//------------------------------//
// On My Behalf 
// Story: Beyond Me 
// by Boopy Doopy 
//------------------------------//

“Oh, Faust, that was bad,” Celestia whispered to herself as she paced around her castle bedroom. “I can’t let my temper slip like that again, especially not in public. That was bad. I’ll have to issue an apology.”
She shouldn’t have lost her cool, but in fairness to her, the filly had been pushing on her the whole day, speaking to her however she chose, as though she owned her. In front of her student, no less. She should have told her sooner not to speak to her that way rather than let her anger fester until it snapped, a thought that made her more angry with Asher.
“Calm down,” she silently told herself. “Don’t let your frustration show. You need to find a way to remedy this situation.”
She didn’t know if there was one. She seemed absolutely set on not staying with her student. It didn’t help that she spilled to everypony she talked to what her plan was for the Summer Sun Celebration. As well, it seemed that those two mares, Holiday and Lofty, were already firmly on her side, just based on the looks she got from the latter. It was a mess, and she had no idea what to do about it.
“Anxious, dear sister?” Luna suddenly asked, sneaking up on the princess. She said it with a smirk as Celestia paced, poking a bit of fun at her.
“It seems that a filly has gotten the best of you. It is not something we expected, especially from one so young.”
“Not right now, Luna,” she responded. “I don’t need teasing right now. That filly’s created quite the mess for me.” She sighed grumpily before flopping onto her bed. “I’ve no idea how to fix it. Those elements should not still be attached to me.”
“Well, it’s certainly a good thing that they are,” her sister commented, “otherwise we might still…” She frowned and look away shamefully for a second before continuing, “In any case, we think- I think- it would be best to take things slowly. We do not know the full extent of your plans, however, keeping a level head is always best, trust us on that.”
“I will not let my anger slip again,” Celestia said aloud, partially to herself. “I know it’s not Asher’s fault, but I can’t help but blame her and whatever deity she says brought her to Equestria.”
“Is she not native?” the blue alicorn asked, raising an eyebrow.
“She’s not, but that requires and explanation at another time. For now, I’d like to catch up with my little sister over a slice of cake after one thousand years away.”
“Always cake with you, dear sister,” Luna smiled.



Eventually, Lofty and the four fillies with her found their way to the park and wandered up to us.
“Asher!” Sweetie Belle called as they came up to us, Holiday casually leaning her back against the tree next to me like I was. “What was Princess Celestia like?” she asked happily. “Did you get her autograph?” 
“Was she just as amazing in pony as she is from Canterlot?” Scootaloo asked eagerly.
“Um, no, I didn’t get her autograph, and sure, we’ll go with that,” I answered simply, closing my eyes. Before I did, I could see the look Lofty and Holiday were giving me, silently telling me to stay quiet on the issue. As I closed my eyes, I heard Lofty walk up and take a seat next to her wife, now laying her back against the tree as well.
“How did you get them to be friendly to each other?” she asked quietly as the four chattered to each other. “Those two pairs have hated each other for as long as I can remember. I honestly thought those two little brats were tricking Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle into trying to do something for them for a little while.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I responded, keeping my eyes closed. “I mean, I guess I said that I wasn’t going to be around them if they were going to argue about me, but that was largely it. It’s not like I came in and taught them the magic of friendship or something.”
“I’m telling you, you don’t know how much they despised each other,” she continued. “They were always at each other’s necks.”
“I mean, they’re what? Ten? Ten year olds as far as I know don’t hold grudges, not for longer than a few hours anyway.”
“Well, I can only tell you that it was much worse than you know,” she replied, giving a sigh. “I am happy to see them being friendly though. Can I ask though how it went with Princess Celestia?”
“Eh, I’ll tell you later,” I responded. “It wasn’t great though. She treats me like a pushover, and it’s annoying. I know she thinks that whatever happened is all my fault. If I’m right, it had something to do with me getting diphtheria.” I couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of all those vaccinations the doctor gave me all at once. “Apparently, according to what Nightmare Moon said,” I continued, “I ‘turned her plans upside down and inside out’.” As I said it, I caught the four of them looking at me, waiting for me to head over to them.
“I’ll tell you more later though,” I said as I got up. “I mean, you already know what she told me in Canterlot and what I told you. But since I’m supposed to be a child, I guess I should be staying physically active, shouldn’t I?” I didn’t wait for an answer as I trotted up to them, the four girls immediately asking to know what happened with Celestia.
“All I did was talk to her,” I answered. “It wasn’t exciting in the slightest. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”
“Tell us everything!” Silver Spoon told me. “What does she look like up close? Is she scary? How strong are her wings? What does she smell like?”
That got me to raise my eyebrow. “You want to know what she smells like?” I asked, getting a nod from her in response. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at that, wanting to say something ridiculous in response. I wondered if I should joke about it, but decided that given their enthusiasm, they would probably take me at my word, so did my best to try and paint a nice picture. Even as much as I disliked Celestia, I didn’t really want to disappoint the four of them and knew Lofty and Holiday wouldn’t like it if I said how I felt. Not to mention, I was certain the princess herself would have a fit.
“I don’t know how she smells, but she was huge,” I said, playing on their excitement. “Gigantic. Her wings were wide and she flew unbelievably fast when we went to Canterlot.” Even as I said it, I had to hide my shiver. Just thinking about being as high up as I was before made me feel like I was about to have a heart attack.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Scootaloo got out eagerly. “Tell us what Nightmare Moon was like!”
“She was even bigger,” I started, hiding my discomfort at reliving that memory. “With sharp teeth, and an evil look in her eye. It was absolutely terrifying. She was scary and angry and I’m pretty sure she wanted to kill me. She might have to, if not for-”
“If not for Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cheered. “When she fell down, she swooped in to save you, broken bones after fighting her before! She’s just that amazing!”
“Yes she is, and I might be very hurt without her,” I agreed. “But you know what else?” The four of them leaned forward intently as I said, “She had scary eyes. You should’ve seen them up close. They.. they…” I paused, trying to build up the tension.
“They what?” Sweetie Belle asked softly.
“They show… that they want…” I trailed off carefully, pausing again before yelling my next sentence as loud as I could. “To kill you!” I jumped out at them at the same time, making them jump back in surprise.
They screamed, and I fell back on my side, laughing hard at the prank. I looked up for a second and saw them scowling at me, and it only made me laugh harder. It was something I greatly needed after today, and yesterday for that matter, and basically all the time I spent here. I hadn’t done very much laughing, and this hard laughter at my little prank was long overdue. I got to the point where there were tears in my eyes and my stomach hurt, I was laughing for so long, and I could hear them laughing with me, which made me happy. Even if they were children, it was a nice few minutes I had.
“I was starting to think you hated fun, Asher,” Sweetie Belle said once I got the strength to sit up. “You always look like you're angry when you talk to us.”
“It was all an elaborate ruse to get you guys to fall for this one moment,” I joked. “And it worked.”
I wanted to be happy for a little while for once since I’d been here. I hadn’t had much of it in the last few weeks, and I knew I needed it. It felt nice to laugh and joke for a little while.
“Oh? You think you can scare us?” I heard Scootaloo say, glancing up for a second to see an evil look in her eye. “Take this!”



“Oh gosh! Oh gosh! Oh gosh!” Asher laughed, her eyes shut tightly as Scootaloo pounced on top of her. “Don’t tickle me!”
“It’s what you get for scaring us!” she replied, not letting up, getting the filly to wither around.
Lofty and Holiday watched the scene with smiles on their face, the latter’s looking more sad. It took her wife looking at her to silently ask why before she responded.
“We have to give him over to that mare, don’t we? There’s no way we can make an appeal to Princess Celestia, is there?”
It made Lofty sigh, her smile dropping. “Yes, we do. As nice as it would be to have Asher stay with us, he needs to be in Ponyville. Never mind what the princess says. Those two- err, those four now- would be absolutely heartbroken if he left. Even if we had the space, I’m sure if he wasn’t here, those four would just go back to fighting like before.”
It made Holiday sigh, too. “That’s what I thought,” she commented. “I don’t feel comfortable sending him to someplace he doesn’t want to be though. Even if he is mature for his age, an adult, it’s not good for him.” She let out another breath, continuing, “He’s just getting used to living here and now his situation is going to change. It’s not right, especially not with a mare like the one I spoke to earlier.”
“Well, if what I heard from you is true,” Lofty said, “I at least want to talk to that unicorn first. Even given Princess Celestia, I’m not sending him off to someplace he or we don’t feel comfortable with. She’ll have to send me to Tartarus first.”
“I understand what you mean, Lofty,” Holiday replied simply. With that, the two went back to watching the happy scene that was the five of them.