All musical numbers end, sadly, which meant that Luster Dawn had to put some actual legwork into getting set up in her new room at the School of Friendship. Though the creatures she’d met during the song had been happy to stick with her on the way to her dorm.
“So is it true that Princess Twilight eats thirty hayburgers a day?”
Though she had to admit that that wasn’t entirely on her own merits.
“Come on, Georgia,” River Song the kirin said to the corvid-panther griffin hauling one of Luster’s suitcases. “Luster just got here. She doesn’t need creatures asking creatures about her famous mom.”
Luster cleared her throat. “Um, Princess Twilight isn’t my mother. I’m just her student.”
“River projecting because River daughter of Rain Shine,” said Yelena the yak, wearing the rest of Luster’s luggage like fashion accessories over her traditional blanket… dress… thing? Luster made a mental note to research yak clothing at the next opportunity. She’d be a fool to pass up friendships offered to her on a silver platter.
Then Luster registered what Yelena had actually said. “Really?” She considered River, who rolled her eyes at the scrutiny. Same tan coat and green mane as the kirin headdoe. “I’ve seen your mother at the palace, but I, uh…” Luster bit her lip. “Well, I never actually attended any of the diplomatic meetings Princess Twilight invited me to.”
“Seriously?” cried Georgia. “You’re the student of the Princess of Friendship! You gotta network!”
Luster gave an exasperated snort. “Look, we can’t all be social butterflies like Professor Moondancer. I made four friends today and I’m already exhausted.”
“I thought that was the bureaucracy,” said Fry the earth stallion.
“Okay, that did get old after a while. But you won’t get far as Princess Twilight’s student if you can’t handle filling out a few forms.”
Yelena stopped before one of the rooms so suddenly that Luster nearly ran into her. “This new friend Luster’s room. Bunking with Yelena.” She paused for a moment, possibly winking under her bangs, but Luster couldn’t be sure. “No worry; Yelena prefer bottom bunk.”
“Thanks. All of you.” Luster had to admit, the group was making a very persuasive argument against her earlier stance on friendship, even without taking Princess Twilight’s own maintained connections into account.
“Hey, this is Ponyville,” Fry said as they brought Luster’s luggage inside. Right, he’d said he’d grown up here. “Everycreature’s happy to meet new faces here.”
“Also, we had a homework assignment to make a good first impression on somecreature.”
Fry rolled his eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment, Georgia.”
“Hey, I’m still waiting on the hayburger thing.” Georgia turned to Luster and jerked a thumb at Fry. “He swears that back when Princess Twilight lived here, she got banned from the local Hayburger so other ponies had a chance to get something there. I’ve got ten bits saying he’s full of it.”
Luster turned up her nose like her proper Canterlot grandparents. “I’m afraid I’ve been sworn to secrecy on such sensitive personal matters.”
Everycreature moaned in disappointment at that.
“Kidding!” Luster beamed as she saw her attempt at humor hit home. “She inhales the things. The castle once ran through three chefs in a moon because they couldn’t take being treated like fry cooks.”
Fry scowled. “What’s wrong with being a fry cook?”
“When you’re one of the best chefs in the country, to the point where you can get hired to cook for the princess?”
“Yeah.” Fry took a step closer, and Luster realized she was in close quarters with an increasingly angry pile of pure muscle wrapped in a beige coat. “What’s wrong. With being. A fry cook?”
Then a larger pile of pure muscle nudged his wither. “Fry at a nine,” said Yelena. “Friends need him at four.”
Georgia gave an awkward grin. Luster still wasn’t sure how that worked with a beak. “Fry’s a little defensive about his talent.”
“Defensive nothing.” Somehow, through social mechanisms far beyond Luster’s current comprehension, Fry had gone from scowling fury to his usual easygoing smile in the space of a few seconds. “I think I figured out what I want to do when I graduate.”
“Hey, Luster?” River Song said from the dorm’s empty desk. “What’s this?”
Luster turned and saw River had opened one of the boxes. Indecision consumed the unicorn for a moment. Should she be angry somecreature was going through her stuff without her permission or grateful that a friend was helping her unpack? But then she saw what River had asked about, and the chance to get to familiar ground overtook any concerns. “Oh, that’s my Twiggle Home.”
River looked at the wingless plastic caricature of Princess Twilight, about the size and shape of potato. She rotated it in her magic, considering it from several angles before she finally said, “Your what?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of these!” said Fry. “Part of the whole hue-mon initiative.”
“Human,” Luster said automatically. “But yeah, Mom let me keep one of the first prototypes.”
Georgia went almost completely still, her head turning agonizingly slowly to face Luster. “Your mom’s Sunset Shimmer?”
“Georgia,” said River. “We’ve been over this.”
“But, but…” Georgia threw up her talons. “Famous ponies! Famous ape-things! Famous ape-things that used to be ponies! How are you not excited by this?”
“I grew up around it?”
“Meh.”
They traded flat looks before giggling it off. River turned her attention back to the Twiggle, setting it down on the desk. “If it’s a prototype, that would explain why it looks like… well, that.”
Luster nodded. “Yeah, Mom and Aunt H-Twi made the casing as a joke. The production models are just purple cylinders.”
“How small plastic pony work?”
“Well, most of the features won’t work until I have everything set up, but…” Luster beamed as she thought of the perfect demonstration. “Okay, Twiggle, what’s the weather going to be tomorrow?’
The tiny Twilight’s eyes lit up, pulsing on and off for a few seconds before the Princess’s voice sounded from the construct. “The weather schedule for Ponyville tomorrow is clear skies until 2 PM, followed by increasing cloud cover until evening showers beginning at six.”
Yelena scowled at it. “Yelena not sure how to feel about small plastic pony always listening.”
Luster waved that off. “Oh, it’s fine. It doesn’t do anything unless you start with the command phrase.”
“Must always be listening to know when Luster says command phrase.”
That got a shrug. “Well, yeah, I guess, but it’s not like it’ll do anything with the information.”
Twilight couldn’t help but smile as she looked at her student. “I do have to envy her naivety.”
“Your Highness?” said the guard at the monitoring station.
“Don’t mind me, Private Residence. I just wish life were simpler some days. Keep doing your duty.”
He saluted. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Twilight nodded, then made her way through the halls of scrying screens, countless telepresence spells displaying countless scenes across Equestria. Here a family having dinner, there a bar full of happy customers of all species, there a pegasus’s-eye view from one of the experimental aerial delivery drones… though those were being challenged in Parliament. The postal workers’ union had never had a defender quite like Dinky Doo. Still, all Twilight had to do was turn her head and she could see the fruits of her labor.
Including the rotten ones. This system had already found domestic abuse, drunken assault, spies lurking in otherwise unnoticed corners. Even after the Tree of Harmony had reincarnated as another palace-tree, it had never reconnected with the Cutie Map. And so, as she had so many times when the great powers of the past had failed her, Twilight had taken matters into her own hooves.
As she left the subterranean chamber, she felt one corner of her mouth turn up as a memory came to mind, one of those simpler times she had insisted on making so very complicated. “Monitor everything.”
“Your Highness?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, Gallus. Reminiscing.”
He gave a short nod, all the familiarity he allowed himself while on duty. “You’re expected in the throne room soon, Your Highness.”
“Well, we can’t keep them waiting.”
And Twilight left the Cartography Department of the Royal Guard to their business.