Chapter V: Tea Time Part II and Travel
All was quiet.
After all, it’s not everyday a stallion winds up out cold at Her Majesty’s hooves. Then the oddest thing happened, Vinyl’s voice echoed from above:
“I hope your dad’s okay, he doesn’t look so good.”
Everyone’s heads, excluding the guards, snapped to the ceiling.
“Hey Fair?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think they can hear us?”
“Umm, maybe?”
“Oh. That would make sense. I think we’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“I think we got caught leaves-dropping.”
“Oh. I think we should get out now.”
“Okay.”
“Wait, Vinyl what are y-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”
“WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Two diminutive unicorns came tumbling from the air vent above Celestia. Using her magic, Celestia safely diverted their course from one that would have impaled them on her horn, to one that bounced them off a pillow into her wings.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the two brave adventurers. Though, I must ask you two to refrain from crawling through air ducts in the future. Unless you want me to turn you into dust mites?”
Vinyl answered first, “Do dust mites have glowing red eyes?”
Celestia responded, clearly amused, “No Vinyl, I’m afraid they don’t.”
That drew a disappointed, “Awww,” from the foal.
Fair stared at the Princess, “You can do that?”
“Indeed I can young Fair Flame.”
As Fair stared at the Princess in wonder, and Vinyl quietly pondered if dust mites were made of actual dust or lint, Celestia took a quick survey of the room.
Let’s see, two shocked unicorns, one pegasus with a mild concussion at my hooves, and two air duct exploring foals snuggled into my wing. Interesting day.
“Hey Princess?”
“Yes, Vinyl?”
“Your wing is really soft.” As she said that she snuggled harder into Celestia’s wing.
“I suppose it is isn’t it? It’s good to know my new shampoo and conditioner is working well.” The Princess found herself quite enamored with the two little unicorns in her wing. It was not their innocence, she had seen quite a bit of that in her time, it was their simple observations, their inventiveness. They reminded her quite a bit of herself when she was their age, equivalent age at least.
The Princess was drawn away from her idle thoughts by the awakening of Swift Drift at her hooves. “Oh, my head. What happened?” He looked up. “Fair, what are you doing in Princess Celestia’s wing? Wait. Why is Princess Celestia on my couch? Mahogany, what’s going on?”
Mahogany Glee still a bit shocked at seeing her son fall out of an air vent into the immortal sovereign of the sun’s wing responded, “I have no bucking idea.”
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After that meeting time had seemingly flown by for the two young prodigies and their families. Before Mahogany, Swift, and Canvas could get their heads around their children’s amazing abilities it was already time for them to leave.
Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was normally operated like most any other fancy Canterlot school, plus an exceptionally rigorous magic curriculum. However, the section of the school the two young unicorns were going to, the Exceptionally Powerful-Youth Guidance and Direction, was specifically designed to house extraordinarily powerful unicorn children. The dangers involved in teaching a few dozen of the most powerful ponies in the world were not inconsiderable. Most of these students would do fine.
Some, however, would not. For every three dozen that followed the staff’s directions with little more than murmured protest, two or three decided to test their limits and would use their powers in decidedly immoral ways. History had taught Celestia many hard lessons, definitely not the least of which was the dangerous corrupting effect of great power, and she knew that an innocent child cloaking his or herself to satisfy their curiosity could lead to a master thief or assassin.
That is why the EP-YGaD program of CSGU was built directly into the castle grounds. Normally the professors could easily handle one or two untrained troublemakers, but if ever a few dozen of them banded together the only pony capable of reigning them in safely was Celestia. Not that she had ever needed to do that.
And that is precisely why she had decided to personally escort the two and tour them herself; she wanted some relaxed time to go over a code of morals with them. Nothing too concrete now mind you, kids were kids and the two were wont to go gallivanting about the school to satiate their curiosity. Stunting their playfulness would only serve to make them bitter and rebellious and that is exactly what the school was designed to avoid. There was certainly a code of conduct and certain rules were unbendable, but if students were not allowed to use their gifts to better themselves they would grow to resent society and, eventually, to hate it.
To Celestia, the days when incredibly powerful unicorns were either at the height of corrupt power or burned alive as dangerous and unholy by mobs of fearful ponies were brought vividly back to life every time she read fear fueled articles in the tabloids and editorials. That is why she took such a specific interest in the exceptionally gifted unicorns, they reminded her of herself when she was younger; so bright and full of life and excitement, but shunned by most the outside world. She never wished to see another bright young soul full of potential turned to darkness out of sheer necessity to survive.
But she was rambling. The two unicorns at her side had taken to alternatingly grooming eachother and playfully examining her tail. They obviously thought she didn’t notice them poking at her ethereal tail and she was content to leave them to their fun. They were all in one of her personal ground carriages, a magnificent vehicle of luxury. Made of only the strongest and most rare woods and covered top to bottom with silk and velvet and luxurious cloud stuffed pillows, the outside of the thing gleamed with gold and silver and seemed to radiate its own light.
Personally Celestia thought it rather garish, but it was given to her in a good friend’s will and she felt obligated to take it for a spin every now and again. The primary reason she had brought this one out of all her others was to gauge the two’s reaction to it.
They gave out a few “oohs” when they saw it and a few “aahs” when they sat on the pillows, but after about thirty seconds they had tired of staring at the interior and alternated between looking out the window and talking to eachother.
She found the two undeniably, overwhelmingly cute. And their friendship could only be stronger if they saved each other's life. She noticed that, though they definitely talked candidly enough in public, they had absolutely no secrets between them. They had almost a telepathic understanding and Celestia wondered briefly if they might actually communicate telepathically. She was both greatly relieved and somewhat disappointed when a quick spell revealed they didn’t.
She was rudely shocked from her scanning of the two when a sharp burn from her rear had her reflexively turn her head and apparently catch Fair Flame in the act of trying to take off a portion of her tail. Her tail simply let the thermal beam pass through it, her lower back, sadly, did not have that option.
Vinyl, who seemed to have been coaching him on, noticed first the newly charred fur on the Princess and noticed second the newly turned face and newly raised eyebrow of the Princess. She immediately started poking Fair in an attempt to rouse him from the stupor he had entered when he realized what he had done.
She poked him a couple times, “Hey Fair?”
He finally turned to her after she lightly clocked his snout, “Yeah Vinyl?”
“I think we’re in trouble.” She turned her head and pointed to the clearly unamused Princess.
He swallowed, “Yep.”
=====&&*&&=====
It wasn’t the pain, she had suffered far, far, far worse in her time.
It wasn’t the superficial damage, a quick spell and shower would fix that.
It was the kind of behaviour she was afraid of.
She completely understood why they had done what they did, probably more so than they did, but many a pony wouldn’t and some ponies might even press charges. And that is why she was about to go into a long spiel about proper conduct and boundaries, when something she really hadn’t been expecting happened. They were tripping all over themselves and talking, yelling really, over one another as one might expect, but they weren’t trying to place blame on the other; they were trying to avert the punishment from the other.
I mean, they were literally tripping over themselves trying to push the other down so they could take the blame. That’s when something happened in Celestia she hadn’t thought was possible, she felt true awe.
These two kids were standing together in defense of the other in front of the most powerful being in the world. If this had transpired in public most of the crowd would have probably run screaming from the scene in fear of her Almighty Reprisal, but not these two.
At first she tried to accredit it to their lack of understanding of her power, but their countenances betrayed them, they were scared near to death.
Her heart couldn’t take it.
She plunged onto both of them and wrapped them tightly in her wings whispering, “Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s fine, I forgive both of you.” She sat there hugging the two tightly into her and felt almost at peace for the first time in centuries.