At her home in Canterlot, Duchess Twilight Sparkle, Knight Commander of Magic, was suffering the most problematic of issues, known to many beings since time immemorial: an unruly teenager.
“Mom, why can’t I?” Shining Dawn asked, her pepsis wings buzzing in irritation.
“Sweetheart, I just don’t think it’s a good idea, okay? I know you want to go to school, and I want you to. I want you to have the best education possible.”
“And not just because I’m the daughter of Twilight Sparkle?” Dawn said blandly.
Twilight giggled. “Well, there is certainly that. But more importantly, I want you to have the opportunities you didn’t have when you were with Chrysalis’ brood. I want you to have every advantage possible so that you’ll be a credit to ponydom and yourself.” Twilight went over and hugged the younger pony. “Just remember: I’m being a mom, and it’s all still new to me.”
Dawn snuggled in her mother’s embrace, feeling the maternal love both metaphorically and literally. “You’re doing great, really.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Now, go ahead and get going – if you’re going to stay with Sterling tonight, you don’t want to be late, okay?”
Dawn reached over and nuzzled her mother. “Okay. See you tomorrow, Mom.”
Snuggled in her bed, DJ dozed gently. Her sons were off in Ponyville, with Cinnamon having offered to show them around Sweet Apple Acres. Her husband was currently out training in the field and wouldn’t be back for the rest of the week. Sepia had to head back to Human-Earth for a minor emergency, but would be back in a couple of days. Sunset was out of town visiting her parents out in Oatmaha or wherever she was from. And DJ’s latest draft of her newest novel was surprisingly running ahead of schedule, so she could afford to take a few days of downtime.
All in all, she felt that she’d earned some deserved shut-eye.
So leave it to Luna to ruin it.
“I need advice.”
DJ yawned, knowing in an instant who it was. “Luna,” she said, barely able to keep her eyes open, “it’s three in the morning!”
“I thought you would be awake – don’t you usually work late hours?” the lunar alicorn apologized. “Besides, it’s the only time of night when I can move around freely without having to drag along an extensive retinue.”
The humanized pony rubbed her eyes. “Only when I’m working against a deadline – and I got my draft to my editor two days ago, so I’m good,” she explained. The two looked at each other awkwardly before DJ sighed and climbed out of bed. “Well, looks like seepy times is shot, so…let me go abuse the Keurig.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Luna insisted.
“Yes I do. You’re a coffee fiend and I probably don’t want to fall asleep right in front of you.” As she threw on a bedrobe, she walked towards the kitchen, her aunt in tow. “Please tell me you aren’t here for some friendship problem – I don’t do that.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “You don’t?”
“Well, my advice would start Sesame Street-style: Brought to you by the letters F and U.” As DJ entered the kitchen, she tapped the touch screen, letting the machine warm up, then turned back to Luna and added, “So what brings you here?”
“I need advice,” Luna said, teleporting them both back to DJ’s living room.
“You stated that. You have yet to say why,” DJ commented, plopping onto the sofa.
“Well, you’re a mother and—”
“Okay, I can see where this is going. Because I’m a mother and I also had the fun of being a very unique teenage girl, which is why you’re asking me, and not, say, just about anyone else?”
Luna’s gave a ghost of a smile. “And you say you’re not awake right now.”
“Yes, that happens when I get strange visitors at three in the morning.” The coffeemaker chimed and DJ got up to go serve the coffee, but a flash of Luna’s horn took care of that issue.
“That must be pretty handy,” DJ commented as a coffee cup appeared in front of her.
“Quite a bit,” Luna admitted. “I just upgraded the one in my office last week from a Keurig Signature 4000 to a Derptech Derpy Hooves Barista Edition.”
“There’s a name I hear a lot,” DJ grumbled. “Mostly it’s paired with ‘it’s your fault she’s not alive.’”
“That’s most assuredly a lie,” Luna assured her. “She did everything she could to try to save you and you should feel no guilt about that at all. You were a foal – you couldn’t have done anything, anyway.” A melancholy smile came onto her face. “She and your sisters were amazing ponies, DJ. I hope you get to learn more about them someday.”
“Yeah,” DJ commented, not sure of how to respond to that. A few more minutes went by before she found her voice again. “Well, I think that’s my quota of personal guilt for the day. So can we get to your issue?”
Luna nodded. “I want to talk to you about Sterling – my own daughter. She’s….” Luna sighed. “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened in Malaysia, I presume.”
“Kind of hard not to when I have the New York Times calling me for a quote. I told them I didn’t know what happened, mainly because I don’t know what happened.”
Luna solved that by going over her recent vacation with her daughter and how she ended up getting into a very public spat with Celestia in the southeast Asian nation. She did, however, leave out the revelation of Celestia and Sam’s own relationship. DJ sat and listened and finally said, “Well, sounds like you and Tia made a mess of things.”
“Perhaps, but we managed to fix things, thankfully. Besides, it allowed us a chance for Sterling and Tia to get closer, which is the important thing. But now, I think I have an entirely new problem: now that Sterling’s existence has been made public, my sister wishes for Sterling to take up the family business, as it were – and that’s something that neither Robin nor I want. We just want her to be a normal girl, as much as she wants, for as long as she wants.”
“But she’s not normal, is she?”
“She is to me.” Luna took a drink from her cup, which floated in a magic field just before her lips. “But I understand what you mean. No. She’s an alicorn, just like I am. In fact, she’s the Alicorn of Language. But she’s also just as human.” The alicorn paused. “And before you make another comment, I’m not going to get into a debate regarding your religious beliefs or now they seem to dovetail with how Sterling exists. That’s not the point of why I’m here.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” DJ defended.
Cyan eyes reflected relief at that remark. “The point I’m here for is, what do I do now? I know how to work with a government. I know how to operate military. I know magic of many styles and eldritch power is at my hooftips.” She took another drink of her coffee and admitted, “But when it comes to being a mother, I am completely lost. And the demands of my – our – station in life isn’t making it any easier, I’m afraid.”
“Would that demand be an image problem caused by the whole thing in Malaysia?” DJ guessed, though she already suspected that was an answer.
“Earlier today, my sister suggested that I sit down for an interview with a reporter, one that wasn’t Featherweight,” Luna told her. “Actually, she wanted my whole family – Sterling and Robin included – to do it together and discuss our lives, with a particular focus on them as incoming royals and the three of us as a small group within the greater sphere of the Royal Family in general. Worst of all, she wants me to have them publicly introduced to our ponies as their newest princess.”
“I take it you don’t like that idea,” the humanized pony noted.
“You would be correct. I told Tia as much and…well, we got into another one of our typical squabbles. She thinks I’m being overly sensitive, while I argued that she’s throwing my family to the wolves. In turn, she argued that it’s me that doesn’t understand what family is like, given that she raised both me and Cadance. And while I’m grateful for that…my sister was only a maternal figure. She’s not a mother.”
“Cadance would argue otherwise, as far as I understand.”
“You’re correct in that, true. But I’m trying to protect my daughter. My own child. She’s just a filly and she’s had to deal with death threats and porn ever since she became public!” The look in Luna’s eyes was one of pain. “And then there’s that girl in New Zealand who was murdered because she had the same name and was superficially similar in appearance to my own daughter. A family lost their precious child because people hate my daughter!”
DJ was silent for the longest time before she said, “I had porn made about me, as well. My parents just kept it well hidden, but when I was eighteen I went to a party at college one of the guys had a decade-old Blu-Ray labeled Daisy Jo Rides the Baloney Pony. I guess someone there was trying to make me uncomfortable on purpose by showing some really bad porn vid with a midget with a lot of make up getting it on with what I guess are typical male porn actors, short on brains and long on other things.”
Luna looked at her niece for a few minutes. “And you weren’t offended?”
“Luna, if there’s one thing my parents instilled in me, it’s that people like exotic things, and there’s nothing more exotic than being the first of your kind. So I was already prepared for that sort of situation. As for the party, I watched a bit of it and by the time of the ‘quote’ heaviest scenes, I was laughing my ass off so hard at the whole thing more than one guy clearly was more uncomfortable than I was. Needless to say, the next time I went to a party there, that video did not make a return engagement.”
“Yes, but you were eighteen. She’s much younger.”
“And kids are more worldly now than I was at that age,” DJ reminded her. “And since I’m on the subject of first-of-one’s-kind, let’s be honest: with the world now knowing about Sterling, she’s pretty much the oldest known hybrid, older than my son. And obviously it can get ugly; I don’t need to clarify what you already know.”
“I don’t care about that,” Luna scoffed. “I do care about my family and them being thrown into a public eye they aren’t ready for. But is Celestia right? Am I being overly sensitive? As much as I am loathe to admit it, Celestia is right that I am a princess and it is my duty. I am no mere housewife sitting at home worrying about this. I am a ruler and government official – and Robin is doing his best to try to step into those shoes as well.” She sighed. “But I don’t want that for Sterling. I want her to make her own choices. But is that the right thing to do?”
DJ just sat there, waiting for Luna to get to the point.
“Cadance…from day one Tia pushed her to her role as a princess. I don’t know the particulars, but with maybe a few spots here and there, that is all she’s ever known. But Sterling…up until a few moments ago, she was just a normal girl.”
“I don’t think the daughter of a superwealthy CEO – essentially modern American royalty – could be called normal,” DJ reminded her.
“I suppose not. But even still, there’s a difference between being a metaphorical princess and being a literal one. At worst, Sterling has been the former. But she didn’t really know she was the latter until now. And I don’t want her to have to live a life forced to be Princess Luna the Younger.” The night alicorn conjured a second cup. “I have whole herds of lawyers and advisors ready to give me a dozen different answers. But they can’t tell me what I want – what I need. And that is the opinion of a mother and somepony – no, someone – who has walked the path I know that Sterling must. The only human I know that fits that bill.”
Despite her tiredness, DJ blushed. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me.”
“I tend to think highly of those who have my trust and respect.”
DJ took another sip of her coffee; trying to wrap her brain around what to say next. “Okay. I can only give you my life experiences and how they played out. Sterling has it easier, given that she’s completely human, insofar as both shape and looks go. Not that it matters at this point, but she’ll clearly have a different outlook than I did and different experiences as well. But I’ll be happy to give you my perspective. And for that, we’ll start with what I think is the most important part.”
“Laugh at bad debaucherous images?” Luna said uneasily.
“That will come in time. No, the most important thing…is for you to be a mother. Even if you don’t know a damn thing about how to be a human mother or a pony mother or even just a mother…a child needs a mentor to guide them through life. I wouldn’t be the woman I am if it wasn’t for my parents. If someone else had found me, I might be just some half-dead curiosity in a zoo in Topeka or something. Or worse, pieces in a jar in formaldehyde in a research lab somewhere.” Luna blanched at that and DJ gave a grim smile. “Obviously I’m not saying that’s what will happen to Sterling. But she’s being hunted and persecuted and fetishized for being different. Gays, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Muslims, even white people in some parts of the world…no one is perfect. Humanity is a mess. We’re always trying to improve ourselves, but we fuck up. And you know what? That’s life. I note ponies, for all their arrogance and superiority, aren’t any better.”
Luna bristled at her species’ criticism, all the more so, given that it was from one of her own kind even though DJ often claimed to be something else. “DJ, ponies have never claimed to be perfect….”
“I didn’t say perfect, Luna – I said arrogant and superior. Ponies, despite their better nature at harmony and unity, have always been that from within. They look down at other species, and it’s only been relatively recently that they’ve learned to see other species as equals. Sure, there have been outliers like Princess Gemstone and the kitsune, but as much as ponies try to portray themselves as the hippie species, it took the arrival of my own kind to really bring out the ugliness in them. But I’m not trying to beat up on ponies right now.” She leaned forward, then fixed her eyes right on her aunt’s. “The point I’m trying to make is that even in a perfect world, the life of a teenager is fraught with peril. And while I’m a couple of decades removed from my puberty zone, you’re even farther than that. Neither of us can completely understand what our children will go through. All we can do is just offer them our guidance and experience through our eyes.
“There’s also the fact that Sterling has grown up human. Therefore, like me, she’s gotten a human perspective of things, and whether you or your fiancé or Tia or the family or anyone or anypony else has designs on that, that won’t change. Rarity would love me to think like a pony, but I can’t. I never grew up as one. I might have the brain of a pony, but I have the mind of a human. And when Sterling is in her alicorn form, that’s going to be the same way. She is always going to be more strongwilled and emotional than others here. She’s always going to have the same virtues and vices that any human does.”
“DJ, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re talking in circles. You’re repeating the same things over again.”
“Welcome to human teenagerhood,” DJ then said with a sleepy grin. “That’s essentially the crux of it. We spend a decade or so walking around in metaphorical circles while thinking we know everything and more often than not, we don’t listen to a single person, not even ourselves. We repeatedly do Sisyphean things while the easier – and oftentimes, correct, path – is probably preferred. I know I was a handful for my parents, and I’d like to say I was one of the more well-behaved amongst my generation. Sam, as I recall, was a bit headstrong during his teenage years and used to get into arguments with our parents often.”
“I…can’t see that of your brother.”
“Yeah, adulthood’s mellowed him out, but he still has an independent streak and will occasionally do things he probably shouldn’t. But hey, he’s my kid brother – I gotta love him, warts and all.” She chuckled at the memories, then gave her aunt a smile. “Luna, you’re doing fine. I know you came here thinking I’d be able to impart some grand advice, but the truth is, there isn’t any. You just have to let her have room to spread her wings, literally and metaphorically, while being there if she needs you. And she will need you, whether she says she does or not.”
“I see.” Luna was quiet for a few more moments before she asked, “Then what should I do about my sister’s requests? I want to protect my family. I know Robin’s had some experience in the public eye, but the Equestrian media, especially the royal watchers, are a pack of hydras and they’ll tear them apart the first chance they get.”
“No they won’t. I’ve seen how the media here treats the Royal Family and the only royals that arguably get it easier than you are the Thai and Japanese dynasties. But if you want my honest opinion? You should do it.” When Luna looked at her oddly, DJ admitted, “My parents have admitted that part of the reasons we had the difficulties we did is because we didn’t engage the press like we should have. They wanted to protect me from the media circus, since they were both minor celebrities, so it’s understandable. But like I said, people have an interest in the exotic, and the more you withhold the exotic from them, the more they’re going to want it. In retrospect, putting me before the media circus probably would have just made me boring as hell in the end and would have saved us a lot of pain.”
“No. I won’t let those jackals at my family.”
“Luna, I’m not saying that at all; you know I wouldn’t. But you have to do whatever it takes to both protect your family, do your duties as a princess and guide Sterling through the labyrinth of life, right? That means doing things in ways that are unorthodox. People are expecting to hound you and your family to give them the interview, right? Why not give someone else an interview instead – someone who isn’t assigned to watch the henhouse like a starving fox and so will be more inclined to treat you like people instead of like the story of a lifetime?”
“That sounds a bit deceitful,” Luna said with distaste.
“As if you don’t do that already in the political sphere,” DJ countered. “The thing is that this is an arena far more important: that of a mother and a wife. Yes, your duties as a princess are never going to go away, but then again never is that of your family. You have to prioritize what is the most important to you in the end. And why am I telling you all of this? This is shit you should already know!”
Luna gave a wan smile. “Sometimes it’s best to rehear something you already know from a different perspective.”
“Yeah. Now if I can just get you to back off on that whole family pic thing.”
“If I have to suffer, DJ, you have to suffer. It’s a family thing.”
“Pia’d be likely to agree with you,” DJ laughed. “Seriously, though, if you decide to do it, I know the perfect person. Cole St. Germain. She’s an American reporter in Japan and her duties are to cover the US bases there as well as things that are pertinent to US interests in Japan. Which obviously has nothing to do with the status of the Equestriani Royal Family, right? Plus, she’s a friend of mine, so she’ll treat you fairly.” At that, the sun started to peek over the horizon and she yawned. “Okay, we spent the whole night talking, and I need to really get some shuteye. I need to be on a conference call with my agent this afternoon and it’s not going to be fun if I’m falling asleep on him.”
“Okay, I get the hint. Thank you for everything.”
“Isn’t that what family’s for? I mean besides annoying the hell out of and occasionally borrowing money from?”
“Ugh!” Flopping onto her bed in her bedroom, Princess Luna the Younger, more commonly known as Sterling, currently held court, and said court apparently involved losing at her favorite videogame for the fourth time in a row. She glared at the other person in the room, currently with a wide smile on her face and her hands wrapped around the controller.
“Remind me why I taught you how to play Destiny: Another Galaxy?” she groaned.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Sterling.” Setting down the controller to pick up her Coke, Shining Dawn just grinned. She was currently in her human form; while Sterling didn’t mind her being in her more natural form, there was just something about her royal cousin that made Dawn want to stay as a human while around her. “Not my fault you don’t have skills. You just need to git gud.”
The result of that statement was Sterling lobbing a royal pillow upside her cousin’s head. “‘Git gud’? What is this, the 2010s? Have you been watching old movies on Netflix again?”
Dawn giggled. “Blame my mom,” she replied. “She said if I’m going to spend a lot of time in human form, I should respect their customs and language enough to know as much about them as I can. Problem is, well, you know how my mom can be.”
“Yeah, I have to admit, Aunt Twilight’s smart, but she’s a little out of step with the times,” Sterling admitted, recalling the first time she met the Knight Commander of Magic. A simple comment by Sterling had turned into an epic two-hour discussion on the Washington State education system and Sterling had been lucky to get away with little more than glazed eyes.
“Well, she’s the only mom I’ve ever known, so I’m stuck with her,” Dawn said with a grin.
“I thought that—”
“Nope. Not even remotely. Chrysalis may be half my genes, but she sure wasn’t a mother. Maybe it’s wrong of me to say it, but I’m glad she’s gone. Now, if we can just find a way to stop the Changeling Empire for good, things will be worth it. My bigger problem is trying to get my mom to figure out where she’s going to send me to school.”
“Still having that problem?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not as though I have to start from scratch; I was born with enough knowledge to get me to where I look thereabouts, agewise. And I’d like to think that I act my assumed age. But mom wants me to be a pony and so do I – and because I’m the scion of the royal family, that means that I have to attend a good school. It’s just that Mom doesn’t know if she wants me to attend the Academy or one of the other elite schools. Really, I don’t care which one I do, I just want to be able to have fun while doing it, you know?”
“I hear that. Dad’s wondering if he needs to pull me from my school because everyone knows that I’m a princess now and he’s afraid that I’m going to either let it go to my head, or that I’ll be in-danger or something like that. I don’t want to leave the school, but if we’re living here full-time in Equestria, I may not have a choice. It’d suck, too, because then I’d miss Athena.”
“Have you talked with your parents yet? I mean, I’d be happy to be there for you if you want.”
“Really?”
Dawn smiled. “We’re cousins, right? I read somewhere that cousins are like sisters or something. So they should always back each other like sisters should.”
Sterling looked at Dawn with a confused look. “Dawnie…that’s sweet, but that’s sooooo dorky.”
By the time Luna got back to her personal chambers, she noted that the door to the auxiliary office by the bedroom was open – the one that Robin was using while things were transitioning from him stepping away from his company and into the world of royalty. Walking in, she noticed that he was already hard at work, a half-eaten donut on a plate right next to a large orange juice and a half-consumed espresso cup. Busybee was already there, but she looked as frazzled as always, so Luna took pains not to disturb the harried secretary.
Changing to her human form, she went over and wrapped her arms around him. “Early start or burning the midnight oil?” she asked.
“The former; I just got up half an hour ago,” he told her, turning to kiss her. “Not all of us are moon-slinging night alicorns, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t know; I think you’d make an excellent alicorn,” she told him. “Then again, there’s never been an alicorn stallion, so….” She gave him a smile.
“So how’d your talk with DJ go?”
“You knew about that?”
“She texted me about a minute ago to let me know to tell you that next time you’re taking her out to lunch or dinner if you’re going to monopolize her time like that.” Luna chuckled and Robin just shook his head. “So, want to tell me what it was all about?”
Luna went into a brief explanation of what she’d went over with DJ, and her concerns and fears. Robin in turn looked at her and drank his coffee, giving her his utmost attention. Busybee, realizing the couple needed some time alone, decided to go do something less stressful, like going to get breakfast for the both of them and herself as well; though Luna had stated it wasn’t necessary, the secretary pony insisted that she had to take care of her rulers and bosses.
Finally, as Luna finished her whole thing, Robin asked, “I think you’re worrying a little too much about it, hon. I know you’re trying to make up for lost time, but you really don’t have to. Sterling absolutely loves you and I know you love her. In the short time you’ve been with us, you’ve shown that you’re more than capable of being a mother and you’ll be just as great a wife, I know it.” He gave her an awkward half-smile and added, “If anything, I’m the one who has to work at being the fish out of water. After all, Equestria hasn’t had a non-pony ruler in how long?”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about that. I’m certainly not and I don’t think Tia is either,” she assured him. “If anything, I think the main concern is focusing on our wedding – we really haven’t done much planning in that direction – and preparing for your and Sterling’s official debut as members of the royal family.”
“We also have to talk about what we’re going to do about Sterling. She’s happy at the school she’s going to, but I know if she continues to go there, it might cause some scandal amongst the nobleponies,” Robin stated. “They’ll ask why she’s going to a human school instead of one of the elite schools of Equestria.”
“I know. I’ve given it some thought as well, and I really think we should go with that plan of yours,” Luna commented. “Our daughter deserves a wonderful education, but she also deserves to be a normal girl. And I think what you’ve suggested would be a wonderful idea.”
“Well, then we should do it,” he stated. “You want to call her, or should I?”
About an hour later, Twilight arrived at Luna’s quarters. “Not that I really had any plans,” she told them as she sat down at the table, “but I’m curious as to why we’re having breakfast together.”
“Because we don’t do that enough?” Luna said in a light tone.
“Luna, seriously.”
“You’re getting far too sober in your old age, Twilight,” the alicorn teased.
“I suppose, though I don’t mind spending time with family. But knowing you, you have an ulterior motive you just haven’t stated yet. So I’m interested in hearing what it is.”
Robin then went over his suggestion as well as what he and Luna had discussed. The two of them pled their case to the unicorn and as she sat there, listening to the idea, the studious face of Twilight Sparkle went from fascinated to a wide smile.
“I have to admit,” she said a few minutes later, “I had never thought of that before. Now that I think about it, I feel kind of silly that I hadn’t. I’ve been so focused on my own needs, I didn’t even consider that I might be holding back Dawn.”
“You’re a mother, Twi,” Luna told her. “It’s only natural that you’re acting that way. For that matter, I’ve had my own fears and doubts about it as well. Thankfully I had a talk with someone recently that straightened me out.”
“DJ?” Twilight asked.
“That obvious?”
Twilight giggled. “She has a certain way of doing that to all of us, I note,” the scholar stated. “But…you’re right and I like that idea. How would we go about it, though?”
“That’s easy,” Robin told her. “I have a meeting later with Zoe in Seattle later this week, so adding to my schedule isn’t going to be much of a problem.”
“Well, count me in!” Twilight said enthusiastically.
A couple of minutes later, Sterling and Dawn walked in, laughing and giggling and carrying on like two typical teenagers. Had it not been for the setting, it would have been impossible to tell that one was half-human and the other wasn’t even that. They both seemed carefree and without the weight of the world on their shoulders, the adults realized, and maybe that was how it should have been.
As they sat down at the breakfast table, it was then that they noticed their parents were there. “Um…hi, Mom, Dad, Aunt Twilight,” Sterling began. “Did…we…ah…miss something?”
“I told you we were probably too loud last night,” Dawn whispered.
“They can hear you,” Sterling said out of the corner of her mouth.
Luna looked at the two of them and smiled. “Don’t worry, neither of you are in trouble. It’s just that we’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to a couple of problems. Sterling, dear, the first one is that we know you don’t want to leave your school. It’s just that there are a ton of security concerns and we don’t know if they’ll be adequate enough to protect you.”
“Likewise,” Twilight said to her daughter, “I’ve been fussing quite a bit about finding a school for you. Optimally, I’d considered teaching you myself, but I don’t have the same amount of time that I did when I taught your cousin Cinnamon. My schedule is much more demanding nowadays and especially with Equestria in the middle of a war, my attention has to be focused on that. That being said, I don’t want you to feel that I’m neglecting you, so it’s been difficult for me to come up with a solution.”
“Fortunately for the both of you,” Robin stated, “we think we have: Dawn, have you considered going to a human school?”
Dawn looked at the three adults and shook her head. “I hadn’t even really considered going to a pony school. School in general is going to be a new experience for me.”
Twilight smiled. “Well, we thought that it would be an entirely new way to solve your education problems without having to worry about upsetting nobleponies. And with you going there as well as Sterling, the school would definitely have to bump up their security, which would solve that concern. And besides, you two are so close, I’d really hate to have you miss out on a friendship that will last a lifetime. So, later in the week, we’ll be travelling to Seattle so that we can talk to the school administration about admitting you, Dawn. But you’ll have to be at your best, and you’ll probably have to spend most of your time in human form. Not that you seem to mind that.”
“Mom, I’m a pony,” Dawn told her. “Even though I look like this, I’m always going to be a pony. And I don’t think I can say how lucky I am that I have an understanding mom like you.” Twilight blushed at the compliment and Sterling snickered.
“And as for you, Sterling, you’re going to have to keep an eye on Dawn,” Robin told her. “She’s entirely new to the stuff that you’ve been around your entire life, so you’ll have to be her guide in getting used to it.”
“No sweat, Dad. It’ll be like when Athena first arrived at the school. Besides, Dawn’s family – I’m not going to let her down.”