//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: To Be a Princess 
// by SpiffyPony 
//------------------------------//

	"Wait...what?!" Twilight said, interrupting Celestia's story. "Discord was...and you...but...what?"

Celestia sighed. She knew this would be coming when she reached this part of her history. "Yes, I've known him for a long time. And yes, he was at one time a normal unicorn - well, comparatively normal, I suppose."

"But then...how...?" Twilight continued, unsure what question would even be the right one to ask. 

"All in due time, my dear Twilight. Everything to the extent of my knowledge will be explained."

Twilight opened her mouth again, but closed it to hear the rest of the story. Celestia smiled. "Now then. Where was I?"


~  ~


Oh, yes. Luna and I were just about to go inside for our test while Discord was already inside, showing off his magic to the Princess. At the time, we weren't sure what he meant by the whole 'Master of Chaos' title but, just like you, we would find out in due time.

"Discord...that's a weird name," Luna said, thinking aloud.

"He's a weird pony. It's kind of fitting," I agreed.

"That's true. And he was funny."

"Yes, yes he was."

After that, Luna and I lapsed into silence, waiting in nervous anticipation for our test. Every few moments, we heard some kind of explosion or laugh come from inside the room, so Discord was clearly making a scene. Whether that was good or bad was up to interpretation, so I instead tried to focus on what would soon follow. Finally, after a time that seemed longer than the entire time waiting combined, the unicorn at the door opened it and yelled, "NEXT!"

"I guess that means me," I said, taking one final look at Luna. "Unless you would like to go first...?"

"No, you go," she insisted. "I want to make sure you come out alive before going in."

I gave her a dark glare. "That makes me feel better." Before she could respond, I was inside the dark room with the door closed.

I stepped inside and found the room to look like a classroom, with desks that stood on stairs instead of the floor. This didn't help my nerves because it made the five judges appear to be looking down from high above. My legs quaked with fear, but I somehow managed to make it to the center of the room.

The judges themselves appeared exhausted. The Princess was in the center of a row of tables while two unicorns sat on either side. A few appeared to be royal ponies, another possibly a professor at the school where this test was taking place. They had clearly seen far too many ponies throughout the day and were eager to be finished.

One of them yawned as I stood in the center of the room. I glanced out the window, hoping that the sun might give me the strength to carry on. It had not quite set yet, and it still hovered on the horizon. If the sun could make its long journey on its own, then I could take this test.

"What time is it, Professor?" one of the judges asked with a voice that reminded her of a lot of the Canterlot snobs. "It feels like we've been here forever."

"It's 5:37," I said automatically.

The judges raised their eyebrows at me. "How did you know that?" the judge asked.

"The sun told me," I said honestly. And it had. I could tell the time based on the sun's position. It was almost like it whispered the answer to me as I basked in it warmth.

"The sun told you?" the Princess asked, not with complete skepticism. I nodded. "I see. Now, what is your name?"

"My name is Celestia."

"Celestia. I suppose that is a proper name for a lover of the sun. But you have no cutie mark?" the Princess asked.

"No, my sister and I have lived our entire lives in a tiny farming village. We haven't really had the chance to discover our special talents."

The Princess frowned. "Then what do you have to show to me today, Celestia? I do hope you will not waste my time."

Why does everyone think that I am going to be a waste of time? I thought with a surprising amount of anger.

"No, I will not waste your time," I said with a frown and stomped my hoof down hard. Suddenly, the room became pitch black, all of the sunlight that had been lighting the room completely disappeared from the window.

"What just happened?" a judge asked frantically, then felt her way to the window. "The sun - it just disappeared! It's gone!"

"It's not gone," I replied. "It just dropped below the horizon. I can feel it."

The Princess' ear pricked up. "You can feel it?"

"Of course," I said. "Can't you?"

The Princess and the judges shook their heads. "No, I can't say that I do."

"Well, maybe I can -" I began, then attempted to lock on to the energy of the sun with my magic. Maybe, since I can feel it... Using all of my available magic, I attempted to coax the sun back to its original place in the sky. I couldn't see the judges' expressions or the sun itself, but I could feel the warmth of the sun returning to the room. When I was confident that the sun was where it was supposed to be, I let go of my magic and opened my eyes.

The judges stared at me in disbelief. "The sun...and you...but that means..."

At first I knelt down in embarrassment. Was I the cause for the sun dropping below the horizon? All because I had lost my temper... I knew that I had a tendency to get angry, but I had never caused anything like this to happen.

Just as I was about to quietly excuse myself out the back door and apologize for wasting their time, I heard the stomping of hooves. I looked up and saw the Princess looking at me with a big smile. "Thank you, Celestia. Thank you for finally showing me what I was looking for."

My eyes widened as I realized what she meant. "You mean..."

"Yes. I would be honored to take you in as one of my students. Your talent for controlling the sun on your own is clearly unique, and I would be a fool to turn down the opportunity to mentor a raw talent such as yourself. In fact, your talent is so special, I might go so far as to say that it is your special talent, if you catch my meaning."

She gestured to my blank flank, but instead of it being white like I expected, an artistic symbol of a sun replaced it. Finally, after waiting for so long, I had discovered my destiny, what I was meant to do that made me different from everyone else. I was destined to control the sun! Even now, it still amazes me how privileged I was to be granted such a cutie mark.

"Now, if you wouldn't mind, would you wait in the next room? You won't be alone in there. We have chosen one other exceptional student so far along with you," the Princess explained, pointing to a door separate from the exit door that was guarded by another buff unicorn. I nodded and trotted over to the door.

Before I entered, I stopped to ask one more question. "You aren't done looking for students, right? Because my sister -"

"A sister?" she said curiously. "No, I am not finished. I'm hoping to find five exceptional unicorns, but will settle for slightly more or less if not enough or too many ponies meet my high standards."

I nodded, thanked them all again, and wandered through the door.

Inside was what I assumed to be another classroom, but it was so dark that it was difficult to tell what it contained. "Um...hello? Is anyone else here? The Princess said -"

I was interrupted by a bright flash of light that revealed an elaborate party set up around the desks and chairs in the classroom.

"Celestia. You son of a pegasus, you were right! You really did have a good feeling about being accepted," a familiar voice remarked.

I looked over to the other side of the party and recognized a newly familiar face. "Discord? What are you doing here?"

"I was accepted by the Princess, of course! Duh. I told you that there was no way she wouldn't be impressed by my controlled chaos," he said smugly.

Discord is the only other pony accepted so far out of all the ponies they saw today? I thought to myself. Those poor judges must have had a really long day if they didn't find anyone up to their standards until just now.

"So that's your special talent? Using chaos magic to your advantage?" I asked, unsure what it entailed.

"You got it!" he said as his horn lit up and made a giant pink cloud appear above my head. I reached up to touch it and found that it was sticky.

"Eww, what is this?" I asked, trying to scrape it off on a nearby tablecloth.

"It's cotton candy! It's a new trick I've been working on. Ooh, and watch! It gets even better!" he said, giving me a smile that kind of frightened me.

I glanced up at the cloud and immediately regretted it. The cloud instantly started raining out some kind of mysterious brown liquid all over my face and mane. I glared at Discord. "What is this?"

"Chocolate milk! A personal favorite of mine."

"But...why? It doesn't make sense!"

His horn lit up, and he made the cloud and the rain disappear. "My dear Celestia, sometimes you just have to ask yourself, where is the fun in making sense?"

I opened my mouth for a comeback, but wasn't sure how to respond. He did have a point. A lot of humorous things didn't make that much sense, but that was what made them funny in the first place. So I just shrugged and attempted to clean off my mane using the table cloth once again.

"For just this once, though, enough about me. What did you do that impressed the Princess so much?" He glanced down at my previously blank flank that now showed the picture of a sun made out of swirls. "I see that was not the only thing that went on in there, as well."

I bit my lip, remembering the manner in which I had received my cutie mark. Sure, raising the sun was no small feat and was something to be proud of, but I wouldn't have even thought to raise it had I not lost my temper.

"Well...I kind of caused the sun to disappear when I got angry at the Princess for underestimating me...so I had to raise the sun on my own to fix my mistake, which gave me my cutie mark," I explained sheepishly.

Discord stared at me blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. "That. Is the best cutie mark story I have ever heard. Seriously. I wish I could say something like that! Mine just appeared one day when I had a strange urge to see what the streets of Canterlot would look like as a checkerboard. It looked wonderful, if you're at all curious, even if those unicorn guards didn't agree. They let me go with a warning...even if I had to manipulate their thoughts just a smidge. But losing your temper in front of the Princess so much that you caused the sun to completely disappear? Priceless!"

I couldn't help but return a little smile. "I guess it was kind of neat."

"'Kind of neat'? C'mon, Celestia, you gotta give yourself a little more credit than that. I know I would! You moved the sun! Now I have to learn how to do that! If I could control the sun according to my own whims, oh, that would be so great..."

"You think I would let you do that to my beautiful sun?" I challenged with a smirk. "Not a chance!"

He walked closer to me and looked me straight in the eye. "Well, I guess we will just have to see about that, Celestia."

Right as he said that, the door opened once more and in walked yet another friendly face. "Luna! She accepted you, too?"

Luna's smile was so big that she almost couldn't respond to my question. "She did! And look!" She turned to her side, revealing a shiny new cutie mark, a depiction of the moon and the stars. "I'm not sure why she asked me, but as soon as I came inside and stated my name and said I was your sister, she asked me to try to move the moon. At first it seemed like a strange request, and I didn't think I had the energy to even attempt something like that after the exhausting wait in line, but I managed to feel the aura of the moon and caused it to rise high in the sky! It was the most incredible feeling! But...how did you two get accepted?"

"I just gave her the experience of witnessing my patented 'Chaos Storm' I've been perfecting, and she had no choice but to accept me based on such amazing talent. But mine was nothing compared to Miss Sun Butt over here," Discord explained, pushing me forward.

Luna took a look at my new cutie mark. "You got yours, too? That's wonderful! Did you raise the sun or something?"

"I did," I replied, and then Discord nudged me in the side. "And I might have accidentally caused it to fall, which made it necessary for me to raise it in the first place."

"You were right, Luna," Discord said, forcing back a grin. "You really don't want to get Celestia angry."

"You mean...?" Luna asked. I nodded. "Oh, Celestia..."

"It was an accident! I didn't mean to...but enough of that. Whatever may have happened, it helped both of us get our cutie marks and a spot in Princess Aurora's mentor program."

We all clapped our hooves together, proud of what we had accomplished, and decided to finally take a look at the colorful celebration that had been set up for us. On a few tables, elaborate cakes of all different colors and flavors had been set up, ready for us all to take a slice. Brightly colored balloons covered the walls and banners with sayings like 'Congratulations!' and 'You did it!" were strung all over. We each decided to grab a slice from each of the cakes and sat down in a circle of benches.

I levitated a piece of cake to my mouth and instantly was transported to the delicious world of flavor and sugary goodness. Our mother used to make her version of a cake whenever some kind of special event came around, even during her darker days, but nothing in this world could have compared to the joy brought by this one bite. If all Canterlot food tasted this good, I didn't think I would ever stop eating. In fact, as you probably know, traditional Canterlot cake is still one of my favorite guilty pleasures since it reminds me of the pure bliss I experienced in this one moment.

"This cake...is the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world of Equestria," I said, delicately tasting another small bite so that I could savor the flavor.

Discord shrugged. "Eh, it's okay. It could use some cotton candy." His horn lit up, causing cotton candy to appear. "Much better!"

"Is that -" Luna began to ask, but I just shook my head.

"You don't want to know."

We continued to eat in silence for a few minutes, then Luna brought up a good question. "Do you think anyone else will be joining us?"

We all remained quiet as we considered the possibility. "I don't know," I finally replied. "The Princess said she hoped for five new protégés, if there are enough ponies up to her standards."

While we wondered what those standards could possibly be, I heard the door creak open once again. In walked a muscular, smokey-grey unicorn with a mane and tail even darker, and a shocking red, curved horn upon his head. He glanced around the room at the decorations, then his eyes narrowed as he spotted our little group.

With a frown and a gruff voice, he said, "I am Sombra."