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Flurry ran. She didn’t know where she was running to, and she didn’t care. Tears blurred her vision and wet her cheeks, a bitter mix of anger, denial, and doubt. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t!… Was it? She kept running, past confused servant, past imposing suits of armor, anything in her way.

Until she stopped.

Flurry collided with a tall blue column. The owner of the column stood firm, though the smaller princess was nearly knocked on her backside. Pulling herself up, Flurry wrapped her arms around the leg like a vice, buring her face in the loose blue silk of the pantleg. The leg’s owner stared down at the filly, concern and confusion on her face.

“Is something wrong, little one?” The answer was obvious, but Princess Luna felt it best to ask all the same. In response, Flurry gazed back up at her, her eyes wide and desperate, a silent plea crying out through them. She choked back another wave of sobs.

“Aunt Luna?”

“Yes?”

“Am… Am I a real princess?”

This caught Luna off-guard. She blinked in confusion. “Of course you are!” She knelt down and scooped her grand-niece up, holding her close. “What would ever make you think otherwise?” Flurry nestled into her shoulder, not meeting Luna’s eyes. “Splinter Shine.” Luna was unsure what she meant. Flurry sensed her aunt’s puzzlement and continued. “Shes one of the noble’s kids. She’s really mean. She said… She said…” Another round of sobbing wracked the filly’s small body, and Luna held her tighter, patting the young girl’s back comfortingly, whispering “There, there, let it all out…”

Flurry’s grief expelled for the moment, she collected herself enough to finish her story.

“She said I wasn’t a real princess!”

As a look of utter fury was painted on the younger princess’s features, an icy silence crept through Luna. This was no mere childhood fight or minor injury. Flurry’s indignation flared up. “She said I didn’t count! She said I was just a big fake who got wings ‘cause I’m a.. a…” Flurry struggled to remember what the bully had called her. “A mud-tent!” Flurry huffed, her muzzle scrunching up at the thought. “She’s the mud-tent! She looks like a dumb carrot anyway.”

Luna hushed her. “Control your wrath, little one. You must never sink to their level.” But the ice was creeping through her veins. Splinter Shine… That was the spawn of Duke Cracked Mirror. Of course. That weasel-faced, blood-sucking, tax-grubbing, brown-nosing, son-of-a… Luna considered her own advice, and calmed herself. She was hardly surprised his brat had turned out to be… well, a brat. It was practically a family tradition at this point.

As Flurry ranted on about what an absolute butthead Splinter Shine was, Luna mulled over what to do next. Harming the girl was absolutely out of the question. No matter how rotten they may be, Luna believed children to be innocents and would not touch a hair on her spoiled little head.

But that didn’t mean she was above scaring the absolute bejeezus out of them.

A strange term, to be sure. She had heard Princess Twilight say it once after one trip through the mirror. Luna was unsure what a bejeezus was or why frightening people would expel them, but it seemed appropriate for the time. There were bejeezus’s to drive from a certain naughty filly, and Luna had just the way to do it.

***

Splinter Shine strutted down the corridor, taking a bite of another strawberry tart. She grinned as the jelly squeezed out of it. If Fakey Fart didn’t want her sweets, she wasn’t going to let them go to waste, no ma’am. She wandered aimlessly through the palace, taking in the sights as she munched on her prize. All this stuff, and for what, that little freak? What did she even do, sneeze? Pfft, yeah that’s a great thing to be a princess of. Maybe she could be the princess of ugly hair, or the princess of bad handstands, or… or the princess of stupid ponies! Yeah, that’s what she was, princess of the stupids. Splinter grinned at her own insult. She’d use that next time she… Next time… she…

Splinter had turned the corner into a random room, and round a very, very cross Princess Luna glaring down at her. Her ethereal mane and tail were glowing brighter than usual, their windless waves sharper and fiercer than Splinter remembered. She gulped the bite of the tart and dropped the plate, not caring as it and its few remaining contents shattered on the floor in an explosion of china and crumbs. “G-greetings, you-you’re highness. I-it’s a lovely, um…” She stuttered, struggling to think of what to say to the decidedly displeased demigod.

Luna interrupted the bumbling brat and pointed down at her leg. There clung Fakey Faaaaa… Somehow just thinking the name gave Splinter chills. Luna continued and a chill monotone. “I want you to understand something very clearly. You are not to insult her. You are not to belittle her. You are not to hurt her in any way. And above all… you do not make her cry.” Luna leaned down to the filly, not quite meeting her at eye level. Splinter was suddenly aware of just how much bigger the alicorn was than her.

“Is that understood?”

Splinters quivering body said it all.

“Good.”