Scootaloo lifted her hoof to rap on the castle door when I squeaked, "What if she doesn't want us here today?" I looked to Apple Bloom. "When Twilight sees us, she always reminds us of Twilight Time. This week, she didn't even speak to us!"
Apple Bloom scratched her jaw, "Ah agree. She was acting mighty aloof, but then again with us convincing Diamond Tiara to redeem herself and us getting our cutie marks—"
Scootaloo said, "—awesomely. After which our cutecinera party took Ponyville by storm."
Apple Bloom nodded. "There's that. Maybe she just didn't get a chance to get a word in edgewise."
I gazed from the golden doors, up the tree-like blue rock crystal walls, up to the star spire that reflected the brilliant early morning sunlight like a combination of silver and glass. A cool breeze blew through my mane, bringing the scent of hay from nearby farms. Such a strange castle. "Helping in the school yard, even taking a photo with us, Twilight was acting strange—almost like when she was desperate to solve a friendship problem, didn't have one, and created one with our help."
Apple Bloom sported an idiot grin. "Smarty Pants certainly made a difference in my brother's life." Her grin became a happy smile. "We talked about it after th'social last week. Don't think I'd've met Orchard Blossom had he not decided he could keep Twilight's doll. How funny. Twilight did solve a friendship problem after all, between Big Mac and me!"
I scrubbed the azurite tiles below my hoof. "Rarity convinced Twilight to start Twilight time to help us get our cutie marks—"
"—to get you out of your sister's mane." Apple Bloom laughed as I growled in response.
Scootaloo said, "Twilight has always said we could visit her any time."
Apple Bloom looked at her apple-heart cutie mark. "Like I said before. Something tells me we need to be here, regardless."
Before I could ask what, Scootaloo knocked loudly.
Less than a minute later, the left door creaked open to reveal Twilight with a glass bowl of chocolate cereal and a spoon suspended beside her. She froze at the sight of us. She began to blink rapidly.
I asked, "Princess Twilight, are you all right?"
Tears. She rapidly turned away.
Scootaloo said, "It's Twilight Time, isn't it?"
The Princess flared her wings and took a deep breath. "Yes," she said. The bowl and spoon shot to a table in the vestibule. Though it didn't spill, the spoon continued flying, hit the wall, and clattered to the marble floor. "Yes it is!" she said, her voice full of obvious joy as she flew up the stairs to the second level.
"See. I told you," I whispered. "Strange."
Scootaloo trotted up the stairs, her hooves clattering as she said, "She may not have expected us, but she's certainly happy now. Rainbow Dash would call that a win-win."
As I climbed the stairs, bangs and crashes—and the whoosh of objects flying around the practice room—confirmed we hadn't been expected. I followed behind and could see texts shelve themselves in the bookshelf Twilight had stocked for our studies. I saw a table covered with tools, gears, and strange gizmos, underneath which lay stacked all manner of sinuous long necked glassware, condensers, and beakers. Sun streamed through green and yellow stained glass illuminating the pink and blue crystalline walls.
As I entered, I heard, "Catch!"
Being a unicorn meant that the magic of the world ultimately rendered itself in rainbow-colored probabilities. Unicorns do magic in equal proportion to their ability to do math. Some can do it better than others, like I-can-do-differential-equations-and-square-roots-simultaneously Princess Twilight Sparkle. Others, like me, less so. Still, a spray of multicolor numbers—mostly the mass (not weight) and velocity (not speed) I estimated from the sound of an approaching flying object—shot across the back of my eyes.
The pastel blue rubber ball stopped with an elastic snap in my green aura, less than body length from my head; I had no time for shock, though; I heard Scootaloo gasp. Something else was flying.
Two things could have happened. I could have frozen and let the blur hit Scoots, or I could have acted by reflex.
Reflex won.
It's hard to describe the sensation, but I'll try. Had I not been using magic that instant, I might have reared and batted the object away with my front hooves. And this is exactly what I did magically by reflexively interposing a wild sheet of prismatic numbers outward, like a cascade from a rainbow waterfall, between Scootaloo and the object. Amazingly, the numeric probability matched my sums.
A rolled copy of the Foal Free Press hit a humming invisible bubble, flared green, unrolled, and fell to the floor with a feathery plop. The scent of newsprint filled the air.
Scootaloo had dodged aside, but had to dodge again as Twilight yelled, "Yes," and began bouncing around Pinkie Pie-like on four hooves. "Yes! That's two! Two!"
I gawped at her, with one eyebrow raised like Applejack often did when she noticed something seriously wrong. "Two? What?"
She stopped bounding and took a deep breath. "When I was a foal, just a home-schooled runt smaller than you girls, some children threw stones at me. Shining stopped the rocks by reflex, and realized he could do a shield spell."
"Wait? What?" It was my time to blink. Most unicorns did only one spell: levitation. "I—I did a shield spell—a second spell!?"
She bent over me, motioning my pals closer, so she could whisper, "If I'm right, I'll eventually be able to teach you to teleport. Your sister is going to be so proud." Even I could sense a devilish double-meaning in "proud".
Twilight began bounding around again. And that wasn't the last strange thing she did that morning. It was almost as if she were accelerating her study plans for us, as if she wouldn't get a second chance unless she proved something. Like we might abandon her or something. Scootaloo ended up doing her own math to figure out a gear train for a printing press Twilight had her build from unlabeled parts. Twilight had Apple Bloom researching a dozen texts, translating names, and doing chemistry problems as if someone's life depended on it. Now Apple Bloom's mane glowed red, like iron fresh out of a forge, though it smelled of black pepper. The pebbles in a glass jar were supposed to have been glowing from the lantern potion, but she'd scratched an itch at the wrong moment.
Importantly, it was her first potion that had nothing to do with growing things.
And through it all, when Twilight thought we weren't looking, she studied our flanks. Then she'd be scribbling notes in a book, as she was now as we waited for her to finish what ever was burning in her head.
From the point she had thrown something at Scoots, I'd felt exasperated, and really, somewhat worried for her. I reared and put my front hooves on her writing table. She shut the notebook, but not before I saw Diamond Tiara's cutie mark, Twilight's, and ours rendered in full color, with notes in cursive so awful, Cheerilee would have made her practice daily. I looked into her purple eyes and asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"
Adults didn't do this without good reason, and perhaps that was what really shocked me: her eyes misted up. She rested her head on the writing table and said, "It was very nice of all of you to come today. After you got your cutie marks, I really didn't expect you'd want to visit anymore."
Apple Bloom asked, "Why's that?"
"You found your special talent."
"And it don't run the farm," Apple Bloom said, ever practical.
Scootaloo added, "And it's fun building things. A mechanic's cutie mark would have been awesome, too."
Twilight got up and began pacing. "You built a parade float from scratch! Engineers do that, Scootaloo, not mechanics." She stopped and sighed loudly. "You're right, Sweetie Belle. I'm not okay. It's been a difficult few months. I've been feeling kind of useless lately."
"But you're a princess," I said. "You, Tirek—"
"Precisely. I'm not an archmage like Star Swirl the Bearded. No, after I learned what you managed with Diamond Tiara, and was told the true meaning of your shared special talent, I realized that—" She swallowed hard and paced again, looking at us.
I could see her debating things in her mind though eyebrow twitches, head shakes, and shoulder gestures. Finally, she took a deep breath and lay on the floor, facing us. This made us all the same height. Equals, at least in stature. It was a princessly gracious gesture. "It is your special talent," she said, looking at each of us in turn. "I need it, but you are also foals—"
"Fillies"
"—you're fillies. I'm not sure I should ask—"
Apple Bloom interrupted. "Something told me we had to visit you today. Not just Twilight time. You've saved our world… how many times? Why can't we save yours in return?"
"Uh-huh," Scootaloo and I said in unison.
Princess Twilight Sparkle lay there in silent anguish for almost a minute, her expression slowly changing to the one Rarity got when I did something she considered grown-up that made her proud. Five words I never expected came out as a whisper: "My special talent isn't magic."
I felt my jaw drop.
Twilight continued over our gasps, "I know, I'm good at it, but I'm good—sometimes better—at other things, too. I asked Princess Celestia last night and she told me she had never thought my special talent was magic, either. I had raw talent, but she had recognized the signs of Nightmare Moon's return and the curse she had brought upon herself by misusing the Elements of Harmony. She'd convinced herself that I was the one who might free her and save Equestria, so she trained me and I proved her right. That might have been my destiny, but magic didn't have to be my special talent to make it happen."
"So what is?" asked Scootaloo.
In a flash, I blurted, "Tirek."
Twilight said, "Maybe. I mean, I don't know. I'm good at solving big problems; small ones, too. Magic is just—"
"Fun?" Scootaloo asked.
Twilight said, "Right. It is fun. But the word I was thinking of is ancillary."
I said, "There's more in life than just doing what you're talented in."
"Also right, as Apple Bloom said about her talent not running the farm. It's been one of those boring stretches were you get to do little but think. I didn't get to go Griffonstone. Or more recently to Manehatten. I did get to model a princess dress— Great dress, Sweetie Belle, don't get me wrong, but— The cutie mark map is not sending me anywhere! I may be a princess, but it's more like Shining Armor has told me it's like being a soldier: mostly bored waiting, then way too much craziness where I'm absolutely essential, then boredom. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, the Seeds of Discord, Lord Tirek…"
She sighed, and added in a low gravelly voice, "I'm Celestia's Troubleshooter. It's my name for myself." She laid her head on her hooves and sighed again.
"And…" I said, "You don't like this?"
She perked up. "Oh, I do. I'm really good at solving problems. Magic may not be my special talent, but it's a great tool. It's little wonder Celestia was such a relentless teacher and mentor. I love solving problems, well, except when I dealt with Lord Tirek. Had he not made me give up my alicorn magic, I might have won our battle…"
Apple Bloom asked, "And that would have been bad, how?"
Twilight looked into my eyes, "Unicorn magic is made of rainbows. You—" and she meant me and unicorns in general "—can't hurt anyone directly using it. It just won't do that. But Cadence, Luna, and Celestia had given me their magic. Alicorns are special creatures with rules that I haven't even begun to figure out, let alone understand. And I wielded the power of four alicorns. I don't know what would have happened had I won, but I suspect King Sombra would have been able to tell me. Fortunately, thanks to Discord's observations about the keys to the friendship chest, I solved the problem in the end—in a very satisfying, much more unicorn-safe manner."
Scootaloo said, "So your cutie mark is in troubleshooting?"
Twilight slid around so she lay sideways to us. "Does that look like a troubleshooting cutie mark?"
My voice cracked as I spoke up, causing me to squeak (and I so wished I would grow out of that soon). "I know what it looks like!"
A couple minutes later, we stood in front of the castle on a partly cloudy day. Pastel ponies walked along the path through the dappled light to the lake beyond the castle. I turned and pointed at the castle spire that reflected rainbows in every direction.
Twilight stared for a long time, ignoring the Cakes who walked by and reverently said, "Princess," as they passed.
Suddenly, she shouted, "Right!" She had one of those twitchy half-smiles she was famous for and began nodding. "There's something I have to show you. But it's a long way away."
Scootaloo beamed a smile. "No problem!"
Soon Scoots scootered us along in her wagon, following Princess Twilight as she flew above a now well maintained trail into the Everfree forest, toward the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Near the bridge to cross the river gorge, she took a cut-off that required us to walk. This led to stairs, a few hundred of them, carved into the side of a limestone sink hole, which then opened into a wide cavern.
Here, Apple Bloom's still brightly glowing hair helped out. It lit the way as the sunlight receded behind us. Apple Bloom worried out loud about finding bats, but we saw no evidence of anything living here. No slime. No lichen. No dirt. Just the smell of rock dust. We trotted along a path that became increasingly crystal-like and less like yellow-marbled stone. The temperature dropped 10 degrees, 20. My breath condensed before my muzzle. Soon I noticed a bluish-white glow ahead and heard a faint ringing sound, like notes from wind chimes, combined with a barely audible hum.
My fur lifted along my spine. I felt rainbow numbers move of their own accord in my head as some unicorn sense made me evaluate ambient magic.
Power.
And it smelled like electricity after a thunderstorm.
"This," Twilight said as she stepped around an outcropping of what I think Rarity would have identified as tourmaline, "is the Tree of Harmony."
Scootaloo said, "And those are—"
"—the Elements of Harmony," Apple Bloom finished, her eyes locked on Applejack's former apple-shaped orange gem stone, glowing as if on fire, set in a jagged crystalline branch of a large tree formed of rock and stone. Strings of whitely-glowing gems hung like tree moss.
I recognized all the elements on the branches, and on the trunk I saw two further crystalline forms identical to Celestia's and Luna's cutie mark, outlined in glowing blue. In the center rested a crystal in the same shape as the castle spire, identical—but for its silvery color—to Twilight's cutie mark.
My intuition screamed there was a deep destiny-laden connection between the tree and Twilight. Its shape and its fruit held meaning and hinted at stories, possibly allegorical ones. (I wished suddenly I'd paid more attention to Cheerilee's literature lessons.) Unable to express any of this, I asked instead, "Why are the elements attached to the tree?"
Twilight answered, "Because I returned them when the tree was dying. Remember when the Everfree attacked Ponyville? It was because Celestia and Luna had harvested the gems from the tree; eventually it weakened until it could not defend against a pest-plant Discord had seeded in the forest ages ago. It is the Tree of Harmony that provides the magic that controls the Everfree. The restoration of the gems is the reason why the forest is no longer menacing."
I looked to Twilight's flank, to the tree, and back again. Suddenly my brain began to overheat. I thought about the Friendship Castle and connected it to the story—which I hadn't paid enough attention to—about how the tree had somehow built that castle. And Celestia and Luna were connected to it. And Celestia used the Elements to imprison Discord before he was reformed. And then used the Elements to banish her sister into the moon when she turned into Nightmare Moon, cursing them both.
This was the curse that Twilight eventually broke.
I sat and clapped my hooves together. Tree, Elements, Celestia, curse, Twilight. I felt my silly grin, but my grin wasn't because I was being silly. Today I'd performed a second spell and solved a friendship problem.
"What?" the others asked in unison.
I pointed at Twilight's cutie mark, then at the center of the tree. "I remember the story you told us about when you got your cutie mark. Did you ever ask the princess what she thought your cutie mark was?" I was beginning to fidget. I knew this. I had this.
"No…" Twilight said, looking right and left, thinking.
"I think your cutie mark is the Tree of Harmony. That's the sign Princess Celestia recognized."
"But—" Apple Bloom said, "—but that's not a talent!"
"And what would it represent?" Twilight asked, "If my cutie mark were the Tree of Harmony?"
I asked, "What's the best part of solving problems? What are the best problems to solve?"
Now Twilight's eyes darted around as she thought furiously. "Friendship problems, mostly. Anything where I make ponies' lives better. I mean, it makes me very happy when you guys come for Twilight Time, for example."
"And you knew fighting Tirek was bad?"
"Yeah. I hurt, not from any wound. The urge to fight came from anger, not from my heart."
I stood. "Could it be that your special talent is bringing harmony?"
Twilight sat so suddenly and so hard on the cold stone floor of the cavern that it had to hurt. The fleshy sound did echo, along with my pal's gasps. She slowly craned her head to stare at her cutie mark and said nothing, though her mouth lay open.
She began to nod. And tears rolled down her cheek.
And I felt the urge to sing.
