Ranma accepted Celestia's invitation to join her at the low table, so they could talk. He and his male counterpart had eaten there earlier, although the staff had cleared all evidence of it, leaving only a plate of biscuits in the middle.
As he settled onto a cushion on one side of the table, Celestia deliberately chose to do the same on the other, who said, "I know you have a lot on your mind already, so I apologize, but I didn't want you to think I was priming you for my proposition if I offered it later."
Ranma nodded his head. "Thanks, I guess, but..." His expression turned puzzled. "Why? You don't even know me."
"You're right; I don't," Celestia conceded. "I would hope to remedy that over the course of nine months, and learn if my proposition would work out for both of us, but as for your question: I had a feeling about you."
"You had a feeling?" Ranma questioned, eyebrow raised.
"Mm," Celestia confirmed. "My precognition isn't nearly as strong as some of my other talents, but I can sense the potential of somepony's impact on future events, although rarely in what way. In your case, however..." She paused, her lips pursed as she considered her next words. "Your 'ripples' — shall we say — resonated with my own, to a degree I've never experienced before."
Ranma cocked his head and asked, "And that's why you want to adopt me?"
Celestia shook her head. "By itself, no. Your appearance caught my attention as well."
Ranma blinked his eyes bemusedly. "It did?"
Looking toward one of the back corners of the room, Celestia seized the standing mirror that was next to the wardrobe with her telekinesis and carried it over to Ranma's side of the table, setting it down beside him.
Ranma turned to look at his reflection, wondering what was so special about his new body, and nothing he saw was particularly illuminating. His mane and tail stood out the most, because they were seemingly made out of clouds instead of hair, starting out white near his body while becoming darker farther out, and appearing to be at the mercy of a breeze, but it wasn't like the princess didn't have an odd mane and tail as well. Then again, every other pony that he'd seen — so far — had regular hair, so maybe that meant something. The next thing that caught his attention was the horn on his head, which he'd noticed was capable of moving things around, although that was something he didn't know how to do. Beyond those two things, he already knew that the color of his coat was yellow, and found out that he still had blue eyes, and neither detail seemed noteworthy.
On an unrelated note, he did think that he looked cute, for this universe's version of a pony, but he would keep that to himself.
"It's exceptionally rare for a pony's mane and tail to channel so much unused magic," Celestia explained. "Magic naturally vents through our hair when we're at full capacity, but magic production is almost never so high that it gets to the point of altering our hair, much less to the extent that it adopts an elemental trait. It happens often enough with all ponies — especially pegasi — when magic is being utilized, whether intended or otherwise, but right now you and I are the only ponies whose hair is altered by excess magic alone."
"And that's good?" Ranma assumed, since it was partly responsible for her interest in adopting him, but he phrased it as a question because he'd feel better having an advantage if he chose to stick around for months or years.
"Your potential is great, but the burden of responsibility is also great," came Celestia's judicious reply.
After taking a moment to return the mirror, she continued. "Now, while those two things got my attention, the idea to adopt you occurred to me while I was thinking about your situation. Which — frankly — I knew nothing about, aside from your curse, what your trip between our universes did to it, and who likely sent you to me."
"You mean Sunset Shimmer?" Ranma guessed, who continued when he received a nod. "Why is she in my universe, anyway?"
Celestia's expression turned downcast and she released a sigh. "That's where she ran away to after I ended my mentorship with her and ordered that she be evicted from the castle."
Curious, Ranma asked, "What'd she do?"
"She became obsessed with becoming more powerful and felt entitled to becoming my equal, if not better," came Celestia's bitter reply. "I'd seen the signs, of course. At first, I tried to guide her away from such ideas gently. When that didn't work, I began to show my displeasure, then finally put my hoof down. Sadly, she only got worse, until she brazenly entered the section of the royal library that contained dark magic, which required my permission."
While Ranma mulled that over, and wondered why such an individual would try to help him, Celestia raised her gaze to meet his and said, "I've taken on a new protégé since then, a filly named Twilight Sparkle, and she has the highest potential to impact the future that I've ever known. Unfortunately, as it was with Sunset Shimmer in her youth, she holds me in high regard and she's more interested in her studies than she is in engaging with her peers. Perhaps she won't go down the same path as Sunset Shimmer, but I worry that I won't be the right pony, or the only pony, who can give her the guidance she needs."
"And you need to adopt me to help you with that?" Ranma asked, confused.
"It's a bit of selfishness on my part," Celestia admitted, and appeared somewhat apprehensive to be open about the subject. "I've had a hoof in raising several ponies over the centuries, but circumstances have always made me reluctant to fully commit as a parent, much less to have a foal of my own with somepony." She paused for a moment, to consider her next words. "And to be completely honest... With you, I think the stars have aligned. Not just for myself, but for Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps for yourself as well, should you decide to give this universe a chance."
Ranma looked away from her steady gaze, the mention of her potential age taking a back seat to thoughts of being adopted by a pony princess from another universe and making said universe his new home. He hadn't seriously entertained the idea of staying permanently before, but that was when he'd assumed that he'd have to start over in most respects. Moving on in that regard wasn't too much of a problem, though: his training journey had long since taught him to not get too attached to one place.
No, the new universe and body aspect didn't bother him all that much. There was pretty much only one person who really anchored him to his current home, and that was Akane, the girl he had been willing to remain a girl for if it meant returning to her alive. His relationships with other people either weren't so great or worth mentioning, or they were a really mixed bag or disappointing. And in the vast majority of cases, he doubted the state of those relationships would ever change. Maybe he'd be reluctant to leave some of them if it was just him, but since it wasn't...
Feeling once again like a third wheel in his own life, which he hated, he sought a distraction. Spotting the plate of biscuits, he leaned on the tabletop to reach the closest one, but stopped and furrowed his brow as he turned his hoof over, wondering how he was supposed to grab anything with it.
Celestia asked, "Are you unfamiliar with hooves?"
Ranma sat back, looking mildly displeased. "I normally have hands."
"Ah, I see," Celestia replied, understanding. "We ponies can wrap our hooves around objects with our pastern," she raised one foreleg and demonstrated what she meant, "a bit like a finger, but we can also make our hooves adhere to objects." She reached for a biscuit and showed it sticking to the underside of her hoof. "Like so."
She proceeded to push the plate closer to Ranma, who placed a hoof on top of a biscuit and tried to lift it. When he failed, he frowned and tried again, which led to the same result. Realizing that it wasn't going to work automatically, he paused and thought about what he could do differently. When it crossed his mind that he was trying to use a foot for a task that was usually reserved for a hand, he tried to apply a technique that he used to run and stand on vertical surfaces, and generally helped with his traction and grip, and his eyes lit up when it worked.
While he was waving his hoof around, to see if he could get the biscuit to fly off, he noticed another one levitate off of the plate, thanks to the golden glow surrounding it. Seeing that she had his attention, Celestia informed him, "Since you are a unicorn, you can also use this method."
Ranma looked at the floating biscuit, then her glowing horn, before looking up at his own and asking, "How do I do that?"
"It's as easy as willing it to happen," Celestia answered. "The difficult part is exercising—" The biscuit laying on Ranma's hoof exploded as soon as a light blue aura appeared around it, making him recoil and yelp before falling onto his back. "—control."
After she collected all of the pieces and transferred them to the trash bin by the door, and he recovered and returned to a seated position, she explained, "Unicorn magic is the most flexible of pony magic, but only because it's the wildest. And in your case, it's compounded by the fact that you also have a significant amount of pegasus magic."
"Is that bad?" Ranma asked, even as he eyed the biscuits and considered giving his horn another try.
"In some cases," Celestia replied, "and in yours it likely just means that you'll need to put in more work than the average pony. But that's not to say that there can't be any benefits, either."
That pulled Ranma's attention away from the biscuits, who looked up at her and asked, "Benefits? Like what?"
Leaning forward, Celestia revealed, "Well, in your case: walking on clouds."
Ranma blinked his eyes owlishly. "Seriously?"
With a twinkle in her eye, Celestia suggested, "I could fly you to a cloud, if you wish."
Glancing at one of her wings, Ranma couldn't help being interested in what was being offered. If he decided to stay temporarily, having some new and fun things to do would help distract him from what his male counterpart was doing. Thinking about them, though, reminded him that they'd had wings as a pony. He didn't know what all a horn could do, but the thought that he missed out on flight made him curious as to why he wasn't the same kind of pony.
"Sure," he responded, before deciding to sate his curiosity, since the princess was being so accommodating. "But can I ask you a question first?"
Celestia ceased trying to stand up and settled back onto her cushion. "Of course."
"How come I got a horn instead of wings?" Ranma queried.
After considering his question for a few seconds, and why it was asked, Celestia replied, "That's an interesting question. A pony's most recent ancestry will determine the tribe of pony they'll most likely be born as, normally, but you have no ancestry here. That leads me to think that — despite sharing the same life until you arrived here — your sex had a significant enough impact on your identity for a unicorn to suit the female you better."
Believing that he understood what she was saying, Ranma couldn't help asking, "Your behavior can affect how you look?"
Celestia nodded her head solemnly. "Often it's a brief and minor change, but in rare instances — under the right circumstances — it can be indefinite and significant. Our magic is as much a reflection of who we are as it is a resource that can be taken for granted."
Her response was more serious than Ranma had been expecting, and might have hinted at a past experience, but he was more focused on how it was relevant to him at present than worried about its potential dangers in the future. Because there were a lot of things regarded as being feminine that he denied liking to others when called out on them, as well as some that he even denied as being true to himself, while trying to maintain a masculine image and sense of self it had never occurred to him that he could be a lot more different than he allowed himself to be.
He didn't know how long he was pensively staring down at the tabletop, feeling unsure of how much he knew about himself, but he was brought out of his introspection when he heard Celestia tenderly offer, "Would you like some time alone, perhaps until tomorrow? Or would you be willing to talk about it with me?"
Ranma glanced up and regarded his host, ready to keep his personal thoughts close to his chest, as he often did, but wanting to trust the princess despite knowing next to nothing about her. He was out of his depth in this situation, making him wish he had a confidant, but his father's training had engendered a strong reservation toward trusting others with certain information, and his dealings with most other people hadn't inspired him to change his way of doing things.
After coming to the conclusion that he'd need more than the princess' kindness to open up to her, he figured it would probably be fine to try and address some concerns that were related to his troubled thoughts. Hoping that she wouldn't mind him evading her considerate questions, he looked askance and inquired, "If you were to adopt me, would that make me royalty? Would I have to," he re-established eye contact with her, "act a certain way?"
Celestia smiled reassuringly and said, "No. There is no line of succession to worry about, unless you want the responsibility and I find you worthy of it. And outside of being reasonably behaved, I hope you discover yourself if you haven't already."
With some disbelief, Ranma pressed, "Really? Even if it affects how others will think of you?"
Eyes dancing with mischief, Celestia leaned forward, turned her head slightly to one side and replied, "I would be looking forward to it," before winking at him.
After watching him stare at her incredulously for a few seconds, she pulled back and casually said, "So, do you still want to find a cloud to walk on? I'm afraid it's getting late, and I have to rise before the sun can."
"Uh, yeah, sure..." Came Ranma's distracted reply.
Celestia led him back to the window, which she opened long before they reached it. Once there, she lifted him in her magic and settled him upon her back. After she was sure that he had a firm enough grip about her neck, she placed her forehooves onto the sill before launching herself out the window, whereupon she spread her wings and glided toward a cloud in the distance.
Along the way, Ranma surveyed the moonlit landscape, and quickly discovered that the castle they'd left was built on the side of a mountain, with a large portion projecting away from it. There were waterfalls that fed into ponds, rivers and streams, both inside and outside of the city, which all flowed further down the mountain and eventually ran through a town in the valley as a single river.
Before he knew it, Celestia gracefully alighted upon the cloud. Once her wings were tucked back in and out of the way, she turned her head to regard him and said, "You may dismount whenever you're ready."
As acquainted as he was to falling from great heights and suffering no permanent injury, Ranma hopped off of the princess before it occurred to him that he wasn't in his usual body. Fortunately, right after the thought gave him a shot of adrenaline and made him go stock-still, he made a soft — if inelegant — landing that pushed out some puffs and wisps of the cloud.
While he prodded the cloud experimentally, Celestia took a few steps away from him before sitting down and folding her legs beneath her, which he absently noticed. He hopped in place, then again, before keeping it up, and eventually found out that the cloud had some spring to it while testing grip and friction. Once he felt satisfied with what he had garnered from that, he spared the princess a glance, noticed that she wasn't on her hooves, and proceeded to mirror how she sat. When he didn't fall through the cloud, he rolled onto his back without a second thought, where he made a pleasant discovery.
"Hey, this is really comfy," he remarked.
Celestia chuckled lightly and said, "Clouds make nice resting places for pegasi. Many use them as mattresses, despite the effort to maintain them."
Ranma rolled back onto his belly, and when he raised his head he noticed that it was hard to tell his mane apart from the cloud. "So," he began, before taking his gaze away from his mane, "pegasi can walk on clouds and fly. Can unicorns do more than move things around?"
"They can both do more than that," Celestia replied. "But, as far as unicorns are concerned, there's no real limit to what they can do; it's how we are able to understand each other, for example." Her expression turned more serious, as did her tone. "The real challenge is control and doing what you intend, when you intend it. For that reason most unicorns are content to only learn a couple of simple spells."
After Ranma chewed on that information for a few seconds, Celestia stood up and created a portal back to the guest room, and he looked through it with wide eyes.
"Let's head back," she suggested. "We can talk more tomorrow, if you'd like."
Ranma glanced down at the cloud, wishing he could try out more things with it, before reluctantly following the princess through the portal. He expected to feel something during the transition, he didn't know what, but all he felt was a shift in temperature as he entered the room.
Once he was fully in the room, he couldn't help turning to the princess and asking, "Is that hard to do?"
"Not at all," Celestia casually replied. "Even newborn foals can create portals."
Unsure if she was joking, or being serious and pretending to not entice him, Ranma remained silent while she closed the portal.
"Now," Celestia said, turning her attention to him fully, "I won't be free until the afternoon. If you'd like, I could ask my niece to keep you company and answer any questions you may have until then; perhaps give you a tour of the castle. She's a really nice young mare and I trust her implicitly, but I'll understand if you would rather keep to yourself."
Ranma considered her offer before asking, "Can I leave the room without her?"
"Of course," Celestia readily assured. "I only ask that you allow a guard to accompany you in that case, to assist you with directions and communication, and to offer protection if needed."
Cocking his head, Ranma asked, "Is this place dangerous or something?"
Celestia shook her head. "Not at all. But you are my guest, and seeking my help, so I feel it would be remiss of me to not do something to ensure your safety."
Nodding his head in understanding, Ranma eventually decided, "Alright; I guess I'll spend the day with your niece, then."
Smiling, with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, Celestia took a step back and said, "Then I bid you a good night."
With that said, she vanished with a flash of light.
Ranma blinked his eyes, partly in disbelief but mostly with the hope of clearing the afterimage from his vision faster. Once his view of the world was no longer impaired, he walked over to the mirror and stood in front of it, where he inspected his reflection much more carefully and earnestly than before. While he did, he also thought about his walk on the cloud, and everything that he'd seen a horn do.
After a while, he concluded that — at the very least — it would be interesting to live there if he decided to give it a trial run.