It was on top of the gatehouse that Gosling found his mother, who watched as various flights of pegasi and pigeons arrived and departed. As he approached, he saw that her face was troubled, she looked out of sorts, sad perhaps, or disappointed. He gave himself a shake, flapped once, and then, saying nothing in greeting, he walked up and smooched his mother on the cheek.

The sleek white pegasus turned to look at him and Gosling saw one maternal eyebrow arch in concern. Right away, he felt like a foal again, and he stood there, bracing himself for what was sure to be a mommy-moment. He saw his mother inhale and there was a brief instance of panic, a conditioned response if ever there was one, the conditioned response of mother-loving sons everywhere.

“Gosling, you have grass stains… your feathers are mussed”—Sleet shook her head and let out a sigh as she rolled her eyes—“but at least you look happy.” The clean white pegasus took a step backwards, reached up with her wing, and with an oft-practiced flick of her feathers, she knocked some grass out of Gosling’s mane, while still somehow remaining clean and spotless herself.

“How are ya, Ma?”

“I’m good,” she replied, “I’ve been spending time with Skyfire. She’s taking all of this hard. She feels like everything that happened is her fault—”

“Oh for the love of cheese and crackers,” Gosling muttered.

“Are you mad at her?” Sleet asked. “For feeling this way?”

“No.” Gosling gave his wings a flap and sent some grass flying off in the breeze. The flap did nothing to fix the deplorable state of his feathers however. He envied his mother’s ability to remain flawless and white somehow, it was as if even the dust and grime of everyday living was scared to mar her perfect pelt. Some pegasi were a pale shade of pink that looked white, others blue, some a faint shade of yellow, but his mother was stark white that gleamed with blue highlights in the right lighting.

“No, Ma, I ain’t mad. This whole situation though… ugh. I’ve learned a whole lot.”

“Have you, Gosling?” Sleet looked up at her son, her ice blue eyes glittering in the sun. “What have you learned, Gosling?”

“Well,” Gosling replied, wondering where to start. “I’ve learned that Princess Celestia is so afraid of breaking her promise or her word that the very thought of doing so gives her a panic attack.” He stood for a moment, admiring his mother’s beauty as the gusting breeze lifted her mane away from her face. His mother smelled of peppermint at the moment.

“I’ve learned that Princess Luna can have a building dropped on top of her and she’ll be fine.” As he spoke, he saw his mother’s mouth fall open and her eyes went wide with concern. “I’ve also learned that alicorns are really heavy, and I don’t know why. I’m afraid to ask. I’ve learned that both sisters are more aware of things in the world around them than they let on. I’ve learned that just about everything I do is a test of some sort, and I do mean everything. There is a lot of pressure to be a good prince, when the time comes.” Gosling’s ears drooped and he let out a snort. “Prince Consort. It means that I earned my crown by being shaggable and being good breeding material.”

“Gosling, sometimes that’s enough. You’ve studied history. You and I both know that there have been consorts that have done extraordinary things. You’re handsome, and yes, I’d like to think that I passed on the very best sort of genes that genetics has to offer, but you’re also smart, capable, funny, and, well, you’re you. You are the fearless little pegasus that fell in love with his Princess Celestia stuffy and wanted to have chivalrous, noble adventures, battle dragons, and rescue her from the tallest tower—”

“Ma.” Gosling felt himself blushing.

“I talked with Princess Cadance, Gosling, she says that you have endless potential. You’re more than just good breeding stock. Just be patient and give it time, you’ll prove yourself. Everypony will know that you are more than just some pretty pegasus.”

“But I am a pretty pegasus.” Covered in grass stains, Gosling struck a pose. He deflated a bit when he heard a derisive snort from his mother. He knew how she felt about good grooming, and he was in a less than perfect state right now. He gave her a sheepish grin, and he saw a smile spread over her muzzle.

“You are a pretty pegasus… when you are clean.” Sleet’s lip curled back in disgust. “What were you doing rolling in the grass anyway? What did I tell you? If you absolutely must roll in something, do so in a cloud. You’ll come away clean and refreshed.”

“Um…” Gosling thought about what he was doing just a little while ago in the grass. Just a little bit of kissy-face and making out. Nothing else. Nope. Nothing else at all. And the princess certainly hadn’t committed acts of frottage upon him while going on about smiting those who threatened her little ponies. He changed the subject to avoid thinking about it. “So, uh, any word on Skyfire and her future plans?”

A surprised look appeared upon Sleet’s face and she stared up at her son. She blinked a few times, her bright blue eyes curious, and then her expression softened into one of maternal pride. “That’s very grown up of you to ask, Gosling. Caring for one who has wronged you.”

“You raised me right,” Gosling said in a sheepish voice.

“Yeah, I did,” Sleet replied, without a moment’s hesitation. “Skyfire will be doing her training at the Ashlands Camp. She still doesn’t know what she wants to do, but she’s willing to accept a post there. More benefits for having a post there.”

The Ashlands. Gosling lifted his head. That was a rough place. Located further south from the horrifying Froggy Bottom Bogg, the Ashlands was the area around Mount Maud, Equestria’s newest volcano. It was a place of hostile magic and strange ponies, the ash ponies. In the central Ashlands, only certain earth ponies and crystal ponies could survive the magical radiation, and it had changed them, turning them and their offspring into the ash ponies. Strange crystal trees and plants grew there. He had heard stories about giant vegetables grown in the ash, but as far as he knew, they were just stories. He knew of the Ashlands Camp through gossip, the camp itself wasn’t in the hot zone, but existed between the Ashlands and Las Pegasus.

At one point, he had thought about accepting a post there, because the pay was fantastic.

“She’s still so scared, Gosling. Would it kill you to go and have just a little talk with her?” Sleet asked.

“Not until she’s sweated a bit and earned it, Ma,” Gosling replied.

“Gossy—”

“Ma,” Gosling said, interrupting his mother, “this whole experience I’ve gone through… everything I’ve learned… I’ve been left to dangle. I’ve had to sweat things out and figure things out on my own. I’ve had to come across the answers to the things I needed to learn the hard way. Why, I even got a face full of Princess Cadance’s magic and I’ve learned that she’s probably the most powerful out of all the different alicorns.” He shuddered at the memory. “Ma, we’re herd animals. We’re content to follow whoever is next to us or ahead of us in the herd, never questioning, never learning, content to just blindly go along through life. I talked about this in therapy. For us, for equinekind, exceptional individuals are the ones thrown out from their comfort zones and forced to face life without the buffer of the herd around them. It’s called singular learning. It means that we have to actually figure out what is going on and how to adapt to it, and not just mimic the behaviours of the ponies around us in the herd.”

Shocked, Sleet stared up at her son.

“Skyfire has been tossed out of the herd. She has the opportunity to become an exceptional individual. I’m not about to rob her of that. If given the chance, and if she takes that chance, she’ll probably go on to become a magnificent individual. A gifted pony who will probably do great things. But for right now, she’s gotta stumble around a whole lot and be so scared that she sharts herself. I’ll go and pay her a visit, and we’ll talk a bit, but I’m not going to make it easy for her.”

“Gosling… I…”

“Ma, this is why the princesses engineer situations where exceptional ponies get run through the ringer. I figured this out on my own. If good ponies didn’t have the squeeze put on them, we wouldn’t have no pillars of society. We’d have a mushy headed society trapped in herd think, with everypony mimicking everypony else around them and nopony doing anything innovative. It’s why Princess Celestia had to toss her student, Twilight, out of Canterlot and into Ponyville. It’s why I had to take that train ride north. And when I’m prince, I’m going to have to temper my need to help others with wisdom and restraint, so I don’t damage what makes our society great.”

“Gosling… where is my little pegasus that I raised?” Sleet asked in a scratchy voice.

“He grew up, Mama.” Gosling felt his throat tighten. “He grew up and realised that being pretty wasn’t enough. He got involved in politics. He got a little therapy. He watched the nation that he loved collapse all around him, and then he saw the good in it.”

Saying nothing, Sleet stepped forwards, extended her wings, and wrapped them around her son’s neck. She buried her face against his neck and then stood there, leaning against him, unable to say a single word. Gosling became aware of the fact that other guardsponies were watching him hug his mother, and he didn’t care.

“I got tossed out of the herd too,” Gosling whispered. “That’s why I came here. My life became unbearable and I just didn’t fit in no more. I had to get out of the Broncs. What I thought was the biggest disaster in my life was actually my biggest opportunity. A chance presented itself. I got to break away from herd think and do a little thinking for myself. And it wasn’t so bad.”

“Gosling, darling… are you… are you gonna…”

“Am I gonna what?” Gosling asked.

“Are you gonna use your influence to make her life a little more difficult?”

“What kinda question is that, Ma?”

“Well, in a good way. To bring out the best in her. I don’t mean to make her miserable, I just mean, well, you know, with everything you said. You could give her the opportunity find out what she’s made of.”

Gosling wasn’t sure what was worse. The fact that his mother understood, or the fact that his mother wanted him to put the squeeze on Skyfire for her own good. He wrapped his wings around his mother, gave her a squeeze, and wondered what he might do for Skyfire. His former fillyfriend might become a great pony someday. She was in need of guidance, of motivation, and healing. She definitely needed healing.

It was at that moment that Gosling had a brain bursting epiphany. Either that, or he was having a stroke, it was hard to tell. He had to lean on his mother as his knees went weak. His brain flooded with insight about herd think, ponies, individuality, and alicorns. He had trouble forming his thoughts into an expression. Individuals, true individuals, those most separated from the herd, those who had separated away from tribe and herd, those who had shrugged off pegasus thinking, or unicorn thinking, or even earth pony thinking, and had thrown off the shackles of herd think, those were the individuals most suited to become alicorns.

A pegasus locked away in pegasus thought would have no need of a horn and no desire to use it. A pegasus that could fly away would have no need of earth pony strength or cleverness to extricate themselves from a scrape, as earth ponies couldn’t just fly away from trouble.

But a pegasus that could embrace how earth ponies thought and approached life? A pegasus not trapped inside of the herd within a herd pegasus think? No longer stuck mimicking the behaviours of the other pegasi around them, mindlessly going about their day, doing what pegasi do? Or a pegasus that embraced how unicorns saw the world?

These would be the only ponies fit to become alicorns, to become a tribe unto themselves, a self contained tribe of one, open to the possibility of anything, with a body to match. A body equipped to deal with any sort of possibility that arose. And it was in that moment that Gosling saw his own potential stretch out before him, an endless expanse of infinite possibilities, and it very nearly crushed him. He wondered if this was how alicorns saw life, the world, and the universe around them.

In his mother’s embrace, he became a foal again. He squeezed his eyes shut as the first few tears slipped down his cheeks. The thoughts inside of his head overwhelmed him, shook him, it made him question everything he thought he knew.

Was this why ponies were stuck being ponies? If they had this awakening, if they were capable of embracing this open mindedness, could all of ponykind evolve into alicorns? Perhaps this had something to do with why there were so few alicorns now. Gosling didn’t know and he certainly didn’t have any idea of how to put his complex thoughts into words, other than his whole species was trapped in herd think.

“Gosling, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Ma… I think I just got better…”

Author's Notes:

I have been waiting so long to write the epiphany chapter. Finally.

Remember, perspectives. Just because a character thinks it, doesn't make it true or right, it is only perspective. So please, no knickers in a knot, please.