“Harmony,” Celestia said, “is a foreign country.”
Twilight looked up to her mentor, then down to the table between them. She had a plate and chopsticks, as did Celestia, and sitting in the middle of the table was a tray of immaculate sushi rolls. Each was a perfect cylinder, their wraps so tight and smooth one could mistake the seaweed for plastic. The rice was bone-white, and the fish a great profusion of colors: red and blues, greens and yellows, fusions and gradients and rainbows rendered in uncooked flesh.
But Celestia hadn’t taken any, so Twilight hadn’t taken any either. She had considered if, perhaps, she was supposed to eat first.
But when her stomach growled, and Celestia showed no reaction, she thought the better of it. Her chopsticks sat untouched.
“I am,” Twilight finally said, “not wise enough to grasp this lesson.”
“We often admire foreigners,” Celestia said. “Do we not?”
“No?” Twilight frowed. “Do we? I had not thought them admirable.”
“And yet, when you wished to study pyromancy, who was your teacher?”
“Ember, a dragon.” Twilight’s wings ruffled against her sides, despite her best attempts to hold them still. “But that is only because of their innate abilities. They are a primitive, savage people.”
“So they are. And yet, you asked one to make you more like her. To teach you her art, for as fire is fickle and destructive and cruel, so must a good pyromancer comprehend savagery. You criticize her with your words, but admire her with your actions.”
“This is so,” Twilight said.
“And when your friend Applejack beggared herself to take in neighbors in need of shelter, you called her actions foolish, and admonished her to protect her own family first. And yet, you brought her blankets, and food, and with your magic kept her house warm. And so you criticize her harmony with your words, but admire it with your actions.”
“That is…” Twilight’s stomach growled again. She had a cup of water, which was hers and hers alone, but it still sat where the servants had left it. “That is true, I suppose. Ponies often criticize those who do the right thing.”
“And we often fear foreigners,” Celestia said. “Do we not?”
“Obviously.” Twilight said the word quickly, but paused before going on, taking the time to think before she spoke. “But I do not fear harmony.”
“Why did you object to the inclusion of earth pony students in your academic classes?”
“I didn’t want them to drag down my grades.”
Celestia considered Twilight, her expression neither approved nor judging, but carefully neutral. Only the length and focus of her stare showed how closely she was considering her student. “Why not?”
“Because I…” Twilight bit her lip. “It’s important to me. That I get the best grades.”
“You feared losing something you treasured.”
A hot blush appeared in Twilight’s face, and her gaze went down to her hooves. “I’m sorry, I…” She rubbed one hoof over her opposite leg. “I didn’t mean to. I mean, not that I didn’t know. What I was doing. And I know it upset you. I just didn’t think…”
Her stomach growled again, loud enough she knew Celestia must have heard. And yet, her mentor’s expression remained passive. “Please,” Twilight said, “can we eat now?”
“The third respect,” Celestia replied, “in which harmony is as a foreign country, is that most ponies think they understand it, but in fact, they know only a collection of cliches, which are generally inaccurate. Of course you can eat, Twilight. You could have eaten at any time.”
Twlight’s horn glowed, and her chopsticks glowed, but where they should have gracefully floated through the air to the servant tray, they instead hopped like insects. They flew across the table, and scattered across the opposite floor. And there was Twilight, left where she sat, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open half an inch.
“The chopsticks,” Celestia said, “are made of rowan wood. They cannot be levitated.”
“But it’s impossible to use chopsticks with your teeth,” Twilight said.
“That is correct.” Celestia leaned across the table, and took a sushi roll off the tray with her teeth. She didn’t bother with the plate, but ate it whole like a grazing animal.
Twilight went home hungry.
“Oh my goodness!” Rarity tittered over the little wooden box of sushi rolls. “These are flawless. Twilight, thank you.”
With her own magic, Rarity lifted two chopsticks that were made of common ash, and took a roll from the box on the table. Twilight did the same. It was as good as it looked -- the rice was sweet and a little sour, the fish and spices so well mixed one could imagine the fish were born thus flavored.
“Mmmm.” The two ate the way unicorns should. Each was wrapped in a robe of pristine white, and each wore a horn-ring carved with arcane symbols. They sat with legs folded under them before a ground-level table, and used chopsticks instead of jamming their faces into the food. No matter how hungry they were or how good the pieces, they ate one at a time, and they did it all in an immaculate wooden home.
Every part of it was spotless. Applejack had cleaned it just that morning.
Rarity, after her third roll -- and third noise of delight -- kissed her chopsticks. “Superb. I don’t suppose Celestia will be sending you home with food every day?”
“I’m not sure,” Twilight mumbled. “I think today might have been special. She thought I was hungry, or something.”
“Well don’t let me stand in your way.” Rarity gestured at the table with a flourish, but when Twilight ate, her motions were mechanical. Her stomach ceased to growl, but she took no joy in the act. “Is something wrong?”
“What do you think of…” Twilight paused. “I don’t know. Fluttershy?”
“Fluttershy?” Rarity tilted her head. “Why do you ask?”
Twilight’s tone sunk, and her head sunk with it. “Please, Rarity, just answer the question.”
Rarity frowned, and reached across the table to rub Twilight’s shoulder with a hoof. “Alright. I think she’s absolutely delightful. Kind, beautiful, understanding, a good friend. A bit of a temper, she keeps locked away.”
“So you like her. You think she’s a good pony.”
“Yes!” Rarity laughed. “Yes, of course. Why would you think otherwise?”
“How would you feel if we started inviting her over?” Twilight gestured around her home. “We eat together most nights. Why not have her join us?”
“Well…” Rarity hesitated. “She could eat first and sit at the table, I suppose. She’s a bit quiet during social gatherings, but she might be good company.”
“But she can’t eat with us?”
“Oh, Twilight, dear, I have no objection to her or her company,” Rarity spoke sweetly, putting a lot of breath into her words, “but that simply wouldn’t be sanitary.”
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, her head still pointed at the floor. And as the silence grew long, it was with greater concern that Rarity asked: “Would it? I feel terribly as though I’ve said something wrong.”
“No, it wouldn’t be. Not unless we gave her her own tray. Kept it apart from the others.”
“Then…” Rarity slowly shook her head. “I don’t understand. Twilight, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that I like chopsticks,” Twilight said. “And I like sliding doors without handles. I like birds that sing good morning to wizards as they begin the day. I like fresh home-cooked food first thing every morning. I like houses that never receive snow, so their masters can have flat roofs. And I like going up to my roof, to study in my garden.”
Rarity held silent, waiting for Twilight to go on. Finally she asked: “And?”
“And I used to believe that harmony was love. That when we all loved each other, and loved the world, Equestria would return. But I do love my fellow creatures, and I love this world so much, but today Celestia told me that my love was hurting ponies.”
“Hurting ponies?” Rarity pulled back. “Forgive me, Twilight, but that doesn’t sound like something a princess would say.”
“What would you think if I put a handle on the outside of my front door, so that Applejack doesn’t need me to let her in every day? Or if I put handles on all the doors.”
“Well…” Rarity hesitated. “It’s your house. You can do what you want with it.”
“Would you do it for your home? Let Cherilee in?”
“Oh, I’m home most of the time. For my kimonos, of course.” Rarity waved the remark away with a hoof. “If Cherilee wants to come in, she only needs to knock.”
“So you can let her in. Because she can’t open the door to your home, but you can open the door to her home.”
“I’ve never been to her home.”
“Right.” Twilight rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “I’m sorry to change the topic, but I saw you had some ‘magazines,’ didn’t I? From Griffonia.”
“Oh yes.” Rarity’s face lit up, and her motions became fluid, her every word emphasized with the motion of her forehooves. “They’re so inspiring. An anarchistic yet powerful culture. Clever in that way barbarians often are, but with a spark of vitality that elevates them above the rest. And some of the fabric they sell! I’ve never seen such patterns. I was actually going to import a—”
Twilight raised her voice. “They make their homes out of bricks, don’t they?”
Rarity pulled back from the table, caught off guard by both the interruption and the question. “I suppose,” she said. “Twilight you’re acting very strange.”
“They make their homes out of bricks, and we make ours out of ash,” Twilight said. “And what if it could be shown that bricks were, inherently, a superior building material? That griffon houses last longer, rise higher, house more creatures, and are more comfortable than houses made from wood?”
“It can’t be.”
“But what if it could?” Finally, after so long, Twilight lifted her gaze from the floor to look Rarity in the eye. “What if it was proven to you, somehow, that a house made of brick is better than yours?”
“Well…” Rarity let out a snort. “Then I suppose they can enjoy their little clay houses.”
“You wouldn’t tear yours down? Build a new house?”
“Of course not.” Rarity’s words became clipped, a trace of irritation showing. “Twilight, building a home isn’t simply about what’s best. It’s about what’s yours. The place you want to live. I am a unicorn and I want to live in a unicorn house, so that is what is best for me. Brick might be warmer, and it might be stronger, and it might be all sorts of other things, but it is foreign.”
Putting her chopsticks down on the table, Rarity folded her forehooves. “And I won’t have it.”
“Heh.” Twilight let out a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve been very rude. And I can see I’ve offended you. Please, accept my apology? We can finish eating and read in the garden.”
They did finish eating, and Pinkie Pie came to take the plates away and do the dishes. Then they went up to the roof, and sat in Twilight’s garden, and read together.
Twilight had never potted or trimmed a plant in her life, but no matter how she tried to remember that, it still felt hers.
The next day, Twilight walked to the palace, and again sat across a table from Princess Celestia.
“I believe,” Twilight said, “I have grasped the lesson from yesterday. And I have a question.”
“Proceed,” Celestia said.
“Am I…” She bit her lip. “Bad? Am I a bad creature?”
“No,” Celestia offered her a soft smile. “You are far from harmony, my little pony. But that is what you are here to correct, is it not? Now, let us begin.”
