The Stub and the Snub

by Wise Cracker


The Stone Cold Truth.

Starlight listened intently to the girls relating what had happened. Her initial guess had proven right: Live Wire was indeed the boy who’d accidentally damaged the Rousettus Stone, and his friend had been right there with him.

Haily Stone. An ice mage, no less. That did explain the cracks, something mere lightning magic could never have accomplished on its own. Then the story of how nothing was fun anymore for little Haily, how she was losing her talented friend while she got left behind… all well-trodden ground for Starlight.

Strangely enough, Scootaloo seemed as pained about it as Starlight was. It didn’t take long to figure out why, though: clearly the girl was insecure about her wings the same way Haily was about her horn. Possibly Scootaloo had given up on a few hobbies, but never lost her friends, Starlight couldn’t be sure.

“So that’s where are,” Sweetie Belle said, before chewing on an ancient grain clover bun that supposedly was Star Swirl the Bearded’s favourite dish. The restaurant owner even had a picture of the old coot to prove it. A thousand-odd years trapped in the space between spaces, and the wizard of legend still came by for a taste of home.

Starlight bit down on her own chewy bun, a herb and olive mix. After ruminating on the situation, she said, “Sounds like you’re up to your ears in Timberwolves.”

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle tilted her head.

“It’s an old pony saying. ‘When you’re up to your ears in Timberwolves, you forget the original project was to cut the forest.’”

This did nothing to change the confused expression on the girls’ faces.

“Think about it. As bad as Haily’s situation is, aren’t you forgetting you’re here to deal with a friendship problem? Have you told Live Wire how Haily feels?” Starlight asked.

“No, and I don’t think it’s a good idea, either,” Sweetie Belle replied. “This has nothing to do with him. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, I guess he didn’t. But it sounds like he still thinks it is. Even if you manage to fix Haily’s problem, do you want him to keep thinking this was his fault after it’s over?” Starlight shuddered at the prospect. After getting back in touch with Sunburst, given how her story had been national news, she’d half-expected him to cut all ties with her officially as soon as he saw her.

She really should have figured Sunburst didn’t even read national news. She’d been the one to tell him the whole story, including some of the ugly details of her village life, even the part about the children. The look on his face when he realised he could have done something about it years ago, that guilt, it still plagued her, almost as much as the fear and disgust he’d shown when she’d turned them both into foals again to play a game. On top of all that, they were both relatively normal Unicorns, and Sunburst’s aptitude for solar magic had hardly affected him in childhood, as far as she knew. To move that situation to a master of lightning or ice, young ones who were defined by their talent, would be a disaster waiting to happen.

“Okay, when you put it like that, maybe he should know,” Sweetie Belle said. “But how do we fix Haily’s problem?”

“Scootaloo’s the only one who can really relate,” Apple Bloom started.

Scootaloo was still chewing on her bun. Finally, she gulped. “Am I? I mean, we’ve all been down in the dumps before.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only one who’s been there for the same reason Haily has.” Apple Bloom stared pensively at her lunch, before continuing. “This is pretty much what happened with the flag thing, isn’t it?”

Scootaloo looked away. “Pretty much. But you girls got me out of that. If anything, you two should know what to say, I don’t.”

Starlight held up a hoof. “Excuse me, but what is this flag thing again?”

“We were competin’ to be flagbearers for the Equestria Games. Some girls thought they could sabotage our acts by getting it into Scoot’s head that only a Pegasus who can fly would be worth watching. It worked, too: Scootaloo ended up making the whole act about her, and she wore herself out trying to get off the ground.” Apple Bloom took a long sip of her drink after explaining that.

“But then I fixed it,” Scootaloo said. “I didn’t want to be the weakest link, so I stepped out and quit.”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “I’ll say. You tore down your Wonderbolts posters and everything.”

“That does sound similar,” Starlight said. “But you worked it out in the end, right?”

“Yeah, we got there, and we won. Without me flying,” Scootaloo explained. “We could try getting Haily and Live Wire to talk it out. I don’t think Live Wire would be upset if he knew what was going on.”

“But she hangs out where he can’t get to her, so… we’re back to square one: getting Haily to listen to us.” Sweetie shrugged. “And what we’d say if she did.”

Apple Bloom shrugged right along. “We just gotta use our heads, is all. Scootaloo, what do you think Rainbow Dash would say?”

“Even if you can’t use magic, you’ll still be awesome,” Scootaloo replied without a second thought. ”But that’s what Miss Mooncalf and Sweetie Belle tried. She won’t believe that.”

Sweetie Belle pouted. “You mean you don’t believe it.”

“That’s not important right now. Haily’s the one with a problem, I’m not. I got over it.”

The little unicorn tilted her head. “Did you? Because it sounds like you’re still sore about it.”

“Why would I be sore about not flying?” Scootaloo snapped. “I can ride my scooter, go bungee jumping, rafting, ropeskipping, I can take breakdance lessons if I want to. I can do whatever I want that’s not flying, let it go. But Haily can’t. Haily doesn’t have anything she likes to do that’s not magic or doesn’t remind her of it, that’s her problem.”

Starlight scrunched her nose at that remark, but she stopped herself from actually saying anything.

“What do you think, Starlight? Do you know anything that might make Haily stronger?”

The mare looked Scootaloo right in the eyes then, and thought. Making Haily stronger would be the obvious solution. Strange how Scootaloo wasn’t asking anything about her own problems, too. Not about to get distracted, Starlight shook her head. “Sorry. It sounds like she’s a standard natural ice mage growing up. Like I said, elemental magic doesn’t follow the same rules as regular Unicorn magic. If she was born with a talent for it, you’d expect her to, well, be a certain way. And part of what she would be is exactly what she is: a girl with a smaller horn. Ice is a slow element, it doesn’t develop at the same rate as fire or lightning. And you can’t expect to do the same things with ice that you can do with lightning, you can’t access the same abilities just like that.”

“But she doesn’t want to be a one-trick pony,” Scootaloo insisted. “Isn’t there a way to give her normal magic?”

“To her, this is normal magic,” Starlight replied. “The fact that she has this talent for ice means the rest of her magic will be slower to grow, that’s why her horn is so small.”

Scootaloo grumbled. “But she can’t be a Royal Guard or a master wizard, then? Not like Live Wire? She can’t do anything except ice magic?”

“That’s the thing about growing up, Scootaloo: you don’t know what you’ll be when you grow up until after you’ve grown up. If Haily can grow up to be a Royal Guard now, she won’t know until she becomes one. And she won’t know it’s impossible until after it’s official. That’ll take years.”

Sweetie Belle joined in the grumbling, albeit more pensively. “Okay, but then why isn’t Live Wire upset about the same thing? He could lift and write with his magic back in kindergarten already, and he’s got elemental magic, too. Shouldn’t he be having the same problem?”

Starlight took another bite of her bun, taking the time to weigh her words. “They’re not in the same situation, no, their elements are different. Think of magic like making a picture. You need different colours of pencils or crayons to draw a picture, right?”

The girls all nodded.

“Right,” Sweetie Belle replied.

“And you need a black pencil to draw the lines around things, right?”

The little Unicorn nodded reluctantly. “Well, if you want black outlines over everything.”

“You get my point. Haily and Live Wire both have a lot of crayons of the same colour. They can do a lot of spells other Unicorns can’t, because they have that colour in large supply, as well as the exact right shades they need for those specific spells. But Haily doesn’t have anything to draw her outlines with yet, so regular Unicorn magic doesn’t work. All she has is different shades of blue. A normal Unicorn doesn’t start off with any colours at all. They learn how to sketch and draw outlines in black first, and then they can learn how to make different colours, if they decide to learn elemental magic, which nine out of ten don’t. Does any of this make sense?”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “But that doesn’t answer the question. Why isn’t Live Wire having this problem? Can’t he just show her how to do it?”

Starlight looked up pensively and sighed. “If you want the whole answer, we’ll be here all day. The short version is: lightning magic is yellow, which is very clear against black, it’s easy to tell them apart. Ice magic is a very dark blue, and that’s so close to black that when Haily tries to make black, it comes out blue instead. Ice is one of the solid elements, it’s in her nature: any hard magic she tries comes out as ice first, she doesn’t have the same kind of energy you do. She would basically have to go through the same process a regular Unicorn would to learn elemental magic, except the other way around. It’s a matter of experience, really, and waiting for her horn to grow. What little black she can conjure up, Apple Bloom ended up draining with her suggestion, that’s why she snapped at you. It hurts when your magic is exhausted, it hurts very deeply. She’s probably not even that angry at you or Live Wire, just getting a bad case of magic migraines because she’s overworking herself and she’s having trouble keeping her energy up because, well, nothing’s fun anymore.”

“Makes sense,” Scootaloo said. “So you think she’ll give us another chance?”

“No way to know unless you try. Do you want to give it another shot?”

“Do you know what you’re going to say to her now?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo bit her lip. “Maybe. I’m not sure. What if she doesn’t wanna listen to me? Haily’s scary talented, so’s Live Wire.”

“So are you,” Sweetie Belle said. “How many ponies do you know who can do the tricks you can?”

“Lots of ponies can, Sweetie Belle.”

“Sure, lotsa grownups. I ain’t seen many ponies of your calibre at the junior rodeos,” Apple Bloom retorted.

“But that’s just scootering, and I don’t even do it that much anymore.” The Pegasus filly folded her arms with a huff.

Apple Bloom winced. “Because we sucked the fun out of it?”

“Ugh.” Scootaloo threw her head back. “Will you stop bringing that up, please? It’s ancient history by now, let it go already. And besides, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who quit. I’m the one who made that mistake, I’m the one who had to, blegh.” She gagged. “I’m the one who had to learn from all that sappy stuff. This is all on me. And I think the Map wants me to fix this, alone.”

Starlight had heard enough. “Well, that’s obviously not going to happen, you’re not capable of that sort of thing yet. Would it help if I was there to step in? Just as backup?”

“What?” Scootaloo looked up. “Umm, maybe? I guess? But the map didn’t call you.”

“You’re right, it didn’t.” Starlight nodded. “But I’m here now, so you can call on me. I’m all for letting ponies figuring things out on their own, but it sounds like you girls are way out of your league here. You’re talking about nature versus nurture, two out three Wizard’s Paradoxes, not to mention the Cyclops Conundrum.”

The winged filly tilted her head, confused. “I don’t know what any of that is.”

“You wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t, yet. That’s kind of my point. The Map sent you here to solve this problem, but it’s still a pretty heavy problem to deal with at your age. And the only reason it even sent you here is because you had some painful experiences in the past that are probably going to hurt digging up again. As talented as you might be, you’re still children. You might need a grownup.” Starlight bit her lip and paused. “I’m not going to speak for you, but if you want me to, I’ll throw in my two bits and you can wrap it up, do it your way, what you think is best. But you do not have to do something this hard, this big, without some adult supervision. It wouldn’t be fair to you. Do you want my help?”

“No.” Scootaloo shook her head, then shrugged. “But I think I might need it, anyway.”

The mare quickly realised what the problem was, and offered up a solution. “I can make myself invisible, and I promise I won’t speak up unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Starlight held up a hoof. “Haily doesn’t need to know you brought backup. If you think you can handle it on your own, it’ll be like I’m not even there. But say the word and I’ll step in.”

As expected, Scootaloo nodded. “Then yes, please help.”

“We can talk to Live Wire in the meantime. We were kinda in his shoes when this whole thing happened to us,” Apple Bloom said. “We could try explaining it’s not his fault, for starters.”

“Yeah, you should.” Scootaloo smiled. “You really don’t want to put the blame for this on him.”

“So you are gonna say the same thing Rainbow Dash told you?”

The winged filly looked down and wriggled her little flappers. “I think maybe I should stick to what I do best, so I’m just gonna wing it a little bit.”


Scootaloo trotted along the path, finding her target under a cherry tree that was in full bloom. Butterflies flitted around idly, and the sunlight gave the whole place a touch of welcome warmth.

“How did you find me?” Haily asked.

“Lucky guess. Since your magic is all icy, I figured you’d be where the sun is shining, and where there are a lot of butterflies, so Live Wire can’t come over. That just narrows it down to this lily place and anywhere that’s far uphill.”

“Pretty smart. What do you want?”

“Just talk,” Scootaloo replied. “Is that okay?”

“Might as well,” she replied with a shrug. “You’ve wasted a whole day anyway.”

Scootaloo sat down next to the girl and grimaced. “Yeah, sorry about that. Me and my friends can get a little carried away.”

“No kidding. So, cut to the chase: what’s your suggestion?”

Scootaloo took a deep breath and braced herself. “Honestly? I don’t know. I wish I did. I get it, don’t get me wrong. It’s not easy to deal with, feeling like there’s something wrong with you, while everypony else is perfect the way they are. Especially your friends. It’s hard not to get jealous. And even if you don’t get jealous, you still feel bad. The fun just… stops being fun. So why do anything at all anymore, right?”

“That’s pretty much what it’s like.” Haily nodded to Scootaloo’s sides. “Your wings, huh? You can’t fly?”

“Nope.”

Haily let a pause fall between them, before asking, “Ever?”

Scootaloo shrugged, staring at the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Grah!” The blue filly growled at the sky. “Maybe sucks! You can’t do anything with a maybe! You’re not allowed to take it easy, you’re not allowed to give up, you’re stuck in one place all the time! At least ‘no’ is a straight answer. You know what to do with a no.”

“Tell me about it.” Scootaloo let her head hang. “I don’t know what’s worse: the ponies who smile and keep telling me it’ll take a little longer, the ponies who look at me all sad and keep telling me it’s okay to be the way I am, or the ponies who don’t say anything, even when they’re obviously thinking something about it. None of that helps. And none of that makes things fun again.”

Haily snorted. “You’re not very good at this cheering up thing, are you?”

“No. I’m pretty terrible at it, actually.” Scootaloo let out a little grunt.

“Is that why you brought her along?”

Scootaloo’s heart skipped a beat. “Brought who along?”

“The mare behind you, under that second-level cloaking spell and first-level insect repellent.”

Busted. Scootaloo let out a nervous chuckle. “How did you know she was there?”

Hailey tapped her nose. “Ogres and Oubliettes player, remember? I’ve played invisible wizards dozens of times. And I’ve gotten them caught dozens of times too, because...”

“I forgot to mask my scent, didn’t I?” Starlight said as she dropped the veil.

“You did,” Hailey replied. “Your bug repellent smells like lemon, it’s easy to spot. But you didn’t get any butterflies or cherry blossoms on you to give you away, that’s impressive.” Her ears fell back. “And it’s still a lot better than anything I can do.”

“Sorry, Starlight,” Scootaloo said. “I think I got carried away.”

“That’s okay, I thought you might.” Starlight walked over to face the girls, now that her cover was blown. “Hello, Haily, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, but I know you. You’re Starlight Glimmer. Everypony knows your story around here.”

“Right. Even the part about Sunburst?”

“Your friend who got sent to Canterlot? The reason you went crazy instead of just, I don’t know, writing a letter to get back in touch?”

Scootaloo wanted to object to that insult, but Starlight Glimmer took it in stride.

“Oh, you do know that part of the story. Good. That’ll save us all some time.” She sat down with a smile. “Yes, that was Sunburst. And Scootaloo’s not terrible at cheering her friends on, by the way. She’s a very good motivational speaker when she has all the information, at least that’s what I heard. She just has a bad case of First Wizard’s Paradox today, is all.”

“Oh, sorry,” Haily said. “I guess I made that a lot worse, then, huh?”

Scootaloo’s ears twitched. “Umm, apology accepted?”

“So what do you think I should do?” The little Unicorn asked. “You obviously know how to get more power. Can you fix me?”

“I could try, but I doubt it would do you any good. And I don’t think that would fix your friendship problem, either.”

“Then what would? I’ve been getting advice from everypony for ages and nothing helps. So if you’re not going to say something that’ll stop me from feeling miserable, good day, Ma’am.”

Scootaloo winced. Haily had gone back her snootier wannabe adult voice.

Again, though, Starlight ignored it. “How about I give you some advice, then. Don’t be so quick to want a solution to all your problems. You might enjoy being miserable all the time.”

“What?!”

“I’m serious. You know what happened with me, obviously. When I lost touch with my best friend in the whole world, my only friend, I was sad all the time. I never tried to contact him. I didn’t speak to his parents, I never sent a letter. His uncle is a teacher here, you know, I spent whole days with him, never brought up how much I missed Sunburst. I had every opportunity to see my friend again. I could have taken a train and visited him at Princess Celestia’s school if I wanted to. I figured out how to break into Princess Twilight’s castle, hijack her map and go back in time, but all I did was try to take out my problems on her. I could have saved everyone the headache and stopped Sunburst from leaving me in the first place, without anyone ever noticing. I even took Twilight to that moment in time and…” She sighed and chuckled. “I think part of me expected her to fix it on my behalf. But she didn’t. I didn’t. I wallowed in my own self-pity, I channelled all my negative emotions into my magic, and I planned to take my revenge on the world that had taken my only friend from me. You know, even though the world had only really taken him a few hours by train away. That’s the story you know, isn’t it? That’s what you were told?”

“Not all of that, but most of it.” Haily nodded, calmer than before from the looks of it. “I never really thought about the time travel fixing everything. I just kind of figured you’d create a paradox with that.”

“At the time, I was too far gone to care. But you know why I let myself go that far, why I stuck with revenge? Did you ever hear that part of the story?”

Both girls shook their heads.

“For the same reason you are giving up. Deep down, you want to be alone, and sad, because at least then you know what’ll happen. You get to be treated special, you get pity. More than that, you get to blame everything around you and never have to work towards a real solution. You get to be the victim, and everyone rewards you for being a victim. No matter how much you fail, no matter how badly you start behaving, you’ll always have an excuse.”

“I am not making excuses for getting angry,” Haily objected. “My head really hurts.”

“Oh, I know. I don’t mean today. I mean what will happen in the future, when you don’t have any friends and you blame everything except yourself. You know what I did, instead of taking the risk and just seeing if I could contact Sunburst again, or even make new friends. Everyone in Equestria knows the story by now. Everyone knows about my crimes, my pardon, and everyone can judge me for both. I have to live with that. I have to live with knowing I made those choices. I can live with that, now. I ended up in a good place eventually, but let me tell you, those are long odds you don’t want to play. And those are long years you can spend so much better.”

Scootaloo smiled as she remembered what she was going to say, what she had to say to make it all better. “She’s right, Hailey. You need to take some responsibility about how you feel. You have to come clean about what you want.”

“I can’t. I don’t want Live Wire to know. You saw how Coach Dunderhead and Miss Mooncalf act around me. Magic used to be fun. I used to be fun. Now any magic I do, everything I do with Live Wire, it just makes me want to scream.”

“Because he reminds you you’re weak,” Scootaloo said. “Because no matter what you do together, you’ll be the weakest link. That’s rough, but it’s not his fault and you know it.”

“Of course I know. But nothing’s fun anymore and I can’t…” A frozen tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t wanna be the one to suck the fun out of everything, either. I don’t want my friend to hate me for something I can’t help. I don’t know what to do.”

“Hmm,” Starlight said with a nod. “So it sounds like your friendship problem is more of a hobby problem. I wouldn’t know about that. I quit all my hobbies and got obsessed with magic when I was in your position. You don’t even have that luxury.”

Scootaloo took the hint. “If nothing’s fun anymore, then try something new. Don’t just quit everything right away, find new things. You wouldn’t throw out your bed if you don’t have a new and better one. You wouldn’t quit scootering if you can’t go bungee jumping or rafting.”

“I can’t go rafting, I’ve tried.” Haily lamented. “It always ends up with one stallion in the water and a mare lying on a closet. Which is really weird, because the closet’s always big enough for both of them.”

“You know what I mean. You’re not just not having fun, you’re avoiding fun. All day long, we’ve seen you complain about how bad things are for you, and taking advice from other ponies. If there’s so much stuff you don’t like now, what do you like?”

Hailey bit her lip.

“Well?” Scootaloo prodded the girl. “You’ve been asking other ponies what to do this whole time, but what do you want to do, really? What always makes you smile?”

The little Unicorn winced, but she couldn’t stop the tiniest of smiles forming. “Umm, Ogres and Oubliettes is still kind of fun, I guess. I do kinda like the fights and the strategy. It is pretty nice to feel like a real Royal Guard every once in a while. I just don’t want to be stuck playing a wizard all the time if I can’t do any real magic. I’m kind of envious of the clerics, honestly.”

“See? That sounds reasonable,” Scootaloo said with a smile. “I’m sure no one would mind if you switched it up.”

“I definitely don’t want to do drama anymore, though.” Haily shook her head and closed her eyes. “Everyone always treats me like I’m there for climate control or to chill their drinks. And story time is always the same boring Unicorn stories. Master This and Earl That, all those show-offs with their hundreds of spells and perfect balance, and those Hairy Plodders don’t even have to work to get their magic. How does anypony think that’s a good story?”

Scootaloo nodded. “I know what you mean. You’d be surprised how bad some of the Pegasus stories are. Everypony always ends up as a Wonderbolt in those. Who thought that was a good idea?”

“I know, right? And I swear, if I have to listen to one more Star Swirl the Bearded legend… ugh! I almost wish that old goat had stayed wherever he was. No offence.”

“It’s okay, he has that effect on ponies,” Starlight remarked. “So you don’t like most of the stories they read at the library. That’s easy enough to explain, too, isn’t it? It’s just not something you like.”

Scootaloo nodded. “You can be honest about what you like and dislike. And you don’t have to do everything together with your friends.”

“Friend,” Haily corrected. “I only have one. He’s got plenty.”

Scootaloo prodded the girl again. “For now. You never who you run into. So you know what to say about what you don’t want to do, what do you want to do instead?”

The girl gulped. “I don’t know, honestly. Usually Live Wire’s the one who picks stuff to do, I just tag along. But there is one thing, I guess: there’s this other game that my cousin plays, it’s a card game for older kids. You have to pick cards that are passed around, so it’s more even. You’re more equal in card games.”

Scootaloo practically felt the chill that went up Starlight’s spine then.

Haily shrugged. “It’s a city building thingie, it’s hard to explain. There’s no magic involved, just ponies and gold and stuff. It looks fun. I’ve wanted to join in, but I don’t want to be the only little kid there.”

“There you go, ask Live Wire if he wants to try it.” Scootaloo smiled. “Don’t get stuck on things where what you can and can’t do runs everything. Find something fun, where it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay. It doesn’t change anything, though. I’ll still be a one-trick pony. I can’t even try any of the really physical stuff because of my magic. Tabletop is kinda the only safe option there is.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s true for Live Wire, too,” Scootaloo said.

“No, it’s not. He can do whatever he wants, he’s got perfect control.”

Right at that moment, a butterfly landed on Scootaloo’s nose. She snorted to get it off. “Uhuh. So perfect he’s got a restraining order against him.”

“Okay, point taken.”

Scootaloo patted the girl on the shoulder. “Just tell him the truth, and tell him about the tabletop thing. If he wants to join, great. If not, you can still find other things to do, you can make friends over other things. If you wanna do something alone, or together, you should be honest about it. You don’t have to give up on everything if you don’t want to. But, umm, you’re the one who has to decide. Nopony else can do that for you.”

“Well, technically, I suppose I could, but that’d be falling back to a bad habit,” Starlight joked.

Haily chuckled, and Scootaloo felt another rush of cold wash out from the girl.

“I guess I do have some explaining to do.”


When Scootaloo and Starlight found Live Wire and the girls, they looked like they’d just gotten done with whatever they wanted to say to him.

Haily came up behind them, breathing deeply and nervously. “Umm, hey, Live Wire.”

“Hey,” he replied.

“I guess they’ve told you what’s been going on?”

He shook his head. “They just said it was something personal, and that it wasn’t my fault. But they didn’t get around to telling me what wasn’t my fault.”

Haily sighed.

Scootaloo gave her a friendly nudge. “Come on, you know what you need to do.”

“Okay.” Haily closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you, I’m sorry I’ve been skipping out on everything, and I’m really sorry I abused your restraining order to keep you from talking to me. That wasn’t fair, and I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

The boy grimaced, clearly expecting a ‘but’ to pop up anytime now. “Umm, okay?”

“It’s just…” She took in a big gulp of air through her nose. “I don’t like it anymore. It’s no fun. I can’t lift, I can’t teleport, I can’t even write with magic.”

“So?” Live Wire shrugged. “I don’t care.”

The blue filly bit her lip. “Well, I do. I was avoiding you because, umm, for starters, I don’t want to do the Fitness Test anymore.”

Live Wire cringed, hard. Scootaloo could practically hear his heart breaking, getting that kind of response from a friend.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be friends anymore, I just didn’t see the point. It doesn’t matter if I’m handicapped or a late bloomer, nothing I do is going to change the fact that I can’t lift now and that I won’t be able to lift for the test. You’re going to ace it, I’m not.”

“You do know I’m not going anywhere, right?” Live Wire said. “Even if I ace the test, there’s no way I’m going to Canterlot. My mom and dad can’t afford the lawyers, or the insurance, or the real estate.”

“Yeah, I know. But part of me still got worried about that. And what with everything that’s been going on, it… it all got a little too much, I guess.”

“So this is my fault,” Live Wire said. “I’m the reason we had our little, umm, accident.”

“An accident which is now fixed, by the way,” Starlight said. “There was no damage done. Everything’s back the way it was, I saw to it myself. It’s like it never happened.”

Live Wire glared at the mare. “But it did, and it was my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was a stupid accident. If anything, it was my fault.” Haily bit her lip. “I couldn’t even try to pick up the pieces. You can’t just take responsibility for something somepony else did. You did everything right, I was wrong, and if you take that away from me, then… I’m only gonna end up being wrong more often. You shouldn’t let somepony else put you in that kind of position, especially a friend.”

Scootaloo looked up at Starlight Glimmer, but got no response aside from a knowing smirk. It didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened.

“So, what, that’s it, then?” he asked. “You don’t want to hang out with me anymore?”

“Of course I do. I mean, you’re kinda the only friend I have. I’m just tired of always doing the same things that keep reminding me of all the things I can’t do. I do want to play Ogres Oubliettes again, I just don’t want to play the wizard anymore. I don’t hate story time, I just hate the fact that it’s always the same boring stories. And drama? Come on, they never ask for genuine snow effects, those divas only ever want me there to cool their drinks.”

The girls all winced at Haily’s tone. Live Wire fell silent.

Scootaloo’s ears fell back. This was going wrong, all wrong. Live Wire wouldn’t stand for much more of this. His feelings were hurt.

“Well, jeez, you could have just said something.”

Then again, they were dealing with a boy, and even if his feelings were hurt, his pride was, as far anypony could tell, still very much intact.

Haily shook her head in confusion. “Wait, what?”

“I’ve only been going to story time because I thought you liked it,” he said.

“Really? You don’t like it either?”

“No. I mean, I used to, obviously, but after a while you start to notice all that kid’s stuff ends up looking the same. And I swear, if I have to listen to one more anecdote about Star Swirl the Bearded… is it that much to ask to make a story about some other great wizard?!” He shouted at the sky.

The sky then sent forth a lightning bolt that grazed past Starlight Glimmer and scorched the ground next to her.

The boy grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Starlight said. “Star Swirl is a polarising character. I’m more of a fan of the Post-Classical wizards myself.”

“Me too,” Haily and Live Wire said in unison.

“Eheh, so, umm, what do you want to do now?” Live Wire asked.

Haily gulped. “You decide. You know how to let loose and have fun. You know that better than me, and you know what kind of stuff I like, at least now. I should have been more honest about it.”

“There’s that new city builder game at the Dragon Egg. I think your cousin plays it, too, Tuesday drafts and Thursday Constructed. We can do the drafts, if you’re up for a little collection-building.”

She smiled. “You read my mind. But we’ll probably be the only younger kids there, though.”

“Good.” Live Wire smirked, rubbing his front hooves together and generating little excited sparks in the process. “Then they’ll underestimate us.”

Scootaloo’s ears perked at a blinking sound. Her cutie mark was glowing again.

“What’s that mean?” Live Wire asked.

“It means the friendship problem we were here to fix is fixed,” Sweetie Belle said. “And we should probably go.”

Starlight looked back at the town’s clock tower. “Hmm, we should be able to catch the next train if we leave now.”

“Guess I’ll see you around, then,” Haily said. “Thanks for the help. You know, on both things.”

“Don’t mention it,” Scootaloo replied.

Sweetie Belle gave Live Wire a firm hug goodbye. “Bye, Live Wire. You’ll come and visit Ponyville sometime, won’t you?”

He hugged her right back and chuckled. “We’ll both be there next markspony tournament. If Haily feels up for joining in on that.”

“I think a few ponies in Ponyville would love to meet you, actually,” Apple Bloom said. “We’ve got a couple of foals with good aim, and a lot of history with sharpshooters like you, Haily.”

“I heard.” Haily blushed and looked to Live Wire, still hugging his friend. “I think I will do that sometime, it’d be nice seeing some new ponies drop their jaws.”

Sweetie Belle withdrew, and quickly started patting her mane down, which had now blown up with static.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Come on, let’s go, girls. Our work here is done. See you later!”


Starlight had to suppress her smile as she walked the girls to the train station.

“That went pretty well,” Apple Bloom said. “Whatever you told her, Scootaloo, it worked.”

“Yup. Told you I could do it.”

The mare rolled her eyes.

“But I did have help this time. Thanks, Starlight.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied. “You needed an adult, and I was there. That’s all there is to it.”

“You know, Scootaloo, if you’re not okay with your wing thing, you could ask somepony else for advice, too,” Sweetie Belle said.

Starlight’s ears twitched.

“It’s nothing,” Scootaloo replied. “I’m fine, I have plenty of fun things I can do without flying. Besides, who would I ask? Rainbow Dash? Twilight Sparkle? They would have said something long ago if they thought anything was really wrong. I’ve been around your place plenty of times, Apple Bloom, and Applejack would have definitely said something if she thought something was wrong with me, right?”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Yeah, my sister wouldn’t let that kind of thing slide. But it’s not like she’s an expert on these things. You’d have to compare with another Pegasus foal, and we ain’t exactly got a lot of high-flyers in Ponyville to ask.”

As if called for, one such high-flyer happened to pass them by in the air.

“Hey, Rumble!” Sweetie Belle shouted, loudly enough to make sure he and his brother would hear.

He glided down slowly and gracefully, not missing a beat of his wings or staggering his descent in the slightest. “Hey girls. Hi, Starlight,” Rumble greeted.

“Hello, Rumble, Thunderlane.” Starlight nodded at the stallion who, likewise, made a smooth Wonderbolt landing right in front of them. “What are you two doing here?”

“Training camp for junior speedsters,” Thunderlane said. “Well, prep camp, since Flight Camp is still getting remodelled and all.”

“What are you doing here?” Rumble asked.

“Friendship problem,” Apple Bloom replied. “And actually, you’ve caught us at a perfect time. We were just discussing something that you might have some expertise on.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“But unfortunately we do have a train to catch, so we'll have to ask some other time. Have fun at camp, Rumble!” Scootaloo cried out, already running ahead.

“Eh, yeah, we’ll take a raincheck on that advice, then,” Apple Bloom said.

“No problem,” the boy replied. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Starlight furrowed her brow as she followed the girls.

“What was that all about?” Apple Bloom asked once she’d caught up.

“What? We couldn’t miss our train, could we?” She pointed a hoof at the train entering the station.

“I guess, but that was still rude, Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle added.

“Come on, Rumble’s a busy guy, he doesn’t mind. And it’s not like you can’t ask him later.”

Starlight nodded pensively. “She does have a point there, girls. Speaking of later, you girls can get home okay once we’re in Ponyville, right? Your sisters won’t mind if I drop you off at the station?” She conjured up a letter, scribbled a note on it, then wrapped it around a cinnamon bun she’d bought and burned it in dragonflame. It would arrive through Spike’s mouth, after all, and while she didn’t use his services often, she always made sure to try and compensate for the inconvenience.

“Huh? Uh, no,” Apple Bloom replied as they all boarded the train and took their seats. “Why?”

“I just remembered another errand I’ve putting off for a while,” Starlight lied. “I think I’ll hop by Rainbow Falls for a quick visit and get that done, too. You know, while I have the time for it.”

“That’s totally fine,” Apple Bloom said. “We can get home alright. My sister’ll probably come pick me up, if she hears we’re coming.”

“Yup, Rarity will be waiting, too, if she’s not busy again.” Sweetie Belle added. “And you probably don’t want to be around for Twilight’s de-briefing anyway.”

Starlight shuddered. “Good point.”

“And I can get home alone, no problem,” Scootaloo said. “I don’t need a chaperone to walk across the street.” She playfully stuck her tongue out at her friends.

“We do not need chaperones,” Apple Bloom protested. “We’ve done two friendship missions already, we’re practically big ponies as it is.”

Starlight Glimmer sat back and rolled her eyes. “Of course you are, girls.”

“It’s weird, though,” Sweetie Belle said.

“What is?” Scootaloo asked.

“Think about it. When Terramar had his problem, Apple Bloom fixed it.”

“No, I didn’t. Twilight helped us out with that,” Apple Bloom retorted.

“Now Haily had her problem, and it was Scootaloo and Starlight who fixed it. So you know what that means.”

“Yup,” Scootaloo said. “Next time, we just skip to me and Apple Bloom arguing while you do all the hard work with the grownup. I can’t wait.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Huh. I guess when you look at it like that, we did kinda get our cutie marks in arguing, then, didn’t we?”

Even if she didn't understand it, Starlight slapped herself in the forehead. This was going to be a long train ride.

The End.