We're not so Different

The Castle of Friendship; Twilight's Personal Study

It was just another normal day in Ponyville Equestria, the friendliest place a pony could live they'd say and they were right. It was also home to Equestria's greatest heroes, the elements of harmony and their 'leader' Princess Twilight Sparkle. Today would be a very big day for the young pony princess because she was to be taking on a very important task, one so important it could very well shape the future of Equestria itself! Foalsitting an alicorn baby! Needless to say the purple alicorn was taking every needed precaution to make sure her beloved niece had a wonderful stay with her for the next week.

"Everything has to be perfect! Is the entire castle baby proofed? SPIIIIIIIIKE! HAVE YOU FINISHED BABY ALICORN PROOFING THE REST OF THE CASTLE YET?!"

"Um Twi...you're the only one trying to super alicorn baby proof the castle...and besides why are you freaking out so much? We capped Flurry's power during the crystaling so she won't be blasting hole in the castle roof or teleporting all over the place...Really you have nothing to worry about" Spike said aloofly waving a dismissive claw at his caregivers usual panicking.

"Nothing....to...worry about? NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT?!" She teleporting over to Spike and he tumbled over on his back and she stared down at him. "THERE IS EVERYTHING TO WORRY ABOUT SPIKE!! EVERYTHING!!!" Twilight began speaking as rapidly as Pinkie Pie in a tizzy panic attack only Twilight could do. "What if she gets her and the magic wears off that capped off her powers and she destroys ponyville!? Or what is a villain tries to foalnap her?! Or if she doesn't like me foalsitting her and cries the whole time until Cadence gets back and she thinks I'm a bad aunt cause I made her foal cry and she tells Celestia and Celestia takes away my princess'ness and the castle and banishes me into the frozen north and-" Her rapid and panicked ranting was cut short by a magic bubble placed around her created by a newly entered to the room Starlight Glimmer who wore a rather amused look at Twilight.

"Twilight don't you think you're freaking out just a tiny bit too much?" Starlight asked keeping Twilight locked in the bubble till she calmed down.

Twilight would preform the breathing relaxation technique taught to her by Cadence and sighed hanging her head in defeat. "Okay maybe but...what if Flurry really doesn't like it here or if something goes wrong? I don't want to be a bad aunt...or foalsitter..."

"Twilight your a great foalsitter, I the cake twins or even Applebloom Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo; you've foal sat for them plenty of times and they always have fun right?"

"Yeah but that's them Spike...this is Cadence and Shining Armor's newborn filly...my niece...i want to make a real good first impression; last time we just spent the entire time trying to hold her down and cap her powers while simultaneously trying not to freeze to death..." Twilight stated in a deadpan-ish tone.

"Well when you put it like that..." Starlight said scratching the back of her head and mane.

*Burp* "Um..Message from Celestia...tastes urgent..." Spike said handing it off to Twilight whom Starlight let out of her bubble.

Taking the letter in her magic she began to read it to herself and after reading it she dropped the scroll and looked at Starlight with a very plain look. "Starlight..."

"Yes Twilight?"

"Please cast that bubble spell around me again...and...make it extra strength..." Her eye twitched and she seemed to be steaming at the ears.

"Do it quickly before she-!" Spike began taking cover behind Starlight who put the shield around Twilight without a second thought.

"GYAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Twilight screamed and thrashed about in the bubble throwing the mother of all temper tantrums.

"What did that letter say?!" Starlight exclaimed in shock and confusion.

"See for yourself..." Spike held up the letter to Starlight who began to read aloud.

Dear Twilight Sparkle;

I do hope all is well in your 'kingdom' of ponyville and while I do know of little baby Flurry's impending arrival I am afraid I must call you away on some rather urgent business that simply cannot be avoided. As I'm sure you remember as i have my side of the royal family that has extended over the past thousand years, as have Luna's before her banishment and recently one of her nieces just got married and had foals of her own; very exciting I know. Luna and I are headed to their home in the Shade Lands in Neighville in a few days and much as the situation was for Flurry our powers will be needed to help royally indoctrinate  the newborns at the midnight hour when the moon is full which will only be for 2 nights this week and it will take us at least 3 to reach the designated location. I do know this must be disappointing as you must now change plans to watch Flurry Heart but I am sure you will figure things out. Meet at the castle by the end of the day, this should give you ample time to find a replacement foalsitter. I suggest asking a friend.

-Love

Celestia

"Oh..."

"I'm...Such...A....Flank-head! How could I forget that we had that trip?!? Gyah horseapples!!!!"

"Twilight!?"

"I'm sorry pardon my language but I'm just so....PEEVED at myself right now, ugh! What am I going to do!? All the girls are busy with their own things this week and no offense Spike but your not equipped to watch an alicorn baby..."

"None taken, I wouldn't want to watch her alone..."

"Well...I can do it Twilight"

"Starlight I couldn't possibly..."

"Yes you can! This can be my next big friendship lesson! Plus I really wanna get a chance to bond with the baby...aaaaand maybe do a little studying...it's still so interesting that she's the first natural born alicorn, I just have to know more!"

"Well...um...I mean I guess...Oh I just wish there was somepony that could stay with you, just in case...it's not that I don't trust you Starlight it's just that-"

"It's alright Twilight, honestly I wouldn't want to leave anypony alone with her for too long either...and there's NOPONY in Equestria you can call to help?"

"Nopony who can get here in time unless they had a super teleporting spell or a magic port-" Twilight immediately got an idea and her grin almost split her face in two. "TO MY STUDY!!" Twilight teleported out of Starlight's bubble.

"Wait you could've just busted out anytime?!"

"Yeah that tantrum wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be...didn't burst into flames this time..." Twilight giggled and dashed into her study leaving Starlight stunned and she mumbled to herself. "How did you not kill me when we fought?!" Starlight said with an inward cringe remembering back to their battle. Come to think of it back then it seemed Twilight was holding back quite a bit, had she been using her full power...oh dear Luna I was bucking insane....had some serious horse-apples...but insane!

Twilight in her infinite rushing and prepping for the arrival of her baby niece Flurry Heart had completely forgotten that she had promised to go with Celestia and Luna to celebrate and cistern the newborn foals of Luna's niece Princess Nightshade and her husband Prince Moonshine whom was a Bat pony in Luna's night guard. They were the first bat pony offspring in over 1000 years to be born and it was tradition for them to be bathed in the pale midnight moonlight as a special ritual that had been apart of Bat pony culture for centuries and only Twilight and Luna knew the spell to do so since they were both well versed in night magic with Twilight having been taking many a lesson from Luna in the realm of that sort of magic, creating stars, moving the moon and so much more; she was so thankful to Luna for all she'd learned and was more than happy to say yes to helping welcome the newborn foals but never did she mean to have things overlap this way! However luckily her quick thinking had come in handy and she remembered that she had at least one more friend she might be able to turn to...Starlight was right...no one in Equestria could help her right now...luckily for her...this friend didn't live in Equestria and from what she remembered from her last few letters with her, she'd just gotten back from a summer camping trip with the other girls and wasn't in school for awhile. After all she did say she'd been wanting to come back to Equestria for a visit sometime, and while it may not be the proper visit she'd hoped for she'd at least get to see the castle, meet the baby and even meet Starlight!

"Where...Where...AHHA! There!...Oh please, please, pleeeeeeeease don't be busy Sunset..." Twilight said as she lifted the book baring her friends 8 pointed sun cutie mark of yellow and red on it and opened it up to a fresh page and began to write quickly with her magic.

Dear Sunset Shimmer,

Hi Sunset, it's Twilight...but you knew that already. How's life in the human world treating you? Having a fun summer vacation? I hope so...I was also wondering if you might be able to do me a favor...like a big favor...like so big i'll pay you your weight in royal gems and ancient books if you do it pretty pretty please?!  Okay so Luna has a niece named Nightshade and she got married to a Bat Pony from her night guard and they just had foals recently! Much like the situation with my niece baby Flurry Heart(more on that later) I need to go with Luna and Celestia to help preform an ancient ritual and how could I say no? But then Shinning Armor asked if I could foalsit Flurry Heart because he and Cadence had been called to help calm a civil war happening in Saddle Arabia and didn't think any of the royal nannies would be very well equipped to handle little Flurry plus she really wants to see me...according to Shinning she keeps crying "auntie twi" whenever she gets sad or throws a tantrum it's adorable!

But now to the heart of the matter(no pun intended) could you come through the portal for a couple of days and foalsit Flurry and watch the castle while I'm away? It'd be a very big help and trust me I wouldn't bother you with something like this unless I had no other choice...I hope that didn't sound mean...anyway can you help? I have everything you could need at my castle...a library, a lab, an observatory...did I mention the library is HUUUUUUUGE?! So many books...I'm rambling again...please respond back asap.

Your friend,

Princess Twilight Sparkle.

PS: I will have another friend here to help you so you won't get lonely

She finished her writing and closed to book and hoped and prayed to Faust that Sunset would answer quickly.

"So who did you message Twilight?"

"You recall Sunset Shimmer yes?"

"Yeah, that pony in the other world filled with those weird creatures called um..."

"Humans..."

"Right, those 'things' and she used to be....bad....like me..." Starlight's ears folded back

"Starlight you need to stop beating yourself up over that...I've already forgiven you..."

"I know but...the more I think about it and look back on it the more i realize how horrible I was...and how you could have easily just squashed me like a breezy..."

"What do you me-"

"You held back..."

"Huh?"

"In our fight...you held back against me...didn't you?"

"I-I mean I um..."

"Twilight?..."

"Okay yes...I did...I wanted to believe you could be reasoned with but it also seemed like just talking wasn't going to work but I wasn't going to result to my full power Starlight...odds are that would have also possibly done damage to the timeline, which was why I decided to show you the future you'd created instead...to show you that if I had...or hadn't...that would be the future that would come about...it was never my intent to harm you Starlight...only stop you from dooming everypony else...including yourself..."

"You're a lot wiser than you give yourself credit for Twilight."

"Thank you."

"So this...Sunset Shimmer...what exactly is she like? You didn't tell me much about her aside the fact that she was once a bad pony who used to be Celestia's student just like you and fled to that other world in an act of rebellion and you were forced to chase after her when she stole your crown..."

"Heheh right...honestly it'd be better if you got the full story from Sunset...I have to go and get some stuff ready for when i have to take off...I hope sunset can come...she's really a great pony...in fact you and her aren't so different...your alike in  a lot of good ways...and I couldn't be happier with the two students I've made..."

"Wait whoa back up...she's your student too?!"

"In a roundabout sort of way yes...we write each other all the time and she always sends me reports on what she learns about friendship and asks me for advice...but I guess nowadays the student has become the teacher since she's now friendship mentoring the human world version of myself..."

"Wait what?!?!"

"Yeah did I forget to mention that?"

"Obviously!"

"Starlight relax, no need to make a big deal out of it."

"But...I thought I was your first student..."

"Starlight its not a competition to see who is the better or more experienced student...you both still have much to learn about friendship and I'm willing to help teach you both and guide you...Sunset learns her own way and so do you...like I said, you'll click fine with her when you meet her I'm sure of it."

"Okay...I hope your right..."

"Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"Well there was that time with Trixie..."

"Honest mistake" Twilight blushed and averted her eyes

It was then the book began to vibrate with magic and Twilight's face lit up as well as her horn

"Well that was fast!"

"Amazing, so it does that every time you get a message from her?"

"Yep, it can get a bit annoying when we are exchanging late night letters but otherwise very effective."

Opening the book she'd read Sunset's response.

Dear Princess Twilight,

Things are going great here in the human world! I've been making a ton of new friends, especially during the camping trip! I'm much better friends with Trixie now and even made friends with a bunch of new kids that are going to our school that we met at camp! They're really nice people; I wonder what they'd be like as Pony's? hehe question for another day I guess. And sure it'd LOVE to help Twilight, I've been trying to make time to come visit but I've been busy with my summer job and doing gigs and parties with the Rainboom's, we've become pretty popular around town, Pinkie Rainbow and Rarity get us shows booked all the time and we always rock out! Human Twilight is our tech manager now and helps with special effects and even took to your role as a back up singer for the bad, she was really hesitant at first but after a little encouragement and a reminder that she just had to trust in her friends and have fun she did great! She can even 'pony up' now though it took a bit of time for her to learn to control it what with the whole 'Midnight Sparkle' side of her trying to claw its way out but its all good now. I can totally come through for a few days, my job gave me a few days off since I've been working overtime everyday for the past week and the girls are all doing their own thing for this week. How does tonight sound? I can pack a few things and be at the portal asap since I live around the corner from the school.

Let me know what you want me to do and I'll get right on it. I can't wait to see the baby!

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

PS: I can't wait to meet your friend too! Also you had me at library ^_~

"Yes!" Twilight hoof-pumped

"Well looks like we've having company..." Starlight said

Twilight began to write again

Dear Sunset;

So glad you agreed to help, I really appreciate it. Come through in about an hour if possible, I'll be waiting for you, the portal will be open in exactly one hour. Thanks again and no need to pack too much...not like you'll need a change of clothes when you get here right? See you soon!

-Twilight