//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Mythic Dawn 
// by MagnetBolt 
//------------------------------//

Ibis’s mother had three children. The first was named Morning. The second was named Noon. What was the third named?

Power does not flow from the point of a sword, but from the nub of a pen. The sphinx are ancient and wise, hoarding hidden knowledge like a dragon hoards wealth and doling out only riddles and challenges.

Ibis liked facts, because they were simply true or false. They weren’t ambiguous and they could be verified. Friendship was much more difficult. There were books on friendship, and they stated what they claimed were facts, but they were confusing at best and more often contradictory. A sphinx, in its natural environment as a caretaker of some site of interest[1], did not have many chances to make friends. They would either repel intruders[2], teach fellow scholars[3], or lock themselves in a room for as long as it took them to work out the answer to the latest puzzle that they’d caught as prey[4].

[1] Ibis was, before she had come to the School of Friendship, the third sphinx in her family to study a large obelisk in the middle of the desert. She’d left after determining that not only was there nothing more to learn, but that she really hated staring at the same four sides of the same stone block day after day.

[2] Defined as anyone without a college degree or wearing a pith helmet.

[3] Purely in the form of riddles and half-answers because if they weren’t smart enough to figure it out, were they really scholars to begin with?

[4] This is literal. A sphinx could feed on a mystery for years without food or water, which made them excellent archaeologists in the far corners of the world away from civilization, but it also meant a bored sphinx was a hungry sphinx, and you didn’t want to be an intruder on the wrong end of one of those.


Ibis was studying friendship. It was proving a very difficult mystery to crack. Her current theory was that every friendship was somewhat different, but she had yet to determine if there was a common core. If she was to develop a complete universal theory of friendship, did it mean an extensive table of prime friendship varieties, or was there something behind, basic elements that combined to form every type of bond between people?[5]

[5] She was of course already aware of the elements of harmony, but had determined after extensive testing that it wasn’t what she was looking for.

Right now, for example, Ibis was studying Phantasma Gloom. She was a fairly normal pony, as far as these things went. She was considering switching her study to Luster Dawn, because it seemed as though Phantasma had even more difficulties making friends than the average student at the school. It wasn’t entirely surprising that the ponies at the school were less than ideal test subjects -- they were students studying friendship, not teachers who had already mastered it -- but what surprised Ibis was that many of them didn’t seem to take the task seriously.

“The Night Class gets the quizzes in advance so they can do them through the week,” said the mare currently speaking to Phantasma. Ibis checked her notes. The mare was named Silver Lining, and she was one of the few ponies from the day classes that interacted with Phantasma regularly.

“We’re not allowed to give out the papers,” Phantasma said, quietly.

“So?” Silver asked. “You want to be my friend, don’t you? No other pony will put up with a creep like you.”

Ibis made a note when Phantasma’s ears lowered.

“I have a real friend, and it’s not you,” Phantasma said. “I won’t help you cheat.”

“Oh, you won’t?” Silver Lining asked. “What are you going to do, tell on me to the teachers? Maybe I should go to them first and say it was all your idea, how you kept giving me the answers to quizzes because you were trying to bribe me into being your friend!”

“T-that’s stupid! The teachers would never believe you!” Phantasma gasped.

“Are you sure about that? I hear Principal Starlight has a zero-tolerance policy. If you’re involved in cheating, you’ll be expelled, and then you’ll get to go all the way back to the Crystal Empire. I’ll just be in town until my mother and father make enough donations to the school for them to decide to let me back in, but you? You’re here on a scholarship. You’ll never get to come back. So much for having a ‘real friend’.”

Phantasma gasped. “B-but…”

“I’ll expect the papers in my locker by tomorrow morning,” Silver said. “No rush. If they’re not there, Principal Starlight just might have an early-morning visit by a student who just feels so bad about cheating that she has to confess everything.”

Silver trotted off.

“See you later, friend~” Silver laughed.

Ibis made a few more notes, then stepped out of her blind. They were essential to studying a subject in the wild, and this was no exception, though in the environment of the school it was more about hiding behind furniture than anything else.

“Excuse me,” Ibis said.

“You-- you heard all that?” Phantasma asked, backing up a step.

“Yes, and I had a few follow-up questions,” Ibis said. “In most of my studies I’m not able to get interviews from the subjects involved[6] and I wanted to clear up a few details. How would you describe your friendship with Silver Lining?”

[6] There were exceptions, but the undead didn’t like being awoken after thousands of years and asked to fill out a survey on the quality of their preservation and burial ritual.

“Friendship?” Phantasma asked, confused. “We’re not friends!”

“But she called you her friend,” Ibis said. “And according to what I’ve read, it isn’t uncommon for friends to study with each other or share notes.”

“She’s trying to hold me hostage!” Phantasma said. “Please, don’t tell Principal Starlight! I can’t go back to the Empire! I’ve finally started making friends here and if I get sent back I’ll never see them again!”

“As you wish,” Ibis shrugged. “But friends do ask each other favors, yes? Like the favor you just asked from me?”

“I-- blackmail isn’t the same as a favor!” Phantasma looked back at where Silver Lining had gone. “You don’t understand, she’s always calling me creepy, or making fun of me, or blaming me for not giving her the right answers on tests…”

“You are only a mediocre student,” Ibis said. “I’ve seen your test scores.”

Phantasma groaned.

“Additionally, in my observations, there are a number of students that avoid you. It’s been difficult to ascertain why. Most of them are unable to articulate their reasons, and I suspect herd mentality as one part of the cause.”

“I’m not creepy!” Phantasma yelled.

“I don’t find you particularly distressing,” Ibis agreed. “But I appear to be in the minority.”

“How could you-- why would you even say that?!”

“I’m simply stating a fact,” Ibis said.

“I thought we were friends…” Phantasma mumbled, before stumbling off.

Ibis watched her go and frowned.

“Friends?” She asked, checking over her notes.





A sphinx with an unanswered riddle was like a manticore with a thorn in its paw, restless and annoyed at the world in general.

“I’m still trying to discover what friendship is,” Ibis said to herself, pacing around her room. “How can we be friends if I don’t even know how to properly define it? It isn’t a word game like a riddle. It’s also not simple proximity. Some creatures grow to hate each other in the same conditions others become friends.”

Compared to Luster Dawn’s chaotic mess of notes, clues, and papers[7], Ibis kept her room exceptionally clean. Everything was in its proper place[8] and as perfectly organized as her mind. It was the perfect place to solve a mystery, if she could just figure out where to even start.

[7] Also twine. Dawn had tried to construct a collage of clues and names like she’d seen in detective comics and found out that it was much harder than it looked and wasn’t all that great at actually organizing things. She still wasn’t entirely sure what the string was for, and now she had a hundred yards of colored yarn and no idea what to do with it. Ibis had suggested taking up knitting.

[8] Ibis wasn’t the type to use a ruler to line up her pencils only because she was organized purely for the utility of finding things rather than out of an obsessive-compulsive need. She saved her obsessions for solving riddles, which were much more worthwhile.

“Yeah, like how Phantasma probably hates you now,” Larrikin said. The kelpie was leaning in the doorway. They never looked quite the same way twice, but since there was only one kelpie at the school it was fairly obvious as to their identity.

“Why would she hate me?” Ibis asked. “I didn’t do anything to harm her.”

“Her feelings, kitty,” Larrikin snorted. “You hurt her feelings. She was really upset. I think Dawn is mad at you now too.” The kelpie yawned. “You could apologize, but I’m not really an expert.”

“Because you never hurt anyone?” Ibis asked.

“Nah, I just don’t usually apologize,” Larrikin said. They shrugged, and water sprayed off of their soaked coat. “Can I get a nap in here?”

“Didn’t you just wake up?” Ibis asked. “This is the usual time you leave the reflecting pool.”

“I really like napping,” Larrikin explained. “Miss Dash says it’s good to conserve energy, and she’s the captain of the Wonderbolts, so she’d know, right?”

“I suppose it is expert testimony,” Ibis admitted. “Go nap in your own room. I have to study for the test this evening.”

“Suit yourself. There’s such a thing as overstudying, you know,” Larrikin said, turning to leave.

“Does she really hate me?” Ibis asked, suddenly worried.

“Ask her yourself,” Larrikin said.





The tests at the school were notoriously difficult for most students. In other school, classes were expected to get a perfect score on the exams and anything less was seen as a failure on their part. The staff at the school of friendship used tests not to force students to recite memorized facts but to find their strengths and weaknesses to refine their curriculum.

Today’s exam was on math, and Ibis had no idea why it was even tested. It was simply impossible to be bad at math - there were clear, empirical rules that never varied and always gave the right answer as long as they were followed.

The only possible trouble were with word problems. Just like real life, the rules there were encoded and buried and often not communicated correctly. Calculating the height of a spire from the angle of the sun as a function of the distance to its base? That was simple.

But why would a pony buy sixty watermelons[9]? How would they even transport them? And why would their friend want to borrow twenty of them? Were they going to return them? If it was only borrowing, had they actually given up ownership to begin with?

[9] Pinkie Pie was the only pony who knew the real answer to that question, and it had a little something to do with her attempts to celebrate Hearth’s Warming in July complete with improvised tropical snowponies.

Ibis carefully wrote down an answer. She wasn’t sure it was actually the right answer in an empirical sense but she knew it would be what the teachers would mark as correct. She’d tried correcting a few tests herself and had been informed that while feedback was appreciated arguing about it in the middle of an exam and answering the problem on the blackboard was going slightly too far and was throwing off the grade curve.

Two seats over, Phantasma was struggling. Ibis tried not to watch, but it was hard not to notice. She was muttering to herself, erasing her answers over and over again, asking for more scratch paper. All the signs of someone who couldn’t actually focus on what they were doing. Ponies had an unfortunate tendency to get distracted like that, letting things outside the bounds of a problem affect their thinking.

“Pencils down,” Cranky said. “Hey! I see you back there, you wet annoyance! I said pencils down!”

“Sorry~” Larrikin giggled. They ate their pencil.

“Why would you do that?” Dawn asked.

“It’s basically mulch if you think about it,” Larrikin said. “Is anyone else hungry?”

“Not anymore,” Dawn said.

Cranky collected the tests and started checking off the answers.

“So how did everypony else do?” Dawn asked.

“Gonna be honest, don’t think I sparked it,” Arteria said. “That went upwise right around problem three. You couldn’t spy my shockin’ distress on account of my sunglasses, but I promise you I must’ve gotten th’ other seven so far from the mark that the only thing to save my wings is gonna be my hoof writing being so poor they give up and mark it aces.”

Ibis frowned. “Arteria, there were ten problems on the front of the paper and ten more on the back.”

“The back?!” Arteria groaned. “Oh isn’t that just shockin’ bazinga.”[10]

[10] Ibis didn’t really understand Arteria’s slang either. She’d once tried to compile a small dictionary but had given up when the definitions and even part of speech of various words would change from sentence to sentence. This was especially true of ‘shock’, which could be used in place of absolutely any word or on its own as an intensifier.

“Alright you kids, stop jabberin!” Cranky yelled. “I’ve got good news and bad news. First, two of you got perfect or near-perfect scores. That’s the good news and the bad news, because the rest of you should have been hoping there was a curve to grade on!”

He passed the graded papers back. Ibis’ was, of course, perfect. She glanced over at Dawn, and saw her smiling down at her own sheet. It wasn’t at all a surprise that Luster Dawn had exceptional academic basics. She was, after all, Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal student.

Phantasma groaned when she got hers back. “I failed?”

“You should have tried to focus more,” Ibis said, quietly. “You were distracted. Usually your scores are better than average.”

“I had a lot on my mind!” Phantasma snapped, shoving the graded test into her math book and slamming it shut.

“Do you want assistance studying later?” Ibis asked. One instructional guide she’d consulted had suggested that shared experiences and burdens were one of the fastest ways to build up a friendship.

“I’ll ask Dawn,” Phantasma said, standing up the moment the bell rang. “She’s my friend.”

“I want to be your friend,” Ibis said. “I thought we were friends.”

“If you really want to by friends, then at least try to understand how I feel,” Phantasma said. “You just-- you--” she huffed. “I’ve got to go.”

Ibis frowned and watched her leave, trying to piece together what she’d done wrong.

“Somepony’s awful cranky about their test score,” Arteria said. “Study group sounds like a right shocker of an idea. Hey, Berl! You wanna hit up th’ market an’ get us some blinker fluid t’ keep our eyes open while we stare at math?”

Berlioz frowned and looked at Ibis. “What?”

“I think Miss Carpals is asking for tea or coffee, though I’m not sure which,” Ibis said.

“Half white half black, as much sugar as I can legally get,” Arteria said. She slapped Berlioz’s butt with her wing on the way out. “Thanks doll.”

“...Why pony do that?” Berlioz asked.

Ibis considered for a moment. “I don’t know much about thestral culture. There are not a great deal of works on the subject and Arteria is an unreliable source. However, I have studied many creatures in general, and I believe what she is doing is attempting to establish dominance over you.”

Berlioz grunted. Ibis took this as a desire for her to continue explaining.

“It’s likely her failure on the test, a very public failure thanks to her outing herself as having missed half of the questions entirely, made her feel vulnerable. As she knows she cannot best me or Dawn in intellectual fields, Phantasma had already left, and Larrikin is as inscrutable as a bonsai tree, she decided to, as the phrase goes, ‘throw her weight around’ with you as the target. As you tend to be easy-going and non-aggressive, you were a relatively safe target.”

“Mmm.” Berlioz grumbled. “You want coffee too?”

“I’ll go with you,” Ibis said. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brain on a few things. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and you’re sufficiently far from the situation that you might be able to offer a good objective opinion.”





“I don’t understand what I did wrong,” Ibis said, after she’d explained the whole situation. Berlioz hadn’t asked a lot of questions yet. He was a good listener. She liked that about him. “Phantasma seems to think we aren’t friends, and that it’s somehow my fault.”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded. “Pony is upset.”

“That’s obvious. I’m just not sure what to do about it. I can’t identify any single thing I did wrong. All I did was state objective facts and ask questions for clarification. Why would that be cause for distress?”

Berlioz rubbed his chin. “When Berlioz first came to pony town, it was hard to fit in. Not just because of size or shape. Ponies care about feelings. When a pony does something, what matters is feeling of the thing. Songs are about feelings. Food is about how it makes pony feel. And they feel a lot, about things that make no sense.”

Ibis nodded.

“Even if it is silly, to think like pony, you must think about feelings. Sometimes that means things are difficult. Like coffee. Arteria pony wants specific thing, but other things on menu are cheaper and are just as good for staying awake.” Berlioz motioned to their half complete order. “Still, got her what she wanted, because it will make her happy.”

“But she was trying to establish dominance over you,” Ibis said. “You could have refused.”

“Berlioz could have said no. Or said yes and not done the thing. Or done the thing wrong. All of these are choices Berlioz could make. But that is not what is good. Berlioz cares about something too. Honor. Pony can play pony games, but Berlioz will do a good job because any job should be done as good as Berlioz can do it.”

It was the most Ibis had heard Berlioz speak at once since they’d been assigned to the same dorm.

“She probably won’t even pay you back for buying the coffee,” Ibis pointed out.

Berlioz nodded glumly. “Yes. But it is doing the job well. Sometimes that means sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice…” Ibis considered. “I see. Yes. That makes sense.”

“Mm. Just make sure you sacrifice the right thing, yes?” Berlioz said. “Berlioz sacrifices time and a few bits and buys honor with it, because the honor is more important.”

Ibis nodded. “Let’s get the coffee back before it gets cold.”[11]

[11] For reference, Ibis hadn’t ordered coffee at all. She always ordered a vanilla chai soy latte. She also often had to be reminded not to get behind the counter to instruct the baristas in how to make her drink to her exact specifications.





“You’re the big dumb cat that lives with Phantasma,” Silver Lining said. “Why are you bothering me?”

“I wanted to ask you a few questions,” Ibis said. “I believe I was approaching things from the wrong angle in only getting one perspective on the situation, and I was only getting an incomplete picture of your relationship with Phantasma.”

“Relationship?” Silver Lining frowned. “What are you talking about? I’d never date her! I don’t even like mares that way!”

“That isn’t the kind of relationship I meant but I’ll make a note of it,” Ibis said, scribbling something down[12]. “I meant your friendship with her.”

“We’re not friends,” Silver Lining said. “Why would anypony want to be friends with her? She’s like a red and black doormat. I’d call her edgy but she doesn’t even have the spine to manage a corner, much less an edge.”

[12] She’d learned shorthand was a necessity when one’s first language used hieroglyphics. There wasn’t time to draw various types of birds, dragons, and symbols when trying to transcribe a conversation.

“But I heard you call her friend,” Ibis said.

“I was being sarcastic, obviously,” Silver snorted. “Let me guess, they don’t have that where you come from?”

“This is a school of friendship. Shouldn’t you be trying to befriend her? She seems to care what you think.”

“Everypony should care what I think. My family is one of the richest in town.”

“Her academic performance is suffering because of this,” Ibis said. “I have to ask you to please either leave her alone or apologize to her. I also have some serious concerns about academic fraud. Have you considered that the most important part about going to school is the education you gain from the experience?”

“The most important thing you get are connections,” Silver Lining corrected. “Besides, what are you going to do about it?”

“I was going to do this,” Ibis said. “Asking you to stop. It’s the most sensible thing. I’ve read many times that the best way to handle a disagreement is with open and honest discussion.”

Silver Lining laughed. “Oh yeah, I’ll definitely stop.”

“Really?” Ibis asked. “Good. Then this was a productive discussion. I’ll--”

“You’ll get me a copy of next week’s homework,” Silver Lining said. “With all the correct answers. You’re right -- her grades really have sucked lately. I’ve had to check all her answers myself because she keeps getting stupid stuff wrong. You’ll get me the correct answers.”

“I’m not going to help you cheat,” Ibis said.

“No?” Silver Lining said. “You know what’s going to happen if you don’t? I’ll have to tell Principal Starlight all about this.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t hold yourself hostage.”

“Can’t I?” Silver Lining smirked. “The difference is that consequences? They don’t stick to ponies like me.”





“Unfortunately, she’s not wrong,” Luster Dawn said. “I’m glad you came to me in private. I’m sure Phanty wouldn’t want this getting out in public.”

“She said you were her best friend,” Ibis said. “I thought you would have a vested interest in helping.”

“Let’s go over it from the top,” Luster said, holding up her own notes.[13] “You’ve been studying Phantasma to try and understand friendship in an objective sense. It turns out that she’s being bullied. She’s mad because you won’t help her, and then when you tried to help her, you weren’t able to accomplish anything.”

“Unfortunately true,” Ibis said.

[13] Ibis couldn’t help but admire the way that Luster Dawn took her own notes on everything, even if they were more like a loosely connected scatter plot than a carefully ordered list. Something about the way she would scribble down random facts made Ibis feel a little breathless and warm.

“I’ve met a lot of ponies like that in Canterlot,” Luster said. “There are always going to be some ponies who use social standings to get what they want, even if it means hurting other ponies. There really aren’t any good ways to deal with it.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Ibis said.

“Okay, let’s break out the options. First, there’s going to an adult and just telling them everything that’s going on. If we went to Starlight or Trixie, they’d definitely look into it, but without proof, it’s just her word against Silver Lining’s. At that point it’s all a matter of… ifs.”

“Ifs?”

“If Silver Lining’s parents don’t pressure Starlight into letting their daughter off scot-free. If Starlight decides not to use the school’s zero-tolerance policy on academic honesty. If they don’t decide to just slap both of them on the wrist and do nothing serious.”

“Why would the last one be bad? If Phantasma doesn’t get punished, that would seem to be an accomplished task.”

“Because that’s just going to make Silver Lining double down. Right now she’s blackmailing her, and you, because you have something she wants. If she just wants to hurt you, things will get a lot worse.”





“Woah, woah, hear me out!” Arteria said, flapping her wings wildly to stay ahead of Ibis as she walked away. “I know I’m far from the sharpest fang in the maw, but I’m shockin’ doubledown at this one thing!”

“Arteria, this is a private matter,” Ibis said.

“Yeah, private like havin’ a blinkin’ shoutin’ match at half sleeptime when everypony else is tryin’ to rest. I hear things, Ibis. I got the best ears of anypony in this whole school and I ain’t just sayin’ that trying to get into yer nest. And if I did do that it wouldn’t be to steal test answers if you catch my flow.”

Ibis sighed. She sat down heavily. “Fine. I’ll listen.”

Arteria grinned. “Bazinga! Alrighty, so the thing is you’re smarter’n me, right? I can’t exactly get out of that net. You’ve got plenty of booksmart I don’t and that’s okay because everypony learns different.[14] You study books, but me, I study ponies. It was part of what I had to do back home. Ain’t supposed to gab much on it, but you know how it is, some lessons don’t leave you.”

[14] Arteria actually was smarter than she seemed. She had two serious disadvantages in her education - Ponish was essentially her second language, and she struggled to read and write quickly. She’d grown up learning to read by touch, and having to decypher ink on a page was more difficult than it seemed.

“I assume what you’re trying to say is that you believe you can navigate a social situation better than I can.”

Arteria landed and nodded. “That’s it in a clamshell. If this was a test in a book you’d have a perfect score because you could just go and get the right answer and you’d just have to sing on key when the band was playin’. That don’t work with ponies.”

“I’m aware that context and situation can change things, but there are some rules that are universally true. Being polite is always appreciated.”

“Yes and no. That’s actually a shockin’ good thing to talk about first. Bein’ polite. See, some ponies like Phantasma, they think wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was nice, right? But if someone’s a shockin’ hook-bird and you say please and thank you, they’re just gonna think you’re an easy mark.”

“There’s never a reason to be rude, though.[15]”

[15] Retail workers, like the ones at the local coffee shop, would argue that Ibis had invented all new ways of being rude while sounding polite. Having her drinks remade a dozen times because tea should be heated to a precise temperature, for example.


“There’s plenty of reason! Like look at Berlioz, right? He’s such a sweet boy, but shock me if that’s gonna get him far. Same problem a lot of males have, innit? All nice and sweet and emotional. Need a good strong mare to lead them.” Arteria shook her head sadly.

“I’m… fairly sure he’s considerably stronger than you are.”

“Only physically! Anyway, that ain’t the point. The point is, that Silvie Liner or whatever her name was, she’s being rude, right? If you’re polite to her, she isn’t ever gonna return that. She won’t start playin’ nice and by the rules just because you’re some kind of example.”

“So you think I should be rude,” Ibis asked, unamused. “She can simply go through with her threat, in that case.”

“Will she?” Arteria asked. “You could spend a little time on yer own and get enough leverage to shove her right off into the abyss, but back home I knew ponies like her. Always hangin’ around me and mum in court, beggin for favors, every single one of ‘em with a pile of blackmail so thick they could use it for wallpaper.”

“That sounds difficult,” Ibis said. “What did you say your mother did?”

“I didn’t say.[16] And listen to the important bits, not the blinkin details! See, all those old bitties, they’d hang onto that stuff for ages, and none of it ever got used. Blackmail’s a terrible weak thing because it only ever works once.”

[16] It would be nice to say that when Ibis found out, everything suddenly made sense. It did not. Actually it just raised further questions about how Arteria had ended up being so… Arteria.

“What do you mean, it only works once?”

“Even if the other person doesn’t have the goods on you to take you down with ‘em, the moment you reveal what you have, you ain’t got no hold on them. Like let’s say she goes and tattles on Phantasma to the teachers. The second she does that, Phantasma is free. Sure, she’ll have to live with whatever comes of it, but now Phantasma has no reason not to do whatever she wants, and somepony just tried to hurt her. Wouldn’t be surprising if the very first thing that canary does now that it’s out of its cage is to fly right over and start peckin’ at the eyes.”

“But what if it does destroy Phantasma? What if she’s going to be expelled?” Ibis asked. Saying it like that hurt. Physically hurt. It was that strange kind of pain that seemed to come without a source, like the body knew it had been injured but couldn’t figure out where.

“You think that’s gonna make her less dangerous?” Arteria asked. “If the worst comes to pass, that dumb shocker is going to have to figure out right quick how to handle Phantasma when she ain’t got anything to lose.”





Ibis tried to smooth down her coat. It kept getting disheveled and making her look as stressed as she felt.

“Are you sick?” Larrikin asked. Before Ibis could stop them, the kelpie’s hoof slapped against her forehead, water dripping down her face from the creature’s soaked coat. “I think you might have a fever.”

“I’m not physically ill,” Ibis said. “I’m simply… worried.”

Larrikin nodded and sat down, thankfully removing their hoof. “I get you.”

“It seems as though I’ve asked almost every creature I know how to handle a problem, and the problem should not even be mine to begin with. Have you ever been so caught up in the issues of another that it becomes yours as well?”

“Sure,” Larrikin said. “Well, no, but I get the feeling. I’ve never really been super close to anyone. It’s tough for someone like me.” They sounded oddly sad when they said that. “Anyway, what’s up?”

“I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of conflicting advice. One pony wants me to do nothing. Another thinks I should act regardless of the consequences. A third party suggested simply doing the best job I could with what was in front of me. And so on. Every riddle should have an answer.”

“That’s true,” Larrikin agreed. “Hey, I know what’ll make you feel better! Ask me a riddle. You love riddles.”

Ibis did love riddles.

“There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?” she asked.

Larrikin hemmed and hawed, thinking. “That’s a pretty good one, but I think I know the answer - it’s an optometrist! You go in not being able to see, and they make glasses for you, and then you can even read the tiny little letters in the footnotes.[17]”

[17] Not these footnotes, the ones on the optometrist's contract[18], the footnotes that explained the various fees and taxes you were now expected to pay and weren’t informed about before. Since you could read them with your fancy new glasses, you were obviously liable for them now.

[18] Though if your glasses were good enough you could read these notes too.

“That’s… not the answer I was thinking of,” Ibis said. “I suppose technically it’s a valid answer, but I meant a school. You go in blind, metaphorically, and come out being able to see. It’s a metaphor for the wisdom you gain.”

“It’s not really a great metaphor,” Larrikin said. “I think my answer was better.”

Ibis groaned. “Fine. Okay. I will concede that your answer is acceptable.”

“Try another one. I’ll definitely get it.”

Ibis cleared her throat for the appropriate dramatic riddle reading voice. “There are three apples and you take two away. How many apples do you have?”

“Ugh, no, that’s a math problem, not a riddle. I want a riddle.”

“No, it’s a riddle because it has a trick answer! You are supposed to think that you have one left because you took two away, but the apples never belonged to you, so the two you took away are the ones you have!”

“Oh. Then the answer is two. Two apples!”

“It doesn’t count if I explained the answer before you give it.”

“You didn’t explain the rules very clearly. Give me a good one, come on. I know you’ve got plenty of good riddles.”

Ibis rolled her eyes. “Fine. One last riddle, because this is getting more frustrating than entertaining.”

“I’m good at that,” Larrikin agreed.

“I'm left behind yet never taken, set down in a row.
Seldom seen in isolation, captured by the snow.
Set apart by haste, though immobile all the same.
When left un-defaced, a betrayal of the game.”

“Oh wow, that is a good one,” Larrikin said. “It’s got rhymes and meter and everything.”

“And a single correct answer,” Ibis noted. She waited.

Larrikin made a few thinking sounds. A minute passed. Then another.

“An answer that I am waiting for.”

“It’s a really good riddle,” Larrikin said. “I don’t want to use it up all at once.”

“...Use it up all at once?”

“Yeah! Like the second I figure it out, bam, all the mystery is gone. Ruins it, if you think about it. The best part of a riddle is that whole time thinking about what the answer could be. Is it a river? Nope. Not a river. But you’d be surprised how often ‘river’ is the answer to a riddle.”

“Yes, but not the answer to this riddle.”

“You know what, I’m going to sleep on it,” Larrikin said. “I bet once I’ve had a nap I’ll be able to really nail the answer.”

“What?”

“I’ll be back!” Larrikin said, trotting off. “I just have to find a good nap spot first.”

Ibis sighed.





The School of Friendship had one very important trait, something that had made it so attractive to a scholar like Ibis that she was more than happy to move in as a student instead of simply prowling the halls as a wandering monster.

Princess Twilight Sparkle had made sure that it had the largest and best-appointed library in all of Equestria. True, Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns had many unique texts on magic and history, but the subject matter of that school’s library was far more limited than the School of Friendship. There was nowhere else in Equestria where one could find texts on changeling hive lore[19], rubbings of stone tablets from the dragon lands[20], books from Olde Griffonstone[21], and the complete set of Daring Do books along with advance copies of the newest adventures[22].

[19] Changelings actually had very little written history. As it turned out, having a paper trail of any kind was a terrible decision for a species that had spent the vast majority of its history hiding from every other creature in the world. They did, however, have wonderful oral histories passed down from generation to generation.

[20] Almost universally boasting about the size of one’s hoard, a threat made against intruders, or accounting forms, which the dragons had invented while ponies were still working out the mysteries of iron.

[21] Salvaged from the Olde Griffonstone Librarie, which had been built before the standardization of spelling.

[22] The latest book was being universally panned by reviewers, who criticized its central plot device that involved aliens from another world called ‘humans’ along with the increasingly improbable age of the protagonist. A.K. Yearling had offered to step into the boxing ring if anypony was brave enough to say Daring Do couldn’t still swash and buckle with the best of them.

Ibis was most at home in the library. She could and had sat there for days at a time simply reading anything that caught her attention. Her routine was to pick a remote corner and turn it into her little temporary lair, only venturing out to find the most interesting prey. Ponies who disturbed her were given riddles if they wanted to borrow any of the books in the realm she’d claimed as her own.

Those that succeeded were given their prize, sometimes along with a recommendation on further reading if they were particularly polite company. The failures were also given their books because while Ibis was a monster she wasn’t the kind of monster who would keep a pony from the pursuit of learning. That would simply be needlessly evil.

The library was supposed to be her safe place. She wasn’t supposed to feel cornered in it by her own inability to solve a riddle.

“How is a raven like a writing desk?” she mumbled to herself, pacing back and forth in frustration. “Every riddle has a solution.”

“If that’s really what’s got you looking like you haven’t slept in three days, I hate to have to tell you it’s sort of a joke,” Principal Starlight said. She looked around the little nook of the library. “You’re scaring away some of the younger students. Apparently they think they might get eaten.”

Ibis frowned. “Eaten? By what?”

Starlight raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” Ibis sat down and tried to smooth her matted fur. “My apologies.”

“You know, I might not have a glowing cutie mark right now but I have a feeling there’s a friendship problem going on,” Starlight said. “Do you want to know one big secret to solving friendship problems?”

Ibis nodded eagerly.

“You can’t do it alone,” Starlight said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

Ibis froze up. “Normally, I would be happy to, but… I can’t.”

“Why’s that?” Starlight asked. “Is it a Pinkie Promise? Because I know more than enough not to mess with those.”

“I did give my word, but even if I hadn’t…” she paused. “There is another student having difficulties, and I am at a loss for how to help them. I stumbled into the situation myself and hurt their feelings and…”

“And you think fixing it is the only way to make up for finding out whatever secret you uncovered?” Starlight asked. She waited for Ibis to nod before continuing. “I’ve run into a few problems like that before. The worst part is when it’s something embarrassing and you don’t even know it’s a problem for the other creature until it’s too late.”

“In this case it might be significantly worse than that,” Ibis admitted. “They believe that their whole life relies on a particular secret being kept.”

“Are they getting hurt because of that secret?” Starlight asked. She saw the hesitation all over Ibis’ face. “If this is something hurting them, a friend wouldn’t let them keep getting hurt.”

“You are… aware of Phantasma’s difficulties back in the Crystal Empire?” Ibis asked. “She is worried that if certain secrets get out, she will be forced to leave the school, and she won’t get to see her friends again.”

“You’re worried you won’t get to see her again, too,” Starlight added.

“I don’t know if we’re friends or not,” Ibis said. “I thought we were, but I hurt her in not being sensitive to her situation.”

“Friends sometimes fight or misunderstand each other,” Starlight said. “You’ll find a way to make it up to her. It doesn’t need to be some huge, dramatic gesture. Sometimes the answer to a riddle is more simple than you think. Just tell her how you feel, and ask her how you can make it up to her. She probably needs to feel like she has some control.”

“That could work but… it doesn’t address the core issue.”

“And that would be whatever you found out?”

Ibis nodded.

Starlight rubbed her chin. “And you don’t feel comfortable telling me about it.”

“No,” Ibis admitted. “Part of the concern is that a third party is threatening to tell you about… this issue.”

“And this third party -- are they using that knowledge to bully Phantasma?”

Ibis closed her eyes and nodded glumly. “I’ve tried asking all of my classmates for advice. Berlioz said that everything was a matter of what I was willing to sacrifice. Arteria suggested my usual polite and straightforward approach was wrong. Luster Dawn cemented the actual consequences of the choices available to me. And Larrikin…” Ibis snoted. “All they did was answer riddles wrongly, throwing answers at me that weren’t even part of the parameters of the question.”

“Sounds like they had a lot of advice,” Starlight said. “Everypony has a different way of dealing with a problem. It’s one of the real strengths of the school, that we get to learn about them all.”

“Yes, but what kind of solution is it to give the wrong answer to a… problem…” Ibis frowned, her train of thought going in a different direction.

“It sounds like you just thought of something,” Starlight said.

“Yes. Yes, I think I did,” Ibis said. She straightened up. “Principal Starlight, I would like to confess to academic fraud.”





“It was the best solution I could come up with,” Ibis said, a few hours later. “If I hadn’t spoken to everypony, I never would have been able to come up with a viable solution, and that is why I wanted to gather all of you here.”

“You told Starlight everything?!” Phantasma asked, in alarm.

“No. I don’t know everything,” Ibis said. “What I did was… I confessed to giving Silver Lining the answers to some of her assignments.”

“But you didn’t do that,” Phantasma said. “That’s what she was forcing me to do!”

“She cornered me when I approached her and tried to blackmail me the same way,” Ibis said. “I thought I could talk her down politely, but it was impossible like Arteria later told me.”

“On account of me always being right,” Arteria said.

“What I told Principal Starlight was the truth. I gave Silver Lining the answers to some of her assignments. I did not specify how many times I had done it, though at the time it was exactly one assignment. I further warned her that I believed Silver Lining would attempt to frame Phantasma for the crime simply to hurt me.”

“So if she does say anything about Phantasma, you’ve offered an alternate answer to her accusations,” Luster said. “I guess that goes outside the bounds of what we talked about.”

“It does, but Larrikin was the one to give me that idea. Riddles normally only have one right answer, yes? A single, clever answer that neatly puts all the clues in a row. Larrikin showed me that even simple word games don’t always work out so cleanly, and if that’s true of such pure puzzles, naturally it’s even more applicable to real-life problems.”

Larrikin nodded. “Yep. Usually there’s like, tons of answers. Oh! That reminds me! I totally solved the riddle you gave me!”

“Did you?” Ibis asked.

“Yeah! It’s a river!”

“Larrikin, when I gave it to you we discussed how the answer was very specifically not ‘a river’.”

“Oh, right. I think I might have gotten it confused with where I was going to nap later. Oh well. I’ll come up with the right answer soon. You just wait!”

“But what about you?” Phantasma asked. “The punishment for academic fraud like that, it must be… are you being expelled?”

“No,” Ibis said. “Thankfully not. There are consequences to my actions, but I don’t have to leave. Even if I did, it would have been worth it. I couldn’t let you take on such an unfair burden. I’m sorry that I tried to treat your problem as something to study instead of asking to help.”

“I didn’t want anypony else to get hurt because of me,” Phantasma whispered.

“And I didn’t want you to have to go back to a place you don’t want to be,” Ibis told her. “All of my grades will be reduced by a letter grade, and Silver Lining is being forced to retake every exam she’s already taken this school year, and I am told the new versions of the exams will be much more difficult.”

“If she spent as much time studying as she did trying to blackmail me for the answers she would be able to pass,” Phantasma said. “I’m so sorry about your grades…”

“Why?” Ibis asked. “I was more than willing to sacrifice them.” She glanced at Berlioz. “It was my own kind of honor. A payment I was happy to make to be your friend and help you when you needed it.”

“You know, it sounds to me like you learned a lot about friendship,” Luster Dawn said. “I’ve been writing letters to Princess Twilight. Maybe you’d like to put something together and I can send it along?”

“After all the work I went through to keep things in the dark?” Ibis asked, laughing. “Every riddle has a solution, but we can let the true answer to this one remain as a secret between us. Someday, perhaps, I will write on it when I publish my own meditations on friendship and what it means.”

“I guess Princess Twilight will just have to settle for an update on the Summer Sun Celebration decor,” Luster Dawn said. “She’s going to find out about the balloon race anyway when the permits start going through the Equestrian Civil Services.”

“Wait!” Larrikin gasped. “I finally got it! I know the real answer to the riddle!”

All eyes turned to the kelpie.

“It’s the tail in a ‘pin the tail on the princess’ game!” Larrikin said, triumphantly. “They’re left behind, more than one pony plays at a time, they don’t move around on their own, and, um…” she hesitated. “There was something about a game?”

“Sure,” Ibis said, giggling. “We’ll call that close enough.”

“Yes! I knew I’d get it eventually!”