Aloe sat patiently at the reception of the Ponyville Spa entrance. It was a slow day as everypony had gotten this year's Hearth's Warming rush out of their system earlier than usual. Apparently, some of the more prominent ponies had decided to head out to faraway family for this year's Hearth's Warming and Ponyville being Ponyville this had sparked a trend. In the end, almost the entire town had rushed their spa the previous week to get their personal touches in for the holidays.
For Aloe and her sister Lotus, this was like a gift from Celestia herself. Normally the spa would run crazy hours getting everypony done up in time, but now they might actually be able to close the spa early and spend some quality time with their own family. But not today, today she had been asked by royal request to make ready for a personal guest.
Well, royal request was an exaggeration. In truth Princess Twilight has simply tried to make a reservation like any other pony would. Despite being royalty. Princess Twilight never had taken to ruling over what -by right of station- was her kingdom. If anything, Princess Twilight seemed to shy away from the rights that came with the crown, all but insisting that everypony still treat her as the same old Twilight.
Well so be it. If Ponyville had to help their Princess adjust to her new station, then by Celestia they would do so! And today, that help had been accepting what had to have been Princess Twilight's first royal request, even if the Princess didn't voice it that way.
Aloe craned her neck over the counter, throwing one more glance around the lobby. Still nothing. That was okay. Princess Twilight never really specified when her guest would show up, but they would be ready whenever-
A loud yelp and a big splash startled Aloe out of her thoughts. That was weird. It sounded like it came from the baths, but there weren't any clients in right now. She bit her lip as she pondered checking it out or waiting for the royal guest for a moment. No, that was dumb. Royal guest or no, somepony made a slip and her pride in her service demanded she make sure everything was alright.
Aloe made her way to the baths just in time to see an unfamiliar unicorn with an amber coat and a mane of red and yellow climb out of the bath. Aloe could not recall having seen this unicorn enter her establishment, but that the mare was grumbling something her breath made it clear that she had not intended to dive into the bath.
"Are you alright miss?" Aloe asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," the mare answered. "Just didn't expect to speed-start my spa visit like this."
"We do have a door..." Aloe cautiously probed, eliciting a snort from the amber mare.
"I'll be sure to let Twilight know the next time she plans to send me here via teleport express."
On a first name basis with Princess Twilight? This had to be the royal guest. "You are the royal guest we were told to expect then?"
The mare smiled weakly. "I guess? Sunset Shimmer, pleased to meet you. I'm staying with Princess Twilight for a bit for... personal reasons."
Aloe smiled brightly. "It is a pleasure to have you. Welcome to Ponyville Spa. My name is Aloe, and I will be your attendant this visit. Please, this way." Aloe led Sunset Shimmer to one of the smaller baths. The big bath was nice for a communal soak, but many ponies preferred their own sets of shampoos, and that was better done in the smaller baths. "Do you have any preferences?" she asked.
Sunset Shimmer hummed for a moment before shrugging. "I've been out of the loop for a while. Surprise me with something new."
Aloe nodded and moved over to the cabinet. With practised ease she hoofed a bottle of pine shampoo on her head, a favourite of the season. As she moved back to the tub with the bottle balancing on her head, she noticed that Sunset Shimmer had already lowered herself into the tub with a contented hum. Aloe took the opportunity to glance over the status of her customer's mane and coat. The mare's mane had the look of casual care taking. Healthy, but not particularly special. The amber coat and fiery tail on the other hoof gave Aloe pause. It wasn't that they looked terrible, but they appeared and particularly smelled to be somehow... dull. Not messy as if she'd been running around and forgot to take care of it, but just dull. Like a dress that had been hanging in the back of a closet for years. But how a pony could do absolutely nothing with her own mane and tail for years mystified Aloe.
Aloe pushed the question to the back of her mind. The how didn't really matter, the taking care of it did. That was what miss Shimmer was in her spa for, after all. With a quick bob of her head the bottle tipped off, allowing Aloe to snatch it out of the air with her mouth. Leaning over Sunset she squeezed several thick dollops on Sunset's mane, coat and tail and began spreading the shampoo around, running her hooves through the mare's mane, over her coat and through her tail.
Sunset let out a soft, appreciative hum as the shampoo was spread all over her coat. Twilight was right, it had been way too long since she had gotten some good quality spa pampering. She fought the urge to sink into the tub as her attendant continued her ministrations, waiting for the mare to finish her work. The feeling of shampoo sinking into her coat caused her eyes to flutter close.
"You can lie down now, miss Shimmer," Aloe said, and Sunset gratefully sank down into the warm water, content to just enjoy relaxing in the tub. A smile tugged on her lips as she felt Aloe rinse out her mane, being careful to avoid the soaped waters from getting into her eyes before moving away to let Sunset enjoy her soak.
A few minutes of comfortable soaking later she heard Aloe return and call to her. "Miss Shimmer? If you could follow me please?"
With some resistance, Sunset got up and climbed out of the warm, comfortable bath. Aloe was waiting for her with a batch of towels, deftly wrapping them around her. The towels were thick and fluffy, much more so than the ones she had gotten used to back at CHS. All the better to soak up the water from her mane and coat, which Sunset realized had been pooling onto the floor. She had forgotten just how much water a pony's coat could hold compared to furless skin.
As Aloe finished wrapping Sunset up in towels, the amber mare couldn't help but be impressed by how quickly and expertly the earth pony mare had so expertly wrapped her up in these thick towels without either horn or fingers. Her ears perked up as Aloe led her to a table Sunset recognized as a massage table.
"What kind of massage would you like?" Aloe asked as Sunset laid down on the table, resting her chin on a pillow in front of her and wrapping her hooves around it.
Sunset thought about it. Even putting aside that she hadn't used her pony muscles in years, she'd been under a lot of stress with not a lot of time to relax lately. "Something that's relaxing, but gets rid of some rather stubborn tension in the muscles."
Sunset felt Aloe's hooves on her back, probing the muscles to feel out spots of tension. Sunset smiled sheepishly as she could practically hear the spa pony's frown as her hooves encountered knot after knot. Not her fault she hadn't had much in the way of time or funds to get a spa treatment on the other side of the mirror. After a few moments of probing, Aloe apparently thought she had a clear enough picture of what Sunset needed.
Aloe's hooves began pushing into Sunset's back, rolling up before moving down and pushing outwards as they reached her neck and Sunset hissed as Aloe hit one of the first of the many tense points. "Please try to relax, miss Shimmer. There are a lot of stiff points in your muscles and I will need a bit of time to get through them all. But once I do, it will feel much better."
Sunset nodded into her pillow, muffling another hiss as Aloe continued to work. She hadn't realized she'd neglected her body that much. Maybe when all this was over she could see if she could arrange something with Twilight to let her come back for another visit or two. For now though, she'd just have to grit her teeth and remember that it would be worth it soon.
It was worth it.
Sunset hummed in content bliss as Aloe's hooves danced over her back, kneading and tugging into muscles and rolling over her skin. It had been a pain to sit through the initial harsh moments, but now that Aloe had gotten most of the tension out of her back all Sunset could feel was bliss as the attendant's hooves worked their magic. Every push forward electing a hum and every roll backwards making her sigh.
Oh was it worth it.
"I have got to find a way to thank Twilight for this," Sunset mumbled.
"She has never turned down a tasty bouquet of lavenders before," Aloe commented.
Sunset snorted in amusement. "Purple flowers for the purple pony. Figures."
There was a short pause, the kind Sunset had learned to recognise as one from someone who wanted to ask a question but wasn't quite sure if they'd offend with the question, but Aloe voiced it regardless, if nervously.
"If you don't mind me noticing, you seem to be very familiar with the Princess."
It wasn't voiced as a question, but the actual question itself was rather obvious. It wasn't one Sunset was about to answer casually though. "How do you figure?"
Again there was a pause before Aloe answered, but Sunset noticed it was shorter this time and Aloe sounded less nervous. "You have only called her Princess Twilight once throughout your stay here."
"Ah. That." Sunset thought. "Well, Twilight was rather insistent I didn't."
A chuckle came from Aloe and what little tension remained seemed to drain form the mare. "Yes, she is like that with those she holds dear to her. She would have all of us refer to her casually, but we've been rather stubborn about it."
"Really? Why?" Sunset asked.
Aloe hummed. "Well, to us here in Ponyville, we've known Twilight for years before she became a Princess. I believe she always had some status in Canterlot as Celestia's pupil, but here in Ponyville she was just 'Twilight the new librarian.' Granted, she had immediately become a national hero by rounding up a couple of Ponyvilians and defeating the freshly returned Nightmare Moon, but aside from her occasional heroics the now Princess Twilight had always been just been one more mare with her quirks like any other pony in Ponyville. A bookish, quirky, unicorn mare."
"..So she was just another pony among ponies? She didn't bandy around her status as Celestia's pupil?"
"Not as such, no." Aloe said. "Oh sure, she was proud of it, but Princess Twilight has never been much of a braggart. Her Highness could actually be a bit too humble at times, but we've been working on that."
"So how did she go from 'just Twilight' to 'Princess Twilight'?" Sunset asked. Throughout their journal exchanges, Sunset and Twilight had never really discussed Twilight's ascension before, given how all the trouble she'd gone through ultimately started with that. But somehow the relaxing massage and friendly tone of Aloe were making things easier to talk about, and the academician in Sunset was thrilled at hearing a second perspective of her friend.
"No pony knows the full details aside from the Princesses and the Elements, but it was one of the weird days in Ponyville. All the Element Bearers except for then still just Twilight were acting really strange and had somehow gotten their cutie marks swapped. Princess Twilight apparently created a new magic to solve the problem, and got her wings as a result."
"The magic of friendship," Sunset murmured.
"So we heard." Aloe said, and giggled. "To say it was a bit of a shock was an understatement, but at the same time Princess Twilight has fought for Ponyville the moment she set hoof in our little town. I realize that to most it might seem that a town full of supposed friends and neighbours suddenly calling one of their friends 'Princess' is just trying to curry favour with the new royal, but any true Ponyville pony knows that we don't give a hoot about that sort of thing. To us, Princess Twilight had already earned those wings long before she actually got them."
"So you're just treating her as a Princess as a formality?"
Aloe nodded. "In a way. If nopony is going to call her Princess she'll never get used to it, so aside from a small group of her closest friends we're doing what we can to ease her in."
"Which brings us back to me," Sunset finished with a grunt as Aloe untied a particularly stubborn knot in her left hind leg.
Aloe smiled. "Yes. If you don't mind me asking, how did you come to know the Princess? We usually know everypony in Ponyville. Even the new arrivals, Pinkie Pie makes sure of that."
A small jolt went through Sunset's legs at the mention of her friend's name, but Sunset fought down the feelings the name summoned, but Aloe seemed to have noticed her moment of stress.
"I'm sorry, is this a sensitive topic?" the pink mare asked.
Sunset chewed the inside of her cheek. On one hoof, Aloe had been nothing but kind, but on the other... "I'm sorry, it's... complicated."
"Then I won't press," Aloe said calmly as she continued her massage on Sunset's hind legs. "Given you're on a no title basis with her it clearly doesn't matter to Princess Twilight anyway."
"Thank you," Sunset replied.
"Though I do wonder, you said Princess Twilight teleported you here?"
Sunset nodded. "Straight from the castle library into the bath," she confirmed.
"Strange, it is rare for her teleports to be so far off target."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure this was exactly on target." Sunset grumbled.
Sunset's ears flicked at a poorly suppressed chuckle from Aloe. "May I assume that a bit of verbal sparring was involved?" the pink mare asked.
Sunset rolled her eyes with a grin. "What gave it away?"
Aloe moved over to work on Sunset's other leg. "Raising an at times cheeky little dragon and spending several years with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie has sharpened her sense of poetic retribution. They're all quite proud of it, last I heard."
Sunset snorted, but she felt a grin tugging on her lips. "Well, it was a well aimed teleport..."
Aloe chuckled behind her and Sunset felt herself join in. As Aloe moved her ministrations to Sunset's lower back, the conversation petered out and Sunset closed her eyes in contentment. She felt like jelly in the skilled spa pony's hooves. As she felt herself drift off, Sunset began mulling over the conversation she had just had.
It hadn't escaped her notice just how different she and Twilight were under Celestia's tutelage. Whereas Sunset had been openly proud, Twilight's pride was more subdued. Where Sunset strutted around proudly showing off her status as Celestia's student, Twilight only brought it up when relevant. While Sunset was using her knowledge and prestige to increase her status, Twilight was content with what she had.
Was that why Twilight had become Princess Celestia's student after she left? Because she was the complete opposite of what Sunset was? Sunset felt a block of ice settling in her barrel. The idea that Celestia had rejected her so completely, yet accepted the opposite of her filled her with dread.
In her drowsy state, Sunset vaguely registered two pillows being gently placed under her hooves, but the interruption managed to shift her thoughts away from the dark trail they had been following. A moment later Aloe appeared back in her eyes, a file between her teeth, and began Sunset's hooficure. With any decent conversation blocked by the file in Aloe's mouth as it expertly danced across Sunset's hooves, Sunset once more found her mind wandering. This time it wandered to what she now realized was her greatest mistake ever made.
Her belief that Celestia had held the power to turn her into an alicorn.
Ever since that vision in the mirror, Sunset had been obsessed with the reflection of herself she had seen. A proud horn and a pair of wings, with hooves carrying the strength of the earth. It had become an obsession, and when Sunset learned that this gift had been given to her replacement, it had sparked a rage that had led to the final bad decision in a long chain of bad decisions.
But Sunset's becoming an alicorn was not something Celestia could just give any random pony. Becoming an alicorn was something a pony needed to earn. To be a Princess meant embodying a concept, a pillar that would help keep Equestria standing. As Celestia embodied the day, Luna embodied the night and while the origins of the two sisters were lost to time, there were two other alicorns who showed just what it took to become a Princess.
Cadenza, who despite being a pegasus managed to reverse a love stealing spell, saving Equestria from strife, ascended to become the Princess of Love.
And Twilight, who embodied the magic of friendship, who had held fast against threats Sunset only knew from legends, the mare who had saved and reached out to herself when she was at her lowest, a hand reaching out in friendship despite how she had done nothing to earn it, became the Princess of Friendship.
Many ponies have dreams and ambitions. Pegasus fillies dreaming of the Wonderbolts, or unicorn colts trying to become the next Starswirl the Bearded. A lot of those ponies realize over time that those dreams and ambitions are out of their league. Now Sunset felt what all those colts and fillies must have at that moment of realization, and to her own surprise it made her guts sink. Somewhere, even as she was working too become a better pony, that dream of being a Princess had still been alive. But now she had learned what it took to become a Princess, and no amount of hard work, intimidation, theft or pleading could ever get her closer to it.
"Miss Shimmer?"
Sunset blinked as Aloe's voice brought her back to the present, then blinked again when she noticed the corners of her eyes were blurring up. A third blink cleared most of the blur and Sunset saw Aloe standing in front of her, her ears half folded and a worried look on her face. Sunset drew in and let out a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm just... going through a rough patch here."
"Do you wish for a different treatment? Sauna? Perhaps a mud bath?"
"No, no" Sunset protested. "It wasn't anything you did. Well, kind of. I usually keep myself busy to distract myself from the things that bother me. I haven't been this relaxed in forever and it just made my mind wander."
"Is there anything I can do to keep your mind from wandering?" Oh stars above, now she'd made the poor earth pony worried.
"Maybe a horn filing? That always keeps me focused" Sunset suggested, smiling as Aloe's worried frown bloomed into a smile and the mare reached for the file again. Sunset closed her eyes and focused on her horn as the file gently scraped away chips and rough edges, each stroke sending a small tingle through her horn. She was surprised by how delicately Aloe filed down the edges and even reached into the spiral groove of her horn, all while leaving a very pleasant sensation. Unicorn horns could be surprisingly delicate, and to feel such tender care from an earth pony showed just how dedicated Aloe was to her job.
All too quickly, Aloe was done, putting away the file before turning back to Sunset. "Anything else, miss Shimmer?"
Sunset pondered the question for a moment. Her mane and coat felt cleaner than she could remember, her body lighter than it had in months and her hooves and horn were filed and polished to a mirror shine. She could go for one of the many other treatments, but that would just leave her mind to wander again. "No, I think I'll keep it to this for now" she answered.
Aloe smiled and nodded. "As you wish, this way then please" Aloe turned as she led Sunset back to the spa's entrance.
When they reached the entrance, Sunset smiled back at the pink earth pony. "Thanks for everything miss Aloe, I feel better than I have in... well, a long time." Sunset's smile became slightly more strained and she reached up with a hoof to scratch the back of her head. "So, uhm, how much do I owe you? It's been a long time since I've been to a spa..."
"Oh don't worry about that. This was a 'royal request' after all." Aloe laughed, making air quotes with her hoof.
Sunset smiled and readied a quip of her own, but the jingling of the doorbell interrupted her. She turned around out of curiosity to see who entered.
"So sorry for being so late Aloe darling, can I still come in for the usual?"
Sunset froze.