Donut Joe walked in the back door of his cafe at three fifty five AM—five minutes before the start of his shift.
“Mornin’, boss. Quiet night. Only one customer. All-night study session.”
Joe smiled at his overnight employee. Vigil had practically been Celestia-sent; a bored royal guard retiree with intense insomnia. He loved the overnight shift at the donut shop.
Joe’s eyes wandered around the kitchen, to the almost military-like precision of the tool organization and cleanliness that Vigil habitually brought to his shop.
“All ready for ya, boss.”
“Thanks. Have a good morning. Get some sleep. I’ll go check on our all-nighter.”
“Good luck,” Vigil said with a smirk. “It's the existential crisis variety.”
“Oh boy,” Joe said with a laugh. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll get the morning’s batch in the oven then check on them.”
Vigil waved again then slipped out the back door, leaving Joe to start rolling out the dough. Honestly he really enjoyed the quiet work of the early morning.
Some ponies had Zen gardens. Some had sensory deprivation chambers. Joe had a floury kitchen at four thirty in the morning.
Once the first few dozen batches of Joe’s specialty were baking away to golden perfection in his ovens, he poked his head out of the kitchen to the front counter to start setting up the espresso machine. He didn’t usually get his first customers until five or five thirty, but with an all-nighter student in the place he figured he might want to get his coffee machine ready.
The student in question was asleep, collapsed in a drooling heap on top of an open textbook. Three more were stacked up next to it, and a chaotic array of scrawled notes covered the rest of the table. Her face was turned towards the counter, and Joe could practically see the stress lines. She was a pink unicorn, and her mane was in a devastating state of disarray. She was young, but still a little older than the typical student.
Joe chuckled and was about to go wake her up, but then he hesitated. With a little smirk he started up the coffee grinder.
His snoozing guest jerked at the noise, but didn’t wake. Joe went to work, steaming a small pitcher of milk, and pouring a double shot into the hot milk. Lifting the mug full of hot latte with his magic, he moved over to the table, and his only early-morning customer.
“Hey,” he said softly as he set the mug down on one of the few spots free of papers or study materials. He gently nudged her with a hoof. “Ya okay?”
The mare’s reaction was not what he expected. She was not a gentle waker. With a scream of panic, and a flare of her horn, she jerked her head up. Books and papers spasmed into the air in a frenzied display of panic telekinesis. Joe was barely able to get his own magic around the hot mug in time to prevent it from spilling in the chaos.
“OH CELESTIA WHAT TIME IS IT!?” she shrieked, bloodshot eyes darting every which way. Joe held up a hoof.
“Hey, hey, relax. Take a deep breath. It’s…”
He glanced at the clock over his register.
“Five forty.”
The mare blinked a few times as her brain caught up with reality.
“Five…forty? I still have… twenty six hours.”
She was starting to calm down, but her expression was still full of terror.
“Here,” Joe said, sliding the drink over.
“But I didn’t…”
“On the house,” he said, as he took the matted fur on her face. She’d been crying before she fell asleep. “Ya okay?”
“Fine,” she said. It was an automatic thing, without any real thought. She looked at the drink. “Um… who are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s name is on the sign outside the place,” he said, letting the Manehatten native sound seep a bit more thickly into his accent. He’d lived in Canterlot long enough to sound like he’d been born here, but Donut Joe was more than a name, it was a brand, and he owed it to his customers to play the role. He held out a hoof. “Donut Joe.”
“Amethyst Star,” she said, shaking his hoof. “Um. I only ever come here at night, and I guess I’ve never seen you.”
“Well, I do like to work mornings. You’re usually a night owl?”
Amethyst nodded. She looked miserable. “Yeah.”
She wasn’t going to let him help without a little coaxing. But it was the solemn duty of a cafe owner. Much like those months he’d spent bartending to pay for culinary school; bartenders and cafe owners alike had a sacred duty to serve as friend, counselor, and surrogate sibling to whoever needed a friendly ear.
Maybe he was overdramatizing. But he still did his best.
“Whatchya studying?” It seemed like a good start.
Amethyst stared at her books, myopically trying to focus. Joe subtly pushed the mug closer, and she took a drink.
“Woah,” she said, staring at the cup. Joe smiled proudly. Yeah, he knew he was good. “Um. Advanced thaumic engineering.”
“You’re at See-Goo?” he said, using the colloquialism for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, or CSGU.
“Continuing Education program,” Amethyst said. Her expression twisted, bitterly. “For unicorns that failed at their first plan and had to go back to school for a sudden fall-back plan.” She waves a hoof at the pile of books. “And now here I am, pulling an all-nighter trying to study for a test I know I’m going to fail!”
She sniffed, and her eyes went wide. “Sorry. Oversharing.”
“Probably something to do with the sleep deprivation,” Joe said, and Amethyst snorted. “So engineering, huh? Can’t be that hopeless if you already made it far enough to get into the advanced class.”
“Yeah. Got in so far I’m over my head,” she muttered. “I wish I could…” She trailed off with a sigh.
Joe waited, patiently. She’d talk if she wanted to.
“Do you really want to hear this? We’re practically strangers.”
Joe smiled, sliding out a chair and sitting down across from her. “Yeah. But sometimes a perfect stranger is the right pony to vent to.” She nodded, and he continued. “If ya want. I’ve got a few minutes before my oven dings.” Amethyst nodded again, but didn’t say anything. “We can start with some small talk. Where ya from?”
Amethyst snorted again. “So you’re coaching me through a social encounter? Do I look that helpless?”
Joe smirked. “You’ve got a bit of a ‘small animal caught in a bright light’ vibe going right now. Again, probably the sleep deprivation.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Ponyville. That’s where I’m from.”
“Oh yeah?” Joe perked up. “I’ve got friends there. Nice place.”
“It was, maybe,” Amethyst said. “I barely recognize it now.”
She went silent, one hoof holding her hot mug, the other trailing invisible lines on her paper.
“Lots of changes because of Princess Twilight?” Joe guessed. A pony could see the growing village from Canterlot, and it always seemed to him like it was growing larger.
“Yeah. There’s a castle there now. And a school. But it’s not just that! The town is twice as large, and it’s… it’s different. Like there’s no room for some ponies any longer.”
It wasn’t hard to tell she was talking about herself. Joe waited.
“I used to have plans. I’m really good at organizing, you know? I had a job I was amazing at. Well, seasonal work. I led the animal teams during Winter Wrap Up. I always thought, with my talent for leading teams, and event planning… well, I wanted to go into the mayor’s staff. Maybe… I don’t know. Public service.”
“And now?” Joe asked.
“Public service doesn’t even look the same as it used to in Ponyville,” Amethyst said. “The mayor’s practically just a figurehead at this point. She’s basically turned the mayor’s office into the tourism bureau. Which is fine, I guess. Most of the day to day leadership of Ponyville is being handled by the Friendship counsel and the headmistress of the school. It just means that now I feel like… like I’ve become irrelevant.”
She blinks suddenly, eyes widening.
“Not to say anything against Princess Twilight! She’s great! And the changes to Ponyville, they’re great! Most of the time. For most ponies. And I know she doesn’t mean to leave anypony out. But because of her, Ponyville simply doesn’t need me any longer.”
Joe could see the pain in her expression.
“So I signed up for this ‘continuing education’ program. If I can’t serve my town as a leader, maybe I can work as… I don’t know. A spellcaster. There’s always need for unicorns dealing with whatever craziness is coming out of the school. For fixing things, and for investigating weird magic. I could get a job with the Friendship Counsel. Or at the school.”
“Ya could still go into politics and leadership, if you relocate. Didjya ever…”
Amethyst shook her head. “No. My family is in Ponyville. I want to stay.”
“So ya went back to school.”
“Yeah.” Amethyst stared at the imposing pile of books all around her. “This was a mistake. I’m not a foal any longer. I can’t learn like I used to. Stuff just doesn’t stick in my brain, and I feel like I have to study three times as long just to keep up. And even then, I’m drowning.”
She slowly slumped in her chair until her chin was resting on the open book. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
“I stayed up all night cramming for this test. And I’m pretty sure it was a waste of time. I don’t know if I remember anything.”
Wet eyes darted down to the page in front of her. “Look at this. Thermo-motic reaction conversion rates? The Clever-Swirl Formula? I don’t remember reading any of this. I’m screwed.”
“When is your test?” Joe asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Joe smiled. “You’ve got plenty of time, then. Time to break out Donut Joe’s Two-step Test Success Strategy.”
“What?”
He grinned. “I get a lot of student business. Especially from ponies just like you in a panic over an upcoming test. So I had ta develop a strategy to help them through it. I even used it on Twilight Sparkle on occasion. Ya know she and Spike used to come here.”
Amethyst stared at him incredulously, while Joe grinned. A small ding from the kitchen drew both of their gazes.
“There’s step one. Close your books and just enjoy your latte for a sec, I’ll be right back.”
She watched him curiously as he left the dining room, walking back into the kitchen. He waited a couple seconds, then poked his head back through the door.
“I meant it! No studying right now! That’s an important part of the plan!”
He made a motion with his hoof, pointing at his eyes, then at her. She laughed.
“I’m not. Book’s closed, see?”
He nodded firmly then moved back to his ovens.
As he pulled the fresh donuts out of the oven and started glazing them, the gears turned in his head. He’d been telling the truth. This wasn’t the first time he’d talked a student out of a full-blown panic. It was a point of personal pride to Joe that he had, in fact, talked Twilight herself down from three. Of course, he’d had Spike’s help for those.
He laughed as he started to drizzle the glaze over the hot donuts. Maybe that was the trick to helping Amethyst. What would Spike the Dragon do?
By the time he’d glazed four dozen donuts, more customers had started to filter in. Bleary eyed, mane-tousled ponies shuffled into Joe’s Donuts, looking for the one-two punch of sugar and caffeine. But Joe took a second to drop one fresh pastry off at Amethyst’s table.
“Here’s step one,” he said, as she looked at it. “Also on the house. But keep that on the down low, got it? Don’t want to have to give free food to all the vultures.”
She laughed. And the books were still closed, so that was good.
As Joe dealt with the morning rush, Amethyst sat there, her expression thoughtful as she slowly ate her donut.
At six thirty Joe’s morning help arrived. Riverbank and Undine were both good kids, working part time while they attended CSGU.
“You two handle the counter, I gotta Code Sparkle to work on.”
River flinched in sympathy, and Undine nodded. Both of them had dealt with their own pre-test meltdowns before. They knew the pain of a Code Sparkle. Quickly they threw on their aprons and took over the counter, slinging donuts and espresso drinks like true professionals.
Joe returned to his new friend’s table.
“You know,” she said wryly. “I don’t know if it’s the best business model to just give out food for free.”
“You’d think that,” Joe said. “But I know it works. I helped Twilight Sparkle through at least three of these, and now she has a standing order of a dozen donuts sent to the palace, every Saturday. Even when she was in Ponyville I had an arrangement with the bakery there to occasionally import them. So as long as I get you hooked now, when you’re some big, famous mage, you’ll be ordering these imported to Ponyville. I’ll have made a permanent new customer. And a friend.”
“These are pretty good,” Amethyst admitted, polishing off the last of the donut. “And you make a good latte.”
“They’re reasonably priced, too, when you need another,” Joe said with a wink. Amethyst rolled her eyes.
“Nice marketing strategy,” she said. “Now what’s the next step of your test studying strategy?”
“The trick,” Joe said. “Is perspective. You’re familiar with Princess Twilight’s friendship journal, right?”
“I think everypony is, at this point.”
“Well, it’s in there. Princess Celestia herself used it on Twilight Sparkle. I see ponies in here all the time, usually young ponies, who’ve thrown themselves into studies just like you. And like Princess Celestia banishing Twilight to Ponyville, sometimes those ponies just need perspective and balance in their life. You can’t pass tests when your mind is out of whack.”
“Princess Celestia didn’t banish Twilight to…”
“She absolutely did,” Joe interrupted with a grin.
“Okay. Maybe she did. But how is that supposed to help me? With my test? All the friendship in the world won’t make me pass.” She pounded the books in frustration. “I’m not cut out for this. My brain is like a sieve.”
“You got this far,” Joe noted.
“Because it wasn’t this hard!” Amethyst cried. “The difficulty curve is way out of hoof! The number of equations and theories and rules and laws that I have to memorize and keep straight is insane!”
“How’d you do it before?”
“Before?” The question pulled her out of her rant. Amethyst stared for a moment, then shook her head. “I told you, I’ve never done magical engineering before. I was an organizer, a leader. I wanted to go into city planning and politics, not—”
“Not spellcasting, I know,” Joe said. “You were going for a blank slate. I get ya. But I’ll bet when you were doing your animal management during Winter Wrap Up, or other jobs like that… you had a system, right? You knew how to keep your mind organized. You knew the ponies who were working for you what their talents and weaknesses were, and you assigned them appropriately, right?” Honestly Joe was guessing. He didn’t know what Winter Wrap Up was like in Ponyville; in Canterlot usually the weather team pegasi and unicorns took care of that. “Have you been using those tools with your test prep?”
“I haven’t had to, up until now!” Amethyst cried out. “It was so much easier in the one-hundred level classes! Now that I’m…”
Joe saw the exact second the epiphany overtook her. Amethyst’s pink cheeks got red, and once again she slumped down in her seat.
“...I’m an idiot,” she said after a moment.
Joe gave a gentle laugh. “Nah. Ya just needed step two.”
“So if step one was a donut and coffee, step two was…”
“A fresh perspective, from a friend. It’s what Celestia did for Twilight. It’s what I”m tryin’ ta do for you. Sometimes a pony gets so worked up with their own troubles, they can’t see their way out. Even if it seems simple ta somepony else.”
“I… I really wish I’d thought about that sooner.”
“Well, ya had the deck stacked against ya. The early classes were too easy, so ya forgot the skills ya already had. Makes sense. Now. Ya still got twenty four hours to get ready, but yer not gonna spend it stressin’ yerself out. You and me are gonna spend an hour getting your notes reorganized with a new system, then yer gonna get some rest. And do somethin’ fun. That way yer mind is all relaxed and ready for tomorrow.”
“What if I still fail?” she said, her voice very small.
“Well, that’s a chance,” Joe nodded solemnly. “But tell me this. Didjya ever fail as a leader during Winter Wrap Up? Make a mistake? Have ta backtrack and rethink?”
Amethyst’s ears drooped and she nodded.
“And when ya did, ya had a clearer view of the way forward, right?”
Her nod was slow. But then a smile spread across her muzzle. For the first time, it wasn’t twisted with bitterness.
“Right. Right! Yeah.”
Joe chuckled. “Ya got this, mare. Yer gonna be just fine. Whether or not ya pass the first time, you’ll bounce right back. And if it ever gets to be to much, ya can come right back here for a donut and some perspective.”
“You’re gonna charge me next time though, aren’t you?” Amethyst said wryly.
Joe laughed again. “Not for the perspective, I’m not. Now let’s get those notes in order.”