Ever since then Celestia had received several reports from Twilight about Cirno that revealed her to be an… interesting individual. First was her seemingly physics defying stupidity, and her odd form of mathematical aptitude. Twilight explained that she and Miss Cheerilee had framed trying to teach her the normal base 10 as “learning how to explain her genius to the rest of her peers,” clearly appealing to the fairy’s delusions of grandeur. Next was how she had become fast friends with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and often was roped into, or initiated, their usual hijinks. Despite knowing she would never get a cutie mark, she was more than willing to help the girls get theirs. In addition, they were apparently bullied less, mostly because nopony wanted to pick on the friends of the creature that had caused a rampage through Ponyville.
Despite the initial horrible impression she made, Cirno had slowly begun to endear herself to the citizens of Ponyville with her earnestness and foalishness. Nopony would soon be forgetting when she attempted to make some bits selling water flavored snowcones. Still, despite all these letters from her student Celestia was still concerned. In spite of her great improvements from when they first met Cirno was still powerful, very powerful. Even with her incredible fragility (she apparently once fell to pieces when a dodgeball managed to to hit her in the head) her regenerative ability made her a formidable force to be reckoned with in a real fight. In addition, though she approved of her student’s development, she also realized that Twilight taking a motherly shine to her like she did Spike could cloud her judgement.
Still, Celestia didn’t want to accidentally create a problem while trying to avoid one, but she also wanted to see herself if Cirno could be trusted. Luckily, she could easily combine two plans together by having Cirno tag along with something Twilight and her friends were already going to be involved in. After all, it wouldn’t be too hard to send one more ticket invite to Canterlot...
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight said happily as she trotted up to the Princess.
“Twilight. It is so lovely to see my star student,” the Princess greeted back.
“Oh, I’m so excited to be here! We have so much to catch up on! Oh, but first, someone wants to say a few words to you.”
Twilight turned back and Celestia followed her gaze. Cirno was hovering towards them dressed up for the Gala in a clearly Rarity-made dress. Cirno had replaced her bow with a white stick to hold her hair with a large snowflake design attached to it. She wore a baby blue puff shouldered dress with a line of white on the edges that looked like frost, and an aqua colored bowtie around her collar folded into an eight pointed snowflake shape. The dress extended outwards at the waist and at the edges at the bottom had holes cut in the shape of snowflakes.
Celestia couldn’t help but smile. She looks like a snow themed fairy tale princess.
“Hi Pretty Princess pony lady!” Cirno greeted.
Twilight sighed. “Cirno, I told you her name was Princess Celestia.”
“Hi pretty Princess Celestia lady!”
Twilight groaned, but couldn’t keep a small smile off her face. “Now Cirno, didn’t you have something you wanted to tell Princess Celestia?” Cirno merely looked to Twilight, confused. “Remember? That thing you wanted to tell her?” Cirno’s expression didn’t change. “That thing you wrote down? That you wrote completely on your own?” she stressed, taking a nervous glance at Princess Celestia.
“... Oh!” Cirno exclaimed before reaching into her dress and pulling out a scroll. “Ahem. ‘Eye... am sorry… about… the tan...trum… Eye had… when… we… first met!’” she read slowly before looking back to Twilight for approval, who rolled her eyes before smiling, causing Cirno to smile back.
Princess Celestia chuckled. “Apology accepted.”
“Yay!” Cirno shouted, tossing the scroll away. “You and Eye can have a Danmaku Battle now! Oh, when you have time, Eye mean.”
“Heh heh! Such a kidder, am I right?” Twilight nervously tried to cover up for her. To her surprise, Celestia chuckled.
“Maybe, but I’m quite a busy pony, and it’ll be some time before I’m free for that kind of thing.”
“Okay! That means Eye’ll have more time to get the picnic ready for after! Eye’m gonna go see the pretty ponies now! Bye!” she said before flying off.
Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry Princess, but she’s completely set on doing this ‘Danmaku’ thing with you in the future. I can’t talk her out of it, and despite having the word ‘Battle’ in the name she insists it’s not a big deal.”
“Well, they usually weren’t, but sometimes they were.”
“Huh? P-Princess Celestia, do you know what she’s talking about?” Twilight asked, shocked.
“Actually, yes. A Danmaku Battle is an extremely ancient form of magic dueling, before even Equestria’s founding. How it works is that one combatant casts several barriers around themselves and moves no quicker than a trotting pace while firing blasts of magic that move in patterns over a large area. The other combatant can move as quickly as they like and fires a barrage of magic at the other combatant while trying to dodge. The defending combatant must switch patterns every time one of their barriers breaks. If the defender loses all the levels of their barrier, or the offensive combatant gets hit five times, the battle ends.”
“That sounds so… violent,” Twilight commented, stunned.
“Indeed. The chance of injury is why magic duels today are more about proficiency of spells instead of combat prowess.”
“But if this is a such an ancient art, why does Cirno talk about it like it's an everyday thing?”
“Because for her it may be. I said it was ancient Twilight, but I never said it was Equestrian.” Twilight’s eyes widened further. “We can talk about it another time, Twilight. For now, let's just enjoy ourselves,” she said with a smile.
“Y-Yeah. That sounds best. I'm just hoping that Cirno has fun here and doesn't get-”
“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORED!” Cirno whined before slamming her head into the table she was sitting at, cracking her head a bit before it quickly healed.
Mystic Shield watched this nervously, having been assigned to watch over the fairy and make sure she didn't cause any trouble. Honestly he didn't know what she was expecting, he’d been to the Grand Galloping Gala five times as part of security and it was a snooze fest every year, just a place for nobles to butter each other up and flaunt what they had. Deciding he should nip any potential problems in the bud, he trotted over to her and cleared his throat.
“Um, are you ok, little girl?” he asked as gently as he could.
“Ugh, it's so boring! Sparkle Pony and the others all talked about this place like it was so fun, but it's not!” she whined. “Eye thought Eye’d at least get to pretty ponies doing fancy dances!”
“Well, the Grand Galloping Gala is more of a social event than an actual ‘party’,” he explained. When she just stared at him he continued. “You know, a place for people to talk and catch up or get to know each other. Discuss the current going ons in certain areas, that sort of thing.”
Cirno’s face brightened. “Oh! Eye get it now! You mean a sucking up party!”
Mystic Shield’s eyes widened in time with the gasps around him, which the fairy seemed completely oblivious to. “A… A what?”
“A sucking up party! You know, those things where young rich people try to say good things to old rich people so they like them!” she said before pointing to a group of mares. “Like how those ponies ladies are all telling that old pony lady that she looks pretty, but she’s wearing so much makeup it makes her look tacky.” She pointed to a group of stallions and continued, completely ignoring the reactions she was getting. “And how all those pony guys are laughing at that old pony guy’s horrible jokes because they want him to like him!” She then turned back to Mystic Shield. “Right?”
“Um… well… uh… that’s not…” he stuttered, clearly not prepared for her cutting through the fluff of noble politics in the way a child only could.
She then hopped off her seat. “Boy, this was a waste of time! If Eye knew it was this kind of party, Eye never would’ve come! And Eye wore this pretty dress, too,” she moaned as she flew out of the ballroom, still oblivious to the glares and shocked gazes as she flew out.
Mystic Shield was so stunned he didn’t notice the chaos around him until he heard a terrifying shout of “You’re going to LOVE ME!” As the bedlam he couldn’t keep the smile from his face, noticed several of his fellow guards had similar expressions.
After Princess Celestia had sent Twilight, Cirno, and all her friends home she called in every guard that was present in the ballroom to her throne. She closed the doors and cast a spell, her magic shimmering over the room before taking her seat. She cleared her throat before speaking.
“I’d first like to thank you all for your professional behavior in this… less than standard evening. You all did excellent in your duties and keeping to the disposition expected of you.” She began. “... you are now all free to do as you wish.”
The instant she finished that sentence they all burst out laughing, some so hard that tears were starting to run down their faces.
“Did you see their faces!? Oh that was brilliant!” one of the cried as he braced himself against the wall to keep himself from falling over.
“‘A sucking up party’, she said! Oh, that was so perfect!” another said as he leaned on his fellow guard for support.
“And the best part was that because she was a foal there was no way they could talk back to her without looking like massive flank-holes!”
Mystic Shield looked to his Princess, barely able to see her through the tears in his eyes. “Princess Celestia, you have to bring her back next year! This was the best Gala ever!”
Celestia chuckled along with them. “We’ll see,” she replied.