Keeping the chest close, Astral trotted back into the throne room, meeting the concerned stares from her mothers. Smiling in an attempt to alleviate their worry, and gave them both a quick hug before all three walked out of the throne room.
"Sweetie, I know you probably have bigger things on your mind right now, but I was thinking that if you wanted to meet Alchemy, now would be the right time," Twilight looked eerily similar to a bashful schoolfilly when she pawed the ground nervously.
"Of course I'll come. I miss Al, and he might even be able to help me find my cutie mark!" Astral squealed a little at the thought, and her parents smiled warmly at her enthusiasm.
"That's great! I've already set up a day plan and everything! I was thinking we could go to the zoo together!" Twilight pranced in place, garnering a lot of weird looks from the guards in the room.
Starlight snorted, before trotting out of the castle and into Canterlot itself. "Come on then! Al should be finished his experiments around now!"
Canterlot University was a huge building, made mainly out of red bricks. While it's main function was teaching students, there were also laboratories that scientists could use to run experiments, and offices for said scientists.
As the three ponies trotted down the halls to Alchemy's office, Astral realized how out of place they looked; an alicorn, a mare dressed in royal regula and a filly. Still, upon reaching his office door, she cheerfully pounded on it with both hooves. The door swung open, and Astral came face to face with her BBBFF. Not that anypony would think they were related.
Alchemy was an earth pony, tall and well built with draft horse heritage shining through. His cutie mark, an atom with a stem attached, represented his genius intellect and his gifts at potion making. One of the first things one noticed about him was his iron clad ego, his obliviousness towards modern slang and sarcasm and his apathy to pleasing others. He never tried to pretend to be anypony else to please somepony, and, ironically it made him very popular. He had strict rules that had to be followed; the main one being no hugs allowed.
But, even his rules had exceptions as he accepted a hug from his little sister and mothers without complaint. "Hello mothers," he said, expression neutral. "I did wonder why you didn't visit on Monay, but I suppose this is adequate."
"Love you Al."
"And I you. Now, I assume you have some plans for today?" Twilight's face lit up at the question, and she pulled out the chart. The two nerds got lost in the world of planning and highlighters while the two unicorns stood by, pretending not to know hem.
"Ahem," Twilight awkwardly gathered her wife and daughters attention once more. "Right. So. To the zoo!"
Alchemy smiled as he fastened his saddlebags on. "I would like to learn more about the rhinoceros. Did you know rhinoceros means nose horn?" Seeing Astral's grin, he tilted his head to the side, confused. "What?"
"Nothing. Just glad to see you again."
Thankfully, the zoo wasn't that crowded, despite it being quite a nice day. However, both Alchemy and Twilight insisted on reading every information card on every animal, and taking notes, which meant that it took four hours to traverse the area when it should of have taken two.
They were heading towards the exit, Astral levitating a plush snow leopard over her head like a trophy, when they passed the tiger enclosure. As if on cue, a stallion galloped past, accidentally shoving Astral to the side. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make Astral lose her telekinetic grip on the toy, and send it into the tiger enclosure.
Instantly stopping in her tracks, she let out a squeak as she saw one of the tigers start to approach the toy. He sniffed the teddy, before picking it up in her teeth. Astral saw fluff start to appear as the tiger started to tear into it, and she shrieked, tapping into her magic.
The tiger let out a soft wail as it was suddenly lifted into the air and away from the teddy. Gritting her teeth at the very heavy weight, Astral nonetheless also picked up her snow leopard and levitated it into her hooves. By now her horn had taken on an extra aura, which vanished when she had the toy back, and only then did she levitate the tiger back down to the ground.
By then quite a crowd had appeared, and started to clap their hooves at the magic shown. Normally Astral would be freaking out at being the center of attention, but she had bigger things to worry about right then.
Or, bigger things to celebrate.
She got her cutie mark.