Chapter Fourteen: Back On Track and On Our Way

To the Equestrian, each day rarely, if ever, changed or seemed to be any different from yesterday or the day before. Clouds were a constant and fluffy sight, though they never blocked out the sun unless that same day or tomorrow was scheduled to have rain. The animals weren’t so loud but weren’t a strange sight to see passing by, and neither were the Pegasus darting about the sky or persistently pulling along whatever they needed to carry with them. Every day seemed to carry the same energy and promise as the last did, so long as luck would hold and there weren’t any frustrations thrown at the ponies.

To one being, it was these days that were as great as one could ever consider it.

He gave two powerful thrusts with his great wings as he streaked across the skies with eager abandon. Mist from the clouds trailed behind as the wings became stiff and allowed him to hurtle upwards from the momentum Rising already gave himself from a recent power dive.

Another strong flap was given before Rising tilted and rolled at the height of his ascension. For a few moments, he watched the great blue void of the earth’s atmosphere before closing his eyes and allowing himself to stall and let gravity pull him back down.

The world around him tilted, whirled and spun around Rising in a dizzying manner as he continued to fall, his wings folded and held close to his body as the human-turned-stallion simply let himself feel the temporary and brief weightless fall take over, not even the slightest bit of fear taking hold.

Once he felt his body straighten out, his eyes reluctantly opened and his wings unfolded to their fullest before Rising maneuvered into a smooth pull, accelerating again and rocketing back into the skies, the air tugging at his face and roaring in his ears as gravity pulled at his body.

With a grin, he slowed down and began to glide his way through the air, allowing himself a moment to observe the wide world so far below him before two armored Pegasus were hurrying to join up with him, one of them giving a worried cry, “Prince Rising!”

The Prince Alicorn gave a scoff over the Royal Guard’s concern as he gave an Immelmann towards them before they flew in escort around him back to the flying carriage that was on its way to Cloudsdale, slowing down as he approached.

Once he was within range of the carriage, he gave a quick flutter of his wings before landing precariously at the door of the vehicle, carefully opening it with his hoof before stepping inside as the Royal Guard Pegasus currently pulling the carriage began to pick up speed, the other Guards that had followed after Rising returning to their escorting positions around.

Celestia sat there with an amused look at him as Rising ruffled his wings before sitting down, “Feeling better?”

Rising gave another ruffle, “Always.”

The Princess gave a titter as Celestia allowed silence to settle in the carriage for a few minutes before she asked, “Rising? While I know I could have asked this at any moment, it’s only now do I find myself wondering and seeing the right moment to ask, but as I recall that you never had wings during your time as a human.”

Celestia blinked for a few moments to recall further, her eyebrows furrowing, “And yet my sister had to rely on magic just to pin you down when she had to apply the tail tie to you after chasing you, and she has always been the more active flier than I am. Even now, you fly like a Pegasus who has flown all their life; The dives, turns, banking and even some maneuvers I’ve never seen before. How is it you know how to do all these things?”

Rising fell silent as he started looking towards his left, his irises changing colors and giving the indication to Celestia that he and the Legion were considering what to respond with.

Which was also enough to tell her that the mare might have just found another question that’ll give her something to know about Rising. Or at least know more things revolving around him...

The stallion blinked before he gave an uncomfortable glare, though Celestia could tell it wasn’t directed at her. After a few more seconds, Rising gave a long sigh before locking eyes with Celestia and replied, “Normally, humans do not gain wings or any method of organic flight. Regardless of what happens in life or after death.”

He shifted his hooves around a little before continuing, “That said, with us being the most unusual exemption from a lot of things humans do not have or get, yes we happen to have a great deal of experience with flight because of a certain ... ‘perk’ and a long history in aerial combat.”

Rising once again blinked a few times, “Before we answer as to what that is, you’ll need to understand what wings are and what they mean within the Kingdom. Normally when you see wings on beings, what is the first few things that they mean to you? Does it denote that they’re special? That they’re some new breed? There’s been a great deal of documentation about what wings are and what they symbolize. Even during times when many in the Heavenly Kingdom go out to certain tasks, some of them utilize wings as a sort of ‘shield,’ whether it's to protect others from the sight of their bodies or the opposite. In essence, wings there are far more complicated to know and see than you’ve seen on yourself, Princesses Luna and Cadance, or the Pegasai.”

“For beings such as us and similarly higher ranked beings such as the Angel of the Lord, who is our military leader, they’re a display of both status as well as the power bestowed upon them, or in our special once-in-a-reality case entrusted. They still act like actual wings; We can flutter with them; They can flap and fold, we can do all sorts of acrobatics with them. But they are not made out of feathers but made of living fire and light, as they come from our Lord. Amongst the low ranked, you might see one with a pair or two pairs of wings.”

Celestia’s mind quickly came to a halt at that last part and just as quickly demanded, “Wait. What?”

Rising gave an amused smile, “You didn’t hear us wrong, Princess. We said two pairs of wings.”

After seeing her expression turn to astounded confusion he asked, “What? Did you think that wing size would be the indication?”

About half of her was about to quickly reply yes before Celestia bit down on the instinctive response as she tentatively asked, “And ... what of you and the “higher ranked”?”

Rising’s smile didn’t fade as he continued on from his explanation, “Well as we’ve said, among the low ranks of servants or soldiers, you’d find them with a pair or two, as you go higher up in the hierarchy you’ll find some having six wings, and even eight wings.”

“The Angel of the Lord and a few specific Angelic Beings, who serve and perform other duties but are still no less of high regard and status, have around twenty. I’ve personally heard from some people around the Kingdom that whenever the Guardian Prince Michael’s wings were out and spread on display, he looked more like someone with butterfly wings made of layered feathers.”

“How ... would you even move with them...?” Celestia nearly whispered. She felt like she was missing a specific impact by hearing how there were literal beings who possessed more than a pair of wings on their backs. Really though,, the idea or thought of adding additional wings wasn’t utterly unusual that it was completely beyond imagination, especially to the more incredibly creative artists who would add more wings to pictures of Griffons, Pegasai and even Dragons.

Rising's smile crept up a little with her question, but didn't say anything. Moments after she was done pondering, Celestia asked him with wariness, "And ... How many wings do you have? And ... What do they look like?"

Rising gave a quick glimpse around the carriage and said, "You'll have to wait until we are outside, as it's better to demonstrate where it won’t end up confusing or blinding you in this carriage.” He gave a chuckle as he commented, “Let alone burn this entire box to a crisp. However, we believe you already know the answer, after all they were carved into the stone back in the sanctuary.”

Celestia’s face softly turned to confusion for a few seconds before scrunching her eyebrows to recall the memories.

The stallion didn’t give her long to consider as he looked away for a moment before asking, “Now. About that “Lower—”

“Rising Dawn!” Celestia’s physical wings flaring half-open and held up as high as she could inside the carriage as she angrily arose from her thoughts and attempt at remembering and declared, “I said I would talk to Luna about it. Later!”

“And how else are we supposed to remind you?” Rising asked with an eyebrow raised, “Your own sister ousted you for selective forgetfulness on certain topics either you don’t want to get involved in or bring up.”

The mare fell into sputtering outrage at both Rising for bothering her again for the third time this week, and Luna for pulling that one time she didn’t want to talk to Luna and Raven Inkwell about the expenditures to the Canterlot Castle, specifically the room remodeling for Luna and Rising as well as the supplies for certain types of cakes.

Ever since the topic started a week ago after Rising’s trial on Royal Court procedures about installing additional courts with advice and instructions about personally choosing judges added onto it, the stallion had been insistent on keeping Celestia aware of it.

The carriage took a slight dip to one side as the Pegasus pulling the vehicle upwards to Cloudsdale, Celestia fell silent as Rising spoke up again, “We can understand that we’re suggesting things that take either a lot of ponies or a good portion of them off of your hooves and into others. Considering you told us how your parents raised you and the millennia of ruling experience, it’s unsurprising to us you would feel so strongly about being involved in everything.”

“Not everything, just ...” Celestia muttered, but her voice and her side of the argument faltered.

Rising waved a hoof under his chin, as if trying to bring a breeze to his face, “Of course. However, it still reveals how much of their influence impacts you; Both beneficial and, at least from our perspective, detrimental.” He gave a light sigh before continuing, ignoring the mare’s glare, “We’re not insisting this so much as to try and force our methods into Equestria, Princess. Despite how it may sound that way, we are trying to encourage some development in places that are blatant to us that needs some attention. You overworking yourself on that throne being one example.”

Celestia quickly gave Rising another glare and stuck her tongue out at him, not wanting to go back to that argument.

Rising only gave a huff at her in amusement before looking out the window of the carriage, recollecting the past week’s events with some of the Legion.

As it turned out with Harvest Leaves while there had indeed been embezzling, it was Harvest himself that was doing it and had been pulling this stunt for a week, already tricking a few banks and a few other organizations before trying for the Royal Court.

Much of the week ended up with Harvest being tried and found guilty in Luna’s court of law and was finding himself jailed for quite some time.

Though before Rising could get curious and see how exactly Equestria handled their criminals, jails and prisons, he and Princess Celestia had to oversee the dueling between the Count and Baronet.

As fortune would have it, there had been dueling laws in the early years of both Celestia’s and Luna’s Diarchy. It was a form in which nobles could settle disagreements in a more controlled manner rather than either taking it into the streets where civilians would get caught in the crossfire, or in lethal manners that ended up exterminating entire bloodlines...

Only problem was that the duels still tended to result in one pony or both ponies being dead.

But, adaptation is a profound process. Thus after a bit of meandering, fussing, and bringing a more modern and acceptable terms and conditions, both nobles agreed to what was made and set out to drum up hired duelists.

They would have three duelists for each noble and set them to fight in a one on one duel with melee specific weaponry of their choice. Neither of the duelists would fight again unless the results were inconclusive or in case the others were incapacitated, in which case the most able bodied would enter the “ring” again and settle the matter.

Initially, the idea had been to use ‘First Blood’. And initially, Rising had hoped that the nobles themselves would duel instead of hiring duelists. Sadly, Equestria proved to be much more resistant to moving out of its own comfort zone than Rising had expected, and the nobles were not interested in having personal participation in the duels. There were barely any pony that were duelists or even weapon enthusiasts, which resulted in the nobles having to hire griffons to settle that particular problem.

From there, Rising was treated to six lively days of activity. Three of them had been spent being involved with the planning and construction of the arena and three days of the duels themselves.

When Princess Luna had learned of his decisions and his ideas on bringing back dueling and how to adapt it into the modern setting, she had graced him with the smile and hug of a filly who was just told that an exciting fair with dazzling talent shows, daring stunts and obnoxious amounts of candy was coming to her hometown.

Oh how the Lunar Princess begged and demanded she be involved and help Rising. She began making small threats such as restricting Rising access to the library, her Night Guard’s sparring grounds, the kitchen, to even the Royal Gardens or threatening to replace his diet with alfalfa for the next week. Then she would turn around and start trying to bribe the stallion, first with stashes of her sweet candy, then with promises of secret locations that she would use to escape her sister or have a moment alone to herself.

Both Rising and the Legion were pretty good at giving guesses and one ever so very likely guess as to her excitement and desperate wish to be involved was that this was something she was intimately familiar with. In the end, Rising relented and allowed Princess Luna to help with the location of where the arena would be placed, which rewarded him with a bone breaking hug and a loud cheer from Luna as she spun on her rear legs and raced away to scout out a suitable location, with or without approval from the ponies that had already been looking for such a spot.

Princess Celestia meanwhile looked as if she was lost in the decision. Initially, Rising thought it was because it was simply that she was being forced to accept things that were outside of her zone of comfort, much less pushing the nobles into an arena to settle their differences instead of letting her hear them out in a peaceful manner. Another thought was that Rising had caused one significant change that felt incredibly sudden and generally accepted by everypony, leaving her with another perspective of loss over control.

A different thought had occured to Rising that perhaps she was wanting to uphold what her parents had during their reign to keep every memory of them alive, but that one didn’t have much weight behind it to give consideration on.

At the end of those three trying days, a rather large and convenient space in Canterlot now beheld a three story circular, wood and plaster open roofed arena. The first floor was a walled off sand pit with a few entrances so that the dueling fighters, medics or Royal Guards could enter and exit. On the outside of the arena walls were little more but barren hallways with wooden supporting struts and seven staircases leading up to the second and third level.

Said second and third levels of the arena were little more but simple wooden seatings or stands for ponies to watch the fighting that would take place below. Not the most comfortable seatings, despite putting long strips of cloth on them, but Rising said that the cloth were a luxurious seating when it came to setting up crowd seating and taking them down. Adding on that this was at best a three to four day dueling event, and the construction ponies were willing to go along with his suggestion. One section on the second level was a specifically made seating for the Prince and Princesses, where they could sit and see everything and everyone in the arena in a more relatively comfortable state with stone and plaster.

It wasn’t the most fanciful of buildings, and a good number of the Equestrian nobility made clear their complaint about it, but nevertheless it would serve its purpose well enough and could be taken down with little issue about having to throw away resources or complaints about overstaying its welcome in the city.

When official word came about with its grand opening, it attracted a great deal of attention, and not just from Equestria. Both merchants, nobles and the curious folk that had the money and time to travel arrived in droves, wanting to see what was the reason as to why Equestria had brought about a dueling arena and was hosting it in their territory of all places. Though for the merchants hearing about it, they simply jumped on the bandwagon to get as much commerce as they could.

The fights themselves had been particularly interesting to watch, seeing how griffons would don plated armor to cover the majority of their bodies while leaving their limbs and wings nearly unprotected except for plain chainmail, and instead of spears or the ironically humorous “bec de crobins”, they had chosen bastard swords that held the appearance of thicker rapiers, paired with parrying daggers with guards that gave it a sort of ... sai-like appearance.

As if the mess of technological advances in this new world were confusing....

Regardless of that headache, at the end of the third day the matter was settled and victory was claimed for the Baronet.

This three day spectacle ended up drawing quite a crowd to watch this newfound entertainment, and it caused many of the other nobles to consider the revived idea of dueling to resolve their issues. And within a matter of both the days of the arena’s construction, use and aftermath of the event, mercenaries from multiple territories and kingdoms, even ones as far as Abyssnia began arriving in groups, hearing news of a new source of income.

An effect that left an impact in the form of a significant reduction of noblesponies attending Day Court, and even bringing the Prince and Princesses to a few wide, open courtyards of Canterlot Castle or some fields outside of the castle to oversee several more duels.

Additionally, nobles and those of higher classes started finding interest in dueling weaponry, such as rapiers and longswords. And this in turn caused a series of debates between the nobles about the issues of possessions of such weaponry, and even more so with publicly carrying such weaponry.

Even moreso, there was word that some of the nobles were interested in finding a more permanent spot to build an arena for duels to be situated in. Where exactly this arena would be built was still in discussion, however a few popularly discussed locations were a spot North of Canterhorn Mountain, within the clouds much like Cloudsdale and a few other Pegasus cloud-based villages were, or just a little further South from Ponyville and on the Western side of a railway that skirted the edges of the Everfree Forest and shortly before the Ghastly Gorge.

Such a series of results from one decision made by Rising.

And he still had yet to discover why Celestia allowed him to do such a thing...

As Cloudsdale came into view from the side windows, Rising stirred from the musings to take a glance at Celestia. The mare had also fallen into silence and watched the world go by in the nearby window, a pensive expression on her muzzle and one leg resting against the window of the carriage, her hoof resting her chin. She seemed to be either remembering something, looking back much like he had just been doing or was daydreaming.

Celestia didn’t seem to notice him looking at her and for a few moments, Rising felt taken aback looking at the mare. It was as if he was right in the middle of watching an animated drawing that an artist of exceptional talent had made. Her mane cascading over her side and waving gently with whatever magical breeze was causing it, her wings barely unfolded that acted like a feathered cloak around her barrel. That distracted expression of hers with lidded eyes and a hint of what seemed to be a smile.

The feeling faded away as he gave an appreciative combination of a soft hum and sigh as she stirred. Her ear flickered towards him and started to look his way, prompting him to smoothly look out her own window.

The Princess was tempted to give a questioning hum at him, since she knew he had been looking at her and clearly not turning his gaze from his window to hers just to see what Cloudsdale looked like there.

Celestia wasn’t blind to know that during her reign, both with and without Luna, there had been many creatures that tried to sneak in a look at her, whether she was looking at them or they thought she wasn’t paying attention. Most of the time, they had been simply looking in awe or appreciation. Though there had been quite a number who had other thoughts or ideas. Some seemed flattering, others ... not as much.

Though coming from Rising, the mare felt her smile grow a little and felt just a tad giddy. Now knowing that he had snuck a look at her sent her mind abuzz with thoughts whether this confirmed whether he was interested and was starting to look her way.

With a few wistful thoughts and an unformed plan involving a personal outing with her and Rising, Celestia turned her gaze back out the window and thought back to the results of her giving Rising control for a mere moment in Day Court, among other things.

She wasn’t aware what troubles the three ponies that Rising was given to resolve, for one thing. In fact, Celestia had expected either Rising to flounder or fail to consider certain laws or rules that she would remind or even take a hoof over. Having one pony be tried and arrested for embezzlement, renewing and refreshing dueling laws and encounter one pony who greatly rubbed her own sense of caution in unnerving ways.

It wasn’t something Celestia wanted to admit, but with how Rising handled and the three court cases he was given, she actually forgot the reason she gave them to him in the first place.

All she could recall was her wanting to prove to Rising that the Day Court wasn’t as easy as he imagined, or that his desire to let other ponies take over for her wasn’t the better plan or idea, that she needed to have at least a hoof involved.

Though as always, Rising complained about her methods.

Celestia gave a frown as she recalled one luncheon that led to an argument between her and that stallion.

«««✧✦✧»»»

“There’s a massive difference between managing a kingdom and feeling the need to micromanage everything, Princess.” Rising stated flatly, his shoulder slumping forwards as he paused from eating his sandwich of cheese and dandelions, a part of his adventuring tastes into Equestria’s near vegan diet.

“I am well aware of that Rising, and I’ve had lessons on that subject well before I sat on a throne.” Celestia retorted with her eyebrows furrowing, mirroring the stallion’s own unhappiness with the revitalized argument, “I know and trust that every pony will do the best they are capable of rather than feel the need to look over their heads and observe their efforts. At most, whenever I see them again, I ask whether things have improved for them since then or not.”

“And yet you still insist on involving your own personal decisions when others can be entrusted to handle such decisions.”

“And yet I insist on letting my little ponies work without constant guidance from me. I don’t tell them precisely what I want done unless it was a project or decision that came from me or my sister, or even from my student, and even then I allow freedom of movement.”

“Yet we come back to you spending so much time in court and over the business of others that again, could be handed over to others. Time that could’ve been spent either for yourself, your sister and niece and perhaps your student or us?”

This made Celestia roll her eyes, “That’s part of running a kingdom, Rising. You know this more than anypony if you’ve lived longer than me and my sister.”

“Indeed it is.” Rising replied without a blink or change of color in his iris’, “But one issue: Even they knew when to let others take over and take time for themselves.”

Now Celestia gave a frowning glare at Rising, “And how long was it until they started getting bribed or supplanted by nobles or those with more bits than sense? Do you recall that I said that my mother and father had lower courts before the nobles began putting bribes, favors and undermining them that they had to force the courts to close?”

“Has it occurred that after a thousand years, those that knew their ways to manipulate a court are no longer around? And perhaps you only need one or several trustworthy lives to help advise on how to manage those courts once they are reopened? Who were those few ponies you argued and named to your sister that were trustworthy and in that regard could greatly help you?” Rising looked briefly away as his eyes changed for a second before he turned back to look at Celestia and recited, “A married couple by the name of Fancy Pants and his wife Fleur-De-Lis? Perhaps Twilight Sparkle’s family house, if we are guessing correctly, or the few other names such as Radiance, Good Will, and Nightingale? In fact, you even mentioned—”

«««✧✦✧»»»

Princess Celestia’s thoughts were brought to an abrupt end as she felt the carriage give a jolting halt. Though just as that happened, she gave a frustrated growl and even nearly spat a retort at Rising with how he fluidly kept arguing her points and found ways around her stance.

Rising was just ... so infuriatingly obstinate at trying to reduce the amount of her own work that she was so used to and didn’t feel like relieving herself of. Why can’t she have her own hoof in handling some of her ponies’ lives? Was he planning or even expecting her reign to be autonomous that her crown was nothing but a mere symbol of her status as Princess of Equestria?

A few stiff feathers touched her shoulders startled the mare and with still smoldering resentment turned and gave a withering glare, a spell nearly ready to blast the offender out of the carriage.

Her eyes locked onto Rising, who defensively recoiled away from her with a concerned look on his face, his eyes slowly changing colors and one half-raised wing recoiling from her reaction.

Celestia’s guilt and regret was very quick to snuff out her emotions as she moved her head down in apology, “Ri—I’m so sorry. I had been thinking back to our argument. It still has left me in a sour mood over it even now.”

Rising didn’t respond immediately, but did relax from what likely felt to him a potentially confrontational situation, “We’ll accept your apology, Princess. Though we didn’t know that our good intentions were that much of a threat to you.”

“I—” Celestia halted for a moment before admitting, scratching one leg with her hoof, “I’ve been ruling with a busy, but stable rule for so long that this decentralization of power that you’re insisting to change whats been established for so long in the brief time since you’ve arrived here, it’s been a horrible source of stress and worry.”

The stallion blinked a few times before gently asking, “Do you want us to stop?”

“Just ... just for now, Rising. Just small hoofsteps at a time with your ideas and suggestions ... .”

“As you wish, Princess.”

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Rising wasn’t a complete stranger to the thought, idea and semi-execution of cloud cities. Adding on certain dreams that contained and performed such ideas had been given to some of the Legion, hearing and seeing Cloudsdale wasn’t something that neither he or the Legion could bring to complain about.

Now, having a cloud city that's literally made of clouds. That’s one particular aspect that was unusual and near uncomfortable to them.

Has any of the Legion ever walked on clouds before? Oh yes, quite a few times. Sadly, the experience wasn’t as impressive or as magical as one thought. Anyone else could’ve easily mimicked the experience by riding an airplane and gazing out the window below.

Add on that the clouds back then tended to not remain thick or fluffed forever … .

That fact caused Rising to continuously watch where he was placing his hooves, even so far as impulsively flutter his wings or even call upon his entrusted power just to make sure he didn’t fall through one cloud that didn’t look exactly like the others.

Celestia giggled at his antics as she nudged him lightly, “Calm down, hot hooves. As long as you’re on a cloud, you’re not going to fall.”

“You forget we weren’t born in this world of odd logic and magic, Celestia.” Rising muttered at her, attempting to keep his voice down and not let any nearby Pegasi overhear him.

Celestia only giggled again as she came to a stop with Rising and waited for him to become comfortable with Cloudsdale’s clouds, “If you keep doing this though, you’re going to miss quite a lot of the city.”

It would take quite a few minutes for Rising to get over Cloudsdale’s “ground” before he looked up and gave a gander at the Pegasus city.

Though once he did, it took a bit of effort for him to not succumb to nostalgia from the sights.

The city was like a combination of Greco-Roman architecture, highly reminiscent of both Athens and Rome, and one certain cartoon animation company. Though with a helpful amount of snow and what looked like ice dripping down from some of the buildings, as well as a few focuses of Equestrian culture littering throughout much of the city. Specifically the smooth curling clouds that acted as rooftops or structure braces for buildings that had been placed high above or well away from anything. The rail-less bridges that connected a lot of the houses or what seemed like places of commerce or research. And rainbows that acted like rails or fences in some of the cloud houses or rivers as he could see it flow from several buildings, never mingling with what seemed like water as it followed a path out of the city and then entered freefall out of Rising’s sight.

Rising’s shoulder was nudged as he turned away to see Celestia giving a warm smile as she asked, “Amazing, isn’t it?”

He didn’t respond immediately as he replied slowly, “Reminiscent, really. There’s a lot of the city that looks similar to some of the cities and civilizations we knew and walked through. The Ionic columns here and there around the large buildings, some looking like they are meant to support the structures, yet over there with the houses they have a combination of Ionic and Doric for sheer decoration ... .” Rising paused as he pointed over some of the houses he mentioned, “We’re almost expecting to see cloud shingles shaped like terracotta clay on many of these homes and buildings, lavish statues and pillars placed throughout, some of them holding up statues of gods or greatly recognized generals or emperors. Walls containing bas-reliefs of heroes, legends and tales of their adventures. All of it being a display of wealth and opulence.”

The stallion fell silent as he looked out and continued gazing at the city as Celestia turned to look around, “I suppose one could expect that. It’s been a long time and even after the Geckos and the Roams, there's a lot that the Pegasai picked up from them. Though I suppose that would have to be the case since Pegasai had been involved so deeply with the two civilizations, both good and ill.”

Celestia rolled her shoulders and wings as she gave a sigh, “I don’t miss either of them, though. Especially the Roams.”

Rising rolled his eyes as he muttered, “Of course there’d be Romans here … .” He didn’t bother giving an answer to Celestia’s questioning look as the stallion closed his eyes and moved his head down with a dry chuckle, “There’s not a lot of love we had for the Romans on our end, either.”

Celestia gave another nudge to Rising, wordlessly encouraging him to walk with her to an arena where the Young Flyer Competition was being held as the guards plus Shining Armor followed along with them, “We can tour the city after the competition, Rising. I think you’ll be interested in how Cloudsdale makes their rainbows, clouds and snowflakes.”

Now the stallion gave a grumble, “Of course they would be making those.”

Celestia gave a giggle as Rising paused in thought, his eyes changing color for a moment, “Though we doubt they could make snowflakes as great as we would find them during our times: Infinite possibilities of what every flake would or could look like, infinite shapes and even the most minute designs that just happens. Some of them you would think they had to have been handmade.”

This made Celestia give a thoughtful hum, “Well, snowflake making is a delicate process.”

Rising only made a noise in response before Celestia started picking up the pace, “We can argue about this after the competition, Rising.” She paused as the group heard the sound of trumpets from a fair distance away, “In fact we may have to hold off any more conversation if we want to arrive on time!”

With that, she opened her wings and quickly took to the skies, her guards keeping pace with her. Rising didn’t argue or offer anything else to say as he followed the Princess’ suit and leveled off slightly above and behind the small formation.

As it turned out, they had just skirted the edge of being on time as the ponies flew over the top of a cloud coliseum, with cheering Pegasi and a few curiously sighted Unicorns seated around the walls of the building with an empty center that gave a birds eye view down onto Equestria.

“—nd join me in welcoming our beloved Princess Celestia and our newest Prince Rising!” An announcer standing on one small cloud declared and pointed over to the Alicorns just as the two plus several Royal Guards landed at a high rise clearly marked out with a cloud statue depiction of Celestia standing over another depiction of her Cutie Mark.

The Princess was quick to begin waving to the audience while Rising opted for a slow wave to the crowd until the cheering calmed down.

“You know,” Celestia quietly said as she leaned her head towards him, “They’d like you a lot more if you gave a smile and waved a little better than that, Mr. Stoic.”

“Hah.” Rising said before seeing the arrival and quick demonstration of the Wonderbolts as they flew upwards into the sky, trailing smoke behind them from what almost seemed nowhere as Rising didn’t notice or spot anything on the ponies as they accelerated up into the sky, forming up a line before coming together and jumping off from each other, detonating some sort of fireworks that gave off sparks forming into the Equestrian symbol.

Both Alicorns gave a polite clap as Rising commented, “A lot more different and looks safer than the airshows, especially since they can perform more with those wings.”

Celestia looked over in curiosity, ““Safer”?”

“Remember Princess, we had to rely on technology and science,” The stallion gave a quick shuffle with his wings, “No wings.”

She gave a soft sigh, “What else did your kind do so recklessly.”

Given Rising’s exceedingly large grin, the near silent laugh and the merriment in his eyes as a response, Celestia had very clearly asked the wrong question.

Even one of the Pegasi Guards had given a quick glimpse of concern before returning his gaze back to the arena.

“... Oh by Faust, Rising!!” Celestia exclaimed as she stared at him in horror as the competition began.

That grin didn’t go away until the first contestant appeared behind a large curtain, a young tan colored mare who hesitated at first before beginning.

As the competition continued, Rising had remained silent as he and the Legion watched with some amusement and some boredom over each contestant. While many of them had demonstrated what one can do with their wings, they weren’t entirely inventive or impressive.

While having the stomach to endure performing fifteen aileron rolls was adequately respectable from one stallion, the word ended up with Rising and Celestia bickering over what she thought was called a barrel roll and a promise out of Rising that he’d show what an actual barrel roll was after the competition was over, the performance wasn’t all that exciting.

Or very well practiced as Rising gave a slight wince as one stallion slammed face first into the arena’s wall during his run, despite not showing or sporting any significant injury and willing to continue.

That was among another list of questions that Rising and the Legion had gathered during their tenure in Equestria: Giving the significant lack of wincing and concern from the crowd and the sight of a still intact and slightly dazed Pegasus stallion still flying, with only a scuffed face to show for his recent faceplant; Just how durable or even prone to injuries are these ponies? And where do they draw the line for injuries to be considered minor or critical and needing hospitalization?

He was about to turn and ask the Princess when four familiar fur and mane colors attracted Rising’s attention. Pausing for a moment and looking, the stallion was pleasantly surprised by the sight of four out of six Element Bearers, watching with excitement as Pegasi flew out one by one into the arena to perform their tricks and flying back through the curtains to allow another to do the same.

Again, Rising was about to turn and notify Celestia about his musings as well as the presence of the Bearers before the announcer broadcasted, “And now, for our final competitor of the day, contestant number fifteen! ... And apparently contestant number four ... .”

Contestant number four indeed.

Not a single soul amongst the Legion could comprehend the reason and sight of seeing a familiar alabaster Unicorn flying not only with oversized and opulently colored butterfly wings, but dressed up as if she was entering a Pegasus fashion show. … For a simple flying competition.

"Ambitious for attention, perhaps?" Rising audibly commented to Celestia as they watched Rarity perform something akin to ballet in the air while another familiar sight of a cyan pegasus looking like an absolute nervous wreck and not doing anything.

"I ... don't believe so.” Celestia replied, “While she is a fashionista and in ownership of a clothing store in Ponyville, she doesn't intentionally seek attention in that regard. Unless it's to attract customers, I think her attendance was more of a spur of the moment. Though I may have to ask her or Twilight how she got those wings."

Rising shifted his attention to Rainbow, who had gotten over her stage fright and began a quick slalom between several pillars of clouds. Though after she botched that and ended up face planting in the same manner as the stallion several numbers ahead of her had done so, Rising quickly found the moment to ask, “Just how durable or prone to injuries are you ponies?”

Celestia turned to look at him in confusion as he explained, “Ordinarily, when someone ends up slamming their face against a wall, the most common resultant injury one would receive is a nosebleed. Second most common would be a concussion, which is particularly a serious concern depending upon how hard someone was hit in the face or head. This is the second time we see a pony get hit with significant enough force that a paramedic would be rushing towards them to make a quick look over and judge whether they were good to go or had to stop, yet both that one young stallion and now Rainbow have come away from such with barely anything than a scuff.”

The mare stayed silent for a moment, considering her response before gasps from the crowd caused both Alicorns to turn and look up, seeing a spinning cloud hurtling towards them.

Celestia and the guards quickly took to ducking while Rising opted to use his wings as shields and braced himself against the oncoming cloud, having thought on the direction it spun and how fast it was approaching.

Fortunately for them, the rogue cloud had collided safely with the walls and pillars a meter above them.

As both Rarity and Rainbow started flying up and gaining altitude, Rising relaxed his wings and looked over to Celestia, “Everyone alright? Rainbow certainly caught our attention if that was her plan.”

“We’re fine, and it certainly would’ve.” Celestia replied as she eyed the two still climbing ponies, “Well for your questions on our durability, Rising. I’ll have to give you an abridged answer: Magic being the primary reason, though because we ponies are so infused into magic, it brings us a more durable physical constitution. There’s a few other factors but that’s for a later discussion.”

‘... . Does this also mean our own physical capabilities are affected by this much magic?’ One of the Legion considered with concern.

Rising was about to give his own thoughts on the starting discussion before his vision was blinded by colored lights flooding the arena.

Looking up, he could see Rarity spreading her wings out and allowing light to filter through the colors on it, giving quite the light show to everyone below her.

Rainbow in the meanwhile, was still climbing and was barely invisible in the sky, her rainbow mane and tail being the only indication of her presence.

The light show that Rarity was giving suddenly disappeared as from what Rising could see, her new wings burst into flames for a span of one second before vanishing off of the Unicorn mare, sending her plummeting downwards.

Rising’s wings flared open in instinct and very nearly took off and would have knocked Celestia and the guards down before Celestia quickly learned of what was happening and did what she could to stop the stallion, “Wait! Let the Wonderbolts help!”

He did.

And watched the three that went after Rarity get knocked unconscious from her flailing all too easily.

Once again, Rising’s wings arose and prepared a power dive. And once again, he was interrupted and had his chance stolen by a blazing and inaudible Rainbow Dash plunging straight towards the now larger numbers of falling ponies.

“She’ll paint the ground.” Rising grumbled, watching the Pegasus fly faster and seeing the sound barrier start to push against her.

“Care to put faith in that claim?” Celestia looked over with a smile.

He gave an unamused look that also told her that the stallion wasn’t rising to that bet, which was quickly followed by the detonation of the sound barrier being broken.

Rising moved his attention and was able to watch just in the nick of time to witness the very same rainbow-colored explosion and aftershock that had appeared and painted the Tower of Eternity, complete with a rainbow-trailing Pegasus catching and carrying the three still unconscious Wonderbolts and Unicorn as Rainbow Dash streaked from mere feet above the ground and back into the sky.

She gave a single arcing pass over the arena, leaving a glittering rainbow over it before flying slower up through the middle, letting some of the Pegasus nearby catch and carry her passengers.

Rising watched as the rings continued to expand before slowly fading away, whatever energy fueling them expiring.

“Magnificent display, isn’t it?” Celestia asked as she gave a light nudge, having watched the rings as well.

“Certainly a sight. Though, it seems to not have carried the same energy and effect as it had before, as the rings had kept going and reaching far.” Rising answered softly, “Perhaps that time was more significant, or simply something never done before and the effect is more subdued now that this is the second time.”

The princess half-heartedly scoffed at him as she unfurled her wings and prepared to glide over to Rainbow, “Aren’t you just unsatisfied with anything!”

Rising opted to laugh loudly but didn’t give his reply as he followed suit and very nearly overtook the mare in flight.

When they landed, several of the Pegasi had brought up a rather gaudy air balloon and had seated Rarity in it while Rainbow Dash seemed to be sputtering at the sight of the three Wonderbolts talking to her and giving thanks for their rescue. Twilight had turned around at that time and gave a gasp and was the first to bow, “Princess! Prince!”

The other mares, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie if Rising recalled correctly, followed suit in bowing before Celestia gave a happy smile to her student, “Hello, Twilight Sparkle! And hello to your friends, too!”

Rising elected to give an amused smile and let Celestia’s words be his own greetings as Rarity began to apologize about throwing herself into the competition, even vouching Rainbow as the better.

To be honest, he had already tuned out Celestia’s declaration as his attention returned to where this “Rainboom” had been, if to at least give a few thoughts and musings over the sight before Rainbow began rambling excitedly again as she was carried off by three of her friends while Twilight and Rarity stayed behind. Celestia then began speaking to Twilight about what she had learned in terms of friendship.

Deciding that this was one conversation more reserved between Celestia, Twilight and Rarity, Rising’s attention turned away to watch Rainbow be paraded around the arena, much to the cheering of the crowd. This didn’t last more than a few seconds as Celestia looked over to Rising and asked something that both he and the Legion didn’t catch, making him turn back and give a questioning hum.

Celestia gave a small sigh at him, clearly disappointed in him not paying attention, “I asked you if you think Rarity learned a valuable lesson.”

“Having elected to perform a fashion show and dance in the midst of a flying competition, and getting carried away with her wings we’ve no doubt she learned her lesson, Princess Celestia.” Rising replied smoothly.

The Princess simply stared at Rising, half her face being masked by her mane. Whether this was still out of disappointment that Rising didn’t listen to what Rarity said or because of his answer, he couldn’t answer. If it was the former, why for? Did she think he didn’t know better about keeping himself grounded and needed to hear it from someone else? Perhaps she wanted him to hear Rarity testify?

Whatever it was, it likely was going to be discussed back in the carriage as Rainbow and her friends cantered over to the group to put the crowned Pegasus down as she declared, “This really is the best day ever!”

Both Alicorns gave a chuckle before Celestia said, “Well, my little ponies. I think it's time I gave Prince Rising a tour around Cloudsdale.” She leaned over towards Twilight and gave a conspiratorial whisper, “He’s very interested in the cloud and snowflake making.”

Rising, having clearly heard Celestia’s jab, rolled his eyes at her antics while Twilight gave a giggle. Rainbow Dash spoke up, “Well, before this whole competition, I had been giving a tour around Cloudsdale for my friends here. Though this was also when Rarity was still happy about her wings, so if you happen to go by the snowflake factory, you might wanna keep your wings closed.” She gave a small sheepish grin as the Pegasus remembered the small bits of chaos that Rarity caused wherever they went.

“I don’t think we will have to worry about that, won’t we Rising?” Princess Celestia asked, getting an amused shake of the stallion's head in response.

As the six mares jumped into the air balloon, with Pinkie giving Rising a curious warning to not taste the rainbow, and descended out of the arena and out towards Ponyville, with a quick promise out of Rising that he would visit and an unanswered question from the stallion as to why Fluttershy and Rainbow were riding, both Alicorns made their way out of the arena and began to walk towards their first stop in Cloudsdale.

“A lot of notable Pegasi had been born and raised in Cloudsdale, a few of whom you’ve met in passing back in Canterlot.” Celestia started as they made their way up the steps to the weather factory, “Specifically, you’ve met Wind Rider during the formal party after your coronation.”

“The preening veteran elder of a stallion that liked being swarmed by mares?” Rising quipped.

Celestia gave a giggle, “The same.”

The two leapt into the air and glided towards the weather factory, where a great deal of lightning clouds were high above spewing loud thunder left and right as a small crowd of bowing Pegasi who had been in the middle of corralling some of these black clouds.

After asking for a small tour around the factory for Equestria’s newest Prince to see a little bit about how everything worked, both Celestia and Rising were asked to follow one Weather Control Pegasus, a tan colored mare named High Stream. The two were given white coats to prevent their fur and feathers from getting anywhere and white hard-hats, the sight of the helmets becoming yet another bewildering and irritating sight for Rising.

High stopped at one stairway that would lead the Alicorns plus guards into one of the main flowing rivers of rainbows and turned around to inform the two, “Your Majesties, I usually start off with this tour with other ponies by issuing a disclosing statement, and with the fact that you Prince Rising aren’t fully aware about Cloudsdale, our weather factory and our means of weather production, I may as well have it said here. Our rainbows are made in an organic fashion of mixing sunlight and clouds, they are not formed by blood-related rituals or sacrificial means.”

One of Rising’s eyebrows rose incredibly high at the statement and turned his head to look at the Princess, who gave an unhappy nod and explained, “There’s been a conspiracy theory running amok accusing Cloudsdale of having a “Rainbow Factory” where young and inept Pegasi who failed flight tests were thrown into a machine as “salvage” and was the primary means of creating rainbows. Rainbow Dash herself has come under fire because of this theory, though she doesn’t know the full scale of it. It started with a fictional piece that involved this sort of thing as a sort of horror story, it ended up with somepony spinning wild misinformation and it just snowballed from there.”

“And there’s been thorough investigation both in and through Cloudsdale as well as the author?” Rising asked calmly, his eyes looking steadily at the mare.

“Personal investigation.” Celestia answered, her eyes half-lidded, “The Pegasus herself said it was just something she came up with after listening to a song that had lyrics detailing a horror story and everything started from there.”

Rising stared between High and Celestia before finding it in both himself and the Legion to ask, “Are there any other conspiracies we need to know of concerning anyone we know?”

High was the first to answer, giving a shrug, “There’s three nasty rumors involving an Earth Pony baker, a Unicorn using slave labor and another about a Pegasus mare and a shed, but I honestly didn’t give much attention to them. Sounded more like something to use against Ponyville.”

The Princess simply looked away and grumbled about something involving cakes and parties.

Rising was very quick to express the Legion’s unamusement, “Do tell us that these aren’t leading to Guards being falsely called into hostage situations, personal attacks or vandalism, or mailed death threats including poison laced mail.”

Celestia’s head whipped around with wide eyes and a nearly jaw dropped mouth. Almost every pony that coherently heard what Rising said stopped where they were and turned to look at the Prince with stunned horror.

“N... No.” Celestia replied weakly, “Nothing ever reached such a point. Perhaps a heated letter to Cloudsdale but... Faust above, Rising.”

“Good.” Rising curtly stated before giving a quick breath and turning to look at High Stream, his tone lightening, “We apologize for that, we had hoped the topic was going to be a quick one, but sadly that didn’t happen. If we could perhaps move on towards the tour?”

The two mares continued to stare at Rising before High gave a cough, “R-right. Right this way, Your Majesties. W-we’ll get started with showing how we produce and filter our rainbows.”

Celestia didn’t immediately follow behind, still stunned at Rising’s guessing. The thought of calling the guards to a false situation, poison laced mail...

During the early years of both Celestia’s and Luna’s reign and even during the years where Celestia had to rule alone yes, there had been vandalism and personal attacks to even assassination attempts, but to go so far and this horribly damaging?

Didn’t she recall Twilight wanting to know more about human history?

... Was now a good time to start digging her hooves in and tell Rising not to?

“Princess.” The mare gave a start at the sound before being startled again by the sight of Rising looking at her mere inches away from her nose. His bemused expression alongside seeing her guards give looks of concern quickly informed Celestia that she had been deep in thought over Rising’s questions a bit longer than she intended and tuned out the world in the process.

Celestia shook her head gently, “I’m alright. Just had a lot to think about.”

Both Rising and High gazed at her for a moment before they turned and walked up the stairs again, this time with Celestia and her Guards following close behind.

At the top, Rising saw an open and circular area with Grecco-Roman architecture with a massive rainbow waterfall being collected into an unseen well, somehow not producing spray or any running off rainbows as it flowed down. Nor was there an instant explanation as to how the rainbow flowed smoothly from an opening in that collection well into a multiple series of basins, with the lips wide enough for two ponies to walk around.

And there were several small teams of ponies that carried and used what seemed to be a combination of a skimming net and a comically large spoon. From what Rising could tell, they were doing exactly what their tools were designed for, skimming the surface of the rainbow as it passed through each basin and stirring it in a thorough fashion.

Ponies came and went, replacing some ponies at their job while others began to idle and rest, giving an impression to Rising that this was likely shifts changing as High Stream began, “Cloudsdale has been the most reliant and requested city when it comes to making clouds and rainbows across Equestria, so while there are other weather factories across the kingdom, we’re Equestria’s largest and most productive. This has kinda become a thing of pride for us Pegasi. Adding on how we’ve had a history of amazing Pegasi in Equestrian history come from Cloudsdale, there’s a pretty good reason we’re proud of ourselves.”

She turned to point a hoof at the large rainbow fall, “Above us and where this rainbow fall is coming from is the actual factory where we create rainbows. The reason we have it so high up is because we have to have sunlight and air be involved with the processing, so we have it spill over and fall down into the well. It’s mostly machinery and magic-involved operations up there and from some of the workers I know that are from there, it's a tedious and mostly boring operation. That sorta leans into why we don’t give tours around the factory or talk much about it, it’d bore the tears out of anypony listening to us drone on about how everything works. Only reason Pegasi still works there is because the pay is really good and the job’s the easiest to do, and the hardest to get hired there.”

“A hard bargain, we’d imagine.” Rising quipped, which caused both Celestia and High to giggle.

High turned to lead the two Alicorns plus Guards over to a nearby basin of swirling rainbows, “As you’ve seen with everypony working around, we let the rainbows go through several mixing basins while we skim out lumps and the occasional odd object that end up getting into the rainbows.” She gave a small grimace as she added, “You’ve no idea how often we find animals or belongings that fell down into the well. Despite our efforts and projects, birds seem to just keep getting themselves stuck in the well or fished out of the basins.”

It was there that Rising had a question, “How often do you clean out these basins? We’d imagine there’s unwanted sediments, objects and particles that end up collecting down at the bottom.”

High seemed to appreciate the question as she answered happily, “Most of the time we start draining and cleaning out the gunk every week. With the well itself, we do it every start of winter since that’s when rainbows aren’t needed to be produced as much and we can shut the factory off. The well’s deep enough to stay “clean” every year, but the basins aren’t as lucky and we often have to switch them around.” She pointed over to a nearby rack of the fish-net spoons, “As for everything else, we use these to fish 'em out.”

Rising seemed satisfied with the answer before commenting, “We heard one warning from a previous tour about “not tasting the rainbows”.”

“You mean Rainbow Dash and that group of trouble?” High asked before giving a chuckle, “Well, what happened here before that one butterfly-winged unicorn distracted everypony was the pink Earth Pony deciding to taste some of the rainbow here, dipping a hoof and giving a good lick of it.” The mare gave a huff of disappointment, “Had to clean up that pool, mostly because we figured she didn’t keep her hooves clean. Anyway, it’s a good thing she only took a lick because the rainbows aren’t exactly edible for us Ponies, and it’s a bit addictive despite its spiciness.”

Celestia’s ears started to fall as she watched Rising’s eyes start to get cold again as he asked, “Is there a drug epidemic with the rainbows?”

“Surprisingly enough Prince Rising, no there hasn’t.” High paused to look at the stallion, “And that’s because of the heat of a rainbow’s spice that prevents any abuse in the first place. The real deal-breaker when it comes to “Tasting the Rainbow” as the term spreads, is that the rainbow doesn’t stay the same level of heat every time it’s tasted. There’s been a few hospital cases where mares or stallions that decided to try their luck ended up with debilitating nausea and internal body irritation. So normally “Tasting” just ends up as an occasional dare instead of becoming like a drug.” She shrugged, “Docs can’t even figure out how to use rainbows for medicine, as there’s a lot of other things that do the job better and cheaper.”

This seemed to please Rising, making Celestia’s ears rise back up as High continued the tour, going on about how rainbows were collected into sterilized metal containers before being flown out towards distant cities like Las Pegasus and Vanhoover.

“What of the rainbows we’ve seen act as railings or fences for some of the houses here?” Rising asked, having remembered the sight.

“Those aren’t actually rainbows.” High Stream replied, “They’re made of a combination of Unicorn magic and glass. They look like rainbows mostly out of requests that Pegasi would want for their fences.”

After they had finished going through the rainbow factory, High Stream then led the two Alicorns through a quick tour into one of the nearby Cloud Factories, where it was responsible for creating thunderclouds.

Needless to say, High had to explain a lot of things that were happening outside the factory.

“Alright so this is where we make all our thunder and lightning.” High began, “They’re mostly created by Pegasi magic and take a lot of care and handling for good reason. Despite us being a bit more resilient to lightning than other Ponies, we prefer not getting zapped by any of them as much as we can. Normally, I would warn tourists to not touch anything but I believe it's not necessary for either of you, Your Highnesses.”

Rising gave an amused hum as the Pegasus continued, “As strange as it may sound, our thunder clouds are actually used for quite a lot of things and a reason why some cities or villages order them from us. For the most part, storms blow away seeds and pollen, on top of the really weakened or dead vegetation. While the rain washes out the rest of the pollen from the air and the ground, the lightning themselves are able to give a “jump start” of sorts to the soil. This goes towards the Earth Ponies who can use both the heat and pressure from the strikes to vitalize the soil more than if lightning were to hit somewhere else. Though some of the science-heads had started learning about a sort of “electrical balance” Equis has and how lightning maintains all that balance.”

High Stream gave a slight shake of her head, “I honestly don’t know much about what the eggheads talk about, but if that means “lightning good,” then I’m all for producing these thunder clouds.”

Celestia turned to look at Rising as they listened to High ramble on, wanting to see how he considered the tour so far as well as hearing about the production of Equestria’s weather.

And something told her that Rising knew more than what High Stream or the science teams had discovered, as he held an expression of interested amusement towards the Pegasus’ speech. It reminded Celestia a lot about how she treated some of the students in her School of Gifted Unicorns whenever they discovered something that she or the scientists of Canterlot had discovered and made meticulous notes of.

Rising’s irises quickly flashed with a swirl of color before he turned his head towards her and gave a questioning look.

She shook her head, deciding to ask him about what he knew later on.

From there, High Stream led them through the factory itself and let them enjoy the sights while handing them earmuffs to muffle out the sheer noise that would’ve left someone deaf for a week.

Occasionally she stopped the tour to point out at a few clouds as they were brought into a machine that cycled them around almost no differently than putting laundry through a tumbling dryer cycle before clouds were dispensed into a compressor that turned the fluffed and steaming clouds into darkened puffs before a team of Pegasi would carry the clouds up into a chamber where the clouds would stay and start rumbling before spitting out lightning and contributing thunder to the overall noise inside the factory.

Considering Rising’s expression of mute disappointment, it seemed to Celestia that this was not how he expected or considered how thunder clouds were made in Equestria. Or could be that there was some other element that he believed how thunder clouds were formed, if recalling how humanity didn’t have magic or weather controlling abilities.

The human-turned-stallion didn’t express much of his disappointment except to hide it behind a blank stare whenever High or any curious Pegasus turned to look at him as they were led out of the factory and brought up to the Snowflake Manufacturing.

As the two Alicorns were led up the stairs leading to the facility, Celestia leaned over to Rising and asked softly, keeping High Stream from hearing her, “Were you alright back in the factory? I noticed you weren’t impressed with their work.”

“We’re well enough, Celestia.” He replied in an equally low volume, “We just didn’t expect to see machinery be involved with cloud creation.”

The Princess gave him an inquisitive look as she asked, “You aren’t about to act fanatical and accuse it as “heresy” are you?”

Rising gave an immediate and loud snort that nearly caused him to break down in laughter, causing High Stream to give a start before looking back. He waved her off with a hoof as the stallion calmed himself down enough to reply, “Rest assured, Princess. We’re not about to demand an inquisition or scream about heretics and blasphemy any time soon.”

At the entrance to the manufacturing, High turned around to warn the two Alicorns, “Alright so, after a certain Unicorn with butterfly wings caused a bit of havoc in here, we’re starting a warning to tourists to keep themselves on the ground and not flap any wings at all, as the slightest breeze is enough to send a lot of snowflakes flying everywhere. We already saved enough snowflakes to prevent a drought, but we’d rather not take another risk like that. So Your Highnesses, I’m required to ask the both of you to not take flight while we’re inside. Also, please keep your voices down, it's a bit of a delicate operation in snowflake making.”

After getting a nod from both Prince and Princess, High Stream ushered them inside a nearly dead-silent room where Pegasi heavily clothed in winter coats stood over large magnifying glasses with the largest snowflakes that Rising had ever seen.

Oh sure, Rising had seen a few snowflakes that reached up to thirty centimeters. But those were rare occurrences, not numerous enough to see an entire manufacturing facility full of them!

High Stream gave a low whisper as she explained, “Snowflakes are hoof-made here and are left to solidify enough to have them travel off towards cities that are due for winter. After having gone through winter in Equestria, we store them away in properly cold temperatures to keep them intact.”

“Such high effort,” Rising commented to High, “for such short-lived flakes.”

High merely replied with a shrug, “It’s just how we work, and it's a pretty high-end profitable type of job, especially since our snowflakes are meant to bring water throughout Equestria outside of the usual rain clouds.”

“Might we see one snowflake? Perhaps one that’s unformed?” Rising asked, his irises swirling gently.

High gave a curious eyebrow at him before saying slowly, “I’ll see if we can afford to give one. If you could wait here for a moment.”

As the Pegasus silently trotted over to one of the workers, Celestia looked over and asked, “What are you up to, Rising?”

He gave her yet another mysterious smile, getting a grumpy look from the Princess as High came back with a rather broken snowflake in a bundle of cloth as she apologized, “I’m afraid we can’t give unformed snow, but the best we can give is one of the shattered snowflakes that’s still preserved. Though this and several other broken snowflakes would be thrown back outside to melt and refreeze them.”

Rising shook his head, “It’s quite alright, we believe this is more than enough for our own snowmaking.”

This one made High raise both her eyebrows and look at the Prince in confusion as she hoofed over the snowflake, “Prince Rising?”

He didn’t answer her but instead asked a question, “Is there perhaps a safe place to use our wings? We’d rather not interrupt everyone here.”

“R-right this way, Your Highness.” The mare answered as she brought the Alicorns to a relatively empty room, “This one is mostly empty for the night shifts, Prince Rising. But why—”

Rising again didn’t answer as he went to the center of the room and gently opened his wings before curling them around to the front and began flapping gently, pushing the broken snowflake pieces up off of the cloth.

From there he started to beat his wings a little harder, creating a small circular gust that brought the pieces up higher before he began breathing at the pieces, causing them to melt slightly before another gust of cold wind brought them up higher, freezing the snowflakes.

Both Celestia and High Stream watched as Rising began to repeat the process several times, giving a quick breath of warm air that buffeted the snowflakes before blowing them up higher and falling gently down towards him.

After about a minute, Rising stopped moving his wings and brought out the cloth to catch the snowflakes before hoofing them over to the mares, “It’s a bit more complex than what we’ve done, and we apologize if we’re boasting or trying to make these look better than what you make here, but these are snowflakes that we have been used to for years. They were all incredibly small as well.”

Boasting or not, Celestia couldn’t help but see the point of what Rising had said earlier. Some of the snowflake pieces had reformed themselves into shapes that the mare honestly didn’t expect snow to form into. One of them looked like an intact frozen column with caps at the end of it, while another flake had a triangular shape with the tips flattened, and one other seemed to have formed into a caltrop-like shape except more frozen points in every which direction.

High seemed particularly amazed by the shapes as she carefully brought them up to look at them and ask, “These ... . But how did you make them, Prince Rising?”

Rising answered with the attitude of simplicity, as if wondering why she would ask such a thing, “We merely melted the snowflakes before bringing them up and surrounded them by much colder temperatures and repeated the process until we felt like we were done.”

“B-but this! Th-that snowflake there!” High started to stutter, pointing with one hoof at the capped column snowflake.

Rising only shrugged, “We didn’t know that the snowflakes would’ve formed into any of these shapes. We simply repeated the process of melting and refreezing them.”

This left the Pegasus mare in stunned silence before she muttered, “I-I’ll get these over to some of the teams and... and get these sorted away... . C-could you wait here for a moment?”

She didn’t wait for either of the Alicorns to answer before racing off, snowflakes delicately kept on the cloth as the mare left the Prince and Princess alone.

Celestia turned to look at Rising and accused, “You made those on purpose that way, didn’t you?”

Rising shook his head, “No, we hadn’t.”

“To quote my sister, Rising: Thou liest.”

He stared at her with a raised eyebrow, “And we’ll reply with the same answer: No, we hadn’t. We don’t plan and micromanage everything, Princess.”

Celestia only shivered slightly from the cold, deciding to sulk over Rising’s denial and subtle jab at her as they waited. Thankfully, they didn’t need to wait for long as High Stream came back with company as a few coated Pegasi followed behind with wide eyes and a bundle of snow.

She could only give a mental groan, knowing full well that they were going to be in this freezer for quite a while with Rising entertaining the snowflake scientists.

«««✧✦✧»»»

Princess Celestia gave another sneeze that she tried to stifle as they finally left the manufacturing facility as Rising came close and had a wing over her back to help warm her up. She shuffled her shoulders to warm up her furred and heavily winter coat that covered her from neck to fetlocks.

It had been almost an hour since Rising had shown off what snowflakes looked like and could form into for High Stream and the other Pegasi when the cold started to get too much for the Princess. While she could handle freezing temperatures, staying in freezing temperatures wasn’t preferable.

When she first sneezed inside the below freezing room, High Stream’s face paled as she realized she had forgotten to grab winter coats for the two Alicorns while touring the manufacturing facility and had raced to fix her mistake.

This led to a long series of apologies with the Pegasus mare following them out and almost down to the carriage itself before both Princess Celestia and Prince Rising had finally gotten the message through that High was forgiven and that one or both of them should have alerted her about it. Instead, Celestia had been focused more on Rising’s reactions while Rising himself was more interested in the creation process. His demonstrations and creations of snowflakes in his own manner only worsened the lapse of judgment.

Celestia gave a shiver after the sneeze when they reached their ride home as Rising gave a chuckle as he commented, “Certainly been a day.”

The mare gave a weak smile and a nod at him, her teeth nearly chittering, “I-it h-has-s.”

Rising gave a look of curiosity at her as he asked, “For a Princess of the Sun, you certainly have a problem with cold temperatures, Princess.”

“I-it gives-s s-some warmth through me, yes. Just n-not enough to cm-combat winter or cold t-emperatures.” Celestia admitted as she let her body shake and jitter, making the fur coat generate heat through the friction.

The Royal Guards standing nearby the carriage gave a sharp salute before one of them opened the door and took to the air, preparing for the journey back to Canterlot.

Rising departed and retracted his wing, causing Celestia to give a silent and small frown of him leaving her as the stallion entered the carriage first.

The stallion Alicorn paused at the steps leading into the carriage and gave a nearly silent mutter, “Ah right.” He turned his head towards the still shivering Princess and asked, “Princess Celestia, you had asked us earlier how many wings we have?”

Celestia’s ears perked straight up as she realized what Rising was intending to do and gave him her fullest attention as she nodded eagerly.

Rising gave a wolfish grin as he warned her as he closed his physical wings and kept them pinned to his sides, “Don’t blink.”

Celestia’s own wings briefly shuffled as she eagerly watched Rising, hoping to catch whatever would happen.

A brief, but sudden and sharp rise in temperature blasted her as a gust of wind swept through Celestia, sweeping through the winter coat entirely and took away her chills entirely as she nearly blinked as heated air pushed against her eyes as something fire-like swept from Rising’s back and nearly covered the entire carriage. The Guards and one passing-by Pegasus flying above Rising gave various yells in surprise as their wings caught the warm drafts that pushed them further into the sky for several meters.

Celestia couldn’t describe what she witnessed. Not because there weren’t any words that could be used, eloquence wasn’t the problem ... . She couldn’t because of how quickly it all happened and how she could see the outlines of what clearly had to be his true wings. She couldn’t even study the shapes of each wing because of how quickly they flitted in and out of existence. What Rising had warned her was true enough, if Celestia had blinked in response to the heat and wind blowing at her face, she would have missed it all.

Rising gave her a smile before he stepped into the carriage, the non-metal walls of the vehicle having slightly melted and the gold glowing hot in the aftermath of that little show as Celestia stood there. Her eyes remained wide open and her mouth slightly agape as the mare desperately racked her mind, trying to replay and study the short memory of watching his wings reveal themselves and disappear in short order.

All that the Princess could recall and remember seeing as the memory started to fade, was that Rising had ten wings of fire on his back. Long enough to encompass the carriage.

‘Faust above, what have I brought into Equestria?’ Celestia asked as she slowly followed Rising, feeling the heat pass through her from the still glowing metal of the carriage and sat in front of Rising.

His smile hadn’t disappeared as he watched her enter and sit down, his eyes remaining pale green.

Author's Note

Ooof. Finally got this done and down! I apologize for taking so long!
And also with the fact I just smashed past my preferred goal of keeping it 10k words and under... Then again, the details are a bit needed.

Welp, in the meantime I'll have the next chapter worked on and started. This time I'll accelerate a little bit further and get to the Gala and introduce a certain bird.