***
Twilight lay on the floor of her mentor’s study, rapt by the musty tome at her hooves as Celestia sat staring at an empty scroll, wet-tipped quill held in golden magic. Gentle page-turning softened the silence between them until the alicorn broke her reverie and cleared her throat, quietly if firmly.
“Twilight, what do you think of Sunlight?” she asked, setting aside the scroll and quill.
Purple ears perked at the question, and Twilight smiled as she closed her eyes and began to recite. “Sunlight is defined as radiated energy from the sun,” she said before pausing to let a little blush rise to her cheeks. “Er, from your sun, that is. It takes the form of heat and light, filtered through Equestria’s atmosphere.” Cocking her head, she added, “Were you needing radiological properties, charts of intensity over time, or…?”
Celestia chuckled and swept a wing forward, brushing the longest of her ivory primaries through Twilight’s mane. “Oh, never change, my dear Twilight. You are of course correct,” she said, sparking a beaming grin from the little unicorn, “but I was hoping to hear your thoughts on the word itself. What images does it evoke? What does hearing ‘Sunlight’ make you feel?”
Twilight lay a bookmark in the tome and eased back onto her haunches, brow furrowed and nose twitching. “Well,” she half-muttered, a hoof to her chin, “when I hear ‘Sunlight’ I think of warmth, like I can almost feel the mid-day summer sun on my mane. I think of illumination, in the sense of bringing clarity. Is that what you needed?”
“Yes, my faithful student, that’s it exactly!” smiled Celestia as she lifted the quill and scratched a few words on the scroll. “Now, how about ‘Dawn’?”
Humming for a few seconds, Twilight closed her eyes and grinned. “New beginnings. ‘Dawn’ makes me think of the sunrise, a chance to start fresh, and the promise of a new day.” She opened her sparkling eyes and looked to her teacher, expectant and radiant.
Celestia put quill to scroll again as she lent her pupil an approving smile. “New beginnings, hmm? I like that, Twilight. ‘Dawn’ it is, then, for the first, and ‘Sunlight’ for the second. Now, what if we need a third one? ”
“I’m sorry, Princess – a third? A third what? What exactly are Dawn and Sunlight?”
“Why, they’re names, Twilight,” Celestia said as she rolled and set aside the scroll.
“Names? For what, or for who?”
The alicorn giggled softly. “For our foals, of course.”
The gears in Twilight’s mind promptly stripped and seized and sheared off a cog or three while she sat frozen, Celestia smiling beatifically. “Princess,” Twilight began slowly, “we don’t have any foals.”
“Not yet, but magic is a wonderful thing, is it not, my dear Twilight?”
One of Twilight’s brows inched up her forehead, driving pitons in as it blazed a trail toward her hairline. “Princess, we’re not even married.”
Celestia winked. “Not yet.”
Twilight sighed to the floor and winced, “Not again.” She shook her head and rubbed her now-aching temple with a hoof. “Princess Celestia, we’ve been over this, twice this month already. We’re not married.”
“We can be!”
“We’re not getting married.”
“Foals out of wedlock? Twilight, I had no idea you could be so daring! The nobles will be scandalized.”
Twilight growled through clenched teeth. “We don’t have any foals, we’re not having any foals, we’re not married, and we’re not getting married! We’re not even dating!”
The wisp of a smirk curled itself around Celestia’s muzzle. “I’ll pick you up at seven thirty. Neighponese or Istallion?”
The great gold-embossed doors to Celestia’s study flung open as Twilight bolted from the room, grumbling a stream of Neighponese and Istallion profanities as she sped past a gaggle of ambassadors and officials lining the hallway.
From the doorway behind her a royal voice called, “Twilight, come back! What about Dawn and Sunlight? Twilight, honey, please don’t leave! Think of our foals!”