In the railway station of the Crystal Empire, there was the usual commotion that preceded the departure of a train. There were those who were pushing their amounts of luggage to get it through the door of the carriage, or those who quarreled with the controller on the ticket price, or those who cried out to the pony behind to not push, or those who came running so they wouldn't miss the train, or those who simply were lingering to greet their friends and couldn't bring themselves to get on board.
But in the end, the general confusion was stopped by the piercing whistle of the engine. The signal that the train was about to leave.
“All aboard!” shouted the conductor, looking at his watch, to make it clear, to those who hadn't realized it yet, that the train was departing.
And immediately, those who hadn't boarded yet hastened to do so. Among these, there was a young unicorn filly, with a white coat and a mane in violet and pink curls.
She was carrying a small paper bag in her teeth, bloated and bouncing due to the fact that she was running. Obviously, she was trying to make sure that the bag was tossed about as little as possible, but it was difficult, since the station was crowded, and she had to hurry. However, luckily, she managed to get on board without receiving any damage.
And she was just in time, because, a few seconds after she had entered the carriage, the conductor shut the door behind her, and, shortly after, the train let out another whistle and began to move.
She, relieved to have arrived on time, put the bag on her rump and walked down the corridor of the carriage, in search of her friends, and, a little later, after passing to the next carriage, she heard a familiar voice calling her name.
“Sweetie Belle!” said the voice, “Where did you go? We were beginnin' to worry that you were still at the station!”
Sweetie Belle looked ahead and saw her best friend Apple Bloom greeting her, looking out the door of a compartment.
Smiling, she quickly reached her friend and went into the compartment. Her other best friend, Scootaloo, was also in there She, for her part, looked exhausted. And there was nothing to wonder about, because she had brought all three of them from Ponyville up to the Crystal Empire in record time. However, despite the extreme fatigue, she was super excited and couldn't stay still.
“Ah, there you are, finally!” she said, as soon as she saw Sweetie Belle, “Why did you linger at the station? Apple Bloom and I were worried about you!”
“Sorry!” Sweetie Belle apologized, scratching her head in embarrassment, “But I couldn't resist paying a visit to the souvenir shop! Since the first time that I saw them, the first time we've been here, I desperately wanted to have one!”
She immediately put the bag on the ground and, very gently, pulled a snow globe out of it. It was a snow globe made of sparkling crystal, and so was the miniature of the Crystal Castle inside it, which, reflecting the light from the window, created a small rainbow that lit up the whole sphere. The snowflakes were lit by the same light, giving the illusion that a multicolored blizzard was enveloping the castle.
Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo watched the small, glittering object in admiration for almost a minute, before Apple Bloom said, “I had completely forgotten about them. And to think that these were the first thing we saw of the Crystal Empire!”
“Well, it's not so important,” intervened Scootaloo, “since we have far better memories of the Empire now! For example, when we swept away the competition for the flag carrying team, just barely an hour ago!”
And at that point, in the throes of total excitement, she gave a cry of triumph, and jumped so high that she almost touched the ceiling, and as she descended, she wildly waved her wings, which allowed her to remain suspended in the air for a good ten seconds, before landing on the seat.
The other Crusaders looked at her friend, and caught in turn by the enthusiasm, ran to hug her, while Sweetie Belle was saying, “Congratulations, Scootaloo! You deserve this success more than anypony else.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom added, “We know how much you dreamed of winnin', and we know how much you've committed to do so! We only regret that you haven't been able to do it by flyin', like you wanted! It's true that the question of flyin' made us argue, but it's also true that we know exactly what makes you sad not bein' able to fly!”
At those words, for a second, just for a second, a shadow of sadness passed on Scootaloo's eyes. But before her friends could realize that, with those words, they made her think back to that painful topic, she roused herself and said, “Fine, let's not talk about that story again, okay? Instead, are you hungry? 'Cause I am! So, I think I'll head to the restaurant car, to get something, and maybe I could bring something to you too! So, what should I bring you?”
The other two looked at each other, and then Sweetie Belle offered, “Scootaloo, not be petulant, but you seem pretty tired! Why don't you let me go to the restaurant car, while you stay here and try to relax?”
“Me? Tired?” Scootaloo replied, “”What are you talking about? I'm so full of energy that I could burst! A small walk is what I need. And, anyway, I need to stretch my legs. So, if you don't mind, and if you don't need anything, I'll go now!”
And without another word she went out from the compartment and walked toward the rear of the train.
The truth was that she had left the compartment so she would no longer have to deal with that topic. The truth was that flight was still a painful subject for her, although not as much as that morning.
She had always known that she lacked something that the other pegasi had, but, for some strange reason, she had never thought so deeply about it until a few days earlier, when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had pointed it out. Maybe it was because her friends didn't lay heir hooves too much in that weak spot. It was true that, sometimes, they called her "chicken", but she knew that they did it as a joke. With Diamond Tiara, however, it was different. She had taken advantage of the weakness that she had never realized she had. And it was horrible.
Luckily there were her friends. And luckily there was Rainbow Dash. The one who she idolized since she was small had said to her that she was awesome, even if she couldn't fly! Those words, for her, were like a sunrise after a stormy night.
And as for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, they had returned for her, and had forgiven her, despite the fact that she had been selfish and a defeatist, and even though she decided to abandon them when they needed her. And, for this, she would never be able to thank them enough.
She was thinking about all these things, while she opened the door that connected the carriage to the next one, when she found herself face to face with one of the last ponies she wanted to see.
Her gray mane was, as usual, tied in a braid, and her deep, violet eyes, stared at her through the thick lenses of her glasses with their refined frame.
All this struck Scootaloo's mind, instantly forming a nasty concept that could be expressed in two words: Silver Spoon.
“Oh, look who's here!” Scootaloo said, “What do you want now? Perhaps that I get up in the air, so you can pass without having to wait for me to walk in? Well, I'm sorry, but I can't do it, and you are free to mock me as much as you want for this! This won't change the facts. We have won! We'll bring the flag to the Equestria Games!”
At this point, she was expecting a haughty answer, typical of Silver Spoon when she had lost. Something like, “This one time you were lucky, you and your lousy friends. But the next time we'll crush you, I assure you!”
What she didn't expect was the sad expression that she saw on her classmate's face. And that wasn't the sadness of those who had lost. It was rather the sadness of those who had done something bad, and that felt guilty.
At first, stupefied by that behavior, she was tempted to ask her what was wrong, but immediately after she erased that thought. It was Silver Spoon she was talking about. If she asked something to her, she would have answered rudely, and she would go away with a snooty attitude.
And then, seeing that she didn't respond to the provocation, Scootaloo said, “Well, then! If your ladyship won't mind, I'll pass first!”
And so, giving a shove to Silver Spoon to clear the passage, she passed in the other carriage, and she had already opened the sliding door leading to the hallway, when she felt withheld.
Silver Spoon, with the same sad expression, had taken her by the tail, but she wasn't pulling or gripping it, as if she would beat her, but was holding her by the tail for preventing her from escaping. Simply, she didn't want her to go away.
“Please..” she said, “Please, stay here a minute. Just a minute! There's one thing I must tell you!”
“If you have found in the dictionary a new insult for a pony without a cutie mark, I don't care!” was the reply, “My friends are waiting for me with snacks. Why don't you go to your best friend to comfort you for the fact that you have lost? But anyway, best wishes for that! She must be so angry that the slightest hint of this morning contest could make her explode!”
But not even that provocation seemed to bother her. She looked into her eyes and said, “I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the other day, for the terrible things that I told you. And I'm sorry for all the other times I've been bad with you, and with your friends. I know that every excuse in the world wouldn't be enough to repay you for all the humiliation that I have inflicted on you, since the first day we knew each other. And I don't expect forgiveness. But I felt compelled to tell you that, because I know that I went too far, when I teased you about the fact that you are unable to fly.”
After her long confession, she let go of her tail, and said, “That's it! I don't have to tell you anything else. Now I'm leaving, don't worry!”
And she turned to leave, but this time it was Scootaloo who held her back, and for a very specific reason: in the last minute Silver Spoon had said "sorry" more times than she had ever heard her say before, which is equivalent to zero!
“Wait a minute!” Scootaloo said, “Are you saying that you are sorry?”
She turned and stared at her face, and replied, with tears in her eyes, “Yes, I'm sorry! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going, so you can forget about this conversation, and, when I'll be back to being unbearable, we'll be enemies as before!”
“No! Stop!” retorted the other, positioning herself between her and the door, “What do you mean with ' when I'll back to being unbearable '! Did it mean that you don't want be like that?”
Silver Spoon tried to pass, jostling, crying, and shouting at her to get out of the way, and that she wouldn't tell her anything else. But Scootaloo was stronger, and blocked her.
In the end, she gave up, sat down on the shaky floor of the carriage, and said, with a sullen expression, “Fine! I'll tell you everything! Happy now?”
“Let's just say that now you seem a little more...... you!” replied Scootaloo, sitting in turn, “And now tell me. What did you mean earlier?”
She rubbed her hooves over her eyes, to wipe away her tears, and began to say, “The truth is that I didn't want to become like this. I realize that I'm a snobby and haughty pony, that I boast for things that I don't have any merit, and that I use words that may hurt the feelings of others. But, to be honest, I never noticed that I was so bad. Or at least, I didn't realized it until I heard myself say 'We already called them blank flanks,' while I was talking about you girls. It was at that moment that I realized that, for her, I had completely passed the limit, and that I was totally like her!”
Once said this, she turned, and said nothing more.
Scootaloo, disorientated by that explanation, began to reflect. She didn't need need a great leap of imagination to figure out who this "her" of which she was talking about, was. After all, since she knew Silver Spoon, she had always been the shadow of a single pony: Diamond Tiara. And, to think about it, she had never teased them on her own initiative. She only did it when Diamond Tiara was doing it. She was, in practice, her follower.
“So,” she said, “if I haven't misunderstood, you've become like so by dint of stay with Diamond Tiara. However, there's one thing I don't understand. If you don't like to act like that, and it's her fault, why do you continue to stay with her? After all, for what I've seen, she hardly ever had done something nice for you! Indeed, she treats you as if you were her footpony!”
“Forget about it! You wouldn't understand!” was the annoyed reply.
“Oh, come on!” Sootaloo insisted, “Now that you have managed to make me sorry for you, which before now I thought was impossible, I want to know the whole story! Why are you still her friend despite everything? That debt do you have towards her?”
She didn't answer. She remained silent, her face turned towards the wall. Scootaloo was tempted to insist, but then she thought better of it, went to sit right next to her, and waited. She felt that, despite her tremendous efforts to contain herself, sooner or later she would vent, and would tell her everything.
And so, they remained there. The orange pegasus and the grey earth pony, sitting alongside one another, busy watching a wall, in the wobbly car of a moving train. That was without any doubt the strangest and most boring thing Scootaloo had ever done. And she was doing it for Silver Spoon, for which, until ten minutes before, she wouldn't move a straw.
She couldn't explain all this empathy she was feeling for her at that moment. Simply, she felt that, despite all the bad things she had done, perhaps she still deserved a chance to show her best side.
“She needs me....”
Scootaloo raised her head, suddenly called to the attention by those three words, whispered under her breath by Silver Spoon.
“She needs you?” asked the pegasus, “What do you mean?”
“If she didn’t have me, she would be alone.” murmured the other, “Alone as when I met her for the first time.”
And she turned to look at Scootaloo, with a look that expressed a great sadness. Even through the lenses of her glasses, her eyes sparkled, perhaps for the tears she had spilled a little earlier, or perhaps because of the intensity of the emotion she was feeling at that moment.
Scootaloo didn't ask anything. It was obvious that she was sincere. And so she said nothing, waiting for her to continue, if she felt like doing so.
And in fact, after a few moments, she took off her glasses and began to speak again, “It all started four years ago. Our parents were friends. They went to the same club. So one day, my mom took me for the first time to the club, where for the first time I met her. Like I was accompanied there by my mom, she was accompanied by her father, and she was standing alone, in a corner, without speaking to anypony. At the beginning I thought that she was just shy, so I went to say hello. And you know what she told me? What, with my glasses, I looked ridiculous! And after that, she began to tease me for other things, until I went away, saying to her that she was unbearable.....”
Having said that, she paused for a moment, sighing, as if she was putting aside the last barrier that prevented her from freely expressing with Scootaloo.
"While we were still in the club, I saw that she did the same with all the other foals. With all of them, she was unkind and arrogant in equal measure. And I was already vowing to not ever try to talk to that filly, when by chance I heard my mom and her dad talking about her. My mother asked Filthy Rich why she was standing alone, and he didn't know what to say. He just said that, since she was small, she always had a difficult temperament. She had always acted haughty and proud, and she tended to criticize everypony. They had tried to make her happy, not making her miss anything, buying everything she wanted, and satisfying every whim of hers. They hoped that, once she had been happy, she would also become more gentle and loving. But, unfortunately, their plan had the opposite effect. Now that she had everything she wanted, when she wanted it, she began to tease others not only for what they weren't, but also for what they hadn't. At that point, it was my mom who said that, more than things, her daughter needed a friend. She needed somepony to help her soften his temper, and only somepony with the same age, with which she had something in common, could succeed. It was at that point, hearing the words of my mother that, I think, weren't only addressed to Filthy Rich, but also to me, that I made a decision. In fact, also I didn't have friends, and I thought that, as she needed me, so I needed her. So, I tried in every way to be accepted by her, and to do that, I had to pretend to act like her, until I conquered her trust. And that was how we became friends, and since then, I did everything to try to soften her nature...."
"No offense," Scootaloo interrupted, " but I don't think you've done a nice job. I mean, she's still unbearable!"
"You don't see the changes because you know her from barely a year," Silver Spoon resumed, "but you must believe me: when I met Diamond Tiara, she was at least twice as unbearable. She was able to make fun of you if you just had a hair out of place. And also, when you learn to know her, you understand that, in fact, she doesn't have a heart made of stone. Sometimes, when she's alone, she starts to cry silently, because she feels lonely. And so I go to her and comfort her a little. I tell her that, even though everypony says that she's a haughty and vitiated filly, I'll always be by her side."
From those words, Scootaloo realized something extraordinary, something that previously would have seemed absurd to her.
Until then, she had seen the relationship between Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon as a boss-sidekick relationship, where Diamond Tiara was the boss. But apparently she was wrong. In their own way, they had a close friendship as much as the one between her and the other Crusaders.
"You care about her a lot, don't you?" she asked.
Silver Spoon, for the first time since the conversation had started, smiled shyly, and then answered, "Yes, I love her. And I know that, even if she sometimes makes it hard to show it, she loves me as well. I'm just sorry that, by dint of being with her, some of her temper was stuck on me, and, for that, I gave to you and to your friends some hard times. But tell you what! From now on, I will try to be a little more polite. But in secret, okay? I'll make sure that everything seems as usual, but, in reality, I'll be more polite!"
"Promise?" asked Scootaloo.
"Promise." answered Silver Spoon, making a real smile.
Unexpectedly, at that point, they heard the sound of a sliding door that opened, and soon after the heard a voice saying, "Ah, I found you at last. Where have you gone? Tea will be serv-Hey! Why is that blank flank here, and why are you sitting with her on the floor?"
Both of them turned and saw Diamond Tiara, in the doorway of the car, who was looking at them with a shocked expression. Evidently the scene in front of her, the two of them together, smiling at each other, was unthinkable for her.
Scootaloo felt that, perhaps, she was supposed to give an explanation, and started to get up, but was preceded by Silver Spoon, which, once standing, approached her friend, put her glasses back and said, "You know, I don't think that blank flank is the appropriate definition for her..."
The expression of amazement of Diamond Tiara became even bigger, while, on the face of Scootaloo, a huge smile appeared.
But the smile died instantly when she, with a strange grin in her face, put herself next to Diamond Tiara and said, "How about Blank Flightless Flank!"
Instantly, from Scootaloo's face every single trace of happiness disappeared, and a huge rage came over her. She had duped her. She had made her believe she was different, and had repented, and had wanted to become her friend. And then she had brutally stabbed her in the back, when she had shown a bit of vulnerability. It was worse, a thousand times worse, than if she had insulted her the whole time with no stop.
"You...." she began to say, trying to restrain herself, "You........are.........the..........THE MOST CRUEL PONY EVER!"
And she, no longer able to contain her anger, gave to Silver Spoon a shove, strong enough to make her go against the wall. Her glasses fell, and landed violently on the ground.
"I can't believe that for a minute, just a minute, I might have believed to you!" Scootaloo shouted, "I hate you! I don't want to talk to you ever again!"
And, furious, she left, slamming the sliding door behind her.
Silver Spoon, still a little sore from the bump, got up with difficulty, picking up from the ground her glasses. She noticed, with sadness, that one of the lenses was cracked. She tried to put on her glasses, but it was useless. From the right eye she could see only a confused mass of colors and shapes.
"Oh, she broke your glasses?" asked Diamond Tiara, "What a pity! But don't worry! We'll make her pay! Tomorrow we won't leave her to have a second of peace! We'll tease her until she will implore for mercy! What do you say? Is it alright as revenge?"
Silver Spoon looked back at her friend. She had the typical cruel smile of when she planned some misdeed against the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She had never liked that smile, but, in the end, she had learned to accept it. As she had learned to love Diamond Tiara, for her virtues. Maybe a few, and perhaps well hidden. But she knew that they were there.
"Yes...." she answered, "Sure...."
"Perfect, then we'll do so." said Diamond Tiara, "But now let's go. The tea is waiting for us!"
And she walked toward their cabin, and as she walked, she added, "By the way, the new insult that you invented for Scootaloo is simply brilliant. Blank flightless flank! How did I not think about it?"
Silver Spoon nodded, unconvinced.
It was a pity that Scootaloo didn't understand. She was sorry that she had been angry because she had misunderstood her message in code. Still, she had put all the emphasis possible on the 'b' and the two 'f's.
Blank Flightless Flank.
BFF.
Best Friend Forever.
It didn't matter. One day, she hoped not too far away, she would be able to make peace with her, and, along with her, with all the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
One day, she hoped not too far away, she would be able to become, together with Diamond Tiara, a better pony.
And on that day, she would be free. To say freely that she had no less than four Best Friends Forever.
