The lawn in the garden was a wonderfully comfortable place to be. Dense foliage of the surrounding trees created a colorful penumbra. A faint breeze kept the summer heat away and a small decorative pond radiated freshness.
A lavender unicorn filly and a pale pink alicorn reclined side by side on the blanket. The filly was small and blank flank. The alicorn, though barely out of adolescence, was already quite large and curvaceous. Her cutie mark was a crystal heart.
The filly was reading a book — thick, serious, and without pictures. The kind that would have been rejected with a rage by most foals her age. A purple aura turned the pages from time to time. A small fountain pen made large and crooked notes in a little notebook. The alicorn was silent as well. She admired the sky through the canopy of a spreading old ash tree.
The blue-and-white young unicorn colt was always hanging around. He was finding a thousand and more reasons and pointless things to do just to keep the alicorn in line of sight. Now and then she would glance at him with the shadow of a smile. And the stallion would immediately do something stupid.
"Princess Celestia is so-- so-- so amazing!" Twilight Sparkle blurted out all of sudden, looking up from the voluminous tome. “I want to be as smart and powerful as her when I grow up!”
"Cadence," she said, turning attention to her babysitter, “how is it possible to become an alicorn?”
Mi Amore Cadenza looked at her little ward with surprise.
“And how do you think?” she asked in return.
“Weeeeeeell… One has to be born a mare, because a stallion can't be a ruler!”
Cadence laughed.
"You're right!" she exclaimed glancing at Shining Armor with mirth.
He was raking the cobbled path with an unpleasant noise, picking up non-existent leaves. Eyes locked on the majestic pink mare.
“Of course, only a mare can rule. Otherwise, things will quickly go straight to Tartarus. But, to be not just a ruler, but an alicorn, one must have at least a fraction of the divine blood flowing in her veins.”
“And where did you get it in your… err… veins?”
Cadence's ears twitched thoughtfully.
"Aunty Celestia says it's from my earliest ancestors. From Princess Amore. But, it's also unclear, where she got it. Written sources so ancient are too scarce. I still don't understand how I came to be related to her. I was just an orphan pegasus filly, a foster daughter in the family of earth ponies.”
"What’s foster?"
"That means not their own foal, Twilight.”
"Is that bad? Earth pony mom loved you less?”
Cadence nuzzled filly’s mane. "No, of course not! She loved me as much as your mother loves you, little Twi!”