Princess Twilight Sparkle was going to give a speech. She was going to give it at the Summer Sun Celebration. And Star Tracker knew that it was going to be the most amazing, insightful, perfect thing he’d ever hear.
And he woke up that morning, and part of him wanted to go into the bathroom and lie there in the dark until it was all over.
This was Princess Twilight Sparkle they were talking about. The Princess Twilight Sparkle. She’d saved the world so many times, she was a brilliant scholar and a fair princess, and she was still humble enough to come and give a speech to a horde of ponies she had never met before. Talk to them. Make them feel special and wanted, as if they were all her friends.
He had met her once on a cruise. Got to talk to her. Got to help her. And she only lost her temper at him once, and that was understandable because he was himself and she was her.
There were the other princesses, locked away in their castles, untouched by the mortal crowd. Even when they spoke, they didn’t talk so much as dictate - so far above everypony else that they seemed hardly to weigh her down, and that was fine. They were princesses, and that was a fine way to be.
But then there was Princess Twilight Sparkle.
Princess Twilight Sparkle.
He wanted to get two copies of the Friendship Journal autographed. He had the journals and the carefully-sealed inkpot and carefully-protected quill and his good-looking-but-slightly-impractical set of saddlebags with him and everything. There was the worn out, incredibly battered one he carried around with him everywhere, and there was the pristine copy that he had barely touched. He needed the pristine copy because he wanted everypony to be impressed when he pulled out the perfect lesson for the perfect situation, and it needed to be as crisp as possible for ponies to understand the gravity of the problem because a half-tattered and crumbling copy wouldn’t look impressive at all.
But he needed the older copy, too, because that was the one he actually read. Every day. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to memorize the whole thing cover to cover, because there was so much there to think about, but it was definitely something he needed to try. For the sake of the ponies he knew, for the sake of the ponies he’d meet, for the sake of everypony who understood how important those lessons were and everypony who could benefit from their wisdom.
For her sake.
Of course, he wasn’t sure if he could actually bring both copies with him. Or one copy, for that matter. Or whether she’d be talking to anypony else, or signing anything at all. Come to think of it, she probably wouldn’t be, because there was that whole ugly thing about collector’s editions and consumer complaints and friendship philosophy and roundtable discussions by a bunch of ponies that didn’t understand what they were talking about.
Or maybe he was the one who didn’t understand what he was talking about. That was possible, too. Could be the heat exhaustion talking.
After all, he’d been standing in front of the speaking podium for close to an hour and a half now. Didn’t want other ponies to crowd her out too much. Wanted to see her as best he could from around the reserved spots. If the ponies in the reserved spots blocked him out, that was fine, too. She probably didn’t want to see him.
Maybe it would have been better if she didn’t? He needed to…
Wanted to get the copies. Couldn’t need it. Needing would be too desperate. Had to accept that it might not happen, probably wouldn’t happen, it probably wouldn’t even really be on the table in the first place, but that was fine. She was busy. Couldn’t be bothered. Probably couldn’t be bothered. That was fine.
“Excuse me,” said a colt to his right, mane like denim and a coat like a spotless sky. Handsome colt. Not for him, of course, but probably handsome for the princess. She liked blue manes, right?
“Yeah?” Star Tracker responded, trying not to worry over whether he should have dyed his mane.
“Is this spot taken?” The colt said, gesturing to the patch of grass next to him.
Star Tracker shook his head. “No! Absolutely not, don’t worry.”
“Thanks,” the colt replied with a grin. “She’s speaking at noon, right?”
“Yeah!” Star Tracker beamed. “W-wanted to make sure I was in the right spot, was all.”
“That’s still a half an hour from now, isn’t it? You’re a pretty dedicated pony.” The stranger offered his hoof. “My name’s Noteworthy. Pardon the pun.”
What pun? “Nice to meet you.” Star Tracker replied, shaking his hoof. “I’m Star Tracker.”
“You follow celebrity gossip or something?” Noteworthy smirked. Fifty percent of Star Tracker knew it was supposed to be a jokesy comment, and wanted to reply with a laugh and a glib comment. The other fifty percent wanted to punch this Noteworthy guy in his smug jerk face.
“Astronomy, actually. Research assistant.” Star Tracker giggled nervously. “But I get that a lot.”
“I bet.” Noteworthy replied, trampling the grass beneath him a little to make it more comfortable. As if the grass wasn’t good enough for him, Star Tracker thought. What, did he think the princesses didn’t know the right spot to-
No. Got to calm down. I’m going overboard,Star Tracker realized. This Noteworthy guy was probably just as excited to see Princess Twilight Sparkle as he was. He didn’t mean anything bad by it, in any case. Not everypony would be comfortable standing out in the sun for a half an hour, much less two hours, waiting for somepony to give a speech. That would be silly.
Star Tracker was a silly pony, and he was aware of the possibility that Princess Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t like silly ponies. Or only like some silly ponies, in any case. Maybe he should have waited longer before coming out here?
Or what if the spots filled up? He could have waited tactically, in that case - wait for somepony else to look like they’d wait near the front, then swoop right in and grab the spot.
Where was everypony else, anyway? Were they all seriously busy with carnival rides and puppet shows and balloon animals and whatever else? They could always have fun later, but Princess Twilight Sparkle might only come once. This could be an actual factual once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear her speak. Or twice, in his case.
Wait, but what if that’d be it? Maybe he’d just get to hear her speak?
Hopefully that’d be good enough. It should be good enough. For a normal pony, it’d be good enough. Star Tracker grew keenly aware of the idea that he wasn’t a normal pony, and probably never would be. But it wasn’t the good kind of abnormal, and —
What was the princess doing, anyway? Were all the princesses doing something together? Is that something they normally did? Or maybe she just wanted to have a bit of fun. That made perfect sense. She deserved to have fun, absolutely, totally. If anypony deserved to have fun, it was her. And it would probably be fun for him, too, to hear her speech. It would probably be a fun speech.
Would Noteworthy have fun, too? Star Tracker thought, turning his head toward —
Oh, for crying out loud. He was humming. Probably thought he was humming under his breath or something, but this was very much over his breath right now, thank you very much. And it wasn’t a tune Star Tracker recognized. Star Tracker let one ear flick in Noteworthy’s direction, discreetly trying to listen in a little better.
Nope. Still didn’t recognize the song. He could ask, of course, but what if Noteworthy got mad for interrupting him? Or what if he wanted to talk about it? They could end up talking all the way up until Princess Twilight Sparkle was here. Get him totally distracted from the speech, and probably everypony in the audience would glare at them, and it’d be incredibly rude and at that point it’d be best for him to just keel over and die.
Still, he had to know. Star Tracker tilted his head a little towards Noteworthy, looking out of the corner of his eye…
Oh, thank goodness. Noteworthy had his eyes closed. Probably was really getting into whatever he was humming, and that suited Star Tracker just fine. A closer and less eye-straining look told him that Noteworthy did, in fact, have a musically-related cutie mark.
So that’s what he meant about the pun. How in Equestria didn’t I get the joke? Star Tracker’s face flushed. If Princess Twilight Sparkle knew about this, she would probably think that he was the absolute dumbest pony right now. Hopefully she wouldn't find out. Hopefully he wouldn't be dumb until after she had left. Hopefully.
Star Tracker shook his head, looked back at the podium and tried to focus on Noteworthy’s humming. It was as good a way to block out the dumb thoughts as anything else. Besides, if he could just identify the song, then maybe he'd be able to feel a little less dumb. Of course, Noteworthy could have made it up on his own, because of his musician cutie mark and all that.
Right.
So dumb.
Still, Star Tracker kept an ear cocked and waited, trying not to think too much about the crowd filtering in behind them, waiting patiently for his nervous thoughts to subside and Princess Twilight Sparkle to arrive.
***************************
“...And so, once again, I’d love to welcome all of you to the Summer Sun Celebration!”
The crowd cheered. Star Tracker cheered, too, but just the right amount. Couldn’t overdo it. Couldn’t underdo it, either; only the perfect kind of applause and approved yelling would do. But, fortunately, he think he had it. Princess Twilight Sparkle was beaming, anyway, which meant that nopony was screwing it up at the very least, so if nothing else he wasn’t messing it up —
Wait. Wait, Princess Twilight Sparkle was walking off the podium. She was walking over to her group of friends. There wasn’t going to be any sort of meet-and-greet afterwards? Why didn’t anypony organize that sort of thing? Didn’t everypony want to talk to her?
Wait, maybe she didn’t want to talk to everypony.
Wait, what if she was leaving?
The crowd was dispersing, heading back towards the carnival booths and fairground rides and all the other needless distractions of the festival that had sprung up in the celebration’s wake. But there was no way he could have any of that. There had to be some reason why nopony was talking to her, it couldn’t just be that they wanted to do other things.
Trying not to look too long at anypony or anything in particular, Star Tracker adjusted his saddle bags and started walking over towards The Princess and her friends. He couldn’t see any royal guards, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there, or that there wasn’t some other magic in place. But he couldn’t lose her, either, so he tried to keep his gait perfectly even as he followed her.
Perfectly natural. They were talking to each other. The pink one — Pinkie Pie, if he remembered correctly — said something funny, and they all laughed. He was practically within calling-out distance, now. Heck, it might even look like a bit of a surprise, a chance meeting, him running into her like this.
The orange one — Applejack, definitely — leaned over and said something in Twilight’s ear. Gossiping, of course. That was the wonderful thing about the Mane 6: deep down, they were ponies, just like everypony else. Amazing, wonderful, incredibly talented ponies of course, especially —
“Can we help you with anything, pardner?”
Oh, crud.
Crud.
That was definitely Applejack staring suspiciously at him. That was definitely all of the rest of them turning to stare at him. This was definitely not the casual or natural way to meet up with the princess. This was definitely the exact opposite of good.
“P-Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Star Tracker mumbled. “Um.”
“Yes?” Twilight replied, stepping over to him.
Then her face lit up. Or maybe it was just a small smile, a formal smile, the sort of smile that normally gets used around polite company, but…
Wow.
“I...you look familiar.” Twilight said. “Have we met?”
“Airship.” Star Tracker squeaked. “Cruise. Um.”
“Oh! That’s right!” Twilight replied, smiling a bit wider. “You were my honorary family member for the day, weren’t you?”
If Star Tracker could have devoted the rest of the day to just memorizing the way she said that, he would have. Just the cadence of her memory, the way she was looking at him, it…
This was incredible.
“Mhm.” Star Tracker tucked his head into the saddlebags, pulled out the two copies of the friendship journal with his teeth and set them on the ground in front of him - the impressive-looking version on top, of course, so that it wouldn’t get scuffed up by grass stains or anything. “I, uh. I know you don’t —”
“If you’re looking to have your copies signed, dear, I’m afraid we’re not in the practice of that anymore.” Rarity — it was Rarity, right? — glared at him. “We’re not interested in enabling scalpers-”
“Not scalping! Please! I promise!” Star Tracker begged, fully aware of just how pathetic he must have sounded. “The g-good looking copy, I, I only wanted to keep it out on a table so I could reference it when I needed to help solve a friendship problem for my friends! A-and I wanted it to look official and sound official and, um, it...so…”
“And the other book?” Twilight probed, eyeing the battered and slightly misshapen copy.
“I’ve read that one.” Star Tracker admitted. “A lot.”
Twilight shook her head. Her horn glowed, and she pulled the older copy out from the pristine one, sending the fresh and impressive-looking journal tumbling to the ground with a muffled thump. If it were anypony else — almost anypony else, really, he couldn’t blame any of the rest of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s friends either — he would have been furious. But…
“I don’t suppose you have any ink on you? Mister, um…”
“Star Tracker! It’s just Star Tracker, don’t worry.” Star Tracker stifled a wide-eyed laugh, turned back to the saddlebags and pulled out the pot and quill so fast that he almost gave himself whiplash. He set them down in front of the Princess, stifled another giggle and looked back up at her. “S-sorry, ah. I get, um. I laugh when I get nervous sometimes, it’s a thing.”
“It’s okay.” Twilight’s horn glowed a little brighter, and the quill rose into the air as the inkpot uncorked itself.
“Twi, you ain’t gotta do this.” Applejack huffed.
“I do, Applejack.” Twilight replied with a little smile. Opening the battered copy up to its front page, Twilight dipped the quill nib in the ink, lifted it over to the book page and began to write. “How often do you read the book, Star Tracker?”
“E-every day!” Star Tracker replied. “I-I’m trying to memorize it, um. I think it’s really good reading! There’s a lot of, a lot of lessons I want to learn from it so I can know-know them, but I’m not really good at memorizing them all, aheh. So I just want to keep reading and reading until I, y’know.”
“Oh?” Twilight kept writing. “Then you know that you shouldn’t try to impress someone with a fancy book cover, don’t you? That it’s what’s inside of it that counts?”
Star Tracker’s ears flicked back as his head drooped. “I just wanted to impress you, Princess.”
“And I’m flattered! But you don’t need to ignore your lessons to look good in front of me. We’re just ponies, you know? We’re not perfect.” Twilight pulled the quill away, shook the last few drops of ink off of it and resealed the ink pot. “I’m sure that if you show everypony this copy, they’ll be impressed by how much you’ve paid attention to it. Probably more than if you had a fresh-looking copy!”
“You’re. You’re right.” Star Tracker mumbled, forcing a grin. “I’ll do that, then. Thank you, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
“You’re welcome. Enjoy the festival, okay?” Twilight replied, lifting the writing tools and both copies of the book and setting them back in Star Tracker’s saddle bags.
“Yeah! Yeah, I’ll go do that. H-have an awesome day!” Star Tracker replied, waving. Then, before Princess Twilight Sparkle could say anything else, he turned and walked back to the festival.
Back through the festival.
Back out of the festival. Who needed to go on rides or see contests or anything like that? This was a much more important thing. This…
Star Tracker broke out into a run as he skittered past crowds and around throngs of chattering ponies, and didn’t stop until he was at the Ponyville train station. Doing his best to not make eye contact with the tellers or the ponies at the information kiosks, Star Tracker bobbed and weaved through the throng around the trains and darted into the bathrooms.
He was lucky. So lucky. There was an open stall, and it was clean, and it had a working lock and that was all he really needed. Shutting himself inside, Star Tracker pulled out his copies of the friendship journal.
Ruined. The clean one was totally ruined. Except it wasn’t actually all that ruined, it looked mostly fine, there was barely any sign that it had been dumped unceremoniously on the ground at all, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered and the principle was that it was ruined.
But he still had a signed copy. Hooves trembling, Star Tracker opened the front page.
Star,
It was great running into you again. I’m glad that you’re trying to take my friendship lessons to heart, and I hope we’ll get a chance to talk a little bit more the next time you see me. I always make a little bit of time for my family — including honorary family.
Yours,
Twilight Sparkle.
Star Tracker blinked, hooves trembling. It. He. He was still honorary family to her, even though they had only been on the same ship once, even though they had only really met twice, She wouldn’t mind talking to him again, and…
And he had made a fool out of himself, and absolutely forgot the totally most important friendship lesson that should have been completely easy to remember and he should have remembered he should have and now all of the elements of harmony knew he was a complete idiot and —
Star Tracker set his copy of the friendship journal down, opened the toilet lid and vomited.
