The Unbearable Lightness of Being Sweetie Belle

by Distaff Pope

8. Limelight (Part 2)

The sun had almost set when I finally got back home, and I hummed as I walked through the door and heard conversation coming from Rarity’s kitchen. Oh right, it was Wednesday, which meant she was having her weekly dinner with Miss Octavia. “Sweetie Belle,” Rarity called as I closed the door. “Do you wish to join us for dinner? I prepared a simply delightful alfalfa and bean sprout salad, and Miss Octavia brought lemon bars for dessert.”

“I brought them, but all credit for their creation goes to Bon-Bon. There are benefits to living next door to a confectioner,” Octavia said while I trotted to the kitchen. She nodded at me as I walked in. “Good evening, Sweetie, have you finished your conjugation homework yet?”

“No,” I said, taking a seat at Rarity’s dining table. “I… uhmm… I just got back from Diamond Tiara’s house.” I looked at my sister. “I promise I’ll do it and my journaling as soon as I finish eating.”

“Oh,” Rarity said, turning to look at me as she took a dainty bite of her salad. “Your friends came by looking for you earlier today, and I told them I had no idea where you were. They seemed quite concerned, and I was starting to worry about you too. If you’re going to make a habit of spending time with Diamond Tiara, please tell me first or have her come over here.”

“Alright,” I said, frowning as Rarity poured a bowl of disgusting salad for me. I know it’s supposed to be good for me, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. “Scootaloo and I had a big fight today, and I guess I was trying to hide from her.”

Rarity tilted her head. “Oh really? Is everything alright? The two of you have been practically inseparable since you met.”

“It’s…” I might as well tell her the truth, even if I didn’t want to think about it. “She’s being really dumb and got upset with me for wearing makeup. She said she didn’t want to see me becoming lame and girly.”

My sister rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with being in touch with one’s feminine side. Even Rainbow Dash enjoys her spa days now and then... perhaps I should encourage her to have a word with Scootaloo. Still, Scootaloo never struck me as the sort to get upset over such small details, do you think something else might be upsetting her?”

“Maybe,” I said, frowning as I took a bite of my salad. It tasted like condensed sadness. “I’ve been pretty busy practicing for my show–”

“And spending time with Miss Tiara,” Rarity added.

“So maybe I haven’t spent exactly as much time as I used to with her, but I still talk to her every day. It’s not like I’m abandoning her,” I said. “And once I finish my show Friday, I’m going to spend the entire weekend with all my friends, so I don’t get what could be bugging her.”

“Except for the time you’ll spend working on your homework, of course,” Miss Octavia said, smiling. “Not that I’m in the habit of assigning homework over the weekends; I believe my students should have at least a couple of days off every week.”

“Thanks for that,” I said, trying not to gag as I choked down another bite of salad, healthy disgusting salad.

Rarity “hmmed” and tilted her head. “Well, Sweetie Belle, I don’t quite know what to say. I certainly empathize with your predicament, and I know that deep down Scootaloo is a sweet filly, but that doesn’t mean she can make fun of you for expressing your feminine side. However, I also can’t condone you hiding from your problems. Promise me you’ll try to work things out with your friend? You two get along so well most of the time, I’d hate to see you throw that away over something so silly.”

I nodded at her. “Alright,” I said slowly. “I’ll try, but if she keeps being so dumb about this, I’m not going to just let her keep making fun of me.”

“Of course,” Rarity said. “Now finish your dinner and start your homework, I’ll check in on you when Miss Octavia leaves.”

***

Several hours later, the door to my room opened and Rarity trotted in. “Well, Sweetie Belle, do you care to tell me why you thought Scootaloo being mean to you was enough reason to skip class?” Rarity said as she sat next to the desk I was working on. I’d finished my Equestrian class an hour ago, and had been staring at my math problems since then. “You never skipped class when you and Diamond Tiara were still enemies.”

“Yeah, but that’s because Diamond Tiara wasn’t supposed to be my best friend,” I said, trying not to think about today too much. If I could just keep thinking about my math homework, I might not start crying again… Ugh, not thinking about Scootaloo being dumb was so much easier when Diamond Tiara was with me. “Scootaloo was my best friend, but she just… all I wanted to do was look pretty. Is that so bad?”

Rarity smiled and shook her head. “Of course it isn’t, Sweetie. If it were, I’d be in far more trouble than you. Perhaps you two are just growing up in different directions, I know I’ve lost more than a few friends as circumstances forced us apart. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.”

I laughed at that and Rarity gave me a look of confusion. “And just what is so funny about that, dear?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just, before the time loop, I was convinced Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were going to leave me because they’d get their cutie marks before me, and then I got my cutie mark first, but Scootaloo’s still leaving anyways… It’s… Why does life have to be so ironic?”

“Well, I don’t think that would technically count as irony,” Rarity said, tilting her head. “More an unfortunate coincidence. Now, if she started leaving you because you got your cutie mark first, that would be ironic, and…” She stopped and gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, perhaps there’s a better time for our discussion of what does and does not count as irony. I should also point out that you shouldn’t jump to conclusions about Scootaloo leaving you. If the two of you truly care about each other, you should be able to reconcile. You do care about your friend, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I said, nodding my head at her. “You know I hate fighting with anypony, and Scootaloo was my best friend, but I’m not going to apologize to her when I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“And I’m not suggesting you should,” Rarity said, patting me on the head. “Just be willing to hear her out when she does apologize to you. I’m sure eventually she’ll see reason. Now then, how was your date with Diamond Tiara?”

“It wasn’t a date,” I groaned, “we just hung out at her house for a while after she cheered me up. She’s… she offered to help me find a tutor for my math class.”

Rarity’s eye twitched slightly. “I see. Now, when you say she offered to help you find a tutor, did that ‘help’ include enlisting the aid of her father?”

I nodded. “It does, she also told me about the fight you and him had. Why would you get upset with him for wanting to help you sell your clothes?”

“It’s a complicated story,” Rarity said, frowning. “One I don’t particularly feel like going into right now. The important thing is that if you need a tutor, I’ll be happy to find one for you. There’s no need to go and incur a debt with Filthy.”

“What, so you’re not going to let Tiara help me out because you don’t like her dad?” I asked, feeling a teeny-tiny touch of irritation.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Rarity said, giving a small sigh. “Diamond Tiara can help you all she wants, what I won’t tolerate though is her father helping you. He has a nasty habit of turning favors into debts, and I’d prefer my independence.”

“So this is just about you then? Tiara wants to help me out but you won’t let her because you have a fight with her dad?” I asked. Why was everypony but Tiara against me being happy? I guess Apple Bloom hadn’t done anything bad yet, but still…

Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep breath before slowly exhaling. “You know what, perhaps the four of us should sit down some time and have a discussion about appropriate boundaries in your relationship. That way, everypony is on the same page. Can you agree to that?”

“Alright,” I said, mumbling and looking down at my math book. “Hey, Rarity, since we don’t have a tutor yet, do you think you can help me with my homework tonight? You know, if this is actually solvable. Half these problems are just letters.”

My sister laughed and smiled at me. “Sweetie Belle, if I can balance this boutique’s budget every month, I think I can handle a few simple algebra problems.”

“Thanks,” I said, my lips twisting up into a smile and instantly forgetting about our earlier argument. “You’re the best big sister ever!”

“I try, Sweetie Belle, now let’s take a look at these problems, shall we?” She gave me one of her lady-like laughs and patted me on the head as I showed her my math book.

***

I let out a yawn as I trudged across the school’s courtyard. Staying up late to work on math plus waking up early to put on makeup equaled a very tired Sweetie Belle going to class and… Oh no, I’d spent so long doing math stuff I was even starting to think like a math problem. I nervously trotted in place and tried to think of Sweetie Belle things.

Friendship, hugs, kisses, music… Uhmm… My show Friday, ooh what songs am I going to sing for it? I really need to figure that out before tomorrow. Let’s see, I have to fill three hours, and most of the songs I know are about three minutes long, but I also know a few five- to ten-minute songs, so… Gah! I’m mathing again! Why can’t I just–

“Hey, Sweetie Belle,” somepony said, tapping me on the back. I let out a scream and swirled around to see a familiar brown pegasus dart up into the air. “Uhmm… is this a bad time? Because if you’re going to be busy screaming and acting weird, then I can just talk to you later.”

“It’s fine, Socket,” I said, my heart still pounding like crazy. “I just… you startled me.”

“You startled me too,” he said, letting himself fall back down to the ground. “Who just turns around and screams in another pony’s ear?”

“A pony who’s scared.” I sniped back. “You can’t just sneak up on ponies and scare them like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he said, opening his saddlebags and pulling out a white and pink microphone. “I was trying to give you a gift, you know, for your show Friday.”

My horn lit up as I grabbed the microphone with my magic, bringing it closer so I could look at it. Its main body was white, and the big bulby part was the same pink as my mane. “It’s so elegant,” I said, smiling at him. “This is really sweet of you.” Actually, it was too sweet. This must’ve taken a bunch of time to make, so why did he spend it to make me something instead of somepony he actually…

“What? No!” he said, his voice cracking. “I don’t… I mean, I like you as a friend, sure, but I wouldn’t date you in a million years. You’re… I’d like to date somepony a bit smarter, you know?”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You really know how to make a mare feel appreciated.”

He violently shook his head. “Not saying you’re dumb, I just… of all the ponies in our group, you and Diamond Tiara are probably the ones I am least attracted to, you’re just way too girly.” I glared at him and he stammered a bit more. “Not saying girly is bad, I totally don’t think Scootaloo should’ve gotten upset at you like that yesterday, I just don’t… A mare covered in grease and dirt and sweat is way nicer to me than a mare wearing makeup and perfume, but there’s nothing wrong with wearing makeup and perfume, just… I like the other thing more.”

“Fine,” I said, going back to look at the microphone. “So if you don’t like me, why did you go through all that trouble to make this for me?”

“Oh, uh… right,” he said, glancing at the ground. “I guess I just… I wanted to apologize for getting you stuck in a time loop. I’m… You might not know this, but I’m not really good with words.” No kidding. “So I guess I just thought, instead of accidentally offending you, I’d make you something nice.”

“It’s really great,” I said, flipping it around with my magic. There was a switch, but I couldn’t find any place with the cord to go. “So… how does it work?”

“Oh!” he said, smiling and moving to stand next to me. “See that switch?” I nodded at him. “Well, there’s a mana crystal in it that works as an amplifier, when you turn it on, it absorbs some of your magic and uses that to cast a simple amplification spell tuned to your voice, Life Bloom helped me with that part. Basically, if you turn it on, it will naturally amplify your voice, and the more magic you give it, the louder your voice will be. Nifty, right?”

“That’s so cool,” I said, putting the microphone in my saddlebags before throwing my forehooves around him. “Thank you so much, this is pretty much the best gift ever.”

He squirmed out from my hug and took off into the air, making sure to stay out of hug range. “Cool, so… we’re okay then?”

“Of course,” I said, still beaming. “We were actually pretty okay before, but now we’re better than okay.” I mean, I wasn’t angry with him about getting me stuck in a time loop (and that was as much Twilight’s fault as his), I just… he wanted to be an engineer, and I wanted to be a singer. I didn’t think there was that much for us to bond over, so I didn’t know how to hang out with him.

“Thanks,” he said, still keeping to the sky. “Can I ask you for a favor though?”

“Sure, what’s up?” I asked before having a giggling fit. “Besides you, I guess.”

He rolled his eyes. “Real funny and a completely original joke, anyways, what’s up is that I’m trying to make a gift for Life Bloom, and I’m not sure what she’d like. She already has a bunch of science-y stuff, and… I figured you’d be the best pony to ask.”

“Alright,” I said, nodding my head and heading to the school. “I need a bit of time to think, but I’m happy to help you out. Maybe we can meet at Sugarcube Corner and talk about it after school.”

“Sounds good,” he said as I walked into the school, happy to have something else to think about that wasn’t Scootaloo-related. Hopefully, she’d just apologize, and we could go back to being best friends.

***

“Hey!” Scootaloo said, walking towards our table at the cafeteria with Apple Bloom following behind her. Scootaloo usually got here before I did, but I guess something held her up today. Under the table, Diamond Tiara stroked my foreleg reassuringly. “Where were you yesterday? We searched everywhere, but couldn’t find you.”

“I was hiding,” I said, clenching my jaw tight. That didn’t sound like an apology at all.

“Okay,” Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes as she sat down across from me. “So anyways, I was trying to find you yesterday so I could apologize.” That sounded better.

“For what?” I asked, trying to use the same voice Rarity used when she was trying not to show how upset she was. I’d heard that voice a lot but never had a chance to use it before.

“For upsetting you, I guess,” Scootaloo said, shrugging. “Look, I liked you the way you were before the time loop happened, and since then… you’ve just been different. You got your cutie mark, you’ve been spending more and more time with Diamond Tiara, and then you started wearing makeup. It’s like you turned into a completely different Sweetie Belle than the one I knew.”

“I’m still me,” I said, my irritation and anger fading away. “Yes, some things might be different, but I still want to be your friend… At least, I do if you can stand the fact that some things about me are different.”

There was a long pause as she looked at me. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I want to say yes, but when I look at you, I don’t see a pony I know, not like I knew the old Sweetie Belle, at least. So yeah, I’d like it if you were more like you used to be, but I guess that’s just not going to happen.”

My jaw actually dropped, not to the ground or anything, because I don’t think that’s possible, but it definitely dropped.while I tried to figure out how she could say something so completely dumb. She was supposed to be smarter than me, but at least I could… Well, I worried that my friends would leave me because they changed, but Scootaloo was pulling away from me because she thought I changed (and I really hadn’t changed that much).

“Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom said while I stared dumbly at my former best friend. “How can you even say that? Sure, Sweetie might be a bit different than she used to be, but she’s still our friend and been nothin’ but nice to everypony around her. She’s even bein’ nice to you after you were nothing but rotten to her yesterday.”

“I know,” Scootaloo said. “New Sweetie seems super nice, but she isn’t my Sweetie, she’s not the Sweetie who’s always up for adventure, and…” She shook her head. “I thought you were perfect the way you were, so I don’t get why you’re doing things differently now.”

“They aren’t that different,” I said, frowning and trying not to get upset with my friend. “Okay, I’ve focused more on my singing lately, I’m wearing makeup, and I made a few new friends, but so did you,” I said, looking at Socket.

“Yeah, okay,” Scootaloo said, “and I was fine when Melody joined the group, but I can’t believe you’d ever forgive Diamond Tiara. She tormented us for years, and you’re just acting like none of that happened. I can’t accept that.”

“Why do you hate her so much?” I squeaked. “She made fun of all of us, but Apple Bloom at least gave her a chance, and she hasn’t been that bad, has she?” I asked, looking at Apple Bloom for confirmation.

“She hasn’t,” Apple Bloom said, turning her head to look from Diamond Tiara to Scootaloo. “Sure, she ain’t always perfect, but she’s tryin’ to be better, and I figure if my sister can get to bein’ friendly with Discord... Well, I figure Sweetie’s got it right with forgivin’ her.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Scootaloo snarled. “She never made fun of you for not being able to fly. Never… I’ll be able to fly one day. I’ll be able to visit my parents in Cloudsdale one day, I just… Just because I can’t fly yet doesn’t mean I won’t ever be able to fly.” Apple Bloom and I looked at each other. Scootaloo’s wings weren’t something we talked about, but we knew they weren’t shaped right. We knew she would never be able to get more than a few seconds of lift.

For a long time, nopony talked as Scootaloo just glared at Diamond Tiara and everypony else glanced awkwardly at anything that wasn’t Scootaloo. “I said I’m sorry,” Diamond Tiara said. “I offered to make it up to you, and I meant it, but that’s all I can do until you give me a chance.”

“Why would I ever do that?” Scootaloo said, pounding a hoof on the table. “Why would I ever give you another chance to make fun of me? To make me feel like I’ll never be able to fly?”

“But you won’t be able to,” Life Bloom said, causing everypony at the table to turn to look at her. Ugh… of course she had to do the super-honest thing, and now things were probably going to go… bad. Actually, if they just went bad, I’d probably be lucky. Maybe I could still fix this.

“Uhmm… Life Bloom,” I said, looking at my friend. “I know being completely honest is your thing, but maybe now isn’t the time to–”

“No,” she said, cutting me off and turning to stare down Scootaloo. “Scootaloo, a basic examination of your wing structure makes it plainly obvious that you will never be able to fly. They can’t currently generate any sufficient amount of upward thrust, and to hover for even a few seconds, you’d have to work ten times as hard as a normal pegasus does while flying.”

“Then I’ll just work twenty times as hard,” Scootaloo said, matching Life Bloom’s stare with her death glare. “I just haven’t hit my growth spurt yet, once my wings grow out a bit, I’ll totally be able to fly, I just… I’ll be able to fly one day.”

“You won’t,” Life Bloom said calmly, completely unaffected by Scootaloo’s glare. “Your wings will certainly get larger, but their basic design will never change. The same flaw that makes you unable to fly now will keep you from flying when you’re an adult.”

“You’re… you’re wrong,” Scootaloo said, doubt entering her eyes. “Rainbow Dash said I’d be able to fly some day… tell her, girls,” she said, looking at Apple Bloom and me, pleading with us to help her. I wanted to tell her she was right, that if she kept working at it she’d be able to fly one day. I really wanted to cheer her up so she wouldn’t be sad anymore, even if she had spent most of yesterday being a jerk to me. I wanted–

“No,” I whispered, looking down at my uneaten sandwich. “She didn’t say that, Scootaloo, you know she didn’t. She said you might be able to fly eventually, but she lied. She lied because she didn’t want to take your hope away, I guess we all did.”

“A– Apple Bloom,” she said, turning to her last lifeline, her last tiny bit of hope.

Apple Bloom’s eyes watered – everypony was either crying or about to, now – and she slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry,” was all she had to say. All she really needed to say. I saw the second the last tiny bit of hope left Scootaloo’s eyes and she choked back a sob.

“I see,” Scootaloo said, getting up to her hooves and heading away. She gave me a small smile that didn’t have a bit of actual happiness in it. “Crusaders don’t lie to each other, right, Sweetie Belle? I guess the new you isn’t as bad as I thought.” Scootaloo gave a glance back at us before sprinting out of the cafeteria. A moment later, Apple Bloom and I ran off after her.

***

Scootaloo was gone. Her locker was empty of everything but her Crusader cape. My friend was gone. “What do we do now?” Apple Bloom asked while I stared at the place in the locker where her scooter should go.

“We catch her,” I said, turning to head after her. Even if she’d been a big jerk the last few days, Scootaloo was my friend, and right now, she needed my help. “Come on, if we hurry, we can–”

“Sweetie Belle, we ain’t gonna catch up to Scootaloo, and we can’t go skippin’ class to look for her, especially since you skipped class yesterday,” Apple Bloom said, frowning.

“But we have to try,” I squeaked, trying not to cry. I could cry later; right now, Scootaloo needed us. “She always comes after me.”

Apple Bloom patted me on the back. “But you want to be found. This… let’s give a Scootaloo some time alone, then as soon as school’s out, we’ll search the entire town for her.” The rest of our friends stood a bit away, giving us some space.

“And if we can’t find her?” I asked, sniffling.

“Then we keep looking, we ain’t gonna leave her alone tonight.”

“Alright,” I said, looking at Diamond Tiara. The second our eyes met, she gave me a smile that promised comfort later and reminded me of our earlier conversation.

“Don’t worry,” Apple Bloom said. moving to pull Scootaloo’s cape out of her locker and put it in her saddlebags. “We’ll talk to her tonight, and everything will work out.” She glared at Life Bloom. “Though we wouldn’t be having this problem if somepony could’ve just kept her mouth shut.”

“Scootaloo needed to know the truth,” Life Bloom said, going back to her cold scientist voice. “Allowing her to live a delusion is far more destructive in the long term.”

“You took away her hope,” Melody said, marching out in front of Life Bloom and glaring at her. “I know telling the truth is important to you, and complete honesty is probably necessary whenever you’re doing an experiment, but ponies aren’t experiments. You can’t just take away somepony’s hopes without giving them something to cling on to.” She sighed and her posture softened. “I should’ve said something earlier, and that’s my fault, but you all… we have to make this right with her, remind her of all the things she’s good at.”

The rest of us nodded at that. “As soon as class is done, we’re all going to find her,” I said as confidently as I could. My friend needed me. “No matter what she might think right now, she’s still a Crusader, and Crusaders support each other.” The rest of my friends nodded at that with various levels of excitement. “Apple Bloom, you and Life Bloom go to her house; Socket, you take Tiara and track down Rainbow Dash, and I’ll take Melody and search the clubhouse. If one group finds her, send a pony to go get the rest of us, while the other pony stays with Scootaloo. If that doesn’t work, then… we can deal with that later, alright?”

There was a chorus of agreement as the end of lunch bell rang. We were going to find Scootaloo.

***

That evening, the six of us met up at the clubhouse to report our failure. After our first search didn’t work, we asked everypony in town if they’d seen her today, and not a single pony had. “Come on,” Apple Bloom said, “she has to be somewhere in Ponyville.”

“Does she, though?” Life Bloom asked. “Either she fled the town, or somepony is lying for her. In either case, she’s clearly doesn’t want to be found. Apple Bloom, you said as much earlier today.”

“Well, I don’t think you get a say since you started all this,” Apple Bloom said, glaring at her friend. “If you hadn’t said anything earlier, none of this would’ve happened.”

Life Bloom sighed and took a seat at one of the tables in the clubhouse. “Perhaps my delivery could’ve been better, but Scootaloo was living in denial. Something had to be done; her feelings on the issue were negatively impacting her relations with Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara, and I thought telling her the truth might remedy that situation.” She looked between me and Diamond Tiara and opened her mouth to say something, but shut it the second she saw Melody.

“What?” I asked, looking at her. “You were going to say something, right?”

“It’s…” Life Bloom tilted her head and frowned. “Not particularly important considering our current problem. My personal curiosity can wait until a more opportune moment.”

“Wait, did you just decide to not be completely honest?” Apple Bloom asked. “Couldn’t ya have done that earlier?” This wasn’t helping us find Scootaloo at all.

“I already explained my rationale for that decision,” Life Bloom said, meeting Apple Bloom’s glare with her usual calm detachment. Didn’t she say she was going to start working on being less sciencey all the time back in the time loop? I’m pretty sure she did, but on other hoof, her getting upset right now would probably just make things a lot worse.

“Ugh!” Apple Bloom yelled. “How can you just sit there and be so calm? The rest of us are worried sick and you’re just sitting there like this is another one of yer experiments. Would it kill you to show just a little emotion for once?” Or… maybe not.

“Can we please calm down and stop fighting,” I said as loud as I could without yelling. “I know we’re all upset, but let’s just… we’re supposed to be friends, and friends make each other happy, they don’t yell at each other.”

Melody, Socket, and Tiara nodded at that. “She’s right,” Melody said. “Right now, Scootaloo needs our help, and this fighting isn’t helping anypony. Life Bloom, can you apologize to Apple Bloom for perhaps being a bit blunt with Scootaloo?”

“Of course,” Life Bloom said, looking from Melody back to Apple Bloom. “While I still believe that telling Scootaloo the truth was the right course of action, there was almost certainly a better way to go about it, and I apologize for any unnecessary pain I caused.”

“Alright,” Melody said, patting Life Bloom on the back. How can Melody be so quiet most of the time, but then just completely take charge whenever our group gets to fighting? “Apple Bloom, forgive your friend.”

“Fine,” Apple Bloom said, her glare softening. “I know ya were just tryin’ to help, even if you went about it in a dumb way. I guess I shouldn’t ‘ave lost my temper.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Life Bloom said, extending her forehoof to Apple Bloom. “Perhaps I need somepony to keep me in check at times. So far, my attempts at being more sociable have met with… mixed results.”

“I can help,” I said, perking up at the idea, while Apple Bloom shook Life Bloom’s hoof. “You know I’m good at being friendly with ponies.”

“Very well,” Life Bloom said, nodding at me. “Certainly, if I had to have somepony teach me how to properly interface with others, you would be an ideal candidate. I know we discussed this back in the loop, but so far, follow-up has been lacking.”

“Sorry,” I said, frowning and looking at the floor. “I guess I just got so caught up with getting my cutie mark that I forgot I said I’d help you. Also, you really shouldn’t say ‘properly interface with others,’ it sounds like something a robot would say. Maybe try saying ‘get along with other ponies’ instead.”

Life Bloom gave me a small smile. “Thank you, and your neglect is completely understandable. Earning your cutie mark disrupts everything in your life, and putting it back together takes time.”

“Alright,” Apple Bloom said, drawing our attention back to her. “Can we please get back to findin’ Scootaloo?”

Socket broke into the conversation for the first time. “Actually, I kind of agree with Life Bloom. She obviously doesn’t want us to find her, and bugging her now will probably just make her more upset. I know if I was her, I’d want some time alone.”

“Besides,” Diamond Tiara said, moving towards Life Bloom, “if we find her now, she’ll probably just yell at us more. Let’s let her sleep it off. Going after her now seems like a dumb idea for everypony.”

“But she’s our friend,” Apple Bloom said, looking to me for support. “We… Crusaders don’t leave each other behind.”

“They also don’t lie to each other,” Tiara said, causing Apple Bloom and me to wince. She didn’t need to say anything else.

“How can you even consider leaving her behind?” Melody said, moving towards Apple Bloom’s corner of the room. “Scootaloo is… I know I’m new to the group, but she’s still my friend, and more importantly, we can’t just leave her in pain when she needs comfort the most.”

The room was slowly dividing itself. On one side was Apple Bloom and Melody, and on the other side was Life Bloom, Socket, and Diamond Tiara, while I stood between the two sides. “Because she’s made it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with us right now. She left her cape behind for a reason, and I don’t think we should waste our time going after a pony who doesn’t want our help.” Life Bloom glanced from Apple Bloom to me. “What do you think, Sweetie Belle?”

“I think…” I frowned. Scootaloo was my friend; I wanted to cheer her up when she needed me to be there for her, and up until a few days ago, she’d always been there when I needed her. But then she started acting like I’d stabbed her in the back just because I’d started wearing makeup, and... if she couldn’t accept me, then why should I spend my night looking for her when she didn’t even want to see me? I trotted to stand next to Diamond Tiara and tried to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach when I saw the look Apple Bloom and Melody’s faces.

“What?” Apple Bloom said, looking like I’d just punched her in the face. “You and Scootaloo were always the closest, how can you turn yer back on her now?”

“Life Bloom’s right,” I said, trying not to cry. If Scootaloo didn’t want us to find her, there was no point in wasting our time looking. “We’d probably just make things worse if we talked to her now. Besides, if we couldn’t find her earlier, I don’t think we can find her now.”

“That’s…” Apple Bloom looked from me to Melody. “I’m still going to try and find her, even if the rest of you won’t help. Melody?”

Melody nodded at Apple Bloom. “I know I haven’t had friends for that long, and maybe I don’t understand everything about it, but I know enough to not leave somepony in pain behind. I’ll look for her as long as you need me.”

“Thanks,” Apple Bloom said as she trotted to the clubhouse exit, the rest of us moving aside so she could get past. “Glad at least somepony else cares about Scootaloo.” She glared at the four of us as she passed while Melody just looked at me and frowned.

“I care about her,” I yelled after the two as they walked off, “but that doesn’t mean I’m about to go bother somepony who doesn’t want us around.” If they heard me, they didn’t respond.

***

The four of us hung around the clubhouse for a little while longer before eventually splitting up, with Life Bloom and Socket heading to the dorms while Tiara walked me back to the boutique. “You did the right thing today, Sweetie,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to do, but sometimes friends just need to be left alone.” Tiara bumped playfully against me in an attempt to cheer me up. “You’re still a great friend.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to smile at her. I don’t think it worked. “I just… I want all my friends to be happy, so why do they have to keep getting upset? If Scootaloo could’ve just been nice to you, none of this would have happened. Instead, everypony feels miserable, and it’s so dumb.”

“Well, not everypony can be as good as you,” she said as we walked through Ponyville’s mostly empty streets. Above us, the stars were coming out one by one, as the color faded from the sky. “But if you and Scootaloo stop being friends, it won’t be because you did something wrong. You’ve been way nicer to her than I’d be.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I mumbled, looking down at my hooves as I walked.

“Remember what we talked about last night,” she said, putting a forehoof in front of me to stop me from walking. She turned to face me. “Remember what you said, you deserve to be happy. You still believe that, right?”

I nodded slowly. That was all I wanted, to be happy and make other ponies happy, but… maybe there were some ponies who didn’t want to be happy? Should I really spend time on them when all they did was take joy from the world and replace it with sadness? Not that Scootaloo was necessarily one of those ponies, but–

Tiara’s lips pressed against mine, and a wave of warm fuzziness got rid of all those annoyingly bad thoughts. She was right, I did deserve to be happy, and I had her with me to give me all the happiness I’d ever need. If Scootaloo just wanted to be miserable, I shouldn’t hurt myself trying to cheer her up. I let out a soft sigh as our kiss ended.

“You always manage to make me feel better,” I said, nuzzling her neck. “I don’t know what I would’ve done the last few days without you.”

“It’s nothing special,” she said, stroking the back of my neck with her forehoof. “I’m just trying to be as good a special somepony as you deserve. Now let’s get you back home, I know you have to get ready for your show tomorrow.”

I jolted up at that. “Oh shoot! I still don’t have a song list for tomorrow, Pinkie’s going to kill me if I don’t take this seriously.”

“I’m pretty sure she won’t,” Diamond Tiara said as we started walking to the boutique again. “I don’t think Pinkie could hurt anypony. Still, you should probably figure out what songs you want to sing for your first big show; I want you to do as well as possible. Oh! Speaking of doing well, Daddy found a tutor for you, although he really wants to get to know you better. Does Saturday work?”

“Actually, Rarity wants all of us to get together sometime, so we can talk about boundaries and stuff. She thinks your dad is going to use doing nice stuff for me to get her to do what he wants,” I said as we reached the front door of the boutique. “I’m sure he won’t, but she still wants us to all have a talk, is that okay?”

“Sure,” Tiara said, shrugging as I opened the door. “I know Daddy has a bit of a bad reputation, but he’s really just a big softie. You’ll see once you get to know him better.” She smiled and kissed my cheek, causing them to suddenly get really warm. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright,” I said as I walked into the boutique. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and… thanks for cheering me up. Not looking for Scootaloo was the right choice, right?”

She nodded at me and smiled. “Of course it is. You’ll see her tomorrow, and you two can talk after she’s had some time to calm down. There’s no point in dealing with her when she’s angry.”

I nodded at her and repeated her words as I headed up the stairs. Scootaloo and I could talk at lunch, and everything would be just fine, and we’d go back to being just friends.

***

There was no sign of Scootaloo at lunch the next day. “I take it,” Life Bloom said as she sat at the table, “that your search last night yielded no fruits.”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Obviously, it didn’t, but maybe you could show a little concern that our friend is still missing! Unless you don’t actually care because you’re a robot.”

“No way she’s a robot,” Socket said, shaking his head as he took a bite of his sandwich. “Her movement’s too smooth, she looks too realistic, and if she was a robot, we’d probably hear the whirring of her internal servos and… You don’t actually think she’s a robot, do you?”

“Considerin’ that I didn’t think robots existed outside of them Mare Trek serials, I’m gonna go with no… Wait, are there actual real life robots?”

He nodded excitedly. “The technology isn’t all there yet, but we do have basic machines that can follow orders, nothing even close to the stuff in the movies or Life Bloom though.”

“Excuse me,” Melody said, clearing her throat and getting us all to look at her. “As interesting as it is to learn about robots, shouldn’t we be focusing on Scootaloo?”

“You’re right,” Apple Bloom said. “We don’t have time to worry about who is and isn’t a robot, we need to find Scootaloo.”

“You spent all night looking for Scootaloo,” Life Bloom said, adjusting her glasses with her magic. “So far, blindly searching for her has met with no positive results, so I don’t see why I’m being portrayed as the villain for suggesting other possible avenues.”

“First, because this is your fault,” Apple Bloom said, glaring, “and second, because your ‘other possible avenue’ is just sittin’ around waitin’ for her to show up. We should be doing something.”

“I’ll agree with that sentiment,” Life Bloom said. “However, there’s no point doing something we have every reason to believe won’t work. Even Sweetie Belle could understand that. Are you going to argue that she doesn’t care for Scootaloo?”

“Well… no,” Apple Bloom said slowly, looking between me and Life Bloom. “I know she cares a whole lot for all of us, I just… I can’t do nothin’, you know?”

“You aren’t. Now that time has passed, we have enough information to possibly figure out where Scootaloo went last night,” Life Bloom said. “First of all, nopony questioned us this morning, did they?”

“No…” Apple Bloom said, shaking her head, “But what does that have to do with Scootaloo?”

“Scootaloo’s aunt, Sea Shine, would be concerned if her niece never showed up, correct?” Life Bloom asked, taking a nibble of her salad. Unlike Rarity, she just used her magic to eat it and didn’t mess around with silverware.

“Right,” Apple Bloom said, wrinkling her forehead as she followed Life Bloom’s train of logic. I had no idea what she was trying to get at, but it seemed important.

“So, assuming your ward went missing, you would naturally begin to worry, correct? Especially when two of her friends came by looking for her earlier that evening. However, this morning, nopony in town seemed to be looking for her, so it seems logical that…”

“She was at her house the whole time,” Apple Bloom finished, thudding her hoof against her forehead. “How did we not figure it out when we went by her house?”

“There was no reason for us to suspect the truth then,” Life Bloom said. “The only possible indicator we had was how calm Sea Shine appeared, and that was readily explained by the fact that such… drama is distressingly common in this town.”

“So she’s hiding from us all in her room?” I asked, frowning. “That doesn’t really sound like something she’d do. It’s definitely something I’d do, but… not her. She’d face her problem head-on.”

“And how does one face the revelation that your friends and idol collaborated in deceiving you, and that you have absolutely no hope of ever flying?” Life Bloom asked, turning to look at me, her glasses framing her stare.

“I wouldn’t say never,” Socket said, interrupting me before I could respond. “With a few years, I could probably design a pair of mechanical wings that could make anypony fly… It might take a few more years to make them safe, though.”

“Wonderful news,” Life Bloom said, sparing Socket a glance. “I’m sure Scootaloo will take great comfort in the knowledge that the same pony who accidentally created a stable time loop thinks he can make her fly. Sweetie Belle, my question still stands.” That was another great fight we were having, ever since we left the time loop, Life Bloom had been snapping at Socket more often. I don’t think he actually noticed it, though.

“I’d run away and hide in my room,” I said, nodding my head. “But that just doesn’t seem like something Scootaloo’d do.”

“Yes, well, I suppose we all have our breaking points, and yesterday Scootaloo found hers,” Life Bloom said, frowning. “At least we can be reasonably certain she’s safe, though, and that should provide some comfort.”

“I just wish she’d talk to us,” I said, trying not to start crying in front of my friends. “It’s… I know we hurt her feelings, but I wish she’d let us apologize. We didn’t tell her the whole truth because we thought it might make her feel better.”

“You lied to make her happy?” Life Bloom asked, tilting her head. “Well… I think I’m going to refrain from commenting on that further, anything I might say would be… unproductive.”

“Sure would,” Apple Bloom said, taking a bite of her apple – she always had at least one apple for lunch, other food too, but there was always one apple – and rolling her eyes. “Yeah, maybe we messed up, but we did it because she’s our friend, and we wanted her to be happy.”

Life Bloom sighed and rubbed her forehead. “That’s perfectly fine, I suppose, but you have to… I admit, my knowledge of how to deal with friends is limited, but in the laboratory setting, there is no situation where it’s advantageous to–”

“Please stop going on about–”

“Girls!” I yelled, interrupting them. “Can you please stop fighting? We know where Scootaloo is, we know she’s safe, and we know she’s still in town. You already apologized, so can we please try to get through this lunch and be kind of happy? Come on…” I tried to think of something happy we could talk about instead. “What about Pinkie’s party tonight? What do you all want to do first?”

“I’m actually not sure about what I should do there,” Life Bloom said, turning to look at me and frowning. “Obviously, I intend to listen to the singer hired for the occasion, but I don’t know what else I should do. As the last few days have made painfully obvious, my ability to socialize with others is still somewhat lacking.”

“Ooh! Maybe you can spend some time with…” I wanted to say Apple Bloom, but my gut told me they still needed some time away from each other. I couldn’t pair her with Melody because she needed somepony to make sure she didn’t stay in a corner for the entire party, and I didn’t want to encourage Socket’s crush on Life Bloom, so that just left... “Diamond Tiara! I’m sure you two will get along great.”

Diamond Tiara turned to look at me and silently mouthed “really?” I nodded at her.

“Of course,” I said, smiling and nodding. “You both have…” I struggled to think of what they had in common besides the fact they were both mares. “You’re both great ponies, you should definitely get to know each other better.” I looked at Tiara and gave her my best “this is really important to me” look.

She turned to look at Life Bloom and smiled. “I’d love to. I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about.”

Life Bloom returned Tiara’s smile. “Indeed, I’m sure we’ll have plenty to discuss.”

“So,” Melody said, cautiously dipping her hoof into the conversation, “what exactly is there to do at one of Pinkie’s parties?”

Apple Bloom perked up at that. “Oh, it’s great,” she said, “her really big parties have pretty much everything you could want. There’s food, drinks, games, singing....” She continued to talk about all the stuff that might be at Pinkie’s party, and I let out a sigh of relief. At least everypony was happy for the moment. Scootaloo could wait until later.

***

“So,” Diamond Tiara said, giggling and leaning against me as we walked through the school’s courtyard. Everything was still green, but the sky had the tinge of grey that said it would be fall soon. “What do you want to do before the party?”

“Actually, I really need to talk with Pinkie about my show,” I said, frowning as I felt her fur coat against mine. “I’d really like to do stuff with you, but...”

“That’s fine,” she said, nuzzling my neck. “Is there any chance I can come with you? I promise I won’t bug you.”

“Well, I don’t see why not,” I said as we turned to the park where Pinkie’s party was being thrown. “After all, the park’s open to everypony, so I don’t see what the big problem would be, just… remember, nopony is supposed to know we’re dating, I don’t want my friends to get upset.”

“I haven’t been that obvious during lunch, have I? Sure, I might think about kissing you during lunch, but I don’t think I actually do it, do I?” she said, ending her question with a kiss on my neck.

“No,” I said, slowly shaking my head. “Hey, is that why you’re always so quiet during lunch? Because you’re thinking about doing kissing stuff?”

“One of the reasons,” she said, pulling away from me as a group of older students walked towards us. “That, and I really don’t have anything to say. If they don’t want to talk with me, I’m completely fine not talking to them.”

“But I want you to get along with them,” I said, frowning. “You even said you’d try to be better about being friendly with them.”

“And I am,” she said, swerving her head to look around for other groups of ponies as the group passed us. A second later, she was leaning against me. “I really am, but at the same time, I don’t really get what to say to Apple Bloom or Scootaloo. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ just doesn’t seem to work well when you’re talking with somepony you spent four years torturing.”

“It works with me,” I said as we turned off from the main road leading to the school and headed to Ponyville Park

Tiara giggled and pressed harder against me, making me wobble on my feet. “Well, you’re special, Sweetie Belle. Not everypony can be as wonderful as you.”

“Hey, my friends are great,” I squeaked, pushing back against her. “Everypony I know is great. Besides, there’s no reason you can’t be friendly with Socket or Life Bloom or Melody.”

“Okay, there’s no way I’m ever going to be that friendly with Melody, Socket is too dirty, and Life Bloom is… Well, I think Apple Bloom was pretty right when she called her a robot,” Tiara said in the same tone of voice she used when she was making fun of us.

“Tiara,” I growled, taking a step away from her and almost causing her to fall on her side. “You promised you’d try harder to be friends with them when we started dating. You like dating me, right?”

She nodded at me.

“Then be friends with them. I want my friends to be your friends, and if you had somepony you wanted me to be friends with, I’d totally try to be friendly with them,” I said, stepping close to her so she could go back to leaning against me. I’d made my point, and I really liked it when she leaned against me, so there really wasn’t any point to me staying away from her any longer.

“Fine,” she said as she went back to leaning against me. “Why did I have to date the one pony in Equestria who is obsessed with everypony being friends?”

“First of all, I’m pretty sure it’s the fact that I try to be sweet to everypony that made you like me in the first place, and second of all, I’m not the only pony in Equestria who wants everypony to be friends,” I said, really wishing I could kiss her in front of everypony. It would be so nice if I could tell all of my friends we were dating, but… Okay, Apple Bloom was okay with it, I didn’t think Life Bloom or Socket would care that much, and Melody apparently didn’t have romantic feelings for me, but Scootaloo… she was having a hard time even accepting the fact I was friends with Diamond Tiara. Still, if she couldn’t accept the fact that I was dating somepony… why should I care?

“Hey, Tiara,” I said as we entered the park and trotted towards a pink blur darting around a gazebo, leaving balloons and streamers wherever it went. “Why don’t we just tell my friends we’re dating? I’m sure they’ll all be okay with it.”

“Maybe,” she said slowly, her body suddenly getting tense. “But I know how important your friends are to you, and I just… I don’t want to cost you any friends. Let’s give them a few more weeks to get used to me being in the group and then we’ll tell them.”

I frowned, thinking about how upset Scootaloo got when she found out we were lying to her. “Hey,” Tiara said, possibly reading my mind (if we were dating, could she read my mind? It seems like most couples know what the other is thinking, so how long do we have to be dating for me to hear her thoughts?), “we aren’t lying to them, we’re going to tell them the truth eventually, I just want to give them some more time…”

She paused for a second. “It’s like with a surprise party. You aren’t lying if you don’t tell somepony about the surprise party you’re–”

“Ohmygosh! Didsomebodysayparty?” Pinkie said, suddenly standing right in front of us, a giant smile on her face. “Who’s planning a surprise party? Ooh! Are you planning a surprise party to tell all your friends that you’re dating, because if so, I can totally help with that.”

“How did you know?” Tiara asked. I kind of wasn’t surprised that Pinkie had already figured out we were dating. I kind of wasn’t surprised by anything Pinkie did.

“It’s so obvious,” she said, still smiling down at us. “I mean, you’re leaning against Sweetie in just the cutest way, how could I not guess you’re dating?”

“That doesn’t explain how…” Tiara sighed.

“It’s Pinkie Pie,” I said, kissing Tiara’s cheek. “Do you really want to understand how she knows anything? She probably had whatever twitch she gets when ponies are in a secret relationship.”

Pinkie nodded. “It’s true. You wouldn’t believe how many secret relationships I know about, I mean, just the other day, Fluttershy and…” She shook her head. “Not important. What is important is that I can totally plan you a ‘Surprise! We’re dating’ party if you want. Ooh! What do you think of Diamond Belle as your couple name?”

“Ooh! What about Sweetiara?” I asked, ears perking up at the idea of couple names. I had couple names for all of my friends, there was Socketloo, Light Melody (Okay, so Bright Lights wasn’t our friend yet, but she’d come around), Socketbloom, Diamond Wrench, and BloomBloom. I even tried to make couple names for my teachers, TaviScratch was already a thing, but Mold Pi could totally be a thing, even if it sounded really disgusting.

“I like it!” Pinkie said. “That rolls off the tongue way better than Diamond Belle.”

“But I really like Diamond Belle, too,” I said, trying to think of which one was better. “Sure Sweetiara sounds nice, but…” I smiled. “Diamond Belle has a nice ring to it.”

Pinkie and I both laughed and giggled at that while Tiara just rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t you two be talking about tonight’s party instead of making jokes about our couple names?” she asked.

“But it’s so fun,” I said as I finished laughing. “Come on, which one do you like more?”

“I really don’t care,” she said, shrugging. “Whichever one makes you happier.”

“Come on,” Pinkie said, sing-songing as she twisted her head upside down to look at Diamond Tiara. No, I don’t know how her head is so stretchy, and I really don’t want to know. “You know you prefer Diamond Belle, search your feelings, you know it to be true.”

“I actually think couple names are kind of stupid,” Diamond Tiara said. “Actually, I didn’t even know they were a thing until just now.”

We both gasped and Pinkie untwisted her head to look at me, her eyebrow raised. “And you’re dating her?”

“She’s really nice,” I squeaked. “Even if she doesn’t like couple names, there are a lot of other really nice things about her… like kissing stuff.” Tiara smiled and kissed my cheek at that, causing a wave of warm fuzzy to wash over me.

Pinkie nodded sagely. “Very true, grasshopper. Kissing stuff is super fun, I can’t deny that… Still, who doesn’t like couple names?”

“Don’t you have a party you’re supposed to be planning?” Tiara asked, looking between us. “If I’d known you two’d just be discussing couple names, I think I’d have gone home or… Okay, I still would’ve gone with Sweetie, but still, don’t you have more important stuff to do?”

“There’s nothing more important than couple names,” Pinkie said, hmphing. “That’s the main reason to be a couple, otherwise why would you ever decide to date just one pony?”

I frowned and tried to think. Was she trying to say it was possible to date more than one–

“Oh my gosh, Sweetie, I completely forgot to ask if you had everything ready for tonight. I was just so excited about you and Tiara dating, I completely forgot about it,” Pinkie said, kicking whatever I was thinking about out of my head.

I pulled a few sheets of paper out of my bag with my magic and passed them over to Pinkie. “Yep! They’re right here, do you want to look them over or…”

She shuffled through the papers and nodded. “This looks great, Sweetie Belle, there’s enough music here to fill the time, the songs are light, and Tavi should be able to play these no problem.”

“Wait,” I said, suddenly frowning. “Miss Octavia is playing with me?”

Pinkie nodded. “Of course, silly, you need somepony to provide a little music, and I totally think her cello would go well with your voice. Or did you think I’d leave you up there all by your lonesome without anypony to help?” There was a pause as she saw my growing frown. “Ooh! It’s not that I don’t think you’ll do great up there all on your lonesome, I just think… even the best singers have musical backing.”

I smiled at her. “It’s fine, I just… I guess I just didn’t think there would be anypony up on stage with me, if I did, I totally would’ve talked with Miss Octavia sooner so we could get things set up and work together.”

“Well, Octavia didn’t even know she’d be singing until this morning when I realized ‘oh my gosh, we totally don’t have any instrumentals to help Sweetie Belle, and it would be so terrible if she had to do it all on her lonesome, so who do I know that can play with her? I know my cousin Tavi will be happy to help, especially since it gives her a chance to help her friend and...’” Pinkie continued to go through all the thoughts she had that led up to this moment, and even reenacted some of them.

“So anyways, long story short, Octavia agreed to play with you,” Pinkie said several minutes later.

“I don’t think you can say ‘long story short’ when you already gave us the long version,” Tiara said, rolling her eyes. “The whole point of saying ‘long story short’ is so you don’t have to inflict the long story on somepony else.” I glared at her. “Not that you were ‘inflicting’ your story on us, I loved hearing about everything you did this morning.”

Pinkie giggled and snorted. “That’s silly, if I did that, then how could I tell you all about my super-awesome day?”

“Right…” Tiara said slowly, sighing and nodding her head. “Well then, where should Sweetie start practicing?”

“On the stage, silly,” Pinkie said, pointing a hoof at an empty section of the park. She laughed. “Whoopsie! Forgot to set the stage up, one second.” Pinkie turned into a pink blur and dashed around the spot where she thought the stage should be, causing a cloud of dust to surround the area. A few seconds later, the dust settled and Pinkie stood on the newly-made stage, a hard hat on her head. “Here you go,” she said, dashing back in front of us. “Oh! I forgot to set up the speaker system, one more–”

“It’s fine,” I said, interrupting her before she could go back to doing impossible things. “I have my own microphone.” I pulled out Socket’s gift to me and showed it to her.

“Ooh! Fancy,” she said, looking it over. “You still need speakers though.”

“Actually, I don’t,” I said, flipping the switch to on. “See?” I spoke into the microphone, and my voice filled the park.

“Nice,” she said, nodding her head and leaning in close to the microphone. “Although if that’s our speaker system… I’ll need Tavi to stand next to you during the show so you don’t drown out her cello. Is that okay with you?”

I nodded my head at her. “It sounds fine,” I said, still talking into the microphone and causing several ponies on the other side of the park to look at me. Oops. Probably should’ve turned that off first. “Oh, Tiara, will you be okay just watching me practice? I don’t want you to be bored.”

“It’s fine,” she said, shrugging as I trotted towards my stage. “I like watching you sing, and if I get bored, I’m sure Pinkie can think of something I can do.”

“Yupperooni,” Pinkie said as she went back to dashing around the park, leaving tables and party decorations behind her. “If you could help me set up some of my party games, that would be super duper.” Tiara nodded and headed off to the pile of stuff Pinkie used for her party games while I took the stage and started practicing.

***

I peeked out from behind the curtain. Tons of ponies were milling around the park, talking, drinking, and playing Pinkie’s games. Near the front of the stage, a few ponies sat down, waiting for me to start playing, my friends making up the core of the group, with Tiara sitting right in the center of the front row. I sighed; everypony was here but Scootaloo. I know she’s mad at me, but I really thought she would at least show up for my big show.

A hoof tapped me on the back. “Nervous?” Miss Octavia asked as I turned to look at her. “I remember I was an absolute wreck during my first few shows, and I don’t think I slept the night before my audition for the Canterlot Orchestra.”

“A little bit,” I said, slowly nodding my head at her as I felt a twinge of terror in my stomach. “Not a lot, but I’m still kind of terrified that they won’t like me. I mean, they liked me in the time loop, but I had all the time I needed to practice then.”

Octavia blinked at me in confusion before moving to smile reassuringly. “Well, try not to worry too much. You’re a wonderfully gifted singer, and I’m sure everypony out in the audience tonight will love you. Besides, if they don’t, they’ll just go to the free buffet or spend time at the game corner. I doubt they’ll be too terribly upset about free entertainment.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning back to the stage curtain. “I guess we should probably get up on stage.”

“Indeed,” Octavia said, pulling back the curtain so I could step through. “Punctuality is a virtue in all things, Sweetie Belle,” she said as I walked onto the stage. Our small audience stomped their hooves as I pulled my microphone off the mike stand Pinkie had set up for me. Next to me, Octavia readied her cello, while I looked at the crowd of ponies and tried not to get sick. If I messed this up, I’d be the laughing stock of the whole town… I shook my head. Singing was my special talent, I wasn’t going to mess this up.

“Good evening, everypony,” I said, smiling at the crowd as my nausea slowly disappeared. “I hope you’re enjoying the party so far, and I… uhmm… I have a few songs I’d like to sing for you tonight, I hope you like them.” Okay, so public speaking wasn’t my special talent, and I might want to work on that later, and... I took a deep breath, tried to stop my heart from pounding so hard, and started to sing.

“I’m your only friend.
I’m not your only friend,
but I’m a little glowing friend…”

***

“Listen, Ana, hear my words,
they’re the ones you would think I would say,
if there was a me for you.”

The crowd applauded as I finished my last song, and Octavia and I took a bow. Over the course of the evening, more and more ponies had moved from the buffet and other party stuff to join the group of ponies that were either sitting and listening to me perform or dancing with the music. At some point during my show, Diamond Tiara had dragged Life Bloom off to the dance floor, while Socket and Melody bobbed for apples in the games corner.

Octavia smiled at me. “Go out and have some fun with your friends, I’m more than capable of performing on my own for the remainder of the party.” She glanced at the clock tower. “I doubt it should be going for too much longer.”

“Thanks, Octavia,” I said as I trotted off stage and headed to where Tiara was trying to teach Life Bloom the basics of dancing, while Life Bloom’s legs flailed out and tripped anypony who made the mistake of dancing near her, creating a giant empty circle around her. Tiara turned and smiled at me as I trotted over to her.

“You’re done?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You just started singing…” She looked at the clock. “Three hours ago… It seems listening to you sing just makes the time fly by.”

I smiled at her and managed not to kiss her in front of everypony, even though I really wanted to. “Really? It felt like forever to me.”

“Most likely your emotional states impacted your perception of time,” Life Bloom said, looking between us as she gave up her attempts at dancing.

“Thanks,” I said, glancing at her. “Anyways, did you two have fun?”

“The evening has been enjoyable so far,” Life Bloom said, nodding her head at me. “I initially had my reservations as I had limited familiarity with Diamond Tiara, but those reservations proved not to be supported by reality.”

Tiara looked at Life Bloom and tilted her head. “Thanks, I think. Anyways, spending time with you wasn’t that bad either, just… I don’t think I’ll be dancing with you anytime soon. I like my hooves unbruised, thank you very much.”

Life Bloom smiled at that. “Fear not, Diamond Tiara, I highly doubt I’ll be dancing with anypony for the foreseeable future. My dancing is as hazardous to the ponies around me as Sweetie Belle’s cooking once was.”

“Hey!” I squeaked. I really needed to stop doing that, if it happened on stage, I don’t think I’d be able to stop blushing for the rest of the show. “My cooking isn’t that bad anymore.”

“Indeed it isn’t,” Life Bloom said, nodding at me. “However, it took several months of training for you to get there, and I believe I will need the same amount of time to become an adequate dancer, assuming I have a decent teacher.” She glanced between me and Tiara.

“... Fine,” Tiara eventually said. “You’re not so bad, and I guess spending more time with you would be cool. Besides, Sweetie Belle would probably be–”

She was cut off as I tackled her in a giant hug. “Thank you so much,” I said as we both hit the ground. “I knew you and Life Bloom would get along and be best friends, and now you’ll be teaching her how to dance and soon you’ll be completely inseparable, and everypony will be saying ‘Diamond Tiara and Life Bloom sure are wonderful friends’ and–”

“Breathe, Sweetie Belle,” Diamond Tiara said, cutting me off. “And yeah, Life Bloom and I get along, and that’s cool, but could you try not to get so excited?”

“Are you serious?” I asked, hopping back to my hooves in one bounce. “You know that won’t happen, right?”

“I know,” Tiara said getting up to her hooves, “I guess I was just–” She froze, her eyes going wide. “Sweetie Belle, I need you to not freak out right now.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to turn around to see what she saw, but Tiara grabbed my head and kept my eyes locked on hers. “What is it? Something bad.”

“Not bad,” she said, keeping my head still, “but Scootaloo is standing next to the–”

“Scootaloo!” I yelled, breaking free from Tiara’s grip and spinning around to find my friend standing right next to the buffet table. For some reason, the orange pegasus seemed a few shades grayer than normal, but it was probably just the light. Even though the rest of my friends look fine.

As I ran towards her, I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to hug her for being at my show or strangle her for scaring us all so badly. As I leapt towards the surprised pegasus, I decided to compromise by hugging her really tightly.

“What the hay were you thinking?” I asked as I tackled her. “We were all so worried about you when you ran off, and then we couldn’t find you and–”

“Sorry,” she said, her voice numb. “I needed some time to think. To accept the fact that I’ll never fly.” She frowned and I looked into her eyes. They were the same shade of purple they normally were, but at the same time, they looked almost dead, like there was nothing in them.

“But I thought we already had that talk,” I said, a tiny pit of worry growing in my stomach. “When we went to the Crystal Empire for the tryouts.”

“No,” Scootaloo said, shaking her head. “You said I might be able to fly one day.” She gulped and for a second I saw the same old pain in her eyes before they went back to being dead. “I still hoped, you know, thought that maybe if I kept at it and practiced my scooter stuff, that one day I’d be able to fly with my parents and Rainbow Dash, but no, I’m going to be stuck on the ground until I die. Soon, I’ll be too big for Rainbow Dash to lift me up when she’s flying, and that’ll be it. Ground bound forever.”

“You still have your scooter though,” I said, trying to cheer her up somehow. I’d never really thought about how it might feel to be a pegasus and know you could never fly. Even I could do a little bit of magic, and I could do a little bit more every day I practiced, but Scootaloo could only dream of flying. “That was… I don’t know anypony better at scootering than you.”

Scootaloo just shrugged. “I guess, it doesn’t really matter though.” She blinked at me. “Oh, my parents are visiting tomorrow, so I’ll have to cancel whatever you have planned for the weekend. We need to talk about some things. Maybe if I promise I won’t try flying again, they’ll let me move in with them at Cloudsdale again. Also... could you please stop hugging me? It’s getting a bit difficult to breathe.”

No. My eyes watered. This was wrong, Scootaloo was the most passionate pony I knew, and now she was just empty, like… like everything I knew about her had been scooped away. A waffle cone without ice cream. I squeezed her tighter. “You can’t leave,” I squeaked. “We’re friends, we’re Crusaders. Crusaders don’t leave other Crusaders behind.”

She gave me an empty smile, no anger or sadness or anything in it, it was just nothing. “And Crusaders don’t lie to each other.” My grip on her went loose and she took the opportunity to push me off her. “Don’t worry,” she said as she got to her hooves. “We’ll still be friends even if I leave, and if I do leave, it won’t be for a while.” She offered me a hoof up. “I still have to finish the semester off, either way.”

“But we’ll still do stuff together, right?” I said, sniffling and refusing her hoof. “We’re still going to be friends, right?”

Scootaloo nodded as my other friends slowly approached her. “Of course, we still have tonight, we still have the rest of the semester, and we’ll still be friends even if we live in other cities.” She gave me her hoof again and I slowly took it. We still had tonight.

“Excuse me,” a light-blue mare with a pink mane said, suddenly coming between me and Scootaloo. I recognized her immediately as Aloe (or Lotus) from the spa. “I hate to interrupt you, but the spa is hosting a mixer for all our clients next week, and we were hoping we could have you sing for it.”

“Well…” I wanted to help her, but at the same time, I hadn’t spent much time with my friends, and if Scootaloo was going to be moving soon (which she better not be). “I’m afraid–”

“I know you’re probably very busy, and after tonight’s performance I imagine you’re going to be a lot busier, and we can only pay you about nine hundred bits, but we’d also be more than willing to throw in a few spa passes for you and your friends.

Nine hundred bits! That could buy ice cream and gifts for all my friends. It could maybe even get me something that would make Scootaloo happy again, and Rarity would love the spa passes. I glanced back at Scootaloo who was now surrounded by the rest of my friends and explaining herself to them. For just a tiny second, I thought I saw the old her.

“...Okay,” I said, nodding at her. “I can do it, when do you need me?”

Aloe/Lotus smiled at me. “Wednesday at 6:00, come by the spa tomorrow and I’ll have the songs we’d like you to sing ready.”

“Excuse me,” a brown stallion said from under the gazebo, “Sweetie Belle, is it? My daughter is having her cute-ceañara next weekend, and I was hoping you I could have you perform, I know she’d just love your singing.” He gestured for me to come over and I glanced back at my friends. I could just talk to him real fast and then go back to them. Besides, I could use the bits from my show to make my friends happy, and singing would make even more ponies happy and… I glanced back at my friends before trotting over to the stallion to discuss the show.

***

There was always somepony else. Whenever I finished talking to one pony, somepony else came to talk to me about doing a show for them. At one point, I actually had to go back to the boutique to get the unused planner Rarity got for me just to make sure I didn’t accidentally double-book myself. By the time I’d finally dealt with everypony, the party was almost over and all my friends but Diamond Tiara had gone home. Did they even say goodbye to me? I couldn’t remember. Maybe they left when I was at the boutique.

“Busy night?” Tiara asked as she sat next to me. “I don’t think I even saw you after our talk earlier.”

“Sorry,” I said, giving a yawn and leaning against her. “Everypony wanted to talk to me about their events to see if I could perform for them.” I flipped open my plan and showed it to her. “I don’t think I’m going to have a free moment until winter break.”

She laughed as I rested my head against her neck. “It’s not that bad,” she said, stroking my mane. “You’ll still have plenty of free time we can spend together.”

“And the rest of my friends?”

“Them too,” she said. “You’re not just going to abandon your friends because you have a job now. Besides, they’ll understand that you’re busy. At least, they will if they’re your friends.”

I gave another yawn and fell back in the grass, staring up at the night sky. “I’m going to use the bits to show them how much I care about them, that’s why I agreed to all the jobs in the first place… Well, that and to sing and make more ponies happy.”

She laughed and laid down next to me. “Of course you did, only you would care so much about making everypony happy. You know, nopony’s going to hate you if you use some of those bits for yourself.”

“Maybe I’ll get some ice cream for me,” I said, nodding slowly. I felt tired and thin… like a bit of dough stretched so thin it gets a bit see through-ey in the middle. I probably just needed some sleep. Then again… “Scootaloo’s talking about leaving. About going back to Cloudsdale.”

“I heard,” she said, turning to kiss me on my cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s my fault,” I said, frowning. Somehow, her kiss didn’t even make me feel a little good. “I should’ve… I don’t know, done something different. Told her the truth sooner or not told her at all. Instead, I got mad and… I messed up.”

“No you didn’t,” Tiara said, getting up to her hooves. “You did what you thought was right, it’s not your fault if Scootaloo couldn’t handle it.” She offered me a hoof up. “Come on, I know what’ll cheer you up.”

“Kissing?” I asked as I took her hoof. “Because I don’t really feel like kissing right now.”

“Nope,” she said, trotting away from me. “If you want to, sure, but I want to show you my favorite thing about grown-up parties.”

“Oh?” I asked, feeling my ears perk up. “What is it?”

We reached the refreshment tent and she pulled the flap back up. “The drinks,” she said as we stepped inside. The tent was empty, and the remains of buffet just made me wish I had gotten here before all the good food was eaten.

“But lots of parties have drinks,” I said as she headed to one of the punch bowls and grabbed the ladle with her mouth to pour out a couple of cups of juice. She sighed as she put the ladle away.

“Not those types of drinks, Sweetie. I’m talking about the alcohol. More specifically, in this case, the rum punch.”

“Oh…” I said in understanding, glancing at one of the glasses she poured out. “But aren’t we too young to drink that stuff?”

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging as she took a sip of her drink. “All I know is I’ve been stealing drinks from Daddy’s business parties for years, and it always makes me feel better. I guess if you drank the stuff all the time, it might be bad, but a little drink every now and then, that just dulled the pain a little, gave me one night where I didn’t feel terrible.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking between her and the other glass of punch. If big pony drinks just made you feel better, why would only adults drink them? Maybe because they had more problems than fillies? I certainly had way more problems now that I did before I had my cutie mark.

“You know I wasn’t a very happy filly back before you were my friend,” she said, sighing. “I already told you most of it, I think. It made me lash out at you and your friends, but at the same time, I couldn’t really figure out why I was so unhappy and angry all the time. Then, during one of Daddy’s parties, I snuck a drink, and I actually felt good. Like, I wasn’t angry at myself, and I just felt okay about everything for a few hours. I thought you might want that same feeling, but if you don’t, I’m not going to force you.”

I frowned and stared at the drink as I wrapped it up in my magic and brought it closer to me. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be too bad. After the day I had, I deserve a little happiness, right?”

She nodded and I took my first sip of the punch.

***

Tiara and I giggled as we sat behind the stage. Tavi had stopped playing an hour ago, and the park was mostly empty now. A few ponies had passed out in the field, and Applejack and Rarity were off sitting under a tree in the distance. What ponies were still awake were mostly sitting and talking.

“You… you know what we should do?” I asked, the world bobbing around me for some reason. “We should… We should start kissing the rest of our friends.” At the last few words, I started giggling. Tiara was right, adult drinks made everything seem better, no wonder they loved this stuff so much.

She sighed as I gave her a big messy kiss right on the lips. “We…” She trailed off and pointed a hoof at me while she thought. “We already talked about this, Sweetie, relationships are good because they’re special. If you start kissing everypony, then … then I won’t be special. I like being special.”

“You’ll always be special, I’m dating you, I just… I just want to kiss my friends to make them happy,” I said leaning back and forth. “That’s not so bad is it.”

“Sweetie, you can’t just… kiss ponies and not date them. You have to be dating a pony to kiss them,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We already talked about this.”

“Yeah…” I said slowly, trying to figure out if there was anything wrong with her reasoning. It seemed right, but… Something in my head clicked. “Wait! When you first kissed me, we weren’t dating. So… That… If we weren’t dating and you could still kiss me, then…” I nodded, sure I’d made a convincing argument.

“But I… I wanted to date you,” she said. “You can kiss somepony as long as you want to date them.”

“Oh…” I said before leaning forward to give her another kiss. “That… I guess that makes more sense. So… I can only kiss other ponies if we’re dating or if I want to date them, and I can only want to date other ponies if I’m not currently dating somepony?”

Tiara nodded. “Uh-huh. That’s it, Sweetie, it’s really not hard to understand. Dating about… Dating is about having a special pony you care about more than other ponies… If you date a lot of ponies, it’s not special.”

“That…” I tried to think of something else to argue with that. If Tiara liked dating me because it made her feel special, then… “Ooh! What if I dated other ponies, but… but I told them I was dating you first, and that you were special… Like, I would date them, but not as much as I dated you.”

“I guess…” Tiara slowly nodded her head at me. “I guess that’s okay if dating other ponies is really that important to you. I mean… I want you to be happy too, but I want us to be special. I don’t want you to have what we have with other ponies… not all of it, at least.”

“It’s not…” I fell on to my back, suddenly feeling super tired. Thinking hard and kissing took a lot of energy. “I just want all my friends to be as happy as possible, and if dating me might make them happier… I think it would just be nice if I could be all friendly and kissey with all my friends… or at least the ones who wanted to be friendly and kissey with me.”

“Alright,” Tiara said, moving to lay down next to me on the grass. “If you find somepony in our group of friends who wants to date you, and if you make it clear that you’re dating me first, and if you let me be there on your dates with other ponies, then I guess I can… I guess that’s okay.”

I smiled and kissed her before giving a massive yawn and closing my eyes for a second. Why was the grass suddenly so comfortable? “Thanks, Tiara, you’re the best marefriend… you’re the best marefriend…” I fell asleep before I could finish the sentence.

***

My head hurt when I opened my eyes, and I tried to remember what happened last night. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep on the grass, which made it really confusing that I was sleeping on the feather bed in my room. Did I get up after I fell asleep? If I did, why didn’t I remember it? I glanced at the clock. Almost noon. I shivered, suddenly remembering Rarity’s opening words in the time loop. That… had I fallen back into the time loop somehow? Was that even possible?

I shook my head as I got to my hooves. No, if I was back in the time loop, Rarity would be waking me up right now, so… I couldn’t be in the time loop, unless I was somehow in another time loop. Could I just accidentally fall into other time loops? Did being in one time loop make me more likely to be in other time loops? I looked around my room. Everything seemed normal, my saddlebag was where I’d dropped it when I came home last night, my planner was on my nightstand, all my dolls were where I’d left them, and Diamond Tiara was in a sleeping bag at the foot of my bed. Okay, that last thing wasn’t normal. It was… very un-normal, actually.

“Psst. Tiara.” I whispered, trying to wake her up without scaring her. “Tiara. Why are you in my bedroom?”

She didn’t stir.

“Tiara.” I said, a little louder than I was earlier. “Tiara. What happened after I fell asleep last night?” I turned to check my coat for grass stains, they were always the absolute worst to clean, and I really didn’t want to spend half my day scrubbing my coat, especially since I had no idea how long that meeting with Mr. Rich would take. I let out a sigh of relief, my coat was clean, which meant no problems for me, or at least, one less problem.

“Tiara,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder, causing her to suddenly jolt awake.

“Wha–” she said, thrashing over to look at me. “Sweetie! Why are you in my house and… why are you so tall?”

“I’m not,” I said, frowning down at her. “You’re just sleeping on the floor. The floor of my room. And I have no idea how you got here. I was kind of hoping you remembered what happened after I fell asleep.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. I feel asleep maybe five seconds after you did… I… did we talk about you dating other ponies last night?”

“That… sounds right,” I said, slowly nodding my head. “I think you said it was okay as long as I told them that they wouldn’t take your place and that I had to bring you along on our dates so you could watch… I guess? Does that sound right to you?”

“I… That sounds kind of like something I’d say… At least, it…” She frowned. “I think that’s the only way I’d be even a little okay with you dating another pony.” She stretched, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her. She just looked so… good, but good didn’t even really describe it. Rarity looked good, but I didn’t want to stare at her all day. Looking at Rarity didn’t make me feel all weird and warm. Huh. Did sexy work? That sounds like how you’d describe a pony when you can’t stop looking at their body… their soft, curvy, wonderful body.

“Still,” she said, “I’d like it if you didn’t just start dating everypony. You’ll only date friends who want to date you, right?”

I nodded at her as she got to her hooves. Why couldn’t I stop looking at the way her flank moved? “Sounds good…” I said, not really thinking about what she was saying. “Should… we head downstairs? Maybe Rarity knows how we got here.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” she said, heading the door and apparently not noticing the fact that I couldn’t stop looking at her. How did I not notice how good she looked until now? Last night something must’ve flipped in my brain, because now the way her flank looked was pretty much the only thing I could think about. My mind filled with memories of how it felt when she leaned her body against mine, and I couldn’t stop wishing she would do it again… Like… soon. Really soon.

I followed her to the kitchen and almost tripped down the stairs because I couldn’t stop looking at her. Somehow, I managed to look away from her when we found my sister and Mr. Rich talking at the downstairs table. They both turned to look at us as we walked into the kitchen.

“Daddy!” Tiara said, her eyes moving to look at her father, while I tried really hard to just look at my sister. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled at her as she moved to sit next to him. I took the opposite space next to my sister. “I was coming by to thank Ms. Rarity for looking after you last night, something you should do as well. It’s a good thing she was there to make sure you were both safe.”

“Thank you Ms. Rarity,” Tiara said, looking at my sister. “I’m sorry for staying out so late last night, Daddy, I didn’t mean to…”

He laughed. “It’s quite alright, my little Tiara,” he said, patting her on the head. “Fillies will be fillies, right Rarity?”

My sister sighed. “Sweetie Belle, I understand last night was a special night for you, but…” She pinched her nose. “We can talk about that later. Right now, we need to discuss some personal boundaries.”

She smiled and turned to look at Filthy Rich. “Mr. Rich, I understand your desire to see your daughter happy, and I have the same wish for Sweetie Belle. However, you doing favors for Sweetie Belle isn’t something I’ll tolerate.”

“Why not?” I squeaked before my sister turned to glare at me.

“Because, Sweetie Belle, I don’t want him to use those favors to get to me,” she said, her voice cool. “I will not see my designs sold for the exorbitant prices Mr. Rich talked about.”

“And I don’t understand your reservations,” Mr. Rich said. “I’m offering you a percentage of the profits higher than most retailers would offer. This deal benefits the both of us.”

“That’s precisely my problem,” Rarity snapped, glaring at him. “Profit. If I sell my designs to you, they will be marketed exclusively to the rich and powerful, and that is not what Carousel Boutique is about. I started this business to bring high-fashion to the masses, and I want everypony in Equestria to be able to afford an elegant and stylish dress if they so choose. Selling my designs to you would be a betrayal of my original vision.”

Mr. Rich paused and tapped his hoof on the table, humming while he thought. “Well, in the interest of putting our past animosity behind us, I suppose I could halve the selling prices of your dresses.” He smiled at Rarity. “Consider it a peace offering for the sake of our daughters’ happiness.”

“My sister,” Rarity said, giving Mr. Rich a small, forced smile. “Sweetie Belle is my sister.”

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re so protective of her and your mother is so often away, I keep wanting to think she’s your daughter.” He smiled at her. “Still, if it makes your sister happy, don’t you think we can afford to compromise a little, overlook our past history, and try to make a fresh start of things?”

“For the sake of Sweetie Belle, I’d be… amenable to such an arrangement, just as long as our past stays in the past and… I know you’re already planning on hiring a tutor for Sweetie Belle, and while I appreciate the gesture, I’m also aware of the fact that your ‘gifts’ tend to have strings attached,” Rarity said, her posture super stiff, “and so I’m afraid I can’t change my stance on that issue.”

Mr. Rich frowned at her. “Diamond Tiara’s happiness is my primary concern, and right now, the thing that makes her the happiest is seeing Sweetie Belle happy. I’m not about to risk that by giving Sweetie gifts with strings attached.” He gave my sister a quick smile. “I can be quite generous to my friends, Rarity.”

“Generous as long as we have something you want, you mean,” Rarity said, pressing her lips tight, and glancing at me. She was about to say something else when Mr. Rich laughed.

“Now, Rarity, do you really want to air old grievances now? I just want to see Sweetie have everything she needs, but if you want to go through our past...”

My sister’s face went paler than usual at that, and she shook her head. “No, Mr. Rich, you’ve made your point.” She laughed nervously. “As long as your gifts to Sweetie Belle have no hidden strings, I suppose there’s no harm in it.”

He smiled at my sister and I shivered for some reason. “Wonderful news, and I look forward to working with you. As soon as I get home today, I’ll have my lawyers start working on formalizing our business relationship.”

“Wonderful,” my sister said, mumbling at the table. “If that’s all then, I need to have a talk with my sister.”

“Of course,” he said, getting up on his hooves. “Tiara, let’s go.”

“Alright,” she said, following him towards the door to the boutique’s main room. “I’ll see you later, right, Sweetie Belle?” She paused and turned to look back at me.

I nodded at her. “Sure. I’ll be by later today.”

“Actually, you won’t,” my sister said, drawing my attention back to her. “Sweetie will be by to visit you as soon as her grounding is over.”

“Grounded!” I squeaked as Mr. Rich and Tiara left the boutique. “What did I do to get grounded?”

“You agreed to everypony who asked you to do a show for them without even consulting me. I understand your enthusiasm, but you can’t just say yes to everypony. Your education comes first.”

“But why?” I said, frowning at her. “I already know what my special talent is, so why should I care about school? Singing is what I’m meant to do, I shouldn’t be stuck in school all day.”

“Sweetie Belle,” my sister said, “it’s important for a filly to have a proper education. You can’t neglect it just because you found your talent. I promise, I only want what’s best for you.”

“I know,” I groaned, “but it’s so dumb. All day, I’m in class, and I keep thinking I could be singing instead. It’s just… what’s the point?”

“The point is that you need to be a well-rounded individual. Now then, we’re going to go upstairs, look through your planner, and see which shows won’t interfere with your schoolwork. Then you’re going to spend the rest of the weekend in your room,” she said getting up from her spot on the table.

“But I told my friends I’d spend time with them this weekend,” I said as I followed her to the stairs.

“Good, then this lesson will be even more effective. I’ll tell Applejack to explain to them that you’re grounded when she stops by this afternoon. I’m sure they’ll understand,” she said as we went up the stairs.

“Fine,” I said following after her. It could be worse, I thought, trying to cheer myself up. As soon as I’m done being grounded, I can spend lots of time with my friends. I frowned. At least, I could when I wasn’t practicing for future shows, but… I was going to use the money from those shows to buy gifts for my friends, so they couldn’t be too mad with me for not spending as much time as I used to with them, right? It was like everypony said, sometimes things just changed.

Author's Note:

This chapter got... a lot darker than I would've preferred. I might change some things about it later, but I'm not sure what those things would be yet. On the upside, the next chapter is Nightmare Night, and it's going to be softer than this one. Mostly.

Comments

[Lorthalis of Crows]

I can relate most to Life Bloom the most. Being the logical one can be tricky, and dealing with the fallout of the truth isn't easy. I really love the cast of characters you've got, and how they handle their issues.

[Distaff Pope]

5155403 Thanks! At it's heart, this is an ensemble piece about seven ponies with a varying issues growing up, learning who they are, and overcoming those issues. So the fact that you like the ensemble means a lot to me.

[Lorthalis of Crows]

5155849

You've done an excellent job then.

[Iron Comet]

Not dark, but full of unfortunate truths. And growing up is definatly full of those.

[Tchernobog]

“Actually, I really need to talk with Pinkie about my show,” I said, frowning as I felt her fur coat against mine. “I’d really like to do stuff with you, but...”

“Well, I don’t see why not,” I said as we turned to the park where Pinkie’s party was being thrown. “After all, the park’s open to everypony, so I don’t see what the big problem would be, just… remember, nopony is supposed to know we’re dating, I don’t want my friends to get upset.”

Something got eaten here!

“One of the reasons,” she said, pulling away from me as a group of older students walked towards us. “That, and I really don’t have anything to say. If they don’t want to talk with me, I’m completely fine not talking to them.”

“And I am,” she said, swerving her head to look around for other groups of ponies as the group passed us. A second later, she was leaning against me. “I really am, but at the same time, I don’t really get what to say to Apple Bloom or Scootaloo. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ just doesn’t seem to work well when you’re talking with somepony you spent four years torturing.”

And there.

“Thanks, Octavia,” I said as I trotted off stage and headed to where Tiara was trying to teach Life Bloom the basics of dancing, while Life Bloom’s legs flailed out and tripped anypony who made the mistake of dancing near her, creating a giant empty circle around her. Tiara turned and smiled at me as I trotted over to her.

I smiled at her and managed not to kiss her in front of everypony, even though I really wanted to. “Really? It felt like forever to me.”

And there!

“I haven’t been that obvious during lunch, have I? Sure, I might think about kissing you during lunch, but I don’t think I actually do it, do I?” sShe said, ending her question with a kiss on my neck.

And that XD

[Distaff Pope]

5159425 Well, it only took you pointing out my failings in eight whole chapters, but I finally realized that if I just look through the chapters after I upload them and find three line breaks, something probably got eaten. Will see if I can remember that when it's time to upload chapter 9 (Or chapter 6 as it appears in my gdocs file).

[Tchernobog]

5160547
Yeah, it's easy enough to see it before publishing, after you upload the doc. The line breaks are rather noticeable, if the random turn of conversation wasn't.

Remembering that... yeah, that's a whole different story.

[Distaff Pope]

5160551 And if not, I'll have my very own slavic death god to correct me, and I promise if I do it too many more times I'll let you use your sledgehammer.

[Tchernobog]

5160913

Nah, just change it from RariJack and we'll be even!

(I kid. But I can hope! )

[Distaff Pope]

5160919 Can I ask why you dislike Rarijack and what Rariships you'd prefer? Not that I'm going to implement your ideas, but I'm always up for listening.

[Tchernobog]

5160975 It's just not a healthy ship - not one that would have staying power, if that makes sense. Bookplayer's blogpost explains this wonderfully. Their relationship would be fiery, but so would everything else, including their fights - leading to a huge breakup. They might come back together later on, but it's just a vicious cycle that'll repeat itself.

Unless they do a massive change (like AJ moving off the farm, or Rarity staying in Ponyville instead of pursuing a career, neither of which will really happen), they're just from entirely different worlds. They have a wonderful friendship and their bickering is great... but it's not really a romance I can believe in/see working in the long run. The longer they're together, the closer it'll get to murder :P

I've always had a weak spot for RariShy, but I'm honestly not sure if there's anyone in the circle of friends who will work well with her. Possibly Twilight, perhaps, as I'd say they're the intellectuals of the group and have a similar mental wavelength, though Rarity is far more prone to drama (And AJ is a lot more level headed and sensible, like Twi, so I prefer TwiJack to that XD)

RariDash is also very interesting - those two are way more similar than people think at first. Ambition, snark, they're both very driven and aim for the best, etc etc. Of course there too, I prefer AppleDash to RariDash.

Not that I'm going to implement your ideas,

Darn!

[Distaff Pope]

5160999 See, I read that and just saw it as confirmation that RariJack is an awesome ship, and am actually going to change how their romance is presented in my story. Also, just for you, Chapter 10 or 11 will look more into their romance. Also, this paragraph nicely encapsulates the reason I love this ship:

Rarity, on the other hand, tries to use make-up and a fake British Mid-Atlantic accent to hide that at her core, she’s almost exactly the same as Applejack-- tough, practical, stubborn, honorable, and proud. Because her facade is self-imposed, and because of her practical true nature, Rarity isn’t afraid of her facade being stripped away, it’s just really annoying.

Despite the fact that they appear to be complete opposites, they're also kind of the same when you get down to it, and the more I think about it, the more I'm digging this super volatile relationship dynamic, although I have a hard time imagining the extreme attraction phase... Hmm, stuff to ponder.

Anyways, thanks for selling me on how awesome the RariJack ship is. All aboard!

[Tchernobog]

5161354 (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

I just don't see it as *healthy* at all. I mean yes, I don't deny that there's attraction, and that they'd have one hell of a night together, but I just cannot in any way see them with each other on a permanent basis... not without one trying to kill the other at some point as they increasingly get on each other's nerves.

[Distaff Pope]

5161513 Actually, in my mind, I see them as a bit more stable than the writer of that piece does as they are fundamentally two kindred spirits, and if they can understand each other and see the other for who they are, they'll be a great couple. The problem is getting that to happen. Looks like somepony will be doing ice cream runs for her sister in the near future.

[Tchernobog]

5161619 That's part of my gripe with the ship - none have ever come anywhere close to making that 'getting closer/getting to understand each other' aspect of RariJack anywhere near to believable. Good luck with it :P

[Distaff Pope]

5161668 Well, no pressure to me then, right?

[Tchernobog]

5161855

[Misty Horse]

Harsh...

I'd like to see how you about this, unchanged.

[Distaff Pope]

5166301

I'd like to see how you about this, unchanged.

What?

[Misty Horse]

5166694

Response to author's note.

[Clawder]

5161877 5161855

Wow, you guys have got a lot of points on each side and your conversation has really made me wander about many ships.
But since we could actually find reasons for each of the six protagonists to be with each other, I prefer to read and enjoy casual pairings. I don't have a favourite ship, and actually, AppleDash is the only gay pairing I have enjoyed in fanfics.

I think the best ship depends on the way you write the romance, because after all, fanfics are about manipulating the character's feelings.

I look forward to seeing more about this story and maybe, just maybe, a new one from you, Tchernobog. I mean, seriously, you could totally make another awesome romance story like you know how to!

Best of lucks to you two

[Distaff Pope]

5170611 Clawder! First of all, I have to say: Apple Dash is the only gay pairing you enjoyed? Second of al... Well, there are some other things, but those are coming up in a message. Anyways, glad to hear back from you.

[Clawder]

5170631

Mostly, yes, it's actually the only gay ship I could imagine happening.

My ships are waaaaaay too common but they are something that could actually happen in the show. And they're straight; For example:

Twilight x Flash
Pinkie x Cheese

You know... basics

I also enjoy Sparity and Spilight, even though those are unlikely.

[Tchernobog]

5170631
5170689

You had me for a moment, Clawder, then you had to mention FlashLight.

I could go on another rant about that and how it's almost worse than rarijack! but I'll keep it off these comments :P

[Clawder]

5170703

It's totally ok! Besides, I only said that I could see it happen in the show, but I don't like Flashlight either. As I said in the last comment, I even prefer Spilight

[Distaff Pope]

5170703 Oh no, if we're going to be doing some Flashlight ranting, I totally want to hear it.

5170689 I'm trying to obliquely hint at the fact that you omitted this one ship... this ONE ship I'm really particularly fond of in your list, but I guess TaviScratch isn't for everyone. (What emote do I use to indicate sarcasm/teasingness?)

[Clawder]

5170741

When it's about background ponies, the possibilities expand a lot. Since we don't have a canon story or even behaviour, you can literally build a life for them. Like what you did in The Royal Ponyville Orchestra.

I liked your way to portrait Octavia and Vinyl, but as I said, many writers build those characters as they want and often do it poorly...
In conclusion, I wouldn't generalize saying that I like TaviScratch, but I definitively like YOUR TaviScratch :)

[Tchernobog]

5170719
5170741
Fine! First off, totally different species - she shouldn't even be attracted to him.
Second, setting - she's an adult, and one of high status even though she doesn't swing that around. He's a teenager. Unless she's raging with hormones in the EQG world, it's just stupid.
Third: he has no personality, and Rainbow Rocks didn't improve that at all.

tldr: he needs to burn :P

(What emote do I use to indicate sarcasm/teasingness?)

of course :P

[Distaff Pope]

5170783 Tell us how you really feel Tcernobog.

5170780 Well as long as you like MY Tavi Scratch, that's okay then. Sometimes I forget that my Tavi Scratch isn't canon and that other people have different interpretations of the pairing.

[Clawder]

5170783

The first one can be fixed with pony flash, he does exist after all.
The second... Uh... I'm not sure what to say, I mean, how old is Twilight? I'm kind of ignorant in that matter. Are you sure she can be considered an adult? She looks just like a teenager as well.

I'm totally with you in the third though.

[Tchernobog]

5170814 She doesn't know Pony Flash though. And they're totally different people. A 'rocker' teenager is not a royal guard. They're just dimensionally the same person, but the settings change them completely. And apart from the bumping, she's had no interaction with him at all :P

For age, They're all adult enough to have full jobs - and there's a more distinct look to teenagerness, I think? A bit bigger/lankier than the CMC's age, but not a full on adult like the mane cast. They're not 'older' like Twi, Rarity's or Pinkie's parents, or the Cakes, but I'd say early 20s or so.

[Clawder]

5170906

Makes more sense, I actually didn't think about the similarities or differences between pony Flash and human Flash. Good to point it out :)

[Tchernobog]

5170917 It's part of why I still hate the first EQG movie so much. It's such a dumb, DUMB setting and everyone who isn't the mane 6 are utter morons (and even that's questionable at times), and adding tacked on romance to that? Urgh. Stupid. (Twi's reactions to Flash in Rainbow Rocks was the absolute worst things in it. Would've been perfect without him :/)

[Clawder]

5170946

I haven't seen Rainbow Rocks... It hasn't arrived here and I can't find it anywhere on the internet :/ Any movie site or way to find it you would recommend?

[Tchernobog]

5170977 Rainbow Rocks is so much better, it's amazing. Without Flash it would've been perfect ;P

[TanktheTortoise]

Anypony else gotten a Dear Sweetie Belle feeling out of these two chapters? Also naughty naughty DT you know you shouldn't be drinking that. Poor Scoots, though Socket and Twilight could likely come up with something. Heck she may truly still have a chance to fly in the future and RD wasn't lying to her, simply that Life Bloom is incorrect with her evaluation of her potential.

Also... Sweetie ships her girlfriend with other ponies?

Ponypolygamy go!

[Distaff Pope]

5188830 Sweetie ships everypony with everypony. If she had her way, everypony would date everypony else and be happy all the time.

[HorseWordFan]

Gee, I wonder what sort of secret Rarity is hiding from her sister? Based on things said in the last few paragraphs of this chapter, taken in conjunction with a few things Rarity said in passing in preceeding chapters, one gets the feeling that the relationship between Rarity and Sweetie may be a lot closer the parent/child axis than mere appearance.

[grammar404]

Ah can't! Ah just Can't! Sweetie is turnin' to somethin Ah wouldn't like for a little filly to be doin! Buuuuuuut... Look in the bright side! At least she's not looking at colts the same way she looks at fillies.

[Raul]

Too much shit! Too much shit!
I could ramble on about how I'm starting to dislike this but champagne is damn good I don't feel like spending half an hour typing. Onward...(I'm feel very conflicted if there is no exclamation mark)