As the last of the day faded away into darkness, Zenith trotted down the hall, heading for Princess Celestia’s private quarters after having been summoned to see her. He walked with a bouncing gait, his tail bobbing, and he walked at a somewhat diagonal angle going almost sideways, feeling good about himself.

Reaching his destination, he stood at the door and knocked.

“Oh, do come in,” Celestia’s soft voice replied as the door opened.

Standing in the door, Zenith was greeted by the strong scent of salep, called saalab by the Saddle Arabians. It was his favourite drink and had been since he had been a tiny colt. One of the diplomats from Saddle Arabia had prepared it for him. Salep was made from the tubers of certain orchids mixed with rosewater and various citrus flavourings. It was a hot, delicious drink.

He entered, still sniffling, unable to help himself, his nostrils flaring at the smell. He hurried to the low table where Celestia was sitting and sat down, not needing to be told. He smiled at his teacher, bowed his head, and lifted up a hot steaming cup so he could inhale the fragrant steam.

“I take it that you had an eventful day?” Celestia asked, raising her eyebrow.

Nodding, Zenith smiled at his teacher. She was the most beautiful in these moments. She was not wearing her crown. Her reading glasses were crooked and looked as though they were about to slip off of the end of her nose. There was ink spilled on her right foreleg. This was the Celestia that the public never saw.

“And how did your meeting go with Princess Buttermilk?” Celestia’s eyebrow raised a little more and her ears perked forwards. “Were you able to establish a rapport with her?” Using her telekinesis, she slid a tray of cookies forwards.

“She was gone when we arrived, off looking at some maple trees for whatever reason,” Zenith replied. He inhaled more of the fragrant steam from his cup. “While I was waiting for her to return, I was able to create something of a shelter. I was able to use my magic to shape a tree. I think it will work for the summer, but I worry for fall and winter.”

The white alicorn sighed and her lips turned upwards into a soft, demure smile. “I knew I could count on you.” She watched as Zenith took a sip of his salep, happy that he was happy, taking joy in his expression.

“Others have joined her… all of them foals. Pumpkin and I brought out leftover baked goods from Sugarcube Corner.” Zenith closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then, he opened his eyes and looked down at the plate of cookies. “I don’t think the Ponyville orphanarium is doing a very good job. Buttermilk feels disenfranchised and de-equinised. She’s smart, very much so… and her cutie mark concerns me. There is a circlet with a scroll… she’s clearly meant for some kind of leadership position.”

“Interesting.” Princess Celestia took a sip of her salep. It wasn’t her favourite, but she was in the mood for it this evening.

“So how long are you going to allow this to continue?” Zenith asked.

“Until such a time that it ends,” Celestia replied, shaking her head. “Like everything else, I will allow this situation to resolve itself. Some good might come out of it. Buttermilk Biscuit is a smart, vivacious filly on the cusp of being a mare. The fact that she calls herself Princess Buttermilk and her idea of staking out an empire in the White Tail Woods suggests that she lacks much needed maturity. She is still young enough to embrace fantasy, which is not a bad thing. She will learn much from this, and one day, when she is much older, she will have this time as a memory to look back fondly upon. Perhaps it will make her smile.”

“When do you think this will end?” Zenith looked at his teacher, his ears drooping somewhat, falling to a flat level with the top of his head.

“Winter is cruel.” Celestia took a tiny sip of her steaming drink, swallowed, and shook her head. “The first frost will be a wake up call. There will not be much food to be found within the wood come winter. The cold and the hunger will make them return to Ponyville to seek out help.”

Zenith shook his head. “I do not think so.” He looked his teacher in the eye, resisting the urge to straighten out Celestia’s reading glasses and remove the ink spot. “She is proud. I think she’d rather freeze to death… or starve.”

“Oh dear… do you really believe so?” The look of concern upon Celestia’s face was sincere, genuine, and with the look of concern there was also fear. “I want her to come back on her own terms… I do not wish to force her to do anything, but if she becomes unreasonable… she will need to be looked after for her own good.”

Lifting his cup to his lips, Zenith took a sip, held the liquid in his mouth, savouring the taste, letting it run to the sides of his tongue, and then swallowed. He wondered what it would take for Buttermilk to survive the winter. Better shelter for one. But if resources were given to her to help her survive the winter, those same resources could also be offered to the orphanarium to improve it. This realisation made Zenith feel a terrible sadness and he heaved a sigh.

“So… you appear to have reached an understanding… do you wish to share it?” Celestia asked. She gave Zenith a knowing look and watched as he took another sip. She waited, and then saw Zenith shake his head, indicating that he did not wish to share his understanding. She saw the sorrowful, morose expression that took over his face.

Zenith was quite unlike Twilight Sparkle. Truth be told, Zenith was quite unlike a majority of Princess Celestia’s previous students. He had all of the right qualities; he was smarter than average, capable, had magic, he had all the right stuff, but there were a number of things that he didn’t have.

He had no ambition to speak of, other than his stated goal to win Celestia’s heart. Sunset Shimmer burned with ambition and Twilight Sparkle was consumed by a need to know everything, but Zenith had no powerful sense of ambition. He wanted very little for himself. He had no desire to lock himself into a library. He had no motivation for power. While he was a capable student, he was not knowledge driven. He was not overburdened with an abundance of brains, which was putting it kindly. He was smart enough to be interesting and that was it.

His primary asset, at least in Celestia’s opinion, was his charisma, his wit, his perception, and his charm. He would make a fine diplomat. Zenith was one of the few ponies that Celestia believed had somehow received the wrong cutie mark, caused by some quirky twist of fate. Zenith made friends with ease; he could walk into a room and his laid back, easy going nature made other ponies gravitate towards him. He was nonthreatening, well mannered, and radiated an aura of calm around him, keeping easily spooked ponies relaxed.

The only magical asset that Zenith showed was his exceptional attunement with nature, which didn’t do much for Zenith because most of the time he couldn’t be bothered with casting spells. He went with words, appeals to reason, kind gestures, or, as much as it pained Celestia to admit it, outright bribery.

“So, did anything happen today? Is there anything that is bothering you, my most handsome student?” Celestia asked. She stifled a laugh as Zenith almost lost his composure. She adjusted her reading glasses and peered at her student over the top edges of her lenses.

The glasses did nothing to correct her vision, they allowed her to see magically encrypted messages. One day, Celestia knew that she would be passing a pair to Zenith, once he earned them.

“Pound lost his apprenticeship here in Canterlot… it bothers me a bit,” Zenith replied.

“What happened?” Celestia leaned forward, seeing that Zenith was bothered by this.

Zenith shook his head. “Baguet discovered that Pound is gay and Pound was shown the door.”

“That’s discrimination.” Celestia cleared her throat, lifted a quill, and scribbled down a note. “That is not allowed. There are laws to protect against this sort of thing.”

“It’s more complicated than that… Baguet caught Pound with his son, Croissant. I don’t know everything that happened, but Pound has lost his apprenticeship.” Zenith took a gulp of his now cooled salep. “So what are you going to do? Force Baguet to take Pound back in? Have Pound work with a pony that hates him? That kind of environment would be toxic, and Pound would only be hurt in the long run.”

“There are penalties for discrimination.” Celestia’s ears pitched forwards.

“Is it the Crown’s job to legislate morality?” Zenith asked.

“Only if one pony’s morality hurts another,” Celestia replied.

“Yes, but then the Crown is only penalising the perpetrator.” Zenith’s brow furrowed and he stared down at the plate of cookies. “While punishment might be a deterrent, it does nothing to deal with the source of the problem. It is like slapping a bandaid on a cancer patient and saying ‘all better’ when nothing could be further from the truth.”

“So the Crown needs to change the way ponies think?” Celestia asked. She was impressed by Zenith’s words. He was learning, paying attention, all those times he had hung on her every word, he had committed everything she had said to heart.

“No.” Zenith, looking confused, looked up from the cookies and into his teacher’s eyes. “No, not that either… at least, not in a forceful way. But maybe more could be done to promote more tolerance somehow.”

“Zenith, my most handsome student, for some ponies, sex is a very complex subject. They grow up with a very different mindset. They have stories passed on to them of more troubling times, when survival was difficult and not assured. For two stallions to be gay… it was a threat to the survival and well being of all, because there have always been so many mares and so few stallions. Society believed that stallions were obligated to breed, for the sake of the greater good.”

“But things are different now,” Zenith said.

“Perhaps they are.” Celestia paused for a moment and then tilted her head. “But for some, trouble is always a possibility. Hard times might always be just around the corner. They squirrel away their money for a rainy day. They preserve food. They do without for today, living in fear of what tomorrow might bring. This fear clouds their thinking… this need to survive, this need to continue, this need to persevere, they believe that it gives them the right to tell others what to do and how to live their lives, because the life choices of others threatens the carefully made plans of those who fear the future.”

“Is this Baguet’s problem?” Zenith asked.

Celestia shrugged. “I don’t know. Different ponies have different motivations. I just wanted you to see that. Do you understand?”

“I think so… so… their discrimination might seem perfectly reasonable to them, even logical, and therefore, they can justify their behaviour… so, when they get upset, it is because they are encountering something that they feel threatens their very way of life?” Zenith lifted up a cookie and began to nibble the edge.

“Correct, Zenith.” Celestia gave her student a nod.

Chewing on his cookie, Zenith lapsed into silence and his gaze fell down to the table. Pound was his friend and Zenith didn’t think that Pound could help how he was. Zenith wasn’t certain it was a choice. Pound was what he was, the same way that a dandelion was what it was.

“So, Zenith, tell me, do you know how Pumpkin feels about all of this?”

Author's Note

So... just how SPECIAL is Zenith Zephyr? Well, let's have a look, shall we?

S: 2
P: 8
E: 3
C: 9
I: 7
A: 4
L: 7

I suppose that is one way of putting it. What an idiot. Everypony knows that Charisma is a dump stat. What a n00b. He'd never survive in the Wasteland.

Perk: Queer for Alicorns. This perk makes you the laughingstock of all that know you.

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