“Uhhh, Twilight?! Need some help out here! NOW!!”
Twilight Sparkle forced herself to rush to the front doors of her palace at Spike’s call. After weeks of sleepless nights, her emotions and reactions to the events following the publication of the Friendship Journal, days seemed to stretch into endless crucibles of exhaustion. She barely had the strength to open the doors.
Fortunately, the doors were already wide open when she arrived.
Unfortunately, the sight outside made her heart drop.
About six dozen ponies were gathered in front of the palace, all in a fury. A small section of them were chanting “TURN IN YOUR WINGS!”, while another kept yelling out “NOT OUR PRINCESS!” Some were carrying signs with Princess Twilight’s face on them, with a large red line painted across it. Others carried a sign with the words, “Degrading Hacks X-press”. Twilight did not dwell on the meaning of this phrase.
Twilight focused on nothing, save for a sudden, seizing rage. The same rage she’d felt days after the first debacle with these "fans" and their incessant, incorrigible ignorance. The same rage that kept her up for days on end and eventually forced her to make a change, to step up, to force the so-called "fans" to look into a mirror. The same rage she'd since poured, uncontrollably and without filter, into that opening page that began the second edition of the Friendship Journal. The white hotness of that anger returned in full, agonizing force.
“Uhh, I guess the second edition didn’t go over too well, huh?” Spike chuckled nervously. Indeed, one Unicorn in the crowd held up a copy of the second edition of Twilight’s Friendship Journal in a cocoon of magic. The book was coated in a thick layer of flames.
As if catching that fire, Twilight ignited into an explosion of anger.
“ENOOOOOOOOOOOOUGH!!”
Twilight’s amplified voice ceased the angry chanting instantly. As the echoes of her voice died down, she felt her limbs trembling with indignation. Sparks of stray magic flew from her horn and mane as she struggled to contain it.
“This has gone far enough!” Twilight screamed at the now trembling crowd. “I tried being nice! I tried being diplomatic! I even sang to you ungrateful ponies! But your behavior is unacceptable! If this ever happens again, I will remove that book and all copies of it from existence altogether! Now, you have exactly ten seconds to leave this castle before I have all of you sent to the dungeons!”
Within seconds, the crowd dispersed, dropping their signs and scowling. Many of them grumbled as they meandered away, with Twilight able to catch such phrases as “Jeez, what’s her problem?” and “Way out of character . . .”
Once everypony had left, Twilight felt her tremble take her over, and she collapsed to the ground outside the doors, letting out breath after shaky, unstable breath. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the sparks of angry magic fade. Now, all that was left was a dark void that threatened to swallow her—a void of regret.
“T-Twilight?” Spike mumbled. “What . . . what’s going on? This isn’t like you.”
Twilight sniffed and picked her head up slightly, not even able to look her assistant in the eye. “I’m so sorry, Spike,” she whimpered, “but . . . I just don’t know what to do anymore. It’s like the whole town suddenly turned on me for no reason. I don't understand why they would carry on like this for so long. It’s like they all think I’m just some character instead of a real pony. How could they think I’m just some . . . make-believe ideal they want to put on some pedestal . . . ?”
“Aw, come on, Twilight,” Spike replied, offering a claw to help her up, “cheer up! A lot of ponies read that book. They can’t all be acting like this. There’s got to be at least one fan with some sense—”
“That’s just it, Spike,” Twilight cut him off as she took his claw and let him help her up. “I haven’t seen them. Everypony I’ve met who read that book has been either been intrusive, bull-headed, or just plain cruel. Only the children seem like they benefitted from it, but . . . I’m starting to think that isn’t enough. I made that new edition just to get that foreword page out to them. I wanted them to learn a lesson, and I wanted it to get through to them somehow, but this only made them worse! It’s like they just want to be angry and not learn anything! Maybe sending out that second edition was a bad idea. Maybe . . . maybe I never should have published that silly thing to begin with . . . .” Twilight’s head bowed back down, her voice close to breaking just as she stopped speaking.
“Twilight . . .” Spike muttered, “please . . . I know it looks bad, but . . . aw, Twilight, don’t cry . . . .”
Twilight picked up her head again, now looking fully into Spike’s eyes. “Cry? I’m not crying.”
Spike looked back into the princess’ dry eyes. “But . . . I heard somepony sobbing . . . I thought it was you, so . . . .” Spike paused as if listening for that very sound.
Twilight followed suit, listening intently and picking up a sound. She surveyed the area in front of the castle, but saw nothing. And yet, the cries only seemed to get stronger.
“Hmm . . . this could be a major problem,” Twilight announced, turning to look at Spike. “I’m gonna go see who needs help. Let Starlight know I stepped out.”
As Twilight left, Spike replied with a confused stare, “Who?”
Twilight strolled down the street, and the sound strengthened. As she passed an alley between two buildings, something caught the corner of her eye, and when she turned, she saw a stallion sitting in the grass, his back pressed to the house behind him. His hooves were pressed tight over his eyes, and his sobs filled the air of the alley he sat in.
Twilight quickly approached the sandy-brown Pegasus and waved her hoof. “Excuse me, sir?” she called out to him. “Are you all right?”
The stallion brushed his lank gray bangs away and looked up, his eyes widening when they met Twilight’s. He pushed himself to his hooves and shuddered into an anxious bow.
“Oh, no, there’s no need for that,” Twilight chuckled, still feeling that recurring awkwardness of being met with such obeisance. “Please, can you tell me what’s wrong?”
The stallion swallowed, his front hooves shaking and his gaze drifting to the ground. Stray tears leaked from his brown eyes as he blinked.
“It’s okay,” Twilight urged, much more gently than before. “Please, you don’t have to be nervous. Let me help.”
Shaky breaths issued from the stallion’s snout, leading to a deeper breath that surely would precede his problem. Twilight smiled, attempting to look as benign as possible and prepared to do what was necessary to help.
The feeling of hope quickly drained away as the stallion spoke:
“Is . . . is that how you see us?”
Twilight furrowed her brow, taken aback by this question. “Umm . . . I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked, as politely as she could manage.
“Is that how you really think we are?” the stallion replied. “Do you really think we’re just a bunch of ungrateful children?”
The feeling of her insides plunging intensified, and Twilight hastily replied, “N-no! I-I mean, I was just trying to call out those readers who acted that way! I didn’t—I mean, I-I didn’t say all of you were like that—”
“‘If I had known every single mare and stallion in Ponyville would behave this way, this book would have remained a simple journal’,” he spoke in a regimented tone. Twilight recognized them as the very words she wrote in the new foreword, and her guts continued to be missing in action. “It seems as though the only ones who care about that message’,” he continued, and Twilight felt herself squirm, “‘are fillies and colts who see past our flaws as ponies and see the lessons we’ve learned for what they truly are. As it seems adult ponies are completely incapable of processing these lessons, this work is no longer suitable to be marketed towards you’.”
His voice was more than broken. It was shattered, strangled, as if it killed him just to say one word. It didn’t sound as though he’d read the foreword just to memorize and rehearse it here, as Twilight would have guessed at first, but sounded more as though those words were now an unwilling part of him. He sounded as though he’d been forced to read that single page a thousand times, and hated every second of it.
“No!” Twilight suddenly belted out. “No, no, no! I didn’t mean that! I just—I, I picked a bad moment to write that! I was still frustrated and stressed! I-I never should have put it in without looking it over! I was . . . I-I was more focused on getting the message out! I didn’t think how it would sound—”
“You’re right!” the stallion snapped back. “You didn’t think! You didn’t think there might be some fans out there who actually care!” The tears returned with a vengeance. “You just wanted to teach us a lesson! To punish us all for the sins of the few! Well, we’ve all been punished! We didn’t deserve it, but you punished us anyway! I hope you’re happy!!”
And in a burst of wind, the Pegasus spread his wings and raced down the alley. He took off toward the sky, leaving Twilight Sparkle in a dumbstruck daze.
“Oh, dear Celestia . . . I never thought . . .” Twilight mumbled and stared at the spot the stallion had been standing in moments earlier. Confused thoughts twisted and sparked in her head like loose livewires, a chaotic mess of heat and pain.
“I have to do something,” she said after a long pause, “something that shows them I never meant to hurt them. That foreword was meant to get a message through, but . . . I said a lot more than they should have heard. I . . . they didn’t . . . oh, no . . . .” Twilight swiveled on the spot, her insides finally returning and spinning inside her, and collapsed again, leaning against the building in the same spot the stallion had been sobbing in moments before.
Twilight often wondered how awkward printing a retraction would be. Feeling it firsthand was not what she’d had in mind.
“Thanks for helping out today, girls,” Twilight spoke up to fill the unpleasant void. “I don’t know how I could have done this without your help.”
“No prob, Billy Bob!” Pinkie Pie chirped as she hopped along, pulling a large red wagon behind her. Taped to the side of the wagon was a strip of paper sporting the phrase “OLD COPIES”.
“Well, after a stumble like that, I ain’t surprised you’d wanna clear the air as soon as possible,” Applejack added, pulling a spare wagon.
“Oh, naturally, darling!” Rarity said as she trotted briskly with them, a stack of half-off coupons floating next to her. “Even though your actions weren’t exactly genteel, you had the best intentions. You simply wanted your work to be appreciated. I certainly know how that feels.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Fluttershy spoke up next to Rarity, “is your boutique doing okay? After that boycott, you seemed like you’d be struggling.”
“Oh, far better than I thought!” Rarity replied with zeal. “I think ponies are starting to get their heads together again and realize that mine is the only boutique in town. And that’s without all the generous mail-order purchases I’ve been getting from a mysterious customer. I don’t think I would have gotten through all of this without such loyal support from a faceless buyer! Goodness, I never thought I’d be caught up in a mystery like this!”
Twilight pulled on a weak smile for Rarity. After seeing her fall apart in response to her “critics”, it was still nice to see her back to her old effervescent self. Still, the circumstances wore away at her mask of a mood. I’m glad to see somepony’s bouncing back from this, she thought as she felt her heart wrench at the memory of the miserable stallion from the other day.
“Hey girls!” Rainbow Dash called down from above their heads. “That’s the place! Straight up the road and to the left! Grey Sky, right?”
Spike, who’d been riding in the spare wagon pulled by Applejack, checked his clipboard for names of customers who’d bought the second edition. “Hmm . . . yep! That’s the first name on the list, all right.”
“Well, let’s get started,” Twilight said, almost hearing the fake enthusiasm when she realized in split-second retrospect that she’d almost said, “Let’s get this over with”.
The six ponies and dragon made their way to the front door of Grey Sky’s house, and Twilight reached a hoof out and knocked. There was a brief pause that seemed to last an hour, and just as Twilight reached out to knock again, the door opened, and Grey Sky stood on the inside.
And Twilight saw her look of shock reflected at her from the same sandy, gray-maned stallion she’d caught crying days before.
“Umm . . . Mr. . . . Grey Sky?” Twilight spoke, stumbling over the words in her head.
Grey Sky nodded, his wide-eyed look of shock still plastered over his face.
“Umm . . . hello. I . . . that is to say, my friends and I . . . we’re currently going door-to-door to offer returns of the recent second edition of the Friendship Journal. I . . . made a terrible mistake in allowing that foreword to be published, and I’d like to offer a return of your copy and a coupon for a discount for the new, corrected version at your nearest bookstore. Are you . . . interested?” Her smile felt almost painful, it was so forced.
Grey Sky simply stood in the doorway, one hoof still on the door. His eyes had not shrunk even a bit, and his mouth, hung open, unconsciously closed with all the speed of an auditorium door. After a few seconds, his eyes shifted and he began to stammer, “I . . . I-I, uh . . . I guess so—”
“Did you come to admit how badly you hurt us?!”
Twilight jumped at the voice, and a quick look past Grey Sky almost made her jump again. Four ponies sat in the living room behind Grey Sky, each with varying expressions at their visitors. A smoke-gray Pegasus mare covered her face with her long black mane, muttering to herself. Two Earth Ponies, a mare and a stallion, contrasted in both their blue and orange coats and their nervous and fierce expressions, respectively. Twilight guessed the fierce-looking orange stallion had been the one speaking. Lastly, a Unicorn stallion, who seemed to have taken refuge behind a recliner, poked his ivory white horn and green eyes out from behind his hiding place, caught Rarity’s eye, and shrunk back like a frightened rodent.
“We . . .” Grey Sky began softly, “we were just . . . having our weekly book meeting. Ever since the book first came out, we’ve gotten together once a week to talk about it.”
Nopony dared make a sound, let alone a response. Finally, Twilight seized her courage and asked, “Well . . . what’d you think?”
“It was excellent until you started treating us like dung!” the Earth stallion snapped.
“Heat, please,” the Earth mare next to him muttered.
“Chilly, you can’t tell me you’re not upset!” the stallion bit back. “We loved that book, and now they want to snap our heads off for no reason?! Look at what that opening page did to Grey Sky! What it did to Rainfall! It took us three days to get her to leave her house!”
The Pegasus mare kept her face hidden behind her straight curtain of black mane as she spoke up, “I’m sorry . . . I just . . . didn’t know what to do . . . .”
“Everypony relax,” Grey Sky turned to tell them, “they’re not here to start anything with us now.” He turned back to Twilight and company with a furrowed brow. “You’re not, are you?”
“No!” Twilight cried, then continued more softly, “I-I mean, no, of course not. We just came to reverse the damage we . . . the damage I did . . . .” Twilight looked back at Grey Sky and his friends, her crushed heart manifesting into a look of dejection. “Did I hurt you that badly?”
The Earth stallion opened his mouth to speak, but the Earth mare jabbed him in the rib with an elbow.
Grey Sky took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Please, come in.”
He walked away from the door, and without even giving their mission a second thought, Twilight followed him. Fluttershy followed, glancing around the house until laying her eyes upon the soft-spoken Pegasus the others called Rainfall; Rainfall quickly looked away when their eyes met. Pinkie Pie and Applejack left the wagons outside and walked in with Spike. Rainbow Dash and Rarity came in last, with Rarity catching the hiding Unicorn stallion once again. She gave a benevolent smile and waved, but he’d vanished behind the chair before she’d even lifted her hoof.
“When you first saw me a few days ago,” Grey Sky began once everypony was inside, “I was crying. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. After I bought the second edition and read that new foreword, I’d spent that entire night crying. Just asking myself . . . why?”
“He came over to our house that night,” the Earth mare took over. “My brother Heat Stroke and I were sleeping, but when he told us how he was feeling, we couldn’t just shut him out. He’d been through depressed moments like this before.”
“All because of that new ‘bonus content’,” Heat Stroke snapped. “Grey is lucky Cold Chill and I are so nice. Which is a lot more than you ever gave us credit for.”
“Heat, stop it,” Cold Chill spat.
“They have it coming, Chilly.”
“No, they don’t! They were just trying to knock some sense into those mean bullies that think they’re fans!”
“Then they should have made it clearer who the real bullies are!”
“Guys!” Grey Sky yelled over them. “Not in front of our guests.” The emphasis made Twilight think the word had much more meaning than it normally did. He then continued with another sigh, “That journal helped us a lot. We learned so much about friendship. It taught Heat Stroke over there that humility is a virtue.”
Heat Stroke gave a loud snort before Grey Sky pressed on.
“And Heart Shard over there? He learned that strength comes in many forms. Mostly from that one chapter about the Diamond Dogs.”
The ivory Unicorn stallion poked his head out from behind the recliner, brushing a stray bang of cobalt mane from his eye and waving shyly at Rarity.
Grey Sky grinned. “He likes Rarity—uhh, Rarity’s lessons—the most.”
At this, Rarity gave a short gasp. “Darling,” she spoke to the recliner, “is . . . that true?”
At last, Heart Shard slowly revealed himself, slipping carefully out of his hiding place with his head down most of the time. “Umm . . . M-Miss-Miss Rarity?” he mumbled, his legs starting to tremble beneath him. “I . . . I-I just wanted to say that your lessons were my favorites, because I think you’re really nice, and smart, and sweet, and funny, and pretty, and good to your friends, and even if you are selfish sometimes, you don’t let it make you who you are, and you don’t get the love you deserve, and I was really upset when those guys were making fun of you, and I wanted to go to your boutique to cheer you up, but I saw you through the window and I was just so heartbroken at the way you reacted to them, and I wanted to do something to help you somehow so I—” At long last, Heart Shard’s verbal waterfall ceased, and he sucked his lips in and squeezed his eyes shut. His ruby-red face contrasted starkly with his white coat.
Rarity’s eyes widened, and she touched a hoof to her mouth. She crept up to him as he stood blushing and reached a hoof to his face, bringing it up to meet her warm gaze.
“Are you my mystery mail-order customer?” she asked, almost whispering it.
Heart Shard slowly opened his eyes, his face reddened even more when he saw Rarity’s face, and his head tilted down again. He gave a slow, jerky nod.
At this, Rarity squealed.
“Oh, darling, I can’t thank you enough!” she shrieked as she seized Heart Shard for a squeezing hug. “You helped me get through such troubled times! If you hadn’t been there for my business, I surely would have gone under! Oh, darling, thank you, thank you, thank you!” The last “thank you” came out in another ecstatic squeal.
“Uhh, Rarity?” Rainbow Dash spoke up from the air. “You don’t wanna strangle the poor guy, do you?”
“Don’t worry,” Grey Sky replied, shaking his head. “I think he’ll be fine.”
As Rarity brought herself back to peace, she looked down at Heart Shard; he dangled from her forelegs with traces of his blush remaining on his cheeks and his eyes taking the shape of dancing hearts. Though he was breathing, it seemed hard to tell for sure.
“Oh, dear!” Rarity yelped, releasing him. “My sincerest apologies. I . . . tend to get a bit emotional every now and again. You understand, don’t you?”
As Heart Shard stumbled on the spot and nodded with a fluttering moan, Grey Sky continued his story. “And Rainfall? What Heat Stroke said earlier was true. She was in an even deeper crying fit than I was. She’d locked herself inside her house and refused to come out for three days. All because she thought her heroes had hurt her feelings.”
“I . . . I-I’m sorry,” Rainfall mumbled, barely above a whisper, “but I . . . I just didn’t understand why you’d say all those mean things to your fans. I know I’m not a perfect fan, but . . . I . . . .” The tears already began to well up behind her glasses. “I just . . . I wish I was a strong as Fluttershy!”
Twilight glanced up at Rainbow Dash with a pre-prepared reproachful glare. Dash looked back down at her with wide, indignant eyes. “What? I didn’t say anything!”
“Yet,” Twilight snapped.
“Me?” Fluttershy replied. “You want to be strong like me?”
“I do.” Rainfall fought her tears, barely sounding fluid and coherent. “I have anxiety too. I can’t be out in public for any longer than a few minutes at a time. Sometimes, ponies make fun of me for being so nervous and scared. And I have trouble standing up for myself. That’s why I love your lessons best, Fluttershy. You taught me that it takes a long time to change, and sometimes you’ll stumble and fall and need to learn all over again, but it’s worth it. You may have had to go through that over and over, but you never gave up. And you’re better than ever.” Rainfalls finally brushed her black mane from her face, showing her adorable green eyes alight in the bright room. “You’re my hero, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy now began to show tears, as well, but a smile also crossed her lips. “Rainfall, I . . . oh, you don’t know how much that means to me. For you to see all that in me . . . for my story to give you courage to continue yours. That’s just so amazing, I could just cheer out loud for you!”
And with a precious grin, Fluttershy took a deep, hearty breath, and as if on cue, Rainfall mimicked her. When both mares were at the peak of their breaths, both cried out in calm, quiet elation:
“Yaaaaay!”
Both Pegasi then began to giggle wildly. Soon, Pinkie Pie joined them, making it hard to tell one laugh apart from the others.
“And after all that,” Grey Sky continued, sounding more somber now, “we were a mess. Whichever one of us wasn’t miserable was straight-up angry—”
“Angry at that clumsy, self-righteous, mean-spirited, degrading piece of shameless garbage—”
“Heat, stop it!” Cold Chill silenced her brother. She then turned to Twilight. “We were upset, yes, but we respected you enough not to go looking for you. I mean, we’re fans, but we know that you’re all real ponies with real lives. I mean, we’re not delusional. We know you’re not some characters in a show. Except for Grey Sky, we’ve lived here all our lives, so we know who you are. We knew we couldn’t just knock on your doors and bully you into changing the foreword.”
“Even though you darn well should have,” Heat Stroke snarled. “For you to tell me I act like those over-the-top idiot fans after all the love and respect I gave you—”
“Heat, back off!” Grey Sky stepped in with a growl of his own.
“No, no, please,” Twilight said, stepping between the two stallions. “I know he’s being abrasive, but he’s right.” She turned her attention to Heat Stroke and continued. “I know I’ve hurt you. But I want to make it right. Whatever you have to say, I can take it. It’s . . . it’s what I need to hear.”
Twilight resisted the urge to close her eyes. This needed to be experienced in full. She looked up at the fiery-eyed orange stallion and prepared for his rant.
“Yeah, sure, we complained,” Heat Stroke said, sounding much more placid than Twilight was expecting. “I mean, one meeting, we talked about that one entry with Fluttershy and that minotaur, and I got so into it, I made Rainfall cry. I spent hours trying to tell her I was sorry . . . I still feel awful about it . . . so yeah, we get kinda crazy, but it was in the hopes you’d never make the same mistakes again, so we could keep supporting you.” And for the first time since the six mares walked in the door, Heat Stroke took his eyes away from Twilight as he spoke to her, “Insulting and generalizing us makes us not wanna support you. You talk a good game about lessons, but the way you treat us, you make it seem like we’re not capable of learning anything at all. You say these lessons are so important, and yet you think we can’t learn them anyway? What’s even the point? The only ‘lesson’ this taught me is that you hate us and want us gone.”
At last, Twilight closed her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “I never meant to give you that impression,” she said, trying to keep her voice from breaking. “I don’t hate you. I just wish you’d treat us with more respect.”
“Respect is a two-way street, princess,” Heat Stroke replied bitterly. “Or at least common decency for someone who’s not completely fanatical. And believe me, I could be. I could have done what Chilly said earlier and camped out all night in front of your palace, just so I could bang on your door and demand to see you and call you out for what you said about us.”
“Why didn’t you?” Twilight felt a vague sense of regret asking that question.
“Because I’m proving that I’m not like them,” Heat responded. Once again, his eyes were pointed away from Twilight, this time down at the floor. “I’m better than them. I may be angry, but I’m not their angry.”
Twilight wanted to reply, but nothing came up. No rebuttal. Not even an agreement. Just the notion that there were some fans she’d punished before they’d even considered the crimes of which they’d been accused.
“Well, then there’s me,” Grey Sky pressed on. “Cold Chill said it earlier, that I’d only been living here three years. “
“That also means he’d never seen you without wings before, by the way,” Heat Stroke stepped in. “Being here for only three years, Princess Twilight is the only Twilight he’d ever known. So he’d never known the difference.”
Grey Sky nodded. “And I’d been living at home, not able to find work. Home life was bad. None of us really cared about each other anymore. We were always just so angry. I didn’t . . .” he looked away and swallowed, then took a shaky breath and looked back up, “I didn’t see a way out.”
Twilight gave a slight gasp, and heard much of the same from her friends behind her. She didn’t need to be a Princess of Friendship to know what that meant.
“So,” Grey Sky unsteadily continued, “when I finally got a job as a weather pony in Ponyville and moved out, I thought it would be a fresh start, but then I felt scared and alone because I didn’t have any friends. I’d seen Rainfall at work, Heart Shard worked at the café I went to after my shifts, and Chill and Heat worked at the shop closest to my station. We’d seen each other, but never really talked at first. Then over the years, we’d gotten to know each other a bit, but nothing too serious.
“Then the book came out.” Grey Sky paused to glance back at his friends, and each gave him a kind smile in return—even Heat Stroke, but just barely. “And it’s like it all just came together. We’d all seen each other reading it, and we’d talked about how amazing it was and how it was nothing like any book we’d ever read. We’d get together for discussions about it, and that first meeting . . . for the first time, I felt comfortable. Like I had somewhere I belonged . . . like a . . . .”
“Family?” Twilight asked. Grey Sky nodded.
“That book taught me so much,” he said, his tone weakening, “like how, above all else, friendship really is magic. I totally understood why so many ponies got so worked up about it, but I never understood why they let themselves get that carried away. I mean, protesting outside somepony’s house? That’s just crazy!”
“Then why were you there?” Twilight asked. “You weren’t too far from the crowd I’d had to send home.”
“After I’d gotten myself together after crying, I’d gone to your palace to ask you some things. I’d hoped you didn’t mean everything you’d written in that foreword. But then hearing you yelling . . . you couldn’t be that angry for a reason you didn’t really believe . . . so, I just . . . broke down.”
“And that’s when you started yelling,” Twilight recounted. She hadn’t been the only one who’d meant what she said at the time.
“It just felt like . . . like all the love and support that I’d given you and your book . . . the book that saved me from my darkest moments . . . just didn’t matter anymore. It felt like you were too angry to realize what you’d done for us, and that we wanted you to be better ponies so you could continue helping others, like you helped me . . . and after all that investment, you’d written me off as just another fanatic . . . I spent so many hours asking myself why. Why would you hurt us so much? Why would you suddenly just not care? Why is it so wrong to want you to be better than you were before? Why would you consider me in the same boat as those disrespectful fanatics? Just . . . why?”
Grey Sky took another unsteady breath before continuing, “And I’d never mistreat any of you the way those other fans did. I understand why learning one lesson is hard for Fluttershy. I have no strong feelings about Rarity’s lessons, but I don’t hate her at all. And yeah, I did have solutions on how to avoid those mistakes you’d all made so you don’t do it again in the future, but only if you were willing to hear them.”
“But, darling, that’s not really the purpose of the journal,” Rarity chimed. “We made mistakes because we were just as lost and confused as you are.”
“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash added. “I mean, I’m pretty awesome . . . like, super amazing and all . . . but even I’m not perfect.”
“We never said you were perfect,” Grey Sky replied, now addressing all seven of them, looking from one face to the next as he spoke. “We’re just really passionate and invested in this wonderful story.” Twilight noticed Grey Sky’s friends all nodding behind him. “You’re our heroes, and we want to join you somehow on your journeys. Yeah, we get crazy every now and then, but that’s because we’re so excited to see what you’ll do next, and we want to help you get to the highest point of yourselves you can reach. Not the best ever in pony history, but the best you that you can be.”
Murmurs of agreement started around Grey Sky’s group. Heart Shard nodded, and Heat Stroke came up behind him to lay a friendly hoof on his shoulder.
“And we get like that because we’re your fans,” Grey Sky continued, tears now welling up in his brown doe eyes. “And you’ve given me—given us—so much joy, we feel like we owe you. Because . . .” he released a sob, and a gentle tap from Heat Stroke brought him together as his friends gathered around him.
“Because we love you.”
Cold Chill and Heart Shard murmured to each other and nodded. Heat Stroke clapped him on the back and cried, “You tell ‘em, man!” Rainfall was also sobbing a bit, and had taken off her glasses to wipe them dry.
Twilight couldn’t help but shed a tear herself.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” she spoke up, her voice breaking. “All this time, I’ve been angry . . . I didn’t stop to think that the worst of you were blinding me to the best of you. But you really are there. You’re kind, and loving, and respectful, and you know the meaning of friendship . . . and you really are the ponies I published this journal for. Not just because you want more, but because you want what we want: to be the best of ourselves.”
“Yes,” Grey Sky smiled, nodding and shaking loose another tear. “We just get carried away. It doesn’t make us bad ponies. We just want the best from you, and the best for you. That’s not bad or unreasonable. That’s being a fan.”
“You’re right,” Twilight said with a sniff. “And it wasn’t fair to paint you all with the same brush, or to make you feel like you’re all bad fans all the time. I’d lost sight of who you really are and what you’re really like.” She glanced back at her own friends, and each of them gave her a teary-eyed smile. Fluttershy dabbed at her eyes with her mane, Rarity wiped away a stray trail of mascara, and Pinkie blew her nose into a polka-dotted hanky like a trumpet blare. Twilight turned back to her best fans and asked, “Would you still like to give up your books? There’s a certain page in them that needs to be fixed.”
“I think I’ll keep mine,” Heat Stroke replied with a wry smile. “As a reminder if you ever pull something like this again.” He added a good-hearted chuckle that lessened the omen in his tone.
“I’ll give you mine,” Grey Sky offered, producing his book from under the cushion of the recliner. He held it out to Twilight and she enclosed it in a cloud of magic. “Anything for you guys,” he added with a warm smile.
“Thank you,” Twilight responded with the same warmth. She then opened the book to the foreword and looked over the dreaded words that had caused so much strife. “This book was published for you,” she mumbled as she looked it over again and again, hating herself with each word she read. “But,” she continued, looking up at Grey Sky and his friends, “this foreword wasn’t. I hope you understand that. And I’m sorry I made you think it was. I promise I won’t make such a neglectful mistake again.”
“It’s okay,” Grey Sky answered. “Despite everything, we know you’re still good ponies. And we still love you.”
Twilight smiled, her lips trembling, on the verge of more tears as she glanced back to the open foreword.
“You know . . . I never dreamed in a million years I’d be doing this . . . but this time, it warrants it.”
Twilight then used her magic to tear the foreword page out of the book, crumple it up, and throw it into the nearest wastebasket.
“And I have a lot of books to get back.”
Author's Note
5/31/2018 -- Returned to Fimfiction with some minor additions and rewrites to build on and justify Twilight's initial reaction. Also, an explanation for Spike's reaction to being asked about Starlight--in the episode this fic responds to, ~~Fans and Mistreatment~~ Fame and Misfortune, Spike did not appear in the episode at all, as if he didn't even exist. Since he would have served the exact purpose Starlight served in that episode, and would have done it better, the roles are reversed here, with Spike being the helpful sidekick, and Starlight not appearing as if she never existed. Hence the "Who?" reaction. It was meant to be a joke/reference/deconstruction, but since this explanation has been written, clearly it didn't work.
I hope the rewrites have improved the story.
Well, if you can call these "improvements". Because let's be real here: I'm not a good writer and I'm incapable of improving. So I guess I really hope this story is less intolerable.
