//------------------------------//
// XIV. Honesty 
// Story: Memoirs of a Magic Earth Pony 
// by The Lunar Samurai 
//------------------------------//

	Her lip began to tremble. I only noticed that small detail because she immediately bit it and turned back to the opposing wall to hide herself once more. She stood there for a moment, her back to me and the bed. I could almost feel her mulling ideas over in her head, weighing each outcome before addressing me once more. After several minutes of silence, her body rose as she drew in a deep breath.
“Starswirl, things aren’t okay.” Pain echoed from every syllable. She turned to look at me, and that was when I saw the tears streaming down her cheeks.
I didn’t have a response. This mare that was staring at me with tears in her eyes was completely foreign to me. I didn’t know if she was upset with herself, her situation, her new impromptu roommate, or all three at once. There was something about her that wanted to scream out something to me, but I couldn’t place my hoof on what it was. All I could do was sit there and wait for her to explain herself in a manner that I probably wouldn’t understand.
“I need to be honest with you,” she started with a sniffle. “I’m not a very social pony.”
I thought you were going to tell me something I didn’t know, my sarcasm quipped in the back of my mind.
“In fact, I’ve never had another pony in my room before…” She stood there for a moment, pounding her head as if the action would knock her thoughts into coherent phrases. “I… I really don’t know how to say this. I’m not good with words, I’m not good with other ponies, I’m just not really good at anything... I’m sorry Starswirl. I’m sorry for hitting you with my dictionary. I’m sorry for making you think I was somepony I wasn’t. I’m sorry for bringing you into my cluttered room. I’m sorry for shouting at you.” She bit her lip once more and continued. “I’m… I’m sorry for messing things up.” She closed her eyes and looked away, much in the same way I had when the dictionary threatened my livelihood earlier that night. It was a powerful gesture, one that I hadn’t expected from somepony like her.
“It’s okay…” I started, doing my best to reassure her of her perceived errors.
“It’s not, Starswirl. You’re lying in my bed with a bandage on a wound that I created because I thought I was somepony special. I had no reason to fire a book at your head, and I can only thank your earth pony skeleton for keeping it from killing you. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We were going to study magic together and I was going to feel like I was a good pony for once. I… I never meant for any of this to happen…”
I was at a total loss when she finished her apology. I wanted to speak, to tell her everything was alright, but the pressing issue was that I was going to keep throwing myself into a hole that she was only digging further. I needed to stay on the surface and offer her my help from above. That’s when I realized something about her statement.
“Amethyst,” I started as I propped myself up on the bed and stifled a wince. “You realize what you just said… right?”
“That I’m a failure at even having friends?” Her eyes were cast to the piles of books beneath her hooves.
“I’m in a bed, with a bandage on my head,” I started, trying to help her see what I was just beginning to realize.
“Yeah, because of me.”
“Exactly.” I was trying to be dramatic, to lure her into changing her train of thought, but she wasn’t following my lead.
“Yes, I already know, Starswirl,” she said with a sniffle “I put you there with that dictionary.”
“No… You put me here after I was hurt.”
“After I hurt you.”
“I don’t care who or what hurt me, Amethyst. As far as I can tell, I’m in a comfortable bed, I’m feeling better, I have a bandage around my wound, and the blood that covered my face is gone.”
I could see the gears in her mind turning once more. She was stuck deep in guilt, but I was determined to bring her out of it.
“Don’t you see? You may have messed things up for a bit, but you fixed them as best you could.”
“So what?”
“It proves you’re sorry, really and truly sorry.” I saw her eyes light up ever so slightly in the dim room. She was finally starting to catch on to my words. “I want you to know that I’m not mad… like, at all.”
“I just—”
“Amethyst,” I said, cutting her off from her own self-hatred. “I’m not mad at you. In fact, I’m really glad I got to see you today.”
She shook her head in disbelief. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t believe me, it seemed that she wouldn’t let herself believe it. “I don’t see why…”
“Then let me try to explain. When I came to this school, the only thing I had was myself. I was prideful, hateful, and a terrible pony all around. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but I was who I was. There wasn’t a reason I was so self-centered other than the fact that I was at college. You see… you represent something to me…”
Her ears twitched a bit and a smile flashed across her face. I had said something right.
“Well… I’m not sure how to say this, but you represent my future. I’m starting to see that I’m not the pony I want to be, and I… well I want to be more like you.”
“No you don’t…”
“Oh yes I do,” I declared. Her flinch told me that I may have spoken too powerfully, but I was focused and I wasn’t going to derail my train of thought. “You see, you’re studying magic, doing wonderful things on a regular basis to change the world in a way we never imagined before. I want to be a part of that, to be in a group that can make an impact on that. I guess… I guess I’m just figuring out who I want to be, and now I’m realizing that I want to be more like you…”
A heavy silence descended on the room as we both took in all the words that I had just said. I wasn’t amazing at putting my feelings into statements, but I had to do something. This was that something, that change that I wanted in my own life. I had never opened up to anypony in my life like that, but I still do not have words to properly describe the emotion that flowed over me as I sat there in the light of my own revelation.
“You don’t want to be like me, trust me. I’m nopony special, a dime a dozen. I’ve always been told I’m gifted, but that isn’t something new here. Here, at this school, I’m normal. I’m not heralded for being great; in fact, everything I do is just mediocre. I can’t control my emotions well, I can’t keep myself from doing dumb things, hell, I can’t even say what I want to sometimes. I look at every pony else, including you, and I see ponies who want to have it all, and they truly have the power to, but I can’t. Everything was given to me and I have nowhere to climb.”
I was shocked to say the least. I thought she had some sense of satisfaction for being so gifted, but all she felt was grief. It was such a powerful prospect to see someone so gifted so sad, so I didn’t truly believe it. Of course if you asked me at the time if I had, I would have said yes, but honestly I still set her as my motivation to continue on pursuing a life that she lived instead of my own.
I never would have thought that the top would still have some desire to be better than they ever could be. I wanted so desperately to be where she was and yet she wanted to be where I was. I despise myself now for not heeding her unintended warning, it might have truly changed my life…
“Amethyst?” I asked, trying to break the silence.
“Yeah?” she asked with a sigh.
“I’m going before the council tomorrow. I’ve been trying to get into the Advanced Theoretical Magic degree here on campus, but I’m really nervous. I don’t have many ponies here that would understand my reason for asking this question, but would you… um… would you want to come with me to the assembly tomorrow? I mean you’re my only real friend on campus to be honest, I don’t think anypony else here knows me very well.” I felt as though I were shrinking into the bed as I spoke those words. I had put myself, and Amethyst, in a very tricky situation.
Her face lit up for just a moment before she swallowed her welling emotions. “I would.”
The softness of her voice caught me off guard. It was as though she had, in one short statement, put her self-hatred away for a moment. I felt a calming wave of reassurance wash over me as let out the breath I had been holding. I had somepony who supported me, for the first time in my life I had a peer who was on my side.
“So… What are you going to do exactly?” she prodded.
A small smile spread across my lips as I gestured toward my saddlebag that sat on a pile of books. “Can you get the letter out of there?”
“Oh, sure!” she said, rather excitedly for a pony simply retrieving a piece of paper from a bag. As she dug around in my pack, I couldn’t help but focus on her once more. I noticed that her posture had changed, she was casual, almost physically happy about what had just taken place. Maybe she had just let a burden off of her back too. The page floated toward me and I pulled it from the air.
“It just says I’m supposed to meet them in the Assembly at 4:00 tomorrow.”
“Wait,” she said as she abruptly took the page from my grasp. “You mean they didn’t tell you to make a presentation of any kind?”
“I don’t think so… Why?”
“All candidates for the Advanced Theoretical Magic degree have to perform their skills in magic, you know to prove that they’re as good as they say.”
“Oh…” I said as my mind immediately flashed to what might happen before that group of ponies. “Did you do one?”
“Yeah, I did a simple spell to lift something from their desk. They were unimpressed until I told them about how it worked.” She seemed proud of herself, not arrogantly mind you, but as though she looked back on that time with a feeling of a job well done.
I waved my hoof over my forehead and frowned. “Well what can I do?”
“Hmmm…” she hummed as she brought her hoof to her chin. “What could you do… Well, what can you do?”
“I can… uhh… I can make 3 mental dimensions and then put dots in them and spin them around in a circle. That basically comprises all of my knowledge of magic, swirling stars.”
“Alright,” she said as she stepped to her desk with an energy that surprised me. “What exactly can you do to impress the council?” The question was rhetorical, but I knew what she was trying to do. She wanted to let the world know her questions, because I did the same thing.
“You can build mental dimensions, you can place dots in them, and you can describe them.”
“Describe them?”
“Remember that time you were in our class and Evenstar had you describe your world to us? Well, the next class, when you weren’t there, he spent at least 10 minutes lecturing us on how to properly describe a mental world. You see, we leave so much out because we’re taught how to perform magic all our lives, we live in this mindset that we’re limited. However, you don’t see the limits because you were never told there were any. He couldn’t shut up about how to ‘build a dimension like an earth pony.’”
I was shocked. “So because I don’t know anything, I have an advantage?”
“Well, it sounds better when you say it like that, but yeah… You don’t know anything and therefore no one’s told you not to dare to do the impossible.” She looked at me and paused. “You’ve really left an impression on Evenstar. That’s not an easy thing to do.”
I can only say that I am thankful nopony told me about this when I was still overtly arrogant as it would have easily inflated my head to dangerous levels.
“I’m honored,” I said as truthfully as I could. “I really like Evenstar.”
“A lot of ponies do. He’s one of those professors that you just can’t get mad at.”
“Alright,” I started as I tried to bring the topic back to the presentation. “Let’s talk about this presentation.”
“We have been…” Amethyst said with a wry smile. “You realize that Evenstar is part of the Council, right?”
“What!?” I shouted with a whisper. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No… Evenstar is one of the greatest minds in magic right now, there’s no way they wouldn’t let him on the Council.”
“So you’re saying…”
“I’m saying I’m going to be excited to see you in my major come Monday.”
I was about to explode from excitement. This was amazing news for me. I was getting an assurance that I was about to complete one of the largest goals I had ever set for myself. “So… All I need to do is explain myself to the board?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, they’re pretty receptive to any new candidates coming into the magic program. They love being able to pad the numbers for the major, and we’re seeing record ones this year. We’re the number one magical school in all of Equestria right now. We’re pushing boundaries that no one else had even thought of.”
At this point I was basically drooling over her words. I wanted to be a part of this magnificent field and I truly felt as though I had a shot at it. I wanted it to change for the better, and the hope at the end of the tunnel was growing brighter every second.
Amethyst and I worked early into the morning, going over what to say and what not to say as I came before the Council. If there was something she knew, it was professionalism. For some reason, that pony had a switch she could throw and become a completely different mare fit for a magical exposition for the entirety of the world. We worked hard together, perfecting what to say regarding magic, me, the school, and the future of Equestria. The university wanted visionaries, ponies who dared to dream beyond any boundary they saw. They wanted a brighter future for the world that would bring about a new era of magic and a revolution of the world. To them, the next great magical mind was sitting in one of their classes, and they were going to push him or her to become the most powerful magician to ever walk the face of the world.
There was nothing in my mind that told me I wasn’t fit for that task. I was going to pursue that dream with every ounce of my being. I was going to change the world, and no pony was going to tell me otherwise.