A Gift from Celestia
Prologue: Las Pegasus
Admiral Biscuit
It was the last day of school before Hearth's Warming. The entire building was nearly ready to burst with pent-up tension; everypony was ready to take a week off.
Everypony, that is, except for Ditzy.
Unlike her classmates, who were looking forward to a week of celebration with their families and friends, followed by reaffirming the old cliques and exchanging stories of the prior week, for Ditzy it was the end of life as she knew it. Her mother had taken a temporary job in Ponyville—a town which she hated, even though she'd never been there. It was small, and it didn't have very many pegasi. She'd begged and pleaded to stay behind and finish out her school year in Las Pegasus, but her mother would have none of it.
Their house was as empty as her heart. The living room held no decorations and no presents; even the couch was gone. All of her belongings were packed, and she was living out of a suitcase in the empty husk of her bedroom. Their new home was smaller and at a lower altitude, and it certainly wasn't in a neighborhood filled with her foalhood friends.
The only upside to the day was that her teacher, a veteran of countless Hearth's Warming breaks, had already planned for the day to be a complete waste as far as actual teaching went, and her class was the merest formality. She'd allowed them to divide into groups and discuss the unification of the three tribes among themselves, with the help of a lavishly illustrated book. Since everypony had already looked through the book several times, it lay untouched. The lack of education didn't bother the teacher; she was sitting back in her chair with a copy of Under the Sparkling Sea in her hooves, completely engrossed in the adventure novel.
"I can't believe your mom is making you go to Ponyville," Raindrops whispered. "My mom would have let you stay with us—we've got, like, two bedrooms that we never use since my older sisters graduated."
"Yeah." Ditzy pushed her hoof across the table absently. "At least I don't have to look at all of Dazzle's stuff any more. She came and packed it all up. Even took Papa's old typewriter for some reason."
"So have you been there? To Ponyville? Seen the new house? Met anypony?"
"No, it's too far away to visit for a weekend. Mother's turned moving into a giant family get-together: we're leaving tonight and heading to her sister's house, and then from there we're going to stop by my uncle's the next day, and so on across the country. We'll be able to spend one day at home unpacking." Ditzy stuck her tongue out. "And then it's off to school for me."
"School? Still?" For the soon-to-be-graduates, official classes ended after Hearth's Warming, replaced with a three-week class in advanced cloudbusting, followed by on-the-job training. Most of the ponies would finish out their final year on the Winter Wrap-Up circuit, starting with the southern cities and moving their way north, supplementing the local weather patrols. Ditzy had been looking forward to it for years—until she got her cutie mark, she wasn't eligible for cloud duty, so she'd been stuck in Las Pegasus doing busy-work on the ground with all the other foals. Last year, she and Raindrops had talked about how much fun they were going to have . . . except it turned out they wouldn't be doing it together after all.
"Yeah. By Ponyville educational standards, I don't have enough 'general education.' Like, what's that all about? Papa wasn't real sure, but Mom said she'd get in trouble if I didn't go. She obviously cares about herself more than me."
"What the hay's 'general education'? You can read and write, and work with weather . . . what more is there to know? Unless it's all mudpony stuff, like how to clean your horseshoes and plant carrots and flowers and junk."
"It better not be." Ditzy dropped her head on the table. "I swear, if we have to plant anything 'cause it's spring, I'm gonna run away and fly back here. I don't care what Mom says."
"Planting stuff can't be all that bad, just dig a hole in the dirt and drop the seeds in, right? And then put a little cloud over it for water, and presto, it grows." She mimicked her words, digging a small hole in the top of the table with a hoof, and dropping a pencil in it. "Hey, I heard that cows live in little towns like Ponyville. Like, real live cows that sell milk and stuff."
"So?"
"I dunno." Raindrops closed her notebook and shoved it in her bag. "It's just that I've never seen a cow before."
"If I make friends with one, I'll have her write you," Ditzy said. "Maybe you can become pen pals. I don't think they have to go to school. I could paint spots all over my coat, and pretend I'm a cow."
Raindrops looked around quickly and lowered her voice. "I'm a cow! Moo! Milk me, oh yes, rub your hooves on my teats. I love being touched by a mudpony."
"You've been practicing," Ditzy whispered back. "Admit it, you want to bed a mudpony, have him hold you down, pin your wings to your sides, and—"
"As if." Raindrops rolled her eyes. "Everypony knows the best way is in the air. You can't get any sexier than that. I wanted to try once, but he chickened out, can you believe? He said he only wanted to do it in a bed or on a cloud. What a wuss." She sighed dramatically. "Someday I'll find a special somepony who wants to take a leap off a cloud with me."
"I'll be lucky to find anypony," Ditzy mumbled. "I bet there aren't any pegasi my age at the Ponyville school."