“That certainly was a night to remember,” Celestia said as she climbed into the hot bath water.

“And a day to remember as well,” Luna said, lowering herself into the water opposite her sister.

The royal pony sisters closed their eyes and relaxed for a bit, letting their bodies unwind as they enjoyed the comforts of the royal palace’s baths.

“So,” Celestia said. Luna could tell even with her eyes closed that her sister was smiling. “Have you figured it out?”

“The bad baking magic is a fragment of your own magic that had been corrupted, and rather than disposing of it properly, you let it become part of the background magic. Judging by how much it has been absorbed, I’d say you did it around fifty years ago.”

Celestia was quiet for a while. “You make it sound so irresponsible when you put it like that.”

Luna opened her eyes and stared into her sister’s.

“Alright, alright,” Celestia admitted. “It was irresponsible. I honestly never expected any of the ponies to be able to touch it. I suspect you also know how the magic got corrupted.”

Luna sighed and sank into the bath so that only her head was above the water. “Of course,” she said. “It’s the work of my magic, or rather, my magic once I had become Nightmare Moon.” Luna stared at her smirking sister. “What?” she asked.

“Oh nothing,” Celestia said. “I’m just happy to hear you mention Nightmare Moon without breaking down and shouting about how sorry you are.”

Luna blushed. “I wasn’t that bad.”

“You didn’t have to listen to yourself.”

“Getting back on subject. I suspect many parts of your magic had been corrupted during the battle we had a thousand years ago. Knowing you, rather than risk the corruption spreading, you cut away those pieces. Please tell me they aren’t buried in the background magic too.”

“They aren’t. I sealed the corruption within relics and performed the proper rituals to bleed away their power until they could be safely destroyed.”

“Good,” Luna said as she let herself relax again.

“All except for one that was stolen by a mad cult some five hundred years ago.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. They unleashed the magic within and used it to bring about the pony apocalypse. Or tried to at least. It turned out that the piece of magic sealed within the relic was only good for casting yodeling based spells. It was a very strange apocalypse, and I think that afterward, everypony involved just wanted to go home and forget about the whole thing.”

Luna stared at her sister’s unreadable expression for a minute before sitting up quickly and being sure to splash water her sister’s way. “There’s one part I haven’t been able to figure out,” she said. “Why baking?”

Celestia sighed and shook her head slowly. “While you were gone, I grew very lonely. In order to help pass the time, I would take up a new hobby every couple decades. Around fifty years ago I tried my hoof at baking.”

“Something tells me you weren’t any good at it.”

“Let’s just say I made the competitors tonight look like the best bakers in Equestria. Which reminds me, did you try Derpy’s muffins? I think I’m going to have to specially request another batch from her.”

“I’m sure she would be delighted too, just so long as she isn’t too busy fighting crime.” Luna tried to laugh, then ended up clearing her throat. “Please, continue.”

“For some reason, whenever I baked, it would cause chaos in the background magic around me. It took me forever to find the reason. It turns out; there was a very small amount of corrupted magic still attached to me that I had missed, and that the mental process of baking caused me to subconsciously attempt to use it. The corruption was absolutely benign, so I decided to cut it out and let it fade away on its own.”

“And then after a while you began hearing reports of ponies causing really strange things to happen when they baked. I’m sure you right away figured out what was causing it. That same subconscious attempt to draw on magic also existed in other ponies, though not many. You could have removed the magic then. You could still remove it now, but you don’t. I’m guessing that’s when you met Sweet?”

Celestia laughed. “I need to get you a detective’s cap and thinking pipe. You’re quite good at this.”

“It’s mostly because I know you so well.”

“Yes, you are right. I knew what was causing the ‘Bad Baking Phenomenon’ as it was called. Sweet was actually one of the first ponies to have discovered the magic. Her parents were employed in the royal kitchens. They were very embarrassed that the daughter of two legendary chefs—their words, not mine—was so terrible at baking. They hid her lack of talent while seeking out doctors and herbalists. Out of any other options, they finally turned to me. Sweet baked in front of me, and I knew I had let things go on long enough. I was ready to pull out the magic, even had it in my grasp, but then...”

“Sweet got her cutie mark.”

Celestia nodded. “Her parents were horrified, but Sweet was overjoyed. I quickly let go of the magic. I wouldn’t dare to remove something that made one of our ponies unique. Instead, I worked with Sweet. She loved to show off her inability to bake. She perfected it to an art and would perform in front of crowds of thousands. Other ponies also with the inability to bake sought her out. Soon, a festival sprang up dedicated to all things bad baking related.”

Luna nodded. “And the rest is history, as it were. I’m glad all things worked out in the end, and we all lived happily ever after, but there’s still the matter of the giant explosion that would have destroyed the stadium and everypony in it had we not been there.”

It was Celestia’s turn to sink into the water. “The magic can be dangerous, no doubt about it, but only if used improperly. I should never have helped Sweet make the null-stones. It’s the reason I attend the competition every year. Just in case. Some days I wonder if I made the right decision in letting the magic stay.”

Luna slid closer to her sister. “Well, of course you made the right decision. Didn’t you see how happy everypony was tonight? I suppose you just have to take the good along with the occasional life-threatening explosions and super villainous unicorns bent on the destruction of Equestria. At least, you don’t have to worry about the null-stones anymore. The second one was accidentally crushed into dust after the explosion when I picked it up with my magic. I’m more worried about the bad baking magic being able to be used outside of baking. I destroyed an oven by making soup, just because I was thinking about baking at the time. I’m sure I could do it much easier now that I know what the magic is. That would be scary if the normal bad bakers could do that.”

Celestia remained silent for a time before quietly saying, “Sweet knows how to fully use the magic just like us.”

Luna dunked her face into the water. Bubbles rapidly came to the surface as she screamed all the air in her lungs. She rose from the water and gasped for air. “Anyone else? Do I really need to worry about a competent version of Snuggle Cakes actually doing something to take over the world?”

Celestia’s expression again was unreadable. Luna closed her eyes and tried to relax. “I guess it’s my turn to share then,” she said.

“It can wait until tomorrow night. I’m sure you would like to go to bed.”

“I would, but I still feel a little too charged up from having all that magic flow through me. So... which of my adventures did you want to hear about first?”

“Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Ah, then that would be the time I decided to try being a blacksmith.”

“Really, you were a blacksmith?”

“Yes, strange as it sounds. It all started when I saw this neat little metal statue in the marketplace and asked how it was made...”

That night a tradition between the royal pony sisters was started. Luna would tell the tale of one of her adventures, and Celestia would talk about one the hobbies she had tried. Many laughs were shared between the sisters as they talked and enjoyed each other’s company. The stories went on for weeks until they all were told. They weren’t sad when they came to the end, though. After all, many new stories would be awaiting the sisters in the future.