//------------------------------//
// Chapter 34: Mature Choices 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies 
// by The Guy Who Writes 
//------------------------------//

Three weeks ago, Memory had informed Silver about a recent wrongdoing.

Silver agreed that it was indeed a moral failing, and resolved to pay closer attention next time. He was relieved that he finally had this sort of advice again, and said he would apologise when he got the chance.

Unfortunately, he had not sought out his apology target immediately, for reasons that he could now see were rationalisations. There were more important problems to solve, more important things to do, it was never the right time...

He'd just been putting it off, and now it would be worse. You'd think he'd have learned this after Neville. But in that case, he'd been given the opportunity to apologise the very next day on a silver platter. He hadn't been given the opportunity to procrastinate.

And so, in addition to his resolution to apologise, which he was about to do, he also resolved to not put off future apologies. That still didn't feel sufficient, so he resolved to ask himself if there were any current apologies he still needed to make, and that did feel sufficient, but by that point he'd located his target and he had to focus his attention on the task at hand.

He approached the green dragon he'd inadvertently humiliated on Hearth's Warming with...

"Spike? Could you send these three documents to Princess Celestia?"

"No."

"Not even for a pile of gems?" An expensive pouch of gems.

Spike looked at the open pouch. It wasn't space charmed, so the contents were clearly visible. Spike began drooling.

"This is an apology, by the way. I didn't mean to ruin your show."

Spike stared at him, his gaze no longer gobbling the gems. "Why?" he asked. There was a tremble in his voice. "It was my show. Why did you make it your show?" 

"I... I was trying to teach skepticism," Silver answered, his own voice almost catching, the emotions suddenly realer now that he was in the moment.

It had been a while since Silver felt guilt so directly. It had been a while since he'd felt anything so strongly. Even though it was by any metric an extremely minor affair. When a cute child asked why you'd done something that hurt them and you knew it was true, it hit hard no matter what it was about.

"But Memory said afterwards that it was mean to you, and she was right." He paused. "There's... a part of me that wants to argue that the adults were entertained by what I did, and the colts and fillies enjoyed it more when I stepped in, and that's what should matter most to an entertainer... but that's all just excuses. The truth is that I figured out how the tricks worked, and I felt the need to speak up when the audience asked how you were doing it, not because I knew everypony would enjoy the show even more if I pointed it out."

"You mean... they still liked it?" the young dragon asked. "They still liked my magic show?"

"Of course," said Silver. "Didn't you see their faces? Some of them are even more interested in magic shows now. But I know it's not easy to think that way, and I know it felt like I was showing you up, and I was. So I wanted to say I'm sorry."

The three documents, one of which was a letter, were sent some time later, after a long and slightly painful conversation that ended with a happy dragon and a relieved pegasu- er, alicorn.







The first actual day of school did not involve laps or magical scans or laughing idiots like the last time. It had a surprising amount of academic achievement, actually. Silver felt like he was actually being intellectually challenged again, for the first time in seven months (not counting Mr. Tome's lessons). Memory probably would have been fine with rehashing old material. She'd be happy so long as she could help others with their homework and get perfect test scores herself, but Silver needed the difficulty or it wasn't interesting.

His math exam put him firmly in Calculus class, the highest available course in the subject, and his Science scores gave him the choice between Physics, Biology, and Psychology. He coordinated with Memory so they could choose the same class, and she insisted on Psychology. Silver, after a bit of thought, decided that he could refine his physics and biology knowledge later. Pony psychology might be significantly different from what he knew, so it might be a novel education.

Social Studies was more or less the same as Cloudsdale, excepting the excellence. He wasn't surrounded by average colts and fillies anymore. He knew it was an ego trip to focus on the 'gifted' part of the school's title, but there is something to be said about schools that aren't required to teach everypony, that can be selective about who they accept. It might just be that it's his second day, but he hasn't seen any bullying yet, physical or verbal. He hasn't seen snoozing or distracted students. His teachers – all of them, not just the Social Studies teacher – seem to deeply care about their subjects. 

His magic class in particular was... intense. And dense. It covered all magic, from potions to charms to creatures to devices.

Every session lasted two hours.

At one class a day, five days a week, that's ten hours each week, over twice as much as any other subject.

And even then, it felt like a bunch of material was being compressed into too little time.

Perhaps this was because Night Light – who turned out to be Twilight's father – had decided to tutor him directly to catch him up to his peers, and the blue stallion was a taskmaster of a teacher. His demanding nature may or may not have been out of spite or resentment from their first meeting.

Silver's Inner Critic pointed out that two superintendents doing the same thing in a row is highly suspicious. That sort of thing doesn't happen in real life just for the sake of comedic effect, and Bayes Theorem gives priority to any hypothesis that can explain the outcome better than 'coincidence' or 'randomness'.

Hypothesis 1: There weren't any free teachers in either school and both superintendents were in good positions to do it themselves. They had the knowledge to tutor, the time to spare, and the motive to get the lagging geniuses up to speed. This was probably the answer.

Hypothesis 2: The mirror was controlling things for unguessable reasons. Maybe dense magic classes meant more power, which might lead to fulfilled wishes, or something like that.

Either way, Silver was going to give it his all. He suspected that much of the free time he'd been spending in the library, or in the hideout practicing, was now going to be spent on magic class homework.

He felt fatigued by the end of the day, but the thought of his impending plot perked him up and pushed him forward, straight to the door of the dueling room. Memory did not accompany him. She would be giving her slip separately, to give her a better chance at acceptance if things went south. 

Silver tried to enter the room in such a way that he didn't draw attention to himself. He had listened for the noises that an attention-grabbing duel would produce, then entered during what sounded like the climax of that duel. Eyes shouldn't be on the door.

Unfortunately, the duel was taking place directly in between the door and the pony in charge of dueling club, putting the stallion opposite the entrance and in the perfect position to spot Silver instantly. The adult immediately began walking to intercept him.

Well, guess this would happen right away then.

"You are not allowed in this room," were the first words that came from the stallion's mouth.

"Don't worry," said Silver. "I have my signed permission slip." He used unicorn magic to levitate the letter.

"No," said the teacher. "I mean that you are not allowed in this club. You must leave."

"Even with signed permission from Celestia herself?"

"I highly doubt the princess is your guardian. Now go. You are not allowed to join."

Silver tilted his head. He would have asked why, but he knew that wouldn't be the correct conversational tactic. Instead, he said, "Because I embarrassed you?"

"Because respect for the duel master is mandatory for all members," said the pony who had not earned Silver's respect, and seemed to be trying his hardest to prevent Silver from developing any. "You demonstrated that you cannot follow that rule."

"How was I disrespectful?" Silver asked in tones that sounded genuinely respectful. "I respected your skepticism as valid. You allowed me to prove my claim, so I did. Are you saying you aren't going to reciprocate by respecting the results?"

"What you did was not respectful in any way," said the pony. "Now leave."

It seemed the stallion wasn't in the mood to argue. Or, more accurately, he didn't seem to be the type of pony who argued at all. He imposed his will, plain and simple.

Silver sighed. When facing this personality type, the authoritarian – and not the reasonable kind like Professor McGonagall – the most reliable counter-strategy is...

Silver scratched his back left fetlock in a casual motion, subtly and silently activating a simple one-way communications enchantment. He then made as if to turn around and leave.

Less than a second later, a pony appeared in the room in a flash of teleportation.

"Is this still the dueling room?"

This pony was rather tall.

"Ah, I see that it is."

The entire club, including the teacher, was stunned stupid by this pony's appearance.

"Hello, Silver."

Some of them entered instinctive genuflects.

"Has Stern Horn received your permission slip yet?"

One of them went pale.

"No," said Silver. "He was just kicking me out of the room, actually. Something about me violating a rule back when he gave me the permission slip."

"Oh?" asked the ruler of Equestria, whose authority – in a school named after herself, no less – has gone unchallenged and unquestioned for centuries. "I'm sure it is just a misunderstanding."

She turned to face the 'duel master', who uses his authority to impose his will on others and thus could not complain when a higher authority comes knocking.

"The Stern Horn I remember would never expect a non-member to know all the rules within their first five minutes of stepping into the dueling room. Why, I still remember his first few days. How could I forget? Situations requiring my presence to mediate are always memorable."

The dueling master went even paler, though Celestia didn't elaborate on what he did, to the disappointment of both Silver's curious Ravenclaw and advantage-seeking Slytherin parts.

Celestia did give a censored version though. "Surely that ambitious, rambunctious pony would not expect a colt younger than he was, at the time, to be more mature than he'd been."

"No, that's exactly what he was expecting," said Silver. He wasn't about to let her kindness get in the way of the cold, hard truth. "He was dead serious. He wanted me out of the class, never to return. And it had nothing to do with maturity. At least, not mine."

"Are you certain?"

Silver nodded. "I said I could win fights, he didn't believe me, I asked if I could prove it, he said go ahead, I did, he was embarrassed by the results, and now he's trying to punish the insolent colt accordingly. Simple as that, really."

Celestia stared at him searchingly, as if she were looking for signs of dishonesty, then focused her full gaze on the stallion. "Is this true, Stern Horn?"

The dueling master's mouth flapped open and shut. He seemed about to say something multiple times, but nothing came out aside from conversational stutters. It sounded like he was trying to find something to say, anything to say, that could save face. Anything except the truth, of course. The thought of honesty didn't seem to occur to him at all.

Celestia turned to look at Silver again. "How, precisely, did you prove you could win fights?"

"I hit one of the best duelists with a pie. Then I hit him with a pie. Then I left, because avoiding retaliation is an important battle tactic."

There was a short silence in the room.

Celestia, when she spoke again, sounded abstracted. "And how did that prove anything?"

Silver shrugged. "I didn't move to accomplish it. Most real fights are won by surprise. In real battles, you don't telegraph your attacks and wait for your opponents to counterattack like you do in duels. There aren't any silly rules that prevent ambush. The faster you win, the faster you end the battle and the fewer soldiers you lose."

Celestia's face, insofar as he could read any of her extremely subtle facial expressions, grew colder, more distant, grimmer, and Silver remembered that she was a thousand years old, and had been involved in real wars.

He had been planning to go on for much longer, though now it seemed wiser to just wrap up his argument. "But since I was just trying to prove a point, I used pies instead of deadly weapons or crippling spells. Since they weren't blocked, it proved that I can win fights."

Again, that slight silence.

"Indeed it did," Celestia nodded. "He asked you to prove as much?"

"No, I asked if I could prove it when he said that I was mistaken."

"And he allowed you to try?"

Silver nodded.

Celestia turned back to the duel master. "Does that sound like the factual sequence of events, Stern Horn?"

The duel master, who still seemed like he couldn't bring himself to speak, only nodded.

"You see that you gave him permission to prove his abilities as he saw fit?"

Nod.

"And you believe it proves that Silver will not respect you when he joins, thus violating the rules of membership?"

Again, a nod, though he now had enough confidence to say, "Yes."

Now Celestia turned on him. "Do you believe you can bring yourself to follow that rule, Silver?"

"I didn't know it was a rule," shrugged Silver. "Now that I do, it depends."

"On what?"

"On him."

There was another brief silence, as two alicorns locked gazes.

"Could you explain?"

"Explain what?" asked Silver. "Could you ask that question precisely?"

"Please explain why your respect of the duel master depends on-" and Celestia cut herself short, eyes slightly widened as she realised she was asking a ridiculous question.

Silver grinned, showing Celestia that, yes, that was intentional. Then, using another trick he learned from Mr. Tome, he stayed silent.

"I see," Celestia said.

Unfortunately, most of the dueling club didn't seem to 'see' along with her.

Now Silver spoke.

"My respect of the duel master depends entirely on the actions of the duel master. My emotions are automatic. I can't make myself feel respectful. Either I do, or I don't, and respect is earned, not forced. The moment you have to demand my respect is the moment you've lost it. He could earn it back, but it's going to be a lot more difficult now. And just to put a finer point on it, you said he had problems with maturity in the past. Now, he might have overcome them, but a wise and ancient spellcaster once said that it's not time or age that matures a pony. It's experience. It's being put in grown-up situations. Most importantly, it's how a pony responds to those situations that matures them. If they respond like a grown-up would."

"Most situations are not so black and white," said Celestia. "Many ponies would disagree about what the 'grown-up' thing to do would be."

"Alright then. I wasn't going to ask this, but since you insist, do you think his response to being embarrassed was the 'grown-up' thing to do? Everypony has different opinions, like you said, so what's yours?"

"I have seen Stern Horn act with great maturity in the-"

"No," interrupted Silver, to the gaping shock of their audience. "That was a yes or no question, your majesty. In this specific circumstance, in his interactions with me, was his attempt to eject me from the room mature, or not? Yes or no, and if you try to evade the question, or distract from it, or add meliorating details, that means yes, you think he was acting immaturely."

There was a telling silence.

And then, "Yes. I think this one case is an example of immaturity."

"Whose?"

Another telling silence.

And a sigh. "Stern Horn's."

Silver nodded. This tactic is especially useful on honest ponies who are too kind for the good of others. "To answer your original question, I could pretend to be all deferential and submissive to Stern Horn, but if your sister were present, she'd call my behaviour extremely dishonest, and she'd be right. And that's not the same thing as respect anyway. So with all that said, do you think I could follow the rule that requires members to respect the duel master? Do you think I even should? Do you think the current members should follow the rule?"

Celestia seemed to search for what she wished to say, taking a few seconds to compose her reply.

"A single instance of immaturity does not determine a pony's destiny," she said gently. "If Stern Horn proves that he is capable of learning from his mistake, if he proves that he is humble enough to accept you into the club after you publicly humiliated him, and if he proves that he is capable of earning your respect, not merely demanding it, then I do believe you could follow the rule genuinely, and that others should as well. Even more than they do now."

"And you believe he could prove all those things?" Silver asked skeptically.

"Yes," said Celestia. "I always have faith that my little ponies will do the right thing in the end. Even if they make mistakes along the way." She turned to face Stern Horn. "You will learn from this and try to do better in the future, yes?"

He nodded. Very shakily. Very nervously. But he did nod.

She turned back to Silver. "Then I think this matter is settled. It is time we take our leave."

And Silver suddenly found himself standing in a different setting – what looked like a fancy sitting room – a result of Celestia's teleportation.







Earlier...

Dear Princess Celestia,

I know you're not my or Memory's guardian, but could you sign these documents, then send them back? And could you go to your school tomorrow so you can be there when I deliver it? Or just let me know when you're available, and I'll hold off on delivering mine until you can show up? I know you're busy with Day Court, and I'll understand if you refuse. I can always ask Twilight. But I thought I'd ask you first, on the off-chance you'd like something to break up the mundanity.

Full disclosure: The Dueling Club teacher might try to reject my permission slip, and that's part of the reason I'm asking you to come in pony. Please don't tip him off. I want to see how he'll behave absent outside pressure.

Sincerely,
Silver Wing/Life







He tried to control his breathing, but it was difficult.

"For the record," he said after drawing on his dark side's iron will. He spoke in a steady, calm voice. "Don't teleport me again without asking first. I am not one of your little ponies. Nopony owns me but me, and nopony speaks for me either. I'm my own little pony, thank you very much. And I don't care if I'm the only pony in Equestria who feels that way, though I know I'm not."

Celestia, smiling, said, "Well spoken. Though your words are a bit strange to hear. You did ask me sign a paper to mark me as your guardian just last night."

"Would you rather I signed it myself? That's what I wanted to do, but I can agree that almost all twelve-year-olds aren't mature enough for that sort of thing."

"I would rather Twilight have signed it. She is your guardian."

"You think she could have handled Stern Horn?"

"She would have..." Celestia began, but trailed off.

"She would have done her best," Silver agreed. "She would have gotten very emotionally invested. But I don't think she could have convinced him. I don't think anything would have, except your direct intervention. And that meant Day Court or... well, what we just did."

Celestia stared at Silver for a second. It was clear she was beginning to suspect something. "Do you read the newspaper?"

"Sometimes."

"Did you happen to read the recent articles covering Canterlot University's non-unicorn student?"

Silver grinned. "You could say that."

Celestia sighed. "I think that case has set a bad example for you. Day Court is not meant for affairs this..."

"Trivial?"

"Minor, yes."

"Well, even the biggest problems in the world can seem minor when you compare them to greater orders of magnitude. On the infinitesimally small speck known as the planet Equus, all the world's problems put together probably seem minor in the face of the heat death of the universe. But injustice, however minor, is still injustice. Also, my pattern-matching brain is suggesting that I would see many high-priority noble requests that are equally inane if I went to Day Court. Go ahead and deny it if it's untrue."

There was a slight pause in which no denial came. They're rare, but the people/ponies who speak as if they are always talking in Parseltongue are so relaxing to talk to. Constant skepticism and presumptions of dishonesty isn't easy. 

"Day Court is meant for minor requests," Silver concluded. "Same as major ones. Petty arguments have to be handled somewhere, same as grandiose arguments. The wealthy will take it to court, the middle class might take it to court, and the poor will just deal with it personally. Standard societal practices, really."

"I am surprised you speak of it so matter-of-factly. You are satisfied with that status quo?" 

"My satisfaction has nothing to do with the facts. And no, I'm not okay with it. If I didn't have a way to talk to you directly, if I was just some normal rambunctious colt, what options would I have other than submit to demonstrably stupid authority? Maybe I'd pull a prank on Stern Horn to get back at him. Or maybe I'd just forget dueling altogether and find a different outlet. Hopefully the army. But probably not. I'd probably get involved in something dangerous. That's the downside of telling ponies not to go to the proper authorities because their problems are too small. The upside is occasional independence; ponies can learn to work out their problems on their own. But that can easily lead to the pranking route. Or worse." Like what Mr. Tome does.

"So you are doing this for your fellow colts and fillies who do not have a voice?"

Silver opened his mouth, then paused. "You know what? I'm not going to fall prey to that rationalisation again. I was only explaining why I went to you directly, instead of waiting for it to eventually get to you. I did it for myself, nopony else. I'm not going on any crusades. I'm not even going to recommend you do something. It's very easy to do more harm than good when you try a top-down solution."

She smiled again. "Most ponies imagine what they would do if they were in my position. They do not imagine what they would not do. Most believe they could fix the world with a few well-intentioned actions."

"Because most ponies don't realise they're arrogant, and they don't understand economics or politics. For a lot of societal problems, there aren't any catch-all solutions. There is no miracle answer. There is no political panacea. There are only tradeoffs, and the art of politics is trying to find the best tradeoff for any given situation. Well, in theory. In practice, politics can easily devolve into corruption. But I do know that dictatorship is never the answer. Even if it's benevolent, a single pony will never know enough about the entire country to make all the right choices."

Her smile widened. "You should speak with my sister and her fool. They believe I am doing far too little."

"Your sister has a fool?"

"Indeed she does."

"Why is he giving her political advice? I thought fools were supposed to entertain."

"Or advise," Celestia sighed. She walked over to a couch and sat down. "He lives up to his title. He is an insufferable fool of a pony. Very intelligent. Very convincing. But wrong about everything. And openly deceptive. I do not know what value my sister sees in his words."

"He sounds like a sophist," said Silver. "Or maybe he's just good at playing the fool. Hearing wrong answers can sometimes make the right answer obvious in contrast. I'd have to meet him to deduce the level of his game."

Celestia seemed to pause in thought. "He dines in the palace each night. This is one of his off-nights... but that means he will dine early, before your bedtime. You could attend dinner as a royal guest and meet him, if Twilight allows you to- oh. Pardon me. Do you mind if I teleport us to the Ponyville library? We should not be speaking like this without her knowledge. It almost feels like I have foalnapped you."

"You have. And go ahead."

A flash of light.

A crash of books.

"Sorry, Spike," said Silver. He had appeared right in front of the book-bearing dragon who, blinded by the stack of books, walked right into him.

The books he'd dropped became encased in a white glow, then began returning themselves to the shelves.

"No prob," said the little lizard, looking relieved. "Sweet! Chores are done!" And he ran off to do who-knows-what. But not before opening the door to the basement lab and shouting, "Twilight! Silver's back from school! And the Princess came with him!"

After a delay of less than a second, Twilight appeared in the library's main room. "Princess Celestia!" She ran forward for a hug. "What are you doing here?" She broke the hug. "I hope nothing's wrong."

"Nothing at all. I simply wish to borrow your ward for the night."

"Um... why?"

"There is somepony I would like him to meet. I would also like to hear about his first true day at my school. And Memory's as well. We could even make it an outing. Just the four of us, until dinner is over. Unless you are busy?"

"Um... Princess Celestia... no, I'm not busy. And I do want to hear about his first day of classes... but... um..."

"But you do not like the dinners at my palace," Celestia sighed. "Yes, I remember. How about this. We stay together until dinner, then we part ways. Silver dines with me, and you dine with Memory. I send him home when he is done eating. Does that sound good?"

Twilight nodded furiously.

And then the questions began.