Twilight Sparkle repressed a shudder as she gingerly removed the last of the cobwebs. Even though she was only ‘touching’ it with her magic, it still gave her the creeps. A terrarium full of spiders, centipedes and other less than pleasant squatters—as she thought of them—from her castle sat beside her. As much as she loved Fluttershy, quirks and all, she didn’t really see why entire corridors of her castle should be set aside to become a spider habitat. “I think you’ll like living in the Equestrian Entymological Estate.”
“And I can finally sleep again!” Spike groaned in relief, his eyes red and bloodshot. He looked down at the glass case holding the swarm of creepy-crawlies and shuddered from his head-spines to the tip of his tail. “Eeuuugggh…”
“You know, considering your attitude towards these little guys, I think your friendship with Thorax is even more impressive,” Twilight observed as they headed back to the main section of the castle, the glass terrarium firmly held in her magic—far away from them.
Spike winced. “Please don’t make me associate Thorax with spiders and centipedes. I’ll never be able to get it out of my head. It’ll make the next time we meet super awkward.”
But the inner scientist in Twilight couldn’t help but comment. “Well, they are all arthropods…”
The little dragon frowned up at her. “Oh yeah? If that were true, then because you like me and I’m a reptile, you shouldn’t be afraid of snakes. How about if we go get some and bring them into the castle?”
Merely the mention of the S-Word was almost enough to make Twilight drop the glass case. “Point taken.” She cleared her throat. “What’s next on today’s schedule?”
Smirking slightly to himself, Spike consulted the almighty checklist. “Hmm. It looks like you scheduled in a meeting with your friends in the map room.”
“Right,” Twilight nodded to herself, a touch glumly. “They wanted to talk with me after Starlight’s … incident.”
Spike winced. “Um, maybe I should go do the … thing. At the place.” He looked at the checklist again. “Uh-oh, it looks like it’s scheduled for right now. You better hurry otherwise you might be—” There was a bright flash from behind him, and he sighed. “—late.”
He looked around, and sure enough, Twilight had teleported herself away and left him in the bowels of the castle. He sighed, having the unpleasant suspicion that he was forgetting something. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of breaking glass that he remembered just what it was. “The terrarium!”
Spike turned around, his insides twisting into a knot as the contents of the glass case had spilled all over the ground: dozens of spiders, centipedes, worms and other bugs all converging on him.
His response was perfectly rational: he screamed and ran, chased by the crawling horde.
Twilight Sparkle appeared with a start at her throne at the cutie map, startling her already assembled friends. “Sorry girls. I hope I haven’t been keeping you long.”
“Nothing of the sort, darling.” Rarity waved her off. “After all, if anypony is allowed to be fashionably late, it’s a princess.”
“I don’t think Twilight is the kind of pony who thinks that being late could ever be fashionable,” Rainbow Dash observed.
“Says the fastest pony in Equestria who still manages to show up late cuz she’s busy napping,” Applejack shot back, earning an annoyed scowl from Rainbow. “Anyways, you aren’t late Twilight. You’re right on time.”
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. No offense to your sense of fashion Rarity, but I’d rather be on time than late, no matter how fashionable it might be.” She paused briefly. “So, I suppose you wanted to talk about Starlight Glimmer’s recent … actions?”
Her friends all looked at each other, giving Twilight a nervous feeling in her stomach. “It’s partly that,” Applejack admitted. “But I think—we think—the problem’s bigger than that.”
Twilight looked around. “I don’t understand. Was Starlight’s apology not good enough?”
From her place on Twilight’s left, Rainbow Dash facehooved. “Okay, two things—first off: no, it wasn’t. Second: that’s the problem right there!”
“Rainbow, I don’t think getting all worked up is going to help,” Fluttershy murmured soothingly. “We’re all friends here.” Rainbow bristled, but sank down in her throne without a word.
Twilight looked around, her confusion growing. “The problem … is that she apologized?”
“I think what Rainbow means is that the point isn’t how good Starlight’s apology was,” Rarity explained. “It’s more a problem that she keeps on doing these sorts of things. Forgive us, we know you’ve grown to care a lot about her—we all have—but after this latest episode, we cannot tip-toe around it any further.”
Applejack nodded. “We don’t doubt that she was sorry, but being sorry ain’t enough. Fact of the matter is, she don’t seem any better now than she did when she first came to Ponyville.”
Twilight sat back in her throne, looking surprised. “I didn’t realize you felt this way. But she’s made a lot of progress—with her magic, her friendship lessons…”
“Didn’t stop her from resorting to using feathering mind control on us when she couldn’t get her way, now did it?” Rainbow snapped, rubbing her forehead. “Sorry, sorry … but like AJ said, this isn’t the first time she’s done this.”
Applejack nodded. “Remember back when Trixie came to town and Starlight was trying to find a friend to take to yer dinner with Princess Celestia?”
“Of course I do.” Twilight sighed. “I caused that mess because I didn’t trust Starlight enough to make her own choices in friends. Nopony else in town was willing to give her a second chance. Not even me.”
Pinkie Pie, who had been unusually quiet, suddenly piped up. “Well, that’s just silly.”
“I know it was, but I—” Twilight was suddenly surprised when Pinkie, somehow, appeared next to her and gently covered her mouth with a pink hoof.
“I wasn’t talking about you being silly, silly,” she said breezily. “I was talking about you and Starlight thinking that her problem was that nopony wanted to go to the dinner with her because they didn’t want to give her another chance. That’s what’s silly.”
Rainbow Dash agreed. “Do you remember where we live, Twilight? Everypony in this room is responsible for trashing Ponyville at least once, and that’s not even getting into the messes caused by Spike, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, or Luna. I’d say we’re a pretty forgiving bunch here in Ponyville.”
Applejack nodded. “The reason nopony wanted to go to dinner with Starlight wasn’t because of her past in that town. It was because she has this habit of usin’ magic to wiggle her way out of situations she don’t like. She don’t want to take two extra minutes to set a table?” She slammed a hoof on the table. “Bam! She uses magic to get it all done. My brother isn’t being enough of a conversationalist?” She slammed her hoof again. “Bam! She uses a spell on him so he can’t stop talking, whether he wants to or not. Ah recall having some words with her over that little stunt, which just makes what she did to us all the worse.” She sat back, seeing her hoof-slamming had caused Fluttershy to cover her ears. “Whoops, sorry there.”
Rainbow leaped back into the discussion. “Look, this isn’t just AJ being a magic-phobe like she was over your first Winter Wrap-Up—”
“That’s arcaneophobe,” Twilight interrupted..
“—but this is a whole different kind of cloud,” Rainbow finished. “What she did was seriously messed up.”
Rarity nodded. “As much as it pains me to admit, Starlight is very much the poster child of a unicorn who uses her magic irresponsibly and unethically. And I’m not confining myself to remarking about her time before she came to Ponyville.” She paused, brushing her mane out as she readied her next remarks. “Truth be told, I’m not even sure why you were teaching her more magic and spells at all. She’s already proven her exceptional ability in that regard; what she desperately needed tutoring on was friendship and basic decency.”
Twilight flattened her ears. “I know, and you’re right. I should’ve spent more time making sure Starlight was focusing on her friendship lessons.” If she expected this to reassure her friends, she was to be disappointed. Their expressions only became more concerned, confusing Twilight further. “What’s wrong?”
“See, that’s the other thing…” Pinkie tapped her hooves together delicately. “And we kiiiiiiiinda think that maybe, um, maybe—Fluttershy should tell you!”
Fluttershy squeaked, crouching low in her throne at being suddenly put on the spot. “O-oh my. It’s just that, while we all think that you’re a wonderful teacher, maybe some of Starlight’s, um, problems come from being put under … pressure?”
“Pressure?” Twilight repeated.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, then over at Pinkie and Fluttershy and nodded. “See Twi, some ponies thrive under pressure and some some crack under it.” Rainbow rubbed her neck. “And there’s no shame in that! You just have to make sure the way you teach works for the pony you’re trying to work with, like you did with me and the Wonderbolt entrance exam?”
“And you don’t think what I’ve been doing with Starlight is working?” Twilight surmised, trying not to feel a little hurt.
Her friends quickly caught on. “Look, Twilight we know you’re a wonderful teacher,” Applejack reassured her. “What you did for my sister and the Crusaders, plus Dash here has been nothing less than amazing.” She fidgeted, her smile fading. “With Starlight, though…”
“Do you remember how worked up you got when you believed that Princess Celestia wanted your findings on friendship to follow a weekly schedule?” Rarity asked delicately.
A plume of red erupted on Twilight’s cheeks. “Yes, of course I remember.” She resisted the urge to bury her face in her hooves, albeit just barely. “How could I not think of the Want-It, Need-It Spell after what Starlight did?” A small sniffle escaped. “Maybe I am the wrong pony to teach Starlight about responsible magic use.”
Pinkie Pie hugged her. “Aww, Twilight, that’s not true at all!”
“You made a mistake once, in the heat of the moment, after getting more and more frantic when nothing worked,” Rainbow pointed out. “And you tried to stop it almost immediately. Starlight resorted to using magic on us in two minutes flat.”
Rarity concurred. “You felt awful and guilty even before Princess Celestia had to say a word to you because you recognized for yourself that what you did was wrong. Starlight didn’t get even realize that until after you spoke with her. Spike told us she was still examining the spell she used to try to get it ‘right.’”
Applejack grunted ruefully. “Yeah. Even her apology was just ‘Things got a little out of hand’—whatever that means—until Rainbow snapped at her. Bad as the whole Smarty Pants thing was, it really ain’t comparable to what Starlight did. You made everypony want a doll, but we were still us. She took away our ability to think and act for ourselves in any way.” She shuddered.
Fluttershy spoke up. “But what I meant was, you thought that because you had to have a friendship report every week you put yourself under a lot of pressure. That’s what caused you to let things get a little out of control.”
Pinkie’s ears drooped. “Too much pressure makes some ponies do crazy things, like yell at their friends and hide in a luggage compartment.”
Twilight looked around the table. “So, you think part of the problem is that I’ve been putting too much pressure on Starlight? I thought you said I needed to focus more on friendship lessons with her and less on teaching her magic.”
“It’s both.” Rarity tapped her hooves together. “I think we’ve established by now that Starlight does not react well to pressure—that doing so makes her more inclined to, shall we say, revert to her old ways of handling her problems?”
“That being to throw magic at it until it stops being a problem,” Applejack clarified.
“Yes, we got that.” Rarity rolled her eyes. “Spike told us that before we went for Flurry Heart’s Crystalling, you insisted Starlight meet and try to reconnect with an old friend of hers. From what he told us, she didn’t take it well. I daresay, the near-destruction of the Crystal Empire came almost as a relief for her.”
Pinkie Pie leaned forward. “And you asked Starlight to come up with a new friend to take to dinner with Princess Celestia. That same day as the dinner.”
“Then you wanted her to come up with a friendship lesson by the time you got back from your talk in Canterlot.” Rainbow Dash added. “Also, that same day. You don’t think that might’ve put some pressure on Starlight?”
Twilight felt her heart sink. “I—I didn’t even realize. All the pressure I’ve been putting her under … I’m responsible for what she did to you!”
Applejack’s raised eyebrow spoke volumes. “Say what now?”
“You know what they say,” Twilight groaned, slumping forward. “There are no bad students, only bad teachers.”
“Well ‘they’ are a bunch of idiots,” Rainbow declared. “Take it from me, there most definitely is such a thing as a bad student.”
Applejack nodded. “Shewt, you know how much learning I remember from school? Hardly a thing. Think it’s the teacher’s fault I can’t remember all them fancy mathematics?”
Rainbow made a big show of rolling her eyes. “For the last time Applejack, it’s called addition and subtraction. It’s not that fancy and it isn’t magic.” Rainbow started to crack up under Applejack’s annoyed glower, and Pinkie Pie wasn’t far behind.
In an attempt to bring things back on track, Rarity daintily cleared her throat. “Darling, while we do think that while your method of teaching Starlight could use some refinement, it in no way excuses her behavior or makes you responsible for it.”
“Yeah! I mean, do we blame Celestia every time you make a mistake?” Pinkie asked. “Nope! Because you’re your own wonderful pony and your achievements and mistakes are all your own! Maybe somepony can help you accomplish them, but in the end, they’re yours.” Everypony stared. “What? Do I have a stray cupcake hanging out of my mane again? Because that’d be really good right now!”
“No, it’s … that was very profound, Pinkie,” Fluttershy said. “We’re really impressed.”
Pinkie beamed. “Aww, shucks! I got that from Gummy. Oh look! I do have a cupcake in my mane!” She quickly pulled it out and loudly devoured it.
Twilight shook her head. “Right … so I shouldn’t put so much pressure on Starlight when it comes to her friendship lessons.”
Rainbow raised her hoof. “Yeah, see, that’s something that’s always kinda threw me.”
“What is?”
“What exactly is a friendship lesson?”
The Princess of Friendship was a bit perplexed by the question. “Um, it’s a lesson about friendship?”
Applejack snorted. “Ain’t that hard to figure out.”
But Rainbow Dash ignored her. “I get that but—how do you go about planning and scheduling a lesson about friendship?”
Twilight’s confusion only grew. “The way you plan anything, I suppose. You set some time aside for somepony to learn a lesson about friendship.”
“Any lesson about friendship?” Rainbow Dash flew up, hovering over the map. “Or is there a specific one you want to her to learn when you start?”
Twilight sighed. “I try to make sure the lesson is relevant to what’s going on around her… I’m sorry, I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”
Rainbow paced in the air, trying to marshal her thoughts. “Look, I’m no teacher or Princess of Friendship or anything, but I think you’re going about this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight was genuinely curious now.
“Maybe it’s just me, but life isn’t a series of lessons you just learn, you know? You don’t decide what the lessons are, that’s up to everypony to figure out for themselves based on their own experiences.” She rubbed her neck. “Yeah, not everypony is going to make good decisions and they’ll make mistakes and learn the wrong things sometimes. But I don’t think I like the idea that you can just shape events into teaching a lesson that you think someone else needs to learn. You draw lessons from life, you don’t treat life like it just exists to teach these predetermined lessons. It’s taking away their ability to choose, to think and to learn for themselves.”
Applejack whistled. “That’s two philosophical gems today. Am I gonna have to come up with one of these chestnuts next?”
“If we’re waiting on you to be philosophical, AJ, we’ll be here all day.” Rainbow snapped.
Twilight saw the agitated twitch in Rainbow's wings. "This is something that you feel strongly about, don't you?"
Rainbow didn't try to deny it. "I—it's just that ..."
"Rainbow Dash." Twilight flew up to look her in the eye. "If this is something personal, you don't have to be nervous about sharing it with us. Whatever it is, we'll listen."
With a deep sigh, Rainbow lowered herself back down. Once Twilight returned to her own chair, Rainbow started again. "Okay, look. I'm still ticked off at what Starlight did. I mean, a lot. A lot a lot. But at the same time—I feel like I've been where she is, with having these 'lessons' built around me, with other ponies trying to 'guide' me to the conclusion they want me to reach, but apparently not trusting me enough to figure it out for myself." She looked to Twilight and the others meaningfully.
"How ya mean?" Applejack scratched her head.
Rainbow hesitated. “It feels like, sometimes, when you guys are trying to help me, you act more concerned with getting me from Point A to Point B than helping me figure things out for myself. It comes off more like you’re telling me what to do instead of helping me.”
“When have we done that?” Twilight frowned in confusion.
"Look, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything—” Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “We should probably just stick to talking about Starlight Glimmer.”
Twilight shook her head. “Rainbow, just because we’re talking about Starlight doesn’t mean that your concerns aren’t important. If we’re going over ways to make sure she does learn about the importance of friendship, it’s all the more important you talk to us about things you think we can do better on.”
“Alright,” Rainbow sighed. “Remember the qualifying round for the Equestria Games at Rainbow Falls?"
"You mean where the Wonderbolts turned out to be bullying jerks who cared little about their own teammates or their mental well-being, to the point of undermining their self-confidence over a demeaning nickname that made them question their own self-worth?" Pinkie Pie asked. "Oh wait, no, that was a different time. You meant something else."
"Er, yeah." Rainbow looked to Twilight. "When I couldn't decide whether to fly for Ponyville or Cloudsdale, you were, well ... not exactly a lot of help."
Twilight frowned. "I was trying to give you advice, so you could make the right decision for yourself."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Twilight, on one hoof you said you couldn't make the decision for me, and then on the other hoof you went on and on about how if I didn't fly for Ponyville then our friends would be sad because of the work they put into the uniforms, snacks and cheers. Sorry Twi, you all but told me that the only right thing to do was fly for Ponyville while trying to pretend that you weren’t telling me what to do."
Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Um, wait what? Twilight, you do know that I could've still made apple brown betties and whatnot for our team—or any other team—even if Rainbow didn't fly with us, right?"
Rarity nodded to Twilight. "I must say that when Rainbow puts it like that, your advice does seem a little … heavy-hoofed."
"That’s what I thought," Rainbow looked around. "And then when I pretended to be injured so I wouldn't have to choose, all Twilight said was 'choosing not to choose isn't really a decision.'"
"Well it's not." Twilight countered, her ear twitching in annoyance.
Rainbow crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Really? So if, say, I get a ticket to take somepony to something awesome, I should choose which one of you I want to go and leave the rest of you behind?"
"Please don't argue," Fluttershy urged them.
"Why not?" Rainbow asked archly. "Shouldn't you pick which one of us you think is right? Choosing not to choose isn't really a decision, after all."
"You've made your point, Rainbow." Twilight frowned at her. "So, you think my advice at Rainbow Falls was bad then, that you should've flown with Cloudsdale?"
"That's not what I'm saying." Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane. "I mean, the Wonderbolts were lying to me and Soarin' and were being really..."
"Rude, insensitive bullies?" Pinkie deadpanned.
Applejack looked at her. "I'm getting the feeling you really don't like the Wonderbolts."
"Nooooooooooooo." Pinkie shook her head before whispering loudly to Fluttershy, "And by that I mean 'Yes.'"
"Anyway," Rainbow raised her voice, feeling a headache coming on. "It's not about that. You never even considered that there was any other choice for me except to fly for Ponyville, and that's why your advice was so one-sided. Instead of being given facts in order to think for myself, I ended up being told how to think. Even if you were right, you didn't trust me enough to make the decision for myself, so you tried to steer me to the answer you thought was right."
“I see,” Twilight sighed. "I'm sorry it came off that way. I'm your friend, Rainbow, and sometimes that means telling you when I think you're about to make a mistake."
Rainbow nodded. "I know, and I appreciate that but—you were pretty much trying to make the choice for me, but trying to pretend it was still my decision. That’s not right.”
Applejack hummed to herself, tapping a hoof against the map. “That does kinda sound like what you’ve been doing with Starlight, sugarcube. You did say you were gonna give Starlight more space to make her own decisions after the Crystalling mess,” she reminded Twilight. “But you’ve had some trouble following through on that; first with letting her be friends with Trixie—not that I blame you—then with trying to get her to come to Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
That caused Twilight to blink in surprise. “Really? I left the choice with Starlight over what to do.”
“You read the Hearth’s Warming Tail story and cast Starlight in the role of the villain who wanted to get rid of the holiday and doom the world,” Pinkie Pie said. “That’s a little leading.”
Twilight blinked “How could I have cast her in a—”
“Spike says you do voices,” Pinkie informed him her flatly. “Which, if I was going to be read a story, is the way I’d like to hear it! But I don’t think making Starlight feel like a villain because she wasn’t into the holiday spirit was really fair.”
Applejack tipped her hat. “Not everypony has the same traditions when it comes to things like Hearth’s Warming Eve. Some folks like to party and celebrate with friends and family. Or hide rocks. It might seem weird, but there you go.”
“And others like to be left alone, and that’s fine too!” Pinkie nodded. “But you see what Dashie means?”
Twilight sighed. “I guess I do.” She looked back to Rainbow. “Is there anything else you wanted to say?”
Looking a bit more at ease, Rainbow nodded. “Well, as much as I thought things at Rainbow Falls could’ve been handled better—there all you did was offer advice that was really leading. You didn’t try to arrange circumstances just to try teach me something, like you did with Mare Do Well."
Pinkie Pie let out a hiss. "Oooh, she went there."
Twilight rubbed her face, feeling her own headache coming on. "You don’t think we should’ve set up a friendship lesson like that?"
"In a word? No," Rainbow put her hooves on the table. “You wanted to teach that bragging was bad. But why was that?”
“Aside from being downright unbearable to be around?” Applejack asked dryly.
“Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean you’re legally obligated to be around me,” Rainbow shot back. “You could’ve just avoided me if you didn’t like how I was acting.”
“Fair enough.” Applejack adjusted her hat. “But the important thing is that when you’re busy patting yourself on the back and boasting, you’re getting over-confident and that means you’re likely to make mistakes.”
“Like thinking you could harvest an entire apple orchard by yourself, or produce cider faster than a high-tech cider-making machine?” Rainbow deadpanned.
Applejack frowned at her. “Yes. Like that.”
“Okay, fine,” Rainbow conceded. “I’m not gonna argue that. But here’s my problem with what you did: if you think that bragging leads you to making mistakes, then you should’ve let me learn that for myself. Because right now, I just have your word to go on that what you said is true, since I didn’t experience it myself. You manipulated events so you’d get the end-result you wanted. If life experience really shows that over-confidence is bad, then you shouldn’t have had to set anything up to teach me that.”
“You were engaged in saving ponies’ lives, Rainbow,” Twilight pointed out. “That’s not the sort of thing we could just sit back and wait for you learn through trial-and-error why overconfidence is bad.”
“Sure, let’s just pretend for a second that’s what your motivation was—and not that you were just annoyed by my attitude.” Rainbow Dash shot back. “Since if you wanted to prevent me from messing up and getting somepony hurt, you could’ve just skipped all the time you wasted putting together costumes and sneaking away and focused on only helping ponies. Because I’m sure all that was a big help in that regard. It doesn’t change the fact that you never tried to suggest that’s what you were concerned about. No, what you said the whole point of your little masquerade was ‘Real heroes don’t brag.’ That was your justification, nothing else.”
Pinkie Pie interrupted them by getting up to give Rainbow a hug. “You know we weren’t trying to hurt you.”
Rainbow Dash twitched, then sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
Seeing an opportunity to defuse things, Twilight took a calming breath of her own. “So, you’re saying that when we set up planned lessons, it cheapens the impact somehow?”
“Exactly.” Rainbow nodded. “This is kinda your thing Twilight, you like to plan everything out. And a lot of the time, that’s really good. For you, at least.”
“Nothing wrong with being prepared,” Twilight said neutrally.
“But because you hate leaving anything to chance, you try to make things happen a certain way,” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “If your lessons are right, if life shows that whatever you’re trying to teach is good—then let life teach that, in its own time. Not on some schedule you drew up. And if life doesn’t demonstrate that your lesson is always right then you shouldn’t try to ‘fix’ reality so it ends up the way you want it to.”
Twilight leaned back. “You’ve been thinking about this for a whole, haven’t you?”
Rainbow nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat before continuing. “Right now, it seems like if somepony isn’t drawing the lessons you want them to, you’ll arrange events behind their backs so that they’ll end up reaching the conclusion you want them to reach. It’s … it’s just wrong, okay?” Her voice suddenly became choked up. “It’s like what you did to the Crusaders with your doll, or what Discord did when he tried to make you feel jealous. It’s manipulative, it’s dishonest and when it comes down to it: it feels like you don’t trust other ponies to be smart enough to come to your conclusions. And when I see you regularly doing this sort of thing to me, but not to any of our other friends—it makes me think there’s something really wrong with with me.”
Twilight felt her eyes widen. That … that hurt. But there was a small part of her that wondered if that wasn’t the case because it was partially true. “I—I had no idea you felt this way.”
Rainbow shrugged and tried to wave her off, but Twilight spotted a slight dampness building in her eyes. “It’s … it’s nothing, I’ll get over it. I’m just saying, maybe you should rethink trying any of that stuff with Starlight, you know?”
“No, it’s not nothing, Rainbow Dash.” Twilight stood and went over to hug her friend. “I never meant to make you or anypony else feel like you weren’t smart enough. I only wanted to help.”
“I know you did.” Rainbow hugged her back. “But you have to let ponies have the opportunity to make their own choices. Life isn’t a big lesson with one right answer at the end of it. If they find answers that are different than yours—well, so long as they aren’t hurting anypony, it’s no different than ponies learning things different ways, right?”
“Only no rap songs.” Twilight giggled.
Pinkie, inexplicably wearing her golden chains and flatbill hat, pouted.
Twilight let go of Rainbow and looked to the rest of her friends. “What do you think?”
“Since she put that all out there, I think Rainbow’s right,” Applejack stated. The others nodded.
“It isn’t fair that we keep doing this to Rainbow Dash, but not anypony else.” Fluttershy spoke up. “I know I wouldn’t have liked it if you dressed up like dragons to force me to get over my fears of them, or tried to act like an even bigger bully back when I took Iron Will’s lessons too far.”
“Also, kiiiinda hypocritical to respond to behavior you don’t like with even more of that behavior,” Pinkie commented. “Like we did with pranking Rainbow Dash into thinking that we had all become zombies, or going to a parade to celebrate how great Mare Do Well was or—”
Applejack cleared her throat. “Alright Pinkie, we get the idea. But the issue right here is Starlight. Now, I think Rainbow’s got a point. It’s a little rump-backwards when you start with your conclusion first, and then make a lesson to prove it right; especially when you don’t give ponies a chance to work it out for themselves first. S’like giving kids the answers to a test before they take it. They aren’t learning anything if they don’t figure it out on their own.”
“That might be part of the problem,” Rarity mused. “You worked splendidly with our little sisters, but they were children and needed more guidance. Starlight Glimmer—her appalling lack of judgement notwithstanding—is our peer. You can’t treat her the same way you would a foal.”
Twilight held up a hoof. “Okay, I think we’ve got an idea about what not to do by this point. What do you think I should do when it comes to Starlight?”
Rarity hummed slightly as she tapped a hoof to her chin. “As much as I hate to say it, I think the best thing you could do is try to not structure her education in friendship with your usual … thoroughness.”
“Sounds about right.” Applejack sighed. “I know this must be frustrating for you, seeing as you work so hard at everything—being a teacher, a princess, a friend—but sometimes you get too carried away when it comes to planning and preparation.”
Twilight felt her shoulders slump. “That’s what it keeps coming back to, isn’t it?”
“There is nothing wrong with who you are and what you do,” Rarity insisted. “Merely that you have to moderate your instincts sometimes.”
Pinkie nodded vigorously. “Yeah! You just need to give her space, the way Princess Celestia did for you!”
Twilight nodded glumly. “I suppose. It’s just … it’s hard to compare yourself to somepony like her. She’s had thousands of years to learn how to guide ponies without taking away their ability to choose for themselves; had so much time to learn subtlety and improvisation and … I don’t. Even if I was going to live as long as she has, I don’t think I’d ever be able to do what she does.”
Applejack shook her head. “We ain’t saying be like Princess Celestia. We’re saying, take what you learned from her and apply it in your own way.”
“‘Apply it in your own way...’” Twilight murmured to herself, her brow furrowed in thought. Her eyes lit up, and her friends knew she’d struck gold. “That’s it!” She looked around the table. “My mistake was trying to teach friendship on a mentor-student level the way Princess Celestia taught me magic. But that’s now how I learned about the value of friendship; that came when I was with all of you. We’re strongest when we work with our friends.”
“What are you thinking?” Fluttershy asked.
Twilight turned to her. “Fluttershy, you know what it’s like more than anypony here to struggle with feeling uncomfortable in group situations. You can help Starlight get used to the idea of trying things outside her comfort zone with other ponies. Applejack, you can show Starlight the importance of hard work, and not relying exclusively on magic.” She looked around the table. “I think my mistake has been teaching Starlight on a one-to-one level, with her seeing time spent with all of you as an obligation to be fulfilled or a lesson to be learned. Right now she sees you more as friends of a friend, rather than friends of her own. We need to change that. Each of you has a unique perspective you can impart to her, without it being a prepared lesson with an assigned moral.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Pinkie beamed, before frowning in confusion. “A plan to—not have a plan, which is still sort of a plan … I think. I’m confused.”
“Maybe we should take a break for some snacks, then take some time to come up with ideas for what we can each do.” Twilight stood, stretching her wings. “Now if Spike could…” her eyes widened as she realized she had left him in the lower halls. “Uh-oh.”
“Twiliiiiiight!” A panicked wail drew their attention to the doorway, where Spike was running past. Spiderwebs were strewn across his body as the spiders and bugs maintained their stubborn pursuit of their quarry.
Twilight facehooved. “Okay, so here’s a totally unplanned friendship lesson for everypony: how to get a ton of really creepy things off a traumatized baby dragon and then offer said dragon a truly groveling apology for leaving him with them.”
“You know this might be a good time to let Starlight get in on these free-form friendship lessons,” Rarity suggested. “Merely putting the idea out there, mind you.”
Everypony laughed.
THE END
