Lentil Pottage’s awe felt almost as big as the halls of Castle Canterlot. She might almost say the sights of the palace were reason enough for her pilgrimage. To think that she, a farmer and foal of farmers, back to the days of Puddinghead, might see these marble halls and lush tapestries! The hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital, the seat of the sun herself, it was everything Lentil had dreamed of and more.

But alas, she couldn’t stay to give such splendor the time and appreciation it deserved. Not when her village needed help as desperately as it did. Thankfully, she had a cousin among the kitchen staff who had sent news up the line until the seneschal himself had come to them. The stallion, long of horn and waxed of mustache, had been willing to listen to the humble pleas of a humble mare. He assured them the princess would as well. Gracious as she was wise, she made time for all her little ponies, and would be glad to not just hear Lentil’s plight, but help address it. It was her purpose as much as moving the sun and moon.

“I shall announce you,” he said as they approached the massive double doors of the throne room. “And remember, Her Highness is a kind and gentle soul.” He opened the doors with his magic and boomed out “Lentil Pottage of Hoofington” with more pride and pomp than any had before.

Lentil herself stood frozen on the spot. Some of it was awe, yes. Some was sheer surprise.

Everypony knew of Princess Celestia. Her cutie mark was pressed on every bit, and one needed only look up in the sky to see her work. But the only portrait Lentil had seen before today was a hundred years old, hanging in the town hall. She had assumed that the princess, ruling for centuries, was immortal and unchanging.

Immortal, certainly. Unchanging appeared to… not be the case.

The mare lounging on numerous cushions was… certainly an alicorn. There were wings and a horn and an indisputable sun on her hindquarters. But those hindquarters were large enough that it was stretched out to a comical degree, and the rest of the mare was similarly engorged. She looked up at Lentil, making four chins jostle, and raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

That was enough to jolt Lentil out of her shock. She approached the throne—cantered, really—and bowed before her sovereign. “S-sorry, Your Highness. I’m—”

“Lentil Porridge. I heard. What do you want?” Celestia laid her head back on the cushions. “And make it quick, it’s nearly lunch.”

Lentil Pottage had always thought raising the sun and moon would be a decent workout. Hungry work, maybe but… She cut off that line of thought before any of it slipped out through her mouth. “Your Highness, my village is facing terrible troubles. The taxponies come in droves, demanding all they can carry. Bandits lurk in the night and shake down the unwary. Even some of the cattle are demanding payment for the right to milk them. And they all claim to be acting with your approval.

“But surely, surely that cannot be. You would not have us face such greed. Please, Your Highness, send us a few guards to enforce your true will.”

Celestia looked up again, a confused look on her muzzle. “My true will?”

“Yes!”

The alicorn rolled her eyes and rested her head anew. “You silly little mare, I already have.”

“… What?” Lentil looked to the seneschal… who was nowhere to be seen.

“While I appreciate you telling me that all is proceeding as I have ordained it, the sheer gall of telling me what to do must be addressed.” Celestia half-heartedly raised a wing. “Guards, clap her in irons. A week in the dungeon before sending her back to her mudhole ought to be enough.”

Lentil ran. It was the only choice she had, at least until sunlight enveloped her and she had no choice at all.

---

“Did you hear?” whispered Dust Rag. “They say the whole kitchen staff got dismissed. Something about dissension in the ranks.”

Lace Doily rolled her eyes. “If you have time to gossip, you have time to clean.” Honestly, if Dusty put half the effort into her actual job as working the rumor mill, the palace might even need other maids.

“But it’s so odd! I thought the princess might be pregnant at first—”

Lace whirled on her, glaring up at the pegasus as she attended to a chandelier. “Dust Rag!”

“A mare’s got needs! Besides, weight gain, mood swings, what do you call that?”

“So she’s put on a little extra padding.” Lace returned to sweeping up everything Dust dislodged. “She’s the princess. She deserves a few nice things.”

“Oh, sure, of course, of course. But there’s a little extra padding and then there’s a whole mattress.”

“Really now.” Lace took a breath. At this rate, she was going to break some bristles. “The way you carry on, it’s like you don’t even respect her.”

“Oh, I respect the princess plenty,” said Dust. “I know I wouldn’t want her job. Flying up to the sun every day? My wings’d fall off. But mark my words, she’s taken an odd turn these days. Enjoying the privileges of rank a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, Your Highness, you—” And for the first time in Lace’s memory, Dust Rag shut up of her own accord, plummeting down to the ground as she stared at the princess herself poking her head into the doorway. “I’m dismissed, aren’t I?”

Celestia, who even Lace had to admit must have flown in to sneak up on them so quietly, lit her horn and grabbed Dust like she weighed as much as her namesake. She narrowed her eyes, which glowed like embers. “You have wings. You’ll live.”

And then she threw Dust out of the window Lace had just finished cleaning.

---

“Your Highness, please.” Bean Counter IX was the latest in a long line of his storied name. The Counters had served royalty since Platinum’s father, King Palladium. Sometimes they were treated as the first, best, or even only voice the pony on the throne would heed. Sometimes they were treated with less respect than the court jester. Celestia had always taken a measured view of them, willing to listen but never slavishly obedient. Frankly, that was how the current Bean liked it. The idea of the ruler of Equestria hanging on his every word was a terrifying prospect.

That said, her recent indifference wasn’t any better.

“Why should I care if your abacus is having a bad day?” she muttered, half-asleep upon her throne of cushions. They were starting to accumulate stains, as was the rest of the throne room. After dismissing the custodial staff, she’d further dismissed them as “needless expenses.”

Once again, Bean contemplated how much they might get for selling the old throne. He wasn’t sure if Celestia would ever fit in the thing again. Still, he focused on the task at hoof. “My abacus is having a bad day because the kingdom is having one! These taxes you’re imposing are unsustainable! It is simply a question of what will run out first, the peasants’ stores or their patience. In either case, you cannot tax the unwilling.”

Celestia laughed at that. “Of course I can. What are soldiers for?”

“Your Highness!”

“I’m the princess, after all. And as you said, they’re peasants.” Another titter escaped Celestia’s jowls. “What are they going to do, leave the lands they tended for generations and wander somewhere else?”

“Some already have, Your Highness.” Bean held up a few written sheets in his magic. “Reports from Mustangia tell of entire villages abandoned and the Equestrian standard… befouled.”

“So we tax the rest all the more.”

“There is no more to tax! Your Highness, you already have more than even you could possibly need. Why bother accruing wealth such… such grotesque excess?” If Bean didn’t know any better, he might swear there were threads of gold running through her very mane and tail, like greed was coming out her pores.

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “This, coming from the Royal Treasurer?”

“The treasury is not solely for you, Your Highness. Your subjects have need of it too.”

She rolled over, huffing like a spoiled filly. “Then they can rule their own country.”

Bean gave her one more moment, just to see if this had all been some great joke. Then he nodded. “I see. Then I must tender my resignation immediately.”

Frantic flailing was almost enough for Celestia to get to her hooves. She arced her back instead, managing to get an eye on him. “You what?”

“I do not know what has befallen you of late, Your Highness, but you aren’t yourself. And whoever you are now, I have no wish to serve such a creature.”

“Creature, am I?” Celestia’s horn lit, and only then did Bean consider the debt his words had accrued. One his body may have to pay. “Then you had best flee my lair with all due haste.”

If nothing else, there was a hint of the old Celestia’s wisdom in that advice. Bean galloped out of the throne room as fast as he could manage, sunfire licking at his invoices and the tapestries alike.

---

Prince Pureblood was many things. Reasonable wasn’t one of them. He’d be the first to admit it; the House of Blood wasn’t one for reason. They left that kind of thing to the House of Light. Such had always been the case for the great houses. Light for knowledge, Ore for grace, and Blood for those willing and able to fight the enemies of unicornkind with a fervor unmatched across all of equinity. Granted, there wasn’t much call for that sort of thing these days, but Bloods still went where others feared to tread, never with a second thought and only rarely with a first.

But he had to admit, standing in the throne room as he did now, second thoughts were coming to mind. Possibly even third ones. Auntie Celestia, honorary member of all houses, meant to be the union of all their best traits, was certainly glaring at him with a fury worthy of his house. The very air seemed to seethe around her, and the fact that the throne room was still full of half-burnt decorations and blackened marble only added to the effect. In all, it was less like being in the presence of his beloved honorary aunt and more like he’d intruded on a pale and rather plump dragon.

“Well?” she spat, and only then did Pureblood realize he’d been standing there gawping for the better part of a minute.

“Ahem. Yes. Well. Auntie, the noble houses are deeply concerned by this. Aside from impinging on our rights to tax our own subjects, those selfsame subjects are bothering us at all hours. Something about pottage that disagreed with you? Whatever the case, it’s getting to be positively unbearable. Can’t you do something to mollify the masses?” Pureblood was proud of that one. He’d come up with it the day before and had been practicing it ever since.

Celestia seemed less appreciative. “I’m the princess. They serve me. It’s the proper order of things. I suppose I could simply order them to be happy with this.”

“I rather doubt they’d obey, Auntie. And not to put too fine a point on it, I and the other princes and princesses are growing rather disgruntled ourselves. You can’t just let the situation…” Pureblood took a pointed look around the room, full of dust and grime and ash. “Well, decay like this.”

“Very well.” For a moment, it seemed like Celestia might actually get to her hooves. She managed to roll herself over. In the wan light filtered through unwashed stained glass, her mane seemed to gradate from stained saffron to scorched brown. Even her eyes felt wrong. “If my authority as princess is not enough to settle this matter, then you shall have a queen!”

“And, ah, will this queen do anything? Your Majesty?”

It was indelicate of Pureblood, but he felt it apt.

Going by how Celestia threw him out of a window, she disagreed.

---

“What do we want?”

Uncertain muttering and a few lunch orders answered Firebrand. He sighed. Canterlot just wasn’t a good mob town. Not enough farms to learn proper pitchfork technique and too many libraries to know which end of a torch to light. Even he was a historian specializing in revolutions and revolts. “I say again, what do we want? Specifically with regards to Celestia?” He jerked his head toward the castle behind him, just in case the crowd had forgotten.

“Down with Celestia!” half of them said with passable passion.

It didn’t really fit the pattern, but he needed a good, thought-deadening chant to properly harness herd instinct and get the crowd ready to face down the sun herself. Firebrand shook his head lest he actually think about what he was doing and raised his torch high. His wasn’t lit either, but it was midday. “When do we want it?”

“Now!” That much the crowd had down pat.

“What do we want?”

The “Down with Celestia!”s were far fewer. He mostly got confused looks. “We just told you,” said one mare.

Firebrand held back another sigh, lest he dishearten them further. This had all seemed so much easier in theory. “Okay, we can table the chant.” At the very least, he’d gathered a good number of ponies. Discontent with the princess had skyrocketed once she’d declared herself queen. The last good queen had been Majesty, as the saying went, and even the ancient sovereign of the Paleopony Period had just been a monster who happened to like ponies

He ran the numbers, even if he’d gone into history to avoid that kind of thing. He’d managed to gather a crowd of hundreds before the castle gates, and none had drifted away even through all the hiccups with proper organization. “You know what? Let’s just go in. There aren’t any guards.”

“She owes us two moons of back pay!” cried one of the burlier members of the crowd.

“Not just them,” added a mare with a scroll for a cutie mark. “I don’t there’s any staff at all at this point.”

“Well, then it’s just her and us,” Firebrand said with confidence he didn’t really feel. “And there’s a lot more of us than her! We’ll show her she can’t just laze around all day and expect us to thank her for it. We’ll make her come down from her ivory tower and join the common pony in united struggle for the benefit of all. Who’s with me!”

“Down with Celestia!” came the response.

“That’s the spirit! Let’s gooooooh no.” Firebrand wilted as he turned around, his attempt at a charge ending before it started.

Celestia had actually come down from her ivory tower and stood before the common pony. Somehow Firebrand doubted many would benefit. He did note that she wasn’t nearly as overweight as the former castle staff he’d talked to had claimed… though her colors had shifted to yellows and reds. Her mane and tail were matted messes, and even her cutie mark seemed surrounded by gamboge blotches that might have been natural and might have been stains from trying to make her own meals. “What is all of this?” she said.

“Th-this is the united will of the public standing before a ty…“ Firebrand winced as he heard the thunder of retreating hooves behind him. “… rant.”

“Ah. Well. Hello, Will.” Celestia’s horn lit up, her magic flickering like flames. It would’ve been far more intimidating if her mane didn’t look like a pile of burning thatch. “And goodb—”

Firebrand would go on to describe what happened next as “a bolt from the blue, thunder on a cloudless day, the wrath of an angry alicorn expressed in unmistakable fashion.” He left out the part where he screamed like a filly, but such is the prerogative of any historian.

When the dust cleared and the aftershocks settled, Celestia stood atop Celestia in a shallow crater, one bare of regalia but with the expected aurora in her mane and tail, the other choking as the first’s hoof crushed her windpipe.

“You escaped,” gargled the second Celestia.

“How astute of you.” The first Celestia pressed down harder.

A burst of magic of every color sent her and Firebrand flying back. Flames engulfed the second Celestia, golden at first before shifting green like they’d grown ill. Viridescence receded until some great insect in the semblance of a mare, stomach grotesquely bloated, took to the air. “I’m done here anyway. Their love for you is shallow, Celestia. A few moons and it was go—” A bolt of flame cut off her taunt and sent her whizzing away from Canterlot.

Celestia sighed and looked up at the noon sky. “Trapped in the sun. It was almost poetic.” She looked down, shook her head, and stopped partway through the gesture once she faced Firebrand. “Oh! Hello, my little pony. I don’t suppose you can tell me what I missed?”

Firebrand cleared his throat and decided that the manifesto he’d been putting together could wait. “Certainly, Your Highness.”