Fine Steps

by TwilightSnarkle

In which we share a cup of tea

Skyshine stood in her kitchen, fretting silently at the fresh pot of tea and the accompanying serviceware arranged just-so. She inhaled deeply — not to enjoy the aroma, but to settle her nerves — and then exhaled as slowly as was comfortable. She held a hoof to her chest, and felt her heartbeat settle into a more familiar cadence.

Feeling more herself, she scanned an eye over the room. The sink sat empty, the chairs were pushed in, and everything was tucked away in its proper bin, drawer, or cabinet save for the cooling kettle atop the stove. A small chalkboard by the front door held some scribbles pertaining to upcoming dates, as well as a smiling multi-colored sunburst in the bottom corner — likely her daughter’s work.

“All is in its place,” she thought, then checked the pinned bun atop her head with a careful hoof. It held fast. “Good.” Nodding with satisfaction, she maneuvered the tray atop a wheeled cart and strode out towards the greatroom to attend to her family’s guest. She wondered whether she’d manage to sit down before Snowdr-

“MOMMY!” shrieked a high voice with delight. A bundle of enthusiastic blue energy burst into the room through the back hallway, bouncing like a rubber ball before she screeched to a halt, four legs splayed wide to maintain her balance . “Mommy,” the tiny unicorn stage-whispered, panting slightly, “there’s a dragon in th’ house!” The whisper was abandoned for sheer, unfiltered joy. “A DRAGON!” she cried, dancing on her hooftips.

Skyshine felt a lock of hair spring free from her bun.

“Yes, dear,” she soothed. “Our guest is a dragon, but while that may be unusual for us, it’s normal for him.” She absentmindedly patted at her bun and then decided it was best left alone. “Sweetheart, please remember that many people see questions about what they are as rude. If you do have questions, see if you can ask him about who he is, instead.”

Snowdrop, to her credit, listened and nodded as her mother spoke. “Yes’m,” she attempted in a solemn tone, a grin trembling at the corners of her lips. “I ‘member. An’ I should wait for him to have his tea an’ get comfy before I ask questions.”

Skyshine smiled, visibly relieved, and tousled the filly’s mane. “Very good. I’m glad you remembered. Now let’s get that tea served, shall we?”

“Yes’m,” Snowdrop replied, embellishing with a sharp salute.

Skyshine made a mental note to have a chat with Bulwark.

---

The greatroom’s usual furnishings had been pushed into a corner, and a collection of rugs, pillows, and bolsters were arranged near the fireplace. A fire had recently been lit, and was still creeping up the sides of a fresh stack of lumber, but was already producing enough heat to cut through the early-morning chill. While spring was soon to fade to summer, the nights were still cold on the mountainside. Atop one pillow sat Worker — a bespectacled, average-sized yellow-coated unicorn with an unruly orange mane — who chatted amiably with his guest.

That guest reclined atop a much larger collection of pillows. He was a dragon of considerable size — perhaps twice the height of a pony at the shoulder when on all fours, and much longer in the neck and torso, not to mention the tail. His serpentine body glittered as he shifted, its purple scales catching the firelight. His fins and eyes were an emerald green, and he smiled toothily as he recounted a story from some time ago. He looked up as Skyshine and Snowdrop entered.

“...not even the same species. But,” he rumbled, glancing meaningfully at the bundle of excitable energy, “if you’ll remind me, I’ll tell you that story another time.”

Worker nodded, and turned to smile at his family. “Skyshine, thank you. Tea is a lovely idea. Snowdrop, good morning! I thought I heard you up.” He spared Skyshine a wink. Skyshine gave him a level look in return. “Ladies, this is Mr. Apex, a new friend. Mr. Apex, Skyshine and Snowdrop.”

The “new friend” ran his tongue across his teeth, murmuring to himself in a rumble that could have been clearly heard in the next room. “Apex. Yes. I suppose that fits.” He snapped back to the meeting at hand and nodded politely. “Hello, both of you. It’s a pleasure.”

Skyshine murmured something that might have been a greeting, still adjusting to the enormous person in her greatroom. Snowdrop quivered with excitement, but managed to squeak before ducking behind her mother.

“Please, both of you, sit,” Worker said. “I’ll serve.” As he stood, he levitated a few pillows and a blanket next to his own for the two newcomers.

He stepped towards the tea cart and looked it over. “Apex was just telling me about the Everfree Forest,” Worker said over his shoulder, pouring a cup for his guest. In a softer voice, he asked, “Sugar? Honey? Milk?” Apex shook his head, and Worker levitated the cup and saucer over to a waiting claw. “It seems,” he continued, “That it’s a place of wild magic. The weather factories can’t affect it, and there are all sorts of mysterious creatures that live there.”

He levitated a cup to his wife, with a dollop of honey and a small splash of milk, as she liked it, then gave Snowdrop a smile. “Wouldn’t that be an exciting place to explore, dear? Imagine all the things we could learn!” Snowdrop’s cup received mostly milk, with a splash of honeyed tea. Worker winked at her and put a sugar cube on the saucer, then floated it over to the filly.

She giggled and took the saucer carefully, then asked, “What does wild magic mean? It sounds spooky.”

Worker grinned at their guest and gestured to his daughter. “Your topic. Care to elaborate? I guarantee she’s all ears.” He picked up his tea and settled in next to his wife.

Apex was mid-sip, and so emptied his cup as politely as he could. He set it down and puffed a wisp of green flame on it, causing it to vanish in a burst of tiny sparkling motes. This brought a squeal of delight from a certain filly. Skyshine and Worker, near mirrors of one another, each recoiled slightly and drew up a hoof to their chests.

The dragon’s eyes went wide and he patted his foreclaws together in awkward discomfort. “Oh, uh. I’m sorry.” He tried to smile reassuringly. “It’s, uh, in the kitchen. I figured you’d want the dishes there, but I should have asked. Ahem. Um. Wild magic. Well.” He forced his claws to the floor, where they clutched a bolster as if it were the edge of a crumbling cliff.

He turned his attention to Snowdrop. On the edge of his vision, he saw Worker’s jaw working for a moment, but Skyshine murmured something in his ear and he fell silent.

“Right,” he said, centering his thoughts. “Wild magic.” He looked at the tiny blue filly watching him intently. “Snowdrop, right?” She nodded with enthusiasm, tea and sugar cube forgotten at her side.

“Well, then. Snowdrop. Do you know how your magic works? How to use your horn to focus on something, and then create a spell to move it?”

Snowdrop beamed, her horn flaring to life. She lifted her cup and saucer into the air, then brought it back safely to her grasp. “I’m good at tela… telly… moving things, Princess Luna says. I’m not learnin’ other spells yet, though.”

The dragon raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Well done!” His features seemed to soften, and he lowered his neck a few inches as he got comfortable with the topic. “So, think of all the things you had to learn before you could control how you did that. How to focus. How to draw in the energy. How you had to think in a certain way to make your cup and saucer move about. It might be easy now, but it wasn’t easy before, was it?”

Snowdrop shook her head. “No, it was rilly hard! An’ it didn’t work a lot.”

Apex nodded. “I understand. Figuring out my magic took a lot of work, too. And my sister took ages to perfect every spell she learned. There are rules and things we have to do to make our magic do what we want. But in the Everfree Forest, magic can just happen. Like…” As he searched for an example, several emotions flashed across his face — fear, disgust, and horror appeared to be the chief participants.

Skyshine gave Worker a look. In turn, Worker attempted to intercede, suggesting, “Why don’t we change the subject?”

Apex brightened, picking up on the words but not the context. “Yes! Change. Good. Ok, so, imagine a tree. You walk past it, and it looks like a normal tree. It has brown bark, and green leaves, and it might even have red fruit, like apples or cherries. And then, all of a sudden, it turns pink! With purple leaves and silver fruit! Nobody did it, it just happened and the tree just goes on growing.”

Snowdrop gasped in wonder. “The trees do magic?”

“Not the trees, no. Nothing ‘does’ magic — not like you or I would, at least. Magic happens, and sometimes the trees are involved. That’s why it’s called ‘wild’. It means that no-one is controlling it, and seems to happen at random. In the Everfree, the wild magic is so strong, it can prevent our magic from making any big changes.” He leaned on his left elbow and freed up his other limb. “Sure, a pegasus pony can still fly,” he said, gesturing with his right claw as if it were taking off, “and a unicorn could still use her spells.” He punctuated this by drawing a circular gesture with a talon. “But if you try to change the forest itself? It might not work.” An empty claw, palm up, followed. “Or it might work and then change right back.”

Apex could see the wheels spinning in Snowdrop’s head. The filly had whole new worlds of possibility unfolding before her. He almost felt like he was back in the Golden Oak.

“But wild magic happens here, too! All the time!” His voice had lightened now, the conversation less of a lecture and more of a chat with friends. “Like, if a new foal has a strong feeling… a need to be held, or be fed, or wanting a change of clothes, well, sometimes they can reach out and use their magic to get it, without needing to know how. Some pegasus foals have been seen to fly to their parents, and some unicorns have magicked bottles, dolls, and even friends safely into their cribs." He glanced up at Skyshine and Worker and caught them in perfectly matched expressions of revelation.

He couldn’t help but chuckle, sending a warm, rumbling wave rolling over everyone in the room. “I bet some strange events around a certain filly suddenly make a lot of sense." He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with a knuckle. Another chuckle — a rockslide after an avalanche — and he continued, raising a claw to forestall interruption. “It's a well-known phenomenon and shouldn't merit any concern," he soothed, "but still rare enough that many families never see it.”

He turned his attention back to the filly. With a warm smile and a conspiratorial tone he rumbled, “Something tells me you caused your parents quite the shock.”

Affronted, Snowdrop sat back and crossed her forelegs at her chest. "Not me," she declared, lifting her chin in defiance. "I'm not allowed to touch Daddy's 'letric stuff."

The enormous houseguest blinked in surprise, a grin slowly creeping across his features. The roar of laughter that followed rattled every window in the house.

---

By late afternoon the conversation had ranged through any number of topics, from agriculture to zoology. While Snowdrop, as expected, was enthralled, Worker was pleasantly surprised to find Skyshine thoroughly enjoying herself — her topics of interest were mercurial but wide-ranging, and she was taking great delight in being able to answer as many questions as she asked of their guest.

Deciding to let the ladies of the house have the opportunity to run the show, Worker busied himself with preparing a light supper — lunch had been leftovers — between trips to refill glasses or retrieve this book or that. As conversation slowed he brought back in the tea cart, laden with fresh juices, water, sandwiches for the ponies, and a small bowl of emeralds and sapphires for their larger guest.

With the arrival of the cart, discussion was limited to just-remembered points or clarifications as everyone stopped to eat. Everyone but Snowdrop, that is, who marveled as Apex contentedly crunched the gemstones into a fine powder. Worker leaned over and nudged her shoulder with his nose, reminding her to focus on her plate, at least for the short term.

Worker finished his meal first and, gathering up his dishes, stopped at the fireplace to reposition the embers and deliver a fresh log. As he nudged it back into place with a levitating poker, he chuckled ruefully, put down the poker, and levitated the log directly. “Fifteen years, and yet…” he mumbled, as he left the room.

Apex stretched and rested his chin on a stack of pillows to watch the flames creep across the new log. Although he could breathe flame, and had done so for centuries, it was still one of his favorite phenomena. He found his thoughts drifting, following the glowing tendrils as they sniffed out trails through the wood. In the corner of his vision, a little pony crept into view, positioning herself between him and the fire. Oh! She was trying to get his attention.

“-ter Apex?” She had a pensive look, absentmindedly chewing her lower lip.

“I’m sorry, Snowdrop. A meal and a fire are very relaxing, and I let my mind wander. What did you want to say?”

Worker returned to the room and began gathering the remaining dishes, pausing by Skyshine to give her a peck on the cheek. He stacked the books in the corner for sorting later, and turned to leave, tousling Snowdrop’s mane as he passed.

“Pfeh,” she said, spitting out her mane and smiling at her father. “S’okay,” she continued, “Daddy gets that way with his books. I wanted to ask what Princess Sparkle was like.”

Apex’s eyes crinkled, and a fond smile creased his features. “Twi? Oh, she’s great, like alw-”

He suddenly realized the room was very, very still. Worker had frozen in the doorway, the levitating dishes slowly descending to the floor. Skyshine’s eyebrows had risen nearly to her hairline. Snowdrop, nonplussed, waited patiently for him to continue. He thought of, and discarded, several ways to steer the conversation but ultimately sighed, and dropped every pretense.

“She’s great. Absolutely great. She’s my best friend, and I’ve been around long enough for that to mean something. I’d love for you to meet her one day. I think you’d remind her of some very happy times.” He crossed his forelimbs atop the pile of pillows, flexed his wings to let them lie more comfortably, and rested his chin atop his wrists. “Now I have a question for you. How did you know?”

Worker, still in the doorway, turned his focus on the conversation, dropping the dishes into the kitchen sink. He winced as he heard glasses clatter against each other. If had broken any he’d have Skyshine to answer to.

Snowdrop looked puzzled, and tilted her head. “Know what?”

“How did you, Miss Snowdrop, a remarkable filly of seven-and-then-some, figure out that I know Twilight Sparkle, something I’ve not told anyone directly for longer than I can remember?”

“Oh.” She thought about this for a moment, walking back to her pillow and sitting down. She looked up at Skyshine. “Mommy, did you know?”

Skyshine shook her head and smiled fondly at her daughter. “No, dear. I’d like to know as well.”

“Oh. She looked over at her father in the doorway. “Daddy?”

Worker smiled and with a glance over his shoulder, stepped fully into the room. “I knew, but I had promised to keep it a secret until he was ready to share it, if ever.”

Snowdrop took this into consideration. The gathered adults waited patiently.

“So, um, I was thinkin’ about that book, from back in Canterlot. And the sparkly ink. And how Daddy was askin’ me questions about colors and shapes. An’ there was a pony with those same colors who sold us the book, like on my toy, and in th’ window at the palace. Only his name was Tor. An’ b’sides a pony isn’t a dragon. But today, you visited, an’ had the some colors and patterns AGAIN an’ this time you were called Apex! So that’s how.”

Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. Worker ran a hoof through his mane, chuckling. Skyshine still seemed lost. “Snowdrop? Why does ‘Apex’ matter?”

“Oh. Apex an’ Tor an’ Spike all mean kinda the same thing. We’re learnin’ about cinnamons in school, an’ I’ve been readin’ Daddy’s thus-a-thingy. So if Apex means Spike, an’ he’s purple’n green, then he must know about Princess Sparkle!”

Skyshine drained the remainder of her tea and gave her husband a level stare. “No wonder both of you are so good at guessing Hearth’s Warming presents.” Worker shrugged in return, accompanying it with a sheepish grin, and returned to his wife’s side.

“Well,” said Spike, “I’ve been humbled.” A bit of green tinged smoke escaped his nostrils as he gathered himself. “Thank you, Snowdrop. That all makes sense. I’m sorry to keep the secret but it was much easier to help around Canterlot without drawing attention to myself. A helpful purple pony at the Crusaders’ museum is one thing, but a dragon would definitely be distracting.”

Snowdrop nodded. “I unnerstan. Bein’ helpful is good. But bein’ yourself is important too.”

Spike thought on this. “Skyshine. Worker. Thank you for this lovely day. And Snowdrop, thank you for teaching me important things in memorable ways.”

“Mommy wanted to be a teacher once,” she answered from atop her cushion. “Daddy says I get it from her.”

Skyshine, blushing, interrupted, “Are you going so soon, Mr… I mean Spike?”

Spike lifted the latch on the sliding door with the tip of his tail. He stood, stretching out one shoulder and then the next. “I really should,” he replied, stretching out his hips. “I told Twi I’d be visiting a friend but I didn’t say I’d be gone this long. I know she’s not worried - she’d have sent a note - but I’d rather not let it go that long.”

“Well, it’s been a delight,” she replied. “Please do feel free to visit whenever you’re free. But if you come unannounced, it might be best if you do so undercover.”

Snowdrop sat up like a bolt. “Uh. Mr. Spike? Sir?”

Spike grinned, and regarded the filly out of the corner of his eye. “Let me guess…”

“Can I… I mean,” she looked at her hooves which she was patting together nervously. “Can you. Can y’show me how…”

“Yes. I can.” He stood as tall as he could, his shoulders brushing the ceiling. “Stand back a little, as there’ll be a breeze. Worker, could you close the flue?”

“Of course,” he replied, and focused for a moment. The fire roiled as its airflow was disrupted, and then began to bank. “All set.”

“Ok, then. Ready? Set. Go.” In the next moment he was something else. There was no shifting, no gradual change, just the presence of an enormous dragon, and then a familiar purple pegasus from a shop very far away. In the absence of ‘dragon’, the air rushed in. Doors swung open throughout the house and, in the room, stacked pillows and a few potted plants found their way to the floor.

“Ah, sorry,” said the pony. “I hope that’s not too much trouble.”

“No,” breathed Skyshine, her mane now a wild tangle. “No trouble. It’ll be fine.”

“That. Was. AMAZING,” cheered Snowdrop, nearly bouncing on all fours. “Can ponies do that?”

“You know?” ‘Tor’ pursed his lips, considering. “I’m not sure. I’ll ask Twilight,” he replied, walking for the sliding door to the porch. “That reminds me. Worker?” He slid the door open and reached outside, picking up a small parcel in his teeth. “Your book.”

“Ah, thank you,” Worker replied, lifting the parcel and carefully depositing it on a nearby table. “And Skyshine is right. You’re always welcome to visit.”

“Thank you both. It’s been a wonderful day. Have a good night. You too, Snowdrop.” With that, he stepped onto the back deck, closed the door, and stepped off the edge. With a rush of wind, he was back to his dragon form, enormous wings sweeping through the darkening sky.

Worker and Skyshine stood at the door, watching him fly away. Snowdrop waved enthusiastically as he went.

“You always meet the most interesting people, Worker,” Skyshine said, resting the side of her head on his shoulder. “You should bring more of them to visit. It’s nice to have a day when all the surprises are good ones.”

Worker nuzzled her poll. “I’ll remember that, dear. And Snowdrop?” He craned his neck to look behind them as Snowdrop peered at the fireplace. “What about you? Do you like surprises?”

“Kinda,” she said, studying the lever for the flue. “Depends. Sometimes surprises are still good but they make a lot of trouble.”

“You can pull that down, dear,” he offered, stepping away from the door. “The fire will appreciate it.” Skyshine followed suit, and the two of them settled down on a nearby cushion.

Snowdrop leaned on the lever but it didn’t budge. She glared at it, then focused, yanking it down with her magic. A little ash fell from the chimney, but soon enough the fire picked back up, burning merrily in the hearth.

She watched it for a moment, then sat, rubbing her hooves together in its warmth. “Oh, yeah,” she said, looking over her shoulder to address her parents. “Where’s the baby’s room gonna be?”

Comments

[Emperor of Jurai]

Well at least they aren't drinking anything at the moment, so that final question won't result in a spit take...maybe some choking on one's own spit though.