“Ooooh PRINCESS? WHERE… ARE… YOU…?” The singsong call was eerie, laced with sadistic intent

Celestia thought back to the many mistakes she’d made throughout her life. She was not perfect, by any means, and would be the first to admit it. Once a mistake had been made, however, she would do her best to avoid repeating it. Make a mistake, gain a valuable lesson from it, and move on. In the years it would take for the memory to fail, hopefully the lesson would be committed to character. This lesson, however, she was beginning to realize she would never forget.

“It’s time to take… your… MEASUREMENTS!” Utterly terrifying, a nearly unrecognizable alabaster mare stalked her halls, long measuring tape trailing behind her, striking cold shivers into every guard she passed.

Dear Princess Celestia,
Never ever tease your stylist in the middle of a time-pinch.

“Right here Rarity!” A voice called out from beside her; the cold voice of betrayal. Luna stepped out from the shadows; her judgmental face lacked even the slightest notion of pity. She was nightmare moon in spirit, merciless, and unyielding.

Dear Princess Celestia
Never tease your overworked sister, and time pinched stylist at the same time.

The fiasco had started innocently enough. If one was creative enough about it, it could even be said that Rarity brought it upon herself. (Of course, that would be an incredibly skewed position to take.) Celestia had become incredibly curious about the dress Rarity had in mind for the Hearts and Hooves festival. She had confidence in the pony, that wasn’t the issue; it was more the level of resolve with which Rarity had denied her desire to see the early sketches.

Her new aide and seamstress had much more of the “artist” mentality than she had originally expected. Throughout a life as long as hers, patterns of certain types of ponies became more recognizable, varied as they might be. There was an underlying tendency of most artistic ponies to get second opinions on things they lacked confidence in, while being zealously protective and secretive of projects they considered to be potential masterpieces. Knowing this only made the curiosity exponentially worse, because Rarity had vehemently refused to let her see the current progress, offering only assurances that it would be completed in time.

Celestia would never be so petty as to order Rarity to show her what she had so far, but she certainly wasn’t above teasing. The poor mare seemed to be especially susceptible to anything that involved flirting; for a few days, Celestia had been almost subservient to her, during meals she insisted on serving her portions and refilling her wine, the impropriety of this embarrassing Rarity greatly, leaning to close to her all the while. She even went so far as to accidently spill her drink, ‘accidently’ touching horns when she cleaned it off of the other mare, transmitting a particularly raunchy image into Rarity’s head. The poor seamstress had suffered it without response, resolute not to be shaken by such silliness. Thus, things naturally escalated

In hindsight, involving Luna was an extremely bad call. She was a notoriously grumpy morning pony, and disliked being pranked nearly as much as she did being prematurely awakened. Her loyal sister had been running herself ragged covering the duty of both the sun and the stars, yet still insisted on escorting and aiding Rarity around the Castle throughout the day. Then again, cunning as she was, Celestia was in no way calculating enough to predict the fallout of that unfortunate decision.

Rarity was borderline delirious when she collapsed into bed, barely making it to her room. Emotionally she felt like someone had locked her in a pony-sized clothes dryer, turned it to high. Aria was like a harbinger in her head, the perfect mentor she had never met, so much to teach her at every turn. Concepts she had thought were brilliant turned out to be short-lived and shallow; things she had disregarded became more deep and meaningful. Her entire world was shifting, altering, becoming infinitely more complex with each new insight she gained. The difficulty became retaining her own originality and style, while learning as much as she could from the works of the last royal seamstress.

And that was only her internal struggles. As if the self-garnered emotionally instability wasn’t enough, Celestia continued to be an enigma. Perhaps it was because she had denied the Princess’ request to see her progress, or maybe the princess was truly after her, it was impossible to say for sure. But Rarity knew flirting when she saw it, and for whatever reason Celestia had been completely insatiable for the last few days. Insatiable: just thinking the word brought a mental image that the unicorn had been trying to repress to the forefront of her mind, and she put her hooves over her head, trying to block it out. Where had that idea even come from, anyway? Alright, maybe there was mutual attraction as well, but this was hardly the time to address that kind of problem, was it? She had work to do, and-

As she hovered somewhere between consciousness and oblivion, she felt somepony silently slip under the covers behind her. After a few moments, forelegs and hooves pulled her close. Professionalism be damned, there was only so much lust a pony could take. Celestia could have her. It wasn’t the first time the thought had struck Rarity, to simply give in to the alicorn, but the proposition was far more tempting now combined with proximity and location. Still half asleep, she waited for Celestia to make the next move

Luna was happy. It felt like it was the first time in ages she had gotten a break, and she could not have asked for better company. The lavender object of her affection gazed through a telescope, enraptured. Curious just how attentive and studious the unicorn was, Luna changed a single star, and waited patiently. After a few minutes, the unicorn frowned, pushing dark hair with a streak of pink out of her eyes, and looked again.

“Strange.” Levitating a notebook and pen over, she began to mutter to herself. “Big Dipper’s formation seems different tonight; the right triangle formed by Pheceda, Merak, and Dubhe seems to be off somehow…”

“…I love it when you correct my geometry.”

Twilight started, turning quickly to identify the intruder on her bed “Whose- Oh. Oh!” The surprise on her face was quickly replaced with another emotion: Need.

Practically tackled by the smaller mare, Luna fell back onto the bed, but didn’t let the surprise keep her from quickly wrestling her way on top of her aggressor, mouths locked in a heated kiss. Twilight was hesitant at first, but then sprung like a loaded trap, forearm looping around Luna’s neck, returning every push and gesture she was given; leaving Luna gasping for breath.

So Twilight felt the same way about her? Nothing could have made Luna happier than that single, wondrous, realization. She felt no need to hold back, to pace herself. Her feelings for Twilight had existed since that first Nightmare Night, when the mare was the only one who had seen beyond the angry bluster, seen her for who she truly was, and taken care of her. Luna had never managed to get up the courage to approach her until now, but she was glad she finally had. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she continued, the heat became almost unbearable as her hoof traced its way down and she followed it, kissing each individual diamond of the cutie mark-
Wait.
This couldn’t be right. Why was it the wrong-

Raising her head slowly, Luna saw an alabaster mare beneath her; the Unicorn’s white face tinted a dark, deep, red, twisted into a combination of embarrassment and shock. Not Twilight. And she certainly wasn’t in Twilight’s treehouse. Luna practically ejected herself from the bed, nearly bumping the wall.

Stumbling over her own words, she was almost unable to finish an entire thought, slipping back into the Royal Equestrian voice “We did not intend-! Rather, we were dreaming that it was- …What was thou doing in our bed?!“

Rarity looked around confused, face not showing any sign of returning from the abnormal color. Luna raised a hoof to her forehead, realizing that this was, in fact, not her bed chamber.

She went through a mental checklist of what had happened, trying to narrow down exactly how she’d gotten back in Rarity’s bed. “We walked you to your room, you closed the door, we walked back towards our quarters, and then-“
Well, ‘and then’ she had passed out in the hallway, but Luna had no intention of retelling that part. Suddenly she figured it out. All the pranking, and the teasing, there was only one pony undoubtedly to blame here. She made eye contact with Rarity, and could tell they were thinking along the same lines.
“CELESTIA!”

“And you swear you didn’t give me that dream sister. Swear it!”
A very miserable white alicorn nodded in affirmation, denying that particular part of the shenanigans. Apparently her plans had only gone so far as to arrange them in a bizarre and compromising position. They both refused to answer when Celestia asked them what exactly happened. Luna stomped out in irritation, rattling the three-way mirror.

Rarity slowly and methodically measured her client, making sure that her magic made as much awkward and undignified contact as possible. It was against her nature, but remembering the constant toying at the whims of the alicorn now at her mercy made it almost innate.

“Tail up.” Celestia glowered at the request, but complied. Rarity took a measure of her rump, an exaggerated sigh of disapproval escaping her lips. “tsk tsk. Looks like I will have to make some rather large expansions.” The lie earned her another glare.

“How crude.”

“That coming from the ‘princess’ who thought it’d be funny to levitate her sister into my bed”

“I would never have done such a thing had I known you were harboring such feelings for each other. It’s your own fault for being so stubborn.”

Rarity accidently bumped the princess’ cutie mark with the edge of her measuring tape, eliciting an involuntary shudder. “That’s absolutely preposterous! Anything that happened because I thought she was y-“ the alabaster mare cut herself off, though too late, judging by Celestia’s knowing smile, but the alicorn (wisely) said nothing.

Her hooves held the tape flat. Alicorns were so big! It was hard to believe anyone could get used to designing for them, just so much taller than everything else. Unlike with standard design, extra detail and thought had to be put into the stomach of the dress, because they towered so high over everyone else. Especially in Celestia’s case, because of her condition. Irritated as Rarity might have been, she couldn’t help but be saddened by the observation that the ribs seemed to be jutting against her skin more so than the last time, and the coat seemed to have lost some of its luster. Subconsciously her touch became softer, gentler even. They had gotten in the habit of eating dinner together, but Rarity had no idea what the Princess’ other eating habits were like.

“Again, it’s Celestia in private, Rarity”

“Celly,” Rarity used the nickname rebelliously, not quite ready to go back to taking orders so soon after the mischief. “What do you do for breakfast and lunch?”

Rolling her eyes, the Alabaster mare pushed the issue. “A serious answer would suffice”

“I’m eating plenty, Rarity, that’s not the issue at hand.”

“Take a seat”

Celestia obediently sat down. Taking a measure along the length of her back, the unicorn couldn’t help but notice how tense the larger mare was, not merely due to context, but large kinks and knots, the kind that could only be built up from long periods of neglect.

Before she knew it the tape was suddenly discarded to the floor, and Rarity was working on the biggest of the knots. “When was the last time you went you the spa? There’s so much tension here.”

Celestia grunted. “I had hoped my punishment was nearly complete.”

Rarity’s eyes widened, “Punishment?” She couldn’t think of any reason why a pony would want to avoid the spa, or massages. Her mind turned to Fluttershy, and suddenly the reason was clear. “OH… I see…”

The Alicorn tilted her head towards the white mare suspiciously, trying to ascertain what exactly had been discovered. Rarity leaned forward whilst kneading the long neglected muscles, and whispered in her ear, huskily, “Does it have something to do with… wingspan?” Celestia’s eyebrows shot up, as the alabaster mare suddenly tweaked the spot she had found on Fluttershy long ago.

PHWOOMP

Wings fully extended, the alicorn was now laying flat on the floor; Celestia’s hooves were covering her eyes,. She looked positively miserable and dreadfully embarrassed. Rarity would have felt terrible, but the image was too funny; an immortal, embarrassed by something like that? She continued to work on the larger mare’s back, unfazed by the reaction. If anything, it was nice to see that Celestia was not without shame, and still subject to some of the less pleasant pony emotions.

The Alicorn nickered softly, no longer hiding her face. “I stopped going around five hundred years ago, when I found out the servants had a running lottery…”

Rarity, to Celestia’s surprise, didn’t laugh. “On who could-“

“Yes. I believe they referred to it as… ‘raising the Equestrian flag’”

“…You poor dear” There was a long silence, which eventually gave way into a simultaneous guffaw

“Well, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Why Fluttershy’s wings pop sometimes when she’s just thinking about going to the spa. And almost every time Dash hits a rainboom.” She paused, realizing revealing her friend’s secret might have been a bit of a misstep. “It’d probably be best not to mention that to anyone.”

Celestia made the ‘sealed lips’ motion with her hoof, a smile playing across her face. She sighed, pleasantly. The unicorn’s skilled hooves felt amazing.

AN: Well, there it is. Lots of news actually, I edited the first chapter, now complete with a better hook and a delightfully ambiguous little prologue. Second chapter doesn’t suck as much now, although I’m still not happy with it. Chapter five won’t take nearly as long to write as this one, as I actually edited some of this chapter out to put in it: The new dress, and Celestia’s reaction, combined with a disturbing revelation… muhahaha-cough. Also, I finally figured out how I want to do the ending. It’s now 100% less confusing than it was, and about 50% less bittersweet. I’m really doing my best to write Celestia as both a character who has seen almost everything having been around for thousands of years, but still has some innocence and funny quirks. Difficult combination, but it’s not been a disaster so far. I hope.