It was a typical day in Ponyville, inasmuch as that meant anything. That was especially true since the recent opening of the School of Friendship had made exotic creatures, major political figures, and exotic creatures who were major political figures much more common sights than before.
Twilight Sparkle trotting by the side of a pale pink half-horse, half-albatross as tall as Celestia and wearing similar regalia might have seemed unusual a few years ago. Might. This was still Twilight, after all. But these days, it was just a few more squares to fill in for ponywatcher Bingo.
Queen Novo, for her part, didn’t seem any more impressed by the town than it was by her, though she had other things on her mind. “I’m… sorry,” she ground out, “for saying you were trying to steal from me again. Silverstream’s her own ‘griff, and you and her friends were right that I need to respect that.”
“I appreciate that,” said Twilight. “And your accusation was understandable given the circumstances.”
“And your track record.”
Twilight waited for another apology. She gave up after they passed a few more houses. “You’re not going to let the incident with the Pearl go, are you?”
Novo arched an eyebrow. “You immortal?”
“I’m actually not sure.” Twilight shuddered as lines of thought she tried not to follow came to mind. “It’s not exactly the sort of thing I want to test.”
That got a wingshrug. “Then I guess we’ll both find out how long I can hold that over your… head…”
Twilight’s head darted back up, especially once she realized she was walking past the hippogriff, who was staring down another part of an intersection. She doubled back and said, “Queen Novo? Is everything alright?”
“Depends.” Novo jabbed a talon down the street. “Who is that?”
Twilight followed her, looked for anyone other than the only creature in that direction, and finally turned back. “Who, Cranky?”
The queen leapt, half takeoff, half pounce. She slammed into the ground in front of the jack, her impact making the supplies in his cart bounce as she spread wings three times as wide as he was long. “Cranky Doodle Donkey,” she said, each word dripping with more disdain than the last. “I guess it really is a small world these days.”
“Novo.” Cranky barely glanced up at her before checking the contents of the cart.
“That’s Queen Novo to you.”
The most acknowledgement that got was a grunt as Cranky continued the visual inspection.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Novo leaned in close, beak snapping with every word. “Am I bothering you?”
“No more than last time.” Apparently satisfied, he turned back and gave her a once-over. “You look just as self-righteous.”
Novo all but shook with fury, pupils narrowing to pinpricks. “Don’t you start with me, you ass.”
“You trying to insult me or just describe me? I can never tell with you.”
Novo's head tilted ninety degrees as her talons dug into the dirt road. “Oh, you want to know if I’m being insulting? How about—”
At that point, Twilight pushed herself out of her own shock and the comforting embrace of the spectating herd. “Okay!" she cried, galloping up to them with a force field on the tip of her horn. "I think we all need to take a moment to settle ourselves—”
Novo gave her a side-eye filled with the avian madness Twilight usually saw in Fluttershy's more troublesome feathered patients. “You mind your own business, Princess Sticky Hooves.”
“With all due respect, Queen Novo—”
That got a dry snicker from Cranky. “So none?”
Twilight gave him a look. He pretended to care. “This is my business. I can hardly claim to be the Princess of Friendship if I stand by and let an international incident unfold in front of me. This sort of misunderstanding is why I founded the school in the first place. And it sounds like you could use a neutral third party to help with this.”
Novo scoffed at that. “Oh, there’s no misunderstanding here. Cranky knows exactly why he’s banished from Mount Aris.”
“Which is why I’m not there.” Cranky sighed. “Look, if we’re going to do this—”
“You know we’re gonna do this.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course we are. Otherwise you’d have to admit you overreacted for once in your life. When Pinkie told me about her stay in Seaquestria, I thought she was exaggerating, but you've barely changed since the last time I saw you."
"You lost more hair." Novo sneered. "Or do you expect to believe that your actual mane?"
"The Dreamboat Special is a statement. Now, can we at least do this without making it yet another piece of Ponyville street theater?” Cranky waved a hoof over the still gathering onlookers. Some of the more enterprising salesponies from the farmers’ market had already moved their booths. “I don’t have any dignity to lose, but I don’t think you want the pegarazzi sniffing around.”
Novo cast a wary eye at the skies. Twilight couldn’t spot any light glinting off of camera lenses, but she knew that was no guarantee. “Fine. Sparkle, you come with. Having a mediator isn’t the worst idea.”
A disappointed moan rang out among the crowd. Twilight rolled her eyes and caught Cranky doing the same. He offered her a subtle enough hint of a grin that she might have imagined it “Clear a path, everypony," Twilight said, though Novo was already marching into the crowd. "This is clearly a personal matter.”
“Says the busybody,” Novo said just loud enough for Twilight to hear as she followed.
“But she’s a royal busybody,” Cranky grumbled at his usual volume behind them. “The way you bash creatures over the head with your own crown, you don’t have a leg to stand on there.”
Novo stuck her beak in the air. “That’s what the fins are for.”
“Of course they are.”
Twilight held back her next eyeroll. Someone had to be the bigger creature here, after all.
"So, did you want to start walking towards my house at some point?"
"Dear Princess Celestia," Twilight muttered as the first flash bulb went off overhead, "you owe me for this one."
A brief eternity of verbal barbs and candid photos later, they arrived at Cranky's house at the edge of town. Once the three of them were settled in his living room, Twilight felt that she could really get down to business.
“So, how did you two meet?”
Twilight told herself that the matching incredulous stares were a sign of progress.
“Really,” Novo deadpanned.
“If I’m going to act as an effective mediator, I’m going to need some background on your dispute. I've gathered some context on the way here, but I've made plenty of faulty assumptions based on incomplete information in the past.” Twilight ignored Novo's snort and offered the best smile she could. "Therefore, let's start from the beginning: How did you two meet?"
Cranky sighed, head tilting back in thought. “How much has Pinkie told you about my search for Matilda?”
Novo snorted again. "Right. 'Matilda.'"
That got an angrier glare out of Cranky than anything she'd said thus far. “Who, I will add, is now my happily wedded wife. She's just visiting friends in Canterlot today.”
“Uh huh. And I’m a lionfish.”
Cranky opened his mouth, but Twilight blurted out “You searched all over Equestria” before he could say anything else.
That got a nod. “And beyond. Donkeys… we don’t really have a homeland of our own, but we get by just about everywhere. At the time, that included Mount Aris.”
“You should’ve seen him back then, Sparkle. Riding into Buckbeak Harbor with a steely glint in his eye like some hero out of a dime store paperback." Novo smirked. "If you ignored the receding maneline.”
“And that’s the thanks I get for keeping your precious Pearl of Transmutation from turning your whole city into a bunch of newts.”
Novo matched Cranky glare for glare. “Yeah. It is. Because then you turned around and tried to use it for your own selfish gain, like certain other ponies I could mention.”
Twilight liked to think of herself as a reasonable mare. A student of Celestia not just in magic, but in statesmareship and diplomacy. She'd also been dealing with Novo all day. “Okay, you know what? I admit that I made one of the worst mistakes of my life that day, but Celestia still told me to come to you with her last breath."
All the anger bled out of Novo's expression. She looked at Twilight less like a nemesis and more like a bratty child she had to put up with. "She seemed fine to me."
"Only after I reversed her petrification. Because I went out and found a solution. But you decided you’d rather hide in Seaquestria for the rest of time. Yes, I was going to use the Pearl. I was going to use it to save Canterlot from the Storm King, along with the day-night cycle.”
Novo just raised an eyebrow. “And how were you planning on changing back, exactly?”
“I would’ve brought it back as soon as we were done.”
“Uh huh. Tell you what, why don’t you ask Celestia when she’ll be done with the Amulet of Aurora while you’re at it? She told my grandmother she'd only hold onto that one for a moon.”
Twilight felt an eyelid start twitching. “Did you miss the part where the entire world was at stake?”
“You betrayed my trust.” Novo looked away to consider the wedding photos on the mantle. "Can we get back on topic?"
“You left my friends to drown!”
A hoof on Twilight's withers interrupted the terribly tempting spells she was considering. “Don’t bother, kid," said Cranky. "You touch the Pearl without Novo’s say-so, you’re dead to her. Especially if you do it behind her tail.”
That got Novo to stiffen and turn back. “You would know. Sparkle, you had good intentions, I’ll give you that. But this jack tried to use one of the most powerful, most sacred artifacts in the world as a baldness cure.”
Twilight turned to Cranky and didn't say anything for a few moments. She couldn't; too many thoughts were vying for attention. Finally, she settled on “Really?”
He just shrugged. “Wouldn’t be much point to finding Matilda if she didn’t want anything to do with me when I finally did. And if that thing could give me gills, well…”
“Okay." Twilight took a deep breath. "Well. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned faulty assumptions. I have to admit, that is pretty outrageous.”
Cranky chuckled, of all things. “If you think that’s outrageous, you should hear what got me kicked out of Saddle Arabia.”
“But that isn’t even the worst part,” said Novo.
Twilight blinked. “It isn’t?”
“The worst part is what he did to get me to look the other way while he tangled with the guard jellyfish.” Once again, Novo leaned in close to Cranky, like she was ready to peck his eyes out. “You know where he is.”
“‘He’?” Twilight echoed.
He met her gaze, a rock before the pounding surf. “I may.”
Novo sneered. “Don’t you piss on my leg and tell me the tide’s coming in. You two were inseparable then. I can’t imagine what it would take to change that now.”
“A lot can happen in thirty years, Novo.”
“A lot can, sure. Enough?”
The staring contest stretched on for another few uncomfortable moments. Cranky looked away first. “It was all my idea.”
“I never even got to say goodbye, Cranky." Pain filled Novo's eyes and strained her voice, the sort of old, unresolved pain Twilight had seen behind Skystar's facade. "I looked away when the alarm sounded and next thing I knew, he was getting you out of there fast as he could.”
“He wanted to go back." Cranky's gaze sank to the floor. "I told him to write a letter.”
“If he did, I never got it.”
"I wouldn't know. He dropped me off at Klugetown, told me he needed time to think, and swam away. I didn't see him again until he saved my life eight years later."
Twilight cleared her throat and squirmed a little when both creatures jumped. “I feel like I’m missing some key context here.” Also like a voyeur, but she wasn't going to say that.
Cranky sighed and made for the door. “Come on, Princess. We’re going into the Everfree. A spare alicorn never hurt in there.”
It was a typical day in the Everfree Forest, an even more meaningless label than for Ponyville. Depending on the forest's mood—and Twilight still hadn't ruled out that the place had a consciousness all its own—it might be barely more menacing than the Whitetail Woods or a primeval deathtrap waiting to consume the unwary. The Tree of Harmony helped, but even it could only do so much.
Whether or not the forest was aware in its own right, everything within recognized strength, and the arcane might Twilight usually kept boiling under the surface was enough to keep the trek uneventful.
It also left her entire body limned in violet light like her horn midcast, and her eyes and cutie marks both glowing like searchlights. "I feel ridiculous."
Cranky shook his head. "Trust me, kid, I've seen a lot of creatures with less power than you let it get to their heads. Feeling self-conscious about that kind of thing is a good sign."
"I'm right here," Novo drawled.
"And who said I was talking about you? Thirty years later and you're still touchier than that Yearling kid who tagged along when I was holed up in those ruins near O'erlando."
One good thing about the magical aura was that it obscured the little twitches as Twilight processed that sentence. "When we resolve this, could I ask you about... literally everything you just said?"
Cranky shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Keep up those jabs and we'll see." Novo's scowl shifted from Cranky to their surroundings, turned a muddy sort of blue by Twilight's glow. "You sure you know where you're going?"
"Sure as I can be. It is the Everfree." Cranky wiggled his ears. "Besides, if I can hear the river by now, you should be able to."
The surroundings sights, sounds, and smells clicked in Twilight's memory. She gasped as an idea that had been clamoring for attention under her embarrassment and friendship calculations finally came to the fore, broken concentration dismissing her aura. "Wait. You're taking us to—"
They pushed through the last of the foliage just then, revealing a familiar river and its equally familiar inhabitant. "Oh my shells and guppies, is that the pitter-patter of donkey hooves I hear? And Princess Twilight, I haven't seen you since the wedding! Sorry again for not letting you in until after the vows. And..." Steven Magnet's excitement collapsed, leaving a sea serpent looking more out of place than usual. "Oh. Novo."
"Hello, Steven." Novo stood tall and looked him in the eye. If her own eyes were watering, Twilight wasn't going to say anything.
Steven twiddled his claws, glancing around and clearing his throat before saying, "Is that a piece of the Pearl around your neck?"
"It is."
"So diving into the river and acting like I'm not here isn't an option." He still sank back in up to his shoulders as he said that.
Novo narrowed her gaze and brought a talon to her Pearl shard. "Try it and find out."
After another few moments, Steven slid back out and rested his elbows against the shore, head in hands. He sighed out a breath that blew back the others' manes. "I'd apologize, but I doubt you'd accept it after all these years."
"Depends." Novo marched up between his arms, glaring up at him. "Are you sorry?"
He nodded. "Out of all the crazy adventures Cranky and I got up to while we were looking for Matilda, you were my one regret. You're not the only heart I broke. I won't pretend you were." Steven gave a wry grin and twirled his facial hair. "Everyone loves the mustache once they get over the whole 'sea monster' thing. But you..." He shook his head. "You weren't just another pretty face for me to distract while Cranky went rooting through census files and crystal balls."
"Uh huh." Novo's face stayed impassive, but Twilight spotted twitches along her ears and wings. Those were the first signs Silverstream was about to go full Pinkie Pie. "I'm sure you'd say that to any of those other pretty faces if they showed up."
"I never got a decent conversation out of any of them." Steven grinned. "Do you remember that day when I found you pacing along the docks, fretting to yourself?"
Novo glared back at Cranky, who looked he could stand there all day without giving a single horseapple. "Mother had trusted some random donkey to save the kingdom and told me to stay out of it. What else was I supposed to do?"
"And I spotted you, and started talking, and found the most bitingly clever creature on Mount Aris."
She looked back up at him and sighed. "Steven..."
He didn't seem to hear her, gazing off into memory. "We creaturewatched for the rest of the day, until the sun had set and King Ruggiero had to call you back to the palace."
A reluctant grin found its way onto Novo's beak. "Creaturewatched and came up with insults for every outfit we saw."
"How that harpy thought he could get away with that hat, I will never know." Steven shifted, head leaning on just one hand as his grin widened. "And that night, when you snuck back out—"
"Those were good times, Steven." Novo shut her eyes. "But you broke my heart and left with the pieces."
The serpent frowned. "Well, I left mine there. I'd say we're even."
"Are we?" Novo took flight, hovering so they were face to face. "Did you have a loveless political marriage and a chick you tried to protect from that kind of disappointment? Did you lose half your kingdom and catch yourself thinking of me even while evacuating 'griffs out of the capital?"
Steven matched her gaze, impassive. "Any thinking creature who lives in the Everfree Forest has some regrets, little bird."
"You don't get to call me that any more," Novo ground out, on the edge of tears, screaming, or both.
"You're right. I'm sorry." Steven sank a ways back into the river, eyes falling on Cranky. "I didn't have a loveless marriage, but I did have a falling out with the best friend I ever had, barely forgave him until he saved my life a few more times, and spent the last ten years living in the middle of nowhere because I still couldn't forgive myself." He looked back at Novo and shook his head. "I didn't even hear about the Storm King until one of my friends from Ponyville told me about the whole mess. Rarity's never going to let me hear the end of this if she finds out I held back something this juicy."
Novo scoffed. "My heart bleeds for you. Just one thing. Why didn't you ever write?"
Steven crossed his arms. "Would you have read something if I had?"
"I'd have burned it the first chance I got. But at least I'd have known you cared enough to send it."
"I cared, Novo. I always cared about you." Steven shook his head. "But after I ran off like that, I didn't think you'd want anything to do with me. Why would you?"
Both said nothing for an uncomfortable stretch. Just as Twilight finished the mental draft of her letter to Cadence, Novo broke the silence. "Look. I'm not saying we can forget everything. I know I can't let that much go overnight. But..." She clutched her shard of the Pearl. It flared with light bright enough that Twilight had to turn away, shielding herself with an outstretched wing.
By the time she turned back, still blinking the spots out of her eyes, there were two sea serpents in the river. The second was all elegant frills and polished scales, with a familiar three-part dorsal ray hanging over her crown "We can't start over," said Novo. "But we can still start something, even if it's just friendship."
Steven chuckled as he took her claws in his. "Careful. I don't think Twilight will let us say it's 'just' friendship too many times."
That got a smirk. "I'd like to see her stop me."
Cranky nudged Twilight hard enough that she remembered to close her jaw. “What. Surprised he’d fall for a hippogriff?”
“Um. Not really. Species clearly isn't an issue with the Pearl.” Twilight leaned closer and whispered, “Is it wrong that I’m more surprised he’d fall for a mare?”
Cranky threw back his head as he literally brayed with laughter. “Steven’s a sucker for anyone who can clean up nice.”
“I’m right here, Cranky," Steven said, not looking away from Novo's eyes. "And one of us had to be the looks.”
"You're not wrong, pal." Cranky tossed his head as he turned around. "Come on, Princess. These two deserve some privacy. And I can give you some ammunition for the next time Novo gets her feathers in a bunch."
"Officially speaking, I can't accept that."
"Uh huh. And unofficially?"
Twilight said nothing for a good distance, the very picture of royal dignity in motion. Only as they emerged from the forest did she smirk and say, "Unofficially, I take excellent notes."
Author's Note
Credit to Harwick for the bit of idiomatic hippogriff vulgarity.
O'erlando is one of Equestria's other major weather hubs, along with Denvertigo in the southwest, Rainton in the northwest, and Cape Cloud in the northeast. (Las Pegasus is a tourist trap first and foremost.)
The seaponies' pearl is one of those incredibly underutilized plot devices just begging for further expansion. As are the adventures Cranky and Steven Magnet apparently got up to during the former's quest for his lady love. Thus, why not bring them together? You know it's a good crackship when the targets haven't even been in the same season of the show, much less the same room.
(And yeah, neither Twilight nor Novo is in a position where she's willing to let that grudge go. It's not that the other wronged her. It's what else the other wronged. And yes, the vague pronoun references are deliberate.)
