Twilight shrieked as her crown fell toward the floor, and caught her breath after Spike lunged forward to catch it as if a slow-motion movie scene was being shot. "No need to thank me, it's what I do," he said, as she magically placed the crown atop her head.

"No, I think I do." Twilight giggled, as the hall's luminescent diamond-like coat reflected off her styled mane, blue gown and shoes. She gave her body the command to spread her wings as she continued walking through the hallway, but only her left wing spread, and only halfway. "You'd think after watching Princess Celestia wear a crown for who knows how long, it'd be easy."

Spike grabbed the crown to put it atop his head as he walked beside her. "Umm, beginner's luck?"

Twilight grabbed it back as he nervously smiled. "Center of balance, Spike, you don't gain a few inches all at once and expect to feel in the same body."

"True... It probably took Princess Celestia over a month, too, to get the hang of it."

"I doubt that," Twilight said, walking past the dozens of royal guards who took down the many pictures of King Sombra magically attached to the walls. The frames sparkled as if newly bought, while the dust of one thousand years blackened the surface behind them. "The princess is a natural, that's actually why I'm... maaaybe a little more than just nervous about her not understanding."

"What are you saying? Princess Celestia is one of the nicest ponies there is. I mean, it's kind of weird that she had a random dragon egg lying around, not that I think about that or anything, but she took you in as her own. Who knows where you'd be without her, let alone whose assistant I'd be."

"And that's why I'm scared." Twilight continued looking away as they entered a portion of the hall made devoid of green and purple portraits. "Don't get me wrong, I'd never say the Princess isn't understanding, but... it's like giving back a gift. You can be mad about that and still be understanding, right?"

"Twilight..." Spike said with the tone of an upset teacher.

"You're right, it's all in my head, like always... I'm just going to discuss doubts, nothing more," Twilight said, catching her breath until her smile returned. A door of white light glimmered a minute's gallop ahead. "You know, I'm surprised... I never expected you to be this mature about all this."

"But then again, she could completely take it the wrong way and think of you as a major disappointment."

"Spike!" Twilight yelled as he laughed.

"Kidding, kidding, obviously... AJ did always tell me to be honest over polite... You got nothing to worry about."

"Only doubts," Twilight said, extending one of her front hooves three times as she walked into the door of white. She titled her crown to make it level as she exited onto a crystalline stage set in the middle of a stadium packed with tens of thousands of ponies, griffons and other creatures. Sunlight sparkled on the crystalline coat over every surface and the pillar-like crystals that flanked the stage and shook from the crowd's never-ending cheers.

Twilight walked through the hundred, armed royal guards on the stage, and galloped toward the three Princesses, who sat on thrones adorned with the sun, moon, or a heart. Celestia smiled as her student made it to a yard from the empty throne beside her.

"It's about time!" Rainbow Dash yelled, knocking Twilight backward from the volume. "The Equestria Games are a minute away, which means that Equestria is a minute away from winning, and you come now?"

"Princess Celestia did have her groomers spend a little too much time on me, but then again it is my first royal appearance since the coronation." Twilight laughed as she got up to the sight of her five friends, while Spike glared at Rarity instead of giving his usual starstruck eyes.

"And I do have to say, it was definitely worth the wait, darling," Rarity said, inspecting her friend's mane down to the nanometer and fixing it for any last second touch-ups.

"I'd say yer usual mane has more to like 'bout it; it makes ya look more like a princess o' the common pony. But that's just me," Applejack said, before Rainbow hovered to an inch in front of Twilight's face again.

"Forget about the mane. You'll be able to see me fly the whole race from here, right? Right?"

Twilight nodded for a full ten seconds, before Dash continued.

"Good, 'cuz anything else is minutia."

Every pony stood silently as they stared at one another.

"Hey, I like some using of the words I learn reading," Dash said, before the six erupted into laughter. Spike gave one chuckle.

"Don't forget to also cheer just as hard for my animals." Fluttershy spoke softly, before using a normal volume once everypony gave her their attention. "And can you all please remind me to thank Princess Cadence for letting there be an animal division this time. I don't want to think I'm not grateful."

"I'm curious... why isn't party throwing an event...? What?" Pinkie Pie yelled when nopony responded.

"I'll explain later, Pinkie," Dash said, as royal guards in black suits and sunglasses escorted a stallion in a Sombra mask out of a packed exit gate. Twilight flinched as the stallion shot a magical beam at the guards before being magically restrained, and glanced backward to find Celestia still smiling and staring. "It stinks we can't sit together, though."

"Yeah... though, now that I think about it... now we'll never get to cheer together," Twilight said, her eyes locked with her teacher's. "Well, I'll see you between events then," she said, tiptoeing away from her friends.

"Hold on there... Ya ain't done here yet," Applejack said, handing her a book.

"It's a scrapbook!" Pinkie yelled as her friend magically grabbed it.

"The design was my idea, of course," Rarity said, as Twilight teared up after opening it to a page full of pictures of when she first went to Ponyville. "But it was all our idea."

"We've all come a long way. Me with the Wonderbolts, Rarity with her business, Fluttershy with her fears," Dash said. "I'd usually be against something sappy like this, but I knew you'd like it, so I was like, why not."

"Thank you," Twilight said, holding the memories against her chest. "I... I don't even know what to say. What do I say?"

"Ya got plenty o' time to think o' a response," AJ said, as the five walked away. "Now get on over to yer throne. Seems like the Princess is waitin' on ya."

Twilight nodded before walking toward her seat.

"Twilight... Excuse me..." Fluttershy said, galloping to her friend before taking out from her bag a crown similar to Celestia's. "I didn't want to forget... Somepony gave this to me to give to you."

"Umm, okay... Do I know this pony?"

"I didn't know him... I thought maybe you would since you're royalty now. I've actually never seen a crown this pale and red."

"Fluttershy, just because... Wait, red?" Twilight paused to stare at her gift. "This... is clearly yellow. And the white isn't pale at all."

"No, it's not; the edges, they're all red... I mean, I'm not being too rude by disagreeing, right?"

Twilight glanced backward to hear her teacher's muffled laughter, "Let's... discuss this later," and put the crown in her gown before running to her seat. "Sorry about the delay, princess."

"No need to worry, I recall when Luna and I would give each other such gifts in our youth." The Princess continued giggling as her student silently sat.

"The talk... remember the talk," Spike mouthed, following his five friends to the stadium seats.

Twilight wasted no time before turning to the Princess. "Sorry, Princess, but do you have a minute. I really--"

Fireworks banged above the roaring crowds. "After the ceremony. We do not want to be rude, now do we?" Celestia whispered, as a crystal mare ran into the stadium while carrying a diamond-colored flame. The pony lit the torch beside the stage, after which applause shook every surface. Twilight looked away from the hundreds of audiance members waving at her, as her brother walked to a podium to give the opening speech.

"So then, you had something to say," Celestia said as Shining Armor stepped down. Ponies, griffons and minotaurs gathered for the wingless 10 km marathon. One magical shot onto a cymbal later, the racers began their gallop across the track.

"Oh, yeah..." Twilight sat, sitting up and folding her hooves. "Actually, I mean..."

"I'd hope that after all these years, I've done a well enough job of ensuring that you are comfortable around me."

"No, no, of course I am." Twilight looked down, while her teacher continued laughing. "I just... have concerns..."

"If you are concerned about the safety of this event, then you have nothing to worry about."

"No, about... me... Like, about me... being a princess. I'm still so unsure of how this is going to effect my life. Like... My apologies for saying like so much... Like, am I supposed to treat other ponies differently now? Are they supposed to treat me differently? How differently do I have to act now? I just have so many questions; I feel like my head is about to explode sometimes." Pain shot through Twilight's wings as the sides of her thin throne compressed them as she leaned back, so she spread them. "I feel like this body doesn't belong to me, like somepony else deserves it more. If I can get wings, then why can't a pegasus who has wing deformities? If--"

"Twilight, my child," Celestia said, caressing her student no matter how many ponies in the crowd stared. "Princess Cadence is free to do as she pleases, as is your brother; don't forget, he is a prince, after all."

"But you're not... What if in the future I'm like you and not Cadence." Seconds passed before Twilight spoke again. "I'm so sorry. I'm... I didn't mean--"

Celestia laughed as she took her hoof off her student's shoulder. "No offense taken from a question asked without malice. Twilight, do you remember the feeling you had when you first entered Ponyville?"

"Of course... Frankly, I thought everypony was crazy, and I couldn't wait 'till I was back with you."

"Think of how quickly your feelings changed," Celestia said as her student kept her head lowered. The crowds roared as the racers began the final lap. "It is natural to feel this way; in time, all your worries will be answered... In fact, meet me in my palace tonight; I will answer any and all questions you may have."

Twilight nodded as a smile grew cut through the powder over her cheeks. A royal guard stopped his patrol once in front of her to block her view of the race. "I know safety is always the number one priority, but is all this security really necessary?"

"I believe it is, and so does your brother," Celestia said, as the racers sped toward the finish line. Their sweat blew backward as arrows as they lowered their head to cut through the wind during their sprint. "Sombra may have been defeated, but do not think that there are not ponies that miss his rule."

"But... he was a monster--"

"The same way we see harmony, the same some see evil. Never forget this, or one day, I fear this lesson will be forced upon you."

Twilight flinched as the crowd's cheering reached a deafening volume. Las Pegasus's racer finished first, while Ponyville's racers finished toward the end, but ponies and creatures from every corner of the globe continued their applause as if their family had won.

"Not even surprised." Twilight giggled as Fluttershy cheered the hardest among her friends.

"You may go to them, you know. The next event doesn't begin in some time."

Twilight gave the princess a cheesy smile before leaping so fast out of her throne that her crown fell, and charged toward the stadium seats. Rainbow Dash picked herself off the ground after falling from the shock of Fluttershy's bomb-like cheers, while the rest laughed with smiles that made Twilight freeze and take out her scrapbook. The happiness that had overtaken her friends looked no different than the one that convinced her to stay in Ponyville after Nightmare Moon's defeat. Nor was it different from the hundreds of other moments they all shared, all captured in the pictures where she laughed beside her family. Her yellow and white crown fell from her gown. Her horn lit up as she picked it up, and that was when the first bomb exploded.

A white flash spread throughout the stadium as rapidly as sunlight, after which silence and a blinding brightness replaced every one of Twilight's senses. Her whole body went comatose, and her hair stood still through the windless air. The sound of her breathing grew, from faint noises within her mind to until it overtook the silence. An electrical green fire engulfed her body and the inside of her windpipe, until a hurricane-like wind of lightning pierced her eyes.

An orange bubble of fire from the sun surrounded Twilight as time sped up to its normal pace. The green flames blew past her field of view, and Celestia grunted as she kept her horn lit. A green flash shot out from beneath the Princess's belly, after which Twilight's bubble vanished and dropped her to the ash and blackened grass. Electrical fire engulfed the stage, and explosions rocked every part of the stadium to swallow up thousands of ponies at once before they had the chance to scream.

Twilight dropped her scrapbook as the ground shook, and surrounded herself in a bubble before an explosion on the track beside her could slap away the book. She charged her horn to begin a teleportation spell as she screamed at her friends, who hung onto Dash as she flew upward. The explosions caught them within a second.

Twilight's throat scratched from her growls as she teleported to the glass-like ruins of an exit gate. She magically slammed the hoofcuffed, Sombra-masked stallion against the wall after picking him up from the ground, and slammed him again as he laughed. "Do you want to be slaves? Is that it? My friends and I were ready to die to free you ponies--"

"We planned so long to attack the games." Ashy winds blew from the green glow that hovered overhead, and blew off the stallion's mask to reveal his crystal face. "And somepony else does a better job than we ever could."

The glow over Twilight's horn dulled, and she dropped him as he continued his cackles. "W... What--"

The two froze as her yellow crown fell onto the electrified ash. "Where did you get this?" the stallion said, before yelling. "Where did you steal this from?"

"I... My friend--"

"I know Celestia would never give anypony her father's crown, especially you. That belongs to the Crystal Empire, Equestrian... so tell me, where did you steal it?"

Twilight continued stuttering, but could form no words for a response.

"How fitting, a crown so ghostly for a pony so poisoned by harmony."

Twilight stared at the sun-like yellow tips of her crown, and had to squint to shield her eyes from its heavenly white. "But it's... beautiful."