“I’m sorry, but the only copy we have is from the reserves, and that has been checked out,” the librarian told me.
“Oh,” I replied.
The reading room was nearly empty, which only happens once in a blue moon, and I was looking forward to a productive day of studying without the huge doors slamming every fifteen minutes and breaking my concentration. But now it has been ruined just like everything else.
“Aw, don’t be so sad,” she said. Is there something on my face? “See that mare at the far table by the shelves? She’s the one who checked it out. Don’t you two know each other? Perhaps you could share it.”
I sighed. “Thanks,” I muttered, and turned around to trot towards the table. In truth, I was not sure I could recognize the mare. There wasn’t much there to recognize, as her face was obscured so completely by the stacks of books on her table, that I couldn’t even see her mane color.
“Excuse me?” I whispered. There was no reply for a moment. I softly tapped the table with a hoof.
“Sorry, did you say something?” a whisper came back, and the owner of the whisper peeked at me from between the stacks of books with a very familiar bloodshot eye of a pony who was using coffee and donuts to replace sleep entirely for the past few days.
I recoiled in surprise. That was certainly a face I knew. That was a face I was working on forgetting. I was actually making progress, and seeing it again undid all that progress in an instant.
Have you come back to hurt me again, Twilight Sparkle?
“You took out the only copy of ‘Neighomachean Ethics,’” I whispered back, collecting myself. I’m not going to show it. I’m going to pretend I didn’t recognize you and maybe, the problem will go away. “I was hoping that you’re done with it.”
“Not yet, I’m sorry,” Twilight smiled apologetically. “But I certainly don’t mind sharing it… And since you seem to be a fellow scholar of philosophy, would you mind helping me with a hypothetical problem?”
I felt my eyebrow twitch. Looks like she didn’t recognize me at all. Should I be happy about that?… Whatever. Let me just answer her stupid question and maybe I get the book. “What kind of a problem?”
Twilight bit her lip. “Imagine, that you have in your possession an absolute dark magic neutralizer, capable of purifying anything, and a pony who was turned by dark magic into something hostile and malicious, who declares an intent to conquer Equestria, but isn’t doing much right now…” she started.
Ah, that kind of hypothetical. I think I know where this is going. “It takes a very special kind of philosopher to wonder if it is ethical to liberate a pony who was corrupted into evil.” In practice, most questions are about the reliability of reformation spells, not about the ethics of their application.
She sighed, “Yes, I’ve read ‘Alternatives to Punishment’ too. But imagine that here, you have somepony so evil, that they won’t survive the purification. Not in any kind of philosophical sense, not in terms of identity, but literally. What remains once the dark magic is removed will be incapable of sustaining life.”
“That’s just another version of the trolley problem,” I replied. “The one where if you don’t pull the lever, five ponies die, but if you do pull the lever, one pony dies. There is no good solution, you just have to choose something and accept the responsibility. Seeing as you’re including ‘Neighomachean Ethics’ in your research, that’s not all of it, I presume,” I said. Back in Aristrotle’s time, ponies would still occasionally wage war against other ponies, and when faced with this sort of question, they would just pick the lesser evil and roll with it, instead of debating the ethics of the choice itself.
“Yes,” she nodded. “And here’s the catch: To use the absolute neutralizer, you need the agreement of your five close friends. You know that they support your decision, whatever it is, but you’re the one making the decision, and you don’t even have an opportunity to ask them, the decision needs to be made right now.”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded again.
“So, assuming that you decide to use it…” she paused to rub an eye with her fetlock. “Is it ethical to do this to your friends or not?”
I felt my heart skip a beat and every word I knew fail me, simultaneously. How… How dare she?! I spent some time fishing for something to answer with, but she didn’t even seem to notice. Finally, taking a very deep breath, I told her, “I think I know the correct answer. But first, let me present you with my own hypothetical.”
“Sure,” she agreed. “You never know what gives you a new idea.”
I made the sweetest fake smile that I could. I’m not sure I can get back at her with that. I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. But if I am to ever get some closure, I need to try, and then, I can get back to studying and put the whole thing behind me.
“So imagine that you have a friend,” I started, feeling the unwanted rage slowly but surely well up somewhere inside. “One of the few ponies who is capable of understanding you on an intellectual level, and if there is anypony whose approval you would rather have, that would be hers.”
She perked her ears up, whispering, “Oh, a friendship problem!”
I ignored that, and continued, “Some of your former classmates are pressuring you into social activities you find no comfort in, and you finally give in. You decide to have a birthday party they advise, in hopes that your friend likes it. Public picnic in a park, table full of sweets, everything, even though it causes you considerable anxiety. But you still do it, because everypony insists that is how ponies should be friends.”
She nodded vigorously. She thinks it’s just a distraction from her own problem. No, Twilight, this has been my problem, and now I will make it yours.
“Your friend promises to come, and then, she never does,” I continued. “Trying to figure out what’s wrong, you try to get in touch again, but find that she moved away without even saying goodbye.” Twilight’s ears drooped slightly, and I felt grim satisfaction mixing in with the rage. “Moons pass, and you’re counting every hour, but she never even writes. You try to forget the embarrassment and move on.”
“That’s… a very sad story, but it doesn’t sound like a hypothetical problem,” she commented, blinking her sleepy eyes. Did I hear that voice waver, or was it just my imagination?
“It’s not done yet,” I replied, trying my best to keep my own voice level and neutral. “Moons pass, and suddenly, you bump into her in a public place. She acts like a total stranger, and doesn’t even recognize you. And then… then she asks you a hypothetical question about friendship. What should you do?”
She looked away. I can almost hear the gears grinding. “I… I would probably be very angry with her. I would demand she tell me her reasons, at least.”
“Well, Twilight Sparkle!” I shouted, slamming my hooves into her table and sending the books flying. “Tell me your reasons, you traitor!”
I don’t think I will ever forget that face, now. The look of being shaken awake, the slowly dawning realization, the recollection, the pupils reducing to a tiny point, the mane hairs curling up as the ears fold. For a moment, I finally felt happy. I hated myself for it, but it was worth it.
Until tears welled up in her eyes and fell down in a near literal torrent. “I’m sorry!” Twilight wailed, slamming her head into the table, and splattering me.
I expected a lot of reactions. Excuses, denials, or even an actual explanation, I always knew her to be a rational pony, so that’s not out of the question, but this… This, I did not expect. I threw a glance in the direction of the librarian, expecting to see her stomping towards us with a stern face, asking us to vacate the premises – that would be really bad – but instead, found her hiding behind her counter and peeking at us. I might have to find another library. I liked it here so much…
“I’m sorry,” Twilight continued sobbing, and looking at her, suddenly, all my anger at her evaporated like a drop of liquid oxygen. I’ve seen a lot of Twilight Sparkle. I have seen her triumphant, frustrated to the point of hysterics, happy and sad over things nopony but us two cared about, or even understood, excited to explain something she just read ten minutes ago, annoyed at ponies breaking her out of her zone. I have never, ever, seen Twilight’s admission of defeat. Twilight doesn’t do defeat.
Until now.
“Don’t cry… please, just don’t cry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled like that. I… I forgive you.” I’m not entirely sure what these words truly mean. Learned them sometime in my fillyhood and never really paused to grasp the deeper meaning. I’m not sure anypony else does either. But at least… “I just want to know why,” I said.
But she kept weeping, with no sign of stopping. For a few seconds, I fought the impulse to just grab the book and go somewhere else, but eventually I quelled it and sat on the bench beside her to wait.
It took her at least three more minutes to finally calm down. And when she did, her first words, punctuated by desperate sniffles, were, “My story wasn’t really a hypothetical, either.”
My eyebrows twitched. “You mean to say you have an actual absolute dark magic neutralizer?” No such thing exists. And the Twilight I know wouldn’t lie to me like that. Which leaves only one reasonable option, she must have gone insane.
That would explain a lot of things, but it’s also unfalsifiable.
“Not exactly. But that’s one of the things the Elements of Harmony do,” she replied plainly.
The Royal Scientific Society devoted an entire monograph of articles to everything that had to do with the return of Princess Luna, they even had reports from the few wizards who were permitted to examine the relics. Suddenly her statement seemed much less implausible. She is Princess Celestia’s personal student. She could probably get to examine them just by asking.
“Still sounds very hypothetical,” I said. “Who would that evil pony be?”
“Chrysalis, queen of the changelings.”
“The who?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Aren’t they extinct?”
Twilight looked at me suspiciously. “…Just where did you spend last Friday night?”
“Studying at home,” I replied. “There was some kind of loud celebration outside, and somepony knocked on my door, but I decided I deserve a break and didn’t open.”
Only when I closed my mouth, I realized. Dents on my front door. Emergency workers in the streets. Broken windows. Tarpaulins. My favorite library, empty. “What did you choose?” I asked, my voice trembling against my will.
“I hesitated,” Twilight whispered and looked at me, “And she killed my brother.”
She couldn’t look more like a stereotypical madpony from a Third Celestial Era romance if she tried, right now, with those bloodshot eyes and coat messed up by tears.
“I’m… sorry,” I said, not sure how to react.
“…and then his fiancée brought him back from the dead with the power of love,” Twilight concluded.
The absurdity boggles the mind. And yet… I still cannot believe Twilight would just lie to me.
Twilight sank onto the table. “I remember now. I didn’t want to go to your party. I didn’t know what they’re for. So when I got a mission from Princess Celestia, I just… forgot about it.”
I sank onto the table next to her. How stupid I was. “I should have never listened to Minuette,” I mumbled. “She was so sure you would like that party…”
“Not back then,” Twilight said. “But on that mission, I met five wonderful ponies and together, we found the Elements of Harmony and defeated Nightmare Moon with the magic of friendship.”
Magic?…
I looked at her from the corner of my eye. “So those ‘six heroic civilians who wish to remain anonymous’ were…?”
“Princess Celestia personally asked the editors of every Canterlot newspaper to keep our names out of it,” Twilight confirmed. “I’ve been living in Ponyville since, and it’s been eventful like you wouldn’t believe. I still have my regular coursework, but I’ve got an entirely new field of study on my hooves, and it’s like the world conspires to twist my perception of reality every week. Usually, on Tuesdays. And by the end of the week, I had to send in a detailed report.”
She reached into her messenger bag for a hankie and tried to clean her face. It didn’t help much. “The last couple of months were particularly hectic. We fought Discord… We won, in the end, but it got really bad. I missed a deadline on that report, Pinkie was trying so hard to make us smile that she forgot her own birthday, Applejack nearly got her little sister eaten by a chimera, Fluttershy tried to attend a self-improvement seminar and scared half the town…” She glanced at me. “…I sound crazy, don’t I? If I mention that I met myself from the future, the mess we made of the Grand Galloping Gala, or the aliens… It’s so crazy when you tell it all like that.”
I covered my face with my hooves and said nothing. All my problems seem so petty, now.
“I know that’s not really an excuse,” Twilight said after a pause. “In a way, all of that was unavoidable, but that’s not really an excuse, either. I… just want to make it up to you, somehow. It feels like I went away on some grand adventure and just… left you by the wayside. Just… Can we start this meeting over? What were you doing all this time?”
“Studying,” I muttered, without peeking out. “Minuette and Twinkleshine still try to invite me to something or other, and I wish they would just stop.”
I could practically feel her stare on my skin. “Partying isn’t the only thing you can do with friends,” she said. “That’s one of the important things I learned while being friends with such different ponies.”
“Well, I don’t have any friends who like studying,” I snapped at her.
“Would you like one?” Twilight replied, not flinching. “Because I still want to be your friend, if I you let me.”
Now that is a bit more like the Twilight I remember.
“Yes,” I said.
Her response was wrapping me up in a hug with a happy smile. “Oh, and happy really, really late birthday.”
I adjusted the glasses she nearly knocked off me. “Thanks…” That felt much better than it had any right to feel. “I suppose you want my answer to your ‘hypothetical’ too, now.”
“…So you actually have one?”
“Yes,” I replied. “In the end, your amendment is irrelevant. It’s still the trolley problem with all the caveats. Since your friends have already delegated their decisions to you, they already share in the result and the responsibility, no matter what you choose. And not doing anything is a choice, too.”
She squeezed me tighter, and for a moment, I felt like she’s holding on to me so that the wind won’t blow her away.
Taking into account everything she said, she probably was.