The rain poured heavily outside the orphanage, thunder booming and lightning flashing. The building stood ominously against the dark night sky, shadowing the street from the moon. On its steps lay a large basket, with a bundle of blankets inside. Stepping cautiously towards it, Emerald Lily, the orphanage's owner, peered inside. The orphanage obscured her view of the basket's contents from the moonlight, forcing her to grab the handle with her teeth and bring it farther out into the street. As she did so, the moon rose just high enough to illuminate the street with a pale, silvery light, shining down into the basket. Inside it lay two sleeping foals. One was a pegasus, with a dark blue coat and blue eyes, and a purple-ish blue mane covering half her face. The other a unicorn, at least a year older, with a white coat, pink eyes, and a soft pink, blue, and green mane almost as thick as her sister's. At least, Emerald Lily assumed they were sisters, even though they looked nothing alike. She picked up the two, and looked in the basket once more for anything someone might have left. All that was in there was a note, saying the foals' birthdays, ages, and names.
"Well Celestia and Luna," Emerald Lily said, bringing them and the note into the orphanage, "welcome to your new home."
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The two sisters grew alongside the rest of the orphans, making friends and learning new things each day. The orphanage was a small facility, just for fillies, with only an average of six ponies in each age group. The age groups, which were schooled separately, weren't very strict about age range, allowing Celestia and Luna to be together. They had three other classmates: Clover, Silver Onyx, and Amethyst. The five were best friends, always in the same classes together and forming clubs, bands, and groups together. They didn't have any specific aspirations yet, but that changed one cloudy day in October.
"Up up up! It's a new day!" announced Emerald Lily, as she turned the lights on in the fillies' room. The five of them all groaned simultaneously, and turned over in their beds. Trying a new tactic, Emerald Lily went up to each of them and yanked their blankets off them, then promptly left the room to wake the other fillies. Celestia was the first to get up, being the most obedient of the five, and Amethyst followed soon after. They walked into the bathroom and started to brush their teeth. They were both exhausted after staying up all last night telling stories and exchanging jokes, and didn't feel like talking that morning as a result. Their sleepy silence was broken as Luna and Clover entered the room, chatting about the field trip they were planning on going on today.
"Who is Starspy the Bored anyways?" Clover asked. "He sounds weird. Unless he's a spy, which would be awesome!"
"But what is he bored about?" Luna questioned.
"Maybe his spying trips aren't interesting enough."
Celestia groaned at her friend's and sister's naïveté. She pulled out a flyer from the cabinet below the sink, showing it to them and pointing to the title. It read, "Exhibit Opening: Starswirl the Bearded" and showed a picture of a unicorn wearing a matching cloak and pointy hat, both with the design of stars upon them.
"As it is clearly stated here, his name is Starswirl the Bearded, not some thing you made up," she scolded. "Also, he's not a spy."
"Then what is he?" Clover asked, incredulously.
"Only the most learned master of magic in all the land!" Celestia shouted with an air of condescension. Luna and Clover looked at each other and burst out laughing, and Celestia realized that they had simply been fooling her. With a huff of indignation, she turned from them back to the small mirror above the sink. Starswirl was a pony she looked up to, honored, and, admittedly, obsessed over. But how could she not?! He had created over 30 spells in his life and even figured out complicated things like time travel! Celestia longed to work as an apprentice of him someday, and maybe even be his successor. With the two fillies still laughing over their lame joke, she looked to Amethyst for some sympathy. Amethyst shared a knowing look with her, but gave her a small smirk as well, which made Celestia start giggling despite herself. She grabbed her sister and gave her a noogie, only relenting after Luna started pleading for mercy. They both smiled at each other, and Celestia went to go wake up Silver Onyx.
"Hey, Tia, want to do the thing that she did to us yesterday?" Luna whispered. Clover and Amethyst looked at them with huge grins on their faces, blatantly excited to pay Onyx back for such a rude wake-up. Celestia quietly nodded her approval, and the four of them snuck back into the bedroom. Clover levitated the bucket in the corner of the room and brought it into the bathroom with Luna, then came back with it filled to the brink with cold water. Celestia helped with the levitation, and the two unicorns went to the upper bunk of the bunk bed, keeping the bucket floating just a few noses away from the railing. Luna then shook Onyx awake, with Amethyst watching from a distance. Celestia had to put a hoof over her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
"Wha...what...what...what is it?" Onyx said wearily. Luna put on her most scared-looking face.
"There's a spider in the bathroom again!" she complained so overdramatically that Celestia was surprised Onyx didn't realize their ploy right away. Luckily for them, she was still half-asleep, making Celestia all the more excited as Onyx got up, groaning, "I'll get it.", and she and Amethyst pored the large bucket of ice-cold water over her head. Gasping in surprise and horror, Onyx scuttled out of the way of the rest of the water. The look of shock on her face made all the girls let loose all that laughter they'd been holding in. Onyx glared at them, but Celestia detected a hint of a smile on her face nonetheless.
"What was that for?!"
"That's for splashing us yesterday!" Amethyst retorted. Onyx rolled her eyes, and went into the bathroom to dry off.
Once they had all gotten ready, the five friends went downstairs to the kitchen. There was only one table open out of the three, and they sat there. As they were starting a conversation about whether the books "Mane Potter" or "The Hungry Ponies" were better, the orphanage owner's daughters, Sunshine Glitter and May Flower, walked up and sat next to Celestia and Onyx. Celestia groaned and scooted closer towards Amethyst, trying to put as much space between her and the two as possible.
"So I heard that we're going to a Starswirl the Bearded exhibit," Sunshine announced. "You must be pretty excited, Tia."
"Yeah, isn't he, like, your obsession?" May taunted. Celestia glared at them and turned away, trying to start up a conversation with Amethyst.
"Well I think Mane Potter has a better representation of unicorns - "
"Maybe you'll get your cutie marks from something at the exhibit...oh, no, wait, I forgot, you'll never get your cutie marks because you're orphans!!" May Flower teased. Luna looked at them in disgust.
"Oh, please, that has nothing to do with it!"
"It has everything to do with it!" Sunshine retorted. "It means you're poor, and therefore can't afford cutie mark preparation lessons. You don't know who your parents are, and therefore have no family business to live up to. And you never get many chances to succeed or be anything more than a low-life citizen!"
That was all Celestia could take. She levitated her friends with her horn and walked over to another table where only a few other fillies sat. She hated those two self-absorbed, spoiled brats. They were the only two fillies living at the orphanage who actually had cutie marks: Sunshine's was a basket with a bundle of blankets in it, and May's was the orphanage's emblem. They continuously harassed and teased all the other fillies about it, knowing that they'd never get theirs. Celestia did realize that that was pretty much true. She had tried to accept it, and work through it, but the sisters' endless taunts made the task quite difficult.
"Alright girls, it's time to go!!" Emerald Lily declared. Relieved, Celestia let her friends go and trotted out the door. As a group, all the fillies got into the bus and prepared for the long ride. They chatted among themselves, played hoof games, and sang travel songs loudly. As always, there were some ponies in the back chanting the ever hated "99 Buckets of Oats on the Wall". Celestia got Amethyst to quiz her on Starswirl trivia, while their other three friends tried to top the chant with singing show tunes from Hinny of the Hills. The ride finally ended just as Celestia answered the question about Starswirl's theory on "alicorns". The ponies got off the bus, thanking the driver on the way out, and saw the grandest layout of knowledge they had ever seen. The outdoor exhibit was filled with tents for different spells, theories, and inventions he'd made, with each decorated with the same star pattern as his cape. Original artifacts including his notebooks, hats, and many extra trinkets he used in everyday life were placed expertly throughout the middle. The biggest tent of all had a huge sign outside it, announcing Starswirl's new spell that he was working on. Even the grass below was painted dark blue with glitter strewn about it. Celestia gawked at the size and grandeur of it all, running ahead to get the first look. Once her friends had caught up to her, she pulled them into a group huddle.
"Okay, I want to see every single thing this fair has to offer, and we only have two hours," she said. "We'll go in a circle through almost all the tents, then spiral in to see the artifacts in the middle. Then we save the biggest tent for last so that we can leave with new and improved knowledge!"
"We?" Luna said. Celestia ignored her.
"Our time begins...now!" They raced off towards the nearest tent and continued to every other tent in turn. Celestia gaped and tried to commit to memory everything she saw, while her friends stood back a little and just browsed. Every once in a while, she'd call them over to see something she considered fascinating, which they usually just looked at passively. Somewhere along the line, they lost Clover, but they all just assumed she was either looking at something that caught her attention, or was hanging out with other friends, since she knew most everyone at the orphanage. Finally, they reached the largest tent, with ten minutes to spare.
"It's so beautiful!" Celestia said in awe. She looked around at the artifacts along the side first, trying to see if she could figure out this new spell herself, using them as a guideline, before reading it. After trying for five minutes, she finally gave up and read the spell as it was. Of course, she would have worked on it longer, but they were running short on time. She walked up to the poster right in the center and read it out loud.
"From one to another, another to one...destiny fulfilled." The spell was obviously not complete, but she could figure out its purpose without much hardship.
"Hey, you guys, come look at this." Celestia read the spell to them. "It's for fulfilling a destiny."
"Well that's kind of obvious," Luna said.
"No, I think it also is meant for something else," Celestia said. "Something related to harmony." The four stood there for a beat, gaping at this new spell. They were rudely interrupted as Emerald Lily called them all back to the bus.
"Well, this hasn't been quite as life-changing as I expected, though I didn't expect much, " Luna said as they sat down on the bus. She turned to Clover, who had met up with them again. "Where did you go, anyways? Find something interesting?"
Celestia looked over at Clover, eager to hear her answer, but saw something she didn't expect. She saw the face of a pony who's life had been changed.