It is immediately obvious to me that Lieutenant Armor views the orange juice as a red flag.
"What's this for?" he asks. It is a neutral sort of question, not rude, but also not altogether pleased. It is the tone of voice used by duty-bound soldiers or suspicious ponies on the lookout for danger, which makes perfect sense, as Lt. Armor is both.
"Nothing! I just thought you might like a little fresh orange juice for breakfast. I squeezed it myself. The Resident Minister's kitchen staff has been so busy of late!"
There is a brief pause before I go on to say, "That's what they've been telling me, at least."
"Mm," says Shining Armor. "Just out of curiosity, did this start before or after the Incident?"
"After.“ I break eye contact.
"I see."
"It wasn't my fault, Lieutenant! I had no idea that I was going to inadvertently unleash several years' worth of pent-up alicorn magic all over my guest suite!"
"No one is saying it's your fault."
"No. But they keep looking at me funny. They used to be cautiously polite. Now they're whisperingly suspicious. I am not at all pleased by this state of affairs. But, let's not trouble ourselves with that now. Have some juice!"
Lt. Armor eyes me with the faintest soupçon of a squint, as though I am a distant object he cannot quite make out. He takes the glass in his aura and has a small, businesslike sip. I am proud to note that there are almost no seeds in the juice. Better princesses than I would preamble the discussion I plan on having with a much nicer breakfast, but I am helpless in the kitchen. Sometimes I feel that I am helpless just about everywhere.
"So anyway," I begin, "this whole state of affairs has dramatically accelerated the timeframe in which I will be leaving the Resident Minister's home and acquiring a place of my own in this city."
Lt. Armor is too well-disciplined to fall victim to spit-takes, but I can see him rolling his mouthful of juice around. He swallows most of it and then discreetly deposits just one seed into a nearby cloth napkin.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you're what now?"
"Have a croissant! They're good! I didn't make them!"
"Here's the deal: I'll have a croissant when you explain to me what you just said."
"I'm getting out of here!" I exclaim. "And, since you are apparently attached to my hip, that means you are getting out of here as well!"
"We do as you wish, ma’am," says the lieutenant, patently wishing that we didn't always do as I wish. I don't blame him. "Whose goodwill are we going to be intruding on next?"
"Nopony's goodwill, Lieutenant. We will be purchasing our own place together!"
Lt. Armor spits out another seed. "Up until a little while ago, I would have suggested using your royal stipend for this."
"Yes, but I gave it all away."
"Yes, you did."
"To a little filly."
“So that she could attend a flight camp."
"Yes!" I say a little more loudly. "I know Posey's little filly is just going to have the greatest of times there. So, I will not have you questioning my judgment calls."
"Wasn't doing any such thing. Merely questioning where the bits will come from."
"I'm getting a job!"
Lt. Armor calmly spits out a third seed. It appears there were quite a few seeds in the glass after all. "As you wish, ma'am."
"You act as though I'm being ridiculous."
"I didn't say anything like that."
"It's your tone. I don't blame you, just so you know. None of this is going according to plan. When you think about it, nothing's ever gone according to plan in this city, since the moment we made cloudfall. But we're making it work, right?"
"We are."
"Yes! And we're doing that by being resourceful and agile." I fret a little, considering my next move. "I wish you could trust that this is all just a step on the journey to me living my best life. That you could see what I'm feeling, see that I'm not just being silly."
"Yes." Lt. Armor takes a little nibble of his croissant, keeping his end of the bargain we struck. "That's something I wish for, too."
A plan of action clicks into place. This is perfect. It can't fail. "I'll help, then. I'll lay out all my emotions in the best little pony way I know how!"
He raises an eyebrow. "How do you intend to—"
"With a big musical number!" I cry out. And then—eyes wide, croissant hanging from his mouth—Lieutenant Armor is swept, by me, out of our suite…
The instrumental music begins as Lt. Armor scrabbles to find his hooves. When I am confident that he can walk, I release him from my telekinetic aura. It turns out that I misjudged, and he trips over the carpet runner and runs into a wall. Normally I would show a bit more concern, but I need to keep pace with the music. My eyes look straight forward as I trot in time down the halls of the Resident Minister's manse. I see a staircase in front of me with an eminently slidable banister. It would be a crime to let such an opportunity go to waste, so I glide gracefully down its curved length and flawlessly dismount. My hooves beat time to the music upon the floorboards. Lt. Armor stumbles behind me, criminally out of rhythm. I kick open the door to the manse, and the foyer is flooded with bright daylight. There are no clouds. Of course there are no clouds! Here in this city, we are the clouds!
My drastic egress startles the heck out of R.M. Weather Eye's two faithful, elderly lictors, Sabre and Spurs. It is not the first time I have startled them, and they are beginning to get used to it by now.
"Good morning, Sabre! Good morning, Spurs!" I chirp.
"Good morning, Your Highness!" they say in unison. Despite their surprise, they are still far more in tune with the music than the lieutenant is.
"How's the weather this morning?" I ask with a cheeky grin.
"You know Cloudsdale!" says Sabre.
"The weather is always..." continues Spurs.
"...what you make of it!" we conclude in unison, sharing a laugh. I give a little twirl and hop down off the stoop to the cloudy streets below.
"What's going on?" asks Lieutenant Armor.
I smile at him, my hooves raising adorable little puffs of cloud to the sound of the beat. "I'm telling you my feelings!" Pegasi of all colors, so long as those colors are pastel, fall into step behind us. They match my stride exactly. "And I'm doing it through song!"
Who's taking on the City of Cloudsdale
Bearing a name that's lovely and grand?
Who's stretching out to give us a rainbow?
Everyone knows it's Cady!
"Mi Amore Cadenza, if you want to get fancy!" I run my hoof through a decorative fountain of free-flowing rainbow and scatter the colors skyward. All eyes follow the prismatic spray for a moment, then in a twinkling we are somewhere else, trotting briskly over the gleaming white paving-clouds of the Acropolis. My rapidly growing entourage continues to sing, and we are caught up in the music, like paper boats flowing madly downstream.
Who flutters through the streets of our city
Smiling at everypony she sees?
Who's looking for her place in society?
Everyone knows it's Cady!
"None of this makes any sense," says Lt. Armor.
"That's because you're not in sync with the rhythm of the city! You've never even tried to fit in!"
"My job here isn't to 'fit in.'"
"You can do your job and fit in too, you silly little stick-in-the-mud! Take the bridge!"
"What bridge? This is a plaza."
"The bridge of the song, Lieutenant!"
He furrows his brow at me for a moment, and then, in an unexpectedly lovely tenor, he sings:
Her Highness forgets some things—
Not all of us here have wings!
This soldier can't rest at ease
Above the clouds...
The entourage!
Above the clouds
Lieutenant Armor!
Above the clouds!
Everypony together, now!
Above the clouuuds!
"You did it, Lieutenant!"
"I feel dirty all over."
"That's just the diegesis! It washes right off!" I spin myself back into the chorus.
Who trips across the plazas of Cloudsdale
Smiling at everypony she sees?
Who's reaching out to capture her future?
Everyone knows it's Cady!
In a twirl of color, Lieutenant Armor and I find ourselves transported directly to the center of the Forum Magnum, the austere heart of Cloudsdale's government. Grand, white buildings filled with civil functionaries tower about us on nearly all sides. Immense tablets of gleaming blue ice bearing the inscriptions of the Acta Diurna glitter in the morning light, having been freshly hauled into place. I love that the news simply melts at the end of the day when everypony is done with it! So much cleaner than littering the streets with newsprint, like we used to in Canterlot! Yes indeed, I say to myself as I happily skim the headlines of the Acta. It feels great to be so far away from—
CLOUDSDALE RETURNS TO CANTERLOT
There is an audible record scratch.
"Oh, look," says Lt. Armor, mildly. "We're closing in on the annual approach to the Mountain."
Cloudsdale is not fixed in the sky, of course. It is the hub of weather production in Equestria, and it only makes sense for us to be on a circuit, delivering packed rain clouds sequentially to the various provinces of the Hegemony. I knew before today, at least intellectually, that Cloudsdale came fairly close to Canterlot once a year. It never floated directly over the city itself, of course. That would never fly—so to speak—because of the blight of fallen debris that Cloudsdale generates wherever it passes. The fancy upper-class ponies of the Mountain would not stand for it. But there are plenty of outskirts of the greater metropolitan area. Plenty of areas still beneath my Aunty's watchful eye...
"Is she going to expect me to visit her?" My eyes are trapped by the problem headline.
"I'm certain I don't know, ma'am."
"Is she going to visit me here?" I feel a tiny little twitch in my left eyelid. "I'm not ready to see her!"
"Ma'am, I don't—"
"I haven't got my hoofing yet! I haven't accomplished anything! I have nothing to show her!"
Who's feeling generational trauma
Caught in a web of social despair?
Who can't escape Celestia's shadow?
Everyone knows it's—
"Ha, okay! I feel like we've all had a great time setting my feelings to music today and now we can be done doing that! Thank you all!" The ponies we've gathered kind of collectively shrug and go back about their business. I squeeze my eyes shut. "Shake it off," I mutter. "Shake it off shake it off shake it—"
"With all respect, ma'am," says Lt. Armor, "you are a Princess of Equestria, the same as Celestia is. You have the right to your own success criteria."
I take a deep, calming breath, bringing my hoof to my chest on the inhale and lowering it on the exhale. "You're right, of course. Nopony can tell me what success means. And if I have to tell my Aunty that I've been kicked out of my lodgings and am living homeless on the streets of Cloudsdale, that's my right and I can have zero shame about it."
"You're catastrophizing," Lt. Armor notes.
"Probably yes. Good call, Lieutenant."
He shrugs. "My sister does it, too. You're two peas in a pod. No wonder you two got along so well."
"I choose to interpret that as a compliment."
"That's how I intended it," says the lieutenant.
I feel a tiny flush build in my cheeks, accompanied by a series of thoughts that I quickly compartmentalize out of existence. "Well!" I say. "Regardless of whether Celestia would be either proud or ashamed of me, I want a place in this city. I don't want to merely be in Cloudsdale, I want to feel like I'm a part of it. Not just a tourist. Somepony with a role. That means having a duty of some description. So, just as I said when we started out today, I'm getting a job. Are you with me on this, Lieutenant?"
He locks his eyes on me, and I notice—possibly for the first time—how magnificently blue they are. One of my compartmentalized thoughts briefly breaks containment and causes all sorts of trouble banging around in various sensitive parts of my body before it is successfully recovered.
"I am always with you, Your Highness."
"Exactly as you are expected to say.” With that, we immerse ourselves in the crowd, on our way to finding me a job.
Me looking for employment is not so strange a situation as one might believe it to be. I have a great deal of experience holding down positions technically unrelated to my royal status. Foalsitting, for example, though I'm not entirely certain that this is the sort of thing that looks good to mention on a resumé. I am a fully-vested Princess of Equestria, with responsibilities at the astronomical level, and it looks a little weird to see "Previous occupation: Cared for fillies and foals as assigned while parents were away" next to "Current occupation: Spreads light and love throughout all of Equestria, responsible for daily motion of small planet." On the other hoof, I actually drew a salary for my foalsitting. The latter is more of a self-identity thing. It's what my Cutie Mark is telling me, at the very least. We ponies never do well when we're working outside the boundary of our Cutie Marks; not for long, at least. So, that's what I'm searching for. Something harmonious with my life's purpose, but also suitable for my admittedly elevated stature. If you think this is the sort of thing one can find simply by wandering about town, looking for "Help Wanted" signs...
...well, join the club!
"Lieutenant Armor! Look! Look at the little monkey!"
"Is that an order, ma'am?"
"No," I say. "I don't actually need you to look at the monkey. It was an expression of sheer delight and glee that welled spontaneously up out of my throat upon seeing the cunning little wind-up monkey ascending this tiny staircase. Are you familiar with the concepts of 'delight' and 'glee,' Lieutenant?"
"Yes, ma'am," says Lieutenant Armor. He is not selling it. I grab his face in my telekinetic aura and forcibly point it at the wind-up monkey. He looks on dutifully.
"It's very cute."
"It's adorable, is what it is! Modern clockworks are so amazing, aren't they?"
"Is this your way of saying that you'd like to speak to the manager about employment here?"
"Well, no.” I look around the vaulted nook of sculpted cloud that is Whizbanger's Quality Toys. What the store lacks in square footage at the foundation it more than makes up for in height. Shelf after shelf of brightly-colored amusements stretches upward in a way that makes one yearn to use the phrase "as far as the eye can see." In Canterlot, nopony would deliberately build toy shelves so high above a foal’s grasping height. In this city, where only a few of the little ones are beholden to gravity, it seems perfectly natural. As if taking a cue from my thoughts, a trio of brightly-colored fillies takes flight right before my eyes, cooing and giggling over a shelf of costume jewelry a full five meters off the floor. "It's obviously a wonderful toy store, and I believe it would be a pleasure to work here."
"There's a 'but' coming."
"But,” I agree, “I'm not feeling it. It isn't me."
"I'm not going to argue. It seems a little beneath your station. Counterpoint, though, it lines up with your work experience, and it dovetails reasonably well with the notion of 'spreading light and love.' Isn't that your life's purpose?"
"Shining Armor," I tell him decisively, "I don't think I exist merely to sell toys."
"Well, then. Check another one off the list."
"Right. The List."
Lt. Armor produces the list, which has become The List—capital T, capital L—in my mind, and silently scratches off another entry with a pencil. As he is rerolling the scroll, I catch a glimpse of a few other scratched-out entries, a small sampling of my litany of not-feeling-its:
-fashion model (literal clothes-horse? a ha, a ha ha)-romantic club DJ ("DJ Limerence" would be a great name!)-relationship counseling (not accredited!)-aviary tour guide-one of those ponies who pets Angora rabbits all day to get their wool-professional roller derby jammer (so violent but also very exciting?)-professional pony who runs back home and apologizes to Celestia for being such a terrible niece arrrgh-foalsitter (again?!?)
"Sorry," I say sheepishly. "Sorry for not feeling this one either. You're not getting impatient, are you?"
Lt. Armor shakes his head as we walk back out into the bright sunshine. "It's a nice day for a stroll. I'd feel worse if it were raining."
"Thankfully, there's little chance of that!" I burble. It never rains in Cloudsdale. It never rains, and nothing grows here. Everything is blue-white sculpted cloud and ice amalgam, dotted with occasional bits of stone and cut wood here and there. You can go days and days without seeing green if you forget to look over the side once in a while. Cloudsdale is Equestria's single largest producer of precipitation, but aside from keeping the aqueducts full of drinking and bathing water, we have no use ourselves for the rain we export to the ground below.
"I know this is a risky suggestion for me to make," says Lt. Armor, "but have you considered asking Princess Celestia? Not the running-back-home option, just getting her advice?"
"I did." I stick my lip out. "A whole series of letters. She told me that my job here is to be a Princess of Equestria, and all that it entails. When I advised her that being a Princess of Equestria wasn't helping me find a place to live, she referred me to my royal stipend."
"Which you've refused to spend and given to charity instead."
"And I don't regret the decision. I just know Posey's filly is going to have a great time at flight camp. But I'm not going to tell Aunty Celestia about it, so that's where assistance from the Tiara ends."
"If it's any consolation, she probably already knows."
"It is no consolation whatsoever, Lieutenant, thank you," I sniff.
"Well, then… pizza delivery?"
I shoot him a chilly glare. "Don't be ridiculous. Can you imagine me in a delivery filly's uniform?"
"So, you admit that you need something presentable."
"Or at least respectable. I think my station demands it."
"Okay! That's great. Now we know something about your ideal job. That's why we brainstorm. You're not approaching this methodically enough."
"Excuse me?"
Lt. Armor takes a rhetorical step back. "Forgive me, ma'am. Out of line."
I wave a hoof dismissively. "Say what you were going to say. Please, Lieutenant."
"Well." He eases back into deeper water. "You're just writing down whatever strikes your fancy and then crossing it out as soon as it stops striking your fancy. This isn't good decision making. We need to approach this in a more organized fashion."
"Why, Lieutenant. You are your sister's brother after all."
"I choose to take that as a compliment."
"That's how I intended it." I breeze out of the toy shop into a small crowd of photographers, enjoying the hushed, impressed murmurs that spread out behind me. Fame doesn't always feel good, but it has its moments. "So, Lieutenant. How should we be approaching this question?"
"Top down. Think back on your time in Canterlot, to a time when you felt truly happy, completely fulfilled in where you were and what you were doing."
"It didn't happen. There was always something missing. Sorry to be a downer."
"That's okay. When did you get close to it?"
"When I was sitting for your sister, no question. I really don't want to go back to being a foalsitter, Lieutenant. It's not a job for a respectable adult mare."
"I'm not suggesting that." We cut smoothly through the crowd with the assistance of a wedge of magenta-hued force conjured from Lt. Armor's horn. "But possibly something to give you a similar vibe?"
It is at that moment that my eyes fall upon a white building which, even in its stateliness, feels far more friendly than the other imposing structures facing this section of the Acropolis. Maybe it's the architecture, a focus on rounded domes instead of columns. Maybe it's the front-and-center placement of solid, cloud-free ramps leading to the entrance, ensuring easy access to all ponies who might want to visit, pegasus tribe or not.
Or perhaps it's nothing more complicated than the cheery, hoof-lettered sign on an a-frame placard out front. "Foals' Story Hour!" it reads, in large, congenial script. And then, in slightly smaller text, "Volunteers Cheerfully Accepted!"
"Hm." I touch my chin with my hoof.
"And so, the evil master of Midnight Castle unleashed his Rainbow of Darkness upon the little ponies before him, and in a burst of evil magic, they were transformed into horrible dragons!" The sharp intake of breath from the assembled foals fills me with glee. There's a certain captivating wonderfulness in having an audience hanging on your words. We are completely in sync, and the energy is delicious as it cascades back and forth between me and all of the foals.
All of the foals, that is, except Windrose.
Windrose is an elegant little unicorn amongst his pegasus peers, whip-thin and ice-white. His blond mane is appealingly wavy in an effortless sort of way. In a city where the default interactions among children fall somewhere on the spectrum between "hit" and "chase," Windrose is an anomaly, still and quiet. I love him immediately. The feeling is not mutual. Windrose sits placidly on his cushion, his face neutral. He's not ignoring me; if anything, he's listening harder than the others. But he's not engaged, not swept up in the story. Windrose is questioning me. Windrose is judging me.
"Why, though?" asks Windrose, his voice rising above the gasps and giggles of his peers. "Why would Tirac do something like that?"
I grin at him. "Because he's a wicked old centaur. He likes taking pretty things and changing them into things that are nasty-looking and scary!"
"That would matter if it was art," Windrose says, and then quickly corrects himself. "Were art. Something that's only good if it's pretty. But ponies can be good anyway, even if they're wicked-looking. That's what my father always used to say."
I notice the past tense, and it takes all my willpower to not focus my magic into the little colt's heart right then and there. "Your dad was right," I admit.
"So why turn them into dragons at all?"
I turn back a couple of pages. "It sounds like he wants the dragons to pull his Chariot of Midnight for him."
"It's a poor tactical decision. The Dream Valley ponies were helpless against him anyway. So why did he use his magical power to change them into things that could beat him up?"
"Be quiet, Windrose!" a filly on a neighboring cushion whispers. "You're being rude to the princess!"
"No, it's okay. Thank you, but it's good for ponies to ask questions. That means you're paying attention."
"So, what's the reason?" Windrose presses.
"I ... have to admit that I don't know.” I helplessly flip through the library-bound copy of Rescue at Midnight Castle. "He just seems to like changing lovely things into unpleasant things."
"Unpleasant things with big claws and fiery breath, though," says a russet-colored earth pony foal elsewhere in the crowd. Windrose's treasonous ideas are spreading. "They wouldn't have to pull his dumb ol' chariot."
"They could just burn him," adds a shaky-looking, bright yellow pegasus at his side. "Just, fwoom. Four whole dragons."
"There were only three dragons," protests a pink filly. "He hadn't gotten the fourth yet."
"Okay, sheesh! Three dragons! Tirac still would've been burnt toast!"
At this point, I am sensing that Foals' Story Hour is rapidly slipping out of my grasp. "Let's think about this a little more!" I say. "Why would the ponies, now dragons, still agree to pull Tirac's chariot for him?"
Windrose's voice cuts through the confused murmur of the crowd. "Because he made them forget who they were.” There is a murmur of agreement.
Who is this child? I wonder to myself. "It's a good explanation," I say perkily. "Tirac made them forget they were anything other than pets to him. And maybe that's the wickedest thing of all."
The great Foals' Story Hour Rebellion is quashed via peaceful negotiation. Its leader sits back on his cushion, temporarily mollified, but still poised to rhetorically pounce if I step even the slightest bit out of line.
The story of my life, I suppose.
After storytime is over, the fillies and colts disperse, scooped up by parental figures, leaving Windrose and I momentarily alone. The library has turned out to be an excellent shelter from the nagging photographers. Noisy journalists are no match whatsoever for a librarian in full glory wielding the immense power of Shush. I pay particular attention to Windrose and watch as he trots out of sight. As casually and non-threateningly as I can, I follow him back to the stacks, back to a study table piled with an impressive assemblage of books. Aeronautical fiction, to look at the titles. The adventures of bold pony explorers in gallant airships, sailing the high skies to distant lands.
"I'm going to talk to him," I tell Lt. Armor, my ever-present shadow. He nods, and I am comforted by the token of external approval. I don't always want to be the only judge of whether or not I'm acting crazy. I stride gracefully up to the colt’s little dwelling of words. Windrose looks up at me, calm and clear-eyed.
"Hi," I say. "I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciated your questions during story hour. I know some of your friends thought they were rude, but I liked them."
"They're not my friends," Windrose replies. "They're common." There is neither dismay nor scorn in his words. It's just an observation.
"Well, be that as it may, I wanted to let you know how I felt."
"Thanks," says Windrose. "I liked how you said you didn't know what you didn't know. Grown-ups usually don't like to say that to children. They make things up, so they don't have to admit they don't know everything. It's silly, because nopony knows everything."
I shake my head at this most curious child. "Windrose, I notice you're all set up with a big stack of books. Do you have a parent here?"
"Mother's busy dealing with the demonstration. She said she wanted me far away from the protestors. Said things could get dicey."
"Protestors? What exactly are ponies protesting?"
Windrose pauses. "Mother says I shouldn't talk about things like this with strangers."
"Sorry. I understand."
"You're a princess, though," he continues, reasoning this out. "That means you're royalty. Like us. Royalty should stick together, Mother says."
"Windrose, who exactly is your mother? What does she do?"
Windrose hesitates for a moment.
"Mother's in the water business."