//------------------------------//
// Chapter Fourteen: The Rain Before 
// Story: Jumping In At The Deep End 
// by Anotherrandom 
//------------------------------//

"Aren't you a bit young to be an apprentice?"

Sweetie Drops looked up at the much taller guard. A rookie still uncomfortable in his newly issued golden armor, shifting uncomfortably in place. 

"Course not,” Sweetie Drops said. "And stop blocking my way. I have food to deliver." 

Too young!? I’m thirteen! Stupid guard…

The Canterlot palace was a very busy place at this time of day. Ponies going everywhere, hurrying about their important business. Nopony really paid attention to anypony else, making it trivially easy to sneak in. All she needed was to carry something and have some clothes to hide her lack of a cutie mark and help her better fit in the crowd. A white apron and a chef hat was enough. 

The trickiest part to pull off was pretending that this was exactly where she was supposed to be. Accomplishing that took confidence, or in her case, a single-minded determination to accomplish her goal. It served as a mental barrier, stopping most ponies around her from thinking too hard about her presence. 

And if somepony thought to question why the apron didn't fit her and why there was an apprentice from the kitchens running in the halls in the first place? Well, they wouldn't want to ask. Goodness no. Because they would risk being wrong and making a scene. And then they would look ridiculous. 

Sweetie Drops hid a smirk. 

This. This was something she was good at. Blending in. Being obviously right where she was supposed to be. Disappearing from the minds of everypony around her. 

She lied to me!

Despite herself, Sweetie Drops felt her heart sink. It stung and hurt and left a bitter taste in her mouth. 

The guard hesitated, unsure how to proceed. 

His experience soldiering so far was mostly getting yelled at, which wasn't very applicable now that a sulking filly was demanding to be let through.

How was he supposed to know what to do? He wasn't even supposed to stand guard duty! He was a specialist, for Celestia’s sake! His job was supposed to be sitting in an armory somewhere, not bullying foals and having to deal with prissy nobles all day! Tartarus, he wasn't even in the Royal Guard! But when he told his NCO there had to be a mistake somewhere, they just started laughing and laughing…

Steel Wind sighed. At least there was no chance of him getting standing guard duty ever again.

"Who sent you here anyway?" He asked.

Sweetie Drops didn't budge in the slightest. It was all a mind game in the end.

This guard was the only one to stop her on the whole journey through the palace. 

He was an exception, picking her from the crowd and talking to her. Probably because he was so new. He still cared about the job he was doing instead of standing aside and being a glorified door decoration like the rest of the guards. They were there mostly for the ceremony, not to do any actual guarding. 

"Chef Coriander sent me," she pointed at the silver cloche placed on her back. "Supposed to deliver this"

In reality, Sweetie Drops didn't have the slightest idea if there was anypony named Coriander in the palace kitchens. But, considering there were hundreds of cooks employed there, the newbie guard wouldn't know either. 

"Oh, okay," said the guard nervously. "Have a nice day?" 

Sweetie Drops didn't say anything back, simply trotting onwards. 

She was now in the Royal Wing proper. The gilded marble hallways were even more lavishly decorated here than in the rest of the obscenely opulent place.

 So garish.

There were noticeably fewer guards and other staff around. Good. This lowered the chance of somepony stopping her, because if she got into the royal wing proper, she was supposed to be there, obviously. 

Now only to find the right room. 

This turned out to be a far harder task than it should have been; the doors all looked the same, decorated with the same insignia of golden sun and silver moon.

But one door stood out from the rest.

It was the handle that made Sweetie pause - polished to a mirror sheen from repeated use. 

That's it.

Without hesitation, Sweetie Drops entered that one. The guards at the door did not react to this, standing there as their stoic selves tended to do. Their minds were already occupied with explaining away her sudden appearance. 

A delivery from the kitchen? Well, it's a bit strange that they didn't send a chef, but they are probably all busy. Wasn't lunch being made right about now? 

Imagination is a powerful thing, able to filter out the strange and explain the weird, so you don't need to bother. 

Again, she was hit by the luxury of this place. It looked exactly how a pony would expect a princess' room to look like. Big bed, roaring fireplace, and enough gold to make a dragon jealous.

Yet, to Sweetie Drops, it all seemed so… impersonal. Phoned in. Like a performance by a retiring actor, fed up with it all. Just saying the line so they can go home.

It didn't feel like a place that had a pony living in it.

Sweetie shook herself back into reality, her goal in mind. Sneaking all the way into the palace only to get caught gawking at the scenery would be insanely stupid.

She lied to me.

But Sweetie would get her payback. The seeds of her revenge were already planted.

There was a desk in the room. It was alicorn sized, similar to the bed, but even that wasn't enough to prevent it from being buried in a forest's worth of paper.

After making sure she was alone, Sweetie Drops took the first stack of papers she could reach and replaced it with the cloche.

Now just to find somewhere to hide them. 

It made sense to Sweetie Drops. Putting the extra papers somewhere out of sight, thus avoiding suspicion. Completely overlooking the fact that mysteriously appearing dishware would do that on its own.

She took the papers to a nearby closet, finding it mostly empty except for a smith's apron. 

Unfortunately for her, she didn't have enough time to ponder the strangeness of the apron's presence as the doors behind her opened. 

In entered one very ragged-looking white alicorn with a crazed glint in her twitching eye.

Princess Celestia, the reigning princess of Equestria, wasn't having a good day.

First, her open court - one of her more bearable duties - was canceled due to a scandal at the Zebrican embassy. The duchess Upper Crust made some very unflattering comments about stripes being out of fashion and the Zebrican ambassador retaliated by cursing the duchess and turning her green.

The whole disaster was resolved peacefully in the end, but then it was brought to her attention that somepony made a whole lot more requisition forms for the guard. This accidentally created two entirely new regiments of the Royal Guard and deployed some of them in southern Saddle Arabia by mistake, creating tension with the newly crowned shah. 

The worst thing was that it wasn't even noon yet…

Enough was enough for the princess. In the light of new developments, Celestia decided that she was going to have a break and fill out some of the paperwork that had been steadily mounting on her desk. 

But there was more than just paperwork waiting for her there. 

Approaching the cloche with curiosity, the princess uncovered the hidden treasure underneath the shiny metal lid: 

Cake.

But not just any cake. A chocolate cake. A sweet release from the bitter taste the day had left her with. 

There is a good argument that her next course of action was highly illogical. But for an alicorn, the survival instincts needed for a normal monarch don't apply; she was immune to poison and able to shrug off normally fatal blows. Not to mention that, quite understandably after the day she had, the princess simply didn't care anymore. 

And so she took a bite, unsuspecting of any foul play.

The cake was salty.

The temperature in the study instantly rose twenty degrees. Smoke started rising from the princess. Some of the papers combusted around her. 

The cake was salty. 

Such injustice! Such sacrilege! It demanded vengeance for the poor cake! Divine wrath against those that wronged her! 

From inside the closet, Celestia heard a stifled laugh. 

In a flash of gold, the doors were torn off hinges in a shower of splinters. 

Celestia walks the path of peace. Rarely, she stumbles. 

Mostly when cake is involved. 

Inside the closet stood Sweetie Drops, petrified in mute horror. 

The temperature dropped back, the charred remains of the closet doors were gathered in golden aura and hidden behind Celestia's unfurled wing. The smoldering paperwork gathered itself in a dustbin out of politeness. The alicorn herself halted in her tracks, blinking a few times while trying to discern just what was happening. 

Sweetie gulped.

"... Hi Sunny."

Celestia stared.

It wasn't the dreaded disapproving stare - the 'I'm not angry, just disappointed' look, which is to children what a nuke is to cities. Nor was it the ‘I shall turn you into a pillar of salt’ stare, which is nearly as bad. 

No, there was just confusion.

While that was far better than being smote by a beam of arcane light, it didn't inspire much confidence in the beige filly, who suddenly realized that this was a very bad idea from the start. 

Finally, a rational thought made its way through the fog in the princess's head and Celestia came to the realization that she just shattered a large piece of wood into a thousand little sharp projectiles and the foal might be hurt.

"Sweets?" said Celestia, sounding more confused by the second. "Are you alright? How did you get here?"

Her horn lit with gold, a wisp of magic coiling around Sweetie Drops as Celestia kneeled next to her. 

To Celestia's relief, there were only a few minor scrapes, which her healing magic made quick work of. 

Then Sweetie Drops started to cry. 

It started slowly. The filly wanted to hold the tears at bay, but shook more and more as she tried to breathe. 

"Please, don't hurt me."

The words came out in a little whisper, but were enough to break Celestia's heart in a million pieces. 

The scars would fade with time. But they would never truly go away.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Celestia said. “I'm not allowing them to hurt you. Not ever again.” 

Celestia draped a wing around the little one's body. Simply waiting there, acting as a pillar for the little one to lean on.

"How did you find out?" Celestia asked, breaking the gentle silence between them.

Sweetie Drops’ ears drooped while she seemingly tried to completely hide herself behind Celestia's alabaster wings. 

"I… I saw you use the spell before your visit once," Sweetie said haltingly, as if fearing some retribution if she said the wrong thing - which Celestia feared was exactly what was happening. The filly had a talent for preparing entire conversations in her head, just to avoid saying something that would upset somepony or get her in trouble. "Miss Tender Hooves didn't believe me, but I knew what I saw."

Celestia nodded, considering the fact that she didn't use the glamor spell to hide her true nature just anywhere, meaning Sweetie Drops couldn't have seen it and so was lying about how she had found out. 

But that wasn't important now. The crying filly right next to her was. 

"Shh, you’re safe,” Celestia cooed. Her horn lit again. A box of tissues appeared from thin air - summoned forth from somewhere in the palace. 

At that moment, Sweetie Drops realized she had used the Princess' pristine wings to dry her tears after she buried her muzzle into it. 

"Sorry," Sweetie apologized sheepishly, accepting the tissues. 

Celestia didn't react to the stain, still offering her the wing. 

"You snuck in all this way. Why?" 

Sweetie Drops grimaced at the question, her mouth shutting tight, pawing at the floor in shame. 

"I wanted to prank you."

Celestia raised an incredulous brow - only years of practice were preventing her from giving a far more shocked look.

"Prank me,” Celestia deadpanned. "You snuck into the royal palace because you wanted to prank me?" 

"Yeah!" nodded Sweetie Drops vigorously. "You gave me a lollipop that was just a chocolate covered brussel sprout on a stick. I wanted revenge!"

Celestia fought the sudden, overpowering urge to facehoof. 

"And your reaction was to break into the Canterlot palace."

She won, despite still getting the occasional twitch from her front leg, but her voice broke a little at the finish line 

Sweetie Drops gave the struggling princess a blank look.

"Yes."

Celestia sighed. After a day like this, that was the only thing she could really do. 

"Why are you here?” She asked. "Truly." 

Sweetie Drops hesitated. Celestia simply waited, letting the filly think. 

"You lied to me."

Celestia winced.

 Mostly because Sweetie Drops was right. 

The persona of Sunny Skies was the latest in a long list of her disguises. Sunny Beam, Sunny Smiles, Sunny Clouds (in her defense, that one was made on the spot), Sunny Day, and many others. 

Celestia still vehemently argued that being immortal wasn't a curse or a blessing, wasn't inherently bad or good, but just another reality of life you had to become accustomed to. Just hard to understand, coming with its own boons and challenges. 

The hardest of those challenges being relating to others.

Mortality is the one true connection every pony has to each other, no matter who they are - rich or poor. Great mage, knight, or a simple farmer - the finish line is always the same. 

Except for the alicorns - and for nearly a thousand years - just the alicorn. 

It would be so easy to make the slip. First once and then again and again. See those normal ponies as somehow lesser to her. Nothing but a quickly vanishing spark in the great scheme of things.

To stop thinking of ponies as ponies, but as pawns to be moved on a chessboard? Celestia long ago learned that's when evil is born. When somepony starts treating others not as living beings, but as things. 

A princess had to be distant sometimes. Detached. Manipulating outcomes using whatever advantages and opportunities she could get. Making the hard choices nopony wanted to make. That's why Sunny had to exist - to remind her that behind every statistic, every number, was a story. A life with hopes and dreams. Not just a name on paper to be crossed out.

So she helped as Sunny. Not the big acts she did as a princess - the overreaching, incremental steps for the betterment of ponykind as a whole. She did the small, more personal good deeds - to not lose the vision. The ‘why’ she was doing it all in the first place.

But that came at a price. Sunny was still her, undoubtedly. Sometimes she even felt that Princess Celestia was the disguise, not the other way around. Yet, she still lied to those around her. And that had to hurt. 

"I'm sorry Sweets." Celestia said. "I…I should have told you."

Sweetie Drops shook her head.

"No, I didn't mean about being a princess," Sweetie Drops said dismissively, throwing the used tissue away. "You lied about things getting better for me."

Celestia watched the filly in a stunned silence. 

"Maybe it's me?" Sweetie Drops continued. "Why else would they always return me?"

Her head lowered, ears pinned to her scalp. More spitting the next words than speaking.

"Everypony else gets adopted," she said bitterly. "Nopony stays long. Just me. Good, old, broken Sweetie Drops"

The floorboards under Celestia's hoof cracked, leaving a black burn mark on the wooden floor. Years of practiced self-control tested against her rage.

"Sweets, you aren't-"

"Then why?!" The filly shouted. New tears flowing down her cheeks."WHY?!!"

Sweetie Drops nearly collapsed on the ground - caught by an extended white wing. Celestia didn't hesitate, pulling the crying filly close.

"Five times," Sweetie whispered into the princess's shoulder as Celestia held her. "Five times I've been taken back."

The filly didn't shout anymore, limp in Celestia's embrace. 

"It's always the same," Sweetie croaked. "They bring me into a house, all smiles and fake happiness, and two weeks later it's as if they forgot I was even there! They just see right through me!"

Celestia sighed. Sweetie Drops was certainly omitting some details. 

The filly had problems. Problems that were left to fester for far too long. 

"You didn't make it any easier for them." Celestia said. "Running away. Acting out. Setting your last counselor on fire…"

Sweetie tried to pull away from the mass of snow-white feathers and warm fur, but she found she couldn't do it. Maybe Sunn- Celestia was refusing to let her go. Maybe she simply didn't have the mental strength to command herself to move. 

"I… I just wanted them to see me." Sweetie said. "But maybe I’m-”

She was interrupted by Celestia glaring at her, primary feathers pressed gently against her chin. It wasn't a particularly angry glare. Well, it was angry, just not at her. At least Sweetie Drops was pretty sure this was the case. Mostly because if it wasn't, she would be on fire by now. 

"Listen to me, Sweetie Drops."

The filly gulped. She had seen Sunny being serious only once before, but even that paled in comparison to the princess standing in front of her. There was power behind each word she spoke. 

“You. Are. Not. Broken.”

Celestia's magic lit the room gold. Something was summoned by the princess into the bedchambers.

A book. Sweetie Drops recognized it instantly. 

She didn't buy many presents for Heart Warming - it wasn't like she had anypony to give them to. The orphans there never stayed long enough to become true friends and the workers, while trying their best, didn't feel like how everypony told her family should be.

Sunny wasn't like that either, but she was close. 

The cookbook wasn't one of her best ideas. Sunny had shown her how to bake and how to make sweets in the first place. She didn't need it, nor wanted it - at least in her mind.

And yet, Sunny never forgot to bring it to try some obscure recipe. The cookbook wasn't even that good a present. Something hoof made would probably make for a more heartfelt gift. It was simply the first thing that came to mind after hours of searching. 

By now, it was more of a scrapbook than a cookbook. Sunny had continually attached more and more to it as they experimented with new recipes.

"The salty cake made me crave something sweet,” Celestia said playfully. “So let's go to the kitchens, make some edible cake. And then… Well, I think I have a proposition for you.” 

The plan forming in Celestia’s head wasn't ideal, but when the standard system fails, well, then it's time to get creative.  





The day wasn't going great, Lyra was sure of it. 

She just couldn't really pinpoint where it all went wrong.

Sunny Skies took a sip of her tea, sitting relaxed in their kitchen back home, watching them squirm. 

“So, when is the wedding?” Sunny asked. 

Lyra gulped.

This whole scenario felt like a nightmare crafted specifically for her. A horrific combination of unannounced in-law visit and social worker coming just in the moment the foal she was supposed to take care of was covered in a rapidly hardening shell made primarily of mushed cabbage. 

And now? This question? She didn't even start planning the wedding! She was screwed.

Their quick travel back home, Sunny Skies in tow, had been mercifully spared any more of Ponyville’s signature weirdness. With Spring now taking a bath upstairs, it was time for some talk over hot beverages - Sunny wanted tea while the rest got their promised cocoa - and the classic parental interrogation.

Bon Bon shrugged while pouring the hot chocolate, putting a cherry on top to finish and passing it to Lyra. 

“We didn't really set a date,” Bon Bon said. “The whole thing was very spontaneous.” 

“Well, that's a shame," Sunny sighed before a mischievous smirk slowly sneaked its way up onto her muzzle. "But I figure that you and your…Honey Bunny wouldn't really be into a big wedding, anyway.”

There is more than one kind of mischievous smirk. The one Sunny was sporting was close to what a cat might give a mouse. The kind that mice hardly find funny. 

Lyra started to choke. 

"The what?!"

Sunny raised an innocent brow.

“Big wedding?”

Lyra tried, and failed, to get some oxygen into her lungs. 

“Honey Bunny?” she half-shrieked, half-spit. 

Bon Bon blushed, the poor mare attempted to hide her flushed face behind her forelegs while Lyra recovered from the verbal flashbang.

Sunny beamed, pure self-satisfaction radiating from the mare like from an average cat. 

"Ah, I waited a month to use this.”

Lyra mimicked her fiance in looking like an overripe tomato, both of them turning redder and redder by the second.

She and Bon Bon had a lot of nicknames for each other. Lyly, Honey, Bonnie, Bonny Bon and more. Most they used in public.

That one? Not so much, that one was reserved for…private use only.

"Once," stammered Bon Bon. "I let slip once."

Sunny furled her wing, tapping her chin with one of her primaries. Bon Bon's eyes grew wide at the gesture - she was going in for the finisher!

"I wonder," Sunny wondered. "Why such a nickname? What's the story behind it? I mean, bunnies are famous for only thinking about-"

"No!" Bon Bon interrupted, jumping on the verbal grenade in vain hopes of saving them from more embarrassment. 

"-grass Bon Bon, they think about grass," finished Sunny.

Lyra stared, her mouth hanging open. 

"Ehm, what?" she managed to struggle out. 

Sunny gave her a serious nod.

"Grass," Sunny reaffirmed. "Bunnies think primarily about grass. And carrots. What else did you think?"

This was the moment that Lyra came to the conclusion that not only had she turned so red she was basically a smaller, female clone of Big Macintosh, but she may also be on fire. At least judging by the heat coming from her now probably melting ears.

"Eh, I thought… You know…" Lyra gave a meaningful pause. "The other thing."

Sunny Skies laughed. 

It didn't take long for Lyra to learn something about the well-kept social worker. The cheerful pegasus mare whose smile brightened the room every time Bon Bon called her mom.

She was an absolute troll. 

"I needed that," Sunny said, her expression changing into something more serious. "Sadly, I'm not here on a family visit."

The pink pegasus paused. 

"Well, I'm here on a family visit, just… not the way I'd prefer."

Slowly, she pulled out a stack of papers out of her saddle bags. Followed by another stack of papers, swiftly followed by… a stack of papers.

To the pair's growing horror, their kitchen table started to creak, its legs threatening to give up under the weight. 

"Aha!" 

Behind the venerable mountain of paperwork, Sunny finally pulled the specific form she was looking for. 

"How?" Lyra's mouth hung agape, staring at the still growing pile and then Sunny's relatively small saddle bags. "Just how?"

Sunny shrugged.

"I'm very good at packing." 

The right paper found, Sunny deftly attached it to her clipboard. The whole movement seemed almost ceremonious to Lyra, like some kind of ancient tradition. 

"Before we start with the evaluation," Sunny said, Bon Bon nodding along while Lyra almost leaped out of her chair and out the window as her prediction came true. "I have to ask."

Sunny paused, picking up her pen in the pink feathers of her wing 

"Why was Spring covered in… filth when I came?"

Lyra sighed. No sense in prolonging this. 

Before she could speak, she was interrupted by Anon, walking down the stairs, a wet towel around her mane.

"Hide and seek," Anon said. 

The filly walked very slowly and deliberately down, seemingly afraid of the stairs. Lyra couldn't help but sympathize. Sadly, the only replacement for stairs - besides having wings - was using telekinesis on yourself, like the unicorn mages of old who lived in their stair-less towers.

Unfortunately, that left out everypony without a horn. That didn't bother the mages, who thought that anypony without the ability to self levitate didn't deserve their attention anyway. But it was a much larger issue for Lyra, considering Bon Bon wasn't about to just grow a horn anytime soon. 

Anon finally reached the last step, trotted up to the kitchen, and sat next to them, smiling as Bon Bon pushed the still-steaming cup of cocoa towards her. 

"Thanks," Anon said innocently. 

Sunny frowned.

"Hide and seek? Is that so?" She asked, eyes narrowing dangerously. 

Lyra hesitated for a moment. She could lie. There wasn't a way to disprove it. 

But it wouldn't be right towards Spring. 

"No."

Anon shot her a surprised look. Here she was, providing a good excuse, and she wasn't taking the opportunity?

"We bumped into somepony in the street. Well, crashed, more accurately," Lyra admitted. "Spring got spooked and hid. She does that sometimes…"

Sunny nodded, the pen held by her feathers gliding swiftly on the paper, writing down each word in neat, flowing writing that somehow made it look even more official.

"I see," she said finally, after a few moments of tense silence. 

The pegasus turned towards the foal, a gentle expression on her face.

"You don't need to cover for your caretakers, young lady," she said softly. "I'm sure that they are capable adults, able to take responsibility."

Sunny turned towards Lyra and Bon Bon, a somewhat more somber and serious look to her. 

"Would you mind if I spoke to Spring alone while you fill in the questionnaire?"

Lyra raised an eyebrow. 

“What questionnaire?” Lyra asked.

Sunny smiled again, pointing at the mountain of papers beside her. 

“Nothing big, just…” Sunny gave a vague gesture. “Around two thousand questions. Give or take a few hundred.”

Lyra gulped, searching for something to say.

“Fiddlesticks.”