Celestia and Luna both rush down the stairs to find the new foal Soul Strider sitting on his haunches, bawling his little eyes out. The snowy foal is inspected for injuries. When he stands Celestis is satisfied that the trip down the stairs hurt only the little foal's pride. He looks up at her, sobbing and whimpering a few times, before calming down. "There, there dear. You have to be careful when you go walking around. Understand?"
Soul Strider looked back up to his mother's eyes, nodding, "Uh-huh..." he replies before being ushered into the carriage to be brought to his new home in Canterlot castle.
For the next 5 days, Celestia stayed with her new foal. She showed him the castle, introduced the young prince to the guards, council and servant staff. He was brought to the royal clothier to be sized for formal clothes. He wore his first royal suit at his first, or rather, 0th birthday party. It was a grand celebration, filled with all sorts of important ponies Soul Strider didn't know. The children all greeted him respectfully, but none really stayed to talk or play. There was a zero candle lit on his cake as opposed to not having one at all. Soul Strider adored the doting attention he received from the guests, not sensing the empty affections of his title rather than the affections of him. He also received constant attention from his mother since Luna cleared her sister's schedule for the week. Celestia was more than happy to lavish attention on her young colt. Soul Strider even slept next to his mother after watching her set the sun, auntie Luna raise the moon, and hearing a bedtime story before snuggling in next to mama.
Meanwhile the prince's miraculously fast development slowed to a normal rate. He grew no larger than the thin gangly foal he was born as. His horn stopped growing as well, leaving it to look a bit small in proportion for a unipeg his age, or rather the age he seemed to be. His wings seemed slightly underdeveloped as well, though not abnormally so. He just wasn't going to be in the best young fliers competition anytime soon. Celestia was sure her son would fill out as he got older, but for now he made a convincing, though rather wiry looking 7 year old foal.
But soon the prince's bedroom was furnished, and royal matters fell back into Celestia's hooves. Before the dawn of the first day of Celestia getting back to work she awoke, smiled down at her foal, and went out onto the balcony to raise the sun, letting the little one sleep. After the new dawn broke, Celestia quietly leaves her room to attend to royal business leaving Soul Strider in her bed, as Luna lays down to rest on hers.
It was only a few moments after mama left did Soul Strider awake. The little one sat up bleary-eyed, he looked down where he had left his mother last night, "Mama?" he asks the empty space. Luna, meanwhile was sound asleep on her bed, covered in a midnight blue satin sheet. Soul Strider began his search for his mother. He started by nosing his way under the sheet, crawling around, and eventually poking his head out from the sheet.
"Mama?" he asks again, a tinge of anxiety in his voice. He leaps off the mattress, walking over to the heavy, light blocking (for Luna's comfort) curtain covering the open doorway to the balcony. The colt bites down on the curtain, pulling it aside, letting the sunlight in. He trots out onto the balcony. He makes 3 complete turns, looking desperately for his mother.
"Mama!" he calls out pitifully, galloping back into the bedroom. For the past 5 days he's always had his mother by his side, he wonders why she should disappear now. In his rush back into the room, the tip of his horn snags in the drapes, stopping his head while his body keeps going. Soul Strider finds his horn caught in the grip of the offending curtain. He struggles valiantly, but his struggling and spinning in place only wraps the curtain around him. With one last yank, he pulls the curtain rod free from it's perch. The long oaken rod comes down, smacking the foal on the top of his rump, thankfully covered in a few layers of curtain.
Prince Soul Strider lies on the floor, defeated by the curtain. In complete darkness, the frustration, panic, and fear of being trapped in the dark without his mother are too much for the little foal. He cries out again, sobbing, "Maaaa-maaa! Maa*huck*maaaaa! Huuuuu*huck*uuuuu!".
The ruckus of the curtain rod clattering to the floor rouses Luna from her sleep. She lifts her head up, eyes squinting against the light. She finds the curtain on the floor, still squirming, the little prince's crying audible from under the blanket. Luna can't help but chuckle, "You are lost without your mother, aren't you, little one?" she says with a tinge of amusement. Luna levitates the whole mass of foal and textiles and untangled them expertly until the heartbroken little prince is on the floor, and the curtain is back up, covering the doorway to the balcony.
Soul Strider stands pathetic before Luna, both his nose and his eyes running from the ordeal. Luna hovers a handkerchief over to the foal, wiping his face and muzzle clean. "There now, little one. Auntie Luna is here. Do you want me to take you to breakfast?" she asks.
The little colt shakes his head, "No. I want Mama..." he whines, deciding while auntie is good, he really wants his mama who's gone missing.
Luna sighs, "I'm sorry, but mama is very busy. She has a lot of work to..." she's interrupted by the petulant cry of Soul Strider
"No! I WANT MAMA!" the little prince shouts, stomping his hooves out of abject frustration. His eyes start to water again. One would note the prince has healthy lungs for one who was on a respirator just a week before.
Luna frowns, feeling slighted that her little nephew rejected her company so vocally. It brought back memories of the children screaming and running from her during the last nightmare night, "Why you spoiled little..." she stops herself, remembering the prince is still a baby, barely a week old. Just that this baby can walk and talk...And yell... Luna chuckles tepidly, trying to sound soothing through clenched teeth, but can nay hide her annoyance "We shall go see your mother.".
Soul Strider trots happily behind Luna, following her to the royal office.
Celestia sits behind her desk, piles of pre-written decrees mound in her inbox. A yellow mare earth pony enters with another stack of decrees perched on her back. As the mare adds the stack to the Princess' pile, Celestia Sighs, "Thank you, Secretariat Heartquill. Is this everything?" she asks with a touch of exasperation.
Secretariat Heartquill nods, bowing, "Yes, your majesty. I apologize for the workload. It had built up over the week, the council saw fit to defer to your judgment on these issues." she explains. "Oh, and you have a meeting with the Neighponyse ambassador at 1 this afternoon in the ivory room. You know how Ambassador Kiriin feels about punctuality." Heartquill cautions.
Celestia nods, already putting on her diplomatic smile, "Indeed. Thank you again, Heartquilll. I should begin now if I'm to get through these decrees in time to have any sort of lunch.". She levitates a rubber stamper with the royal seal upon it, as well as brings the paper with the first decree proposal in front of her.
As soon as Heartquill opens the door the little white unipeg foal squeezes around the mare, galloping directly to Celestia, exclaiming "Mama!". The young prince immediately hugs his mother's foreleg, taking a place sitting between her forelegs, sheltering himself with his mother..
Luna politely dismisses the royal Secretariat, entering Celestia's office, "Sorry to disturb you, Tia, but the little one needed his mother." she explains. "I'm going back to bed, see you both at dinner tonight." Luna heads back to her room, sure she'll have peace now.
Celestia smiles down at her foal, "Do you want to see what mama does at work?" she asks. Soul Strider nods excitedly, watching his mother levitate her royal signature stamp, and place her mark of approval on a piece of royal legislation. The little one watched for several minutes, an eternity for one so young.
"I wanna do work too, mama!" he exclaims, turning bored circles under Celestia.
She giggles, amused at the willingness of her foal to do the most banal of her duties. She levitates another of her rubber stamps, an ink pad, and a few pieces of parchment. "There you go, dear." She dutifully goes back to work.
The little prince had no idea how to make the rubber stamper levitate, so he took it in his teeth, and just like mama, he tamped it on the ink pad and pressed it on the paper. He giggled as the stamp showed up in silver ink on the paper.
The young prince spent the next hour marking up all three pieces of paper with the Princess' mark. With all the paper used he looked around for something else to use the stamp on. He immediately looked to the snowy white leg of his mother, and put a stamp neatly on his mother's foreleg.
Celestia opens her eyes wider, the wet sensation of ink on her leg isn't startling, but it is unexpected. She looks down at her foreleg, and the silver royal signature on it, then down at the foal between her legs. Soul Strider looks up at his mother, smiling, the rubber stamp still in his mouth. "Now Soul Strider, you shouldn't put a stamp on mama. Now I have to take a bath during lunch." she says, admonishing him softly. The idea of an afternoon bath with lunch isn't all that unwelcome.
The little prince frowns, setting down the stamp. "I'm bored, Mama. Let's go play." He leans against his mother's leg, looking up at her endearingly.
Just as Celestia is about to explain how she's too busy the nursemaid enters, bowing briefly, "Your majesty, the young master's bedroom and playroom is stocked and ready. Shall I bring the young master there?" she asks.
Celestia smiles, nodding, "Of course." She looks down at her foal. "Would you like to see your new room? I hear you've been given toys from toy makers all over Equestria. Mama will come see you when her work is done."
Soul Strider looks up at his mother, head canted to the side, then he nods quickly, "Okay." he responds, cantering over to the nursemaid.
The little prince was brought to his bedroom-playroom. As promised it was well stocked with a wide assortment of toys from every toy maker. All the toys were provided free of charge with the hope that one of them would end up being a favorite of the young prince and by default the most popular toy in Equestria. Soul Strider took hours exploring his room, trying each toy out. He found the various balls to be fun, save for the giant ball that was bigger than him, he had no idea what he was going to do with that. In the end it was a simple ball-in-a-cup toy that he used to keep himself occupied until his mother could come and play.
Lunch passed with no sight of his mother, it wasn't until Dinnertime did he see his mama and auntie Luna. Dinner time was spent mostly talking about things he didn't understand, like ambassadors, trade agreements, and royal decrees. All he understood was that all of mama's work was keeping her away from him. He frowned all during dinner.
Both Celestia and Luna took notice of the little prince's dour expression. Celestia smiled to her son, "What's wrong, darling? Aren't you happy with your room and toys?".
Soul Strider looked up from his dinner, "I like my room, and the toys are really neat, but you didn't come to play with me. Stupid work kept you away." he complained.
Luna couldn't help but to smile, "Your little one seems to agree with me, Tia.". Luna had never liked paperwork, preferring to delegate the ennui of niggling policy matters to the council.
Celestia sighs, not wanting to rehash the debate over the wisdom of personally managing the various social issues and programs of Equestria at the dinner table, "I'm sorry, darling. Mama promises to spend time with you as soon as work is done, okay.
The little prince nods eagerly, looking forward to time with mama.
After dinner as the little prince watched his mother set the sun, took his bath During the quiet moments he schemed his plan to make sure mama had plenty of time to spend with him Celestia's foal was tucked in for a bedtime story. He fell asleep before Mama could finish the first chapter of the Daring Do book she read from.
The next morning, the young prince awoke before daybreak, he looked around for his mother, but only he and his toys were there. He looked at the eerie shadows cast by his dolls in the pale blue light given off by the will-o-wisp atop his wonder bolts night light. He pulls up the blanket over his head to hide from the creepiness of the shadows. His first instinct is to cry out for his mama, but he remembered he had something very important to do. Ignoring the shadows on the wall, he snuck out of his room, heading to the place where his mother does all of her work.
Nopony the little prince passed tried to stop the little one, as he was the royal heir to Celestia there were no secrets from him. Only dangerous places like the armory, kitchen, or the blacksmith's workshop were off limits by Celestia's orders. Guards even opened the door for the young prince. Upon reaching mama's desk, Soul Strider got to work. Luckily all of the work for the day was piled up by the secretariat's night crew. The little prince started to work, taking a paper from the 'in' box, stamping it with the royal seal, and placing it into the 'out' box. There was one detail the young prince had no idea that was involved in mama's work...Actually reading the decrees.
It was daybreak before the little prince had finished with the last paper. Setting down the stamper, he trotted out of the royal office to go to the royal bedchamber to greet mama.
Celestia was surprised as well as relieved to find out that there was no paperwork for the day. She thought nothing of it when her secretariat had mentioned that there wasn't 'more' paperwork. With her day free, Celestia took her son out to the castle gardens to introduce him to the animals, and have a nice picnic. All in all it was a lovely time enjoyed by mother and son.
The castle staff, however was in chaos. Over 200 simultaneous decrees were sent down to the council to enact. Many of the decrees contradicted others, and every financing request was approved whether the idea was good or not. Royal accountants were in a tizzy trying to figure out how this was going to affect the royal treasury. Princess Celestia was blissfully aware of what was going on, until she brought her little one back up to the castle for his nap.
Celestia was greeted by the frazzled royal Comptroller, "Your majesty! With all due respect: Have you gone INSANE?!".
"What?" Celestia responds in a tone of voice that hints that she heard him, but is just giving the comptroller the opportunity to rephrase his question. She secretly counts this as the second time her sanity has been questioned in a millenium. Ah, the joys of motherhood.
"My apologies, but you have spent the entire year's budget in the first six months!" he shows Celestia one of the decrees stamped directly over the text of the decree, rather on the signature line, "500,000 bits to study the effectiveness of cheese as an anti-coagulant. Another, 25,000 bits to research new cupcake flavors. One MILLION bits to search for extra-Equestrian life! The list goes on." the unicorn exasperates at her. "We're going to run a yearly deficit of over 25 million bits!".
Celestia narrows her eyes at the decree, "I did NOT approve this. How did all those decrees get signed?". She looks as confused as the comptroller until the sleepy little prince spoke up.
"I did mama's work so we could have a picnic!" he announces proudly.
Celestia and the royal Comptroller looked at each other in horror for a moment, "Get those decrees back! Stop any payments that have yet to go out, scrub any new laws made today off the books!" Celestia orders.
Souls Strider looks up to his mother, "Did I do something wrong, mama?" he asks with a remorseful tone and expression.
Celestia sighs, trying to keep her tone soft, "Yes, but you meant well, dear." Soul Strider looks down at the floor, his hears folded down. The princess pats her foal's black mane, "Just don't play with mama's papers, anymore."
Soul Strider nods, looking up as his mother, "I won't. I promise.". He wasn't sure what he did wrong, but seeing mama's reaction convinced him it wasn't good.
Celestia ponders for a moment, petting her foal as she came to a decision, "I think it's time you started school..."