[Comedy][World Building]

The following is a riff inspired by Rambling Writer's How the Tantabus Parses Sleep. (See previous chapter; story is now 146,612 words at time of publishing.)

HOW THE AUDIENCE PARSED JOKES: Someone asked why Twilight's castle had an armory. Someone else noted that a castle without an armory isn't suited for the main purpose of castles, namely defense. And that led to, well...

The Royal Palace at Canterlot had an armory. Almost all castles do. After all, the whole point of a castle is to fend off attackers. A castle without an armory isn't much of a castle at all.

Unfortunately for those charged with defending the heart of the realm from hypothetical barbarian marauders and actual horrific monstrosities, Canterlot happened to be ruled by a mare with a sweet tooth. And although rumor amplified her appetite beyond all reality, it had a rather large nugget of truth at the core. Whether it was by accident or by centuries of careful guidance, in the thousandth year of Celestia's solo reign, the preferred ammunition for ranged weapons was sugary baked goods. The cutting edge in artillery technology had turned out to be a cake knife.

As a result, the Equestrian Army's garrison at Canterlot found itself suffering from what politicians of another world would call a "missile deficit."