"Mommy!" Luna and Celestia simultaneously cried as they burst through the backdoor.
"What?" Lauren asked, looking up from the magic box that had been in the room since... well, ever. "Is it another frog?"
"No! There's... there's...." Celestia sputtered.
"A new filly! The liveth down the threet, but the'th all weird and thtuff." Luna said through her speech impediment.
"Weird how?" Lauren smiled.
"The hath holeth in her legth," Luna began.
"And in her mane and tail!" Celestia added.
"The hath bug wingth and pointy teeth like thith!" Luna put her blue hooves in front of her mouth, mimicing fangs.
"And she doesn't talk normal!" Celestia exclaimed. She glanced at her sister. "Not like you, though." she added sweetly.
The smaller filly bodyslammed her older sister. "Take it back! Take it back!" she cried.
Hooves and horns flew until Lauren separated the two with red magic. Her expression was one of anger, filling up the cozy room. "Stop fighting you two! Tia, apologize to your sister."
"Thorry,"
"Tia..." Lauren warned.
"Sorry,"
"For what?"
"Sorry for making fun of you," Celestia muttered.
"Now hug,"
"WHAT?!" the two exclaimed. They glared at each other and made horrified faces. "Ew."
"Fine, no hugging." Lauren sighed. "That would've been good material, though," she muttered.
"Good what?"
"Nevermind. I want both of you," she pointed one white hoof toward the screen door. "to make a gift basket and welcome her to the neighborhood."
"What?" Tia and Luna moaned together.
"Go."
"Thith ith worthe than when the made uth give Dithcord a houthe-warming party," Luna whined.
The duo went through the kitchen. Tia levitated an ancient bag over that had Save money, live better plastered on the side. Luna rooted through the junk drawer and fished out a broken crayon, a few pipecleaners, and tape. She dropped them in the bag. Tia levitated a paper over and hastily scrawled a small happy face and their names on it, then stuck it in the bag. She held the screen door open for the darker colored alicorn that stalked past.
She was just about to slam the door behind her when she heard something.
"What?"
"I said I want you two to play with her. She sounds lonely." Lauren ran a hoof through her stressed red mane.
"Got it," personally, Tia didn't have a problem with the new filly. It's just Luna that she's afraid of.
She shuddered. The very thought of Luna's wrath caused goosebumps to rise.
"Tiiiiiiiiiiiiia! Watcha doin'?" Luna asked impatiently ahead.
"Oh. nothin'," she mumbled."Mom just said we have to play with her."
"Ugh, the'th alwayth makin' uth do stuff like that." Luna rolled her eyes. "And I bet the'th buthy, anyway."
They walked across the cracked cul de sac road to a house with darkened lights and muddy hoofprints leading up to the door.
"I thay we dingdong ditch 'er." Luna whispered.
"No, mom'll be mad. She'll make you talk real loud again. 'Member what happened last time," Tia asked the blue filly.
"Fine," Luna spat angrily. Tia preened her wings nervously. Maybe the filly was judgmental; she was open to making a friend other that Luna.
Luna banged loudly on the door. She dropped the bag and waited.
No answer.
"Thee, they're not-" Luna began.
The door opened and a tall, black form stood in the doorway. "Yes?"
Tia cleared her throat. "We're welcoming you to the neighborhood."
"Okay. Thank you," the mare rasped, fangs glinting scarily in the sunlight.
Luna gulped.
"Who's there, momma?" a much smaller filly barreled into her mother's cheesy legs.
"Er, this is my daughter, Chrysalis. I'm Metamorpha, by the way. But you can just call me Morpha, honeys." Morpha held out a hoof in suggestion to shaking.
Tia took the opportunity eagerly. "Pleased to meet you, Morpha. I'm Tia, and this is Luna," she recited what Lauren taught her to say.
"And you can call me Chryssy! Chrysalis is a reeeeeeaaaaally long name for someling as short as me!" Chrysalis giggled.
"Thome...ling?" Luna snorted.
"Luna, be nice," Tia scolded.
Luna snapped her head in Tia's direction. "Excuthe me?"
Tia shrank. "Sorry, Luna."
"That'th what I thought."
"Do you want to play out back? We have this really great tree for climbing." Morpha suggested.
"Sure do!" Tia beamed. "Come on, Luna!" Tia and Chryssy sped around the house to the back with Luna trailing behind.
"So what do you want to do?" Tia asked once they were leaning against a millennia aged oak.
Chryssy rubbed her chin with a black hoof. "Hmmm, how about.... cutie mark acquisition!" she said excitedly, noticing that Tia also had no cutie mark.
"Nah, I've tried too many things already." Tia shut down the changeling's idea down.
"Meh, me too."
Their haunches dropped to the ground, the owners deep in thought.
"I know, how 'bout War?" a new voice suggested.
Tia and Chryssy jumped; they hadn't heard her approach.
"That sounds fun! I call dibs on being Commander!" Tia cried immediately.
"I call being General!" Chryssy said a moment after Tia was promoted to the rank of commander.
"Then what am I?" Luna whined.
Chryssy and Tia glanced at each other. "Private," they said together.
Luna kicked a twig. "Fine,"
"Commander, take evathive actionth!" Private Shiny warned.
Commander Sunny jumped from side to side as suicide bombing leaves fell. "How dare you?! I thought we were friends, General Lovebug!"
General Lovebug stuck her tongue out at her.
Commander Sunny, as her last action, tackled the treacherous General Lovebug into the Pit of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
She pinned the General down whilst Private Shiny tickled Lovebug's sides until Commander Sunny gave the word.
"Alright, stop." Tia crouched down by the filly whose uncontrollable laughter was contagious. Soon they all began giggling and then escalating into loud guffaws that echoed throughout the nearly-abandoned neighborhood.
Inside the Celestial Sisters' house, Lauren smiled. Her daughters finally had made a friend.
"So then I was all like 'whoa' and then I was all like 'WHOA' and then I was all like 'whooooooa'" Chryssy dramatically finished her story by splaying her legs everywhich way.
"That'th cool, Chryththy," Luna commented.
Tia agreed. Then she noticed the sun. "Hey, Luna."
"What?" Luna asked with annoyance.
"It's getting late. Mom'll start to worry." Tia said, walking away. She waved to Chryssy. "Bye! I'll see ya tomorrow!"
Chryssy nudged Luna. "Better go. See ya later!"
"Bye Chryssy!" Luna shouted.
The sisters galloped home within seconds.
"Did you girls have fun?" Lauren asked rhetorically.
"Yeah!" they said enthusiastically.
"I have some sandwiches on the table; I thought you'd be hungry." Lauren told them.
Tia levitated her sandwich over and ate it right there. Luna, on the other hoof, couldn't use magic yet so she had to actually use her legs to go get it.
"It's time for bed," Lauren announced when the stars had come out and he win retired for he evening.
"Aw come on!" Luna whined.
"Bed. Now." Lauren said, this time adding a hard glare.
With much complaining, Lauren successfully wrangled her fillies into bed for the night. She walked past a large bookshelf full of fanfictions scavenged to print before the internet collapsed. She paused.
"Haven't read Past Sins in a while..."
It was a chilly rainy day, but the Faust home was full of laughter and bright cheery faces and smiles. Today, Lauren told her daughters they had permission to read from her bookshelf in the living room if they were bored because of the dreary weather.
There were many, many, many books. Some were short and others were six hundred ninety-two thousand words long. There were happy silly books, sad tragic ones, romantic stories, stories crossing over into other worlds, stories with the girls' favorite creatures (Naked Diamond Dogs! Could you imagine?) and so many more. The bottom two shelves were fine for the girls, if they wanted one on the third or fourth they had to ask, and shelves five and six were off limits. Tia and Luna had fun picking out and reading books, and mommy even read a darker story to them herself.
“Can you read a chapter from your own book, mom?” It was the book this whole shelf was based on, or rather the world she created in her book. She could not write the whole thing alone, but the girls didn't believe it.
“Actually, Metamorpha invited me over for tea in five minutes so I should be going. Can I trust you girls to stay out of trouble while I’m gone?” No.
“Yes, mom,” they answered at once, the shorter one lisping through the first word.
Lies. “Good then. I'll leave you two here alone. Celestia, you’re in charge.”
“What! Unfair!” Luna cried out.
“Ha ha!” Tia flicked her pink tail at Luna's side. Faust didn't notice.
“Remember that you’re responsible if something goes wrong, Tia. Do. Not. Burn the house down this time.”
"Aw mom, that was an accident! And plus, that was the old house!" Tia protested.
Lauren scowled and opened the door and walked out into the light drizzle.
Celestia immediately pulled a chair up to the bookshelf and told her sister to grab a box.
“Why?” an annoying and high pitched voice asked.
“’Cause I wanna get a book off the top shelf.” Celestia stretched toward the top shelf.
Luna gasped in horror. “But mommy thaid we’re not allowed!”
“Mommy also said I’m in charge, 'member?” That was all the reasoning it took to get Luna pushing the box that normally sat in the middle of the floor toward the shelf. Luna hefted it on the chair, face turning red and grunting occasionally. Celestia jumped from the couch onto the box and told Luna to do the same while she put her fore hooves against the wall. They had double teamed like this to get other things out of reach before: cookies, toys, cake, so Luna knew to climb onto her big sisters back and climbed higher so her hind legs stood on Celestia’s shoulders. And yet the top shelf was still just out of reach.
“I can’t get it. What now?”
“If you jump you can reach one and land on the couch.”
“Which book?” Luna held a hoof poised for attack on the shelf.
“Any!” Hurry up! Mom's not gonna be gone for long!” Tia hissed.
Luna beat her wings as hard as she could at that incentive. She jumped and threw out her hooves to grab a book with a pink and red striped spine. With it in her hooves she started to tumble and wound up belly up on the ancient couch, safe and sound.
“I got it!” she cried triumphantly holding up the book she could have broken her neck for. As the sister in charge came over, she wrapped it in her yellow aura of magic, set it on the coffee table. “Good job. This one looks really interesting!”
“Tia…” her eyes were wide with shock at what she just realized.
Celestia smirked and tilted her head to the side. “Problem?” She sparked her horn for effect.
“That wath tho fun! Did you thee? I wath like a ninja!” Luna whined, scowling at her trolling sibling. She looked at the cover of the book she risked her life for and lost some of her enthusiasm. “Tia, I don’t know ‘bout thith.”
“Why not?” Luna sat next to her sister on the couch.
“The mare on the front thcareth me. Why are her eyeth tho wide?”
“Don’t be such a scaredy cat. We can take turns reading, okay? How bad can it be? The mare on the cover is pink. Pink is a nice color.”
That made sense to the younger filly, but did not ease Luna's mind too much. So they read out loud one paragraph at a time. At the first scene break Luna complained again.
“This is thuch a weird book. Why did Rainbow Dathh fall athleep?”
“Read it and we’ll find out.” Celestia tried to explain.
“Thith ith boring. I’m getting another book.” And so Luna climbed off the couch to grab another book, this time from the second shelf and saved a large portion of her innocence. Celestia went back to reading about Rainbow Dash waking up.
** ** **
“D’awww. That’th tho thweet. Are you finithhed Tia? Tia?”
Celsetia had not moved from her place on the couch the whole time Luna had read her story on the floor. All she had heard was the turning of a few pages.
“Did you find out why Dathh fell athleep?”
Tia nodded her head, glazed eyes unblinking as her childhood seeped away.
“Why?”
“She…uhh…”
“I really liked this one! I think Thootaloo is the betht! I wanna be like her!” Celestia just sat there and kept nodding. That’s when Luna looked out the window and gasped. “Look, it’s thtopped raining, and there’th a RAINBOW! Come look at thith Tia!”
She clambered over to the window sill and gazed outside at a most peculiar site. “What’th that? The rainbow’th broken? Why is the rainbow in pieceth?”
Celestia started whimpering, and then levitated the book she was reading back into its place on the shelf. She went back to the couch and stared at the wall.
Luna asked, “Do you wanna go outthide and play?”
“No.”
“You’re acting weird today. We can go catch frogs!” Luna hopped for example. "Ribbet!"
The front door opened and Lauren walked through. She was pleasantly surprised that her daughters were getting along, and more so that they looked happy. At least Luna did. “Hi girls. Did you have a good time?”
“Uh ha! I read about how Thootaloo had a lonely Heart’th Warming latht year, but now she has friendth and made a new friend and thinks thomepony elthe needs her doll now.”
“I like that one too. What did you read, Tia?”
She remained silent and continued her staring contest with the wall.
“Thhe’s been thilly ever thince you left.”
Thinking it was nothing, Lauren told them what she was told. “Okay. Since you both have been so good, Metamorpha has invited you to help her and Chrysalis make some special cupcakes. Sound good?”
Celestia shrieked like a banshee and ran out of the living room as fast as her little hooves could carry her.