> Pretty, Pretty Princesses
>  by Drunken Logic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Nopony Was Prepared For This
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Celestia could only chuckle at the sight by her side.

Twilight Sparkle, newly minted Equestrian princess that she was, still hadn’t broken a lot of her old habits.  One of those habits was in full display at the moment, the smaller alicorn nearly bouncing with every step, nearly vibrating with excitement.

“Ooooooo, I just can’t wait!  A whole new school of magic to learn!  Princess Celestia, thank you so much!”

Celestia chuckled again.  “Twilight, it’s just Celestia to you now, remember?  You’re a princess as well.  And I cannot take all of the credit; it was Luna’s return and willingness, due in no small part to you, that made my little present to you possible.”

Twilight’s ears folded back in embarrassment, her muzzle curling up in a smile nonetheless.  “I was only doing what was right for both Luna and Equestria.  It’s not as important as you’re saying.”

“Modest as always, Twilight.  You always were such a diligent student.”  Celestia smiled back, before glancing up at the door before them.   They’d arrived at the throne room, a fact as noticeable by the ornate gateway as Twilight’s steadily increasing twitchiness.

Figuring it might be best to get the significantly smaller pony into the room before she tunneled through the floor, Celestia flared her horn with magic and lightly pulled open the massive gates.

“Ah, Sister.  And Twilight Sparkle.  We have been awaiting your arrival.”

Luna stood in the middle of the room, and behind her sat a rather sizeable collection of objects, runes, diagrams, and other magical paraphernalia scattered across the throne room.  Celestia, for her part, tsked.

“Luna, what have I told you about language?  You said yourself you wanted to grow closer to the ponies of Equestria, and one step towards that is adopting modern speech.”

Luna smirked back, rolling her eyes at Celestia.  “Forgive us, sister, but we will be dispensing with the ‘first-person pronouns’ for today.  This is the first time we have lectured on the secrets of our personal branch of magic in over a thousand years.  We will allow ourselves some eccentricity.”

Celestia shook her head, though her ever-present serene smile didn’t waver.  “As you wish, Luna.  This is your area of expertise, after all.”

“Thank you, Sister.”  Luna turned to Twilight, who was clenching her hooves together so hard she was either insanely excited or trying to crush walnuts between her thighs.

“So, Twilight Sparkle,”  Luna started, her voice suddenly turning sharp.  “You think yourself worthy to learn the spiritual arts of Dream Magic?”

Twilight, faltering at Luna’s glare, began to relapse into her student tendencies, backing away with folded ears and hunched back.  “Um, well, I...I mean, I thought I was...I mean, I haven’t studied, but…”

She was spared her blathering by a look at Celestia, who just stared back calmly.

Twilight found her confidence then, taking a deep breath and letting it out before gathering herself to a confident posture.  “Yes, Princess Luna.  I believe I am.”

Luna smiled.  “Good.  As Sister’s former student, a princess of Equestria, and a personal friend, we can think of no one more worthy of learning our arts.  Know, Twilight Sparkle, that while others have played at imitation arts and spells in the centuries of our absence, only from us will you learn the true might available to dreamwalkers, those that stride the Astral Plane.”

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, proceeded to ruin her confident posture by squeeing like a filly.  Luna and Celestia, in their continuing magnanimity, pretended not to notice.

“Dream Magic, young Sparkle, is something we honed through countless hours of effort, not just of spellcrafting, or rituals, or alchemy, but through deep introspection into our very soul.  Meditation, medicinal herbs, sensory experimentation; these are all things that we carried out to find our core, or ‘soul’ as the more poetically-inclined pony may refer to it.  We call it the ‘nexus’, and it is where our minds and our magic meet, the very center of a pony’s consciousness.  Every pony has one, and it is through the mingling of those nexuses that the Astral Plane is formed.”

Luna began to pace around a very large magical diagram, ingrained with runes and spellworking leylines.  “Through our efforts, not at all trivial or without risk, we secured the secrets of accessing and manipulating our own Nexus.  We wove these lessons in spellwork, much of which was lost during the misfortune of our...errors.”

Luna stopped, looking straight at Twilight with a wry smirk on her muzzle.  “But we have not forgotten, Sparkle.  For we have mastered our own nexus, and through it, no spell is ever lost to our minds once learned.  A valuable perk to one of such inclination to learn such as yourself, do you not think?”

Twilight did not speak.  She merely grinned at Luna like someone just gave her the keys to every library in the world.

“Your reaction is most telling.”  Luna resumed her pacing.  “This is far from the only benefit to mastering Dream Magic, of course.  It would not be such a researched topic if that were the case.  But as one of the few alicorns on Equus, we alone of all who researched it possessed the constitution and mental fortitude to brave the challenges.  We alone who tamed the weaving paths of the Astral Plane to my will, we alone who—!”

Luna was interrupted mid-flamboyant gesture with a clearing of a throat, laced with heavy amusement.

“Dear Sister…I know your love of dramatic speeches is the one constant in your life, but might I suggest dispensing with it for this one time?”  Celestia, with a poorly-suppressed grin, nodded her head towards Twilight, still frozen with an overabundance of glee.  “I fear if we delay much longer poor Twilight’s ears may start smoking.”

Luna gave a humph of equal parts pout and embarrassment, flattening her ears and scrunching her muzzle in a very un-princessy manner.  “We...apologize, Twilight Sparkle.  We may have gotten carried away.”  Shaking off her disgruntled demeanor, Luna turned to direct a hoof at the magical menagerie she’d gathered.

“We had meant to lecture thee on the precise nature of all of the experiments we underwent to forge Dream Magic into a school of its own, but we suppose our Sister has a point; we are not so burdened with free time as in the older days of governing.  A failing of the modern era, we might point out…” Luna grumbled.  

Celestia merely rolled her eyes.  Luna was always one for the axe and flagon days.

“...so in light of that, we shall take a more ‘hooves-on’ approach.  As our spellcrafting is flawless, there will be no risk to thee; an introduction to the Astral Plane and dreamwalking will be an excellent first lesson, giving thee a taste of the power available to those who master the art.”

Luna cleared her throat, and with a blaze of light, she directed a thin magical burst at the magical diagram she’d been circling earlier.  The magic flowed along its lines, until the entire floor glowed with an eerie, ethereal shining collection of runes and geometric shapes.

“The diagram before thee is a basic dreamwalking inscription, meant to assist in demonstrating to thee one of the most necessary acts for a novice dreamwalker: the summoning of our muse.  It has also been referred to as a ‘spirit animal’ or ‘familiar’, and is a representation of our innermost thoughts and morals.  It is who we are at our core, and it is a vital aid to avoid becoming lost within the Astral Plane.  When thou’st finds thy mind wandering and muddled by the dreams of ponykind, thy muse will guide you back on the correct path.  Through this diagram we shall be able to summon it to the physical plane, allowing thee to familiarize yourself with it in a more comfortable setting.”

Twilight nearly leaped about a foot into the air before she made for the circle, only to be stopped by a magical wall from Luna.

“Hold, young Sparkle.  While we have no doubt of thy talent and tenacity, it may be better for one more versed in handling large and primal magics to demonstrate before we have thee attempt it.”  The lunar alicorn directed a meaningful look at Celestia.  “Perhaps our dear Sister would be inclined to volunteer?”

Celestia, in a rare display of snark, quirked an eyebrow at her younger sibling.  “Really, Luna?  Making me demonstrate magic rituals is your way of getting back at me for cutting your speech short?”

“We know not what you imply, dear Sister.  We most certainly would resent any implication that we would indulge in such a petty activity as revenge.”  Luna, far less inclined to seriousness than her sister, once again curled her muzzle in a smirk.  “And thou cannot pretend thee do not have some interest in finding out the form of thy muse.”

Celestia chuckled, stepping forwards towards the diagram.  “I suppose that’s true enough.  Whenever I’ve been dreamwalking in the past, you always guided me.  I never had need of a muse.”  She took her place in the center of the glowing patterns.

“Well, today is as good a day as any other to find out, Sister.”  Luna turned her head away, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial mutter.  “We wonder if it will demonstrate all those cakes thou eats when nobody is watching…”

“I heard that, Luna,”  Celestia responded flatly, shooting her sister a look over her shoulder.  Luna merely grinned back impishly before casting another magic bolt into the diagram, sending it ablaze with light.

Twilight watched in awe as Celestia calmly stood in the middle of the wreathing sea of magic, watching it as it spiraled up her mentor’s body to frame her in waves of runes of light.  Celestia’s eyes open to reveal a similar light, magic spiraling up through her horn to form a glowing point at the tip.  It writhed and pulsed, until the littlest alicorn could only shield her eyes as it enveloped the whole room.

Celestia, eyes closed once again, waited as she felt the magic slowly fade from the throne room.  She gracefully lifted her head from its lowered position, cracking open her eyes to cast her gaze on her muse.

“Well hi there, sillies!”

Celestia’s eyes went wide and bloodshot in an instant.

“Gaaaaaaaaasp!  Tia, it’s you!  Omigosh, it’s been, like, soooooo long!”  The horrifying...thing in front of the Solar Monarch adopted an exaggerated pose of surprise, which only made it more horrible to look at.  Celestia had barely any time to ponder why the horrible monstrosity has actually enunciated the word ‘gasp’ before it had her wrapped up in a bone-crushing hug.

“I can’t believe I finally get to see you after all these years!  Now we can rule the kingdom together and wear jewelry and right wrongs and eat cake and do each other’s manes and—”

Celestia broke out of the hug and backpedaled across the room furiously, her mind screaming at her in disbelief.  This couldn’t be her muse!  It looked like a near carbon copy of herself, except….

PINK.  

The colors were all horribly skewed, her mane a horrible blaring cacophony of oversaturated primary colors that waved around like they were caught in a gale-force hurricane rather than a gentle breeze.  The pink was a shade that hurt the very eyes to look at for more than a few seconds, as if her senses were rejecting what they were beholding.  The royal regalia....no longer a fine example of rare metalsmithing, but made of silv—

...wait, is that aluminum foil?  She has jewelry made out of aluminum foil.  Very well folded aluminum foil, with a glass gemstone in the middle, but bucking aluminum foil.

And those shoes were clearly drawn on her feet with marker.

What was this horrible thing?  Had the diagram been improperly drawn?  Was this some wretched form of nightmare of hers, a parody of everything she feared and—

...no.

That cutie mark.

Oh no no no no no.

That crown-shaped cutie mark.

It couldn’t be.

Not here.  Not now.  Not after all these years!

“Tiaaaaaaaa?  What’s wrong?  Don’t you recognize your bestest friend in the whole wide world?”

Celestia’s eye twitched, ever so slightly, as a strangled, half-choked laugh came from Luna.

“P-p-princess Celestia?  W-what is that thing?”  Twilight stammered, backing away from the holocaust of color standing in the middle of the throne room.  “It scares me.”

“Oh HELLO there, tiny princess!  My name is Princess Saturia!  And I am Celestia’s bestest most wonderful friend and the beeeeest princess EVAR!”  The “princess”, who was such by virtue of her every fiber of being screaming “pretty pretty princess” to anyone who dared look at her, spread her arms and wings wide, jamming a hoof into the air like she was declaring a crusade.  Most likely against eyeballs.

“Stand back, Twilight,”  Celestia commanded, wheels desperately turning as she attempted to figure a way out of this situation with her dignity intact.  “I know not what the spell wrought from the Astral Plane, but I shall see it sent back this insta—”

“PFfahahahahahahahahaHA!  Oh, we beg to differ, Sister!”

“Luna.”

“Thou knows all too well who this is!”

“LUNA.”

“What’s wrong, ‘Tia’?  Don’t recognize your old—”

“LUNA I SWEAR ON THE GIANT BALL OF FIRE I SWING AROUND THE SKY—”

“Imaginary friend!?”

Celestia could do nothing but groan.  The words had been spoken, and there was no taking them back.  She glanced fearfully at Twilight, who was looking between her mentor with the sort of confused, jarred faith that only a betrayal of imagination could bring.

“...imaginary friend?  Princess, is Luna saying...THIS was your fillyhood imaginary friend!?”

“Twilight, please, I can explain—”

“It’s hideous!”  Twilight’s face morphed into horrified disgust.

“Psssh, what-evar.  You’re just toooootally jealous of my awesome jewelry and princessing skills.”  Celestia’s brain melted a little bit more as the atrocious remnant of her childhood made flesh spoke.

“Twilight, I can assure you, it is not as bad as it looks.  I was a young filly, and when our parents waxed about what we would look like when we grew up I...misinterpreted a bit.”

“Misinterpreted!?   HAAAAhhahahaHA!  Just admit it, Sister!  Thou are, and always have been, absolutely ATROCIOUS at art!”  Luna howled, having completely abandoned any semblance of composure to flop to the ground in hysterics.

Twilight, for her part, looked at Celestia, her once perfect mentor, as if she had just thrown a puppy off the castle cliff.  Celestia, for her part, tried not to die on the spot.

“Omigod, Tiaaaaaa!  What’s with this stuffy throne room!?  Everything is like, so plain and boring and not at ALL princess-y.  We need to fix this up, chop chop!”  Saturia pranced over to the throne, and with a glow of magic that was somehow even MORE pink than the rest of her, hit it with a bolt.

The throne, the mighty, proud seat of power that had served Celestia so well over the centuries, was transformed….

...into a throne literally made out of flowers, sequins, and sparkly ribbons.

And covered in glitter.

...COPIOUS amounts of glitter.

“There!  Doesn’t that look so much bettar?  Totally fitting of a princess~!” Saturia crooned, staring upon her awful works but somehow not despairing.

“Eeeeeeeeeeerrrrrgh,”  Celestia’s mouth said, in the most undignified noise it may have made in millenia.

“Now, we’ll need to get rid of the rest of these totally gross decorations…”  Saturia began humming a song that was both off-key and somehow sounded pink as she began to lay frilly, saccharine waste to Celestia’s once dignified throne room into an arts-and-crafts nightmare of lace, Hearth’s Warming Eve lights, and—

—OH HELL NO THIS PRINCESS DREW THE LINE AT FLANNEL.

“BEGONE, NIGHTMARE!”  Celestia thundered, rearing back and blasting a dispelling spell at the summoning circle that sustained the atrocity making a mockery of her domain.

“Tia, whaaaaaa—”  Saturia barely had time to get out a few words before the spell circle shorted out with a spray of magical sparks, causing the pretty pretty princess to fade into wisps of aetherial magic.  Celestia huffed a sigh of relief, before turning back to her fellow royalty.  Twilight had a look of teary heartbroken distress on her face, while Luna was still sniggering on the floor of the throne room next to the carpet, which had been turned into a fake gem-encrusted blasphemy of decor.

“Luna, you can stop laughing at any time now.  And Twilight...I shall explain all of this to you.  Even princesses do silly things when they’re fillies.  We alicorns are not perfect; you shall learn this in time.  But first…”

Celestia allowed herself a small groan and rubbed a hoof against her forehead, simply not caring enough for the first time in a long time to keep up her untouchable demeanor.

“...I really need a drink.  And cake.”

The solar diarch strode through the doors of her throne room, her former student and her sister reluctantly following before the doors were hurled shut with a bang and a glow of golden magic.  The force of Celestia’s rejection of the sight of the room behind her was so great that Luna’s magical reagents and artifacts, already stacked altogether too high, tumbled over onto the deactivated magical circle in a spray of magic, chemicals, and shattering gemstones.

The circle flared to life with a warped, static-y glow.

“Woooooah!  That was weeeeiiiiird!”  Saturia giggled, fickering back into existence in the throne room.  "It was like I went on this sparkly adventure into the sky!  Did you see it too, Tia?”  The pink alicornycorn looked around the room, but found no “supar best friend” to greet her.

“Tia?  Tiiiiaaaaa, where’d you goooooo?”  Saturia tore the entire throne block out of the floor with her magic to peek under it like a six-year-old, before slamming it back down in a spray of rubble and glitter when Celestia was not found beneath.

“Huh!  I wonder what happened to her…”  She rubbed a hoof against her chin in thought before her eyes widened in shock.

“Le gaaaaaaaaaaaasp!  Celestia must be planning me a surprise party!  Oooooo, that’s supar-dupar of her!  She’s such a good friend!”  Saturia bounced around with glee, ignoring the massive hoofprints her jumps were leaving in the floor.

“And I know just how I can make it even bettar!  Oh, Tia will be so excited when she sees what I’ve done to the castle for the partyyyyyy!”






Somewhere, far off in the distance, in the tiny town of Ponyville, a fashionista felt a burst of all-consuming, existential despair.






Celestia sat and contemplated her crumb-laden plate, once the holder of a supremely delicious slice of cake from her favorite shop in Canterlot before she had summarily devoured it.  Lifting her glass of Zebrican Ale to her muzzle, she absentmindedly sipped away at the stiff alcoholic beverage as she tried to contemplate what poor decisions had led her to this particular moment in her life.

“So….why ‘Princess Saturia’?”  Twilight asked, having moved past the shattered remnants of her once perfect view of her mentor, progressing to full-blown curiosity.  Her Germaneigh Lager sat mostly untouched, her mouth too busy blurting out questions.

“Because her hoofwriting used to be atrocious, even with magic,”  Luna singgered over her Canterlot mead.  The lunar alicorn’s laughter had dogged Celestia’s every step from the throne room to the table they were now seated around.

“Thank you, Luna.  I absolutely continue to need your help in explaining this.”  Celestia grumbled at her sister, who proceeded to continue to not give a flying fuck.

“Dear Sister, we only felt the need to remind thee of your long hours of struggle, apprenticeship, magical spellcrafting, more apprenticeship, and hunt for a supply of magical phoenix-feather quills to finally raise thy hoofsmanship to a level befitting…”  Luna choked on her own laughter for the umpteenth time.  “...A pretty, pretty princess.”

“YES THANK YOU LUNA I REMEMBER.”  Celestia hissed through gritted teeth.  She took another swig of her ale, more thankful with each passing moment for the alcoholic beverage.

“What does that have to do with—”  Twilight was interrupted by her teacher, who was at this point unwilling to risk Luna answering for her any further.

“Because when my drawing was passed around to the adults, my hoofwriting was...less than legible.  They did their best, but ‘Celestia’ came out at ‘Saturia’.”

“And you just went along with that?”  Twilight quirked an eyebrow.

Celestia gave a very non-princessy shrug.  “I was a filly, the same as you once were.  My childish mind decided having another princess to play with was an even better idea than just growing up to be one.”

“That’s...actually kind of cute, Princess.”  Twilight giggled slightly, though whether it was from her mentor’s newfound involuntary openness or the slight effect of alcohol it was up for debate.

“A princess is not supposed to be cute.”  Celestia grumbled with her muzzle buried in her ale.

“We beg to differ,”  Luna responded, putting on a stupidly over-cutesy face.

“Nobody cares what you think, Luna.”

“Low blow, Sister.”

“Bite me.”

“Soooo...Saturia was your imaginary friend, then?”  Twilight awkwardly tried to ignore the continuing sisterly cattiness.

“Yes, she was.  And why not?  Lots of fillies had imaginary friends.  I’ve nothing to be ashamed of,”  Celestia said curtly.

“Most imaginary friends don’t end up being a pony’s muse.”  Luna helpfully reminded the solar monarch.

“It was NO SUCH THING!”  Celestia shouted, banging her hooves onto the table as her blood pressure escalated once more.  The table splintered with an audible CRACK and sent the poor teenaged pony manning the counter huddling for cover behind the pastry display.

“It must have been...a-a mistake!  Or a misdrawn rune!  Something drawn from my memories, my nightmares; NOT my muse!”  Celestia continued to babble, half-furious, half-delirious in the face of an problem that could not be solved easily, or perhaps ever.

Luna snorted, her laughter ceasing for once to be replaced by arrogant skepticism.  “Sister, have you ever known us to take anything less than the utmost precautions when dealing with Dream Magic?  We were in the throne room for over three hours before thou arrived, going over every single line.  There was no mistake, Celestia.”

...Luna lasted about three seconds before her face curled back up into a badly-suppressed smirk.

“W-We are afraid...t-t-thee will have to learn to live…snrk...w-with thy muse being what thou truly desires.  A-a...pfffahhahha!  To be a pretty, pink princess!   Oh forsooth, my sides!  AHAHAHAHHA!”  Luna ceased any semblance of royal decorum once again, instead choosing to fall out of her chair and begin rolling on the floor.

Celestia, to her credit, did not yell at her sister.  No, she maintained a sense of dignity and quietude; as much as pony can maintain by letting their head slam onto a table and uttering a strange combination of a groan and a sob.

“Erm….Princess Celestia?”  Twilight’s muffled voice wormed its way though Celestia’s folded forelegs.

“Not now, Twilight.  I’m mourning the loss of my pride.”

“But...Princess…”

“Twilight, unless the shop attendant is offer free devil’s food cake and a round of tequila shots for the table, I’m not interested!  ...and stop calling me Princess.”

“But…”

“TEQUILA, Twilight!”

“Sister, the castle has been turned into bubblegum.”

“.......WHAT.”

Celestia jerked her head from its lowly position and looked frantically out the window at Canterlot Castle, seat of power of the Royal Pony Sisters for centuries as they ruled Equestria with (mostly) benevolent hooves.

The castle that now looked like a nightmare created by the collaboration of an overzealous amateur decorator and a 6-year-old sweets chef.

Parts of the castle were indeed made out of bubblegum.  And licorice.  And butterscotch.  And gumdrops.  And chocolate and taffy and candy canes and sweet mother of herself was that a castle turret made out of cake GIVE HER.

With a fluttering of eyes and a shake of the head, the guider of the sun snapped herself out of her cake-fueled moment of hypnosis.  The last time she checked, the castle was not supposed to be made out of candy.  And it was most certainly not supposed to covered in pinwheels and neon signs and giant bouquets of flowers and giant banners that said “HOORAY FOR PRINCESSES” on i—

—oh no.

Celestia, with years of seasoned practice, grabbed the mug of Zebrican ale and chugged the entire thing, before hurling the empty container at the confused, half-visible pony attendant behind the counter and dashing out the door.  Twilight heaved some bits onto the counter before dashing after her former teacher in confusion.

Luna, clambering slowly off the floor, took a moment to ponder the situation before quaffing her own flagon of mead.  She then turned to the attendant, still fearfully peering over the edge of the display case.

“Sister has forgotten about teleportation again.  May we have another?  We’ll catch up to her when we finish.”





“So begins the reign of PRINCESS SATURIA!  Heeheehee!”  The still-pink, still-present, still-eye-bleedingly-awful-to-look-at muse was sitting atop the “improved” throne, casting her gaze over her noble guards.  All of which were wearing armor made out of golden tinfoil.  Much shinier.

The fact that the "guards" were actually an assortment of ponyquins, taped-together janitorial equipment, and the odd bedazzled animal from the castle gardens was of no consequence to her.

“Ooooo, Tia’s going to be so pleased with what I’ve done with the place!  None of that gross stone and ugly, boring, old paintings that were evarywarr.  Now everything’s so SHINY!  And we can eat the castle when we want some candy!  And then make a new one!  This party’s going to be SUPAR!”

That was about the time the throne room doors melted.

And exploded.

Simultaneously.

Princess Celestia, First Princess of Equestria, Mover of the Sun and Benevolent Matriarch of All She Surveys, burst into the room with a blast of solar hellfire and seething with an equivalent amount of rage.

“SATURIA!”  She boomed, her trip through the castle making her less than pleased at the desecration of thousands upon thousands of pony-hours worth of architecture, paintings, tapestries, metalworking, stonecrafting, and other art forms in the space of about an hour.  The cityfolk were screaming and panicking (though to be fair, they tended to do that if a butterfly landed on someone’s nose), the guards were nowhere to be found, and everything was sticky.  She had bubblegum IN HER MANE.

All because of one highly pink, highly offensive rogue muse that was as likely to be MADE of cotton candy as it was for her HEAD to be filled with it.

“Oh haaaaaaai, Tia!  Did you just get back?  How are all our wonderful pony-waifus today?  I’m sure they're just so pleased to see the return of Princess of Candy!”

“That is not a thing, YOU are not a thing, and if you continue speaking without explaining what is going on I am going to light you on fire.”  Celestia seethed.  Twilight peeked around the still-cooling remains of the doorframe, having never seen this side of Celestia and having no desire to get in front of it.

Luna was standing in the middle of the hallway.  Watching.  Eating a sandwich she’d picked up on the way there.

...Celestia had only been angier when she was reminded about the teleportation thing.  Upon finding Luna waiting for her at the entrance to the castle.

With the sandwich.

“Tiiiiaaaaaaa, why are you being so meeeaaan?  Did Lulu steal your favorite doll again?  That’s soooo not cool of her.”

Now Luna was choking on the sandwich instead of eating it, caught between digestion and laughter.

“I haven’t played with dolls since I was a filly.  Just like you, Saturia.  And I DEMAND you get back in my repressed memories and stay there.”

“Uuuuuugh, why are you being such a butt, Tia!  You sound like those meanie guards.”

“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY GUARDS!?”

“They were being evaarr so rude to the best princess, so I had to send them to the moon.”

“You WHAT!?!?”

“...um...can the guards breathe in space?”  Twilight meekly asked from behind the half-molten gingerbread.

Luna said nothing, still hacking tomato slices out of her esophagus.

“The guards will be fine, they are well-trained.  This ABOMINATION, however, will not be so lucky.”  Celestia began to step forward, horn ablaze, looking for all the world like a god-forsaken valkyrie.

“Hay….wait, Tia?  You’re not surrius, are you?”  Saturia’s lip trembled, and her eyes watered.  “You...you really don’t like me anymore?”

Celestia only continued to advance, murder clearly evident in eyes.

Luna, recovered from her attempted suicide-by-sandwich, summoned a bucket of popcorn, offering a hooffull to the nearby Twilight.  Twilight, to her credit, managed to debate the ethics of the situation for a full two seconds before accepting it.

“You...you...you big MEANIE!”  Saturia screamed, the Royal Candylot Voice blasting the three ponies backwards and catching them completely off-guard.

“What the BUCK was that!?”  Celestia blurted out from the pony-pile she was now a part of.

“Were we always that loud?”  Luna asked, digging popcorn kernels out of her ears.

Twilight said something, but it was muffled by the rear-ends of two princesses significantly larger than her head.

“FINE!  If you don’t want to play with me, Tia, then there’ll be no playtime for ANYONE!”  Saturia hovered in the air, a glowing peppermint-swirl pattern emitting from her eyes as her hair billowed in its oversaturated horror.

“....she is NOT doing what I think she’s doing.”

“It would appear she is, Sister.”

“MMMmMMMmMmPH!”

A gigantic bubble of magic formed around the angry princess-thing, obscuring her features even as her silloutte began to shift and change.

“All of you disgusting, cis-gendered, heteronormative, patriarchy-reinforcing, privilege-flaunting, mysoginistic daughters of Seabiscuit!  You poopheads!  You shall pay for insulting the best princess evar who is now even more bestest!”

“Half of those words don’t even make any sense!”

“We think we bedded a ‘Seabiscuit’ once.”

“We’re a matriarchal country!  The population is nearly five to one in favor of mares!”

“....or was that a ‘Seabreeze’?”

“What the heck does ‘cis-gendered’ even mean?  We have sex change spells!”

“Ah, our mistake.  It was both at the same time.”

“MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMRRRRPH!”

The alicorn sisters got to their hooves, leaving a gasping Twilight behind who had just seen enough princess plot to last her a lifetime (or until she started posing in the mirror the next time Spike was out).  Celestia glared as the bubble burst, leaving behind…

...OH SWEET MERCY HOW CAN SHE BE EVEN WORSE.

Her hair did not shimmer as a Nightmare did.  It strobed.  Every color.  Constantly.  Looking at it was akin to looking into the very essence of epilepsy.  The rest of her was no better; instead of inverting her coat color, she had developed polka dots.  AND stripes.  That were also pink.  Her royal regalia now looked like it had developed tinfoil tumors it hand so many unnecessary spiraling extensions, and there was gems studded to literally every available surface.  Instead of fangs, she’d grown bunny buck teeth.  Which were also fangs, for some reason.  Perhaps the only thing that transformed normally were the eyes, although they were still horribly, unspeakably, unnaturally pink.

Her shoes were also now drawn with crayon instead of marker.  Thinking about how that worked made Celestia’s brain melt.

“BEHOLD, you sexist she-griffons!  I am Princess Saturia no longer!  I am now Princess Doctor Psychologist Lawyer Ebony Dark’ness Dementia—”

The horrible monstrosity was cut off by an unhinged scream from Celestia, coupled with being blown through the back of the throne room wall and out of the castle by a searing beam of pure heat.

“NO.  NO.  FUCK NO.  NOT IN MY CASTLE.”

“It would appear first round goes to our Sister.  Popcorn, Sparkle?”

“Butts…too many butts…”

“Suit thyself.”

Unfortunately for what was left of the solar monarch’s sanity, the screaming madness flew back up to hover outside of the hole Celestia had sent her screaming through, hovering there on her…

...six.  Six wings.

“STOP OPPRESSING MEEEEEEEE!” Princess Who-Gives-A-Fuck screeched, sending a magically-generated torrent of something directly into Celestia’s face.

Celestia caught the beam right between the eyes, flying flank over teakettle to splatter into the wall.

“Is this...cake? You hit me with cake!?  You are WASTING cake in MY castle!?!?  BITCH YOU ARE DEAD!”  Celestia shrieked, snapping her wings out and soaring into the air to dive at her new mortal enemy.

“We must admit, ‘watching Sister catfight with her imaginary-friend-turned-muse’ was fairly high on the list of things we never expected to see.”

“LET GO OF MY HAIR, YOU COLOR-SHAMING LOSARRR!”

“THIS ISN’T HAIR, IT’S EYE BLEACH!”

“Ah, that hair’s going to be hard to get out of the upholstery.  Mostly because it’s made of caramel now.”

“MY REGALIA!  HOW DARE YOU!?  THIS IS WORTH MORE THAN TWENTY OF YOU!”

“IT’S AS STUPID AS YOUR UGLY CASTLE IS, TIA!  WHO MAKES WINDOWS OUT OF GLASS INSTEAD OF SUGAR!?”

“We were unaware that pastries could be used so effectively in combat.  Mayhap we should research this at a later date.”

“YOU CAN’T EVEN CHOOSE CAKE RIGHT!  I HATE LEMON MERINGUE!”

“IT’S A HAY OF A LOT BETTER THAN YOUR STUPID BANANA CREAM, TIA!”

“I WILL BUCKING END YOU, YOU WHORSE!”

“I shall have to find the royal glassblower after this.  This will make an excellent new window.”

“A LITTLE HELP WOULD BE NICE, LUNA!”

“What would you have me do, Sister?”

“BLAST HER, YOU BITCHLORD!”

“Fiiiiiine.”  Luna rolled her eyes before charging her horn with an ethereal glow.  She shot the shimmering dispel magic directly at the flailing princess-beast, catching her square in the torso and instantly rendering her into a screaming, rapidly-disintegrating mess.

“All the ponies will love me forevaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrr!”  Princess Saturia screamed as she was banished back to the ether from which she came.

Luna gave a small “hmph” of satisfaction, before trotting up to Celestia, who had collapsed, into a disheveled, sticky, pastry-coated mess on the floor.

“Thou may now begin eating the cake instead of fighting it, Sister.”

“Shove it up your plothole, Luna.  I’m not in the mood.  Just...go get the guards off the moon.  Then get the wine cellar.  All of it.”

“Huzzah!”





Celestia settled into her bed, glad the day had finally come to an end.  It had taken her far too long to set everything right.  Between turning the castle back to normal before it melted any further, treating the guards for moon-related trauma, teleporting a near-comatose Twilight Sparkle back to her library, and then proceeding to get nearly everyone in the castle drunk to lessen the chance any of them would ever remember any of this as something other than a fever dream, she was dead exhausted.

But it was over now.  The sun was down, Luna was attending to the night, and she had even managed to salvage enough of that cake to make a delicious dessert to go with her Rosé.  Now she could get a good night’s rest, and forget than any of this ever happened.

And so the solar monarch nodded off to the land of dreams...

…

…

…

“Omigod, Tia!  You’re in here too!?  I knew it, we’re meant to be best friends forevaaaaarrr!”

Celestia’s scream was heard in Manehattan.





Discord glanced dully at Canterlot, which had been nothing but a noisy bother all day.

“Dreadful business.”  He shook his head, adjusting his monocle as he turned back to sip at his tea.  “Thankfully we aren’t a part of it.  Don’t you agree, Discord?”

“Oh yes, Discord, couldn’t agree more.”  The other Discord, done up in an identical fancy suit and top hat as the first, nodded in agreement.  The only distinguishing difference was a small sign hung around his neck that said “2” on it.

“Thankfully, we are of a higher caliber of chaos.  We’d never be caught dead…”  The first Discord briefly poofed into a zombified version of himself before reverting back.  “...engaging in such tomfoolery as that.”

“Indeed, chap.  It’s so nice to have civilized company.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Their teacups clinked.






I APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING