Princess Celestia frowned unhappily and looked back, feeling the wind rippling through the Royal Carriage and past her body, causing her mane to quickly get in her eyes before she used a hoof to move her mane out of the way. She watched as Rising below her slowly become smaller and smaller, seemingly determined to stay there until she could no longer discern him from the ground.

She was on her way to watch and enjoy the Running of the Leaves in Ponyville, to be away from the castle and enjoy life and the open, colorful world that lie on the other side of the windows and away from the balcony rails.

As Celestia turned around to get her mane to stop blowing and covering her face, she began to briefly think back earlier today.

Both breakfast and lunch had passed quickly and outside of cleaning up after Rainbow Dash’s little stunt, little else of unusual events happened. Though, having almost a full day where there was no new sudden reveals about Rising was almost unsettling, as whenever she could gather up enough time, she tried to spend some part of the day or evening with Rising, there was just something new about him that came up and changed her perspective again on the former human.

Celestia silently wished for more time to devote to learn more about him, every meeting and discussion with the former human was almost like a new adventure, except that was engaged by talking and listening to somepony who had tales to tell, rather than battling and traveling to distant lands. He was utterly different than anypony she met and either defied, exceeded or met her expectations of what she thought she knew about humans.

Though, Celestia reconsidered. She never actually asked the former human about any tales and adventures. Even looking past his unusual and sometimes violent views, surely there might be something he could tell that was exciting.

Princess Celestia shook her head, chuckling softly as she made a mental note to try and ask Rising once she returned from Ponyville.

As Canterlot City began to shrink, Celestia could see that she was still a good half hour away from the little village, already seeing and making out the lush, library tree in the center of it.

Seeing how she had plenty of time to let her mind wander again, Celestia thought about the current status of the up and coming coronation.

As luck and whatever else could be counted upon would have it, Rising’s identity stayed hidden within the castle. Which would have been reasonable, since both Celestia and her sister made it very clear to the castle’s guards and staff to stop mentioning Rising to anypony who wasn’t another guard or staff. And it seemed as if her nephew finally used his pride obsessed head and kept his mouth shut or was afraid what would happen if he did.

‘Or Rising found out where Blueblood was sleeping and informed my nephew of it,’ the mare mused thoughtfully..

The plans about Rising’s coronation, in the meanwhile, had begun in detail shortly after breakfast, ranging from specific invitations to have personal meet and greets with the former human to teach him about the high noble families who would certainly demand to see and speak to him, invitation or not.

At the end of it all, there was still a need to hire somepony who would teach Rising about certain social interactions between the self-important and the more essential nobles. Rising had protested against the need for it and said that he had enough knowledge dealing in politics.

“We understand you have the knowledge, Rising,” Princess Celestia gently replied, “But as it’s been said several times since your awakening, there’s many differences between your kind and ours.”

Despite some of Rising’s grumbling, he relented and allowed them to schedule and list multiple subjects that Rising would need, though while the number in which would take several months to go through and memorize sufficiently, it was on the same level of rigorous education that Princess Cadance had herself during her early years of becoming a princess.

Both Rising and Princess Celestia had taken to trot silently through the hallways of Canterlot Castle, on the way to the royal carriage that would carry her off to the Running of the Leaves happening in Ponyville, enjoying each other’s company with little need for words or any topic that comes to mind.

Captain Shining Armor meanwhile, trailed along behind them both, yawning and stretching as much as he could. He had taken to being silent and nearly tried being invisible for most of his remaining time being Rising’s escort throughout Canterlot Castle, only answering when he was noticed and talked to.

As they ventured outside of the Castle and out onto the landing field where the carriages were kept, one certain topic did come to mind on Celestia. Though she kept silent on it, mulling on how to ask Rising as she waited for the two Royal Guard Pegasi to finish getting the carriage ready for take off.

It wasn’t until everything was ready and she had nearly boarded the carriage did she finally pause and turned to Rising, “Before I depart, I ... have a question to ask.”

The stallion blinked in curiosity as he commented, “Considering how you’ve been looking around and staring off into space, we must say it has to be quite the question.”

Princess Celestia fell silent for a moment, mostly to sulk at his little jab, before asking, “I’ve noticed since the nights prior to your transformation that you never left for the Night Guard Barracks after classes. Before all this, you were quite determined and eager to ‘get back into shape’ as you say.”

Rising merely gave her a look, almost as if he was disappointed she hadn’t figured it out by now, “Princess Celestia, do foals gallop and calculate advanced mathematics within ten seconds of birth and after their umbilical cord is cut?”

Surprised by the sudden question, she shook her head, in which Rising shook his as well, “Neither did we. Princess, we’re still learning how to walk and gallop and move about on four legs,” He gave three light steps with one hoof as he continued, “We barely know how to grab things with our own hooves, in which to our perspective is absolutely ridiculous how you, your sister and every other pony in this castle can do so without needing to wrap their hooves tightly around something. We don’t even know how to carry things upon our back or with one hoof and walk with it without losing balance or the item,”

Rising then gave an impatient snort, “We don’t even want to start with the use of magic that you were born with while we and our kind have lived completely devoid of it. The only things we know how to use without a problem is our face, our mouth, our eyes, our nose and our wings,” Rising gave a quick flap up with his aforementioned limbs before folding them and continuing, “Needless to say, combat and weaponry holding is completely out of our grasp. And it will stay that way until after we’ve learned to walk and run.”

Some part of her felt a familiar sense of sympathy, as she commented, “I suppose that’s reasonable. I know what it’s like gaining unfamiliar limbs.”

When Rising gave a questioning tilt of his head, she explained, “Long before Luna and I became Princesses of Equestria, we weren’t born as alicorns. Before we became alicorns, I was a unicorn and Luna was a pegasus, and while we were born into a family of Alicorns, we were part of the rare few in our family’s branch who had to ascend in order to become Alicorns. When I first gained my wings, I couldn’t hold them straight to save my life.”

She gave an embarrassed laugh as she shuffled her wings a little, “And my flight teachers always commented that I was worse than a pegasus with a balance disorder, it took years for me to learn to glide straight. Luna had her own misfortune with her newly gained horn. No longer was she allowed to grab things with her teeth or hooves, now she had to use and exercise magic that she’s never used before. And everytime she was able to use her magic, something would either skyrocket away or something random would happen to it. The worst part for both of us was the Earth Pony magic that now flowed through us, we ended up breaking and cracking so much tile and ripped apart our beds and pillows with no control of our own strength.”

Celestia gave another laugh as she gave a warm smile to Rising, “So do believe me that you’re not alone in being unfamiliar with new limbs.”

Rising looked down briefly with an amused and thoughtful hum. Though he frowned a little as he replied, “It’s a bit different when you’ve not had magic within you in the first place.” He gave a small smile, “But we do appreciate the sentiment.”

The Princess gave another giggle before she stepped onto the carriage and said, “I believe the event will last for most of today, and I will likely return just in time for the sunset.”

Rising gave an uncomfortable shuffle at the mention of the sunset before nodding, carefully moving backwards, “Until then.”

“Until then, and do keep an eye for my sister, she’ll likely panic waking up so late.”

Luna heard a familiar voice badgering her and tried to shy away from it, tucking herself further under her blankets in her room, determined to try and sleep what was left of the day away. Celestia had discovered that her little sister had elected to stay up longer, neglecting her duties in safeguarding the dreams of everypony in Equestria for a little more study with her given lessons after Luminous Scrolls and Rising both left to have dinner and head off to bed.

When Reginald Glass had awoken Princess Luna, she felt exhausted and slow. She barely recognized the Royal Butler’s words outside of just being additional noise in tandem with her hooves clopping across the cold tiles. It wasn’t until she turned her head to the windows just before she entered her personal bathroom did she realize what time it was.

Seeing how high the sun was in the sky, Luna immediately turned around and asked Reginald what time it was. Once realizing how late in the morning it was she abandoned her daily habits of getting herself ready and, ignoring Reginald’s protests and attempts to stop her, bolted out her bedroom door towards the carriage landing field, her mane and fur still a mess.

Princess Luna rounded a corner and barreled straight into Rising of all ponies, calmly and struggling to not trip and fall as he trotted away from the landing field.

Rising had initially tried to dodge when he saw her appear suddenly, but failed to get out of the way in time and ended up getting entangled with Luna in a mass of limbs, wings, and heads, nearly adding Shining Armor in the process of them struggling.

It took a minute or two before both Luna and Rising stopped and carefully pryed and moved their limbs out and off of each other enough for them to get up onto their hooves again.

Rising gave a slight cough after Luna hit his side hard enough to knock some wind out, “Gu-morning, Princess Luna.”

Luna gave a slight groan of pain, as one of Rising’s hooves had nailed her hard at the base of her neck, “Good Morrow. I deeply apologize, but has sister--?”

“Princess Celestia had already left a few minutes ago,” Rising interrupted as he saw Luna begin moving towards the airfield, “and she will be gone for almost the entire day.”

The mare quickly turned around, irate, “And mine sister refused to awaken me beforehoof?!”

Rising shook his head, “She did. You apparently studied far too late into the night, and while she did everything that she could without it not resulting in either harm to you or payback for her chosen method of awakening you. In fact, just as she left she told me to look for you and tell you about it.”

With an irritated huff and a flick of her tail, Princess Luna trotted slowly back the way she came. Just in time for Reginald Glass to appear and gallop towards her somehow in a dignified way for someone of his age.

He came to a gradual stop as he saw Rising standing around and Princess Luna no longer running away in a panic. Looking for confirmation, Reginald asked, “I assume Her Highness is now aware?”

Both Rising and Princess Luna gave a nod, though Luna’s response was more terse and unhappy.

Reginald gave a nod in return and stated, “Well, since that hullabaloo is over with, Your Highness. I think we can return to making you look ready and presentable to take over the Day Court for the time being.” He continued as he trotted alongside Luna as he started ushering her forwards, “Your bathwater has unfortunately gone cold, Your Majesty. Though I’m sure a quick spell would solve it, and I’ve had to—”

Rising started tuning out the Royal Butler’s words as Reginald and Luna trotted away to attend to Luna’s unkempt appearance and to get her fed and ready, as much of what he said didn’t pertain to the alicorn stallion ... yet.

It still felt a little uncomfortable to him and the Legion about the situation they found themselves in as a whole, regardless of what either Princess said or ensured.

However, Rising and the Legion had brooded, they groaned and they bemoaned both silently and audibly about their newfound situation and all the additional tidbits that were going to be placed upon them both once he had been coronated and whatever plans Princess Celestia had in store for him in the long run.

Rising looked over at Shining Armor who started to doze off again and gave a light kick to one of his hooves, getting a light gasp of pain from the Captain as he said, “May as well fetch yourself some coffee if you’re going to be asleep standing, Captain ... . You ponies do have coffee, right?”

Captain Shining Armor gave a massive yawn, which Rising had to resist by breathing deeply, “We do, but by the time we get to the barracks, I’ll already be awake enough to not need it.”

“Better than having you yawn everywhere for who knows how long,” Rising pointed out, which Shining only grunted before being poked in the side again, “Come on, let’s get going. By the time we make it back from the barracks, Princess Luna will be awake and ready to handle the Day Court.”

Princess Celestia breathed deeply as the more crisp, and more natural smells of nature welcomed her to Ponyville first. There was just something more relaxing and better than the air and environment around Canterlot and the Canterlot Castle. Less expectations, less exacting demands and just getting to walk on dirt and grass rather than the hard and unyielding cold tile or the relatively uneven paved stone.

She took another deep breath before Mayor Mare arrived and gave a reverent bow to the Princess, “Good afternoon, Your Highness.”

“Good afternoon, Mayor Mare. How goes the preparations?” Princess Celestia asked warmly as the two mares began trotting through the town to the outskirts where the Running of the Leaves was taking place, some of the banners and a pink hot air balloon could be seen above some of the houses.

“Everything is going well, we were just about to start and all the participants are lining up already, your student included.” Mayor Mare replied happily.

Princess Celestia stumbled a little in surprise, “Twilight is running in the Running of the Leaves?” she asked in clarity.

The mayor nodded, “She is! In fact she was just about to join her friends, Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Pinkamena Diane Pie and Spike are doing a shared job of commentary on that pink hot air balloon just over there.” She pointed with a hoof at the balloon which was currently gaining altitude.

As Mayor Mare continued to talk about the minutiae of the event, Princess Celestia simply followed the pony and allowed her mind wander and pondered at the fact that her little student had undergone a rather drastic change in activities.

Before, Celestia had to keep reminding Twilight that she had to stay active and fit, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to have the strength or energy to keep up with her mentor and the lessons her mentor gave. Celestia even decided to keep her lessons a good distance away from Twilight’s old house, Canterlot’s Royal Library, and the Castle’s personal library.

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell and she looked around before seeing a large stampede of ponies racing out of the town and away from the event’s starting line, hearing a familiar, cheerful voice echoed down from the hot air balloon as it began flying off and following the stream of ponies.

“Well, I must say the turn out of ponies attending has met the yearly standard,” Mayor Mare idly commented as the two mares watched the contestants gallop through the trees and out of sight.

Celestia gave a hum in agreement before the mayor turned to the Princess and said, “Well, while we are waiting for them to come back, mind if I ask a certain question, Your Highness?”

“Of course, Mayor Mare,” The Princess replied kindly, turning just a little to the mare, “What is it you would like to know?”

“Well, Your Highness.” Mayor Mare started as she looked to her right to recall, “Yesterday when everything had finally calmed down after the Parasprite infestation, as well as the repairs for that Ursa Minor attacking the town, I noticed that Rainbow Dash had been flying around quite swifter than usual.”

Princess Celestia immediately knew what the mayor was going on about. It was by her experience that kept her composure calm and the lessons she had been given by both her mother and Starswirl that kept her from panicking as her mind began to race on how to quickly excuse and cover up the real reason why the mares had been called to Canterlot that day.

Mayor Mare continued, “Once was when she dragged her friends Rarity and Applejack to your student’s library, and then after a rather loud noise that sounded like yelling before Rainbow raced away again, this time bringing Nurse Redheart over.”

Maybe say it was to scold Twilight for impulsively and recklessly teleporting a letter of progress to her, as well as out of concern? No, that wouldn’t work, if it were truly that, Celestia would’ve journeyed there herself, regardless of any royal business. Celestia cared for her student enough that if Twilight was injured, she wouldn’t summon them all the way to Canterlot.

“I had asked the nurse what had happened and she said that your student had undergone magical exhaustion by teleporting a scroll straight to you without thinking or consideration about what she was attempting.”

Or Celestia could say it was just a diplomatic lunch with her students and friends. It would make the most sense, as Twilight and her friends were newfound heroes and new Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. She could tell the mayor that ‘diplomats’ had been asking questions and she introduced them to the mares who have saved Equestria and possibly the whole world.

“And then seeing a royal carriage land next to Twilight’s library, collecting all six mares including Twilight’s ... dragon. And not soon after, the royal carriage flew off back to Canterlot,” Mayor Mare finished before giving a few breaths, as she hadn’t had to talk this much before, “So to make matters and story short, I just wanted to know what was the reason for all the noise and commotion that Twilight had to magically exhaust herself before leaving to Canterlot?”

Once the mayor finished, Celestia had a simpler idea and gave a gentle laugh, raising a hoof to her muzzle, “Well I can certainly understand your curiosity, Mayor Mare. Twilight does tend to overreact to a lot of things a bit.”

Mayor Mare tilted her head and asked sarcastically, “‘A bit’? During the time that the poor mare had taken residency in our local library, I had enough time to quickly see her obsession in keeping everything organized and followed to the letter,”

She quickly put a hoof to one side of her chin as she added, “Although she did help us immensely with our annual Winter Wrap-up.”

Again, Princess Celestia gave a gentle laugh, “Yes, her obsession with organization and order has both helped and hindered whatever she happened to be involved in at the time.”

The mayor shared her amusement with the Princess before asking, “Do pardon me, Your Majesty, as I did interrupt what you were going to say.”

Internally, Celestia had hoped the mare would have fallen silent and forgotten to ask. She smiled softly, but shook her head, “I’m very sorry, Mayor Mare, however it is a matter of national security. I am simply not at liberty to freely talk about it at this moment. I can, however, keep you apprised of the situation if your interest still lingers.”

Mayor Mare shifted a little, mentally debating whether she wanted to press the issue or not. Initially, the Princesses way of wording was odd and seemed to be avoiding the question, and it certainly didn’t help to quell the mayor’s curiosity.

However, the mare considered, this was coming from Princess Celestia of all ponies, so if it wasn’t something somepony such as a mayor of a small town to know, who was she to judge?

Mayor Mare sighed, “Very well, I’ll let the matter be, Your Highness.”

Princess Celestia hid a quiet sigh as well, “Thank you, Mayor Mare.” She looked away and started seeing a small group of ponies galloping out of the forest, clearly sweating and breathing heavily, indicating that the race was coming to a close.

Celestia blinked, and she saw what appeared to be Twilight just behind the pack, “So soon?”

The mayor added, her eyes widening a little, “And so quickly? Must have been quite the competitive spirit between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, those two have been trying to best each other since they started racing.”

At the mention of the two Bearers, both Celestia and Mayor Mare quickly looked at the group that had just crossed the finish line. Some of the ponies quickly coming to a halt and panting, yet none of the ponies were Applejack or Rainbow Dash, making the two mares look back at the forest just in time to see the rest of the ponies.

Princess Celestia tilted her head just a little as she saw Nurse Redheart quickly trot over to the aforementioned ponies, “I only hope they didn’t take it that competitive spirit too far.”

Author's Notes:

Wait wot? A shorter chapter this time??

Yeah sorry, I got a bit impatient while making the new chapter. Seeing how long it was taking me to make it and how long ago I last posted a chapter, I just got antsy. _{"ITS BEEN MOAR THAN A MONTH"}

And yes, the coronation is happening. Next chapter for sure will get the event starting and getting it over with. _{Put the Time Cards away, this isn't SpongeBob and I'm not that slow and hesitant … maybe have lost a little inspiration and not wanting to appear dead … but still.}