A pair of unicorns walked down the park pushing a stroller with a sleeping foal in it, as they walked, ponies stared at them, some ponies smiling, some others waved and a few even stopped to coo the sleeping foal.
The pair continued walking through the part when the mare giggled and turned to face the stallion, “you know Sunburst, I’ve just noticed, but the way we look right now it might look like we are a married couple taking our baby to a walk in the park.”
Sunburst almost spilled the drink he was sipping from, “M-M-M-Moondancer! What are you saying?”
She just realized what she said as well and blushed, they both fixed their glasses, “Y-You know Sunburst, I-I’ve been thinking...” she said while she started to sweat making her glasses fog.
He stared at her, her cute expression made him feel at ease, her eyes were so pure and the sweater she always wore made her look adorable, “um… what is it Moondancer?”
“Well since the heartwarming party… when we were washing the dishes… you never again tried to…”
Sunburst remembered the event bringing a blush to his face as well, “ah well… between school and everypony at the castle we don’t really get much time t-t-to be alone, not even when we went to Canterlot to arrange your moving.”
“Well… we have time now… and I don’t think anypony will interrupt us.”
“Moondancer are you saying?” Sunburst stared at her, directly on those big round eyes, she was the first one to close her eyes and pucker up, both of them were trembling but he finally gathered enough courage to begin slowly approaching her.
Before they connected somepony called out to him, “HEY Sunburst, I’m glad I found you guys.”
Both Sunburst and Moondancer freaked out and turned to see who was calling them, a white unicorn with a blue mane was walking towards them.
“Oh Shining Armor hey there, we weren’t doing anything right Moondancer?”
“Yeah hehehe, we were just walking with the foal… and I mean your foal not ours, we don’t have foals on our own… not that we have been trying to have some, we haven’t even kissed… I mean you know what, I’ll shut up.”
Shining Armor stared at them, confused by their responses, “o-kay… anyway, I’m glad I found you, I see you managed to make her sleep, she misses you, you know, you barely come to visit anymore.”
Sunburst scratched his neck, “yeah well, hehehe, the school of friendship keeps me pretty busy and oh have you met Moondancer” the mare waved, and Shining waved back “I suppose you came to take little Flurry with you?”
Shining Armor shook his head, “I was able to squish my way out of that alicorn reunion and met with Spike, I was going to ask you if you could take care of her for the rest of the afternoon, I’m going with Spike and other guys to play Ogres and Oubliettes, it’s been years since I played that with Spike and having more people only makes it better, you don’t mind right Sunburst?”
“Ah well, no, not at all Shining Armor, go ahead.”
Shining Armor gave Sunburst a few pats on the back, “nice thanks Sunburst, you are the stallion, well I got to go see ya buddy, nice to meet you Moondancer,” he then left them alone.
“So…” Sunburst said.
“Yeah...” Moondancer replied
Sunburst rubbed his beard with a hoof, “do you want to...” at that moment Flurry Heart started crying, he quickly checked on her, lifting her with his magic, “oh Flurry Heart, what’s wrong? *sniff sniff* Oh! I see, Moondancer I need to change her diaper, let’s go to that table over there,” the trio moved faster to the table and Sunburst Masterfully removed and disposed of the dirty diaper, cleaned Flurry Heart, powdered her properly and replaced the diaper with a new clean one, while Moondancer stared in awe at the baby caring skills the stallion showed.
“You are pretty good at that Sunburst, I’m surprised”
He awkwardly laughed at the praise, “well as a crystaller I was barely more than a glorified babysitter, so on the moons I worked there I learned the ropes of caring for a baby, but right now you are a bit bigger aren't chu?, yee chu are yee chu are, chu are a big girl now, aren’t chu Flurry Heart?” Sunburst cooed at the baby who laughed trying to grab his beard, he then levitated a bottle to feed her, she took the bottle with no trouble and quickly fell asleep again.
Moondancer giggled watching Sunburst care for Flurry Heart and then sighed, “you are going to be a great father,” she whispered.
“What was that?”
“Uh… nothing, I was just thinking if Princess Cadance, Celestia and Luna will agree to Twilight’s plan.”
“I don’t see why not, even if the probability of that object being related to the aliens from the music box is practically zero,” he answered, both had heard Twilight’s plans before the other alicorns, they helped polish the details helped by Starlight.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
At the Castle of friendship, Princess Cadance, Celestia and Luna listened to Twilight’s presentation helped by Starlight, they showed them some graphics depicting the strange body in space, its size, its trajectory and Twilight’s plans to save it from certain doom in the flames of their sun while Cadance suddenly stared at the window distracted.
“Cadance is there something wrong?”
“Oh no Twilight, I just felt a disturbance in the love flow, nothing to worry, please continue.”
“So in summary, we’ll need your help pulling this unknown object out of its current trajectory and bringing it as close as possible to Equum so the object orbits it without the object crashing onto our planet or the moon in the process, what do you say?” Twilight finished her presentation while Starlight put all the pictures and graphics in order as they began, they smiled waiting for the other alicorns to answer or ask questions.
The pink alicorn raised her hoof and Twilight signaled her with a pointer, “well Twilight, I get that you want to recover a random object because you believe it could be related to these aliens, that I just discovered exist... thank you for telling me sooner by the way, but what I don’t get is why do you need the four alicorns? Wouldn’t it be enough with aunt Celestia or aunt Luna? That thing is not even a tenth of the size of our moon.”
Celestia laughed giving a little pat on Cadance’s back, “little Cadance your love power is immense but you need to learn a bit more about physics and astrology.”
“Uh I think you mean astronomy Prin… I mean Celestia,” Starlight said with a nervous smile, just realizing she corrected one of the previous rulers of Equestria
“Oh… isn’t that the same?”
“Not really Tia,” Luna said in a serious tone, “astronomy studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Meanwhile astrology is a pseudoscience that claims to divine information about Equum creatures affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects.”
Celestia stared at her sister and then turned to see Starlight who nodded in agreement, “well I’ll probably need a refresher on terms and the like, anyway, my point is that even if my sister and I can move huge bodies like Equum and her moon, it would be more difficult to move a different body in space.”
“But why? I don’t understand how it can be more difficult if the object is smaller.”
Celestia sipped on her cocktail, “Twilight I think you are better than me explaining this topic, care to help me out?”
“Gladly Celestia, ok Cadance the size is not the only thing to take into consideration, we need to consider many factors like its relative distance and speed to our planet, its trajectory and its acceleration, for one the object is really really far, right now is farther than the moon or the sun to our planet, when it is on its closest spot from here it would still be farther from us than the moon itself. Other thing, as you know meanwhile Luna moves the moon, Celestia doesn't move the sun, she uses the sun as an anchor and spins the planet on its axis.”
Celestia rolled her eyes, “to be fair I never said I move the sun, just that I bring the day. It was everypony else who began saying I have that power.”
“And it wasn’t until that mathematician pony who got almost lynched by a mob stating that Equum spined around the Sun and not the other way around until you came clean about it… Copper something was it?”
“Yeah, Copper Nickel and in my defence nopony asked me before how my magic worked,” Celestia pouted as a kid who got caught lying.
Twilight giggled but then cleared her throat, “anyway, the fact that Luna moves the moon and Celestia the planet to bring the day, might seem like a titanic display of strength, even if it’s impressive one must take in count that our planet, the Sun and the Moon are is such a perfect balance, it doesn't take as much energy to bring day and night as one might think, lemme see, yeah think of it like the new giant telescope on the Institute of Sciences of Canterlot, it weighs over two tons but since is perfectly balanced one pony can spin it by pushing it with one hoof, but even if balanced it still takes a lot of power to bring day and night that even a group of common unicorns, wouldn't be able to do it.”
Cadance was starting to understand it, she nodded at some of Twilight’s arguments, “so what you mean to tell me is that it would be more difficult with this other body since it’s not balanced?”
Twilight clapped her hooves, “exactly, it would take a considerably higher level of power to change the trajectory of this object due its size and the speed that it is traveling, since it's not balanced like the moon, sun and planet Equum. That’s why I will need your help in moving it, as you could see in my presentation I already calculated many possible outcomes and trajectories, it could take, to save it from a hot end in our Sun.”
Celestia finished her drink and Starlight served her another one, “even if it isn’t anything related to the aliens, it could still be interesting so yeah, I’ll help you Twilight, how about you Lulu?”
“I am in, Tia, I’ll gladly help you Twilight.”
Starlight served herself and Cadence another drink, “how about you Princess Cadence?”
“Just Cadence is fine and yeah I’ll help you Twilight, on one condition.”
Twilight smiled since she had an idea what she was going to ask, “what could that possibly be?”
“Haha, I think you know, come on, let me listen to a few songs on that music box already.”
“Gladly, well if everypony agrees I think we can move to the studio and listen to a few alien songs.”
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
The four alicorns plus Starlight were in the studio preparing the music box, Twilight like always needed to check three times the spell was correct and every time it was just as she left it.
“Is that it Twilight?” the youngest alicorn nodded just like Starlight next to her, “I was expecting something… well bigger.”
“The best gifts come in small packages Cadance, I’m sure I taught you that lesson before.”
Starlight teleported some snacks and drinks she had prepared from the kitchen, “so in what order are we going to do this.”
“Why don’t we let Cadance first? She never pressed it before.”
“Oh nono, I couldn’t, why don’t we do it by age? You know what they say, age before beauty,” Cadance said smirking, making Celestia’s eye twitch while Luna giggled at her sister’s reaction.
The sun alicorn sighed, rolling her eyes, “fine,” she said, approaching the music box and pressing the button with one of her wings. A happy sounding set of drums came out of the machine.
A sudden scream and some metal winds started the ponies, “such a pretty song, the drums and the winds and even that little squeal it was pretty fun.”
“As far as we know, these aliens love their fun, oh! It seems that this is a love song,” Starlight said while moving to the rhythm of the music and so was everypony else.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
At the park Moondancer and Sunburst continued walking with little Flurryheart, they got to the playground and played with the baby on the many structures, the three of them having so much fun going down the slide, hanging on the monkeybars, getting heart attacks when Flurry disappeared for a few minutes, it was a blast of a good time they spend with the baby.
Finally once they were exhausted the trio laid on their backs on the grass enjoying the cold breeze, “this is better than I thought, Sunburst.”
“And to think you didn’t want to come with us.”
“Boobooboo” the little foal said to Sunburst
“That’s right Flurry Heart, we had to convince her to come with us.”
“Well I didn’t like the idea of babysitting somepony else’s foal, now I see I was wrong.”
“But you don’t have foals of your own Moondancer,” he turned his face to stare at the mare.
“I still would like some, when I find the… right… stallion” she also turned her face to see him, they were really close, their faces close enough to feel each other’s breath, this time it was him who took the initiative to close his eyes and move his head.
They were about to touch when they heard another voice, ”HEY Sunburst and Moondancer, how y’all doin’? OW! what the hay, Rares?” Sunburst and Moondancer separated and stared at the couple of ponies that arrived. Applejack rubbed her side where Rarity just hit her.
“Applejack read the mood, you just ruined their moment, I’m terribly sorry darlings, please don’t let us interrupt you, we need to go anyway, let’s go Jackie” Rarity fixed Applejack’s scarf while the earth pony rolled her eyes, they then walked side by side with their tails intertwined.
“Moondancer I-”
“Maybe we should return to the castle,” she said, not looking at Sunburst.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
Back at the castle the song was just ending, while Cadance cringed staring at the window again, “so close...”
“What is it, Cadance?”
“Nothing Starlight, that was such a cute song, very energetic I really enjoyed it.”
Celestia laughed her lungs out, “I loved it, I can still hear it, walking on sunshine WOAH HA!”
“You would be the one to like a song about sunshine sister of mine.”
“You can’t blame me for having the best songs Lulu.”
“Oh I’ll remove that smile on your face Tia, watch me as I pull the best song ever!” Luna flew to the device and pressed the button returning to her spot, the melancholic tune of a piano could be heard.
“Aunty Luna, that piano sounds beautiful.”
“Indeed little Cadance, for it was I who picked the song… say what? Would the message of the song be so easy that only a fool wouldn’t understand?”
“Apparently this will be a story song, indeed these aliens like this type of tunes.”
Starlight sipped from her drink and nodded, “indeed, they seem to be pretty common.”
“Oh, but what a coincidence, so their culture also had a cult for their moon, that brings a few memories from the old ages, some of them still good don’t you think Lulu?”
“Indeed sister, oh and it seems that they also saw the moon as a symbol of fertility, but what on planet Equum is a Calé?”
Starlight raised her hoof, “oh oh, I know that, a Calé is how gypsies call their males, in my old village we get visits from gypsies from time to time, oh hey it seems that the moon is answering back.”
They all heard about the trade the moon on the story offered Twilight, Cadance and Starlight looked terrified meanwhile the two sisters stared at the music box in a stoic manner next to each other, at the beginning of the chorus of the song, Luna let out a tiny gasp that nopony but her sister caught, Celestia extended a wing and wrapped it around her sister.
Starlight kept listening to the song, and then cleared her throat, “well… now that’s definitely not something that our Luna would do right?” She looked at the sisters and Luna’s face showed melancholy and even pain, “is there something wrong Luna?”
“No Starlight, there is nothing wrong, the song just made an old memory return, one that is filled with deep love and sadness, let’s continue hearing it and I’ll tell you when it is over.”
Everypony listened to the story about the gypsy lady asking for a husband and how she agreed to give her first born, when the next verse started, “oooh, that is not good an albino child born from gypsies, they are not known to be the most cultured in science and how the genes may affect the body of a newborn baby, if their gypsies are similar to those from this world, he will feel betrayed and dishonored thinking she cheated on him with a payo and that is how they call the non-gypsies.”
“Really? What do you think he will do, Starlight?”
“I don’t want to think about it, let’s continue listening,” everypony continued listening until the next verse started, “oh my gosh, it was worse than what I thought he would do.”
Twilight, Cadance and Starlight were horrified at the thought of that man leaving a baby on the field without any protection, even Celestia seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea, while Luna’s face was unchanged, as the last part of the song, four mares gave a sigh of relief knowing that the human’s moon took care of the baby.
Cadance cleaned a little tear from her eye, “that was such a beautiful and bittersweet ending, it amazed me how these aliens can turn up with a story containing such a tragedy with a somehow happy ending.”
“Unbelievable indeed little Cadance, now I believe I have a story to tell you,” all other mares paid attention to the alicorn of the night, “you better than nopony understand that I was locked in the moon for a thousand years as some of the history books must tell,” everypony nodded, “what the history books don’t tell is who I left behind, I mean besides my sister.”
Twilight and Cadance gasped while Starlight gave a knowing nod, “wait Aunty Luna, you mean to tell us that...”
“Yes Cadance, I did have a family of my own besides Celestia, once I was locked away I left behind my son, my first born,” Celestia hugged her sister tighter, “don’t worry Tia, I don’t blame you, you did what’s right at the moment with the resources you had at hoof.”
“But wait, if you had a son why aren't there any more alicorns, wasn’t he one like Flurry Heart?”
“No Twilight, as we said when we first saw little Flurry Heart, never an alicorn was born, he was born an unicorn, coat and mane white as snow, and eyes as blue as the sky, he was my only son and as far as I know, Celestia’s foals had never been alicorns either,
Starlight gasped, “Wait, you have had foals Celestia?”
“Well yeah, only five among the thousand years Luna was imprisoned, I let them live their lives as they saw fit, strange enough they all gave up their title once they grew up and they usually left, the only news I got from them was of their passing, only one stood with me all her life, I miss her dearly, after her I decided I would no longer have foals… please continue Lulu.”
“Thanks dear sister, as you might have guessed, when I returned to… well the realm of the living, he had been long gone from this world, that was something that filled me with great sadness, luckily his descendants still roam the world until this day.”
“Who are his descendants?”
Celestia snickered at the question, “well, Twilight, you have met one of them, Prince Blueblood is a direct descendant of Luna’s son, the entire line of the Blue is his family, in fact if you had seen Luna the first time she saw Blueblood”
Luna smiled at the memory, “indeed, it was emotional to say the least, and he looked just like him if his mane and tail was white instead of blonde he would be identical, well except for his cutiemark, but now I will say no more, for I miss my son greatly,” everypony else kept a respectful silence for a few minutes until Luna raised her face, “I do believe it is your turn Little Cadance.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stop here?” Luna nodded smiling, “okay, I’ll press it now, I hope is a happy one,” she walked to the music box and pressed the button with her wing, sweet sounding notes greeted her from the machine.
The group listened to the notes, “another melancholic sounding song, uh?.”
“It seems that way Starlight, but this sounds fills me with hope, I don’t know why.”
“Really Cadance? For me it feels like an adventure is ending, one filled with many obstacles that were beaten, the type of adventure where some souls were lost but it was all worth it, because at the end, those that were lost will be remembered for those that will go on, it sounds so beautiful”
Cadance giggled, “I never got you for a romantic Twilight,” the purple alicorn turned red while she scratched her head with a hoof.
“But when you put it that way, yeah it sounds like an end to an adventure,” she turned to the window once more and sighed, “if only your adventure could start.”
“What are you talking about Cadance? You have been distracted lately.”
“Don’t worry about it Twily, I just wonder if Flurry Heart is doing ok with Sunburst and Moondancer”
“I’m sure that they are alright, you wanted him to babysit her, remember? They are probably on their way back from the park.”
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
At the middle of the Market Moondance walked in front of Sunburst looking down, he was pushing Flurry Heart’s stroller with her soundly sleeping, he also looked a bit down after today, it was late in the afternoon but the market was still busy with many ponies walking around.
Moondancer stopped and Sunburst slightly bumped her with the stroller, “Sunburst.”
The stallion looked up to her, “yeah?”
“What are we doing?”
“We are returning Flurry Heart to her mother.”
She turned to see him, “no I mean us, what are we doing?”
“I-I-I don’t think I get the question Moondancer.”
“Is clear for me that I like you and I think that you like me too, don’t you?”
“I… I do.”
“Then why? Why is it so hard to give the last step? Why can’t we just look at each other and… and…” a little tear fell from her eye.
“Because… we are a couple of awkward ponies that have a hard time expressing their feelings and when we gather the courage to do so, we get interrupted by a cruel joke of destiny,” he grabbed a hoofkerchief and cleaned Moondancer’s face.
“You are really smart, you know.”
“You are really smart too Moondancer,” after cleaning her face, he put the hoofkerchief under his cape and caressed her cheek, “and you are really be-beautiful too.”
Moondancer blushed, “Sunburst… there are too many ponies around us...”
“I know… and I think I don’t care… besides, I think the stress won’t let me move me from here, so I think there is no better time now,” they both now closed their eyes while the crowd stared at them, they were getting close almost touching but they didn’t notice a pink pony was bouncing right at them.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
Cadance once more stared out the window, “come on, come on, come on… oh...” her face sported a small smile and kept listening to the song until it was over, “that was so beautiful Twilight, I think it was my favorite song of them all.”
“Yeah Twilight, now that I think about it, isn’t it weird that the music box almost every time it plays a song that the one that presses the button likes?”
“That’s pretty strange, yeah, I might have Tube Tester look into it, well I think that does it. Now in regards to my plan, the object will be as its closes in exactly three moons and a half, we will bring it close enough to Equum so it will keep an orbit around it so it’s close enough to study it, and then we will tell the public about the aliens, we might not have enough ponies yet that know about this but we can’t keep it secret forever”
“Seems like a plan Twilight, Lulu I think it’s time for us to go, I don’t want to miss the hula hoop contest.”
“And I should probably go find Sunburst, I abused his kindness for too long.”
Everypony bid farewell, Twilight, Celestia and Luna teleported away while Starlight and Cadance walked to the entrance of the castle, they were about to open the door when it opened by itself, showing two blushing unicorns.
“Oh hey Sunburst and Moondancer, I see you are back from the park, how did it go?”
Cadance smiled at them, “yeah how did it go?”
“Well we… we took care of Flurry Heart, didn’t we Moondancer?”
“Ye-yeah, we did, she was such an angel, and you should have seen Sunburst, he was like a real dad taking care of her.”
“I’m glad you had fun, can I have my baby back?”
“Oh yeah here she is,” they both said at the same time, Cadance picked her baby and teleported the stroller to her room in the castle.
She then looked at the two and another smile adorned her face, “Starlight, can you please teach me about the kites, Twilight told me that you liked them”
“Like them? I love them, come with me I’ll show you on the roof,” Starlight dragged the alicorn to the roof leaving Sunburst and Moondancer alone.
They walked in silence until they reached the hall where their rooms were, they smiled at each other and closed their doors.
~♥~♦~♣~♠~
At the plaza the ponies were returning to their respective homes, but right in the middle you could see there was a pink party pony tied with a lasso, her mouth gagged with an apple.
“Whoo Wee now that was mighty close, Sugarcube.”
Pinkie ate the apple, “they are gone now, you can untie me Applejack.”
Applejack laughed, "no, no Ah don't think Ah will"
Rarity approached a colt holding a camera, “Featherweight, darling, did you take the moment.”
“Yesh I did, miss Rarity it will go right to the cover,” the pegasus colt showed the picture he took, showing Sunburst and Moondancer kissing while the crowd cheered for them and Pinkie was lassoed before she could interrupt the new couple.
“I’m glad that they found each other and it took them even less than us Jackie,” Rarity nuzzled her marefriend on the neck who gave her a kiss on the head.
“Well a beautiful unicorn mare taught me once, that love will find its way.”
They all left for their respective homes leaving a Pinkie Pie tied in the middle of the plaza.
“Hey girls… I’m still here… hello? Come on girls this is not funny… well it is actually pretty funny.”
To be continued