With a groan, Gallus slumps backwards in what I believe is meant to be a dramatic posture and sprawls across the floor of this room perched at the back of my complex, a lovely view of the moonlight-drenched forest visible through the balcony doors. His cry of "Doomed!" serves to cement in my mind the impression of theatricality.
'Cement.' That could be seen as humorous, coming from a mineral-based being such as myself. I'll have to remember it for future use.
Here and now, however, I continue my clandestine observations as Sandbar sighs from the other side of my table. "We haven't even started yet, y'know."
"Ha!" Springing into the air, Gallus spreads his feathers and paws so that he resembles the spherical flowers that sprout from the crocodahlia, one of the several indigenous Everfree species I've been studying since gaining my new vantage point above the area. "It started when Tree gave us that test under the school before Cozy Glow went crazy! 'Cause that's when I saw how fierce and funny and strong and soft and perfect Silver really is! She's like...like nothing in my whole world ever has been, and like nothing in my whole world is ever gonna be!" He's spinning, a pinwheel of blue and gold, a whirlwind rather than any sort of creature.
Along with humor, I've lately grown quite fond of analogies.
"And that?" Gallus swirls to a halt, and he's so near the ceiling that I can feel the bristly tips of his crest feathers brush my crystal. "That's why I'm doomed!" Wilting like one of the aforementioned crocodahlia blossoms, he tumbles once more to the floor.
Still, since my friends have spoken my name aloud, it would be impolite for me to remain aloof. Manifesting my mobile form, I step from the wall, point my pony-shaped face at them, and smile. "I trust that, despite appearances, all is in fact well?"
"Huh?" Sandbar turns to my mobile and blinks before returning the smile. "Oh, hey, Tree. Yeah, we're fine. How're you?"
"Excuse me?" Gallus has one arm draped across his face. "We're not fine. We're doomed. Or at least I'm doomed."
My belief that I've correctly interpreted the current set of circumstances falters, but I'm able to rally. After all, I've often found that when organics can't agree among themselves, it's because the situation is ongoing or in flux. Decisions have yet to be made, and nothing, as they say, has been set in stone.
I enjoy that expression a great deal. Almost as much as I enjoy helping my friends...
A stirring among my older, colder, more crystalline parts, however, tempers my enjoyment. These are the deepest parts of me: not just the roots that stretch down into the bedrock of the cave where I was first planted, but my sapwood and heartwood as well, if I might employ another analogy. These are the parts of me that cling most tenaciously to the memories of my shattering, the fiery destruction rained down upon me by that arch-fiend Sombra, the physical death that necessitated my reaching out to my friends and resulted in my eventual reconstruction.
In the aftermath of those events, these stodgier parts of me have begun steadily counseling a turning inward, a more constrained lifestyle, and less interaction with flighty, ephemeral, organic beings. Be still, these parts of me murmur in low, thrumming tones. Be still. Their concerns have kept my roots from extending back to the school as they once did, have in fact separated me from the castle and map that I created specifically to continue my growth into the larger world, to move from mere sentience to true sapience, to help establish the harmony that throbs at my central core and—
Be still. The message wafts from my depths like dust. Be still.
Refusing, I focus my attention externally upon Gallus and Sandbar once more. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance," I say aloud, not framing my utterance as a question. This, I feel, will make it more difficult for them to refuse, for how can they deny my request if I've not actually made a request?
Sandbar rubs his chin. "I dunno, Tree. Gallus just has cold hooves is all."
"Hello?" Lying on his back, Gallus waves all four of his legs in the air. "Paws and claws over here."
I watch Sandbar roll his eyes. This tells me that their words contain more than their denotative meaning. But I've learned that I can get them to explain their actual meaning if I frame a statement that hinges upon the literal and therefore incorrect meaning. All of which reasoning leads me to ask, "Shall I adjust the ambient temperature?"
Gallus groans again. "That's not—"
"He's scared," Sandbar says.
"Hey!" Leaping once more into the air, Gallus crooks a talon at Sandbar. "I'm not scared!" Folding his wings, he falls back into a heap upon my floor. "I'm terrified!"
I look from one to the other, the interplay of their motions and emotions as always stirring me in ways that nothing else has in the nearly dozen centuries of my existence. Getting to know these young creatures continues to intrigue to such an extent that I might very well call it the defining experience of my life!
"The school's Amity Ball is in two weeks," Sandbar is saying, "and Gallus wants to ask Silverstream to go with him."
"Which is impossible!" For the third time since they arrived and climbed my stairs to this back room, Gallus bursts into a hover. "Im! Poss! Ible! I can't just ask her! Not me! And besides, that's not something that ever actually happens! Not in real life!"
"Uhh..." Sandbar points a hoof over his shoulder. "I asked Yona to the dance last year."
"Well, duh!" Gallus glares at Sandbar, but I sense surges of shame and fear curdling the air around him rather than the anger I might've expected from the tone of his voice. "You're a pony! The world's designed for you! You make the grass grow, you make the rain fall, you make the freaking sun and moon move!"
Sandbar's eyes have gotten even wider than usual. "I do?"
Gallus smacks himself in the face. "Not you you! You ponies!" He whirls toward me. "Who planted you, Tree? Way back at the beginning of whatever?"
Had I a heart, it would be racing. This free-flowing exchange has been the goal I sought ever since I first began interacting with organics back when there were so much fewer of them!
'So much fewer'? That can't be right!
I'm flustered! It's wonderful!
"The Pillars of Equestria planted me!" I announce, though I notice at once that my voice sounds no different than it usually does. Proper inflection continues to hold a place near the top of my list of personal improvements.
"See? Ponies!" Gallus drops so firmly to my floor that I'm hard-pressed to muffle the delicious shiver that wants to rattle me from roots to crown. "You can ask the girl of your dreams to the dance and spend the year cuddling her and snuggling her and whatevering her 'cause you're a pony!"
He leans into the edge of the table, his warm and roughly soft feathers provoking me to muffle another shiver, and begins to tap a foreclaw against my surface, one tap for each name as he says it. "Princess Twilight, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, Princess Flurry Heart, Shining Armor, Starswirl the Bearded, the other Pillars, our former professors, even Tree here! The most powerful creatures in the world are all ponies—or, y'know, identify as ponies—except for Discord, King Thorax, and Queen Novo."
His limbs spread, he falls backwards, and all the willpower in the world is unable to keep my entire complex from quivering when he hits. "And Queen Novo, bringing us back to the point, is Silverstream's aunt! Which means Silver's some kinda princess or something! While me, I'm..." His voice drops to a whisper. "I'm nothing."
Into the silence that follows, Sandbar says just as quietly, "Whoa."
"Yeah." One arm over his face again, Gallus raises the other arm and flicks his claws. "So, you were gonna tell me why it wasn't impossible, why I'm not doomed, why I shouldn't just crawl back to Griffonstone and accept the way the world works, right?"
Sandbar merely blinks.
So I step forward, deliberately ignoring my own cold hooves by going into motion. "The obvious answer, Gallus, will have you asking me to the Amity Ball." And for the reasons stated earlier, I once more don't frame the idea as a question. Not to them, and most certainly not to my deeper self.
An even thicker sort of silence falls over us, the two of them staring at me as if they don't regularly converse with a flex of lavender harmony magic made to look like the new ruling princess of Equestria. Simultaneously, my colder, older, more crystalline parts gape in sluggish wonder, their questions beginning to thrum at certain of my innermost frequencies.
But I'm in no mood to explain myself to myself! I'm busy! I'm alive! I'm interacting!
"My plan," I say, spinning it into being even as the words describing it chime from my virtual larynx, "will require next to no subterfuge from any of us and will therefore be almost immune to error." I conjure up a holographic image that includes us three as well as the four absent members of our friend group. "You will go to the others and explain that you were discussing the Amity Ball in general terms while relaxing here among my rooms. I became interested, expressed a desire to attend, and provided a means by which I could do so."
The merest sliver of my concentration causes six objects to secrete from my walls and float there before us: six stones of appropriate hues set in necklaces of blue crystal. They're not the Elements of Harmony, of course—I doubt I could recreate those items even if I wished to. No, these are new objects, different and shiny with potential.
"You six," I continue, moving Gallus's image to the darker of the two blue gems, Sandbar's to the green one, and the other four to the colors associated with them, "will come here before the ball and will each don one of these neckpieces. The resonance they create will allow me to manifest my mobile self"—I touch my translucent hoof to my equally translucent chest—"within your company, and when you move from here to the site of the ball itself, I'll be able to accompany you." I cause the small image of my pony form to appear within the circle I've created from the other images.
"Tree!" Sandbar's smile bursts not just from his lips but from his wide eyes, his perked ears, the stretch of his spine, and the bend of his knees as he gives a little hop. "That'd be so great! You can meet Headmare Starlight and Vice Headmare Sunburst and Councilor Trixie and—"
"Yeah!" The enthusiasm of Gallus's response seems more than a bit artificial. "Not to mention all the flowers you won't be able to sniff and food you won't be able to eat! Oh, and one other little problem." His entire physiognomy darkens, and he waves his claws. "How is any of this s'pposed to help me ask Silverstream to the dance?"
Sandbar blinks some more. "Oh. Right." He turns once more to me. "You have any ideas for that, Tree?"
"Several," I reply, gesturing toward the parade of images I've created. "We will all, for instance, need to be in somewhat close proximity for the resonance to remain in effect. This will disallow Gallus and Silverstream from getting too far apart during the festivities." Concentrating, I manage to wink one of my mobile's eyes at Gallus instead of blinking them both. "Should you care to offer her a cup of refreshment or engage her in chatting or dancing or any other suitable social interaction."
For the first time since entering me, Gallus's crest feathers perk the way they ought to. "So...Silverstream and I could go to the dance together, and she wouldn't even have to know about it!" He breaks into a smile that I think might very well show every one of his teeth. "Tree, you're a genius!"
His praise causes a feeling of lightness throughout me. To employ yet another analogy, it's as if bubbles have begun to rise within my assorted structures, but only in a positive sense. Actual bubbles would destabilize me in ways that would likely be dangerous both to myself and to whatever of my friends might be enjoying my accommodations at the time.
Such is the beauty of analogies, I find. They allow me to pick the parts I want to use in my comparisons while discarding the rest.
"Umm..." Sandbar says, and were I not a multi-ton crystalline entity, I must admit, his voice would've startled me sideways: I'd forgotten he was in the room with us. "I mean, this is a great idea, Tree, and it'll be great being a part of it, but..." He shrugs. "It doesn't really solve the problem, y'know?"
"Hey." Gallus flicks his foreclaws. "It gets me and Silver to the dance at the same time without me having to ask her. If there's another problem, I don't wanna hear about it."
Sandbar's forehead remains wrinkled, but he doesn't speak.
Which is fortunate since it means I don't have to talk over him or interrupt him, something that friends, I've observed many times, try not to do to one another. "Please let the others know." I nod my mobile's head, more of the positive-bubble feeling effervescing throughout every wall, floor, and ceiling of my structure. "If we have two weeks, perhaps we can also meet here in a few days for some sort of rehearsals. So we can enter the affair with a certain showiness." I try to wink at Gallus with my other eye, but observing my mobile from the walls, I see myself blink instead.
There's always more to practice.
"Yes!" Gallus has taken to the air in a much sprightlier fashion than he has at any previous point this evening. "We'll tell the girls, they'll love it, and we can all spend more time together helping you get ready!" He does a flip, and I have to fight the urge to join him: as the eldest among my friends, I feel an obligation to maintain a certain dignity. "This is gonna be so incredibly great!" he crows.