A toast levitated above the table, held in the green magic’s embrace. For a while it browned nicely, but suddenly it started to smoke and exploded, leaving a smouldering hole in the table.
“Oh, shoot,” Sweetie Belle muttered, looking at the smoking remains. “This again?”
“Magic is useful for many things,” Luna said, walking into the room at the top of one of the towers of the Princesses’ castle. “However, I think using a toaster is easier.”
Sweetie looked around the room. “There’s no toaster here. I only found a kettle, but when I tried to make coffee, the water caught fire.”
“Most interesting.” Luna shook her head. “Your magical abilities may be even more interesting than Twilight described.” She levitated a piece of wood from the broken table and turned it into a toaster.
“Wow.” Sweetie’s jaw dropped when she saw a shiny kitchen appliance landing in front of her. “How did you do this?”
“Years of practice,” Luna replied. “By the way, if you know not what is inside of the toaster, do not try to conjure one.”
Sweetie nodded. “Is this why the guards talk about the pony-eating toaster lurking in the castle?”
Luna sighed. “As far as I know, it never actually ate anypony. It does have teeth, but its stomach is too small. It probably eats mice.”
“Eww!” Sweetie shuddered.
“Do not try to find it,” Luna said. “Some guards say that it possesses some kind of mind control powers, but no one ever caught it to examine its capabilities.”
“May I–”
“No, definitely do not try to catch the toaster!” Luna exclaimed. “The last thing we need is my new apprentice getting possessed by an enchanted toaster. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Sweetie replied.
“Here, you can call me Luna,” Luna said, levitating a kettle and putting it on the stove. “Leave ‘Your Highness’ for official occasions. As a matter of fact, Flurry Heart does not like to be addressed that way even during the official meetings.”
“She’s five,” Sweetie said.
“Yes, and a Griffonian dignitary who called her ‘Your Highness’ got knocked out by a plush snail thrown at him at a ludicrous speed.” Luna shrugged. “Of course, I am far from throwing stuffed animals at other creatures, but we have more important things to do than arguing about the ways to properly address a Princess.”
“Such as?”
“A breakfast.” Luna pointed at the toaster.
Sweetie furrowed her eyebrows. “It’s evening.”
“And I am the Princess of the Moon,” Luna replied. “Not for much longer, but still, I eat breakfast in the evening and you will get used to it as well.”
“Right.” Sweetie sighed, levitating two more piece of bread and putting them in the toaster. “Maybe this time nothing will catch fire…”
Luna shuddered. “Maybe I will look after the toasts. Midnight Cherry is still afraid of corn flakes after this little incident two weeks ago. Get the telescope and prepare it for our lesson.”
“Well, she was hanging from the ceiling above me when I was making corn flakes.” Sweetie walked to the balcony and looked through the telescope. “Also, she’s your guard. She should’ve been prepared for anything.”
“No amount of Royal Guard training can prepare you for a bowl of corn flakes turning into a flaming geyser.” Luna shrugged, pouring boiling water into the coffee pot. “What did you do to it anyway?”
“The milk was too cold and I wanted to heat it,” Sweetie replied, adjusting the telescope and moving it a bit lower. “Whoa, that’s nice.”
“And of course you know not thine own strength.” Luna put the ready toasts on the plate. “Did you find some nice celestial bodies?”
Sweetie blushed, turning away from the telescope. “Not quite celestial… There are some nice colts working out in the gym over there.”
Luna groaned. “Look above the needs of the mortals and into the stars!” She rolled her eyes. “Well, this and more motivational phrases my sister adores. Although now I understand why most unicorns want to be evil when they hit puberty. Way too many temptations.”
“I don’t want to be evil!” Sweetie exclaimed.
“Yet.” Luna smirked. “It can manifest at any age. For example, I am not sure whether Moondancer–” She took a sip of her coffee.
“What?”
“Nevermind.” Luna levitated a plate with toasts towards Sweetie. “Eat something and then you shall go back to the telescope and look for Uranus.”
Sweetie chuckled. “I don’t need a telescope for that…”
Luna furrowed her eyebrows. “I may be old and my eyesight is not as good as it used to be, but even when I was your age, I could not see Uranus with the naked eye.”
“Of course not.” Sweetie stifled laughter and took a bite of her toast. “I wasn’t born yet.”
“What does it have to do with anything?” Luna asked.
“N-nothing,” Sweetie replied, her cheeks turning crimson. “Y-you didn’t get it, did you?”
“If by ‘getting it’ you mean guessing whatever is going on in your teenage mind after checking out some fine lads working out, then I, indeed, do not get it.” Luna sighed and took another sip of her coffee.
Sweetie sighed with relief and looked into the telescope. “I can’t really see, uhh… the planet you’ve mentioned. Why are we even doing that? Can’t we do something cooler like checking out someone’s dreams?”
Luna’s lips formed a wide grin, much different from her official smile, seen on many press photos. “You like Rumble, don’t you?”
“No, I hate his guts,” Sweetie replied, her voice cracking a little as she suddenly became very interested in the telescope.
Luna smirked. “Your dreams say otherwise.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Luna replied. “The thing is, dreamwalking is a difficult art, requiring a lot of discipline and superb control of your magic and I am afraid you possess none of these qualities yet.”
“But you’re teaching me to control my magic,” Sweetie said. “I’m already better at it.”
“Well, we all remember what happened to the toast.” Luna pointed at the still-smoking hole in the table. “You wouldn’t want something like this to happen to someone’s skull. We’d have a lot of explaining to do and then Celestia would complain about the additional paperwork.”
“I’d be careful,” Sweetie said.
“Even powerful alicorns have trouble with this.” Luna chuckled. “I once made the mistake of trying to teach Cadance to dreamwalk. Without delving in the details, a lot of bedsheets got ruined on that day.”
“How?” Sweetie asked.
“I will tell you when you grow up.”
Sweetie turned away from the telescope and smirked. “Did their skulls explode? Cool.”
“Not the skulls,” Luna replied. “However, Cadence and I came to an agreement. She shall not dreamwalk and I shall not interfere with ponies’ love life. Not after the kirin incident.”
Sweetie nodded. “Did you start a flamewar?”
“A what?” Luna asked.
“It’s a kirin war. It means an argument after which you have to rebuild the village because it burned down.” Sweetie looked back into the telescope. “What is that bright red thing?”
“It’s Mars,” Luna replied. “Also, of course you’d know the fire-related words.”
“I know a lot of words.” Sweetie moved the telescope. “I think I saw a teapot there.”
“Yes, it orbits the planet every three years,” Luna said. “I am afraid to think what other words you know.”
“Shitstorm,” Sweetie replied. “It’s a pegasus war tactic from the times before the first Hearth’s Warming Eve. You load the clouds with, uhh… you know, and then unleash the storm above the enemy territory. During the First Griffonian War and the cholera epidemics in Cloudsdale, it was the first documented use of biological warfare.” She shrugged. “I guess you already know that, since you’re–”
“Old?” Luna asked. “I am not old enough to remember the First Griffonian War, thank you. As for the first Hearth’s Warming Eve, I haven’t been born yet, either.”
“Really?” Sweetie asked.
“Yes, really.” Luna rolled her eyes. “Also, we really did not need the mental image of the first documented use of biological warfare. I am sure history and the origin of various words are very interesting topics, but I do not think you should use them as conversation topics in polite company.”
Sweetie blushed. “Oh, so Rarity told you about the dinner with Fleur?”
“Yes and no.” Luna shook her head. “She was plagued by nightmares related to this unfortunate event for three nights straight. I believe she was exaggerating a bit, however. I am pretty sure Ms. Fleur did not turn into a demon after hearing you explain the origin of the phrase ‘dumpster fire’.”
“Ms. Fleur found it pretty funny,” Sweetie replied.
“Rarity certainly did not.” Luna shrugged. “By the way, when Rain Shine comes with an official visit, withhold yourself from mentioning this one.”
Sweetie nodded. “Is it true about the kirins? Do they–”
“The official dinner will contain no dairy products,” Luna said. “We are not willing to officially find out.”
“That’d be cool,” Sweetie said. “Maybe–”
“I shall also inform Kibitz to watch for sugar in your diet,” Luna replied. “You have way too much energy for trifles, I would say. If you are ever to partake in a meeting with a head of a foreign tribe or a nation, greet them politely and please, for the love of me, my sister, and other lesser Princesses, restrain yourself from engaging in a further conversation. Are we clear?”
“Do you mean ‘trifles’ as in cakes or silly things?” Sweetie asked.
Luna exhaled loudly. For a moment she just stood in the middle of the room before finally finding the right words. “Go back to watching Uranus.”
Sweetie nodded. “Ah, so I should cover my ass?”
“I am not sure what this has to do with anything, but if we ever get an official visit from Donkistan, do not utter these words, ever. I shall introduce you as my student, you shall greet them nicely and that is it. They need not to know that sometimes you are too clever for your own good.”
“Greet nicely.” Sweetie smirked. “Would ‘may the Sun always shine straight above your hat so your face stays covered in the shade’ do? It’s a kirin greeting, I think.”
“No wonder they decided to take a vow of silence,” Luna whispered.
“May the road guide you so you never injure your hoof after, for example, stepping on a pinecone,” Sweetie said.
Luna sighed. “May your head always stay attached to your body because one day you may meet someone with less self-restraint than me.”
“This doesn’t sound nice.” Sweetie shrugged. “It makes a vague threat.”
“Because it is a vague threat that is supposed to make you go back to the telescope. You can read many interesting things in the stars,” Luna replied.
“Like the future?” Sweetie asked.
“More like the past,” Luna replied. “They tell stories older than you and me. They care not about ponies, for some of them are way older than the planet we are on. In endless silence, they roam the sky, unaware of our existence. Some of them are surrounded by planets not unlike ours.”
"They still make interesting shapes.” Sweetie pointed at one of the constellations. “For example, this is Bloodnut the Fla–”
“I am not even going to ask where you got that one from.” Luna rolled her eyes. “You see, in Southern Equestria you can see stars that are invisible here. From the Moon, the shapes look completely different. I am pretty sure that on a different planet, some different creatures look at our Sun and claim it is a part of some constellation.”
“I hope it’s a nice one,” Sweetie said.
“Depends on the place you look from.” Luna lit her horn. “We can find out.”
The room darkened and filled with miniature stars. Sweetie’s eyes widened as she looked at the small comets flying past her and disappearing somewhere in the distance. Stars reflected in her eyes when she sat down, her mouth agape, watching the celestial bodies circling around her in stunned silence. She looked at a belt of asteroids, each of them no bigger than a grain of sand and tried to catch them, letting out a gasp when they flew around her hoof, only to reform a belt when she moved on to something else.
“Wow,” Sweetie whispered, trembling in barely contained awe. “Why didn’t you tell me you can do this?”
“So you don’t try,” Luna replied. “To conjure a map of the sky you have to know it.”
“Is it like the toaster thing?”
Luna nodded. “Right, that is exactly the toaster situation. Now, this is not the whole universe. This is not even the whole part mortal ponies can see. If you wanted to fit every star system I can see or dream about on the map, it would probably reach Ponyville.”
“Is it really that big?” Sweetie asked.
“Yes,” Luna replied. “If you ever reach the point when you can go for an hour without doing something that could destroy the balance of the universe, I can show you some of its more interesting parts. The dreams are almost like actually being there.”
“Cool,” Sweetie said.
“Yes, this is what I wanted to hear. I am pretty sure the citizens of the Unknown Kadath would be delighted to know you consider the possibility of seeing it in your dreams ‘cool’.” Luna smirked. “Speaking of, stop trying to catch VY Canis Majoris.”
Sweetie let go of the miniature star. “Okay.”
“This is, by the way, one of the stars forming the constellation you know as the Big Diamond Dog,” Luna said. “It does not look like a dog from where you are standing, right?”
“No,” Sweetie replied. “Some of the stars are missing.”
“They are closer to me and they are much smaller.” Luna pointed at some little stars floating around the table with the toasters like fireflies. “This tiny speck of dust is our entire solar system. If you stood here, you would see the Big Diamond Dog as you know it. But from there, you can see our system and some others near it. One of them is, if I recall correctly, inhabited by a race of intelligent rodents. Fascinating, really.”
“They all look like fireflies,” Sweetie whispered.
“I am pretty sure this is what they would be called by the inhabitants of the planets around VY Canis Majoris,” Luna said. “That is, if they had an equivalent of fireflies on their planet. Or if they saw them through the heavy clouds of mercury. And that is assuming that we would ever understand the language consisting of subtle changes of the molecular structure of–”
“I don’t understand a word of this,” Sweetie muttered.
“One day you will get it.” Luna’s horn stopped glowing and the stars disappeared, accompanied by Sweetie’s disappointed ‘aww’. “Now, go back to the telescope and look at the real stars. You may start with the Big Diamond Dog, if you wish.”
Sweetie looked at the stars and shuddered. They seemed even further away from her now. Maybe one day, under Luna’s guidance she could bring them closer, but for now all she had was an old, small telescope. “Yes, Princess,” she said.
It was an early morning when Sweetie retired to her chamber and promptly fell asleep. Luna smiled, closing the door; interesting dreams were awaiting her student, helping her clear and organise her thoughts and everything she learned.
She went to her own chamber and lay on the bed, ready to fall asleep as well. Something, however, didn’t let her.
Luna couldn’t quite realise what it was. She tossed and turned in her bed; her thoughts didn’t let her sleep and most definitely didn’t want to organise.
Suddenly, it hit her. She sat on the bed and groaned. “Uranus!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Uranus! That little rascal!”