Spike woke up in bed—a human bed. It felt all kinds of wrong having the covers on top of him. He grunted and started to reach for them when he heard the knocking at the door. "Uh, come in?"

Using her magic, Twilight opened the door and stepped into her old bedroom. It was completely remade with comic posters and comics everywhere, and a very odd (to their world) creature sitting up in the bed. "Hey, Spike. I—"

"You shouldn't be here, Twilight. I don't know what I'll do or how I'll act. I'm a mess right now and—Why are you coming closer?!" Spike attempted to scrabble back and away from Twilight, but it turns out trying to rapidly extract yourself from unfamiliar covers only leads to you getting tangled. "Ack!"

Twilight had the upper hoof and caught up to her friend. Wrapping both forelegs around his larger body, she squeezed him. "I had a very special person once tell me that friendship is all about feelings. She should know, being the princess of friendship and all."

"But—But I might hurt you!" Spike's arms and legs strained with the desire to hug Twilight back—a desire he held in check.

"Try me. I might be small, but I'm literally like a little bulldozer, Spike. You might be able to hurt me, but I'll forgive you. Like the time you bit me when you hurt your leg." When Twilight felt one of Spike's big arms curl around her back, she knew she was getting to him.

"You mean when I got run-over by a girl on a scooter? Yeah, I was a bit bitey then." Giving in was Spike's undoing. With one arm around Twilight, the other traitorous upper limb came at her from the other side and he hugged her tight to his chest. "I just—I just don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not."

"I've got some news for you, Spike," Twilight said. "No one knows if they're doing everything right or not. It's not something you can know."

"Huh? But how do people just do things, then?"

"Because the world would be a bunch worse without them doing those things. Like this. I don't know if coming here and hugging you will help, but I know we'll both feel worse for not facing things together. You came with me on my first day at high school and remember what happened?" Spike was so much bigger than Twilight that it almost felt like their roles were reversed. He was human-sized and she was—not quite as small as Spike had been, but certainly smaller in stature.

"N-Not really. I remember a bunch more about some things and not others, but I think that was all the magic that happened at the Friendship Games. Everything before that is a big blur." He was surprised when Twilight started hugging him tighter. "What's up?"

Twilight felt her new idea made perfect sense. "That cinches it, then. We need to make new memories together."

"I-I mean I still remember some vague stuff before then, but it's more—It's kinda embarrassing. You felt like my mommy."

"I feel the same, Spike. I just—It took a friend to tell me that I need to be here for you. I guess that's another part of friendship—learning when to listen to your friends and when to ignore their shoving you away."

Finally easing up his death grip, Spike was surprised at Twilight's insistence to have one more squeeze. "We both made some mistakes then, right?"

"Yeah. But that's part of learning."

"And science. Nothing is a mistake unless you learned nothing from it. That's what you kept saying." He set about trying to disentangle himself from the covers.

Surprised at the sentiment, Twilight nodded. "It's certainly right about this—and last night."

"I thought you smelled a little different today. Was he cute?" Spike wasn't sure if asking was right, but he'd been studying teenager behavior on television and that seemed the important question everyone asked.

"She, and she was. I was so fixated on Tree Hugger being my big experiment into lesbianism, that I forgot to widen my sample size." The nerd-speak explanation for her wanting to have more sex made Twilight blush and grin at the same time. "The test disproves my earlier hypothesis."

With a sigh, Spike finally got his legs untangled and crawled off the side of the bed and stood upright. "I don't want to have anything to do with that kinda stuff. I need to focus on being me before I can focus on someone else making me an us."

Staring at Spike, Twilight blinked a few times to try to clear her thoughts up. "That sounds really mature, Spike. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Twilight, it means a lot to hear that. You—uh—wanna do something?" Spike felt a blush enter his cheeks, which was something he hadn't experienced before, though it felt nice. "Maybe read a book together?"

"I'd really like that. What do you want to read?"

Spike pulled a book out from under his covers and passed it to Twilight.

The second day of orientation had been less chaotic. Twilight had gotten a ride from Rainbow in the car of doom (as Twilight called it) and had been excited to be shown around their physics department by a member of the faculty.

Professor Falcon Inkwell was nobody's fool. She had spent nearly ten years as head of the physics department and held a doctorate as well as many research papers. She was getting a strange vibe from Twilight, however, one that she could see as being either very good or utterly terrible. Though she hoped for the former, she had to protect herself if the latter was the case.

"And I understand," Professor Inkwell said, "that Hurricane wants you to teach a class on this magic?"

"First of all, it's not magic how most people would describe it—Well, it is magic, but it obeys laws and has its own properties. Second"—Twilight let out a sigh—"he does. I tried to tell him I wasn't ready to do such a thing, but just in case he was serious, I put together a series of lessons that should give anyone a good introduction to the new laws."

Biting her tongue, Falcon Inkwell had to remind herself that she was talking to an actual unicorn. Magic was real, but she'd never had any experience with it—and had certainly never brought it into a lab. "Well, let's look over the syllabus then?"

Secluding themselves in Falcon's office, Twilight brought out her folder of notes for the class she was going to teach. "I wasn't sure how many lectures I'd be giving, or even if they'd be lectures." She used her telekinesis to float the folder onto the desk.

Trying her best to ignore the show of magic before her, Falcon opened the folder—then froze at what she saw. "You weren't sure what style of class it would be, so you structured your content for lecture, conversation, and online?!" Reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose, Falcon wasn't sure if the student before her was the brightest she'd ever met or just overly enthusiastic. She decided that Twilight Sparkle was possibly both.

As she read through each of the formats, Falcon put Twilight firmly in the eccentric genius category. The level of calculus shown was sufficient for a late second-year student, and the logic diagrams had her itching to see what she'd do with a full degree and doctorate under her belt. "I believe a series of lectures might be the best path. You will want to demonstrate some of these experiments—trust me, nothing gets someone's attention faster than experiencing new science being done before their eyes."

Levitating a pen, Twilight started taking notes without needing to be told. She could almost feel herself starting to soak up the professor's knowledge like a sponge. By the time they were done, she was impressed by Falcon's teaching methods and had taken many suggestions on-board. "And we're done?"

"Absolutely not. This is only the start of your career, and I plan to keep an eye on you." Falcon kept the pure excitement from her voice only by an inch. Just reading through the notes Twilight had made filled her with a new sense of wonder—like learning about the fundamental forces or relativity all over again. "It's getting late in the afternoon, and I believe the student body has organized a barbecue for all the freshmen."

"Well, here's hoping they have salad." Rolling her eyes expressively, Twilight jumped from the chair and immediately felt how cramped she'd been sitting there—nearly motionless—for hours. "Though I think a bit of a run might do me good."

"Don't say that where my sister can hear you. She's like a dog with a bone when it comes to exercise. Make sure to attend class sign-ups tomorrow and might I suggest you stock up on morning study sessions—most of the less-enthusiastic students tend to avoid them, and it would mean less interruptions should you happen to sign up for my morning workshop sessions." She couldn't help it. Falcon wanted to teach this girl everything she knew just to see what Twilight would do with the knowledge.

Rainbow and Rarity met up at the dorm-house with their friends and joined them in the living room to talk about their day. What surprised everyone was how much more animated Marble was than normal—sitting beside Twilight and chatting away about their more focused day.

"People-watching?" Rarity asked Rainbow.

Nodding, Rainbow reached out with a wing to pick up her soda. "You're doing it too. Why do I feel a little detached from them? It's like we're all splitting apart just a little. High school was so much smaller than this. There's like two hundred of us starting engineering, and my guide told me that only half of them make it to the start of second year."

"The art side of things, what fashion comes under, is not much different. There's—apparently—a lot of major shuffling happens. Apparently Twilight had fun with Sonata last night." Rarity said the last a little softer, not wanting to broadcast the juicy details.

Raising an eyebrow, Rainbow looked up at Rarity before turning to look back across at Twilight. "She did? I guess Tree just wasn't her type. Can't blame her, though, Sonata almost had me agreeing to stuff just to see how it'd go. What'd they get up to? Anything you can share?"

"Sonata wouldn't say, and I had to respect that. I said they could, and I can't exactly go back on that."

"It's so much different as a pony." The words started tumbling from Rainbow. "Even the bondage is different. Spicy had to come up with new ways to bind my legs, and then had to invent his own wing binders. Can't say I'm complaining, now I can fly all the time."

"I must admit, and I say this without any intention to force myself upon you, but the challenges of an equine body do make me curious as to how to bind one." Bringing up the awkward topic of her first lesbian encounter with a reluctant Rainbow, Rarity found herself playing with her hair nervously. "I hope this topic isn't—?"

"No. You're fine, Rarity. You stopped when I asked, you apologized, and we're still friends. Spicy helped talk me through it, and the time I've spent with him showed me how nervous I was and that my reluctance might have been sending mixed messages. Nothing happened but a virgin got a bit shook up." Taking a sip from her soda, Rainbow felt the urge to share more. "The bridle really does it for me, you know. Just knowing that someone can direct me and control where I look—"

Her heart beating a little faster, Rarity could picture Rainbow done up in tack—a bridle and saddle sized perfectly for her—prancing around. "Darling, if you wanted to tease me, you picked a good topic. I don't suppose you would be willing to share a picture next time you—"

Author's Note

Sonata: Can a siren siphon anger power without the amulet? I thought you guys cannot do magic thing without it.

"Yes and no. Our gemstones focus our stored emotional energy as well as store it. A siren could perform very minor and very crude control over a weak creature, but she'd be risking her sanity if there's any backlash, to say nothing of the chance it may just burn all her magic out." Tapping her lips with one finger and looking thoughtful, she tilted her head to the side. "Even when we had our gemstones shattered, it wasn't worth trying that. It could kill you if it goes badly."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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