The Magic of Reading

by Creative Charmer

The Magic of Reading Part 21

It was now that the fillies were finally feeling good about themselves, having made the others feel dejected for how they treated the girls. After feeling this level of accomplishment for a short time, the girls looked at the faces of the other ponies, and suddenly their proud expressions faded. The ponies looked to be feeling genuinely remorseful about their treatment of the fillies, and this in turn made the girls start to feel bad themselves. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all looked at each other, each knowing that treating the ponies the same bad way they themselves were treated was not right. Nopony should have to be treated in such a harsh way, so the crusaders knew they had to set things right.

"Hey," Scootaloo started. "I know we said this was all your guys' fault, but it's not," the other ponies perked their heads back up at the hearing of those words. Now the girls had everyone's undivided attention.

"Well, now that we've had some time to think about it, we really did make some pretty bad decisions."

"It was really thoughtless and irresponsible of us to bring Cthulhu out of this book without checking what the book was about first," Sweetie said as she pointed down at the book.

"No, it was my fault, really," Scootaloo said. "I'm the one who was too impatient to check the book. I said we had to try the spell right away, so if there's anypony to blame, then blame me."

"But ah'm the one who agreed with yah. Ah know that didn't help make this go any better," Apple Bloom said in a faster voice.

"But I'm the one who had to perform the spell. I shouldn't have decided to go along with you guys so hastily," Sweetie also said quickly.

"Look," Scootaloo cut in. "Let's just say it was all three of our faults," Scootaloo said, with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle agreeing with her.

"Anyways, it wasn't right for us to treat you like you had treated us, and we're sorry for it," Sweetie Belle said, and the three fillies hung their heads in sorrow.

Nobody was saying anything. So much had been said, that nobody knew what to say next. Twilight, on the other hand, was thinking more deeply about all this than the others. She thought about the harsh words and accusations exchanged between the ponies and fillies. But, who was really to blame? It was apparent that most ponies here were at fault, but nopony liked taking the blame for themselves; it made everypony feel such anguish and misery, and that was something that nopony wanted. Twilight knew it was time for the callousness to stop, and there was only one solution that would cease all of this despair.

"Look, everypony, I know a lot has been said here. Harsh words have been exchanged, and fault has been placed on everypony involved with this catastrophe, and I do not think that doing such mean things to each other is the best way to resolve this," Everyone had their attention on Twilight, waiting to hear what she had to say. "You see, I don't think any one group here should take the blame for themselves; it is my proposal that everyone shares in the blame."

Everyone looked astonished by Twilight's suggestion. "What are you talking about, Twilight?"

"I'm saying that all the ponies who inadvertently played their part in causing this pandemonium should agree to accept fault themselves, because I'm sure we can all agree that nopony likes having all the blame placed purely on themselves."

Everyone exchanged looks with each other, feeling influenced by Twilight's colloquy. It seemed that everyone was finally in agreement that the cruelty towards one another was to be put to an end.

"Twilight's right," Applejack said, being the first to agree.

"We have all been acting in such a cruel way towards each other," Rarity added.

"But that wasn't right at all," Sweetie Belle said, completing Rarity's thought.

"None of us wanted to be blamed ourselves," Scootaloo said.

"And neither did any of us," Rainbow Dash said. "So we just tried to pin the blame on the girls."

"And that wasn't right, either," Apple Bloom finished. Everypony involved felt sorry for what they did for each other, so the ponies and fillies came to each other and hugged, accepting each other's heartfelt apologies.

Twilight smiled contentedly as she overlooked this flourish of warmth and kindness amongst everypony. "It looks like we've all learned a lesson here today."

"Those of us who needed to learn one, anyway," cut in Spike, to which Twilight gave him a nasty look, making him shut his mouth.

"You got that right," Applejack agreed.

"Ah'll say," Also agreed Apple Bloom. "Me and the other girls learned that we shouldn't try things that are too out of our league, 'cause we might end up making things bad for other ponies; especially the ponies we care about," she looked over at Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who both smiled and nodded in concurrence.

"Well, you're not the only ones to learn a lesson," Applejack said.

"Indeed, as we've learned to give ponies a chance to show their capability, regardless of how young they are," Rarity added.

"Or how many times they've messed up in the past," Rainbow Dash finished. The Cutie Mark Crusaders felt glad to hear the other ponies say this, knowing how much better things were going to be for them now.

Twilight was feeling particularly proud to see her friends learning so much more than they usually did. "It's great to see everypony learn such valuable lessons today."

"Yeah; two for the price of one disastrous event," Spike responded jokingly.

Twilight chuckled along with spike, but then ceased her snicker as she came to a sudden and astounding realization. "Wait...two lessons...that means...two friendship reports!!" she said, astounded. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" she began cavorting around excitedly, with Spike looking quite nonplussed from her actions. "Celestia will be so pleased to hear about this!" she then ceased her merriment. "I'd better get this done right away! Spike! Run back to the library and get the supplies I need to write my two letters!"

"Err..right!" Spike then quickly ran off to the library to acquire Twilight's letter materials.

After he had left, Sweetie Belle yawned. "Boy, I'm tired after such a long day."

"You said it," Scootaloo added as she yawned as well.

"Ah think it's time for everypony to get some sleep," said Apple Bloom.

"No question here."

"Me neither," Sweetie said in addition to Scootaloo. The fillies then began walking away so they could finally get a good night's rest after such an elongated, difficult, and strenuous day. But, they didn't get too far before they were called.

"Hold it," Applejack called to the fillies as she and the other ponies walked towards them.

The girls turned and faced the ponies. "What is it, Applejack?"

"You didn't think you were gonna get off the hook that easily, did ya?" Rainbow Dash said.

"What do you mean?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Well, girls," Twilight started. "Since you three are partially responsible for causing this chaos, you have to help clean up the town."

"What?!" they all responded in alarm. "But...!!"

"Ah ah ah," Rarity disrupted. "Remember, girls; you agreed to share the blame with the rest of us, so that means you share in the cleanup," The fillies exchanged concerned looks with one another, then looked around at all of the wreckage, not looking too happy about how much work was ahead of them.

The next day, all of Ponyville was working together to fix up their wrecked town. The Mane 6 were organizing the piles of debris by placing specific debris into the right piles, such as wood into the wood pile, glass into the glass pile, etc. Spike was standing next to Twilight with the checklist as she oversaw the work being done. "Good thing I thought of organizing the debris, or this might have taken longer," Twilight said with pride. "After all, just because everything's a mess doesn't mean it can't be an organized mess."

"It doesn't?" Spike asked, to which Twilight shot him a mean look, making him cower a bit. Twilight then proceeded to laugh it off, and Spike joined in with the merriment.

Although this fun was going on, things weren't all merry in the rubble. Not far away from where the ponies and Spike were, the crusaders were doing their own part in the cleanup by picking up the collected debris and putting them into wagons for transport.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Scootaloo complained.

"Well seeing how much damage Cthulhu caused, it should take a while," Sweetie Belle replied, making Scootaloo groan. "Well, this is partly our fault, so let's just clean everything up the best we can," she then used her magic to lift up pieces of broken wood and place them in the wagon holding the other wood rubbish.

"At least you're showin' everypony what yer magic can do now, Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Sweetie Belle replied with a smile.

"But I know there's a cooler way to show them than this," Scootaloo said with a mope.

"Hey, don't let this get you down," Sweetie said, trying to comfort Scootaloo. "In fact, you know what we could do?"

"What?" Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both replied simultaneously.

"We can clean up Ponyville the best we can so we'll earn cutie marks in sanitation!"

"Do yah really think we can do that?" Apple Bloom queried.

"Sure we can!" Sweetie replied joyfully. "Cleaning up isn't hard to do! And besides, we won't cause any damage by cleaning!"

"Yah know, ah think you're right, Sweetie Belle! We're sure to clean up the town better than anypony if we work as hard as we can!"

"That's the spirit!"

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom placed their hooves together. They both then looked towards Scootaloo. "Whattya say, Scoot?"

Scootaloo looked to be pondering the idea in her head. "..all right; let's do it!!" she exclaimed with fortitude.

Scootaloo placed her hoof in with the others, and the three fillies threw their hooves up into the air as they shouted, "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SANITATION PONIES!!!"

"All right; you guys ready?" Scootaloo asked

"We're ready!" Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom both replied fortuitously.

"Okay then, Cutie Mark Crusaders; let's clean house!" she responded with much vigor.

Upon hearing Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom's faces became blank. "Clean house?" Sweetie Belle asked in puzzlement.

"We're not cleanin' up a house. We're gonna clean up the whole town."

"Well, there are some wrecked houses we're going to clean up parts of, but still, we're not just doing one house."

Scootaloo made a sigh of dissatisfaction. "You two really need to learn more phrases."

THE END

Comments

[shardfff]

You know you could make the chapters longer

[Creative Charmer]

1737978

Yeah, but then they would take longer for people to read.