Plop!
The bundle of herbs sunk deep into the crimson liquid that bubbled within the cauldron. A zebra of indeterminable age stood on a high stool, examining a bottle of mint extract in her hoof, the golden bangles on her leg glinting in the firelight. With a deft, almost imperceptibly quick motion, she unscrewed the cap with her teeth and splashed half of the mint extract into the concoction below. She then took up the lengthy stirring stick beside her stool and began to mix, unfazed as the bubbles grew more violent and geysers shot up dangerously close to her muzzle.
If a pony had to take an elixir for hoof rot, Zecora figured—and that would have to be a very desperate pony indeed—it ought to at least smell somewhat appetizing. Mint would at least temper the sensation of swallowing swamp-water that unfortunately accompanied the typical hoof rot elixir. That was Zecora’s specialty: concocting cures with flavors that nopony could possibly refuse, cures that appealed and healed. Traveling apothecaries glared with envy at the zebra who hailed from a faraway land and yet knew how to mend the ailments of the locals. Zecora would secretly smile, take the bits offered gleefully by thankful customers, and retreat to the Everfree Forest before she could be caught. That was why she no longer sold her mixtures on the street corners of Ponyville. If somepony needed medicine, they had to come to her hut lodged deep in the forest now. Unfortunately this cut down significantly on her clientele, but the customers she did have paid handsomely for Zecora’s work in spite of her competitive prices.
Besides, Zecora was not in it for the money. Suffering and illness are universal, her father had told her all those years ago. Healing is universal too, and those who healed were bound in a sacred pact with Mother Nature to help those who couldn’t cure themselves. Pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns, zebras, alicorns, and even those outside of the equine species didn’t deserve to suffer if there was a way back to health.
She turned her gaze over to the far wall where rows of pristine glass phials stood uncorked on a shelf. Pulling her stirring stick out of the cauldron and clapping her front hooves together, she summoned a phial to her, let it dip into the still-boiling potion, and flew it away to the rack sitting on her countertop. Soon, an assembly line of phials was flowing neatly through the air of Zecora’s hut, and she closed her eyes to focus her magic more readily. A store like this would mean she wouldn’t have to cook more of this particularly nasty elixir for months! Oh, she liked the thought of that, for Zecora had her favorite potions to make, and this was not one of them. If only ponies would properly clean their hooves like they were told to do as fillies and colts, or if they—
Bonk!
Zecora twitched her ear to flick away whatever was persisting on hitting her on the side of her head. She was trying to focus! Still, she kept getting smacked until she finally sighed exasperatedly and opened her eyes. A scroll hovered at eye level, the remnants of green fire licking away into the air. Cocking an eyebrow, she took the scroll in her teeth, climbed down from her stool and stopped the phials from flying across the room. Fifty phials was more than plenty to store, the zebra figured, and she pushed the rest back through the air to the original shelf. When the fire under the cauldron was safely put out, she spat out the scroll, which proceeded to unfurl itself and reveal curling script.
Dearest Zecora,
Ordinarily I wouldn’t be asking you on such short notice, but there is a couple here in Canterlot who want a Naming ceremony in the middle of the night tonight. They’re both advisors to my court and hold fairly high social position, and they feel that if this were to get out, professionals indulging in such an archaic tradition, their reputations would be somewhat sullied. I’ve assured them that no such thing would happen, but nevertheless, they insist on hosting the Naming in secrecy. I’ll be sending a coach-and-two for you; it will arrive shortly and take you to the couple’s home, where I’ll meet you at the gate.
Sincerely,
Celestia,
Princess of Equestria
She hadn’t gotten one of those calls in a long time.
Zecora set the scroll on a side table and paced through her hut, gathering what she might need. Since this couple wasn’t having a public Naming ceremony, many of the usual texts and relics could be left behind, but there was still a show to be put on. She affixed a cluster of feathers and leaves to her many gold neck bands, added kohl around her eyes, and added five bangles to her bare front leg. Most of what Zecora needed was for appearances’ sake, though her father, a prominent shaman in Nayrobi, had always lectured on the importance of appearances for such events. It was true that no matter how many talismans a pony had on, they weren’t considered sacred or mystical. Nay, it was the belief held by others that generated mysticism. Thus, requesting a Naming in the middle of the night, in Zecora’s experienced and superstitious eyes, only made the event even more sacred.
She decided to leave her plain gold hoops in her ears when she heard the stomping of hooves on dirt outside. How in Equestria two pegasi and a coach had managed to find a clear landing spot in the Everfree Forest was beyond her, but the zebra saw as she stepped out the front door of her hut that the clumsy pegasi had trampled a sizeable patch of gryphon’s tail in the process. She thought about admonishing them, but saw with great surprise that a pair of indigo Night Guards were hitched to the coach posts, the vertical slits of their golden eyes dilated in the darkness. Wordlessly, she clambered up into the coach and held her hood up while the pegasi took off into the inky night sky.
Interesting how Princess Celestia is keeping the Night Guards of old in their positions instead of doubling her own Day force, Zecora mused. It is almost as if she wants the public to realize her sister’s presence is still within the castle if not by her side.
Almost on cue, the moon was revealed as light gray cirrus clouds slid away from its surface. The darkened craters were arranged to suggest a unicorn mare in profile, although everypony knew it was meant to be the long-since-banished Nightmare Moon, who was to watch over the night until her fateful return.
Fate. Even for Zecora, who’d been lectured as a young zebra on how choosing the right name was so very important to securing a pony’s well-being in life, the relationship between names and cutie marks weren’t completely clear. To be fair, it seemed as though the name matched the cutie mark fairly often: a mare named Sweetheart would have pink hearts emblazoned on her flank, while a stallion named Soarin’ would bear the image of windswept clouds. Deep magic, far beyond what Celestia or any other high-level creature could possibly hope to manipulate, governed the appearance of cutie marks, which is why some ponies believed the Naming was so important. Names were like incantations that channeled that deep magic, they figured. Still others believed that this was utter bunk, and everypony could choose to be who they wanted and completely disregard that mark. After all, that’s how Nightmare Moon came to be: she ignored her place in the synergy of Equestria as Princess Luna and rebelled out of spite.
At that time, the Night Guards began their slow descent over the outskirts of Canterlot. Being lost in thought, Zecora hadn’t even noticed how high they’d been flying and how thin the air had become. That might explain the powerful headache throbbing in her temple. She clapped a hoof to her head to rub the sore spot just as the Night Guards began to dive with rather frightening speed, careening toward one of the main avenues.
“Is there any way, two Guards of the crown, that we could possibly slow down?!” Zecora yelled, but the wind rushing violently through her ears told her there was no way they could have heard her. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for impact, but was pleasantly surprised when the coach gently floated down and the wheels barely made a scuff on the cobblestone. Cautiously opening one eye, she saw the Guards had opened their wings like parachutes to brake, and were now folding them up and trotting along the avenue as though nothing unusual happened. Zecora shook her head at her own fear and tried to relax her heartbeat to focus on the task ahead of her.
Before long, the coach stopped in front of a modestly impressive two-story house bathed in warm moonlight. Princess Celestia stood at the gate waiting, her multicolored mane and tail flowing a little slower than normal due to the late hour.
“It’s been too long, Zecora,” the princess sighed as the zebra alighted from the coach.
“Indeed it has,” Zecora replied, dropping her verbal rhyming tic as she embraced her old friend with a smile on her dark muzzle.
“Were you surprised by my letter?”
“I’ll confess, I felt bewildered inside, for I thought among modern ponies, this tradition has died.”
Celestia chortled. “I think my subjects’ interest in the mysterious and occult is rising again. I hate to see your work reduced to dependency on fads, but,” the alicorn shrugged imperceptibly, “such are the times.” Her horn glowing a pale gold, she lifted the latch on the gate and pushed it open. “I don’t mean to be rude, Zecora, but how long will this take?”
“If the presence of deep magic with the babe is strong, the Naming will not take very long,” Zecora replied as she followed the princess up the house steps.
Celestia rang the doorbell with her horn. There was a loud pattering of hooves running down wooden stairs, and the front door was thrown open by a white unicorn colt with a broad chest and a blue striped mane.
“Wel—Princess Celestia!” the colt exclaimed, immediately dropping into a low bow. “It is an honor and privilege—”
“Rise, Shining Armor. Are your parents here?”
“Yes, they’re up in the nursery. Right this way, Princess and…” Shining Armor caught sight of Zecora’s appearance, made even more unusual by her tribal ornamentation. “Uh…Um, ah…”
“Go on,” Celestia nodded, and Shining Armor scrambled up the stairs ahead of the pair, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Zecora every few steps. The zebra shook her head, smiling privately as she climbed alongside Celestia. His parents clearly wanted to channel destiny very specifically with a good name, but had chosen one of the more pretentious ones she’d heard in years. She remembered many years ago that her father officiated a Naming for a couple with a colt who ended up being called Filthy Rich; to this day, she wondered if her father had just been pulling her tail with that story.
“He’s a good colt, really,” Celestia commented in a low whisper, yanking Zecora out of her reverie. “One of the finest in my School for Gifted Unicorns, excellent at shield-casting. I think he might be enrolling in the Royal Guard Academy when he graduates.”
Zecora snorted with derision.
“I didn’t choose his name, Zecora, only to admit him into my school.”
Shining Armor gestured to the white door painted with a purple star at the end of the narrow hallway. “There you are, Your Majesty! And, uh…” he stumbled, still unsure of how to address Zecora.
“The salutation of Zecora will suffice, young one. It’s difficult to address me when I’m eclipsed by the sun.” Zecora cocked her head to Celestia, who had to turn aside and stifle a giggle with her hoof. The door opened and a silvery-white unicorn mare with wide blue eyes stood in the doorway.
“Oh! They’re here, Nightlight!”
“That’s great!” a male voice called from within the nursery. “Show them in.”
Celestia and Zecora made their way into the nursery, which was decorated similarly to the door: white with purple accents. Evidently the couple had let the sex of their baby be a surprise for all and had thus decorated in the most neutral way possible. Zecora noted that the room was sparsely furnished, with wide open spaces for when the foal would begin to totter around outside the crib. Since this appeared to be a family of unicorns, the baby would also need room for magical outbursts.
Nightlight, a dark blue unicorn stallion sitting next to the crib, stood and introduced himself to Zecora. “I’m Nightlight, and this is my wife, Galaxy. We’re so thankful you could come on such short notice, and at such a late hour.”
“I do not mind keeping hours in the night, for oft I do my best work by moonlight,” Zecora replied, sweeping her hooded cloak to the side in a curtsy.
“And to Your Majesty, welcome. We’re humbled as always to have you in our home.”
“Please,” Celestia waved the comment off demurely. “This is about your child tonight. I’m merely here as Zecora’s escort and assistant.”
“Mom?” Shining Armor interrupted from the doorway.
“Shiny, you can go back to bed now,” Galaxy said without looking over her shoulder at her preteen son.
“But Mom—”
“Don’t send your colt away. He will do no harm should he stay,” Zecora stated.
“Are you sure?” Galaxy questioned.
“Absolutely. Let me see the child.”
Galaxy and Nightlight quickly drew back layer after layer of blankets with their magic, stopping when a swaddled purple unicorn baby appeared in deep sleep, the fringe of her indigo mane spilling out over her tiny forehead.
“There she is,” Galaxy sighed maternally.
“Do you need a closer look, Zecora?” Celestia asked. Before both parents could react, the princess enveloped the infant in her strong bubble of pale gold and elevated her before Zecora’s eyes. The zebra removed the cluster of leaves and feathers from her neck rings and shook it ever so gently in front of the baby’s muzzle. She sneezed in her sleep, causing both parents to sigh and Celestia to smile. Ever so slowly, the baby opened her eyes, revealing irises a deeper purple than Celestia’s. As Zecora waved the leaf-and-feather cluster, her eyes were tracking the movement from side to side with no effort. Ordinarily ponies couldn’t keep track of motion for quite a few months after birth, yet this foal couldn’t be more than four weeks old. Curious, Zecora touched the tiny foal’s forehead, brushing up the fringe of her dark little mane. At that moment, a surge shot through the zebra’s hoof that was so powerful, she was thankful Celestia was holding the infant.
This tiny unicorn was pulsing, no, oozing with raw magical power.
Zecora had Named all types of ponies, all with varying levels of magical ability at their young ages, but never before had she felt this kind of kick before. Ponies can sense when around somepony of great magical potential, which is why most almost involuntarily dropped to their knees when Princess Celestia was walking past them. But to be fair, Princess Celestia was a full-grown alicorn mare, while this unicorn, who again couldn’t be much older than a month, had magic radiating from her entire body and was already concentrated in her forehead surrounding her nubby horn. Such high development at such a young age…this was a truly special foal indeed. She could perhaps one day surpass Princess Celestia in her power.
Zecora glanced up at the moon, whose light was streaming in from the window opposite the crib, almost blindingly bright. She could be more powerful than Nightmare Moon, she thought. Maybe it was her superstition kicking in once again, but she could have sworn the eyes of the Mare in the Moon flashed for an instant. She shook her head and turned back to the hovering infant, whose eyes had flown wide open and were beckoning to the zebra with spinning magenta stars in her pupils.
Zecora stared, hypnotized. Galaxy and Nightlight backed up a little, fearful. Shining Armor looked like he wanted to bolt from the room, but stood his place with knees knocking. Even Celestia looked taken aback, staring as zebra and unicorn infant kept locked eyes.
“The stars will aid in her escape!” Zecora declared loudly. She could hear the others in the room muttering in bewilderment at the cryptic statement, but she couldn’t bear to look away from the spinning stars. The line had flashed into Zecora’s mind like a bolt from the blue, and she felt compelled to say it. Why analyze it now when there was so much more to learn from this precocious, amazing infant? Why did anything else matter?
With some effort, the little unicorn wiggled a fetlock free from her tight swaddling and touched the hoof to Zecora’s nose. Instantly, Zecora snapped out of the trance she’d be captured in, swaying a little. She pressed a black hoof to her forehead, noticing that the stars had stopped swirling in the unicorn’s eyes. In fact, they seemed to never have been there at all. Nightlight, who’d been holding his frightened wife, stood up to full height and coaxed Galaxy to do the same. It was Shining Armor who spoke first.
“Excuse me, but what the hay just happened?” he said bluntly. Galaxy was about to admonish her son when Celestia held up a hoof to silence them. Zecora closed her eyes, swallowed, and opened them again, looking at the infant and smiling.
“When one looks deep into this child’s eyes,
They can see she’s intelligent and wise.
Her power is great, her potential is grand
One day to maybe be the best in the land.
Excellence is the thing for which she strives,
Something which will allow her to save many lives.
As a filly she may seek solitude and books,
Completely ignoring her peers’ jabs and looks.
But alas, she will miss something she’ll sorely need,
The knowledge to truly allow her to succeed.
Friendship for her shall be the key
That allows her heart to be truly set free.
Ascend she will, on this you may trust,
But learning of the power of friends she must.”
Zecora nodded to Celestia, who gently laid the infant down in her crib and drew the covers up to her chin.
“The time when darkness and light will meet:
This union does often feel bittersweet.
Day’s end is a time of great transition.
It is here where this foal will take her position.
“I present to you Twilight Sparkle,” Zecora concluded, sweeping her forearm over the infant and setting her bangles jingling. The parents, Shining Armor and Celestia drew closer to the crib, and baby Twilight yawned hugely.
“I guess she’s not too impressed with her destiny,” Shining Armor remarked.
“She will be in due time,” Celestia said. “But now it is time for her to sleep. We should all sleep.”
“Do you want to stay here, Your Majesty?” Nightlight queried. “The nursery is our former guest room, but we could make up a bed—”
“No, no, the castle isn’t too much farther from here. We have a coach waiting out front.” Celestia nodded to the nursery door, which Zecora correctly took as their cue to leave. Shining Armor led alicorn and zebra down the stairs and out the front door to where the Night Guards had been patiently tethered to the coach this whole time. He raised an arm to block Zecora’s path after letting Celestia go first.
“Um…thank you. For Naming my baby sister and everything,” he mumbled.
“The pleasure was mine,” Zecora replied, breaking her rhyming tic for the third time tonight. She clambered down the steps amidst loud protests from Galaxy that she ought not to leave until she was paid for her services.
“Galaxy and Nightlight never let anyone do anything for them without payment. They’re very hard-working unicorns.” Celestia told Zecora as the coach took off through the night sky.
“I leave their home without any pay? That is a problem for another day,” Zecora yawned.
Celestia laughed. “You’ll stay at the castle with me tonight. It’s far too late to send you home alone. No, I insist,” she said curtly as the zebra opened her mouth to protest. “Accept my hospitality.”
Zecora fell silent, and Celestia sneaked an upward glance to the moon. The stars will aid in her escape? No, she couldn’t possibly have meant…no. Impossible. There are still many years left.
High above the coach, the Mare in the Moon winked.