It was so unfair, Twilight thought as she rocked back and forth, dividing her attention between the sullen unicorn at her table and the one across the room. The scene in the Canterlot cafe didn't need any help reaching peak awkwardness. Yet more and more of it kept getting dumped in her hooves, while tiny doe-eyed waifs in Nideeria were spending their fawnhoods entirely bereft of it. Why, the spare awkwardness in this room alone could provide thousands of them with the unforgettable experience of grinding their school play to a halt by tripping and falling off the stage.
"Slumber 101? I've read that," Moon Dancer muttered, and the others glanced back and forth, their forced smiles adding a few more kilowinces to the Equestrian awkwardness trade deficit.
"Oh! Eheh," Twilight chuckled, then stood up from her chair, staring across the cafe at Awkward Problem Number Two. "Girls, will you excuse me for one teeny-tiny moment?"
"Whatever," Moon Dancer grumbled, and Twilight was already in motion as the unicorn stabbed her fork into a carrot.
Twilight marched to the table at the far side of the room, then stomped her hoof down on Starlight Glimmer's menu, crumpling it to the table. "Listen," she murmured, staring coldly into the ex-cult leader's eyes, "don't think I didn't see you, or that I don't know what's up. Your villainy is peerless, you will have your revenge, yadda yadda. But I am right in the middle of a major friendship problem right now, so you're just going to have to wait your damned turn."
Starlight stared back innocently, then broke into a smile. "Villain? Me?"
Twilight ground her teeth. "Don't play dumb. We freed a town of ponies from your tyranny and you escaped with an unresolved plot arc."
"Ut." Starlight held up a hoof, then pointed down at the floor underhoof, where an adorable puppy was glancing up at them, flagrantly unkicked. Then pointed to the table behind her, where two smiling parents were watching their tiny foal contentedly suck on a piece of sugar candy. Then to the empty table just to their left, where a little "Back in a minute! -C." sign stood next to the solar tiara, the Alicorn Amulet, floor plans for Canterlot Castle, and Princess Celestia's diary.
Starlight looked back at Twilight and smiled. "I'm reformed now. And I'm just here for dinner."
Twilight's mouth opened and closed. She stared at the table with the sign.
Starlight cleared her throat, smiling a little wider.
Twilight forced her gaze back at the ex-cult leader. "Sorry, what?"
"I said, 'I'm reformed.'"
"… Really."
"So just pretend I'm not here and have a wonderful time." Starlight's smile somehow grew, making her resemble nothing so much as a landshark with a toilet-paper tube taped to its forehead.
Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Okay, you know what, no. That story's as fishy as … as … a landshark with a toilet-paper tube taped to its forehead. Why don't you tell me your actual plan and then I can get to foiling it after dinner."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly," Starlight said. "Dr. Horrible said that would be a sign of relapse."
"Doctor Horrible?!"
"My villain-reform therapist." Starlight lowered her voice. "Just between you and me, I don't think he's very good at it."
One of Twilight's eyes twitched.
"But I'm willing to give his theory of 'A monologued plot is just a cry for attention' a try." Starlight leaned forward, chin on forehooves. "So how did your Yakyakistan summit go?"
Twilight whirled and stormed off. "Ugh!"
Starlight calmly watched Twilight's retreat, then picked her menu back up and ominously resumed scanning through the list of appetizers. "Mwa ha ha," she said — then the smirk dropped away from her muzzle as she realized Twilight was glaring at her from across the room. She coughed, slapped herself on the pastern, and forced herself to pat the puppy.
When Moon Dancer dashed outside, Twilight followed — but took a detour to Starlight's table one more time, pointing a hoof at her eyes and then swiveling it toward the unicorn. Starlight met the glare with a sweet smile. For long seconds after Twilight's departure, she stared at the door, then tucked her menu under her plate and made a beeline for the exit.
A few minutes later, Princess Celestia sat back down. "Hey," she said, "where did my diary go?"
Starlight was reading a newspaper at the Ponyville train station when Twilight stalked over to her. "Reformed, my cute purple plot."
Starlight glanced up cheerfully. "Fancy meeting you here, Princess!"
"I quadruple-checked your alibi after fixing Moon Dancer's friendship problem. Then I realized you had to be lying." Twilight leveled an accusatory hoof. "We never blasted you with rainbows."
Starlight hurriedly set down the newspaper and held her hooves up. "Oh, no. I self-reformed."
Twilight slowly raised one eyebrow.
Starlight floated a stack of photos out from her saddlebags. "It was the obvious choice once I studied your history. I mean, look at what happened to Discord." She held up a photo of a stone statue. "Tirek." An emaciated figure in a dark, stygian jail. "Sombra." An irregular smudge on a snowfield. "Seriously, the more I researched, the more impressed I got. You're, like, some sort of invincible vengeance goddess."
"I guess I should grant you that one," Twilight said. "So what are you doing here?"
The landshark smile immediately returned to Starlight's muzzle.
"Oh," she said, "I'm just catching a train."
Twilight frowned.
"Oh, I'm just working on my tan."
Twilight glanced around the empty skies at the edge of Cloudsdale and frowned a little harder.
"Oh, I'm just collecting field data for my Master's in Applied Monsterology."
Twilight glanced around the deepest, darkest Everfree and frowned extra hard.
"あ、私は日本語を勉強している。"
Twilight glanced around the Imperial Dragon Palace and frowned with the force of a million normal frowns.
"Oh, I just got lost after that left turn at Alba-clucky."
Twilight glanced around the submarine deep in the Mare-iana Trench and frowned times infinity.
"Oh, I just thought I'd —"
Twilight's frown divided by zero and boiled over into rage. "That is IT!" she screamed, voice echoing through the inexplicably thick atmosphere of the crater-pitted wasteland of Saturn's sixth-largest moon. Her horn flared with the light of an enthusiastic supernova, tearing a hole in the fabric of spacetime.
Starlight's smile vanished. "Wait! Not a villain —"
Twilight grabbed her, magic field clamping down on her muzzle. "Save it. I figured out your plan." She leaned in, finally allowing herself a smirk of her own. "You realized you didn't have a chance of facing me directly. So you devised a plan to annoy me to death."
Starlight's eyes widened. "Mmmph!" she shouted as she was cast out of reality.
Twilight let out a long breath, then sealed up the hole. "Good riddance."
The blissful silence was shattered moments later as Celestia walked by, sipping from a juicebox. "Oh, hello, Twilight," she said. "Fancy meeting you here."
Twilight jumped. "Princ— er, I mean, Celestia! What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I just thought I'd drop by to give Starlight some moral support." Celestia shrugged, then glanced around the empty, barren rockscape. "Huh. I really expected her to be shadowing you again. I guess she finally worked up the nerve to ask you for your autograph?"
Twilight froze.
"Uhhh," she said. "No, but she was totally the one who stole your diary."
