Her bobbed pink mane swished softly in the beams of sunlight. Summer air poured through the window far above her tiny white body, where even her young wings could not take her. She was barely old enough to flap them in mock-flight, but she still fluttered them in agitation.
Celestia's magenta eyes looked down at her drawing. It was a completely nonsensical and incomprehensible array of lines. Everything she made was drawn in clumsy thick crayons that had to be held by her toddler hooves. This was because her magic only came in small spurts, all of which were too weak to accomplish anything. She had been assured that this was normal — as though anything could be 'normal' for a born-goddess — now that her magic was past the surging stage. Celestia, admittedly, had not remembered much of what that had been like. Every time her parents discussed it, they would share a look. She would watch as their eyes gleamed as knowingly as their horns with everything she could not piece together. Sometimes, there would even be a peculiar way that their wings were ruffled and flattering when they discussed the time. No matter what, laughs would always follow, and little Celestia would find a way to laugh along with them — even if it was about something she could not remember.
Maybe it was a castle that she was drawing — she usually did not think before pressing her crayons to parchment and chalk to castle walkways. Most of the time, she just wanted to see all the ways pretty colors could look, and where they might take her. She never liked to work on a drawing for more than one sitting. Otherwise, her head would be dizzy with all the things she had to do to finish it — things she did not want — and she would no longer have fun. Once a drawing became serious and as big-effort as the castle paintings, it was immediately very boring. But as Celestia squinted at the paper in front of her, she saw that there were undoubtedly a lot of grays in one large slab shape. That might have been a foalish interpretation of her home in the wonderful Everfree Forest.
Her parents had told her that the forest was so big and magical — and even dangerous — that she could not yet see all of it. Celestia did not even know where her forest home ended, just that once it did, that was where all the mortal creatures her parents ruled lived, frolicking about as the subjects of the Alicorn Empire. The little filly had barely seen the gardens themselves so far. Of course, this might be because she had a habit of losing her shiny mane clips and crying when her mother and father could not find them. After that, she would only be allowed out with parental supervision — which at least gave her somepony than her stuffed creatures to talk to.
It was absolutely, positively not her fault that she only liked to play in the flower beds instead of making the climb the big, scary trees that her perfect picture could not have. The pretty flowers and windows taller than her parents stacked on top of each other would make her drawing perfect. She could not draw all their colors — and she was not even sure if there were crayons for all of them — but Celestia would give her best effort. The needle-like spires stretching high into the sky and carved with all the animals she had yet to meet — ponies, griffins, and more — would never be able to be captured by her crayons. Instead, Celestia had to be content with knobs and whorls of gray to represent everything from flutter ponies to the stonebacks her parents had pointed out to her.
She had colored what was definitely a sky in perfect pink, if only because it was one of her favorite colors. The liberal use of that particular color to replicate her favorite hour — the bright, sweet dawn — clearly demonstrated all the love she could contain in the picture. Sometimes, she would ask her parents to wake her up early just so she could watch them tilt the planet until it spun into morning. There was nothing that gave Celestia a case of the grumps like having to wake up early — it was the ickiest thing in the world, and only made her feel ickier! Seeing the sky turn the same color as her pale, rosy-pink mane made her grin until the sides of her face hurt. She spent so much time trying to act like a big Alicorn that her parents would smile over the smile she was not.
In front of the maybe-castle on surprisingly neat-looking grass, three shapes half-stood and half-floated on the ground. Celestia was never going to grow up with the ability to draw more than a basic oval-petaled flower unless she practiced — that was what her mother had told her. Practice was just too icky a word, and drawing was too silly to spend hours on. Clearly, her mother did not understand that oval-petaled flowers are easy to draw — which was very, very good — and even easier to put smiles on. At least Celestia had put her heart into scratching out three Alicorn shapes with her crayons. She had done so with such care that she had to hold them in her mouth, which made her tongue taste funny afterward. Celestia could only do this when nopony was watching, since her mother and father would take them out and give her a lecture about learning magic mumbo-jumbo that sent all her thoughts flying. She knew she was too young to have the big magic lessons her cousins tittered about, but Celestia already did not like them — and they certainly sounded too boring, anyway.
Sure, she accidentally gave her father, High King Noctus — a god who was loved and feared — five legs instead of four, but she tried with all her heart. And she may have drawn her own mane far too long — she wanted to grow it out, her mother did not! — but her circle-and-stick picture self at least looked like equine instead of eldritch. Lumina, prophetess, and god-queen of the realm had never looked more ugly than in her daughter's drawings. Her tall legs were sky-scraping stilts, though she was shorter than her husband. Her slender frame was completely marred and instead replaced with a large sphere for her body and head. A crude face, horn, wings, mane, and mark adorned it and her swishing tail made burnt broom bristles look lovely in terms of texture. The many sparkles that ran throughout her parents' manes and tails were stuck throughout them randomly, and as big as bushwoolies gorged on gumdrops.
Celestia thought the version of her mother that she had so proudly put onto paper was very nice. Her mother was with foal, but Celestia didn't really know what that meant except that her mother kept growing bigger and bigger. She didn't see any other foals; all her cousins were older than her. That new brother or sister that she was promised hadn't appeared at all, and Celestia was starting to wonder if her mother had accidentally eaten them along with all the extras she had at meal-times. This was a very valid theory — Celestia knew that a younger sibling would naturally have to be smaller. Since Celestia's mother and father gushed over how small she was, a little sibling could only be littler — perhaps even little enough to accidentally gobble.
Perhaps it was in revenge that Celestia decided to draw her mother like she were a blimp.
Yet the world wouldn't know what evil schemes ran through her head as she grinned widely, admiring her work.
Why?
Because at that moment something landed on the paper that Celestia's feeble magic aura held.
"MOMMY! DADDY!" Celestia shrieked. She dropped the portrait of her family, eyes wide as though she had seen the end of all things. "SPIDER! SPIDER! SPIDER! SPIDER!"
Author's Note
This version will be available in print eventually. It was sitting around unpublished for so many months now that I figured it was better to put it out eventually instead of waiting for a special occasion that may not present itself.
