Learning the Magic of Friendship

by rainsilent

What Mother Knows

Dusky Rose was sitting at the edge of the balcony with a book in her hoof. She was gazing at the stars in the night sky when a familiar voice came from behind her.

“You wanted to see me, mother?”

Dusky Rose turned around to see her young daughter standing in the doorway to the balcony. “Yes, Rose Blossom. Earlier today you said that you still didn’t want to go to the Friendship Festival tomorrow. Why?”

Rose Blossom approached her mother. “It is a silly festival that will only distract me from my studies. It is pointless to go if it interrupts me from what I should be doing.”

“It would seem to me that you still have things to learn about friendship. There is no better place to learn than at the Friendship Festival.”

“Mom,” Rose Blossom said with a long face, “I have friends.”

“Yet you didn’t join them when they invited you on the school field trip a few weeks ago, did you?” Dusky Rose asked with a pointed expression.

“Well,” Rose Blossom said with a frown as her head dropped, “no.”

“You have been doing this more often since the start of the school year. Haven’t you?” Rose Blossom nodded in silence to Dusky Rose’s observation. “Friendship is something best learned by experiencing it, not by studying books about it.” Dusky Rose slid the book that she had in her hoof down in front of Rose Blossom as she said, “Let me show you something.”

Rose Blossom looked at her mother cockeyed. “You are going to show me something about friendship with a book after you said that it is best learned by experiencing it rather than studying books about it?”

Dusky Rose smiled, “You wouldn’t believe me if I had simply told you this story.” She pointed at the book. “This is no ordinary book about friendship. It is a one of a kind book that can only be found here at the Castle of Friendship. It is the Book of the Magic of Friendship.”

Rose Blossom’s eyes grew wide as she gasped at what her mother said. She looked down at the book and brushed the golden silhouette of a unicorn on the cover as if the old, rugged book would fall apart at any moment. With care, she opened the cover to the first page and whispered the only words written on them, “Once upon a time.”

She turned the page over and froze with a gasp at the moving illustrations that the next pages held. After watching for a moment, she turned the page again to a new set of moving illustrations. After watching the illustrations on the pages before her, she looked up at her mother amazed. “This is the magical memory book that tells the story of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s journey to becoming the Princess of Equestria.”

“Yes,” Dusky Rose said with a smile. “Only two other memory books exist in all of Equestria because of the extreme magical requirements that go into making them: one each to Princess Twilight Sparkle and Princess Sunset Shimmer. The reason I brought you to see this book is to show you that when Princess Twilight Sparkle was a young unicorn she wasn’t too different than you are in how she saw friendship.”

“But she is the Princess of Friendship,” Rose Blossom pointed out.

“She wasn’t always the Princess of Friendship,” Dusky Rose said with a grin.

With Rose Blossom's doubtful look, Dusky Rose turned to the next page in the book. Dusky Rose pointed a hoof at the top picture on the next page. The picture had a young unicorn Twilight walking when three other ponies approached. They briefly talked before Twilight bolted off.

“I do not run away from my friends like that.” Rose Blossom contested.

“Not exactly like that, no. You don’t join them for any events though, do you?”

Rose Blossom quietly looked down at the book. Her eyes stopped at the bottom picture of the same page. It had the young Twilight in a room full of books going through them looking for a particular book with a young Spike helping her.

“Like young Twilight, you are avoiding your friends for books. Wanting to learn is admirable but it isn’t worth throwing away everything else for. Friends are just as important.”

Rose Blossom looked up at her mother with a flat expression, trying to hide how annoyed she was. Dusky Rose’s only response was to point back at the book with a knowing smile. Rose Blossom’s eyes returned to the book, going to the top picture of the next page. In the picture, Twilight and Spike were in a chariot landing in a small town. The picture underneath that had Twilight and Spike meeting Applejack and the Apple family.

After a brief moment, Rose Blossom turned the page over to four more pictures. Three of the photos were meeting three ponies; Rainbow Dash entering the town square, Rarity inside the town hall and Fluttershy outside of town with her chorus of birds, while the last was a large group of ponies greeting Twilight and Spike in a library.

“This is how she met her closest friends,” Rose Blossom observed before turning the page once more to see four more pictures. The first started with Twilight alone in a bed with her head under a pillow.

“And yet she…” Rose Blossom’s voice trailed off as she watched the scene in that picture continue until it ended and started over. She watched it a few more times in silence before raising her eyes to her mother and asked, “Does she miss those friends?”

Dusky Rose stifled a chuckle before responding. “I asked that very question many years ago on this very balcony when I was one of Princess Twilight’s personal aids. She misses them a lot every day.” Dusky Rose raised a hoof to her daughter motioning Rose Blossom to approach, “Let me show you something.”

Rose Blossom took a seat by her mother as Dusky Rose raised a hoof to point above the horizon to what, at first glance to Rose Blossom, looked like an empty part of the night sky.

“Do you see those five stars?” Dusky Rose asked.

As her mother asked the question Rose Blossom could make out five stars roughly in the shape of a circle, the top of the circle missing, with the same color to them as those five friends that she saw in the book.

“Yes,” Rose Blossom replied.

“That is Orbis Amicitia. The Circle of Friends. A constellation of stars Princess Twilight made in memory of her friends. One day she will groom a successor and step down, letting that successor take over. When that happens, Princess Twilight will then join her friends wherever their journey took them.”

Shocked by this revelation, Rose Blossom turned to her mother and asked, “Princess Twilight will die?”

“Just like Celestia and Luna did a long time ago, so will she when she chooses her time. If she gets to make that choice.” Dusky Rose said with a soft smile.

“But I don’t want her to die,” Rose Blossom said with growing concern.

“Relax dear,” Dusky Rose said as she gave Rose Blossom a reassuring hug, “I don’t think that Princess Twilight is going to go anywhere any time soon.”

They both turned their attention back to the five stars and sat in silence.

After some time, Dusky Rose spoke up, “Princess Twilight created the Friendship Festival from the Festival of the Two Sisters the year after Princesses Celestia and Luna passed. Before that, the festival was the Summer Sun Celebration.”

Rose Blossom turned to her mother and asked, “Does Princess Twilight have any friends now?”

“Of course she does,” Dusky Rose said with a laugh before looking back at the five stars, gaining a solemn attitude. “But, new friends can never replace her old friends and how much they meant to her. She only has three friends left from those times. Spike is still her Royal Advisor, but he is getting up there in age. She has her niece, Princess Flurry Heart in the Crystal Empire. Finally, she still has Princess Sunset Shimmer ruling Equestria with her. Those two will do everything for each other.”

Dusky Rose then looked at her daughter, “The Friendship Festival is a reminder to every creature of what friendship is and how powerful it can be. Each year the princesses give a speech giving examples of how friendship has made, not only Equestria but the whole world a better place. That is why I want you to go to the festival tomorrow. So, are you willing to go to the Friendship Festival tomorrow?”

Rose Blossom looked away from her mother to five stars in the sky and sighed. After a moment, she looked at her mother with a smile, “Yes.”