Luna awoke with a start, as she raised her head she wiped drool from her muzzle. How long had she slept? She stumbled over to the window and drew open the shades, her sisters sun was low in the sky. “Ah just in time for the evening meal” Luna thought striding back over to her desk.
She had been up most of the night and day, as she had been doing for the past weeks. She had been so exited about her colony that she would have forgotten to lower and raise the moon had Celestia not reminded her.
She had spent all of her time designing buildings and planning how she would feed and care for her ponies. She had been so busy with these things that she had completely forgotten about where she was going to get the ponies to care for. Celestia had told her that she would figure that part out and Luna should take care of the other stuff.
And Luna had, she had all the buildings she would need designed and had them all placed, she had even built a scale model. It had been rather easy, she had often theorized about ponies living at night and about what a town needs, all she had needed to do was put her ideas onto paper.
She had locked herself in her room only taking her food and shooing her big sister away telling her it was to be a surprise. Finally the time had come, as she prepared to join her sister for dinner she gathered all her papers into the air, she only just remembered to put on her royal garb before rushing out the door a skip in her step.
As she entered the cozy cubby where she and her sister ate she was surprised to see that her sister had not yet arrived. Luna took her seat and began to arrange her papers in a practical order. “a list of the buildings shall go before the blueprints and the map of the town should probably-“
“Evening Luna it is nice to see you out of your room.” Luna nearly fell off her cushion.
“Tia! Would you be’ist so kind as to not sneak’ith up on me!” Celestia giggled and sat down opposite Luna.
Luna recomposed herself and sat in her chair waiting for her sister to ask about her pet project. However Celestia took advantage of her sisters excitement and continued to make her evening tea as slowly as possible.
Finally Luna couldn’t take the suspense. “I’ve finished! I have planned everything out, I have a list of all the flora and fauna and where I want to place them, and I have every building designed and placed, I even found the prefect spot to put it all!” While Luna continued spewing forth all the things she had done Celestia carefully took the papers from her sisters magical grasp and began to look through them.
“This looks excellent Luna you even thought of how to keep the ponies warm during the lowered temperature of the night. There is only one thing I don’t see in here, how do you plan for you ponies to see.”
Luna’s bubbly excitement faltered for a moment. She had forgotten in her plans that not all ponies had her ability to see in the dark. She had omitted street lights and such from her plans because they hindered one’s ability to view the night sky. Her moon, when it was full, could shine brightly enough to be comfortable but that only happened once a month and the light would disperse underneath the trees.
However nothing could hamper the alicorn’s dreams and she quickly thought of a solution. “I shall simply use a night vision potion or spell.” Luna said with a smile at her quick thinking. “So sister what have you thought of on the matter of the ponies?” The younger alicorn inquired exited to hear her sister’s plans.
Celestia took a long sip of her tea before delicately placing her cup on it’s saucer. Luna began to think her sister was purposely trying to drive her insane with suspense.
“Well it took some thought but I finally came to a decision. Foals are your best bet, they have pliable minds and a strong curiosity. So I believe you should use your ability to view pony’s dreams to pick homeless foals to live in your town. However since you can’t have an entire town populated just by foals, I believe you should select some of your lunar pegusi and their families to help take care of things while you teach the foals.”
Celestia lifted her tea cup to her lips once more allowing her sister to contemplate the idea. It was a solid plan, homeless foals had no parents to miss them and would most likely be more than willing to take advantage of an adventure, besides foals were the right age to adapt to the night.
The idea of her lunar pegusi taking care of the adult matters took out two bird with one stone, the children could spend their time exploring and learning about the night instead of dealing with food and safety. That was another thing, with the guards there they could act as minute men if the need arose, besides she needed some pony to staff her small castle and other buildings.
“It is a wondrous idea!” Luna said her smile growing even wider. “I shall have the construction of the town and the selection of the foals begun.” And with that the princess of the night dashed from the room papers in tow.
Celestia just smiled and made a mental note to have a servant bring Luna some dinner.
“And so the pegusi use their magic to thin out the clouds making a fog.” The teacher was giving a lecture on weather to fill in the time between the end of her previous lesson and the end of class.
Aurora already knew all the things the teacher was covering and so let her mind wander. Her brother was staring off into space in the desk beside her, he wasn’t interested by weather or extreme flying.
As Aurora sat she began to think about what she would do after school. Normally she would play a round of foursquare with some of the girls from her class, and then head back to the orphanage with her brother.
Sprocket tended to hang with the boys who were new or who were leaving, he was different than Aurora, he was very sociable being able, and willing to befriend almost anypony. Aurora had acquaintances not friends, she had discovered that making friends was hard, most of the girls her age at school wanted to talk about dresses, colts and cutiemarks.
Those who were like her and didn’t like girly stuff had proven themselves as incompatible with Aurora, it was hard to carry on a conversation when the other person is constantly giving you pitying looks or bringing up how sorry they were that she had lost her parents.
She had found a few friends at the orphanage, but they had all been adopted, usually by a family in a distant town, so now Aurora stuck to playing foursquare and conversing in small talk.
The fillies thoughts were turning to a particularly difficult brain teaser she had been working on when the bell rang. She moved on automatic, her magic levitating her books into her bag and her legs heading for the door.
When Sprocket caught up to his sister she was already out of the school yard. He sighed, he knew the look on her face all to well, she was thinking and she would be unreachable for at least the entire walk to their room if not longer.
He wondered if her cutiemark would be a brain with cog’s in it or something similar. He had no clue what his would be, he wasn’t into most things that other colts or pegusi were. He was him and no one else, he watched as his sister stared off into space while automatically avoiding the potholes in the road. They had walked this road so many times that its lumps and bumps were ingrained in her memory, not that that was hard to do.
He just hoped that Aurora could get up to their room with out Ms.Neighers seeing her. The orphanage matron did not like it when Aurora zoned out, to her it was a waste of potential and time that should be used for practical things.
As the twins neared the orphanage Sprocket split away from his sister to go hang with some of the new comers.