Clacking hooves echoed through the empty banquet hall. The sun coming into the crystal spire was no longer enough to heat the room, and it had become slightly chilly. Celestia, seated to the side of the expansive table, gave a small smile at her sister’s nervous pacing. Ordinarily, it would annoy her, but after 1000 years of absence... well, give it a decade. In the meantime, she extended a hoof to stop her sister in her tracks anyway, since there was something to be said for consistency.
“What are you so worried about?” she asked her sister. “Twilight will be able to defend Barbhdad easily, even if the Zebra’s dissent is a different sort of evil than she has faced before. Are you upset that we cannot go too? Somepony must guard Equestria, and I would not trust the Sun-neigh with your presence.”
“And yours would likewise upset the She-high.” laughed Luna, the trickle of the motion through the stream of her hair igniting small droplets of joy in her sister’s eyes.
“No sister,” said Luna seriously, “I do not worry about her ability, but rather... you are the only mare I know who has handled power well. The gentile sex revels in power for its own sake, but for a mare, power is nothing if not used... Starswirl, Clover, they were happy to study magic for its mere complexity, but this business with Sunset... How do you know Twilight will not follow in her footsteps or even oppose us when she realizes the full measure of her own power? She is an alicorn now, with so much magic she siphons it to her friends! From this moment forth it may as well be her running the kingdom, not us!”
Now it was Celestia’s turn to laugh. “I have had other students during your absence sister, and I admit, things do not always turn out... as planned. I would share your concern about Twilight, except that the Elements are not hers alone. Her friends must support her in her actions, and they will only support her so far. I cannot imagine Applejack or Fluttershy underwriting a tyranny for any reason. Rainbow Dash would likely find it ‘uncool’ and Rarity ‘uncouth’. Beyond which, her friends have a truly grounding effect on her. Even if she becomes powerful enough on her own to be threaten us, we are safe for the next century, barring some accident. If Rainbow truly is an alicorn now, we... may have other things to worry about.” her face grew worried as she said these last words, even though she grinned wider as she said it, and the grim expression which had just eased its way off her sister’s face returned.
Luna frowned for a few moments more, then her expression eased. “I suppose you are right.” she told her sister, “With Twilight alone I would fear that she might... give in to darkness... but her friends protect her, and their hearts are good.” still she stood, hooves trembling.
The room was silent for a while, and Celestia moved forward and wrapped a foreleg around her sister, who returned the gesture and buried her head in Celestia’s pastel mane. They stood like that until the room started to grow dark, and Luna lifted her head and sniffed. As they exited into the better lit hallway it was impossible to tell if one patch of Celestia’s hair might be sparkling more than the rest of it, and if Luna’s eyes were red it might well be from tiredness.
It seemed unfair, Twilight thought, that the one most bothered by her friends' sudden changes was herself. She had at first been indignant that Rainbow Dash was not also invited to her meetings with the princesses, but as they pointed out there was no indication that the changes were permanent or of their duration. Rainbow Dash herself was too busy playing with magic to miss meeting with the princesses. She showed absolutely no skill or ability in the basic magics of levitation or object manipulation, instead skipping straight to the relatively complex art of teleportation with minimal effort and an enviable degree of skill. Soon after she learned, she could exit a teleport flying backwards at top speed, and even though she promised to take it easy after her fall, the crystal ponies soon became accustomed to seeing rainbow contrails stretching overhead the next few days, often doing things like writing ‘Rainbow Dash’ or drawing several copies of Rainbow Dash’s cutiemark at once, courtesy of the only other spell Rainbow had bothered to learn, which allowed her to maintain her natural contrail in vibrant, sparkly form. She had already invented dozens of new tricks which used teleportation to great effect, and would generously give performances or even write messages in the sky for anypony who asked (though she drew the line at grocery lists). It was a bit of a lost cause to warn Pinkie of the danger that her wings might disappear at any moment. Whenever you did, Pinkie just nodded, promised to stay close to the ground, and smiled like she knew something you didn’t. Twilight was already looking back in nostalgia to the days when you knew that Pinkie was at least more or less confined to a 2-dimensional plane. Pinkie popping down out of the sky got old right away, though it took a couple days before Twilight stopped trying to scan the skies for her. She also did this thing where she’d swoop up behind you and cover your eyes with her wings and say “Guess who?”, then flip over in front of you and give a bow. Actually, that was kind of funny and made Twilight laugh, but it was the principle of the thing.
Applejack and Rarity had left to acquaint Applejack’s family to her new appendage, which Applejack felt she had to do right away. “Ah’ dun like keepin’ them in th’ dark-like.” Fluttershy and Spike had gone with them back to Ponyville, the former schooling the latter on animal care.
This had pushed the departure to Saddle Arabia back, and diplomats arrived, in a large airship which docked right against the crystal spire, to take them there on the second day they were gone. Twilight tried to get some information on the situation from one, a tall brown stallion whose body looked awkwardly gangly, but he seemed tired and quite glad for a rest. As far as she could understand, Saddle Arabia was actually quite well defended from most enemies, but their close relations with the neighboring Zebricans made their fanaticism quite problematic. Already diplomats had tried to convince the current shah (which, as Twilight understood, was an elected position held by a stallion for the rest of their natural life) to cut all ties to Equestria, and local Zebricans and sympathizers had been causing trouble. Princess Luna and Celestia talked quietly with the diplomats for a few moments before Cadance sent them to their rooms, and none of them heard any good news. The rest of Twilight’s time was taken up with meetings, with Princess Luna and Celestia to learn useful spells, with Cadance and Shining to learn military tactics. Twilight was already sorely missing her assistant, and had to take valuable time out from learning Arabic to review some simple fetch spells which she’d let grow rusty.
By the time Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy came back, right after Twilight’s first official meeting with the diplomats, who informed her on Arabian culture, and tested her on the rudimentary Arabian she’d studied, both the princesses and diplomats were anxious that they depart the same day. So, after a smiling Applejack told a couple of anecdotes involving apple-related spells Rarity had taught her, it wasn’t too surprising to see the princesses and diplomats descending upon the six mares. Twilight knew what this meant, and hadn’t been looking forward to it very much. They would have to retry the protection spell.