On a normal spring day in the Ponyville library, Twilight Sparkle would be curled up on her bed and reading some new book regarding theories seemingly nonsensical to the average non-scholar. Her assistant, Spike, would be somewhere downstairs, juggling his work between cooking, cleaning, and an assortment of various chores. The sun would burst through the windows and dance on miscellaneous objects that would just so happen to grace its projected path. Birds would sing to their heart’s content, their chirps being a soothing background noise for such a peaceful afternoon. To any one pony who would walk into this library, they would think the very same that Twilight herself had chosen to believe—that today was indeed a normal spring day, and that there was nothing to worry about.

That is, she did believe it until a gruff belch protruded up the staircase and into her chamber. A pathetic, half-worried and half-frustrated whine escaped the unicorn’s lips as Spike dutifully chases up to the second floor, scroll in claw. With a silent nod, Twilight gestured her acknowledgment and audience.

Proceeding to unravel the parchment, the little dragon cleared his throat and began. “‘Hear ye, hear ye! Her grand royal Highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria, is pleased to announce the Grand Galloping Gala to be held in the magnificent capital city of Canterlot on the twenty-first day of—’”

“The Gala?” Twilight interrupted. “But last year was a disaster because of me! Why would the Princess want to invite me again?”

“‘… cordially extends an invitation to Twilight Sparkle plus one guest. Her royal Highness was enthused with the outcome of the events during the year prior, and is eagerly awaiting a répondez s'il vous plait as soon as possible. Tickets will follow en suite in the following message.’” As if on cue, a following puff of smoke burst out of the burping dragon’s throat, and out appeared two golden, shimmering tickets.

“She was enthused with what happened…?” asked a slack-jawed Twilight.

Spike merely shrugged. Glancing between the tickets and the letter, he suddenly said, “Wait, remember? Princess Celestia came into the donut shop that night and said it was the best Grand Galloping Gala Canterlot’s ever had!”

“I thought she was just being courteous,” Twilight muttered, pawing at her bedsheets like a red-hoofed filly who just got caught.

“Guess not.”

“Hm… But then, if she liked it so much, why would she only give me two tickets, when it was made complete with all seven of us?”

Spike could only look at his mentor ignorantly as her eyes darted about the papers in his grip. After a moment of silence, he concluded, “Oh, well. We can go together this year though! Just you and me, like old times!”

To this, Twilight slid off her bed and stalked over to her open window, gazing out at the buzzing ponies below her. “As fun as that sounds, Spike, I’m not exactly jumping at the chance to go again.”

“What? But why not?”

“Because, Spike,” she retaliated, turning around, “I only went last year to talk to the Princess in person about my studies. But I didn’t even get a second to talk to her until we left the Gala! I just can’t think of another reason to attend.”

“Oh…”

Hearing that tone in his voice, her heart tugged while her mind took a more sympathetic turn. “Tell you what, Spike,” she said. “How about I find somepony else who would want to go with you?”

At that, the boy’s eyes lit up. “You really mean it?”

“Of course! What with all the ponies who tried to butter me up last year, surely they’d still want to go now!”

This, of course, was an exaggeration Twilight was not aware of.

Hours passed by as the sun started its descent, and not a single pony who knew of what happened at the previous Gala wanted to go this time. Flower Wishes claimed she had to work solely on her garden for the next week and a half, Colgate was busying herself with an advertisement sponsorship with a toothpaste company, and that odd Doctor fellow said nothing, just determinedly keeping his eyes glued to the fountain statue in the middle of the town square. Everypony just seemed to oh-so-coincidentally have their hooves full and be unable to make it this year. Beginning to feel defeat and disappointment in herself, Twilight hung her head low as she trudged back to the library.

I guess I can go with Spike this year, she thought to herself. Still…

Not halfway back to her home did Twilight make until her brooding was brought short by an enthusiastic blur of pink speeding past her, then plopping down right in front of her.

“Oh, hiya Twilight! How’re you doing?” Pinkie Pie nearly squeaked.

“Not that good, Pinkie. I’d like to just go home now though, so if you could just move out of the way…”

The earth pony shot up in an excessively loud gasp, exclaiming, “Not that good?! But I need to make sure all of my friends are doing extra super-duper spectacular! What’s wrong?”

“Well, I was trying to find somepony else to take the second ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala this year for—”

“The Grand Galloping Gala? Well, I’ll go!” Pinkie grinned.

Shocked, to say the least, at the sudden invitation contrasting every other rejection, Twilight couldn’t find any words. When her thoughts returned, she said, “Er, really, Pinkie? I mean, last year’s was pretty… well, horrible.”

“Of course it was, silly filly!”

She stared at Pinkie in disbelief. “Th-then why would you want to go again?”

“Don’t you remember? We all agreed that it was, like, the worst, but because it was the worst, it was the greatest super-fun party we ever had!” Triumphantly sticking her chest out, Pinkie let her words hang in midair as Twilight absorbed them.

After a minute or so of silence, Twilight looked back up from the ground and eyed her friend thoughtfully. “Well… alright, if you really want to go, I’ll let Spike know that you’re going with him.” She had begun to shimmy past the party enthusiast, while said enthusiast froze like an ice sculpture.

“Wait… you’re not going, Twilight?”

The unicorn chuckled, “Definitely not—I hated it last year. Why would I want to attend?”

“Because it was the worst, so it was the greatest super-fun party we ever had?” Pinkie’s brows knit together in a mock expression of both anger and sheer confusion.

“I… suppose it was,” Twilight drawled slowly and cautiously. She spent a fair amount of time examining the other pony’s sky blue eyes, in a fruitless attempt to read her thoughts. When the lavender librarian found that the other's pupils had nothing to say, she continued, “Even so, it would only be just the two of us. Not exactly as fun as with Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow or Fluttershy, right?”

“Don’t say that, Twilight! I’d love to go to the Gala with you, ‘cause you’re plenty fun! You know, that kind of funny fun that isn’t actually funny but is just really, really fun?” Pinkie’s impossibly wide smile returned as she gave a compliment to her friend, but failing to coherently send it.

“Uh… no, I don’t know. But…” she sighed. “Alright—I give in. We can go together, Pinkie Pie.”

“Whoopee!” Pinkie cheered, summoning up an unexpected strength as she lifted Twilight off the ground and into a hug. “I’ll show you that it won’t be über-mega-boring like you thought it was last time!”

“Right…” Twilight trailed off with extreme doubt towards her pink friend’s allegation. “Anyway,” she sputtered, squirming her way out of Pinkie’s tight embrace, “I better get back to the library and let Spike know about the change of plans.”

“Uh-huh! Bye-bye, Twilight!” Pinkie didn’t seem to really acknowledge those last words as she bounced off in some random direction, beginning to hum as she did so.

“You mean I’m not going to the Gala?” Spike asked through a mouthful of gems, trying to drown out his disheartened mood with kitchen delights.

“Of course not, Spike; you’re still going. You’ll just be going with Pinkie.”

The baby dragon did a double take in Twilight’s direction. “But… but you already told Pinkie you’d go with her!”

“I may have said that, yes,” explained the unicorn, “but that doesn’t mean I meant it. I just wanted to make sure I got somepony to go with you.”

“So you lied to your own best friend?” he accused.

“Spike!” Twilight glared in offense. “I didn’t lie; it was simply a stretch of the truth. Besides, Pinkie Pie would have so much fun seeing what kind of trouble she can get into, she won’t even mind that I’m not going with her.”

“Oh, no,” Spike huffed, “I am not going. Not when you already promised Pinkie Pie that you’d go with her.”

“But Spike—”

“Don’t start that, Twilight! You knew what you were getting into.” With that, Spike hopped off the kitchen stool and dramatically swept across the room until he was out of her sight.

Inaudibly groaning, Twilight Sparkle took a comfortable seat on the floor in front of a large section of books and idly levitated them to her face. Finally settling on The Ponysian Letters, she read that book cover to cover in the matter of hours—and not a single moment of doing so was she unable to escape the proliferating frustrated and trapped feelings regarding the Gala.

To be honest, she never even knew the reason for yearning so badly to go before. The Sparkles were a long line of important intellectual figures of their time—that in itself was true—but nearly all of them were rather socially inept. And, unfortunately for her, the currently youngest heir had not strayed far from the genetic pool. Attending a social gathering of any kind was akin to facing every shred of fear she’s ever felt at once. Discussing with Princess Celestia in person about her magical studies was certainly something Twilight always looked forward to, but why did it have to be solely the Grand Galloping Gala in which she could do this? Surely, there could be some other instance to brief her teacher on all of her findings in some other means of communication than magical letters.

In fact, the more Twilight Sparkle thought about it, the more she despised the thought of going, even if it meant breaking her agreement with Pinkie Pie. Very well, she thought, I’ll simply tell Pinkie something came up and that I can’t go with her. Maybe she’ll find a way to convince Rarity or Rainbow Dash to go with her; somepony who might have a shred of reason to desire attending it once more.

Pleased with herself, Twilight promptly teleported herself into her room and practically skipped over to her desk. From there, her magic lifted a quill from its ink bottle, shook excess ink from its tip, and began scratching her apology onto a brand new sheet of parchment:

Dear Pinkie,

I’m very sorry to inform you that, due to unexpected circumstances, I am unable to attend the Grand Galloping Gala with you this year. I did, however, keep the extra ticket in case you wanted to take somepony else—this is attached below. Once again, I’m sorry, but I simply can’t go. Maybe next year?

Your friend,

Twilight Sparkle

For what seemed like hours—perhaps even days in her mind—the unicorn could only find herself capable of staring blankly at her letter, re-reading it and re-reading it until she could recite it from memory.

“Indecent,” Twilight decided, and she crumpled the paper.

Pulling out a fresh sheet, she began anew. And anew once more, and a third time, a fourth, a fifth, and so on and so forth. But no matter how many times she re-wrote or changed the wording of her letters, they seemed so inevitably inadequate that Twilight couldn’t help but begin to take on a rather severe headache.

“Ugh,” she growled, “Why is this so hard? I’m just telling Pinkie that I can’t go.”

Something inside of her, however, told her to go. Her integrity as Pinkie Pie’s friend, for some inexplicable reason, felt like it was at stake if she sent this letter to the bouncing bundle of joy. What if Pinkie Pie knew that Twilight was able to go, but just didn’t feel like it? What if she took it too personally, and thus became so hurt that she’d throw another episode as she did once before on her birthday? Twilight couldn’t bear to risk it. Aside from going and fulfilling her implied promise being the right thing to do, the unicorn cared deeply for that pink pony, even if she didn’t always show it. She was still her friend, and she’d hate to hurt her in some way.

Just as she was set and bent on pushing past her comfort zone boundaries, another part of her piped up. Why should Twilight have to sacrifice her own happiness and comfort just to make Pinkie Pie feel the tiniest bit happier than she already is, and for only a brief night? Surely, friends don’t have to constantly make arrangements of battling their internal feelings just to give a miniscule benefit to the other. In addition, Twilight was so busy with her studies on magic and friendship, and for her recent lessons learnt she wanted to create a data visualization such as a third-dimensional graph; surely, this self-assigned project would be very time-consuming, and Pinkie would understand Twilight’s preoccupations.

And, right before she decided she would, in fact, stay at home during the Gala, her mind blew into a miniature war on her own morals, ethics, esteems, etc. Which, might Twilight add, was not the cure for her growing migraine. Pressing a hoof to her forehead, the unicorn ultimately decided on letting her decision wait until the following morning, before a crack along her forelock could split her head open. Eyes fluttering closed, Twilight’s last thoughts before diving into blissful unconsciousness were of Princess Celestia, the Grand Galloping Gala, and her perfectly peppy, pink friend.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: Downplay of Doublepinking Estimated time remaining: 14 Minutes