Kind Hands

Earlier that morning, as David tended to his wounds around a burned-out campfire, Twilight was on the move with a plan of action. Well, ‘plan’ may have been the wrong word to use. Rather, she stood at the doors of Canterlot Castle in a slight daze, catching her breath from a hurried journey that apparently required her ‘immediate input’.

This must have been to do with the human- Twilight was sure of it. It had to be; it was surely no coincidence that she received a letter from the princess the day after David had been sent away. And if the situation required her immediately…

Her mind span with a myriad of possible dire situations; problems that she would no doubt need to solve. She stayed like this for longer than she realised, to the point where the slight trembling in her legs was no longer from her abused muscles, but instead from a nervous anticipation.

She was like this from time-to-time, according to her assistant, Spike, who had decided against getting involved. A spa day was seemingly long overdue and the whereabouts of this random creature paled in comparison to his claw massage. Before he left, he made sure to give Twilight an earful about how she was likely overreacting again.

Still, that did not matter right now as Twilight entered Celestia’s throne room. All that mattered was what the princess had to say. Twilight knew this, yet, rather than allow the princess to explain the situation properly, she instead decided that the best course of action was to open with a bombardment of questions.

“What is it, Princess? Is he okay? Where is he? This is about him, isn’t it? Y’know: the human who-”

Well versed in her former student’s quirks, Celestia held up a single forehoof to signal the end of her questions. That understanding appeared to be mutual as Twilight brought an end to her interrogation and lowered herself onto her haunches in the centre of the throne room.

“I am sure that you have your questions, Twilight,” Celestia began, accompanied by a frantic nod from her former student. “But your friend is perfectly fine. He is making good progress and I would guess that he will be home by tonight. His reach is boundless; even from where he is, he is still able to comfort his foals in their dreams. I have no worries with his progress.”

“Dreams? Isn’t that Princess Luna’s job?” Twilight asked in confusion.

“Indeed, it is. Even so, my sister has informed me that his intervention saved her a night of work. As helpful as he was, my sister noted how his foals struggled to function without a suitable guardian.”

Twilight stared at her superior, her face scrunched up in a slight frown as she caught on to where this conversation was likely headed.

“It reminded me of how his foals are likely suffering in his absence. So, I ask that you take care of them until he gets back.”

“Me?! But I don’t know anything about human foals!” Twilight replied in exasperation. Her previous bout of overthinking overtook her again as she looked back at Celestia as if she had just been told that the world was ending. “I’ve checked every book in my library eighteen times- not a single mention of humans anywhere!”

“I understand that you may have reservations about taking care of someone else’s foals, but this a good opportunity for you to learn more about human behaviour– and they would really benefit from having somepony to be with right now. Somepony more knowledgeable than most.”

As if to accentuate her point, Celestia pulled out a small book from behind her back and levitated it towards Twilight, who reached out for it desperately with her hooves. The purple alicorn gratefully accepted the gift, holding it tightly against her torso. “But why me?” she insisted. “Aren’t they happy here?”

“They lack somepony who they are comfortable with. But you know them- you have spent time with them before. I see nopony else who is more suited for this.”

This made sense on a surface level, although Twilight was unsure about whether her experiences with the children were indeed positive ones. She was sure that there must have been somepony else who was more qualified. She struggled to think of something to say as she found herself being drawn into the idea.

“It is in our best interests that his foals are kept as comfortable as possible.”

This final line seemed to be the killing blow to Twilight’s resistance. Never one to stand up to the princess, she averted her gaze and shifted in an agitated fashion.

“If you think it’ll help…”

“I knew that I could count on you, Twilight,” Celestia happily stated, rising from her seat and ushering her former student towards where Eve and Eva waited. Twilight could only hope that the two were in a kind mood once she reached them.

Twilight nearly missed the door to the girls’ bedroom due to the lack of activity behind it. She would have assumed that a room containing two unsupervised children would have been audible from miles away- yet she was clearly mistaken. The lifelessness was shown further upon entering the room, where the two girls sat wordlessly, looking through a small picture book.

They were hidden away in the corner that lay furthest from the door, easily missed and left alone. As Eve idly flicked one of the pages, she struggled to move her arm fully as her sister rested upon it, refusing to break physical contact. Even to a relative stranger, Twilight could feel the dour atmosphere as it seeped into her fur.

It was a pathetic sight, and Twilight felt great sympathy when gazing upon it. For these girls to be left alone in a world that they could never hope to understand…

Twilight thought to herself in that moment, reaching into her memories of raising Spike. Numerous occasions of the dragon’s difficulties in understanding the world around him forced themselves to the forefront of the mare’s mind, causing her to frown. She remembered how he had felt back then, finding motivation in her bittersweet reflection.

With her memories came her instincts as she stepped forward to greet the pair, invigorated by a new desire to help these girls- even if it was just for the day. Upon closing the distance between her and the pair significantly, Twilight looked down upon them and cleared her throat. “Hey girls,” she started with an uneasy grin.

“Shh. We’re reading,” Eve answered, placing a finger to her lips. Beside her, Eva responded by gripping her sister’s arm more tightly.

“You girls are probably really bored right now,” Twilight commented, undeterred. After she received no more than a stare in reply, the alicorn continued. “So… I thought that we could have some fun in Ponyville while we wait for David to come back.”

“Where is Mr. Bayard? Did he come back yet?!” Eve shouted excitedly as she forced herself upright. She did so at such a speed that Eva was caught off guard, falling over herself as she fought to keep hold of her sister.

“He’s doing great!” Twilight replied with forced gusto as she did her best to dodge the question. “I heard from the princess that he’ll be back later today.”

“But where is he?” Eve persisted. “Why isn’t he back yet?” She stood up as she asked, closing the distance between herself and Twilight. She put on a brave face, as she stared deeply into Twilight’s eyes, hoping to find answers within the purple orbs.

“Wherever he is, I’m sure that he misses you,” Twilight reassured, taking a step back from the girl’s forceful stare. At the mention of this, however, Eve’s expression noticeably softened as she also backed away.

“I miss him too…” the raven-haired girl lamented. Behind her, Eva nodded her head slightly, chewing on one of her fingers as she did so. “But we saw him last night! When we were asleep- didn’t we, Eva?” Eve pulled the girl in question into a hug, who nodded enthusiastically in response, allowing her face to show off a fragile smile. “And I kissed him!”

“You kissed him?” Twilight asked- more out of confusion than anything else. She dreaded to think of an occasion in which this could’ve occurred, silently cursing the girl for her overshare.

“Yeah- but he got angry. Said that I shouldn’t’ve done it. But it was funny!”

The throwaway comment left Twilight rather flustered as she lacked an appropriate response. She looked at the two sisters as they waited in an awkward silence.

“Are we going somewhere?” Eve asked after the silence became too difficult for her to bear. She grabbed her sister and moved towards their bags, much to Twilight’s relief. A light yet audible sigh was Twilight’s only response as phase 1 of the mare’s plan was complete.

“Are we using the train? Eva doesn’t like flying.”

It was all fine and good for Twilight to take the girls under her wing for the day. However, standing inside a small study near the entrance of her home, she became painfully aware that she hid simply swapped one castle with another.

“So… what are we supposed to do?” Eve asked Twilight, emphasising the mare’s point. “There’s nothing to do.” She set her and her sister’s bags down before heading back out into the hallway. She stared down the corridor, longing for some sort of person or event to capture her interest. This was unlikely to happen, not that she knew much about probability, as a tug on her arm reminded her whose company she was in at that moment.

“I think we should take it easy for a little while,” Twilight replied, releasing her magical grip on the little girl. She would have liked to have taken a moment to settle the girls in, although their apparent explorative nature made her believe that this was unlikely. “I’m here for you. What do you girls want to do?”

“Hmm…” Eve mused as she placed a finger on her cheek and looked back out into the hall. “I wanna go explore.”

It did not take Eve too long to come to a decision- and it took an even shorter amount of time to put that plan into motion. Without looking back, she jumped out into the hallway and set off in a random direction with her sister in tow.

“Wait- stop…!”

So, off they went. Tearing through the castle hallways, the two sisters darted from room to room in a search for something interesting. Unfortunately for the girls, Twilight never got around to decorating much of her castle, leaving each room in its bare (albeit, still aesthetically pleasing) state- fresh out of the box. There were still beds to clamber all over, at least.

“Don’t break anything!”

They moved at a breakneck pace that could never have ensured that they were able to adequately explore any room that they found themselves in. Scattershot, erratic; their movements were difficult for Twilight to track. The princess only caught up to the pair once they had worn themselves out and sought refuge in one of the castle’s many bedrooms.

“I… I’m tired… I need a moment,” Eve struggled to say in between ragged breaths. She placed her hands on her knees and forced down several gulps of air.

“Really?” Eva innocently asked. “You just need to run more. You don’t go that slow.” She placed her hands on her hips and looked down proudly upon her winded sister.

“Oh, yeah…? I’ll race you…” Eve struggled to strike back. Struggling to find her words alongside her breaths, she leaned on the more composed form of her sister, inverting the pair’s usual power dynamic.

“We just raced just then,” Eva reasoned, placing her hands on Eve’s shoulders. “But if you want to race again, we can-”

Eva would’ve continued speaking, but she stiffened up once she heard the door behind her open, revealing an only-mildly annoyed Twilight. The princess came through the door quietly, carrying the girl’s bags with her magic as she entered.

“You’re going to get hurt if you keep running around like that,” Twilight reasoned as she softly closed the door behind her. “And it was nice to hear your voice, too, Eva.”

Twilight approached the child and looked into her eyes whilst smiling warmly. Eva responded by staring back at the mare, the mare watching as the girl’s eyes grew ever more fearful throughout their prolonged eye contact.

Whilst that was happening, Eve took it upon herself to rummage through her bag for her trusty colouring set before lying down on one of the spare beds and getting to work. She tore a page out of one of her drawing books and lay down on a bed on the far side of the room, drawing over the picture that had been printed onto the page.

“Oh, you just want to draw?” Twilight asked after removing her eyes from Eva’s. Eva silently confirmed this as she moved to occupy the other side of the bed, wishing to join in with her sister’s drawing.

“I want to make a big drawing for Mr. Bayard,” Eve stated matter-of-factly as she looked up from her work. “I want him to be proud.” There was a certain fragility to that statement, as well as the smile behind it, but Twilight didn’t seem to mind. If anything, the so-so sense of compassion that the girl possessed gave Twilight a spark of her own.

“Girls, I can get you something bigger than that piece of paper,” the princess started. The two sisters looked up at her, unsure yet wishing to know more. “I’ve probably got some old scrolls lying around here somewhere for you to draw on.”

As she spoke, she levitated a large roll of paper from an unknown location. There was no time for the girls to wonder where the roll came from as they stared at the material that was placed in front of them. It felt grainy to the touch and was slightly discoloured, yet it offered much more space than what the girls were used to, offering up new possibilities for them to explore.

Eve snatched the scroll as it was levitated towards her, inspecting it more closely. She grabbed a crayon and gave the paper an experimental scribble. The colour wasn’t quite as prominent on this new surface, but it reminded Eve of using chalk on tarmac- which gave her an idea.

“Eva, Eva, Eva!” Eve exclaimed to the girl in question, waving her hand about in the girl’s face. “I’ve got a plan!”

A brief discussion between the pair followed, consisting of hushed whispers and occasional glances towards the mare on the fringes. Twilight, on her part, awkwardly stood to the side and waited for the discussion to end, even as both sisters snuck short, sneaky looks at the princess in order to check that she stayed a suitable distance away.

The huddle broke quickly and without warning as the pair set to work on their creation. They both separated sections of the scroll and got to work, crayons ablaze, creating a series of smaller pictures in their own, juvenile style.

With those two occupied, Twilight pulled herself to one side as the girls would work better if they were left to their own devices. At least, that’s what she told herself. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything…” she softly called out as she closed the door behind her and headed down the castle stairs. Now that she had some time on her hooves, she was able to get to work and find out more about what humans actually were.

Twilight had always lamented the apparent sparseness of her castle’s library- and now, she may have had a reason to. She was regretting her lack of action with replacing the books that were destroyed alongside her previous home as the selection in front of her was far less expansive than she would have liked. Still, there was work to be done and there were always books to be found. Much more so, as she placed her present from Celestia on a desk in front of her.

“Now, what have we here?” the mare muttered to herself as her eyes hungrily scanned the book’s front cover. “‘Mythical Beasts and Where They Were Found’?”

The book before her resembled an encyclopaedia of sorts, showcasing a variety of creatures that she struggled to recognise. Some creatures she had heard of; some she thought were simply preposterous. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

“Aha- humans! Let’s see here…”

It seemed that David was not the first human to have graced Equestria- or, at least, his kind had previously existed in some shape or form. Even if they had existed before, the information available now was as sparce as the humans no doubt were, and not all of it was to Twilight’s liking.

“Hmm… ‘a witless and uninspiring creature that practises self-loathing and immoral acts of perversion… quick to anger yet ultimately subservient to those it secretly wishes to dominate… territorial and violent to a worrying degree’? ‘Unappealing to those of us who are blessed with the gift of sight’?!”

Beside this block of text was a crude sketch that seemed to be a bastardised depiction of a human and its physical features, with dark overgrown hair, a jagged facial structure and a set of teeth that looked out of place on a creature with a conscience. Twilight looked down upon the image, wondering why this depiction was so negative and frankly distressing to look at. She could only imagine how David would have felt, had he been with her to see it.

The whole chapter was written in a slightly sardonic tone as if it was written by someone who just wanted to rush through it and finish it as soon as possible. The subjective delivery frustrated Twilight, who huffed slightly as she continued to read.

“There’s gotta be something better than this.”

She tossed the book to one side and made a mental note to ask Celestia if she had any other books that would be more helpful. Still, maybe it wasn’t worth discarding the information entirely; it must have had some relevance. With this in mind, she picked the book up again.

“Violent, witless, trading a conscience for bloodlust: what did humans do to you?” the aggrieved mare asked the book’s cover, looking for the name of the author. There was none, so she flung the book across the room, enjoying the loud smack it made when it hit the floor. Despite this minor feeling of satisfaction, she felt herself sigh as she turned back towards her pile of books.

“Well, that was a bust. Surely there’s something…”

If you were to ask Twilight how long she spent fixatedly searching through her library’s contents, she would likely be unable to give an answer. Worryingly dedicated to her research, she barely even noticed when a small voice floated through the library door.

“Um… Miss?” came the voice of Eve as she wearily stepped into the library, stumbling through the disorganised piles of books that surrounded the transfixed princess. Eventually, the girl’s words found space in Twilight’s mind as she raised her head and remembered her main responsibility.

“Sweet Celestia!”

Twilight jolted upright and charged her horn, teleporting onto Eve’s exact location. Her sudden appearance caused Eve to fall backwards before being caught and hoisted upright by the mare’s magic.

“I’m really sorry!” Twilight exclaimed as she hovered a few feet above the little girl. “I was just looking through some books and I lost track of time and-”

“-Can you help us with something? We need some help,” Eve interrupted, undeterred. Her deadpan delivery brought Twilight back down to Earth, and the princess felt her face grow red as she grew embarrassed of her outburst towards the child.

“Oh, uh, of course! What do you need?”

“Come,” was all that Eve said in response as she bounded back to where she came from, uninterested in menial conversation. Twilight sighed to herself; at least she knew where the girl was going this time.

David would have been proud with the ease at which Eve was able to manoeuvre her way around the pillars and up the stairs- but Twilight certainly was not. Eve may have lacked the speed of her sister, but she was still difficult to keep a hold of. Resultingly, Twilight found it necessary to teleport to the girl’s location, stopping the girl in her tracks and giving the mare a chance to reassert her authority.

“Please calm down,” the mare all-but beseeched the child before her. A pair of blue eyes stared back at her blankly, forming an expression that refused to reveal any enthusiasm.

“Come,” Eve said again, squirming underneath the mare and pushing through the door in front of her. Allowing Twilight to enter after her, she revealed a large drawing that stretched from one side of the bed to the other before spilling onto the floor. No part of the paper was left unmarked as it filled the room, threatening to stretch from wall to wall.

The girls had taken full advantage of the generous amount of scroll that they were given, several drawings being scruffily scribbled out and drawn over, only to be scribbled out again. Crude and haphazard in its execution, it all looked like a bit of a mess to Twilight, who struggled to piece together what she was looking at.

“I didn’t think I was gone for that long…” the mare muttered to herself as she gazed upon the artwork in confusion.

“What?” Eve replied bluntly, not having left the bewildered mare’s side. Her question startled Twilight slightly, causing her to jump back and fumble her words until she could form a complete sentence.

“Uh… how’s the picture coming along?”

Twilight looked over at Eva as she asked this, who, unlike her sister, remained on the bed, crayon still in hand. Even after the two had made eye contact, neither said anything, creating an unwelcome staring contest that neither side had the awareness to break.

“It’s to a certain quality…” Eve replied slowly as she thought of the correct words to say. “But it needs…something.” She walked back towards her work, tracing a finger over a likely more recent part of her picture. Behind her, Eva nodded slightly in approval, happy to no longer be the victim of Twilight’s stare.

“Like what?” the mare replied with a gentle smile. “I can help you find it if I have it.”

“Like, like, like…” Eve started, looking off to the side and occasionally sneaking glances up at the princess, looking to Twilight as if the correct words to say were shaved into the mare’s fur. With a loud gasp and a barely audible click of her fingers, Eve raised her head in her own little ‘light bulb’ moment.

“Berries!”

“Berries?”

“Berries!”

Eve’s enthusiasm was resounding; it had been so long since Twilight had heard her speak in such an animated way. It was a shame, then, that the little girl would need to be brought back down to Earth.

“We don’t have many berries,” Twilight admitted, much to the sisters’ disappointment. “Would any other fruit do?”

Such a simple question caused much discussion between the two sisters as they thought of an alternative. Admittedly, the majority of the ‘much discussion’ was dedicated to actually thinking of any fruits- let alone considering the suitability of them. But a decision was eventually made, and Eve cleared her throat and puffed her chest out as she addressed her audience.

“We have come to a decision,” the raven-haired girl began before pausing to build tension. “…Apples!”

“Apples?”

“Apples!”

It appeared that this minor setback had done little to dissuade Eve’s enthusiasm. This time, however, Twilight was able to reciprocate. “This one I can help you with!” she exclaimed. “There’s an apple orchard not too far from here. D’you wanna go get some apples?”

Eva gave a short nod while looking back at her sister, only responding when she had removed Twilight from her vision. The meekness of her reply did little to dissuade Eve, who showed an increasing level of enthusiasm as she turned back towards her pseudo-guardian.

“Okay!” Eve declared with a miniature salute. “Take me to the apples, Miss!”

“Okay- we’re going to Sweet Apples Acres!” Twilight announced as she reciprocated the call to arms with a hover. As emboldened as she was, Twilight allowed herself to drop back down as she lowered the tone. “Oh, and you don’t need to call me ‘Miss’. My name is Twilight Spark-”.

“-Let’s go!” Eve announced, now reconnected to her sister. They both headed for the door, now capable of finding their way back down to the castle’s entrance.

“Wait! You don’t even know where it is!” the princess called out to no avail. Two increasingly distant figures headed out towards the town, turning away from the general location of the apple orchard. She could not help but sigh at the sight.

“You girls are gonna kill me.”