Frazzled, unsettled, and more than just a little disturbed, Twilight Sparkle yanked both Seville Orange and Pinkie Pie into a private room with her, and then shut the door. She studied their faces for a time, reading every wrinkle, crinkle, and crease, only to discover that neither of them could look her in the eye. Of the two of them, Seville squirmed the most, and his hooves clicked against the ground as he shuffled. He might be kind of handsome, but that wasn’t enough to get him spared.
“Look, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie began, “my Pinkie Sense isn’t perfect. Like right now, it is telling me that something is very wrong and that you are angry. With me. But I don’t know why.”
“Nuance wet the bed,” Twilight said, keeping her voice down. “Nuance wet the bed and I discovered that there was quite a bit that I wasn’t told. Now, I am trying to get down to the bottom of this. He wet the bed and I am worried by everything I’ve found out so far.”
“I know that he wet the bed.” Pinkie nodded while she spoke, and her tail swished around her hind legs.
“He also had a major nosebleed,” Twilight added, and her voice went even lower from sympathy for Nuance's shame.
“I… didn’t pick up on that.” Pinkie Pie seemed rather subdued, and her face became downcast. “I only picked up that he was panicking. Seville told me to let you handle it.” While she spoke, Seville drew in a deep breath, and held it.
“Why?” Twilight asked, looking into Seville’s face. “Why wasn’t I told?”
“Because Celestia wanted you to form your own opinions and conclusions without the introduction of outside bias!” Seville blurted out with uncharacteristic volume and speed. “We’re all too involved and too close to the situation, that’s what Cadance said, and she and Celestia both agreed that you might deal with this better if you were allowed to draw your own conclusions without being told anything at all about what is going on.”
“I see.” Twilight relaxed a little, causing both Seville and Pinkie to let out sighs of relief.
“You’re a different kind of princess,” Seville continued, “with different instincts and a different approach. Celestia admitted she doesn’t know what to do on this issue. She’s had a lot of foals before, but they’ve always been raised by nannies and an army of helpers. And uh… well, uh… um… I don’t know if I should be talking about this. I don’t have permission.”
“So Celestia took a more hooves-on approach for maybe the first time and found things were a bit more complicated than she anticipated.” Twilight paused, reflecting upon her own words, and she drew upon her own senses. “Things have spiraled out of control and the perfect opportunity presented itself for Celestia, Luna, and Gosling to dump the Royal Brood on me. Now I am left to sort out this mess.”
“More or less.” Seville nodded and his expression seemed apologetic, but it was hard to tell. “Luna said that you would say something like this.”
“You know what?” Twilight smiled so hard that laugh-lines crinkled the corners of her eyes. “I have this. I am the Princess of Friendship, and if anypony can get those foals to be friends with each other, it’s me. This will be a piece of cake. But I am going to need your help.” When Twilight looked at Seville, she found that she had his eye contact, and then, when her head turned in Pinkie’s direction, she found Pinkie’s blue eyes staring back at her. Returning her attention to Seville, she asked, “I’m going to need at least some information to work with, but I will respect the process and will try to form my own conclusions without biases.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Seville replied, and he sounded relieved.
“Alright then… for today, we need to focus on a few things to get started…”
Spike found himself worried about Nuance. It was odd, this worry, and the little dragon didn’t like it. Nuance wasn’t talking at all, he wasn’t saying anything, he wasn’t being bossy, or monstrous, or mean. Perhaps that was the most worrying sign that something was wrong—the little unicorn wasn’t being a snot. The colt had been bathed again this morning—this time by Twilight—and was at the moment wrapped up in a crocheted throw blanket, shivering. Moving with slow caution, Spike put down the saucer and the cup of tea on the table next to the couch.
“You’re supposed to drink this special tea,” Spike said to Nuance, and the colt shot him an icy glare in return.
“I can’t,” Nuance replied, and his voice sounded frail… strained even, to Spike’s ears.
“Why not?” Spike asked. “Does it taste gross? Is it bitter? It smells weird, like it’s metal or something. It’s some kind of red tea I’ve never seen before.”
“I can’t make my magic work right now,” Nuance muttered as his teeth clattered together.
“Oh.” Spike blinked once, pondering this information, and then climbed up onto the couch, his scales snagging a bit on the fabric. Sitting down, he got himself comfortable, pulled Nuance a little closer, and he ignored the fussy sounds the colt made. Picking up the cup of tea with his claws, he held it in front of him and gave it a sniff. It really did smell like metal… like… iron… and maybe copper? Turning his head, he looked Nuance in the eye. “Tell you what. How about I hold this for you, and you drink it? It’s hot, so you’ll get warmed up. Seville said it wouldn’t be a problem to get you to drink it.”
The colt gave the dragon a wary stare and said nothing.
“Seville also said to remind you that we have the ways and means to pour this down your throat,” Spike said to Nuance, and he shook his head. “I’d rather not do that. It seems mean and you look like you’re having a hard morning.”
“Fine, dragon, I’ll drink it if you’ll hold it.” Nuance slumped over against Spike, going limp, and then just remained there, taking shallow breaths and not moving. “You’re very warm.”
“Well, I’m a dragon,” was Spike’s deadpan reply, and he felt the claws of worry raking against the back of his mind. The little unicorn colt was ice cold, the parts poking out from beneath the blanket, and this caused Spike no end of alarm. Was Nuance sick? Did the little colt catch something? He somehow seemed even frailer and weaker than last night, when Spike had given him a bath. With but a thought, Spike began stoking his internal fires and he raised his body temperature as he began to blow on the cup of tea, which was still steaming.
“Let’s see if we can get you warmed up…”
Moving with absolute silence, Twilight Sparkle shut the door to the room where Spike and Nuance were. The colt was sleeping, wrapped up in a blanket and curled up against Spike, which was just what she wanted. As for Spike, he had a good book. So far, everything was going as planned, more or less. Twilight knew with absolute and total certainty that Spike would follow through with the simple instructions she and Seville had given him: keep Nuance company. Spike was her most trusted assistant for a reason. Sure, he made mistakes every now and then, but when it mattered, he could be trusted to do the right thing.
She moved through her private study while trying to wrangle her thoughts, and there was just so much to think about. Not just the situation with the Royal Brood, but everything. While she paced about, Radiance paid her no attention and kept his nose in his textbook, Fun Physics for Kindergartners. Even though doing his schoolwork wasn’t required, the colt had insisted, and who was Twilight to refuse? It kept him quiet and occupied, and Twilight needed quiet right now if she was going to make a plan. That was why she had sent Corbie outside with Pinkie Pie, because Corbie had explosive bursts of loquacious verbosity.
Seville had taken over her desk and her table, which she didn’t mind. Someday soon, he was going to be a Doctor of Journalism, which Twilight thought was just perfect for a pony that had a cutie mark that was an orange press for making juice. While passing by the table, she had to fight the urge to spell-check his papers, knowing that it would irk him to no end if she did that while he was working on them. It drove her crazy that he did not spell-check as he wrote, but only afterward, when his writing was finished. She hated him just a little tiny bit for this habit, which she was certain that he only did to drive her to distraction. But alas, she couldn’t just wander over and start spell-checking, no matter how right it was for her to do so.
That was how fights started, but the temptation was just so strong.
Sitting down in the soft grass, Pinkie Pie watched as Corbie fluttered her wings. The filly didn’t get to play outside as much as she should, and this bothered Pinkie a great deal. Corbie’s very existence raised all kinds of troubling questions for Pinkie—like when she grew up, what would she do then? She lived under constant protection now to keep her safe, but what about when she was an adult?
No matter Corbie’s age, hurting her would be a way to hurt her mother, Princess Celestia.
Not too far away, some of Twilight’s students played, and it made Pinkie Pie sad that Corbie wasn’t allowed to play with them. They didn’t have clearance, and if they came too close, one of the nearby guards would swoop in to intervene. Other foals could be rough, or not play nice, or might be mean, or any number of things. Ears perking, Pinkie watched as Corbie began to follow after a ladybug.
The smile on Corbie’s face made Pinkie Pie feel much better about everything.
Mid-pronk, the filly let out a huff and sat down in the grass, breathing hard, but still smiling. Her wings continued to flap, teased by the breeze, and her bright eyes focused on Pinkie Pie. “I’m having a wonderful time!”
“Are ya?” Pinkie’s ears leaned forewards, angling out over her face.
“I’m a little worried about my brother, but yeah. This is nice!” Sitting on her bottom, Corbie began clapping her two front hooves together while she bounced in place. “The royal gardens are nice, but I really don’t get to see other ponies there. Here I can see so much of Ponyville. It’s great!” The little filly, who needed her askewed glasses adjusted, began to turn her head so she could watch whatever caught her attention.
“One time, I got to visit Mister Teapot in his house, and that was nice, but this is better.” Corbie looked up for a time, squinting at the blue sky, and then continued pony watching the citizens of Ponyville. The sun glinted off of a silver spoon hanging from the filly’s neck, but was covered when she wrapped her forelegs around herself so she could give herself a hug.
Then, Corbie began to giggle, and Pinkie Pie felt a growing sense of dread.
“Are you and Twilight dating?” Corbie asked while her head tilted off to one side.
“I’m not sure yet,” Pinkie replied, being honest. Her mouth went dry, and no wonder, all of the wet that was in her mouth was now all over her frogs. How did that happen, anyhow? “We’re just extra-close extra-special friends.”
“Why?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Right now, we’re both at a point in our lives where we want something.”
“Oh.” Corbie nodded and then she straightened out her glasses. “What do you want? Do you want Seville? He’s my uncle and he’s really nice. Daddy says that Seville is his brother even though they’re not related. How does that work? Can you just claim somepony as your brother and sister? If you can, does that mean you can get rid of a brother or sister? That worries me because I think Rad would get rid of NuNu if he could, and if that happened, I would be really sad. I like having two brothers and I’m a really lucky filly, aren’t I? I think Sumac needs a sister and was telling Moon Mom that maybe he could borrow Skyla as a sister for a while? What do you think? Is it okay to borrow a sister? Can I be borrowed? What if I don’t wanna be borrowed? What if Skyla doesn’t want be borrowed?” Corbie came to an abrupt stop, sucked in a deep breath, and then let heave a sigh while saying, “It’s nice to talk and not have Nuance screaming at me to shut up.”
“I bet!” Pinkie Pie grinned at the little motormouth, who reminded her of her sister Limestone. “Say, what would you like for lunch, Corbie?”