Chapter 14
Once more, Seville Orange found himself having a moment alone with Spike. Being a photojournalist as well as a reporter, it was second nature to ask questions, and Spike knew things. Seville stood watching as Spike cleaned up the dishes from lunch, not because the dragon had to, but because he liked doing it. Seville suspected that it appealed to Spike’s obvious meticulous nature.
“Hey, Spike, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your take on the girls?” Seville leaned up against the counter and waited, wondering if Spike would ‘spill the dirt’ on his friends. Not that he wanted actual dirt, he was just consumed with a burning curiousity to know more about Twilight and her friends.
Scrubbing at a plate, a look of intense concentration appeared on Spike’s face. “Well,” he began, sounding almost hesitant, “they’re all terrible at being the Elements of Harmony that they are supposed to be.” The dragon’s face took on a peculiar expression. “But maybe that’s the point.”
Eyebrow arching, Seville found this intriguing. “Go on…”
“Twilight started out as a mentally stunted shut-in with intense tunnel vision. She could only see ahead towards some end goal, and her first group of friends were more or less study buddies that she forgot about when she no longer needed them for study. For the longest time, she even took me for granted.” Spike paused for a moment and concentrated while scrubbing a plate with a brush.
“She’s gotten better, but the tunnel vision is still there and anything not in her immediate focus is likely to be forgotten about. Which is why I keep things organised. She’s aware of her shortcomings and she’s asked me for my help, which I actually appreciated. It made me feel better and gave me some meaning that I was lacking.”
“I see.” Seville began taking mental notes, squirreling all of this away for later.
“Then there is Rarity, the Element of Generousity.” Spike stopped scrubbing for a moment, sighed, and then resumed his task. “Don’t get me wrong, Rarity is a nice pony, and she’s a good pony, but like Twilight, she’s too focused on her own goals. More and more she chases after success, and there is nothing wrong with that. She gives her time and her bits to everypony and anypony with a social cause.” Again, Spike stopped, and he worked at a sticky spot left behind by baked beans.
“There’s a but lurking in there, somewhere,” Seville said.
“Yes there is.” Spike nodded. “More and more, we’re resources to her. I don’t think she means to do what she does, but she is very selfish when it comes to her own needs. Everything she does is special. We’re the cavalry that is supposed to come when she calls, but as is often the case, she finds it hard to come to our rescue when we need her. And then she whines about how difficult it is to make time to do things.”
“Hmm.” Seville began to chew on his lip while he digested everything being said.
“And for being the best friend of the Princess of Friendship, Rarity is kind of a pretentious social climber that only wants to make friends with the right ponies so she can exploit them to advance her own goals.” Spike cringed, shook his head, and his tail sagged against the stool he was standing on. “I feel really bad, saying that, but it’s true. It’s been a thing since the very first Grand Galloping Gala we went to.”
Seville was flummoxed by Spike’s insights, and he regretted not asking the dragon to dish out the dirt sooner. Spike knew these ponies, perhaps better than anypony else, and his perspectives were unique, which might be because he was a dragon. Ears perking, he waited for Spike to continue, knowing that there was a lot more to be said.
“Rainbow Dash… Element of Loyalty. And that’s her problem, right there.”
“I don’t savvy.”
“Rainbow is always torn over who she is loyal to at any given moment. The Wonderbolts, Twilight and her friends, Tarnished Teapot and Daring Do… Rainbow jumps from group to group, torn between her loyalties. She feels obligated to be with them all, and she’s always worrying and fretting and no matter who she’s with, she’s always worried that she’s letting somepony else down. Her loyalties are divided, and I don’t think that she’s realised that when you’re loyal to everypony, you’re really not loyal to anypony. Which is why I’ve thrown in my lot with Twilight. I know where my loyalties lie.”
“That’s… quite insightful.” Unsure what else to say, the earth pony began thinking, taking everything in. For being a kid, Spike had his head screwed on straight and Seville suspected that Spike knew far more than he let on.
“Thank you,” Spike replied, and he began to wash the glasses, which had to have the chocolate milk scrubbed out of them. “Pinkie Pie… I love Pinkie Pie… she and I are very close.” The dragon hesitated, perhaps choosing his words with great care. “Pinkie Pie is a lot like the balloons that are her cutie mark… pretty to look at and you know a party is going on when you see them.”
“Mmm hmm.” Seville offered up an encouraging nod.
“But when those balloons pop, the party's over.” Spike dunked a glass into the sink, lifted it, and then jammed the scrubbing brush into it, which caused the suds to foam. “Pinkie is fragile… she can go from happy to depressed in seconds. She can be manically happy one moment and then psycho scary the next. Pinkie Pie has a lot of paranoia, insecurity, and fear. She’s also two very different ponies in one body… something I am sure you will find out all about.”
Seville was about to say something, but was denied the chance when Spike continued.
“Applejack has lied about quite a few things, and while she tries to be honest with what she says, she’s not honest at all with herself or her friends. When there is a problem, she’ll say that she’s fine, or that she doesn’t need help, and she’s too stubborn to ask for help. She’ll lie right to your face and say that she has everything handled, and she’s always taking on more than what she is capable of. Every fall, when it’s applebucking season, she almost kills herself because she is too proud to ask for help. She’s never been honest when it comes to admitting that she’s in trouble or needs help. Rather than face up to a problem, she’ll lie about it and run away, just like that time she hightailed it to Appleloosa.”
“I… see…”
“Applejack is the most dishonest pony I know,” Spike remarked, “and also the most honest. When she lies, you’ll know the truth of the matter. When she says that she doesn’t need help, she does.” Pausing in his task, the dragon turned to look at Seville, holding the scrubbing brush in his claws. “You’re not going to put this in the newspaper, are you?”
“No.” Seville already knew that he planned to keep all of this to himself.
“Good.” Spike returned to washing the glasses from lunch. “It feels good to let this out.”
“I’d imagine that it does.” Seville wondered in silence if Spike’s incessant need to clean everything was some kind of desire to look after his hoard. Did Spike have a hoard? Seville suspected that he did. Having met quite a few dragons, he had picked up a bit on their traits, and every single one of them he had encountered had been meticulous, clean creatures, with perfect, mirror-finished scales, and all of their personal effects were to be found in perfect order.
“As for Fluttershy… she’s the scariest pony I know, and that’s all I have to say about that.”
Something was… up, and Twilight wasn’t certain what it was. Sumac and Pebble had come over, and they brought help—professional help—in the form of Megara. Twilight couldn’t quite put her hoof on why this concerned her, but it did, even if she was grateful for the assistance. Megara was a skilled foalsitter in her own right and she had what some might call a talent for making little ones behave.
Corbie, the loquacious little motormouth, was telling Sumac all about wings, along with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. A never-ending stream of information spilled from the filly’s mouth, everything that her father and mothers had told her about how to care for wings. For the most part, Rainbow was just nodding her head and going along with everything said, all while Fluttershy kept creeping closer to Sumac.
Twilight knew what was up, Fluttershy was going to try to cuddle him, but Sumac kept inching away, no doubt aware of what Fluttershy was planning. It was a slow motion race that was so subtle that it could only be compared to shoreline erosion. Twilight suspected that Sumac hadn’t grown up at all in Fluttershy’s eyes. The pair of them had always had an enduring, if somewhat strange friendship, which Twilight knew existed because of a mutual friend they shared: Discord.
Nuance, who was behaving himself, was spending time with Megara and Rarity. Perhaps his apparent fascination with the manticoran hybrid was making him behave, but he sat still while he was being brushed and groomed. Or maybe he was scared. Megara could be a little scary, with her underbite, her polished tusks, and all of her pointy bits sticking out everywhere. Megara meanwhile, was being attacked by Rarity, who had some kind of personal mission to somehow bring Megara’s wild appearance under some semblance of control. The fiery, cinnamon-red mohawk would not be controlled or even contained.
And then, there was Radiance. Twilight looked over to where he was sitting with Applejack, Pebble, and Pinkie Pie. Even though he had been quite distraught earlier, Radiance seemed to be enjoying himself at the moment. Pebble was talking about the great art of Shatterstone and all of the discipline involved, the fine control. Twilight had a hunch that Pebble might have an agenda regarding her choice of discussions.
Perhaps being exposed to new things might help.
While she sat there, pony watching, Twilight wondered what the guys were up to. They had not yet come out of the kitchen, and she thought that it was great that Seville and Spike were spending time together. Getting up from where she sat, she decided to go and check on them to see what they were up to together.
Stepping into the hallway, Twilight almost bumped into Seville and all thoughts of Spike were forgotten. When she looked into his eyes, her mouth went dry and she could feel her lips clinging to her teeth. It was an uncomfortable sensation, and fixing it was out of the question because that would involve making funny faces, and right now, at this moment, she could not make funny faces in front of Seville.
She took solace in the fact that Seville appeared to be as uncomfortable as she was.
“I read a little of your thesis,” Twilight confessed. “I hope you don’t mind.” She had said this because something had to be said, and she wished she hadn’t. It only made things more awkward, and she shuffled on her hooves, wishing she had started with something else to make smalltalk.
“It’s been hard to write.” Seville’s voice sounded subdued to Twilight’s perked ears.
“I agree with it though…” Twilight felt her lips sticking to her teeth while she spoke, and it felt as though there was something lodged in the back of her throat. “Journalists are the defenders of the realm. They do have an obligation to tell the truth and there is so much that could be said about the importance of integrity. Journalists do with ink what politicians do with rhetoric and soldiers do with violence. While opinion has a place in journalism, and some op-ed pieces will no doubt go down in history as being great writing, I agree with your statement that it is far more important for a reporter to present facts in such a way that the common laypony can understand them and form their own opinion. Doing so without slant or bias can be a great service to the empire.”
While Seville stood there, blinking, Twilight felt a hot flush of heat spread upwards from her neck, and she wished that she wasn’t such a dork. Of course, Seville was a dork too, and in a technical matter of speaking, all of this was his fault because this conversation came from his thesis.
“The creation of a new standard is always difficult,” Seville said, keeping his voice low. “I want to create a whole new standard… a series of ethics backed by moral reporting. I don’t see why journalists can’t conform to a standard. Soldiers do it, there are entire books and schools of thought about the expected behaviours of soldiers. Mental health professionals have standards and ethics. Doctors have standards and ethics. We have these great professions that have strong ethical foundations… but not our journalists.”
“This is something you’re really passionate about, isn’t it?” Twilight asked, for lack of anything better to say.
“I watched a group of corrupt journalists lead by a corrupt anarchist topple our country.” Seville’s face contorted with anger for a moment, and there was a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Celestia said that, in hindsight, Mister Mariner’s attempted coup d'état was the single most successful and most damaging uprising in Equestrian history. Backed by his media empire, he controlled how ponies thought, their opinions, their feelings, he had a level of mental control over ponies that rivaled magic, and he successfully brought our empire down. Out of every villain, every evil that has threatened us, every dark force that has opposed us in our modern age, Mister Mariner has no doubt been the most successful. The irresponsible use of ink was almost our undoing.”
The words struck Twilight like a slap, and she stood there, her breathing shallow, thinking about integrity, morals, and being responsible with ink. Seville’s words held a bitter truth to them—ink was a medium of exchange that like compound interest, could topple a nation or end a dynasty.
“In the past, knights have gathered to create orders dedicated to protecting the empire. They created codes of conduct”—Seville paused for a second, licked his lips, and his eyelids trembled a bit—“they created these codes and lived and died by the standards they held themselves to. I hope one day to do the same… to inspire my fellow journalists to hold themselves to a code. I want history… no, I want Celestia to look back and reminisce about the time when journalists came together to defend a nation… and made it better. We have a responsibility and we need to hold ourselves accountable for what we do… our actions.”
With just a hint of shame, Twilight realised that she had been mouth-breathing for quite a while now, and her teeth clicked when she pressed her lips together. She drew in a deep breath through her nose and then made the mistake of looking Seville in the eye right as she did that. She felt a spark, the jolt was so sudden that her mouth fell back open, and she let out everything with a wheeze.
Seville was a complicated pony.
“I want to see you succeed,” Twilight said, breathing out the words more than saying them. “I’d like to help you, if I can… if you’ll let me. Those knightly orders usually had a princess or a prince that patroned their cause. I could do that…” Her words trailed off and she found herself entranced, distracted, staring into Seville’s eyes.
“I could live in service to any cause you patroned,” Seville replied, and he took a step back. “A princess could make a powerful ally… I might actually stand a fighting chance if I had some help.”
Twilight shivered, but did not know why. Little electric tingles danced down her spine, which made her dock tense, which in turn made her tail flag, just a little. It wasn’t much, but she was all too aware of it happening, her body making a subtle invitation, and doing so on its own, unbidden. “You know, Seville… there is something fitting about us helping one another to maintain the integrity of ink…”
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I'm starting to wonder, maybe the best thing Twilight can do is to write up the foalsitting visit as a military mission report, completely devoid of emotion. Maybe that would help get the message across to the parents.
8208315 Or...or...work with me now...Twilight calls Social Services on Celestia.
I'm kidding.
I do wonder... Is the Equestrian definition of anarchism and anarchy the same as ours?
Celestia herself referred to a chaotic state as anarchy once. A pure (human) anarchist will tell you that this is false.
8208331
Twilight Velvet pays a visit to Celestia...
8208344
To depose the monarchy and the established order. Classical definition, at least in this sense.
Jeez, Spike was savage this chapter.
Then is rather immediately proven right with Twilight forgetting all about him when she bumps into her crush.
I think it is good for the foals that thy are away from home for a while. I don't think that TW can fix it. but she has a feel for what the problem is by now.
8208350 I'd like to see that though, royalty getting chewed out by a a normal-ish pony.
I don't know its interesting to see Celestia is a regular pony she has her failings. All parents struggle and have thier times when in hindsight they could've done things better. Celestia at least realizes and is willing to admit if not completely honestly she needs help.
I can't help but wonder if Spike's horde isn't Twilight and friends. He is brutually honest about thier short comings of course if Twilight and friends are Spike''s horde Seville will find himself added to that shortly and what shortcomings will Spike determine about him
8208390 Honestly I'm glad I'm not the only who noticed this, since the greed growth mechanic seems more centered around the concept of want and ownership I wouldn't think it out of place to have spike greed growth in response to a direct threat to his friends, which turn would create a extremely applicable use for the magic of friendship.
8208376 Twilight Velvet sends in Copperquick instead.
dam this is totally amazing you are the first person to put in to words real words of just how I feel about the 6 and the reason why I do not like AJ or Pinkie.
this hole chapter is totally amazing but that first part just wow.
I am sorry if I have rattled any feelings out their but this is just how I feel.
good to see we might get more megara in later chapters, I wonder if nuance is fascinated or afrade of her
When you think about the power that Journalism and The News has...it IS rather crazy how little rules there are to keep them from manipulating the Truth and just outright LYING to serve their own agenda.
Oh Spike, so savage, so honest. New element of honesty?
Seville understands the power of words, of communication and thought. It's admirable that he would be trying to make a defense of it. To wield truth as a weapon.
The best part is Twilight not realizing this is turning her on.
8208350 Honestly, Celestia, Luna, and Gosling would likely greatly benefit from some serious advice from Velvet. Maybe not in an official capacity, but Twilight's mom is pretty fucking good at her job.
A knightly order of ink wielders with Twilight the ink mistress as the patron, I like the sound of this.
Here comes all the Ink jokes we can make woth those two. Quite wonderful. And dang, Spike, while maybe exaggerating a tad, isn't wrong...
Wow. Just read 10 chapters straight, and I'm loving the character growth, especially, Spike's. Never own someone until you really talk to them.
Now I have a bunch of stories to read that where before this one.
Ah, the complex and astonishing mating dance of the Greater Hoofed Dork. What a beautiful ritual, and what a privilege that we get to see it now.