The morning after Rainbow Dash’s tenth birthday.
Rainbow Dash awoke with an uncomfortable groan when the first rays of morning sunlight assaulted her face. She scrunched up her muzzle and tried to turn away from the light, not wanting to get up yet. As she did so, she became acutely aware of the surface upon which she was sleeping, and the distinct lack of a blanket. Confusion filled her mind. Where was she? What happened to her nice, comfy bed? And why did her stomach hurt so bad?
She opened her eyes to survey the scene.
“GYAH!” she yelped as the light of the sun struck her directly in the retinas. She flailed back with an exclamation of pain, her hooves rising up to cover her eyes. Once the burning sensation died down, she became aware of an amused tittering coming from seemingly all around her.
She knew that titter, and a faint warmth blossomed in her cheeks. Rainbow groaned and opened her eyes to behold Celestia’s amused face smiling down at her. “Good morning, Rainbow Dash,” she said, trying and failing to stifle her laughs.
Rainbow was resting against Celestia’s side. The two of them were cuddled together on a balcony jutting out from the side of Canterlot Castle, overlooking the rest of the city. The sun had just risen in the distance, casting its warmth over the land. The carefully arranged clouds from the previous day had been cleared out in the night, leaving the sky clear of obstructions.
Rainbow pouted at Celestia when her laughter did not fade. “Hey, stop laughing!” she protested, swatting idly at her adoptive mother’s foreleg. “You know I’m a heavy sleeper!”
Celestia took a few deep breaths, finally calming down her amusement. She gave Rainbow an apologetic smile. “I know. Forgive me, Rainbow, but I could not help myself. You were just so cute.”
Rainbow’s cheeks puffed up in dismay, the warmth from earlier growing immeasurably. She was practically the same shade of red as a tomato, now. She didn’t like it. She turned away from Celestia and crossed her forelegs in a childish grump. “I’m not cute…”
“Lies,” Celestia dismissed before rising to her hooves. “But, at any rate, we fell asleep in a most unusual location. Were I a betting mare, I would say that a certain other filly will be wondering—quite frantically, in fact—where I have disappeared to.”
As if on cue, the sound of a door slamming open echoed from the room behind them, followed by the high pitched voice of Twilight Sparkle. “Princess Celestia! Where are you?!”
Rainbow turned, her mind slowly kicking into gear. The balcony they were resting on was connected to one of the castle’s mess halls. Looking inside, she could see the remnants of what looked like an incredible party strewn about: confetti, streamers, shredded wrapping paper, and a collection of items stacked up in a corner. The moment she saw it all, she remembered what had happened.
Last night, her tenth birthday was celebrated in that room. Celestia had carefully arranged it, bringing together her various friends from around the city—mostly mutual friends of Twilight’s—and doubled down on the presents she got for her daughter. A way to make up for missing her birthday the previous year, as Dash recalled.
It had been quite a party, Rainbow remembered. And she had loved every minute of it.
She turned a little more, opening her mouth to call out for Twilight when a hoof met her lips. Confused, she looked up to see Celestia smirking down at her.
“Hold on. I have an idea…”
When the hoof pulled away, Rainbow tilted her head. “I know that look,” she whispered knowingly.
Celestia merely winked, then ducked to hide behind the doorframe. She pulled Rainbow along with her, then held her head high. Rainbow watched in fascination as the alicorn’s mane drifted higher over the frame, and she was reminded of the blade of a guillotine about to fall on the head of some poor, unsuspecting pony.
Said pony came trotting out onto the balcony, her little lavender hooves beating a staccato rhythm against the stone floor. “Princess?!” she cried out as she passed through the threshold. “Where are- MMPH?!”
Rainbow watched in wide-eyed and amused shock as Celestia swiftly lowered her head, not unlike the guillotine she had imagined. Her long, flowing mane fell around Twilight, completely enveloping her in a blanket of glowing prismatic hairs. Twilight immediately became entangled, crying out in surprise and alarm.
Rainbow looked up at Celestia with an amused smirk of her own. “Wow. Didn’t take you for a prankster this early in the morning.”
“What better time is there?” Celestia asked, shooting Rainbow a sideways glance. “My duties for the day have yet to begin. Until they do, I mean to make the most of the free time.”
“By suffocating Twilight?”
Celestia rolled her eyes, then withdrew. Her mane drifted away, allowing Twilight to drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Celestia turned back to Rainbow. “Nonsense. Just surprising her.”
Twilight, seemingly in a daze, rose back to her hooves, her horn sparking with light. “Who’s there?!” she asked in a confused rasp. “What did you do to the Princess?! Why do you have her mane?!”
Her eyes gradually refocused on the two ponies in front of her. Twilight visibly wilted at the sight, and a frightened squeak slipped out of her throat. “Oh no…”
That was the last straw. Celestia broke out into a fit of uproarious laughter. Twilight’s expression of terror was replaced with bafflement at the sight. She tilted her head to one side. “I… what’s happening?” she asked in complete confusion.
Rainbow snickered and waved at her friend. “Sup, Twi. You just got pranked by Celestia,” she said while struggling to keep her own chortles at bay.
Twilight blinked a few times, looking up at Celestia. “Wha… what? With your mane?”
Celestia nodded, using her hoof to toss a lock of the freely drifting hair as if it hung loosely around her shoulders. “There are very few uses for this thing, with how it flows all the time and how long it is. When I find one, I will not neglect it.”
Rainbow blinked, her eyes landing on the mane specifically. A thought occurred to her, one which she was surprised Twilight had never asked about before. She trotted over and ran her hoof through Celestia’s tail as it drifted, her brow furrowing. The hairs parted around her hoof effortlessly. She wanted to say it was like sticking her hoof into a river, but it wasn’t quite the same. The hair was still made of clearly-visible individual strands, but they floated about as if gravity had no effect on them, and parted around Rainbow’s hoof as it passed through.
“Huh, you know, I never really thought about it before,” she said, retracting her hoof. “But why does your mane float like this? I mean, doesn’t it get annoying?”
Twilight gasped. “Rainbow!”
“It’s fine, Twilight,” Celestia assured her with a warm smile. She turned to Rainbow and lowered herself to her daughter’s eye level. “When my mane first started floating, it was infuriating, yes. But in time, I learned to ignore it.”
“Kay,” Rainbow nodded. That made sense. She had long since learned to ignore Blueblood’s horseapples, so Celestia learning to ignore any annoyances from a long, floating mane was to be expected. “That doesn’t tell me why it floats, though.”
Celestia’s smile grew, a scholarly light shining behind her eyes. She ran her hoof through some of the hairs, a nostalgic look on her face. “Well, as an alicorn, my body generates an extreme amount of magic. It would have to, for me to raise and lower both the sun and moon with such ease, even with my innate connection to the former. However, my body generates far more magic than it is physically capable of storing.”
Twilight tilted her head at that, a curious look coming into her eyes. Now it was her turn to join in on the questioning. “Your body generates that much magic?” she asked in surprise. She then looked at her own tail, her muzzle scrunching up. “More than it can hold? Does that mean other ponies can have wavy manes, too?”
“In a few rare, isolated cases, yes,” Celestia said with a nod. “But the vast majority of regular unicorns won’t have such an excessive amount of power. In the event that they do, however, the magic that exceeds their capacity will inevitably begin to seep out through their skin and radiate off of them, like steam from a pot of boiling water. When those magic vapors seep through the skin around the base of my hairs, they instead flow through the hair, causing it to drift as if in an invisible wind.”
“So, does that mean your fur is doing that, too?” Twilight asked, shuffling closer to Celestia and eyeing her alabaster fur with curiosity.
“For a mercy, no,” Celestia said with a shake of her head. “The hairs of my coat are too thin to allow for that. The magic doesn’t have enough time when traveling through them to make them do anything more than feel slightly warmer than normal.”
“Probably for the best,” Rainbow said with a nod, backing up a bit. “If your fur moved like your mane, you’d be super fluffy all the time and, no offense, it’d be kinda hard to take you seriously when you look like a rabbit that just got out of the dryer.”
“That is a mental image I did not need, Rainbow Dash,” Celestia said, though there was an unmistakable smirk on her face. “Thank you for that.”
Rainbow grinned triumphantly.
Twilight then began to assault Celestia with yet more questions about her mane. Rainbow just kind of tuned her out, though. She could guess that Twilight was probably thinking of doing a research paper on Celestia’s mane and tail for extra credit, which would be hilarious if so, but she’d also probably need Celestia’s permission, seeing as it was, well, her body.
Rainbow let her mind wander, and it went back to Celestia’s earlier explanation about how the magic left her body. After a time, her eyes widened as a question came to mind. Not really an important one, but oh heavens she just had to ask.
“Hey, Celestia?” she suddenly asked, interrupting Twilight’s string of questions.
Celestia looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. “Yes?”
Rainbow tilted her head. “So, earlier, you said that magic comes off of ya like steam from hot water, right? And that’s what makes your mane and tail do that?”
Celestia glanced at her tail, one eyebrow going up. “Yes, I did say that… why?”
“So does that mean your mane and tail drift like that cause you’re just really hot?”
There was a moment of intense, contemplative Silence. Celestia worked her jaw from side to side, her brow furrowing in thought. Rainbow began to shrink back, only now realizing that her choice of words may have been exceptionally poor.
Twilight finally broke the silence. “RAINBOW DASH!” she all but shrieked, getting up in her face. “You can’t just say something like that to Princess Celestia! She’s your mom! And your Princess! That is incredibly inappropriate!”
Rainbow shrunk back a little more. She wasn’t usually one to care about what was appropriate, but Twilight’s sharp reminder about her familial tie to the alicorn did serve to provide at least a bit of shame. And discomfort.
“To be fair,” Celestia suddenly cut in, interrupting Twilight yet again. Feeling a spark of hope in her chest, Rainbow looked up pleadingly into Celestia’s eyes. The alicorn winked at her, assuaging her fears even more, before speaking again. “She isn’t entirely wrong.”
Twilight turned to her mentor with wide eyes. “W-what?!” she exclaimed in confusion.
Celestia chuckled and leaned down to meet Rainbow’s gaze. “Well, I am the Princess of the sun,” she said slowly.
There was a moment of silence.
Rainbow frowned. “That was terrible.”
Celestia merely laughed.