Friday, May 1st, 909 AB (The next morning)
Approximately thirty minutes before sunrise.

“Oh princess,” a soft voice calls, rousing Celestia from her slumber. “It’s time to rise and shine, your majesty!”

Without opening her eyes, the eldritch mare checks the time. “Fifteen minutes,” she groggily replies, rolling away from the offending intruder. Odd… her staff know not to wake her until just before it’s time to raise the sun except on special occasions. Cloudsdale is nearby for the season opener, but she doesn’t usually do anything special for that in the morning.

“That’s fine, boss, but once you’re up I think we need to have a talk about security. I hafta say I’m a tad disappointed at the ease with which I got in here.”

Strange, she thinks, that voice sounds very familiar. Wait a second… Boss?

“Cure Wave,” she sighs.

“The one and only!” she… he? Whichever happily chirps. “I know most folks don’t like bein woke up early, so I brought ya breakfast as a bribe and, or peace offering, at least.”

Craning her neck, the princess looks over her withers to find… herself? standing there. At least, sort of. “Good morning, Sunny,” she flatly greets the pegasus. “And there’s another thing I never expected to do… wish myself a good morning.”

“Well, despite what many ponies may tell ya, talkin to yerself is okay, boss. Perfectly healthy, even. It’s when ya start arguing back that ya may need to see somepony,” she rolls her hoof, “professionally, that is.” The colt-in-disguise smiles teasingly at the princess, still perfectly copying the fake voice she uses. “Besides, I told ya last night; assume nothing is impossible. I know you did it at least once, to great success I might add.

“More concerning, though, is that there’s no way with all the magic in the world that I am the only being in existence that could duplicate this appearance.” He waves a hoof at the door, “I literally just walked right past every single guard between here and the kitchen! You really oughta have some kinda passphrase security or something magic or even biometric, at least for the mare who has the full trust and authority of her highness.”

“How did you find your way to the kitchen and then to my room?”

“I asked! I told the ones watchin over us I was gonna put on a disguise and surprise you with breakfast. They thought it was cute till they saw my Reduced ‘Riddle’ disguise come trotting out. That got me some looks, lemme tell ya.

“Everypony I ran into on my way to the kitchens, then on my way here, thought me bringing the boss breakfast in bed was sweet so nopony bothered stoppin me. Once I got close I ducked outta sight and switched to yer Sunny appearance and all I got was some curious looks and a few greeting nods.”

Giving up on any kind of regal appearance because, really, what’s the point, the princess lays her head back down. “Perhaps the Guard has become a little lax. You are correct; there were, at one time, creatures that could mimic ponies’ appearances.” A shudder passes through her at the memory of the horrid things. “I admit, I’m not familiar with the term biometric. As in, measuring biology somehow?”

Cure… or rather, Sunny, walks up closer to the bed and slides the tray off her withers, down a wing, and sets it on the princess’s nightstand. Leaning against the bed with her chest, she folds her forelegs on it behind the princess’s back. “Basically, yes. I could probably make something like a patch you put over a pony’s cutie mark that reads their biology and mark to make sure they match up.”

She pauses and looks down, furrowing her brows and pushing on the mattress before commenting, “Ooh, cushy! Gotta get me one of these puppies.” She snaps out of her reverie and continues, “Err, right… once the pony is registered to the unit it could, that is. I could fake it, of course, but unless somepony can duplicate somepony else’s appearance and biology they wouldn’t fool it. What were they called and how thoroughly could they mimic somepony?”

With a deep sigh she admits, “I do not know exactly. They called themselves changelings, and there’s not been any sign of them for centuries. They invaded a few cities, then after we defeated them they were locked securely away.” Giving up on getting another few minutes of sleep, Celestia rolls over to scowl at the grinning mare-colt. “You know… most ponies that sneak into this room would be in an immense amount of trouble, young colt.”

“Aww, but boss, look at the pretty breakfast!” he whines, pointing a wing at the tray. Celestia looks over, finding a stack of pancakes piled high. To her delight and amusement, pieces of his fruit are cut and arranged to make a smiling face on top with a whipped cream mane. A large carafe of syrup, also with some fruit in it, sits nearby, as does a big, steaming mug of tea.

“I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive you this one time,” she starts, continuing over his hoof pumping cheer, “but I believe I shall have a conversation with somepony’s parents regarding sneaking into a mare’s chambers uninvited.”

“Jeez, boss, when ya phrase it like that ya make me sound like some kinda weirdo.”

Rolling to her barrel, Celestia floats the tray onto the bed and dumps the syrup over the stack. “Says the colt foal disguised as an adult mare while sneaking into the bedroom of the leader of the nation,” she accuses, raising a single brow in challenge. She cuts and takes a bite, amazed at how well the fruit complements the pancakes.

“Ehh… fair. I guess I’ll hafta bribe you harder next time if I wanna get off scot free. I’ve never given a massage to an alicorn, obviously, but between my friends’ parents and my own I’ve managed to make an adult mare of every other tribe pass out in relaxation. It would be great if I could get the vaunted four-for-four achievement.”

Cure pauses, realizing that he’s intruding on her breakfast and, likely, the only free time she’ll have for the next twelve or so hours. “Eh, think about it. And enjoy your breakfast, highness. Just let me know if yer interested later. I’m gonna go find your L T or Captain Shield and go hunt down my trees. I didn’t mention last night, but I can find the ones from the train whenever,” he casually admits, pushing off the bed and walking away.

In a flash of magic, a far larger Sunny Skies now stands about halfway to the door. “Ah, fudge… I knew I shoulda used the mid-high crystal instead of the mid,” he huffs, looking down at himself. “Oh well, the only ponies up right now are guards anyhow.”

Celestia pauses mid-bite as the colt quickly changes to his muscular “Riddle” appearance he showed her last night and pulls open the door. “Top’a the mornin to ya, ladies!” his deep voice greets with a wave of his wing. He quickly strolls past the guards and down the hall. “Great, now I’m friggin starving,” she hears him grumble as the softening clip-clops of hooves announce his departure.

Celestia releases a sigh and takes another bite, unable to keep from shaking her head at the colt’s antics. A pair of armored heads slowly slide into view around the doorframe and peer into the room. The one on left reaches for the door and, just before latching it, proudly calls out, “Congrats, princess!” before pulling it shut.

“That’s just… great.”

“I swear, colt, I don’t know how ya walk right with balls that big!” Amethyst shouts between laughs. “I’d ‘a paid good money ta see the look on her face when ya walked away!”

As soon as Cure had gotten away from the princess’s room he’d broken into a near sprint to get back to his parents before the other foals started waking up. The guards watching their rooms had placed bets on whether he would pull it off or not, so two of them ended up each forty bits richer thanks to his success. Another universal constant was discovered as well; bored soldiers will gamble on absolutely anything.

Vines shoots a disappointed scowl at her wife, then turns to her son. “You shouldn’t tease the princess, Cure. She’s been very kind to you and doesn’t deserve that.”

“What?” he defensively asks. “Breakfast in bed and the offer of a nice, relaxing massage? That sounds great to me! Would you turn that down? I even tipped her off to a potential security risk!”

Waving a scolding hoof at the smart-mouthed colt, she yells back, “You know darn well that’s not what I mean!”

“Eh, she seems like a good sport,” Title points out, “I bet the thought that he did that on purpose never… well, it may not have crossed her mind. He is awfully young, though. Then again, he’s also way too mature for a foal, and she’s probably aware he’s, well…” she trails off, looking at the colt.

“Adorable?” he hopefully suggests, ears perking up and wings fluffing out.

Making no attempt to sound even slightly genuine, Title nods and agrees, “Yeah. That’s definitely what I was thinking. Adorable.”

Cure preens at her praise despite the blatant sarcasm for a moment before turning back to his dam. “You’re missing the big win here, everypony. We now know, officially, that changelings are a thing. We don’t have to come up with some weird, complicated excuse about how we know about them if we run into one.” Cure shakes his head, dismissing everything else and says, “I need to get back to my room, I’m sure everypony’s waking up. Are y’all comin?”

“We’ll give ya a head start, sport. Go check on yer friends and we’ll meet’cha at breakfast.”

“Alright, pa,” Cure agrees, quickly reaching up to plant a kiss on his dam’s chin before darting out the door and across the hall.

Just as he’s about to open the door he’s engulfed in a familiar deep red aura and rotated to face an exhausted looking stallion. “Cure… what was that?” he hisses, frantically waving his right forehoof back at his open door.

“I haven’t the foggiest, my good friend,” he cheerily replies. “What, exactly, are you referring to?”

“You…” he pauses, flicking his gaze at the watching guards before casting a small Sound Bubble. “You did something to Starlight!”

Holding a hoof to his chest, Cure gives the most sincerely innocent look he can muster. “I assure you, I would never do anything to harm our dear Starlight! Is she okay? Does she need medical attention?”

“I need medical attention!” he shouts, pounding on his chest with his right hoof.

Cure looks at the older colt’s leg. “Knees bothering ya again?”

“No, dammit! You know what’s wrong!”

He leans forward and stares at Solar’s forehead. “Horn acting up?”

“Cure! She almost pulled one of my fuckin nuts out THROUGH my schlong!” Cure barks out a laugh at the distressed unicorn, only upsetting him more. “I think part of my soul got sucked out! It’s not funny! If I didn’t have the earth pony grip on the floor, who knows where I would have ended up!”

“And now yer just bragging, ya lucky bastard.” Solar huffs in annoyance, turning away from the snickering colt. “Are you actually angry? I mean… I’m pretty sure if I offered that upgrade to everypony I would have a few cities named after me before the end of the decade. And there’s only eight months left in it.”

“You coulda warned me,” he accuses.

“Oh, sure,” he vigorously nods. With bright eyes and a cheery expression he chirps out, “Hey, Solar, just an FYI, Starlight’s vagina can squeeze every single milliliter out of a tube of toothpaste. How do I know, you ask? Well, what kinda artist doesn’t recognize his own work, hmm?”

“Dude!”

“Exactly! Now are you actually injured or not?”

“... maybe some strain.”

“Well I ain’t kissin it ta make it better, ya ingrate. She can do that if she wants, but I will do this if you want me to,” he holds out a hoof and raises a questioning brow.

Solar stares at the hoof for a few seconds, then sighs and visibly deflates, lowering the colt to the floor before he reaches out to take the offered appendage. “I’m sorry, Cure. I do appreciate it. I was just caught unprepared.”

“You’re welcome, and if you had been prepared for that then even I would be impressed. Now quit acting like it wasn’t awesome; you’ll upset the poor girl, and from what I can tell she definitely doesn’t deserve that. Give her some fuckin flowers at some point today and stallion up, dude.”

The red colt sags, weakly nodding in acceptance of the criticism. Starlight was amazing even normally; the extra enthusiasm last night was something else.

“There’s no actual injury, by the way; just some muscle strain like ya said. If it would help I can, ya know… upgrade the musculature a smidge. You two can have yerselves a Genital Arms Race or whatever. It’s probably a damn good thing she’s not an earth pony or she mighta yanked the poor feller clean off. Wouldn’t that be a way to go? I can see the coroner looking over the autopsy notes thinkin, ‘So that means she’s single now? Nice!’”

“Stop! Stars, Cure, what the hay?!” The smiling colt innocently shrugs back. “Just… just heal it, please.”

“Sure, but go inside your room and stand on the other side of the door. Running magic through that area tends ta cause a reaction, and you are definitely not my type.”

“Great,” Solar sighs, dispelling the Sound Bubble and returning to his room. It doesn’t register that Cure means he can use his talent through the door. Rather than shutting it, he pulls it mostly shut and sticks a hoof out for the colt to grab. Cure quickly patches the older colt’s strained muscles back and even gives the boys a recovery boost while he’s at it. With a quick “later dude” he peels off, continuing back to the room with the other foals.

While several of them have begun stirring, only the pegasi are up and about. Cure hasn’t been in a pegasus’ bedroom yet, but given how the exteriors light up he figures living in clouds means getting up at the crack of dawn is somewhat of an automatic.

They’re all on the balcony, forehooves up on the ledge and looking excitedly up and to the right. It’s not hard to figure out why; his brain didn’t connect the dots the previous night, but the cloud bank that was near the horizon is much closer, and covers the northwestern sky for kilometers. Cloudsdale has arrived, and it is larger than Cure had expected.

He isn’t sure that there’s a human equivalent to the city like there is for many of the ones in Equestria. There’s the horse breed with a similar name, obviously, that he assumes was a region; likely the one the horses originated from at some point in history, but Ed never cared enough to look into it.

He’d seen the Budweiser Clydesdales one time when he was a teenager. They were impressive, but the main thing he remembers was his mom complaining about the short cut of the horses’ tails.

Ed’s mom placed anyone that harmed animals somewhere on the scale roughly around child predators and financial advisors. It always struck him as odd that Americans seemed, while not exactly okay with people being total shits to each other, the collective fury directed at someone that posted a video or picture of an animal being mistreated could quite possibly reignite a dying star.

He later found out that their tails were amputated at a young age for something related to the reins used to pull carriages. From what he recalls the tails would get in the way and the end result is the horse being hurt or uncomfortable or something.

Regardless, Cloudsdale is the second most populated city in Equestria, housing around a quarter of the entire pegasi population of the country and about a tenth of all the country’s bats. The RHA data he got from Emerald Aura showed that only Chicoltgo’s total population beats out the cloud city (though by a large margin), coming in at just about three hundred thousand souls. Cloudsdale also boasts the largest hippogriff and griffon populations in the country, though each only make up a percent or so of the city’s residents.

That’s still a lot of half or non-ponies compared to most areas. Baltimare has about a thousand other creatures, virtually all of whom are griffons. That’s an unusually high number compared to most cities, and the vast majority of them live near the docks with only a hundred or so up in the cloud district. Of the nearly two hundred thousand creatures that call the Cloudsdale Metropolitan Area their home a couple percent still means there’s almost as many “griff” beings in the city as there are total residents of Cure’s home town.

Joining the three on the balcony to take in the view, Cure’s good mood is reflected in his greeting. He walks right up beside Drift, lightens himself, rears up, and wraps the filly in a hug, leaning heavily on her back and withers, nuzzling into the opposite cheek with his own and wrapping his forelegs around her chest. He’s not sure why being affectionate with the tsundere is so much fun; probably because her “I hate it but I also really like it” reactions reminds him of a pouty but adorable kitten.

“How are my fetching feathered fillies on this lovely spring morning?” To his slight disappointment, rather than reject the attention Drift nuzzles back into him, not taking her eyes off of the city overhead. Squads of armored pegasi are visible all over the place and dozens upon dozens of winged families are making their way into Canterlot.

“I can’t believe we’re staying at the castle and are about to go to the Wonderbolts Season opener!” Drift squeals. “This has been like a dream come true!” The other two aren’t unaffected; both Glacial on his right and Wind on Drift’s left are vibrating in excitement too. He’d seen Mrs. Gale one time fluttering her wings in joy when he gave her the perfume flowers, and the action is even more adorable on his eager friends.

“Well make sure you thank my parents for the tickets, at least. This whole shindig was their idea, after all. I’ll take a tiny bit of credit for our accommodations, but we wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t done that. In fact, if they hadn’t I probably would have ended up coming to Canterlot with just my family and maybe Dawn’s since the boss lady initially only suggested she tag along.”

Glacial leans over and nuzzles into Cure’s right side, then Drift’s unoccupied cheek. “Speaking of the princess, were you able to see her? We saw your note.”

“Yep! I’ll tell ya what, she was surprised to find me carrying a tray of pancakes into her room when she woke up.”

“You’re nuts, colt,” Wind declares with a snort. “I’m amazed the guards didn’t stop you.”

“I’m just a foal, and more importantly, as far as they know, an alicorn colt that’s a guest of the princess. I don’t deserve it and would never take advantage at all, but I bet it wouldn’t be that hard to get at least a few bows from some of the guards, let alone gettin past ‘em with a stack of pancakes on my withers.”

He quickly waves a hoof to stop any objection and adds, “Again, I wouldn’t do that. The thought of anypony bowing to me… ugh, no thanks. All the gratitude I get at work is bad enough as is. Still, you can’t deny that some ponies would see the horn, wings, and my build and immediately jump to conclusions.”

“Well… as long as you’re not getting some kind of big ego,” Glacial concedes, visibly relieved.

“Nah, I tease and joke and whatever, but if I ever start acting like a jerk for real then, by all means, call me out on it. I said something similar to Solar and Dawn once back when I first started healing wings and horns and stuff.”

“Good. We’ll keep ya in line, colt,” Wind remarks with a smirk. She glances back towards the room and adds, “We should get everypony up for breakfast. Then we need to find a box for you.”

He gives Drift one more quick nuzzle and flaps his wings to lift off her withers. “A box?” he asks.

“Uh huh. Remember what we talked about when you came over during estrus?” Cure immediately flashes back to the slightly awkward conversation where Wind was asking for him to make some kind of unspecified change. She sees the confusion on his face, rolls her eyes, and clarifies, “The bunny thing, duh?”

“Bunny thing?” the two younger pegasi ask, sharing a confused look.

“The bunny thing?” he starts before realization sets in. With wide excited eyes he eagerly nods to the older girl. “Good call, Wind! I bet the guards can help out. So far all of ‘em seem to have a decent sense of humor. When should we do it, though?” With a scrunched snout he says, “I don’t wanna like… interfere with her court or something.”

“We’ll just ask when she normally takes a break. C’mon, let’s get everypony moving,” she calls, leading the group back inside.

Breakfast was served to the herd in the same room they had lunch the previous day. It struck Cure as kind of strange; here they were sleeping in the palace and, for the most part, it might as well have been a very high end hotel. Sure it was nicer and had a lot of guards milling about, but they were doing the same thing they would be doing if they had stayed anywhere else.

It occurs to him that a typical day at the palace is probably pretty boring. It’s the home of the leader of the, as far as he knows, most prosperous country on the planet. If crazy shit were happening all the time then something has probably gone horribly wrong. Some ninety nine odd percent of days here are probably just like any other workplace, there just happens to be an obscenely powerful demigod living here too.

Dawn noses at Cure’s cheek and gives the colt a concerned look. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “You’ve just kinda been looking around and not eating.”

Sure enough, half his omelet is still sitting on his plate, and he’s barely eaten any of his cinnamon rolls. “Nothins wrong. It just seems odd,” he admits with a scrunched snout, “I just kinda figured staying in the palace would be… different? I guess?”

“Seems pretty awesome if ya ask me,” Heavy comments, reaching for another roll. “Mom hasn’t made breakfast rolls like these for months. Not since Hearth’s Warming, in fact.” He scrunches his snout in annoyance and adds, “Fall always pigs out on them too, so you gotta eat them before she gets ‘em all.”

“It’s quiet,” Glacial notes, glancing around. “I thought it would be a lot busier.”

“That!” Cure agrees, pointing his hoof at the filly across the table. “It’s like we’re in a museum or something.”

“I have been a little afraid to touch anything,” Ferric admits. “Like those vases,” she points to a set sitting against the wall between the windows with flowers in them. “Are they priceless antiques or… just normal vases you can buy anywhere?” She looks to her left at her sister and asks, “Are normal vases expensive?” Sapphire doesn’t even pause cramming pastries in her mouth to shrug.

“I wouldn’t worry yerself that much, girls,” Amethyst calls from the adult half of the table. “Tha princess knew y’all were comin. If there was somethin she was worried about getting broken I bet my mane they’d ‘a had it put away. Plus y’all can just Mend it back if somethin happens.”

“True. Besides, why would you mess with the vases anyhow?” Drift asks, looking appraisingly over her withers at said ceramics. “They look like regular vases to me.”

Ferric rolls her eyes at the purple filly, softly saying, “It was just an example.”

“Seems like a weird example. The suit of armor seems more like your kinda thing,” she suggests, waving a fork at the full suit on the opposite side of the room behind the dark filly.

All of the foals’ heads turn to examine the heavy plate suit. Cure had seen some armor sets like that at Base Carol when walking to and from the gym with the guards on Fridays. Apparently in times of war the guard puts away the ceremonial shit and busts out the more practical barding. The bigger, stronger earth ponies like Rushing Charge and Sgt. Bulwark, once armored up, weigh in at three hundred and twenty kilograms or more.

Thanks to magic, earth ponies are far stronger, and as a result, faster than they should be from a purely biomechanical standpoint. Add seventy to eighty kilograms of steel on and strap an extendable lance over their shoulder and you have yourself a pointy, three hundred and twenty kilogram battering ram with a seventy kph charging speed and nearly unlimited endurance. Heat is the main problem with those, but the ponies geared up like that will have enchantments to help address that issue.

“That is a beauty,” Ferric nods, “but I’m pretty sure I can touch that without breaking it. In fact, I doubt I could break that unless I had my tools and really tried.”

“True,” Drift concedes. “Do you think you’ll be able to make stuff like that eventually?”

“Mmm… Yeah, after a lot of learning. Cure showed me how that part of my talent works a few weeks ago, but I still need years of training on how exactly the pieces are supposed to fit so they’re protecting the wearer and don’t get in the way. I mainly work on farm tools and stuff right now.”

“We’ll hafta do some experiments with the transmutation too, Red. I bet we could come up with some crazy alloys and, someday, even the boss lady herself would be thrilled ta wear a set of yer armor,” he insists with a firm nod.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be that good,” she shyly comments, poking at her plate.

Cure noticed her give him an interested look at the alloy suggestion, though. Once again he regrets not having more material science knowledge from earth, but Ed at least knew enough that, combined with the absolute bullshit cheat that Transmutation is, it should be pretty quick and easy to test out a wide variety of metal combinations to find something no creature on the planet has ever seen.

“I bet you will, sissy!” Sapphire insists, nudging her sister with a shoulder. “I can help ya make it look pretty too! Some nice rubies or garnets would really add a nice scary ‘GRR I’m angry!’ red in there, or a purple garnet or sapphire that would match her eyes and mane! Or! Or some bright orange topaz like the sun!”

“I’ll… uhh… think about it.”

“Good! Lemme know when you’ve got it ready!”

“How did he help you with your talent?” Drift asks, glancing between the colt and filly.

“Is that why you went to her work?” Dawn questions too.

“Yeah, you know…” he waves airly at nothing, “I showed her how to cheat, basically. She can charge crystals now too, she just needed somepony to show her how. You all heard the boss lady last night. We’re all magical and whatnot.

“Just ‘cause a bunch of dead idiots centuries ago and their moronic pride got in the way doesn’t mean pegasi and earth ponies can’t use magic. Between that and treating crystals like a hobby I just don’t know what the hay ponies were thinkin.”

Title calls from further down the table, “They probably didn’t have a good, reliable way of enchanting, Cure. At least, not unless somepony out there has a cutie mark specifically in that. You see how few unicorns bother learning any spells at all. Plus, I think you may be underestimating how untrusting a lot of ponies are in magic even to this day.”

“That’s stupid though! It’s a tool just like a fork,” he insists, waving his in the air for all to see. “I don’t even know why we still call it magic. The word magic means supernatural, and for us it is entirely natural. It’s just another form of energy!”

Deflating slightly, he admits, “Well, at least sort of. I guess there is a metaphysical component as far as wherever the energy is coming from that doesn’t have a physical source… strong magic users only biologically produce a portion of their capacity, after all. And, I guess there’s also the weirdly non uniform behavior like how Reduce results in a proportionally correct body instead of a flat percent reduction,” he finishes with a dejected sigh.

The adults are unaffected, but every foal is looking at the colt like he’s speaking another language. The parents have all heard it more than once. Dawn, Solar, and Ferric have gotten partial explanations, but until last night when the princess dropped her infobomb on everypony the rest just assumed magic was on the other side of a curtain they would never be able to pull back.

“They taught us some basic stuff in…well, Basic, obviously,” Solar explains. “They started throwing around terms like thaums and thaumaturgical studies. Maybe while you’re here you should go see what membership at that Assembly is all about. We’ve got Saturday to explore, after all, and her highness did say they aren’t going to give you a hard time at all.”

“Those terms were in some of the books our teacher sent us,” he acknowledges, “but they’re still the jerks that were sayin I needed to be brought in or whatever, too. I’ll do that when I’m older, but for now I don’t want it to look like I’m coming to them.”

“Is she sending more soon?” Dawn asks hopefully. “It’s been a few months and I think I’ve read the ones she sent us a dozen times already.”

“Dunno, I haven’t heard from her since the first batch. I hope she didn’t kick the bucket or something. Maybe I’ll send her a letter when we get back.”

“Can you show me what you showed her?” Drift asks, interrupting Cure’s train of thought.

“Me too,” Wind immediately chimes in.

“Sure, of course. Dawn can give you the basics too,” he points out. “She’s the more experienced of the two of us, don’t forget.” The unicorn beams at his praise, nodding eager to help her friends as well.

Cure is just about to ask some details about Drift’s talent when a door opens and a pegasus guard mare walks in. He quickly tells the sisters “After breakfast” as she makes her way to Vines, passes her an envelope, gives a shallow bow, then turns and leaves.

With all eyes on her, Vines opens the envelope, reads the note, and passes it to her husband. “A few things. First, the princess sent some books to your room for Crosswind,” she says, leaning forward to look towards the purple filly. “They’ll be in there when you get back.

“Next, she has open court this morning. She asks that we bring you,” she meets Cure’s eyes, “by during her morning recess at ten o’clock to meet with her officers. Also, Coast, Ferric, and Sapphire,” she pans her gaze over the three, “there’s a fair in the market district here in Canterlot to celebrate the Wonderbolts season starting.”

“That’s a big recruiting opportunity,” Solar adds. “The Guard puts that on at every show, but today’s will be special since it’s here and the season opener. They’ll have a lot of fun stuff there for foals and adults. Food stands, games, shops… I’m pretty excited about it.” He turns to Vines and adds, “If you want to take it easy and rest here Star and I can take them. We talked it over last night.”

“I think we all want to go, actually,” Lemon says. Amethyst and Title nod in agreement to the cheers of Cherry and Lotus.

“Thank you for the offer, Solar, honey, but I’d like to see it too,” she replies. “That’s related to the last item on the note; transportation and an escort have been arranged for all of us by her highness.”

When Cure opens his mouth to say something she quickly adds, “They’ll be out of uniform and we’ll be in normal carriages. Nopony will know we have a Guard escort.” He closes his mouth and nods in approval. “There will be two teams, one for each of us. We’ll meet them shortly after lunch and split up from there.”

“You never said how your talk with the princess went,” Dawn says. “Is she okay with your,” she waves at his side and head meaningfully.

“Yep. Even though I don’t have pegasus magic they’re officially updating my record. She says that’ll keep anypony else from trying anything since, ya know… male alicorn and whatnot.”

“Yeah, dude… nopony would touch you then,” Heavy agrees. “It would cause a riot.”

“So you can stop using that stupid disguise?” Drift asks.

“Ehh… the lieutenant that was with us made a good point about that. Think of it this way, Drift; you’re a parent with a daughter and there’s an alicorn colt in town that’s around her age. What’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

Everypony takes only a second to connect the dots before cringing. Dawn’s expression is one of pure horror. Solar looks over just in time to catch it and fails to hold in a snort at the stricken look.

“Exactly,” Cure answers with a nod. “She assured me the whole Archmage Assembly thing isn’t a problem, and like I’ve said many, many times before, I can hide my identity. If somepony spots a filly hanging out with an alicorn colt, though? Envy is an ugly beast, ladies.”

“I don’t blame ya, dude,” Heavy says. “I’ve only come to your job a few times and it seems like everypony has a daughter or niece or cousin they want you to meet. I can’t imagine if they thought you were a prince or something.”

Coast’s eyes almost pop out of her head as she asks, “But… that’s not happening, right?!”

“No way,” he instantly answers. “Even if I were the genuine article the thought of all that responsibility sounds awful,” he says. “The first thing I would do if I were in charge is move the country away from a pure monarchy.

“There has to be dozens, even hundreds of ponies with marks in leadership that would be way better at it than me. I’d be far better utilized somewhere that my talent helps.”

“That’s… a good point, actually,” she agrees. “It would make a lot more sense to have somepony with a special talent making decisions. You could probably help a lot more ponies in a hospital or something.”

“Exactly. Put competent ponies in charge and set up a system independent of them to make sure they aren’t taking advantage of their position. It’s really hard to get a lie past me and I would make a great spy, so it wouldn’t be worth trying ta run a scam or something.”

“It may not be your talent, but you should be like… a cutie mark councilor,” Drift suggests, nearly vibrating in excitement at the idea. “The princess said nopony else can do what you did! Can you do it again?”

“Probably?” he cautiously answers. “I mean… I can make guesses, but there’s not really any guarantee until it happens, ya know?”

Half a dozen foals explode in questions and pleads for help the instant he finishes speaking. Dawn, Heavy, Glacial, Coast, Rising, and Sapphire are all still blanks, but he refuses to share any potential ideas, citing the possibility that seeing it coming may prevent it from happening.

The foals all start chatting animatedly amongst themselves about talents and cutie marks, letting him off the hook in case he’s right. Everypony is pretty excited for the day, so breakfast is quickly finished and the group makes their way back to their rooms to get cleaned up and ready.

Despite the extremely unusual wakeup call, the morning had been rather peaceful. Fridays in court are normally pretty busy since ponies are perfectly happy to use “I need to go to court” as an excuse to make it a three day weekend.

With the festive mood in the city, many of the would-be petitioners apparently found something else to occupy their time. Either that or, possibly, the local businesses are so inundated with all of the citizens of Cloudsdale coming down to take care of anything they need done that’s located in the capital.

Celestia has to admit; the prospect of moving the castle to the roaming city is a tempting one. The ability to both travel and still be close to the comforts of home is something that only a small portion of her little ponies get to enjoy. It’s a shame that it’ll never happen… at least, not for a very long time.

The wide array of changes that would be necessary boggles the mind, let alone the impact it would have on her court. On one hoof, ponies from all over wouldn’t have to travel to Canterlot to visit her, but on the other traveling to Canterlot is relatively easy compared to many places, even if it can take a day or so to get here.

Dismissing the errant thoughts as unimportant, she makes her final ruling before her morning tea break. Seconds away from calling for recess, she pauses to look up when Duke Dandy clears his throat. Gavel in hoof, Celestia pauses to look questioningly at her old friend. He flicks his eyes to the viewing area and back, causing her to take note of the foals eagerly watching, eyes glistening with anticipation.

It only takes a fraction of a second to put two and two together; Cure has done something. A prank of some sort, judging by the amusement on their faces. Well two can play at that game, and the foal is a couple millennium too young to get one over on this princess, he’ll soon learn.

“Duke Dandy?” she calls questioningly.

“If it pleases her majesty, a strange creature was found on the castle grounds and, before it could devour her highness’s prized petunias, the grounds crew succeeded in subduing the vermin. Apparently it is of a species with which they are unfamiliar, however, so they thought to seek your esteemed advice as to what to do with it.”

“Do tell…” she flatly replies. The petunias aren’t prized and he knows that, so he must be in on it. “And where might said creature presently be?”

Celestia watches as the duke stands out of the way of the doors and opens them wide. Two armored guards, ones assigned to the guest hall, she notes, are wheeling the roughly pegasus-sized box between them on a dolly. They stop just before the dias, bow, and take a step away, both mares nearly shaking with barely contained mirth.

Casting a suspicious look between the pair, she mentally makes note to discuss the need for more discipline with the captain in the near future. This morning’s incident was understandable; she all but hoofed the keys to the nation over to the colt.

He’s obviously smart enough to realize he could have done almost anything with that disguise. What’s worse is that she would have probably taken a while to determine the culprit. Instead he revealed his capability solely to visit her and bring her a delicious breakfast. And, perhaps, point out a rather substantial lapse in security.

She hadn’t thought of those vile creatures for centuries, but the colt had a very valid concern; with a flash of magic somepony in the know could have severely compromised the city’s defenses. That will have to be agenda item two when Captain Shield and she have time to review Guard readiness.

She might as well look into updates with Sgt. Haze’s proposal while she has the colt on her mind. As unlikely as it is that anypony would be bold enough to attack one of her cities, she would be mortified if the tragedy could have been averted or, at least, mitigated for as little as the couple million bits needed to buy the exceptional tier crystals.

Truthfully, the foal probably needs some sort of counseling, but if it weren’t for his paranoia, who knows what could have happened to him.

“Bailiff?” she calls, looking towards the month’s assigned private. Her first day of her rotation and the poor girl is going to be exposed to whatever the colt has done. Unlucky.

The young unicorn steps before the bench. “Yes, your highness?”

“Could you ensure the…” she can’t help but sigh, “creature is unharmed?”

The young mare looks warily at the box and the two guards standing beside it. They both smile broadly at her, one giving an encouraging nod. After taking another quick glance back up to the princess she ignites her horn and lifts one side of the lid, then slowly inches forward to peek in, leaning as far back as she can at the same time.

Her countenance flips a hundred and eighty degrees all at once. No longer even slightly wary, the guard’s pupils shrink to pinpricks, her mouth falls open, and both forehooves latch onto her cheeks while she lets out a piercing squeal of… joy? Discarding the lid, the private leans over the lip of the box and nearly dives in, reaching for whatever crazy thing Cure has put in there or, more likely, turned himself into.

That wasn’t exactly the reaction Celestia expected. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what to expect from the foal. For as young as he is he’s obviously exceedingly smart. Not just smart, either, but he also shows wisdom and creativity well beyond the norm, the combination resulting in a colt whose behavior is quite difficult to predict.

That he was born exactly a hundred years before the long awaited date is a clue; him gaining a talent likely to lead to an unaging state may as well be a sign from the maker herself. Strange that she’s had no visions of him ascending at all; only fleeting glances of somepony like his fillyfriend, Dawn, his mother, Title, and a young unicorn filly with a coat like the Crosswind girl.

“Bailiff?” she softly calls to the young mare.

Head shoved into the box, Celestia can only make out portions of the private’s cooing voice. “... and fuzzy and I just wanna eat you all up!!!” Ignoring the openly laughing guards, Duke Dandy approaches the bailiff and gently taps her withers, tilting his head towards the increasingly impatient alicorn awaiting the big reveal.

All annoyance vanishes in an instant when the mare lifts out the single most adorable creature that has ever graced Equus with its floofy presence. The bunny-corn, held tightly against the private’s chest, has an almost ethereal glowing white coat with a round cottony tail and a mane both streaked in blues, greens, and pinks framed by long, floppy ears. Its back is adorned with tiny little flappy wings, and on its forehead rests a nubby, white horn with a golden spiral looping up it.

Celestia’s voice hitches, any command long forgotten and dying an inglorious death before escaping. The only sound in the room is the continued cooing nonsense from the private and the collective gasps and “Aww’s” from the audience.

The bailiff holds the creature high over her head, offering it to its rightful master; its tiny little wings flapping slowly to no effect. Then the sparkling lilac eyes open and focus on the princess in a begging, “love me” look, and, for the first time in the country’s history, the Royal Canterlot Voice is used in a devastating, happy squeal.

Glaring hot fury at the bun-colt, Celestia can’t help but raise her voice. “Two hundred windows!”

“Jeez, boss… quite the impressive set ‘a pipes ya got there. Have you ever considered opera as a side gig? I know ya said you can’t carry a tune, but I bet we could figure somethin out.”

“This isn’t a joking matter, young stallion! Nearly every window in the castle and many in the nearest several blocks need Mended because of your… your… display!”

“Well, technically, your highness, I don’t believe Cure is exactly responsible here,” Cpt. Shield starts, shrinking when the princess’s glare turns her way.

Cure, Vines, Deed, the princess, the two officers, and Duke Dandy Dresser had all made their way to a meeting room after the cleanup of the courtroom. Cure was surprised to find that Celestia does indeed see petitioners in a courtroom, of a sort, and not her throne room. It makes sense; he certainly hadn’t seen anywhere for an audience to sit in the throne room the previous day.

The “bench” is not the same as a human courtroom; it’s far more open, for one. It is raised slightly, but only by a few hooves. There aren’t boxes for witnesses, nor is there a spot for a jury; just an audience sitting area, two boxes for plaintiffs, and a more business version (less gold, though still nice wood and fancy upholstery) of her throne, and the same six guards from the throne room.

It struck him more like a meeting room where a city’s leaders would listen to citizens rather than a courtroom. The design is overall less awe-inspiring and more informal, probably made to be less intimidating for a typical pony to not feel quite so overwhelmed when facing their God Queen. Her bench, while raised, is only a couple hooves above the rest of the room.

“I respectfully agree, your majesty,” Duke Dandy voices his opinion. “As many witnessed, it was not the actions of the disguised foal that shattered everything, after all, but her majesty’s enthusiastic appreciation of his visage, instead.”

“Yeah!” the brat shouts, waving vigorously in the duke’s direction. “I ain’t the one bustin out the Sonic Yell. It was very effective, by the way. Good thing I can heal eardrums. I’m willing to help by loaning a few dozen mid-low Mending crystals so the Guard can get everything straightened out faster, but there’s no way I coulda predicted that!”

The ancient mare wilts under the judgemental stare from everypony in the room. Finally releasing a sigh, she begrudgingly nods in acceptance. “Fine!” she huffs, turning to look at the two officers on her right.

“We have plenty of unicorns out fixing everything, Cure,” Lt. Spear assures him and his parents. “Fortunately the…” she hesitates, briefly glancing to the annoyed alicorn, “umm… the effect didn’t reach far beyond the outer walls. Everything will be fixed within a few hours.”

“Great! So, since that’s taken care of, when are we going to go hunt down my trees? The trail will stay fresh for a while but, unlikely as it may be, I would really like to find out if the jerks that have ‘em are the same ones that sent the mercs.”

“You are not going!” every mare in the room shouts at once.

Deed, Duke Dandy, and Cure can only stare amazed between the four before Cure mumbles, “Wow, not even the boss lady is immune to it. Neat!”

Celestia takes a deep, calming breath and looks at the bunnified colt across from her. “You said you could find your plants. How?”

Proudly beaming, Cure explains, “Scent marker. It’s not detectable by ponies, normally, but I could follow it across half the country.”

“Fantastic thinking, Cure,” Celestia compliments, causing the bun-colt to smile even broader, which looks quite bizarre on a bunnified version of herself, “Lieutenant Spear, I will not order this, but I would ask that you allow Cure to make you sensitive to the scent as well.”

“What?” the colt whines.

“Of course, your highness,” Lt. Spear responds.

“But… I…” Cure futilely looks towards his parents for help, finding stern looks from both his dam and sire.

Celestia cuts him off mid sentence. “Will be joining me for the remainder of the morning court session, which you interrupted! And you will be doing it looking. Just. Like. That!” she finishes pointing a gold-clad hoof in his direction while smiling smugly. “In fact, I believe my bailiff should have had plenty of time to prepare the accommodations I requested,” she adds, looking inordinately pleased with herself.

Cure looks helplessly to his parents who, after sharing a glance, nod to the gloating mare. “Ya made yer bed, son. Now ya gotta sleep in it.”

“These have been the greatest two days of my life,” Drift solemnly declares. “I think even when I’m like seventy or whatever I’ll look back at this trip and still say that.” She leans over, grabs Cure by the chin, and plants a soft, warm kiss on his left cheek.

Deed did not see that coming, and judging from the dark blush on his son’s cheek the colt didn’t either. Heavy and Wind are on the dark stallion’s left, the former barely holding back a laugh and the latter giving her sister an approving smile.

The group are all in an enclosed carriage courtesy of the princess and on their way up to the landing area by the arena. The princess is attending the event as well, but she’s going to be in her own big, fancy transport drawing a ton of attention.

She asked again if Cure and his friends would like to join her in the royal box, but he politely declined. He weighed the cost and benefits and decided he would prefer more discretion at this time. Granted, being publicly seen chilling with the boss lady would have gone a long way towards letting everypony know he is under her aegis, but it would have also broadcast to literally every pony in the country that there’s something special about the colt and his group of friends.

With Cure unable to get away before having to leave for the event, he had to rely on his moms to stop by Ace, Hardwick, and Rose (his attorneys) to drop off his paperwork and pay the retainer. He can’t think of any services he needs from the firm right now, but with the craziness going on in his life, having competent legal help waiting in the wings just seems like a good precaution.

As they approach the event, Cure looks out the carriage window and asks the girls what stops a pegasus from simply setting up camp on a cloud a half kilometer away and enjoying the event that way for free. The Royal Guard is the answer, apparently, as Guard pegasi patrol the surrounding kilometer or so of airspace to prevent just that. Not just to up ticket sales, either, but also as part of the security detail.

The Wonderbolts’ training area, stadium, and every other area associated with the group is considered restricted airspace due to them being a military team. There are designated approach lanes and landing zones for everypony and, winged or not, all spectators are required to walk from there. They do have camps and academies, but passes are given to authorized visitors until they’re past security just like he gets every time he goes with BRG3 to work out.

Interestingly, Cure spots a few unicorn and earth pony guards using the butterfly wing spell. Whenever her highness is in the sky they have a few members from other tribes available as well. That could be Solar’s job some day; Artillery mages are, by necessity, powerhouses when it comes to spellcasting, both in capacity and technical proficiency. That a few of them are assigned to the boss lady’s security detail just seems like common sense, despite the fact it was never shown in the cartoon.

Immortal pseudo-deity or not, Celestia is the head of a government and security, while not stifling, is still a serious issue. The very best of the best of the best are assigned to the boss’s detail, as befitting the mare that all of ponykind and, to a rather large degree, the entire planet, relies on.

Glacial is on Drift’s withers nuzzling into the purple filly’s mane while Rising is happy to use Cure’s right shoulder as a pillow, snuggled under one of the colt’s brown wings. Sparing a glance up to Dawn, Deed finds the fiery filly seems slightly annoyed, but for the most part is reluctantly accepting the fact that another girl is being affectionate with her beau.

“It has been pretty great,” her sister agrees.

“Damn right! Gettin my cutie mark, of course, has to be number one. But meeting with the princess herself, the fancy train, that dinner!” Bursting out in a giggle, she adds, “Today’s just been the icing on the cake! I’ll never, ever forget seeing her highness, Princess Celestia, squeal like a filly! Ohh, sun and stars! That was SO awesome! It did hurt a little, though… it kinda sounded like when you did that shout thing.”

“Can’t believe she put me in a pet bed,” Cure grumbles, choosing not to respond to the RCV observation.

“Ya had no problem puttin yerself in a box first, colt. ‘Least the one the princess gave ya was nice ‘n cushy.”

“It was kinda comfy,” he reluctantly admits.

Poking at his chin with her snout, Drift bursts out laughing as she shouts, “BUNLESTIA! HAHAHA!”

To his initial dismay, the princess had her bailiff send a runner to a pet store to fetch said pet bed. Cure figures he’s currently about the size of a medium dog, so it worked pretty well, all things considered. The fact that she kept him between her forelegs and spent two hours brushing, petting, and feeding him garden veggies while tending to her court duties… Well, that was pretty fucking hilarious, he has to admit.

At first it felt a little demeaning, especially with the other foals seeing it all happen, but he figured he might as well own it. He has pulled a few minor pranks on her so far. The princess seemed positively delighted when he started playing it up. Once he accepted the situation for what it was he began snuggling into her chest, rolling on his back and batting at her peytral with his paws, and fluttering his tiny wings happily whenever she paid attention to him.

More than one petitioner even inquired as to where they could find a similar pet for their foal. Cure had never considered cosmetically altering animals, either as a service or to then sell as pets, but after seeing everypony losing their minds he can’t help but think that would be a fantastic alternative income stream for whenever he does come up with an anti-aging treatment.

The idea struck him as unethical at first, but then again… he isn’t sure why. The pet, while not being capable of giving consent, ends up, in all likelihood, better off. It’s a sad truth with humans, at least, and probably carries over to ponies too; cute or pretty things are better treated. With the near sapience several animals have they may even be eager to enter into such an arrangement.

As best he can figure everyone wins; the animal gets a home and a full work-over courtesy of him, the owner gets a unique and healthy pet, and Cure can make some coin doing something objectively good.

“Ya know,” he starts, talking over the laughing, “I bet any one of you all woulda been thrilled to trade places with me,” he looks to his sire and adds, “even you.”

“In a way, I guess it is pretty cool you got to sit up there with her highness,” Rising admits. “I don’t think anypony is usually allowed to be on the throne like that.”

“True,” Dawn agrees, “Normally you’re not even supposed to get near her throne, even the court one. I think it may be a crime to sit on it.”

“Dunno bout that, Dawn girl. I could see the princess comin up with somethin as a punishment like she did with the troublemaker here,” he says, nodding at his son. “Seems more her style, dontchya think?”

It only takes a second of deliberation before she agrees. “Probably. Like, she would make them be her bailiff for a week or the court note taker or something.”

“Eh, as far as anypony is concerned it was just a big, fluffy princess-colored bunny up there. It didn’t seem like anypony minded at all, and I doubt anypony thought it was a bunny shaped pony. Who knows, maybe I’ll start selling horned, winged, fluffified bunny rabbits as pets.”

Drift’s eyes light up in excitement. “Oh my stars! Can I get one with my colors and cutie mark on its flanks?”

“No!” Glacial yells, gently slapping Drift with her left wing. “You are not getting a pet.”

Wind chimes in immediately. “Yeah, dad would be pissed. We all know Swirl would want one of her own and him and dam work too much to be taking care of one pet, let alone two.”

“Fine! Pet’s probably aren’t a good idea if I’m gonna be traveling eventually anyhow. How long do rabbits even live?”

“Ten,” Cure starts at the same time Heavy says “Thirty years or more.” Ed never had a pet rabbit, but thirty sounds awfully long. Cure gives the gray colt a “go ahead” wave and Heavy explains, “I’ve heard of pets living for a lot longer, but wild ones usually live twenty to thirty years.”

Realizing Cure’s slip, Deed confirms that rabbits on Equus live much longer than he thought. Cure lacks the detailed knowledge of canon to know when Angel first showed up, but he’s pretty confident it was early on in the show. He’s sure the bunny was still alive and kicking when the series ended, too, though the passage of time is very unclear in the cartoon.

Hopefully the boss lady wouldn’t pass on the reins too soon after Twilight ascends. That, in particular, is one future event he plans on trying to influence directly. Then again, all of Ed’s knowledge about the last few seasons was entirely from fanon, so maybe reality would have something else like a year or ten transition period.

As the girls chat about what kind of pets they would like and what “features” they should come with, the carriage shakes slightly indicating it has touched down.

The stadium for the show is of a size and configuration that Cure had not expected. Many times over the last year he has had to adjust his expectations; to scale them down from a world with a population somewhere around a thousand times as large. Wonderbolt Arena is legitimately enormous, though the configuration of the audience area is spread out vertically rather than on a diagonal incline like in human areas.

The alternate design is logical given that the construction material is clouds. It didn’t take millions of bits or an unknowable amount of steel to construct, so material efficiency is not a priority and it can be added onto for free, aside from labor costs, as needed.

Getting to their seats ended up being a little more of an ordeal than he expected. Both Heavy and Rising had nearly panicked when it was time to get out of the carriage. Deed ended up carrying both on his back after hopping out and assuring them they would be okay. By the time they made it to their area the two had calmed down enough to test the waters and sit with the other foals.

In order to help the two relax, the winged members of the party spread out to partner up with the wingless. Wind took the far left next to Rising, then Dawn jumped at the opportunity to sit half beside her while laying on Cure’s withers. Glacial claimed his right side and Heavy ended up sandwiched between her and Drift.

Dawn hasn’t needed Cloud Walk for months now, so she is wholly unconcerned despite knowing how high they truly are.

Deed had scored some pretty nice seats, all things considered. They aren’t at the center of the stadium horizontally, but they aren’t far off either. Also, since they’re in one of the higher rows they can see everything just fine.

From a cursory glance, Cure estimates the attendees are approximately ninety percent pegasi, five percent bats with a smattering of unicorns, barely any earth ponies, very few griffons and hippogriffs, and a single (ascended) alicorn. A few non-pony wingless races are present as well, though in single digit numbers by his count.

The first event is a series of formation maneuvers that Cure would have doubted possible had he not seen it himself. Six Wonderbolts streak out of the sky arranged in a tight circle, flying in sync through a series of high speed rolls, turns, and loops. The entire formation rotates and as each Bolt moves past the 12:00 position they peel off, shooting over the top of the arena and disappearing behind the stands.

Only seconds later the group blasts up through the clouds making up the floor of the arena arranged in a hexagon with each holding the hooves of their two wingponies. With synchronized flaps they launch into the air. They stop flapping, gaining altitude with only their inertia and, at the height of their climb the group seems to stall in the air only for a thunderous, yellow explosion to blast them apart; each one shooting away trailing an electric contrail.

“Woah. Some kinda Starburst move?” he asks.

“That was their signature opener to honor the princess,” Glacial explains, pointing at the mare’s Royal Box. Celestia is smiling broadly and clapping at the display. “It’s her favorite move; the Icaranian Sun Salutation. They do it with lightning somehow.”

“Huh, must be some kinda pegasus magic.”

“You think we can do that?” Wind asks.

“You three could,” he answers with a nod. “Dawn or I would probably have to try to invent some spell or modify an existing one to have a similar effect.”

“We need to show you how to use your magic so you can grow your capacity,” Dawn adds, watching as the performers whip around the arena. “I bet anything that’s a big difference between amazing flyers and your average pegasus. They’ve probably been using magic their whole lives compared to most pegasi who never push themselves.”

“I don’t get why ponies wouldn’t want to know this stuff,” Wind complains, looking back to the show.

“Stubbornness, Wind Shear,” Deed chimes in. “Older ponies don’t wanna learn somethin new. Especially if’n they’ve been told their whole life it don’t matter or, worse, ain’t right ta use. They pass that fear on to their foals, too. Yer young and you’ve seen how useful it is.”

“You all seem pretty okay with him doing crazy stuff,” she points out, motioning to Cure with her head.

“I ain’t old,” Deed grumbles. “The colt does all kinda crazy stuff, true, but he does a good job explainin the why, how, and whatnot.”

“Ignorance is the parent of fear, Wind,” Cure sagely explains. “If I had just suddenly started doin crazy stuff, especially to myself, without talkin to my parents first then my dam woulda flipped her lid. I think she expected me to explode when I first tried using a horn. Even after nine months of using my talent with no problems my dam still worries when I try somethin new.”

“She always will, champ.”

“My dam would freak out if I came home with wings,” Dawn comments. “You saw how my sire reacted on Nightmare Night and those were fake.”

“Yeah but he didn’t realize that at first.”

“They were pretty convincing,” Heavy agrees. Giving Cure the side-eye he adds, “Not quite as convincing as the spider legs, but…”

“Jeez dude, let it go!” Cure whines. “It’s been seven months. It’s not like I chased you down and tied you up in a web or something.”

“You did that to Solar!” Dawn blurts out in a laugh. “Tackled him from behind and hogtied him in our living room.”

“Yeah, and your sire was about ready to blast me while I did it.”

So quietly she can barely be heard over the crowd, Rising notes, “You seem weirdly good at tying ponies up though… Solar, the ones that the guards couldn’t even free… didn’t you do that to a guard in the woods too?”

“No!” he insists. “I just… kinda, ya know… jumped on his back while maybe pretending to be a spider or something.”

“... some kinda weird bug fascination,” he hears Drift mumble. “Wait… could you grow bug wings?”

“Yeah. They’re mostly thin pieces of chitin. That’s the same stuff my spider outfit was made of.”

“Could you fly if you had wings?” Rising asks, turning to face Dawn. “I know you,” she glances Cure’s way, “said it would take months to change enough to do it… have you been?”

Cure uses a crystal to erect a Sound Bubble around their group. “Sound Bubble when we’re talking about stuff like that,” Cure quietly insists. “I don’t want that to be overheard by anypony. You heard what the boss said. Probably shoulda done that from the start,” he says, looking around to see if anypony seems to be paying special attention to them.

Rising winces slightly from her slip as Dawn leans closer so the two can whisper to each other.

“So… you did, huh?” Drift asks, almost accusingly.

With a casual shrug Cure reminds her, “You know I don’t talk about other ponies’ business, Drift. I’m not sayin I did or didn’t, but either way I wouldn’t betray anypony’s trust by saying. If I had, though, would that bother you?”

The purple filly scrunches her snout in thought for a moment. She leans forward to share a look with her sister who shrugs back and answers, apparently for both of them. “I don’t know why, but… it kinda bugs me. It’s like… that’s something we have that others don’t, and just giving it to somepony that already has their own thing feels… wrong?” She ends in a questioning lilt, looking to Glacial and Drift to see if they agree. “Is it just me?”

Drift shrugs and points out, “That’s almost exactly what I said six months ago. Five. Whatever.”

“Not… completely,” Glacial slowly admits. “I think the princess is probably right, though. I bet others would feel that way and get really upset. It’s probably a good thing you asked all of us not to spread that around.”

“Well I’m just relieved you all proved trustworthy. I don’t know what kind of mess we’d be in if somepony talked. Just out of curiosity, what if we change the perspective a bit? What if I gave each one of you a horn and showed you how to cast some basic cantrips like Light, Cleaning, Prestidigitation, Shields, and the Armor I use to fly faster? Should unicorns be upset with you?”

“No!” Drift instantly answers. “We would still have to learn how to cast those. It seems complicated.”

“So is learning to fly,” Cure reminds them. Three accusatory looks turn his way. “Well, for normal ponies that don’t know how to cheat properly. With a horn you don’t really have to learn anything to use levitation, shoot concussion blasts, or project a shield. You can’t do much with wings until you learn how.” He leans over and gives Glacial a soft nuzzle. “Thankfully I had a wonderful teacher.”

“Hey I helped too!” Drift huffs, scowling at the pair.

“Umm… no you didn’t,” he says. “You were messing with different wing shapes the whole time. I mean, it’s fine since I learned so fast, but you didn’t really help at all.”

The filly frowns in thought and turns back to watch the show. A different pair of Wonderbolts had come out to relieve the first six. The two, a mare and a stallion, are having a mock battle with daggers and wing blades. Cure figures the dulled edges are lined with flint or something, as each exchange is a whirlwind of feathers, clanging metal, and a shower of sparks.

“That’s something you would be awesome at,” he notes, looking left to Wind. “Have you looked into any kind of martial art since you got your mark?”

“Uhh… no? Are there places in Baltimare that teach how to fight?”

“Dam could teach you,” Drift suggests.

“Or Corporal Arc or Sergeant Song could refer us to somepony,” Cure adds. “She has a wingblade cutie mark even. I know Static is good with daggers and I bet my great grandsire could tell us who his security ponies train with.”

“Us?” she repeats.

“Sure. I imagine at some point I’ll run into some situation where magic isn’t going to be an automatic win and I’ll just hafta beat the crap outta somepony instead. Despite what every parent says, violence very much is an answer to many problems.”

“Damnit colt, don’t say that!”

In a genuinely curious tone he turns to his sire and asks, “Why?”

“Ya shouldn’t be tellin yet friends that violence is a good solution!”

“I wouldn’t say ‘good’ exactly, but it is a viable solution in many situations.” The colt adopts a lecturing tone and explains, “See, the thing is, violence is the only truly universal language. Every creature understands it and, nearly to the last, every creature speaks it.

“From the most wise and experienced amongst us,” he casts his eyes towards her highness, “all the way down to the most mindless, insignificant bug,” he says, turning his hoof over and watching as an ant walks along his hoof wall.

He blows the ant away and continues, “The trick is to know when and how much to use and who or what to use it on.”

Drift nods approvingly. Wind and Dawn do as well, though their look is more begrudging of the truth. Rising, Glacial, and Heavy seem a lot more unsure.

Unfortunately the colt doesn’t stop there. “Sadly you hafta worry about what everypony else thinks instead of just, ya know,” he reaches out with his forehooves, grabs an imaginary head, and does a quick twist to the side while making a cracking noise in his throat, “otherwise I would’a had this whole tree stealing thing wrapped up by now.”

All six foals give him a wary look as he lets out a wistful sigh. With a contemplative look he glances around the stadium and, suddenly, perks up waving a wing eagerly while dispelling the Sound Bubble. “Sweet!” he shouts as everypony follows his gaze to a snack vendor flying their way. “Anypony else want some popcorn? OH! Do they have Cracker Jacks here?!”

Most of the memorabilia for sale was stuff Cure could make himself. Wonderbolt Approved flight suits, capes, masks, goggles, and so forth didn’t appeal to everypony when they knew he could, and would be happy to, magic up something virtually guaranteed to be of better quality and for no real cost. The pegasi each got a signed poster depicting the current roster and the sisters also picked up an “Official” Wonderbolt aerial maneuvers guide, all courtesy of the vouchers from the maze the night before.

Cure’s initial thought was that they maybe shouldn’t be selling the maneuvers book. He could easily envision excited foals trying stuff in the manual and ending up hurt. Then he remembered the nearly comical way pegasi bounce off objects and the availability of cloud cushioning, so he had to grant that hospital wings full of crippled pegasus foals is probably not a major concern.

Also, he’s aware that foals will do what foals will do either way and, it’s possible, the warnings and guidance of the book may actually cause some to be more cautious than they otherwise would be.

He had asked the three that weren’t going if they wanted anything and they had declined. It’s not at all surprising to him that three earth pony fillies living in a suburb of Baltimare have little interest in the flying squadron. Still, he had found a book about the group that had a few chapters covering weapons and armor for fliers, so he grabbed that for Ferric along with a hooffull of replica badges for everypony and a few Wonderbolt dolls for his sisters.

Heavy got a Wonderbolt coloring book for his sisters, then at Cure’s urging, grabbed a few more so they wouldn’t have to share and he would have one himself and another to give to Coast.

Dawn didn’t spot anything that struck her fancy, but did point out a lovely sky blue topaz and yellow citrine gemmed pendant in the Wonderbolt’s wings and lightning bolt design she thought their aqua coated friend would like. Cure readily agreed; the girl may not wear it often, but it would be a nice reminder of the trip either way.

It was ridiculously inexpensive, too, given the materials. He could only marvel that something with precious metals and fine gemstones is only slightly over a hundred bits when it would probably have cost thousands of dollars on Earth.

He was told before they left that the princess wouldn’t be available to join them for dinner tonight as she had political nonsense to see to. They were promised an update on his tree recovery sometime the next day, at least. Cure was surprised he wasn’t somehow dragged into anything ridiculous given the eye roll inducing clicheness of it.

He laughingly joked with his sire about somepony hurting a wing and him having to go out and save the day, only to end up giving all the Wonderbolts massages to ease their strained muscles, but thankfully no such silliness came about. Nor was there some kind of halftime intermission where, against all odds, he or one of his friends was called out onto the field only to wow the entire crowd. After the whole rodeo episode he did his best to remain as low key as possible.

That’s not to say the entire affair was without incident; Cure and the others noticed that the wingless amongst them, including his sire, got more than a few curious looks and, in a few instances, some disapproving stares.

Of course there’s always at least a few in a crowd, so Cure had to stifle a chuckle when he noticed a couple mares intentionally cross in front of Deed with their tails swishing more than was strictly necessary, only to then turn and chat him up while the foals were shopping.

That’s not terribly surprising. The tickets for the event weren’t cheap, and the carriage that was obviously waiting on them was big and, while not “royal,” still quite nice. With Cure’s brown colors and his and Heavy’s thick builds the assumption that Deed is the sire to one or both colts is pretty reasonable. There’s also the fact that pegasus stallions are two to three hooves shorter than the dark stallion and none are anywhere near as wide or muscular.

Throw in his perfect complexion, well groomed and oiled coat, the legendary earth pony stamina, and the lack of an accompanying mare and there’s bound to be some curious ladies bold enough to approach. Deed’s size, both in stature and other areas, also made him possibly the largest non-alicorn pony present, so nopony gave him or any of the foals he was escorting any lip. Still, the somewhat unsubtle “you do not belong here” vibe was present when the group visited the gift shop.

It was the only time that Cure caught sight of the six guards that had been shadowing the group the whole time. One of them must have picked up on the group’s discomfort and called in backup because a three-mare squad of armored guards made their way in the shop to look around and coincidentally interpose themselves between the group and anypony shooting them a look.

He’d kept in contact with his mom throughout the event via Sending, concerned despite the reassurance of the princess that somepony would try something. It was a relief when he finally got word that they were returning to the palace unaccosted. In all likelihood whoever sent the mercenaries and the zebras would just be getting word today that they had failed, and with the plants delivered and the group under Royal Guard protection, attacking them now would both be pointless and, he assumes, an escalation they can’t afford.

Not only would the official response from an act probably be more than anypony could stomach, but even finding anypony to try would be nearly impossible. Presumably it takes more than a day to find and hire a willing group, and they would certainly need some prep time before making the attempt.

Happy to be left to his thoughts, Cure relaxes on the way back to the palace, quietly enjoying the lively chatter of the group as they excitedly recall and reenact (as much as can be done in a carriage) the show’s events.

Author's Note

Okay, so yeah, definitely going to have to take a few weeks off after the Canterlot Arc. Between travel and my quickly depleting buffer (Curse you, super long chapters!) I'll definitely need a moment to catch back up (technically, get back ahead).

The schedule as I have it planned right now is 63 next Monday, 4/24, then 64 the week after (those both take place on Saturday the 2nd in-story). The problem is that 64 keeps growing... ugh. I don't plan on splitting it, but it'll probably end up over 20k again, especially if I include the small bit on Sunday in that chapter I'm kicking around in my head. I don't want to do another chapter just for them leaving, but I'll probably have to do some small bits that take place soon after their arrival, but those will have to wait.

Anyhow, after Cure & Co. leave Canterlot I plan on taking a break -NOT QUITTING - for probably the rest of the month of May, or at least most of it. Who knows, maybe the inspiration fairy will come slap me around so hard I can't help but come back on the 22nd (very unlikely because of travel) or the 29th (not terribly unlikely), but LFAW won't be ending unless I keel over in the meantime.

So this chapter is one I'm kinda torn on. The ending could be better, but as I've mentioned these Canterlot ones are going on soooo long. The boss lady has stuff she has to take care of, obviously, and is going to be all throughout the next two, so Cure can't completely monopolize her time.

Oh well, enough about all that. Enjoy the chapter, folks, and thanks for reading!