Starlight looked around with a hanging jawline. "Is... We're..." She twirled on Umbra. "Did you plan this?!"
"I didn't!" Umbra held up her hooves. "I'll pay for a ticket home, or you can hang out. Whichever you'd like. This was all Discord, that was his name, right? This was his idea."
"Discord..." Starlight glowered a moment before she brightened. "Well, forget him. He won't ruin my day. At least I get to hang out with my Wizard from the north."
Umbra smiled hopefully. "Sure, yeah... Sudden vacation." She circled in place. "Sorry you had to see that."
"See what?" She walked alongside Umbra, deeper into the city.
"My... old self?" Umbra shrugged, her mane shrugging with her. "It feels so creepy now. Four hooves and zero fingers for me!"
"Impressive." Starlight hiked a brow. "You were a human for how long?"
"Um..." Umbra thought back to a lifetime ago. "Years and years, decades... Since I was born? Arguably before then."
Starlight prodded Umbra, but kept walking. "Then that's kinda there. You'll always be a little human. Still, if you like being a pony, far be it from me to badtalk it. I like pony life too, so there ya go."
"Hmmph. No outrunning the past, huh?" She thumped sidelong into Starlight. "What sort of magical things should we get up to today, hm?"
"This." Starlight flicked the necklace dangling around Umbra's neck. "I want to know more about it, and I think you do too."
"I am curious." Umbra willed the necklace up by the end of it to see it floating partly in front of herself. "But also surprised. I figured you'd want way more duels and way less study time, given the choice."
"Eh." Starlight shrugged as she looked about the city. "I got bored. We can come back to that. For now, let's figure out the heart artifact and what it does. Oh, I should probably say hi to the rest of your fam."
Fam? "You mean Shining and Cadance?"
"Who else? You got another family tucked in there?" She reached up to poke around Umbra's writhing mane, but did not find another family of ponies hiding in it. "Let's say hi. Don't want to surprise them too badly with me just... being here. Oh! I have fam to say hi to too! Sunburst is going to be so surprised."
That brought up a question, and one of Umbra's hooves. "Please don't get mad, but are you... lesbian, or bi, or...?"
Starlight inclined her head with obvious confusion. "Can you... tell me what any of those are?"
"Ugh... Human words? Human preconceptions, I realize, saying it out loud." She listed her head against a waiting hoof. "And there I was, complaining about not being one of those... Alright, so, a boy pony and a girl pony love each other very much. That's the default, since it makes more ponies, right? Am I off?"
"Sure?" Starlight shook her head with some confusion. "I know where baby ponies, that's foal by the way, come from. Most adults do. Now where are you going with that?"
Umbra cycled her hooves, walking on her hinds a moment. "Do ponies have a name for when two ponies who are both ladies or both fellas fall for each other?"
"A couple?" Starlight shook her head slowly. "Do... humans? You're losing me. Anyway, if you're trying to ask what kinds of ponies I like... Well! One of the ones I like went and got married." She swatted at Umbra with a dull thump. "I hope she's happy forever, but that's that, hm?"
Umbra let out a little laugh, setting aside any attempt to explain silly human lingo. "Feel free to tell me to stop asking, but what about stallions? You alright with those?"
"I'm not in love with any of those." Starlight shrugged. "I wasn't in love with any mares either until one came along... Who knows what the future will bring, but I did not get foalnapped to the frozen north to talk about that. First stop, Royal Family!" She charged up the stairs with a mild frown.
"Hoof, meet mouth." Umbra hurried after her, not prodding further.
They ran into Shining Armor first. "Starlight?" He looked at her with naked surprise. "What are you doing here? Um, not that I'm upset, just surprised, is all..."
Starlight waved back at Umbra. "Her and Discord. Things happened, I'm the prize. Anyway, just saying hi, also, we'll be checking these out." She flicked Shining's dangling necklace. "That's alright, yeah?"
"Sure?" Shining tossed his head towards Umbra. "She has one, but if you need mine, let me know. Welcome to the Crystal Empire. Should I get a room for you, or...?"
"If you could." Starlight smiled at Shining. "I'd appreciate that. This wasn't a planned trip."
"Sure thing." He nodded to Umbra. "I'll let Cadie know what's going on."
"I have an idea." Umbra sat and brought up her hooves, cradling one of the segments of her necklace. She focused on Starlight's presence, the visit, the wondering of the necklace, the maybe magic duels later?
Shining's ears flickered. "Woah... That was... odd. What did you just do?"
Umbra let the necklace fall against her chest. "Ah ha, did it work? I had a feeling, since the necklace is our tie, physical, we could shove more through it if we tried."
Shining lifted up a bit of his own necklace, peering curiously at it.
Umbra felt... a remembrance of a thing she never knew before. A comic maybe? Two superhero ponies, talking to one another with the power of their thoughts. "Yes, like that! Wow, this is strange." They were memories, but they weren't her memories, but they surfaced the same exact way. "Let's not use that too often. That'll get disorienting."
"Agreed." He let the necklace fall. "But, still pretty neat! As an option, I'll take it." He went in for a nuzzle and they shared a moment of affection, snout to snout. "I should get back to work. Have fun, Starlight!"
Starlight waved as he marched off to guard business. "As husbands go, he's pretty nice at least. If you'd picked a lousy pony, I would have dragged you out back and pummeled you until you saw sense."
"Good thing I avoided that. Anyway, pretty sure Cadance knows what's going on, and even why she knows, thanks to Shining. We can add that to what this thing is." She set off around Starlight. "This way. Let's visit my room and get to serious study."
"Let's get down to magic," half-sang Starlight. "Not a bad way to spend a day. How far can you get from it, by the way?"
Umbra reached for her doorknob, her magic actually doing the gripping. "About, what, six feet or so? Further than that, it pops back around my neck."
Starlight grabbed it with a sudden arcane yank. She launched it down the hallway, and it popped back around Umbra's neck as if it had never left it. "That's still fascinating to see."
Umbra snorted as she opened the door. "We're back."
"We?" But Polish saw the guest a moment after. "Ah, would either of you like a refreshment?" She pressed an envelope against Umbra without a word on it.
Umbra blinked at the... it was more of a folded paper, with a proper seal. It was Shining's seal. "I was just talking to him..." She cracked it with a swipe of a hoof and a flash of dark magic. "He could have just told me." She unfolded the paper to look over it. "Huh... Oh!" They had agreed to let her keep Polish. "I never even got to asking..." She put the letter aside. "Good news, you get to stay with me, even when I move in with Shining and Cadance."
Polish smiled gently. "Very good, ma'am. Would either of you like a refreshment?"
Umbra swatted at her servant. "You're allowed to be happy. This is good news."
"I'm very happy, ma'am. But I'm also on duty." She dipped her head at Umbra. "My adherence to such things is one reason you want me around, ma'am."
"Not entirely wrong..." Umbra turned to Starlight. "Want anything? She's serious."
"Um... Sure?" She shook her head as Polish walked off. "But we're here for that." She pointed at the dangling necklace. "So let's get to it."
They put the necklace where both could see and touch it and got to work. They ran various magic fields over it and tried dipping it in a few strange substances. They sang to it and rubbed it. They squinted at its wickedly complicated internal networks, which promised no easy answers. This was no pony artifact. It hadn't been made by one. Its exact workings proved to be beyond them. The heart had made it.
"So only the heart knows," sighed out Starlight. "So unfair... And Cadance already said no to trying to rip that apart. I asked."
Umbra snorted at that. "Somehow, that makes sense for you. What's a shattered artifact or two? Not like you wouldn't put it back together."
"Exactly!" Starlight threw up her hooves. "But she said no... And I'm guessing you won't go around her."
"Nope."
"Good." Starlight rolled her eyes. "I hate it, but good. You would not be a very helpful co-ruler if you said yes. About that! Celestia's retiring!"
"So I hear?" Umbra thought of that large alicorn. "She seemed to have everything under control..."
"To be fair, she does, and she has, for basically forever... If anypony deserved a vacation, she'd be at the top of that list." Starlight raised a hoof to those lofty heights of Celestia's earning of some time off. "So... I get that... If she wants to retire, she's earned it over a dozen times over. It's still a surprise, you know?"
"Celestia..." Umbra looked to the window, light spilling in through it. "As steady as the sun in the sky. "
"Exactly." Starlight nodded firmly. "Nothing against Twilight. I love her! Um, not that way, before you ask. I'm not sure she has any drive for that. She is literally the princess of platonic relationships and all. And she takes that very seriously... I'll be surprised if she ever finds a special somepony." She snickered with a new thought. "I heard, she made eyes with one pony, once. He even works here!"
"W-wait? Seriously?" Dozens of ponies came and went in Umbra's mind, stallions and mares. "Which... one? If you know."
"Some local guard. Never really met him myself. What was his name...? On the tip of my tongue... Sentry? That's just another word for guard... But we like to have names like that. Fast Sentry, Fast... no... Flash! Right, Flash Sentry."
That narrowed down the list of ponies down to one. "I've met him before. Nice enough. Don't know him that well though." Still, they were a guypony, narrowing down the choices of Twilight's alignment a little. Not that it mattered much for ponies, apparently. They just didn't sweat out little details like that. Umbra smirked with a fresh thought. "Want to fix that? Since you're here... We could go say hello and get to know Twilight's maybe paramour."
Starlight burst into giggles. "Naughty! I approve." She clapped joyfully. "And more productive than staring at the necklace. We can come back to that with fresh eyes. For now, Flash Sentry harassment hour."
"Ma'am." Polish was still there. "If I may be so bold. Flash is on-duty."
Umbra twirled on Polish. "How do you know that?!"
"We both serve the same castle." Polish waved a hoof about slowly. "I saw the schedule earlier, ma'am. He will be off-duty in precisely three hours and ten minutes, ma'am."
Starlight waggled her brows at the helpful maid. "You have some quality help. Alright, we know what we're doing in three hours and ten minutes then. Sounds like enough time for a quick duel to shake off the dust." She started for the door. "I'll even let you get the first swing in."