Prodigy

“Hey, can I ask you something that I’ve been thinking about for the past little while?” I asked Bell as we made our way to the castle offices.

“Sure, ask away,” he told me. I gathered my thoughts for a few moments.

“...what does the guard think of us? I mean... what did you guys think of the pair of kids when they first got here?” I formulated my answer. Bell let out a loud laugh.

“You place too much emphasis on yourself. I’m willing to bet that no one even questioned you being here when you got here because no one even cared,” he told me with a smile.

“Wow... now that’s just sad,” Austin chimed in. I nodded, and waited for Bell to continue speaking.

“But after a while, maybe a week, we all got called into the barracks in groups. We all expected a standard check, but when we got there, the princess was there. It was funny, I remember this one colt who was practically shaking in his boots. When the princess started talking, he-” Bell stopped as he looked at me, only to see me staring at him with a rather judging look on my face. He cleared his throat.

“Well... the princess had a message for us. Under no circumstances were we to trouble you two in any way. Some of us were a little confused at this, and some of the guard hadn’t even seen you by this point. But she made it absolutely clear. No one was to mess with you. At. All. None of us knew why, so we kinda just went with it,” Bell explained to me.

“That would explain the little interaction we had with the guard,” I thought aloud.

“And... it wasn’t like a big brother telling bullies to back off of his little brother. It was like... she was... she was almost angry with you two. Not angry, so much as... irritated. It almost felt like a... like a claim, for lack of a better word. You know? Like, ‘these two are mine,’ kind of thing,” he told me. I processed this information in silence for a few moments, before opening my mouth to speak.

“Well, here we are, the offices. Recruiting is in the third one. Come on,” I was cut off as Bell told us about our destination.

Just before we got to the office we were headed to, Bell took his plate and fork and handed them off to one of the staff who was heading to the kitchen with an already massive pile of plates on his back. We opened the door to the office, and stepped in.

“I’ll see what the schedule looks like, sit tight for a few,” Bell told us as he walked up to the desk. I looked back to Austin, who winked his eyebrows at me. I shook my head with a chuckle.

“Hey, staring contest, go,” Austin told me. I looked him in the eyes. Before he had the chance to win by surprising me, I quickly blew air into his eyes, forcing him to flinch and blink. I laughed, but Austin didn’t find it as funny as I did.

“Hey, that’s not allowed, that’s cheating!” he accused me.

“You never said anything, you just said ‘go,’ so I assumed there were no rules,” I said with a shrug.

“But that doesn’t even-” Austin was cut off as Bell came back to us.

“Listen up. Like I said, the next session happens next Saturday. In case you forgot, today is also Saturday. That means that you have a week to work on whatever you want to,” he told me. I tilted my head in surprise at this.

“A week? That’s all? Don’t you think I should wait for the next one?” I asked him in a concerned tone.

“Probably,” he said.

“It would make sense after all,”

“Uh huh,”

“Maybe even the one after that,”

“Sure thing,”

“I could get in better shape then,”

“Of course,”

“...”

“...”

“You signed me up for the next one, didn’t you?” I deadpanned.

“Yep,” he responded with a sly grin. I closed my eyes and dropped my shoulders in annoyance.

“The mare at the desk actually needs a few things from you. Go see her now, then we can get out of here,” Bell told me. I looked over to the desk and saw a tawny coloured mare waiting patiently for me.

After signing a few documents, Bell, Austin and I exited the office.

“I need to get back to my post, but this was why I left in the first place. If I hadn’t of found you when I did, I would have gone back to work, but I’m glad we got this worked out. Good luck!” he told me as he turned and walked in the opposite direction that we were going. I turned to look at Austin.

“Welp, see ya later!” he said, gesturing to the lieutenant. I grinned at this.

“Well, if there’s nothing else to do, I want to go finish the next chapter in a book I’m reading,” I told my friend. Austin blankly stared at me for a few seconds.

“What else is there?” I wondered aloud.

“Don’t you want the gift I got you?” he asked me.

“You know what, knowing you, it’ll probably explode,” I said to him.

“How dare you!” he said in a victimized tone as he placed his hand on his chest, imitating Celestia’s action from earlier.

“Ha! Alright, let’s go and get it,” I told him. He nodded, and we set off towards Austin’s room.

The halls were rather empty, and we saw few ponies at this time, certainty not anyone I knew.

Upon arriving at Austin’s room parallel to mine, he turned to me, and once again instructed me to wait outside. He quickly disappeared into his room, presumably to fetch my gift.

“Wait here, okay?” I said in a distorted and high pitched tone, mocking what Austin had said to me. I stood in the hallway for around a minute, before Austin came back out.

“Now if this explodes I’ll be really, really surprised,” he told me. He handed me a rather large bottle of what appeared to be...

“Is this... wine?” I asked cautiously. Austin nodded in response.

“Yeah! Well, I didn’t actually pick it out, I asked Bell what he thought, and he asked me if alcohol was a good idea. When I told him that it could be, he recommended that to me,” Austin told me. I raised an eyebrow in response. I never thought that Bell would be interested in wine over something more... down to earth.

“Canterlot Hill: Apex,” I read aloud. I had heard of the name Canterlot Hill before, but I never took the time to delve into the realm of specifics. The topic just never really interested me.

And come to think of it, neither did alcohol. The idea as a whole, drinking, just seemed so... actually, I don’t know how to describe it. It just didn’t appeal to me all that much. The concept of wine collecting had been around for a while, so that was always an option.

“What do you think?” Austin asked me, pressuring me for an answer.

“I think... I don’t actually know what to think. I don’t even like the concept of alcohol, but at the same time, Canterlot Hill is a premium wine. How much did this even cost?” I asked. Austin opened his mouth to speak, but I held a hand up to stop him.

“You know what, I don’t even want to know. Thank you Austin, who knows? I might just get into wine collecting after this,” I said with a laugh. Austin looked to me, then the bottle, then back to me.

“Are you not going to drink it?” he asked me blankly. I smiled at him.

“Probably not. I don’t know, maybe when we have something to celebrate,” I thought aloud.

“I thought we were celebrating today,” he said with a confused look on his face. I looked back to the bottle in my hands.

“Something really special, how about then. We’ll save it for then, alright?” I reassured him. He nodded, and I turned and went into my room to put the wine away. I would have to see about storing it properly. But for now, it stayed in my closet.

Realistically, what we did during the rest of the day was up to me. I had no immediate plans, but I’m sure Austin could change my mind if I really needed it.

“I’m not sure what to do now,” I said to my friend as I closed the door behind me. Austin stared at the ground for a few seconds before looking back to me.

“Can I drink it if you don’t want to?” he asked me. I tilted my head in confusion.

“Uh... but... it’s my gift,” I said slowly.

“Yeah, but... ah whatever. Don’t worry about it,” he drew a conclusion.

“I’m not the one worrying about it, you are,”

“I’m just concerned that something will happen to it,”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, can wine go bad?”

“Depends on the quality. Quality wine can stay good for a long time, probably longer than we’ll... than an average human lifespan,”

“Well that wine better be quality for what I paid for it,”

“I’ve heard a few good things about the brand, but I don’t really know about it. I’ll ask Bell next time I see him,” I said as I made an effort to pin that idea to my memory.

The rest of the day was spent in a relatively calm fashion. We went back to the meeting room and had some more of that cake that we had eaten earlier, and ate some other food that was prepared for us there. There were a numerous amount of drinks and dainties to partake in, and we wasted no time filling our bellies with good food and drink. We had also decided that it might be a wise idea to save a little bit of the cake to give to Princess Luna when she arose later.

Speaking of the night princess, Austin had taken the first steps towards repairing his strained relationship with her, or so he told me. According to him, he had apologized to her and told her that he “realized that his actions were wrong.” If he was to be believed, Luna had accepted his apology after confirming that he was sincere about it and harboured no resentment or annoyance towards her. He had told me this a few days ago, so hopefully he would be able to keep this flow of positivity going with her, so that the rest of us didn’t have to deal with their constant bickering anymore.

Trust me, having to deal with their arguments was in no way fun for anyone.

Back to the matter at hand, Austin had found the time to find and set up a record player, which provided us with music that we enjoyed, listened, and danced to.

Believe me, our dancing could definitely stand to be improved in many, many areas.

But nonetheless, there was no one else in the room with us, and we danced our heart’s out. Maybe one day we would become professional dancers. Up on stage, with thousands of adoring fans all screaming our name. Reveling in our every move. Watching, as each and every stride was graced with the skill of a thousand gods. We were the best, and the people loved us...

I burst out laughing at the thoughts that were running through my head. Austin practically flinched at my sudden, seemingly random outburst, before moving over to the record player and taking the needle off of the spinning disc.

I was doubled over, tears in my eyes as I laughed. The thought of us as dancers was remarkably funny to me, and I soon found myself lying on the floor, holding my stomach, crying from the laughter induced pain.

“What the hell happened!?” Austin yelled to me as he watched me roll around.

“I- I... I can’t... oh my god!” I struggled to get out between massive gasps of air.

“What happened!?” he questioned again. I sat on my bottom on the floor, before wiping the tears out of my eyes and looking to my concerned friend.

“Oh god... it’s nothing, I just had the best thought in the world,” I said as I came down from my high. I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time, and I had almost forgotten how amazing a good laugh felt.

“What was it?” he asked, desperately wanting to know what could send me into such a fit of hysteria.

“You literally would not find it funny in the slightest,” I said as I picked myself up off of the floor.

“Tell me!” he pressured me. I gave him a smile.

“I imagined us as professional dancers,” I said plainly. Austin blinked at me a few times.

“...that’s it?”

“That’s it,”

“...that’s not even close to being funny,”

“Yeah, well neither are you, so shut up,”

“...can you not please,” Austin complained as I laughed again. Before the conversation could continue, I glanced at the clock that was placed at the front of the room above the doors. It read about two seventeen. Being still rather early in the day, Austin and I had decided that we had had enough time in the meeting room, and we both agreed to start cleaning up a bit.

We took the cake and moved it to the end of the table, and then did the same with the rest of the food. We took some of the napkins that were lying around and wiped up the cake, drinks, and other food that we had managed to spill in our antics. By this point there was still a decent portion of the cake left, likely around a third. We had agreed that it would best to give the remaining cake to Princess Luna. Maybe she could give some to the guards on the night shift.

Regardless, we had taken a lot of the mess and clutter we had made, or rather, Austin had made, and cleaned it up. It had taken us around half an hour, but the place looked slightly similar to the way we had found it.

I thanked Austin for the things that he had done today, and told him that I wanted to take a small rest. He did not disagree, and I quickly retired to my room. Austin had taken the cake to the kitchen for storage, and told me that he would give it to Luna later. He also told me that if later, the kitchen still had the cake when Luna was awake, that I could just do it. I agreed to this without a problem.

Soon enough I found myself back in my room. I didn’t really want to sleep right now. I had recently started reading one of the books that I had bought from the book store a while ago. I had read most of them by now, but this one I had started only yesterday, heaving read to chapter four.

The tale was one of mystery and romance. A young colt, a murder, and a mare in need of saving. Realistically, it was one of the most cliche plot lines in the world of literature, but maybe there was a reason for that. I had quickly found myself hooked on the story, getting attached to the way the author developed their characters. Being cliche didn’t stop me from enjoying a work of art, and anyone who tells you that romance can’t be original is simply not to be believed.

I soon found myself deep into the heart of the novel, quickly losing track of how long I had been simply lying in my bed, eyes glued to the light grey pages of “Bewitching.” After I had crossed the sixteenth chapter mark, I glanced up at my clock.

Eight eleven...

I hadn’t had the time to get lost in a book in a long time, and I blinked my weary eyes a few times in an effort to renew their vigor. Once I had refreshed my eyes, I stood up from my bed, taking my bookmark and saving my progress.

I had decided to go and check the kitchen to see if Austin had delivered the cake to the Princess yet. I left my room and made my way towards the castle mess hall. Upon arriving, I went up to the canteen window, and saw a few of the chefs and staff lazily partaking in their work. There were a few guards and even some staff in the mess, but other than that, there likely wasn’t much to do at this time of the night. Not until the overnight crew took over, at least.

One of the staff noticed me, and came up to help me.

“Hello, how can I help you?” he asked me. I returned the smile he gave me.

“Yes, did a younger boy happen to come by here earlier and take a cake that had about a third of it left?” I asked the chef.

“Ah, not, but I know what you’re talking about. One moment,” the young colt told me, before going over to one of the islands in the kitchen. He returned a few seconds later, carrying the cake wrapped in cooking paper on his back. He placed it on the counter for me.

“Here you go, hope you enjoy,” he told me. I grabbed what was left, and thanked the colt for his assistance.

I thought of the various places the princess could be. She would definitely be awake by this point, so I decided the best place to start was simply her room. I walked down the hall with the cake, and soon found myself in front of Luna’s bedchambers. I held the delicious confection carefully in one arm, before knocking on the door with my other. I waited for a few seconds, and upon not hearing any signs of movement from the other side, I knocked again, louder than before. I waited, before realizing that Luna probably was not in her room. I sighed, and started off down the hall.

I passed a guard on my walk, and stopped to inquire about the whereabouts of the princess. The guard referred me to the throne room, and I set off to my new destination. The halls were relatively empty at this time of the evening, most of the staff having already left for the night. I saw no one else on the way to the throne room, but it would probably get a little more active once the night staff took to the halls.

I pushed open one of the throne room doors slightly, and gazed inside to make sure that I was not potentially disturbing anyone. Once I saw that the only people in the room were Luna, a possible assistant, and a pair of guards, I pushed the door open fully, and walked stepped inside. The guards barely reacted, only shooting me cautious glances, before returning to their usual stoic posture. I nodded at one of them, before walking towards the princess. She was sitting behind the wooden desk, like Celestia did. And like Celestia, she had a stack of papers in front of her as well. However, unlike Celestia, Luna did not seem very interested in cooperating with her assistant.

“Your highness, please. These documents carry a great deal of legal importance. It is imperative that you review and process them,” the white mare told the princess.

“I cannot see why I must concern myself with such a tedious and uninteresting process. Has Equestria fallen into such a lull of peace that this is what we resort to to keeping said peace?” she retorted.

“But your highness, you-”

“Miss Crescent, I am perfectly aware that all of these legal documents, papers, and cases carry an immense amount of weight towards keeping the country secure and in good health, but to put it simply, I am so. Bored!” she yelled as she laid back in her chair, gazing up at the decorated ceiling.

I waited for her to notice me with a rather large smile on my face. Her assistant glanced at me, before looking back to the princess.

“Your highness, you have a visitor,” she whispered to Luna. She raised her head and looked to me.

“Daniel! What brings you before me tonight?” she questioned me as she resumed her proper posture. Her assistant gave me a few confused glances.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your predicament. Perhaps this could be of assistance?” I said as I presented the cake to Luna. She gazed at it for a few moments, before taking it with her magic and unwrapping it. She stared at it for a few moments again, before looking up to me.

“A partially eaten cake?” she asked me. I smiled at her.

“Well, technically, yes. It’s what’s left of my birthday cake from today. It’s my eighteenth birthday today, and Austin and I figured that we would save you some cake after Celestia came and had some earlier,” I told her.

“Ah, is that so? Well, happy birthday to you! This will certainly help to make this night more bearable,” she said with a hint of loathing on her tongue, likely towards her boredom. She placed the cake down, and looked to a stack of papers on her desk.

She took one of the papers, and folded it twice to make it smaller.

“Your highness, what are you doing?” her assistant asked her.

“We do not keep the cases that have been rejected, correct?” she asked her. The mare nodded slowly.

“Well, we might as well put the paper to good use then!” she said happily. She used her magic to pull a slice of the cake away, and placed it on the folded paper. She handed it to her assistant, Miss Crescent, and waited for her to take it.

“Um, your highness?” she asked.

“Do you want a slice of cake or not,” Luna asked her blankly. She stared at her for a few moments, before sighing loudly and taking the cake with her magic. Luna pulled out two more pieces of paper and folded them up like before. She looked over to the guards standing by the doors.

“Guards! You two, come here please,” she told them. They obeyed immediately, swiftly walking over to us.

“Yes Princess?” one of the guards asked her, before wincing in surprise as a piece of cake was placed in front of him.

“Would either of you like some cake?” she questioned them in a happy tone. The guards exchanged confused glances, before the first guard accepted his piece.

“Thank you Princess,” he told Luna, and soon after the second guard received his piece. The second guard started giggling to himself.

“And what is so funny?” Luna asked him.

“I just... didn’t expect cake on this shift,” he smiled. I started chuckling, but not at the guard. Just... the whole situation. This was so... out of the ordinary, that I couldn’t help but laugh at it.

Before anything else could happen, Luna placed a piece of cake in front of me.

“It’s only fair that you get some, since it’s your birthday after all,” she told me. I briefly thought about the amount of cake I had eaten earlier in the day. Four pieces of cake never really helped anyone.

I smiled and took the cake, thanking Luna as I did.

But five pieces of cake never really hurt anyone either, right?

Probably...

The Princess of the Night, her assistant, two guards and a newly crowned adult in Equestrian society, all sitting in Canterlot Castle’s throne room, eating cake and talking about this and that. It was practically comical. We sat, they ate the rest of the cake, and slowly but surely, the professional atmosphere faded away into one that reflected comfort and general enjoyment. The guards revealed their inner personality, Crescent dropped her aura of consistent professionalism, and I engaged in conversation with people I didn’t know, save for Luna.

We talked, we laughed, and we really enjoyed each others company. The princess was happy that the air of professionalism had faded, and for the next hour, we just conversed. It was truly refreshing to partake in a real conversation for once.

Today had been a day of refreshing experiences, and I hoped that it would continue long into the night. Of course, this was not possible. Luna had to return to her duties, the guards returned to their posts, and Crescent returned to trying to get Luna to review her documents. I found myself back in my room.

The whole night was a blur. It really was fun, and I hoped that we would be able to have many more nights like this one. Lying in my bed, sleep came quickly to me, and I found myself dreaming, strangely, about cake. During the night, I did not wake once.