The castle was a lot bigger than Coppertone expected. She had only seen it from the outside, and even then, “enormous” didn’t quite cut it.

Daunting. That was the word. This place was daunting.

After her fourth time getting turned around and having to ask somepony for directions, she followed a staircase up to yet another landing to find herself in a long hallway decked out in all sorts of fancy gold trimming. At the very least, it now felt like she was going the right way.

This place was a maze. If she made any more wrong turns, she’d end up wandering these halls for the next decade. The guards would find her withered corpse somewhere among the candelabras and oil paintings.

Copper smirked. Maybe that’s why they didn’t bother with all the security she had expected. Or maybe there was a minotaur on patrol. That’d be fitting enough.

About halfway down the hall, she spotted a guard standing at attention in front of a big set of golden doors. She breathed a sigh of relief now that she finally had another pony to ask for new directions to Princess Celestia’s room, but stopped when she recognized his armor from the Summer Sun Celebration.

Some sixth sense probably innate to all veteran guardsponies clicked, and he turned his head toward her. The action made her jump back instinctively, but the sudden, warm smile that swept across his face said he was a pony she could trust.

“Hey, I remember you,” he said in a deep voice. “You’re Sunset’s friend.”

Hearing Sunset’s name reaffirmed that trustworthiness and brought her own smile around. “Yeah. I-I’m here to see the princess.”

“Yeah, she said she was expecting you. Go on in.” He jerked his head at the door behind him, then returned his smile to that thousand-yard stare into the opposite wall.

Copper cocked her head. “Aren’t guards supposed to be all, like, rigid and stern and unmoving and stuff?”

He snapped a sidelong smile at Copper. “Technically, yeah, but outside the public eye, some of us like to act a little less mechanical. The princess prefers it that way, anyway.”

Huh. Okay then. Learn something new every day.

Copper cleared her throat and knocked on the large double doors. Not a moment later, a golden aura seeped through the cracks and enveloped both doors, drawing them inward to give Copper a glimpse of gold and velvet and all other manner of fineries the word “lavish” couldn’t rightly convey.

“Please, come in,” Princess Celestia said. She sat at a tea table in the middle of the room, beneath a chandelier sparkling in the noontime sun that flooded in from the open balcony.

It was hard for Copper to get moving again, not to mention pick her jaw up off the floor. “Wow. This room is beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Princess Celestia said. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” She gestured at the cushion across from her, which Copper accepted.

“Tea?” Princess Celestia raised a teapot from the table and a cup toward Copper.

“Uh, sure, thanks.” She scanned the little tray and its color-coordinated packets of tea bags. Sunset had once said she liked—or more accurately, hated least—chamomile, so she picked that one.

Princess Celestia hmmed. “That’s Sunset’s favorite as well.”

“I, I figured it’d be a safe choice.” She blushed and brushed her mane behind her ear. “I’m not really a tea drinker.”

“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to.” She set the teapot down.

“I’ll at least try it. I don’t want to be rude.” Copper took it in her magic and poured the cup herself. Hopefully that wasn’t overstepping any boundaries, though Mom probably would have drilled holes in the back of her head with her eyes had she been there to witness it.

Princess Celestia nodded. “In that case, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to finish it.”

She accepted the teapot back from Copper and poured her own before placing it on its saucer. “So how are you today, Coppertone? I hope everything is treating you well.”

“Very, I’d have to say. Nothing I can complain about.” Copper took a sip. Hmm, yeah, tea wasn’t her thing. At least it was pretty mild. She could be polite and get it down, at least. Probably the same reason Sunset always picked it. “What about you?”

“Me?” She put a hoof to her chest as if she actually hadn’t expected the question. Ponies must have assumed everything was perfect all the time or something. Or she was just really good at bluffing so that Copper could feel chuffed for asking. “Well, there’s this and that political argument that I have to arbitrate, or the opening of a new public building that needs my seal of approval, and the paperwork is endless, but I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Sounds busy.”

“That’s not even the half of it, but you aren’t here to listen to me. You wished to share some of your mischief with me?”

Copper laughed. Was Princess Celestia gossiping?

“Well, I mean, not to linger on it, but I wouldn’t mind listening to you talk about your day.”

Princess Celestia blinked. A warm smile spread across her face before she closed her eyes and sipped her tea.

“Thank you, Copper, but it really would be rude of me to bore you with all the details when I was the one who invited you here.” She straightened out the doily beneath the teapot. “I would much rather hear about you. I don’t get the opportunity to get to know many of my subjects.”

Skirting the question, huh? Probably didn’t want to share, or maybe couldn’t because of, like, national security reasons or something. But she seemed personable enough to at least try.

“Well,” Copper said. “The same could be said for you. How many ponies actually know you? Like, know you, know you. What’s your favorite food? Your favorite board game? What’s the coolest place you’ve ever been? What’s it like being able to raise the sun and moon?”

That got a laugh out of her. “Thank you, Coppertone. I needed that. It’s been a long time since anypony’s actually asked me questions like these.”

“All the more reason to answer them, right?” She shot Princess Celestia a grin.

She conceded with a small sigh. “Sunset wasn’t lying when she said you’re the wittiest pony she knows. Very well, my favorite food is pancakes.”

“Pancakes? Really? You don’t seem like a pancake kind of pony.”

“You never said what kind of favorite. Pancakes have a… sentimental value.” She smiled, and her eyes got that lost-in-thought glaze about them, staring out the balcony doors. She blinked, and the princess was back in the building.

“Alright then,” Copper said, putting on her trademark smirk. She took a quick sip of tea. It really wasn’t that bad. Maybe a little honey or something. “Your actual favorite food to eat, then.”

“Hmm…” Princess Celestia tapped her hoof on the tea table. The dense crystal made for a dull thud with each tap. “I think I’ll leave that one to your imagination.”

Wow, cheater. “Well fine, but then you have to at least tell me one silly secret of yours.”

Princess Celestia looked momentarily taken aback.

Copper flattened her ears back and felt a blush rise to her cheeks. “I, err… Sorry. I got a little carried away there.”

Her royal demeanor snapped back in place as a warm smile. “It’s quite alright. Cheerful banter is something I don’t get to experience often.”

Copper cleared her throat. Princess Celestia might have said it was alright, but maybe that was enough button-pushing and line-crossing for the moment. Mom’s threats of skinning her alive if she so much as suspected Copper of being rude to the princess bullied their way to the front of her mind, and that put any lingering thoughts of mischief to bed.

“So, uh,” Copper said. “What sort of Sunset shenanigans do you wanna hear about?”

A sip of tea, and Princess Celestia hmmed. She didn’t seem to mind the abrupt change in subject. The way her ears perked up, she actually seemed happier for it.

“Whatever you’re comfortable sharing,” she said. “And whatever you know she would be comfortable sharing. Goodness knows I’ve gotten into my fair share of trouble, and not all of it necessarily something I'd prefer everypony knowing.”

Whatever Sunset was comfortable sharing. So quite literally nothing. But more importantly: “You getting into trouble? I’d be a little scared to know what you consider trouble.”

Princess Celestia waved away the notion. “Oh, ponies always seem to assume dangerous or doomsday sorts of scenarios when I use that word. Surprisingly, my troubles are much less troublesome than what most ponies go through in a day.”

“You mean like making sure I don’t forget my dorm key in the morning?”

Princess Celestia chuckled. “Like making sure your assistant made you green tea in the morning instead of chamomile. If I drink anything but green tea before morning court, I’m asleep on my hooves by noon.”

Copper blinked. “Wow, that’s… yeah, I think you win the, uh, mundane award there? You can’t even have like a pick-me-up coffee or something to keep you going?”

“One would think, but I’ve simply never been able to bounce back from a midmorning drowsy spell. Which ponies would also find odd, considering I raise the sun every day.”

“Heh. Well, you’re right about that.”

A breeze chose that brief pause in conversation to blow in from the balcony, billowing the curtains inward. The sun reflected off the railing outside, and a whim came to Copper.

“You mind if I look?” She turned to Princess Celestia.

Princess Celestia extended a wing toward the balcony. “Please. It would be a shame of me not to share.”

Copper didn’t waste any time leaping off her cushion. She stepped through the curtains and had to shield her eyes to the sunlight, but holy hell was the view worth it.

The whole of Canterlot stretched out before her, from the University stadium to the Lingerlight District. She could literally see her house from here.

Distant towers and buildings reached for the midmorning sky like hooves toward the warm sun. Ponies scurried through the crack-sized streets like ants, their chariots and carriages comically small compared to her outstretched hoof.

Far below, the castle gardens sprawled out within the walls of the castle. The flowers smiled back at her in a rainbow of colors. When Copper breathed in, she swore she could smell them on the wind.

“Wow,” she said. It was all she could say.

Was this what pegasi got to see every day on a whim? Damn, she’d trade her horn for a pair of wings in a heartbeat.

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” Princess Celestia stepped up beside her and put a hoof on the railing. “I sometimes bring my nightstand out here to drink my tea in the evenings.”

“How do you even get anything done with a view like this?”

Princess Celestia laughed, holding a hoof to her peytral. “I sometimes wonder that myself.”

Copper looked to her right, where one of the university buildings boasted a large circular window of stained glass meant to resemble a phoenix rising from its ashes. Copper always thought it looked more like a chicken running around on fire, as dark as that sounded.

“Hey,” she said. “I recognize that stained glass. That’s Wizened Reed’s classroom.”

“That is the Conjurations wing of the university, yes. That’s where you take Arcanonaturamancology with Sunset, correct?”

Copper frowned and rolled her eyes. “Yeah…”

She hadn’t exactly “passed” that class. Sunset, on the other hoof, scored the highest of any pony in that course’s history. Not just aced it, but even got all the bonus questions.

“Can’t wait to take level two next semester…”

Princess Celestia hmmed again. “I’m glad to hear it. I love seeing the excitement of my little ponies whenever they talk about their studies.”

Copper stared at Princess Celestia like she had grown a second head.

Princess Celestia gave her a sidelong smile, her brow raised above her one visible eye. After a moment, she dipped her nose low and her smile turned roguish, and it was then that Copper laughed.

“I couldn’t tell if you were being serious or not,” Copper said.

Princess Celestia looked back out onto the city. “Just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean I have no sense of humor.”

“You learn something new every day.” Copper let her smile linger on Princess Celestia.

For as much as Copper had heard of Princess Celestia, none of it really amounted to the pony standing beside her. Sure, she was as tall and beautiful and graceful as the rumor mill claimed, but they never talked about the sweet sound of her voice or how casual she could be.

Maybe that was because everypony only ever met her in super formal situations. But this wasn’t a princess standing next to her. This was a normal pony talking about normal pony things.

She was pretty freakin’ chill. If she didn’t have the whole “regal princess” thing getting in the way, she could totally kick it with anypony Copper knew.

“So how do you really feel about this course next semester?” Princess Celestia asked. She turned that sidelong eye back toward Copper.

And back to the princessy mind game questions. It wasn’t hard to tell when Princess Celestia was fishing for information. Not like she really meant to, for sure, just… it kinda happened. Came with the territory. Still, Copper herself knew that territory well, and withholding something would stick out like a sore hoof.

Copper sighed and pulled her hooves from the railing. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s cool stuff, but I don’t really think I’m cut out for it.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, I bombed my final.” Copper snorted and shook her head. “The only thing that kept me from failing failing was one of the bonus questions at the end, and I only got that one right because of all of Sunset’s endless studying and hammering all the information into my brain. And even then it was still off a 50/50 guess between two of the answers. Sometimes, I think she assumes everypony else is just as good at this stuff as she is.”

“She is a good pony, and I’m sure just as good a friend.”

Copper shook her head. “Oh, no, she is. I didn’t mean anything like that. Just like, I’m just not as smart as her. I don't think anypony is. Er, except you, I mean.”

Princess Celestia chuckled and closed her eyes. “There is no need to worry. I actually do believe Sunset is more intelligent than me. It is wisdom and experience that defines the difference in what makes either of us ‘smart.’”

Copper’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you actually think she’s smarter than you?”

“Are you under the impression that I’m perfect and better than everypony else at everything?” She gave Copper an appraising glance down the side of her cheek. It was enough to get her heart pounding against her ribcage and that tingly feeling on the back of her neck. One wrong answer and it could be off to the dungeons with her for all she knew. She pictured Mom already sharpening that skinning knife.

“Well, I mean, uh, isn’t that why you’re the princess?”

Princess Celestia chuckled. “Nonsense, Coppertone. I would never claim to be the best at everything. I am good at many things, true, but that is only because I’ve had far more time in which to learn them. There is still much that I am far less capable of doing than many aspiring ponies will learn of their individual professions in their time.”

Huh. It wasn’t every day you heard somepony who was supposed to be perfect say they weren’t. That was wisdom of the highest degree. Which, realistically, made them the best pony to be in charge.

“But uh, yeah,” Copper said. She rubbed the side of her leg. “Anyway, it’s more just that, like, the only reason I’m still taking the course is because of Sunset.”

“Do you mean that as in she helped you maintain a passing grade, or as in you have no other reason to stay than because she is?”

Copper opened her mouth, but clamped it shut just as quick. Wow. Celestia really was good at reading ponies.

“Would you like to sit down again?” Celestia asked.

“I, I think that would help, yeah.”

They headed back inside for the tea table, and Copper took a compulsive sip to get her thoughts in order. Still warm, still pretty mild. It definitely needed that honey now, though.

“So yeah, like you said, I don’t really have any reason to stay in this course.”

Surprisingly, Celestia said nothing. She simply waited, like she wanted to hear more before giving her two bits.

Copper fidgeted her forehooves. “I stay in it for Sunset. ’Cause, you know, she’s my friend. And we get into all sorts of trouble and have fun in that class, because Professor Wizened Reed is such a great teacher and he gets us, since like, we still pay attention and stuff, you know?”

She shrugged and looked down at her teacup. “I mean, it’s never a plague of frogs or anything, but we have our fun.”

That got Celestia’s attention. She raised an eyebrow, and a tiny smirk danced onto her face. “I’ve heard mention of a Frog Spawn Spell gone awry in the Home Economics classroom earlier this year. I assume this is the same incident?”

Copper blanked. Oh. Oh, shit. Sunset hadn’t told her about that? The growing smile on Celestia’s face was all Copper needed to know she had slipped.

“It was an accident!” Copper said. “I know she didn’t mean to do it! You know her, always trying to learn new things. She’s just being her nerdy self.”

“Indeed I do.” Celestia nodded. “And ambition always has its hiccups. So long as nopony gets hurt and she cleaned up after herself.”

Yeah, about that. Sunset didn’t have the courage to look old Squeaky Clean, the head janitor, in the eye for a week. Still probably didn’t.

“Of course she did,” Copper said quickly, though she doubted Celestia believed it. “But yeah, I guess that’s one bit of mischief for you.” Copper shrugged and shook her head. “Really though, that’s about it as far as she’s concerned. The rest of it’s more just me being my normal piece-of-shit self, and I’m sure she’s complained plenty to you about that.”

Celestia tilted her head back and forth, a movement that struck Copper as very unprincess-like. “She has brought up some concerns of hers from time to time, but nothing worrying.”

Copper rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Princess, you don’t have to be coy about it like she always is. She thinks I fuck all the stallions, doesn’t she?”

Celestia blinked. She threw on that warm smile of hers that Copper never knew whether to be comforted by or afraid of.

“You certainly have a way with being very forward, Coppertone.”

Heat rushed to Copper’s face, and her hooves felt like noodles. That was really out of line for a chat with the princess, no matter how down-to-Equestria said princess might be. Copper shifted her weight uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry yourself, Copper.” Princess Celestia took a sip of tea. “Like I said before, I personally find it refreshing. You wouldn’t believe how stale some conversations with the nobility and other authority figures can be.”

Copper let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She blushed and took the opportunity to brush her mane out of her eyes.

“Do, however, take care in the presence of others,” Celestia said. “Some would take offense.”

“I’ll remember that, Your Highness.” A moment passed in silence, one Copper knew Princess Celestia would have otherwise filled with some new conversation starter—her equivalent to a slap on the wrist, if anything.

“But to your question,” Princess Celestia said finally, “she has… obliquely mentioned such things, but never outright complained. Though, she has expressed annoyance at your… we’ll use the word ‘gusto,’ when poking fun at her with it.”

Copper flattened back her ears. Those were carefully picked words if she had ever heard any. That probably meant Sunset bitched about her all the time.

“Do you mind me asking?” Celestia said.

“Asking what?”

“Why you poke such fun at her?”

Copper shrugged. “I… I don’t know. It’s just, like, sex jokes are easy to make. All the colts I knew growing up were always trying to get with me. I mean, that’s just sort of a thing you get used to and learn how to shrug off by throwing it back in their faces, and it all just kinda becomes part of your vocabulary and stuff.”

She traced her hoof along the little etchings around the rim of her teacup. They looked like vines growing on a lattice.

“You end up internalizing it,” Copper continued. “It sorta becomes you, and you don’t really know how else to act. And it’s also just… the way Sunset reacts to it. It’s funny, yeah, but…” She looked up at Celestia, to give her a chance to say something.

When nothing followed, Copper looked back down at her tea and continued. “I’ve seen how she acts around others. It’s kinda sad, how shut-in she is. I’ve never met a pony as uptight as her, either. And all this is me trying to help her. Just, make her more comfortable with that sort of thing, so that, like, other things end up not being so bad by comparison, and”—she let out a weak laugh and shook her head—“that excuse sounds even shittier out loud.”

Princess Celestia’s smile momentarily grew a hair, but she said nothing.

Copper pinned her ears back and rolled her hooves face up on the table. She stared at them, wishing for some sort of revelation to reveal itself, something to make all the wrong things in her head seem right, if only just a little.

“But I just… It’s the only way I know how to talk to other ponies. Just fake flirting and smartassery and sarcasm. Sometimes she hates it. Sometimes she groans and rolls her eyes and asks me…” She swallowed, and a shiver ran down her spine. “She asks me why we’re even friends…

“But sometimes, I actually get a smile out of her.” Copper’s heart beat faster at the thought, and a smile found its way to her lips. “And she laughs. Like really laughs. Full-on snortfest. And she'll shoulder bump me and call me something stupid back, and it just makes it all worth it.”

She let her smile linger a moment longer, but wrenched it away before it could overstay its welcome. This was wrong. Every bit of it. Mom had raised her better than this.

Celestia still said nothing. Though, her smile turned to a concerned frown.

The silence grew thick and made it all the more difficult for Copper to get her words out. “But… i-it’s more than that.”

Copper nodded slowly, her eyes trailing the etchings in her teacup around and around. “I know she complains about how I flirt with stallions and act like I get with them all the time. But the thing is… I don’t. I never have.”

Her voice fell to a near whisper. Her eyes trailed down to her hooves bunched up on the table. The tiniest of laughs escaped her, and a lump settled square in her throat. She shook her head.

Pathetic. Mom would be ashamed.

“You can already tell, can’t you…?” she asked, on the verge of tears.

Celestia never once looked away. Her eyes had a gentle insistence about them, a wordless statement that she was there to listen no matter what Copper might say.

“I have learned in my time that assumptions can be wrong,” Celestia said. “And that jumping to conclusions can come at a terrible price. I have my thoughts, Copper, but I will never assume to know what it is you are thinking, nor will I think any less of you for whatever it might be.”

Copper tried swallowing the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge. Her breaths came ragged and shallow, and her heart beat louder than any bassline the Canterlot nightlife could muster.

The little voice in her head screamed at her to stop, to shut the fuck up and smile for the world like she always did, like she was supposed to. Because she was good at it, and continuing this conversation would only make things worse.

She brought her eyes up to Celestia and her gentle, patient smile, like the one Mom always wore. And that made it all the worse.

It shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t be like this. She was wrong—a wrong and broken pony that didn’t deserve the slivers of happiness life gave her.

She wanted to run home, to hide under her covers and bawl her eyes out until she fell asleep. It was normal. It was safe. She still had Lily and Whistle. They knew. They understood. That was enough.

But the longer she kept telling herself that, the more that lie etched itself upon her heart.

She couldn’t confide in them forever. She needed this leap of faith, to hear from somepony else the words she so desperately sought.

And so Copper took that leap of faith. She sucked in a deep, trembling breath to gather her courage, and she looked Princess Celestia in the eye.

“I’m in love with Sunset,” she choked out. “And I don’t know what to do…”

Author's Note

Onward and upward, Copper. Onward and upward.

This story has undergone changes. Some comments may no longer make sense or be relevant.