“See you tomorrow, Mr. Cutter!” Cotton called as she exited the bakery through the back door, undoing her ponytail and putting her usual hair clips back in. “I’ll bring more flour tomorrow.”
“Good girl.”
Cotton let out a sigh as she closed the door behind her. She walked down the back alleyway to the sidewalk, then continued down the path towards the park. But when she reached the corner…
“You’ve got some flour in your mane.”
“What the—?” Cotton cried as she jumped backward into the brick building behind her, smacking her wing against the wall.
“Oh horseapples!” a familiar voice said, before a faint glow appeared in front of her. With a downward swipe like a window squeegee, Harmony Wishes appeared, reaching for her with a hoof. “Are you hurt? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you that badly.”
Cotton flapped her wing slowly as she shook her head. “No, I’m good. Do I seriously have flour in my mane?”
“Yeah, just a bit down here.” Harmony swatted at the lowest edges of Cotton’s mane, brushing away a mote of flour like an old cobweb. “There ya go.”
Cotton rolled her eyes, brushing her mane back. “Ugh, the ponytail’s been good at preventing that for the past couple months, but I guess it isn’t working anymore. Or I just need to get it cut a bit shorter. Or, maybe I should wear it in a bun inste—” She smacked her face with a hoof.
Harmony tilted her head at her. “What was that for?”
“Nothing,” Cotton replied, shaking her head. Dammit, Dad. The puns just don’t stop. “So when the hay did you learn a spell like that?”
“A few days ago,” Harmony replied, putting her hoof back down. “Only a week into classes and my ‘Spellcasting three-twenty-four’ professor is already teaching us invisibility. I just want to work on my reappearance; that swipe looks so stupid. I want something more like a staticky fade-in.” She sighed. “Well, can’t get everything right away. Stuff takes time. I did test into the advanced class, after all.” She let out a little giggle.
“And you’re so modest about it, too.”
“Hey, why shouldn’t I be proud to be in class with ponies two years older than me? I was already teleporting two years ago!” Harmony retorted, the two of them crossing the street toward the park entrance.
“Yeah, and you were bragging about it then, too. It helps when you have a tutor.”
Harmony scrunched up her muzzle. “Hush. So I wanted to get ahead of the game. It’s definitely helping here at Canterlot U.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll stop busting your chops,” Cotton chuckled, as the two of them began walking the path through the park. “So what else is going on up there?”
“Well, aside from one other magic class, it’s the same old crap,” Harmony answered, looking around at the dappled trees and foals playing with their parents in the grassy expanse of the park. “Math, Science, History, Equish. Just more advanced stuff that we’re probably never gonna use in real life.”
“That’s why I’m doing an apprenticeship instead.”
Harmony snorted. “Why bother, though? You’re better than any of the bakers in Canterlot. I’ve already told you that like, a million times since you started.”
“Well, you never know where or who you might learn something from.” Cotton frowned. “I haven’t really learned much from Mr. Cookie Cutter… and he’s kind of a jerk… but I do get a lot of practice with my own recipes.” The two of them approached a fork in the path. “Hey, you wanna come to my place?”
“Sure!”
“Cool.” As she waved her wing in the direction of the left fork, Harmony following her, Cotton picked up where she left off. “No other bakers would take me, anyway.”
Harmony’s eyes widened. “What? Why not?”
“I think they all got freaked out when they learned I was a ‘Royal,’” Cotton responded. “Auntie forbid I accidentally got hurt in their shop, they probably didn’t want to get blamed.”
Furrowing her brows, Harmony said, “Well that’s a load of horseapples.”
“I know, that’s why I didn’t tell Mr. Cutter, and he hasn’t bothered looking into it. He basically just thinks I’m a girl that wanted a job.”
“An unpaid job…”
Cotton snorted. “Eh, whatever, it probably wouldn’t have been much different if I was working somewhere else.”
“Buck ‘em all, you should just open your own bakery, girl!”
Cotton held up a wing. “Woah, woah, slow down, Harmony. Maybe in the future, but not right now.” She let out a brief sigh. “Hey, you heard from Daisy or Flare? Daisy sent me a letter a few days ago saying she was thinking about coming back from Dodge City, but I haven’t gotten anything from Flare.”
“Yeah, same. It’s probably pretty hard to get letters out from the Badlands, though.”
“I’m still surprised Zora-Terra didn’t go with her. I don’t get why she didn’t want an escort to the other hive,” Cotton said. “Especially since he’s the reason she decided to go out there in the first place.”
“Flare’s stubborn that way. Besides, it sounded like Zora had to stay here for his own work in the Canterlot hive,” Harmony replied. “He is a year older than us; he’d probably already settled into some kind of work that he can’t get out of.”
Cotton nodded. “Yeah, that’d make sense.” Then she put her head down. “I still miss having all four us together.”
“Yeah, join the club,” Harmony said. “I only see a few of our old classmates around college, but there may be more. If I have classes with any of them, I wouldn’t know—all the classes are huge.”
“Well, that’s why we’ve got our little meetups during the week,” Cotton responded, lifting her head. “At least we’re still hangin’ around Canterlot. It feels like everyone else left.”
“Yeah, even Buzz went to the Crystal Empire with Chrysanthemum,” Harmony said. “Crazy that she’s trying to be the new Crystaller.”
“I heard she’s doing really well, actually. My cousin speaks to Professor Sunburst a lot, so she updates me on Chryssie’s progress every now and then. Apparently Buzz is a huge help in her studying.”
“Well duh, he can change into anything she needs.”
“Exactly,” Cotton said. “She actually had really good timing; the Empire needs a new Crystaller. Professor Sunburst and Doctor Glimmer are, well, gettin’ up there. So is my uncle, actually.”
“Prince Armor? Geez, I didn’t think he was still alive… Uh, sorry.”
“S’okay. He’s definitely lived longer than the average unicorn. Probably from constant exposure to two alicorns,” Cotton said, shrugging.
Harmony nodded. “Maybe he’s just lucky.” Her eyebrows rose. “Hey, if that’s true, I bet you’ll live to be like, over a hundred. You live with three alicorns.”
“Y’know, I never thought of that…”
Harmony let the lull in the conversation drag on too long, the question she wanted answered impossible to ignore any longer. “Oh, hey, uh…”
Turning her head and cocking a brow at Harmony, Cotton asked, “Yeeeees?”
“So, umm…” Harmony lowered her head and dropped her voice a bit. “Have you heard?”
“Uh, heard about what? And why are you being so quiet?”
“No, I mean… have you heard from… him?”
Cotton hung her head and looked at the ground, still walking forward. “…No. I don’t know what happened. I just don’t wanna believe he really wanted to cut me out like that, but… it’s been more than six months.” She sniffled. “I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hate him so badly. But then… Then I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But that would mean…” She tilted her head up to look at Harmony, a tear sneaking down her cheek. “Do you think he might be…?”
Harmony sighed. “I don’t know. Can’t your dad or one of your aunts go—”
“No,” Cotton cut her off, shaking her head. “They have to stay here. They have too many responsibilities to go all the way to Griffonstone just to talk to one griffon. And my dad’s too big, anyway.”
“What about Princess Luna?”
Cotton lifted her head. “What about her?”
“Can’t she like, look at everypony’s dreams?”
“Oh,” Cotton sighed. “No. I asked her to. She said Griffonstone’s Dreamscape is out of her reach. Apparently she’s confined to Equestria’s borders, or something like that.”
Harmony gave a little cough. “So, did you have anything on the agenda today?”
“Not today. Was planning to just chill, maybe go watch Auntie Celestia in court,” Cotton answered.
“What? Why would you willingly go watch the court?”
Cotton giggled. “Well, aside from the fact that I like to know what’s going on around the city, sometimes there are incredibly dumb requests. It’s like watching a comedy show.”
Cocking a brow, Harmony asked, “Seriously? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Cotton shook her head with a smile as the two of them walked out the park’s north exit, only three blocks away from Canterlot Castle’s main gate. “It really is pretty funny. And it’s usually the nobles coming for stupid stuff. Every now and then if Auntie Celestia sees one of them come up in the back of the line, she’ll call out that she ‘still won’t grant’ whatever it is they were looking for, and they just storm out of the throne room.”
Harmony laughed. “At least she has the courtesy to not make them wait in line.”
“Well, she only does that for nobles that don’t give her flak. It’s rare that a noble comes back looking for something different the second or third time around, but she at least tries to give them the benefit of the doubt. And shows them that they aren’t better than any other ponies and need to wait in line like everyone else. Sometimes Auntie Celestia asks me for my input if I’m there.”
“Really? That’s some serious power right there!”
Cotton giggled. “No, not really. Auntie Celestia only asks me to call ones that she’d give a yes to, so a lot of ponies want her to ask for my opinion when I’m there because they think I always say yes to whatever anyone wants. It’s funny to see ponies’ faces when they think I’m giving the final verdict to someone; most of them have actually bowed to me,” she laughed. As they approached the castle gate, Cotton nodded to the stationed guards. “Afternoon, gentlecolts!”
“Good afternoon, Cotton,” they chimed back in unison, also nodding to her.
Harmony noticed the guards swapping glances and smirks, but shrugged it off.
A few moments after they walked through the gate, Cotton and Harmony both heard extra sets of hooves clip-clopping behind them. They tilted their heads at each other, then turned around before hearing, "HAAAAA!" as they were tackled to the ground by two fillies laughing their flanks off.
"Daisy?" Harmony cried.
“Flare, get off me!” Cotton huffed. “Wait—Flare? What are you doing here?”
The two fillies got up off their victims and helped them back to their hooves. “Thought we’d come surprise you,” Flarechaser said.
“Yeah, we’ve been planning it for like, two weeks,” Daisy added. “We didn’t expect both of you to be here, though.” She turned to Harmony. “We were gonna ask Cotton to help us jump you at Canterlot U. This worked perfectly, though.” Daisy and Flarechaser gave each other a hoofbump. “My last letters to you two were just to throw you off. You got them, right?”
Harmony nodded. “Yeah, we did, but we haven’t gotten anything from you since you left, Flare. What’s the deal?”
“Wait, you didn’t get my letters?” Flarechaser asked.
“Nope,” Cotton said, shaking her head. “We thought it might’ve been because of issues between here and the Badlands.”
Flarechaser groaned. “Maybe. Buck, that’s annoying.” She pointed to Daisy next to her. “Daisy got ‘em just fine. Maybe because Dodge City is only a little north of the Badlands. Or maybe one of the changelings flew out my letters themselves…”
“Either one would make sense,” Cotton said. “Hold on a sec.” Turning to face the gate, she put on a mock-angry expression, pounded her hoof on the ground, and used her own faux Royal Canterlot Voice. "Guards! How did you miss these two trespassing on castle property?"
Both of the guards poked their heads around the sides of the gate. One of them smirked and said, “Who do you think helped them hide?”
“WHAT?” Cotton cried, pounding her hoof again. “Insubordination! I’ll have you both thrown in the dungeon!”
The guards chuckled, and the other shook his head, simply saying, “No you won’t.”
Cotton held her ‘anger’ as long as she could, but then burst out laughing. “Dammit, this is what I get for being nice. You two suck,” she said, trying to restrain her smile as she blew raspberries at them both.
“Yes we do, Cotton,” one of them said, holding his smirk. The other blew a very brief raspberry back at her before they both whipped their heads back around the gate.
“Dammit!” Cotton snorted, still laughing.
Flarechaser chuckled as she nudged Cotton’s shoulder. “I’m honestly surprised your guards are as cool as they are.”
“Well, that’s Mortar and Howitzer for ya,” Cotton responded, shaking her head as she regained her breath. “They’re two of our best guards; that’s why they’re stationed here. They take their posts really seriously, but they have great senses of humor.”
“Oh, definitely,” Daisy said. “They made us answer like, ten questions about you to prove we were your friends before they let us through. Then they told us to hide here.”
Flarechaser nodded. “Yeah, that wasn’t even our original plan; we were just gonna ask your dad if we could chill in the main hall until you got back. Hiding was their idea. They even told us when you’d be back, so we were only waiting here for like, five minutes.” She turned around and called, “You colts rock!”
Mortar and Howitzer both turned around the gate entrance and winked. “Yes we do.” Then they turned back to their posts.
“Don’t encourage them!” Cotton laughed. She shook her head and let out a sigh, then pulled Daisy and Flarechaser into a hug. “It’s awesome to see you two. Harmony and I were literally just talking about how much we missed all being together.”
Harmony hugged them both as soon as Cotton let go. “Yeah, just Cotton and me hangin’ has been cool, but it wasn’t the same without you. You staying here now? Or is this just a one-time visit before you go back?”
Daisy shook her head. “Nope, we’re staying here. Dodge City was getting boring. All Earth ponies, one farm to work at… It was too… uniform for me after a while. I need some diversity.”
“Yeah, and the Badlands hive finally just got to me,” Flarechaser said. “Queen Chrysalis was actually pretty cool, though. She set me up with like, my own personal… well, he wasn’t really a professor, but he stayed by my side during the day and taught me a bunch of stuff about changeling culture. It was pretty sick, but I finally just got tired of being the only pony there. Some of the changelings would change into ponies and wave when they saw me coming to try and make things more homey for me, but others liked to mess with me. I finally had enough.”
“Legit,” Cotton said with a shrug. “Y’know, I meant to ask before you left—why didn’t Zora go with you?”
“Zora’s a… I think they call ‘em ‘Egg Nurses’ or something,” Flare replied. “Some kinda nurse. They take care of the eggs and the hatchlings—pretty sure that’s what they call ‘em—and the hive needs as many of those as they can get. They’re basically glorified foalsitters.”
Daisy’s brows rose. “Huh. I didn’t take Zora for a foalsitter.”
Flarechaser nodded. “Yeah. Turns out Zora’s actually one of the best they’ve got. And hey, if you’re good with kids, you’re good with kids. I didn’t wanna take away one of the hive’s best foalsitters, so I told Zora to stay here.”
“Well that was nice of you,” Harmony said.
“Hey, I try.” After a shiver ran up her spine, Flarechaser asked, “Hey Cotton, can we go inside? I’ve been out in the Badlands so long I’m actually kinda chilly. It is damn hot down there.”
“Oh, sure! Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Cotton asked, as she led them all toward the castle’s main doors.
“Eh, I got caught up in the convo, too.”
Cotton shrugged. “Fair enough.”
As they approached the door, Daisy said, “Hey Cotton, was your dad out somewhere?”
“Maybe. His schedule changes from day to day. Why?”
All of them were suddenly enveloped in a huge shadow. “That’s why.”
As the rest of the girls looked up, Harmony said, “Uhhh, pretty sure that’s not Cotton’s dad.”
“Yeah, he’s definitely not sky-blue,” Flarechaser added. “But it does look like a dragon.”
The four fillies used wings or hooves to shield their faces as high winds from the dragon’s flapping wings beat them like waves at the beach. After a moment, it landed with a whump in the grass.
“Alriiiight, still got it. He really needs to get me my own landing pad, though.” The dragon took a quick look around, then found Cotton slowly approaching, her friends holding back; all of them sported windswept manes. “Whoops! Sorry, little ponies. You okay?”
After looking behind her to find her friends all nodding, Cotton looked up at the dragon and nodded as well. “Yes…” She took a closer look at the dragon’s face. “…uh, ma’am. You just surprised us, that’s all. Are you here to meet with my dad?”
The dragon shook her head. “No, I’m here to see Sir Spike. Geez, I still can’t believe he got knighted.”
“Yeah, Sir Spike is my dad,” Cotton responded.
The dragon cocked a brow. “What? That can’t be ri—wait…” She brought her head down and inspected Cotton more closely. Cotton flinched from the proximity of an eyeball larger than herself. “Hey! Right, the scars. You must be Cotton Candy. I’ve heard some pretty great things about you,” she said with a smirk, pointing a gem-tipped staff that she held in two talons in Cotton’s direction.
Cotton blushed, then her eyes widened. “Wait, is that the Bloodstone Scepter? You must be Dragon Lord Ember!” She hastily dropped into a bow, and her friends followed suit. “My dad’s told me about the Dragon Lands and the culture; he says great things about you, too. Apologies for the lack of formality.”
Ember chuckled. “Nah, get up, get up,” she said, flicking her wrist twice to make the scepter face upward. “I stopped appreciating that title decades ago. It was always ‘Dragon Lord’ this, ‘Dragon Lord’ that, sheesh it was annoying. I actually prefer the informality; just call me ‘Ember.’”
As all four ponies rose from their bows, Cotton nodded. “We can do that. My dad’s like that, too. He—”
“Well, I’m glad to see you two getting along so quickly,” they all heard from above. Looking up, they saw Spike’s head sticking out a window looking down at them. “I’ll be right there, Ember!” He then pulled himself back through the window.
Ember smacked her face with a claw and dragged it down her snout. “Ugh, I hate it when he does that. I swear, it feels like he’s spying on me.” She looked down at Cotton once again. “Does he do that often? Or just with me?”
Rubbing the back of her head, Cotton answered, “Uh, well, I haven’t seen him do it to me, and I haven’t met you before, so… I guess I don’t know. By the way, why haven’t I met you before? Have you only been here when I’m at school?”
“Probably,” Ember replied. “I usually get here in the late morning and leave in the early afternoon, your time; the Dragon Lands are about six hours ahead of you. I tend to not stick around very long, either. I had some stupid arguments to settle back home, though. And believe me, you don’t want to know. Some of my subjects are as dense as the gems we eat.”
“I’ll take your word for it, ma’am.”
Ember pointed the Bloodstone Scepter at Cotton again. “Hey, I said call me ‘Ember.’ I don’t like that ‘ma’am’ junk, either. I’m still a young centurian!”
“And I don’t like it when you point the strongest source of Dragon magic at my daughter,” they heard Spike say.
Ember and all four fillies jumped as Spike walked around a corner of the castle, laughing as he came up to meet them. “Would you stop that?!” Ember growled. “Every time I come here for a meeting you do something like this. One of these days I’m going to ask Twilight to put a tracking spell on you.”
“No promises,” Spike chuckled. Gesturing his claw in Cotton’s direction, he said, “I see you’ve met my daughter and her friends.”
Nodding, Ember responded, “Yep. She sounds like a pretty cool kid.” She elbowed him in the ribs with a wink. “Looks like you make for a pretty good father after all.”
Spike deadpanned at her. “Ember, we’ve already talked about this. Multiple times, in fact.”
“Talked about what?” Cotton asked.
Ember smirked as she turned to look at Cotton. “I’ve been trying to get your dad to—”
“Not in front of my daughter, please,” Spike said with a growl.
“Hey, she said you’ve told her about dragon culture. You skipped over that part?”
After a few moments, something in Cotton’s head clicked, and she looked up at her father. “Wait… Daddy, has Ember been—”
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get your dad to fertilize some of my eggs for a decade or two.”
Spike smacked his face with a claw. “Dammit, Ember,” he muttered under his breath.
Cotton’s eyes suddenly lit up as she gasped and started bouncing on her hooves. “You mean I could have a little dragon brother or sister?!”
“Yo, that’d be siiiiick,” Flarechaser said to Daisy and Harmony; both of them smiled and nodded.
“You even said you’d go back on the market when I graduated high school! This is perfect!”
Crossing his arms, Spike glared at Ember. “See what you’ve started?”
Ember smirked again. “Yes I do. And you…” She poked Spike’s snout with the Bloodstone Scepter. “…are going to finish it.”
Wrinkling his snout, Spike groaned. “You annoy me so much sometimes…”
“Hey, I’ve gotta get you back somehow for sneaking up on me every time I come here.”
Spike sighed. “Alright, that’s fair.” He leaned down to Cotton, who was still dancing on her hooves. “Cotton, first of all, I told you I’d go back on the market when you went to college.”
Cotton immediately stopped her prancing, then dropped onto her haunches, crossing her forelegs with a pout. “Why’s your memory so good…”
“And second, raising hatchlings isn’t quite that simple,” Spike continued. “The process is very different from raising foals.”
Cotton stood up and tilted her head. “Huh? How?”
“Well, for one,” Ember started, “after conception, the father leaves the eggs with the mother.”
“And goes off to look for food for her, right? That’s pretty common,” Cotton said.
Spike shook his head. “No, the father leaves the eggs and the mother completely, and she takes care of the hatchlings herself. The father takes no part in raising the children.”
Ember waved her claw at him. “I don’t need you. I’m perfectly capable of raising a clutch on my own.”
“That’s besides the point,” Spike said. “I’ve already told you that I refuse to not be a part of my children’s upbringing. Before or after the hatching. And you know neither of us can leave our kingdoms long-term.”
Crossing her arms, Ember said, “You’re such a buzzkill, you know that? You haven’t thought that maybe I want kids? I know I wasn’t exactly the ‘settling’ type in the past, but dragons do change, y’know.”
“There are plenty of other dragons you could ask. Fume, Clump, Charcoal…”
Ember cocked a brow and pointed at the Bloodstone Scepter, then wiggled a talon between the two of them. “Uh, remember the scepter? Besides, like I would’ve wanted any of them giving me hatchlings.”
Spike grumbled, then he breathed out a small gout of smoke through his nostrils. “Don’t we have a diplomatic meeting with my sister? We should go do that.”
“Ahh, you’re no fun,” Ember replied. She turned to Cotton and leaned her head down. “Good to meet you, Cotton Candy. Maybe I can get to know you a little more when your grump of a father isn’t making me work.”
Nodding, Cotton said, “Nice to meet you too, Ember.” Lifting her head up to reach the dragon’s ear, she whispered, “Good luck with my dad!”
Ember laughed. “Glad to see someone’s on my side!”
“Hey, no conspiring against me, that’s against the rules,” Spike said, as he grabbed Ember’s arm and started pulling her towards the massive, main doors into the castle.
Cotton waved at the two dragons as they left. Then she turned back to her friends with a grin as they approached her. “How awesome would it be to have dragon siblings?”
Daisy, Harmony, and Flarechaser all nodded. “That’d be pretty sweet,” Harmony answered.
Cotton’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh! Flare, you said you needed to go inside. You okay?”
“Actually yeah, I’m fine. Ember was just radiating heat. I’m totally cool. Uh, warm.”
“Yeah, I felt it, too,” Daisy added.
“Me three,” Cotton responded. “Still, let’s go inside before it wears off.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Harmony said.
As the four of them trotted to the doors, Cotton turned around and asked, “Hey, you girls wanna hit up the court?”
Flarechaser cocked a brow. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“She already told me about it,” Harmony said. “It actually sounds pretty cool.” She turned to Cotton. “But can we leave if we get bored?”
Cotton nodded. “Yeah, okay. If you stay, though, I’ll whip up some cookies; I’ll even put in some extra chocolate,” she responded with a wink.
All three girls grinned at each other.
“I love the sound of a gavel,” Daisy said.