Princess Luna, Dreambringer, Patron of Stars and Nightmares, was standing less than a meter away, expression annoyed. This was the kind of thing ponies had nightmares about. She’d done something dumb enough to upset Equestria’s rulers, and now she would face terrible consequences. Even worse, her guest from another world somehow couldn’t tell a princess when he saw one, and didn’t even know to bow. He stared stupidly at her, mouth hanging open, and didn’t even try to share the proper respect.
She’s not Nightmare Moon anymore. She isn’t going to turn us to stone or anything else evil. Probably. She was still the Princess of Nightmares; she’d still made the Tantabus…
“P-please, Princess. This pony isn’t… He’s a stranger visiting from far away. He doesn’t know anything.”
Tracy glared at her, looking hurt. Though what he had to be upset about when he wasn’t the one who would pay for his ignorance…
At least he was smart enough not to argue, or to say anything stupid to the princess. Yet. “This is Princess Luna,” she said, desperation in her voice. Anything she could do to try and stop Tracy from getting them both in trouble. I do not need a royal decree against the flower stand right now. “Diarch of Equestria. Winter and Spring are her seasons, kinda like Summer and Autumn are her sister’s… I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
The princess touched her shoulder with one hoof, silencing her. “I fear you must misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to pass judgement. Though I admit, I am always curious to hear how far the children of the night have traveled.”
She turned towards Tracy, who managed something that was very almost a bow, and mostly just seemed like he was tripping over himself. “What is your name, bat?”
“Tracy Maxwell,” he answered, without half the respect due to a princess. “Rose is right, this is only my third night in Equestria. I probably don’t know enough to be talking to someone as important as you.”
Somepony, Rose thought, though she couldn’t point out the mistake. Not without it being even more obvious how rude Tracy was bringing to the scariest princess of Equestria.
“From whence did you travel, Tracy Maxwell?” she asked. “I have heard no creature describe themselves in those terms before, not for countless eons. You must have much that is useful to share with the ponies of Equestria.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Several hundred miles and one universe.”
Rose tensed, expecting the moment of discipline to come at last. Obviously Nightmare Moon wouldn’t be happy with some… monster traveling from another universe. If it wasn’t for how much help he’d been to get the flower stand running again, she might’ve even been happy about this.
The princess only clicked her tongue in a curious way, then turned. “I’m sure that’s quite the tale. Sadly I will not be permitted to hear of it tonight. If we never meet again, may the skies always be clear in your flight, child of shadow.”
With that blessing—an ancient recitation Rose recognized even if Tracy obviously wouldn’t—the princess slipped around a corner and out of sight.
Rose remained bowing for a few seconds more, expecting the princess to return moments later. Would it be more respectful if she thought they were too afraid to move?
“She’s gone,” Tracy said bluntly, nudging her with a hoof. “I don’t know what you were so afraid of, Rose. She seemed pretty normal. Like… the Queen. She’s supposed to be pretty easy to get along with.”
Rose waited a few moments more, though it seemed like Tracy was probably right. The princess did have a festival to run, and probably wouldn’t be coming back. Tracy hadn’t done anything that insulting, really…
“Queens are always evil,” Rose argued, finally dusting herself off and standing again. “Princesses are always kind and gentle. It’s basically a law of the universe.”
“A law of the Disney Channel, maybe.”
But her companion already sounded cheerful again. To him a chance to meet one of the rulers of Equestria herself barely even mattered. It was just something else that had happened during the festival today.
Rose took a few deep breaths, trying to clear her mind. She hadn’t brought the alien here to make him feel unwelcome, she wanted to show her gratitude for his help! Her fear was probably overblown, anyway. Nightmare Moon was ancient history. “There are two more sections to get through,” she continued, pulling him back along the way they’d come. “You’ll want some cider, everypony does.”
He let her lead her through the rest of the festival, one season at a time. He didn’t seem to understand most of the old poems, but at least he listened and acted respectfully when anypony noticed them.
He wasn’t half as interested in the ciders as she’d expected, instead drifting towards one of the rear booths of the community display. Thanks to their resident member, they had several actual Wonderbolts in attendance this year, bragging about the shows they put on and recruiting for the new season.
Tracy practically dragged her over, forgetting the cider and listening to the story with awe and disbelief on his face. Finally he pulled her aside, whispering urgently into her ear. “Rose, uh… this probably sounds crazy, but… can those ponies actually fly? Heavier than air feels incongruous with everything else you have, and I can’t explain those uniforms any other way.”
“Thank you for not asking them that,” she hissed back, though she was every bit as graceful as she claimed to be. “Of course they can fly, they’re pegasi.” She nudged his wings, eyes narrowing. “Bats fly too, you know. Even if you aren’t good enough at speed-flying for the most competitive parts of the…”
That probably wasn’t polite. She settled on poking one of his wings again. “You can’t seriously be telling me that you didn’t know that. You’re just playing dumb on purpose.”
He fell back from the crowd, and there was nothing at all mocking in his tone when he spoke. “It doesn’t even seem possible to me, Roseluck. Flying around with living wings… that’s what birds do, not people.”
They left the display behind, and went through the last season’s section. With his necklace complete, all that was left were the souvenir shops, and the sculpture garden. He walked between them in awkward silence, occasionally seeming interested in something but never buying anything. He left without any of the paintings or little models that ponies usually bought on their first trips.
They were halfway back to the flower-cart before she realized why. He wasn’t from Equestria, he probably didn’t even know how to use bits. One more thing for me to feel guilty about…
“I’m glad I was wrong about you, Tracy,” she said, slowing even more as they approached the cart. She didn’t want her sisters to hear them, and make it out like she was getting romantic or anything. Obviously she wouldn’t be doing that with an alien, that just didn’t make sense. “You weren’t an invader. It looked like the stand would sell out of everything when I left. This is going to be our biggest year ever, even without half the items.”
Tracy nodded, looking infuriatingly smug. But she could forgive him a little of that, this time. “It’s a shame you waited as long as you did. I, uh… I don’t really know much about how companies work, but my business teacher was all about numbers and metrics and stuff.”
“Keeping it up to date will be its own adventure,” Rose went on. “I’ve… well, you saw what I did for accounting. Mom was the best at that stuff, but when she died…” She sniffed, then sped up. This stallion had already seen her in pain, she wasn’t going to show off even more of it.
“I could probably help. Your notes from each day were good, it’s just about keeping them scanned in. Now that I’ve been promoted, I could probably afford to grab you a Raspberry Pi or something to use as PoS. Then you wouldn’t even have to fill out notes each day, it could just send everything to your merchant account. Or… okay, there’s no internet on your side. But we could figure something out.”
You don’t seem to care about making sense, she thought. But maybe it didn’t matter. If he was going to keep helping, then she had no reason to feel anything but grateful. “There should probably be something in it for you. Not that we’re not grateful, but my sisters and I aren’t a charity. We can’t keep—” She stopped abruptly, and he smacked into her for the second time that night. He still had to work on his situational awareness.
“If the stand starts to recover, we could pay you. Enough bits for you to…” She lowered her voice to a sympathetic whisper. “Look, I know you probably don’t want anypony to know, but not being able to fly isn’t going to solve itself. There are a few remedial flight classes in Canterlot. Lots of pegasus ponies who never visited Cloudsdale, or didn’t get a chance to learn for other reasons. I’ll have to check in on it, but I’m pretty sure they only meet once a week. That’s not too often, is it?”
He spread his wings defensively, backing away from her. At least the Spring section was emptying out now. There were still plenty of smaller groups of ponies, probably the ones who traveled from far away or just got off work. More importantly, they had a little space to themselves. Everypony was in Autumn or Winter by now.
“I’m sure flying is awesome, but that’s a lot of commitment for something I won’t be able to do in nine months anyway.”
“Sounds like more reason to do it than ever!” Rose nudged him, and no longer had to force her excitement. “When you move out, you’ll be… going back to your side, right?”
She barely even waited for him to nod in response. “Then why the buck would you want to leave without learning? It’s your only chance… even if you don’t use it for that long. You don’t have to join the Wonderbolts, but… I’d love to be able to do something like that.”
Tracy was silent as they reached the cart, expression thoughtful. Finally he spoke again, the same tone he’d used whenever he was about to say something he knew was stupid. “It doesn’t seem very fair, Roseluck. The pegasus ponies can fly. The ones with horns can move things around. Does that mean that most of the ponies I know—you and your family for instance—are you just screwed?”
She had to take a moment to consider her response, parsing the unusual words he’d chosen to represent his displeasure. Finally she shook her head. “I’m sure there are earth ponies who wish they could do magic, but there are probably unicorns who wish they were as strong as us. My family, we might not be able to fly around like you, but we use our powers to find flowers so rare that nopony else can. We keep them fresh and alive long enough to compete with a big chain like Barnyard Bargains. Besides, I don’t think anypony can be unhappy when they’re using their special talent.”
Tracy looked like he was going to ask about that one too, but he fell silent as they returned to the cart and the ponies gathered outside it.
Lyra and her fiancé. They’d both bought crowns, though from the way they leaned against the cart it seemed they were mostly here to chat.
Lyra was the first to notice them, spinning around and waving enthusiastically. “Roseluck! You showed the human the Equinox festival, eh?”
She nodded, ears flattening at her volume. Lyra didn’t seem to care much if anypony overheard. In fairness to her, it didn’t seem like anyone listening cared what she said.
“It was very enlightening,” Tracy said, saving her. “I’m still trying to figure out what I saw, but I’m glad she invited me. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like it on my end.”
“Since you’re here, I was hoping to ask you a few questions,” she went on, tugging on Tracy’s foreleg. “I’ve been going over my notes from my trip across the mirror, and I was hoping you could explain some things—”
Tracy spread his wings. “That’s uh… Tonight probably isn’t the best time for that. But if you’re really interested, I guess it wouldn’t be fair for me to learn all this and not share some things in return. Maybe you could stop by at night—or wait, morning. Morning on your end, yeah. I’m usually at work when it’s night for you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Bon Bon said, reaching over to adjust Lyra’s crown peremptorily. “She gets like this sometimes. I’m sure most ponies wouldn’t want to get grilled about Equestria either.”
“It’s fine,” Tracy said again, and Rose found herself feeling a twinge of something she couldn’t place. It didn’t… No, obviously she wouldn’t be jealous. She wasn’t in any kind of relationship with this pony, and Lyra’s future spouse was two feet away. It wouldn’t be like that. “I just don’t think it will be very interesting to you. Where I come from is so… rigid, compared to this place.”
They arranged the visit just a few days from now, and the pair of them slipped away, rushing to get to the next station. You’ve been waiting for him this whole time, haven’t you? You knew he’d be here.
“I’ll let you get back to it,” Tracy said, as soon as the pair had vanished into the crowd. “Thanks for showing me, Rose. I think I might need a moment to process all this. Can I get back to you on the flight thing?”
“We still don’t know if the stand is going to survive, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Just think about it.”
He turned away, and didn’t even ask for directions back to the house.