Princess and Pariah

by Taialin

Friendship Through Fire

"Scandal" is such a strong and loaded word. And I hope this event will eventually fall off from being called one. But "new Princess of Equestria" and "scandal" put together is just too good a story to pass up, I guess. I sift through the newspapers and tabloids on my desk:

Princess Twilight's Shuts Down Her Own School of Friendship: What's She Planning?

School of Friendship Languishes While Twilight Goes on a Safari

62% of Hippogriffs and 71% of Yaks Disapprove of Equestria's Government

Add that to the schedule—I've spent some significant portion of each day answering questions about what happened, why I did it, when the School would be open again, if the School would open again . . . they're endless. And I really don't have a good answer.

I can't say the real reason—it involves Tempest, and I can't bring her and her personal struggles into this "scandal" just to save face. I can't be that self-centered. Based on train ticket records, ponies did figure out I went to the Windswept Plains—though most of them weren't aware there was any significant civilization there past roaming nomads. (The kirin really have fallen into legend.) The best I've been able to put together? I can't talk about what I was doing in the Windswept Plains, though I will in due time. Rest assured, it was very important. I was so busy that I was unable to sign the budget for the Friendship School.

And I'm very, very sorry about my negligence.

Most ponies were not convinced by this answer and ballyhooed that I was avoiding the question. I don't blame them. They're right.

On their part, my friends, including Starlight, were quick to forgive me and offer me their support. They knew why all this happened, and they didn't blame me for it. Starlight even managed to pull some strings and keep the School open for tours for prospective students. And she's been invaluable in damage control, mentioning to anyone who will listen that she has no qualms about the Crown's stability or the School's continued operation.

That's not saying I haven't had to do a lot of damage control myself. I think I've had more arguments in the past few weeks than I have in the rest of my life. Even something as innocuous as a midday meal has turned into a political jousting match. A seemingly harmless bit of small talk like "The upper boroughs of Fillydelphia are looking dry today" can turn into a heated discussion about whether I've been appropriately managing the weather services up there. Because, well, if I made a mistake with my own school, we'll have to check the rest of the Princess' work, right?

Ever since I arrived home, ponies have been vying for me to explain why I said this so many moons ago or clean up something pertaining to that. That is, if they're not already talking about the School (which they are). Somehow, Horolog has found time for me to accomodate all this and still give me time to breathe at the end of the day. Just enough time to breathe—I couldn't pick up a bit from the street without falling behind schedule.

So despite being surrounded by ponies at all times, these are the times I feel especially alone.

As one of my first priorities on getting the ill-timed news from Neighsay, I did manage to secure funding such that the School could open again in a few weeks, but only for recreation, grounds maintenance, and minor electives. The Friendship School follows the same academic schedule as every other school in Equestria—it might be divorced from the EEA, but it's still a school—and there's only so much you can do with half a semester.

I groan, still reeling from the public interview I gave just a moment ago, one of many, this one with some of the parents of students who were set back a semester. This cohort was full of questions, not all of them friendly. Yes, the students would attend as soon as the school was open again; yes, they would graduate as scheduled; yes, the same professors would be teaching. One family in particular was particularly insistent that their son return to school as soon as possible, even though their son didn't appear particularly happy about it. I'd normally stop the interview, take the son aside, and try to understand why he wasn't excited about friendship. But considering everything that's happened, I can't say I'm terribly excited about it, either.

The question I couldn't answer was why. Not that I didn't have an answer—I tried to answer in the same way I did the newspapers: that it was a mistake on my part and it wouldn't happen again. But if their follow-ups were anything to go by—what broke that needed fixing, what political faction forced me to shut down the school, where was the money redirected to—they wouldn't take that as an answer.

And I can't say I wasn't expecting that. The public seems to be of two minds about this event: one is intent on using it as cannon fodder to make the case that I'm not ready for leadership. The other is convinced this is part of some grand cosmic chess game, and they're intent on figuring out where they are on the board.

I groan again. "How can I get ponies to believe that I'm still Twilight? Nerdy librarian, likes making friends, reads lots of books, governs on occasion? And is capable of making honest mistakes? We sang a whole song about that once." I grouse aloud.

"I'm sorry Princess, but I don't have an answer for you," she answers curtly but not rudely, not looking up from her notepad.

I frown and nod to myself grimly. Sometimes, I get annoyed by the fact that Horolog doesn't offer me feedback on what I'm doing past telling me what I have next on my schedule—while she's nominally a secretary, she's been around me long enough that I'm sure she could be a great sounding board for ideas at the very least. Just as my friends were to me while I still lived in Ponyville.

But then I remember all the nonsense I put her through and all the situations she's gotten me out of in the past few weeks, and she accepted all those with nary a complaint. Horolog is a professional—in every sense.

Sometimes, I hate professionals.

It would be nice to have a companion I could vent to who lived in Canterlot and didn't want something from me—there are few enough ponies who meet the latter requirement. I vent to my friends, but they're not always around—the Council of Friendship won't reconvene for another week, and then they'll be gone for another moon. Even Princess Celestia had her sister for this (for the latter portion of her reign, anyway).

"Do I have any other ponies I need to talk to today?" I ask in a sigh.

"One, Your Highness. I'm afraid somepony asked for a personal audience with you." Horolog frowns. "Considering what you've needed to do in the last few weeks, we tried to say you weren't available, but she showed us a Priority Audience card." Horolog pauses and squints at her notepad. "For 'Tempest Shadow.'" She looks up. "Did you want me to cancel?"

I bite my lip. I have been planning on talking with her again since coming back from the kirin lands, but owing to my catch-up and now this "scandal," personal time has been very hard to find. And the fact that Tempest is asking to speak with me is concerning. She even pulled a literal rank card to do it. She's never done that before. I can only think of one reason why, a reason that, because of how much time I've had to study (none), I still don't have a good answer for.

At the same time, I'm also relieved. Here's a familiar face somewhere in my endless parade of sycophants and politicians. And she wants to talk about something that, indirectly, has caused me no end of stress recently. It would be nice to talk with somepony who didn't have an agenda with me, whether about my recent decisions or decisions I've yet to make. Talking about anything different would be a welcome break. And now, more than ever, I could use a friend.

"No," I say wearily. "Please send her in and leave us be. Thank you, Horolog."

She quickly scribbles a few more notes into her notepad and offers a short bow before leaving.

I light my horn and lift Rain Shine's translation from the bookshelf I'd been stowing it in before leaving it to hang in midair, contemplating. I sigh and replace the book back on its shelf.

Tempest comes in in short order, making herself known not by slamming the door or clearing her throat but by her indomitable presence, as always.

I turn to offer her a small smile in greeting, but it arrests, half-formed on my face. Tempest's expression is hard, harder than normal. Her brows are furrowed, as always; her eyes are narrow, as always; and she's frowning, as always. But it's some miniscule amplification of all of those features that tell me that she's upset. That she's upset with me.

"T-Tempest?"

"I wasn't expecting this from you, Princess," Tempest says. There's just a bit more edge to her voice, too.

"I-I'm sorry; I haven't had much time to research the Stream for your cure," I say, unsurely.

"Do you think I'm upset about that?" She snorts. "Princess, I've read the news too as I'm sure you have. The School closed. Students don't have classes this semester."

"I-I'm sorry?" I say, taken aback. I . . . wasn't expecting Tempest to grill me on exactly the same subjects everypony else has been these last few weeks. I didn't even expect she'd be interested in them.

"One of the ponies who attends the school lives close to me, you know. I was walking home when he mentioned he couldn't go to school, and that caught my attention." She glares at me with piercing eyes. "He doesn't get along with his parents. He had to convince them to let him go to the School, and they only agreed because it would be an excuse not to have him in the house any longer. He stayed in the dorms year-round so he wouldn't have to return home for as long as he was enrolled. Now this, and he has a semester he's spending with his parents instead of his friends."

"I, uh . . ."

"His parents beat him. He had bruises, well hidden, when I found him. He tried to hide them from me, but I've seen more than enough bruises and wounds to know what they look like, even if their owner doesn't want them known. And this all happened in the short weeks between sessions. He was an earth pony born to a generation of unicorns. When he was born, they wanted to disown him. They wanted to outcast him because he was . . ." Tempest glances up at her horn before leveling her steely gaze back at me. " . . . different. Couldn't do the same things the unicorns he was surrounded by could. Couldn't make friends because of that.

"It's only in Ponyville where ponies and creatures of all types come together that he was able to get along with others. Where he finally made true friends. It's at the school that he finally found his cutie mark, a pickaxe, last session. He intended to find his way in Ponyville or Appleoosa upon graduating and to never return home again. That's how bad it got. Now . . ." Tempest narrows her eyes. "Imagine what his parents thought when he returned from exile with a thoroughly earth pony mark."

"I'm, uh . . ." I take a deep breath, trying to find myself again in Tempest's unexpected tirade. "I was at the Peaks of Peril. I can't say what I was doing there, though I will in due . . ."

What am I saying? Tempest was there, and she knows what I was doing there. What we were doing there! She of all ponies should understand. I shake my head violently.

"Tempest, you remember what we were doing! And why we were doing it! I'm sorry, I really am. I'll find this colt and these parents and give them a piece of my mind, I promise. And I made a mistake, I know. But I made it already, and I would make a hundred more for you!"

"Then you are more of a fool than I thought, Princess," she says darkly. "Have you considered that perhaps you shouldn't have done it?"

Are we actually back to this again? How much of that self-preservation instinct really exists in her? I stand up, voice growing louder. "No, Tempest, because you're my friend, and friends stick together! Friends are loyal to one another, and they don't give up on each other! I'm not giving up on you, even if you seem to have given up on yourself, not for anything!"

"'Anything'? Be careful what you wish for, Highness, because 'anything' means anything. Would you look this colt in the eyes and say what you said to me? Would you condemn him to moons with his parents and whatever goes on in an earth pony-hating household? That you would will him harm in exchange for a few tchotchkes for a pony he barely knows? And say his suffering is the due cost he has to pay?"

"I . . ." Why does Tempest need to be so argumentative but so logical? She's wrong, I know she is, but the points she's bringing up are real points that are difficult to argue with. "I want to save your life, Tempest!" I cry. "Why are you arguing with me?!"

"Because his is not the only story in this mistake of yours." Tempest grows louder too, her voice carrying all the authority that made her a Commander. She doesn't need to be loud to be heard, so she's doubly frightening when she is. She takes a step closer. "If it was him alone and the cure was absolute, then yes, do what you need to do. But it isn't, and it's not. He was one I talked to, but there are dozens more with whom I didn't. Perhaps their crises are greater or lesser than his. I do not know, but I do know there are more like him.

"And then there are your remaining responsibilities you fobbed off as well. Yes, I read about those too. Can you say that none of that didn't hurt ponies? Can you say no one was hurt by those actions or inactions?"¹ She takes one more step. I can feel her breath on my face. "I am not that important, Princess. I am not you—I am not someone for whom Equestria will stop functioning if she doesn't exist. I will not be a burden on others, and I absolutely refuse to be a burden on dozens of others, any one of whom has a story to tell just like that colt. Can you honestly say that a single pony's life is worth more than all of those consequences put together—nay, a chance at a single pony's life? Even if it is my own?

"Is that who a Princess is? Someone who acts more in her own interests than those she represents?"

Once again, I struggle against Tempest's points and her suffocating presence, that which makes it hard for her to lose arguments, no matter how asinine. And it is an asinine argument. I know that in my heart. Even still . . .

Even still, I feel my will to continue to fight against Tempest's point after pointless point dwindling. It's not even what I wanted to talk with her about! Not that talking about her condition or my progress at a cure would be pleasant either, but now, she's making it out like she doesn't even want to hear about the fruits of the mission we spent the better part of a moon to win!

What I really wanted—what I really needed at a time like this—was a friend. Someone who'd listen and not judge me for every decision I made. Someone with whom I know I could talk about anything to and not jeopardize our relationship. Someone I could tell about all the stupid and stressful things I've been doing lately so that in the end, I might feel better having let it all out. I needed someone kind. Or loyal. Or honest or generous or laughing.

I didn't need this.

With a vast howl of frustration, anger, and grief, I crumple onto the floor of my chambers, holding my head in my hooves. I don't care what Tempest is doing. I don't care if my guards hear and break down my door. I don't care if Horolog tells me I have a meeting with the dragons in one minute and they'll burn Equestria to ruins if I don't attend. That just makes it another stupid consequence I didn't calculate.

I look up, angry tears in my eyes. Tempest stands high above me, but with a vastly changed expression. She's shocked.

Good.

"Then maybe I'm not a Princess," I say with a broken voice and a broken heart. "And maybe I never was. If that's who you want to follow—someone who can always calculate the best decisions and carry them out for the good of everypony—then you should move on and find someone else. Because that's not me. Maybe I lead Equestria now and I speak for it, but leadership doesn't define me, and it never did. That was always Celestia's forte, not mine.

"I . . ." I sniffle and struggle not to turn it into a sob. "I'm just a friend, and that's all I'll ever be. I guess . . . I guess you'll never know how it feels when your friends' lives are being held hostage before your eyes, and one of those friends tries to convince you to let them go. One of them says 'we aren't worth it.' Friends whom you've been with for so long that they define your identity. I knew, I always knew, that my friends would come first, no matter the cost. Because without them, life isn't worth living. Without them, Equestria isn't worth saving.

"So no, I didn't calculate what the value of your life was compared to all those I hurt. I didn't consider that there might be more affected by my actions and that it might add up to be something bigger. And maybe when it comes to the 'greater good,' whatever that is, there is a better answer, and Celestia would have seen it and chosen it. And maybe Equestria would be better off if I was more like that. But I know I'm not like that, and I never will be. B-because for everything in Equestria and all that it's worth . . ."

With a wretched sob, I rear up and grab Tempest's shoulders with my forehooves. Her eyes meet mine, and for the first time, my gaze is stronger than hers.

"You're worth everything to me!"

I release her and fall back to the ground, unable to speak further. I shield my head with my hooves as if they might protect me from another righteous attack on my decisions. I've felt a lot of things since becoming Princess of Equestria: uncertain, inarticulate, in over my head. But never in despair. The tears come unrelenting, hard and fast.

Once I can find my voice again, I make no attempt to hide my emotions. Tempest appears before me as nothing more than a soggy shape in my teary eyes. "S-so if I'm condemned by the press, if I'm condemned by Equestria, if I'm condemned by you for the actions I make for my friends, in the name of friendship . . . I guess I'll keep getting condemned, because that's who I am."

I turn away from her and try to wipe my eyes again. It's all this that forces me to think: did Celestia really make the right choice in ceding an entire nation's leadership to me? Everything I said was the complete truth. And I do genuinely believe that the bonds of friendship are what give Equestria strength. But if I were given a chance to wager the entirety of Equestria against my best friends, or even a single one of them, I know I wouldn't take that bet. I never have. How would Celestia feel, how would Equestria feel if they knew I felt this way? That I'd willingly throw them all away for someone who only means something to me? Does that make me selfish?

Friendship can be a curse, I know. When your friends betray you, even for a moment, it hurts, and it hurts so much more than if you hadn't been so close to them. Other nations have governed themselves just fine without friendship at its helm. What I'm doing is new—it was new to Celestia too—flying this virtue to be of paramount importance to Equestria. I need to convince the world that I know what I'm doing, and all I have is my own barely-existent governing experience to do it with. Even Neighsay has more than I do. Celestia believed in me to bring Equestria to greater heights through the bonds of friendship, but do I believe in myself? There's an entire nation at stake. I don't know whether I'll fly us straight into the ground. Guided by the blind.

And maybe that makes me a bad leader. Considering Tempest, I may very well trust her to have a better eye for proper leadership than I do now. If this is truly what it takes to be a leader—an objective view on the actions you make and their consequences on those you lead—I will never live up to that expectation. How much of a leader can I be? How much of a leader can I possibly become?

So it's surprising that I feel a coat and muzzle nestle itself against my side in a warm embrace. It can only have come from one pony.

"I am sorry, Princess," Tempest says in a foreign voice. It's hers, but soft and pitched with uncertainty. "No. I am sorry, Twilight."

"H-huh?" Even as I'm saying that, I can't help but press myself a little closer to Tempest. It's just . . . I don't really understand why she is, but she's offering exactly what I need right now . . .

"You did not fail Equestria as a Princess. I failed you as a friend. And . . ." Her voice grows more contrite with every word, a tone I've never heard from Tempest. "I should have known that from the start." She brings a hoof over my back and wings and squeezes me. It takes every bit of my willpower for me not to collapse into her hooves as an insensate mound of melancholy.

Tempest's voice is low and quiet in my ears, her words warm and far divorced from the commanding and deliberate tone she normally has. "You spent moons rehabilitating me in your castle in Ponyville, trying to teach me about the auspices of friendship. And you believed that I learned of it well enough to instruct Rain Shine in its ways. I . . . I evidently still have much to learn.

"The time in the mountains that I spent with you taught me something. It's that no one should be above or below in friendship. I call you Princess because you lead Equestria, you have a pure moral compass, and you have proven you deserve the title. I've said all that to you before. And for everything I've said today, I still believe it. But . . . I also call you Princess because you instruct me, and because I defer to you when making my own judgments. You know the way.

"For as long as I have known you, you have only ever been the Princess who offered me clemency, the one I owe my free life to. 'Learn from her,' I told myself. 'Learn and do not question why, and do not question her, or you risk losing everything you've ever gained, any happiness you now have, any purpose you might find.'

"But with the kirin, you let me question. You let me question you and your philosophy on how we should have saved them, or even at all. You let me experiment with whether I knew the way. And then, when I tried to walk down the path I'd set for myself . . . we came together to truly find it. Both of us, accomplishing something neither of us could alone. Something we couldn't have done as just Princess and subject. But I didn't acknowledge it at the time, that we did it together. Rather, it was you who commanded my hoof to move, and it did. That is how it's always been. You were still Princess. You still led. You still knew."

"I don't," I respond in a small voice. "Sometimes, I feel like I don't know anything. I'm just a pony. I've only just started this leading Equestria thing."

"I know. And it's okay that you don't. But I grew . . . offended when I met that colt. Because when I saw him, I also saw a Princess who was supposed to know the way but instead threw away so much time and responsibility for a mere side project. That colt asked me a question: 'Why isn't the Princess letting me go to school?' I didn't have an answer for him. I couldn't tell him the Princess failed to protect him." I hear Tempest sigh from beside me. "Military, Pr—Twilight. Do you understand? The mission comes first. And I thought you had forgotten.

"You stepped down from the mantle of unassailable Princess. Or pedestal, should I say, because it was one. But I had not yet found another place to put you. In my mind, you were one who led, and one who had a bad approach in how to lead. 'It worked on Rain Shine,' I told myself. 'It must work on this one, too. Correct her.'

"But our adventure in the kirin lands taught me you're more than a leader. You are a friend. You're . . ." She squeezes me a little tighter, and I feel a little warmer. "You're my friend. A friend with wishes and desires and a heart as fragile as anypony's. A friend who can be hurt by the flippant words I speak when I am no longer awed by her Princesshood but neither do I see her as a friend deserving of compassion or empathy. And I should be more sensitive about that. You taught me that friends should stick together. They're loyal, and honest, and kind, and everything else you have ever instructed me about. And . . ."

Tempest noses at my own muzzle, and I turn to face her. There, I see eyes that are unmistakably Tempest but also terribly alien. Gone is the easy confidence and guarded disdain that only spoke of intimidation and made her Tempest Shadow, Hoof of the Storm. Instead, here is uncertainty and vast vulnerability and regret, crushing in its depths and nearly as crushing to observe.

"I have been honest with you, Twilight. But I have not been loyal or kind. And I have not been a good friend to you. I am sorry, Twilight, for not being there when you needed me. Will you . . . forgive me?"

Looking in her eyes, it feels like I'm seeing Tempest Shadow again for the first time. And in a way, I am. I've never seen this pony before—but I'd like nothing more than to get to know her. I put on a smile that breaks us both, and I wrap her with both my forehooves.

"Of course, Tempest," I whisper. "You know I will. Friends always do."

Tempest returns my hug with encompassing warmth. "I'm sorry for yelling at you."

I can't help but offer a small chuckle. "Don't be. It's how we learn."

---

1. There's a word for this in moral philosophy: utilitarianism. I think it's fitting that Tempest subscribes to this philosophy.

Comments

[protator]

Hmmm ... it was a good story until this ridiculous super artificial non-issue popped up.
She's a legislator, not the center of the universe. Why does everything go belly-up with her gone for two weeks?
A monarch's privately run school doesn't have emergency funds to stay operational for a month?
The school needs to stay closed for the entire semester now? Why? Let this semester start a few days late, big deal.
Besides, even if Starlight and Jerkburst didn't have any money left to pay their teachers ... the nobles of Canterlot would've lined up to lend or even donate that money to Twilight['s school] for the publicity and so Twi would owe them.
But the new popularity ratings are already out, I see. At least Pony-Redit didn't shut down while she was gone.

Of course the child-beater-parents enrolled their kid at the School of Friendship. It makes absolute sense. They're nice people so why wouldn't they.
And of course Tempest doesn't break their legs and opts to tell Twilight instead. Fits her personality perfectly.

"B-because for everything in Equestria and all that it's worth . . ."
"You're worth everything to me!"
At least add a 'Romance' tag. This isn't friendship. Not even Twilight's peak levels of friendship-autism would make her go that far. Twi does have more than just a rudimentary sense of duty and responsibility [towards her subjects/kingdom] - it's the main source of her anxieties.

[Taialin]

11733809
Thank you for the criticism.

There's a thing in writing called "suspension of disbelief" wherein logic is compromised for story. It's a constant balance as a writer to make the story cohesive but not fill it with so much explanation and "dot-connecting" that there's no room for narrative. And you're right in saying this chapter in particular goes heavy on not explaining things--there's a little too much emotion to make that happen easily. Each point you bring up has an explanation, but none of them drive the story forward enough that I felt they warranted their disruption to the story's pacing. If that omission breaks your suspension of disbelief, I'm sorry. It means I didn't balance it right, and you're no longer engaged. You needn't read futher.

On a few specific points:

• At the conclusion of FiM, Twilight kind of is center of the universe, or at least Equestria.
• I challenge the United States to not go bananas if the president were to disappear for two weeks.
• Public institutions shut down all the time with little notice for lack of funding and lack of "reserve." See also: United States.
• Aristocrats have more to gain by playing the blame game after an institution's shutdown than to save it for brownie points they may or may not be able to cash in. See also: United States.
• Twilight has prioritized friendship over Equestria. S4 finale. And much as leadership has changed her, I would hope the story has convinced you up to this point that it doesn't define her.
• Using "autism" as an insult doesn't bring anyone to your side and says more about its sender's worldview than its recipient's character.

I'll leave it at that.