"Twilight, no! The fate of Equestria depends on you being able to defeat-"

Cadance was cut short as a young Twilight reached out and grabbed the cardboard airship from the shaky grasp of Cadance's magic, yanking the passenger out of the cardboard container-turned-afternoon art project. The little filly collapsed onto the checkered picnic blanket, clutching her doll to her chest.

"No, no, no!" she squeaked as much as her little lungs would allow. "Smarty's not evil! She has to be the hero!"

Cadance blinked her lilac eyes, pondering what to do before tugging at her blue bow into place, as if readjusting her mane could improve her creative thinking. "I thought you wanted to be the hero-"

"No, I'm not brave enough to face that," Twilight whispered, pulling Smarty closer to her chest and waving a hoof in the direction of the lunch box sized construction that Cadance had placed her doll in. Twilight's tiny forehoof trembled with fear as her foalsitter's gaze followed the gesture.

"What's wrong with the ship?" Cadance asked. "It looks just like the one you saw with Shiny and me yesterday."

"Nu-uh," Twilight pouted, "The one I saw with you and B.B.B.F.F. wasn't like that one... it's scary!"

To remedy her confusion, Cadance withdrew the only cure-all she had from the picnic basket next to her - a large bag of sour keys, and began to nibble one of the candies in thought.

She could handle Twilight Sparkle, sure the little filly was gifted - her parents hadn't been able to keep her in any grade above magic kindergarten since she took to all the materials too quickly and was too inept at socializing to not have her homeschooled.

Cadance was an excellent foalsitter, under her care and minimum tutelage Twilight Sparkle had only been the cause of three out of the five arcane fires in the family's kitchen that occurred in the past year.

She knew exactly what to do.

Her life was together.

By the tenth sour key, she realized she had no idea what to do.

"Uh, Twilight?"

Twilight lowered Smarty Pants from her face when she realized Cadance wasn't going to be absorbing the sour keys at such an ungodly speed any longer.

"Yes, Cady?"

"Just what is so horrific about the ship I made you?"

Twilight's somber gaze met Cadance's confused one, she leaned closer and whispered carefully, with all the seriousness and terror the precocious filly could muster: "It's not to scale."

Cadance blinked and eyed the bag of sour keys once more. Twilight gulped when she noticed this.

"Yep," her foalsitter chirped, "Makes sense. Not to scale. Got it."

"We could always buy a model one from the fancy stores. Shiny had one, but it broke." Twilight looked shifty at the last statement, but chose to continue when Cadance didn't react. "I've been saving up some bits for new books but..."

"But what?" Cadance asked excitedly.

"I have a birthday coming up," Twilight finished with a grin, the warm May winds sweeping through the park and stirring her neat bangs.

Cadance knew foals. She knew when they wanted something and she would have bet a wing and a foreleg that if she caved into Twilight's expectant purple gaze that she would be taking the first step into turning this little tyke into a little tyrant.

She already had a birthday present for her anyway...

"That's nice, Twily. I'll be sure to remember that, but right now I don't have the bits-"

"Shiny says you have an entire store of bits for emergencies."

"Yes," Cadance admitted. "But it's for emergencies-"

"Shiny says you consider owning under twenty-six pairs of leg warmers a crisis."

Cadance nodded vigorously. "Could you imagine the horror, Twily? A world without leg warmers is like a world without sunshine."

"...Everypony would die?" Twilight skeptically offered.

"Exactly!"

It was Twilight's turn to blink, and just as she was about to reply she heard two voices coming closer, her small ears pricking to find their source. Cadance too, looked over to the two ponies approaching and smiled at Shining Armor and the princess. "Hi, Shiny! Hi Auntie!"

Celestia nodded and Shining Armor started chatting about something with Cadance, who rose from the blanket her and Twilight had been playing on after waving to the filly with the promise to come back soon.

Twilight nodded and nervously tilted her head up to look at the goddess in front of her. Celestia didn't notice the little filly at first, and her shadow swallowed Twilight Sparkle, Smarty Pants, and their picnic blanket.

"Good afternoon, Princess Celestia," Twilight offered, bobbing her head in a slight bow. She had never been this close to the princess before, and if she didn't know better she'd say that the princess looked a bit sad...

And then she saw her nod and smile. Twilight couldn't imagine a mare so beautiful and kind upset with anypony or anything good and kind, so she smiled back.

"What is your name, little one?"

"T-Twilight. Twilight Sparkle."

"And you are Shining Armor's little sister?"

"Yep! He's really good at magic - have you seen his shield spells, Miss Princess?"

Celestia laughed softly - so softly that the sound would have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the change in her features. However, Twilight was too young to detect the hollow tones that hinted at an unspoken grief held by the princess. "Yes, I have seen your brother's shield spells. They are certainly quite admirable."

"He works super hard on them, Miss Princess!"

Celestia nodded in response, her attention briefly wavering as she watched some of her subjects strolling in the distance, Cadance and Shining Armor among them.

Her expression remained flawlessly calm despite her heavy heart and she looked over at the young colt. If he weren't already a gaurd in training... would he have what it takes to be a Faithful Student?

No... he isn't bad. Shining Armor is humble and kind... but something's missing...

Holding back a sigh that she wouldn't risk anypony hearing, she turned back to devote her attention to the little blank-flanked filly who had been talking to her.

"What about you, Twilight Sparkle?" Celestia asked, centuries of experience as a ruler steering her thoughts in the direction of idle chat. "Is there anything that you work hard at?"

Dragging her hoof through the grass, Twilight lowered her eyes and remembered what her parents had told her about boasting and how unhappy it made them. Twilight certainly didn't want to make her parents unhappy.

"No, not really. It's not that I'm lazy or anything, Shiny just works so much harder in comparison... he's going to make a great guard in the future, Princess!"

"I'm sure he will," Celestia responded, an easy smile gracing her features as she recalled her conversation with the easy-going, talkative youth.

A moment later, Cadance's voice called her away and she dipped her head in a brief good-bye nod to Twilight Sparkle, not knowing that they would meet again when the filly's name had all but faded from her mind...

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: White Dwarf Estimated time remaining: 44 Minutes