Celestia smiled at a passing pony, and got a casual smile in return as she walked down Mane Street in Ponyville. It was nice, sometimes, for her to get out and among her dear little ponies. She knew that she couldn’t help everypony individually, but this was a nice way to get to know some of the ponies in Equestria. And she had to confess a particular fondness for Ponyville as a whole. It was really a wholly pleasant town when it wasn’t being ransacked and devoured by parasprites.
Her usual disguise of a pegasus was holding up well, save for a few exceptions. Twilight had almost instantly recognised her, but then, Celestia recalled that Twilight had been brushing up on her illusions recently. And all of Twilight’s Counsel, the rest of the Elements of Harmony, had also recognised Celestia, but had kept the secret, though Rarity had asked Celestia to drop by later, to help her with something. She probably wanted to make Celestia a dress, and Celestia was perfectly happy to oblige her for a while.
The bell above the door tinkled as Celestia pushed it open and entered into Carousel Boutique proper.
“Rarity?” called out Celestia, “I’m here.”
“Oh, Cloudy!” called Rarity, sticking her head out of a nearby door and using the name that Celestia had given for the disguise she was using, “I’ll be with you in just a minute. Do make yourself comfortable.”
“What are you doing here?” grumbled another pony, and Celestia turned to find a young pink filly, sitting on a stool.
“I’m here because Rarity asked me to be here. I’m Cloudy Skies.”
“Well, maybe you can convince her to let me out. I’m sick of it here!”
“And you are?” asked Celestia.
“I’m Diamond Tiara,” said the filly, turning her nose up. Celestia fought to keep her eye from twitching. The filly reminded her entirely too much of Blueblood. “She’s keeping me here and making me do all these stupid, silly things. I should be out, playing with my friends, right?”
“And what are these silly things that she’s making you do?” asked Celestia, certain that this was what Rarity had asked her here for. As Diamond listed several etiquette exercises, memories of letters from Twilight and Rarity both floated to the forefront of Celestia’s mind, each mentioning that they were attempting to rehabilitate a bully at the local school. Obviously, they weren’t having too much success. Celestia also realised that Diamond Tiara was still talking, ranting out her feelings.
“...it’s all because of these three stupid blank flanks at school. So I made one of them cry, big deal. They just went crying to their sisters and got them to intervene. And she took my tiara!” cried Diamond, pointing a hoof to the top of a cupboard, where Celestia could see a slightly dusty jewelled tiara sitting there, out of reach.
Out of the corner of her eye, Celestia could see Rarity poking her head around the doorway, pretending not to be looking. Celestia wasn’t stupid, she could see what Rarity wanted to do. But Celestia just needed a few more peices of information first.
“And what, exactly, did you say to the other filly?” said Celestia, hoping that the filly would be worked up enough that she would simply blurt it out.
****Time****
“It wasn’t even that bad!” said Diamond, “Everypony in town knows she can’t fly, that she’s never going to fly, even she knows it. I don’t get why she got so upset! It’s not like she hasn’t heard it before.”
Three strikes. Celestia preferred to not intervene in ponies’ personal lives, believing that most ponies were good at heart and could work through any problem by themselves. But sometimes, some ponies needed a kick to the metaphorical rear to get going. And there was no better kick than knowing that Princess Celestia was disappointed, Celestia had found.
And though she knew it was slightly wrong, Celestia did occasionally enjoy the look on a pony’s face when they discovered that the pony they’d been talking to was, in fact, the Princess.
Celestia dropped her illusion, and through a strange coincidence, noticed that every blind in the room was also drawn.
“Hello, Diamond Tiara. I’m Princess Celestia.”
‘Yes,’ Celestia thought, as Diamond went from almost smug to what looked like pure terror, ‘that’s the expression.’ It was times like this that made all the meetings, all the budget books and court intrigue absolutely worth being a Princess. Knowing that she had helped set a pony on the path to becoming better never got old, no matter how many times she did it.
The expression that crossed their faces never really got old, either.