Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I am sending you this letter to inform you of a very important request. Tomorrow, I am sending to Ponyville an old schoolmate of yours from the School for Gifted Unicorns, along with a longtime associate of his who you may or may not remember.
I do so hope that this is not too much to ask of you, that you remember him, and that you can help him. I'm sure there will be further correspondence presently.
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia
Twilight Sparkle, the princess of magic, read and re-read the message from her teacher, a confused expression on her face the entire time.
"A schoolmate of mine," she asked aloud to nopony in particular, "whomever could he be?"
"C'mon, Twilight," Spike, her dragon assistant, responded, his lanky body doubled over as he recovered from the magical letter delivery, "you could have only had so many classmates."
"But still, I wish the princess had just told me his name in her letter. Now I don't know who's coming, or whether I remember them or not. And who is this associate? That could be literally anypony. Oh, this will take so much planning."
"Take it easy, Twilight. The letter said they're arriving tomorrow, that gives you plenty of time to prepare."
"OK, OK, I'm on top of this," Twilight's horn started to glow a shade of purple as she magically brought a quill and paper toward her and started to write, "we'll need Rarity to quickly make me a new dress, Pinkie will unquestionably get wind of this somehow and want to throw a party, so I'll have to be prepared for that, and Spike, you'll need to cook a particularly good meal for when he arrives."
"Twilight," Spike came over and took the alicorn by the shoulders, "calm down. We don't need a repeat of the 'Want it, need it' fiasco. You take care of the castle. I'll take care of our friends."
"You're right," Twilight said with a sigh, "Good plan, Spike. I'll make sure everything here is in order, you invite the others. But make sure Pinkie understands, there will be no surprise party, no big deal. He's just an old classmate of mine from Canterlot, not royalty. Oh and while I'm thinking about it, don't tell Rarity how I know him, she might freak out and over-do it."
"Twilight, relax. I've got this."
*--*--*--*--*
So while Spike went to invite all their good friends, Twilight stayed behind to do her second favorite activity behind writing letters to the princess: reshelving her new library.
"Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony," she said, her magic working all the books like an assembly line as she held one hoof to her temple in mental concentration, "that goes under 'Pony History'. The Spells of Starswirl the Bearded, that's 'Classics'. The Art of the Checklist, that falls under 'Everyday Reading'. Spike was so right, I shouldn't get caught up in all this...oh, how would Pinkie say it...halubaloo. It's much more relaxing to just sit here and do what I do best."
But as the young princess sat there, trying to concentrate all her thoughts into her magic, she couldn't help but have passing thoughts about her upcoming company.
"Ponyfeathers this is bothering me," she said completely aloud, allowing herself a pause in her work, "I don't even remember most of the ponies I met back in Canterlot. What makes Celestia so sure I'll remember this one? No, no, best not dwell on it, Twilight. I'll just have to see tomorrow. Oh, and a mental note to never let Spike catch you talking to yourself like that, he would make fun of you to no end."
The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully. Before Twilight knew it, it was time to go to sleep and become rested for the probably very busy day tomorrow.
*--*--*--*--*
"OK everypony," Twilight announced to the five ponies and one dragon in the castle throne room, "our guests should be arriving very soon."
"Oh I can't wait to meet this new pony," Pinkie beamed, trying her best to distract herself from eating all the hors d'oeuvres.
"I am excited as well," Rarity said, magically adjusting her oversized hat, "I can't believe we're going to meet one of Twilight's classmates from the School for Gifted Unicorns."
Twilight gave a sideways glare to Spike, knowing that the drake blabbed.
"Yeah, yeah," Rainbow said, hovering in the air with her forehooves crossed, "but doesn't he know better than to keep ponies waiting."
"Hey, a carriage ride all the way from Canterlot isn't exactly a walk in the park," Twilight retorted, "any number of things could have delayed their arrival."
"Princess Twilight," one of the only two guards assigned to the castle announced, "your guests have arrived.
"Send them in," she said with a wave of her hoof. The guard disappeared for awhile before ushering in one singular figure.
"Welcome to Pony--," Twilight started, but stopped when she realized it wasn't a pony standing there. Instead, a tall, lanky, dragon, or more correctly, dragoness, stood before her throne, the midday sun coming in through the windows gleaming off her sky blue primary scales and white spines.
"Hello Twilight," the dragoness greeted calmly, not offput in the slightest by the young alicorn's awkward expression.
"Cr-Crystal," Twilight stuttered, "you are...but wait, if you're here, that means..."
"Yeah, he's just grabbing the last bit of luggage out of the carriage. He insisted that I come in first," Crystal took a short glance behind her, "Ah, here he comes now."
Twilight looked past the reptile to see a unicorn stallion trotting down the corridor toward the room. He was primarily red, just a few hues lighter than Big Mac, with a short orange mane that, on a bad maneday, made it look like he was on fire. He was carrying multiple suitcases behind him, suspended in the golden aura of his magic.
"I," Twilight stuttered when the unicorn made it to the door, "I wasn't expecting..."
"HIIII!" Pinkie jumped out of nowhere, causing both Twilight and Crystal to jump a bit. The unicorn just stood there, cocking his head to the side in confusion.
"Pinkie, your manners," Rarity said, using her own magic to pull the party pony back by the tail.
"Aww, come on Rarity, you know I can't help it when there are new ponies, and dragons, to meet."
"Yes, but you might have scared our guests."
"Oh, that's OK," Crystal said, waving a clawed hand in Rarity's direction, "he didn't hear her."
Rarity dropped Pinkie's tail and looked at the dragoness flabbergasted, "What do you mean, 'he didn't hear her'? They probably heard that clear across town."
Twilight sighed and turned to face her friends standing to the side of the throne. She took a deep breath and released it with a movement of her forehoof, just like Cadance had taught her.
"Crystal's right, he didn't hear her," she said as calmly as possible, "you see, everypony, this stallion's name is Golden Sun, and he is deaf."
The five other ponies now stood with their jaws dropped at various levels. Rainbow was so blown by this revelation that she stopped flapping her wings, causing her to fall to the floor with a thud.
"Now wait a goshdarn second," Applejack snapped, "you mean to tell me this here stallion can't hear a word we're saying?"
"Correct," Crystal answered.
His ears perking up, the stallion known as Golden Sun revved up his magic again, bringing a scroll, quill, and inkpot from one of his saddlebags. He used his magic to write for a bit, before handing the sheet to Crystal.
"But," the dragoness continued, reading from the parchment, "Golden Sun would like me to inform you that he can read lips."
"I...I've never heard of a young pony being deaf before," Fluttershy, surprisingly, was the first to find her voice again.
"It's very rare," Twilight explained, "only about one-in-one million foals are born without their hearing. Most of those don't live to see their first birthday, let alone live as long as Golden has."
"But you said you knew him at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns," Rarity protested, "how did he ever get in with his...um...disability." She attempted to say this last word through her teeth, so her lips didn't move, but it wasn't to be, Golden caught what she said and looked to Crystal.
"Well," the dragoness said, "I'm sure you all know how Twilight got into the school after hatching Spike from his egg," they all nodded, "Well, Golden did the same thing, the egg he hatched turned out to be me. Celestia knew that he would need some sort of assistant or translator, and that was me."
"That happened just a few days before I took my entrance exam," Twilight continued.
"Say," Pinkie exclaimed, appearing suddenly right next to Golden and staring at his flank, "he doesn't have a Cutie Mark!"
Though Golden couldn't hear her, of course, he could still sense somepony standing unreasonably close and reacted as such. When he noticed where Pinkie was looking, he put two and two together. He sat down dejectedly, looking at the floor, his tail instinctively moving to cover his bare flank.
"Hey, back off," Crystal roared, perhaps a bit louder than she meant to, "that's a very sensitive subject."
Golden, noticing how his friend reacted, reached up a hoof as a way of asking her to stop. He then rose back to his hooves, muzzle still pointed straight down, and began to make his way back out of the throne room. Twilight, determined not to let it end like this, quickly teleported to the doorway, blocking the unicorn's path.
"Golden, please look at me," she said, physically lifting up his chin with her hoof, "Pinkie didn't mean anything by it, I promise. Please don't be mad at her."
"Twilight," Crystal began, but the alicorn cut her off.
"No Crystal," Twilight said, never taking her eyes off of Golden, "he can answer me himself."
Golden sighed and once again brought over his writing utensils. After some scratching of quill on parchment, Twilight took it in her magic.
"When have you ever known me to be mad," it read, "Of course I forgive her. I apologize, I wasn't exactly expecting everypony to be here."
"No need to apologize," Twilight shook her head, "I just wish that the princess had told me it was you who was coming so that all could have been a little better prepared."
"Wait," Crystal spoke up again, "Celestia didn't tell you that we were coming?"
"Well, she sent me a letter telling me to expect guests, but she didn't mention who exactly my guests were."
"That's a little peculiar. Did her letter say anything else?"
"Only something about helping him, but I don't know what that means either."
Golden's ears perked up again. Then his expression softened, and he shook his head with a little smile. Once again, he took the sheet of paper and wrote down something else. However, this time he passed it to Crystal.
"I'm afraid I don't know what she means either," Crystal read, "I believe I will need to discuss this with Celestia further."
"I think that's an excellent idea," Twilight said, but before she could continue, a low rumble was heard. Everypony with the exception of Golden looked at Spike.
"Sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his head, "guess I'm hungry."
