Age 5:
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
I sat ramrod behind my desk. Sleep pulled incessantly at my eyelids but I had long practise at seeming attentive while my mind wandered. The pony before me dashed off sketch after sketch with aplomb, shooting what I assume were platitudes at me to keep me motivated. Beyond him I could see one of my aides checking her clipboard. A sigh bubbled up inside me. Their grandparents had fought beside me in a war. Their great great grandparents had bowed before me as a goddess incarnate. And these ponies organised my day to include a ‘feelings forum’ and lessons on how to ‘smise’.
“Gorgeous, your highness. Just raise your chin a little and … magnificent! Oh, you have such an aquiline nose, your grace!”
I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I prayed for the interminable torture to just end already. Though what followed it would probably be just as relentlessly dull.
“And I think … yes that’s enough.” The sketch artist beamed at me and began to gather up his things. “I propose one, maybe two more sittings for linework and colour matching, but this should be enough for me to work on your window for now.”
“My sincere gratitude, Mister Mirrorshine.” I nodded my head in the expected manner and took my leave.
Stained glass windows to commemorate Equestria’s past had seemed like such a good idea at the time. For someone reason, however, the fact that I would have to be featured in at least one had slipped my mind. Still, at least this would go some way to evoking the kind of story I was trying to cultivate about ‘The Legend of Nightmare Moon’. History was as malleable as fresh dough if you knew how to knead it properly.
“Majesty!”
I halted in my tracks. I had almost made it to the relief of solitude. Almost. I turned to regard the heavyset white stallion advancing on me as if this was his castle and I the subject being graced with its opulence. His beard, though neatly trimmed, seemed to all be standing on end like an angry cat.
“Your majesty!”
I squinted at him for a moment. “Headmaster Silverfoot. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The stallion bristled at me through his carefully coiffed moustache and beard. “Your majesty,” he said again. “I must speak with you.”
“Is that not what we are doing now?”
His bristle subsided as he processed my words. “Yes … well … I must speak with you in regards to one of your - our - students.”
“Oh dear. I take it from your tone that you are not here to regale me with tales of stellar test scores and beautifully written essays.”
“Indeed not, your majesty,” Headmaster Silverfoot huffed. “I require your presence at the school immediately.”
I blinked at him. I had been more of a figurehead at the school than I had intended when it first opened but royal duties precluded anything else. I wondered a little at my youthful enthusiasm to run both a country and an education establishment on my own. To be summoned in person meant something very serious was afoot.
“What has happened, Headmaster?” I asked, keeping my tone calm.
“One of the students, majesty. He has … has …” Headmaster Silverfoot shut his eyes as though counting to ten. “He has … defaced the portrait in the Main Hall.”
“Defaced it? How? That portrait is covered in warding spells isn’t it? And, if I recall correctly, one or two protection enchantments and a Keep Clean lodestone, yes?”
“Exactly, your majesty!”
I stared at him for as long as was appropriate. The I pushed down a sigh. “Lead on, Headmaster.”
I was escorted to his office, where a tiny brown colt sat defiantly on what looked like a very uncomfortable chair. He turned when the door opened, a look of rebelliousness on his face that melted into fear when he saw me.
“Purple Pumpkin,” blustered Headmaster Silverfoot. “You were warned that if this sort of thing happened again you would face the direst of consequences. Well, now you face them!” He seemed almost proud that a single student had driven him to call upon the leader of the whole country.
I studied the colt for a moment over Headmaster Silverfoot’s head. He was small, one might even say runty, and what had appeared at first to be a purely brown coat now revealed itself to be a patchwork of various shades splashed across him by an artist who was running out of paint. A large splodge of brown so dark it was almost black covered one of his eyes, making the gold irises appear almost luminous in his face. By contrast his nose was so pale as to be almost white. I watched it twitch, recognising somepony struggling very hard not to wrinkle their snout in disgust.
“Headmaster SIlverfoot.”
“Hm?” Evidently I had cut him off.
“Would you please leave us for a moment?”
“I, uh … yes. Yes of course. I’ll be right outside, your majesty.”
“Could you please go and check on the damage and make a report to to treasury? I’m sure the royal coffers can stand to restore whatever harm was done.”
“Y-yes, right away your majesty!”
He dutifully trotted off. I listened to his steps retreat down the corridor.
It was several minutes before either one of us spoke.
“Are you here to make an example out of me?”
I had been expecting a childish voice but what emerged from the tiny colt was the voice of someone on the very cusp of adulthood.
“An example out of you?”
“Like … string me up out on the schoolyard as an example to others or something, as t’were?”
“Does that sound like something I would do?”
“... No.” He paused before continuing, “I’ve heard stories from my grandfather though, so I have. About you … being a warrior princess and all that. So … I wasn’t sure. I mean, a princess can’t just give out a detention like a regular teacher, as t’were.”
“Whyever not? Though I should think punishment comes after finding out what crime has been committed. I hear you defaced a painting.”
He winced. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m more interested in how you did it.” I waved a hoof. “I was never fond of that portrait anyway. I was in particularly bad mood when I sat for the artist and I have always felt that he communicated that a little too well in his work. The first thing a young pony sees upon entering their new school should be a welcoming sight, not a scowling alicorn whose bottom hurts from sitting on a throne with a far too thin cushion and listening to ponies talk at her all day.”
The colt before me adopted the expression of one who has just seen an entire river get up and dance.
“So to bring the matter back to the question at hoof, how did you manage to damage that awful thing?”
“I … I ... “ He swallowed. “A solution of magnesium, eyebright, lungwort, dragon tears, water from a puddle of touched by the moon on the first night of the month and … and fanged jackdaw venom, so t’was.”
It was my turn to widen my eyes in surprise. “What on earth were you making with ingredients like those?”
He muttered something inaudible.
“Excuse me?”
“I was trying to invent an elixir to make myself taller, your majesty.”
“An elixir?”
He nodded. “Spells and enchantments are all temporary. They wear off at a maximum of two or weeks, give a few hours or so. Ensorcelled gems put into jewellery last longer but they’re just glamour - you’re not actually any taller under the illusion so ponies are always talking to a spot two feet above your head where they think your eyes are and you still can’t reach anything on high shelves.”
“So … you were trying to invent an elixir to … hold a spell in place permanently.”
“Yes. But it didn’t go right, no it didn’t. I must have used too much jackdaw venom because when Chisel, um, ‘accidentally knocked into me’ the phial I had it in went flying.” He made air quotes with his hooves and mimicked the trajectory of his potion phial. “It landed on the painting and kind of … er .. melted right through it.”
“And through the magic laid upon it,” I added.
“Do … do I have to pay for the damage?” His hind hooves shuffled further underneath him. The action was not a conscious one. He was making himself even smaller, as if trying to be a harder target to hit. “I’m not sure my family can afford -”
“That will not be necessary.” I sat down on the floor. This seemed to flummox him. “It takes a very powerful magic to break the kind of magic that was on that portrait … Purple Pumpkin was it?”
‘Yes, your majesty. Technically it’s just Pumpkin but my dad said I’m as unusual and as useful as a purple pumpkin in a briar patch and the name just kind of … stuck, as t’were.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “I would be interested to know how you came up with such a concoction.”
“It just seemed … logical, your majesty.”
“Logical?”
“Yes, your majesty.”
“You are an earth pony, Purple Pumpkin.”
He looked down at his hooves as if checking they were still there. “Um, yes your majesty?”
“How long have you been a student here?”
“About a year your majesty. I’m here on a scholarship, so I am.”
Just a year? And he’s already making potions strong enough to break magic laid by unicorns thrice his age? I carefully schooled my face to show none of my surprise. “Where are you from originally?”
“Hoofington, your majesty.”
A purely earth pony settlement for several dozen generations.
“How are you finding Canterlot so far?”
Purple Pumpkin’s snout tried to wrinkle again, though he did a commendable job stopping it. “It’s … all right, your majesty.”
“Just all right?”
“It’s very … fancy. I prefer stuff plain, as t’were.”
I nodded. “Is that why you prefer potions to other forms of magical study?”
“Y-yes, your majesty, but how did you -”
“Only somepony very adept at potions could have come up with the brew you described.”
“Oh,” he said, a little dejected. After a little while he added, “Oh.”
“You must be very talented to have gained a scholarship here.”
“Truth be told, your majesty, I would have been just as happy staying home, but my parents were keen on me coming here after my teacher sent a letter to the scholarship board, so he did. They came out and tested me and everypony was so happy that I was something … special, I guess, as t’were.”
“You guess?”
“Life was … simpler back home, so t’was,” he admitted softly. “Canterlot is nice and I’ve loved learning all this new stuff but … things are more complicated here, so they are. Back home, if someone disrespects you, you knock ‘em down and you punch out your differences, then you get up, shake hooves and go about your business, so you do. Here it’s all …” There was that wrinkle again. “Polly-ticks and stuff. My dad warned me about polly-ticks. He said they happen all the time in the big city, so they do. I decided I don’t much care for polly-ticks, if you’ll beg my pardon, as t’were, your majesty.”
I fought the urge to laugh as he tripped over his words. “To be perfectly frank with you, Purple Pumpkin, I do not care much for them myself. Alas, into every life a little rain must fall. Tell me, are potions the only thing you have show such aptitude for?”
“I’m don’t take any of the pegasus electives, if that’s what you’re asking, your majesty. I’m good at potions and leylines work and … basically the kind of magic that’s more practical. Miss Hoofsky was explaining the space-time continuum theorem to us in class yesterday and it fair made my head spin, so it did. But you put me in front of a bunch of potion ingredients or give me some chalk and a stone circle and I’m right at home, so I am.”
“Indeed.” I surveyed him. “I think I shall have to keep a special eye on you. Purple Pumpkin.”
“A special eye, your majesty?” He looked scared.
“Not in a bad way. You have something special about you. I believe you may be destined for great things.”
“Begging your pardon, your majesty, but I’m not in perfect agreement with that statement, as t’were. I’m a simply country pony. Simple country ponies like me don’t get destined for great things. That’s just not how it’s done. Unicorns get great big special gilded destinies. Maybe even pegasi. But not earth ponies. Our destinies are all fields and fetlocks, so they are.”
“Never say never, Purple Pumpkin. All things that seem to have existed forever need to start somewhere.”
“I … I guess that makes sense.” He scrubbed at his mane. “You’d know better than me about that sort of thing, so you would. But I still think I disagree.”
“We shall see,” I smiled. “For now, I shall talk to the headmaster and tell him you have been thoroughly chastised and will never do anything like this again.”
“You will?”
“Will you do it again?”
“I won’t break any more paintings, if that’s what you mean.” He paused. “Um, not intentionally. Didn’t actually mean to break this one either, truth be told.”
“Hmm. Yes.” I recalled the air quotes. “Purple Pumpkin, how would you feel about extra tuition?”
“Excuse me, your majesty?”
“Extra potion lessons. Maybe enchantments and gem magic as well, if there’s time.”
“That sounds grand, your majesty.” His little eyes shone. “With who?” the shine dimmed a little. “Headmaster Fleetfoot?”
“No. With me.”
He boggled at me. “Wth you!?”
“Would you object to that?”
“No, no, your majesty ...as t’were … i mean … so ‘tis … you’d want to teach me?”
“I think you could benefit from a few lessons beyond what you’re learning in regular classes - to prevent anymore, ah, experimentations gone awry, if nothing else. You can try higher magics in a controlled environment with somepony who can undo anything untoward that may happen.” I winked at him.
“I … I …” He swallowed. “That sounds … amazing your majesty!”
“Good.” I stood and flexed my wings a little, resettling my feathers. “I shall make the necessary arrangements. You will be issued a new class schedule within the next few days. Until then, you are to return to classes and do your best. Are we clear?”
“Y-yes, your majesty!” He actually cocked a little salute at me before scurrying from the room.
I sighed before departing myself. In truth, the offer to tutor him had passed my lips with no real forethought. Rash decisions often led to disaster and I was already so busy - yet I could not bring myself to regret the action. There was something to that little colt; a spark I had not seem in a very long time.
A spark …
Something wormed around in the bottom of my mind. I pushed it away hurriedly and got to my feet.
There was work to be done.