//------------------------------// // 4.2 // Story: How Hard Could it Be? // by Richardson //------------------------------// 4.2 With the sun firmly in the hooves of Luna, the day had evened out into a beautiful and chilly fall morning. The leaves in the trees rustled with dryness as they colorfully hung by the faintest shreds of their stems from the trees. Yet more activity had come to Ponyvile as part of a reorganizational move on Princess Luna’s part, bringing the first of many waves of scholars to be overseen by Twilight in the coming years. The once small town was growing up, reorganizing into a little city. Sunbeam wasn’t enjoying much of it despite trotting over the newly paved streets. Berry accidentally made certain of that. “Speak of it to Twilight, and I will turn you into a pie.” Sunbeam crossly said to him as they walked across town to Twilight’s Crystal Fortress of Friendship. Marble had interfered quite a bit by accident as she had fussed over her husband and decked him out in his dress uniform to meet the town’s Princess. “Ooch, Ah am a Pie already. Not that ye would follow through with it. Ah know ye too well.” Berry glanced side-long at her as she grumpily averted her gaze to the castle beyond. He was thoroughly enjoying poking innuendo at his former teacher over her current state. “Berry, why do you persist with the accent? It suits you ill, no matter how much you like it. And you know what I mean.” Sunbeam wasn’t about to give into his trickster ways and accidently spill the facts to Twilight herself. No, ma’am, she would not. Some of the ponies fitting the decorative patterned brick sidewalks and curbs glared at her as they heard the brick beneath her hoof crack. “Wot, like this?” Berry snarked, thickening his faked accent to a consistency much like that of a frozen pudding. Mmm. The sea pony adjusted his jacket to ride the high collar up higher against his neck to cover himself against the wind as he spoke in his much nicer native Canterlot accent. “Even if I was to tell her, Twilight would never believe me. She would never believe that the Princess would lie to her on such a level. How is the little bookworm, by the way? The last time I saw her was at our graduation.” Sunbeam beamed like her protégée, happily tilting her head and smiling wide enough for the effort to hurt and her grin to squeak. A sigh of pride got away from her as she trotted along happily for a moment under her sun. “She’s come so far, grown so strong.” “Oh, aye. Like your appetite?” Berry joked as he caught up to her and elbowed her in her unhidden belly. Sunbeam jerked to an irritated halt and rubbed her side awkwardly as he trotted around her while watching the set of ponies planting hardy apple and cherry trees along the median of the town’s main street. As Sunbeam grew forlorn and concerned, he tickled her chest with his tail and looked up into her eyes. “Oh, don’t be that way. I’ve always seen that barrel you hide. I ain’t met a mare yet who wasn’t deathly concerned about her weight even when it was utterly daft. You’re always trying to be so thin and lithe that you looked unhealthy!” Berry encouraged, ducking under her and slinking back up on her other side. Sunbeam paid him little mind as she rubbed the slightly protruding sides of her barrel. She didn’t even notice as she pensively bit her lip while wondering if she should duck into an alley quickly to try and regain her normal and still well-endowed figure. Berry broke her spell-bound pondering by roughly poking her in her other side and grabbing her chin as she whipped around to face him. “Stop trying to hide yourself so much. What happened to going around like this to be able to be your true self?” He whispered, sitting back on his artificial haunches and adjusting them with a command to put him closer into hug range. No pony could really hear them as he stroked at Sunbeam, calming her. “Stop worrying about what other ponies think about you.” “I can’t. I’ve already made things so wrong with Twilight trying that.” “Then tell her the truth, will you? Armor said she’s forgiving. She’ll know you didn’t mean whatever it was.” Berry let go of her and fixed his hind legs with a toggle so he could start trotting down the lane again towards the Fortress of Friendship. “How are you going to get better like you’re taking a break for if you’re not going to trust ponies?” “I’m not taking a break! I’m teaching, there is a major difference.” Sunbeam protested as she caught up to him. She waved a wing to the flower trio as they directed ponies planting tulips for the spring near the new plaza near where the Golden Oaks Library used to stand. Berry’s bionic pace pushed her to her limits to keep up without galloping. “There is nothing wrong with being concerned about my weight, either!” “The front you put up had a stomach smaller than the Wonderbolts endurance racers have! I’ve seen race dogs with more! Your lies to keep up-“Berry stopped himself as he realized he was about to blurt out ‘state appearances’. He looked left and right as they passed the intersection of Main and Bakery Street, swearing to himself that he could hear a mare squealing happily. “It isn’t healthy, ma’am.” “I thought you were always going to be informal with me? If you could call it that.” “Ye want me ta flip the tip of the invisible thing ‘tween ye eyes? Ah always found it good fer poleaxing some sense into ye!” Berry verbally jabbed, slipping back into his fake accent in his frustration with his mother figure. Stopping at the edge of the paved section of road, he stomped his fore hooves several times on the ground as he resisted the urge to scream in frustration. He had noticed the web of self-lies she had started weaving when he left, but the degree of entanglement he had picked up since he found her again was absurd. “You are going to come apart at the seams if you keep bottling yourself up for appearance’s sakes! You’ve got such a web of lies to support—her! You’re going to end up like your sister if you keep lying to every pony who might support you and ignoring their advice! Did you even tell her the truth? Tell them!” “She’ll tell! She’ll crack from knowing, and tell some pony, and then they’ll know and I’ll have to go back and then I’ll never get-“ “She who?” Twilight asked innocuously from behind them, startling Sunbeam. Whinnying in shock, she hopped around with her wings extended from her fright. Every pony around them setting up for the morning looked on in concern at the escalating situation, only relaxing as Sunbeam’s wings drooped into the dirt with relief. “Are you okay? I know I’ve been mad at you, but I’m not that scary, am I? Is it some alicorn thing where every pony freaks out at disapproval?” Twilight looked between Sunbeam, Berry, and the extra-stuffed hayburger that was messily exploding in ultra-slow motion in her magic grip. Ketchup from her enthusiastic breakfast was still smeared all over her face from her meal, and her belly poked out a little from all that had been stuffed into it. Twilight took another bite to forestall the collapse of her burger, wiping her cheek with a hoof. “Sorry about my mess. Heh, I’ve been so hungry lately.” Oddly, she seemed a little taller as well, her horn finally approaching Sunbeam’s chin. A napkin flew out of her saddlebags, wiping down her face a little further. “Spike’s helping Dash and the crusaders get set up in the lab, they’re setting up the test rig for Scootaloo’s wings for this morning’s test.” She leaned around Sunbeam to take a look at Berry, who waved and approached. “Oh, um, who’s your friend?” “Bubble. Berry Bubble, me lass. Captain in the Equestrian Engineering Corps. Ah would serenade me successor, but me wife Marble would skin me alive and sell me to the griffons fer trying. Ah graduated the Officer’s academy with yer brother.” Berry slunk up to Twilight and took her hoof in his own, kissing it once to get a crimson-red blush out of her. With a disarming smile, and a cheeky wink he stepped back, adjusting his hat atop his curls. “S-successor? Um, I came after Sunset Shimmer, who is serving out a royal sentence learning about friendship and undoing her mistakes elsewhere.” Praying to the tree of harmony for strength, Sunbeam straightened up and took a deep breath. “Captain Berry Bubble was a ward of the crown and one of several students all getting a partial tutoring from the Princess for various reasons before you. As he said, he graduated in the same guard class as your brother, so the two of you never really met.” When she opened her eyes once more, she grumbled in annoyance as she realized that they had been teleported to the chariot receiving balcony of the Fortress of Friendship. Twilight had teleported them while her eyes were closed. Huh, she hadn’t even noticed the frameshift, masterful work. “Oh, wow! I’ll have to ask my BBBFF!” Twilight absentmindedly said before wolfing down the rest of her hayburger in a ravenous frenzy. She trotted around them to the doors, she started to open them while looking back. “So, what’s next th-What.” Glancing back and forth between her dumbfounded gaze and his back end, Berry wondered what had so enraptured her as to stop her from talking. Oh, wait. “Ah. Me legs fell off from sitting on them too long; Princess Celestia tried to pull out me rump so she could make new legs out of it. Didn’t quite work, though, so Ah made new legs.” “What?” “Berry, stop breaking Princess Sparkle’s brain.” Sunbeam flicked his ear with a wingtip as she walked to the doorway. “We still need it to help train Scootaloo.” “Tch, fine. Ah’m a sea pony.” “But sea ponies are old mare’s tales!” Twilight protested as Sunbeam walked past her and opened the doors to the upper reception hall. They couldn’t have gone through the bottom floors as the remodeling to turn it into a library/reception hall was becoming a mess. A Libception? No, that sounded silly. Or like the operation to let a pony into another’s brain to take on nightmare spirits. “Like Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Crystal Empire? Ye’d be surprised what secrets you find when ye stick yer nose into things.” Berry pointed out to Sunbeam’s disconcertion. He tapped Twilight’s nose with the tip of his tail, proving it real to her in a single movement. “We might be old mare’s tales, but that doesn’t mean we’re not real.” Twilight followed the tip of the tail as the little adorable gears in her brain ground and clacked while trying to gain traction. Berry’s eye twitched in sympathy as he could practically hear the noises in her head; he wondered if it was possible to lubricate them with puzzles or something. She sighed finally, trotting after Sunbeam hurriedly as she balled up the wrapper of her hayburger. “You know, thinking back Princess Celestia was wrong about old mare’s tales.” “Tch, was she condescending a bit?” “Maybe? Kind of. I don’t know. Maybe she was trying to use reverse psychology on me without reading up.” Twilight mused as she trotted with an extra bounce in her step. “Was probably Miss Sunbeam here. Ye’d be surprised how much of ‘er correspondence is Sunbeam answering for ‘er.” Berry said with a predatory gleam in his eyes as his grin exposed a canine fang rubbing against his lip. “Hey! I do not!” “Do, too!” “Thank you. I would have never made my friends if they weren’t so focused on keeping me safe through my monofocus.” Twilight said, surprising them all. “Aye, they’ve both been that wee bit brilliantly daft. Now the princess, there’s a fun one.” Berry hoof‑waved Sunbeam away to her growing disconcertion as he let Twilight’s mind do the work of fitting the puzzle pieces together for him. Trying to cut him off, she moved between him and Twilight, only for him to climb up onto him like a snake might slither up a tree. Standing upon her haughtily, he patted her head and laughed as she frowned. “Sunbeam ‘ere is in fact the secret prim and proper one of the pair. Always worrying about how she looks, how every pony around her is working to her detriment. She needs to relax. Lots. Take time off from all her duties to go binging on ice cream and movies.” Sunbeam bucked him off, groaning as she realized she had played right into his plan. “I am quite fine, and unstressed. Perfectly fine.” Berry rolled with the move with a catlike ease, bending himself much like a feline would to get back on his hooves. “Aye, ye do, too. Especially since Celestia isn’t here to make ye relax. She’s a right tricky one. Why, knowing her sense of humor she’s probably watching this right now, maybe all invisi-ow! Blimey, stop! She’s got me!” Berry found himself cut off as Sunbeam secretly summoned her alter ego’s magic to pinch his tail and make him stop. Clearing her throat, she stepped around him again and spoke over him. “Princess Celestia is not tricky. She can’t possibly be in this room right now.” “Oh, aye, so this pinchyness is her making a spell to stop some pony badmouthing her, aye?” Berry loudmouthed as he tried to extract his tail from the golden crab-pincher holding onto his tail. Twilight frowned, stamping a hoof. “She would never! Would she? But where did the-“ Sunbeam jabbed in again, trying to break the revelation up. “She is smart, thoughtful, polite-“ “-Bubble. Ey. Mischievous, cunning, silver-tongued, trickster, quick-witted prankster and an all-around fun pony to be around, unlike ye, Sunbeam.” Berry said as he squeezed his tail free and let the golden magic claw snap shut on itself and vanish. He circled around Sunbeam again and tried to throw his hoof over Twilight’s back, only to find himself too short. He boggled, then slid up next to her. “Well, she did have those golden apples she tricked me with that one time.” Twilight groused. “Aye, she got ye with them, too? Heh. Wait, that’s it?” Berry mused as he looked Sunbeam in the eyes, daring her determination to remain un-outed to stop him from tricking Twilight into realizing. “She had so many more when Ah went through. Did she give up?” “She was busy. And the jokes were crude, and I convinced her to cease.” Berry facehoofed as Twilight scooted away from him uncomfortably. “The jokes were the best part of her, her stress relief! No wonder y-err, she started going daft like Ah heard.” “I di-She was not going crazy. She chose to give her sister a chance to rule and be accepted by the public.” Catching herself at the last second, Sunbeam narrowly avoided outing herself, and she thoroughly enjoyed the grumpy frown on Berry’s face as she thwarted him. Twilight kept walking, forcing the pair to join her. “Princess Luna has done a pretty good job of things. I’m surprised she got Duke Redcoat to acquiest so easily. He kept trying to date me while I was in school.” She shuddered, remembering how creepy he had been. “Aye, Celestia used to be so much like her sister. That lass is so much like her once ye strip away all the old-timey bits. She had to get her pranks from somewhere, after all.” “She is-“Sunbeam stopped, properly thinking through her response. “From what the Princess told me, Luna was nothing like her.” Berry caught up on Twilight’s other side, surprised by the strong pace the new alicorn was setting. “Ye can’t be that daft, Sunny. Ye can’t be siblings and have nothing in common. Yer lying again, I can tell by the twitches. Do ye not trust Twilight ta keep yer secrets?” Berry comforted and confronted over the alicorn’s back. “If ye confide in her, yer stress will go away. Me sister does have ways of keeping her quiet.” “What secret? Who’s?” Sunbeam looked between her old students in a panic as Berry’s comment finally struck a veritable sea-mine in Twilight’s head. Stopping to look at her with more concern than ever, Twilight fixed her with a gaze of disappointment that veritably crushed Sunbeam’s soul. She was going to spill if she couldn’t stop the conversation in its tracks. Wait- “I Pinkie Promised that I wouldn’t tell her secret!” She clammed up after her yelp intentionally, shiftily looking around to sell her charade. Berry groaned, rubbing between his eyes with a hoof. “Ye did not! Me sister-in-law would’ve said something!” “Princess Celestia’s secret?” Twilight asked innocently, furthering Sunbeam’s deception. The alicorn looked away in confusion, looking to an abstract stained glass window. “YES!” Sunbeam clapped her hooves over her mouth to pretend she was horrified. Turning around, Berry repeatedly hit his head against the wall as Twilight sat down and was reeled in hook, line, and sucker. Groaning, he almost missed Twilight’s next quiet remark in his disbelief. “If you could; if you can—probably not. Could you ask her to trust me? I don’t know what I did to disappoint her, or what I did to convince her I couldn’t be trusted with her location or why she won’t talk to me. I just want to make sure she’s safe. And that- I love her, like my mother.” Berry wanted to clutch his heart to mock Sunbeam. But that would ruin the unintentional backstabbing going on as Twilight twisted the metaphorical knife unwittingly hard enough that he could hear Sunbeam’s heart falling out. He could see her wincing behind Twilight’s back from the skewering she was delivering. “She could have stayed with me. I can keep a secret! Honest! And I would- Rainbow Dash!” Foiled again, Berry wanted to eat his hat as a rainbow streak of sudden distraction roared up the halls to stop in front of them. The sky-colored pegasus was covered in small burns and scrapes, and looked like a mess as she anxiously stared down at Twilight. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over the castle for you! We’ve gotta hurry, Spike, Scootaloo, and Rarity got-“ She stopped slackjawed, staring at Berry in a way that made him wonder if he had some kind of crazy perception field over him. “Ssssss-“ “Aye, Sea pony. Discord altered me distant ancestors so we pop up every few decades. Daft bugger bothered the wrong one the last time he broke out. Ah made his grin even for a while.” Berry tersely explained to Dash as she slowly hovered down to him and stared. With the crisis mode engaged, he wasn’t going to have it, and sat back to grab her head by the cheeks, scrunching them together. “Captain, Equestrian Army Corps of Engineers. Focus. Urgent Situation. ‘Splain Now.” Dash jerked back as whatever spell she had been under broke. She shook herself out, feeling oddly distracted for a reason she couldn’t quite place. “Right! Scootaloo, Spike and Rarity all got tangled up in those wires for the magic testy thing you wanted set up, and they’re all hogtied nose to nose!” Twilight’s jaw worked soundlessly as she tried to imagine how that was even possible. “”HOW!? I wanted you to turn it on and lay the wires out!” Berry winced as he imagined how. He had a mysterious habit of ending up in remarkably strange and compromising situations. He wasn’t personally familiar with the Crusaders beyond the troubles his SiLBFF had told him about –he still wondered where she had gotten the terminology from. “Well, I have a wee bit of experience with undoing a thaumatoscope. I never could sit still, could I, Sunbeam?” He drew out the S in her name into a C, earning a renewed glare. “And now you drop your accent again.” “Aye. Crisis, time to solve it.” He retorted as he started running down the hall Dash had come from. “This is the right way, right?” “Ugh! I just got a new set of sensors after Sweetie melted the last set!” Twilight fumed as she started stomping down the other hall towards the lab. “Where did Rarity even come from?” Dash flew overhead, slaloming back and forth over them. “Discord suddenly turned her back for some reason this morning, giggling to himself. She kind of had nothing to do, so she came along to watch Sweetie Belle’s practice.” “Discord’s free?” Berry asked worriedly. “Yeah. Where have you been?” “Beating off the Everfree with a stick!” He started galloping, having a good idea of who exactly Rarity was.