//------------------------------// // 42 - The Circle of Luminaries // Story: A Penny for your thought // by Damaged //------------------------------// "We should all totally go to see Twilight tonight!" Lyra was looking at Moon. But the other unicorn noticed something. "All of us." Moon Dancer looked to Sweetie, giving her a smile. "The only thing better than meeting up with old friends is finding new ones." It was a step for her like no other, she didn't even know why she said it. No, she did, it felt right. "But," Sweetie Drops was trying to pull back from this, "I wouldn't want to get in the way, besides, I need to run my… store…" She trailed off as Lyra directed her magic to turn the open sign in the window to 'closed'. Defeated, she stepped over to Lyra and gave her a nuzzle at her cheek. "That is for being the best special somepony ever." The kindled and open affection from the pair proved Moon was right in her invitation and, in the short time it took for Sweetie and Lyra to clean up and grab a big batch of sweets in a bag, they were off. Stopping in at the Cake's shop, they found not even a hint of Pinkie Pie. "Well, she did say she had a party to prepare for." Lyra reminded them. "Oh hey, you see any more humans around in Canterlot?" Moon nodded. "Seem to be more than ever. One who had been given the chance to be a pony is the reason I am going to the Crystal Empire." "Oh, David… Silver I mean." "No, Penny Farthing. Has that happened a lot?" Moon pondered this, thinking back to what Penny had told her of herself. "It didn't seem to. The only other one I know of was Silver Lining, he had been…" Lyra blushed. "Well, there had been an accident with some magic and it was basically either become a pony or be in a very unbalanced state." "Penny seemed to be a bit evasive about it, but I gathered she was not very well before becoming a pony. A shame I didn't have time to examine her, before she became a pony, I could have written a book about it." There was some wistfulness there, much as she loved exploring books it had always been a dream of Moon's to write one. Sweetie Drops was trotting along at Lyra's side, the bag of sweets in her mouth. But she wasn't contributing to the conversation, Moon had already decided she wanted to be friends with the mare and that meant talking. "So, any humans around here?" She asked, looking to the beige mare. She almost seemed to drop the bag but got out a nod and kept hold of it with one corner of her mouth. "Jake, nice enough guy, liked my chocolates a little too much. Still does, but doesn't buy as many anymore." The change in Sweetie as she started talking, particularly about her special talent, was astounding. "Oh, I have yet to try one." "Time will stop." Lyra seemingly verbally leaped into a prepared speech. "You will think the whole of Equestria has faded away, there will just be you." She gestured at Moon. "And the chocolate." Her spiel worked, Moon's mouth was watering now. "Now I really want o-" Sweetie Drops had opened her bag and Lyra had grabbed one with her magic and it was in Moon's mouth. "Mmmmm." "Told you." Lyra leaned over and gave her special somepony a kiss on the cheek again. "Every time." "You gave her a sticky-taffy, she isn't going to be talking for a while." Sweetie leaned against her marefriend while the three made their way with more sounds of chewing coming from Moon Dancer. They were almost to the castle when she finally got the last of the sticky-cored chocolate done and gave a sigh. "You were right, that is the best I have ever had." It was an easy compliment to give, since it really was the best. "If I wasn't a unicorn, I would be such a big pony." Lyra lifted a hoof and knocked on the door only to have it push inwards. "Oh, maybe Twilight's not home?" The three poked their heads in and took a few steps inside. "Twilight?" Lyra walked ahead, her horn lighting to reveal cake, a big banner and Pinkie Pie throwing on the lights. "Happy best friends reunion," the pink mare had to take a deep breath to keep going, "and new friends who make the best chocolates in all Equestria," Pinkie had to breathe again, "party!" Cannons blasted, confetti raining all over those present. Twilight was grinning to one side, with Spike. They already had party hats. "Stopping Pinkie Pie from having a party is beyond even princesses." She certainly didn't sound like stopping Pinkie had ever been a thing she had tried. 'The Princess of Friendship, in her native element.' Moon grinned and stepped over to Twilight and gave her a hug. "Thanks for coming and digging me from that hole I was in." The words were quite sincere and she got a tight squeeze back from the alicorn. "Thanks for letting me." Twilight let go of Moon after a few moments and turned to Lyra and Sweetie. "Now that we are all together, I think Pinkie may have baked a cake." "But, I only got here an hour ago, how could she ha-" Moon was a little stymied by the three-tier cake, with piles of icing and even perfect little miniatures of Twilight, Pinkie, Moon, Lyra, Spike, and Sweetie. "Oh no, don't ask." Twilight laid a wing over Moon's back. "I am not completely sure, but I think Pinkie has cakes already cooked, ready to be deployed for such emergencies." "But the figures?" "I tried to study her once, science failed me that day." Twilight closed her eyes and lowered her head, in apparent mourning for any hope of science to explain Pinkie. "But, why complain when there is cake?" "But…" Pinkie somehow got between the two and guided Moon over toward where she had started cutting the cake up into abnormally large slices. "No buts, cake time!" Somehow, each pony and even the little dragon got slices of cake with their own fur and mane pattern of icing, Spike's being his scales and fins. Moon gave a long suffering sigh and held up some cake to take a bite. It started a fight in her mind, which had been more delicious, the chocolates of Sweetie's or Pinkie's cake. "This is amazing." Lyra was holding up some of her cake for Sweetie Drops to try, and after getting a mouthful returned the favor. There was a sense of calmness, acceptance of friendship within the group. "Say, 'hay'!" Spike told them, holding up a camera. The mares all piled together, Pinkie somehow grabbing a shoulder at each end of the line and pulling them closer still. "Hay!" The chorus was accompanied by a flash. Twilight looked on top of the world. "You are in your element." Moon's observation was flat enough that the alicorn almost thought it wasn't a pun. But then she knew Moon's sense of humor. "Of course, if the Princess of Friendship wasn't relaxed with friends, when would she be?" Twilight's reply got a smile from Moon back. In the end, with Sweetie and Pinkie talking confections and deserts, Lyra, Twilight, and Moon moved the little party to the library. A lot of the alicorn's books had been lost when her treehouse had been destroyed. But there was one thing librarians did when such a disaster happens, they sent new ones. "What has you going to the Crystal Empire?" Twilight had heard of her trip there during their chatting, each of the three horned ponies had a book before them. "Oh, a former student of mine is there, sent me a letter inviting me to help her research what schools might want to have a presence there. Well…" Twilight turned the page on her book backwards, her horn carefully lifting a small quill to mark off 'ask about trip' on the small strip of paper there with a list on it. She added 'ask about former student' to it with a satisfied grin. "To be honest, the schools all seemed a little snooty. After I visited the first three the rest wouldn't even see me. I was told 'only the best can be trained, and that training must be done in Canterlot." Twilight and Lyra looked dismayed at that. "So why are you going?" Lyra reached to the plate of chocolates in the middle of them, popping one in her mouth. "We will start our own school." Moon had wondered how the 'Element of Magic' would take the idea but she needn't have worried. Twilight was bringing over an epically huge scroll of paper, setting it beside her as a quill reached it. 'check over new school list' was added to the top, a check box appearing beside it. "Sensible, but you have a lot of work. How many unicorns, do you think, will be wanting training?" Moon was now lost. She had an idea what she wanted to do, but no real numbers. The books she had ordered were a rough guess as to what she might have. "I am not sure, actually, but surely there must be a few. I hear the crystal ponies even have some special magics, I am going to need to study those." Lyra's book was actually one Twilight had written and illustrated herself. 'Humans' was the title and the mare was constantly getting distracted from the school conversation by the topic. "Lyra?" Twilight and Moon were staring at her. "Oh, uh, sorry? This book is really good…" The two other bibliomaniacs laughed and Lyra couldn't stop herself from joining in. "You were a teacher, right? At one of the big unicorn colleges?" Twilight managed to get over her giggles first. Lyra nodded back. "I was. Introductory schooling for the Academy of Transcendent Flesh." She grabbed another chocolate and started chewing on it. "Silver Lining was one of my students!" "Who?" Twilight seemed mystified, Moon did seem a little excited. "That was the foal who… well, he had an accident, or something?" Moon didn't go for the chocolates, she had an experiment she was doing. A piece of Pinkie's cake was soon in her mouth. Twilight had her own agenda, adding things to both lists she was managing, even ticking some things off the little list, with much glee. "That was the one. It was… an accident." Lyra didn't sound convincing about that but more than a little determined that it was not something to press on. "He is a good pony!" "Wait, wasn't he the human you were talking about, the one who became a pony?" "Penny?" Twilight was snapped out of her lists and realized she had stopped the conversation. "Penny Farthing. She was a human and…" Twilight lifted Lyra's book carefully, placing a bookmark in and flipping deep into it before giving it back. "Oh…" Lyra was reading, tears coming to her eyes as she read. "This your mare?" She tilted the book to show an illustration of a lunar unicorn mare to Moon, who nodded. "No wonder she kept her past a secret, that is way more than a young… wait, it says here she was a stallion?" Twilight nodded, taking a chocolate for herself. Moon Dancer was quite intrigued now, it seemed between the three of them they had links to once-humans and they might be able to piece together the two. "Silver Lining was definitely a stallion before." Lyra had floated the book over to Moon to read next. While Moon Dancer tried to follow the astoundingly detailed medical notes both Twilight and this Doctor Horse from Canterlot had made, Lyra continued. "He had such an adorable herd of mares, and… you know about the changelings, right?" "Oh, yes!" Twilight grinned. "We met one when Penny visited. Stick was her name and… I think the pair are rather taken with each other." This made Lyra grin for a moment and then look thoughtful. "Wait, so if Penny was formerly a stallion, then became a mare…" "Don't, you will get a headache. They are two ponies and they both seem very special to each other." Twilight started back on her lists, quills working ten-to-the-dozen. "Her… his, body was eating itself? That is horrible." Moon had finished the heavy medical and biological notes. "She certainly looked happy, when I saw her." "Certainly did." Twilight lifted down another book from the shelf, this one was only half filled with writing but the title was 'On Changelings'. "Her special somepony gave me most of the information I used to write this, the rest I have gained from Slow Perfection." Her words got some blinks, but Moon passed the human book to Lyra and took the new one. "Slow Perfection?" "The changeling working for Rarity. He is not as quick as some I have seen, but the precision in his changes means he uses a lot less energy doing it." Twilight lifted a corner of a page, about a third into the book Moon had. "For a little… feed, he answers questions and lets me study him." She blushed a little, remembering the odd sensation of the changeling feeding on her. Twilight had barely noticed it at first, but repeated exposure had prompted her to study the effect. "How long has he been here?" Moon was flicking through, studying the first few lines of each page to get a quick layout and scope of the book, until she reached the designs of a male changeling. "Oh, about a week. Rarity has been off her hooves with work and has been making good use of him as a model. I hear he is also learning to sew from her, too." Twilight was still chewing on the last chocolate, the thing seeming to have devolved down to the thickest of sugary taffy. "I asked if he could do humans, but Slow said he couldn't, although he did say Fast Change might be able to." Lyra name dropped the queen of the changelings easily, she had known the mare back at school. "You mean Princess Fast Change?" Moon asked. Twilight and Lyra both freezing. "You didn't hear? Oh wow the news has been buzzing in Canterlot. Chrysalis came back and tried to fight her for the hive. Fast fought her off, after drinking a little from everypony in the city." The news had managed to filter down even to Moon, who normally didn't notice such things. "Celestia crowned her a princess and everything!"