In the dark of night, ponies gathered around the bonfire. Deep purple robes shrouded them all, concealing identity even from each other. The opening of their gathering had already passed, and they were once more breaking up into their individual groups. The positions were taken with care, and each made sure they had a partner.
As he walked around the perimeter, their leader looked over his gathering. "Everypony is with someone? Good. None should study alone because--"
As one, their voices rose. "Friend--
And they were interrupted. "Friendship Is Magic."
Nearly three dozen sets of eyes turned, and nearly three dozen jaws dropped. Twilight Sparkle - THE Princess Twilight Sparkle - stood at the edge of the clearing. If any of them said a word, it was drowned out by the crackle of the bonfire and the rapid beating of their hearts.
Hesitantly, Twilight took another step closer. "Hello, my friends."
That snapped them out of it. The word was magic, dispelling the silence. Mumbled voices conferred, each confirming that THE Princess Twilight Sparkle had just addressed them as 'friend'. At first one bowed to her - and then the others quickly after.
"No! No no no." Twilight trotted forward and lifted the nearest pony to his hooves. "Friends don't bow to friends." And yet the rest of them still bowed to her. Even the one she lifted went down again as soon as she let go.
Frustration was already starting to rise within the Princess - but, she reminded herself, she had to address this. If not for this group for the future ones. Celestia and Luna had been clear on that much. She'd have to deal with this again, and wasting this first opportunity for direct study would be shameful. So Twilight took a deep breath. "As your goddess," she started, "I hereby order you to stop worshiping me."
The congregation froze, looking at one another on confusion.
"But if we stop worshiping her, she's not our goddess anymore."
"Yeah, then she doesn't have the authority to order us to do things."
"So then we could start worshiping her again."
"Paradox! It's a logical paradox!"
"Calm down, you fools! Can't you see she's testing us?"
"Yes! A test! A test of faith!"
"Quick, who has a copy of Zeno's we can reference?"
"I can't believe She has come to test our faith directly!"
"Praise be!"
Twilight facehoofed. Oh no. They were the worst kind of cultists.
Moving on to Plan C, Twilight wrapped the leader in her magic and pulled him over. "You're in charge here. Get them up - I'm here to talk, and we can't have a conversation when you're all, um..." She looked out at the cult around her. "Worship-y."
The leader once more bowed - making Twilight roll her eyes - before he turned to the rest. "She has commanded us, so let us listen to Her words. Come friends, there's no harm here. If She will speak, we should listen." The crowd rumbled uneasily, but slowly obeyed. They came closer, sitting in a loose horseshoe around Twilight.
She breathed a little easier. Now came the hard part - if only she had brought Spike.
A scroll of paper and quill appeared out of the air beside her.
"Question one - why worship? Why religion instead of other methods?"
Several of the cultists blinked owlishly. One raised a hoof. "....Is this a quiz? I'm bad at quizzes."
Twilight smiled as best she could under the weight of this ludicrous situation. "It is, but there's no right or wrong answer. We're friends, right? And friends try to learn more about each other." And use field observation to create a hypothesis for later testing, but they didn't need to know that part.
Getting the first one to speak was difficult as they hesitated. "Well. I do it because I used to worship Celestia, but you took over for her so it made sense to change."
The dam broke, and the other answers unleashed rapid-fire.
"You defeated all those bad guys, so you're a hero!"
"I joined thinking this was your fan club and it just got intense from there."
"Lemon Wedge over there's my friend and makes a really good fruit salad she brings every week."
"We were going to summon the demon Biblios!"
"I just don't have anything else to do on Thursday nights, and my neighbors said it would be fun."
"You're really hot, and I thought being part of your cult would give me a shot at asking you out! So, um, wanna go out?"
Twilight waited patiently for the cacophony to die down and the last of them to get their justifications out. Each one was written down, recorded for her later reference. "Alright, thank you. Let's start from the top." She adjusted the scroll, looking down it. "Whoever said something about summoning a demon? First of all, Biblios isn't real. Second, go over there and sit quietly, you're under arrest. Summoning creatures from beyond is bad. Don't do that."
"Aw maaaaaaan."
"Off to the side," she scolded. "If this wasn't the middle of the woods I'd have you stand in a corner and think about what you tried to do. As it is, wait quietly and we'll have a conversation with the Royal Guards later." Twilight waited as the shame-faced cultist obeyed.
A hoof raised from the crowd, and Twilight nodded to it. "I thought you said there were no right or wrong answers to this."
Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering. "There are no right or wrong questions for this quiz, but there are wrong answers for life. Summoning creatures from beyond the veil is one of them." She looked around those gathered as they nodded and agreed that was reasonable. "Okay, second! Thank you for saying that I'm attractive but I'm afraid I don't have time for a relationship right now. I'm running a country and I'm in charge of multiple stellar bodies, so dating is going to have to wait."
The stallion who had mentioned that motivation perked up. "So you're saying there's a chance later?"
"When Tartarus freezes over," Twilight clarified. "Sorry, but you're not my type."
A mare several cultists down hopped up and let out a joyous whoop. "HA! IN YOUR FACE! I TOLD YOU SHE DIDN'T SWING THAT WAY!"
Once more, Twilight facehoofed. "That's not-- it's because you joined a dark shadow cult instead of speaking to me! That's not a good basis for a relationship!" Her wings fluffed out with frustration (and a brief bit of appreciation for what Cadence probably had to deal with on a regular basis). "Next! The fan club!" Her eyes focused dead on one specific cultist. "Star Tracker, I know that's you. I recognize your voice."
"She recognized my voice!"
"Star Tracker!" Twilight could already feel her patience wearing away under the tide. "You know better than this, and we already had a friendship lesson about idolizing other ponies and that sort of thing. Also I know you're fully aware of my actual fan club. This is silly, go home."
She watched him turn and head out with his head hung low. "Now!" The Princess glanced at her list. "A bunch of you are just here because of friends or because you don't have anything better to do or because of..." She squinted at her own horn-writing. "Fruit salad. You can also go. I appreciate wanting to do things with your friends and to have a hobby, but I'm going to politely ask that you take up bowling or knitting instead of revering me as a goddess. Also, it's honestly a little insulting to be the sort of thing that you do when you don't have anything else to do."
"I'll do you when--"
Twilight struck the stallion who continued to insist on hitting on her with a stun blast. "Lewd innuendo in public is also not a good way to try and secure a relationship with somepony!"
The stunned stallion was quietly carried off by several friends, leaving a crowd much smaller than before. Twilight looked them over with a critical eye, trying to appraise just what she was dealing with. "Those of you who remain... you're the true believers, right? The ones who are part of this because you believe?" Looks were shared between the seven that remained before they nodded as one. "Good! Question two was going to be why me, but I guess that's been sort of covered. Plus, y'know, the whole sun and moon thing. So, um. Question three - if I leave you alone after this, what are you going to do with this, um, organization after I go?"
Once more, the cult's leader stepped forward. "We shall take the word of Your great name and spread it across Equ--"
Twilight cut him off. "Okay, yeah, no, we're not doing that. No proselytizing, no conversions, definitely no crusades... in fact, here." She floated a second scroll and her quill over to one of the remaining cultists. "We better set down some ground rules."
"She shall pronounce Her commandments unto us!"
"Praise be!"
This was already going wrong. Again. "Just... just write it down." Twilight almost felt like she was begging. "Rule one, no dark magic. Don't be that guy over there." She pointed her hoof at the demon-loving cultist who was still sitting and waiting for Guard pickup. "Rule two, no forcing anypony to believe what you do if they don't want to. Rule three, no sacrificing anything or anypony to me."
Twilight halted, then corrected herself. "Anycreature to me." Just in case. "Rule four, um." She bobbled, having already ran out of steam. "Anyway. You get the idea."
Those that remained all bowed once more. "Yes! We hear and understand! We shall obey Your commandments and serve you well!"
"Good. Be well, my friends!" Twilight stepped back and took to the sky.
After flying out of sight, she teleported back to the camouflaged duck blind that had been set up beside the clearing. "Agents." She nodded to the S.M.I.L.E. team that was in place. "You understand your orders, I presume?"
The black-suited earth pony mare saluted. "Yes, your Highness. Watch them, record our observations and give you monthly reports on activity. Interfere only on your direct orders so that we preserve the integrity of the experiment."
Twilight nodded with a grin. "Wonderful. If everything goes well, we might even be able to get a paper in one of the big name journals about this!"