I watched with detached amusement as several unicorns went about resetting the domino visual aids Twinkleshine and I had painstakingly set up a few hours ago, only to knock them down again with different inputs, as if trying to replicate what I’d shown them. Equestria’s ponies may not have been as technologically advanced as Earth, but they clearly knew their scientific method.

All in all, the “Apology Tour” had gone better than expected. For the most part, the brain trust that the Institute had assembled were quick to forgive. I hadn’t expected to win everyone over ‒ hell, I hadn’t expected to win anyone over, so the fact that there were holdouts wasn’t too surprising. Their opinions probably weren’t that important in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

The ones that were receptive to my expression of contrition nearly filled the lecture hall I was using. For the better part of two hours, they listened to me ramble on about what I knew of the science behind our electronic gizmos with patient curiosity. Despite my incomplete knowledge in many areas, which I acknowledged up front, I was able to give a fairly extensive overview of Earth’s technological accomplishments, from the moon landings to the Internet, and so on. Many times, their questions were quite insightful, and I found myself learning from them as much as they learned from me.

In the end, I think I even made a few connections. Fractal Space, in particular, seemed interested in possible future collaboration on an effort to replicate human technological advancements in Equestria. I demurred, explaining that the gaps in my knowledge would probably make me more of a hindrance than a help. Still, she insisted that I at least let her pick my brain for ideas on occasion.

That, at least, was a deal I was willing to accept.

A voice drew me from my reverie. “You seem to have made a better second impression.”

I turned in the direction of the voice. “Oh, hey, Twinkleshine.” I took a moment to adjust my glasses. “Yeah, I guess I did an okay job. But I didn’t do it on my own, y’know.”

The powder white mare favored me with a small, but warm smile. “I know. I helped, remember?”

“And I appreciate that, believe me,” I replied, only to frown a moment later. “I’m still a bit disappointed that Twilight wasn’t more involved.”

Twinkleshine hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin with a forehoof. “I know what you mean. I don’t think she meant any personal slight by it, though. I’m sure you’ve noticed that she has a lot on her mind at the moment.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, recalling the drama of the few days with pained ease. “She’d been driven to distraction by the situation with Moondancer ever since I sat in on that lunch with her and Lyra. You should’ve seen her on the train ride up here.”

“I can only imagine,” Twinkleshine replied, biting her lip and furrowing her brow. Her ears drooped as she added, “And that’s what worries me.”

I nodded in understanding. “It worries me, too. Something tells me that when she gets panicked, folks tend to have a bad time.”

“You mean like the time she enchanted Smarty Pants to be ridiculously attractive to anypony who laid eyes upon it?”

I blinked. “You heard about that?”

Twinkleshine rolled her eyes. “I was there when it happened. I was affected. When Princess Celestia dispelled the enchantment, I came to, only to find that I had locked horns over the doll ‒ metaphorically speaking, of course ‒ with some pink earth pony mare with cherries for a cutie mark.”

Spike had mentioned the incident when we were on the train. The only possible reaction I could have had to Twinkleshine bringing it up as well was to shake my head in disbelief. “I still think that sort of thing should be very illegal.”

Twinkleshine favored me with a knowing smirk. “You’re probably not wrong in that regard.”

“And with that in mind, we should go find Twilight before she does something silly like turning everyone into an alicorn.”

A highly amused snort erupted from the mare, but she said nothing else.

“Just give me a moment to politely excuse myself from these proceedings, and we’ll be off.” I then raised my voice so that the others could hear me. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I’m going to have to take my leave now. Some personal matters have come up that need attending to. After that, I’ll be returning to Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle has graciously agreed to host me until I get back on my feet, so if you need to contact me for any reason, you can pass it along to her.”

Assorted murmurs of acknowledgement greeted my announcement, followed shortly by goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. I turned back to Twinkleshine.

“Shall we?” I asked, gesturing for her to lead the way.

A silvery giggle, not all that different from Lyra’s or Minuette’s, erupted from her muzzle. “Yes, let’s go,” she replied. “I think I know where we might find Twilight.”

The hallway into which we emerged was illuminated with a familiar, sterile fluorescence. While such lighting on Earth was produced with electricity and specially designed light bulbs, in Equestria, they ran on rainbows and sunshine and friendship and long rods studded with large, magically-enchanted crystals. But mostly the latter.

The beige walls were sporadically broken up by bulletin boards. I may not have been able to tease out meaning on any of the posted notifications as we walked, but given the fact that it was a center of academia, it wasn’t hard to guess that they contained everything from various and sundry departmental announcements and promotional flyers for upcoming events that might be of interest to students to want ad-style requests and offers for goods and services. At the far end of the hallway lay our destination: a stairwell marked by a green sign with an image of a pony going down stairs.

My footsteps and Twinkleshine’s hoofsteps kicked up a discordant, calamitous echo as we descended the stairwell towards the ground floor of the Modern Computational Mechanics building ‒ the bowels of which had been the site of the very incident that had necessitated my guest appearance just minutes ago. Lost in my own thoughts as I was, I was content to follow her lead, if for no other reason than because she knew the lay of the land much better than I did.

Our emergence into the wan midday sun was marked by a familiar tickling sensation in my sinuses. I had only taken a few steps towards the snow-covered greenbelt that marked the edge of campus when the pressure reached a tipping point, and I let out a loud sneeze.

“Oh, excuse me,” I moaned through a stuffy nose.

Twinkleshine turned her head to look back at me, her ice blue eyes shimmering in concern. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine. It happens to me sometimes when I go from artificial to natural light.”

She giggled in response, eyes closing and a small smile blossoming on her muzzle as if recalling a fond memory. “I kind of know what that’s like. I had an old coltfriend who was the same way.”

“Really?” I mused, eyebrows arching quizzically. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I’m guessing from your characterization of him as an ‘old’ coltfriend that it didn’t work out?”

Twinkleshine stared back at me as we waded through a large herd of oncoming ponies. They parted around us like waves against the prow of a large ocean liner. Some of the passing equines gazed in utter bafflement at the alien in their midst, but I paid it no mind. I had already long since inured myself to such reactions.

Eventually, Twinkleshine spoke, her gaze now fixed firmly ahead as the edge of campus approached. “No,” she declared flatly, “It’s not any of your business.” After a long moment, a sad sigh erupted from the mare’s lungs. “But I suppose it couldn’t hurt to tell. I mean, there’s not really much to tell anyway. We met at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, had some good times together.”

Judging from the wistful expression she was wearing, I guessed that Twinkleshine had been rather fond of the guy. “Unfortunately, those good times came to an end after we graduated. He’d gotten accepted to the prestigious pre-law program at Manehatten University. I wanted to stay close to home for my continuing education, and the Institute has one of the best astronomy programs in all of Equestria. We tried to make it work, but…”

“But long-distance relationships don’t have a very good track record,” I concluded in the wake of her unfinished sentence.

One of Twinkleshine’s ears twitched, and she chanced a glance back at me. “Maybe that’s true for us ponies,” she admitted, “but you’ve got, by your estimates, a couple of centuries’ advantage on us technologically. Wouldn’t that ‘Internet’ of yours make the distance much more bearable?”

It was my turn to give a sentimental sigh. “You’d be surprised at how even the most advanced communications technology in existence can often pale in comparison to real, live, in-person contact. I mean, you can’t exactly hold someone’s hand ‒ or hoof, for that matter ‒ through a computer screen.”

A brief pause ensued. “I suppose you have a point,” she said at long last, her muzzle scrunched up in an odd smile that seemed filled with a veritable stew of emotions.

The silence descended upon us once more as Twinkleshine led the way towards our rendezvous with Twilight and the others. The Institute’s campus was only a few blocks inside the Platinum District, so it didn’t take long to reach the imposing wrought iron gates I’d seen when we passed by on our way to the palace earlier in the week.

I was perfectly fine with the silence, to be honest. The less interaction, the less chance I’d make friends with the wrong person. That had been the guiding principle of my life ever since I discovered that one of my closest high school buddies had grown into a manipulative, usurious adult.

Unbidden, memories of the time our friendship began to sour rose to the surface of my thoughts. My mood soured right alongside those memories, causing a noticeable rise in my blood pressure. The more and more I thought about our final confrontation, the more my breathing became erratic, heated. I was on the verge of hyperventilating, snarling in rage as I silently mouthed the fatal words that had ended our relationship once and for all.

Tinkleshine’s ear flicked, and I fought desperately to bury my emotions back in the black hole in my heart from which they’d emerged before she noticed anything was amiss.

I needed a distraction, and Equestria had seen fit to provide plenty at that moment. My eyes flitted from one awe-inspiring sight to another like a caffeinated hummingbird. A street musician was playing a jaunty, very familiar tune on an acoustic guitar ‒ it took every last ounce of willpower not to sing along and give the impression that I was advocating the use of sapient equines as mounts for desert travel. Pedestrians casually tossed bits into his opened case as they passed by. A group of pegasi were clearing the cloud cover overhead with well-aimed, physics-defying bucks of their hind hooves. The near-midday sun glinted off the distant, gilded domes of Canterlot Castle in shimmering waves reminiscent of Eddings’ “fire-domed Matherion.”

At one point along our route, a group of ponies seated on the patio of a restaurant caught my eye. One pony in particular stood out ‒ an unassuming gray-coated stallion with a short-cropped metallic green mane. But what really drew my attention was the piercing in his left ear and the silver ring on his horn. The rest of his entourage, a handful of mares, were chatting animatedly among themselves. Occasionally, he’d offer a small smile at something one of the others had said, but for the most part, he kept to himself.

It didn’t stop the mares from occasionally giving him ‒ and each other, for that matter ‒ googly-eyed glances, which struck me as rather odd.

His pale yellow eyes caught hold of my own, and I mentally kicked myself for standing as gobsmacked as if I’d just run into Macho Man Randy Savage at an Albuquerque sushi restaurant. My internal self-abasement quickly morphed into a mild, yet rapidly rising anxiety as the staredown intensified. It had been a long time since I’d last felt an intense, searching gaze of this magnitude, but I recognized it for what it was almost immediately.

In an instant, my mind was transported back to a cramped, clean office. A middle-aged Korean man with a somewhat weathered face and kindly features sat in a chair opposite of me and my father. He spent some time looking at my developing shiner, fat lip, and various minor lacerations without really seeing them through his penetrating brown eyes.

I squirmed in my seat through his silent judgment, already feeling self-conscious about drawing attention to myself with my injuries. It was bad enough that I’d received them in the course of standing up for a friend. It was even worse that I’d received a Saturday detention alongside the perp by an uncaring principal. Now some complete stranger was getting ready to pass his own sentence on me.

Thankfully, that wasn’t to be. He smiled warmly and explained his philosophy on martial arts ‒ in particular, the idea that it was something for families to do together as a bonding experience ‒ in thickly accented, somewhat broken English. Needless to say, my father and I both signed up on the spot.

A glint of sunlight off of nearby glass brought me back to the present. The stallion had just finished his silent assessment of me as a person, and offered me a grudging smile and nod. I promptly returned the gesture with a similar wave of relief as had filled me all those years ago.

Said relief was short-lived, however, as ethereal chimes sang in my ears and my vision tinted ice blue. An intangible force slowly spun me around until I was gazing at the amused grin and twinkling eyes of my companion.

“Still getting used to living in Equestria?” Twinkleshine’s tone was every bit as arch as her expression as her horn cut out. We began to walk down the busy paved streets once more, passing several restaurants by.

“You could say that,” I grudgingly admitted, unable to completely keep the earlier tension from my voice. If anything, the bitter aftertaste of my past had mixed with the strangeness of my current surroundings to create a toxic stew that was about to flood the streets of Canterlot. “I thought that my love of science fiction and travels abroad had prepared me for the strangeness of seeing alien civilizations, but none of that seemed adequate for what I’ve found here.”

“You mean, like, magic and weather control?” Twinkleshine asked, only sparing the minimal attention required to navigate in a city that she likely knew like the back of her hand ‒ or “like the frog of her hoof,” to borrow a pony idiom that Rarity had once used when I was still convalescing in the castle during my first week in Equestria. I wasn’t sure about that ‒ some terms for pony anatomy struck me as rather odd.

“Ironically enough, that’s not it,” I replied with a wry smile that perhaps looked a bit too much like a grimace. “Those things at least make some sort of sense to me, given all the time I spent in the ‘science fiction and fantasy’ section of various book stores as a teenager.”

“Sounds like you and Twilight would get along just fine,” she interjected with an upward quirk of her lips and twinkling eyes.

A frosty glare from me quickly sobered her up. “Sorry,” she quickly amended. “I shouldn’t have interrupted. Please, continue.”

“Thank you,” I grumbled. After a moment to compose myself, I continued. “To be perfectly blunt, it’s actually the more familiar things this world has to offer that get to me.”

“Such as?”

I drew in a deep breath, already feeling myself winding up for a long-overdue rant. “For starters, there’s the fact that far too many things here sound like bad puns on things from my world. Manehatten. Baltimare. Fillydelphia. Canterlot. I mean, you’d think someone had made a children’s cartoon about magical talking equines in a bid to sell cheap plastic toys with names like that. In English, no less.

“Seriously, I get that I managed to luck into coming to a world where the natives evolved a language with a ridiculous level of similarity to my own, against all odds, but this just stretches credulity. Believe me, Random Number Jesus doesn’t like me that much. Or at all, for that matter.”

I was dimly aware that I was turning heads with the spectacle I was making of myself, but I was too riled to care at the moment. My breath misted in the frigid air as I unloaded the second barrel of my tirade. “And don’t even get me started on how awkward it is to live in a land with no nudity taboo, especially when roughly one-third of the population can fly,” I thundered, sounding every inch like a fundamentalist preacher.

I held up a placating hand as I attempted to calm myself. “Don’t get me wrong, I can accept ‒ at least intellectually ‒ that ponies here are fully sapient and only superficially resemble their evolutionary cousins back on Earth. I’m trying to be as enlightened as I can be for someone who’s new to sharing a planet with non-human sapients, believe me. But that slight similarity is enough for your genitals to fall into the uncanny valley to the less evolved parts of my brain. For Talos’ sake, thanks to her usual mode of locomotion, I saw enough of Pinkie’s… erm… pie… the other day to last several lifetimes.”

“Wow,” came Pinkie’s voice after a pregnant pause, surprisingly subdued for a mare whose normal volume was full-throated enthusiasm. Her ears were folded back, and a crimson tint to her cheeks was barely noticeable through her pink fur. In the blink of an eye, however, she was already back to her disconcertingly chipper self. “That was a lot of stuff to get off your chest. Feel any better now?” As with Minuette previously, Pinkie’s toothy grin was accompanied by an odd squeaky toy-like noise that I couldn’t place.

I blanched at the belated realization that the subject of the last part of my rant had been in earshot at the time. My hand hit my forehead with such violence that the afflicted area still stung for several minutes after impact.

“Me and my big mouth,” I grumbled loudly, collapsing into an empty seat next to Twilight on the patio of the cafe that I’d only belatedly noticed we’d arrived at. Said table appeared to be painted to look like a lilypad, or similar aquatic flora. It looked so inviting in that moment that I rested my chin on it in the vain hope of melding with it until the inevitable shitstorm had died down. “This is why, in the absence of this strange twist of fate, I’d never be selected as my world’s ambassador to ponykind. I don’t have the diplomatic training to avoid constantly putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Wouldn’t it be kinda hard to talk with your foot in your mouth?” Pinkie chimed in helpfully. “And how would you get your foot in your mouth, anyway? I mean, I know ponies are, like, super-duper flexible and stuff, but even I can’t get my back hoofsies in my mouth!”

So buried was I in the depths of self-pity that I couldn’t be bothered to do anything more than shift my eyes to direct a baleful glare at Pinkie. It was sufficient to shut her up, at least.

“Goddammit, Pinkie Pie,” I muttered almost inaudibly.

Any dark thoughts I might have been harboring towards her, however, were instantly routed by a light, reassuring pressure on my right shoulder. Sparing a glance in that direction, I spotted the culprit ‒ a familiar powder white hoof. Tracing the hoof back to its owner, I spied Twinkleshine’s eyes looking back at me, filled with sympathy.

She craned her neck down so that she could whisper in my ear. “Try not to let it get to you. It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie.”

That news was surprising enough to propel me into an upright sitting position. “Really? How do you know Pinkie?”

“As you might have guessed from the ‘Smarty Pants Incident,’ I visit Ponyville from time to time with Minuette and Lemon Hearts to see Lyra,” she said by way of explanation. “I also saw her at the Royal Wedding, because Lyra, Minuette, and I were Princess Cadance’s original bridesmaids before the changeling queen had us foalnapped as part of a ruse to get Twilight kicked out of the wedding.” Tinkleshine’s expression had soured considerably in recounting the incident.

I winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

A full-body shudder ran through Twinkleshine, as if she were trying to shake loose the memory like it was water soaking her fur. “The worst part about it was not having any memory of the time we were under the changeling queen’s control. I only found out later that she’d used us to try and obstruct Twilight and Princess Cadance long enough to keep them from ruining the wedding.”

She then turned to look at Minuette across the table, who I had just noticed was sporting a ridiculous pair of electric yellow sunglasses with window blinds in place of the lenses. “I honestly don’t know how you managed to not be traumatized by the incident, Minnie,” she said, shooting the blue mare a quizzical look.

Minuette shrugged. “I’ve always tried to look on the bright side of life,” she said with a sheepish grin.

A shit-eating grin wormed its way onto my lips. “So, you’re saying that some things in life are bad, and they can really make you mad? Other things just make you swear and curse?”

I could feel my connection to the Music of Harmony start to activate again. And judging from the matching smirk from Minuette, she’d felt hers going off as well.

“Go on,” she exhorted.

With little more preface than a roll of my eyes and a resigned shrug of my shoulders, I began to sing.

As if on cue, Pinkie and Minuette joined in on the whistling part, expertly masking my own pathetic attempt to do so.

Despite the gleeful inclusion of the two peppiest mares I knew, the rest of the table had decidedly mixed reactions, especially as passers-by began to join in on the festivities. Twilight, in particular, seemed incredibly disturbed by both the lyrics and the display. Her ears were pinned back and her muzzle was locked in a rictus of mute horror as she covered Spike’s ears with her hooves. Nevertheless, the spectacle continued on to completion.

In retrospect, it was probably good that we’d gotten the song out of the way when we did. The moment the music stopped, Twilight opened her mouth to speak her mind about what she had just witnessed, only to let loose with a panicked whicker at something she’d seen off to my right. The next thing I knew, she was shoving a menu in my face.

“Sweet Zombie Jesus, Twilight!” I yelped, “What the hell was that for?”

“Just go along with it for now,” Twilight hissed urgently, looking past me at whatever had spooked her. “Moondancer’s coming!”

Turning as casually as I could in the direction indicated, I swore under my breath. Sure enough, there was the mare in question, parting the sea of sapient equines like she was the pony version of Moses. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice us, as her muzzle was buried in a book that may as well have been the original stone tablets of the Decalogue itself.

Shuddering at memories of our first awkward meeting, I turned back to Twilight. “Well, thankfully, she doesn’t seem to have noticed us. But I don’t see how burying my nose in a menu is going to disguise me if she were to look up,” I whispered back. “I kind of stick out like a sore thumb.”

“We don’t have time to argue,” she retorted, just barely maintaining a whisper at this point. “You’re just going to have to do your best to avoid drawing attention to yourself.” A devious grin wormed its way onto her lips a moment later as she added, “After all, I’m sure you don’t want to field any more of her probing questions in uncomfortable places.”

I wished with all my heart that the deadpan stare I gave her in response could be weaponized. “You are truly evil sometimes,” I grumbled.

“But not too evil, I hope,” she replied with a girlish giggle.

I chose not to respond to that, instead busying myself with trying to puzzle out the items on the menu. From what I could make out of the menu options, the establishment catered primarily to herbivores, which admittedly didn’t appeal to me as much, but I was hungry enough to try. That said, I did have one embarrassing moment where I misread “cud salad” as “gut salad” due to confusion over a couple of voiced-voiceless consonant pairs.

It probably wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t using a barely readable, overly fancy font for their menu.

I was just about to settle on an item that was effectively a meatless taco salad when Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Okay,” she said, “it’s safe now. She didn’t even look up from the book she was reading.”

“So, what exactly was the point of this whole charade?” Twinkleshine asked, completely deadpan.

“Yeah, Twilight,” I chimed in, my tone a bit more blatantly accusatory, “What do you hope to gain by stalking Moondancer?”

“I’m not stalking her,” Twilight insisted huffily. “I’m investigating.”

“You mean like the time you were investigating Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense?” Spike countered, sporting one very fascinated eyebrow. “Because that sure seemed like stalking to me.”

“I’m serious, Spike,” Twilight shot back. “I’m trying to learn how to get back into Moondancer’s good graces, and in order to do that, I need information. And since she won’t talk to me, I have to get that information through other means.”

Twinkleshine chose to not to say anything, but the fact that her face mirrored Spike’s earlier expression told me everything I needed to know about what she thought about that.

In the face of such defiant skepticism, Twilight’s resolve wavered a little. “Okay, fine,” she grudgingly admitted, her tone still a tad defiant, “Perhaps I went too far in trying to solve this friendship problem of mine. But I’m rapidly running out of options. I’ve tried talking to her in the library. We’ve tried taking her out to dinner. We’ve even tried introducing her to Derren!”

I winced at the memory of that effort.

“None of it has worked!” Twilight concluded, throwing her forelegs into the air in exasperation.

“And what have you gained from stal-” Spike flinched away from Twilight’s withering glare “-your investigation?”

After a long silence, Twilight let out an equally long sigh, her shoulders sagging as she seemed to visibly deflate. “Nothing,” she admitted reluctantly. “Nothing useful, at any rate. All she ever does is go between the library and her house. I’ve only seen her talking to maybe three ponies at most in all that time ‒ the librarian, a book seller, and her sister.”

“Then maybe it’s time to think outside the box,” Minuette suggested with a soft smile, massaging Twilight’s withers with a touch that was as gentle as her tone.

Twilight slowly looked up at the azure mare. “What did you have in mind?”

Minuette and Pinkie shared a knowing look before they both turned back to Twilight with dangerously exuberant grins on their muzzles.

Pinkie practically exploded as she announced, “A PARTY!”

I rolled my eyes at the overly-caffeinated pink mare. “That’s your answer for everything, Pinkie,” I grumbled.

I looked over at Twilight, fully expecting the level-headed mare to agree with me. What I found instead disturbed me. Her pupils were moving rapidly, as if reflecting the rapidity with which her mind was working over the suggestion. Was she seriously considering this crazy scheme?

The lead weight in my gut morphed into neutronium when I heard an excited-sounding gasp issuing from Twilight. “Pinkie,” she cried, “You’re a genius!”

“Thanks, Twilight!” Pinkie chirped, visibly more than happy at Twilight’s approval in a way that seemed to illustrate my favorite comedian’s observation about the phrase “more than happy.”

I could tell that I was going to need a stiff drink before the day was out. Perhaps several stiff drinks, at that...

The western courtyard of Canterlot Castle had undergone a radical change in the space of only a few seconds. Everywhere one looked, one could see streamers of varying shades of pastel, tables were set out and decorated, and a shiny pink disco ball even hung from a decorative metal archway at the entrance to the courtyard. If I hadn’t just witnessed it with my own eyes, I would’ve scoffed at the notion that Pinkie could decorate so quickly.

Come to think of it, I had indeed discounted it no less than a week prior. It’s amazing what a difference time ‒ or a well-placed party cannon or two ‒ can make.

My brain had just rebooted from shock at the casualness with which Pinkie had literally rejected my reality and substituted her own when I noticed a familiar figure approaching, a single book held in her telekinetic field. She gently placed it on the ground before continuing to trot in our direction.

“So, Twilight,” I called out to the mare, “What’s the fine in Canterlot for littering?” Admittedly, my tone was to some degree calculated to be as irritatingly cheeky as possible. I couldn’t say why I did it, other than out of some vague notion that I sometimes found it amusing to watch her rise to the bait.

And rise to the bait she did.

“Very funny, Mister Comedian,” Twilight replied in a tone as deadpan as her expression. Her ears were flattened as if in added emphasis.

“I rather thought it was,” I murmured with much the same self-satisfaction as before.

Twilight appeared to be about to respond when a soft voice reached us, gently calling every equine ear to bend in its direction. “I’m surprised at you, Twilight,” Lemon Hearts said softly. She pointed a hoof at the tome that Twilight had just casually discarded. “Normally, you’d take great umbrage at anypony treating books like that.”

“Well, I wouldn’t normally dare to subject them to such casual disregard,” Twilight admitted, “but this is an unusual circumstance, and I decided to think outside the box, as Minuette and Pinkie suggested.” She nodded in the direction of the aforementioned book. “In this case, I figured that since Moondancer shares my passion for literature, I’d… give her a reason to come here. There’s a whole line of books leading back to the Canterlot Public Library. The moment she comes out of there, she won’t be able to resist following it to the end.” She giggled excitedly, forehooves clopping together as she exclaimed, “It’s the perfect plan!”

I couldn’t resist the setup. “So, you’re saying you left a paper trail, eh?”

“Hush, you,” Twilight chided, sounding only mildly miffed.

I glanced around at the others, hoping that at least someone had found my attempt at humor funny. Twinkleshine rolled her eyes, while Lemon Hearts fixed me with a look that could only be described as weaponized disappointment. On the other hand, Minuette’s lips kept twitching, and her eyes were twinkling with barely suppressed mirth. Pinkie was quaking all over, as if she were about to explode with uncontrollable gaiety.

And Spike… Spike merely cocked a bemused-looking eyebrow at me, his stubby little arms crossed in front of him.

“Gee,” I murmured, subconsciously adjusting my glasses, “Tough crowd.”

Any further discussion of my sense of humor was cut short as Twilight’s ears twitched, then craned like miniature radar domes towards the entrance to the courtyard. Moments later, the distinct, cadenced report of hooves on cobblestone dimly reached my ears. Do ponies have better hearing than me?

With a series of frantic gestures from Twilight, we scrambled to get into our prearranged places ‒ each one meticulously selected by her to allow us to observe the courtyard entrance without being seen in return. A quick glance around from my hiding spot behind a cake-bearing catering cart showed that Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and even Spike had reached their assigned spots. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, and only Twilight remained in full view of our unsuspecting party guest as she crested the bridge leading to the courtyard, a sizeable stack of books floating alongside her.

Moondancer’s horn abruptly stopped glowing, and the books she was carrying unceremoniously plummeted to the ground as she gasped in shock. “What is this?” she demanded, using her pale pink telekinetic field to adjust her glasses in a nervous gesture that was all too familiar, despite the addition of magic to the equation. Almost unbidden, I adjusted my own pair.

“It’s a party,” Twilight replied, smiling as she gestured for us to come out of hiding, “For you!”

I pushed the cart bearing the large, triple-decker cake in Moondancer’s general direction. Since I was trying to avoid eye contact ‒ and thus, more embarrassing questions about my species from the mare ‒ I had to employ Spike as a spotter so that I wouldn’t run into anyone with the cake.

Eventually, the cart trundled to a halt a few inches away from the gathering of ponies. It was at that moment that I finally learned ‒ in a rather spectacular, Michael Bay-worthy manner ‒ where Pinkie had been hiding. With little warning other than a visible jiggling, the cake suddenly ceased to exist in cake form. In its place was a rapidly expanding spray of cake bits, climbing ever upward in a cloud that could only be described as Plinian.

And at the center of it all was a certain bright pink party-enthusiast pony.

“SURPRISE!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. And then the world suddenly remembered that the law of gravity had not yet been repealed.

With nowhere to hide on such short notice, I had to resort to the standard “duck and cover” routine that I remembered from tornado drills as a kid, scrunching down as tightly as possible on my knees while covering the back of my neck with my hands. Sadly, it provided about as much protection as it would’ve during either an actual tornado or a nuclear exchange. I felt several wet splats against my back, adding to the peppering my clothes had already received from the initial eruption.

Thankfully, the cake fallout expended itself rather quickly. By the time I was able to safely look up, however, Pinkie had already slapped a party hat onto Moondancer’s head and stuffed her mouth with a blue and pink party blower.

“C’mon in!” Twilight cheerfully exhorted, only to have Moondancer promptly spit out the party blower and glare at her.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Moondancer snarled, lifting the party hat from her head with her telekinesis. She then promptly crumpled the hat into a wad of wastepaper and threw it on the ground with all the adult maturity of Andy Samberg. “I don’t do parties!”

With that she walked off away from Twilight in a huff… further into the courtyard. She didn’t get very far before the telltale flash and pop of a unicorn teleport deposited Twilight directly in front of her, blocking the way. The sudden displacement caused her party hat to fly off of her head.

“I know,” Twilight said, holding a hoof out to block Moondancer, “And I think it’s my fault.” Her eyes were closed in sadness, and the hoof she’d been using to stop the other mare was now held against her own chest.

She opened them again before continuing. “Back when we were in school together, you invited me to a party.” Her ears drooped. “I was so focused on my studies that I didn’t show up.”

Unfortunately for Twilight, her words were only serving to harden Moondancer’s resolve, as the cream coated mare merely rolled her eyes. “Big deal!” she huffed. Something seemed off about it, though.

Was that a hint of a deeper hurt I spied leaking out from under her tough exterior? I mused.

The rejection only seemed to deepen Twilight’s concern for her friend, along with her determination to make things right. “It was a big deal,” she insisted, “And now that I realize how important friendship is” ‒ she draped a foreleg across Moondancer’s withers in a comforting gesture ‒ “I’d like to make up for my mistake with a new party.”

Twilight waved her free forehoof about the courtyard at all the decorations, including a vibrantly colored piñata. “A party in honor of my friend, Moondancer!” Her horn lit up, and a suitable stick rapidly approached the pair, one end glowing the same magenta shade as Twilight’s horn. “Please,” she said, her voice filled with desperation, “You’ve got to let me make this up to you.”

Moondancer remained unphased in her transparent irritation. Nevertheless, the glow around the end of the whacking stick shifted in color from Twilight’s magenta to Moondancer’s pale pink, signaling a change of possession akin to a relay baton being passed from one runner to the next.

“And you think this is gonna do it, huh?” Moondancer snarled, stalking heavily in the direction of the piñata.

“Uhh, yes?” Twilight admitted, letting out a nervous-sounding chuckle.

Moondancer’s scowl deepened, and the rest of her face darkened like a thundercloud ready to erupt. In a voice dripping with sarcasm, she rhetorically demanded, “Well, sure. Why wouldn’t it?”

She paused in her rant just long enough to vent some of her emotions on the piñata. Even though the candy-filled papier-mâché creation only swung about a foot from the light thwack of the stick, I somehow got the sense that she could’ve put far more force into the blow, had she really been trying. It made me realize that despite its mundane utility, unicorn telekinesis could be very dangerous in the wrong hooves.

It was at that moment that Moondancer’s long-simmering outrage exploded in our collective faces. “That was only the first time I put myself out there, and then you didn’t even bother to show up!” She turned around, jabbing at Twilight rather aggressively with the whacking stick.

The jabbing motions continued sporadically with her next words. “Then you left town without even saying goodbye, even though we were supposed to be friends!” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and she screwed them tightly shut in an attempt to keep from crying. “I was humiliated! I felt like I wasn’t important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again!”

The stick suddenly zoomed over to point at the trio of Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine, who all cringed when it came to a sudden stop just a foot away from them. “Those three finally convinced me that I had value! That other ponies might like me and want to be my friend!” She brought the stick back around to jab at Twilight. “And you! DIDN’T! SHOW! UP!”

And in that moment, the emotional dam burst. Casually discarding the stick that she’d been wielding so menacingly just moments before, Moondancer let out an anguished shriek, and then ran off to the far end of the courtyard, collapsing into a sobbing heap of miserable mare once she ran out of space ahead of her.

As Twilight looked on in utter shock, the rest of us shared a meaningful look. We hadn’t expected Twilight’s plan to go this awry. As much as we were concerned for Moondancer’s emotional well-being, there was a bigger issue weighing on our minds. Namely, Twilight’s tendency to go slightly loopy when things don’t go according to plan.

“You’re right,” Twilight replied with a sigh. “This party can’t make up for the way that I hurt you. But I thought that I could at least show you how serious I am about fixing this problem with our friendship. I know it won’t repair the damage, but we can at least start making amends...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what was happening.

Twilight’s words seemed to trigger something in Moondancer. She rose to her hooves, shaking with barely suppressed anger. “Seriously? Is that all this is to you? A problem to be solved? Is that all I am to you?”

“No, of course not, Moondancer,” Twilight protested. “I would never ‒”

Moondancer cut her off, evidently done listening to her friend. “And what about Derren over here?” she demanded, jabbing a hoof in my direction. “Is he just another project to you? He’s a sapient being, for Celestia’s sake, not some lab animal to be studied! Even I know better than that! If that’s your idea of friendship, then maybe it would’ve been better if you’d stayed in Ponyville after running off like that!”

She then spun on her hooves and tensed up slightly. For a moment, I feared that she was going to try to kick Twilight. But all she did was give an angry flick of her tail before charging out of the courtyard at a gallop, leaving us all dumbstruck at the reversal of fortune that had just transpired.

Spike summed up our feelings in just one sentence. “Well, that just happened.”

While the others began conversing about what had gone wrong and how to fix it, my head began spinning from all the expended emotional ordnance. Was Moondancer right? Does Twilight really see me as a “problem to solve,” rather than a real friend?

I suddenly found myself in need of some distance from this place. It stank of high drama.

“Fuck it,” I muttered, “I’m out.” I turned to follow in Moondancer’s metaphorical footsteps, only to be interrupted by the last voice I wanted to hear at that time.

“Where are you going?” Twilight demanded.

“To find Silverclaw,” I retorted huffily. “The spectacle we just witnessed is more appropriate to a high school than a body of full-grown adults. Because of it, I suddenly find myself in need of women, drinking, and debauchery. And not necessarily in that order.”

With that, I stormed off into the night, leaving the group of bewildered ponies and one equally bewildered baby dragon to stare blankly after me.

Author's Notes:

So, yeah. I decided to throw a bit of a kink into the plot of "Amending Fences," as it occurs in the Derrenverse (even more of a kink than the fact that it occurs earlier in the timeline than show canon). I'm well aware that there will probably be complaints about this particular plot twist, especially given how the plot of the original episode was resolved. There are two things to keep in mind here:

This fic is set between Season Two and Season Three of show canon (as is the planned sequel, BTW). At that point, Twilight has made great strides in learning how to be a good friend, but she's nowhere near the friendship virtuoso she becomes by the time Season Five rolls around. She's bound to make mistakes, and mistakes are often a big part of learning. (Her actions in the S2 finale - namely, accusing "Cadance" of being evil based on little more than circumstantial evidence - spring readily to mind in this regard.) Twilight's friendship with Moondancer is not, by any means, broken beyond repair. They'll eventually make amends, but it'll take something extraordinary to make it come about.