Friends.
What were they, really?
Partners.
Companions.
It wasn't that she didn't want friends. Daisy Dawn actually thought it might be rather nice to have a friend. At least one.
She trotted slowly through the large Canterlot garden shop, taking in the earthy, musty smells. Here was where she felt at home. Flowers didn’t tell you to make friends.
She stopped in front of a vibrant collection of Everfree firework-flowers, closed her eyes and absorbed herself in the very essence of it. The world was perfect. This was perfect.
“Um, excuse you. You’re blocking the path.”
A mare’s cutting voice brought her back to the garden shop. Daisy opened her eyes to see a mint unicorn and and her group of friends standing expectantly. “Well?”
“Oh-oh, I’m sorry!” Daisy scurried to the side to make way for the group, looking down at her dirt-smudged white hooves.
The unicorn regarded Daisy with a cool eye. “Look at her,” she said on her way out. “No friends with her...ponies like that are a menace to society. The princess should do more about them.” Her friends nodded their agreements.
Daisy bit her lip and looked back at the Fireworks.
She headed to the register to pay, leaving them there.
-|-
Daisy stood, paralyzed, in the entrance to the classroom.
“Go on, honey,” her dad said, giving her a nudge. “It’s only for half the day!”
She peeked her head into the classroom. There were pictures of rainbows and flowers and puppies on the walls...and lots of noisy foals.
“You can go make some friends!” said her mother, grabbing the earth pony by the tail when she tried to bolt down the hallway. “See? There’s a nice unicorn, right there! Why don’t you go talk to her?”
Daisy shook her head. “Honey, I promise it’s not so bad. Look, you can even message us if it’s really too much for you! Okay?” Daisy sniffled, but nodded all the same.
The room was fairly small, painted a soft green color. A colorful poster was tacked to the right wall with a picture of Princess Celestia surrounded by foals. ‘Friendship is Magic!’ it read. Daisy squinted, confused. She had always been under the impression that magic was magic. Mean ponies like Nightmare Moon had magic. Did not having friends make you lose your magic? Surely ponies had gone without making friends before.
She asked her teacher about it. “Of course not, Daisy! Good magic is powered by friendship. That’s what joins all ponies together! Don’t worry,” she said, ruffling the earth pony's green mane, “You’ll make some friends eventually. Everypony does.”
-|-
Daisy slowly trotted into her new, middle grade homeroom. Seven years of school and the same familiar feeling always gripped her before entering one of her classrooms.
Mrs. Periwinkle had been wrong, of course. She hadn't made friends throughout those years.
It seemed that being in middle school had demanded a larger amount of posters. There were five large ones covering one of the walls. Daisy wondered where the multiplication table posters were. Perhaps there wasn't enough space.
‘Making friends makes you cool!’ one said. Another- ‘Have you made any friends today?’
“Quite true, aren't they?”
Daisy turned around to see an elderly, purple pegasus mare with a pink mane streaked white with age. “It’s very important for all ponies to make friends, you know. A lot of ponies look down on others who don’t. If you ever need any help making friends,” she winked at her, “I can always call a group project and assign partners, if you get my drift.” She patted Daisy’s back. “We all just want you to succeed in life, you know, and you can’t do that without friends. Your mother does too...I got her note about your little social issue. So don’t you worry, you’re going to come out of this school year positively surrounded by buddies!”
Daisy looked doubtful.
The pegasus frowned.
“I...suppose I could try?”
“That’s the spirit!” She clapped her on the back. “I’m Mrs. Starsong, by the way. Now get out there!”
Daisy took a deep breath, approaching a blue filly with her nose in a book.
“Um...hello.”
She didn't look up. “Hey.”
“That...looks like a good book. What’s it about?”
“Stuff.”
Daisy stood there awkwardly. “So...what do you think of our teacher?”
“She’s cool.”
“She says I should make more friends. Do you...have any?”
“Yup. Two.”
“Ah. Haha. That’s...nice. I actually don’t really have anyone to be friends with and I was wonderi…what, why are you looking at me like that?”
The filly had put down her book. “What do you mean you don’t have any friends? Did you recently dump them because they were jerks?”
“No.”
“Did you just move here?”
“Er...no.”
“Did they move away?”
“No, I...actually never made any friends.”
“You’re telling me you've never made a friend in the twelve years you've lived.”
The other pony was beginning to look frightened. Daisy didn't know what to say. “Yes?”
Now she was backing away. “You...you stay away from me! You...you creep! Nightmare moon!” She threw a book at her. “Nightmare moon!”
By this time, other foals were starting to look.
“Did you hear?”
“None at all?”
“Aren’t you supposed to stay away from ponies like that?”
“Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon!”
“No, no I’m not - I’m not Nightmare - You-”
“Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon!” Daisy desperately looked to Starsong.
“Everypony, enough!” Starsong pushed away the converging group of foals. “She is not Nightmare Moon, and I don’t want to hear or see this any more!”
Daisy was sniffling. “A-aren’t they going to be punished or something?”
The pegasus blinked at her. “Well, honey. You can’t really expect them to leave you alone about something like this.”
Daisy looked up, filled with disbelief. “I...But what about acceptance, and love and all that stuff?” Starsong sighed.
“Look, Daisy. Love, and acceptance, and harmony, all those things are certainly important. Friendship just takes precedence. Our very society is based around it. So do you understand now how serious this is?”
Daisy nodded.
“Can you promise me you’ll try to want friends?”
“It’s not that I don’t want friends, I do, really!”
She ruffled the filly’s hair. “See, you’re not too far gone. You’ll be fine.”
-|-
Daisy walked slowly back to her small house in Ponyville, taking care to avoid the cluttered paths and staying on the road less traveled. She had picked up a magazine on her way back, so she set her plants outside and settled in on her couch.
The headline read: Twilight Sparkle: Hermit to Hero! How Important the Magic of Friendship Is.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading An Issue in Friendship! In case it was unclear, the main point of this story was to show just how important having friends was to Equestrians, and what it meant if someone didn't have one. You can hear it in the title: Friendship is Magic. It's not that Daisy doesn't want friends, necessarily- just that she's too shy to make them.
