Friends
Rarity was having an absolutely fantastic day. Not the best of all possible days—those happen only in the best of all possible worlds, which was the one where Blueblood was gallant and her legs were just a tiny bit longer—but certainly an excellent one. Nothing spiced up her Thursday spa engagement with Twilight and Fluttershy like grilling the newly minted princess on every single detail of her nascent lovelife.
Well, perhaps nothing went a bit far. There were things probably far more intriguinging, but that was neither here nor there. Twilight was here, and Rarity had broken through her wall of shyness like a cannonball through cardboard.
A lady knew how best to stay abreast of things, after all.
“L’Engle’s?” Rarity squealed—yes, squealed, because a lady is excused her exuberance if the cause is sufficiently worthy!—and moved closer. As she moved, tiny waves followed her, disturbing the otherwise serene bath.
Twilight sank deeper into the water. “Yeah,” she said, half-grinning, nodding. “It was good.”
“Good? Twilight, my dear sweet Twilight, L’Engle’s is the absolute pinnacle of high fine dining in the historic High Canterlot district of Bluethorn! I have been eagerly awaiting the day that I finally found myself led to my seat within that superb establishment since the beginning of my career! What was it like? How was the food? No, forget the food! The decor! Tell me about it. Everything.”
With every word it seemed she drew herself further and further out of the water until she towered over Twilight, her face smiling but in a frankly predatory, intense way.
Twilight shrugged, because Rarity dramatics weren’t that unusual. They were just a thing one lived with, like the sun and no mail being delivered on sundays.. “I mean, I’d heard of it. Just in passing, mind you, but I had heard of it.”
Rarity pulled back for a moment, with a thoughtful—no, not thoughtful, an appraising look—and said: “You know, I’ve never actually been to your home. Where did you live in Canterlot?”
Twilight smiled. “Well, perhaps we’ll have to go visit next time we’re together in Canterlot. I’m sure mom would love to have me for dinner for any reason, and having friends over?” She laughed, looking away for a bit, towards the door. “Well. It isn’t as if I did that much as a filly. I think she’d get a kick out of it.”
Rarity sat back a bit, humming. “You know, it only now occurs to me how little I know about your younger life. You know about my family, but what precious little I know about yours. And, you also neatly sidestepped my question,” she added with a slight smile.
“That I did.” Twilight stretched and then settled back into the water. “I lived in the Sapphire District. It’s on the other side of the tier, actually. It’s an old house, going back in our family for a few generations. My great-grandparents built it! I didn’t go to that part of town much, so I’d never seen it.”
Rarity pursed her lips, as if in thought. “So you lived in the noble district. How was that, brushing shoulders with the scions of the rich and landed?”
“Well…”
Twilight ran her hoof along the surface of the pool and watched the little wake she formed. Her earlier conversation with Celestia sprang to mind. Not just Celestia’s encouragement to delve into the history of her own minor House, but the thought before—the “what if” for lack of a better term.
In a moment, she saw Rarity walking proudly in the marble squares of the Diamond District, chatting with some young daughter of a House Major. Perhaps Epona or Rowan-Oak. House Rose, perhaps. The Aspect who wore her likeness and shared her name took Rarity’s place now in her imagination, which seemed so vivid as to replace what her eyes saw. She saw—
Rarity amongst the High Society, draped in her finery, hair done up in intricate perfect coiled beauty, eyes sharp and undaunted by the press of the crowd. Her speech here like a purr, there high and easily overheard, there just a hair above silence. She played the crowd like a violin. No, she made herself the instrument. It was herself that was the prize to be won. Her life did not become other’s but overtook others, bringing them up and out of their own circles into her grand communicative web—
Twilight shook her head, dispelling the strange vision.
“Twilight? Are you alright?”
“Hm? Oh. Fine, sorry. Spaced out.”
“Of course, dear.”
Twilight rubbed her temple, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. Was this what Celestia had experienced, during their date? With the other language and the thousand-mile stare? What did it mean? Did it mean anything at all?
Speech seemed the best way to weasel out of any further inquiries. “I didn’t really spend much time in high society. I mean, looking back, I met and knew nobles. My parents interacted with them. But they weren’t introduced to me as Lord So-and-So or Lady Whoever. They were just mom’s friends or dad’s friends or both and…” She shrugged. “When I was very, very little, I played with Climbing Rose at her family’s keep. We used to run around in the gardens.”
“My word.”
“Yeah.” Twilight sighed. “You know, I’m looking back now and I’m sad that we drifted apart. I wonder what being friends would have been like. But no, I didn’t really ‘brush shoulders’ with anypony important. I just knew a few and didn’t really know or care to know about their significance at court or anything else. I mean, I barely remember my own House.”
There was a pause.
It was a very interesting pause, actually. It was the sort of pause, the sustained moment, that one expected to hear right before some spectacular crash or uproar. It was the sort of silent, fit-to-bursting pause one might expect to experience at a dinner party right after confessing to some awful crime, or after saying rather loudly that Nightmare Moon had really had the right idea and so on.
And it was ended by Rarity’s voice losing any pretense of civility and grace as she all but screeched.
“When were you going to tell me about this?”
Rarity was still talking about it as they walked towards the diner on Maple Street, the one with the good coffee that Twilight sometimes had bizarrely strong cravings for between the hours of eleven and two in the morning.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know! House Sparkle. Your own house! You’ve been nobility all along, and here I was talking like a foal about such things. How foolish I must have seemed.”
Twilight, again, for the twenty fourth time—she’d counted—shrugged.
“Well, it wasn’t quite like that. It’s not like I have any room to judge you from experience,” she said. “The House Charter is in my dad’s office and I’ve never actually read it. It was something I think we talked about… twice, at most? I attended a few parties, and even then we were there mostly to show support for a friend or chat and my parents always left early.”
“It just baffles me.”
Rarity bit her lip, and Twilight turned back to the street.
It wasn’t as if the conversation bothered her that much. It wasn’t an ideal topic, sure. She’d never really felt one way or another about the whole business—it was a non-issue. But Rarity’s insistence about it was a bit uncomfortable. Her friend’s dreams of fame, glory, and riches had never really bothered her that much before, and truth be told she wished Rarity the best. She always had.
But it was a little reminiscent of the divide she had worried over when she had first ascended. The space between herself and others, specifically her closest friends. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, the Archmage was watching, prowling silently.
“Why?” Twilight asked.
Perhaps too much of her frustration had leaked into her tone. Rarity stopped up short.
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been going on and on…”
Twilight stopped as well, turning back to her. “It’s alright. Was that angry sounding? I didn’t mean it to be.”
“‘Twas, a bit. But it’s quite alright. I do know that sometimes I can be carried away.”
“Sorry. It’s just… I don’t know. It’s not a big deal. Being nobility doesn’t matter to me and it never did. No one in my family has cared in generations. Maybe if we had land or riches or whatever… but we don’t. We have an old but wonderful house and a few pieces of paper with a crest. Oh, and a crest. I do like the crest. I never thought of your aspirations as foolish or outlandish. Honestly, I admire your ability to pursue your goals. I just happen to think you’re at your best creating, and not, ah, mixing. If you follow.”
“I do. Perhaps. At any rate, I have carried on too long.” She looked behind Twilight, towards the diner, as if looking for their friends, and then spoke in a lower tone. “By the by, I had forgotten to say so earlier, but… I am terribly sorry about that daft letter. I know it was incomprehensible.”
And Twilight, who had thought on it quite a bit, smiled. “Hardly. Come on. We’ll be late.”
They were late, but only by a few minutes. Pinkie bounced in just as Twilight and Rarity reached the door—neither had any idea where she’d come from, but that was more or less the norm—but otherwise the other girls had staked out a table in the back.
After the brief but boisterous exchange of greetings, the conversation settled on the topic that it was, if Twilight were honest with herself, always going to settle on. Namely, Celestia and her relationship with Twilight.
“So…” Rainbow Dash, traitor that she was, struck first. “Any details?”
“Details?” Twilight responded, her voice light.
“You know what I mean! You, Ce—” Rarity was a quick mare, and as her hoof clamped down on Rainbow’s mouth, Twilight once again found herself thankful for this fact. After a few seconds of admittedly comical struggle, Rainbow freed herself. “You and you-know-who, whatever! Sorry.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t bother her…” Fluttershy began. But before Twilight could be grateful, she added: “But I would love to hear anything you feel up to sharing.”
“And of course, my own desire to know more goes without saying,” Rarity butt in from her side.
Twilight shrugged helplessly. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to talk about her new relationship. She did, really! It wasn’t that. It was… what would she talk about? How did you talk about something that was mostly internal? On the outside, from the view of somepony outside of her, all that had had happened was a nice dinner, sharing breakfast, sitting next to Celestia at morning court. Was that satisfying? To her it was, obviously. But to others? What sort of story was that? She could relate the entirety of it in a sentence or two and be done with it.
That obviously wasn’t the entirety of it, but the rest was so… internal. You know, the thing I’ve always had trouble talking about, she thought.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, at least a few of the Aspects scolded her, but they all spoke over each other and whatever there was to be gained from their words was lost in the chaos. Would it ever get easier to separate one voice from the other? Or would forever they just be a gaggle of divergent opinions all working at cross-purposes?
She sighed. “Well… I mean…” Words dissolved into a few helpless noncommittal noises as five pairs of eyes centered on her. Eventually, after some uncomfortable squirming and Rainbow ribbing her, she managed to continue. “It was nice? We went on a first date—” she had to pause to allow time for Rarity’s gushing again, and for a chorus of appreciative noises— “at a nice restaurant. I sat in on court in the morning. Breakfast. Not in that order, messed that up, but you can guess which one was first. I mean…”
“Dinner sounds awfully romantic,” Fluttershy said.
Twilight, because she was cursed with a mind that moved swiftly and in all directions, remembered exactly what sort of books her friend wrote. She then promptly tried not to think about that very hard. “It was,” she replied, hoping she wasn’t feeding any blossoming novel of steamy affairs.
Which she almost certainly was. But Twilight had also learned what battles to fight. Sort of.
Nevertheless, she continued on. “I mean, I’m not sure what to say! We spent time together and talked. It was lovely. But I don’t think it was, I don’t know, exciting in the way you seem to expect. But it was wonderful. This is my first real marefriend, girls. And Celestia is a bit old fashioned. So I wouldn’t be expecting juicy scandals all the time.”
“Isn’t love itself exciting?” Rarity asked with a swoon.
Applejack was next. “Twi, hon, I’m with you. Ain’t everything romantic got to be about dashin’ caped heroes and swordfightin’ adventures.”
“It does help,” Rarity grumbled.
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. But life ain’t a storybook. I mean, sometimes it’s stranger than fiction, I’m willing to give you that on faith, but fiction and life are separate.”
Twilight watched the unfolding new discussion with a sense of relief as Fluttershy joined. She had been a lot more talkative lately, generally, and far more open about defending her point of view. The shy pegasus had been making strides all along, of course. Was Twilight only now noticing how much she’d changed, or had something else happened to bolster her confidence?
“I’m not so sure about that, AJ. I’m sorry to butt in, but… fiction follows life, really. I mean, I think it does. If it weren’t connected at all, I don’t think we would be able to understand anything that ponies wrote.”
“Novels are entertaining on account of their unreality, Flutters.”
Twilight coughed and looked at Fluttershy… who coincidentally happened to be to her left, so she could catch Rarity’s eyes as well as she spoke. “I’m with Fluttershy, I think. There has to be some sort of connective tissue between art and reality, if only to explain how it can make sense to us, living as we do in reality and not the actual when and where of the work.” She smiled. “I mean, think about it. When you tell somepony what you did on a given day, what do you do? You use a story, created by compiling the events in order and connecting individual physical phenomena aesthetically and causally.”
Applejack shrugged. “If you say so.”
Twilight had caught Rarity’s eye, so she added a bit more. “Sorry. Aesthetics used to be something of a passion of mine when I was younger.”
Rarity, to her credit, didn’t squirm or react much at all outwardly. Which was to be expected, really. But had she seen a flash of recognition in those eyes? Probably. The way her friend pointedly did not look at her seemed to suggest she was right.
Conversation moved again, as Applejack complained about the fare the rail company was charging her, and then to Rainbow Dash’s various escapades which were probably only half true, and then back to Twilight and her newfound love.
It was Applejack that asked her this time. “I do got a question for you and her, for both of y’all, even though only one of you is here.”
“Well, ask away.”
“Right now, y’all are keepin’ things sorta quiet-like, is that right?”
Twilight nodded.
“So… when you gonna change that? What’s keepin’ you?”
At this, Twilight looked away—Applejack was doing that thing where she looked at you with earnest eyes and wanted answers—and bit the inside of her cheek. The truth was, she didn’t really know when she would change that, and trying to explain what was ‘keepin’’ them would take longer than she wanted to dwell on the question. But it was a fair question, so she tried a fair answer.
“I’m not sure yet, AJ,” she said, waving a hoof vaguely. “About when we go public. I guess… I guess it needs to be a bit more established? Nah, that’s not really a good answer. Going public is sort of a big deal. Ponies start to see you as a pair, and not just as a pony anymore. You know?”
“I do, yeah.”
“And that’s kind of big. For me, it’s big because it is new. For her, it’s big because she’s… Well. I mean, she’s—” here Twilight leaned forward in a probably unneccessary manner and lowered her voice. “You know, the Princess. So suddenly the princess is part of a pair and that means I’m drawn into all of the goings-on and it’ll be complicated.”
“Seems a bit unavoidable, you know. Don’t envy you, girl.” Applejack reached over and patted her shoulder, and Twilight smiled at her.
“Thanks. No, you’re right. It’s unavoidable. But I’ve accepted that as much as I can at this point, not really knowing what it will look like! I think we both want to wait a bit and not just enjoy the calm before the storm, but really strengthen our relationship before we reach that point.”
Applejack nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. I’m not sure I’d be eager to run off into all that hubbub myself.”
Pinkie shrugged. “It’s all in how you think about it! I mean, won’t lots of ponies be super duper happy about it? I mean, they like her a lot and lots of ponies like you a lot and so if the both of you are together won’t that make them all super happy that you’re happy? I mean, that’s what usually happens!”
Twilight chuckled, but Rarity beat her to the answer.
“It’s not quite that simple. I mean, yes, many ponies will no doubt be thrilled! But court is… not quite hostile, per se. Simply… bah. Court is complicated, Pinkie. So is running a country! And much is at stake.”
“And all the time,” Twilight said, wondering if her hayfries were ever going to arrive. Now would be a good time. She tried to will them to come but, yet again, she proved unable to alter reality by force of will. Still need to work on that.
“Yes,” Rarity continued. “So it’s not simply a matter of whether ponies are happy that Ce—that our mutual friend is happy, but rather whether or not they think that Twilight is up to sharing her burdens.”
“Oh. Well…” Pinkie frowned, and her brow furrowed like an adorably pink thunderhead. Twilight wasn’t sure why she thought that, but she did. Strongly. “I mean, Twilight’s like super smart. And she’s saved Equestria like, I don’t know, a bunch of times. Some like really high number of times saving Equestria and/or the world. That has to count for stuff.”
“It should,” Rainbow said, surprising, well, everyone. “But even I know it doesn’t, always. Like, ponies are forgetful, you know? Pinks, imagine you throw a huge bash, but then you don’t throw another one for a long time. How much do you think they will remember about you or it?”
“At least some, I guess. I’ll remember like all of it because I never forget a party. But I know what you mean. Sorta like, ‘what have you done for me lately’, right?”
“Exactly,” Rainbow said, grimacing. “That’s it exactly. And it sucks. But what can you do? Nothin’, really.”
Twilight didn’t reply to that, but she made note of it. Something seemed… well. There would be time to think about it later. Just something that seemed a little too knowledgeable there.
“Anyway,” she said, hoping to bring the matter to a point, “I want to be ready for that, and I will! But I need to know more first. That’s really what we were doing when I was in Canterlot—I was learning. And… working on something special.” She rubbed her hooves together, knowing it was cliche, but hoping at least one of them laughed. Pinkie did. That didn’t count. Pinkie laughed at everything short of the end of the world.
“Let me tell you about my school.”
Madeline L'Engle was a swell lady.
Clair de Lune, in honor of a fic released by a friend who also helped a bit with the latest chapter of Esoteric, along with her husband and Ferret.
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No "Hey, girls, I have little versions of you living in my head now to provide color commentary" yet, but a nice bit of friendshippance.
And now I actually want to hear about this school she's planning.
Princess Twilight Sparkle is opening a school for Fantastic Foals.
At least, that's my horrendous hypothesis.
I am really enjoying this story.
Nice and sweet TwiLestia.
double period, and days are usually capitalized.
We're seeing a lot less of the Inner Court in this story. To the point their mentions feel like an afterthought rather than part of the story itself. For instance, the two mentions in this chapter could be completely removed and lose nothing. Hope that doesn't continue to be the case.
7864314 "removed and miss nothing" is a bit much. They've actively interfered with Twilight's ability to function in non-harmful ways more than once and actively lulled Celestia into a vision of the past in a restaurant mid-conversation. It's also three or four chaps into a 20+ plus chapter story.
7864360
My point was, and continues to be, that I hope they have a bit more of an impact in the coming chapters, as so far they have not. I was not attacking you nor playing the short-sighted reader. There is more to come, and I expressed an observation and what I'd like to see more of and hope will come to be. Nothing more.
Oh ho. Somepony has big plans. I look forward to seeing what Twilight's personal Outer Court thinks of them.
Oh yeah- forgot to say last time, L'Engle's is a pretty good name for a place for a pony to get unstuck in time in.
Sweet seeing the gang back together.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of the aspects. The entire chapter was from Twilight's point of view, yet we saw little of them. They weren't as actively vocal as I expected them to be. Perhaps my error (perhaps they aren't meant to be very active), but I confess I can't help it, it's an idea I find really interesting. They're Twilight's friends, and yet their own entities, but they're also expressions of Twilight--what do they reveal about her? About who she really is as a person, what she's really feeling and thinking on a subconscious level, about her friends, herself, Celestia? These questions really intrigue me. There's so much potential here (including of course the aspects of the other princesses).
So yeah, can't wait for more of that.
There seemed to be hints at it throughout the chapter, such as here:
This struck me as an odd emphasis. Like it was hinting the source was mental Pinkie Pie, or one of the others. Maybe the aspects influence Twilight's perceptions through more than just spoken words, and she has yet to detect this? Or maybe it means nothing.
Ah, always nice to know the author's views.
7873743 youre ahead of the curve. It was CourtPinkie
7873769
Ahead of the curve and straight into a brick wall, for me usually :P
She was laughing a whole dang lot in TNIP, if I do recall. :P
Rarity, as always was annoying with her social ladder climbing-that's not on you, that's just the way the character is even in cannon. I loved Pinkie's simple understanding of the relationship. God, I love Pinkie.