With a bright flash of light, the Canterlot Throne Room gained two alicorns. This raised the inventory to three, one of whom was speechless.

“That was so invigorating!” declared Celestia, giving her bundle of various souvenirs a gentle toss to land in front of a shocked servant.  “Would you be so kind as to see those laundered and returned to my chambers, please.  Oh, Twilight! We have so many stories to tell about our vacation.  Once we’re back up to speed, we’ll have you over for a good, long discussion.”

“We can scrapbook!” declared Luna, giving a larger bundle of her own a toss at a servant, who was too surprised to dodge and wound up buried under a pile of memorabilia including a giant collection of stickers over the bag which obscured each other until only “Where is Wall Drug” could be discerned on top.

“Several scrapbooks,” added Celestia, giving the circle of Royal Supplicants a brief glance.  “With a public release, of course.  In book form.”

The speechless alicorn remained so, although her mouth was moving rather slowly.

“Well, you seem hard at work,” said Celestia, giving each pony in line a respectful nod of her head.  “Finish up and I’ll be back for the afternoon shift.”

“And I the eve,” declared Luna.  “Several denizens of darkness will undoubtedly need my attention.  They miss sparring with me so when I am absent.  Did you know one of them cried when I returned from the moon?  Even brought me lilies before his next trouncing.  For monsters, they can be quite compassionate.”

“You’re not here!” blurted out Princess Twilight Sparkle, with a series of sudden curls springing up along her mane with such vigor that it nearly knocked her crown over her eyes.  “We thought you were dead!”

“Dead?”  Celestia’s vacation afterglow faded only slightly.  “You read the note we left, correct?  Well, the note that Luna left.  I passed the task to her when I had to make a quick shopping trip to pick up sunscreen.”

“Me?”  Luna pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her horn and blinked several times.  “You said the note was completed before you transported yourself to the store.  I specifically remember you called out, ‘Luna! Got the note!’”

“I said [i]get[/i] the note, dear sister, since I had to hurry to get your suntan lotion.  Then when I returned, you said the note had been taken care of and you had the train tickets.”

“I said since the note was complete and I had the tickets it was time for us to go.”  Luna looked puzzled.  “You [i]always[/i] take care of correspondence with your student.”

“Well, I thought…”  Celestia considered the sheer volume of stunned astonishment that Twilight was putting out, somewhere ‘needs a bag to breathe into’ and ‘the spider was [i]this[/i] big’

“Court is dismissed,” announced Luna.  “We shall resume later when this minor misunderstanding of [i]my sister’s[/i] has been resolved.”

[hr]

Later became much later in good order, until all three alicorns found themselves out in the Royal Gardens for a moment of relative privacy.

“I panicked a little at first,” admitted Twilight in what was certainly a vast understatement.  “Then I realized what you had done.  [i]Everything[/i] was suddenly on me.”

“And your friends,” said Celestia in a gentle verbal nudge.

“Well… The ponies of Equestria needed somepony to uphold as a role model.  A single focal point as it were.  Since you were both gone.  So…”  Her eyes traveled upward until all three of the princesses considered the huge sigil of Twilight’s cutie mark attached to the outside of the Royal Towers.  “All of my friends except for Applejack had suggestions for symbols to indicate the start of my leadership of the country.  That’s Rarity’s idea.  It glows at night,” she added.

“And…”  Celestia looked up a little more and considered the huge sun symbol inscribed on the side of Mount Canter.

“Pinkie Pie,” said Twilight.  “Princess Luna’s mark is on the other side of the mountain and… it rotates.  You know.  At night.  And glows, also.  I’ll go turn it around so you can see.”

There was a flash of light and Twilight was gone, leaving only the Sisters among the garden’s flowers and occasional creatures.

“Don’t say it,” cautioned Celestia.

“I must.”  Luna looked down when a rabbit with a golden collar hopped past.  “Next time, how about we leave Applejack in charge?”