The Education of Clover the Clever

by Daedalus Aegle


Intermission: Critical Commentary

AN: This was written one day before the one-year anniversary of the first chapter, for reasons which will become clear.

– – –

Star Swirl sighed. Clover was locked in the bathroom, sobbing loudly, and the noise was disturbing the thaumoluminescent otherworms' proscribed resting period. This had been going on all day, ever since she sat down at her workspace right after breakfast. She had picked up a book, read for a few minutes, then suddenly gasped, twitched, and rushed into the adjacent bathroom as little wet hiccups and sniffles began to escape from her throat.

It was now late at night, and while the cries had intermittently quieted and slowed over the course of the day, they would always come back with a vengeance.

“Clover,” Star Swirl said, knocking on the door, “It's been twelve hours. I'm sort of impressed. But we've lost a work day, and you must be very hungry in there. Would you please come out and talk about—whatever it is?”

He knocked for a few seconds more before the door unlocked with a sharp click, and swung open. Clover emerged, her cloak wrapped tightly around her, hood up over her head, her eyes red and puffy, her muzzle streaked with tear-lines. She sniffed, rubbed her muzzle with a fetlock, and sluggishly walked back to her workspace, where she plopped down into her chair and drooped over the desk.

“I knew you could do it,” Star Swirl said, walking up behind her. “So what's this all about then?”

Clover pointed a hoof over to the corner. There, on the wall beside her desk, was a large diagram covered in little green arrows pointing up. At the bottom right corner of the diagram was a lone red arrow pointing down.

“I had two hundred and twenty to zero,” Clover said, her voice muffled by her forelegs. “Or two hundred and nineteen. I'm not sure which came first, the red one or the last green one. Now it's ruined. That red one is never going away.”

Star Swirl nodded. “So what's this supposed to mean, exactly?”

“It means that somepony doesn't like me,” Clover sobbed, burying her head in her forelegs. “That's a count of how ponies report their impressions of me. I had a perfect record, and now it's ruined. It's magical and completely anonymous. I can't ask them why. I don't know who it was and I don't get any reason, I only know that sompony out there hates me.

Star Swirl blinked. “You keep a magical running tally of whether or not ponies like you?”

Clover nodded.

“That's weird, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Stop and think about that for a second. I, Star Swirl the Bearded, am telling you, Clover, that you're doing something weird. What does that tell you?”

“I'm pretty sure that means I'm acting like a normal pony.”

“...I can see why you'd think that. But no. Look,” Star Swirl put a hoof on Clover's shoulder and turned her to face him. “You need to stop worrying what ponies think of you. What's the big deal? Ponies hate me all over the world!”

“Maybe you need to start caring!” Clover snapped. “You could stand to have a little more empathy in you, you know! Yes, I care about ponies! I'm nice! I'm kind! I'm friendly! I like being liked!” She sniffed, and wiped her muzzle. “And it had to happen today,” she mumbled bitterly. “Have you seen the date?”

Star Swirl glanced at the calendar Clover had hung up on the wall, one of those with poor-quality reproductions of old works of art showing landscapes and rainbows and kittens in baskets. “July 13th?” he said. “What's special about that?”

“You know what happens tomorrow?” Clover asked. Star Swirl stared blankly. She sighed. “Tomorrow is my birthday, Star Swirl.”

“So, what, you'd rather have gotten hate mail on your birthday?” Star Swirl asked.

“What? No!” Clover said. “But if it had been tomorrow, or the next day, or any later time...” Clover sighed. “Then I would have gone a full year without anyone disliking me. I was going to celebrate. I was counting down the days. And now this has gone and spoiled it.”

They were silent for a moment.

“...Why would anyone hate me, Star Swirl?” Clover said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “What did I do wrong? I try so hard to be likeable. Am I not doing enough? Am I doing it completely wrong?”

“Listen, Clover,” Star Swirl said, his voice softer than usual. “The world is full of ponies who will dislike you for no good reason, who won't give you a chance, who'll judge you as soon as look at you. Maybe they saw your manecut, and decided they didn't want to be your friend. Maybe they heard your Whinnysor accent, and decided they couldn't bear to have a conversation with you. Maybe their marefriend left them that morning, and they were in a rotten mood and looking to take it out on somepony else. Who knows? But asking yourself why, and wondering if it says something about you, is a fool's game. If they don't want to like you, that's their loss.”

“What's wrong with my manecut?” Clover asked.

“You're missing the point, Clover,” Star Swirl said. “Look... the only way to go through life without anyone ever disliking you, is to be utterly bland and uncontroversial. Then, you're only going to be ignored. The price of never being disliked, Clover, is never being liked either. Is that what you want your life to be, just so you'll know that when you die nopony will have a nicer day because of it?”

“...No,” Clover said. “But I have plenty of friends, Star Swirl. I'm not a cardboard cutout...” Her eyes widened. “Unless I actually am. Oh Celestia, am I actually a horribly boring character?” Her voice was suddenly sharp and pleading, but she froze when she saw the disapproving look in his eyes. “Alright, fine. Let's say, for the sake of argument that I'm not. I've always had plenty of friends, but no enemies, until right now. What went wrong, Star Swirl?”

“Nothing went wrong,” Star Swirl said. “You just ran up against the math, that's all. Look... If you have something worth saying, and absolutely nopony objects, or disagrees, or just plain doesn't get it for whatever reason or for no reason at all, that just means that not enough ponies have heard you yet, and that you need to be louder.”

“That...” Clover thought for a second. “That actually makes sense, sort of.”

“Feeling better now?”

Clover nodded.

“That's the spirit,” Star Swirl said, patting her on the back. “Hah! They always told me that using rigorous logic and a general disdain for public opinion was a terrible way to cheer somepony up, but I knew it would work eventually.”

Clover chuckled softly, her lips curling into a smile.

“That's more like it,” Star Swirl said. “Now go out there and keep on doing your thing until everyone knows who you are. I don't want you to stop until there are enough people who hate you that they can form a club. In fact, keep at it until somepony tries to kill you! And then keep going! Just, you know, with some protective enchantments in place.”

“Okay, this doesn't sound like such a great idea anymore.”