Luna Vs Pepper

	Princess Luna awoke promptly at five in the evening. Using magic to wake yourself up at a specified time was actually surprisingly difficult, and there were only a handful of unicorns who could do it. Luna, and her sister Celestia, were ten-thousand-year-old alicorns, and they had a mastery of magic that few others could compare to. Everypony's talents were different, and some unicorns who could create a living creature from thin air struggled to lift a pen with telekinesis. However, ten thousand years of experience had given Luna and Celestia the wisdom to cast essentially any spell that was known to pony-kind.
	Luna normally awoke at six every day, so that she would have ample time to fully wake up before raising the moon in the evening. However, today there was a meeting which required the presence of both of the Royal Sisters. When such occasions occurred, Luna usually just started her day earlier, instead of forcing Celestia to stay up late. Celestia had enough to deal with. She was awake during the day, and thus, she handled most of the bureaucracy, as she shared the same sleep schedule as the bureaucrats. Luna was happy to give up an hour of sleep sometimes in order to have the nights mostly to herself.
	It was bureaucracy that was requiring them to meet in the first place. The nobility would feel slighted if Luna was consistently absent from these type of meetings, so Luna played it safe and went to all of them that she could.
	Luna sat down at the table in her solar. Her chef had already laid breakfast out for her. Breakfast consisted of something called an 'omelet,' one of Luna's favorite dishes. Her chef was probably one of the few in Equestria that knew how to cook an omelet. There were plenty of ponies who had the skill to make one. Luna could probably make a passable omelet herself, if she tried. However, cooked eggs for breakfast had fallen out of favor around three hundred years ago, for some reason or another. Luna didn't follow food trends very closely, but she knew from visiting restaurants on occasion that there were very few ponies in Equestria who knew what the word 'omelet' meant.
	The night princess coughed as she took the first bite. The chef had overdone it a bit on the pepper, which was strange. He was normally so good. Then, Luna remembered that her usual chef was on vacation and that the kitchen had sent a replacement. The newcomer was probably told of Luna's preference for omelets and white pepper, and was trying to impress her. It was rather sweet, actually, but it made for a terrible omelet. She tried another bite.
	The sharp smell of the white pepper caused her nose to tickle. She decided that she had had enough, and pushed the plate away. There was more than enough food here to fill her up, even without the omelet. The various pastries on her table were made in the kitchens, and her personal chef didn't have a hoof in preparing them. Luna normally tried to stay away from sweets, but it didn't hurt to indulge one in a while, under such dire circumstances. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, after all!
	Wiping the crumbs from her mouth, Luna got up and headed towards the throne room, where tonight's meeting would be held. It was not a very long walk. As she walked, she contemplated the agenda, and then realized she really didn't care about this meeting at all. It was all marriages and commerce licenses. She and Celestia would simply be there to smile and nod, while papers were stamped. The door to the throne room loomed ahead.
	Luna entered, and sat down next to her sister. Celestia nodded to her cordially. As much as the two sisters loved one another, this wasn't the time for pleasant conversation. Celestia called attention, and the meeting began. Luna wanted to get this over with, and she knew that Celestia wanted the same thing. She sighed lightly, and began thinking of all of the places that she would rather be. Thousands of years of experience, and yet she still could not pay attention to such drivel.
	Princess Luna felt a slight tickle in her nostrils. She supposed it had to be from all that pepper earlier. She scrunched her nose, trying to get the tickle to leave. However, it wasn't going away. She was sure that one quick touch of her nose would fix things. Sure enough, her slippered hoof rubbed her snout for only a second or so, and the tickle disappeared.
	Unbeknownst to Luna, a medium-sized grain of white pepper had become lodged above her slightly above her mouth when she was eating earlier. When she touched her face, just now, she had also pushed the pepper directly next to her right nostril.
	The tickle in Luna's nose returned, and she began scrunching her nose again. She really did not want to betray to the councilors and nobles that her nose was bothering her, so she was trying to refrain from touching it. She sniffled.
	Suddenly, her right nostril burned, as the white pepper grain was sucked in. Luna gasped. "Huhh!"
	The throne room fell silent. Luna hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on, and she supposed that she might have gasped at a particularly bad time. A stray gasp from one of the royal sisters might make the nobles think that she actually cared about their marriages. Luna simply feigned a few coughs, said 'Excuse me,' and then the meeting resumed as normal.
	Normal, except for the fact that Luna's right nostril was screaming at her to sneeze. The pepper was burning inside of her nose. She rubbed at her snout, attempting to get it out without resorting to a sneeze. No such luck.
	Luna would have sneezed right then and there, had she not known the magnitude of sneeze that it would take to dispel the pepper grain. A simple, ladylike 'Hisshoo!' wouldn't be enough. In fact, a sneeze like that might make things worse if it moved the pepper grain to a less suitable location.
	Luna knew that as soon as this meeting was over, she would retreat to her chambers. Safely inside, her head would rear back, and she would release a tremendous, awe-inspiring, ear-splitting sneeze. No! She mustn't divulge such thoughts, not here. As she fantasized about releasing, her head had tilted back of its own accord, the beginning of a sneeze which was not based in fantasy.
	She checked the time, sensing the position of the sun in the sky. The meeting had been going on for twenty minutes now. In forty minutes, she could excuse herself to go raise the moon. Hopefully, the meeting wouldn't continue that long. If she was lucky, it would be over within ten.
	The tickle in Luna's nose was growing, very slowly, but steadily. Her nostrils flared. She was trying to resist touching her nose, because she knew that as soon as she lifted a hoof to help keep the sneeze back, she would be unable to stop rubbing, unless she planned on releasing. Her eyelashes fluttered.
	Wouldn't it be funny if she just sneezed full force in the middle of the meeting? She would dramatically overdo it, and scream the sneeze at the top of her lungs. It would be a bit like that prank she had played on Twilight Sparkle with her "Royal Canterlot Voice." Yes, sneezing right now would be a hilarious joke. And so easy to pull off. All she had to do was tilt her head back, and sniffle, and her body would take care of the rest. Just tilt her head, and sniffle...
	"Sniff! Huh-huh..." As she sniffed, the pepper grain became lodged slightly farther in her nose. But it also spun around in place, tickling massively, and making Luna's nostrils quiver with anticipation. Her breath hitched, luckily not loud enough for the hall to hear. She placed a hoof on her nose to stop herself.
	Luna beckoned for a servant, still clutching her snout to keep the sneeze back. When the short earth pony approached, Luna simply whispered 'handkerchief,' and the servant rushed off to retrieve one. Luna was going to have to touch her nose, but she might as well do it with some semblance of good manners.
	At only forty minutes into the meeting, Luna was beginning to grow worried. At this point, the meeting was probably going to go for at least the full first hour that she was required to stay for. She wasn't sure how long she was going to make it before her head reared back, and... No! Luna stopped that train of thought just before it began to have an effect on her.
	The servant brought the handkerchief, a small square of black cloth. Luna dabbed at her nose daintily, at first. Soon, she began jabbing her hoof into her right nostril as far is it could go, under cover of the handkerchief, of course. Unfortunately, the pepper was lodged way too far to reach with a hoof, but working the nostril did help relieve the tickle slightly.
	Luna briefly considered using magic to remove the grain, but that was a risky move, even for a magic-user of her caliber. Sure, she was ninety-nine percent sure she could pull it off, but on the off chance that she could not, that her concentration wavered as the pepper scraped the side of her nose, a stray sneeze could end with her brains all over the chair she was sitting in. One of the most novice lessons taught in magic school was that self surgery was only to be considered if the other option was death. Celestia would never forgive her if she killed herself over a sneeze.
	However, Luna was quickly running out of options. Even with her rubbing, she could still feel the tickle growing to epic proportions. She needed to act, and quickly. A tiny, stifled sneeze wouldn't hurt anything, would it?
	"Huhh.. hm." Luna stifled, so small it was almost silent. "Huhh.. hmp. Huhh... HMM-mp.."
	Luna stopped herself while she was still able. The stifles had done almost nothing to relieve the impossibly large tickle. However, in only five minutes she could politely excuse herself. She just had to make it five minutes without tilting her head back and submitting to the sneeze. Without.. tilting... her head back...
	Luna's head tilted back. She tried to stop herself, but at this point, rubbing her nose wasn't doing anything for her. She draped the handkerchief over both hooves, ready to catch the impending sneeze. She really didn't want to release it, however, there was no other choice. Her eyelashes fluttered. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again. Her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek.
	"Huh... Huh-huh... Huhh.. huhh.." Luna was not too far gone yet to hear her sister's voice ring out. It was dim, but it was still there.
	"Meeting..." Celestia said. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. "... Adjourned."
	The banging of the gavel her sister held was enough to wake Luna from her pre-sneeze trance. What followed was not exactly the best royal etiquette, but it was probably better than sneezing all over the nobility. At least, it was less embarrassing. Luna darted out the door and into the Royal dressing rooms. She went into the latrine and locked the door behind her.
	"Huhh... Huhhh.. Huhhhh... " She began the buildup to the tremendous sneeze which had really been building for the last forty minutes. As she drew breath, her hips bucked back, more violently with each gasp. "HUHH... HUHHHH! HUUUHHH!"
	A sharp knock came at the door. Luna attempted to gasp a reply. "JuuuUUUHHH!! JUHHSTAAA!! HUHHHH!! HUUUUUUHHHHH!!"
	"UUUHHHHHUUUHHHHHH!! KKKKERRRTIIIEEEEEEEECHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Luna sneezed, so loud it echoed inside of the bathrooms, and even into the dressing room. Her head shot forwards. Her front legs skidded on the floor, and she slipped. Somehow, her head ended up between her hind legs, propelled there by the force of the the sneeze. The pepper grain flew out of her nose, and she heard it clack against the floor. Luna sighed in relief, and picked herself up.