How Hard Could it Be?

by Richardson

Rating: everyone
Tags: Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Romance, Princess Luna, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Random, Princess Celestia, Slice of Life
Length: 163764

The Cutie Mark Crusaders need a Tutor, Celestia Needs a Vacation, and Luna needs some Respect. How Hard Could it Be?

Twilight has been having her study sessions with the Cutie Mark Crusaders for some time, and has been remarkably pleased with their progress. And kind of worried, as they keep getting better and better. She might be a princess now, but TEACHING THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS? She'd rather not become their formal mentor. Yet.

A letter is sent out, and Princess Celestia gets a call for help. And, an opportunity is born. After all, why not? After a thousand years, perhaps it is time to do something else, just for a bit. She does have a rather wonderful younger sister who hasn't been ruling a land for a thousand years, and who has been studying how to rule for the past four rather intensely. So, teaching three fillies undercover? Sounds like fun.

And Luna. She's wanted to be as respected as her sister so much that she once went mad over it. But now, she's simply being handed the power that she once coveted for so long and no longer wants. What kind of a world does she live in now that her highest desire has been so casually granted?

With all of this, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Arcs:

Escape: When Celestia hears the call, she jumps at the chance to teach again, especially three fillies who might surpass her grandest student. But first she's got to escape her own identity...
Examination: So you want to find out what a filly does? Time to test her silly, so long as you don't taunt the Happy-Fun Filly.
Excitement: So, you've found the Happy-Fun Filly. Great, but the other two need help as well, and Scootaloo has this ~Great!~ idea for how to use her new-found magic...
Encouragement: Cometh the Bubbles, and a whole load of new headaches as they find out just what being a Happy-Fun Filly really means...
Exaltation: Where's Luna been this whole time? She can't be very happy about being left in the lurch holding Equestria. She could really use somepony to talk to.
Exercise: 'Sunbeam' is looking to teach the Happy-Fun Filly more, but first she needs to start taking care of the wagon-tire she keeps around her middle so that certain Unfun-Time Fillies don't interrupt her. And there's this big draft stallion looking for help...

Published 2014-04-27 23:40:04 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-11 17:59:56 UTC

1.2

1.2

"Hey, Twilight! New Letter!" Spike scrabbled up the stairs to his mother/sister/caretaker's lair, clutching the scroll that had just erupted from his mouth in a fiery burp.

"What? Already?" Twilight hopped away from her desk, snapping open her wings with a single flap in order to glide over to the stairs just in time to snatch the scroll from Spike's paws. Without stopping, she kept on gliding over her home's stairs down to the main floor, holding the scroll in her magic. "That was fast."

"Whoa-whoa-woooooooooohooooaaaaa-" Spike unsteadily teetered at the top of the stairs, windmilling his arms as he tried to balance himself. Gravity was a harsh mistress, however, and soon had him firmly gripped within her fiendish grasp. "Twiiiliiight!"

Purple flashed, reality was bridged, and instead of falling down a flight of stairs he fell a short ways onto Twilight's back. She didn't even look up from her former mentor's scroll as she analyzed the contents, chiding him off-hoof with an absent mind. "Oh, Spike. You've got to be more careful, especially around the stairs."
Spike rubbed his head, then rolled his eyes. "Riiiiight. Sigh. What does it say?"

"Oh, she's agreed to send a tutor! I hope she sends Sunbeam; she was always so helpful and knowledgeable!" Twilight paused and reread a passage the hadn't made sense at first. Her smile slowly turned upside down as she realized it didn't sound right at all. "Business? What sort of business?"

Spike shook his head, rolled his eyes, and scooted back until he rested between Twilight's wings. It was never wise to let a good lounging opportunity go to waste, after all. "Oh, it probably just means the usual. You know 'negotiation with the griffons' or some other group. Or maybe she's dealing with a strike. Plus there are all the other problem solving groups around Equestria she finally got around to telling us about, or maybe some magic ritual she's got to do. Something probably came up."

One could almost hear Twilight's pupils snapping to pinprick size as the wheels in her mental timepiece slowly began to click down to Cuckoo o' Clock at the mentions of the various problems Celestia could have run into. Wild fantasies of utter anarchy began to strike within her mind, and her hooves began to twitch.

One might, but not Spike, though. For despite his oftentimes magnificent perception regarding various events, he so often obliviously pushed his doomed keeper into a rather silly place. "Ah, I'm probably thinking too much. It is about lunchtime. She's probably getting a piece of cake or something."

"Or she's getting a declaration of war because my scroll came in and hit a diplomat in the face!"

Spike's eyebrow slowly rose up as high as it could as he looked over his shoulder. "Twilight? You're having an attack again. Don't worry!" He tweaked her ear with his paw, trying to stop her before she started ranting about the sun and moon rising on their own.

"Or maybe I've interrupted a critical spell that lets Celestia and Luna control the sun and moon that can only be cast every 100 years!" Too late.

Twilight began pacing around the main room of the library; talking sweet sweet madness to herself with every step. Each clop of her hooves popped a feather out of place. Each clip of her shoes sprang a cowlick out of her frazzling mane until she looked like a madpony. "And if they can't control the sun and moon the celestial bodies will raise and set on their own! And if they raise and set on their own, we can't control the weather or seasons! And if we can't control the weather and seasons we wont be able to feed everypony without a dozen times the number of farm ponies we currently have! And if we can't feed everypony, then harmony will disappear! And if harmony disappears, we'll have fourty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, seas boiling, the dead rising from their grave, pony sacrifices, dogs and cats living together; MASS HYSTERI-AH-AH-Ah-AH-AAAaAAaaaaauuuaaAAAwwooaaaha!"

At some point during her rant, Spike grabbed Twilight by her mane and shook her violently as her frantic fretting launched them towards the ceiling. He breathed a fireless sigh of relief for just a moment as they stopped inches away from planting themselves against the wooden surface, glad that the undue appointment between his face and the ceiling had been canceled. Pity, then, that he forgot about his old fling, gravity. She was a harsh mistress.

"Oooooh... owww. Twilight, the only pony going through mass hysteria is you. Princess Celestia would use that big new public broadcasting system they have if something came up."

"HeeeeeeeEEEY, Twilight! You gotta radio?" Pinkie busted through the front door with all the subtlty of Luna. Exactly none, to be precise.

Rarity followed through, looking utterly aghast at the state of Twilight's door. "Good heavens, Pinkie! Knock first and do not cause property damage!"

"I did, but she was having a 'MAKE a Friendship Problem!' moment."

"Still-"

"Pinkie might have a point, Rares. Our lil' sugarcube is lookin' a mite bit frazzled."

"It's nothing, nothing!" Twilight brushed her mane frantically, trying to hide the errant strands and the winces of pain from roughly preening herself with magic. She teleported out from under Spike, letting him lightly fall to the floor. A secoond flash of light erupted by the center table as Twilight reappeared with her bulky radio. "See? See! Totally fine, and not at all responsible for the current crisis broadcast, see!"

Applejack hesitantly came around the table while warily eyeing her friend. "Riiiight. Uh, everypony mind helping me out here?"

"Oh, don't worry, Applejack. Twilight only sent out a letter two hours before the crisis broadcast system that was just installed last year was turned on today. You know, the one that has only ever come on for those eeeeeeevil vines from past eeeeeeevil Discord sprouted everywhere and caused total panic. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that she's somehow responsible for the princesses soooomehow losing control of the sun and moon, causing mass hysteria. Because that's just silly, they don't use spells, they use their special talents!" Pinkie obliviously on purposed failed to note how Twilight began to hyperventilate into a paper bag while slowly turning blue. She slapped her alicorn friend on the back, before continuing with the most outrageous thing possible to finish shaking her out of it. "Besides, it's probably just about Princess Cadance getting pregnant or something."

The bottom of the paper bag ripped open and flew into Twilight's mouth at that. Coughing and gagging, she clutched at her throat while trying to breathe. Spike rushed into action, performing the Himelick maneuver with practiced swiftness until the paper shreds were slimily coughed free. Twilight grabbed ahold of Spike and hugged him to life. "Right, right! Totally silly!"

"Aww, ain't that sweet? Girls? Hug 'er." Applejack drawled before pouncing like Celestia on a cake. Rarity and Pinkie joined her shortly afterwards, rendering Twilight and Spike thoroughly hugged and comforted. It did have the slight side effect of rendering them blushing crimson red under the influence of third degree embarrassment, but there were bound to be drawbacks somewhere to such a powerful friendship technique.

"Hey, guys! I know I just saw you all come in here earlier, and I just heard about the broad-" Dash screeched to a half in the doorway, hovering with a disbelieving look upon her face as Twilight and spike looked at her from within the pony pile. "Right. Say, I'll just borrow your little listener thingie, and I'll get back to you five later. Pretty awesome making it to... uh, third base, but you should probably shut the-" SLAM! "-Door?"

Twilight teleported everypony out of the pony pile and roughly onto seating arrangements she conjured up in a semicircle around her radio. "Nope! Nope! Nothing at all happening besides a compleeeetely platonic hug!" Twilight flicked her radio on, and was rewarded with the opening strains of the Alicorn Anthem. "The broadcast is on, no more thinking of bad thoughts! She put on a forced smile and fidgeted in place as Celestia began speaking.

"Mares and gentlecolts of Equestria, thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for more than a thousand good years. For many of you, this is the first time you have heard my voice. I apologize if you expected an accompanying angelic chorus or expected my voice to have divine tones."

"More importantly, I must apologize that it has taken me this long for me to make use of this medium. Equestria has had radio wave broadcasting technology for more than thirty years, and never once did I think of ever using it this way. Not even my student came up with this, instead it was her friends that informed me of its true potential. Thank you, Fluttershy. You have helped my sister and I more than you can imagine." The 'YIEEP!' could be heard all the way in Ponyville from the border of the Everfree Forest.

"But, that only points to the reason why I have asked all my little ponies to listen to me today. It has been 1500 years since I first took the throne. More than a thousand since my sister's thousand year banishment, and the thousand years of my sole rule began. Look around, all around. Architecture is dedicated to my tastes and styles, and me alone. We have begun to stagnate and fall behind our neighbors because there are those amongst you who scoff and ridicule others, deny their potential because they feel that their ideas may offend me."

"I never wanted that. So, I shall do the smartest, wisest thing that I can. Equestria has two high princesses, and I shall now use them both. From this moment on for a period of no less than five years, I pass ALL my power and responsibilities onto my sister, including my positions of authority. In that time-" Siiiiigh. THUD!"-I shall be in disguise amongst the populace, re-educating myself in the nuances of modern day Equestria so that I may return to my role in due time. I hope that when I return I shall be ready to rule better than ever before."

"I am not abandoning any of you. I am simply moving out of the way so that you may grow to greater and more wonderful heights than you could if I stayed. Do not fret, my little ponies. If you have need of me, there will always be those who know how to find me. Finally, thank you. Thank you all. I shall be back before you know it. Sister, did you have anything you wished to add?"

"Um... oh dear."

Applejack fanned Twilight with her hat as the alicorn lay flat on on the floor as white as Rarity. "Ya know, Ah think she took that rather well. Don't ya'll agree?"

1.3

Escape 1.3

"Hurry, Sister! I do not know how much longer I can hold your devotees at bay!" Luna scrambled her hind hooves against the marble tiles of Celestia's apartment and planted her forehooves a little harder as the battering ram on the other side of the ironwood door swung again.

"Keep holding them off, I'm trying to find my normal clothes!" Celestia shot back as she tossed yet another set of seasonally-themed golden horseshoes out from her closet. Everything else essential like writing instruments, and two suitcases dedicated to exotic teas had already been packed. She was not about to let her sacrilegious servants commit the heresy of throwing out her good teas, after all! It had taken her centuries to smuggle it all in.

"Thou doeth not have normal clothes, thou forgetful boob! Gyah! Hurry, they art pouring some form of slime through the gap! Oh, ick! Ick-ick-icky-ICK!" Luna shook her head wildly as the amber syrup was poured through the small gap the servants had opened in the doorway. While an alicorn's strength was immense, enough ponies with a good sized jar of syrup could move one eventually.

Celestia rushed out of her closet with her favorite towels and snapped her third and final suitcase shut. "Okay, Luna!" She started to rush over, only for her sister to shoot her a look of utter loathing and shout a warning.

"Nay, thoust foal! Fly, FLY THOU FOAL! Fly thy bum to thy freedom!" Luna was scooted forwards another few inches by a wild press at the door. Hooves squeezed and pried through the gap, grabbing at Luna wherever they could find purchase as the lunar alicorn wriggled and squirmed. "We know how to findeth thee, run!"

Celestia risked the chance and rushed over to kiss Luna affectionately on the cheek. Mmm, maple syrup! A waste of the good stuff, though. "Thank you, Luna! I'll write!" Pulling her head back before the staff could grab her mane, Celestia grabbed her luggage and ran for the balcony.

"That mar-aaaiiiieeeeee!" Luna's expletive was cut short as she was hauled through the door, squealing all the way as the hooves handling her reduced her to a slimy mess.

"Luna!"

"Save thyself!"

Celestia turned back to her balcony, where a herd of pegasi now awote her outside of her magically enhanced doors. Behind her, the castle servants were pushing aside the barricade that she and Luna had erected after the relatively disastrous second half of the broadcast. No way forward, no way back, she- oh. The two groups broke through their respective barriers just in time to witness Celestia vanishing within a glint of teleportation magic.

"Note to self, just RUN next time, even if it does get Luna accused of treason!" Celestia banked through a tight turn around the castle with her luggage attached as a lance of her finest guards chased her throughout the grounds while begging her to come back.

Sweeping down, she ducked under the main gate and peeled off to her left over the castle moat to lose more of her pursuers as they chased after her with reckless abandon. Ahead, she spotted the facade of the first branch store of Pony Joe's by one of the secondary entrances to the castle. Perfect timing, it seemed. She swooped in low, letting contrails form at the tips of her wing as the air was disturbed by the extreme speed of her passage. In a moment, a ludicrous number of bits borrowed without official permission found themselves teleported onto the front counter as she made off with a large portion of their stock.

Mmm, tasty, tasty ammu- No! No eating her weapons!

"Princess Celestia, stop! Please come back, we're sorry, we're-"

"PIE!"

Cream pie hit hapless guards-pony at the speed of ouch, sending him spiraling out of control with a wail. Streamers of filling sprayed out in a splash pattern, splashing the nobles and sycophants nearby with white ooze as they ran for their lives to escape the high-speed chase. The others in the group attempted to avoid the wildly flailing pie'd to deliciousness guard, but most were unsuccessful and crashed into him and with him into a pillow stand, sending a cloud of feathery chaff into the air behind the ivory diarch. Celestia looked back, wincing as she watched with a vague feeling of feeling sorry for him until the feeling of donuts beginning to slide off of her horn with the wind took back the brunch of her attention. "Not my lunch!"

"Princess! Cease and desist, or we will have to bring you gently back to the-" SPLAT! "-Auuuugh! Why does failure taste so delicious!" Cherry pie was a wonderful weapon when properly accelerated. No hard feelings all around. Except for the ground, it always took things hard.

Celestia recounted her ammunition, and the guards behind her as she ducked beneath a low-hanging arch over the street. She only had enough for a proper serving of humble pie for half of her pursuers. There had to be a way to get rid of them all, but for the life of her she could not see a way other than hoping that she could out fly them. It wasn't like she could just- of course!

Looking back, Celestia wriggled her tail and stuck her tongue out at her pursuers before turning her head back into the wind to save her donuts once more after successfully goading them on. They poured on the speed, approaching her somewhat out of shape form just in time for her to lurch over hard into a nearly impassable alleyway. Shouts of alarm followed her as the guards-ponies swarmed about trying to decelerate and turn into the alley, swerving and doing everything they could to avoid crashing. Pursuit soon followed into the space, running single file in the tight corridor just barely wide enough for Celestia to fly within. She knew just the spell to confound them long enough to lose them.

Swerving around a corner tightly enough to scrape her shins upon the brickwork, she cast the 'Mirror Mirror' spell upon herself the instant she was out of their sight and duplicated her image. Quick wing-beats and carefully angling her wings straightened her out once more as she wove through the maze of fire escapes, laundry lines, and lost and abandoned boxes stacked high up into the alley towards the street ahead. Hauling up from behind her came the twenty remaining guards of her pursuit force, who quickly closed the gap in the tight space with their more maneuverable frames. She didn't have much time left, hopefully- Ah. There was Main Street, and the way out of Canterlot.

The loyal guards-ponies of the Solar Praetorians almost had their sovereign back and in hoof. Their lead flier had her ever-waving tail almost within his grasp and they would soon find out what had distressed her enough to try and run away. Except for that small, slight problem of the way that she miraculously doubled into twin copies of herself that flew in opposite directions down the street. Dumbfounded wings froze up in midair as the guards minds collectively slipped a gear at how remarkably unfair alicorn magic was. A midair pileup was only narrowly averted as the guards tried to figure out which one to chase.

Guards Captain Stiff Resistance was not so easily wowed by the illusion, having encountered something similar from Princess Luna the year before. He organized the response in seconds, straightening back his helmet as she watched the Celestia heading for the train station. "Ten to each! Equal odds on either being the real Princess! One is heading for the train station, the other is heading for the falls. MOVE IT!" He peeled off after his target, letting his Lt., Sunshine, rush after the one heading towards the falls.

The chase rocketed low over the streets, bowling over ponies just ahead of it from the bow-shock of Celestia's passage. They shot over the merchant stalls with reckless abandon as the alicorn of the day avoided the guards with a sudden grace and agility that would impress Rainbow Dash. Each look back with anxious worry over her shoulder only showed them slowly growing closer and closer to her tail as they sprinted all out for her. She poured on the speed, seemingly losing several of her pies as the acceleration jolted her, though no shouts or splats could be heard.

"Princess, stop! We love you, come back!"

"You love me too much!"

"That's a good thing! We need you to be treated right!"

"Who says that's RIGHT for me!? Maybe I want to work for a living!"

The guards glanced at each other in horror before settling back on the pursuit, losing precious seconds. A princess WANTING to work? What madness was that? Celestia did plenty in all of her meetings, and was perfectly pampered to compensate for her meager dealings! Certainly, Twilight Sparkle was new to her duties and thus didn't know, and Cadance was being properly pampered by her guard captain cu-err slash husband and had finally been weaned from her crazy need to foal-sit, and Luna was... Luna, but it just wasn't right! Wait! LUNA! She was in constant close contact with Celestia, oftentimes unsupervised! And she wanted power, and had the power to match Celestia and had the crazy attitude to try! She had brainwashed her sister in order to take over Equestria!

"Princess, wait! You're under the control of an evil spell that makes you want to work!" Stiff Resistance poured on the speed as he realized the incredible danger that Celestia was within. He caught up to her misguided charge, grabbing at her lower hind-legs like a remora.

"How can I be under a spell when I don't exist?"

"What."

POP!

The 'Celestia' popped like a soap bubble, causing Stiff Resistance to sail through the air and crash into a briar bush in the park they had been passing through at high speeds. His detachment swooped in, preparing to extract their captain from the briars before he used one of her hind-legs to wave them off furiously. From somewhere deep inside the bush, Resistance cried out his orders even as he uselessly kicked his legs. "Our princess is under a spell and brainwashed! Catching her is more vital than ever, catch up with Sunshine!"

With that, his detachment peeled off, leaving her to sulk in the bush. The thorns had caught up on his armor, and screeched against metal with each movement. Kicking again only confirmed what he had feared; his crash had left her suspended in a thick briar bush without leverage, and only through somepony rescuing him would he escape. Wonderful. The only way he could fail harder would be if Celestia herself saved him.

"Oh my goodness! Are you alright?" The sweet, saccharine voice sounded disturbingly familiar to the guard captain as the mare somewhere behind her sing-song'd her concerns.

"No. I'm just relaxing here in this patch of thorns because I'm into bloodletting. YES! I'm stuck and I need help! If you're a pegasus or unicorn, could you pull me out by my hooves?"

"Oh, there's no need to shout! Just a second." The voice sing-song'd once more before an immensely strong grip took ahold of his legs in a crushing vice of hooves and fluffy fur before forcibly yanking him free. Yelping, Resistance swung free and shook back and forth suspended from the grip of the largest pegasus- no, the largest mortal mare he had ever seen. The words 'built like a brick outhouse' came to mind from his frontier deployments as he looked up at the massively built mare. Orange coated, with a flowing pink mane and tail matching a set of unkempt fetlocks, the timidly hovering pegasus mare was the size of a draft stallion. "I do hope you're alright now."

"No, no I'm not still! Citizen, you must go and warn everypony to be on the lookout for Princess Celestia! An evil spell has been cast upon her, and she is not in her right mind!" Resistance warned as he was released to drop to the ground.

"Oh my! How horrible, I'll be sure to let everypony know." The mare hovered in place, seemingly unburdened by her rather large saddlebags.

"Hurry! I must go." Resistance took off after his detachment without further delay, zooming away without ever looking back.

If he had, he might have spotted the slow, sly smile upon the mare's face for a moment. Or perhaps the chocolate-frosted donut she pulled from thin air above her head as she trotted away for the train station while ruefully lamenting the guard's inobservance. "Oh, my silly little pony. Why would I need to be under a spell to want a nice, LONG vacation? Mmm. Mmmm-mmph!"

Author's Note

*It could be said that the chance of opening a branch store of Pony Joe's was directly correlated to the chance of Celestia stepping down from the throne: I.E. none at all. So, the opening should have perhaps been taken as a sign that the end was neigh.

*Said unfairness was a spell borrowed long ago from something Luna observed in the dreamscape known as a 'Somepony Else's Problem Field.' In particular, a variant that produced other problems for somepony else to deal with instead just when they were about to notice the truth.

*Alternatively, the original variant worked well with illusions, and the sillier, the better. After all, what could be sillier than a frizzy-mane'd Celestia with a stack of donuts around her horn, mirror sunglasses from the latest 'hit' movie --The Maretrix--, and a giant floppy black hat and coat. Why it was so absurd that even without the spell, ponies would rather pay attention to the orange mare beside her. At least long enough for Celestia to properly squeeze down into her disguise.

1.4

Escape 1.4

"Next!"

Let it never be said that Celestia Morningstar- err, Sunbeam Daffodil Flora, had little patience. She had created a 1000 year gambit to ensure that her sister was either saved or dealt with. She had endured the Never-Ending Sorrows spell and survived. She had stared into the Eternal Plane of Madness long enough to make IT blink. But at last, she had met her match.

"NEXT!"

She had met her match. Tree of Harmony save her, she had met her match. The unreasonably long lines, the maddening babble of ponies gossiping about every topic imaginable, the overworked cooling systems that left everypony sweating, the constant standing in place...

"Next!"

The first thing that she was going to do once she got settled in in Ponyville was going to be writing to Luna about the immediate reform of the country's transportation. She had been standing in line for forever and an hour, and worst of all, she was almost out of food. Okay, maybe not worst of all compared to the line. The line standing outside the doors of the Grand Station as the ticket master talked and talked and talked forever with each pony.

"Next!"

She was almost there, though! Only a mare and her rambunctious herd of foals remained between her and freedom. She really should have flown to Ponyville, even if it would have meant dodging patrols and arriving hot and sweaty from flying her flank off. But noooooo, she had to do things the 'smart' way. Nooooo, she had to go via the 'comfy' way, the way that wouldn't draw attention.

"Next! Nex- Holy Harmony Horseradishes!"

As it turns out, masquerading as a mare larger than most farm stallions tends to draw a bit of attention. "One way ticket to Ponyville with luggage, please." The concentrated stares of most of the concourse were really starting to grow more than a little uncomfortable.

The ticket master kept on looking up, and up, and up past her long, lithe legs and well muscled barrel while stammering for a moment. Shaking his head and cleaning his monocle did little to remove the very good but inappropriate thoughts running through his head of a mare like the one before him. Job to do, job to do! He stammered out a correction for her as he pointed at the rates. "That w-will have to be t-two tickets, Ma'am."

"What! Why?"

"Y-your size, Ma'am. We cannot f-fit anypony on a seat alongside you safely." The ticket master bravely responded as he looked up to her.

"Did you just call me fat?"

"M-Ma'am, you ARE twice the size of anypony else here if you will look around. Company policy is that anyp-pony who can sit on somepony else hard enough to s-squash them into jelly must have two tickets. Deeply sorry, Ma'am. P-please don't sit on me, Ma'am..." The ticket master slowly cowered lower and lower behind his counter as Sunbeam's glare slowly grew from 'vaguely irritated' through 'somepony ate all of the ice cream and comfort food in the city' to 'The Wrath of Celestia'.

"So you're saying that because I'm a little bigger than everypony else, I have to pay twice what anypony else would just to-"

"Lookit, lookit, Mommy! I'mma Mountain Climber!"

What?

Sunbeam turned around carefully as she felt a shifting weight bouncing upon her back. There at the nape of her neck pranced a white coated, yellow maned little pegasus filly who half-hovered with wildly buzzing wings. The little one's mother was the mare from earlier, who came running up to them with her other mobile foal close behind. With a bit of a shock, Sunbeam realized that the mare's gaze only just barely reached eye level with her cutie mark despite being larger than normal herself.

"Surprise! Surprise, get off of that poor mare this instant! You know I can't reach that high!"

Sunbeam sighed as the frustration drained away, passing two fares worth of bits to the terrified ticket master behind the counter. Point conceded, one wayward foal roundup to go. "Little one, o' little one, why don't you stick with your mother?"

"I wanna 'splore EVERYTHING! I gotta find all the good stuff to show Auntie Pinkie" Surprise bounced up and down on Sunbeam's back, hopping just out of her mother's grasp each time the rocky-colored mare tried to reach for her.

Stupid annoying youthful spirits cheering her up and destroying her well-earned irritated funk... Sunbeam smiled as the energy of a foal in motion slowly filled her once more and as her own mood was lifted by foalish enthusiasm. She waved off the foal's mother as thoughts began to connect in her mind. "Auntie Pinkie, is it? You wouldn't happen to be heading to Ponyville, would you?" She took her tickets and stuffed them into the easy reach travel pouch around her neck.

The light grey mare nodded for her child as she hopped and tried to grab her daughter once more. "Our family is branching out; and if my wonderful, darling, precocious daughter will stop being a pest, we should get going!" The Pie mare's sweet tone ground down into grating irritation as she hopped over and over trying to reach her flighty filly, all the while knowing that it was irritating her newborn son back to wakefulness.

"Oh, how wonderful! I'm moving there myself to teach several students of a former pupil of mine! Surprise can stay where she is, she's no burden at all compared to my luggage." Sunbeam clapped a wing around the Pie mare as the baggage handlers took her three suitcases with extreme difficulty to load onto a cart for the train. She pushed ahead herself, dragging the family with her towards the nice helpful terminal signboards as the filly on her back bounced and played.

His heart still racing, the ticket master slowly emerged from behind his counter as the danger passed. His mom was right, being a salespony of any kind was the most dangerous job on the planet. There had to be a better way to explain the weight concerns without insinuating that a mare was fat. Or maybe he should just get a shield. Or a safer job like guarding Tartarus.

"NEXT!"

"You know, I know of your family, but I don't know your name. I'm Sunbeam."

"If you know of my family, and 'Auntie Pinkie', you must have worked for Princess Celestia at some point, I bet. I'm Marble Pie. You know my oldest girl, and this other one here is Limey!" Marble replied with an echo of her sister's manic energy as she noogied her young son.

"Argh! Limestone, Mother! Please?"

Marble rolled her eyes at his protest. "He's decided he wants to be all 'mature' like his daddy, and speak with a silly accent like him. The silly colt. And the little one in my bags is called Rocky Road." Marble looked both ways before leaning in to Sunbeam and whispering at a volume her youngest colt couldn't hear conspiratorially. "He's got a bit of a sweet tooth."

Sunbeam put a hoof to her mouth in mock horror. "Oh, no! I'm a sweet pony! He'll gobble me up!" She giggled along with Surprise and Marble as Limestone rolled his eyes and pretended not to notice the inane antics of his mother and her new friend.

The crowded staircase down to the main platforms began to open up as they approached the bottom. But instead of ponies going every which way, they were being herded through a security checkpoint made of several dozen rather narrow arches. Small placards marked with Celestia's face with a red 'no' symbol over them helped to inform everypony that the checkpoints were meant to catch Celestia in disguise. The guards nervously looked about, chatting with the passengers as they were led through and scanned.

Sunbeam's chuckles trailed off nervously as she saw the well-prepared checkpoint, and she wondered if it was still safe to make a run for it.

"Oh, COME ON!" A mare proclaimed as she was led away by security. Her husband, a scruffy mustachio'd white stallion with a straw hat and a cutie mark made of a trio of eggballs followed her helplessly and probably hoped she would be alright.

"Wow. They really are serious about this whole 'catch Celestia so we can make her love us' thing... Kinda silly, since she said she was going on vacation. Besides, why would she use the train when she's strong and tough enough to fly anywhere she wants?" Marble complained as they were led down along to the nearest booth.

"Err, yes, why would she take a train?" Sunbeam unconvincingly answered as she mentally kicked herself hard enough to launch her mental Sunbeam into Low Equis Orbit.

"And she'd probably have enough patience to put up with all those stupid 'fat' suggestions that stupid ticket stallion had to say."

"Oh, Certainly." Stupid hero worship guilt tripping her.

"On second thought, nah. She'd probably have a problem with him too. Nevermind." Marble concluded as she tapped her chin.

The guard at the head of the line rapped his hoof against the floor to catch everypony's attention. "Everypony will step in one at a time for the scanner. It projects a field that cancels most magic and scans for changeling-like spells." The burly guard proclaimed with a hint of worry and irritation as he stood beside the alarmingly narrow archway. Stupid stupid-spawning hero worship.

"One at a time? That's stupid. I'm coming through!" Marble hopped through the crowd with her sister's gait, jumping through the archway while holding onto Limestone before anypony could stop her. The machine beeped once, but stayed silent. Marble rolled her eyes, and looked scathingly at the guards. "Let me guess, your bosses told you that a bunch of ponies going through all at once confuses it?" Slow, angry nods answered her. "Eh, kinda. My family provides the gems for stuff like this. They don't get mixed up, they just slow down for a second. Hey, Sunbeam, Surprise! C'mon you two slowpokes!"

The guards turned to each other and whispered a few things between themselves as they made a decision. One talked into a remote headset for the team on the other side. "Tell the test crew to go ahead and use the Sparkle Process on that couple."

From somewhere else within the station came the squeal of a startled mare that was loud enough to probably crack granite. "AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE! Oh, that's cold!"

"Next! You, the orange pegasus with the filly on her head!"

Sunbean sighed in resignation, knowing the jig was up and that she would shortly have to burn her identity to make a run for it. Twilight would be so disappointed in her. Like a prisoner to their ritual pie-ing, she stepped up to the scanner with Surprise squee-ing on her back about how fun it appeared to be to go through the funny curtain thing. Screwing up her courage, Sunbeam stepped through.

In an instant, she could feel the field attacking her invisible horn, coating it as the field formed to her face. It was always hard stepping through an anti-magic field because of her raw power, and she struggled to get through it. Oddly, it was tightest around her flanks as she struggled through, dragging her slower and slower until she found herself getting stuck.

"What's with those readings?"

"I don't know sir, I think it's because her flanks are-"

Just a little more shoving and- Kerfwooosh-POP!

Smoke began to billow from the machine as she pushed her too-wide hips through the relatively flimsy arch and broke it. Flashing erratically, the little lights on top went nuts and beeped wildly as Surprise giddily laughed on her back. Breaking a little further, the machine fell apart onto her hindquarters as she struggled to free herself.

"You know, I'm pretty sure that's a no."

"Somebody send a cleanup crew before she breaks it more with her hips!"

Realy? Another fat comment, universe? Sunbeam growled as she tried to pull herself free, "Ah, horse-"

Author's Note

Celestia: I am NOT fat! Just... big.

Intermission 1.LUNA

Intermission 1.Luna

Luna Morningstar could be swayed physically. Moved emotionally. Perhaps even now broken mentally. But never would she back down on an oath, no matter how Celestia's captain vexed her so. She would likely break the seal upon her stomach and release it before much longer, however, if Stiff Resistance would not stop with the infernal swaying that she was subjecting her to. "Do you expect me to talk, Captain?"

"No, Princess! I expect you to slime. Your stubbornness is legendary, and no matter how much I ask you you I know that you shall not reveal the secret location to which your devious plan has dispatched Princess Celestia to." Stiff Resistance (now self-appointed 'Lady Protector of Canterlot') nodded to her henchponies manning The Lever. Saluting valiantly, they yanked it once more and sent Luna plunging six hooves down into the glowing lime green gelatinous anti-magic slime. "My only hope is that the gel will weaken your magic sufficiently enough to release her from your fiendish brainwashing spell!"

Luna coughed as she was lifted free and set to swinging once more. Her hooves burned with the tangy taste of lime; her fur clammily clung to her skin as it was weighed down by multiple coats of discoloring green. Burning lungs once more took a breath of air as she cleared her airways of the slime she had inadvertently inhaled in her most assuredly not panicked yelp. It was, after all, a warning to release her immediately or face her wrath. Luna raspily spoke as she coughed, wishing that she was not hogtied upside down within adamantite chains. "And if she convinced herself of her own accord that ponies were better off without her for a time?"

Gurrrgle-blorp! Oh, how she wished her stomach would cease its incessant griping. She was the Princess of the Night, not some poncy easily nauseated weakling like Cadenza or Sparkle!

"Impossible!" Stiff Resistance proclaimed with all due melodramatics. She stomped her hooves and paced around to Luna's backside to give her an unpredictable lurch in her random swings. "Our Princess loved us! Surely, she would not wish to willingly leave!"

Rolling her eyes, Luna began to scan the small chamber as the light of her moon began to slowly filter in through a series of windows sealed with iron bars on the eastern wall. Yet another mistake made, as the creatures of her night could see what she wished beneath the light of her moon. Tightly fitted black marble bricks lined the walls, the cracks between them filled with green moss. The subtle pattern of bronze and iron binding on the door along with the polished brass lock. The trail of glowing green hoofprints left by those stupid enough to walk in the puddles that lead to the door, and presumably down the halls.

Ameture foals, the lot of them. No idea of how to properly interrogate a prisoner or manage operational security on a black mission. Certainly, they were the best guards, engineers, and line soldiers; but that did not make for good special missions officers. They would fail miserably at most of her children's tasks, if the day guard's current poor showing was any indication. Torturing a prisoner through cruel and unusual punishment, however, they seem to have grasped completely by accident.

Moooan... The churning of her gut made Luna wish that they had not, though.

"A gift to you, then. Take it as you will. But, We Swear on Our Honor as a Morningstar, a Bearer of Honesty and our Loyalty to Equestria that we have no knowledge of our sister's current whereabouts, nor her current plans. We do believe that she may wish to teach sometime within the next year or two. So We Swear by Our Honor and Life." Luna solemnly said, placing a hoof upon her chest as proof of her seriousness.

Stiff Resistance's heavy hoofsteps seemed to grow a multitude of echoes as she clomped laps around Luna's new swimming hole. "Oh, but of course you don't right this second. You're using legal technicalities to keep your 'oath' without telling the actual truth." She turned back to Luna, bending down so that the now thoroughly green alicorn could look her in the eyes. "I know you. You cannot lie, so you omit the truth. Where is she going? Tell me on your word!"

Luna smiled, holding back a strangled choking sound as she swallowed back the bile trying to run down her throat. Stupid heavy breakfast. She made a few more calculations in her head, judging her location from the angle of light and the species of moss she knew they were subsurface; east facing in a Lunar Tower, most likely on the grounds. Bronze and brass fixtures meant it was likely in one of the first wave towers. Perfect. Nopony knew she had reclaimed most of them for her headquarters.

"Clever deductions, Captain of the Light. Thoust are indeed right, we do know more. But we know things thou doth not, and thoust hath not been nearly clever enough." Luna pulled her forehoof out once more and poked Resistance on the nose and held it there long enough to scruntch.

Resistance wrinked and flexed her nose as she hopped back, trying to escape the pungent smell of anti-magic gel that was launching a full frontal assault on her nasal cavity. She should have known better than to get close enough for the cheeky alicorn to boop her-....... Crap. "How in the hay did you get out of your bonds? Guards! Guards!" Nopony from outside answered her, while the small detail within the chamber nervously stepped away from the alicorn. ".... Guards?"

Luna gave her foe the world's best Pie-Eating grin before singing the verse that would end Stiff Resistance's carefully built little world. "Come now, my children, let us fly them away; take them into a land of dreams this day!"

The door splintered wide open beneath the frog of a size 15 combat boot while she sang and snaking tendrils of bluish magic coiled through the gap like writhing pythons to strike at the day guards before they could react. Each of them found themselves trapped within a cocoon of the Sweet Dreams spell, and swiftly swept off into a wondrous magical garden of the night within their dreaming minds. Stiff Resistance was tackled to the ground by five massive stallions in even more massive armor whose grasp nearly squished her as she went down kicking and screaming. "Traitors! Your miserable traitors!"

Luna calmly undid the locks of the chains and shackles with a cheating cheater's display of unicorn magic somehow being cast through her hooves. After mentally noting to ensure that she did so over solid ground the next time she was tied up so, she climbed back out of the gel pool while resisting the urge to shake off like a dog as she came up to her sister's captain. "We are no traitor, Captain. Aye, we have some knowledge of our sister's whereabouts. But, we honor our loyalty and oath to HER that we swore to keep our knowledge of her location hidden until she so wishes."

Stiff Resistance snarled at Luna from beneath her pony pile, wishing that the hoof over her mouth would move away so she could say what she really thought.

"We can read thy mind, Captain. Doth thou thinkest that WE wanted this? Nay, we argued with her long and hard against her mad notion, fighting her foalish self-image. Thou cannot imagine the argument that raged within her quarters. And thoust knoweth that we hate ruling as she did prefer. Thoust was there last year when our sister swapped duties with us for a day." Luna caressed the captain's cheek with a hoof before teleporting her guards away from Resistance so she could offer the well-intentioned captain a hoof up. "We wish for this madness to be done just as soon as thou doth. And while we swore not to reveal her location, we said nothing about assisting in a campeign to convince her to return. If thoust doth let us."

"Why are you speaking in old Equish? I thought you kicked the habit."

"We do slip into it when irritated enough to consider turning ponies into potatoes."

Ulp. "Um, how?"

"Did we escape? A magician must never reveal her secrets."

Stiff Resistance glowered up at her while fishing her helmet back up off the pavers to messily plant firmly back on her head. "So you'll help me. Just like that."

"Well, perhaps if thou had just ASKED us to start with instead of kidnapping us from a flash mob! Yes, we would have immediately helped thee." Luna stomped her hoof, splattering streamers of green slime all around as her coating slowly ran off. And immediately regretted it as the sound hit her ears. Uuurrgl.

"So, despite hating the whole idea yourself, you still accepted. Why?" Resistance picked herself up and slowly backed away from Luna, warily watching her as they both checked on their respective guards.

"Accept implies that we had a choice in the matter. Nay, avoiding Tia's will once she has made it up? What an excellent idea! Oh, wait!" Luna sarcastically replied to her self-proclaimed nemesis as she helped a guard up. "It would be as if a mortal pony tried to command the tides for me to do so. I should know, I move them each night."

"I take it that you have a plan, then?"

"Oh, yes. Share power, with the right to retake it should those I delegate it to be a bunch of dockheads? Oh, yes. Much preferable to the madness of having a personal hoof in nearly every affair of this country as Tia did."

"What."

Luna wriggled her rump and tail towards Stiff Resistance, taking care to show the little nub of her tail base. "The dock. You know, the name of the base of our tails, thus implying the part directly underneath it? I will unfortunately have to be immaculate in word and deed in public now. ugh. No more swearing, so I must come up with ways of doing so without doing so. Hmm, no wonder Tia ran away." Luna mused, tapping her chin for just a moment. She began her own laps of the room as she pondered, unaware of her surroundings and how close she was coming to the pool and its slippery edge.

"You know, I like the sound of that. Be polite, be efficient, and have a plan for every dockhead and situation one shall meet! I wonder if Twilight would be proud of the progress I've-aaah-aaah-aaaaaauuugaiiie!"

Without her attention focusing on the floor, Luna stepped onto a crooked old paver that sloped downwards into the pool. While that alone normally would not be enough to capsize her into the drink, her other three hooves were still slimed and slippery. Not even panicked flaps of her wings could save Luna from planting herself face first back into the pool. Her hind legs twitched as she struggled to right herself and sank deeper into the viscous gel. The Lunar and reawoken Solar Guards combined efforts took them almost half a minute to pull out an alicorn who was distinctly green in more than one way.

Stiff Resistance was not one to put a gift back and took the chance to gloat, ignoring the unusual gurgles and alarming churning noises coming from within Luna's barrel as she did. "Well, well. I guess pride goes WITH-"

Heeeeork! Urg! Gurrgh-BLOOOORGAH!

"-The fall." Resistance finished as Luna horked and hurled up her breakfast and lunch all over their necks and chests.

"Somepony get a mop!"

Luna whimpered, dry heaving as she pulled herself away from the sticky, cloying mess of slime using Stiff Resistance as a lever. Her Tummytopia had decided to secede from Happyland inside of her, and the war was continuing to rage upon the Esophagus Riverway. "Y-you realize that this insult shall be repaid in full, do you not?"

"Hey! I have your chunks blown all over me!"

"Repaid. In. Full."

"Just help me find my princess, and we'll forget this ever happened." Resistance shot back as she disgustingly dripped.

"Well, if- uuuurg- I have any guess in the matter, I would know one thing for certain. If she has any notions about staying uncaught, she shall not go to Ponyville. Only a stupid, foalish, dock-headed madmare would do something so incompetent as to go straight into the lair of her flighty and obsessive-compulsive former student who is almost certainly hunting down everypony she meets for random 'Celestia Checks' even as we speak."

Author's Note

Poor Luna, she gets no darn respect.

As for the other part, after mentioning it twice before I realized it would be a shame to set it up, even by accident and not exploit it. She'll be fine, so long as she never looks at Lime Jello ever again.

Or lime anything.

In fact, let's assume no jellos at all, or other green things.

Probably be fine...

1.5

1.5

"Ahh! Aaaaaaaahhhhh! AaaAAaauugh-CHOOOO!"

"Eeew, mommy! Look at the funny foamy rainbow colors she made!"

"Oh, ewww, ew! Here -ugh- have a hankerchief."

"Danke you..." Sunbeam replied through a foamy mouth and a stuffed up nose. Marble had yet to forgive her for using a rather nasty cuss word in front of her son and daughter in a moment of weakness. So, she had been given a soapstone to suck on after the train had departed the station, and the stupid thing had foamed up into a furious bitter lather almost immediately in her mouth. "Sniff. I don't know why I sneezed. Well, then again have you ever gotten the feeling that somepony who loves you quite a bit is insulting you behind your back hard enough to, uh... feel the 'burn' from across the world?"

Marble chuckled and helped wipe some of the foam off of Sunbeam's muzzle so she could use it to scrub at the icky mess Sunbeam had made of the window. "My husband works in Princess Celestia's Army Corps of Engineers. I get it All. The. Time. You get used to it. Or you start taking allergy medication." Marbled sighed as she remembered how much she had sneezed in Limestone's last trimester. Fun times. Fun times. She looked back to him, smiling softly at the way the poor colt had fallen asleep and was precociously snoring upside down, with a little trail of drool running down his face while his legs kicked in a dream-gallop.

She turned her smile upon Sunbeam, who had been similarly posed and asleep just moments before, and noticed the way the mare's ears had turned crimson. "Somepony talking about you again?"

Sunbeam embarrassedly nodded in a hurry, afraid to say anything. The train rocked back and forth a little as the brakes were gently applied, prompting her to look up from her pose and out of the window. "Where are we?"

"Ponyville."

"Ulp!"

"Oh, don't worry about it. My sister is going to meet us on the platform. And I'd like my soapstone back, pleas. If you hadn't fallen asleep with it, I would have asked for it back hours ago. At least, if you're done teaching impressionable fillies bad words, that is." Marble held out her hoof as the train gently slid to a halt outside of the station.

Ptoooie-ing out the stone, Sunbeam turned to the window and tried to peer through the half-cleaned mess she had made of it into the town. She had never seen this part of it from this angle, despite meaning to come by so often. She had just never had the time...

"Yeah, it's not much. Doesn't look like it's changed too much yet, even with the whole 'Princess Hometown' thing. But it'll be home for me now. Say, have you seen Surprise?"

Sunbeam looked around, realizing she had only heard her when waking up. "No, I haven't. Odd, where could she have gone? Should I look for her?" At Marble's headshake, she frowned. Taking the hankerchief, she tried to clean the window a little more while peering around the sleeper car cabin for the little yellow and white foal. "I hope she'll turn up, what is she up-"

Sploodge! "Heeeeeeeeereee's PINKIE!"

"Gyaaaaaaugh!" Screamed Marble.

"Aiiiiiieegh!" Sunbeam 'modestly yelped'.

"AaaaaaaaAAAUUUUGH!" They yelled together.

"Woooooooaaauugh!" Yelped Limestone as he first jolted awake then promptly fainted while rolling off onto the floor.

"Hehehehe..." Chuckled a completely innocent saddlebag in the corner.

Pinkie tried to peer through the dirty window, mushing her face against it until it almost resembled a pink pancake that somepony had morbidly iced frosting onto in the shape of a pony's features. Lucky for her, though, there was a nice little window washing tool on the column behind her that was made just for cleaning off sticky messes on train windows. Using her trademarked Super Pinkie Speed, she dashed over, Dashie'd back and stuck the tool through the tiny gap at the top of the window. Four squeezes of rubbery squeakiness against triple-tempered safety glass left the window clean and sparkling once again so she could gawk at them in peace.

Oooooooor, she could just squeeze through that itty-bitty tiny stupid little squeezy belly-squishy gap to see- POP!-them. Phweew, for a second she had been panicking in her mind as she thought Rarity had been right and that she needed a dreaded... gasp! Diet! "Heeello? Pinkie to Equestria! Pinkie calling Equestria? Has anypony and/or pony-shaped freaky quivery statue seen Surprise? About yea-high and fluffy? She's kinda not her and all- OOh! She's hiding! Why I bet she might be in this suspicious saddle-"

BANG! "Suuuurrrrrprrise!" The little pegasus popped out of Sunbeam's massive remaining saddlebag like a big white Pony-inna-Box as Pinkie opened it, bowling the earth pony over onto her back. Chanting, the little pegasus pranced with fanciness on Pinkies chest happily. "I got you, I got you!"

"Hehehehehe, yes you did! Hey, Marble, did'chya see?" Marble blinked lifelessly, still in the position of terror she had been in when Pinkie had all but scared the cutie marks off of her. The only sign of life besides her eyes were the heavy breaths she took each moment, and the way that her hooves ever so slightly quivered in place. Not even waving a hoof in front of her eyes seemed to do the trick. "Hmmm, tricky."

"Mommy! Stop that!"

"Don't worry, Surprise! Stand back, this is a job for a professional! Perky Party Prepping Pony Power Poke-" Sluuuuuuuuuurp! "-ACTIVATE!" Pinkie stuck her licked hoof into Marble's ear, making her sister hiss in shock and jump.

"Pinkie! You know what mother said about that!"

"Only that I should use my powers for good."

Marble started to yell something else at her insensitive sister when she felt the one thing she didn't want to. Her open saddle harness began to shift and shake as Rocky Road began to stir in his carry-all, sniffling and getting squirmy as he grew uncomfortable with the noise and motion. She struck like a cobra, scooping him up in a flash whilst ignoring the adoring coo of joy from her sister as she tried to calm him down. "It's okay, Rocky! It's okay. The big, mean Pinkie isn't going to hurt you!" All to no avail as her little one took the initiative and broke into loud and upset wails. "Oh, thanks, Pinkie!"

"Uh-oh! Uh-oh!" Pinkie dug into her mane and pulled out a pacifier-class packet of party supply #115 on instinct. She pressed the foreleg-sized bag into Surprise's hooves, then positioned herself so that Rocky would see her face when she got hit. "Surprise, quick! Hit me in the face with it!"

Marble rocked Rocky as soothingly as possible while gently sushing him. "Don't teach her a bad habit, Pinkie!"

"Works every time, trust me! Hit me!"

Surprise trusted, and swung with all of her might. The foreleg-sized bag of flour exploded in Pinkie's face along pre-prepared burst lines, comically blowing her mane back in a blast of fluffy-powdery fierceness. Pinkie opened her eyes again, coughing up a puff of white dust in the process. Rocky stopped crying instantly, curiously looking at the madmare who just exploded a bag with her face.

"Better stop crying, buster! I've got another bag of flour, and I'm not afraid to use it on myself!" Rocky immediately began to coo and giggle in his mother's forelegs, which only grew to happy squeals as Pinkie leaned in for the kill to tickle him and blow raspberries on his chest. "Looks like I've got a new 'Welcome to Ponyville' party to plan. Better make it a quiet one. How old is he?"

"Old enough to be trouble." Marble said with a smile as she bumped Pinkie out of the way to nuzzle her son's nose.

"Oooh! The best kind-! And who is THIS?" Sunbeam found herself shook back to her senses by Pinkie, who was hugging her around the neck inquisitively. Pinkie sniffed, and examined her mane, and analyzed Sunbeam in nearly every possible way as she tried to figure out why the strange orange pegasus was so familiar. "She's a conundrumy! I think I kinda-sorta recognize her; but my Pinkie Sense swears she's already had a 'Welcome to Ponyvile' party! But I've never seen her before, and I'd know if I had thrown one!" Pinkie shook Sunbeam a little more wildly for a moment as her exuberance knew no bounds.

Thinking quickly in her nervousness, Sunbeam rapidly put together any random old cover story as the pink predator circled her hungrily for a party. "Uh... um, I'm Sunbeam? I worked for Princess Celestia, and I'm here because she asked to do tutoring for Princess Twilight?" Sweating, she leaned and scooted back as Pinkie leaned in ever closer towards her face, speaking even faster. "I might um, maybe have come with Princess Celestia when Princess Luna came back? I probably met you then, if that's alright with you?"

Pinkie continued to close in on her, her eyes slowly narrowing as she moved inwards until they touched nose to scruntched nose because Sunbeam could lean back no more, muttering a 'hmmmm' darkly all the way. "OKAY!" The darkness that had slowly draped down upon Pinkie's face was blown away instantly by a powerful and bright cheerfulness that shone forth like a shining ray. "Soooo, what kind of 'Welcome to Ponyville' party do you want? Big? Open air, quiet, Canterlot Formal?" Pinkie yanked a pencil and a pink notebook out from her mane, along with a party pamphlet as she smushed up next to the big pegasus cheek to cheek.

The train rocked for a moment from something down the length of it being moved off. "All off!"

Surprise giggled and squished herself in between her auntie's legs to grab the packet even as Marble sighed in exasperation. "Pinkie..."

"It's a legitimate service!"

"Um, quiet. Informal. Minimum guests. I've been to too many Grang Galloping Galas for one life, I'm afraid."

Pinkie's ears wilted instantly at the mention of the gala. "You poor mare. You have my sympathy." She patted Sunbeam on the head patronizingly. "Only a few ponies, you said?"

"Just the schoolteachers.The princess too. And maybe a couple of foals. Ooh! I almost forgot, I want to meet Applejack, Rarity Belle, and Rainbow Dash!" Sunbeam chirped up as she remembered the names of the mares closest to the foals.

Pinkie paused as she thought through the list, wondering why it sounded so strange. "Waiiit, I thought you said you were teaching Twilight!"

"Teaching for her." The train rocked again as somepony moved freight. "She's taken on three fillies as potential students, and doesn't feel that she can teach them alone." Sunbeam quietly explained to Pinkie as a creepy sensation of fear began to grow in her. The worst part about it was the way that Pinkie mildly stiffened up beside her. Not good, the three had enough of a history to be concerning, even to Pinkie. Well, it might be a different set... "You might have heard of them? Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle?"

Pinkie began to nervously laugh, and pulled out a black notebook out. "Sooooooo, uh... what kind of funeral do you want scheduled for next week? Open casket? Wake? Maretonian Mourning Festival?"

Oh buck her life...

"Pinkie! Tact, Pinkie! What have we told you about tact!?" Marble angrily asked of her sister while rocking Rocky soothingly.

"Weeeeeellll, my friend Rarity said she was going to frou-frou me to death if I didn't learn tack'd, but I dont know why you and Rares want to teach me about bondage gear..." Pinkie cheerfully replied to her sister while disengaging from Sunbeam.

Marble growled as she felt tiny bits of her molars being ground off from the clenching of her jaws. Hoof met face and crushingly rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as she tried to figure out why she liked Pinkie so much. "Surprise, take Limestone and go ahead to the platform, we'll catch up."

"Kay!"

Marble waited as Surprise dragged Limestone away by his tail out of the car. She growled once more and picked up where she left off. "TACT, Pinkie! Not tack! With a 'T'! Not the bucking bondage art, the art of not insulting and scaring other ponies entirely by accident!" Marble waddled over and pulled a rolled up newspaper out of her other saddleback, smacking her sister upside the head lightly with the dense paper.

Pinkie pondered as things finally started to make sense. "OooooOOooh. That would explain why Rarity said it after I gave Fluttershy the squeaks after crawling up the wall. It normally makes ponies laugh, but it is pretty scary to her... Oh yeah, mouthwash check!"

Marble started to say something, then angrily stuffed her soapstone into her own mouth and grumbled around the foam as Pinkie and Sunbeam giggled at her.

"ALL ABOARD!"

"Oh you've got to be bucking kidding me." Marble grumbled. Sunbeam concurred. It was going to be a long week. As soon as they made a run for it.

Author's Note

Heeeeerreeeee's PINKIE! *Menacingly busts a hole in a door and looks through it.*

2.1

2.1

The dirt roads outside of Ponyville were normally quite peaceful, perfect avenues for self-introspecting walks. For others, the broad paths and properly graded slopes made it easy to transport goods to and fro from the farms that surrounded the still relatively sleepy hamlet. But for a certain trio...

"My wings burn with an Awesome Power! It tells me to be the coolest pony ever! Shining Scootaloo AIR SURF!" Miniscule orange wings flapped hard enough to be easily mistaken for a pair of industrial fans as their owner aimed for the center of the road and the perfect launch point there. Newly improved wheels slid frictionlessly around four axels as the new Cutie Cart 2.Awesome speed up even faster for Scootaloo. Roaring up the hill at speeds better reserved for Rainbow Dash, the wagon launched into the air like a cutie mark escaping the crusaders.

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle clung to each other in terror as Scootaloo fought to keep the wagon airborn. Even with the seatbelts that they had wrapped around themselves like the bandages of a mummy, the odd sense of being semi-weightless still scared off their non-existent marks off of them. "Scootaloo, stop it! Ah'm gonna be sick!" Applebloom wailed as began to float in her seat as they slowly descended towards the dirt distressingly far below.

Scootaloo didn't pay any attention as she gritted her teeth against the ache of buzzing her wings hard enough to make them look like a continuous orange blur. She couldn't let up her focus as she felt her pegasus magic kicking in as it so rarely did. Manic glee slowly stretched her smile into a challenging rictus grin of defiance against gravity as she felt the air currents bending to her will, bouying her from below as she focused, focused....

"Scootaloo! Watch out for that hill!" Sweetie yelped, snapping Scootaloo out of her trance just in time to pull up for the terrain looming before them. The old cutie wagon, that old rickety scooter and cart-trailer would have just folded up on them instead of swinging smoothly like the new one-piece did for Scootaloo as the ground rushed up beneath them.

Rubber treaded wheels impacted against dirt road, flexing and bending beneath three fillies. Magically enchanted suspension springs drew from the frantic occupants magic to dampen their motion without hazardous g-forces, dispersing energy as a harmless light show of magic sparks from the sides. Two fillies squealed in terror as the third shouted with insuppressible excitement as the wagon fully set down and sped off under Scootaloo's power.

She cheered as she angled the wagon for the next hill and sped up to jump them into the air once more. "This is TOTALLY AWESOME!"
"This totally calls for an adult, Scootaloo!" Sweetie retorted.

Purple flashed, and a particularly unkempt and wildly disheveled lavender alicorn popped into the airspace above them. "Hiiii, girls!" Twilight's smile was hard-pressed and tight as her pinprick focused eyes fixated on the new wagon and the three fillies within.

All three screamed in horror. "Not that kind of adult!" Applebloom yelped as the Cutie Cart crashed back down to the dirt road as the sudden change distracted Scootaloo.

Twilight swooped in and landed in the front half of the spacious new semi-enclosed wagon bed with a hard-earned ease. Panting, she tried to calm herself down from the twitchy state she was in. The crusaders in the back edged as way as she forced herself through breathing exercise after breathing exercise in order to forcibly control her emotional state and outward appearance. Wind rolled in around her from Scootaloo's dusty backwash, blowing her mane into a whipping cloud of hair. She opened her eyes again, revealing her pupils slowly returning to a more relaxed state as she clamped down on the endless worries running through her mind. "No, girls. No I am not alright."

"We kinda guessed that." Sweetie said as she reached into the underseat compartment beneath Applebloom and handed Twilight an adult-sized unicorn helmet. The tune of courage she hummed to herself as she did seemed to relax everypony once more and let them focus, even as Twilight seemed to weird out again.

"So, uh... ya' got yerself a reason fer scaring the apple dumplings out of us again looking like that, Miss Twilight?"

"Oh! I found a tutor for the three of you!" Twilight proclaimed unnessecarily grandly. Her wings spread with her statement, letting the wind rush up under them to nearly snatch her out of her seat. Only the seatbelt Applebloom had buckled onto her stopped her, if only just barely. "Oof! Oooow."

"Uh, Ah hope that's not the reason yer all..." Applebloom made a wiggy face and wiggled her hooves like her sister trying to be scary. "Wait, are ya not going to have Twilight Time with us no more?"

"What!? NO! I just need some more help, that's all."

Scootaloo grumbled under her breath as she leaned forward into her handlebars and as Sweet Apple Acres appeared atop a hill in the distance as they climbed the latest slope. "In more ways than one."

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

"But,,, why do you need help? It's not like we're special or anything. We're just three fillies who are so talentless that we can't even find our dumb cutie marks..." Sweetie's head drooped low as she reminded herself of how her sister was always showing her up without even trying. The crusader's failures were numerous, and their successes could probably be counted on one pony's hooves even counting the Cutie Cart. But she wasn't allowed to wallow in the soft dirge for her future playing inside her heart for long as a purple hoof cupped her chin and lifted her up.

Twilight could still feel the adrenaline and wild panic rushing through her, but nearly four years of friendship had taught her exactly what to say as she looked into Sweetie's eyes. "I might be a little crazy right now worrying over Princess Celestia, but that is the craziest thing I have ever heard. You three ARE special, special enough that I decided that I would hurt you three by trying to teach you alone and went to Princess Celestia for help." Twilight's eyes twitched and her mane refrazzled at the thought of her errant mentor. Keep it together, Twilight. Keep it tooo-gether! "And she personally dispatched my old favorite and second-best teacher to help me train the three of you!"

Applebloom looked to Twilight. "What has ya worried about the Princess?"

"Wait, what!? Princess Celestia knows about ME? I can't even- whooooaaaah!" Scootaloo swerved as she nearly ran them off the road and into a creek.

"Pay attention and stay on the road, Scoots? Ah know it's hard but-"

"Shut up." Scootaloo grumbled as she clung to the odd body of her new scooter and recentered them on the road.

"GIRLS! Do I really need to help you solve a friendship problem?" Twilight nodded happily as the trio shook their heads weakly, ignoring their pale coats and widened eyes. Her reputation could be so inconveniencing sometimes, but it did come in handy. "Now then, as I attempted to say earlier, Princess Celestia and I think that your Cutie Marks haven't appeared because your magic may be very different from other ponies of your races." She finished, letting the trio relax as her information dumped into their heads provided them with the painfully tiny amount of knowledge that she knew of their conditions.

"Wait, yer not saying we're weird, are ya?" Applebloom cautiously asked.

"What? Oh. No." Twilight hastily corrected as she was given Applebloom's toughest look. "Well, yes. But like Pinkie on one of her best days! Your magic just doesn't seem to follow the rules that everypony else's does!"

"What do you mean? I'm not Pinkie!" Scootaloo shot back with indignation as she leaned into the final curve on her scooter.

"Uuuum... you are sort of like her, but with minimal resemblance to her crazy?" Twilight vaguely responded as they turned off the road and onto Sweet Apple Acres. Ugh, just thinking about them made her mind unravel at the seams at just how off standard they were, and the teeny tiny amount of research done into the various magical conditions that could exist. "It's really hard to explain what's going on with you three, even to experts. I could try, but I'm afraid I would just confuse you and make your heads hurt. It does for me."

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the evasion as she wove the big new cart through the trees. The red painted and chrome trimmed monster-wagon was big enough to fit six full-sized ponies like apples in a barrel in an emergency and still have room left over for foals if something big and scary was going down. Problem was, being that big had forced them to come up with all sorts of crazy new things to let her control it, but it was still big and heavy. Just her little speed spree from Sweetie Belle's house to the farm had really worn her out, and she nearly clipped several of the trees on the way in. "Right. Whatever, we're here."

"So... that can't be what's got ya all... "Applebloom gave her best impression of Twilight's 'Total PANIC' face. Sweetie giggled at her friend's antics, and Twilight grimaced while she zapped her mane with magic just to be sure it wasn't giving away her inner turmoil.

"No... no. That news is great! I get to see Sunbeam again, I get to do Science, and also help three wonderful fillies. I get to do, um... princessy.... stuff. Yeah. That's all great news." Twilight quickly ranted as she put herself back in order and wondered mentally why her friends had let her wander in a daze out onto the street. Again. She needed supervision in that state, darnit! "But, I don't think you've heard, but Princess Celestia has given nearly all of her powers and responsibilities to Princess Luna and disappeared and nopony can find her or figure out why she left and I just don't know what to DO!"

"She WHAT?" Scootaloo yelped, shortly before yelping for real as the shock of the revelation made her wings buzz far harder than normal. Her hooves, slick with sweat, couldn't hold onto the handlebars or the hindhoof rests and she found herself flying over her handlebars. Her involuntary experiment in ballistic physics came to a short and unsatisfying conclusion as Lady Gravity disputed the results of her test and pulled her down to a crash in front of her scooter. She had no time to roll out of the way before it ran her over with two pairs of thumps, leaving paired tire tracks on her helmet and back as it passed. "Ooooooooooooooooow."

"Scootaloo!" Twilight teleported out of the coasting wagon straight to the injured filly's side, only to be shocked by the sight of her climbing back to her hooves as she did. "Are you alright? You just-"

"Stupid scooter ran over me, yeah. Yeah, I know. Please tell me it didn't leave tracks." Scootaloo said as she finished picking herself. Turning around didn't help her inspect herself, as she soon came to remember from the way her balance left the district and the fact that she could never quite see around to her flank to see her cutie mark. With a sigh, she took off her helmet as the idea struck her, then moaned as she saw the tracks on it. "Aww, man...."

"You just got run over, and you're more concerned about tire tracks on your back?" Twilight all but yelled as her mind tried to figure out what exactly was wrong with Scootaloo.

"Yeah. Mrs. Gladly doesn't like it when I do awesome stuff that gets me hurt. She says it sets a bad example for the other foals at the orphanage, and I get sent to bed with a sore butt." Scootaloo wriggled her rump, already feeling the phantom pains of a short spanking. Nothing major, just a show set of smacks for the younger foals. Oh well, at least she knew that she needed something to keep her on her new scooter now. "Besides, you're worrying too much about Princess Celestia. Princess Luna's gotten pretty good at that whole 'Responsible Adult acting Responsibly' thing."

"Wha-?" Twilight found herself honestly lost at whatever they were trying to say.

"Yeah!" Sweetie squeaked as she hopped off. "She even helped me keep from ruining Rarity's reputation. And stuff." Why did anything good she had done or experience come back to her stupid sister? "And she set Scootaloo up as Rainbow Dash's 'Apprentice of Awesomeness'. Or something." She tossed her helmet into the wagon as she looked over to her winged friend in worry. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out how to clean her friend up so she could have cookies and crumpets. And stuff. Stuff was important. Rubber was hard to get out of fur, though.

"Yeah, Ah ain't given her cause to help out like mah two friends here, but Ah know Princess Celestia is responsible and mature-like. She wouldn't hoof over power unless she was sure her sister could take it." Applebloom joined the rest of them on the ground, giving the cart a stink eye as the suspension creaked. Scootaloo's newfangled stuff was starting to get on her nerves sometimes. Trotting over, she slid up alongside Scootaloo and thwacked her on the back hard enough to drop her to her belly. The dust and dark marks puffed clear in a great cloud all around them.

Twilight grumbled to herself, looking cross. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." Why did everypony have to be reasonable, instead of helping her to maintain her totally justifiable panic?

"Annnnyway, moving on, when are we going to meet this teacher?" Sweetie Belle asked as she stepped over to the barn doors and started to open them.

Confetti exploded out from the upper loft of the main Sweet Apple Acres barn above her, scaring her senseless as Pinkie swung out on a platform suspended from the hoist. Granny Smith leaned out of the house door and shook a hoof at Pinkie as she watched the colorful streamers drift everywhere and make a mess. Pinking paid no mind, gesturing with a hoof to the group as a whole. "Right now!"

2.2

Examination 2.2

Everypony was there. Okay, if 'everypony' counted the Crusader's families and teachers. But all of them were in attendance. Why, Rarity had even managed to remove her parent's tacky clothes for the occasion, rendering them naked but presentable for once. Though her mother was ever so slightly dyed with a rather disturbing shade of green and shivering for some odd reason.

Oh, and Pinkie's sister and her family were there too. They were fun.

"Awwww..." Sweetie kept herself just low enough compared to the table so that Rocky Road could just barely see her eyes peeking over the level of the table. The giggling foal reached for Sweetie Belle, giggling and burbling happily as he tried to grab her horn to suck on.

"Cweam! Cweam!" Rocky babbled as he waved his finely dappled legs at Sweetie.

"Ice Cream?" Sweetie asked, letting her surprise escape confinement as Rocky nodded hard enough to fall over. The vanilla and chocolate colored foal giggled and sat back up closer to Sweetie, once more trying to grab onto and suck her horn as he did. "Okay, I guess a little." Rocky pouted and whined. "A lot?" The mischievous foal filled himself with escaping giggles once more.

"Or a none, you little scamp." Marble said as she crept up beside Sweetie and joined her in just barely looking over the surface of the table. Rocky took one look at her eyebrows of frowny doom and pouted, crossing his forelegs. "Don't you pout at me. You're cute enough to fool her with your sorcerous ways, but we both know that you want it just so you can smear it all over yourself and force me to give you a bath."

"Bawh! Bawh!" Rocky gurgled, instantly cheering up. Little stinker.

"Wait..." Sweetie Belle climbed down and sat down beside the table. "I though foals that young hate baths..." Sweetie said, watching the foal and his mother playing.

"He gets it from his father. I fell in love with that big, squishy.... ooh, that irritatingly suave galumph of a stallion over the way he'd play in the mud fields and marshes building roads and bridges before he'd drag me into the tub with him for 'enhanced cleanliness techniques.' He he." Marble said, breaking down into girlish giggles at the end. Rocky made gagging motions as he tried to figure out what his mom was saying, before getting sick of it and frowning while sticking his tongue out. Marble replied in kind, adding a raspberry to her own. Rocky replied once more with an even more impressive one, only for Marble to cut to the chase and snatch him off of the table. The foal never stood a chance against his natural predator, the mother, no matter how much he waved his hooves to ward her off. Ravenously, she dipped her muzzle to his soft and baby-fat coated belly before mercilessly blowing raspberries directly into his belly-button.

Sweetie smiled and backed away slowly, letting mother and foal play. Why didn't her mom play with her like that instead of leaving her with Rarity half the time? Heck, the only reason she and her dad had showed up was because Pinkie had to drag them in so they could talk about whatever stupid teachy stuff was going to be taught to her.

Looking around was a big fat waste of time, too. Sure, there was Scootaloo and Surprise having a wing buzzing contest, and Applebloom was having some kind of argument with Limestone, but her sister was too busy being a bigshot and talking with all of her friends and some stupid orange pegasus from Canterlot. Where was the teacher they were getting, anyway. At least with her she could talk about the future with. Stupid adults. Stupid business. Stupid party. How in the hay did Pinkie make a party that was..... boring.

"You know, for somepony who has had as many stories told about them as you, you aren't nearly as larger than life in person, Sweetie Belle." The nearly golden voice instantly lifted Sweetie's spirits. It was infused with a loving warmth that flowed into her and through her upon a motherly tone of patience that seemed willing to forgive anything. A hot hoof began to slowly stroke her back just in the right spot to soothe her as the voice talked.

Sweetie opened her eyes back up from her introspection and looked over. And up, and up into the eyes of the mysterious mare who had just been giggling with her sister. The tips of the big pegasus's flowing mane and tail quivered in a nonexistent breeze, or maybe just all the little movements her body made. The mane draped down past her long neck and massive barrel to flow over her wing and tickle at Sweetie's back. More striking were her eyes. The eyes of a grandmother, almost. She spoke again, standing there beside Sweetie. "If you want, I can babble until you want to talk. A great many ponies say that I'm good at that."

"W-who are you?"

"Sunbeam Daffodil Flora. But let's just stick with Sunbeam, it makes the brain hurt less trying to remember it. I'm your new teacher. It should be interesting to teach somepony whom my prize student recommended that I teach." Sunbeam gave Sweetie a smile wide enough to squeak.

"Ummm... Sweetie Belle. But you knew that, I think?" The little unicorn hesitantly offered in return, declining the offered wing. A pegasus? Teaching magic? That didn't make any sense at all. She looked to Sunbeam's cutie mark and stared for a bit as she realized a whole lot like Princess Celestia's sunburst. But with a strange little smiley face drawn on the sun.

Sunbeam followed Sweetie's gaze to her hindquarters, and her ears dropped with worry. "Is there something wrong with my cutie mark?"

"Yeah. Uh, it kinda looks like the Princess's. You're not the Princess, right?" Sweetie put on her mental detective hat on, humming a tune of espion- espio- spying that she had heard in one of the serials she had seen at the local theater.

"What? No! It looks similar because, uh, it roughly means the same thing?" Sunbeam spoke quickly after shaking her head rapidly, trying to assuage Sweetie's curiosity. "Princess Celestia's mark doesn't directly mean that her special talent is raising the sun! Her cutie mark actually means that she acts as a beacon for other ponies and beings to follow her example, and as a guiding light to help them grow." She winced at the babble coming out of her mouth. Babbling wasn't supposed to happen.

"Oh. That sounds pretty reasonable." Sweetie Belle perked up and dropped her suspicious looks as she satisfied herself with that answer. Cheerilee's cutie was sort of the same thing. Of course.... "Uh, that still doesn't explain why Twilight asked for you instead of a unicorn. I- uh... don't mean to be rude, but- uh..."

"I have my ways. Most of my tricks I'll show you while teaching you. I helped Twilight through a great many of the basics and some of the advanced work. But, in your case whether or not I know the basics and can teach them to you is entirely irrelevant to your further magical study."

"W-what?" Sweetie turned paler as she began to imagine that she had already gotten as strong as she possibly could.

Sunbeam facehoofed hard enough for it to hurt. "What I mean to say," She began through her hoof ", Is that whether or not my suspicious, Twilight's suspicions, and Princess Celestia's theories are correct or not, you still are learning and using magic in a way that is entirely different from normal and I cannot teach you in the same way that I taught Twilight." Sunbeam explained. Reaching out with a wing, she stroked Sweetie on the back wit hit, prompting the young filly to snuggle into it.

"I don't wanna be different. I just want to be normal and have my stupid cutie mark already." Sweetie depressedly pouted as she let herself be slowly shifted up against Sunbeam as the great pegasus laid herself down. Each breath escaped her in a huff of indignation over the fact that she had to be 'different' and 'special'. Stupid overused words. Stupid expectations. Stupid adults. She wasn't 'special', she was just Rarity's dumb little sister, and that was all... she was ever going to be.

One of Sunbeam's big and fluffy hooves slowly lowered itself down to stroke down the center of Sweetie's back. "Being different IS normal. Look at me, I got all of my alfalfa growing up and nowadays if I wear a fake horn I could be mistaken for Princess Celestia at a distance!"

Sweetie Belle harrumphed a little, setting her tired head down onto her crossed forelegs. She wasn't interested in stuff like that, or the way her mom seemed to be halfway dyed to lime green, or any of that other stupid stuff.

Sunbeam frowned, ever so slightly. The warmth emminating from her grew a little stronger as she snuggled up closer to Sweetie Belle to get her to pay attention. "And Sweetie Belle? Cutie marks aren't 'normal'. They tell other ponies that you ARE different, that you ARE special, and how you're different and special. I'm like C- Princess Celestia, but I'm more cheerful and use that. Twilight shares the core of her cutie mark with her brother, but Twilight's mark shows how she connects everypony together through magic and friendship while her brother's shows his need to protect everypony around him."

Sweetie grumbled more, incoherently as she glared over her hooves. Sunbeam carefully tweaked her horn with a hoof, trying to get the reluctant foal to face her. "G'way. Not done being unspecial yet." Sweetie turned her head away, aggressively sighing.

Sunbeam's gaze turned to follow Sweetie's, then turned back the other way when she realized that Sweetie was deliberately staring at a blank wall. Ah, much better. Rarity was nearly dead center of where her younger sister's gaze would otherwise naturally wander to. She suspected that that explained a great deal. "Is your sister Rarity unintentionally showing you up all of the time without even realizing it or trying and making you sick of getting compa-"

"YEEEEEEEEES!"

Every head in the building turned to Sweetie Belle, who turned crimson red and shimmied under Sunbeam's offered wing until she couldn't be seen anymore. Mouthing 'later' to Twilight, Sunbeam carefully consoled the filly with rubs as she quietly broke down.

"Yes. I thought it would get better after Princess Luna saved me from ruining her life." Sunbeam confusedly smiled at the mention of the lunar diarch. Something that she hadn't been told about... "But she keeps on doing it and making me look bad next to her. And she's not even trying to, that's the worst part. She just wants to be a good big sister and- and-" Sweetie Belle slowly broke down into choked breathing as she let out the tension. Her little hooves clutched and dug into the hay-covered ground as her fears of always being no more than 'Rarity's little sister' ran through her mind.

She was so engrossed in that pitiful state that she didn't even notice as Sunbeam's Wing slowly rose from her. Nor did she notice the three sets of hooves delicately wrapping around her into a hug. No, not until a pair of hot tears dripped down onto her forehead did she look up to see her sister's worried face just above her head. Her two closest friends tightened their pony-pile hug, nearly crushing the life out of her as Rarity let Sweetie rest her head on her shoulder.

"I-I didn't know, Sweetie Belle."

"I know. You just wanted to help."

"Rather mucked it up again, didn't I?"

"It's my fault for not telling you."

"No, my fault for not asking you."

"No, it's my fault for-"

"Stopping this here!" Sunbeam loudly proclaimed to break up the impending sisterly squabble. "You aren't just 'Rarity's little sister', little one. You ARE special, perhaps enough that you will shadow Rarity as she has shadowed you." Her wing carefully wiped away the small streaks on Sweetie Belle's face before squeezing the entire group close to her side. "There is something in you, something so wonderful and powerful that it made Princess Twilight ask for help from Princess Celestia. That is the biggest reason why I am here. Besides examining all three of you to help her find the optimal lesson plan, that is."

Scootaloo stopped in horror, looking up from her friend. "Wait. Exam? Like a test?"

"Yes?" Sunbeam tentatively answered, wondering if she should ask for medical help with the way that Scootaloo started to suddenly tremble.

"Tomorrow? The field trip day to the Crystal Empire?!"

"Yes, I think?"

"NoooooooooooOOOO-mmph!" Scootaloo was hushed by Applebloom shoving both of her hooves in the little pegasus's mouth to keep her keening wail of horror muffled.

"Okay, okay, we get it! Is there any way ya could push it back or something?"

Sunbeam frowned. She didn't really want to push back examining the trio, but it couldn't hurt, could it? She did need time to unpack and settle in, and some Twilight time to make plans for teaching the trio regardless. She shrugged, not seeing much reason at all. "Well, I don't see why not. Events do seem to follow a pattern in Equestria nowadays, and being just a little over a week after the Equestrian Games, I don't see any major crisis popping up that will cause problems. Is that alright with you, Princess Twilight?"

Twilight jerked upright on the other side of the room, looking a little panicky. "Yes, yes! My library, next week?"

"Sure. See? Nothing to worry about." Sunbeam said, worridly watching as Twilight twitched a little. "Okay, maybe a little. I should probably talk to her about that this week." She turned back to the foals, putting a smile on for them. "No, I think we'll be just fine. It isn't like Tirek will rise from Tartarus or something else as dramatic as that so close to the Equestrian Games."

1 Week Later....

Sunbeam stood at the former site of Twilight's old home, which still smoldered underground despite two days of firefighting efforts. 'Not like Tirek will rise from Tartarus' her big, plush tushie! "So... do things like this happen often around here?"

"Sorta. Kinda. You know, I have no idea anymore." Scootaloo forlornly said as she looked over the handlebars of her original scooter into the crater carved into the landscape.

"Eh, sorta. Just normally not this big." Applebloom answered, poking at the lip of the crater. "Ponyville likes to screw with ya like that. At least Twilight got a new home out of it. Ah don't think anypony in town could take Twilight sleeping on their couch for more than a day."

"Yeah! I actually kind of like it. It's like a big... fortressy... thingie... of- I dunno, friendship?" Sweetie slowly worked out. All three of them stopped what they were doing as the realization of what they could do struck them.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, FORTRESS OF FRIENDSHIP HOUSEWARMERS! YEAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

Oh sweet tree, this was going to be bad!

Author's Note

Concussions are bad, m'kay? They make your head all funny. Don't get a concussion, kiddo. They make story come slow.

2.3

Examination 2.3

Once more, the currently somewhat blasted and pock-marked roads of Ponyville were filled with the terror buzz of tiny wings and the rickety crashing and creaking of a wagon well past the point that it should have been retired. Scootaloo slalomed through the remains of Luna's last stand against Tirek, having completely forgotten about slowing down for their new teacher they had left behind. Ponyville had suffered worse in recent history, and everypony had escaped the mad fight just fine. Already, the sounds of reconstruction filled the air with a hammer chorus of building.

Sunbeam winced with each ache of her cracked ribs and fractured wing as she chased the crusaders through the improvised maze that reconstruction efforts had turned Ponyville into. Taking that hit for Twilight had been the right thing to do and gave her former student enough time to talk Discord back over to their side, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt! And she still didn't know how to explain to Twilight how a 'normal' pegasus took a hit that should have vaporized any 'normal' pony...

Wincing away, she couldn't watch as Scootaloo hopped the old Cutie Wagon off of a ramp and up and over a new sewer pipe being laid down for the town. It had been one bay-burning, mountain-cracking, river-shifting throwdown of epic proportions. And it had at least shut up most ponies over the legitimacy of Luna's rule. "Girls, Slow DOWN!" Boy, it had been terrifying fun.

Scootaloo skidded to a halt outside of the main gate of Twilight's pal- 'Fortress of Friendship' in a cloud of dust and pebbles. Her venerable old scooter rattled loosely as she stepped off of it and hung her aerodynamic new helmet on the handlebars. "So, does anypony know how to get Twilight's attention when she's way up there?" She looked up to the lower levels of the building high above, hanging at least ten stories up in the lower branches of the crystal tree it was built and grown into.

"Ah think Ah know just the way to get her attention." Applebloom started taking deep breaths as she threw her helmet off. "Just cover yer ears and cheer with me. Ya'll know when." One deeper breath, and.... "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, CRAZY TROUBLEMAKERS!"

"Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

Twilight popped back into reality several hooves over their heads with a yelp and a crackle of energy that sparked off of her horn. Her wings flapped wildly as she realized that the grand nemesis of flighted ponies everywhere, Mistress Gravity, had yet to take notice of her antics after sleeping in from overworking herself tearing down broken mountains in The Last Stand. A state of affairs that was quickly put back into order, and put Twilight on the ground.

"Geee, um... Ponyfeathers. Sorry 'bout that there, Princess. We just didn't know how to get ahold of you up there." Applebloom sheepishly said as the trio rushed to help Twilight back up to her hooves.

A groan of pain answered her. It was a valid response to a gravity-induced meeting in Twilight's Grand Guide of Social Etique! Little hooves helped her as Sunbeam ran up to them from behind, panting and wheezing. The elder mare slumped onto the Crusader Wagon in a huff of exhaustion and depleted magic. "You girls move... huff... gasp.... pretty fast."

"Weeeelll, I spent a few years practicing." Scootaloo instantly drawled back as she got underneath Twilight and pushed the aching alicorn upright with her back and wings. "I'm not even as strong as that Zipporwhil kid."

Sunbeam snorted. "Just so you know, I don't know if you know yet, but landings like that never stop hurting." She panted to Twilight before trying to push off of the wagon and get back upright. Under 500 pounds of heavily built mare, it stood little chance and splintered with a squeak of shearing metal. "Oh, no."

Applebloom sighed, and didn't even look back. "Don't worry yerself. That wagon was gonna die soon anyway." Twilight shuddered beside her as another faint current of overcharged magic ran over the alicorn's horn. "Ya okay, Princess?"

"Don't call me that. Please don't call me that. After Tirek, it isn't so endearing." Twilight instinctively yelped as another jolt lifted her up into the air up for a moment, startling the trio. Sunbeam's concerned look went unnoticed behind them. "I mean ugh! I wish Princ- Celestia was here. I need a plan for dealing with the magic she left with me before it gets more out of hoof. I don't know if I can help you girls at the moment. Just because I've just gotten a castle-"

"Fortress of Friendship!" Scootaloo yelled, startling everypony. Twilight's overcharged magic surged once again, bursting from her from her horn in a sunset mixed blast of light as she unintentionally teleported herself and her audience onto the main landing balcony of the Fortress of Friendship. "Whoa!.... Do it again!"

"Let's not, and just mark it down on the checklist that we did, instead." Twilight babbled before licking a hoof and putting out the smoldering tip of her horn. A realization struck her as she saw her strung-out state reflected in the facets of her home and the eyes of her audience, and she once more slowly worked through her breathing exercises. Her wings drooped from their twitching and erect state to fall to her sides limply as she sighed a moan of relief. "Look, just... I'm only 'Princess' when Council is in session, okay? I can't be the Princess of Friendship if everypony is bowing and scraping to me. No titles, and no special treatment for me, can you do that?"

The Cutie Mark Crusaders nodded together while Sunbeam slyly smiled and took on her sappiest, sweetest, most irritating tone of voice that she could. "Oh, of course, your worshipfulness."

"Hey!"

"Yes, your friendshippiness?"

"You're just doing that to annoy me?"

"And break the tension, yes."

"Stop it!"

Sunbeam smiled challengingly. "Make m-mmph!"

The crusaders backed away slowly as Twilight sighed and carefully set Sunbeam's magically disconnected mouth on the ground. The elder mare glared and muffledly cursed her former student, snorting as she frowned in irritation. Twilight gasped as she realized how badly she had freaked her students out, and tried to slide the mouth out of sight. "What? She told me to make her stop!"

"Right, uh... Ah don't think that's what she meant, Twilight." Applebloom nervously began. "So, uh, are our e-val-unations still on?" If it wasn't for the fact that it was somepony's mouth on the ground, seeing it pout like that would have been pretty funny to her.

"Oh! Sigh, I did promise, didn't I? And I can't put it off, either. Sunbeam came because I asked her to. I shouldn't break my promise to you four just because I'm not done moving in. C'mon girls, I think I have just the room for what we need." Twilight cursed the utter destruction of her schedule caused by the chaos of the attack. She let Sunbeam sneak behind her to pick up her mouth again, smirking a little as the pegasus tried to fit it back onto face as the crusaders filed through the archway into the upper foyer. It was pretty funny to watch the way that her eyebrows danced in frustration.

"Don't you think you should give her mouth back, Twilight?" Sweetie asked as they trotted into the dark hallway beyond the foyer. The windows weren't in a good position to pick up the noonday sun, and didn't provide much of the outside illumination for the group of ponies. "I know she's being mean to you, but... Trixie took Pinkie's mouth, and it wasn't fun then."

Twilight's smile slowly drooped as she realized she was taking her frustrations out on Sunbeam, her ears falling flat to join the depressed corners of her mouth in shame shortly afterwards. Her sun-streaked magenta magic took Sunbeam's mouth from her grasp and gently pressed it home firmly, and fused it back into place. Mind you, her relief at putting things right went sour fairly quickly when the first thing the pegasus did was stick her tongue out at her. So she stuck her tongue out right back at her. Only fair, right?

Sunbeam picked up the corners of her mouth with her wingtips and started making noises at Twilight. "Nyeaaah!"

"Nyeaaah-Nyeah!" Twilight slobbered back as she assumed the same pose and upped the ante.

"GIRLS!" Scootaloo shouted in frustration from beside the door. "What are you, two?"

Sunbeam made a show of having to think it over. Not that she had to, of couse. Nodding firmly, she quipped back with a vengeance. "Yup. One." She pointed at Twilight, who rolled her eyes. "Two." She pointed at herself. "There are two of us, therefore we are two and two is us." Literal logic was useful for playing with somepony's mind. She waited patiently as Twilight opened the door deeper into the pal- Fortress of Friendship, loving the way that she had wound up the alicorn enough that she was mocking her under her breath.

"Ever wonder why I'm so Cra-ZY? Just look at her." Twilight most certainly didn't pout in an un-princessly manner.

"Well, couldn't you two grow up, or something?" Scootaloo sarcastically asked as they stepped into the big central ring corridor around the Fortress.

Sunbeam snapped back with a worried look on her face. "Don't ask somepony to grow up. It's the worst fate anypony can endure. Sort of. I wish I had never grown up, or made Her Fluffiness here grow up." Sunbeam ruffled Twilight's mane, ducking the swat from the alicorn's wings.

"Yes, Princess Celestia asked me to grow up."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but the Princess was a big butthead on this one, trust me. Especially the way that she left. You know, I just realized that she probably left because she figured that out." Sunbeam countered a little too snappily, leaving Twilight spluttering incoherently. She sighed, and seemed to deflate a little as she fell behind. "She was so rarely happy these past few years. Letting her guard down around you was one of the few times she could relax. The only times I can remember ever seeing her happy lately was the night she sicked you and your friends on the Gala, the buildup to Cadance's wedding, and that whole mess around your coronation."

Twilight didn't say much as she walked along ahead of them.

"Don't grow up. If you have to, grow old, children. Growing up means you have to be 'mature' and 'responsible' and an 'example to others'. You'll always have to hide who you are, even if you enjoy doing what you do." Sunbeam said glumly as she picked up the pace and came alongside Twilight again.

Twilight scrunched her muzzle frownily as she thought over Sunbeam's words. Words that were ringing all too true in her ears as she started stomping and tried to ignore them. They came up upon an otherwise nondescript door with a small number of chairs and an endtable, unmarked and nameless. She stopped, harrumphing as she did.

Sweetie cut her off before she could say anything, hopping up onto a chair. "Hey! Don't fight, fighting sucks!"

"We're not fighting! We're playing with words! Sharp, pointy, ouch words!" Twilight protested.

Sweetie frowned further and stomped her hooves on the plump, plush cushions. "Well, apologize! Friends don't fight!"

Twilight and Sunbeam looked each other in the eyes, contemplating. Were they really getting so worked up over their mutual friend? Twilight couldn't tell, and that worried her more than she cared to admit. "Sorry."

"Sorry."

"So, uh.... don't mean to rush and all, but what about that whole... test... stuff- things?" Scootaloo reluctantly asked.

"Oh, right. Well, you first, Scootaloo. Yours should be fairly easy to test, if kind of time consuming. Then Applebloom, since she'll probably be messy. Then Sweetie Belle last because she'll probably need me in there in case of a-" Twilight's horn sparked once more, feeding back into her body. Hooves wriggled in the air as she was lifted up off the ground. Fur fluffled, feathers ruffled, and Twilight jittered in midair before crashing back down again. "-Surge."

"Are you okay?" Sunbeam concernedly asked her as the crusaders backed away a bit. "I haven't seen a surge that bad since your first year."

Twilight bit her lip in worry, answering once she found a diplomatic way of voicing her concerns. "Remember what I said about Princess Celestia leaving me some of her magic? Well, it's more along the lines of three quarters of her magic. She teleported in while Prin- Luna was briefing us on her plan for dealing with Tirek and passed it to me so that he couldn't find her, then teleported back out with the remainder. My body still hasn't gotten used to the extra magic yet, so it's giving me fits. I know that since she still has some of her magic the rest will eventually regenerate, but- urk- but- nngngnnh!" Twilight trailed off as her horn zapped her several times. Her slowly blending magic enveloped her whole body in a telekinetic envelop and levitated herself up off of the floor involuntarily as she was struck by another surge. Hooves and wings flailed through the air as Twilight struggled to find a grip on something, anything.

Sunbeam stifled a chuckle out of politeness as a disgusted groan of somepony far too used to something that shouldn't be escaped Twilight as the junior alicorn found herself upside down from her random movements. "Oh dear, let me help you." Sunbeam remarked with equal parts mild horror and genuine concern. Pulling her down proved to be rather remarkably difficult as reaching into the telekinetic field instead only pulled the elder mare up into it as well, sticking her to Twilight tightly. "Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear."

"Welcome to my new Tuesday. Hope you brought some coffee, we'll be here a while." Twilight remarked, just before the field collapsed from holding two ponies at once and sent them dropping back to the floor harmlessly. "I hate these."

"Well, that wasn't so bad. Kind of fun, actually, like a fairground ride." Sunbeam replied as she brushed her extravagantly long mane back into place with her hooves. "Shall we begin, then?"

2.4

2.4

Scootaloo trotted on the rolling surface with all of the tediousness the act deserved. her hooves 'thop-thop-thop'd upon the mat of the treadmill in a rapid, but stead stattico beat. Like suction cups. Maybe suction cups on jello. Jello would be nice. Anything would be nicer than what she was doing. Hay, her breathing hadn't even deviated from normal as she concentrated on continuing on. She would have thought an hour of galloping would have gotten her a little out of breath. "Is this it?"

Sunbeam sighed in defeat. "Yes." Seriously, what did it take to wear that filly out?

"Well, that's dumb. Just running around for an hour?" Scootaloo let the treadmill roll her right off of the back and hopped off at the edge.

"Just, she says. Short of a few Earth Pony athletes, do you know how many ponies can run an all-out gallop for an hour and not show any sign at all?" Sunbeam grumbled to the filly, shooting her a stink-eye that would make most flinch. Scootaloo just cocked an ear in curiosity as she tilted her head a little to the left. Of course she didn't know, why should she care? She was the one who could probably run faster than a speeding baker being chased by an alicorn.

"Wait. You want me to actually answer you?"

Sunbeam sighed once more, groaning in frustration. She could see what was really going on after extending her magic senses during Scootaloo's exercises. Her head felt the wrath of her hoof as she tried to keep from slumping in frustration at how... NORMAL Scootaloo found her feat. "No. Not really. The other ones beside those few athletes are a few high priority couriers in the pegasus air services like Mrs. Hooves, and the Princess-"

Scootaloo fell over laughing, gasping for air as her legs kicked above her as she rocked on her back. Sunbeam trotted over as the first few laughs died away, only to find herself growing ever more irritated as Scootaloo took one look at her grumpy scowl and burst into renewed laughter. The little pegasus wriggled back and forth and her wings buzzed wildly as she started hiccuping amidst her laughs. Sunbeam could wait. She had the time, and she spent it looking over Twilight's new laboratory and storage area until Scootaloo's giggles died down. "Are you done yet? I meant it- oh, stop that!"

Scootaloo started laughing again, snorting as she started turning purple from a lack of air. Her laughter finally cut short as Sunbeam carefully but firmly planted her hoof on the filly's soft, squishy, and ticklishly tender belly.

"Stop that. It's silly. I am being entirely serious." Sunbeam continued as she let up on Scootaloo. Her hoof hovered near the filly, letting her grab it to pull herself upright once more. "Not even Princess Celestia would be able to run for an hour as you did. I know, she tried after the Wedding Crash." Boy, that had been a stupid idea. She did need to exercise some more, come to think of it...

"She ended up stopping while foaming at the mouth from exhaustion. Princess Luna or Princess Cadance could, but they are silly ponies who do this sort of thing for fun. Your pegasus magic is just fine, and stronger than nearly any I've ever seen."

Scootaloo had enough of that sort of talk. She knew better than to think she was somehow better than a princess at anything. 500 times in the past year trying to take off had more than shown her that she was just a stupid, magic-less foal. The only pony who had ever been better at something than a Princess was Twilight, and she turned INTO one because of it. "So why can't I FLY?" Scootaloo wailed questioningly.

"You will, in time. But it will take a great deal more effort on your part, and you will never be as good as anypony who can fly instinctively." Sunbeam brushed Scootaloo's bangs back behind her ears as she reassured the filly. "How often does Rainbow Dash think while she's flying?"

"Think? Rainbow Dash? She kind of... uh, doesn't."

"Exactly."

"Um, you kinda lost me."

"I've done a bit of talking with your friends, Scootaloo." Sunbeam winced as Scootaloo's ears splayed back in worry at her statement. She was supposed to reassure, not worry her further! She picked up Scootaloo by the scruff of her neck and placed her up on one of the black granite lab table countertops and stooped so she could look the filly in the eyes. "They didn't say bad things, Scootaloo. In fact, they gave me an important clue which when added to your tests so far confirms what I've suspected all along."

"That wasn't needed." Scootaloo pouted as she sat back and crossed her hooves grumpily.

"I'm not going to talk down to you, especially not for this." Sunbeam said as she playfully beeped the filly on the nose with her hoof. Reaching back a bit further, she carefully spread one of Scootaloo's wings all the way to the fullest extent of it's span, letting Scootaloo see its structure. "You're not damaged physically, Scootaloo. Your wings, while small are still within standard pegasi sizes for your age. I know from accounts related to me that you are strong enough to hover on brute force alone for short periods." She moved Scootaloo's wing up and down, poking it with her free hoof as the movements flexed the terrifyingly strong muscle structure. "And I suspect that I know exactly what happened."

"What? What? WHAT!?"

"Do you know anything about your mother, Scootaloo?"

"No, nopony does. They just found me at one of the abandoned foal shelters with a partial birth certificate."

Sunbeam winced. That wasn't exactly the kind of news she wanted to hear. She had worked so hard to try and make them unnecessary. "Oh. Well, sometimes, when a pegasus foal is born with unicorn blood, or a unicorn parent directly, something goes wrong. Not down here." Sunbeam tapped the thick flight keel of Scootaloo's breastbone, right over her heart. "But up here where the brain controls the magic." Sunbeam noogied poor Scootaloo lightly. "Instead of instinctively controlling their magic and putting it through their wings properly, the foal instead develops the bit at the front that lets a unicorn consciously control their magic instead." Sunbeam let the faintest bit of the golden glow of her magic escape from the tips of her hooves and wings.

If one was feeling particularly poetic, one might say that Scootaloo's eyes grew three sizes plus one that day. The faintest keen of awed filly squealing escaped her as she clapped her hooves over her mouth and tiny sparkles of wonder glistened in the depths of her eyes. "REALLY!?!" Squeaked out of her like the peeps of a mouse.

Sunbeam heartily laughed, her voice growing a little deeper and developing the same royal undertones as most of the alicorns as she watched Scootaloo celebrating. "Yes, really. I could feel you consciously using it without you knowing what it was. You used the same effect that most pegasi use to keep their wings from growing tired to keep yourself running long after you should have given out. You'll never be a truly great flier, but with training I can teach you to use your magic properly just as Celestia taught me. Now, I-heeuuurk!"

Sunbeam's eyes bulged as Scootaloo bodily jumped from the counter and grabbed her around the neck. Scootaloo's wings buzzed in a craze as she hugged tightly enough with all four legs to bruise and cried unabashedly into the downy soft orange fur. "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!"

They collapsed to the floor as Sunbeam gasped for breath through the crushing hug. She knew she would never live it down in the Summer Glens if she died from being hugged to death by a 12 year old. Hooves desperately reached up and pried Scootaloo's limbs back just enough for her to breathe, and Sunbeam gasped deeply as soon as she could. "You know, the last pony who nearly killed me to death by hugs was named Twilight Sparkle." She wheezed as she kept the grip from growing back to full strength.

Scootaloo bounded off of Sunbeam, prancing about in circles with her head held as high as the skies as she lazily danced. Her gaze was slightly crazed as she went about with a smile wider than Canterlot on her face. Sunbeam coughed slightly to herself, rubbing her sore throat as the filly continued to celebrate, letting her have her fun. Of course, if Scootaloo's magic was more unicorn-style as she thought, there was one last thing to do.

"Before you get carried away, there is still a bit more testing left for you to do." Sunbeam smiled a little more and put a hoof to her mouth to hide her giggle as Scootaloo came crashing to a halt in a heap on the floor.

"Do I have to?" The filly whined.

"Oh, yes. Aww, now don't be like that." Sunbeam replied as Scootaloo's smiles and prances turned to pouts and glumly crouching on the floor.

Sunbeam trotted over to the tall shelves on one side of the room, gathering up mechanical components from the deep shelves. Some springs, the foam darts oddly placed within a magihazard box, and other such odds and ends. The old mare dropped the miscellaneous pile of... stuff on the nearest workbench before pulling over a work light and magnifier to shine on the space. If she was right... well... he-he...

"Let's see what you can make."

"Got any Discords?"

"Naw. Go Bucking."

"Gosh- uh, err, flarn it?" Sweetie Uncursed as she felt the gaze of Twilight shift onto her. Stupid cards. Stupid luck. Stupid Applebloom beating the nonexistent cutie marks off of her. Again.

Twilight's frown brightened back up into a smile as she examined her own set of cards. She had been getting beaten even harder than Sweetie Belle every game. Even in games of mathematical chance like Go Applebuck. It wasn't like Applebloom had any feathers to hide spare aces in, or anything. She had one of every single card, and she was mathematically certain she could get something out of Applebloom. "Got any twos?"

"Nope. Go Bucking."

"Oh, come ON!" She put a hoof over her mouth as the last part of her annoyed yell came out in the 'Royal Canterlot Speaking Voice' through her frustration.

"Aiiiieeeee!" THOCK! THOCK! THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK-THOCK! THOCK!THOCK! Thock.

Twilight scrambled to resort the cards of her hoof back into place as they floating back down out of the air from where she had thrown them in shock. The strange suction-cup sounds had erupted inside the lab, sounding like a flywheel or something else smacking something repeatedly. As everypony's heart rates settled down from chest-bursting to merely 'typical Ponyville hazard event', Twilight scooted back from the table. "Girls, stay here. I'll go and make sure that we don't need the fireponies."

Applebloom let Sweetie Belle crush her in terror as she hugged her back. It was either her or the nice big branch on the ceiling, honestly, and Sweetie Belle wasn't all that bad to be hugged to death by. "'kay. We'll be right out here. Ya know, trying not to wee ourselves in terror or nothing."

Grimacing, Twilight wondered what the cleaning bill for that would be if anything else happened. Ugh.

She cautiously opened the door, mentally checking fire off as the potential hazard as she failed to spot any signs of a great conflagration. Or anything else, for that matter. She fired up her aura around her horn and formed a crackling shield that fluttered with sun-shaded power fluctuations. "Nopony's dead in here, right? Or hurt?" Creeping around the door, she spotted one of Sunbeams wings sprawled over a lab counter next to a half-finished contraption with a barrel on it. "Miss Sunbeam!"

"Ow." The orange pegasus whined as her wing slumped off the counter. "My face hurts." She didn't dare stand up as Scootaloo fretted frantically on her chest while pulling at the things lodged into her fur all over her face and neck.

"I'm so sorry! I should have put something on it to keep it from firing!" Scootaloo babbled as she tugged again.

"Ow! Stop! Ow! Wait! Ow! Not that much harm done..."

Twilight rushed around to render medical aid. She knew this had been a bad idea from the onset! Horrific images of her other teacher dying painful deaths rushed through her head as she pushed back on the worry of a worst case scenarios. She could be getting turned into a parasprite, or have an artificial horn stuck on her that would slowly drive her mad, or one of her wings could be paralyzed- or... Or, Sunbeam could have a beard made of foam darts suction cupped to her chin. AAAAAAHHHH! She was clutching her eye, too! "Oh my gosh!"

Twilight dipped a hoof under a cabinet and pulled out a black eyepatch, roughly placing it on the pegasus's injured eye. The elastic band seemed to get stuck on something for a second before Sunbeam stretched it completely over her head and snapped it tight. "My eye probably doesn't need it, Twilight. But thank you."

"Oh, thank goodness Pinkie stashed eyepatches all over Equestria in case of an eyepatch emergency!"

Scootaloo's jaw dropped as she fell to her rump on Sunbeam's chest. "Did you just pull something out of a Pinkie Stash?"

"Well, that's what- they're there... for? How did I do that? I mean- I-.... snerk. Hehe..." Twilight trailed off as she looked at Sunbeam again. How had she missed that? The way that the foamy projectiles wriggled with each movement, the eyepatch and now thoroughly scruffy mane, the scowl on her face! Yes! It was... why did she find it so hilarious? Wait. "You look like a foamy beard pirate! He-he!"

Sigh. "Yarr."

Twilight just barely kept from falling over laughing while Scootaloo slowly slid off of Sunbeam, giggling all the way until she flopped backwards onto the floor. Sunbeam rolled onto her belly, looking with cross-eyed irritation at the two darts stuck just under her nose as she scrunched it up and wriggled, to the renewed peals of laughter. "Rather unlike you, Twilight."

"I- he-he- know! I don't know why I think it's so funny, but it is!"

Sighing, Sunbeam reached up to her chin to grab one of the foam darts, tugging it gently to see how much give it had.

"No, wait! Don't! I was studying those darts because they were enchanted by Discord! They'll fall off in a day, but if you pull them off yourself they turn you plaid!" Twilight pried Sunbeam's hooves off of the objects of her latest herself into a polychromatic nightmare that would leave Rarity screaming herself awake at night for a month. Heh. Heh heh. A plaid foamy beard pirate pegasus...

"Wonderful. Could you take Scootaloo out and send in Applebloom while I deal with the foamy death machine?"

2.5

2.5

"Where in the flying feather did that thing go?"

"Ya know, if mah sis' would buck me clean to Canterlot if she heard me say that."

Sunbeam jerked upwards, hitting her head on the underside of a countertop and she jolted in horror at the realization of who had been listening to her. Staggering back and whipping around showed her Applebloom sitting innocently behind her with goggles on and a white labcoat draped over her body that was long enough to pool on the floor around her hooves. The cheeky filly even had a lab beaker beside her and a full set of alchemical equipment and ingredients atop the nearest counter. "When did-"

"Ah'd say 'bout five minutes ago."

Sigh. "Right, well this should be a fairly simple enough test. You seem to know exactly what I want to examine you on."

"Well, what else were ya going to do? Test me on mah cruddy applebucking?"

Sunbeam chuckled ruefully as she trotted over to the rest of the labcoats herself. She stopped, shuddering as the first and only one in her size was trimmed in her true colors and cutie mark. Right next to another set clearly made for Twilight. "Are you trying to tell me something?" She asked the tree- Fortress of Friendship while she glanced up in the general direction of its centerpiece.

"No. Ah haven't said anything." Applebloom cautiously responded as she set her ingredients to boiling and brewing rather rapidly with an experienced hoof.

Sunbeam shook her head, grumbling as her foamy beard shook and swayed. "I'm sorry. Just talking to the tree. I think it's up to something." Probably paranoid, but with everything that had happened she couldn't be sure anymore. Like Discord and Twilight finally putting aside their differences. Who saw that coming? "You know, I used to believe in coincidences, but with everything going on lately, I'm not so sure anymore."

"Well, that's just silly." Applebloom said as she worked.

Sunbeam looked down at her labcoat, and sighed in agreement. It was probably just an artifact of Twilight having her on her mind in that final confrontation, and nothing more. The sun-marked coat found itself worn by her in short order as she trotted back to Applebloom. "You're right. So, seeing as you are already working, what are you making?" She could smell spice and herb, elixir and tonic wafting up from the open beaker. Applebloom had quite a few premade mixtures sitting in a rack quietly to one side, each calmly sitting carefully away from the operation.

When had she found time to make all this stuff?

"Well, Ah figure that Ah oughta stick to the basics. This one here, once it's done brewing, should make an apple tree grow real fast." Applebloom drawled as she hunkered down to wait. Her mixture wasn't that hard to make, it just needed a bit of magic to get it going. Probably a bit of stirring, too. Where'd she leave that silver ladle?

"My, that's rather advanced." Sunbeam commented as she scooted around the bench carefully to stand beside Applebloom. As she hunkered down until she was level with the filly on a stool, she noticed that the elixir had settled down into distinct layers that comprised all the colors of the rainbow. There must be zap apple juice in it. Not a standard technique at all, from what she had heard. "Have you ever considered higher education?"

"What? Naw. This ain't advanced. Just something basic Zecora taught me. It's a healing potion Ah turned into a growth potion." Applebloom dismissively said as she dug out the silver ladle she had been thinking of from under the counter and started stirring. The colors all mixed together in the small beaker until it turned to a glowing, appealing shade of candy apple red. Mustn't sniff it, though. She had let that color draw her in last time, and it took her weeks to get the leaves out of her mane, not counting everything else. "Sides, ya'll wouldn't believe some of the things she makes."

"Oh?" Sunbeam asked as the glowing red color drew her in slowly like a breezie to the honey.

A little yellow hoof pushed her back from the volatile mixture. "Don't. It's got some side effects if ya sniff it. It's still wild magic, and it don't care what it makes apple trees out of. Ya might get off easy, or ya might have to wait a week while Zecora and Twilight make an antidote like me, eating the apples off yer ears."

"Oh. Oh dear." Sunbeam began to slowly smile toothily as an idea came to her to 'pay back' Luna for all the years of having to raise her moon for her. Nah, how was she going to get Luna to sniff a potion?

"Well, this is getting boring."

"Science is for the patient, Sweetie Belle."

"C'mon, Scootaloo, back me up."

"Can't talk now. Busy trying something out."

Sweetie Belle turned around, still sitting on a cushion over the darty-thingie Scootaloo had gotten her to hide. The little pegasus was still standing behind her, her wings out straight and quivering as she grunted and made constipated faces. "What are you doing, Scootaloo?"

"Flying."

"What."

"Gotta.... make... magic- through wings!" Scootaloo strained harder, concentrating on the funny floaty sensation developing in her chest. Her wings burned ever so slightly as sh tried to make the sensation flow out of them. Sweat trickled down from her ears as a faint purple haze slowly formed around her feathers.

Twilight concernedly edged over, her horn lit in worry. "Um, Scootaloo, maybe you should wait."

"Nope. Flying now."

"Scootaloo, wait, don't-"

The supposedly flightless pegasus unleashed the sensation in her wings with a single powerful flap, shooting small bursts of lightning from them as she shot upwards.

Sweetie clapped her hooves over her mouth to hide her gasp of horror as Scootaloo smacked her head against the ceiling in a moment. She ran to get underneath her friend at the same time Twilight did, both of them lighting their horns to telekinetically grab Scootaloo before she-

The second thump shook the beaker slightly harder, and Applebloom delightedly watched as the elixer slowly shifted from red to a leafy green. "Well, Ah'll be. Ah've got to get Rainbow Dash tae crash near mah potions more often!"

Sunbeam faintly scowled with worry as she looked towards the door. "That didn't feel like a full-grown pegasus."

"Ah, don't worry 'bout it. She probably hit the other side. Mah elixir is almost done, though. That lil' bump did wonders fer getting it going. Wish Ah had- oh hey! Where'd that lil' apple tree come from?" Applebloom hopped off of her stool and headed over to the small pot in the corner. The little apple tree was barely a sprout, perfect for testing with.

"That's odd. That wasn't there before."

"Aw, who cares? Probably some fiddly magic Twilight cooked up." Applebloom checked the pot over, tapping it lightly to see how heavy it was.

"Oh, if mah elixir starts turnin' purple, take it off the heat quick 'fore it melts the beaker or something."Applebloom warned as she leaned up against one side of the pot and began pushing and cajoling it across the room inch by heavy inch. The pot was far too large for it's occupant, and she comically disappeared behind it as she worked. Heck, with a few blankets and pillows, she could sleep inside it and nopony would know.

"Shouldn't you watch this yourself?" Sunbeam anxiously asked, afraid to take her eyes off the mixture even as she carefully slid a blast shield over.

"Naw. Part of potion making in groups is know what ya can get other ponies to do safely while yer working on other parts. And knowin' how to tell 'em to do it." Applebloom grunted as she put her back into it. She put herself flat against the heavy terra cotta bane of her life and scrabbled with her hindlegs against the ground, scooting it with everything she had. Sunbeam mused over the interesting perspective the filly had on the process. Maybe she did have something to check after all. From the sounds of things, she didn't have much else to teach her that Zecora wasn't already doing. Sniff. Sniff. What was that smell of burnt pickle and foaming baking sod-augh!

Yelping, the elder mare poked the beaker stand and its contents away from the burner with a stick frantically as purple bubbles began to form at the base of the elixir's glass. "Well, that was close. Was it supposed to be that fast?"

"Naw."

"Huh. So, Applebloom, you never did answer me on whether or not you were thinking about getting a higher education earlier. You could do a lot of good."

"Unf. What? Like a college or somethin'?"

"Well, yes."

"Don't need none. Don't want none."

Sunbeam's jaw worked soundlessly as Applebloom got back up onto her stool and patted the tree right beside it. The filly paid her no mind as she tapped the glass of her experiment not at all gingerly. Bubbles escaped noxiously, while others merely jiggled along the bottom like jumping apples from Mexicolt. Her little borrowed notepad soon found itself filled with notes as she recorded her observations for future brewing. "Weeellllup, just gotta let it cool down so it don't scald the tree none, and we'll see if it came out right."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Don't you want to go to college?"

Applebloom grumbled with a long-suffering sigh, rolling her eyes over the familiar pestering. "Ah can see Ah ain't gonna get no rest on this, am Ah?" Applebloom pushed away her notepad and glared at Sunbeam through her thick lab goggles, noting with irritation that the pegasus didn't even have the decency to look guilty. "Ah ain't going to no durn college. Ah ain't abandoning the farm no matter how much my sis' puts ponies up to pestering me about leaving."

"Your sister?"

"Aheyup. Bugs me every day 'bout it fer the past two years like clockwork. Then she went and got Miss Cheerilee in on it when Twilight went and turned herself into a princess, and she's been getting others in on it ever since." Applebloom complained bitterly as she turned her attention back to her elixir.

Sighs escaped the little filly as she absentmindedly played with the pencil from her notepad, trying to focus on her work instead of her pesterer. Tiny pings and pops caused them both to twitch as the beaker cooled down from the high heat it had been subjected to. Silence stretched out between them as neither wanted to be the first to keep speaking again.

"But why not?" Sunbeam finally asked, trying to understand the filly's reluctance. It couldn't be familial if Applejack was pushing her into college. "Getting a degree would help your family tremendously."

"And Ah know it would, but Ah ain't 'bout to step hoof into a big ole snake's den of Tiara's and Spoons just cause it might help some." Applebloom sourly groused as she uneasily fidgeted.

"I, uh, don't follow."

"Ya mean ya ain't noticed the way that Twilight gets flashbacks that go and make what Sombra and Discord did to her at points look like fond memories from Happy Bunny Fluffyworld? Cause she does, and Ah ain't wanting to end up like her. Ah've got enough of that here already with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon." She continued, thumping her chin against the table in frustration over and over again as the beaker slowly cooled from its boiling state.

"Oh." Sunbeam shamefully replied after a long time.

"Yeah. Ah don't want that. And Ah ain't-" Applebloom trailed off uncertainly. Her staring eyes grew glassy as she focused inwardly, thinking of her life and the farm. "Ah ain't mah sister. Ah can't do all that fancy." She said little more as the silence moved in again and smothered what was left of their thoughts thoroughly.

Sunbeam wanted to lean in to reassure the filly with a nuzzle, holding back because of the darts still firmly plastered all over her chin. Damn Discord and his pranks. It hurt to see anypony moping like Applebloom, and only a supreme effort of will on her part kept the color from bleeding from her coat so that she could properly cuddle and comfort Applebloom in her full form.

"Please don't think that Twilight's experience was the normal one, Applebloom." Sunbeam spun out as a reassurance as she finally found the words to salvage the situation. "A very unfortunate set of colts were upset with Princess Celestia for 'not showing proper respect'. When they found out about Twilight on her first day, they became extremely jealous and-..."

A sigh escaped her as she thought of how she had failed Twilight. And a growl pursued it as she wondered if she had been far too lenient given how those foals actions were still haunting her. "I made sure to make an example out of them the instant I found out. I informed the Princess, and they were expelled instantly, and blacklisted from all of Canterlot's schools."

Applebloom slowly turned in her seat, looking up to her with tired eyes and an upraised eyebrow. Sunbeam kept going, knowing that she wanted more. "Twilight didn't take it as well as you and your friends seem to have put up with this 'Diamond Tiara' and 'Silver Spoon'. Alone, and as a young filly who was far more sensitive and innocent than most, the results for her psyche were relatively disastrous, and my inattention for just one day is still affecting her negatively to this day."

"Huh. What happened to 'em?"

"I made sure they flip hayburgers for a living."

"An' it only too Princess Celestia's student to get it noticed, Ah bet. Ain't much help for the rest of us." Applebloom lamented just before she nipped up a long-handled glassware holder to pick up her beaker. It fizzed ominously as it gently shook in her grasp, but careful movements kept the reaction from continuing as she slowly maneuvered it to her plant. Leaves twitched gently as the plant perked up before sprouting upwards before their eyes as the elixir was poured into the soil. Tiny apples popped into existence on the branches comically as the sprout transformed into a moderately sized bush as the growth slowly petered out.

Sunbeam pursed her lips as she asked herself the same question. The question itself didn't bother her. The uncertain answer did. "I wish I could say. Maybe it did. A little."

"Yeah. Ah ain't seen an adult yet who would actually help us with our problem, an' it's been three and a half years now." Applebloom grumbled tiredly as she slipped an odd glove on and carefully snipped an apple from a tree branch with a practiced movement. Nicely plump and juicy red, if it had been normally sized, it would have been perfect for applebucking. She dropped it carefully on the table, nudging it towards Sunbeam with a hoof. "Just don't go eating it yet, even if it is the purdiest thing your stomach has ever seen."

"Ah. There's still wild magic in it, I presume?"

"Ahyup. The magic still needs time to settle down proper-like. Give it a day or two, and you might not sprout some leaves in your mane, or sprout an' apple or two of your own."

"Hmm..." That gave her ideas. Devious, no-good, simply unsisterly ideas.

2.7

2-7
The awkward silence had gone on for some time between Applebloom and Scootaloo as they stared at one another across the hall. The magazines they weren’t really looking at hung loosely in their hooves as they made a pretense of paying attention to them instead of trying to figure out what the other had been doing. Applebloom finally broke the silence, pestering her fellow crusader. “So, ya fly now?”

Scootaloo pensively buried her nose back into her magazine. “Um, yeah. Kind of.”

“Good fer ya. Ah know how much ya wanted it.” Applebloom congratulated before glancing at the cooking magazine. She wondered if the things migrated like birds, it would explain how they always popped up so fast.

Scootaloo tossed her magazine down finally, sick and tired of looking at flying feats she would never quite replicate. “Heh. It’s not quite what I wanted. It’s just so silly once Sunbeam helped me.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with a bit of silly in yer life. Wait, do ya hear something?”

“Hear what?”

“Ah don’t know. Sounds like somepony fighting.” Applebloom’s ears slowly swiveled around on her head until they both pointed towards the door to the lab. The sounds were louder as she leaned over in her seat, resting precariously on one foreleg against one of the rests on it. Tapping hooves, raised muffled voices, and a bucket getting kicked around like a hoofball. “Ah think there might be a problem, Scootaloo.”

The muffled voice and kicking bucket grew closer, more regular to Applebloom’s ears, and her legs grew tense as she got ready to pounce.

“I still can’t ear anything.”

“Still ringing in the head?”

“Yeah.”

“Couldn’t wait?”

“No.”

“Well, Ah think we can’t w-“

Twilight burst from the room with a rag clutching at her face like a swarm of scrubbing parasprites, rushing around in circles to dislodge the lime green glowing menace attempting to devour the dirt from her face. The formerly unoccupied Crusaders burst into motion, tackling her to the ground in unspoken agreement. Scootaloo sat on her chest, holding her flailing forelimbs down as she flopped on her back whilst Applebloom pounced on the animated rag to wrestle it off with her teeth. Undaunted, the writhing mass of cloth clutched harder to Twilight’s face, trying to wrap growing tendrils of fabric completely around her head. Fore-hooves pinned the tendrils to the sides of Twilight’s head as the golden-yellow filly bit into the soapy mess and ripped it to shreds with her teeth.

Gasping, Twilight flopped one more time and went limp; lapsing into a fit of coughing bubbles as she sank to the floor. Applebloom threw the still faintly glowing and fitfully moving shreds away from them as she stood on the lavender alicorn’s upper chest. “Ya’ll okay now?”

Twilight nodded weakly, hacking up another bubble as she relaxed slightly.

“Good.”

“Pretty sure we’re not good, ‘Bloom.” Scootaloo apprehensively warned as clumps of glowing mops, brooms, and brushes started marching through the door. Her eyes widened slightly; taking in the transformation of the items as they sensed ponies. Formerly innocuous items twisted, morphed, and reshaped themselves into mockeries of sea life that floated about. Broom-sharks, jelly-rags, moptopuses, and other strange creatures of arcane origins. “Really not good!”

A single, solitary look of irritation was thrown to the assembling items by Applebloom before she cracked her neck in anticipation. “If a bunch of mangy chores think they’re gonna clean me out, they’ve got themselves one tarnation of a problem.”

Rearing on her hind-legs, Applebloom kicked down and trampled the first broom that came for her savagely, pounding it into sawdust. She thrust her hind-legs up again, scissor-kicking the first mop that dropped down at her before flipping over to slam it into the floor and into splinters as she threw it down behind her. Sloshing, a bucket wobbled and mockingly imitated a swimming fish as it prepared to dump a thick soapy mixture onto the filly’s head – only to burble and squeal as her hoof struck out once more and grabbed it to turn it into an improvised flail.

“Got your back!” Scootaloo cried as she jumped over Applebloom with the assistance of her magic and drove a scuttling brush and a squid-like bottle into the floor.

Shrill screams squeaked out from inside as another burst of magic filled the doorframe and threatened to wash the fillies away with a wave of thickened air.

“That was Sweetie Belle!” Applebloom shouted as she finished off her flail-bucket by smash-kicking it into a school of bottles to spill foaming suds everywhere. Another churning current of magic shoved her back as it washed over her and tugged at her mane like the depths of the sea.

“I think she’s in trouble!” Ducking under another tendril of the latest mop to escape, Scootaloo rolled across the floor awkwardly to pin herself to one side of the doorframe.

“She is the trouble, girls!” Twilight said before hiccupping up another soap bubble as she leaned against the other side of the doorframe. The alicorn poked her strangely plaid head around the corner – only to get a splash of water to the face for her trouble as the massive flare continued to distort reality. “Bleagh! Ugh, ew! Seaweed!” Twilight’s hoof scrubbed at her tongue futilely in disgust. “Sunbeam was testing Sweetie Belle to see if she was something she called a songspell!”

With a heave of a pounce Applebloom hopped up in a calm period to snatch a broom flying over her head between her hooves and yanked the wriggling object down to her level savagely. She shook it; stunning it senseless before she nipped its’ handle-fin in her teeth to bat things back inside. “And what the hay is a spell-songy-thingy?” The limp and slithery broom woke again as Applebloom spoke around it, only to be smacked into a flying metal bucket and be broken in two.

“According to the old tales from Princess Celestia, song-spells were supposed to be able to consciously create and guide the heart-song phenomenon to reshape reality!” Twilight ducked her head around the corner again, and fell back squinting from looking into the blinding maelstrom at the heart of the flare. Teleporting in was out of the question; the ambient magic in the room meant that she was just as likely to come out as a Twi-globe as come through safely.

“And you didn’t think this might happen?” Scootaloo demanded as she held away a bucket trying to eat her head.

“She said it was impossible! ‘Only an alicorn could have a flare from it even remotely resembling yours,’ she said! I’m going to have words with her! Sharp, pointy words unfit for foals!” Twilight yelled into the room as loudly as she could manage, fueling her voice with the full fury of the Canterlot Speaking Tone. She had no plan, no real cover from the storm in the room, and no clue how to stop it other than to get to the source.

“No way! It can’t be!” Sweetie shouted from inside of her flaring bubble as she reacted to an unseen sight.

“You’re seeing things! I don’t know what, but the magic is hurting your brain and making you hallucinate! Try and focus on stopping it, and hang on, Sweetie Belle!” Sunbeam’s voice shot back from inside, oddly sharper than it had been.

Bobbing back and forth after tossing her bucket into the whirlpool of liquefied magic and water-like air, Scootaloo kept trying to peer inside without luck. “I can’t see anything! Everything is moving too much in there.”

She proper herself against the doorframe with her fore-hooves, trying to think of something, anything to help out. The currents of magic were growing stronger by the second, and the affected area was sweeping out into the hall; the effects making them start to float like in the sea. If they didn’t think of something soon Applebloom would be swept away and unable to catch the torrent of mutated things es – “Twilight! Can you catch this stuff with your magic? Like a net or something?”

Furious bobbles gripped the alicorn’s head. “Brilliant idea, Scootaloo!” Twilight lit her horn, forming a glowing multicolored net that immediately slowed the flow of magic and stopped the unliving things escaping in their tracks.

Inside, Sweetie called out again. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve got to get close enough to you! I can give you a counter-song to make it stop if I can-“

“Isn’t that what thr-e-e-e- auuuuugh, my horn burns!”

Three sets of teeth gritted themselves as the trio made up their minds to enter the fray. Twilight nodded to the two fillies as they all braced to fight their way in. Applebloom gripped her snapped off handle in her teeth, Scootaloo tugged at the silk band around her wings to free them, and Twilight’s magic-made net flexed in readiness as she expanded it. In concert, they pulled in together and plunged into the currents.

Hopping atop Twilight, Scootaloo staggered for a moment under the nearly irresistible current of magical air; leaning into it and focusing on spreading open a pocket of calm, still air to protect them from the worst of it. Below and behind, Applebloom backed herself right up to Twilight’s hind-legs, protecting them from attacks from behind as she was protected by the bubble and an extension of Twilight’s net. Twilight’s net rippled around them; flexing and swaying with force as items bounced off or found themselves hooked into the etheric mesh of mixed colors.

All around was madness; reality unhinged and out of control. Inside the swirling storm of magic everything moved in the thick winds of unreality. Tables and lab counters writhed and rippled like coral and seaweed. Rags crawled over the floor like starfish while schools of lesser items darted overhead in terrible schools of horrors. Discord would have been proud—or terrified, perhaps, if the creatures laid their focus upon him.

Punting, Scootaloo knocked away another bucket full of soap and suds that had been bound for Twilight’s head through years of expert dodgeball practice. Instead of falling to the ground, the water within it twisted up in midair, developing tendrils as it morphed into a mockery of a jellyfish to ascend towards the ceiling. Grunts huffed from the alicorn as she steadily pushed them deeper into the twisting, churning currents ahead. Each step was a new trial; each yard a new gradient of turbulence in the fields. As they descended into the maelstrom the ever-tightening rings of magic currents warped and distorted into eddies and whirlpools as the layers twisted the tiny remaining pockets of normality into dangerous sheers that threatened to throw them and treacherously challenged their every step.

“Hang on, Sweetie Belle! We’ll save ya!” Applebloom called out to her friend as she kept backing up behind Twilight. Snicker-snaps of wood on wood warned her a moment before a nameless, scuttling horror emerged from behind a reef-like counter—a stool transformed into some twisted mockery of a spider crab. It snapped at her; scuttling with menace as it tried to get into the bubble surrounding the trio. With a growl of disgust, Applebloom beat it down with the remaining nub of her handle until its legs fell off and drifted away.

As she tried to step back into the full safety of Scootaloo’s wavering bubble, her luck failed her. A pounding tide of change slammed into her; poured over her, and the flooring she stood upon. Applebloom yelped as weakness traitorously foiled her, and the floor changed to slick crags of slime covered marble. She was picked up off of the floor by the current; wriggling and flailing in the air as she rose away from her protection.

Unthinking, Scootaloo wrapped her hind-legs around one of Twilight’s wings and let the thickening winds lift her up as Applebloom swept past her. She lunged, just barely grabbing her friend before the filly was lost in the swirling storm of magic. “I’ve got you, ‘Bloom!”

“An’ don’tchya leggo!” Applebloom wailed as she whipped back and forth in the currents; anchored only by Scootaloo’s grasp on one of her fore-legs. The magic still clutched at her hind-legs and tail—the warping storm making them all move oddly as one as her limbs seemed to become as rubbery as her older sister’s attempts at noodles.

Despite her sickening motion, she could just spot something that gave her hope as she squinted into the eye of the storm. “Ah see Sunbeam and Sweetie Belle just ahead!” Magic curled around their forms; a rippling bubble that churned like a drop of rain caught above the fiercest of fans. Through each second long glance at the pair she swore she was seeing funny from the water-like magic twisting around them.

“Can you see if they’re okay?” Twilight called up to her before straining to push into the next stream of magic.

“Sunbeam looks funny, Twilight! It looks like they’re underwater or somethin’! And she’s hugging Sweetie tight to her chest!”

“Hang on, we’re coming!” Easy for Scootaloo to say as she held on for dear life; quite a bit different in practice for the plaid alicorn.

Squinting eyes peered into the shimmering boil of magic, looking for any sign of the pair’s condition as Twilight grew close enough to start killing the streamers of magic and cutting the flow into the storm that spewed past them. Even as she flapped in the strange wind, Applebloom swore to herself that she saw a shimmering horn through the refracting light glowing golden as she hugged Sweetie Belle to her chest with wings and hooves. And, with a final burst of bright white light from the filly’s eyes, it was all over.

Applebloom kicked her hind-legs comically for a moment as the unnatural currents of thick winds faded away—though the cruel mistress gravity would have none of it from the filly. She felt to the floor flat on her belly; groaning in pain from the slap of hard, cold marble against her tender flesh. She would have to ritually sacrifice more apples through Applebucking season for the law to ease up on her, perhaps.

She and Scootaloo picked themselves up to the hooves as Twilight rushed to check on Sweetie Belle and a clearly hornless Sunbeam laying curled together in the center of the lab space. Applebloom’s tender hind-legs still quivered traitorously beneath her, oddly cold-feeling despite the return of normality all around them in the last burst of magic.

Furthermore, as they looked at Sunbeam the mare seemed oddly proportioned. Built more like a deer, perhaps; or maybe Luna and Cadance. Sweetie groaned in pain; thumping her aching head backwards against Sunbeam’s chest as the elder mare rolled onto her back while clutching the filly to her chest. Still quivering ever so slightly in an unseen breeze, Sweetie’s mane lay disheveled and pooled around Sunbeam’s neck as she was held in place.

“Ohhhh—my head. My head feels like a fizzy rock and some soda went off in it. Wait. Where’d your horn go?!” She cried in alarm as she looked up into Sunbeam’s face.

“What horn? Sweetie Belle, you were delirious from an uncontrolled flare.” Sunbeam laid a hoof against the filly’s head. “Atop that, you have a fever from it!”

Dusky magic wrapped around Sweetie’s middle to pluck her from Sunbeam’s grasp and laid her atop Twilight’s back carefully. “Sweetie, we need to get you to the hospital and checked out. I’ve never seen a flare that bad in all of my life, and I turned my parents into cacti! Who knows what it might have done to you!”

“But I know what I saw! She’s an alicorn!” Sweetie protested, looking at her savior pointedly.

“Nopony but the changelings can hide their race like that, Sweetie Belle. And I’ve bumped heads with Sunbeam enough to know for certain that she doesn’t have a horn. She couldn’t be an alicorn.” Twilight cautioned the filly as she made her own note to check for anomalous magic in the record when they got back. The Thaumatoscope should have cut off after magic stopped entering it after it fell away at the end of the storm.

“You had to have seen it!”

“You mean the big purple net in front of me? For that matter, you need to come too, Sunbeam. That was a nasty surge of magic I heard.”

Nodding, the Pegasus mare shakily stood while rubbing her head in a manner that was awfully suspicious to Applebloom’s eye. Pouting, Sweetie Belle said nothing more as she fumed over the fact that she wasn’t being believed. Again. But, her gaze caught Applebloom’s own—and the slight nod of confirmation as the apple filly agreed.

Intermission 2: Correspondance

2-Correspondence

Luna, Princess of the Night, was many things. Patient. Wrathful. Commanding. Sick and tired of Philomena’s and Tiberius’s little squabble most of all.

“Will thoust both cease!?”

Tiberius paused mid-punch as he hung by tail and paws from the phoenix’s hovering form. Blue possum was a rather pleasant contrast to the flaming orange form of the astral bird as they wobbled in the air. Deciding to get the final word in, the possum punched his solar counterpart once more. Philomena dazedly wobbled once more as her lunar counterpart hopped from her to skitter across the floor to his master.

“Tiberius!”

Chitter-Squeak!

“I care not for what she called thy mother, thy behavior is entirely uncalled for!”

Luna’s aura hoisted him bodily into the air, hanging him upright before her face uncomfortably as she examined him. With a caw of frustration and a rushing burst of fire around her wings Philomena separated herself further and flew up to the rafters to preen her out of place feathers and shake off the lethargy her counterpart’s strikes had dealt unto her. Irritability had been the order of her days since her mistress had vanished from the face of Equestria; foul and fearsome sulks had dominated her mood with every waking moment.

As for her counterpart, Luna’s beloved “Tibbles”, the formerly common possum had changed drastically since Luna infused him with a part of her magic from a mere mortal creature into something not unlike the phoenix herself. As Philomena reflected the glory and majesty of the sun (when it wasn’t in a sulk and quiet), so had Tiberius begun to glow faintly in the light and reflect the mercurial nature of Luna’s moon. Glowing blue-white with translucent fur that had begun to hint at the night skies, he too had changed drastically from his common origins into something eternal. But even his reflective nature did nothing to spare him from the full glower of the current reigning princess of Equestria.

“Tibbles – Philomena has enough issues in her claws without you adding to them.” She started as she calmed from her initial anachronistic reversion. “Just because I pay attention to her to keep her company does not mean that I have stopped loving you. You know that my sister cannot take her along, as she would be far too easily revealed. I am very disappointed in how you repeat the same follies I once made.” She admonished the shadow-possum, shaming him for harassing his counterpart. His faint glow dimmed in the relative darkness of Luna’s quarters; his fur disappearing behind a cloak of night given form as he hid his eyes behind his ears and shivered slightly. “All will be forgiven if you apologize and stop harassing her so.”

Squeak-squee-Squeak?

Squak-Caw!

“There. Was that so hard?” Luna patronized him. Tibbles lifted his ears to look at her, considered, and raised his paws up with but a tiny distance between them. Fuming grumbles escaped Luna as she wondered what she was going to do with her beloved pet.

“Fine. Stay over here, she stays over there, and we shall all be miserable together until we figure out how to stand each other.” Luna warned with a huff. She dropped Tibbles onto her desk gently, and sat back down in front of it. Once a wonderful piece of craftsmanship, her wide and well organized desk had been rendered into a paper-avalanche waiting to happen. Cubbyholes and correspondence sorting shelves rose an impressive height from it already and her formerly ample workspace was stacked high with even more reports and useless papers she hadn’t the faintest clue why she was even supposed to look over. With a sigh of disappointment, she withdrew the small stack of work from the evening court and went to work sorting it out into manageable chunks.

Proposals for legislation, bills of requisition, letters of censure for most of the unicorn nobles for their utterly pathetic attempt to overthrow her in the middle of the Tirek crisis, a glowing commendation for Stiff Resistance for rallying the temporarily magic-less solar guard back into a war-host to deal with the mad centaur and rescue the ponies of Ponyville, and of all things a letter of commendation from Duke Redcoat. Odd, she could only recall endless criticism from him over the conduct of the alicorns and their rule of Equestria.

“Tibbles, could you stick this one up top? I need to remember to schedule an appointment with Duke Redcoat and find out what mad game he is playing now.”

With but a tiny squeak and a comical salute the shadow-possum leapt into motion and carried up the potentially nasty letter up to a special place atop Luna’s wall of correspondence she had saved for the letters she had no idea what to make of.

The door opened behind her; the captain of the Solar Guard, Stiff Resistance marched in through it to join her in the study. Adorned in a set of more protective and militaristic armor that Luna had been designing since her return the captain was an impressive figure since he had settled into a truce with the lunar princess. Not that there was no more war between them, of course. A thick stack of further reports found themselves balanced on the captain’s back; a taste of the reports from the outlands that he felt could use a princesses ‘personal touch’. “Ma’am, I believe you wanted to see these.”

“Ah! Resistance! How wonderful.” Luna cheerfully chirped before sticking her tongue out at the destruction of yet more of her free time.

Resistance chucked at her. “Nothing to it.”

“Oh yes there is.” Grumbling at the timing, Luna had still wanted to examine the reports for several key things—most particularly those reports from her Night Guard detailing the response of the other nations and the wilds to the results of the Tirek Crisis. “Good or bad?”

“Mixed.”

“Better than feared.” Luna remarked—she had expected all save for Cadance to try and take advantage of the recovery efforts within Equestria’s borders. Strange, then, how they all seemed to step away instead. Even as the wilds grew more restless with the movements of the guards.

“They don’t know how you will react. They’re wary after you and Princess Twilight gave your displays in the defeat of that Tartarus-spawn.”

“More than you were?”

Resistance winced. “A little, yes.”

“True enough. I—Philomena?”

The phoenix’s eyes were bugged wide for some strange reason, and the phoenix thumped at her chest as her airways were clogged by some unseen ailment. Tibbles leapt from his perch to scale his mistress in a flurry of flickering shadowy movement and perch himself atop her crown. In but a moment Luna rushed to action; levitating atop a bubble of her mana to rise and match Philomena’s eye level. Squeaky strangled caws of distress erupted once more as the firebird’s aura flickered brightly.

“Princess, I’d stand back.”

“She needs aid. Fetch somepony quickly!” Luna said before reaching out to poke Philomena in the chest and force the blockage free.

A final cough shook free; Philomena wracked herself with motion. Sounds like a pony hacking mucous gurgled in the phoenix’s throat. Philomena’s wing rose to her throat as something bulged it and—Caw-Buurp!

Green fire burst from within her beak; scouring Luna’s face with a burst of dragon-fire. Tibbles flapped in the current of mana from his attachment to Luna’s crown and his master rocked backwards from the force. A lump roiled up within Philomena; with a final burst of ragged fire it escaped her. A massive apple shimmering with light materialized in a final flare of dragon-fire to fly through the air to smack Luna in the face. Deftly did the lunar alicorn’s magic strike out to stop the mysterious produce from meeting an untimely end at the vile hooves of gravity—after all, it wasn’t every day that one’s sister considered an apple good enough to send via dragon-fire and mortify her companion enough to burst into rejuvenating flames.

Philomena all but burned herself in embarrassment as she stared slack-beaked at the shimmering apple held before her with awestruck eyes as Tibbles chittered his tiny giggles of incredulousness concerning the matter. A wing unsteadily pointed at the produce—no apple should have fit down her throat in pieces or whole.

“Yes, I know could not have ate it whole, dear Philomena. A delicious souvenir from my sister, I would say. I’ll have to set up a less mortifying transmission method for the next time.” Luna remarked before stretching forth a wing to sooth the ruffled phoenix and ignored the unhelpful weight of her own pet’s tail wrapped round her horn as he squeakily giggled hanging from her head.

Stiff Resistance idly moved over to the group, looking up to the high rafters above with worry. “Maybe you should hold off on eating that. It has some form of magic effect judging from the shimmer, and your sis-“

“Has never pranked with food, let alone properly pranked me since my return. She’s mischievous, but that would excessively stretch her behavior that I know. She cares too much for that.” Luna dismissively replied before biting into the juicy zap-apple colored treat. Electric juice sparked and fizzled around the tip of her muzzle, running forth as the fleshy innards leaked upon her tongue to grace her with undreamt-of flavors she savored deeply. “Mmm. Besides, only my sister would have a bond strong enough to send correspondence through her phoenix. This is no assassination attempt. Besides, what harm ever came from eating an apple?”

“Be that as it may, you should still be caut-“ Philomena hacked and coughed once more, coughing up a thick scroll in yet another burst of dragon-fire to fall from her perch to land on the head of Stiff Resistance. “-ious.” With only a single beat, he held it up in the feathers of a wing. “You have mail. Perhaps I should open it to-“

“Oh no you don’t. You want a clue to Celestia’s location.” Luna snapped a little too quickly as she took the scroll from his grasp. Wincing, an apology escaped her. “Sorry. I have been waiting for this letter since she took the hit for her student.”

“Just be sure it isn’t a trap. I have enough on my plate finding her.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. Eyebrow raising, she held the scroll and its seal away from her and snapped the band with simple force. “Nothing happened. Excuse me, while I catch up with my sister.”

To My Dear Luna,

While I cannot say I have truly settled in thanks to Tirek and his diversion; I can say I have settled down and my mission is underway. I’ve found myself all but forcibly taken in by a sister of Pinkamina who has come to town to live with her husband during the construction projects around the Everfree. It took me a bit, and more than a few added pounds from cake bribes-

Snort.

-But, I have managed to escape into a custom-built sub-building adjacent to her home so that I can relax all the way sometimes. They do have a rather precocious daughter and son, and their youngest seems to gravitate to me without fail to my amusement. I can scarcely turn around without finding him hiding in my mane. Perhaps the Plaid I have been afflicted with attracts him.

Luna paused; an eyebrow marched its way upwards towards her hairline. “Plaid? What strange manner of disease is plaid?”

“Plaid is a pattern for clothes, not a disease.”

“Then how could my sister be afflicted with it?”

“It is rather tacky.”

“I believe there is a great deal of miscommunication going on here. What does bondage gear have to do with a pattern of clothes my sister has been afflicted with?”

Oh, enough about me. I know you hate it when I wax philosophical and bore you endlessly; or when I devour the attention of our conversations as I would cake. So, I shall say it outright: I am proud of you, Luna. I could never have seen Tirek coming, and you handled him without hesitation or failure. I would have been hard-pressed to handle him as well as you did.

I should have let you take the lead sooner. While you have much left to learn, I was right; and I was wrong. I worried about you, how you would handle the modern era. I worried about how you would handle the court which has grown bold in your absence; afraid that your unique manner of rule would turn all against you. And here I stand, so wrong in my estimates. All I have to do is speak your name, and praise is heaped upon it from all sides as the common pony hear of how your actions cowed the nobles in the midst of the crisis. In retrospect, ‘proud’ is far too weak a word for what I feel towards you. When did I stop trusting others to handle themselves? How long were you really ready to take command of so much? I worry that someday soon, it will be I who is the forgotten princess as others exalt you instead.

Luna rubbed her eyes with a hoof. Some damnable thing in her room was irritating them and tearing them up.

But enough of this stalling and disruption, I know you are interested in the status of my mission here, and whether or not the three are enough to risk my presence here.

Scootaloo, I’m afraid, is exactly as we expected. No more, no less. She has exceptional power in her inherent magic’s, easily as much as Rainbow Dash. And, she indeed learned how to use her power quickly once I opened the door for her. But that is it, unless I have missed something of vital importance. She should soon be flying and I look forward to it; but I expect my training will be quickly surpassed by others. Ultimately, she shall not be the focus of my attention here. We might yet gain use of my time here if we can call attention to the plight of those like her and correct several shortfalls in pegasi society with her help, however.

“Celestia—stop. No. Whatever you are planning, I—ugh.”

Applebloom is—well, I have my work cut out for me in her. Her mind is brilliant when applied; smart, cutting, bluntly to the point; in her I have found an intellect that I have rarely seen. Despite her outward façade of a mere farm filly she easily contains the makings of a brilliant scientist or engineer. Were it not for an unreasonable stubborn streak within her that renders her dead set on certain matters I would directly compare her to Twilight.

Wait—Oh. I guess I did anyway.

In any matter, she is sharp indeed when she applies herself; highly perceptive of the world at large and the things within it. Her gift in potions could radically change our perceptions of material magic and in many manners she has partially passed her teacher, Zecora. And yet, that self-same sharpness I mentioned lies at the heart of her downfall.

I know that you rule, and that I do not at the moment, but I would ask of you a favor. I would like to see a ‘Filthy Rich’ and his family removed from town and placed somewhere in Equestria where they can do the least damage possible.

“What? Harm?” Luna’s scowl darkened as Tiberius came to her side in worry at his master’s state. He, like his mistresses’ mane, was slowly darkening to the darkest void of the night as she considered what would prompt Celestia to have a family moved. “If he is an abuser, I shall see that he does no harm indeed.”

Stop that, Luna. I already know the dark thoughts you are considering, and they do no-pony good. I would like no part in them. Rich himself has done no harm; his daughter nor Applebloom have been hurt at his hooves. He is for the most part a capable father in most aspects.

No, his daughter is whom I am concerned with. She is his darling, and due to his hopes in her he has failed to notice his daughter’s intolerance and malicious use of others. This ‘Diamond Tiara’ is the capstone of Applebloom’s issues; a vile little snake of loathsome proportions if the reports I receive from many are correct. She has gone out of her way to belittle Applebloom and others, doing her best to limit all the foals of the town and drive them beneath her mediocre skills. I fear that in coming years many will not pursue their true skills thanks to her unceasing actions.

“Captain Resistance, I have a note for you from my sister’s chief servant. We have a bit of work later on.”

This—I have no words for her, I shall develop them later—filly has implanted a deep-rooted distrust of higher learning in Applebloom. The foal has come to believe that all institutions are filled with those like Diamond Tiara, and to my shame I cannot completely counter her fears. I am ashamed to say that Twilight Sparkle, your savior suffered from abuse of those under my nominal teachings, a thread that the filly picked up on.

Applebloom’s caretakers also have unwittingly added to her deep-seated issues. Applejack, when I spoke to her, was highly receptive to sending her sister to Canterlot’s institutions; as was her brother. I seem to recall that you had a bit of a filly-like infatuation with him for some reason after attending the summer festival last year. However, despite their prodding, the life at their farm has led Applebloom to put its continuation above all other concerns, and she seems to be considering abandoning her current studies in favor of helping them; an outcome I cannot support. Additionally, accidental insinuations on the part of her sister and grandmother may have planted the original seeds of her distrust after a series of actions on the part of a set of con artists. I’ll think of something, so please don’t act on anything yet.

Luna moaned in frustration, resisting the urge to bury her face in her hooves. Once more did her sister decide to carry the weight of the world on her back against the protests of all others. It would only end poorly.

Luna—I, I was wrong. I was so, so wrong when it came to the sister of Generosity. I MUST teach her. She is more powerful than I first feared, more powerful than I could have anticipated or imagined. Damnation, I was such a fool to think that it would take an alicorn to demonstrate the power I witnessed when I activated her power. With the slightest whisper of a proper song-spell, her power burst into motion; dangerous; unprepared! How she has not already ascended just from thinking it I do not know!

I miscalculated!

She should have already joined us! If I was to guess at her true nature, she should be the mistress of creation. She should be the mistress of the passions beyond love! Entirely by accident on her first true surge, she put a bolt through my horn powerful enough to send me flying without the use of my wings and would likely have killed me were it not for my immortal nature.

Luna turned ashen grey in a moment; her wings fell slack as she considered what mad hornet’s nest her sister had uncovered.

Luna, I—never have I had so little of a clue what to do. I dare not reveal myself. If the distractions of the court did not sap my attention fatally in her training, then—this situation has left me at a loss, a blank, a void of thought! We came so close to a catastrophe in my arrogant, self-aggrandizing first attempt! I know nothing of how to teach one so powerful in the arts of the song-spell; worse yet I dare not involve Twilight!

Even a simple cleaning aria was too much for her; it roared through her mind and mobilized her magic in a way my use of it in my room could never match! It was transformed into a storm of magic that would either impress or terrify Discord and nearly conjured up an unnatural sea of the inanimate in bare air! Worse yet, that terrible miscalculation has wrecked my relationship with Twilight. She was so upset at the injuries the fillies suffered in the surge, so furious and unlike her. I tried to explain that such effects never crossed my mind at the worst, that I had never seen anything like them but she would not have it.

Luna, she has always looked up to me. Seen me as a second mother in my true form or in my disguise. She thought the world of me before this; thought that I could do no harm. She’s only ever yelled at me twice; once under the influence of Chrysalis’s manipulations, the second when I arrived with Discord’s statue. But it was never anger; never hate.

Now I dare not speak to her when the foals are not nearby. She harbors a deep-seated loathing for me after my actions nearly killed an innocent. It hurts, Luna; an ache reminiscent of the worry I felt for you in the run up to your fall. I made a mistake, and Sweetie Belle nearly burned up in her own magic for it. Maybe that’s what she meant when she called me a ‘fundamentally flawed individual’ when she yelled at me in the hospital.

“Celestia, she called you an explicative-worthy idiot!” Luna hoarsely shouted at the letter, startling all around her as her mane flared back to brilliant light.

“Princess-“

“Fine. My sister has done something rash and foolish that I wish to smack her for doing.”

I hope that that dislike is the reason why she refuses to believe Sweetie Belle after her burst. Twilight was attacked by the first manifestations of the filly’s magic and incapacitated while her face was violated. That blast disrupted my disguise through the sheer power it contained. Sweetie saw me; how could she not? But, thankfully Twilight did not see. While Sweetie Belle said nothing more in the hospital, I continually feel the strangest sensation that I am being watched. I can find no source of it, but I suspect she is monitoring me for proof.

Rarity provided enough of a distraction to allow me to escape the hospital when she came for her sister. When told of the surge, she developed the strangest look upon her face. Actually, it resembled your own that time when you were hit with a pole-ax. I didn’t think that a pony could make a sound like “Ook” so many times in a row. Her fainting spell provided me with a chance to escape the orderlies before they might have broken my cover.

She is willing to have Sweetie Belle learn; readily and exuberantly at that. I believe she fears for her sister, and she seems to jump at any chance to avoid another flare like it. Their parents seem unfortunately apathetic, other than a slight concern at first for their daughter.

I’ve made quite the mess down here, Luna. I didn’t think it was possible for me to fail so spectacularly anymore. I dare not write further, lest Twilight catch me.

With regards,
Your Sister.

Luna resisted the urge to tear the scroll in half, or burn it or any other such thing. Counterproductive; wasteful; pointless. Stiff Resistance slowly walked up behind her, wondering what had distressed her so until Philomena coughed up a final, tiny scroll. Snatching it out of the air, Luna read it, and slowly blushed in horror as she felt its warning come true.

Luna! Oh, Harmony I can’t believe I was so stupid as to forget to warn you of this! The apple I sent it a test article of what Applebloom has accomplished; her rapid growth elixirs have side effects still! Do not eat it for at least a day, unless you wish to be contaminated with the potion itself! I’m sorry! Please don’t eat the apple!

Stiff Resistance stammered behind her as he watched the growths beginning in Luna’s mane, weighing it down. “Princess, I-“
“I need not guess, there is something wrong with me, is there not?” Luna sardonically lamented as she felt the weights tugging down the tips of her ears. And her tail, and mane.

Stiff Resistance slowly trotted around Luna and nodded apologetically. “Apples, Princess. They are, um—growing in your hair. And on your ear-tips. Did your sister do this?”

“Nay. Well, not intentionally. She was rather horrified to realize that she had not warned me. Next time I shall listen when you forewarn me. I suspect that you- Ow!” Luna squeaked in a manner rather unlike her as she yanked the stems from the tips of her ears. Pulling the objects in front of her, she grimaced as she looked at the two powdery blue, sparkling apples; each larger than her eyes. Celestia was not the only one with a bit of presumptive arrogance.

“Call the castle stylist. The only cure seems to be cutting them off. And take a picture, will you not? I would like to have a tangible reminder to listen to you. Sometimes.”

Excitement (3.1)

Excitement 3.1

Let it not be said that Sweetie Belle had no will, that she had no great patience, or that she had a small gavel—since her telekinesis had begun to come to her, she had gleefully wielded one the size of her head. With great and enthusiastic banging of the mighty Cutie Hammer against the black marble block on top of the podium in the Crusader’s headquarters brought the meeting to order much as in the same way that apple bucking brought down the apples from the trees—concussively. Each great slam shook the old building, knocking leaves from the tree it was built in and bits and pieces of the trio’s history from their collected shelves as Sweetie Belle hammered for their attention.

“Will you two quit it!? Order! Order!” Sweetie Belle’s loud cries were betrayed by the tiny squeaks with each word as she stared down from atop the box of Saddle Arabian bath oils Rarity didn’t know she was missing. Her two friends paused in the middle of their relatively tame fight upon the loose-fitted hardwood floors; Applebloom still sitting on the crazy posters Scootaloo had brought for them to approve of.

Said filly of the farm glared at Scootaloo from across the rug. A bounce shook her bow as the golden-yellow filly huffed in irritation. “We are not gonna be Cutie Mark Crusader Air Crews, Scootaloo. Mah tush ain’t helping you with your fool-hard plans.”

“Why not? We’ve never been able to fly before!”

“GIRLS!”

Hammering her gavel once more with impatience, Sweetie Belle retook command of their meeting. Her normally curly mane shook loose with each pounding of her gavel, leaving her looking much like her Pegasus friend. “Girls! This meeting isn’t about cutie marks! It’s more important than any cutie mark we could ever get!”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Sweetie Belle, I know you feel bad about your flare last week. I mean, yeah it was kind of scary and I didn’t know unicorns could do that. But you’re okay, we’re okay, and everypony is okay, especially if we don’t do that again.” Scootaloo rambled absentmindedly, and more than a little nervously as she considered the events of just a few days prior.

“Ain’t what she’s talking about, Scootaloo.”

Two jerks of confusion pulled Scootaloo’s head back around to focus on Applebloom. “What?”

Rumbles filled the old treehouse as Sweetie’s ever-so-carefully managed magic rolled the chalkboard out from behind the bookshelf on their back wall. Scrawled crudely upon the dusty yellow-coated green surface was a comparison image of Sunbeam and Celestia drawn next to one another with an equation sign between them. Sweetie Belle whipped a thin wooden rod out from within the podium and tapped each drawing in turn; holding it there as she let Scootaloo take it in.

Beyond the cozy wooden walls of the headquarters; outside of the re-calked time and time again boards and out amongst the trees of the orchard, a chill unseasonable wind chillily blew through the branches loudly as the late summer sun dimmed almost imperceptibly as the slightest touch of the light brushed against the cave-pony-like drawing.

A head tilt followed the board on Scootaloo’s part—the sound of her mental gears grinding and catching as she tried to figure out her friend was nearly audible. “Oh-kay. She still thinks Sunbeam is Princess Celestia. Applebloom, you mind helping me take her back to the hospital to make sure she’s alright?

“She ain’t the only one, Scoots.”

“Not you, too!” Scootaloo whined before her face had a little chat with her forehooves.

Hammering her gavel upon the slab once more, Sweetie Belle smashed order back into the meeting. Idly, she wondered if maybe she was getting a little too fond of the sound the big thing made. Little filly ears were covered hastily as the force of the unicorn filly’s blows rent the air asunder with the thunder of her displeasure; Applebloom and Scootaloo staggered back as the sound shook them harder than ever and painfully tore at their hearing. Scootaloo vanished into the entirely excessive depths of the Cutie Mark Crusader Beanbag Makers Beanbag Chair. Applebloom flopped onto her back and rolled across the room into the neatly stacked shelf lined with pillows and blankets for emergency sleepover situations and initiations.

Once she recovered from her friend’s enthusiasm and the miniature land-slide of over-packed supplies, Applebloom popped her head free of the blankets. “I’m being serious, Scootaloo!”

Desperately, an orange hoof burst free of the all-consuming bean-bag; Scootaloo flailing loudly within as she was lost to the endless depths of one of the greatest of the crusader’s eternal follies. With an exasperated and exaggerated huff, Sweetie grabbed the hoof in her magic and pulled her free with a single tug. Applebloom joined Sweetie Belle after hiding her gavel while the white filly fussily used a feather duster all over Scootaloo to clean the little beans off of her.

“I’m being serious, Scootaloo.” Sweetie Belle repeated dejectedly to her friend as she attacked the purple mane again. An ache still hurt in her over the disbelief of her friend.

Scooting back from the excessive cleaning, Scootaloo tried to reason with Sweetie. Her tail flicked with obvious irritation as she ducked and weaved around the feathery attacks as she scooted backwards towards a window. “Sweetie, you heard Twilight, didn’t you?”

“Ah’d say that little incident pretty well shows that Twilight doesn’t quite know everything, does she, Scoots?” Applebloom retorted before taking the feather duster from Sweetie.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Applebloom cleared her throat and continued on. “Well, she didn’t even know Sweetie here could do that—thing she did. At least not ‘til it happened. And who’s to say that the princess doesn’t have a way that Twilight’s books don’t cover to hide herself? She might have lied, after all.” Applebloom pointed out roughly before she grabbed a sheet of construction paper. Thoughts crossed her mind, and she wasn’t about to ignore them.

Scootaloo frowned, scrunching her nose. “Why would she lie, if she is Celestia?”

“Why would she quit to start with?” Sweetie pondered in response.

“Hay if I know.”

“Duh.” Sweetie said as she pointed at her horn while popped a sparkle from it.

Scootaloo blinked, wordlessly flapping her mouth as she tried again and again to come up with a counterargument. “So, you think-“

“Eeyup. Ah saw it too, while Ah was flapping in Sweetie’s—uh-, “ Applebloom searched for words to describe the maddening experience. Nothing on the farm had prepared her to describe getting flown like a kite by a magical accident.

Waving a hoof, the white filly dismissed her friend’s search for words. “Don’t worry about it, Applebloom. It’s like trying to describe the flavor of purple or something. I’ve got nothing either.”

Applebloom shrugged at the statement, and leaned back against the debris of the pillow-fall behind her. There was something else bucking at her mind as she laid there, trying to remind her of a critical detail. “Say, doesn’t that plaid-ness—stuff work off of yer mane colors contrasted with what your magic color would be?”

Sweetie Belle shivered uncomfortably. “Yeah. Discord shot Rarity yesterday when she tried to make him wear a tuxedo, and she turned all blue and purple. And now she’s all weird-eyed, giggling, and she keeps talking about how ‘kilts’ could be fashionable.” Making a fair impression of her sister’s current state, Sweetie’s face also looked rather concerningly like Twilight’s face when she had made a friendship problem. “Then she started saying that she should embrace the madness, and I had to make a run for it.”

Scootaloo slowly nodded, wondering if she should get Twilight to check on her friends. Weight descended in her mind, bogging her head down until she stared at the floor as an uncomfortable fact grew within the confines beneath her mane. Sunbeam wasn’t so plaid anymore. Supposedly, she had somehow convinced Discord to fix her colors, save for her mane and tail. Colors that tumbled neatly into their proper places in her mind. “Green, purple, blue, and yellow. Like Princess Celestia’s mane and tail.”

“Eeyup.”

Scootaloo’s head whipped back up hard enough to make her neck hurt. “Okay. I’m a little more convinced. How do we prove it?”

“Prove… it?” Sweetie asked from where she had wandered over by the window.

“It could just be Discord messing with us. You know, ‘Spreading Chaos without hurting anyone’ and all that.”

Blinking with disbelieving surprise across the room, the two others met their counterpart’s gaze. Doubt wriggled in, snaking in amongst their thought processes to taunt their reasoning with a niggle of paranoia. Could it all be a prank? It was his magic that made the darts. Making somepony look like somepony else harmlessly could be within his power. Convincing them to go around bugging somepony while utterly convinced she was the princess would be a prank like no other. Or, was he tricking her?

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow as her doubts tapped her friends. “Yeah, I thought so. How can we tell?” Scootaloo asked as she trotted over to join Sweetie Belle at the window.

“That varmint can’t bug one pony forever. Ya know he gets bored so fast that it gives Dash whiplash.” Applebloom quipped before writing down several notes onto her evidence poster. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo turned from the window just in time; a cold wind with frosted gummy leaves roared through the gap, faintly scented with the aroma of polka dots.

“All in favor of not calling Discord a ‘varmint’ say aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye!”

Hopping over Sweetie, Scootaloo bounded over to the podium to pull open the massive rulebook of the crusaders, opening it to the latest page and hastily scribbling the warning into the blank paper in as large a print as she could manage.

“Right, so—we’ve got to watch her. Except we’re not, you know, quiet.” Scootaloo deliberated aloud to her fellow crusaders. None of them even wanted to consider the rickety old wagon. They had fixed it again with a little bit of sorcery on Applebloom’s part, but between the squeakiness of the axles and the unstable repairs it would never hold up to the abuse needed.

Spitting out her writing instrument, Applebloom reminded them of yet another salient fact. “She can fly, too.”

“I can fly, too!”

“Need more practice, and Ah think Ah’ll pass on riding something yer towing, Scoots.”

“Do not!”

Sweetie’s lime green magic pulled the pair apart, then encased their muzzles shakily. She winced; her horn ached from using so much magic as it still wasn’t healed from the burns it had inflicted on itself. “Scootaloo, the last time you tried you launched yourself up thirty yards, then you fell into the farm’s pond.”

Scootaloo worked her mouth from side to side after Sweetie freed her. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Mmm-hm-mm!” Sweetie clammed up instantly as she realized she was humming, clapping her hooves over her mouth in a panic.
With a flop backwards from the sudden movement right beside her, Scootaloo looked up from on her back at her white friend. “What was that all about?”

Sweetie Belle whispered as she slid her hooves apart by just the tiniest fraction. “If I sing or hum, I might start exploding again.”

“Oh.” Scootaloo’s eyes opened before realization struck. Scuttling backwards, she nearly buried herself in the Cutie Mark Crusader Bean Bag as she realized what Sweetie really meant. “Oh!”

“Ooh. Ah, hay. Now Ah really want to know. Doesn’t matter if she’s Celestia or not, anypony who makes Sweetie scared of singing’s got a lot to answer for.” Applebloom declared, stomping angrily. She picked up her poster with a nip of her teeth and marched over to the cork board beside the chalk boards. With a piston of her hoof stamping against a tack, she pounded her evidence poster next to it. “So, how do we prove it?”

Sweetie hesitantly took her hooves from her mouth once she was sure she wasn’t about to break into song. “Well, we do have stuff like her plaiding. And the horn in the storm.”

“Got that. Might be Discord, need more.”

“She looks a little different now.” Scootaloo added. “She used to be built more like your brother, and had a round nose, now she’s gotten thinner and taller, and she’s got a funky square nose.”

“We said that earlier.”

“Oh, wait!”

“What?”

As if revealing some great universal truth, Scootaloo held her hooves in the air before herself. “I just remember that when we gave her an eye patch for the dart hit she took in her eye, it got hooked on something over her forehead that wasn’t there!” With a gesture that probably was unintentionally suggestive, Scootaloo waved her hooves over her forehead as if showing off something not there.

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom slowly turned around to look wide-eyed at Scootaloo and her revelation. “Why didn’t you say that earlier!?” They both shouted as one.

“Um, oops?”

Planting her hoof on her face gave Applebloom no relief for the headache that wanted to grow up into a nice strong apple tree in her brain; grinding it there as Scootaloo’s occasional scatterbrain drove her mad helped, however. Sighing once she was done, Applebloom slowly picked up her pencil and added in the latest detail “So, that’s it, then?” Her friends nodded after wracking their brains for more details. “That’s it. Ain’t enough yet. All this stuff might be Discord shenanigans. So, how do we get more?”

“Well, we’ve gotta fly to keep up with her!” Scootaloo said before buzzing upwards into an unsteady hover over the beanbag. Applebloom marked down flying on a separate sheet.

Sweetie pondered for a few seconds. “We can’t let her hear us!” That one time she had ruined their attempt at hooking up Cheerilee and Big Macintosh came to mind. She did have a bit of a mouth when she was frustrated—and it was armed to her teeth with squeakiness.

“Quiet-like. Got it. Wait, we need to figure out how to save evidence!” Applebloom shouted as she added to the board. She thumped her head against the cork of the board as she tried to come up with something to help them. Looking around the room yielded nothing; nor did any memories despite the wiggle of a thought bothering her.

“Um, I dunno. Scootaloo, you have something?” Sweetie sheepishly admitted to her friends; turning to Scootaloo last.

Tapping her chin as she wobbled in place. “What about your albums?”

“What?” Sweetie squeaked curiously. Her eyes crossed until they pointed at the tip of her nose as she thought of what Scootaloo might have been talking about. The disk of a record finally slipped out fortuitously at that moment, rolling across the room from the entertainment shelf to inspire her. “Oh! Of course! They use something to actually record records! We need to find out what it is!”

“Right, got it!” Applebloom added to the list of needed items, and wondered how exactly they were going to find a way to make a flying quiet, probably invisible thing that could record things. It wasn’t exactly up their normal alley. “Boy, this is gonna be a tough one, girls. Anypony have an idea of how to keep ‘Sunbeam’ from-“

Hooves touched down upon the porch of the clubhouse; heavy and hearty in sound as their owner settled into the narrow space between the wall and rail with nervous dancing. “Scootaloo?” Sunbeam called in to them from outside. Cheerful words had quite the opposite effect as the trio jumped into a royal panic in what was most certainly not controlled hysteria.

Sweetie Belle rolled the chalk board back behind the bookshelf too quickly, slamming it home; Applebloom nipped the posters from the wall to stash them behind the podium; and Scootaloo ran to the curtain at the doorway to intercept the object of their espionage. “Yes, ma’am?”

Sunbeam poked her head through the edge of the curtain; taking a good look at the trio. Her lips pursed in confusion as the fillies sweated in nervousness and shot far too fake-looking smiles. “Oh, goodness! What seems to be happening here? You’re almost late for your lesson, Scootaloo.”

“Cutie marks!” Scootaloo yelped nervously.

Sunbeam’s eyebrow climbed like the blade of a guillotine. “Right—are you ready for your flying lesson with Rainbow Dash?”

Scootaloo swallowed in mixed nervousness and excitement. Wait; Rainbow Dash? “Squee!”

Author's Note

I said I would do it.

So, Scootaloo is off to see the air wizard. Applebloom is busy trying to learn how to lasso Zecora to drag her out of the woods for mad potioning, and Sweetie Belle is learning how to reject your reality and substitute her own.

How hard can it be?

3.2

3.2

The chance to fly upon another pegasi’s back still thrilled Scootaloo; though her magic flickered and sparked around her the rush of flight yet eluded her. Air streamed around her; a filial ecstasy of motion. Scootaloo was as close to her idea of the summer glens as she had ever come, and only the suspicions she harbored of her chaperon and ride spoiled the occasion as they soared through the clouds. Below them slowly drifted Ponyville as the recovering town basked in the summer sun that had taken particular notice upon it; around them rolled the boiling clouds; and above shone down the deep blue skies, endlessly stretching upwards as a sea without measure. A sea with a brilliant rainbow arrowhead that stormed through open skies and fluffy cloud alike chasing after the pair.

“Heya, Squirt!” Dash called as she dove before them to loop around below and behind them matched to their speed.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo squeaked, hopping up and down.

Sunbeam slyly smirked, looking back to those behind her. Another powerful downstroke built her momentum back up as they glided over a rolling cloud approaching the town. “Squirt? Oh, you mean a Sky-Squirt? So, if I poke her in the right spot she’ll spray out a cloud trying to get away? Well, that’s quite remarkable; think of the revolution that will come with the discovery of Sky-Squids!”

“Gah, no!” Scootaloo scooted back until she was up against Sunbeam’s neck and curled in upon herself. “Don’t poke me!”

Dash cracked up, snorting mirthfully for a moment before falling out of sight into a cloud as laughter overtook her. Scootaloo clambered to the edge of her ride’s back, peering over in horror as she perched precariously. With her flanks left wide open, she had no warning as hooves struck from the other side mercilessly; Dash snatching Scootaloo up and clutching her to her chest to find out if it was true or not. Almost crying out did nothing to save the filly and only prolonged the dramatic and drawn-out raspberry applied directly to her tummy. The squeals of a tickled foal echoed hauntingly through the skies that evening, and while many saluted the poor filly from far below, none came to save her from the Dread Tickler Dash.

“Hmm.” Dash hovered above Sunbeam, letting Scootaloo hang helplessly from her grasp. “I guess not. Or maybe somepony scared the cloud right out of her, Sunbeam.”

“Oh really?” The elderly mare replied cockily as she looked over her shoulder. They were almost to the wide plain of clouds she had picked out earlier. “It couldn’t have been me, it must have been the rainbow-maned mare!”

“Stop it, I’m too young to be tickled to death!” Scootaloo helplessly wheezed as her hind-legs kicked uselessly into the air. The heights didn’t scare her since she had learned how to glide, but the threat of ticklish doom did.

Alighting, Sunbeam let the wind spill from her wings and flopped down onto the cloud beneath them; half-disappearing with a playful hop into the fluff. Up, up a thousand, up three thousand hooves they rested; well away from the dangers of ground level. Good thing, too—who knew what madness might be lurking in the form of Discord, Pinkie Pie, or others waiting to watch what happened down there.

Escaping from Dash’s deadly tickle-grasp, Scootaloo made a break for it. Beneath her hooves the cloud-top shifted and shimmied like sterner quicksand, threatening to trip her up with every step after she wriggled free and landed. Galloping across the shifting, slurping, sloshing clouds Scootaloo moved. Spotting a convenient overhang of clouds, she jumped in before pulling it shut behind her. “Can’t get me now!”

Dash looked down at the pink-stained clouds that were shining colorfully in the evening light. She needed just the right spot to jab. Her hoof struck out—clouds burst with a fluffy puff. “Nope.”

“Oh, Dash. I think we’ve tickled her enough for one day. Let’s save some for tomorrow.” Sunbeam warned as she slowly hauled herself free of the morass of softer clouds she had willingly buried herself in. “There is a great deal we need to discuss and plan for.”

A sigh escaped Dash; it was a topic long over-covered. “I know, Scootaloo’s training. I’ve been trying for a few years, I don’t know what you expect to accomplish that I couldn’t; no offense, Squirt.” Dash pulled Scootaloo from her partial cloud-fort before continuing. “Her pegasus-magic just hasn’t come in yet.”

“Wanna bet?”

Dash’s eyebrow raised as Scootaloo challenged her from behind. With no buzz of juvenile wings, Dash figured that Scootaloo was trying to show off instead of a genuine attempt. Yet, Sunbeam was pointing behind her confidently while smiling with that irritating knowing smile she had. The elder pegasus didn’t say anything; no need to spoil the surprise. Dash turned, and her jaw felt like it bounced off of the cloud. “What in the-“

Scootaloo stood still; her wings spread wide to her sides as power seemingly dripped from them. As her eyes stayed clenched shut in a zen-like trance, purple lightning flickered uncertainly from her wings in a corona of power not unlike that of a unicorn as the clouds beneath her hooves glowed purple with the backwash from her technique. “Betchya can’t do this, can you?” Scootaloo cockily quipped as she strained to hold her power.

“How-“ Dash weakly asked as she pointed; eyes spread wide and disbelieving at the sight before her.

Scootaloo’s magic flickered, flickering with her lack of control. With a last loud crackle of power, the lightning faded and died, letting the light of the evening sun slowly approaching the horizon stain the clouds around the filly with the pink rays of the last of the summer day. An exhale of escaped power came. Coughing once, Scootaloo hacked up a micro-sized cloud to hover around her mane. Not enough power yet—it would have been a shame to even think about trying to fly on a dark night only to meet Mistress Gravity a good mile up. “Rainbow Dash, I’m—different.”

Before she could say anything more, Dash rushed her. Scootaloo squeaked; it was hard to do anything else when your face was being squeezed into a pucker by hooves grabbing her by the cheeks. Dash looked intently into her eyes as they touched nose to nose, and the scratchy noises of fan-girlish delight could just charitably be counted as words from Dash. “I’ll say!”

Setting her down, Dash bowed before Scootaloo. Backing up, the filly uncomfortably looked at her idol laying prostrate before her. What fresh crazy madness had she found now?

“Teach me the ways of your coolness!” Dash begged into the cloud.

“Dash…” Sunbeam warned.

“You can shoot lightning from your wings!”

“Rainbow Dash-“

“No, wait! I’m not worthy, don’t teach me!” Dash shouted loudly into the clouds.

“Dash-“ Scootaloo awkwardly tried to interject, only to be cut off.

“Where were you hiding-“

“Rainbow Dash, stop this instant!”

A shadow fell upon them both as Sunbeam seemed to loom large above them; her wings spreading wide and imperiously as she glared down at Dash. Her shadow spread across the cloud, and rumbling roils of thunder crawled with irritation within it. With that tiny, frightening realization that there was more to Sunbeam than met the average eye, Dash slowly crawled away from Scootaloo before sitting up and trying to look as small as possible. With a final groan of thunder from the cloud they stood upon, Sunbeam’s shadow crept back to her as she clasped her wings back to her sides and seemingly shrank back to being a normal mare. Sunbeam put a hoof to her chest, and followed a breathing exercise similar to the ones Twilight could be seen using so often. “Scootaloo cannot teach you for much the same reason that you have been unable to teach her.”

Their eyes wide open and with their manes blown back from the furious force of Sunbeam’s aborted wrath, Scootaloo and Dash glanced at each other with awe before Dash raised a hoof to question. “Can we get back to the part where you-“

“No.”

Working up her courage, Scootaloo poked Dash in the ribs. “Um, Rainbow Dash, I think she’s talking about how my head is different.”

“And now, I’m completely lost.”

“I—my parents probably weren’t pegasi. So, instead of getting the little bit that lets me fly by instinct like you do, I have to think about it and cast my magic like a unicorn.” Scootaloo explained from her limited knowledge. Closing her eyes once more brought her back into her zen focus to accomplish her next example. Shakily, a tendril of cloud arose from the fluff beneath their hooves; shakily it rose to touch Dash upon her nose; shakily did it snake around the pegasus, glowing purple hazily as it drew close and squeezed like a constrictor. “K-kind of like that.” Scootaloo strained to say.

A lazy flex of Dash’s wings broke the hold with unconscious ease. With the lightest hint of a rainbow crackle, the cloudy tendril dispersed into mist around her. “Wha- you really—Scootaloo, that was one of the strangest things I have ever seen. But, I have heard of something like it.” Dash hesitantly explained, carefully picking up one of the spinning clumps of cloud from the debris to present to Scootaloo.

Sunbeam took her turn to be confused as she slowly trotted over closer. “You have?” Casting her gaze at each of them in turn, a thought began to strike her that she might have been further out of contact with the common populous of Equestria than she had originally thought. “I know that your ‘Sonic Rainboom’ may be related to the conscious casting of a pegasi spell, but I have never heard of any other user who acts in the way that Scootaloo and I can manage.”

“You?” Dash asked incredulously.

Sunbeam flexed her wings again, and a nimbus of power crackled downwards into the clouds.

Dash scooted closer to Scootaloo unconsciously, somewhat frightened of that little revelation. She cleared her throat and began. “Well, uh, I used to think that it was all old mare’s tales. You know, those stories about Flying Hoof Masters who could control clouds like unicorns could cast spells. Little rumors about wise old masters hiding in the high mountains and in the highest clouds no other pegasus could reach. Stuff like that.”

Poking a cloud-piece into the air, Dash poked it over and over again to keep it floating and to keep her mind off of the fact that she was standing near the living proof that those tales were probably real. Her mouth screwed itself into a squiggle of uncertain self-doubt as the sun’s rays warmed her from behind. “There’s more like that. Some say that philosophers in the old days before the Warming could make dry air rain, and single-hoofedly make hurricanes with their minds while cutting you to bits with just the wind.” Right, just old tales. Dash wondered what other old stories that her dad had told her might be true. Then again, after Discord she probably should have asked sooner. “So, you taught Scootaloo how to do it, so where did you learn?”

Feigning a cough, Sunbeam covered her mouth with a hoof to hide any betraying facial expressions. “Princess Celestia taught me when she found me early in life. I have a similar issue to Scootaloo, but I learned enough to mimic normal flight.” She lied, keeping her expression as neutral as she could. The sun called to her as it approached the last hour of its daily journey, and she answered the call thankfully, eager for any excuse to turn from the pair and stare into it to help sell her story. “I would be teaching Scootaloo myself, but I’ll need to help the Princesses teach Sweetie Belle.”

Dash stopped as the last part of that statement caught her attention. “Wait, why does—Princess Celestia is coming out of hiding?”

“Only for long enough each day to help Twilight and I teach Sweetie. Her power is more intense than even Twilight’s at the same age.” Sunbeam bowed her head slightly as she continued. “It was actually powerful enough to overwhelm Twilight and threw her across the room. The Princess is worried about her and agreed to help.”

Belatedly, Dash only realized her mouth was hanging open when Scootaloo pushed it shut again. “She’s not kidding, Rainbow Dash. I was there, it was—nopony really knows how to describe what happened.” Scootaloo explained as her wings fluttered uncertainly over the memories.

Dash averted her gaze; the clouds were more inviting than the thoughts of the power required to knock Twilight senseless since her transformation into an alicorn. Darting back and forth, Dash’s eyes betrayed her inner turmoil as she considered her options. Even she knew her tutoring had been less than helpful for Scootaloo. It had helped with her endurance, certainly; but never had the filly gotten close to going airborne before this new apparent revelation from Sunbeam. Here she was, being asked again to help by somepony who knew more than she could ever dream of knowing; and here she was, no longer certain that she could. What about what Scootaloo wanted—would she even accept no?

“Dash, I sort of need more basics than the basics. Please?” Scootaloo pleaded, committing war crimes by inflicting the ultimate foal persuasion tools on her.

Sunbeam prompted her further verbally, still staring off into the sunset. “Truth to tell, I’m not actually all that good. When it comes to pegasus magic, that is.” It was actually the truth. She had rather heavily neglected her pegasus aspects in favor of those needed in the court. Maybe once she had Sweetie stabilized a little, she could indulge in them once more. “While I may be a teacher, I believe you are far better than I when it comes to directing somepony in the utter fundamental aspects of pegasi magic. You were probably closer than you think to making a breakthrough with Scootaloo anyway.”

Dash perked up as Sunbeam finally turned around to her; she assumed a Wonderbolts-standard position of attention with her head held high. “Well, I might know some things.”

Sunbeam aimed her verbal dagger right for the pride. “And, if Scootaloo were to lose control in the air, I can think of no better pony to catch her when she falls.” The little metaphorical Dash in Sunbeam’s head fell over and died as her verbal dagger struck home and exploded the bubble of pride in the mental pegasi’s heart.

Blink-Blink. “You know, flattery is a really ugly form of blackmail.”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash. You’re only saying that because you don’t want it to stop, now do you?”

Buzzing her wings to break up the uncomfortable adult conversation, Scootaloo unsteadily lifted herself into the air on cushions of whirling wind. “Hey, don’t be like that, you two! There are foals here! Like me!” Her unsteady hover slowly shifted, letting her point at Dash, who blinked once more at the sight of Scootaloo bobbing like a kite in the wind. “Think about it, I don’t want any other ponies ending up like me! If we work together, you could become as famous as Starswirl with me if we can-woah-woah-woaaaaaaah!” Her prideful boast was cut short by the cruel fate of high altitude wings; Scootaloo’s minimal control cutting out in the harsh blast of cold air that carried her away. The filly flew quite well in retrospect—right into a cloudbank.

Dashing into action with a swift rainbow speed reaction, Dash was there in seconds to pull Scootaloo from her cloudy trap by the filly’s still visible hind-hooves. “Easy there, Squirt!” Dash admonished as she set the dizzy filly down on the clouds that made up the ground. A few light swats of her sky-blue wing dusted away the cottony clouds stuck all over the miniature pegasus.

Gazing down into Scootaloo’s eyes as the filly recovered and looked up at her, she wondered just what exactly went on behind them. “You’re talking about more work than I could imagine. More work than trying to be a Wonderbolt, even. Twilight showed me what real research is like, once. You’ll be banging your head on a wall over and over again just trying to figure things out, always worrying if you’ll ever get enough done to let others work on what you built. I can try to figure out where my basics went wrong, but I have to ask you—just how far do you really want to go?”

Setting a grim and determined look on her face, Scootaloo challenged back. “Dash, I don’t care what Sunbeam says. If it wasn’t for her, I probably never would have flown at all. If we figure this out, together,” Scootaloo poked Dash hard in the chest; poking her back, “We could change everything. Like you guys saving the Crystal Empire. We’ve got to go all the way.” Scootaloo held her gaze on Dash as hard as she could manage, making sure the other pegasus knew she was serious.

“Good to hear it.” Dash paused as she realized Sunbeam was trying to sneak away. “Wait! Where do you think you’re going, Sunbeam? Get back here!”

3.3

3.3

“Focus—focus.” Scootaloo intoned steadily, sitting in front of Rainbow Dash. The evening breeze was picking up, ruffling her mane steadily as the skies darkened above them and the stars appeared one by one.

Dash’s breaths shook as she stretched out her wings and balanced in place carefully. The strain was making her balance go out of whack and she felt like she was in two places at once. “This is making my head fuzzy. Er.”

Her eyes snapping open, Scootaloo looked up to Dash’s face. That fuzzy feeling was almost certainly what she was looking for. Trying to make sense of the scruntched features upon the pegasi’s face she tried to remember if she looked like that shortly before her own first launch. “That’s got to be it, Dash! Hang onto it!” Their platform wobbled beneath their hooves as Scootaloo hopped; the poor mare indignant that she now had two pegasi on her back.

Each feather upon Dash’s wings twitched in turn as strange feelings crawled down her spine and spiraled around her legs to buzz her hooves like a fizzing soda. The last rays of the sun slid away from her face and left her cold even as the ball of strangeness within her head grew and turned stormy. She didn’t dare open her eyes lest the gathering energy escape her. Each breath whistled between her lips faster and faster, ever faster with the weakness of the unfamiliar strain.

“Can you push it into your chest?” Scootaloo asked as she backed up a little further.

Grumbling, Sunbeam adjusted her stance for the movement on her back. “Do you two have to do this on me?”

“Yes. Sush. You’re sticking around just in case.” Scootaloo answered Sunbeam.

Lightning roared within Dash, filling her chest as the ball of power in her head slowly tricked down. The power collecting in her head boiled. The boiling in her heart seeped into her wings. Her wings buzzed with motion as the molten heat touched their tips. Spreading, her wings extended to their greatest extent; flowing, the fiery river ran from her head to her heart, and out her sides. Dash’s uneven breaths slowed and steadied into solid, longing lung-fulls as the boiling warmth touched every part of her body and left her feeling lighter than she ever had before. Her wings rose unconsciously with the need to soar, rising and shaking as she needed to go with every fiber of her being.

“Dash, wait, don’t!”

Dash did—with a single wingbeat she was gone in a concussive corona of rainbow force firing upwards into the skies.

Scootaloo and Sunbeam looked up with horror, staring up to the column of rainbow lightning disappearing into the night skies. “That’s why!” Scootaloo shouted after recovering from her chokehold around Sunbeam’s neck. “We’ve got to catch her!”

Freed from most of the weight upon her back, Sunbeam crouched for her own takeoff. “Hang on!” She pumped her wings and launched after Dash.

Storming into the skies, the pair took off after the wayward Pegasus. Against the gathering dark of the night, her rainbow trail blazingly stood tall and shone as brightly as a Las Pegas neon sign. Scootaloo clung to Sunbeam’s neck as they climbed vertically; the filly only hung on thanks to ropes of cloud lashed and wrapped around the mighty mare’s barrel. There was no telling how fast Dash was ascending; only a seemingly endless column of light vanishing into the skies above.

So they climbed after her, chasing the Pegasus at the end of the rainbow. They climbed and climbed even as the moon began to rise and the trail disappeared into a cloud. Bracing, they ploughed through the doughy vapor with brute force. They cleared through it with all the power in Sunbeam’s wings—their breakthrough at the top gave no relief, however, only the blank and starry skies as far as they could see. No sign of the trail remained, and even the remaining glow within the cloud faded away into darkness. No Dash, no trail, only the darkness.

Scootaloo leapt from Sunbeam’s back; she ran for the edge of the buffeted cloud in horror to look below them. The curling updrafts pelted her face with ice crystals as she looked down and cried out with panic. “Dash! Dash!” Her head darted from side to side, looking for anything, her ears burning lightly from the cold that permeated the ever-present high altitude winds.. “Oh, no! If she falls from this height, if she can’t get control back she’ll die!”

Another joined her looking down over the edge of the curling cliff of cloud. Scratching herself behind her mane, the smaller mare hummed in agreement. “Yeah, it would hurt a lot more than hitting a cloud at the speed of a sonic rainboom.”

Scootaloo snapped at the jokester at her side, looking up to scowl at her. “This isn’t the time for jokes, Rainbow Dash! Dash is probably falling to her d- wait a second.”

“No, no. Go ahead. I’ll be right here, you know. Busy trying to find where I threw up my lungs to, and all of that.” Dash dismissed, clutching her bruised chest with a wing. She checked off in her mental notes ‘hit a cloud at Sonic Rainboom’—no need to punish herself like that again; gravity punished her more than enough.

An orange and purple blur tackled her to the surface of the ice crystal cloud; the worried filly bawling into Dash’s chest in relief. Pinning Dash in place, Scootaloo rubbed her head against the downy fur between the older pegasi’s forelegs. “Don’t do that to me! I thought I was going to lose you!”

“Wasn’t my plan. Oh my—“

“Seriously, what were you thinking flying straight up like that?” Scootaloo accused, looking up from her perch to glare at Dash in her eyes as the moonlight softly filled the air.

“Oh tree, oh sun, I’m gonna die?” Dash offered, knowing that Scootaloo probably wouldn’t take her answer.

“I’m serious!” The filly punched the blue mare in the chest and knocked the air out of her sensitive and bruised body.

After a few gasps of relief, Dash picked up where she left off, “So am I! I was doing what you said, and this uncontrollable urge to flap took me. The next thing I know, I’m flying upwards so fast that I felt like I sucked my eyeballs through my head and out of my hooves.” Dash explained as she lazily flopped out like a dead pony. Her sore wings smoked and sparked to either side from the residual magic that still spouted from her like a font. Soreness permeated her whole body, leaving her wings feeling like jelly and her legs like noodles. She’d never exerted herself so hard in her entire life. “Next to how fast I was going there at the end, I’ve never even tried before! But it was like one of those ‘rocket’ thingies they play with down on the coast.”

“Really? No control at all?” Scootaloo asked, suspecting that Dash’s problems were the same as her own after that little revelation. Her hoof wandered to her ears, trying to keep them warm against the cold they were in that was soaking into every bit of herself. Even winter wasn't so bad; and her breaths felt funny.

“Nope. All straight lines.”

Letting her head fall back to Dash’s chest heavily, Scootaloo pondered what that could mean. Poor Rainbow Dash grunted as the weight squeezed the air out of her once more. Twitching her mouth, the filly tried to make sense of it. “Yeah, I kind of have the same problem, too. I can sort of change course, but it’s really, really hard. No control at all? I thought you’d be able to—“

“We’re missing something. I don’t know what yet. What’s so different about it from normal flight?”

“Darn.” Scootaloo said before rolling off of Dash and kicking a cloud with a fore-hoof while atop Dash’s hot wing. She looked up, trying to find where their assistant had run off to. “Sunbeam, what did you do to solve—where’d she go!?” Scrambling to her hooves, Scootaloo turned around and round, but there was no trace of the wayward teacher.

“Really?” Dash slowly and painfully sat up. “She really left us? Right. I’ll have to do something about that later.” She grumbled, flexing her wings painfully as she rolled forward onto her hooves. What kind of a teacher left like that? “Great. Well, do you have an idea on how to control this?”

“Me? No!” Scootaloo protested, stomping a hoof into the clouds. “If I did, I’d be flying already.”

“Right. Good point, I’m stupid.” Dash admitted before tapping her chin weakly in thought. There had to be a way to see what was going on with the whole ‘conscious Pegasus magic’ thing. She wasn’t particularly looking to go take a look at the top of the world again like she just had, once was quite enough. It wasn’t like they had a way to just look at somepony’s brain easy.

Oh, wait. She really was pretty stupid, because she had a friend just like that. Or maybe she needed to get her head checked. She did hit that cloud pretty hard. Bopping her head time and time again, she wondered how many more screw-ups she was going to make. She picked up Scootaloo; looking left and right before squeaking her nose against the fillies’ own. “Twilight! She’ll have the stuff to figure this out, and she’s got her big freaky brain to help us figure out how to figure it out!”

Her eyes widening, the little filly realized just how right her old mentor was. “Yeah!” Oh, right. There was one slight issue. “Well, she’s got the stuff, anyway. She’s kind of busy with Sweetie Belle making sure she doesn’t accidentally make two plus two equal fish.” She explained.

Cocking an eyebrow, Dash wondered what exactly that was supposed to mean. “Right. Two plus two equals fish?”

“She’s got some kind of crazy control over that heart music stuff that makes ponies break out in song. And stuff.” Scootaloo pointed out, shivering against the biting cold once more. “Not that I do that, of course.”

“If you say so, Squirt. I’ve done it too, you know.”

Scootaloo frowned and pouted slightly. She didn’t do that girly stuff. “Totally don’t.”

Rainbow Dash smiled.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

“Like this?” Dash pulled Scootaloo in close again and started rubbing noses again, eliciting giggles from the little filly as she kicked.

“Gah, no! Heeeeeelp!”

“Nopony shall save you now!”

“But how am I supposed to get home toni-i-ight!?” Scootaloo squeaked as she tried to brace herself against Dash and push away from the nose tickling her in all the worst spots.

Dash let her and held the filly out at leg’s length. Smiling, she pondered aloud. “Well, I’d take you home since your ‘teacher’ ran off, but you don’t like ‘girlyness’, and since I’ve kind of gotten a little girly over the years…”

“Can I get a ride down?” Scootaloo asked as she calmed from her laughter.

Nodding, Dash tossed her up into the air a little and caught the filly on her back with a bit of experienced movement. The little weight drove her down a little and got a grunt out of her as the sore area between her wings ached from the impact. “Good thing I was planning on it! Seriously, though, nothing wrong with being a little girly.”

Scootaloo flew a raspberry at her idol at her last statement, rolling her eyes at Dash. The older pegasi braced for a tight squeeze, only to be pleasantly surprised at the light touches around her back as clouds rose up from their launch pad to weave dense ropes around her neck and Scootaloo. When Dash raised her eyebrow again, Scootaloo defended herself lightly. “What? Did you expect me to get all clingy and squeeze the life out of you like I was looking for the best spots to shave your mane for a wig again?”

Dash wondered if it was too late to get a cloud for Scootaloo to ride down. “Again?”

Awkward silence stretched out. “Um, I kind of stopped doing that a few years ago?”

“Really?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time? It was right after your second rainboom. I didn’t really mean to take it all.” Scootaloo cringed as she spoke.

“That was you?!”

“I was eight and all, uh, impressionable! Yeah, that’s the word! I’ve got better, it was four years ago!”

“Rarity made me go super-frilly for a month! It was horrible!” Dash pouted aloud, frowning with disappointment as she trotted towards the edge of the cloud. The crazy, silly hats, the disturbing dresses, it was like some fashion purga—oh, right. She sighed as she couldn’t stay mad. She was supposed to set a good example for Scootaloo, she couldn’t get too mad at her for something that happened four years ago.

Thinking back, it was kind of funny having to go through all that craziness just to get a dyed wig to hide her baldness. At the time, she had even thought it had been Pinkie Pie getting her back for the One Scoop incident. But had she been any different when she was young? There was that time with Fleetheart and the Wonderbolts not long after Cloudsdale lost its bid that she was sure was the reason why she hadn’t been accepted to the ‘bolts yet, after all.

“Alright, so it was kind of annoying and uncool to do that, Scootaloo.” She admitted. “But if you never do it again, I would like to see that wig. Gotta make sure you got it just right.” Dash drawled, winking at Scootaloo over her shoulder.

“Well, duh. Of course I got it right!” Scootaloo waved her hoof, snorting at the mere thought that she had gotten Dash paraphernalia wrong. “We’re like, partners in awesome or something!”

“Let’s not go that far, yet. Study Buddies in Awesome. Maybe.” Angling her wings to easily glide on home, Dash let herself fall from the edge of the cloud and roll out into an easy descent through the whispering winds of the night skies. There really was something to the—whatever it was—that Scootaloo had. Granted, it made her feel like Big Macintosh had been bucking her back to Discord’s era over and over again, but there was something real to it.

Easing over, Dash pulled into a wide corkscrew to bleed off altitude on their way down. There was one thing, though. “We still need to find out how she flies. It’d go a long way to figuring this out. Why hasn’t she explained it to you?”

Pensively, Scootaloo pondered voicing her suspicions. It was crazy, and there was no way to know if she’d be believed or not. “Say, Dash. If I was to tell you something, would you Pinkie Promise not to reveal it?”

“It’s not bad, is it? ‘Cause if somepony could get seriously hurt from it, Pinkie makes an exception now.” Dash absentmindedly replied to her passenger as she rolled to her other side lazily to start corkscrewing in the other direction.

“No.” Scootaloo snapped worriedly. “Well, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s bad, but it’s more somepony doing things that will make other ponies not respect her much anymore. And, uh, not something that will get somepony hurt, I think.” She mumbled, tapping her hooves against Dash’s neck in a static beat of worry. Were they there yet? It was getting kind of late, and she felt like falling asleep where she laid. But hadn't the sun just set an hour before?

Leaning her head back to look over her shoulder, Dash asked the question on her mind as they swooped over the lake. “So, why would I need to Pinkie Prom-“

“The Crusaders and I think Sunbeam isn’t a Pegasus!”

“And now you’ve just lost me in a cloudbank.”

“We think she’s Princess Celestia!”

Dash wobbled as her concentration broke. Her glide faltered into a wobbling jig of movement as she tried to fit the princess into her image of Sunbeam and failed miserably. “What makes you say that? It’s kind of nuts, even for Ponyville. Even after the attack of those killer nuts, it’s nuts.”

“Lots of stuff.”

“Uh, not helping your case here—“

“Well, we don’t have any proof yet, but we’re kind of working on that?”

“Don’t you think you should get some before saying stuff like that?” Dash turned forward again as she smoothed out her glide. “Kind of rude to just go accusing somepony of stuff like that.”

“We’re working on it. But it explains how she could fly normally, and still do the wingy-magic stuff. And she made Sweetie Belle afraid to sing!”

“Whoa, uncool!”

“Yeah, I know! That whole ‘two plus two equals fish’ thing!”

Dash bit her lip, considering what to say. What could she say? Could Sunbeam be a problem, a problem which could cause others? Could she be the princess? If the Crusaders were right, it’d be huge. But if they were wrong, that’d be worse. And did they even have the right to reveal her if it was true? “So, if somehow you did kind of prove it, what would you do then? I’m just saying that having proof just means you have proof.”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Yeah, some of my worst ideas have come from that. Gotta have a plan, Scootaloo. Gotta have a plan.”

Scootaloo didn’t know what she could say to that. Yet. She wished she was down on the ground again, or in her bed, though. So tired...

Above them, though, high above on a cloud floating serenely in the night, a white figure watched from beyond the sight of mortal eyes. Watching, waiting, wondering if Dash would be enough to handle the filly. There was much to do, and much to work on. They were out of her hearing, gliding away into the darkness of her sister’s night headed for home. Home like where she should be, getting ready for the madness of the next day. There was a filly to teach, soon.

3.4

Author's Note

Go back to 3.3 before reading. Made some minor edits to the middle/end to set up this one.

3.4

3-4

The morning sun beat at Scootaloo’s head painfully, trying to sneak into her eyes despite the way she scrunched her eyes shut. It seemed to poke her nose and tweak it warmly, and pry her eyelids open to blind her through the cracks with bright light. Moaning, she despised the way that her brain was made of pain.

The night before had been weird. She had kept on getting sleepier and sleepier despite the early hour. Her ears had been burning—or so they felt like—since the winds on the high cloud, higher than she had ever been before. When they had gotten down, Caring Gladly—the head of the Ponyville Orphanage—had dragged them both off to the hospital right away the second they had shown up on the orphanage’s front porch. Dash was just fine, but she had gotten a little bit of frostbite on her ears from the thin, cold air six miles up. Ms. Gladly had scolded Dash for a while until the older Pegasus could explain the circumstances. She backed off a little and got a funny look on her face when Dash explained what had happened and showed off the rainbow aura she could call up. The nurses wanted to keep both of them overnight, and so waking up in a hospital bed was pretty expected.

Waking up in a hospital bed with her ears wrapped up as they burned lightly from frostbite was; waking up with the bed vibrating lightly with some kind of magical field generator with Applebloom and Sweetie Belle poking her face and nose to nose with her wasn’t. She totally meant to scream and flail, it was her morning routine. Really. Her friends fell back, toppling to their rumps and over the railings of her bed into the piles of flowers and get well cards on either side. “YAH-wokeupnow!”

“Scootaloo! Yer awake!”

“Scootaloo, oh thank goodness!”

Blinking, Scootaloo looked around confused and dazed from her rude wakeup. She was only in overnight. Where had all the junk come from? “Uh, guys… what are you doing here? I only had frostbite, what’s with all the stuff?”

Ms. Gladly cleared her throat in the corner, gathering all of their attention. The elderly old Pegasus brushed her greying mane out of her face as she got up and stretched out. “Young lady, you had much more than just frostbite.” She shook out each leg, cracking and popping the joints in each. “You were asleep for all of yesterday, and most of today. It’s early afternoon. The doctors explained to me that your exhaustion is why you gathered frostbite, and a bit of altitude sickness.”

Scootaloo gulped nervously. Passed out for a day? How had she gotten magic exhaustion? That was a unicorn thing. “What about Dash? How did I-“

“Rainbow Dash came back the next day and helped us put things together.” Ms. Gladly warmly smiled, brushing back Scootaloo’s mane futilely. “As it turns out, when you use your magic like a unicorn’s, you put yourself in peril of suffering their same ailments. Using your little cloud saddle and all the other tricks you did tired you out too much.”

Applebloom flailed a little as Ms. Gladly picked her up by the scruff of her neck. An old, experienced hoof attacked the filly mercilessly in the belly to make the apple filly squirm helplessly as she was tickled. Setting her down at the foot of the bed, Ms. Gladly continued. “I never expected it to see the condition in you. Normally, it’s some unicorn foal all enthralled with their new toy to realize it’s a muscle just like any other. A good thing I caught it once we were here in the both of you.”

“Both of us?” Scootaloo gasped lightly. Sweetie Belle climbed up on the other side, shimmying over the railing with her legs kicking in the air crazily as she teetered on the rail on the fulcrum of her belly.

“Next room. She tried to run off and do her normal job yesterday. She went and collapsed when she tried to use her new tricks to wrangle some clouds in the middle of her weather patrol. About as cantankerous as you when it comes to sitting still, she’s trying to get out right now.”

Clopping her mouth shut, Scootaloo stopped asking questions. She had accidentally put Rainbow Dash in the hospital? A set of small whines escaped her as she slumped back into her pillow with worry.

“Oh, sush you. I’m a little mad at this Sunbeam, but I don’t think even she knew it was possible to overuse your magic like this. She’s the strangest mare I’ve seen, that one.” Ms. Gladly said and frowned, looking at the door. Turning back, she corrected the pensive look on Scootaloo’s face with two gentle hoof strokes to draw up the corners of the filly’s mouth. “Land’s sakes, you would think I told you that you kicked every one of Fluttershy’s kittens and puppies.”

Nodding, Scootaloo didn’t want to look as Applebloom rolled her eyes and Sweetie Belle gasped in horror while whispering things about meaniepants.

“Oh, I’m already proud of you, Scootaloo. You might be the one who never found a home of her own, but it looks like you’ll be the one to make her own way. Just keep up what you’re doing, a little more carefully.” Ms. Gladly whimsically praised as she tried to brush Scootaloo’s mane again. Frowning as the unruly thing snapped back to its wind-blown state, she harrumphed and shook her head ruefully at the nemesis of her life.

Behind her, Scootaloo’s partners in mayhem fidgeted somewhat nervously as they waited on the foot of the bed with a big box filled with sheafs of paper. Sweetie had retrieved it with her magic after she had safely situated herself on the bed. Ms. Gladly gave them a worried stink-eye and they tried to appear as innocent and angelic as possible for her. The little halos were mostly just taped to the tips of their ears since they would otherwise fall off.

“Oh, you two. I was just about to pokey on off. Since the three of you aren’t going anywhere fast I’m not going to keep an eye on you. You don’t have to put on those silly innocent expressions for me.” Ms. Gladly warmly scolded the ever-wayward group. She turned and trotted for the door, stopping once. “I’ll be just outside making sure that Miss Twilight gives the three of you lessons on how to spot signs of overusing your magic. Have fun planning new adventures to find your cutie marks, and if you have any trouble just shout like you set yourself on fire.”

“That was only once!” Sweetie Belle squeaked indignantly.

“Yes ma’am, Missus Gladly, ma’am.” Applebloom deferred as the old Pegasus scooted out the door. She was all but vibrating along with Sweetie Belle with the need to tell Scootaloo something, and it was only by sheer will alone that they didn’t explode with excitement into girlish unintelligible squeals as soon as the door shut. Applebloom dragged the box across the woolen green sheets up to the hind-hooves of the Pegasus filly. With a slightly mad look of somepony who had been brainstorming a bit too much, she checked on Scootaloo. “Fore we get started, ya didn’t lose anything, did ya?”

Blinking, Scootaloo patted herself down. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t look like I’m missing anything, do I?”

“Great! That means we can get going!” Sweetie shouted too closely to Scootaloo’s face. Her horn glowed brightly, and the big box of papers exploded into a drift of material that swallowed half the bed beneath crude drawings of plans and rambling thoughts. Sweetie Belle grabbed a particular bunch of papers—all torn and crumpled from the way they had been shoved in—and shoved them into Scootaloo’s lap. “We thought of this really neat idea to make a ship!”

“A flying ship!” Applebloom clarified with a shout.

“Invisible and stuff!”

Moaning, Scootaloo steadied her stomach as the excited hopping of her friends sloshed the bed back and forth like a ship at sea. Ugh, why did she get seasick so easily? She forced herself to roll forward so she was sitting fully upright. “Stop!” She croaked and poked her friends in their noses to force them to stop bouncing her crazily. “Before we go any further, why are we doing this?”

“Whaddaya mean? You agreed the other day? Maybe Ah should get a nurse.”

“Ugh, no. I mean, what’s our plan, and why do we want to prove she’s the princess?”

“We want to find out if Celestia is really Sunbeam. Duh.” Sweetie responded, as if things were self-evident.

“And then?”

“Then what, Scootaloo?” Applebloom asked in confusion, sparing a look to Sweetie Belle.

Groaning again, Scootaloo fell back slightly into her massive, fluffy pillow as her strength weakened. Her balance was still funny from the massive balls of bandages on her ears, and her stomach and back were weak and trembling; not to even mention the way her head hurt like she had been the one to plow into an ice cloud at sonic rainboom speeds. Rubbing just in front of her ears with her fore-hooves, she tried again. “Why do we even care if the princess is teaching us? What would we do with knowing that even if we did prove it?”

“We know? Ya gotta stop overthinking things, Scoots.” Applebloom said in confusion.

“We’re not thinking things out enough, that’s what’s been tripping us up according to Dash. We seriously have no plans if we prove this?” Scootaloo complained irritatedly.

“Ah didn’t know Ah needed a plan just to find out if somepony is lying to me.”

“If you’re right, then just rushing into this is going to be worse than our normal stuff. We all know how that goes. So we find out, then what? We keep it to ourselves? Confront her?” Scootaloo abrasively pointed out as she started sorting through the papers that had her friends ‘plans’. The afternoon sun was in just the right spot to shine in a beam of light onto the papers in a golden haze.

Sweetie Belle piped up, looking a little sad that Scootaloo was turning her back on the plan. “So she’ll make up with Twilight. So she’ll teach us right with everything she knows instead of pretending to be a Pegasus. So we can remind her that everypony trusted her to run everything, instead of making her sister do her job.”

“Alright.” Scootaloo said, holding up a bunch of papers that looked important.

“That’s it, alright?” Sweetie asked, disbelieving.

Nodding, Scootaloo clarified. “Well, yeah. I didn’t need a deep reason. I was just saying we needed an actual reason.” As she leafed through the designs, she winced at the ideas presented. Sweetie’s scribbles were kind of expected, since she had a terrible head for mechanical stuff, but Applebloom’s ideas were just weird. Her blueprints weren’t very blue; or really prints for that matter. Heck, half the design ideas needed the ground to stay up. “What is this, a ship, a balloon, or a house?”

Applebloom grumpily passed along a few papers Scootaloo had missed in her search, disliking the filly’s tone. “Kinda both; kinda neither.”

Deciding that the fire between her ears had nothing to do with frostbite, Scootaloo let herself fall forwards in an irritated slump. There wasn’t any coherent vision in her friend’s ideas, and the only thing she figured she could salvage out of their brainstorming session was the vague boat-like shape Applebloom had. “This is all wrong, guys. It’ll never fly.”

“Sayin that Ah don’t know how to build?”

“You know how to build buildings. And clubhouses. This has to fly and move. And stuff.” Scootaloo counter-argued in exasperation.

“Hey! I helped!”

Wincing, Scootaloo looked at Sweetie’s handiwork. A ‘de-transmorgifier’ ray blasted from some kind of cardboard box-looking ship thing, zapping Sunbeam into Celestia and a pile of changelings. “What is this, I don’t even-“

“We can zap her someplace and make her face cutie-justice!” The unicorn filly excitedly said, holding a hoof high in victories imagined and yet to come.

“We’re about to try to unmask Princess Celestia by trying to invent a whole new kind of invisible flying ship, and this is the best we’re got?” Scootaloo ranted from where she laid, waving the offending paper like she was some kind of ranting, lazy, tired madpony. Which she probably was by that point. They were doomed. It was all going to catch fire, fall over, sink into Froggy Bottom Bog, then get covered in tree sap, and they still wouldn’t have their cutie marks. And gravity would laugh at them. Again.

Sighing, Applebloom joined Scootaloo in laying down flat as everything got to her, too. “Well, she’s being mean and withholding valuable… uh, insights! Yeah! What else are we supposed to do?” Applebloom helpfully pointed out.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the one who knows funny words!” Sweetie grumpily complained. “Besides, she’s being a big pouty-pants who left her sister alone with those mean nobles!” She heinously stated as a crackle of thunder accompanied her from outside. Ditzy was playing with rain clouds again. “Wait, does she even wear pants?”

“Focus, guys! This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done! We have to figure out exactly what we’re doing or we’ll likely explode twice for messing with things nopony was meant to know! And we-hide the stuff!” Scootaloo warned as the shadow of three mares appeared in the window of the door. A mad scramble hurriedly stuffed most of the incriminating evidence back in the box messily while the rest found its way under Scootaloo’s pillow as the filly threw herself back and pretended to be sicker than she was for an audience.

The door opened, admitting Dash with her wings both wrapped in slings, Sunbeam scuttling ahead of a visibly angry Twilight, and Ms. Gladly looking bemused as she trailed the group. Twilight had a particularly furious look upon her face that intimidated the trio even though the majority of its ire was being spent upon the back of Sunbeam’s head. “Ms. Sunbeam has several long and heartfelt apologies she has to make to the three of you, doesn’t she?”

Clearing her throat several times unnecessarily, she stalled for time to find a better way of stating her position. Twilight wouldn’t have any of it, and poked her in the ribs to make her start. “I would like to apologize to you, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. I came to Ponyville at the Princess’s request, expecting to coast through my training for the two of you based on my past experiences instead of going into my evaluations with a clear head. I ignored all the signs that the three of us were all in over our heads and took improper caution in my training. I withheld information particularly important to you, Sweetie Belle, and I’m very, very sorry.” Sunbeam averted her eyes to the floor, feeling rather ashamed of herself and her avoidant behavior, catching sight of something odd under the bed.

Twilight looked mad still, though not as angry as the worst the trio had seen from her. The young alicorn had already spent most of her yelling earlier elsewhere in the hospital and had little else to say. With Sunbeam being forced to correct the worst of her oversights under the princess’s gaze, what else could she say? She had already apologized for chasing Sunbeam to the hospital to make her apologize. Oh, right. “Scootaloo, Ms. Gladly reminded me to teach you several tricks to help you manage your magic, and I’d love to set up a time for training with you and Rainbow Dash.”

“Twi…” Dash reminded carefully, hoping that Twilight would lighten up.

“Dash, magic exhaustion is potentially fatal! Especially to the unprepared!”

“And she didn’t know, dearie. Seems that little Scootaloo was the first who figured out how to make Pegasus magic act like unicorn mana.” Ms. Gladly reminded Twilight.

“She should have”

“I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t experiment. I was glad to be able to dampen student surges and fly, I didn’t try much beyond that.”

Twilight frowned at the half-hearted apology but said nothing more rather than trust herself to not say something stupid or hurtful. She looked to Dash, who had bent down to pick up the paper that had fallen. She glanced over Dash’s shoulder; a squiggle gummed up her lips. Dash snickered at the absurd little vignette, passing it back to the trio. “Hey, Sweetie, I’m pretty sure that putting Princess Celestia and a bunch of changelings together isn’t going to get you Ms. Sunbeam.”

Sweetie Belle’s nervous laughs with the other crusaders did a lot to hide Sunbeam’s own fake laughs as she pretended to find the picture funny.

3.Tea

Author's Note

LOOK OUT, CHAPTER COMING FROM BELOW!

3.Tea

3.Tea

Despite the tension twisting in the air, Luna remained calm in the face of her sister’s political nemesis. The Duke of Whinneypeg, Redcoat, a mad stallion who had caused more than one political crisis while trying to get ahead in the world. Captain Resistance stood stiffly at her side, clearly far more uncomfortable in the presence of the stallion he so desperately wished to arrest and throw to Tartarus where he could annoy Tirek instead. Luna poked Resistance just behind his armor with a wing, calming the fidgeting stallion as she sipped her tea stoically.

Redcoat, an aging stallion, was so named for the blazing red coat of fur and the fiery cropped mane atop his head that was swirled with the colors of a roaring fire, a fire from the sun he often claimed never set upon Equestria. The fine silver of their tea set clacked lightly as it was held in his magic, pouring a second mug for himself as he sat directly across from Luna, and the raw envy of her casual power glinted in his forest green eyes. It was a feeling of hungry want that Luna had become far too used to since her return; and the ugly feeling was fueled further by the unfathomable arrogance of the stained glass window behind Redcoat, which depicted him ‘saving’ Equestria with sword and shield in hoof as he stood above all the races that surrounded the nation.

Oh, they had exchanged pleasantries; if the terse exchange of words and clipped offer of tea could be called ‘pleasant’. The decency of his offer to meet with her was at least a breath of fresh air compared to the false kow-towing and blundering delays of most of his counterparts. Redcoat swirled his tea in relative silence, observing the spirals of foam as he stewed in his elongated calm before the storm. “I can assume relatively correctly that you are concerned about the contents of my letter to you in the wake of Tirek’s rampage.”

Catlike was her smile, predatory and gleaming with teeth as she waited for an opening to figuratively go for the jugular. “Aye, you know me well.” She sipped much more of her cup, swallowing it down with an obnoxious slurp. Zebrican rooibos mixed with spice and ginger. It seemed Redcoat preferred everything with a hint of fire. “I am displeased with the wording within it, and the implications therin.”

His throat rumbling with a sigh of frustration, Redcoat took a quick sip of his tea and set down his cup with a clatter. “I was afraid you would take things the wrong way.” Flourishes of his magic removed the tea set and its scalding contents to the safety of the wait table by the servant’s door, where it could not be accidentally flipped onto somepony.

With a twitch of the thick, bushy mustache above his lips, he set his elbows up upon the table, folding his forelegs to prop his chin up on his hooves. “So, how have I grieved you, m’lady? I endeavored to remain unthreatening in my concerns.”

“Implications that my sister would be better off staying removed from the throne could hardly be broached, as ‘concerns,’ Duke Redcoat. I find it hard to see any other intent other than a mild threat against my authority. I have come for answers as to why you would so brazenly speak while praising me with your other hoof.” Luna’s voice rumbled like distant thunder upon the plains as she glared across the color-stained tabletop. Her unspoken ‘or else’ hung in the air far more plainly than the cagey wording of the Duke’s letter as she forcefully held her mane still rather than let it whip about as If in a gale wind.

The groan he had previously contained valiantly finally escaped Redcoat as the statespony considered his options to escape the trap he had accidentally laid for himself. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he noted his maid picking up the tea pot to be taken back to the kitchen. “When you are done, Miss Spic, tell everypony to take an hour or two off and outside the manor, would you?”

Stepping to it with a slight whimper of worry for her employer, the maid nodded and rushed the pot out.

Redcoat gave her a minute, calmly waiting as Princess Luna fumed, starting again only when he heard the exaggerated slam at the end of the hall. “Well, at no point did I ever suggest seizing power, Princess. My concerns with allowing your sister back to the throne are twofold, and should be familiar enough to you. I don’t intend malice when I say that I believe that it would be against everypony’s best interests to allow her back anytime soon.” He took another sip of tea as he waited for Luna’s next move, and considered bringing forth an actual chess board to play upon, despite the cliché nature.

“Do please, enlighten me.”

“I grew up beneath her rule, and admired her greatly for the immense strain and workload she put herself under. Though I butted heads with her often over the future course of our nation, I would never go against her, or you.” Redcoat lifted his mug with an application of his magic, sipping lightly from it before continuing.

Luna sat back somewhat, determined to try and stay pleasant. “Aye. To firmly go against myself or my sister would require that you have a spine instead of a segmented carapace that allows you to squeeze under doors or through cracks in the wall.” Stupid mouth, this meeting was supposed to reduce tensions, not passive-aggressively insult him. She elbowed Resistance as the guard chuckled lightly at her verbal jab; his egging her on was the last thing she needed.

To her surprise, Redcoat laughed loudly after a moment, clutching his side as he uproariously laughed.

“I wasn’t attempting to be amusing.”

Shaking his head, Redcoat waived off her concerns. He had been rather slippery in his younger years, like an eel covered in lard. “No, no. I consider it no insult. It’s rather refreshing to deal with somepony who is so honest instead of the layers of meanings I dealt with from your sister and my peers.” He chortled and took another sip of his tea to calm himself. “My roach-like tendencies aside, I do mean I when I proclaim my utter patriotism and loyalty to the crown and lands, which is why I bring these concerns up.”

He set his mug back down, fidgeting his legs ever so slightly against the thick pile carpet beneath him. “My concerns for Princess Celestia are two-fold, in her mental health and her political and situational flexibility.” He summoned a stack of papers from the small indoor flower box on the wall, sorting them lightly as he presented them to Luna.

“Her mental health? My sister is many things, but in danger of losing her mind is not one of them.” Luna snapped lightly before reigning herself in. She made a mental note to get some help from dear Fluttershy on her temper again. “I assume this is your case concerning your first matter?”

“That, and some of the second. Over the past few years, I have noted a remarkable change in her attitudes and policies compared to those she committed to in my youth. I had several psychologists construct a profile based on the changes, and most agree that she shows signs of mental and emotional burnout.” He sipped once more as Luna’s face twitched and tweaked through a variety of emotions as she studied through the simplified reports. “I won’t say that this burnout is your fault or mine, though I will admit that I likely contributed in my ill-spent youth, and the hectic affairs of your return likely contributed.”

“Burnout.”

“Yes, mi’lady.”

“Celestia.”

“Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, myself, Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Blueblood, a thousand years of tight management of a country compounded by accelerating times driving into her schedule. I could go on—but I believe I have established my point clearly.” Redcoat concluded, sipping his tea once more. The rustle of the papers as Luna sorted through them, skimming the brief overviews. “She manages as if it was still an earlier time, instead of the fast pace common today, and in doing so has slowly worn away the time available to unwind herself. Her ragged mental state is likely the cause of several of her recent, and suboptimal, choices.”

Luna held her tongue as she inspected, mentally ticking off the warning signs in her head that the various psychologists noted would be final indicators. Far too many fit. The release of Discord was a particularly bone-headed move that she still considered to be her sister’s most lacking moment. That he had ended up saving them by providing Twilight with the final puzzle piece was just about Harmonic Providence, it could have easily turned out far worse. “”I will concede several of these points. I do not agree with their entire reasoning, but I have seen enough to roughly agree. Now, as for your second point, what exactly do you mean?”

Redcoat set his mug down, resting his chin on his hooves once more as he prepared for the argumentative assault. “She is the relic of a bygone time, much as you were when you first returned. Her pace and stress has reduced the time she has to keep up with the current state of the world and change with it until she became inflexible and too enamored with her own master plan without rechecking it to see if it still fits the circumstances.” He twitched his mustache once more, waiting for Luna to say something or object.

A single eyebrow raised to question him as Luna held her tongue, nearly biting the inside of her lips as she waited for him to get on with it. No clue where he was headed, but the stallion had made a point so far to be reasonable.

“Under your sister, we have grown too complacent, too enraptured with our harmony and peace to ensure that we have kept up with the times. Your sister did well, meant well, and generally pushed Equestria to the forefront of the world in her golden ages, but no longer. We have competitors for the title of most powerful nation, from Canidia to the Griffon Middle Kingdoms. Couple a complacent outlook with somepony who is closer than she thinks to a breakdown, and the coming fall was plain to see before.”

Luna snorted. “And so you wish to replace my sister with me on a more permanent basis.”

Nodding, Redcoat continued. “Exactly! Because you are not so self-assured as your sister. You had to forcibly adapt yourself to the times, growing close to the modern pony and their plights.” The bushiness of his mustache hid the sly curls developing at the corners of his mouth as he reeled Luna in. “Given that you understand the current situation, and have placed yourself in a mindset more befitting current circumstances. I believe that her passing the throne to you is her conscious realization of her issues; it would be foolish to simply let her back anytime soon until she has returned herself to a healthy mental state and caught up with the modern pony once more.”

Mirroring his pose, Luna leaned forward, letting the light from the bulbs in the vaulted ceiling arches reflect from her silvery shoes. “So you attempt to manipulate me into forcibly keeping her away?”

“What? No!” Redcoat protested before he buried his face in his hooves and muffledly continued. “I didn’t intend any manipulation at all.” Raising up once more, he looked Luna in the eyes. “Your willingness and ability to improvise, and your boldness is exactly what this country needs in its transition. The last thing we need is for a dispute between yourself and your sister through some insanity of trying to force her away or other such nonsense. We need somepony who proactively solves problems instead of relying on convoluted solutions pre-created and running along for a thousand years.”

Captain Resistance bristled beside Luna at the particularly disparaging remarks from Redcoat, taking offense on his mistress’s behalf. “The princess’s solutions have worked for a thousand years! She refined them to be exactly what Is needed for every situation!”

Redcoat calmly wiped the spittle from Resistance’s near-snarl from his face calmly with one of the pale blue dinner cloths at the table. “Captain, you should remember well and more than any of us that past performance does not equate to future success.”

Coughing into her hoof heavily to gather their attention back to her, Luna calmly pushed Resistance back and passed him another of the cloths, which she uneasily noted had her cutie mark upon them. “So, to relieve my sister you chose me, instead of the proven rule of Cadance, or my sister’s student.”

Redcoat chuckled once more, as he considered the absurdity of gathering Cadance up from her Empire or trying to draw Twilight out of Ponyvile. Though, the idea of crashing most of the nobility down around himself by dragging everypony out to that former backwater did appear oddly to him. The clash would have been legendary. No matter.

Reaching out with his magic, Redcoat withdrew a page-sized photo from the last Ponyvile Summer Wrap-up from another folder on the other side of the room. “As said, formerly out of date. Your exploits in acquainting yourself with modern society are swiftly becoming popular with the common pony, in addition to your work in taming the wilds and your touch in calming nightmares in the dreamscape.”

He passed the glossy photo over to Luna, smirking in mirth as she squirmed at the still image of her kissing a rather reluctant red apple farmer for his success in helping her to win most of the fair’s competitions. “As I said, a rather remarkable success in connecting with the common pony.”
Luna’s baleful glare would have likely petrified a cockatrice as she growled low in her throat. “Explain.”

“The photo? I believe it is from one of our bodyguard details.” Resistance slowly squirmed and wriggled away from Luna as she turned her glare on him. “One of our undercover agents took it for publicity purposes. To, uh—make you seem even more approachable?” Captain Resistance squeaked as Luna’s scowl deepened to seemingly impossible levels while she glared at the photo.

Slowly, she rolled her head around; her bangs framed her face lightly with the sinister light of a lunar eclipse as she slowly furrowed her eyebrows in disappointment. “Et, tu?”

“It’s our job to watch you and your sister at all times?”

Redcoat nodded once more, rapping his hoof on the zebrican ironwood of the table. “The approachability you have, your sister lost. With her business and lack of time to be seen as just another mare, her immortality and her link to the sun made her seem less like any other mare, and more as a bit of divinity. She became seen as more of a god, and a symbol of harmony’s favor.” Redcoat uncomfortably explained to Luna, helping to fill in the discomfort the world shared concerning Celestia.

Luna knew what he was speaking of, having seen far too many dreams of a nature she felt too uncomfortable to discuss with her sister. She continued for him, seeing where he was going with it. “And since she is seen as a goddess instead of a mare, ponies become less willing to connect with her, less willing to tell her no and tell her how she is wrong. The other nations begin to fear her instead of talking to her.”

“Compounded by and compounding her own internal issues, and you begin to see why I would rather that you convince her to stay away for a much longer time to deal with herself.”

Pursing her lips as she slowly dragged Resistance back to her side, Luna considered carefully all the evidence she had been presented with. Celestia had run so eagerly from her job, and she had run to her student so rapidly to be with her without the trappings of her office. Had she known? Did it matter? “Duke Redcoat, I thank you for bringing these issues to my attention. I would ask that in the future, you use a bit more—tact—in presenting these concerns, however.”

“Thank you for not assuming the worst of me all the time, as so many others do. I am a patriot, not a fool. A power struggle would have been the worst possible thing for Equestria, and your sister’s willing abdication is possibly a boon beyond our wildest measures.” Redcoat stood from his place, and gestured for Luna to follow him to the nearby clear window.

She reluctantly did, joining Redcoat at the small booth there. The overlook took in the view of Canterlot framed by the setting sun, out to the distant rolling hills of the Canter Plains beyond as they were stained by the sunset and the coming of the full moon. She had to ask to get it out of the way. “Duke Redcoat, will you declare your unconditional support for me, and never cross me or my interests?”

“I am offended that you even had to ask.” Redcoat complained as he turned about to face her once more. The short, stocky stallion barely came up to the top of her shoulders at the tip of his horn. “Yes. As I said, I have no interest in rifting the government at this critical moment.”

“Very well. I must take my leave to handle the celestial affairs. It would do you well to publically affirm your loyalty tomorrow in court.” Luna excused herself and idly suggested as she felt the stirrings of the sun and moon as they prepared to turn over the cycle once more. With her sister in hiding, Luna had taken over more of Celestia’s position in raising and setting the celestial bodies, despite her sister’s best efforts.

“So I shall. Fair thee well until the ‘morrow.”

Waiting until she and Resistance left the room and were well on their way out of the manor, she finally consulted her sister’s champion in what little privacy she could find. “Your opinion, captain. You have dealt with him more than I. Sincerity, or merely more plotting?”

Resistance shook his head as he briskly trotted to keep up with Luna’s long, languid strides. “I can’t say.” The odd furnishings of the hall loomed over the pair as they headed for the front doors; a mix of paintings, statuary, and trophies dedicated as tributes to the estate’s owner and his bloodline. “With Prince Blueblood, the intent is always as clear as day, even if he is a boorish ass. But Duke Redcoat—I can’t say. He’s as shifty, mad, and makes about as much sense as a sack of cats.”

“An odd metaphor.”

“Ask your sister about his exploits from before your return. Particularly his old attempts to woo Twilight Sparkle before she left for Ponyvile. He only stopped with her ascension, really, when she became politically untouchable.” Captain Resistance enlightened as Tiberius slowly withdrew the cloak of shadows from about his tiny fuzzy form on the captain’s back. “He is correct that Princess Celestia could keep him at bay by her mere presence.”

“What of his claims to seek Equestria’s best intrests?” Luna asked as Tiberius hopped from the captain’s back to her own shoulders deftly as they passed through a particularly dark archway. The shadow possum shimmied his way through her ethereal mane to hop to the top of her head as they walked into the ‘Arc of Equestria’, a grandiose quarter-arc of hallway lined from floor to arched ceiling with windows that let the pedestrians within it see out across the heartlands of Equestria.

Resistance grumbled with frustration as he remembered some of the things said in the past. “It has always been one of the Duke’s goals to see Equestria strengthened, no matter what despicable act is required.”

Luna frowned in thought as Tiberius leaned forward and made her bow beneath his tubby weight. She sighed as her head rocked from side to side as he swung himself from her horn by his tail and licked her face. “Bleagh, ugh, Tibbles! You need more fruit, less bugs. And more exercise. Could you be a dear and do some investigation? Check the duke’s correspondence and documents to make sure he was telling the truth and is not plotting behind my back.”

Squeak-dook?

“Yes, you can plunder his fruit if you wish. Just don’t get caught.”

Salute. Squeak-squeak-Squee!

4.1: Encouragement

Author's Note

He's back.

4.1: Encouragement

4.1 (Encourage)

Humming wasn’t the sort of wakeup call Sunbeam was used to. The old one involved the grand cycles of the sun, servants physically whisking her out of bed to be washed and bathed in the palatial baths of the royal suites, and other routines that she was glad to replace with her own no matter how lesser they might be in comparison. She could literally raise the sun in her sleep, thankfully, a handy feature of her power that had saved her from going mad while her sister was away.

But the humming of the theme tune to a rather infamous horror movie involving a shark? No, she couldn’t recall such a thing happening off the bottom of her head. Or was that supposed to be the top? It was too early in the morning to remember.

As she groggily raised her head to atomize the annoyance with the royal glare of sleepy glariness, so too did the sun wobbly rise above the horizon early in a drunken arc, a rise that spilled the golden light of the morning into the room. The giggle of her tiny unseen predator reminded her of the threat as the little fluffy blond mane molded into a shark fin descended behind the bare dresser by the door. Right, fuzzy blond shark.

Nope, not having that.

With it being too early in the morning-o’ clock, Sunbeam decided with all due finality that she wasn’t going to rise to the bait and thus she was going to ignore her problem until it went to school. The sun was up, Luna had it; she only had one thing left to do that morning: pull the covers over her head and pretend that she neither saw nor heard anything before going back to sleep so the limpet foal would go away.

Once more did the menacing humming begin, betrayed by its owner’s giggles; a threat steadily climbing the musical scales as the foal-shark crawled across the floor. Sunbeam cracked an eye open to peer out from under her covers, spotting the blond shark fin erratically approaching her bed. With the threat level of her awakening rising, Sunbeam rolled over and buried her head under a pillow until the threat went away.

With little squeaks, the coils of the box mattress beneath the fluffy down bed creaked and betrayed the attacker a little more right before Surprise jumped up, then jammed four little hooves into Sunbeam’s soft tummy. Jumping up and down over and over, Surprise giggled with each hop as she drove the sleep and breaths from her target’s chest. “Wakey-wakey!” Hop. “Wakey-wakey!” Hop. “You’ve gotta get up, my daddy is home!”

Snatching Surprise from the air with her super-equine reflexes, Sunbeam glared with bloodshot eyes at her well-meaning attacker until the foal booped her with a hoof. A great shudder ran through Sunbeam’s body as she fought off the last of her need to sleep in through a millennia of being up before the dawn and supreme will. Surprise giggled again, laughing at the way Sunbeam looked at her own nose cross-eyed crossly.

“Surprise, what are you doing? Stop.” Sunbeam said quietly, without any enthusiasm at all from her tired state.

Pouting, Surprise attacked with her hideously adorable look of disappointment, looking her dead in the eyes. “But it’s a bee-outiful day, full of Appa- Oppa- Uh-Opor-“

“Opportunity?” She didn’t dare take her eyes or forehooves off of Surprise, even with the foal being outside of her cocoon of comfiness. Any weakness could see the foal sitting on her head in a moment’s notice, and then she’d never be rid of her without arousing suspicion.

“Yeah, that good stuff!” Surprise shouted, using her sickening cuteness to full effect. A deep shudder ran throughout Sunbeam’s form as the sight made her mentally gargle liquid sugar, and at last the older pegasus rolled over and put Surprise down on the wooden floors with a huff of long-awaited exhaustion. Surprise looked up over the bed, sadly watching as her favorite old pony playmate curled up into a ball with a light mewl of tiredness and pulled the covers over her head and around herself until she was immobilized with warm fuzziness.

Surprise sat back down on the floor, sticking her lip out as she pouted and tried to figure out what could possibly get Sunbeam out of her bed. She wouldn’t want candy as early as it was in the morning, adults were all boring like that. But-oh. “Awww, that’s too bad. I guess daddy will have to eat ALL of mommy’s crazy birthday cake pancakes by himself. Then once you find out how yummy they were you’ll be all grumpy and pouty with everypony all day.”

Sunbeam poked her still wrapped head over the edge of her bed, looking through a mysterious break in the sheets caused by wrapping them around an unseen object just above her eyes. “Birthday cake... pancakes?”

“Why would we call them pancakes if they don’t taste like cake?” It was utterly obvious logic, born from the mind of a foal, and yet-

“Fair enough.”

“Yaaaaaay!”

Sunbeam’s glare returned tenfold as she looked down at Surprise, who was far too chipper for a foal in the early, early morning. “You are adorable and irritating.”

Surprise frowned. “I’m not irritating. I don’t have any scratchy bits at all, I’m fluffy.”

No, there would be no arguing the point with her, it seemed. Sunbeam sighed once more, miserably stretching a leg out and letting it fall over the side of the bed. “Very well. Lay on, McFluff.”

“What?”

“Shakespeare. Interesting pony. Read more.” Sunbeam said tiredly, not even looking at her adorable harasser as she wriggled about on her bed. She inched to the side wriggle by wriggle like a well-wrapped earth worm until she tumbled over the edge in a sloppy pile of tired pony and sheets. More wriggles ensued as she practically oozed off the bed in totality and laid out on the floor.

Deliciously, the faintest whiff of baking cakes slowly inserted a tendril of beckoning smell into Sunbeam’s nostrils, tempting her from her safe cocoon. Ignoring the youthful giggles as Surprise bounced around her with the energy and playfulness of her age, Sunbeam slowly unwrapped herself from her grand cocoon one limb at a time, a slithering set of movements that extracted her bit by bit. With a last tedious press of movement she groggily stood up and yawned, making a big show of putting up with the morning.

Surprise cocked her head, looking up at Sunbeam’s towering form as the older pegasus slowly yawned again and sleepily licked her lips. “Why’ya faking it?”

“What?”

“You’re faking it!” Surprise chirped before hovering herself up and over Sunbeam. Dropping to the old mare’s back deftly and lightly to keep from unbalancing her, and wrapped herself around Sunbeam’s neck like the little limpet of adorableness she had become on a regular basis for Sunbeam. “You’re doing the whole zombie thing I do when I want mommy to ignore me in the morning. All ‘blarrghle’ and ‘ahh, the sun, it burns’, and stuff even when I want to play but not go to stupid school all early like everypony else around here.”

Sunbeam straightened up, still groggily glaring at Surprise beaming back at her from her back. Cheeky little adorable terror. “You’re annoying and perceptive.”

“If per-specky-tive means ‘sees stuff’, then yup!”

Chuckling ruefully to herself before huffing an exaggerated sigh she barely felt like at all, Sunbeam shook her rump to wobble her surprise passenger a little. “Don’t ever stop being adorable. It’s your greatest defense.”

Little shudders ran through her as Surprise beamed even more happily and brightly over the praise; it was far too early in the morning to deal with somepony relentlessly cheerful like that. Slowly trotting with zombie state of mind she felt without her morning coffee, the two passed through the still bare and unfinished rooms that comprised her addition and side building to the family house. Opening the side door didn’t help as the bone-chilling temperatures that had come with the winter roared in, swirling about them chillily trying to devour every last ounce of warmth from their bodies.

It was all worth it to her, as she reached the side door to Marble’s house and was bowled over by the sweet scents of fresh-brewed coffee and the tail-curling pleasure of the smell of modified cake batter on a griddle. Her ears perked up instantly, and the mere caffeine of the scent was enough to wake her from her semi-slumbering stupor with a moan of needful hunger and a growl from her neglected stomach. Surprise giggled as Sunbeam lifted herself partially from the floor on a swell of pegasus magic and a light flittering of her wings to drift dreamily through the house to the kitchen.

There, little Rocky Road played in his seat, bouncing up and down happily while banging his high-chair table set with giddy glee and giggles each time Marble booped his nose between flipping a pancake. At the counter-table on the end of the room, Limestone drearily studied, letting his own stack of pancakes go unattended in his desperate need of stimulants. Sunbeam took the opportunity to limply flop onto a stool and the countertop much as a half-filled sack of sugar would while she awaited a set of pancakes for herself while Surprise hopped from her back to stalk her brother’s pancakes and messily devour them.

“Oh, Sunbeam? Oh, you look horrible this morning!” Marble exclaimed as she saw the frazzled state of the pegasus. Sliding over a stack of pancakes taller than an alicorn’s horn lightly drizzled in honey and butter did the older pegasus a world of good; as did pouring a cup of white coffee for her to slurp down. A few giggles got away from her as Sunbeam feebly stuck her tongue out towards the pancakes while shifting her head over inch by inch with little ‘unf’s of need. “Well goodness, you normally do so well in the mornings. I was hoping you could help poor Limestone with his geometry, what happened?”

“I keep having to go save Scootaloo from plaid Rarity, in my dreams and out of them. And In my dreams, she has mad plans to turn the whole world plaid to share her suffering while trying to make Princess Luna marry Prince Blueblood, who for some reason keeps turning into a woodpecker with his head. And then Twilight keeps dragging me away to discuss magic theory all night, and she keeps on insisting on giving me candy from your sister to keep me up all the time.” Sunbeam complained, making up some of her story lamely so that Marble wouldn’t ask further. Another serving of white coffee was her reward, and she could feel herself returning to her cheerful normal state as she drank it down.

Surprise had her brother in a headlock, rubbing his mane with a hoof while he chewed the last of his pancakes and had one of her legs in a submission hold. Marble carefully disentangled the two of them, dangling them to either side of the counter while glaring at them both with disappointment. “Behave, there’ll be more pancakes since Pinkie is in town to share more of her mix. You’re making yourselves look horrible in front of our guest who helps you both with your homework, and what would your daddy thi-eeeeiiiiiiiiek!”

Marble’s stern lecture was cut short as sea blue hooves wrapped around her middle and hosted her up into the air against the whine of hydraulic motors. Kicking her hooves widely as she was wobbily hauled into the wide-open center of the room, she shrieked as she felt her husband slowly kissing his way up her back. “Berry Bubble, you put me down this instant and don’t you dare-mmmph!” Her grumpy howl was cut short as Berry leaned his head around her own and flexibly kissed her on the lips before singing.”

“Oooh, Ah’ll tame the strongest seas for you; Ah’ll sail the strongest tides! Ah’ll move the whole wide world for you; will you love me, my brushing bride!?”

Marble giggled wildly as Berry’s bouncing curly mane kept bonking up against her head and over her face as he twirled about, and as his extra silky and downy fur tickled through her own coat. “It’s all made of sugar and chivalry! Kids, save me from your daddy!” She yelped as he began using his flexible natural forehooves to tickle her tender belly until they fell over onto his back. The sea-pony, still clad in his royal guard uniform, stood no chance as Limestone jumped over his book and pancakes to tackle down his father’s fishy tail while Surprise scrambled under her mother and began blowing raspberries into his sides just below his prosthetic legs. Rocky giggled at his family’s antics, having taken after his father far too much.

Sipping her white coffee with barely contained bemusement, Sunbeam watched the family free-for-all reach its exhausted and tickled out conclusion. There was also the blinding panic that kept her from making a sound, that too. She had taught Berry nearly concurrently with Twilight, and unlike her, his seapony senses had seen right through her tricks. She was so dead, so busted, he was going to tell her and then she was going to go back to Canterlot and be bored forever and have to put up with Redcoat until she turned grey and crazy.

Wait, there had to be a way! And she was not abandoning his wife’s coffee and pancakes! MMm, so good. Did she say that last part out loud? Uh-oh. “Ah, Captain Bubbles! I know your wonderful wife told me her husband had a bad habit of playing in the mud, but I thought I taught you to stop doing that with Princess Celestia’s help.” She said, emphasizing her alter ego to ensure he knew the situation. There was still a chance to salvage this.

Berry’s head swiveled up, and he looked at her with wide, horrified eyes. He stroked his wife’s back as she remained clutched to his mud-stained and well-worn uniform warmly. Hesitantly, he asked her. “H-honey? Oh, why didn’t ye tell me ye had made friends with P-“ Ahem- “Princess Celestia’s best teacher?”

“What? Who? That big cuddly goof?” Marble giddily responded as she rolled off of him at last, instead sliding up next to him on the cold grey tile to savor his warmth. She looked over to Sunbeam, who sheepishly waved while still expecting to be revealed at any second. Mistaking it for nervousness at meeting somepony new, she waved off his concerns. “She was coming to live here in Ponyvile and had no place to stay. She’s a friend of Twilight.”

Sunbeam nervously laughed, trailing off quickly before gulping another sip of her coffee.

“She was great with the kids, and has been helping Limestone with his homework. Honestly, give her some coffee and some of my sister’s famous pancakes, and she’ll be friends with anypony.” Giddily giggling again, Marble pressed her husband back to the floor with a nuzzle and a kiss, making his tail curl from the affection and her sons gag at the mushy romance. Berry mumbled into the kiss, hugging her tighter.

Deciding to take control of the situation, Sunbeam continued. “Oh, your daughter is the one who dragged me into your family, Captain. She decided to have a bit of fun while on the way by climbing up on me while we were on the way to town and got caught in a security checkpoint set up after Princess Celestia temporarily abdicated the throne.” She sipped once more, drowning her nervousness in caffeine.

“You-!” Berry spluttered, pushing his wife off of him in shock. Correcting himself, and realizing that she was trying to hide since she hadn’t let his wife know yet. “She what? When? Why?”

Marble rubbed her head as she sat up beside him. “Oh, just about two weeks, two and a half now.” She rubbed the small lump from where she had fallen to the floor on her rump, and huffed in irritation. It was a big deal, but she didn’t see a need to throw her off like that. “She said something about giving her sister more time on the throne and some nonsense about taking time off. It had everypony worried right up until Princess Twilight and Princess Luna saved everypony from Tirek of all things. Luna held him off while Twilight and her friends pulled out some crazy new power from the Tree of Harmony! How did you miss it?”

“Ooch, Ah was stuck in the Everfree Forest doing surveying for a road, me darling. Blasted place is terrible to scout through.” He waved his tail, letting everypony see the bite marks in the fin on the end, and showed all the scratches in the enamel paint of his prosthetic legs. “We had a path all the way through it from the other side to Froggy Bottom Bog when Ah got attacked by this wee lil’ hydra.”

Berry smiled at the gasps of his family while he tried to calm himself from finding out that Princess Celestia was slumming in disguise under his roof. Sunbeam rolled her eyes as he held his forehooves wide for the next part of his tale. “His little necks were only this long. Poor fella thought he could take a couple of bits out of me before Ah gave him a swift kick to his heads. Oh, me poor tail.” He let it fall back down to the floor with a slap, wincing in pain from the bite along its body. “The whole thing made his momma something fierce and mad, it did.”

Sunbeam put a hoof quietly to her mouth. “Oh dear.”

“Yer telling me. Me and me boys all start running back for the tree line when this little graceful slip of a lass comes out of nowhere with a wagon of frogs! She was all pink maned and yellow. Looked scared as the dickens for a moment before looking between me and the little fella.” Berry shuddered, tucking his forelegs close to his chest as he remembered her fury as she helped chase them out of the bog. “Ah swear, she turned into the scariest banshee Ah’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Marble groaned in frustration after she got over her wide-eyed worry for her husband. She knew exactly who that ‘wee slip of a lass’ was. “Honeybunches, you big idiot. That was my sister’s best friend, Fluttershy.”

“Who happens to be the bearer of Kindness, and kind of an important pony even if she doesn’t realize it.” Sunbeam groaned and thumped her head against the countertop as the connection was made for her. So it was. She bet he had unnecessarily chased the hydras down to do another one of his ‘documentaries’ on them. They liked sea life more than ponies. Wait.

Sigh. Right, seapony.

“Oh. Aye, that might explain why they sent me back to handle logistics fer a while.” Berry rubbed his curly mane, flicking his slick and densely furred ear with his natural forehooves. Raising an eyebrow, he turned to Sunbeam, wondering why exactly she was in town. “So what exile did ye bring on yerself?”

“None, other than one of my choice.” Sunbeam replied, exaggerating the emphasis on herself a little more than necessary in defense. She sighed as she realized that If Berry had wanted to out her, he could have already done so. “There are three foals who are going to change the world in town, and I’m the fool who thought she could take them all on and teach them everything.”

“Wot, again? Like Twilight?”

“Yes. She’s teaching them. Your sister in law is good friends with them, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

Berry moaned slowly in pity for Sunbeam. “Yer gonna need an adult for this one.”

“I am an adult!”

4.2

Author's Note

"Berry. Bubble Berry."

4.2

4.2

With the sun firmly in the hooves of Luna, the day had evened out into a beautiful and chilly fall morning. The leaves in the trees rustled with dryness as they colorfully hung by the faintest shreds of their stems from the trees. Yet more activity had come to Ponyvile as part of a reorganizational move on Princess Luna’s part, bringing the first of many waves of scholars to be overseen by Twilight in the coming years. The once small town was growing up, reorganizing into a little city.

Sunbeam wasn’t enjoying much of it despite trotting over the newly paved streets. Berry accidentally made certain of that. “Speak of it to Twilight, and I will turn you into a pie.” Sunbeam crossly said to him as they walked across town to Twilight’s Crystal Fortress of Friendship. Marble had interfered quite a bit by accident as she had fussed over her husband and decked him out in his dress uniform to meet the town’s Princess.

“Ooch, Ah am a Pie already. Not that ye would follow through with it. Ah know ye too well.” Berry glanced side-long at her as she grumpily averted her gaze to the castle beyond. He was thoroughly enjoying poking innuendo at his former teacher over her current state.

“Berry, why do you persist with the accent? It suits you ill, no matter how much you like it. And you know what I mean.” Sunbeam wasn’t about to give into his trickster ways and accidently spill the facts to Twilight herself. No, ma’am, she would not. Some of the ponies fitting the decorative patterned brick sidewalks and curbs glared at her as they heard the brick beneath her hoof crack.

“Wot, like this?” Berry snarked, thickening his faked accent to a consistency much like that of a frozen pudding. Mmm. The sea pony adjusted his jacket to ride the high collar up higher against his neck to cover himself against the wind as he spoke in his much nicer native Canterlot accent. “Even if I was to tell her, Twilight would never believe me. She would never believe that the Princess would lie to her on such a level. How is the little bookworm, by the way? The last time I saw her was at our graduation.”

Sunbeam beamed like her protégée, happily tilting her head and smiling wide enough for the effort to hurt and her grin to squeak. A sigh of pride got away from her as she trotted along happily for a moment under her sun. “She’s come so far, grown so strong.”

“Oh, aye. Like your appetite?” Berry joked as he caught up to her and elbowed her in her unhidden belly. Sunbeam jerked to an irritated halt and rubbed her side awkwardly as he trotted around her while watching the set of ponies planting hardy apple and cherry trees along the median of the town’s main street.

As Sunbeam grew forlorn and concerned, he tickled her chest with his tail and looked up into her eyes. “Oh, don’t be that way. I’ve always seen that barrel you hide. I ain’t met a mare yet who wasn’t deathly concerned about her weight even when it was utterly daft. You’re always trying to be so thin and lithe that you looked unhealthy!” Berry encouraged, ducking under her and slinking back up on her other side.

Sunbeam paid him little mind as she rubbed the slightly protruding sides of her barrel. She didn’t even notice as she pensively bit her lip while wondering if she should duck into an alley quickly to try and regain her normal and still well-endowed figure. Berry broke her spell-bound pondering by roughly poking her in her other side and grabbing her chin as she whipped around to face him.

“Stop trying to hide yourself so much. What happened to going around like this to be able to be your true self?” He whispered, sitting back on his artificial haunches and adjusting them with a command to put him closer into hug range. No pony could really hear them as he stroked at Sunbeam, calming her. “Stop worrying about what other ponies think about you.”

“I can’t. I’ve already made things so wrong with Twilight trying that.”

“Then tell her the truth, will you? Armor said she’s forgiving. She’ll know you didn’t mean whatever it was.” Berry let go of her and fixed his hind legs with a toggle so he could start trotting down the lane again towards the Fortress of Friendship. “How are you going to get better like you’re taking a break for if you’re not going to trust ponies?”

“I’m not taking a break! I’m teaching, there is a major difference.” Sunbeam protested as she caught up to him. She waved a wing to the flower trio as they directed ponies planting tulips for the spring near the new plaza near where the Golden Oaks Library used to stand. Berry’s bionic pace pushed her to her limits to keep up without galloping. “There is nothing wrong with being concerned about my weight, either!”

“The front you put up had a stomach smaller than the Wonderbolts endurance racers have! I’ve seen race dogs with more! Your lies to keep up-“Berry stopped himself as he realized he was about to blurt out ‘state appearances’. He looked left and right as they passed the intersection of Main and Bakery Street, swearing to himself that he could hear a mare squealing happily. “It isn’t healthy, ma’am.”

“I thought you were always going to be informal with me? If you could call it that.”

“Ye want me ta flip the tip of the invisible thing ‘tween ye eyes? Ah always found it good fer poleaxing some sense into ye!” Berry verbally jabbed, slipping back into his fake accent in his frustration with his mother figure. Stopping at the edge of the paved section of road, he stomped his fore hooves several times on the ground as he resisted the urge to scream in frustration. He had noticed the web of self-lies she had started weaving when he left, but the degree of entanglement he had picked up since he found her again was absurd. “You are going to come apart at the seams if you keep bottling yourself up for appearance’s sakes! You’ve got such a web of lies to support—her! You’re going to end up like your sister if you keep lying to every pony who might support you and ignoring their advice! Did you even tell her the truth? Tell them!”

“She’ll tell! She’ll crack from knowing, and tell some pony, and then they’ll know and I’ll have to go back and then I’ll never get-“

“She who?” Twilight asked innocuously from behind them, startling Sunbeam. Whinnying in shock, she hopped around with her wings extended from her fright. Every pony around them setting up for the morning looked on in concern at the escalating situation, only relaxing as Sunbeam’s wings drooped into the dirt with relief. “Are you okay? I know I’ve been mad at you, but I’m not that scary, am I? Is it some alicorn thing where every pony freaks out at disapproval?”

Twilight looked between Sunbeam, Berry, and the extra-stuffed hayburger that was messily exploding in ultra-slow motion in her magic grip. Ketchup from her enthusiastic breakfast was still smeared all over her face from her meal, and her belly poked out a little from all that had been stuffed into it. Twilight took another bite to forestall the collapse of her burger, wiping her cheek with a hoof. “Sorry about my mess. Heh, I’ve been so hungry lately.”

Oddly, she seemed a little taller as well, her horn finally approaching Sunbeam’s chin. A napkin flew out of her saddlebags, wiping down her face a little further. “Spike’s helping Dash and the crusaders get set up in the lab, they’re setting up the test rig for Scootaloo’s wings for this morning’s test.” She leaned around Sunbeam to take a look at Berry, who waved and approached. “Oh, um, who’s your friend?”

“Bubble. Berry Bubble, me lass. Captain in the Equestrian Engineering Corps. Ah would serenade me successor, but me wife Marble would skin me alive and sell me to the griffons fer trying. Ah graduated the Officer’s academy with yer brother.” Berry slunk up to Twilight and took her hoof in his own, kissing it once to get a crimson-red blush out of her. With a disarming smile, and a cheeky wink he stepped back, adjusting his hat atop his curls.

“S-successor? Um, I came after Sunset Shimmer, who is serving out a royal sentence learning about friendship and undoing her mistakes elsewhere.”

Praying to the tree of harmony for strength, Sunbeam straightened up and took a deep breath. “Captain Berry Bubble was a ward of the crown and one of several students all getting a partial tutoring from the Princess for various reasons before you. As he said, he graduated in the same guard class as your brother, so the two of you never really met.” When she opened her eyes once more, she grumbled in annoyance as she realized that they had been teleported to the chariot receiving balcony of the Fortress of Friendship. Twilight had teleported them while her eyes were closed. Huh, she hadn’t even noticed the frameshift, masterful work.

“Oh, wow! I’ll have to ask my BBBFF!” Twilight absentmindedly said before wolfing down the rest of her hayburger in a ravenous frenzy. She trotted around them to the doors, she started to open them while looking back. “So, what’s next th-What.”

Glancing back and forth between her dumbfounded gaze and his back end, Berry wondered what had so enraptured her as to stop her from talking. Oh, wait. “Ah. Me legs fell off from sitting on them too long; Princess Celestia tried to pull out me rump so she could make new legs out of it. Didn’t quite work, though, so Ah made new legs.”

“What?”

“Berry, stop breaking Princess Sparkle’s brain.” Sunbeam flicked his ear with a wingtip as she walked to the doorway. “We still need it to help train Scootaloo.”

“Tch, fine. Ah’m a sea pony.”

“But sea ponies are old mare’s tales!” Twilight protested as Sunbeam walked past her and opened the doors to the upper reception hall. They couldn’t have gone through the bottom floors as the remodeling to turn it into a library/reception hall was becoming a mess. A Libception? No, that sounded silly. Or like the operation to let a pony into another’s brain to take on nightmare spirits.

“Like Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Crystal Empire? Ye’d be surprised what secrets you find when ye stick yer nose into things.” Berry pointed out to Sunbeam’s disconcertion. He tapped Twilight’s nose with the tip of his tail, proving it real to her in a single movement. “We might be old mare’s tales, but that doesn’t mean we’re not real.”

Twilight followed the tip of the tail as the little adorable gears in her brain ground and clacked while trying to gain traction. Berry’s eye twitched in sympathy as he could practically hear the noises in her head; he wondered if it was possible to lubricate them with puzzles or something. She sighed finally, trotting after Sunbeam hurriedly as she balled up the wrapper of her hayburger. “You know, thinking back Princess Celestia was wrong about old mare’s tales.”

“Tch, was she condescending a bit?”

“Maybe? Kind of. I don’t know. Maybe she was trying to use reverse psychology on me without reading up.” Twilight mused as she trotted with an extra bounce in her step.

“Was probably Miss Sunbeam here. Ye’d be surprised how much of ‘er correspondence is Sunbeam answering for ‘er.” Berry said with a predatory gleam in his eyes as his grin exposed a canine fang rubbing against his lip.

“Hey! I do not!”

“Do, too!”

“Thank you. I would have never made my friends if they weren’t so focused on keeping me safe through my monofocus.” Twilight said, surprising them all.

“Aye, they’ve both been that wee bit brilliantly daft. Now the princess, there’s a fun one.” Berry hoof-waved Sunbeam away to her growing disconcertion as he let Twilight’s mind do the work of fitting the puzzle pieces together for him.

Trying to cut him off, she moved between him and Twilight, only for him to climb up onto him like a snake might slither up a tree. Standing upon her haughtily, he patted her head and laughed as she frowned. “Sunbeam ‘ere is in fact the secret prim and proper one of the pair. Always worrying about how she looks, how every pony around her is working to her detriment. She needs to relax. Lots. Take time off from all her duties to go binging on ice cream and movies.”

Sunbeam bucked him off, groaning as she realized she had played right into his plan. “I am quite fine, and unstressed. Perfectly fine.”

Berry rolled with the move with a catlike ease, bending himself much like a feline would to get back on his hooves. “Aye, ye do, too. Especially since Celestia isn’t here to make ye relax. She’s a right tricky one. Why, knowing her sense of humor she’s probably watching this right now, maybe all invisi-ow! Blimey, stop! She’s got me!” Berry found himself cut off as Sunbeam secretly summoned her alter ego’s magic to pinch his tail and make him stop.

Clearing her throat, she stepped around him again and spoke over him. “Princess Celestia is not tricky. She can’t possibly be in this room right now.”

“Oh, aye, so this pinchyness is her making a spell to stop some pony badmouthing her, aye?” Berry loudmouthed as he tried to extract his tail from the golden crab-pincher holding onto his tail.

Twilight frowned, stamping a hoof. “She would never! Would she? But where did the-“

Sunbeam jabbed in again, trying to break the revelation up. “She is smart, thoughtful, polite-“

“-Bubble. Ey. Mischievous, cunning, silver-tongued, trickster, quick-witted prankster and an all-around fun pony to be around, unlike ye, Sunbeam.” Berry said as he squeezed his tail free and let the golden magic claw snap shut on itself and vanish. He circled around Sunbeam again and tried to throw his hoof over Twilight’s back, only to find himself too short. He boggled, then slid up next to her.

“Well, she did have those golden apples she tricked me with that one time.” Twilight groused.

“Aye, she got ye with them, too? Heh. Wait, that’s it?” Berry mused as he looked Sunbeam in the eyes, daring her determination to remain un-outed to stop him from tricking Twilight into realizing. “She had so many more when Ah went through. Did she give up?”

“She was busy. And the jokes were crude, and I convinced her to cease.”

Berry facehoofed as Twilight scooted away from him uncomfortably. “The jokes were the best part of her, her stress relief! No wonder y-err, she started going daft like Ah heard.”

“I di-She was not going crazy. She chose to give her sister a chance to rule and be accepted by the public.” Catching herself at the last second, Sunbeam narrowly avoided outing herself, and she thoroughly enjoyed the grumpy frown on Berry’s face as she thwarted him.

Twilight kept walking, forcing the pair to join her. “Princess Luna has done a pretty good job of things. I’m surprised she got Duke Redcoat to acquiest so easily. He kept trying to date me while I was in school.” She shuddered, remembering how creepy he had been.

“Aye, Celestia used to be so much like her sister. That lass is so much like her once ye strip away all the old-timey bits. She had to get her pranks from somewhere, after all.”

“She is-“Sunbeam stopped, properly thinking through her response. “From what the Princess told me, Luna was nothing like her.”

Berry caught up on Twilight’s other side, surprised by the strong pace the new alicorn was setting. “Ye can’t be that daft, Sunny. Ye can’t be siblings and have nothing in common. Yer lying again, I can tell by the twitches. Do ye not trust Twilight ta keep yer secrets?” Berry comforted and confronted over the alicorn’s back. “If ye confide in her, yer stress will go away. Me sister does have ways of keeping her quiet.”

“What secret? Who’s?”

Sunbeam looked between her old students in a panic as Berry’s comment finally struck a veritable sea-mine in Twilight’s head. Stopping to look at her with more concern than ever, Twilight fixed her with a gaze of disappointment that veritably crushed Sunbeam’s soul. She was going to spill if she couldn’t stop the conversation in its tracks. Wait- “I Pinkie Promised that I wouldn’t tell her secret!” She clammed up after her yelp intentionally, shiftily looking around to sell her charade.

Berry groaned, rubbing between his eyes with a hoof. “Ye did not! Me sister-in-law would’ve said something!”

“Princess Celestia’s secret?” Twilight asked innocently, furthering Sunbeam’s deception. The alicorn looked away in confusion, looking to an abstract stained glass window.

“YES!” Sunbeam clapped her hooves over her mouth to pretend she was horrified.

Turning around, Berry repeatedly hit his head against the wall as Twilight sat down and was reeled in hook, line, and sucker. Groaning, he almost missed Twilight’s next quiet remark in his disbelief. “If you could; if you can—probably not. Could you ask her to trust me? I don’t know what I did to disappoint her, or what I did to convince her I couldn’t be trusted with her location or why she won’t talk to me. I just want to make sure she’s safe. And that- I love her, like my mother.”

Berry wanted to clutch his heart to mock Sunbeam. But that would ruin the unintentional backstabbing going on as Twilight twisted the metaphorical knife unwittingly hard enough that he could hear Sunbeam’s heart falling out. He could see her wincing behind Twilight’s back from the skewering she was delivering.

“She could have stayed with me. I can keep a secret! Honest! And I would- Rainbow Dash!”

Foiled again, Berry wanted to eat his hat as a rainbow streak of sudden distraction roared up the halls to stop in front of them. The sky-colored pegasus was covered in small burns and scrapes, and looked like a mess as she anxiously stared down at Twilight. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over the castle for you! We’ve gotta hurry, Spike, Scootaloo, and Rarity got-“ She stopped slackjawed, staring at Berry in a way that made him wonder if he had some kind of crazy perception field over him. “Ssssss-“

“Aye, Sea pony. Discord altered me distant ancestors so we pop up every few decades. Daft bugger bothered the wrong one the last time he broke out. Ah made his grin even for a while.” Berry tersely explained to Dash as she slowly hovered down to him and stared. With the crisis mode engaged, he wasn’t going to have it, and sat back to grab her head by the cheeks, scrunching them together. “Captain, Equestrian Army Corps of Engineers. Focus. Urgent Situation. ‘Splain Now.”

Dash jerked back as whatever spell she had been under broke. She shook herself out, feeling oddly distracted for a reason she couldn’t quite place. “Right! Scootaloo, Spike and Rarity all got tangled up in those wires for the magic testy thing you wanted set up, and they’re all hogtied nose to nose!”

Twilight’s jaw worked soundlessly as she tried to imagine how that was even possible. “”HOW!? I wanted you to turn it on and lay the wires out!”

Berry winced as he imagined how. He had a mysterious habit of ending up in remarkably strange and compromising situations. He wasn’t personally familiar with the Crusaders beyond the troubles his SiLBFF had told him about –he still wondered where she had gotten the terminology from. “Well, I have a wee bit of experience with undoing a thaumatoscope. I never could sit still, could I, Sunbeam?” He drew out the S in her name into a C, earning a renewed glare.

“And now you drop your accent again.”

“Aye. Crisis, time to solve it.” He retorted as he started running down the hall Dash had come from. “This is the right way, right?”

“Ugh! I just got a new set of sensors after Sweetie melted the last set!” Twilight fumed as she started stomping down the other hall towards the lab. “Where did Rarity even come from?”

Dash flew overhead, slaloming back and forth over them. “Discord suddenly turned her back for some reason this morning, giggling to himself. She kind of had nothing to do, so she came along to watch Sweetie Belle’s practice.”

“Discord’s free?” Berry asked worriedly.

“Yeah. Where have you been?”

“Beating off the Everfree with a stick!” He started galloping, having a good idea of who exactly Rarity was.

4.3

4.3

“How in the-“Berry’s curse of dismay was cut short as he remembered that he was in the presence of foals. The polychromatic pegasus had been far understating the mess they were left with when she had called on them for help. The trio were well and truly trapped within a snarl of wires wrapped about them like the briars of the Everfree. Carefully, he maneuvered around the pegasus—Rainbow Dash, he reminded himself—and the two fillies anxiously fidgeting circles around the mess; sneaking up was out of the question with his clomping metal hooves. What a mess.

Rarity was just as he remembered her. He had met the fashionata when she had fitted him with his custom dress uniform a few years before, and had flirted with her just a little too vigorously. It had taken a great deal of awkward effort to escape her afterwards—come to think of it, why did he keep on bludgeoning himself upside the head by getting too flirty? Her sparkling white coat was rather ruffed up and bunched up from the test lead wires wrapped around her along every angle, even wrapping up her muzzle somehow. They had to be tight enough to cut off circulation, and as she wriggled once more he wondered just how much play he had to work with, a wrong move could start cutting into flesh.

“Well, this is just a right sorry pickled mess.” He grumpily complained for the sake of getting it off of his chest as he leaned in behind Rarity’s head to inspect the wrapped multilayered knots around the drakeling tied up nose to nose with her. Was he blushing and rubbing her nose?

“Auuugh! This is going to take forever to fix!” Twilight’s stamping and stomping in frustration was rendered in a Doppler-like effect as she teleported across the room in an unusual burst of multicolored dusky magic to the input console. As she pulled all the wires out to start trying to follow them through the knotted pattern, she shouted back across the room. “What happened?”

Scootaloo scrunched and wriggled her muzzle, finally freeing her mouth just enough to spit out her explanation. “Spike found a diagram you made for putting these on me. Rarity thought she could handle it and follow the pattern, but she started pulling my feathers by accident and then crazy happened.” She was exhausted, judging by her voice, and a note of exasperation and frustration under laid her words as she leaned back into the near-cocoon of wires.

Sweetie nodded nervously, picking up where her friend left off. “And then Scootaloo tripped and got herself all tied up, and Rarity got her hooves wrapped up while trying to undo the knots, and Spike tried but couldn’t do it and got all wrapped up with Rarity and now they both get all blushing and mumbling crazy-talk like we fed them love poison and we just don’t know what to do!” Sweetie’s worried babble slowly ramped up into a whine of worry at the end as she buried her head in her sister’s side and yelled into the soft, downy fur there.

Applebloom just shook her head helplessly, staying well back from the mess she wanted no part of.

Twilight looked around Scootaloo, catching the corner of Spike’s eyes. “Hey, lover-dragon, you’ve still got two more years, no funny ideas.” He and Rarity both sighed sadly as Twilight popped their romantic moment bubble.

Berry turned to Dash with an upraised eyebrow, silently inquiring her with more than one implied question.

“Hey, don’t look at me! I’m hopeless with this stuff.” She waved her hooves and hovered away as Berry’s other eyebrow climbed and his slow smile displayed his shark-like grin of mischievousness.

Any plans of future mischief were dispelled with a hoof-jab to the belly from Sunbeam as she brushed by him to examine the trio. Poking the strands arrayed around Rarity’s hindquarters yielded no slack at all, a result only backed up with a whine from the fashion pony as she squirmed as weakly as she could manage from the pressure. “Twilight, I think it would be best if you didn’t even try.”

“What? We always try!”

“It isn’t always best. Look at them, it’s gotten so tight that any attempt might start cutting into them before we can get them loose.” Sunbeam continued, talking over Scootaloo’s protests just before a movement tightened the strands back around her muzzle. “If I didn’t know better, I would say they were enchanted. We’re going to have to just cut the wires.”

Twilight trotted up with the free lengths of the test leads in neat spools. “Sunbeam, it can’t possibly be that bad. If we have to, we could teleport them out or I could carefully shield them while we undo the strands.” Lighting her horn, she went to work attempting her solutions.

Dismay etched in as she watched her careful magic slide off of her friends or soak into the wiring, making them writhe with a life of their own. “No… no, no!” A second corona of bright magic, closer to her old shades lit around her horn as she tried both solutions at once, failing once more as her magic instead grounded into the crystal of her Fortress and lit up the walls in her colors. “This isn’t right. Ugh, we can’t cut these wires because it will take two weeks to get a new set in if we’re lucky! They shouldn’t be doing this.”

Berry touched the end of a lead as he crouched down to inspect them. His nostrils flared; a familiar scent was in the room. “Yes they should. I recognize this now. It’s happened to me before.” He let the lead tip slide off of his hoof to fall to the floor with a delicate tinkle of metal on crystal.

Sunbeam frowned, taking a knee to look at the lead Berry had inspected as a cold suspicion trickled in her. “Where, Captain?”

“Chaos magic.”

“What!?” Five voices and three muffled grumbles all shouted at once.

“No, not Discord.” Berry reassured as he stood up and ran his hoof along a wire tightly running around Rarity’s leg into the tight knot at her hooves. Now that he felt it, the strumming magic beat couldn’t be missed as it enveloped all three of the unlucky ponies. “It comes from me.”

“You’re gonna have to back up and start explaining, pal.” Dash rubbed her forelegs up and down each other as she got ready to get some answers.

Rolling his eyes at her implied threat, he rolled his explanation right on over her as soon as she was done. “I was born because of chaos magic from the creation of seaponies flaring up in my bloodline once more. I make a bit of it all the time, it’s all mixed up with my normal magic and getting everywhere in a wide radius all around me. It’s benign, mostly. Mixed with normal harmonious pony magic, it causes random events to occur and challenge ponies around me.” Now that he knew what to feel for, he pulled a single wire, slackening the overall morass of metal strands enough to pull most of them away from direct skin contact for Rarity and Scootaloo.

As the two of them sighed with relief from the pressure, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom shared a worried look. Applebloom chuckled to herself insincerely, and cocked her head slightly. “Say, that’s kinda interesting, mister. Could ya, uh, get them free then?”

“Maybe. If I can find the right point to tug it might take me an hour or two to undo-“

“-Because Scootaloo there really, really, really needs to use the little filly’s room, and I can’t imagine Miss Rarity is doing too well, either.” Applebloom apologetically added, patting her friend insensitively on the side of her belly, earning a grunt from her orange friend.

With a sigh of frustration, Berry ground his hoof against his face and resisted the urge to move back to Trottingham. “Aye, that just tears it.” Berry gave up his plan, tapping on his hind-legs in a single spot to expose a hidden pocket with tools wrapped on a rotating cylinder around his ‘bone’. Out came a pair of wire cutters as he got ready to start cutting out the filly from the mess. “Wish we had more time then.”

“Wait, you said this was supposed to be turned into a challenge, right?” Dash stalled, not wanting to see Scootaloo waiting another two weeks to fly while she waited on a diagnostic.

“Aye.”

“Which means there is supposed to be a right way to solve it, right?” Dash hovered around the group and looked across Scootaloo at Berry.

“Aye, there usually is.” Berry pointedly stared at Sunbeam who only looked back for a moment before trotting around to Twilight so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes. He couldn’t make her reveal her song-spell nature, and she wanted that aspect to remain firmly associated with her ‘real’ self. Might as well explain, since he had a good idea of the best way to fix things. “Usually, the best way involves getting somepony to do something they were afraid to do or reluctant to do that is in their better interest.” He hummed a few bars, feeling the answering strum from the sections of wire free-standing between the ponies and drakeling. “Like a song-spell.”

Sweetie Belle sighed ashamedly, sitting down and bowing her head. “It’s me. I’m the one.” A hoof wandered up to her throat and rubbed it as she contemplated her rotten luck. Why did she have to be the one who did everything wrong? Thinking back, she wondered if she had a bit of seapony in her, like Berry. It would explain all the bad things. “I was just so happy this morning that I couldn’t help myself. I started humming to myself just as the sun was coming up, then everything started going wrong. Especially in here. It had to be me.”

Sunbeam’s wings wrapped around Sweetie’s body, lifting her chin up with their tips. “It’s not your fault, Sweetie Belle.”

Berry slowly clip-clopped around Rarity to join the pair, ignoring the white mare’s squeaks of dismay and muffled rumbles of indignation as she finally got a good look at him and remembered his name. Sitting down before Sweetie Belle, he twitched a smile at the corner of his mouth as he nodded to her to do her thing. “Lass, are you saying that you are a song-spell?”

“Yes.”

Sunbeam brushed down the back of Sweetie’s head, smoothing her mane. The cool crystal of the floor chilled through their fur as Sunbeam let her work up courage. “She is. She may be the most powerful song-spell since Luna, maybe stronger than Celestia.”

So there was the rub; if she was that strong she had probably already set off an event, she had to be terrified of herself just as Sunbeam was terrified of her own secret. “So you’re the one, then.” He hoped that nopony else saw the terror he was sure was hiding in his eyes as he brushed back Sweetie Belle’s bangs. The striking green that her eyes and horn glowed with as she held her power seemed familiar in a way that he couldn’t explain. Maybe it was like the deep forest awakening in spring. “There isn’t anything to worry about, lass. It’s a power to be respected, but you can control it.”

Sweetie Belle looked up, and flinched as she saw his fear. “I made 2 plus 2 equal fish.”

Blink. “I have no idea what that means.”

Rarity whimpered a little as the slack that Berry had pulled free was lost, somehow retightening. The trio’s wriggles slowed as the wires started pulling into their fur and scales again to hold them fast.

There wasn’t any more time then. Berry turned back to Sunbeam and glared at her over the filly, keeping Sweetie from seeing his irritation with the mare of disguise behind her. “Sunny, I need your help. Celestia taught me, but since she’s too busy to be here, you have to step in. I know next to nothing since I’m so weak with it, she needs you.” He ignored the gasps from the other ponies as he roughly poked the old pegasus in her chest hard enough to rock her.

Sweetie looked up from where she was sandwiched between, whimpering a little. Berry forced himself to remain calm and looked her in the eyes as her bangs fell back in a curly mess. Bending down, he looked at her nose to nose and tweaked her nose. “You can fix this, little one. What’s your name; Sweetie Belle, right?”

Sweetie nodded apprehensively as the gazes of everypony who could look in her direction fell upon her. The pressure was driving her to critical distraction, it was freaking her out, it was—gone as Sunbeam cupped her wings around her and Berry, cutting off the gazes. She spoke hesitantly, swallowing back her fears. “I’m afraid. I might hurt them more. I always screw up.”

Sunbeam’s voice crooned with an elderly wisdom that seemed beyond her years, whispering down into Sweetie’s ears like the siren call of the Elements as they pulsed through their counterparts in the throne room below. “There is a chance you can screw up in anything. It’s present in everything everypony does. But what is important in life is overcoming that fear, bettering that fear and mastering it.” Sunbeam’s legs slowly flanked the filly, squeezing her close between them.

“Buttering fear? That makes no sense.” Sweetie innocently corrected, having not gotten the last part.

Leaning down until her chin rested on top of Sweetie’s head, Sunbeam continued, giving her strength. “Nevermind, Sweetie Belle. Before, I made you sing without direction. Let me guide you this time. I promise that no matter what happens, you won’t hurt them with my help. I won’t hurt you again, I’ve learned from my mistake.”

“O-okay.” Sweetie squeaked before taking deep breaths for her warmup.

A last set of glances passed between Berry and Sunbeam, glances hearkening back to the days she had taught him in both of her guises. Time slowed almost imperceptibly—the poor old thing had never been the same since Starswirl had first taken it into a back alley. From deep in his core, Berry hummed forth the beat of his soul. A spritely tune merry and mischievous, beating with life to infuse into the wires to work to their will.

The beat tapped down along the length of Sweetie’s horn, vibrating it and tickling the core of her magic as she apprehensively called upon it. Sunbeam, watching the pulses rolling from Sweetie, kept whispering quietly into her ears. “Concentrate. Concentrate on my voice, and focus on the wires. I can guide, but you will lead. Your will is here, rise with it.”

Sweetie panted raggedly as the energy building in the world shivered in her legs; it called to her to join with it and wash her cares away. All was merry; stop worrying. Let her friends sort themselves.

Berry kept quietly humming, providing the carrier for Sweetie to work on as Sunbeam wrapped the tips of her wings around Sweetie’s forelegs to stop them and anchor her. “Hold the beat of life in your mind. Can you feel them? The wires are replying. They want to relax, you want to them to relax. To stop constricting. The world hears your call, it wants to move to your beat. You don’t need words, just the intent to be at peace. Just the change.” She chanted into Sweetie’s ear, building what Sweetie needed in her mind. The fire lit within the filly, blazing in her mind. Not a roaring, raging forest fire; it was a kiln, forging her will, burning away the things she didn’t want done. The filly was getting there, focusing on what needed to relax, but she had not connected yet; she still held back the tide despite how close she was.

Dash’s jaw dropped as the power began to leak from the filly; eddies of color oozing forth in shimmering ribbons of life: mixed in gold, in green, and in blue. The facets of the crystalline walls heard the sub-vocal hum building in her and began to sparkle one by one, shimmering like waves upon a crystal sea beneath their hooves and above their head. The aurora of light built around them, and a call could be heard in it. No words, no sound as they knew it, but a call to let what would happen carry forth.

Twilight behind Dash lit her horn, trying to build up a charge of magic to ward off a surge should Sweetie lose control once more. The shimmer of will bent around her, shivered around her, a touch of hurt warmth that seemed offended that she would fight it. It spread wider; it grew brighter. The hogtied trio looked around again and again as the lights formed a cocoon of energy around them, and as the wires surrounding them warmed in the creeping tide.

“Sweetie Belle, Ah hope ya’ve got this.” Applebloom apprehensively warned as the magic began to lift the ponies all around into the air and caress every strand of their fur.

The words disrupted Sweetie’s concentration, bouncing around in her head. Her magic twitched and writhed lightly as she lost focus, disrupted by the pulses of thought caused by the words.

“Hold on, not yet.” Sunbeam corrected as a fierce urgency trembled in her words. The aurora spreading forth from Sweetie waivered more and began to distort as she lost the tune, forcing Sunbeam to take up the slack and push it back into her mind. “Focus on the beat now!” She whispered between unmarked stanzas. “It is the beat of wild, friendly life! It is life that just wanted to prank ponies harmlessly. Sing with it, call to it. The life has disappointed you, scold it. It has wronged your friends and family, tell it to let them go. Tell it to relax, to sleep, and to let us act again!” Sunbeam directed her new protégé, waiting anxiously as she helped keen the edge of Sweetie’s nameless song into a razor edge in her mind. The flicker of the auroras stopped, and then it Changed.

Opening her eyes once more, Sweetie Sang from the very base of her soul as her eyes glowed with a bright and unfathomable power. Green fire danced along the wires, infusing reluctant life into them; a painless primal aura of her power shone itself in them as they wriggled in movement. Tight bonds grew slack as the crystal walls glittered and reflected the storm of essence rising from the filly, rushing from the filly, touching everypony in the room with the resounding wordless song of her heart given form. She sang, pouring herself into the wish that all the life in the room could get along, whether it be made or born; wishing and asking it all to relax, let her friends go. She didn’t need to see it, she could feel it in the rhythm of the world as her accidental spell reversed itself. The green-fire aurora around the trio burned brighter as the knots all loosened gently, shivering and hesitantly squirming free of them in a gentle movement. With her crescendo the wires coiled themselves nicely, laying down into folded bunches patiently waiting the time when they were needed once more as the magic faded and the lights dimmed out with the world drinking back its magic.

Sweetie closed her eyes once more as she trailed off into silence; a false silence as she heard a lyrical beat of youthful folly in her heart. Her song, awakened from its slumber by her call. It was so beautiful. She let out the last deep breath she had been holding and opened her eyes, belatedly realizing she may have overdone the ‘relax and be still’ bridge. “Uh-oh.”

“Maybe just a little much.” Sunbeam concluded as she observed their results. All save for her, Sweetie, and Berry had fallen prey to the hypnotic qualities of the bespelled song. Sprawled out in every direction, the ponies—and drakeling—were all so relaxed and limp that they more resembled half-melted wax figures puddled on the floor than their normal selves. Limbs limply laid over neighbors in noodly fashion, adding to the appearance of being melted as a chorus of snores and sleepy noises were murmured.

With trepidation, Sweetie reached out from within the feathery embrace of Sunbeam and poked her sister, who mumbled incoherently and flicked an ear. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Oh yes, I think.” Sunbeam said as she smiled proudly at her student’s triumph.

“Well now, Ah-“ Berry tried to pick up his accent once more with the crisis passed, stopping midsentence as Sunbeam lightly thwacked him on the back of his head over Sweetie’s innocent objection. Rubbing the sore spot, he gave Sunbeam a good-natured glare and tried again. “Well now, I think that worked nicely enough. Excellent control for a beginner, but this should be a good lesson on the first rule.” He poked Rarity on the nose and rubbed over her chest, smirking at her sleepy incoherent death threats as she drooled on her leg.

“F-first rule?”

Sunbeam rubbed the filly’s sides, soothing her back down from her nervous state as she lectured from memory. “Intent matters. A wordless song-spell is heavily influenced by your intended result and the imagery in your head when you sing it. An incomplete spell, or one unfocused by thoughts usually will fail, but can result in horrifying unintended consequences, particularly in a stressful situat-Smack me.”

Berry obliged with a whip-crack of his tail to her sides.

“Hey, that’s not nice! Just because she asked for it doesn’t mean you should do it!”

Sunbeam shook her head and smiled. “No, that was for forgetting the rule when I first tested your talent. I don’t know what you were thinking of, but forcing you to be blank likely let the song itself take over your mind and cast itself through you. Worded spells are more nuanced, as you might recall if you remember Twilight becoming an alicorn. But they carry risks as well.” Sunbeam pointed to Twilight, letting Sweetie follow the point of her outstretched hoof to the purple princess.

Poor Twilight laid half-curled on her side with a wing floppily dangled back from her back as she unhappily grumbled and shifted. “Mm… Smartypants… no-wait. I-mmmn-spreadsheets.”

“Oh dear. She’s having spreadsheet dreams again.” Sunbeam worriedly mused as she remembered the odd, sleepless nights when Twilight had tried to balance the royal accounts better so she could buy more ice cream for the both of them. Stepping out from behind the young new song-spell, she came to Twilight’s side and gently folded the wing back into a resting positon before humming into her ear as she rubbed her sides to push her back down into a dreamless sleep. “As you can see, your intent to relax the wires was cast a little widely, and relaxed everypony around you instead of just your intended targets.”

“So, they’re going to be okay, right?”

“Sleepy-sleepysleepy.” Rainbow Dash sleep-talked, snoring like a thousand-pony chorus of tiny lumberjacks in a half-flooded whistle factory.

“Aye. If I haven’t missed my guess, it’ll be their best nap ever, I would think.”

Author's Note

[Yoda Celestia]The horse is her ally, and a powerful ally it is, hrm?[/Yoda Celestia]

4.4

4.4

Sleep laid on Twilight like Pinkie would lay upon a warm and fluffy waterbed; rolling atop her consciousness and seemingly delighting in keeping her down. She didn’t want to wake up and depart from the enchanting slumber as she rolled over and further tightened her blankets around herself. The lightest tickle of a feather against her nose continued to disturb her back to wakefulness, brushing her sleep away much as Rarity would dust her home. Wait—it did feel like Rarity’s patterns of dusting going after her n-n-ninth!

“Aaah-aaah-achoo!”

Twilight blinked back to wakefulness, shaking her head to clear the drowsiness as she poked her head out of the blankets she had somehow wrapped herself in. Every ache and soreness in her body that she had developed since childhood had vanished from her while she had been asleep, leaving her feeling better than she ever had before. Mmm, waking up felt so good this time; the tender relief from her chest to the tip of her tail made her wish every wakeup could feel so good. Wait, wasn’t she supposed to be running tests? She wasn’t supposed to- “Yaaaaaah! Wokenupnow!”

Standing aside with a magnificent sky-blue feather borrowed from Rainbow Dash, Rarity smirked as she looked back to Berry, Sunbeam, and the Crusaders who had all gathered around Dash’s still snoring form. The Pegasus was still out cold, drooling into the blanket she had wrapped around a hoof and pressed up against her face. “See, I told you, I knew exactly how to get her up.”

Twilight pressed her blanketed hoof up against her head, steading herself against the weakness of her decaffeinated state. She needed sweet, sweet stimulants giving her her buzz. Where was Spike, she needed him to go find the pot of tea that had her name written all over it downstairs. Sniff. Sniff. Mmmm, chai tea called to her.

“Hey, guys. Is Twilight up yet? I got her tea ready, but it’s only going to last a few minutes before it gets cold. I made her favorite Neighpon Chai, and Twilight hates it when it goes cold.” Spike cheerfully narrated his doom as he backed into the room and pushed the light crystal door open, having waddled back from the kitchen with the giant mug and tea pitcher Twilight had come to favor since she had moved to Ponyville. Before he could say any more, she teleported him to her side and gripped the whole set in her magic, pouring a full mug to greedily slake her nearly insatiable thirst for caffeine. “Ah! Guys, help! She’s got me! Twi-pire!”

A melodious chorus of laughs greeted his misfortune lightly as Twilight downed the first mugful of tea in a few seconds before pouring a second helping as fast as she could to wake up from her unscheduled nap. Her grip held his paws to the serving tray, leaving him kicking his stubby legs helplessly in the air as he tried to free himself. Despite the noise, Dash remained asleep and still, murmuring beneath the blanket of commotion. Twilight’s gulps continued, swallowing down the rest of her second mug of tea at a more sedate pace; tilting her head back she sucked every last drop of tea from the metal interior and vacuum sealed it to her muzzle.

“Guys, c’mon, get me down! I’m getting dizzy!” Spike clamored as Twilight sleepily bobbed her head trying to get and tea residue out of the mug and unintentionally swung him about.

Sunbeam sat on her haunches and warded off the idea with her waving hooves. “Oh, no. Never come between a grumpy, sleepy Twilight and her tea.” Berry took notes.

With a sigh of relief, Twilight set Spike and his precious cargo still clutched tenderly in his grip safely back on the ground as she flopped backwards. Her sigh broke the vacuum seal on her muzzle, letting the wood and pewter mug drop to the floor beside her as she rubbed the sides of her head to reawaken her sleep-addled mental processes. A few last licks of her lips wiped the tea staining her muzzle and nose away so she looked a little presentable as she peered across the crystal floors of her laboratory. Odd, they hadn’t gotten any scans done, why were there five rolled up test runs of her thaumatoscope wrapped up for future analysis?

“Unf, have you guys been experimenting without me?” She sleepily complained as she rolled back to her belly and shakily stood up.

Applebloom tilted her head, bouncing her bow lightly as she plaintively shot a look of begging forgiveness. “Only a little. Ya’ve been asleep for a while, so Sunbeam got started without you so ya could look later.” Her lip quivered lightly as she saw Twilight’s brow furrow lightly. “Please don’t get mad at us. Ah know ya like to do all yer testing yerself, but we just wanted to give ya a ‘Sorry fer putting ya to sleep’ present.”

Twilight shook her head, holding up a hoof to rub her brow as she did. “Not mad. No accents, please. All fuzzy still.” She got to her hooves, wondering why her lab floor was made of slick crystal instead of nice non-slip mats. “Spike, note. For the next magic-induced fugue state, get some lab mats for the floors so I don’t plant my face like a Pinkie gag.”

“Fugue? Oh, you mean the next magic hangover!” Spike tried to clarify, shutting up as Twilight lightly glared at him. “Sorry.”

Shaking her head, Twilight tottered over towards the thaumatoscope to look at the test scrolls. The light shining through the crystal walls was driving her crazy as she teeter-trotted unsteadily from the magic sleep spell. “Not hangover. Mind all fuzzy from magic spell still. Think it wears off slower on some ponies. Need to do experiments. Later. No accents, please.” Her body felt so good, but her mind wanted to go back to bed.

Berry smirked, finding Twilight’s state hilarious. He trotted over to join her, stepping over the test leads still attached to Rainbow Dash dutifully recording the pulses of magic running through her wings. “Ooch, what’s wrong with accents? They add charm to a pony. Aye, Ah’d bet ye would do well to pick up the local one, it might endear ye to the-hurk!” Berry’s voice disappeared for a moment as Twilight tilted her head absentmindedly and fired a dusky beam of magic into his mouth and down his throat in a perfect shot.

“No accent.” Twilight commanded quietly, admiring her skills. The target practice with Dash and Rarity had paid off pretty nicely. Berry’s squeak of terror as he clutched his throat was pretty funny. Mean, and she needed to fix it later, but still pretty funny.

When Berry talked again, his eyes bulged lightly in horror as he heard the pompous tones of an upper noble blanking out his adopted Trottingham accent. “My voice! You can do that? Why didn’t any pony tell me that she could make ponies sound like Prince Blueblood?” He pouted, sitting down and curling his tail around him to warm his fore-hooves. “You’re mean.”

Sunbeam, who had been trotting up behind them tried to hide her laughter as Twilight ignored Berry in favor of looking at the test scrolls. As she drew up beside Berry, she got a good look at the sad pout of disappointment on his face and finally lost it, falling over as she burst into silent hysterical laughter. Her wing flattened the poor sea pony, pinning him to the floor as she squirmed on her back, feeling like she was going to die as she wheezed and tried to keep from laughing up her lungs. The old pegasus’s hind-legs pedaled in the air as her forelegs clutched her heaving barrel for mercy. “Berry! Proper! Too good! Why? I should have thought about! That!” She wheezed between giggle fits as Berry pouted beneath her wing.

“I’m not supposed to be proper. I’m a rogue, and a gentlemen of colorful nature.” He whined, rubbing his throat.

Sunbeam giggled again, pleading quietly for him to stop as Rarity and Spike watched her worriedly.

“Ya sound good.” Applebloom said cautiously, hiding behind Sunbeam’s bulk. “Why’d ya want to talk like that?” She nudged her head under the tip of Sunbeam’s oddly massive wing, helping Berry hold it up so he could escape as Sunbeam slowly slipped out of her giggle fits.

“It made ponies pay more attention to my voice than the fact that I was a sea pony.”

“Oh.”

“Ngh. It should stop in an hour or two.” Twilight groaned as she sat back down, rolling back until her spine could rub against the cold metal housing of her thaumatoscope. She held up all of the tightly rolled test results, examining them each in turn before setting them beside Spike as he waddled up. “Okay, Sweetie Belle and Spike I understand, but why did you guys record Sunbeam, Berry, and you Rarity?” Twilight picked one scroll back up, taking a second look at the elegant rendition of Sunbeam’s smiling face in the corner of it.

Rarity brushed off Berry’s fur for him, taking a glance at his dress uniform hanging up in the corner. “Well, Captain Bubbles decided to be quite the gentle pony and assisted us by providing a sample of his rather meager song-spell talents to compare Sweetie Belle to.” She smiled to him in thanks, and he awkwardly returned the smile, rubbing a hoof against his curly mane and straightening up.

Shaking her head, Rarity brushed past him and picked Sunbeam up in her telekinetic aura, marveling again at how her magic strength had increased. “Sunbeam and I were… controls, I believe the term is? While your talents are considerable, they are not quite the norm to compare my sister to, are they? And goodness forbid trying to compare Scootaloo to Rainbow Dash.” She looked back to the pair of foals, who had been secretively drawing things on a sheet of paper again before they sheepishly stopped under her gaze.

Sunbeam shook her head as Rarity set her back on her hooves again; the rapid twirl that Rarity had inflicted on her was a little dizzying. “Right. Applebloom actually was the one who suggested it, as a way of filling out the data set.”

Twilight frowned for a second, lowering the scroll detailing Sunbeam’s magic to look over it at the apple filly. “Really? That was pretty smart of you. Thanks, I hadn’t thought of doing that.”

“T’was just common sense. Nuthin’ special about it.” Applebloom cast her gaze down, scuffing a hoof against the floor.

“It’s less common than you would think, Applebloom. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Twilight pulled the scroll back close to her face, taking another look at the lines. The rhythms in the data looked odd to her eyes, familiar almost. She could have sworn to herself that she had seen the data before, data she knew didn’t make much sense since Sunbeam couldn’t possibly have unicorn magi-

With an ill-timed ding, the thaumatoscope completed the scan cycle for Rainbow Dash, automatically cutting off the end of the rolling sheet of data with a shearing system. Twilight snatched the roll up as it was bundled tightly and taped shut, pulling it off of the drum so she could examine the lines closely. “Wow, the readings are so clear!”

“Oh, I might have had some help from Berry. He’s made it a mission in life to understand machinery and technology.” Sunbeam absentmindedly said as she rubbed the top of the still pouting sea pony’s head. “He does so well.” Giving him a light hug, she smiled and tried to raise the corners of his mouth with her hoof.

Berry scrunched his mouth shut, unwilling to say much more. Hearing Blueblood’s accent come out of his mouth sent the worst kinds of willies down his spine. “Are we not going to get started on Twilight?”

Twilight looked around at the light shining through the crystal walls, scratching the back of her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even want to know how much time it would have taken to get Dash hooked up, let alone the rest of you. I can’t keep you guys cooped up in my lab all day, ponies might start thinking I’m some sort of mad scientist or something.” Twilight’s wings flared as she mentioned the possibility, betraying her still lingering fears about rejection from the townsfolk of Ponyville.

Spike answered her worries as he shoved the tray of tea onto the counter on the hall side, slumping down the cabinet face as he lost what was propping him up. “Nah. It’s only noonish. We got done a lot faster than you think.”

“Bwuah?”

Rarity smirked to her little sister, who shared their evil gaze of smugness. “Oh, Sweetie Belle. Would you kindly show Twilight that she’s not the ONLY talented mage around here anymore oh pretty please?” She sing-songed, grinning all the while as Twilight arched an eyebrow in confusion.
Sweetie nodded eagerly and shut her eyes for her song. Taking a deep series of warmup breaths, she started humming as she inched up on tippy-hooves with the rising cadence of the song on her breath. Life glimmered almost invisibly in the air as she left the fading beat of Berry’s heart roar again in her ears and directed it to the test leads. Green aurora-fire danced along their lengths as they came to life again and started moving, popping free of Dash one by one. They slithered; Twilight not at all missing the movement.

Twilight fluffed up as she saw their snakey slithers, fluffing up and floating up on frantic movements of her wings as she instinctively sought the highest point she could hide upon as the sensors coiled themselves up into neat piles waiting for their master to give them direction. “S-s-ssna-“She stammered as she watched with horror from her perch and trembled. Sweetie looked up to her innocently as one came up and circled around the filly’s leg, crawling up it in coils to loop over Sweetie’s back and nuzzle her in the cheek.

“What? Was it something I said? He-he! Stop it; that tickles!” Sweetie complained as her still flickering companion nuzzled her curiously again.

Rarity and Sunbeam looked from Twilight to the coils of shifting sensors—never did two hooves meet two faces so quickly in annoyance as they came to the same conclusion simultaneously. Rarity rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as she remembered Twilight’s many issues with snakes and snake-like objects, something that Dash and Pinkie had exploited more than once and likely made worse by accident. A final sigh of resignation escaped her as she opened her eyes again and focused on Twilight. “Darling, they’re harmless! It’s just the form the life Sweetie put into them took. Oh, think of them as extra-long ferrets if it helps!”

Twilight still trembled there. “It didn’t help, did it?” Twilight shook her head. “Oh fiddlesticks and split ends!”

Sunbeam looked around the room, mentally accounting for what she had to work with. Berry wasn’t likely to be of use, the sensors would retain their life so long as Sweetie remained in the area, Rarity to could Twilight but any data so long as the sensors acted like snakes would be hard to get and garbled from Twilight’s panic state in her phobia. Unless… “Sweetie Belle, you can let the song-spell go.”

“I can?”

“She can?” Scootaloo and Applebloom asked suspiciously in unison.

Sunbeam nodded, smiling a smile better suited for Discord as her wing scooped in behind Berry and she swiveled around to put him in front of the crusaders. “Oh, yes. Unfortunately, I am trying to get rid of you three, but as long as Twilight sees the sensors like they are, they’ll continue to set off her phobia.” She vaguely nodded her head to Twilight, who still shivered in place.

“I messed up again, didn’t I?” Sweetie despondently asked.

Shaking her head hard enough to dizzy herself, Sunbeam cut off the self-pity. “No, no! My fault again. I forgot that Twilight has a snake phobia.” She smirked, looking to Rarity who caught on at last and smirked evilly back as she noticed the rather blank area on Berry’s flank. “Besides, Twilight is right, we’ve kept you three cooped up in here all day when you should be trying to earn your cutie marks!” If she could have a medal every time she made a perfect move, she’d be able to rebuild Mt. Canter in precious metal.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders flipped from slightly depressed and worried to beaming in glee in a second, beaming with disturbingly wide smiles and gleaming eyes as they clustered together. Twilight’s teacher was going to help them, they’d get their marks this time for sure! She was, after all, secretly Princess C-

“In fact, here!” Sunbeam shoved Berry forward, letting him get slid along atop a conveyor belt of Rarity’s magic as the fashionata and the secret alicorn gained their safe vengeance upon the sea pony at once. “Despite all his efforts, Captain Bubbles here has never gained his cutie mark! Why, I’m sure he’ll be of great help crusading with you to find his special talent!” Vengeance was best served in foal-sized packages indeed.

Berry flipped around, trying to gallop back to Sunbeam without making any headway as Rarity cranked up her magic conveyor belt to keep him from escaping. “Wait! You know why I can’t get a cutie mark!” He could feel himself slowly slipping backwards as the three fillies gasped with horror as they saw his blank flanks and grabbed his tail.

“Scootaloo! This is wrong!” Sweetie Belle said as she willed the sensor that was being cozy with her to rejoin its friends with a burst of humming.

“You’re right, no-pony should be forced to go their life without a cutie mark!” The little pegasus said with youthful conviction.

“Quick, we’ve gotta get him to our clubhouse!” Applebloom declared as she yanked with her hooves and helped balance Berry like a turtle on their backs.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER NEW MEMBER INDUCTORS!” They shouted in unison as they carted Berry away to save him from dying from a lack of cutie mark.

Spike had backed into the corner as Sunbeam and Rarity had removed the hypotenuse of the trouble triangle with surprise, fear, and ruthless efficiency. As he calmed his rapidly beating heart, he raised a trembling claw to comment on the matter. “You guys are scary! They’re going to scar him for life!” He ducked down as they turned to him, still sporting their smiles.

“But of course, Spikey-Wikey.”

“He was being rather obnoxious. And since Sweetie Belle is leaving her likely limited range of effect, the spells should die right about now.” Sunbeam continued for Rarity, pointing to the test leads right as the green life-fire died from them and left them still. Still had it. She just wished she could remember to apply it more often. “There we go. Now then, let’s get Twilight calmed down.”

Author's Note

Should have one more section to go before the end of the year. Yes, I did in fact cut it for length, there was a great deal more that's forming the core of the next section.

4.5

Author's Note

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVEEE!

Regular Pony Time Resumes Naow.

4.5

4.5

“Twilight. Twilight, easy now.” Sunbeam whispered to her student as the alicorn trembled upon her high perch. It had been only a few minutes, but Twilight was still shaking atop the high shelf she had eventually teleported herself to in her bids to get farther away from the sensors. She had crouched down, peeking over the edge worriedly, barely visible via the tip of her horn bobbing with her shakes and the trembling tips of her ears.
Rarity reached up with her magic again as they waited for Spike to bring a calming chamomile tea to help, carefully prying Twilight from her perch and putting up a barrier of light to trick Twilight’s mind into thinking there was a wall between her and the object of her phobias. “It’s okay, darling. They’re all dead.”

Sunbeam took up her place by Twilight’s side as the alicorn shivered in place, soothing her with slow strokes of a hoof-brush through her mane. “Easy now, my student. They can’t hurt you. They’re over there, and we’re over here.” Twilight nodded stiffly, panting still as her jangling nerves left her ready to bolt in terror. Sunbeam, despairing at her student’s terror-stricken state, lamented and carefully wrapped a foreleg about her in a hug. “I know that she read too many Daring Do books as a foal, but her fears have never been this bad before.”

Rarity leaned up over Twilight’s other side with a brush she conjured from her home. “The plunder seeds a year ago and the, um, tatzlwurm I believe, they amplified her phobias from what I understand.” Rarity concentrated on straightening Twilight’s mane as Sunbeam brushed out her ruffled coat. Thinking further, the fashionata continued as Spike’s foot-falls heralded his arrival. “It might also have to do with the rather unwanted transformation of the familiar into a fearsome terror for her.”

Stiffly nodding, Twilight raised a hoof to her chest and began working through the breathing exercises Cadence had taught her that she neglected far too often.

Mouthing an ‘o’ of worry as she finally reached the root of Twilight’s extreme reaction, Sunbeam hugged just a little tighter. She needed a plan, a plan most cunning; ah, a plan involving learning. Still, a wince was called for as she realized how painful the process would be. “That will be a problem, considering that the little one’s talent will likely be singing the song-spell of life.”

Rarity pursed her lips as she sent Sunbeam a side-long glance. “Sweetie Belle?”

“H-how can you tell?” Twilight asked stiffly, stiffly as anything else she was doing. Theoretically it might be possible to predict cutie marks, but no evidence for it had been found besides minor personality clues.

Grinning like a shark, Sunbeam beamed a smile to Rarity as she resisted the urge to pump a hoof in victory. There would be no shame in her next admission. “Oh, Princess Celestia couldn’t do the particular feats that Sweetie performed nearly as well. That’s probably why she felt safe in having me use her personal ‘come to life and clean’ rhythm to see if Sweetie actually was a song-spell. She just can’t give things temporary life like Sweetie has shown.” She laid her head atop the crown of Twilight’s own and hummed, humming her guilt and hopes to Twilight to stave off the ache of failure.

Trembling slowed under the onslaught of friendship and harmony, soothed away under the comfort of a familiar form covering her, suckered out by the twisting worm of the teasing of knowledge—and Spike wadding up to wave another mug of tea under her nose freshly brewed. Insidious little traitor, calming her down like that. “You can have specialties in spell-songs?” She asked before snatching the mug from Spike and drinking greedily.

Sunbeam nodded slightly before she remembered her chin was scuffing up the straight lines of Twilight’s mane. “From what I understand, L-Princess Luna sings of transitions and change, and Princess Celestia sings of growth and connections.” She confided to Twilight, who silently mouthed her understanding. Staring off into the glowing purplish crystal walls, she continued. “I suppose every cutie mark would be a further metaphor for a pony’s song-spell talent would be if they had any ability.”

“Oh my.” Rarity mumbled to herself; her tail flicked against her trio of diamonds as she looked back over her shoulder to Spike. Nodding back to her, they snuck quietly across the room to the pile of test leads to get them ready as Sunbeam kept Twilight busy learning.

Nodding, Twilight mulled over the revelation as she glanced down into the half-empty mug of tea Spike had left between her forelegs. Had all those times Celestia had sung with her or hummed to her while been song-spells to her, song-spells to make her grow, to make her learn more, to be more than she could have been? There was no way to tell for certain, she knew any recollection would be tainted by her new knowledge. Letting her head slowly slide down the curve of Sunbeam’s velvet-furred neck, she laid her head on the thick muscle at the base of the pegasus’s foreleg. “Did-did Celestia use her talent often?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Both to raise and set the sun and moon, and to encourage other ponies to grow better than they would be on their own, if that is what you’re asking.” Sunbeam puttered half-heartedly as she transferred the brush from being strapped around her left foreleg to being gripped carefully with her teeth. She glanced back to Rarity, trying to motion the alabaster unicorn to hurry up before she went back to stroking Twilight down. A nudge from her nose sprawled out Twilight’s wings so Rarity could start affixing leads to various spots before she continued distracting Twilight. “She had to be very careful to be general as far as I am aware.”

Spike grunted as he laid the thick coiled bundle of leads behind Sunbeam’s rump before asking something. “Why be general?”

“Imagine Sweetie Belle’s accident happening to one pony in particular.” Every pony shuddered, and Twilight took a shaking deep draught from her mug.

Her nostrils flaring a bit as snorted with a further full-body shiver from the possibilities, Twilight nodded as a potential origin for Discord came to mind. Or for that matter, a certain alabaster unicorn suddenly convinced that she was supposed to manage the weather. Her head pounded as she focused on various possibilities until she banished her thoughts; she could afford to get hung up and fret herself mad as Sweetie was counting on her to teach her control. Given the mighty powers and dangerous abilities so far shown and hinted at, a key lesson might be to teach her when not to use it. Maybe she could learn from that pool of knowledge herself.

As Twilight’s wing twisted and fluttered with her indecisive worry Rarity hopped back and ducked down to avoid getting a mouthful of feathers. She’d left enough slack in the wires to keep them from tugging the feathers they were wrapped through. Shooting a glance to Spike, along with a waving hoof of irritation, took a moment more as she tried to get him to hurry up with getting the thaumatoscope helmet ready to put on Twilight.

Lighting her horn, Twilight wrote some notes across the room atop one of the black lab countertops on one of the handy notepads she had discovered the week before. Though she knew she was being distracted from the ssssssnaaaaaaaakes, the temptation of knowledge was too much to ignore. “You said earlier that song-spells require direction and focus, and that intent mattered alongside wording. I can’t quite think of any spell like that. They require fixed matrixes. What did you mean?” Glancing up into Sunbeam’s eyes did wonders, as did her unsure twitching smile on her face. The poor pegasus buttered right up.

On the spot, Sunbeam jerked a little, surprised by the effectiveness of her ploy. She cleared her throat and grinned back to her student. “Well, what happens when you summon up a large quantity of magic without implanting a matrix or directing it at a target?”

“Anything! Wild magic is highly unpredictable, and highly dangerous due to the chance of a high intensity discharge.”

Nodding, Sunbeam leaned her head down again and playfully stroked Twilight’s mane down into her eyes before rushing back up to the crown of the alicorn’s head and pulling the brush down to the tip of the streaked straight mane. Behind her, Rarity and Spike gently lowered the padded helmet onto Twilight’s head as the mentoring pegasus covered for them. “A song-spell is in many ways directed wild magic given form. Unbound by a rigid matrix of an intended spell effect, it can take on a more efficient form. By giving little intent, the spell is left to its own devices. A misguided intent, or miswording could be-catastrophic would be a word for how bad. Two plus two equaling fish would be another.”

Frowning, both at the weight on her head that she was willfully trying to ignore and at the oddity of the revelation, Twilight pondered further. “Okay, where does the extra magic come from? I’ve examined Sweetie Belle before, and she only has the average amount of magic in her core that any unicorn filly should.”

Sunbeam gave a wise old grin and chuckle. Her slightly cold nose startled Twilight as she bent down and buried it into the alicorn’s cheek before tweaking Twilight’s nose with her freed hoof. “Of course not.” As Twilight twitched her nose, a twitch prepared to unruffle it, Sunbeam poked the poor purple point again to pin it in place. “That would require the power of a song-spell to come from within instead of being borrowed from the local environment and nearby ponies much as a heart-song would.”

“Hey!” Twilight swatted the hoof away, pinning it beneath both of her own. “You can’t borrow magic from some-pony!”

“Tirek.” That did it, as Twilight pushed up and frowned in righteous anger.

“He’s an abomination! Evil! Horrible!” Her outburst gave Rarity and Spike the opening they needed to switch on the recorder as her incensed angry shouts covered the initial beeps and startup noises. “We’re lucky that he didn’t permanently damage some-pony’s magic, or worse, kill some-pony by draining them too much!”

“Yes, Tirek is evil. That is not, however, how it works. I merely used him as an example of borrowing magic.” Sunbeam replied quietly as her wing slid up Twilight’s back and slowly pushed her back down and laid over her. She hummed again quietly, an old song that Twilight found soothing from her apprenticeship, soothing her down and quieting her from ranting further. “He would be more of an example of theft instead. A heart-song or song-spell is more of a gentle, willful unconscious gifting of magic instead.”

“It was kind of freaky seeing you guys like that.” Spike broke the mood as he waddled back in a zombie shuffle with the pot of tea in his stiff arms. “You were all ‘maaaaaaaaggiiiiiiiiic!’ And stuff. Ish.”

Sighing sufferingly, Rarity stroked his head spines. “Yes, thank you for your insight, dear Spike.”

As he blushed greenish-pink under Rarity’s ministrations, Sunbeam rolled her eyes and pretended to gag over the pair’s banter. “Gugh! I’m allergic to love!” A foam dart was graciously donated by Rarity, bouncing off of Sunbeam’s head. “Every-pony’s a critic.”

“So, uh, borrowing?”

“Ah, thank you, Twilight. As you know, a heart song is the sharing of every-pony’s magic in a given area.” Sunbeam began, wishing that she had the new set of element bearer action figures—especially the little Twilight one that lit up adorably—to demonstrate with. “The song acts as a passive aura, allowing every pony, object, and gathering of natural magic to harmonize along a general set of instruction or intents.”

“We—uh—never covered heart-songs.”

“We didn’t?”

“No.”

“How-uh, Princess Celestia never-?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Sunbeam leaned up at that, pulling her chin and wing away from Twilight who was still resting her head on the old pegasus’s upper thigh. Now that she thought of it, the lack of knowledge on heart songs might explain why Twilight was never interested in making friends before. “So, I didn’t get into the advanced study of natural magic fields, or the study of how every-pony’s biologically-generated magic fields interact in normal society either?” Twilight’s ears cocked in puzzlement before the alicorn shook her head. “How did that not get covered?” She settled back down around her student quickly as she started to fidget from the test leads wrapped into her wings like spider webs again.

Twilight’s hooves touched and danced against one another for a time, dancing in nervous energy as she sought to explain how the oversight might have happened to distract herself. “I know that there is ambient magic, but the P—ahem—Celestia never got a chance to cover it. I-uh maybe might have distracted her somewhat excessively via overenthusiastic study of advanced magical formula theory and construction?” The young princess shyly grinned in embarrassment as she cupped her tea mug and took a calming sip. She had been meaning to get around to the rest of magic theory including environmental magic given the nearby Everfree Forest, but all the ponies in Ponyvile were CRA-ZY and kept distracting her from remembering to do so. That was her explanation, and she was sticking to it no matter how many books she had read since she got to town.

Rarity pursed her lips, pondering. “Ah, yes. That would explain where dear Spike learned some of his,” She tapped a hoof against her chin as she turned her eyes ceiling-ward for inspiration in word choice, “Stallion-headedness, so to speak, from.”

Shrugging, Spike set the tea pot down on a cozy. “Wouldn’t that be from, I dunno, being a guy? Just saying, Rarity, it’s kind of our thing.”

Dismissively waving the hoof she had been tapping against her chin, Rarity brushed Spike off. “Oh, don’t be so sexist, Spikey-Wikey. Despite the name, the trait is entirely learned. Trust me on the matter.” She shuddered as she remembered her father’s ‘bonding’ time with Sweetie; toast must never be served lightly bubbling!

Sunbeam’s smile dropped to Tartarus as she remembered her experience with the ‘toast’ after Sweetie had insisted that she make breakfast for her earlier that week—that poor flagstone didn’t deserve to boil away like that. Enough of that, she forced it out of her mind before she broke cover and teleported to a bathroom to cough up her last five centuries of meals. “Right. Well then, yes, magic free floats. Every-pony radiates magic naturally to one degree or another. It is a part of their metabolism, radiating from them much as heat does. There is a great deal more to it than that, but that comes later.”

Twilight’s brand new fountain pen straight from Manehatten scraped against notepad as she diligently took notes. “Magic: part of metabolic process! Got it!”

Patting Rainbow Dash’s still napping form lightly to see if she would wake up, Spike lounged back against her when she didn’t move. “Doesn’t everything have a magic signature or potential energy or whatever it’s called bound up in it? You know, since it’s part of the fundamental forces like the professors have been theorizing at each other?”

Twilight’s head cocked as she twisted around to look at her number one Little Brother Best Assistant-Friend Forever/Number One Assistant. When had he learned so much?

Nodding, Sunbeam confirmed Spike’s vague and hazy conjecture; it gave Twilight a few seconds more to let her guard down before the raspberries came to deliver hickies to that fluffy neck. Only a few seconds, of course. More than a few seconds without distraction made Twilight a twitchy pony at that moment. After blowing a bout of teasing torment into the whorls of Twilight’s neck, Sunbeam settled in to explain more.

“Very good, Spike. Everything does have a magic binding energy and signature as part of its essential makeup. That is why unicorns project their magic to-“

Looking up from where she had been trying to smooth the spike of wetted fur out, Twilight beamed as she realized she could see where the reasoning was going. “By projecting their magic around and through an object, they harmonize the object’s magic with their own, and thus take control through direct fundamental manipulation!” She didn’t mean to squeak like that. Magic theory kind of got her excited like Rarity in that ultimate fabric shop in Manehatten.

“Correct, Twilight!” Sunbeam encouraged. “Traditional magic is the forceful structured will of a pony’s magic field exerted. Song-spells and heart-songs are not nearly so direct. By coaxing instead of forcing, they do not fight the natural magic but align gently with it to subtly or not so subtly influence it in a wider variety of ways.”

Rarity blinked, then giggled her strange laugh of triumph as she got the gist of the lesson; the prancing in place didn’t help the silly looks she got either. “Much like the difference between a cheap rack suit and a work most magnifique by an artist such as moi?” She proudly preened, while holding a hoof to her chest. Fluttering her eyelashes lightly and beaming a million bit smile finished out her display, making Spike swoon against his snorting pillow.

Rolling her eyes, Sunbeam nodded. “To an extent. Yes. That is the general idea.” She glanced over to Spike, and Dash his pillow who still slept in the corner. “It’s more of an art than a science still.”

4.Cutiespiracies

4.Cutiespiracies

“It’s more of an art than a science, really!” Applebloom answered for Scootaloo to Berry as said pegasi skidded up an embankment sideways with the cart to hop onto the upper street and take off, metaphorically, towards Sweet Apple Acres. The motion jostled every-pony in the wagon and bounced Applebloom’s and Sweetie Belle’s heads off of Berry’s sides, but Berry was busily figuring out how to turn whiter than Pinkie’s finest sugar to notice the thumps of helmeted heads down there. He would have started his usual screaming and hugging tight to the nearest pegasus for safety measures and routine, but with Scootaloo well away from his grasp the screaming would detract from his focus on holding the two foals beside him down in the wagon whilst clinging to it like a manic starfish. Applebloom shook her head again as the wagon rattled on an unsettled patch of cobblestone. “Yer worrying too much, she does this all the time!”

Berry didn’t peel his eyes from the road as he stuck his tongue between his teeth to keep from chipping them under the redoubled assault from the road vibrations. “That just makes it worse!” He hissed, hissing through his bruising tongue and aching teeth. Much as the vibrating assault came upon them, so too did it quickly leave; cobblestone fading to dirt tracks with a final clunk of wagon wheels dropping from hard to semi-soft surfaces. “She’s used to your weight not an adult’s!” Why was he protecting his teeth again, anyway? They grew back—but then again, Pinkie’s cupcakes didn’t magically regenerate despite what his waist-line would say. “I’d call this unsafe, but given that I kicked a hydra in the teeth; I’d be pretty hypocritical! Will you please slow down?”

“Whoooa.” Applebloom and Scootaloo intoned over the road noise; Sweetie instead sulking under her breath and mumbling about mean ponies.

Any further discussion was cut off for a few moments as Scootaloo swerved through the over-hung S-curves alongside the Ponyvile River, scooting and scuffing up dust clouds in the process along the secluded section of Acres Avenue. As they came out of the hard turns on the other side, they bounced from the tough branches of the riverside bushed and into the straightaway leading into the hills beneath the farm. Sweetie Belle relaxed under Berry’s leg, her soothed nerves prompting him to warily rise up off of them and sit upright.

He glanced down and passed his gaze to each of the crusaders one at a time in contemplation warily. “I have to ask, uh, what exactly are you planning on doing to me?”

“Inductin’!” Applebloom cheered for the three of them. Her forelegs were thrown up as part of her cheer, prompting their sea pony—volunteer foalnappee—to duck with near split-second reflexed back over atop Sweetie Belle until the apple filly stopped gesticulating. He stared with wide eyes at her over his shoulder and barrel until his uncomfortable gaze prompted a little more. “Ya know; as a crusader and stuff. Got a little ceremony where we—uh, ah hay Ah forgot what all we did. It’s a work in progress. With drums. We might need a better one actually, we only used it once. Ah think we lost the notes.”

Berry calmed his heart with thoughts of cupcakes, revenge on Celestia, the relative tameness of his current ordeal compared to the times he had been forced to ride his pegasi squad mates and subordinates, his wife’s pancakes, and the occasion he had to help a strange grey-scale maned pegasus retrieve some artifact from an underwater temple. He had been through better and worse, and three foals who were most likely the incarnate avatars of Discord were not going to get the better of him. Forcing a sigh of frustration out helped a bit as he moved on and sat up. “You didn’t keep notes? I know Pinkie has told me about your crusades, but how are you supposed to figure out your cutie marks if you don’t keep track of the things you do?”

“We keep track!” Sweetie squeaked indignantly. “Sort of.” Her defiance faded as she let her head hang down. “Some. We know what we’ve done! We’ll get you your cutie mark!”

Resisting the urge to face-hoof was a tall order. He’d been born with two hooves for a reason, one for holding himself up, and the other to print that horseshoe into his face until it left a brand it seemed. He made a bet with himself that their ‘tracking’ involved an old drawer of crayon notes and crazy ideas like catapults to the moon. “No you won’t. I can’t get a cutie mark.”

Scootaloo stomped her hooves into the ground, nearly vaulting her passengers out of the wagon as she plowed furrows into the half-packed dirt of the track with two hooves. “What’d you say!?! Only quitters never get cutie marks!”

“And sea ponies, bat ponies, and those weird creepy night unicorn race with the curved horns and fangs that I don’t know the name of.” Berry quipped back amid the choking dust, counting off with his hoof. As the dust cleared, he made a note of the organized rows of apple trees stretching off to his left to the horizon behind a repeatedly repaired fence that lead up to a tall arched gate in the distance.

His two wagon guards prodded him repeatedly in the sides as he examined the fence and noted the state of repairs in it. Three older repair styles, mostly amateur. One more recent, and far more skilled crafts-pony handling the repairs, but short. Possibly also at the hooves of the little yellow annoyance using her hammering skills to poke him in the sides until he coughed up a pearl or something. “Ow, Ow, OW! Okay, okay! Sunbeam covered it earlier, remember?” Applebloom’s head-tilt flopped her ponytail braid in a way that was adorable enough to make him miss a heartbeat as Scootaloo got underway again and buzzed them up to the gate. “You know, the whole reason I’m touched with chaotic magic and cause strange, crazy disasters involving unlikely solvents and sticky situations? We were all originally created by Discord.”

“WHAT!?” The trio cried in shock.

Berry rolled his eyes and tilted his head back so he could look at the carefully alternated branches of the trees and the half-cloudy skies beyond. “Yes. Too much chaos magic in my blood, it futzes with the harmony magic that would give some pony their cutie mark. Feh, it’s just a butt tattoo, anyway. A big ole declaration to the world of your quest in life.” Berry wriggled his floppy tail through his spiel; a slap to his midsection just ahead of where a normal pony would have their flanks adding emphasis to ‘butt tattoo’. Clearing his throat didn’t help his still snooty-sounding involuntary Blueblood impression—Twilight had some pretty spectacular range. Wait, what was he saying? She was an alicorn, he could build a giant rocket and fly to the moon and he still wouldn’t escape her range.

“Hey now, cutie marks are important!” Applebloom shouted back; right into his freaking ear.

Squeaking out his ear as they zipped past the farmhouse and barn complex with barely a wave to the elderly green pony rocking on the front porch, he fired back another point. “They can be if you let them. Different strokes for different ponies.” He gradually sank down to lay flat in the wagon bed again, letting his head rest on his propped up fore-hooves. “That lousy orange feather-duster is gonna get it.” Hearing three sharp tics of breath from the trio inspired intriguing thoughts. Did they know?

Gulping nervously, Sweetie Belle feebly elbowed him. “Hey, uh, don’t call her feather-duster!” Who knew if she had spells to let her know if ponies were bad mouthing her? “It’s, uh, mean!"

Applebloom wasn’t as experienced in the tolerance of crazy-talk-fu, and face-hooved at Sweetie’s entirely insincere-sounding warning.

Scruntching his lips, Berry wondered what exactly they really knew, or what he would find in their club— house… Holy Hay Fries with a side of Tartar Sauce. He had once had the clubhouse described to him as a modest structure nestled in the branches of an old oak that the crusaders were always playing around with and experimenting with a second story. With the advent of the crusade to unmask Sunbeam for who she really was, that modest structure had been swallowed up by an immense work of engineering in progress, stretching out enough to swallow up possibly any airship the Royal Air Navy could develop. A massive new deck assembly had begun to take shape around the remaining trees of the old grove, further supported by pilings rescued from the annual cut-back of the Everfree Forest and properly anchored into the vaulted base of the platform, which in turn had the skeleton of an assembly hall in which they would one day build their mad spy ships. Not that Berry understood what he was looking at; the sea-pony was busily gawking at the mad skeleton and wondering where the crusaders had gotten the skills to build it all. He probably wouldn’t have been more pole-axed if some-pony had slapped him with an irate sea bass. “Do your parents know you’re building a skyscraper?”

“Mah parents are dead.”

“Up for adoption.”

“Yes.” Sweetie glibly stated, smirking a little in glee at having pulled a nice one on her dad. As Applebloom joined Scootaloo in pointedly glaring at her after getting out of the cart, she clarified. “What? You know my mom and dad! After all the—stuff—Rarity gets up to, they were all ‘Have fun with that, kiddo.’” Sweetie pretended to hold a newspaper in front of her face to lovingly mock her dad. “C’mon, don’t you remember all those sayings from that Neighponese pony that Rainbow Dash gets on quoting every once in a while; you know, the best refuge was the bold or something?”

“Sun Tzu.” Berry filled in for Sweetie as he pulled off his helmet and let his mane explode back into its normal fluffy state. “And there are a couple. ‘Fortune Favors the Bold’; ‘The Refuge of the Desperate is Audacity’; a couple of others. Uh, have the plans for all of this been looked at by a proper engineer?”

“Yer one, aren’t ya?” Applebloom asked quickly to perform damage control. As he nodded while slowly stepping out of the cart the little Apple filly harshly whispered into Scootaloo’s ear, making the pegasus first go wide eyed before nodding furiously. “GREAT! Wait ‘ere. We’ll go get the plans fer yer first cutie mark opportunity! The floor is, uh, not quite stable yet, so wait down here so ya don’t fall through.”

Applebloom slid Sweetie over to Berry, shaking her a bit, then pointed to the adult and to the ground right beside her in a flurry of gestures. Without checking any further, she head-butted Scootaloo in the rump and drove the pegasus before her up the new stairwell replacing the old ramp as quickly as she could to hide their Celestia Conspiracy Contingency planning they had left out that morning. Left in the cool shadows of the Cutie Headquarters, Sweetie Belle only had Berry to delay.

“So, uh, staying in Ponyvile long?” She nervously chattered, trying to find common ground. She took off her helmet, shaking out her curls. Wearing her helmet seemed to be permanently shaping her mane; the curls seemed to form just outside of it, formed by the speed of their treks. She swallowed, trying again. “Just trying to know how long we have to get you your cutie mark.”

Berry wryly looked down at Sweetie sitting beside him, then ruffled her mane until her curls sprung back to full life. “That’s cute, Sweetie Belle. The three of you are really bad at the Secret Conspiracy practices, though. Stick to crusading.” He got up as Sweetie’s jaw hung like a swing-set; taking his time during his stroll over to the stairway to examine the construction of the pilings and vaulted under-deck. “I don’t know how long I’ll stay. I had some idea, but something tells me that I’ll be spending a while longer than originally planned.”

Sweetie’s mind finally returned from flying to Los Pegas, gambling away it’s life savings, and came back to her broken and confused from having been told she had been seen straight through. “Hang on, Mr. Bubbles! Didn’t you hear them, the floor isn’t ready for adults yet!” Her excuses sounded silly, even to her as she dashed around him and tried to first block him by sitting down in his path, then feebly pushing him back with both forelegs on his chest. “Trust me, they’ll be right down with the—whoahey!”

She landed with a limp flop across Berry’s back, tossed there by the cheekily grinning stallion. As she rubbed down the wet spot on the nape of her neck where he had grabbed her and flipped her over his head, he booped her on the nose for good measure to leave her spluttering long enough for him to point to the framing of the deck. “Innovative design work taking from certain cathedrals while still remaining within code, to include the proper grade of hurricane straps and braces, and excessively secure nailing and screws. All of it is supported by thick old trees every twenty yards and further supplemented with flood-plain grade pilings at regular intervals. All of the alicorns could tap dance in the same spot with an orchestra backup and they wouldn’t fall through.” His upraised hoof smoothed out Sweetie’s mane again, separating out her colors so that they fell to either side of her face and framed it nicely. “Nice try, though.” With that, he hopped up the stairs in a few bounds over her continuing protests.

Two smiles almost turned to rictus mockeries of themselves as Gravity pointedly did not even make an attempt on the stability of the floor as the stallion demonstrated his point by performing a folk dance his adopted family had taught him at the new landing atop the stairs. The traitor was never there for the crusaders when they needed her, and always they when they least expected the Physics Inquisition. As the sea pony danced and bobbed his head for a minute or so to some hummed old song, the duo who had come up first hastily stuffed the rolled up plans they had been carrying into the shelf behind themselves.

“Might bit dangerous up here yet, mister.” Applebloom tried to warn as she bumped the plans deeper into the morass of hastily stuffed papers back with her rump.

“Yeah!” Scootaloo chimed in, bumping back alongside her. “Give us just a second and we’ll be down with an adult size crusader cape!” She hopefully added, plastering a completely fake grin on her face while elbowing Applebloom in the ribs. She stage-whispered to her friend. “Do we have adult crusader capes?”

“Ah don’t think we have normal ones…” Applebloom harshly whispered back.

Berry finally fell to his irresistible urge to face-hoof over the ineptitude, wondering whether or not to laugh or cry. Cel—er, Sunbeam hadn’t wanted him blabbing her secret to Twilight, but had sicced these three on him? Did she not realize they were onto her--judging by the documents, drawings, and photos pointedly sticking out from behind every piece of furniture in the old room of the new headquarters? After reluctantly pulling back his hoof from his snout and shaking his head once, he stomped over to a likely-looking suspiciously paneled section of wall and thumped it hard enough to shake the entire structure.

Lo and behold, for like an overstuffed piñata being attacked by Pinkie Pie so too did the building explosively--relatively, as paper made for a lousy spring under pressure—revealed its secrets. Spring-loaded wall panels flipped around to reveal black and white distance photos of both Sunbeam and Celestia, spraying added evidence out as pressure was released; crayon and pencil reports bounced up in bundled scrolls of paper from hidden compartments in the floor; all the bookshelves rolled back to reveal basic plans for fantastical flying machines studded with telescopes; and from above the blackboard unrolled a grand banner with the status update on the process of revealing Sunbeam to be Celestia, still marked ‘not yet.’ What was it with foals and overly elaborate secret plans? Super-villain lairs were out of style since he abandoned the crazy mine/lair he had played with under the castle!

Sweetie hopped off of Berry’s back, blocking the doorway with her body. “Okay, please don’t take this at face value. It’s not what it looks like!”

His wry smile to them slowly turned sly as he circled sharkily around Applebloom and Scootaloo, taking the scroll-plans off the shelf from behind them. Silly names like Operation C.U.P.C.A.K.E., and Plan BOOGER, and the strange blueprints for some form of heavier than air cruiser that could out-fly any Royal Air Navy ship could be found amongst the mess. He winked to them as they looked up worriedly, and baited his trap. “So, there aren’t any plans to prove to Twilight that Sunbeam is In fact Princess Celestia, who is undercover in a half-cocked crazy plan to shirk her duties and get fat on Sugar Cube Corner baked goods?” He snapped a rubber band back around the plans for the airship to punctuate his point.

Scootaloo looked lost, vaguely making faint noises of confusion until Applebloom grabbed her head in both hooves and forcefully shook ‘no’ while making the same gesture with her own head.

“Huh. Well, I guess this must all be for kicks then.” Berry waved his hoof in a wide circle to encompass the whole structure. “A real shame, too. I can’t tell Twilight that her mentor is lying to her and undercover in a half-cocked crazy plan to shirk her duties and get fat on baked goods because she made me promise to and made Pinkie think I Pinkie-Promised. Too bad, since she’s hurting herself by living this crazy double life and needs a real vacation.” Berry continued, sing-songing vaguely to the trio while stepping over to the window and looking out of it with his back to them. A silence of sorts ensued as he paused to listen, savoring the fact that Revenge would be as Sweet as his sister-in-law’s cooking.

Finally, hopping over Scootaloo who had been trying to block her and keep her silence, Sweetie Belle screamed for the trio. “YES! This is exactly what it looks like!”

“Oh good. I suppose I can make available my skills as a commander and engineer of the Equestrian Royal Army Engineers.” Berry bowed after turning back to them, letting his mane bounce at the bottom. Leaning back up with a wink, he held up plan C.U.P.C.A.K.E. “I might also know her favorite recipes for your cake traps.” Sweet, sweet revenge.

Author's Note

Cutie Mark Crusaders Secret Illuminati! YAAAAAAY!

4.6

Author's Note

All sick and no happy make Write-a-Loo a dull pony who cannot into comedy.

4.6

4.6

“What is it, darling?” Rarity asked Sunbeam as the old pegasus squirmed, shivered, and shimmied in a circle by Twilight. She had just gotten up and started so oddly, just as they had fully calmed Twilight down from her nervous edge.

Sunbeam flicked her legs and wings as her fur all stood on end oddly to fluff her out tremendously. “I feel like I’ve been dipped in syrup!” She squealed, keeping up her odd dance as she pranced about in a circle almost uncontrollably from the sensations.

Rarity stood to catch her as the danger became clear, but by moving a fraction of a second too late the accident couldn’t be avoided. The circles of shiver-prancing finally carried the pegasus too far back; a movement into the inconvenient sleeping sprawl of softness known as Rainbow Dash. Catching her hind-legs amidst the tightly curled legs of the speedster was Sunbeam’s fatal step; a moment was all it took for her to fall flat upon the polychromatic pegasus and flatten the napping drakeling who rested upon Dash’s softly quivering waist.

“Gyuh!” Dash muffledly mumbled as the slamming heavy weight upon her wobbled about. Spike had no words to add to the highly observant annoyance, seeing as he was slowly being squished between one pegasus a little too trim, and another who didn’t trim enough.

Rolling Sunbeam off of Dash took a little bit of work, but the squirming pile of bodies soon found itself untangled with a bit of work from Rarity. The fashionata grunted as her knees quivered from the unanticipated strength of the telekinetic feedback from lifting Sunbeam’s orange form from Dash. Why, even helping the Cakes with their second MMMM hadn’t labored her quite so much, it was almost as if Sunbeam was the size of Princess Celestia somehow. “Darling, there is nothing on you. How exactly do you even know what the sensation of being dipped in syrup feels like, pray-tell?”

Sunbeam quivered once more as she was laid upon the ground. “Luna.”

“Ah, say no more, then. Did you have a nice nap, ‘o sleeping beauty?” Rarity asked with bemusement and whimsy as Dash slowly gathered her wits with a great deal of unnecessary yawning and stretching from her involuntary nap. Rarity smirked, snapping the tip of her mane with a toss of her head to bring the pegasus completely to wakefulness by exploiting her flight instincts.

“Wha-? How did- Why am I on a pillow? Was I asleep? Is Scootaloo okay!?” Dash’s head snapped back and forth as she took in her surroundings with lightning-fast glances at a rate that left every-pony rubbing their necks sorely from imagined whiplash.

Focusing intently on her half-drunk mug of tea steadfastly, Twilight perked up a little. “Scootaloo is fine, Dash. She and the other crusaders went with Captain Bubbles after Miss Sunbeam sicced them on him.” Chanting a mental mantra of calmness to herself to avoid further reminders of all of the—gah, no! She couldn’t think of them! She continued to distract herself again. “Sweetie’s song-spell worked, but the way she cast it put every-pony to sleep as a side effect. It’s been a few hours, and we were starting to get kind of worried about you.”

Dash froze in place. “How many?”

“Four-ish? I’ve been kind of busy.”

“Four Hours!?” She was so late for taking over from Thunderlane for the day! Oh man, if he decided to break out the ‘Rainbow Dash Lightning Alarm Clock Cloud’, there was going to be so much troub—“Wait, Captain Bubbles?”

“Berry Bubbles. Pinkie’s brother in law?” Twilight gently reminded amidst taking deep calming breaths and thinking about anything other than testing equipment.

Memories of the party mare running off ten years before vaguely swam up in Dash’s head. Something about a super-bestest party ever came to mind as she thought back, which would explain how Pinkie had leftovers for a wedding reception before the whole craziness with Shining Armor at Canterlot. “He’s her brother in law? Huh, cool. Pinkie doesn’t talk too much about her close family, she’s always saying how boring they are.” She picked up poor, squashed Spike and set him beside her belly-up, then as an afterthought posed all of his limbs upright in the air. “We should do more of that family time sharing stuff. Like, you know, telling each other about our families a little before finding out that some-pony’s older brother exists two days before he gets married to a princess. Isn’t that right, Twi-“

“One time!”

“Ah, don’t get your feathers ruffled, Twilight.” Dash languidly waved a hoof before stretching out cat-like to get ready to fly. “We ought to find out if he’s staying. I bet he parties like Pinkie.”

Rarity shared a glance with Sunbeam as she stood beside the old mare. Neither particularly wanted him to stick around, even if they didn’t know the other’s reason. But, he was a song-spell of at least a little knowledge, and he would be good for distracting the crusaders. Mad comedy via revenge through foalarity did sound vaguely appealing. Besides, he was a guards-captain, he could handle anything they threw at him.

Twilight mulled, tapping her chin with a hoof. “He would make a nice fit in town. He seems to be pretty good with the crusaders, and he can certainly help with getting Ponyvile rebuilt to the new standards since he’s an engineer. I know he mentioned being temporarily suspended from his unit for some reason, I hope it isn’t serious. Spike, take a letter!” Twilight’s verbal train of thought helped settle the issue for her, but her call for help was met only by a groan of pain. “Spike?”

“Oh dear.” Sunbeam worriedly remarked before picking Spike up by the tips of his back-ridge. She worriedly shook him a little as he dangled from her teeth’s grasp on his protrusions, getting only a further groan from his flattened form. He limply flopped, his tongue hanging out from his yawning mouth as he moaned in pain. “Uf think ‘es brofk.”

“Spikey!”

Twilight blinked in a bit of worry as she looked at poor Spike. “I’ll—uh—take it myself. Could you take him to Zecora? She’s set up a booth in the marketplace today.” She worriedly mumbled to Sunbeam as she teleported a stack of loose-leaf paper and a pen over. Sunbeam raised an eyebrow at Twilight’s request, making the young alicorn squirm under the oddest sense of familiar disapproval. “I would—uh—take him myself, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to move right now.”

Sunbeam’s eyebrow rose back to its resting position as she remembered why she had been so busy soothing Twilight, and she nodded with agreement. As she trotted for the door, Dash hovered up behind her, glancing from Twilight to the door and freedom. “Say, looks like you’ve got everything sorted out. I’ve gotta dash and stuff. So, seey-urk!” Dash’s mad dash for freedom was roughly cut off by Rarity’s yank of her tail dragging her back as Twilight got to work.

Charades were performed by Rarity as she tried to silently explain why her fellow friend had to stay for Twilight, but in the end it only merited a hoof to the face as Dash didn’t get it. “I don’t speak dramatic hoof-waving, Rarity. Could you use words like every-pony else? It’s the latest thing in Cloudsdale.”

Rarity wished for the strength to not put her own hoof through her face in irritation. Dragging Dash down to her level, she harshly whispered quietly into Dash’s ear while plugging the pegasus’s mouth with a fore-hoof to keep her from blurting out the wrong thing and setting off Twilight’s new subset of phobia with her big fat mouth. She nodded to Rainbow as the pegasus got it, watching carefully as the magenta pupils shrunk down tremendously.

“Dear—no, too informal. To Your Royal Majesty, Princess Luna,” Twilight began, narrating to herself out of habit as she composed her letter.

Dash swirled and bobbed in place as she still floated in Rarity’s aura. Her hooves crossed across her chest in still-present indignation as Rarity bobbed her back and forth like a foal might do with a doll to simulate walking. “Why are you being all formal like that, Twi? It’s just Luna.”

“It’s the principle of the issue, Rainbow. She’s newly ascended to the high throne, and until she issues as a decree on what form of address to use with-“

“You say principle, I say sucking up. You’re using more big words than I do with the Wonderbolts when I try and butter them up. Seriously, you saved her, the two of you spend waaaaaay too many nights looking through that dinky telescope you used to have on your old library together doing stuff that I don’t want to know ab-hey!” Dash’s rant was cut short as Rarity dragged her over forcibly and teleported in a large brush from her boutique to menace Dash with. “What gives?”

“Play along!” Rarity hissed below what she thought was Twilight’s hearing as she started combing Dash’s roiling mane-do smooth. “Why, I’m just cleaning up that dreadfully uncombed mane of yours to make up for your dirty speech.” Rarity smugly replied as she turned the pegasus on her side to better reach her mane without Dash’s panicked flailing smacking her in the face. “All the better to distract the stallions with, my dear!”

“Twilight, help! Rarity’s gone crazy!”

“Nonsense. It is simply bad form to bring up one’s romantic preconceptions in the context of jealousy!” Rarity teleported in a second brush to handle Dash’s tail as she kept up her work—beauty could not be stopped by mere panic and worried flailing, after all!

Ignoring their antics, Twilight shook her head and continued writing. “In my last letter, I conveyed the rather unfortunate situation that was caused by the ill-conceived test attempt upon Sweetie Belle, and the proof that Scootaloo her friend did in fact possess an abnormal control upon her magic. Upon further study, we have come to a greater understanding of these two’s talents. After much study, we now believe that Scootaloo may possess the ability to unlock controlled and directed pegasi spellcasting much like that of unicorns. There seems to be some component that can be taught, as she has already conveyed the basics she has discovered to Rainbow Dash.”

“My, Rainbow, what big eyelashes you have!”

“Twilight! Bad touch, bad touch!” There was much flailing and kicking of hooves.

“Oh never-mind her. They are all the better to blink sensuously at stallions to drive them mad with, my dear!” Rarity giggled menacingly as she carefully curled Dash’s eyelashes and applied eyeliner.

“Rarity, stop molesting Dash.”

“Beautifying, my dear.”

“Whatever.” Twilight shook her head again, feeling the strangest urge to teleport them both to the lake. No, not strange; that was entirely normal. “There seems to be a cost in inefficiency, but we have conducted tests today that should identify the source of said inefficiency to allow sustained casting. As for Sweetie Belle, her song-spell abilities were finally safely harnessed under somewhat controlled conditions. My former tutor, Sunbeam, remarked that she believed Sweetie’s talent to be the ‘song-spells of life.’ Namely, that she seems to be able to infuse otherwise inanimate objects with life-energy or create changes within existing life. This is of great concern, for obvious reasons, and I shall monitor her carefully in the future as a precaution. For the further scientific study of how Sweetie’s—talents—may have come to be, I plan on comparing readings from her use of her talent to ones taken from myself, Sunbeam, her sister, and those of another song-spell who arrived in town today who was crucial in helping her properly focus. He is a guard captain named Berry Bubble.” Twilight nervously swallowed a gulp from her tea as something cold slithered against the fur upon her back.

“Twilight!” Dash floated overhead, having been dragged back from where she had been pawing at any hoof-hold to escape the fiendish makeup supplies of the Dread Fashionata Rarity.

“My, Rainbow! What pretty hooves you have!” Rarity fiendishly giggled as she pulled Dash close and plunked down just in front of Twilight to distract the alicorn once more. “All the better to polish up and bashfully prance upon!” Dash’s squeaks of helpless ticklishness were adorable as Rarity continued her remorseless, unstoppable work.

Steady breaths took hold in Twilight once more, steady breaths to hold her patience against the relatively childish fights of her friends. “Captain Bubbles was apparently put on leave from his unit for being involved in unspecified events that occurred in the Everfree Forest. While as far as I am aware, these events were not serious, they may be of consideration in his future depending on what they were. He currently has taken up residence in down with his family, of which his wife is apparently a sister of Pinkie Pie.” Twilight could feel her eye twitch as she imagined the madness that would be soon to come from their mad teamups. “As of this writing, I would ask for your blessing and permission to establish a formation of the guard here in Ponyvile so as to permanently station Berry here.” Twilight’s tongue slowly slipped from between her lips as she focused deep upon trying to phrase her letter perfectly. She turned her eyes skyward, focusing on her mentor’s sun unseen above and ignoring Dash’s frantic attempts to push away Rarity’s attacks with a measuring tape and swatches of test fabrics.

“My, Rainbow, what trim legs you have!”

Sigh. “If he consents, that is, your majesty. Forcing a friend to take on a task they are unwilling to commit may be the fastest way to lose their trust.” Turning back from the letter in-progress before her, she glared at Dash who was half-mummified in fabrics and Rarity who had formed a tri-point hat of rejected fabric combinations.

“Help!” Dash mumbled through the tape measure tying her muzzle shut.

“You have magic too, now. Just saying.”

“oOOoooooh.”

“Oh Dear.”

As Rarity screamed for the life of her poor mane, Twilight put her mind back to the letter. Dash busied herself with turning Rarity’s mane into a wind-blown twin of her own normal hair-do style as their alicorn friend put pen back to paper. “I believe that he will agree to the proposal for several reasons. First of all, he does have a family, with several children he will likely wish to keep in contact with. Secondly, Berry Bubbles was your sister’s former student just before I was, and he was taught alongside Sunbeam. From what I understand, he was a ward of the state and a close, personal friend of both Sunbeam and your sister. He was brought to her attention after being put up for adoption, and is a sea-pony. While I didn’t think they were real, likely due to their rarity, it seems his whole race has at least some moderate talent in song-spells. If he consents to a transfer, his talent may be extremely useful in assisting us in teaching Sweetie Belle the basics needed to unlock her full abilities.”

“If I’m going to be uni-pretty, you’re gonna be pega-fabulous! What’s the matter, Rarity? You always like dressing in style” Dash taunted her fashionable nemesis as the two dueled with makeup and brushes. “What’s the matter? Leg-bands are all the rage!”

“Twilight!”

“Not helping you, Rarity.”

Turning back to her letter, Twilight kept up her work, knowing she was close to being finished. “Also, I would like to request a listing of formalities and any decorum you may wish me to use while we remain under your rule. While you have not said anything earlier, I apologize if I may have undermined your position through informality. My good friend and advisor Rainbow Dash has suggested that you may wish to be informal between her attempts at fostering some twisted form of romance between us, or that my friendship with you may alter the form of address you wish me to use. I apologize if I may have unintentionally caused offense in some manner by not asking earlier.” Twilight’s pen-rasps against paper ceased as she examined her work. She really needed a type-writer, her writing was terrible. A final thought struck her, and she held her pen just away from the paper while bobbing it as if still writing. “As a final note, we may wish to schedule a joint meeting with Rainbow Dash to dispel her thoughts of a threesome, as she crudely puts it. I fear it may not work, but nonetheless we should attempt to cast down her thoughts before she begins spreading rumors. She has already been tempting Rarity to be disloyal to Spike, if their recent secret meetings are any indication.”

“WHAT!?!” Dash and Rarity angrily shouted together as they paused in the middle of trying to tangle each other up in elastic bands. Twilight stuck her tongue out playfully at them as one slipped from Rarity’s hooves and bounced off of Dash’s each.

“Or maybe they’re long-lost sisters separated at birth. It’s hard to tell, some days.” Twilight finished as she neatly stacked the sheets of her letter in a perfectly straightened stack on the corner of the counter just before Rarity smeared her neck with some form of makeup as the fashionata tightly wrapped her stained leg around Twilight’s neck from one side while pushing Dash tightly up against her other side.

“Oh, don’t be so silly, Twilight.” She pulled Dash’s leg up and over Twilight’s side. “Aren’t you Princess Celestia’s secret love-child and successor? That’s what all the papers have been saying this past year.”

“All the ponies in this town are cra-ZY.” Grumbles from a certain sandwiched purple alicorn were easily brushed off.

“Nonsense, we’re the incredibly obvious distraction.”

“From wha-“ The end of cycle timer on the thaumatoscope main recording console rang like an annoying woodpecker drilling into an old, neglected treebrary.

“Hold her down!”

It did not end well.

5.1 Excellency

Excellency 5-1

Darkness had fallen upon Ponyvile, swallowing the faint starlight into an inky void of utter blankness. No, no mere shadow menacing the former hamlet, but a creeping blackness that slithered and squirmed as it cast itself forth from the shining city upon the high mountain; a pretentious shadow wallowing in its edgy formlessness as it swept from the forests to cover the town. Sweeping from house to house in search, it silenced even the faint noises remaining in Ponyvile’s witching hour. Under the eaves and awnings it gathered, bubbling up into pools as dark as the intergalactic void. The bewitchment broke for just a moment at each house, revealing catlike eyes that shone with moonlight blue eldritch energies. Just for a moment, and then they were gone, gone again as their owner swept from perch to perch inexorably towards the Bubble household, and its patriarch within.

No creak of the door gave away the intruder as the mystic blackness crept through the gap between the door and its frame, oozing inwards like the waters of a flood to pool in eddies and tiny whirlpools of darkness made manifest. Within the somewhat barren foyer formed the ethereal form of a regal specter, one that twisted and writhed as the inky blackness formed behind it into a shapeless thing that blocked out any remaining moonlight from the tiny window in the door. The eyes flicked open again, their gaze casting the faintest of glows upon the contents of the room; tracing, seeking, drifting across the few picture frames upon the wall and the knick-knacks set up in the first attempts to make the dwelling a proper home. Drifting, their gaze set upon the broad stairway to the upper two floors, upon the lazily laid carpet covering the stairways, up--up to the third floor landing and the door to the master bedroom. Unearthly fog drifted about where a normal pony might have hooves as the specter glided, roiling up the stairs in a silent cascade to the master bedroom.

The gaze of moonlight flickered down to the door-handle, growing stronger as the dark outline of a horn loomed forth from the formless void. Sparks slowly fizzled into existence around the door-handle and lock, delicately manipulating the mechanism until the reluctant portal opened with all the silence of the grave. Shapes uneasily shivered beneath the silken covers of the bed as the sinister gaze rested upon them for a moment. Muzzle to muzzle did the couple lay, unaware of the ghostly presence lurching inwards from the door. Or so the presence thought as it moved with cat-like grace to the bedside unheeding of the subtle tell-tale signs of the husband's tail uncoiling from about his wife with baited patience. Not long, now. Waiting, hoof wrapping about the dispenser of holy water taken from the pools of the tree of harmony. Waiting, tense with the need to strike; heart building up to a great race of anticipation as the half-coiled figure felt the interloper close with himself.

The specter thought itself so clever, so cunning to have snuck within his sanctum. It knew not what it had brought down upon itself as the last of the roiling fog gathered up into the form once more. Swirling tendrils of darkest darkness reformed, the outline of an armored hoof pushing forth from the void to touch the shoulder of the waiting ambush so that he could be drawn down into the black night from which the specter had come.

Not to be.

Not to be, for with the ancient war-cry of the ponies of the mountains Berry Bubble--Hero of the Marelantian Expedition, Slayer of the Fiends of Crop-alyous, Knight of the Realm--sprung his trap. His coiled form struck with all the swiftness of a springing cobra; the discordant magic coursing through his blood pierced the ancient magicks with which his foe concealed herself; the fierceness of his swinging hooves and springing strike disorienting his prey before she had even the chance to register the covers flung from the bed! Water as holy and pure as the crystal tree itself squirted from the sprayer as he drove the dark alicorn back behind his weight, forcing her to the floor and making her gargle the precious fluid.

Glurgkle! "Ack! Cease! DESIST! Not the face!"

Marble slowly rose with grim wishes of vengeance upon whatever fool had disturbed her sleep. She flicked her glance over the flailing pair as Luna's thickly-shod hooves flailed like the twitching legs of a dying insect whilst her wings thumped against the floor and bed helplessly under the watery assault. "Honey?" She sleepily asked, her voice rumbling with the weight of a thousand angry mountains. "Why are you wrapped around Princess Luna at the foot of our bed while shooting her in the face with a super soaker in our bedroom? Is there something you have been forgetting to tell me?"

Marble's sleepy questionnaires gave Berry just enough pause to allow Luna to wrest the tip of the squirt gun away from her face. Gargling the water that had been squirted into her mouth amidst the assault, she spit it out in a pitiful squirt of a half-drowned pony. Water dripped from her nose and horn, trickling down her face and soaking down her poor, sodden shortened mane. A snort painfully cleared her nose in a breath reminiscent of a sneeze, spraying Berry lightly with the drops. Berry eyed her with suspicion, giving the princess a final blast of water to the base of her horn and oddly shortened mane.

Rather than retaliate, Luna grumbled deeply, letting her irritation churn in her chest as she glared at Berry through the sodden short forelock of her mane. "Give us that!" Wresting the squirt gun entirely from his grasp took a bit more work, but holding the dripping water pistol away from him gave her the reward of a rather amusing pout upon his face. "Aye, tell us. Why did you attack your sovereign with a--'super soaker'--and flailing limbs?" Luna leaned up, propping herself somewhat awkwardly with the elbow of a foreleg.

"Why are ye' in me bedroom sneakin' round like some fiend from tartarus!?!" Berry shot back as he was pushed off of Luna by the diarch's spare forehoof and left wriggling as his short forelegs couldn't quite reach her.

"I asked you first!"

"How do Ah know ye ain't still under some illusion spell and plannin' on takin' me wee free wife!?"

"Of all the absur-ow-ow-OWOWOWOWOW!"

"Aye, serves ye-ow-ow-not the ear, sweetie bug!"

Marble slowly pulled her husband and Princess Luna apart by the ears with the hoof-clips she used for perfectly straightening her sheets. Whining with pain as they were tugged by the delicate velvety membranes until well-separated, the two dangled in place as Marble pointedly glared at them with the fury of a thousand Pinkie Pies until they yelped into silence. Beneath her death glare of eternal agony, they slowly shut their mouths rather than risk being shook by their ears to silence them. Marble's breath slowly whistled in and out of her nose as she considered the one, no two questions she had for the bickering fools who had made such a mess of her bedroom and potentially had awoken the children. "Why are the two of you bickering in our bedroom? Berry, I love you but you're rather stupid some days. But you, Princess? Why? Do you both understand that normal ponies don't sneak into each other's bedrooms and ambush each other at--," Luna meekly moved the moon just enough for a moonbeam to shine through the glass-paned doors and illuminate the wind-up alarm clock, "--One in the morning?"

"No." Luna whimpered, having come on business that had been much-delayed by court nonsense.

"Yes.” Berry quickly agreed, knowing how fierce his wife could be.

Glare.

Luna and Berry both nodded politely to Marble.

“First question.”

Fiddling her hooves as she found herself surprisingly cowed in a way she hadn’t felt since her own mother had vanished into the annals of history, Luna tried to buy time until Marble tugged gently on her ear once again. “Ow-ow-OW! I came to discuss an urgent posting with your husband!” She squeaked.

“One. In the Morning.” Marble grumbled stoically.

“First chance I had?” Luna apologized meekly as Marble let go of their ears. As she rubbed the sensitive flesh, she ducked her head a little and shimmied back. “I am the Princess of the Night, and I have been up all night and day trying to get through my work? I was hoping to borrow him quietly and take him downstairs?”

Berry flopped limply atop Luna’s prone form as Marble drop-kicked her sometimes aggravating husband out onto the third floor landing and slammed the door behind him. He sighed into the unruly tufts of Luna’s cropped mane as the adrenaline of his defense slowly dripped from his system like the first thaws of spring. Rising to rub his ear, he didn’t get the chance to make it all the way up as Marble opened the door just far enough ajar to toss his heavy work-grade metal prosthetic leg pair onto his back and squash him flat to Luna again. “Put your leggy-pants on, goofus.”

“Honey bunches snuggle bug…” He whined, putting up a pitiful front compared to his earlier defiant stand.

“Drink coffee.” Marble moaned from the other side of the door, shaking it as she slumped against it to likely fall asleep where she laid.

“Don’t the fumes wake you up, snuggle-bug?”

“Cold. Like my namesake. I didn’t say brew it.”

Luna rose with a stagger, catching the ‘leggy-pants’ before they could fall to the floor with a clatter. Slowly wobbling back and forth in the grasp of her own tired need for sleep while still suffering from the disorientation of being sprayed with holy harmony water, she bumped her rump and slid Berry to the center of her back where her half-unfurled wings could keep him in place. They descended back down the stairs like the normal ponies they most certainly were not, limping about the ground floor until they located the kitchen.

Berry moaned again, rubbing his ear as he pondered where he had gone wrong. He was pretty sure that kicking the cutie marks off of what he thought was a demon-fiend from Tartarus at one in the morning to save his wife would make her cranky? Okay, maybe making sure it was a demon-fiend first was probably in order, but still, his situation sucked. He’d buy her chocolate, and donuts, with the special cinni-sprinkle mix her sister made in the morning. That’d cheer her up.

Luna tossed her head to get his attention, trying to get him to lead her to the coffee. Wobbling back and forth wasted only a half a minute until they reached the refrigerator. Fumbling with a hoof was easy enough, Berry discovering the back-up coffee pot filled with coffee with ice cubes floating in it blocking the light inside up against the vent from the freezer.

Pouring the stuff into cups did little to improve its composition after Luna carefully tap-kicked the door shut and called over small mugs to drink from. As Berry opened the pot, the release of pressure allowed the super-cooled fluid to flash-freeze into a suspicious black-brown slurry of eternally sleepy sadness. Yick. Poking it with a hoof didn’t help, as the substance just sloshed like a half-frozen jello mold.

Lick. Stick sort of coffee-flavored, though. The sheer strength of the concentrated brew did little to convince Berry of its drinkability as his tastebuds withered under the assault of the bitter flavor. He and Luna watched the pouring of the drink with great sadness--great and terrible sadness—coffee sludge did not magically transform back into coffee when transferred from a pot into a mug. Trying to help made it worse as Luna poured sugar onto the slurry, sticking her tongue out along with Berry as it merely congealed into a sticky mess soaking up the remaining coffee-juice from the ice slurry. Fed up with even trying, she poured her cup into Berry’s mug so that she could sip sadly the cold and plain consolation prize of tap water.

Berry licked up a scoop of his ‘coffee’ as he slowly tried to put his mind into a business frame of thought. “So, did Fluttershy decide to press charges?”

Water squirted up into Luna’s nose as she lost control of her magic, not from inhalation but from jamming her cup into her face. “What?” She spluttered as she felt the pain of water burning nasal passages for the second time that night.

“For disruption of habitat and technically hunting an ‘endangered’ animal.” Berry feebly mimed air quotes, sloshing the soft ice of his coffee. Remembering that he had it, he took a deep sip of the fluid that was squeezing out of the ice sludge; a bad idea if there ever was one—his tail curled in on itself until it more resembled that of a sea horse after a thousand day caffeine regimen. “I will maintain in my defense that it was self-defense, the little bugger bit me first.”

A faint thought rattled in Luna’s mind, asking her rhetorically if an open-mouthed grimace of bewilderment could get stuck like Celestia had always said it could. “What. No! Princess Sparkle… ugh, nay, Twilight wishes to know if you would be willing to station yourself here on a permanent basis.” Moonlight seeped through the window on the south wall of the kitchen, forming into a ball of light that exploded away from a neat(ish) stack of paperwork upon the corner of the kitchen island, messily adorned with vague proposals and concepts from the community. “For the purpose of helping her teach young Sweetie Belle and for fellowship with thy family and foals.”

Taking another sip of the thrice-brewed coffee did little to help Berry’s mental state. Despite the concentrated fluid having originally had what was likely the LD50 concentration of caffeine for ponies at its outset, the cold seemed to have decomposed any good thing within it. Bleagh. So tired. “Ugh. Kind of expecting this. Did your sister put you up to this so she could keep an eye on me? I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s going to be all sorts of problems for me, since she forgot that Marble was my wife and moved into our annex while I was-“

PTOOOOIE!

Drip. Drip. Drip. “Well, that was rude.” Drip.

Coughing and wheezing like a drowning pony, Luna thumped her chest as she squeezed breaths down a windpipe that objected most strenuously to her repeated attempts to fill her lungs with water and other fluids. Why, if she wasn’t going to drink properly, she might as well get intravenous injections instead of subjecting it to pain continually. Berry continued to slowly drip from the spray of fluid that had soaked his face, too tired to clean it off as he waited for her to stop coughing so hard.

“She is here?” Luna finally hissed; looking about for the tell-tale sherbet mane of her sister.

“Aye. She’s asleep.”

“Art thou certain?” Luna’s magic pulled him in close, touching nose to nose.

“She apparently started soundproofing her room and sealed it tight after my little Surprise started surprising her in the mornings. Ever take up opera? I’d bet that you belt out some epic about your return from the moon with silly trumpets and she still wouldn’t wake up.” Berry mumbled through his explanation, slowly losing his grasp on his coffee-like ice slurry abomination so that it dripped on the counter. “What?” He asked sleepily as Luna took it away from him. Glancing at his empty hooves, he pressed his forelegs together, setting his head down. “I have no coffee, and must sleep.”

Papers found themselves shuffled as far away as possible from any potential spill. “And thoust would know of her—how exactly?”

“Sea pony, mate.” Berry tiredly mumbled as his eyes shut. His fore-hoof slowly flopped and fumbled about for the lost cup of coffee-sludge.

“Not. Your. Wife.”

Sigh. “Pirate talk. Never mind.” He let his foreleg go limp and fall from the counter. “I can sense water, like all sea ponies?” Luna’s full-body shake dimly registered in his head to prompt him further. “She tried her ‘Not Celestia, I’mma Sunbeam’ trick. Saw right through her, literally.”

“Oh.” Luna yawned herself, having been working long hours for a week and a half to force the ‘nobles’ and the other government bodies to do things her way and to stop expecting her to handle things like her sister. All the plotting and scheming had slowly opened up a yawning engulphing sea of sleep within her as well. She still had a bit left to go before everything ran her way on the mountain-side city of dawn and dusk. “Well, if you know, then you have all the more reason to accept the position. My sister needs some-pony who knows her true self to center her.”

Mngph. “Not the only one. Crusaders know.” Berry sleepily mumbled as he started slowly slipping from Luna’s back.

“What-how?”

“Caught her being stupid. No-pony believes them. Could tell the whole town without proof and no-pony would investigate. Think it’s Discordant Truth Syndrome.” Letting his head flop over to use Luna’s fluffy wing as a pillow didn’t help his sleepy situation as he started to become wedged between Luna and the cold surfaces of the countertop.

“So, Twilight-“

“Buys Celestia’s story hook, line, and sucker.”

Sigh. “Really?”

“I’d tell her myself, but miss big, white, and tubby convinced Pinkie that I Pinkie Promised not to tell Twilight.” Berry groaned, writhing as he tried to pull Luna’s wing around him like a blanket. The motion spilled him fully from Luna’s back in a slinky mess until he was a wretched pile of puddled pony sprawled on the floor. “So, the Crusaders bring the truth to Twilight, then she won’t make with the screaming and the ouchies. They’re making big crazy flying shippy-thingies to hover invisible-like around the town. Ngh. Catch her.”

“Well, the position is officially for heading up the engineering and reconstruction of Ponyvile to match the grandeur of the—uh, giant purple-blue crystal tree-palace.” Luna rationalized for Berry, letting his sleep-addled mind process and mull over the option. “Adding in responsibilities to take off certain week days and week-ends to oversee the secret research into advanced magic and technology would be trivial. ‘For safety’ sake,’ of course.”

“Don’t wanna change Ponyvile.” Berry mumbled on the last remnants of the spoiled caffeine high. “S’quaint.”

“Yes. Yes it is. It has been a wondrous reminder of my past packaged up with modern amenities. That is why I wish to see its coming growth carefully managed instead of exploding into a horrible urban sprawl.” Luna retorted quietly as she slowly and carefully levitated the dangling and limp sea pony back up to her back. “Its chances of remaining a cheerful backwater died when the purple tree-castle arose.”

“Fortress of Friendship.”

“Whatever.” Luna grumbled. She wanted one. It was probably made of adamantite and diamonds, with blackjack and—err, ‘male entertainers’ inside.

”Fine.” Berry finally grumbled as he curled up into a tight ball on her back, shivering with the cold of the air. “I’ll take it.”

Luna’s soothing hums of pity and power rose beneath him, tickling his mind and transitioning it downwards into the darkness of sleep as she covered him carefully with her wings to warm the poor guard. Bumping her rump once more, she slid him forward until his snout snorted against the base of her unruly curled and twisting mane.

Ngh. “So short.” He batted at it, sniffing the strange otherworldly scents coming from within.

“Yes. I actually rather like it so short, it does seem to convey my activeness and relentless charge for change. T’was not by choice.” Luna tip-hooved through the kitchen and dining room, taking care not to disturb Berry further or bump his head on the annoyingly low archways she was forced to duck through. “A most curious zap apple fell from the skies at great speeds. It actually knocked me out cold and swept me from my hooves with its force. The magical pulp interacted with my mane and ruined most of it, forcing me to cut it to my current style.”

Berry snapped awake again as the implications triggered a fresh surge of adrenaline. The crusaders had been trying a way to force air through enchanted rings to produce thrust. They had found a way to permanently change the rings through pegasus magic and were trying to see how much power they could get from multiple sets. When he had left, they had about 15 rings enchanted and had stuck them together for more thrust. Normal apples were just turning into applesauce from the force of the acceleration, but they had pointed the unholy array at Mt. Canter for targeting purposes. “Must have been a birdy.” He mumbled, hoping Luna wasn’t seeking retribution.

“Yes, so they tell me.” She grumbled, not buying it for a second.

Author's Note

Short-Hair Luna: http://silfoe.deviantart.com/art/Lunadoodle71-476083172

For she has short hair, and she feels a need for Squee.

Discordant Truth Syndrome: Disbelieving the truth due to personal beliefs or due to being told the truth in such a way that it seems completely and totally unbelievable. In our own world, it's known as the Cassandra Truth.

5.2

Author's Note

Game of Scrubs: Noun: A practice which began approximately in 236 CR, in which Princess Celestia refined her skills and kept herself from getting lazy with tiredness and boredom by authorizing her new secret service to forcibly drag her through the day if need be. By attempting to avoid or outwit them, she became noticeably fitter and happier through the tests of her skills. While she rarely won, it is recorded that she had a great deal of fun tweaking her maid-guards noses through this practice. Defacto-discontinued in 975 CR with the coming of Princess Tia Amore Cadenza, who took over the secret service. Her rather surprising tactical acumen and willingness to engage personally led to escalating injuries and ruthless traps being set up, forcing Celestia to stop attempting to shirk work to protect the service and the rest of the castle staff.

It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that Cadance beat Celestia within seconds to minutes every time.

5.2

5.2

Dawn crept down upon the City on the Mountain, guided by its rightful mistress once more as she rested patiently far below in Ponyvile. It crept down upon the city, insidious and vile in its cheer and rousing call to wakefulness that it inflicted upon the sleeping inhabitants. Balefully did its gaze descend upon the highest room of the tallest tower in the grand castle of Canterlot, pressing its light through the thick blue curtains hung to block such a vile cheerfulness. Concentrating, piercing, intruding upon the room; the beams of light slowly tracking across the room to converge upon the sleeping figure wrapped up in blankets upon the dais bed.

Whining rather like a petulant foal told to take a bath, Luna curled over and stuffed a pillow over her head. Between the endless debates with governmental officials trying to make them stop running the country as Celestia would have, the negotiations with foreign governments, the general fight against the inertia of a thousand year government, and her own duties she had been going all but sleepless for the past month and wished to take an actual day off for once. They could all wait a day for all that she cared. But the worst part of her pain was the pounding caffeine headache caused by her stupid sampling of the sludge that was supposedly coffee after depositing Berry upon his couch and dutifully had seen him tucked back in rather than left in the cold.

Heartbeats rattled in her chest, head pounding the steady beat of a row-drum, fur crawling with the menacing squirm of an army of ants, wings twitching madly with nervous energy. She could not sleep, could not rest, she could not stow away quietly in some forgotten warehouse to burn away the energy. Truly, she was an utter wretch of a mare, a miserable pile of pony who knew no equal in her inequine suffering. Squirming once more with a fitful twist of motion, she pulled her blankets about herself by another turn to protect her poor head from the burning light of the sun by taking away from her hooves. She would not need them after they fizzled off from the terrible interaction of coffee concentrate squirms and sunlight, for she would metamorphose into a form most terrible in her silk blanket cocoon!

Birds gathered at her balcony, singing a song of greeting and cheer as they called for her. One pillow flew to the glass door, slamming against it. The other pressed Luna’s head down so that she might smother herself and save the universe from her migraine to come. No more, not that day! She was not going to emerge until no-

The midnight black door to her chambers creaked open and closed back with a resounding squeak of badly oiled hinges and the thunderous slam of the gates to Tartarus. Why had she ever found the sound satisfying? Her poor tummy churned with an ache from the caffeine withdrawal as she moaned once more and twisted tighter into her blanket and pillows. Come to think of it, she was frequently wrought with suffering from its supposed grandeur—it rendered her head just as cracked and jumbled with pain whether hung-over or overdosing on caffeine.

Tiny scampering paws clicked against the marble of her suite’s foyer, the sound disappearing into the thick throw rugs of her bedroom as Tiberius approached. Luna’s cocoon shuddered as the shadow possum’s clamber up the side disturbed the strange gel-like substrate of her bed and rippled it. He stood up by a pillow-covered lump that was wrapped like he thought was her head and saluted sharply with a squeak, holding his roll of gathered intelligence in his other paw.

Luna’s tail slowly snaked out from through the twisting maze of covers whilst her horn turned up at the other end of the bed. Well, that was rather embarrassing. Tiberius turned around, saluting once more. Slithering her muzzle free of the whirlpool of covers she had slowly wrapped around it in her hours of restless turning, Luna glared at him tiredly with utterly bloodshot eyes as Tiberius delivered all of his terrible news. “Dook! Squee-squeak-dook-ee! Squeak!”

Her eyes blinked out of synch from her befuddled mental state, processing the statement back into equine. Whining again, she slowly stood upon jellied, hissing as the sun warmed more of her body and stabbed her light-sensitive eyes with pain. “Truly, they are coming?” Nod-nod-shiver. “We must flee!”

“Good Morning, Princess!” The maids chorused as one upon entering the room, the sing-song of their voice rattling the glass knick-knacks and sensitive telescopes. It had taken them forever to find Princess Luna’s room, since she had hidden it behind charms and obscurity far, far above the royal suites of her sister. It was a good thing that they had their own set of mages for handling the worst of Princess Celestia’s messes, or they would have never found it. Their cleaning carts and breakfast tray-tables, and their mobile bookshelves filled to the brim with the news and intelligence from around the realm all rattled frightfully until the carpet bogged them down.

Oh, well. It would need adjusting.

Their leader nodded to the bath squad, who broke out the scrub brushes to drag Luna in for a proper scrubbing. Lemon and lavender scented oils were broken out from the carts to cover the musty smell of ancient tomes and a thousand years of saved memorabilia. Princess Celestia’s breakfast fare of orange juice, frosted donuts from Pony Joe’s, and various sides was brought forth from the rear for lack of better information on Luna’s diet.

Dutifully marching to the bedside, the head maid held a rolled newspaper beneath her wing to present to Luna in offering. “Princess? Please wake up, you really need to start being seen by the public before three, or we will never get your image corrected.” She poked the great lump of coiled blankets, hoping to nudge Luna gently to wakefulness.

A muffled reply was mumbled into the pile of pillows atop the head. Looking over her shoulder, the head maid gave the nod to her squad leaders. Chorusing as one, they tried again. “Princess! You really should wake up! We miss you!” Mumbles again, this time with a faint movement.

Enough of that. She ripped off the covers in a single jerk, scowling as a life-sized bean-filled plushy of Princess Celestia flipped into the air from the motion and landed upside down on the blue-sheeted bed. It chanted a pre-recorded message about pretty pony princesses as the head maid scowled in delight at the challenge awaited. She knew the object, it had been stolen from Princess Twilight’s tower. Very well. The game was joined, afoot even.

Marching meticulously back to her cart, the pink and white mare prepared for a war she had long heard of but had not experienced in her time. So too had Princess Celestia once fought against her daily wakeup call. So too would the call not be denied. Reaching under the pristine white sheet, she pulled forth a two-horned helmet and sat it cocked upon her head. Her fellow maids cheered as they realized what was to come, pulling out similar helmets from hidden places as she cried the ancient war-cry of the legions of cleaning. “And so it begins again! Find her! Prepare her for the courts!”

Ulp.

Wielding pastries like missiles, newspapers like swords, and scrub brushes like war hammers, the maids of Celestia marched forth to find their new patron who had taken up Celestia’s forgotten habit of trying to shirk work to snooze in some distant part of the castle. Luna blinked wildly against both the light and also the madness she had just witnessed. Her place upon the ceiling, standing upside down and adhered to the surface via the application of a spider spell had gone unnoticed by the maids. ‘Sister was most disturbed indeed, to have such beings as her maids.’ She thought as Tiberius clutched to her horn against gravity. Not nuts, of course. Celestia hated most nuts other than pecans.

Crawling across the ceiling with a tread that would leave cats envious, Luna slowly made her way to the balcony doors and the freedom to escape of the outside. Clawing to her mane, Tiberius finally got a good grip with all four paws so he wouldn’t fall away to be cuddled half to death by a mad maid. His tiny messenger pouch bounced between him and his mistress’s neck quietly as she slunk to the windows. Slinking across the smooth ceiling was slowly scraping her delicate and ticklish belly against the cold blue marble, rustling the tufts of fur.

The hinges of her balcony door creaked ominously, threatening to give her away as she remotely opened them. She breathed deep, trying to calm her head and stomach for the torture to come as she tensed. Flipping like a slinky, she rolled herself around the top frame, planting her hind-hooves through the curtain and curling back like a cat until they pressed against the crown of the arched frame. Using the momentum, she flipped about again, shutting her eyes against the pain as she exposed herself to the light and practically glued herself flat against the upper wall by her hooves. Jagged spikes of pain rushed into her head from the blinding light of the sun, unhelped by her slow twist about until she had her back to the wall.

Whining himself in the much-reduced fluff of his mistress’s mane, poor half-blinded Tiberius found himself squished between Luna and the wall of the castle by the move. Luna pulled her head back from the wall, panting heavily against the suffering until she looked down into the gardens. Still filled with the shadows from before dawn, they were a dark void that left Luna with more than a small case of vertigo. Terrible idea, as it turned out. She shut her eyes and squished poor Tiberius with her head again as she tried to calm her heartrate.

Glancing left and right in short blinks, Luna spotted a nice shadow in which to crawl down the exterior of her tower, and more importantly, a narrow ledge to shimmy across until she reached it. Tiny hoof-shuffles moved her along the exterior, unwilling to fly just yet. She dropped beneath a disused gallery window, then carefully arched her leg over a stairwell window next, hooves dancing atop the crown of its molding.

Flapping wings accelerated Luna’s heartbeat again, and she plastered herself tighter to the wall as an unknown flier approached from around the tower. Short huffs of breath snorted through her nose as she calmed down with the sight of the guard coming down from above. “Princess, uh—what are you doing out here, ma’am?”

“Celestia’s maids have gone mad!”

“What?” His head jerked. “Oh, did you challenge them to a game of scrubs by trying to avoid them? They’re part of the royal guard; its female component.” The gold-armored guard explained as Luna shimmied over the rest of the way into the dark corner of shadow. Watching her, he winced as she let herself flip around her hind hooves to land against her belly facing down the wall as she started crawling through the darkened corner.

“What ‘Game of Scrubs’?” Luna demanded of him. Quietly.

“Back a few hundred years ago, when Celestia added female guards hidden as her maid service, she started trying to skip work some days out of tiredness. They started trying to catch her to make her go to court. Scrubbing her up, feeding her, then dumping her in the throne room and sticking up a shield to keep her from running away.” The guard explained for Luna, shivering with each slow step she took. “She gave up trying about three decades back, I don’t know why. But all the maids occasionally talk about it.”

“Wonderful.” Luna moaned as poor, flattened Tiberius meekly chirped his agreement from her neck.

The guard would have stayed and listened to her rant, but the faint calls of female voices caught his attention. Flinching at the thought of getting caught up in the game, he flew off before Luna could get fully into her rant.

“Equal opportunity, but quite mad, wouldn’t you say?” Luna grumbled to Tiberius as she kept crawling down the wall. He nodded and clung tighter to her neck in complaint. Her sedate and careful climb stopped as giggles echoed above her once again. She looked up, and gaped ass three of the ‘maids’ descended down from the roof in rappel slings. “Strewth.”

Ow, that glimpse had been bright. Reality trembled about Luna as she gathered her power, dimming the light as it filtered through the concentration of shadows. Launching herself across the courtyard in a thick burst of night magic, Luna conjured a pair of nearly blacked out sunglasses to withstand the morning light as she flew. Tibbles squeaked against her mane as he flapped against her with the force of her flight.

Three more of the guards-maids swooped over the spire, giving chase as Luna let gravity tug her down for a moment, corkscrewing through her dive to emerge at the bottom with a snap opening of her wings and the continuation of her flight. They cried out to her, giving chase with surprising speed for supposed maids. The fastest swept in from her right, panting with exertion as Luna turned away and let the energy twitching in her veins work. Angling away from her pursuers, Luna dropped down a little, letting her hooves touch against the ramparts to kick off and shoot away in an upwards arc.

They kept calling to her as she flew for cover, catching up again and practically nipping at her hooves with their speed and furious grasps. Swooping down into the gardens against Tiberius’s furious chittering protests, she slipped from their grasp, swooping down into the maze and the tightly packed hedges. Unused to the rather rapid pace and the idea of trying to navigate such tight spaces, the trio swept upwards rather than follow Luna in to crash into a hedge. One peeled off as the other two pressed Luna down, keeping her from escaping as the alicorn churned through the tiny gaps towards the Water Gate. If she could escape the city, she could rest.

“Tia is a madmare! She encouraged this to fight her sloth?” Luna screamed to no-pony in particular as she flew out the other side of the maze. Her two remaining pursuers took up flanking positions as she poured on the speed. The flower beds were ripped up into storms of petals by her passage, then drenched as she swooped even lower as she rolled over them and swooped lower over the canal. Her hooves kicked up a set of fantail wakes as they skimmed the surface, spraying her pursuers madly.

Banking tightly around the ninety degree curve of the canal in a maneuver no mortal could hope to match, she sprayed a grove of willows with a sideswipe of water that bent their branches deep with force. Her wings slapped against the air with a thunderclap, shooting her away again on a shockwave of compressed air. Before her loomed the gatehouse, and the grant waterfall off of Canterlot; a freedom gate to escape the latest madness her sister had left behind.

The pulsations of her head had dimmed with the thumping of her heart, all of it matching the beat of her wings as she tucked herself into a smooth dart of motion between her grand displays of feathers. Tiberius squeaked into her ears once more, trying to tell her something as she poured on the speed and left him clutching tighter for dear life. Oddly, the maids who had been pacing her fell back despite their previous nearly supernatural speed, pulling back and upwards.

Luna winced as a spike of pain drilled into her head from a reflection off of a gold-plated spire tip. No more glances back, then. Concentrating on the permanently affixed grating of the gate, she prepared to loop over it when she finally saw the ambush. Hastily rolled in catapults in the lawns to either side, armed with nets.

Her poor possum found himself pressed into a particularly prone pose against the petrel wrapped around her neck as she swooped upwards to escape the trap. Her bangs whipped against her ears as she coasted through the apex of her half-loop, the scream of air half blocked from her ears as she rolled out of her inverted state to rush back to the castle. The mines would protect her until she could recover.

Catapults fired beneath her, nets flapping as they twisted and corkscrewed to her left and right. Her powerful thrust took her past their effective range before the artillery could fire another shot, but the satisfying sound of rope wrapping around flesh slapped behind her as her pursuers were accidentally caught by their own ambush. Luna turned her head back to watch as the pair dropped into the bush line—her stuck out tongue and boos were most assuredly called for as she did.

Ground rushed beneath her as she swept back down to nearly pavement level. Her wingtips clipped the shrubberies lining the garden path she was taking with each bit, cutting divots from their tops with the movement of her steel-like wings whilst the wind from the wings flattened them with each flap. She was fast approaching an intersection between paths, a shady four-way that marked the center of one of the garden wings. From behind the trunks of the shade trees came two of the earth pony maids, who both clutched their crooked helmets in one hoof while they stumbled backwards into the pathway. Having wrapped the corners of their net around the trees they had hidden behind, they flopped down back to back while pulling the tall net tight between them.

Luna came upon them before a moment had time to pass, hopping upwards as she reached them. Planting her hind-hooves against their helmets, she leapt using their heads as springboards. Tucking her hooves tight against her frame, she cleared the net easily, hanging in midair as the combination of the tail end of a stimulant high and her own adrenaline slowed time to a crawl for her. She was off again in a flash; landing, rolling, and righting herself back to her hooves and galloping away towards the gala ballroom where there was still a secret entrance to the deep mines beneath the castle. Tiberius was flapping once more, squeaking a continuous stream of terror as his mistress galloped down the pathway hard enough to leave hoofprint divots in granite cobblestones.

Shouts from the apparently mad maids of mayhem could be heard behind them, egging Luna on and herding her towards the doors. A few lobbed bars of soap bounced off of the pavement from somewhere far behind, likely the two maids who had been bounced upon. Flick to the left, flick to the right, Luna could spot none in sight from the corners of her eyes as she kept an eye on her surroundings despite her head-long run and commanding lead on them. The clatter of her hooves against cobble turned into the resounding, ringing clacks of shod adamantite hoof-shoes against flagstone pavers. Fore-hooves raised up, she let herself skid on her hind-hooves in a scattered spray of sparks as her shoes grated against flagstones until she could slam her full weight against the doors, rocking them open.

“FIRE!”

In retrospect, she should have made certain to look through the windows beside the doors before breaking through them. If she had been paying attention, she might have wondered where that last maid had gone. Certainly not to the Water Gate.

Weighted nets slammed into the alicorn of the night, tying her into a pretzel of pain with the interaction between her motion and theirs. She flipped, tumbled, and skidded to an out-of-control halt halfway across the ballroom. She dazedly moaned from the jarring impact, twitching quietly as the maids pounced upon her, burying her beneath bodies to prevent her escape. They lifted her up as they took control, hoisting her over their heads as they carried her away at the direction of their leader.

Tiberius squeezed through the coarse loops of rope, wriggling through the layers to bounce off of one of the maids’ heads and plop to the floor. The maid fell out of the back of the formation, shaking her head as she tried to clear the odd fuzziness from the thump. A small squeak of terror crept into her ears, and she turned around to check.

Nothing. Wait…

She looked down at the strange patch of shadow on the floor of the ballroom, wondering what it could be. Glance. The window was fine. It could use some cleaning, but there wasn’t a big grease spot on it. Outside was fine, the sun shone brightly into the easterly-facing window. What would happen if she poked i-

“Flowerbelle!” Oh no!

Sighing softly with relief that his distraction had called off the guardsmaid, Tiberius let his eyeshine emerge from the depths of his shadow form once again so he could watch her scurry back to the formation carrying away his mistress to answer the supposed call. Luna had taught him well. He oozed back up from his form as a shadowy patch on the floor, squeaking annoyedly as Luna disappeared behind the shutting ballroom doors, protesting all the way over to the royal baths.

Drat. He was going to have to find Stiff Resistance, wasn’t he?

With a sullen squeak, Tiberius set off to find the captain of the guard. He hoped the stubborn stallion would pay attention. He, maybe the report he had would catch Stiffy’s eye long enough to pounce him and write down a warning. Then again, he might just laugh and pass off a kritter treat. Mmmm. Maybe Luna could wait just a little, it’s only a bath.

5.3

5.3

Despite her best efforts and several minutes of frantic wriggling, Luna could protest no further as she was unceremoniously dumped headlong into her sister’s bathtub in a great splash of water. Bath soaps were poured in after her, quickly frothing up into a bubbling tower of foam that buried the diarch of the night from sight. Coughs worked up from her throat as she struggled and fought her way back to the surface and flopped against the side of the tub, drenching a maid or two with the splashes of her flailing hooves. She struggled further to pull free of the tub, only to be pushed back into place as magic-gripped brushes went to work upon her coat.

“Calm down, princess! You lost fair and square!” One tried to protest as Luna dunked her in the water. The marble tiling squeaked beneath hooves as the puddles of water built up, splashes spraying droplets onto the golden yellow towels and against the stone mural Celestia had painstakingly assembled showing her and Luna lovingly embracing.

“Lost? Lost! I never agreed to your mad game!” Luna spluttered as she finally emerged from the sudsy mess, flopping halfway over the enamel-coated copper side of the tub tiredly. Panting with the trembling energy coursing through her veins, she looked up to the gathering of maids—of undercover guardsponies. They all carefully watched her for further signs of resistance or attack for a moment until Luna tiredly nodded for them to begin. She sighed with exhaustion and let her head hang low against the side of the tub between her forehooves as two of the soaked maids timidly approached and began scrubbing her mane. “No-pony told me of this ‘Game of Scrubs’ until the guard who served me well atop the tower. Did you all actually check to see why it stopped?”

“Uh-oh.” One quietly whispered as she realized that they might all be in trouble.

“Yes, I do believe that would be an excellent summary. About as bad as me outright foal-napping her to find out where her sister escaped to, wouldn’t you say, Honeydew?” Stiff Resistance smugly pointed out as he marched in through the doors. He had plenty of time to catch up with the maids, as they had been quite busy keeping Luna from escaping their grasp on the way over. Upon his back sat poor Tiberius, who moaned around his half-spherical belly and who was liberally dusted with a frosting of crumbs.

Stopping beside the head maid, ‘Honeydew,’ he let Tiberius roll from his back to flop atop a stack of soft and fluffy towels. “You did remember that you should have asked me first regarding security arrangements for coordination purposes, right, and honey?” He took off her helmet and gently nibbled at her ear in a show of affection.

“Yes, well, she didn’t mention any changes to the arrangements at her meals!” Honeydew protested as she blushed crimson. She brushed him off and into one of the speckled white walls before prancing a little in embarrassment at the display of affection before the princess. “How were we supposed to know she was uninformed?”

“Ask?” Luna quipped as hooves massaged the base of her ears. That was actually rather enjoyable, or at least tolerable to her poor, aching head. “My, uh—most enlighting and helpful—sister declined to mention your branch’s specifics, or that you were even guards.” Luna’s sarcasm was thick enough that she could probably whittle it into a fulcrum to lever her moon with as she sulked in the care of the ‘maids’. She wondered if it was too late to give the whole realm back and run to her moon. “Her transfer of power was completely unplanned. I found out about it less than a few minutes before you did. I’ve been tripping over every project and item of interest to her since she left three weeks ago since she never felt fit to inform me.”

Stiff Resistance fished within his armored saddlebags, picking out the tiny scroll Tiberius had written. His steps to Luna’s side mercifully blocked the beams of light starting to stream through the eastern stained glass window. “Yes, she did like to keep things relatively close to her chest. Speaking of neglected, here’s your little r—helper.” Resistance caught himself before he insulted the possum and carefully rolled him closer to his mistress. Further moans of discomfort rumbled from Tibbles as he feebly waved his paws in protest. “He ate most of the treats meant for the castle’s guard dogs out of my desk while he was waiting to report to me on Redcoat.”

Luna whined as she saw her pet, placating him with a soft hoof-rub to the head. “Oh, poor Tibbles.” She nudged him again with her nose as his towel rack was rolled a little closer, eliciting a coo of adoration and pity from several of the maids.

“Redcoat? He isn’t planning anything, is he?” Honeydew inquired as she directed a pair of maids to work on the base and span of Luna’s wings from the tubside. “His father was a brute, but he’s—“

“Cunning, tenacious, possibly stark raving mad?” Luna wryly mentioned as she cut her white and pink tormentor off. “Yes, I am aware. I met him just after the incident with Tirek.” Luna’s words degenerated into an incoherent series of mumbled moans as the work in her back started immediately soothing away her stress and pain. “I do need to talk with him again. Later, much later.” The slow slump of her wings repeatedly flicked the maids working on scrubbing and preening them with splashes of water from her primaries.

“Much later?” Honeydew asked with a hint of worry. “We’re hurrying because you have a court appointment in an hour.” The maids looked up from their tasks to Luna, often leaning over one another to look at their princess.

“Push it back. Nothing before noon.” Luna moaned as she let her head hang lower from her exhaustion.

“Princess, uh, you really need to attend—“

“After. Noon. I’m well aware of the importance of my first commoner’s court.” Unf. Why did she ever drink that unholy swill? “I drank something I shouldn’t have while attending to the security and safety of the kingdom. To pay for my stupidity, I have been awake, sick, and miserable all night and morning. ‘Tis why I ran rather than face the wrath of this day.” Luna moaned afterwards softly, continuing to let the maids massage and scrub her down. Little whimpers of tired pain squeaked out moment by moment as she dealt with her lingering pain.

Or they might be from Tiberius, she couldn’t tell with the lightheaded pulsating fugue her head was within.
Honeydew started to protest before Resistance barred her muzzle with his leg as he caught the twitch of Honeydew’s eyes. Knowing that she could be as much a stickler for a schedule as Kibitz--the seneschal--was, he took his arm away slowly, glad that the light protective fabric kept her from nibbling on him. Her fangs were pretty sharp, he didn’t need any more love-bites than necessary. “I know, you were thinking she was screwing with you. She hadn’t been briefed. My fault, I thought you had checked. You had plenty of time at her meals. Spin some story about her having spent all night banishing the knowledge of some nameless unspeakable evil from every-pony’s minds that could have taken over their bodies through a spell upon knowledge, and that she collapsed this morning after single-hoofedly tracking the thing down and kicking it until extra-dead. It’ll make every-pony appreciate her more.”

Honeydew hissed into his ear, rubbing her relatively lightly feathered wings against his helmet to wordlessly condemn him. “She can’t lie!”

“She ISN’T lying. I may be stretching the truth a little, and she can’t say a word on the matter yae or nay due to the nature of the threat. And it screws with Redcoat. Stop worrying so much.” Resistance grinned cheekily, lips squeaking against his teeth as he stretched his smile wide and waggled his eyebrows at Honeydew.

Luna slowly raised her head up again so that she could sprawl over the towel rack her companion was on. No, she wanted nothing to do with their plan. Sighing as a pair of hooves worked at the space between her ears and up to the bottom of her horn with utmost care, her idle hooves slowly scratched at Tiberius’s sides as Honeydew and Stiff Resistance bickered. Poor, stuffed Tiberius, moaning like she was.

Wait, she needed to do something, what was—oh. “Tonight, we need to discuss a little more with you concerning your clandestine service.” She groaned out, pointing at the head maiden.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Luna pulled her accusing hoof back to press at the pain bouncing about the front of her brain. “We—ugh—I have few issues with the idea of your ‘Game of Scrubs.’ Just the timing of them, and a few other things.” The squee of five particularly pleased maids was like an array of icepicks gently knitting the alicorn’s brain into a twisted scarf. She smacked her other fore-hoof against the copper tub to stop the racket before it drove her mad.

“I will lay down terms for the method and madness of the games, however. Later. Much later. Until those terms are worked out and the crisis of succession fully laid to rest, no more.” She sternly finished, glaring through her bangs at the maids before her, who all nodded rapidly at her disappointment. One passed the word out into the hall and the group beyond as a quiet chorus of, “Yes, ma’am,” worked its way through the group.

“Also, I use my own chamber baths, not my sister’s overgrown cooking kettle that she likes.” The dark alicorn complained as she tried to stretch out her legs in the oversized ‘tub’ without avail. The copper and enamel fixture was rather small, even with her relatively diminutive and properly sleek form when compared to her sister’s.
She flinched a little as Stiff Resistance moved away from the stained glass window, letting the sun’s baleful glare trickle through the patchwork of colored glass shards a few hoof-lengths behind him. Granted, the bright purple ray of light shining through Twilight’s glass butt on the window was rather obnoxious, but the subject material itself was still just as quietly offensive in its reminded to her as the day Celestia had put it in. The little pictorial narrative of Twilight kicking her flank dredged up memories best left buried. She didn’t even want to think about the way that the crazed array of light was reflecting off of the polished white marble tiling back into her eyes. Oww. No more light.

Hoof-claps clopped just in front of her eyes, catching her attention back from her inward pain-filled reflections. Augh, that was loud. Wha—Honeydew carefully poked her nose again to get her attention after she had been tuned out. “Princess, we—um, don’t exactly know where they are.” She reluctantly admitted.

“My tower room. It has a nice tub of blue-streaked black marble. One that isn’t made for cooking alicorns, like my sister’s taste in ‘tubs.’ I use the scents of the seaside and the flowers of the night in the meadows after summer storms instead of this—“ Sniff, Sniff, “—lavender and lemon swill my sister is so fond of.” Luna stuck her tongue out, snorting to get the strength of the oil’s scent from her nose after unwisely sniffing at the nearest oil bottle.

“Yes, ma’am. We will do some experimentation for best effect during your court period.” She gestured to her yeoman to write it down for her to review later. “I’ll make sure to sweep your rooms for surveillance of all forms and potential secret passages, magical or not.”

Luna tiredly glanced at her, feeling the burn of her tired muscles and the poking knead of massaging hooves working upwards from her shoulder blades. Given that the maids had finally broken through the spells protecting her room, there was probably no stopping them. She could at least lay down ground rules, she supposed. “Send only your most careful, and consider wisely before touching any object other than my bed. Most items there are fragile inherently, or are priceless antiques from before my long departure, or gifts from my friends and most valuable of all to me.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will make sure they keep the cleaning to a mini—friends?” Honeydew’s lament grew strange as she realized what Luna had mentioned.

The alicorn grumbled at the insensitive moment of shock. “Yes.” She counted off mentally and with hoof-taps against the outer copper hull of the tub as she went through the list in her head. “Twelve of them. Perhaps more if things go well.” Her weak magic grabbed Stiff Resistance and slid him back to where he had been standing as she grew tired of her sister’s orb. “No, you may not clean them as well. They would be most upset by—Maiden Raiders pillaging them from their homes to scrub them into sudsy messes.”

Resistance trembled as he watched Honeydew’s muzzle scrunch down into a squiggled frown. Best not to laugh. “I wouldn’t.” Luna and Honeydew looked at him. “Mind getting pillaged. My honey-bunny can do that any day.” As he giggled, Honeydew poked her yeoman, and Resistance found himself rapidly hogtied up. “Honey?”

As Luna mumbled a groan from the deepest part of her chest at her borrowed guard captain’s antics, she allowed herself to be shifted halfway out of the tub so that her lower back and rump could be scrubbed. “I don’t see what is so surprising. My therapy involves many friends to keep me grounded.”

“Alright, that was insensitive of me.” Honeydew slowly pushed Stiff Resistance over so he laid sideways, then sat on his relatively soft belly beyond his armor’s chest plates. As Luna nuzzled her pet again, she pushed the towel-rack with a hoof to better position it for her liege. “So, you were saying something about Redcoat?” She asked Resistance, tickling his ear with a hoof.

Luna glanced over the side of the towel rack, looking down at Stiff Resistance giggling and trying to intertwine his wrapped up legs with Honeydew’s own. “Is she cleared?”

“Huh—wha--?” Resistance blushed and stammered as Honeydew tweaked his ear to snap him out of his giggling and mesmerized state. “For what?”

“National security matters.” Luna acridly snarked as her magic quietly cut his bonds.

“Oh. Yes. Why wouldn’t she be as the head of the secret detail?” Resistance hastily cleared up for Luna as he wriggled out from under Honeydew’s pink tail and wrapped a wing around her. “Unless she forgot to mention something to me.”

Glance. Glance. Sigh. Here she went again. “Are you two married?”

“YES!”

Well, there was that, she supposed. Luna’s eyebrows wriggled through her emotional shifts as she pondered the implications. She had a sneaking feeling that she knew why her sister had quit the game. “Was Cadenza the last captain of the maids?”

“Yes?” Honeydew confirmed.

Yes, that would explain a great deal indeed. She had seen the studies on Cadenza and her scores for the officer’s academy; she had wondered at the time why they even existed. Her sister must have had her plus-sized rump spanked off by the alicorn of love. Maybe. Most likely. “Joyful.” She tiredly moaned.

“I know!” Honeydew cheered.

Sighing, Luna rubbed the base of her horn in exasperation. “Are your maidens cleared to know what you are allowed to?”

Without a word spoken, the maids set down their instruments and left off in their ministrations. Luna let herself sink back and down into the hot waters of the bath until she rested up to her chin in the drifts of bubbles and lapping water. “So tell me, Captain. What is he up to?”

Blushing a little more at getting caught nuzzling Honeydew’s neck—again—Stiff Resistance sat fully upright and unrolled the tiny scroll from Tiberius’s spying on a dry patch of tiling. “The duke has a rather large number of scouts in the badlands and to the south of our borders. His correspondence is unclear, but indicates that he may be looking for changelings.” He began as the last of the maids shut the door behind herself. Honeydew hummed to herself in puzzlement as he continued. “He is also coordinating with several prominent researchers who are known for experimenting with changeling magics.”

“A traitor?” Luna inquired as she mulled over the information.

Resistance shook his head, unaware that his brow was slowly furrowing and betraying his own confusion. “Not according to these notes. Apparently, these expeditions began the day after the throne was passed to you. From what Tiberius transcribed from private documents, he may be attempting to curry favor by providing useful information and new changeling detection spells.”

“Good Tibbles.” Luna tiredly praised, rubbing her pet with the side of her horn until he squeaked a final time and passed out. “So, he seeks to force a change, possibly through confronting a dire foe of Equestria. He molds my image by putting the credit on the throne, and gains favor for his part in the act.” She concluded, tilting her head back; he didn’t know that her Night Guard was already operating in several changeling population centers and dealing with particularly problematic individuals. “Monitor him, ensure that they do not replace him.” That he might be useful went unsaid.

“And he profits from being the one to provide the tools to be tough on defense?” Resistance inquired as he put the remaining puzzle pieces together, getting a nod from Luna.

“Well, if he wants to change your image, why not preempt him?” Honeydew suggested timidly, fiddling with her forehooves in front of herself.

“Meaning?”

“Well, strike up some project, see a different percentage of commoners to nobles per day compared to your sister. Um, get out more to deal with the people? Maybe a suit and a less, uh, imposing crown?” Honeydew proposed, slowly shifting back from her husband’s side to the service cart, where she had an old sketch from Rarity of Ponyvile that depicted a nice business suit for Princess Celestia. “It would make you seem more modern-minded and professional with the right mane-do?”

“Modern-minded?” Luna rumbled darkly.

Eep. “Well, uh, your sister never really put on clothes, or got into modern events, or kept up with current trends in music and in the public. So, why not dress up for court a little more? Not super fancy, but just a little bit and go out a bit; make yourself known to the ponies more often?” Honeydew proposed quietly, halfway hiding behind her husband who wanted no part of being an equine shield.

Luna lit her horn, wincing as the draw of power reverberated in her pounding head. Honeydew floated up from behind her armored compatriot and drifted over to the alicorn of the night. Wincing, she cringed a little as Luna reached up with a wet hoof; she expected the worst as the alicorn grimaced and scowled. Pet. Pet. Pet.

What?

“Good idea, maid commander. Uh, it is maid commander, ri—Ow! Ow, ow, ow, oooh, my he-“ Flop. Honeydew dropped to the ground as Luna slumped into an unconscious heap of misery. Soft snores slowly sawed their way from the alicorn as she finally got the sleep she had so desired.

Stiff Resistance poked his wife in the ribs as she stood up, then pointed to Luna. “You’re putting her back.”

5.Berry Disappointed

5.Berry Disappointed

The long trot to the Acres seemed a lot longer by hoof, Berry mentally noted as he came to a panting halt by the gate. Scootaloo had made it look far easier than it actually was, especially given the way she had pulled him and her fellow crusaders behind her. He stretched out before the gates, popping the vertebra in his back in a long and languid feline movement. His aches and pains were starting to become rather sobering reminders that he wasn’t a young and spritely lad anymore. He was what, 32ish? 35? He had lost count over the years, but he certainly wasn’t in the same shape he had been in when he had all but swept Marble off her hooves when they had first met.

It might have just been the long walk, though. He had never gotten used to just marching on and on like that. It always screwed with his back when he traveled non-stop by hoof, since his back wasn’t built for land-lubbing. Nothing to it, he supposed. He had spent all morning dealing first with his wife, then the titanic pile of paperwork. Vile, predatory, carnivorous paperwork; the sheaves of paper always longed to slice open his forelegs until they were ribbons in order to suck out his blood.

And now, he got to deal with the crusaders. Who had accidentally bombarded Canterlot, and nearly killed Luna. They needed more supervision, and he was questioning his old oaths to never drink rum again. His old friend, the molecule of alcohol could help him deal with the madness.

Stepping off again after his short rest, he trotted down the front lane of the fruit orchard slowly enough to take in the sights he had missed the day before while still trembling from the mad wagon ride over. The old farmhouse, the sweeping grassy expanses beneath the trees, the giant crimson stallion warily eying him, the rolling hills leading to the Everfree and the Canterhorn beyond. He was surprised that the picturesque vista wasn’t being invaded by artists looking for the best scenic view of the country’s capital or general inspiration.

“Mornin.” What? Who!? Where had he mis—oh. There was in fact a giant stallion standing there, glaring at him gawking around like an idiot while still carrying a giant barrel on his back. A giant stallion who could probably tie him up into a knot with his own tail. No pressure, just a slightly menacing implied question in the way they crimson hulk shifted the stalk of hay in his mouth.

“Oh. Uh, Captain Bubbles at your service. Berry Bubble.” Berry babbled hesitantly as he considered all the ways the big stallion could probably snap him in half with just a glare. He bowed in respect, taking a half-step back.

Big Macintosh snorted a little, carefully setting the barrel he had been carrying down. Without the weight on his back, he rose up to his full height and towered over Berry like a mountain of doom. “Really.”

Berry’s mind galloped at a thousand miles an hour to defuse the situation before he became Berry Jam. “Uh, Princess Luna assigned me last night?” Why was he so nervous? The words didn’t want to come out of his mouth, and he was going to get squished!

Not that Big Mac would. But the effect was a rather nice touch. “Luna?”

“E-eyup?” Bad idea. Big Macintosh had been very slowly closing the distance between them, and at the theft of his trademark word, he leaned in close to inspect Berry. Who was the strange sea pony, and how did he even know that the word was a favorite of his. “Sorry?” Berry squeaked, surprisingly further intimidated. “Supposed to make Ponyvile better and watch your sister?”

Big Mac pulled back, pondering. The roads certainly needed a rebuild, and he looked forward to pulling carts on smooth pavement instead of muddy ruts. The rest of town didn’t concern him much. He’d still sell. But his sister… “Jack?”

“’Bloom.” Berry clarified, flinching at the slow hum of consideration from the stallion.

What had Applebloom done to deserve a guard captain watching her? Well, actually—there was the clubhouse, they were expanding for something big, and her lessons. “Twilight?” He ventured.

Nod along politely. “And Sweetie Belle.” He won’t squish you if you’re polite, Berry. A full suit of armor wouldn’t help, he’d just make a sardine can out of you. As he let Big Macintosh contemplate, he silently glanced towards the clubhouse down in its little vale. “Making sure they’re safe. Teaching. Learning.”

Macintosh nodded, granting his acceptance. He peered at Berry again as the sun’s light grew a little brighter with the passing of a cloud from before it’s disk. “Seem familiar.”

“Pinkie Pie?” Berry ventured, knowing how eerily he matched her in some ways. “Sister in law?” He clarified for the farm stallion, earning a quiet whinny of worry as Big Macintosh backed up slightly. Oh fer—she was not contagious! Sort of. Maybe; he did get some of his ideas on partying from her. Okay, maybe her cheer was a little infectious. It might explain the madness of Ponyvile. “Okay, she might be that bad, but probably not. She’s—mostly harmless.”

Big Macintosh shook his head. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. He still had too much to deal with just with the crusaders, let alone Applejack. Best not to invite more trouble. He took a glance towards the hill concealing Ponyvile just behind it. “So—“

“Just heading over to their clubhouse.” Berry mentioned quietly, his ears perking at the faintest sound of a tinny –crack!- of sound somewhere nearby. Probably a test fire calibration. He needed to hurry. Big Macintosh had his eyebrow set to ‘pointedly enquire with extreme prejudice’ again as Berry turned back to look at him. “That was probably them. Um, they beaned Princess Luna with an apple last night. Without leaving Ponyvile while the princess was in Canterlot.”

There was that whinny again as Macintosh processed the statement. Right, time to get to Ponyvile, then. He’d send ‘Jack back to deal with them. “Eenope, nope, nope, nope!” No, he had enough trouble with Luna pining after him and sending him love letters at night, no need to attract her to the farm more. He had a drawer full of the midnight blue letters collected over the past two years.

Berry just smiled and nodded. Smile and nod. He shook out his tail again vigorously as he stretched a bit more. “Yup. Long way to town.” Probably best to be where Luna wouldn’t look for a zap apple, lest smoochings be applied vigorously.

“Eeyup.” Shiver. “Could use the variety in town.” Macintosh mentioned, jabbing a hoof towards Ponyvile. The town could get awfully ill-mannered around new species.

“Better get a move on.” Berry concluded as a strange and tinny warbling whine started echoing through the trees. “I need to be Berry Disappointed with the three of them.” The pun was almost as bad as the loud double thunder-crack echoing through the trees.

“T’was Horrible.”

“I know. Have fun!” Berry smugly grinned, having a metaphorical degree in deadly penmanship.

They parted ways, Big Mac heading towards town and well away from any chance of Luna showing up; while Berry turned back towards the Cutie Headquarters and three foals he needed to straighten back out of trouble. The tinny noises slowly built up again, even more earsplitting in volume as Berry picked up the pace to a near-gallop. Darkening thoughts rumbled in his head as he wondered what the trio might be aiming at. Probably still the Canterhorn, Cel—Luna damnit. His running still made his sides ache just as it always had before. Several more double thunder-cracks echoed through the trees, likely the sounds made by an object breaking the sound barrier. Huff, huff, he wasn’t built for running; he wasn’t an earth pony who could trotty-trot-gallop all day! He was supposed to swimmy-swimmy-shoo-be-do! An engineer, not the kind of pony supposed to go around screaming at others telling them not to push the obvious big red button! His steel legs rubbed annoyingly against his flanks as his prosthetic hooves crushed grass beneath his trod with every step up the side of the last hill before the vale.

Not that his misfortune would stop just because he had accidentally created a mad artillery team. As he reached the top of the hill, gnarled old exposed roots from the ancient first-grove of the orchard caught at one of his metal hooves with relatively predictable timing. Namely, right at the absolute apex of the hill, and just before a rather steep slope beyond. Lady Luck had left him a few miles back, Mr. Misfortune wanted to play again.

Berry’s momentum worked against him as the trip turned into a tumble. He flopped through the air after bouncing chest-first off the ground rather painfully. Grabbing his tail quickly with his hooves to protect himself, he curled up and folded in on himself until his head was firmly protected by the fleshy base of his tail. He loosened up, mentally bracing himself for the impact that was going to hur—

Bounce! Bounce! Roll! AhhhhhhHHH! It wasn’t bad, it was much worse!

The whole of the Cutie Mark Crusader Hopeful World Headquarters shuddered intensely and shook the sawdust from the half-finished rafters as something smacked into one of the support trees with a vengeance amid a brief yelp of terror. Applebloom and Scootaloo lifted their soot-stained safety goggles together to look at each other by the apple launcher as Sweetie Belle looked up from humming an apple into its zappy cousin. Applebloom’s brow furrowed down against her unstained eyelids and the bridge of her nose as she tried to place the voice. “Ya’ll reckon that sounded like Berry?” Nod. Nod. “Thought so. He’s early.”

So they all stepped out, carefully making their test rig safe as they did; no need to let some-pony fall in and get turned into applesauce or launched out over the Everfree. Oddly, Berry wasn’t at the stairway up, nor was he inspecting any of the structural supports along the side of the building. And since they didn’t have a full alicorn orchestra and dance team, they were pretty sure nothing had fallen through the deck and onto him. One by one, they leaned over the sides and looked for their wayward sea pony.

“Oh hey! I found him!” Sweetie Belle called out, carefully balancing herself over the edge while hung by a rope around her waist. He was under their porch, sprawling rather lazily against a poor, cracked tree. That was kind of rude, shaking the place up and then laying down for some kind of upside down nap. “Hey, Mr. Bubbles! Are you trying to applebuck with your head?”

Gyyyauuuugh.

“Oh! You really shouldn’t! You could get stuck in the tree, or get a concussion!”

Grrrrrrnnnngh.

“Hey, that’s rude! I was just offering advice, you don’t need to be so grumpy. We already tried it and didn’t get any cutie marks. I kinda got stuck, though.” She looked cross-eyed at her horn as Berry groaned again in pain.

Her friends joined her after a minute of running around the expansive perimeter to get to her side. Applebloom pretty quickly lowered Scootaloo on a rappel harness and rope as soon as she untangled Sweetie Belle’s horrendous knots and bad anchoring off of a high branch. It didn’t take them long to wrap the half-conscious sea pony in a cargo sling from their experience hauling supplies up for the expansion, but Berry did moan rather ungratefully when they bumped his head against the edge of the decking as their guide ropes twisted.

“Ah, yer fine. Ah’ve done worse to mahself. Ya do know we have a buzzer, right? No need to go banging your head on our trees like a cave-pony.”

Grrrrnnnnh. Berry stood up wobbily, bracing against the foals as they rushed to his sides. Right, he was seeing three crusaders. Either hallucinating from a concussion or her had all of their attention. At least none of them were attending to the doom-gun. Ngh. “Where is it?”

“Hey, take it easy.” Scootaloo gently scolded as Berry tried to get moving before he was steady on his hooves. “Even Rainbow Dash would be feeling that hit. Where’s what?”

“Your air cannon.”

Scootaloo looked to Applebloom, who shook her head without a clue. “Uh, we have a bunch. They keep exploding when we over-pressurize them.” The pegasus filly explained, miming a pipe bursting with her hooves as Sweetie made helpful ker-splodey noises sadly. They weren’t sure why he was asking about their little potato-guns.

“What!? It took us half an hour to enchant just one ring! How many did you make!?” Berry yelped in the throes of sudden adrenaline, a twinge of panic squeaking in his voice as he tried to think of how much havoc a whole array of the impromptu launchers could cause. He tried to imagine the horror show of a Canterlot being slowly melted by exploded zap apples turning it into polka-dotted magic goo, and the horrible stickiness that would ensue. Icky-ick, so sticky.

“Rings?” Applebloom repeated, finally realizing what Berry was talking about. “Oh, you mean our new flingy-thingie’s rings.” Berry’s scrunched up face of worry eased as Applebloom pointed up to the pegasus device.

“In that case, we only made a few more. We pulled out an old potion I had tried to make to turn apples in to zap apples, and they seemed to not turn to applesauce anymore. So we made a few more rings for it and retuned them to accelerate them slower when we started saucing zap apples too.” She clarified for Berry, who sighed in relief. He only had the one to fix so it could never explodinate an apple in Luna’s mane ever again. When he started wobbily-marching to the door to the test tower, Applebloom followed him in worry. “Where ya going?”

“Mr. Bubbles?” Sweetie called after him as he stomped up the stairs.

The sea pony ignored their calls to him, making with all due haste up the mostly-finished stairs. They just needed their non-slip safety strips put down before he could call them finished. Chasing after him, the crusaders galloped up the stairs right behind him, worriedly watching from the stairway as he pushed with all his might to point away from the Canterhorn and towards Ghastly Gorge. Scootaloo leapt over her friends in a burst of pegasus magic to buzz her wings right beside Berry to express her displeasure. “Hey, what gives!?”

“What did you three think you were doing, aiming that thing at a population center!?” He scolded slightly hysterically as he noted the disturbing stack of zap apples next to the swivel mount for the linear ring array. He gestured wildly to the rig, then to the snowy peak of the Canterhorn. They had even set up a telescope to see if they hit it! What-augh, no! “You could have hurt some-pony! You –did- hurt some-pony!”

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom chuckled nervously as Scootaloo thought hard and started to realize just how much trouble they were in. “What are ya talking about? Things go ‘splut’ instead of places when we stick them in it.” Applebloom tried to rationalize as Scootaloo looked towards the mountain and noticed a strange puff of white near the top.

“Aye, so should I tell Princess Luna that the zap apple that fell out of the skies was just a figment of ‘er imagination and she should stop eating exotic cheese before bed?” Berry sarcastically complained in his full accent, continuing to vaguely gesticulate in the capital’s direction. The trio all gulped nervously as his thick, bushy eyebrows narrowed to an angry v of angriness just between his eyes.

“So, about those hallucinations, heh. Heh.” Sweetie Belle nervously tried to say as she imagined what Rarity was going to do to her.

“Lots of screaming, splattering, and mane loss. Also knocked out princesses and angry Sparkles.” Berry dripped on the pure sarcasm.

“So dead.” Scootaloo whimpered.

“To the moon.” Sweetie whispered, miming getting launched out of a cannon.

“Ah don’t wanna make a will.”

Berry scooted over to them and scooped them into a one-hoof huddle at his side. “Ye three moon-pony applicants are lucky Ah covered for ye.” He cleared his throat as they shivered as one, realizing it was time to calm them down. “I tricked her into looking away from you, and got a royal mandate to continue research on your new stuff to make your ships.” He pulled them a little closer and brought them to look at the Canterhorn and the city on its side. “Just because it makes for a good target doesn’t mean you should hit it.”

To further mock him that day, traitorous Physics conspired with her vile sister Gravity at that moment upon the peak of the mountain as the bigger batch of high-speed zap apples finally hit their mark a little more than thirty miles away. The artificial snowcap of Mt. Canterhorn shuddered and trembled as puffs of further powdered snow were kicked up by the hits, blending into the clouds at the very tip of the mountain. The grand avalanche of all the snow leaving it at once in two great streams of white downwards wasn’t nearly so hard to spot. Canterlot’s city shields diverted the snow into the safe buffer valleys maintained for just such an event, leaving the stupefied quartet to behold their horrifying wonder.

Repeating their mantras of doom and gloom seemed to be the appropriate thing to do for the crusaders as Berry pondered impact velocities and travel times. Okay, he really puckered up in shock and wondered where their welder was so he could make sure the rig never fired another solid shot. “So, where exactly did you get the zap apples again? Pinkie told me they all got sold off after the season ended.”

“Uh, Ah told you already. We made ‘em.” Applebloom quickly said, happy for anything to take her mind off of the imminent royal arrest for defrosting the mountain.

“HOW!?”

“Um, Ah kind of made a potion for it. Made of rainbows, and magic, and Heart’s Desire.” Applebloom mentioned sheepishly. “Got a fifty-fifty chance of making a zap apple out of an apple. Or exploding ‘em. They like to explode. So, Sweetie Belle figured out how to sing ‘em into zap apples. Dunno if Applejack will want ‘em. Didn’t want mah potion, might be the exploding.”

Right, exploding apples. Actually, he could work with that. But first, the cover-up. “We never, ever mention this. Ever. Never. Never-ever. I need to teach you how to properly lie so your horrible skills don’t get caught.” He then turned them all around to look at their doom-cannon/flingy-thingy again. “But first we need to make sure this thing can’t fire apples anymore. Or ponies. Firing ponies would be bad, best to do it for safety’s sake.”

“But-“Scootaloo tried to protest.

“Ah don’t think we should have it. It might be too dangerous to keep around. We shouldn’t have that kind of firepower.” Applebloom remarked solemnly.

“Well, it does still sort of work.” Sweetie reminded them, pointing out the nice shock absorbers on the base that kept it from flinging itself over.

“Right. After the covering of our tails and figuring out why you three don’t have your cutie marks if you make stuff like this."

Author's Note

Princess Luna would wake up even more irritated by the massive avalanche. At least to begin with, in truth she had found the project of keeping an artificial snowcap to be rather irritating to her sensibilities. At only two and a half miles high, Mt. Canterhorn could not keep a year-round snowcap due to being below the snow line, and due to its intense slopes towards the upper peaks, steep enough to slide snow right off. The exact origins of the practice remain unknown, as some claim that it was a vanity project by Princess Celestia sometime in 400 CR, or that it was a vanity project started to gain her favor by cloaking the mountain she ruled from in whiteness as glistening as her coat (or the vanilla frosting of her cakes). In any case, it quickly moved from a mere project to a full-on tradition that only the most grievous of events could prevent from being carried out. It is unknown if Princess Celestia grew to dislike the snow-capping of the mountain, as she staunchly refuses to speak on the matter and put up with the ceremonies with dutiful vigilance. Some speculate that the remarks from her sister of "Hark, sister! Perhaps they coat the mountain to inform thee of thine overly large posterior!" at one ceremony may have finally soured her completely on the practice. In any case, the freak avalanches that occurred shortly after Princess Luna took the sovereign throne put an end to the practice, both as a break from the celestial era aesthetically and traditionally, as well as due to the fact that Princess Luna stopped it due to significant safety concerns such as "I do not want to wake up in the middle of the next avalanche to find myself up to my horn in snow in my own damned bedroom!"

5.4

5.4

“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything is chic and magnifi-eeek!” As Rarity sightlessly stared out into the relatively blinding light of the late afternoon sun of Equestria, she could only ponder on her death due shortly. Well, dying of shock due to finding the new ruler of Equestria on your doorstep wasn’t the worst way to go.

Luna frowned, glancing behind herself. No-pony looking, her wallflower spell was still functioning and keeping potential gawkers away. It couldn’t have been the sun that set Rarity off; she had double-checked her sister’s work before coming down from the mountain. Probably just Rarity forgetting something, she supposed as she wiped off her royal shoes upon the mat. Rarity finally half-stumbled back from the door, letting Luna squeeze through the narrow gap onto the hardwood floors of the fashionata’s foyer. A faint application of the midnight blue aura of her magic shut the door behind her and dispelled her illusions with a mere fragment of will as the town was shut away from them at last.

Softly, Luna circled around Rarity, looking her over from tail tip to scrunched muzzle, finally sliding up alongside her and hugging her tightly with a wing. Squeaks slipped from Rarity as the strength of the feathered limb lifted her from her hooves. “Aye, most magnificent indeed, my friend! And well done on seeing through my spells so quickly.”

Sighing, Luna clutched Rarity close as she walked with the fashionata to the main showroom of the shop. Perhaps the repeated mumbles from the alabaster pony were a chant asking for inspiration from the muses, Luna pondered as Rarity’s dangling hooves clicked against each and every joint of the floorboards. Or memories? There had certainly been many over the years; adventures of all possible shapes and forms with the six. Memories both good, and ill. Good times, good times. “I must reluctantly admit it, but I come not for your company, but for your services, Rarity.”

That snapped Rarity out of her trance in a moment, dressing royalty!? No, no, definitely no! She was about to be utterly ruined! Ruined and left a woe begotten wreck with only Opal as company! Shaking and shivering all over from her certain woe, Rarity fell out from the tight curl of Luna’s wing to sprawl upon the floor. “Excuse me? Wha-what use could you have for me?” She skittered around Luna on uncertain and jittery hooves and reared up to block the path to her workshop with her whole body. “No, no, your majesty! My workshop and my services are simply unfit for some-pony of your stature!”

“Did you just call me fat?” Luna joked, frowning as Rarity turned impossibly white. Sigh, did Rarity have to be so insecure as well? “Relax, Rarity. Even if you had, I would just use your words to poke fun at my rather rounded sister.” Squeak. Sigh. “You are a FRIEND, even if one that I rarely have time or occasion to visit. Friends may joke with friends.” Luna picked up the stiffly quivering mare and turned her outstretched form sideways. Rarity blinked with shock and concern as she was slid through the door with all the casualness of some-pony moving a piece of furniture around as Luna clopped through behind her. “Oh. Oh, um…”

“It’s hideous! Unspeakable! I know, not fit for equine eyes to see!”

“It’s cleaner than my room. Or my sister’s, for that matter.” Luna mumbled, trying to make sense of why the alabaster mare would be ashamed of organization that was impeccable enough to leave Twilight Sparkle awestruck. She rubbed her neck with a fore-hoof slowly, feeling a distinct awkwardness inherent to the situation. “Right. Well, I suppose I could help you with your insecurity tonight, it would help us both. My therapist would approve.” She mumbled as she stopped upon the center dais and set Rarity down flat on her belly beside it.

Rarity cackled nervously and coughed into a hoof as she stood up, relaxing just a tiny bit. “Oh, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you majesty! I am the very model of an aspiring lady to be, and there is most certainly nothing wrong with me.” Rarity protested carefully to the diarch as she trotter up.

Sighing, Luna put her shod hoof up on Rarity’s shoulder and looked down into her eyes. “Take it from the one who went mad enough to have one of the words describing mad-ponies created in her honor; every-pony is at least a little crazy.” A smile slowly cranked up the corners of her mouth as Rarity pouted lightly in a squiggly frown. That hoof that had been upon Rarity’s shoulder swooped forwards, beeping her on the nose. “The trick is turning that madness into branding and business.”

Rarity’s gaze swept downwards, focusing on the center point of the dais between Luna’s hooves as she hummed in thought to herself. Her ears drooped as she remembered several things that had been said to her over the years. “I suppose you’re right. I guess it’s not that surprising that you would know.” Then Tiberius ruined the moment by squeezing out from under Luna’s other wing and ruined the moment by flipping through the air to land in a threatening ninja pose at their hooves. Of course Rarity matched the expectations upon her, squealing and rearing back to flail her fore-hooves while teetering on her hind-legs. “Aaaaiiiiieeee! Rat, rat, rat! Kill it, kill it! AaaaaAAAHHH! Stay away!” She kept skittering back as Tiberius threateningly air-kicked and karate-chopped in her general direction. Looking back and forth, she searched for a spare bolt of cloth to use as an impromptu war hammer.

“Tiberius!” Dook? “Stop that!” Squeak-dook! “You started it! She was making a simple observation, there was no call for flipping out and frightening her! Why not let me introduce her and then pass judgment when you recall that she bears an element of harmony!” Luna motherly scolded her pet, frowning imperiously until her dropped back to all fours and tilted his head at her. One long, blue leg extended out to him so he could climb up her to rest on her head. “I am very disappointed in you, Tibbles.” Squeeeak. “Ah, Rarity! Meet Tiberius. Tiberius, Rarity.” She looked over to where the fashionata had taken cover, her smile falling back into a frown as she noted the hastily assembled fortress of wheeled carts and array of blunt fabric weapons. “I would ask the two of you to kiss and make up, but I fear it would not end well.”

“Y-you have a rat for a pet?” Rarity insensitively asked in her confusion. She squeaked as Tiberius hissed at her again, ducking back down behind her neat stockade.

Luna’s horn lit once again, applying gentle strokes of her magic to her pet to soothe him back down. And hold him in place in case he did something stupid, but he didn’t need to know that. “Nay, not a rat! Tibbles is a most proud and majestic Shadow Possum! The first of his kind; stardust, magic, and flesh given fiendish cunning and cuddly nature!” Tibbles sighed at the praise, rubbing his cheeks against his mistresses’ mane.

Confusion, doubt, inspection, inquiry. “Shadow… possum? I’ve heard of opossums before from Fluttershy; she’s always described them as ‘a bit thick in the head,’ so to paraphrase her. Certainly, she has never described a ‘shadow possum.’ Is there a difference?” Rarity fished for details from Luna, and noted Tiberius’s thick waistline in the process. Magically suspended measuring tape poked him gingerly in the belly, making him squeak in protest and flail at it to get it away.

More magic wreathed about Tibbles as his mistress sat down on her haunches and pulled him down to cuddle. Sighs of pleasure escaped him as she nuzzled him with her chin behind his ears, listening further. “Of course she did not. They did not exist before I adopted Tibbles dearest as my pet and familiar. His rather peculiar colors come from taking on the same properties as my mane of the skies. He becomes rather spectacular with the coming of dawn and dusk.” She preened at his fur, slowly cleaning him up and inspecting his sky-blue fur as the clouds above rolled across his body, reflected through his magic.

“Oh.” Rarity awkwardly murmured before putting her stockade back in its places. She cautiously approached, marveling at the sight of the magic marsupial with her newfound knowledge. “Well, I suppose he is a rather beautiful specimen in that light.” Tiberius pouted. “In fact, a little chivalrous gentle-stallion, coming to the aid of his mistress when her good name was disparaged.” He perked up again, smugly grinning at the compliment.

“Oh, I don’t know. With the way he has been eating all the animal treats in the castle, the assumption that he might be a rat isn’t entirely unfounded.” Tiberius’s smug smile flopped flat like a fish. He turned to indignantly squeak at his mistress, only to be silenced by her smooch. “But we love him all the same. So smart, and talented, and chubby.” Squeak! “And cuddly, and protective.” Murr.

Rarity nodded in understanding, pulling out some old designs from her over-stuffed archive shelf. Spike had once asked her to make a suit of armor, so adjusting a similar frame downwards to fit a teensy-weensy familiar couldn’t be too hard of a challenge. “Well, if he will permit me to correct my earlier fault, I suppose I could make a suit of dashing armor for the little protector.” A good night of the realm she could work with, and she giggled as he hopped from Luna’s grasp and pretended to wield a sword. “So, how exactly did he become a… shadow possum?”

Scratching began once more as Luna smiled at her pet, stroking at his back until he chittered with happiness and fell flat. “Oh, he started out much like his mundane counterparts. When I found him and bonded with him, I began infusing him with my power until he started metamorphosing into his new form. He still has a grand journey of changes ahead. Most magic creatures start out similarly, even Philomena.” Luna glanced about to all of the windows in the room, inspecting the frosted glass for signs of a nosy red phoenix. When she was sure that the prickly prideful bird hadn’t followed, the princess of the night pulled Rarity over and whispered a secret into her ear. “Tell no-pony, but Philomena started as a mere sparrow who kept cheering my sister up after my—departure.”

“Ohhh.” Rarity nodded in understanding. “So, um, Princ-“

“Call me Luna, Rarity.” Luna reminded her as she let Rarity lean back from the conspirator’s huddle.

“Yes, right, Luna. I know that you came for business, but as I was saying before our little misunderstanding, my humble enterprise is simply unfit and unprepared for the patronage of a royal client.” Rarity tried to explain, humbly bowing once even as he mind leapt through design after design of possibilities for dressing the princess of the night. Oh, to be so unworthy of dressing such a magnificent mare of starlight!

“Odd. I would hope that any mare considered cunning and fashionable enough to dress the princesses of love and friendship would be able to handle me. Oh, woe is me, I don’t know who I shall entrust my image to. Oh, fretting! Worry!” Luna melodramatically sassed the fashionata as she pointed out simple truths. Licking a hoof, she glued a stray lock of Rarity’s mane back into place and readopted her dramatic pose with foreleg splayed across her forehead and eyes closed.

Rarity frumpily frowned, sitting on her haunches as a pencil floated over to rest pinned between her ear and scalp. “Assault by sarcasm is simply dreadful, you know.”

Mad laughter was Luna’s response as her outburst temporarily dimmed the light of the windows with the illusion of an indoor crackling storm. With as much suddenness as she began, she stopped and reassumed her sedate sitting pose upon the carpeted dais. “Nonsense, all is fair in fashion and war.” Luna grasped a royal contract pulled forth from the swirling endless depths of her tail. “Quite to the contrary, Rarity. You are the perfect choice to suit my needs for suits.” She handed the seamstress the envelope, waiting as Rarity pulled out a pair of glasses from her covered desk. “No-pony else will properly acquist to my will. That, of course, is if they even accepted the contract to begin with. I need a change of image; powerful, simplistic, yet enigmatic and filled with hidden depths. I need ponies to see with utmost clarity that their mistaken belief that I shall rule much as my sister did is lacking.” She clarified.

Nodding in some understanding, Rarity unfolded the envelope and the contract paper within it. Oh dear, that was a whole bunch of bits. Hockey momma applesaucing—what was she saying? She looked at the contract, gaping as she noted the number of zeroes behind the one. Cricket chirping bug juice, she was going to—what was she saying? She squinted, looking at the—

Luna’s hoof reached in and plucked the contract away from her, hiding it from sight. “Well, that went well.”

Rarity shook her head, blinking as she tried to figure out what had just happened. “Wha-why did you take it away? I didn’t even read the terms. Was there a mistake?”

“It seems that a sum amounting to—what is the phrase, ‘all the money,’ it seems that perhaps you should not be exposed to sums of that size. I took it away after you half-fainted in shock several times. I will take the time to produce an amended copy somewhat later. One that will hopefully not ‘brain freeze’ you.” Luna wryly noted, fixing Rarity’s mane once more as the mare glubbed on air like a fish. A careful sweep of magic to bring over a thick pillow to sit on, a careful push of magic, and Rarity was safely sitting down.

“All the money? Oh dear, there must be an error, my services are nowhere near valuable enough to—“

“Your services are so valuable, several score more so for myself. You will treat me like a pony instead of an idol to exalt, and therefore you shalt be rewarded most richly.” Luna calmly stated as she held Rarity upright as the seamstress turned disturbingly pale once again. Ethereal power trickled between them as the faintest of hums vibrated in Luna’s throat; a soft verse of energy to help transition Rarity through her shock until her attention had returned. “Ponies expect to treat me as if I am my sister, as if I shall rule as my sister, have her tastes, be her double. I must show them the error. This shalt correct them. Would not your sister do anything, pay any price to be considered her own mare instead of a pale shadow of yourself?”

Thoughtful shock and concern circulated in Rarity’s mind. A journal snooped upon, picking Applejack to relate to, a half-ruined birthday party, and dozens more such incidents could be counted on countless hooves. Rarity blinked, looking away from Luna as her eyes were closed, looking to her opened drawing desk where a primitive collage of two sisters in a heart of gemstones laid. “So she would. I-I never thought of it as such. I had always assumed, no, stupid me. Of course the two of you never entirely saw eye to eye, what am I saying?”

Ruefully, Rarity chuckled, shaking her head. “If Sweetie could, she would go bare naked for the rest of her life; and no matter what I try, I teach her nothing but the worst of my habits. And yet,” She sighed, her head drooping, “For all that I am a bearer of harmony, she had a mind of song and harmony I couldn’t dream of. She’s such a better pony than I am.”

Luna nodded, feeling awfully light-headed. Which was ridiculous, as she was certain she had put Tibbles up there. Reaching out with a hoof, she turned Rarity’s chin around to look her in the eyes and remind her of a few key things. “And where I bring grace, logic, rhythm, and so many good qualities left ignored; my sister has as much compassion as Fluttershy, a voice that took a thousand years to achieve something other than ‘broken glass in a tumbler’-flat, four left hooves, and so many qualities that are my equal and opposite. Fret not upon being a poor example for your younger sister, for you are in good company.” Luna reminded her, fishing out a photo of her sister making a rather silly face with crossed eyes and a stuck out tongue for illustration.

“I-I never thought of it like that.” Rarity mused aloud, despairing a little that not even the best of pony-kind could get it right.

“Oh, stop that. Sister and I were alone, and without peers then. You and your sister have peers in abundance. Rely on them to aid you, to keep you both straight upon a path of harmony. And try not to force her to change, or expect her to live up to your own example. She shall be her own star.” Luna reminded, looking past Rarity to a more professional photo of the sisters on the wall.

A nod, a grin of determination, narrowed eyebrows of cunning thought, and a gaze of steely will. “So I shall, P-Luna.” Rarity clopped her fore-hooves against the floor, opening all her workbenches and marching forth an army of measuring tools in her aura. It was unorthodox, clothing a princess, but she—RARITY!—would be the first!

“You’re narrating aloud.” Curse her dramatic will! “Still doing it. Remember, crazy can be good.”

An eyebrow tilted up once more. Fine thing, she could do crazy, she would show them all-ahem. Right. “So, you wish to be dressed fashionably to distinguish yourself from your sister. So be it! Odd, come to think of it, I can’t recall her ever wearing a dress, at court or otherwise. Well, there could have been a dress at Twilight’s coronation, but my mind screams at me whenever I attempt to recall. Something about garish colors and clashing design pieces forming an abomination against all fashion. I must have blanked it out to retain my little remaining sanity.” Rarity aloud as she stood Luna up straight in her magic and half-mummified her in measuring tapes while bracing her up with rulers and sizing forms.

Sigh, she had to bring it up, didn’t she? Bleagh. She tried to take a breath, only for the tapes to squeeze half the air from her lungs. “Yes, much like your sister, she has no sense of fashion at all. Those—abominations—were of her design; I counseled rigorously to have you design the entire event instead. I don’t know when she came up with half of it.” Luna admitted, her cheeks burning pinkish with blushing shame. “Twilight deserved better. Less pageantry, more books, perhaps.”

“Oh dear.” Rarity trotted around Luna, noting the complete lack of signs of a sedentary lifestyle. My, why such legs—no, focus Rarity! “Well, your dresses will be much better. I can assure you of that.”

“Suits, not dresses.” Luna squeaked as Rarity tugged the measurements a little tighter, gasping as the lines around her chest were released.

“Say again?” Rarity blurted, looking up from where she had been studiously writing instead of admiring the perfect sculpting of her customer.

Forcing her gaze to just above the rich oaken half-paneling on the walls of the room, Luna settled on the creamy blue paint rather than tuck her head under her wing from the feelings the extremely thorough session of measuring were inducing. “Suits. To project an image of authority and power. Formality and such, instead of the excessive casualness my sister only halfway implemented. Certainly, I will need a dress for certain social events; however, for court matters formal suits fit my needs better. Presenting that image of authority, power, preparedness, so on and so forth.” Luna elaborated, lapsing off towards the end. She hadn’t entirely followed along with Honeydew and Stiff Resistance after she had woken up the day before, as she had been too jarred from the grand avalanche for it to sink in properly. “There may have been other reasons suggested by my advisors, but I fear I was too busy drooling into my tail.”

“Ah, I see. The Rainbow Dash defense against excessive jargon. It works, I suppose.” Rarity chided, shuddering a bit as she tried to imagine what would happen to her own tail if she tried. She held Luna even stiller as the alicorn tried to tap a hoof. Where was it; ah, by the idle inspiration references! Rarity soon returned to Luna’s side, holding a relatively unused book on the reasoning’s behind fashion trends she had received in her associate’s degree studies. “Try not to move so much, I only have a few dozen more measurements to make before I can create a perfect form of your body.”

Flipping through the book over the slow and excessive sighs and groans of boredom on the part of her alicorn guest, she sought for the even less used half of the book detailing the beginnings of male fashion. “Ah, whereas dresses are designed to exhibit a sense of grace, passivity, and a gentle air; suits are designed to exhibit masculine traits, such as decisiveness, authority, aggressive tendencies, and an aura of gravitas. Hmm.” Rarity set the book to one side as she took up her pencil once again. “Well, that’s just silly. I could design a ‘powerful’ dress. Hmph!” Still, she could see some merits to it.

Luna nodded along, already feeling like a ponyquin. “Yes, somewhat in-line with my advisor’s suggestions. I had wished to supplement my regalia with ceremonial dress armor instead, but they suggested that such a look might be too ‘warlike’.” Luna grumbled, further irritated by the small issue of being unable to raise her hooves for a proper air-quote. Simple, silly nonsense. It would show her prepared for any conflict and prepared to dive into the darkest depths of the realm. And perhaps not so ceremonial, but forged of her darkest star-metals at her secret forge in the basement of the old castle. “Wait, where did Tibbles go?”

“Tiberius?”

Rarity realized along with her royal customer that neither of them had seen hide nor hair of the magic marsupial for several minutes and began looking about the organized workshop for signs of him. Not in the shelved racks of test fabrics, all stacked in experimental color combinations; not nibbling upon the bowl of chocolates meant to continually test her resolve and maintain the fashionata’s will, though it had been tipped over and filled with discarded wrappers; not upon the desks; not amongst the shelves of references on past designs; not on her customer information filing cabinets. Where could he—yowls of an angry cat called their attention to the other flat wall of the wedge-shaped room, to the kitchen door. It banged open as Tiberius leapt through it and flipped by his tail from the handle-lever up onto a shelf, followed quickly by Opal. He dodged with the masterful grace of a martial arts expert, flipping and squeezing through swatches of fabric and over thick binders of designs with the speed and confidence of a parkour mad-possum until he could dodge no further, cornered in between the desk and the corner in a nook as Opal closed in.

“Opal! Stop that this instance! Bad kitty!” Rarity scolded futilely as the cat hissed and closed for the kill.

Tiberius slyly smiled and wriggled against the wall as Opal hissed again and wriggled for the pounce. The white Persian launched herself, and in that same instant Tiberius dropped into his own shadow as an outline of a possum on the floor. Opal smacked face-first into the baseboard, tumbling back with a stunned low yowl of pain until she collapsed over in a flop.

“Opal?”

Luna lit her horn, pulling Tiberius out of his shadow and floating him over. He burped with chocolaty satisfaction and bad breath, making his mistress scrunch at the scent. Noting the smears of chocolate on his belly and the grumbles of his rounded gut, she poked him with a blunt dowel from Rarity’s collection. “Diet time.” She warned, relishing n his whimper.

“Opal?”

Author's Note

*All the Bits is not actually a unit of measurement. However, Rarity's mind only goes from 1 to 'lots', so more than 'lots' results in what is known in software circles as a buffer overload.

Opal would go on to recover from her humiliation at the paws of Tiberius to become a more loving, caring kitten who adored her own- Who am I kidding? Opal grew even more cantankerous, and required many Fluttershy-based therapy sessions, mostly involving very very irritated looks at her when even Fluttershy grew tired of her antics. Angelic Kung-Fu may have been involved.

*Continues munching of the popcorns as everypony completely and totally misses the reason why the CMC's ~~can't find out why foals like Cinnamon Toast Cr-~~ Uh, can't figure out why they can't get their cutie marks. Snickers as the problem and solution have both been outlined already, but have yet to come.*

5.5

5.5

That the Tree of Harmony had seen fit to include a doorbell on the ‘Fortress of Friendship’—as it was increasingly called to several group’s discontent—was an interesting trait; that the ringing bells joyously sounding were interestingly reminiscent of a particularly repeated song in Fluttershy’s dreams was a beautiful and wondrous joy. What was not so much a joy was the annoyed look upon Twilight’s face that Luna witnessed in the few seconds of observation she was allotted. “No Solicitors! Any business is supposed to go to the Royal Court!” SLAM!

Well. That was that then. Ring. Ring. Ring. “No!” “Yes” “What!?”

Luna waited patiently, smugly as Twilight opened the door again cautiously and peeked through. Bowing, she greeted her savior with the respect that she knew the lavender mare so rarely received. “Greetings, friend. It’s good to see you once more.” She rose up, stepping through the numbly held door and out of the sight of Ponyvile. She kicked the door lightly shut, dispelled the protective illusion that Twilight should have seen through once again, wrapped a wing around Twilight and nuzzled the purple alicorn’s ear affectionately. “Of course, what is more pleasing is confirmation that I have changed my image well.”

Well, she glanced down and cleaned some of the lint that had gathered upon the dark grey of the business suit Rarity had rush-manufactured for her, mostly white and shining blue fur from Opal chasing Tiberius futilely. The clip-on long tie that ran down between the lapels of the outer layers still shimmered with an inner purplish light like that of the patch beneath her cutie mark, contrasting richly with the lunar white of her undershirt; and the brilliant white of her crescent moon and star shone with an unearthly light atop it all while clipped in place with a golden tie clasp. Rarity did do good work, she was hard-pressed to think of any-pony in the courts who looked so good if she allowed herself a slight bit of vanity.

“Princess Luna?” Twilight stammered, feeling an unfamiliar twitching somewhere in her chest as the diarch pushed her deeper into the foyer, away from the slight unfiltered light of the small windows and into the mysterious purple shadows of the crystal walls. She had never been quite wing-hugged by Luna—or Celestia, for that matter—before, and the warm feathery embrace was awfully distracting as it slid her across the floor towards the stairs. With the light shining through the walls, the suit seemed to just turn black like an obsidian monolith, with the faintest hint of stars reflecting in the fabric from the light of Luna’s mane and tail. H-had her mane been parted into bangs? It was rather pretty the way that it was pinned in place by the pair of obviously decorative glasses and sparkled—he-he—like little rivers of stars dribbling down the sides of Luna’s face.

Um, oh dear. Feeling a bit oddly warm, Twilight slouched down under the wing, letting it ride up under her hair as Luna inquisitively head-tilted at her. Oh! Right, she was supposed to say something coherent! She just needed to be respectful and greet her properly instead of being a nervous—“So, heh, how has Canterlot been lately?” She squeaked while chortling like a pony-hummingbird. Smooth, Twilight. Real smooth. No, wait! Don’t squeak like Fluttershy and try to hide behind your—aw, she was already hiding behind her own wing, wasn’t she? How was she supposed to show herself as being a proper princess if the first time Princess Luna shows up in a suit she freaks out worse than getting praise from P-Celestia? What was wrong with her, she had never gotten this flustered before.
Recognizing that she was having an odd effect on Twilight, Luna did her best to smooth things out. “Cold, I fear. The snow melt in the valleys from the avalanche is sapping the heat from the air around the mountain.” She lamented as she used a hoof to pull Twilight’s wing out from before her face. Still standing, she towered over poor, flustered Twilight. She wriggled her rump to adjust the annoyingly tight pants she wore as they rode up on her tail; not that she would have noticed the effect the gesture had on Twilight, and the way the mare seemed to glow a little pinker all over.

Giving up on getting them to sit right on her, she made a mental note to get an adjustment quickly from Rarity a little later and picked up with the small talk. “I should really apologize for not visiting you and all my other friends more often. Since I’ve had to take the day off for certain bits of business, I have an afternoon and evening free. I know I came to this wonderful, um, fortress just after the battle here for a short while; at the time I didn’t quite have the time for a full tour. So, mayhaps could I take the tour now? To spend time with a friend I rarely see, despite how she helped me so?”

“Oh, right! Tours! Um, if I had a map.” Twilight bashfully stammered, twiddling her hooves nervously. “I’m sort of still mapping it.” Why was she so- right, get out from under the wing. Shimmying down under the primaries, she crawled from Luna’s grasp and hopped up beside her. Luna wanted a tour, she needed to provide a tour and all she had was her and Spike’s rooms, the throney-council room, the kitchens, the landing foyer, the labs… uh, oh crud. “There’s uh, the Throney-Council room! Let me show you!” She took off, hovering just above Luna out of reach of the night alicorn’s fluffy wings as she indecisively gestured towards the stairway.

“Throney-council room? Ah, you mean the Council Chamber of Friendship? Yes, I believe you showed that in particular to me before I left last time.” Luna mentioned as she trotted towards the stairs slowly and started climbing up them after Twilight. Hmm, perhaps Rarity had performed too fine of a job in her design. Twilight seemed to be as distracted as she might be around a particularly desirable stallion, given the way she kept backing into things to keep eyes on her or the way she stammered and—was that blushing? Of course, it was rather enjoyable to watch her in the midst of an adorkable bluster. Well, what could they do to help her save face; could they—ah, yes. “I noticed an astronomy tower nestled within the branches, shall we visit it instead?”

“Astronomy what; I have one of those?”

“Ah, a treasure hunt! Come, Twilight! Let us find you map and further explore this magnificent edifice!” Luna proclaimed, shaking the fortress with the force of her exuberant voice. She hopped up onto her back legs and planted her fore-hooves in the small of Twilight’s back to start pressing her up the stairs. It was just like being back in her old castle, with all the lost chambers to be found in it.

“What?” Twilight stammered, more out of bewilderment than embarrassment. Okay, yeah, she wanted to get to know Luna better, but she had bigger concerns. “Hang on, I don’t have time to explore today!” She wasn’t sad or anything else, okay starting to get a little irritated as she tried to teleport away from Luna’s aura and pushing, only to be stopped. “I’m working with Mis- ugh, working with Sunbeam to help her fill out her municipal paperwork so she can go to work at the Ponyvile schoolhouse in between helping me with teaching the crusaders!”

No-pony else could get through the paperwork; she knew, she had tried to help five prior prospective teachers through the paperwork, but they all quit when they saw a pile of paperwork as high as P—ugh, Celestia’s withers. Hopefully that would stop Luna. It seemed to as Luna paused in her push, drooping, perking, beaming. Wait, beaming? “Truly? Sunbeam is here right now? Huzzah!”

“What, what? You know her?”

Before she could ask any further, Luna shoved her and the large bubble of magic she was in, tumbling her in it in a wild and out of control roll up the stairs. “Show me! She’s almost closer to me than my sister, and taught me much of the modern world! The lunar alicorn happily shouted over Twilight’s objections, continuing to roll her along in the bubble of magic as she charged up the stairs.

“Whoa, hang on!” Twilight complained as she spun around like a top from the mad movements. She barely had a moment to register the shocked look on Sunbeam’s face as they rounded around the edge of the next landing up behind the wall that blocked the view of the upper stairs from the foyer. Only the one moment, because in the next moment Sunbeam and Spike who had been riding on her back were enveloped by the rolling bubble of floating magic and gobbled up as part of the whirling ball of pony tumbling up the stairs. “Help! Stop! You found her!”

Luna halted as soon as she heard. But no, Physics didn’t like her any more than it did her sister—the big fat traitor. The whirling ball of ponies rolled out of Luna’s hooves and partially up the next flight of stairs before gravity took over and returned the ball to sender with added momentum. Luna was swept up before there was scarcely a moment to yelp as the ball of pony returned back at her, and back down they all rolled. Luna yelped into Sunbeam’s gut as she was bounced against the walls, and the group all crashed back to the ground floor of the Fortress of Friendship in a pile of pretzel’d pony. Woozily, she pumped a hoof into the air once they all stopped moving. “Victory!”

Moaning. Ah, right. Victory came after extraction, and boo-boo patching, also possibly apologies. The efforts took a bit, given the way they had all become entangled in a mess of hooves and wings; soon enough, though, they were all sitting across from one another upon the six-pointed star of harmony in the absolute center of the round reception hall.

Sunbeam was the first to break the awkward silence, chuckling ruefully as she realized how utterly stupid the whole affair had been. Twilight glared at her, until Sunbeam mimed their tumble and fall down the stairs in a bubble of magic, making a comical splash noise as the miming hoof clopped to the floor. Spike, sitting next to Luna, looked on with a grumpy glare as Twilight and Sunbeam giggled and made fun of the spell Luna had used, happily whispering to each other like mother and daughter conspiring to mad and marvelous ends. Or maybe it wasn’t his caretaker having fun, but instead his missing Rarity that day, or the part where he had been squished into the center of the pony-ball.

Luna warmly smiled at each in turn, feeling a warm and fuzzy feeling. Of course, it wanted to go away as she tried to figure out how to deal with ‘Sunbeam’ and explaining to Twilight that her mentor in disguise needed help without violating her probable wishes. ”It’s good to see you all.”

Pift-tinkle. A bit-bag dropped into Spike’s lap, teleported to him by his caretaker. “You know, I’ve kept you pretty late, Spike. I haven’t needed you so much for an hour or so.” Twilight nodded her head in the general direction of Rarity’s boutique for him suggestively. “Why don’t you go take Rarity for an ice cream sundae, maybe a Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Chocoblaster to tempt her? She’ll appreciate it.” Twilight suggested, winking at him. “Ask her out for a walk, then lead her up to Sugar Cube Corner.” It wasn’t really a date, just a nice favor to help keep them together until he was old enough to really date her. Totally innocent, and not ruinous on Rarity’s figure to lead her on an adventure with Spike.

“Hey, she’s on a diet after all the victory celebrations!” He protested half-heartedly, remembering how she had been complaining about putting on a pound or two from the extra baking. Or three, maybe four. He didn’t want to lead her into temptation and upset her.

“Exactly.” Twilight snickered. “When she realizes, she’ll want to do some extra work like gem mining to burn it off, and there’ll be Spike the Dragon to save her day.” Twilight sushed him as he tried to say something, smiling deviously. Cadance had taught her well with her tricks she used on Shining Armor. “So you get to go with her as her own personal Shining Armor, and do all the work for her for extra gratitude.” Yeah, Cadance usually pulled an ‘exercise with you’ variant, but the alicorn of love had a few other strategies. Twilight put on a mix of her brother’s surfer accent and the gruff voice Spike used to pretend to be in his thirties. “Hang on, Rarity! Spike shall help you and be your savior!”

Spike blinked wide-eyed. “Wow. You’re twisted and evil, Twilight. I like it.” Every-pony jumped a little as Twilight cackled sinisterly. Picking up his ill-gotten gold, Spike rushed the door. “Hang on, Rarity, Sir Spike shall save you from your boredom!”

Her job of keeping Rarity and Spike together for another day done, Twilight wiped her fore-hooves against each other and smiled deviously as she watched Spike slip through the door. Following the short beam of light that shone through the open doorway for a moment, she was surprised to see her two guests hugging each other like sisters. Didn’t Luna only—hmm, Sunbeam must have been a deep influence on the lunar alicorn after the first Nightmare Night Fiasco. “Well, I guess I’ll just see myself back upstairs to do the rest of that paperwork and let you two be, then.” She whispered, getting up and backing away so as to not disturb the two friends; not that she got much farther than turning around before a magic grip around her barrel dragged her back.

“Come now, don’t be shy, Twilight. Sunbeam and I know one another well, but what is one more link of friendship between all three of us?” Luna chided warmly as she dragged Twilight back and swept her wing back over and around her to prevent escape. Sunbeam gargled quietly, possibly spluttering at the friendly gesture.

With a murr of a contented mare enjoying the company of her friends, Luna nuzzled Twilight’s ears until they folded flat and away from her. With a sad ear-twitch of her own, Luna pulled back from Twilight to praise her once more. “I must confess that I have done you a bit of an injustice. I have spent half as much time as I would like with you, and I truly know you only half as well as you halfway deserve.”

Counting on all four of her mental hooves, the mini-Twilight inside Twilight’s head fell over and gave up trying to figure it out after settling on Luna knowing her only a quarter as well as she should. “Um, alright, I think? So, you and Sunbeam really are close, then?”

“Sisterly. Sort of, but not really. In spirit.” Sunbeam stumbled through her words, patting Luna on the back with the leg she had draped over Luna’s Twilight-enfolding wing and missing the hurt look on her sister’s face through the expedience of staring at Twilight. “Though, I’m not certain why she came down to Ponyvile to visit, or why she’s, um, where did you get an outfit like that?” There was a dissonant confusion in Sunbeam’s voice as she looked over the lunar diarch and the embrace Luna had around Twilight. A dissonance almost uncaught; almost.

Applying a cantrip of prestidigitation to her apparel to cleanse and straighten it to a presentable state, Luna straightened proudly. “A custom suit from Rarity herself to impress those I wish and to assist in establishing a ruling identity for myself! After the chaos of my sister’s departure, every-pony at the castle and in the courts have been assuming to their error that I would react and rule much as she would. To their error.” Darkly did Luna whisper that last, resentful to a small degree that she was still mistaken for a shadow of her sister. Not that it would matter much.

Sunbeam suspiciously narrowed her eyes, glancing between Luna and Twilight. “Impressing, what like Twilight?” Said mare’s ears perked up as she blinked in confused recognition.

“Yes. Wait, no! Not the point!” Luna protested as she realized Sunbeam was trying to lead her, she was going to have none of that. “Impressing the ‘nobles’ and impressing into them that I will not follow the ad-hoc ruling method my sister had kludged together.” Luna hissed out sister slightly, carefully whipping her tail against Sunbeam’s back. “While their reactions have sometimes been amusing, most have been tiresome and time-consuming.” Luna continued, slumping down against Twilight in a way somewhat resembling the exhausted sag in her heart and head. She would be glad when things would settle down. “So, I have been altering my appearance, taking up habits would never attempt, and working on reducing the workload on myself so as to streamline the government. I had been expecting to take longer this morn with Rarity, but she is a true master of stitching.”

Well, Sunbeam was right to a degree. Twilight felt oddly giddy as she processed being once more pressed against the soft, silk-like fabric by the feathers of Luna’s wings and Sunbeam’s bulk. Sort of in the way she might feel upon first smelling the paper scents of an ancient library. Wait, no-focus, less impressions more analysis! “Chaos? I thought that P- Celestia had established a proper plan of succession for you.”

Pausing, Twilight had a sudden suspicion as to why ponies were coming down to her. Annoying busybodies getting in her way unscheduled. “Every-pony keeps saying that she diverted a portion of her paperwork and authority to me. Or, that’s what all the court ponies keep saying when they come down here and demand that I put down my work to hear them.” She complained, teleporting an annoyingly tall stack of paperwork to them that had been gathered from all the ponies who had come to try and barge into her home and get her rubber-stamp. “I keep telling them that I haven’t gotten any paper-“

“She did not.” Luna snapped, realizing that some-pony had been trying to pull one over on both of them. That would explain the unusually light number of ponies at court, especially the ones who didn’t like her much. “My sister’s ‘plan of succession’ was to pass everything to me while she cut and run. Granted, I told her to run in the end while I was being slathered in maple syrup, but that’s beside the point.”

Chuckling nervously to cut her ‘sovereign’ off, Sunbeam waved a hoof and pressed Twilight into Luna a bit more to distract her and make the little alicorn focus on Luna’s frame instead. No need for any more discussion, no, not at all. “She probably thought every-pony would be reasonable and go along peacefully with the transition. You know, use their heads and ask you instead of every-pony losing their minds. She wasn’t all that important to the country anyway.”

As Twilight gasped a little at the depreciation, Sunbeam wondered if she had gone too far. “I mean, yes, she did make some decisions, but she delegated most of the work and stayed on top of things as she had every-pony running like clockwork!” It couldn’t have been that bad, she even had time for Twilight all the time!

“Aye, I suppose it could be called ‘clockwork’ if you call ‘running herself into the ground’ as such.” Luna grumbled loudly, mining a pegasus nose-diving into the ground with her counter-balance wing. When Twilight uncertainly looked at each of them with hurt eyes, Luna felt a pang of her own hurt in her gut. No, don’t get distracted, jab the truth home and twist! “I had a talk with some—what are they called, mental health specialists, yes, them. I had a talk, and discussed my dear sister with them. They suggested that her departure may have been the first stage of a mental break from overwork.” Her wing reached across her so it could be poked deeply into Sunbeam’s extensive gut.

Struggling in the embrace of Luna’s wing, Twilight twisted around to look Luna in the eye and come to her mentor’s defense. “Celestia was just fine! She was a rock for every-pony in Equestria, including me! She was perfectly fine, especially in the head.” It was ridiculous! Preposterous! She had been busy, yeah. But she had a tight schedule she needed to stick to on most days to rule Equestria properly; so what if being ‘ahead of schedule’ meant minutes and seconds instead of hours? Wait-, okay, maybe that was a little unhealthy even by her standards. “Alright, her scheduling might have been kind of really excessive.”

Nodding, Luna uncurled the wing she had wrapped around Twilight and elbowed Sunbeam in the gut with it hard enough to make her guff in pain. “Aye, that was the first thing I noticed as well after I got back. Her old seneschal Kibitz meant well, but I fear his –method- was the final straw that exasperated the bad habits she picked up over the past thousand years. Between you, I, Cadance, the troubles of the past four years, I fear that she just had too much to deal with.”

Sunbeam whuffed in surprise as she was interrupted from rubbing the pinkening patch on her belly by Luna’s wing reaching up around her neck and pulling her tight to sandwich Twilight between them. Mournfully, Luna confessed her own sins, a tiny tear non-chalantly finding itself wiped away when no-pony was looking. “And I let her down; too busy reforming my night guard to serve the needs of the modern day, too busy catching up with the times to catch up with my sister, too busy to see but in retrospect how she was starting to hurt just as I did before my fall. I rarely took enough time to meet with her, and I failed her to have let it get as far as it has.”

“No you didn’t.” Twilight countered, wriggling out from between the two to flop on the floor from the force of her final wriggle. Getting up again, she dusted off at looked Luna in the eyes. “Celestia did say she was only taking a few years. She’s not outright banished, she just needs a friend to help her.” She didn’t notice the puckering of Sunbeam’s muzzle as she paused, then shot a glance up to her make-shift office. “So, I can trash all that paperwork since it’s all from fake appointments?”

“Yes. I suppose, if you want. But perhaps, if you’re willing to help me we could schedule some of the cases to be seen by you. Maybe even transfer a portion of my power to you so that you could assist me in ruling so I don’t fall prey as my sister did?” Luna fished for a response suggestively, elbowing Sunbeam surreptitiously several times more. Twilight’s ear fell, then perked back up as she thought the proposition through, her eyes gleaming.

“Me? I know I’m an alicorn, and sort of a princess of friendship, but I don’t think I’m really actually qualified for it.”

Luna hesitated, remembering Redcoat’s advice, and how Captain Resistance had warned against him. And yet, was it not sound? “Well, you do have a ‘throney-council’ chamber, don’t you? And, I know your mentor trained you in several of her organizational techniques. And, you do have a circle of friends to help advise you on certain issues of judgment, don’t you?” Her smile grew bright once again as Twilight nodded and started seriously considering it. “I would think my sister would be proud to see you helping me.” Luna elbowed Sunbeam again, right in a developing tender spot. “Wouldn’t you agree?

“Yes, yes!” Sunbeam groaned, rubbing the tender spot as she tried to figure out what Luna was up to.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Twilight centered herself and straightened up, bowing her head to Luna in acceptance. “Princess Luna, I’d be honored to help you.” She looked up again with a new fire in her eyes; there was a bit of the mare who had saved her and dove into Tartarus time and time again for nothing more than a just cause And a bit of uncertainty, but who wouldn’t be? “I, uh, might need a bit of training on parts of the government, though.”

“Well, are you free tonight? As I’ve said, I have the rest of the day off from royal business. I know you’re busy at the moment, but perhaps this evening we could work out a few things?”

“Uh, sure! Um, can I get Spike to do the cooking, if you’re interested? Princess Celestia and the royal chefs taught him some things. And we can find the astronomy tower while we’re at it?” Twilight hesitantly suggested, brushing at the back of her mane. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to get done with Sunbeam’s paperwork if we hurry.” Sunbeam wilted, she didn’t want to do more paperwork than her mass in cupcakes. Mmm.

“I shall set the time!” Luna proclaimed as her flare for the dramatic got the best of her. The windows all creaked ajar and let in a cold wind as Luna posed dramatically on her hind hooves with her fore-hooves stretched to the skies and wings outstretched. Sheepishly, she realized what she had done and sat back down, looking between Twilight and Sunbeam who were bemusedly watching. “Uh, well. It will give me time to coordinate with the guards and the secret service of the castle to arrange for you to receive a detachment. Captain Bubbles has agreed to your suggestion, so I will likely have him head up the guards.” Frowning, Luna realized that she had forgotten to check something. “Perchance, have you heard of a ‘game of scrubs’?”

“No. Uh, it’s not some book or film serial series, is it?”

“My sister’s maids, who are apparently the secret service, used to chase my sister down in olden times when she tried to shirk her duties, catching her and dragging her back kicking and screaming from the tales. From what I understand, Cadenza took over the service sometime before your tutorship and—ahem—beat sister so hard at it that she just gave up entirely.” Luna took a hoof up to her face, straightening out her bangs when she realized they were out of place. “Just a fair warning, then. I’m talking with them about it, and I’ll see that they discuss them with you and abide by your decision.”

Quietly, she leaned over into Sunbeam’s side. “Maybe she should have taken her ‘games’ as a forewarning of her stress.”

“What?”

“Well, when you have to be chased to work, it might be a sign that it’s time to find new work. I’ve straightened their expectations. I’m just giving you warning in case they wish to start a new tradition here.” Luna explained to Twilight, pointedly avoiding even looking at Sunbeam. She shooed Twilight with a hoof gesture, wiping away the tired grimace she had adopted in favor of a warm smile. “Go on, your aid needs her aid. I’ll let her along shortly. I just need to catch up with her on a few things.”

The secret sisters watched as Twilight flushed with blushing, then bounded and scurried up the stairs peculiarly, with a giggle that seemed more at home with Pinkie. When she was almost certainly out of hearing and an extra floor up, Luna opened her mouth and took a breath to berate her sister for still leading Twilight on when Sunbeam turned her head over and rubbed Luna’s side with an ear and her invisible horn as she sing-songed teasingly. “Some-pony has a date!” Sunbeam smiled widely, happy that her sister had found a love of sorts, and that she had delivered blackmail material right into her lap as she teased.

“What? What are you blathering on about?” Luna asked, shifting over a little so Sunbeam couldn’t get away with it.

“Oh, an exciting evening rendezvous so that you can have a shared dinner while smartly dressed before discussing mutual interests while going on a treasure hunt. Oh, doesn’t that sound so interesting?” Sunbeam mocked, not minding that much that her sister was asking out Twilight, even if by accident. She turned herself right way up again, sticking her tongue out at her sister playfully with a raspberry sound. “All under the stars, all alone where no-pony can see you two get into mischief.”

Fine. Was she going to play that game? Two could play it. “Well, I suppose it would have to be me.” She reached over, tenderly pressing her hoof into the exposed belly up over its ankle. “It would have to be me, other ponies would be too afraid to eat you. They’d be too afraid that your gut might eat them.”

Scowl. “Why you-“

Luna laughed, grabbing her sister’s wing and pretending to make it talk. “Rwawr! Feed me!” She mimed, making adorable munching noised until Sunbeam pulled out of her grasp. “Come, come now. I knew you were using an illusion back in Canterlot to hide something, but you really have let yourself go. Then again, it would make sense, giving Twilight more to cuddle.”

Sunbeam, still scowling, knew she had to turn the tides. “What, like you? What’s with your mane cut? Did you not wash it again? I know you were upset after you accidentally developed that sentient race somewhere in it and it started getting eaten by that black star the last time.” Going for the low blow, she returned all of Luna’s pokes and elbows, prodding the dark alicorn’s extremely thin and taut belly several times with force. “Or did you eat it in your sleep because you’re so hungry from your diet?”

“Hah! At least I don’t stress eat while getting dragged to work kicking and screaming by the maids! Thanks so much for forgetting to mention that.”

“Hey, they probably wanted some fun!”

“Hardly. Quite a few surprises you conveniently forgot to mention to me. I know it probably genuinely slipped your mind in the rush, but you should have at least sent some notes.” Luna scolded, rolling her eyes. “Besides, they haven’t done it in thirty years. Something about Cadenza completely and utterly whupping your tail?”

“What? No, no she didn’t!”

“I have her test scores from her own time in the royal guard. Rather interesting, they are. Oddly suspicious how she seemed to disappear at times, makes me wonder what you’ve had her up to.” Luna prodded; verbally, not physically, of course. Sunbeam was pink enough as it was from the ribbing. Any more and some-pony might drag her down to Pinkie’s infernal workshop of sugary sweetness in a case of mistaken identity.

“Not that much. I was kind of busy keeping the country running instead of paying attention to her world travels.” Sunbeam confessed.

Setup achieved, Luna pounced for the kill. “So busy you ate cake instead of food, and counting eating as exercise?” Okay, that was pretty harsh, tone it down, and use the tact to guide her to help. “Seriously, sister. Twilight won’t betray you if you tell her who you are. I can’t force you to, and I won’t go and spoil her myself. But you need to stop pushing help away. Others can handle the load just as you can. Trust me. That’s why I got Twilight to help me.”

“Twilight’s fine without knowing, Luna. She could use her time with her ‘old mentor’. Treat her well, okay?”

“It’s not a date!”

Author's Note

*Throney-Council Room: Also known as 'Council of Friendship', 'Big Chair Room', 'Super Map-Table Room', 'Hey, Twilight! Check out this cool room I can read comics in. Room'

*Cadance tricked Shining Armor so many times with the 'Exercise with him' variation of this trick. Granted, he didn't mind having a near-amazon running with him, but the poles he kept running into when she flicked her mane at him did.

*Some swear that the tales of Nightmare Moon eating foals come from early accounts of Celestia gobbling candy like Pinkie eats cakes. Granted, most of that candy has to go somewhere, and Sunbeam's gut looks awfully big enough to fit it all, but Princess Sparkle has dismissed such claims. Princess Luna will do no such thing and suggests candy on a pony-fishing line to find out.

*As ruled in Oublets and Ogres, you can in fact roll an accidental Nat d20 and critical-success get a date. Most players insist this is impossible, as no character would have the natural charisma to make that possible, however in certain conditions and with certain modifiers the statistics point to 'Surprise Cadance coming from behind!' Shining Armor swears this is the case.

5.6

5.6

She waited, watching from above. Upside down, hanging from the ceiling by a spell upon her hooves amid the rib vaulting, she stood against the forces of the dread mare Gravity in a shadow cast by the setting sun. Still some time before the artificial lights would fully illuminate the ceiling spaces. He was coming, her guard apparatus had confirmed it a little while before; meeting with at least one royal clerk in the restricted section clandestinely. Well enough, she could kill off four tasks at once if he wanted to deliver himself to her!

Hah! Her sister thought she was the queen of multitasking, she’d show her!

Shaking out of her self-congratulations, she focused on the task at hoof. The purple runner that was strung from the castle end of the hallway out to the edge of the projecting East Wing was thick, a deep pile carpet that would swallow all hoofsteps upon it soundlessly. Good for guards sneaking up on intruders, or for intruders to step without sound down the hallway, a more attractive option than the geometrically patterned polished granite tiles. Well, except for the pesky problem for intruders known as the castle ward system; the overlapping scanning spells stretched the length of the half-kilometer long curving hallway, forming a nearly impenetrable barrier of alarm after alarm that would register any un-tagged intruder who attempted to access the Black Archives and the restricted operations section.

And yet, somepony had almost found a way through. Certainly, they were penetrating all the more conventional wards and scans through a novel new method. But there were older spells, spells buried into the hearts of the white marble columns that supported the structure’s roof, ancient wards that had never been documented and that had been put into place by her sister. Captain Resistance had correlated several interesting tidbits and passed them onto her when she had temporarily returned to the castle based off of his monitoring of the old wards, and his data had suggested yet another visit would be scheduled for that evening. All the better.

Spells jangled in her mind, the mystic alarms activating themselves as a life signature was detected; an invisible intruder who had indeed found a way to surpass the detection by the mortal-made scans. The interloper slowly crept down the hall, unchallenged by the defensive spells, untagged by the guard outpost at the entrance to the hall, unwelcome and without permission. Whoever it was knew a great deal about the castle’s defenses, they knew of all of the primary defenses. Somepony knowledgeable. She suspected who it was. Additional spells were very carefully woven about him, protecting the stallion from active attacks as well, and even hid him from sight and sound.

She was the alicorn of the night. Light did not need to concern itself over presenting information to her mystic senses.

So, for Duke Redcoat her flip downwards out of the ceiling of shadows to land behind him was a great shock; or it was when she casually stripped him of his spells and allowed his mortal senses to detect her. Credit was due to him, despite the rapid-fire beating of his heart; he quickly adapted and remained cool and collected in the face of an alicorn ambush. He straightened up from his low crawl and then bowed to her gracefully before stripping back his face-hugging hood to allow his disheveled blaze of a mane to breathe freely. “Ah, Princess. Unexpected to see you here, I was told you would be down in Ponyvile all day. I take it that there are further off-the-books wards, then.” He twitched his mustache irritably.

Luna circled him slowly, like a shark might examine a wounded seal before the strike. “Calm, for one breaking into one of the most secure wings of government operations.” She ran a hoof across the shimmering black material of Redcoat’s suit. The full-body glove shimmered in onyx, with faint green sparkling flecks of light slowly shimmering deep within the optical illusion of infinite space. Even Redcoat’s tail was tightly bound to his body in what was assuredly a painfully tight squeeze, and the shimmering surface gave no signs of any opening. “Ill gains from your black projects, I assume?”

Redcoat’s irritation flashed within his eyes, a glimmer of anger twisting his lips for just a moment before he squashed it beneath iron self-control. Swishing his mustache, he nodded for her. “Ah well—hardly ‘ill-gained.’ Since you know of my research, I can only assume that you also know I intend to share it shortly after producing results.” He countered, verbally maneuvering himself to stay out of her line of fire as he turned to keep Luna in sight as she circled him. The dusky light of the setting sun cast long shadows across the hall; blinding light that hid with the searing brightness, and the consuming darkness.

“Yes. Remarkable research.” She whispered into his ear from behind him, stepping back as he jumped. The illusion of herself that she cast vanished like the memories of a fading dream as he twirled around to stare up at her as she stood framed against the sunset. “Of course you intended to share it. But, I must wondered when exactly you were planning on sharing it.”

Advancing on him, she slowly forced him back down the hallway, pushing him further away from the east wing. “Would it be after you extracted all that you could from the Black Archives, perhaps?” Luna inquired, looking down at him as she seemed to grow larger, filling the hall with her shadow. “Or would it be after you finished influencing the military clerks to report to you first and to me second?”

Frowning again, Redcoat stood tall even as he backed away from Luna’s illusion. He chuckled once, possibly for politeness’s sake. “Test runs, if you will.” He suggested, narrowing his eyes. His backwards pace slowed as he stiffened and straightened, a faint shine of his green magic reflecting in his gaze. “If my research could be of benefit, well, why overlook the chance?”

“Naughty, naughty, Redcoat. I am rather displeased with your deception. Thinking you could escape my gaze, that you could use my darkness against me.” Luna, the real Luna, emerged from the shadows of her illusion as she caught Redcoat peering through it at her, letting the looming darkness part around her like fog about an airship. “Most displeased. And most amused at your brazen boldness.” She caught herself wondering just what exactly it would take to unnerve the annoying stallion. It seemed only jump scares could even gain a truthful reaction from him, and she could hardly keep going ‘boo’ in his ear and expect that to work.

Down to business, then. It might just work better if she unraveled his schemes like a thousand tiny kittens with a ball of string. A flash of teleportation surrounded them in bright blue light as she brought them to her public office. “So, you’re looking to see if I know the location of the hives, to go with your research that you intend to present publically.” She stalked around her tall, nearly featureless mahogany desk. Turning around, she sat down behind it and reached for the steaming pot of tea atop an inset black granite pad. “Shall we discuss how your endeavors have been at cross purposes with my own and how to correct this trifling disconnect? Or should I remember something about fealty that we discussed about two and a half weeks ago, and take this little betrayal far more seriously?” She couldn’t remove him, not yet anyway. He was still useful for badgering the nobles in her stead despite his inconvenience, so simply stripping him of his money and titles wasn’t yet on her table. Annoying the moonlight out of him by inducing paranoia and smashing his cover stories was far more satisfying.

Redcoat took up one of the unoffered cushions, sitting down across from Luna. The thin thing was more like a board to his backside, but it sheltered him from the cold polished wood planking of the floor. “Ah, then you have found the hives then, obviously.” He remarked quietly, examining the room. Dark, beveled wood panels lined the walls harshly, swallowing up much of the light streaming down from the fixtures hidden in the faceted contours of the similarly-planked ceiling. The only things breaking the monotony was the plain window behind Luna that let in the light of the setting sun, an obvious two-way mirror upon the wall, and the door behind them.

Luna’s gaze glinted at him from behind her glasses, an ear flicking once against the darkening star-field of her mane. Redcoat scooted closer to the desk, sniffing the rich aroma of the tea as she poured herself a cup and denied him. “You want me to not publically divulge their location to avoid interfering with a project of yours.” Luna sipped from her pewter tankard as Redcoat stewed in his thoughts. He continued, sensing a prompting. “Or you want me to not start a potentially ruinous war, which we both know I wish to avoid as well, despite my nationalistic sentiments. Ah, wait. You’re already influencing the hives somehow.”

“Astute. That is not, however, what I grow irritated with you over.” Sluuuurp! Mmm, good tea. Triple strength, triple brewed, spiced with exotic magicks and hellish condiments from the heart of the dragon-lands. Her sister was a light-weight. Luna set her tankard back down in the marble-lined cavity for it, waiting for Redcoat to answer her. Of course he wouldn’t, she finally recalled. “Your activities in the secure wing, Redcoat.”

She felt her scowl grow a little as he smiled smugly. “Ah, then the breach of my correspondence was a one-time event.” How irritating, he had been baiting her. “I shall have to redouble the security upon it.” He concluded as he sat back and pulled a black notepad from some hidden fold of his outfit that couldn’t be discerned. He glanced up from it, one of his bushy eyebrows raising. “It would seem foolish to bother even asking you how you breached it.”

“Yes, yes it would.” Curtly, Luna pulled open one of the hidden drawers of her desk, withdrawing a particularly interesting sheaf of papers to read, putting a blank backing to them to prevent him from identifying what the papers might be. Her slam of the drawer seemed to seamlessly meld it with the dark paneling once more, making it impossible to find without foreknowledge. “Redcoat, while I am inclined to show you leniency for your sheer boldness and for only putting yourself in danger, know this well.”

She straightened the sheaf of papers by dropping their bottom edge against the calendar on her desk, magnifying the sound of their edges all clacking against the hard surface through a spell into a rolling thunder-crack that sounded all too much like a gavel banging. “I am not my sister. Neither my patience or my forgiveness is infinite.” She tilted her head forward, letting her face partially fall into shadow. “Attempt such a stunt again, and I will end you so thoroughly that your name will be a hushed whisper for a hundred generations. I will tolerate no further betrayal.”

Seemingly unimpressed by the display, or the suggested consequences, Redcoat ruffled his greying mane back into something resembling order. “Which stunt, your majesty? You’ll have to be specific. I have a great many going.”

“Likely attempting to bribe a clerk of military or restricted correspondence; attempting to infiltrate the Black Archives; attempting to access classified or restricted information without authorization; attempting to compromise or circumvent the wards of the Royal Castle; possibly sedition and treason, as well.” Listed off, the potential charges were fairly damning and frightening to any sane pony. The problem being, however, that neither party involved was entirely sane. “And personally irritating me after publically swearing fealty.”

“I didn’t actually bribe a clerk.” Redcoat mentioned off the cuff as he tried to wipe a speck of dust from one of his forelegs, only gaining a sullen and drawn-out squeak from the material. “You pay them far too much for a bribe to be successful untraceably.” He continued as he picked up one of the spare pillows to use, only adding more lint. He waved his leg futilely. “Wise, but not foolproof, of course. If I was to correspond with an insider, favors would be far more tasteful than bribes or blackmail. Failing to live up to a favor merely results in a sullen and disappointed pony who doesn’t like you anymore instead of more—extravagant charges.” Redcoat lit his horn to pluck away the lint, oddly double-corona’d with a second and far fainter layer shimmering still as he played with the attracted dust on his foreleg.

“Wise indeed.” Luna muttered, irritated that he was still thinking smartly. “Mind you, a given favor is still counted as a bribe, even if harder to prove.” She warned, relishing the slight scowl of irritation he quickly masked. She sipped her tea once more, glad that her exotic tastes gave her a legitimate reason to snub Redcoat. If she let him try her tea, it might cause him to implode while on fire. That might have been her imagination, though.

Redcoat twitched his mustache once more, shuffling his cushion forward as he did. He almost had his elbows up on his side of her desk before the diarch’s eyebrows rose in warning. He sat back rather than test her patience further. “Since that option is off the table, I shall assume you wish me to give up my insider?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll arrange for a public meeting for you to identify him.” Redcoat murmured loudly. He rumbled unspoken words in his throat before continuing. “Strange. I would have assumed that the covert military research on my part would have been more concerning than mere bribery and transcribed information.”

“I know of it, do I not?” Luna countered. Redcoat’s ears flicked, the duke forcing them to stay up rather than allow his feelings to be made clear as Luna adjusted her glasses and began reading while shuffling through the stack of papers while naming off the aims of many of his projects. “Your stealth suit, of course; undetectable my traditional surveillance methods of all forms. Changeling detection spells more covert than the Sparkle Method; the added bonus of being field expedient without testing gear an additional boon. General research into changeling anatomy, psychology, and needs; the crown is aware of their general psychology and some of the needs, but the further research remains useful. General research into their magic, to include emotion detecting and shapeshifting; a deeply interesting subject even if your methods are relatively disturbing, and I look forward to your results.” Shuffling the papers rapidly once more, she stuffed them back into the hidden drawer and shut it before Redcoat could look at the fronts of the papers. “I do hope you haven’t started any other projects without considering notifying the crown recently.” She warned him with mock concern.

Redcoat pursed his lips in thought, then slowly and deliberately shook his head as he leaned back a little ways to rest the hard booties on his forelegs atop his thighs. “No, I don’t believe I’ve started anything else recently.” Tilting his head towards Luna, he slyly smiled disturbingly. “I do have to commend you on your thoroughness once more. I’m surprised you memorized it all.” He waited a bit to give her the time to make a rather impulsive error. Luna quietly sat, steeping her hooves together to rest the tip of her muzzle against, forcing him to continue. “Yes, I know it was all blank. I’ve already read everything in this ‘office.’ There isn’t actually anything here.”

Feeling her heart rate quicken just a tad, Luna scowled behind her cover as she tried to figure out if he had somehow gotten himself or an agent into the room before. It didn’t seem likely, given that she could teleport everything in the room to one of several locations, but there was always the chance. Steadying herself by embracing the tides of the dreamscape, she leaned forward just enough for the light of the ceiling fixtures to reflect off of her glasses. “I would like to ask how exactly you know the contents, but I suspect you will not answer.”

“There are ways of reading without seeing.” Redcoat enigmatically answered. “An old stallion must keep his secrets, of course.”

“We shall see.”

“What makes it particularly simple to discern is the small issue that this is as much an interrogation room as it is an office.” Redcoat pointed out, slowly pointing out the limited furnishings and amenities of the tall and wide room with a wandering fore-hoof. “The overly bright lights, the dark paneling of the wall, uncomfortable pads that I doubt you would inflict on any friend of yours, only your desk for furniture, the painfully obvious two-way mirror on the wall that you’ve tried to hide as a portrait mirror. It’s all quite obvious, of course.” He remarked meticulously, twitching his mustache.

Luna bit back a groan, making a mental note to better prepare the room in the future to perfect her dealings with troublesome nobles. “So it is.” She took up her tankard once more to soothe her strained nerves and to quench her throat. Thumping the pewter mug back down, she rattled the marble insets lightly in their places. “There still remains a question of your loyalty.” She whispered darkly, glaring at Redcoat. “I have little to go on in regards to your fealty, given your recent violation.”

“Violation sounds so—callous. An act of curiosity, if you will. If you insist on knowing, I was indeed searching for any further information you might have on the hives. So as to not duplicate efforts, of course.” Redcoat smoothly spun for Luna, twitching his mustache slightly as the onyx-clad princess leaned forward and loomed like an obelisk. He pursed his lips and considered a few more words. “I suppose I shall have to find a different way of finding out in the future.”

“You should have asked. I had no issue with your plans as they originally were. If I had, I would have told thee.” Luna growled, slipping back into her olden accent from irritation as she fought back the urge to properly deal with him. Still too much trouble.

“Then so I shall, in the future.” Redcoat agreed, scribbling in his black notebook via the use of magically applied ink. He looked up from his writing for a second to see if Luna was trying to look over his shoulder, then went back to scribbling for a few more moments. He nodded once, as if satisfied, then shut it with a snap and slid it up against his outfit until it vanished into it seamlessly, disappearing as if it never was. “Is there anything else, your majesty? Or should I walk my trot of shame back to my estate?”

“Nay, nothing else. For now.”

“Very well.” Redcoat carefully stood, bowing again to Luna before walking backwards to the door. He stopped by the small and unadorned portal, smiled again, and spoke a little further. “By the way, nice change of look. How did you know—ah, from my correspondence?”

“Yes. It was a good idea, so I stole it before you could suggest it. Best to ensure the rest of the pack of fools, liars, and mad ponies know exquisitely well that I am not my sister.” Luna graciously replied, nodding.

“It suits you.” Redcoat said, chuckling lightly with Luna at the pun. “It is a well-tailored change.”

“Thank you.” Redcoat half-bowed to her words again, smiling. He swept his hood back over his head as he stood back up, his features all becoming indistinct as the suit began to shimmer. Three little clicks sounded as he clacked his hind-hooves together, and then he vanished. The door opened without his obvious presence, shutting again a moment later.

Luna waited once moment, two, three moments over, then released the yowl of frustration she had been holding in for most of the meeting. A flash of light heralded the teleportation in of a mat to protect her desk shortly before she began banging her head repeatedly against her monolithic desk as she fought her frustration with her erstwhile nemesis. “Annoying, annoying, annoying, stupid, annoying! Annoying!”

Honeydew slipped through the opening secret door by the mirror, concernedly watching Luna futily trying to bash her annoyance out. Mostly worried because she was afraid Luna would need a second mat to protect the tabletop. “He wasn’t that bad, Princess. Positively charming, except for the slimy parts.” She stopped, stepping back slightly when Luna stopped thumping her head and glared at her. Resistance had a half-second’s warning before Honeydew’s rump pushed the door shut again in his face, falling back into the security chamber with a thump and a muffled yelp of pain. “Or, complete scum of the earth, evilest of them all, Tirek Reincarnate.”

Resistance opened the door again and staggered through with two tissues stuffed into the nostrils of his bleeding nose as he walked up to his wife. He leaned on her, then reached up with a wing and lightly bopped her on the back of her head. “Ow! What?”

“Canny old stallion! I don’t know what he was fishing for with me, but he was hardly on the defensive. He found what he was looking for from me, and I don’t think he was looking for information on changelings in the East Wing.” Luna grumbled, speaking viler words under her breath afterwards. She took up her tankard and drained it empty in a few gulps to try and drown her tension. Alas, it could offer her no relief. “What is he looking for? What are we missing?”

“Can’t you just strip him like you threatened and be rid of him? You’ve got cause now.” Honeydew suggested, fidgeting in her new outfit, a prototype new mix between a dress uniform and concealed armor.

“Still more trouble than it’s worth.” Stiff Resistance grumbled, reaching for Luna’s special pot until she batted his hoof away. He looked at her, scrunching his muzzle at her soft head-shake. Okay, then. He pulled over a few of the mats into a proper cushion and dragged his part-thestral mate into a hug on the pile of pillows. “Provided he properly turns over his research and gives up his insider, he’s still useful. He scares the lesser nobles twice as much as he annoys us. He’ll still keep him in line. Add in our little ambush on him, and he’s going to think long and hard before his next move.”

Groaning, Luna resumed her head-desking, muttering out plans as her glasses fell from her face and started bouncing on the desk from her impacts. “Stupid annoying stallion. Stupid ahead of us planning. Stupid crazy ponies. Need to find his objective, need to find his goal. Can’t use Tiberius again, he knows we checked his mail and will be looking over my assets for what did it. Need to—of course, why check on a clerk?” Her aloud musings had been interrupted by her head-bangs until insight stumbled to her. She stopped and teleported in a pen to write with. “We need to find that clerk.”

“He might give us the wrong one.” Resistance pieced together, working through the same plots and plans Luna was developing. “We’ll see through a false accusation fairly quickly, but a delay will give him time to get whatever agent he might be meeting out of the country.” He was already making plans based off of refinements of his plans to check for Celestia escaping the country. He had to figure out what signs might be exhibited by an escaping terrified informant.

“Why not look to see if somepony in the clerk sections or the record-keepers suddenly had problems solved.” Honeydew pieced together for them. “Then we see if they try and leave the country in the next few days and find out what they know.” Luna and Resistance head-tilted at her, catching up with the secret service maid-master. “He mentioned favors, remember? Less criminal charges? One might be getting them out of the country. We can hide that we’ve exchanged them, then afterwards take whoever it was to their destination.”

Luna pointed a hoof at Honeydew, catching on. “Good idea. You and Resistance work on that, and also make sure he wasn’t planting things in the archives. I can handle hiding our switch.” A small pocket watch sounded in her suit, reminding her of the time. “After I get with Twilight. I trust you can handle damage control, right?”

Author's Note

*She has yet to show her.

*The scariest thing in the world is not the slimy politician who while dirty and muck-racking as all get out in his attempts to get an edge. No, far more terrifying is the politician who believes himself good, who resists almost all forms of bribery and who righteously crusades for his cause. You can always count on the sleeze to sleeze, and can eventually shut him down. The crusading stallion, the one who uses the tactics of a righteous pony of harmony? You never know when he's going to do something incredibly--stupid.

*There is a trick to avoiding your records clerks getting bright ideas. It's called not paying them the absolute least that you can. As it turns out, if you actually pay somepony decently, they're far more likely to be loyal to the job and employer than if you constantly screw them over. They're also less likely to do something incredibly stupid, so you be doing so.

*To suggest that Redcoat might be unfavorably compared to a weasel or worm is still a great injustice. To the animals, that is. Both of them still retain more of a spine and structure than him in his crusade to make Equestria an even stronger Hegemony. At the same time, despite being spineless, Redcoat possesses enough coolant for blood to remain icy to the touch even on the surface of the sun.

5.Suspicions

5-Suspicion

“And that’s that, Sunbeam. We’re done.” Twilight finished with a flourish of her pen, marking the last name block with an exaggerated period at the end of a long, long form. The small library table was flanked by her, and a sentient mass of paperwork lying flat on the ground that had once been known as Sunbeam, who sighed beneath her fibrous tomb of ink and paper, snorting. Really rather over-dramatic, it was only a couple of hours of paperwork, just because it had collapsed on her was no reason to make a scene. “See, that wasn’t so bad. It only took us five hours to complete, not counting your little break with Princess Luna.”

“My paper cuts have paper cuts.” Complained the sentient pile of paperwork as the mare within it pretended to be eaten by the drudgery.

Twilight smiled, cheerfully beaming at her assistant despite the mare’s Rarity-like hysterics. She had only been sliced a few dozen times, and not even that badly! Twilight could still recall the times she had gotten paper cuts on her eyes, nose, and lips when a loose leaf stack had fallen over on her. “I would have thought the aloe-lined band-aids would have helped.” Twilight pointed out helpfully, earning a tired groan from her trapped companion.

She started humming to herself, a variation of the infamous ‘winter-wrap-up’ song that always got stuck in her head when cleaning up after paperwork. For that matter, she usually got it stuck in every-pony else’s heads as well, and they would complain about for a week afterwards every time, which was silly—it was a great song. Sunbeam groaned once more, twitching her mummified hooves as she was slowly freed from her self-made disaster by Twilight as the young princess sorted out the paperwork. It was only a few dozen paper cuts! She didn’t need so many band-aids.

Instead of being relieved at the reprieve of her fate, Sunbeam just forlornly sighed and let her chin flop down with the rest of her head to lie between her forelegs. Twilight bumped her on the shoulder, feeling awkward from the sad look on her face. “Everything will be fine! I’m sure it was more about how you might react to certain things than some kind of inquisition.” She felt like she should watch for Pinkie for a moment. “It was probably just a secret test of character, I think.” It would explain some of the odder questions.

Sunbeam moaned again, fluttering her wings by her sides. “Did it have to be so thorough?” Why did she sound so sad? They mostly cared about completion, rather than any specific results.

“Well, I suppose so. Ponyvile has a pretty good track record, so they were probably just making sure you’re not a threat to the foals.” Twilight suggested as she sorted through the paperwork further and put it swiftly into the properly itemized triplicate order. It had been a hard-won completion of paperwork. Given the trouble Sunbeam had gone through when answering questions about her foal-hood, and the oddly sad and distant looks she had through most of that section, it had probably just dredged up old memories of loss.

Why did she have such troubles with answering questions about her foal-hood, anyway? All her answers were so evasive, so hesitant, so much less boisterous than her normal personality. Sunbeam’s issues almost reminded Twilight of the difficulty Applejack had in describing her own parents. Sure, the tragedy around her sister Moonstar was rather sad, but—No. No, no. It couldn’t be-

A repeated insistence on the part of the Crusaders vaguely drifted to the surface of her thoughts. Talk of a sisterly bond with Luna, even though she couldn’t ever remember Luna mentioning Sunbeam before her mentor had come down to Ponyvile. She was pretty sure Sunbeam wasn’t the type somepony just forgot to mention. The name, and the cutie mark, the alleged sister she was sure Sunbeam had never mentioned before, her spell-song abilities, the way Berry looked at her a few times like a pony who had been slapped with a fish by a griffon.

Twilight snapped out of her sudden introspection as Sunbeam poked her in the side. She blinked as she realized she had been sorting the papers over and over again, achieving a mathematical perfection of stacking that had the papers tightly enough stacked to look like a giant solid paper-block monolith. Right, distraction. “Say, why don’t you go out and get something to eat? We’re done here, and I can send this stuff on tomorrow, and I have my appointment with—“

“-Date With-“

“—Date with Luna.” Twilight corrected herself, blushing as she realized again what she had agreed to. Shake-shake-shake! No, it was a serious scientific expedition, survey, and further exploration of the stars, with food! And a bigger alicorn who represented her love of the stars in physical form and her love of magic who was smartly dressed and in—Wow, when she internally monologue’d, it sounded like one great big denial. Which was silly, because she was in a crush. “I need to go and get cleaned up for the d—I need to clean up the tree, wait, fortress. So that it’s presentable for Princess Luna’s inspection.”

“Uh, huuuh.” Sunbeam winked as she stood up. Small hisses escaped the pegasus as she danced on her paper-lacerated hooves. “Say no more. I’ll get out of you two lovebird’s mane’s.” Sunbeam suggested, flicking her tail lightly as she did, making her ex-student splutter. “Tell me how it goes, have fun, kissy-kissy lots.”

Twilight spluttered to herself as Sunbeam sauntered out at a brisk trot while shutting the door to the small library behind her. She was not some love-struck foal who was freaking out over some silly crush dating her like a super-mare! She could prove it by thinking of Luna in an entirely unromantic way! Just because she was a tall alicorn who was wearing a suit so dark that it glittered like the depths of space, representing her character with neatness and precision that culminated in a straight-cut mane with neat little trimmed bangs pinned in place by a set of glasses which were probably enchanted with ways of letting her look at all her paperwork at once so as—why were her cheeks so hot? Had she been drinking hot sauce aga- oh, no. She was going full Spike. She was never supposed to go full Spike, it was a very silly condition.

No, stop! Considerations of romantic conditions were supposed to come after practical affairs were taken care of! The silly, stupid idea that Sunbeam might be her mentor was going to eat her mind up with paranoid plots until she knew one way or another, and there was no way to tell for sure whether it was true or not! It wasn’t as if she could somehow examine Sunbeam and prove she was Celestia! Any spell would have to be nearly physically perfect, with some way of making morphological changes while somehow projecting a Celestia to avoid detection! The only way to tell would be to-

She already had the results, didn’t she? The recording charts from the thaumatoscope, and comparison tapes of Rainbow Dash, herself, and Rarity. Alicorns were a completely different race, their biological thaumic patterns would show distinct tell-tale signs! Twilight carefully scooted away from the perfectly stacked paperwork, focusing inwards as she wondered if maybe she didn’t want to know. No, stop! She had to! Locking out her doubts and potential romantic feelings which were most certainly not romantic feelings, and some niggling words from Luna, she teleported out of the small side-library to her barren and yet to be furnished office.

Popping back into the universe from her teleport, she looked around the room for the tubes holding the records from the earlier recording sessions. Her office was deep in the interior of the tree, windowless but spacious enough for a great deal of furnishings. Not that she had any yet, save for her desk, because she was too busy being busy with Ponyvile, and she needed to stick to her plan one day so she could fix it up. But that was okay, as it left plenty of room for her to store the records from her thaumatoscope. And the giant pile of paperwork that the nobles wanted her to sign, but they could all go screw themselves until she talked with Luna.

Twilight smiled as she spotted the eight tubes and hopped over her low desk to them, snapping the first one’s seals with an eager twist of magic applied to the end. She had some force-pins to stick them magically to the wall, where were they? Oh, right, her desk! In the Golden Oaks, which was now ashes and splinters. Just mem-

No, she couldn’t handle that yet, it was still too soon. With a sweep of her wing, she cleared the non-existent dust from her desk and laid the first records out flat. Oh hey, Berry’s! Wow, it was so strange, so alien! Where a normal pony would have synchronized rhythms of magic pulses, Berry’s was so noisy and scattered as to nearly drown out any signs of a pattern. And even if it was there, it seemed so alien to her; a gnarled sorting of peaks and waves that she found hard-pressed to pick discernable activity out of. There was one fairly clear pattern out of all of the mess, the line that measured the brain’s interaction with the body’s biologically generated magic fields. Where a normal pony’s reading would be a slow and steady harmonic sine wave with varying amounts of noise; Berry’s was strange, a pattern that was modulated into lingering noisy peaks before suddenly cutting down to bare minimum in a single second to bumble along at the bottom of her thaumatoscope’s sensor range.

No, no, Berry was interesting, but she needed to find two in particular! She wrapped Berry’s scan-sheet back up and stuck it back in its tube for later inspection, then pulled the next out of the neat stack. Whipping the record out, she checked the label and felt a little drop of disappointment in her heart. Drat, Rarity's. Interesting, though. It had a similar peculiar set of patterns to ones she had seen on her own records as a foal. Most of the scans were at a lower pattern and pulse than hers had ever been, but the lines that recorded the activity in the fine motor-control of magic auras and a few others related to it were raised higher than her own and pulsed more rapidly. Fair enough, pretty standard.

No. Interesting, but no. She needed to stop distracting herself with irrelevant data. Popping the next seal after storing Rarity’s graphs, she groaned aloud as she found Dash’s readout. An alien spray of squiggles, but there was a reason to the madness. It was strong overall, with several rapid-fire cadences of beats within the readings. The pattern that showed the biological production of magic in particular had a strong and clear rhythm of beats, an almost watch-like churning that made sense given the need of pegasi to produce magic constantly to maintain altitude on long flights. Unicorns produced magic at a rate slower and less steady, but stored more in several specialized organs given the race’s predilection for instantaneous feats instead of feats over time.

Snorting in frustration for a second, Twilight wondered if Sunbeam had already stolen away her records. No, she hadn’t shown any signs of that. Well, seeing a pegasus’s pattern was useful for being able to further differentiate an alicorn’s. Not all wasted.

Twilight checked the next one, and carefully withdrew her own records. There was a bit of noise in the beginning and the ends of the graphs, caused by her fight-or-flight reflexes spiking her magic usage, but enough of it was clear to get a good feel for an alicorn’s beats. There, emblazoned for all the world to see, were the strong spikes of energy from her youth, the nearly perfect and noiseless patterns of the harmonic brain/magic correlator, the perfect timing matches from her biological rhythms. Not even Dash’s rhythms had been so well matched. But, wait—she thought back to Dash's, and realized in a moment that what she had once thought to be noise upon her old graphs might not have been at all. They were tiny spikes of Pegasus and what she presumed to be earth pony magic.

With her ascension, those old squiggles had transformed from tiny squiggles interrupting the clear harmonics into full-fledged secondary patterns that were carefully and clearly aligned into a set of resonating frequencies, all reverberating and pulsing together. Rapid-fire pulses of energy all coalescing together into resonant patterns of magic that all supported and probably strengthened one another. It was strange, her internal production resembled Dash’s, her capacity and the output pathways looked strange as well, not even counting the completely alien scribbles from her wings that her poor instruments didn’t even know what to do with. There was a deep and powerful pulse beneath her tickovers, maybe earth pony magic resonations? She could see a clear set of peaks after her standard unicorn magic signatures, which was probably the earth pony high magic component; but there was an overall pattern of energy pulsing, almost indiscernible, that rose and fell several times over the course of her recordings, faint, but pulling all the energies up before slowly departing again and repeating. Almost resembling the faster perfect harmonic sine pulse from her mind/magic transfer.

She pulled her friend’s charts back out to compare them. The slow pulse was far weaker in both of their charts, but was still faintly there. Stranger still was the slight noise for both of them, fainter than her own childhood ‘noise’ rhythms, but still there—out of sync. Theirs didn’t resonate, instead clashing and driving up the noise ratio, their strange outliers only becoming properly visible as miniscule peaks in the troughs of their low-power states. Similarities, similarities with her old lines. Thinking back, she recalled ever so slightly that her own ‘noise’ had always been resonating well with her magic. Could it have been precursor patterns, maybe magic transmitted back from her current state, or a hint that she could have gone alicorn? No-wait…

She set all the records aside and grabbed the three sets bundled together. They had to be the crusaders. A little delay couldn’t hurt, not if her new suspicions were correct. She had a few minutes still. She popped the seals on the trio’s records and laid them out carefully in comparison to her own on the floor. But—the records couldn’t be right, could it be contami-no, residual localized leakage required them to be hugging each other. But the noise, the resonances, they so resembled her old—

Twilight’s eyes widened as her breath hitched ever so slightly. No, but yes. Outside of the strong peaks of their racial lines—Applebloom’s confirming her suspicions on the earth pony waveform—there were clear lesser, somewhat resonant peaks. Faint, hidden among the odd general clutter of their readings, but the peaks were there, almost in the same resonance as her current ones. The racial patterns were all clear when she knew what to look for.

No, no! She couldn’t tell them! They’d try to figure out the spell, and either kill themselves, go mad, or if Discord was willing—actually succeed. Then all Tartarus would break loose. If the nobles found out, they’d be all over the poor fillies in a heartbeat. She couldn’t tell any-pony—not their sisters or would-be family, especially not them, and maybe not even Luna. No, they’d talk, they’d know, they’d—she had to hide the evidence.

But—if they had such strong patterns, how could they not have their cutie marks yet from something, anything? She had her cutie mark at their age. Was it, no, maybe Dash’s first Rainboom acted as a carrier wave to make it easier for her. That had to be it, their resonance simply made it harder for her. The odd modulation in their mind/magic line was just a side-effect of not having their cutie marks yet. They’d still get them, and then everything would be fine when they were settled down with something unambitious and not world changing so they wouldn’t become mad alicorns of chaos.

--Somewhere else, Applebloom wondered why she sneezed so suddenly. She was wearing proper protection from the fumes that the welder she was helping Scootaloo operate, so what gave? Scootaloo just thumped her for a little more energy from the magic potion tank to keep welding the structural frame.—

Twilight looked around, a paranoid corner of her mind thinking that she might already be under watch. No, no more speculation, she needed to hide the evidence where she could look at it later. Stuffing the records roughly—for her—back into their tubes, she teleported them up to a secret compartment in her room; she needed to spend tomorrow night looking at them. No need for any noble, or Sunbeamy-lestia, or Luna, or ugh, Rarity to find out. No need at all, nope. That only left the last one. Did she dare open it? Dare to know, and find out if her mentor was lying to her like she clearly wouldn’t? Or did she dare to destroy it? Luna’s words about Celestia’s mental state whispered sillibantly in her mind, worming like a serpent into her mind to plant a seed of doubt. Wreck, nervous break, overworked, like me before my nightmare, not quite right in the head.

It was like the Crystal Box, only there was no castle special prize inside. So be it. The seal popped off, and she let gravity start to do the work, no need for her to sully her hooves with the knowledge. But she stopped with the results less than a third of the way out of the tube, her hoof holding it from passing any further. She could see the firm presses of the recording needles where they nearly ripped through the sheet; presses bouncing off the upper bounds of every visible category like a seismograph reading in the middle of a cataclysmic earthquake.

Paper slid back into its tubular home again, then fell into darkness as the cap was sealed tight and magically fused shut and warded against opening, then found itself lost in the secret armory of the old Everfree Castle.

She was too afraid to know.

Author's Note

Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!

*insert Dash.jpg here*

5.7

5.7

Luna rang the doorbell of the Fortress of Friendship once more. This time, it was not the lower door, but the upper, and despite being in a different note the tune of the joyously ringing bells continued to remind her of music for the soul. Fluttershy would be so awkwardly proud and terrified if she heard the great crystal tree ringing with her notes. Prouderified? Terrioud? Nervouscited? It didn’t matter beneath the rising stars of evening and the setting sun of day, she stood upon the receiving balcony and held down the door bell button so that the music continue onwards. Onwards, and outwards, lifting the spirits of all in Ponyvile and beyond. A tune calling out that Harmony was alive and well and would watch over them all tonight.

The pop of displaced air above didn’t stop Luna, nor did Twilight gliding down from above with the oddest expression on the frazzled young princess’s face. Worry, relief, pangs of what looked like betrayal, and a twitching mass of heart-aching confusion. She skidded to a halt at Luna’s side, skipping several times as her hooves caught on the semi-slick crystal of the deck. “Luna, stop ringing the door bell! It makes the whole building ring!”

“Wouldn’t you want such joy?” The oblivious alicorn rhetorically asked as she basked in the all-encompassing sound that lifted her spirits up. If she had paid attention, she might have noticed how the decking beneath her hooves clattered. “Doesn’t it remind you of the joys of companionship, or ease your heart? How wonderful, then, to know that it so courteously brings that joy to all within! Mor-“

“No, I mean it is quite nice, wait—I mean the whole building literally rings! Giant tree-shaped crystal bell! You’re deafening every-pony in Ponyvile and waking up all the foals!” Twilight frantically corrected as the music suckered her in for a moment. She shook her whole body to clear the lethargy creeping up on her, and slapped Luna’s hoof away from the button.

“Oh.” Now Luna just felt like an utter twit. There was a limit to how much joyousness a pony could take before they grew fed up with it all and their head exploded. Probably. She might be exaggerating the effects slightly. Having the titanic tree-castle at the end of the lane ringing like a bell at eight after the noon would probably qualify as such a limit, especially if it started happening on a regular basis. Right, so stay away from the happy fun door bell. Luna sheepishly backed away from her temptation, chuckling nervously. “It is a good bell.”

“I heard it the first time.” Twilight grumpily retorted as she sat down beside Luna. She had a distraught air to her movements as she fidgeted in place, her wing-tips constantly moving in agitation as her fore-hooves clip-clopped against the crystal decking constantly whilst she looked over her guest. Luna had ditched the ill-fitting pants, letting herself walk without a—what was it called—ah, without a ‘wedgie’ as it was called by the minotaurs. “Um, thanks for liking it so much. I guess. Did-“

Luna shrugged. “The pants were not Rarity’s best work. I think she was a little over-zealous in its tightness.” The diarch jerked her head towards the door. “May I come in?” While the night air was wonderful as the early winds swirled around them, she was really looking forwards to stalking the halls and exploring a strange new castle. Who knew, maybe they might find secret traps and chambers within! Her sister had been so boring with the new castle in Canterlot sometimes.

“Oh! Sure!” Twilight randomly gestured and/or flailed in the direction of the elegant crystal doors, still unnerved about whatever had happened since Luna had last seen her a scant few hours before. “Sure, let me just open that for-“ Twilight jerked on the handle with her magic, rebounding as the doors failed to open, “-you?” Luna smirked as Twilight scowled at her doors and prepared to do battle with the reluctant portal.

First, Twilight ran up and grabbed the ornate handle in her mouth, pulling and tugging outwards with it like a dog might tug at a rope. Luna scooted over to one side as the purple alicorn’s skidding hooves sliding against the crystal decking slowly wagged her back and forth in front of the door as she pulled; funny, the door was set rather far into the frame to open outwards. Twilight spat the handle back out and grabbed it with her magic again, jerking her head back again and again to try and yank it free of whatever obstruction was holding it in place as she growled with each yank. As the young alicorn’s eloquent and thoughtful insights into the design of the portal and its décor grew sharper, Luna leaned in to look at its sister, paying close attention to the seam between the two halves of the set and what lay on their other side; after a minute or two, Twilight’s commentary had passed in favor of spluttering indignation and curses whilst Luna noticed a rather irritating little complication just behind the doors.

Twilight ground her hooves into the deck and pulled with enough force to make her glowing horn bend, enough force to send an Ursa Major flying over the horizon as she started sliding back towards the doorway once more from the interaction of her leverage against the handle. Luna giggled into her hoof as the muttered expletives transformed into grand rants on the lineage of the door and poxes out to the hundredth descendant yet to come from its design as Twilight planted her fore-hooves against the frame and pulled again. Right, time to let her stop embarrassing herself.

Putting a hoof on Twilight’s horn, Luna extinguished the magic with a single touch as she shushed into the young alicorn’s ear. “Be easy Twilight.”

“Not until I get this door open!”

“Twilight, you won’t open it this way.”

“What?”

“Just so that you might know, the door is barred.”

“What!?”

“Also, I think this style of door pushes in normally.” Best just to save the worst for last, the build-up to it gave time for a pony to get used to the embarrassment of failure.

Twilight yowled aloud for a moment, kicking the obstinate door in frustration. Then again, saving the worst for last could just make it worse. Yelping, Twilight dropped to her side and curled up into a ball to hold the hoof she kicked with until the pain went away, uncaring that Luna was watching on. Gradually, Twilight’s muttered curses and grumbles of pain faded away into a general groan of annoyance as she laid on her side, staring into Luna’s gathered hooves as the night alicorn stood just beside her. Each of her hooves shuddered as she forced the pain away, and Luna bent down to crouch beside her.

“Shall I take it that you’re not alright? I can come back tomorrow if something has you stressed.”

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” Twilight hastily chanted as she rolled back to her hooves. She pranced in place, rubbing her aching hoof against the decking as she began charging her aura. “Just let me teleport in to get the door!” She stalled, glaring at the door with irritation. She was almost certain it opened outwards just a week or two ago, but the last time she had been through it had been on the day of Sweetie’s flare. Nothing to it, just time to make good on her word.

She teleported out successfully enough, but instead of appearing where she was supposed to she was rebounded back by a surprise ward within the walls, blasting back into the universe just over Luna’s head in a small explosion of magic from the backlash. She was quite well done from the heat, and instantly frizzled in the second before cruel gravity had her mischievous way and dropped her upon her guest’s back. Coughing out a bit of soot from her mishap, Twilight brushed some of the burnt layer of hair from her face as she gaped at her house. “What? WHY!?”

Levitating Twilight up and setting her to one side, Luna arose from beneath her royal burden. There was enough of a gap to fit, she’d squeezed through worse. “May I, Twilight?” She suggested, pointing at the crack between the doors with her hoof. Twilight just threw her hooves up in frustration; grunting her assent as she flopped flat to mope at how frustrating life, the universe, her secrets, and everything was being to her. She just wanted to get away from it all: away from the secrets she would be keeping, away from the nobles and especially Redcoat when he finally came down to pay his ‘respects’, away from the stupid new ‘Fortress of Friendship’ and back in her old home, away from it all. She was so busy just letting her frustrations run over her that she almost missed Luna transforming into a veil of smoke before her eyes.

Now THAT was something that she didn’t want to get away from. She had seen it before, when Luna had been Nightmare Moon. But, it had been an aspect of the nightmare force, right? Did it matter? No, probably not as Luna’s mystic misty form wrapped around her and caressed her with a col, tingly touch before slipping away and through the crack between the sides of the set of doors. A small flash of light flickered through that tiny gap as Luna reformed, but Twilight didn’t really see it. She was still sitting there, dumbfounded, when Luna opened the doors and stepped back through. “What, did you forget I could do that?”

New knowledge? “Teach me!” Twilight proclaimed as she tried to dive for Luna’s hooves, only to be stopped by the elder alicorn’s aura as it levitated her.

“No, stop!” Luna protested as she held Twilight’s wriggling form. “Not until you tell me what has you so stressed!” That stopped Twilight, who hung limply in the telekinetic field and sighed. “Come now, I can tell, don’t say that you’re not. Your mane is completely frazzled, you’re making simple mistakes, and you’re showing all the other signs of being unable to cope with something that my sister warned me about. Stop trying to distract me, what’s wrong?” Luna drew Twilight away from the door, leaving it open behind her as she floated Twilight over to the balcony and set her beside it looking out.

“Nothing is wrong!”

“You twitched, and you forget that I once bore the Element of Honesty.” Luna frowned, then hugged Twilight with her wing again, hoping to use the same strange effect the embrace had earlier to snap the young princess out of her funk. “You weren’t like this a few hours ago.” Luna hugged tighter, watching the spread of the remarkable pinkish glow in Twilight’s fur as the embrace took effect. Just for added fuzzy feelings, she reached down and carefully booped Twilight’s nose with a hoof. “You are stressed, stressed beyond compare. My sister is out upon an impulsive vacation from her stress; I’m not going to lose you to it as well. I care about you just as much as I do her, maybe even more. Spill.”

“N-nothing! I mean it!”

“Lying.” Boop. “You’re stressed and frazzled, it happened sometime in the last few hours.” Redcoat never reappeared after his departure, and he certainly hadn’t been in her office. She was pretty sure he wasn’t still in her office, thought she didn’t yet have the same wards up as in the hall. It would be easy for him to come down to Ponyvile. “Did a noble bother you again? Maybe Duke Redcoat? He’s been up to something.”

Luna’s hoof hovered in front of Twilight’s nose, making her cross-eyed as she stared at it. “What? No, no. It’s-it’s nothing.” Twilight fidgeted for a moment, trying to look away from Luna’s concern before she was mercilessly nose-booped again and had her gaze turned back to the lunar alicorn. “Alright, I promised myself I wouldn’t tell!” She tried to look away again, and found herself booped and captivated once more.

“That seems like a rather silly thing to do if it effects you so. Friends are supposed to support you, after all.” Luna carefully admonished, ruffling Twilight’s back and side with a shuffle of her wing. “So, it isn’t about nobles. Did you find something, perchance?”

Twilight shook her head. “It isn’t the kind of secrets you tell friends. It’s the kind that-“ Twilight struggled for words, “-involves running, and screaming, and trying to get away from the trouble. If I tell some-pony, they might tell some-pony else, and then it’ll all happen, and everything will go wrong.” Twilight’s worries trailed off into weak squeaks more suited for coming out of Fluttershy as her eyes watered slightly. She tried to look away once again, and was again booped affectionately upon the nose by Luna’s hoof.

“No, none of that. I shan’t allow such doubts.” Luna let Twilight’s gaze wander out over Ponyvile and studiously noted the particular sights Twilight was doing her best to avoid. Three sites in particular, how curious. Secrets, plural. Possibly her sister, but she suspected three more. Best to find out what exactly. “Something you learned in the past three or four hours, then? Something that has shaken your faith?”

“Maybe?”

Joyous. A heart broken of its views and left to fester could be a most terrible thing, after all. Adrift, alone, and afraid, a heart left to believe that it had been deemed unworthy or unfitting could collapse in on itself. Ponies needed to believe that others believed in them; they needed to believe that they had worth in the world, that they could be trusted. Like the framework of a house, that self-worth supported the whole structure; all it took was a single nagging doubt, or a careless word at the wrong time, or a mis-timed deed to undo the whole thing like a house without a foundation stone. So too, had her sister accidentally bungled her escape. AGAIN.

Instead of convincing Twilight that she trusted her to do the right thing and report her, it seemed Twilight had come to think that Celestia thought ill of her. “My sister?”

“No. Yes? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Sort of.” Twilight looked away from the glimmering night-time vista of Ponyvile, and found herself righteously booped once more. “Gah, stop!”

“You do know that she trusts you too much, right?” Luna told her quietly, resting her head atop Twilight’s own to let the comfort of her presence reassure her. “She trusts that you will do the right thing and report her. Which is a problem for her, because she is trying to do the wrong thing.” Luna slowly shifted over, letting her warmth soak through to Twilight as the general nervous ticks in the young alicorn’s body-motion eased away. She also booped Twilight’s nose again, to be rewarded with a wing-swat to her hoof.

“Why?”

“What? The wrong thing? I’ll explain later. But she is—impulsive at heart. She means well, but this is the first chance for her in a long while to truly relax and let all of her worries go.” Luna whispered the last part into Twilight’s ears quietly. Carefully stroking with her chin sideways up against an ear, Luna slowly calmed her as she put the broken corner-stone of Twilight’s self-worth back together again. “She trusts you. Perhaps it would be a good time to take up faith.”

“What?” Boop! “No, I’m not moping! Stop doing that!” Twilight complained as she tried to fight off the viscous nose-boop with a shield of magic, only to be booped again by a tendril of magic materializing inside of her shield.

“Have faith. Faith that things will turn out as they should.” Luna cryptically continued as she slowly wrapped her wing around Twilight’s front and gave her attention from that direction, leaving only the purple alicorn’s head unwrapped. “Faith in yourself, faith that you will persevere. Faith that Sunbeam will tell you what you really need to know in time, when she’s ready to.” It felt good to feel Twilight slump against her, to lean against her and let her take solace in the embrace.

“So she is, then.” Twilight sadly said as she let her head slump over the support of Luna’s wing and sighed.

“I can’t really say anymore. What Sunbeam knows of Celestia is hers to tell, not my own.”

“Can’t say, or won’t sa-“

“Boop!” And Twilight was booped.

Twilight straightened in Luna’s grasp. “That’s not an ans-“

“Boop!” And Twilight was further slain by the boop. But she wasn’t breaking down into ticklish giggles like Celestia and Twilight Velvet had told of in their stories. Curious.

“Stop that!”

“Boop!”

“Gyah!” Twilight scrunched and flailed rather sillily with her hooves for a few moments. She held off the boops valiantly until her outstretched legs tired and provided an opening for the mad booper to boop once more.

“Boop! The boops will continue until you tell me what else is bothering you.” Luna forewarned, holding a hoof up to strike with horrible, tickling, embarrassing booping force.

“I can’t! There isn’t any more!”

“Boop!” This was getting rather silly. Luna laughed at the utter ridiculousness of the action, not maliciously, but light and hearty laughter of some-pony struck by how mad her relationships were. “You said secrets. Plural! You said running, and screaming. Worries about Celestia and Sunbeam wouldn’t cause that, the running and screaming from silly ponies much too enamored of my overrated sister is pretty much over.” Luna settled her head down onto Twilight’s own, trapping her between a fluffy head atop and a grasping fluffy wing beneath. “So, something society-shaking then. You wouldn’t be worried about a natural disaster you could do something about.”

“No! Yes, uh—maybe?”

“Boop!”

“Hey!”

“You’re making less sense than before. I wonder, do fuzzy cuddles have an adverse effect on the mind? Boop!” Luna could feel the sudden bloom of warmth as Twilight rethought her position. When the alicorn started squirming in place a little, Luna began to almost purr into the back of her head. “I noticed your gaze earlier. The crusaders, then.”

“Maybe?” Twilight timidly answered, still overwhelmed a little. It felt oddly right to be swallowed up by the warmth of Luna’s embrace, and it was getting hard to remain focused on not telling her anything.

“Hmm. So, you discovered their secret research to help them develop means of tracking down and capturing my sister so they can earn their cutie marks?” Luna concluded, ceasing her bomb-boop-ment. Twilight boggled a little at the revelation, her wings spreading slightly against Luna’s own in shock. “They’re trying to build some mad ship of the skies.”

“I-but-I, what?”

“Oh.” Twilight didn’t know then. What could—oh dear. “Oh, oh dear. They’re all more powerful than my sister thought?” Luna felt Twilight nervously nod her head against her neck. Celestia already had wild fantasies about their powers. The wild magic incident had been frightening enough from the reports, but if they were all like that it was indeed much worse; if they were all like that then they would become something terrifying indeed. “You’re afraid that someone will force a—uh, you out of them, then.” Nod. “Three more claimants to the throne, young enough to be manipulated and tricked would be a big problem indeed. Lots of running and screaming, then.”

Twilight chuckled nervously beneath Luna, huffing out a last chuckle before squeezing her head out from under Luna’s to rest her chin on the knees of her fore-legs. Luna got it. “So, can you not tell them?”

“I, Luna Morningstar shall do my reasonable utmost to keep the true nature of the ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ from the knowledge of any-pony I speak to; Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my-OW!” That smarted. Why on her sister’s good earth did Pinkie have the bright idea of a final part of her promise that involved a hoof to eye action? At least Twilight found it hilarious after her righteous boop-age. “Not funny. It stings.”

“I do it to myself every freaking time.”

“Oh.”

“So, crazy magic airship research?” Twilight asked, eager to change the subject. “And don’t forget you need to teach me your trick.”

Chuckling, Luna slowly unwrapped her wings from around Twilight, to the small alicorn’s disappointment. It seemed the events of a few days prior were turning into an odd comedy that kept on giving. “Yes, so I shouldn’t. But I probably will.” Twilight pouted a little, only a little; she knew better than expect some-pony to just give up a special spell like that. And she certainly wasn’t feeling strange in her chest over the increased distance between them. “Yes, crazy magic airship research. Why did you think I cut my mane?”

“Change of style?”

“Well yes, but no.”

“I’m confused.” Beat. “Uh, more now. I was already confused.”

Luna looked towards Sweet Apple Acres, and the crusader’s not-so-secret laboratory there. It was still worth it. She actually owed them a bit of thanks. “They hit me in the head with a zap apple whilst testing a new engine that pulls air through it with pegasus magic for holding up heavier than air airships.” Luna explained, smiling at the mad genius of the device, provided they could it to produce thrust. Twilight followed her gaze, uncertain of the context. “Well, less testing it and more playing with the cool machine that made funny noises. They had it turned around and were launching objects through it.”

Confusion turned to outrage as Twilight remembered the lesson Celestia had very carefully taught her after her ascension and the unfortunate accident that led to it. “That’s unsafe! What were they thinking, aiming an experimental device at some-pony and launching objects through it instead of using proper safety precautions!? That’s mean. Mean and careless!”

“By hit me, I mean ‘knocked me off my hooves on my tower’s balcony. With a shot fired from Sweet Apple Acres.’ They were using the peak of Mt. Canter as an alignment point for getting everything straightened before welding together the assembly of the device.”

Gobble.

“Yes, that was about my reaction as well when I carefully confronted their nightmares that I would send them to the moon. Understandable, but silly. I had to calm their fears without letting them know I knew. They also might have caused the avalanche, it happened the next day.”

Careful geometry equations clashed with estimations of atmospheric drag on the beads of Twilight’s mental abacus as she took into account various factors, including the spells that magnified their images from medium to long range to allow them to be seen across a distance 200 miles in diameter. Sweet Apple Acres was probably around 40 miles away from the capital, she didn’t have the precise calculations. But even the rough figure, combined with the extreme ballistic arc needed for an object with an apple’s mass to avoid atmospheric drag and the speeds required to achieve it was—excessive. “Are you sure, because if they did, then they would-“

“Yes.”

“But the-“

“I am aware.”

“They scare me. More than before, that is.”

“Yes indeed. I half-expect to find out that they turned into alicorns overnight.” Twilight and Luna both nervously laughed at the tall mare’s joke. It did disturbingly seem to be possible. It was silly, and probably wouldn’t happen. Who cared if they had all the signs of proto-alicorns, what was the chance of three ponies being in the same place all at once, friends, and all getting the perfect chance for them to ascend? Nonsense, couldn’t happen.

Would probably happen. Luna inwardly sighed in frustration. It was a one in a million chance. More. Probably a one in a trillion chance, which was just as good as a one in a million chance for just so happening to happen. She’d have to make plans, alert Captain Berry to watch out for Redcoat, and drink lots more coffee when the inevitable chance happened. “Don’t worry, Twilight. They’ll be fine.” Probably. “But, I think we have dallied long enough upon your doorstep. Shall we plumb yonder labyrinth for our prize?” Luna gestured with a swept wing back towards the Fortress of Friendship, turning around to- “There was a door there. Just a minute ago!”

In a hidden control room tucked far away from any place a sane pony might look, a fiendish villainess cackled beneath the light of a dozen flickering monitors showing her the feeds from the security spells hidden about the castle. Not that she meant any harm, she merely wished to share the ‘joy’ that her clueless match-making friend had inflicted upon her. Revenge was not something that Rarity—MAD FASHION MISTRESS OF PONYVILE—took lightly, but for the insult of attempting to ruin her waist line, Twilight Sparkle would pay. Her revenge would not be petty, oh no, for Rarity did not do petty. She did FABULOUS!

So, she would subject Twilight and her date to every romantic cliché under the sun and moon; she would make the two fall in love so madly that the merest mention of one another’s name would send the other into stammering fits of romantic embarrassment; she would drive them into one another’s hooves and skip them down to the altar herself, and when the time came, she would whisper to them that everything proceeded according to her plan! No, her revenge would be the stuff of legends! Also, possibly cheesy romance novels. Mmm, that did sound like an excellent idea for a story.

Oh yes, an excellent story indeed, but first she needed to inflict a lovely moon light flight upon them, followed by a romantic dinner that would leave them groaning and clutching their tummies while begging her to refit their clothes. Oh, yes. Get her fat, would they? She’d show them all! “Spike, oh Spike? Where exactly is the button to teleport food about the castle? We have a romantic spaghetti and bread-ball dinner that needs to be in the observatory immediately! Romantic revenge must be delicious and on time!” She did not get petty revenge, but she did cackle evilly enough that even Discord and Tirek themselves might get chills from the sound.

“No idea. Don’t you think you’re getting a little out of hoof with this revenge plot? Wait, here it is.” Spike shouted over the tumult of cackling as he slapped the button in the dimly and flickering light of the cramped control booth. Another set of screens lit up upon the board before him, drowning out the darkness and startling him backwards into the soft curve of Rarity’s back. The two turned about to look at each other, both of them feeling a slight yearning to spend more time together before the flutter of wings on the sound feed of a monitor broke the spell between them.

They straightened up, blushing a bit as the remembered not to do anything yet. Twisting and turning knobs and dials, Spike flipped through the various cameras of the castle until he had his row of monitors focused in on the observatory tower. Little shifts and tweaks adjusted the cameras to focus in on an alcove back behind the telescope. A cozy place, intimate and remote. The small table between the wall benches had just enough space for the white table-cloth to appear beneath the place settings, enough space for the platter to arrive atop it practically buried in spaghetti and bread-balls. Stately dinnerware materialized at either place-settings, a sextet of candles dropped from hidden openings and lit themselves to cast a flickering romantic light upon the scene as the observatory shutters retracted to bathe the room in the light of the rising moon and stars.

Rarity cranked on a grand adjustment wheel, aligning the telescope with the moon as the pair of alicorns lofted themselves higher into the air as they coasted around the Fortress of Friendship. Spike straightened her mane with his claws as she sat back. “Hey, Rarity, do we really have to get your revenge with a—romantic dinner and starlit evening? It seems kind of silly, don’t you think? It was just a suggested chocolate shake.”

“No, it was cliché! Used! Documented so well that it has ceased to be truly romantic!” Rarity picked up the pocky stick she had elected for in favor of Twilight’s suggestion, her words muffled slightly as she tweaked the stick in the corner of her mouth. “No, Sparkle, you magnificent mare, I’ve read her BOOK!” She threw her hoof up into the air, triumphantly calling her next phase of the plan. “Spike! Prepare, the Romantic Music!”

“I just don’t get it. I mean, the Fortress has been—weird—some times before, but its never made a doorway just vanish!” Twilight groused as she flew beside Luna in the cool air of the late evening. Glittering beside them, the strange leaves of her crystal tree-fortress soaked in the moon-light as they clicked together in the light breeze that ruffled their fur and feathers whilst they glided over the darkened town on the leftover thermals from the day’s heat.

Shrugging, Luna half laughed off the suggestion as she angled slowly closer towards Twilight. “Maybe it was telling us to get a room. It’s an off-shoot of the Tree of Harmony, after all. Just a big, cheeky, friendly jerk who likes meddling. Like my sister!” Luna cheekily mentioned to Twilight, who jerked in mid-air as her face scrunched up in confusion. Luna shook her head lightly, releasing it from the tight bun it had been wrapped up into. “Why, that’s probably why it turned the door around on you!”

“That makes no sense whatsoever!” Twilight called over as she banked closer to the tree.

Luna dropped in on her from above unexpectedly, stopping just a few hooves over Twilight’s head. “Yes it does! Your tree is a tree of relationships! It just got you to open up to me!”

“I, uh-“

“See, you let the tree out-smart you, for shame! An owner is supposed to be smarter than her house! Boop!”

“Hey! Stop that, get back here!” Twilight protested as she pumped her wings hard to catch up. Luna swooped into the branches of the tree and began weaving through the tight spaces, forcing Twilight to pay attention to keep up with her. It was nice, simple even. Soon, Twilight found herself laughing a bit as she all but nipped at Luna’s heels in their crazy chase, the diarch leading them both to the opened astronomy dome.

Luna poured on the speed, soon leaving Twilight behind a lap as she circled upwards and hovered to a halt over the opened space. Her wings flared wider and flapped madly so she could avoid getting air-tackled by her over-teased friend. Twilight yelped as she missed and her arching course dropped her into the depths of the dome without a chance at recovery. Looking down in concern and a fair bit of smug victory syndrome, Luna’s smug smile faded as she couldn’t see hide nor hair of Twilight. Oh, crap, there wasn’t any sign. If she accidentally killed Twilight, her sister was going to kill her to death. Twice even, with extra solar flares. “Twilight? Twilight!”

Slowly, Luna hovered downwards, her heart skipping a beat once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and gloom within the observatory. The over-head lights were out, leaving only a set of candles mysteriously flickering to one side to illuminate the crumpled form sprawled upon the floor in a heap. She held her wings as far up as she could manage, crashing to the floor of the dome in an imposing all-hooves landing beside Twilight.

Oh, no. She didn’t seem to be breathing, or was breathing so shallowly that Luna couldn’t detect it. The anxious alicorn felt up Twilight’s form to check for broken bones, and when she found none, she rolled the unmoving princess-in-training onto her back and leaned closer to check for life.

“BOOP!”

“Gyah!” Luna recoiled as Twilight’s revenge was served melodramatically. Twilight chuckled painfully from where she sprawled on her back as Luna whimpered and rubbed her nose. That had been entirely unfair, and well played. Luna helped Twilight back up with a proffered hoof, pulling her back to all fours. “It seems that I am not as unpredictable as I wished. Well played, you tricked me well. Would you like to know a secret?”

Twilight nodded, leaning in when Luna gestured to come closer. “What sec-gah, not the-“

“Boop!” And thus the tide was turned again.

“Grrr.”

“Pft. You got me fair and square. I’m becoming predictable again, I’m afraid. Dearest sister used to trick me so when we were younger, she was quit the sports-mare.”

“Really?” Celestia, exercising a lot and flying around like Dash? That was silly.

“Bah, yes. Quite the extroverted run-about in her youth. Impulsive, brash, unafraid. Always going out and mingling while I stayed in the shadows and worked on stopping threats before they started.” Luna sighed, slumping down. Little good had come of being a good enough ruler to fight the problems before they started. Then no-pony even knew that the problems had existed. No, jealousy lead to a dark path. Besides, that was why she put up the yearly audits of her night guard’s activities. Perhaps they needed to be a little more notice-focus, Luna. “She held the common pony’s heart, while I worked on their safety. You don’t think she was always the paragon of organization she was in your youth, did you?”

Twilight shook her head timidly.

“Bah, no. I used to be the calculating one. Then the tides turned with my—departure. She had to do more than be the face and diplomatic heart of our regime. That was after she got too good for any common pony to compete against, of course.” Luna remembered the day quite well, when they received a petition to let the commoners compete without Celestia. Her poor sister had been flabbergasted that she had been accidentally pummeling their ponies silly with her skills. “Of course, once she stopped dragging me into the lime-light with her antics was probably when everything started falling apart. I was content to work from the shadows and in the dreams, and I couldn’t understand why no-pony remembered my work. It was probably when she started putting on weight again.”

“Huh.” Twilight mumbled as she shakily started walking around Luna. “I- Rarity.” Oh, yes, it was going to be a long night.

Elsewhere, a white mare chuckled into the straw of her diet soda, blowing bubbles as her loyal knight watched her concernedly.

“Rarity? I don’t know why you would so randomly compare yourself to her. Whilst she radiates magnificence much as my sister’s sun beams light, I find you rather more attractive than her mere-oh.” Well, a random dinner out of nowhere would explain the non-sequitur. Who else had such a sense of the dramatic as to hunt down a place of mutual interest so as to set up a romantic dinner? “Well, clearly she wishes for us to enjoy ourselves on this wonderful night after discovering your plans. She must not be a sore loser, despite having a consolation prize.”

Twilight slowly crept up on the dinner settings in confusion, her ears twitching funnily at Luna’s words. “Sore loser?”

“Why, she must work so hard to bring her inner beauty out; your own radiance still outshines her in mind, body, and soul with hardly any effort.” Luna’s praise evoked a full-body blush on Twilight’s part once more. Her wing crept up behind Twilight and gently coaxed the glowing alicorn onwards. “Bah, enough of such paltry talk. Let us enjoy the fruits of her labor, and one another’s company!”

“Pft. Like she knows. How absurd.” Rarity’s lip quivered a little at the insinuation that she was plain.

Spike’s claws began rubbing and scratching at her back, massaging her lovingly. “Ah, what does she know, Rarity? I mean, really, a dragon decided you’re the best treasure in all of Equestria, and Princess Luna’s getting all mushy and gross about saying Twilight’s more beautiful. Who cares about what she says?” Spike ranted lightly, smiling hopefully as Rarity shuddered a little. He leaned up against her, sinking a little into her soft side. “You’re way prettier than both of them.”

“Really?” Rarity sniffed a little, looking down at her little knight.

“Uh, duh? I’m the dragon. I just said it.” Did she even have to ask? She helped him not be greedy, helped him out with his troubles when Twilight couldn’t, was the prettiest and most beautiful mare around, and she didn’t mind when he wanted to read comics in her back room. Did she even have to wonder why he wanted to help her? All she had to do was ask, and he’d gladly help her out. “Don’t you think we ought to let them be? I think Luna can take it from here. You want to spend the rest of the evening checking out gemstones, or something for when they get mushier and start talking funny at each other? Luna’ll probably go full Shining on Twilight.”

“Oh, you silly little knight of mine.” Rarity pulled Spike tight to her chest and snuggled him quite relentlessly as they let the monitors drone on.

“Relax, Twilight. I’m sure that she will not bother us further.” Luna soothed the sore alicorn, helping her up onto the sitting bench. “I’ve heard the tales of Spike’s attempted chivalry. Quite the noble little dragon.”

Twilight moaned, remembering the times Spike had been quite the silly little ‘knight’. Had she ever been so stupid? Oh, wait, of course she had been with her silly little declaration that she didn’t need friends. “Oh, yeah. He’s been smitten with her since they met.” She mentioned, looking over the dish. Boy, had it been awkward at first. “It was just a crush to begin with. He might have grown out of it if a few things hadn’t happened that started turning it—reciprocal.”

Luna joined Twilight on the bench and poked at the table-settings, remarking to herself how strange dining had become since she had left. So formal, and fancy, in her day they just used their hooves, magic, and some spoons. The ‘silverware’ had to have been some delayed madness of Discord’s. So many- wait, why did she care about formal dining etiquette? So long as she was clean and organized, Twilight wouldn’t care. “Reciprocal? Ah, let me guess, it started with mine sister’s boorish nephew?”

Nod. “Yeah, comforting her after that started it. Then came his greed growth and everything there, and then it sort of started spiraling out from there.” Twilight was glad to have anything to distract her from the subject of Sunbeam, even if it was about her little brother/son and the just plain weird relationship he had with Rarity. Sure, it was plenty romantic, but just weird. Maybe it was a dragon thing, though she did sort of get Rarity. “I guess it’s because he puts her up on a pedestal and acts like some knight from, uh, your days, and because she’s, well her. He put a lot more research into what he was doing after that ‘noble dragon’ silliness. I’m still kind of surprised at him, he’s been so insistent on doing it right and researching on what was good and what was bad about the old systems and the knightly ‘codes of honor’.”

As Twilight made small ‘blah-blah-blah’ motions and noises, Luna chuckled at the sickeningly sweet story-book tale of a knight and his lady and their courtly love. “My, my. It sounds much like your elder brother. Sister told me some of the stories of their courtship. Perhaps he took his example from Cap-oh, excuse me, Prince Armor?” Luna finally grew fed up with trying to fight the utensils and carefully grabbed a twisted set of noodles out of the pile of pasta.

Twilight perked up and nodded, then withered back as the reminder of Celestia came to her. She sighed, and slumped down to the table, poking at a bread-ball with a silver spork. Leaning in closely, Luna examined her carefully. Noting all the slumping symptoms of an aching heart reappearing in her companion, she took drastic action. She slurped.

“Gah! Luna, don’t get it everywhere!” She flinched back away from the tiny droplets flung everywhere as Luna slurped up the noodle, putting up a pink shield to cower behind as the older alicorn swallowed up the noodles. Luna’s tongue stuck out after she finished, licking at the red sauce on her lips before she laughed at Twilight. “Gross, it’s all over the place!”

“I have a spell for that. Come; eat, drink, be merry!”

“Spell?”

Luna cast her cantrip of prestidigitation upon herself and Twilight, cleaning any trace of the sauce she had messily distributed effortlessly. Ah, yes, proving her magical prowess to Twilight was still needed; she reached over and popped Twilight’s shield with a hoof-tap. “See? Tis a spell adapted from the dragon heart-spell. Or, maybe you know it as the hoard-spell?”

“Never heard of it. Interesting.” Twilight mumbled as she examined the tablecloth and the sauce. The spell Luna had used was pretty efficient, far more so than most cleaning spells she knew. Bigger area of effect, too. Then again, the name Luna had mentioned made sense, since despite years of searching she still knew little about dragons and their magic. Heck, the most any-pony knew about them had to do with their migration patterns, and her own struggles in raising Spike. “So, how did you learn about a ‘hoard-spell’?”

“Just a few silly disputes with the dragons that my sister left to me. It was back when ponies were first taking Equestria. I stayed with some, and defeated their challenges to be recognized.” Luna began, eating another noodle with considerably less mess and more class than before. “Mmm. They typically have a center-piece of their hoard, something more precious to them than any other thing.” Luna verbally illustrated as she called up an ethereal Rarity and Spike to hover over the dish. Mmm, the sauce was really good. Wait, she needed to soothe Twilight with knowledge still before she could get at her issues. “Even the finest of treasures withers and fades with the ravages of time.”

Twilight watched the scene quietly as the bread-ball impaled on her spork dripped marinara sauce down onto the serving plate at her setting. Slowly, Luna aged the translucent Rarity gracefully into an old mare as Spike grew up. She bit her lip pensively, thinking it over, knowing how Spike might find the continuing age difference too hard to work with until it was too late. But, then came a strange green aura from him enveloping Rarity to Twilight’s interest; the old mare turning young once more within the swirling cocoon of fire.

Luna glanced over and nodded slightly as Twilight met her gaze. “Don’t let your bread-ball fall apart.” She smiled as Twilight hastily stuffed the soggy ball into her mouth and chewed it up. “Yes, the hoard-spell, the heart-spell to better refer to it in Spike’s case, is an innate dragon magic. It is why the strongest of dragons are seemingly immortal. It is a restorative magic, a changing and strengthening magic, one that seeks to return any object it is applied to back to an ideal state.” The illusionary Rarity transformed into a crystal unicorn at a touch of Luna’s magic, to be curled around by the grown up Spike.

“Wait, greed growth?” Twilight asked, gulping a little at the thought. Luna’s nod made her stomach feel strange and swirly. “How? How old are the oldest dragons?”

“Before the earliest pony walked upon the plains, the dragon elders of today grew to lead their race.” Luna intoned, waving a hoof through the illusion to dispel it into smoky swirls. “I have seen books from civilizations so lost that not even the worlds they dwelt upon remain in the hoards of the ancient elders. And no, you can’t look.” Twilight pouted a little until Luna slurped another twisted braid of pasta carefully. “No, I don’t know how exactly they apply it. I know it has something to do with the deepest desires of a dragon’s heart.”

Luna conjured up an image of a bestial dragon, twisted and misshapen. “While picking a heart-treasure will enhance a dragon to better protect that treasure, I do know that a dragon that treasures itself above all else will have that magic feed back upon itself, twisting it even as it strengthens until it becomes little more than a feral beast.” Twilight nodded, snatching another of the bread-balls from the sauce atop the dish. “To a treasure, it might keep it pristine for a hundred times its normal lifespan, a thousand times, even more than ten thousand times in the cases of the strongest dragons. I have no idea what it might do to a living thing that is not a dragon, it might not hurt for me to ask the elders.”

“Ten thousand times longer? Wait, the lifespan of an average unicorn is about 90 to 125. If Rarity-“ Twilight’s eyes widened as she thought of how long they might have to court and live together. If it was true, and Rarity stayed young for as long as she should. If, If could be good.

“Aye, if their love is true like you think, I think they will have a long time to figure it out for themselves.”

Far below, in the control room hidden away, a dragon and a unicorn snuggled together in peace. They had long since turned their attention towards just enjoying one another’s presence, and only the young drakeling heard the comments as his partner snoozed in a curl around him. He didn’t need to know anything more, it was all just stuff he had known to be true for a while. He had all the time in the world for their differences to work out. In the meantime, he just switched off the monitors and laid his head upon the soft, slight paunch of his partner.

Twilight still fretted, eating away at the numerous bread-balls of their meal. If could be good, but if could be bad as well. If could be unplanned for, unwanted, unaccountable. If was a dangerous word; it could be a wholly new trouble wrapped in a misery, boxed in an agony, and capped by a bow of problems. If was just a bad, bad, bad word as far as she was concerned; best to have certainties.

So, as Twilight trailed off into morose contemplation again, Luna did the sensible thing. “Boop!” She poked Twilight in the nose with a levitated sauce-soaked bread-ball until the sauce got inhaled by accident to break Twilight out of her glum loop. Granted, that left her with the small, slight problem of an irritated Twilight eating her munitions, but that could probably be fixed. Though, there was the chance that ponies had a boop-o-meter that could be overloaded.

“Hey!” Twilight fended Luna off, poorly. The sauce she licked off her nose was good, even if it would stain the fur pinkish-red.

“Twilight, I know where you are right now.” Wait, that was vague, she sounded like an idiot. “Emotionally, mentally, and technically yes, physically. Tis not the place of being that I talk about, though.” She let Twilight clean up her nose and get a drink before she started up again. “I know what it is like to wonder if others trust in you has been lost, to wonder if the mare you looked up to is false. You’re trying to plan for the unplannable, trying to control everything pre-emptively so you don’t experience any further hurt.”

Twilight stopped, drooping a little from ears to tail. “Why? Why did she-“

“Even I cannot say. I may be her sister, but your mentor has always been an enigma in some ways, even for me.” Luna ate her next bite with a good bit more care, letting Twilight take the moment to think over that advice. “All I can say is to hang on. Prepare for what can be reasonably prepared for, plan somewhat for what is not, and put your faith in those you can trust that they have the best interests in mind for you and that they will be there when you need them to help you overcome what you cannot foresee. Even her. She needs help to see that she’s hurting certain others while she runs from her own hurts.”

“Her hurts- oh, you said-“

“So it seems to be, yes. She’s running from her stresses, and into something that may be comforting for her.” Luna finished for Twilight. Looking into the flickering flame of the candle wasn’t entirely soothing, but it did give her an idea on how to further approach Twilight. “Perhaps an example of why one shouldn’t try to manage everything. At best, you’ll give up tired.”

“At worst?”

“Sombra.” That needed no further explanation.

While she attacked another bread-ball viciously, Twilight thought. And pondered. “I- it’s hard to just let go like you want me to. I learned from Celestia. I, I watched her habits, learned what worked to keep her schedule going, and I tried to fit in it. She taught me so much, and she means so much to me.”

“I know, Twilight. You want to confront her about why she doesn’t trust you.” Luna prompted quietly.

“I, yes. No, I don’t want to know. I just want things to be fixed. I wish I didn’t- I, she.” Twilight’s words failed her as she clammed up, poking a bread-ball over and over again until it fell apart in the same way she felt. “She was always planning for something, or preparing. I just don’t know why I wasn’t a part of it this time.” She quietly whispered, closing her eyes as they began to burn with what had to be smoke and watered up. “I know, you’ll say it’s a stupid habit to try and plan out my days. I know, my friends have been trying to help me break – to break her habits.” She couldn’t really admit to herself that it didn’t make much sense to plan so thoroughly just as her mentor had. There was always something coming up, or going off that left her plans and intent in shambles.

“She used to not.”

“What?”

“Plan, that is. Like I said, before our divergence, she used to be impulsive, flighty, much like Rainbow Dash.” Luna confessed, swirling noodles around in the depleted dish.

Twilight knew it was probably a set-up line, but she had to say it all the same. “I can’t see her not planning, though.”

“Why would the sun need to plan?” Luna asked, sweeping a hoof towards the heavens. “Does it not merely need to rise and set? Our system is a strange one, as I am told. It is my moon that need be in certain spots in certain times to adjust the tides and seasons. The sun is just a big stupid-head who blunders around in the skies making the night all bright!” Luna talked in a boisterous low voice to mock the sun, putting on a silly derpy-face. Stupid sun, always getting all the credit when all it did was heat the planet. It was the moon that made it work properly, why did-no, stop. That way led to screaming and time-outs of the unintentional kind.

Still, the funny squiggle on Twilight’s face was a hopeful sign. A better mood indeed. Luna wing-hugged her again, nuzzling her ear slightly to reassure her. “Oh, don’t be so serious! Laugh! I keep it all in order.” Sigh. “All in order.”

Right, Twilight wondered if she had eaten a bottle of Spike’s dragon-fire. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“What, like Nightmare Night and Eternal Moonlight?” Luna suggested, knowing how her behavior might have looked. “I may not be the stoic mad planner my sister has become, but I do try to reasonably stick to a course of action and plan. But, after a year of learning and sister-planned days of strict structure and stupidly tight schedules, could you blame me for lashing out spontaneously?”

“No, I guess I can’t.” Try not to think of the scheduled spontaneity.

Luna rolled a particularly large bunch of noodles together and swallowed down the pasta in a good chunk. “I’m not my sister. Correction, I’m not what my thousand-year absence drove my sister to become. Yes, I handled a good deal of the drudge scheduling in the days of yore, and handled the messy, tedious business while my sister used her flashy nature to handle the ponies. She has—always been good with the crowds. And I with the individuals, the most hurt. We, I- I don’t know.”

Twilight solemnly sat in place as the short locks of the elder alicorn fiercely writhed in an invisible wind. Luna devoured another noodle slowly, letting it flap a bit from the motion of her slow slurps in a way that made Twilight’s fur wriggle in uncomfortable ways she couldn’t vocalize. Luna’s gaze turned away from the nook, turned out to look over the darkened equipment of the observatory dome, as of yet unused and dormant. “Neither of us is truly complete without the other. We’re supposed to be the healthy extremes of the world; exemplars wrought by the elements we once bore. Reality is supposed to be somewhere in betwe-mrph!”

She shut up as Twilight’s magic wrapped around her muzzle and dragged her gaze back. The purple alicorn winked, and stuffed a bread-ball into Luna’s mouth unexpectedly. “Hey, no melancholy! You’re supposed to be the sage elder giving advice to the helplessly confused younger scribe who’s lost and alone.” Twilight pretended to pout, to Luna’s amusement.

“Ah, feeling better now? Starting to realize that thine concerns might be rather silly?”

“Well, no. I just don’t want you to feel as bad as me. It sort of works for Pinkie, so I figured, ‘why not’?”

“Ah, the Pie Doctrine. Yes, my sister was, er is, err—might still be fond of it?” Luna shrugged as Twilight looked at her funnily. “Forgive me, then. It seems that despite knowing exactly where my sister is, her health in body and mind weighs greatly upon me as well.” Luna nibbled at yet more of the pasta carefully, letting it drip onto the finely patterned plate.

“So, she is-“

“Yes? Or perhaps not. Or Sunbeam may be a projection of her spirit onto the world. Yes, your other mentor is directly linked to her. How exactly, I cannot say. I fail to understand it entirely myself.” Fat lot of comfort that did for Twilight. Luna acted quickly, cupping Twilight’s chin and bringing her friend’s muzzle around to face her, to look into her eye to eye. “Nay, Twilight. Cease, desist. I have known exactly where she is, and I have chosen not to pursue. Will thou care to guess why?”

Pensively, Twilight broke the lock of their gaze, looking downwards from the deep pools of Luna’s eyes to the mysterious glistening purple of the elder alicorn’s tie. “You said her true nature was more spontaneous.”

“Aye.”

“You’re- you’re letting her run? Why? You want her to act out her deepest desires and act more like she used to?” Twilight glanced up to Luna, who nodded.

“Aye, indeed.” Luna mentioned quietly. “Pursuit wouldn’t help her; she needs a friend. She needs a great many friends, all helping her at once, and an eye kept on Sunbeam. For safety’s sake. I’ve already tried to get through to her, but I don’t know how well the suggestion to seek more professional help than my own took.” It didn’t seem to help Twilight’s mood any further, so there was but one further tactic to try. “Twilight, she trusts you. She trusts you too much and expects you to do the right thing.”

“She didn’t trust me enough to- she could have told me.”

“She doesn’t trust herself, Twilight.” And Luna could just about hear the grinding of the mental gears as Twilight’s thoughts stopped in their tracks from the cognitive dissonance. “She’s trying to do the wrong thing and knows it. She trusts that you will do the right thing and tell some-pony. She’s wrong, though. The right thing is to be there for her, to be her friend and believe in her when she doesn’t believe in herself.” Luna drove right over any objections Twilight might have had with quiet ease from her experience with the nightmares of dreamers. She scooted over next to Twilight and pulled up tightly next to her.

It had an effect on Twilight. Her ear twitched against the strange silk-like fabric of Luna’s jacket as its twin folded flat. Twilight’s head tilted adorably in her confusion as she followed the twisted logic. “So, to do the right thing I need to not be reasonable at all; and uh, believe in her to make her believe in me?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Twilight’s head tilted the other way, drawing static as her ear rubbed warmly against the coat. “Are you sure you’re not just telling me this so you can spend more time getting respect from the nobles?” Falling over out from under the pony who was leaning against you was just rude. Twilight caught herself with a hoof roughly planted into Luna’s soft belly as the dark alicorn failed to hold in her laughter and giggled herself silly whilst doubling up on herself.

She ducked back as Luna’s wings writhed from the stomach-aches caused by her laughing fit, miffed at the reaction. “I was being serious!” She stomped, forgetting that she was still standing partially on Luna’s belly. “Don’t flap those wings at me, how do I know you’re not trying to get me to keep her here?”

Luna wheezed as she giggled through the pain. “Redcoat? Owie! Respect? Ow! Please stop; dying! Laughs hurt, can’t breathe!” Her wings slowly wrapped around her chest to squeeze the pain away as her hind-legs jittered in time with her wheezing, slowing chuckles.

“Oh. HIM.” The venom in Twilight’s voice could have been used to melt a hole through to the core of the planet. Knowing what absurdity might well have been inflicted upon Luna went a long way towards keeping Twilight quiet as Luna laughed the stress away. She calmly nibbled at the noodles, focusing on Luna’s mild despair until the diarch laughed herself out. “How has he been? I would have expected him to be elsewhere by now. You know, banished and imprisoned in the place he was banished to.”

Alarmed, Luna sat back up to look at Twilight, clutching her sides. “He’s been terrible. A brash little abominable nuisance. Is he really that bad?”

“You have no idea.” Twilight had long had her disputes with him. After all, Redcoat was a stallion of the nation, not the ponies. Such a stallion didn’t really care about respect, or purpose or any of the other mortal pleasantries in and of themselves; he only cared about them so far as they could be used to further his own cause. Oh, he knew what hopes and dreams where—he had them himself—he just didn’t care. He would twist fates with just a word, try to drive ponies not to those who might love them and be loved, but to those who could bring forth the most effort from them. Happiness had its place for him, firmly in the dust-bin of history or safely locked away in a few idealists to placate the common pony. He believed himself to be making the hard decisions for the good of the land, fully unable to see how easy his decisions were beneath his blinkered self-righteousness. There was nothing more dangerous than a ‘good’ stallion working to help out and willing to commit anything to the cause. “Alright, I’m sorry, you want her back to deal with him.”

“Oh harmony, yes. You have no idea.”

“Yes I do. He used to try and date me all the time.” Twilight acridly snarled. “He drove most of the ponies who could have broken me out of my shell away so I’d be forced to socialize with his little circle. I can’t prove it, but I bet he’s the one who sent the jerks after me who forced me out of the common school. I barely knew any-pony before I moved out here.” Growls were accompanying every word, a little bit from her and from Luna as every bit of her coat seemed to bristle upon her from the memories of putting up with him.

She shook her head swiftly, huffing a breath out of her cheeks as she felt them burn with irritation. It was all over, he was gone and away from her, and he wouldn’t dare come down to Ponyvile. She ruled it, her seat of power. She’d show that little troll if he dared show up. Why, she still owed him a good yelling at for the-

Lick.

What, she- Twilight’s angry blood-flushed frown and scrunched eyebrows slowly drifted back to a state of bewildered confusion. “Did you just lick me?” Luna certainly looked embarrassed enough to have done it.

“Maybe?” Luna rested her elbows on the table to help her look away from the piercing interest from Twilight, twiddling her hooves together. “But you were getting frustrated and angry, and- uh-“ Twilight took her turn to guide Luna’s gaze back, emboldened by her anger at Redcoat. “Well, if he’s no respected of boundaries, why should I be one when you needed comfort?”

“Oh good. I guess Pinkie brushed off on me. Neither am I.” Twilight shook the table as she hopped up with her fore-hooves on it to lick Luna back. Matching one another shade for shade in the way that only new lovers could quite get right, they separated and awkwardly looked away from each other for a moment. ”Okay, that was a horrible plan. I mean, friendship means getting closer to some-pony than they would particularly like, but that was just silly and I was stupid, and—squeak!”

“So you did get closer. Thank you.” Luna kissed Twilight at the base of her horn, scrambling her expressions.

“Uh, it’s nice? Being on a ‘date’ with some—pony who doesn’t care about what I can do for them, that is. Just, uh, being a really close friend. Sort of like a Pinkie Party of two.” Twilight mentioned in full babble. She felt like a horrible imitation Pinkie, completely out of her depths and just about ready to deflate back into the box from whence she came. She held up a bread-ball, intending to eat it but never quite getting around to it as she let it hover about.

She only slightly noticed as Luna continually nibbled at it whenever it came close until she finally brought it in to eat and found herself pressing nose to nose with her dining partner halfway through the mushy portion. She jerked back, spluttering a bit as she processed the newest implications. “That was just silly. Let’s not do that again.”

“Why not? Profound things are often just silly before you think of them deeply.” Luna intentionally kissed Twilight on the nose, turning it slightly red. “Besides, what else are we going to do? We finished off the dishes.” Well, not quite, but the small remaining glops of sauce could hardly be called food.

“I, uh, huh.” Twilight blushingly burned bright. Luna wanted to love her; not as a student or a peer, but honest to Celestia- No, stop that. That was just silly. Right? “Well, I guess you could call love a sort of deeper form of friendship.” Oh Celestia, that line was so corny.

“Hardly deeper. Friendship is love, albeit a different form from the singular form it is thought of today. Just as familial love, or sacrificial love, or romantic love. Though it burns colder than the grand fires of romantic love, it burns all the same.” Luna spoke, growing whimsical as she remembered ancient philosophy.

“Another type of love, huh?” Twilight cheerfully chirped, before she reached over and booped Luna on the nose to the bigger mare’s confusion. Luna turned slightly cross-eyed as she stared at her booped nose while Twilight pointed out a little factoid. “You know, if it is, then we night ponies need to stick together. Since Cadance is hot pink and represents the burning loves, then my cool purple goes with the more passive reflection of feelings in friendship.” Twilight stuck out her tongue, feeling much better from the impromptu therapy session.

“Well played, Sparkle. Well played.”

“I try.” Twilight smiled, cute as a button. It might have even been sugary-sweet enough to cause a sugar overdose in a mortal pony.

“So, shall we discuss our mutual interests now that we have safely unloaded our more unpleasant baggage? While we have the stars, something tells me you want to talk at length still, and looking at the stars isn’t something to talk about.” Luna small-talked, trying to fill the gap.

“Well, that kind of seems unfair. The only thing I have that might interest you would be some tips on dealing with Redcoat and his cronies.” Twilight lamely suggested as she let herself lean against Luna’s bulk. It was nice, having some-pony bigger than her to lean on again. Sure, Big Mac might awkwardly let her, but he just wasn’t the same, all muscle and no softness. Luna just felt- right. Like Celestia felt when she laid against her, but different. In a good way. Ish.

“Well, that seems useful and noble, and hardly some idle chatter. Quite profound, even.” Luna said, suggesting something else in her words. “Well then, for such a gift, I only have one I can give in return. A rather silly thing. A useful thing, something that could center you in times of panic and in times of stress.”

“A useful thing? Really? Or is it something silly?” Twilight asked Luna, leaning against her again.

"Can it not be both?” The elder alicorn retorted, speaking from the wisdom of a thousand years and more. She closed her eyes, remembering all that she had seen in a place beyond the physical realm. “The dream-scape is a silly thing, a profound thing. An endless black desert glittering beneath an infinite night of stars. Every star is a dream somewhere in the world, or in the everlasting realms beyond our own. Every grain of sand is a dearly departed soul, basking in the eternally reflected stars above. Where what was meets what is while waiting for what is to come." Her descriptions enamored the soul, calling to Twilight and asking where she had gotten to, calling to Twilight and asking her if she wanted to escape all her troubles and vanish.

"I've seen things there; things no mortal mind could imagine or comprehend. A tall minotaur-like being, with a black and wide hat atop his head while wearing a black coat to compliment his white beard, striding beside a hooded and draped pony with a sword and scythe. White ships of the stars, graceful as they fly with a saucer just overhead and watched by strange ponies with long and extra-pointed ears. Kings pulling swords from stones, and snow queens in icy fortresses cold; time travelers on twin trails of fire, and space travelers with buckets of silvery liquefied dreams; sailors of the moons, and trees of all reality. I could go on and on, I could spend every moment of our waking lives continuing to briefly describe it all and never even come close to a thousandth of what I have seen." Luna wrapped her wing around Twilight slowly, pulling her into a hug that seemed to drop the floor out from under the young purple alicorn. It almost suspended her in that other realm as motes of light shimmered quietly in the depths of the crystal walls from unseen points of illumination. “Consider it a place to escape to, a place of meditation without isolation. Consider this my invitation. Would you care to join me?”

On a high hill, in a barren clearing beneath a darkened skies, a blood-red stallion stood unclothed against the warning winds of the night, his shock of fire-like mane fluttering in the whispers of air as he stared down upon an incomplete masterpiece. He stood, unafraid of a purple alicorn to his east, or her midnight blue companion, he stood unbound by their petty niceties. And he planned. They were not nearly as secretive as they thought they could be, and he had work to do.

Author's Note

*Cadance's Big Book of War and Love, a best-seller for many years, and a resource that would come to be known as the definitive guide for love-sick ponies for millenia until one of Cadance's successor-lives came along to write a far more complete and interesting guide. Admittedly, it was really just the second edition of the book, but we won't hold that against her, it was a good edition.

*Griffons would describe a bread-ball as sort of a 'crumbly vegetarian swedish meatball'. When pressed, they just laughed. Naturally, some-pony freaked out at that. Rather silly, as the griffons say that every race has a dish like that.

*Death walks with everyone eventually, leading them out into the Desert of Dreaming to forever sleeping lie. He's also known as Mort, and is simply terrible at fashion and not being the most terrifying thing ever seen. He may have also walked with a good friend of his known as Sir Terry Pratchett recently.

6.1

6.1 Exercise

Glorious day! O’ what a bright and beautiful glorious day! O’ to celebrate the wonders and the joy of a glorious day! O’ to go forth and teach on her glorious day! O’ to enjoy the wonder of the girls and colts on her glorious day! O’ to teach again, to reach the children, to widen minds again was so glorious, it made her day such a glorious day!

Okay, maybe she needed less sugar in her diet. Sunbeam practically Pinkie Pronked down the streets of Ponyvile as she prowled towards the peaceful properties of the school-house. Infectious cheer radiated from her like the light of the sun above, raising the spirits of the locals as they dealt with mid-morning business in the face of lunch. She could use lunch, maybe a donut from Sugarcube Corner—no, she had already passed it.

Her pronking passage grew greetings and waves as most ponies called out her name and wished her will. She’d done quite a bit to help keep things in order in town, helping ponies to clear up the wreckage of Twilight’s explosive replies to Tirek or fill in and replant emergency trenches dug by the army in Luna’s defense. All that generous time donated on the side had done well to help her get confirmed by the town hall council meeting as the new teacher at the school; winning hearts and minds felt so good after the miasma of the courts! Why did she ever let herself get dragged into them? Luna was doing such a fine job!

She was looking forward to her job so much; sure, tutoring the crusaders was nice and all, but it had just drawn her back to her joys—o’ glorious joys—of teaching! Every-pony loved teachers, so selflessly donating time and joy to the little ones! Well, almost every-pony loved teachers; Twilight still needed a good sanity-checker for some of her plans, and Pinkie had begun to eye her suspiciously whenever they met. Rather creepy, actually, especially whenever she spotted the Pinking Horror through a window. Brr.

Ah, but there it was; the shining red building upon the low hill at the edge of town, the school-house beckoning her to simply burst little heads with knowledge, especially the crusaders! Sunbeam’s thoughts turned from the slight darkness brought on by Pinkus Creepicus to return to their happy rejoicing of her bright and glorious day, reveling in the thought of seeing entire classes of children who would listen instead of arguing with her! With each bounce, a warm breeze temporarily swept in behind her, blowing a small storm of flower petals around her fragrantly to sweep ahead towards the school-house. She ate up the ground between herself and the school-gate, speeding down the lane until she fluttered to a halt in front of the opened wide white gates, breathing deeply and sighing at the smells of apples and cookies; flowers and chalk; fresh paint and the deep fragrance of a well-used grassy yard.

Why, it almost made her want to si—“Wow, Scootaloo! No wonder you got put up for adoption! Looks like your mom showed up and thinks her baby snack is grown up enough to eat!”—No she wasn’t going to sing. She was going to rip some-pony a new one.

A scowl most unwelcomed etched itself across her muzzle, creasing it with angry lines as she leaned around the thick white columns of the gates to look into the yard. Sullenly, Scootaloo sat to one side sulking whilst pointedly trying to avoid looking and a pink and purple filly with a tiara on her head who was circling the little Pegasus with a silver grey follower standing to one side. Sunbeam’s frown grew deeper as she realized she recognized neither. Ah, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara, so she would meet them at last.

“Hmmm, look. She’s leaning around and frowning at you now. I bet she’s been visiting you at the orphanage, trying to find out if you’re juicy enough to eat. So that’s why you’re always trying to fly, so you can get all scrawny and run, run away where the big fat momma can’t fly.” The little troll of a filly mocked Scootaloo, then laughed cruelly as her companion looked rather appalled at her leader’s words and edged back.

No, she wouldn’t stoop to the creature’s level. No, she wouldn’t use more than 1500 years of experience to disassemble her into itsy-bitsy cubic zirconium crystals for that last remark. No, she didn’t even find the filly morbidly amusing like the one idiot a few centuries back who tried to blow up Canterlot with fireworks, only to be a light show. And no, she did not like her at all. Not. One. Bit.

Well, she’d have to fix this little sordid mess. “Miss Tiara, I presume.”

“Oh, hello ma’am!” The little filly turned sickeningly sweet in an instance, flashing a smile that Duke Redcoat would have been proud of if he had seen it. With a rump-check, she bounced away the nearest crusader, Sweetie Belle, who had started running over to warn of her nasty ways. A casual motion, well-practiced and done in a way to look like an accident to inexperienced viewers. Oh dear, she actually thought she hadn’t been overheard. “I was just comforting poor Scootaloo here, who was having a bad day thinking about her mother, wherever that wonderful being might be. Are you here for a special presentation today?” Diamond scooted over to make room for Silver Spoon to stand beside her.

“No.” Sunbeam curtly called as she marched over with a bit of courtly grace. “I’m Princess Celestia’s special teaching assistant, who came to town to help Twilight Sparkle with her own faithful students.” Her smile grew wider, toothier, sharkier. “And you have captured my attention above and beyond what some-pony could normally manage—as a filly of illest repute.”

With those few words, the smug smiles on the duo’s faces flew off like a balloon rocketing away from the highest level of the tallest tower in Canterlot. No snarl of rage graced Tiara’s face as her friend scooted away silently in shock and awe. None, save for the tiniest flicker that was smothered quickly as Tiara tried to put on an air of sickeningly sweet politeness. “Have these three been telling mean stories about me again?” Diamond asked, waving a hoof in the general direction of the crusaders.

“Miss Cheerilee was supposed to have stopped that. It hurts that they want to be jealous of me instead of accepting my friendship, I just don’t know why they insist on it.” Diamond Tiara laid a hoof to her head in mock exasperation, trying to imitate Rarity. She failed miserably at that, but no-pony had the heart to tell her. “I think it might be their failure to get their cutie marks that frustrates them enough to take it out on me.”

“Oh, no.” Sunbeam winked slyly to the crusaders as Tiara blinked in slight confusion and stopped her ridiculous posing. “You ruined your reputation with me a minute ago with your cruel words.”

Ah, the spluttering of an idiot noble was a glorious day-capper. A young imitator paling from pink to white was much less satisfying, but was much more useful in raising her apprentice’s spirits. “But I- why I never- who, ahem.” Aww, it was over already as Tiara caught herself and tried to recover the conversation. “Can I ask for your name? We haven’t met.”

In reflection, she might have picked up her habits from her sister after the dark mare’s return from her moon, seeing as her smile could be charitably described as ‘shark-like’ to compliment sharks. Sunbeam sniffed at the air, straightening up as she flicked her nose skywards. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders whom you pick on may know me as Miss Sunbeam. You and your friend may know me as the end of your reigns upon the school-yard. I am well-versed in your—shenanigans—and they will not be tolerated here while I teach.” Sunbeam’s declaration earned cheers from the crusaders behind the despicable duo, the trio high-hoofing each other at the best news they ever heard.

Diamond Tiara paled as her friend slowly scooted completely out of the conversation behind her back and disappeared into a knot of students coming to watch, watching Sunbeam’s fore-hoof pawing at the ground particularly worriedly. “What? You can’t just barge onto the school-grounds to start bullying foals around to protect your precious snowflakes! I thought you said you were teaching Twilight’s faithful students!”

“Bullying foals around. How quaint, coming from you. As a matter of fact, as Miss Cheerilee’s new co-worker, I can in fact stop you. Actually, I’m required by law, come to think of it.”

Diamond felt completely wrong, she still didn’t really know who the new mare was, or where she had come from. “Who hired you? Daddy said he was going to stop letting the town council hire mean teachers!”

“Oh, so your father arranged for that encyclopedia of an application? Well, I’ve certainly had worse. Ish. It was but a papercut!”

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle cringed a little.

Further frightened, Diamond Tiara’s formerly sickeningly sweet smile was marred by a scowl as she started backing away. “My- my daddy is going to hear about you! You- you-“

Eyes rolled as Sunbeam put up with the impotent rant for just a second. “Okay, what’s he going to do? Fire me? Oh, I’m sure firing the personal assistant to Princess Celestia and Princess Sparkle will look real good for him. Why, it won’t reflect badly on his judgement at all!” Wow, that snark felt so good. A delightful spoonful of sour to make the personality medicine go down. “Go on now, tell your father where the nice respectable lady touched your horrible personality.” Sunbeam finished, pointing towards the school-house. Tiara sniffled, backed a little further away, and she ran like her hooves were aflame.

Silence reigned on the school-grounds as every-pony blinked in shock. A swing creaked back and forth until the little cream-colored filly in it fell out when she forgot to hang on. Well, perhaps silence didn’t quite reign.
“THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED!” Scootaloo screamed, waving her arms in the air like air-tube arms for a second before she fell to her tail. Sunbeam’s face-hoof let loose the flood-gates; stomping hooves kicking up dust clouds all over the grounds as the story spread through the ranks of children.

“Say, uh, ya ain’t gonna turn that tongue on us, are ya? Ah’ve seen mah brother with peelin’ tools that ain’t as sharp as you.” Applebloom worriedly asked.

“No, she has my extra-special attention.”

“Oh, good.”

“Does two teachers mean less homework?” A colt awkwardly asked from where his gangly body was tangled in a bunch of ropes for a trick he had been trying.

Sweetie shook her head, mumbling a little. “I don’t think it works like that, Snails.”

Boy, that hoof felt real good on her face. Sunbeam wondered if watching all the little faces fall when she revealed that she was going to be evilly making them use—gasp!—their brains would hurt about as much as she expected. Darn it, she’d lifted their hopes up by stopping Tiara and now they’d expect her to be like that more often. Couldn’t be helped, she supposed. With two hundred students of all grades, Cheerilee was rather overworked, and with more coming with the expected expansions of Ponyvile, the situation was likely going to get worse for her. Ah, well, she’d just have to get Twilight to hire an entire staff.

Right, time to meet with the mare in question. “Behave, every-pony! I’ll be speaking with Miss Cheerilee! See you all in class!” She deliberately took up her pronking again, bouncing up to the door and letting her mane bounce off-rhythm from her motions. She pounced up the steps and slipped through the half-open door Tiara had left behind her in her flight, snorting a little when the troll-filly in question squeaked at seeing her and ran towards the bathrooms, leaving the old mare to make her way to Cheerilee’s office in the tight service corridor behind the classroom.

The thick oak door had been recently installed, judging from the scrape marks on the frame and the squeaky-clean state of the brass hinges. Odd. No matter. Sunbeam’s hoof rose high and arced back with all of her leg, but tapped against the door so softly that it could be mistaken for a mouse bumping its head. A sullen grunt of annoyance answered from within the cramped office, followed by the soft titter of glass against glass as Cheerilee put away her drink. Her heavy hoof-falls couldn’t be heard, masked by the fetlock-swallowing shag carpet of her office. Soft thumps of flank against wall and shelf were the progress trackers of her movement, followed by the soft rubbing noises of the beleaguered teacher sliding softly down the wall to slump on the floor beside her door. “Who is it?”

“Your help? Miss Sunbeam?” Well, this was all starting to sound rather horrible.

Cheerilee’s office door jerked open a crack, the stressed out mare peeking through and frantically looking back and forth down the shadowed hallway for signs of her students, hoping to not see Diamond Tiara or her crony. Unsettled, Sunbeam waved a little when the teacher’s gaze settled on her, smiling uncertainly as she tried to look peaceful and reassuring. Then came the lunge, the desperate yanking off of her hooves, the frantic slam of the opaque door behind them and the tired slump against it. “Oh thank Celestia! I’ve been waiting five years for help, and it’s finally here!” The mulberry mare panted as she locked the door reluctantly and looked over her fellow teacher. “Quick, have you been seen by Diamond Tiara yet? You’ve got to be careful with her, her f-“

“Tiara? That little troll? Wait, no, I really shouldn’t call her that. It’s inharmonious, and that insults rock dogs and their diamond cousins.” Sunbeam pondered aloud, her internal monologue spilling out like Pinkie’s jelly-baby stash under attack from Time Turner. Tapping her chin, the old pegasus tried to think of a proper descriptor while ignoring the veneration of her other name. Amoeba, maybe? No, she had a particularly stiff spine to try her stunts. Darn. “I’d call her a roach, but she’s less wriggly than Red—why are you making that face?”

Cheerilee’s chin hung limply low from her face as her open mouth uttered an inaudible keen of horror. Filthy Rich was going to get Sunbeam fired! “Tell me you didn’t!”

Blink. Blink. “Didn’t what? Tell her to stop picking on foals and call her out on her vileness? Better question, did you know she was picking on f-“

“YES!” Cheerilee slumped tiredly, hanging her head low in shame.

“But that- oh. Ah, that would explain a lot.” Tiara had her father wrapped around her hoof and had him thinking she was his adorable little alicorn. She kept out of the line of sight of ponies who her father wouldn’t ignore or bribe. Clever little- no, no insulting, it wasn’t nice. They had probably hired on more teachers before, only for Tiara to complain that they were being ‘mean’ and gotten them fired through her father’s influence. “So, she’s going to be quite the little issue, then.”

“You have no idea.” Cheerilee moaned as she clomped over to her desk and pulled out a glass bottle of soft cider.

“Oh, I might.” Stupid Redcoat. Stupid nobles.

Adjusting the stacks of homework on her desk into neat little piles, Cheerilee rested an elbow on the cleared felt pad at its center, toasting her fellow teacher over the stacks of multiple-choice homework assignments she still needed to feed to the little scanner at the back of her office. “Thank you for trying, but I guess it was just doomed from the start. If that little brat doesn’t get her way, her father usually makes it her way.”

Well, that just wouldn’t do at all. Then again, part of the Ponyvile boom had been Filthy Rich turning his father’s store into a national franchise chain. Most of the town’s inhabitants were ponies moving in as part of his consolidation into his hometown and working the distribution hub he was creating, hence the lopsided adult-to-foal ratio that was slowly being corrected. Sure, the old charm of the original farming community was still there in places, but Twilight’s castle had been the final push to start turning it into a minor city.

Filthy had the ear of the town council, and Tiara had his. No wonder nothing had been done about her. Ah, how quaint. The bigger fishies were in the pond now. “I don’t think he’ll be firing me. It would reflect rather badly on his business if he got the personal assistant to Princess Celestia and Princess Sparkle fired. It’d make ponies ask what exactly he was trying to hide, or if his judgment was sound, especially since said mare has Princess Luna’s ear, too. I’m sure we can work something agreeable out.”

Shaking her head, Cheerilee explained. “No, the town board will find something ‘unsuitable for foals’ in your personality or habits.” The beleaguered teacher looked over Sunbeam, who was still awkwardly standing in front of her desk. A flash of insight struck her, and she cringed a little given her rather tactless observation. “Like your weight! A claim will come up that your—um, obese nature will induce improper bodily habits in the children.”

“I’m not fat!” Sunbeam yelped indignantly. “I’m just big. And fluffy.” Awkwardly ruffling her wings, Sunbeam realized that her correcting statements had slowly cranked one of Cheerilee’s eyebrows incredulously towards her mane-line line a flag up a pole. She looked down, and carefully poked her belly, sloshing it like a jello mold. “Alright, I’m fat; I let myself go. We can work with that! I won’t even have to bring up my ‘trained the current leaders of Equestria’ credentials!”

Cheerilee picked at the wild stacks of paper on her desk idly, pushing them a little further into neat semblances of order as she voiced the skepticism on her mind. “You trained all the princesses?”

Smug once more, Sunbeam preened a little—metaphorically—as she sat down at the cushion on one side of the desk with a bit of awkwardness. “Well, I taught Princess Cadance and Prince- Twilight Sparkle, I helped teach Princess Luna proper modern vernacular and caught her up on a thousand years, and taught quite a few other pupils of Princess Celestia.” It was kind of fun, getting ready to tweak noses like she was going to. At least the biggest headache of Ponyvile was going to be dealt with in short order. No ponies would look for her here, so she’d finally be able to relax a little and teach. Maybe. “Think of the headlines: ‘Crazy CEO unduly influences town council to fire the teacher of Equestria.’ His business would fall apart if he even tries.”

Scooting back a bit as she realized what Sunbeam had just suggested, Cheerilee smacked the back of her head against the filing cabinets that blocked off her former window. “Wait, you can’t do that! If we wreck Barnyard Bargains to keep you on, it’ll be years until Twilight’s work gets the town back to this point!”

Sunbeam nodded. “I’m well aware of that. It’s still an option, but there is a—ugh, another one.” Softly did a slightly pudgy hoof caress the rounded bulge of Sunbeam’s belly; the pegasus groaning softly as she considered what was to come. While not exactly to the point of being called ‘morbidly obese,’ Sunbeam’s belly still extended around by about three inches past her hips and similarly downwards towards the ground, not even counting the plushably cuddlesome softness that defined the rest of her body, a far cry from the lithe and thin figure Equestria thought her real form resembled.

Cheerilee’s ears bent forward inquisitively. “Another option? I’d- oh.”

Whimpering a little, Sunbeam’s ears flattened against her head. “Being a good role model by actively losing weight through proper diet and exercise. A lot of exercise.” She had an idea of where to get it from, but she still didn’t want the stress and soreness. Really didn’t want the soreness. At the same time, she didn’t want to use political levers that could be traced to her just yet. She stretched, yelping as her backwards wriggle nearly knocked over a shelf of school projects. “And I might need to get just a little smaller on general principles.”

Ringing stopped them as the semi-automated school bells rang through the building and yard, heralding the end of the middle class’s recess. Cheerilee’s groans were rather alarming as the school-teacher slowly and repeatedly thumped her head against her desk. Softly, of course; bruising would cause the children to ask questions. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

Cheerilee’s mathematical head to desk equations rarely yielded results beyond addition—of headaches. She didn’t really know why she persisted in them. Wait, no, they temporarily canceled out frustrations with reciprocal operations. She plastered on a fake smile and gestured to her door. “Ready to meet the ‘darling’ little ones?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Be happy.” Sunbeam felt the strangest urge to sing after reassuring Cheerilee, but squashed it as she motioned towards the door with her head. T’was a silly urge. “Oh, you’ll have a friend in me. I won’t be some passing aide.” Now to extract herself. Bit of a problem, given the way she had packed herself into the tight space. The extra-large Pegasus squeezed and shifted in the tight corner to reach the door. That wasn’t a consequence of her—fluffiness—she was just suffering the annoyances of being ‘Celestia-sized.’ Wait, should she call it ‘her-sized’?

Cheerilee watched with bemused smirking, with hints of worry for her poor abused shelves as the mare bumped them, with a dash of concern for her door, with a few nervously confused ear twitches, and with a hint of apple-breath as they both tried to squeeze through the door at nearly the same time. The twister-tangle of teachers toughed their way down the hall, threading the tight space towards the classroom. Foals could be heard jostling around in their seats and making messes as the pair straightened themselves up in the vestibule to make their theatrical entrance.

Sushing Sunbeam silently, Cheerilee quietly pointed for her to wait in place while she prepped the foals for her. An amazingly few strokes of her hoof and a few tweaks of her expression wiped the tired visage from her face and reformed it into a mask of endlessly cheerful enthusiasm before stepping out into the classroom. “Did every-pony have fun at recess?”

“Yeeeeeaaaaah!” Came the thunderous retort as nearly everypony cheered, save for Diamond Tiara, who sullenly sulked low in her seat.

Well, that was certainly something. It was easy to see how Cheerilee’s struggles might have been overlooked with her skills. Most of the foals held their cheerful poses and continued to generally wave and have fun while Cheerilee warily looked to Sunbeam. The old mare rolled her eyes and hoofed a ‘get on with it’ gesture to her co-worker as the teacher settled at her desk in front of the class. “Well, glad to hear that! I have better news for you: you have a new teacher! Please wel-“

“MISS SUNBEAM!” If it was thunderous before, the new shout was deafening as the foals greeted their defender. Many turned around to welcome her with wide-open fore-legs, startling her and inducing a twinge of jealousy in Cheerilee as Sunbeam carefully squished her way to the front between the desks and the row of cabinets on the side. A particular yellow-furred, red-maned pony who would remain unnamed followed up the cheer with a particular question in mind. “Are ya gonna send stupid-head Tiara to the moon? Ah say it’s about time!”

“Yaaaaaaaaaay!”

Diamond shrunk down in her seat further, slumping down until only her eyes, ears, and head-wear could be seen over her desk.

“No, no.” Sunbeam warned, perking Tiara up a bit. Taking notice, she decided to string the pink annoyance along a little. “No, I certainly can’t send ponies to the moon. Princess Luna handles that.” Ducking again, Tiara wanted to find a hole and die in it. How could her daddy have let such a mean pony teach? “Furthermore, just because she’s mean doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to insult her, and it would be mean to cause her harm just because you don’t like her.”

Perk?

“You should be ‘loving and tolerating’ her until she understands the immense harm she’s caused.”

Whimpering. Ducking.

“Also, I should apologize to her. Only a little. Calling her a troll was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have stooped to her level to stop her bullying.”

“I don’t bully!” Diamond blurted out, clopping her hooves angrily against her desk. “Miss Cheerilee? Why do you want to work with a mean pony? She’ll teach us to be horrible!” Irony usually didn’t bother to mess with Diamond Tiara, she could work herself into a hole easily enough; it could make very interesting exceptions, however. Particularly when she all but called Irony a flightless chicken with asthma problems who couldn’t beat up a zucchini.

Irony had just sent a missive to its friend Fate, and they were going to have extra special fun with Diamond Tiara.

Sunbeam cleared her throat, looking mournful for a moment. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have taught you a bad nickname for rock dogs. Will you forgive me?” Sunbeam countered, enjoying the laughter directed at Tiara as she fluttered her eyebrows. No, wait, she shouldn’t enjoy the laughter. It was the horrible kind of laughter.

Holding a hoof up, she quieted the class without a further word. “No, seriously, every-pony. I shouldn’t have called her names at all, no matter how far she got onto my bad side. I could have told her to stop telling an orphan that her absent mother would have eaten her without insulting any-pony at all. So, I am sorry for that. I will not be sorry for being ‘mean’ to you if telling you to stop disturbing your classmates is being ‘mean’.” Sunbeam explained in great detail as she scowled at the faint, faded imitation of the bane of her existence. At least Redcoat was polite, and useful.

Irony and Fate giggled like a pair of drunken Pinkie Pies.

Snails raised his hoof questioningly. “Miss Cheerilee, what’s a rock dog?”

Looking to Cheerilee, Sunbeam was given the nod to go ahead as the frizzled teacher stepped back to see how well her new co-worker handled the question. “Rock dogs are semi-rock canines who come in a variety of different shapes and forms. They live underground for most, if not all of their lives, using the deep realms to travel around. You can find any from the relatively simple local diamond dogs to the great mountain hounds overseas in Canidia.”

“Oh.” Snails nodded at the question and sat back down.

Snips stood up in his seat, waving his hoof around. “Miss Cheerilee, Miss Cheerilee? Who’s an orphan?”

Scootaloo winced. “Me. You know, Miss Gladly’s Home for the Unfortunate?”

Snips’s eyes went wide as he finally realized why Scootaloo never brought any family in for Family Appreciation Day, nodding slowly. “Ooooh.” He frowned, looking between her and Sunbeam. “I just thought your mom was in the guard up in Canterlot and just came home to finally teach after getting fat and fired or eating all of Princess Celestia’s cakes and making the princess go on a crazy adventure to Caketopia in the Hinney-leas.” Snip’s hooves weaved about in the air in a manner that made no sense to any-pony, probably not even him.

“What?” Sunbeam bewilderedly asked as she looked to Cheerilee who shook her head and shrugged.

“What.” Scootaloo flatly squeaked, trying to figure out what- no, Snips and Snails never made sense.

The two colts jumped out of their seats and levitated Scootaloo, desk and all to the front to compare her directly against Sunbeam. “See! We saw her around town all the time, and figured since you were with her a lot that you were related since you look all alike.” They pointed to the various features of the pegasi, young and old, like their identical coat colors, eye colors, and even the oddly similar cuts of fetlocks and the rough impressions of Scootaloo’s eventual figure. “See?”

Facehoofing, Cheerilee wondered if there was a science to reading the frogs of some-pony’s hoof. Hay, she spent enough time looking at her own. “While fascinating, will you two return to your seats and please put your classmate back where she belongs?”

Sheepishly flinching at the sharp rebuke by their teacher, Snips and Snails slunk back to their desks, floating the oddly quiet and motionless Scootaloo behind them. Both squirmed under Cheerilee’s stern frowning glare of disappointment, hunching down in their seats rather than lower her expectations of them further. The schoolmarm steadied herself with a hoof atop her desk next to her globe as she reared up to gaze over her class and let her voice project further. “Well, now that that little bit of trivia has been settled, let’s get on with business, shall we?”

Fifty nods silently responded to her.

“Now, while Miss Sunbeam will be helping me, she will be dealing primarily with the younger foals and advanced magic studies. She’s mostly in town to help Princess Twilight with teaching her faithful students, and is filling in some of her free time with helping me so I can devote more time to you, class!” Putting on a wider smile for the group didn’t clear away the awkward silence that followed as the foals tried to decide if more time was a good thing or not.

“Does that mean more homework?” Cheerful faces turned to depressed cringes.

“No!” Cheerilee waited for the cheering to die down after her announcement, then propped herself up further. “This does, however, mean less multiple choice, class! You can expect more assignments requiring critical thinking!”

Snips and Snails looked at each other. “Does that mean using our heads?”

“Yes it does!” Smile and reassure, Cheerilee, Smile and reassure.

“Awwwww,” came the collective reply. Using their heads meant less free time. And more brain-hurting, that was bad. Maybe. The foals weren’t really sure if using their brain really hard hurt for the most part, save for a certain trio.

Trying to take control of the discourse again, Cheerilee decided to reassure her charges and prop up their spirits a little. “Don’t worry! Thanks to the spare time offered by Miss Sunbeam taking over our youngest class in the mornings, I now have more time to give each and every one of you attention to help you shine brighter than ever before! With that attention, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Diamond Tiara perked up again, slowly brightening from Macintosh Red back to her own shade of pink as the praise was reinterpreted in her mind to be for her and her alone. “Like me, Miss Cheerilee?”

The broad smile instantly turned strained as Cheerilee tried to think of the most neutral way to return the question, mumbling somewhat as she did. “Yes, you too, Diamond Tiara.”

Instantly perking up with her ego restored, Diamond Tiara smiled and stuck her tongue out at Sunbeam—carefully from behind Snails where she wouldn’t be seen, of course. “I’ll be your best student yet, Miss Cheerilee! I’ll learn better than any-pony else and prove it to you!” She recovered annoyingly quickly, putting on a smile better suited for a slasher villain to her fellow student’s discontent.

Sunbeam wondered if Tiara really was the unholy hellspawn of Redcoat and Blueblood birthed via mitosis. No, that was just silly, even Redcoat had standards. He would have rather gone to Canidia naked with griffon steaks around his neck while insulting the national leaders there rather than have anything to do with Blueblood of that nature.

Cheerilee’s forced smile faltered further as she ladled out a meager serving of forced false praise. “I’m sure you will.”

“In fact, I’ll be so good that I might be able to get my daddy to get you some more help so I can shine my brightest!” Diamond craftily suggested, looking at Cheerilee hopefully while studiously ignoring a certain orange mare—even if she did flinch each time said pegasus’s gaze passed over her. “It isn’t right that you should split your attention so many ways!” An oddly noble and selfless sentiment from the bully. Classmates all looked at her like she had just sprouted mis-matched wings and a curved horn behind their back as Sunbeam looked outside to see if her sun was being screwed with by Discord. There was no way that Diamond could have gone good so quickly, that the words calling her out had already had an effect.

It would have been nice if they had, of course. Diamond Tiara suddenly turning normal—or relatively saintly compared to her old personality—would be a relief to every-pony involved in the school. “If you have a lot of help, you could have all the time in the world to focus on making me and my friends the shiniest you possibly can for my daddy and his friends to praise!” Good moment gone.

Shuddering nearly imperceptibly from the slimy feel, Cheerilee stepped out from behind her desk. “I’ll see about talking with him, Diamond Tiara.” She chirped as she got ready to teach a math lesson. Weariness with Tiara’s antics seeped about in her gut like an upset tummy exposed to a nasty combination of sweet and spicy sauces as she turned to the chalkboard, nearly making her miss the thud. “Scootaloo?!”

Applebloom was fanning her friend with her bow. “Ah don’t know what’s wrong with her! She’s been all still like Fluttershy in a Pinkie Party ever since she got compared to Miss Sunbeam there.”

Elsewhere, a stallion of relatively ill repute glanced through the copied initial reports from a ‘Captain Berry Bubble’ of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s newly formed guard. His eyes flicked between pages as he cross-referenced a particular set of notes detailing corporate news and business dealings involving the town’s premiere business stallion, Filthy Rich. A hoof reached out, pulling a single page out from a tall stack of papers against the austere rock wall above the desk.

From there, in a well-organized office lit only by candle-light and crystals, a chamber buried a mile deep beneath the peak of the Canterhorn far away from any possible prying eyes of a nosy princess hidden behind rock walls only passable through shadow and light magicks, that blood red stallion studied. And planned.

Personality reports from a temporary agent were pinned to cork board, records concerning the death of one ‘Golden Tiara’ from Ponyvile Hospital were placed alongside a pink and a grey file, school records easily transcribed from a woefully understaffed school were stacked neatly atop the crudely extruded stone desk in a corner, one will concerning the passing of a business from father to daughter sat atop the other; all the pieces formed into a coherent image, albeit one still not whole. Personally taken surveillance photos detailed the assembly of two pods inside the half-built assembly tree-barn, a look ahead to what might be at stake. The expansive desk--just one part of the furniture assembled from the granite bedrock of the deep underground chamber--was nearly completely covered with papers and plans, with only one large free area left open.

Correction, no free area left open as a large paper plate stacked with sandwiches was put down atop it by the faithful butler of the house.

“Ah, thank you, Union Jack. I’d forget to eat if it wasn’t for you.” The figure in shadows gestured to the plate, and the sandwiches atop it. “Did you already eat on the way down? At your age you should be worrying about yourself as well, it’s a long path.”

The elderly donkey nodded, adjusting the tie of his work tuxedo. “Yes, Duke. A rather bit of a shame that you can no longer work in your old study.” He nodded, glasses glinting in the lights. “Shall I get you anything else? You have that look once more.”

“Yes, I need to have a talk with Filthy Rich of Barnyard Bargains, headquartered in Ponyvile. Preferably without Princess Sparkle knowing about it, or at least not until after the fact. I have some business with him and his daughter to prevent several unfortunate—setbacks—from disrupting the house plans.”

“Yes, Duke. It shall be arranged.”

“Hush hush, you understand? Twilight means well, but she’ll get in the way of saving a particularly useful business and our burgeoning little shipyard down there.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Munch. Munch. “Mmm. You’ve out-done yourself. You sure you don’t want one?”

“Yes, my Duke.”

“Alright, your loss. Oh, and ask the maids to prepare a guest suite for a filly. Keep it humble, and pick one that’s suited for a more permanent residence. We may have a guest taking an extended stay in the manor shortly.”

Author's Note

*Pronking, as it is defined in the Encyclopedia Equestria, is a left-over behavior from ancient ponies, believed to be a form of informing predators that a particular pony will be too hard to catch. This stiff-legged bouncing with all four legs can be particularly fast, and comes in many different forms. In practical parlance, it's better known as 'that weird thing Pinkie does to get around', and 'the bouncy fun' by Luna, who does it quite often to get around and remain fit. It might explain why she hasn't obtained the figure of the former tubby sister.

*It might be better to say that sharks have a Celestia-like grin. Those chompers might not be quite as sharp, but there is something seriously creepy when she smiles like that. Like she's trying to figure out just how much fun she can have with driving you mad.

*As said, troll is a rather dirty word for Canis Uranolith Mons, the largest and 'rockiest' form of Rock Dog, particularly referring to the old fables about specimens coming into other lands and hiding in rocky gorges to harass travelers and steal their money/eat them. Usually, these tales ended with the rock-dog in question getting ironically killed, mostly because they were stupid. So yes, she did in fact say that Tiara was a Stupid, Highway-Robbing Bully *****. She really should have been a little nicer. Then again, Tiara was really, really asking for it.

*Sweet Apple Acres Soft Cider. Like Hard Cider, except with more Twilight magic 'fun', using a specialized spell to pull the alcohol straight from the cider. Applejack came up with it the year before after Pinkie and Dash got a little out of hoof the year before that in the great cider-izing after Flim and Flam found out the hard way why one shouldn't mess with Apple Mares.

6.2

6.2

A panting heap collapsed under the archway to Sweet Apple Acres; the quivering pile formerly known as Sunbeam resting on the dusty dirt path as she tried to recover from the exhausting trip from town. As she half-choked on the dust kicked up by her hopping, bouncing gait she wondered how exactly Pinkie managed to bounce all over Equestria like she did. She couldn’t even manage to pull off the same feat from town to the acres. Huff. Huff. That mare just wasn’t normal, it seemed.

That bounce was probably how Pinkie could get away with eating enough sweets to turn any other pony into an equine blimp. It just wasn’t fair. C’mon, Sunbeam. You could get up. Just up with a leg and- nope, totally jelly. If she was going to be stuck all day there from floppy legs, she was going to be pi-

“Afternoon.” What? Oh, Big Macintosh. Wait, wha-!? No-no!

“Afternoon.” Sunbeam croaked as she made a valiant attempt to stand up. She stretched out a leg, feeling it burn and twitch and wobble in the air like a flailing tube pony.

Big Mac had been heading into town with a pair of cider barrels for the stand when he had noticed the pile of former Sunbeam. He had hoped to get done quick and get back to passing on more apples for Granny Smith’s mid-season canning and other endeavors, but it seemed that Sweet Apple Acres was going to have unexpected guest issues all season. Idly, he worked on the cost to benefit ratio of the idea of charging for visitor passes to the farm, since it seemed like it was becoming a tourist trap. Naw, too much work. Ah, time to deal with the heap of pony in his way. “So, what brings you up?”

“A job.” Still croaking a bit like an old ninja sensei frog, Sunbeam tried to stand a little more forcefully, shaking like a leaf as she rose to her fore-legs. The burning was bad, the burning meant itching all night.

Big Macintosh set his barrels down as he got ready to catch her. “A job?” What was it with ponies raising eyebrows at her?

“Yes?” Seriously, all she wanted to do was work her over-plump tushie off until she fell over and died.

“Why?”

Gingerly, Sunbeam poked her midsection and let it wobble and jiggle as she tried to hold steady on three hooves. “I need less of this, and I’d like to do something productive while losing it.”

Macintosh reared his head back slightly in thought, humming to himself lightly as he weighed his options. “That all ya want? Hard work, ya understand.” Seriously, getting skinny was a pretty unusual payment option. Hard to do, too. Granny Smith would stuff her silly.

Sunbeam tried to quiver to all over hooves, stopping when she decidedly didn’t like the way the world wanted to shake like one of those infernal ‘nightclubs’ in ‘wub night.’ “Well, I’m trying to set a good example for your little sister. Some-pony’s making a fuss about my weight. Better than trying to work out in a gym, Ponyvile doesn’t have one.”

“Can ya buck?”

Oh, he did not. “What did you just say to-“Sunbeam stopped herself as her brain caught up to her ears and mouth and slapped them silly. Well, there went those job prospects. Macintosh frowned at her, silently judging as she shook herself out and recomposed herself. “Um, actually, sorry. I thought you meant the other kind. I never actually learned how to applebuck. I never had the chance to, but I can learn if you have the time to teach me.” She cringingly smiled as the great stallion leaned in close and inspected her, feeling uncomfortably like her student for some reason.

He looked her over, inspecting her form from fetlocks to nose. Snorts punctuated his inspections as he observed particularly unfit portions of her makeup; and yet, yet there was still something in there, under all the softness of a mare who had let herself go. No touching, of course; then again, no need. He had been watching her slowly approach, watching her Pinkie Pronk up the lane. He could see the twitching muscles beneath the padding, strong enough to raise an eyebrow. Who was she, to be so tough and so soft? She almost reminded him of an old soldier long after their term was done, for some reason.

For Sunbeam, the process was mortifying, but an understandable need. If he just hired her on without even the most cursory check on her fitness and she hurt herself, there’d be all sorts of legal shenanigans. Not the nice kind with lots of fun, but the mean kind involving lawyers—even if she wouldn’t want them. Her cringing smile slowly fell as he kept on inspecting her; she probably wasn’t fit for the job any-

“Yer hired.”

“I what?” Sunbeam stuttered. That was it? Her wings twitched and shifted in strange ways as Big Macintosh just picked up his pair of barrels again. “That’s it? No instructions or evaluations?” Nope, total blank as to why he’d just hire her on like that. She made Pinkie look like a paragon of healthiness. She knew he wasn’t one for saying much, but she wasn’t exactly telepathic.

“Granny Smith ‘ll talk with ya. Get ya situated, all that.” Big Mac cryptically mentioned as he started walking off again. “Can’t miss ‘er.” He hollered over his shoulder as he walked down the road.

“Can’t miss her?” Sunbeam incredulously asked as she watched the short tail of the stallion sway with his gait as he trotted over the crest of the next hill and disappeared behind it. She looked around, not seeing any sign of the old green mare she had seen around town once or twice. “What’s that supposed to mean? Go to the house? Walk around the orchard? Turn around to find her right behind me?”

“Well howdy, stranger!”

In retrospect, she had outright asked for it.

Granny Smith chuckled as Sunbeam jumped thirty yards straight up and spontaneously manifested a cloud to hide atop while peering over the edge with just her eyes and wing-tips suspiciously. Something nagged in the back of her mind as she waved to the orange mare. Like she knew her, or her voice—no, probably just old age getting her neighbors mixed up with her princesses again. “Name’s Granny! Granny Smith. Ah hear mah grandson hired ya!”

“Sunbeam?” Said mare squeaked, shaking her cloud a little from the surprise.

“Bit flighty, ain’tchya, Sunbeam?” Granny asked, watching as the edge of Sunbeam’s cloud wobbled with her head-nod. “Ah know the feeling. When’s yer foal supposed to drop?” The old green mare asked as she looked up to her new prospective part-time farm hoof. Boy, they made them squeaky in those cloud-cities nowadays.

“What!?!” Sunbeam crowed angrily as she hung her head over the side fully.

“Well, yer showing mighty strongly ‘round the middle. Figured between that hop ‘o yers and all the rest was just signs of broody. Sorry fer asking.” Granny Smith apologized, kicking a hoof against the ground. “Just wondering how soon we were gonna need to schedule some time off fer ya.” She explained, pointing back at the barn house.

Sunbeam quivered a little, whether from indignation, confusion, or jello-fication from trying to Pinkie she couldn’t tell.

“Aww, ya ain’t gonna come down?” Granny asked a bit plaintively, demonstrating the original model of the Applebloom Patented Puppy Stare as she did. When Sunbeam twitchingly shook her head, she laughed heartily, yelping a little when a muscle pulled somewhere. Grinning from ear to ear, Granny sat down and held up her hooves wide apart as she waited for her guest to come down. “Aw, now don’t be so skeered! Just cause Ah still got mah bark doesn’t mean Ah’m gonna bite ya! Even if Ah did bite, mah chompers are all long gone, and it’d be a nice gummin’ sensation.”

Sunbeam carefully flittered down, uncertainly hovering just out of reach of the uncannily cheerful old mare with a bit of excessive wing-beats until she dropped with a bit of force to the ground to land on her jello legs.

“See? Ain’t got to chomping yet!” Granny leaned over as she welcomed Sunbeam and slapped her on the fore-shoulder. Poor Sunbeam bit back a whimper as her burning muscle most painfully protested the light hit; but Granny didn’t notice, plowing on in her greetings. “Good to see more ponies bringing life into this world! Best thing Ah ever went through. Save for that last part, come to think of it.” Granny tapped a hoof on her chin as she tried to remember it. She knew there was plenty of screaming, and pushing, and knocking ponies’ teeth out. Probably best that her memory was going on that part. Bah.

As Sunbeam stood there, a bit painfully aching as she tried to figure out what the matron was talking about, her stomach interrupted the discussion with a growl like a hungry manticore. Granny’s eyes widened as she took a step back in impressed worry. “Oh, land’s sakes! Ya ain’t been eatin’ enough fer the little one! If yer not careful, yer youngin’s gonna eat your middle right on through!” She hopped up and rushed around to Sunbeam’s backside and started pushing her towards the kitchen.

Yelping a little, Sunbeam dug her hooves in, kicking up deepening furrows as the old matron put a disturbing amount of force into her shoves. “Wait, wait! I’m not pregnant!” She rocked as the pushing halted.

“Ya ain’t?”

Shaking her head hard for a few second, Sunbeam felt a little dizzy from the motion. Less of that, more explaining before the stuffing started. “I’m uh-“ She squashed the big barrel bulge around it’s middle with a foreleg, her limb vanishing into her hungry gut well over the knee as she squeezed tight, “—sort of fat and needing lots of diet and exercise. I just hired on with the school and need to set a good example for the foals.”

Granny Smith looked at her guest with new eyes, standing back for a moment as she took a new look. “Whoa, nellies.” Wait no, that wasn’t neighborly at all! Putting on a good smile for Sunbeam, Granny started pushing and pulling to steer her around the house. At least that explained a few things about why she wanted to work there. A big old cider barrel like that ‘round her middle would come right off with a bit of applebucking. Best to get her started up and kicking; hard work would have that barrel rolling down the road in a heart- wait. “Aww, dagnabit, here Ah’ve been insultin’ ya. Ah was thinking yer pregnant and causing all sorts of whoopin and hollering ‘round ya. Oh, this ain’t anything like me.”

Boy, that smile was getting strained on Sunbeam’s face. Why was it that the instant she finally accepted being overweight ever since she banished her sister that every-pony else decided to start making excuses for it? Honestly, it was getting old. “No, no. I actually rather enjoyed having some-pony think I wasn’t overweight for once.” She took her shaky leg away from her gut, letting it rebound to its natural resting state. “I’m just looking for the most physically intensive work you have.”

“Oh no, ya don’t! Yer trying to work without getting paid, missy! Ain’t no-pony gonna work on this farm without getting their fair due! Ah’mma gonna pay ya and yer gonna like it!” Granny put her hoof down on the matter then bumped Sunbeam along again. Young fancy whipper-snappers in the world really got on her nerves, thinking they could go around hollering fancy concepts like that. Nosiree, Granny Apple Smith was gonna some them what happened when they worked on a farm! They’d get paid what was comin’ to them, and if it took her the rest of her life, she’d make those five young’ns take their pay.

“Really, pay isn’t necessary! I already said so! My payment is getting fit to be a good example for all the little foals!”

“That ain’t so! Getting’ fitter than a square-dancing fiddler is just what happens workin’ on a farm! That ain’t pay! Honestly, thinkin’ yer gonna get away with doing all our work for us without getting pay, like Applejack’s friends; gotta lot of nerve! Young ponies nowadays, thinkin’ they can do good things and not get what’s coming for ‘em!” What was that? Enjoying being a crotchety old mare who got to tell ponies ‘in mah day’? No, sir! Granny Smith would never do such a thing! Well, maybe not on a Monday…

“I’m only trying to stick it to Filthy Rich for trying to give me trouble!”

Sunbeam flopped forward as Granny shoved her hard, then scooted back when the old mare marched around to stare her in the eyes. “Wut you say?”

Sunbeam’s eyes twitched in every which direction as she tried to look anywhere other than into the gaze of an angry old mare. “I’m sticking it to Filthy Rich because his daughter has him wrapped around his hoof? She’s convinced him that she’s his little alicorn princess and that she can do no wrong, and is getting him to fire teachers and ponies who call her out on her bullying. So, I’m here to make it as hard as possible for him to find fault with me so he has to confront the fact that she’s a bad filly, meaning I have to lose weight?” Sunbeam babbled as Granny’s stare slowly pressed her head down to ground level from its force.

“Oh!” Granny sheepishly admitted. She pulled back from Sunbeam and frowned grumpily. “Well why didn’tchya say so?”

“What?” She needed a new phrase of confusion. Sunbeam slowly crawled back to her hooves, looking back down at Granny.

Granny’s sheepish frumpiness slowly turned into a deep scowl as she thought about the heir to the Rich family business. “Ah getchya now.” Didn’t mean she liked knowing for certain that her issues with the little pink filly was more than something in her head.

“Bad encounter?”

“Could say that. Learned her lesson that time, but Ah’ve been watching what mah Grand-Filly’s been up to. Ain’t something a blind pony can miss.” She harrumphed. “Was wondering why that little—oh, she gets my gander up sometimes with what she does to mah own. Least that ‘splains why she ain’t getting what’s coming to her.” Granny got up and started marching, expecting Sunbeam to follow her up the hill.

The fierce scowl slowly faded to a small squiggle on her scrunched muzzle as she considered the plight of the Rich family. They were worse off than the local apple branch in some ways. Filthy was still broken up over his wife’s death a few years back, but that was no reason to let his filly go to rot like he was. It wasn’t her place to meddle in other ponies’ families, though, no matter how much she wanted to give Applejack and her fool brother a what-for over letting Tiara get away with her nonsense.

“We’ve got a bit farther, gonna go ahead and show you old Fuji, ah think you’ll like ‘er. Right up yer country-road for seeing how well yer applebuck is.” Granny helpfully informed as she lead her charge through a thick row of apple trees.

Feeling cheeky, Sunbeam confirmed. “Eeyup?”

Granny gave her the old stink-eye, shutting her up. Ponies didn’t get to use the eeyup until they hauled in a nice load of apples.

She led her on, down through the slowly sloping valleys and the rows of apple trees, down under the shadow of the barn-house on the hill. Granny spread open a set of bushed to reveal one of the last of the first-growths of the orchard. An old giant stood in the small clearing, stretching up and casting a deep shadow over the ring of trees surrounding it, rising up upon a twisted and braided trunk to tower high enough to spread over the local trees. From the house, it gave the illusion of the valley floor being higher than it actually was, covering over the trees surrounding it. Quiet whispers of older times surrounded it, the cool air still and quiet, magical almost like the cave of the tree of harmony.

Granny slowly walked up to the old, fruitless giant, tapping its trunk and tracing up a crease in the twisted trunk as high as she could reach. “This here is Old Fuji. Sort of the heart of Sweet Apple Acres. She’s about six or so trees that all grew together, kinda like them element thingies.” She explained to her student, giving her old friend of a tree a last pat on the side. Above, a wind lightly blew through the branches with the oddest sound of metallic twanging hanging on the sighing gusts. “Ain’t never heard her say that before. Bah, no matter. Probably Applebloom doing some dang fool thing again.”

“Say?” Sunbeam was starting to get an idea as to what kind of tree ‘old Fuji’ was.

“Eeyup. Every Apple orchard has a tree just like ‘er. Some just kind of come in naturally, others get grown like she did. Remind me to tell ya of Bloomberg down in Appleloosa some time.” Granny exposited, slowly trotting around the massively wide trunk as she did. She looked along the circumference of the massive tree, checking it over for hurts or injuries. “Sort of like the heart of the orchard. The better it does, the better the whole farm does.”

Oh yes, she had heard of them before. “I heard that before the unification, earth pony farmers had trees like this. The magic of the farmers combined into the magic of the tree, giving it life beyond what it should to act like some kind of a tree alicorn. Some even supposedly had animate spirits. I never heard of any after the unification.” Sunbeam slowly crept closer, feeling the spirit within, and felt it inspect her.

Like Fluttershy might inspect a mouse who was causing trouble. Eep.

Granny Smith rubbed her chin in thought. “Never heard of ‘em. Makes sense, though. Apples try to get back to our roots.” She waved the hoof in the air in front of her. “Bah, getting’ all filly-sophical. Bad fer my health at my age.” She concluded, leaning against Fuji’s trunk whimsically. It was easy to see where Applejack got her mannerisms from. “Doesn’t matter much. We’ll see what ya can do by giving ole’ Fuji here a good whack. Don’t worry ‘bout hurting her, the princess would have trouble knocking her over. She’s a tough old gal, with deep roots.”

Sunbeam chuckled nervously, rubbing a shivering hoof against the back of her neck as she closed her eyes into a nervous squint.

That nervousness was exasperated by a good natured swat to her rump by the old matron, who had somehow snuck behind her. Giving an amicable smile, Granny jerked her head at Old Fuji. “C’mon now, have at her. Ya ain’t gonna break her. Might break yerself, but Ah can fix that.” Granny raspingly reassured, remembering fun times when Applejack had overextended and nearly dislocated her legs. Boy; that had been fun. Bit squirmy and holler-ey, but fun.

Then again, the young mare standing beside her reminded Granny Smith of something old for some reason. Maybe Celestia. Nah, it was probably just the voice, it sounded familiar to her ears. She scoffed, remembering how she had to have hearing aids half the time, it couldn’t be Celestia’s voice. A nagging feeling all the same suggested that she had seen the big orange mare with her own two eyes before, but with a horn. She was getting pretty senile if she was seeing random ponies as alicorns. Oh, right. Lessons. “Well? Ain’tchya gonna have a whack at her?”

“I don’t, uh, actually know how to applebuck. Your grandson just sent me to you.”

Muttering to herself about disrespectful whipper-snappers, Granny hoped her new hip was up to the task. She’d never really given it a go. “And Big Macintosh thought I’d just show ya? Ah’m gonna have words with that boy when he gets back from town.” She grumbled, picking her way over the soft, strange grass of the clearing to Fuji’s side with a bit of stretching out for a gentle imitation kick. She looked up into the tree branches high above, well out of reach of ten ponies standing atop each other. The old tree was still fruitless, like it had been for the past two years; damned shame, and worrisome to boot.

Sunbeam sat down at a distance and waited to see what would happen, getting ready to act in case Granny Smith hurt herself. She waved nervously when Granny looked at her to make sure she was paying attention, getting a face-hoof from the old matron for her trouble.

“Right, well pay attention! Ah’ll show ya, but yer gonna have to put a lot more force into it than little old me.” Granny shouted over before she delivered a light love-tap to the old tree with a perfect kick. Fuji quivered, its leaves rustling as it greeted its old friend. “Like that, except wallop the dickens outta her!” A single green apple dropped from the skies, landing at Granny’s hooves. “What the- cheeky old tree. Ah ain’t about to bugger off. Fuji better respect me a little more than that!” She crankily shouted at the tree before looking both ways and taking a big bite of the apple, relishing the tart taste. Still just like her.

“I, uh, might break if I go all out, Mrs. Smith.” Sunbeam nervously protested as she walked up. Okay, it was probably a silly worry, but still—odd, did Old Fuji shiver as she trotted up?

“It’s Granny Smith. Only ones callin’ me ‘Mrs.’ Are ponies older than ah am. And let me tell ya something, there’s only two! Now let’s see yer form!”

Sunbeam twisted around and tapped Fuji with her hind-hooves, quivering the tree lightly with the tap. Little creaks could be heard throughout the area for some reason as it shook.

“Harder!”

She struck again, putting a bit of her weight into the swing. Little taps and rustles could be heard in the leaves as things shifted high above.

“Harder!”

Putting her whole body into the kick, Sunbeam solidly smacked the old apple tree, making it groan a bit from the force. The canopy above shifted back and forth, swaying lightly.

“AH SAID WALLOP ‘ER, NOT RARITY ‘ER!”

Calling upon the earth pony part of her aspects, Sunbeam channeled the longevity and resilience of her true self into her hind hooves for the kick, hoping to transfer it into the tree to protect it from her full force. They glowed ever so slightly golden as she let fly, solidly planting her hooves into the twisted side of the conjoined tree in a perfect full-force imitation of Granny Smith’s demonstration. From roots to the highest leaf of the tallest branch, Fuji quivered and shook, sharply shaking with the booming crack of the hit.

Silence reigned for a moment.

“Whoa, Nellie. Now that’s an applebu-“ An apple dropped from the branches, bopping Granny Smith atop the thick bun of her mane, silencing her with a yelp. She rubbed her head and picked up the strange golden apple, shining it on the side of her leg. “Wut in tarnation?”

A rumble shook the tree-top as Sunbeam nervously looked upwards with her legs still planted against the side of the tree. All the branches shook violently, rustling wildly with sudden motion and the dropping of weight. The pair realized that the branches were all hanging oddly low just a second before the hundreds of the golden apple’s little buddies joined it in falling to the ground, sending Granny Smith running in terror as Sunbeam found herself swiftly buried.

“What in the moon-howling prairie-puppy holler-stomp is this?” Cried the old mare as she looked over the mess. Confusion reigned as she tried to make sense of what had just happened, looking up at the branches of Old Fuji. The tree hadn’t yielded a proper harvest in a decade! It had just barely dropped a yield the year that Applejack had run off to Manehatten, and had only dropped a few apples since.

Figuring that that rapscallion of a friend, Rainbow Dash was probably hiding up in the leaves and laughing at Applejack’s expense, Granny looked over the branches so she could pelt a pegasus. Instead, the largest harvest of apples she had ever seen sat waiting in the branches loading them down so hard she was afraid a few might break. Thousands, tens of thousands of apples hung from the thick old airborne trunks of wood; apples of every breed and size, from her own Smiths to Macintoshes and Zap Apples.

“Oh lawdy. Well, ah ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.” Granny Smith whispered in awe as she looked up. “Ah think we’re on the receiving end of a mighty fine omen, Ah’d say. She paused when she realized Sunbeam hadn’t said anything since the heavens fell. “Oi, Sunbeam? Are ya okay there?”

Groaning under the massive pile of apples that had buried her alive and nearly knocked her senseless Sunbeam stirred. “No, Luna—not the cakes.” She whimpered painfully, out of her senses.

Ain’t no princess here, sugar.” Granny Smith mirthfully noted as she mostly unburied Sunbeam by pulling out one choice apple that collapsed the whole pile. “Now then, let’s get ya up.”

She tugged at the poor prostrate mare’s forelegs, tugging her upwards until they jerked to a halt and fell back onto the unstable pile of apples. Granny’s smile squiggled into a puzzled frown as she tried to figure out what was holding her in place. Glancing back, Granny Smith’s eyes opened wide when she noticed a peculiar sight. “Ah, dagnabit, it’s Big Mac all over again!”

“What?” Sunbeam tried to roll over, uncomfortably sprawling on her side when her hind-hooves remained stuck in mid-air, or so it felt. Struggling through a shifting, sliding layer of apples, she looked back as Granny Smith started tracing a hoof down the side of her barrel and up her legs, stopping when her withered green hoof rubbed off of the soft peach fuzz of Sunbeam’s legs and bumped against the fresh bark of the newly expanded trunk that had swallowed her hooves over their fetlocks. “What the-“

“Big Macintosh had the same issue. Dunno what it is. Ah’m afraid ya’ll be stuck for a bit.” Granny grumbled, making plans to try and get Sunbeam free without hurting Fuji.

Not particularly wanting to go through another bout of getting eaten by a plant, Sunbeam tugged and twisted to try and pull her hooves free, but couldn’t get the leverage with only her forelegs. She slipped again, flopping back to her chest and stomach in her uncomfortably curled position braced against the tree. She could have teleported out, but not with witnesses, she didn’t need all the ponies in Ponyvile figuring out her secret. “What happened? How did I get stuck?”

Irony passed Fate a hundred bits.

Shaking her head, Granny Smith shrugged. Ain’t got no clue. Somehow, ya got ole’ Fuji’s dander up, or maybe ya kicked a whole bunch of life into the old girl, or maybe she got hungry. Dunno which. Ya kicked into the trunk somehow, and she went and got to growing lots. Saw it a few times with mah grandson and some young trees he kicked some life into.” She explained, miming a little itty-bitty baby tree sprouting up fast. “Ain’t gonna worry much. It’s a good omen, Ah tell ya. Now just ya hang tight while Ah get mah grand-foals over to help ya out of this mess.”

“Really? Hang tight?” Sunbeam tiredly snarked, slipping again and dropping her chin into the ground painfully a second later.

“What’chya want? A comedian? Ah’ll be back from town in a jiffy. Feel free to lie around, yer not gonna go anywhere.” Granny said as she picked her way through the piles of apples on the ground. It was gonna be a good time to be alive, yup. Might even see Big Macintosh pick some-pony to date finally! Hah, like he’d ever. He liked ‘em—hmm. She might just have a prospect. “An’ have an apple! Most of ‘em ain’t gonna be much good by the time we get back. Ain’t gonna hurt to have a few. Good fer ya.”

“Wonderful.” Sunbeam mumbled annoyedly. At least the day’s classes were over for her.

She laid on her chest as the Apple matron ambled away, propping her chin up with one hoof at the other scratched and tapped at the ground annoyedly. At the rate Granny Smith was going, it’d take her the rest of day to get to town and back again. She couldn’t just teleport out, they’d be expecting her to still be there, and she didn’t particularly like the idea of trying to separate plant tissue from around her hooves in the process. At least it was cool and calm there, maybe she could take a nap…

She started arranging apples up into tall stacks, keeping the ground-contaminated ones on the bottom while forming the rest into relatively stable piles. She picked one up and took a crunchy and juicy bite out of it as the minutes stretched out. They tasted oddly good, actually.

Then the moment was shattered with a double-boom echoing through the trees, metallic and harsh. A whistling screeched through the air. Any good feeling got ruined pretty quickly after that when a particularly familiar pegasus foal fell through the trees towards her face.

She was getting really tired of getting jerked around, come to think of it.

Author's Note

*Big Macintosh had counted by that point: One obnoxious sea pony, one 'pegasus' who had tried to be too much like Pinkie for her own good, 57 reviewers coming on the word of Trenderhoof, several diamond dogs that could be charitably described at best as 'chihuahuas', several element bearers, three prench models, two griffon performers, and a Zecora on a moving tree. After that last one, he started checking his cider.

*Granny Smith, alias Granny Ninja, alias Bandit Smith, alias 'That Crazy Old Mare from Down the Lane', alias the 'Applevenger'. She's not really sure where all those names came from herself, nowadays. Bit of a gap in the old memory.

*Old Fuji, also known as a Heart or Harmony Tree. Known to display unusual abilities depending on whether or not the bonded caretakers are in harmony with one another. Often, a disharmonious group attempting to tend to the tree will cause lesser yields or a self-pruning back, but it should be noted that misfortune can cause events that will leave such a tree relatively barren, as can just sheer old age. Granted, the displayed reaction to 'Sunbeam' could best be described as "MINE!"

6.3

6.3

Scootaloo had accepted death. Sort of. It was just a kind of thing that some-pony did when the little test sled that was supposed to have been bolted down instead took off between their hooves to carry them a mile up into the skies and over the acres. It would have been nice to fly again, even if not under her own power. Instead, she was falling, except kinda with style after she cut herself free from the test seat. Of course, then instead of having the small problem of being strapped into a runaway cart powered by two pega-drives (air coils? Hay, she didn’t know what they were going to call their little air sucker-thingies which were scaled down versions of their apple cannons), she was falling through the air without anything at all to catch her, and not enough moisture in the dry altitudes to form a cloud to save herself. Crashing through a thin part of the tree canopy over a valley, she futilely held her hooves in front of her face as she shut her eyes and anticipated the ground coming up at her to squish her flat.

Funny. The ground smelled like apples and sounded like Princess Celestia and/or ‘Sunbeam’ laughing.

“I thought you wanted to fly, not fall.”

Blink. Blink. Scootaloo opened her eyes to find herself atop a pile of apples stacked high in front of Sunbeam, who laid up against the biggest apple tree she had ever seen in an odd way. The little pegasus looked around at the secluded grove, taking in the sights. What was she even doing here? Was she dead, was it some crazy apple-space where the secretly sentient farm put ponies in danger, was she abducted by alien ponies from another dimension brainwashing her to lead a super-secret assault to overthrow the princesses? Was-GAH!

Having heard every last bit of Scootaloo’s not-so-internal monologue, Sunbeam had deployed the patented Twilight Tussle Technique she had developed to break paranoid-circle speculation. She rubbed Scootaloo’s mane with a hoof until she was too busy fighting off a mad tickler intent on reducing her to a giggling pile of friendship to speculate in paranoia. Little squawks and chirps of protest were all that Scootaloo could manage as she was mercilessly tickled and booped with relentless fury until she fell backwards off of the piled apples to land on her back in the soft moss-covered ground. “Gah! Stoppit!”

A good, hard belly laugh escaped Sunbeam as she enjoyed the slight misfortune. “But you’re too cute not to love and tickle to happiness!”

“I’m not cute!” Scootaloo protested when she had rolled over back to her hooves, stomping one against the ground adorably. “I’m cool!” She preened, holding her head high in the air in the way Rainbow Dash had taught her.

“If you say so.” Sunbeam conceded, propping her chin up with her fore-hooves again. “Cutie Mark Crusader.” She taunted, instantly transforming Scootaloo’s proud grin into a pout with her emphasis on ‘cutie.’ It was a pity Scootaloo had shifted out of range so she couldn’t tussle that little purple mane again. Still, the pout made her coo with enjoyment as she patted the ground beside her. “Awww, c’mere.”

“Cutie just refers to the mark! A Crusader is who I am, and I shall not rest until I am the best!” Scootaloo came back, pointing her hoof to the skies above as she countered Sunbeam’s point. She had the strangest urge to quote some strange neighponese speech about piercing the heavens with her hoof, but that was just silly and stupid. She pierced the heavens with her pega-coils, not her hoof. Or would when they figured out how to control them. Hey, wait a second- “Miss Sunbeam?!? What are you doing here? Are you spying on us? I’m onto you!”

Well that was just baffling. What did she do to deserve suspicion? Sure, she was kind of stuck in a tree, but there was no reason to be rude! Looking left and right, she couldn’t really see anything else suspicious around her. “Uh, what are you talking about? I’m just… hanging around after I got hired.” She explained, tugging on her hooves though she didn’t think Scootaloo was paying attention. “Stick around. I could use some relief from my tree-mendous stress with some-pony to talk to.”

The puns flew over Scootaloo’s head majestically. Like a chicken launched from a cannon, they soared. Sort of. It took a minute of staring at Sunbeam like she had lost her head before Scootaloo finally got the puns and frowned grumpily. “Really? That was horrible.”

“I just can’t help the fruit of my humor sometimes.” Sunbeam shrugged as best she could as Scootaloo booed her. “Please don’t leaf because I can’t help myself. I’m just rooted in my ways.” An apple bonked off of her head lightly as Scootaloo couldn’t take the pun-ishment anymore, making Sunbeam pout a little as she wondered if her sense of humor was miscalibrated. “No, really, I’m stuck. I was getting trained in applebucking for the job when something strange happened.”

Scootaloo shook her head in exasperation and started walking back to the clubhouse rather than putting up with some-pony talking gibberish. She’d have to talk with the girls (and Berry) about it when she got there. “Whatever. I don’t know why you’re spying on us, but-“

“Spying? This is the second time you’ve said that. I don’t think it means what you think it does.” Sunbeam scratched just behind her ears, wondering why Scootaloo was so insistent on ‘spying.’ She looked on as Scootaloo tracked towards the edge of the clearing beneath Old Fuji. “Wait, seriously! I’m working with the Apples because I need to! I’m just trying to lose weight and work off my middle!”

The little pegasus stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked back to see what Sunbeam was talking about, cocking an eyebrow cockily. “Working off your middle? What in the heck is that supposed to mean?”

Sloshing her belly was getting a lot of mileage for helping Sunbeam to explain her weight problem to ponies for some reason. It made them suddenly grow a little fearful each time. What was up with that, it wasn’t like she was going to eat them, only cakes and birthday cake-flavored pancakes had to worry about that. “You know, the slosh, the cake-batter bowl, the cider barrel, my extra-bouncy ball!” Scootaloo rightfully looked at her like she was insane. “I’m fat and working hard to be un-fat!”

Frowning more, Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Un-fat? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Of course you’re fat!” She insensitively pointed out, stomping her hooves into the spongey mossy ground. “What in the heck does fat and un-fat have to do with working on a farm where your students do stuff?”

“Farm work is a lot of hard work?”

“You’re not the farmer type.” Scootaloo dismissed, starting to wonder why in the heck Sunbeam was trying to pose as a farmer.

An eyebrow furrowed in counter-query. “And how would you know my type?” Sunbeam inquired, finding the light banter refreshing compared to the wacky hijinks she had been getting subjected to and conspiracy theories about her weight.

“Well you’re-“Scootaloo stopped quietly, eyes narrowing as she glared at Sunbeam and shook her head slowly. Oh, no. She wouldn’t convince her to give up the spying secret that easily!

“I’m what?” Sunbeam snorted indignantly, starting to count off all the different possibilities on her hooves like Pinkie counting off variations of chimmy-cherries—Cherry-chongas?—or cupcakes. Mmm-no! No sweets! No delicious, fattening goodness, sweetly serenading her tummy! “Am I fat? Lazy? A book-ey pegasus? Soft and cushiony like a pillow and too tender to work with my hooves like a Canterlot noble?”

Passing a hurt look over to Scootaloo, Sunbeam pretended to pout lightly. “Aww, I’m hurt. I have a boo-boo. My poor hoovies got eaten.” And last, and most eloquently, the dreaded full-tongue raspberry. Truly, a most elegant response of a more civilized age to show Scootaloo how to properly accuse. Settling back down flat on the ground, she shimmied her tummy and barrel against the moss to form a form-fitting hollow for her to lay in, then rubbed the sides of her head with her hooves. “Seriously, though, I’m just working here for the sake of work, no matter how hard it gets.” Beat. “Once I get out of this tree.”

Stymied by the frank self-assessment, Scootaloo flumped her rump down against the ground and sat silently. Well, silent for all of ten seconds before her mouth ran off again. “You’re not spying on us?”

With the downwards bob of her head, Sunbeam’s mane drifted down in front of an eye in an oddly familiar way, fluttering in the wind whispering about them. “Again with the spying claims. Why would I need to spy on you, when I already teach you? If I wanted to spy on you, I’d just ask Twilight to get Captain Bubbles to do it.” Odd, the way Scootaloo just bleated like a goat; what would she have to worry about with Captain Bubbles? It wasn’t like he would be out to steal her lollipops, he hated raw sugar even if he liked sweet stuff. “Are you okay?”

“Yep!” Scootaloo desperately replied as she hopped up like Pinkie on caffeine. “Totally fine, no problems at all!” Ponies would describe her hooves as being on fire if it wasn’t for the extra-damp ground. Smooth, Scootaloo, all the smooth.

Right, she couldn’t leave after that dismally horrible lying, or she’d be spotted out in a second. Sunbeam used to hold Dash’s and Applejack’s elements, right? She needed to distract her, she—ah-hah! Being an annoyingly obnoxious friend who was all over her would make her too busy trying to keep her from being awesomely cool, and she’d be too busy going ‘whoa’ all stiff-like like that one crazy movie about ponies being in a simulation! It was the perfect plan! Eh, save for her friends worrying about her zipping off into space; or going ‘splat’ on the ground; or punching a hole in reality to the plaid dimension of ultimate chaos; but it wasn’t like she was Rainbow Dash Awesome, no-pony had a perfect plan. “So you’re on the farm, working and getting dirty, just for getting thin?”

“I suppose I can’t get to be ‘Rainbow Danger Dash’ awesome, like you-“Oh crap, she could read thoughts, “-but like I said, I need to stop resembling a trampoline to Cloudsdale around my mid-, No! DON’T!” Sunbeam yelped in futility as Scootaloo took the cue, her hooves flailing in the air like the wind-swept branches of the orchard as she held them up to try and ward off the galloping foal before her jump up and down onto her. Gasping, Sunbeam’s yelp bounced from her lungs much like Scootaloo bounced from the soft dome of her belly: weakly, and with an anticlimactic finish that was just embarrassing. Squeaking, she wheezed a little more out. “Figure of speech.”

Scootaloo twitched, just a little.

After a brief rub of her poor, abused stomach—which had only wanted its daily cake that morning, or at least those nice cake pancakes—Sunbeam turned her attention to the foal who had delivered unto her four spots of sore pain and belly-ache. “Well, what did you think was going to happen? I was using exaggeration for comedic effect.” She spent her gaze upon Scootaloo’s twitching form, considering every last scuff of dirt within the coat, analyzing the exact ouchiness caused by the face-plant into the ground that Scootaloo was still bent in, considering just what madness had led her to bounce upon her like that. Right, enough of that. She poked Scootaloo in her exposed stomach for punctuation. “Like that. You could use with a bit more work yourself, since it seems that your stunts don’t do quite as much as you think to keep you fit.”

Assorted moans assembled themselves somewhere in the depths of Scootaloo’s chest as the wobbles of the poke transited her body. “So pain.” Her hind-hooves finally finished dangling in the air as the jiggles and joggles and jangling of tiny hooves unbalanced her at last and tipped her over to flip onto her back. Tiny whines escaped as Sunbeam not-at-all tenderly poked her soft belly. “You’re really just getting thin?” She wheezed quietly.

“Eeyup.”

“And you just happened to be exactly where I fell, just in time to catch me and save my life? Which totally wasn’t necessary, I would have been fine, by the way.” Scootaloo’s scoffs blustered and bluffed, trying not to reveal that she still trembled a little at the thought she might have gone splat. Nope, didn’t need to think of that. And no-pony was so awesome as to just so happen to be right where some-pony else was falling out of the skies, even Rainbow Dash wasn’t so awesome to be in the exact spot—she had to zip super-awesome-fast to them like Supermare.

“Well, I might not be ‘Super-Awesome-Fast, it seems I’m still more awesome than Rainbow Dash. I’ve been stuck here, remember?” Sunbeam confessed, pointing back to her entombed hooves with a bit of cringing embarrassment as Scootaloo’s head-tilt encapsulated the sheer strangeness of the sight. “Better question, are you okay? You’ve been asking around in circles, and I’m worried your landing might have bumped your head hard either after the bounce or your fall.” Grasping hooves nabbed at Scootaloo, missing as the foal teeter-tottered back to mesmerizedly stare at the strange sight. “Yes, I tried applebucking and the tree ate my hooves. Would you please come back so I can check you for head injuries?”

No such luck; for like a cat with yarn, so too did Scootaloo find the strange sight too interesting to sit still, hopping over and under Sunbeam’s legs and thwarting her efforts with adorable hyper-activeness and poking hooves. “Whoa! You really are stuck! I mean, that’s so weird! We used to crash into trees all the time and get covered in tree sap, but we never crashed into trees!” She marveled, poking at the legs with a hoof.

Snerk. Giggle.

Huh, that was funny. Scootaloo glanced side-long towards Sunbeam’s head; a vicious smile of a manticore-like predatory victory slowly curling there as she realized what had just happened. Little orange hoof poked the inside of a much larger orange thigh, jerking up it in tiny whorls of motion. The formerly tiny squiggles of amusement burst into a few squeaking giggles of ticklish laughter as Sunbeam fought her other true weakness. Alas, Scootaloo’s evil laugh was too squeaky to qualify for the Pan-Equestrian Mad Monster Contest, but it was more than enough to send chills into Sunbeam’s wings just before the assault began. “So, she does have a weakness!”

“Don’t you- EEEEEEEheHEHEHEHEHEEEEEE! Little-EEEhhHEHEHEEEE-evil! He-he! Help! Help! I’m being tickled to-augh!”

That strange tableau was what Scootaloo’s friends stumbled onto after a minute as they followed the strange sound of ringing peals of laughter echoing across the orchards. Sweetie Belle’s horn cut out as they creaked to a halt in their borrowed wagon and scooter; the light of her magic fading from the wheels of the haphazard contraptions as she put them to sleep and looked over Berry and Applebloom’s shoulders. “Um, I have no idea what’s going on anymore.” The other two nodded slowly, both saying nothing. Nope, not a single clue.

Scootaloo yelped falling down and under Sunbeam just as the giggled-senseless mare flopped downwards from her upwards arch in laughter to collapse on the foal. Tiny little kicking hooves stuck out from the big weight laying atop her, and Scootaloo’s muffled cries for help tickled against Sunbeam’s belly-button until her friends rushed over to slide her out from under Sunbeam. The great yank overbalanced them, and they all fell over into a great pile of apples, scattering the juicy fruit in every which direction and crushing enough to leave Applebloom a pulpy mess. Popping out of the pile of applesauce and groaning ponies, Scootaloo crowed with victory, grinning madly. “HAH! I knew she wasn’t perfect!”

“The hay ya talking ‘bout, Scoots? Did ya hit yet head on the way back down or something?” Applebloom grumbled as she sat up behind her wayward friend and tried in vain to shake the apple chunks off of her coat. Wait, she was forgetting something. She smacked Scootaloo on the back of the head, frowning in concern as she shouted at her. “And that was fer worrying us! Don’t ya do that to us again, flying off like that!” She shouted, before hugging Scootaloo and smearing her with her fresh applesauce. “Okay? Don’t do that again. Ah thought we lost ya.”

“Pft, do that? Nah, totally was the sled trying to run away with me. Which we’re gonna need a new one, because who knows-hurk!” Scootaloo’s blame-shifting was squeezed silent by a renewed hug from her earthy friend that was slowly turning her blue.

“Uh, so what’chya doing here, Miss Sunbeam?” Sweetie Belle asked the hundred ton dancing pony of a question in the clearing. Who was technically neither a hundred tons, nor doing much of any dancing with the back-ache her awkward position was imparting on her.

“Oh, just hanging around.” She sighed, resting her head on her chin once more in resignation. “Got hired on to lose weight; got Granny Smith to teach me how to applebuck; got eaten by the tree, though it doesn’t seem to want seconds.” Sunbeam awkwardly scooted around so she could tap her stuck legs, letting her new companions see the endless well of her failure. A bit more boggling took place as they tried to figure out what they were looking at. “No, I’m not here to spy on you, like Scootaloo kept asking of me. Just losing weight, ask Berry.”

“Hey, I want no part of this madness! Shoo! Shoo madness!” Berry made impotent shooing gestures in Sunbeam’s general direction. No mercy would come when it was time for the adorably mad revolution if he wished no part in it.

“Say, where’d all these here apples come from? Ole’ Fuji ain’t born fruit in years!”

“Look up.”

“What? Whoa.” Applebloom stopped talking as she looked up. The endless cornucopias of apple varieties were the stuff her sister’s strange dreams were made of that one time Luna had shown them to her, ladening down the branches with a harvest the likes of which she had never seen in the orchards. She had never seen Ole’ Fuji blooming, let alone any tree ever with so much fruit. “The-that ain’t possible! She don’t bear like that! She don’t bloom like that, no tree does!”

“Aww, I don’t know about that. There’s one great big apple bloom right in front of me, ready to be a big bounty of joy.” Sunbeam complimented right before slipping on a partially crushed apple to crack her chin against the ground. “But getting me out would be nicer.”

Berry pointed back to the cart. “We’ve got a Scootaloo, some rope, and a wheeled vehicle. A little bit of engineering ought to get you free. At worse, we’ll have to do a bit of chipping and cutting to-“ He never got a chance to finish as a little yellow hoof yanked him down by the earth; an action followed swiftly and mercilessly by Applebloom hopping onto his head as she yelled.

“Ain’t no-pony cutting on Ole’ Fuji! It’s super-bad luck if ya do!” She wobbled about, holding on like a seal atop a rolling iceberg as Berry tried to climb to his hooves, clutching his ears as she planted her hooves in his back. “No-pony, ya hear!?”

Scootaloo’s fore-hooves ground into her face as she wondered if all of Equestria was as insane, or if it was just her luck. “Then how exactly are we supposed to get her out of the tree?”

“Ah don’t know how, but-“

BONK! BONK! The bickering foals heads sounded awfully hollow as Sweetie Belle bounced apples off of them whilst lighting her horn. “GIRLS! I could just sing to it.”

Now just about every-pony’s hooves slapped against their faces, save for poor smushed Berry. “Right, right. Ah forgot.”

Sea greenish hooves nabbed Applebloom and tickled her off of Berry’s head as he tired of his yellow hat; the sea-pony plopped her on the moist moss in front of him and leaned his weight onto her through his forelegs and elbows. “Both ideas, then? Sweetie sings, Scootaloo scoots? Applebloom tries to make sure Sunbeam doesn’t turn into a sun noodle?”

Sunbeam gulped a little as she remembered the old punishment of the racks and how her situation resembled it. The group sprang into action before she could protest, grabbing up her forelegs and tying a loop of the rope around them and up around her barrel, then over to Scootaloo’s scooter. The daredevil foal had her helmet on in a swish of motion, quickly signaling to Sweetie Belle to get ready as her wings buzzed up to speed. Sweetie burst into her wordless song as loudly as she could, closing her eyes to focus on the intent of her spell as the wood around Sunbeam’s hooves glowed green with her energies. Cracking with motion, the line yanked tight as Scootaloo took off straight ahead, pulling Sunbeam up off the ground as it played out and pulled taut.

Letting out a strangled yelp from the pain of the yank, Sunbeam started wriggling her hind-hooves, hoping to get free before something dislocated—or worse. Pain built up as the line jerked from Scootaloo bouncing on the end again; a yell of pain and a need to just teleport out already danced in her head as she was stretched out to the point she couldn’t move anymore. She could feel her wings flapping and stretching outwards in reflex to get her away from the pain; she could hear the yelps from Berry and Applebloom as they were buffeted from her sides; could hear Sweetie Belle singing out louder, saying something she couldn’t make out over the pops of her joins as some kind of slime started coldly coating her legs.

And then she was suddenly flying like a kite.

The pop of her hooves slipping free from Old Fuji echoed through the orchard like the thunder of artillery, rolling through the tree tops. Her wings snapped steady, catching the airflow, cupping it, yanking it around her and pulling her up into a glide from the speed of Scootaloo’s passage pulling her along. Sighing in relief as she wriggled her poor hind-hooves, she kicked in the air in celebration and reveled in her returned freedom; good to be able to kick back and-mmm.

She looked down as she followed up on a mental thread and gazed upon Scootaloo buzzing her determined little wings as fast as she could. Well now, she couldn’t have that, could she? A proper knight of the realm deserved a thanks from the fair maiden; and a deliverance of the little knight’s dream, something she could accomplish most easily. With owl-like silence she swooped down at the little Pegasus, nabbing her right off the scooter with yanking hooves and a sharp nip to cut the line before cradling her tight so they could swoop back up into the cloudless skies.

With Scootaloo nestled tight between cradling legs and a warm, soft chest, Sunbeam gleefully kissed the bridge of Scootaloo’s muzzle, whispering into the holes on her helmet conspiratorially. “My, my! Oh, my hero who has saved me from the dastardly tree! I think she deserves a reward for her gallant efforts, like a bit of flying, perhaps?”

“Really?” Scootaloo fan-filly squealed for a second as the thought of being carried away by a princess in disguise struck her. Wait, no, she was supposed to be stoic and not reveal that she knew, or Sunbeam would know that she knew and a bad comedy routine would start. “Uh, I mean, sure! I wanna see how you fly!” She stretched out her own wings, fluttering them as a strange funny feeling fluttered in her chest.

“Hang on! Here we go!” The two spent a great deal of time in the air that day, to the disconcertion of their friends; a veritable airshow that pushed Sunbeam to her limits and even eventually attracted Rainbow Dash to meet the acrobat muscling into her cool pony slot. Eventually, when the apples were all picked up, and all the tricks and techniques were shown, they would settle back down to the ground to rest and talk about what had happened to Old Fuji and what it all meant for Sunbeam’s employment.

But that came later.

Author's Note

*The Flying Hoof Kung-Tickle style. Very deadly, very painful death as you laugh yourself to death. Only the most fearsome of warriors can use it with a straight face and succeed, chief amongst them Princess Celestia. Many Twilights were tickled mad to wring that information from her...

*Your Sunbeam does not double as a Happy Fun Ball. Despite that, do not Bounce Upon the Happy Fun Sunbeam, do not Taunt the Happy Fun Sunbeam, do not Cover the Happy Fun Sunbeam in Treesap, do not Turn your Happy Fun Sunbeam Plaid, especially Do Not Poke your Happy Fun Sunbeam in the Middle. The Happy Fun Sunbeam wants to be your Friend, and might maybe want to adopt you.

*All ageless beings of ultimate might must have a weakness. For Twilight, a good book can snap her out of the angriest rant, a passionate kiss can bliss out Cadance, and wubs sooth the soul of the night. But Celestia? If you don't have a good cake, two hooves and a chance to tickle her lower belly works wonders. A veritable stoic pillar of strength, so long as you ignore the giggles and the wriggles.

*Later, ponies would describe the sight of Scootaloo and Sunbeam flying together like 'essence of Pinkie Pie'. Pinkie herself randomly developed diabetus and fell over from a sugar overdose after looking in the general direction of the farm for several seconds.

6.Daydreaming

6.Daydreaming

“Go into the East. Go and seek out the Great Sage of the Wind and learn.” They had said. So, Scootdar the Barbarian and her mentor Rainan of Haymeria journeyed east. They crossed magickless desert and Wide Ocean, they stalked through forests dark, climbed mountain ranges higher than the skies, treaded lightly through great metropolises of the dead and damned never before seen by mortal eyes. They were warriors; strong, unbeaten!

When bandits challenged them, they battled! They won!

When they had to face terrible foes, they triumphed!

When the end of the world called, they canceled the apocalypse!

They were the awesomest, the bestest, and no-pony could beat them! Quests had fallen before them, others had been forced to join them on their journey of world salvation, fought and bled with them to end injustice! They had marched at the head of a big band of adventurers, fighting evil wherever it might have been found until they had all at last broken away from each other. They had finally discovered it. The Great Armory of the Wind, hidden on the dark side of the world lay before the pair, the last two and the first two. And with their discovery, they found their greatest foe yet, the terrible Sun Dragon!

Scales like white gold, spikes burning with a thousand colors of evil magic that couldn’t ever be described without driving the speaker mad, wings wide enough to blot out ten thousand stars, teeth like most terrible steel stalag-the pointy things that dropped from the ceilings of caves. The great and terrible beast curled six times over around the base of the mountain on the black plain, spilling smoke from an eternally burning fire within its breast. It reeked, and it waited.

Rainan tapped her student on the shoulder, then yanked her down when the terrible beast slowly turned its head toward the slight sound and half-glimpsed movement. Scootdar found herself huddled beneath the laying form of her mentor, chewing on the rough blue fur of the mare’s fore-leg as she hushed her and stilled her breath. “Use the smallest whisper. It knows something hunts it. This beast won’t fall to a mere stout sword.” She whispered urgently to Scootdar, a whisper of some-pony defeated before they could even begin.

“You’d use your magic!?” Scootdar squeaked loudly. With no further encouragement, she silenced herself, shuffling down harder into the dirt as she bit upon her own leg to muffle her voice. “You swore you would never use your magic until we learned from the mage! It will end you!” She exclaimed through the mud-stained fur of her leg.

They had learned during their adventure that attempting to use magic again without the proper training would be the end of her mentor. The strain would cause her to explode into a rainbow that would circle the world six times before fading away, leaving it a darker and dorkier place. No, there had to be a better way than to be left alone!

Rainan frowned at her student, then clonked her on the head to silence her. “I shall if I must. If I must, it has been the coolest thing ever to train you, and I say to you: Don’t grieve.” Rainan reassured her, slowly bowing her head with the fears and hopes she had for her student until they touched brow to brow. She touched her nose to Scootdar’s, whispering a thousand prayers for her before beginning.

Their armor was easy to lose, designed to come off quickly so that they could fight with the full motion available to them. Rainan’s breastplate was heavy and squeezed her like a snake, all her speed would be needed to come. Her helmet was dim and echoing, she would need every cue imaginable to see the look of terror in her target’s eyes before the end. Her wing guards, her bladed friends, so too would they be left on the ground, for they slowed every beat of her wings. Her sword, her great silvery companion, it too was laid aside, for her magic was not one of weapons, but of her own strength; it would go to her student, laying in the dark gravel beside Scootdar’s axe.

Not long now; soon she would know if they was any hope left. “Be ready. I’m taking another look.” She hopped on Scootdar’s head before the young warrior could protest, looking over their great rock, peering urgently at the mountain. Just for a second, and no more. She needed no more, she had her fill of sights enough to last ten thousand lifetimes.

“What, what did you see?” Scootdar asked in hushed whispers, tremblors of fear gripping her at the scared look on Rainan’s face.

In a whirl of movement, Rainan laid beside her against the rock, shivering at her fate. “It’s huge. Bigger than the great wall!” Rainan looked down to her student. “This shall be goodbye, friend. Now I must—BWUAK!”

“Bwuak?” Scootdar looked up. And then Rainan was a rainbow chicken.

The ground shook in a terrible earthquake, the ground splitting like a bad sidewalk as the great dragon rose from its trick. It laughed like a bully, rising over the plains in time with its big voice, uncoiling to loom. “Young girl, how could you two hope to surprise me?” The great Sun Dragon rose above her with a smile of great big teeth and eyes like some creepy movie villain.

“I am Scootdar! Barbarian of the West! I’ve come to-“

The Sun Dragon came closer. It lowered its head and poked the filly in the nose with a claw. “No, you’re Scootaloo, foal of Ponyvile. Worthless, ordinary, unfit to study from the Wind Sage.” Like the dragon said, Scootdar shrank down, her armor going away in puffs of smoke. Scootaloo’s helm dropped to her side with a little hollow clonk of noise as it became her scooter helmet by her hooves.

She was weak. But she wouldn’t stop, whether she was Scootaloo or Scootdar! So what if her axe had become a rubber squeaky mallet? She would take out her great and terrible angry fluffiness on the Sun Dragon until she gave way! “Never, I’ll never stop dreaming!” Scootaloo attacked with her battle cry, wildly flailing her mallet with her fore-hooves.

“You already have.” The Sun Dragon said. The plains-place was gone, leaving them in—nothing, she guessed. “Will you wake up already? You’ve been drooling on the blueprints, and Berry is getting irritated.” Mallet swung again, hitting the Sun Dragon on the nose. “Seriously, stop it, my nose is bruising.”

“I’ll never stop dreaming! Have at you!”

“Scootaloo, yer having another one of yer darn daydreams again! Will ya stop! OW! Mah nose, darnit!”

“Gah! Not the face again! Scootaloo, stop swinging around that squeaky hammer!” And then the Sun Dragon was Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, both shaking her her shoulders like crazy. Or maybe like a stuck gumball machine.

Where was she? Oh, in the clubhouse, looking over the blue printy-thingies Berry had them make before assembling the first sled that was supposed to show how everything went together. She didn’t know why he bothered, they had never used them for documenting stuff before, and all the symbols didn’t make any sense to her. She didn’t even know why the stupid thing had tried to kill her. Was killing her. Well, not ‘kill her to death by launching her into space,’ but ‘kill her by boring her to death by looking at funny white lines on blue paper’ kind of killing her. The stupid test cart didn’t work but it was a stupid idea. That simple.

Just to annoy her further, an air horn blew just behind her, scaring her halfway to Canterlot. “Wrong attitude, Scootaloo! Things don’t work for a reason!” Berry yelled, mostly due to the giant earmuffs he had on.

Head met desk repeatedly, and desk respectfully wished Scootaloo would stop knocking. She had been thinking out loud again. It was so stupid, and she was sick of even bothering to try. They’d never be good enough to handle Sunbeam, she’d just be a stupid little filly whose best moment ever was getting carried by a princess who didn’t even bother revealing herself. Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

“You’re not stupid, Scootaloo. A little crazy, sure. Talking to yourself usually isn’t a good sign, even if it can be useful when trying to figure something out.” Berry’s earmuffs found themselves getting bounced off a slapping tail as he kicked his head back and threw them off. He was hoofy like that, big showoff. But after his earmuffs caught around a pole like a set of horseshoes, he was at her side to rub his fuzzy fore-leg against her neck comfortingly. “Don’t worry. It’s just not working because we screwed up something simple. I know you want to fly, and you WILL. As soon as we figure out what went wrong and how to make it not go ‘blooie’. Every engineer has problems like this, that’s why we make blueprints to see what we did wrong.”

Papers blew everywhere as Scootaloo hopped out from under Berry’s leg with an angry shove and buzzed her wings, tired of his help. “I don’t know why! It’s stupid, that’s why! It wasn’t supposed to work like that, they’re just little ones! It’s stupid, I’m stupid, and we’re all stupid!” She ranted, kicking a half of a broken ring towards its mating piece as her wings buzzed even harder.

A scream of frustration was the only thing left she could say as she buzzed her wings even harder and floated off the table in a whipping whirlwind of loose objects. She wasn’t interested in any more comforting, her swiping hooves made sure that every pony got that message as she dropped to the floor and stormed out through the curtain acting as a temporary door. Prints slowly drifted down from the ceiling where they had been plastered to by the force of her buzzing, making floppy noises as they drifted back and forth from their spineless form to scatter everywhere.

“Man, Ah don’t know what’s been eating her lately.” Applebloom grumbled, her rough scoops scraping pieces of paper from everywhere as she fumed over her friend’s funkiness.

“I do, damnit.”

“Hey! Language!” Sweetie squeaked angrily, a memory of her sister washing her mouth out fresh on the mind.

Face met hoof. Face wasn’t particularly interested in hoof’s door to door sales pitch. Berry, meanwhile, grumbled to himself as words failed him. He had a good idea of what was the matter; a nasty case of post-traumatic stress that had likely left Scootaloo awake all night as she freaked out over nearly turning to jelly. Joyful, Luna was going to kill him, but Sunbeam would do it slowly. “Look, she’s freaked out because she just realized she got close to dying. I should have caught on yesterday and immediately got some help, but Sunbeam was her normal self and accidentally distracted me. Just try and get things in order. I need to talk to her, okay?” He sternly looked at them, waiting until they nodded with understanding. Maybe, hard to tell with foals. Sometimes they got it, sometimes they’d only get it years later. With a swift nod of his own, he started marching off for the doorway.

He wouldn’t make it.

The ring Scootaloo had kicked back together began to quake and rattle on the table, springing back to life as the pathways of magic were restored. With a banshee roar of air whistling through the cracks in its form and the rattles of metal on wood, it gave plenty of warning as it began quivering and spinning around; enough warning to get every-pony to duck as it rose into the air. But, flash-welded metal just as quickly broke under the searing current of unstable magic, frightening them all as metal burned and then shattered as centrifugal force won out over half-molten metal. Shards viscously bounced off the walls, sticking in some as the ring shattered again twice over and dropped four partial chunks to the table to smolder.

Each popped in turn, startled out of their minds by the almighty smash and crash of the blast, little hearts pounding like the hooves in the running of the leaves just a little while before.

Oh, wait. Duh, stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Of course it was like an electrical current! That was his missing element, even if it didn’t explain the anomalously high thrust! “That’s it! Sweetie Bloom, Applebelle, we’ve got our control method! Try to get the bits swept up without hurting yourselves on shards, I’ll go stop Scootaloo from turning into a gothic caricature of herself, then I’ll show you!” He shouted over his shoulder, he didn’t even have time to properly point like a silly bugger. Since the floor was made of sharp and pointy bits, he hopped, skipped and galloped on the furniture after Scootaloo, tucking and rolling through the curtain and snagging a post in the safety rail to swing around and land on the deck outside.

“Hey, you got our names wrong!” Sweetie called weakly after him as she brushed little bits of metal out of her mane. Rarity was going to spazz out, then brush her into string when she saw all the little burned spots in it.

“Yeah, ah think he got that.” Applebloom said as she pulled the little broom and dust pan out from under the drafting table setup. “Think he’s a bit too shook up himself to pay attention.”

Outside, Berry skidded against a curve in the railing, bounding off of non-skid mat strips as he ran in a head-long rush down to the first level of the tree-borne building after Scootaloo. Multiple plans were meticulously pulled apart like little building block sets in his head as he analyzed them for the good bits to assemble into a crazy franken-plan of mad social science! Wait, there was supposed to be a lightning strike and all capital letters somewhere in there.

His thoughts found themselves jostled as he shook his head out to refocus on the task at hoof. With reckless abandon he redoubled his speed, glad once more for the unnatural stamina of his metal legs as he finally caught sight of her glumly laying at the edge of a pier behind the main assembly room. It wasn’t right, seeing her like that; a moping bundle of sadness at the edge of the clubhouse shipyard.

Clubyard? Darn kids, getting his terminology all mixed up. “Scootaloo, wait!”

Looking back, she noticed him and sighed. “Why? I’m not cool enough, or smart enough, or brave enough.” She whispered, a pathetic shred of her normal bravado reducing her words to dust in the wind to most ponies. Most ponies didn’t have a head partially built for echolocation.

“The heck brought this on? I’m not mad at you. I did tell you that engineering was nine parts ‘work stupid thing’ and one part ‘why am I stupid!’ as you figure it out.” Berry countered solemnly as he broke stride and slowed to a stalk. Scootaloo’s chin bumped and bounced against the side of the pier as he slowly got closer, a sign that she was busily trying to gaze at her navel. Right, hug her.

“No reason to be mad, and I don’t want you to think that I am.” He reassured her, glomping her with fatherly love and extensive experience with Pie children. Even the most stoic of mopes couldn’t handle the raw cuddles of the fishy-tail, let alone the dreaded tongue to the ear-tip. It was a dangerous power, and he would abuse it with all the irresponsibility that he could! After she yanked her head away, he squeezed into the space between his breastbone and the side of her muzzle with his chin and whispered to her. “Look, what you’re feeling is normal for some pony who just escaped death. Or for a novice trying to read schematics. Happens to the best of us. You’re just exactly what you need to be.” And there was his patented mane-ruffle, perfectly calibrated for maximum annoyance and getting ponies to pay attention to at least avoid the hooves.

With flailing fore-legs like pool noodles, Scootaloo fended him off amidst squaks and grunts of displeasure. When his tail-tip joined the tickles in an attack on her chest fluff, she stomped and sat on it just to be sure. “Stoppit! I’m not freaking out about nearly splatting! Happens all the time!” She shouted in annoyance with a practiced volume that made him wonder if Dash tickled her often. Then the other side of his tailfin reached up between her legs and ruined the moment with a clammy tickle to the nose. “Gah!” She hugged it tight and immediately regretted it as the rest of the tail spun her around, coiling up like a big fuzzy blue snake around her. A final huff escaped. “I’m not a kid you know. I’m just not good enough. Don’t deserve it.”

“You are too worth it.” Berry immaturely countered. “You’re not a teen yet, thank Cel-“ Okay, the sudden flinch was interesting. So, Celestia was a part of her issues for some reason. Funny, she hadn’t—oh. Oh dear. The flight, the love, the seeing a worthy opponent. Well, she had that effect on ponies. “Okay then, thank Luna. At least I now know what’s wrong with you for realsies now.” Oh, Pinkie, you were so good for supplying fun irrelevancies to indignate and perk up ponies to pay attention to the important words. Berry’s legs squeezed tighter to either side of Scootaloo, lovingly cuddling and rubbing her as he tried to describe her feelings. “So, you’re feeling intense feelings of unworthiness, itty-bitty-ness, a need for love and approval, and a strange fuzzy feeling, especially right where the beaty-pumpy thing in your chest is supposed to go?”

Huff. Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “You going anywhere with this?”

“Yeah, stop worrying over it. Plenty of ponies went through what you’re feeling before, and they mostly turned out alright.” He explained, holding her closer for warmth when a cold wind rustled through the branches of the orchard. Slight squirms of tightness from Scootaloo as she struggled in his grasp were also nice, especially when she pawed the air like Rarity trying to be spooky. “I can think of four other ponies right off the top of my head who are still around who went through it, about half of them in town right now. Three turned out pretty alright. Dunno about the fourth, lost track of her.“ Careful word placement strung Scootaloo along as he whispered sweet secrets into her ears and smirked behind her mane.

“Four ponies? What were they going through?”

“Let’s see, there was Sunset Shimmer, me, some pony up north named Cadenza—it’s a pretty silly name—and a last one. Probably heard of her, goes by Twilight Sparkle? It’s called ‘Celestia Adoption Syndrome.’ It’s pretty awful, drives you crazy.” He mentioned, feeling Scootaloo stiffen up and quiver as she realized what he was leading up to. His huggable was going to need softening, just a little. Inflating the ego worked wonders, usually. “And it means that the big sun butt herself thinks you’re special, that you’re worth something. She wants to be a part of your life, and she wants to make you even more special than you already are.”

Scootaloo did soften a little, going limp in a huff of tired resignation. Her little chin dropped down with her head to trap the uppermost curl of Berry’s tail, muffling her next words slightly. “Why? What would she want from me? I’m not Twilight, or Princess Cadance, or-“

“ME!”

“Yeah.” Huff.

Berry shook his head slowly, resisting the common urge to face-hoof as the action would allow his adorable prisoner to escape and infect others with her moping! He begged silently for help from the sitting alicorn upon the throne, knowing that he would soon be as depressed and gothic as Scootaloo, and that was terrible. “Uh, news flash, she likes you and sees something in you. What do you want besides that; a thousand angels descending from the Summer Glens chanting ‘Special, Special, You Are Special!’ in ten thousand voices? I mean, it’d be pretty cool, but I’d think that that would have small side effects, like every-pony running around screaming with my sister in law that the end is neigh.” His chin found a mark on Scootaloo’s scalp, bouncing in place as he considered the implications of an angelic prophecy. Every-pony would probably lose their minds.

Nah, that’d be silly.

“I’m not special. I can’t even fly.” Scootaloo depressedly moped, clearly determined to revel in the terrible feelings.

“Discovered the lost arts of Pegasi Magic and started turning them practical; thus making you Pegasus Star Swirl.” Berry counted, tickling her chin with his tailfin.

“She already knew them!”

“Uh, not really? You know, with ‘I am secretly god of sun! Worship mah butt!’ But with more super sun powers.” Berry mockingly mentioned, using his tail fluke to mime Sunbeam entrancing Big Macintosh as he had seen earlier.

“She does not! She—she probably got fat from depression eating, like Dash does sometimes when she screws up a stunt!” Scootaloo yelled a little louder, riled up.

Berry chuckled, then poked Scootaloo again with his tail, nearly getting his flukes trapped by her fore hooves for his trouble. “Let’s add ‘figured out a brand new magitech drive’ to that. Or maybe ‘potentially as strong as Twilight starting out, with the endurance of Big Macintosh’ to that.” He tried, recoiling at the sheer skepticism when she wriggled around and glared over her shoulder. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! If you use your glare to raise my hair, my mane will eat me and turn me into one of those fluffy pony foal toys!” He protested with a bit of blubbering, weaving back and forth to avoid her scathing glare.

“I’m not special, darnit!”

“Are too.”

“Not.” “To.” “Not!” “Too!” “NOT!” “TOO!” “NOT!” “YES!” “NO!” “No.” “HAH! See!”

Berry almost retorted, then stopped as he tried to figure out where he screwed up, counting on his tail as he tried to figure out how she saw through the old gag. It was supposed to work every time. “Wait, how did you keep up? I guess you’re smarted that you think!” An overhead roar of displaced air trying to avoid getting punched to awesome overhead turned his attention to a potential reinforcement in the matter. “HEY! Rainbow Dash! Isn’t Scootaloo here smarter than she thinks?”

Air cracked in a mini rainboom as Dash turned 180 in a second and swooped back to hover overhead. “Uh, yeah! Duh, Scootaloo is, uh—“ She looked at Scootaloo and Berry, and the way his tail was wrapped around her like a clingy snake. “Uh, what’s going on, and what are you guys talking about? I’m totally lost.”

“Nothing! It’s nothing!” Scootaloo whined, burying her face under her fore-legs.

“I’m saving Ponyvile by heroically soaking up all of her mopeyness so as to save the town from being transformed into a gothic caricature of itself by sacrificing myself and the mopey at the altar of Nightmare Moon in the deepest level of the Castle of Two Sisters! You’ve got to help by motivating her with awesome! And blackjack—not the security pony—and maybe cotton candy.” Berry exclaimed, pulling his legs from Scootaloo’s sides long enough to wobble them in the air in a good impression of his sister-in-law.

The pair looked at him, since he’d gone completely mad.

“What? Culture is just the setup for the punch line. You really didn’t see me pulling out a Pinkie?”

“Uh…”

Fur flapped against fur as Berry let his legs flop in disgust at the lack of humor. “Every-pony is a critic.”

Feeling the awkward burning like the sun between the three of them, Rainbow started pointing towards the horizon as she backed away slowly. “So, uh, what’s really going on? ‘Cause this is starting to go full weird.”

Berry rolled his eyes. “Scootaloo here is freaking out because she realized that Sunbeam’s starting to want to adopt her. She just realized that Sunbeam is like the mom she never had. She thinks she isn’t worthy, even though the mare tries to adopt every orphan foal who catches her attention, and some of the ones who aren’t orphaned. Plus, she thinks Sunbeam has a ‘slightly cooler than thou’ thing going on; she doesn’t, by the way.” Berry noogied Scootaloo with both hooves behind her ears affectionately, trying to rub in common sense.

“Oh. Doesn’t explain why she’s mopey.” Dash dismissed, her eye twitching a little at the idea that any-pony could be cooler.

And there was the nerve Berry needed to push her a little further. Just that little lever to move the world with. The right idea in her head, and Dash would run to Sunbeam thinking it was her own idea. “Oh, Scootie here thinks she’s unworthy to be trained in the ways of cool. Even with the whole figuring out pega-magic; or possibly being stronger, faster, and more enduring than you or Twilight; or her figuring out a crazy new technology and just now discovering how to control it.” He noogied Scootaloo a little harder, his hooves converging at the crown of her scalp, to the foal’s irritation. He could just imagine the burning gleam in her eyes as she planned a thousand pranks. “It’s like she doesn’t want to become the coolest pony ever at the hooves of one of the few ponies cooler than you.” Just the right nudge, and—

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHAT? No-pony is cooler than the Dash!” Dash shouted as she zipped in closer, blowing a harsh wind around the pair with her motion.

“Except for Luna, Twilight, Princess C-“

“You know what I mean.”

“Yup.” He popped his p as Scootaloo began to quiver, especially around her chest. Ah. “I’m just saying, any-pony who works as Princess Celestia’s part time secret agent, and who personally taught Twilight most of what she knows and turned Princess Luna into ‘death metal pony,’ sponsor of the modern night scene might be just a teensy bit cooler than you.” He cocked his head, grinning a little like some mad pony trying to stop up a weather factory. “Maybe five percent cooler than you?”

“ONE TIME! One time I throw some number out like that, and no-pony ever lets me forget it! How do you even, I-arrrghbkle!” Dash inarticulately jibbered in angry gibberish. Her fore-hooves repeatedly pounded at her face as she tried not to scream.

Scootaloo had no such impediment, and began laughing out loud at her favorite mentor’s predicament. A whip-crack sounded as Berry uncoiled his tail from around her fast enough to slap sound. He held her up to Dash. “Quick, take her to the Fortress of Friendship, and cast her into the Pit of Awesome! Transform her into Scootdar the Barbarian so that I may seal away the terrible mopes and save Equestria.”

Turning crimson instantly, Scootaloo clammed up as Rainbow stopped self-flagellating and stared in confusion at the pair. “What.” That was really it, wasn’t much more to say.

“Just a stupid daydream, nothing to it.” Scootaloo weakly protested.

“A stupid daydream with Rainan of Haymeria? You dream loudly.” Berry pointed out, completing Scootaloo’s re-mortification. “Ever since her accidental flight yesterday, and her flight with Sunbeam, she’s been dreaming about it, and getting all flustered about the idea of being adopted by Sunbeam.” It was a pity that ponies couldn’t melt like sugar or ice, since the color Scootaloo was reaching suggested that she would have started flash-boiling on the deck if they did. Might have been interesting.

“What, some kind of crazy comic book adventure, like the Power Ponies?” Dash asked in confusion, her lips poking out in a duck-like squiggle that Rarity was fond of.

“Something, dunno. Real shame, too. Sunbeam will probably get distracted in her work, even if it would be the best for both of them for her to adopt Scootaloo. But, it’s not like she’ll have some-pony poking at her to get her to spend more bonding time.” Berry suggested aloud, completely and totally unsubtly poking verbally at Dash to do just that. The funny contemplative look on her face suggested she was considering it.

“Yeah, that is kind of—wait, what drive thingie? Don’t you distract me!”

“It’s all busted up. It was stupid. Didn’t work and crashed.” Scootaloo faintly pouted.”

“Yeah, kind of went kerblooie. But Scootaloo figured out how to fix it a little bit ago! Want to come see it?”

Author's Note

*Scootdar the Barbarian was most certainly not mimetically implanted in Scootaloo's head by some strange mix of two extremely long-winded fantasy stories about lone wanderers on an eternal journey, no ma'am. She most certainly came up with it all on her own, no matter how many times you scream blatant lies! :trollestia:

*After the first time Scootaloo started chasing ponies around in her daydreams, the other two Crusaders made a habit of replacing whatever tool she had in her hooves with squeaky mallets. Mostly because it's really, REALLY hard to give ponies concussions with inflatable toys. You'd be surprised at what she can manage, though.

*Many forms of magic currents act much like electromagnetic currents. While it is unknown why they act as such, it is clear that it isn't wise to touch materials that are conducting such currents. Mostly because your hair day will really, REALLY suck afterwards. Electricity is Gravity and Fate's meaner cousin, and she's a ginger.

*Warning: Celestia Adoption Syndrome is not recognized by any legitimate Equestrian mental health agency. While multiple conflicting reports of sufferers exist, no proof has ever emerged of such ponies. Pay no attention to Ponyvile, or the drinks on the desks of ponies who are busy dealing with princesses who would first drive them mad...

6.5

6.5

Too quiet. Just before the storm quiet, the silence before the hurricane or blizzard quiet. The kind of quiet that made Sunbeam’s flank squirm and prickle uncomfortably beneath her fur as she waited for the bad news to break. Silence that made her watch the playground through the metal slats of a cheap window blind, waiting for something to happen.

Diamond hadn’t shown up the day before, or the day before that. No note to the school, the board of Barnyard Bargains didn’t know where they were—she had asked. Neither she nor her father were at their mansion. Weren’t in Ponyvile, or anywhere in the country for a radius of forty miles as far as she could tell. It was like they had dropped from the face of Equestria, and it rankled her in ways she couldn’t quite figure out. She did not like it at all.

Not. One. Bit.

“Are you looking for Diamond Tiara again?” Cheerilee, on the other hoof, was mostly just fine with the issue provided Filthy turned up again.

Sunbeam’s hoof slipped from the blinds, letting the thing contorted metal snap back to its natural shape with tiny clicks. With the way the vanishing was making her stomach churn, she wasn’t too sure that finally having Tiara out of her mane for a few days was good for her blood pressure or not. “She is our student. Just because I don’t like her doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her.” She stepped back from the side window, squeezing out from between the wall cabinets. “Worried about all my little ponies.” She whispered far more quietly.

“Are you okay? You’re making strange noises again.” Cheerilee worriedly asked as she got the drawing materials for the pictorial lesson after recess ready. Action and reaction was always fun!

With a rub of her stomach, Sunbeam sighed in a bit of frustration over the annoying nuances of the situation. “Just giving myself an ulcer over this.” She lamented, poking her side. Wait, was it firmer? No, that was just silly. What was the time again? Oh, oh dear. They were already late. “Best to hit the bell. We’re a few minutes behind.” She inched over to the door, getting ready to open it. “Oh, and there’s a storm over the Everfree. Might be heading this way.”

Cheerilee rolled her eyes a little at the schedule-fuss as she fished for the buzzer controls in the cluttered drawers of her desk. “Don’t worry so much about the schedule, Sunbeam! It’s more of a guideline than an actual rule.” Her frumpy grimace slowly morphed into a wide smile as she realized there was still some good news to be had. “And with Tiara gone, we can actually teach and have it stick!”

Sunbeam slowly opened up the door just a bit. “Yes, I suppose we can now.”

“Besides, we’re not that lucky. She’ll turn up again, just watch.” Cheerilee bubble-burst pessimistically as she considered how annoying the bully’s return would be on her teaching results. With that, the great metallic din of the bell ringing itself half to death rose up from just outside as Cheerilee started it, silencing the oddly quiet schoolyard further under the thought-drowning loudness.

But the silence continued after it trailed off slowly, oppressive and massive as no foals came for the doors. It was creepy and still out there, prompting Sunbeam to open the door a little farther to seek out the formerly busily playing foals. Wind and storm off in the distance slowly heading their way were the only sounds, the whisper of far-off rain rushing downwards to purge and clean the lands. No chatter of happy foals, no incessant bouncing of rubber balls or the creak of—yes, there was the creak of a swing-set’s chain. Sunbeam leaned out of the door, looking towards the playground equipment in an anxious flash to spot any of the foals at all. Oh, there they all were. They were completely justified in sitting and standing around in shocked silence. “You’re right. We’re not that lucky. She’s back, and she brought a guard.” Sunbeam lamented to her partner in teachy-crime before putting on a brave face to find out what Diamond wanted. “Why, good morning!”

Diamond slowly turned her gaze upon her teacher, a languid glance of boredom much as one might spare for someone particularly troublesome and annoying. Odder than that, her drab-colored suit was cut in the same conservative fashions as could be often seen worn by the nobles of Canterlot, the dark greys clashing with her glaring bright pink fur; an oddness of dress further perpetuated by the subdued tiara on her head. With a sigh of boredom and annoyance, she wriggled through the semi-circle of foals to head towards her teacher.

“Oh.” She grumbled, lifting her nose high. “How good to see you again, Miss Sunbeam.”

Sunbeam was rather taken aback by the cold indifference of the filly’s reaction, a far cry from her boisterous bellicose bother that she normally inflicted on her surroundings. The plain-clothes guards pony in his suit was trying—and failing miserably like Pinkie in a boiled cabbage festival—to look inconspicuous at the gate, a sight that was ignored by the foals due to the sheer strangeness Diamond Tiara was oozing as she smoozed towards the schoolhouse door past Sunbeam. Fine, she’d bite the obvious trap.

“Might I ask what’s been keeping you away from class these past two days, Diamond Tiara? I noticed your new clothes, and your bodyguard. Canterlot cut, and designed by some pony with nowhere near the talent of Miss Rarity. Has something happened?” Sunbeam inquired as she delicately stepped over Applebloom. The filly had been trying to block her path while pointed pleading and shaking her head silently.

Diamond stopped in her tracks, her high-held head bobbing as her eyebrows furrowed lightly in a frown that vanished like the morning mists as she took over her self-control again. “Why, I’ve been busy getting enrolled in the Canterlot Business School!” She shouted with something approaching her normal personality. Some pony over to the shadowed side of the school gasped a little at that.

She backed up a little farther towards the door, looking over the crowds a little with a twitch to her eye. “Some pony finally recognized my wonderful talents and gave me the opportunities that I deserved!” Diamond crowed like the Crusaders, making the normally noise-tolerating trio wince and cover their ears. More than a few looked at her like she was crazy as she cast her gaze over the crowd with a strangely desperate twitch. Why wouldn’t they—Tiara being given ‘opportunities’ sounded like crazy talk. Not Pinkie-crazy, but crazy-crazy, something that didn’t seem possible.

But, the truth needed to be ferreted out. Sunbeam scooted ahead of the slowly closing ring of students, her presence making them hold off a little. “So, who’s your sponsor? I hate to be blunt, but ponies not of noble birth need a sponsor to be entered into the school so they can maintain their standards.” She waited a bit to see who she’d get her sister to throw popcorn at.

“Why, Duke Redcoat of Whinneypeg.” Happy feeling very much gone. “He noticed my father and I, and decided to help us with our business! He’s picked me up as his personal student, like Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight!” Diamond preened, rubbing a bluish-silver bracelet against the shimmering tie of her suit.

Oh yes, the good feeling was entirely gone. With her fit of sudden anxiety and a quivering quake, Sunbeam’s ears practically molded and glued themselves to her scalp. “Duke Redcoat? Diamond, I’ll say this for your own good and warning: You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” Forget just messing with Tiara, Redcoat getting involved in Ponyvile was bad news by the same Ponyvile scale that had ‘Act of Discord’ as a bottom-rung inconvenience. That there was the small issue of any outsider-pony entering in the CBS needing to be a Twilight Sparkle grade study-hard to succeed in the school, but that wasn’t in the running for considerations.

Besides, she was just fine with Tiara stuffing her head with knowledge instead of bad works.

Harrumphing, Tiara pranced about in a circle, almost as if she was nervous as she looked everywhere but into Sunbeam’s eyes. “Oh really? You know what? I think you just don’t like me. You think I’m weak, and you don’t want me to be the best I can be.” Diamond grumpily dismissed as she turned back to the door and flicked her tail at the school teacher. She didn’t even notice the small hurt cry from beside the schoolhouse as she stomped up the wooden steps, or the pained look on her grey friend’s face.

Before she could step through the opened portal into the building, though, Sunbeam set herself in Tiara’s path with a wing-fueled hop that kicked up lack-luster puffs of dust about them both. “You’re wrong about that, Diamond Tiara. Well, not about my dislike—you’re really a terrible pony.”

She stopped, sitting down when she realized how horrible her reflexive statement had been. “I’m sorry. You’ve done quite a bit that is wrong, Diamond. Morally, if not legally. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to succeed just like every other pony under my care.” She corrected quietly, drawing on all her diplomatic experience as she squatted down to look Diamond in the eyes.

Without touching her, she carefully moved to half-embrace her and spread the love she still felt for all ponies to the wayward little girl. “I want you to know that no matter what Duke Redcoat says, his interests are not in your best interests.” Sunbeam wanted to gently butt heads with Diamond, or hug her for certain to show the full measure of her love. She couldn’t. It wouldn’t go well, would be taken the wrong way. “Please don’t take the offer. You’re not ready for the school.”

The roll of Diamond’s eyes with sarcastic boredom wasn’t exactly the expected outcome. “Well, duh. Of course he isn’t in it out of the goodness of his heart. What kind of a business-pony would he be? By helping me become the best business-pony ever, he gets more out of his deal to have stakes in daddy’s business.” Diamond mock-babbled Sunbeam’s concerns under her breath as she squeezed through the tiny gap between the mare’s foreleg and her belly.

“C-Canterlot?” A timid voice pleadingly asked. Silver Spoon slowly emerged from behind the bushes at the side of the school, where she had been hiding from rather vengeful students. No Diamond to have her way? The students had more than just a few things to say. She was a wreck, with mane damaged and ruffled whilst her glasses were askew. “You’re leaving?”

A sigh was Diamond’s first response as she let her head bobble low. “Yes. I’m moving to Canterlot, as the school requires me to be in the city full-time.” She explained in tiny terms to her flunky, so her friend would get it.

Sunbeam flopped backwards as she hopped out of the way of the grey missile that grabbed ahold of Diamond’s back legs. She scraped her head against the fine gravel of the path to look back towards the gate, noting with alarm that the guardspony was reaching into his jacket for his holdout weapon. His slow stop as she frantically waved him off was a bit relieving as she listened to Silver bawl her heart out to Diamond.

“Please, no! Or take me with you—don’t leave me here! Please don’t leave me here with them.” She pleaded pitifully to Diamond as she laid at her friend’s hooves, not caring that she was utterly covered in dust from her slide.

Diamond’s face twitched with dubious doubt at the plight of her friend. Just a twitch in the eyebrows, the slight glint of concern.

Sunbeam pressed the point home for her, hoping to get her to see reason. “The school won’t let you take her with you, Diamond. Even if she could move where would she go? You’d both be treated as you treat the Crusaders here.”

Further doubt wrinkled Diamond’s face as that little tidbit of knowledge sunk in and buried itself right in her gut to churn it like a washing machine; she knew exactly what kind of behavior Sunbeam was talking about, even if she would never admit to it. It was only for the briefest of seconds, a quantum of doubt before she hardened herself against her future. Her voice was utterly neutral as she reluctantly pulled her hooves free from her friend’s grip so she could step into the school. “I’m sorry, Silver Spoon. I have to go: for my daddy, and for our business.”

She reluctantly pulled away from her old friend, her gaze flickering from Spoon to her guard, and then to the schoolhouse before she skittered inside to get away from the pleading gaze of her friend. Silver let her hoof drop to the ground as her friend disappeared into the shadows inside, slowly pressing her face into the wood of the step as quiet moans tried to escape. All about her, the foals of the schoolyard closed in, many of them looking to have their way with one of the former terror of the schoolyard. Who cared if she hurt, if she suffered? She had done far worse to them at the direction of Diamond, and if she was hurting, that just made kicking her off the playground all the sweeter.

Their stalking stopped as Sunbeam had her say on the matter, picking Silver Spoon up in the crook of her fore leg. “It’ll be alright, Silver Spoon.” She whispered to the foal. “She’s just trying to do right by her father. She’s probably hurting just as badly as you.” The tiny whimpers from her burden tugged at strings she hadn’t expected to be plucked that morning. “Let’s get you home.”

Crusaders three crowded up behind them, looking towards the still empty schoolhouse in confusion. It was darker, somehow. It had to be their imagination from Diamond being inside, just an illusion conjured by their minds. Sweetie’s voice filled the gap with innocent confusion. “Did she just—“

“Yes, yes she did.”

Applebloom came up on the other side of Sunbeam, looking similarly concerned. “What the hay just happened? Was Diamond Tiara actually plum sorry fer something?”

“Don’t leave me.” Silver whispered as she continued to weakly grab at the air towards the schoolhouse.

It wasn’t going to do at all. Sunbeam’s wings reached out and bumped the Crusader’s heads all together before her, clustering them so that she could drop Silver just behind them. “Could I ask you three to watch over Silver Spoon? I think she needs to go home.” When she tried to look each of them in the eyes, Scootaloo was the only one to meet her gaze, solemnly nodding to her in agreement. She’d watch her enemy. “I’ll be right back out to take her home after I talk to Tiara and find out what is going on with her.”

There was not time to stop and measure their reactions as she rushed back inside, catching a glimpse of Tiara’s tail flicking behind the disagreeable filly just before the pink rump it was attached to disappeared through the cracked open door to Cheerilee’s office. Sunbeam could hear the foals finally filing into the classroom behind her as she shimmied, squeezed, and scooted down the tight hallway to her fellow teacher’s office and slithered through the door like her treacherously thin sister. You couldn’t trust some pony who had no softness. They were always up to something.

“Oh, Miss Sunbeam! Have a seat!” Cheerilee help a hoof out to the enormous mare, gesturing to her other cushion so as to save herself the trouble of being alone in a room with Tiara. “Diamond Tiara here was just filling me in on her unusual request to have her records transferred.”

“I heard. I find it rather unusual as well. The Canterlot Business School won’t be accepting new students until the start of the next fall term, so I’m not certain why Diamond is in such a hurry to unenroll from Ponyvile.” Sunbeam mused aloud as she squeezed into the tight space left beside the filly with a whuff of sucked-in gut. Wriggles of discomfort didn’t help her in settling down; each little movement pinning and pinching small parts of her gut painfully between a desk and her hard legs. She looked to Tiara, Tiara frowned anxiously and looked back. Sunbeam went back to trying to make the best of her tight spot until she got fed up with the silence. “Are you getting tutored over the spring and summer semesters to make up for your current grades?”

“Yes. Maybe. He’s helping me.” Diamond babbled as she scooted over to keep from getting squished in Sunbeam’s quest for seating.

“Ah.” Sunbeam tried one last gambit for making room, giving up in a huff of disappointment as she was forced to just rest her fore legs to either side of her gut in the cramped space. “When I said you would have to study hard to make up for your current position, I meant it. You might end up with many of Twilight Sparkle’s neurosis by the end of it. She didn’t start out a neurotic mess.” Sunbeam started reaching up to pat Diamond on the head, stopping with a jerk of her hoof when she remembered how awkward it would be. To make up for it, she put on a small smile and leaned in for the whisper. “Just between you and me, your sponsor didn’t exactly help out.”

She actually looked a little confused. Tiara was sort of conflicted, disconcerted by the reminder of the resident alicorn. But, emboldened. “I need to. I’m supposed to be my daddy’s princess. I can’t learn that here. Oh, uh, no offense, Miss Cheerilee.” Diamond corrected when she realized she was starting to insult her favorite adult by accident.

She fidgeted in place, averting her gaze from the other ponies in the office. “Look, I’m supposed to run my daddy’s business when her—goes.” She contorted her face, wanting to spit the taste of the word ‘dies’ from it before it ate up all her thoughts. “I can’t learn that properly in Ponyvile. Daddy went to the school eventually, and Duke Redcoat wants me to live up to my potential, even if he has to take time to help me himself. Why do ponies have a problem with that?”

Cheeerilee glanced up and over to Sunbeam, who was wriggling her ears apprehensively in thought as she pondered how best to explain her experiences with the mad Duke of Whinneypeg. She spoke after another awkward silence, quiet and calm with concern. “Duke Redcoat just has never done something like this. He’s putting into a situation you’re not ready to handle. Please, don’t do this to yourself. If you want to go, I can help you get ready.”

Sunbeam’s explanation got something through to Diamond again, and the pink filly’s tiara nearly fell of her head when she bowed in thought. She whispered under her breath as her eyes tightly shut and twitched, eyelashes wet with moisture. “I know he is. He told me that he wanted to make me into more than I already am.”

“What? What did he tell you?” Cheerilee asked of Diamond, leaning up onto her desk as if to pull the information bodily from Tiara.

“What I needed to hear.” Diamond dismissed with a stomp of her hoof and a huff of finality. “Can I get my records now, or does my daddy need to get them?”

6.6

6.6

Thunk-bonk wasn’t normally the sound heard from an apple bucking in Big Macintosh’s experience. Wasn’t to say it was completely outside of his experience; more of an ‘Applejack is trying too darn hard again’ sound brought on from bucking while exhausted or distracted and dropping a branch on some pony’s head. If he was a betting pony—them poker nights with Spike, Turner, and the others didn’t count—then he’d put good money on the source being Sunbeam. Distraction had been her middle name for the last week since Diamond Tiara had moved up to Canterlot and left her flunky-friend Silver Spoon to rot with barely an apology. She had too darn big and gooey of a heart for her own good, and she had been worrying herself sick trying to get the foals to stop picking on the filly. Far too big, as far as he reckoned; Tiara had been a bad seed from the get-go, and her influence had left Silver just about outcast from her peers, and he couldn’t see much of a way to get Silver back into the town’s good graces without the influence Filthy left to his daughter. For that matter, he hadn’t been too interested in explaining in detail how bad Diamond had been to Filthy, seeing as the old stallion was still the biggest customer for the farm.

“Stupid.” Thunk. “Stupid.” Thunk, “Stupid!” Thunk! “Mean-stupid!” Thunk. “Stupid-mean!” Thunk.” “Jerkish!” Thunk! “Cowardly!” Thunk! “Spiteful!” Thunk! “No-good!” Thunk! “Bunch of meaniepants!” Thunk-THUNK!

“Ruining mah trees.” Big Macintosh interrupted her quietly, having snuck up on his apple bucking partner from the side. That’d be the other reason he had been confident it was her, she was the only one close-by.

With a yelp of surprise, Sunbeam’s kick down the line went wide as her hooves missed the trunk of the tree by a few inches to either side of its mass. Without a firm backstop, her weight and the motion of her kick kept carrying her back until the evil spiteful witch named Physics ensured that the inevitable collision took place. Her next sound was far more pitiful, a soft whimper of pain that tickled its way out just after the tender slap of soft flesh against hard bark; it was the sort of whimper a pony made when they whacked their tender bits something fierce.

Macintosh backed away slowly as she slowly slid to the ground in a groaning heap of pain, afraid for his Little Mac if she took offense to the accident. When her soft, hap-hazard chuckles escaped one by one, he crouched down to look at her. “Just yer pride?”

“Not especially.” She wheezed quietly. “But also yes.” That was more of a squeak, like a twisted balloon. Fitting, as she rolled onto her back and curled her legs protectively close.

He let her twitch on the ground and imitate a dying bug for a bit longer so as to let her work the pain out of her system before he tried to lighten her mood. She probably wouldn’t kick him. Maybe. “Need a shoe?”

“What?” She wheezed again.

“All curled up like a dead bug, Put’chya out of yer misery and such-like.” He whimsically lilted, holding out a hoof while winking at her.

“I’ll live.” Sunbeam gingerly ground out before rocking back and forth until she rolled back upright again. A pity he smartly moved back out of range. She thought he could use a swift kick to the shin for startling her like that. “You know, it’s not nice to startle a lady like that.” She pretended to shake and shiver with more aching than she actually felt as she rose back to her hooves, playfully shaking out bit by bit from nose to tail with a bit of emphasis on her hind legs just to twerk Macintosh lightly.

“The way you were going, Ah couldn’t help it.” He solemnly intoned. “’Sides, yer not that much of a lady.”

“Hey!”

“More of a feisty gal, if ya ask me. One with a big ole’ heart.”

With a blush, Sunbeam shut up again. Well, shutting up, but gaping down. If she let her mouth hang open any farther in shock it’d probably be bad for her health. She’d end up swallowing a fly, and then swallow the spider on the start of some ridiculous foal’s tale to get rid of it all. No, stop that, that was silly.

She shut her mouth after a bit of percussive brain resetting involving shaking her head hard enough to bounce it a bit off of the insides of her skull. It took a bit more than most ponies, since it was mostly air in there. He was totally right, though. She wouldn’t have noticed Luna ballet-dancing through the orchards in a pink tutu while belting out the Ring Cycle in the Royal Canterlot Speaking Voice with the way she was letting herself get distracted. “You’re right, Big Macintosh. The troubles with the students has been rather preoccupying my attention lately. I’ve been too busy thinking about foals instead of doing the job you hired me to do.”

“This ‘bout Diamond Tiara?”

“No.” She stopped on her way back to the cart; pondered a bit. “Yes.” Big Mac’s raised eyebrow bored into her. “Maybe. Not so much her as her leaving.”

“Ah heard.” Macintosh mentioned.

“I know I shouldn’t be so worried about her going to the Canterlot Business School—“

“Eenope.”

“—But I know what she’s going to go through. She’s not ready, and they’ll torment her until she’s quite mad.”

“Eemaybe.”

“Then there’s Silver Spoon!”

“Eeyup?”

“The foals are all bullying her now that Diamond Tiara’s gone and can’t sick her daddy on their parents!”

“Eeyup.”

“Don’t they know how awful of a thing that is to do from the way Diamond bullied them?”

“Eenope.”

“Silver Spoon’s been so rattled lately that she’s barely paying attention, and other than the Crusaders, the foals are making it almost impossible for her to go to school!”

“Eeyup.”

“I’m going halfway crazy trying to get them to live by better examples!”

“Full ways.”

“Stop that.”

“Eenope.”

Sigh. “Whatever. Ugh, I’m afraid Silver is going to stop showing up if I can’t get the class to stop retaliating for the torments they suffered at Diamond’s hooves.”

“Eeyup.”

“I’m just about ready to give up and ask her parents to move at this rate.”

“Eenope.”

“You think I can still help her?” Sunbeam looked up from where she had laid her head on the railing of the cart, looking at Big Macintosh with hopeful eyes.

“Eeyup.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t give up on her yet!”

“Eenope!”

Still, her hooves scraped at the ground in expression of her frustration. It wasn’t as simple as telling a pony to make friends. She had four years of reports to tell her that. “I’ve got to figure out how to get them to make friends with her. Maybe I could find a way to emphasize her better natures. She was positively ashamed of some of the things Tiara tried to pull with me.”

“Eeyup.”

“In fact, did she ever take the lead in bullying a pony? I can’t recall coming across a note as such in Cheerilee’s notes.”

“Eenope.”

“So she’s a follower.” Ah, there was the angle she had been needing.

“Eeyup?”

“Which might mean her behavior would drastically change if she took on a new leader figure.”

“Eemaybe?”

“Furthermore, being seen with a friend might convince the students that she is willing to reform.” Sunbeam was pacing about in a circle by that point, studiously plotting as her mental agitation was reflected in her movements.

“Eeyup?”

“Maybe. It’d have to be seen to be without doubt before they would buy it. It’d have to be utterly genuine. But how?”

“Eeyup?” If it wasn’t for the fact that the rest of the trees needed to be bucked, Big Macintosh might have decided to hide behind one. Err, inspect the bark at close range, Apples didn’t hide.

Sunbeam’s whimper of frustration was particularly loud as she flopped to the ground and held her head in her hooves so she could squeeze her brain out of her ears. What had been a simple problem was turning into a mess as labyrinthine as Canterlot politics. Nay, Canterlot versus Cloudsdale in an all-out brawl to the political death while Manehatten sat on the sidelines throwing apples at both to keep riling them up. Not only would the friend have to be compatible in personality, but there was also the issue that she had to put them into a situation conducive to friendship, ensure that the new party wouldn’t pick up Silver Spoon’s current Tiara-taught bad habits through proxy, the some pony had to be a party that the rest of the students could conclusively say she hadn’t simply bribed, that they could be seen together, and that the pony or ponies in question wouldn’t accidentally teach her new bad habits in the process.

She could go for the obvious answer in the Crusaders, but given their history with Silver it’d take a miracle to make the group work. Given that her astral mane was put away and all pink and limp, she couldn’t exactly pull a miracle out of her mane. So, she progressed to grinding her nose into the ground in frustration for a bit until it was red and throbbing and she could stand it no more. Anxious frustration drove her to get back up and start absent-mindedly picking up her apple baskets, stomping about and carrying on with exaggerated movements as her thoughts escaped without a mind/mouth filter to keep them in.

Big Mac picked up Sunbeam’s apple-bucking duties so he could keep his distance, her mood made him afraid to interrupt her mumbling through working out his problems. Letting them rant their problems out usually worked pretty nicely once you had ‘em going. But, it was dangerous as they would often lash out a bit if some pony or something interrupted their thought train. Best thing, then, would be to skittishly and quietly keep a distance.

Come to think of it, Miss Sunbeam reminded him of more than one of his sister’s friends; the oddest combination of them as well, come to think of it. She had the picky fastidiousness of Miss Belle, and her eye for beauty and that strange willingness to give selflessly; Princess Sparkle’s mad twitchiness, madder brainstorming, and her just plain odd grasp of magic; and she has the raw enthusiasm and relentless drive of Pinkie Pie that practically turned her into a vibrating blob of energy half the time. That last part was probably what drove her to teach and far at the same time. Might be the gallon-sized cups of coffee he sometimes caught her sneaking. Nah. She was probably just naturally bouncy and energetic.

‘Course, she was also still going, even five minutes later. And probably about to talk herself hoarse. Or drive him mad, she might drive him mad instead.

“Rumble will think she has cooties, and even if that’s overcome he’s noted for being a rough-houser. It’s not surprising given that his brother is one of the auxiliary guards for Ponyvile, but could lead to her own reversion to roughhouse tendencies, which could lead to much bigger problems. Featherweight would most likely get along nicely, but the little f—err, Featherweight does have a bad habit of ignoring all privacy laws. For shame on him, sneaking into Canterlot and taking those pictures of Princess Celestia like that. She’d probably turn into a stalker under his influence. Then again, I could arrange for Button Mash to meet with her. As far as I know, he’s never had any bad interactions with her, and he’s a nice attentive colt who follows all the rules. But then again, he always feels so strange, like he doesn’t want to be around ponies. He also doesn’t exactly have a social life. I suppose it might have to do with his strange cutie mark. I’ve never heard of a block figure before. Maybe he’s an artist.”

Right. She was jumping off the plotting deep end into the mareianas trench. With Sunbeam’s babbling stream of thought growing ever more frantic, Macintosh finished the last of the small square of trees and came over to snap her out of it. Then he stopped. Twilight had certainly never started flittering up into the air when he let her work her problems out at him, but there Sunbeam went, rising up over the tops of the trees as she lost herself in thought. There was a rope on the front bench of the wagon. He might not be a rodeo champion like Applejack, but he still could throw a mean lasso ‘round an errant pegasus.

“Gah!” Sunbeam yelped with a rope twisted around her hind legs and a sharp tug to grab her attention. “Oh, oh dear. I got a little wrapped up.”

There was that Pinkie-ism again. “Eeyup.”

“At the accidental pun, or the overthinking?” She called down to him as she slowly and carefully hovered downwards.

“Eeyup.”

“Smart Alek.” Sunbeam set down after she chided him, first wriggling out of the lasso before rolling herself calm on the grass patch to freshen up from her twitchy anxiousness. It was a curious sensation, rolling on the grass: it always gave her the strangest urge to forget everything and wriggle around belly-up while forgetting all her responsibilities. Nonsense, that was just silly. “You know, I can’t think of any pony who would both be a good influence on her AND be willing to be Silver Spoon’s friend. I was right the first time. Maybe I should just give up.”

“Eenope.” Macintosh grunted before he started picking up baskets to take back to the cart.

“You think I should keep trying?”

“Eeyup.”

“Even after seeing how worked up I got?”

“Eeyup.”

“But how?” Sunbeam just about whined as she got back up again. No, that wasn’t acceptable at all. She was the Unconquered Sun! She was—used to having way more resources and information to solve problems with. With only the foals of Ponyvile to work with, and a rather limited set of resources, what would once have been a trivial problem to Friendship the crap out of was turning into a nightmare. Right, first came moving the apple buckets, though.

“I still don’t have an angle on how to help her, though. No pony who would help her in the class would just listen to me and give her a second chance.” She grumbled in annoyance after she dropped her next bucket in besides Macintosh’s own.

He kept stoic as she huffed in frustration, acting as a rock for her. “Eenope.”

“And it’s not like I could just manufacture some crazy scenario to force a friendship between her and the ponies most likely to get Tiara’s bad ideas out of her head! I don’t have the time, or know where to start! Sure, it’s the best way, but—but—gah!” Sunbeam angrily threw up a hoof in the middle of her miniature rant, waving it around impotently to Big Macintosh’s disconcertion as he hastily dropped flat on the ground and covered his head to avoid getting brained.

“Pinkie!?”

“What?” That was—ooh, new variable! She hadn’t even considered recruiting outside help like that. Ponderously did her mental gears crank back to life; ponderously did her own rather excessive rump turn with her inner thoughts as she spun in place. Yes, Pinkie the Pink, secret master of the Joyous Ways—okay, not that secret. Yes, her. Pinkie, and Rarity, and the crazy stallion down the lane who worked with clocks and who was oddly familiar to her, Mr. Turner-something. Yes, they would do; they, and many others. “Yes, Pinkie. Pinkie the Pink! Pinkie the Mad! Why, I don’t even need a harrowing situation, just a perilous one!”

A fell wind kicked up all around them as an evil set of chuckles burbled like a brook from her heart. Lighting crackled from a sudden storm as she burst into maniacal laughter and held her hooves to the skies as she cackled her triumph over the dastardly odds of Friendship Science! But first, she had to finish her job. Clouds whipped away again as suddenly as they came, throwing the small square grove back into the harsh contrast of direct sunlight as she practically walked on air over Macintosh’s head.

“Harrowing Situation?” He wasn’t liking where her train of thought was chugging towards. Eenope, not at all. Old flashbacks to the Smarty Pants incident came to mind, and was it him or were all the shadows darker and creepier?

“What? Oh, well, uh, no!” Sunbeam protested as she skidded to a halt beside the next basket and his anxious tone registered in her mind. Pulling her hooves up from being buried fetlock-deep into the soft loam by her skid took up her next second. “No-no! THAT plan was a terrible iteration! But it was based off a good iteration! Friendship Science is a very developed discipline, now!”

Applewood handles had an odd taste to them when one had an adrenaline rush from the rapid-fire brainstorm of a plan putting itself together. It was almost fruity-smokey, with a hint of tangy goodness. A pity the jitters of nervous energy made it hard to enjoy as one frantically tried to keep their twitches from bouncing from the basket. It was sort of like trying to keep steady in an ice cube ballet performance on a hot and windy Appleoosa summer day, even if her wings did provide a nice wide surface to catch them with. Oh hey! She made a country-ism! Blending in was always so nice.

At least it gave time for Big Mac’s eyebrows to bury themselves in the metaphorical snowpack of his mane. “Mind ‘splaining?” He drawled as he trundled back to the wagon with his next set of baskets.

With a squee, Sunbeam broke out her teaching glasses from her mane and pulled out her emergency chalkboard from where she had stowed it under the cart in case of teaching emergency. Why was he snorting like that and hiding behind the wagon like she was a hungry manticore? Had he never seen a properly prepared teacher before? Bah. “One of the most durable, deepest, and longest-lasting harmonic bonds is the kind fixed through common stakes in the face of adversity!”

Sunbeam rapidly chalked out the principles of the Belle-Apple effect (or was it Apple-Belle?) on the board, drawing in the debated Dashian variables to account for varying numbers of outsiders in an event. “As you can see, when confronted the previously semi-hostile factions band together when provided the proper conditions! This effect can be seen on all levels of society from interpersonal all the way up to multi-species coalitions! It’s scientific!” She was most certainly cackling like a mad scientist!

“The part about the peril?” Macintosh redirected with mounting alarm as he peered over the side of the wagon with only the top of his head from the eyes up visible with folded ears.

A manically-gesturing hoof paused mid-swing as Sunbeam realized she was freaking him out. With that sheepish realization firmly in her mind, she slowly lowered herself to the ground so as to avoid further startling him. First came off her glasses, nearly closing them up with a sharp flick and a click. “Well, um—yes. No actual peril involved.” She calmly apologized as she once more reset herself to be the model of calm, slicking her mane back into a smooth comb-over with a wet hoof.

Contesting her calming statement came her stomach, the traitorous organ growling with fiery anger and the despair of a great pit left to yawn into an eternal void. Overdramatic bugger. She sloshed her belly to calm it down and continued on. “Okay, maybe my waistline will be imperiled with extreme peril, but no pony important!”

Big Mac put his fore-hooves on the top of the sideboard railing, standing up tall. “Eenope!”

Sunbeam’s dramatic manic smile dropped entirely in an instant, as did her rump. She flopped to the ground in sudden shocked as the wind left her wings, which too drooped low enough that they seemed to have melted and puddled beside her. Worse was the pitiful look on her face, which would have melted even the most fortified heart. “You don’t want me to try?”

“Eenope.” Big Macintosh tried to correct. He beat a trail around the wagon when he realized he had distressed her further; dashing up to her with an agility that belied his size just so that he could pick up her chin and look her in the eyes. “Yer important.”

Words like that had a bad habit of turning mares into pony-shaped tomatoes, as Sunbeam promptly demonstrated at his words and gentle touch. “I—I- buh, No I’m not! I can think of plenty of ponies to do my jobs! I’m not Twilight, or Cadance, or—“

“Just cuz some pony can do your job doesn’t mean they’re you.” Big Macintosh scolded tenderly from memory, drawing on far too many practices with his sister. “Ain’t no pony like you. Just cuz some pony can do things you can doesn’t mean yer body is up for abuse. Now then, this peril perilous?” He poked her gently in the gut to add to his point.

“Oh.” She blushed a bit more from the praise before she realized they were back to talking about her plan. “Oh! Peril most extreme from Pinkie will befall my waistline.” She playfully exaggerated to him while poking her belly with a hoof for effect. Then again, would it work, or would she just get fattened? There was still a lot that could go wrong. “Maybe. If I can make this work.”

“Best to make sure to get it right the first time ‘round.” Macintosh pointed out helpfully before he picked up the basket by her hooves.

“Eeyup.” There was the Big Mac stink-eye for using his catch phrase again. Right, stop doing that. There was only one master of eeyups and eenopes. Getting back to picking up baskets again for a few minutes, she picked up her pace to satisfy to Big Macintosh that it would be okay for her to put her neck out on a foolish venture. The baskets stacked up quick, but they still had more than half left to go when Big Mac wrenched the next one from her grip. “Hey! What gives?”

“Filly. Go. Be Big Darn Hero.” He pointed as he drawled.

“I get the day off?!”

“Eeyup.” He shook the hoof pointing towards town sternly.

“Thank you!” She yelped, taking up and off with a shout. The work shade clouds all across the acres whipped with her windy passage, spinning into whirlpools of motion in the skies above. Like dances of snow, almost, cottony motion in poetry. Darn it, he needed to get back to work. The hard part was done, though, thanks to that plumb fool gal. She just left most of the cleanup thanks to her preoccupation. She had the darnedest habit of putting the needs of almost all others before her own just about no matter what.

The whistle of a sighing breath rattled beneath Big Macintosh’s yoke as he stopped and took a moment to contemplate his family’s orchard. “So pretty. Makes a stallion wish he had more.”

SMOOOCH! “Thank you!” Furiously blushing, Sunbeam carefully hovered away from him under the blissful silence. She had come back to thank him again, and left blissing out as she slunk away.

Another sigh seemed to be the best response for Big Macintosh as his hoof came up to tenderly rub the cheek she had kissed. By all that was glorious under Celestia’s sun and Luna’s moon, he finally knew what melting ice cream felt like after that heavenly kiss: sweetness warmed by the sun to melt down into a puddle of happiness to be loved and enjoyed by a loving pony, squeezed into an embrace he’d never leave if he could help it.

Gosh darn it all, that felt good.

His sister wouldn’t exactly agree when she came out an hour later to find him still laying there with that same big goofy grin on his face.

6.7

6.7

Silver Spoon only had one thing on her mind: it was all hopeless, so hopeless. The foals had all forgotten who they had looked up to, and then they decided to hate her forever for her friend Diamond trying to help them learn their places. Worst was, she couldn’t understand why. Why didn’t Diamond know her place? She had to have! She had to have, and now she was gone.

And now she was alone, up on a dark fire escape balcony in a back alley of Ponyvile, hoping that no-pony would find her. Hiding in a shadow, shivering against the cold and hungry breeze of the coming winter. She had heard that Dash was fighting to keep winter away for some reason, but that didn’t make much sense at all. Still, it didn’t help as the cold wind of the north tugged and twisted against her wet and matted fur and mane. Sticky juice had ruined them both for the day, staining her purple-pink in a mockery of her friend. Some icky colt had decided to pour the grape juice—not even Ponyvile apple juice!—all over her after she had tried to help him find his place for the day.

The worst part was—maybe she deserved it. What if she was a horrible pony, like they said? It wasn’t wrong to try and help ponies find their place for harmony, was it? No. She couldn’t be evil, or no better than Discord. She had to be right, right? Wasting her life on trying to find her Daddy’s rightness like she wanted to.

Just a mean pony, who’s special talent was making ponies miserable. She was, wasn’t she?

Fright gripped her as cans clattered further down the alley, kicked along the length of the housing complex to crash into glass bottles after skittering on cobblestone. Oh, no. Some-pony had found her, and was going to be mad at her, and why did she stay in town if this was the best place she could find? Oh, Celestia, she was in trouble! She could- she could shift further back into the shadow, curl up to show as little of herself as she could! Yeah, and then run away over whoever it was that was coming to be horrible to her!

A cardboard box crumpled under the weight of some-pony moving, crushing in a rustle of wetness from a prematurely placed icicle. She knew the box, it was up on her side of the alleyway, closer to her than the can pile. Something was coming for her. It was stalking her! Making her scared and tormenting her! Oh, why had she hidden in the alleyway instead of going home? Her daddy would have only spanked her raw for getting so messy and missing a few hours of school.

Temptations tugged at her from all angles. The urge to rage at whomever wanted to make her more miserable, to fight and strike back until she could be left alone for the day. The urge to run away, to try and climb the adult-sized ladder to try and escape over the roofs. The terror that screamed in her ears, which made her want to curl up into a ball until she turned into a little ball that no-pony would ever recognize and never-ever stop. And, there was a bit of morbid curiosity, driving a bit of her to want to take a look at her approaching doom. It’d never see if she just barely peeked over the edge of the platform, right?

No, it wasn’t doom, it was a foal. Just a foal. It had to be another foal, who else could it be?

Just, some-pony else she had wronged who was coming to look to have a bit of revenge on her for working her part in the world. Some-pony who didn’t like their place coming for her now that Diamond wasn’t there to shield her anymore. Why hadn’t she protested Diamond’s methods more when she had the chance? Oh, right. Diamond had been her only friend, the only pony who had wanted to talk to her. Was the only pony who dared to talk to her after the time she had brought Truffle home.

But that was then, and the shaking of the platform as her stalker reached it became the now. Cast iron wasn’t a quiet substance, and the ladder began ringing like a tuning fork as whoever was stalking her yanked it back down from where Silver had pulled it up behind her. Ringing, humming, shaking, rattling back and forth! The motions shook the balcony with such force that Silver curled up on herself in fear that the whole fire escape would give way.

Below her, an inequine snarl ripped through the musty air, a yelp of pain, a kick of fury smacking against the brick wall. Then, ringing again. Heavy hoof-steps, crashing against the ladder with resounding force as her stalker started climbing. Thump, after thump, after thump; a rhythm of fear that made Silver Spoon’s heart race against her ribcage and made her hooves wriggle her curled up form backwards in a scoot of terror until her spoon-emblazed rump smushed itself against the soot-stained brick behind her. The ladder rang again, and again; shaking ever more, as if a great weight was upon it. It was a futile gesture, hiding her head under her hooves, but with no way to get the fire escape door open it was her only option left.

Clang. Whimper.

Clang! Whimper!

CLANG! WHIMPER!

“Hey-HIYAH!” Sunbeam crowed as she popped her dirty, wet head over the edge of the fire escape balcony. She climbed a little further, letting her sprained wing rest against the cold metal of the iron as she propped her twisted ankle up on the platform. Hurt like the dickens after she had slipped in the icy mud puddle near that stupidly placed box. She might be immortal, but that wasn’t going to stop her traitorous ankle from swelling up like a cupcake when it got hurt. “Silver Spoon? They told me you came down here. Silver? Silver?”

Funny, it was the only place a foal could-oh dear. Well, best to put on her best Pinkie-smile and stand her ears up happily to let Silver know everything was alright. Poor dear must have been startled senseless by all the commotion of her slipping around. Certainly, Silver looked rather silly now that she saw her. “Oh dear, I hope I didn’t scare you, Silver.”

Hmm, that wasn’t good at all. She wasn’t even shivering, the cold should at least… oh, no. Awkward scrambling on Sunbeam’s part slowly pulled her up onto the balcony a little further, closing the distance between her outstretched fore-hoof and the curled up foal. A poke into the side was alarming. No bleating, no squirming in fear, or softly squishing under the press. There was a stiffness, and a coolness to Silver’s body. Still breathing, but shallowly beneath her hoof.

No, no, no! Not good, how long had she been out in the cold soaking wet? She must have become hypothermic from the wind! Where could she-hospital! Yes, forget the twist, use the wing!

It wasn’t the nice smell of fruity soap that woke her. Nor was it the motherly humming just over her hear, or the gentle but firm scrubbing of her mane that woke Silver Spoon from her slumber. It was the warmth, all around her, sloshing against her, pressing through her fur up to her chin. Wait, hang on. Was she in water?

Rushing back to her like a Dash-crash came consciousness, jolting her in shock as her senses overloaded as they all tried to report at once. Too much, just too-agh! She yelped and flailed like a fish out of water as she tried to get away from all the stimulation, clawing at the first solid object she could find. She was halfway out of the hot, sudsy water and climbing over the side of the tub in her panic before the scrubbing hooves had a chance to react. It didn’t last, however, as they came back upon her in the next second and dragged her flailing form carefully back into the water as one set in particular clutched her to an especially soft chest.

A nuzzling muzzle nudged her soaped-up ear, whispering hushing noises to her. Silver’s struggles subsided as she was subjected to the treatment. It felt safe, safer than she would have imagined. She couldn’t figure out why, even as she leaned up against the hard edge of the chin. It was like… warmth was a pony and telling her it was going to be alright.

But that was silly. Princess Celestia had lost her place and had disappeared, probably into the east.

“Easy now, Silver Spoon. You’re at Ponyvile General Hospital. You’re alright, you’re safe.” Whispered the gentle adult voice from just above her ear. Her comforter’s words slowed the rocketing race of her heart with the reassurances of safety. Sunbeam, it was Miss Sunbeam there. But—why?

Silver tried to look up to the big pegasus’s face, squinting through the fog of her blurry vision to fuzzily resolve the barest features of her teacher’s face. Ngh, her glasses must have been put aside somewhere. It hurt, trying to see without them. Her vision had never really recovered, and even—was that Nurse Redheart there—right, Redheart coming up to her with what was probably a sudsy loofa was just a set of colored blurs that fairly well resembled the outlines of a pony. Great, just a little invalid getting a sponge bath on top of being a worthless pony who deserved all her troubles.

Silver’s gaze slowly drifted across the room as her mane and ears were scrubbed down, indistinctly making out the distorted outlines of shelves and maybe the glint of the creamy tile patterns going up to Celestia’s height on the walls. Sloshing water was splashed up, gurgling in her ears as they drained, trickling down the sides of her head in hot rivulets. It all made her sleepy again, made her want to give into the cold trickle in her tummy and rest her chin on the ceramic side of the therapy tub. Made her want to just go back to sleep again and closer her eyes. It’d be nice.

Miss Sunbeam’s massive hoof and foreleg curled up underneath and around her chest to pull her back up from the brink of slipping down into the tub; wrapping her up with the same kind of squeezing hug Fluttershy’s pet snake had until she couldn’t slip away again. “Hang on there, Silver Spoon. Stay awake. You were getting too cold up on the balcony, and fell asleep from hypothermia. We’re warming you up, but you need to stay alert.”

“Dangerously cold.” Nurse Redheart growled in annoyance as she continued to scrub at Silver’s mane. “What were you doing, waiting there on that balcony in wet fur? You didn’t think to go home and warm up?” The hospital nurse had grown grumpier and grumpier over the past few years from the antics of Princess Sparkle and her friends, and dealing with the Crusaders. Silver sleepily pondered on the nurse, wondering if Redheart might have gotten dragged out of her home to deal with her. She didn’t want to cause problems.

“Wasn’t waiting for any-pony.” Silver haphazardly mumbled as she let herself be hugged closer to Sunbeam’s chest. T’was good, the big cuddly-fluffy warmth; just about perfect for sleeping against.

Redheart pulled Silver’s head back from Sunbeam’s side to keep scrubbing. “What about Diamond Tiar-What?” Redheart’s annoyed inquisition was interrupted by what felt like Sunbeam furiously shaking her head to get her to drop it. “Fine, any-pony else? What about home>”

“No.” Silver yawned tiredly, just wanting to go to sleep. “Just waiting for the day to end so daddy will let me stop ‘socializing.’ Do I have to be here?” Silver listlessly asked as her unbound mane slowly slipped from atop her head and pooled spread-out on the water like floating mercury.

“Yes, Silver.” Redheart grumbled, probably rolling her eyes. Silver was too busy staring at the inside of her eyelids to tell. “Your core body temperature was dangerously low when Miss Sunbeam found you. Even air temperatures like today in the mid-forties can be dangerous with wet fur if you’re not dried off quickly or brought to shelter. Why didn’t you do either if you didn’t want to go home?”

Sunbeam’s body jerked around Silver repeatedly. It felt like her other foreleg, or maybe a wing whipping outwards and poking some-pony repeatedly. Silver’s thoughts and senses were oscillating between being fuzzy and clear, but she’s swear she heard: “Ixnay, Ixnay, Ixnay!” With the hissing words, Silver could swear she could hear the gentle heartbeat and rush of blood within Sunbeam’s chest roar louder, a roar which came over a pulsating heartbeat pounding like her own might when she was angry or embarrassed. Was it? Maybe it was her own, she was too sleepy to tell if it came from within or without. Or maybe she should wakeup a little more—yeah, that’d be nice. Eventually.

Redheart’s voice came back to Silver’s free ear once more, the nurse trying to sound reassuring and failing miserably because of the content of her message. “I’ll have to have a talk with your father about that, Silver Spoon.”

It was a little-known fact that pony ears were only semi-consciously controlled. While the normal manner of folding the ears back was a partial reflex to protect ears from harm during periods or excessive bodily stress, the exact position of the ear was controlled by many sets of small muscles that bunched and twisted to move the cartilage of the flexible sound-peepers. The exact position could be determined by examining the bunching of the muscles beneath the mane.

On the other hoof was the folding that occurred when all the muscles controlling the ears position relaxed. Under extreme apathy gravity takes over instead of muscular control, slowly pulling the tips of the ears down in a sad-looking droop. Under this condition, ears sort of flatly splay outwards instead of backwards behind the head, just as Silver could feel her free ear doing as she processed the realization that her father was going to know everything. He was going to be so disappointed. “Okay. Yes, ma’am.” There was little life to her words, just a hollow acknowledgement.

It sounded like Redheart was tripping over her words and trying to say something else to her in reassurance. But, any attempt was cut off as Sunbeam cleared her throat loudly and pulled Silver out of the water in a jerking motion, waking the foal back from her apathetic sleepy semi-nap. The matronly schoolteacher held Silver up over the tub, letting her sudsy and sodden form drip limply from her grasp over the water for a minute or two. “There, there. Let’s get you dried off and into some blankets now that you’re warm and clean. You’ll start losing heat again if you stay in longer.”

There were the telltale signs of a growl being suppressed in the quiver of Redheart’s hooves for a moment before the nurse suppressed it with all the decorum imparted by her training. “Oh, yes. Let’s.” She backed up to the towel pile, never taking her eye off the filly until she had to turn her head in order to pick up a stack of towels with a firm bite. Redheart suspected that something was off in the way Sunbeam was treating the filly. She was acting strange, like she was blaming herself for something.

Silver was rather quickly and forcefully cocooned in a great pile of towels that were wrapped again and again around her until only the tip of her nose and tail escaped the white, fluffy smothering. The blanketing bindings were several layers deep, quickly baking her radiating heat back into her until she woke up again fully. Then came the rubbing and scratching at her ears, blanketing out sound in the rustle of fluffy towels.

She knew what they were doing; trying to argue without letting the ‘impressionable filly’ hear. Her daddy and mommy had done it once or twice, and so had daddy and Mr. Rich when Diamond’s daddy had been arguing with hers over whether she or Diamond was the ‘bad influence.’ Those had been bad months, too. It had been just after Diamond had gotten her cutie mark showing that she was supposed to lead every-pony. The foals had started complaining to their daddies about her and Diamond taking their places that their cutie marks said they were supposed to.

Soft fluffiness tugged at her face and filled her mouth with the bland taste of cotton as Sunbeam grew more and more distracted with her argument. Silver wasn’t a little foal who couldn’t handle the truth anymore, and she wasn’t going to put up with the soft touch all around her trying to treat her like a badly soldered bracelet some-pony was afraid to handle.

Her hooves went up, fighting their way through her cocoon to bat the offending towels from her face. Cold nearly made her give up again as it rushed in to fill the void, but she fought back the shiver long enough to curl her legs over the towels at her front and force them down and away. An uncomfortable silence reigned for a moment as she looked at the blurs that were the two adults in her vision; each quiet, ashamed, and maybe just a little bit sad.

She didn’t know why. They were probably talking about the way the foals had treated her. The foals were probably right, anyway. That was it, they were picking on her for overstepping her place, as she was supposed to assist Tiara, not lead in her natural leader friend’s place. Silver put on a halfway decent scowl as she complained about the treatment. “You know that trick is horrible, and doesn’t work. Right?”

A grumble of annoyance was Sunbeam’s first response, and Redheart’s second after what looked like a glare being shot at her plus-sized assistant. Softer towel-wrapped hoof-strokes began to be applied by Sunbeam, carefully using soft and sliding pressure to press down the ragged tufts of Silver’s ruffled fur and mane into a sleek blue-grey coating. Still dull with neglect, but it was a hint of her normal self.

Sunbeam slowly scooted around behind Silver once more, using the excuse of rubbing her dry to get around the filly. The great curtain of her wings jerkily and slowly swept around Silver Spoon, wrapping around her in a twitching way until they pulled tight and pressed her up against the laying form of the large Pegasus, and up against Sunbeam’s soft chest again. “Nurse Redheart and I were just discussing how best to help you, Silver Spoon.” She whispered into Silver’s ear, letting the curl of her neck warm the grey filly’s back. “I know you don’t have many—any—friends right now, so I was planning on helping you make some more.” She wrapped the towels higher again around Silver, wrapping the filly up to her chin while shooting another pointed look at Redheart.

Why did she care? “They’re just jealous of Diamond being a leader pony. I tried to fill her hoof-shoes, and I’m not one, so they all got mad at me.” Silver flatly stated, like some-pony talking about the periodic table. Uncomfortable silence ruled over the room as she snuggled into the blankets.

Maybe Sunbeam was just trying to make her words, judging from the way her chest could be felt working against Silver’s back, and the way the little pops of lips smacking against each other went on and on. Most ponies had a hard time reacting to a filly learning the way the world worked, so it wasn’t surprising to know that she had issues, too. “That—that’s not how it works, Silver Spoon. Diamond wasn’t a ‘leader pony,’ there’s no such thing.” Sunbeam’s wing gestured rather rudely at Redheart, who shook her head and held up her hooves, wanting no further part in the discussion and stayed well back.

“What about the princesses? They’re leader ponies! You can see it, they’re different!” Silver protested loudly. The difference was so easy to see, most adults accepted when they saw it for themselves. “It’s just like them!”

Both adults recoiled a little, and for a moment Silver wondered why they had such a hard time with it. Was she wrong? No, she couldn’t be. It was a truth, and she had seen it with her own eyes!

“Silver Spoon, the princesses weren’t born leaders, they don’t have leadership cutie marks, and their alicornhood isn’t something just given to them. They earned it for being talented beyond belief in their own special talents, more than any other pony ever could be.” Sunbeam tried to reply, hoping Silver Spoon would see reason as she finally understood just a hint of what had made Diamond so toxic. It wasn’t much use, as the filly squirmed out of her towel cocoon to take a stand.

Redheart snorted as she decided to keep her big mouth shut. The nurse headed over to the door, well past the point of wanting to even bothering to try arguing with the wayward foal. Silver Spoon wasn’t ever going to change, and she clearly didn’t have a clue what her views were actually endorsing. Cleaning up enough scattered towels to make a pegasus nest would keep her busy until Sunbeam got it through her head to stop trying. Silver was a lost cause, even if her physical situation could be helped a little. Huh, there were Silver’s glasses; she probably would need them.

Meanwhile, Silver tried to step up her defenses once more as she stood atop her former towel wrappings in a pitifully ruffled state. “That’s not true! Diamond’s daddy told her for a while that she was destined to lead! The only reason he stopped was because her cutie mark came in and proved it!” Silver shouted, glaring up at the blur that was probably Sunbeam’s face, judging from the movements of the old pegasus. “What about Princess Cadance? Princess Sparkle!? Both of them have cutie marks in leadership!”

“You mean special talents in love and friendship?” Sunbeam wryly corrected, poking Silver in the nose. Silver wrinkled and scrunched her nose in confusion as she was firmly pressed downwards into the towels. It was almost like Sunbeam was mad at her for pointing out the places of Princess Celestia’s best students. What nonsense did they teach ponies up in Canterlot? Would they—twist Diamond into some silly pony who didn’t understand ponies places anymore? Everything cleared as Redheart slipped Silver’s glasses back onto her face, and the filly recoiled a little further as she saw that Sunbeam wasn’t angry and scowling, but sad; mournful even. “Don’t tell me that you think that the sisters have destinies to lead. Please. Luna’s special talent is managing the celestial spheres and walking amongst the dreams. Celestia’s is helping ponies grow. Neither of those are leadership, Silver Spoon.”

“Yes they are! Can’t you see it?” Silver loudly despaired, wondering why the personal follower of the princesses had such trouble understanding how things worked; why Sunbeam looked like she wanted to cry; why she cringed so badly.

Said cringe deepened as Sunbeam stepped back from the towels, deepened further as she looked away from Silver; almost like she wanted to cry a little. Even Redheart behind Silver took notice as Sunbeam’s voice wavered a little as she next spoke with solemn words. “Silver Spoon, the princesses all learned how to lead from horrible, painful experience. None of them were born innately better. They all made mistakes, too. Nightmare Moon, the Crystal Empire. Other things.”

Sunset Shimmer.

“Diamond Tiara is going to learn just like they did, just as painfully as the lessons taught to the princesses. The same lessons Twilight, Princess Celestia, and I are trying to teach the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“W-what? They’re not leader ponies!” Silver knew that Princess Sparkle was taking pity on the trio, but the idea that Princess Celestia might was scandalous. It was crazy talk!

“No-pony is. Not until they learn to be. But, any-pony can have a special talent that could lead to that position. Just like the Crusaders all have unrealized special talents that will make them very special; that push them to learn a great deal, and in the process might teach them to take up leadership and train them to do so. It isn’t a pony’s cutie mark, or body that makes them a leader. It’s what they do with themselves that does.” Sunbeam retorted; quietly, patiently, lovingly. She rubbed her chin in a way that looked suspiciously like some-pony rubbing their runny nose while trying to pass it off as a thoughtful chin-rub. Sunbeam turned her head towards somewhere out of sight—maybe the Crusader’s clubhouse—then turned her gaze back to her with a piercing inspection that made Silver feel very small indeed; almost like she was being stared at by the sun.

She felt miserably confused, with mental whiplash as she tried to make sense of what Sunbeam had said and what her daddy had said. She couldn’t be wrong, her daddy couldn’t be wrong. Diamond wasn’t wrong, she had shown her after getting taught! “No, no you can’t be right. You—you have to be wrong. My daddy would let me hang out with them if they were important!”

“Then let’s go talk with your daddy, then, Silver Spoon.”

6.Therapy

Author's Note

I am not a licensed Psychologist. Advice given may or may not be good. Recommend you go to an actual one instead of blindly following my blind flailings.

6.Therapy

6.8

Something was bothering Luna. Something beyond her obvious issues, as far ranging as they had been brought up by the session she had finally escaped from her analysis session with the rather underutilized ‘Dr. Head Case,’ whom had been hired on by her sister on a generous stipend to deal with the coming return of a thousand-year out of date alicorn. One whom had promptly blown off her appointments with him out of archaic naiveté. Oops. He had at least kept himself busy offering free treatment to the castle staff while he waited.

There was the obvious questions of how the head maid and newly minted leader of the castle secret service Honeydew, and her husband, the Captain of the Solar Guard Stiff Resistance; in particular how they had discovered her Tantabus, recognized what it was, and ensured her compliance in regards to seeing her psychiatrist at long last. Also digging at the edges of her mind and oozing all over her self-control was the uncomfortable closeness of the texture, smell, look, and—ugh—taste of the substance of the Smooze to that of lime jello or magic inhabitation gel. She didn’t even wish to consider the vastly annoying niggle of how a professor of psychiatry somehow knew the Smooze as a close, personal friend so that he could call upon it to ensure that she wouldn’t run away.

No, those weren’t the burning questions consuming her every waking thought as she limply laid with her chin over the edge of her marble tub; a pitiful sight of sudsy misery as she was worked over by Honeydew motheringly to cleanse the green slime of the Smooze from her coat. No, the great bother bouncing around her mind was at the core of the good doctor’s arguments. What if he was right? What if… she had simply forgiven herself instead of smoldering away in self-hate for her actions? What if she had trusted the ponies around her more, let them in earlier and confided in them earlier of her fears? Would Celestia have been able to trust her more? No. No, at least not with Celestia. Her sister always found a way to take the burdens of her friends until she could stand no more. She should have seen it in the past. Maybe now they could both avoid relapses.

Nay, there were far more likely miracles in their futures. Like Discord becoming a god of order. As if that would ever happen.

“Oh, come loose! I’m so sorry that this is taking so long to clean, your majesty!” Honeydew groveled somewhat as she scrubbed harder, practically kneading Luna’s shoulder like a baker with a great clump of dough. Feeling her joint being kneaded so would have been a most enjoyable sensation were it not for the frantic energy Honeydew imbued into the actions; the maid and secret agent fairly frightened out of her wits at the way exposure to the Smooze and the subsequent immersion of the alicorn up to her neck in the happily burbling being had left her a dark forest green.

Indeed, Luna’s experiences since her return suggested that at least the basic movements of thick scrub brush vigorously abrading away at her fur had the backing of some training in professional massage practices. A pity the sensations were being ruined by the panic of the practitioner, who likely had some wild and fanciful flight of fancy about how the alicorn’s coat would stay forest green forever or some even wilder tale of ponies being eaten alive by similar beings. Tales utterly bunk, since Luna had conspired with her sister to ‘create’ the supposed Gelatinous Cubes for pranks in their old castle.

Mostly for annoying Starswirl, come to think of it. He had hated the color blue, but ended up dying his robe and pointy hat in their blue hues since the royal sisters were eternally dropping him into vats of blueberry pies and other such things when they had been young and stupid. Now they were old and stupid, or at least so it seemed as they never really learned from their past mistakes.

Or, maybe she should give her agent credit, as one of the supposed properties of the Smooze was its ability to smother the joy from any soul and leave the victim in crushing depression. With the way the fire of passion had left Luna for the moment, it was easy to see where Honeydew might have made the mistake. “Calm thyself, Honeydew. My melancholy has nothing to do with the Smooze. This green menace upon my fur will serve as a stout reminder for my considerations over the next few days.”

“Err, what?” That was probably what Honeydew wanted to say. Hard to tell with the great, thick sponge she had bitten into.

Luna snorted, letting herself slip down a little deeper into the cooling waters and the devouring tide of bubbles that was still building up atop her. “Yes, considerations. Many times—long ago—I failed to use my judgment wisely, and so it seems that I have continued my unfortunate habits since my return. With a most poor end-state indeed were it not for the council you forced upon me.” A little bit of the alicorn’s normal sarcastic bite had returned to her, creeping back into her voice as she adjusted herself to thrust her shoulder upwards to be reached easier. “And thank you. You intervened before my poor judgment could compromise me further, and given me something to talk about with my sister.”

Right, Luna was starting to scare Honeydew, and her not-so-good captain standing beside her. The setting sun was casting deep amber panes of light across the room, filtering in from the great window. The moody lighting gave the pair a rather ominous set of shadows as they worriedly looked at one another. Honeydew elbowed Resistance to make him speak, since she still had the sponge in her mouth.

“Poor judgment, ma’am? Should we be worried about—you know?” Stiff Resistance tried to politely ask his diarch, wincing at the judgmental sound of his inquiry. That, and the way Honeydew was insensitively miming a silent Nightmare Moon despite the muffling sponge in her mouth. Ducking behind Honeydew to try and avoid being too noticeable, his consequent shoves of the half-sudsy maid failed with all the grace and subtly of Discord riding a 200 elephant tap-dancing death metal band stampede.

Deeply did a contemplative sigh rattle up from Luna’s chest to spill forth from her hanging chin. Just a breath, one laced with a bit of shame as she considered, contemplated, corrected. “If you mean my former predilection for night eternal and revenge unceasing, then neigh.” A gentle and languid tilt of her head let Luna’s waterlogged mane splat wetly against the blue-grey marble of the tub, then slowly let gravity pull it over the thin lip to smack loudly like a wet slinky, pulled free of the water. “Nay, that is not the concerns upon my mind. However, to forestall even the slightest hint of my—less well-tempered alter ego—the doctor has proscribed a rather ironic course of medicine for me to follow.”

“Drink the pain away and bar hop from club to club?” Ah yes. The mind of a—wait, Honeydew? Luna cracked open an eye to look at her, flinching in the bathwater a little at the closeness of the maid and the way the suds around her mouth combined with the deeply eager look in her eye together formed the unpleasant appearance of being quite rabidly mad. Ugh.

Resistance carefully hooked a fore-leg around his wife’s hind-legs, carefully and helpfully dragging her half-sudsy form back from the sloshing tub. “Oh honey-nibbles.” He whispered into her ear, frantically shooting glances towards Luna. “Can we avoid giving the princess the kinds of ideas that get third-year privates in trouble?”

“Experience?” Luna blurbled questioningly as she let her chin sink down into the water a little.

Resistance clammed up, stiffening like his namesake as the slightest of whole-body blushes flushed through his steel-grey fur. “Oh, er, um, you see—“ He began as she raised her eyebrow ever-so-slightly. Before any further words could pile up in his mouth like a train derailment, Honeydew seductively looked back and winked at him, flicking the tip of her tail delicately against his nose. “Gah, stop that!! This is a serious situation, Honey!”

“What, afraid to break your already not-so-spotless reputation with her by mentioning that you used to be one of those third-year privates? Oh, oh my. I seem to recall a certain old night that involved little old you, little old me, thirteen bars, and the Canterlot Security Dispatch authorizing the entire force to-“MMmmph! Honeydew’s sultry spilling of her husband’s secrets was quickly corked by a crooked hoof crossing her muzzle and pulling tight as Stiff Resistance turned a most satisfying shade of crimson for both the mares.

“Neyt! Nope-nope-nada-no such thing happened! Slander, slander and lies!” Resistance cried out again, still keeping the crook of his leg around the front of his wife’s muzzle. Hysterically laughing was on the table, or rather the gilded cart ‘borrowed’ from Celestia’s quarters, oh yes. And—he was totally screwed and his reputation was ruined, judging from the raised eyebrow on Luna’s part as she seemed to pinch him between his wife and the wall. When Princess Luna looked into his records he was going to be dead, so dead, atomo-choco-blasted dead with failure sprinkles liberally added.

“Pft. Really? A carouser in your ill-spent youth, Captain?” Luna chided, clucking motherly as she lethargically shook her head in disappointment. “I was wondering what properties had brought you to my sister’s attention. She rarely considered those with the crystal tree of harmony improperly inserted in one side and out the other. She still picks captains after her own heart deep down inside, it seems.” Luna mused as she squirmed forward until the lip of the tub rubbed against the elegant curve of her neck.

That did it for Stiff Resistance, the pegasus slowly paling to a shade that shone against the gently curving moonstone marble behind him. His slackening grip let slip his minx-y wife as he sat down in dazed puzzlement and confusion. He had his records sealed, he was—aw, hay. Just a touch—a hoof lifting his chin up—brought him back from his funk before his wife sighed an apology into his ears and nuzzled him politely.

“Peace, Captain. Be at peace, and relax. Any activities of an ill-spent youth would pale in the comparison to the shenanigans wrought by my sister in her own, if there were left any tales to record them.” Luna mirthfully apologized as she scooted around beneath her cloak of foam spread out over her bathwater. Oh, the tales she could tell. She worked her tired legs up and over the sides, letting them flop to the sheer marble side of her tub one after another so she could rest up to her shoulders in her mess. “Oh, if you could but see my sister’s youthful—noise—you might understand why I disappeared into the background. Feh. If ponies back then beheld my current behavior, they might imagine a mouse would have more volume.”

Honeydew stopped her reassuring nuzzles and caresses as she heard what Luna was saying. “Wait, Princess Celestia used to be a lot louder than you? That- that doesn’t seem physically possible.”

“As I might have been compared to Fluttershy, so might she be compared to Rainbow Dash in those turbulent days.” Luna meekly affirmed with a sheepish grin curling up on her hot and blushing cheeks. “I might maybe might have learned my ‘Royal Canterlot Speaking Voice’ from her example.” Oh yes, she was slowly tweaking and twiddling her hooves as both of her attendants snickered lightly at the thought. “So, I won’t hold your youth against you if it has been left behind, Captain. Harmony knows, I’ve seen far worse than anything you could dare imagine in the realms of dreams.”

“Um, thank you?” Resistance had moved from mortification and shame on down into the bog of bafflement. It was actually a rather nice place, since his wife made it a habit of dragging him down there.

Luna pursed her lips, scrunching up her muzzle in thought as she looked him over. “Come now, Captain. I’ve heard from Honeydew her thoughts on the matter. What might you have suggested to help aid me in therapy?”

“Quiet contemplation on the moon, private meditation, reminders of your failure and planning to account for a future lapse, and—“ He stopped with a squeak as Honeydew nibbled on his ear, color returning to him in droves, “—A close, private companion to offer support?”

A bitter laugh fled from the ancient alicorn as she realized just how closely Resistance’s suggestions matched her own previous attempts at self-therapy. Perhaps there was more to him than she had thought or found, after all. “Alas, no. You know me well, and know what I’ve been doing, but no. As it happens, the professor suggested instead focusing on the pleasant parts of the present, and-ahem-“ She cleared her throat, taking on the wizened old stallion voice the professor himself took up to compensate for his flaming red mane and youthful looks, “-ahem, ‘Finding a large and helpful herd of friends to monitor and help correct potentially dangerous behavioral patterns before they transform and pull you into another self-destructive cycle.’”

She coughed, hacking from the scratchy feelings left all over her throat from her fake baritone. There wasn’t much to tell what exactly Honeydew was telling her husband, likely something pleasant from the way he turned colors again. Turned—oh, right. That had reminded her of something else the good professor had mentioned. “Also, maybe perhaps becoming more intimate with a special some-pony to share the deeper, darker parts that one might not want to share openly with others.” And so the honor of imitating a glowing, hoof-twiddling strawberry passed to Luna as she thought about how she was going to have to come completely clean with Twilight, and all the embarrassing secrets that would spill forth from that.

“Oh, a special somebody like Twilight, all ready to talk your ears off?”

Squeak!? Nod.

“Awww, young love!” Honeydew cooed as Luna put her hooves over her ears and let even her mane start to glow with the flush of her embarrassment, taking on the bright hues of her sister’s sun. Honeydew shoved at her husband playfully, pushing him to the door. “Quick! Go get a camera while I get her all clean and sparkly for Sparkle so we can tie her up and leave her on the doorstep! Huggy-kissy-therapy!”

“Nay! Cease! Desist! Captain Resistance, save me from your infernal half!”

“Nope! Your sacrifice will be remembered, princess!” He shouted as he made a break for it.

“Oh, hold still, we need to get a good look for you!”

“But-but, I’m not even seeing her tonight!”

“Planning! Oooo~oh! Stiffy, go get Rarity, too! Beauty takes time, and we don’t have a lot of it! Now hold still so I can get this green out for her!”

“Auurgh!”

6.8

6-8

“So, let me get this straight-“

“Well, when you say it like that, Twilight-“

“The reason that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon caused so much trouble for so long is because they both learned the wrong lessons from their fathers regarding a series of misadventures and misteachings that took place from the usual Ponyvile coincidences and the two stallion’s own inexperience in parenting.”

“That would be the general outline of it.”

“Where they ended up getting together in friendship because they misunderstood the intents of their fathers regarding a mistaken case involving colts.”

“Silver Smith was rather mortified that chasing that colt away over thinking he was doing naughty things with Spoon would lead her to thinking certain types of ponies were off-limits to soc-“

“Stop interrupting me.”

“Sorry.”

“So, having latched onto each other due to their poor life lessons imparted by the misunderstandings of what their fathers taught them, they proceed to become best friends and develop a poisonous classist/tribalist theory about how pony society works. THEN they turn it on every-pony else in town after deciding from their parent’s teachings that they’re near the top of their imagined society. They’ve gotten a crazy idea that there are ‘leader ponies’ who can be identified by cutie mark, and that there is a place in the world for every single pony that they’re not supposed to deviate from. And just to make it even more annoying, they think they’re Celestia’s own gift to society and they’re actually trying to be helpful in their bullying. They’re failing harder than Discord trying to live up Rarity’s standard of dress with his own home-spun clothes doing it, but they’re trying.”

“Correct.”

“And the reason that the foals are turning around and bullying Silver Spoon now is because they’re unleashing the past four or five years of misery that she and Diamond Tiara inflicted back upon her without thinking. This in part because Diamond actually partially succeeded in passing along her stupid philosophy, and it’s stuck in their heads. But mostly because Diamond is no longer around with her money and her daddy to shield Silver Spoon from their wrath.”

“An accurate summation. Could you please stop waving your hooves at me like that?”

Heh-hem! “And just to crown off this mountain of madness, you want to turn around and have Silver Spoon make friends with the three fillies she bullied the most in some vaguely-planned hair-brained scheme to stop the bullying and correct her philosophy. Oh, and those three fillies are all extremely inventive, smart, and have enough power in each of them to be the next Star—uh, the next me in their respective fields! They know where to hide the bodies!” That last part had been a bit on the hysterical side, but the whole thing was begging for trouble.

“It does sound unreasonable at the first repetition, but I have a plan!” Sunbeam counter-crowed to Twilight, slamming one hoof down onto the purple crystal of the alicorn’s desk and pointing her other up to pierce the heavens with her determination. Okay, she tried to, but couldn’t quite make it past the deceptively low roof of Twilight’s personal office hidden away in a cleft of the mighty Tree-Fortress of Friendship. Okay, every building had somewhat of a low roof for her, save for Canterlot, come to think of it.

Twilight arched her eyebrows mere seconds before scooting Sunbeam’s hoof from off of her desk, causing the old pegasus to yelp as she fell down without balance. “A plan.” Twilght’s hooves shook in the air over her desk, propped up at the elbows to rest just a few inches apart from each other in front of her face, getting shaken back and forth between her and Sunbeam. It came to mind to crawl up onto her desk entirely just so she could grab Sunbeam and shake her by the shoulders until she saw reason.

She wasn’t too fond of that plan, either. Not because Sunbeam was secretly her mentor in a not-at-all clever disguise and failing miserably to convince ponies that she wasn’t Celestia—okay, so she was succeeding with ponies who hadn’t met her before, but that didn’t exactly help in Ponyvile. No, it was more the towering stacks of medical journals, case files, articles on her own ascension, dictionaries and textbooks that had swallowed up the free space of her queen-sized desk all the way up to the low ceiling, leaving only the tiniest sliver of a gap for her to worm through in order to do the deed. With her luck, the whole edifice of systematic research would crash down onto her head at the slightest hint of vibration, leaving her with the usual results of the Crusader’s quests instead of a systematic research compilation on their medical status.

In a halfway serious bout of musing, she wondered if the popping sensations on her scalp were cowlicks popping from her mane, or brain cells exploding in miniature thermonuclear detonations of bad ideas and coincidences. Yeah, she was betting on the brain cells. “You know what, let me guess. You don’t actually have a plan, do you? Making it up as you go along?”

“Most of a plan.” Sunbeam corrected as she worriedly scooted backwards on the thick, velvet-swaddled cushion. “Part of a plan.” Scoot-scoot. “All the important bits of a plan.” Scoot-scoot. Twilight growled at her just before the lavender mare’s muzzle met hooves in a sinking moan of frustration. Maybe she should have let Twilight find out afterwards when the deed had been done and it all looked like a brilliant piece of work. “Well, all the outlines of the plan. I might need to color a little inside and outside the lines with some plan-crayons, but I know all the things I generally need to do to make this work.” Sunbeam babbled a little, glad that she could actually improvise to her heart’s content and just be—normal.

It felt good. Refreshing, even. A breath of air after a toothpaste-flavored neverending cake. Running the nation had been a good thing for her, up until the grittiness and gooey comprimises were made, and the good feelings of helping ponies had gone away. “I have a plan, Twilight. I was just letting you know before I found the others I needed to make it work. It’ll work. My plans will work.”

Twilight didn’t look up from her hooves as she let the second of the great many groans of frustration she needed to get out of her chest escape. “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.” Her hooves slowly rode upwards, ruffling her mane into great points just in front of her ears. Then they rubbed downwards, the frogs of her hooves slowly tugging her fur flat until they clopped together just under her chin.

“What?” Sunbeam tilted her head in confusion, one ear flopping flat while the other held high.

“It sounds like you’re going to Rainbow Dash the problem instead of properly planning it out.” Twilight complained as she moved her hooves back to the sides of her head and started rubbing again to squeeze out the pain. All she had to do was focus on her home coming back together, and the nice new reprints of her doctorate and many degrees hanging on the walls between the bookshelves of her reconstituted private library. Mmm, books solved everything, even friendships.

“What’s wrong with Rainbow Dashing?”

When had Cel—Sunbeam—gotten so impulsive? Oh, that’s right, according to Luna impulsiveness and being Pinkie in ancient form mixed with Fluttershy and a bit of her was Sunbeam’s natural state, and the face she had put on for forever had been a crazy lie. Was it so bad to let her be so unburdened and unstressed?

“Look, can we risk it?” Twilight finally asked her old mentor as she finally got her thoughts in order. “I don’t want to think about the three of them actually picking up Silver Spoon’s—aberration of a philosophy.”

“They went four years while putting up with it from the wrong end. They’ve got you, me, all of your friends, and plenty of others are positive role models and watch ponies all making up for one another’s failures. Wouldn’t it be better to show them that there is a bit of good even in the worst pony if it can just be brought out?” Sunbeam ruffled her feathers, slowly wreathing her wings around her body as she fidgeted in place with the need to move. “I don’t want to validate Silver Spoon’s ideas by just writing her off. We could teach them to follow in your hoof-steps and fix issues! Nothing could possibly go—hurp!” Sunbeam wanted very much to escape and scoot back from the clinging presence wrapped around her and the hoof jammed into her cheeks to silence her. Twilight had teleported right up to her face and smushed her muzzle by the cheeks while intensely glaring into her eyes nose-to-nose with the eyes of a mad-pony.

“Never, ever say that. You’ll summon—her!” Twilight furtively looked back and forth across the narrow office space, her gaze bouncing back and forth across every single nook and cranny as if expecting an ambush at any moment. If Sunbeam could look into her head for just a moment, or feel Twilight’s chest, she might notice the blind panic Twilight was in.

A panic born from experience, of observations gone terribly wrong. Her heart raced, trying to turn the alicorn princess’s coffee-stream—mixed with just a hint of blood, she was slacking off—into an adrenaline rapids. Rivers of thoughts flooded their banks as she frighteningly pondered how that one friend tended to take the laws of physics and magic into a dark alleyway to perform a Tirek on them. She didn’t even dare think the name, lest the menace appear.

But such contemplations could not enter into the mind of the innocent mare. Her squished muzzle squeezed most of the chance of seeing things that way out of her head. Sort of like a toothpaste tube.

A frumpy scowl squeezed in between the purple hooves as Sunbeam wondered what had gotten into her former student’s head. More importantly, a nicker of frustration on her part wasn’t supposed to sound like the quacking of an underwater duck farm. Wait, there was one being beyond the realms of Discord who might send her into such a tizzy. “Is ‘her’ Pinkie Pie?”

HISS!

Ah. So it was. Another one of Twilight’s phobias about the mare. It wasn’t like she could just pop out of the aether at random. “Fine, then. I won’t say her name, but this paranoia is most unbecoming of you.” And her face was starting to hurt with the way Twilight was compressing it into a slice of orange pie.

Could she actually pull her head out from between the semi-frozen hooves? Her hooves dug into the velvet cushion beneath her as she started scrabbling backwards, uselessly wriggling her head back. Instead of freeing herself, she felt more like she was about to scrape it off like the icing off a cake. The whole process made her head ache like trying to sneak an ice cream cake all at once whilst a thousand-‘noble’ court droned at her. “May I have my face back, Twilight? I can’t give it to you, and I would like it to not get stuck like this, please.”

Blink. Shock. Jolt! Jerk! “Oh no! Oh, oh, what have I-“ Boop. “Gah! Stop that! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-“ Boop. “Stoppit! P- ‘Her’ sense gets me worked up sometimes.” Twilight frowned a little as she scooted back from Sunbeam, mostly at the mare’s incredulous look. “Hey! It makes sense if you’ve tried to figure her out for four years and still get caught by surprise every time you turn around! The phobia, not her. She still makes no sense!” Twilight ranted.

Properly, of course. Making sure to mentally limit herself from pacing and flailing her limbs like a mad-pony. She had a completely legitimate reason to be frustrated and she wasn’t about to let her own gestures undermine her arguments. Her taped off box specifically marked off on the floor beside her desk awaited her, and she flumped down in it and started rubbing her head. It was a good spot, one for keeping herself contained so she could complain safely when she felt like the world was being more irrational than the square root of a negative number.

Ugh. Now she was going to have another headache on top of the one already induced by Sunbeam’s zany scheme to fix Silver Spoon. She was not going to dignify it by calling it a plan. “Sorry. Look, uh, I’ll make you a list later of all the phrases and actions you should avoid. Pinkie could be summoned by any of them, and that could be problematic if you’re working on something delicate. I really should send out a memo to every-pony in town, come to think of it.”

Sunbeam frowned. Then paused, thoughtfully twitching. Then smiled, sneakily and mischievously. How useful indeed. Why, Pinkie was just the one she needed to talk to anyway! Of course, Pinkie made much more sense than Twilight thought with the nice example of Scootaloo to work with. She sized up the room amidst Twilight’s irritated and agitated silence, quickly figuring out exactly where to stand for optimal effect. Calculating measurements of a pair of mostly loose-paper stacks were made by eye; a mental processing of Twilight’s irritated reaction times were made; a pondering of the optimal position was put together in short order.

Yes, a nice stretch and ‘walk’ around the room would make things just right.

“You know, Twilight, your reaction seems rather irrational.” Sunbeam coyly chided as she clambered up to all hooves and stretched languidly.

Watching Sunbeam slowly amble over to the dark oak display case containing the replicas of the Elements of Harmony, Twilight slowly laid her head down onto her forelegs to rest. “I know, I know.” Cadance’s breath exercise was put into full effect as Twilight shimmied down into her ranting cushion and spread her wings and legs wide. “She just gets to me every time I least expect it. It’s like her sense somehow knows exactly when I’ve let down my guards and become most psychologically vulnerable to her antics.”

“How odd.” No it wasn’t. Sunbeam knew that that wasn’t Pinkie, but Laughter channeling itself through her. No need to tell Twilight that yet; only when it was funny. She tapped the glass of the case gently, rubbing it as she looked them over and remembered times good and bad.

A war of wills raged within her as she wondered if it might not be slightly easier on Twilight to avoid summoning Pinkie. Then again, her former student was being entirely unreasonable and had failed to take into account new evidence. On the other-other hoof, it would be funnier than the time Luna drew a ‘boop button’ on her nose. She looked down, biting a lip to hide her smirk and hold back her snickers as she checked to make sure that she hadn’t grown a third foreleg by accident. Mishandling the elements was just embarrassing. “Well, certainly Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong with taunting her.”

Much like a mouse realizing the enormity of the cat standing above it, Twilight had barely enough time to squeak indignantly and cast a bubble shield over herself as Pinkie made her move. A fierce rattle of movement gave little warning before the desk file drawer next to Twilight sprung open to its fullest extent, locking out with a ding of a dinner bell. Pinkie sprung upwards from its depths with a mane full of caught files; one hoof slamming down onto the desktop with a resounding clop, the other pointing to the heavens as she shouted at the top of her lungs and shook it wildly. “Inconceivable!”

The bottle-bottom glasses distorting her vision was a nice touch. Added to the sheer absurdity of the situation.

Sunbeam didn’t miss a beat as Twilight was buried beneath the cascading stacks of peer-reviewed papers and loose-leaf case files from the formerly precarious stack transforming into a rather irresistible avalanche. Twilight’s bubble shield, cast at the last possible second, did a great deal to soothe her worries. Shields ran in Twilight’s family, and the purplish glow beneath the haphazard mountain of papers was a good sign when paired with the groan of annoyance.

Besides, Sunbeam had seen weirder things in her past. She’d done weirder things herself in the old days. First thing, though, was correcting the joke. “Pinkie, I believe that word doesn’t quite mean what you think it means.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Technically, you have conceived the idea of nothing possibly going wrong. However, as you should, you’ve realized that such a thing isn’t actually possible, so—“

“Ooooh! Good point! Well cue me again, Sunny!” Pinkie said whilst giggling as she slowly sank back down into the drawer with a lazy wriggle. All the files in her mane seemingly floated up as her head disappeared into the tight space, each finding a proper place and once more finding their order before the drawer shook again and slammed shut.

Sunbeam glanced around at the dark shelves lining most of the walls as she stretched out again and moved over for the second cuing. She should have looked back to the desk; she might have noticed the slight wriggle of the massive medical dictionary that had formed the foundation of the stack. Shifting back and forth ever so slightly, teetering where the two shakes of the desk has wriggled it out and close to tipping over the edge.

One deep breath, and then she intoned the phrase again. “Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong!” She made sure that the words were imbued with all of the snark, repression, and unfond memories of the past thousand years, and more than a bit of age-old irritation at a bit of ancient history. While words and song could have power, the age-old chanting pretentious chanting clap-trap nonsense that the priests and mage-councils had forced on her and her sister before Luna’s banishment came to mind as she snarked at them from across time and space through the power of the Pinkie.

“Impossible!” Cried Pinkie as she popped out of the other file drawer of the desk. Yelp went the Sunbeam as she started and realized that Pinkie had popped out from the wrong place as she whipped around. Rustle went the last of the papers atop the medical dictionary, falling off one by one as their foundation hopped up and bounced down just a little too far past the tipping point. The thump came last, dropping onto Twilight as the dictionary cracked her hasty shield and fell the last hoof-length onto her back.

Two sets of eyes widened in horror and looked around the corners of the desk at Twilight, seeing only the very tip of her horn and the ends of her legs sticking forth from beneath the scholarly scree slump. Pinkie winced as the hooves slowly shook and went limp, holding out a hoof hoping to help. “Oh gosh. Is she okay?”

Groan. “Just my pride.”

Sunbeam winced once again, cringing a little as a rattle of irritation shook the pile of papers. She inched over bit by bit, worming her way out of the line of sight of Twilight’s horn. That had gone a little too far. “Do you need help, Twilight?”

Ugh. “No.”

“Oh. Okay.” Yes, Twilight didn’t seem to be too happy with her. “Well, I’ll leave you to that. I need your help, Pinkie.” Sunbeam pointed her right hoof at the madmare, leaning off of the desk as she challenged her with a manic smirk.

“You do!?!” Pinkie’s eyes widened like a kitten finding its first mouse and she leaned around the other stack of hard-bound books. Her eyes were practically dancing with mischievous energy, magnified a hundredfold by the bottle-bottom play glasses. Her eyebrows furrowed as she realized that something about Sunbeam seemed to fall right up her alley. “Oooooh. You need my ‘special’ kind of help.”

“Eeyup.”

“Hehe.”

“Don’t tell Big Mac.” Sunbeam nodded in satisfaction as Pinkie zipped her lips. “Going to be using the Sparkle Conflict Theory to form a particularly unlikely friendship.”

Pinkie tilted her head. “Uh-huh. Wait! Got it! Mutual peril to foster friendships!”

“Peril most perilous.” Sunbeam sagely said, wrapping her barrel with a wing as she sat down.

“Oooh! I’m the peril! I always wanted to be the peril! What kind of peril do you need? Swashy-buckly, pretzel-ey, uh—“

“A most sweet and sugary waistline imperilment with which to tempt others and force them to defend one another.”

Scribble-scribble. One would not be wise to ask where the notebook had come from, in Pinkie’s opinion; a question left unanswered lest they go mad from the revelation. Okay, she had totally stolen one of Twilight’s spares, and would bring it back later. “Ooooh, the best kind! I can work with that. At The Corner, or-“

“In the corner. Doesn’t matter what exact method. Probably better to surprise me in order to make the reactions seem more genuine. Some kind of imperilment four foals can save me from.”

“Four? Wait! Silver Spoon.” Pinkie ducked her head low and glanced about the room after growling the bully’s name. Something about that filly just wasn’t right.

“It’s the only way to help her. And I can help her, even if I have to put my flank on the line! Whatever it takes!” She’d done it before: Luna, others. Just not quite so—expansively.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to cheat on your diet?” Pinkie poked her with the eraser of a pencil as she inquired.

“No, Pinkie. Only through connecting her with the Crusaders will help. I can’t make it without a neutral, uniting cause. I have a personal connection with her now, since her father took her out of school for the moment and hired me to help homeschool her for at least this week. I’m connecting with her, since I’m trying to be fair to her.”

“Oh. Well, okay-wait, next week? So, how can I know when?”

“When I come in with Silver Spoon while the Crusaders are there. Don’t worry, you’ll know exactly when to start.”

“Okie-dokie-Sunny!” Pinkie saluted her valiantly, sinking back down into the file drawer like the last moments of a ship. Her valiant salute was held as she disappeared into the folded waves with nary a ripple, leaving the room in silence.

Ah. There was that last clue to prove it. Ho-ho. If, indeed, the faint tremor Sunbeam had sensed was real. Poor Twilight had probably given up looking long before her ascension. So easily frustrated some days. Hah! Pinkie was hardly an enigma wrapped in a cruller, dunked in ice cream and buried in a cake! She just had all of her documentation upside down and backwards, at least when compared to unicorn magic.

“Yes. Do please explain. I’m dying to hear.”

“That last part was out loud, wasn’t it?” Not a question, just a painful rhetorical statement as Sunbeam winced.

“Just a lot.” Twilight sourly remarked as she slowly dug herself free of her paper grave. Her hind-legs kicked helplessly for a moment as she tried to wriggle out from under the medical dictionary, muttering and grumbling as another drift of papers slipped off to shower upon her head. A hoof went to her mane, shaking it until no semblance of order could be found as she rid herself of her most unfashionable accessories once more. “So what exactly were you trying to say?”

“She’s pulling a Scootaloo without any-pony—likely not even her—noticing or knowing, and probably learned most of her wilder tricks from you.” Sunbeam offered a hoof and let it hang in front of Twilight until the young alicorn took it and wriggled free of her entangling morass.

“So, how can you tell? I could never make heads or tails of it.”

“Just a few tell-tales around her. She’s probably got little bits of other tribe’s magicks, judging from the way pegasi magic trembled around her. Plus, you know, the obvious example of Scootaloo makes it rather obvious.” Sunbeam sheepishly smiled, earning a groan of disgust from her former protégé.

Twilight slid up and out with her grip on Sunbeam’s leg, sliding out on a rustle of paper until she collapsed on the slope of the great mess. Of course it had to be something simple like that, of course it had to have been something easy to test for if only she had known to test for it, of course it had to be the simple made fantastic instead of some eldritch abomination that her imagination had conjured up! Why didn’t she just put a sign on her sparkly butt saying ‘Smack here for free candy from the other end’? It’d be easier and simpler.

“Self-flagellation doesn’t help, Twilight.” Sunbeam verbally prodded, poking her with her hoof as Twilight’s fore-legs slipped from their death grip to limply flop to the crystal floors. “You were thinking aloud like me. It might be contagious. Are you really alright?”

Twilight sighed with more melodrama than Sweetie Belle and Rarity. Combined. “No, no I’m not. But I have friends. I’ll live. I think.” The addition of the last part rather reduced the reassurance factor of her preceding platitudes. Much like a sulfur hexafluoride-filled lead balloon. Twilight’s roll onto her back was perfectly timed. Just as she looked up, a last file chased after its brethren to flop down onto her face. How adorable. It was a little parasprite.

Ah, right. One last order of business. “You do realize my theorem isn’t peer reviewed yet, right?”

“Well, I’m sort of your peer, and I’m testing it!” Sunbeam helpfully chirped.

“I don’t think it works quite in the way you think it works…”

Author's Note

*It should be noted that when 'Sunbeam' said she had a plan, she meant that she had about 12 percent of a plan. Such a state is completely different from vague ideas and winging it, as she assures many.

*Pinkie Pie. Pony of madness. Global destroyer of logic. Best cupcake maker in the known multiverse. Not, infact, an enigma wrapped in a cruller, dunked in ice cream and buried in a cake frosted with madness cream and crazy-sprinkles, despite what Twilight might claim. After a certain set of incidents, Twilight's complex regarding the mare could be considered more of an off and on obsession, depending on how many sanity points she could spare from the week.

*As it turns out, tricking the princess of the sun into eating a ice cream cake instead filled with toothpaste was a quick and dirty way to get onto her bad side, even if her teeth did need the mother of all dental appointments. After kicking the offenders out with an ex-'cake' on his head, Princess Celestia got the message.

*She totally was also planning on cheating on her diet.

*There seems to be a pattern. It's probably not the pattern ponies thought it was.

1.1

Escape 1.1

Dear Princess Celestia,

I have been debating whether or not to send you this letter for some time, but I feel that I can hold it off for no longer. Since my transformation into an alicorn like you, I have been offering free tutoring to three young fillies whom you may be familiar with. Two of them are the younger sisters of my friends Applejack and Rarity. The third has all but been adopted by Rainbow Dash in the four years since I arrived here to save your sister Princess Luna.

All three have shown exceptional talents in multiple areas despite lacking their cutie marks. Talents that I feel that I am unprepared to nuture myself due to their nature and potency. I have written today to ask you for your assistance in finding teachers qualified to train these three wonderful young girls in their many talents so that their potential might not be wasted.

The first is Applebloom, daughter of Tangerine Orange and Johnathan Apple, sister to Applejack. In the time that I have known her, she has repeatedly braved the Everfree Forest to do business with the zebra shamaness Zecora. She has mastered diverse potions such as a love poison, impressive accelerated growth elixers, cleaning solutions, and even healing tonics. Additionally, she has shown such a talent with woodworking and living wood that she has repaired every last one of the many holes that Rainbow Dash has put in my library over the years.

The next is Scootaloo. Despite my best efforts I have yet to discover which family or herd she belongs to. She looks up primarily to Rainbow Dash, but has demonstrated an interest in my own self lately. She shows a remarkable talent for mechanical engineering, and is able to assemble nearly any form of device I put before her with little instruction. Additionally, she shows a physical aptitude unmatched in my experience despite suffering some form of physical or magical handicap that renders her unable to fly at her late age. She managed to best the non-stop overnight train from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire on her scooter, despite having a nearly 4 hour gap between her and the train to start with!

Lastly is Rarity's little sister, Sweetie Belle. In addition to having one of the most remarkable ears for composing a song on short notice as well as possessing a singing voice that could rival Sapphire Shores, she is the one who worries me the most. Magic. A talent for magic has emerged from within her that outright frightens me in some respects. For the longest time, she was unable to cast at all, but within the past year she has gone from basic levitation to Come to Life spells and other advanced magics that took me years to master. (for definitions of 'master')

SPIKE!

Wait, disregard that last part.

In any case, her method for casting is the oddest I have ever seen, and goes against many of the tenants that I was taught to be fundamental. She humms or sings with her spells, and yet her concentration never breaks. It is never quite the same twice though there are often common themes with spells. Additionally, the effort she puts into her musical accompaniment seems to have a positive effect on her casting.

I am deeply concerned for these remarkable fillies. Their talents could be used in terrible fashions should somepony with evil intent discover them. I shall say nothing of the sheer madness that results from their own efforts to discover their cutie marks that would do Discord proud.

I anxiously await your response,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

(PS: Spike Here. Twilight doesn't know I've wrote this, but I'm kind of worried about you two. All you and Twilight write about anymore is business and work. What happened to you two being friends and casual?)

Luna read the last of Celestia's letter with a snort. "Of course she only writes about business. She gets off on-"

"Luna, are you reading my mail?" The sing-song voice of the High Princess of Equestria rose from her bathroom. The roar of a wonderously powerful shower tried to drown out Celestia's voice, but could not quite manage it even as the white princess absentmindedly hummed to herself. "I don't read your journals, you don't read my mail. That was our agreement."

Luna harrumphed as the shower ceased and the whipcrack of a dozen towels snapping to her sister's sides from their racks snapped inside the spacious bathroom. "Aye, provided that one does not simply lay their written secrets out in the open for all to see." Rolling her eyes, she carefully nudged the scroll shut with her silver-shod hoof, knowing that her sister would not dare threaten the Rubber Duckie Accords further.

"Even if they are in the open, reading them is still cause for the aggrieved party to rescend the Accords. They are in MY room after all. You don't want the Foal Free Press finding out about Theolonius, now do you?" Celestia's sing-song voice smugly continued over the sounds of fluffy fabric scrubbing curried coat.

"Thou wouldst not dare!"

"Would~tooo!"

"Evil Enchantress! We were indeed reading thy mail, yes. And your young protegee is being far too excitable once more. We have visited the dreams of the young trio in question and have visited them in person. Talented? They are, yes, but not to the point of needing special tutors." Luna shuffled away from Celestia's cluttered desk warily, never taking her eyes off of it lest some fiendish trap emerge.

"Twilight rarely exaggerates magic."

"I doubt that there is a new Song-Spell after all the millenia since our birth."

Celestia emerged rump-first from her bathroom, shaking the hot drops of dewy moisture from her wings even as her magic wrapped a towel large enough to be a lesser pony's blanket around her mane. "Why not? Besides, all this fuss fits just fine with my plan."

Luna ground her hoof into the soft pile carpet of her sister's room as she grumbled once more. "You and your ceaseless plans, sister."

Celestia stuck her tongue out before perking up into a quirky dance she had picked up from a 'DJ-Pon3'. "Oh, Luna. 'Look at me, I'm plotting, I'm Plotting!' You must think of me as somepony who treasts life as a-mph! Mmmm!" Celestia's little sing-song was given the response it deserved, a cookie to the mouth from Luna.

"You most certainly have a knack for it, 'Chessmistress of Equestria'. It is a rather distressing title if I may say so myself. What happened to my always smiling sister?" Luna sadly pondered as she sat by herself on the cushions of Celestia's apartment.

Celestia cryptically smiled, then stalked over and whispered into Luna's ear in as mysterious a fashion as she could manage. "She's coming back, you know."

"What? When?" Luna's sudden bout of eagerness could only be matched by Cerberus with a ball.

"Just as soon as I give you your birthday present, Luna."

Hopping up with her wings flared, Luna stammered while trying to refute Celestia's claim. Crimson blushed across her face in silence as she realized that she had forgotten the date of their shared birthday. Hay, nopony remembered it anymore due to being lost deep in the ancient past. "Surely it is not today."

"It's close enough. Look outside, your present is waiting for you there." Celestia waited as her sister rushed out, calmly drawing a cup of spiced tea in the process.

"We do not see anything out here!"

"It is out there."

Luna's hoof exasperatedly clopped against the marble of the balcony. "Clearly then, you have hidden it well!"

"No I didn't. Your present is everything, Luna."

"What."

"I know you had problems with things when you swapped duties with me for a day. Mmmm." Celestia sipped her hot tea, delighting at the way it warmed her mouth with the spice of cinnamon. "But, that was doing things on my schedule. Run it however you want. Delegate, if you want to."

"What!?"

Luna strode back in, her mane fading from the colors of the setting sun back to her customary nebula and night skies even as it whipped in an invisible wind. Growls escaped Luna as she looked Celestia in the eyes and voiced her demand. "What are you thinking!?! You are the rock of Equestria, the-"

"Sea anchor dragging it down in a storm. The old mother not allowing it to grow, the force slowly stagnating it. They need a change, something to throw them off enough to shake the staleness developing." Celestia offered a second cup of her tea to Luna as she calmly drank, letting the storm of her sister pass over her.

"And tossing Equestria into my storm is better?" Luna asked as she calmed. Taking the offered cup in her field, she slugged it back. A moment passed before every hair and feather on her body stood on end from the flavor contained within.

"Yes. Don't be afraid to delegate. My staff are almost out of work because of me. Don't be afraid to tell them to shove it up where my sun doesn't shine if you think they are being stupid, but don't outright ignore them either. And don't be afraid to change the way to run the court. I do rather have-"

"A moon up your plot, as modern ponies would say?"

Celestia let a ghost of a smile grace her lips over her sister's worries for her. "Yes. I can keep the sun there if you want me to, it is a rather uncomfortable thing."

"Aye, it would help." Luna remarked before cringing through the intensity of another sip. "And I take it you shall go to Ponyville to play as a teacher?"

"You know me so well." Celestia giggled slightly at her sister's knowing guess.

"Beware, then. Those three I would call the Spawn of Discord were it not for their love of me and because they are far too old to be."

"Oh Luna, how hard could it be?"

To my Faithful Student,
Princess Twilight Sparkle,

As soon as I am done with a few things here, I will be dispatching a very familiar old teacher of yours to help you with your students.

Signed,

Celestia Morningstar

Author's Note

No, don't worry. Regular work is still progressing very slowly on my other stories. THIS, however, is meant to improve my writing speed by seeing how fast I can put out 5 pages in a day. I'll try and do a chunk about every other day, which each of which should be around a thousand words.

Once again, this should be an every other day thing if I can stick to it, in an effort to make me a faster writer (which means it won't be as good, I think), and my regularly scheduled work is still being worked on, including the second chapter of True, True Friends coming up.

2.6

2-6

Sunbeam could feel her blood pressure rising as she looked at the trio of sorry-looking ponies sitting glumly in the sitting area outside the lab. Scootaloo shifted an ice-pack on her head, hidden beneath a hard hat. A silken band tightly gripped her around her barrel, holding her wings firmly to her sides. Neither of the fillies’s companions were any better off, for that matter. Twilight sported an unhealthy-looking black eye and Sweetie Belle worryingly was rubbing her head, which had a small scrape on its side, and they had joined their orange friend in wearing hard-hats.

“We were inside for less than an hour!” She proclaimed, sweeping a hoof to gesture at all three of them. “How did you all get hurt so fast, and why are you wearing hard hats?” Sunbeam knew she was probably petulant-sounding, but the frustration of the sight was only adding to the tension jangling all of her nerves and the worry over Sweetie’s own test.

Twilight pointed sourly at Scootaloo before speaking at last. “She needs adult supervision.” The princess’s wings fidgeted with her own frustration.

“But you are an adult!”

As they began hooking up Sweetie Belle into the test apparatus in the lab, Sunbeam still worried about leaving Scootaloo and Applebloom outside and unsupervised. But there was nothing she could do about the matter, as she and Twilight would both be needed if her worries about the nature of Sweetie Belle’s talent were true. She hoped she was just reading into things.

Twilight pulled her to one side after a few minutes of hooking wires onto the scanning gear on the filly to voice her own concerns. “Are you certain everything will be fine? Absolutely certain? I was doing a little bit of research on ‘song-spells’, and I-“

“Twilight, Twilight… Don’t worry. Yes, the strongest song-spells I know of can be dangerous, but Sweetie Belle should be fine.” Sunbeam reassured. Sure, there had been powerful songspells in the past, but the trait had died out over the years. She draped a wing over Twilight’s back, letting the warm down of her underwing ticklishly rest around the back of Twilight’s neck. “It would take an alicorn to develop the same flare that you did in your magic exam. I’ve never heard of anypony being a song-spell that powerful besides Princess Celestia herself.”

“Do I have to wear this thing? Rarity would freak if she saw me wearing it.” Sweetie’s voice creaked in the middle of ‘freak’ as she interrupted the student/teacher bonding moment going on. The little filly pointed at the magic monitoring apparatus on her head as Sunbeam and Twilight awkwardly broke away from each other blushing slightly.

The poor bowl-like object blinked furiously in wild patterns, likely cursing its lot in life to be repeatedly overcharged with magic. Too bad, it had been made for the job.

Poor Sweetie Belle squeaked again as Twilight teleported twice in rapid succession to grab more sensors and hopped over the filly’s back to jam them onto the side of the big helmet. Sweetie’s little white hooves waved in frustration at Twilight to try and shoo her off before Twilight teleported from her side to the main console to adjust more settings. “Will you stop that!?”

“Sorry, I just need to make sure I get this right.”

Sunbeam felt the heat slowly leave her cheeks as she got over the realization that she had been treating Twilight like her daughter again. Chuckling ruefully, she slowly trotted over to the filly and began stroking her back to calm her down from her jumpy high. They still had a great deal of work to go on Twilight’s manners when she was in the middle of an experiment. The least Sunbeam could do would be to calm the little filly and keep her from unnerving herself further over the frantic activity. “Yes, yes you do, Sweetie Belle. I know, Twilight could be a bit more courteous, but we need to study your magic a little in order to help you.”

“I don’t see how wearing a salad bowl with lights on it is going to help me.” Sweetie complained as she slowly laid down tensely and laid her head on her forelegs in a sulk.

Carefully putting a hoof to her mouth to hide the twitching smirk of her agreement, Sunbeam noted to herself that it did look rather like a big metal salad bowl. Best not to let the filly hear that. No, it wouldn’t do at all to laugh. “Don’t let Twilight hear this, but it does look rather silly, doesn’t it?” Sunbeam conspiratorially whispered to Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie nodded vigorously, shaking her salad-hat wildly on her head.

“Yes, well, it’s called a Thaumatoscope. It scans your magic as you use it so we can compare it to everypony else’s. We’ll figure out how you control your magic through it.”

“Oh.” Sweetie said, disappointed that her silly hat had a purpose and that she couldn’t be rid of it yet. Any second now, Rarity would inexplicibly walk through the door like she always did whenever something silly was on her, and start yelling at her for looking horrible. It always happened. “Does it have to look like I have a salad bowl on my head?”

Squatting, Sunbeam nuzzled her new student comfortingly at the bottom of her neck. “No. That’s just to make it easy and stressless for everypony.”

“It’s stressing ME out.” Sweetie squeaked indignantly.

Sunbeam didn’t notice how her foamy bristles were slowly annoying the filly further with each moment. “We could put them on without it and stick them to your head directly, but it would look even worse and take longer. You’d look like you had wire mane at the end of it.”
“Never Again!” Twilight proclaimed across the lab before she went back to calibrating the machine again.

“See? Listen to Twilight, she knows the danger.” Sunbeam warned, still trying to calm the tensed up filly. She knew the poor girl had to be close to quitting the experiment out of frustration and stress. But, maybe hearing of Twilight’s misadventures might help a little. “You know, Twilight invented the ‘salad bowl’ after her own bad experience with the old way of using a thaumatoscope.”

“Really?”

“Sunbeam, so help me, if you say it I will turn you plaid myself!” Twilight grumbled as she finished her adjustments on the main board and started to head for the recording board. Sunset-colored magic arced upon her horn, teleporting her to it involuntarily with a yelp, a grunt, and a slight fall from head height. “Aughgrble!”

Sunbeam looked around carefully, then stooped as low as she could manage to whisper into Sweetie’s ear as quietly as a mouse. “She got so frustrated by how putting all the wires on her head took that she suffered a magic surge that turned her mane into fire temporarily. The heat melted all the wires in her mane.” She looked up carefully to make sure Twilight hadn’t somehow snuck over to startle them. But the alicorn was busying herself with starting up the data feeds on the board.

Turning back presented her with Sweetie Belle looking at her with her own hooves jammed in her mouth to muffle her squeak of horror.
“She was fine.” Sunbeam clarified as quickly as she could to relax Sweetie before she could run in terror. Laying down, Sunbeam rested her head beside Sweetie’s own and nudged up as closely as she could to continue. “When the flare ended, the final burst of magic took the heat with it, and left her with a solid mane due to the way the melted wires all clumped into her mane.”

“No!”

“Yes! It took her a month just to get it to grow long enough to be able to cut it all out, and she was stuck for most of a year with a manecut like your friend Scootaloo’s because of how slowly her mane grows. I think she would have liked it if it wasn’t for the way other ponies in her classes teased her over her style every time my back was turned.”

“Mom, Dad, and Rarity would kill me if I did that!”

“I thought you wanted to get out of your sister’s shadow? Why would you care about her?”

“She’d still kill me.”

Sunbeam rolled her eyes at the statement. Fillies were always so overdramat- no, she couldn’t say that. Luna, despite her valid reasons for it, still took the title of Queen of the Overdramatic. Alright, so she herself wasn’t blameless in her sister’s madness, but Luna had let things spiral far out of control. Sigh. The filly had a point, though. And maybe a counterpoint as well… “Oh, you silly filly. She wouldn’t kill you.”

“Yes she would!”

“No, because you would become Doomy Belle! Evil villainess of sound and metal! And your sister would become a valiant hero out to save the world from your insidious plot to end school plays and replace all the music in the world with Sapphire Shores albums!” Sunbeam proclaimed to the filly. Twilight’s tail frazzled and flipped in place like a dying fish for a moment before she calmed down again.

As Sunbeam nuzzled the filly once more, the foamy bristles finally irritated her beyond the point of tolerance, resulting in decisive retaliation. Sharp pain burned at the side of Sunbeam’s face as Sweetie nipped at one of the darts and ripped it from the mare’s skin savagely. Well, more of a sharp tug and the sensation of superglued fur ripping out. Or getting a really bad shot. Why, it might have been both at once!

Sunbeam wanted to yelp in anguish at the lump of pain on the side of her head, but the inarticulate cry died in her throat as the colors of her coat began to twist and shimmer before her eyes. The pleasant lightly burnt orange of her fur twisted and churned before her eyes as a wave of unreality marched down her legs like an army of ants. Pricking touched every point on her body as chaotic magic worked into her, swirling into a psycadellic array of hot pink, electric blue, forest green, and warning yellow plaid. Stuffing a hoof into her mouth to try and stifle the keening wail of ‘Oh Tree, WHAT!?’ failed miserably as she bit down on it.

Her lungs trembled and burned as she started to hyperventilate at the unnatural colors she had been painted in threatened to drive her mad. It was the Worst Possible Thing, and she couldn’t dare let herself-

“DOOM!” Sweetie Belle cried in relieved amusement as she poked Sunbeam in her soft sides, making the pegasus curl up on herself.
“No Doom! Tirek used up all the doom allotted for the next two years!”

Wait… Doom could be allotted? Did it come in metric units, or as floating time periods? How did somepony even schedule or predict doom?

Sunbeam’s rapid –fire hitching hysteric breaths slowed as the interruption of her old student’s fobiles wedged itself into her mind. Deep, desperate breaths of utter embarrassment shifted into short hitches of amusement as she started to realize how worked up she was getting over the situation herself. She could beat Discord with a stick until he turned her back if she had to! And in the meantime, why couldn’t plaid be a distinctive fashion statement? It was mortifying, but oddly hypnotic at the same time with the way the stripes of neon colors seemed to move over her new green undercoat.

Her breaths turned to coughs, then hiccupping giggles as the initial shock escaped her to roam freely on the four winds. A confused and lost guffaw escaped her at last, glad to be free of the stuffy old mare as she let her guard fall away at last. “Heh. Heh- Heh. No Doom for you. Doom for Me. Doom for Filly. No Doom for You. Always more Doom for me.”

“Doom?” Sweetie innocently asked as she realized that Sunbeam had calmed down fully from her fit.

“Doom!”

Perking up, she chanted back louder. “DOOM! Doomy-DOOM!”

Twilight growled in exasperated frustration as Sunglow-in-the-Dark and Doomy Belle continued to chant the Doomed Hymn of Doomyness at each other behind her. It was entirely inappropriate to be carrying on like that in the middle of an important experiment! Completely unprofessional! Science wasn’t something to mock!

Head met console through Gravity’s helpful dating service several times as Twilight wondered why life and Harmony hated her so much. With a final yowl of her nerves going completely shot, she thumped her head against the console one last time and let it stay there as she contemplated whether or not her BBBFF needed a secretary. Laying there, her frowny scowl twisted and squiggled in the sudden silence, and with great reluctance she finally looked back.

Sweetie was standing right behind her on one side, looking up with great downy eyes of worry as Sunb-Sunglow stood on the other side. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I was getting all freaky-outty. I didn’t know you were so upset.”

Sunb-Sunglow hung her head in shame as she stood at Twilight’s other shoulder. “I’m sorry. Things have been tense for me as well. I was just trying to get you to relax with us. I-… I shouldn’t have.”

And there was the accidentally guilt trip. How wonderful. Darn it, she was good and mad and- Twilight made a mental note to herself to stop looking at upset fillies in the eyes. It wasn’t good for her resolve. But they were right. Excessive tension in the middle of an examination could lead to anomalous results, resulting in more examination and worse results and- she needed to stop thinking in circles. Here they were trying to be nice and silly to keep them distracted from the wait, and here she was being the fun police.

Pinkie was going to stuff her in a cake if she found out.

But… Sunglow… Glowlight? Oh, her teacher did look pretty ‘DOOM!’ey dressed in neon shades of Princess Celestia’s colors. A small squiggle of amusement distractedly crawled along her lips as she decided to stop letting things affect her so greatly. Only one thing she could do about that.

Two darts were plucked from her teacher’s already neon form and found themselves quickly planted on Twilight’s ears. Whipping her hooves up, she ripped them free from herself in a gesture much like a mare blowing her mind as she tested whether or not the darts would work twice. For Science. Hot Pink, Neon Purple, and Navy Blue confirmation scribbled in over her coat across her body. “DOOM!”

Sweetie shrugged. “Doom?”

Sunbeam pumped a hoof in the air. “Doom!”

Sweetie Belle perked up, then crossed her hooves as well as her eyes as an urgent matter buzzed near the base of her tail. “Can we doom our way through this test? I’ve been waiting for hours, and I kinda drank too much this morning…”

“Gah! Yes, yes! Sunbeam, get the broom!”

“The broom? But I hav-“

“Not to use on you, you need it for the test!”

“Oh.”

Sunbeam trotted over with the broom in her mouth and laid it at Sweetie’s hooves. “We need you to lift the broom and do some basic sweeping to test your telekinesis.” Sweetie started to open her mouth to protest how easy that was. “Without humming, singing, or any sound at all verbal or in your mind.”

Sweetie clammed up instantly and her pupils dilated as she processed that. “But that’s so hard!”

Sunbeam lightly touched her own day-glow pink nose to the filly’s. “I know. But we need you to focus on it. Please.”

Gulping worriedly, Sweetie nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.” With that, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

Sunbeam ambled over to Twilight, standing just between her and Sweetie Belle as Twilight worriedly whispered. “Absolutely certain that it will be a small surge at worst?” Twilight asked.

“Yes.” Sunbeam said, hiding the tiny spark of worry at the center of her own heart.

Tiny arcs of her green magic fitfully jumped along the filly’s horn as she tried to summon her magic into her mind. Each one escaped her grasp in a small burst of sparks as it reached the tip of her pointy appendage. Whines rattled in her throat as her hooves shook against the floor amidst her effort to force her uncooperative magic out through the deafening silence of her mind.

Twilight winced as Sweetie fought to wake up her magic like a normal unicorn would, all the while hoping that the filly wouldn’t suffer a surge or magic blow-out. She had seen her suffer one once before, and Twilight knew how painful it could be from her own surges and flares in her youth. Somehow, though, the little filly was slowly managing it. The end of the broom was slowly enveloped in a slim green aura, and gingerly lifted from the floor shaking in the ethereal grip.

But what worried Twilight was the way that Sunbeam bent down to Sweetie’s ear, and mouthed to Twilight to watch. Before she could object to the action, Sunbeam began to hum a simple repeating tune into Sweetie’s ear that seemed hauntingly familiar. A nervous gulp of worry slithered down Twilight’s throat as she watched every hair in the filly’s coat and mane suddenly stand on end and a double corona flare to life around her horn.

“Wha-what? No! I can’t stop i-it!”

The broom slowly shivered and shimmied into the air, standing upright as a crackling arc connected it to the filly. That was good, a nice calm, controlled reaction that meant that Sweetie had things well in hoof despite being thrust into the middle of a spell. With a bit of training, she’d probably become quite the mage. She would have to be taught the old language to let her read the journals of c-

“Sunbeam! Remember that worst case scenario you talked about?”

“What do you-“Sunbeam’s words died mercilessly as mops, rags, dust pans and everything in between shimmied back and forth enveloped in green auras. She turned back to the filly, and gulped a little as she noticed how she had nearly perfect time alongside the objects as they began to sway purposefully in time with the filly’s shaking.

So that was what real unadaltered fear felt like. She had almost forgotten it. The rush of cold icy clarity felt good in a way she didn’t particularly care for as it reached every inch of her body. She hadn’t even considered the slightest chance that Sweetie Belle might have been a more powerful spellsong than she was. “Forget the scenario. This is far worse!”

“I can’t get it out of my head!” Sweetie cried as a third corona rippled to life around her horn and a great burst of sparks burst from its tip. The sparks shot across the room, animating more objects to dance about in place. Snapping open, the filly’s eyes blazed green light as she began to float off of the ground.

Twilight didn’t get a chance to answer as a rag latched onto her face and drove her into the ground to clean the ragged bags of sleeplessness from her eyes in a soapy assault. The alicorn’s hooves kicked wildly as she rolled onto her back amidst the horror.

“Sweetie, this is going to hurt a lot! I’m sorr-“ Sunbeam pushed her hoof through the aura surrounding Sweetie Belle desperately, preparing to flick the little white horn to stem the tide of uncontrolled magic.

A sickly sound, like that of an aluminum bat being delivered through a wood chipper at the speed of a sonic rainboom split the air as the magic reacted violently to the intrusion. In a dazed corner of her mind, Sunbeam made a note that the microseconds when one flew through the air seemed to always be drawn out slightly, and that she really should look into it. A wall broke her fall, and she slumped down as everything hurt in her body while she writhed from the intense magic shock.

Hovering higher off the floor, the filly kicked her legs helplessly in the air as a bubble of magic swallowed her whole and left her at its center while random zaps of magic burst from her horn. “Do Not Want!” She squealed as she turned about in place…

And got a good look directly at Celestia’s exposed horn.

3.5

Author's Note

SURPRISE CHAPTER ATTACK!

3.5

3.5

The tea was pleasant enough despite the mild glares backed by the fires of friendship and the borrowed ‘unconquered sun’. All around the pair did the morning sunlight gather as Sunbeam shared a pot of tea with Twilight in the plaza waiting area outside the hospital; a warm oasis against the chill of the autumn breezes threatening the town daily with the oncoming change of the seasons. Between them on the rubber-coated mesh table sat a diagram of a pegasus’s wings they had been pouring over with the hospital staff to find the source of the mysterious drain that made consciously using Pegasus magic so energy-expensive.

Idly, Twilight’s hoof pressed against a known mana-channeling nerve bundle running along a pegasus’s wing bone as she traced a theory. “So, we know that to achieve full effect energy has to go through this conduit to reach the feathers that we now know act as controls like a horn.” She restated, setting her cup to one side as she finished it.

“Right, due to the spinal junctions at the base of the wing.” Sunbeam said as she puzzled herself with the gap between the feather nerves and the bundle. “With no known passage bet-“Her words trailed away as she looked past Twilight to the hospital doors and the activity there.

No pony was near to the cart repeatedly bumping against the sliding glass doors, nor was there an obvious magic aura influencing it that they could see as Twilight joined her in inspecting the wayward transport. Not that the mere sheet draped over the cart could protect the identities of the trio within—little bumps could be seen time and time again as the Crusaders fought for space beneath the cart, which was small enough to give trouble for just one pony trying to lay on it. Their guesses became fact as a little yellow hoof tried to push the door open without being seen. All too easy, then; Sunbeam crept forwards, miming to Twilight to keep talking as she crept towards the cart on tiny little puffs of cloud.

Starting again, Twilight lectured over-loudly to cover her ill-favored colleague’s approach. “The possibility makes sense. Given that the unicorn horn only has the large lobe of nerve tissue in its core due to the fact that the force needed to break it would pulverize the head, protecting the mana currents from being directly shorted out as much as possible could be a survival adaptation.” Twilight quietly cast a spell of silencing before stealing one of Sunbeam’s hayfries greedily.

Throwing her voice, Sunbeam pretended to still be at the table as she maneuvered herself for a pounce. “Thus explaining the lack of organized spell-casting in Pegasus culture, since the exercises needed to fully unlock the potential would require extreme fitness.” She smiled slyly as she hovered down, hearing the harsh whispered arguments beneath the covers. They were arguing over the direction Twilight’s voice was coming from, picking up speed as they wobbly pointed away towards the nearby woods.

Sunbeam moved in closer, her hooves just inches from the top of the cart. “The phenomenon of wing-power can be explained by training the nerve networks to talk to each other and more efficiently cross the gap. Maybe by burning fat from the region and creating more efficient muscle? Doing all that must let pegasi form more efficient pathways to conduct magic from the nerve bundles to their feathers." She spread her legs wide as she lowered herself further, coming down upon the cart like a flying jellyfish, threatening as she loomed over the humble sheet protecting the cart's occupants.

Those mighty wings swept up, letting her fall onto the cart, where she latched on; her hooves punched through the sheet and snatched into the underside as she hugged herself tight to it. Inside, the trio of escapees bounced and tumbled over one another with the sudden halt from the weight applied to their getaway vehicle, bouncing back and forth like a kinetic cradle. Twilight shook her head as Sunbeam jerked and shook the cart, yelling loudly. "Look out every pony! We have some sort of ghost cart! Stay back, save yourselves or it will eat your soul!"

Sweetie Belle took up the act, trying to scare Sunbeam off. "Woooo-oooOOOOooo-ooo! I am Ghost Cart, and I will eat your babies! Uh, Souls! I mean souls!"

"Oh, wait," Sunbeam bent down, shoving her head through the cloth on the front of the cart mischievously. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all stared at her in horror as the shadows beneath the cloth cast a sinister light; screaming as one when Sunbeam cackled out a laugh that bone-chillingly resembled Nightmare Moon's. "Twilight, come quick, we have a prison break!"

"Run!"

"Cheese it!"

"Wait for me-aaaiiiie!"

Said formerly addressed lavender alicorn lashed out with her magic, snatching Scootaloo up by her legs while she floated the foal over to her face. Scootaloo looked over her shoulder to watch her friends jump and flip into the bushes and the safety they offered, unable to follow them in the grasp of Twilight as she found herself hogtied by dusky strands of magenta magic. Attempting her vilest form of persuasion, she developed as pitiful a look as she could manage while pleading as sickeningly sweetly as possible. "Can I leave now?"

Twilight enchanted a long beard and bushy mustache onto Scootaloo to defuse the evil of the puppy-foal face. "Nope."

"Nooooooo!" Scootaloo wriggled in place upside down as Twilight slowly walked her back inside towards the icky hospital food, itchy sheets, and uncomfortable beds.

"You're not escaping from Ponyville General Hospital."

Ms. Gladly sat across from Sunbeam in the waiting lounge on the first floor of the hospital, humming some strange old tune to herself as she poured chai tea for them both. After finding another patch of healing frostbite on both of Scootaloo's wingtips, the doctors had decided to keep her for another two days; the anguished wails of boredom could be heard all the way in Sweet Apple Acre according to rumor. So, the old caretaker had borrowed some help from the Ponyville Municipal Volunteer Assistance group to watch over the orphanage while she foiled Scootaloo's fiendish plans of escape and mayhem.

Not that Sunbeam cared all that much as she delicately sipped from the simmering heat in her cup. She sighed in relaxation, rolling back somewhat to center herself on her cushion to keep her rump from touching the cold green linoleum flooring. "So, why is it that we seem to have so many issues with Scootaloo? I've talked with the doctors yesterday after her last escape attempt; they confirmed some of our findings concerning the ineffectiveness of wing casting, but they also said that she shouldn't have been worn out enough to be in the hospital." Sip. Mmm. Good tea.

Coughing lightly to clear her throat, Ms. Gladly set the tea pot down and responded. "Oh, she's always been that way. Anything she gets her mind set to she can achieve, eventually." The old grey-toned mare closed her eyes to remember some of the old times, good and bad. "Even good grades, once. Before she got bored." A hoof stroked her old greying mane back. "Everything except for her cutie mark and flying. If it wasn't for her friends, I would have been sure one or the other would have driven her mad, and even so she was getting mighty desperate for flight before you showed up."

Reaching into her saddlebag, the old caretaker pulled out a great brace of photos from Scootaloo's life for the new teacher, letting her see what she was up against. "And when I open the way, she seizes it too quickly." So much like Luna, desperate for recognition.

"That she did. Still no control, but she went straight up." Ms. Gladly mimed a pony shooting upwards with one hoof, checking at a pocket watch on the table. "Ah, just about that time. Be on guard, dearie, they'll be starting soon."

Confused, Sunbeam looked around. "Starting what?"

"Their next escape attempt." Ms. Gladly said matter of factly, stretching out. "You didn't think I came here for emotional support, did you? Oh, goodness no." She arched her back, popping every vertebra one by one with the ill-gotten gains of her old age. "No, these ponies at the hospital--bless their souls--are utter rubbish at keeping their guest occupied. So the three of them try to break the third out every time one of them gets hurt. Dash is the same way, and she's taught Scootaloo quite a bit."

"Oh! Wonderful." Sunbeam darkly murmured as she got up and checked the doorway to the lounge for runaway carts.

"Oh, don't be that way. You wouldn't believe how amusing it is to see themselves try to pass themselves off as miniature nurses." A series of thumps shook the ceiling tiles somewhere above their heads, coming in sets and pairs off and on again. "Why, that would be them now. Get ready."

Sunbeam grumbled to herself, separating from the old caretaker as the two pegasi slowly circled the room looking for the exact source. From above the small kitchenette area came three small disturbances in the tile, shaking them in a row as the foals 'sneakily' escaped the annoying patient ward, making their way towards the ground floor window and freedom. Smiling, Ms. Gladly pulled Sunbeam over to the window and delicately stood up on her back.

The old mare was surprisingly light on her back, feeling halfway hollow in some strange way. Whispering, she convinced Sunbeam to raise her higher; pushing herself to her tippy-hooves to press against the ceiling tile beside the window. Every passing moment brought the trio closer to their doom, blissfully unaware of the lurking horrors of snuggling and bed rest dooming them all.

Waiting until the last second, Ms. Gladly shoved the tile up and poked her head above the level of the dropped ceiling. "I have you now, my pretties!" She cackled giddily into their horrified faces, relishing in their shock as they fell over every which way.

Three ceiling tiles came loose and fell beneath them, spilling them out like piñatas. The trio bounced queasily on bungee cord safety ropes strung from the pipes in the ceiling, attached by harnesses wrapped around their chests. They bounced and swung every which way--Sunbeam and Ms. Gladly hoped they weren't about to suffer a seasickness incident. Still screaming in shock, the trio tried to run for it while trapped in their harnesses, flailing helplessly for everypony's amusement as they undulated up and down wildly. No escape for them!

"Ms. Gladly!" Scootaloo whined from her harness once she finally stopped flailing. The tension in the cord, helped along by the motion imparted from the helpless flails, began to slowly twist Scootaloo around and around, tightening up the rope. "Why did you catch us!?"

"Because you're not done getting better, no matter how much you think you're done." Ms. Gladly warmly said just out of whirl-a-foal range.

"I'm not-," Scootaloo paused and folded her forelegs as she spun away, "-getting better-," Spin, "-sitting around-," Twirl, "-getting fed icky hospital food-," Twisty, "-and being bored." The rope suddenly began releasing the built up strain, sending Scootaloo spinning out of control wildly like a funny-shaped top. "Ahhhhhhh!"

Winking at Sunbeam with one of her vividly green eyes, Ms. Gladly smirked while waiting for her charge's involuntary amusement park ride to end. "She's also never beaten me."

"This time, it has to work. They'll never see it coming!" Scootaloo defiantly postured on her bed, slapping the escape plans with a hoof.

Applebloom yawned, lazily swaying the flashlight strapped to her head as she defied Scootaloo's statement. "Its cause its 'Too Dark o' Clock' in the morning right now, Scoots." She slumped tiredly on the foot of the bed, curling up in exhaustion from being dragged out so late at night. "Ain't you getting out today anyway?"

"It's the principle of the matter, Applebloom?"

Sweetie Belle wondered if there was any tape to keep her eyes open with as she planted her head on the railing of the bed. "Can't we just... like walk out this late?" Her eyes slowly dragged themselves shut as snores started escaping from the white filly.

Licking a hoof, Scootaloo stuck it in Sweetie's ear to wake her back up; her cunning plan needed laying out before them. "You two WILL be walking out. You're going to lower me out the window." She proclaimed quietly, snapping on her own flashlight to reveal her climbing harness strapped on once more after the fiasco with the bungee cords. Since the tips of her wings were still bandaged until latter, rappelling it was.

Applebloom looked up again suspiciously. "Wait, we-"

"Yep. That's easy. Get caught looking like you're trying to break in so that no pony suspects until it's too late."

"What." Sweetie asked, her mane falling down in front of her eyes.

"Yeah, if they think they stopped you guys down at the door, they won't think to look up here." Scootaloo reasoned as she snapped her rope into her harness and jumped off of her bed. "Now help me down so we can all get out of here and go home to sleep." She double-checked her harness from experience.

With a sign of tired resignation, the two other crusaders clambered off the bed and tiredly staggered over to the window; their flanking positions were already marked out with duct tape on the floor as Scootaloo levered the window open. Sweetie Belle peered around their pegasus friend and mimed Ms. Gladly grabbing Scootaloo by swooping out of the skies as Scootaloo got up onto the windowsill to push it further open, producing a bit she had hidden in her tail.

Shaking her head, two bits fell from Applebloom's bow--she quietly suggested Nurse Redheart sucking the life from Scootaloo using super evil secret nurse powers when she tried to escape the grounds. The two made up ever more outlandish scenarios as Scootaloo anchored the rope in place for her escape; they knew failure was certain somehow. It was all just a matter of figuring out what crime against Scootaloo's pride would occur.

"Say, are you two done? This'll work! Now help me down."

Disgruntledly, the pair started passing rope through the window for Scootaloo, who hopped out holding the rope in hoof as she swung out and down. None of them noticed the three rustles in the bushes over the sound of rope burning against harness loops as Scootaloo descended hop by hop down the façade.

"Keep it going, guys! I'm halfway there." Scootaloo whispered up as she found the further play-out of rope halting, stopping her from progressing anymore. Jerking at the rope, she bounced it up and down trying to make sure the two hadn't fallen asleep at their positions, which would have caused the safety hook to catch the rope. Small jerks rippled down the line from above, making Scootaloo worried as she heard nothing more.

"AHHHH! Save yerselves!" Applebloom popped out over the edge of the windowsill before being dragged back inside by Nurse Redheart who cackled evilly.

Before she could unhook herself, plaid blue hooves attacked her sides mercilessly as blue magic cut her rope. In a flailing panic, Scootaloo pushed off the wall to escape her attacker, only pushing the three pony tower over into the itchy bushes. Rarity wailed for a moment at her coat being ruined; a wail cut short when she remembered that she was plaid and thus some pony invisible to polite company lest they burn their eyes on her hideous visage of evil patterns.

Ms. Gladly joined Applejack as the farm pony loomed overhead. Nurse Redheart's cackles of revenge echoed out the window over the whineys of terror as the other crusaders were taken for use in her terrible, fiendish schemes of terrible horror. Probably to suck out their bodily fluids and turn them into mummies who were to be hung from the front archway as a warning to all who dared escape from Ponyville General.

"Oh, you three." Ms. Gladly lamented. "You really thought you were going to outsmart us?"

"Ya'll are 'bout as stealthy and sneaky-like as Pinkie Pie at the gala, ya'll know that, right?" Applejack remarked with a bit of snark as she poked Scootaloo in the belly.

"Oof! I will be free! And Rarity broke my fall, thanks for being my pillow!"

The plaid victim of utter discord twitched her eyes as Scootaloo called her fat. "Oh, you did NOT! Hmph, well my plaid line needs a pony tester, and you're free to help me test it!"

"NooooooooooO!"

A guard came around the corner crossly, shushing them and issuing fines for noise disturbances.

6.4

6-4

Well, the day had been rather foul indeed. The nice diversion of playing with Scootaloo and letting the foal experience the winds as directed by their true master had worn on into a pleasant night and a great many questions she had been forced to deflect with all of her skills from the Apple family. They had sat beneath the apple trees, lit by candle-light and torches celebrating the Heart Tree’s restoration and rejuvenation with all of their friends long into the night, long past the time when her sun had set and brought her sister’s night.

And then came the sleep. Hah, hardly restful with all the questions stirring in her mind. After that relatively pleasant night, she had been put through an utter hell of a day. Catching Diamond Tiara at recess once more going after the Crusaders had just been the start of the foulness. Then had come Filthy Rich a little later, showing up after his filly had run home to him crying, demanding to know ‘what kind of a teacher’ she was. She showed him, all right. Showed him with an enchanted gem with the memory of watching Tiara tear into the Crusaders inside. Even with that evidence, Cheerilee had vanished rather than back her up, leaving her to fall into a mild screaming match with Filthy behind the schoolhouse where all the foals could hear them. He had gone and accused her of playing favorites for Twilight—she was, but not nearly to the extent that it would seriously compromise her impartiality—and ranted at her for disturbing his little girl, she had shot back that they could trace Tiara’s problems to well before she had arrived. Neither had come out looking very well when the foals had come over to ask why they were arguing.

Then, then had come trying to reason out why some of the potions Zecora had taught Applebloom worked as they did. Terrible idea. Oh, the sticky slime; the sticky, foamy slime; the sticky, foamy slime explosions spraying tendrils of goop everywhere. She still felt unclean, like she had been given a lollipop for a good job from Discord. Ugh.

At least the farm work was easy. It was uncomplicated, and a relieving breath of fresh air if it wasn’t for the dried multi-colored slime crusting in her fur. It was attracting all the dust in the orchards, leaving her with a veritable dust trail with each step. Wasn’t really worth washing up yet, she still had a lot of applebucking to go, and her rhythm was up and running.

She bucked, hopped, and dropped some buckets; she rinsed, repeated, and felt the burn. She had picked up a musky smell from the sweat on her shoulders, and her wings ached from their reflexive opening each time she walloped a tree. Most of all, though, she felt alive in a way that she hadn’t felt like in years. She could almost-almost sing in glory from the wondrous feelings all around her! Life was all about her, and no nobles bother her ears; the fall weather called to her, and she could just love her friends so dear! A song, a job, just working in the fields; the sun, the stars, all looking down at her yields!

She lost herself in the motion and the sounds, feeling herself going through the comforting actions over and over as the song burbled up from her heart and slowly washed her cares and aches away. A hard two-hooved love tap to a tree, a basket nudged to the right; even her actions were getting lyrical, and maybe things would be all right! Her muzzle rose up to the skies, letting her cry out her heart; her hooves tapped out to the beat, letting her leave her mark!

She knew she had stopped in the middle of a row to shake her booty to the song, but what did she care? It wouldn’t take all that long! Hearts sang out brightly as she lost herself to the act; just a bit of life itself, just her and some apple facts! Flailing hooves danced out far, waving in the air; her rump shook back and forth, showing her lack of care! Soft green grass slunk away, her dancing leading her astray; just a wide old dirt path, all the better to scuff and scrape! Tongue stuck out and head shook, wings jerking to the beat! Hooves beat against something soft, best to avoid it for her beat!

But—her hind hooves kept on bouncing against it as she kicked and bobbed to the sound of life and song in her head, even though she had turned about. Big and soft, but with a hard flexing underside as whatever it was made sounds like some-pony clearing their throat over and over again. Like some-pony’s chest getting pummeled by flailing hooves? Like there was a big some-pony, likely red and golden with a harness around his neck, standing there judging her for her dancing—something she had passed on to her student—and likely getting pretty annoyed with getting kicked?

Aw, horseapples. “I’ve been kicking you in the face with my dancing, haven’t I, Big Macintosh?” She wasn’t going to look, nope, bad idea.

“Eenope. Just mah chest.”

“Ah, good.”

“Ain’t like it hurt none, Applejack’s done worse.” He stoically drawled as he circled around her. Granted, he was trying not to collapse in a wheezing mess from the bruises all over the front and sides of his chest. Sunbeam had a hell of a kick to her, almost as good as Luna’s. It broke his heart a little to see her slump as she did, he felt like he had kicked Winona over an apple tree and then gone to look at her.

“I’m fired, aren’t I?” She whispered, hanging her head and avoiding his gaze.

“Naw.” She perked up in confusion, seeing Big Mac pointing backwards over his shoulder. “Wanted to tell you to stop for the night. You already bucked all of today’s harvest, and then some. We’ve got work to do to bring it all in before nightfall.” Macintosh explained, pointing over his shoulder to where a frantic looking pair of sisters were zipping back and forth in a fair imitation of Pinkie as they tried to catch up with the mad applebucker. Applejack’s hat was stuck on a tree, and Applebloom’s bow was more like a ribbon from her efforts and flapping in the breeze from where it was wrapped around her head.

“Oh. Oh my.” Sunbeam breathlessly observed. “I think I overdid it.” She looked down to her hooves, and saw that each of her dancing-mad hoof prints could be seen in a twisting, turning spiral out to her position. They laid out a veritable etched record set deep into the earth, marking the dorky spiral of her dance.

“Eeyup.” Fat lot of good he was at reassuring her.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I had a heart-song building all afternoon from a great many poor events this morning, and the rhythm of the job, um, set it off. Sort of.” Explanations could only do so much for Sunbeam, and she ducked her head backwards a bit to let her mane hide her burning shame. Best just not to say anything more and get back to work to avoid the terrible awkwardness. Turning to the nearest basket of fruit, she awkwardly walked to it and tried to avoid thinking any further on the matter.

It did feel good though. She could feel the looseness of her newly relaxed state seeping all through her body, even if she had tightened back up again from her slight fear and worry. A wonderful lifting of spirits, one unfortunately dashed by her incompetence in expressing those spirits. Well, there was one thing she was worried about. “I didn’t catch you up in it, did I?”

“Eenope.”

“But you heard everything, didn’t you?”

“Enough.”

Ah, good feeling gone again. All was wrong with the world once more, a great drowning of all glad things beneath an overwhelming and everlasting tide of shame and failure. She would go, into the west. She would go and be less, walking the eternal deserts of the far west and-

“Monologuing again.” Macintosh quietly corrected her as he stopped her with a hoof on her withers. For a stallion as big, if not bigger than her, she didn’t know how he could sneak around as he so did; Luna compared to how he had moved had catlike tread—if you counted a mewling avalanche of kittens quiet. His hoof on her back slowly slid up her spine, and around her neck to cup her chin and turn her gaze into his own.

“Don’t know why you’d want to leave. Ah’d say Ah liked the view.” His somewhat romantic words turned her redder than he was as she spluttered in embarrassment. “Ah’d probably be glad to be rid of a bunch of nobles, too.” Big Mac finished, brushing the dirt from Sunbeam’s sides as he kept on smiling to her.

Sitting down a bit wobbly, Sunbeam quietly tried to figure out what to do with herself. “I’m causing a lot of problems for you, aren’t I? I should just g-”

“Eenope.” Big Mac cut off her self-doubt and self-loathing with a nuzzle to the nose that was quick and over with, then shifted his hoof back to her shoulder. “Ain’t no problem at all. You ain’t seen Ponyvile weird yet.” He quietly mentioned to her as his sisters slowly caught up to them, looking her in the eyes carefully under the great green canopy of the trees. “Know there’s more to you, and Ah don’t care.” He leaned in a little closer, whispering to her at a low tone that Applejack couldn’t hear so as to give her a bit of self-courage. “You’ve got skill, and you’ve got skill. All we ask. Ain’t our place to grill you like a fritter over your past. If you want to tell us, you will. Yer strong enough to decide when.” He told her, winking at the end just before brushing her mane back behind her ears for the most part.

Sunbeam blinked once, twice, thrice. Did he just- “Oh, my. Was that a monologue, Mr. Macintosh?” She slyly asked, feeling a lot better thanks to his sage words.

“Eeyup.” He whispered, then put his hoof on her lips to shush her. “Best not tell AJ. She’s fun when she wants to eat her hat ‘cause Ah monologue to every-pony else other than her.” His smile grew a little wider as Sunbeam demurely giggled twice.

“Big Mac? Ya monologuing again?”

“Eenope?”

“Uh-huh. Ya lying to me again?”

“Eemaybe?”

Sunbeam’s titters of amusement started up again as Applejack threw her basket onto the long hauling cart and started stomping up and down in the dirt path while cursing the air blue around her. Before long, she had vanished into a dust cloud of her own making while Applebloom just glared adorably at her brother. Why, Luna was hardly as amusing as Macintosh’s sisters were; but then, she had thousands of years to work out the irritation over her lighter counterpart’s wry and sly ways.

“Oh, Mr. Macintosh, you’re just horrible!” Sunbeam amusedly exclaimed, putting a hoof to her chin while pretending to be a vapid noble lady about to faint from seeing some uncouth activity. Big Mac just sing-hummed his agreement, slyly winking to her while holding out a hoof to help her up. “Oh, and such a gentle-pony!” She complimented as she accepted the hoof and hauled herself back up. Hmm, Applejack was still upset and stomping from the sounds of things. “And yet, still such a horrible stallion, teasing your sister to madness like that.”

“Eeyup.”

“We should probably help them with their apples before she hurts herself.” That dust was getting awfully high and thick.

“Not yet.” Big Macintosh cryptically said as he slowly led her back to the leader wagon to pull several baskets and flip them onto his back. “Two more applebucks. Need to teach you a few pointers.” Hop-galloping oddly, the big crimson stallion had the oddest look on his face as he hummed and bobbed his own head on the way over to the next two trees in the line. It was almost like some love-struck colt as he laid the baskets around both trees then nimbly bounded back to the first to wait for his student to arrive. “Here, lemme show you.”

“Oh? I’m not applebucking right?”

“Eenope.” He said, nodding sideways towards the tree a little. “Granny Smith and the girls got too much buck in their applebuck.”

“Really now?” This was going to be interesting. Sunbeam sat to one side as she waited for him to begin, bemusedly smiled as he fumbled a little.

Caressing the tree trunk with a fore-hoof, Big Macintosh slowly felt up the smooth bark with the frog of his hoof, feeling for the pulsating life energy waiting beneath the surface. “Just gotta lean into the tree. Ain’t no need to shake it down. It’s happy to hoof it over.” Big Mac sagely intoned before turning around and clunking his hind-hooves against the wood with a deceptively gentle-looking tap. Above them, the leaves rubbed together, creating a sound not unlike a hissing sigh as the tree quaked up and down with the slightest of tremors instead of the great clunks of Sunbeam’s kicks. Apples began to rain from the canopy, neatly falling into all the baskets around them save for one or two.

One bounced off of Big Macintosh’s outstretched back hoof, popping back up into the air to tumble over into the basket next to him. The other bounced off of Sunbeam’s bead with a hollow conk as it connected. It tumbled in the air, bouncing off of something unseen to land neatly upright in Big Macintosh’s outstretched fore-hoof. He extended out his leg in a practiced motion, presenting it to her. “Fer you.”

A simple gesture, a polite gesture, a gesture that left Sunbeam feeling giddy for the strangest reason as she took the apple bashfully from his hoof with a wing and began nibbling at it. Mmm, the veritable river of apple juice squeezing up out of the crunchy pulp welled up around her nibbling muzzle, dripping with tangy sweetness onto her tongue and running down her chin with a trace of stickiness. So good, so tasty. She needed to thank him for it, for giving her the chance to work. But, he didn’t give her the chance, preemptively holding up a hoof to silence her. “Just eat. Good fer you to have something.”

“Mmm, thank you.” She whispered to him anyway before chowing down on her prize. Okay, if by ‘chowing down’ she meant ravenously devouring the poor thing like Pinkie would wolf down a thousand cupcakes; a mad menagerie of biting and nibbling and munching. It wasn’t until she felt the sticky sensations on the sides of her muzzle and looked up to see the slightly disturbed look on Big Macintosh’s face. Swallowing a bit nosily in her embarrassment, she tried to grin politely. “Sorry. I guess I was a little hungry.” Her stomach growled traitorously. “But I really should eat a lot less.”

An eyebrow raised, an ear flicked off a tiny chunk of thrown apple, and Sunbeam pointed awkwardly towards the next tree as the ambivalent silence dragged on. “I’ll just go over and practice what you showed me, then.”

“Eeyup.”

She hadn’t quite understood what her teacher had done, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. So, she slowly felt up the tree like Big Mac had shown her, rubbing a hoof against the smooth, dark bark. She jerked back, feeling the pulse of life within beating back against the soft frog of her hoof. Here she was, an ageless abyss of knowledge, and still the little things slipped her by. What had changed? Was it just knowing to actually look? Slowly, she turned over her hoof, looking at it and then looking at the tree and its smooth bark in a new-found light. Could it be as easy as just leaning hard against the tree?

Sunbeam slowly turned around and readied herself, raising her hind-hooves from the ground and balancing with her wings. She tapped the tree, softly, clunking it with her big hooves like ringing a bell instead of kicking a changeling in the face for giving her weekly nightmares about icky greenish goo eating her. With her tap went a pulse of the magic she had felt into the tree, cajoling it, calling to it; a pulse that rattled up into the branches above and gently shimmied and shook them all until the tree fell silent again.

Big Mac walked up beside her, looking up with a concerned and profoundly irritated frown. “Err, guess it had no fruit.”

When Sunbeam went to say something to him, five apples fell on her back in an almost musical rhythm, followed by two extra-large juicy green nibblers crashing down on her head. The last two impacts drove her into the ground, knocking her senseless and splaying her limbs in every direction as her breaths snorted a bit of the cool earth into her nose and made her sneeze. Funny, everything was in the wrong direction all of a sudden. Or were her eyes crossed like that delightful grey mare and her amber eyes?

Probably the latter from the way Big Mac was laughing at her, the big meaniepants.

“But Daddy!” Diamond Tiara protested with a nasally whine as her father herded her into her room at hoof-point. Stern silence was his reply as he poked her again with a hoof, ignoring all her protests in his frustration as he slid her into her obnoxiously pink room and got ready to shut the door behind her. That stupid, fat, plump—chicken!—of a school teacher had somehow gotten some kind of movie of her putting the three losers in their places, and presented it to her daddy. And then, then she had gone and convinced him to stop listening to her! The nerve of that big, ugly pony! She had to think of some way to spin it as Sunbeam telling fibs, and quick! “She’s had it out for me since she met me, Daddy! She probably made that up because she wants to butt me out of being a good influence on my peers!”

Filthy Rich rolled her eyes as his daughter’s protests got even more ridiculous and poked her rump again to push her further into the room. Huh, she squeaked a little when he did. “No butts, sugar-belle. You were being a terrible pony, and tomorrow when I’m not so angry at you we’ll have a little talk about your behavior.” He couldn’t stay too mad at her. He still loved her with every fiber of his money-grubbing soul, even if he still didn’t know where he bad habits she had picked up had come from. They’d talk again the next day, over a big breakfast in the garden dining hall.

“That’s not—Jeeves! Tell daddy he’s being mean!” Tiara pointed past him into the hall, where standing in the center of the darkly paneled hall behind her father.

Filthy’s eyebrows banged off of his scalp-line as his eyes went comically wide from the startlement of being once more snuck up upon by his faithful butler, and he spun around to get eyes on Jeeves rather than let him perform his usual disappearing act. “Jeeves! How many times do I have to say don’t do that? You’ll put me in an early grave from a heart attack one of these days!” His heart was pounding rather hard against his chest worryingly.

The aged stallion in question merely cleared his throat, ignoring Tiara’s attempts to distract her father and spoke directly to the lord of the house. “Sir. Madam. One Duke Redcoat of Canterlot awaits you and the young mistress at the door. He claims to be here to discuss a business deal concerning the both of you.” Jeeves’ old voice warbled from his age as he gestured towards the stairs with a tuxedoed forelimb whilst bowing his head.

“Stay here, Tiara.”

“Both of you, sir.” Jeeves corrected, looking up.

“What?”

“An offer concerning a school, as I understand it, sir.” The madness of the warble could almost make some-pony think Jeeves was putting it on for giggles. Regardless, he slowly walked to the stairs and looked back to see if his employers would follow.

Diamond perked up, putting on one of her best con smiles as she trotted around her father to find out why a duke thought her ready for a proper school. Why, some-pony must have heard of her incredible smarts and charm, and wanted to take her to some prestigious school! Finally, she would get her attention due. Too bad for her mood, then, that her father popped it with a stern clearing of his throat. “Come along, Tiara. We’ll hear him out, then BED.”

There would be no argument with that.

Down below, Redcoat waited for them in the parlor, having let himself in while waiting. He was smiling enigmatically as he played with one of the abstract sculptures beside the door, poking a piece that spun in an odd way. From him ran a streak of coppery red, reflected from his coat onto the polished white marble on the floor and stretching down the long hallway to the foot of the stairs. His turn of gaze almost seemed an afterthought as he looked at the pair with unnatural timing. “Ah, Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara.”

“Can I help you?” Filthy asked with surly annoyance as he clopped down the hallway past the paintings of his beloved Golden Tiara and the family from happier days and small rounded alcoves of various classical and neo-classical works.

“Oh, no. There isn’t anything you can do for me that I couldn’t handle just as easily myself if necessary.” Redcoat curtly admitted, shutting Filthy up quickly. Walking away from the strange statue, he withdrew a small business folder from his red and black greatcoat to shut up his dirty brown counterpart. “But, I can help you to help me.”

Filthy looked at him, then back to his daughter warily.

“I’ve been looking through the records of Equestria, looking for promising young mares to tutor in business and politics, and in doing so found that your daughter fits the criteria for the Canterlot Business School.” Redcoat’s lips stayed neutral as he watched Diamond spazz out with pride, only acknowledging it with the slightest upward raise of his chin. His folder hovered beside him, caught in the grip of his aura as Filthy watched him warily.

“I don’t know if she’s as special as you seem to think.”

“Oh, I’m certain I’m overestimating her at least a little, and yet with a bit of inspection I’m more than willing to say that there might be ‘hope’ for her yet.” Redcoat cagily explained, slowly beginning to circle around the pair, completing half a circuit in the brightly lit white stone hall before continuing. “I’m aware of how your wife’s death affected you, and how it has given her issues. I’m—aware of your health conditions, as well. Don’t ask how, I have my ways. I’m also aware of the towns-ponies’ opinions of her, and yet I would say that she still remains a viable successor to you for your business.”

Completing his circuit, Redcoat gently passed the folder to Filthy, stepping back a bit to make the stallion feel less threatened. “So, due to that opinion, I’m willing to go up to the cliff for her. So, I shall personally pay for full room and board, to include all school expenses and for any tutoring required to help her push her through.” Filthy’s eyes widened ever so slightly, as he knew the incredible expenses that were often incurred in Canterlot Schools—long considered the best in the country.

“I’m aware of how your business taxes you dearly for each iota of success you wring from it. As some-pony appreciative of the reform and revolution you have brought to the retail landscape, I can say with due respect that you deserve to have a little bit of your stress removed. I can make certain that your company remains in good hooves after your passing, if you’ll let me.”

Filthy glanced down at his daughter, who grinned much as Pinkie would in her blessed ignorance of what it would take to get through a Canterlot school, then looked cautiously back to Redcoat, who smiled like a hungry alicorn.

“What do you say, then, Filthy Rich? Care to make a deal?”

Author's Note

*Ah, the Musical, a chief hazard in Equestria. Responsible for more insurance claims than any other cause, it remains baffling how the magic of harmony became tied to such an act. A state of altered senses and mental state that can result in the most profound works of science and art, and also result in city-wide riots against a corrupt mayor when the people can be heard singing. Tis' a silly thing.

*Big Macintosh has noted on multiple occasions that his sister matches the neighponese definition for a particularly angry lover called 'tsundere'. In particular, he has remarked at reunions that she's rather tsun-tsun to her family and her trees. Given that kicking him works about as well as kicking Mount Canterhorn, he's more than willing to bring out her less level-headed traits when he needs a laugh on demand. He really shouldn't, it isn't nice.

*Shave-and-a-hair-cut.

*TWO BITS!

*The Canterlot Business School could best be compared to an institution on the other side of the World Mirror known as 'Harvard' or 'Yale'. Suffice to say, Tiara is nowhere near ready for it, but a little bit of Twilight-class obsessive-compulsive studying might make her that ready. Duke Redcoat is known for working miracles, he'll probably manage.