The Shortcut

Love.

How did it work, and how was it different from friendship?

Friendship was, at its most basic form, another word to describe the feeling of mutual sympathy between two or more ponies. As such, it wasn't that far away from love; however, it was different in that wasn't restricted the same way love seemed to be, and, perhaps more importantly, in that it didn't usually happen by accident. If both sides were willing to try, friendship was something which had been proven to exist between almost any two creatures, regardless of gender or species, and could reasonably considered to be earned. This wasn't to say that it couldn't also exist without any real effort on either side, but the mechanics of when or why that happened were usually comprehensible, not to mention consistent in a way that made sense, something which could most certainly not be said about love.

And then there were the mysterious influences friendship had shown to have beyond social interaction, influences which seemed to be triggered consistently by forces from the magical plane. The elements were of course the most notable example of this, however there existed many other spells which were partially bound to friendship in one way or another, and for whom its existence was thus a necessity. Truly, even the universe itself seemed to occasionally reward those living the ideals of the ominous friendship, a pattern which historians today acknowledged unanimously, albeit nopony seemed to agree on the 'why'. Twilight had long since developed the theory that not fortune itself was responsible for this phenomenon, but that friendship was merely an anchor to which countless spells in the history of ponydom and perhaps beyond had been bound to, spells whose effects were still noticeable to this day. This was a theory which not only allowed her to fully belief in the world as she understood it, but which, truly, seemed to be backed up considerably by the most recent events.

Regardless of whether or not it was accurate though, fact was that the same did not apply to love. The literature available on magic might have been widely inconsistent in terms of both quality and accuracy, but Twilight could not recall a single reliable source listing a spell which necessitated love in order to function. This raised the immediate question of why, which was something she could only speculate on. If her theory was in fact accurate...

Twilight shook her head, abandoning this train of thought. It wasn't helpful. Rather than what love was, the question which mattered to her was how it worked.

So... how did it work?

As far as she knew - which, unfortunately, wasn't very far at all - love usually didn't occur at once, but built itself up over a span of time, although it could be a short one. Whether or not it required a mutual history she did not know, and everything else seemed to lie beyond explanation. Twilight had never loved somepony before, which, admittedly, might have been due to the fact that she had hardly known other ponies whilst living in Canterlot. Whatever the case, her only reference point was how her feelings for the shy pegasus had evolved, which had been over the course of one or two weeks, and at a point a few months after she had first met her. She had never attempted to do anything about it, so that was really all she had to go on.

More relevant than how it happened, though, was which character traits were essential to trigger somepony's affection. If pony X were to fall in love with pony Y, then it would have to be due to some of Y's characteristics - that was, assuming it was not simply random. Generally speaking, it seemed unlikely that X would develop affections for a third pony - she should name her Z - just because Y and Z had similar personalities, so it stood to reason that the broad personality was not what mattered. Yet... what was it that Rarity had said? Fluttershy would be attracted to somepony 'more calm' that Rainbow Dash? If that was true, it could mean that a certain type of personality - or, rather, a category of personalities filtered by a set of broadly defined attributes - was a necessity, while the truly defining characteristics were the small habits and mannerisms. After all, any one of her friends except Pinkie could probably be categorized as 'more calm' than Dash, but Fluttershy didn't feel attracted to any one of them in particular. Now was this of course the conclusion Twilight wanted to reach, meaning it was important for her to test her line of thought for any potential confirmation bias.

The first assumption was already proving to be problematic upon second glance. What if it weren't Y's mannerisms which made X feel attracted towards her, but Y's actions towards X? Twilight briefly thought back to Fluttershy - had she treated her differently from anypony else? The answer was yes; Fluttershy treated all of her friends differently. And yet... as far as she could tell, Twilight had developed her affection not so much by talking to her as by watching her do stuff. If how Y behaved towards X was really what mattered, then that would be a rather discouraging thought, as changing her general attribute towards Fluttershy would likely be much more difficult than changing some of her less important mannerisms... or, perhaps, not necessarily difficult so much as a larger sacrifice, one that she wasn't willing to make... unless it would be enough to simply show affection herself, though that seemed unlikely. After all, ponies usually fell in love before they-

A knock from downstairs pulled her out of her thoughts. Throwing a glance toward her desk, she archived the single paper lying there, lit her horn and teleported downstairs to greet the visitor.

"Rainbow Dash." Twilight held the door open, pleasantly surprised the sight of her not-calm-enough friend. "What can I do for you?"

“Uhm...” Rainbow extended a wing, rubbing her brow in thought - a rare sight. "We need to, uh, talk. Yup." She gave an awkward smile. "Talk. That's normal, right? Visiting a friend to talk?"

"Sure." Twilight snickered. "Come in. I'll make us tea."

Leading her into the kitchen, Twilight floated two bags of tea into a can, and began to fill it with water. Rainbow stood beside her, chewing on her lip, apparently unsure how to begin.

“So, uh... Twilight? About the, uh, stuff from earlier today...”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh, wanted to ask you something... and it's kind of a weird question, so don't take it the wrong way, okay?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“How much do you like Fluttershy?”

This was certainly not the question she had expected. Mentally shrugging, she cast a spell to create a spark and put the can above the fire before turning around.

“Well, I'm not sure how to answer that. A lot? More than anyone else? I think I'm supposed to say that I just like her in a different way than the rest you guys, but... I'm not sure that's true.”

As a response, Rainbow chewed on her lower lip for several seconds before saying something else. “See, the reason I'm asking is... none of us noticed anything. I had a crush on Rares once, and she knew it almost before I did. But you... you said you had it for long time, and none of us knew a thing.”

“Rainbow... no offense, but don't you think you were simply more... obvious about it than I am?”

“Well, yeah,” Rainbow conceded, apparently without any hurt pride on her part. “Maybe. But 'maybe' isn't good enough. I gotta know for sure.”

Opting not to ask the obvious question, Twilight instead gave her friend's suspicion real thought. Technically, since that she had no comparison, she also had no way of knowing how strong somepony was supposed to feel in order for it to quality as 'love' - if that was in fact what Rainbow was going on about.

“Do you, like, watch her when we're all together? Do you think about her before you fall asleep? Do you-”

“Every day.”

“... imagine her... uh, what?”

“Every day,” Twilight replied calmly, taking the can off the fire and floating it towards the nearest table, along with two cups. “I usually use a spell to put myself asleep, but I always think about her for a while before I do. Sometimes, I even decide not to use the spell and fall asleep naturally instead, so I can think about her for longer. Tea?”

“Thanks.” Rainbow took the cup between her hooves. “And, uh, what kind of stuff ya think about, exactly?”

Twilight chuckled at the barefaced audacity of the question, but she didn't mind answering it. “Usually just her face, sometimes I imagine her sleeping.” She took a nip at her cup. “Sometimes the way she talks, and sometimes how she hides her face when she's being shy about something. You know, when she has that adorable blush of hers.” She gave an unintended giggle.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Visibly satisfied, Rainbow leaned back on her stool. “Okay, great. That convinces me. In that case...” She put the cup back onto the table. “... you gotta go for her.”

“Huh?”

“Convince her to accept the wish. Make yourself super charming. Go on a friggin' date with her. However you wanna do it. But you two gotta become, y'know, marefriends.”

At that, Twilight blinked several times. ”Why?”

“‘cause Flutters deserves somepony nice. Somepony smart. And she's not gonna get that if we don't do anything. If it weren't for us five, she'd barely talk to anypony. Have you ever seen her go out by herself if she didn't absolutely have to? I'm telling you, if it's not one of us, then she's not gonna get anypony. And that would suck. Like, big time.”

“Rainbow Dash...” Twilight took another sip before continuing, “did you just call me nice and smart?”

“Hey, I'm serious!” Rainbow gave the tabletop a strike which would probably have knocked over her cup had Twilight not lifted it up preemptively. “But... yeah, I guess I did. Come on, everypony knows that.”

Twilight laughed. “Thank you. And don't worry, I got your point, and I promise I'll consider it in the decision making process.”

“Uh... that means you're gonna do it, right?”

“No - it means I'll consider it in the decision making process.”

Rainbow's right eye twitched. “How are you gonna consider it?”

“Well, my standard way to approach difficult decisions is to list all advantages and disadvantages to each option in different colors, usually green and red, and assign them numbers. Then I add both sides up - for each option separately, of course - subtract the red from the green, and whichever option has the highest number in the end, that's what I'll do.”

“Wait, you actually do that?”

“Sure. Only if the decision is important, of course.”

“So, what I said will become, like, a green number, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of a number?”

Twilight smiled. “A big one.”

“How big?”

“Rainbow, the absolute size of these numbers is entirely arbitrary.”

“... huh?”

“Let's say I want to decide whether or not I'll go out for dinner. I wouldn't usually use this method for such a simple decision, but let's say I would. I could assign '5' to 'it costs more bits than, uh... cooking' and '15' to 'it'll take more time than cooking'. Or I could assign '5 million' to 'it costs more bits' and '15 million' to 'it'll take more time'. The result would be the same... of course, I'd have to adjust all other numbers too.” Her smile grew wider. “But whether or not they're all small or all big makes no difference. They're only weighed against each other... so their size only matters relative to each other. If I gave you the value of a single number, it would be meaningless - you see?”

“Yeah, uh, sure. Fine. Whatever.” Rainbow picked up her cup and emptied it in a single draw. “Just make it, like, really friggin’ big compared to the rest or something.”

“I will,” Twilight said, now in a more serious tone. “I'm absolutely going to spend my wish on Fluttershy if I can. There's nothing I want more than to win her over. I'm just not sure if there is a way.”

“Eh. There's always the easy way. I'll talk to Flutters, I'm sure I can get her to see it.”

“I'm... not sure I am comfortable with that.”

“Hey, I was going to talk to her regardless of what you said. She's obviously lonely, and she deserves you, and, hay, you might actually deserve her. I'll talk to her. Alright?”

Twilight hesitated.

“I'm not gonna make it sound like I'm doing it for you. I'm not... well, uh, not primarily. I'm even even gonna mention our conversation.”

“Sure... yeah. She's your oldest friend, after all. You have the right to do what you think is best for her.”

“Exactly.” With a flap of her wings, Rainbow took off from her seat, hovering in mid air. “Uhh... and now I gotta stretch those wings. Really gotta stretch them now. Smell ya later. And, uh, thanks for the, uhm, stuff.”

“No problem,” Twilight said cheerfully, watching her friend as she soared towards the entrance door, pausing just long enough to pull it open, and was out in a blur. Giggling to herself, she took care of Dash's cup, closed the door via magic, and teleported herself, the can, and her own cup upstairs.

Well, that had been that. And now...