Crescent galloped freely through the halls of the castle, crashing directly into another small figure and tumbling to the ground with them against a wall. "Ow! Sorry!"

Flurry pushed Crescent off of herself with quite the pout. "I didn't think you'd be so hurtie when I got here."

Crescent's face turned to a radiant smile. "Flurry!" She abandoned wherever she had been thinking to go to instead hug the other filly close. "When did you get here?"

"Uh, just now." Flurry squeezed back, returning Crescent's affection before pushing her back a little. "Momma is visiting Aunt Celly. I thought I'd look for you."

Crescent bounced up and down from hoof to hoof. "Yes yes! We can go play in the gardens! Or go find something to do!"

Flurry put a hoof to her chin, ears pricking and folding back with thought. "Mmm! What do you usually do? When I'm not here?"

Crescent leaned her head in closer, eyes wide and eager. "I dunno. It depends. I meet new ponies, or help ones I already know. I like being helpful." She tapped her forehooves with clear excitement. "Why, did you want to help somepony?"

"Sure!" Flurry's wings flapped gently behind her as she nodded. "I'm a princess, just like you, so I have to be a helper!"

Crescent reached for her head, but found no tiara there of any kind. "Shoot, I didn't bring mine. Oh well, most ponies around here know who I am anyway." She stuck out her tongue. "Let's find somepony to help! Mmm, today feels like." She turned about in place. "A food day! To the kitchens! We'll help cook."

Flurry giggled as she hopped along after Crescent, wings flapping and hooves pouncing. The two left a train of laughter behind them as they made their way to the castle kitchens.

There they ran into the head chef, who had heard them coming. "Little moonlet, what brings you—" He only noticed Flurry just then. "and your little friend? Are you two looking for a snack?"

Crescent shook her head softly, trotting up to the head chef with a wide smile. "We're here to help."

Flurry took up the spot right beside Crescent. "Yeth!" she got out with a bit of a lisp. "How can we help?"

The chef waved them both over, pointing to a set of large pots on the stove. "These are for tomorrow's meals. You can help stir them. See these big handles?"

Crescent took off, hovering upwards until she could reach that big handle. "Wow! This is big."

Flurry tried to use her magic, horn glowing and the handle under Crescent glowing with the same color as it trembled a bit. It didn't help that Crescent was almost perched on it.

"Okay, I'm here," called Flurry from below. "I have the other one!"

The cook waved his hoof between them. "Such eager little things. Keep stirring them both gently and you'll let us worry about other things going on in here." He nodded towards the busy kitchen and the many ponies hurrying around in it.

The two filly princesses turned to their task, each on their own pot. The handles were very large, but they managed. They alternated the ways they went at it, sometimes with magic, and sometimes with wings and their physical body. Either way, they both kept the handles moving around and around.

Flurry waved up at Crescent. "Do we do anything else?" She looked between Crescent and the chef. "Besides stirring? We need to help more." She fluffed her little wings.

The chef closest to them patted Flurry on the way by. "You are doing two ponies' worth of work just keeping that moving and making sure you don't smell any burning."

Crescent sniffed. "It smells like cooking, but I don't think I smell burning. Good!" She pushed her stirrer with renewed energy. "These ponies make so many tasty things!" She aimed that down at Flurry. "I bet they'll share after we help them."

Flurry hopped gently from hoof to hoof. "That's good, but I was thinking of more helping." She used her magic to stir her pot one more time before she turned to survey the kitchen as a whole. "What about them?" She wandered off towards a new pony.

"Hey!" Crescent moved between handles, trying to keep both pots going on her own.

Flurry had already reached a new area in the kitchen where food was being prepared for an early-morning breakfast for some important ponies. "Let me help!" She smiled up at the chefs there. "I wanna cook too."

The chef there was not the head, but he did recognize Flurry. "Little one, shouldn't you be with your mother? Does she know you're here?"

Flurry shrank back a step. "N-no." She thought back to joining Crescent and running off. "I'll go back to her after I cook a little. How can I help?"

The chef paused a long moment, his ears perking and flopping with thoughts as he considered what she could possibly do. "Come here." She picked up Flurry with her magic, placing the small filly up on a counter. "You can help me fold these treats. They have to be folded like this." She demonstrated how the dough had to go around the filling inside of it. "Once they're nice and folded, we can bake them up to something super tasty."

Flurry's eyes were wide, and her head bobbed in affirmation. "Okay!" She watched the chef demonstrate a few more times before she reached out for her own bit of dough and started. With great pleasure, she slowly got the dough into something approximating the right shape. "Ta da!"

The chef picked it up. It was a bit lopsided, and the filling looked like it might leak out of it, but it looked like what they were making. "Such a good little helper you are." She lied well enough for the filly as she put it right on the tray with the others. "Princess Celestia or your mother will be very happy to see that one."

The chef smiled with the thought of either getting a treat made by a filly. Surely either of them would be delighted, despite its awkward folding. "Did you want to try another, or are you done?"

Flurry was quite clearly not done yet. "I'll make a better one this time!" Her little hooves worked over the dough as she rolled it into shape. Her second attempt was a little closer to what the chef had done, and Flurry beamed with pride at her progress.

Crescent pouted, spotting Flurry working on a whole new thing as she kept the pots stirred around and around. She had learned why it was two ponies worth of work to keep them both going. "Flurry!" But her voice didn't reach across the busy kitchen, and she had to make do on her own.

Flurry's third pastry was almost perfect as she sat it on the tray, tail flicking behind her in triumph. "Look, I did it!" She beamed with her pride, standing up on her hindlegs. "Maybe imma be a cook when I grow up!" She licked some of the sugary fruit filling from her hooves. "The fillins are super tasty too," she added as an afterthought.

She left the chef and her pastries and ran into Crescent almost by accident. "You're still stirring?"

"Somepony has to," muttered Crescent as she kept them spinning. "What were you doing over there?"

Flurry pointed at the tray of pastries being put into an oven. "Helping with desserts."

"Aw! I want to help with desserts." But she had agreed to stir the pots, and Crescent did not abandon her duty.

The Head chef suddenly grabbed Crescent by the scruff in his mouth and put her down on the floor. "You did great. Thanks for keeping an eye on them for me."

Flurry stuck out her tongue. "Sorry." She nuzzled at Crescent. "We'll cook something together next time!"

Crescent smiled a little at the thought. "I'd like that. If we're not helping, we should get out of their way." She pointed to the hall outside of the kitchen.

Flurry nodded, and followed Crescent right along out into the halls of the castle. "I said I'd go see mommy after we finished." She raced ahead a little to lead the way. "She was talkin' to Aunt sun sun!"

Crescent burst into laughter. "Aunt sun sun? I never heard that before." She hurried to be beside Flurry. "I like it."

Flurry stuck out her tongue playfully. "You can use it if you wanna."

The pair walked down the hall until they reached a door that was open, the voices of Cadence and Celestia gently drifting out as they chatted. Flurry burst through the door and charged right into her mother's side. "Mommy!"

Crescent came in at a more dignified pace. "Aunt, Aunt." She nodded to each of them. "Nice to see you both!"

Cadence smiled and lowered her head to nuzzle and snuffle at her filly. "I thought I lost track of you for a moment."

Flurry pointed back at Crescent. "I went with my cousin to help cook. I made tasty desserts! They're, um, bakin'. I want to try them when they're done!" Her tail flicked behind her in eagerness. "We should go get some soon."

Celestia smiled at the two with a little laugh. "My my, it sounds like you two had a little adventure. I'll ask that they bring the tray with the ones you made, Flurry, and we'll all get to see them. I imagine they're the best on the tray."

Flurry hopped up and down. "Of course!" She beamed. "I'm gonna be a good cook!"

Crescent snickered a little as she leaned in towards Celestia. "She's such a foal."

Celestia bonked Crescent gently, booping her on the snoot. "You are a foal as well, beloved little moon child."

Crescent smiled at Celestia, then frowned. "You don't treat me like one."

Celestia's ears pricked upright. "I treat you as a pony, which you are. You can be a challenge, I admit. Sometimes you act like a wide-eyed foal, and other times you act with the age of a fully-grown pony. Little dream, I suppose you are both in different ways."

Crescent snorted at that, but was not given much time to respond. Flurry was already up and tugging gently on her mane with her teeth. "W-what? What?"

Flurry pulled her along back to Cadance. "Crescent was stirrin' two big pots, at the same time! She did it so I could learn to cook."

Crescent's face heated at the praise. "You, um." She swallowed her words. "Yeah. That's how it happened."

Cadance pressed her hooves together. "What a lovely little helper you were then. Thank you."

As summoned, a pony came with a tray floating beside her. "The almond triangles, three ala Flurry." She set the tray down with so many little baked triangles, still wafting steam from their preparation. It was clear which were made by professional hooves, and which were the ones made by Flurry.

Still, there was a clear line of progression, witch her first partially leaked out and a gooey mess, the second and third each looking better than the last.

Celestia gestured at the tray. "I can't imagine taking one before you. Go on, Cadie. I know you want to."

And she did. With rubbed hooves, her horn glowed as she picked up that first mess of a treat. "This is your first cooking I got to try." She bit into it with a satisfied mmm. "And it's even tastier, knowing where it came from."

Flurry nickered softly. "Don't eat the whole thing, I wanna try it."

Celestia picked up the second in her magic, not leaking but still clearly imprecise, triangle and floated it to Flurry. "Here you go. Your second little triangle."

Crescent was last, but Celestia made sure to pick her up something good. The treat that Flurry had made last, the most perfect and precise one she had created, went into the little fillie's magic grip.

She considered the triangle with a sniff. "Smells good!" With that exhaustive test complete, she chomped it in half and promptly got to breathing out rapidly. "Hot hot hot!" But she did get it down. "Mmm, it's good!"

Celestia held her head up proudly as she picked out another treat for herself. "Like the little princesses said."

Flurry bumped against Crescent. "Fank you!"

Author's Note

That was soft and sweet! She left Crescent high and dry, but at least thanked her afterwards. Shall we forgive Flurry?

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