Twilight had not slept well.
She hated not knowing what she was thinking, but no matter how hard she tried to get a grip, her feelings and thoughts just whooshed around her head like jetsam.
She didn't mind being the center of attention... if she did, the whole princess thing would have been a nightmare. But she didn't seek out ponies' attention, either. She had simply never cared much either way.
But now... ever since Rarity had said those five horrible words, "This is a love problem," she couldn't stop remembering all the times Fluttershy had NOT paid attention to her.
At the time, they had all been so mundane. "Oh, Fluttershy's just looking over there," not something to even notice. But now... every memory felt like a stabbing flame in her chest. It filled her up with sadness and fear and, worst of all, just the tiniest little bit of anger.
Instead, Fluttershy had paid attention to Moon Dancer. Moon Dancer, who, in her weird way, had gotten cool. Cool-nerdy. Twilight was just nerdy.
She wanted to see Cadence and Shining Armor as soon as possible to make this feeling go away. But they had a foal, they were busy running a kingdom. She had to wait for the message to get through, first. They'd probably tell her to come immediately, but in the meantime, she had at least a day of... this.
Her first thought was to go see Applejack. Applejack had gone on a date with Fluttershy years ago; maybe she had felt like this at some point? But when Twilight got to the edge of Sweet Apple Acres, she just stopped and could not go any further. She had no context for these feelings; what if they were heinous?
She imagined Applejack staring at her in dumbfounded horror. "You're the worst pony in Equestria," imagine-Applejack said. "What are you even thinking there, terriblecube? I'm calling you 'terriblecube' because you don't deserve to be called 'sugarcube' anymore."
And then, as Twilight was trying to get her courage up, it occurred to her that she did not even know if Applejack was gay. They had never talked about it. But what if Applejack wasn't gay? What if it was a big misunderstanding? She couldn't just go up to Applejack and ask if she had gay-type feelings about Fluttershy when she wasn't even sure if she was gay.
Imagine-Applejack's face burned with disgust. "How could you think such awful things about me?" she asked. "Fluttershy and I were just gal pals. I'd never think such horrible, invasive things about my friends, terriblecube."
Twilight very suddenly realized, for the first time, that her "love problem" involved gay-type feelings. Even if they weren't outright gay, they were gayish. Gayesque feelings. And they were her own feelings.
The world began to spin, and she just started walking in a random direction. She had no clue what she felt or what she could think, so she tried to grasp on to something.
The feeling she grasped onto was anxiety. That was nice and familiar and comfortable.
The thought she grabbed onto was "I just want Fluttershy to look at me."
She walked. She fretted.
"Here's the thing I don't get," Moon Dancer was saying, sipping from her late-afternoon coffee. "The language."
Starlight blinked in surprise. "...the language? Really? Whole alternate human dimension, and the language is what you focus on?"
"Well, yeah. Think about it. An entirely different species, evolved in an entirely different way. I'm not a magic specialist, like you, so I can't comment on why there's versions of ponies we know over there. But why would the languages be exactly the same?"
Starlight shrugged. "Well, they're not exactly the same," she said. "Like, when we say 'everypony,' they say 'everybody.'"
Moon Dancer looked back at her, befuddled. "Every... body."
"Yeah. Everybody."
"'Body' like a dead body?"
"I... don't think they think about it like that."
"But this is my point," Moon Dancer argued. "Except for when we talk about ponies, it's exactly the same language. Think about how weird that is!"
"There's a lot of similarities," Starlight said. "Like... why do they live in houses, too? Why did they domesticate dogs, too? It's magic."
"They have dogs??"
"Yeah. Spike's a dog over there."
Moon Dancer just gaped. "I think you guys might have buried the lede, here."
"The portal dresses you up. I appeared over there with a cute little beanie. I've been trying to find something similar over here, but nothing looks right."
Moon Dancer paused, but then shook her head. "This is all incredibly bizarre, but I can't get all sucked up into it. I have to go make spreadsheets for Fluttershy's birthday present. It's only two days until her party!"
"Spreadsheets...?"
"I have it almost narrowed down to a few sets of a couple of options!" Moon Dancer said proudly. "I'll be able to figure it out for sure with some pivot tables."
"Uhhh. Well, good luck." Starlight waved pleasantly but confusedly as Moon Dancer walked away. "See you tomorrow."
Starlight shrugged; Moon Dancer was nice but always a little hard to connect with. She turned around to go back to her room, but shrieked in surprise at seeing that Twilight was standing less than a meter behind her, grinning wildly.
"Hey!" Twilight greeted. "How's it going?"
"Where did you come from?!" Starlight barked, panting in shock.
"Oh you know me, always jumping out from behind corners!" Twilight pantomimed pouncing like a bear. "Grar! Ha ha ha."
"Um... were you hiding from Moon Dancer?"
"What? No!" Twilight clutched her chest innocently. "I, no! Moon Dancer was here? Shucks. Hey, so I'm going to the Crystal Empire tomorrow morning."
Starlight blinked. "Why so suddenly? Is everything okay?"
"Fine! Totally fine! Fine-a-roonie!" She paused and audibly muttered, "Fine-a-roonie...?" She shook her head rapidly and continued: "Anyway, I'll be back within twenty-four hours. But in the meantime, could you do me a favor and watch my journal to see if Sunset writes? I want somepony to be monitoring it, but I'm not really, um, going to be able to focus on it while I'm gone."
"Oh, sure," Starlight replied. "That Fluttershy situation still going on, huh?"
"Fluttershy situation?!" Twilight gaped at Starlight in completely inappropriate shock. Slowly, her horrified expression morphed into a nervous, strained smile. "I mean... yyeessss?"
"Are you sure you're okay?" Starlight asked. Twilight responded with the kind of expression someone might have while watching two platypuses make out. Starlight presumed it was a dramatically inept attempt at looking guiltless and honest.
She sighed. "Fine. Yes, I'll take care of your journal. Just leave it in the library tomorrow morning before you go."
"Thanks!" Twilight said. "Um... one more thing? Are you leaving the castle tonight?"
Starlight had no clue what was going on, but she intuited disaster was looming. She regarded Twilight with suspicion. "...yeah. I was going to get some dinner."
"Great! Hey, could you stop by Fluttershy's cottage and ask her to come by the castle tonight?"
Starlight was too many friendship lessons removed from simply mind-controlling Twilight to forget she had made that request, but a deep part of herself knew that was not actually a bad idea. "I guess... I can do that." Starlight patted the floor hesitantly. "Twilight... you know you can talk to me, right? About anything that's going on?"
"Yes of course of course!" Twilight replied, smiling blithely. "You're such a good friend! Good friends are good." She reached forward and patted Starlight's head, then appeared to suddenly realize what she was doing and froze.
Starlight's concern became outright dread. "Twilight..."
"Oh, hello, Spike!" Twilight suddenly shouted, turning and trotting off down the hallway toward the nonplussed dragon, who had just walked out of the kitchen. "Eating a sapphire there, huh?!"
"It's an aquamarine."
"Oh, Spike and his aquamarines!" Twilight traipsed off, disappearing into a random room she almost certainly had no reason to go into.
Starlight and Spike eyed one another for a moment. "Hm," Starlight said. "So... has she gone totally crazy, or just a little crazy?"
"I think just a little," Spike replied. "Her brother sent a message and said she should visit him tomorrow. He usually calms her down."
Starlight nodded. "So, Level 2? Keep an eye on things? Check in if she gets worse?"
"Good plan." Spike popped the aquamarine in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Ehh, she'll be fine," he said after a minute. "She's dealt with every friend problem under the sun, by this point."
Starlight nodded. Spike was right, but she still could not shake this uncomfortable feeling.
"Hello! I. Um." Twilight froze. She looked down at the card she was holding aloft with magic. It read: "Hi, Fluttershy, I'm going to the Crystal Empire tomorrow, and I'm probably going to stay overnight, so could you please take care of Owlowiscious?"
Twilight grimaced and kept pacing. She turned towards her pet, huddled stoicly on his perch. "This is a good idea, right?" she asked. Owlowiscious did not respond.
She remembered what Rarity had said as she was leaving: "Now darling, this is very important. It's probably for the best for you to avoid Fluttershy until you have a chance to get some good advice. Just so nopony will do anything without having a chance to think about it."
"'Without having a chance to think about it,'" Twilight muttered. "I'm thinking about it plenty, thank you very much. Would a pony who isn't thinking about it have note cards?"
Owlowiscious looked at her. He glanced down at her note cards then back up to her face. "Whoo," he said.
"I have to see her. Right? There is no other way I could possibly make sure you're taken care of while I'm gone. It's for the greater good. And this is friendship! I can do friendship!"
"Whoo."
Unsettled, Twilight resumed pacing. "I just have to practice, that's all," she continued. "Practice makes perfect. That was rule number seven in Professor Pretty-Polite's Program for Proper Pony Protocol. Except I think I might actually have dreamed that book? Because rule number eight was 'paint potatoes puce.' And rule number nine was 'breath mints fool the cops.'"
Owlowiscious regarded her with a distinctly unamused look.
Twilight took a deep breath and attempted to refocus on her card. "Hey, Fluttershy." An attempt at an easy-going, languid smile. "Hey, so I'm going to the Crystal! Empire. Ahem. The Crystal Empire, and. Tomorrow, I will."
She stopped, took a deep breath, and refocused. "Hello to Fluttershy. I'm overnight the Crystal Empire. Could you Owalish? Um. Owool... gah!" She hopped up and down, fretting. "Hi, Fluttershy..."
"Uh. Hi, Twilight."
Twilight screamed and spun toward the sound. Fluttershy was standing in the window, smiling awkwardly. "Oweloshoo!" Twilight barked.
Fluttershy's smile grew more awkward. "Um. Starlight said you wanted to talk to me, so..."
"Yes!" Twilight laughed fakely and threw her cue cards under the bed in a dramatically failed attempt to be subtle. "Hi. Yes. Thank you!"
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine! I... actually, I'm anxious about... my trip. Sorry."
"Oh no, I understand completely." Fluttershy stepped through the window and settled on the floor. "Were you... were you saying something about Owlowiscious?"
"Yes!" Twilight was grateful her friends were so understanding. "Yes. Um, I'm taking a trip to the, uh, Crystal Empire tomorrow, and so I won't be around tomorrow night. So..."
"Oh, you want me to feed Owlowiscious and keep him company?" Fluttershy gave an adorable, pleased grin, which did not calm Twilight in the slightest. "Of course, I would be happy to do that. He can spend time at the sanctuary." She walked over to the owl and regarded him with respectful compassion. "Would you like that, Owlowiscious?"
"Whoo."
"Thanks!" Twilight said, pleased at the outcome, and then she realized she had not planned the encounter any farther ahead than this exact point. She froze.
"Actually, couldn't you have just told Starlight to give me that message?" Fluttershy asked thoughtfully. "Was there something else?"
"Nothing! No, nothing at all!" Twilight grinned widely. Neither of them moved for a moment.
"Well." Fluttershy looked around the room, settling on the small suitcase on the bed. "It looks like you're packing for tomorrow, so I'm going to go..."
"Say!" Twilight barked, walking stiffly in a semi-circle for no reason. "Do you know the funny thing the girls were talking about yesterday?"
"Um. What?"
"They were saying... oh ho ho, you'll never believe it." Twilight picked up an hourglass that was on a table and immediately set it back down in the same spot. "It's really funny. They were saying that Moon Dancer and I look alike! Har har har! Can you believe it?"
Fluttershy glanced to her side, either looking to see if Owlowiscious could help her or scoping out potential escape routes. Finally, she just said, "I guess I can believe that?"
"Really? You think we look alike? Just out of curiosity, did you think that before you started dating her?"
"Um, I didn't know her before I started... uh." Fluttershy suddenly looked up into Twilight's face, concerned. "Are you really feeling all right?"
Twilight was absolutely not feeling all right. She could not stop thinking about the first time she had met Fluttershy, how this single pony had ridiculously gone from being a mumbling, cowering stranger to being the reason Twilight was dumbly watching herself destroy her own life. "I think we look alike," she said. "The two of us have a lot in common, in fact. We tend to like the same things. And the same ponies."
Fluttershy stared back at her, terrified.
Twilight realized the best thing to do was just end the interaction, even if it meant being rude. "Do you want to go for a flight?" she asked, realizing, with muted concern, that she was apparently in no mood to do what her brain wanted her to do.
Fluttershy tilted her head in confusion. "A flight?"
"Yeah! Do you want to take a quick flight with me, just around town? It's a nice evening for it." She took a step closer, smiling as calmly as she possibly could.
"Um." Fluttershy took a half-step back. "I don't really like flying around just to fly..."
"Ha ha ha!" Twilight said, taking another step forward. "Of course, right. How silly of me. Well, do you want to stay and help me pack?"
"Uh, I-I think," Fluttershy stammered, "I think that... Twilight, did you just wink?"
WHAT ARE YOU DOING, TWILIGHT "...Yes?"
Fluttershy was not blushing. Instead, she was ashy pale, sweating and shaking. "T...Twilight, I..."
Twilight took another step closer. She gave her first ever attempt at a smouldering gaze. "I think it would help me a lot, Fluttershy," she purred.
"I have to go!" Fluttershy burst out. "I'm not feeling well, so I have to go. And I think you're not feeling well either and you should consider postponing your travel plans if you're getting sick because that's not good for you okay bye!" She darted out the window like a confused sparrow.
Twilight stood in her room, stock still. She gazed out after her friend, thinking, with surprising dispassion, that her life was officially, completely over. After a moment, she walked stiffly over to her bed, and somehow, she was able to restrain herself from screaming until she had her face pressed fully against the pillow.
After calming down and mopingly apologizing to Owlowiscious for causing such a spectacle in front of him ("Who," he had replied, soothingly), Twilight came to the reasonable conclusion that sleep was simply not a realistic goal. She was humiliated, but she had an odd sense of sangfroid about being humiliated. She quickly rated the levels of embarassment she would experience seeing each of her friends right now. Fluttershy won, at twelve million embarassment, but even Spike, who trailed the pack with two million embarrassment, would be too much to face.
Still, she was the princess of friendship, and she needed her friends. She would turn to her friends even when the only solution to her problem was to wear a paper bag that had the word SHAME written on it over her head for the entire rest of her life. She just needed a friend she could talk to without having to actually see.
She clutched the magic journal tightly to her chest and sat pitifully in the corner of her room. She opened to a new page and wrote --Hi, Sunset, are you there, by any chance?
She waited. She was not certain what time of day it was in the human world, and she reminded herself that Sunset was usually too busy to respond right away. But only moments later, the writing began to appear:
hi im here
Relieved, Twilight responded --I'm so glad you're there. I'm sorry to get in touch so unexpectedly, but something just happened. I think I just might have done something really bad, and I need to talk to somepony about it, even on paper.
The reply appeared almost instantly:
you should come over to this world now. ill meet you
Twilight nearly had an anxiety attack just thinking about trying to stand bipedally at the moment. She quickly wrote --No, that's fine. We can just write.
The response came slowly, almost sullenly:
fine. whatd you do?
Twilight took a deep breath. --I'm not sure I even know. I acted really aggressive and rude to one of my friends. (I'm too embarrassed to tell you who it is right now; I promise I'll tell you later.)
As she wrote, she grew more and more frantic, the memory alone igniting her anxiety. --I just felt like I wanted her to pay more attention to me, and I felt really upset when she wouldn't, and I just kept going and going and things kept getting worse and worse. I think I went way too far. I feel terrible, and I'm afraid one of my other friends will be really mad at me.
hm.
Twilight looked at the word in the journal with confusion. --Sunset, are you all right? Is it okay that I'm talking to you about this? You seem kind of odd.
The response was fast, again:
its fine its just unomfrtable to write. meet me over here and well talk face to face
Twilight shook her head frantically, even though no one was around to see it except Owlowiscious, who seemed unimpressed. --I really can't, I'm sorry. I'm leaving tomorrow to talk to my brother and his wife about it, and that should help. I just needed a friend tonight. I really really messed up.
Sunset did not reply, which Twilight barely noticed, since she had begun to cry. She idly wondered if tear stains showed up in the other book. Eventually she wrote --I'm mostly just confused. Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever had feelings for a friend which are weird and bad, but you can't stop them from making you do things?
There was a long delay, but finally glowing words appeared:
yes. ive felt like that. it hurts.
For some reason, Twilight started crying harder.
The next thing she knew, she was waking up, the red glow of sunrise oozing through her window. The journal lay on the floor next to her, dark and inert. It was already time to go.