“Don’t worry, I felt the same at my first event after I was freed by the elements. They’ll be shocked at first, but later on they’ll be fine with it.”
“I hope so.” Cicada replied.
“Besides, you look beautiful, there no question about that.” Celestia complimented, making Cicada give a small blush.
“Thanks. I needed that.” She said, making sure her dress was straight.
As she looked up, the first ponies started to come in. The first pony to see her was scared at first, but the princesses quickly assured her. Right after the first large group finished coming in and the next started, Cicada felt a little more sure of herself. Unfortunately for her, there was a certain white unicorn stallion at the head of the group.
“Hello Aunt Celestia, hello Aunt Luna.” He looked at Cicada, who could hear a few giggles behind her. “What is a changeling doing here?! Did both of you forget last time?! You’re making a huge mistake.”
Celestia gave a slightly confused look. She turned her head to look around until she looked at Cicada. “Ah, you mean Cicada. No, she is our guest tonight. If you disapprove of that, I welcome you not to come in.” As she finished, she whispered into the stallion’s ear. He nodded and continued on shoving through a group of mares who had been looking at him.
“What a rude pony!” Cicada exclaimed. “And he’s related to you? How do you stand it?”
Celestia paused to stop greeting ponies for a few seconds. “A few years ago, he met a mare at one of the galas and fell in love with her. Since he’s a royal, all the mares would try to get him to love them, but he kept explaining there was another mare.”
The princess paused again to greet some more guests. “He started to get tire of explaining it to ponies, who still sought his love after he had told them. One day, Blue Blood gave up and just ignored them all, doing anything he could to get them to leave. Eventually Blue found that if he painted his image to the nobles as a pony who they would never want to be with, they wouldn’t try to have that. Of course, there’s almost always a pony who doesn’t know yet at each gala.”
As Celestia went back to greeting the ponies, Cicada asked, “So this is going to be a hard party for him this time?”
The Solar princess nodded. “But he was fine with the idea for this one time. He’s even hoping to find his love again since anypony can come.”
The last group to come in before the party started was Twilight and her friends. Cicada was so excited to see them, she flew over the group they we greeting to say hello.
“I was wondering when exactly I was going to see you. Rarity, I have to say I love this dress you made. It’s beautiful!"
Rarity smiled, but to the side, Rainbow scoffed. Cicada gave her a small glare before looking at the others. Pinkie and Twilight didn't seem to happy, but she guessed that was because of how their pegasus friend was acting. Following them were threes young fillies with almost identical cutie marks and Spike.
"You look nice Spike." She said complimenting the little suit he was wearing. "Who are your friends?"
"These are Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. The first two are the sisters of Applejack and Rarity while Scootaloo is as close to Rainbow's sister as she can get without them actually being related."
"Well then, I hope you four have fun. I'll be coming in soon after you go in."
The group entered in and one last pair of ponies just made their way in before Cicada could leave with Luna. The queen recognized them as the pair she saw earlier at Rarity's shop when she had been getting her dress. The older one greeted her as she tried to get her daughter to greet the princesses as well. Luna and. Cicada decided to follow the two ponies into the party that way another group wouldn't stop them.
As they walked in, the mother whispered in Cicada's ear. "It won't help, but I'll send Lila."
Cicada was a little confused. She knew they had met Lila before, but why did she need to send Lila anywhere? There wasn't any reason for Lila to be doing anything other than have fun.
Getting into the ballroom, she looked around for somepony to party with. Her first choice was Fluttershy, but she couldn't find the mare. Her next choice was Pinkie Pie, who was currently up on the stage with the same pony who had been doing the music at her own party. Hoping no one would mind, Cicada made her way to Pinkie
"Hi Cicada! Don't you love this party?!"
Cicada gave a small laugh. "Well I'm not sure yet. I only just got in here. But so far it’s pretty nice.”
At that moment, a stallion came up on stage and handed Pinkie a record. “Hey Pinkie! Glad to see you again! I thought you might be here, and seeing as it was a party I wasn’t running, I guessed you would be doing it. If you don’t mind, could you play this song I sort of made when you get the chance.”
Pinkie nodded. “Sure thing Cheese!” Pinkie took the record and hoofed it over to the dj.
Pinkie turned back to Cicada. “So if you want to, you can go party. I might be stuck up here all night.”
“That’s fine.” Cicada told Pinkie. “I should probably find Lila in this mess anyway.”
As the queen looked around she saw Spike and the three fillies with Lila and the other filly she had seen coming in right before they had gone into the ballroom. Lila seemed to be getting along with them really well, especially the mystery filly.
“So, who are you?” Cicada asked her as she walked towards them. The filly looked at her a little nervously.
“Uh, I’m, well my name’s, eee!”
“Don’t worry, just because I’m a changeling doesn’t mean I’ll hurt you. I just want to know your name.”
The filly whispered it so that only she could hear. “What was that?” Cicada asked.
“Volcanic Rose!” The filly squeaked, just loud enough for Cicada to hear.
“That’s a pretty name. I’m glad you made friends with Lila. It’s kind of hard to do that.”
As Cicada walked elsewhere, Twilight trotted up to her. “Um, Cicada, could we talk for a moment? It’s kind of-”
“Can you wait a little bit! I want to go dance! This song sounds good for dancing.” Cicada exclaimed before running off.
“That’s okay.” Twilight whispered to herself. “Not like it could change everything.”