Princess Twilight Sparkle watched the door, putting her hoof up to try to brush her mane away from her eyes. This failed, mostly because it had already decided to do so far before her hoof even got there.
Nice going, Sparkle. Two hundred years, and you're still not used to this.
She looked sideways at the other examiners, and was relieved to discover that they did not seem to have noticed the struggles of their inexperienced Princess.
She looked back at the door. This next applicant was going to be special. Tia had already told her about the filly that went to Day Court that day. In fact, that was one of the main reasons that she was here as one of the examiners. Of course, that was her right in any circumstance. She often decided to do so whenever she had free time available. She often liked to see how the generation's foals had turned out.
She had a feeling that this time, her input might be a bit more essential. With an earth pony as the recipient of the test, the academic portion of the test could easily be overshadowed by politics, and her two votes as Princess might be necessary to create a tie in the filly's favor. It would at least allow the deliberation to go to higher levels. Namely, the teacher's council, who tended to be a bit less political. Maybe. It had been a while since she checked.
Well, it was a better chance than usual, at least.
The door opened, admitting a green earth pony filly. Twilight looked at the clock.
8:00, to the second. She smirked.
I might just get to like you, my little pony.
Aurora took her compass in her hooves, and opened the back cover, staring at the watch face.
8:00 in 3... 2... 1...
She pushed open the door and walked inside, carefully scanning the board of examiners.
She did a double take at the deep purple luminous mane. Princess Twilight's here? Wow. That is unexpected. Well, at least I know she'll be fair.
Twilight gave her a small smile.
And it seems she likes me. Great.
Or maybe it was just for encouragement.
Aurora walked over to the small table provided.
Still, it's something. A lot better than I hoped, certainly.
"Due to the... unique circumstances of this test, you will be given thirty minutes to perform an act of magic that you deem worthy of acceptance into this prestigious school. You will be graded on quality of execution, difficulty of the magic required, and originality of the idea. You may begin."
She let out a sigh of relief. Thank you, Meadowlark. You really saved my hide. Thirty minutes? That would have been terrible if I didn’t have all that preparation.
Still...
Aurora raised her hoof, and the lead examiner (or at least the one who was talking the most) raised his eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"Am I allowed to bring in previously prepared items, such as material components for a spell?"
"...Y-yes?" he said with some uncertainty. "There is nothing in the outlined rules that prohibits it."
"Thank you."
Aurora noticed that Princess Twilight was now leaning slightly closer.
She smiled to herself. Well, I guess I got somepony's attention.
She turned back to her workspace, taking off the compass around her neck. Carefully, she opened the small compartment where she had placed the tiny blue hair, and turned it over, letting the hair fall to the table. Then, she took one of her own hairs (ouch!) and set it beside the other.
Now, this table is wooden, so it should be magically conductive... yes!
Nice. That makes my job so much easier.
She reattached the compass, then placed her hooves firmly on the table, letting her magic flow into it.
Just a simple spell for crossing plant seeds, slightly modified...
She lifted her hooves from the table, and looked closely at the result. At the center, almost invisible to the naked eye, was a small, dark mass.
She looked up. Twilight looked slightly confused, and the other two looked bored and irritated.
Well, I guess that part wasn't exactly impressive. Still, it was entirely necessary.
She looked back at the table. Now, here comes the hard part.
I really hope this doesn't cause magical exhaustion.
Aurora planted both her hooves on the table once again and gritted her teeth, pouring all of the magic she could possibly channel into the table.
The table slowly started to glow green as the power passed through it and into the small mass at the center, which slowly began to grow.
Yes! It's working! This is great!
The zygote slowly turned into an embryo.
Aurora's mind dimly acknowledged that it was a pegasus.
How nice.
Aurora continued to push magic into the small creature, stopping only when it had reached the age of birth. After all, it wasn't technically alive since it didn't have a wellspring, but at the same time, if she made a golem, it would have to be able to survive.
Her mind insisted that stopping at this point was entirely on purpose, but mostly it was due to the total exhaustion.
She looked up groggily. Princess Twilight had her mouth open.
Heh. I impressed a Princess. Cool.
The others... boredom? What?
And was that anger?
Or was that just from herself?
"Oh, is that not good enough for you?" she muttered to herself bitterly.
Yep, definitely from her.
"Well, I guess maybe that creating the most technically accurate golem in history isn't enough for you two. So I won't. I'll just have to do something else."
Twilight had finally closed her mouth, and was about to open it to speak, but it was too late. Aurora had already started.
She stood on her two hind hooves before the table. Her anger was now gone, replaced with sheer calm and determination. Her mind was clear.
The room, the examiners, the Princess – none of those existed anymore. She placed one of her front hooves onto her chest, bringing out the swirling ball of magic – alicorn magic. With the other, she pressed down a bit harder, and with a small cry of pain, brought out another sphere, this one a bit brighter and glowing a solid green.
Dimly, she noticed that Princess Twilight had sent some purple sparks through the ceiling. Right now, however, she didn't care.
She brought both hooves together, and with a flash, they merged, and became a single, large sphere, green, with occasional rainbow flashes of light.
Swiftly, she brought both hooves down onto the filly before her, and in the split second before it made contact, she noticed how it changed, splitting into two balls - one blue, one green.
Aurora smiled. Heh. One in a million.
And the filly woke up.
Princess Celestia opened the door hastily, taking in the scene. The filly, Aurora, was unconscious next to the wooden table, clearly exhibiting a case of severe magical exhaustion. Another filly... (what?) ...seemingly a newborn, seemed to be attempting to wake her up, poking her tentatively with a hoof.
Her former student, and fellow ruler Twilight was staring at her with an expression that clearly said, "Help!"
Celestia looked towards the remaining two examiners, who were trying rather unsuccessfully to hide their various states of shock. They both bowed.
She made a quick decision. "Understand that the events that have transpired in this room are now classified, with a security clearance that you do not currently possess. I trust that you can keep your word?"
They both nodded nervously. Whatever this was, it was clear that more than just their career was at stake.
"Good. You are now dismissed."
They practically fled from the room, thankfully remembering at the last minute that slamming the door would be highly inappropriate when leaving the Princesses' presence.
Princess Celestia looked back at the unconscious foal and sighed.
"Little one, where are your parents?"
"... and then she just tore part of her wellspring! And combined it with that other ball of magic. I don't even know where she got that ball of magic, but it certainly wasn't hers, because there was unicorn and pegasus magic in there too. Do you know where she could have gotten alicorn magic from, because I don't. Well, it isn't thatimportantbecauseherwellspring -"
"Twilight. Calm yourself. She is fine. Her wellspring looks perfectly normal to me. It seems quite bright for a filly her age."
"Well, it's a little better now. But trust me, it was bigger before. She took out..." Twilight shuddered. "...a quarter of it. And the look on her face..."
Aurora yawned and stretched. I wonder what they're talking about...
"Twilight, she's awake. We can discuss this later. She is in no immediate danger."
Twilight folded her ears back. "Sorry. I guess you're right. I did overreact a bit. But the way she -"
"Twilight."
"Oh."
Aurora frowned slightly. Her bed was weird. It just kept going up and down, up and down, up and down... up... and down...
She jolted upright.
Oh, sweet Celestia! I'm riding... Celestia!
She scrambled awkwardly and rapidly to the ground.
"I... I can walk..."
What am I going to do? I was just... oh wait. She probably put me there. Does that imply permission?
Celestia smiled, looking pointedly at Twilight, who grinned sheepishly.
"It's all right, Aurora. I was just bringing you back home to your parents."
Aurora looked back up, confused. "Personally? Both of you? I mean, both of you are really nice, and I like being with you, but don't you have more important things to do?"
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she cringed. Oh, no! Why did I do that! That just implied they aren't doing their jobs. I just disrespected a princess! Two princesses!
Celestia chuckled. "Well, you were accepted."
"Really? The examiners didn't seem too impressed..." Suddenly, a shiver ran down her back.
"Oh no! I completely forgot to tell my parents!" She looked frantically around. They were almost home.
Stupid, stupid, stupid...
"I'm sure they will understand. But it does not matter whether you impressed the examiners. It matters that you impressed me."
Aurora looked up to Celestia once more. No...
Celestia smiled.
No... it can't be.
"My little pony, how would you like to be my personal student?"
Well, there was only one acceptable answer to that.
"Yes!"
Cherry Blossom and Written Script stared incomprehensibly at the two all-powerful alicorns that happened to be standing in their doorway.
"Personal... student?" Written Script repeated, looking like he was close to giving up on his consciousness.
"Yes." Princess Celestia supplied helpfully.
Cherry Blossom's eyes followed her filly, who was currently bouncing up and down with dizzying speed.
"Dear, why didn't you tell us that you got permission to apply? For all we knew, you were still standing in line at Day Court!" She gave a sideways glance. "Or worse."
Aurora froze mid-jump, her giddy smile fading just a bit.
Her expression broke, and she landed a second later, her head low and her ears pressed back. "I'm sorry, Mom. I just was so excited, and then the test was in three minutes, and then I completely forgot to tell you when I went to go study for the practical..."
Written Script blinked slowly, coming back abruptly to reality. "Study for the practical? How? The library is here. Where would you...?"
Aurora froze, covering her mouth with a hoof. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I... I'm sorry, Dad. And Mom. I've been lying for a while. I haven't been going out to play at all. I just went out to study."
"But the library..."
"I found this... cave system underground. I explored it, and... somepony hid books in there. A study. And the books weren't ordinary. They were books about earth pony magic."
Her mother gasped. "Aurora, why didn't you tell us about this! We would have let you, if you had just asked. And this could help all sorts of ponies!"
Aurora looked distinctly uncomfortable. "When I first discovered it, I was. I really was going to tell everypony. But after my first study session, I realized something. The spells... they were too dangerous."
"What do you mean, dear? Knowledge is meant to be shared."
Aurora sighed. "The ponies that hid those books did so for a reason. The spells there would benefit ponies, sure, but... as you know, every spell has its elemental inverse."
"Yes, of course. Fire and water, air and rock. But that doesn't mean -"
"Mom, what is the most common earth pony discipline."
"The magic of..."
"Life. Now, what is the opposite of that?
"..."
"I think you can see now. I studied, because I knew that I would never use those other spells. I would only use magic for good."
She looked to the side, thinking of the exam. Well, now I guess that's only half-right.
"I... I just know that these spells can't become common knowledge. I mean, they're not that dangerous by nature, but if a powerful pony got a hoof on them, with the wrong intentions... I've already done too much damage already, just to win a stupid entrance exam."
"Damage? What do you mean?"
Princess Celestia smiled gently. "Your daughter performed some very impressive magic today. However, I believe she is referring to the fact that she did not think of all of the repercussions of her actions before she decided on that particular form of magic."
Cherry Blossom narrowed her eyes. "What did she break? Was it expensive?"
Celestia chuckled. "No, no. Don't worry about that. Everything is fine. She was not referring to that kind of damage. However..." She stepped aside, revealing a small, dark grey pegasus filly. "...I'm afraid Aurora has more introductions to make for the new member of the family.
Aurora once more found herself facing her parents' shocked faces. She hung her head once more. "Mom, Dad, um... this is..."
She looked at the little grey filly. Her filly. She stared back, with those mis-matched blue and green eyes. She was smiling.
"Smarty Pants. Her name is Smarty Pants."
Princess Celestia held on to her composure for a few more seconds, then burst out laughing. Princess Twilight facehooved, shaking her head in embarrassment.
A bewildered Written Script looked at his wife with a dazed look on his face. "Of all the things that I could have expected today, this was definitely not one of them.”