Dreamwalker's Tale: Project Greenwood

Exiting the castle felt strangely good. I stepped forward, out into the wider world and therefore out of my comfort zone. It felt brave, in a weird way. I nodded a silent greeting to the guards on my way out and left the castle premises behind me shortly after.

My love’s sun was still patiently climbing up the sky, but I could already tell what day this would become. Not a single cloud up there, the light was already quite warm… it was good. I usually did not deal well with heat, but this was no summer sun, not by a long shot. Another two months maybe and it would get unbearable again, but right now was that time of year when everything, from flowers to trees and all plants in between, from critters big and small, was still waking up and taking stock of what the winter had done and left behind.

As I dodged and weaved my way along the sidewalks of Canterlots streets, a little tune sprang to mind and somehow bypassed all my usual walls of hesitance. I whistled it for a while, a few minutes at best, until I remembered the exact lyrics. With a wide smile, I quietly sang. “It’s a brand new day… and the sun is high… all the birds are singing… that you’re gonna d—“

I cut myself off when I noticed some passersby giving me a wary side eye. “—dance,” I lamely ended the lyrics. And it really bristled my coat to know that I did it wrong.

“That doesn’t even rhyme!” a little filly complained and was promptly pulled closer to her mom and along the sidewalk, further away from me.

I cringed mostly internally and sighed outwards. “Luna would’ve liked it,” I quietly grumbled as I averted my gaze to the ground and moved on. It was a gross understatement though. Luna would have loved it. She would have bellowed the lyrics for all of Canterlot to hear, right alongside me. And her doing that would have given me enough courage to go on, despite odd looks from other ponies.

I sighed again. I still stood by my opinion that avoiding breakfast in the castle had been a wise choice. That obviously did not mean that I could not regret it anyway. I missed her already. Missed them, really. Sunny would not have sung along with me, but she would have smiled that genuine ‘I like what you’re doing because it seems to make you happy’-smile. Different types of support, same effect.

I dared to look around. I had not moved far enough yet, so a few ponies still occasionally looked at me like I was a lunatic. Funny, really. Maybe not the best choice to sing in public. Singing in public, on second thought, was a bad idea in general. What had I been thinking? Well, the short and quick answer was: Nothing. That was the point. I had not been thinking. I had just enjoyed the day. With a good song. A really good one. One that never failed to make me smile, which was really weird, given the context.

Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along was a new piece. Luna and I had watched it in the theater a couple weeks ago when it first premiered. Public interest in it had been almost non-existent, which was reflected in how few seats they managed to fill with pony butts. Or other butts, really. Any butts.

But goodness gracious, I was into that. The songs were catchy. The characters were lovable oddballs. Yet they did not fail to convey a sense of dread, desperation and drama at the same time. And it was hilarious. Despite the drama, it was so incredibly funny. A very difficult balancing act, I imagined.

I honestly had difficulties understanding why so few ponies seemed to have a good opinion of it, given they heard of it in the first place. Maybe ponykind was just not ready for this kind of dark humor. Maybe ponies were fed up with the string of emerging and reemerging villains of the recent decade. Pondering the why and how kept me busy for a good few minutes. Long enough for me to reach my destination.

I pushed past the door and ignored the doorbell as best as I could.

“Mornin’!” came the obligatory customer-greeting from behind the counter.

Jasper readied another order for a different customer and then turned his attention to me. His smile grew a little as he recognized my face. So did his father beside him, who had already started to fill my order without me even saying a single word. I liked that. Made me feel at home.

“Good morning, Joe. Good morning, Jasper. How is business today?” I asked. I had eyes and ears, of course. Half the tables were full, many ponies were chatting away the morning hours and the duo had their hooves full with orders and refills and brewing coffee and whatnot. And to be fair, it did feel horribly stilted to me to ask this. But I had been told this was how one did ‘small talk’. And I tried.

Joe knew me well enough to merely grin in appreciation while he silently kept at it. Jasper on the other hoof made a little show of regarding the interior of his shop, looking over all his customers. I was decently sure that it was a subconscious thing.

“Well, it’s morning alright. Folks are busy getting to work, some are coming home, and all of them want coffee, tea, hot chocolate and-or some sugary delights,” was his final answer.

I nodded with a small smile. “Good to hear. Wouldn’t want you running out of business, after all. Where would I get my fix then, right?”

He gave a good-natured chuckle and agreed with a nod. I was spared further words because another couple of ponies came in after me. He greeted them properly and they quickly trotted past me, up to the counter and started with their order.

It was probably rude. Bypassing me like that, ignoring me completely. But then again, neither did I feel offended, nor did I particularly care. I was glad to blend into the background. Most of the time, I was glad that it was so easy for most ponies to simply overlook me.

Joe finally placed a small paper bag on the counter. I levitated a bit out of my purse once I had that retrieved from my saddlebag. Just one, to indicate the number. He smiled and shook his head. I grinned, both satisfied with his work and a little intimidated by it as I put enough bits on the counter for two. How he could tell by simply looking at me was a mystery. I usually ordered one. Just one. One muffin. One donut. One pancake. One something.

I didn't even know what exactly he had packed this time. I knew that it made no difference for the price and I liked the surprise. I would be content with any of those treats. But how did he always know?

Or maybe he did not. Maybe he simply accepted that I would probably go along with whatever he packed up. It was an interesting thing to think about as I tipped my non-existent hat as a goodbye and left Donut Joe’s again. Donut Joe. He was old. At this point, who wasn’t? His son Jasper already officially owned the place and his dad only helped out because of business expertise and because most customers knew him, liked him, wanted to see him. I wondered if they would keep up tradition. If Jasper would have a foal someday, would he stick to a name with J? Would Jewel be next? Or maybe Jelly?

My own silliness amused me enough to grin while I levitated that paper bag to my muzzle and took a whiff. The scent of cinnamon was strong, but there was an underlying fruity something. A second inhale and I managed to identify cherry.

The weight was too much for a pair of donuts. Those were more on the fluffier side. Muffins, then? Cupcakes? No. Cupcakes were a bad choice for a paper bag, because the icing would stick to the inside of the bag. Muffins. I placed my bet on muffins. Cinnamon-cherry-muffins.

I stopped walking to take a look inside. Because while I learned slowly, I did learn. I had walked into lamp posts, other ponies, doors and at one point even a waiting carriage enough times to know that it would have been a bad idea to walk blindly while I stared into the bag.

“And the winner is… me,” I quietly announced as I levitated one of the two out of the bag. “Hello, pretty. What say you? I really need—“ you inside me. I did not finish that sentence. There were other ponies around. Ponies that could hear. And while I simply meant it as a silly joke that was not even that funny, I could already see the looks I would draw with my mind's eye. The singing really had been enough.

So I stuck to the basics. And ate a muffin while I walked towards my next destination and pondered if I should take the other one with me to give it to Derpy. My musings were cut short when a certain shop came into view. Carousel Boutique. Where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique. I was not sure if that was part of the name, her slogan or what. But the fact alone that I could recite it from memory was scary.

I peeked through the massive window and in between a couple of ponyquins wearing all sorts of probably very fashionable clothing. I had no idea what the current trend was. Green, maybe? I saw a bunch of scarves, reduced in price because the end of the season was close. A few hats. Boots. Vests and pants. And one prominently displayed, very elaborately designed and tasteful saddle.

It was all very much the same to me.

The important part was: I could see Rarity behind the counter. And that surprised me. Officially, she was retired. Had been for a few years now. I knew that she still helped out quite a lot with her several boutiques of course. They were her babies, after all. But I had expected her to be in Ponyville, in her bedroom on the second floor, designing new patterns or something like that.

I shrugged and decided to be a little playful. I was in a good mood, so going along with the silly idea was easier. I opened the door just enough that I could see the gosh-darn doorbell and held it with my telekinesis. It made no sound as I snuck into the shop and silently closed the door again. Rarity was distracted, seemingly reading some sort of magazine. No surprise there — despite the garishly decorated interior, there were currently no other customers present. Well, it was quite early, still.

My experience with sneaking on bare marble tiles in the castle came in quite handy as I snuck closer to the counter on the polished floor. I veered a little to the right, towards the winding staircase that led to the upper floor and stepped onto the carpet to further muffle my every sound. It also allowed me easier access to the counter entrance. I wondered if I would be able to sneak up right behind her when she crushed those hopes by simply addressing me.

“’Tis not a gallant thing to sneak up on a lady like that!” she softly chided me without looking up from her magazine.

I froze when the first syllable rang out and sighed in defeat when her statement finished. And I relaxed a little as I stood up properly and simply walked over to her. “Hey Rares.” I pushed past the little section that held an imaginary ‘employees only’-sign, found myself behind the counter as well and closed in for a hug.

She accepted it with grace, as was to be expected. “Why hello there, dear. We have not seen each other in some time.”

I held her for a moment and simply enjoyed her closeness. “A few weeks,” I admitted. When I pulled back, I looked her over. She was dressed, of course. A fashionista probably had to wear something, at least when manning the counter of her boutique. The laughter lines on her face were both a reminder of a life lived well and of many years gone by. I was at least glad that either she did not notice me staring or she did not care to hide them or be embarrassed by them.

There was something else though.

I looked around the boutique again. A door led to a different area on the ground floor. Maybe changing booths, maybe storage, I did not know. I heard no noise coming from there. Nopony rummaged around anywhere else. No sound from upstairs either. We were alone, for now.

“What’s up with the illusion?” I therefore dared to ask.

Her pristine indigo mane, curled to perfection, bobbed a little as she moved her head to look at her similarly colored tail and the locks of her mane. And for just a fraction of a second, she scowled. “You saw right through that, didn’t you? It appears I am getting sloppy with my magic. I ought to practice more.”

I swallowed that sigh coming up my throat. She would have misunderstood it. “Don’t worry, your spell was perfect. I just like to think I know you a little.”

I felt her critical gaze bore into me. She searched for lies and betrayal. Even something as little as a white lie would have sufficed. After all, her spell had to be perfect. Anything less simply would not do. Yet she did not seem to find any indication of me simply placating her, so she harrumphed and averted her gaze. “I do not feel comfortable with most ponies seeing me like this.”

I was about to tell her that she did not have to do anything when she dissolved the spell. The glamor faded and left behind a mane and tail fully grayed by time. And despite her best efforts to appear regal and proud, I could see the shame burning in her eyes when she tried to stand her ground.

She could be so silly sometimes.

“Fancy and Fleur don’t mind, do they?” I asked with a smirk.

And that actually did make her smile. “Well… I said ‘most’ ponies. You should count yourself lucky to be part of such an illustrious group!”

I chuckled and bowed as a knight would before a princess. “I do, my fair lady. Believe me, I do.”

I cherished the little rose tint in her cheeks and that thankful smile on her lips. “So what brings you to my humble abode then? Not that I mind your company.”

“One hundred sapphires,” I answered. “Actually, make that one hundred and ten. Never hurts to have a little reserve in case something goes haywire. It’s for a big project I have in mind. They need perfect clarity and a specific cut. I could make a little drawing, if you’d like?”

Rarity giggled quietly, daintily. “As much as I would love to help you, you have to realize that I am, well… retired.”

“Officially,” I added.

“Officially,” she agreed with a lopsided smile. “I limit myself to the creation of new patterns and occasionally help out selling stock. If you want to place a custom order, you will have to talk to Pristine.”

I nodded. Honestly, I had expected as much. “And where, pray tell, may I find your precious daughter these days?” A part of me hoped she would be here in Canterlot. But there were other options. Carousel Boutique had successfully established itself in several major cities. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, even Vanhoover. And little old Ponyville.

“Well, she is supposed to be upstairs,” Rarity replied with a smirk. “Pristine!” she suddenly yelled at a very unladylike volume. My ears instantly splayed flat against my head and I retreated a step away from her. There was no reaction from upstairs. “I am sorry, I should have at least warned you,” she conceded.

I shook myself free of the initial surprise and tried to stand firmly. “I… it… uh… it’s fine. Really, I’m fine.” Rarity’s eyes snapped to a point to the side and within a blink of an eye, her horn lit up and her colorful mane and tail were restored to their perfect glory. Half a second later, the doorbell rang out and announced the arrival of other customers.

I knew that this was the part Rarity came here for. She did not care if the stock was sold or not. She had enough bits to live the rest of her days in luxury. But she truly cared for the ponies coming to her shop. She wanted to help them. To make them shine.

I smiled and retreated out from behind the counter, lest the customers get a wrong impression. “Don’t worry. You go have fun counseling those ponies and I shall fetch myself somepony pristine.” I waggled my eyebrows at her. Get it? Get it?

I was pretty sure that she did get it. She simply chose to ignore it, kind of. She pouted instead. “Are you saying I am not pristine enough for you?”

I chuckled and shook my head. And because I could and felt like it, I leaned over the counter and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “You look fabulous, Rarity. You always have. Because what makes you as beautiful as you are, as you have always been, is your heart. And your heart has not aged a day.”

My kiss faintly lit up her cheeks, but my words lit up her entire muzzle. She looked down and tried to regain composure, I could tell. Yet I had not expected to see unspilled, held-back tears in her eyes when she looked back up at me. “Thank you, darling. You truly have been exactly what I needed this morning. Thank you.”

She did not trust her voice enough not to crack. And I did not trust myself enough not to say something stupid. So we left it at that, exchanged simple, grateful nods and that was that. Rarity took a deep breath, used her sheer force of will to pull those tears back in and strengthened her posture before she left her place behind the counter and walked over to her customers. Not before she brushed along my side a little as she passed me by, though.

I decided to use that opportunity to reinforce my belief a little more. “It’s not gray.”

Rarity stopped and looked at me. “Come again?”

I leaned over and nuzzled her neck, eliciting a quiet sigh from her. “It’s not gray,” I repeated. “It’s silver. A liquid, flowing silver, precious and beautiful, like moonlight.”

For a few seconds, Rarity imitated a guppy to the best of her abilities. With a faint tint in her cheeks, she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before she ultimately decided to simply smile. She leaned in and placed a kiss of her own on my cheek. “You really do have a way with words sometimes, my noble knight,” she whispered before she walked away.

And I stood there, frozen on the spot, my mind going nuts.

Exactly what I needed this morning, it echoed in my head. I watched her go and that smile on my lips gradually died a slow and painful death as I suddenly, vividly remembered waking up after sunset. I remembered sneaking through the castle, reaching Sunny's bedchamber. I remembered crawling into bed with her, feeling safe and sound and happy in her embrace. I remembered sleeping. I did not remember any particular dream I had. But I was awkwardly aware of the fact that I had failed to dreamwalk. It simply had slipped my mind.

Maybe Rarity had a bad argument with one of her paramours the prior evening. Maybe her morning so far had been stressful or tiresome. Maybe her own mind played cruel tricks on her. It did that occasionally, I knew. Because she told me. Because mine did that as well.

There were many tiny voices trying to explain how I was not responsible for her state.

But they fought my sense of duty. My overwhelming need to help those close and dear to me. They were the many Davids, fighting two towering Goliaths. I knew how this tale was supposed to end, of course. Like any decent griffon tale. With a lot of bloodshed and the griffon's winning. And the griffons would not tell a story where they lost to some Arimaspi brute.

And yet.

There was another layer, of course. Even if I had remembered to dreamwalk last night, I could not play favorites. My duty was to all the dreamers. Luna had made that quite clear. And I had been clear on that to begin with. I could not simply sit there on the dreamscape, keep the dreams of my loved ones close and watch them all night long to make sure they were fine. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of dreamers. Dragons, griffons, yaks and so many more. They all needed help. Protection. Guidance.

And yet.

Maybe I could have helped Rarity. Even as a voice meekly informed me that, judging from how that interaction went, I might have done so right now. Even so, I could not help but feel guilty. Because I had shirked my duty.

I sighed and shook my head. No sense in crying over spilled milk. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rarity talk animatedly with two mares. They all held up some pieces of fabric. Dresses, maybe. And they gestured and the noise of their voices swelled and receded like ebb and tide. I could see the happiness in Rarity's eyes. She connected with these two. Rare was an instance where she did not find some common ground with a pony entering her shop. And she lived for these connections.

It was balm for my soul, really.

After watching for another minute or so, and after catching the encouraging smile she shot me in a brief moment when she looked my way, I finally managed to unfreeze my hooves and made my way upstairs.

The upstairs of Carousel Boutique Canterlot strangely reminded me of the upstairs of Carousel Boutique Ponyville, despite the former being considerably larger, more spacious. However, with all the doors neatly labeled, it proved easy enough to find Pristine.

I once again opened and closed the door silently. While I had to worry about my hoofsteps outside on the polished floor, inside this room was carpet to further help me muffle any noise. My target sat on a chair at a massive table. The kind of table an architect would use, as it had enough of a surface to display even larger blueprints. And I supposed the same held true for seamstresses and artists. A couple of scrolls lay at the right side, rolled up and neatly stacked. A few stacked books to the left, two or three of them open before her. I saw her quill dip into the inkwell every once in a while, so she was writing something.

To make better use of the daylight streaming in through the large window, the desk was placed right in front of it. And Pristine therefore sat with her back to the door, to me. It aided me in my quest of sneaking around and allowed me to watch her for a moment.

She was a middle-aged mare. That never failed to baffle me. It still felt like yesterday that a very, very tired looking Rarity, freshly crowned mother, had introduced her to us. Pristine had inherited the tall, slender build of her ‘father’, but almost everything else came from her mom. Her mane and tail were colored in a softer shade of mulberry, her coat was the same pristine white as both her parents had. And currently, her tail was swishing from side to side, either in excitement or in building frustration. Or maybe concentration.

It made me curious about what exactly she was doing, so I snuck closer to catch a glimpse of those books she seemed to study so intently. And indeed, I managed to sneak up right behind her.

Spellbooks. Huh. I wonder where she got those from…

I immediately suspected Arcana. It might not have been fair. It probably was not. But after what my daughter had pulled in these past years, I would not have been surprised to learn that she snuck a couple of spellbooks out of the Royal Archives again. And that ‘again’ was the issue, really.

I softly shook my head to dislodge the thought and took a closer look at the opened pages. Runic transfigurations to ease the casting of more complex spells. And the only reason I could understand that was due to me living with Twilight for so long. Passive absorption, so to speak.

The book on the right was about internal pony anatomy. The lingo screamed ‘medical literature for doctors’ to me. The opened pages displayed a stallion's genitalia, however. I was proficient enough to recognize the image. Proud moments, really.

I managed to sneak a peek at her notes, even. A list about differences between the penis of a stallion and the appendage a spell could create. There were a multitude of different gender modification spells, of course, so she had made a complex looking table comparing several variants of spells to each other.

A grin formed on my lips as I brought them near her ear. “Who’s the lucky gal?”

“Gah!”

Pristine was startled enough to flail her hooves. The quill was flung towards the ceiling and I managed to catch it with my magic. That is, until one of her wild hoof swings managed to catch me. In the muzzle. I staggered backwards and lost concentration and the quill landed… probably somewhere. Pristine meanwhile snapped around, off her chair and stood ready to defend herself.

Quite literally.

A small voice in the back of my head bemoaned this display. Her mom was a fashionista. A seamstress. An artiste. Yet at the same time, she had been involved in so many fights. Battles that sometimes truly were life-or-death-situations. And it was clear that this had formed Pristine as well, in a way. She might not have been a fighter just as capable as her mom had been in her prime, but Rarity had taken great pains to ensure that her daughter knew how to deal with any upstart villain.

I, luckily, was no such thing.

Pristine took a moment to realize that and quickly went through several emotions. Indignation and anger, relief, guilt, embarrassment. I was glad that her expression finally settled on something so simple as joy. “Dreamwalker!”

She walked over and hugged me. It was a relief, really. “No ‘uncle’?” I joked. She had not been using it for years. Probably felt weird, seeing how I looked younger than she did. She replied with an amused snort and pulled back to quickly and efficiently close her books and stash away her notes. As if that had never happened and never been seen. “What brings you here?”

“Who,” I simply reiterated.

A faint tint lit up in her cheeks and across the bridge of her muzzle. “Nopony,” she tried to evade.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but she held her ground as best as she could. I could see her resolve wavering. She would give if I persisted in silence. But the thing was: Pristine was dear to me. I had seen her grow up. While I had not been involved in her life as much as I had partaken in Rarity’s, she was still close family to me. I was not willing to break her resistance. “You know… I could probably help you. If you told me.” You know I would, I sent with a mere glance.

She chewed her bottom lip in contemplation and ultimately sighed and shook her head. “Thank you for trying, but it’s not that easy, actually.”

I looked around the room. It was designed as a workshop of sorts. A couple of other desks, or rather workstations. They offered a chair that I grabbed and pulled over. I sat down and looked at her expectantly. “Tell me.” I even grabbed her chair and pulled it up behind her.

She noticed it and sighed again. Albeit accompanied with a smile. And she sat down. Good girl. “She doesn’t want to be the target of such a spell. And I don’t want to get impregnated by some random sperm donation!”

So this was about family. Not just for fun, for experimentation purposes. It was about actual procreation. Interesting. “And a target switch?”

Pristine grimaced slightly before it was replaced by a wry smile. “She’s very, very gay.”

A statement that confused me. It was probably meant to explain something, but honestly… I did not get it. “And you’re not?” I half-teased with a smirk.

“Oh, I am too!” she quickly established. “… just… just less so than her, I guess?”

It took a moment for the pieces to fall into place. Very, very gay. I was not. So I had no idea if that was how such things were meant to be communicated. Or if this was a mere quirk of her, specifically. All I managed to understand was that she was under a lot of stress due to this. It was enough of a bother that she worked on it while at work. And I knew for a fact that Pristine had a strict sense of duty. Something else she had inherited from both her parents. Fleur had never taken her job as a model easy. And Rarity had to work to allow herself vacations, at times.

“It troubles you, doesn’t it?” A simple statement, meant to drag the obvious out into the open. “Does your mom know?”

She shrugged. “We’ve been talking about this for years now. Her and I. And no, mom doesn’t know. I don’t want her to know. I know she means well and you two go way back and all, but please, please, please, don’t tell her. This is my problem. I need to fix it.”

You miss the forest for the trees, little one. I could not tell her that, obviously. “I won’t,” I promised first. “You thought about adoption, haven’t you?”

She sighed and nodded. “We considered it for a long while, yes. But… it wouldn’t be the same. And the process is so long and arduous.”

It was their choice, I reminded myself. Personal preferences. Before we had Aurora, I had not known if Sunny would ever conceive a foal. Alicorn pregnancy was an incredibly rare thing, after all. We too had several talks about foals and various means of becoming parents. It worked out in our favor in the end, and quicker than expected. But had it not, we would probably have adopted a foal — or several — at some point. Because my lovely Sunny had all the mom-energy.

I realized that I grinned like an idiot and shook my head to clear it a little. “Does your mysterious special somepony have issues with magic in general?”

Pristine giggled, a clear and bright sound like a young filly. She tipped a hoof against her horn. “I sure hope not. Why?”

Not what I meant, but okay. I chuckled briefly. “Well, there is a potion that allows two mares to conceive.”

Her jaw figuratively hit the floor. “What.” It was not even a question. Her mind visibly went into idle mode as she tried to process this new information. She was a smart mare though, so the mental stutter only derailed her for a few seconds before she found her footing again. “How? How did I never hear of this before? How is there no indication of such a thing in any of these books? How did you know?”

My chuckle grew into a quiet laugh. Some indignation mixed in with her incredulity at the end. I rubbed my neck in a bit of shame, even though I realized on a different level that I had no reason to be ashamed. “Applejack and Rainbow used it. The potion sidesteps a lot of stuff they had issues with. And you know how they are, they just didn’t make a fuss about it. It had some minor side effects, but they never mentioned what, so I assume it wasn’t something drastic. As for those books, well. As far as I know, Zecora is the only one who knows how to brew it. Probably uses weird Everfree plants and stuff like that.”

“Zecora,” Pristine echoed as if she had to taste that name first. “That’s the zebra in the Everfree mom told me about, isn’t she?”

I grinned. “The one and only.” I wondered how she was holding up. I had been… hesitant to enter the Everfree. Therefore, I had not seen Zecora in maybe a year or two or… three?

Pristine remained silent for a while until her horn suddenly lit up and yanked her notebook in front of her. She retrieved the quill from Celestia-knows-where, cleaned it, dipped it into the ink well again and made a couple new notes. I craned my neck to read a bit of it. Apparently, she put alchemy on top of her research list. And the Everfree right below it.

“That… might actually have helped, yes,” she said as she finished and put her notes back onto the table again.

“Glad to hear that,” I replied. “Just… it’s a potion. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it basically cuts out all the fun parts. Which, from what I gathered from your story so far, is basically for the better?”

She vaguely nodded, obviously not willing to divulge any more information than strictly necessary. It felt weird, really. She had apparently been in a stable, long-term relationship. Without me knowing. Without her mother knowing. Although honestly, I could not imagine Rarity not catching on. Rarity letting her know that she caught on however, that was an entirely different story.

Point being: She was at a point in her life and her relationship where wanting to found her own family had become a primary concern. Enough that it made her stress out and research and study dusty old arcane tomes. Somepony else held her heart.

Maybe I was simply worried for her well-being. Without knowing that other pony, I could not tell anything about their intentions or character, about the kind of influence they might have.

I was not even her father and I still wanted to protect her.

Silly.

“Say, what exactly brought you here anyway?”

Pristines gentle voice led me back. I blinked a couple of times. “I, uh, wanted to place a custom order. I need gemstones. Sapphires, specifically. From that guy who grows crystals, I guess. Perfect clarity, specific cut. I could draw the cut.”

“That guy who grows crystals?” she repeated in amusement. I simply nodded. “Dreamwalker, he did that ten years ago.”

I blanched. I could physically feel the color draining out of my face. “I… I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t know! Were you two close?”

She blinked in confusion and then grimaced slightly. “No, no! That’s not what I meant! It’s just that… he has an entire gemstone empire now, basically.”

“Oh.” A wave of relief washed over me as I sighed and sank into the chair a little. “Well that’s good for him, I guess. You still work with him?”

“I do. His name’s Mudbriar, by the way.” There was a soft chiding in there somewhere, but I could not bring myself to care. Judging from the look she shot me, we both knew that I would not remember his name. Even though I had to admit, it sounded strangely familiar. “What’s this order for?”

“I’m going to build Greenwood!” I proclaimed almost proudly.

“Greenwood?”

“Eyupp.”

“Like that village you told me about when I was little?”

“Eyupp.”

“That village in the Everfree?”

“Eyupp.”

There was a longer period of silence following, until she expressed a lot of those chaotic thoughts swirling around in her head in one simple question. “You?”

I cringed a little. Just a little. “What? Don’t believe me?”

Pristine held her hooves up in defense. “Oh, I… I do believe that… you’ll try.”

We held each other’s gazes for a moment, seeing who could remain serious for the longest, but eventually we both failed and giggled. “It’ll be so much work. And I barely have any idea what I’m doing. Greenwood has always been an outpost for oddballs, weirdos and those seeking a second chance. But I can’t rely on prior knowledge this time, because most of the ponies that lived in Greenwood in other cycles are grandparents by now. So this will generally be… let’s call it interesting. I just thought I would get a start in with some stuff that, speaking from experience, takes ages. Those sapphires being one of them. I need one hundred and ten.” I then proceeded to scribble a little note on a sheet of paper she graciously offered me, with a pencil that was lying around on her desk. The exact measurements of the sapphires varied, but I knew why and how much and therefore could pick and choose.

“That is going to cost you a fortune. You know that, right?” she asked with a wry grin.

I smiled and shrugged. “I know.” I stood up, placed my chair back where it belonged and walked over to hug her again, as a farewell. “Consider not spending your entire day in this room with dusty books for company. I know Arcana makes that sound like a dream come true, but there’s ponies downstairs sometimes, you know? And your mom seems to have had a difficult evening or night or morning or something. Maybe look after her?”

She smiled warmly and nodded. “Don’t worry. I will.”

I left the room and went back downstairs. The showroom was empty once again, and Rarity was behind the counter reading her magazine. She looked up when she heard me come down and smiled in such an oddly similar way than her daughter just had. They really were related. I wondered if Sweetie Belle smiled like that.

And just as we both attempted to say something, that gosh-darn doorbell chimed again. We both cocked a quirky smile and nodded in mutual understanding. “I am so sorry I do not have more time,” she excused herself, “but do have fun today, dear!”

I smiled and nodded. “Will do. Same to you, Rares.”

Hope to see you soon.

Half an hour later, I sat down on my bench in the train car. My saddlebags occupied the seat beside me and I was now the proud owner of my own notebook and my own pencil. Yay.

I knew it was kind of rude to put my baggage onto the seat, but the rest of the train was relatively empty and I would rather deal with miffed glares than with somepony sitting down next to me. That obviously would not prevent anypony sitting opposite me, but there was only so much I could do to accommodate my several anxieties.

I did wait for the initial lurch the train gave as it started to move again and pull out of Canterlot Station. I always got travel sickness quite easily, but I was willing to risk it this time as I felt I needed that time to get a rough outline of my plans.

“Alright, me. Let’s do this.” I retrieved my notebook and pencil, opened the first page and… stopped. How does one start planning an entire village? I had heard the tale of Ponyville's foundation a million times over. From various Apples. From Sunny. From Twilight. At some point even from Mayor Mare. But as far as I could tell, Ponyville had never been planned as such. It just happened. The Apples sought land to settle on. They were granted said land. They settled on it. Everyone after just followed the trail of money, basically. The Apples were good farmers, they had produce and a unique one at that. Merchants came. Merchants attracted competitors. Everypony brought their families along. Voila. Village.

Without trying to be smug or arrogant: I thought I could do better.

Because at the end of the day, I had something the Apples did not. I kept my eyes closed and tried to conjure images. Memories, to be specific. Greenwood had always been a central aspect of my life. My many, many lives. Thus, memories of Greenwood were aplenty. Before my mind's eye, I once again wandered those gravelly dirt roads.

Pure nostalgia, isn’t it?, a voice in my head rang out.

I scowled. “Help me or buck off,” I spit in reply.

“Excuse me?!” came an unexpected answer from my left.

My eyes shot open and my head snapped to the side. Out of shocked, wide eyes I regarded a middle-aged mare and her filly. She held her daughter's ears closed. I felt the heat creep into my face at a record speed. “I-I a-am so, so sorry, ma’am!”

She did not answer. She simply pulled the filly along with her and shot daggers at me with that glare of hers. And I wanted to growl so badly as I heard that amused snicker in the back of my head.

“Having fun, are we?” I grumbled quietly.

Not like I planned that. It just… happened to work out, you know.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Just die in a ditch already.”

Been there, done that. Not keen on a repeat.

“Wait, we died in a ditch? When? Why?” The mere thought was… uncomfortable. Mostly because of the implications and potential scenarios that led up to this outcome.

You wanna take a literal stroll down memory lane or not?

“You want to help me?” I cautiously asked. After all, I knew not to trust him. Myself. Whatever.

I don’t mind. Shit’s going to hit the fan eventually though, and I’m curious about how it’ll turn out this time. So yeah, sure. Let’s do this.

There was a lot on my mind. A lot I would have liked to say. A lot of pointy, stabby insults. Choice words for such crude language. Accusations of previous failings and general untrustworthiness. But what did any of that matter, really? He could help. I knew that. He had always been better at sorting through the mess of fractured memories than I was. He was even aware of pieces I did not consciously know about. It was maddening at times, really.

“Fine.”

I closed my eyes again. Took a deep breath. Held it for a few seconds. Released it slowly, evenly. And before my mind's eye, a scenery started to form. Thick vegetation all around me. The Everfree is a dark and moody forest. The chaotic energies twisting every gnarled branch, every bothersome root. Mires and bogs and caves and hills. A land of manticores, hydras and timberwolves, where ponies truly had reason to fear the dark.

I stepped out of the dreary forest. There was a small, narrow strip of land between the forest's border and the barricade surrounding Greenwood. A barricade of wood. Trunks of trees, rammed deep into the ground by forces only an impressively built earth pony could muster. One beside the next. The wall served well to keep predators at bay. To keep out unwanted guests. To keep out any and all that could not climb it.

But it was not the first line of defense.

Enchanted sapphire torches were. They had been placed along the path leading from Ponyville to Greenwood itself. They had been placed throughout the entire village. And their ghostly blue light burned from the tops of the barricade.

The enchantment was genius. It mellowed the aggression of creatures within a certain radius. A manticore that was starving or was already enraged would not be affected by the light. But one that merely prowled through the thick underbrush would. A timberwolf simply walking around would be subtly diverted. Sent somewhere else.

Hunters would lose interest more quickly. And they would avoid the general area to begin with. While it did help little against determined creatures, it still served well to carve out our niche.

My pencil floated and quickly scribbled in my notebook. I kept my eyes closed, so that I would not lose the vision. It inevitably meant that I would poke myself with my pencil as it left the confines of the pages, but I quickly corrected that mistake and tried to stay on the page. With my eyes closed, this notebook surely would look like the rambling scribbles of a madpony by the end of it.

I walked through the gate.

Immediately to my left was a massive building. Three stories high, completely made out of wood. One of the resources we had in abundance. Trixie’s tavern. A really good show every afternoon and evening. A good place to drink. Mingle. Eat, even. The only place in town for guests and new arrivals to get a bed.

The place was officially owned by three ponies, though. Trixie, Flim and Flam. The two brothers had initially suggested building the tavern. They had plans. Stupid plans, of course. They were con-artists. But their reasoning had been solid. They quickly realized the error of their ways. Realized that they were not truly interested in the entertainment business as such, or in keeping up with the demands of customers. They were builders. Visionaries. Masterful engineers. And sly bookkeepers. So they came to an arrangement with The Great And Powerful. She was the pretty face. She put on shows. She kept everyone decently happy and supplied. And they, they supplied. They built machines. They crafted inventions to ease the lives of everypony in town.

Such a workshop produces a lot of noise.

One of the reasons why their workshop was on one side of the town. To the right. Where few houses were built. Few meant as living quarters, anyway. Warehouses, yes. Other workshops. A forge. We had a forge. The masonry.

Too much. To quickly, more importantly. I could not keep up with the stream of information. I tried my best, but I had to slow down. I opened my eyes briefly, disregarded my utter distaste for the mess of scrawled letters I had created and flipped over to a new page.

I knew that villages could pop up from nothing more than a couple determined ponies and a few tents. But whoever would settle there had basic needs. Needs that needed to be fulfilled in order to guarantee that success had a chance. We needed water.

There’s a river nearby, actually. But at some point, we built a groundwater well. Wasn’t hard to do, we didn’t have to dig deep. The river made us vulnerable. One could argue: So did the well. But at least it was inside the village. Lower risk of poisoning and such.

We needed food.

Farmers. There was a time when Applejack went with us. She had the land wrangled in no time. Okay, ‘no time’ is a bit much. It still took her months and it was grueling work. But she did it. Another time, we recruited Lily and Daisy.

“Who?” I asked in confusion. The names did not ring a bell immediately, even though they sounded familiar.

The flower girls.

“Oh. Right.” Now I remembered them. While I would call everypony in Ponyville a friend of mine without second thought or hesitation and would treat them as I would treat a friend, including my willingness to help as much as I could, there were still some ponies I could relate to less or less well than to others. Rarity was a drama queen. Sometimes that annoyed me, sometimes it amused me. But it was part of her. Lily, Daisy and Roseluck however, they had been different. A different kind of drama, maybe. Something I found particularly hard to stomach. Harder to deal with.

That said, it was still valuable information. I wrote their names down as potential recruits. Somepony would have to provide us with food, or this entire house of cards would already fall in on itself.

We would also require shelter from the hostile environment. A tent was a start. The bare minimum. Tents were not that pricey, but I honestly hoped to mostly skip that part as best as I could. Maybe get a single massive tent for everypony in the beginning and quickly build up from there. The next best resource to build shelter with was wood.

We needed a woodcutter. And a carpenter. Or several.

Applejack. Again. Or Stonewood, that one time.

I nodded. Both were too old. An issue I was doomed to run into quite a lot, actually. However, I remembered visiting a woodcraft store in Ponyville a few years ago for a particular Hearth's Warming present for Fluttershy. I made another note.

At some point, we would want to upgrade our building materials. And all our buildings alongside. It would be quite an annoying process, but it was a necessary one to form a little collection of wooden huts into an actual teeny-tiny town with stone structures.

Building a quarry in the Everfree would be a daunting task. A decent site had to be found first—

No, we have one.

“Alright. Fine.” I scratched a note. Still, the site had to be cleared and secured. The path between the quarry site and the village had to be secured as well. And upgrading a building was not easily done. This would most certainly be a step of the village development reserved for the later to latest stages. It still did not hurt to think about potential candidates, though.

Stonewood. Although, most of the time, it was actually Marble. But she usually only comes along if we manage to drag Big Mac out of Sweet Apple Acres. For that to happen, Applejack and Rainbow must decide to take on the farm together. You know where this leads.

“Rainbow can’t be a Wonderbolt.” I sighed and sat the notebook down. I rubbed the bridge of my muzzle with a hoof. I would not destroy the hopes and dreams of my dear friend just so I could—

“Wait.”

I blinked. Rainbow was old. Too old. She had been a Wonderbolt. For most of her life, actually.

We needed a different solution for a potential stonemason. However, considering how it would probably take a few years for Greenwood to reach the stages where implementing stonework was feasible, that could probably wait for now.

“Entertainment,” I muttered and took up my pencil again.

Trixie. We had Pinkie a couple of times, but generally, it’s always been Trixie. If Greenwood is a thing, she’s drawn there. It’s like Flim and Flam or Lightning Dust. They belong in a place like this.

I nodded, then froze. “Lightning Dust.”

Weather control. Whoever is our farmer — or farmers —, they will rip your head off at some point if you don’t find a way to deal with rogue weather. Rainbow had filled that role at one point, but it’s usually Lightning.

“Huh.” But now that it had been mentioned, I could remember that. I remembered seeing her soar through the sky, busting wicked looking, blackened clouds that spontaneously grew thorns and tried to fend her off with lightning strikes. I remembered her landing, bruised and beaten and spent, but standing firmly and grinning with pride. I remembered seeing joy dance in her eyes, knowing that these ponies depended on her. She was responsible for their safety, and she excelled at it. It was a stretch from the pony I knew as Lightning Dust, but I could see her get there at some point. With a lot of work. And time.

I made a note, both for Trixie and Lightning. They, too, would be too old. It was still a position that required being filled by somepony though. When raising an entire village, there was always so much work to be done. But a pony could only work so much per day until their hooves fell off. Or horns. Or wings. And at that point, there was usually still a good deal of hours left to be spent before they could fall into bed and sleep like logs. Those hours were best filled with something that kept morale up. A good show with fireworks and illusions, for example.

“Do we need a toolsmith? I saw a forge at the edge of town.”

No. The initial tools can be bought. It’s cheaper and less of a hassle. Honestly, even I can’t tell you why we had a forge. Maybe for Flim and Flam?

It was strange hearing uncertainty in his voice. In all our spats and arguments, never had he wavered like that. But then again, rarely had we agreed to cooperate. I decided not to comment on it. It would have been easy to poke fun at him. To make a jab. But I was better than that, I decided. Better than him. For I was sure he would have used such an opportunity without hesitation.

Instead, I closed my eyes again. I marveled at the buildings as I passed them by. Solid hoof-work. We had started with mere tents, worked our way up to thatched roofs and now we had proper ones. My gaze fell past the house I was currently looking at, at the only house that stood outside the barricade. Because she preferred it that way. According to her, it was a sign she was willing to send to all the critters of the forest. She was part of our community, but at the same time part of theirs. The wood of her house seemed less tamed. Fewer straight lines. Solid shutters, but no glass. A little more of this and it might have started to blend into the forest itself.

I only briefly wondered what Fluttershy had to do in Greenwood. As far as we knew, the entirety of the forest was territory of something. Manticores hat their territories, packs of timberwolves had theirs. Then there were the hydras, cragadiles, twittermites. Many of these territories overlapped in some way. It would have been a mess, really. Without her anyway.

I briefly considered if we could use somepony for that sole purpose in an official capacity. What would such a position even be called? A wildlife wrangler? A predator tamer? A forest negotiator? It was out of the question that Fluttershy could fill that role, of course. And it was a troubling thought indeed that I had to constantly remind myself of these facts. The more I focused on these memories, the more the line blurred between these different lives.

I was a worrywart. A scaredy-cat. I knew that. And yet I found myself frightened by the prospect of losing my grip on reality. I tried to focus. The sooner I ended this trip down memory lane, the better for my sanity. “Anything else?”

As you might’ve guessed, Rarity came along in one cycle as well. Royal seamstress.

I furrowed my brow. “Royal—… what? Why?”

Well, because we had Luna. We reconstructed the castle for her. Us, really. It was a monogamous cycle, I think. Anyway, having a seamstress proved useful. Work clothing, tool belts, those hard helmets. She had to learn to work with less fru-fru and gemstones, but it was definitely helpful.

While I had little appreciation for the way he talked about my friend's hobby, career and calling, I could understand the reason given for his approval of such a position. Another note was made. And now I remembered Luna being helpful in another way as well. We had the enchanted torches to discourage creatures coming near the village. We had barricades to keep them out of the village proper. But if a creature was determined, it could resist the subtle enchantment and climb over the wall. It could then wreak havoc amongst a population that was tired and exhausted from daily work, and caged in by the very walls that were meant to protect them.

We needed somepony to deal with such a worst-case scenario. Warriors. Protectors. Guards. Something along those lines.

We had Bernard back in the day.

“Who?”

That one manticore Fluttershy helped waaay back. Pulled a thorn out of his paw. When we came back to establish our village, she reacquainted herself with him. He helped us get along with the other manticores. We even made some kind of deal or something, which then resulted in the manticores helping us deal with rowdy timberwolf packs. Because there’s just no reasoning with those. A couple manticores can even take down a fully grown hydra. Not a dragon though.

As far as we knew, there were no dragons in the Everfree. That could obviously mean that there was at least one, but however many there were, they were simply sleeping. Then again, we should have seen the smoke plumes from them. I deemed the scenario unlikely. But that was about the same chance I gave for finding somepony who could recreate such a scenario. Forging an alliance with the manticores of the Everfree sounded like a one-in-a-million shot. Still, the memories proved that it was possible, at least. So another note was made.

No need to tell you I suspect, but when Luna was around, we didn’t exactly need further protection.

Images flashed before my eyes in quick succession. Images of brutality. Violence and bloodshed. Luna never reveled in it to the extent that I started to worry about her sanity. But she was thorough. Rarely did she risk enemies escaping after her warning was made, for she deemed the risk of it returning better prepared unnecessary. To my dismay, that also brought up a memory where I had accused her of double standards. Had Celestia finished her off instead of allowing for an alternative to play out, she would never have had a second chance to redeem herself.

And in my face she screamed that it would have been better for everypony involved. There had been so much pain and anguish, unresolved, unprocessed, right beneath the surface and I had not noticed it.

It was a different life, he said in what almost sounded like empathy. She was different. So were we. Mistakes were made, and eventually corrected.

“Did she get better?” I asked almost inaudibly quietly, because I was so terrified of the answer.

Yes. With our help. At least… this time.

I still breathed a sigh of relief. I knew what he was getting at. I had seen it. A burning world. All slag and ashes. The horizon constantly aflame. He was deeply afraid of this scenario, as much as I was. In truth, it was the only thing I knew he was afraid of. And I could not even tell why. What made this so much worse than other cycles where things had gone sideways in a really bad way.

I shook my head. I was about to distract myself again, and right now, I needed to focus. At least the blurred lines between my current life and my memories had become somewhat stable again. And I had quickly learned to be grateful for small mercies. “That should be about it, right? Food, water, entertainment. Shelter and therefore building materials. Getting clay, wood, peat, that shouldn’t be hard around those parts. A few wagons are going to be necessary.”

Do you know how to build a house?

I blinked. “What?”

Do. You. Know. How. To. Build. A. House.

“I mean, I heard you, it’s just… it’s a house, right? Four walls and a roof, if you keep it simple. Maybe a few windows, maybe a door. Can’t be that hard, right?” There was a long silence in my head, followed by a mad and quite frankly insulting cackling.

Oh boy. I do hope this part of the conversation will stick with you through the ages and cycles. It’ll be hilarious to see you get your comeuppance one day, from an actual architect preferably.

“Okay, okay, fine, I get it,” I grumbled.

Doubt that.

“I will research architecture basics. Maybe see if I can get a hold of ‘an actual architect’.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. This was starting to give me a headache. “Look, the Apples were farmers. They traveled for ages before they settled. And they knew how to build a house, right? Because it’s just walls with a roof and an opening to get in and out.”

We had Moondancer.

“We… we what?”

She was our architect. Took her several months to worm her way through an entire section of the library. By the end of it, she sent us blueprints from Canterlot. Trixie’s tavern, version one. Version two. Version three. Street layouts. Barricade upgrades. Bridge designs. Even made a couple of blueprints for a future sewer version.

Sewers. That… was a good point. “Fine,” I grumbled once more and relented. And finally made a note to actually search for an architect.

My gaze also fell upon a few of the prior notes and I realized that we never actually resolved the entire ‘we need protection’-issue. Luna might have kept us safe in the past, but I had my doubts she would be willing to do so again. And really, I did not want her to move to Greenwood. Because this time around, neither did I intend to. Jumping around between two homes was messy enough. A third one would only further overcomplicate things. And Luna would most certainly not want to break away from her sister. She had been willing, even glad, in some other cycles. Not this time around, I suspected.

I flipped through a couple of now horribly mutilated pages. I would transform these into a clean copy at some point, but right now, my temples were pulsating with the frequency of my heartbeat, telling me to put the pencil away and stop. And I was willing to listen.

There was no farewell and goodbye between me and him. He simply fell silent and I saw no reason to do anything else. A part of me wanted to thank him. He had provided help, after all. He did not have to do that. But at the same time, I remembered too many instances where his existence had been more than enough cause for trouble, grief and pain. And he rarely apologized, if ever, for causing any of that. Or anything else, really.

I closed my notebook and put it and the pencil back into my saddlebag. And for the first time in ages, I looked around me.

I was shocked to find a couple of ponies occasionally throwing glances my way. One elderly mare stared at me like I was possessed. “I mean… fair enough, I suppose,” I muttered quietly while I shrank back under the gazes and certainly unwanted attention. Maybe I should have been more careful. I should have kept my voice down. I didn't even know if I had spoken aloud, but apparently all these ponies had noticed something at some point.

I wilted, cowered. And hid as best as I could. And then I tried to distract myself by staring out the window.

With the train rattling along the tracks, a certain monotony tried to take over. And I was more than willing to give in. The clear blue sky, the trees rushing by, the landscape slowly evening out from the mountain we had left towards the plains we aimed for. Soon, I would arrive in Ponyville.

I would be home.

I took barely any notice of the train slowing down. Even the announcement from the speakers failed to stir me. I saw colors outside the window smear by without rhyme or reason. Like little dots on an artist's palette. And then he took his brush and made swirls and curves and little areas with blurred lines where one color bled into another. It was pretty, sure. But it had no meaning. It was there to occupy the mind, to keep it in a state of idling, thoughtless.

What finally broke me out of my reverie was another pony. An elderly stallion, a blueish-gray earth pony. In my mind, I called him elderly. But there was a certain chance that he was not even that much older than me. I was just terrible at gauging ages. And a decade more or less had a different meaning when one was fifty, as opposed to being twenty.

He startled me slightly when he walked by. Or rather, tried. His suitcase got stuck between the benches. Not immediately realizing that, he walked straight into it and gave a little “oof” before he stopped. I blinked, looked over and plastered a well-practiced, friendly smile on my face.

“Please, let me help you.” I lit my horn, grabbed his case and gave it a gentle push. It became unstuck quite easily. He would not have had any issues doing it himself.

So why did you do it, then?

“Because it was the right thing to do,” I mumbled.

“Thank you, young friend!” the stallion said with a slightly embarrassed smile. “Didn’t quite see where I was walking, it seems.”

In the back of my head, it finally registered that we had stopped. The train was in the train station. My train station. Ponyville train station. I shook my head, grabbed my saddlebags and flung them over my back as I stood up. I did take the second to properly secure them and close the clasp, because I was no Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash. And I walked towards the exit myself.

Which inevitably led to that awkward moment when two ponies wanted to go through the same narrow door at the same time, and both stopped because they were just too darn polite. The stallion stopped because I had helped him. I stopped because he was older. Both reasons were silly, really.

"After you," I insisted. And I did insist. Because I could already see the same thought in his head, the same words on his tongue. Maybe he was a kindred spirit. The thought amused me a little.

His smile turned wry and he simply nodded before this whole debacle could escalate further and the train just decided to move on, quite literally. Thus, the elderly stallion exited the train first.

A bomb of confetti exploded on the train station platform. Glitter was everywhere. And a very familiar voice screamed: “Happy fiftieth Arrival Day, Dre-hey, wait, you’re not him!”

Whatever that weird mood had been, it vanished. Like morning mist, burned up by the rising sun of a new dawn. I stepped out, beside the only other pony that left the train at this station, it seemed, and patted his shoulder. “I think that’s my cue. Sorry for the confusion.”

The stallion looked a little startled, but he took it in stride and simply smiled. Not a newcomer then. Somepony who was at least vaguely familiar with Pinkie. I looked around the platform as the conductor's whistle shrilled. And while Pinkie managed to hide herself well enough with her usual quirky physics, completely concealed from prying eyes behind one of the two wooden pillars holding the roof of the station up, her puffy tail stuck out nonetheless.

I knew she was there. She knew I knew, surely. She certainly knew I snuck up to her. And the only reason I could imagine why she stood still was pure curiosity. She wanted to know what I had in mind. Which put me in a bit of a predicament. I had started walking over here with the simple intention of rounding the wooden pole and greeting her with a hug. But now I felt like I needed to put on a little show. Or at least have something cleverer than that. Problem was: I had a very, very limited repertoire of spells and an even tighter budget of magical energy. Basically, telekinesis was all I could offer.

I looked around for a moment and noticed how the glitter and confetti still slowly drifted down onto the wooden floor, like lazy snowflakes in winter. Quite a bit of the stuff had already amassed there, though. It formed a thin layer.

Enough to scoop some up.

Well, wasn’t that an idea. A wicked grin spread on my muzzle as I did exactly that. “Ohhh Piiinkiiieee~,” I sang quietly. “I have a surpriiise for youuu~”

“What, really?”

The moment she looked, a ball of confetti and glitter hit her straight in the muzzle. I would not have done such a thing with anypony else. Ever. Not with Twilight, who could raise shields faster than I could think ‘horse apples’. Not with Applejack who could probably kick the thing straight back at me, and maybe through me. Because no matter how capable any of my other friends were, there was always the risk of a slip-up. A mistake, no matter how small, that could result in glitter getting flung into their eyes when the stupid impromptu-snowball burst on their muzzle. And breathing in glitter in a shocked gasp was probably unhealthy as well. And no matter the fun it might be, I could never not think about these things.

Pinkie, however? Pinkie was Pinkie. She would be fine. Because she had Pinkie-sense. And Pinkie-physics. And probably Pinkie-eyelids.

True to expectations, she merely shook her head in confusion and then giggled. “Good throw!”

I used the opportunity to grab her cheeks with my magic and slowly, carefully dragged her out of her hiding spot. And while she did not resist, she did not walk over on her own either, instead preferring for me to drag her over the entire way. I grinned and shook my head when I was finally able to properly greet her. “Hey silly!”

“Hey, that’s my line!” she objected, but promptly threw her hooves around me to give me one of those bone-crushing, soul-mending hugs.

“You jumped the gun a little on the yelling, eh?” I teased once we pulled apart again.

Pinkie sighed and dragged a hoof down her muzzle. “I’ve been all over the place with the timings. Speaking of…” She looked up. Another confetti bomb went off. This one was considerably smaller and served to unroll a large banner that hung across the station platform.

Happy 50. AD, Dreamwalker!

Pinkie nodded, at least satisfied that the bomb went off when it was supposed to, even if she miscalculated when that should have been. “I wanted to write Arrival Day in full, but then the banner would’ve been waaay too long and I would have needed to extend the station platform and Twilight insisted that we didn’t have time for that, so I asked Shyshy if we couldn’t just move the tracks over to the library or make an outdoorsy party over here, but she said she wouldn’t like that very much, and if she wouldn’t like that, then neither would you, I thought, because that’s basically why I asked her in the first place.”

She took a breath. And before she could continue — something she inevitably would have done — I briefly hugged her again and used that to turn her around towards town proper. And I started walking. She effortlessly kept pace, of course. There was a familiar spring in her step, as usual. Even if it had dimmed a little over the years. “So I gather you’re just the welcome committee? Sent to fetch me?”

She gasped. In that overly dramatic, drawn-out way that only she could. “How did you know? Are you… a psychic? Or from the future? Are you a time traveler?”

Neither of us even tried to stay serious. We both just started laughing the moment she ended her last question. It had become somewhat of a running gag between us. I gave her a little bump with my shoulder. Because I felt grateful. And I smiled at her. Pinkie returned a beam. I loved that I could make her look like that, that I could make her smile like that. “So, cry on my shoulder. What else went wrong?”

She giggled. “Oh you wouldn’t believe it!”

“Try me.” And off we went. I knew she would keep talking without effort for hours and hours. I was glad she was willing to fill the silence, even though Ponyville was never truly silent anyway. Not even at night, and it was still late afternoon. Plenty of ponies were milling about and I waved and greeted them with nods and smiles and they gave them in return. I felt at home. Note quite as at home as I felt within the castle, but being in Ponyville again was already a really good start. And hearing Pinkie's voice in the background was just a really nice way of easing myself back in. It sped the whole process of acclimation up.

I was decently sure that she knew what was happening and that she did not mind that I was not paying her full attention this time. Then again, as much as I watched fillies and colts run after a ball, as much as I watched Lyra cuddle up to Bon Bon on a park bench, so did she probably watch me. I drank in the life and joy and happiness around me and let it fill me up, and she in turn delighted in seeing me slowly peek out of my shell again.

When we reached the castle, I felt reinvigorated. Ready to tackle a dragon. A very, very young one. Or a regular day. Just one. Or one of Pinkie's parties. And I had a sneaking suspicion about what awaited me inside.

Pinkie bounced ahead and opened the door. I stepped past the threshold and as soon as I heard that familiar click as the door closed again, I breathed out, slowly, evenly, and back in. The scent of books filled my nose. Books and ink, with faint traces of dragon fire and… incense? Huh. I shot a questioning glance over to Pinkie and she immediately raised both hooves in defense. Without sitting down on her haunches or toppling over of course. Somehow. “I swear I did not try to cook while Spike was busy in the kitchen and I certainly did not attempt to use the oven at the same time as he did and I most assuredly did not raise the temperature by mistake and we did not try to hide the charred remains by just burning some incense!”

“Uh…huh. Sure you didn’t. So… how would you get rid of those hypothetical charred remains, then?” I dared to ask. Because getting rid of the smell was one thing, but—

“Spike.”

I grimaced. “Is he okay?”

Pinkie mulled the question over for a bit before she merely shrugged. “I guess? He said it was fine.”

I should probably check on him. However, before I could do that, Pinkie dragged me in front of the library door and flung them open. Which immediately startled Fluttershy, albeit less than I had expected. “We’re heeere!” Pinkie announced.

Sometimes, her enthusiasm was a little bothersome. In an instant, all conversation that had filled the room previously stopped and all attention was drawn to us. To me specifically, since Pinkie simply stepped out of the way and to Fluttershy’s side.

I stared back for a moment. Just a moment. It was not a huge crowd. Ten ponies, myself excluded, Pinkie included. Really not a lot. And they were all familiar faces. Well, most of them. Warm, welcoming smiles all around. And yet I still hesitated a little.

My eyes danced around unfocused. To the banner above, displaying the same message the one at the train station had. To the nice, large cake that smelled of marzipan and strawberry. To the selection of cookies beside it, because not everypony was such a big fan of marzipan. My focus quickly shifted from thing to thing to thing, avoiding the ponies in between.

Until Twilight popped into existence beside me and she draped her wing over my back. I stiffened for half a second before I relaxed into it and slightly leaned against her. I’m home, I told myself. And I smiled contently.

With Twilight's intervention, things quickly went back to normal. My ‘arrival day party’ was the substitute for my birthday party, a celebration Pinkie and I had agreed upon shortly after my, well, arrival. And year after year, Pinkie did her best to make it the best party she could while simultaneously accommodating somepony like me, who was not exactly a wild party animal or social butterfly. She usually did that by consulting Fluttershy, which had worked out well in the past and did so again. The conversations our sudden introduction had abruptly stopped continued and Twilight led me to the table. So that I could get rid of my saddlebags, as well as grab a plate and cut the cake.

And without much fanfare, everypony lined up. It was funny in a way. And I had no words to express my gratitude. A simple smile would have to suffice for now.

Twilight was the first to get her slice. “Welcome home,” she said. Her tone alone indicated already that it was not just this time I came back, it was something more profound. I hesitated a moment, seeing as everypony was looking and waiting, but ultimately gave myself a little push and kissed her anyway. And it felt good. It would never not feel good, witnesses be damned. And despite my eyelids fluttering shut, I could tell she was smiling into the kiss.

“Aw,” I heard Gabby quietly squeak.

“Take a room, you two,” Dinky protested with an amused giggle.

“Technically, this is one of their rooms,” Derpy objected.

Twilight and I parted and I chuckled. “Way to ruin the mood, guys,” I softly chided with a grin. “We can continue this later,” I promised Twilight and even dared a wink.

“Oh believe me, we will,” she threatened me in return. A little bit of heat rose to my face and I tried my best to ignore it. Especially given that she had spoken so quietly that I was sure nopony else had heard.

I gave the second, third and fourth slice to Dinky, her mom Derpy and her daughter Ditzy. “Are you sure you’re old enough for cake?” I asked the filly. She was what, maybe ten years old? Maybe too old for such stupid jokes.

“Come ooon, I’m not a baby!” she insisted.

I backed off a little. “I know, I know. I’m just teasing you.” I gave her her plate and after a quick thank you, she hopped off to the side and patiently waited for her mom.

“They grow so fast, don’t they?” I asked as Dinky stepped up and hugged me.

“They do. I still remember when I got lost that day on the market and you promised to find my mother for me. You placed me on your back and it was such a change in perspective. I could suddenly see beyond all these ponies.” Dinky giggled and shook her head. She accepted her piece and followed her little one.

Derpy, well. Derpy was a Pinkie in disguise. She did not wait for an invitation, she barely recognized personal space at the best of times and I was actually quite happy that she embraced me without second thought and this tightly. “Happy birthday!” she mumbled.

I chuckled in reply. “But haven’t you read the banner? This isn’t even a birthday party!” I fake-gasped. “Derpy! Oh no! Have you accidentally gone to the wrong party?”

A mild punch against my shoulder only further increased my chuckle to a quiet laughter. “I have done that once! And you’re never going to let me hear the end of it!”

“Twice, actually,” I corrected with a wide grin. “That’s what makes it so hilarious.”

“Fine, twice. Still a good quota. I dropped more pianos on ponies, you know.”

This time, we both laughed. “Yeah, I vaguely remember Twilight mentioning something like that.”

Derpy blushed a little as we pulled apart. “I’m just glad she’s so lenient. I don’t even want to know how many bits of property damage I caused over the years. Or the hospital bills.”

I waved it off. The same thing Twilight did each and every time. Derpy rarely dwelled on the past. She was too much of an optimist to do that. But every pony had their weaker moments every now and then. And in those moments, it was important that the ponies close to them were there to offer support and reassurance. “Knowing you is worth a lot more than you could break, really.”

She jabbed my shoulder with a hoof. “It’s your birthday party! I should say nice things to you!”

I laughed a little louder and nodded. “Alright. Fine. Here I am. Say something nice.”

“I—… uhm… I like your… mane?” Ditzy was the first to laugh. A silence followed her question, unbroken by anyone in this room, until the laughter of Derpy's granddaughter broke the spell. Her daughter quickly followed suit, and in mere moments everycreature chimed in. Derpy blushed a little, but laughed with us. “I was put on the spot!” she weakly tried to defend herself.

I pulled her into another hug and squished her a little. “Thank you,” I murmured close to her ear.

Once Derpy made room, Spike and Gabby sauntered up. I immediately checked the former for any visual clues of food poisoning. “Are you okay?”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Yes? Am I… not supposed to be okay?”

“No, it’s fine, I just… Pinkie told me that—… you know what? Nevermind. I’m just glad you’re okay.” I struggled a little as a part of me wanted to probe further, but what use would that be. So instead, I hugged it out with both of them at the same time. Gabby was still impressively strong, and so was Spike. He was a young gentledrake and stood proud and tall, his headfin a smidge higher than Celestia herself. Considering what sheer physical abilities I was holding onto, I did a reasonably good job of not thinking about it.

I gave both of them their slices and sent them off. Despite my attempts to ignore the presence of ponies initially, I had noticed how he had tried to impress her by subtly posing. It was silly and endearing and I was sure Gabby loved it. As far as I was concerned, they were free to return to that. There would be time later in the afternoon or evening to share a few moments, talk, catch up, joke around, things like that. Because surely, Spike would not try to flirt with his better half for the entire time. Surely.

The next guest in front of me was an unexpected one. I immediately recognized her, though. A pale yellow coat, a raspberry mane and a name-giving rose as a cutie mark. What made it so much easier to recognize Roseluck, who I was sure I had not seen in quite a few years, was the simple fact that she had not aged a day.

“I was—” I started, but was quickly cut off by her.

“It’s nice to see you again, Dreamwalker. You have other guests waiting, but I look forward to talking a little with you.” I was easily steamrolled. This was no exception. I nodded sheepishly and offered her a plate with a slice. She took the edge of the plate in her teeth and went her merry way.

I looked after her for a moment before a pink hoof violently waved half an inch in front of my face. “Huh?”

“I have been drooling over this cake forever and Twilight wouldn’t even let me taste-test it, not even to make sure that it had not been poisoned by ninjas yet!” Pinkie lamented her horrible, terrible, cruel fate. She almost threw herself at my hooves. “I am staaarving, Dreamwalker! Starving, I tell you!” I snorted. And snickered. And tried to keep it in. “Staaahaaahaaarviiihiiihiiing!”

I briefly glanced over to Fluttershy. She was smart enough to hold a wing half extended in front of her face, but by the subtle tremors running through her feathers, I could tell she silently giggled as well. And that was really all I could take. The moment I started to laugh, Pinkie stopped her melodramatic display, rolled onto her back and merrily laughed with me. And despite her subdued demeanor, Fluttershy gave up on self-control as well and chimed in.

“She has been asking me to convince Twilight for the past hour or so,” Shy told me after we regained some semblance of composure. “And you know she can be very convincing.”

“I have my… wily ways,” Pinkie teased with a smirk.

Fluttershy instantly turned beet-red and refused to comment further, even though I was pretty sure that whatever they had done within the confines of this castle was most certainly quite tame. She would probably faint were I to tell her what Luna and I had done in some rooms of the palace. The thought made me laugh all over again.

I gave Fluttershy her slice, put two more on plates for my last guest and myself and offered Pinkie the rest with a wide grin.

“Ohhh no no no no no! I can’t accept that!” she insisted. “That is yours!”

“I know. And I have my piece of it, and so does everyone else.” A sly grin grew on my lips as I continued. “You may have yours now. I had always been awful at gauging volumes, numbers, ages and such by mere eye, you know. I think your slice might’ve gotten a smidge bigger than the others, but oh well. I really have no way of telling for sure. Guess you’ll have to deal with it. I hope you have the stomach for it!” Pinkie wordlessly grabbed into her mane and offered me measuring tape. “No way of telling,” I repeated and pushed the tape back into her mane. She drew a ruler from her mane. It was decidedly too long to fit in there. “No. Way. Of. Telling,” I repeated more forcefully and shoved the gosh-darn ruler back in.

Pinkie giggled and thrust her hoof back into her mane. I briefly wondered how much more unique measuring equipment she would be able to produce. But I was determined to win this battle. “Then again,” I offered, “if you really don’t want it, I can of course offer everyone else a second slice. I’m not sure if anything will be left over for you after that, though…”

Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates themselves. And quickly filled to the brim with tears. “You wouldn’t…!” she gasped in a ghostly, faint voice.

I grinned and chuckled and tried so hard to keep my countenance. “Try. Me.” And I made the plate float in front of her muzzle for good measure.

We held each other's gazes for a few seconds before she grinned and finally took her plate. “Okie dokie loki!”

I chuckled and shook my head and watched her bounce away with her plate balanced precariously on top of her mane. The cake bounced with every ‘step’, but always landed safely back on the plate. I looked over to Fluttershy and she simply marveled at her better half the same way I did. “She’s special,” I whispered.

Fluttershy did not even blush. She simply nodded, her gaze full of warmth and love. “Yes. Yes, she is. Will you excuse me?”

I hugged her briefly. “Go get her.”

She nodded again. “Oh, and Dreamwalker? Happy Arrival Day!”

I sighed deeply as I watched her slowly walk after Pinkie. Pinkie, for her part, was busy trying to be a part of every conversation going, which, with a crowd this size, was maybe even feasible. And thus, I turned to my last guest.

“Hey sunshine,” I greeted Aurora.

A brief moment passed by before she gave herself a little push and quietly answered. “Hey daddy.”

The tightness in my throat vanished. It was… nice to hear that. To hear her say it. We embraced each other, and I cherished being this close to her. Three kids. I had been blessed with three wonderful, amazing, incredible kids. But time marched on relentlessly, and they grew up and were kids no more. They had jobs. Houses to pay for. Tables to fill with food. Families of their own. Responsibilities.

I knew how this party had come to be. I was no fool. I had told Sunny of my plans over checkers this morning. That left her with enough time to send a note ahead. Which in turn left Spike and Twilight enough time to inform Pinkie and get things set up. I was not disappointed to see that out of my three children, only my little princess had made it here. They were all swamped with… stuff. With life itself.

No, I was simply amazed that she was here.

“Arcana and Stardust send their best wishes,” Aurora explained. “Arcana was held up with some tasks at the Royal Archive and Stardust is currently in Griffonstone. That’s a little far for teleportation. And he’s still not exactly good at it either.”

I simply smiled. And squeezed her a little. “Thank you. But honestly, I think Arcana simply forgot. And I don’t begrudge her that. I know how she is, and how she gets when she has work to do. And she always has work to do.”

Aurora was silent for a moment. Eventually, she sighed. “Stardust was really bummed about this though. He really wanted to be here.”

I grimaced a little. “Well to be fair, my return to Ponyville was originally planned for the end of next week, that would’ve left all of you with almost two weeks of preparation time. I just… I had an idea. A stupid one. And I thought, knowing it was a stupid one, that I would be awfully clever in following up on it immediately. You know how I get.”

She snickered and pulled back enough to lean her head against my chest. “I know.”

It felt so familiar. Her sitting in front of me. Me holding her. I stroked through her mane. The colors of fire in a gradient from yellow to red. I stroked down her back, her coat the same immaculate alabaster white than her moms. For a brief moment, it felt like decades and decades dropped from both our shoulders. She was my little princess again. And I spoiled her rotten to the best of my ability. My heart swelled with pride with every single one of her accomplishments. I told her stories and she loved them, even long after classic bedtime stories had been put to rest, because she had grown too old for those. But we had made story time a weekly tradition for a while. Until eventually, it was every other week. Then every month. Every other month.

Life was cruel like that.

“It’s nice to have you here,” I whispered and squeezed her again. I knew that Aurora was good with teleportation. Not quite as good as her younger half-sister Arcana, but still good enough to teleport a decent distance. Meaning she had to be in the general area to begin with.

“I came by yesterday to talk with Rarity, but she’s currently in Canterlot,” she explained my unasked question.

“Mindreader,” I mumbled and we both smiled. “I know, actually. I met her this morning. She’s helping out Pristine.”

“Oh? And how is she doing?” Aurora asked.

I shrugged. “Oh, you know Rarity. She’s…” You truly have been exactly what I needed this morning, it echoed in my mind. I cleared my throat. “She’s had a bit of a rough stretch recently, I think. I hope it was just a bad morning or something.”

Aurora nodded and finally pulled away from my chest. I felt a sting of cold and sadness for a brief moment. I would not have minded holding her for a while longer. A long while longer. “You helped her, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “It’s what friends do. I did what I could. I might look into what else I can do, but… I’m not sure how limited my arsenal is in this case. I need to find out what’s bothering her, first.”

“And Pristine? How is she?”

Her curiosity made my smile widen a little. Fifty years ago, I arrived at a turning point. The seemingly endless flood of villains finally dried up a little. A generation of ponies came into their best years, their bloom. And then another generation slowly but surely rose. And I watched them grow up into fine ponies as well. I had always hoped that we would be one big family one day. I called Applejack my sister, and I did so with pride. We were obviously not related by blood, but I liked to believe that she had adopted me into their ranks as a friendly spirit. In the same vein, I felt protective when it came to Fluttershy or Pinkie. But honestly — who didn’t? And I would have stood beside Rainbow no matter what idiocy had befallen her this time. They truly were my family. My chosen family.

And with a new generation, I hoped it would simply… add. Not water it down, not help every piece of the whole to drift apart, but add. And for a while, it looked really good. Pristine got along so well with my kids, as did Whisper. Ambrosia was a bit of an oddball initially, but quickly grew to like all of them and saw herself as everypony’s big sister, disregarding that some were older than her.

And then they grew older and life happened.

It really was like a tree. Branches could not stick too close together without impeding each other's growth. They had to stretch and reach for their own little space, they had to assure a certain distance so both could flourish to their full potential. It was a necessity, really.

It still broke my heart nonetheless.

I sighed deeply. “You’re getting melancholic again,” Aurora warned me.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” I shook my head and cut her off before she could say it. “And I know I’m not supposed to apologize for it. Don’t tell your mom or she will have a patient and very understanding conversation with me again.” I gave Aurora a wry smile.

She answered it in kind. “I promise.” And she made the hoof signs for a proper Pinkie Promise. That as well warmed my heart. Because while she had grown up partially in Ponyville, a Pinkie Promise did not hold the same value to her as it did to me. At least it should not hold the same value. But somehow, she adapted the gesture and its implications. Just like that. Because she wanted to. Or maybe just for my sake — I could live with either, really.

“Alright, tell you what,” I restarted our conversation after a minute or so of silence. “I’m quickly heading over to Roseluck to discuss something with her. I have a building project in mind and she might be able to help me. And once I’m done, we can make the rounds and see who we can chew an ear off, eh?”

She smiled and took her plate in her levitation. “Sounds fun. I’ll be waiting over there.” She pointed towards Twilight. My gaze followed and for a brief moment, I felt the heat rise to my muzzle once more as I remembered her threat.

I distracted myself by pouring myself a cup of punch and taking a good, long swig. And then I marched over to Roseluck, who seemed less interested in mingling and stood by one of the bookshelves, idly browsing the display for interesting titles. “Found something to your liking?”

She looked over her shoulder as I stepped up to her side. “Not quite. I’m currently trying to understand Twilight's sorting system.”

I snorted. In truth, I had almost snorted punch, but I managed to avoid that embarrassing display. “Right. Good luck with that one.” I was pretty sure that the only ones who understood it were Twilight, Arcana and Spike. Sunny and Luna certainly could, but did not bother with it.

Standing this close to Roseluck gave me a good opportunity to really study her face. No wrinkles whatsoever. No lines, no shadows haunting her eyes. I could not help but wonder. Had she gone through the trials? Had she been on an epic journey, undertaken this entire adventure my kids had been on, to achieve a vaguely defined, uncertain ‘immortality’? Or maybe it had something to do with the good doctor. Despite both of us living in Ponyville for decades and frequently encountering one another on friendly terms, I had never managed to learn much about Doctor Whooves. He was more than just a quirky oddball. He invented machines with questionable functions. He talked about things even Twilight had difficulties following.

Some things are not meant for pony minds, I advised myself.

Maybe this was a decent opportunity to further practice small talk. And maybe find a few kernels of useful information in the process. “Sooo… how are Daisy and Lily doing?”

A sad smile graced her lips and immediately told me that I had once again failed. This was a blunder. A big one, it seemed. “You haven’t heard, then? They moved to that weird little village in northern Equestria, roughly a year ago. Daisy died shortly after. Avalanche, they say.”

So that’s why I saw so little of them in the last months, they mo—wait, what?

I stared at her slack-jawed. It took a moment for the information to finally, properly register. A friend of mine had died. True, Lily and Daisy had never been even remotely as close to me as many other ponies. But still. I knew them. I liked them. I knew the way to their house by heart. I knew the primary color of their living room décor, for crying out loud.

And now they were gone. Or at least Daisy was gone.

“I-I… I am so… sorry. I didn’t… I had no idea,” I stuttered my way through.

Roseluck sighed and cradled the spine of a random book. “It’s fine, really. Time ticks on relentlessly, doesn’t it? We will both have to make that experience a couple more times before we might get used to it.”

While the implications should have been earth-shattering, her words left me strangely hollow. And scared. “I actually hope we never will,” I whispered in reply.

She nodded, simply to show that she accepted my opinion. Even if she probably disagreed. And indeed, time ticked on. I could hear it due to the damn clock. I had not consciously noticed it ticking the entire time, but somehow, now I did.

“You wanted to talk about the Everfree village, didn’t you?” Roseluck picked our conversation back up.

“I—… uhm… how do you know that?”

She smiled again. With less sadness, Celestia be blessed. “It’s alright. I’ll ask The Doctor if we can help. I’m sure he’ll figure something out. I didn’t want to crash your party like that, but it was the nearest point of entry we could find and Pinkie invited me anyway once I showed up, so I hope that’s okay. But I think I’ll leave now. You seem to have really, really good friends and they all wait for you to share a few precious minutes. You should make good use of those.”

“I… I will. Thank you.” I watched her go. And I stared at that door long after it had closed. Up until I felt the warmth of another radiate beside me. I looked over and saw Aurora smile. A demure, subdued little smile.

“Hey dad. Ready to make the rounds?”

I pinched my eyes shut for a moment and when I reopened them, I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.” I gave that door one last look. I felt a creeping uncertainty bubble within the deeper reaches of my mind. But it was something to be addressed later.

Aurora led me to a table that had not been there upon my initial entry. A present table. I stared at it, sighed and chuckled. “Y’all are crazy!”

They would not let me back away from that table if the castle were suddenly on fire, I knew that. So I gave in and grabbed the very first present I saw.

“That’s from Rarity,” Twilight informed me.

Oh is it now?! I stared at the wrapping paper. It had a nice motif. Waves of different shades of blue, with a sparkle of brightness here and there. As if some artist had done his best to capture the essence of the ocean surface. The ribbon was neatly tied as well. Of course it was. Rarity was an artiste, after all. Nothing less than perfection would do.

I snorted and shook my head. “Rares, you silly swan.” Because calling her a ‘goose’ would have been an insult. Even though I thought geese were graceful animals. But as Rarity playfully insisted: That only showed how little I understood about true grace.

The presents were only the start, of course. After making the rounds and catching up to everyone, there would be time for games. Silly little party games, meant for fillies and colts, that were surprisingly a lot of fun even at our age. One just had to jump over his own shadow and allow oneself to be a tad silly.