//------------------------------//
// Sugarcube Corner, pt. 2 
// Story: There's More to Life than Books and Cleverness 
// by Quill Scratch 
//------------------------------//

In the moment that their eyes met, a thousand and one thoughts flew through Moondancer’s head. The first was a thought of beauty, of how utterly perfect those eyes were. They were like gems, shining as they did, deep and dark and beautiful. And then Moondancer thought of gemstones, of how quartz could be found in so many different colours but of all of them her favourite was violet, and how amethyst’s name was derived from the antonym of the Ancient Greek word for “intoxicated”, and how the ponies of those archaic times had always believed that amethyst could prevent a pony from becoming drunk—but merely looking into those violet eyes was enough to make Moondancer feel intoxicated, as if Twilight’s eyes were liquor to her that she gladly lapped up with every sideways glance.

Her third thought was that maybe this wasn’t the best time or place for her to be right now, and this got her thinking, briefly, about the interconnected nature of space and time, and of how events that occurred simultaneously in one reference frame could occur entire hours apart in another, so if she moved fast enough, and in the right direction, she could probably manage to make it so that Twilight hadn’t been in Sugarcube Corner at the precise moment that she announced her feelings to the wide world.

Time and space were strangely flexible—not that it was strange that they were flexible, for there was no good reason to assume otherwise, but rather that the way in which they flexed was strange. But then, trying to imagine a space folding and stretching and slackening in its own number of dimensions was always a strange prospect to her: it always seemed as if you needed another dimension, just for the space to fold into. And that, Moondancer thought, was why analogies were a waste of time.

Rather like the analogy of Twilight’s eyes as liquor. Because, of course, she did feel intoxicated when she looked into them, and she did feel as if she was losing her inhibitions around the princess, but certain key differences rather made the entire analogy moot. She didn’t get a hangover from Twilight the way she would get a hangover after a night out, as she had discovered much to Minuette’s entertainment some years before. And she certainly wasn’t becoming addicted to those eyes, no matter how beautiful they were and no matter how much she wanted to stare into them for all eternity.

Those were her thoughts: and they mixed and they twisted, and they grew and they shrank, and soon enough they were all relatively indistinguishable. She was thinking a thousand and one thoughts, but they were all the same, and they were all:

She is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.

And then, once that thought had settled and had its turn, Twilight coughed, and Moondancer looked away, because she had been staring for a good few minutes now and both of them seemed frozen by embarrassment.

Twilight, surprisingly, seemed to take the whole thing rather well. She turned away, and started chatting to Pinkie Pie, and though her expression was calm Moondancer could tell that it was tense with worry and nervous tension. But Twilight was right: the best thing to do, surely, was to forget that this ever happened, and act as if the world was okay and her entire life wasn’t falling apart, because that was the only way to make progress.

“Well,” Lyra said, grimacing. “That could have gone better.”

Moondancer groaned and buried her head in her forelegs, resting her brow against the table. She considered replying properly, but wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to dignify Lyra’s comment with a response, so she tried groaning again, this time at a different pitch.

“It could have gone worse, though,” Lyra added, helpfully. Moondancer felt a particularly unhelpful prod on her head, and looked up to see her friend lightly poking her with a coffee stirrer. She shot her a quick unimpressed look, and dropped her head back down to the table with a thud.

This was why friendships were pointless—because it didn’t matter how much you made each other happy, or how well you could comfort each other when things went wrong, eventually everything fell apart and one of you would hurt the other beyond repair. She’d been there—for the longest time, she’d thought that Twilight had hurt her too much to ever be forgiven, and now, just as she was coming to terms with the fact that she had been so very, very wrong, she found herself hurting Twilight even more. And that wasn’t fair.

“Can I try that bit again?” she asked, only half joking. Lyra chuckled.

“No can do, Moondancer,” she said. And then, “Sorry.”

“S’not your fault.”

Could she make it better? Was there some way that she could make amends, repair her bond with Twilight and make things right again? Moondancer couldn’t think of an answer—and, right now, she couldn’t think at all. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that Celestia-forsaken shout and that deep, painful moment that she saw Twilight standing in the doorway, just seconds too late.

She couldn’t think. It was like she was trying to read a book, but her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up the the start of the very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was too distracted and her thoughts were too jumbled up, and every now and again her eyes would slip back up to the start of the very same line she’d just read. She couldn’t think. Every time she tried she ended up replaying that moment in her head, that very same line she’d just read. And there she’d sit, re-reading sentence after sentence, because her mind was just too thoughts and her distracted jumbled up and re-reading book thing jumbled very same trying re-reading re-reading re-reading jumbled She couldn’t think

“Moondancer?”

And then… she could.

“What?” she asked, now too bitter and tired to even try to make her tone polite. She felt bad for it, but right at that moment she wasn’t sure she had the energy to try.

“You were breathing… weirdly. It was like panting. Almost like you were frightened.” Lyra bit her lip and looked down. “I didn’t know what to do, so… I called your name a few times. Looks like it worked.

“Are you okay?” That was genuine: a sincere and true fear echoed in Lyra’s voice, worry and concern colouring her words. And Moondancer smiled, because she was just relieved to be able to think again.

“I’m okay now,” she clarified. “I was just losing track of my thoughts, that’s all. It, uh… it wasn’t pretty.”

Lyra sighed in relief.

“I’m glad you’re okay now,” she said, pushing her chair back from the desk and stretching as she stood. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

There was a small part of Moondancer’s mind that was somewhat frightened of the idea of leaving, because it was afraid that if she left the room and left Twilight behind she might never get a chance to see the alicorn again. And if she could never see Twilight again, then there was no chance of her ever repairing their friendship—and that simply wouldn’t do. Whether she liked it or not, her friendship with Twilight was one of the most precious things in her life. It worried her that she had taken quite so long to realise that.

But the rest of her knew that this was not a good idea—that by sticking around she might only make things worse for herself, and for Twilight. Perhaps what they really needed was some time apart to cool and reflect on what had happened, and then maybe when they had things would be able to be okay again? But she needed to leave first for that to happen, no matter how afraid of it she was.

“Alright.” Moondancer nodded, rising and stretching herself. With a small smile of encouragement from Lyra, she started to walk slowly towards the door, and, just as she was passing, briefly caught Twilight’s eye.

In that moment, she knew, she had only the briefest of seconds to do something, anything, to put them on the right path for a reconciliation. But in her panic, all she could manage was to lightly mutter “sorry” under her breath, and to dart her eyes to the floor as she walked shamefully out of Sugarcube Corner.

The walk home was quiet and, in the morning cold, Moondancer found it easy to let her thoughts wander. Even though the snow had melted, the air was still bitingly cold, and it nipped at her skin with an insistent, continuous chill. And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of thermodynamics, and how cold wasn’t really a thing in and of itself but rather the absence of heat, and though it felt like the cold was entering her body in reality it was the heat that was leaving, and she remembered how when she was a filly Twilight had taught her all about heat engines—

And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of weather, and of how pegasi had learned to control even the most subtle things, like how they could regulate temperature to within half a degree unless some natural, magical storm had flared up, and how they could now even dissipate most of those storms within an hour of their formation by detecting the subtlest change in wind speeds. And she thought of how the most common place for magical storms to occur was the Everfree Forest on the outskirts of Ponyville, and how she had yet to go to visit it even though she was now staying so close by, and how the path to the Everfree ran past the Golden Oaks Library where Twilight lived—

And so she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of the Everfree Forest, and all the unique flora and fauna that grew within it, particularly the infamous Poison Joke, and how it had been influenced by the latent magic of the forest and had evolved at a greatly-accelerated rate. And she thought of how the magic of the forest had originally come from the leyline that ran right through the middle of it, nicknamed the Everfree Line by scholars even though only a small percentage of it passed through the forest, and how that leyline’s magical signature would flutter and alternate in much the same way as a spell matrix, and how Twilight had been so close to finding out what the spell was meant to—

And so, at last, she let her thoughts wander onto the subject of Twilight Sparkle, because if every road leads to Rome she might as well just go there directly.

Twilight Sparkle was beautiful. Twilight Sparkle was clever. Twilight Sparkle was kind and funny, and charming, and beautiful, and the kind of mare that Moondancer wanted to spend the rest of her life with—no, Twilight was the mare she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She’d known it since she was a filly, and Lyra had known it too. Twilight Sparkle was the one mare in the whole wide world of Equestria whom she never, ever wanted to lose, not again; and yet she had done just that, throwing away their friendship in a blind moment of accidental stupidity and foolishness.

Why couldn’t she have just kept her big mouth shut? Why did it have to feel so good to spill your secrets out in the plain sight of the world, so long as the person who could never know them wasn’t there? Why couldn’t she have just looked to see if Twilight was anywhere nearby before she destroyed everything she had ever wanted?

She could always go back to her isolation, to the home in Canterlot that was damaged but not wholly unliveable, and retreat into the world of books and academia and libraries once more. She could even forget that any of this trip had ever happened—forget what little she had learned about friendship, and recall that all the companionship she needed in life she could simply get from paper and ink; forget what little she had learned about not blinding ponies with knowledge, and recall that the most valuable trait to have in life was cleverness.

But she wouldn’t be right. And if there was one thing that Moondancer hated, it was knowing that she was holding on to knowledge that was out-of-date. She couldn’t just stand by and subscribe to a school of thought that she had learned to be so very, very wrong, even if she found the alternative frightening and, frankly, the kind of thinking that could very well break her. If the choice was between being comfortable but wrong, or being terrified but possibly right, Moondancer knew exactly what she would choose.

“Lyra?” she called out, the breeze that was starting to pick up making it harder to make herself heard. Despite that, she saw Lyra turn her head, and acknowledge that she had heard with a single, sharp nod. “Do you think you could teach me about friendship?”

Lyra stopped in her tracks, and Moondancer very nearly walked right into her. She turned around, her expression shocked and more than a little impressed.

“You’re asking me to teach you about friendship?” she asked, incredulously. “Has the world gone mad?!”

“Probably,” Moondancer said with a smile, “but if it has then I sure as hell want go mad with it.”

“What does that even mean?!” Lyra almost shouted, partly in frustration but mostly because the wind was growing stronger by the second, and it was becoming harder and harder for them to hear each other of the roar.

“Nevermind,” Moondancer said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s get home and out of this wind.”

She pushed forward, passing a dumbstruck Lyra whom she could have sworn she heard mutter something that sounded suspiciously like “now you’re making sense.” Moondancer chuckled under her breath, and tilted her head down, walking into the blisteringly cold wind with a steely-eyed determination.

This time, she wasn’t going to let herself make the mistake of running away and hiding from her fears. She was going to face this entire thing head-on, and she was going to reclaim her friendship with Twilight. But to do that, Moondancer knew, she had a lot that she needed to learn.

---

Not too long after they had settled on the sofa, and Bon Bon had brought each of them a hot mug of cocoa (Moondancer, in her frozen state, had forgotten to ask in Bon Bon would insist on putting marshmallows in hers, and was disappointed to find that she had), there was a cheery knock on the door, beating out a cheerful rhythm. Frowning at each other, and wondering who could possibly be out in this kind of wind, Lyra and Bon Bon both stood to answer it—but Lyra quickly sat back down again after a warning stare from her marefriend, letting her know that she was to warm up or else. Mere moments after Bon Bon had opened the door, an excitable ball of pink fur bounced into the living room and loudly proclaimed: “HEAR YE, HEAR YE!”

“Pinkie,” Bon Bon said with dripping sarcasm, walking into the room, “it’s okay. We can hear you.”

“Oh, good. I was wondering about that for a moment.” Pinkie Pie seemed completely oblivious to the eye-rolling and exchanged glances of general bemusement. “Anywho, I just wanted to let you know that your party’s still on, Moondancer, and best of all I managed to get it planned for tonight! Isn’t that amazing?”

Clearing her throat, Moondancer nodded. “Yeah, that sounds wonderful, Pinkie. Where is it going to be?”

“Golden Oaks Library, of course. I told you Twilight would say yes, didn’t I? She’s said we could have the whole town over, and the best part is I’m going to make sure Dashie comes along too and then I can complete Operation: Cheer Up Dashie and Twilight and Save Their Friendship at the same time as holding your Welcome to Ponyville party and then maybe Quill can come up with some way to produce a narratively satisfying ending within the next three hours? Who knows! It’s going to be loads of fun, and there’ll be cakes, and games, and balloons, and there miiiight even be a pinata if I can swing one, and I’m hoping that if we’re really lucky there’ll even be punch. That’s a bit of foreshadowing, by the way. Or at least I hope it will be: we might not even be able to get punch at this late notice! Anyway, seven pm by the library. Gotta dash!”

And with that, Pinkie zipped out of the room, a trail of sparkling pink behind her that slowly faded. Just as everypony was coming to their senses, she quickly popped her head around the doorframe.

“And I mean Rainbow!” she added, grinning, before disappearing again—this time, hopefully, for good.

“Well then,” Lyra said, after a moment of silence had passed, “I guess we’d better get on with those friendship lessons if you want to make that party tonight.”