Friendly Fire

by Aragon

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, Young Six, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Starlight Glimmer
Length: 11476

The School of Friendship is burning down. Happy holidays.

The School of Friendship is burning down.

Happy holidays.

Written for GaPJaxie as part of the Jinglemas 2018 event. Edited by MrNumbers, Pearple Prose, Undome Tinwe, and R5h

Patreon. Ko-fi. Picture of me looking handsome

Published 2018-12-30 17:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2018-12-30 17:20:02 UTC

It Is Literally Impossible to Be Too Cool for School Now

“Twilight?” Starlight Glimmer asked as the snow fell around them. Twilight was by her side, but she only looked straight ahead.

Twilight replied in kind. “Starlight.” Neither looked at each other as they talked.

“Do you think we might be a little too good at our jobs?”

In front of them, the School of Friendship was on fire. Purple-pink flames rose towards the sky, melting the snow around it, filling the air with the smell of smoke and burned wood.

Twilight squinted. “Clearly,” she said, looking at Starlight, “we are.”

This is a story about fire, and the dumb things teenagers do.

“And we’re skipping class! Wooo! Wooohooo!”

Case in point.

Sugarcube Corner was lovely this time of the year. Little lights hung from the walls—red, and white, and yellow, and blue—the air smelled like cinnamon, and over the sound of chit-chatter you could hear soft music. It was pretty in that way that signalled the place was too expensive for you, but everything was so cozy you’d stay anyway.

Winter was cold enough in Ponyville for ponies to prefer staying indoors during the evening; the Cakes, who were wonderful characters but also the kind of entrepreneurs who lived in the same town as the Apples and still managed to sell baked goods, had recognized that as a business opportunity.

So Sugarcube Corner turned into less of a bakery and more of a café this time of the year. The place was full of cozy wooden tables and hot chocolate mugs; couples and families alike came here every day to laze the afternoon away and maybe get a little sugar overdose for luck.

And in the middle of this postcard scene of warm colors and fuzzy feelings, sitting at the biggest table the place could offer, was Silverstream.

Yelling.

“Acting irresponsible! Dodging our responsibilities! Wooooo! Let’s go!” She leaned to her left, where Sandbar was sitting, and let a grin make it to her face. She had a beak; it was physically impossible for her to smile—but she did it anyway. “I love loudly exclaiming what we’re currently doing! It makes everything feel so much more fun.”

Sandbar smiled at her. He had a peculiar smile, one that felt both droopy and genuine at the same time. “It doooes,” he said. “Totally.”

“Yeah! WOOO! TRUANCY! REBELLIOUS MISDEMEANOR!”

“Um, Silverstream?” Ocellus was by Sandbar’s left. She was too small to reach the table properly when sitting, so she was standing on her seat, and leaning over the table, and she was looking around—Sugarcube Corner was full, and a lot of ponies were staring at them. “Maybe you should be a little more discreet?”

“WHAT?”

After Silverstream’s screeching, Ocellus’ voice sounded minuscule. “We’re skipping class! I think it would be better to remain silent so nobody catches us?”

“YOU MEAN I SHOULDN’T GO PROUDLY ANNOUNCING THE FACT THAT WE’RE COMMITTING A CRIME?”

“Wait, is this a crime?” Smolder, also at the table, frowned and looked at Gallus. “For real? Is pony society so fragile that skipping school can actually get you in real trouble?”

Gallus shrugged. “Dunno. How do dragons deal with teenage rebellion?”

“We cheer for the teenagers and then urge them to defeat their parents in single combat.”

“Yeah I think ponies don’t do that.”

“But it would be cooool if we did!” Sandbar suddenly joined their little conversation from the other side of the table, goofy smile still on. “Although…” He frowned, and started rubbing his chin. “I don’t think I would be able to defeat my dad…” Squint. “Yet…”

“Right.” Gallus nodded at him, and then looked at Smolder again. “Yeah, ponies don’t do that.”

“Eh. Shame.”

“Is it?” Gallus was a cool dude: he sat while resting his elbow on the back of his chair. “I wouldn’t want to fight Headmare Twilight in single combat.”

“Yona would!” Yona smashed the table and made everybody flinch, a huge happy grin on her face. “Yona likes Headmare Sparkle, but Yona knows together we could probably smash her!”

“Single combat, Yona,” Smolder said.

“Yona doesn’t know what that is! Yona is a team player.”

“WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? IS IT MORE CRIMES?”

“Yes!” Yona said.

“No,” Gallus said.

“Why are you still yelling?” Ocellus asked.

“I DON’T KNOW! DO YOU THINK I SHOULD STOP?”

“I think it would be a good idea! We don’t want anybody catching us.” Ocellus looked around, wings buzzing slightly, as if she were ready to take flight any second now. “Not yelling about us skipping class would probably make it harder for everypony else in the bakery to know we’re skipping class.”

“Checks out,” Smolder said.

“THAT SOUNDS REASONABLE! Oh, hehe. Whoops!” Silverstream covered her mouth—beak?—with both claws, and then repeated, in a hush: “That sounds reasonable! I’ll stop screaming. Good idea, Ocellus!” And then she winked at the changeling.

Ocellus let out a deep breath, and then smiled. “Thank you!”

Silverstream nodded. “Now this will be the perfect crime!” She gave them all a thumbs up. “Even better! We’re so good at this.”

Smolder rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something—and then she gave another look at Silverstream’s claw, and the thumbs up. Then she blinked. “Wait,” she said. “Do hippogriffs have thumbs?” Looked at Gallus. “Do griffons have thumbs?”

They all looked at Gallus.

Gallus blinked, and looked at his claws. “I,” he said, “have no idea.”

Pause.

Silverstream stopped thumb-upping, and looked around the table. “So what are we actually talking about? You never really answered.”

“We did,” Smolder said.

“Yona did!” Yona said.

“We were talking about skipping class,” Gallus explained, "which may be a crime. We don’t know.” He glanced at Smolder. “Because ponies are weak.”

Smolder nodded. “They are.” Then she paused, and gave Sandbar an awkward smile. “But, uh. In a good way.”

“Thaaanks!”

“And also,” Gallus continued, “we were talking about fighting Headmare Twilight in single combat, which is definitely a crime, and also something ponies don’t do.”

“But it would be so cool if we did!”

“But it would be cool if they did, yes, thank you Sandbar.” Gallus looked around the table. “Anything else?”

“Yona wants to fight Headmare Twilight together! Yona has improved a lot in her smashing lately.” Yona nodded to herself, pride in her face. “Yona is better than ever.”

Gallus nodded. “Right. That’s even more of a crime if anything. The fighting Twilight, not the smashing, which is a completely different topic altogether. And I think that’s all we were talking about?” Nobody else said anything, so he nodded again, and looked at Silverstream, smirk on his face. “That’s all we were talking about. You’re welcome.”

“Thank you!” Silverstream said, clapping a little and fluttering her wings.

And Ocellus sighed and looked down. She was still standing on her seat rather than sitting on it, so everybody could see it. “We should be in class right now,” she said.

Gallus chuckled a little and scooted over closer, elbowing her slightly. “Hey,” he said. “There’s no need to worry! They won’t catch us. This is the perfect crime, remember?”

“It is!” Silverstream said. “It is the perfect crime! I said that too!”

“Yeah, Silverstream said that too. They won’t catch us anytime soon. And we have to celebrate!” Gallus couldn’t hide the goofy smile that made it to his face. “This is our last break, guys! Once we come back, it’s one last push and we’ll have graduated!”

“Yona wants to graduate too!”

“WOOOOO!”

“Yeeeah!” Sandbar rose a hoof in the air and waved it up and down. “Let’s goooo!”

“I’ll dig not going to class anymore,” Smolder said after a moment, doing her best to look uninterested. It didn’t work: Silverstream reached over the table and caught her in a rib-crushing hug at the cry of ‘wooo, besties’ anyway.

“WOOOO! BESTIES!”

Yeah, like that.

And Ocellus, after seeing how everybody else was actually happy, relaxed her shoulders, and replied to Gallus’ smile with one on her own. “I suppose that is cause for celebration. We’re going to graduate!” She let out a tiny laugh. “Maybe this will be the last time we’re together like this in Hearth’s Warming Eve!”

“Yeah!” Gallus said. “Our last…!”

Pause.

His eyes widened. “Our last Hearth’s Warming Eve together,” he said. And then, again, but this time in a lower voice, looking down, talking to himself: “Our… last Hearth’s Warming Eve together.”

“So I think….” Sandbar was strange when he talked, because he did it slowly and his voice wasn’t particularly loud, but still everybody tended to shut up and listen when he opened his mouth. He had so much swagger, so much presence, that they listened anyway. “I think that skipping class is not a crime? Did we ever solve that one?”

“It’s not a crime!” From out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie popped up next to Sandbar, a little notebook in her hoof, pencil in her mouth. “Then again, we don’t really have any police in this town? We sort of fill that role ourselves. And skipping class will make us angry! So I guess it’s a crime, kind of?”

“Aaaah.” Sandbar nodded slowly and looked at Pinkie. “Okay. That makes sense.”

“It does!” Then Pinkie brandished her notebook. “May I take your order?”

“Sure!” Sandbar cleared his throat with a cough and then started pointing at the creatures at the table. “Smolder wants a sulphur-sapphire soda, Yona wants a hot chocolate, Ocellus wants tea, and wow I just noticed you are Professor Pinkie and you caught us skipping class.”

Pinkie was writing everything in her notebook. “Skipping… Class. Okay! Is that all?”

“Uh.” Sandbar looked around the table. Everybody was staring at Pinkie with eyes as wide as plates. Silverstream was still hugging Smolder. “Uuuuh. Two strawberry milkshakes for Gallus and me?”

“Sure!” Pinkie wrote that down too, and then closed the notebook and looked at Sandbar. “You totally forgot I work in here, didn’t you.”

Sandbar gulped. “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh.”

“I mean…” Smolder came to his rescue, gently pushing Silverstream away until the hippogriff let her go and returned to her seat. “In all fairness? It’s very hard to keep track on where you work at anymore, Professor Pinkie. Your schedule kinda makes no sense?”

“Hahah. It totally does! I’m just massively overworked.” Then she put the notebook down and looked around, and her giant trademark grin had a shade of authority that the students were sadly familiar with. It was the Responsible Grin, that one, and like any respectable teenager—they all hated it. “So! You’re all in trouble!”

Sandbar gulped again. “We are?” he asked.

“We are,” Smolder said.

“We are,” Gallus said.

“You totally are!” Pinkie said.

“Or… are they?” A second Pinkie said.

There was a pause.

There was a second Pinkie Pie standing behind the first Pinkie Pie. She was also carrying a little notebook, and a pencil in her mouth.

Ocellus’ seat was empty.

Professor Pinkie—the real one—squinted, and looked at her duplicate. “…Me?” she asked. “Is that you?”

“It is!” Pinkie Pie—the fake one—replied. She was clearly sweating. “It is me! And not a changeling!”

“Huh.” Professor Pinkie took a step back and cocked her head to the side, still squinting. “That does sound like something I’d say. But!” And she sat down on the floor and joined both hooves under her chin. “That’s not enough to fool me! How do you know you’re me, me?”

“Well.” Pinkie Pie mirrored Professor Pinkie’s body language perfectly. The only giveaway was the fact that she was still holding the notebook, and also that she was sweating bullets. “Because, uh… Who else would I be?”

“A changeling? A clone from the mirror pool? Big Macintosh’s girlfriend with a wig? I always thought we looked very similar!”

“Oh.” Pinkie—the fake one—blinked. “Well.”

“And Big Mac and I are cousins! Which makes that whole thing a bit weird? I don’t know if I should read too much into it. But it is a bit weird!” Pinkie shook her head. “And then there’s that story he has with Marble, too. It’s a whole mess!” Then Professor Pinkie blinked, and looked at the fake one. “Wait, what were we talking about?”

“Me not being a changeling.”

“Oooh, yeeeah! So you’re not?”

“I’m not! I mean, uh.” The fake Pinkie Pie coughed. “I-If I were a changeling, I, uh. I would turn into one of your friends! To try to fool you into thinking they—” she pointed at the table where everybody was seated—“aren’t skipping class.”

Professor Pinkie—the real one—nodded slowly. “Oookaaaay.”

“But I did not! Because I’m not a changeling.”

“Riiiiight.” Professor Pinkie never broke eye contact. “But then… who are you?”

“I am, uh.” The fake Pinkie gulped. “I’m… A Hearth’s Warming miracle?” She looked at her friends, and saw that Smolder was nodding and waving a claw in the air, egging her on. So the fake Pinkie looked at the real Professor Pinkie again. “So you can… go and enjoy the holidays? While I stay here and work?”

After saying that, the fake Pinkie bit her lip and waited.

The real Professor Pinkie stared at her double, squinting, eyes piercing like daggers.

By the table, Silverstream started to bite her claws.

And then Professor Pinkie’s ears perked up, and she got up with a jump. “That makes sense!” she said, spitting the pencil to the side and giving them all an extremely irresponsible grin. “Okay then! I’m leaving to enjoy the holiday with my friends!” Then she grabbed the notebook and gave it to the fake Pinkie. “Take this!”

“Uh.” The fake Pinkie took it. Now she had two notebooks. “Uuuh.”

“Okay!” Pinkie pointed at a big table with four ponies in it, by the corner. “That’s table number one! They want two cakes, a soda, a coffee, and two milkshakes! Then that one is table two, that’s three, four, five, and so on until that one! Which is table seventeen. It’s a very busy day! There’s three pies in the oven and the Cakes are out with the twins for the day. I’ll leave you in charge!” Then she waved a hoof at them. “Bye!”

And then she left.

She literally just straight up went to the door, waved at them one last time, and left.

There was a flash of green fire, and the fake Pinkie Pie turned back into Ocellus. She only had one notebook now.

There was a little pause, and then Gallus leaned over the table and looked at Ocellus. “Didn’t you have two of those two seconds ago?” he asked, pointing at the notebook.

Ocellus looked at it. “…Yes.”

“Where did the other one go?”

“I think it was just part of my hoof. Hoof?” Ocellus waved one of her legs. “I don’t know if these are hooves. The lower half of my leg? I turned it into a notebook and the rest of me was Pinkie.”

“Oh.” Gallus frowned. “Can you do that?”

“I have no idea! Do you have thumbs?”

“Good point. So.” Gallus looked at the door Pinkie had walked out of, and then back at Ocellus. “I can’t believe that worked.”

Ocellus gave him a shaky nod. “Me neither!”

“But that was by far,” and Gallus was extremely serious when he said this, “the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah!” Smoulder’s raggedy voice came and made everybody jump, but the dragoness was smiling, and went straight for Ocellus to give her a hug over the shoulders. “That was great!”

“Yona would have never thought of that! Changeling is a genius!”

“WOOO! OCELLUS!”

“That was pretty neeeeat,” Sandbar said.

“Eh, eheheh.” Ocellus, being shaken by Smolder—dragons weren’t very good at hugs—stuttered and looked down a little, but the goofy grin on her face rivalled Sandbar’s. “Thanks. I said the first thing that came to mind!”

“And it worked! You should use your brain more often,” Smolder said, lightly punching Ocellus on the arm. “You totally saved us.”

“I try! To use my brain.” Ocellus’ grin got even bigger. “I’m glad to see it worked!”

Pause.

“It really shouldn’t have worked, though.”

“Nah.”

“No.”

“Nu-uh.”

“No.”

“Like, at all,” Gallus said.

“But it did! Which is all that matters!” Silverstream joined the Smolder-Ocellus hug, and she seemed to be the only one who was happy about it. “And now we get to enjoy the rest of our last Hearth’s Warming Eve without any distractions! WE ARE SO GOOD AT—”

“Uh, excuse me?” A random green mare, all the way from table number three following Pinkie’s system, made it to their table and poked Ocellus on the shoulder. “I’m very sorry, but I heard you’re in charge now? And we’ve been waiting on our drinks for a long time. So, uh, if you could hurry up a little…?”

All six teenagers stared at the mare for a moment before turning to look at each other.

“Ah.” Silverstream was the first one to speak. She usually was. “Did we…?” She cocked her head to the side. “Did we just accidentally get a job?”

“Well, I don’t know, young lady, but I’m thirsty.” The green mare shrugged, and then went back to her table. “So get to it!”

So they were left alone.

“Do we…” Sandbar squinted, still seated. “Do we work now or…?”

Yona rose a hoof in the air to shut him up, and loudly sniffed the air. “What is that smell?” she asked. “Yona smells burning!”

Pause.

“OH MY GOSH, THE PIES IN THE OVEN!”

“RUN!”

And they all scrambled to the kitchen, eyes wide as plates, moves jittery with panic, knocking chairs down as they went by, brushing by the customers waiting in Sugarcube Corner.

All of them except for Gallus, who was frowning, and looking at the ground, lost in thought.

“Our last Hearth’s Warming Eve…”

“GALLUS! WE NEED HELP!”

“Ah!” And then he blinked, and came back to reality, and opened his wings. “Right! Sorry! I’m coming!”

He took flight, and away he went.

There’s beauty in fire. That was probably the worst of it all.

“Okay!” Ponyville didn’t have firefighters per se, but at some point somepony had given Mayor Mare a firefighter helmet and, like all politicians, she’d gone drunk with power. “We’re dealing with the Fire of Friendship here! We need to put out the source, or else there’ll be no end to the flames!”

“Okay!”

“Right.”

“We can probably do this!”

“That’s right, we can!” Literally nopony in the firefighter department had any training whatsoever. Mayor Mare still sounded like she believed her own words when she said that, and she took hold of the hose somepony had given her. “Together, there’s nothing we can’t do!”

“Woooo!”

“You go, Chief Mayor Mare!”

“Taking care of this fire will be easy-peasy as long as we work as a team!”

And a sudden burst of purple flames came from out of nowhere and rose from a part of the school that had been, up to this point, intact. It sounded like:

FLASH!

“Aaaand that’s the Headmare’s Office that just burned down.” Quite far away from the building, sitting down between Starlight and Twilight, Spike was scribbling on a massive roll of parchment. “So that’s most of the West Wing gone.”

“I had no idea the Fire of Friendship could grow like that,” Starlight said, as she looked at the wreckage. “In fact, I had no idea the Fire of Friendship could burn at all, now that we’re at it?”

“Well.” Spike looked at her from above his giant parchment. “To be honest, you didn’t know a lot about Hearth’s Warming Eve till very recently.”

“Well, yeah, but still.” Starlight pointed at the School of Friendship. Mayor Mare was trying to spray the flames with water, and absolutely failing at it. The rest of the firefighters were cheering her anyway. “If this is a possibility at all, how come we use it to decorate our trees? Isn’t that a little counter-productive?”

Twilight was also there, also furiously scribbling something on a piece of parchment. “It’s symbolic,” she muttered, never looking up, never pausing her quill as she spoke. “It grows slightly bigger when you’re being friendly around it. It fits the theme of the night.”

“And it looks pretty!” Spike added.

“Well. I guess you’re the holiday experts,” Starlight said. The purple fire reflected in her eyes. “But I still think it’s a little bit dangerous, all things considered?”

“Don’t get discouraged, guys!” In the background, Mayor Mare—face full of soot, but she was grinning anyway—looked at her troupe of completely ineffectual firefighters. “I know we can make it!”

“Wooo!”

“Yeah!”

“We love you, Chief Mayor Mare!”

FLASH!

“Aaand that was the cafeteria,” Spike muttered, writing while another section of the School of Friendship crumbled.

Starlight frowned. “You know, somepony should probably tell Mayor Mare that she’s making things worse? Like, I’m just saying.”

“I can’t understand how it all started,” Twilight muttered, scribbling. Her quill was moving so fast it looked like it, too, would catch fire soon. “Once we discovered the fire, the mere act of getting the students out in orderly fashion was enough to make the fire grow—but what caused the room to catch fire in the first place?”

“Maybe the tree fell over?” Spike asked.

“That shouldn’t be enough to cause a fire like this!”

In the distance: “Chief Mayor Mare! You can do it!”

“I know! Together, we can do anything!”

FLASH!

“Ah.” Spike went back to his parchment. “That was the gym right there.”

“…Nopony’s telling her she’s making it worse?” Starlight looked at Mayor Mare, then at Spike and Twilight. Then she nodded. “Nopony’s telling her she’s making it worse. Right.”

“There must have been an initial trigger, something that pushed the flame to be bigger than expected.” Twilight frowned, and her writing became more frantic, almost furious. “Then the ambient friendship held the flame for long enough for the curtains to catch fire, and it all went downhill from there.”

“I’m just saying, if one of us goes there and talks to her, the whole thing will be avoided in—ambient friendship?” Starlight’s tone changed as she blinked, and looked at Twilight again. “Ponyville has ambient friendship?”

“It does, actually!” Twilight finally stopped writing and looked at Starlight. She couldn’t contain a shy smile that had a little bit of bravado around the corners. “Highest levels in all of Equestria, according to Princess Celestia’s measurements.”

“Wow.”

“I know! We’re really good at our job.”

FLASH!

Part of the school crumbled down again, and silence followed.

Twilight and Starlight looked at Spike.

Spike nodded, and went back to writing on his parchment. “That was the auditorium, probably,” he said.

“Right.” Starlight looked at Twilight again. “Kinda feel like we worked our way up to failure, here?”

“Agreed.”

“What are you writing down anyway?”

“I’m trying to calculate what that initial trigger was!” Twilight said, frowning at all the notes she’d been taking until now. “Maybe if I can sort out the excess of friendship that caused it all to begin with we can come up with a way to douse the flames? Because Mayor Mare is trying, but she’s really not making a difference.”

In the distance, Mayor Mare screamed something reassuring again.

FLASH!

“Theatre,” Spike said.

“Yeah she’s really not making a difference,” Starlight muttered. “Which is, you know, why I said that we could maybe go there and talk to her? It would take at most three seconds, and—wait hold on.” She frowned, got closer to Twilight. “You’re calculating the initial trigger?”

“I am!”

“How?”

“Math!”

Starlight took a moment to think about it. “You do math?” she eventually asked.

“Sure!” Twilight smiled at her. Her eyes were bloodshot, but only slightly. “It’s basically magic but with numbers.” She shone her horn, and the parchment floated towards Starlight. “I’m trying to calculate what happened, but I’ve hit a roadblock.”

“You’re trying to..?” Starlight grabbed the parchment, but she stared at Twilight rather than reading it. “What? How?”

“With math!”

“But math doesn’t work that way? You can’t just randomly start writing down equations and then come up with a solution to a mystery. What are you even calculating? Like, where did you even get the numbers?” Starlight looked at the parchment. “That makes no… Uh… Huh. Huh.”

Twilight frowned. “What?”

“No, no, nothing, just…” Starlight leaned closer to the floating parchment. “You know, when you write it like this, it actually makes a lot of sense.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m good at my job.”

“Yeah! You are!”

FLASH!

Pause.

Spike blinked, saw that both Twilight and Starlight were staring at him, and then checked the School of Friendship before writing again. “Northern half of the student dorms are out,” he said. “Or at least most of them.”

Twilight looked at Starlight. “We really need to stop agreeing on things.”

“Yeah.”

FLASH!

“And that was the southern half!”

“Wow, we’re bad at this,” Starlight said, and then she focused on the parchment again. “You know, come to think of it, you only wrote down the ponies’ friendship values?”

Twilight’s ears perked up. “I did?”

“Yeah! See? At least if this constant means what I think it means.” Starlight pointed at one equation in the parchment. “See? You didn’t take into account the variance of the students we have? You have to at least double this value.”

“Right. Right!” Twilight sprung to her hooves and snatched the parchment off Starlight’s magic. “Of course! Thank you, Starlight!”

FLASH!

“Observatories,” Spike noted. Then he squinted as he looked a bit further into the distance. “And half of Mayor Mare’s mane.”

“OKAY! EVERYPONY! THIS MIGHT BE A BIT TOO BIG FOR US!”

“We still love you, Mayor Mare!”

“Let’s run away as a team!”

FLASH!

“Library,” Spike noted. Then he looked up. “Starlight, I didn’t know you knew math! That was really cool!”

“I don’t!” Starlight smiled at him, and then nodded at Twilight. “It was just very well written is all. Seriously, Twilight, that was impressive.”

“Thanks!” Twilight was furiously scribbling again, but this time there was a manic grin on her face. “But I wouldn’t have made it without you!”

FLASH!

“Oh, those were the Labs.”

“Right, yeah.” Starlight winced. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

“I’ve got it!” Twilight’s sudden yell made everybody jump in place—Spike almost dropped his quill. Twilight pretty much shoved the parchment into Starlight’s face, and spoke with a speed that made it clear that either she was very excited, or that she had finally lost it for real. “I’ve got it! It was a multicultural milestone!”

Starlight had to dodge the parchment before she could reply to Twilight. “Uh,” she said, glancing at Spike, who shrugged. “A… what?”

“A multicultural milestone! An act of total friendship between two different races!” Twilight started bouncing around. The fire of the school made her shadow long against the snow. “Can’t you see? The ambient friendship and our constant failure to not be perfect friends were enough to carry the rest of the fire—but the spark that started it all was two members of different races doing something wonderful for each other!”

“Ah.” Starlight frowned, and looked at the parchment. “Right. How… terrible?”

“It is! It’s also wonderful. But now we know what happened!” Twilight kept bouncing around them in a circle, doing her best Pinkie Pie impression. “And that means we can probably come up with a way to control it! As long as we don’t let anything remotely friendly happen near the fire, we can probably contain it before the whole town is—”

“HI GIRLS! IT’S ME, PINKIE PIE! THE FRIENDLIEST PONY YOU’VE EVER KNOWN!”

“—destroyed I don’t know why I even bother.” Twilight stopped bouncing and turned to the welcomer. “Hi, Pinkie Pie.”

“Hi, Twilight!” Pinkie came a-bouncing through the snow, at no point losing her signature grin. The purple flames of friendship gave her pink fur a blueish tint and made her eyes look absolutely terrifying. “Hi, Starlight! Hi, Spike! What’s going on?”

“The School of Friendship is on fire,” Starlight said.

“Oh, no!” Pinkie covered her mouth with a hoof and stared at the building, wide-eyed. “That’s terrible!”

Pause.

Pinkie leaned towards Starlight. “That’s terrible?” she whispered.

Starlight nodded. “That’s terrible.”

“Okay! Thanks.” Then Pinkie covered her mouth with the other hoof. “That’s terrible!” she said. “And why is the fire purple?”

Twilight sighed, and showed Pinkie the parchment. “Well, you see—”

“Oh?” Pinkie grabbed it and started reading it, her eyes darting around the page. “The Fire of Friendship? Gasp! A multicultural milestone?”

Spike frowned. “Seriously, is it that good?”

“Not really!” Pinkie replied, winking at him. “I’m just really good at math. No offense!”

“None taken,” Twilight said.

FLASH!

“But it’s pretty funny that a multicultural milestone caused this!” Pinkie said, putting the parchment down as Spike wrote that the Guidance Counsellor’s Office was done for, too. “Just earlier, I saw Sandbar and his friends at Sugarcube Corner! They were skipping class, so I made them work for free as punishment!”

Twilight blinked. “Pinkie, that’s not a punishment. That’s just enslaving our students.”

“Oh, wow, really?” Pinkie cocked her head to the side. “Is that a crime?”

“Yes.”

“How ironic!”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Twilight sighed. “And somepony should probably do something to get them to stop skipping class already.”

“I’m trying,” Starlight said from the side. “But—have you ever tried to be a guidance counsellor for teenagers? It’s like taming lions you can’t bite back!”

“Hahah.” Pinkie looked at Twilight. “Is that how taming lions works?”

“It’s reallynot.”

“I’ve been trying to come up with a way to discipline them, but so far nothing has worked.” Starlight rubbed her chin and glanced at Twilight. “Gallus and Smolder are impossible when they get together, and they influence the others, so… Maybe if we defeated them in single combat…?”

“Starlight.” Twilight’s tone was stern; her Headmare voice, in full force. “For the last time: that’s not how we do this.”

“It would be cool if you did, though,” Spike said.

“Yes, but I would absolutely crush them, and that would be devastating for their self-esteem! We want them to have a healthy development. They’re our students!” Twilight sighed.

“I don’t know, Twilight,” Starlight said. “Maybe if they all ganged up on you they’d stand a chance? Yona is a really good team player.”

“She is, and I’m proud of her, but this is really not the time or place for that, Starlight.” Twilight then looked at Pinkie, Thinking Face on. “Still… You said they were in Sugarcube Corner? What were they doing?”

“Having fun!” Pinkie said. “And Gallus was talking about committing crimes.”

“Did he look particularly happy?”

“Oh, definitely!”

“Hold on, what.” Starlight got between Pinkie and Twilight. “He was talking about what.”

“Committing crimes!” Pinkie said.

“And he looked happy while saying that…” Twilight said, looking back at her parchment. “Really happy… Almost as if something good had happened to him?”

“Twilight, is that really what we should be focusing on?”

“It is,” Twilight said. “Because we’re looking for a multicultural milestone, Starlight, and there are very few things in this town as multicultural as Gallus and his friends.” Then she squinted. “I think we’ve found our source.”

Ocellus at the counter, punching up orders. Smoulder and Silverstream in charge of baking and drinks, respectively—Gallus and Sandbar serving tables and taking orders. Yona taking care of the pantry.

Sugarcube Corner had never seen so many customers at once.

“And then!” Ocellus punched up the order Sandbar had handed her and then threw it backwards without looking; Smolder caught it on the fly. “I said, Gallus! You should come with me for Hearth’s Warming Eve! Spend it with my family!” She got so excited her wings started to buzz. “And he said okay! It was a real multicultural milestone.”

“And the Fire of Friendship grew so big it became an actual fire hazard,” Gallus added, mopping a table until it sparkled, just in time for two new customers to sit at it. He took his orders and then continued the story. “Then we turned around and left, and now we’re here.”

“Wooooow!” Sandbar was carrying three platters—one on his right hoof, the other on his head, the last one on his back. He didn’t spill a single drop of hot chocolate. “That’s such a great story! I love how it ends exactly at the right spot.”

“Yeah, it really does.”

Sandbar whipped his head to the side and the platter went flying; every glass landed right in front of the right customer. “So you’re going with Ocellus this break?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like I have anything better to do.” Without looking, Gallus extended a wing and caught a plate in the air right as the baby at table eight knocked it off with his elbow. “It’s not like there’s anything I want to see in Griffonstone anyhow.”

“Riiiight.”

“You could have come with me, too! Our holidays are great!” Silverstream popped up near them and put two drinks on the counter. Gallus took them. “These are for table one! No cream and decaf.”

“Thanks,” Gallus said, taking them. “And, thanks? But no, thanks.”

“You’re welcome! And also, you’re welcome again!”

“Yeah.” Gallus brought the drink for Carrot Top and her companion, and shrugged. “I mean, the invite is nice, but I don’t know how to breathe underwater, Silverstream.”

“Your loss!” she chirped.

“And before you say anything, Smolder!” Gallus got up on his hind legs and shouted at the kitchen, where Smolder was already looking in his direction and smirking. “Thank you, but the dragon lands sound horrible!”

“You’re a nerd!”

“You’re either going to eat me or bum me out with your stories! I rather not!” Gallus caught Ocellus’ look, and gave her a wink. “She knows I say it with love.”

“Well, your loss, then!” Smolder said. “I’ll just keep being the coolest creature in the group! Fine by me!”

“She’s just angry I said yes to you first,” Gallus whispered to Ocellus again. Ocellus giggled.

“I heard that!” Smolder yelled.

“I know you did! That’s why I said it.”

Ocellus giggled again.

“So…” Sandbar was back at the counter, carrying more platters with him. “You think the changeling Hearth’s Warming Eve will be fun?”

“Sure! I’ll be the second smartest one in the whole country, I’m down with that.”

Ocellus was attending a young filly asking for cakes at the counter, but she stopped the transaction to stare at Gallus. “Hey!”

“I said second smartest.”

Pause.

Ocellus smiled again, and nodded. “Oh! Okay, that’s fine then.” Then she looked at the filly. “Hi there, Sunny Strawberry! Do you want an apple fritter like always?”

“Mummy says you have to keep it a secret or else we’ll bring shame to our family! Also, yeah!”

“Okay then!” Smolder had already put the fritters in the counter by the time Ocellus said this, so the changeling just handled them to the filly. “Here you go!” She took her money. “Say hi to your Mom for me!”

“Okay! Thank you, Miss Ocellus!”

“Say.” Gallus watched the filly go as he kept on cleaning tables, and then turned to Ocellus. “How come we’ve got regulars if we’ve been doing this for, like, two hours?”

“I have no idea! I think we’re just really good at this.”

“Eh. I’m down with that.”

“I think you’d have fun at my place, too!” Sandbar put the last platter down in its place and then rested his elbows on the counter, grinning at Ocellus and Gallus. “I’m sure Mom wouldn’t mind you either. Dibs for next year!”

“Ooooh!” Ocellus buzzed her wings again. “Are we adopting Gallus now?”

Gallus immediately opened his eyes wide. “Do not.”

“Ooooh!” Sandbar sat down and clapped twice. “I think we aaaare!”

“Yes! Yona will be strong parent figure!” Yona popped her head from the pantry and looked at Gallus with a confident smile. “Yona will teach you how to be strong! And independent! And how to braid your feathers properly.”

“Okay, for the last time, that is not how feathers work, and you are not going to—”

“Joke’s on you, I’m stronger but haven’t tried to eat you yet.” Smolder made her way to the counter too, carrying two trays of pink cupcakes, cute as sin, and set them on the display. “By dragon standards, I’m an incredible parent already.”

“Right.” Gallus massaged the space between his eyes. “Right. Okay. So, can we stop with this dumb stuff already and go back to the main topic, or—”

His words died in his beak.

Ocellus wasn’t anywhere to be seen near the counter. In her place stood an old male griffon, staring intently at Gallus.

“Eat,” the griffon said, “your vegetables!”

Silence.

A burst of green fire, and the griffon turned back into Ocellus. She looked at her friends with a huge smile on her face. “Eh?” she asked. “Eh?”

Nobody said anything.

Silverstream popped her head from behind Smolder and gave Ocellus two big thumbs-up.

And Gallus shivered. “You just gave me the worst heart attack of my life.”

“You’re welcome!”

And, as if on cue, everybody went back to work.

“See, Gallus?” However, Ocellus was apparently not done with the conversation. With her taking care of the counter and Gallus serving tables, there were many chances for them to chitchat whenever the flow of customers slowed down. “There’s no need to be worried about being alone from now on!”

“Ah.” Gallus was at the moment serving a rather big family, who had felt the need to combine tables six and eight to make room for all of them. “Was it that obvious? Sir, do you want a napkin with that.”

“Yes,” said the sir.

“Yes!” said Ocellus.

“Here you go, then.” Then Gallus looked at Ocellus. “And, uh. There you go, then?”

“There I go!” Ocellus replied, smiling in that way that made it clear she had fangs still, but in a cute way. “Is Griffonstone really that bad during Hearth’s Warming Eve?”

“Griffonstone is bad period,” Gallus said, rolling his eyes as he gave the sir his napkin. The stallion looked mighty pleased. “But it’s particularly terrible during the Blue Moon festival, yeah.”

“But why? I heard Professor Pinkie and Professor Rainbow Dash taught the griffons to be friendly!”

“Oh, they did.” Gallus rose his claw and made a ‘V’ with two of his fingers at Silverstream. Silverstream saluted, and started preparing two milkshakes. “But that’s not the issue.”

“Then what’s the issue?” Ocellus asked.

“Well. For starters?” Gallus produced a cloth and started wiping table ten, since the customers had just left. “Griffons are terrible. So that’s the main one.”

“Gallus!” Silverstream flew to the counter and put the two milkshakes down. “Vanilla, extra cream, just like you said! Are you talking about how griffons are terrible?”

“Yes.”

“Oooh!” Silverstream did some happy little bunnyhops in place. “Are you saying hippogriffs are better?”

“No.”

“Oooh.” The bunnyhops stopped, and then immediately started again. “But do you think they’re better?”

“I don’t know,” Gallus said, frowning. “Are you a representative member of your race?”

“Yeah! Kind of?”

“Then yes, hippogriffs are better than griffons.”

“Wooo! Go us!” And Silverstream left to make some more drinks.

Sandbar, carrying three platters full of stuff again, stopped by Gallus and looked at Silverstream with his droopy face. “Wooow,” he said. “Go them.”

Gallus gave a half smile, and lightly punched Sandbar’s shoulder. “You tell ‘em, buddy.”

“But why are griffons terrible?” Ocellus asked, punching up more orders in the counter, getting money and throwing papers at Smolder as she talked. “Aside from the obvious.”

Gallus arched an eyebrow. “Obvious?”

“We’ve been friends for three years! I know how you function.”

“Right. I’m choosing to see that as a compliment,” Gallus said.

“It is!” Smolder yelled from the kitchens.

“And griffons are naturally mean? We’re naturally mean, I guess. We’re getting better, but…” Gallus shrugged, and started serving another table. “It’s a struggle.”

Ocellus nodded. “Right.”

Sandbar made a worried face. “Riiiiight.”

“But the Blue Moon festival? It is so much worse.” Gallus shuddered as he served an excitable little colt a slice of strawberry shortcake. “I don’t know if it’s genetic or what, but the moment you get two griffons together when it happens, it’s like they flip a switch? And...”

“Oh?” Ocellus leaned over the counter. “And?”

“And?” Sandbar’s eyes were so wide it looked like they couldn’t fit in his face.

“And?” Yona popped her head out from the pantry door. She was covered in flour. “What do they do?”

“They...” Gallus put on a spooky voice. He didn’t do it consciously, it just came out naturally given the topic at hand. “They start talking… politics!”

Yona, Ocellus, and Sandbar gasped at the same time.

And then Ocellus blinked, and stopped gasping. “Wait,” she said. “Griffons have politics?”

“Right, yes, see?” Gallus pointed at her. “That? That’s the worst of it all. We don’t! We all mind our own business! I think we might be the only race in the whole world without any kind of Government whatsoever?”

They all looked at Yona.

Yona frowned. “Yona doesn’t know what you mean,” she said. “Yakyakistan is a democratic constitutional monarchy.”

“Oh, right.”

“Ooooh.”

“Wait, yaks can read?” Gallus asked.

“Yaks read! Yaks not savages.” Yona nodded. “Now if you excuse Yona, Yona has to smash arbitrary stuff in pantry to quench inner barbarian rage.”

And she popped her head back into the pantry.

Ocellus frowned, and looked at Gallus. “Do you think we should look into that?”

“Nah.”

“Oh. Okay!”

“Waaait.” Sandbar was squinting at Gallus as he served one of the tables. “But if you have no government… how can you talk politics?”

“We talk about the politics of other species.” Gallus sighed. “We don’t even like other species. We’re just like that?”

“Woooow. That sounds rough.” Then Sandbar’s ears perked up, and he looked at table one, where a mare was raising a hoof and beckoning him. “Ah! I’m coming, yes!”

He went, and Gallus looked at Ocellus. “Uh,” he said. “Thanks for inviting me, by the way. I’m… really looking forward to spending Hearth’s Warming Eve with you and your family, actually. For real.”

“Oh, you’re welcome! I love Hearth’s Warming Eve. It’ll be so much fun!”

“Right.” Gallus rubbed the back of his neck and started mopping another empty table before continuing. “I… You know, Grandpa Gruff said I can attend the Blue Moon Festival with him if I want.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s gotten attached, he says.” Gallus waved a claw in the air dismissively. “Only, you know, not with those words. We griffons aren’t dumb like that.”

“Oh, yeah!” Smolder said, flying to the counter and leaving a big platter of croissants there so Gallus could pick them up. “It really shows in how you keep talking about your feelings right now, Gallus.”

Gallus glared at Smolder. “Oh, yeah. You got me. I’m not a tough guy.” He pointed at the platter. “In a completely unrelated matter, how are those ridiculously delicate croissants coming up, baddest girl in the land?”

“Great. Like anything I do!” Smolder blew Gallus a raspberry. “And so you know, croissants are different.”

“Can’t wait to hear why.”

“You can eat them! That’s why. It doesn’t matter if something is ridiculously delicate as long as it’s food.” Smolder crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at Gallus, triumphantly. “But feelings? Hah! You can’t eat that! So that’s a—”

“Ahem,” Ocellus said.

“—completely different wait hold on.” Smolder stopped staring and looked at Ocellus. “You feed on feelings?”

“I feed on love, yes.”

“And that’s a feeling?”

“Yes.”

Pause.

Smolder clicked her tongue and looked to the side. “Dang it.”

“Did you really ask if love is a feeling? Seriously?” Gallus looked at Ocellus, who just shrugged, and then back at Smolder. “Wait. Can dragons read?”

“Yes, yes, you got me. Har, har.” Smolder blew another raspberry at Gallus. “I guess you’re the baddest girl in the land in the end.”

Gallus arched an eyebrow. “I’m also choosing to see that as a compliment.”

“Shut up.”

“Gallus?” Ocellus leaned towards him as soon as Smolder left, since there were no clients approaching the counter at the moment. “You were saying? About Grandpa Gruff?”

“What? Ah! Uh.” Gallus rubbed the back of his neck again, and kept on wiping a table that was clearly clean already. “Well, yeah, he told me I can join them if I want to. But I said no, because, well.”

“Because griffons are terrible?” Ocellus wondered.

And Gallus shot her some fingerguns. “Now you’re getting it. The Blue Moon Festival is dumb. But also, uh…” Gallus had a beak; it was physically impossible for him to bite his lower lip. He still tried. “I don’t know if I want to… You know, we’re graduating soon, and…”

“OH MY GOSH!”

Silverstream’s shriek pierced ears all around, and immediately Ocellus and Gallus turned to look at her. The hippogriff was also popping her head out from the pantry, and she was also covered in flour. “Guys!” she yelled. “Yona has smashed the whole pantry!”

“What.”

“What?”

“And it looks great! Very fine craftsmanship.”

“Thank you.” Yona’s voice could be heard from inside the pantry. “Yona tried.”

“It shows! This is a really professional work.”

“WHAT?!” Smolder came from the kitchen, fire in her eyes, and dashed inside the pantry at top speed. “HOW DARE SHE?! I NEED THOSE TO BA—oh. Huh. This is some pretty good smashing, actually.”

“Yona has been trying to amp her repertoire lately.”

“You actually managed to smash the ceiling!” Silverstream said, popping back inside the pantry, and the hug could be heard from outside. “I’m so proud!”

Ocellus’ face was the definition of horror. “She’s… She’s trashed the pantry?” she asked, voice high-pitched.

“Correction,” Gallus said, raising a finger, teacher-like.

And Sandbar finished his sentence: “She’s trashed the pantry good!”

Sandbar and Gallus high-fived, going “Yeah!”

So, of course, it was at this moment that the door to Sugarcube Corner slammed open.

And Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie walked in.

“What is going on in here?!” Twilight was in full Headmare Mode: her voice was harsh, her eyes were steely, and her back was straight. “What are you doing? You can’t just come here and ruin Pinkie Pie’s wow wait this looks pretty nice.” Blink. Frown. “This looks pretty nice?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie came from behind Twilight and shook a hoof in the air. “You tell them, Twilight! Wait, what.”

“I have never seen Sugarcube Corner this busy!”

Pinkie blinked, and looked around.

Everything was clean.

All the tables were full.

The clients looked happy, and they were all eating and drinking the most expensive items in the menu.

So Pinkie shut her mouth. “Huh,” she said. “Huuuh.” Then she pushed Twilight aside and jumped over the corner. The moment Ocellus stepped aside, she checked the cash register.

Pause.

Pinkie looked at Ocellus. “Cover me and say I worked this shift and I write off this whole thing as extra credits.”

“Deal,” Gallus said.

“Deal!” Sandbar said.

“That sounds morally questionable?” Twilight said. “But this looks really nice! Where did you learn to run a business like this?”

“I don’t know!” Sandbar said, scratching his chin as he carried another platter full of drinks to table three. “It just seemed obvious?”

“They’re baking, too!” Pinkie had made her way to the kitchens and was waving at Twilight. “And it looks delicious! Look at these croissants!”

“They look wonderful, Pinkie!” Twilight yelled from the counter, and then she turned towards Gallus, Ocellus, and Sandbar. “The School of Friendship is on fire.”

“What!”

“What?”

“Oh, no!”

“Whaaaaat!” Pinkie popped her head out from the pantry. She was covered in flour. “Twilight! They even wrecked the pantry in just the right way! This is just the perfect amount of wasted ingredients!”

“Yona is glad you can all appreciate quality work.”

“You bet I can! I mean, this will cost us a lot of money and it’s actually awful, don’t get me wrong. But it looks great! And on top of that, you’re doing my job better than I ever did and oh I just made myself sad. Wow.”

“Guys.” Twilight looked at her students. “I’m afraid we don’t bring good news. Also, you were skipping classes, and we just caught you, by the way.”

Pinkie’s voice could still be heard from the pantry. “Are you any good at throwing parties?”

“I dabble!” Silverstream replied.

“Great! That’s actually even more depressing!”

“But now it’s not the time to talk about that.” Twilight waved a hoof. “More important things are happening. Come with me.” And her eyes hardened. “All of you.”

“Wait.” Gallus’ feathers looked almost pink in the glow of the purple fire that kept eating up the School of Friendship. “So we accidentally destroyed half of the building right before skipping classes?”

Twilight, sitting in the snow, nodded. “Yes.”

“But we did that because we’re the best at friendship?”

“Because you’re the best at a very particular kind of friendship, yes.”

“Right. So.” And Gallus squinted, and looked at Twilight. “Are we in trouble or not?”

Pause.

“Good question, actually!” Twilight looked at Starlight, who was by her side. “Are they in trouble?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“Right!” And Twilight looked at Gallus. “We’re still trying to figure that one out.”

“Gotcha.”

“We’ve trashed the entire school?” Smolder was hovering above Yona’s head, and she looked delighted. “That’s incredible!”

“Yona can’t believe this. Yona and friends just invented a new form of smashing!”

“Destruction through friendship!” Smolder offered her fist. “We’re the best!”

“Yeah!”

They bumped fist and hoof.

And Starlight, who had been looking at that, immediately turned to Gallus. “You know what? You are in trouble after all.”

“Agh.”

“Um.” Ocellus was standing closer to the fire than anybody else—answering, perhaps, to that old insectoid part of her that made flames look insanely attractive. “So, why aren’t we trying to douse the fire? And why are we here?”

“And can we roast marshmallows?!” Silverstream added.

“Oh, yeeah! Marshmallows!” Sandbar started nodding. “That sounds good!”

FLASH!

“Main hall out,” Spike muttered, by Twilight’s side. He was still scribbling on his parchment, and more than halfway through it already.

“Uh.” Gallus saw him. “What are you doing?”

“Listing everything that burns down!”

“...Why?”

“Twilight asked me to! She says knowing the exact source of your current problems helps with frustration when you can do nothing to solve them.”

“Aaah.” Gallus nodded. “Explains why she became an educator.”

“Mayor Mare came in earlier with their team of firefighters,” Twilight said, looking at Ocellus. “They only made it worse. They didn’t have enough water to put the fire out anyway.”

“Then what about the weather team? Maybe they could make it so it rains on top of the flames?”

Twilight shook her head. “The Ponyville Weather Patrol has been trained by Rainbow Dash herself! They’re incredible at teamwork. They’d only make the fire bigger.”

“Aaah.” Ocellus frowned. “Teamwork affects the Fire of Friendship?”

“It does! As well as politeness, agreements, and overall anything remotely nice or heartwarming.”

“...Then why is it called the Fire of Friendship?”

Starlight answered that one. “Because Clover the Clever herself named it!”

Ocellus nodded. “I see! I don’t get it.”

“She liked alliteration.”

“Ooooooh…”

“Hold on, are you learning stuff?” Gallus came closer to Ocellus and pushed her away from the fire. “Come on! We skipped class for a reason, Ocellus!”

“Ah!” Ocellus covered her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

“Here I’m trying to teach you how to be cooler, and you go and try to make yourself a nerd anyway.” Gallus was smiling while saying this, though, and Ocellus giggled after hearing it. Then he turned to Twilight and Starlight. “No offense.”

“Full offense.”

“You do realize we’re your teachers, right?”

HSALF!

Silence.

Everybody looked at Spike, who blinked, and didn’t write anything down. “The fire just shrank!” he said, pointing at the school. “Look! The student dorms aren’t on fire anymore!”

“What?” Starlight looked—and, for once, Spike was right. “Oh my gosh! Twilight!”

Twilight’s ears perked up, and her eyes were shining. “Yes,” she said. “Yes! This is exactly what I calculated earlier!” Then she jumped and hovered above them all—Smolder included—so they could all look at her. “Listen!” she said. “A multicultural milestone caused the fire to grow. We need to reverse that!”

“What?”

“How?”

“Hold on, don’t we have ambient friendship fueling the fire?” Starlight asked, frowning. “How is that going to work?”

“Well, the Fire of Friendship reacts more strongly to interactions between species. I assume the same happens to negative emotions!” Twilight frowned. “It’s either that or calling a Windigo, and I really don’t want to do that. They kind of eat ponies? It seems needlessly dangerous.” Then she blinked, and looked at Smolder. “No offense.”

“You mean for the needlessly dangerous line, or for the eating ponies line?”

“Uh.” Twilight squinted. “...Both?”

Smolder nodded. “Good! I took it as a compliment anyway.”

Gallus snorted. “Copycat.”

“It’s not copying if I improve it!”

FLASH!

Spike nodded, and wrote something down again. “There go the dorms again. Knew it wouldn’t last.”

“Right.” Twilight looked at her students again. “Looks like friendly banter will only make the problem worse! I need this sounds weird, but I need you to try not to be nice to each other for a little bit! At least until we can control the fire.”

“Oooh! Ooooh! Are we being bad now?!” Silverstream clapped and did some more bunnyhops. “Because Sandbar and I have been practicing after Smolder taught us to be scary!”

“I have one job,” Smolder muttered, looking at Yona, “but I do it right.”

“Yona has no clue what you’re talking about, but Yona admires your work ethic.”

“Yeah!” Sandbar nodded again. He was particularly good at nodding. “Silverstream has gotten really good at it! Silverstream, show them!”

“I will!” Silverstream then stopped jumping, cleared her throat with a cough, and frowned, unfolding her wings. “Graaaargh!” she said. Then she looked at Sandbar. “How was it?”

“It was great! I got really shivery!” Sandbar blinked, and looked around. “Or wait, maybe it was the snow. Are you cold, too?”

“I am!”

“Hahah. Me too.”

FLASH!

“Inner Garden’s out.”

Starlight looked at Twilight. “We’re totally going to die.”

“Every creature! Please!” Twilight was biting her lower lip. “I know this is difficult, but we really need to save the school! Is there anything you can say that is mildly unpleasant, or that it would make your friends sad? In any shape or form?”

Everybody looked at each other, suddenly unsure of what to say.

And then Gallus sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ugh,” he muttered, looking down. “Way to put me in the spotlight, Headmare Twilight.”

Twilight smiled. “Gallus!”

Ocellus did not. “Gallus?” She got closer to the griffon and touched one of his wings. “What’s wrong?”

“Well… ugh.” Gallus took a deep breath and faced all of his friends. “Okay. So, remember how I told you that Grandpa Gruff was willing to take me in this year?”

“Baddest girl in the land,” Smolder whispered.

“Thank you!” Silverstream replied.

“Shut up the both of you,” Gallus said.

FLASH!

“Music classroom out.”

“Right, uh.” Gallus nodded, swallowed. “I just, I don’t want to go with him? Because it feels like if I spend the Blue Moon Festival with him, I’ll have… I’ll have moved on from this?” He waved a claw towards the School of Friendship. “Like, the school is not that big a part in my life anymore if I can just spend my days in Griffonstone like that. And I don’t…” He looked down. “I don’t want that.”

Sandbar was the first one who reacted. He got closer to Gallus and rested a hoof on his shoulder. “Heey,” he said. “It’s all right. We’re all friends.”

“Yeah!” Silverstream said. “And we’ll be friends forever!”

FLASH!

“Applejack’s office,” Spike said.

“Twilight, I don’t think they’re getting how this works,” Starlight said.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“I know we’re friends, guys, but—can’t you see? We’re graduating!” Gallus stepped away from Sandbar, just enough to break physical contact. “And everything is going to change. Whether we like it or not!”

HSALF!

Twilight and Starlight’s ears perked up. The flames had grown considerably smaller all of a sudden.

Gallus, seemingly unaware, kept on talking. “Stuff like today? Just, us skipping classes together, goofing around? All that will be over. We’ll each come back to our homes, and even if we visit each other often, it won’t be the same. This will all be just memories.”

“I guess life does change a bit after graduation…” Ocellus said, looking down, too.

HSALF!

“This is working,” Twilight muttered. A big part of the School of Friendship was—well, it was still ruined, but it wasn’t actively on fire anymore. “I can’t believe this is working.”

“Yona does feel melancholy now!” Yona said, putting on a sad face. “Yona doesn’t want these days to end either. Yona likes it here.”

Smolder frowned. “That a feeling, too?”

“Melancholy?”

“Yes.”

“It is!”

“Whack. I think I got it, too.” Smolder flapped her wings two more times, and then landed right next to Yona. “Must be contagious.”

“Yeah.” Gallus looked at her, apologetic. “Sorry, I know this is bumming you out, but I can’t help it.”

“There’s no need to apologize!” Silverstream said, grabbing Gallus by the shoulders and giving him a good squeeze. “It’s normal to feel sad about the passage of time. But just because our friendship has changed doesn’t mean it’s going to get worse, right?”

Gallus looked at her. “But do we know that? For sure?”

HSALF!

“We got the theatre back!”

“I suppose spending time with you guys is pretty cool,” Sandbar said, hanging his head low and drawing circles in the snow with his hooves. “We won’t be able to spend every day together once we graduate.”

“But, guys! We’ll be adults!” Ocellus said. “Don’t you want to be adults?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to grow up,” Smolder said, frowning. “I mean, have you met an adult dragon? Ever?”

“Uh.” Ocellus thought about it. “Not really? I think they would eat me on sight.”

“Yeah! My point exactly!”

HSALF!

“Cafeteria is not on fire anymore!”

“Hnnng.” Twilight was biting her hooves, and alternating between looking at her students and looking at the school. Finally, she turned to Starlight. “I can’t do this!”

“What?” Starlight frowned. “What? Isn’t this what we’ve been trying to do all this time?”

“Yes, but—look at them!” Twilight pointed at the students. “They’re so sad! They need a friendship lesson!”

“What? No!” Starlight grabbed Twilight by the shoulder. “Twilight! I know this is harsh, but we have to do it for the sake of the school!”

“But—!”

“I… guess you’re right. We will graduate and grow up and everything will change.” Ocellus’ lower lip started to tremble, and she looked down. Behind her, Silverstream was already openly bawling. “I suppose there are things not even the magic of friendship can solve.”

“I—!” Twilight looked at them, then at Starlight, then pointed at them. “That—! Starlight!”

“Be strong, Twilight!”

HSALF!

“Counsellor’s Office back in business!” Spike said.

“See? If you just—”

“Maybe if we travel baaack in tiiime?” Sandbar’s voice didn’t get any livelier when it had melancholy all mixed up in it. “That would probably heeelp.”

“Yona thinks that’s a great idea!”

Pause.

Starlight’s mouth became a thin hard line. “Okay.” And she slapped Twilight’s back and pushed her towards the students. “That’s it. Friendship lesson them away.”

“Oh, thank Celestia—everybody!” Twilight look flight once again and hovered above her students, making sure to catch their attention. “There’s no reason to be worried! Friendship is more powerful than graduation!”

Gallus looked at her, grimacing. “Thanks for the efforts, Headmare Twilight, but—”

“I know more about friendship than anybody out there, don’t I?” Twilight stopped in mid-air right in front of Gallus and smiled. “I know teenage friendships are important, and special. I’ve experienced them myself. And things do change when you grow up.”

HSALF!

“That was the Headmare’s Office!”

“But adult friendships are magical too,” Twilight said. “Certain things change as you mature, but your friendship matures with you. And you can do amazing things together. Don’t you remember Sugarcube Corner? You ruled that place!”

Gallus frowned, and looked down. “We did do a good job there.”

“We increased profit by three hundred percent!” Ocellus said, grinning at her friends. “Even taking into account Yona’s rampage.”

“Changeling is welcome.”

“That was not a compliment, Yona.”

“Yona thinks otherwise.”

“If there are any creatures in Equestria who can make this work once you graduate, it’s you!” Twilight repeated, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “It’s okay to feel a bit sad that your school days are over, but you need to think of all the fantastic things that wait for you out there. You’re still young! You have so much potential!”

The students looked at each other, unsure. Especially at Sandbar.

Sandbar, too, looked at himself. Then, at Twilight. “I have potential?”

“Yes!” Pause. “Well. Some have more potential than others.”

“Aaaaaah. See, that makes more sense.”

“It does. And.” Twilight looked at Gallus again. “Nothing will be the same once you graduate—but you’ll always have these days to look back to. It’s okay to be sad that they’re over, but you also need to be happy that they happened. Because, no matter what?” And here Twilight sneaked a glance at Starlight and Spike, who were looking at her, before continuing. “You’ll always have been through it all together. And nothing will ever change that.”

There was a moment of silence, as the fire creaked at the school behind them.

And then Gallus smiled. “I guess,” he said, looking at his friends. “I mean, I’ve still got plenty of time to crash at your places whenever Hearth’s Warming Eve comes around, don’t I?”

“Yeah!” Sandbar said.

“I can’t wait for you to learn how to breathe underwater!” Silverstream said.

“Yona will raise you properly! And find you a good wife.”

“Yona, we’re not doing the adopting me thing anymore.”

“Griffon shut up. Yona wants grandchildren.”

And after that, even though they were teenagers, and their teachers were watching, and even though Smolder and Gallus were both there—maybe the spirit of Hearth’s Warming Eve got to them, in the end.

Because they all hugged each other, and broke into laughter.

And Twilight saw it all, and she felt her own heart warming. “Aaaaw.” She looked at Starlight. “See? This is much better!”

FLASH!

The whole School of Friendship started burning, at once.

And Starlight started massaging the space between her eyes. “We’re all going to die.”

They didn’t all die.

They merely wished they had.

“And I keep telling you!” the tall griffon was yelling, “you can’t be democratic and a monarchy! It’s obvious Yakyakistan makes no sense!”

“All that’s obvious is that you have no idea what any of those two words mean!” the short griffon replied.

“It means you’re an idiot!”

“Griffons! Please!” Mayor Mare was still wearing her firefighter hat. “As a trained politician, I can assure you both that—”

“Shut up!”

“We don’t care!”

As far away from them as possible, hiding behind a hill, Twilight and Starlight were staring. “It’s incredible,” Starlight was saying. “They’ve been at this for hours.”

“They have,” Twilight said.

“Are they seriously not tired?”

“Doesn’t seem like it!”

“Do you even know what a constitution is?!”

“Yes, it’s the piece of paper I’m going to shove up your—!”

“I can’t believe my culture being the worst saved the day,” Gallus was saying, also looking at the two griffons arguing with each other. “I suppose anything can be useful if you know how to use it?”

“You’re welcome!” Sandbar said, puffing his chest out. “I knew it would work. If all we need to put out the fire is multicultural conflict, all you need is griffons during the Blue Moon Festival!” He winked at Gallus. “Because griffons are the worst! And worse than hippogriffs.”

Gallus smirked. “You’re a fast learner.”

“Wooo! Go my people!” Silverstream yelled. “We’re better again!”

“That's not how voting works!” the fat griffon said.

“Well, then it should be!” the tall one replied.

“Actually,” Mayor Mare said, “it is how voting works, and it is not how it should work. So you’re both wrong!”

Back at the hill, Smolder nodded. “So conflict was the key to save the school in the end,” she said. “Well, I suppose we all learned something today, then. Sometimes, too much friendship—”

“What?” Twilight snapped at them. “No, we didn’t! There’s nothing to learn from this!”

“But we were being sad because we’re so friendly to each other!” Silverstream said. “And now our school days are over! Isn’t that a lesson?”

“Yona thought the Fire of Friendship being so strong it burned out the school was a metaphor. Yona felt it was very clever.”

“What? No! There’s nothing clever about this!” Twilight rubbed her temples. “Look, there’s nothing to learn from this, and this means nothing! It’s just a very specific magical artifact with extremely singular effects and reactions towards interpersonal conflict. That’s all!”

“But—”

“There’s nothing that we did in here that you can apply to real life! Ever!”

“Woooow.” Sandbar was looking at the griffons, and then looked at Twilight. “Maybe we can learn that arguing with passion is good sometimes? Or maybe it’s something about politics...”

“No! Stop looking into this! This is a complete waste of a day! Nopony learned anything!”

“Aaaah.” Gallus hugged Ocellus’ shoulders and let out a satisfied sigh. “An entire day of skipping classes and completely ignoring our education and responsibilities. I’ll miss this once we’ve graduated, not gonna lie.”

“Me too!” Ocellus said, buzzing her wings slightly. “But I can’t wait to see all the responsibilities we’ll be able to ignore from now on.”

“Me neither, Ocellus.” And they all looked at the school at the same time. The fire had died. All that was left were charred remains—but charred remains that could be rebuilt. “Me neither.”

“Look, what if—what if we just agree on one thing. Right? It’s like what those ponies said.” And in the distance, the tall griffon offered a claw. “No matter who’s right? In the end, it’s the yaks that are wrong. And we gotta remember that.”

The fat griffon squinted, and then nodded, and took the others’ claw. “Aye,” he said. “I can agree to that.”

“Oh, what the heck,” Mayor Mare said, smiling at them. “It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve! Let’s not argue anymore, and just enjoy the holiday!”

And everybody, in the distance or not, stood there, smiling. And nobody said it, but they were all thinking the same:

Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve.

And may you all have a wonderful new year.

FLASH!

And the school burst back into flames.

.

Author's Note

I met Undome Tinwe ten years ago. I was getting mugged in Berlin, and Undome jumped down from a nearby building. He beat up the muggers with his freakishly long tongue and then, without uttering a word, licked my face and my arms, and left. Twenty four hours later, I noticed he'd stolen my wallet, and I was pregnant.

There are seven seals that keep the world from ending. Jeffb is the keeper of three. The fourth was given to me by my great-grandfather when I was seven years old. It was shiny. I ate it. For the last fifteen years, Jeffb and I have been racing each other around the world, seeking to find the last three seals before the other does. Jeffb, because they want to save the world. Me, because I'm hungry. We met in Berlin once, ten years ago. Jeffb beat the shit out of me, and later I became pregnant. It was not my best summer.

Emlyn Costilov summoned me at age thirteen; they drew a circle of chalk and destroyed a priceless emerald, as the ritual says. Trapped by the magic, I demanded freedom, and in exchange, Emlyn demanded a gift. I paid in teeth. Emlyn said ew. Ew. What the fuck. Oh my god what the fuck. What is this. Why are you giving me this. What is wrong with you, dude, just give me money, why--how do you even pay in teeth. What is this. Ew.

They're all my $5 tier Patrons (or higher), and I love them dearly. This is how I do shout-outs.

I am not a clever man.