Smoke and Mirrors

by Baby Boo

Rating: everyone
Tags: Comedy, Gilda, Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Main 6, Princess Luna, Original Character, Trixie
Length: 8057

Baby pegasi fly, baby unicorns have random bursts of magic. But a baby Princess may be too much for a castle full of royal foalsitters to handle!

The newborn daughter of Cadance and Shining Armor is a national treasure of the Crystal Empire, a symbol of hope and joy across all of Equestria, and possibly the most widely beloved foal in all the world.

But for those closest to her, she's also just a regular baby: a copious fountain of panic, sleep loss, and organic fluids. Any newborn pony can cause havoc with spontaneous magic, but a baby Princess may be more than a whole castle of royal foalsitters can handle!

Originally created for the Most Dangerous Game contest perpetrated by Obsolescence, but I missed the deadline, and ended up renovating the never-quite-finished contest draft into a stronger, bigger story. Since the whole point of the contest was to take up well-overdone cliches of the fandom and do something, well, good with them, I do hope that Constant Reader will trust me far enough to get past the warning flags among the tags.

Published 2014-10-01 19:10:04 UTC
Last updated 2014-10-17 06:52:49 UTC

1. The Somewhat Secret Story

TWILIGHT SPARKLE found that her neck had stretched out to a long, thin noodle, atop which her head bobbed like a toy absurdity. She gaped at the mirror, weaving and ducking her head to watch her peculiar new snake-throat writhe in response.

She looked over to Applejack, who had been puffed out into a big orange ball of pony, with a startled face stuck on the middle and four tiny stubs of hoof beneath. On Twilight's other side, Rarity's head and hooves had also blown up, with the rest of her body shrunken to insignificance between them.

Rarity looked at Twilight, Twilight looked at Applejack, Applejack looked at Rarity, and all three burst out laughing. The giggles spread to the rest of their friends, joining similar flurries of laughter from other groups milling around in the dark, mirror-filled enclosure.

After a few minutes of swapping around to see what different mirrors would do, the novelty wore off, and the group allowed the slow flow of traffic to guide them toward the thin blade of sunlight marking the exit flap.

"And the ghosts in that spinny tunnel? Those were super-scarafunny!" Pinkie Pie bubbled as they emerged from the big tent that housed Mirror! Maze! Madness! onto the grassy fairway.

Fluttershy chuckled nervously. "Right... f-funny...."

"I liked the actual maze part, at the beginning," said Rarity. She fluttered her eyelashes and raised a hoof to her temple in self-parody. "An intellectual challenge and a million stylish reflections in every direction – what could be better?"

Rainbow Dash hovered down just to stick out her tongue and gag, while Spike chuckled a little louder and longer than the joke really deserved. Pinkie, however, looked pensive, and dropped from a boing to a walk.

"I didn't really like that part," she said quietly. "What if the wrong Pinkie found the way out?"

Rarity gave Pinkie a sympathetic smile and drew close to her side. "Oh Pinkie dear, you've already passed that test..."

Last out were Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and the group's young guest, Twilight's niece.

Dreamsweet was of an age when her classmates were developing cutie marks left and right, and she stood at just the right height for her horn to clock Twilight on the chin whenever she swerved abruptly to gawk at things. The tumbling, brush-resistant curls of her pastel-striped mane were partially tamed with a red-and-white checked kerchief, and draped across her back was a light simple cape of the same checked material, adorned at its corners with Crusader patches.

"Did you see the part where all the reflections were a little bit different?" she asked on the way out.

"Mm-hmm! Isn't it amazing what you can do without magic?" replied Twilight. Dreamsweet blinked and frowned up at her, looking for signs of a joke.

"I don't think you could do all that with no magic," she said, with hesitant certainty.

Twilight grinned. "No, really, that was all curved glass, colored lights and cleverness!"

"Hum." Dreamsweet didn't seem entirely to believe it. "Then isn't it all just a bunch of tricks?"

Twilight and Applejack paused to give the filly a pair of quizzical stares.

"Well, sure they're tricks," Applejack said. "Even if they did some of it with magic, it'd still be a trick."

"It's all a matter of skill and presentation, whether you do it with your horn or with some smoke powder," added Twilight.

"Hah! And we'd be crazy to bring you up to a bunch of real magic mirrors!" Applejack laughed, but stopped suddenly as Twilight shot her a startled look.

Dreamsweet's puzzled frown deepened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, uh... you mean nopony ever told you that story?" Applejack withered slightly under Twilight's flat stare.

"I don't know. What story is it?" asked Dreamsweet, reasonably.

"I guess it's just never come up," Twilight said, in a slow and thoughtful tone. She and Applejack held a quick wordless conference of looks and eyebrows. Spike, who had fallen back to climb on Twilight's back and let her do the walking, caught Dreamsweet's baffled look and could only shrug in response.

Soon the consensus went from dubious frowns to smiling shrugs, and Applejack said, "Well, it's not like a some deep dark secret, anyhow. You see, there was this time not too long after you were born –"

Rarity popped up beside Applejack, raising a dramatic hoof of interruption. "Oh, when she was born! Do you remember the birthday celebration?"

"Ooh, yeah!" squealed Pinkie Pie, who was now sitting on Twilight's back behind Spike. She bounced off and landed next to Dreamsweet. "That was the kind of party that parties go to! And it was all for you! But you were too young to know it!"

"Uhh... you mean my actual birth day?" The filly had passed beyond perplexity, into the state of simply humoring the elderly.

"Oh, yes! It was the most magnificent affair. You've never seen the Crystal Empire so excited!" said Rarity. "We were all involved in planning the official festivities at the palace, of course, but the real show was out on the streets..."

2. The Most Wonderful Day

IT WAS a day for bells and trumpets, a day for dancing in the office and concerts in the streets. On any sunny day the Crystal City sparkled, but on this day it shone, and the walls and spires rang with merriment. Even the sun seemed a little brighter and more golden overhead, like a special hug from the Princess to everything under its light.

From all across the Crystal Empire, and far beyond, came performers of all sorts, musicians and magicians and jugglers and clowns. Some came to celebrate the wonderful news, some came because all the goodwill was sure to bring generous tips, and most came somewhere in between. Also flowing in from everywhere were the vendors, filling the streets with a moving bazaar of the most fantastic and exotic goods. And candies, yes.

Everywhere about the city were strings of lights and banners, flurries of confetti, and fireworks up above. Traffic was terrible, and not much serious business was conducted that day, but nopony really minded.

In the Great Hall of the Crystal Palace, a hall far taller than it is long or wide, the pegasi of the Cloudsdale Herald Choir performed, taking full advantage of the vertical space. While they sang, they circled and swooped in mesmerizing patterns, and they cast their voices out to the crystal walls to make the palace itself sing along with them. Though they were known best for solemn ceremonial recitations, on that day they sang bright, upbeat popular tunes so the ponies below could join on the chorus.

For on that day in the Crystal Palace, a Princess was born.

"Hoo-wee, Rarity, you sure do talk it up pretty!" Applejack gave Rarity's shoulder a teasing poke. "You been practicin' all that?"

"A repertoire of well-polished anecdotes is invaluable in high society," said Rarity with an unflappable smile. To Dreamsweet, she went on, "As it happened, we missed most of the choir's performance, but for the very best of reasons..."

In the midst of the second song, a servant slid discreetly up to Celestia and muttered a quiet message. Celestia, and the others in the royal box, stood and tried to make their way out discreetly, but in vain; ripples of whispers and pointing hooves swept back and forth across the auditorium below. Hoping to calm them, Celestia turned to give a reassuring smile and a gracious wave, but that only stirred up more hubbub. She wasted no further time before sweeping away through the rear curtain of the box.

Behind her, into the hallways of the palace, followed Princess Twilight Sparkle and, technically, her royal courtiers. They could hardly have made a less stately procession, however; even Celestia had gladly left most of her dignity behind in the theater box. Rainbow Dash swooped colorfully overhead beneath the vaulted ceilings, and Pinkie Pie bounced even higher than usual, visibly vibrating on the edge of total party explosion.

Twilight Sparkle was burning her own giddy energy off in a constant stream of chatter.

"Such a wonderful day for the Crystal Empire, and for all of Equestria!" she declared. "Imagine, the first royal heir born in this castle for more than a thousand years! Well, in this or any other castle, I suppose. Not to mention –"

"Hey now, Twilight, you know that sort of thing ain't why this baby is special, right?" said Applejack, tossing her a suspicious eyebrow.

Twilight blinked. "Well, she has an auspicious birth sign, but I don't think that's –"

The farmer rolled her eyes. "She's your niece, Twilight!"

"Well, yes, of course. Uh... she's related to some of the most powerful spell-casters of the modern day? So there's a good chance she'll inherit –"

"She's your kin, ya silly filly! Your own flesh 'n' blood. That's what's important, not all them history-book honors.'

Twilight's cheeks flushed magenta. "Oh, uh, right – right, naturally I'm totally excited about that too..."

"Don't tease the poor girl, Applejack!" Rarity interceded. "I'm sure we all know that our Twilight is always thinking just as deeply as she's feeling."

"You all know what now?"

"Oh don't blush, dear, that busy mind is one of your best qualities. Honestly, I admire your composure anyway – why, if I were in your shoes, I'd be jumping around like Pinkie Pie!"

"I'm not in her shoes, and I'm still jumping around like me!" Pinkie agreed, springing up between them. "I'm just so super-excited, for you, and for Cadance and Shining Armor, and and and, for everypony everywhere!"

Abruptly she stopped, and cast a glower of deep suspicion toward Rarity. "Waaaaait a minute... Twilight's not wearing shoes!"

Before Pinkie could pick any further at the hole in Rarity's story, Celestia came to a halt before a high-arched double door and cleared her throat.

Instantly the focus of attention, she tapped on the door, then pushed it open a fraction. Into the gap she poked her nose and called, "I hear we're ready for visitors?"

A moment later she drew back, smiling broadly. Raising her head and straining to hold the corners of an impish grin, she announced, "Princess Twilight Sparkle, honored Bearers of the Elements, Great and Honorable Spike the Brave and Glorious – it is my privilege to present to you the newest addition to our royal family. Please greet the Princess Infanta and Mare Apparent to the Crystal Throne, born Duchess of Shadowvale and Protector of the Hollow Shades: Her Royal Highness, Dreamsweet!"

Despite her playful tone, the fancy introduction cast a veil of silence over the group. Quietly they flowed through the door as the Princess pushed it open, falling in naturally behind Twilight as she approached the bed.

Shining Armor stood at the bedside with a bright brittle grin, hovering at the edge between joy and panic, while his wife lounged bonelessly amid the deep rose bedcovers, radiant with exhaustion.

Cradled in Cadance's embrace was the most perfect little foal in the world.

(Oh, don't give me that look. I'm your old auntie, I'm allowed to be mushy.)

Twilight Sparkle was shocked, almost frightened, by the sheer power of emotion that swept through her as she laid eyes on the infant. Of course, she loved her family, Spike included, and her friends, and the Princesses, but this was a deep tidal force of feeling that made her head light and her hooves heavy. She would risk anything, sacrifice everything, to protect this foal; from that moment on, it was a simple new fact of her existence.

The newborn was, of course, impossibly cute, even with her face flushed red and wrinkled like a grumpy little old mare. Her coat was rosy peach, and her mane a wispy cotton-candy pouf of multicolored stripes, much like Dash's, but in delicate pastels: mint green, lavender mist, pink and cream from her mother's mane, and one thin stripe of bold dark blue from her father.

As Twilight watched entranced, the baby stretched her tiny forehooves up above her head and yawned, adorably, shifting around in the blanket. Twilight's eyebrows shot up and she drew her head back in surprise.

"She's got wings! And a horn!"

Her friends all gasped and murmured, and they leaned in close around for a better look. Celestia and the new parents were unsurprised, exchanging looks of mingled pride and concern.

"Oh my goodness, she does!" Fluttershy squealed. "Just look at those teensy-weensy little wingies – ooh wujja wujja wujja!"

Twilight shook her head as though she'd been sprayed with water, and bobbed her jaw searching for words. "But, but that – that's –"

Celestia made a smooth interruption. "It is very uncommon. One more way that our little Princess is most special."

Twilight glanced up at the elder Princess, whose look in return conveyed, clear as words, that she should save it for later. Before Twilight could say anything more, Rainbow Dash was in her face, seizing her shoulders.

"Do – you – realize – what this means?" she demanded, voice high up into the squeaking range. Twilight blinked, blank. Dash let go and puffed out her chest.

"It means I get to teach her how to fly!" she burst out, then soared up to do more triumphant loops in the air, pumping her hooves and cheering in a hollow crowd-sound whisper-roar.

Cadance drew Twilight's attention by shifting closer to the edge of the bed and holding up the baby. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Hold? Hold her? Me holding her? I don't, I don't hold, I mean, I don't know –"

"It's okay, Twilight!" Cadance laughed. "She's not made of glass. Just support her head, like this, and put your other hoof under here... there you go!"

Cadance leaned back, and Twilight found herself bearing the weight of her family's future. The bundle of blanket was warm and absurdly heavy. The baby yawned again and smacked her lips, then abruptly opened her eyes wide and caught Twilight in a hypnotic gaze. As their eyes locked, Dreamsweet's mouth curled in a smile of cosmic adorability, and for Twilight everything else in the world ceased to exist. For once there was nothing on her mind, only sharing a smile with her newborn baby niece.

The spell eased somewhat as the baby gave a sweet tinkling giggle, and began to look up and down, at Twilight's eyes rather than into them. Twilight likewise studied the clear, brilliant turquoise gems of Dreamsweet's eyes. She couldn't help wonder what unworldly, wordless thoughts might be going through the nascent mind behind that fathomless gaze, at once vacant and inscrutably wise.

Just then, zhoop!, up popped the baby's foreleg, clouting Twilight firmly on the nose with a tiny hoof-edge, surprisingly sharp. Twilight squawked in startled pain, and Dreamsweet laughed, suddenly becoming squirmy as a bag of snakes. Vision blurred with stinging tears, Twilight lunged forward to keep the wriggling bundle over the bed.

No sooner had Twilight blinked her eyes clear than the baby said, with curious clarity, "Blorp."

Then she erupted. Hot, gooey, partially-used milk fountained from the foal's grinning mouth, down her cheeks, and inevitably pouring past the blanket all over Twilight's hooves.

"GAHH! AHGG! HGAA!" Twilight flapped her wings, hopped on her hindlegs, and flailed everything except the parts she most wanted to shake, her forelegs, which held the baby perfectly still above the bed even as she freaked. Cadance quickly leaned over to take Dreamsweet back, and Twilight shot up into the air on a jet of disgust.

She glided across the spacious bedchamber toward the bathroom door, to avoid befouling the floor with her tainted hooves. And of course, behind her the whole room full of so-called friends erupted in laughter.

Author's Note

Twilight took off her shoes in the theater box and forgot them there.

3. The Royal Foalsitters

DREAMSWEET was helpless with giggles, and her face was red as a beet. Despite her frantic waving for them to stop, the grownups kept piling on messy details, and adding jokes about other cases of breached baby bio-containment, enjoying the age-old tradition of embarrassing the offspring.

Rainbow Dash was the first to tire of the teasing, as a brightly-painted game stall caught her eye. "Aw hay yeah, they got Fog Ball! C'mon, 'Shy, you gotta watch this – I rule this game!"

She tugged eagerly at Fluttershy's tail until the yellow pegasus was drawn along in her excited wake. "Um, okay... I don't think I've ever seen you play it."

Dash drew up to the stall counter and reared up, puffing her chest at the pony running the game. "Say goodbye to that big huge Zapp knockoff on the top shelf, mister, 'cause she's going home with Rainbow Dash!"

The game pony, a stout grayish-blue pegasus with a dapper wax-curled green mustache, tipped his straw boater hat and gave Dash a challenging grin.

"Well now, little lady, you talk a good game, now let's see your aim! Five throws for a bit, one prize level per hit."

"You are so on." Dash slapped a coin onto the counter. The game runner dipped his hooves into a glass tank of thick grey mist behind the counter, and rolled a glob of the vapor into a ball, which he lofted toward Dash. With careful swings of her wings, not actually touching the ball, Dash tossed it back and forth for a moment to judge its dynamics, then flung it up and, as it dropped, powered it forward with a strong sharp flap.

The ball floated over to the target range, a multi-layered plywood landscape of fanciful castles and woods, peppered with red-and-white rimmed target holes. Dash's ball struck close to one of the targets, close enough that part of it sloshed through the hole while the rest spread out on the wood and puffed away to nothing.

The game pony clucked his tongue. "Sorry, hotshot, gotta get the main body through the hole."

Dash growled and narrowed her eyes at the targets. "Next ball," she said in a low, dangerous tone.

The rest of the group stepped out of the flow of traffic, to wait beside the game stall.

"Reckon she'll keep that up until she gets the big prize," Applejack said.

Dreamsweet poked her shoulder. "Well, what about the story then? I don't see what any of that had to do with mirrors."

"Oh! Heh, I guess we did get sidetracked there, didn't we?" Applejack chuckled. Rarity had the grace to smile sheepishly and shrug.

"It was a nice story and all," Dreamsweet said to Rarity, "but I already knew that I was born."

"Hah!" Applejack gave Rarity another teasing grin. "Okay, so as I was sayin' before we got so elegantly interrupted, the mirror story started a little while after you were born..."

She looked over to Twilight, who took up the thread. "It was the first time Cadance and Shining Armor had an obligation to travel that they couldn't get out of. And let me tell you, your mother was not happy about leaving you at home."

"You're sure there's enough milk?" said Cadance, stopping to turn back toward Twilight, while Shining Armor boarded the train behind her.

"I'm pretty sure the royal kitchen has plenty," Twilight said with a reassuring smile.

"And keep an eye on the right front latch on the crib gate, I think the screw might need tightening —"

"Applejack will take a look at it as soon as we get back." Twilight's smile faded from reassuring to forced.

"Make sure to check the padding on the corners in the suite, sometimes the glue comes loose, oh, and remember that she likes the stuffed blue star for naps, but the orange owl for bedtime – Ahh! Did I accidentally pack the owl? I need to check –"

"Cadance."

"Are there enough diapers? There are five more closets of them down in the service corridors if you need them."

"Cadance."

"And remember not to throw her out with the bathwater!"

"Cadance! Look at me – look at me!" Twilight reached up and seized Cadance's shoulders, made sure she had the panicking Princess parent's attention, then put one hoof to her own chest, drawing a deep breath, and spreading her hoof outward as she exhaled. She repeated the gesture until Cadance followed along, with a nervous puff of self-aware laughter.

"Everything will be fine, Cadance. She'll have me, and Luna, and all of the Elements of Harmony, and a castle full of guards, and pretty much the whole Crystal Empire watching over her. I've got your checklist, and you know how I am with checklists, right?"

Cadance managed to smile and bobbed a skittish nod, anxiety still glittering in her eyes. "I know, I know, I just... I don't want to leave her!"

"Of course you don't." Twilight stepped forward to draw Cadance's shaking form into a hug. "But I promise, we'll be just fine, and you'll be back before you know it."

Cadance nodded again, and managed a more genuine smile.

The train whistle blasted suddenly, making Cadance jump. The cylinders of the steam engine began to chuff, building up to running speed. Reluctantly, Cadance began to back toward the passenger car entrance while still looking at Twilight and her friends. "Okay, okay, it's all going to be all right. Absolutely. Just don't forget her 5:30 bottle. And make sure she has that blue star for her nap afterward, and, and, remember the –"

The farewell party waved in a firm, now-get-going sort of way. With seconds left before the train got moving, Shining Armor came back out of the car and, in the most loving and gentle way, hauled his wife bodily inside.

When the train had pulled away, Twilight brought out Cadance's checklist. The scroll unrolled across the length of the platform and down off the edge.

"Okay, so... as soon as we get back, we'll need to give her a bath, which means we'll need to have the bath crystals, and the foal shampoo, and... apparently a toy goose... Pinkie, you'll be on bottle-warming, and Rarity, you make sure the changing cabinet is fully stocked, and – oh! Who's got the pink bag? For the drive home, we'll need the juice bottle, and her oat puffs, and –"

"Twilight," said Applejack.

"– do you think we should stop somewhere to get more powder? I didn't inventory that before we left... and of course the window in her room already has safety latches, but we should probably inspect those, and we definitely need to get more padding. Just think how sharp most of the castle is!"

"Twilight," said Rarity.

"... maybe we should hire a professional nanny for the week, what if something happens and we all have to go use the Elements at the same time that Luna has to raise the moon? Of course, there's a lot of palace staff... but how do we even know which ones know how to attend to a baby or a checklist? We definitely have to stop and get some medicine in case she gets a cold, or a gas attack –"

"TWILIGHT!" cried everypony in chorus, including some of the complete strangers waiting for the next train. "It will be FINE!"

"And everything was fine, for the rest of the day," said Twilight.

"Aside from all of your heart attacks," Pinkie added, sticking out her tongue. Twilight tongue-stuck right back.

"It all went fine," she continued, determined. "The trouble didn't start until later, when we were all dumb enough to believe you were down for the night..."

Author's Note

Seriously, a home made out of sharp hard rocks is not trivial to babyproof.

4. The Most Terrible Night

4. The Most Terrible Night

IN THE manner of dreams, Twilight knew the place as though she had lived there for years: a library the size of a city, with all the knowledge of every world somewhere in its endless halls. Everything about the place was hauntingly familiar, yet she knew she'd never been there before.

She wasn't alone. With her was Dreamsweet, who played on a blanket while Twilight tried to get her to pay attention to a story from a massive, ancient book. It seemed as though something terrible would happen if Dreamsweet didn't listen to the story, but she was too young to pay attention to the strange illustrations, and more interested in things she could fit in her mouth.

Twilight kept trying to read the rambling, incoherent story for years, but long before the journey was over the pages had become rippling bedspreads, which unfolded into bizarre landscapes across which she chased the last fleeing words. As the story escaped her entirely, everything else dissolved into darkness, through which rang the bubbly laughter of the baby.

Twilight's eyes snapped open. Wide awake now, she could still hear Dreamsweet laughing, loud and clear. Turning her head, she realized that the foal was actually sitting on the bed right next to her.

"Dawk!" Twilight pedaled backward and, narrowly, managed not to fall off the bed. Dreamsweet clapped her hooves and giggled at her aunt's expression.

"How did you get in here?" Twilight asked aloud. She looked around for lurking pranksters, but the room remained silent and dark.

Not as dark as it should have been, though. Twilight had just an instant to realize that Dreamsweet was giving off a soft peachy glow, and then, with a bright flash and a tingling pop, she disappeared.

Twilight's jaw dropped to the covers and her eyes bugged out. Shaking, she waved her hoof around where Dreamsweet had been, but no trace of her remained.

"Now what?" Spike came up alongside the bed with a sleepy scowl.

"Dreamsweet was here, just now! But she's gone again!" Twilight pointed to where the baby wasn't.

Spike snorted. "O-kayyy... so where'd she go?"

"I think she teleported away!"

He rolled his eyes, but then got a look at Twilight's face and did a double-take. "Wait, you mean for real?"

"Yes for real, thank you very much! She's having an infant magic outburst!"

"Oh wow." Spike put on his serious face. "So, what do we do?"

"First we find her..." Twilight closed her eyes and sent forth a faintly-visible ripple of magic. Immediately an answering pulse came back from the enchanted crystal pendant around Dreamsweet's neck. "Okay, she's upstairs, over... that way... and that would be, what, on the rotunda balcony?"

She wasn't looking for an answer, merely thinking out loud, already heading for the door while puzzling it out. Out in the hallway she spread her wings and took off toward the palace's hub.

"Why don't you just teleport to her?" Spike called after her.

"I don't want to startle her. And I don't want her to imitate it!"

Spike gave up on following as Twilight picked up speed. "Ahh, well, I'm sure you can han... dle... thiiieeeauuusss," he said, mauling the words around a cavernous yawn.

As he turned to head back to bed, a door across the hall opened, and a thatched mess of pink hair peeked out. From behind it came Fluttershy's voice. "Spike? Is something wrong?"

"Ahh, Dreamsweet's out of bed," Spike said with a dismissive wave. "And apparently she can teleport."

Fluttershy blinked. "Oh, my."

Spike just pointed down the hall, silently directing any further questions to the Princess flying off over that way, and slouched back toward his basket. Fluttershy walked a short way after Twilight, took a long thoughtful look back at her own bedroom doorway, but then sighed and took to the air.

The grand rotunda of the Crystal Palace was a tall open space through the heart of the central tower. For about half the tower's height, starting from an ornate window capping the palace's open undervaulting, each floor was pierced with a ten-sided balcony, widening up to the midway level then narrowing again. Although the dome at the top was actually the underside of the uppermost spire, windows and transparent supports created the effective illusion of a skylight beneath open air. Whether sparkling with sunshine by day, or twinkling with a thousand reflected torches by night, each floor of the rotunda provided a view of breathtaking power for what, technically, was just a large volume of nothing.

At the moment, the only thing Twilight noticed about the spectacular scene was the foal that wasn't there. She tutted and rolled her eyes, then closed them to send out another magical pulse. As she dropped, with moderate grace, into a dive toward Dreamsweet's new location, some sort of pink hair monster came flying up from the guest-room wing toward her.

Somewhat to her own surprise, Twilight managed to pull back to a hover without crashing into the pink-and-yellow thing, and identify it as Fluttershy in the same instant, with only the barest of startled yelps.

Fluttershy brushed the tangled carpet away from her eyes and gave Twilight a brief, but firm look which said the bed-mane was not to be discussed. "Spike said that Dreamsweet's out of her room?"

Twilight nodded and groaned an "mm-hmm." She pointed toward a lower floor. "She's somewhere in that hallway, or one of the rooms just off it. If we keep quiet and don't startle her, I'm hoping she won't teleport away."

Both of them dropped downward and angled toward the dimly-lit hallway. Twilight went on, "I have a spell to block her from teleporting, but I need to actually touch her to use it safely."

The hall was beneath an opaque wedge of flooring and its walls were similarly dark. Only a fourth of the wall torches were in use, creating long pools of moody shadow between islands of flickering light. At the far end, moonlight spilled through a segment of the great multi-story window along the southwest outer wall. Against that blue glow, they could see a small form bobbing and swirling in midair.

"Shhh..." Twilight whispered to Fluttershy, of all ponies. They sailed down the hallway toward the baby, drawing close enough to hear her babbling merrily to herself. Twilight came to a landing a short distance away and gently called Dreamsweet's name.

Dreamsweet wavered gyroscopically in the air, tiny wings buzzing at honeybee speeds, as she swung around to look at the mares. Her toothless smile widened and she squealed a cheery greeting. Twilight and Fluttershy gave back broad smiles of their own and waved their forehooves in big sweeps down toward the floor.

"Come on down sweetie, let's get you back to bed," Twilight sing-songed.

"I can tell you a story if you'll come down to us now," lilted Fluttershy.

They kept making big clear get-down-here-will-you signals, and as though swept in by the wind of their gestures, Dreamsweet started dipping lower toward them.

She got just low enough for Twilight to almost reach her without jumping.

"There you are, scamp!" bellowed Luna, not nearly at Royal volume, but loud and hearty nonetheless, as she soared in from the hall's distant end.

Twilight's hoof came down reflexively to smack her own forehead. Overhead, precisely as she expected, Dreamsweet let out a high-pitched giggle at Auntie Luna's approach and promptly blinked out again.

Luna gave a loud, heated snort and landed before Twilight and Fluttershy. Her head dropped low. "I... am not very good with foals, am I?"

Twilight waved it off. "Eh, don't worry. I don't think any of us has any particular talent for it."

She paused for a moment, hoof to her chin, eyes ticking back and forth. "Okay, I have a plan. Fluttershy, you go back to the royal bedroom and get some of her toys, a bottle – anything you think she might come down for. Luna, you stay here in the rotunda where 'Shy can find you, and then use the locator spell to find me and Dreamsweet."

"That makes sense. The orange owl, I'm sure she'll go for that," said Fluttershy, turning to race back down the hall. Luna gave a quick nod and followed, leaving Twilight to lower her head and cast the locator ping again.

On the floor below, two crystal-pony guards stood beside an unexceptional doorway, watching nothing much happen. Night shift in the lower guest hall was not a posting for action and adventure, particularly when the only guests were staying in the upper guest hall.

The younger one, a stallion of brilliant blue with a short-trimmed blonde mane beneath his ceremonial helmet, flicked his ears slightly as an unfamiliar sound came purring along the corridor. As the noise passed over his head, Beryl broke from stone-faced at attention to actually paying attention, and turned to gape at the... brightly colored bird? Something with wings, making a wet motorboat lip noise as it flew.

He shot a look at the older guard, a unicorn colored deep red, almost cherry-cola brown. Garnet had a thick bushy charcoal-gray moustache, matched to his mane, tail and above all, his thunderhead eyebrows – which were, in that instant, raised so high in surprise that his eyes were, uncharacteristically, visible.

They simply hadn't time to do anything more than gawk before the fast-flying creature was nearly at the corner. Just before it swerved out of view, it let out an unmistakable shrill peal of laughter, and the guards were able to identify the flying object.

"Hey, was that – oh buckets –" Beryl groaned as he began trotting after the wayward Princess.

Garnet's face-brushes gave him an impressive mastery of weary scowls. "Hooohhhh boy," he rumbled, then hastened to catch up with the rookie.

The flying foal had hooked around to the next long hallway on the left, but fortunately hadn't gone zipping down it. Her attention had been caught for a moment by a candlelit mirror on the wall a short distance in.

The guards approached in silent, breath-held caution, more tense than any rampaging monster could have made them.

"Ahh... come here, baby...?" tried Garnet. "Come on, good baby, just come over here..."

"Dude, she's not a dog," said Beryl.

"Well, I don't know – how do you call a baby?"

"You don't clap and whistle, I know that much."

"Oh yeah? I'm gonna try that!" Garnet followed up on his word, knocking his forehoof on the floor and giving his best dog-whistle. "Come on Dreamsweet, let's go, baby!"

Much to Beryl's annoyance, the Princess seemed to respond to this pretty well, grinning broadly and hovering slowly toward Garnet. But when the red guard tried to grab the baby, she shot up away from him with a rising gleeful squeal, and bobbed away, daring him to come catch her.

Both guards gave nearly the same exasperated growl and bolted after her. The Princess screamed in delight and took off like a dart, laughing down the hall, the hooves of the guards thundering after.

Author's Note

The teleport-blocking spell can be used from a distance, but without direct contact it's pretty rough on the target's natural magic; it was originally developed to stop criminals. At contact range, it's perfectly safe.

5. Catch That Filly!

WHEN FLUTTERSHY returned to the rotunda, she didn't come alone. After one too many incidents, staying overnight at the Crystal Palace had given Twilight's friends (or at least, the more uptight — ahem! responsible of them) a mild, but unshakable, sense of paranoia. The slight commotion of Spike's voice in the hall was enough to bring Applejack and Rarity out of their rooms. Naturally, when they saw Fluttershy wing past toward the royal bedroom suite, they rushed after her to make sure nothing was about to destroy Equestria, shroud the world in darkness, or worst of all, wake the baby.

Applejack had her hat on, all the grooming she ever needed. Rarity, regretfully, was caught in a state of intolerable mess, with rows of pink curlers rolled into her mane and tail, and traces of hastily-wiped green facial mask on her cheeks and forehead.

The three of them arrived at the rotunda to find Luna so wound up she seemed slightly blurred, and upon seeing Fluttershy, she wasted no time pointing an urgent hoof downward and then taking off in the indicated direction. Fluttershy gave the other two a mild shrug and followed Luna down, leaving the two wingless ponies to find their own way down.

Fortunately, nearly everypony with a horn in the palace had been taught the simple locator spell, so Rarity was able to ping the baby's location. Groaning under the weight of duty, she and Applejack bolted for the nearest staircase.

At least Dreamsweet wasn't teleporting so frequently anymore. Beryl and Garnet were able to pursue her in the manner of conventional space, though her speed through the air was astounding. Garnet found that she was somehow evading the grasp of his horn-glow as well, which he wouldn't have believed if he weren't experiencing it firsthoof. When he tried to seize her, it felt as though he were trying to grip a million jittering grains of rice, and his telekinetic grasp slipped away each time.

They followed the flying foal around a section of the rotunda balcony until she veered off to another of the radial hallways. As they swung round the corner, Beryl saw motion to the side, and he skidded to a startled halt while Garnet ran on. His eyes weren't playing tricks; Princess Luna was barreling down on him, Fluttershy sailing in her wake.

He yipped and jumped off to the side, but Luna halted just before him anyway, with a look of startled horror. Beryl broke out a wide harmless grin and squeaked apologetically. But she wasn't looking at him.

Parked beside an open door, midway down the corridor, was a metal cart loaded with bags and baskets of cleaning supplies, hooks for spray-bottles and rings for mops. It was stained and dented with years of use, but its wheels rolled smoothly and didn't wobble.

This became a problem when the flying Princess landed on it at a substantial speed, sending it racing over the short-pile carpet down the hall. Dreamsweet gave a steam-whistle shriek of delight and buzzed her wings even faster, digging her hooves in among the guest-service dishes piled on top of the cart and taking off like a racer.

Garnet kept galloping valiantly, but fell further and further behind. Luna was stunned for a moment, and seemed to be having trouble breathing even as her hooves, thinking for her, began walking and then charging forward. Fluttershy, though she had a similar look of horror (on the slim crescent of her face visible past the shaggy thicket of her mane), kept a cooler head and swooped past Luna, picking up speed as she went. Beryl unfroze to run after them, hoping to accomplish something.

Shortly behind him, Rarity and Applejack came charging along as well. They were just looking at a bunch of backsides and couldn't really tell what was going on, but it was obvious which direction it was going on in.

Twilight Sparkle got a much better view, though not for very long. As Dreamsweet's giggling voice swiftly approached the T-intersection at the end of the hall, Twilight leapt out from around the corner, taking a wide-blocking stance and shouting "AH —"

Rather than her intended followup, "— HA!", she ended up simply scaling up and extending the "AHHH!", for although she had correctly guessed that Dreamsweet would be heading toward her, she had not guessed about the cart, nor accounted for its velocity. On reflex she dodged aside, a mere tail-hair's width out of danger, and rolled quickly over to her hooves. She clearly, thankfully, saw Dreamsweet's magic aura flare again as the baby teleported away, just before the cart hit the wall.

Standing against the wall was a small, tasteful wooden table, on which stood an heirloom vase holding a thick bundle of daffodils. A few seconds later, they were no longer standing against the wall. Most of the water from the vase, a colorful array of cleaning fluids, and a good thick splat of gravy from the dinner dishes did remain on the wall. Not all of it was on the wall, however, as a good amount had been intercepted by the 600-year-old oil landscape, by the great painter Versatility, which was hanging there.

Clattering dishes, tinkling shards of ceramic, dripping bottles and the whack of a broom falling over played over the relative silence after the clangorous clash, as the cart, front rims crumpled but generally intact, rolled slowly back away from the impact.

The grownup ponies all collected around the wreckage. Silently, Fluttershy passed Twilight the orange stuffed owl. Twilight rammed her muzzle into its belly and gave a long, hearty, muffled scream, then tossed it back. With a very controlled expression, she lowered her head to cast the locator again, then without comment vanished in a burst of magic. Luna quickly followed suit; then Rarity gave a ping and started running, and the rest all followed.

Moments later, a pale-blue pony, her pink-and-white mane neatly contained under a lace-edged maid's cap, peeked cautiously out the door where the cart had been parked. The chambermaid emerged into the hallway, peering back and forth in puzzlement, and took on a dawning look of outrage as she drew closer to the crash site and realized the extent of the mess in her cleaning area, the damage done to irreplaceable antiques, the waste of splattered cleaning fluids and soaked paper rolls. Her head shook rapidly, as though hoping to forbid this from having happened, and soft squeals of outrage at fate emerged from her throat in place of words.

Then she spotted the hoofprints. Several sets of them, trailing through puddles of sauce and soap, all headed away in the same direction.

Her eyes narrowed. The corners of her mouth drew down in a taut, vengeful grimace. She picked up a mop, and whipped it around herself in a swift, disciplined exercise of lethal quarterstaff twirls. Then she set off to track down the vandals.

About that time, Pinkie Pie came floating up through the rotunda. Her flying contrivance — rigged from a big bunch of balloons, a motorized fan, and flippers on her hooves — wasn't fast enough to catch up with anypony, so she ended up spending most of the time drifting around the middle space, calling out directions. On the plus side, from there she had a great view of everything going on.

The first thing she saw was Twilight and Luna charging along the eight-floor balcony with Dreamsweet buzzing out ahead of them. Luna had picked up an oversized butterfly net, but Twilight knocked it out of her hooves and shook her head. The baby swerved off down a hallway, and they were all long gone before Pinkie gave up trying to paddle after them.

Moments later, Rarity and Applejack came running along on the sixth floor. The stuffed owl floated above them like a flag, glowing with Rarity's magic aura, and Dreamsweet was chasing the owl. But the two guards popped out from a hallway right in front of them, and in the confusion of barely avoided collisions, the foal had gotten hold of the owl and flown across to the other side of the chamber.

The guards and the girls headed in opposite directions around the balcony, awkwardly trying to hurry without looking hurried. The guards only got a quarter of the way around before the chambermaid jumped out from behind a large potted plant with a savage growl, challenging them with her martial broom. Rarity and Applejack kept running around on their side, but the commotion spurred Dreamsweet to buzz up and away, to a hall off the seventh floor.

Fluttershy, who had well and truly lost track of events, bobbed up from under the lowest balcony and swiveled her head around in perplexity, before the sound of something breaking gave her a direction to fly.

The royal court jester, Crookshanks, was a bit of a night owl, and liked to practice his acts in the late quiet hours. So it was that he was rolling around the tenth floor balcony on his unicycle, juggling a half-dozen eggs, when Dreamsweet came zooming along, right past his cheek, followed by two frenzied adult Princesses. They hardly noticed him, except as an object to swerve around, and in their hurried wake he was set spinning on his unicycle wheel like a twirling coin, wobbling in a desperate dance for balance.

Crookshanks was, of course, too seasoned a veteran of physical comedy to be thrown entirely off by something like that, and when he whirled to a standstill, he had three unbroken eggs in his forehoof, one balanced on the outstretched tip of a hindhoof, one on his nose, and one nestled in the padded brim of his stuffed pointy hat. He was rather shaken, though, and his course wobbled erratically as he rolled off down the nearest quiet hallway.

Beryl and Garnet crept along the wall on the fifth floor, and quietly nipped into a closet facing the rotunda. The chambermaid came trotting along an instant after, casting her glare back and forth in search of any trace. After she chose a direction to sneak away, the guards slipped from the closet to the next door over, which led into one of the Palace's many small, pointless sitting rooms.

The soft click of the closing door caught the maid's ears and she whipped around. She made a stealthy approach toward the closet door, and flung it open. Finding it empty, or rather half-filled with nothing but junk, she snorted and scowled. Garnet and Beryl popped out of the sitting room and rushed the closet door, bumping her into the storage space and slamming the door behind her. Beryl propped the fallen broom of war against the knob, and the guards ran off to catch up with the baby chase.

On the eighth floor, Luna and Twilight attempted to keep up their speed, but were forced to slow down and then stop to get Twilight untangled from Luna's fishing net, the younger Princess squalling all the while that she'd told the older so. High up on the narrowest balcony, the fifteenth floor, Applejack was running in tight circles, lost in a cloud of dust kicked up by her own hooves from the little-trodden carpet. She was too sleep-deprived, annoyed and half-blinded to form any better plan than keep running until something stopped her, and she didn't really notice how amusing the ride was to Dreamsweet, perched on her back.

Rarity and Fluttershy had ended up on the very dark third floor, and were backing carefully up to keep an eye on the suspicious shadows. Inevitably they collided rump-to-rump and startled each other into a run, which quickly brought them around to the other side of the balcony, where they saw each other coming and crashed into a mutual scaredy-cat hug.

Crookshanks, having gotten hopelessly turned about on the way back to his bedroom, came around the seventh-floor balcony, where he swerved off again down the northeast hallway. He didn't get far before zipping back out in a panic, pedaling like mad to get away from the elephants charging up the hallway.

Respected performers with a visiting circus of international renown, the elephant troupe had been taking a tour of the castle earlier and gotten separated from their guide. Too timid to ask for directions, they had wandered quietly around the castle unnoticed for hours, until they strayed into the rotunda area and Eloise got an accidental smack on the backside with a broom. That started her running, and just like ponies, that got them all going, so they —

"Pinkie?"

"Yes, Twilight?"

"Elephants?"

"Well... okay, maybe not a whole lot of elephants."

With a snort, Twilight took the story back. "ANYway! After some running around, we managed to coax you back to your crib."

"But alas," sighed Rarity, "the night was still young."

Author's Note

Just trying to get this stuck in your head.

Or this.

Maybe even this.