//------------------------------//
// Growing up. 
// Story: And I quote! 
// by Karrakaz 
//------------------------------//

Author: Karrakaz
Quotation: "By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up." ~Eve Babitz 

The purple filly struggled to keep a yellow and gold painted orb floating with her magic, she glanced at the whiter than white mare – her mentor, who was also reclining in the grass of one of the inner gardens of Canterlot castle.

The orb wobbled when the filly's attention shifted from her magic to her mentor, always so graceful, always so powerful, always so kind and knowledgeable and mature.
She wondered how long it would take her to grow up and be as graceful as her teacher, the mare had already told her that she was powerful, but graceful and kind and mature... well she thought that she already was kind, you could never know for sure though.

The filly hardly noticed when the orb lost it's magical purple aura and landed on the grass with a thud, she scampered over to her teacher and role-model who, at present was nose deep in several scrolls at the same time, and settled down beside her, peering at the scrolls as well and trying to make sense of them.

The regent of the sun was in conflict with herself, on the one hoof she wanted to give the little Twilight Sparkle her full attention during their lessons, and on the other hoof she had to make sure that Equestria didn't come apart at the seams.

She glanced at the spot where the filly had been busy with an advanced version of a magical endurance training, she hadn't told Twilight that the orb she was levitating had a magical enchantment cast on it that would increase it's weight by a thousandfold whenever magic was used to lift it.

When she didn't spot her student right away she felt a flicker of discomfort, had the filly asked her a question and she hadn't responded? Had her student gotten bored? Perhaps she was crying somewhere because her teacher didn't respond to anything she said.

She mentally chided herself for thinking like that, she'd made a mistake trying to juggle teaching and ruling and she'd just have to do better in the future.

She looked around the garden for a moment trying to imagine where the purple filly could have gone, trees were swaying slightly in the wind, the pond – well more of a small lake really – was rippling, teeming with fish and the fountain was spraying water as it always did, a wonderfully relaxing place she thought to herself.

Then she heard something. "Princess?" 
She looked down and found her purple student right there next to her, peering at one of the scrolls she was levitating with her magic.
"What is it my faithful student?" she asked trying to hide a chuckle at the filly's look of extreme concentration by smiling her warmest smile, one she had perfected for over a thousand years.

"What does, regulations for the dispersion of weather patterns have to do with magic?"
Once more she smiled her smile to hide her bemusement, young Twilight had a knack for surprising her with her questions "Well Twilight, even though they cannot use it like you can, peggasi have a magic of their own, which allows them to interact with clouds."
She thought about how to best explain it to her student, the filly was smart beyond a shadow of a doubt, but no matter how smart she was still very young.
"Most of their magic resides in their wings, just like you and your horn, but like you they have a little magic throughout their entire bodies, and that makes walking on clouds very eas-" she continued before Twilight interrupted her.

"I know what pegassi can do with their magic princess!" she exclaimed, "I've been reading all about it in the Equestrian Trinity: past and present." before slapping a hoof to her mouth, eyes wide in fear in the realization that she'd just interrupted not just her teacher, but the ruler of Equestria.
"..uhm... sorry princess, I didn't mean to interrupt you."

Celestia couldn't hold back a chuckle this time, "It's fine Twilight." she nuzzled the filly tenderly which the unicorn eagerly accepted.
"Forgive me for my assumption, what exactly did you mean?"

It took a while for her question to register in Twilight's mind which had already jumped back to her earlier musings, which is why it took her a while to respond.
"Well, if the pegassi are in charge of the weather, then why is that unicorn charging you for it?"

Celestia looked at her student quizzically for a moment – making the unicorn shiver thinking she'd said something wrong again – before turning back to her scrolls.
After a few seconds of searching through the appropriate material she realized that her student was right, the royal treasury was being duped by a unicorn named "Greenfield the Sly." she ground her teeth for a moment before turning back to Twilight, "You have a good eye, my faithful student."

The filly beamed at the praise, before looking at her more soberly.
"You mean this was a test?" she asked, to which Celestia shook her head.
"This was no test Twilight, these are actually scrolls of some importance."

Twilight was thoroughly confused, the princess was supposed to know everything! "You didn't know?" She asked her mentor "About the error I mean?"
Her mentor shook her head again, "Alas Twilight, even I do not know everything."
This brought the filly back to her original line of thought, if even Celestia didn't know everything... how was she supposed to know when she had grown up?

She decided to voice her question. "Princess, if you can't measure mature-" her face scrunched up as she tried to find the right end to the word"-ness by how much somepony knows, how will I ever know if I've grown up?"

The pure innocence in the question made Celestia laugh out loud.
"My dear Twilight Sparkle," She nuzzled the unicorn again before continuing: 
"Most ponies measure maturity by age, although age in fact has very little to do with being truely mature."
the filly looked at her in rapt attention and she smiled at the eager look on her students face.
"nor does knowledge, or power, of grace, in fact I am still not certain if we know exactly when somepony is mature."

She rolled up the scrolls and levitated the whole stack of them over to one of the guards near the entrance, after nodding at him and relaying her instructions she turned back to her student.

"By the time I had grown up, -which took a fairly long time for me- I had naturally supposed that I'd be grown up, however I still find myself amazed at new problems and solutions to problems life can throw at us."

Twilight, who's attention had been focused on her mentor at the start now looked increasingly confused.
"Does that mean I'll never grow up?" she asked, looking lost.

Celestia got up and motioned her head for the filly to follow her, "No my faithful student, you will know when you have grown up, but the most important thing is-" She brought her face close to Twilight and winked "I don't think I've ever grown up."

Twilight smiled the secretive smile of a child, and Celestia laughed, growing a little more that day.