I stopped and looked at her. "I promised myself I'd be straight with you. This whole situation is wrong. A foal shouldn't be able to fall through the cracks like you did, no matter how clever they are. Something happened that's wrong, and the worst bit is I don't know how to fix it except by taking responsibility for you.

"Scootaloo, I can't be everywhere in Equestria. How many other foals has this happened to? How many aren't as clever or responsible as you?"

"S-So what are you going to do?" Scootaloo asked, her air of annoyance faded.

"I'm going to talk to a pony who will be able to fix it. Since coming to Equestria, I've learned that if there's one pony that always has the right advice and has the power to help, it's Princess Celestia." I held Scootaloo's gaze, but tried to keep my features as soft as I could—this wasn't a challenge, this was an offer.

She finally let out a little huff. "So what about me?"

"If I had my way, we'd be shopping for a new stove about now. We'd buy all the things we need for the house and head back and start working on it together. But, that wouldn't be fair. You wouldn't be receiving your bits, and your relatives wouldn't have any clue where you are. If you want to be treated like an adult, Scootaloo, you need to be treated completely as one. Come on."

After another pause she stepped to the side, then fell in beside me as I walked past. "You didn't answer all my question."

The entry hall was quiet. There wasn't a single pony there apart from the Royal Guard and a clerk. The latter looked up at me as we stepped inside, but they looked back to their papers until we walked up to them. "Lyra Heartstrings and Scootaloo, here to see Princess Celestia."

"Do you have an appointment?" The mare looked up from her paperwork again and gave me the bored, detached look of someone comfortable that their job makes them better than everyone.

"It'll be alright, Nib, Lyra's one of the princess' students." I hadn't realized I was so popular that all the Royal Guard knew me. "Just wait until she lets us know she's free to accept a guest, and send them through."

"New here?" I asked.

Nib let out a sigh and nodded. "Sorry, yeah. Still getting used to things." Her officious look was gone, she looked like a mare frazzled and troubled.

"You'll get the hang of it. The important thing is listening to these guys—they know what they're talking about." I gestured with a hoof at the Royal Guard who'd spoken before. That's when I recognized him. "Sure Fire really knows his stuff."

"Was this a setup?" Nibs looked between me and Sure.

I shook my head and did Sure followed suit. "Would have been a good one, but I really do need to see Princess Celestia."

"Tell you what, Nibs," Sure said, "why don't you slip in and ask Joyce Mango if the princess is free to talk? She'll know."

Well, our chat hadn't been a setup, but what Sure was doing definitely was. I looked at him pointedly and got a wink when Nibs wasn't looking his way.

"I can do that? I-I guess I can. I'll be right back." Standing up, Nibs trotted to the smaller door that allowed guards and officials access to the throne room without using the large doors.

The moment Nibs was through, Sure's face broke into a huge grin. "Citron, Bartlett, open the doors if the princess is free." Both unicorns at the big double doors were grinning at the order, and their horns lit and swung the entryway open.

Sure Fire walked through the doors and cleared his throat. "Announcing Private Lyra Heartstrings, daughter of Joyce Mango, sister of Duchess Robin Mango of Thestralia, student of Princess Celestia, and…"

I cleared my throat. "Scootaloo of Ponyville."

"…Scootaloo of Ponyville!" Sure Fire said and stepped to the side.

Nibs was standing beside Mum when she spread her wings and rushed down the last few steps of the dais to attack me with a vicious hug. Vicious, of course, in that she threw herself into me and wouldn't let go without a tight squeeze back. "Lyra!"

Being just a unicorn, I reared up in her grip and hugged her back. "Hey, Mum, we're kinda here to see Princess Celestia."

Mum blushed bright red and quickly let go of me to retreat up a few steps, which let me see that Princess Celestia was already at the bottom of the dais and was walking toward us. The only pony now standing higher than the floor was poor Nibs, who looked like a deer in headlights.

"And to what do we owe this appearance, Lyra? I take it your young friend here is involved?" Princess Celestia looked down at Scootaloo.

Looking stunned at the turn of events, Scootaloo just nodded.

The Guard had done a good job of teaching me how to put my thoughts together into a report, Princess Celestia's school had done a great job of teaching me how to present an argument—I used both to good effect to describe Scootaloo's history and how I came to be moving into her house.

Scootaloo, throughout the story, moved closer and closer to my side until she was leaning against my leg. Princess Celestia looked like she was doing her best to hold a neutral mask on her face, and Mum actually looked angry.

"… and while I can help Scootaloo," I said, "I hate to think that this has happened elsewhere—or will some day."

Princess Celestia and Mum both looked at me, but the princess then looked down to Scootaloo. "Of course. I'll personally look into this, but first we have an issue to resolve. Scootaloo, what do you wish to do?"

Fluffing her little wings, Scootaloo stepped away from my side and looked up at the princess. "Lyra said I need to be an adult to be able to be a foal. She said I need to get my own income and that I could live with her. But she's wrong."

I stared at the filly in surprise, wondering where she was going with her speech.

"It's my house. It belonged to M-Mom and Dad, now it belongs to me. Dad built it himself!" Glaring up at me, Scootaloo stuck her tongue out. "So I'll let her live in my house!"

Princess Celestia looked at me, then down at Scootaloo, then back up to me. "That sounds agreeable. Your father, having built the house, would not have had to pay any rent on it. If I may be so bold, Miss Scootaloo, you could ask to have an assessor come and calculate the cost to rent the house, and perhaps charge Lyra here… I'm sure half would be a good value."

Scootaloo looked so surprised at Princess Celestia's words that I knew she hadn't planned that. She nodded. "Th-That would work, I suppose."

"Mayor Mare had requested assessors to inspect the house in the next day or two." Half the agreed value would be even better than the deal Mayor Mare had offered, and it all going to Scootaloo was even better still. "She still needs a guardian."

Still ignoring me, Princess Celestia kept her eye on Scootaloo. "Is it agreeable that Lyra—and her wife Sweetie—are your legal guardians? You can change your mind later if you wish, but you'll need to see me to do so."

Sitting back a little, Scootaloo looked up at me and tapped her chin. "Yeah. I guess."

"Wonderful. Then they are." Princess Celestia looked pleased at last. "Now, I happen to have my new scribe present, I'm sure Nibs can furnish you with all the paperwork you need to ensure this is carried out."

"Y-Yes, Your Highness!" Nibs barely got the words out as she walked up to us. "I'll see to it ri-right away."

"Lyra," Princess Celestia said, "you did the right thing, and I'm proud of you."

She counted as my teacher, sure, but she was also like a guiding light to all Equestria. Being told you were a good pony, by Princess Celestia, was probably one of the more uplifting things that could happen to a pony. And, I was definitely a pony. "Thank you, Princess Celestia. C'mon, Scootaloo."

I got all the way back to the entry hall before the rumble of small hooves on the marble floor caught up with me. At my side, I could see Nibs glare at Sure Fire as she passed him. "About those papers?" I asked.

"Give me a moment. I have to get straight exactly what Princess Celestia said." Nibs climbed onto her seat and lifted up her quill with her lips. For a moment she paused and then, with a nod, started to write.

A tingle in the air was all the warning I had that there was magic happening. It wasn't obvious magic, like a unicorn's telekinesis, it was the kind of trickle that ponies used when doing what they were good at. Nibs, apparently, was a very good scribe in part because it had to do with her special talent—or it was her special talent.

Either way, Nib looked serene as she wrote, her quill gliding across the page in arcs to create the most amazing and perfect script I'd ever seen. She wrote better with the quill in her mouth than I could hope to with my magic.

"There." Nib finished up with her quill at the bottom, signing a mark that glowed with golden light before it faded. Princess Celestia's mark. "One for you." When Nib lifted up the scroll and passed it to me, another revealed itself below it—already written out as the duplicate of what I held in my magic. "And one for records."

"Princess Celestia must trust you a lot." I carefully put the scroll into my saddlebag. "Your special talent is writing?"

Okay, so complimenting ponies (or anyone) is a surefire way to make them happy, why not use it when I knew she was feeling down? It was no less true.

Nibs seemed to brighten and nodded. "I got my cutie mark when I was writing a letter to Princess Celestia for school. Since then I kept writing letters to her, I couldn't believe that she kept writing back. How she finds time to do that, for a little filly who didn't know any better than to write letters to the ruler of Equestria and expect to become pen-pals…"

That was something that always happened when you asked somepony about their talent—even I did it. If somepony asked me about my lyre, I'd stop whatever I was doing and tell them the story of my life.

"You know, I did the same thing. Well, we didn't become pen-pals, but I wrote a letter to Princess Celestia and she invited me to come visit—from a whole other world. I did. Then later I came back—once I'd become a pony—and decided to stay. Mum came with me." I could feel that desire to spill everything about my history bubbling up. Keeping it down was hard, and would prove impossible if she asked about it. "We should have coffee sometime. Do you plan to be in Ponyville anytime soon?"

"Ponyville? I guess I could head down there. Is that where you live?" Nibs, thankfully, had taken my bait and drifted away from the topic that would have me waste an hour on my life story.

"Soon to be. Just clearing up things before we're going to do some shopping. Right, Scootaloo?" I turned my head to see Scootaloo talking to Sure Fire. He held his wing out to her to examine, and the pair were talking away about flying.

With the noise level in the entry hall suddenly lowered, Scootaloo turned to look at me as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have been. "Thanks, Sure Fire, I really need to go, I think."

Scootaloo walked quietly at my side until we were halfway to the front gate, then she stopped. "A lot of stuff happened. Did you know the princess would do all that?"

"Nope. She's Princess Celestia. If I knew what she was going to do every time, I'd be a princess too. The thing is, Scootaloo, I trust her to make the right choice. What about you?"

Tilting her head to the side, Scootaloo looked to be thinking hard. "She did what is fair, I think. We both have somewhere to live. I have somepony to—to help me look after myself. You have…" She looked up at me with a curious expression. "What do you have, apart from a house to live in?"

"A few things, actually, and you underestimate how much I love that house. Firstly, I got half rent. That's pretty awesome, Miss Landlord. I got a little more purpose to my life—that's important." I waved a hoof around to prompt myself further. "Those are already pretty important to me, and I can't think of more."

"That last one? What do you mean?"

"Purpose?"

"Yeah."

I sucked in my breath and let it out again slowly. "When I was younger, I helped Mum look after Robin. When we moved to Cowwarr, I helped look out for Marble and Pinkie too. When I was in school in Canterlot, I guess I looked out for my classmates a little. I joined the Guard because I liked helping others and…" I gestured at Scootaloo. "I'm pretty sure I can guess why I put myself in this role."

Scootaloo marched around to stand in front of me, and glared up at me. "You're not going to be running my life!"

"Some things I will."

She looked up at me in shock, as if I'd just said the most offensive thing ever. Her wings fluffed out and she scrunched up her face. "Like what?!"

"You aren't going to be working anymore. Not for a few years at least. No more take-away dinner every night and if you think for a second you'll get away with sitting about until school starts, you have another thing coming—we'll both go for runs each day." As I read off my list (and it was only my starting list) Scootaloo's determined and hardened expression softened more and more. "So?"

She finally folded her wings back down and looked relaxed. "I-I guess. But what will we eat?"

"Sweetie Drops literally got a cooking cutie mark, and she taught me what my mum didn't. I think I can keep us eating good stuff. The not working thing is a hard one, you know. We'll be going to get you applied for an income so you don't have to even think of it until you want to." I stepped to the side and started walking around her. "So let's get that done first, then you can come and visit my dad."

Turning, Scootaloo trotted back up to my side as we approached the front gate again. "Wait, that's something else. What kind of pony was your mom?"

"Bat pony. Cool wings, huh?"

"They were huge. I bet she can fly really well with them." Scootaloo snapped her mouth closed as we reached Shining's post at the gate.

"Thanks, Shining. We got everything sorted ou—" He had a big grin on his face. "What's wrong?"

Shining Armor said, "Three. Two. One…"

Big pink wings wrapped around me from behind as I was tackled by an alicorn. If I wasn't standing still, I'd have gone rolling down the path that led down to the city itself. "Cadance!" I hugged her back and squeezed. "I haven't been gone that long, but it's good to see you."

"I know. I know. But it's just that knowing you're moving—or moved—makes me want to appreciate every time I get to see you." Cadance let go and looked me up and down. "Who's your friend?" Her gaze swept over and down to Scootaloo.

"This is Scootaloo. She's my new landlord." The claim was as true as it was absurd. My mind worked over how to explain this to Sweetie Drops, and though introducing Scootaloo like that would be amazing, not being able to sleep indoors for the rest of my life wouldn't be. "It's a long story. Just think of her as my new little sister."

Scootaloo's eyes focused on me as sharply as Cadance's did. The former gave me a grin, the latter a curious frown—but each only lasted for half a second.

Puffing out her breast, Scootaloo looked up at Princess Cadance and nodded. "I needed somepony to pay rent, Lyra needed somewhere to sleep."

By the look on Cadance's face, I was in for a grilling later. Well, that's fine, but I think keeping Scootaloo's history a secret—until I got the okay from Scootaloo to splash it around to everypony in Equestria—was the better move. Besides, I was only keeping it secret. It's not like either of us told a lie.

"I… see…" Cadance let out a very equine sounding snort. "So, will you still be coming to Canterlot to work?"

"Yeah. I don't want to let down Princess Celestia, though I will be spending a few weeks in Ponyville at first to help Scootaloo with some chores." Then something churned and I remembered something important. "Oh, do you know, uh, Spitfire?"

"The new commander of the Wonderbolts? Not particularly, but I think she's in town today. She had a meeting with Princess Celestia earlier, and on the way out mentioned she was going to spend the morning at the Guard headquarters." Cadance gestured across the city—that the castle grounds put us above—to the E.U.P. Guard fields. "Hey, wasn't she the Wonderbolt that performed for you and Sweetie?"

"One of them. The other was…" I chased the memory around in my head, looking for the stallion's name. Of course, Lyra, trust you to remember the mare's name and not the stallion's. "A cute stallion."

Scootaloo made a gagging sound before Cadance could reply.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"Boys aren't cute."

"Well, yeah. I was being polite. There's a reason I married my bestest friend."

For just a moment Scootaloo looked to be thinking about something, but at last she nodded in agreement to me. "That's how things should be!"

Nodding at Scootaloo, I then turned to face Cadance. "We're off. If you decided to leave your icky coltfriend, you can come and visit our clubhouse in Ponyville."

"No colts allowed! House rule!" Scootaloo set the pace and I marched beside her. Together we stomped past Shining and down the path and back into the city itself. When we got to the bottom of the ramp, Scootaloo started giggling.

"We need to detour. Head back to my place first and get my armor on, then we'll head to the Guard fields and try to find Commander Spitfire. Looking official at the registration office afterward won't hurt our case, either." I aimed us along the right road that led to the edge of the city. "Mum and Dad live not too far away, but for the sake of Sweetie's peace of mind, we had a place closer to the mountain. Sweetie's an earth pony, you see."

"Right. The edge would be dangerous. But what about you? You're a unicorn." As Scootaloo asked, we came to a small park that bordered the edge of Canterlot. There was a lot of such little places ponies could relax—assuming they weren't afraid of heights.

I walked into the little park with Scootaloo beside me. When I walked right up to the edge, Scootaloo let out a gasp as our hooves reached the very edge. I'd chosen this particular park because there was literally nothing below it but sky. "Can you fly yet?"

"N-No." Scootaloo looked down and I could have sworn her orange face blanched white.

"Hey. You're safe, Scootaloo. I wouldn't come here if I wasn't able to do… this." My usual trick. Steam-making spell (which was a combination of head and water) and a cloudwalking spell for both of us was quick and easy to recall because I'd used them so much in the past. Stepping out onto the roiling mass of vapor, I turned to look back at Scootaloo.

For a few seconds she just stared at me as I floated on my own cloud. "How'd you do that? You aren't a pegasus!"

"Clouds are water vapor, so steam works as a substitute. A cloudwalking spell later and I can walk around the sky almost as safely as a pegasus can fly." I demonstrated by making more cloud and walking around on it. A little focus on another cloudwalking spell aimed at Scootaloo, and I held out a hoof to her. "Come on, you're all good. If something happens, I'll grab you with my magic."

She looked at me, really looked at me, and I could see her weighing up everything we'd done together in just a day. "I hope I don't regret this." She walked forward onto the cloud. "You're a strange unicorn, Lyra."

"Ha! You should meet some of my classmates." Unicorn magic can shape and move clouds, but it uses a lot of energy to do it. Instead, I just made more steam under our cloud which heated it up. "You know the best bit about doing this?" I asked.

Scootaloo turned and looked out over the city as it slowly fell away under us. Up and up we rose, and to my delight she didn't seem afraid anymore. "Height? You can see further… Oh! You can use your magic to go—"

I casually put my leg around around her shoulder and let loose with the simplest of teleportation spells. Half a city and half a heartbeat later we appeared at the front door of what I was already thinking of as my old house.

"…anywhere you want. Neat. This is your place?" She waved at the front door.

"Yeah. Come on in." I opened the door with my magic and led the way inside. "I'll have to spend a bit of time to move all our stuff down to Ponyville, but that can be done while you're at school. Wanna see my armor?"

The extra bedroom was where we kept our Guard gear. There was three armor stands now, one held my armor, one that held Sweetie's light armor, and an empty one where her heavier armor normally sat. Of course, on a dangerous mission she was wearing it. "This is mine."

Scootaloo ignored my awesome armor and walked up to Sweetie's. "What about that one?"

"That one is Sweetie Drops' light armor. She's on a mission at the moment that might turn dangerous, so she's taken her heavy gear." I picked up my armor with my forehooves and turned it so it was at least aimed the right way. Picking it up in my magic, I lifted it onto my back.

Scootaloo was running her hoof over Sweetie's armor. "Aren't you afraid b-bad things might happen to her?"

The weight of the armor was familiar—a friend. "Not one bit. She's a brave pony, and a really good fighter, plus she has her squad with her. She'll come back." Was I trying to convince Scootaloo or myself? That she'd even taken her heavier armor worried me a little, but I remembered that she was part of experts at dealing with monsters. She was an expert herself, of course. "Can you get this strap here?"

I could have reached the strap, of course, but I wanted to keep talking and change the topic. Scootaloo walked over to me and reached up for the strap. Tugging didn't help, buzzing her wings as she pulled didn't help, but when she literally grabbed the strap and hung off it, she had enough tension to do up the buckle. "Do they all have to be that tight?"

"Most of them. They are made to be in places where they don't rub and where they don't pinch, so being tight is good. Want to get the next one?"

Sweetie and Apple Bloom, have you girls already started trying to find your special talents together?

Apple Bloom nodded sheepishly. "Well, my big brother said we should just let it come, but—"

"I realllly want my cutie mark, so we've been meeting in Apple Bloom's tree house and have decided to form a club to help us organize finding our special talents." Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out at Apple Bloom.

"Why'd you have to tell them all that? They'll tell Big Mac I'm using Applejack's old tree house."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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