Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 4: Love

The last gasps of twilight were disappearing in the dark evening sky, a faded smatterings of shifting colors which retreated below the horizon to make way for the gradually appearing stars. Under their serene light James finally returned to the library, his feet dragging on the way back.

It had been an unusual Friday. This sort of exhaustion was usually reserved for Tuesdays, when he assisted at Sweet Apple Acres under the direction of Applejack. The side effects of strenuous farm work were at least predictable. It felt more than a little strange that this day had left him so wearied. He looked forwards to nothing more than a night of sweet rest.

Upon entering the library's main chamber he wasn't surprised to find its lamps so well-lit that day remained inside. He was welcomed back immediately by Twilight who quite predictably was still awake and keeping as busy as ever. She sat at one of the study tables and was accompanied by the usual piles of books all scattered about her; tomes laying on the table and more on the floor nearby, stacked with covers closed or strewn with pages open. What was different than normal was that her precious books seemed mostly ignored and had been pushed aside in order to have given her a wider workspace.

An inked quill burned a trail across several papers that were laid before her, and the words flowed out sometimes as smoothly as a gentle river and sometimes as jaggedly as a broken mountain. Stored on the side of her busy workspace was a small pile of blank, ready papers which awaited their own turn under the pen, all in danger of being blown away by the breeze the whirring quill cast. Nearby, the opened letter she had received from elsewhere rested upon its torn envelope. A different envelope – fresh, thick, and unsealed – devoured every page which she completed.

So it went: irregular scribbling, a fold here and there, and in a page slid. Repeat.

"You're back much later than usual!" she commented cheerfully while writing away, hardly looking up.

The man took a moment to stretch everything; arms, legs, chest, and all.

"That thing with Fluttershy got sidetracked by this... other thing," he half-explained, "and then we stayed at her cottage for awhile because she invited these other ponies over and stuff... You know."

Twilight smirked, "Sounds exciting."

"Yeah," he yawned.

"Well, I'd love to hear about it," she invited, at last taking some of her attention from her diligent quill.

James waved her away though, but not in any dismissive fashion.

"I'll tell you all about it tomorrow," he promised. "Right now I just want a shower. And then some sleep."

"Not hungry?" she asked curiously.

"Ate at Fluttershy's. I mean, we made a meal for the whole thing because-" He broke himself off with a laugh and rubbed his eyes, then reiterated in affirmation, "Tomorrow."

"Hehe, right. Looking forward to it."

Her quill's lively scribbling resumed.

The man began to carry on his way, still quite eager to bring his night to a sleepy close. However, the differences in the unicorn's habits were just jarring enough to have kept him from escaping to freedom.

He stopped at the edge of the room to ask inquisitively, "Are we going to the post office tomorrow or something?"

"Oh, this?" she snapped back up, caught somewhat off guard. "This is a reply to-... I mean, I was going to save assembling this for Sunday so that I could send it out on Monday, but then-"

She blushed at her own overwhelming zeal, but it was just so thrilling! It had been too hard to wait for Sunday! But no amount of enthusiasm would have sped up time. She concentrated on maintaining a reasonable calm.

"I guess I just got so excited that I put some other things off to handle it tonight instead."

"What is it?" he wondered. It must have been something quite special to give Twilight of all ponies a reason to break her own schedules.

"Well, it's a reply to THIS," she said, lifting and shaking the original letter, "and THIS is a letter from-..."

Her quill froze, and a sudden consideration hit her which caused her mouth to twist into an almost smug, if still chipper, grin.

"Well... it's kind of a surprise," was all she gave up.

"Oh?" He was intrigued, which was exactly the reaction she had hoped for.

Almost high off of having such an exciting secret, she elaborated, "I didn't go into THIS with that intention but... I never imagined that it would get as far as it has. It's just such an incredible bit of good fortune that I think I should treat it as a surprise NOW. I hope everypony will like it."

James laughed. What clever or amusing little thing had she gotten a hold of?

"And this mysterious good fortune needs pages upon pages of a reply?"

"Well, they asked to know all about our-," but again she caught herself before revealing too much. "Maybe I'll tell you about it tomorrow."

"Hahaha, okay, fair enough," he responded easily.

He shook his tickled head and started on his way again, passing into the doorway.

"Oh!" Twilight suddenly let out to catch him, jerking her quill away from the current page just as she was about to resume writing. "Speaking of mail, you had a letter come in from Princess Celestia today. I left it on top of your pile of old mail." One of her eyes squinted and she quizzically mentioned, "You know, you have some stuff there that came in at least two weeks ago and you haven't opened any of them yet."

Gripping the door frame to lean back into the room and look at her, he chuckled, "Sure. Cause who's going to send ME mail? That's all just spam, like everything else that's come in for me. I'll throw it out eventually."

"Not the Princess's letter with it, I hope."

"Of course not. Hers is the only stuff that isn't spam. I'll read it another time though. No rush."

His simple, nonchalant regard for the royal mail struck Twilight with blinding surprise, even though it wasn't the first time he had shown such disrespect for a royal correspondence.

"'Another time?' It's a letter from the Princess!"

"Yeah but it's not important," the man answered casually.

"'It's not-!'" The most strained incredulity seized her voice and she practically roared, "HOW CAN IT NOT BE IMPORTANT?"

Patently confused as much as she was sternly annoyed, James merely shrugged, "It's just another letter from her."

"'Just another-!'"

Finally she surrendered with a harsh, exasperated groan and brought her quill back down to the page intently. Perhaps she could shut everything out and let her enthusiasm guide her away from his abhorrent insanity.

Honestly, she wasn't actually angry or otherwise upset with him. It was more like a repeat of her earlier discovery of his slacking off with Rainbow Dash. It was something that deviated so radically from what she had envisioned of him, and she simply had a hard time letting go of her need to be in control.

Any communication from Princess Celestia was critically important! One side of the unicorn clamored to know every last word he had ever exchanged with the Princess in their back and forth letters. What if one of his royal messages had been somehow relevant to her? Or what if he needed instructions on how to receive and interpret such critical missives, and maybe he had been too full of pride to have asked for help? Or what if the tasks contained within the letters were simply something she could have helped him with? Or maybe – Celestia forgive her selfishness – maybe he had received some sort of directive that might have been better handled by her?

However, she forcefully quieted her mind. The lesson had already been firmly established: she needed to grant a leeway of trust to the man, and that wasn't even to mention the trust she should have had in the Princess. She reasserted that new wisdom every time she thought about seizing control.

He needed space, at least sometimes, and she needed to let go, at least sometimes.

Breath, and let go.

For his part, James quickly realized that she was only being hampered by her neurosis and he didn't take any offense to her curtly behavior. It was obvious to him that she was exerting effort to leave him be and not dismantle him through conversation. He left so as to cease being a bother to her.

But first he tapped the door frame and wished her warmly, "You have a good night."

Genuinely given, the words were enough to dislodge much of the insidious tension that prickled her. Taking a fast, calming breath, she stopped her writing briefly just to smile and earnestly reply, "You too."

---

"And then, right there in the street, they kissed. And everypony started, you know, cheering and stamping," James finished the tale. He polished off his last drops of water and set his cup down next to his long since pushed aside and empty breakfast plate.

"Aw," Twilight happily cooed, "that's so wonderful! I'm glad they made up. And that they didn't need any gimmicks to do it." Her magic pulled away the man's finished dishes, joined them with her own, and set everything down to soak in the sink.

The man leaned back in his chair, enjoying his post-meal fullness.

"Yeah. I mean, those two lovers reconciled really fast and very suddenly, and they still have a long way to go... but despite how mismatched they are, they really seem genuinely into each other."

"Don't be so quick to judge what one pony finds lovable in another," the unicorn remarked with an odd giggle. The morning interlude was so peaceful that she felt relaxed as well, caring not about her schedules (for at least a few minutes). "Two ponies can love each other for any reason at all."

"Well, sure," the man agreed, "but I don't think I'm judging so much as I'm—" his tongue juggled some choice words before selecting "—observing. Star Glitter comes from a very different place from P.V. and she has given up a lot more for the relationship than he has, especially if her family never comes around to accepting him. So, as charming as their relationship is, it's just interesting to see that whatever little things P.V. does is actually enough for her to bear all those losses."

"She said it right there in the street, though," Twilight reminded him. "She loves him because he loves her at her core. His simple nature gives her a love that cuts through all those accessory things in her life. It's a love that she has a hard time finding elsewhere, with all that complexity her Canterlot life had. It all makes perfect sense to me: she's willing to give up those fancy things for a love which is so much more important to her."

Caressing waves of tender emotions hit her shores and romantic dreams floated through her skies. Her attitude on the subject didn't seem all that different from Fluttershy's.

"'Love is a many-splendored thing,' it's been written. The things it can do for a pony's heart are perhaps infinite, and it can tie two ponies together in altogether powerful ways. Stronger than a mountain, deeper than an ocean trench, more radiant than the sun. It fills impossible needs that we never knew we had."

But then her dreams poofed away and her analytical mind took over, recalling not the many romance stories she knew but the endless sociological minutia related to romantic fellowship. Wobbling a hoof near her eyes as if she were adjusting a pair of glasses, she said, "Of course, it can be a very complicated thing too. There's a delicate balance of trust and emotions; giving and receiving; letting go and holding on. It's perhaps something that no pony truly understands in a complete way, and everypony has to stumble through the ups and downs of it as best as they can. As demonstrated by the two ponies you met yesterday."

"I guess...," mulled James before he, with some mild thought for all the romantic details of his old universe, more resolutely concluded, "... Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right actually. True that not every relationship works out, but also true that not every one that does plays out like some fairy tale."

"Oh, it still feels like there's a lot of magic to their relationship," she insisted of Star Glitter and P.V. "They complete each others' lives in a very special way. She is the star of his meager life, and he is the full, unreserved, indiscriminate love of her busy life. I think it's particularly fitting since love is a very magical thing after all."

The man cast a quaint, dubious look at her but otherwise smiled inside. Of course she'd say something like that, binding love to her much-vaunted magic.

"In any case," she added on, "I hope they manage to make their relationship last."

"Oh, right, anyway: that's why I was back so late last night," her words triggered him to explain. "After all that craziness at the market, Fluttershy immediately invited them to her cottage to celebrate their anniversary. Rainbow and I had to drag all the food she had picked up to her place anyway, so we stuck around for a good while as long as we were there."

"Aw, how sweet!" chirped Twilight.

"Yeah, you know old mother Fluttershy," the man said brightly. "We helped her put together a meal for them, and she led her birds in a performance for them while they ate by candlelight, and..." The sentence didn't need to carry on; he just flopped his hands about in the air as a 'so on, and so forth.'

"That sure sounds like Fluttershy," she grinned. But suddenly a mild worry seized her, flipping her grin into a grimace heavy with discomfort. She asked warily, "Rainbow Dash eventually took care of clearing the clouds from the sky, right?"

"Of course." James was surprised; it wasn't like her to doubt Rainbow Dash's integrity. "She left earlier than I did to take care of it."

A whole different worry emerged from the unicorn, even thicker than the first, and she carefully verified, "Rainbow Dash left... and... you stayed with Fluttershy?"

"... Yeah?"

Through a dissatisfied moan she let out, "Fridays are supposed to be your day with Rainbow Dash."

"What...?"

That one syllable dropped like a stone from his mouth, gaping in disbelief. Her implication was almost as absurd as the ridiculous carnage that had taken place in the market yesterday.

"This again? I spent most of the day with Rainbow Dash, and regardless, what's the big deal?"

For a short while he could literally watch the war between her innate response and her thoughtful rationality play out battle by battle through the small twitches of her eyes and the contortions of her lips. Something bigger than balancing the weights of friendship was being swung about inside her. There was a search for some way to meld her impulses of strict organization and methodology with her malleable and fluctuating comprehension of his worldview.

"You're right...," she sorely muttered as her head took a small and shameful fall. "I'm sorry. It just... really surprised me earlier when I found out that you and Rainbow Dash have been spending a lot of your time goofing off instead of being serious. I-... I don't know why it got to me..."

James was relieved. He had no interest in a fight with her, and he showed her honesty his sincere appreciation.

"Well, you're a very orderly pony, so I guess a few defied expectations can really throw you for a loop, is all." Then he tried to encourage her, "Usually that orderly trait is a pretty good thing. I mean, how much have I come to rely on it? I KNOW I don't have to offer any suggestions for what we're going to do today; you've got a hundred things lined up already, right?"

"Yeah... I do," she released a tiny smile. Then she laughed, "Is that why you never have any suggestions of your own?"

He barely lifted a lazy shrug, prompting another small laugh from her.

Silence followed, but in the unicorn's thoughtful reflection her head fell once more.

"It's alright if you don't stick to serious responsibilities with Rainbow Dash," she finally said, accepting it herself. "You were right before: that's just part of your experience here, if that's what you want it to be. And maybe even more: that's part of your friendship with Rainbow Dash. And building and maintaining a friendship is more important for you than any tasks or schedules I could try to force upon you."

"You don't have to sound so remorseful," he again tried to cheer her. "I think I understand where you were trying to come from. But didn't we both admit that we don't know exactly what to do to fix all my emotional, um, difficulties? And that this whole 'spending time with everypony' thing was just to try and carry me along one day at a time?"

"Yes, we did," Twilight eased out, sorting through the details of that day some months ago. "Though, the idea of it wasn't so much to keep you occupied so that you wouldn't otherwise passively waste away in the library anymore. It was to give you as many opportunities as possible for all the different sides of yourself – the best parts of yourself – to emerge. In that way, between your own strength and ours, you could build yourself back up."

Gradually a hopeful energy returned to her. The more she felt it out – the more she thought about where they had been and where they now were – the more she warmed.

"And that's really all this is, isn't it?" she realized. "How you spend time with Rainbow Dash and how you spend time with me: it's just different sides of your personality coming out for each of us; the sides that work best with us or that we somehow encourage. With Rainbow Dash you share those playful, competitive—" her eyebrows dropped in a feigning of disdainful accusation, "—lackadaisical, lazy—" she returned to a pleasant normal, "—and otherwise loose parts of yourself. With me you share some of the more thoughtful and philosophical parts of yourself... and some of the more quiet and personal parts too. You're not giving more of yourself to Rainbow Dash... or giving less of yourself to me. Just... giving different parts to each of us."

That's all it was.

Unbelievable that she had needed so much time to have figured that out. All at once she had bouts of trust-filled happiness, felt stings of fearsome worries, saw dreams of brighter hopes, and winced from bites of self-raised doubts. Friendship was such a wonderful thing, but sometimes it could be a real fight to build a strong and perfect one, free from the small but gnawing parasites that liked to hitch on. Parasites including, she was ashamed to admit, jealousy.

In her head she reassured herself, His whimsical 'adventures' with Rainbow Dash aren't any disrespect for me or my feelings. They're just another facet of him, and his friendship.

"I want you to really know," she slowly tore herself free of her final melancholic tethers, "just how much... I've been trying to... understand you. And how much I've been trying to be your friend."

Her solemn tone served as an undisguised reminder for James of just how much effort she had always put into taking a step back and giving him room; into trusting him. Languishing in a state of missing knowledge, holding back from taking control of all that worried her, and letting simple doubts breath free only to struggle to keep them from ballooning into overwhelming fears: those things were not at all natural or comfortable for this pony. But she had done them. She had worked – she had sacrificed – to have lived in a way which she hoped was best for their friendship.

"You are my friend," he confirmed for her. And not even as some sort of consoling allowance; it came out only as a real truth. Then, shy of flushed-faced embarrassment, he admitted, "I'm... actually kind of proud of it."

That was the truth. Maybe it hadn't been spoken everyday, but it was the truth.

The morning sun shimmered through the kitchen window, and Twilight returned a happy nod.

Getting up from her seat she loaned half of her attention to scrubbing away all signs of breakfast from the kitchen. The man rose to assist her immediately. A wet rag swished across the table, water ran from the faucet, and dishes dove into soapy water.

Her confidence reinvigorated, the unicorn said, "It's alright if you're not always sticking with whomever you're 'supposed to' everyday. I still like our overall strategy as the general plan of action because of how much exposure you get to everypony regularly, but if you feel like doing things a bit differently now and again then that's okay. Especially if you have a good reason for it, like yesterday with Fluttershy."

James grabbed a washed plate and dried it with a dishrag, swirling away in circular strokes. It was almost like polishing a mirror, and in the sunlit glimmer which bounced off of the dish he could see that he was cleaning the vaguest outline of his everyday reflection.

"Maybe that's even a sign that I'm recovering. You know, wanting to do things differently... breaking out of old patterns..."

But his optimistic hypothesis only made Twilight hum deeply, and the sound of it was rather unnerved.

Her magic twisted the faucet's knob with a slow, squeaking turn, and the murmuring stream of water ran dry with one or two final plops. There was an almost deliberate delay before she began floating another wet dish to the man, and she took up a drying rag herself. However, her motions weren't smooth, her control wobbled with subtle worry, and the dish she cleaned and put away was still scarred with many obvious streaks of water.

She radiated tension, and then sounded so helpless when she asked, "... Are you alright, James?"

"That's twice you've asked in twenty-four hours, Twilight," he gave her a funny look but nonetheless snickered. Half-serious, he followed up, "Are YOU alright?"

She sighed. It was a quiet, dry sigh. A sigh which signaled a period of thorough thinking.

They finished tidying the kitchen in easy silence, leaving the room just as they had found it. Back into the main chamber of the library they shuffled, and the man sat back in restful patience, giving his friend all the time she needed. Twilight wandered, running her eyes and hoof along some of the shelves of books to speed her thoughts along. The walls almost leaned in, eagerly listening for her words.

"... Am I alright?" she at last echoed, her honesty unhindered. And then she answered, "... I don't know. I'm just worried, I guess. It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago that you were at your lowest point, and now... you're goofing around with Rainbow Dash, and telling jokes, and-... You're relaxed, and comfortable, and GOOD... and... that should be great! But... I'm not sure what's really changed? I'm not sure anything has changed AT ALL to produce such a result. Maybe it's only that you're spending time with everypony else and because of that I haven't been around as much to have seen it, but-..."

Her mouth bent halfway between a thoughtful turn and a dissatisfied frown.

"... I don't know. It's been almost TOO easy... I'm worried."

"Ah. I see," he replied softly. Propping himself up in his seat, he calmly ruminated for a moment before he shared plainly, "Don't feel bad about it, because... I'm a little worried too, honestly."

The relief his words carried to her was quite strange, all things considered. Maybe they were only a salve for the loneliness of anxiety, but even that was still welcome.

"Really? What do you think about it all?"

"Well...," he exhaled, scratching the back of his head, "... I feel good most of the time. Normal, even. I mean, there are up days and down days, but on the whole I'm pretty good. Though, that's the thing, isn't it? Sometimes I DO think that... I should be worried about how good I feel."

That synchronized feeling – that mutual concern about what was either some careless disregard for his pain or an emotional numbness to it – spoke to her instantly.

"When you first really opened up to me about it," she thought with him, "you believed that such feelings might indicate that you were losing your hold on all the wonderful attachments to your old life. But... you haven't forgotten everypony from your old life that you care about. In all these months you've told me so much about them, and I have seen for myself how special they still are to you."

"No, you're right, I haven't forgotten," the man acknowledged in a whisper and dainty nod of his head. He paused, allowing some fragmented thoughts to collect in the basin of his mind, and then he reviewed, "And, I mean, I've been sleeping well. No nightmares. I don't feel as... dark or in despair as before. But... is that only because I'm not as alone as much anymore? I don't know..."

Again, a pause.

Then suddenly his mood shifted upwards.

"Those down days of mine? They're so down because they're the days that I miss everyone the MOST."

Twilight nodded supportively. And to help bolster his mood (and maybe to also indulge some of her infinite curiosity), she popped an upbeat question, "And the good days, then?"

James chuckled, "On the good days what I miss the most is taking a big bite out of a good, juicy hamburger with-... Hey! Don't make that face! If you had taste buds like mine you'd love it too!"

It was all a playful aside, and in laughs they enjoyed it together until a stillness came into the library again.

Twilight picked up in fair seriousness, "So I think, in a way, it's a very good sign that you miss them like that. That's your reminder of how much you really love them. I know it doesn't sound so great when said like that: that it's a positive sign of healing that you're still sad. But maybe that's because you never stop missing them, and the recovery is all in learning to live with it?"

"Maybe...," he allowed, with some hesitation.

Is that how it had been in the past, with a lost friend or a lost grandparent? Hurt, then healing, then acceptance; forever with a certain sadness. But this wasn't like before. This was at so much more of a gut-wrenching level. When the losses had been one at a time, every step of the way had been accompanied by close family and friends. The invisible, intangible, immortal connections of love had always been there.

What happens when ALL those other individuals, with ALL their love, aren't there because ALL of them were the loss?

"Is that what... I've been doing here then? Learning to live with it? Have I learned?"

He was lost. Mired deep in a turbid marsh, riddled as it was with strangling thorns and leeching pests.

Twilight opened her mind for him. She laid down a path for him to follow. Not one of certainty, but of her own comfortable speculation.

"We've both been worried about how you seem to be doing so well. Wondering if you have actually been recovering. BUT... we ALSO both feel like you've been doing alright; that you're at least doing better than you were before. Before you were miserable, and afraid that you wouldn't survive without those essential things that you've always held onto from everypony whom you've loved and who loved you. So maybe now... you're better able to recognize which parts of your loved ones are eternal inside of you? You understand better how much of that incredible love you get to keep forever, no matter how far you go? And maybe... if there is anything important that you HAVE lost... anything that your soul is now missing... maybe you're starting to get that back? From us? In little bits, at least."

The hope she spread on her face invited him to consider those encouraging thoughts for himself, but shortly she felt a few inklings of doubt. Maybe her last statement had been a bit too bold and self-serving.

"I mean," she restlessly tried to clarify, "we're not a replacement for your family or friends or anything, but-"

"I get what you mean," he assured her softly. "I don't treat any of you like replacements. But you've all become fast friends. I hold you all closer than I ever thought I would, especially at the beginning. Maybe some of that is the crazy situation I've been put in. Maybe I wouldn't even have let you get so close if we had met under better circumstances. (That's irony, right?)"

"(Mmm. It's a stretch.)"

"(Pft! Whatever.)"

Regardless, if he had bonded with them more only because he had been suffering... did that therefore mean he had been selfishly using them? Had they been his friends only so that he could protect himself? If he had 'needed' friends in order to survive then had that justified getting them without reserve?

Or did it simply mean that he was human? Or sentient, rather. Did it mean that, like all living and loving things, his soul needed company from time to time?

"I'm not sure it even matters," James sighed. "Maybe the friendship is more important than how or why it happened. And maybe you're right. Right that... every wonderful thing I had in my life before Equestria has left something behind to help me survive my wound, and that these friendships I've been building with you all have been blessing me with something more which fills in the cracks that appeared when I got hurt. Some strength, I guess. It's certainly easier to think of it like that."

Ultimately he wasn't sure what knowledge he had or didn't have. No person had ever fully understood love. And, as evidenced before him, it was doubtful that even with magic any pony had ever fully understood it either.

"Even so, I hope that it's something a little bit more than having needed to not be alone," he wished. "I don't know why. I guess that's a bit of a depressing thought."

"Well, anything's harder without others. In large or small ways," Twilight interpreted his frayed thoughts, to his immediate nodding agreement. "I see it like that too. And I don't think that I could try to imagine how terrible it would be to lose all of my friends, but that helps me understand just how much I've gained by having made those friendships in the first place.

"So," she sought to tie everything together, "maybe we can agree that, despite our fears, you ARE getting better. And it's not just because you're not alone now, but because of these friendships that you've been BUILDING. Actually putting them together has given something important to you, whatever it is exactly. Whether they're enhancing love you already had or supplying you with something new, these friendships altogether are healing what you lost. In their own special ways."

The man recalled similar words having been told to him by Princess Celestia. Wisdom she had shared about how her long-lived soul had survived through generations of ponies, each as dear to her as the last, even while every one of them had eventually gone the way of all flesh. Specifically, she had said something about the joys and gains amounting to more than any pain.

Undeniably, his unicorn friend was the Princess's student.

His unicorn friend...

"Okay. I'll try to accept that," he agreed with her.

But then he scrutinized her closely, enough to the point where she shuffled back an inch in wonder of what he was thinking.

"So, your friendship has given me something... but...," he said with his thoughts sounding distant. Concern descended upon him. "... from the way you've been talking and acting recently... it sounds like maybe... the reverse isn't true?"

"What?" she croaked, greatly surprised.

"Well, it feels like maybe you're not getting enough from me? Like... you're not completely happy with our friendship?"

The pony nearly jumped up, she was so flustered.

"W-What would give you that idea?"

"I mean," James tried to elaborate, "you've been holding yourself back from asking me about things, in order to give me some space. So something simple, like yesterday how you found me with Rainbow Dash, really knocked the wind out of you in kind of a bad way. And just here now, you've been worrying yourself pretty hard over me. And... I mean, clearly your efforts to hold back haven't been comfortable for you. I guess I'm not trying to say you're doing anything wrong but... you're sacrificing a lot for my sake, it feels like."

He straightened himself up and reached out towards her.

"Isn't there something I should be doing? For you? Don't I have a responsibility to you, as a friend?"

Though absolutely he had hit the nail on the head as far as her sometimes-struggling feelings were concerned, Twilight didn't seem to let it penetrate her.

"What do you mean? We're the ones trying to help YOU."

"Right, but, if-... if this is going to be a real friendship between you and me... then when I see you suffering don't I have to be concerned about you?"

"Oh," she at last let the realization in. But she shook off the notion very quickly, though not as a total rejection. "That's very considerate of you since there is always some give-and-take that goes into a friendship. But do you really think now is the time for that? When we're still specifically trying to help you through something hard?"

Immediately the man quipped, "I don't know. You're the friendship scientist. You tell me."

Amusement splashed across her face. Particularly tickling was his devious description of her studies.

"We're not your first set of friends," she chuckled, "so you can't claim you're new to this."

"Yeah," he smiled.

But rapidly he retreated into himself, burdened by thoughts and reflections. Twilight feared, briefly, that she was seeing a resurgence of his melancholy.

But then he said simply, "I've never really thought much about what a friend IS before, though. Not like YOU have."

And though it was a remark so quiet and simple it stirred in Twilight a feeling of shining respect.

She had PROVEN herself to him. Somewhere; somehow.

"All of my old friends...," he gently went on, "... all of my closest friends... They were all people I grew up with. It was our shared childhoods which brought us together and forged us into friends. TRUE friends, I mean. I never once stopped to question how it worked. I took it for what it was."

He looked up at the unicorn.

"You and the others... You all are my first TRUE friends outside of that experience."

'True friend.'

Such a reassuring truth to have heard from him!

There was a certain honor Twilight felt in having been named that. Not to mention relief. For all of the anxiety that sometimes attacked her because of her responsibilities, there was something very nice about such an unambiguous sign of success.

"Okay then!"

The unicorn powered up fresh, and right away she accepted his praise and his deferral to her experience and wisdom. She preached, improvising some of the way, but holding back none of her accumulated friendship lessons.

"Friendship IS many things, and friends have to be many things for each other, at different times. It can be very easy to overlook that; as you were saying, many friends come together on their own without ever thinking about the why's and how's, and so friendship can often work with only natural effort. But yes, not always. Sometimes we have to rebalance our friendships, or in some moments rise up and be something more for our friends."

She pushed a hoof into herself.

"Between us, I don't believe this is a time for you to worry about me. We're all trying to help YOU right now, and I admit that does require some effort on our-... on MY part. But I, and everypony, believe that this situation won't last forever. You'll get better. For whatever effort I'm putting in, I'm NOT suffering for it. I don't think our friendship is bad. It's just new."

One of his remarks returned to her and she echoed it strongly, "I'm proud to have you as a friend also."

"Alright," James eventually responded, accompanied by a soft release of wound-up tension.

But yet he couldn't find absolute comfort in her outlook. Something didn't feel right. With her.

No, she wasn't trying to downplay her sacrifices for his sake. Her relative nonchalance wasn't some trick she was playing, on him or herself. But regardless, the strain she had been enduring for him had left its mark on her. To make their friendship work had required her to resist some of her most natural impulses, and he knew how suffocating such a thing could feel. That she, his friend, had faced such stress wasn't an ignorable thing.

Though that was where he had to trust her, wasn't it? Had to trust her when she said it was all temporary; trust her when she believed that things would change one day; trust that her burdens were hers to willfully bear, and to accept and believe all that trust was his own counter-burden. All he could have done was ask if she was okay, and she had already told him 'yes.'

Twilight didn't think the lesson in friendship was over.

"I want to go back to something you said a moment ago," she continued, really unleashing her eagerness. "When you talked about your life before Equestria, you specifically distinguished between 'friends' and 'true friends,' and that was very interesting! I'd like to try and clarify that. I mean, I'm pretty sure I know what you meant by the distinction but let's clear it up anyway."

What her enthusiasm hid well was her slightly selfish angle: a part of her had only brought up the topic because it would allow her to absolutely verify that, when he had called her a 'true friend,' it had some real meaning in his eyes. But the rest of her was unabashedly innocent, and even somewhat altruistic. He was a fun partner to engage with in debate and out loud thinking sessions, and anything that deepened BOTH his and her understanding of friendship was a worthwhile pursuit.

"The idea," she hypothesized, "in differentiating the two is that – not to imply any rudeness of course – there is a certain level of merely polite friendliness we engage in by default, particularly with ponies whom we interact with on a regular basis, but there is also a desire to more strongly define what we share with those ponies absolutely closest to us. I guess when we use the word 'friend' what we often mean by it is 'true friend.' Or maybe 'close friend' sounds less pejorative. Everypony else we get along with is actually just 'a friendly pony' or 'a nice pony,' but in certain moments we might call them 'friend' as a matter of courtesy. Would you agree? We're friendly with lots of ponies but there are actually only a few ponies who get to be truly close to us; 'true' friends."

"Yes," James nodded, "that's what I was going for. I mean, I've never lied when I've called someone a friend, but not everyone I've addressed that way was one of my nearest and dearest."

It really did feel almost evil to try and press the distinction. 'Of course you're my friend, pal! Just not my TRUE friend!' But maybe that was one of the reasons he had never thought about it deeply and had always just 'understood' it.

"I mean," he mused, "the 'regular' friends were friends because... I was friendly with them. (Obviously.) And I liked them. But in the end, sort of as you said, they were just friendly acquaintances. Like, when they weren't around, I hardly thought about them. I'll never see any of them again either now that I'm in Equestria, and thinking about THAT... only kind of makes me sad?"

The phrase dropped out of him without any significant weight to it. He shook his head.

"It IS a depressing thought, anyway. But it doesn't even come close to what I feel when thinking about-... Well, you know what I mean."

"Because those friendly acquaintances never became a part of you like your closer friends did," the unicorn laid it all out like she had read it in a book. "When those others were taken away, you weren't losing a part of YOURSELF. And that's what we really mean by 'true friend,' right? Somepony that falls into the same category as family, basically. Somepony that you love. A pony that you can't imagine being without."

She looked down for a moment, and her eyes jumped back and forth as a smile slowly climbed up her face. She knew she had something clever to say.

"The difference is," she nearly giggled, and then very clearly discriminated her words, "one likes theirs friends but loves their FRIENDS."

"Yeah," a small laugh burst out of him. He shook his head in all different ways. "I suppose that's the heart of it."

"So what have we come to?" she asked in summary. "You're feeling better; we're worried, but we think you're doing okay; we're at peace with myself and our friends making small sacrifices for your sake; and we feel like you have real friends here."

To himself the man went over her list before he nodded without commitment.

"Something more?" she tugged gently.

James took a breath in, then let it back out. And then again.

He mumbled, "No matter what we agree on... no matter what we feel... in the end the real question – the simple and difficult one – is whether I'm surviving or not, right?"

"I suppose so...?" she whispered back. "But I'm hoping that you'll LIVE more than you'll SURVIVE. Just like 'friends' and 'true friends', there's a difference between 'surviving' and 'living.'"

"One step at a time," he murmured before falling into a cautious silence.

"... James..."

"To survive... A human being needs a few things for raw survival. We can live for about three days without any water. We can go maybe a month or two without food."

He looked straight at his friend.

"But they say a lot of different, less definitive things about how long someone can go without love."

"Without being cared for; without feeling your needs addressed by somepony else when they become to great to bear on your own? Without caring for another; without holding somepony close to your heart to make each day that much more worth living through?"

Twilight could have spun through miles more of rhetoric. Instead she drove straight to the point.

"We know – or at least, we both are trying to truly believe – that you're carrying with you the love you've kept from your old life. But what about me, and Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy, and Spike, and the rest? Are we providing you with the remaining sustenance that you need to survive? ... To live?"

He thought on it, though ignorance pleaded with him not to. He weighed her question, though his heart worried that it was too heavy.

At last he shook his head and surrendered, "Oh... don't ask me questions about necessary love. As if I know intimately about such things."

"Maybe you don't know," she calmly stated. "Maybe there's nopony who really does for sure. But somewhere inside you already understand it because you've been there before." She raised her head with hope. "We just want to figure out if we're doing the right thing to get you there again."

"I'll be good if I get there again without ever understanding how or why," he groaned, giving an intentionally impertinent wave of his hand.

"But if you never understand it, won't you always be worried about it? Like you are now?"

He hummed, light but not dismissive. Yet then he quickly resolved, "I think I'll be less worried if I know that we're BOTH a little worried. Friends share, right?"

A great smile, and a promise, came out of the unicorn.

"They do. It's a deal."

Another quiet moment came and went in the library, but for once that morning it wasn't burdened by any big thoughts or small stresses passing invisibly between the friends. Everything was peaceful.

Feeling his humor coming back with full force and ready to move on, James bounced his eyebrows and threw his arm out with a flourish, saying, "There's all that philosophy that you were promised. I think that fills our quota for the day. Now: what's on the agenda, madam scheduler?"

"Well, there are plenty of possibilities!" laughed Twilight. "What sounds interesting to you? We can pick out another book for our personal book club since we've finished discussing the last one."

"Maybe. But it gets hard to find the time to read in between helping everypony out."

"And slacking off with Rainbow Dash?"

"Yes, and that."

"Okay," she snorted, "well, I was also thinking we could go see Zecora. She's been replenishing her stocks of ingredients for her brews and she'd certainly welcome some help with picking some of the special flowers that only bloom during the changing seasons."

"Hmm... that's a real possibility. Sounds like a nice way to spend the day. The strolling outside part, that is. I STILL don't get this alchemy stuff."

"You're better than you think. Anyway, I'll make a mental note to come back to that one. I was also thinking we could look at scheduling you an appointment with the dentist for-"

"Oh no! No, no, no! No can do! What's a pony dentist going to know about MY teeth?"

"Dental hygiene is very important!"

"Sure, but no! ESPECIALLY not after we tried that 'routine physical' at the doctor's office. I don't think that poor pony physician had a clue what he was looking at!"

"Better safe than sorry! Besides, Spike has a unique physiology too and he gets by fine between the doctor, dentist, and—" she coughed trepidatiously, lowering her voice, "—uh, vet."

"Oh, so are we looking at getting me my shots too?"

"James, it's your health."

He sighed, forgiving and good-humored. His resistance was indeed built upon true distasteful feelings but this issue wasn't quite a serious battle worth fighting; not in his mind. After all, she had a point, and all he had was a dull disinterest in being bothered.

He rubbed his face and relented in overplayed agony, "Dentist next week maybe. Please."

"Alright," she smiled. "What else? Hm..."

"What about your mail?" the man suddenly cut in. "You need to go to the post office for that thing you were doing last night, don't you?"

"Oh, it's not ready yet," Twilight shook her head. "I mean, I could send it, but I want to let it sit for a bit before I go over everything another time. Then I'll send it."

Yet she was glad that he had brought the subject of mail up. She had been meaning to remind him, since it was doubtful to her that he had acted yet.

"On that note, why don't you read your letter from the Princess while we figure out what we're going to do? You know, so it doesn't permanently join the pile of your abandoned, unread mail."

"I guess," he accepted, unhindered and unrushed. "It's nothing important, though. Just another pen pal letter."

Like a satellite trapped in an infinite fall his words merely orbited her, unable to land and be processed. Only after a dozen cycles did they finally pass into her vacant ears.

In a great burst of puzzlement, she exclaimed, "Wait... pen pal? Really?"

"Yeah. Just regular 'how do you do's and 'what's been going on's," the bewildered man clarified. "Sometimes she likes to draw pictures and put little word games in her letters. Just... pen pal stuff. Why, what did you think we were writing to each other about?"

It was like finding him napping with Rainbow Dash all over again.

No, no. That didn't quite describe the unthinkable enormity of it well enough.

It was like she had found him CUDDLING with Rainbow Dash, his hand running through her tail slowly, while into his ear the pegasus was whispering verses from the ancient epic Bayowulf, recited flawlessly in the ORIGINAL Old Equestrian.

So off balance was she that she struggled to grasp even obvious concepts out of the air while she tried to guess answers.

"Uh, friendship reports, or... official status updates, or—" an ashamed meekness appeared in her, "—reporting something about me to her..." She finally threw in the towel, "I don't know! I assumed it was something important at least! She's PRINCESS CELESTIA."

"That-... that is a thing she is, yes."

James wondered for a moment if maybe they were seeing two different sides of the same coin. There had never been a question about how much the unicorn looked up to her mentor in worship. The Princess was so very important to her. But for her that importance perhaps only existed in a very narrow, childlike way.

"She is more...," he spoke quietly.

The twist in Twilight's neck grew like a tree, inching along as her head cocked to the side over the years. She pushed herself to discern the mysterious meaning behind his remark, unsuccessfully. Though, she did recall a few dreamy things on the borders of her vision, like speaking to the Princess at Hamestown; memories of the Princess mentioning her own personal struggles; dim silhouettes of a pony who wasn't JUST her mentor. Still, no sensible conclusion came despite her efforts.

Seeing this, the man sighed and mumbled, "Maybe it's alright for now that, to you, she's just 'the Princess.' Maybe wherever you are in your life right now, that's what you need. But... to me... she's something else. I didn't grow up under her wing, or even under the sun she raises. So when she sent me her very first letter and I read it, I wasn't getting a letter from THE PRINCESS."

Ah, that very first letter. It came back to him crisply.

Only a week after having returned from the trip to Hamestown (already two months in the past now!) it had come in. He would have thrown it out with the rest of the spam but Twilight had caught sight of it first and had remarked upon the unusual nature of such a royal letter arriving through ordinary mail. And as if receiving such a letter through something other than magical dragonfire hadn't been strange enough, he had found the contents to be incredibly unexpected.

It hadn't been an official correspondence from somepony incredibly important. No, it had been written as a casual letter from somepony close. She had comfortably described her affairs at the castle and local Canterlot news, and had wondered warmly about what he had been getting up to. It had been something he might have thought to have seen from a friend, or a sister, or some other family.

His first, gut reaction had been much like Twilight's current one: what a bizarre message to have received from a princess! But even only minutes after having read it he had remembered the intimate words he had exchanged with her in person during his two visits to Canterlot. The letter had transported him right back to being in her soothing, warm, reassuring company.

He had written back to her that same day, putting his words in the same exact tone as hers, kicking off their regular correspondence.

"I replied to that first letter right away because," he told Twilight, "I-... well, because I felt-"

Yet he held himself back from being any more specific, particularly given how she already hadn't been able to completely interpret his behaviors.

Starting fresh, he said, "You assume my letters from the Princess have to be something important somehow, and you aren't wrong; they are important. But not for Equestria. Just for me. Replying to her has sort of been like-..."

Very nearly he trailed off.

"... like writing home."

Many more moments of thinking ticked by, but the unicorn still shook her head.

"I... don't get what you mean?"

"Well, like I said," the man lightened his mood and offered her reprieve, "maybe there's a lesson in here that's just not for you right now."

Her stare lingered on him for a few more studious moments while her spongy mind ever loathed the existence of something it couldn't wrap itself around. But, her lessons of patience fresh in her mind, she rapidly let go and simply asked him, "So... do you want to read your letter?"

He nodded effortlessly.

From the library's front down, a light and rapid knocking rattled away, interrupting them. The tapping was low and uncertain at first, though a restrained energy swiftly settled into regular pattering blows. Each hit was fear and excitement bashing into the door together. Likely it was a library visitor since welcome friends of Twilight's usually waltzed right in.

"Could you get that?" the unicorn asked James while she herself stepped away to retrieve the man's mail for him.

"Sure."

He wasted no time. Up on his feet, a few steps over, and one wide swing later the door was open.

"Hi, James!"

The grandest smile was on the other side. The pony bounced about elatedly as she shouted her irrepressible greeting. Up and down, up and down, with a little left and right thrown in for good measure; she was hardly able to keep in one place. Glowing in eyes and body, the youthful energy inside of her was ready to explode as she kept springing in joyful leaps.

The man held in a single disbelieving breath.

The doorway divide had on one side a bright laughing. On the other side was an awed tranquility broken only by a single mumble.

"... Poppy?"

Comments

[DreamKitsune]

Well, that was unexpected.

[Jack Kellar]

"Bemused" means perplexed. It's not an alternate spelling of "amused".

[JBL]

Hmmm, I felt like the dialogue between Twilight and James felt a bit heavy. Guess I need some sleep

[Zurock]

5020273
Good catch. Looks like amused wasn't the intended word anyway, though the sentence is still wrong regardless.

"Yeah. I mean, those two lovers reconciled really fast and very suddenly, and they still have a long way to go... but despite how mismatched they are, they really seem genuinely into each other."
"Don't be so quick to judge what one pony finds lovable in another," the unicorn remarked with a bemused giggle.

Twilight is supposed to be just a little bit surprised (in a relaxed and comfortable sort of way) at James' words since not only is she a friendship scholar and as such familiar with how different individuals can come together, but she knows both of them went through What Separates where a central lesson was that their differences don't inhibit them from uniting. It just startled her a little that he essentially implies that the lovers' differences should keep them apart.
Bemused is absolutely the incorrect word choice since it doesn't really get that across cleanly and more significantly, as you've shown, that line is just screaming to be read as "amused giggle," which in turn too weakly conveys the concept I think.

Thanks. Scribbling that one into the list of corrections.