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A Moment in the Sun

by Chengar Qordath

Chapter 1: A Moment of Curiosity

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I never liked it when Mommy and Daddy took me to the palace. In fact, I hated it.

Not because there was anything wrong with the palace. It was really big and fancy and impressive, and all the decorations were really pretty. The guardponies had been a bit scary at first, but Daddy told me they were nice, and the one I tried talking to was.

The reason I never liked coming to the palace was because of my parents. They were both really important magi, so whenever they came to the palace it was always to go to some room and talk to a lot of other really important ponies. And since they were talking about stuff that was way too important for a filly like me to listen to, I had to wait until they were done. They already had to spend a lot of time away from home doing magus stuff, so it really stank when they had to spend the time when they were home meeting with ponies and stuff instead of with me. Especially when I had to sit around waiting for them.

This time it was about magical gems or something. You wouldn’t think magical gems would be really boring, but they are. Especially when adults talk about them for hours and hours and hours.

I groaned and rolled around on the stone bench, checking the clock again. Usually when they were gonna be gone for a long time, they left me with a foalsitter or a guardpony or something. But this was one of those meetings that was only supposed to last five minutes, so they told me to just sit outside and wait patiently and quietly until they were done. Too bad the five minute meeting had started half an hour ago, and didn’t look like it was gonna end any time soon.

I desperately looked around the room for something, anything, to keep myself occupied. I didn’t have any luck. They didn’t even have any old magazines or some old pamphlets like they do at the doctor’s office. Just a cold stone bench, and the guard standing in front of the doors. He was one of the really stiff and formal ones who wouldn’t even say anything to me I know I said some of the guards were really nice, but that was when they were allowed to be nice. Right now this one still had to be a guard, so he couldn’t do any too-nice stuff with me.

I could groan about how bored I was, but that would just get me in trouble for making noise that would bother everypony at my parents’ important meeting. I wish I’d brought a book or something, Normally I would’ve, but this was supposed to be one of those meetings that would only last a couple minutes.

Ugh! So bored!

I got up and tried pacing around for a bit, but that didn’t do any good. I was just bored while walking instead of being bored while sitting. I was still stuck waiting in front of a door, with nothing to do. I needed a change of scenery. Something. Anything.

I walked up to the guard. “I need to use the bathroom. Where is it?”

“Down the hall and to the right.” The guardpony glanced back at the door behind him, then turned to me. “I think I can walk you most of the way there without leaving my post, if you need some help.”

“I’m fine.” I’d gotten my cutie mark a few days ago, I was way too old to need an adult to walk me to the bathroom. Besides, I didn’t really need to go. I just wanted to go exploring a little. I would stay in the palace—there were all kinds of neat things here, and just being stuck waiting in front of this one boring door was a huge waste of time. Mommy and Daddy might get a little upset, but they had magic they could use to find me if they really wanted to. Besides, making them come look for me was what they deserved after how long I’d waited.

I walked off towards the bathroom, but once I was sure the door guard couldn’t see me anymore I shifted course and went deeper into the palace. I didn’t have any particular destination in mind, I just wanted to look around and see all the neat stuff in here. In fact, one of the big problems with the palace is that there are so many cool things that I didn’t know where to start.

Maybe the library? The Royal Library has all kinds of neat books about magic and stuff, and I wanted to learn all about magic. After all, Mommy and Daddy were magi, so I wanted to grow up to be one too. Once I learned enough magic, one of them was gonna take me as their apprentice, and then I would get to spend a lot more time with them.

But on the other hoof, I could read books anytime I wanted. Mommy and Daddy had plenty of magic books at home, and even if most of them were way too complicated for me, there were still plenty of ones I could read whenever I wanted to. And I could read anytime I wanted to, but this might be my only chance to explore the Royal Palace!

Being in the palace made my destination rather obvious. The whole reason the Royal Palace was interesting was because it was where the princess was. And obviously she would be in the throne room, because that’s where a princess does all her princess-y things from. So that’s where I needed to go if I wanted to do something I could only do at the palace.

Finding the throne room wasn’t too hard, because there were these big maps of the palace posted in a couple places to help everypony find their way around. The Royal Palace is really big, and ponies come from all over Equestria to come visit it, so they have the maps so nopony gets lost. Though I’ve heard there are a bunch of secret rooms and passages that aren’t on the maps, and they’ve got all kinds of secret stuff there like dragons and hidden treasure and spies!

But I didn’t want to go exploring for secrets right now, ‘cause I didn’t know how to find them. And nopony could tell me either, ‘cause if everypony knew about the secret rooms then they wouldn’t be secret rooms.

So instead I went to the throne room. Maybe Princess Celestia could tell me about the palace’s secret rooms? After all, if anypony would know all about the palace’s secrets, it would be the Princess. It was her palace, after all.

I trotted off to the throne room, stopping a couple times along the way to check the maps and make sure I was still going the right way. When I finally got to the hallway leading to the throne room, I had to check the map again to make sure I was in the right place. The corridor was really impressive and had a lot of pretty stained-glass windows, but the door at the end of the hallway didn’t have any guards on it, and I thought there were always supposed to be guards standing in front of the throne room to make sure ponies didn’t bother Princess Celestia.

Once I walked through the big double doors, I figured out why there weren’t any guards. The princess wasn’t here, so of course they wouldn’t be here either. The whole room was empty, except for the throne that was up on its raised dais. It felt really weird and a little bit creepy being in such a big throne room without anypony else here.

I walked up to the throne, since it was the only other thing in the room. It was really big. Though I guess that made sense, because Princess Celestia was really big too. She would have to have a throne that was big enough for her, or else she would look really weird and silly.

I took another look around the room, just to make sure there wasn’t anypony else around. There wasn’t. I had the throne room all to myself.

Feeling daring, I hopped up onto the throne. I’d needed a bit of a running start to actually make the jump, and I wound up bonking my muzzle on the back because I couldn’t stop in time. It was worth it. After all, I was sitting on Princess Celestia’s throne!

I got comfy, then turned around to face the room. “I am Princess Sunset Shimmer, and I say that school and bedtimes are cancelled forever, and everypony have to make me dessert at least five times a day!”

“Five desserts a day?” I jumped in surprise at the voice coming from behind me. I’d checked the room twice, so there was no way somepony could be in here without me noticing them. Except somehow, I’d missed whoever had just said that. “Goodness me, that's a lot of dessert. My poor chefs would have to work themselves to the bone making that much cake.”

I looked around again and finally found the pony who’d said all of that. Princess Celestia was standing right next me. Princess Celestia. And she’d seen everything I did. “Ack!” I tried to get off of the throne as fast as possible, but that just made all my hooves pick a different direction to go in. I wound up tripping over myself and fell, heading muzzle-first for the marble steps below.

I braced for a rough landing, but before I hit, a golden glow enveloped me, and then I was floating in the air. I looked back at the princess and saw her horn glowing as the magic set me back down on my hooves. Once I was safely on the ground, she let out a soft chuckle. “Maybe for your next decree, you should consider adding safety rails to the throne? That, or making a new throne that’s a bit more suited to your size.”

I giggled at the joke, but a second later I remembered just who I was talking to. “P-princess Celestia!” I nearly fell over again as I scrambled to bow down before her. “I'm sorry for sitting on your throne! Please don't banish me!”

Thankfully, instead of doing that, she just laughed. A nice laugh, not some kinda mean bad guy laugh. “Banish you? Oh child, where did you get such a silly idea?” She took a couple steps closer and sat down next to me on the stairs. I’d never realized how huge she was before. I mean, everypony knows that Princess Celestia’s bigger than any other pony, but she just towered over a little filly like me. She smiled down at me. “You don’t need to worry, I won’t do anything like that. How could I banish a child for merely indulging their curiosity? I'm sure you didn't intend to show any kind disrespect for me by sitting on my throne, right?”

“No!” I hastily agreed. “I was just playing around, ‘cause nopony else was here.” I looked up at her, and offered a relieved little smile. “So you’re not mad?”

“Not at all,” she assured me. “In fact, it was an absolute delight to see somepony having a little fun with something that’s really just a fancy chair. However, I’m afraid I won’t be able to go along with your first royal decree; school, bedtimes, and proper meals are important for growing young fillies.” She leaned in and whispered, “Though just between you and me, I hated them too when I was your age.”

“Really?” It was hard to imagine that somepony as big and old and important as Princess Celestia had even been a filly like me. I mean, she was Princess Celestia!

“Well, we didn’t exactly have proper schools when I was your age, but I was an absolute terror to my tutors. I certainly would have preferred to stay up late and eat lots of sweets, as well.” She took one of my hooves in her huge one and gave it a gentle shake. “ It’s nice to meet you, Sunset Shimmer.”

I blinked in surprise at that. “You know my name?”

“I know all of my little ponies.” She paused, and then she gave me a teasing little grin. “Besides, you did declare yourself ‘Princess Sunset Shimmer’ a few minutes ago.”

“Oh yeah...” It was pretty silly to think somepony as important as Princess Celestia would know about me. I’m just a kid. “I guess I better go so you can do princess stuff, right?” If Mommy and Daddy were always busy with magus stuff, then a princess would probably be way busier with princess stuff.

Princess Celestia nodded, her tone quiet and serious. “Oh yes, I have quite a bit of princess stuff to do.” She turned back to me, and smiled. “Thankfully, one of the more important princess things I need to take care of involves you, so there's no need for us to part company just yet.”

“Me?” I tried to wrap my head around the idea. “But why would a princess care about me? I’m just ... I’m me.”

“I care about all of my little ponies, Sunset. Even the ones that most ponies would say have ordinary, boring, and unimportant lives.” She stood up, and motioned for me to do the same. “However, you have much more ahead of you than most ponies. More than even you know.” She waved a hoof towards my flank. “I see you already have your cutie mark.”

I grinned at the reminder and shifted around so she could see it better. “Yeah, I got it a couple days ago. Isn't it neat?”

“It's a very nice cutie mark.” Her eyes drifted back to her own mark. “Admittedly, I’ve always been rather partial to ones that feature the sun. Would you mind telling me what it represents?”

“Um...” I didn’t really know exactly what it meant. I mean, I knew what my special talent was and everything, but a cutie mark’s more than just that. It’s really complicated, and I didn’t wanna explain it wrong and look silly in front of the princess. “I guess it’s kinda like the sun, and the sun’s a big ball of fire and stuff. That would make sense, ‘cause I can make fire. You wanna see?”

The princess smiled and took a step back. “I'd love to. Just make sure you don’t accidently burn the palace down.”

“I’ll be careful, but it’s okay. I can’t make that much fire yet.” I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard. I was still getting used to casting magic spells other than the basic stuff like telekinesis and light. After a little bit of work, a tiny little ball of fire popped up, hovering in front of my face.

Princess Celestia lightly tapped her hooves on the floor in applause. “That's very impressive for a filly your age. Though it looked like you had to try very hard to actually make fire. Are you just creating it from nothing?”

“What do you mean?” I frowned, trying to puzzle out what she meant. “There wasn’t fire before, so I gotta make the fire exist with my magic, right?”

“That is one way of doing things.” Her tone then changed, and it reminded me of some of my teachers at the School for Gifted Unicorns. “However, let me offer you a bit of advice. You see, creating fire is ultimately a matter of finding the heat for it, and heat is everywhere. I think you’ll find it is much easier if you take all the heat that’s just lying around, and draw it all to a single central point. Using what’s already there is almost always easier than creating something from nothing. Like this.” Her horn lit up, and she created a little flame just like mine. “Do you think you could try making fire my way?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t like anypony could tell the princess no when she asked them to do something. I took a look at her spell, and tried to figure out how she was doing it. It didn’t look too hard. I mean, it was more complicated than the way I did things, but I didn’t think it was too hard for me to figure it out.

I closed my eyes again and concentrated on using my magic to pull in all the heat just like she told me to. It wasn’t too hard at first, but when I cast the spell there was just a sudden flash of heat and light, and then nothing.

“You can’t gather all the heat at once,” the princess explained. “It has to be gradual and controlled.” She pointed to the ball of fire hovering in front of her face. “If you want to create something like this, you need a slow, constant, steady flow of heat.”

“Okay.” I closed my eyes and tried it again. This time I managed to actually create a sputtering flame that lasted half a second before it died. After a dozen more tries, I was finally able to keep a flame going the way Princess Celestia was. Or at least close enough to how she was doing it; my spell still looked weird and clunky compared to how perfect hers was. She’d been right about it being easier: once I’d gotten used to using the trick the princess had showed me, I could make fire with a lot less effort than it had taken before.

I grinned up at her. “Thanks, Princess Celestia! That really helped.” I waved a hoof near my flame to see how warm it was and pulled back in surprise. The fire putting off a lot of heat, but once my hoof got a little bit away from it the air around it was cold. Though that made sense; I was taking the heat out of the air to make my fire.

An idea popped into my head. “Princess Celestia? Can I have a glass of water?”

“Of course, Sunset.” One spell later, there was a glass of water resting right in front of me.

I looked down at the glass and tried to focus on it. It shouldn’t be that different to take heat out of water instead of out of the air. It’s still just heat, right?

It turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. The first thing I noticed while siphoning heat was that the water felt a lot more… slippery. Maybe it was hard ‘cause everypony knows water and fire don’t really go together. I still managed to draw the heat out, it just took a lot more work than it had before. As a new flame took shape, the water slowly froze from bottom to top, until I was left with a glass full of solid ice.

Princess Celestia looked down at the glass, then nodded and gave me an approving smile. I’d always hoped Mother would do something like that when she started teaching me magic. “Very good, Sunset.” I stood a bit taller and puffed my chest out a little at her praise. “Many ponies can go for years without realizing what you just found out about how fire magic works. It has been more than eight centuries since I’ve seen a pony with your natural gift for pyromancy.” A hint of a smile crossed her face. “In fact, that same mare wrote the magical principle you just demonstrated. Sunbeam’s First Law of Thermodynamics: cold is nothing more than the absence of heat.”

The fact that Princess Celestia herself was praising me brought a modest blush to my cheeks. “It was just a little bit of fire and ice.”

“For now, yes.” She set a hoof on my shoulder. “But that is only natural. A filly of your age can hardly be expected to have mastered the magical arts. That you have learned as much as you have is a credit to you, and from such small things as your tiny flame, great spells can be born. In time, you might even be able to cast a spell like ... this.” Her horn lit up, and a huge blast of fire shot up towards the ceiling, stopping halfway there. Then it spread out and twisted around, and the fire itself changed colors, until it was a perfect match for my own cutie mark.

My jaw dropped at the display. “Wooow. That’s amazing!”

“Thank you, Sunset.” Princess Celestia patted me on the head. “Of course, it takes many years of practice to manage that level of showmareship with one’s pyromancy. And I imagine many would judge it a somewhat impractical use of my talents, regardless of how impressive it looks.”

I looked up at the display and wistfully commented, “I wish I could do something that cool.”

The princess looked down at me and offered an indulgent smile. The kind adults always give when they’re humoring a kid. “Maybe you will one day. Assuming you have a good teacher, of course.”

“Really?” I tried to imagine doing something like that, but it was hard to see it when right now I had to concentrate just to make a little bit of ordinary fire. I knew I would probably be really good at magic one day because of how good my parents were, but right now it all seemed so far away. “How am I ever gonna learn to do spells like that?”

“The same way most promising young unicorns do, I imagine. Somepony will teach you what you need to know, and you’ll learn the rest on your own.” Princess Celestia paused and looked me over. “I assume your parents have been teaching you magic?”

“A little, yeah.” I shuffled on my hooves, and admitted the truth. “Well, mostly they just bought me a couple books to read over. Mommy and Daddy said they really wanna help me learn magic, but they’ve just been so busy doing magus stuff that they don’t have time for that.”

“Ah.” She didn’t say much for a bit after that. I hope she wasn’t feeling sad ‘cause my parents were busy. After all, since she was the princess she could probably un-busy them if she really, really wanted to. “I presume they’re participating in the conclave happening in the east wing, then?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure if they were actually doing that, but they’d been in east part of palace so that was probably it. “They said it was supposed to be really quick, but it was taking a long time and I got tired of waiting, so I went exploring and then I thought about some secret passages that were supposed to be in the castle and I figured you would know where those passages are ‘cause you’re the princess, so I found the throne room and ... well, then I met you.”

“Indeed you did.” Her eyes lingered on me, and she seemed a little sad. “I’m sorry your parents are so busy, but I’m sure you realize they’re doing very important work. I believe today’s conclave has gone long due to some warlock trouble. The reason your parents are so busy is because they’re working to help keep you and everypony else safe.”

“I know.” I sighed and slumped down on the floor. “But I still miss them...” The Princess didn’t say anything, but her horn lit up, and a second later there was a plate with a slice of cake sitting in front of me. I remembered my manners. “Thanks, Princess.”

“It was my pleasure, Sunset.” While I ate the cake with my best table manners, Princess Celestia looked at me. It wasn’t a normal kind of looking either. It’s hard to say what exactly was different about it, but it was definitely different. Deeper, I guess. Like she was seeing way more than just me. Or maybe she was just seeing way more of me than anypony else ever could. Either way, it made me feel really nervous. Like when you’re in the school play, except you know your costume is messed up and you’ve forgotten half your lines, and you’re hoping nopony will notice how wrong everything is before you can get off the stage. It was like that, except a lot worse, ‘cause she was Princess Celestia. If she didn’t like looking at me it’d probably get Mommy and Daddy in trouble too.

The Princess gave me a smile and a gentle pat on the back, and I was sure she’d seen past my face and found out just how nervous I was. “There there, I didn’t mean to worry you, Sunset. I was just trying to get to know you a bit better. You are a very special little filly, after all.”

“Huh? I'm special?” I tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean. “How am I special?”

“You have incredible potential for greatness within you. I would hate to see all that potential go to waste.” One of her huge wings wrapped over my shoulders. “It's not every day I see a child on my throne and issuing commands as if she were born for it, after all.”

Reminding me of what she’d caught me doing made me feel guilty all over again. “I'm really sorry about sitting on your throne, Miss Princess. Please don't tell Mommy and Daddy.”

“It’ll be our secret.” She winked at me, and one of her hooves came up and ruffled my mane. “Though I should caution you not to do that again. If anypony else had walked in on you, they might not have been so understanding. You might even have been sent to bed without dessert, and that is a fate I would not wish on any child.” She chuckled. “And now all this talk is making me hungry for some cake. Perhaps after our other business is finished.”

“Other business?” I frowned and tried to figure out what she meant by that. “What do you mean? Is there something you want me to do?

She paused and looked toward the doors. “Surely you’ve wondered why there were no guards keeping you from entering the throne room, and why I’m here alone? This meeting was not a matter of random chance. I came here to meet you, and you were drawn to my throne room in order to meet me.”

I hadn’t really thought of that before, but she was right. Normally there would be a guardpony whose job was to make sure nopony snuck into the throne room and stole the throne or sat on it or something. Still, the rest of what she said didn’t make any sense. “Why would you wanna meet me, and how would I know to go to the throne to meet you? I was just exploring, and...”

“Of course, it’s not that destiny drew you to this place, you just arrived here by happy coincidence.” She smiled and ran a hoof over my mane. “I find that fate seems to enjoy hiding its designs. You see, I believe that everypony has a destiny, Sunset. We all have our paths, and all of our choices in life will affect the direction they take. Sometimes our destiny will not take the form we expect, but in the end it will be fulfilled.”

I stared at her, trying to process it all. “Are you saying you let me in here because I have some kinda destiny?”

“I am.” She extended one of her hooves to me. “You have a great destiny before you, Sunset Shimmer. One I would dearly love to help you forge.”

“You wanna help me?” This was all getting to be a bit too much. I had a special destiny. One that Princess Celestia wanted to help me figure out. This morning I’d been trying to figure out if I wanted orange juice or chocolate milk with breakfast. “But you're the princess, and I'm just ... well I’m me.”

“Yes, you are.” She shook her head. “It never ceases to amaze me, how so many ponies can see themselves as nothing but ordinary. How they fail to grasp that everypony is a unique and special individual, precious and irreplaceable.” She looked down at me, and her face looked super-serious even though her voice was still nice and gentle. “Never forget that you are a very special pony in your own right.”

“Really?” I’d never heard anything like that before. “How special?”

“Very special.” Her eyes turned to the throne. “You seemed quite at home on my throne. Perhaps some day, if you work very hard and learn everything I have to teach you, you’ll have one of your own. Though for now, I think I have a question for you: Would you like to become my apprentice?”

“Me? Become your apprentice?” I couldn’t believe my own ears. Princess Celestia wanted me to be her apprentice. Me!

Celestia answered me with a smile that had just a tiny bit of mirth in it. “Of course, you’re under no obligation to accept if you don’t want to—”

“Yes!” I quickly cut in, jumping up as high as I could to make sure she heard me. “Yes! I wanna be your apprentice! More than anything in the history of anything! Please let me be your apprentice! Please please please!

The Princess smirked and ruffled my mane. “Considering I asked you first, I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t want you as my student. However, to make things official, yes. I, Princess Celestia, do hereby declare that Sunset Shimmer is my personal apprentice.”

“Yay!” I started bouncing around the room and singing at the top of my lungs. “I’m the princess’ student! I’m Celestia’s apprentice!” I kept that up for a bit, until I noticed that the princess was giving me one of those patient looks adults always give kids when the kid is acting really silly, but the adult doesn’t wanna make a big deal over it or tell them to stop. It took a bit, but I managed to settle down and not act too excited about it all. “I'm gonna be your apprentice! This is so cool! I promise I'll study really hard every day!”

“Well, hopefully not every day. Anypony who tries to do that would wear themselves out.” The princess smiled, and put one of her wings around me to pull me up closer. “I’m sure we can fit some time for friends and leisure into your training schedule. And of course we will need to tell your parents, once they’re done with their business.”

“Oh yeah!” I’d almost completely forgotten about them, I’d been so excited about being Princess Celestia’s student. For a moment I was worried they’d be sad I wouldn’t be studying with them, but they were probably too busy to really help me anyway. It wasn’t like they’d ever had time for me before. Besides, having me trained by the princess would probably be a big honor. “Mommy and Daddy are gonna be so proud of me!”

The princess answered by giving me a little squeeze with her wing. “I think they will be very proud of you, Sunset. You deserve it.”

Yeah, I did. I had a special destiny, after all. “So, what're you gonna teach me first?”

Princess Celestia chuckled and ruffled my mane again. “Well, somepony’s eager. Slow down just a little, Sunset. I’m glad you want to get straight to work, but I still need to draw out my lesson plans and decide exactly what I’m going to teach you first. Obviously we’ll be focusing on pyromancy, but I don’t want to restrict you to being a one-trick pony. Not to mention all the other details to sort out, such as arranging for your room in the palace.”

“My room?” It took me a second to figure out what exactly that meant. “I get to stay in the palace? That’s so cool!”

“I’m glad you like it, then.” For just a second, Celestia’s ears fell and she looked really sad. “Long ago, I learned the risks of letting ponies with a great destiny stray from my side. As I said, destiny does not always take the form we expect, or that which we would prefer.”

She was quiet for a bit longer, and then was all smiles again. “But let us not linger on things long past. You will be living in the palace, both to make it easier for me to teach you, and so we can have some time together outside of our lessons. I do hope you can come to see me not just as your teacher, also as a friend. At least, as much as our stations will allow. If nothing else, I will need somepony to help me eat the rather large cake I’ve had my chefs preparing for a special occasion.”

“Neat!” For a second I forgot she was the princess and hugged her. Before I could get too scared about the fact that I probably wasn’t supposed to be hugging a princess, she hugged me back. Hugging Princess Celestia felt kinda weird, ‘cause she was so big. Plus she had wings, and I’d never hugged a pony with wings before. And she was really warm.

Princess Celestia pulled me a bit closer. “I'm looking forward to being your teacher, Sunset.”

I smiled up at her. “I'm gonna be the best student you’ve ever had! Promise!”

Next Chapter: A Moment of Anger Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes
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