Rainbow opened her eyes and stretched her limbs. Blinking again, she looked out the window at the kind of nice trees that sped along the track.

Rainbow stopped for a moment and rolled over, her larger size and weight not being much of a drag anymore but waking up in a generally unfamiliar place when the last memory you had was breaking down a wall and getting burgers, this did not square with the information her eyes were giving her.

Overcorrecting herself, she slid out of the seat and tumbled onto the floor. She jumped up as she felt a tongue in a place that she wasn't used to and quickly rolling before any more horribly life scarring memories would be added thanks to Twilight being a weirdo. Taking a brief sigh of relief and bending herself to see who was unfortunate- or as Pinkie would see it, slightly fortunate- enough to get a face full of all that.

"Rainbow, where are we?" Fluttershy yawned and quickly brushed bits of dust out of her mane, its cascading pile of dust pooling at her hooves. "I don't remember like anything past last night."

"Same." Glancing out the window, Dash saw the ever increasing outline of Canterlot on the horizon and she quickly did the math of where the sun was situated in the sky and adding and subtracting a range of values since trains now threw off her patented time keeping skills. "Looks like we're on the Ponyville to Canterlot train and that it's like six am. Which raises a whole lot of questions. The first one is how did we get let on a train without like passes or something cause I doubt we got some of those."

A muffled chuckle escaped from the next room over. The door slid open and a snickering Blossomforth came in holding an assorted tray of muffins. "Well that's the fun part." Blossomforth paused as she took a bite of a blueberry muffin and frowned. "You know after living in Ponyville for like five years, baked goods now taste like garbage."

Fluttershy and Dash waited for Blossom to keep talking.

"Oh, oh, yes. Where was I? Uhm, you know there's this thing called chloroform and you totally use it to knock ponies out?"

Dash cringed.

"Well I didn't use that. But I kind of hit you over the head with a frying pan when you came to my house to help us clean after the rave and like one thing led to another and bing bang boom we're all on the train to adventure."

Cloud Kicker rolled out of the cot above them and glared at Blossom. "I'm trying to get sleep here and you idiots are ruining my four hours of not wanting to murder something. And also blame Spitfire. She was the one who said to this extra large tongued idiot about how to be creative and bring Dash to Canterlot." Kicker smirked as she knew full well which pony standing below her was Dash. "With that sorted out, I just want to go to bed and dream of demoting ponies."

"Morning and night to you and thanks for calling my tongue extra long, I know how much you like it." Blossomforth winked as Cloud Kicker pulled a pillow over her head and moaned.

Fluttershy and Dash shared a look as they blushed profusely. Grabbing a muffin, the two shuffled over to a nearby small table for the room. Beckoning the ex Wonderbolt over, the pegasus sat down and smiled. Deciding that a quiet whisper was best for all of their prospective lives, the trio sat down to talking.

"So you knocked us out with a frying pan?"

Blossomforth twirled a hoof in her mane. "I mean I knocked you out Dash with a pan, then little miss entire family feast had a wall accidentally fall on her. Then she shook that off which, to be honest, surprised both Cloudy and me, and then I used the chloroform on her cause she was shrugging off hits like an alicorn or something. You sure you don't chug like twenty pounds of protein a day cause that was kind of hot and horrifying."

Dash tried to act cool and respond. "Uh, I work out. A lot. I have a lot of free time in between caring for all my animals so I totally pound all the random and totally huge weights I have in my basement."

"Radical." Blossom's grin widened as she thought about that.

Fluttershy just rubbed her temple at how horribly Dash just bragged about something that didn't exist.

"So, how long until we get to Canterlot cause don't we have a meeting with the Wonderbolts soon?" Shy tried to get the conversation back to something normal. "I mean it has to have been a while since we got on the train, right?"

Blossomforth glanced at the clock that was nearby. "Like thirty minutes? I can't tell with these new machines. Probably soon. If you two want to get your alone time together, I suggest the nearby bathroom. Has a nice atmosphere. Oh and also I didn't knock you out with a frying pan, I wish that happened, but no. Somehow you two are gullible enough to think I dropped a house on one of you and thought that was easier to accept than just thinking maybe you two had a rough night and fell asleep. Dragging Shy here though took all my favors from randos and weirdos cause she's denser than she looks. But yeah let's play some cards or something cause seeing you two spoon each other for hours was sickeningly cute or something." Blossom tapped a hoof and slid a pack of cards out of her pack.

Fluttershy lifted an eyebrow. "So you didn't knock us out?"

Blossom looked offended. "Oh of course not. I thought it would be funny to troll you guy but it seems like spending five years in Ponyville made me grow a sort of conscience. I roped Cloudy here to lie to you by telling her I'd pay her in sexual favors." Cloud Kicker grumbled. "Oh I shouldn't have said that. But uh, yeah I'm not a monster even if the Canterlot press and populace thinks I'm the worst thing since one of the Wonderbolt Captains murdered all those prostitutes like three hundred years ago."

"What?" Dash sputtered out at the thought that a Wonderbolt Captain could be so heinous.

"Just a bit of weird history about the Wonderbolts they keep all hush hush. I wold say that's a skeleton in our closet but the pun it makes brings a bad taste in my mouth thinking about that. But yeah, surprised me too. I guess there's a scale of horribleness and I'm in the top tier of good captains. Guess that's what happens when you mix the cream of the crop of pegasi recruits from the Royal Guard and make them a sports team. But don't worry, bitches. I can save anything from the brink of death."

Cloud Kicker scoffed. "Tell that to the pets and plants that died under your care."

Blossom's smile faltered. "Low blow. But this is a totally inert and not alive thing so I can totally save the bureaucracy of the Wonderbolts. Cross my heart yada yada. First lesson to you two- ponies in Canterlot lie a ton. You have to spot the fake bullshit and call them out on it. Well there's the liars and then there's the gullible rich idiots. Don't be either of those. Now who wants to play Hearts?"

Celestia glided down from her room as the day wound up yet again. She groaned as last night's connection to Luna made her still feel a bit awkward. True she turned the mental connection honed by millennia of being a sister to the biggest drama queen in Equestria. And that included Queen Chrysalis. Getting a song made for you was usually an honor- not a headache and her first unofficial proclamation of the day was to send resources to Ponyville to not have fifty angry ponies spread around how Luna was mentally unstable yet again.

Her sister went through adolescent moods. The thing about being an alicorn that really didn't get spread around that much- primarily thanks to Celestia's efforts to keep her rule over the nation as free of bluster and fear as equinely possible- was that alicorns went through a lot of mood swings and weird obsessions.

Hers was cake. And second guessing her choices. Which Discord joked about constantly.

She didn't have a problem with cake, cake was just too tasty to pass up and she was on a strict one cake diet. Okay maybe she did. She shrugged, her face showing the mask of happiness that she had cultivated for centuries, but on the inside she was just tired and down. Luna being moody was something she didn't need right now. Not with the aristocracy jockeying ideas for replacing the Wonderbolts and cutting down on military spending in general.

She glanced down at her hooves to see the one pony that kept the whole ship of state generally going the correct way. Raven, her personal assistant and general confidante outside of those ever so boring meetings and courtly appearances- she did love her subjects, but hearing the same kind of problem not being solved for generations could grate on the nerves of even the most benevolent rulers.

"Princess." Raven floated her clipboard over and bowed.

"I have told you to call me Celestia for the last five years, Raven. It's perfectly fine for someone of your stature to try and bring a bit of levity in the Sun Court."

Raven blushed. "It's still too formal for me to even hope to call you that."

Celestia imperceptibly rolled her eyes. Which to most ponies would classify as a blink. Celestia rolled her eyes a lot at how formal everypony was. One of these days she should just walk out and conduct court without her regalia. Maybe that might bring some barriers down and not cause a riot.

"Yes, well I give you the right to be able to call me that, if that doesn't break the rules of decorum." Celestia mentally kicked herself for setting up those rules to have the ancestors of these pampered nobles to stop trying to bed her in ever more reckless and stupid ways. As she wandered into the Sun Court and took her throne, she wondered about the lineage of some of these nobles and thought how grand it would be to tell each and every one, in graphic detail, the ways their ancestors tried to get into her most secret chamber.

Taking a deep breath and trying not to laugh, she nodded at Raven.

Her assistant fired up her horn and the golden doors swung open. Ponies swarmed in and took their seats, the Wonderbolt team led by Spitfire and Soarin and the aristocrats led by Fancy Pants and Fleur Di Lis.

Raven slowly cleared her throat as the chatter of the room died down. She took another breath, Celestia knew how difficult public speaking tended to be for her, and began. "Welcome to the Sun Court, guests and patrons alike, and today on the bracket- taking up the whole day is the matter of military spending. Please step up to your podiums and deliver your opening statements as to why we should do this. The first to go will be the side in favor of defunding the Wonderbolts. Therefore you may start, Fleur." Raven quickly bowed and cantered out of the way of the long legged and well known fashion model.

Fleur smiled and pulled out her notes. "Yes, quite magnificent crowd we have here. And having most of the Wonderbolts in attendance is simply stunning. But to move onto the main event, I have provided pretty little graphs showing the general decline of enrollment into the Wonderbolt Academy and general apathy that the populace holds for our home team, so they say." She pulled a long sheave of papers out and began constructing her argument. "See, this point here is the time before Spitfire with the spike of general enrollment hitting the peak ten years ago during the disgracefully long tenure of Blossomforth and her loose definition of order." Sliding down the curve, her pointer landed on the first hiccup in enrollment. "And right here is the accession of Spitfire to the leadership position after Blossomforth's hasty exit in disgrace. See the dip here and here and the complete crash of recruit numbers a year later. Going by this projection, we can barely hold onto the air defense section of the Wonderbolts without massive overhauls of the leadership structure."

Celestia mentally yawned. She looked like she was the most prim and proper one there, but discussing the minutiae of a topic tended to get her lost in the weeds. Now if only Discord was here to liven up this debate. She nodded at Raven and the next speaker strode up to the podium. Celestia had instituted a five to ten minute speaking period for each after the Court a few years back where Blueblood filibustered a stipend decrease by reading the last ten years of weather reports with mind numbing accuracy.

"Good morning Princess, and I have to say outright that ever accusation that Fleur has made in the last week and a half are completely false and baseless claims based upon a captain that pulled out all the stops and comparing that to my ship that I run with pinpoint accuracy and decorum. And comparing a boom year of recruits that wouldn't pass the bar any other time to my completely solid team is losing the point of the discussion."

Celestia was worried that the next few hours would be a complete pain until something chaotic happened. A chattering of voices were heard as the doors shifted open and changed the discussion entirely.

Blossomforth entered in with Cloud Kicker, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash behind her. "What'd I miss? Cause I thought I heard my name and I rushed all the way over here to say I'm back everypony and I brought company. Also Celestia you look like you put on weight, I mean like in the nice areas, but like yeah five years has been weirdly okay to you."

Celestia cracked the smallest smile, this time able to be seen on her actual face. "Duly noted, maybe I should tell my head chefs to increase my cake budget."

Blossomforth nodded sagely. "I'd say double that budget cause that'd be great."

The Court went silent. The sheer idea of Celestia ever breaking decorum and answering a pony that had entered the closed chamber and disrepected the monarch in such a way and Celestia offered a joke in response? The horror.

Celestia turned to Dash and Fluttershy and noticed that Discord's and Twilight's missives and gossip about the two were correct since she noticed the auras being completely swapped. She briefly wondered if that would hurt the Elements of Harmony in some way since this kind of mishap had never happened before. Then she mentally chided herself. Of course this never happened before what with her and Luna being the previous users of the Elements. With Twilight taking the reigns, there was always something new to surprise her. Taking the interruption in stride, she formulated a plan to get everypony past this dumb idea and also maybe give some of Discord's personal lessons in applied, but totally safe, chaos a try. She just hated dealing with long and boring speeches.

Celestia slid off her throne and walked the few steps to the podium. "I didn't like showing my hoof too early, but it seems like my two intermediaries into this matter just so happened to walk right in and spoil the surprise."

Blossomforth hugged Cloud Kicker close. "Dude, the smoking hot one is totes talking about us." She bounced up and down in place and waited to be announced as the coolest pony here.

Cloud Kicker scowled. "Blossom, she's not talking about us. It'd be stupid. Like sorry but I hate all these idiots in here and also you have a weird need to forget a mission or bed a pony every time we get groceries or save the day. She wouldn't chose us even if everypony else was dead."

Celestia smiled and moved on, deciding that this was like the first Gala with Twilight and her friends- a glorified and overly complicated mess that should work out in the end. "Yes, well no. I'm talking about the two ponies beside you. And with that I declare this meeting to be ceremoniously ended for the day for my dignitaries to settle into their roles in Canterlot for this matter.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash stopped and stared at Celestia and tried to hide as hundreds of eyes turned and glared daggers into their backs.

Rainbow Dash stared up at Celestia. Now being in Fluttershy's body gave her a new viewpoint of how tall things were to be honest, but standing near the Alicorn Princess to end most Alicorn Princesses still made her be a head or two smaller than Celestia. So she put on her best attempt at a calm face while Fluttershy quickly paced back and forth thinking of every bad possibility that could happen.

Celestia was just smiling about some random unimportant thing while she was messing up what should have been a completely by the book get in and get out Wonderbolts training session into this. Dash still didn't know what the white alicorn was planning but she didn't like it.

"Now Fluttershy please breathe and slowly relax." Celestia picked Fluttershy up with her magic and gently set her down next to Dash. "And yes, I do know Twilight's little mishap. She still does tell me a bit too much about her life for my liking but seeing you two come in gave me a wonderful- or as Discord might say- delightfully chaotic idea. I task you to solve this completely ridiculous complaint Or as I would term it more of a kerfluffle. And I have a wonderful way to get it fixed by using Twilight's mistake to your advantage."

"Oh great what is it now?" Rainbow scoffed and rolled her blue eyes.

Celestia glanced over and smiled. "Well since you two have your own skills and I most definitely know from my collection of friendship letters from Twilight and using that to our advantage- I'll just say for complete fairness tomorrow that you two will switch positions and judge the thing you two know the least about.

Fluttershy noticed a problem in that plan almost immediately as she ran that through her head. "But we're switched around- wouldn't that mean that-"

Celestia lightly laughed. Her angelic voice echoed throughout the hall, lighting it up as she noticed that she had somepony who understood the ruse. "Exactly. With you two switched, the idea that Dash and you have to fix the problem you know the least thing about. . .means that, in fact, you two would be able to put the two factions at ease and trick them into revealing what the problem is." Celestia silently congratulated herself for such a fun plan.

She sometimes got bored doing the same thing over and over and while some ponies might call her past month or two of having some intimate times with Discord and breathing new life into her routine as signs of either a mental break or a midlife crisis, Celestia just thought keeping the aristocracy on their hooves as a good thing when the last shake up in their world was a few hundred years ago with that whole parliamentary reform bill. Those were some strange days to be sure. Celestia blinked and went back to the moment. "So who's up for donuts? I have this place that has good donuts and also ponies don't have the normal Canterlot sense to worry about a Princess entering in their presence like one of them. Which after hundreds of years of trying to stop the rich from having apoplectic fits whenever I eat food, it's refreshing."

The donut shop's bell tinkled as the three ponies shuffled into the brightly lit space. The owner, Donut Joe glanced over and shrugged as the most powerful pony walked into his establishment. "Hey, Celly, are you going to pay your sister's tab cause while I like the talk and feel of having Luna in here. . .she hasn't paid her donut tab in weeks."

Celestia smiled and nodded. "Well I wasn't planning on it but I could. Just send the bill to the castle and RAven will take care of the expense. Now if you so mind what is your recommended donut of the day?"

Donut Joe walked over and pulled out a glazed doughnut. "I mean here's a peanut butter jelly doughnut with chocolate cookie bits. Got it from a weird recipe I found from a Abyssinian royal that stopped in for a bite. I can't seem to get the taste down perfectly without some far off spices but my customers don't seem to mind all that much."

Celestia nodded. "Oh well I'll take a dozen of those and did that cat have anything to say of the world beyond?"

Pony Joe nodded. "I guess, like there's this whole Storm King mess out there and I guess that he's not that good of a dude."

Celestia's eye twitched. "Oh I've definitely heard of him. Discord talks about how much fun he had with him oh so long ago. Thanks anyway and please send the whole bill to the palace, I would bring it myself to the attention of the court but I get out so rarely that seeing how Canterlot is doing every once in a while is nice." She levitated the doughnuts over and beckoned her two guests to come on her tour of Canterlot.

She breathed in the air and remembered the beginnings of Canterlot and marveled at how well the city looked to be doing. Sure the Tirek attack was still being dealt with a few construction projects to fix some of the damage and the constant checks of changelings still found nests and survivors of the last few years in the caves below the city, but Celestia knew for the time being that everything seemed okay. Which for her was the best she could hope for in these strange times.

"So how are you two doing with your predicament?"

Fluttershy spoke up. "What was all that about?"

Celestia laughed. "Well I guess I could answer your question if you answer mine first." Celestia offered the two of them a doughnut as they passed through the tight alleyways and streets of the town. Both shook their head as they quietly inched closer to one another as the dark passages in this underused section crept ever closer.

"Well it's a bit weird to get used to, to be honest, and it's gotten better but I still can't fly all that well." Dash offered to let the awkward silence pass.

Celestia glanced over to Dash and smiled. "Well I can't really help you with that. My sister's always been a bit better at diagnosing flight problems but I'd say guessing by how Fluttershy looks to me in my aura when I look at her- I'd say there was a horse or two in her family. Which isn't bad, a lot of the earth pony families had to intermix with horses all so long ago to get the whole inbreeding worry out- but I've not really seen a pegasi strain."

Dash cocked her head. "What does that mean?"

Celestia opened her eyes laughed. "Sorry. Just saying that maybe Fluttershy has never been great at flying because your methods of teaching don't work for her own body."

Fluttershy perked her ears up at that. "But I went to flight school and I thought I was just bad at flying."

Celestia glanced down and sighed. "Yes, well, sometimes the methods of teaching vary between students. What one can term overbearing and wrongheaded can let another thrive in learning. But I'd say you might just have one of the rarer types of wings.While pegasi now tend to have one general type due to breeding and preferring the shape of the normal wing, there's three other types of wings that are a bit of a developmental throwback. I think both of you are special. Don't focus on what you can't do now and learn to work with one another's differences and you'll be fine."

"So your saying both of us might not be normal?" Rainbow's eyes shifted back and forth, making sure she heard the princess correctly.

Celestia smiled. "Well nopony's normal so that is a silly question. With how many different ponies I've seen throughout the years, I'd say there's no truly correct answer there. But alas, what sages have been pondering since I was a young alicorn can't yet be solved in an alleyway. So let's put the philosophizing away and enter into one of my favorite shops. Though do ever be so careful. This place has a lot of magical artifacts. Oh and do not mention Twilight. It makes the visit here a lot less awkward for everypony."

Dash rolled her blue orbs. "Whatever. Can we like get on with this cause I don't know why we've had to walk around Canterlot for a few hours and like this is it. Just a familiar doughnut shop and a magic shop. Big woop."

Fluttershy tilted her head so the polychromatic mane fell over her eyes. She had been slowly growing it out to see if Dash noticed. Or she felt a bit more comfortable in a hairstyle she could quickly hide behind as a safety measure. Rarity had been trying to get the previously yellow pony to get out of her shell and while it was better- it felt safer to have some stability. "Dash, be nice. I bet the princess knows what she's doing."

Celestia laughed. "Oh no, I kind of wanted to get out and walk around but you;d be surprised how quickly word gets around. I'm always one to know everything I can about external threats and, well, the word of your arrival has been quickly running through the streets."

"I haven't heard it." Dash kicked a hoof as dust gathered around her in a cloud.

"Alicorn hearing has some advantages. Though it does have some more intimate downsides."

"TMI, I don't need to know about that." Dash blushed as the thoughts hit her head, the implication Celestia let hang there explain more than she thought was safe.

Celestia shrugged and entered the shop, a light bell announcing their arrival. A wafting smell of incense overpowered the two pegasi as they looked around in the store, their eyes awash in beadwork and new age weirdness that they didn't often see in Ponyville. A quiet yellow unicorn stepped out and adjusted her glasses. "How may I help- oh. . ."

Celestia smiled. She always hated at least a little bit that she could never enter a place without one of her subjects having a mini panic attack due to her being in their immediate presence. It made talking to them that much more difficult. "Yes, hello Moondancer. I would like to see how the collection of magical artifacts is today. You know routine maintenance and all that."

The pony bowed and quickly shuffled out from behind the desk. "Yes, I mean it is rather late and all but I guess we could squeeze you in, um, princess. I mean if you want to. Don't you have to lower the sun at some point?"

Celestia cracked a smile. "Well I bet Luna is enjoying her extended sleeping hours so I don't think she'll mind if the day is a bit longer than normal. If I heard the reports correctly of what my sister has been doing in Ponyville, I bet she's completely asleep with how exciting her day has been."

Fluttershy and Dash cringed silently as they remembered yesterday.

Moondancer's ears perked up at the mention of Ponyville. "So Ponyville- isn't that where that new castle popped up and all and that should be categorized as a magical loci for scientific and magical research? I mean I've heard the reports. I know who is the newest princess and all that." Moondancer briefly picked up a loose scrap of paper she noticed on the floor and quickly balled it up and tossed it hard in the trash. "I mean it's not like I've sent inquiries about categorizing it for about a year and nothing has been sent back."

Celestia tried to change the subject as fast as she could. Not that she was intimidated by the curio collector or her collection. More so that if she didn't change the subject from Twilight immediately, the conversation would get more and more long winded and angry as the unicorn acted out her feelings onto nearby furniture. "So back to the reason why I came here. I just want a quick look over a few new acquisitions. Let's see what I can remember from my assistant. Let's see two staffs?"

Moondancer blinked and shook her head. "Yes, um, well let's see." She quickly flipped through a nearby notebook. "Yes, Meadowbrook's Staff and her seven other artifacts are easily accounted for and that new staff by the legendary Staff of Sacanas wielded by Scorpan during the ages before the founding of Equestria was also recently found near Abyssinia as well. Truly wonderful finds. And I ran the tests you deemed necessary. The findings, in the simplest terms possible, was that the resonance point of the staff and the recorded imagery of the Tirek attack on Equestria show that there might be a lost art of anti magical weaponry lost to the annals of time. Which sounds positively magical."

Rainbow Dash laughed.

Moondancer glanced over and stared at her. "While I don't see the humor about having what amounts to a negative and soul sucking force of magic laying around, I do have to politely ask for you to please enlighten me as to why you think painful and continuous torture is funny, miss."

Fluttershy and Dash awkwardly stood there. Fluttershy more so to lessen her already now much smaller frame from a piercing yet oddly unfocused gaze. And Dash stammered out a reply to get the mood of the room back to normal. "Yeah sorry about that. You just remind me of someone, that's all."

Moondancer rolled her eyes. "Oh how I would have a mountain of bits if I tallied all the times I heard that. But fine I accept that you are what ponies would term "a party ruiner" sure they would use a bit less formal dialogue. I read that in a book somewhere. I've never been to another party ever since that time my party was completely and irreparably ruined. . ."

"Uh, sorry I don't really want to hear your tragic backstory." Dash knew vaguely when one of those were coming. After a few years of fighting awesome threats and also reading all twenty one current Daring Do books and Twilight's collection of Wonderbolt related history tomes due to their content and useful application and description of rarely used and cool moves and maybe their adventure quality- she knew when to dip out of a particularly bad conversation.

"Fine. whatever though if you two get to talk to Twilight, I'd say call her the worst name you could think of for ditching me here and also giving me a broken present. Sure was nice to get a torn up collection of Aristrotle's theories. How great of a present."

"How'd you guess we knew Twilight?" Fluttershy spoke up, deciding that Dash's approach to the conversation was getting them nowhere.

Moondancer smiled awkwardly like she didn't exactly know how that facial expression exactly worked. "It's not difficult. There's only so many choices of Celestia's inner circle. Royal Guards would be the most common choice outside of her personal assistant. Then comparing the average height and weight of the average guard makes both of you outside of the norm. Then referencing the few ancient histories I've memorized, I know that pattern of hair- rainbow's a highly unusual and very insular color type. Then quickly remembering the five years of friendship journals I had to edit to get the morals of the lessons far more general and useful for the common populace and having to decipher Spike's rather atrocious handwriting, I knew who you were. General archetypes of a wallflower and brash loudmouth jock and I therefore welcome you to my establishment and also tell you to get out of my establishment until Twilight comes here and apologizes for ruining my party. So please do exit carefully. I don't want you to touch a cursed object. And Celestia? Have a nice day."

Celestia nodded and smiled and beckoned her two guests to move on. Dash and Fluttershy slid out of the small corner of weirdness that they had so strangely entered and as they step onto the stoop of the building and as they did that, the entire building blinked out of existence and a closed sign fluttered down.

Dash quickly stepped back into the space the building used to occupy and waved a yellow hoof around. "Dude, there was a building right here like five seconds ago. Where did it go?"

Celestia sighed. "Away for now. I thought bringing some new faces might have cheered up my rather reclusive court mage and I may have overstepped my boundaries."

Fluttershy coughed. "Well it went okay. I guess. But, uh, I guess looking back maybe it was a bit weird when she was doing two different ways she was acting."

"Shy, I chalk that up to here being the exact same as Twilight. Y'know. Like a big egghead that is a complete weirdo."

Fluttershy stared at Dash. "Be nice Rainbow."

"I totally am being nice. It's not my fault we brought up Twilight one moment and then she had a mini freakout and then she switched into a cold and humorless jerk." Rainbow crossed her front hooves and pouted.

Celestia looked up at the sky and willed the sun to set slowly as she turned away for a moment. Shadows crept slowly into the dark alley, which made the elongating silence be highlighted. "Well that may have been my fault. Accidentally."

Fluttershy glanced up. "But, um, Celestia, how?"

Celestia took off her regalia and fired up her horn to magic them away to the castle. Turning to the two ponies she looked tired and less composed than they could imagine. She took a deep breath and spoke quickly. "Everypony is affected by their close circle of friends and the actions of others. I sent Twilight away to Ponyville to find the Element of Magic, reform the Elements of Harmony, and also save my sister from the jealousy that tainted her mind and purpose."

"Yeah so what? We know the story and anyway that's a good thing so why Daisy Downer, or whatever her name is, is being a tool to us for nothing is honestly annoying. We saved the day and totally did a good thing and continued with more good things and ugh. Whatever." Dash rolled her eyes and flopped down on the ground.

Celestia's smile faltered. "Yes well, your blunt remarks are true to a point, though name calling a pony that could hex your literally into next week is not something to do lightly. But where was I? Dash, Moondancer- "Daisy Downer's" real name, was one of Twilight's few friends she knew in Canterlot. Boiling down a story into it's most essential parts is that taking away Twilight and bringing her to Ponyville, I inadvertently caused Moondancer to retreat into herself and just stay here. One of the brighter minds of this generation and she's taking care of what could amount to the magic shop at the end of the street. And while I'm glad she is- without her those artifacts would fall into the hands or claws or hooves of every enemy we have. But I really wonder what could have happened if I let somepony else go to Ponyville. Maybe Twilight would be in that spot if I chose Moondancer to go. Or something else could have happened. I am so good at seeing the greater good now with how long I have led Equestria. . .sometimes I forget that my choices have unforeseen and more personal choices."

"Uh, this seems a bit out of nowhere like sure okay I'll say my bad on calling her a name but like can you please tone down the sad stuff cause this kind of blows." Dash turned away and sighed. "Whatever so maybe some ponies hate us and what we do. I mean we've dealt with that. Nothing super new so can't we have some fun cause this isn't what I expect when I get to spend a bit of time in Canterlot."

Celestia breathed in and smiled. "Sure, and I bet Discord would love to see you two. After his last tea time with you, he spent a few hours chuckling to himself when I asked him how his day went."

Dash choked out a small laugh as she remembered how little fun she had with Discord. "Yeah sounds great."

Fleur Di Lis stared at herself in the mirror. She carefully looked at the lines in her face and frowned. "Honey, can you believe Celestia decided something as completely reckless as she did today? I mean seriously it worries me that she's losing her touch. I mean I remember when my dear grandmother told me stories of how Celestia invaded the gryphons for fun."

Fancy Pants smiled. "And then Celestia burned down the capital and that was the end of it?"

Fleur rolled her eyes as she took off her makeup. "No, just saying after the changelings and Tirek and Discord- I mean seriously reforming Discord? How naive can you be? I saw him in a meeting and almost died of fright. How can Celestia be comfortable being near something so against the pony way?"

"Now have you been listening to that new maid of ours?"

Fleur chuckled. "No, not really. Just she brings up new points from the frontier. She keeps talking about the town she came from and she's just so real after a while. Though she does have some points to consider. I mean we can't just focus on Canterlot every moment of the day. That would make it seem like we're completely separate from the unwashed masses you talk about so much."

Fancy Pants yawned and set his nearby clock for the morning. "Honeybear just come to bed. Let the help deal with their problems and get some rest for tomorrow."

Fleur blew a kiss to her husband and pulled the string to let the maid know to clear up the dinner and get ready for night. "Fine, but that means to let us sleep, you dog you." Walking over and letting the covers slide to make room, she hugged him close and felt him silently laugh to himself.

"No promises."

The couple heard a faint knock at their chamber door and Fleur beckoned in the maid.

"Sorry mistress for interrupting upon you." A pink unicorn with a purple and blue mane cantered into the room carrying a tray of mail and a bag of garbage to clean up the mess that often accrued in the room. "Oh I shouldn't have decided to clean now, bad me."

Fleur smiled at the naive pony. "It's fine, what was your name again?"

The pony blinked back tears. "It's Starlight Glimmer, ma'am. It's a silly name what with how bland my cutie mark is." She pulled up her maid robes to show an equal sign of gray on her flank. "But I deal with that. I mean I'm the first one of my family to ever be in the city and it's such an interesting time. I mean there's a magic store on every corner. Back where I'm from it's impossible to see magical items outside of the rare trade caravan."

Fancy Pants chuckled. "Well isn't that quaint. I'd love to hear your life story but the hour is getting late and you have so much to do."

Starlight facehoofed. "Oh of course, silly me." She ambled out of the room carrying garbage cans in her aura. "Goodnight you two." With a thud, the chamber door slammed shut and quiet normalcy came back to the room.

"There's something off about that unicorn. And I'm not talking about the purposeless cutie mark she has. Not right I say." Fancy Pants murmured to nopony in particular.

"That's what you say about every new hire, honey." Fleur didn't hear him reply back and as she slid off to sleep, she swore she could hear some form of excited muttering echoing throughout the estate. She chalked that up to an overexcited imagination for tomorrow. She hoped the blue pegasus she'd seen in the court had some reason to be chosen by Celestia. The princess had her reasons. Maybe. She prayed to herself silently that she was right. The other way led to madness.