In Equestria, the mood of the princesses were reflected in the behavior of their celestial orbs. When Princess Luna was in a broody state, all dark and concerned about some portion of her life, the night was a terrifying place indeed, a gloomy darkness barely pierced by the wan illumination of her beloved moon. When she was happy with her life, as she had been lately, the night fairly bloomed with brilliant stars and glorious moonlight, causing many young lovers to take long evening strolls together among the flowers.

And incidentally leading to a noticeable bump in the birth rate.

Celestia was no exception to the rules. This morning, the sun practically danced in the sky as the Princess of the Sun trotted briskly out of her morning meeting with the Day Court. In short, her present cheerful mood was because nothing was presently going wrong in Equestria that the ponies could not handle on their own, and an extraordinary number of things had gone right over the last few days. There was even going to be cake on the menu for lunch, and Celestia had already determined to take two pieces, regardless of the effect on her present diet⁽¹⁾.

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(1) Celestia's current diet was going much better than the thirty-seven hundred diets she had endured before. She was abiding by the restrictions quite well, with only a few interruptions⁽²⁾ in the schedule.
(2) Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Brunch, and Occasional Snackings.

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She paused during her happy trot through a shortcut in the Celestial Garden Paths, having absent-mindedly nipped off several delicious roses and a gardenia during the trip. The day was going so wonderfully that it really needed to be shared. Princess Twilight Sparkle was in Canterlot yet again for one of her overnight study sessions with Luna. They would always spend all night together, just the two of them up in the Royal Observatory tower with no other ponies invited.

Particularly older sisters.

The two of them always took a late breakfast or early brunch in Luna's favorite tea room overlooking the busy city, and spent the entire morning going over the results of their evening study sessions. Celestia had never managed to get out of Day Court early enough before to join them, but today was different. They would have just sat down with the full silver tea set that Luna had received so many years ago when Celestia had first discovered the pleasures of the leaf. The set had weathered the flow of time very well, and Celestia licked her lips at the thought of the hot water being poured into the leaves to steep and the fragrant aroma that would waft through the air. It was such a large tea set, and there were only two of them. It would be a shame if any of the delicious tea went to waste. Perhaps she could even snatch one or two of Luna's favorite chocolate biscuits that she defended so vigorously. Luna had such tasty biscuits. Celestia always had been unsuccessful at the snatch attempts before, but today she felt she was going to get lucky.

She turned her path towards the East Towers with a brisk increase in the tempo of her trot and the warmth of anticipated sugar building in her stomach. As expected when she drew near to the private tea room, the guards had been sent far away from the door, and when Celestia drew near, she rose up on the tips of her hooves to silently drift forward. All it would take was a fraction of a second warning for Luna to snatch her cookies out of reach, and while Luna had a fast snatch, she could be surprised for just a few moments so that Celestia's snatch would be successful first.

Celestia was very proud of her snatch. She had been improving it with lots of practice while Luna had been exiled to the moon. Quite possibly, she had the fastest snatch in all of Equestria⁽³⁾ by now.

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(3) Except for Rainbow Dash, and possibly Pinkie Pie.

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As Celestia approached the tea room door, propped open to allow a gentle breeze to flow through Luna and Twilight's room, she could hear the voice of her faithful student waft through the air.

"Princess Luna, are you certain this is right? I mean, we've gone so far, farther than I ever did with Princess Celestia, but I've never done this before. It seems… perverted."

"Don't worry, Twilight," purred her sister's voice, sounding almost predatory as it drifted out into the corridor. "You've enjoyed what I've shown you so far. Knowledge is meant for sharing. If I kept it to myself, you would have never known the pleasure of this…"

There was a quiet and liquid sound, and Twilight whimpered.

"Or this," whispered Luna, and the liquid sound echoed through the corridor again.

"Please, no," whispered Twilight Sparkle. "That's too much."

"Are you certain you do not wish another?" whispered Luna. "Just one?"

The silence was deafening.

"Honey?" asked Luna.

"Yes," gasped Princess Twilight in a sudden burst of exuberance. "Oh, yes! Give it to me!"

"Luna!" shouted Princess Celestia as she burst through the doorway. The scene of depravity was almost more than the Princess of the Sun could stand. Luna held a pot of honey with a dripping applicator in her magical grasp, leaning forward towards to where Princess Twilight had jerked back when the door opened. The cup of black pekoe tea that Twilight had been holding was spilled out across the table in a wide dark blotch like black blood with two dissolving sugar cubes decorating the center and the near-deafening drip, drip, drip of the sugared fluid onto the tile floor. Twilight trembled and attempted to hide the evidence of her illicit activity, but Celestia had seen enough.

Although Twilight was blushing a bright shade of red, Luna seemed almost furious at Celestia's intervention, drawing herself up straight and glaring at her sister with suppressed violence. The cup of tea hovering at her side was pale with the addition of not only sugar cubes, but most certainly milk as well, even to the extreme of a small slice of lemon placed cautiously over the cup's rim. The surface of the tea trembled to the edge and almost spilled as Luna bellowed, "Sister! What do you think you are doing?"

"Me?" Celestia drew herself up to the ceiling with wings spread. "How dare you do this to Twilight! Have you no shame? Where is your dignity?"

"I am only doing that which you would not, dear sister," snapped Luna in return while rising up on her haunches to spread her wings wide. "I did not go to her. She came to me!"

"What!" Celestia turned on Twilight Sparkle, who stumbled back from the table with a damp cloth held in her magic from where she had been frantically attempting to mop up the spilled tea. "Tell me this is not true, Twilight! Please!"

"No!" gasped Twilight, knocking her teacup onto the floor in her haste to clean up the evidence of her betrayal. "I mean…" Her magenta magic straightened up the tea table in front of her while the fallen teacup was returned to its rightful place, as well as the rest of the silver tea things. The spare teacups to the side of the tea cart rattled in her wavering magical grip as she floated a third cup out onto the table and gave a terrified smile. "W-would you j-join us, P-princess Celestia?"

"I shall not take tea with one who would corrupt my innocent student!" thundered Celestia, her wings still open wide and the blinding glare of the sun rising to a hot embrace through the open windows.

"You had her all to yourself for years, Celly," bellowed Luna as she stretched out her wings with a blast of frigid air that brought frost to most of the surfaces of the room and a wavering aura of darkness outside, as if the moon were struggling to rise over the distant horizon. "Now it is my turn, and if I wish to show her the pleasures that you never had the courage to reveal unto her, it is my prerogative!"

"NEVER!" shouted Celestia with such force that all of the windows in the room exploded away from them.

"IT IS NOT YOUR DECISION!" bellowed Luna, sending the last few shards of windowglass to meet their shattered companions in the gardens far below. "IT IS MINE!"

There was an exceedingly long period of relative silence, broken only by the faint tinkle of shattered glass landing several stories below the windows. Then Princess Luna cleared her throat and cast a slightly-embarrassed glance to her side. "I mean, it is Twilight Sparkle's decision."

Celestia's outstretched wings drooped slightly, and the glare of the sunlight outside decreased to something a little more in tune for the summer afternoon. "Yes. Yes it is," confirmed the Princess of the Sun. "It is a decision she made long before your return, dear sister."

Luna's chin jerked up and she glared at Celestia. "She told me of your private times. The hours you used to spend with her, alone in your bedroom with nothing but tea and togetherness. You may have indoctrinated her in some of the pleasures we both have knowledge of, but you denied her the ones which are of the most importance."

Celestia's eyes narrowed. "We shall not speak of this in front of her."

"Why not!" With one dark wing, Luna pointed at the cringing alicorn princess in question. "She is of age, and possesses the wisdom and passions of our kind now. You may be an old and dried-up old prune, but she is young and vibrant, filled with the eagerness of youth. She deserves to have knowledge of these things, knowledge which you tried to keep away from me!"

"You were not ready," shouted Celestia. "Look at what it did to you! Your unfettered passions for your depravities led you down the darkest of paths. Who knows what perversions you may have tried if I had not stopped you with the Elements of Harmony! Being sent twice through its powers should certainly have purged you of this sinful desire. Will you need to be subjected to Twilight and her friends' touch a third time? A fourth?"

"Stop!"

Both alicorns paused, nearly nose-to-nose with each other. The word had not come from either of them, but from a smaller and considerably shaken Princess Twilight Sparkle, who was clutching the tea kettle as if it were a small stuffed animal from her past being held during a particularly violent thunderstorm.

"Please stop arguing," continued Twilight Sparkle in a very quiet voice that seemed to bring a breath of calm into the tense room. "Just… sit down for a moment. I have something that needs to be said that both of you need to hear."

The royal sisters glared at each other, but the fire had been sucked out of their conflict by Twilight's simple words. Still unwilling to back down, they each continued to hold their positions with silent grumbling while shifting uncomfortably under Twilight's continued lecture.

"Princess Celestia, you taught me that during times of the greatest stress, there is always time to sit down and consider all of your options. I've never been able to do that during the disasters I've dealt with, but just knowing that it is an option has always helped me deal with it."

"Very true, Twilight," said Celestia. "But you—"

"And Princess Luna," said Twilight Sparkle, cutting off her mentor abruptly. "You told me that I should always have a plan for every contingency so that if I needed to take action, I would not have to hesitate."

"Indeed, Twilight Sparkle." Luna cast a triumphant glance at her older sister. "Therefore, we—"

"So I want you both to sit down," continued Twilight. "Right here at this table." Magenta magic scoured the table behind her, laying out three unbroken cups on several remaining napkins. The silver cover on a plate of chocolate biscuits was removed, two large chairs were pushed out, and the tea kettle was reluctantly floated up and away from Twilight Sparkle's tight grip. She poured in relative silence, three cups of silent dark brew, simmering with faint wisps of steam sitting in front of three simmering alicorns.

"Knowledge can be many things," said Twilight, sitting down in her chair and silently floating a chocolate biscuit over to her napkin. "Princess Celestia, you once told me knowledge was like an ocean, deep and infinite in its reach such that one single unicorn or even alicorn could never drink it all in without bursting in the process."

"As I recall," started Celestia with a brief sip of her dark tea, "that was right after you tried to read every book in the Canterlot Archives starting with 'M.'"

"And I think I could have done it, if not for that series of books on Megalodons." Twilight shuddered. "I still don't want to go near the ocean. But it got me thinking." She pushed the small silver bowl of sugar cubes out into the middle of the table with her magic. Luna leaned forward in anticipation while her sister recoiled.

"Twilight," started Celestia, picking up a tea spoon as if it were a sword to defend against some terrible monster. "No. Please, don't."

Twilight Sparkle picked up a sugar cube in the silver tongs and held it as she talked.

"We can not drink an ocean of knowledge. At best we can pick about on the nearest shore, examine the seashells, and try our best to understand everything we can about the beach. As much as we learn at the shore, there is still one thing we can not."

The sugar cube dropped into Celestia's tea with a quiet bloop, eliciting a harsh whinny of frustration from the Princess of the Sun.

"You taught me all about teas, Princess. How to shop for them at the market, how to determine which ones were at the peak of their flavor. We brewed many, many pots of every kind of tea imaginable. Orange pekoes, jasmines, chamomile. Green and white and black as coal. But there was one thing you always insisted on and I never questioned."

A second sugar cube took flight in Twilight's silver tongs and dropped into Luna's teacup. Although the Princess of the Moon looked longingly at the remainder of the white cubes still in the bowl, it appeared no more were forthcoming.

"You never allowed… No that is not right. You never permitted me to add anything to the tea but water. It would interfere with the delicate taste of the tea and prevent me from enjoying the natural bounty of its flavor. For all of the years I studied at your side, I believed you. Tea became a sacrament to me, a celebration of pureness and tranquility. I would drink it in and become one with the universe."

Twilight Sparkle added a sugar cube to her own tea. The bloop of its descent was matched almost exactly by an anguished whine of regret from Celestia, who stared helplessly as the tiny bubbles of its demise rose to the obsidian surface of the adulterated substance.

"When I began to take tea with Princess Luna, I thought the experience would be the same," continued Twilight Sparkle, stirring her tea. "I was so mistaken. She opened my eyes to many pleasures. Sugar. Honey." A faint ripple of tension traveled down Twilight's pale violet coat and caused a brief trembling around her cutie mark. "E-even l-lemon. O-on some nights, we even experimented with mixing. It was a wild and passionate time that I lost myself in. Sometimes, I would awaken on the floor of the observatory with the taste of chicory on my lips and wonder if perhaps we had gone too far in our debauchery. Still, I could not stop the raging passions of my unleashed desires. My nights were filled with so many—"

Twilight Sparkle paused to wipe away a tear.

"I had known so much about this shore of knowledge, and I wanted to learn all there was to know about the other, but the ecstasy of the experience was too much for me to bear all at once. I lost control, but in that loss, I learned something far more valuable. I am Twilight, the time between the Day and Night. I was never meant to be all of one or the other. I shall never be your innocent student again, Princess Celestia, nor can I throw myself body and soul into the pleasures that you have shown me, Princess Luna. I must be myself."

She lifted the honeypot, and with a gentle touch, Twilight Sparkle added exactly one drop to each of the three cups of tea on the table.

Luna picked up her teacup and stirred it before taking a sip and grimacing in near pain. "I think I see, Twilight Sparkle. Just as this cup is too tart and bitter for me, and far too sweet for my aged sister, it is you, and we should both learn to compromise in your regard." She took a second sip and swished it around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. "Still, there is a pleasure in this which I hath not remembered in many a year."

After stirring her tea cup several times, Celestia also took up her cup and drank a small sip. "Likewise, sister. The sugar blocks much of the flavor, but in its defense, it also brings some hidden tastes to the surface." After a second quiet slurp of the hot sugared tea, Celestia added, "I apologize, my sister. I overreacted to your… passion."

"And I, yours," said Luna, sitting the partial cup of tea down at the table. "The bare leaf bears no attraction to me, but perhaps with a small assist, I could learn to tolerate it. I too apologize for my unseemly outburst." She giggled while snatching up a chocolate biscuit from the plate. "At least we did not get as carried away as the last time."

"To be honest, dear sister," said Celestia. "You did fill the entire Royal Tea Service with syrup before you transformed into Nightmare Moon."

"I was experimenting with molasses," said Luna with a shrug. "It could have happened to anypony."

"Wait a minute," said Twilight Sparkle, waving a half-eaten biscuit. "Did you turn into Nightmare Moon because of the molasses, or did you fill up the teapot because you were turning into Nightmare Moon?"

"I'm really not certain," said Luna, holding her own chocolate biscuit. "It's really not that important."

"Of course it's important," said Twilight Sparkle. "Ponies all over Equestria put all kinds of additions into their tea. What if molasses mixed with tea turns ponies evil?"

"Twilight," admonished Celestia while slipping a few chocolate biscuits under the tablecloth for later, "adding molasses to tea can't turn ponies evil. Besides," she added with a laugh, "nopony but my sister puts anything into tea except for maybe an occasional sugar cube."

Both of the royal alicorns laughed, but Twilight Sparkle did not join in.

"Um. Princess? Ponies put all kinds of things into tea. There's a whole industry built around putting things into tea. My mother used to make lemon and honey iced tea during the summer. You can even buy it as an instant mix now. Just add water and ice cubes."

"Iced tea?" Luna wrinkled up her nose and turned to Celestia, who in turn passed on a baffled look to the youngest princess at the table.

"Twilight, you must be mistaken. Once tea becomes cold, it is thrown out." The Princess of the Sun stared in fixed concentration at her former student, with the tiniest of tremors beginning to show in Celestia's cheek. "Right?

Twilight Sparkle shook her head slowly.

"Oh." Celestia sat in quiet contemplation of a world where tea was not only adulterated, but an entire industry had emerged to produce such an abomination, including the ability to turn it into an 'instant' form. "I think I need to go lie down for a while."

Luna and Twilight watched Celestia stride slowly from the room, leaving only the half-full cup of tea and an empty biscuit container behind. Twilight took another sip of her tea before setting it down on the table and letting out a deep sigh.

"It needed to be said."

"Indeed it did, Twilight Sparkle." Luna took another sip of tea with only a brief longing look at the bowl of sugar cubes. "Shall we continue where we left off."

With another deep sigh, Twilight Sparkle sat her teacup back down on the table. "I don't think so. I'm really not in the mood for tea at the moment."

Luna placed her teacup down next to Twilight's. "Would you like to make out instead?"

"Oh, yes!" said Twilight Sparkle.

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In the tallest tower of Canterlot, Princess Celestia sat quietly at her desk, the dregs of a cup of dark oolong tea on a saucer to one side giving out a sweet aroma that both enticed and disturbed her at once. Her schedule had been cleared for the day, giving her sufficient time to consider the words of her once-student, now turned into a teacher for her elder and foolish peers. For centuries, Celestia had taught lessons to an endless number of ponies, watched them grow under her tutelage, and thought herself wise beyond measure. It was a humbling process to realize her little Twilight Sparkle had surpassed her teacher in wisdom, on at least one point. In the future, Celestia would have to relearn old study habits in order to keep abreast of a changing world. Perhaps a few all-nighters would be appropriate, with the correct study companions. And the correct tea.

Her musings upon the placement of tea in the universe was disturbed by the entry of Captain Bucephalus, who had served as a Royal Guard for well over a decade and had taken over the role of Captain of the Royal Guard with perfect grace upon Shining Armor's promotion to Prince. Broad in the shoulders and easy on the eyes, the handsome stallion was constantly barraged by an endless string of mares seeking a permanent companion in life, but as with so many of Celestia's guard contingent, Bucephalus seemed to be 'married to his work' as the saying went. He had certainly proven his worth in the running of the military operations of the castle, always at Celestia's side whenever she needed support. To her recollection, Bucephalus' only vice was a passion for building small scale models of castles, both Equestrian and from other nations, and spending hours during his time off with other unmarried stallions of similar interests in the noble art of 'Wargaming.' She had even caught one of the members of his group at work with a small display of intricately-painted figures, showing his coworker the details of the Burro Entrepreneurial Guard Treasury Assault Squad all arranged in accurate tiny specks of colorful paint and lead.

Bucephalus laid out the daily reports for the Royal Guard in front of her as he always did, in crisp formal motions, then sat back quietly until she had finished looking through them and applying her signature to anything that needed her input, which was very little under his competent administration.

Ignoring the folders of paper for the moment, Celestia turned her gaze on the guard, trying to view him as something other than a simple shell or pebble on this shore, but instead as a different horizon with all new experiences to share. The learning process was complicated by something very obvious, but fairly easily dealt with as Celestia cleared her throat and addressed the guard.

"Captain Bucephalus, you have served in the Royal Guard for the last eleven years, six months, five days and seven hours, correct?"

"Yes, Your Highness." Bucephalus straightened his back microscopically and maintained his proud alert stance with the smallest measure of displayed pride leaking out through his impassive features.

"And in that time," continued Celestia, "have I ever, or have you ever heard me give an order to one of my guard which could be considered… immoral."

"No, Ma'am."

Celestia's golden magic formed around the door into her room and closed it with a quiet and quite distinct click of the lock engaging.

"Captain Bucephalus, you are hereby off-duty. At any time, you may choose to leave, and it will not be held against you. You see," said Celestia, slowly beginning to remove the guard's armor, "I have need of an unbiased opinion, and if you are on the clock, all I will hear from you is 'Yes, Your Highness' until I am positively tired of it." The golden breastplate made a quiet clanging noise as Celestia cast it to one side, followed by the captain's helm.

"Um. Ma'am?" Bucephalus took a quick glance at the door, but to his credit, lifted his hooves one at a time to allow his armored shoes to be removed. "What did you want my opinion on, Ma'am?"

"Please, as long as we are here this evening, call me Celestia. Or Celly," she added with a giggle.

"Yes, Ma'am. I mean Celestia. Celly." Bucephalus blushed when Celestia patted the chair next to her, but obediently sat down and remained in place while Celestia scooted her chair right next to him and pulled the tea cart closer. Small silver trays filled with sugar cubes, thin slices of lemon, sprinkles of cinnamon, and tight curls of bitter chocolate were spread out across the tea cart's surface, objects which Celestia had previously considered just symbolistic tokens like tits on a stallion or the Chair of Ethics in the Parliament. It was hard for Celestia to concentrate in the face of so many perversions of her favorite vice, but she focused on the matter at hoof and plowed onwards.

"You see…" Celestia trailed off and looked at her rumpled guard, who still had a bad case of helmet mane. "Bucephalus seems to be such a long name for such an informal occasion. May I call you something shorter? Like Buppy?"

"I'd rather not, Your— I mean Celly." Bucephalus gave a false grin while running a hoof through his disheveled mane in a vain attempt to bring order to the orderless mess. "Sounds too much like a puppy."

"Bups, then?" Celestia cocked her head to one side and smiled. "I can scarcely come up with one shorter."

"That's fine." Bucephalus swallowed. "Celly."

"Very well." A fresh teacup floated over to the table in front of Bucephalus and landed with a faint click before Celestia began pouring the tea. Dark oolong tea gurgled quietly as both cups filled, spreading the soft aroma of perfection around the small room. "Now, I'm going to ask you to try something that may seem immoral at first, or even perverted, but I want you to try it anyway and give me your opinion on it. Are you comfortable with that, Bups?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I mean Celly. Ma'am."

"Good. It's very important that you give me your honest opinion. It's been so very long since I've done this, and I'm afraid I may be getting some things wrong. We may have to do this over and over in order to get it just right, but at any time, if you are feeling uncomfortable or want to leave, just say so. We may even be here until late at night, so I just want to know if you're strong enough to handle this. Are you ready?"

Bucephalus swallowed again. "Yes. Celly."

"Good." Celestia took the sugar tongs, lifted up a pair of cubes, and before she could work herself into a frenzy over the thought, quickly dropped one into both Bucephalus' tea and her own.

"Now, let's stir that up and take a taste. Don't be frightened if it's a little different than what you're used to. I'll be right here next to you. Be strong."

"We're… tasting tea?" asked Bucephalus with a note of relief.

"Of course," said Celestia. "What did you think we were doing?"

"I thought you wanted to have sex."

Celestia considered for a long moment.

"After the tea," she declared.


It was, determined Celestia after several hours, a very educational experience.