The Roast of Whats-Her-Name
Shortly after Twilight became the ruler of all Equestria, she had occasion to visit Ponyville on the first day of spring, and a stallion living there asked if she could spare a few bits for a train ticket. He was flat broke, he explained, and his special somepony lived in Canterlot. He hadn’t been able to see her in weeks.
Twilight didn’t have any bits on her, but she did have a chariot large enough for two. She gave the stallion a ride back to the city, and a few months later, he and his marefriend were engaged.
The next year, Twilight visited Ponyville again, and again on the first day of spring. That day, a janitor mare asked if she could have a title of nobility, because she’d always wanted one as a filly. She didn’t care about money or power or any of that, but her life was so mundane, and she wanted just one of her foalhood dreams to come true.
So, Twilight made her Baroness of the Everfree Forest, a noble station that had no land, power, holdings, vassals, or subordinates. In fact, the only privilege it conveyed was the right to attend fancy parties in Canterlot, and in return for that, the mare had to dust and clean the Castle of the Two Sisters every day.
Which she did, proudly. And when she got to Canterlot in her beat-up work clothes, Fancy Pants kissed her hoof and called her a credit to the peerage. She was so happy she cried.
The year after that, when Twilight again visited on the first day of spring, a filly wished for Princess Twilight to share some of her hayfries, and Twilight bought her an entire hayburger meal of her own. Mostly because she didn’t want to share, but still.
It became a Ponyville tradition. Every year, on the first day of spring, Princess Twilight would visit the town where she learned about the magic of friendship. And during that visit, she would make one pony’s wish come true.
Many decades after Twilight took the throne, when Luster Dawn was a grown mare and a whole generation of ponies knew Twilight simply as “The Princess,” she made her annual trip to Ponyville, and was approached by an old mare in the crowd.
“Hey, Twilight,” the mare said. No Princess, no Your Highness, simply her name. “You know, you got tall, since the first time we met.”
The sight of an old Ponyville hoof brought a smile to Twilight’s face. “Shot up like a weed,” she admitted, reaching up with a hoof to rub her neck. “Puberty all over again.”
“You’re lucky your voice didn’t crack.” The old mare chuckled. “You look regal now. But to me, you’ll always be the nerdy librarian from Canterlot. If that’s not presumptuous to say.”
“Not at all.” Twilight lowered her head and peered at the mare, eyeing her loose stance and her stiff smile. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. I just…” She waved her hoof vaguely in the air. “Life’s been complicated since you left Ponyville. And when I think back to all the time we spent together… well. They’re happy memories, Twilight. They are. And I was wondering, maybe you could find some time during your visit for us to chat? If that’s not imposing.”
It was at that point that Twilight was reminded of the existence of the rest of the crowd when one of the ponies in the crowd gasped. Another cooed, and a third -- a mother -- nudged her foal. “See, honey?” she said. “Now the princess is going to grant a wish and make her nice old friend happy.”
“Well,” Twilight said. “Of course, I’d be happy to spend some time with you. Like old times. How about this evening? I’ll swing by after my speech.”
“That would be wonderful,” the old mare smiled. “Oh, thank you, Twilight. Friendship really is magic! It’ll be so good to chat again.”
The crowd let out a mass, collective, “Awww!” Ponies smiled. Others waved. Twilight gave an impromptu little speech about the magic of friendship, then said she had to go get ready for the ceremonies later that afternoon. She nudged one of the pegasi pulling her chariot, and the entire team took to the air, leaving the crowd behind.
“Excuse me, Princess,” one of her guards asked. “I don’t mean to intrude, but who was that?”
And Twilight said, “I have no idea.”
Twilight flew straight to Sugarcube Corner. If anypony could help her, she thought, it would be Pinkie Pie.
“Sure thing,” Pinkie Pie said, “That’s Moon Petal.”
“...who?” Twilight tilted her head to one side.
“You know. Moon Petal.” Pinkie Pie paused, waiting for signs of recognition. When Twilight showed none, Pinkie continued, “She was at your Welcome to Ponyville party on the night Nightmare Moon returned?”
“With everything that happened later that night, I barely remember that party.”
“Oh! She was also one of the subteam leaders during Winter Wrapup.”
Twilight paused, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “Didn’t we have like, thirty subteam leaders? I don’t remember them all.”
“She ran beside you during your first Running of the Leaves.”
“Yeah, I was uh…” Twilight drew in a breath through her teeth. “Mostly focused on the race. And Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s shenanigans.”
Slowly, Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes. “Cheese!” she shouted. In a flash, her husband appeared. “We’ve got a friendship problem on our hooves. Bring me file 345-T. Not the summary. The whole file.”
“I don’t think we need to…” Twilight tried to talk her way out of the situation, but before she could, a yellow blur flashed in front of her eyes. When it passed, Pinkie Pie was holding a thick manilla folder in her hands, the papers inside marked by little colored tabs.
She opened the tab marked with Twilight’s cutie mark, and read aloud. “She helped you clean up after the Parasprites. She shook your hoof at the Grand Galloping Gala and told you you were an inspiration to all of Ponyville. She was one of the ponies saved by the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well. She sang in Flim and Flam’s first big song on AJs farm.”
“Those were all things lots of ponies did. She was in a crowd.” Twilight offered a stiff smile. “I mean, who didn’t love that Flim and Flam song, right? Traveling salesponies nonpareil. Is there anything, um, that maybe we did together in a smaller group?”
“She talked with you for two hours at Berry Punch’s Hearthswarming party the year after we defeated Discord.”
“That was the first time I ever tried alcohol and Berry kept bringing me more wine. I got so drunk I woke up two days later in Los Pegasus with no idea how I got there.”
“Fine,” Pinkie Pie spat out the word with a crisp, precise enunciation. “If you need something you did together in a small group while sober. It says here that she attended your library book club every week for five years. And every single time, as a way of saying thank you, she brought you homemade hayburgers and pie.”
Pinkie Pie stared at Twilight. Twilight stared back. A tumbleweed rolled between them, propelled by a fan Cheese Sandwich had set up.
“So,” Twilight leaned over to look at the file, “does it have cliff notes saying what we discussed in book club, or…?”
Pinkie Pie threw up her hooves. “Oh come on!”
“Well, what do you want from me?” Twilight asked, her own voice rising in turn. “If she’d saved the world or wielded an element of harmony or sung a magical musical number, I’m sure I’d remember her! There’s just a lot of ponies in Ponyville, and not all of them are interesting or important. There’s, you know, the girls. Us, Rarity, AJ, Flutters, RD, that. Then there’s our crew, Lyra, Bon Bon, the Doctor, Mayor Mare. And then there’s… you know.”
She gestured with a hoof. “The extras.”
Pinkie Pie snorted, snapped her file shut, and raised her head. “Canterlot changed you, Twilight.”
Twilight and Moon Petal met up for dinner. Moon Petal made hayburgers and pie, “just like I used to bring by the library.” Twilight was so polite, so grateful for the gift. She reminisced about the Running of the Leaves, and Winter Wrapup, and meeting at the Grand Galloping Gala before it all went wrong. They laughed and smiled, and swapped stories in a warm kitchen.
Then, Moon Petal put the food on the tabletop, and Twilight took a bite. Her eyes went wide.
“Wait, now I remember you!” she shouted. “You came by every Monday for book club, and Spike always took those boxes you brought to the door, and then the kitchen smelled like burnt grease until Tuesday because trash pickup was Wednesday morning.”
Moon Petal stared. Twilight froze.
“Um…” Twilight said. “I mean, not… that?”
Moon Petal looked at the table. She poked her plate with a hoof. Finally, she said, “This is the worst wish ever.”
The next year, on the first day of spring, Twilight returned to Ponyville. A crowd gathered to greet her, smiling and waving.
One of them was Moon Petal, the pony she had grievously offended last year. But damned if she could tell which one.
Honestly, they all looked kind of the same.
