Home

by Homeshine

Freedom

Celestia and Luna sat at the kitchen table with thermometers in their mouths. Well, they didn't have a fever. Homeshine frowned down; It was the first time the two no-longer-unicorns had seen Homeshine without her perpetual smile. She was talking half-to-herself, "Should I take you to the doctor? And tell him what?" Finally, she looked Celestia straight in the eye. "Alright. Start talking. I don't want to punish you, so I need you to be honest with me. What happened out there?"

"I'm sorry." Celestia pulled out her thermometer, broke her gaze, and looked straight down. "I thought you were hiding something from us, and I realized too late that I should have just trusted you. You've been nothing but kind to us."

"Which is why I'm especially disappointed right now. I put my reputation with the Guards on the line to take you in, and I had only one requirement. And you managed to violate that."

Celestia flinched as if the words physically struck somehow. "I'm so very sorry. I misjudged you. I shouldn't have been so suspicious. Is there anything I can do? Maybe we can rebuild the bridge, or something?"

Homeshine finally smiled again. "No. I'm not worried about the bridge; I'm more worried that you two didn't trust me; that I couldn't trust you. Why does no one believe when I say things?"

Celestia chuckled at that, finally bringing a smile back to her face.

Luna responded, "Well for us... Unicorns are very practiced at castle intrigue; saying exactly the right things to exactly the right people to be polite. Celestia thought … there was something in Pagasopolis that would help with..." She looked to Celestia, and their eyes met, sharing an unspoken conversation between sisters.

Celestia broke the gaze with Luna, "You tried to save us, and weren't keeping anything from us; we trust you now. I need to tell you a secret. There's … something we can do."

"Oh?"

"It's hard to explain. We have to show you."

Celestia and Luna hopped off their chairs, leaving their discarded thermometers on the table, and walked over to the small kitchen window over the sink, through which the full moon was visible. They stood in front of it, and locked their two horns together like sword-fighters preparing for a bout.

Homeshine wasn't as familiar in the ways of magic as a unicorn would be, but she did know a few things from her many books. Pegasus weather magic was standard issue, and unicorn magic was increasingly better-researched due to the war against them. She recognized this as a twincast. It allowed for a much, much MUCH more powerful spell than either pony was capable of separately, but required the two casters to be close enough to cast precisely the same spell, timed perfectly synchronously, in exactly the same way. Some weather ponies could make lightning in a precision flying formation, but it required months of intense training until they could essentially think each other's thoughts. For two untrained adepts...

No wonder they got their cutie marks at the same time.

Just as it appeared that the twincast had failed and nothing was happening, the moon set and the sun ... rose. A fast-time spell? Well, that was impressive. Homeshine looked over to the clock on the wall, which still read four in the morning. What? But that would imply …

No. It wasn't possible.

In sixty seconds time, the sun had rose to a full noon height, and then set again. The moon retook its rightful place in the window, exactly where it started.

The sisters turned to look at Homeshine, eyes wide, and their arms around each other for comfort, afraid of her reaction.

"Well. How were we winning this war? The unicorns could simply plunge the planet into eternal night until their demands were met. Or eternal day, and grow all the food they wanted."

The girls looked each other in the eyes, Celestia spoke first, "We're the only ones who can do it. We're the only unicorns who are... that close with each other. Most of the other unicorns are very … suspicious of each other."

"And we're pwodigy.... prodigies," Luna added. "We're the best at magic. We're the personal students of Auntie... Princess Platinum herself."

"And it's not really a hard spell as you would think." Celestia said. "You don't move the sun or the planet; you simply change the time of day. That way you're enchanting the Cosmic Clock, rather than anything actually inside the universe."

"I thought of it," bragged Luna, "but I needed my big sister's help." The two hugged, basking in the memory of it. "We'd only done it once before, right before we … had to leave."

This was becoming clearer.

"Let me guess, the others wanted to use you as a weapon of war, rather than children, who needed to be protected."

Celestia and Luna excitedly nodded in perfect tandem. It was cute. Luna started, "Auntie Platinum helped us escape when the King and Queen disappeared."

Celestia finished, "She brought us near here, on the border. She said no unicorn place would be safe; we'd be recognized instantly."

"I think you were still recognized. Although, perhaps not anymore with those wings."

They twirled around, chasing their own tails, trying to get a good look at them. Celestia spoke first, "I wanted to help my sister. I felt so guilty dragging her along into danger based on my suspicions. She spoke very highly of you, and I talked her out of it. I failed her, and wanted to make it right so very much."

Luna continued, "I wanted to help MY sister, I wanted to cast a spell, any sort of spell that might help.. This new spell was in the same place as the moon was."

Celestia picked up after that, "Yeah, the spell in the Cosmic Clock. Well, I did always want to be a pegasus, and help my sister escape... all of this." She trailed off.

"Cutie mark magic," Homeshine responded, "The kind I know best. You wanted to help others, your sisters, the whole world; it's your special talents, and you believe in it so strongly you got your cutie marks in record time, and can do it strong enough to change the cosmos itself when you want to help bad enough.

"Let me get you a mirror," Homeshine interrupted herself, "So you two can stop twirling in place."A power failure cut the looky-look short as all the lights went out. "Well, this again. And some candles, as well."

She was only though half a dozen of them before the incoming blur of Pink Punch started snuffing them out, one by expedient one, "Burning burning. Smell burning."

Homeshine blew out the candle she had just lit before it even took, "Oh, I am so sorry, Punch. I'd forgot."

The sisters' horns glowed, replacing the light levels, revealing Punch sobbing on a kneeling Homeshine's shoulder, who was patting his back and trying to comfort him, "It's okay. There's no burning here. It's all out."

The sisters looked at each other, the shadows in the kitchen moving abruptly every time one of their heads moved, taking the light source with it. Celestia's yellow; Luna's a deep blue.

"What-" Celestia started.

"Punch is afraid of fire. He's a recent arrival at Home, after his old home was... lost in a bombing. I didn't think. We haven't had a rolling blackout since he arrived."

Punch was, of course, followed by every single other student at Home, who had to be similarly comforted by Homeshine, and put back to bed. "It's not an attack, just a power outage. Go back to sleep, the power might even be on by morning. And if not, we get the day off of school!" That, at least, calmed their fears enough to restore normality, and they went back to sleep, finally including Punch, Celestia, and Luna.

* * *

Sadly for the students, the power was restored and school did resume the next day, leaving Homeshine to teach the promised Flying Lessons, which the sisters tried to make up for in heart what they lacked in skill. "You're thinking like unicorns, not pegasi; you're not planning a step-by-step elaborate plan to get to your destination. Simply veer in a general direction. It doesn't have to be right or wrong, it doesn't have to be useful, just move in the way the wind makes you feel. It's more like dancing than swimming. What's your favorite song?"

Celestia matter-of-factly said., "Haydn Cello Concerto Number 1 in C-Major. The castle orchestra plays it all the time."

Homeshine paused. "Um." She scratched her head with one wing. "Don't give me some pre-decided 'correct' answer. What's your real favorite song? What's your secret pleasure? What do you sing when no one is watching?"

The two sisters looked at each other. Luna spoke in a tiny squeak, almost as if it were a question, "Yellow Submarine?"

"So sing it as you fly, and as you fly, dance to it. Fly loops. Fly fast. Fly slow. Fly however you want, not what the 'correct' answer is. You fly with your heart, not with your head."

"But," Celestia protested. "How can we do that if we can't even fly in a straight line?"

"Trust me. Try it. I think you'll be surprised."

And they were.