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As evening comes to Milliways, who should we find but the Princess of the Night. And she has a new friend with her.

"Sit, Tiberius."

Tiberius just cocks its head to one side.

"Sit! 'Tis a simple enough command."

Still no response.

Can you train an opossum to do tricks on command? Watch and find out.

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"Try pattin' him on the ass." Bonnie suggests. "I think that's what they do with dogs."

"All right." Luna gently pats the opossum's rump with one forehoof. "Sit!"

Tiberius makes a little squawk of protest, but he does sit.

Bonnie claps in approval.

"Reward him with a treat?"

"An excellent idea!" Luna levitates a grape out of a nearby bowl (don't worry, she paid for it) and places it on the floor for Tiberius, who snaps it up eagerly.

"Well ain't you the clever one." Bonnie grins. "He's a cute little guy."

"He is, his he not?" says Luna. "We encountered him in the woods a fortnight ago and found him most appealing."

"Was he tame right away?"

"'Twould seem so," the alicorn replies. "But he is most reluctant to follow commands."

"I guess you got to start gettin' him ter trust you."

"We have fed him, and given him shelter. Is that not enough?"

"Depends where he came from, and what happened there."

"Couldst thou be more specific?"

"Well if some pony kicked him once, he might be less friendly."

"We think he would not have been inclined to return home with Us, were that the case."

Bonnie shrugs.

"Seems he likes you anyways. Maybe he just don't understand what yer teachin' him."

"How am I to make him understand, then?" snaps Luna, with no small amount of frustration.

"Well you just showed him the first way, didn' you." Bonnie says, levelly.

"'Twill be less useful for teaching him to roll over," Luna points out.

"Well maybe you gotta start by gettin' him ter lie down, and then movin' a treat over him."

"Perhaps. One step at a time. Tiberius? Sit."

She gently pushes Tiberius's hindquarters to the ground, then offers another grape.

"You'll get there, keep showin' him love."

Finally, a unicorn! People have been talking about them, but Dorian has never seen one before now.

So he watches the creature and its pet with great fascination.

Not a unicorn, an alicorn. Unicorns don't have wings.

"'Tis easy! Here, I will demonstrate." She settles her rump on the ground and looks expectantly at the opossum. "You see? Now you try it."

"Can it talk?" Dorian asks, curious.

It probably can, if the winged unicorn -- Dorian doesn't know the difference -- is instructing it this way.

"No. He is an opossum."

Duh, Dorian.

"You are a winged unicorn," Dorian points out, "and you can talk. Anything might possibly talk here, so it might be sensible to assume it can, when in doubt."

"I am an alicorn, not a unicorn," Luna corrects him. "But We take your point."

"Alicorn," Dorian says. "As in ala, the Latin word for 'wing'. It makes sense. If the opossum can't talk, why are you explaining things to him?"

Perhaps she can make him understand regardless? Winged unicorns might have miraculous powers.

"How else are We to train him to obey commands?"

(The opossum, meanwhile, is occupied with scratching an itch on his flank.)

"By getting him to do something, and then saying the command with it," Dorian says. "What does he eat?"

He just ignores the pluralis majestatis; that is probably how alicorns speak?

It's how royalty speaks. Or used to speak; apparently it's fallen out of fashion in the last millennium.

"And how are We to make him do anything without speaking?"

"With food," Dorian says.

"Explain."

"You take a bit of a treat, and let the animal see it, and let it have it when it does what you want," Dorian says.

"I see. And are We to wait however long it takes for them to do what it is We wish it to do without any further prompting?"

"No," Dorian says. "What does it eat?"

"Opossums are ominvorous, are they not?"

"What's a special treat he likes most?" Dorian asks.

Luna considers that for a moment. "He seems most partial to peppermint."

"The plant, or sweets made with it?" Dorian asks, already on the move towards the bar.

"The latter."

(Tiberius perks up at the mention of peppermint. It seems he knows at least one word.)

Dorian gets soft green peppermint fudge from the bar and holds one of the gooey cubes out to the opossum.

Tiberius immediately sits up on his hind legs and makes grabby-paws at the cube of fudge.

Dorian laughs, and lifts the cube so the little animal has to stretch a little to reach it, but hen let's him have it.

"Like this," he says, and orders more fudge.

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