Silver Spoon turned to her side, smiling at the pony next to her. He was about the same height as Silver Spoon, with a grey mane and bright pink coat.
"You look ridiculous! Don't you know colts are supposed to have- I don't know, more masculine coats?" Silver chuckled.
In a flash of green the changeling came back with a blue coat.
"Aw, I didn't say I didn't like it."
The changeling flashed green again, this time with a smile on his face. "I don't know, maybe pink isn't my color."
"Keep it. You look, positively dashing."
Silver Spoon turned to her other best friend, Silver Spoon.
"Sparkles, you're doing it again!"
"What? Oh you mean this old thing? I just pulled it out of the closet."
Silver Spoon laughed and both changelings collected the energy immediately. "Take it off! People are going to get confused if there are two of me running around this joint!"
"Let them be confused, this is fun!" Silver Spoon rolled her eyes. "No! It is true, I cherish the time we have together. You are by best friend."
Silver tried to hide her blush but the changelings could tell from the love she was pouring that she had been complimented.
"What do you guys want to play next?"
"Whatever you want Silver Spoon."
"Hmmm..." she muttered.
"We could play hoofball outside."
"Yeah! I bet I could kick both of your flanks what do you say? Me against you two?" Silver prodded Sparkles with her hoof.
"You're on!" they shouted in unison.
The filly ran outside, the nighttime not making the alive city one bit darker. The stars shone above them, flickering in the distance. They had previously sketched out a square of space on the black, paper-like ground. Black buildings towered above them and the buzzing of wings could be heard in the background. Silver ran and fished the ball out of a nearby hole.
"Let's play!"
The nighttime chirped and a cool breeze flowed through the buildings. Thousands of holes bore each one, changelings flying through them. The walls were alive with the amazing architecture. The city was quite literally a hive, each citizen helped one another, and Silver supposed there weren't really families like she knew ponies have.
"Who is your family?" The game stopped momentarily. Silver Spoon stared at hooves glancing up at the shuffling changlelings in front of her.q
"What do you mean?" He asked still wearing Silver Spoon's face.
"You know... your mother, your father."
"You mean our Mother? She is our mother and everyone is our sisters and brothers."
"Not Mother, I mean, the people you live with, the people- the people you love."
"Then you are our family, Silver Spoon. We love you very much." Sparkles replied.
Silver Spoon bit her lip. "But... you guys can't love, can you?"
The two looked at each other worried. The pink coated colt stepped forward, looking down at Silver's hooves. "It is true, we cannot collect, each other's love, but, we still do. We love each other and we love our Mother and we love you. Our love, we protect our love and we cannot feed off of our love, but-" he turned to Sparkles. "we still love, deep inside our souls."
Silver Spoon smiled, her fears assuaged. "You mean it?"
He nodded. "You may be one of a kind but we all still love like you."
A smile crossed here face. "Then prepare to have your flanks handed to you!"
"Bring it on!"
Luna had not realized how much paperwork Celestia had to sort through everyday.
The alicorn held a quill in her magic, absentmindedly chewing on it as she tried to make sense of the form in front of her. Luna had always fancied herself for a mare that was well-read, but they didn't have quite the same feel as language now, and though Luna felt she had made some remarkble strides in modern slang, this- this was simply ridiculous.
"In the event of a fire, herby whether it be the significant incident regarding the collected damage not the sentimental nor the estimated amount of damage done but the regulatory comand unit in which 13 sums would be administered according to the public value system in which the amount of ponies currently residing in the house hold, that is to say foals under the age of which they have graduated school would deteremine their final 'age' in the sense of the point they reached adulthood in society, whether that be a foal or a pony in which the-"
Luna scanned the paper, "Where are all the periods? What the hay?"
Luna's eyes moved slowly across the page and Luna mumbled the words out between sips of coffee. She had waved off her assistants, asserting that she would be fine by herself, the Princess of the Night was fully capable of handling 'a few papers'.
Little did she know that those few papers would have such small font and certainly- certainly make some sense. Do some poniesactually talk like this nowadays? Do ponies say nowadays nowadays? Would it be rude to ask for a litre of coffee?
Luna decided no- formalies aside, she needed a litre of coffee and she would have to set aside her etiquette and do what was best for Equestria.
It was a day later, and Celestia almost cringed at the lost of losing a whole day how many ponies- no, it was fine. Luna had promised to take care of her duties, nevermind the fact Luna didn't have much of a clue what Celestia did most of the time, but Celestia trusted her sister, she perhaps the single most capable pony of handling her tasks.
But Celestia wasn't above admitting she was wrong.
Celestia landed on balcony gracefully, her wings folding at her sides. Her room was as pristine as ever, and the In-box at her desk lay empty of papers. Luna has them. Of course, she'll just drop off at Luna's wing and get them.
The castle was curiously devoid of life. The floors were squeaky clean and the windows were all washed but Celelestia didn't see any of the staff, or guards for that matter, anywhere she looked. But, as she approached closer to Luna's wing, the noise thickening into a cacophony, she found out why.
It seemed everypony was here, some watching, some trying to calm Luna down, and others stood around her getting the worst of the bunch. The room was full of ponies shuffling around, some flying and some in the back talking and everyponies eyes was on Luna.
"Silver scroll! Get these to the Griffons, I want their Ambassador here by Tuesday, send them five of our best pigs and bring-" Luna stood in the middle shouting orders at ponies, seemingly at random and talking faster than almost Celestia could hear. Ponies saw Celestia and looked at her as if to say "Thank goodness-"
"Luna, what is this about?" She watched the pony Luna mistakingly called Silver scoll try and get out of the fray. She extended a wing in her way. "Don't do anything with the ambassodor, please." she added softly. She nodded and wandered off.
"exactly nine chickens. Tia' 'tis most efficient way of ordering ponies- send him a letter and a bouquet of flowers and make sure to reimburse his family.- too many ideas, cannot let a single one go to waste!-" Celestia looked around. Good- she figured she wasn't the only one thinking that her sister was erratic, but she always had to make sure.
"Luna, how about we get you to your bedroom and you can-"
"Better yet Tia' we get Element of Kindness and have her train squirrels to act as a communication system - I said to Manehatten, not Las Pegasus - and they can have a specialized tunnels throughout the castle to send messages. Take his number and-"
"Luna," Celestia sighed. "How would anypony tell what the chipmunks were saying?"
"Squirrels, sister, and that's the point, it's encoded!"
Celestia knew something was wrong with her sister. Until she literally smelled it. Coffee.
"You haven't been drinking coffee have you?" Celestia remebered the last time her sister had coffee and it was a memory to be avoided.
"Of course, I would estimate that the amount coffee is directly related to how much work can be done on a graph! Sister, graphs! Which reminds me, scribe send 92 caramels to the giraffe nation, would you-"
"Nope! Luna, you have been doing great, but I am taking charge again and you-" she thought a second. "drink some milk."
Luna solemnly stood down from her podium and let Celestia stand. "Now to all ponies who have recieved orders from Luna-"