“Let’s see… I’ll take the strawberry fudge ripple shake, and whatever she wants.”
“Cherry vanilla swirl, please.”
Shining flashed Twilight a quick smile as the Sweet Snacks Café cashier rung them up and handed them a metal stand with the number 9 on it. Twilight picked it up and walked off toward the booths while Shining paid, before he too turned and headed for the seats.
It was a busy day at the diner, with Shining having to dodge past several waitresses carrying trays of shakes and sandwiches as he walked. A bit loud, too, with most tables having groups of three or more chatting together. He spotted Twilight, waiting at the edge of a seat facing him near the front of the building. It seemed as though she had been lucky enough to score a booth just as a server had finished wiping it down from its previous occupants, the surface of the table sparkling. Once they’d made eye contact, she shifted down into the middle of the right seat as Shining finished making his way over.
“Getting your old favorite, huh?” he asked, plopping down onto the left side and scooting directly opposite his sister. Thankfully, the tall green-cushioned seats formed just enough of a sound barrier that he didn’t have to shout.
Twilight nodded. “I mean, no reason not to, right? Can’t beat a classic!”
Shining laughed. “And here I thought you were Little Miss Try-New-Things Intrepid Discoverer lately.”
“Eh,” Twilight shrugged. “I think you might have me mixed up with Daring Do.”
“Fair enough.” He smiled. It was definitely nice seeing Twilight acting fairly chipper. Maybe it was helping that, having ditched the Crystal Prep uniform, she was switching to her summer outfits early; as much as she loved learning, she did always seem a bit happier in summer.
More strikingly, just days earlier, she’d traded the bun in her hair for a never-before-seen long ponytail. It worked on her, but it was certainly a jarring change.
All the more reason to be surprised at that little bit of consistency in milkshake flavor choice.
“Speaking of Daring Do,” he went on, “I’m guessing you already heard about the movie they’re making, right?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously. I’ve been following the production since back when it was in development hell at Warlander Bros. But now that it’s been moved to Mareamount, it seems like pre-production’s been going very smoothly, even accounting for A.K. Yearling’s frequent unexplained disappearances. Now, I can’t say I’ve liked every movie Canter Zoom has made—I wasn’t exactly the only one who didn’t like The Marvelous Adventures of Mare-do-Well—but he is coming off of The Good Witch Azura: The Journey Begins, which was really good, so I’m holding out hope that– what?”
Shining realized his smile must have mutated into a smirk. “Sorry. It’s just nice to see you so excited.”
“Oh,” Twilight said, face falling slightly. The sounds of dishes being plated in the kitchen became more noticeable in the localized silence.
Realizing his error, Shining quickly brought up a new topic. “So, how’s your first two weeks at CHS been?”
It quickly occurred to Shining that that particular topic might not help things at all, but fortunately it seemed to do the trick, as Twilight lit up once again. “Oh, they’ve been really good! Can you believe I’ve already had my second sleepover? It’s incredible!” She motioned to the cafe around them. “By the way, now that you mention it, Pinkie mentioned she’s applied for a summer job here for after our trip to Camp Everfree next week.”
Shining pondered for a moment. “Oh, the old CHS camp? I’m surprised that place is even still running these days, it sounds like they basically make the campers rebuild everything for them each visit.”
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“Eh,” Shining shrugged, deliberately copying Twilight’s mannerisms, which earned him a dirty look from his sister. “Just what I heard. Also, Pinkie is…”
“The pink-haired, really excitable one.” Twilight pulled out her phone and flipped to a picture of the girl in question. Shining leaned forward and got a good look.
“Ah, right.” He leaned back into his seat, straightening his posture. “The reason I’m still finding confetti in the passenger seat.”
“Hey, now.”
“I kid, I kid. I’m really happy you’ve made some real friends. Even if I’m still your BBBFF, right?”
Twilight laughed. “Obviously. And I’m happy too, definitely. I just, um…”
She paused. The sounds of chatter from the adjacent booths seemed to overwhelm her voice.
“I just wish…”
Her hands balled up tightly, and she turned her head away. That brightness he’d noted in her face had drained away in an instant.
“Um, I’m gonna go check on the shakes.” She scooted to the edge of the seat.
“What?” Shining asked. “They’re bringing them to us, that’s what the stand with the number is for.”
“I know tha– sorry, I meant I need to go to the bathroom, I guess.” She stood up and started to move away.
“Twily, wait!”
Against the general volume of the diner, with conversations at every table and the whirring sounds of blenders behind the counter, Shining’s voice wasn’t loud enough to catch anyone else’s ear. But it got Twilight to stop. She didn’t look back, however, nor did she reply. She just stood, gazing in the direction of the bathroom, as if she was trying to find the will to lock herself away inside it. Seeing her trembling, Shining quickly softened his tone.
“We don’t have to talk about whatever you’re afraid of, Twily.”
He could hear her inhale and exhale deeply. “How can we not?” She turned to face him. “I’m not an idiot, Shiny. I know why you wanted this time with me. And I get it.”
Her head drooped.
“If you’d turned into a monster, I’d want to know all about that, too.”
She softly stepped back and dropped onto the seat, legs over the side and facing outward into the cafe. For a few moments, they were silent.
Shining took a deep breath of his own. “Twilight,” he said, and the statement of her full first name seemed to catch her attention, her head lifting up. “On my honor, I didn’t bring you here to ask you about that.”
Twilight shifted her body fully into her seat to avoid a passing server, then slowly made eye contact with him.
“Not that I don’t care about it, because of course I do,” he went on, “but that’s for you to decide when and what you want to tell me. I know it sounds like it’s been hard, and I’d be pretty surprised if it was anything but. But what I wanted to tell you was, well, that I’m sorry.”
Twilight blinked. “Sorry for what?”
Another breath. “For not listening to you, at least not enough. I got too deep into having Crystal Prep as a pretty big part of my identity. I’d spent so long representing the school, touting it in university applications and resumes, and staying involved with it because of Cady, that I let it become too important. And I used it as a reason to keep thinking that everything was okay there, or would at least be okay for you in the end. And to not realize who Principal Cinch really was.
“I let her use me like a marionette, telling you that you should compete, that the school needed you, even though you didn’t want to go and the only one who cared was her. I even left you alone with her when she asked, and she used that time to threaten you… and in the end, all I did was become just another Crystal Prep bully who pushed you onto that field."
He leaned forward, meeting her eyes firmly as he said the words.
“I’m sorry, Twilight.”
He lowered his head and stared at the table, but could hear his sister shifting in her seat, scooching down directly opposite to Shining.
Then she broke the silence.
“Shining, it’s okay.”
He looked up, not sure exactly what expression he’d be greeted with, but still rather disconcerted with the fretfulness in Twilight’s eyes. He swallowed. “It’s not, though–”
“You didn’t know how bad it was for me. You couldn’t know. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone, even Mom and Dad, because… I needed to be at Crystal Prep. For all of you, and, I thought, for me.”
“Because I kept talking about how it’d been so good for me.”
“No–” Twilight clenched her fists again, then relaxed them. “Maybe? I don’t know… but that doesn’t make it your fault. Please, Shiny. Don’t act like you did this.”
“But I made it possible.” His sister started to open her mouth in reply, but he wasn’t done. “I could always sort of see that you weren’t happy at Crystal Prep, even though you wouldn’t say it, but I wouldn’t let myself think it could possibly be because of the school, or Cinch. I wanted to believe it was just a disconnect of some kind, that you’d find your place there, and that Cady would make sure everything was alright.” He sighed. “But as wonderful as Cady is, she’s just one person. She can’t be everywhere.
“Cinch was our principal, too, back when we were students. And we didn’t realize it back then, but she was favoring us a lot, because we got the school positive attention. We were both big into school sports and got good grades, and that made us her star students. Cinch loved us — or, really, loved being able to prop us up, whether at the Friendship Games or on brochures. So after we graduated, and after Cady became dean, we both just kept making excuses for her.”
He stopped and waited for just a moment as the door opened and a family of five walked past them. Then he inhaled.
“We were the model students who could be perfect representatives for the school, exactly the way she wanted us to. And neither of us really thought about how she’d react to a model student who wasn’t like that, who wasn't okay with being her puppet. Not until now. And that’s on me.”
Twilight waited a few moments, watching him as though trying to make absolute certain he’d finished.
He nodded to signal that he had.
“Okay,” she started. “I want you to just… listen. To everything, because I think I have a lot I want to say and I don’t want to lose track of it. So just, well, don’t interrupt. Please?”
Shining nodded again.
“Alright,” Twilight said. “So—”
“Order 9,” cut in a deep feminine voice to Shining’s left, jolting both of them as they quickly turned to see the server. “Which one of you is the cherry swirl?”
“Oh, um, that’d be me,” Twilight said, voice meek as her cheeks flushed with the interruption. The server handed her the glass with her shake, and she took an awkward sip through the straw.
The server set down Shining’s strawberry shake, and he watched as she took the metal stand with the order number and departed. He shifted his attention back to Twilight, then picked up his glass and held it. “Almost forgot about these,” he chuckled.
Twilight giggled. “Same.”
They both took a sip, Shining momentarily losing himself in the rich flavors dancing along his tongue. Divine stuff, like ambrosia from Mycemarean mythology. It’d been such a long time since he’d last been here; shakes hadn’t been worth the extra effort he’d have needed to keep his physique maintained during the college football season.
Clearly, absence made the heart grow fonder. And taste buds must have been an extension of the heart.
Twilight had been with him the last time he was here, he recalled. If it wasn’t while he was at Crystal Prep, it would have to have been just after graduating, and before she started there. Right as he was making it look like the greatest place in the world.
He swallowed and put the glass down. “Whenever you’re ready, Twily. I’m listening.”
Twilight took a long, slow sip, then set the glass down and nodded. “Okay.”
As she started, her fingers pinched her straw and began swirling it in circles.
“I don’t really want to talk about Crystal Prep all that much, because, well, you’re not really all that wrong, and I don’t want you to feel bad. But I was excited to go there because of seeing you there, and all your stories. And it started off nice, being in this big, special place that made you feel important just by being there. That first year, when Principal Cinch was so impressed with my science fair project that she gave me access to that independent research room… I understand what you mean about her, Shiny. When she likes you, it’s hard to notice anything bad about her.
“But then school went on, and everyone started getting more and more, well, teenager-y, I guess. I had a few classmates I’d talk to every now and then, even a birthday party invite once. But once everyone started getting older, I was just more and more the nerd, the weirdo loner. I didn’t want to be, but when everyone decided that’s what I was, I couldn’t escape. Especially not after people found out about my, um, crush.”
Shining remembered that. The one time prior to this month when their parents had been called for a discussion, after Twilight had been caught doodling another student — the most popular girl in school, even — in her notebook. A major faux pas at Crystal Prep, where social standing was crucial to determining who got to be in a relationship together.
“Fleur always made sure to elbow me extra hard in the hallways after that,” Twilight went on, letting go of the straw as she leaned forward onto the table. “And once I was an outcast, suddenly I wasn’t special to Cinch anymore, even with my grades. I think I only got to keep that research room because she forgot to make me give the keys back. It was awful, and I wanted to tell you and Mom and Dad, but…” She took another sip, momentarily holding up a finger, and Shining took the hint not to cut in. “But I couldn’t be the one who quit. I couldn’t be the one who gave up big special elite Crystal Prep and disappointed everyone.
“And I know that sounds like I’m blaming you and our parents, but I’m not. I’m blaming me. I decided that I should just take it, and get through it, because I didn’t trust any of you to believe me, or think that it mattered even if you did. And even when it finally happened, even after everything, I could still tell that Mom and Dad were disappointed, just a little. But they understood, and they’re not upset the way I was afraid they’d be. I never should have doubted any of you like that. It just made everything worse.”
This seemed like the moment where Twilight really should have paused. But she didn’t, even as servers and groups of customers walked right past their booth. He’d seen Twilight be this committed to saying everything on her mind before, but that was almost always for describing a scientific pursuit or other special interest of hers. Not anything like this.
“But instead of speaking up, I just tried to find escapes and distractions. And I found one of each. There was Everton, which could get me off-campus and away from everyone who hated me without having to say I abandoned Crystal Prep. And then there were the energy readings from CHS, which was something big I could do all on my own. And the hope and excitement I got from those made it easy enough to handle everything else that was happening.
“And then the Games happened. Cinch knew from my application that I wanted out, and she used it, and you and Dean Cadance. And suddenly I was on a team of people who were apathetic at best, genuinely despised me at worst, and then I get to the school and the device I made to collect energy samples starts going haywire, but I’m so distracted between the competition and these girls from CHS who start following me that I can’t take the time to inspect it or even store it somewhere else! And then more and more bad things happen and Cinch notices them happening and we both find out it’s actual literal magic that I’ve somehow been sucking away from those girls and now Spike can talk and then it’s the final event and…”
She finally took a deep breath, presumably being physically compelled to do so to prevent hypoxia. She rubbed her eye underneath her glasses as she took another sip of her shake, Shining doing the latter as well. Though his own drink suddenly wasn’t seeming very flavorful at all.
“I wish I was strong like you, Shiny. I wish I could’ve said no, I won’t do it. I wanted to. I knew I should have. After everything I’d seen by then, I never would have cracked that thing wide open myself, even in a lab; not without every precaution I could think of. But I was just so alone and desperate. Cinch had my one way out dangling over my head, reminding me how I’d be trapped at Crystal Prep if I didn’t obey, and it’d be worse than ever. So I gave in, tried to make myself believe I could do it and be okay, because taking the chance was worth preserving my only hope of escape.”
Twilight’s face crumbled.
“And then it wasn’t.”
Shining stood up immediately, almost knocking the shakes over in the process, and stepped out of his side of the booth and into hers, sitting right beside her. He wrapped an arm over her shoulders, and she leaned her head into his chest.
“It was so horrible. Like trying to see the world through broken glasses while your head is on fire, and hearing nothing but laughter, from what sounds like your own voice but it's not your voice at all, and all the while your thoughts are just being pulled from your brain and twisted into something sick and evil…”
She heaved against him, and Shining pulled her into a full hug.
“I’m scared, Shiny. I haven’t told anyone, not even my friends, but I still see her sometimes. In my dreams, she appears and I can’t do anything, because I’m weak and pathetic and can’t save myself—”
“Twily, look at me.”
He’d really tried to let her go without interruption as long as he could. But he’d reached his breaking point. And as her head tilted up and she met his eyes, he hoped he had the right words for her.
“You’re not weak.” He waited for the interjection, but it didn’t come. “I can’t imagine going through what you have, and something like that would shake anyone. Me included, no matter how strong you think I am. But it doesn’t make you weak. Neither does feeling trapped by someone like Cinch. Neither does not wanting to hurt people you love, however much I wish I’d made it clear you never should’ve felt that way. I don’t want you blaming yourself for that, any more than you want me to blame myself.”
He relaxed his arms, and she pulled back from the hug.
“But think about everything that’s happened since,” he went on. “You decided to leave. At Cady’s suggestion, yeah, but you still didn’t know how we were going to react. And now you’re finding yourself. New look, new attitude, new friends. Even if they initiated it, you’re the one keeping it going when you could’ve hidden away deeper. Two weeks after the worst day of your life, and yet here we are now, at a cafe like old times, and when we got here you were the happiest I’ve seen you in a long while. That’s strength.”
His sister took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes again. “I guess so.”
“You don’t need to guess. It’s true. Sometimes being strong can be as simple as being resilient in the face of something terrible. And that strength doesn’t always have to come from inside you. I don’t know these friends of yours very well, and I’ll admit I’m still getting used to the idea of CHS as a cool place, but I can already see how much of an impact they’ve made. How excited you were when I asked about them just now… that’s real.
“So if you see that thing in your dreams again, just know that you’re stronger than it. No matter how big and scary it is, you can tell it no, and you’ll have backup. That you’re not weak, you’re not alone, and… that I’m proud of you, sis.”
Slowly, Twilight nodded once more. “Thanks, Shiny.” She stifled a sniffle. “Thank you.”
She wrapped his arms around him once more, and Shining returned the gesture.
They sat like that for a good long minute as the stress slowly washed away from them both. Every now and then he looked toward the outside of the booth, informing passers-by with his eyes how little patience he’d have if anyone made fun of the sight. None did.
Eventually, Twilight withdrew, and Shining scooted to the edge of the seat and stood up. “Now, I’d love to keep chatting, but first, I have an appointment with a pretty melted milkshake.”
Twilight laughed, a wonderful sound. “Same.”
As Shining got back to his seat, they both took a big simultaneous sip, and got matching cases of brainfreeze.
“...it’s taken some getting used to. Turns out Mom and Dad definitely preferred when he couldn’t verbally explain why he didn’t want to eat dog food and also couldn’t insist on having whipped cream with every meal. But we’re adjusting. You should visit more, I’m sure he’d love to see you again.”
Shining laughed as he and Twilight exited Sweet Snacks and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Hopefully soon. I could barely carve out the time just to see you today. Once I drop you off, I gotta head straight to– what’s that?”
Twilight had stopped, and was holding out a finger just in front of her face. “It’s a ladybug.”
Cautiously, Shining stepped forward, trying to get a closer look without disturbing the red dot on Twilight’s index digit. “I remember when you used to be afraid of those.”
Twilight snorted. “Me? That was you, dummy! The only reason I ever didn’t like them was because of how much they made you jump!”
Knowing she was right didn’t stop Shining from smirking and putting on some faux-smugness. “Really, that was on you. You should know you’re only supposed to listen to me when I’m right, not when I’m wrong.”
He was met with some severely rolled eyes from his sister. “Lucky for you I was able to give you some exposure therapy. Imagine if the great Shining Armor was still afraid of bugs!”
“Well, when your little sis drags you on backyard bug hunts nearly every other day, I guess you learn to toughen up a bit.”
They giggled, then watched as the ladybug took off and zipped away.
Shining placed a hand on Twilight’s back. “I really hope all that helped in there, sis. I still feel like I owe you big time, but I’m glad you were able to tell me all of that. And if anything I said makes sense, then, I guess…”
“You don’t have to guess. It did.” She turned her head to him and smiled brightly. “Thanks, Shiny. I’m glad I’ve still got my BBBFF.”
“You’re welcome, Twily. I’m glad I’ve got a little sis that thinks I’m worthy of the honor.”
And in that moment, as they started their way home, things felt a little bit more right with the world.