Princess Celestia was known for making surprise entrances, therefore she fully expected the gasps of surprise she got. She had thought she heard everything with these sudden arrivals: gasps, thanks, curses, yep she heard them all, or so she thought. The sudden scream of terror from the small sky blue filly was an unexpected reaction. Princess Celestia winced from the scream, as did the other six in the room. Maris bolted behind Fluttershy’s forelegs and shook with fear.
“Maris, what’s wrong? It’s nothing to be afraid of its just-“ Fluttershy started softly only to be interrupted by the very pony she was comforting.
“The rebel leader Celestia! Don’t let her kill me mommy!” Maris shouted loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. They all stared at her wide-eyed and with questioning looks. All except for Pinkie Pie who was still bouncing like she hadn’t a care in the world. Even Princess Celestia was flabbergasted at the accusations thrown at her. She shook her head a tiny bit to regain her composure before putting a small, kind smile on her face.
“Don’t fret my little pony, I’m not exactly who you think I am. I am indeed Celestia, but I am Princess of Equestria, not a rebel leader and I would never kill anypony especially a young foal such as yourself.” The Princess said softly.
“Y-Y-you’re a princess… but… I guess I should just count myself lucky that you aren’t going to kill me” Maris sighed and then looked to her Mother, “Can I trust her mommy?”
Fluttershy nodded, “Of course you can trust her Maris, the Princess is one of the two most trustworthy ponies I know and I also know we all trust her with our lives and our sun.”
“Well… ok mommy if you trust her I will too… for now…”
Twilight stepped up now that the conflict was resolved, “Princess may I ask what you’re doing here, if you had sent me a letter I would have prepared some sort of dinner or parade. Also where’s your guardsponies?”
The Princess chuckled slightly, “ Twilight I thought I explained that you can drop the ‘princess’ title now that we’re equals,” She paused for Twilight to wince at her honest, yet still serious to Twilight, mistake, “I came here because last night I sensed a powerful amount of Alicorn magic and I came to investigate by myself because depending on what it was my guards would have sacrificed themselves for something only I or my sister could defeat.”
“But Celestia,” Twilight exclaimed, “ How do you know it wasn’t me who did something, I was practicing with my magic last night.”
“I know Twilight because it was very dangerous Alicorn magic that hasn’t been seen in thousands of years. I hid it a very long time ago and even I have forgotten where I hid it, there is no possible way you could have known it. That is why now I know it was this young filly, Maris, who came through that portal which caused this disturbance”
Fluttershy looked up to princess Celestia, she had been stroking Maris’ mane gently as the filly was still a bit scared. “So Maris being here was caused by Alicorn magic?”
“Yes and if the same is true in her universe as it is this one then we must be careful because only I would know it and from what Maris has said about her universes Celestia, she will stop at nothing to kill your bloodline Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy gave a small squeak at the idea of someone being out to kill her, and it did not help the fact that that person was an all-powerful Alicorn. Then a thought occurred to her, “Umm Princess, how do you know Maris’ story so well like that?”
“Oh… well, “ The Princess gave a nervous chuckle and actually blushed, “ You see I was kind of outside with an invisibility spell…to get around without being seen! Not to eavesdrop or anything like that.”
“Busted.” Rainbow chirped. This caused all of the ponies in the room, Maris and the Princess included to giggle.
Lunch had been had and after saying their goodbyes, Fluttershy and Maris parted with the rest of the group. Princess Celestia had stayed for lunch, much to Maris’ discomfort, however once the Princess started asking Maris questions about her life, interests, and the like, Maris opened up and seemed to be enjoying the company. Maris though was still untrusting of Celestia although she hid it well. They told Maris all about their various misadventures with the Elements of Harmony. Maris was amazed not only because of the stories but also that even in this universe her mother was important. Before they all parted, the Princess had informed them that she would dispatch a couple of Royal Guard to keep an eye on things. Fluttershy had tried to assure her that it wasn’t necessary, which Maris agreed with, although Fluttershy knew that was because of Maris’ discomfort with anypony working for Celestia. However, the Princess insisted and one does not argue with a princess who is looking out for your best interest.
The Princess also said that while not in writing, Fluttershy would be Maris’ guardian, for many obvious reasons. This confused Maris but Twilight informed her that while in the other universe Fluttershy is her mother, in this one, legally, Fluttershy has no claim of authority over the filly. This disappointed Maris slightly but she was still happy she would be living with Fluttershy and got even happier when told it would only be temporary until Fluttershy did the paper work to legally adopt her.
So they walked back to Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy had to feed her animals as well as take care of the various other chores that came with her job. As they got close to the cottage, Fluttershy looked down at the filly happily walking beside her, “I’m going to be taking care of the animals inside first, you can play outside if you want. Oh! But don’t go near the Everfree or too far towards town, I want to be able to see you from inside, ok?” With a nod the filly went over and started to frolic in the field outside the cottage.
Maris even started to play with a butterfly that was fluttering about. Fluttershy smiled as she watched the happy filly and went inside to tend to her various animals. Just as the door closed Maris jumped up and clapped both hooves onto the butterfly squishing it. Maris looked at her hooves with a slight questioning look. She realized what had happened and gave a little giggle, “Oops.” She said as she went off have more fun.
About an hour later Fluttershy had finished doing her various jobs. She fed all the animals, put a cast on Mr. Squirrel’s leg, she swore that she just took one off a couple of days before, as well as do an assortment of other things for her animal friends. She washed her forelegs and then walked over to the door and opened it. “Maris you can come in now.” She called out softly. Fluttershy immediately thought she was a bit too quiet but then the sky blue pegasus filly turned and fluttered to the door and inside. “Where is your butterfly friend Maris? He can come in if he wants.” Fluttershy said as she watched Maris enter. She was answered with a giggle, “He left.”
“Oh… ok,” Fluttershy said slightly confused, animals of all types loved to be around her cottage but butterflies especially did because of the various flowers around the cottage. “Anyway I wanted to talk to you about school.”
“School? Why do I need to go to school? Why can’t I stay here? I never had to go to school in my world, I was taught by a private tutor.” Maris explained.
“Well Maris you have to understand your mom err- me… umm… I’m just going to refer to her as ‘she’. She was a queen and was rich, I make a fair amount of money, more then enough to support you and me, I’m afraid I could never afford a private tutor for you, Besides,” Fluttershy said smiling, “ It’s important you go and make friends your own age.” Maris tilted her head slightly at this and looked on with a questioning look. “Is friends really important?” She asked. Fluttershy’s eyes widened as she exclaimed in her soft voice, “Why of course it is, remember all of our storied? The girls and I would never have been able to do any of it without the magic of friendship. Plus having friends is great because you can rely on them when you need something.”
“Ok mommy, I think I see your point, I’ll go to school… umm when would I start? And what if no one likes me? What if they make fun of me for some reason –“ Maris continued on her nervous rant until Fluttershy gently rubbed a hoof over the fillies back and nuzzled her. “Don’t worry Maris everything will be fine, the only problem might be that you will be starting a couple months after school has started so you will be a little behind. You are going to start in a couple of days on Monday, and don’t worry about bullying, if anything happens I want you to go to Ms. Cherilee. She is a very nice teacher and will help you with any problems ok?” With the nod as a response, Fluttershy pulled away. “Now do you want to help me with my outside work, it should take us a few hours so after that I’ll start on dinner.” She said leading the filly outside.
The work wasn’t too hard for Maris, although some things she couldn’t do. She still wasn’t sure how Fluttershy was able to lift those heavy bags of birdseed so easily but she did it. As they walked back into the cottage Fluttershy told her to go wash up in the bathroom while she started on dinner, the sun was already starting to sink. Fluttershy waited and made sure she heard the water running before she went into the kitchen. She washed her forelegs and was about to start on dinner when a knock caught her attention. She walked over to the front door and opened it to reveal Twilight. “Oh! Hi Twilight what are you doing here?” She asked as she stepped to the side so the Alicorn could walk in. They both sat down in the living room as Twilight began to speak, “Well after you and Maris left, I went home and started to do some research, specifically on her name. As you can probably tell it’s not a normal pony name.” Fluttershy nodded, although she though that was just because of different universes.
“Well as it turns out her name is a mix of Ancient Unicorn and Ancient Pegasus, ‘ Maris’ meaning Sea’s in Ancient Pegasus and ‘Thalassa’ meaning Sea in Ancient Unicorn. This however is the literal translation. A more accurate translation is the Sea of Seas or more simply, the first of many.” Twilight sounded giddy as she explained, clearly proud of herself for figuring this all out.
“Thank you Twilight that’s… informative, was there um… anything else?” Fluttershy asked awkwardly as she didn’t share her friend’s giddiness for knowledge. “Well actually yes Fluttershy, I wanted to ask that if you see any more of those visions like you saw last night that you tell me immediately.”
“Of course I will Twilight I Pinkie Promise. Now I was just about to make dinner, would you like to join us?” Fluttershy asked as Maris trotted out of the bathroom. Maris said hi to Twilight whom replied in turn. “I would love to Fluttershy, if I’m not imposing that is.”
“Oh no you not imposing at all, I haven’t even started dinner so it will be easy to make enough for all three of us.” Fluttershy smiled.
“Well ok then”
Dinner was a quiet affair, a bit of small talk but that’s about it. Maris seamed surprised to find out what her name meant however. After dinner Twilight bid them farewell and returned home. Fluttershy prepared the couch for Maris and tucked her in before she went to bed herself. Thankfully no visions were had tonight, nor were they had the rest of the weekend.