“Stupid – Mmmph – molt!” Celestia groused, nibbling furiously at one wing.

While she was more than eager for the cold days and long nights of winter to be at an end, the shift in seasons went one thing – a shedding of her old plumage. The process was long, arduous, and particularly annoying, yet she’d suffered through it for centuries. Each and every year, she told herself it would be different, that she’d be ready, and each and every year, without fail, she’d proven herself wrong. She knew it wasn’t a particular instance for her, since each pegasus and alicorn suffered the same fate, although the she in a unique position.

Though she could have had one of her innumerable servants preen her, she simply couldn’t bring herself to have anypony see her in such an ignominious state. She’d simply do the same thing she always ended up doing – sit in her room, alone, and comfort herself with a colorful, albeit hushed string of very colorful expletives. So long as nopony peeped in on her, seeing their illustrious Princess doing something so unbecoming, she felt sure everything would be alright…