//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14 
// Story: Borrowed Time 
// by Gambit Prawn 
//------------------------------//

On the way back to the castle, Star Chart made some indirect attempts to ask about my day, but I felt no need to relive it again so soon by retelling it. After all, I was obligated to make a full report report to Celestia anyway. I didn’t dislike the mare by any means, but if the princess expected me to open up to my new retainer just because she was of a similar profession as I, she was mistaken. Consequently, the trot back offered a pleasant quiet, or at least as much as could be had in Equestria’s capital. 

At the entrance, a generic-looking guard accosted us and told us that the princesses were awaiting us in the main dining hall. Star nodded in acknowledgement and led me along a series of winding corridors to the back entrance. Other than a flimsy cover story about being a transfer student, I already had little enough justification for being in the castle, let alone dining with the princess, so it made sense for them to take precautions.

To my surprise, both Twilight Sparkle and the normally nocturnal younger sister were present along with Celestia. The elder princess was waiting serenely, sipping some hot tea. Luna greeted me through a yawn and was drinking some coffee. Twilight, however, had the caffeinated jittery look I had come to associate with a deluge of questions. For the moment, however, she settled for greeting me in an enthusiastic but dignified manner.

“Hello,” I responded simply. 

I could understand two of them being gathered by happenstance, but for all three to be present, something had to be up. The three of them all looked like they were waiting for me to make a move. I looked to Star for support, but she had wordlessly slipped away at some point.

A server stallion brought some hay sandwiches and a plate of mini-pastries. We each helped ourselves, and I contented myself with pondering the absurdity that I was eating hay. Disturbingly, it tasted even better than the first time I’d had it. Hopefully this was an innocuous acquired taste as opposed to my colt brain hijacking my sense of taste.

“So, Aron. Did anything interesting happen on your first day of school?”

I thought back.

Weird math, some interesting history, hyperactive children, musical numbers…

“Nope,”I said with a disarming smile. “Everything’s as I would expect from this world.” 

“Truly? Nothing ‘stood out?’” Luna asked, receiving a nod from her sister for her correct idiom use.

“No. Your curriculum was a bit abnormal, but most of it resembled that which I had at home.”

“Care to tell us about it?”

“No,” I repeated, practically begging them to let me eat in peace.

Celestia showed the slightest bit of reserved disappointment and acceptance all in the span of a second.

“All right, Twilight, go ahead.”

Being let off her leash Twilight whipped out a notepad and asked her first question:

“What was most different about your school as opposed to those of Equestria?”

I wanted to shrug my shoulders, but I still didn’t know the pony equivalent. 

“Your school days are shorter for one. Ours were usually all day. There was no singing on Rhod, thankfully.”

“Ah, yes, we thought you would might enjoy that part of the curriculum,” Luna said ironically.

“I learned you fought a war with the griffins,” I continued. “I didn’t even expect you to even have wars here.” 

“It was a different time,” Celestia explained somberly. “War seemed like the only option then. If I knew then what I know now, I may have had the wisdom to avoid conflict altogether.”

It was a disappointing answer, as I thought her willingness to send ponies to war showed some decisiveness about her. Then again, I had to remind myself that I still knew almost nothing about the conflict.

“Oh, and your math is wrong,” I added as a lazy afterthought.

Twilight’s ears drooped. “I’m sorry we forgot about that, Aron. I of all ponies should have remembered to tell you. Our number system is base twenty-three. I know it may seem odd but there’s a good reas—or rather, a reason we use it. What number system do your people use?”

“Ten,” I answered.

Twilight smiled smugly at Celestia. “See! They use base ten as well. It’s just so much better!”

Celestia shook her head. “Twilight, you know I agree with you on principle, but we can’t just decree a shift in the cultural and scientific paradigm.”

“I know it may seem impractical, but the costs associated with switching will almost immediately be compensated for by faster cognitive processing and more efficient teaching methods. Besides we’ve done it before; we can do it again!”

“This is something you talk about often?” I asked, somewhat curious.

Celestia remained silent, but her expression said, “Aron, you have no idea.”

Twilight on the other hoof was eager to prove herself right and launched into an explanation:

“Long ago, ponies used numbers just like you do. We used base ten because it’s simple and intuitive for counting. Watch: one, two, three four”—starting with her left forehoof she lifted each of her hooves as she counted—”five”—she swished her tail to the side—”six, seven, eight, nine”—she used her hooves again—”ten”—she put her tail back in its initial position.

“Base ten, as opposed to base four, has the advantage of being compact to write, while requiring only ten distinct digits.”

I took a sip of water and looked at her confusedly. “It makes sense. Why did you ever switch, then?”

“We didn’t. Not by choice at least,” Luna chimed in.

“I think you’ll learn about it in class pretty soon. How do I—well, in short, it was a boneheaded decision by a former ruler.”

“Come now, Twilight I’m hurt,” a dignified, yet sinister voice came from behind me. “While I won’t deny my head may be bonier than average, I was never any sort of ruler; why, that would imply responsibility.”

I turned and saw the strangest creature this land had yet thrown at me. Its body was serpentlike and looked like different parts of a multi-colored quilt had been sewn together. It had asymmetric arms and legs that looked like they belonged to a griffin. It was bearded, and its snout was greyish-brown and distinctly non-equine. It had misshapen horns atop its head. Most startling, however, was its yellow, red-pupiled eyes.

“Not now, Discord,” Twilight said, exasperated.

In a moment of defrosting realization the three princesses exchanged panicked looks.

“NO!!” Twilight squealed.

Before I had my wits about me, three different energy shields surrounded me as every alicorn horn in the room shone a different color.

Discord knocked on the outermost, blue barrier. “Why I almost forgot about you. Who’s this now? Wining and dining the princesses... Is this some aristocrat’s brat? I can hear it now: ‘My mummy and daddy got me lunch with the princesses I’m so much better than you’. And now you’re protecting him from the big, bad Discord?” He showed his teeth at the last part.

“Actually, Discord, he’s…”

“Wait, let me guess.” With that Discord magicked himself into a doctor’s outfit, complete with a strange looking head mirror. He put a stethoscope to the outer barrier. “Hmm,” he hummed. 

I then heard a strange mechanical screeching noise and a print-out began to flow out of his mouth. He ripped part of it off and swallowed the remainder.

“Ohhhh. Oh-hoh,” the creature laughed. “My, this is the last thing I expected.”

“Discord,” Celestia said commandingly, “this is a serious matter. Don’t tell anyone about it.”

Discord waved his front limbs in front of him dismissively. “I would never do such a thing. However… sometimes my mouth tends to move on its own.”

With that, Discord’s mouth started moved horizontally across his face and started to come off completely.

“We mean it, Discord. You know what we’ll do.” Luna threatened.

Discord’s mouth snapped back into place.

“What? To stone again? Surely you wouldn’t damage the feng shui of your perfect garden with such a tacky statue?” Discord smiled with a cheshire grin, until a thought seemed to occur to him. ‘Wait... you don’t mean?”

The sisters nodded.

“Nopony—rather, you must tell no one at all,” Luna clarified.

Discord swallowed hard and switched his doctor’s garb into a sailor suit. “Aye aye, Captain.”

With this strange creature around, the momentary silence seemed much more unnatural. Apparently he loathed it, as he almost immediately spoke up again.

“Remind me: I believe I was here for some antics. What triggered it again?”

“Your ridiculous base twenty-three number system,” Twilight said, perturbed. “How you changed how we perceive and understand math just because it was funny.”

“Funny? Why of course don’t you think so?”

“No!”

“Well, it wasn’t just because I found it funny. Have you ever considered my position? Your base ten was quite non-intuitive for me. This way is much more convenient. See?”

Discord floated in the air and held out his four extremities and flexed all of his digits. Without counting, it was apparent that he had exactly twenty-three fingers and toes.

“Besides, you could have changed it back once you had, shall we say, cockatrice-eyed me? The original time that is.”

Twilight’s annoyed expression intensified to a comedic level. “You magically changed all of our books to use it! Our entire knowledge of mathematics was contorted overnight!”

“Did I now?”

“Yes!” All three princesses replied forcefully.

“Because of you, our written and spoken forms of numbers are like separate languages!”

Discord laughed. “My, you ponies can be stubborn.”

Twilight pouted and looked too worked-up to function. Discord, meanwhile had already moved on from their little argument and turned his attention back to me.

“What’s the idea with these things, anyway?” Discord tapped on the magical barrier again. “A mite cold don’t you think?”

“Surely it is obvious?” Luna asked. “A minute longer exposed to pure chaos such as thyself and this little one would be rendered an infant alicorn.”

Discord grinned. “An infant alicorn, you say?” He changed his sailor outfit into some sort of classical garb with a bubble pipe. He put a magnifying glass to the barrier and I came face-to-face with a big, yellow eye. “Ah, I see. A filly no less. Here I was hoping that we would get a pony prince that’s not a complete dullard.”

“Didn’t you know that already?” Twilight asked, confused.

“I said no such thing.”

Here I am being treated like an object again, I thought, hoping once more that I wasn’t just a placeholder to these ponies. Still, with something crazy popping in out of the blue, I was grateful for being excused from diving headlong into chaos.

“—do you mean? If that wasn’t it? Then what did you see?”

“Not telling,” Discord said, teasingly, literally zipping his lips shut.

He unzipped them just as quick and pointed down. “Especially not to all of you.”

“What are you pointing to?” Celestia asked, trying desperately not to be amused by their squabble.

“Indeed,” Luna added. “The underground batpony capital of old now lies deserted.”

“Oh, dear. How to begin to explain? One of my favorite chaotic things? Oh look at the time! I have tea with Fluttershy in just under three hours. I musn’t be late. Toodaloo!”

With that, he vanished in a spark of magic. 

Twilight was taking deep breaths to calm herself.

“Sister, have you any clue what just happened?”

“No, Luna, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Calming herself, Twilight chimed in: “It’s probably nothing. After all, remember when we wasted an entire afternoon trying to guess what was in Discord’s secret box?”

“I hope so, Twilight. It will likely be decades before I can tell what that one is thinking with any consistency.”





With school over, I was completely perplexed as to what I was supposed to be doing. Considering, I was too young to work and that I was decidedly against playing with foals, the only Idea that was left to me was training. Unfortunately, after an hour of practicing my footwork I was called back in by Star Chart. Despite my protests, she insisted that I was young and had to know my own limits. Further disgusted by the limited capabilities of this form, I reluctantly trotted in.

From there, I was led into Twilight’s personal chambers at the castle. To my surprise, it was a room little different than my own. True, it was a tad purpler and a bit bigger, but it was far from what I expected for a princess. Effectively, it was even smaller than mine due to the stacks of books she had around. I was almost afraid of being crushed under them.

I turned my head. “Star?”

However, she was already gone. She was really good at vanishing like that; I had yet to catch her in the act.

“Oh, Aron, ready for your first writing lesson?”

“I guess…”

I expected quite a lot out of Twilight in a bad way, but fortunately the experience was reasonable. Twilight had scaled back her expectations dramatically from what I would have guessed based on her hoof-made curriculum. Still, the material was challenging.

Unlike, their math, their writing system was completely logical. Unfortunately, its adherence to a one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and graphemes—Twilight gave a five minute lecture when I asked her what those were—was more logical than what we had used on Rhod, making it difficult. Though Lucens was a relatively simple language, we had somewhat awkwardly adapted our own twenty-five letter script to it.

Twilight peppered me with questions about it, but fortunately I was able to deflect most of them for the moment. She did have me reproduce a copy of my letters for her to study, though. Equestrian script had thirty-nine letters. While they looked intimidating at first, the letters themselves weren’t as challenging as they seemed. I asked her about the pony pictographs I had seen around Canterlot, and she reassured me that it was an archaic script.

Still, the knowledge that it could be even harder for me did little to help me at the moment. Writing would be a matter of becoming accustomed to writing with mouth or hoof. Spelling, however, would remain a serious issue for some time. I was convinced that Ponies had made things needlessly complicated, but Twilight was insistent that every letter was a distinct sound.

“Aron, there is a difference between the sounds of the p in ‘pool’ and the p in apple. Notice the difference in air expelled when you say it. Poooool. APPPle. Pool. Apple. That’s aspiration.”

“First ‘grapheme’ and now ‘aspiration’ are you sure you’re not making things up?”

“No, Aron,” Twilight said patiently.

“Do all foals learn this stuff?”

“No, actually.” 

“Then why am I learning it?” I asked, annoyed.

“Well, you want to be learn to write soon, right?”

I nodded.

“To do that I am trying to teach you like an adult instead of a foal. I’m presenting it at the conceptual level, so that you can assimilate it faster. Learning it the natural way takes years of exposure..”

“I understand,” I sighed, growing impatient with my lack of progress. 

“There’s no reason you can’t learn the natural way too. Just pay attention to how things are spelled in your textbooks. You may not think so, but you have learned a lot! You can already read a little!” She was beaming.

“But I’m so slow…”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter the only way to get better is by practicing. That goes for reading and spelling.”

To my relief she closed the instructional book in between us. “That’s enough for now. You’re a really good student. I’d love to keep teaching you myself, but I don’t have the time.”

Was that it? Was I on my own?

“Then how will I—”

“Don’t worry! Star Chart volunteered to keep tutoring you.”

“Hi,” Star said, startling me as she suddenly reappeared.

Stop doing that! I thought. It makes me look bad.

“Thank you, Princess Twilight,” I said, bowing my head. Despite my frustration, I was genuinely grateful for her taking the time to tutor me.

“No need, Aron. I enjoyed teaching you. Just remember: you already know how to read. You’re just learning another script. That will make things a lot easier for you; you aren’t starting from scratch.”

“I suppose… but I will probably suck at spelling for a while,” I lamented.

“Between you and me, there are some really smart ponies that have trouble with it as well. Our vowel system is admittedly complicated. How many vowels does your language conceptualize, Aron?”

“Five.”

“Really? Just five? How do you distinguish between open and closed and long and short vowels?”

“We don’t, not in writing at least.”

“Interesting...”

Leaving her to her thoughts, I turned to leave with Star.

“Oh, Aron, one more thing!” she called after us.

I turned back to face her and saw that her expression had relaxed quite a bit.

“Next Monday is Father’s Day, as I’m sure you know.”

“Princess Celestia did mention it. Is it a big deal?”

“Yes, it’s a national holiday! While nopony doubts how important mothers are, we strive to remember that nopony would be around without a dad as well. That’s why we take a day to spend with our fathers. Anyway, I’ll be in Canterlot for Father’s Day, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

I thought about it briefly. Considering that the alternative was hitting the books, I quickly assented.

“Great! See you then!”

Strangely, as I walked down the stairs, I felt a pang of sympathy for the Citrus siblings.

Poor foals, do they even have a dad?

I shook my head. Why was I thinking such things?

“Aron?” Star asked.

“Uhh… yeah?” 

“What are your plans now?”

“You’re not going to make me go to bed?” I asked facetiously. 

“Not for another hour,” Star answered apologetically. 

I was somewhat disappointed. Being forced to go to bed would excuse me from having to find something else to do in magical pony land.

“Thanks for not treating me like a child,” I answered, pushing open the door to my room. Like many in the palace, it had no lock. I supposed this was a testament to the ponies’ trusting nature. This gave me an excuse to leave it slightly ajar for ease of access; it was awkward having to stand on my hind legs to reach the doorknob.

I trotted in and was greeted by the sight of a danish on a plate centered on my bed. A note was accompanying it. I tried sounding it out.

“Neighs tray?”

Stumped, I was relieved when Star took the note to read it to me.

“Nice try. You won’t get out of eating your sugar that easily, Aron. Star will make sure you eat it this time.” Star put the note down and looked at me with a halfhearted smirk. “Looks like you thanked me too soon.”

I looked down. “Ponyfeathers…”

I had hoped that the distraction of Discord would allow them to believe I had partaken in the sweets. As soon as the barrier was down, I had rubbed some crumbs on my plate, hoping it would fool them.

Sighing, I looked up at Star and nodded. “I had to make some attempt to go down fighting. I’m not going to accept every pony thing lying down. But I know when I’m beaten. I’ll eat it.”

The pastry was cold, mushy, overly sweet and the slightest bit rich. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. Swallowing, I remembered Star had asked me a question earlier. 

“You still won’t allow me to train?”

“Correct,” Star answered as expected.

I stood still pondering for a moment, though only one option stood out as productive.

“In that case, I think I want to practice writing more.”

Star smiled at me warmly. “You sure are a diligent col—sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “At least you hesitate to treat me like a colt.”

Star drooped her ears in guilt. “I have to admit it’s hard when you look like that. I have to fight off my motherly instincts to not hug and coddle you a lot of the time. I’m sure it’s the same with the princesses, despite their best intentions.”

“Your motherly instincts? You don’t strike me as the type.”

The mare took slight offense at that. “Hey, now just because I’m committed to the royal guard doesn’t mean I don’t want a foal or two of my own someday. Just… dating is… hard.” Despite her dark colors the mare blushed through her fur. “Anyway, I can help if you want.”

I was about to shake my head, but I remembered I really did need all the help I could get. “I’ll let you know when I need help, okay?”

She nodded.

I jumped up to the desk that had recently been installed in my room. It was foal-sized, which meant it was about half as tall as Star Chart. I grabbed a quill pen out of the inkpot with my mouth. Surprisingly it didn’t drip.

As if reading my mind, Star answered, “No, you don’t need ink. It’s a simple magic spell to store the ink inside.”

Testing it out, I wrote what I could remember of their alphabet. I reached up to the eighth letter before stopping. I was debating whether to ask for help or not, but Star chimed in before I could decide.

“Eight hooves on two unicorns,” Star hinted.

“What does that—oh!” I scribbled the letter down as best I could. It had four lines at the bottom, circle at the center and two tips at the top. “How’d you come up with that?”

“I didn’t,” Star explained. “It’s part of a set of mnemonics I learned to help remember which letter comes corresponds to which number of the alphabet. I could teach it you if you want?”

I nodded, interested. “Maybe later when I’m more familiar with your letters.”

“Of course,” Star said, “the easiest way to remember all the letters in order is the alphabet song. I know you don’t like singing, but I’m still surprised Twilight didn’t teach it to you…”

“No thank you,” I said, blanching. 

“Okay, but it’s very useful. Almost everypony uses this song when they’re stumped by the alphabet. It’ll look strange if you don’t know it.”
“What is it with you ponies and singing?”

She giggled.

“Thank you for appreciating that that was rhetorical.” I didn’t even want to imagine Twilight’s comprehensive answer on the subject.

I turned back to the page of my shoddy work. It wasn’t very encouraging to see how much I was struggling, so uncharacteristically, I was tempted to procrastinate, and I voiced a curious thought that popped into my head.

“Can you pegasi use your own feathers are quills?” I asked.

“Well, yes,” Star explained. “Back in school some of my classmates would pluck their own feathers to use when they forgot a quill; however, it’s considered unsanitary and bad manners in general.”

I wanted to retort that it was strange to hear about sanitation from a species that often used their mouths to grab things, but I didn’t want to remind myself how much I had done so myself.

I repeated the first eight letters of their alphabet in a vertical line beneath my first attempts of each. I could hardly keep my head still enough to not smear the ink, and my frustration made this an increasingly difficult task. Unprompted, Star walked to my side and put her hoof on the quill. She slowly guided me through the curvature of each letter three times then let me try again. I repeated each letter three more times and noted my mouthwriting had improved. I let her guide me again, and I improved incrementally. Still, at the end of the session, I was nowhere near as good on my own.

Finally, when I was yawning between every letter, I decided enough was enough. Refusing to let Star invoke bedtime, I announced I would go to bed on my own.

“Aron, wait...” Star said shyly.

“What is it?” I asked, making it up on my bed with a running jump. Being foal-sized, it was a skill I had to develop to make use of most furniture.

“Do you want to read a bedtime story?”

I glared at her in disbelief.

“I’m serious!” Star protested. “It will be good reading practice for you, and for me, it’ll help me practice for when I’m a mother.”

The idea didn’t sit well with me, but I assented, refusing to back down from a challenge. 

Not needing to be told twice, the pony grabbed a picture book off the shelf and jumped up on the bed with me. She curled her body around mine and opened the book in front of my face. I felt trepidation as my personal space was constricted, but physically it was undeniably warm. Comfort and discomfort clashed in one dissonant sensation. Ultimately, the former vanquished the latter as I came to accept Star’s maternal gesture. After all, Celestia would likely nag if I didn’t meet my hug quota. 

Turning my attention to the book, there was a picture of a brown puppy curled up defensively as a group of puppies played around him.

I sounded out the title: The Shy Puppy. I was tempted to complain about the juvenile subject matter, but it was probably at my reading level. It was better to see it as motivation to improve than to dwell on imagined condescension.

I slowly read through the first page. Although it was only a few sentences, I simply couldn’t get through it. I kept nodding off. Star Chart’s fur was so warm and her rhythmic breathing was so… relaxing…







Once there was a shy puppy.



I looked around and found myself at an empty Canterlot First. Confused, I looked down and was greeted by a set of little brown paws. Mentally checking myself, I noticed my snout was more extruded, my teeth were quite a bit sharper, and I had no mane to speak of.

Great! I’m a dog now. Makes about as much sense as anything else in this world. 



At recess the other puppies played together.



Suddenly the school grounds filled with playing puppies. They were of varying colors, which were all strangely familiar to me. 



But the shy puppy was always by himself.



I looked around, confused.

Where’s that disembodied voice coming from?

I looked to my feet and noticed something strange. In front of me was some kind of script. It was impossible to read, but I somehow knew what it said, and I read it out loud:

“I wish I had some friends,” 

the shy puppy said.



“Of course I said that! Who are you talking to anyway?”

The voice ignored me.



One day, one of the fillies invited him to play.



“Hey, do you want to play hide n’ seek with us?” 

said the yellow puppy.





The shy puppy was happy, but all he could say was

,

“No…”

I was quivering.

Suddenly the scene shifted. I was in the royal palace in the secret dining room Celestia and Luna had first hosted me in. A massive German Shepherd and an only slightly smaller Siberian Huskie were sitting side by side. I was suddenly sobbing uncontrollably.



At home, the shy puppy asked his moms for help.



It seemed once more I had already decided what to say: “Mamas, I’m sad. I want to make friends, but I can’t. I want to play with the other puppies, but I’m scared,” 

said the shy puppy.



Unsurprisingly the German Shepherd spoke in Celestia’s voice: “It’s okay, my little puppy. Everypuppy is shy sometimes. Next time you are feeling shy, listen to your heart. Do what you would want to do if you weren’t feeling shy,” 

said his mother.



Just as quickly the scene shifted back to the schoolyard. I immediately noticed the yellow puppy running around with a bronze and a light blue puppy.



The next day, the shy puppy was alone at recess. He wanted to play with the other puppies, but he was afraid.

But the shy puppy remembered his mother’s advice. He listened to his heart. He wanted to play with them.  



I want to play with them, I thought.

Wait a second! No I don’t. I’m not even supposed to be a puppy—or a pony for that matter! Why would I want to play children’s games?



“Do you mind if I play with you?” The shy puppy asked.



“Sure!” 

said the yellow puppy.



“Wait! I didn’t say that!” I objected. I pointed at the sky. “He said that, not me!”

The yellow puppy cocked her little head in confusion.

“Fine! We didn’t want to play with you anyway,” the bronze puppy said.

“Why don’t you hang out with Beakington the Nerd?” the blue puppy said, pointing to a little green woodpecker I hadn’t noticed previously.



Umm…. and they lived happily ever after. The end.



The school grounds and the puppies evaporated, leaving me alone in the void. Checking myself, I noticed I was no longer a puppy, but a filly. I had a cherry-red mane with magenta fur, and I was wearing a royal-purple, bejeweled dress. When the world reappeared I found myself atop a grassy hilltop knoll. There was a light breeze blowing, rustling my wings. At once I felt content and very much alive.

Looking down below, I saw thousands of ponies gathered around a stage area. Princesses Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Philomena and Twilight were all on a podium, waving to their admirers.

“They’re waiting for you, you know.”

I turned at the narrator’s voice and was met with a familiar brown stallion. He was dressed in a royal guard’s uniform, but it was unmistakably the same stallion as before. “Don’t keep them waiting, Princess.”

My heart was beating. All these ponies were out here waiting for me. But I shouldn’t be nervous. All I had to do was fly over them and land. Nopony was expecting a filly as young as myself to do anything too fancy. Besides, flying was something I was used to, right?

I shook my head to the point of dizziness.

“No, this is a dream. I won’t be caught up in dream logic again.” I focused intensely on the brown stallion. “What I want to know is who you are.”

“Oh me?” The stallion said. “I’m nopony interesting. In dreams you can do anything you want; you need only imagine it. Surely there’s something you want to try? You won’t be able to fly for some time. Why not embrace the opportunity to try it out?”

I paused briefly. Flight had always fascinated me on some level. I imagined every child thought about it at some point. I looked down at my golden horseshoe-covered hooves and furrowed my brow. Taking in the reminder of princesshood I snapped back to attention.

“No, I won’t be distracted,” I said, hostile. “Who are you and what are you doing meddling in my dreams?”

“All right. All right,” the stallion said placatingly. “Let’s just say I’m someone who wants you to thrive in Equestria.”

“Not good enough,” I said curtly, stomping a hoof. “You got a name?”

“I can’t remember.”

“How convenient,” I said, with heavy sarcasm. 

The stallion looked suddenly sheepish and he turned his head away until he thought of an answer.

“I realize this doesn’t paint me in the best light, but I truly don’t know. Do I even exist? Am I just part of your imagination? Have I lost all sense of myself while wandering the dreams of others I really don’t know. What I do know is that it’s my job to help accustom you to Equestria.”

I scowled. “You mean brainwashing me into being a happy pony.”

The stranger waved his hooves in front of him in protest. “No, nothing of the sort. I only seek to help by preparing you for what’s to come.” He quickly glanced around, nervous. “That’s strange, I’d have expected her to have shown up by now.”

“Who? Luna?” I smirked in realization. “If you’re not here to mess with my head, then why are you so scared of Luna?”

While it still unnerved me that the younger princess could peer into my dreams, I hoped she would show herself soon to rid me of this creep.

“Read any story at all and you will see why,” the stallion responded. “When have well-intentioned mysterious strangers ever been received well!?” 

“What makes you any different?” I asked, still suspicious
. 
He shook his head quizzically. “Because my intentions are good… I think.”

“You think?”

“I mean, I want everypony to be happy. Just look at them.” He pointed to the crowd. “Look at how excited they are for the new princess!”

I scanned the crowd. It was true they were extremely excited—awestruck even.

“You’re all about the good of the whole aren’t you?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know..”

He had a point, but surely I couldn’t be a princess.

“What makes me worthy to lead them?”

He smiled endearingly. “If that’s your only concern, you will find your answer in time. Farewell.”

As he turned to light and sped away, I wanted to shout after him all my other many objections to being princess. But all I could do was stare at the crowd, torn between worlds.