The Foundling

Chapters

Before the fetch quest, two best sisters have a filly and a hamster over for tea
Immortal alicorns cannot die of embarrassment
Just before the sun sets, the moon must rise
Feelin' blue

Before the fetch quest, two best sisters have a filly and a hamster over for tea

Sisterhood meant a certain inescapable togetherness, for better or worse. For Luna, this often slid towards the worse end of the spectrum, though not always. There were moments when things were utterly fantastic, when everything was moonbows and roses. This particular moment was not a high point, but neither was it a low point. It was just a moment, and a rather sleepy one because she was up far too early, at the unalicornly hour of three of the clock in the afternoon.

Of course, being awake at this dreadful hour posed certain risks, such as being abducted by one's sister, getting dragged away against one's will, and held captive in an overbearingly pleasant room with far too many windows. The sunlight? Absolutely wretched. The room? An abomination and an assault upon good taste. It was the small parlour adjoined to Celestia's office as Headmistress. Everything about the room was designed with foals in mind, and not adults, with foal-friendly colours that assaulted the eyes. The furniture? All of it foal-sized, which of course meant enduring severe discomfort if one happened to be an alicorn.

Celestia of course, was fine with it, and somehow made it work.

Luna, on the other hoof, was not blessed with good fortune.

The tea service was criminal assault upon Luna's refined sensibilities. She hated the teapot in particular, which was a swan with a swoopy long neck and an open beak. Pouring the tea made the swan vomit hot brown liquid into the teacup—which was somehow made worse by the fact that the teacups were all little cygnets. Horrible, wretched things, with big bulging eyes and vapid, doltish expressions, whose heads doubled as handles. Celestia loved them because she was the fun sister, adored and venerated by all, and worshipped by her students.

Of course, the unspoken truth of the matter was that Celestia was a silly pony.

There were other tea services, some of which were no doubt student favourites. Like the toilet tea service, where the teacups were all little toilets. Luna's dignity suffered grievous injury when she drank from the toilet, and insult had been added when Celestia served brownies with tea. Even worse, the brownies were festooned with bits of candy corn, and Celestia thought herself the cleverest mare in all the land. Of course the foals loved it; how could they not? Celestia wasn't being clever, not at all, not even in the slightest. She was merely appealing to the base natures of her students.

What irked Luna more than anything else—what really tweaked her nose and honked her goose—was that she, not Celestia, was the former bearer of the Element of Laughter. Luna knew that she should be the fun sister, but no. She was the grumpy sister with the imbalanced humours. For that matter, modern medicine—which was questionable at best—now claimed that humours didn't exist. If that were true, then why did Luna's own humours suffer such an imbalance? Why did her moods fluctuate? Because of her humours, duh. It was painfully obvious to anypony that had even a basic understanding of how the equine body functioned.

"Twilight Sparkle grows ever more powerful," Celestia said with good cheer. But while her words were good-natured, there was something about her eyes that betrayed her. "She has thwarted both the changeling invasion of Canterlot and defeated King Sombra upon his return. My student has exceeded all of my expectations. Truly, it can be said that she is the embodiment of magic, and with her mastery of magic, she has become a powerful agent of harmony."

Luna, not fully awake, pondered these words. There was much to say, but that required her being a bit more alert. Her thoughts came in fragments, little pieces, like an urn now shattered. While some might hear Celestia's words and think that she was boastful about her student, Luna heard something else entirely. What Luna heard was a warning, a cry suggesting that there was danger ahead.

"You've learned nothing, Sister. Nothing at all. All these years, and nothing—"

"What do you mean, Luna?" Still sunny, still cheerful, but that gleam in Celestia's eye intensified.

"Harmony is not on your side," Luna whispered, and she demanded that her mind wake up enough to deal with this conversation. "It is a set of scales and your own over-generous behind upsets them. Our existence upsets them. You and I both."

"Luna, not this again. Please, must you—"

"I must," Luna replied and she leaned in close over the tiny, low table. "Harmony this, and harmony that, and harmonious existence… phagh! Harmony must be balanced with chaos. Good is countered with evil. Creation is kept in check with destruction. You speak of harmony as this inspiring force for good… but when a plague sweeps through the land and hundreds of thousands… or even millions die… is this not harmony? Will you sing its praises then? This… this, dear sister of mine, is the balance which you champion. And for you to say that your precious student is to become an agent of harmony, it chills me to my very marrow."

"Luna, must you be so bleak?"

Yes, Luna replied within her own headspace. Because somepony had to focus upon the reality of the situation. But she wasn't awake enough to settle this properly, so she chose silence. Surely, at some point, Celestia had come to realise that for harmony to be truly restored to this world, she would have to depart from it. Luna herself had realised this long ago; in fact, it was one of the things that caused her to tumble into darkness. But now, she just tried not to think about it, and she resented all of her sister's discussion of harmony, which was just salt in the wound.

Luna knew the truth; she and her sister upset the scales far too much.

"I just want to be happy," Celestia said with just a hint of crossness intruding into her dulcet voice. "I want to celebrate and feel good about life. Must you be so dour, dearest Luna?"

"I am not yet awake," Luna replied, and then she felt a pang of self-loathing because she chose to mollify her sibling rather than prove her point. "Pay no attention to me."

"Have you thought about taking on more duties?" asked Celestia. "In the school, I mean. I don't mean to pressure you, truly I don't, but things are… still in a state of crisis. Not enough teachers. We have older students teaching the basics to the younger. Which is"—she interrupted herself with a smile—"a good thing, really. A great thing. So many students getting cutie marks for teaching. Harmony in action. Filling a pressing need. But… have you thought about what we discussed?"

Filling a need? Harmony in action. Indeed. And all it took for harmony to take action was most of the teachers in the school to go missing, never to be seen again. While many held out hope for them to be found alive, perhaps secreted away elsewhere, Luna knew the truth. They were, without a doubt, dead. The changelings had much to answer for, and if Luna were but allowed to do so, she would visit her wrath upon them.

But Celestia worried that such a thing might upset the delicate balance.

Celestia—once the bearer of the Element of Magic, and a champion of harmony—was creating alicorns as a hobby. She'd already made one, and had her eyes on the second. Somehow, this was fine. This was good. But for Luna to tug down an asteroid and drop it upon the changelings, that was bad. That… that would upset the balance. It infuriated Luna, but she dared not voice her concerns because doing so would cause another fight to break out.

And fighting was the worst.

As much as it pained her to admit it, she loved her sister, and hurting her was unthinkable.

Celestia was Life. She was also Death Incarnate. Luna, however, was everything that happened in between. To Luna, the tides had been given. All the power of the seas, the ebb and flow of the cycles of life itself. Storms. Wind. Where Celestia was creation, Luna was unbridled destruction. Light and darkness. They were made to balance one another—but Luna could not help but wonder, what existed as a counterweight to their existence? For that matter, if Celestia turned Twilight into an alicorn—which seemed to be Celestia's intentions—what terrible thing might come about to counter Twilight's elevated state of being? What horrible monstrosity might come slouching into the world to restore balance?

Surely, a collision would happen.

There had been collisions in the past. Luna had collided with her sister—which made Luna wonder if she had any say in the matter. What if harmony had pitted them against one another? Even worse, what if it did it again? What if, for the sake of harmony and balance, Luna was forced to fall yet again? Or if Celestia was to take a turn. What if destiny conspired to turn them against one another?

Deep down, in a hidden place that Luna dared not acknowledge, a part of her believed that the world would be better off without magic. Without harmony. No shackles of destiny to bind them. No incomprehensible forces conspiring against them. No more uncertainty of how harmony might keep balance, only the blessed uncertainty of the absolute unknown. It would be, at least, an uncertainty of her own choosing. Yet, Luna was a being of near-infinite magic. An agent of destiny. A creature born of harmony. This duality tugged upon her like tidal forces, and was no doubt one of the reasons why her humours were never balanced.

To have humours like the tides was surely a curse.

The tide of black bile washed over the bleached beach of Luna's soul and she felt a full moon of melancholy coming on. Eventually, the tide would go out and Luna's beach would be left bare yet again. What horrors lurked in her tidal pools, her secret places left moistened by the black tides. A terrible ecology that ebbed and flowed, waxed and waned, the unpleasant clockwork that ruled her biology.

Yet, for all of her hatred of it, she could not escape it; she was Luna, the Moon.

"You've barely touched your tea," Celestia remarked, and she encouraged Luna to do so with a gentle gesturing of her wing. "It's citrusy. It is what you like."

Thoughtful gestures like this always made Luna feel a little guilty. It was true; she loved citrusy tea. She was a mare who appreciated fruity flavours of the tropical variety. Celestia was always, always doing little things exactly like this to make Luna feel better. While it was appreciated—truly, it was—Luna always felt a little bad about it, because she had real trouble finding a way to return the favour.

"Did you know that Twilight collects teatime romance novels?" asked Luna.

"She does?" Genuinely perplexed by this, Celestia's ears fell backwards.

"Something to keep in mind the next time you invite her for tea."

"Luna… such incorrigible behaviour does not become you."

"Romance expressed entirely through tea," Luna said as her spirits rose considerably. "Love and affection scheduled for teatime. I find the whole thing quite endearing, actually."

"Do you, Luna?"

"I do. Sincerely. It is a wholesome affection. I see far too much lust and flesh-hungering in dreams. When I see it in the waking world, I must confess, sometimes I am quite disgusted by it. Observing the wholesome forms of romantic expression are… refreshing."

"So you like to watch the students canoodling?" asked Celestia.

"The younger ones, yes. Innocent affection is appealing."

"Well, I just learned something about you that I was completely unaware of. If our teatime achieves nothing else, this is a major accomplishment."

"You're not being sarcastic."

"Goodness no, Luna."

"So… do you also observe the affectionate exchanges of your students?" asked Luna.

"I do," replied Celestia. "I consider it a perk of the job. Hearts and Hooves Day might be the best day of the year, at least as far as school days go. Hearth's Warming Eve is pleasant enough, and there are all manner of celebratory days, but nothing quite fills me with hope like watching my students engage in the rituals of Hearts and Hooves Day. I get a lot of love letters and some of them are quite sweet."

Lifting up her teacup, Luna partook. She had thought about taking on a role as a teacher, but she was nervous about mentioning it to her sister. Luna was qualified to teach any number of things, and what the school really needed was instructors for magic. But Luna found the subject matter less than appealing. What she really wanted to teach were classes focused upon the home and hearth; what they called home-ec in the modern parlance. But she worried that there might be a discussion about not living up to her potential if she mentioned this to her sister.

Luna was pleased to be the Princess of Detention, but she longed to become the Princess of Home-Economics.

With the current shortage of teachers, expressing an interest in what was an optional elective might be frowned upon. Home-ec classes had been cancelled completely, which troubled Luna a great deal. That something of such importance was given such a low priority bothered her in ways she could not express or give voice to. It felt dangerous to neglect such things, yet it was one of the first things to go when the school tried to recover itself after the changeling invasion.

Just as Luna was about to say something, a guard burst in.

He cast an apologetic glance in Celestia's general direction and then said to Luna, "Your Highness, one of your students has an emergency and has requested access to you—"

"Bring them to me at once," Luna said before the guard could finish.

"As you command, Your Highness," the guard replied, and he backed out of the door.

Much to Luna's surprise, it was not Overcast, but Almanac Avocado. She seemed fretful, frightened, and out of sorts. Curiously, she carried not one, but two bookbags, and the second one seemed somewhat familiar, but Luna failed to recognise it. The chubby filly dropped both bags, pulled a small cardboard box out of her bag, opened the box, and pulled out a small fuzzy creature, which she held with great care.

Upon seeing the tiny critter, Celestia said, "Oh, how delightful, a pet!"

"You told the guard you had an emergency to show me your new pet?" asked Luna.

Almanac shuddered, shivered, and then put the creature down upon the table. The critter, as it turned out, was a hamster, a rather peculiar specimen, and something about it alarmed Luna—though she could not determine why. It was almost pink, or perhaps it might be better described as almost mauve. The hamster stood up, in the way that hamsters do, and it cast what could only be described as a death glare upon the fidgety filly.

"I've never seen a grumpy hamster before," Celestia remarked. "Nor have I ever seen one with this strange colouration. Did you dye it, Miss Avocado?"

"Uh…" Backing away from the table, Almanac shook her head from side to side.

Then, the hamster turned its icy soul-stabbing stare upon Luna.

"I don't like your hamster's impertinence," said Luna. "I fail to see how this is an emergency. If you waste my time, you will lose this precious privilege."

"Um…" Still shaking her head, Almanac sat down upon the floor, and while her mouth opened and closed, it seemed she had some trouble trying to speak.

"Miss Avocado, why are you so upset?" asked Celestia.

The filly gulped.

A sudden change came over Celestia and she went from being curious to commanding in the blink of an eye. Casting a fierce Headmistressly gaze upon the young filly, she said, "Almanac Avocado, what did you do?"

When the hamster blew a raspberry, Luna slowly began to realise that something was amiss.

"You answer me, Almanac Avocado! What did you do?"

"I think it's pretty obvious what I did," the bespectacled filly replied whilst she averted her eyes from Celestia's commanding stare. "I turned one of my besties into a hamster."

"Why would you do such a thing?" Celestia demanded.

"We were dueling—"

"Oh, not again!" cried Celestia. "I told you, that is forbidden! It's not safe! You could be hurt! Or be turned into a rodent!" She pointed at the hamster on the tea table to emphasise her point.

Waving both front paws around, the hamster squeaked in outrage.

"Look, if you can't trust one of your besties to duel with then what's the point of being besties?"

"What is this fixation with dueling? Why? Why would you do this to your friend? Didn't you learn anything the last time?"

"I learned how to cork a bloody nose—"

"That's not the lesson to be learned!" Shuddering, Celestia sucked in a deep breath, held it for several seconds, and then let it all out in a huff of exasperation. "Miss Avocado… I must ask… how did you learn about transmutation? That's not even available to a foal of your grade. Nevermind how you were even able to cast this spell, because I know better… but how did you learn it?"

"Uh—"

"Answer me!" Celestia commanded.

"Overcast broke into the restricted section and we borrowed a couple of advanced spellbooks and—"

"Those were ensorcelled," Celestia said, almost gasping. "You shouldn't even be able to read them."

"Well, you didn't do a very good job—"

"I was not the one who ensorcelled them!"

"Well, maybe you should have," Almanac said in her own defense. "You have nopony to blame but yourself. If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself."

Unable to stop herself, Luna chortled.

"Our school got taken over by bugs," Almanac said, explaining herself. "Really big bugs. Scary bugs. Bad bugs. And we don't feel safe. Until we're made to feel safe, then we're going to look after our own safety. One of my besties got cocooned in slime. That's never happening ever again."

"Oh, sweet merciful me!" gasped Celestia, who rolled her eyes and tossed her head from side to side. Reaching up with her right front hoof, she began to rub her temple.

"We are Luna's Legion, and we do not surrender. Not to bugs, and not to the likes of you, either."

"This is not a game, young lady." Then, turning her head, Celestia said to Luna, "You. You need to do something about this."

Saying nothing, Luna shrugged.

With her patience no doubt sorely tested, Celestia continued to rub her temple with her golden-shod hoof. Luna, who sensed opportunity, paid attention to everything going on. Several hundred years of experience was on display and Luna knew she would be a fool if she failed to learn something from this. Already, her sister was recovering herself, and Luna very much wanted to know how something such as this should be handled.

It would be informative and instructive to watch Celestia work.

All of this was rather funny, when one stopped to consider it. Celestia wanted ponies who weren't afraid of her. Little did Celestia know that Luna gave her four devotees dreams about Celestia looming large over them, and generally being, well, Celestia. Over time, with a bit of conditioning in the dreamspace, the four had come to see the big, bossy white alicorn as just another pony. The end result? Hilarious. Celestia had exactly what she wanted, only to find that she didn't much care for it.

While Celestia was selectively grooming ponies to become alicorns, Luna was busy creating Celestia-resistant ponies. There was a lot that could be said about how Celestia wanted other ponies to see her as an equal—and much could be said about her continued egalitarian efforts—the truth of the matter was that she still very much wanted little ponies to do what she said when she told them to do something. And yet, for all of her seeming frustration, Celestia seemed to be doing just fine. Impressive, really.

Fear, fear held little ponies back from their full potential—and sometimes it was a fear of Celestia.

While little Almanac Avocado was still afraid of almost anything and everything, she was getting better. Luna lovingly scared the little filly with carefully curated nightmares. The end result was a long way off, but Luna's telescopic farsightedness allowed her to catch a glimpse of what would be; a pony inoculated against the terror that would otherwise rule her life. Luna considered her actions a stroke of genius, but she dared not share what she had done with her sister—not until she had positive results.

Meanwhile, on the table, the hamster helped himself to a fried teacake slathered in icing.

"Miss Avocado… you need to stop concentrating so you may release your spell."

"I need to what what what?" she replied.

"Miss Avocado, please, pay attention. This is why ponies of your year and grade are not supposed to learn advanced spells, such as those found within the transmutation school. Right now, Overcast is still a hamster because you are continuing to concentrate upon holding your spell. So, relax your mind, let go, and he will change back."

"I'm not concentrating on anything," Almanac said in return.

"Well, dear, you have to be, because that is how the spell works."

"But… I'm telling you… I'm not holding anything. I'm not concentrating. The only thing I'm thinking about is a cup of tea with lots of sugar and one of those lemon slices."

"So that is your requested ransom to release Overcast. Very well, Legionnaire."

Biting her lip, Luna snickered, then dodged the daggers glanced her way by her sister.

"Miss Avocado… dear, I cannot help but notice"—clearing her throat, Celestia began to prepare a cup of tea for the filly who now scooted closer to the table—"that you seem to show some talent for both illusion and transmutation. Your map spell, the one you demonstrated to me, the spell that earned you a place in this very school, is a curious hybrid of both illusion and transmutation, the likes of which I have never seen before. As somepony who appreciates your gifts, I would very much like it if you would refrain from turning your talents upon your fellow students."

"I only turn my talents on my besties," Almanac said in her own defense. "Overcast had it coming. He was being smug."

"While I don't doubt that," Celestia replied in deadpan, "I still ask that you refrain. Being smug is not a good reason to do what you did."

"And what I did, I call Hamsterfication. I have a very clear image of it in my mind now, all of it, everything that needs to be done. It's neat."

"Oh… dear," gasped Celestia, who shook her head in a worrisome way. "That's what I was afraid of. Well, young lady, some congratulations are in order. You've invented a new spell and under normal circumstances, this would be a cause to celebrate. But given the outcome and the consequences—"

"I made a new spell? Because it's so specific? Because the details and instructions are burned into my brain?"

"Indeed, you have, little Miss."

Celestia was the perfect Headmistress at the moment. Patient. Kind. Benevolent. Encouraging. Exasperated. Yet, she performed her duties flawlessly. While amused, Luna was learning something, though the outcome of the lesson was still unknown. She saw that she could try a different approach to things when dealing with certain students, and she had no doubt that she could do better. Be better. Observing her sister at work could only bring benefits.

A steaming cup of tea with a slice of lemon was set down in front of Almanac.

"Now, pay attention. If you can visualise the sequence in your mind, start at the end of it and work your way backwards. That should release Overcast."

"There is no sequence," Almanac said to Celestia, "there are only hamsters. Thank you for the tea, by the way."

"You're most welcome. Hamsters?"

"Little hamsters. In construction hats. With hammers and saws and stuff. They're cute."

"Your mind is full of hamsters…"

"Yep. Hamsters through and through. They're making something."

Hesitating a bit, Celestia's words came out with considerable kindness and tact. "There's no wrong way to visualise a spell."

"Send them on a lunch break—"

"Luna!" Then, after a moment of thoughtful reconsideration, Celestia nodded. "Yes, perhaps try sending them on a lunch break."

"I dunno how."

"Blow a lunch whistle and—"

"Luna!" Then, just as before, Celestia endured a moment of thoughtful reconsideration. Also just as before, she nodded her approval and said, "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Try doing that, Miss Avocado. If there is anything that Luna understands, it is the power of visualisation and its influence upon the mind."

"All unicorn spells utilise just a pinch of dream magic," Luna said to nopony in particular. "How much is used varies depending on the spell, the levels of imagination required to cast, how far reality must be bent for the cast to be successful, and a plethora of other factors."

"I never knew this," said Celestia.

"A lot could be said about what you don't know and—"

"Luna, be nice." Tilting her head upwards, Almanac squinted at Luna through the thick lenses of her spectacles.

"Or else, I get to join Overcast?"

"Yeah," Almanac replied. "You'll be a pretty blue hamster."

"Very well. I suppose I can be nice to avoid this woeful outcome."

"The two of you have a rapport," Celestia remarked. "This makes me happy. Overjoyed, honestly."

Luna thought about saying why, but worried that it would start yet another sibling squabble. She and Almanac had battled alongside one another, along with Overcast, Top Notch, and several other students. It was something that Celestia was not happy about. Luna had used the battlefield as a classroom, rather than vanish students off to safety. To say that Celestia was peeved about this was an understatement, and this bit of contention caused a number of cantankerous sisterly squabbles between the two of them.

Luna refused to admit that she was wrong, and Celestia would not budge on the issue. The safety of the students was to come first and foremost. Especially young students, like Almanac Avocado. The filly, while quite terrified and scared, gave a good accounting of herself. As a unicorn, she casted in much the same way an earth pony approached physical labour; all brute force, raw strength, and powerful application. Luna saw raw potential in the young filly—Celestia saw something else, but applied in a different way, one that did not involve violence.

Of course, the current state of Hamsterfication proved that Luna was right…

Who needed nuance when might made right?

"Are you calm, Miss Avocado?"

"I think I am, Princess Celestia."

"Well, focus on being calm. Try to relax. And imagine letting go. Are you worried about keeping Overcast safe?"

"No," she replied with a shake of her small head that made her chubby cheeks quiver. "Why?"

In response to the question, Celestia explained herself thusly: "I had concerns that if you were worried about keeping your friend safe, you might subconsciously be holding him in hamster form. I say that because it is easy to maintain control over a hamster."

"I might be kinda mad at Overcast," Almanac confessed. "He called me a silly filly."

"Well, that's rude," Celestia replied whilst the hamster on the table munched without response.

"Well, I did call him a dolt colt."

"Also rude."

"It's really hard to be his friend. I mean, you gotta work at it and I swear, it never gets any easier. It's like being friends with Princess Luna."

"By all means," said Luna, "speak as if I were not here."

Grinning, Almanac nodded. "Don't worry, I just did."

"Have you made any other friends, Miss Avocado?"

"No," the filly replied. "No, I haven't."

"Have you tried?" asked Celestia.

"I guess? Maybe not very hard. See… the problem is… I'm friends with Overcast. And Princess Luna. And that gets me teased. And I'm not gonna be friends with those jerks. I'm not even gonna try. I know who my real friends are."

A sound came from deep within Celestia's throat, and while indescribable, it seemed to express intense dissatisfaction with what was just said. The big white alicorn sipped her tea, made another sound, this one rather different but it still conveyed the same feeling, and then she shook her head slightly. Ears pricked, brows furrowed, nostrils flared, Celestia slipped into a sour mood.

Sipping her own tea, Luna felt better after observing her sister's reaction.

Ears splaying outwards, her neck somehow shrinking, Almanac seemed to grow smaller and she visibly lost some height. "It's the school battle… it's not just Princess Luna, but all of us who took part in it. But especially Princess Luna because of what she did. A lot of the students are scared of us. We're not seen as heroes. I don't know why. Princess Luna took the fight to the bugs and it wasn't like our teachers, who took defensive measures so the students would have a safe place to retreat to. We took ground. We took back the school."

"Here comes the 'I told you so' that I've been expecting all this—"

"Luna, I wasn't going to say it."

"What a pleasant change, Sister. I suppose you're just going to sit there and think it."

"I am grateful that you kept my students safe," Celestia said in an almost deadpan whisper.

"But you were right. There's no point in mincing words, Sister. I cleared out the infestation of parasites in the school. I might have gone a little overboard. I might have used overwhelming force. There may have been spectacular, terrifying displays of tactical superiourity. And everything you said would happen has happened. It's all true."

"I'm sorry, Luna."

"Well, I'm not. I did what was necessary. If little ponies can't appreciate that, so be it."

"Ungrateful sots, the lot of them and—"

"Miss Avocado! That's quite enough. Mind your manners!"

Fearlessly, Almanac Avocado recovered herself, sat up straight, and stared right up at the much larger white alicorn. "She's not wrong. And I'm not either. I did the right thing and I don't care what you have to say about it. You cannot convince me otherwise."

"For such a timid filly, you really do show extraordinary bravery," Celestia said to Almanac. "While I do not, and cannot approve of your actions, I do find your courage commendable. I wish that you could understand my position… if something were to happen to you, if the worst happened, I am the one stuck dealing with the consequences. I'm the one who has to explain to your parents how you got hurt… or worse. Just the thought of it gives me nightmares. It is the single most terrifying thing that I have to deal with as Headmistress. Luna doesn't have this dreadful responsibility, but if she did, I would imagine that she might feel differently. She practically gets to act without consequence."

This was mostly true and Luna knew it; all she had to face was public opinion.

A pang of guilt pierced her heart and hot sympathy welled up just behind Luna's eyes, causing an unwanted, unpleasant watery sensation. Hearing her sister speak so openly, without reservation or hesitation, it made Luna realise quite a number of things. Though her intentions were good, she had put her beloved sister at risk. Celestia's fears were more than reasonable. Luna knew she had been careless, and while she rather enjoyed the battle, poor Celestia was now stuck worrying about all of the 'what ifs' and every conceivable bad outcome.

Once again, Luna had been the irresponsible one and her big sister was stuck cleaning up the mess.

"I'm sorry, Celestia—"

"Don't you dare be sorry, Luna!" Celestia snapped. "You had orders to keep my school safe, and you did so to the best of your ability. While I do not agree with your methods, I approve of the outcome. But don't you dare be sorry. I trusted you… I trusted you and I trusted your judgement. In the future, I'll trust you again. Just… have a little more care, Sister. Little lives are so very precious."

"All this talk and Almanac is still not distracted enough to let go," said Luna.

"So I've noticed," was Celestia's drawn out reply. "I meant what I said, Luna."

"Princess Luna knows our lives our precious." Concentrating to keep her teacup held aloft, little Almanac flashed a bright smile up at Celestia. "She kept Overcast focused on keeping us safe. He heard our enemies long before we saw them, and this allowed us to ambush them."

"Is that so?" asked Celestia, who appeared somewhat dubious of this claim.

"We were already there," Almanac said to Celestia in return.

"Yes… so I heard. Overcast led the charge, goaded his fellow students into danger, and—"

"That's not true at all." Then, realising that she interrupted, Almanac apologised. "I'm sorry. But that's a lie. I don't know where you heard that, but it’s not true. At all."

Eyes narrowed, Celestia flashed a glance at Luna, then returned all of her attention to Almanac. "Some very trusted teachers gave me a report of the events of that dark and dreadful day, Miss Avocado."

"Well, they're liars," she said, and then the bespectacled filly blew on her tea so that it might cool a bit.

"Are you suggesting that my trusted staff might prevaricate, young lady?"

"I am telling you flat out that they tergiversate regularly. You know, maybe things would be better if you just spoke to Overcast directly."

"You've been reading the vocabulary boosters that I post, haven't you?"

"Every day. They're great."

"So… why don't you tell me what happened, Miss Avocado. I would very much like to hear how your version might differ from the official report. Would you care to tell me while we're waiting for the spell to wear off?"

"Um…" Almanac slurped her tea, sat up a little straighter, cast a guilty glance at the hamster on the table, then seemed to consider Celestia's request.

"My sister only offered the barest details of what happened after she and your group met up," Celestia said. "I trust her completely. I suppose I am to be suspicious of my own trusted teachers?"

"Yeah, sorry." While Almanac sat up straight, her ears fell back in a submissive way.

"Speak then, and be aware… if there's even a hint of dishonesty, I'll know. This is very serious, little Miss Almanac Avocado."

"You know, big Miss Headmistress Celestia, if you showed your 'trusted' teachers the same sort of scrutiny things would be a whole lot better."

"Is that so?"

When Luna snickered, she got a well-deserved scathing bit of side-eye for it.

Emboldened, Almanac looked directly up at Celestia and asked, "Did you ever stop to think that your teachers deliver paper reports to you so they don't get caught lying?"

"That is a very serious statement," Celestia deadpanned.

"Overcast didn't lead the charge," Almanac began, and her ears pricked upright. "Overcast wanted to get us down below the school, into the Dead Archives. But Whinny wasn't there. She was in her music class when everything happened. Overcast overhead from some teachers that the entire Music, Arts, and Equinities wing was overrun. See, Overcast made a mistake in telling us this, because, well, you have to understand something, Headmistress Celestia. Some ponies say that Topper has a bit of an anger problem, and that's totally untrue."

"I've heard something about that," Celestia mentioned.

"Well, that's just wrong. Anger has a Topper problem."

"Do go on, young lady."

"Topper went nutzo. Bananas. You don't have a vocabulary booster to describe the sort of inarticulate rage that took over Topper. He starts howling, then he starts cursing, and then he takes off running and Overcast goes after him. Two of my besties are running off, and I can't just let them go, because what sort of friend would I be if I let them go?"

Wanting to know more herself, Luna leaned in.

"Overcast is trying to stop Topper, but Topper, he's just too mad to listen. Topper leads us to the cafeteria, because that's kind of the central hub of the school… only we didn't know that the Cafeteria Battle was happening, and we kind of stumbled right into teachers trying to put up defenses and the changelings were trying to stop them. Topper sees this, he sees all of this, and he doesn't even slow down. He just… howls and charges.

"So Topper runs into the cafeteria where spells are flying and there's a pitched battle, and he just runs right into the middle of all of it. And he picks up this table… not one of the small round tables that the losers sit at all by themselves, but one of the big long ones, and Topper uses it like a flyswatter. He just heaves it way up into the air and brings it back down on some bugs and WHAM! Then he picks up the table again, and he swings it into a crowd of bugs, and they go scattering like bowling pins, and he picks up a second table, and then claps the two tables together with changelings in the middle and WHUMP!

"Topper is still howling this whole time, and he's kinda crazy. Like, you can look into his eyes and see nothing but crazy all the way in. He takes his two tables and he throws them at the changelings blocking the east wing, and then he picks up two more tables and throws those too, and then Topper starts cursing again, and he runs right for the east wing exit because that's where Whinny is, and he has to save Whinny. Overcast goes after him, right into the heart of the swarm, and I, uh, well, it should be obvious what I did."

Then, after a second of brief contemplation, Almanac asked, "Do you think the bugs took over the Music, Arts, and Equinities wing because of all the emotion associated with those things?"

"That… that is an astute question, Miss Avocado." Her face troubled, Celestia slurped some tea.

"The wing is completely overrun by bugs. It's all gross and kind of hivey. The walls and the floor and the ceiling are all slimy and gooey and covered in crud. And there's bugs everywhere. At first we think that the bugs are running from us… which seems pretty reasonable because Topper has the crazy eyes and he's making these woo-woo noises, like a train chugging its way out of Tartarus. But no, the bugs aren't running from us, they're running to fight Princess Luna and the students from the officers' cadet class and Topper doesn't even slow down when we see this battle happening. He's like, 'Woo-woo!' and Princess Luna was like, 'Yoo-hoo!' and Overcast was like, 'Oh no, what do we do!' and that's when everything went sideways."

"Sideways? Dare I even ask?" Celestia bit her lip for a moment, shook her head, and then said, "This is where Luna's report begins, but the details are… lacking."

"Princess Luna didn't have a lot of choices," Almanac continued in her well-animated way. "See, Topper doesn't slow down. He's still raging. He smashes some bugs with pottery, but he doesn't stay for very long, because, Whinny. You should understand by now. Princess Luna is hollering at him to stop, but Topper is no stopper. When Princess Luna tries to stop him, he throws pottery at her, too, and he snarls. So she has no choice but to follow us as Topper runs right for the music auditorium where he knows Whinny is and that's when everything went super-wrong."

"Luna neglected to mention this."

"Princess Luna took a vase right to the kisser," Almanac said with a solemn nod. "She wasn't expecting it. Didn't even raise a shield."

"Well, that explains that particular injury," Celestia deadpanned.

"While it might not be an Element of Harmony, never underestimate the element of surprise," Luna said in her own defense.

"Princess Luna uses some magic to calm Topper's berserker wrath, he's almost sane again, but still pretty disturbed. We're deep behind enemy lines now, with bugs on every side. We're in the heart of the swarm, in the guts of the hive. There's students in cocoons and everything is all slickery with slime. But Princess Luna finally gets Topper to slow down, and we're surrounded, and it takes her a while to fully take charge of the situation. There's field promotions and she appoints Overcast to be her intelligence officer and I'm promoted to medic, and Luna tells me to stay glued to her. The cadets do what soldiers do and they were great. They were really great and when they finally join the guard they're going to be heroes."

Almanac inhaled, then continued, "With Princess Luna fully in charge, and Topper not so crazy, we take the fight to the bugs. Overcast listens to find out where the bugs are, and what they're doing, and when we have a pretty good idea of what we're facing, we swoop in and smashy-smashy the buggos. It's like an Ogres & Oubliettes game, but scarier, and with real consequences for failing your saving throws. Then we start going room to room, ambushing, and collecting what few students that haven't been cocooned yet because they were hiding. Overcast can hear their hearts beating so he knows where they are hiding, and Princess Luna gathers them all up so she could keep them safe."

"Luna, you failed to mention quite a bit of this."

"I was not aware that I had needed to explain my actions."

"It would have made things easier for me to understand, Luna."

"I was too busy keeping the students shielded and safe, when I could. I was spread thin, Sister. I used every resource I had available. Without Overcast's magical hearing, things would have been very different."

"I see," said Celestia.

"The Cadet Corps students performed admirably. They gained valuable field experience… the sort that cannot be taught in a classroom. Miss Avocado learned valuable first aid skills, and discovered that she wasn't squeamish in a conflict. While she had a very real fear of blood, she found that she could be brave during conflict and control that fear. She did not let it rule over her. Had I vanished my students to a secure location, not only would I had drained myself, but without Overcast, I would have gone into every engagement blind."

"I still don't feel better about what happened," said Celestia. "But this does shed some much-needed light on the situation. A clearer picture emerges."

"Overcast didn't goad us into misbehaving and he didn't lead the way," Almanac said to Celestia.

After clearing her throat—twice—Celestia turned her attention to the young bespectacled filly. "Miss Avocado… if I may ask… what lesson did you learn from all of this? What did you take away from this… awful experience?"

"Um… don't make Topper mad?"

"Really… after everything that's happened, that's what you've learned?"

"Uh… I guess I learned to stick with my besties when trouble happens?"

A long sigh slipped out of Celestia, followed by an even longer inhale. Her sides rose and fell like blacksmith's bellows, and in the midst of restorative breathing, she wickered. As irked as she was, she recovered, and like a radiant dawn, calm rose over her face. With every breath she took, she recovered the serenity that defined her as a pony. It wasn't long before she had a cheerful expression again—though Luna could see the trouble hidden within her sister's eyes.

"Wait… wait… I know… just give me a chance to think for a moment." Putting down her teacup, Almanac concentrated, and her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth in a thoughtful way. "We're still missing teachers and students. They're gone. Maybe forever. We might never see them again. But working together, all of us, with everypony doing their part, we saved a lot of students and teachers. The changelings didn't get to fly off with those cocoons. We saved Wednesday and a whole lot of other students, and if we hadn't done what we did, a whole lot more pictures might have been added to the wall of missing ponies. Every day I stand in front of that wall along with everypony else that gathers there, and I think about how much worse things might have been, and it makes me feel better that I did something to make it better."

"That's something," whispered Celestia.

"A lot of my fellow students don't get to feel good the way I get to feel good. Or, uh, feel better? They hid. They did as they were told and went into hiding. They stayed safe, sure, but they did nothing to help. They did nothing to save their friends. And that's gotta feel bad. I wonder how many of them wonder how things might be different if they'd just done something? Me? I'm grateful that I don't have to worry about what might have been, because I did something."

"Miss Avocado… might I please be open with you for a moment? May I please speak to you in an adult manner?"

"You may?" The filly blinked owlishly behind her oversized and chunky spectacles. "I thought we were already speaking like adults, but whatever."

"Almanac… might I call you that?" The gentle giantess of an alicorn inhaled deeply before she continued in a soft tone of voice. "Every student that comes to this school has the potential to change the world. I truly believe that. My students are exceptional in every conceivable way, and this is not boasting. This is not me bragging so that I might puff myself up. This school is not for my benefit, but for Equestria's.

"But for you to change the world, you must first grow up. That means that I have a responsibility to keep you safe, and so too does my sister, Luna. We have to keep you out of harm's way so that your bright light is not snuffed out too soon. If we are careless, and something happens to you, we take from the world the very hope that we hope to give it. You… you, Almanac Avocado, are that hope, you and all of your fellow students. Every single one of you is beloved and precious. You are my crown jewels. You are the wealth of my empire. You, yes, you are Equestria's most prized asset. I need for you to understand why you cannot go galavanting around into danger… and this is also why dueling is frowned upon."

"Maybe I've already changed the world by doing what I did," Almanac said when Celestia paused to draw breath.

"Oh… bother." Rolling her eyes, Celestia chewed her lip in a thoughtful way—and said nothing else.

Across the table, Luna could sense the tension headache creeping up on her sister.

"This happens to my parents, you know. This very thing."

"Please, explain," Celestia said.

"Well, there are times when my mom can't convince my dad that she's right and he can't convince her that she's wrong."

"Are you suggesting that you're right?" asked Celestia. "And that I am wrong?"

Shrugging, Almanac chose not to respond.

"I think"—Luna chose her next words carefully—"that Almanac is trying to suggest that the two of you are at an impasse. Her experiences and perceptions cause her to believe that she is correct. However, and this is important, Celestia, you have wisdom and insight that comes with age on your side. The two of you should—"

"Yeah, she's old and out of touch."

At this moment, Luna very nearly choked upon her own tongue when she almost inhaled it. Stars danced jubilantly in her vision, and blood pounded in her ears. "Glack!" she glacked, glacking out her own tongue in a glacktacular response to shock and surprise. When her vision cleared, and her sister's profile came back into focus, she did not see anger, as one might expect, but amusement.

"I am not so self-important that I cannot enjoy a good laugh at my own expense," Celestia said with a wide smile. "You know, I am starting to worry that this spell will not wear off. Perhaps we should do something about it."

"Like what?" asked Almanac.

"I'll have to think of something," Celestia replied. "You know, it's been a long time since I've had a student gifted in the metamorphathurgical arts."

"I don't know what that means," Almanac confessed after several seconds of trying to puzzle out the meaning of Celestia's words.

"My sister is trying to be clever and teach you something important about yourself," Luna said to Almanac. She swallowed, still recovering, and sucked in some much-needed air. "She is calling you a transmuter, one gifted in the transmutational arts. I suspect that she believes you to be exceptional because Overcast is stuck in a stable form without you concentrating to keep him held as a hamster."

"Ah… oh… because thaumaturgy is the study of magic. Right. Right! So if you stick 'thurgical' to the end of 'metamorph', you get a big fancy word for transmuter. I need to remember that so everypony will know how smart I am."

Overcast—still very much a hamster at the moment—nibbled at a fat blueberry plucked from an otherwise neglected scone.

"So, let us begin, Miss Avocado. That is the purpose of this school… to make mistakes and then find creative ways to correct them. One day, you will have the fond memory of turning your friend into a hamster, and this will be just one of the many memories you have of school. Of course, Overcast will remember being a hamster, so his experiences will be very different. Being good friends, the two of you should compare notes."

Amused beyond measure, Luna listened; her sister was in fine form. This was when Celestia was truly at her best and most enjoyable to be around, when she was teaching. Even better, this was an opportunity to learn, and Luna was clever enough to know that she too was a student at this moment. It was time to pay attention, to listen, and to learn. Of course, little Overcast probably wouldn't learn much of anything if at all, because he no doubt had the attention span of a hamster.

Life was unfair at times.

"Now, tell me, Miss Avocado… do you bear your friend any known or hidden resentments?"

Almanac blinked a few times before replying, "No. He's my bestie. Why would I hate him?"

"Not hate, dear. Resentment. There's a difference. Sometimes, either on purpose or without meaning to do so, we harbour resentment towards those we hold dear."

Luna could not help but notice how her sister's eyes met hers during this statement.

Meanwhile, the hamster on the table did not seem impressed by this current approach.

"Sometimes, we have trouble expressing our feelings. Something happens. We go to let it slide, as the young so often say, but it remains in our minds and we reflect upon it often. It just doesn't go away. Sometimes, in our imagination, we roleplay the scenario with different outcomes."

"Why does this matter?" asked Almanac.

"Because," Celestia replied right away, without hesitation, "when it comes to magic, intent matters. For a spell to change a pony's nature in such a profound way, we have to mean it. There has to be feeling. My student, Twilight Sparkle, learned this when she freed her friends from Discord's influence."

"Huh."

"So, has Overcast done something to annoy you?" asked Celestia.

"What hasn't Overcast done to annoy me?" was the endearing response from Almanac. "I mean, that's kind of what he does. Whinny says we have to be patient so Overcast can become the good pony he's meant to be."

Luna partook once more in her tea, and then decided that her cup needed topping off. She poured, perhaps a bit too fast but no mess was made, added some sugar, and then a fresh slice of crystalised lemon. Then, relaxing just a little, she held the cup up to her nose so that she might savour the steam. The citrusy scent of lemons calmed her mind and helped her twitchy muscles to hold still. Alas, she observed that Almanac seemed no closer to a breakthrough.

"Do you ever get jealous when Overcast spends time with Miss Waterkey and not you?"

This caused Almanac's eyes to narrow behind her thick lenses. "Why would I get jealous? Ponies keep asking that. I don't get it. What am I missing? I feel stupid now."

Celestia, never one to quit, kept going. "Does Overcast eat the last chocolate in the box?"

"No"—the filly shook her head from side to side emphatically—"he's not that sort. I'm the one guilty of that in our group. I have a tough time with self control and that's why I'm a total chubbo." Then, with wide-eyed innocence, she asked, "Why do fat ponies get called blimps? Blimps are light. Blimps float. Is it because blimps are full of gas and so are fat ponies? I got called a blimp."

Balanced atop a sunny yellow cushion, Celestia was a serene enormity, a colossus of ponykind. There was something about her—her good cheer, perhaps—where she seemed to self-illuminate during these moments. It was at times like these when Luna envied her sister just a teensy, tiny bit, because Celestia genuinely wanted to help little ponies so that their lives might be better. Luna knew that she would start to lose patience far too soon, and she would become grumpy. She snapped at Overcast at times, was short-tempered, and she let far too much of her own self get in the way.

Watching her sister work, Luna resolved to do better, because the little ponies deserved the best that Luna had to offer. There were things she could do that might help. Perhaps less shouting. More patience. A bit of benevolence. And maybe, just maybe, she should stop scaring them for sport when she was in one of her moods. Celestia at her very best was inspiring. It was easy to see why Twilight Sparkle had turned out the way she did with Celestia as her instructor. Just thinking of the brave stargazing unicorn left Luna in a curious state, and she found herself wishing for time spent in Twilight's quiet company.

She was the very best sort of friend.

"Has Overcast said anything that has left you with a lingering sense of anger?" asked Celestia.

To which Almanac replied, "Uh… almost every day. But I don't hold it against him. Because I'm an annoying twerp and an insufferable know-it-all and for reasons unknown, he's still very kind to me. Well, at times. Sometimes, he's in a mood. But that's how it is, ya know? When he's in a mood, I try really hard to be his friend, and when I'm scared, or crying, or widdling myself in terror, he's always there to make things better, so that's why I do what I do."

"Has he ever teased you for these things?"

"Well, kinda. No. Sorta? Not exactly. Look, this is hard to answer, alright? He's never teased me about certain things. There's like, there's lines that he won't cross. But when I'm being a big scared crybaby, he'll gently call me out on it and tell me to be braver. It's how he does it. A little light razzing doesn't hurt me. Not from him, anyway. He knows how thin-skinned I am."

"Well, there must be something," said Celestia, "or perhaps I could be wrong. That is certainly a possibility. Contrary to popular belief, I do make mistakes."

Closing her eyes, her ears pinning back and almost vanishing into her pink mane, Almanac gave herself over to intense thought. Luna watched with interest, because for many foals, this line of questioning would have produced only frustration or disinterest. The fact that Almanac made a genuine effort to find something, anything, spoke highly of her character. She was, at least, humouring Celestia, and even if this didn't bring about results, at least a bit of worthwhile soul-searching was accomplished. Which was never a bad thing.

Still determined to see this through, Celestia asked, "Do you ever feel upset because your friends are older? They get to do a lot of things that you are still restricted from. Does that bother you?"

"Maybe a little?" was Almanac's honest response. "Whinny will be thirteen soon. That's exciting. She'll be all grownup and I'll still just be me. Feels like I'm going to be nine forever. I hate being nine. I'm so close to being able to take better classes but I'm held back because of my age and I hate it."

"But… do you have issues with Overcast due to age?"

Brows furrowed, eyes still closed, Almanac shook her head. "Maybe? He's eleven, but he gets to take all those advanced classes and I'm stuck with the dumb babies. But do I hate him for it? I don't know. I don't think I do. I'm mad about it, but I don't think I'm mad at him. Might be mad at you though. You're responsible for all of this."

"You have my most sincere apologies," Celestia offered in return.

Feeling a bit peckish, Luna began to nibble on a cookie—hopefully one untouched by hamster-hands.

The brave filly peeped through a half-open eye at Celestia. "You'll be sorry if I turn you into a hamster." Then, smiling, calm and reassured, she closed her eye and returned to concentrating.

"I understand that Overcast has started to teach you unicorn culture and the unicorn way of life, Miss Avocado. Is this frustrating? Do you find it difficult? Has he perhaps said something that hurt you in some way?"

"There's nothing I can think of," Almanac replied and she pressed her front hooves together in front of her. "I've become aware of how rude I can be and why I might leave a bad impression on some of my fellow students. He's been very good about teaching me."

"That can be quite difficult, adjusting to a different culture. The fact that you so readily adapt says a great deal about you, Miss Avocado."

"Thank you, Princess Celestia." Then, almost timidly, she added, "There's one little thing that kinda sticks out."

"Oh?" Head held high, Celestia waited for the filly to speak.

"I got schooled in table manners," the filly said, almost whispering, and she opened up her eyes just enough to reveal a wounded soul within. "He said I have the table manners of a cow. He… he said I have the table manners of a cow.. He had a whole list of things that I do wrong. I talk with my mouth full, I make noise when I eat, I enjoy my food, and these are all… these are all normal things for me. It's how I was raised. My mom, my dad, my entire family… we all do this and this is… this is normal for us. Every dinner together is a celebration. It's what we do as earth ponies. Well, I'm not an earth pony, but that's how I was raised. And Overcast said I have the manners of a cow. A moo-moo. That really hurt. I'm still pretty angry about it even if I don't want to be, and I can't stop thinking about it at odd moments… like when I'm sitting at a table… like… like… like right now."

"Canterlot unicorns… have no appreciation for a good belch and that's a real shame—"

"Luna!"

"Don't you 'Luna' me, Sister. It's true. What else does one do to show gratitude for fizzy cider?"

"What's wrong with burping, anyway? How else do you show your appreciation? You gotta do it with enthusiasm. Making a meal is a lot of hard work. More so for earth ponies because they can't just magic up a nice spread. Overcast said it was disgusting and wrong. And that hurt. It hurt a lot, actually. And I'm pretty peeved, now that I think about it. I hope he stays a hamster forever!"

"Good manners are the generous gift that we give to others," said Celestia.

"Topper said the same thing. Word for word. I guess he's been studying his Celestiaisms." She huffed, she puffed, she squeezed her eyes shut, and then, Almanac went still and quiet.

"Wait… Celestia-whats?"

"Celestiaisms. The teachers have us study them to make us better ponies."

"I never approved of such a thing in the curriculum. A stern talk is needed, I see." After a deep breath, Celestia continued, "You need to let go of your anger and you must forgive Overcast."

"No way, he insulted me," Almanac said without opening her eyes. "Nope. Not a chance."

"Miss Avocado—"

"No! He insulted my upbringing! My family! He called me a cow!"

"Almanac, dear one, your friend cannot apologise or beg for forgiveness as a hamster and—"

"I don't care! I don't want his stupid apology!" Folding her forelegs around herself in a tight self-hug, Almanac scrunched down and squeezed her shut eyes even tighter.

"Turning him into a cow would make the punishment fit the crime—"

"Luna, that's enough out of you! Stop that! This is serious. This is a friendship wound."

Meanwhile, the hamster on the table now suffered from a dejected slump.

Perhaps realising that laughter would not be a soothing balm, Luna tried another approach. "Almanac… you want Overcast to feel the humiliation that you felt, am I right?"

"He deserves it!" she spat out in response as her eyes opened.

"He might. It could be said that Overcast deserves a great many things. None of which are nice." Luna paused to allow these words a chance to sink in before she continued, "I am certain that he was careless in the way that the young often are. I also know that if he knew that he'd hurt you, he'd take measures to make things better. He would make amends. You are very dear to him. What he did was an accident. What you are doing is intentional."

Since laughter had failed… Luna chose loyalty, with just a touch of honesty.

"When we were dueling I saw a chance to teach him a lesson, I guess." This confession came out one pained word at a time, and Almanac's barrel hitched uncontrollably now. "I see why you don't want us dueling, Princess Celestia. It's easy for all of our little slights to get in the way. But I'm not turning him back."

"Really, Almanac, I must insist."

"He needs to suffer for a while, just like I did," the filly retorted in the brazen manner of slighted fillies all around the world.

"You don't mean that." Patient, calm, gentle, Celestia was truly at her best. "This is your friend. He fixed your glasses for you. I know for a fact that he does some of your homework for you and—"

Startled, Almanac could not help but interrupt when she asked, "You know about that?"

"I appreciate your efforts to be clever, and all attempts made to hide your wrongdoing, but I've been Headmistress of this school for a very long time." A heartwarming smile appeared and Celestia's radiant grace shone down upon young Almanac. "It takes a very special sort of friend to do the homework of another. A very special friend indeed. When students do assignments for another, or homework, I choose to see this as a promising sign of good things to come in the future."

"Oh." Frowning, Almanac hunched over even more, sighed, and peered down at the hamster on the table. "He's saved my begonias a couple of times… mostly because I was too busy playing games or acting like a foal and being a total dork rather than getting my assignments done. Worst part is, he just sighs when it happens, he rolls his eyes in that way he does, and then just adds it to his list of things to do. Sometimes, I worry that I'm not a very good friend."

"What would give you that impression?" asked Celestia.

"Well, duh!" Extending her right front hoof, Almanac pointed at the hamster. "He hurt my feelings though. So he had it coming. Maybe. I think. I'm not actually hurting him. I mean, it's not like he's in pain or anything. And I didn't let anypony step on him. But then I couldn't undo what I did and I might've panicked a bit but you have to pretend that I didn't just say that and we'll both agree that I'm remorseless about this and not having any doubts. Can we do that? I'll feel better about this if we do."

"The real test of friendship," Celestia began, "is when we fail to be good friends for whatever reason. We might be sick, or feeling poorly. A bad mood might hold us back from our fullest possible potential. We might feel slighted"—she paused and her smile intensified—"or even a little vengeful. Sometimes, even the very best of us feel petty. We can act foalish for no good reason, just like my sister does all the time when she—"

"Ooh! How could you, Sister!"

"—is having a bad day. Luna has bad days often, because daytime is rough for her and I understand that. But, she tends to have good nights. So long as we worry about being good friends, and we are thoughtful about our interactions, we're still good friends even if we stumble."

"Really?" asked Almanac.

"Really. Nopony is perfect. I think that, if you spoke with Overcast, he also has moments where he doubts if he is a good friend. The two of you could share your feelings. But to do that…"

"Couldn't I just make him a talking hamster instead?"

"No, Miss Avocado."

"My family means everything to me. How we are. What we do." Averting her gaze, Almanac spent a moment in silence to collect her thoughts. "My family gave up everything for me. Not just my parents… my whole family. All of them. It took all they had to get me here and I love them for it even if the pressure is killing me. My Granvocado sends me letters to keep me going. And Overcast… he just… ugh! He's rude! Rude!"

"This whole time that you've been thinking about your family… have you stopped to consider his family situation, Miss Avocado?"

"No!" she squeaked. A startling transformation overcame little Almanac, one that peeled away the appearance of age. Her eyes glimmered with tears and her protruding lower lip trembled when her emotions overwhelmed her. "How do I fix this?"

"Forgiving him is a good start, and we'll see what happens from there…"

Author's Note

So, you might be asking, what's a foundling in the context of this story?

Well, I'll tell you. But not here in the Bad Author Box, the box where bad authors include badly written afterthoughts. This section started as a prologue of sorts, but uh, bad things happened? I was going to keep going, actually, until we reached the conclusion point for this section, but then this happened. And by this, I mean I split this off because it somehow became 11k words. I used to write neat, tidy chapters. I don't know what happened. I'm sorry, perhaps?

In theory, this is a short story...

Immortal alicorns cannot die of embarrassment

Luna witnessed something that inspired her to be a better pony. Her sister, Celestia, taught a lesson in forgiveness, one that was wholly improvised. For Luna, who still bore the lashmarks of guilt and shame, this lesson was a balm that relieved the painful itch that plagued her very soul. It was something that made Luna believe in the relationship she shared with her sibling and it restored some of her injured faith. Forgiveness was a foundation stone of Equestrian society, something that set it apart from other nations and city states.

It was moments like this one that reassured Luna that her sister had truly forgiven her.

Almanac Avocado was just a bit weepy, the sort of thing that happened to foals whose emotions got away from them. Though teary eyed, she made every effort to be dignified—however, it didn't quite work out as intended. In time, she might become a graceful sort, the rare sort of pony that somehow seemed composed even with mascara running down their cheeks, but today was not that day.

For whatever reason, Rarity of Ponyville came to mind.

"Letting go is hard," said Almanac.

"Truer words have yet to be spoken," replied Celestia.

"My brain is full of hamsters. They're cranky now."

"Under any other circumstance, I would say a statement such as that one was an amusing distraction, but right now, I must give it the seriousness which it is due." Leaning in a little closer, Celestia reached out one immaculate wing; lightly she touched Almanac on her breast, just above her heart, and just below her neck. "Magic is all about intent and intent is power. A spell is a projection of the intentions that give it power. This is why goodness has potency. And you, Almanac Avocado, are full of goodness. Now, let go."

Nothing happened. Almanac concentrated—so much so that she was looking a little sweaty—but Overcast remained a hamster. Luna knew from experience that sometimes breaking your own spell was almost impossible, even if it had been extraordinarily easy to cast. She had experienced this in her youth—which was normal, all natural-born casters struggled—but this problem persisted for her as an adult. While she was a magical creature, an alicorn no less, she was not gifted with magic in the same way that ponies like Celestia and Twilight Sparkle happened to be.

Of course, Almanac was at that age when anything was possible. Foals—especially the very young—did not fully comprehend the depths of their power. They had imagination without restriction. With this power, they had accidents. Magic training was very much like potty training. One had to learn restraint. To hold everything in. One had to be mindful of spills and leaks. The cost of this training was, of course, restriction. As a foal grew and learned about limitation and magical hygiene, much power was lost. Understanding one's power diminished it and foals who were credible, capable casters more often than not became adults of tepid mediocrity.

It could be said that magic training and potty training were poor comparisons. Any foal could be a bed-wetter; eventually they would grow, develop restraint, and the problem went away with maturity. For little unicorns though, an exceedingly different problem presented itself; unicorns foals were little housefire-setters. Wet sheets were no real danger, but dangerous blasts of wildfire were. Little earth ponies and little pegasus pony foals had tantrums—little unicorns had tantrums with magic and posed a considerable threat.

Luna hesitated to make such comparisons, because her sister did not run a potty training school.

"I can't make anything happen and I'm actually trying! Really! Please don't send me back to magic kindergarten!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Avocado, but until your friend is a pony again, I can offer no such assurances," was Celestia's gentle but firm response.

"My brain feels like it does when I eat ice cream too fast!"

Both Luna and Celestia exchanged a worried glance.

"Did you ever get that feeling when you sneeze that your eyeballs will pop right out of your peeper pockets and go shooting across the room like thrown Ogres & Oubliettes dice?"

Mystified and a bit alarmed, Luna could not help but ask, "Peeper pockets?"

"Yeah… I worry sometimes that they'll just go popping out and splat right into my gander goggles… like right now!"

"Gander goggles?" Luna could not help but wonder if she had missed some of the modern parlance somehow.

"Do eyeballs act like corks to keep your brain held in? What stops your brain from pouring out your ear? Earwax?"

"Such a delightful imagination," Celestia remarked with genuine interest while she looked directly at her sister.

"What are gander goggles?" asked Luna. "And what does this have to do with geese?"

Almanac's ears flapped like frantic bird wings and her cheeks puffed out enormously. The hamster on the table twitched, made a peculiar face that hamsters should perhaps not make, and then... nothing happened. Luna expected something to happen, anything, but she was left strangely disappointed. She waited, her ears pricked to the sound of little Almanac grunting, and her horn detected a faint disruption to the magical flow around her.

"Don't fight the spell," Celestia suggested, "Relax the spell. Just let go of it. Send the hamsters off to lunch. Visualise something… like… imagine the tide going out or—"

"I've never seen the ocean," Almanac said to Celestia. "And every time I dream about it, I wet the bed."

"Oh… well… don't visualise the tide going out then," Celestia replied with a solemn nod.

"So much pressure in my brain… goodbye, eyeballs!"

Extending her wing once more, and with a mischievous smirk plastered across her face, Princess Celestia brushed the tips of her primaries over Almanac's nose. The result was immediate. Explosive. The little avocado green filly sneezed so hard that her mane whipped out in every possible direction, her forelegs shot out from side to side, and then there was an "ACHOO-CHOO-CHOO-CHOO!" that knocked her glasses askew.

Caught up by a dreadful wind, the almost-mauve hamster went parasailing, lifted aloft by his pudgy hamster waddles of flab. He might have gone shooting across the parlour, but instead smacked into Celestia's other wing, which she held out in preparation for catching him. The wee tiny hamster bounced, squeaked in protest of this rough treatment, and just before he landed on a cushion beside the table, he turned into a unicorn just in time to come crashing down upon his face. With his hindquarters up in the air, Luna had an excellent view of Overcast's cutie mark, an overcast moon, a full moon surrounded by poofy grey clouds.

The mark had appeared after reconciling with his mother, and then in a fit of tearful gratitude, Overcast had sworn the entirety of his life to Luna's service. Though Luna would never say it aloud, she found the mark reassuring. Comforting somehow. Overcast was loyal. That mattered. His mark was evidence of his oath. For Luna, it was confirmation that she was somehow worthy of the same adoration that her sister received.

"Young Master Overcast… so pleasant to see you. I had plans for us to have a prolonged talk just two days from now. It was written in ink on my schedule. But, fate it seems, has conspired to bring us together sooner. Come now… get yourself righted." Folding her wings against her sides, Celestia returned to her state of serene calm.

"Um, hi!" Immediately after the chirpy, cheerful greeting, Almanac acted as though there was absolutely nothing wrong. "Nice of you to join us for tea, Overcast."

It took the colt several seconds of struggle to right himself, and when he finally did, he looked as if he was in the middle of a hard day. His mane was mussed, his eyes were unfocused, and there was something hamsteresque about him that Luna could not sort out. She checked his ears, which were normal, he didn't have buck teeth, but there was something most certainly hamsteresque that lingered.

With wide-eyed innocence and her glasses still crooked, Almanac asked, "Are you having a nice day?"

"No," Overcast deadpanned. "I was having a terrible day. An absolutely terrible day. And then my friend ambushed me and turned me into a hamster. So no… not a good day."

"Somepony should have a talk with that filly," Almanac replied. "She's dangerous."

"And she broke the rules," Overcast retorted with a sour expression of contempt. "What did I say about dueling? They must be fought fairly so we can—"

"You said to never get into a fair fight."

As if she were watching a tennis match, Celestia's eyes went back and forth, side to side with every exchange.

"You dope!" With a careless flick of magic, Overcast tried to fix his mane—and failed spectacularly. "The whole point of dueling is to learn how to counter and riposte! To defend! It's not about winning, it's about the duel itself so we can learn from it!"

"Says you," Almanac said with a bratty turn of character. "But you kept winning. It's easy to say it's not about winning when you're the one that keeps winning. But when you're losing, it's all about not-losing. Which means winning."

"If you wanted to win, you should have applied yourself more. Worked for it." Then, the young colt cleared his throat, flicked his mane once again with a bit of magic, he rested his hooves upon the table's edge, and said, "I'm sorry. It was never my intent to insult you or your parents. Or your family, for that matter. Had I known I'd done that, I would have apologised."

"You deserved a hamster time-out, Mister."

"I said I was sorry."

"I want you to be sorrier!"

"I'll make it up to you, I promise. You have my word."

Somewhat mollified, Almanac nodded. "I'm sorry too. We can be sorry together. Probably in detention. Or maybe we'll get banished. Or sent to the dungeon. Or worse. I'm sure there's worse."

"Oh, there's much worse," Celestia said, gently interrupting the exchange between friends.

Gulping, Almanac shrank down and tried to look as small and helpless as possible.

"Young Master Overcast… how are your parents?"

"Can we just skip the small talk and get right to the lecture, Princess Celestia?" the bold colt replied.

"No," Celestia said to the colt and she lowered her head down to his eye level. "I like the small talk. I detest the lecturing."

Almost squeaking, Almanac turned to Celestia asking, "Then, uh, maybe don't lecture?"

Slowly, Celestia turned and leveled her best deadpan stare upon the poor filly who dared to suggest the most unthinkable thing imaginable. "There have been many discussions, none of which have yielded results. When this happens, I am left with no recourse but to lecture."

"Aren't you the pony that told me to never stop trying?"

Frozen in place, Luna felt a cold prickle of actual terror.

But, there was nothing to fear. Nothing at all. Celestia smiled her gentle smile and Luna let go of a breath that she did not realise she'd been holding. A soft laugh startled her and with a flood of relief, Luna realised that her sister was amused. Why the rush of fear? There wasn't an answer. But little Almanac appeared to be just as relieved as Luna was, and she smiled sweetly up at the much larger alicorn. After a good shake to get everything out, Luna could not help but feel a little stupid.

"I told you," Overcast said to Almanac in some vaguely annoying manner that the colt had turned into an artform. "Princess Celestia respects courage. If you stand up to her, she'll like you."

Never one to miss an opportunity, Celestia swung her head around to face Overcast until she was almost nose-to-nose with him. "So you did this."

"So what if I did?" he asked.

"Good work. I applaud you for inspiring your fellow students." Then, Celestia's tone changed to one of warm concern when she asked again, "How are your parents?"

"Things aren't great," the colt replied.

Nodding, Celestia began to prepare a cup of tea and some sympathy for Overcast.

"A divorce seems likely." Anger flashed in Overcast's eyes, cold, frozen anger that seemed to chill the room. "My dad blames me, of course. He says that if I'd just kept my mouth shut, things would be fine. He's really angry that my mom found out all the things he said. She doesn't trust him now. They've tried talking, but it just turns into shouting, and I can't stand it. Rips up my guts and gives me a stomach ache."

"I'm really very sorry," Celestia said whilst she poured some tea into a cygnet cup. She added some sugar, a slice of lemon, and gave it a stir with a nudge of golden magic. "I know your father, young Master Overcast. He was a student here, as I am sure you know. He received middling marks the entirety of his academic career. Your father did only as much work as was necessary while also balancing a busy social life. I respected him for it. But…"—her face darkened, as if a cloud drifted in front of the sun—"he was never one for taking responsibility. When something happened, it was always circumstance, or bad luck, or the fault of another. If you can forgive me for saying it so bluntly, Noble Fir was not a pony that lived up to his namesake. He was a wellspring of caddishness."

"My mother and I… things are getting better. I'm really glad for that." Fretful, the colt shook his head. "Don't get me wrong… I love my father… or did… right now, I don't know what I feel. But my mother… she gave me my name. She was always defending me from cheerful ponies and she reminded them that storm clouds brought rain. I really, really hurt her and I don't know how to get over that. But I'm trying."

"I know you are," Celestia replied as she put down the cup full of tea in front of Overcast. "How is your little problem?"

"Which one?" he asked. "I have a whole lot of little problems." While speaking, he cast a fierce glare in Almanac's direction. "My worst problem is right there. If she keeps doing everything that she does, my grades are going to suffer."

"Uh-oh," Almanac said, and then she immediately jammed a scone with a missing blueberry into her mouth. All of it. With her hoof. Then, while chewing, she made every effort to look as innocent and harmless as possible.

"Your little dark magic problem, if I have to be specific."

"Oh. That." The colt inhaled, held it for a time, and then sighed. "I'm not as powerful as I was. That… well, if I am completely honest, it bothers me. Well, part of me. I don't do it intentionally, really I don't, but there are times when I just sort of… well, it happens without thinking because it was a habit for so long. But I'm getting better, I swear. I just have to work harder for the same results. That's all."

Then, before Celestia could respond, he continued, "I've noticed some changes. While my overall casting is weaker, I have these moments… there's times when… sometimes when I am listening and I allow my magic to free-roam I hear positive things. Good things. That didn't happen before. It's nice. Before, everything I heard was just negativity, and Princess Luna taught me why. I was caught in a feedback loop because I was channeling negativity into my magic and that negative magic sought out more negativity to make itself stronger. Princess Luna has helped me to understand myself and I'm getting better. Honest, I am."

"Don't be troubled, Master Overcast. I believe you. And I believe in you. You'll get better."

"Thank you, Princess Celestia."

"You've noticed the loss in power."

"Of course I have. I'm sensitive about that."

Frowning, Celestia offered up a gentle shake of her head. "Such a complicated thing, power. Some unicorns crave it. Unicorns crave power like dragons crave wealth. Both will do anything to get it. Even very bad things. After so much trial and error, and a number of dreadful failures, I've learned a few things about the subject. To take power away is dangerous and unpredictable. I wish I'd learned this lesson sooner. But… it is important to replace that which is taken away so ambitious little unicorns don't feel slighted."

"I think I understand," Overcast replied.

"How goes your divination studies?" she asked.

"They're difficult. But not impossible. I like them. Thank you for making those classes available to me, Princess Celestia."

"I never developed the knack for reading siguls and glyphs found in the bottom of teacups," Celestia said in an almost wistful tone. "Make no mistake, I tried. I understand that you show promise." Sitting up straighter, she unkinked her long neck. "I am of the opinion that divination is the most powerful school of magic. It is knowledge. And as we all know, knowledge is power. My student, Twilight, did well in divination, though not with the tea leaves as I had hoped. Her focus lies with information retrieval and library magics. With Cadance…"

Here, Celestia paused and blinked several times.

"With Cadance, she never showed much promise in divination as I had longed for. The only time she showed talent was when matchmaking. She actually failed her Portents & Premonitions class and had to take remedial studies to make up for her failure. The worst part is, she never saw it coming…"

Something detonated in Luna's mind, right between her ears, and before she realised it, she was laughing.

Overcast too, began laughing, but his was quiet, reserved, and well-mannered.

Alas, poor Almanac did not; instead, she asked, "What's so funny?"

"Ah, divination jokes will always be funny," Celestia said between chuckles. "There's a novel waiting to be read in tea leaves and tea leavings. Tyromancy has much to teach us, but so few can commune with cheese."

"I am starting to understand the mysterious ways of cheese," Overcast said.

"Really? Well, good for you, Master Overcast." Celestia seemed pleased; her eyes were warm, bright, and sunny. "I bet it scratches that itch for power."

The colt seemed embarrassed and averted his eyes. "It does, actually. But it's so difficult. I have to work so hard at it for so little in the way of results. I find it very frustrating. And Almanac ate my assignment."

Now it was Almanac's turn to avert her eyes, and she made an effort to stare out the window.

"Way, way back in the day," Celestia began, "tyromancy was known as the Whisperings of the Night Princess. Don't laugh, it's true. Little ponies actually believed the moon was made of cheese… a great all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipotent cheese. Now, of course, we know that the moon isn't made of cheese, though some little ponies insist that it is, but what we do know is that cheese made from the milk of magical creatures with magical diets can be surprisingly prophetic."

"Oh, that is so embarrassing," Luna whispered, and she took a turn staring out the window.

"Back then, we had cheese-oracles," Celestia continued, "ponies that would stow a cheese away until it was truly foul and stinky. We called them holey ponies. The cheese would be kept in a tight container for a time, and when the tyromancer wanted to know the future, they would crack the lid off, stick their heads in, and inhale the rancid fumes. Then, afterwards, they would babble with the cheese-tongue, and an assistant would write down everything said so it could be deciphered later, after the madness dissipated and they were mostly sane again."

"The worst part is, she's not joking." Sighing, Overcast shook his head and then slurped his tea. "It's all true. Every word of it."

"That's so gross," Almanac said with a shake of her head.

"Magical mammals pass along magic through their milk," Overcast explained to Almanac. "This magic in the milk, it congeals and curdles just like the milk does, and it concentrates. Sometimes, it goes bad. You get a cheese that reveals the future, but only bad things, so the outcome is misery. There are evil cheeses in the world, and some of them even gain sapience."

"You expect me to believe that there are evil thinking cheeses?" asked Almanac.

"Yes," Overcast replied without hesitation. "A tyromancer is obligated to do battle with them, as stated in the Introduction to Tyromancy: Volume I. We have to share our classroom with the myomancy students… I can't stand them. I just… can't. They're all so mousy and timid."

Confused, and more than a little doubtful, Almanac scowled at Overcast. "Myomancy?"

"Prophecy done by mice. Sometimes, they nibble graffiti onto a cheese and leave behind messages. A pony can learn to read these messages."

"You're fulla cheese, Overcast! Shut up!"

Luna—who knew the truth—also knew another truth: Celestia had enrolled Overcast in the most difficult, most obtuse, most mind-meltingly awful of classes. Why? To keep the colt's mind busy and occupied. If he was busy trying to read cheese, he wouldn't have time for his felonious hobbies. It could be said that Overcast was only happy when he had a problem to solve and divination proposed that the universe itself was a puzzle to be sorted out.

Like the myomancy students that he detested, Overcast had taken the bait. Now, the young colt would be so occupied trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe that he wouldn't have time to cause so much trouble. And so far, it seemed to be working. Yes, it was a risk; what Celestia said was true. Divination was power. Incredible power. Phenomenal power. But to have that power, one first had to make sense of it… or go mad in the process. Luna's own dream magic derived from divination, but to tamper with it without the proper foreknowledge was to invite madness and disaster.

It was a clever solution that Luna greatly respected.

"I lost a student who felt slighted." Almost whispering these words, Celestia's eyes turned sad, unfocused, and distant. "She was ambitious and hungry for power. I made a mistake. Honestly, I did. I restricted her and she starved. She went mad with hunger. I should have known better. I wish I had known better. She was dangerous. Her ambition knew no bounds. No end. Taking everything away from her was the worst possible thing I could have done."

The big white alicorn sighed and it was a bitter sound, one heavy with regret.

"Every failure is a lesson." Another sigh. Another shake of her fine, delicate head. Celestia, the Eternal Sun, failed to shine at this moment. "Every failure is a lesson. But some failures hurt more than others." Without warning, Celestia turned to Luna and said, "Sister… losing you… everything that happened… that was the most important and most painful lesson in my life. It was the first time that the consequences truly mattered. I couldn't live with myself. Because of what happened, I've spent the past thousand years trying to learn from my every mistake."

At a loss for words, Luna failed to respond.

Then, Celestia leveled her heavy stare upon poor Overcast, who cringed away.

"While it pains me to have to lecture you, I most certainly will. I'd rather we have discussions, but with this last incident you leave me very little choice, young Master Overcast. I received a report that you reduced Miss Sparrowhirst to tears with some particularly cruel words and exposing some of her secrets."

"I did that," Overcast said in a flat voice that was devoid of fear.

"Why would you do that?" asked Celestia.

"Because it needed to be done and I don't—"

"You don't get to determine that," Celestia said to the colt. "As a prefect, I expect better from you."

"I didn't ask to be a prefect," he retorted. "It's a condition of my probation."

"I can't think of any good reason that would justify what you did."

"Sparrow called Almanac a gross green fart stain and made her cry."

If these disgusting words had any effect upon Celestia, she showed no sign. "That does not excuse what you did. You should have reported this to a teacher."

"She had it coming!"

"Nopony 'has it coming', Master Overcast. It could be said that you had it coming, but considerable leniency was shown. I worry, because I don't wish to be burdened with another one of my dreadful lapses in judgment."

"Tell the truth, Overcast. Please, just tell her the—"

"Shut up, Alma."

"Don't you tell me to shut up you stinky cheese-talker! I'll turn you into a hamster! See if I don't! You keep telling me that we need to trust adults to do right and good! So now's your chance… tell her!"

"It won't make a difference, Alma. She's going to punish me no matter what."

"Tell her!"

"Tell me what?" Celestia gently asked.

"He lied to you," Almanac said and she cast her fierce, unflinching glare at the colt across the table. "He lied to you. Yes, Sparrowhirst called me a gross green fart stain, and yes, I cried about it, because she's mean, but Overcast didn't let her have it for that. He behaved. He was good!"

"So what happened, Almanac?" asked Celestia. "Just as before, I'll know if you lie to me. But I am inclined to believe you because of your previous honesty. What is the truth?"

"Alma, please don't. Just let it go and don't make it worse. For my sake. Please, please—"

"Overcast ignored her and refused to give her the time of day. When he didn't respond, she got mad. She said things. Awful things. And he ignored all of them. But then she started teasing him about marrying the criminally insane Princess Lunatic, and she said even worse things about the honeymoon, nasty things, gross, revolting things, and then she and her friends started making smoochy-smoochy noises and that's when Overcast spilled her secrets and told everypony about the time she tried kissing one of her filly friends to see what it was like but got so grossed out she threw up into her friend's mouth and then they were both so grossed out that they threw up on each other."

Still as a stone, Luna was conflicted, but a part of her wanted to laugh.

Another part wanted to cry.

She did neither.

"Not a word of this was mentioned in the report I received." A cool deadpan, Celestia's voice conveyed no emotional reaction whatsoever. "Please, excuse me for a moment while I collect my emotions. I ask for your patience."

"Almanac, why?"

"Because, Overcast! We're friends, that's why!"

"Now everything is worse. So much worse. I kind of want to throw myself out the window right now." The colt turned to look at the window for a moment, shuddered, and then went still.

"Overcast, why are you such a pain?"

"Almanac"—it took Luna a moment to hear the sound of her own voice without cringing—"Overcast and I share a special bond. This has to be difficult for him. Humiliating, even. Be thoughtful."

"You defended my sister's honour—"

"Don't you tease me!" Eyes bulging, Overcast turned on Celestia with a sudden, vicious ferocity. "Don't you dare tease me!"

Jerking her head back at the unexpected reprisal, Celestia shook her head. "I would never tease you about something with this sort of importance. You showed my sister loyalty, and for that, you have my gratitude."

Sulking, Overcast folded his forelegs over his barrel and turned his head away. "But you're still going to punish me."

"What else can I do? Rules were broken, Overcast. I cannot help but notice that you were willing to accept your punishment without a word being said about what really happened. I am proud of you. Really, I am."

"But I'm still being punished."

Frustrated, Celestia's nostrils flared. She started to say something, but no words found their way past her thin lips. The sharp angle of her chin moved up and down, but her mouth did not open, not with this attempt. This entire time, Luna agonised over her own need to express herself, but words seemed in short supply for both sisters. When neither of them could speak, they both shared a look between themselves, one that spoke volumes.

"What's the point in doing good if we still end up being punished for it?" With her jaw muscles tensed, Almanac's chubby cheeks made her appear almost like an apprehensive bespectacled chipmunk. Her avocado green pelt became discoloured around her face as the skin beneath turned rather purple. "If I'm just going to be punished anyway, I'd rather do the bad thing." Frustrated to the point of anger, and turning ever-more purple by the second, she punctuated her words with a powerful snort.

A lone booger broke free of the surly bonds of gravity and rocketed upwards in a lonesome, curving flight. Just before impact with the ceiling, Celestia's horn glowed with dazzling daylight, and the rocket-booger vanished, leaving behind this unfair plane of existence. Distracted, all four ponies looked upwards where the booger wasn't, each of them reacting in their own way.

"Princess Celestia?"

"Yes, young Master Overcast?"

"How… how did you track something moving that fast? I mean, you didn't even look at it. I need to know."

"Prepare for disappointment, young Master Overcast. Such secrets are shared with students who behave themselves."

"Dare I even ask where it went?"

"Elsewhere, Master Overcast. It went elsewhere, to realms unmentionable."

No longer purple, Almanac's small head remained craned upwards. "That was awesome."

Stating the obvious, as she was wont to do, Luna said, "That was a much-needed diversion."

"Princess Celestia…" Clearing her throat, Almanac restarted what she had to say. "Headmistress Celestia, please, don't punish Overcast. Can't you just… forgive him?"

"No," Overcast said, before Celestia had a chance to respond. "What I did was wrong. Let's just get that out of the way. I know exactly what I did. Sparrowhirst and I really hate each other. She knows exactly how to bully me, and for the longest time, she was the very bane of my existence. I failed. Me. I did it. If I don't face the consequences from this, I'm not going to learn much of anything. I didn't mean to respond the way I did… it just… it just sort of happened without me thinking about it. My temper got the best of me."

Luna alone saw the pain and conflict in her sister's eyes.

"I don't trust my teachers," Almanac said, almost spitting out each word. "This is bad. I hate this. And if you punish my friend, I might start hating you too. Just a little. Maybe more. If I start to hate you, you'll be sorry. Because I'm a pest! I'm a pest and you see what I do to my friends and you don't wanna know what I'll do to my not-friends."

"I wish you would have told me." Once more lowering her head, Celestia eased herself down to Overcast's eye level with all of the practised ease of an accomplished headmistress. "I can't fix all of the broken things if you don't help me. This is the reason why I wanted you as a prefect. We are in a state of crisis. The changelings have ruined everything. Everypony is so suspicious of one another. There are so many deep wounds. I no longer recognise my own school. It hasn't been this bad in a long, long time."

While she had nothing to say, Luna did have quite a few thoughts. She had no frame of reference because of her long absence. To say that all of this pained her sister was an understatement. What was once a well-oiled machine was now a wreck, a gross parody of its former self. But, Luna was confident that it could be fixed. Celestia would fix it, because her sister was just that kind of pony. She did not give up, and Luna took great comfort in that fact.

"All I ever do is complain," Overcast said, and he did not make eye-contact with the big mare desperately trying to connect with him. "I have tried to tell you stuff. Nothing has changed. I'm not sure anything will ever change. Everything just feels so pointless."

"That's the changeling mind-stuff," Almanac said to Overcast. "It lingers."

"I guess." The colt shrugged. "I can't tell where the changeling magic ends and where I begin."

"Things take time to change," Celestia said, though she spoke to nopony in particular. Perhaps she told this to herself. "Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria—"

Almanac interrupted, saying, "That's a horrible way to start a story. Maybe you should attend a creative writing class."

"Thank you, Miss Avocado. Anyhow." The big mare shook herself slightly, but it was enough to cause the entire room to tremble around her. "A long time ago, a very long time ago, I had a student who did nothing but complain. She complained about everything. And everypony. Why, she even had the nerve to complain about me. If she was awake, she was complaining.

"Mindful of her complaints, and even agreeing with some of them, I made her a prefect. You might think that would have helped things, but no." She shook her head and sighed. "Not even a little. That made things worse. Because now, she had some authority. Nibbles Nettles just had to find something to complain about, because that was just the sort of pony she was.

"Little Nibbles Nettles grew up into a spiteful, angry, firebrand of a mare… and she lived to complain. I gave her a role in the administration, but when I tried to pay her a salary, she complained about that, too. Said the money would be better spent elsewhere. Miss Nettles complained about all the feces everywhere, and she led the charge to have the school modernised with indoor plumbing. No more chamber pots, no more crud crockeries. No more thundermugs. The school was outfitted with toilets. And showers. And there was much rejoicing.

"But not Miss Nettles. She turned her critical eye on the runny grey gruel served to the students. Oh, she had a lot to say about the gruel—none of it was nice—but she did agree that it was mostly hot and that there was plenty of it. After a prolonged battle, and the near defenestration of an accountant, she established the school's nutritional health program.

"Every single day, my inbox was flooded with her official, formal complaints. I hired staff to deal with them all, because managing them was a full time job and I could not teach and handle all those complaints at the same time. Much less rule Equestria. Miss Nettles turned to standards… mostly complaining that we had none. We had illiterate teachers. It's true. They could teach magic and had no good reason to read or write. But Miss Nettles felt differently.

"She spearheaded an effort to have reading, writing, and arithmetic taught in the school. Not just magic. Other classes, too. The teachers resisted her efforts, because enforcing standards put them at risk of their job. She caused a lot of friction. Miss Nettles did not have a surplus of friends, and she never married. The entirety of her existence was dedicated to the school, which she turned into a place of actual education, and not just magical instruction.

"One day, I realised that I Miss Nettles and I were having a conversation, and she hadn't complained. Much. Oh, she'd slipped a few little complaints into the conversation, like seasoning into a stew, but we were talking. Actually talking. And it occurred to me, my school was doing well. Spectacularly, in fact. It wasn't too long after that… at least by my standards, anyhow, that she died. Nibbles Nettles died at the astonishing age of ninety-three, after eighty years of service to the school. Exactly three ponies attended her funeral, and I vividly recall that day as the janitor, a groundskeeper, and I myself all mourned her passing. When she was finally gone, when she was finally quiet, everypony breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, even me."

"Why tell me this?" asked Overcast.

"Because," replied Celestia, "you like to complain."

The colt's face paled beneath his almost-mauve pelt.

"That's right. You understand me now, don't you? If you keep complaining about how bad things are, I will put you to work. You will be made to fix things. For a pony to complain about something, they have to care about it."

"You're serious."

"Very much so, young Master Overcast. Go down into the Dead Archives. You'll find Nibbles Nettles' records. She has an entire shelf dedicated to her accomplishments, which are many."

Ears sagging, the young colt shook his head. "But… Luna," he said, as if this explained everything. "I am to become her eyes. And whatever else she has planned for me."

"I do believe my sister could use a spare pair of eyes around the school," Celestia replied.

"I would not object to that," said Luna.

"But… my pledge—"

"I would not hold you back, Overcast."

"But this is something Princess Celestia is asking me to do."

"Overcast"—Luna filled her lungs with some much-needed air—"as I have told you many times now, choice will be returned to you when you make better choices. If my sister offered you a job, and you took it, such a thing would not conflict with my interests and what I want for you. Your talents would be useful in the school."

"But I don't know what I want just yet," he said, almost stammering. "I mean, right now, I'm still trying to turn things around."

"I'm not asking you to commit yourself," Celestia said to the colt. "But it is a future to consider. Even if you don't commit yourself completely, a little help right now would be appreciated. I need my teachers to trust Luna the same way that they trust me, and to show her the same respect. It starts by doing a better job as a prefect. You trust me. I trust you. We share and exchange information. You alert me to problems. I've done everything within my power to accommodate you and your interests, young Master Overcast. And I will continue to do so even if you refuse me right now. Because I want what is best for you. But I also want what is best for my school, so I am willing to take a bit of risk by giving you the means to help me make changes."

There was a curious pang in Luna's heart, a strange prickle that made her skin crawl.

"Just think of your friend, Miss Waterkey. She's started the Student Self-Help Center. I'm giving her resources, rooms, everything she needs to make change happen. Students are coming to her for help. And my sister's involvement, too, of course. It's a satisfying start."

The cold prickle thawed into a warm sensation of fuzziness. Wednesday Waterkey found the help she needed by helping others. No longer the Invisible Filly, she was the public face for Luna's special program. It had all started with detention and transitioned into something else. While it was a slow start, things were happening. There were regulars who showed up almost every day. This success was a reminder for Luna that she could make a difference, even without the trust and acceptance she craved. Those things would come in time, perhaps.

"But… I'm a mess. I can't be trusted with my own life right now."

"You stood up for my sister," Celestia said, almost whispering. "Even if you went about it in the wrong way, I still appreciate that you did it. You are bound to fumble and make mistakes. That's fine. That's expected. This is a school. Mistakes have to be made for learning to happen."

"Overcast"—little Almanac pressed her front hooves together as she said his name—"you should do this. I know its hard, and its probably a lot of work, but I'm hard, and I'm a lot of work, and I'm worth it, aren't I?"

"Alma, I don't know how to respond to that. Of course you're worth it. But… what Celestia's asking me to do… I don't know if I have it in me. I'm still recovering. My parents are probably going to get a divorce, and there's no telling what that will do to me. I can't control my temper. Because of my eavesdropping, none of my teachers really trust me or like me that much. Neither do the students. Everypony is afraid of having their secrets and wrongdoings exposed. What else can I say?"

"Some of us battle Discord. Some of us battle bugs." Almanac tapped front hooves together several times. "Some of us have to save the school. I know it doesn't seem like much in comparison, but somepony has to do it. You could be that pony. You love the school. I've heard you say it."

"Thank you, Almanac. I really am sorry about my careless words. I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to help you, but I made a mess of things. I always make a mess of things. And that's why I'm worried about failing."

Luna thought of her own failures, which stung a little, but her spirit stayed strong. For whatever reason, she was in a good mood. At least for the moment. This could change with all the unexpected fury of a feral squall out over the heartwaters of the ocean. Her thoughts strayed, drifting, going elsewhere, and she thought of home and hearth. But now was not the time. Perhaps when the school was more stable, she would mention this to her sister. Still, the idea persisted, and what a pleasant idea it was.

"Princess Celestia…"

"Yes, young Master Overcast?"

"I need some time to think about all of this. I'm not saying no, but I can't say yes. Not right now. I can't even figure out why you would trust me after all I've done."

"Because, I trust my sister, and she believes in you. All formality aside, Overcast, but you started down a dark path. Of your own free will, of your own volition, you turned yourself back around. You chose reconciliation and rehabilitation. Even though it is very difficult and painful, you are rebuilding your relationship with your parents… though it seems that your father… well, I have nothing nice to say and you know how the saying goes. I want to hold the door open for you so you can live up to your full potential. By the way, I plan to stick a service pin to your prefect's collar."

"Please don't do that," he replied, almost whining. "I don't deserve it."

"This will be a special pin… a moon of some sort, perhaps. And not a radiant sun."

"I know you mean well, but that will just get me teased. And I'll probably lose my temper. Just to make it clear, I wouldn't be ashamed to wear it, but I don't trust myself. That'd be like a bullseye or a lightning rod for trouble."

"You are getting the pin, and with it, no more foalish, youthful titles. Instead of young Master Overcast, you'll be Mister Overcast. Won't that be nice. A bit of maturity, yes indeed. How refreshing."

"No," he squeaked, his voice cracking like a dropped plate. "No, that won't be nice at all. Don't do it."

"Your lacy prefect's collar makes you look like a supreme-extreme megadork. I stuffed it into your bookbag after you became a hamster."

"Thanks, Alma. I needed that. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"I'm actually trying to stay out of trouble," the colt said, and picking up his teacup, he stared down into the depths with one squinty eye. "Really, I am. Trying to… trying to fix things with my mother, that's taxing. And getting into trouble takes away from that. It distracts me. Princess Luna kept her word and she helped me reconnect with my mom. That was… incredibly hard and it felt like I was going to die that night. I feel really conflicted saying all of this, because… because I love my dad… and I keep talking about my mom, and I think my dad hates me, and to be honest, there's a part of me that hates him, and I'm right back to where I started, waiting for love to die so it will stop hurting and that's what made me dabble in dark magic in the first place."

"Do you need a hug?" asked Celestia.

"No!" Immediately, Overcast pulled away and almost spilled his tea.

"There's no shame in it—"

"Yes there is," he said with a shake of his head. "I'm already a teacher's pet. And a snitch."

"I think you need a hug—"

"And I think you need to stop ruining my life!"

"Mister Overcast, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"I'm not like you," he said, defending himself. "I'm mortal. I can die of embarrassment."

Just when it seemed for certain that Celestia would murder one of her students with an act of aggressive kindness, the door opened and a guard entered. A different guard than the one before—though to the casual onlooker, one would not be able to tell the difference, due to the uniformity spell enchanted in the armor. Luna could see right through the disguise though, and recognised the older pegasus.

He was one of hers, even though he wore the golden mail.

"Your Majesty, I come bearing news for you."

Nodding, Luna waited.

"Your Majesty, the foundling has been born and is ready for pickup."

Right away, Luna was almost overcome by anxiety, but she stuffed it all down. It would have to be sorted out later. Recovering herself, she asked, "Any word about the mother? Is she well after her… experience?"

"Your Majesty, I've heard nothing. I'm sorry. The message sent made no mention of the mother."

Somewhat worried, Luna nodded. Looking about, she realised that Almanac and Overcast were staring at her, confused, and her sister, saddened, stared out the window. Luna knew better than to ask, or to even mention it. She knew her sister's feelings on this issue, how it wounded her and troubled her heart. This was one of Luna's most important duties, because she was the Princess of Foundlings.

"Thank you, Commandant Aurum. I'll depart at once."

"I'll arrange an escort. Hammer and Anvil will be roused and—"

"No." Celestia's deadpan refusal silenced the old pegasus. "No, my sister will take the royal railcar. Have it prepared at once and send word ahead through all the proper channels."

"Sister?" Brows furrowed, Luna tried to figure out what her sibling was up to. "It's faster to fly. I can be there and back before dawn if I leave right now."

"Luna, you're taking the train. And your loyal legion will escort you."

"Sister, this is not wise. The foundling will upset them." Luna considered saying more, but Celestia had that look in her eye.

"Commandant Aurum, prepare the royal railcar. See that it is well-staffed. Spare nothing. I want it ready to go within the hour."

"Yes, Your Majesty. At once."

Before Luna could say anything, Aurum was gone; the old pegasus was fast on his hooves, which made him a useful messenger. She stared at her sister, confused, but knowing that Celestia surely had her best interests in mind. There had to be a purpose. But what? Why? Or maybe it had nothing to do with her, but the students. Perhaps exposure to a foundling might offer up some sort of valuable awareness.

"What's a foundling?" asked Almanac.

"I'll leave that for Luna to explain, Miss Avocado. Right now, you need to prepare for a field trip. I'll dispatch a messenger to your parents so they won't worry."

"But I have assignments that need doing and I—"

"Take them with you, Mister Overcast."

"But I—"

"But nothing. You're going, that's final. This is of the utmost importance that you go together. Trust me."

"Sister?"

"Trust me, Luna. Please?"

"Of course."

"And please, have a nice time together. No pressures, no worries, just a nice sleepover. It will be pleasant. And fun. Not to mention educational."

"I wish I knew what was going on," said Luna.

"Telling you would spoil the surprise, Sister." Then, turning her full attention to Overcast, she said, "We'll talk when you come home. Just you and I. Don't be worried. Be prepared for the best to happen."

"Did you talk to a cheese?" asked Overcast.

"I have other methods," Celestia replied with a broad smile. "This is your time, Overcast. Your clouds will part and you will shine. Make the most of it."

"What's about to happen?"

"Something wonderful. Something life changing. Now hurry, you must be ready."

Luna realised that her sister knew something.

"Fate brings ponies to tea," Celestia said. "Now, away with you. All of you. Go have the time of your lives. As for myself, I'm going to go and announce some new policies. There's still daylight, so there's still time to make changes."

"Goodbye, Sister."

"Goodbye, Luna. Go have fun! Go on!"

Author's Note

My editor is AWOL and this has been ready to go since yesterday. Might be kinda rough. Please report all typos. You know the drill.

There's a lot going on here than first appears on the surface.

So, what's a foundling, you might be asking. Don't worry, I'll show you.

Just before the sun sets, the moon must rise

The late afternoon sun was golden in hue and warm upon the withers. Luna, a giant, stood upon the train platform surrounded by those most precious to her, little ponies. Of course, the little ponies came in all sizes, with some of them almost as large as she, so calling them little ponies felt strange at times. Amidst the chaos, there were four small little ponies, who stood in a neat row from tiniest to largest. Almanac Avocado, the tiniest, remained close to Overcast, who was but a little larger. Beside Overcast was Top Notch, who was just about the same height as Overcast, but had a far more solid build and wasn't so slight. The tallest of the group was Wednesday Waterkey, though much of her height came from the riotous mass of flaxen curls on her head, coils of elastic chaotic insanity that had a mind of their own.

Of the four, the only one not enjoying the sun was Overcast, who had developed an aversion to it since the appearance of his mark. It was a curious condition, but these things happened. Everything came at a cost, but also had a benefit. What the colt had gained with his mark remained to be discovered. With time and maturity, useful traits would surely manifest. When Luna's mark had appeared, her power grew by leaps and bounds, and she gained shadow magic. Many said that she had been branded with a dark mark. It caused quite a few problems, because it was believed that shadow magic was inherently evil. Umbrathurgy was classified as dark magic and to suddenly gain such power after receiving one's mark was quite alarming for the scholars of the era.

Of course, even now, in the modern era, with more open minds, some still believed it had dark origins.

Deep within the shadowy recesses of Luna's heart, she hoped that Overcast would also develop such magics. Other than Sombra during his brief return—an event cut short by Twilight Sparkle—she was alone. What she wanted, of course, was reassurance. That she did not bear a dark mark. That good ponies could also be natural-born umbrathurges. There were ways to become an umbrathurge unnaturally, and this troubled Luna, because of the great evil involved in doing so. Luna wanted her sister to be right; Celestia's comforting words included cliché phrases such as, 'the sun casts a shadow', and other such drivel.

But Luna's ears longed to hear such sweet reassurance.

With nothing else to do, she began to fret to pass the time. This task would soon become complicated, and Celestia was to blame. What was she thinking, anyhow? The foundling would cause all manner of trouble, not just for the students, but for the staff. Then again, the foundling was no doubt causing trouble at the hospital. There was also the mother to think about, the poor mare who had endured eleven months of non-stop fear, unease, and a nagging sensation of dreadful apprehension, only to birth a bad omen into the world.

Saddened, Luna sighed.

"Princess Luna, a word if I may?"

Grateful for the distraction, she turned her attention to Overcast.

"I suspect that this… foundling, whatever it is, is two days early."

"What makes you say that?"

"Princess Celestia had me on her schedule two days from now," he replied. The colt went quiet for a brief instant, no doubt collecting his thoughts, and then, squinting, he turned his face towards Luna to finish what he had to say. "She said that fate brought us together sooner near the start of our conversation. I don't recall her exact words. But, just before we left, she said that fate brings ponies to tea… and it does. Because tea leaves develop concentrated magic during their growth and the Camellia Sinensis family of plants are naturally prophetic organisms. I have this… feeling, this sensation that everything happened the way it did because it had to happen, so each of us would be in the right place at the right time, so circumstances would align so that we could be ready for this foundling's birth. Whatever a foundling is."

"How peculiar," replied Luna, who now had something better to think about.

"On my first day of Tasseography Essentials: an Introduction to Tasseomancy, the teacher told us that tea is one of the few reagents capable of warping or influencing reality in a localised area. It is speculated that it is something about being boiled in hot water, but that's just a theory. It's not proven." The colt paused to clear his throat. "Princess Celestia spoke the truth: fate does, indeed, bring ponies to tea."

As the colt spoke his final word, Luna thought of her teatime with Twilight Sparkle.

"How can tea do that?" asked Top Notch, who seemed to be having some trouble wrapping his mind around such a concept. "That disturbs me greatly, that our lives can be somehow controlled by a hot drink."

"Not controlled," Overcast said to his friend. "Influenced. Certain events are bound to happen. Tea functions as a… well, it functions as… I don't know how to put it. But it is one of many things that influence our lives in some small but measurable way. Like the tides, star alignments, and the marks that manifest on our hindquarters."

"Cutie marks, you mean!"

"I hate that term, Alma. Don't say that. There's nothing 'cute' about it."

"So, what you're saying is, Overcast"—Top Notch's mind, while some might consider it rather slow, was in fact quite keen in spite of its glacial pace—"don't drink tea on a ship full of cheese during high tide beneath the stars?"

"I haven't said a thing about cheese, Topper."

"Not yet, no. But given time, you no doubt would have, Overcast. You can't fault me for anticipating potential conversation."

"You're very weird, Overcast."

"Thank you, Wednesday. One day, the world will know my weirdness."

"What are you planning? Do I need to set you straight in advance? Princess Luna, he's planning something!"

"No, Whinny. I was just thinking that tasseomancy might also apply to coffee dregs. I have ideas… notions. The world is full of secrets. There are hidden messages in everything. It is my intention to read them."

Wednesday visibly relaxed a little. "Well, that's a relief. I'll allow it."

"How gracious of you, Whinny."

"Once, I ate a bag of coffee beans," Almanac said to her companions. "They were covered in chocolate. I just couldn't stop. Ate the whole bag. They were crunchy and delicious and nummy-nummy-num-nums in my tummy. I swear to Princess Luna, I could see through time and space by the time I was done, and I could feel the vibration of the world's heartbeat."

"How horrifying," Overcast deadpanned.

"Quite," Top Notch agreed with an amicable nod.

"Will the two of you quit acting like upper-class twits?" asked Wednesday.

"But we are upper-class tw—"

"I protest!" Top Notch protested, protesting profusely and profoundly before Overcast could finish. "I object on the grounds that there is no evidence for such a statement."

Beneath such lawyerly scrutiny, Wednesday could do naught but roll her eyes skyward.

"Oh, thank goodness, I think we're ready to board! The door's been opened!" Excitedly, Almanac pointed with her hoof. "All aboard?"

"All aboard!" the conductor shouted.

"I forgot my ticket!" Almanac cried.

"You don't need a ticket, you little imp." With her patience in a winepress, Wednesday Waterkey was almost ready to whine. "Behave, Almanac. Act like a lady. To be seen in public with Princess Luna is a privilege."

"Aw, you're no fun at all, Whinny."

"Just get on the train, Alma, and we can have fun once we're going! Now get your things!"

Upon his release Placebo immediately claimed the plush, cushioned window sill bench, flopped over, and purred contentedly in the way that cats sunbathing near windows do. He kept a wary eye on Almanac—again, the way that cats do—because she was a confirmed pest and a disturber of the peace. When she did not rush over to hug him, squeeze him, love him, and most curiously of all, call him George, Placebo relaxed just a little.

"I think I'm happy we brought my cat along," Overcast said with no small amount of uncertainty, "but it's very hard to tell."

"Placebo has that effect." Then, perhaps realising what he'd said, and that he'd been taken for a ride, Top Notch cringed—hard. Afterward, still scowling just a bit, he shook his head while heaving a silent sigh of regret before saying, "I just squirked myself."

"Squirked?" asked Luna.

"An irked sense of squick." The colt took a moment to consider his words. "I just said what came to mind."

Drawing herself up to her full height, Luna had herself a look around. This car had been remodeled since the last time she occupied it. A little less royal opulence and a bit more common comfort. Had her complaints reached the right ears? It now looked a bit more like a billiards room, with green on green felt wallpaper, red velvet cushions on the couches, and all of the wood had a dark, rich stain to it with high gloss. It was, in the modern parlance, swanky.

There was a bar stocked with soda pop of all kinds, which Luna appreciated. Enormous glass jars filled with enticing candies adorned the shelves just behind the bar. Overhead, there were skylights, which would offer a lovely view once the sun had set. Near to the bar, sitting on an ornate wooden pedestal cabinet, there was a phonograph. That they could fit an entire orchestra into such a tiny box was a miraculous accomplishment of the modern age.

Sauntering over to the bar—it felt good to saunter, but also to sashay, mosey, and pootle, depending upon her mood—she had herself a good look around. There was enough liquid sugar here that Canterlot's dentistry guilds would report substantial gains. Fizzy drinks of every description, including some peculiar flavours that piqued her interest. One stood out, perhaps because of the glowing, swirling rainbow liquid within and a warning label of a flaming pony skull; it was called Burning Painbow and the label promised it was made from the finest pegasus pony rainbow extracts.

Consumer magics had advanced considerably during Luna's absence.

The train trundled westwards into the Unicorn Range, towards the Smokey Mountains. A strange magic turned the windows into the most picturesque paintings, with lush, green farmland as far as the eye could see. This was the heartland of Equestria, and might have been called Unicornia had things gone differently. Luna, a mare lost to time, was still catching up on the history of Equestria, all that happened during her long absence. In a sense, she was a student too, just one of the many things she had in common with the legion that bore her name.

"I'm bored. Play with me!"

"Almanac, I have to study—"

"Play with me, Overcast! Please! Or else I'll die and stink up the place! Let's see if you can study then!"

Thoroughly annoyed, the colt leveled a stern deadpan gaze on his companion. "You should study as well. It's quiet. Perfect. Calm." He gestured at Top Notch and Wednesday, who studied together. "You're the only one who is bored. The rest of us stay busy."

"Please?" The filly's tone was pleading in a sincere way. "I'm having a rough time. I've never spent the night away from my parents before. Ever." She blinked, fidgeted, and then shook her head hard enough to make her ears waggle. "Well, I have. But that was different. Sometimes I stayed with my grandparents or my aunts and uncles, but my parent's house was just a short walk away… back when we had a nice house and not a closet apartment over the smelly apothecary that stinks of medicine and farts. I'm scared and freaking out and if somepony doesn't pay me some attention, I'm going to misbehave until somepony does."

"Alright, alright." Closing his book, Overcast offered his precious attention to his distraught companion. "What are we doing?"

"Tunks?" Ears twitching, Almanac seemed hopeful and she nodded her head up and down.

"What is it with you and tunks?" asked Overcast.

"I didn't grow up with it," she rapidly replied.

If history could be believed, Celestia had invented the game of tunks at some point during Luna's exile. While Luna had never actually played it, she was familiar with it, and had a base understanding of the rules. Unicorns, both old and young, played to keep their telekinesis in fine fettle. It was a simple game, at least easy to learn, but the fact that unicorns spent their lives playing it hinted at its difficulty.

To play, one had to first construct the corral, the playing area. This was done with pieces of wooden planks, or sometimes with miniature fences. Sometimes, the students used cardboard. The game was played with a collection of small, slippery, perfectly smooth balls that were actually two magnets held tight together. Each of the balls were of a different size, some small, some large, and each ball had a magnetic heart with varying degrees of different strength. Pulling the two halves apart was fiendishly tricky. It had to be done within the corral and if one used too much force, the two halves would fly apart and knock down the corral fence. But if one failed to pull them apart enough, they would reconnect back together with a solid TUNK! sound, which gave the game its name.

One simply could not slide the two halves apart, as one might expect. Like puzzle pieces, they fitted together with raised bits and recessed crevices that prevented one from just sliding them apart. They had to be pulled, and in just the right way to prevent disaster. Making the game even more challenging was that it could be played in teams, with two unicorns attempting to pull the halves apart. Luna could not help but wonder just how many friendships this had ruined.

If one somehow progressed through the entire collection of magnetic orbs, then began the pairs portion of the game, where two balls were pulled apart at the same time, requiring even more concentration. Very rarely, the game would progress to threesies or foursies, but as far as Luna knew, the game never went beyond that.

"The star ball gives me fits," Almanac said with a wary frown. "It's more slippery than the others."

"Strange," Wednesday said without looking up from her textbook, "I have trouble with the ursa major. It's slippery and kind of heavy, being the largest. Hard to get a grip on. And the weird bear shape in the middle makes it difficult to pull apart. You have to work from the legs side first for some reason."

"Oh, I'm making a note of that, I am," said Almanac, who now paid attention.

Lifting his head out of his book, Top Notch said, "I always wreck the corral with that one. I go to pull it apart and it never fails. I bang the fence and down it goes."

"It's the legs, Topper. Something about them."

"I'll be mindful of that in the future. Thanks, Whinny."

"Don't mention it, Topper."

"I can deal with the large ones just fine," Overcast said as he began to dig around in his bag for the game. "More surface area. They're slippery, sure, but there's still more grip available. I have the most trouble with the tiny ones. They're my bane."

"That's strange"—frowning intently, Top Notch's forehead became a plowed farmer's field—"the little ones are the easiest ones to manage. I cannot imagine them giving a pony trouble."

"There's just not enough to grab, Topper."

"I suppose it just goes to show how we're all different," Top Notch replied with a sage nod of his head. "It's funny though, because you can use your magic to manipulate locks, and they're tiny."

"They're also not interlocking magnets with distinct shapes inside of perfectly crafted orbs of precious metal designed by unicorn craftmasters to be as slippery as a hot buttered cob of corn."

"That… that is a fair point, Overcast."

"Thank you for playing with me." Almost on the verge of tears, Almanac's gratitude was on display for all to see. "You're my besties. All of you. I don't know why you put up with me. I mean, I'll probably turn each and every one of you into hamsters at some point, and I know that it will all be fine, because you'll forgive me and we'll grow up together and stay best friends and laugh about the time I turned you into hamsters when we're all old and boring and no fun."

Nopony responded; not a word was said.

Overcast pulled out a long wooden box with silver hinges from his bag and then set it down upon the floor. He slipped from his seat in the boneless manner possessed by the young, and eased himself down to the floor where he opened the box. Inside, upon a bed of black velvet, there were sixteen silver orbs of different sizes. In the lid, the four sections of the corral fence could be found.

It occurred to Luna that this toy, this plaything, probably cost more coin than Almanac's parents would see in the entirety of their lifetimes. There had to be several pounds worth of precious silver, a king's ransom used to make a toy to teach a unicorn to use the powers of the mind. This was also a reminder that Overcast—for all of his ill-repute—was an aristocratic noble, while Almanac was not. Doors would open for Overcast that would never open for Almanac, and the young colt was protected from failure in a way that Almanac might never comprehend.

Her parents had sacrificed everything for the sake of social mobility, as it was known in the modern parlance.

Saying nothing, Luna lifted up one of the midsized silver orbs, hefted it several times with her magic to get a feel for it, and then brought it up to eye level. It was, indeed, slippery. Magically smoothed with metal-shaping. Which is to say it was smooth even on a microscopic level that the naked eye could not see. When she went to pull it apart, she encountered difficulty that she did not expect. Her first attempt failed completely, because gripping the spherical shape was quite difficult. Attempting to pinch it resulted in her grip just slipping off of the smooth curve.

She did find purchase though, and tried again. The orb resisted her efforts to slip her telekinetic influence into its middle. This was… annoying to say the very least, but that was no-doubt the point. She finally pulled the sphere apart into two pieces without any embarrassment, and much to her surprise, there was a crescent moon inside. On either half, it had a bas-relief of her beloved moon, with one side raised and the other recessed. She wasn't sure what sort of metal made up the heart of the orb, but she suspected that it was highly magnetic star metal, an incredible rarity.

The two halves went back together with a metallic tunk!

"Do the sets matter?" asked Luna. "I mean, surely, you have your own sets. Do the difficulties remain constant?"

After a moment spent in thought, Wednesday nodded. "Overcast's tunk set and my own, the ursa major is the one that gives me fits. There are some differences, I suppose. Topper's set uses gold instead of silver, and it's a bit more slippery, all things considered. Also heavier. That makes the biggest difference. The pieces gain more momentum when you pry them apart."

"Interesting." Levitating the orb right in front of her face, Luna continued her intense examination of the curious plaything.

"Gold vibrates differently when touched by telekinesis," Overcast said. "More intense. Because it is, well, I don't know what is going on. Because it is more dense than silver? But the thrum of magic causes an exaggerated reaction that makes it hard to hold on to."

"I think Overcast is on to something," Top Notch remarked. "Do you think it is worth noting that my telekinesis is the strongest and I've got the gold set?"

Overcast nodded his agreement. "Perhaps, Topper. That is something to consider."

"I am going to teach you something, so pay attention."

All four heads turned to look at Luna, and she delighted in their response. This felt good. Felt right. It was easy to understand why her sister liked teaching. This was a fair exchange; all Luna had to do to have their rapt attention was to give them something, and as it turned out, she had a lot to give. With great care so she wouldn't drop the orb and embarrass herself, she floated it back over to the case, gently set it down upon its velvet bed, and then thought about where to begin.

"Unicorns have a unique sensory organ," Luna began. "I am sure that you know this already, but I'll mention the very basics. A unicorn's horn is connected to every other sense they have. The eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Skin, too, but in a strange, less-defined way. Unicorns are unique in that they have a special network of nerves. Most unicorns passively develop their unique sense through ancillary connections to their other senses. When you look with your eyes, for example, your horn lends its abilities to them. For a pony like Overcast, this is what allows him to read tea leaves in the bottom of a teacup. Other ponies cannot do this. A unicorn's magic changes their vision and how they see."

She paused, waited, and allowed some time for her words to settle in.

"Very, very few develop the horn and its unique senses." Another pause, a short one, and then she continued, "Every sense can be developed to extraordinary ability. Including the horn. It doesn't have to passively contribute to your perceptions. When you are playing your game, cease using your eyes. Close them. Deny yourself your sight. Pull the orbs apart and rely entirely upon what your horn tells you. Can you sense the tug and pull of magnetism? Pull the halves only as far apart as you need, until the pull can no longer be felt. I've watched you play and I've seen how you use your eyes to measure distance, approximating what you think is a necessary space between the separated halves. You wait and see if it will wiggle before you let go."

"It's true"—speaking in a low whisper, Top Notch nodded his head—"I do exactly that."

"I do it too," Wednesday said. "And sometimes, I'm wrong. The pieces don't appear to move while I am holding them, but will snap back together the moment my focus lapses even slightly. It's very frustrating. I will say, it's taught me to be very deliberate with my actions."

"Is that what I'm doing wrong?" asked Almanac.

"I don't use my eyes—"

"Oh, here we go," Wednesday said. "Overcast gets to tell us why we're all wrong."

"No, Whinny, I wasn't going to do that. Honest. Give me a chance?"

"Sorry, Overcast. My apologies. Do continue."

"I listen," Overcast said. "I guess maybe I use my eyes a little. Probably without realising it. But if you listen… when the two halves are close together and the magnets tug on them, the sound is different. The tone, the pitch changes. The metal hums differently. When the two halves are far enough apart, they don't sing together. But bring them closer, and they ring together."

"Alright, I'll admit it, I was wrong," Wednesday said. "Overcast had something to say and he wasn't smug or annoyingly superiour about it." She turned to face her friend and offered up a sincere apologetic smile. "And that's really interesting. I'll have to give it a listen. I'm told I have a good ear for music, so maybe this will help me."

"Sometimes, I hate learning new things." Inhaling, Top Notch wore an expression of annoyance and he let everything out in a long, enduring groan. "Just when I think I have everything figured out and that I can get on with things, something comes along that upsets everything and then I have to get everything sorted out again. And that takes time. And effort. I have better things I could be doing."

"Cheer up, Topper. Could be worse."

"How could it be worse, Alma?"

"I have no idea. It's just a thing you're supposed to say to make somepony feel better."

Again, Topper groaned, but had nothing to say.

"It has become increasingly difficult to teach about how unicorns are different," Luna began, "because some might see it as proof that unicorns are somehow better. I've encountered this during my studies so that I might acquaint myself with the modern age. The knowledge is there. But for whatever reason it is kept from impressionable young minds. There is so much focus on what makes us all the same and anything that sets us apart is frowned upon. I get it… I do… necessary sacrifices on the altar of unity. Overcast and I have had several discussions about this very thing."

"Overcast gets teased because his mom is a pegasus and—"

"Shut up, Almanac!"

Wounded, the bespectacled filly cast her pained stare upon her friend. "I'm trying to help."

"You can help by just shutting up about it. I'm not in the mood to discuss this."

Quite without warning, Luna gained a painful awareness of a problem. Impassive, silent, she watched as Almanac squirmed. Every other instance of Overcast telling her to shut up just bounced off of her, but not this time. It wasn't hard to guess why. While Celestia was the sort to jump right in to sort things out, Luna was not. She took a different approach, though perhaps one that some might consider outdated. It was important for juvenile herds to sort out their differences on their own terms. If all else failed, Wednesday would get this sorted out, because that was her role. Beyond that, Wednesday would get irritated if Luna interfered. Which was, in Luna's mind, exactly how it should be.

Of course, Celestia would have a very different opinion.

Saying nothing, Overcast excused himself, bowed his head, and then hurried out the door. Luna watched as he departed, no doubt to either use the water closet or to find a space where he could collect his thoughts. The game of tunk seemed abandoned, at least for now, and little Almanac appeared to be on the verge of tears.

As for Luna, she could feel the tides going out.

Author's Note

I wrote a short chapter. I feel accomplished.

The next chapter has Luna in the kitchen. Be prepared. That is all.

Feelin' blue

A ravenous purple consumed the sky, leaving behind garish pools of vivid orange carnage tinged with pink. The train raced towards this multihued oblivion, but as fast as it could go, it could not keep pace with the retreating light. As the darkness gained power, so did Luna, who was now hungry enough to be just a little bit grouchy. Or, in the modern parlance, she was hangry, which was such a silly word.

The modern era had a tendency to smash words together in much the same way that young, inexperienced-but-eager lovers kissed; which is to say, sloppily and haphazardly, much to the disgust of all. Yet for the sake of politeness, it was expected to cheer young love on, for the consequences were too much to bear if one did not. A dearth of new births was an unmitigated disaster.

Luna wanted food. Beyond that, she wanted to make food. With this goal on her mind, she strode into the kitchen car and had a look around. Being a railcar, it was multipurpose. Part of it was a kitchen, a small, somewhat cramped galley. There was storage, a rest area for the staff, and a serving area where meals could be loaded onto a cart or trolley and taken to the dining car, which was also the sleeper car.

The cook, a chubby, tired older mare, was sitting on a wooden chair and looking out the window. When she saw Luna, she was on her hooves in an instant, and she winced when one of her knobby knees popped. For a moment, she was so panicked that she didn't know what to do, as evidenced by her inability to communicate, but she was quick to recover.

"Your Majesty, I was just about to start supper."

Luna, always sympathetic to the kitchen help, saw the mare favouring the leg that had popped, which made what she was about to do next so much easier. She drew in a deep breath, steeled her nerves, and then had this to say: "Be at ease. I'll fix supper."

"Majesty, please, there is no need for you to trouble yourself. I'm fit to serve, honest."

"I am sure you are, but I'd like to prepare a meal for myself and my guests."

"Your Highness, this is… highly irregular."

"So is arguing with my requests."

"Uh…" The old mare's mouth sagged open for a short time, but her state of confusion did not last long. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. I forgot my place. But this is… highly irregular. I assure you, I'm fit to serve."

"My sister told me to treat this as a holiday, so it is my intention to enjoy myself," Luna said, explaining herself. "So, what is on the menu tonight? What am I working with?"

"If I had known you'd wanted an earlier supper, I'd've had it done by now. I'm so sorry, Your Highness."

"Just let me know what I have to work with, if you please."

"Tonight's dinner is fondue, your favourite," the old mare said to Luna. "There's also a tropical treat cake in the icebox. There's not much work to do, I reckon. Please, forgive me. I was playing with my grandson yesterday and without warning, this excursion happened today."

"I am not upset," Luna said to the fretful mare. "Just hungry. Please, please, for your sake, get some rest. Go stretch out. Be comfortable."

Sighing, the mare relaxed. Everything about her seemed to sag a bit, but the relief was visible upon her face. "You're very kind, Your Majesty. I think I will take your advice and go and stretch out. If there is anything you need, holler for Summer Harvest… she's no doubt necking with Gardenia Garter."

"Your helper abandoned you?" asked Luna in what she hoped was an amused tone, so the poor mare would remain at ease.

"She's very much in love," the old mare replied. "It was fortunate circumstance that she was selected for this trip along with her sweetheart. Those two work hard, really, they do, and they get to see so little of each other."

"I'll not disturb them," Luna said. "Go on… shoo! Away with you." She waved her wings like a mother hen scattering her chicks.

Relieved, the mare nodded. "Thank you kindly, Your Excellency. I'll take my leave."

Amused, and with her heart well-warmed, Luna watched as the old mare trotted off down the narrow aisle towards the back of the kitchen car. Beyond was the sleeper car for the staff, where Luna hoped that the old mare would find some comfort, peace, and quiet. It took all of ten seconds for Luna's excitement to overwhelm her, and then she was brimming with foalish glee because she had the kitchen all to herself. Such power! Practically all of the power of the cosmos!

Looking about, she sought out something she needed, but she wasn't sure what it was or if it even existed. Surely though, there had to be a meal plan, a list, something for the staff to follow. And if it existed, it would have a list of everything available, everything stowed away aboard the train expressly for this purpose. A list. Documentation. A manifest. Such a thing had to exist in a well-organised environment and if it could not be found, Luna would have to wing it.

It didn't take her long to find exactly what she was looking for. Just over the produce bins there was a corkboard, which had several papers pinned to it with tacks. Yes, there it was. Tonight's meal, tomorrow's breakfast, lunch, and several other meals in the event of the trip running long for some reason. If things went exactly as planned, they would be back at home in time for supper—but since when did things ever go as expected?

Tonight's menu called for fondue, as mentioned, and there was a helpful checklist of everything involved. Dessert was the tropical treat cake. Breakfast tomorrow was quiche. Mouth watering, Luna stood there for a time just thinking about cheesy delights, but then she exploded into action because things had to be done and she was the one to do them. At long last, all of her fantasies of power and total control had come to fruition; finally, she had absolute power. Total authority. The outcome of the meal was hers to decide. Fate was hers to command.

"Huzzah!" she huzzahed, and her reckless huzzahing echoed through the galley.

Alas, there were no huzzahless masses to share her joy, as there had been that night in Ponyville.

"Huzzah," she said again, this time softer and with a lot less enthusiasm.

But there was no time for a pity party with a seating arrangement for one. She had a meal to prepare, and this was good. When the meal was on the table, she would be surrounded by friends. This also, was good. Beyond good. Exceptional. As she stood there, her eyes on the list but not actually seeing it, she thought about something her sister had said, something profound and meaningful that hadn't really sunk in until just now.

We are naturally attracted to the very young, Celestia had said to her during tea. Innocence draws us in like a moth to a flame, Luna. As the little ponies grow older, some of our interest wanes. I've observed this during the many long years I waited for your return. We are natural-born teachers. Our role is to be parental shepherds. It took me a long time to learn this, Luna, but I tell you this now so that you might find your way.

And standing in the galley, recalling these words, Luna suddenly had a sense of direction that she wasn't sure had existed before. Something about her sister's words rang true at this moment. The students had brought out the best in her; not just the four that called themselves her legion, but all of them. Even if some of the interactions were problematic. She recalled the day she had battled changelings in the school. A profound wave of emotion swept over Luna, almost knocking her from her hooves, and mysteriously, miraculously, the tsunami left her dry as could be—save for her eyes, which were now quite damp.

Luna very much wanted to share her joy with the young; she wanted to know the happiness found in a kitchen. The artistry of a good meal. Beyond that, food was a lure that brought ponies together. She thought of the meals shared in the school cafeteria with her friends, and those were happy moments. The food wasn't even special, but tonight, it would be. Tonight would be memorable.

But first, she had to get started.

First, Luna raided the icebox. Raiding was a favourite pastime, even if frowned upon. Luna liked raiding; there was something deeply satisfying and gratifying about swooping in and taking something from those powerless to stop you. Like iceboxes, for example. Stuck-up iceboxes with chilly attitudes and their unsettling cold indifference. Not long after her return, an icebox had slighted her and visited unspeakable indignity upon her body. She had backed into it without intending to do so, and the rude little contraption's cold metal skin had goosed a sensitive and thoroughly unmentionable area of her Royal Anatomy. Offended in a way that only those who knew true righteous indignation by the brazen assault, Luna committed herself and pledged her existence to raiding iceboxes so that she might plunder whatever treasures were kept inside.

No icebox would ever slight her again; they would know the fear of Luna.

"Spill your guts, icebox," she commanded as she yanked open the door.

Inside, she found a wealth of cheese, each of which was wrapped in wax paper and marked. The ones intended for supper were clearly labeled as such. There was also cheese for the quiche, some for salad, and some for grilled cheese, should somepony develop a hankering. Luna had hankerings that came and went with her moods. No doubt her hankerings were her body's way of informing her that her humours were in need of adjustment.

On the shelf below the cheese, she found some of the vegetables she needed. Broccoli and cauliflowers, curious vegetables cultivated and grown for the express purpose of torturing the very young and those young at heart. To leave a foal overflowing with revulsion, all one had to do was boil one of these strange alien growths—the bastard offspring of Carrothulhu—until slimy, and then force said juvenile to consume the disgusting mess. She had committed this very atrocity in nightmares countless times, and would continue to do so until the end of time itself. Thankfully, Luna had no intentions to boil these, but she would drown them in delicious cheese-goo.

As for the cake, it was pulled out from the fridge and placed on the counter.

Other things were needed, but Luna was unsure of their location. The most obvious location was the pantry storage. She closed the icebox door, gave it a good glaringly glareful glare, glaring it into submission, which was not the same as staring it into submission, as this was worse, far worse. This icebox would not chill the Royal Backside. Cautiously, she backed away, then turned herself around in the narrow space, pointed herself at the sliding door of the pantry, and then confidently strode over, knowing full well that the icebox knew its place.

Pulling open the door, she sensed a spell breaking, but before she could make sense of what had just happened, she found three unicorns, one of which was Overcast. He was in the company of two mares and the three of them appeared to be playing cards. All of them were quite surprised to see her, but none more so than Overcast, who openly gawped.

"Right then," one of the mares said with a bold grin. "What can we do for you, Your Highness?"

"An explanation, to start," replied Luna.

"Well, we found him in the luggage hold, a-bawlin' his eyes out," the other mare said with an intense nasal whine, the sort of voice that made one entirely unsuitable for professional work, but made for a splendid town crier way back in the day.

Now, Overcast was embarrassed, and he hid his face behind his cards.

"We was just talking about our mothers," the first mare said. "Gardenia here, her mom is a pegasus, and she and Overcast have a bit in common. I have to say, with all due respect, pegasus mothers are something else."

"Indeed they are," Luna deadpanned in return. "I suppose I broke some manner of privacy spell when I opened the door."

"The gig is up, Summer."

"Looks that way, Gardenia."

"No, no," Luna said to the two mares. "I just came for ingredients. This is the pantry, after all. Once I have what I need, I'll leave you to your conversation."

"You're not like your sister," Summer said to Luna.

"How so? What do you mean?"

"Well, Princess Celestia would be trying to cram herself into the pantry with us," Gardenia replied. "That's her way of getting us back to work, I reckon. She asks the most embarrassing questions."

"No"—almost smirking, Luna shook her head—"no, that's just the way my sister is." She paused, briefly, and then continued, "I need nutmeg, cherry brandy, dry white wine, corn starch, garlic, and bread for tonight's supper. Which I am preparing. Please, please do not feel the need to put an end to your pleasant time for my sake. Once I have what I need, I'll close the door and you can pick up where you left off.

"Hang on," Summer said with a broad smile. "I'll get all of those things for you. Thank you, Your Majesty, for giving us girls a chance to be girls."

"Yes…" Now smirking, and very much so, Luna nodded. "Overcast. Just one of the girls."

"Oh, he's very sensitive," Gardenia said. "He's practically one of us."

Overcast spoke not a word, but his eyes had whole volumes to say, and then some.

"Supper will be on the table soon," Luna said to the colt. "It would be nice if you joined us, Overcast."

"Hang on, I don't know where the cherry brandy went." Summer studied the shelves with a scowl. "I hope that Tawny Tail didn't drink it all. She's been hitting the sauce an awful lot lately. Oh, wait, I see it. Half a bottle. Should be full. Hmm."

"It will have to do," Luna remarked. "Thankfully, I only need a spoonful."

Overcast, Luna realised, needed to feel safe. He seemed to avoid ponies his own age—save for his friends—and gravitated towards older, more mature ponies. This was evidenced by Almanac trampling his feelings, which caused him to go off and sulk. The colt naturally prefered Luna's company if she was around, and they had quiet moments together, which she had come to treasure. He was getting better, but he needed a bit more time to get himself sorted out. Of course, if the truth were to be told, Luna also needed some time to get her bearings and adjust to the new world she found herself living in.

But that didn't matter right now, because her mood was excellent.

So excellent in fact that her rump wiggled from side to side while her wings slapped out a complex rhythm against her ribs. Little did Luna know that astronomers from other parts of the world would report that the moon had a curious wobble to it, an unnerving phenomena where the moon appeared to be dancing to some unknown funky beat. Thankfully, the odd occurrence was totally harmless, had no effect upon the tides, and the world did not end with mile-high tsunamis.

All the moon did was appear to wiggle.

With a crackling bolt of arcane energy shot from Luna's horn, the fondue pot shuddered to life, stretched its decorative legs, and then danced across the countertop over to the stove, where it then stood over the burner. It danced to the same unheard beat that Luna did, but alas, it did not have a rump to shake. What it could do was tapdance, and so it did. Dancing over an open flame was of no concern to the fondue pot, as it could not feel pain.

Levitating a clove of garlic, Luna crushed it, and then began rubbing down the inside of the pot. Which apparently tickled, because the rotund little vessel wibble-wobbled at her every touch. A hot garlic smell filled the galley, more eye-watering than mouth-watering. She lifted up a second clove and repeated this process, and then, after guiltily glancing about to see if she was being watched, she tossed both crushed cloves into the hot pot. Several glugs of white wine got dumped in—Luna had no use for exact measurements—and then she sniffed. After another guilty glance-about, she crushed a third clove of garlic, but did not add it to the pot.

Into her mouth it went, and she stood there chewing thoughtfully.

Lifting the bottle up to her nose, Luna opened the cherry brandy, sniffed it once, then twice, then sampled a little bit. Alcohol, a poison, had no effect whatsoever on her physiology and she was utterly immune to its effects. After imbibing, she rubbed her tongue against the lumpy-bumpy roof of her mouth, smacked her lips, and nodded her approval. Then, she turned the bottle on its side and poured in what she thought was just enough.

Conjuring up a grater, she ground a little nutmeg into the pot, which still danced and bebopped over the burner, and then shook in a little corn starch. She agitated this with her magic by creating a teeny-tiny maelstrom in the pot, a storm in miniature that made the liquid whirl violently. While this heated up, Luna summoned up a parade of green apples, broccoli, cauliflower, grapes, and lastly, cherry tomatoes, which she was not a fan of, but they were on the list.

The parade met with a terrible fate and cruel slaughter was visited upon them. Great care was taken with the apples, which were sliced, tossed into a bowl, and then heartlessly squirted with lemon juice to make their wounds sting all the more. It was true; her cruelty knew no bounds. Everything else got sliced and chopped into bite-sized bits and then arranged on a platter. When that was done, she went to work on the crusty baguettes, which she cubed into small bite-sized bits suitable for foals.

Assaulted by magic, the cheese crumbled and was tossed into the hot pot. Everything smelled fantastic now and Luna was quite pleased with herself. While she stood there making the magic happen, and her rump bumped from side to side, she wondered what a breakfast fondue might be like, with waffles, fruit, and chocolate. It sounded like an ideal meal to share with her sister, for there was something special about the bonding that took place when one shared a hot pot with another.

Contrary to what many thought, Luna loved her sister, even if she had trouble understanding her. Their differences made them strong, of this there could be no doubt. Yes, Luna loved her sister, even if she was a bit bossy. It was just her sister's nature, that's all. Of course, Celestia could be infuriatingly gregarious. But one could learn to live with that—when left with no other choice. One had to learn to live with all manner of irritation as an immortal. And there was the fact that her sibling was a morning pony, but the less said about that the better. Always bragging about her own dawns and how gorgeous her sunrises were.

A morning pony—The Morningest Pony of All Morning Ponies—boasting about their mornings was intolerable.

And a bit rude, now that Luna put it into perspective.

The dippables piled up on the silver serving platter, and Luna arranged them in a pleasing pattern that almost—but not quite—resembled something approaching art. If given time, she could have made a beautiful mosaic with food, but she was hungry now. There was no time to recreate her sister's face with fruit, vegetables, and bread. As the pot danced a funky quadrupedal rumba over the flickering blue flame of the gas stove, the swirling maelstrom of cheese inside slowly smoothed into something silky and truly exquisite.

Long—pointy and scary-looking—fondue forks were drawn into orbit around Luna's head. They circled with planetary precision, going round and round in a frightening display of domestic dominance. A stack of pale blue plates joined the forks, and these spun as they orbited. Ears twitching to a rhythm that only she could hear, Luna reveled in her moment of mastery. All that needed to be done was to set the table, and she didn't need the help to do that. Plates were vanished, then the forks, and then too did the tropical treat cake disappear. It was fiendishly difficult to vanish things to a different location on a moving train, but she appreciated the challenge.

Of course, failure meant teleporting an object inside of something—or somepony.

"Princess Luna?"

Hearing her name spoken from behind her caused Luna to freeze, and so too did everything around her. Even the fondue pot ceased its funky dance. She knew that she had been caught in a compromising position, and she knew all too well the voice that had spoken her name. Inhaling, she prepared herself for whatever awkwardness was sure to come. That was friendship, sharing your awkwardness with others and trusting that they wouldn't abandon you.

"How long have you been standing there, Overcast?"

"Long enough to know that you can't dance."

Luna's expression turned leaden and deadpan; he had her dead to rights. She was proud of him, but she would not tell him that. Not now, perhaps not ever. No, he was happiest when he struggled to curry her favour. For him, the struggle was what he was after, and any sense of accomplishment was only met with boredom. In that sense, he was a lot like her, at least in a sense. The task was more important than the outcome.

"I did not expect for you to come out of the closet so soon," she said to him.

"Everything that needed to be said had been said," was his guarded response. "I arrived at an unexpected conclusion and now I am trying to find the courage to say what needs to be said."

"No sooner spoken than broken."

"Silence," he said after only the briefest bit of hesitation. "Yes, I am aware of the curious magic that makes silence difficult to break the longer it persists."

Her face relaxed a little into something that might almost be considered a pleased—if somewhat smug—smirk of satisfaction. She turned herself towards him and saw that he seemed to be no worse for wear after having been in the company of the two mares. While his eyes were still sad, his ears were mostly upright and he wasn't slouching too terribly much.

The fondue pot waited in anticipation but was perfectly still.

"Miss Garter, well, um, as was mentioned, her mother is a pegasus, and as it turns out, we have a lot in common." The colt's orange tongue was visible for a moment when he nervously licked his lips. "But that's really beside the point. What's important, I suppose, was the direction that the conversation took, and it was brought to my attention that I show no appreciation for the mares in my life."

"That is a heavy thing to lay upon a young colt," Luna remarked.

"Heavy or not, it is no less true," Overcast replied. "I talk my mother's ear off every chance I get, but I hardly ever listen to whatever she might have to say. And with the shadow of divorce hanging over both of us, and everything else that has happened, my mother… she probably has a lot to say. I haven't given her much of a chance to get a word in edgewise. My mother probably needs a friendly ear to bend and I've completely failed to even consider this until it was just pointed out to me. I feel like a real sh—"

"Overcast! Mind your tongue, you little rapscallion!"

"Oh, I was minding my tongue, and I knew exactly what I was about to say."

"Mmm," Luna mmmed, more out of annoyance than anything else.

"It's not just my mom," the colt said, picking up where he left off before he was interrupted.

"Care to elaborate?" asked Luna.

"It's you," he replied whilst he averted his gaze. "It's you. And Whinny, I guess. Whinny especially. My sense of right and wrong isn't what it should be and Whinny… well, Whinny knows exactly what is right and what is wrong, and she will take time out of her busy day to explain to me in detail what the right thing is… and it means a whole lot more than I let on."

He swallowed.

"And you. Well. You gave me my mother back. And before you say I could have done that on my own… probably not. I had pretty much convinced myself that it was impossible, and then I was using the pain from that to, uh, well, you know. You know exactly what I was doing with my pain. You broke the cycle, Princess Luna, and for that, I am grateful."

He inhaled.

"I just want you to know, I am loyal as the night is long. I might be mouthy, and crass, and sarcastic, and while sometimes I put up a fair bit of resistance, none of that changes the fact that I am loyal. My mark appeared after my little oath, so maybe it's some kind of magic that is messing with my mind, but I don't care. You are the Dreamwalker. My Dreamwalker. And I will live my life for you."

Stricken with a sudden sense of emotion, Luna felt her humours warm in some strange way. The last time she had felt this way was just after her return, after being freed from Nightmare Moon's influence, and reuniting with her sister. She allowed the sensation to swell within her like a rising tide, and with the incoming flood, she felt buoyant with hope. A faint pressure could be felt just behind the eyes, and there was a curious sting in her sinuses.

Luna, who had once borne the weight of the Element of Honesty, felt the need to bare her own heart—though why she could not say. Overcast seemed so vulnerable at this moment, so exposed; so perhaps it would be a comfort for him if she were to reveal something of herself to him. Something had to be done; this was new territory for Luna, just as her sister said it would be. Celestia had promised her that she would find herself in this undiscovered country.

"Overcast… there is something my sister said…"

"There's another mare in my life that I show no appreciation for," he whispered.

For a brief second, Luna bit her lip and wondered if she were guilty of the same sin. But then, she found her courage and to the colt she said: "My sister, she told me… she told me that you would be my teacher, just as much as I am yours. It didn't make sense at the time, but I think I saw a glimpse of what she meant just now. She told me a lot of things, actually. Some of which scared me. She told me that I'd make mistakes with you… dreadful mistakes. But then she reassured me that it would be fine, because you were resilient. My sister said that these mistakes would be made and I would learn from them. And the next student I took beneath my wing would benefit from them, and so would begin the chain where the mistakes made with a student would allow me to better serve the next."

She gulped in some much needed air.

"Of course, my sister just assumes that I desire to take upon myself a succession of students. Which, I don't know if I will. Something tells me that I should, but I am hesitant because I am still adjusting to… everything. Celestia went through a lot of failures and disappointments before she had her Twilight Sparkle, and I don't know if I am up for dealing with that along with everything else." She paused, wondering how this might sound to the colt's ears, and she worried that she flubbed an opportunity to say something meaningful. "But you… and the others, you're worth it. For now."

He nodded; not the response she'd hoped for.

"Things are different now," she blurted out. "We negotiate with foals rather than just use whatever convenient means is available to coerce them. I must confess, I'm a bit baffled by this. The culture shock is very difficult to overcome. When I last existed, we did no such things with foals, who knew to be obedient, lest the consequences be visited upon them. Things were different then. Of course, back then, you wouldn't even be considered a foal, Overcast. You'd already be starting your adult life right about now. What I am trying to say is, all of this is new to me. I'm making adjustments. And my sister is right, as much as it pains me to admit it. You're teaching me how to negotiate. It's not something I'm good at, truth be told. I dictate terms and then obliterate those who fail to meet them. At least, that's how it was. Equestria needed that back then… but it needs a very different me right now and adjusting is the hardest thing I've ever done."

"Adjusting feels impossible when you're stuck in a rut," he replied.

Relieved, Luna let out a held breath that she had no awareness of holding. Something had just changed between them, something unknown. He was looking at her now, making eye-contact, which was something that very few ponies did with her. His expression? Earnest. Perhaps also a bit hopeful. Of course, she also felt hopeful. No, beyond that, she felt purposeful. She and Overcast shared similar marks.

"My sister told me the story of how you were accepted into her school," Luna said to him. "You were one of the few accepted into her school without magical application."

"Yeah."

As the colt nodded, she responded to him, saying, "She told me that you lept over the barrier in the holding area and immediately began chatting her up, asking her questions about applied metamagics and the book she wrote. You weren't the least bit afraid of her like all of the other foals, and most of the parents in the room."

"I wanted answers," he explained, "and I had the rare opportunity to question the source. I took it. She was right there. I remember it all quite well. Princess Celestia was so bored that she was yawning. As for myself, I needed to know. You see, I'd been experimenting with fire quite a bit, trying to understand various states of matter, and I couldn't quite determine what fire was. It wasn't a solid or a liquid, and I wasn't sure if it was a gas. But, if it was a gas, I wanted to know if I could use magic to make it a solid, and if fire could be frozen. Princess Celestia told me that fire was free-roaming electrons, and was therefore a plasma. Then she warned me not to play with plasmas of any kind, and to be honest I didn't pay much attention to anything she said because I was already thinking of ways to experiment with plasmas."

"Do not," Luna said in a stern voice, "play with plasmas. When electrons get into an excited state, they are difficult to control. They do not like being told what to do and any effort made to contain them only gets them more excited." Then, she spoke her thoughts aloud, as she did on occasion. "Come to think of it, electrons are a lot like young Miss Avocado."

"So I've noticed," replied Overcast, who seemed intentionally vague about what he was responding to, excited electrons or his companion who had all the gregarious bounciness of an electron in need of a good wee. "Not to worry. I moved on to other things, like hairy pottery and rescuing cats."

Remembering all too well the faintly living blob of clay that had grown hair, Luna shuddered.

After recovering herself, she said, "You know, Miss Avocado is another mare in your life and—"

"No she isn't," Overcast said before Luna could finish.

"Oh, but she is."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"Most certainly is not."

"I beg to differ and you—"

"Go stand on a street corner and don't forget to take a cup or a hat."

"Rude!"

"Don't be a beggar—"

"Miss Avocado is—"

"She is not a mare. There is nothing mature about her."

Luna considered this point, and then, after a brief nod, relented. "Well, she is a filly in your life. Perhaps some appreciation is in order."

"Sometimes… sometimes she gets on my last nerve. She makes me feel things like nopony else does. Like when she started talking about my mother. There's just something about her that cuts through my defenses and I have a lot of trouble holding everything in. She's like… a plaguebearer, but she infects me with emotion and sometimes I hate her for it."

Oh dear, Luna thought to herself.

Shuffling his hooves, his tail swaying from side to side, Overcast appeared rather distraught. After he cleared his throat, he continued, "Nopony gets under my skin like she does. Not my mother, not you, not Princess Celestia, nopony. She just… just bypasses my sense of concentration and without warning, I'm overwhelmed."

"Some ponies have that effect upon others," Luna said, and with the words barely out of her mouth she felt useless because she had nothing else to say. She felt some small sense of pity for Overcast, but there was nothing she could do to help him.

Whatever fate awaited him, he probably deserved it.

"Is supper almost done?" the colt asked.

"Yes." Pride gushed through Luna, no doubt doing something to her humours. Such a simple thing, a simple act, but one that brought so much pleasure.

"Good. Because I couldn't take another moment of you dancing."

Still flushed with pride, Luna's mood was impervious—for now. She flashed a haughty half-smirk at the colt, considered him for a time, and then gave him a slow nod of approval. "Go and tell your friends that supper is ready. Maybe say a kind word to Almanac. No doubt, she is anxious over what happened."

"I'll do that," he replied, and the way that he answered left no doubt that he would. "Thank you, by the way." With more to say, he paused, but briefly, and blinked several times. "I keep thinking I should give something back for all that I've been given. To you… to your sister." Another pause. "There was a time when I could only think of her as Princess Celestia, or Headmistress Celestia… but now when I think of her I think about her as your sister. Something has changed, but I cannot express what it is or how it has affected me. Anyhow… I've been thinking about what she said. About using my talents to help put the school back in order. And that's the trouble. It's stuck in the back of my mind and it's just… it's just there."

His eyes closed for several seconds, and then when he opened them he continued, "I know I don't deserve it. I can't figure out why she is doing this to me. Princess Celestia vexes me. What are her reasons? Is this some new and clever way to destroy me? To bring me down? Not just the whole school thing… but the classes, the courses, the divination… I've been given everything I've ever wanted. No, I've been given things I didn't even know I wanted. Things so precious to me that I'm willing to be good and behave so that I might keep them."

Then, he went silent, shook himself, and blinked several more times as if he'd had some moment of realisation, or perhaps an epiphany. Luna had those moments herself, and they were a bit like sneezes. One had to endure them when they happened, for they were weighty and profound.

"You and I," he said after reaching whatever conclusion came to his mind, "are suspect and suspicious of those who want what is best for us. Why is that? Why do you suppose that is?"

"Another time, Overcast. For now… supper. Go and tell the others while I finish up here."

"One more thing before I go… I don't know what I'll do just yet. Not sure how my life will turn out. There are opportunities. But… about what you just said, and you telling me what your sister told you." He swallowed, and then licked his lips with the tip of his tongue. "If I do nothing else, if nothing else extraordinary happens with my life, if all I ever do is make mistakes and mess everything up, it is reassuring to know that my life will still have a purpose, even if it is just to help you with your next students. A pony has to ask just what it is they can do to help an alicorn. We're common, and small, and mostly helpless, truth be told. The one thing we can do is make mistakes… and you, you can learn from those. I'm part of a chain. The first link, maybe. Me and my friends. Whatever else happens, even if we go on to live boring, uneventful lives, you'll go on to produce better and better students."

He inhaled, then finished, "There is value in that."

"Indeed there is," Luna replied, and it occurred to her that she had more food for thought than she did food to serve upon the table. As she stood there, with everything sinking in, she thought of Twilight Sparkle, which she did often.

How many students did it take before one could make a Twilight Sparkle? How many failures? Just how many bitter tears had to be shed before achieving meaningful results? Every hard-won success and every catastrophic failure—both were valuable. Necessary. It started with becoming the Princess of Detention. But the next step? Becoming a teacher, perhaps. There might be something more to all of this, something that she could not see yet, but her eyes would open soon, like a lucid dreamer who gained awareness that they were dreaming.

Lo, Luna's legacy loomed large.

Overcast bowed his head. There was nothing sarcastic or snide about it. His adoration was sincere, honest. Then, without a word, he departed. Luna saw a glimpse of what had to be the future; an older Overcast, his mane still mussed and a bit messy. Perpetually dishevelled. Bowing and departing. Not out of a misplaced sense of worshipful adoration, or a need to bow and scrape. He was no mere supplicant hoping to appease with bent knees, no. It was a simple gesture of respect, an acknowledgment of their as-of-yet undefined bond.

The colt would grow into the pony that would bear her many mistakes and failures.

How many of Celestia's students had done the same?

She shivered, but not from the cold. How many lives might she influence, for good or ill, until she had some measure of success? Just the thought gave her insight into her sister, and yet, even with this revelation, her sibling remained a mystery. Celestia played a long game. Luna realised that her sister was trying to teach the rules of this long game so that she might not have to play alone. Already the first pieces were on the board.

And Luna had no idea what to do with them.

Sighing, she prepared to serve the evening meal to her precious pawns.

Author's Note

Don't worry, I've only been mostly dead. Spring and fall are rough on me. Weather changes and variations, with 30 degree nights and 60 degree days. Sets off the rheumatoid something awful. It'll pass. Anybody that has followed me long enough probably recognises a pattern. Been killing me, being unable to write. I hope the chapter is alright. I've gone over it dozens of times, because I've been spewing out word salad and missing words in sentences because my brain is currently mush. I would have had it done yesterday, but my body betrayed me and I spent the evening puking from pain. Was kinda bad, but I endured. Sorry for the delay, but I say this every year at about this time. Once the temperature stops fluctuating so wildly, I'll go back to my usual levels of miserable agony.

It's hard to be quirky and funny when you feel like dying, but I try.