"And what might your name be, young lady?"

Morning Glory looked up at the alicorn in front of her, Princess Luna, one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and ruler of Equestria... smiling cheerfully at her. It was a very nice smile, the kind that is all the more precious because it was from someone who didn't smile very often, and didn't think she was very good at it, so she put all of her heart into it...

All of that flashed through Glory's mind in an instant as she said, "Morning Glory, your highness."

Luna nodded, and asked, "So, Morning Glory, you're here to take the test for becoming my student?"

Glory nodded and said, "Yes, your highness." She was proud of being able to keep the sarcasm out of her voice: After all, Luna likely didn't know anything about all of the frustration that Glory had gone through today...

"Before we begin, may I ask why?" the princess asked, her tone curious.

"I want to learn magic," the filly answered immediately.

"You do?" Luna asked, seeming to be surprised by that response.

Glory couldn't help rolling her eyes as she recited, for the one hundredth eighty-seventh time today, "Yes, I do. Yes, I know I'm an earth pony, not a unicorn. Yes, I know that every other applicant is a unicorn. And yes, I know that earth ponies aren't known for being able to do magic." She cleared her throat, then added, "But I love magic. I can't give you a reason why, I just do. I've read every book that I can on magical theory and application, as small a supply of books like that as there are in Cloudsdale. It's all unicorn magic, though, and it doesn't really tell me anything I can use. If I want to learn magic, I need a teacher, and if there's anyone who might be able to teach an earth pony how to use magic, it would be you or your sister... your highness."

And then, the most magical thing in Glory's entire life happened. It was a single, magnificent moment that came so unexpectedly that anypony else might have missed it, but to Glory, it was a moment that seemed to last a lifetime, and was more wonderful than words could express: Princess Luna took a moment to digest what Glory had just said, and actually considered what the young mare had said, instead of instantly dismissing it as impossible.

Glory had, since she was two and a half years old, and had watched a performer named 'The Great And Powerful Trixie' put on a show, been fascinated by magic. Less than half a day after seeing that magnificent performance, Glory had immediately begun studying magic, and had made no secret of her desire to become a wizard...

...And not a single pony, not even Miss Butterbean, had really took her one hundred percent seriously. Adults considered it a filly's fancy, to eventually be forgotten. Other fillies and colts considered it a reason for mockery and derisive comments, if not out outright physical bullying. Nopony believed it could be done, never even considered that an earth pony could learn magic.

And yet here was a pony, maybe the only pony in the entire world asides from herself, who actually considered that maybe, just maybe, it could be done.

It took all of Glory's self-control not rush over and hug Princess Luna in that moment, hug her so hard that it might break something.

"Very well," Luna said, after a moment, "I will give you the same test that I have given every other applicant. If you pass it, then we will discuss your future as my student. If not, well, we'll see what else might be done."

That, if anything, was even more incredible to Glory: She'd wagered so much on this test, and deep down, the thought of failure terrified her after coming so far. The idea that failing the test might not, in fact, be the end of her dream, made her heart soar. As she said, "I'm ready when you are," Glory began wondering if the super-hug, or perhaps even the turbo-hug, had been invented yet. If not, Glory would need to do so herself...

With another magnificent smile, Luna said, "Very well. I will warn you, not a single applicant has managed to pass this test to my satisfaction. Do you think you can succeed where dozens have failed today?"

With a level of bravado that she didn't necessarily feel, Glory replied, "I don't know if I can, but I'll do my best."

"Good," Luna said, and then, with a more formal tone, she asked, "Do you see the door behind me?"

Glory looked at the door in question, needing to tilt to one side to see it past the tall alicorn, and then said, "I see it, your highness."

Luna gave a regal nod, and announced, "The test ends when you open that door."

What.

That was the test? Glory couldn't believe it. Tilting her head to one side, she asked the lunar princess, "Seriously?"

The alicorn nodded and said, "Seriously." And somehow, the tone she'd said it in almost seemed to imply that she was congratulating Glory on having asked just that one, brief question.

Opening a door? It couldn't be that simple, could it?

And then, a dark, ugly suspicion came to Glory's mind, and she asked, "You're not going easy on me just because I'm an earth pony, are you?" If the alicorn was, Glory would walk out the door right then and there: Like just about every Earth Pony on the planet, Morning Glory had her pride, and if she was going to be treated as less of a pony just because of a lack of wings or a horn, she'd rather march home than accept an 'easier' test than everypony else...

Luna immediately shook her head, and said, "I assure you, I am giving you the exact same test that I have given every other applicant." And her tone was such that Glory could not help but believe her.

"And they all failed the test?" Morning Glory asked, an eyebrow raised. Somehow, the test seemed so simple, and yet every single pony who'd taken it had failed so quickly? There was something going on here...

"Every last one," Luna stated bluntly.

"Right," Glory said aloud, then added, repeating what Luna had said before: "The test ends when you open that door." There was more to that sentence than it seemed, and Glory was beginning to suspect what might be going on. Still, before she jumped in, she needed to rule out the other possibilities.

Glory formed a checklist in her mind, and began ticking off things one by one with the princess.

"If I try to open the door, will you do anything to stop me?" It was a serious concern: Maybe the test involved trying to figure out a way to outsmart Princess Luna. It was unlikely that she expected somepony to overpower her, but cunning might be something that the alicorn was looking for in a student.

"Not at all," the princess of the moon answered, "not at all."

"Is the door locked in any way, magically or otherwise?" Morning Glory asked, studying the door again. It didn't seem to be, but what did she know: She was from a city made of clouds, after all.

"No," Luna answered, a small smile forming on her face.

Morning Glory gave this a moment of thought, then inquired, "Is there some sort of monster that tries to eat me if I try to open the door, or tries to stop me from opening it in any way?" It seemed highly unlikely, but given how little had actually been revealed about the nature of this test, it was still a possibility.

"A guardian? No," Luna answered, then chuckled, seeming to find the idea funny.

Glory turned her head to the right, and asked, "What IS on the other side of that door?" Somehow, it didn't seem important, but it might be worth asking...

"It's a broom closet," the alicorn stated immediately. "If you like, I could show you."

"I... don't think that will be necessary," Morning Glory said after a moment's thought. If it was that unimportant, then it wasn't worth seeing. Then, after a sudden thought entered her head, she added, "Would I pass the test, or fail the test, if you opened the door for me?"

"Neither," Luna answered, then added, "The test ends when you open that door. Not when I open the door."

Right, and that was what it kept coming back to: The test ends when Glory opens the door, but the test ending is not the same as Glory passing the test. The other applicants, so certain of their victory, had immediately opened the door, and had instantly failed the test almost as soon as it began, Glory realized. That was what everypony had done wrong: They'd acted without thinking about what Luna had said had actually meant. Verbalizing that realization, she asked, "But opening the door doesn't necessarily mean I pass the test?"

"True," came Luna's reply, followed by a chuckle, and somehow, without a noticeable change of expression, the princess seemed much more... enthusiastic about the test. Glory had hit upon something important, it seemed, and Luna was now eager to see if the young filly could manage to grasp the answer.

"If I opened the door right now," Glory began, "would I pass or fail the test?" It didn't hurt to ask, given how the princess seemed more into the test than before.

"I wouldn't say you'd pass, exactly," the princess admitted, "but you'd come a great deal closer than all the other applicants have." Somehow, the way she said it implied that the word 'combined' could have been tacked to the end of that sentence, but good manners prevented her from doing so.

"Fair enough." It rarely hurts to ask, after all. After a moment, Glory decided to test the limits on this particular test: "May I ask the guard a few questions?"

"Feel free," Luna responded, after a moment's thought. Glory had anticipated that response: It seemed that the only rule to the test, thus far, was that it ended when Glory opened the door. Anything else was probably made up as they went along...

Turning to the guard, Glory asked, "This is the same test she gave all the other colts and fillies?"

The guard nodded.

"You promise?" Glory asked, wanting absolute certainty before she continued.

"If I lie to you here and now," the captain announced with formality, "may my wings fly off without me, and never return."

That was not an oath to make lightly, as it had a bad habit of coming true.

Satisfied, Glory moved on to the next question: "Okay. Do you know how to pass the test?"

"No," the guard admitted, "but I can tell you how all of the other applicants failed, if you like."

Now that might be useful information. "How?"

"They opened the door," the guard stated with a smile. Glory had the good grace to ignore the stifled chuckle from Luna, behind her. The filly supposed that it was kind of funny.

"Thank you for your help," Morning Glory said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Just a hint, though: The stallion had confirmed more or less everything that Glory had suspected, after all.

"My pleasure," the guard replied.

Turning back to Luna, the filly asked, "Just what is the purpose of this test?"

That seemed to really make Luna's day: She smiled and said, "After the test is over, I'll explain it to you, pass or fail."

"Promise?" Morning Glory asked, unable to keep the skepticism off of her face and out of her voice.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," Luna immediately answered.

Somehow, those words seemed to have more power and meaning behind them than even the oath that the guard had made, just moments ago. Some instinct told Glory that breaking that particular promise would have consequences far more dire than simple loss of wings...

Bringing her thoughts back to the moment at hand, Glory formed a new mental checklist and asked, "So, is there a special way of opening the door that will guarantee that I pass?"

"No," Princess Luna answered immediately.

"Any sort of secret knock or password?" Glory asked, tilting her head to one side again.

"No," came the alicorn's prompt response.

Tilting her head the other way, the filly asked, "And if I open the door, right now, I'll still fail the test?"

"Yes," Luna said, then paused, and said, "Although you're a lot closer to passing the test than you were before."

Glory stopped, and considered that. She had gotten closer to passing than before? How? Glory sat perfectly still, and pondered. She did nothing but think...

All she'd done is ask questions, and yet she seemed to be so close now that Luna seemed almost on the verge of volunteering the information herself. And yet...

If she'd been gotten more sleep and on an actual bed, instead of sleeping out in the open and starting at every noise (And it is just amazing how noisy the 'Great Outdoors' can be on any given night) for a week, maybe it would have come to her, but the secret to passing the test eluded her. It wasn't just on the tip of her tongue, but on the tip of her brain as well, but it refused to come out, no matter how much she wanted to...

Finally, after three minutes, she did something she only ever did when she was really and truly frustrated, an embarrassing habit that she just couldn't seem to get rid of: She blew a breath through her lips with a distinct 'pbpbpbpbpbpbp' sound, threw her forelegs in the air, and admitted, "I don't get it: Just what is the point of this test? I mean, you're asking me to do something any pony could do. I mean, even you could do it, and a lot easier than I could! You're taller than me, so you wouldn't even need to stretch to reach the knob, and you wouldn't have to strain to open it, even if you didn't use magic!" Finally, frustration nearly bringing her to tears, Glory asked, "How am I supposed to pass the test?!"

And even as she said it, Glory realized that she had found the answer: Luna had never once said that Glory couldn't ask for that one piece of vital information. In fact, Luna had answered every question readily, and without any sort of deceit, without condition or admonishment. The test was, at its core, about realizing what it was Luna was actually saying, and asking what needed to be done to pass the test, instead of just blindly doing what Glory had thought that Luna was asking.

Luna, confirming Glory's realization, replied, "By asking how you're supposed to pass the test, and then opening the door." Glory knew she couldn't keep the look of surprise off of her face, but it wasn't because of Luna's announcement. Instead, it was an image that suddenly passed through the filly's young mind...

An alicorn with a coat as black as the darkest night, with blue, cat-slit eyes, her mane and tail a blue nimbus filled with stars, and wearing blue armor, stood before a crowd of trembling ponies, all of them visibly terrified of the mighty being before them. The reason for that terror might have had something to do with the fact that Princess Celestia lay prone before this vision of darkness, with one of the black alicorn's hooves resting upon the defeated princess' neck. With a mad grin, Nightmare Moon proclaimed, "The night will last... FOREVER!!!" She burst into deranged laughter, as a great wail of lamentation filled the crowd of ponies, so loud that Glory almost missed the fact that there were two ponies laughing wickedly...

That was when Glory saw it: A smaller pony, little more than a filly, with a coat as white as chalk, and a mane and tail as black as ink, who stood beside Nightmare Moon, perched upon Celestia's flank, posturing and gloating as if she'd had an equal share in the solar princess' defeat, and was laughing along with the mad alicorn. Her laughter just as mad and twisted as her mentor's, if not more so...

And that filly was very, very familiar. After all, even if the coat, mane, and tail were a different color, she still had a face that Glory saw every day.

Every time she looked at her own reflection, in fact.

'This is what the test is really about, even if she'll never admit it out loud,' something inside Glory told her. 'This is what she fears more than anything else in the world: That she'll become like this again, and that whoever her student is, they'll follow her down into darkness with her, if they're just as loyal as 'Celestia's loyal student'. She doesn't want a student who obeys, she wants a student who THINKS!'

As quickly as it was there, the image and voice vanished, and Luna said, "Congratulations, by the way. If you will kindly open the door, we'll begin discussing your future as my student."

While it was embarrassing to admit it, Glory had to stretch and strain a little to do so.

Author's Notes:

You know, whenever I hear Nightmare Moon say that one line, I can't help but remember that Powerpuff Girls episode where The Boogie Man proclaims 'We're gonna make this night last forever!' I wonder if anyone has shipped those two yet.