//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: To Be a Princess 
// by SpiffyPony 
//------------------------------//

	"Hmm... While it doesn't seem like there is obviously anything wrong with the Princess, she does seem to be busy pretty often," Twilight said as Celestia raised an eyebrow. "I mean, well, I know that there are a lot of things for any Princess to do, of course! It just seemed to me like she would be more involved in your training, that's all."
"No, I agree with you. I should have been a little bit more suspicious considering her lack of appearances, but I just supposed that maybe she wanted us to have a bit of freedom to learn things on our own or with the Professor. And, to be fair to young me, there wasn't overwhelming evidence that anything was wrong..."


~  ~


After a much smoother return back to our tower with fewer detours - thanks to me leading the way rather than Discord - we came back to find Sombra gone, but Luna still sleeping in our room. The day was nearly half over, so I decided that it was time to wake her up anyway so that she wouldn't be stuck on a strange sleeping schedule. 
"Luna! Luna, we're back!" I yelled right in front of her ear. No response. 
"Don't worry, Celestia; I got this," Discord said with a mischievous grin. "Hey, Celestia! Hurry up, we're going to be late for dinner!"
That got Luna up instantly. "Wait, what? What'd I miss?"
She looked straight at me, her eyes wide awake. Since she hadn't been awake to notice me going off to practice without her, I figured this would be the time to tell her and await her reaction. "Oh, nothing much. Discord and I just went off to practice our technique. You wouldn't have had any fun anyway."
Luna smiled and exhaled loudly. "Phew! Glad I missed out on that... So it's not dinner time yet?"
I looked at her in disbelief. No reaction at all? No, 'Oh, so you can go out and practice but I can't?' or 'How could you do such a thing?' I guess I was asking for a fight, but I still wasn't pleased with how that conversation had ended. Apparently Luna had already completely moved on, though. 
"No... That was just to wake you up. It's past noon already!" I said, slightly annoyed that she didn't care whatsoever that I practiced without her. 
"Really? Aww, I could have slept a while longer..."
"Maybe you could have," Discord intervened, "but then you wouldn't get to hear about our trip to the tower!"
Ooh, now this will make her upset!, I thought to myself.
"You guys checked out the tower? That's great! What did you find? Torture devices? Leftover hay sandwiches?" Luna asked eagerly. Still, nothing? I guess I should just forget it...
Discord frowned. "Neither, unfortunately. Just some nearly empty bookshelves with a few random books on them. Nothing very exciting. At least, it wasn't exciting until we saw our guard who had disappeared!"
Luna gasped. "He's back?! Where did he go?"
"He was on vacation! Nothing more than that. Guards are allowed to take vacations too, you know," I pointed out. 
"Are they? Huh. I wasn't sure if there are enough of them for that..." Discord thought out loud.
"Well, I don't know for sure that they are allowed, but it would be strange if they weren't."
Discord's mischievous smile returned. "Exactly. It would be strange. So, Celestia, if we talk to some other guards and find out more about whether they are allowed to take 'vacations', could this convince you that something is going on?"
I didn't want to encourage this behavior, but I replied, "It depends on what they have to say, I suppose."
"Excellent. Then this will be our next mission!" Discord said triumphantly. 
"What's this about a mission?" a different voice asked. 
We all jumped back and let out a quick yell at the sound of this voice. It sounded vaguely familiar to me, but it had appeared out of nowhere! After we managed to regain our stances, I took a closer look at the intruder and recognized it to be Stealth Spirit, the stallion who had attempted to 'assassinate' me from before. 
"It's you! What are you doing here?" I asked, wondering how much he had heard of our previous conversation.
"You know this guy?" Discord asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Oh yeah, we go way back, Celestia and I. I tried to assassinate her and the rest is history!" Stealth Spirit said, gazing into the distance as he reminisced. 
"He tried to assassinate you?!" Discord said, actually forming an expression of horror on his face.
Luna, on the other side, smiled. "That's right! You told me about this guy, how he pretended to assassinate you and you passed. Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, sir!" 
Stealth Spirit dropped into a bow. "The pleasure is all mine, m'lady." 
"Hmm... I guess if you know him... Then it is nice to meet you, Mr. Fake Assassin! How did you get here?" Discord said, still not completely relieved of his suspicion. 
"That isn't important. Besides, I never reveal my secrets," Stealth Spirit replied with a serious expression. It quickly faded and was replaced with his previous confident smile. "As to why I am here, I wanted to remind you that danger can pop up at any time! And tell you that you have a lesson tomorrow with the Professor. Now that I have done that, I will be on my way! So long..."
As he said those last words, he jumped backwards out the window. The three of us rushed over to look where he landed, but even though he wasn't a pegasus, he was gone. 
"Eh, he probably just teleported or something. We can do that," Discord replied with a frown.
Luna, however, was more impressed than Discord with the assassin's display. "But he was so fast! One second he was here, the next he was gone out the window! Spooky..." 



~  ~


The next day, the four of us quickly readied ourselves in anticipation of another lesson. The night before, Luna, Discord, and I had wondered what kind of magic the Professor would teach us now that we were improving with our teleporting skills.
"I hope we learn something really advanced, something that very few unicorns know how to do! Something that will help us become better rulers..." I said dreamily. 
"I hope we learn how to make food appear out of nowhere!" Luna said, still feeling hungry even after a full breakfast.
"Psh, I can teach you how to do that," Discord said. "I do it all of the time!"
"That's just candy... Which is good, but you can't have candy all of the time..."
Discord's eyes widened. "Where did you get such a horrible idea? I think - "
But whatever Discord thought, we wouldn't hear since at that moment, we arrived in one of the many palace rooms and were silenced by the Professor. 
"I see you all have made it here in one piece! I guess this means you have been successfully practicing your teleportation techniques. Or that you haven't been practicing at all..." he said, glaring at us. "But we will have time to test you on this later. For now, the Princess requested that you all be given a specific test before we continue any further."
Luna and I widened our eyes. A test? Already? None of the four of us seemed to have any clue what he meant, or maybe Sombra did, but he was keeping it to himself like usual. 
"Yes, you all have reason to fear because this test will see how you deal with just that - fear. One at a time, you will enter this room next to me. Now, the task is simple enough - reach the door at the end of the hall. But, on your way there, you may just find a surprise or two that will make the task a bit more challenging..." The Professor glanced at each of us, his eyes looming with the awaiting doom. "Who would like to go first?"
None of us stepped forward or raised a hoof.
"No volunteers? Pity. In that case...Luna, why don't you start us off?"
"M-m-me?" Luna stammered, shaking with fear. 
"Your name is Luna, yes? Enter through this door then. You will not be timed, per say, but I will be taking account of how you...respond."
Luna nodded and stumbled to the door. She took one final glance at me and then closed the door behind her.
While she was inside, I was unable to hear anything going on or sense anything that might be happening to her. Not only was this test frightening because it had to do with fear, but also because we were faced with an unknown fear. Presumably the magic of the room would present to us whatever it sensed we feared most of all, but...what did I fear most of all? I was also curious to know what my fellow students feared, but what about me? I feared all of the normal things - creepy spiders, dark forests, clown ponies - but those I could deal with. Could one of those things actually be what I feared most of all?
After an unmeasurable amount of time, Luna finally came trudging around the edge of the corridor, having exited through the other door. I will never forget the look of absolute horror that appeared on her face and the slight remnants of tears that hung from the corners of her eyes. Whatever she had faced in there, it certainly was nothing to joke about. I hoped that Discord would refrain from saying anything.
Thankfully, he did, and Luna returned to her place next to me. 
"Well done, Luna. I see you have passed," the Professor said. "Now, how about you go next." He stared at Discord with a frown.
"Uh, sure, Prof. Whatever you say," Discord said, trying to lighten the mood, but even he seemed more reserved than usual. 
I gave a warm smile to Luna. "Do you...want to talk about it?"
Without even looking at me, she shook her head. Looking at her now, it made me feel bad about all of my focus on that petty fight from yesterday. I shouldn't be looking for a fight with her - she's my little sister! I could feel her pain from this experience and so I simply remained close to her so she would know I was there.
Once again, after some time had passed, Discord turned the corner as well. He seemed to be trying to form a smile, but it returned to a frown after he gave up the effort. He stood by my side as well.
"So...how was it?" I asked, figuring he would want to talk about it since he loved talking about himself.
"I - don't really want to talk about it, actually. I'd rather just forget."
"Alright then..." I said, surprised to see him reduced to such a state. What could they possibly have seen to be acting in this way?
"Another pass. Great..." the Professor said, less pleased to see Discord succeeding. "That means you're up next, Celestia."
My stomach dropped. Finally, it was my turn to face whatever fears the room had waiting for me. Motivated by the horrified looks of my two friends, I stepped forward to conquer this room for them and to prove I was stronger than my fears. 
"I'm ready, Professor."