Twilight Sparkle's phone buzzed, again. She ignored it, again.
The television was playing a holiday movie that Twilight was sure she'd recognize if she ever bothered to pay attention to it. It only served as background noise now, the melodic voices of the actors and actresses swimming through one ear and right out the other — she didn't even have her glasses on to see just who they were. Instead, she sat in the probably too-large recliner in her living room, rocking back and forth next to a once-warm fire that could be rekindled if she ever got up from the chair in question.
There was no need for that, she reasoned. She had a thick blanket draped over her, the cup of hot chocolate she held was warming her hands just so and the wall made an excellent conversationalist.
Twilight Sparkle's phone buzzed, again. She ignored it, again.
The party was just starting, she thought to herself, taking a swig of hot chocolate. She thought of telling them she was sick, or that she had to study, but she was never a liar — they knew damn well that even she wasn't studying on winter break, and no one could sus out a lie like Applejack could (even over a text). Instead, about three hours ago, she simply resolved to be silent, and all it would do was give her more time to come up with an excuse when she saw them the next time.
With her parents on vacation and her dog sound asleep, the house would have been dead quiet if not for the slowly dying cackle of the hearth right next to her. Prime conditions to think, and yet, no excuse came even close to entering her mind.
She could only think of the Other One, and what she was doing right now.
She was probably at a party, too. Of course she was — she and her friends dining on the finest cuisine as they exchanged lavish presents amid the towering frame of her palace. Did it snow where she lived? Did she have a gala to attend the next day, or maybe a parade? Was she going to make a speech? Would she spend time with her family instead? Or was she far too busy being extraordinary?
She envisioned the ponies bowing at her feet as they met her gaze, her subjects cheering as she appeared. Five months ago, before the Friendship Games, she was lucky if someone glanced her way through the halls of Crystal Prep. And there she was, somewhere else, utterly adored. By her subjects, and then by the very same friends she was set to hang out with at a holiday party tonight. They'd met her first, after all.
Did they invite the Other One, too?
Twilight Sparkle's phone buzzed, again. She couldn't ignore it any longer.
With an audible grunt (to her own surprise), she grabbed her phone from the arm of the couch and gently hit the power button, ready for the slew of texts from her friends she was expecting. And they were there, but they were obscured by the most recent one — a text from Pinkie Pie. As she read it, her eyes grew wide.
Come to the door
It's cooooooold
A thunderous knocking made her jump just as the last word crossed her mind, and she fumbled with her hands to make sure it stayed within them. Quickly, she looked around for her glasses, identifying them on the counter in front of her, and slowly, she peeled away the layers upon layers of blankets to grab them.
As she put them on, she looked up toward the clock hanging over her parents' fireplace. The party had started an hour ago — what was she doing here?
seriously girl its freezing out here
With a huff, Twilight began a brisk powerwalk to her door. Once she got there, she looked through the peephole, and sure enough, she was there, seemingly trying to send another text her way. — to Twilight's further dismay, Fluttershy was, too, gripping her shoulders and visibility chittering her teeth.
With a pull, Twilight swung the door open, and Pinkie's head snapped up from her phone. She immediately felt the cold permeate the area, and she felt a little shiver herself building after only just a beat.
"Twilight!" she yelled gleefully, and before Twilight could even open her mouth, Pinkie forced her way around her. To her surprise, Fluttershy did, too, hurriedly getting in before closing the door behind her.
Now facing the wood grain of her own door, Twilight remained speechless for a few seconds before whipping around. Pinkie was in the process of taking off her coat, while Fluttershy began to look for the nearest empty chair. As Fluttershy sat down in one of the two small wing chairs to either side of the recliner, Pinkie took a look around her house, studying it quickly before turning back to her.
"Ooh, nice place you got here, Twi!" Pinkie said. "Looks very rustic!"
"It's about 40 years old," Twilight answered, mentally kicking herself for being unable to withhold a fact. "What are you two doing here? Didn't the party start an hour ago?"
"Sure did!" Pinkie replied. She took the other wing chair across from Fluttershy's, aggressively sitting down and kicking her feet out. "And you weren't there even though you RSVPed! And then you weren't answering your texts so we wondered if something was wrong and then I said you might be sick because it's cold season but Applejack didn't think so so here we are! We got you presents back at the spot!" She stared at Twilight for a second, scanning her with her eyes, before immediately darting to the television.
"Oh, hey, I love this movie!" Her shoulders slumped, however, when it immediately faded to black, and Fluttershy twirled the remote in her hands with a disappointing glare. "Aww."
Twilight sighed — she felt herself doing that a lot lately — and she felt her gaze fall to the floor.
"How did she know I wasn't sick?" Twilight asked. She looked at Fluttershy this time, and to her surprise, Fluttershy wasn't able to keep the faintest glimpse of a smirk from drawing across her face.
"She just does," Fluttershy replied. "AJ gets everyone at some point." Suddenly, her face grew stern, and she leaned forward in her chair just so as she looked up toward Twilight.
"It's okay if you don't want to go to the party—"
"But you RSVPed," Pinkie whispered at the volume of a yell. Fluttershy tried to shoot her another look, but her face immediately started to crack at the seams. She couldn't hold back giggles any longer, and suddenly, the both of them started chuckling. If Twilight wasn't sick before, the contagious laughter finally got her there, and for the first time tonight, she felt herself start to chuckle herself.
It had been just a few months since the Friendship Games, since Midnight Sparkle, since she met her new friends. The Other One had known her group for years — was she laughing like this now, next to the roar of a fire? Was she fighting off some villain, come to put the world in danger yet again? Had she already won?
Those little questions were swimming in her head again, but with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie here, it was a bit easier to block them out. Just a bit.
"You don't have to come to the party," Fluttershy reiterated, the laughs dying in her throat. "Even though you RSVPed. But we wanted to come to make sure you were okay. It seems like you've had something on your mind lately."
Twilight felt her body go slack. She didn't say anything at first, struggling to think of an excuse — she didn't want to keep them long, they had a party to be at and she was already wasting their time — but when nothing came, she moved over next to the fireplace. Carefully, she grabbed another log and threw it in the fireplace, and she grabbed the lighter from atop the dresser underneath the TV. When she pulled the trigger to light it, it roared to life, and the warm cackle she'd been used to enveloped her body once again.
Now that that was done, she quickly waltzed over to her comfy recliner chair and jumped on it. It rocked and shook on the impact, but she didn't care, and she let it move while she tried to gather her own thoughts.
The recliner was higher up than the wing chairs, and she couldn't quite get a full glimpse of her friends as she sat from above them. She spoke anyway.
"Do you guys ever think about your pony selves?" she asked after a minute. "You know, the other ones?"
"Horse Pinkie?" Pinkie asked. "Yeah! She seems like she'd be so much fun! Maybe it's because I'm so much fun. Could you imagine two of us together in the same room?"
"I had a nightmare about that once," Fluttershy told her.
"Ooh, I have too!"
"Girls!" Twilight shouted. They both whipped their gaze back toward her. "Don't you think about the kind of things they do? Saving the world all the time? Going on all those incredible adventures?"
"We've saved the world before!" Pinkie replied. "Well, we saved the high school a few times. Basically the same thing. I don't really travel."
"We have, yeah," Twilight said. "But you guys did it before I showed up, too. With Princess Twilight. Um... Pinkie, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course!" she replied. Fluttershy had gotten silent all of a sudden, and with a glance, Twilight could see that her eyes were locked in on her. She felt a pang in her chest as she was about to say it — maybe it was better left unsaid — but with a grit in her teeth, she let the question fly.
"Did you invite her to the party?" Twilight asked. "Princess Twilight?"
She had kept her eyes closed. It was a dumb thing to ask and it came from dumb things to think, and she expected Pinkie Pie's ever-warming laugh to come exploding from her chest at any moment. But she didn't hear that, and when she opened her eyes, Pinkie didn't have a smile on her face anymore. She leaned back in her chair and her gaze shot to the ceiling, and for the first time since Twilight had met her, it seemed as if Pinkie Pie was looking for words to say.
She didn't answer the question. So Twilight just kept talking.
"I haven't known you guys for very long," she began. "And you've been my best friends. I didn't have that at Crystal Prep. And I came into your lives in an awful, awful way, and it was after she'd already been there. And she's so great! She's a princess, she's a ruler, she saves the world, hell, she can even see better than I can! She's just... she's everything. To everyone. And she came into your lives and she did so much for Sunset and she helped you all discover your power and then I came along and I just feel like I'm here."
Tears were welling in her eyes now, and she did her best to fight them off. Pinkie and Fluttershy said nothing — they seemed content to listen, so Twilight trudged on.
"The first time we met at the Friendship Games, I messed up. And Sunset saved me, and you all have become my best friends but some nights I just feel like I'm only here because the Other One was here first. And then she disappeared to do more amazing things and so you're all just left with me. And this... this was one of those nights, and it's been one of those weeks. I'm sorry I didn't text you guys, I know I should have, but—"
"Twilight," Fluttershy interrupted. Twilight stopped and turned to her, blinking the water out of her eyes. "Do you remember when you beat Sunset in the math part of the academic decathalon?"
"Little secret," Pinkie began, leaning forward. "She's still pissed about that. She'll probably bring it up tonight when the party really gets going."
Twilight was a bit stunned, tilting her head back toward Fluttershy at the question.
"Um... yeah? I guess? We were already working on some of those concepts in class so it wasn't really all that—"
"Oooh! What about that time you saved our lives at Camp Everfree! That was dope!"
"It was," Fluttershy acknowledged, a smile growing on her face. "Do you remember what happened after all that? At our picnic? You met Princess Twilight for the first time."
Twilight did remember. She'd only heard about the things the other, better version of herself had been up to from Sunset, and when the moment finally came that she had met her face to face, the only thing she could manage was a weak little wave. She'd thought about the moment very often, wondering what the Other One really thought the first time she saw her.
"Yes, I do," Twilight said after a beat. "She was late."
"She was late," Fluttershy reiterated. "She was coming to save us, but she didn't need to, because someone already did."
It took a moment for Twilight to get just what she was saying, but she felt her face begin to flush. She looked away from Fluttershy only for her eyes to meet Pinkie, who had a devilish grin as she sat back in her chair.
"Princess Twilight isn't the one who helped Rarity sneak into Crystal Prep and landed an extra role in a movie or sings in our awesome band. That's you, dude. We don't hang out with you just because we met Princess Twilight first! We hang out with you because you're cool."
"But I'm not cool!" Twilight retorted. "Not cool like she is, anyway. She's a princess. She solves problem after problem, and everyone loves her. I'm just some nerd from Crystal Prep who went berserk at the Friendship Games."
Twilight was still looking at Pinkie when she felt Fluttershy's arms wrap around her. Her body was tense, she realized — she let it relax, but not like it did when Fluttershy first asked her if something was wrong. She felt herself breathing heavy, and before she could return the awkward hug as she sat on the recliner, Fluttershy spoke into her ear.
"We love you," Fluttershy told her. "She can have everyone else."
Those words swam through her mind over and over again, and suddenly, it seemed like every thought she ever had about Princess Twilight was becoming harder and harder to recall. She felt more tears coming on, but these ones weren't like the ones she was shedding just a moment ago. She didn't want these ones to stop.
She felt Pinkie Pie join in on the awkward hug, too. She felt herself grinning as they embraced her over the arms of her chair, and beyond her means, she pushed out the words.
"Thank you," she said through sobs. "Thank you."
They stayed there for a moment, letting Twilight take it in for a beat longer before they finally unraveled themselves. This time, it was Pinkie who spoke up again.
"You can stay here if you want, of course," she began. "But we'd really love to have you at the party. I threw it to spend the holidays with all of our friends, and we want you there."
Twilight stared into the distance for a second, seemingly mulling it over, but it didn't take long for her to nod. The tears were only just disappearing, but a grin wider than it had been all night was slowly infesting her face.
"Yeah, I'll come," Twilight responded, clumsily hopping out of the recliner. "Can you give me a minute to look somewhat decent?"
"Absolutely not," Pinkie replied immediately. "You'll have to brave the elements."
Twilight rolled her eyes before hopping down the hall toward what the other two assumed was her room. She had a definite pep in her step as she walked away to get ready, and without even looking at her, Pinkie Pie held out her fist in Fluttershy's general direction. Fluttershy met it with her own post haste, and with a heavy sigh, Pinkie slumped back down into the chair she'd been sitting in. Fluttershy stayed standing, leaning up on the dresser underneath the living room's television.
Fluttershy let a moment of silence go by before she suddenly spoke.
"You never answered her question," she said.
Pinkie had been staring at the ceiling again, but she raised her eyebrows and turned back to Fluttershy. "Hmm?"
It was Fluttershy's turn to grin now. She looked back toward where Twilight had just ran off to, and when she was certain she was still getting ready, she spoke in a hushed tone.
"Come on. She asked if you invited Princess Twilight to the party, and you didn't answer her. Did you?"
Pinkie matched her smirk. She rose from her chair and went toward the coat she'd put on the counter close by, and she began the process of putting it on as she replied.
"Yeah, I did," Pinkie told her as she put her arms through the sleeves. "Sent it through the portal two months ago. I don't know when they do their holidays over there, so I thought she might be free." Fluttershy's eyes widened, and she was unable to hide her grimace.
"Is she coming?" she asked. Her expression softened when Pinkie shook her head.
Nah," Pinkie replied. "Must have been busy. She didn't RSVP."
Author's Note
This one was written for starcoder! They wanted a feel-good story about fitting in, so I tried to approach this theme here.
Unfortunately, I was far busier during the holidays than I initially anticipated, so I really didn't get to flesh this one out as much as I liked to and I wasn't able to really pre-read it as much as I would have liked. This is definitely a theme I'd like to revisit in the future with a little more time, but for now, I hope it worked well as my first EqG story. Happy Holidays, everybody!
