//------------------------------//
// Hearth's Warming Trip, Part 2 
// Story: The Royal Fillies REDUX 
// by blazikenking 
//------------------------------//

During our two week trip to Canterlot, I got to meet and learn more about the mares and dragon from the picture at Pony Joe's.





Skyla and I sat on Aunt Celestia's back between her wings while she was laying down by the fireplace on our third evening away from home. "How do you like Canterlot so far, girls?" She asked with her warm voice.

"I love it!" Skyla happily answered. "There's so many new toys and snacks and things! Can we go to Pony Joe's?"

"Maybe later. What about you, Inova?"

"It's okay." I lay down along her shoulders and her moving mane came dangerously close to tickling my nose. "I'm bored."

I could almost hear the cunning smile in her voice. "Bored in Canterlot? I guess we'll have to do something about that, won't we?"

"Are we going somewhere, Aunt Celery?" Skyla asked.

Aunt Celestia suddenly made a sputtering sound and my spot on her back began shaking. It wasn't long before she began laughing out loud. "Au-Aunt Celery? HA HA HA!"

The door to the room opened and Aunt Luna entered. She looked a bit grumpy, but also hopeful. "What's got you laughing, sister?"

"S-Skyla called me. . . Pfffft, HA HA HA!"

Skyla sounded worried. "Aunt Celery?"

Luna started laughing as well and I reached up to cover my ears. The room echoed, and the two laughing alicorns made a lot of noise.

After a while, the laughter died down and I was able to uncover my ears. "I needed that," Aunt Luna said with a satisfied smile. "One of the Bluebloods petitioned again."

"Was it a shortsighted thing or a selfish thing?"

"Both. It's admirable how much effort he put into his scheme, but alas, he didn't put that energy towards actually achieving it himself."

"Typical Blueblood behavior. But enough about that family, we have a bored filly to entertain."

"Hi, Aunt Luna," I said with a wave.

"Hello, Inova," Aunt Luna responded with a smile. "Celery, do you mind if I teleport Inova to my chambers? I have something that may entertain her."

"If she wants," Aunt Celestia said before turning to me. "It's your choice."

I didn't have anything better to do, so I carefully got off Aunt Celestia's shoulders and walked over to Aunt Luna. "I'm ready," I said.

"I'll let your parents know where you're going, Inova. Luna, I believe this will be her first teleport, so be ready for anything."

"Of course," Aunt Luna said before she gently put a forehoof on my back. "Here we go." There was a flash of light and a brief feeling of pressure, then we were suddenly in a different room. "How do you feel, Inova?"

"Dizzy," I answered as I tried to keep my breathing steady. I didn't feel anything churning in my belly, but I wasn't going to take any chances.

"That's normal for a first time teleport. Just keep breathing until you feel alright." She ran her hoof down my back as I followed her instructions. "You're already doing better than some ponies."

"I am?" The dizziness was fading fast and I began feeling better.

"Indeed. Some don't handle it so well, leading to. . . Messes. As for why we're here, I have something you may like." Aunt Luna levitated a box in front of me, and the shaking sound of its contents were both new to me and oddly familiar. "These are Golem Bricks. You can build things out of them."

I looked at the box. It had a variety of colorful pieces on it, and I felt somewhat excited for some reason. "What kind of things?"

"Whatever you want. I'll help." She moved and lay down across from me, opened the box, and used it as a tray for the pieces. It was both lots of fun and relaxing at the same time, except when multiple pieces came up on the bottom of my hoof.





Skyla and I sat with Twilight, our dad’s little sister, with her wings wrapped around us as she told us a story with a book. The book was mostly uncolored pictures and she explained what happened as she went along. “Long ago, there were two sisters-”

“Like us?” Skyla interrupted.

“Not quite. The older sister raised the sun and brought the day to the land of Equestria, while the younger one raised the moon and brought the night. For a time, things were harmonious, and the sisters worked together to make sure the land they ruled over was peaceful. But, as time went on, the sister of the night started to become jealous of her older sister and all the praise she got, while the ponies slept through her night.

“The younger sister, overcome by her emotions, refused to make way for the day and attacked her older sister. The older sister defended herself and wielded the Elements of Harmony against her twisted sister, banishing her to the moon for a thousand years.”

“That’s a long time out,” I said.

Auntie Twilight chuckled at my description. “Yes, a thousand years is a long time to think about what you did. The older sister had her difficulties, too. With her sister banished, she was lonely, even when surrounded by subjects that loved her. For a thousand years, she ruled over Equestria alone as its sole Princess. Then, on the thousandth year, during the eve of a Summer Sun Celebration, the younger sister came back and banished the older one to the sun. Six ponies went out to find the Elements of Harmony, and together, they cleansed the younger sister of her jealousy and brought the older one back. They reunited, made up, and have been ruling as equals since then.”

“Wow,” Skyla said in awe as Twilight closed the book. “Where are the sisters now?”

“Right there,” Twilight pointed to them on the other side of the room.

Skyla was shocked. “Aunts Luna and Celery!?”

“I told you, Twilight,” Aunt Celestia said. “I am what my dietician wants me to be.”

Aunt Luna snickered behind one of her wings. “I don’t think ‘full of cake’ is what she meant.”

“Oh, please. I am Princess Celery of the Peanut Butter and Raisin Kingdom. All shall adore me for my amazing ability to put peanut butter and raisins on a stalk of my namesake.”

Luna gasped. “You fiend! The Fruit Salad Shogunate shall not stand for this! Have at thee!”

“Luna, there is no need for violence.”

“Maybe not. . .” Aunt Luna’s horn glowed, there was a flash of light, and she suddenly had a pair of instruments in her telekinesis. “But there is room for violins!”

“Not this again.” Auntie Twilight’s horn lit up and I felt the sound stopping shields appear in my ears.

I didn’t hear what was said next, but I did hear a little bit of the violins. I’d never seen or heard them before, but it sounded like Aunt Luna could not play them at all.





"Hello, Inova," Rarity said with a smile as I met her in a workshop in the castle. "I've got an early Hearth's Warming present for you." She set a plain box with a lid on it on the floor in front of me. "Go ahead and open it."

I pulled the lid off and saw two things in the box. Both of them were black with light blue lines like my mane and tail, but I had no idea what to make of them. "What are they?"

"Your mother told me about your cold shock on the train ride here, so I made some wing covers for you. Would you like some help putting them on?"

I looked back and tried to get my wings to open, but for some reason, I couldn't get them to. "Please?"

"Of course! You won't mind if I use a bit of levitation on you, right? I only need to hold your wings open for a bit."

"Just don't lift me."

"Can do." Rarity used her levitation to open my wings and put the wing covers on one at a time before gently closing them. "What do you think?"

I inspected the wing covers. Part of me was expecting them to be itchy, but they were actually quite comfortable and I could already feel my wings getting less cold. "They're nice. Thank you."

Rarity smiled at the praise. "You're welcome, Inova. Just make sure to take them off before you fly."

"Okay." 





I sighed as I laid on the floor and read a picture book about pegasi and all they could do in the sky. Each page made me aware of my wings and the comfortable covers that were on them, but despite knowing that, everything in the book seemed like it was out of reach for me.

The door opened just as I shoved the book away in a huff. "Is something wrong, Inova?" Fluttershy's soft voice asked.

"I'm never going to fly," I glumly said as I rested my head on my forehooves. "I have wings, but. . ."

Despite having hooves and being on a marble floor, Fluttershy somehow quietly walked over and lay down by me. "You'll get it eventually. Some day, you'll be able to fly without thinking about it too much."

"I don't think so."

"I believe you'll be able to, because I was once scared to fly."

That caught my attention. "Really?"

"Oh yes. It took a long time for me to master flight, and even today, I still make mistakes." For a bit, she just lay in silence with me as the sun started going down. "Nopony's expecting you to be perfect right now. You haven't even started first grade, so don't worry about it. You've got plenty of time to figure it out, and you'll have lots of good teachers along the way."

Her words were soothing, and I was less upset after hearing her talk. I was still mad at the taunting book, but with her next to me, I was able to get most of it out of my mind.





Applejack led me through the Canterlot gardens outside the castle. It was quiet and peaceful, with the crunch of snow underhoof as the only sound. “So, how’s kindergarten treatin’ ya?”

“It’s okay,” I answered. “I like to stack the blocks in the corner by myself.”

“Ya do anything else?”

“I’ve been reading books.”

“How about outside stuff? Any racing?”

“No, I don’t do that.”

She sounded confused. “Really? Why not?”

I looked away from her as I answered. “I. . . I trip over my hooves when I run.”

“Really now?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I didn’t say anything.

Applejack, thankfully, found another topic. “See these little white flowers on the hedges?”

I looked where she was and saw a wall of small flowers. “What about them?”

“These are frostdew vine flowers. They help the hedges stay strong and healthy, bloom in the cold, and are a good snack this time of year.” She took a bite off the wall and chewed on the flowers for a bit. “Go ahead, try one.”

I inched closer and opened my mouth. Before I got close enough to bite down, a feeling of wrongness hit me and I stepped back. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s okay. They’re here for tryin’.”

“Well. . .”

She was concerned. “Is somethin’ wrong?”

“I don’t feel like I should eat it.”

“Hm. Okay.”

Her abrupt acceptance of my answer caught me by surprise. “Really?”

“If you don’t feel you should, then don’t force yourself.” She started walking and I followed. “Do you want to know why Ah didn’t invite your sister to walk with us?”

“Is it because she would try to eat everything?”

“Yup. Ah adore her just as much as Ah do you, but from what Ah’ve heard, Ah wouldn’t trust her near my farm just yet.”

“You have a farm?” I’d read about them, but nopony in the Crystal Empire had anything bigger than a small garden. A farm was full of gardens with lots of different things.

“Sweet Apple Acres. We do lots of stuff there. We grow crops, raise animals, cook up and sell food, fix machines, build shelters, can and jar what we grow, and. . . That’s a lot for you to get, isn’t it?”

I looked at her in awe. “You can do all of that?” I didn’t know what everything she said was, but it was still amazing.

“Well, yes. My sister’s better at the machine stuff, and she’s published books about that and construction. Ah didn’t think those books would sell all that well, but they do.”

“Is construction like stacking blocks?”

She gave my question a bit of thought. “Well, kind of. Sometimes, you stack blocks when you’re building things, but you don’t always build things by stacking blocks. Does that make sense?”

I tried to imagine what she meant, but my mind kept going back to stacking blocks. “No, not really.”

“That’s okay. You’ll learn about it someday.”

We kept walking around the gardens as the day wore on. It was nice and peaceful.





Rainbow hovered in front of Skyla and me in a large room in the castle. Between her and us was a fluffy white cloud, as big as Aunt Celestia with her wings out, sitting a couple feet above the floor, which didn't make sense to me, despite watching her bring it in. "I'm going to give you a head start on flying. The first thing to do is to stand on this cloud."

"Why?" Skyla asked.

"Because you can land and walk on them. And I'll buy a milkshake for whoever lands up here." She promptly stopped hovering and let herself drop onto the cloud. "Your turn."

Skyla was immediately upset. "You cheater! I wasn't ready to get up there!"

Rainbow was unfazed. "I said whoever lands on this cloud, not the first to land on it. If you can get up here in the next five minutes, you'll get a milkshake. It's not a race."

The explanation cleared things up for Skyla. "Oh." She immediately dashed forward and began jumping to try and get on the cloud.

"Come on, use your wings, Skyla," Rainbow encouraged. "You can get up here!"

My sister started using her wings, and her jumps got a bit more height. It wasn't long before she got enough height to get a hoof in the side of the cloud. As she climbed the rest of the way, she used her wings to give herself a boost, and she soon made it up over the edge. "I did it!" She cheered when she was on top with Rainbow.

"Hey, good job!" Rainbow looked back at me. "You coming up, Inova?"

Her question barely registered as I tried to figure out what was going on. I'd doubted all the stuff from the pegasus picture book since it didn't make sense to me, but everything that had just happened in under five minutes proved me wrong.

"Inova?"

"Get up here, Inova!" Skyla called out. "We'll get milkshakes!"

I couldn't bring myself to move as I kept trying to process everything. Clouds were supposed to be really really high up, and they shouldn't have been able to support anything, but my sister and Rainbow were just sitting up there on a cloud in a castle like it was nothing. Skyla had climbed it like a bug on the wall, which made even less sense to me.

"Okay. . . This doesn't look good," Rainbow said. "Skyla, I promise I'll come back with a milkshake for you. I just need to find Twilight first so she can help your sister."

Skyla nodded. "Okay."

Rainbow flew out of the room, briefly leaving a rainbow trail in my sight. As I kept trying to make sense of what happened, I didn't notice time going by.

A hoof poked my side, and I didn't react. "Hmm. . ." Auntie Twilight looked around me before ending up face to face with me. "Inova, are you there?"

"System error, system error," I quietly said.

Auntie Twilight's concern turned into curiosity. "System error? Inova, I hope you'll forgive me for this." She flew up to the cloud. "Skyla, could you get down for me? I need to borrow this cloud for a moment."

"But I need to stay up here so Rainbow will get me a milkshake!" Skyla objected.

"I'll explain if she needs me to. Can I have the cloud?"

". . . Okay." With some assistance, Skyla reluctantly got down.

Auntie Twilight seemed to massage the cloud for a bit, making it darker before she moved it over me. "Inova, please forgive me." A moment later, I was drenched from a sudden and brief downpour, which briefly distracted me from my confusion before I became confused again, but with extra creeping coldness.

Rainbow flew in at that moment with two milkshakes in her grasp. "Twilight, what did you do?" 

"I was trying to snap Inova out of her confusion, but I don't think it worked."

"You'd better get her dried off before-"

The door loudly opened. "Twilight, what did you do?" Mom did not sound happy.

Auntie Twilight sounded like Skyla did when she was caught with her muzzle in the cookie jar, though not as muffled. "Well. . . Inova was really confused about something, so I thought soaking her would snap her out of it. I guess it didn't."

"You are going to dry Inova off, then you're going to go to your room and think about what you did."

"Cadence, we're both adults. You can't-" Twilight stopped when mom growled at her, and she sounded a lot more timid after that. "Okay, you can." Twilight landed in front of me, her horn lit up, and all the water in my fur and feathers vanished, along with the creeping chill. "I'll go now." She left the room at a walking pace without any fanfare.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Rainbow said. "Oh, Skyla, I forgot to ask what flavor you wanted, so I got an orange shake for you."

"Yay!" Skyla got the smaller shake from Rainbow and started on it immediately. It didn't last long before she was done, then she looked at me and started laughing. "Inova's all fuzzy and fluffy!"

I finally moved and hid behind mom's legs, where I felt safe. I just wanted things to make sense.





Things did not make sense. Skyla and I had been allowed into the castle kitchen so we could learn from and help Pinkie with some baking. Aside from her pronking instead of walking there, it started off pretty normal.

Then she started singing.

I couldn't make out the words to her song because I couldn't understand what was going on. She would start stirring something really fast, leave it, and it would keep stirring. I saw her disappear into a pantry and come out of an oven on the other side of the kitchen seconds later, and the kitchen wasn't small.

The chefs that were working in the kitchen when we arrived didn't seem bothered by what she was doing, and even went along with her song and dance. Even her coming out of a pot of mashed potatoes didn't slow them down, and she wasn't slowed by the lid getting put back on the pot she was in either.

While Skyla was being entertained by Pinkie doing the impossible, I quietly left the kitchen and sat down at a booth in the corner of the dining hall.

Before my brain melted, a quartet of guards showed up. "Is something wrong, Princess Inova?" One of them, a pegasus, asked.

I tried to use words to explain what I'd just seen, but none came, and I wound up just pointing towards the kitchen.

He looked the way I pointed. "It's your first time meeting Pinkie Pie, isn't it?"

I found a word to use. "Yes."

"That explains it." His tone turned more serious. "Gentlecolts, we're on royal friend duty now. We'll need nachos, cheese sticks, and some hearty salads." At his decision, the other three stallions moved, then he slid into the booth and sat next to me. "I remember what Pinkie did the first time I met her."

"What did she do?"

He put a wing across my back as he told his story. "I was with my fellow cadets during the last weeks of boot camp and we were being briefed on how to spot an intruder. She was there and she was wearing a paper mask with a picture of a guard stallion's face on it. Nopony seemed to notice anything was off, or maybe nopony felt like they could say anything. She acted perfectly like a guard until she slammed a baguette on the sergeant's horn with enough force to knock him out and dislodge her mask. She crab walked out and laughed in Prench all the way."

My confusion only grew, not just from the story, but from Pinkie's antics in it somehow making a weird amount of sense to me. "Huh?"

"She slammed the door on the way out and that was when the sergeant got to his hooves. 'All of you saw her. I know you did. If she was an infiltrator, she would have gotten past all of you. Just be glad she's silly instead of malicious.' After that, he levitated the baguette off his horn and started eating it."

"It had warm garlic butter on it," one of the other guards said as the three returned with the food. The nachos and cheese sticks went in the middle while the salads were distributed. My serving was smaller than the ones the guards had. "And it wasn't the first time either. The other guards told me that they experienced something similar, though she did different things."

"Like the Spider Mare bit," another one said. "Costume and everything."

"Or the bookcase frame," the fourth one added. "The shelves and books stayed in place, but the frame fell around the sergeant and she hit him with a cream pie. Half his face was covered, and he kept going like nothing happened."

I listened to the guard stallions talk about stuff as I nibbled on my salad. It was a very good salad, and I kept my focus on it. The salad made sense, but the stories did not. 





"Hey Inova," Spike casually said as our paths crossed in a hallway. "I heard you're bored again. Would you like to play a game with me?"

His question stopped me. "A game?"

"I've got some modified arcade cabinets in my room here. I did the work on them myself. Everypony else is busy with something, so I was heading that way. What are you doing?"

"Getting lost." The halls all looked so similar, I couldn't tell where I was.

"I know that feeling. It took me a long time to learn where everything is here. Come on, let's go."

I followed Spike through the winding hallways and listened to his descriptions of the arcade games he had. I didn't know any of the characters he talked about, but they all sounded interesting with their various powers and abilities.

When we got to his room, it turned out he had a whole wall's worth of arcade cabinets. "Which one looks the most interesting to you? All of them can handle two players."

I looked end to end and cabinet to cabinet. The one that caught my eye was light blue with gold lightning bolts, featuring a group called the Power Ponies. "That one."

"Alright," Spike readily agreed. "Just let me get something for you to stand on so you can play."

While I waited, I looked at the machine. As cool as it was, it felt. . . Old, like it had shown up a long time ago and been replaced multiple times, yet was still here. I couldn't put my hoof on what I was feeling.

"Here you go." Spike rolled a wheeled set of short steps up to the machine and I went up, the top step turning out to be a platform. He started the game up. "Which Power Pony do you want?"

I looked at the controls in front of me. On my left was a stick with a ball on it, and on my right were three spaced out buttons labeled Attack/Select, Jump/Back, and Special. Moving the stick moved a blue thing on the screen. A red thing moved under Spike's control, and he chose a colt named Hum Drum. "Which one's easiest?"

"Hmm. . . Zapp. Her attacks all have some level of knockback or stun and her special moves hit the whole screen."

I chose Zapp and soon, Spike and I were fighting mummies that The Pharaoh sent at us.

After a couple rough starts, I had the hang of the machine. Spike's character didn't do much damage to the enemies, but he was able to give Zapp what he called Buffs, which made her more powerful.

Getting to The Pharaoh took a while and lots of concentration, but we did it. As the credits went by and I caught my breath, Spike gave me a pat on my shoulders. "You did really well. I'm actually impressed."

"That was fun," I agreed with a smile on my face. "Can we play again?"

"Maybe after supper. I heard we're having lasagna tonight."





December 25th, Hearth's Warming day, and more importantly to me, the last day in Canterlot before the train ride home. The wing covers Rarity made were very nice and so comfortable, I forgot I was wearing them on top of forgetting about my wings.

The first thing the thirteen of us did after a late breakfast was to go to a very nice theater in town to see a play. Auntie Twilight and her friends played the main characters once years ago, but none of them would tell me what the play was about.

Before the play itself started, the mare on stage made an announcement. "Fillies and gentlecolts, before we begin this year's rendition of The Founding Miracle, I would like to bring your attention to our special guests in the balcony." At her words, the spotlights turned on us. "The living bearers of the Elements of Harmony, all six alicorns, Prince Shining Armor, and the noble dragon Spike."

As the crowd cheered and stomped their hooves, I slowly lowered myself to hide behind the railing. I didn't want the attention from everypony, I just wanted the play to go on.

Mom leaned towards Auntie Twilight. "You do realize she technically mentioned you twice, right?"

"It's fine," Twilight said. "It really is the easiest way to describe our group."

After the crowd quieted down, I got back up and watched the play.





"So, what did we learn from The Founding Miracle?" Mom asked as we left the theater after the play was done.

"Friendship scares wendigos!" Skyla happily said.

"Inova?"

My answer was simple. "What Skyla said."

"So if you don't make any friends, you'll be haunted by wendigos and freeze."

Pinkie chimed in. "I heard they can even take you away and encase you in a frozen pool of liquid ice."

"They can do that?" I asked.

"If you're lonely and have no friends, they might be able to."

Dad changed the topic. "Hey, I heard there's something for us at the castle. Who wants to go investigate it?" All of us agreed to his idea, so we went back to the castle.

We found a big decorated tree in the castle's throne room with wrapped boxes under it. Skyla ran ahead to them while I walked up, though I was still excited. Some of them had a black ribbon with a light blue line on it, similar to my mane and tail. It looked like they were all mine because of the ribbon, but I double checked the tags anyways to make sure they were mine. I didn't want any of Skyla's presents, which all seemed to have ribbons that matched her mane and tail.

While my sister enthusiastically tore into her presents, I took mine more slowly. Among the toys I got, the ones that really caught my interest were the Golem Brick ones, though the sets looked very simple.





Shining Armor and Cadence shared a single present from Celestia and Luna. It consisted of two pieces of paper. One was a sizable check. The other was a letter.

Dear Cadence and Shining

Celestia and I have decided to be the best aunts ever and we will spoil Inova and Skyla. This is a threat. The 100,000 bit check attached is for you to renovate and give each filly her own room for play and creativity, and maybe even hosting events or media. Take your time to decide when to do this.

Thanks to my dream walking skills, I was able to see and discern some of what each of your fillies would like and learn from. Naturally, Skyla's dreams of a world made of food was untenable, but after digging under that delicious syrup drizzled pancake layer, the best choice of toys for her were the Enchanted Emotion dolls. As happy and optimistic as she is, she needs to learn how to deal with someone filled with different kinds of negativity, and these will help her with that.

Getting Inova the Golem Brick sets was actually a really easy decision, especially after letting her play with some. She's had some dreams that were practically made of the things before coming to Canterlot, which is really impressive since, as far as I'm aware, that toy hasn't even been advertised in the Crystal Empire. She even had a bunch of parts in her dreams that don't exist, including gears, frames, and a number of joints. My only concern is that Skyla might try to eat some of the pieces.

Make sure you find or make time to play with each of them. You're in their dreams, and it's only in good ways.

Sincerely, Luna

P.S.: We'll be sending some books back with you for each of the fillies. Celestia chose them based on what you've told us about them in your letters.

Cadence slipped the letter and the check under her wing. "That's a nice gift."

"That it is," Shining agreed. "That said, it's a lot to work with."

"We could turn it into a lesson on budgeting for the fillies. We'll take what we need for the walls, floor, and ceiling first, then split the rest between them for decorating to their tastes."

"Good idea. Let's wait before we do that, though."





On the train ride home, I read an autographed book Aunt Celestia had gotten for me. It was about the basics of construction and architecture, written by Apple Bloom. Mom and dad thought it was too much for me to grasp, but I liked it.

I wanted to keep building with the Golem Bricks since I really liked them, but something told me the train wasn't a good place for that, so I stuck to the book.