They were all together again. The tea and cake, together with plenty hours of sleep, had helped a lot. Cadance was certain that today they would find a solution. She had already found a new angle to attack the problem. The willing female could wait; they needed to start with Anon himself. For that very purpose, she had Twilight set up her slide projector.
“If you all could please turn your attention to the wall behind me,” Cadance said to her gathered audience. “I present you; Anonymous.”
“Put it away, put it away!” Twilight shrieked. Upon closer inspection, Cadance realized she had put in the wrong slide. On the wall, the other mares now had the moment of her daughter’s birth burning their retinas. Or to be more precise, mere seconds before it happened.
Luna grimaced. “That must have hurt, the foal struggling like that.”
“It is a common occurrence for both pegasi and unicorns to get… stuck along the way,” Celestia explained, sounding like she uttered the same sentence a few thousand times. She turned her head to regard Cadance before continuing, “Still, to have both wings and horn in such unfortunate positions…”
“Yes, okay, it hurt. Are we done? Shining just snapped a few pictures prematurely.” Cadance punched the button for the next picture a few times. “Something he has some experience with,” she growled to herself and the incident that had gotten her in the mess in the first place. “Ah, there it is.”
“Put it away, put it away!” was shrieked again, this time by Luna.
Cadance again looked at the wall, only to see the face of the human. “What? It’s the right picture.”
“I know.” Luna grinned, the others starting to giggle behind their hooves.
Sighing, she levitated the pointer and aimed it at Anonymous’ nose. “For any female to find him desirable as a mate, we have some work to do. What do you notice?”
All three alicorns regarded the photo for a silent moment before Celesta raised a hoof. Cadance pointed at her to let her know she was allowed to speak. “He has all this hair on his neck that’s just… there. It doesn’t seem to want to grow beyond fuzzy into a full-fledged beard.” Cadance nodded in agreement. “I think it would do him good to shave it away.”
“Indeed,” Luna chimed in. “I remember when I had just returned from the moon. Our new maids nearly fainted when they saw my mane, saying it was greasy and split at the ends. If I have to wash my mane with the eye-burning liquid every day, so should he.” Cadance nodded again, making notes on a notepad she levitated out of her mane. “Just one bottle in each eye every day, and I’m sure his looks would improve.” She looked at Cadance hopefully. “No? Okay then.”
“He doesn’t look too healthy either,” Twilight added. “All that extra fat makes him seem bloated. I’m pretty sure his neck shouldn’t completely vanish if he looks down.”
“Ha!” Luna cried out. “With a belly likes his, he surely has no need to look down. Couldn’t see his endowment anyway.”
Celestia giggled again. “And have you heard him breathe? I have. Should use his nose more.”
“And those red pimples on his face should be taken care of!” Luna howled with laughter. “He should have never taken off that green mask of his! Only a mother could love a face like that. I wonder how flanks as wide as his could even fit through any door at all. And that stupid hat of his. It should be a crime to wear something like that.” The blue mare shuddered theatrically. “What mare would be crazy and dumb enough to be mounted by that? She would need to be desperate, or stuck so deep in the friendzone with her supposed ‘best friend’ that she needed a rather desperate move to make her notice. To climb into bed with that creature is a cry for help.”
As Luna continued her unflattering rant, Celestia leaned down towards her former student. “Say, Twilight, how did Anon manage to elude capture for several years again? As you just pointed out, he seems rather unfit and…” She waved a hoof around. “You know.”
“For all his bodily impairments, he is, like Tempest said, rather cunning,” Twilight whispered back from the edge of her muzzle, her eyes glued forward. She had a hard time believing the princess could be so rude to interrupt while another was speaking.
“Can you give me an example?” Celestia asked, her kind, warm, motherly, angelic voice flowing down Twilight’s ears like honey and causing her to shudder in delight as she struggled not to immediately fall upon her hooves and bask in her glory. Still, while her brain prodded her to answer Celestia’s question, Luna held command over the floor.
“And his tiny pig eyes that constantly shifts around!” Twilight heard Luna cackle.
“Twilight?” Celestia whispered again.
“Behind you!” she yelled over Luna’s rant, causing not only Luna to halt her verbal barrage, but also Cadance’s thorough note-taking.
Both Celestia and Luna whirled around and stared at the other wall. “There seems to be nothing, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said with a frown.
“Like that,” she deadpanned.
Celestia’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, yes. Rather cunning indeed.”
“May I continue then?” Luna asked.
“No.” Cadance set the notepad down on the table. “I think that’s enough for now.” The only thing about Anon Luna hadn’t complained about were his feet, though that was probably due to Twilight’s interruption, for which the princess of love was very thankful for. “It will take a while to address all these issues. And while I don’t have an idea as to how I can ‘make his ugly ears not stand out like sails in the wind’ at the moment, we will find a solution. I’m sure of that.”
Twilight tapped her hoof against her chin. “Actually, most of that falls in Rarity’s realm of experience. Maybe we should bring her into the project?”
All three shook their heads. “The last time I heard her speak about Anon, she used words I didn’t know existed,” Celestia said. “I think it’s too soon to involve more ponies into the project.” Then her eyes brightened. “However, I have another idea. Instead of fixing all those things to make him attractive in the eyes of a mare, we just need to find a mare who probably likes all those things.”
Luna barked a laugh. “Well, good luck with that, sister. Surely there isn’t a mare alive on this planet who could possibly be attracted to him.”
Celestia grinned. “Well put. That’s why I say we summon another human from his home.” The pointer stick fell to the ground and jaws dropped around her. “A female this time. I’m sure his own kind would be more attracted to his physical characteristics than any mare or other female on Terra ever could.”
“Are you crazy?!” Twilight stood, hooves in the air. Then she seemed to notice who she just yelled at and cleared her throat. “Sorry, Princess, but we already have enough problems with one human. Why should we consider summoning another?”
“I agree with Twilight Sparkle,” Luna chimed in. “One human already proved to be problematic enough.”
Cadance picked up the pointer again, mulling over the idea. “Actually... it isn’t that dumb of an idea.” Her sister-in-law and aunt stared at her as if she had grown a second head. Celestia only smiled. “Not all humans can be villains. As we all know, we shouldn’t condemn a whole race for the actions of one. We just have to make it a criteria of the summoning spell that she shouldn’t be evil. That can be done, right, Ladybug?”
Twilight thought for a moment, her tongue sticking out at the edge. “Maybe. Summoning Anon was an accident, but if we use the right modification to the supplemental spell matrix and make it a three-layer circle, maybe even five… Yeah, it should be possible.” A scroll flashed into existence along with a quill, and Twilight started eagerly to make notes.
“While we’re at it, what did you try to summon in the first place?” Celestia asked, looking over Twilight’s shoulder at her notes.
“An abysmal abomination driven by the hunger for souls and power, held together by the all-consuming hatred it expresses for all things living, breathing, and loving.” Celestia blinked. “A demon, from the realm of Agrimoth. I had some questions I wanted answers to,” she added, as if that justified everything.
“Not from the realm of Belzhorash?” Luna asked curiously. “I mean, they are known as the knowledge demons after all.”
“One would think so, but the problem with knowledge demons is they know what their knowledge is worth. It’s way easier to summon a warrior-type demon and ask him. While the answer may not be as detailed as one would probably like, they get the job done.” Well, at least if you were lucky and the one summoned possessed a mouth in the first place, but Twilight kept that to herself. It was already bad enough that Anon was her fault; no one needed to know that he only appeared after her third attempt.
“That is rather cunning, Twilight Sparkle. I shall remember that.”
“We will not summon any more demons!” Cadance yelled. “I mean, Anon isn’t a demon, right? Humans aren’t demons, are they?” She shot a pleading look at the Princess of the Sun, who shook her head.
“Not to my knowledge. They’re just generally very stubborn and obstinate. They are actually one of the more common races along the multiverse as far as I have seen it. There are the sgfägd of the realm of Auisbfiüsdb, who even use them as ammunition for their catapults.” All Cadance could do was stare at her aunt as words left her mouth that made her muzzle seem like it had a seizure.
“Done!” Twilight cried out and held her scroll aloft. On it was the drawing of a summoning circle with so many layers that it made Cadance’s head spin. The actual spell to power it, written right next to it, was so far over her head that she didn’t even attempt to comprehend it.
Celestia and Luna, on the other hoof, leaned in and nodded at various parts. “Well done, my former student. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“My sister is right, very astounding work.”
“So, we’re doing this?” Cadance asked. “We’re summoning another human?”
They all regarded each other for a moment. “Well, since the spell is already written…” Twilight started, a massive grin forming on her muzzle.