Dancer's heart was pounding hearing the irritation coming from the Alicorn.  Unconsciously, she wanted to recoil and grovel, to avoid the a watery wrath.  She still remembered the ruined Earborn pegasus.  But wisdom overcame fear.  [i]Torrential wouldn't hurt you, not after all that he's done.  He loves you, as much as you love him. [/i]

She felt Torrential sit on the ground.  [i] I wonder what Sweeper would make of this? Her brother in the mud - would she clean him, or join him? [/i] The Chamermaid's ideas of Cleanliness seemed to depend on the context of the situation as well as her attitude.  Dancer recalled Sweeper's first meeting with a Diamond Dog.  Despite the strong smell, the Lady only cleaned his vest and gem-encrusted collar. "It's natural for them," was her explanation.  

Soon, Dancer's fear subsided once Torrential began to explain himself.  She listened and pondered his words.  "I'll admit, when I first meet your sister, all the ponies of our shantytown were looking to her as a new ruler," she answered. "After all these decades of barbarism, to see a glowing alicorn was more than enough to have us bowing.  We were afraid before, and now we had some hope."  

Dancer sighed. "But after a few days, most of the town was left bewildered by Sweeper's eccentricity - her preference towards baldness, her obsessive-compulsiveness, her random chats and ramblings…  The more we got to know her, the more she seemed less like a divine alicorn and more of a unusual loon."

The pegasus facer began to flush. "I'm sorry, I should not have said that about your kin.  It's just… well she's just like family to me, as well as an alicorn.  I tend to sometimes forget who Sweeper really is - a divine being and not a older sister.  

"Well, back to my story.  Ivory Shores was willing to put up with Sweeper's oddities.  After all, she was repairing the town.  But in the first week or so, the majority of us wondered when she was going to leave, if at all.  Taller and powerful she may be, Sweeper was just too weird for most.   

"But soon Sweeper's works became to borne fruit - for Ivory Shores became an actual town, no longer just a ruin with squatters.  Her ramblings may have gone off in strange tangents, but it put ponies at ease, even making them laugh a bit.  And despite her compulsion, she had time to tend to our wants and needs - we only had to ask.  Well, that and get her attention, which tended to be either offering tea or waving our hooves in her face.  

"Sweeper earned our respect.  We honor the Lady because of her nature certainly.  But the Lady would have not gotten our fealty without those positive virtues."