" is a phonetic misspelling of "Hors d'oeuvre". It's Fancy.
Ok, after this chapter, I now have the distinct feeling that the current iteration of this "Game" of theirs evolved after a particularly brutal prank war between the Sisters, where their targets were eachother, got particularly out of hand, and they had to call a ceasefire until they could work out the rules of the current game. This way, Celestia and Luna still get to be horrible and challenge eachother in a game of pranking one-upmareship, but since they're involving their little ponies now, more care has to be taken to not take things "Too Far".
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She was a regnant princess, though, with none over her.
Well, I got my answer regarding teleportation. Now to wait to see what heinous deed shall be performed upon Twilight.
This title reminds me of "untitled princess Carolyn project"
Replace all illustrations in Twilight's book with pictures of quesadillas.
Make Twilight buy back her own quills!
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:D
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Replace all of Twilight's books with quesadillas.
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Steal all of Twilight's quills and put them on the shelves at Quills and Sofas.
Oh no, they're both geese! Equestria is going to drown in a Hjonkpocalypse!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAÀAAAAAAAAAAA
I wonder if Celestia will make Twilight buy back something she was hers. Beware of Pinkie though. I have a feeling she has a similar list.
Ooooh. Of course Luna's in on the game, too!
Love the detail of them using a magical journal to share tasks.
This explains so much... though I do have to wonder how Celestia acrrued tasks during Luna's banishment. Sure, she was hardly in the mood for such shenanigans at first, but after a couple centuries...
Also, I can't help but imagine Sunset and Starlight having similar journals revolving around pranking their respective Twilights. And even without them, she's still friends with Pinkie and Rainbow Dash. Twilight may be better prepared than either Celestia or Luna realizes. Or, depending on who defends her, than even she realizes.
Hahaha! XD I love that they're making each others' lists! It totally makes sense, a challenge you make up yourself isn't nearly as satisfying to complete as one someone else gave you. Love it! I wonder if we will get some Luna chapters, or stay focused on Celestia since she is the titular character? Either way, should be fun.
HONK!
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Oh I know, but it makes sense with random people stopping a goose. I know I'm nitpicking one little thing that's not a big deal and I know WHY it happened, my brain just couldn't let go of the idea that these servants were being shockingly forward in grabbing stuff out of Princess Celestia's own horn. XD;
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Pardon, but I'll take the OED's word over Wiktionary's any day of the week. Unless you specifically meant either the comp-sci definition or the phonetic pronunciation of UFO or FU, that is.
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Ah, a filthy prescriptivist then.
I could 110% see Luna being in on this. HA!
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She's just a big fan of Dave Grohl, man.
Why do I sense this will end either very poorly for Celestia, or very tragically for Twilight?