A Nugget of Wisdom
by Present Perfect
A year's worth of adventures, relationships and writing friendship reports had not prepared Princess Twilight Sparkle for this.
It had started so innocently: she and her friends chatting and enjoying a light in-costume snack ahead of that year's Hearth's Warming Eve pageant. They had all decided to swap parts from last year; even Rarity agreed that Twilight's new wings made her perfect for the role of Princess Platinum, historical inaccuracies aside.
Fluttershy had actually taken hold of the conversation at that point, talking about how her animal friends were enjoying the mild winter, when Twilight saw it.
There, in the corner of Fluttershy's nose.
Twilight tried to ignore it at first. Surely, it would go away on its own, be sucked back in or flicked away by the natural movement of Fluttershy's head. But it wasn't. Before long, Twilight was enraptured by it.
Every time Fluttershy breathed out, it got a little bigger. It jiggled when she laughed.
How had Fluttershy not noticed it? Surely everypony else had, since she'd been the center of attention for so long.
Twilight bit her lip. The pageant was going to start in less than an hour, and given that thing's tenacity, it would still be there on stage. On Fluttershy's face. In front of hundreds of ponies. She already battled with fierce stage fright; how much worse would it be if the audience started laughing at the huge booger hanging out of her nostril?
What could Twilight do? Pointing it out in front of everyone would humiliate her just as much, and possibly make her too self-conscious to go out. Besides, how would she even do that? She wished Rarity were sitting a little closer so she could lean over and whisper for advice. Surely she would know the proper way to bring something like this to a pony's attention.
Could she wait until Fluttershy went to the washroom? No, that would be relying too much on chance. What if she didn't have to go?
Maybe if Twilight patted her own nose, it would give Fluttershy the hint without drawing too much attention. She tried it.
"Twilight, do you have an itchy nose too?" Pinkie asked immediately.
Fluttershy hadn't even noticed. Twilight groaned. Now she had another situation to salvage.
"Uh, yeah, Pinkie. Just an itchy nose! Don't mind me, ha ha!"
Great save, Princess.
"Wow, now I know for sure something big is gonna happen tonight!" Pinkie bounced in her seat, Smart Cookie's floppy hat flipping back and forth atop her head like a certain nugget of gold on a certain pony's face. "I got an itchy nose and a floppy ear and so did you, and you don't even have Pinkie Sense! That means it's gonna be huge!"
Twilight tried to ignore Pinkie, but the only other thing she had to do was stare at Fluttershy. Her little hanger-on glistened in the lights of the backstage area, yellow and brown and grey. Was Fluttershy getting sick? Did Twilight have a duty to inform her about this for the sake of her health?
No! Despite the good intentions, it would still make Fluttershy self-conscious! There was nothing Twilight could do, no way out of this situation that conformed to the rules of propriety!
Sweat ran from beneath the fur-lined crown on her head. She started hyperventilating. Rainbow Dash pantomimed the aftermath of a prank. Fluttershy laughed and the putrid pearl swayed, pendulous and blighted.
She turned toward Twilight and maybe said something; if she did, it was lost in Twilight's heart roaring in her ears. Perhaps she could solve this with magic. Magic was a great solution to all of life's problems, right? Just a small application of levitation, and...
Oh, no, no, no, no, no!
It was stretching. The more Twilight tugged at the thing, the longer and longer and longer it got. She could swear she felt the cold, clammy, clingy ooze through her magic, even though thaumic sensation diffusion was a proven impossibility.
Panic set in. Somepony was going to notice the glow of her magic around the thing. Everyone was staring at her, at them, at it! She released her magical grip, and it just hung there, taunting her, daring her to wrest it from its nasal throne. It would haunt her for the rest of her days, laughing in its slimy little voice, and Fluttershy would have to become a hermit out of shame! Well, more of a hermit than she already was, but they would never speak to her again! Her animals would go feral! Discord would run amok across Equestria!
"I can't take it anymore!"
Twilight loosed a beam of pure magic, wide as her foreleg, from her horn. It sizzled through the air, taking all present completely by surprise, and tore through the dangling ball of pestilence, vaporizing it with the heat of an angry sun. Not a hair on Fluttershy's face was out of place, though the blast did take out a large section of the costume and makeup areas.
Everything went deadly silent as Twilight, hooves up on the table, panted through clenched teeth.
"That was pretty huge!" Pinkie said, slack-jawed.
"Twi," Applejack said slowly, "what in the name o' my Great-Auntie Applesauce's false teeth has got into ya?"
"You all saw it, right?" Twilight wheezed. "Just sitting there, laughing at me!"
Her friends stared at her, some a little sad. Fluttershy remained frozen, save for some slight vibration. Rarity reached out and placed a hoof delicately on her arm.
"Darling, is there something bothering you? Perhaps a touch of stage fright? Pre-pageant jitters?"
"I..." Twilight was at a loss. She couldn't rightly explain what she had done, not without sacrificing Fluttershy's dignity.
She had to lie. Lying was the cause and solution to all of life's problems, right?
"There was a spider!" she blurted, realizing in the same instant that had not been the right thing to say.
Fluttershy's face fell. "Oh, Twilight, why didn't you say something? I could have talked to it!" Her eyes began to water.
Twilight gave a short, high-pitched laugh as the rest of her friends began to settle. She's going to think I murder spiders for fun and profit!
"D-don't worry, Fluttershy, it was just a kinetic blast. I'm sure it's safe and sound. On the other side of the room." She glanced up at the smoking hole in the wall. "Er, theater."
Cooing in frustration and disappointment, Fluttershy got up and walked over, imploring her supposed little friend to come out and not be scared.
Rarity sighed and returned to her makeup. Pinkie Pie, unfazed by the entire episode, went back to the story she had been telling five minutes prior. Applejack, ever one to spot a lie, fixed Twilight with a look that said, Y'all know you shouldn'ta. Twilight replied with a look she hope said, Please just trust that this was the best decision I could have made given the circumstances. She wasn't super good with body language.
Rainbow Dash, suddenly animated, popped into the air and said, "Wow, just think, Fluttershy! If Twilight missed, you would have had a wicked awesome scar, just like the real Commander Hurricane!"
Fluttershy looked up from her spider hunt. Her eyes shrunk to pinpricks. Her body shuddered. And, bleating like a goat, she promptly fainted.
Author's Note
This all started with a comment I left on One Man's Pony Ramblings long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. :B
