Chapter 4 - Testing Patience
The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam
Testing Patience
Endless fields of wheat stretched out across the low, rolling hills as Green Grass trotted down the road with his heavy wagon full of books jolting along behind him seeming as weightless as air. Three days from their one year and six month anniversary of meeting, and it already seemed as if Twilight Sparkle had been a part of his life forever. The ring in his vest pocket had been unused for far too long as he waffled on his decision, unable to make that one last important step until he finally realized it was only one small step in a long journey which the two of them had been trotting along ever since that first day she had dropped him in the Ponyville fountain. As for the obstacles that had seemed to spring up in front of them every time they managed to have a few hours together, they had become routine to the point that even the excuse of “I’m sorry, Greenie, but the girls and I have to rehabilitate Discord this weekend” had been taken on face value, and a second weekend was scheduled that turned out to be well worth the wait.
And now the waiting for at least one part of their journey was about over. The engagement ring had sat like a lump of lead in his vest pocket for months, untouched except for one notable incident he was still trying to forget but that came roaring back every time he saw a bug. Permissions were also a thing of the past, because, after all, once you had asked permission of the bride-to-be’s parents, princesses, brothers (except Shining Armor), one cleverly disguised bug and all of her best friends, that only left one non-Royal Guard individual un-asked.
It had taken a month of careful correspondence with Gustov to arrange the events for three nights from now in Ponyville: a private table in a secluded corner of his restaurant, two bottles of most decidedly non-alcoholic sparkling cider of recent vintage, a strolling violin player who had practiced some of Twilight’s favorite pieces, and the most serious set of letters to her friends so they would just ‘happen to be in the vicinity’ afterwards, although the decision still twisted a knife in his gut every time he thought about it.
What if she says no?
His slow trudge quickened back to a sharp trot as Green Grass took a series of deep breaths, sincerely regretting that he could not simply look into the future and find his answer. It had been eighteen months — well, less three days — that he had known Twilight, now Princess Twilight Sparkle, and as much as he felt he knew the quiet bookavore, there were new things they each discovered about each other every time they spent time together. When he had vented his concern about someday running out of things to discover about each other to — of all ponies — her father, Night Light, he had patiently listened to him with the most solemn expression until he broke into laughter.
“Son,” he said with a certain look indicating the title was only a courtesy, and not to get too used to it, “mares are like having a house. Every time you walk through a room, even if you’ve been through it a hundred times before, there will always be something different about it. You will never totally figure her out, and the inverse is also true. Stallions are about as complicated as a rock, but mares keep finding little cracks and pieces of lichen on us that we never knew we had. Live with it, and enjoy it. Within reason.”
An errant breeze bumped his hat forward just a bit as the gentle wind picked up, and Green Grass carefully looked around. He was miles from Ponyville, with a cloudless sky, and not a tiny bit of pink in sight in any direction. There was a song in his heart that all of his worry could not hold back, and he might as well get it out of his system now before he made it to Wheaton for this afternoon’s final evaluation of his students, or worse, Ponyville where it would turn into some sort of town-wide musical number. He shouldered the harness of his wagon higher on his back, making one last check around before raising his voice in song as he trotted along.
♫Morning in Ponyville shimmers
Morning in Ponyville shines
And I know for absolute certain
That everything is certainly f— ♫
Cresting the top of a low hill, Green Grass looked at the small town of Wheaton spread out across the river valley. The few scattered houses and central meeting building looked just exactly the way he had last seen them, with the exception of a Royal Guard chariot parked by the side of the road, and three individuals looking at him with the kind of expression ponies get after waiting for somepony for far too long while holding bad news.
“—Fudgesicles.”
* ♥ *
The wind breaking over the passenger compartment of the Royal Guard chariot whipped Green Grass’ mane into a knotted mess as the two pegasi guards in the harness flapped for all they were worth and possibly even some more. His familiar hat was crumpled on the floor somewhere under his rear hooves or it certainly would have been lost in the first few minutes of their rapid flight, while Green Grass leaned over the front rail and stared at Canterlot in the distance as if his sheer force of will would somehow speed the vehicle to greater velocity.
The note had been simple.
Twilight needs you. Come to the Orange Puzzle Room at once.
—Celestia.
His response had been simpler. Grabbing his teaching notes out of the wagon and shoving them into the hooves of the startled substitute from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, he had leapt into the Royal Guard chariot with such speed that Axe and Stonehoof had barely started to strap themselves into their own harness by the time he was ready to go. Green Grass knew the guards were giving the job as much as they possibly could from the occasional frothy bit of perspiration that flew by as they panted, their wings hammering away in a near blur. Still, he leaned forward, trying not to worry and failing badly.
* ♥ *
Luna’s side felt like a furnace against Twilight as they walked side-by-side up what had been called the Solar Processional staircase and into the princess’ private residence. The two princesses shared a large common study, which included a fireplace and a set of windows overlooking Canterlot, as well as a rambling mish-mash of bookshelves, tables and cushions.
Where the princess’ bedrooms were relatively small and tidy, there was an air of intentional clutter in the study, with half-finished puzzles on some of the tables and more than one book lying around with matching sun and moon bookmarks in it, depending on how far each of the sisters had read into the latest Daring Do novel or historical romance. To be allowed into the study was a rare and great honor for the competitive nobility, during which they always tended to drift in the direction of a large table laid out with puzzle pieces, from which the hints of a disassembled orange tree in full fruit could be seen.
It was the only orange object in the room, but many generations of frustrated nobility and the occasional servant had christened the study with the name ‘The Orange Puzzle Room’ after spending fruitless (and the pun had been commented on to exhaustive detail) hours holding onto one puzzle piece or another while searching for that gap with a tiny fleck of orange overlapping a little squiggly hanging-down bit. Twilight herself had participated in the informal contest once, feeling fairly proud of her personal record of six pieces found and connected in one day, but was a little set back when a quick back of the abacus calculation showed that if she kept that rate up for a mere twenty years, the entire outside edge would be completed and she could then start on the more difficult parts in the middle.
She was feeling much like the puzzle now, sitting at Luna’s side and nodding at the correct spots in the conversation while her component parts were strewn around Equestria in unlabeled heaps. Other ponies came into the room, walked up to her and spoke, then faded into the background with an intention of support that was supposed to be comforting but only tied the muscles in her neck and down her back into tighter knots. Even when Princess Celestia sat down at her other cold flank and contributed her body heat, she still fought to keep from shivering.
Stress was not good for the foal, and she had months of this ahead of her. Millions of mares for thousands of years had done just exactly what she was doing, sometimes without even reading the instructions, so it should have been easy. After all, the process was almost completely automatic, with no score to the test or grade at the end, just a fundamental change in her entire relationship with every single part of the universe for all eternity, that’s all.
The real difficulty in the short term would be in the socio-political implications of the birth. Equestria had four princesses now, after going through centuries with the Monodeists claiming one was all that ever was and ever would be. The sect had gone a little sparse when the young Princess Cadence had been discovered in a small forgotten abbey, making their ancient doctrine of Celestia transition from ‘The Only Perfect Alicorn’ to ‘One Of Two Alicorns, The Other Of Which Is Very Small And Quite Cute.’ Factional infighting between the two sects that resulted had eventually trailed out over a year or two into something better described as grandparents comparing pictures of their adorable grandfillies. Over the years, it gradually transitioned into a speculative contest where mares across Equestria looked at articles in glossy magazines and tried to figure out which pop star would make the best match for the growing pretty pink princess. For some reason, the magazines never featured Celestia in the same way.
Then Luna had returned, and the two factions had exploded into three major and five minor branches of True Believers ranging from ‘Nightmare Moon Has Returned to Kill Us All’ to ‘Beauty Secrets of the Lunar Princess Revealed For Only 29.99 bits plus shipping.’ Celestia had expended considerable effort in peacekeeping efforts to manage their transition into more of a multi-level marketing organization than midnight meetings between cultists in the middle of forests.
When Twilight had joined the growing ranks of the winged and horned less than two months ago, the only real shift she had noticed so far was a new library card, a polite fundraising request from the book-of-the-month club to add her picture to the mailings, and a rather stern letter from the Equestrian Library Association stating that despite her new title, her dues were still overdue, and that a fee of five bits would be added if they were not paid by the end of the month.
It made her feel a little less princess-like, but if she were to birth a little alicorn princess foal, that would stir up the pot of excitable ponies all over again. Green Grass had often teased her gently about the possibility of eloping to Las Pegasus, and she had always just laughed him off, but what if he had actually been serious? She wanted nothing more than to hide from the world for a few weeks or months, maybe just until the foal was weaned from pre-school picture books up to chapter books, but as a princess, that option was not available.
What she needed was Green Grass. He had an almost magical ability to take away the stress and make her laugh that could only be topped by Pinkie Pie. When he looked into her eyes, he couldn’t lie to save his life. He was kind when she needed it, generous with his own time for whatever projects she was working on, loyal to a fault, and could make even the most annoying little colt or filly into a studious student. She needed him right down to the tips of her hooves, to be wrapped up in his embrace and never let go, forever and ever.
As if the thought had triggered it, the sound of rapid hoofsteps on the stairs outside echoed through the room. The rest of the ponies who now filled the study had stepped softly up the stairs as if they were afraid of causing an avalanche, and spoke in low whispers if they had spoken at all. These hooves were coming up the stairs two and three at a time, and a welcome voice on the edge of panic shouted, “Twilight!”
All of her previous worries about the legitimacy of the foal came cascading back in one huge wave. The room was full of witnesses now, friends and family who all knew she was pregnant and had been as supportive as they could be, but if Green Grass were to be told she was pregnant before he proposed, the law would treat the foal as illegitimate. The nobility would never accept her, and the foal would never find friends or get into a good school or find a kind and loving colt like Green Grass until she was really, really old and living in a retirement stable somewhere. She might even become a juvenile delinquent and rebel against authority, traveling around Canterlot with a bunch of other pierced and tattooed gang members, spray-painting anarchist slogans on buildings and even misspelling the words!
She couldn’t tell him, she had to keep her mouth shut, he needed to make a proposal without knowing or everything would be wrong! The doors at the other end of the room slammed open and a green blur dashed inside as Twilight gritted her teeth and turned to face him, determined to not say a word.
* ♥ *
Before the chariot even stopped rolling, Green Grass had jumped over the side and was galloping up the stairs to one of the castle’s side doors. He had been in the castle several times with Twilight and had most of the more common paths memorized, but those parts of his mind that would normally have carried out navigation were overwhelmed with disastrous visions of what could have possibly caused Celestia to send the letter. If it were not for the guards and servants in the castle opening doors in front of him and pointing down corridors, he would have dashed around the maze of twisty passages, all different, all day.
The ornate marble staircase leading upwards to the princess’ personal quarters had always seemed as if gravity were turned up in its vicinity, making his hooves strain to lift themselves for each step, but now he fairly flew up the stairs at a dead run, crashing through the doors at the top before the guards could even open them fully, rebounding off somepony dark green and apologetic, and knocking a table covered with puzzle pieces flying before skidding to a halt on his knees in front of a red-eyed alicorn who — as far as his panicked perceptions were concerned — was the only pony in the room.
“Twilight,” he gasped, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m pregnant!” she blurted out, holding a hoof over her mouth immediately afterwards.
His hooves felt like lead as they fumbled over his jacket, looking for the little box holding the engagement ring that he had been so afraid to use for far too long. He pulled it out while talking in a rush of words that cascaded out all at once, so unlike all the times he had practiced.
“Twilight Sparkle, will you—”
Twilight’s eyes flared white when she jumped to her hooves, a screech of, “No! No!” deafening all of the ponies in the room as her magic flashed, filling the room with incandescent light and the sound of two loud pops.
And when everypony could see again, Twilight and Green Grass were missing from the room.
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And they're off!
Okay, Twilight, just stay calm, let him get down on his knees and say the words, and everything will be—
"I'm pregnant!"
derpicdn.net/img/2013/11/26/481925/full.gif
I'm disappointed in you, Green Grass, that's the freaking first and most important individual you ask, not the last one. You should be ashamed of yourself
There we go ...
Well, that happened. I'm guessing Twilight either didn't want an audience for the occasion, or - she wants to have a serious talk with him first.
Considering he only seemed to pop the question whether she would marry him after she announced she is pregnant (she doesn't know the dumb oaf has been fiddling with it for a while now), I imagine she is worried he might be doing so out of an immediate sense of panicky obligation, not because he truly wants to marry her.
If that's the case, it's probably going to take a bit of doing to convince her otherwise, what with how panic and imagine-worst-scenario prone Twilight can be. After all, as was mentioned previously, they had agreed not to push the relationship further than either was naturally comfortable with - and that Green Grass proposes straight after she announces her pregnancy make for fairly credible grounds for the worry that he only does so because of said pregnancy, not because it's a step he would have felt naturally about under normal circumstances. And a marriage born out of obligation has a chance of being a pretty miserable affair.
Or who knows, Twilight might be thinking any number of things right now.
5721325 Considering in these stories that whenever Twilight teleports Greenie, 9 out of 10 times it is into a body of water.
And seeing that our Princess of Friendship was having a nervous breakdown, I wouldn't wanna place bets on any other outcome... no matter HOW good the odds were in Pinkie's Betting Pool.
5721348
Hm ... does that mean they will both end up in Ponyville's fountain this time, considering she went along for the ride?
5721253 20 bits on the chestnut with the weird spot.
...Hang on. Twilight is the parent with the royal blood. Regardless of who the father is, legal or otherwise, Twilight's foal is unquestionably of royal blood. Why in the seven hells does it matter whether the foal is "legitimate" or not in this case?
5721359 Wouldn't be the first time he left her all wet and bothered.
Okay, Twi may have just slightly gone off the deep end. Not as bad as Monster but badly enough that crossing her today may be a bad idea.
If I were Celly, I'd lock down the Star Swirl the Bearded wing. We all know how brilliantly dangerous Twilight can be when motivated by some silly fears. At the very least, an Equis Presley impersonator (and lay preacher) in Las Pegasus is about to get the surprise of his life... three weeks ago.
5721383
Because Twilight is a worry-wart with a penchant for blowing things out of proportion, just like she demonstrated in her inner monologue, when given the time to overthink things and panic?
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Obviously, they're going to end up in Pinkie's Betting Pool. Somehow.
5721401
What a naive thought, no lockdown short of Discord himself would keep Twilight out in such a state
Besides, she already knows the time travel spell - so if that is indeed her intended course, there is no stopping her
5721383
And let's not even get into how 'legitimacy' would work in a presumably-matriarchal society, that's an entire argument in itself.
I think that romantic dinner and proposal is the way to go, especially if Green Grass shows he had it all planned out and ready to go, Twilight will be happy he was going to propose and then she won't care what other ponies say.
Friends and a good school can be found in Ponyville. And Twilight is assuming the foal will be a filly, makes me more certain it would be a colt just to throw things out of whack more.
On a side note: If Greenie learns Blueblood tried to finagle Twilight into marriage... how strong is Greenie after years of lugging that wagon around and possibly having to avoid random magic discharges from his students??? Because I would lay even odds on him being able to buck Blueblood into unconsciousness.
I approve the crossover with the Cadance of Cloudsdale cycle.
Of course that means a pregnant alicorn doesn't so much "eat" or "hunger" as is compelled to consume all digestible matter.
Green Grass might have to get a second job to supplement the royal treasury.
5721325 She'd just been telling herself how important it was that he propose before she told him she was pregnant, and then she screwed it up and panicked. Now their foal will automatically be a bastard and the nobility won't recognize their marriage, etc etc.
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That's a probability too, I just originally assumed that might not be the case because she didn't react immediately after blurting it out - thus she had "ruined it" before Green started saying anything, thus I figured it might have been what he said that set her off. Though I suppose she might have been momentarily frozen in shock after spilling the beans.
Ah well, I'm sure that after a conversation and a bathtub's worth of comfort ice cream Green will manage to convince her that the foal is just fine and it's legitimacy isn't in any danger to the ponies that actually matter and decide such things - Celestia/Luna. And that she has never really cared about the nobility in the first place :P
I have to wonder if the princesses annotate their historical romances. "That didn't work like that. That hadn't been invented yet. Oh! If anypony had thought of doing that, they never told me."
As for Twilight and Green... Well, I'm sure they'll figure something out. Eventually. I suppose the question is who else was in the room, and how much will Celestia have to lean on them to get them to say they never heard Twilight say anything. (If all else fails, there's always memory magic. Just hinting at the possibility of Twilight's horn getting near a pony's brain should be enough to coerce silence.)
Ooh, wow, I'm not sure you went the right way with that, Princess.
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The secret that Twilight is pregnant is long since out though (all the castle was already talking about it), so I don't think it's possible to keep it under wraps - Twilight simply hasn't been informed yet that her pregnancy is all but public knowledge (for obvious reasons - Celestia likes her castle in one piece, thank you very much).
In the end it doesn't really matter though, what is or isn't legitimate depends on what Celestia says is or isn't. Or Luna, I suppose, since she seems pretty intent on one-upping her sister - and woe betide anyone standing in the way of her self-proclaimed quest of making this the best royal wedding ever
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The key is that Green Grass has to propose without knowing about the pregnancy. Every other sapient being in the world can know, but as long as he doesn't, the child will be a legitimate heir. It's all rather quantum. As long as Twilight's womb is in a pregnant/not-pregnant superposition from Green's reference frame, they're fine. But she had to go and collapse the eigenstate.
Okay, pools are now open for where Green Grass and Princess Twilight went. Ten bit buy in y'all.
What's up with the whole legitimacy crap? It's not live stock it's Twilight's freaking son or daughter. It could come out as any pony tribe (reason: alicorn is compromised of all three tribes) and who exactly is going to stop the wielder of magic? Even if the nobility is going to rabble about it, what do expect to happen, get her freaking title or become a princess? Whine and B!tch all the want, it's like a bee sting to a bear when you look at it. A very magical, royal, can blast you to Tartarus and back, bear.
5721325
Greenie wasn't supposed to know ahead of time. She told him. The foal is now illegitimate.
5721996
This culture is at least 100 years back from ours. This was a real concern back then. Where do you think Bastard comes from?
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5721983
What I was getting at is that the rules of legitimacy (or any law really) in Equestria depend on Celestia/Luna, so if they declare it as legitimate then that's that
Granted, Celestia being Celestia, she will probably think up something more subtle that still gets her the outcome she wants.
5722146
That'd be like saying that a celebrity who is friends with Obama can get away with whatever they want because Obama is president and he can give a presidential pardon. The important thing isn't that she's declared legitimate. The important thing is that everyone will know she wasn't.
5722157
The most subtle thing in the world it certainly ain't, but in the end yes - she can get away with it (and that's not a very accurate analogy considering the different government systems). The only ones who would care in the first place are the self-important and racist nobles, whose views Celestia doesn't endorse either way.
For the rest of the populace (assuming they have ever even known or cared about this "law" in particular, which I'm going to guess leans towards a resounding "no"), it would simply be Celestia dusting off some old law and bringing it up to speed with the needs of the modern times. Happens all the time when an incident highlights the need to do so.
Like I said, not the most subtle approach (hence why Celestia wouldn't do it, unless something ticks her off enough to make her really bring the hammer down), but certainly one available to her.
But then again, Twilight and Cadence are Princesses simply because Celestia Said So, so it isn't necessarily out of character for her to take the direct approach either.
Don't worry. We can fix this. It just didn't go exactly as planned, but...
It didn't. Go. AS. PLANNED!
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I don't think it's quite that easy. If the child is illegitimate, not only will the more petty and/or stuff of the nobles (so, everypony except Fancypants and his paramour) throw a fit, the press will eat it right up. Changing the law will not change the fact, either, that the child could and would still have to deal with being called such... And there's evidently not much you can do to prevent bullying if somepony's set to it, no matter how much power you have.
Celestia's power might be overstated, too, especially in this case. Just in the last story it was said that she can't just change laws willy-nilly, or else she'd lose ponies' trust as a sovereign. Not to mention that abolishing a law that defines someone as something, doesn't prohibit and in many cases doesn't stop others from using that definition if they did before.
Now, don't get me wrong. Of course Twilight, Greenie, Celestia and everypony else in their family will get over this and do their thing regardless of what the nobles say. Of course any plans to discredit them or manipulate them are going to fail, if not backfire horribly. Several ponies will be faced with implied threats to be banished to the moon, sun, or uranus (he he heh...) and we will end with a weird, neurotic and happy family... until the next minor obstacle or major villain comes to throw them for a loop.
I just wanted to state my opinion that "playing the system" (especially trying to play it with two dice, a rubber hammer and a "Get out of jail free" card you had hidden in your vest pocket) is probably one of the solutions that won't accomplish much in this case.
5722501
If I were a petty and backstabbing noble, and Princess Twilight decided to officially acknowledge her "illegitimate" child, with the support of the other three princesses, I'd be terrified that, should I give offence over the issue, they'd use their considerable social and political power to destroy me.
But then, I'm probably assuming far too much intelligence on their parts.
5722619
The ponies love their princessess (or they love Celestia, anyway) rather than fear them, and they follow them because they trust that they act for the benefit of their society rather than their own.
They could change any law to whatever they find convenient to their personal interests, yes, and they would still be in power, but they would lose the ponies' trust and be viewed as a tyrants, and losing your subject's trust is the fastest way to lose a subject. Forever!
5722915
Oh, you don't need to change any laws or act the tyrant. Just fail to invite those who displease you to the gala. Grant contracts to their rivals instead of them. Conspicuously fail to smile at them. Simple things like that, and the Rarities and Fancy Pantses of Canterlot will notice that you're not in the Princesses' good graces. And where the Princesses lead (socially, at least), everypony else in those circles will follow.
5722209
Plan to explain what Celestia can do that could possibly hide this? The simple fact is that EVERY POSSIBLE NEGATIVE THING associated with this will happen regardless of any meddling that Celestia could do.
and please, look up the Magna Carta if you want to see what happens when the nobles have had enough. They control the money, they control the army, and, hint hint, they control the bloody land.
5721383
Because there are rules and procedures that no one, least of all the nobles who would seek to enforce them, actually understands the origins of or reasons for.
I mean, I guess it means that any second foal they have after being married would be the heir apparent, although I could not for the life of me explain what they would inherit, given that the rank of Princess, at least in Equestria, does not appear to be inherited in any capacity.
I mean, I guess they might inherit her library fines, for whatever that may be worth, and maybe one or more of her autographed copies of some book or another.
Of course, given that all those present were, I quote "friends and family," and it was not indicated that those present were anything but those who would be disinclined to spread word around, I'm not sure there's actually any evidence that the pregnancy was announced before he proposed, in any case.
No! Not the puzzle!
Green Grass, you inequine monster, there WILL be a reckoning.
5723088
Real life situations and monarchies are in no way applicable to Equestria as we see it here. The Nobles hold no land that we know of, whatever army we have seen reports to the Princesses directly, the populace at large worships the ground Celestia walks on and the four Alicorns hold as much magical power between themselves as the rest of Equestria combined, making it a moot point anyway. The nobles can't do anything that Celestia ultimately doesn't allow them to do. It's the Crown that holds all the cards here, not the nobility.
And I never said anything about hiding because I fail to see the need - I talked about changing (read: updating and old law, a practice which happens all the time all around the world) the rules that govern legitimacy - these aren't some sort of universal axioms that the world revolves around, they are words on paper that can be rewritten and amended.
Simply remove the clause that states that a proposal before being aware of pregnancy is the deciding factor (which is needlessly convoluted and dumb in the first place, to be fair, and was probably written up during a drunken stupor that no one besides Twilight seems to care about anyway - Papercut didn't even bat an eye at the fact that she is already pregnant when he was listing off all the Noble candidates who would be happy to line up for her hoof) and change it to the legitimacy being decided during the child's birth, depending on whether the parents are married/engaged at that point in time.
Voila, this particular problem solved and an old and convoluted law that has long since been in need of updating finally gets its due. The end.
That's actually some not bad planning there, Green Grass. It's a shame events conspired against you.
I can see the problem in trying to settle on which sect of alicorn worship to belong to.
You know, that's a law that needs a little executive Princess attention.
Well, that could have gone better. Could have been worse, though, she could have teleported away and left Greenie behind.
5723160
Who's to say it's not inherited?
Blueblood obviously inherited his title of prince.
Celestia and Luna haven't had their origin explained and haven't had children.
Cadance and Twilight both ascended.
This is the first child born to an alicorn princess as far as we know.
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5722944 Allow the author to add his two cents to this discussion. I thought the answer was obvious, and several of you caught it right away. Celestia is *under* the law. If she were to simply wave a hoof and make this law go away, what other laws could she safely ignore? It's a problem that exists in ancient and in modern politics: If a ruler is above the law, and refuses to abide by it, they become a tyrant. Now Romane law *did* at one time (as I recall) allow for a tyant to be appointed for limited times for limited circumstances, but this is the modern era. We have trains.
Now this small difficulty will not stop a determined Princess with a plan, in particular a particularly tricky younger sister who knows how to pit the Second Estate against the Fourth Estate...
Everything is certainly fudgesicles indeed, Green Grass.
Hah. Child development as expressed in book types.
It'd be hilarious if the kid didn't like reading, at all
If the kid's an alicorn, that'd be downright hilarious, you know that?
(we need a Discord smiley)
You can give subtle hints!
"Is that a ring in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
At least there are no threatening little dwarves in there. Well, except the one inside Twilight
And thus was the Orange Puzzle Room refreshed to endure several more centuries.
I'm curious about this puzzle.
6 pieces a day for 365 days a year over 20 years is the perimeter of 10,950, of which there are four sides, two of which are squared to find the total number of pieces, 119,902,500, which at an assumed rate of 6 a day for 365 days every year would take her something like 54,750 years to complete the puzzle.
(6*365*20/4)^2/6/365
I think I did that right. How big is this table?
Anyway, I'll take this opportunity to say I freaking love your stories. Especially how you manage to tie so many together. The whole thing becomes an even bigger adventure to discover. I've read so much because of this branching network you and a few other authors are building. Love it.
I can't help but think that Twilight Sparkle probably made it a tradition to smack Green Grass upside the head every time their anniversary comes around, to remind him that he was an idiot for waiting so long to propose to her.
More than likely, his friends and family join in this little tradition as well.
See folks, this is why you don't think of what you're intending -not- to say when trying not to say it!