After traveling through the Crystal Empire to get to where the other naga were, Sisstet came to several conclusions. The most important of these was that Crystal Empire's roads were much too hard and there wasn't enough dirt and grass. The next most important conclusion was that everything was too shiny. It was so shiny that it hurt his eyes to look around. The third most important conclusion was it was too big, and it wore him out trying to keep up with Silver Spoon as they went through the city.

Silver Spoon eventually took notice of his discomfort and let him onto her back. He was a little embarrassed because he was trying to do better at slithering along on his own, especially if he didn't have itchy ouchy dead skin to worry about. Staying on her back was probably a good idea. Ponies kept staring at him. None of them screamed or anything like that, but they backed away when he got close and conversations hushed up when they saw him. The naga in this city must not get out much, otherwise ponies wouldn't stare so much at him.

They eventually reached the palace at the center of the city. It was like a big tower standing on four legs, and it had a big open area underneath it. Castles and palaces must have strange designs as a rule. The castle back at Ponyville was a big tree, and this was like a big needle standing on four legs. They had to look weird and they had to be very tall. That had to be how creatures would know they were important. He wondered if this place was bigger on the inside just like the tree castle in Ponyville..

An unfamiliar pink alicorn was standing underneath the big needle castle. That had to be Princess Flurry Heart's mom. She was really tall and had a flowing mane like Princess Twilight. She didn't look that much like Flurry Heart...maybe the mane, sorta…it was hard to tell with it doing that weird blowing thing. Hopefully she wasn't as loud as Flurry Heart.

As they got close, the alicorn princess spread her wings in greeting. "Welcome, Silver Spoon and…forgive me…I was given two different names for our little naga friend, and I'm unsure which is the correct one."

Silver Spoon groaned for some reason before replying. "I'm guessing my parents stuck their noses in. Please, call him Sisstet. Sisstet, say hello to Princess Cadance."

"Hello," he said, peaking his head around Silver Spoon's head.

Princess Cadance smiled at him. "It is good to meet you, Sisstet. I'm sure all the clutch will be even more excited to meet you."

Sisstet didn't know what to say, and he pulled his head back behind Silver Spoon's.

"He can be a little shy," Silver Spoon quickly explained.

"That is perfectly alright. We have at least one in the naga clutch who is on the shy side," Cadance replied, still seeming friendly. "I do need to warn you, there are several of them that are anything but shy. Try not to let them overwhelm you. They're friendly, just very enthusiastic. There may also be a few that are nervous. They've developed some ideas about kingsnakes and need to see that you're just like them…not a giant snake that's going to eat them."

"I would never eat anycreature!" Sisstet protested.

"Except fish," Silver Spoon corrected.

"Well...that doesssn't count," Sisstet replied in a quieter voice.

Cadance's smile slipped. "The clutch also eats a good deal of fish. I admit, I've tried to sit down and have a meal with them, and I've done my very best to eat fish, but…it hasn't gone well. They say it is alright that I can't seem to manage more than a bite or two, but I worry sometimes that it hurts their feelings. My daughter has no problem chowing down on any manner of thing. If only I had her disposition when it came to food." She gave her guards a look. "I also envy her not being treated like she is made out of glass. Nopony thinks she needs a battalion of guards to defend her."

"Only a battalion of guards to ensure she doesn't demolish any buildings, majesty," the guard captain quipped with a smile. The princess gave him a dirty look, and he immediately stopped smiling. "Well…there's no denying she is somewhat destructive, your majesty."

Cadance sighed. "She'll do better."

"Of course, your majesty," the guard replied. He didn't sound so sure.

The princess grunted and looked at Sisstet, putting on a smile. "Anyway, it's time to bring you to the Crystal Clutch. If you would follow me. We won't be needing the guards for this. Their presence would only serve to make everycreature nervous."

Sisstet felt a little better about them not coming along. All those guards standing around with weapons were kinda scary. Ponies sometimes got really angry and scared around him because he was a naga. They'd yell or scream or make threats. He didn't want to be around a bunch of ponies with weapons if they got angry or scared.

The princess gestured with a wing for them to follow her, and Silver Spoon started walking quickly to catch up, making Sisstet grip her tighter with his coils. She made a grunt when he did and he immediately relaxed his grip a little, afraid he might have hurt her, but she didn't say anything about it. He hoped he didn't hurt her. He still felt very bad for the time he bit her. He didn't think he could squeeze her enough to hurt her bad, earth ponies were real strong, but he didn't want to hurt her at all.

They walked to one of the legs of the big needle castle where there was a door. The princess used her magic to open it, revealing stairs that went down. He flicked his tongue, tasting the air, but couldn't taste anything different than he could before. That was weird. Back at his old home he could taste the dirt and the roots that were underground even when he was outside the burrow, but he didn't taste anything like that from these stairs even though they went underground. The air tasted the same as up above…like he was sucking on a piece of quartz.

"Watch your step," the princess cautioned. "The stairway isn't very steep, but it does go down a fair way, so a tumble would undoubtedly lead to injury. The lighting is a little dim as well."

"I'll be careful," Silver Spoon assured the princess. The princess nodded and started down the stairs and Silver Spoon followed.

Sisstet looked at everything as they went down the curving stairwell. The walls were flat and smooth, all made of blue crystal, and the stairs were all blue crystal as well, each wide enough that he could lay across one without hanging off. There were some other crystals in the walls that gave off a little bit of white light, but it wasn't super bright, just bright enough for ponies to see. The stairs kept going for a long time, and he started counting each step they went down. He hadn't started right away, so he was unsure how many steps they'd gone down when they finally reached the bottom, which had a pair of big pink doors.

The princess did three knocks in an odd beat on the doors before she lit her horn and opened them. Sisstet blinked because the light on the inside was brighter than in the staircase—not as bright as outdoors, but still bright.

"It's the princess's mommy!"

"D-d-did she bring the k-k-kingsnake with her?"

“I don’t see him.”

“It could be a her!”

“They said it was a him!”

"Ow! Stop pushing!"

"I didn't push! You just got in the way!"

"Foals! Please settle down!"

"Is the kingsnake here? I wanna see the kingsnake!"

"Foals!" the princess called out. "Please, settle down. Sisstet is here, but he's a little shy. You are going to overwhelm him with all your energy."

"Hear that Sentie? You need to back off!"

"You're the one who needs to back off. I wasn't doing nothing."

"O-o-h no! The kingsnake is here!"

"Hey! Don't hide! Scaredy-scale!"

"I'm not a scaredy-scale! I-I just feel safer over here."

"I wanna see the kingsnake!"

"Can you please settle down? Sheffe, stay out of the cupboards. We discussed this. They aren't hiding spots.”

"Well, they certainly sound like a rambunctious group of foals," Silver Spoon remarked.

"Forgive them. They don't get a lot of interactions with ponies outside their appointed caregivers, and the only other naga they see are the few adults that guard over them," Princess Cadance explained.

Sisstet shivered. There were grown-up naga here? His guardians had always been kinda scary. When his female guardian had her egg she had gotten very scary, threatening to bite any creature that got near it, even him or the male guardian. He didn't want to get bit.

"Where's the kingsnake? I think I taste another naga out there, but it tastes normal, except maybe a little dusty."

Dusty? Did he taste dusty? He flicked his tongue, but he couldn't tell. It was hard to taste himself. He tried tasting for them, but it was a mix of tastes. They tasted vaguely like his guardians, but not quite, and it was hard to pick out how many of them there were because it all blended and combined with all the crystal taste from the building. They were probably used to it, so they could pick out what was different, but he couldn't.

"I'll let Sisstet in once you all coil up and quiet down," Princess Cadance said. "He's shy, like Sheffe, and more than a little nervous. I want you each to be still so each of you can be introduced to him in turn…and that means coming out of your hiding spot, Sheffe. He isn't going to eat you."

"B-b-but kingsnakes eat other naga when they get mad!"

"I'm an honorary kingsnake, and I have never eaten any naga," Princess Cadance reminded the naga.

"That doesn't count. You don't even eat yummy fishies," a different naga replied.

"Well, Sisstet isn't any bigger than any of you, so he'd have a hard time dining on you if he were angry," Princess Cadance assured them. "Stella, what are you hiding under that blanket for? You normally aren't so timid."

"He can see colors."

"Yes, he can. That doesn't explain why you are under a blanket," Princess Cadance replied.

"He might think I'm ugly. None of us can see colors, so we can't tell. I don't want to find out I'm ugly."

The princess sighed. "You aren't ugly. You have very pretty scales. Please, come out from under the blanket."

"It doesn't count if you say it. You're a pony, not a naga."

"Sweet harmony," the princess sighed. "I promise you he won't think you are ugly, but he will think you are too scared to be his friend if you keep hiding."

"Stop hiding so the kingsnake can come in! I wanna see the kingsnake!"

"We know!" two or three of the others said in chorus.

Princess Cadance stood silent for a few seconds, watching, before she spoke again. "Good, Stella. Thank you for coming out from under the blanket so we can all see your pretty scales. Sheffe, please, come all the way out of the cupboard. If you don't, I'm going to teleport you out and seal the cupboard so you can't slither back in. I don't want to embarrass you like that."

"Stop being a scaredy-scale, Sheffe!"

"And, Sentie, please be a little nicer. You are sounding like a bully, and that will make Sheffe and Sisstet nervous. Do you really want to make a kingsnake feel nervous?" Princess Cadance asked.

"You said he wasn't any bigger than us. He can't be dangerous."

"He isn't any bigger than you right now, but he will get bigger, eventually. First impressions can sometimes last a lifetime. Do you want a giant kingsnake to have a negative view of you instead of thinking of you as a friend?" Princess Cadance asked. "Believe me, I've had a full-grown kingsnake stare at me contemptuously. It isn't the most comfortable feeling, even though I knew it wouldn't eat me. Something two stories tall with a mouth that can devour a pony whole can be intimidating even for an alicorn."

"No...that doesn't sound like a good thing. I'll be good."

Sisstet couldn't imagine wanting to eat a pony or another naga. He also couldn't imagine being two stories tall. He'd been told he could get that big, but he still couldn't imagine it. Where would he sleep? He wouldn’t even fit in Silver Spoon’s parents’ house if he were that big.

"Should you really be saying things like that to them?" Silver Spoon asked with concern. "I don't think it is a good idea to give them the idea Sisstet might later retaliate."

The princess glanced back. "As a teacher, you understand I have to speak to what works with each of them. Sentie understands things from the perspective of who has the power. It's how he understands things. There always has to be a hierarchy, and he has to know where he fits in the hierarchy. That requires being a little harsh sometimes. Something you may not understand with naga is that every common naga is born with a certain amount of predisposition towards some job in their clutch. While I hope we can make it so they don't have to define themselves by that predisposition, I do have to understand it is there and deal with it. Sentie is an enforcer type. You may not understand the full implications of that, but I do. I would disrespect Sentie if I treated him only as an enforcer type, but I also disrespect him if I don't treat him with the knowledge of what type he is."

Was he like that, too? Did he have a type, other than just being a kingsnake? What type would he be? What types were there? He thought about his old guardians, and he wondered what types they were. His old female guardian might have been that enforcer type, because she was extra scary.

"Where's the princess?" the one he figured was Sheffe asked nervously. "She can protect us."

"You don't need protecting right now, but I'm a princess and I can protect you," Princess Cadance assured him.

"Yeah, but you're like the pretty princess and Miss Flurry Heart is like the knight princess," Sheffe countered.

Princess Cadance sighed again. "I assure you, I'm more than capable of dealing with this—not that there is any danger. However, Flurry Heart will be along later. No, you can't hide until she gets here."

Sheffe whined.

"Alright, well, how about we work our way to you coming out. We'll let the others start, and you can then see that everything is safe. How about that?" Princess Cadance asked.

"Okay..."

"Can we see the kingsnake now?!"

"Yes," Princess Cadance replied. She then stepped aside.

Silver Spoon turned her head to look back at him. “I think you should go forward on your own. Don’t worry; I’ll be right behind you.”

“Alright,” he replied nervously.

She bent down and he reluctantly released his grip on her and slithered down to the floor. He took another taste of the air, but still couldn’t tell much more than there were naga beyond the door. He could make out Silver Spoon’s taste, but couldn’t really separate the princess’s from all the rest. He took a deep breath and slithered through the door. It was time to finally meet naga his own age. He hoped they liked him.

Author's Note

Should have the next chapter ready late tomorrow.