I am not sure what hurts more, starvation or being forced to work to eat. I suppose starvation would be worse, but, as I write this from the perspective of many years later, I realize that I was abandoned by my parents at the workhouse at such a young age that I remembered naught but the monotony of work, those times I felt truly frightened, and the rare occasions I found true happiness.

I think I'll start when everything changed, then work back and forward from there.

I was big for my age, always, which was why the workmares always kept me bridled when outside. Probably. With these long legs, I could run as fast as the wind. As an earth pony, I had the endurance and strength to easily run away, not that I'd ever wanted to. I worked; I got my hay twice a day; what worries? I cooperated and didn't have to suffer the other foals around me trying to trip me or poke me or cow me—or taunting me about my cutie mark.

"Bean stalk legs, are you a lunatic?" That was from the older foals who had learned the big words, of course. The younger ones used the word 'crazy'. Even at my age, I had learned both words.

Stupid cutie mark! I'd gotten mine before I could remember much, while I still slept in the wheat-hull stuffed nailed-together wooden boxes the workhouse called a cradle, when I'd realized the moon, which peered in through a window open to the summer night breeze, was my only friend. My theory anyway, based on how many times I can remember staring out a window at that beautiful eternal orb. How could you explain my cutie mark's shape, otherwise?

In practice, cooperating meant that the workmares left me alone to work through the night. That suited me fine, even if that meant I worked outside summer and winter, tethered in the yard—rains and blizzards excepted. Remember, I was an earth pony. I laughed at the abuse weather heaped upon me because that meant the workmares left me alone with my friend. Done with my night-long tasks, I'd spend the early morning learning my letters and numbers with the other foals—only because King Veridi Pace required it of every foal—before sleeping until late afternoon while the other foals toiled.

That fateful afternoon, a dry breeze drove flights of colorful fallen leaves to swirl into the air to crinkle and hiss. Autumn smells lifted my spirits, always did. I trotted through a field of ripening corn, leading a workmare behind me as I searched. The green forest of tall stalks rustled and pattered around me.

I won't describe this workmare, or any of them, because I had no interest in them and don't remember them other than this-one might slap me if I didn't hold my head right when she bridled me, or that-one might tug my bridle if I went too slow. I fixed that potential problem today by making her trail behind me as I searched, but then I spotted a swooping shadow and that caught my attention.

I'd learned the word Babyloin early because it was the name of the kingdom in which we lived. Though ours was a fair and temperate land of earth ponies, other tribes lived here. I'd learned as little as I could about Far Fan, a snotty green pegasus colt who'd liked to pick fights; he'd been wing-clipped so that he had to mind like the rest of us foals. As a consequence, I'd not seen many pegasi actually fly.

A road ran along side the farm toward Town. To see, I had to cross rows and shoulder through scratchy stalks, dragging the workmare behind me. When I found what I wanted to see, I had to look into the westering sun to see the winged pony swoop and land beside another.

A giant amongst ponies she was, for certain, considering how she dwarfed her fluttering companion. The mare wore an all-enveloping black cloak that left her muzzle exposed, but as the blue pegasus pointed down the corn rows at me with a wing, the giant startled. Her hood slid back and I saw a long pointed spiral horn that to my naive eyes looked—because of the obvious spiral—screwed painfully into her forehead.

I stopped and gawked.

The workmare trotted ahead of me and in a few heartbeats, jerked my reins—which slapped my face with the cheekpieces and pulled the bit toward my teeth. My cheeks burnt with embarrassment that I'd let that-one get some pleasure from controlling me. Deep inside, I imagined myself rearing, tearing the lead from her teeth where she clamped them, and knocking her over. Forgotten recollections about why that was bad kept it from surfacing from thought to action. I trotted across the rows, leaving the outlanders behind.

They had to be outlanders.

Ponies rarely wore clothes except in the depths of winter and pegasi hated unicorns so the two rarely congregated. It took another jerk on my bridle for me to concentrate on the task at hoof.

Finding moonstones.

From storybooks we were read while learning our letters, I'd learned that gems grew best in fertile fields. Such things supposedly attracted dragons, so farms liked ponies that could dig them up, if for no other reason than to spare their plows because dragon migrations were pretty rare. And they paid bits to the workhouse, which paid for my hay and kept my tummy full.

The same manner that I could feel the moon's location below the horizon where she hid from that bully that burned in the sky, the sun, I could sense the moon's tears of fear and sorrow where they condensed into gems in the soil. My breath caught in my throat as my heart skipped a beat.

"Pray thee, wait," I said and pawed the ground.

I felt in my heart the heat radiated by the tear of fear before I revealed the red-tinged rainbow moonstone mostly encrusted in a sheath of grey rock. A milky tear of sorrow would have been tinged only by aquamarine or blue and would have radiated melancholy.

Overhead, I heard a whoosh. I looked up as the workmare at my hooves scooped the stone into her saddlebag. For a few instants, a sky-blue pegasus floated in the air ten pony-lengths above me, or rather hovered as her wings flapped. She had to be a tear of fear, obviously, because the wind blew a mane of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Her hair looked lovely. She studied me, her amber eyes pausing long on my flank, before she zipped away and the workmare jerked me back into motion.

Coincidentally, it wasn't minutes later that the sun sunk below the horizon. I remembered hearing a loud distant whinny that seemed somewhat forlorn; and I could have sworn I'd heard a whoosh of a bonfire, but standing in a field of cornstalks playing in the wind, I could have been mistaken.

The sun had recently gone to bed early with unnerving regularity. As long as I could remember, and at that point in my life I had probably only five total years, the sun or moon would hang on the horizon for days without setting or rising, until the land became unbearably hot or a painting of frost would endanger the fields.

When that meant an enduring night, I reveled in my friend's happy visage in the sky. With my encouragement and earnest prayers, I helped her stay in the sky. We fought together against the sun's rising until the last possible moment.

Night made my heart sing. A dark starry perfection under the gaze of the moon left the land looking blue, the way I'd come to believe the world ought to look. Crazy were the ponies that slept by day. They missed the peaceful beauty I witnessed everyday.

"Blue Moon!" shouted the workmare when I got lost in thought again and hadn't moved when she jerked the lead. "We're going home. You want to eat, don't you?"

She tugged again and I followed.

I let her lead down the road in the hastening twilight. I prayed for the moon to rise. In my head I told her there was naught to fear. The sun was gone and the stars were glorious. I felt her in my heart. It took little coaxing; she rose full and bright and gleaming.

The farm was far from town and the workhouse, thus the true dark had long since fallen.

"The other brats are a-bed," the workmare said as she went directly to the farthest point in the yard and tethered me to the stake beside my tools. She shrugged from under her full saddle bags and left. She returned after a while to clank down a tin pail of hay. Until then, I had stood staring at the workhouse, the earth-bermed building nestled within and surrounding the dozen grown-together oak trees that comprised its girth. The long grass and weeds that covered its roof waved in the light breeze. I had had no fear she'd forget my dinner. None. I swear. I had just stood there unmoving because my stomach growled and complained; standing made it more bearable.

I remembered thinking about the startled unicorn giant and the astonishing rainbow-maned pegasus as I worked. Unlike all the other brats, I had steel horseshoes. I used them to hammer away the rock surrounding the moonstones I'd gathered, so they never had a chance to rust. I'd wedge a raw moonstone in a vise of boulders and by the moonlight I'd judge my strike.

Chip, chip, bang!

I'd laboriously break away the stone from the gem and thus shine my shoes, both fore and hind. When done with the load, I'd throw the raw gems in one of the tumblers with fine grit and oily water and peddle the set of them the rest of the night, listening to the contents slushing and clunking. That left time to wonder what it would feel like to fly through the sky, free to fly wherever curiosity led me.

Foalish, of course. One had to work to be fed, but a filly could wonder.

And then there was that white unicorn giant. With such long legs as I had, would I grow up to be as tall as she? When the rare family toured the workhouse planning to adopt, every single pony mistook me for a teen—before a workmare would shoo too-curious-me away because nopony wanted a foal as gangly or as sullen as I.

Had the unicorn mare had that problem growing up? Being unwanted. Being unwontedly different.

She probably had, though as brilliantly white as she was, she probably also had an off-putting way-too-sunny disposition. Which explained the clothes—obviously to hide behind!

The moon finally sank to the horizon and the opposite began to brighten and tinge orange just as I dumped the contents of the fourth-day tumbler. Most of the smooth gems sparkled blue. Clean and bright, I dug out the tears of sorrow, which glowed a wane milky blue. Allowed to soak in a night-time moonlight then wrapped in a dark rag, the revealed gems would glow, providing enough light to read by for days. It was the tears of the moon's sorrow that had solidified to form the blue ones. The red-tinted tears of fear required the sun to glow.

The reminder of the sun made me look to the sky where the moon wobbled suddenly.

I fell to my knees and prayed to her to steady herself. I felt strength stream up from my legs and into my heart where it formed a hidden glow. I prayed with all my heart that she should hold fast and not be pulled from the sky she feared to depart. I let my prayers stream toward her to strengthen her resolve and steadfastness. The world did not need another daytime, not yet. Autumn was still young and warm. My moon need not fear the sun, or sorrow for having been thrust into the heavens, alone. When I could spare the thoughts, I tried to hold the sun at bay, too, by praying that she wait, that she find impediments in her path. I rose and stomped my hooves, still willing my strength forward. The bully shalt not revel this day, I thought. I told her, I told the sun, I am the moon's mighty friend and today thou shalt not rise!

And that day, the sun did not rise.

My moonstones helped light the small polished wood chamber in which we foals, and others known to be brats, gathered to learn our letters and numbers. My tummy pleasantly full with hay sprinkled with last week's oats, I watched a workmare chalk words on the big black slate on the wall with a tap-tap-tap. I stood at a table in the back because I could see over all but the eldest and my eyes were good, and that meant I didn't have to worry about a brat pranking me by pulling my tail or throwing mud in my mane while I concentrated on learning a new word or something about how the world worked.

Being at the back had an occasional disadvantage. Another workmare opened the door at the front of the room. "Blue Moon, come hither."

The foals giggled and sniggered as I walked past them all. A spit ball hit my cutie mark, but I clamped down and refused to buck or even acknowledge I'd been hit.

What bother!

I followed down a candle-lit hall toward the front entrance, missing the one interesting thing in my day, for what? To be told to tumble my stones better? To be paddled for not concentrating last evening when searching for moonstones? That last made me shudder.

Instead, when I turned the corner behind the workmare, I froze.

The outlanders.

I'd had heard about the salon. Few ponies were adopted, but when one was, they visited the salon. It contained satiny lounge pillows in red and green, tables, and a six arm candelabra with all the fat wide white candles burning brightly. They smelled of what I'd later learn was sandalwood. Moreover, the white unicorn giant reclined on the cushions—and her horn glowed a glorious golden yellow, brighter than the candles combined, but not glaringly. She lit every nook of the room, all the way to the high gnarled ceiling, everything except for the mote of darkness directly behind her. Her pegasus companion, also a mare, hovered lazily in the air. Both had magic, not just the obvious in the unicorn's light, but in that the winged-pony beat the air with little more effort than a fan, but it kept her aloft. I saw magic, and for a moment it fascinated me.

"Blue Moon. Come. Now."

As I trotted up, the unicorn remarked in a sweet, clear voice, "Hurricane, you were right! She is a tall filly."

I understood voices and how they could lie. Nopony adopted the gangly ones. I stepped within the threshold of the salon and knelt on the wood floor, looking down. My eyes burned suddenly and I blinked away incipient tears. Had I actually hoped? And if so, why?

"Yes, but look at her cutie mark."

The light cast by the horn light shifted behind my eyelids.

"Remarkable. She's a painted pony with a crescent moon in a sea of night. Seer would go crazy over the iconography of it, but she's an earth pony. Not a unicorn. She has no magic."

"Tell Smart Cookie that. I dare you," Hurricane said.

"B-but flying ponies must have magic," I said, looking up, feeling like the unicorn had somehow read my train of thought. Why couldn't earth ponies, then?

My gaze stuck at her eyes. They were violet and they sparkled, neigh I say with delight? Her mane drew my attention, though. Where the hood of her cloak revealed it, it was startlingly pink, but with a green streak. Though all the windows were closed to the early dawn light outside, her mane seemed to flow ever-so-slightly as if there was a breeze, and there wasn't any. I looked back to her face and saw dark circles under her eyes, which reminded me I was tired, also, after a long night.

I finished, "How can such slowly moving wings hold them up then?"

The workmare stomped a hoof. "Mind," she said.

I looked at my hooves.

The unicorn said, "Please, ma'am. We want to hear who Blue Moon is, not who you want her to be."

The workmare stiffened; hard to miss in my peripheral vision. "You are outlanders. I do not think you understand. You stand here, letting this foal think you might adopt her, but I seriously doubt adoption is your intention at all. Neither of you are earth ponies, let alone Babyloin citizens. The cost of the approvals from town elders won't be trivial, and from the looks of you two, I'm not sure that it isn't that you haven't brought your husbands so much as maybe you are not married. As outlanders, the workhouse shall require proof."

The pegasus settled onto her verdigrised bronze horseshoes with a clatter. Her eyes had narrowed to that look a workmare got just before throttling a misbehaving brat. The unicorn touched her on her withers and she looked at the hoof, then at her. "Celestia?"

The unicorn shook her head and reached into her cloak. She produced a golden coin on a hoof.

The workmare stepped forward and said, "Two."

Pocketing the bits, the workmare walked out of the room. "If the outlanders scare or worry you, call out." The door latched behind her.

I looked at the pair. The unicorn for her immense size, actually didn't look that old, maybe in her late teens. The pegasus had the look of somepony older, maybe the age of my mother had I known her. Both smiled at me.

Adults never smiled at me. It felt disconcerting.

"How old are you?" Celestia asked.

"About five?"

"You don't know?" asked Hurricane, astounded.

I shook my head.

Celestia said, "Still, five? With a cutie mark. I'd not have guessed a day under ten, at least, with her stature." She looked at me. "Do you like the moon?"

"I adore her."

The pair looked each other in the eye as if what I had said had meant something special to them. Their gazes locked, Celestia said, "The magic in the potions Smart Cookie mixes have to come from somewhere. That somewhere could be somepony, not just the plants and detritus he uses."

"From him?" Hurricane said and looked at me. "Anypony can learn to use an amulet, and so, yeah, that makes sense, but I'm beginning to wish you'd had more time to study at the Collegiate before Queen Platinum sent us to follow your lead."

The pegasus stepped closer and I stood in response. From her I scented metal and sweat, and a hint of lavender.

"Can you do magic?" She had had oats for breakfast, and I smelled that rare treat, butter.

Wealth.

My heart instantly sank. I was no unicorn. Yet again, that hope thing had risen inside, and it wasn't fair that that the monster tore at me. But then I had a thought.

"Celestia said, 'has no magic' not 'do magic'," I said. "Do you 'do magic?'"

Hurricane said, "She has a point."

"She does, indeed. Blue Moon is a pretty name."

"I chose it myself."

"You did?"

"Uh, huh. I had no name so everypony called me Blue because that's what color I am, but I didn't like that, but when I learned the moon was called The Moon, I insisted the foals call me Blue Moon and it stuck." I stuck out my chest proudly.

"You said you 'adore' the moon. Do you know the phases of the moon?"

"I do. New, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, new. I watch her all night."

"All night?"

"I work at night..." I paused. I knew most ponies slept at night, but I'd already put my hoof in my mouth, so I continued with a cough, saying, "and I watch her. She's my friend. I know all her moods."

"Her moods?"

"Mostly, she's sad," I said.

Celestia's breath caught and I think I froze. She unfolded herself, stepped off the pillows, then folded down in front of me. It was from her that the perfume wafted, not from the candles. Her violet eyes looked into mine and she blinked. She tossed her head, which caused the point of her horn to arc frighteningly by my left ear. That released much of her very long mane. It settled like a cloud to the ground, but, like a grounded cloud—like a fog—it seemed to have a life of its own though the room had no draughts. I found myself staring.

"How do you know?"

"I know." I tapped my chest hard with a hoof, feeling the percussion in my heart. "I know."

"Where is she?"

I pointed instantly, for, even inside, I knew exactly where the moon rested. It wasn't a simple opposite the bright part of the dawn another brat might have chosen, and I knew this.

Celestia's eyes momentarily glazed as she thought, then she nodded. I knew her next question.

I said, "I pray to her and pray with her. I gather her tears. I love the nights I spend with her and wish they could last forever. When I can, I protect her from that bully of a sun. She fears the sun and I think I know why."

"Why?" Celestia and Hurricane asked in unison.

"The sun overwhelms her, blinds her. Most ponies are happy to play in her sunlit day, but sleep through her night. Who wants to be lonely—?"

I gasped and stopped talking. I was talking about myself! And I wasn't like most ponies, and I was totally talking myself out of finding adoptive parents because I wasn't normal. I was gangly and gawky and sullen; worse, I stayed up all night.

I sighed deeply and started to turn for the door.

Celestia stopped me with a hoof. "Don't go."

"You don't want me. You can't."

"Nopony should be unwanted."

"Do you know how many foals live here?"

I tried to turn with more force, but now she had me with two hooves, and for a moment it turned into a hug. But I was gangly and gawky and appeared fragile. She pulled back, but I no longer turned away. I felt a warmth surging through me from where I'd felt her forelegs around my side and neck.

I stood blinking again. Stupid tears! A waste of salt. It would probably have helped my case had they showered down that moment, but all I did was blink.

Celestia said, "Blue Moon. Perhaps we could pray together for the moon? She must be weary after such a long night's work, being full all night and shining from all the way in the crystal sphere to illuminate the wide wide world. It's time for her to go to bed. Like you, I gather. You do look sleepy."

I yawned. "A bit, I suppose."

"May I lay my horn on your forehead."

I looked at the end of the spiral. It looked sharp. "Not the pointy bit."

"I'll be careful."

"All right."

It resembled carved ivory, but felt warm after it pushed down my mane. I felt and listened for the moon. In moments, I felt her presence the same way (but differently) that I would know a workmare or another foal shared the room. Breathing. Change of sound. Echos. Warmth. Incidental movement. And I felt her attention, like when I knew somepony glared at me. I began to pray.

I won't bore you with the what, because it's like a lullaby or the babble you share with a foal too young to know what you say or a song a nightingale shares with it's cohort to say "I'm here. Let's be friends." Also, it's personal, so I shan't say more.

Celestia's horn warmed and I tingled all over. I heard the faint tinkle of what sounded like the wind chimes the head master kept in his window. It smelled of pepper and crinkling autumn leaves. I felt the strength rising through my hooves to fill my heart.

It startled me when I felt our breathing synchronize and I wondered if our hearts beat in time, too. I wasn't too surprised, and very much relieved, that I didn't hear her thoughts.

After much prayer and some cajoling, I felt the tension leave the sky and felt the moon sink below the horizon. Surprisingly, I also felt the sun begin to move, and I would have acted but for the warmth that filled the room and radiated from the horn that had rested on my head.

Celestia stood abruptly.

My eyes fluttered open and I stepped back until my flank pressed against the door. The unicorn giant trembled as she unfolded herself and rose to her full towering height, all the time whispering, "No, no, no. I can control it."

Her horn had turned a brilliant orange-red. This wasn't the pleasant light of her horn from before. This was the angry heat of a hot coal in a fireplace, and I felt the heat. It smelled like the scorched smell I sometime smelled passing where the older foals toiled with steam irons in the laundry.

Between her magic, and Hurricane's deft tugs and pulls with her teeth and her wings, they tore off the unicorn's cloak and flung it aside. And not a moment too soon. Little flames, like oil on fire dripped down Celestia's horn to her head and neck, and spread, trying to engulf her body. She breathed rapidly and deeply, straining, I think to stop the terrifying spread. Her eyes even seemed to turn from violet to violent orange.

The flames burnt but left no smoke. They crackled and hissed, though, like from a log in the fireplace.

Hurricane took no chances. She flung the pillows toward the walls and slid the table aside. "Okay, okay. Maybe it would be better just to do it and get it over with?"

"Right," the fiery unicorn agreed, turning toward the dawn with her eyes closed. She faced the sun as accurately as I had pointed out the moon. She reared, which touched her horn to the ceiling momentarily, and peddled her legs. Of a sudden, I felt a very familiar pull. Her mane and tail lofted, beating against her neck and flank in a non-existent wind that could only be magic. It flowed up from the earth and billowed by me and into her heart, instead of mine, and then through her horn in the direction of the sun.

It was what I had done this morning with the moon. It was what I had just done with the moon together with Celestia, but on a terrifying scale.

And the sun rose.

Celestia had a cutie mark. A sun blazed on her white flank.

Tears streamed from my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. Tears of fear. They had to be. Each moonstone drop reflected the red from her fire sun.

I watched as Celestia's fiery magic ceased. But for the heat in the room, the magic vanished in a blink. It had lofted not only her mane and tail, but levitated her whole body. She settled to her hooves, and Hurricane was there to lean into her, to steady her. I sensed the pegasus' professionalism as she rapidly dressed the recovering giant mare in her cloak while kicking the pillows back into place. She'd accomplished that, and begun pushing the table back when I felt with a hoof for the door pull.

I looked at the small scorch mark on the ceiling. The interior wood of the living tree had knots and rings, gnarled elbows and swirls of brown; it wouldn't be noticeable until pointed out.

I pulled open the door.

Hurricane said, "She's the one?"

Celestia answered, "She's the one."

As I backed from the room, the workmare bumped me aside as she walked in.

I staggered, but kept on backing, my hide cooling with sudden sweat and ticking nervously.

The unicorn had the mark of the sun on her flank.

She was the one I had sensed in my prayers, the one that had tried to force the moon from the sky again and again.

She was the one who raised the sun.

I kept on backing until I reached the corner, then crept around it.

I nevertheless heard Celestia say, "We are definitely adopting Blue Moon."

"Is that so? Bring your husbands next time."

I galloped past the letters and numbers room all the way to the dormitory. It lay empty, and brightly sunlit. Many three-high bunk beds littered the area, but alcoves in the trunk of the tree that encased the area also held beds. I had taken the one the farthest from the lavatory and the baths, the least wanted, but the one most shadowed. I liked it that way, and despite being small, I could fit comfortably inside. Many were the times I'd hidden in there, using my steel-shod hooves to defend my territory.

Today it was the distance from the salon that mattered.

From all I'd learned about the adoption of Red Flash and Bugsy and Sun Prancer and Talon, it wasn't the foal that chose, and it mattered not if they liked their new parents, either. Nopony would have turned down a family, even if that family was something from a cautionary storybook. But I knew that it hadn't stopped Sun Prancer from leaving though she thought her new father wanted her only for the money he thought she'd make using her talents.

Hurricane seemed nice, though hard edged. I didn't think she was a servant, but maybe she protected Celestia.

Celestia... She seemed nice. Even kind. But she terrified me.

And if I knew she was the one that fought to take control of the moon against the moon's will, that meant she knew I was the pony that thwarted her.

This could not be good.

She loved the daylight. Ponies worked and played in the sunlight and slept in the night. I loved the night.

I covered my head with a pillow, as if that could block out my worries the way it could block out sun or sound. Eventually I slept, but had nightmares about a unicorn of celestial dimensions, on fire, bringing on day break after day break while I sat upon the moon, isolated, alone, and also on fire, though that fire never burnt or consumed me.

Nopony woke me until mid-afternoon.

At first that surprised me, but as I ate my pail of hay and walked to the Lemon Woods to search for moonstones, I reasoned it out. Neither Hurricane nor Celestia were married. That would take time, or might prove impossible. That unicorn mare was too big for any stallion, and while I'd seen a few dozen unicorns—Carmine Lake Township lay only a league from Unicornia—none had exceeded the height of an earth pony stallion. I wondered if she'd frightened all her suitors away.

Quite possibly.

Knowing thy enemy, helped, though. I could make it easy or I could make it hard to move the moon, quite possibly better than before. I knew what Celestia felt like, but for all her power, and it had to have been her that had made the sun move regularly as of the last few months, she was the one with the solar cutie mark and I was the one with the lunar one.

The lunar one.

I swallowed deeply and stood blinking in revelation. When the workmare jerked my bridle, I reflexively jerked it loose. I'd heard cutie marks meant something about what you were good at doing. I understood, now. It had to do with my friendship with the moon.

I felt warm all over...

Until the workmare whipped me with the end of the reins with a snap.

I reared and spun, jerked the straps from her teeth, wrenching her neck at the same time. I shouted, "You want to bruise me or mark me? How many bits will you loose if you ruin my looks and scare the outlanders away?"

The workmare stepped back, eyes wide. She looked at my stinging flank and huffed. "Pray thee, you want to eat?"

"I do."

"Then you work."

"I shall, willingly."

"All right, then."

Tellingly, she never held my lead again—as if she had ever needed to in the first place!

Two days, four days, then six passed without a visit. I'd not get word if there'd have been negotiations, not officially, but certainly I'd have been taunted by the brats even if there'd been more than nary a rumor. Nothing. Perhaps my stubbornness was too blame.

I had prayed hard with the moon, and we had three days of sunlight and two of night. I gauged the moon's mood, and that was all that mattered as far as I was concerned.

It did leave me feeling a little bit guilty, like I'd been seen misbehaving, like when a workmare purposely let something hang over my head and left me wondering whether I'd be paddled for it or not. The more I thought about Celestia—and the terrifying day breaking monster that had briefly consumed her in flames, and then separated the two ponies in my mind—the more I could see that Celestia was nice. She had treated her friend, companion, associate... whatever, with respect. And me, too.

In storybooks, day and night lasted just a day and a night.

That was what I felt guilty about, I think. And maybe for becoming frightened. And possibly for having not even said good-bye.

If I understood a'right, it had been a mare's age since day and night broke, had become long, had become irregular.

If Celestia was the one fixing it...

If I was getting in the way of it...

I had much to think about as the moonstones tumbled.

On the seventh day, a workmare opened the door to the letters and numbers room and I was trotting to the door before she called my name. I got this big goofy smile on my face. That shocked the brats into silence, and painted an envious expression on the faces of the rest of the foals.

I would be adopted.

My life would change. I did not know how. I did not know if it would be better, but it would be different. My new mother might be the opposite of me in something very essential, but, in that very essentiality, we would understand one another very well.

And at least I wouldn't be digging for moonstones anymore.

When I turned the corner behind the workmare, I froze.

The door to the salon lay open to a room flooded with morning sunshine, but instead of a giant Celestia and a hovering pegasus named Hurricane, I saw instead a rugged looking earth pony stallion. He could have been a work horse, for his coloring was what was called wild. He was a dun white with brown spots large and small. He kept his white mane trimmed to a hoof-length, but had a brown tail tied into a bun.

I sensed he too was an outlander. It had to do with the belts and bandoleers and multi-flapped saddlebags he wore. All appeared stuffed with vials or canisters of various sizes, all corked and sealed with wax, and all positioned such that he could reach them with his teeth or tap one free with a hoof.

Potions.

I might be young, but I was plenty smart. I knew who he was before the workmare said, "Go thither, Blue Moon."

As I stepped inside, the big stallion nodded his head at me. "I am Smart Cookie. It's nice to meet you."

"Are you Celestia's husband?" I asked.

He chuckled. "No, I'm not. I met her precisely because she refused to marry her betrothed, though the friend that told me about you thinks she might yet marry him. And, no horn. She's not my type, nor me, hers."

"You're not her friend, then?"

"Oh, we are friends, but we have different things that we feel are important. Different agendas, let's say. Step closer. Let me see your cutie mark. Yes, indeed. A crescent moon. And we both know why."

"I don't think I like you."

He sighed. "Does that make a difference?"

I realized he'd asked it about both of us. I looked to the workmare who just looked at him, expressionless.

He looked to me. "I'm an earth pony and you are an earth pony."

He reached down with his muzzle and grabbed a vial from the bandolier that looped down from his right shoulder. With the tap of a hoof, he uncorked it and placed it on the table. A shimmering mist rose into the air and turned into an opaque, pony-length disk, blocking out the sunlight from the windows in a way that mimicked a writing slate. Glowing lines of green and yellow and blue drew themselves, knitting and dodging until a map appeared. He'd pulled out a long stick and he pointed as he preceded to speak around the instrument.

"This is Babyloin, this is Unicornia, this and this are from and to where the pegasai's cloud mountains migrate, and this is the rebel earth pony territories referred to as Lesser Unicornia. Queen Platinum wants to control the entire map, and then the world. Her dynasty is descended from an evil king who tried but failed to do just that. Some say he broke the heavens. The pegasai are in an uncomfortable alliance with the queen because she controls their food basket."

I understood working to eat, at least.

He finished with, "And Celestia works for Queen Platinum."

The workmare said, "Which makes Blue Moon valuable?"

Smart Cookie rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and sighed. With exaggerated slowness, he corked the potion bottle and twisted it into a tight loop on the bandolier.

My eyes lingered on the ceiling. It was scorched.

Celestia worked for a Queen who wanted to control the world.

Again, I felt like backing away. But then the stallion's words sunk in.

My...

____talent...

________was...

____________valuable.

The stallion pulled a heavy looking tie-string purse from his saddlebags. The mud-stained grey thing was so stuffed that I could see the bits trying to push through.

The workmare turned over her outstretched hoof and pointed at the table. The purse clinked loudly. All gold. Gold coins last week and now.

The workmare said, "Two."

"Just so you understand, it was you who said that Blue Moon was valuable. Knowing that you harbored her might also be valuable."

"All right, then."

He turned to me. "Look, Blue Moon. I come from Unicornia where if you aren't a unicorn, you aren't anypony. And most earth ponies are earth grubbers who can't own their own land. Sure, I can do magic, and there are plenty of good-hearted unicorns, and Celestia might be the best of them, but doing magic doesn't make me an equal. You and I, and my friends—we can do something about that. You are an earth pony."

"I am. And I only have about five years."

He grinned. "You study the adults around you carefully, don't you? You're asking whether you're old enough to make this choice. Inside, you've probably made it and will be mad if what you get isn't what you chose. And I know full well that you are not old enough to make this choice, because you don't understand it."

In my later years, I would very much have agreed, but I bristled then, and felt the fur on my spine rise, at what I knew was true and had even forced him to say.

"Nevertheless. Blue Moon, will you let me adopt you?"

I started blinking. A question. Voiced. Even if it were a lie. My throat closed up and I could barely breathe. Tears, neither of sorrow nor of fear, began to leak down my cheeks and into my mouth. I startled myself by wiping at the salty things furiously.

Nevertheless.

I liked that word, nevertheless.

Nevertheless, I nodded. I looked up at the scorch on the ceiling and thought about evil queens and those tricked into doing their bidding.

Aloud, I said, "Yes."

Smart Cookie smiled and nodded back. He said, "Apprentice Drover, may I sign the adoption papers?"

"Follow me to the Head Master's office."

"Daughter?" he said.

I followed behind the adults. I knew one thing, suddenly. I wasn't Celestia's enemy. I couldn't be. We were very different...

...but very much the same.

I was going to have to save her from an evil queen—to save myself.