Twilight

“Goodbye!” Twilight cried, waving a fore hoof as she stood in the doorway of her treehouse. “Thanks for stopping over.”

She wasn’t sure if Rarity had been telling the whole truth; it seemed like she wanted to leave right after confessing all she had, but the unicorn looked sincere in what she had said.

It shouldn’t have come as a shock that that was the reason Spike left; he hadn’t said specifically why he was leaving and she didn’t think it appropriate to ask further, if his expression had been any indication. She missed him, it was difficult to wake up every morning to realize that her number one assistant would not be there.

Twilight didn’t blame Rarity, she didn’t blame anypony for what happened; she had done the right thing back then, at least in terms of the age difference between them. Still, poor Spike, She thought. The first time he works up the courage to ask her…well, there’s no point in worrying about it now. I just hope she thinks about it.

She stepped back into her home and shut the door with her magic. She had just finished the rest of her breakfast and had been looking for something to do. Rarity had been a welcome encounter regardless of the context of the visit, but now she required another activity. She knew that Mayor Mare needed some assistance with some problems in the town. I don’t have anything else to do today, why not?

Putting her book away on its proper shelf, Twilight once again pulled open the door and trotted out to the street. Clouds where covering the sky as the day drew on. The pegasi had planned a downpour today, to give the crops and forests an extra dose of water. It would be started after everypony arrived at the party though, meaning that it was the perfect time to hold an indoor bash.

As she was viewing the sky, Twilight’s ears pricked up in alarm, hearing the clop of hooves close behind her. She spun around and saw Scootaloo rocketing toward her, trying desperately to stop before they impacted. Twilight flinched and enclosed them both in her magic, managing to prevent the collision. She placed the younger pony down gently and removed the magic field.

“Whoa, nice save! Sorry, Twilight. I guess I wasn’t paying much attention.” Scootaloo smiled bashfully at the alicorn.

“It’s alright, Scootaloo, it happens to all of us,” she said, chuckling at herself. I should know all about that sort of thing. “What were you in such a rush for?”

Scootaloo brightened immediately, hopping in place happily. “Oh! I’m on my way to the Crusaders meeting.” Twilight saw her expression change again. She stopped bouncing and looked thoughtful, smiling uneasily at her now. “Hey, do you wanna go to the meeting?”

“Huh? Me?” she asked, bringing a fore hoof up to her chest. She hadn’t expected to be invited anywhere, but this sounded a little intriguing to the alicorn.

Scootaloo nodded enthusiastically, quickly gaining her excited energy back from a few minutes ago. “Sure! It would be awesome for our students to see you and learn about what you’ve studied.”

This would be an excellent opportunity to gauge how much the three of them have grown an matured. Twilight nodded in quick succession. “Yes. I’d love to.”

“Great! Come on, it’s about to start,” The orange pegasus shouted, speeding off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight smiled and began trotting on her way, following the road and Scootaloo to their old treehouse.

*****

“Okay, so you just wait here and we’ll call you up when it’s time,” Sweetie Belle said, while the others stood around her. With the plan settled and the foals all in attendance, the three younger mares walked into the treehouse.

Twilight waited outside for her queue, the plan being that they introduce today’s topic and then bringing her in. She had hidden her presence while the fillies and colts entered, standing right next to the girls, but invisible to everypony around her. Now she stood by the window just out of sight, listening to the mares speak to their students.

“So little fillies and colts, have any o’ you tried to get yer cutie-marks since our last meeting?” Applebloom asked cheerfully. She had a yellow coat and red delicious colored mane and tail; a pink bow was in her mane, and her cutie mark was two cupcakes with green icing and a slice of apple in each. Her hair had grown longer, coming down to about her neck in a bit of a curl.

Twilight heard murmurs of ‘no’ and ‘yes’, all sounding unhappy and frustrated at their failed or nonexistent plans. “I tried cooking, but it didn’t go very well,” Replied one filly, “Competitive candy eating doesn’t seem to be a special talent,” A group of fillies and colts mumble replies of the affirmative. Twilight chuckled inwardly at the ideas they came up with.

“Don’t feel bad,” Scootaloo reassured them smoothly. “there will be plenty of time for you to get your cutie-mark. It took us quite a while.”

“But today, before we get started, we’ve got a special somepony coming in to help with this lesson.” Twilight’s ears perked, hearing the words to make her entrance into the treehouse. Over the years, the three young mares rebuilt the house to suit their size more easily. Now many more ponies could fit in at a time, even able to fit adult ponies like Twilight. She made her way to the front, and once she heard Sweetie Belle say, “Please give a warm welcome to Princess Twilight Sparkle!” she magicked the door open and stepped within the building.

“Hi, everypony, it’s nice to see you all,” Twilight said, smiling warmly to the awestruck crowd. The silence didn’t last long, the ponies erupting into cheers and ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s, probably overwhelmed because a ‘celebrity’ was near them. The alicorn was still unaccustomed to all the new attention she received, but it seemed to be less of a problem now; most ponies were familiar with her new form and knew not to make much of a deal of it, but foals will be foals. I guess I can’t blame them for it. If I could have met Star-swirl the Bearded, I might do the same thing.

“Wow, I never thought an alicorn as awesome as Twilight would come to one of these things,” Cried one colt as he shouldered his way to the front, “What are you going to teach us today, Princess Twilight?” Another pony asked from beside her, “Are you going to show us how to defeat evil creatures like changlings and stuff?” The ponies began to crowd around her, Twilight being backed up into a corner before she gained any footing.

She cleared her throat and spoke clearly, over the deafening crowd of hyper-active ponies with equally active imaginations. “Now, now, I’m only here to help you on the right track to receiving your cutie-mark. Don’t forget who brought you all here.”

The foals turned their attention back to the three older crusaders. “That’s right, I almost forgot. Does Twilight know you guys?”

Applebloom smiled, looking pleased with herself. The others stood up straight as the fillies and colts stared at them. “She sure does, but don’t sell yerself short there, Twilight. We wouldn’t be here as we are today if it hadn’t been fer you.”

“That’s right,” Sweetie Belle agreed. “And even though you didn’t earn your cutie-marks today, it doesn’t mean you should give up, or become angry. Earning your cutie-mark can be just as much fun as having one, if you let it. Along the way, we realised that what Twilight told us was true.”

“You shouldn’t be worried about rushing to find your special talent,” Scootaloo said, walking up to the front of the crowd. “If you do, you end up missing out on spending time with friends and family and just plain having fun. Instead, you should try new things and find new friends, doing those things that you love to do.”

Applebloom trotted up to stand beside the pegasus. “Because someday, it might turn out that that thang ya did every day for fun was actually your special talent. It’ll come when it’s meant to, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t look for hints as to what it could be in everything ya do.”

Twilight, smiling at this important lesson being handled so well, she sauntered up to stand next to the three mares as well. “And if you do all of that, remembering to place having fun at the center of your focus, when you do finally earn your mark, it’ll mean so much more than if you were frustrated over it the whole time.”

“And the most important part: if somepony who has their cutie-mark is teasing you, don’t get upset.” The three said in unison. “Tell somepony what’s bothering you.”

The fillies and colts were silent after the lecture, eyes sparkling like diamonds at the four older ponies before them. “Wow!” Said one, breaking out of the silence first. “That was awesome!” Cried a filly in the front row. “I wanna be just like Scootaloo when I get my cutie-mark!” A pegasus colt shouted over the murmers of the crowd. “Yeah? Well I want to be like Sweetie Belle.” An earth pony replied, shouldering her way to the front. “Don’t forget about Applebloom, she’s awesome!”

Once all was said and done, and the colts and fillies had gone off to explore for their special talents, Twilight walked up to the three Crusaders. All seemed to be in good spirits after what they heard the foals say. “Wow, girls, that was great. You sure have matured. With your help, I don’t think anypony will be able to shake those ponies’ resolves.”

“Thanks, Twilight. It means so much to us to have you say that,” Sweetie Belle said, blushing lightly.

“Yeah,” Applebloom added. “Ah mean, we meant what we said earlier. If ya’ll hadn’t taught us to be patient and enjoy ourselves, we’d probably be way different. Probably not a good different either.”

“We owe a lot to you and all our other friends. Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, you all taught us so much. We’d just like to thank you for all that you did for us.”

“Oh, girls, you’re so welcome. I’m happy to help. But in a way, you helped me out too.” Twilight looked from face to face, finding a wide-eyed response on each of them, wondering what she meant. “When I first came to Ponyville I wasn’t interested in making friends, only studying to be better at magic. I already had my cutie-mark, I thought I had everything I needed, but everypony here, including you three, helped to show me that friendship is important too. I almost missed that, so thank you too.”

The looks of pure unbridled wonder were enough for Twilight to see that her words meant a great deal to the ponies; she brought them in for a group hug, which they accepted happily. “As for you appreciating what everypony else did for you, I think you should tell them if you haven’t already. I’m sure they would really like hearing how they helped you in discovering who you are.”

“That’s a great idea, Twilight!” Scootaloo shouted, spreading her wings to gain some altitude.

“Yeah! We can have a huge get together and tell all of them what they mean to us, for helping us through tough times.” Sweetie Belle chirped, lifting herself up with her own magic to join the pegasus. She had really taken to levitating magic, Twilight remembered teaching her, and found it fun to fly into the air on a whim.

“Where should we have it though?” Applebloom asked, though as soon as she did, her expression changed from thoughtful to knowing. The others were smiling at her and all three cried out in unison, “Sugarcube Corner!” Dissolving into fits of giggles afterward.

“Great idea, girls. You might even be able to tell everypony at the party this afternoon.”

“What party?”

“Pinkie’s having a party without us?” Sweetie Belle frowned sadly, being kept out of the loop on such an important part of Ponyville’s events.

Scootaloo looked abashed once more, scratching her neck nervously. “Oh, oops. Hehe, sorry, I meant to tell you about all that. I ran into Spike at the marketplace and he told me about his ‘Welcome back to Ponyville’ party at four o’ clock. It kinda slipped my mind when I bumped into Twilight.”

“Oh, Spike was at the market?” Twilight asked, interested in what reason he could have for going there.

“Yeah, he was with Pinkie Pie. She probably thought it was the easiest way to tell everypony about the party. I thought it was a pretty good idea, Spike was completely surrounded by excited ponies when I saw him.”

Applebloom huffed indignantly. “How come we weren’t invited?”

“You weren’t there.” Scootaloo shot back.

“Can we still go even though she didn’t invite us?” Sweetie Belle asked, glancing over at the alicorn.

“Of course,” Twilight said with an easy smile. “You know she would want everypony to see him again. It’s difficult, even for her, to visit with all of Ponyville with the news in such a short amount of time.”

Scootaloo nodded eagerly. “Spike told me to let you know actually, so technically you were invited; by me!”

“Well, alrighty then. When is it?”

“This afternoon. It’s set around four o’ clock,” Twilight said. “It’ll start just before the rain starts falling, so make sure you make your way over there a little early.”

“I can’t wait to see Spike again!” Sweetie Belle shouted happily. “Does he look any different from the last time we saw him?”

Twilight grinned slightly. “Well, he still looks like him, but he’s much taller. He’s still the same old Spike though.”

“And he’s got wings!” Scootaloo jumped up beside the alicorn, flapping her wings excitedly. “I’ve gotta see them in action some time.”

“Wow!” Cried the other two at the same moment. Twilight smiled at the excited expressions on each of their faces and started on her way out of the clubhouse. “Thanks again, Twilight, for coming to this meeting.” Applebloom said from behind her.

“Don’t worry about it. It was my pleasure.” The lavender alicorn responded, glancing over her shoulder at the mares. “Keep up the good work, and I’ll see you at the party.”

“Bye Twilight!”

Author's Notes:

Okay, so here is chapter 7. This is the first chapter that splits off from Spike or Rarity, and that's actually important for future chapters.

It will happen more often later, but this chapter is to show the Cutie-Mark Crusaders' continued activity mentioned in chapter 5. I thought it would be cool to involve them more in the story and it's a good way to begin including Twilight in the character centered chapters as well.

So there you have it. Enjoy the first of many new chapters coming out shortly. Ta ta! ^^