Well...

“Did it hurt?” the whispered question came out.

I looked up from stirring sugar into my tea and cocked my head at the girl across from me. “Pardon?”

Twilight looked down at her own cup of coffee, plucking at the collar of her shirt. “When my crown transformed you,” she clarified. “Did it hurt? You had tears on your face.”

“Oh,” I said, looking away. “It did, in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

I gingerly turned my gaze back to the Princess. We had met again in the cafe that we had agreed to several times in the last few months following the defeat of the Sirens. As nice as the journal was, it just felt good to sit down with her sometimes and talk face to face, one Equestrian to another. There were other reasons, too, but it was just nice being able to talk about things when I felt homesick.

“It felt like ice,” I said, the sensations flowing back into memory with the sharp percipience that guilt could cause. “So cold it burned. But it wasn’t the physical pain that hurt as much as the psychic pain.”

I ran my hands through my hair, using them to hold my head up as I looked down at the table, but seeing instead the moments after I had put her crown on my head. Tears started to well up again.

“I saw everything I had done,” I whispered. “Every insult, every petty action, everything I had ever done that went against the magic of Harmony. It tested me, and I was found wanting. I clung to the dark lump of ego just to endure, and I think that was why it transformed me.”

I felt her hand on my arm, offering comfort. I wiped my eyes and looked at her, offering a weak smile.

“What brings the sudden curiosity, anyway?”

She looked away, twiddling her fingers.

“it’s just,” she started. “Every time I’ve had to use the Elements of Harmony, it seemed like it pains who we use it on. I can’t ask Princess Luna because it would stir up bad memories, and I’m not that close to Discord.”

“So you thought you’d ask me,” I finished, taking a sip of my tea to chase the lingering chill from my blood.

“Yeah,” she acknowledged, her cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. “I hoped that being marefriends, you wouldn’t mind being asked.”

I arched an eyebrow at the bookworm. “You could have let me know ahead of time,” I said gently.

“I know I should have,” she said, voice picking up in speed. “But I wasn’t sure how to voice it, or how to lead up to it or…”

I reached across the table and booped her on the nose. “Calm down, Sparky,” I said. “I understand. And I assume you want to know what happened when you pulled the other Elements out of thin air and hit me with weapon’s grade friendship magic?”

She grinned and chuckled sheepishly. “You don’t have to,” she whispered.

I waved my hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Might as well finish the story.”

I took another sip of tea as I settled my thoughts. “When it hit,” I began. “It was unbearably hot. I felt like it was searing the evil out of me. But as soon as I thought that, it turned cool, soothing. I saw images of the good days as Celestia’s student, and I caught hazy glimpses of what I guess were your times with your friends, and the good times of the girls here that I managed to destroy. I felt shame, and jealousy, and then fear. I wanted what I saw but I didn’t know anything about what I had destroyed.

“And at the same time, I felt the peace and confidence that you had imbued the magic with, and I lost the fear, and was just tired. Tired of the lies and deceptions.” I sipped my tea again. “And you helped me find a better way, a different way. The girls have been such a great bunch and helped me through those tough days after the fall formal and…other things.”

She squeezed my forearm in sympathy. She knew about the incident with Anon-y-mous that had driven a rift between the girls and I for a time. If I had known about the book still working during that time, I likely would have talked to Twilight then.

“And now, not only do I have great friends,” I smiled, warmth filling my chest. “But I mended things with the school, and even sat down with Principal Celestia to ask her how to go about apologizing to the Princess.” I winked at Twilight. “I even wound up with a pretty gorgeous girlfriend out of it. And a wonderful way to tease Flash from time to time.”

She giggled. “How is he, by the way?”

I giggled too. “He’s doing pretty good,” I said when I caught my breath. “We’ve patched things up and he recognizes that you and him probably wouldn’t work out. He’s actually been seen out and about with Rainbow from time to time, though neither will say if they’re an item or just two guitarists comparing notes.”

“It’s hard to see Rainbow in a romantic light,” Twilight said. “Even the Rainbow back home isn’t into the mushy stuff.”

“Well, Flash is capable of being friendly without the need for anything more,” I told her. “When we first got to be friends, I told him that I was recovering from an injury and was having trouble with my hands. He showed me how to play guitar, just out of his need to play knight in shining armor.”

“I wondered where you learned how to play like that,” Twilight grinned.

“Well, I needed something to do when not plotting my rise on the social ladder and studying this world’s history,” I admitted. “I got a beat up guitar pretty cheap and practiced like I once practiced magic. Though it’s also helped me come up with other ways to use them, especially as of late.”

She blushed hard at that one as the waitress came over.

“Anything else for you girls?” she asked sweetly.

“No, thank you,” I told her. “We are actually going to meet some friends soon.”

She smiled. “Just the check, then?”

“Please,” I said, turning to Twilight. “Ready?”

She pulled the wallet I had given her on her last trip here out and pulled a couple bills out. “My turn to pay, right?” she asked.

“You can cover the tip,” I told her, pulling my own wallet out. “The Rainbooms actually get some paying gigs now, and I just got a job over at the mall in a restaurant. My treat.”

She frowned at me. “You can’t pay every time we meet, Sunset.”

“I don’t mind, since you always find nice ways to pay me back,” I said as we left, lacing my hand into hers. “Besides, it’s nice to be able to say I took a Princess to tea. Usually it’s the other way around.”

She squeezed my hand gently. “So it’s more ego, huh?”

I grinned and lifted my other hand up.

“I’m reformed,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I lost my sense of irony.”

She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me swiftly, a hint of the hazelnut of her coffee remaining on my lips.

“Well, then,” she said with a smile. “Should we go meet our friends? Pinkie is hosting tonight, right?”

I felt my grin spread even wider.

“As my princess wishes,” I whispered.

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