It was difficult being a princess. Mommy made it look easy, but Mommy was old, like a whole bunch of numbers old, and Flurry Heart was not. She was really smart for her age, though. Shiny had taught her to count to fore while walking back and forth, even though Mommy frowneded at him for doing it and made them quit.

It was really sad. She had liked the metal hat and the pokey stick.

Sometimes when Mommy and Shiny were doing big important big pony things, they didn’t have enough time for Flurry. That was okay. She could play with Aunt Twilight and Uncle Spike, or even Uncle Sunburst would let her play in his library, although it caught on fire a lot when she was around, and he didn’t like that.

But there was a place even more fun she got to visit a lot of days.

Sunshine's Happy Foals Preschool was everything it said, except for the school part, which was not too bad. There were all kinds of little ponies there, from sparkling pink ones to sparkling blue ones to even sparkling purple ones. A few of them had horns, and several of them had wings, but none of them had wings and horns except for Flurry. It made them all different, which was great, because Flurry Heart was different too, just like them. Mommy and Shiny said they were very accepting, from the lowest of the lower classes to... Well, Mommy and Shiny. It had seemed so important to them for Flurry to go to the school and make friends with all of the other Crystal Ponies that sometimes Flurry Heart thought Mommy and Shiny were paying her just the teensiest bit less attention than they should.

Particularly when packing her lunch.

After all, there were only two cookies in the little brown bag she had brought to preschool today, even after she had reminded Mommy several times that she was a growing alicorn who most probably required a minimum of three cookies in her lunch, or fore if she were to have one to share.

The shiny mauve colt who sat in front of her during crafts always had three cookies. He had mentioned it during the first time they met before school, and Aunt Twilight said it was important to make friends to share happy times with. The answer to her problem seemed so simple. Mommy could always get whatever she wanted out of Shiny, and had talked about their happy times together, so all Flurry really needed to do to get the mauve colt to share his extra cookie was to act the same way Mommy acted to get Shiny to do whatever she wanted.

This was going to be easy.

The shiny mauve colt had a name, but it was too difficult to pronounce for most of the foals, so they just called him Taffy. During lunch, he always sat with a bunch of other shiny crystal foals, so Flurry waited carefully until Taffy had gotten his lunch bag out of the cooler and was walking back to his table before she made her move.

Mommy always said that if she wanted something, she would have to ask for it, so Flurry walked right up to Taffy and asked, in the polite voice that Mommy had taught her, “May I have one of your cookies?”

Taffy stopped, looked at her a little strangely, then shook his head and walked over to the lunch table with the rest of his friends.

Okay, maybe this was going to be more difficult than she thought.

...Day Two

Waiting until the little colt had picked up his lunch from the cooler again, Flurry Heart positioned herself along the path he was going to take to get to his usual table. This time she very carefully asked in her polite voice, “May I have one of your cookies, please?”

Taffy stopped, looking up at her with wide violet eyes, then shuffled to one side until he could get around her and scurried over to the lunch table with his friends.

This was not working the way Flurry Heart had hoped. She was going to have to take it up a notch.

...Day Three

This time, Flurry Heart was prepared. She slipped into the line for the lunches right behind the shiny colt, and once she had her own lunch sitting on her back between her wings where it would not fall off and get scrunched, she trotted up beside him. Mommy had flicked her tail at Shiny once, and he had followed her around the castle afterwards, with both of them giggling until Flurry got to spend some time with Uncle Sunburst again. Mommy had called it ‘getting some’ and since Flurry wanted to get a cookie, it should work for her too.

Once she got beside Taffy, she flicked her tail.

Taffy bolted forward, flew across a table, and landed in a sea of waving shiny legs on the other side.

Maybe she should not have flicked her tail that hard.

... Day Fore

Still a little upset, Flurry Heart queued up with the rest of the shiny little colts and fillies to pick up her lunch. Thankfully, nopony had gotten hurt yesterday, but she still had not gotten the third cookie she deserved.

This time she had a foolproof plan. That cookie was going to be hers.

Taffy picked up his lunch and headed for his table with the paper sack in his mouth.

Flury picked up her lunch and put it on her back between her wings. The plan was working perfectly.

She picked up her pace on the way to the tables, drawing up next to the shiny colt and reaching out with one wingtip to brush along his cutie mark the same way Mommy always did to Shiny.

Her own lunch slipped and began to fall off her back.

She reversed her clumsy wings and tilted the other way, only to have her lunch begin to tumble off the other wing.

It was going to hit the floor! Her cookies would be broken!

She swung her wing around to catch the falling lunch bag, only to hit it with the edge of her wing and knock it across the room, right into Missus Slate’s side.

She had to sit by herself at lunch. And her cookies were nothing but crumbs.

... Day more than Fore

This time, her plan would work. It was perfect. Mommy could get Shiny to do anything when she did this, even clean their bedroom. Sometimes the two of them would be in there for hours with all the cleaning they did.

Flurry was very careful. The lunch pickup went perfectly.

The walk back to the tables went just as she had planned.

Then Flurry made her move.

“Ow!” Taffy looked up at her with wide, surprised eyes. “You bit me! You bit me on the ear! Why did you do that?”

Flurry did not respond right away, because she was trying to hoof the hair off her tongue. “Whenever Mommy bits Shiny that way, he does whatever she says." Flurry spat out one last hair and pointed to his lunch bag, which he had dropped on the floor. “Share your third cookie.” She paused, then added, “Honey.”

Taffy's face crinkled up in thought. “They're not honey cookies. They're pecan.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart put on her best frowny thinkie face, which looked a lot more thinkie than Taffy, because she had a cuter frown. “What are pecans?”

“They’re little nuts.” Taffy squinted at her. “Do you really want my other cookie? They’re kind of small.”

He picked his lunch bag up off the floor where he had dropped it and walked with Flurry over to the table, where the other colts and fillies scooted over to give them room. She sat down next to him and they both unpacked their lunches. She was so excited she almost spilled her artichoke salad and the little container of applesauce. That extra cookie was going to be hers.

Taffy pulled a snowbush leaf sandwich out of his bag and a crystal berry pudding. And then, the cookies. There were three of them, just like he had said. Only…

“They are kind of small,” said Flurry. She pulled her two cookies out of her bag and sat them next to his for comparing. Each of her cookies was at least twice as big as his. And frosted, with a raisin on top.

“Wow,” said Taffy as his big violet eyes got bigger. “You’ve got amazing cookies. I’ll give you two of mine for one of yours.”

Two cookies for one was a really good trade, but Flurry Heart was feeling a little guilty at having been trying to get such small cookies from Taffy when she already had such big cookies of her own. Besides, she might not like them, and then she would have a leftover cookie.

“Trade one for one,” she said instead, pushing over one of her big cookies and getting one of his small ones in return.

It was delicious, so good in fact that Flurry Heart really wanted to eat another one. But by the time she had finished both his cookie and her cookie, Taffy had eaten all of his cookies too.

All except for a few tiny crumbs around the edge of his lips.

She had to act fast. At any moment, Taffy would lick his lips and the crumbs would vanish.

She leaned over.

Reached out with her lips.

And snatched the last crumbs.

They were delicious.

In fact, lip crumbs were even tastier than cookies.

She could hardly wait to get home and tell Mommy and Shiny.