Clovis and Harper were a happily married couple with a young daughter named Twinkle Star. The family of three were unicorns who lived in Canterlot. Their neighbors were none other than Night Light and Twilight Velvet, the parents of the Princess of Friendship herself, Twilight Sparkle. Night and Velvet also had a son who was married to the Princess of the Crystal Empire. The couples got along just fine for the most part, but sometimes found themselves jealous of Night Light and Twilight Velvet. They seem to live successful lives, as did their adult children. They had connections to the Canterlot nobility, and had close ties with the Royal Sisters themselves. Clovis had a mildly satisfying job as a bookkeeper and Harper worked as a secretary for the Canterlot Times.
Being friendly with Night Light and Twilight Velvet was no easy task. The couples often invited each other to their homes, where Clovis and Harper had to listen to them talk endlessly about the accomplishments of their children, as well as their own. Clovis and Harper would smile and nod, but had nothing to add to the conversation.
During one of their visits, Velvet talked about Twilight Sparkle for the upteenth time. However, she mentioned something about how her daughter attended Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Harper formed an idea.
Clovis couldn’t wait to get home. He couldn’t stand to hear another word about Princess Twilight or Shining Armor. As soon as they got home Harper pulled him into the kitchen.
“I just thought of something,” she said.
“About what? How Night and Velvet are pains in the butts?”
“No… well, that, but something else. Do you remember that school she mentioned?”
“The School for Gifted Unicorns?”
“I was thinking. If we can get Twinkle Star to study magic for a long time, then we can get her enrolled into that school! Can you imagine? We’ll finally have something to talk about for once!”
Clovis placed his hoof under his chin. “I don’t know, that school seems awfully expensive. How can we afford it?”
“I’m pretty sure they give scholarships to those who are accepted,” she said with no doubt in her voice. “Just trust me on this one. Don’t you want to be the one who gloats about their kid for just one day?”
Clovis thought about that question. It is true, he was tired of being subjected to listen to the endless adventures of Twilight Sparkle. He imagined what it would be like if Night Light and Twilight Velvet were on the receiving end, being forced to listen to how their daughter was Sorceress Supreme. A smile crossed his face. That night they dreamed about Princess Celestia giving a diploma to Twinkle Star.
Twinkle Star woke up when the sunlight entered her room. She stretched and gave the sun a wave. Today is a great day, she thought. She climbed out of her bed, opened her dresser and put on her earphones and CD player. She placed ballet slippers on the bottom of her hind legs. The overture for Swan Lake played, then she stretched her arms, kicked her legs and twist out of her room. It was an early morning ritual for Twinkle Star. She danced out of her room, into the hall, then downstairs into the kitchen. She found her parents already in making breakfast. She bowed to them like a ballerina.
“Good morning, mother. Good morning, father.”
They mumbled in return, but she was blissfully unaware. When she sat at her side of the table, Twinkle Star turned off her CD player and removed her earphones. She helped herself to a bowl of cereal. Clovis and Harper joined the table soon after. They exchanged glances at each other. Clovis took a sip of her coffee, then the couple turned to their daughter.
“Twinkle Star, may we talk to you for a moment?” Harper asked sweetly.
“About what?”
“Something very important. What was the one thing you always wanted?”
Twinkle Star stopped chewing on her cereal. Could it be? Were they really signing her up for dancing classes? Her face gleamed. She had a feeling that today was going to be a great day.
“I’m enrolling in the Canterlot Dancing Academy?” she asked excitedly.
“Uh… not quite. But you’re going to be enrolled to the School for Gifted Unicorns soon! Isn’t that great?”
The smile on Twinkle’s face vanished. Her parents continued to grin, waiting for a response from her. “Oh… um… yay?”
“What’s wrong, Twinkle?”
“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that… I can’t do magic very good.”
“What are you saying? You’re a unicorn, all unicorns do magic,” Clovis said. “It’s in our DNA.”
“Of course, but isn’t that school for unicorns who are really good at magic?” asked Twinkle. “I even forgot I had a horn until now.”
“Twinkle, you don’t know what you’re capable of unless you try,” Harper said. “So from now on, you’re going to study everything you can about magic. Your father already picked out some books for you.”
Clovis’ horn glowed, and a stack of books landed on the center of the table. Twinkle read the titles of some of them. There was Magic for Dummies, Magic 101, It’s Not Gravity It’s Just Magic, A Brief History of Magic. How could she read all of them in such a short time?
“So after you finish your breakfast, what do you say about hitting those books?” Harper asked.
“I’ll try,” Twinkle said, not too sure of herself.
After breakfast Clovis helped Twinkle carry the books upstairs to her room. He set the table up for her and gave her a notebook, a pen, and a pencil. He winked at her then closed the door. Twinkle opened a book called How to Reach Your Full Magical Potential to the first chapter. She didn’t complete the second sentence and she was already bored. Maybe some music will help her study.
She put on her earphones and turned on the CD player. The Nutcracker Suite played and it helped her read the boring books just slightly, although she still wandered off from time to time. Then her favorite track played - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Twinkle Star couldn’t resist. She had to get up and dance. She jumped out of her seat and her body followed the rhythm of the music. She twisted and turned, stood on her on the tops of her back hooves. She imagined her room as a stage, and her stuffed animals her audience.
Twinkle Star spent a whole month reading about the wonderful world of magic. Around that time Night Light and Twilight Velvet stopped by Clovis and Harper’s home for a spot of tea. Their conversation varied with different topics such as vacation plans, sports, the weather, but not soon after did it shift toward Princess Twilight. Night and Velvet received a letter from her that morning about how she and her friends saved a village with no name from a tyrant called Starlight Glimmer.
“She is absolutely amazing,” Velvet said with stars in her eyes, “don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” Clovis said, giving them an awkward smile. “That Twilight sure is something.”
“You know, it just goes to show you that hard work and dedication will always pay off in the end,” Night Light added.
Clovis and Harper glanced at each other, and they silently agreed that they disagreed. The door opened, and there was Twinkle Star with her headphones dancing her way into the house. She spinned with one hind leg, but her father stopped her.
“You remember our daughter, Twinkle Star,” said Clovis. She shyly waved at Night Light and Twilight Velvet, and they happily waved back.
“She’s going to be enrolled to the School for Gifted Unicorns,” Harper quickly added.
Night Light and Twilight Velvet gazed incredulously at Twinkle Star. “Really?” Night Light said. “Well, that’s good! You know our daughter went there, don’t you?”
“Oh yes. I only heard it a thousand times,” Clovis said under his breath.
“I hope you get in,” Velvet said to Twinkle. “Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be a princess too.”
Twinkle smiled and nodded, then she went back to dancing to her room. Once Night Light and Twilight Velvet left, they made sure their daughter study as much as she can. Twinkle Star didn’t stop reading and studying until it was dinner. All that knowledge was making her starve, and not in a good way.
“Twinkle, did you learn anything about magic?” Clovis asked.
She was hesitant to answer. “Well, I’m still reading How to Reach Your Full Magical Potential, but… I’m not sure if I’m actually learning anything.”
The coolness of the atmosphere was fading. Clovis and Harper looked at each other, then back at their daughter. “Sweety, what do you mean you’re not learning anything?” Harper asked. “Aren’t you taking notes like we said?”
“Yes I am, but I’m not learning anything. It’s just not clicking. There were spells in those that were really hard to do - like size changing spells, transformation spells. I can’t do them.”
That wasn’t what they wanted to hear from their daughter. Clovis set down his knife and fork and put his hooves together.
“Twinkle, you don’t know how important it is that you get enrolled into the School for Gifted Unicorns. We want you to succeed and have a bright future.”
“But… what if I don’t want to go?” asked Twinkle.
“Young lady we are not having this discussion,” Harper said. “Now you march right into your room and apply yourself! Your entrance exam is in a few days and you must be ready!”
Twinkle Star pushed herself out of her table and ran to her room. She shut the door, then buried her face on her pillow. She couldn’t believe her own parents said such awful things. Twinkle pulled her away and from her pillow. The stack of books were still on her desk. Why couldn’t her parents listen to her? There was no way she was going to pass that entrance exam, and she knew it.
The day of Twinkle Star’s entrance exam arrived. On their way to the school Clovis and Harper talked excitedly about how Twinkle’s life was going to be different from here on out. They promised that this was going to be the greatest moment of her life, and many others will soon follow. As they were talking, she tried to tune them out. It occurred to her that somehow they were not talking about Twinkle herself.
They entered a huge classroom, with four judges sitting at the very top. The judges had just sent off an applicant before Twinkle Star. One of the judges called for her name. Clovis and Harper gave her pats on the back and sent her off, not without giving her words of encouragement.
Twinkle Star stood before the judges. They were distant, unfeeling, uninterested (to her they were, why else wouldn’t they be here?). There were three stools in front of her. One stool had an giant ice cube in a frying pan, the second had a mismatched rubik’s cube, and the third stool had a box. She looked at the judges, then at her parents.
Twinkle pointed her horn at the stool with the ice cube. She figured it must’ve been the three states of matter. She learned about that in school. She focused all her energy into the ice cube, but nothing but little sparks came out of her horn. She noticed the judges writing her efforts on their clipboards. It was embarrassing. Twinkle tried it a second time, and still nothing. Then she moved on the stool with the rubik’s cube. A colt in her class taught her how to solve it once. Hopefully she can remember. Twinkle aimed her horn at the colorful cube, but no magic surrounded it, no colors changed. Then she remembered the colt taught her how to do it by hoof. But they wanted to see magic. The Judges’ eyes were on their clipboards.
Finally she approached the third stool. Twinkle was stumped on this one. It was just a box. What was she supposed to do with it? She glanced at the judges, who stared back at her. Twinkle took a deep breath, and knew what she had to do.
She danced in circles around the stool. Twisting and turning, kicking her legs. Twinkle imagined the classroom was her stage, and the judges her adoring audience.
The judges wrote what she did on their clipboards. Then one of the female judges spoke to her. “Thank you for your efforts young lady, but this institution might be a little advance for you,” she said with slightly kind words.
Twinkle bowed down to the judges like a ballerina. She happily skipped toward her parents, who were less than enthusiastic about her results. Clovis and Harper hung their heads in defeat, but Twinkle looked back, smiling and waving at the judges. One of them confusingly waved back. She had nothing to worry about now. Twinkle thought of every dance move to do inside the hall of the school. If she could, she could dance all the way home.
Twinkle Star was very happy that her entrance exam was over. She celebrated by dancing across the halls of the School for Gifted Unicorns until she was outside on the streets of Canterlot, where she danced some more. Her parents said nothing to her. Their spirits were low, as were their heads. The only time any of them spoke was when Clovis called for a taxi to drive them home. The taxi pony stopped in front of their house. On their way up the door Twilight Velvet waved to them, only they didn’t wave back, but Twinkle Star waved.
She danced across the hallway and into the kitchen, where she grabbed an apple from the basket. After taking a bite from it she danced out of the kitchen and up the stairs, the twist and twirled to her bedroom.
Twinkle Star’s audience (her stuffed animals) were waiting for her on her bed. Once she opened the door she heard their applause. She bowed to them. She pretended that that her favorite stuffed bunny threw a rose at her direction. Twinkle rushed toward her CD player and classical music filled her room. She didn’t noticed somepony was knocking on her door, so she turned the volume down and opened it. Her mother and father stood before her with disappointed looks on their faces. However, it didn’t look as though they were disappointed at her.
“Twinkle Star, can we talk?” Clovis asked.
“Sure daddy.”
Twinkle turned off the CD player and sat on her bed. Her parents approached her in silence. Clovis sat next to her on the bed. “Twinkle, your mother and I have been thinking over, and we feel terrible about what we put you through. We’re sorry for forcing you to study magic.”
“But why did you make me do it?”
“It’s complicated,” Harper said, shaking her head. “It’s an adult thing.”
“I can understand it, I’m only eight.”
Harper took a deep breath. “Recently - and I’ll never understand why, we just became jealous of our neighbors.”
“Mr. Light and Mrs. Velvet? But why?” asked Twinkle. “They’re really nice.”
“We know, honey. But they keep talking about how great Twilight Sparkle is, and how she does these amazing things… and what have we done with our lives? Nothing interesting happens to us. It really got to us both.” Clovis nodded sadly.
“... Have you tried talking to them about it?” asked Twinkle.
“What do you mean?” Harper asked.
“Have you ever asked them not to talk about Twilight so much? That it makes you feel bad about yourselves? I’m pretty sure they’ll understand.”
Clovis put his hoof under his chin. “Why hadn’t we thought of that before?”
“Because we’re idiots,” Harper said.
“I guess we can tell them how we feel,” Clovis said.
“But do it nicely,” Twinkle added.
“We will,” said Harper. She kissed Twinkle on her forehead. “When Light and Velvet just gushed about how their daughter is a princess… it made me think of you. I remember the times when you were really young, and you always dreamed about being a princess.”
“I got over that years ago,” Twinkle said. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind being a princess for a day, but it’s not my thing anymore. Besides, I like to dance now. I don’t feel bad because I’m not a princess. But I do feel bad because you wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. And I had to embarrass you in front of those judges.”
“We promise we’ll never do anything like that again,” Clovis said, raising his hoof. Harper raised her hoof also.
“And we also promise to never compare ourselves to other ponies based on their successes,” Harper added, “or be jealous.”
The family gathered for a hug. They stood like that for a minute, then broke apart. Twinkle thought that now would be great idea to show them some of her dance moves. She turned on the CD player again, and her favorite song from The Nutcracker Suite played - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. They couldn’t believe how good she was. For the first time they witness with their own eyes how truly special Twinkle was.
