So… yeah. Okay, so… okay. After I got done talking to Shine, I went home. I again tried reading the text, just starting from the very beginning. I reread the preface and the introduction, and I studied the chart full of the syntax and stuff. But it just didn’t make sense. I would try reading it outloud to parse it, but that just didn’t work.
That same night, after I talked to Shine, I was reading in my room when Auntie came to see me. She knocked on my door, but it was one of those fake knocks where they don’t actually wait for a response before coming in. That really annoys me.
I was laying on my bed looking through it and after I heard the knock I looked up a second later to see Auntie standing in the doorway. She didn’t look like anything was bothering her. When she saw the book laying out in front of me. She asked me what it was in an offhoof kind of way.
I replied, of course, being me, with a frantic “Nothing!” and covered it up.
That’s just going to make it worse.
Yeah, Twilight, that’s kind of just like... one of the major recurring tropes in this story. Thanks.
Whatever.
Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me! I’m not the one adding their own “helpful” little tidbits every other sentence!
Okay, okay, I get it, I’m sorry. Just continue on.
Yeah, so, as I was saying, Auntie Celestia called me out on it. I’m pretty sure that she just wanted to see what kind of “stuff” I was into. But when she saw it was a math book, she just gave me this condescending look that just makes me so angry. I love Auntie, but jeez. She didn’t even try to hide it. She just told me “Well, good luck Cadance,” and left. She never even told me what she was originally going to say.
It made me angry, but it motivated me, too. I wanted nothing more then to prove her wrong. I wanted to, you know, show her that I could do stuff beyond what she wanted me to do, or thought that I was capable of. I guess I just wanted to break the mold.
Auntie always wanted me to do simple stuff. She never seemed to particularly care or not if I understood more complex math and science and stuff, and she never pushed me to think too deeply about the world. I… I guess I understand why. I mean, you know, I’ve known that I was the ‘Princess of Love’ from early on. And you’re right, Twilight, as much as I hate to admit it, those things don’t match well. After all, math is far from romantic, unless you’re talking about like a science fiction novel or something. But I digress. Sort of. I think.
Okay, well, the point is is that Auntie only really pushed me towards art and culture and equinology1 and political science. Again, I know why, and I really like those things, but I always felt a sort of… purposelessness—no, more like… vagueness… I guess… that I could compensate for with other stuff like science. I enjoy art and culture and stuff, and I’m not trying to diss them, but I just wanted something extra that I couldn’t find there. It’s like—it’s like I thought there was a lack of real meaning.
I think I understand what you’re saying. I never really paid much attention to the meaningfulness of what I was studying in school when I was younger. I just thought it was fun. That’s very mature of you, Cadance.
Thank you. But, still, I don’t want to come across as some super serious pony. I do like art and pony studies and they are fun and I think they have value, but it’s almost like there was an un-fun-ness that I was lacking.
I won’t say that I’ve felt that, but I think I know where you’re coming from.
I don’t know. I don’t want to come across as some sort of scrooge, but… okay, I give up trying to explain. I think you know what I mean.
And well… where was I? Oh, right, yeah. What Auntie said really motivated me to prove her wrong. So I tried reading that book.
It was slow at first. I read the chart in the front with all the symbols on it, trying to literally read exactly what all the proofs said. I would write it down in simple language by just replacing the symbols with exactly what they meant in words. I then read it all out and pieced it together until I finally got it.
Just kidding. I didn’t understand it at all. I cried, that night.
The next day I went to school. I was all antsy until lunch. I just wanted to talk to Shine and see what he could tell me.
So that day at lunch I didn’t eat. I was nervous. I don’t really know why I was nervous, it was just one of those things where I know I wasn’t supposed to feel nervous but I did. And I mean, he was really awkward himself, so it’s not like I had anything to worry about.
So that day I walked up to him in the library. He was still reading the book, and it looked like he was a lot further than the day before. I walked up to him and didn’t know what to say, so I just waited behind his back like before.
After a while, I just said out loud “I have some questions.”
He just turned around with this scared look on his face, saying “Oh! Hi, Princess.”
I cleared my throat and took out my own copy of the book. I opened up to the very first proof.
He just looked at me with this face of pity and confusion at the same time. I went with what I was saying, anyway, “I’ve read through all the preface part and the introduction and I’ve read the symbols, but I don’t understand how this proof works.”
He was still confused because I guess he just couldn’t understand how somepony could read the text and not get it.
“Well, i-it’s pretty straightforward. I mean, u-uhm…”
“Okay, can you work me through the first one?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
I begged him, trying to get him to bend to my will with a cute smile, asking “Please?”
Wow, Cadance, that’s… I really don’t know. It’s like some kind of weird reverse of the usual popular-girl-gets-nerd-to-do-her-homework-trope, but at the same not. I’m mostly just confused.
About what?
I—I don’t really know. This is really bothering me for some reason.
What? Why?
I don’t know. It… it feels like something is just wrong when I think about it. It’s like… if a filly started acting grown stallion. It unsettling, but I don’t know why.
Uh… ‘kay. I’ll… take that into account… I guess?
Yeah, you do that.
Yeah… uhm… well, Shine… uh… hm….
Oh, right. I sat down next to him, and he looked at the book I had open. Oh, yeah, I managed to convince him to help me, and he did. I was very generous.
I think you mean gracious. Or maybe you mean he was generous.
No, Twilight. I was generous. Starlight Shine was lucky he was in my presence. Just kidding.
So which one was it?
He looked at me, and I remember him giving this sigh under his breath like he just wanted me to die. I don’t know if he actually thought that, of course, and he probably didn’t, but that’s how I felt he felt.
Are you just going to ignore me?
No, of course not, Twilight.
Oh, uh, then which one was—
I bit my lip as he studied it. He finally said something after a while, and he grabbed a piece of paper with his magic. He grabbed his book and scooted it over, and then he flipped it to the symbol chart. I just watched as he just wrote out the literal meaning for each of the symbols in order. I was still confused. When he was done, he looked over at me and asked “Uhm… does it make sense now?”
I just shook my head.
He looked at me with the most blank expression I had ever seen and just said “How?”
I didn’t know how to respond, and he stared at me for some more time. I just blushed.
After a while he spoke up and said “D-do you know stuff about like induction and proofs and stuff….”
I said I didn’t really know anything about it.
He said “Oh” and left it at that for a bit.
“But I can learn about it, uh, if you give me some books or something.”
“Uh… okay. H-how much do you know about stuff like algebra and stuff?”
“Not a lot… I know uhm… functions and… quadratics.”
“What about Geometry?”
I was confused as to what Geometry had to do with anything, you know, so I just looked at him before he said anything else. He finally said “I—I’ll take that as a no. I think you should start there.”
I asked him why and he told me that geometry was a lot about proving potential relations between shapes and stuff.
I know.
Yeah. Well, I didn’t at the time. But Shine was very nice. He was telling me basically where to start with learning. After that conversation, he told me that I should get a book with him, and so we walked over to the nonfiction section and he gave me the book he studied on Geometry and simple proofs, Geometry for Enjoyment and Challenge. I gave him a funny look when he handed it to me, of course.
I’ve never heard of that one.
It’s an older one. But above all, he selected a copy of Elements. It was a single book that had each of the thirteen original volumes! It was thick, you know, and I don’t really think it helped me that much because a lot of the language was pretty dense, but you know. After reading the textbook he gave me, I would go back and read the other book and most of it actually made sense. It was a good feeling.
After that, I read the book on my own, you know, and then the next day I would ask Shine questions about problems that I couldn’t figure out myself. And it worked out well for a while.
So are you done?
No, I just want something else to drink. All this talking is making my throat dry.