Eclipse woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.
"It was a dream,”he told himself firmly. “I dreamed Spike came to tell me and my sisters we were going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my bed,"
Suddenly Eclipse felt rapid tapping on his head.
And there's Morning Shine waking me up, Eclipse thought. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"All right," Eclipse mumbled, "I'm getting up."
He sat up and realized he was in a giant basket, outside, in the middle of a meadow. His sisters were still asleep and Spike had curled himself around the basket, snoring loudly. And the tapping was a woodpecker.
“Shoo!” Eclipse hissed.
The woodpecker flew off and then started tapping on Spike’s head.
“Ow!” Spike grumbled, waking up. “Well we better get going. Time to get up girls,”
Morning Shine and Sparkling Radiance yawned and hopped out of the basket.
"Still got your letters?" Spike asked.
Eclipse took the parchment envelope out of the basket.
"Good," said Spike. "There's a list there of everything you need."
Eclipse unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before, and read:
CELESTIA’S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED UNICORNS
UNIFORM
First-year students will require:
1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One pair of protective gloves (leather or similar)
3. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags.
COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Glitter Lotus
A History of Magic by Lily Dasher
Magical Theory by Nutmeg Song
A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Coco Lily
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Nutmeg Fluff
Magical Drafts and Potions by Serenity Zephyr
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Snow Fruit
OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set of glass or crystal phials
1 telescope set
1 brass scales
Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS
"Can we buy all this in Canterlot?" Morning Shine wondered aloud, looking over her brother’s shoulder
"If you know where to go," said Spike, as they walked into the shining city of Canterlot.
Spike,being a dragon,was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all the foals had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary ponies. Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks?
"This is it," said Spike, coming to a halt, "Doughnut Joe’s. I’m sure your mother has brought you here multiple times,"
Actually, Twilight had only taken the three foals once to the famous doughnut shop. For a famous place, it wasn’t very crowded. A few old mares were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry, one of them was smoking a long pipe. A little stallion in a top hat was talking to Joe.. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Every pony seemed to know Spike; they waved and smiled at him, and Joe reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Spike?"
"Can't, Joe, I'm on business," said Hagrid, bringing the foals closer.
"Good Faust," said Joe, peering at the Glimmer siblings and the future ruler, "are they - can they be - ?"
The shop had suddenly gone completely still and silent.
"Bless my soul," whispered Doughnut Joe, "Morning Shine and Eclipse Glimmer,... what an honor."
He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward the children and seized Morning Shine’s hoof, tears in his eyes.
"Welcome back, welcome back,"
Morning Shine didn't know what to say. Everypony was looking at her and her siblings. The old mare with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Spike was beaming.
Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Morning Shine, Eclipse, and Sparkling Radiance found themselves shaking hooves with everypony in the shop. A pale young mare made her way forward, very nervously. One of her eyes was twitching.
"Professor Mistral!" said Spike. "Morning Shine, Eclipse, Sparkling Radiance, Professor Mistral will be one of your teachers at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns,"
"I-I-I," stammered Professor Mistral, grasping Morning Shine's hoof, "c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you,"
"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Mistral?" Sparkling Radiance asked.
"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Mistral, as though she'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it,right,M-m-morning Shine and E-e-eclipse?" She laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." She looked terrified at the very thought.
But the others wouldn't let Professor Mistral keep the famous children to herself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Spike managed to make himself heard over the babble.
"Must get going - lots to buy. Come on, kids,"
Spike led them through the shop and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds. Spike grinned at Morning Shine and Eclipse.
"Told you, didn't I? Told you were famous. Even Professor Mistral was trembling to meet you - mind you, she's usually trembling."
"Is she always that nervous?" Eclipse asked.
"Oh, yeah. Poor fellow. Brilliant mind. She was fine while she was studying out of books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience... They say she met vampires in the Everfree Forest, and there was a nasty bit of trouble with a hag - never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of her own subject,"
Vampires? Hags? Eclipse's head was swimming. Spike, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.
"Three up... two across... " he muttered. "Right, stand back, kids,"
He tapped the wall three times with the point of his claw.
The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled - in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.
"Welcome," said Spike, "to Dragon Alley."
He grinned at the foals’ amazement. They stepped through the archway. Eclipse looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall. The Celestia’s sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self-Stirring - Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.
"Yeah, you'll be needing one," said Spike, "but we got to get your money first,"
Eclipse wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump mare outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Serpent liver, seventeen bits an ounce, they're mad..."
A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several foals of about Eclipse's age had their muzzles pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever - " There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Eclipse had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon...
"Gringotts," said Spike.
They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was - a goblin.
"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Spike quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than the foals. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Eclipse noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing poniesin and out of these. Spike, Morning Shine, Eclipse, and Radiance made their way for the counter.
" Good morning," said Spike to a free goblin. "We've come to take some money out of Ms. Morning Shine and Mr. Eclipse Gimmer's safe. And money from Ms. Sparkling Radiance’s safe,”
"You have their keys, sir?"
"Got them here somewhere," said Spike, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter. “Got them,”
The goblin looked at the two tiny golden keys, closely.
"Very well," he said, handing the keys back to Spike, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"
Griphook was yet another goblin. Spike, Morning Shine, Eclipse, and Sparkling Radiance had followed Griphook into a long marble hall. Griphook held a door open for them. All three foals, who had expected more marble, were surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in - Spike with some difficulty - and were off. At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Eclipse tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering. They plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.
"I never knew," Spike called to to the foals over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"
"A stalagmite grows up and a stalactite grows down," Sparkling Radiance stated. "And don't ask me questions just now, I think I'm going to be sick,"
She did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Sparkling Radiance got out and had to lean against the wall to stop her knees from trembling. Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Morning Shine and Eclipse gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins.
"All yours," smiled Spike.
It was incredible. Did Twilight know about this? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to the Glimmer children, buried deep under Canterlot. Spike helped Morning Shine and Eclipse pile some of it into a bag. They left the vault, and made their way to Sparkling Radiance’s vault. And then traveled all the way back up to the city level.
"Might as well get your uniforms," said Spike, nodding toward Gypsy Lollipop's Robes for All Occasions.
Gypsy Lollipop was a squat, smiling unicorn dressed all in mauve.
"Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, dear?" she said, when Morning Shine started to speak. "Got the lot here - another colt being fitted up just now, in fact."
In the back of the shop, a unicorn colt with a pale, pointed muzzle was standing on a footstool while a second unicorn pinned up his long black robes. Gypsy Lollipop stood Morning Shine on a stool next to him slipped a long robe over her head, and began to pin it to the right length.
"Hello," said the colt, "Celestia’s, too?"
"Yes," said Morning Shine.
"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at cauldrons," said the colt. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow,"
Morning Shine was strongly reminded of a younger version of Sparkling Radiance.
"Have you got your own broom?" the colt went on.
"No," said Morning Shine.
"Play Quidditch at all?"
"No," Morning said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.
"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play, and I must say, I agree,"
"Sure, I guess," said Morning Shine, feeling more stupid by the minute.
"I say, look at that dragon!" said the colt suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Spike was standing there, grinning at Morning Shine and pointing at four large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.
"That's Spike," said Eclipse, finally saying something from the waiting couch. "He is a friend of the family,"
"I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?" the colt asked
"He's the Number One Assistant to Princess Twilight Sparkle," said Eclipse. He was liking the colt less and less every second.
"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in here in Canterlot and I heard he married a our kind. And even has hybridfreaks for children,"
“HOW DARE YOU!!” Sparkling Radiance snapped, finding her nerve to speak. “Spike is a brilliant, noble, dragon! He is very close to the princesses and yet you insult him! Spike has even saved the Crystal Empire, and is the Friendship Ambassador to the Dragonlands! And his wife is Rarity, the Element of Generosity, who has helped saved Equestria numerous times! And their children are magnificent creatures, and just just so happen to be our friends!!”
The colt starred gawking at a fuming Sparkling Radiance, smirked and said “Well, if he’s with you where are our parents?”
“My parents are Princess Twilight Sparkle and Flash Sentry, and if you haven’t already figured out I’m Princess Sparkling Radiance!” Radiance growled, as the colts jaw dropped.
“That’s enough out of you young colt,” Gypsy Lollipop said, glaring at the colt.
"Well, I'll see you at school, I suppose," said the drawling colt, as Morning Shine, Eclipse, and Sparkling Radiance left the store.
The foals were rather quiet as they ate the ice cream Spike had bought them.
"What's up?" said Spike.
"Nothing," Sparkling Radiance lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. She cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote.
When they had left the shop, she said, "Spike, what's Quidditch?"
"Blimey, I keep forgettin' how little you know - not knowing about Quidditch!"
"Don't make us feel worse," said Eclipse. He told Spike about the pale colt in Gypsy Lollipop's.
“And he insulted you, Rarity, and your foals,” Eclipse said.
“That little brat!” Spike growled.
“But Sparkling Radiance was able to get him to shut up,” Morning Shine added.
Spike looked at the blushing unicorn filly. “Thanks, little buddy,” Spike smiled pulling her into a hug.
"So what is Quidditch?" Sparkling Radiance asked.
"It's our sport. It's like - like soccer - everyone follows Quidditch - played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sort of hard to explain the rules."
They bought school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Spike, Morning Shine, and Eclipse almost had to drag Sparkling Radiance away from Curses and Countercurses by Professor Velvet Almond. Spike wouldn't let Eclipse buy a solid gold cauldron, either, but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Spike asked the stallion behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for the three foals, Morning Shine was disgusted when she found severed unicorn horns.
Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Morning Shine and Sparkling Radiance, together, now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. And Eclipse was walking a few feet away, trying to keep his new pet rat safe.
The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as the foals and Spike made their way back down Dragon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Doughnut Joe’s, now empty.
"Got time before a bite to eat before your train leaves," he said.
He bought the foals a hayburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Morning Shine kept looking around.
"You alright, Morning Shine? Your very quiet," said Spike.
"Everyone thinks my brother and I are special," he said at last. "All those ponies in Doughnut Joe’s, Professor Mistral. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when I mean, the night my parents died,"
"Don't you worry, Morning Shine. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Celestia’s, you'll be just fine. Just be yourself. I know it's hard. You've been singled out, and that's always hard. But you'll have a great time at Celestia’s"
Spike helped the foals onto the train that would take him back to Ponyville, then handed them an envelope.
"Your ticket back to Canterlot, " he said. "First of September - Ponyville Station - it's all on your tickets. See you soon,"
The train pulled out of the station. The three wanted to watch Spike until he was out of sight; they rose in their seats and pressed their muzzles against the window, but they blinked and Spike had gone.