Luna sat grumbling at the little dining room table, a quill held aloft in her magic and spinning around in circles. Wendy sat across from her, her quill scratching furiously over her scroll. She licked her lips as she wrote.
“Why does celestia get to have private lessons in her magic while we have to write essays?”
Wendy looked up at her older sister. Luna was staring off into space, absentmindedly spinning her quill. Her scroll was still blank.
“Didn’t he say that he would take you out tonight to help you with your star placement and dream walking?” Wendy’s essay was half completed: a comprehensive breakdown of equestrian lore and the history of the three tribes.
Luna just grumbled again and finally set her quill to the paper. She and Wendy wrote in silence for a few more minutes before Wendy triumphantly held up her scroll and grinned.
“I’m done!!” Her horn sparked to life and a blazing gold light filled the room. It was blinding for half a second, then the light faded and Luna blinked rapidly. Wendy was staring, horrified, at a charred and smoldering scroll.
“Wendy!” Luna gasped. “You need to be more careful!”
Wendy dropped her head to the table and groaned. “Why does this always happen to me…”
Luna pointed her horn at the paper and zapped it with her dark blue magic. The burn marks repaired and it rolled into a nice neat scroll. “There. You need to stop letting your emotions control your magic, and you need to be less impulsive.”
Luna glanced up at the ceiling, where a burst of scorch marks marred the surface directly above her little adopted sister. The blue alicorn sighed and fixed those too while Wendy looked on with an embarrassed smile.
“At least Starswirl won’t know.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Little sister, Celestia and I cover for you all the time. You are a full grown filly now. You need to get control of your own horn.”
Wendy just smiled sheepishly and set her scroll in the center of the table. “I’m going to go play outside!”
Luna watched her scamper out of the cottage, then returned begrudgingly back to her own scroll. Wendy had always been a wild card, much more impulsive like her older sister. Luna was the reserved one, the voice of reason. And sometimes that meant reining in both a younger and older sister. The blue alicorn sighed and looked out the window at Wendy speeding by, chasing some birds through the air. Her horn sparked, there was a flash of light, then a distant “ow” from behind the cottage.
“Wendy, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I just teleported into a tree.”
Luna shook her head. “I told you, be careful!”
“But I wanted to catch Sir Flappington!”
Luna just rolled her eyes. Celestia and Starswirl walked into the cottage looking haggard but pleased. Just as they crossed the threshold, it started to pour.
“Good timing.” Luna mused as she heard Wendy whoop and laugh from outside.
Celestia started to brush out her mane with her magic. “Not really. The pegasi agreed to hold off the storm until we got home cause Starswirl taught them how to increase their cloud water capacity by 20%.”
Starswirl launched into a long explanation on how he used math and magic to maximize the efficiency of storm clouds. Celestia and Luna looked at one another and snickered while Celestia sat down with a quill and parchment to write her essay.
“How hard is it?” Celestia whispered out of the corner of her mouth to his sister.
“Not bad. Just boring. Wendy finished pretty quickly. I put it off.” Luna whispered back. She cast her eyes up the ceiling and Celestia covertly followed her gaze. “She got so excited that she burned the scroll and the ceiling. I did what I could to fix the scorch marks.”
Celestia shook her head slightly. “That filly has got to get control of her horn.”
The two mares suddenly realized that the cottage had gone quiet. They winced and turned sheepishly to Starswirl who was glaring at them.
“Did you two fillies hear a word I said??”
“Um…” Luna shot her sister a look as she snickered. “Math?”
Starswirl sighed. “Nevermind. When the rain passes this evening, Luna, we are going to go out and practice your moon and star raising.”
The blue alicorn perked up and grinned. “Awesome! I finished my essay. Wendy did too.” She slid both scrolls over to Starswirl while Celestia started on hers.
Starswirl took the scrolls and read them quickly, stroking his beard. “Where is our dear Wendy?”
There was a splash and a resounding chorus of giggles from outside the house Starswirl winced and rubbed his eyes. “Getting muddy I hear.”
The filly ran into the cottage, shrieking with laughter. She had leaves stuck in her mane and water dripping down her fur. Her legs and hooves were coated in mud, and she left a trail of muddy hoof prints in her wake.
“Starswirl!” She crushed the old unicorn in a hug, leaving mud marks on his cloak. Celestia and Luna smirked at the horrified look on their teacher’s face.
“Wendy! My robe!!”
The little alicorn pulled back and looked at the mud she had tracked into the house. “Whoops.”
“But I just love the rain!”
Starswirl just groaned and took off his sopping cloak. “That’s great Wendy. But can you wipe up the floor please?”
The little alicorn grinned and bounced off to get a wet rag. Starswirl walked up to the bathroom to get the mud off his robes, and the two celestial sisters helped Wendy clean up the mud. Luna wiped the rag across the flood with her magic while Wendy and Celestia stepped on the rags and skated around the room on them, wiping up the mud as they went. The two alicorns laughed as they ran into each other and struggled to maintain their balance.
“Whatever am I going to do with you two?” Luna chuckled.
Celestia fell on her rump and grabbed Wendy in her forelegs, ruffling her mane. “Well I wish we could go outside and practice out flying relay races.” She glanced out the window and pouted. “But the pegasi said this rain isn't supposed to stop until tonight.”
Wendy pushed out of Celestia’s grip and put her hooves up on the window sill. “I love the rain, but we just had a storm yesterday too.” She turned back to her older sisters. “Can plants get too much water?”
Luna tossed the dirty rags into a basket and joined Wendy at the window. “Too much of anything is a bad thing. Too much sun and the plants will dry out. Too much water and the soil will loosen and they might fall over. Nature exists in a delicate balance and it’s important not to have too much of any one thing.”
Celestia sighed and opened the door, standing in the frame and looking out at the howling wind and beating rain. “I prefer the sun.”
Luna rolled her eyes, but Wendy walked over to the oldest alicorn, her eyes wide and unblinking. She glanced at Celestia, then followed her gaze out into the storm. She wanted to make Celestia happy, and she didn’t want all her beautiful trees to fall over.
Wendy snorted defiantly, planted her hooves, and glared out at the storm. She licked her lips, then gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. Celestia and Luna watched with trepidation as Wendy’s horn sparked to life and a golden glow began to fill the cabin. Wind started to whip around the room, mixed with streaks of gold magic. Scrolls and quills flew off the table and stray pieces of parchment were swept into the swirling air.
“Wendy!! What are you doing?!?!” Luna tried to walk forward against the wind, but she was swept sideways into a cabinet.
Celestia placed a hoof on Wendy’s shoulder and tried to get her attention, but the wind just howled louder and she too was pushed back against the cabinet.
“We must stop her!!!!” Celestia called to Luna, but despite their best efforts, they could not reach their little sister.
Wendy’s eyes glowed white as her wings unfurled and she was lifted off the ground by the wind. She hovered in mid air as the swirling golden magic began to pick up the winds outside the cottage. Trees rustled, leaves spun, and the rain raced by in sideways streams. Eventually, the swirling wings reached so high that they began to move the clouds, ripping the storm clouds from the sky and spinning them into the golden tornado.
Patches of sunlight began to break through. Then, in a flash, a golden light expanded from Wendy’s horn and raced outwards, stopping the winds, blowing away the rain, and clearing the clouds. It was all over in a matter of moments. Wendy landed safely back on the floor and gazed out of the doorway at the beautifully sunny sky.
“Look! I did it!” She spun excitedly to her sisters, who were both sitting dumbstruck against the kitchen cabinet.
“Wendy...what did you do…?” Starswirl was standing on the staircase, his hat quirked sideways on his ear and his cloak blown clear across the kitchen.
“I got rid of the storm!” Wendy beamed at her teacher.
“Starswirl…” Luna said slowly. “Her cutie mark…”
Wendy whipped around to inspect her flank. Sure enough, she had her cutie mark. It was a little white cloud with two deep purple lines coming out and looping once before straightening out at the ends. The little alicorn filly squealed and jumped around the house while the older ponies stared out the door in shock.
“One alicorn for the sun, one for the moon, and one for the weather?” Starswirl mumbled.
Celestia and Luna shared a look. “Wendy...Wendy didn’t come from where we did Starswirl.” Luna said hesitantly.
Celestia shot her a glare. “What Luna means to say is that we don’t know where Wendy came from. Clearly Luna’s and my destinies are connected. We have always known that. But Wendy…” She looked at their excited little sister, who was now flying in circles outside the cottage. “We do not know what she is destined for.”
Celestia and Luna stood next to their teacher, looking out on the little gray alicorn with a wisdom that far outmatched their years. Even as young mares, they both knew that their abilities meant they were destined for something great.
“She is impulsive and wild. Her magic is often unpredictable and she can have wild swings in ability and power.” Luna remarked.
“She is driven by what is fun and what is exciting. She has little regard for what might be for the greater good.” Celestia gestured slightly at the glistening trees. “Like this storm. She has no idea what purpose this storm may have held.”
Starswirl stroked his beard. “Perhaps. But she is still young. And I do recall the two of you having your wild years too.” He smiled down at them and the two alicorns blushed.
“We must hope that we can direct her spirit. Teach her to control her powers and how to understand the delicate balance of this world.”
Wendy continued to fly outside the cottage, laughing and cheering as she felt the sunlight warm her feathers. None of them knew just where she had come from. Celestia and Luna kept it a tight secret where they had been before finding Starswirl in the Everfree Forest. All they had let slip was that they had come from a long line of alicorns, but they would not reveal where their race had gone or if there were any left.
But Wendy was not like them. She was not a being of pure magic. She did not have the power of generations of celestial beings coursing through her body. She was not destined to rule over Equestria. So what did that mean for her? No pony knew.
Least of all Wendy, who was too busy enjoying each day to really think about her future. But Celestia and Luna often sat up late at night, pondering their three intertwined fates. For now though, they were all happy to live their simple life with Starswirl, raising the sun and moon and furthering their magical studies.
Little did they know that their entire world was soon to come crashing down.