Princess Twilight is pretty different from her human twin, you know.
Sure, they have the same voice and everything, and human Twi does look like the Princess if she hasn’t done her hair and doesn’t have her glasses on. But that’s where the similarities end.
Like, the moment she steps into my car in the empty school parking lot. She started yakking on about her whole dissertation on driving. She says to me, “You know, Sunset, I’ve completed a thorough study of the operation of motor vehicles in the human world. There is a surprising amount of material in the restricted section of the Canterlot Library regarding the subject. Hands should be placed on the steering wheel in what is referred to as a ‘ten-after-ten’ position, which corresponds to the position of a clock at ten minutes past ten. It is important to relax while driving, to not lock the elbows, and to relax the grip on the steering wheel. Now, as regards the ignition…”
Ugh. Did you know that parking within thirty feet of a municipal trash can is illegal on New Year’s Eve from 10:30pm to 11:59pm and is punishable by a fine of $30? Well, I know. And now you know it, ‘cause why have I gotta be the only one that suffered?
Sure, human Twi geeks out a ton, but she knows when to shut up. Her Highness Twilight was reciting a textbook in my car. The phone book would’ve been more exciting. I finally snapped and told her, “Twilight, you’re gonna be here for two weeks. I’d like for you start driving before then.”
You know, I had planned plenty of useful advice to give to Twilight. I had a rough time learning to drive. All horse girls do. The first time I stepped into a car, I spent a good thirty minutes figuring out how to grip the steering wheel with my opposable thumbs. And another hour trying to press the turn signal with my ring finger. You know, when I stress out, I go back into “pony mode” a lot. Like, my hands will clench into fists and I can’t pry my fingers open. And I drop to all fours. Or if I’m sitting, I get this urge to lift my feet and rest them on the seat.
But Her Royal Highness, she thinks she knows it all about cars. She thinks she doesn’t need my help. And it’s not even that I care if she doesn’t need my help. It’s like the way she looked at me.
“Okay, first step is…turn up the radio!” I blurted out. I always turn up the radio first thing when I drive. Explicit hip hop music started playing.
I don’t even listen to that kind of music. Fluttershy borrowed my car yesterday because hers was in the shop.
I laughed when I pictured the human Fluttershy I know jamming to that kind of music. Apparently the Fluttershy in Equestria is different, ‘cause Princess Twilight didn’t laugh.
I said sorry to the Princess and told her I misspoke. She just turned off the radio and gave me this silent look of disapproval. I kept telling her it was just a harmless mistake, and the most important thing is no one got killed.
Then, she started yakking on about distracted driving, number one cause of auto accidents, blah blah blah. “Such reckless behavior endangers the safety of yourself and others.”
I kinda wish I had killed her.
But because I care about friendship, I used those deep breathing techniques my therapist taught me and I said, “Again, I’m sorry, I was mistaken, Princess.”
It still hurts to say that word. Even after all those years.
“Sunset? Are you all right?”
I stopped frowning. I sighed.
Twilight was having a hard time lowering the parking brake. Her thumb kept cramping up when she tried to press the button. She looked up at me several times, sorta like asking for help. Oh, so now she asks for help!?
But she thought she was so smart ‘cause she memorized every word of the driving Wikipedia or whatever you call it—so I just buckled my seatbelt, crossed my legs, and let her fiddle with it. Trust me, she figured out pretty fast that books weren’t gonna help her.
It’s sorta like friendship. You can read all you want about it, but you gotta get your hands behind the wheel and do it yourself. Only then do you know what it’s really like.
You’d think Princess Friendly-Pants here would be an expert at that kind of thing.
Never have I been so terrified of a car moving at two miles per hour.
An argumentative driver doesn’t help, either.
“It’s a downslope,” the Princess insisted. “It is a matter of the laws of physics that I must be drifting towards the lamppost!”
Oh, man. And I just got a fresh paint job. Y’know, I should’ve asked human Applejack to teach her. She drives an old truck. That thing’s so banged up, driving it into a lamppost would probably make it look better.
“Quickly! Swerve!” I said to the Princess.
“What d’you mean ‘swerve’!?”
I tried to reach over and move the steering wheel for her, but my hands decided to bail out on me and go into pony mode. Gee, thanks a lot, hands.
Anyway, it felt like we were practically rocketing towards that solid pillar of concrete and steel.
“Stop! Stop! Why are you driving towards the lamppost AGAIN!” It wasn’t supposed to be a question.
But she still answered. “The gravitational pull, also taking into account the friction coefficient of rubber on asphalt, is causing—”
“Don’t argue with me and just STOP!”
And she just had to press the wrong pedal. I guess she had a 50-50 chance of guessing correctly, but since when has luck been on my side?
“KYAAA!”
“OOF!”
“Sunset? Are you hurt?” she quickly said.
After I recovered from my heart attack, I said, “Not anymore. And you?”
“No, not a scratch. At least the ‘Air Bags’ didn’t inflate,” she said.
Gosh. That sounds like one of those painfully optimistic things that Pinkie would say during a really horrible situation.
So then, the anger started coming. Or more like, it came. Like a bolt of lightning.
“RRRRRYAAAAAH!”
Twilight rolled down the windows. “Sunset stop screaming, you could’ve shattered the windshield!”
I rolled the windows back up before I yelled at her. “OH!? Really!? THAT’S what you’re worried about?”
“I know I haven’t exactly mastered the concept of driving, but I’m sure if I refresh my studies of the mechanisms of—”
“It! Doesn’t! MATTER! SO SHUT UP!”
There were three solid minutes of car silence. She tried to turn and look at me. I didn't look back at her. Eventually she stopped trying and she looked out the driver side window instead.
The parking lot was totally empty.
Twilight kind of let her head rest on the steering wheel—human heads are heavy if you’re not used to it, you know. Especially when you’ve got such a high center of gravity.
“I’m sorry, Sunset.”
I still didn’t feel like apologizing to her. I looked away and out the passenger side window. My side of the parking lot was empty too.
Princess Twilight, she started crying, muttering on about how she’s never ever gonna be able to drive—and that didn’t get to me, y’know. I had a hard time with driving, and sure, I cried a ton, but at least I was humble about it, you know. Just because she’s a Princess and has a PhD in “human driving,” she thinks she’ll be a better drivier.
And it’s not like I care if she cries or anything. I cry all the time. I cry when I see giant parakeet plushies at the store. I cry every Thursday when I go over to Flash Sentry’s house to watch K-drama.
That’s not what got to me. What finally got to me was…
…I heard her whinny.
Quietly. Almost a whisper. But the car doors were shut, so I could hear her. It was like a horse whinny. Except it doesn’t sound exactly a horse whinny, ‘cause the human vocal cords are different. Like in your mind you’re a pony, but when it comes out it’s the sound of a human.
I remember the last time I whinnied. It was five years ago. Just two days after I first arrived in the human world. I was still struggling being bipedal, and I couldn’t make it more than two blocks without looking like a really bad break dancer. So, I hailed a cab. I asked him to take me to this hotel I had looked up. And he took the highway—and we were up on this cliff with a steep dropoff, where you could see the Wondercolt River, and all the bridges, and the dark clouds hanging over the city. And these two-legged creatures and their moving metal boxes, everywhere, zipping past me right outside the window.
And I felt so frightened.
I turned to Twilight and I made a little whinny back. A little smirk crept up. Twilight looked up from the wheel, and she smirked too. She raised an eyebrow, almost like, “Did you just whinny, fellow horse-girl?” And I nodded my head. And in less than ten seconds she was starting to giggle.
Gosh, Pinkie Pie would be so proud of me.
And then we just sat in the car and started making weird horse noises with each other. It was the stupidest thing. But no one could hear us inside the car, and we both got a good laugh out of it.
“You miss being a pony?” Princess Twilight said after she stopped laughing at the weird “neigh/snort” noise I made.
“Not as much now. I used to, though.”
“You used to?”
“Yeah. Now not so much."
"I don't like driving," Twilight admitted.
"You know when I first started driving…I hated it too.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Hated it.” I’d always get this uncomfortable urge to look in the rear-view mirror. Even when the road was empty and there were no cars, I’d just keep looking, and looking. I don’t even know what I was looking for: worn asphalt perhaps? A squirrel that I might or might not have run over? Well, whatever it was I was looking for, I never found it.
Then, things changed. “After you came along, Twilight…and after I started making friends here…in the human world…I didn’t get those weird feelings anymore. I’d go on rides with my friends—my new human friends. And when I look in my rear-view mirror, now I see human Pinkie’s smiling face in the back seat. Or human Dash. Or human AJ. Or all three of them. And it makes me feel so good about driving. It makes me enjoy it. You understand what I’m saying?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. I guess she had one of her aha moments. “I do. I do understand. It’s friendship. You’re talking about friendship.”
Well what d’ya know, the Princess speaks in concise sentences that us mortals can understand!
I looked out the windshield, and at the dent in the bumper Twilight made by revving the gas pedal. “You feel like life is passing you by too fast?” I asked her.
“It’s not easy being Ruler of Equestria when you’ve gotta be the friend of thousands of creatures far and wide,” Twilight said.
She had bags under her eyes. I didn’t notice that—I guess alicorn aging doesn’t apply when you go through the portal.
She touched the steering wheel with her fist/hoof. Then she let go.
“Hey…it’s 1 o’clock,” I said. “What d’ya say we get lunch? I’ll drive. I’ll take you to the drive thru.”
“What’s a drive thru?”
There’s a vegan fast food shop a couple miles from school that offers drive-thru. You wouldn’t believe the look on pony Twilight’s face when she saw the steaming bag of fries come out through the little window.
We parked somewhere nearby and ate our food sitting on the hood of my car.
“How’s yours?”
Twilight got a potato croquette burger with arugula and radishes. “It’s the closest I could get to daisies and daffodils on my sandwich.”
“You know daffodils are toxic here in the human world?”
“Yeah, I knew that from my reading.”
"Unfortunately, I didn’t know that." The first time I arrived in the human world, I munched on a few that were growing in somebody’s garden. Gosh, even the rabbits gave me a weird look. I remember there was a young girl in the hospital bed next to me, and when I told her I was a unicorn in an alternate dimension, I practically made her day.
I still have her number. We text sometimes, and her parents invited me to her last birthday party.
Pony Twilight laughed at that story. She had already finished her burger—I guess she really liked it. She rested her heel on the dent in the car bumper.
“Oh…Sunset…I’m so so sorry about the dent in your car. I’d pay for you to get it fixed, but I don’t exactly have…useable money.”
You know? I looked at the Princess, holding her half-eaten burger, and I couldn’t get that image out of my head of her sitting behind the wheel…and whinnying.
I just told her, “Don’t worry, Twilight. It was worth it.” And I smiled.
Twilight nodded. “You’re talking about friendship.” She didn’t need to make it a question.
Twilight waited for me for five more minutes while I finished my sandwich. When it comes to opposable thumbs, apparently she’s got no problem using them for shoving burgers into her mouth.
We walked over to the trash can to throw away our bags, then we went back into the car.
“Well, just because you didn’t learn how to drive doesn’t mean we can't go somewhere together. Where in the human world d’you wanna go to, Twilight? The mall? The IKEA store? The roller-skating rink?” I asked.
“Erm…actually…I thought maybe we could just…talk. In the car.”
“Okay. Talk.”
Cue awkward car silence.
“So…how’s life in Equestria?”
Twilight nodded her head. “It’s okay. How about you?”
“It’s good.” I nodded my head too, except I think I was about to fall asleep.
“How did graduation go?” Twilight asked.
Car silence is the worst. Which is why I filled it up with a 30-second long “uhmmm…it was fun. We graduated last month, and…it’s good. Fun I guess.”
“Yeah, this is boring,” Twilight admitted.
“So…where d’you wanna go?”
“What d’ya say we go to human Applejack’s house and challenge her to an apple bobbing contest?” Twilight flexed her strong jaw muscles.
“I got a better idea. Let’s go to Flash Sentry’s place and watch K-drama with him.”
Twilight was already blushing. “W…what’s K-drama?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. We both know that it’s not the TV screen you’re gonna be staring at…” I gave her a little nudge, and we both laughed.
I fired up the engine, and we drove off together.