Dear Angus

“Um Luna, I have a question.” Luna looked up from the book she was reading.

“Yes dear, what is it?”

“Would it be considered offensive if I pretended to have an accent?” Luna put the book down and thought for a moment. “I suppose some might think you were mocking them so I would say yes. Why do ask?”

“Well AJ told me when she went to Manehattan she pretended to have an accent so she’d fit in, I was wondering if it was the same here.” I blushed, it was the little filly in me that made me worry about something as insignificant as how I sounded when I talked. Luna just smiled at me before replying.

“Do you remember what Celestia told you?” I thought back to that morning when my mother had sent us off with good wishes and Twilight had given me the assignment of making some friends and learning about the culture here.

“Mom said that as long as I was polite, no one would care if I came from Equestria.” Luna nodded, pleased with my answer.

“So don’t worry about your accent dear, it doesn’t matter”

€

As we walked down the hallway to meet king and queen of the land I could feel my stomach doing summersaults. Here I was, about to meet the rulers of another land, I felt if I so much as tripped over dress they would declare war on Equestria, lock me in a dungeon, and make sure I never had any chocolate ever again. It was enough stress to give me a stomachache.

“Greetings king Henry, Queen Amelia I’m am Luna and this is my niece and protégé Cosmic.” I bowed my head before looking up. The Queen looked me over for a moment before giving me a warm small smile.

“Lovely little girl is she not Henry, takes after her mother.” The king nodded in agreement with his wife.

“Yes I suppose she is, now Luna we have a suit reserved for you and your student, you can rest there or if you would like me and my wife can give you two a tour around the castle it’s up to you.” Luna turned to me, I nodded.

“A tour would be lovely, if that’s alright with you.”

“Well then let us be off.”

€

As flattering as it was to have the king and queen personally giving us a tour of their home I soon found myself bored, every room held more history than I was willing to listen to and very few held something that was interesting. That is until we went to the rose garden.

This was easily my favorite part of the castle and probably my favorite part of the country. There were roses of every color and fountains that glistened in the sun light, but the most interesting part came when we reached a clearing with a few benches surrounding a hedge statue of the royal family.

“Um, I beg your pardon but who is that?” I asked pointing at a unicorn sitting on one of the benches reading a book.

“Oh he’s just our librarian.” The king answered before continuing his speech about the origins of a blue rose bush.

“May I go talk to him?” The king gave me a rather annoyed glance as I interrupted him a second time. “Princess Twilight gave me an assignment to make some friends.” I said rather in a hurry, but really just wanted to see what a normal person here was like. The king sighed and nodded his head and replied.

“I’ll send a servant to get you in a few minutes.” I bowed before thanking him and did my best not to run toward the pony on the bench.

As I got closer I noticed some of his features. Both his fur, mane, and tail were white and he wore thick glasses in a blue frame tinted so darkly I couldn’t see his eyes. He also had on a cream colored sweater with a blue undershirt, his cutie mark was a pencil drawing a cursive capital a, and he appeared to be the same age as me.

“Hi!” No response, “Um hello.” The unicorn sighed and began to lower his book.

“Look, I’m on my lunch break,” He had a cockney accent thicker than my winter quilt. “So I’d appreciate it if you-” he stopped a bit taken aback by my appearance. It wasn’t the first time someone stared at me, I was the daughter of discord and because of that I had some strange features. Green bat wings, eye whites that were ice blue, and a dark blue dragon tail were just a few of my weird looks. After a few moments the stallion shook his head a little and regained his composure. “I apologize for staring, I know better than that.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be.” I paused for a second, then decided to change the subject, as I saw no point in arguing.

“What’s your name?”

“Angus.”

“I’m Cosmic.”

“So you come from Equestria? I heard there you name each other after things.”

“Yep.”

“So what brings you here to our fine country?”

“Oh I’m just here to sight see for a few months, but Luna is here to sign a few documents to start trade.”

“Wait a sec, your hear with Princess Luna?” Although his voice itself only sounded slightly surprised his jaw was hanging wide open.

“Yes, I’m her student and niece, I’m Celestia and Discord’s kid.”

“I’m-I’m sorry your highness, had I known I wouldn’t have talked to you in such a manner I-”

“Cut that out! You didn’t offend me if that’s what you’re worried about and I get enough of that from all the nobles.”Angus closed his mouth and seemed to mull over what I’d said in his mind. It occurred to me that I may have been a bit harsh, after all I had no idea how royalty was viewed here, and I knew in Equestria there were ponies who’d act the same in his place.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, it’s just I felt comfortable talking to but when you got all ‘Respect her cause she’s a princess’ I well...” Angus stared a few seconds longer before smiling a little and replying.

“Well then, I haven’t got a problem with ‘at, but if I meet old Luna dose the same go for her?” I nodded. We probably would have talked more but then the servant came to get me so I could rejoin the group, but before I left we agreed to meet here Sunday (as he had the weekends off) and he could take me to see the quote on quote ‘actually interesting sights’.

€

“So the elements of harmony are actually real? I thought they were just some fairytale made to scare off evil.”

“Nope they’re really real.” I said amused. I took a moment to pause and blow on my tea. After a few weeks of sightseeing Angus decided to show me the day to day life of his people, and had also decided I should have a cup of the tea they were famous for. “So if you don’t use magic rocks to blast your enemies to stone how do you defend yourselves?” He smiled and flexed one of his forelegs.

“Muscle.” I giggled, though he was scrawny and looked rather ridiculous in a pose like that.

As I took my first sip tea Angus explode into laughter.

“Your face! You look like you just ate a bug.” The tea had been much stronger than I expected and that must have clearly been shown on my face.

“Needs honey.” Was all I could say through the shock of the flavor. Angus just continued to laugh until I finally got my composer back. After getting the brew sweet enough for my taste, we went on talking. When we both ran out of tea I decided to get a little revenge at him for laughing at me so much, honestly his mirth had gotten the attention of the entire café. Instead of bringing out the cups right away I took a quite a few lemon slices and squeezed ever last drop into Angus’ cup until I was afraid it would it would overflow. Then I telekinetically grasped the two beverages and headed back outside to our table. When I arrived I set down the drinks and sat down.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Like what?”

“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.” I gave him a questioning. He shrugged and took a sip of his tea, instantly his eyes widened at the sour taste and his face contracted in the oddest way. When he finally swallowed he turned to me.

“So when are you an old Luna leaving?”

“January, just a little before Hearth’s Warming Eve, we want uphold the tradition of spending the holiday with are friends and family.”

“Hearth’s Warming Eve? That’s your version of independence day right?”

“Correct.” When Equestria was founded a part of each original tribe was still wanted to be separate, after a decade long cold war the Equestrians had finally let them have their own countries thus The Unicorn Kingdom, The Pegasus Empire, and The Earth Republic were born. “Say when do you celebrate that again?”

“In two weeks, on Friday.” Angus took another sip and I began to giggle as his face contorted once more.

“You know I can get you another cup if you want.”

“And what’s wrong with this one? In the words of my mother ‘There’s no such thing as a bad cup of tea.”

“Yeah but I don’t think your mom knew what tea tasted like with twenty lemon slices worth of juice in it.” He rolled his eyes at me in lighthearted way.

“I just got to drink it down a bit, then I can and some sugar.” I smiled and agreed with him but twenty minutes and five sugar cubes later he was still choking down the same cup with equal displeasure.

€

We soon left the café and decided to take a walk to the comic book store, comics and magazines were the only things Angus didn’t have in his library. As we walked down the road I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the trees were, it was September and the oranges and reds on the trees seemed to glow and dance like fire in the sunlight. It reminded me of home, they would be hosting the running of leaves soon and it saddened me that I couldn’t join Applespark and Ribbon this year.

“You all right?” Angus’s voice broke me from my thoughts.

“Yeah I’m fine, I was just thinking about my friends,” I paused before another thought hit me, “Do you guys have the Running of the Leaves here?”

“No, we use magic to get the leaves down here, only The Earth Republic runs to get them down here in the east, but we do have marathons.”

“We should join one together!”

“What a marathon, Heck No!”

“Aww come on Angus why not?”

“Really? Have you seen me?” he got up on his hind legs and started gesturing to himself “I’m scrawny enough a worm would feel fat around me!” I couldn’t help but snicker at that, it was true he was thinner than the average pony.

“Angus, racing isn’t just about muscle besides, weren’t you just bragging about how you defend yourselves with nothing but muscle?”

“Yeah but that’s the soldiers that do the fighting, not me!” After a few more minutes of discussion we decided not to sign up for a marathon and arrived at our destination. Once we were inside I noticed that my friend’s glasses were becoming clearer and slowly his eyes were revealed to me. However that’s not what surprised me since (ponies with glasses that tinted wasn’t uncommon), nor was I surprised by the lazy eye that wouldn’t obey him, what shocked me was the chocolate colored iris’ that floated in his eyes.

“Your eyes are brown.”

“What? Oh yeah, they are.”

“Is that why you got upset when we first met?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“When I told you I was used to being stared at you got upset and said I shouldn’t be.”

“Oh… yes that’s why I got upset, I’m an albino so I get all lot of stares, and I know it hurts.”

“Only if you let it.” He smiled at me and I smiled back.

“Cosmic, you are just full over surprises.”