A picnic-date by the lake - something that Celestia had honestly never experienced in all of her years. Sure, she had a picnic by the lake with a friend or two or maybe her sister a few times, but never on a date, and for good reason. One did not take a princess on such a date; it was too out in the open, too common for one such as her. She was a princess, somepony that had ruled her kingdom well for over a thousand years. She was supposed to be wined and dined with the finest foods, not with something as lowly and simple as a daisy sandwich and juice while sitting on a simple blanket exposed to the elements like she was!

If ponies had heard what Anny had done, there might have been riots in the streets. The nobility would demand the human’s head. Discord would have (literally) laughed his head off! Creatures all over the world would be enraged at the news; from the gryphon kings to the minotaur chieftains there would bellow and shout and demand that Anny be arrested for some silly reason. There’d be anarchy in the streets for treating somepony like her like this! And, if it wasn’t bad form to kiss someone on the first date, Celestia would have laid one right on Anny for this wonderful, normal little date.

Honestly, Anny couldn’t have picked a better place, nor could he have picked better food, and the view of the lake was superb in Celestia’s opinion. The wind was blowing through her mane, she had enough food and drink to fill her belly and there was more if she wanted it, and she had excellent company - three things that made every situation better and more fulfilling, in her humble opinion.

She had worried that Anny was actually going to try to take her out to the finest restaurants; or take her to an opera or something silly like that, but thankfully he had proved her wrong. She could not care less what she had had to eat, or where he was going to take her; Celestia just wanted Anny to be Anny, and right now, as she watched him reaching for his sandwich in the picnic basket that he had hidden in a bush (which was one of the most adorable things she had ever seen in her life) the monarch couldn’t help but smile to herself.

With a simple little date like this she’d be able to do something that she had desperately craved to do for hundreds of years, which was to just let her mane down and be herself. Out here, under the trees, she wasn’t Celestia Solare, lady of the sun and ruler of Equestria. Right now she was just Celestia, the big mare that happened to enjoy cake a little too much and who liked long walks on the beach and who also wanted somepony to love her.

It is very nice out here, she thought, making sure that Anny wasn’t looking her way before carefully scooting closer toward him. It’s good to see that this old lake still sees some use after all of this time… She froze mid-scooch as her date looked at her with a smile. Smiling back she took a bite out of her sandwich, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

“The sandwich is delicious, Anny,” she said, trying to ignore the rapid thumping in her chest.

Anny nodded, patting the basket beside him. “I can make as many of ‘em as you want, Celestia,” he said brightly. Celestia caught a hint of nervousness in his voice. “Or if you want a peanut butter and jelly one I have plenty of stuff to make those too.”

The princess was about to take another bite out of her sandwich when she was hit with a bout of inspiration and she had a horrible, awful, wonderful idea, a… need if you will. Biting her lip her mind churned.

…It IS a crazy idea, she admitted to herself, taking a bite out of her sandwich and taking a quick gulp of her juice. The plan, which could have been a vision from Discord himself, may have been too crazy for her to go through with it, and for a moment she toyed with the idea of just sitting there eating her food, but then she shook her head and squared her shoulders.

I have orchestrated battle plans that went off without a hitch, I’ve outsmarted some of the greatest minds in the history! I’m sure that I can make this plan work! I mean I was already making my way toward him…

A small smile coming to her face, Celestia quickly drew up a mental plan, summoning up a bit of her courage, and enacted it.

“Did you say that you have peanut butter and jelly, Anny?” she asked, feigning interest while moving her juice out of the way.

Anny looked up from his sandwich and nodded. Swallowing, he said, “Yeah, I got a big jar of Twinkle Toes and Mrs. Sparkle gave me a bit of that homemade jelly that she likes to make.”

She hummed theatrically, scooching over once again the second that he looked away from her and took a huge bite out of her sandwich. “I might actually want one of those, if you don’t mind.” She waved what was left of her meal in Anny’s face. “I believe that it would go down really well with this juice.”

Come on; just a little closer…

Minutes went by as she scooched inch by inch toward Anny, only stopping when the human either talked or looked at her, and with each inch closer to her target her heart would race, her wings would twitch, and her mane would whirl around her head like it was caught up in a storm, all the while she keep mentally egging herself on while trying not to break the gentle smile on her face.

Over two thousand years of ruling, and all of the knowledge that she had acquired during that time, steadied her mind and body during this tense period of her master plan. Each movement was masterfully measured, each movement hidden with the utmost skill, a skill that few mortals could hope to match. It was no wonder that Anny didn’t realize what was happening until the trap was sprung.

“Oh my, Anny, is it nippy out?”
The human tensed in surprise as Celestia, who was staring at the lake like her life depended on it, quickly draped a wing over his shoulder.

By all that is holy, please don’t blush!

“It feels like it’s getting colder.” As gently as she could, Celestia tightened her wing’s grip on Anny, pushing the human slightly against her chest. Taking a bite out of her sandwich, and noticing with irritation that it was shaking slightly in her magic, Celestia forced herself to look down into Anny’s questioning eyes. “Doesn’t it seem chilly out, Anny?”

Celestia smiled when she felt Anny lean into her, the now red-faced man holding onto his peanut butter sandwich like his life depended on it while his mind tried to process what was happening.Right now she was standing on the edge of a knife, waiting for Anny to pass judgment on her forwardness.

The seconds ticked by as Celestia quietly levitated over the picnic basket and peered inside, the alicorn trying not to smile as Anny gently nuzzled into her side before muttering, “I-It does seem to be getting colder.”

And just like that, all of the tension that had been slowly building up in Celestia’s body vanished, a triumph smile on her face as she snuck a look down at Anny, who, though still a little tense, was slowly relaxing under her wing. She might not have been able, or even willing, to kiss on the first date, but she was pretty sure that there were no rules about snuggling someone , a loophole that she was more than willing to exploit.

“It’s practically frigid out, and it feels like it’ll get windy any second,” Celestia said, hoping to calm Anny down further. “So you’ll just have to stay right here until the two of us finish eating.”

Anny stopped eating his sandwich to look up at her for a moment, something flashing in his eyes that Celestia didn’t quite catch before he simply nodded and went back to staring at the lake.

It was… nice, sitting there under a little maple tree like this. There wasn’t any talking, no silly comments about the weather or the two just asking the other about things they already knew. There was just the quiet sounds of the two of them eating together, and the even fainter sound of a certain princess’s rapidly beating heart.

Thank Faust he didn’t take that the wrong way, Celestia thought, grabbing a can of soda out of the picnic basket while also making a quick sandwich for herself. I don’t want to come off as a hussy.

Once again she glanced down at Anny from the corner of her eye. The human, though about as tall as her when standing, barely came up to her chest sitting like he was. Through her wing, Celestia could feel the gentle rising and falling of his chest with each breath he took; something that she was finding oddly relaxing to the point where she found herself leaning more and more against him. Not that Anny really seemed to mind, since he seemed to be leaning more and more into her.

The quiet, cozy little scene might have lasted longer (not that Celestia would have minded) but Anny decided to shatter the silence.

“Well, are you going to try to guess what else we’re gonna be doing today?”

Celestia paused mid-bite to look down at him. Eyebrow quirking, she answered, “I thought that you wanted to keep me in the dark, my little human.”

Anny snorted at her tone and gave her side a playful nudge. “You’re the one that wouldn’t stop pestering me about where we were going to go.”

Celestia raised her head high in the air and puffed her chest out. “A princess does not pester, Antaeus,” she said dismissively in her best regal voice. “And I might have an idea or two about what we’re doing after we finish these excellent sandwiches.” She cracked open an eye to stare back down at him. “Might I ask where you happened to get this bread? I might have somepony go down and get a few loaves after this date of ours is over.”

“Oh, bread is more important than our date now, huh?” he asked in a hurt tone that almost made Celestia snort up her soda.

“It is very good bread.” She took another bite out of her sandwich to empathize her point, all the while scanning the area like a hawk.

I wonder WHAT my dear little human IS going have us do, she thought, brow furrowing slightly. There really doesn’t seem like—

“How do you feel about row boats?”

Celestia’s ears perked, the rest of her body not moving an inch as one single purple eyes stared down at a smiling Anny, regarding him for an instant, before it turned its gaze toward the lake. “…We’re going row boating?” she asked, sounding unsure.

Anny took a bite out of his sandwich, trying to ignore how hot it was getting under Celestia’s wing. If he had to be a little warm to enjoy the best seat in the house than he was more than happy to sweat a little bit for continued wing-cuddles.
“Well, yeah.” He scratched an arm nervously. “I thought it’d be neat to go out and mess around the lake; it looks like it’s be something that—“

As Anny tried to explain himself, he didn’t notice the excited smile slowly coming to Celestia’s face, a smile which grew and grew and grew until it looked like it was coming off her face; he also didn’t notice when his date started shaking in excitement, but he did notice when Celestia’s wing left his body and ticked back into her side.

Eyes widening, and wondering if he had done something wrong, Anny started shimmering and stuttering incoherently. “W-We could go do something e-else if you don’t want to—“

“Nonsense!” Celestia said just a little too loudly, getting to her hooves as quickly as she could while throwing everything back into the picnic basket, half-eaten sandwiches, just opened sodas, even Anny’s food. “I haven’t rowed a boat since I was a little filly!” She looked like she ready to just charge down to the lake herself. “I’d love to go row boating with you, my little human!”

Anny quietly let Celestia pick him up and pull him to his feet with her magic, his nervousness replacing his confusion.
Cadance said that she’d like to go row boating but I never thought she’d be THIS excited…
Stepping off the picnic blanket, Anny watched as Celestia bundled it up and threw it in the picnic basket along with everything else.
Nuzzling Anny’s face, and with her Pinkie-like smile still on her face, Celestia pointed toward the lake. “Come on, Anny, we’ve eaten enough. It’s time to row some boats!”

Anny opened his mouth but then closed it when the Princess giggled and practically skipped toward the lake, a small smile coming to his face as he watched her. …At least she didn’t tell me it was a dumb idea, he thought, jogging after her.
I REALLY need to ask Cadance why the Princess is so excited about something as silly as rowing around on a lake…

<><>~~~<><>~~~<><>

After getting her sandwich and juice, Fleur’s mood had picked up significantly, and Blueblood had capitalized on it as much as possible. The prince had made sure to tell the supermodel how things were going back at her mansion and how he had personally made sure that it had been repaired in record time, and he told her about all of the new Canterlot gossip (making sure to leave out any that involved her) and what was going on in within the city itself. The topic really didn’t matter to him, as long as he kept Fleur’s mind off of Anny and Celestia’s date.

It took a few sandwiches, ten cans of soda, a few silly gestures, and far more talking than Blueblood cared to do, but the prince had finally managed to bring a smile to Fleur’s face. It wasn’t a big one, more of a twitch of the mouth really, but it spurred Blueblood on.

He started telling Fleur a few jokes that he had heard, he told a few stories that Fleur had heard a thousand times, he even wrapped a hoof around the mare’s shoulder (doing his best to keep his composure) in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He hated seeing Fleur like this. He hated seeing what this little jealous spat between her and his aunt was doing to her, but what he hated most of all about the whole thing was his inability to really do much about the situation.

He was a prince of Equestria, he had more political power than half of the nobles and he had more money in his bank account today than most ponies would see their lifetimes. A word from him could, and sometimes would, make or break a pony in this city. He had (whether or not he wanted it) quite a bit of power on his hooves, but money and power wasn’t going to fix this situation one bit. No, Blueblood knew what he needed to do to fix this; all he needed to do was stallion up and tell her how he felt.

All he’d been to do was tell her how she always made his day, how he had thought she was the prettiest mare in the world when the two were younger, and how that belief had only intensified as the years ticked by. He could have looked her in the eye and told Fleur that she was the funniest, smartest, and best mare that he had ever had the pleasure of knowing, and he would be the luckiest stallion in the world if she’d be his, but all of that money and power he had didn’t earn or buy him courage; something that he always seemed to lose whenever he tried to bring it up with her.

It had been painful, as the years had gone by, as Blue had watched Fleur grow up, dating stallions and having her heart broken again and again, all while knowing that there was a chance, just a chance, that he could be the one to fill that empty space in the supermodel’s heart, and also knowing that he wasn’t brave enough to follow through with his feelings.

Cadance is helping me now, the prince thought, eyeing Fleur as she gently nuzzled his shoulder, leaning against him just a little bit more and watching Anny and Celestia intently as she took a sip of her pop. She’ll be able to figure out how to get me to tell Fleur how I feel without fainting in panic…

A small part of him knew that even the Princess of Love wasn’t going to be able to help him through this, and that only he was going to be the one to do it, but at least she’d be—

“They’re going down to the lake, Bleu!”

Blueblood grunted in surprise when Fleur launched herself off of him and onto her hooves. Looking back at him, the mare nudged her head toward the lake. “Come, Bleu, if we hurry we will be able to beat them there!”

Before Blueblood could ask her what she had planned, or even open his mouth for that matter, Fleur was gone with a pop, her teleportation violently tossing up paper plates and empty pop cans, leaving the poor prince alone with his mouth agape.

And here we were just having a wonderful picnic, he lamented, getting to his hooves with a grunt. Even though he still wasn’t too keen in helping ruin his aunt’s date, Blueblood trotted toward the lake, making sure to keep out of Anny and Celestia’s sight. Like Cadance had told him, he was just going to have to play along with Fleur until her “brilliant plan” was concluded, so play along he would.

Stopping and hiding in a bush, the prince reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little stone.
“High Horse to command, the target is on the move,” he whispered.

The other line was dead for a few moments before Blueblood heard Cadance’s cheery reply. “I see her High Horse,” she said. “Good job keeping her in one place for so long, but you need to go and follow her!”

“Do you want me to do something if Fleur tries anything?” the prince asked with a nervous gulp.

“Negative, High Horse, though if you can talk Fleur into just leaving so the two of you could go to some coffee shop, maybe talk about a few things and~--”

Now blushing, Blueblood quickly placed the stone back into his pocket before getting out of the bush. “Stupid Cadance,” he muttered, catching sight of Fleur racing down toward the boats.

I swear to Faust if we ACTUALLY ruin Auntie’s date and SHE CATCHES US I only hope that Cadance has something up her sleeve to keep us from being incinerated… I believe I could look dreadful burnt to a crisp.

__<><><~~~><><>__

From her crossbow’s scope, Luna watched as Fleur teleported from tree to tree, keeping a watchful eye for Celestia and Luna as she made her way down toward a small row of rowboats that were being watched over by an elderly bearded stallion that was smoking a pipe, Blueblood trotting after her, all the while still humming that silly love song that seemed to be stuck in her head.

“Nah nah nah, love is in the air.”

Adjusting the sight on her scope so she could see Fleur clearly from this distance, Luna eyed the tree that she was hiding under, making a note of the slight breeze that was rustling the leaves.

We will have to be mindful of that if we need to take a shot, she thought, quickly pinpointing her sister, who was happily chatting with a confused looking Anny toward the same row of boats that Fleur was near.

“No matter what our niece says, we will fire upon thee if we need to, knave,” the Princess of the Night muttered, eyes narrowing as she clutched her crossbow. “Pray to the gods that our plungers do not find their mark on thy backside…”

<><><>~~::<><>::~~<><><>

Celestia always enjoyed the gentle rocking that one experienced when out on the ocean. Whenever they were out on the sea, her sister, for whatever reason, would always end up hanging over the end of the boat heaving the contents out of her poor stomach, but she had always been at home out there on a ship on the sea.

One needed to respect a giant body of water when were sailing on it, be it a sea or lake or river, because the gentle dips and rises could turn into twenty foot tall waves, and Celestia knew from personal experience that having to deal with that wasn’t particularly fun. For many, the sea was a life giver, a mother, something that was larger than life and bigger than the sun, and Celestia couldn’t help but feel in awe whenever she would look out into a vast stretch of nothing but water.

That being said, the small little pony-made lake was no grand sea, or savage river; it wasn’t even one of the greater lakes that she had seen in her youth. It was a dinky little thing where one could maybe catch a fish or two and float about on a paddleboat or a canoe. But, if she closed her eyes and imagined really, really hard, she could picture herself back out on the sea. The little rowboat that Anny had rented was now a royal man-o-war, and she was the captain of this proud and noble ship.

“…Are you okay there, Celestia?” Anny cautiously asked, snapping the princess out of her little fantasy.

Cracking open an eye, Celestia started at her date before sheepishly grinning. “Oh, I’m fine, Anny,” she said with a little, nervous laugh. “I was just taking a moment to enjoy the ride.”

She waved a hoof around, gently rocking the boat to one side making Anny’s eyes widening in panic.

Why didn’t I grab a life vest? He thought, moving the boat through the water as fast as he could bare, nervously eyeing the water like it was about to jump into the boat and bite him. Wait, why didn’t that boat pony make us put life vest on? Can’t you get in trouble for that or something?!
To be fair though, Celestia really didn’t give them any time to get anything other than two paddles and the boat before all but dragging him toward the lake with said equipment while he stared at the lake in trepidation.

Even though he could swim, and he was sure that the lake wasn’t too deep, and the shore was like thirty feet away, Anny couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about being on a lake like this since this was his first time boating in any form.

He had wanted to take a class (if there was such a thing as a row boating class) or at least test ride with someone that knew what they were doing, but Cadance had insisted that it was easy as pie, and she had said that Celestia would love doing something like this. So he had, like the dummy he was, just shrugged and went along with it. But the second that he had hopped into the boat and pushed off the shore, he knew that he was in trouble.

The boat kept rocking, whether he was sitting down or standing up, and whenever the boat rocked it looked, and felt, like it was going to flip, so it was starting to freak a landlubber like him out just a teeny tiny little bit. Celestia, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind the rocky boat at all, leaning this way and that, looking around the crystal waters with a smile while he tried not to have a heart attack.

“Anny, do you mind if I take the oars for a little bit?” the princess asked innocently, her big purple eyes sparkling. “I’d like to see how fast this old girl can go.”

Anny looked down at the paddles, then back up at the princess, then back at the oars. …These are called oars? I thought that people called them paddles…

Celestia just smiled when he looked at her again, her hooves reaching out expectantly. “Please, Anny? It’s been years since I’ve pulled an oar through water.”

Even though Anny didn’t particularly care for the term “pulled an oar” he still placed both oars in her hooves before tightly gripping the edges of the boat in a vain attempt to keep it from rocking.
“…Alright, have at it, Celestia,” he said with a weak smile, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach when he saw the excited spark in his date’s eyes.

Celestia hadn’t been kidding when she had said it had been a while since she had pulled an oar. When she and her sister had been far younger than they are now, to two of them happened to come upon a rogue group of diamond dog pirates that had navigated various rivers terrorizing kingdom after kingdom. After being captured by these deviants, the alicorns had to help move the vessel along with the help of oars for a number of weeks before they had finally escaped. That had been over fifteen hundred years ago , but her surprise and joy, and Anny’s horror, she had found that her skills had not diminished with time.

Again and again she pulled the boat along, muscles barely straining as she quickly picked up speed. The little row boat was nothing like the two hundred oar war ship had been; Celestia almost laughed at how easy it was to push their little boat to and fro compared to that monstrosity.

Let’s see how fast this dinghy goes, she thought with a grin.

Her little boat was more square than blade-shaped, so it wasn’t as aerodynamic as she would have liked, but it wasn’t long before she was paddling back and forth to either side of the lake just minutes apart. Ponies all around the lake watched in awe as their princess flew through across the lake at almost breakneck speeds, moving around the little boat like she had been doing it for a lifetime. It was a beautiful, wonderful, and amazing sight for many of them, though that couldn’t be said for the human who was holding for dear life onto his seat, eyes widened in horror.

“Hey! Could you Slow down Just a little bit, Celestia? CELESTIA?!”