Chapter Twenty-Four
The Perfect Family
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The trip to the Crystal Empire had been many things. Despite Morning’s nerves, it had actually been a lot of fun. She liked spending time with her new family, especially Flurry. When she was at the orphanage, Morning had always hated being forced to spend time with younger foals. But now? Now it was kind of cool to have her little cousin looking up to her.
It had been overwhelming, though. Not just Flurry, though that was a little overwhelming too. But everypony at the castle called her ‘Princess Morning’, and she’d had ponies waiting on her. Flurry was a natural at it, and she didn’t seem to understand why Morning found it strange.
Which was why Morning was glad to be back in Ponyville. Although some ponies around the smaller town seemed to realize she was a princess, nopony seemed to care here. She went to school just like every other foal, and she liked it that way.
Not that she didn’t also like when school ended. Her mama hadn’t arrived to pick her up yet, so she waited with Pound and Pumpkin outside.
It gave her the chance to talk to them a little bit. “Hey, uhm…”
“What’s up?” Pound asked.
“So… what did you guys think of the Crystal Empire?”
“It was awesome!” Pumpkin said. “I wish we could live there!”
“It’s not like that at your castle, is it?” Pound asked.
“No, our castle only has my family. We don’t have all those guards and butlers and stuff.” Morning kicked a nearby rock, watching it roll away. “It was weird.”
“Your whole family is weird,” Pumpkin said, then Pound punched her shoulder. “Ow! Not like, bad weird! Good weird!”
“Yeah, they are,” Morning said. “But it’s hard to be a princess.”
“I wish I was a princess,” Pumpkin said.
“What’s hard about it?” Pound asked.
“Everypony wants you to be perfect.”
Three ponies went rushing out of the schoolhouse. One of them gave Morning a dirty look, then the Hero Club ran off on their way.
That caused Pumpkin to snicker. “Boomer doesn’t expect you to be perfect.”
In a weird way, Morning liked that the Hero Club hadn’t forgiven her for the fight. It was proof that some ponies really didn’t care that she was a princess. Not that she thought her friends did, but still.
“You two, uhm… you don’t care that I’m a princess, do you?” Morning asked. It didn’t hurt to make sure.
Pound shrugged. “No, why would we care about that?”
Pumpkin put a foreleg around Morning. “You worry too much! Being a princess is so cool! You get to do whatever you want and boss ponies around and everypony likes you!”
“Boomer doesn’t,” Morning said.
“Yeah, but you punched her.” Pumpkin shrugged as if that wasn’t a hole in her logic. “Lots of ponies like you though. Even ponies who don’t know you!”
Why couldn’t Pumpkin see how much pressure that was? All these ponies liked her, and they all wanted her to be the perfect filly!
But she didn’t say that. She didn’t know how to. Instead she just shrugged and said, “I guess.”
They weren’t waiting for too long before someone showed up for Morning, but it wasn’t her mama. “Hey, Morning,” Spike said. “You ready to get going?”
“Sure, but where’s Mama?”
Spike shrugged. “I had an errand to run around the school today, so I said I’d come and get you after.”
“Oh, alright.”
Spike led them away, so Morning followed. Sugarcube Corner was on the way to the castle, so they always walked the Cakes home as well. Fluttershy had once said it was a big help to the Cakes because they couldn’t leave work like Morning’s moms could.
Along the way, Spike asked about how school was going, but Morning didn’t pay too much attention. She was thinking of something else – wondering if all these ponies would be let down if she wasn’t perfect.
She didn’t talk much on the way to Sugarcube Corner, and barely noticed when they reached it. “Bye, Morning,” Pumpkin said, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“See you at school tomorrow,” Pound added.
“Oh. Bye, see you tomorrow.”
The Cakes waved, then walked inside.
Spike turned to Morning once they were gone. “So now that it’s just you, want a ride to the castle?”
“A ride?”
“Yeah, I can carry you the rest of the way if you want. You can hang on to my shoulder.”
“Okay.”
Spike picked up Morning and set her on his shoulder. She held on with her forelegs while her back half dangled behind Spike. She liked being so high up, she could see everything from up there.
“When we first moved to Ponyville, I used to ride around on Twilight’s back,” Spike explained as he started walking. “About time I return the favor.”
“You were that small?” Morning asked. It seemed strange to imagine Spike small enough to ride on a pony.
Spike laughed at that. “Well, you don’t think I was born this big, do you? I was just a little dragon back then.”
“Oh yeah.” A thought question to Morning that she had never thought to ask before. “Was it weird being a dragon when all your family are ponies?”
“Sometimes,” Spike said. “I guess I kind of felt like I didn’t really fit in sometimes. Do you ever feel like that?”
“Sometimes,” Morning admitted.
“You know what helped me?”
“What?”
“Spending time with my family. Seeing how much they loved me, and knowing that they didn’t care, so I shouldn’t either.”
The strange thing was that Morning did believe that. But there were other ponies that cared… There were so many ponies that wanted Morning to be the perfect little princess.
“And if you wanted to see when I was a baby dragon, we’ve got some old pictures you can look at. I’m sure Grandma would love to show them off to you. She’s got plenty of pictures of Mom and Uncle Shining too, even some of Aunt Cadance when she was a teenager.”
“Mama showed me a picture from when she was a filly. I haven’t seen any pictures of Ma when she was little.”
“Me either,” Spike said. “We can ask her about it, but I don’t know if her family did that sort of thing.”
“Oh, okay.”
They walked in silence for a while, and the steady bounce of Spike’s steps generally kept Morning too distracted to worry about princess stuff. Not completely though; she found herself wondering about Spike, and if he ever had to worry about being perfect.
Spike seemed to take notice of how lost in thought Morning was. “You know, you’ve been quiet since we got back home from the Crystal Empire. Is everything okay?”
Morning frowned, which Spike thankfully couldn’t see. “I’m okay. It was fun.”
“Just tired from the trip?” Spike asked.
“Yeah,” Morning said. “I guess so.”
“I understand. It can be a lot to travel around the country like that. But now we’re home and you can relax.”
Morning nodded and didn’t say anything. Spike didn’t question it again, and they made the rest of the trip to the castle in silence.
At least the ride was nice. Morning thanked Spike for it when they reached the castle, and he set her down inside.
“So do you want to take a nap?” Spike asked. “You said you were tired.”
“I don’t need a nap,” Morning said. She wasn’t really tired, she had just said that because she wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Alright. You could always ask Grandma to show you some photos.”
Morning nodded. That sounded like fun. “Okay. Is she in her room?”
Spike shrugged. “I don’t know, I just got here. You could check her study.”
“Oh, right.” Morning went upstairs with Spike, then he went into his room while she continued to another door. It was Twilight Velvet’s study, where she wrote stories. She said she was currently writing a story for Morning, but that she’d have to wait until it was finished to hear it.
The door was partially open, so Morning pushed on it. “Grandma?”
Twilight Velvet spun around in her chair and smiled at Morning. “There’s my girl. How was school?”
“It was nice. Uhm, Spike said you have some pictures of when he was small enough to ride on Twilight’s back.”
Velvet got up and chuckled. “Oh, I have pictures of when he was even smaller than that! Let’s go down into the sitting room and I’ll show you.”
Morning nodded and walked back out of the room. Velvet followed behind, levitating a book with her. They walked to the first floor together, and then into the sitting room.
Morning took a seat on a couch made for two ponies, and Velvet sat beside her. She opened it to the first page, and showed Morning a photo of Velvet and Night Light when they were younger. “That was our first photo together. We weren’t even married back then.”
Velvet flipped through the pages, explaining the photos to Morning as she did. “Ah, here we go, this should be more interesting to you,” Velvet said as she turned to a picture of a little purple unicorn. She looked younger than Morning. “That’s your mom.”
“That’s Mom?” Morning smiled. “I forgot she used to be a unicorn.”
Velvet laughed. “Sometimes I still forget she’s an alicorn. In my memories, she’s always that little filly who was so in love with her books.”
“What was she like when she was my age?” Morning asked.
“Hmm… a little like you. Not as good with her friends, though.”
“Really?” Morning had always thought her mom was so good with other ponies.
“Oh yes, Twilight was horribly antisocial when she was younger. It wasn’t exactly that she was shy, she just… didn’t like other foals.”
“Huh.”
“But she was a good foal. She liked her books and she loved magic. She wasn’t very good at it for a long time, not until she got her cutie mark.”
“Mom wasn’t good at magic either?”
“That’s right. She’s never told you that?”
Morning thought back. “I think maybe she did, but I forgot.”
Velvet nodded. “I’ve heard your ma say she was always a natural with magic, but your mom, she wasn’t. She knew a lot about it, but she couldn’t quite manage to use it.”
Morning wondered if that meant maybe someday she’d be able to do magic as well. She looked back at the picture. Her mom looked so… normal. She didn’t look anything like a princess.
The photos went on. There were pictures of Shining as well, and of Spike as a baby – Velvet called him a hatchling. As it went on, there were a few photos of Cadance, and Velvet explained before she had started dating Shining, she was Twilight’s foalsitter.
Later still, there were some pictures of Fluttershy as well. By then, Twilight was an alicorn. Even later there were some pictures of Sunset, and then to Morning’s surprise, some of her as well.
Velvet laughed at the surprise. “Well, why not? You’re part of the family, you belong in the family photo album.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Velvet wrapped a foreleg around Morning and kissed her on her head. “You know, your grandpa is working on a treat in the kitchen. Maybe you could go help him.”
“Okay.” Morning climbed off of the couch and left the room. Looking at family photos had been fun, and she was happy to be part of the album. Getting to eat some of her grandpa’s delicious food would be a good way to follow it up.
She walked into the kitchen and saw him icing some sugar cookies. He looked up and smiled broadly as she walked in. “Hey, Mo Glow.”
“Hi, Grandpa. Grandma says you might need some help.”
“Sure do.” He gestured for her to come inside. “Come give me a hoof with these cookies.”
Morning walked inside and he helped her onto a stool so she could sit beside him. The cookies were cut into shapes, so she started decorating one that looked like a leaf.
“Do you have a favorite kind of cookie?” Night Light asked.
“Uhm, I don’t know. Maybe peanut butter?”
“Oh yeah? Well, we can make some of those too if you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure! You’re allowed to have dessert again now that we’re back in Ponyville, after all.”
Morning nodded. They iced the rest of the cookies, then they ate a few as they worked on peanut butter cookies. “Can we cut the peanut butter ones into shapes too?”
“We can try,” Night Light said. “It might not turn out as well as the sugar cookies though.”
“Oh. Maybe we shouldn’t.”
Night Light was already getting out the cookie cutters. “What shapes do you want?”
“Hmm…” Morning looked over them and picked out three shapes – a butterfly, a sun, and a star.
“Excellent choices,” Night Light said, and they got to work.
It was fun. Morning didn’t like baking a whole lot, and she wasn’t good at it like the Cake twins were, but she liked spending time with her grandpa and eating the cookies afterwards.
“Grandpa?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your favorite cookie?”
“Hmm…” Night Light tapped his chin. “Maybe oatmeal.”
“Oh. We can, uhm, make oatmeal cookies too. For you.”
Night Light grinned. “Are you sure you don’t just also want oatmeal cookies?”
“I don’t know…”
He mussed her mane. “Maybe next time. I think two types of cookies are enough.”
While the peanut butter cookies baked, Morning helped her grandpa clean up the mess. After, they talked about school – adults always asked about school, after all – and about Morning’s friends.
“Auntie Cadance said we can do a sleepover,” Morning said. “I hope Flurry comes over here.”
“Do you not like the Crystal Empire?” Night Light asked.
“I liked it. But I like Ponyville better.”
Night Light nodded. “Ponyville is nice. We’ll talk to Aunt Cadance and Uncle Shining and figure out what works best for everyone.”
Morning nodded.
“But first, we’ll have some cookies.” Night Light opened the stove and pulled them out, then set them down to cool.
“Oh no!” Morning frowned. All the cookies had turned into bloated balls with weird poking out bits. “You were right… They don’t look good.”
Night Light stroked her mane. “It’s okay, they’ll still taste just as good. That’s why we usually stick to sugar cookies for shapes, though.”
Morning nodded, but she still worried she had messed it all up. “They’re not perfect anymore though.”
“Nothing’s ever really perfect, Mo Glow. But what matters is that you can still enjoy them. These cookies will taste just fine.”
“Okay…”
“Why don’t you go tell your moms to come down and get some cookies? I’ll tell Grandma and Uncle Spike, then we’ll all meet up back here. By the time we’re back, the peanut butter ones should be cool enough to eat.”
Morning nodded and ran off to go back upstairs and tell her moms about the cookies. She checked their bedroom first, but they weren’t there. Twilight wasn’t in her office either, so she checked the library, but they still weren’t there.
They were probably in the castle if Night Light had asked Morning to find them, but there weren’t a whole lot of places left to check. She knew they weren’t in the kitchen or the sitting room since she had been in both of those rooms, which meant…
The basement! Morning ran back downstairs, then opened the door to the basement. She’d been told not to go in there without one of her moms, so she stayed at the top of the stairs. The lights were off so it was probably empty, but she still called, “Hello? Is anyone down there?”
“Yeah, we’re here,” Sunset called back. “You can come down. Just watch your step in the dark.”
Morning carefully walked down the stairs and saw all of her moms standing around some sort of mechanical device. “What’s that?”
“It’s a projector,” Twilight explained. “Come stand with us and we’ll show you.”
Morning stood beside her moms and Sunset turned on the projector.
It shot out a beam of light that created a picture on the wall. The picture moved though, and it showed a lion roaring. It looked so realistic, although it was in black and white.
“Wow! That’s amazing!” Morning said.
The pictures continued, showing some clouds with words on the screen. “There should be music playing now,” Sunset explained. “We haven’t gotten the audio equipment set up yet.”
“It looks a lot clearer than our projectors,” Fluttershy said.
As the pictures went on, a human mare appeared on the screen, running through a farm with a little dog following her. Morning let out an “Oh!” of surprise.
“AJ picked this up for me,” Sunset explained. “It’s a famous movie in the other world.”
“A movie?” Morning asked.
Sunset turned off the projector and used her magic to turn on the lights. “A movie is like… well, like what you just saw, though usually they have sound and color. That one actually has color partway through. They can be a couple hours long, and they tell a story.”
“Wow.”
“Have you ever seen a projector before?” Twilight asked.
Morning shook her head. “Uh uh.”
Twilight gestures to the machine. “We have them in Equestria, they look similar to this one. But the ones built by other ponies can only show short films, a few minutes long, and the video quality is lower than human ones. Sunset’s trying to create projectors that work like the human ones for us, so we can have long movies too.”
“That’s so cool!” Morning examined the projector, but she was careful not to get too close to it. Her ma had made something amazing, and Morning didn’t want to accidentally mess it up. “You’re all always doing such great stuff.”
Fluttershy kissed Sunset’s cheek. “Ma is really amazing.”
“She is,” Twilight agreed.
“All of you are.” Morning looked down at the ground.
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Twilight asked, “Are you okay, Mo Glow?”
Morning shook her head and looked up. “I’m fine!”
Her moms all looked at one another, then Twilight used her wing to guide Morning over to a couch. “Come sit down with us. We should talk.”
Morning felt a lump form in her throat, and her legs felt like they might give out as they walked the short distance to the couch. They all took seats on it, and Morning sat between Twilight and Fluttershy.
“Morning,” Twilight said, “how have you been feeling lately?”
“Uhm, okay,” Morning said. “I’m not sick or anything.”
“That isn’t what Mom meant,” Fluttershy said. “You’ve had a lot going on with the Princess Summit. Are you feeling overwhelmed at all?”
Morning looked down. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay if you are,” Twilight said. “In fact, that would be completely normal. We were all overwhelmed at our first summit.”
Sunset smiled. “I was –”
“Except Ma,” Twilight added.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “What I was going to say is that I was a little overwhelmed, too. I’m pretty good at handling stress, but yeah, even I was worried when Celestia told me I would be in the actual Summit.”
“Really?” Morning looked up at Sunset. “But you’re all so… perfect.”
“No, we’re not,” Twilight said. “None of us are. Believe me, I’ve done some really stupid things. We’ve all made mistakes, and we just keep trying again.”
“Remember what we talked about at Sweet Apple Acres?” Sunset asked. “We all have problems we have to learn to overcome.”
“But what if I never overcome my problems?” Morning asked. “What if I’m never a… a good filly?”
“Oh, sweetie…” Fluttershy brushed her hoof over Morning’s mane. “You are a good filly.”
“No I’m not!” Morning jumped off the couch. “I’m just pretending! I’m always pretending to be a good filly, because the real me isn’t good!”
Sunset shook her head. “A bad filly wouldn’t care about trying to be good.”
Twilight held out her hoof. “Please come sit with us.”
Morning did as she was asked, and this time, Twilight wrapped both of her wings around her. “Morning, we love you just the way you are. Even when you misbehave or get angry, we always love you no matter what.”
“But…” Morning sniffed. “I can’t be a princess like you… I’m just an orphan, nopony special…”
“I wasn’t always a princess,” Twilight said. “None of us were.”
Morning frowned. “Grandma showed me pictures of you when you were little. You looked like a normal filly.”
“Because I was,” Twilight said softly.
“And when my mama died and I left home, I was basically an orphan too,” Fluttershy said. “I wasn’t ready to be a princess either. But I had help. I let Twilight and Luna help me, and now you need to let us help you.”
“I pretty much wrote the book on being a bad filly,” Sunset said. “I know you’re a good filly. You think it’s an act, but it’s not. You’re doing so well and we’re all so proud of you.”
“I… I…”
“Where you come from doesn’t matter,” Fluttershy said with a bright smile. “What matters is what you do with what you have. There’s always the chance to grow into something else, and we all get to have a say in shaping who we become.”
Morning couldn’t hold it in anymore and started crying. “What’s wrong?” Twilight asked.
“I’m just so happy I have you to help me!”
Sunset and Fluttershy moved in closer, and they all hugged Morning while she cried. She wasn’t even completely sure why she was crying, but she appreciated having all three of them there with her.
“What if…” she said eventually. “What if I don’t want to be a princess…?”
They were all quiet for a moment, then Sunset said. “Then you won’t be. We’ll tell ponies to stop calling you Princess Morning, you won’t have to go to stuff like the Princess Summit, and we’ll still love you just as much as we already do.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Fluttershy said. “But you should know, being a princess only has to mean what you make of it. You don’t have to do anything.”
“It just feels like everyone wants me to be perfect all the time.”
“No, Morning.” Twilight kissed Morning on top of her head. “No one expects you to be perfect. You’re allowed to make mistakes. You’re only six, you should be making mistakes, that way you can learn.”
“So… can I punch Boomer in her dumb face again?”
Her moms all laughed. “Let’s try not to make the same mistakes,” Twilight said. “Learning from them is an important part of this.”
Morning rubbed her eyes and felt a little better.
“And Mo Glow?” Sunset said. “Don’t ever feel like you can’t talk to us. Something tells me you’ve been hiding this for a long time.”
“I guess I have been…”
“You can always come to us with anything,” Fluttershy said. “No matter what. Our most important job is to help you through life, and nothing you do or think will ever be so bad that you can’t come to us.”
“What if I… rob a bank?”
Twilight giggled. “We’ll help you do the right thing then, too.”
“Yeah, we’ll tell you the best places to hide the bits,” Sunset said, so Twilight nudged her.
Morning laughed, then remembered why she was there. “Oh! Uhm, me and Grandpa made cookies!”
Sunset nodded. “Well then, guess we better go get some before a certain dragon eats them all up.”
“Before we go, are you okay now, Mo Glow?” Fluttershy asked. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
Morning shook her head. “No, I feel better now.”
“Good.” Twilight retracted her wings and let Morning hop off the couch.
She ran ahead a little bit, but she stopped before she reached the stairs. “Uhm, I think maybe it’s okay to be a princess. Maybe.”
Fluttershy reached her first. “And remember, you can change your mind and talk to us about that.”
Morning nodded. She was going to start walking again, but instead, she threw herself into Fluttershy’s legs, hugging her as best she could.
Fluttershy hugged her back. “Something else?”
Morning blushed, and said, “I love you, Mama. I love all of you.”
Fluttershy scooped Morning up in her forelegs, and she looked like she might cry. “Oh, Morning, we love you too.”
They all crowded around her for another hug, and they all repeated Fluttershy’s words. And Morning felt it. She felt loved.
Once they let her go, she led the way up the stairs. Love was great and all, but fresh cookies waited for them, and Morning was ready to eat them with her family. There was a lot she still didn’t know about being a princess, but there was one thing she did know for sure. Her family loved her, and she loved them too.