//------------------------------// // A Little Conscience is a Terrible Thing // Story: Dinky and the Sisterhooves // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// Twilight was definitely not Cheerilee. For one thing, Cheerilee tended to treat rules as things you could break, but which you’d feel guilty about breaking even if she never spotted you doing it, because she believed in you so much that you would naturally feel guilty on your own. Whereas Twilight treated rule-breaking as a physical impossibility. Cheerilee, for instance, would kindly remind foals that eating in the library was strictly forbidden, and give meaningful looks at any suspiciously stuffed cheeks and unexplained crumbs. The foals in question – and Dinky had served her time here – tended not to do it again. Upsetting someone as nice as Cheerilee was punishment enough. Twilight simply made them eat outside. Or, in this case, on the balcony. Golden Oak Library had a few small balconies here and there. Dinky didn’t mind eating on one. Derpy was a pegasus, after all: though a unicorn herself, Dinky had no fear of heights, and liked looking down on the rooftops and watching little ponies go about their fascinating lives, much as a codebreaker might relish a suitably fiendish code. Or like an artist-in-training might admire a masterpiece. One she hoped to match someday. Whilst Dinky waited at the little table, Twilight came out. Behind her, Spike balanced plates, cups, and the teapot on a large tray. It was so large he held it over his head and tottered slightly trying not to tilt it. “Sorry,” said Twilight. “Spike hasn’t been out shopping lately. All I’ve got are some leftover muffins.” “You’re saying sorry for that?” Dinky had to stop herself bouncing up and down just at the smell… “Spike baked them himself,” said Twilight as if apologizing for that too. The taste was not “Sugar Cube Corner scrumptious”, but at least they were recognizable muffiny goodness. Dinky took three, under her favourite Derpy logic that she was a “growing filly”. As soon as Spike put the tray down and turned away, though, she stopped chewing and swallowed hastily. “Isn’t Spike joining us?” she said. For a moment, both Twilight and Spike turned two sets of surprise on her. Then at each other. The possibility simply hadn’t occurred to either of them. “Well…” said Twilight, awkwardly. “There’s some chores I need to do?” said Spike, who himself wasn’t winning any prizes for poise or confidence. But Dinky knew how to play this game. “Will they still be there later?” “Er…” they both said. “Then they can wait, can’t they? Anyway,” she continued, winking at Spike repeatedly, “I might want to talk to the brave Sir Spike the Dragon about a key topic.” To his credit, Spike was quicker on the uptake. Twilight still looked lost: perhaps a huge and powerful intelligence meant she had difficulty changing direction, like a massive ship out at sea? “I wouldn’t mind trying my own muffins,” he said. Noticing Twilight again, he added, “Just to make sure I got them right. Then if anything went wrong, I can improve them for next time. You know, for when friends might come round?” The f-word stirred a bit of life into Twilight, but only to make her look back and forth with confused, brow-scrunching worry. She seemed to have difficulty adjusting to all this, as if she’d never thought it possible before and was trying to remember why. “I don’t know…” she said slowly. “I’ve already drawn up this week’s schedule, and if we delay anything…” Unexpected: Dinky had seen Spike in Canterlot before, and Twilight too, but now she thought about it, how often had she seen them at the same time? Doing the same thing? Even on those rare occasions when they’d been together, Spike usually seemed to be busy in the background. Oho, Dinky knew this game too. She folded her forelimbs tightly and fixed Twilight with Guilt-making Glare Number 35: You Adults Are Doing It Wrong edition. “You know, I thought you’d be better than this,” she said, trying to sound – for want of a less offensive word – peevish. This caught Twilight so hard she looked like she’d missed a step on the stairs: sudden freezing in an attempt not to fall down any further. “I’m sorry?” she said. “I have a friend,” continued Dinky, “called Odd Job. She gets given lots of chores too, because she’s so good at them – it’s in her name – and she never says no and she never puts herself out and she gets worried if someone tries to make her have any fun –” Dinky skewed her lips slightly at this. It had taken all her persuasive skills just to get Odd Job to visit Berry Punch’s last night. “– and now all that happens is that she’s miserable and she hates her sister.” “Oh?” Twilight glanced sidelong at Spike, as if worried he might start writing angry letters at her any second. “Er, her sister?” “Because she’s the one who gives her so many chores.” Dinky placed the words like a carefully collected set of aces. She waited a while to let Twilight stew in the implications, whilst on the side line Spike’s eager face cheered her on. At least until Twilight gave him another glance: then he quickly disguised it as polite interest and a raised eyebrow. First, the stick. Then – aha – the carrot. Dinky smiled sweetly. “I mean, they do love each other and everything. Deep down. But sometimes –” she tried to remember how Amethyst had put it once “– sometimes things that need to be said don’t get said, and things that need to be done don’t get done. It doesn’t have to be much. Just a little break every now and then.” Now Twilight was scanning her suspiciously. Although Dinky – used to reading others herself – made sure she could avoid being read if necessary. Her face was carefully laid out: Twilight got nothing but calm, sweet-smiled interest. Like so many adults before her, Twilight squirmed under the vague and guilty suspicion that – in some respects – the tiny, humble-looking little foal in front of them could outsmart them ten times over. “Well,” said Twilight, this time as if granting a big favour, “I suppose a few minutes couldn’t hurt… and I’d be happy to reschedule to accommodate for lost time –” “Don’t mind if I do!” Spike hopped up to the table and snatched up a couple of muffins before his one chance slipped away. “But not for long,” added Twilight sternly. “You’ve still got chores to do.” Dinky decided to cut her some slack. “Chores are important.” “Exactly.” Spike poured the tea for Twilight: he was in such a good mood that he hummed to himself while doing it, and he didn’t spill a drop. He slipped Dinky a cup of hot chocolate, on the basis that tea was a grown-up thing. Dinky drank it, on the basis that she’d tried tea once and hadn’t liked it nearly as much, and what was all the fuss about tea anyway? Adults could be so disappointing at times. Unexpectedly, Twilight said – after a sip – “I think I’ve heard about you, Dinky.” A little thrill fluttered in Dinky’s heart. She wondered if it had been good news or bad news. “Who from?” she asked. “As it happens, the mail mare who delivered my letters this morning. We… got to talking.” Dinky grinned a banana grin. Good news, definitely. She could imagine Twilight looking flustered under the flapping onslaught of good news. “She said her name was Derpy?” Twilight continued. “Do you know her, by any chance?” “Oh, we’re close,” said Dinky casually whilst a part of her rolled on the floor laughing its head off. “So I gathered.” “She’s my guardian angel,” said Dinky. Partly to wind up Twilight further as she tried to grasp this, and partly… mostly… entirely because it was true. “A winged angel delivering messages, huh?” To Dinky’s surprise, Twilight giggled at this. A joke of some kind? But where? Dinky resolved to look a couple of things up when she got home. “Well, she seemed very nice.” Twilight took another sip. “Overwhelmingly nice, in fact. Yes, definitely a pegasus with astonishingly high levels of niceness.” Dinky whipped out the question: “What did she say about me?” “Er… I’m sorry, but I don’t remember very much, to be honest. But it was all nice.” And Twilight blushed a lot, Dinky noticed. She liked seeing blushes in adults. There was something sweet and reassuring about them, as if their delicate hearts were trying to peek out through their cheeks. Dinky trusted blushes, and not only because she was so good at eliciting them. Beside her, Spike hissed. Hidden from view by Twilight drinking her cup, he made a beckoning gesture. Oh, right! The key! Slip it past and be none the wiser. Dinky took it out from behind her and levitated it over to his outstretched claw. Definitely not one of the nicer things she’d done, but no one said that… she wouldn’t… be… After a while, Spike made the beckoning gesture again. Dinky got the image of Derpy and Amethyst watching her again. Not meanly, just watching. Seeing what she was doing, right now. Spike frowned at her and beckoned harder. Sometimes, it was no fun having a conscience. At first, Dinky hesitated. She’d never seen Twilight angry before. She somehow imagined a magical explosion blasting her all the way to the moon, and Dinky only liked heights when they involved gentle wings or tranquil balconies. She shook her head to Spike, gave his panicky teeth a sorry shrug, and coughed in a very fake manner. “Erm, Twilight?” she said as if rehearsing the line ahead of time. “There’s… something I ought to show you.” “Yes?” said Twilight, nicely if a bit confusedly. Dinky held up the key without looking. She heard Twilight’s intake of breath. Felt the key taken sharply out of her grip. Winced at the words. “What? What are you doing with the library key? Spike –” No, that wasn’t right. Dinky spoke up, “It wasn’t his fault! It was all mine! No one else’s!” Spike froze in mid-flinch, Twilight in mid-remonstrate. Then the unicorn who had banished Nightmare Moon, who had rescued Princess Luna from a thousand-year-slumber, and who had invited Dinky herself to tea: she sat up smart and straight. “I’m listening,” said Judgement Herself. So this was it, Dinky thought. Sparky the Space Scout travels all over the world, finally confronts the Witch of Canterlot Caldera, and in the end she has nothing to fight with but the truth. Oh boy… this is going to hurt… Dinky tried to think brave adult thoughts whilst her small child body curled up. “I was playing pretend last night, and I wanted to go on an adventure, which meant I had to do something heroic.” A hum from Twilight. It could have been doubt. It could have been a “go on” gesture. “So… I pretended I was a hero – like one of those heroes who, um, steals fire from the alicorn elders, or something – so I thought, well, the library’s like a big fortress, and, um, you’re –” Dinky’s awkwardness burned on Twilight’s behalf “– kinda like a big, powerful alicorn, or a sorceress, or a witch, or a princess, or… anything like that, so I thought…” “You thought you’d break in and steal the key to the front door?” Dinky nodded. Without words, she was helpless. “And that’s all there is to it,” Dinky added on a sudden inspiration. “I thought I heard someone coming downstairs, so I slipped out with the key. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I was going to slip it back.” “And it never occurred to you that breaking into someone else’s home was illegal?” Dinky’s heart skipped a beat. Doing naughty things was one thing – they generally weren’t as bad as grown-ups made them out to be – but doing something illegal? Ponyville ponies treated each other’s homes almost as if they were their own. If Dinky had broken into – say – Golden Harvest’s farm… well, Golden Harvest would’ve been mad, yes, but she’d also want to know why, and they’d be allies, in a sense. There’d be a fuss, but Dinky could deal with fusses. A Canterlot pony like Twilight, though? Amethyst hadn’t talked about Canterlot much, but she’d made it clear they didn’t have the same flexible understanding that town ponies had out in the country. Break into a Canterlot pony’s home, and you’d get more than a fuss. You’d get the Royal Guard, and a cell, and possibly difficulty getting a job when you grew up. Dinky really wished her conscience hadn’t made her open her big mouth now. She risked getting pinned down by Twilight’s stern glare. Judgement didn’t even chew its lip while it decided her fate. “A witch?” said Twilight suddenly. Dinky could tell nothing from those pitiless eyes. “Huh?” “You said you pretended I was a witch. An alicorn or one of those other things, I could understand, but why a witch?” Part of Dinky thought: She’s fussing over details now? Another part thought: Oh gosh, why did I just call her a witch? And a third part thought: How much more trouble can I really get into? Compared with, say, how much trouble I’m already in? “Not a witch, exactly,” she said. “More like a Cunning Mare, really.” Twilight blinked in surprise. “You mean not like a stereotypical old crone with evil curses that’s all really the product of simple superstition,” said Twilight as though reciting from a book, “but like the well-versed herbalists and midwives and general caretakers of a small community – generally rural – that looks after them and protects them from evil forces?” Now it was Dinky’s turn to blink in surprise. “Yes!” she yelped in relief. “Exactly like that!” Between them, Spike shook his head. “I didn’t get a word of that. Exactly like what now?” “You know about that distinction?” said Twilight, still giving nothing away. Thinking ahead, Dinky threw in her defence: “We only meant ‘witch’ because we were pretending you were bad. It was just pretence to make it more exciting. You’re more a Cunning Mare any day of the week –” “You said ‘we’ that time.” Not thinking far enough ahead, Dinky and her tongue stumbled. “Eh?” “‘We’ only meant witch. ‘We’ were pretending. I do have ears, you know.” “Er… er… slip of the tongue. ‘I’. I meant ‘I’, of course.” “Dinky…?” That tone. Amethyst used that tone when she knew Dinky was getting creative with the truth. Twilight had only known her a few minutes, and already she’d figured out what it had taken Amethyst a lifetime to master. Dinky gulped. “Maybe…” she mumbled, “there was… more than one… of us. But it was mostly my idea! And I stole the key! And they didn’t want to do any of it anyway!” Being something of an imp and a liar, Dinky did have a moral code of sorts. She’d cause trouble and get into trouble, fair enough, but only on her own terms. Throwing others into the pit, though, was taking their choices away from them. If they wanted to get involved or own up, that was their business. Taking away what was never hers in the first place: that was definitely what even Dinky would call Dead Wrong. Dinky threw herself on Twilight’s mercy, knocking her cup over. “Please don’t blame them! They didn’t know any better! I’m the one you want! I thought up the whole thing!” Twilight’s face softened, but only slightly. “So you assure me this was all your responsibility?” “Would this face lie?” Dinky rethought that statement. “Right now, I mean?” “You mean you have a golden opportunity to blame someone else, and instead you want to take all the blame for yourself?” “Er…” When you put it that way, Dinky thought… “Yes?” Twilight glanced at Spike, whose clawed fingers were trying to knot themselves, and then raised an eyebrow at Dinky. Dinky’s face pleaded as hard as she could. Then Twilight did the best thing possible: she smiled her delightful little smile. True, it was a smile tinged with smugness, possibly intellectual – the worst kind of smug – but Judgement had passed over it a while back and left the rest of the case up to that smile. “Well, well,” said Twilight, voice exactly as happy and tinged with smugness as her smile, “looks like the intel I got from Derpy was exactly right.” Dinky settled back down and righted her cup. She didn’t know whether to smile or not. “I really didn’t mean anything by it,” she said. “You’re just so new in town. It caught our attention.” Twilight peered into her tea thoughtfully, either at this or at something else on her mind. “New in town,” she murmured, just on the edge of Dinky’s keen hearing. “Yes…” Dinky couldn’t stand the wait any longer. “Am I gonna be punished for this?” This seemed to wake up Twilight; she jolted as if from sleep and folded her forelimbs sternly. “For the time being, I think you owe me an explanation as a first step.” “I’ll get another cup, Dinky!” Spike snatched up the spilled cup, and Dinky noticed the spillage all over the table. Spike himself couldn’t disappear fast enough. More softly, Twilight added, “You mentioned playing pretend? With your friends?” Odd: was there a hint of desperation in the voice? Dinky decided to play along, on the grounds that anything was better than being punished. “Oh, we do it all the time,” said Dinky breezily. “Applejack once chased me all the way around Sweet Apple Acres because I kept diving into her apple buckets. I was pretending they were portals to other universes where everything’s different, like there was one universe where everyone was a pegasus, and another where everyone swapped ages with their brothers and sisters –” “Alternative universes, you mean?” “Yeah! And this other time, Cloudkicker let me have some books about witchcraft, so we pretended I was a Cunning Mare wrongly accused of being a witch, just like Granny Smith was fifty years ago when those out-of-towners showed up –” “Historical recreation?” Dinky wondered why she kept being interrupted, but enthusiasm ploughed on regardless. “That’s right. And then there was the time I pretended I was an atom. My sister Ammy was trying to get me to understand geology – well, more physics if it’s about atoms I guess, but it was all about rocks eventually – so I pretended I was an oxygen atom stuck in a bit of quartz and waiting for the Acid Fairy to set me free so I could fly around the sky like a pegasus –” Twilight sighed sadly. “Scientific thought experiments.” Odder still: if anything, Twilight looked more and more miserable – and slumped more and more over the table like an oozing puddle – the more Dinky seemed delighted. It was enough to bring the speeches crashing to a halt. “Did I say the wrong thing?” said Dinky, growing concerned. “I’m sorry if I did.” Twilight shocked herself upright again. “No, not at all! It sounds great.” More warmly, she added, “You must have so much fun with your friends.” “All the time.” Something seemed to be nagging at Twilight, though. She kept shuffling her hooves around her cup and looking around for some evasive fly. “So, you’ve… been friends long? You and your friends, I mean.” “Ages,” said Dinky without thinking. Her thoughts came a little late, but were pretty emphatic and finally got themselves said: “I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends here in Ponyville too, Miss Twilight Sparkle. You’d like Cloudkicker. She reads lots of books too, but mostly about witches. She’s obsessed with them.” Under the common Ponyville ethos that a secret shared with one was a secret shared by all, she added, “I think she wanted to be born a unicorn, to tell you the truth, only she’s stuck as a pegasus, so she has to make do with all the books.” “That’s very unusual,” said Twilight, more to make polite talk than because she seemed all that engaged. “But not uncommon, now I think about it. Ponies sometimes feel like they should have been born into another tribe rather than into the one they were.” “And she likes reading,” emphasized Dinky. “About magic?” “Mostly about witches, but magic too. She’d like a spell to stop her face going funny sometimes.” Twilight gave her a funny look herself, though not the kind Cloudkicker suffered from. It then occurred to Dinky that Twilight had not once made a comment about Derpy’s funny face too. Or more specifically her funny eyes. Actually quite shocking when she thought about it: so many ponies met Derpy and then described her later as “the one with the funny eyes” or “the strabismus pony, I think” or “the mail mare with the look problem”. Twilight hadn’t. In Dinky’s heart, Twilight won a very generous medal. Where before she’d been jittery, Twilight seemed to solidify. “I’m sure I will make new friends here, but I was thinking more about… old friends.” “Uh huh?” Dinky leaned forwards. Who in the whole wide world had been lucky enough to make friends with someone like Twilight? Maybe there were more powerful unicorns in Canterlot. Maybe Dinky herself might already know them without realizing it! Then Twilight did such a typical grown-up thing: she changed the subject. “So, you like playing pretend? Was it – I mean, is it all that fun?” Which jogged Dinky’s hitherto guilt-free memory until the guilt flooded back in. “Aren’t you still going to punish me for that?” A few emotions consulted hastily on Twilight’s face before jumping to the correct PR statement. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t break into my home again, but so long as you’ve learned your lesson –” “Oh, I have, I have! Sisterhooves honour!” “Then I suppose I can let you off with a warning this time.” Twilight frowned. “Sisterhooves? Honour?” At which point, Spike hurried back and tugged at Twilight’s elbow. “We got another one.” “Another what, Spike?” “There’s a foal who wants to see you. She was knocking on the door. She’s got treats!” Spike’s eyes lit up at the prospect of more food for his brave new breaktime. Puzzled, Dinky got up and walked to the edge of the balcony, the better to catch a peek at the tiny little cart and the tiny little pony yoked to it. Just like she was yoked to chores all her life. “You know her?” said Twilight from the table. Dinky nodded. “It’s Odd Job.” “Tell her thanks for the treats, Spike, but I’m kind of in the middle of –” Was Twilight so forgetful already, or just stupidly careless? Dinky rounded on her. “Oh, let her come in, Miss Twilight Sparkle. She’s just trying to welcome you.” Twilight frowned harder than diamond. “Please, I said call me Twilight. And how do you know?” “That’s how she and Golden Harvest always work. They wait until the rest of Ponyville has made a big fuss over the new pony, then they go out and quietly say hello. I have been here longer than you,” she added fiercely. Such was Dinky’s ferocity that even Twilight backed down, literally. “All right,” she said, much more gently than before. “Spike, ask her to come to the balcony, please.” “My treat!” Spike drooled a little as he hurried off. “You know,” said Dinky while the fierceness sloshed around her common sense, “you’re not going to make many friends like that.” It had been a childish and cruel thing to say, and Dinky didn’t enjoy much dark satisfaction seeing Twilight wilt a little. But unlike the Apples of Sweet Apple Acres – who were big ponies in the community, and who always greeted guests first and most loudly – Golden Harvest and Odd Job had a scrape of land just fit enough for a field of carrots. They didn’t draw much attention to themselves, since they didn’t have much to pay attention to. Besides, Odd Job deserved better. Odd Job herself didn’t seem to think so. She came up behind Spike, balancing a tray of carrot cakes on her back, and she looked so out of place that Dinky tensed, ready to catch the tray should Odd Job suddenly flee. Awkwardly, Odd Job ducked down in a four-legged curtsey. The tray wobbled ominously. Something of the Canterlot graciousness tamed Twilight: she nodded out of traditional courtesy and said, “Hello, there. You must be the carrot farmer Dinky’s told me so much about. How can I help you?” Odd Job stared at the ground the whole time. She manipulated the tray so that she could offer it as a sacrifice, or hold it like a shield. “C-compliments,” she recited as if by cue card, “of G-Golden Harvest Hills. W-welcome to P-P-Ponyville. Ma’am. I – We, us, we, um, we wish you… uh… happy… I mean, good… we wish you good… um… we…” She gave up and raised the tray higher for emphasis. It shook so much the platters rattled. “Here,” she threw out the word. Spike’s drool pooled around his feet. Twilight hummed appreciatively. Even Dinky had to suppress a tingle as the smell of Golden Harvest’s finest carrot cake slipped through her nose and tempted her tongue to commit gluttony. “Ooh, that does look delicious,” said Twilight, who alone of the three had enough self-control to play the honourable host in the presence of fine cooking. “Thank you very much. If you could just place it on the table here –” Odd Job slammed the tray down in her haste, bowed hastily, stammered, “H-happy eating, M-M-Miss. Thank you. Goodbye,” and turned to rush towards the door. One thing Twilight could never be accused of, though, was of being a slow learner. She glanced from Odd Job to Spike and back – Dinky swore for a moment Twilight bit her lip in thought – and then she raised her voice to say, “Won’t you join us for tea? I’d love to get to know you better… Odd Job, was it?” Odd Job froze at the door, then spun round so fast she might have been whipped into doing it. Terror fought not to break free of her dull mask. “Erm,” she said, then curtseyed again for good measure, “I’ve got chores and things… erm…” “Oh, I dare say they’ll still be there later.” Twilight – rather unnecessarily – gave Dinky a wink. “Please, have some muffins. Spike can get you some hot chocolate, if… if that’s OK with him?” Spike saluted. “Sssiiirrr Spike! At your service, ma’am!” “Um, yes. Interestingly put, Spike.” Odd Job writhed in a humble little ball of agony. “I-I should… I don’t want to cause a fuss…” Well, Twilight had done well so far, but Dinky thought it best to step in. “Princess Twilight wishes for you to join in and have cake with her.” Right on cue, Odd Job’s ear twitched. “Princess?” “Princess?” repeated Twilight. Dinky held up a hoof to shush her, then continued, “And it’s not much of a welcome to a princess if you just rush off like that, now is it?” Shuffling forwards, Odd Job spared a guilty glance at the cake. “Well… if you put it that way…” “Here, have my chair.” Spike drew it up for her. Curtseying out of sheer nerves, Odd Job stood in place and let him push her gently up to the table. “But what about –?” Twilight began. “I’ll get another one. I needed to fetch the hot chocolate too. Want some?” Spike added to Odd Job, who blushed. “Um… yes, please.” “Be back in two shakes of an Orthros tail!” Out of the corner of his mouth, Spike whispered, “One for each tail.” Then he was off at a waddle. “Muffin?” Twilight offered one. Odd Job had the stunned look of a lifelong peasant upon finding themselves in Their Highness’s castle, in the great feasting hall, surrounded by eager-to-serve courtiers and suddenly being asked by the King and Queen if she’d like another slice of white truffle and gold pizza. When she eventually accepted the muffin, she trembled so much it rained crumbs on the table. She remembered herself in time to mumble, “’Ank you.” “Dinky’s told me so much about you. You must work really hard down on the farm.” A little farmhoof pride spoke up: “Not s’ bad.” “I’d like to come visit someday. In fact, I’d like to get to know all the ponies in Ponyville a little better. Maybe you could help me with that?” Odd Job dropped the muffin, snatched it up seconds before it hit the balcony floor, and shuddered harder. OK, this had been fun enough. “You know she’s not really a princess, right?” said Dinky, sighing theatrically. Pride was a quick-acting tonic; Odd Job’s shaking stopped immediately. A suspicious eyebrow raised its hoof for the teacher. “She’s not?” said Odd Job. “I just studied under Celestia for a while,” said Twilight as if describing some part-time work at the mall. “In fact, I’m continuing my studies for her here in Ponyville. Not that it’s hard work, of course,” added Twilight as though horrified she’d said something offensive, “but I would like to join in with Ponyville more. With the hard work, I mean. Look, just think of me as another pony, if it makes you feel better. Would you like another muffin? You seem to be losing a lot of your current one.” “Yes!” yelped Odd Job through the splash of relief. “I will do that! Please!” The two unicorns watched her bury her face in the new muffin for safety. “Odd Job loves princesses,” said Dinky. Another blush behind the muffin; Dinky could be so cruel to her friends at times. “Oh?” Twilight gave a sidelong look to the blush. “That’s something we both have in common, then.” There was a groan and a thud down below. Frowning, Twilight got up and looked over the edge. Dinky didn’t need to: she recognized those groans, even from ground level. At the same time, Spike came rushing onto the balcony. “There’s a bunch of foals outside! I caught them whispering to each other when I went past the door!” “Eavesdropping on a princess, by any chance?” said Twilight drily. Dinky coughed behind her hoof. “They might be friends of mine.” Down below, Alula, Piña, and Apple Bloom giggled nervously.