Earth to Twilight

by terrycloth

Chapter 11: Friendship Studies

Case Study #1: Spike

Twilight drew a horizontal line under the title, and looked up at her number one assistant, who was staring back at her across the library table with his arms folded.

“I can’t believe you ditched me, again!” Spike said, glowering.

Twilight flattened her ears a bit. “I thought you liked spending time with Rarity?”

“I can’t believe I fell for it again!” Spike said, throwing up his arms. “And Rarity! She was in on it, wasn’t she? How could she betray me that way?”

“Oh Spike,” Twilight said, standing up and nuzzling at him, only to have her muzzle pushed roughly away. “I would have taken you with us, but I was trying to keep the whole changeling thing a secret.” She couldn’t help glancing at the newspaper article Spike had silently greeted her with when she arrived, ‘More Changelings Spotted in Canterlot!’ She hadn’t taken the time to read it yet, but one of the pictures was of her being harassed by Royal Guards, captioned ‘Is Celestia’s former student secretly a changeling?’

“Which obviously didn’t work out,” she admitted, then decided to change tacks. “We were also going mountain climbing, and you hate mountain climbing.”

“I hate it less than staying home worrying that the next time I see you you’re going to be in a full body cast because you fell off the mountain,” Spike grumbled.

Twilight sighed. “I’d offer you an apology, but I’m not really sorry I didn’t take you, Spike. It wasn’t a very fun trip. I spent most of it stressed out and desperately trying to keep everypony from exploding at each other, and the rest of it getting stunned by anti-changeling spells.” She winced, remembering Shining Armor’s horrible new spell. “But it was all worth it – Princess Celestia confirmed that I’m still her student, which means that I need to make up for lost time with a very thorough friendship report!”

Spike looked at her dubiously. “Well, if you want a friendship problem, I have this so-called friend who keeps ditching me.”

“Actually,” Twilight said, “it’s more of a survey this time. Question one: On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, how close of friends do you consider us to be at the current point in time?”

===

Case Study #2: Rarity

“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything – Twilight! How wonderful to see you again! I see you made it back from your trip to Canterlot in one piece? After today’s paper, I admit I wasn’t sure if we’d ever see you again outside of a prison cell.”

Twilight winced a bit, and followed Rarity into her shop. “I should probably read what they’re saying about me at some point,” she said. “I skimmed through it and saw all kinds of factual errors just on a quick glance.”

“Mmm,” Rarity said, noncommittally. “So you didn’t defeat Princess Luna in single combat, tear your way through the entire Royal Guard, and then fight Princess Celestia for six hours before finally being driven off?”

“That’s more Rainbow Dash’s thing,” Twilight said. “They didn’t really say I did all that, did they?”

“Not in so many words, but it was implied rather artlessly,” Rarity said. “How did your little soiree with the princess go?”

Twilight grinned, folded her hooves up against her chest, and, trying her hardest to contain her excitement to a faint ‘squee’, happily declared, “I’m still Princess Celestia’s student! She wants me to write up everything I learned about friendship since I came back from the moon! So I’ve got a short survey…”

“Weren’t you going to see Princess Luna?” Rarity interrupted to ask.

“Oh. Right,” Twilight said. “I convinced her not to dissect any more changelings and by the look on your face that whole dissection mess wasn’t public knowledge was it.”

“Oh dear,” Rarity said, eyes going wide. “Did you stop her before she got Ditto?”

Twilight blinked. “You knew Ditto was a changeling?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Rarity replied. “I knew from Trixie that several were in town, and… well… you saw his cutie mark. And that name –“

Twilight winced. “I know! He made up a pegasus form for the climb up the mountain. Can you guess what he named her?” Rarity leaned closer. “Fruit fly. Fruit. Fly.”

Rarity shook her head. “The poor dear probably thinks he’s being clever. I wanted to say something, but, well, I wasn’t sure, and it would be awfully rude to go up to a random pony and tell him his name made him sound like a Changeling. We do have a Junebug and a Mayor Mirror, after all.”

“Mayor Mirror? I thought it was Mayor Mare?”

Rarity tittered. “That’s almost as bad – it’d be like naming your pony form ‘Pony’.”

“Like Pony Joe?” Twilight asked. “You don’t think – no, no, I’m sure I would have heard if he’d been arrested.” She really hoped he hadn’t been – Spike would be inconsolable if the best donuts in Canterlot were gone for good. On the other hoof, he made the best donuts in Canterlot, and if he was forced to re-open his shop in Celestia’s theoretical changeling neighborhood, it might be enough to convince a few more ponies to visit…

“So is he okay?” Rarity asked. “Ditto, I mean, not Pony Joe.”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, looking down. “He was fine last I saw him, but Luna couldn’t help him, so he’s going back into hiding.” She sighed, as Rarity lowered her head in sympathy. “But that’s not why I’m here,” Twilight said, fetching her scroll from her saddlebag and finding a table to unroll it. “I’d like to ask you a few questions for my friendship survey, if you wouldn’t mind?”

“A survey?” Rarity said, looking a bit unenthusiastic. “Well, I suppose I can answer while I work.” She headed back to her sewing machine, paused with her hoof over the activation button, then lifted a (much quieter) needle and thread instead.

“Question one,” Twilight began. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, how close of friends do you consider us to be at the current time?”

“Oh a ten of course,” Rarity said without pause. “We’re the very best of friends.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she was being entirely honest, but the numbers were only meant to be compared with her answers to other questions anyway. “Question two, would you say that over the past month, our friendship has increased in intensity, decreased in intensity, or stayed about the same?”

“We’ve always been the best of friends,” Rarity replied, then gave a little frown. “Although I admit I was a little worried when it looked you might turn into some sort of delinquent. Or worse, a rebel! Rebels are fine targets for romance, but not really the sort of pony you want to be associated with on a daily basis.”

That was enough to knock Twilight off-script. “You don’t associate with your romantic interests on a daily basis.”

Rarity laughed. “Well of course not! One doesn’t want to seem desperate, after all.” She turned to Twilight and smiled, while her magically levitated needle continued to sew perfect stitches from outside her field of view. “Next question?”

===

Case Study #3: Fluttershy

Twilight found Fluttershy outside Rarity’s boutique, waiting patiently for the fashionista to finish her latest creation so that they could go to the spa together, too shy to knock on her door and remind her of the appointment. At least the weather was about as good as weather got in winter – small sun-breaks shining down through the cloud cover, and a temperature comfortably above freezing, but not so far above freezing as to turn the fallen snow into mud and slush.

“It’s probably my fault she’s running late. I had her answering a survey for my next friendship report…” Twilight said, trailing off as Fluttershy looked silently at the ground. “Would you like to take the survey while we’re waiting? I was planning to visit you later tonight, but if you’re just waiting around anyway…”

Fluttershy gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, so Twilight quietly took out a tiny, unthreatening scrap of parchment to record the answers, sitting down in the snow and resting it on her forelegs. She could transfer it to the big scroll later. “On a scale of one to ten, how close would you say our friendship is right now?” she recited from memory.

“Ten,” Fluttershy whispered.

Twilight sighed. It was bad enough that Rarity had answered ‘10’ to every numerical question in the list – if all her friends were going to do the same thing, she might as well not even have those questions. “Fluttershy… I know you don’t want to upset me, but it’s really important that I get honest answers for this. My studies in friendship aren’t just a make-work project the princess gave me as an excuse to stay in Ponyville – friendship creates a very real, very energetic connection that can be tapped to power magical spells, like the Elements of Harmony.” Or to feed changelings, Twilight suddenly realized, although she didn’t say that out loud for fear of spooking the already nervous pegasus. “Now, the numbers I’m asking for don’t have to be absolute, but it’s very important that the numbers you give for the different questions are all on the same scale relative to each other. If you answer ‘10’ for the first question, then that means that you think we’ve never been better friends than we are right now.” She paused to take a breath. “Do you think that we’ve never been better friends than we are right now?” That wasn’t quite the right wording for question two, but it got at the gist of it.

“Mmm hmm,” Fluttershy said, with a short nod.

“Really?” Twilight asked, skeptically. “Even though I haven’t spoken to you in a month except to crash on your couch after nearly dying of exposure through my own sheer stupidity?”

“I like it when ponies don’t talk to me,” Fluttershy said, a little louder. Her wings were still tightly pressed against her sides, and her ears were flat, but apparently she’d decided to open up enough to speak in something almost resembling a normal tone of voice. “And you’re not as scary as you used to be, now that you’re an earth pony I mean. Not that I was ever scared of you! I was just scared of, um, the things you’d do when you got angry, or scared. Which I could completely understand since I’m even worse when I get angry, but that didn’t stop it from being scary.” She cowered, and squeaked, “I’m sorry!”

“No,” Twilight said, blinking and scribbling down a quick summary of Fluttershy’s explanation. “No, that’s perfect! That’s just the sort of thing I’m looking for. Thank you, Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy visibly relaxed. “Are we done with the survey then?”

Twilight laughed, “Oh, no, not at all. Question three – on a scale of one to ten, how would rate our friendship as of six weeks ago, before the trip to the moon?”

===

Case Study #4: Rainbow Dash

“Eight. I mean, I love you and all, Twilight, but I gotta leave some room for, you know, ponies that are a teensy weensy bit more radical than you.”

Twilight nodded to Rainbow Dash. “It’s okay, Rainbow. However you want to divide up your scale is up to you.”

“Take Warp,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re not really friends, but if we were, she’d probably be a better friend than you. No offense. You’re just a little lacking in the ‘wings’ department, and that’s kind of essential if you want to be the perfect friend for a pegasus like Rainbow Dash.”

“Moving on,” Twilight said, “if you compare our friendship now to our friendship from a month ago, would you say it’s increased, decreased, or stayed the same?”

“After taking me to the moon and that awesome raid on Canterlot?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Increased, for sure.”

That sounded reasonable enough – Rainbow Dash was one of the friends who she’d seen on a regular basis both before and after her term of imprisonment, so of all her friends she was the one Twilight had worried about the least. “So on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate our friendship as of six weeks ago, before the trip to the moon?”

“Oh wow,” Rainbow Dash said. “Each of those has to be worth at least a point, but that means we would have only been a six. That can’t be right.”

“The scale is completely subjective,” Twilight repeated. “It actually works better if you find some way to use the entire range.”

“No, no, that’s just wrong,” Rainbow Dash said. “We were way closer than six. But we can’t be a ten right now…” She scrunched up her face in thought. “Can my scale go up to twelve?”

===

Case Study #5: Cherry Berry

“You know what would really make you my best friend?” Cherry Berry said, instead of answering the question, “If you’d take over as the element of laughter. I know you have it in you! And you’re an earth pony, so it’d keep the tribal ratios even.”

“I really don’t have it in me,” Twilight said.

“I’ve seen you laugh!” Cherry Berry said. “I’ve even seen you tell jokes. Good ones. What more do you need? I mean, for pony’s sake, it let me be the element of laughter. Nopony laughs at my jokes.”

“Contrary to what you might think, the core of the element of laughter has nothing to do with laughing per se,” Twilight said. “It’s about being the one to lighten the mood when everything seems hopeless. Pinkie’s spirit of boundless optimism and your well of boundless cynicism both serve the same purpose – to give your friends a reason to keep going in the face of fear and doubt.” Twilight winced. “When I’m faced with fear and doubt, I tend to… overreact. You remember the want-it-need-it spell.”

“And the cupcakes,” Cherry Berry said. “Maybe you could inspire ponies to keep going by freaking out and pelting them with cupcakes?”

Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes. “But what would I do if the bakery was closed?”

Cherry Berry snickered.

“Seriously, have you seen my cooking?”

“The way you made that barn go up, I almost was your cooking,” Cherry Berry replied. Then she grinned widely, and her eyes went wild. “Fire! You could motivate your friends with fire!”

“I think we’re done here,” Twilight said, rolling up her scroll.

===

Case Study #6: Applejack

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable answering these questions, Twi,” Applejack said, as the two of them shared a light lunch of apple-slices and cream in the farmpony’s kitchen.

Twilight wasn’t sure that she was comfortable being back in the kitchen where she’d suffered so much misery, but instead of playing that angle, went for something more to the point. “If you don’t answer them, I’ll need to answer them for you,” she said. “I’m writing up my studies on friendship to present to the Princess, and I need to do as thorough of an analysis as I can. But I also want an accurate analysis, and the answers you give me are bound to be much more accurate than what I can determine by observing you.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Applejack said. “I’m still mighty angry at you for what you did to the farm. I had to ride herd on ya like a sheep to get you to clean up the kitchen, and we’re still down ten pounds’a flour and two ‘a sugar, not to mention a barn and half our snow plows.”

“Oh,” Twilight said. “You don’t look that angry,” she said, lowering her head.

“I’m bein’ patient,” Applejack said, letting a hint of impatience leak into her voice.

Twilight sighed. “Why don’t I leave a list of questions here, and you can fill it out when you’re feeling calm, then?” she suggested, hopefully.

“Leave ‘em if ya want, but I wouldn’t hold yer breath waitin’,” Applejack replied.

===

Case Study #5, addendum

“Twilight! Twilight!”

Twilight Sparkle pondered running away at full speed when she heard Cherry Berry calling out for her as she left Sweet Apple Acres. She hadn’t been seen yet… but the snow off the path was still deep, and while it was warm enough that she wouldn’t be in any danger of freezing to death, she’d be in serious danger of getting all wet and muddy. “What?!” she called back, frustrated.

“What was he!” Cherry Berry asked, appearing around the corner. Now it was really too late to run. “You said you’d tell me when you got back!”

“What was – oh, you mean the friend of mine Applejack found out about.” Twilight laughed. “He was a changeling.”

“What?!” Cherry Berry said, eyes going wide. “You cheater! I guessed changeling and you said that wasn’t it!”

“I guess I’m not qualified to be the element of honesty either,” Twilight said, with a shrug.

===

Case Study #7, The Great and Powerful Trixie

“The key factor in how much a friendship deteriorates during a period of absence is not the time that passed, it’s the number of new friends that surpass the absent friend in the meantime. Friendship is, after all, fundamentally a competition for the attention and time of the ponies called friends.”

“So you’re saying that in order to answer the question, you’d need to review historical data about the rate at which you acquired new friendships in the past, and also figure out how many ‘slots’ were available and what rank the missing friend started at,” Twilight said. “That’s a fascinating hypothesis. And testable!”

“Through a longitudinal study, one would hope,” Trixie replied.

“I suppose that would be the ethical way to go about it,” Twilight replied, filing away nascent plans to manipulate ponies into becoming friends with each other in the metaphorical ‘bad idea’ drawer.

“Is that it?” Trixie asked, as Twilight started to roll up her scroll.

Twilight nodded. “Yep! That was the last question. And I have to say I’m impressed, Trixie – you’ve obviously done your homework.”

“Of course! How could one hope to lead the Elements of Harmony without studying friendship?” Trixie asked, smiling obnoxiously. “Now, since all of your questions have been answered – even though most of them did not apply to anypony but your old, close friends – it’s time for you to make good on your part of the deal.”

Twilight flattened one ear. “We had a deal?”

“It was implied!” Trixie replied. “Hoof over your notes from the last Winter Wrap Up. It would be ludicrously inefficient to start from scratch planning this year’s.”

Twilight blinked. “You mean you haven’t even started planning? Winter Wrap Up is in a few days – have you at least collected data on this year’s roster and environmental variances from last year?”

“The first time you organized the teams, you did so with no warning whatsoever,” Trixie replied. “We can start with last year’s plan and let my improvements fill any gaps.”

Now Twilight was insulted. “Improvements? You haven’t even seen the plan, how do you know you’ll even be able to make any improvements, especially in such a short –“

Trixie interrupted her. “How many fireworks displays did last year’s plan involve?”

“…none?” Twilight said, reluctantly. “Why would you even –“

“How many sonic rainbooms were used in the cloud-clearing portion of the plan?”

Twilight blinked. “Well, zero. Cloud clearing isn’t a very time-consuming task and most of the pegasi who don’t normally do weather duty look forward to it.”

Trixie snorted. “Typical. And how many prizes did you offer to teams that finish ahead of schedule?”

“Prizes!” Twilight exclaimed. “You’re turning this into a competition?”

“Everything’s a competition,” Trixie replied. “This is just adding some spice.”

“I don’t know, Trixie,” Twilight said. “Ponyville’s traditions are very important to them. These changes might be too much for them to accept.”

“Nonsense. If there’s anything I know, it’s how to win over a crowd,” Trixie said. “We don’t need to settle for another boring repeat of a proven formula – you’ve done the hard work, now it’s time to have fun with it. So bring me last year’s plan… actually, why don’t you go ahead and make those changes you were so sure we’d need? You can be the all-team organizer’s assistant. You already have an all-team vest.”

“So you want me to do the same job I do every year,” Twilight said, “only you get all the credit.”

“It’s called delegation,” Trixie replied. “And it’s not like fireworks displays plan themselves – nopony is slacking off here. We’re just going to work together and make things a little more… awesome.”

===

Case Study #4, addendum

“Rainbow Dash!”

In a streak, the rainbow-maned pegasus was hovering before her. “Hey, egghead. Still working on that survey thing?”

“You put her up to this, didn’t you,” Twilight said, narrowing her eyes. Her tail twitched.

Rainbow looked confused. “Put who up to what?”

Twilight fairly spat the word, “Trixie.”

“Oh! You mean the Winter Wrap Up thing?” Rainbow Dash said, oblivious. “Yep, that was all me. I knew how much you loved bossing everypony around, so I asked her to give that job back, and work on making things awesome this year. And it’s going to be awesome, Twilight!” Her eyes lit up, and she swooped around as she described the fireworks, and prizes, and “…sonic rainboom! Can you say Best Winter Wrap Up Ever?”

At the moment, Twilight could not. She was so angry she was barely listening. Not only did her so-called friend – the so-called element of loyalty – not only did she take Trixie’s side, she’d actually given Trixie the whole idea! And she didn’t even respect Twilight enough to lie about it, or act ashamed! She was acting like she expected Twilight to thank her or something. Had she been lying about them still being friends?

Always expect the best from your friends, never the worst.

Twilight let out a breath and calmed herself down. Trixie’s arrogant gloating had put her in a bad state of mind, but Rainbow Dash really did look like she’d expected Twilight to be thankful. Because, yes, from Trixie it was blatant exploitation and abuse of power, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t getting anything out of it. Her workload stayed the same. The only reason for her to suggest that Trixie let Twilight handle the organization part of being the organizer was if…

“You okay?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“You actually thought I’d miss doing all the organizational work,” Twilight said, opening her eyes.

Rainbow snorted. “Well, duh.”

To tell the truth… she probably would have, if she hadn’t already scheduled other tasks for the time she’d normally have spent on it – chiefly earth pony magic experimentation, but also the research paper on friendship she was writing for Celestia. She’d had too much time to get used to the idea of a nice, relaxing Winter Wrap Up with somepony else telling her what to do, and now suddenly being thrust back into a leadership role was jarring. But that was just her being lazy.

“That and Trixie couldn’t organize her way out of a paper bag,” Rainbow Dash added. “Applejack had to take care of all that junk when we were on tour.”

Twilight sighed. “Thank you, Rainbow. That was a nice gesture, I guess.” She swished her tail. “I just wish you’d told me sooner. Now I’ve got to completely redo the month’s schedule. Again.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You know, Twilight, if you just put down twelve hours a day for napping, you wouldn’t have to keep rescheduling things whenever you hit a bit of turbulence.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

===

Conclusions and Footnotes

”…and so I’m forced to conclude that even with Trixie Lulamoon’s hypothesized friend-displacement factor, a single month was not enough time to significantly alter a close friendship between the ponies being studied. In particular, because all parties involved spent most of the intervening time in unfamiliar locations far divorced from their ordinary lives – ie, house arrest in Canterlot Castle, or on a show tour of Equestria – once returned to a familiar environment, their old familiar routines began to reassert themselves.

“Unfortunately, the effect of adding and removing friends from the group is not so easy to dismiss. However, a full report into that phenomenon will have to wait until after Winter Wrap Up. As always, I remain your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Spike scribbled away at the scroll, speaking out loud to himself as he sounded out the words. “Phe…no…me…”

Twilight sighed. She wasn’t entirely happy with the report, but she didn’t have time to perfect it if she was going to organize Winter Wrap Up, and she thought there were a few valuable insights that were worth sending to the princess right away. She was especially unhappy with the part about Applejack, which was based on fudged data and still didn’t really support her conclusions. Something was different between them, but it wasn’t clear what.

There was a faint noise outside the door, and Twilight trotted over to investigate. “Don’t send it yet, Spike. I think I might want to make another draft.”

“Twilight! I’m getting claw cramps,” the baby dragon complained.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t expect me to send a report to the Princess in my sloppy mouth-writing!” Twilight replied, as she opened the door to see nopony there. But there, at her feet, was the list of questions she’d left with Applejack, all filled out.

She looked up, and spotted a dark shape vanishing into the night. “Applejack! Wait!” she called out, and the shape started running.

She ran after the fleeing pony – what else could she do? “Waaaait!”

The cloaked pony ran a few more steps, then stopped, drooping, and turned around to face her. Yes, it was Applejack. “What do you want. I answered your silly questionnaire,” she said.

Case Study #6, addendum

“I’m so sorry, Applejack,” Twilight said. “I know you were doing your best to accept me as an earth pony, and I screwed up everything. But there has to be something I can do – I don’t want you to be angry with me anymore. If it was anypony else – Rarity or Rainbow or… or Spike, I’d just wait it out, but you’re the most level-headed pony I know. If I’m doing something to make you angry, there’s a really good chance that I’m doing something wrong.”

“I don’t know that I can say as you’re doin’ something wrong,” Applejack said. “You just don’t walk in the same circles as us farm ponies. I should know that well enough; I’ve learned to deal with Rarity and you’re not half the prima donna that girl is.”

“But something’s bothering you,” Twilight said. “Was it the changelings?”

“The who?” Applejack said. She laughed. “Them a little bit, those moon ponies Luna rounded up a little bit more, but mostly you, Twi.”

“I can pay for your barn,” Twilight said. “I’m still Celestia’s student, and I’ll be getting a stipend for research. I can write off the problem with the… you know… as a research-related incident.”

“Well, that’s a load off,” Applejack said. “But it’s not really the problem so much. Barns are mighty cheap. I’m a bit worried about the plows…”

Twilight nodded. “Trixie has me organizing Winter Wrap Up for her. I’ll come up with something to compensate – maybe I can send some of the pegasi that Rainbow’s displacing with her rainbooms?”

“Rainbooms?” Applejack said. She scowled. “Fluttershy’s not gonna like that. Not sure I like it either, it’s getting mighty close to magic, ain’t it?” She sighed. “But that ain’t it either.”

“So… what is it, then?” Twilight asked.

“It’s your research,” Applejack said. “Not the friendship stuff, the ‘earth pony magic’. I don’t want to be a magic pony. It don’t sit right with me.”

“No one is going to force you to change how you work,” Twilight said. “I might not even be able to figure anything out!”

“You will,” Applejack said. “Sure as sugar comes from beets. When has Twilight Sparkle ever failed?”

Twilight gave her a look. “Do you want a list?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Applejack said. “And then everything changes.”

“You won’t have to change,” Twilight repeated. “There are still unicorns who cast instinctively – not every unicorn is as interested in magic as I am! There’s no reason to think every earth pony will be either.”

“Sure, but those are the ‘corns that work in normal jobs that don’t need magic,” Applejack said. “I’m a farmer, sugar. The earth pony’s link with the plants and the ground is my whole life, and that’s what you’re lookin’ to put under a microscope and file away in little boxes.”

“Even if that’s true, nothing’s stopping you from –“

“I ain’t gonna get left behind,” Applejack said. “If you find something that’ll make me a better farmer, you can bet your boots I’ll use it! I’m not gonna run my farm into the ground like some sort of stubborn mule. No offense meant to our cousins.” For once, there wasn’t a mule nearby to accept her apology. “I’ll grit my teeth and magic up my trees from here to Hoofington if I hafta.”

“Maybe you’ll like it?” Twilight offered.

“Horseapples!” Applejack spat. “Why can’t you just go be a unicorn again?”

“Contrary to popular belief, changing tribes is not a trivial process,” Twilight replied. “Nopony’s come up with an idea that isn’t horrible, in one way or another.”

“We could blast you again,” Applejack said. “The elements. The elements fix everything, right?”

“No, Applejack,” Twilight said. She smiled, and reached for the farm pony, giving her a quick hug. She didn’t hug back, so Twilight let her go after a second. “I think I’m heading home. Thanks for filling out the survey.” She thought about promising to be careful, or that she wouldn’t ruin her friend’s life with her research, but… honestly…

“Even if you do change everything, I’ll still be your friend,” Applejack said. “Pony Friends Forever, right?”

“Yes, but you’ll be a grumpy friend,” Twilight said, pouting. “I like you better when you’re happy.”

“If I find a way that isn’t horrible, you’ll take it,” Applejack stated.

“Deal,” Twilight said. After a second, she lifted her hoof and spat on it, then offered it to Applejack. They bumped hooves, then parted in the night.

Comments

[EpsilonWinter]

Hmm, feels a tad like filler compared to the previous chapters, but nice to see some insight into Twilights' status with her friends. Earlier in the story I had the impression that Twilight was being shunned by her friends due to an unforgivable crime, and that some of them would never really forgive her, now it seems that that is not the case at all. An interesting development, perhaps Twilights' isolation was more in her head than anything else?
Applejacks' resistance to Twilights' research is quite in character, though I must say; the last few paragraphs went from confrontation to resolution very abruptly. Applejack brings up the obvious solution to Twilights' problem, and Twilight refuses for no adequately explained reason and suddenly the chapter ends. Given that Applejack is opposed to Twilights' research and gave her a way out, which Twilight then refuses I would have expected far more insistence and resentment.
Now while I have no doubt that there is a good reason why Twilight has not yet gone to the elements despite the revelation that her friends are not alienated from her after all (be it legal problems over using the property of the state to violate one of its' rulings, the possibility that the elements would not undo a change that they themselves have wroght for their own reasons, though why the desperate Twilight would not at least try baffles me, or something else entirely) I feel that this would be a good point to bring it up. If it turns out that all Twilight had to do was go to the elements and zap instant unicornification, then the whole thread and tension of the story falls apart for the only thing that held it together was Twilight being an idiot.
Of course this could have been covered in the previous story, in that case please disregard my ramblings.
Writing wise I felt the chapter was a tad episodic, but that fit the purpose of the chapter well. Perhaps some of the chapters could have been fleshed out to show just how the relationship have changed, or not, across the past story and this one, but otherwise each segment worked well as part of a whole.

Now that my mandatory block of text is complete, I bid you farewell and await the next chapter in anticipation.
BlackWinter

[terrycloth]

1994476 "Let's blast her with the elements of harmony and it'll reverse the effects" seems like an obvious non-solution to me. Sort of like thinking we can fix any problem in the world by dropping a nuke on it. If Twilight was rebelling against the system and causing havoc out of her outrage at being an earth pony, then zapping her with the elements to solve the problem might solve it by turning her into a unicorn, but her level of discontent at being an earth pony revolves almost entirely around the inconvenience of not having access to basic levitation. The risks, on the other hand, are extreme -- it could turn her to stone, or strip her of earth pony magic and leave her as a donkey or a cow, or erase her memories of being a unicorn so that she wouldn't be discontent.

The only way that this was covered in the previous story was in the sense that the elements of harmony were used several times, and at no point did the operators have any control or foreknowledge of what the effects would be. Which I thought was the straight-up canon usage of the elements until suddenly Twilight is using them to cast 'releasing spells' in yesterday's episode.

tl;dr -- Twilight doesn't hate being an earth pony enough for her to be confident that the elements would see her not being a unicorn as a problem they needed to solve.

[EpsilonWinter]

1995505

Alright then, so Twilight cannot use the elements as anything but a last resort. Excellent, I was worried for a moment there that there would be a decidedly anti climatic resolve to the whole story. Now my good man/woman/other, thank you for replying to my comment and do have a nice day.

BlackWinter

[terrycloth]

1999054 Yep. The changelings ruined everything because thats what changelings do. They're a menace!

[Rowyn]

Yeah, if the Elements thought her turning into an earth pony was a reasonable solution, they're probably not going to assume that turning her back into a unicorn is necessary when nothing especially dire is happening.

I am amused by the idea of Applejack finding a way that isn't horrible, but I am more curious to see if Twilight will manage scientific analysis on earth pony magic. :D