"Sir! Can he... Can he do that?" Dasher blurted after he had processed the bomb Braeburn had just dropped.
His question apparently came too soon, as when he looked to his leader for a response, he found a still frozen Blue Blazer crushed beneath an equally stunned Brush.
"Whoa..." Cloud stuttered, "He's so bold"
"Too bold!" Blue Blazer hissed as he regained perception of the world, "This reeks of foul play! This is simply absurd! It has to be a trap of some kind! We're not letting this-"
He was cut off by more sounds from inside, "Can you sneak out and meet me on the hill with Bloomberg at around midnight tonight? Don't let anypony see you. We'll talk then. For now, we need to get back or else every pony might get suspicious."
Upon hearing that their eavesdropping was about to be discovered, the hall’s mare and stallion occupants bolted to avoid being compromised.
"That was fantastic Mrs. Apple! Thank you for dinner!" Twilight cooed after finishing her (third) slice of genuine Apple pie.
"Warms my heart to know there's such a dear of a princess up there in Canterlot! I'm just honored ya'll would grace us with your presence." the elder mare replied sincerely.
"Well I don't know about "graced" but thank you for having us. Sadly though, it's about time we head back to our hotel. Thank you again for the meal!" A chipper Twilight replied, looking out to the high-risen moon out the window.
"Don't be a stranger now! We'd love to have ya' again!"
"I'm sure we'd all love to come back, right?" she looked to the stallions and mares who followed her, attempting to get one kind word out of them about the food, none of them spoke up, just as they hadn't about anything the whole meal.
"...I'm sure they would!" Twilight said with an awkward chuckle, "Anyway, have a nice night!" Twilight said waving as she embarked for the hotel.
The troupe wandered off; the Apple family seeing them off from their porch. Once they were out of the clearing and comfortably behind the tree line, the group came to an abrupt halt behind their mistress.
"What in the name of Tartarus has come over all of you! All of you were were just awful in there!"
"Princess, we can't stand by and watch you do this!" Cloud all but shouted.
"What do you mean?" Twilight said, genuinely taken aback.
"We mean we heard your conversation with Braeburn in the bathroom! We heard everything, and we have to say, you're making a mistake!"
"How so?" Twilight asked, with concern tinging her voice.
"I don't know how to tell you this..."
"What! Tell me! Is something wrong?"
"Well..." she took a deep breath before closing her eyes and resigning to the fact it had to be said, “It’s obvious that he only asked you to marry him because you're a princess!"
The princess in question just stared at her for a minute, as if waiting for her to get to the punch line of her joke. When no punch line came, she merely snorted out a laugh, "Hah! Well of course! He wouldn't have asked me if I wasn't! It's not like anypony in their right mind would ever have asked me to marry them before I was made a princess."
That statement immediately sobered the previously nervous group.
When no response came, Twilight turned away and began walking again.
"Princess..." Breeze eagerly called after her, but either the charge didn't notice or didn't care, because she continued onward unheedingly.
When the pack arrived at the hotel, the mares went straight for their room as the stallions and the princess made their way to their respective floors.
No sooner did the door closed behind the mares then did Cloud release what she had been stewing over the whole way back, "So that's it! She doesn't think of herself as marryable other than because of her rank! She has no self-esteem! That's the- Is she really that- Is she really only going through with this because she's so desperate!?!" Cloud yelled, not even trying to hide how upset this was making her, "Why!?! She's an international hero! Doesn't she realize every pony loves her!"
"I mean, I should know! I was one of the ponies drafted to help sort through her fan-mail after the Crystal Empire got wind of how she saved the Empress during her wedding day! We had to go through thousands of letters!"
"Wait, she gets fanmail?" Bristle asked innocently, trying boldly to quietly bring Cloud back to them.
"Psssh!" Cloud scoffed, "Too much of it! She's practically a children's book hero outside Equestria. Actually, she is in the Crystal Empire. Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changelings, Sombra; there's a whole ongoing book series published about her."
"Why have I never heard of any of this?" Brush asked, obviously to this point unaware that her charge was already so renowned outside Equestria.
"It's because princess Celestia wanted her student to have a 'normal life'." Cloud laughed derisively, "Carefully censoring anything that would bring Twilight's accomplishments to light. Here in Equestria you won't hear about anything she's done, but outside she's practically a legend."
"So that's why she must feel so under loved..." Breeze concluded solemnly, "She did so much, and yet nopony knows..."
"Well, that may have something to do with it, but honestly, it's probably more the fact she didn't have a proper school experience, instead having one-on-one lessons with the princess that never exposed her to any situations where she could make serious friends, her extreme introversion, which she has no coping skills for, and the fact that, growing up, she was so close to Celestia that everyone was afraid to get too close."
The other mares just stared at their unusually insighted companion. "What?" Bristle asked "I used to get an ear full from old Madam Teapot about how the princess's student was being raised... She was less than approving of the princess’s filly rearing. ...Only in private of course."
"Ok... Well... This has all been very enlightening, but the problem at hoof is more immediately important. It's apparent that the princess has some major self-esteem issues we need to address ...and fast." none made to contest as Brush continued, "...and I think I know just how to do it..."