Cross the Rubicon: Choices
Chapter 92: Chapter Seventy One: Breakfast Club
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The car pulled up to the curb, and Twilight unbuckled quickly so she could retrieve her things from the back seat. “Thanks for bringing me early, Dad. I wanted to make sure Wallflower and I have plenty of time for breakfast and her gift. Do you think she’ll like it?”
Night gave her a smile, chuckling softly. “You told me she enjoys gardening and plants, and Sunset helped you pick it out—I’m certain your friend will like it just fine.” Then her father sobered. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come over for your meeting with the principal? I can, very easily. I don’t have an eleven o’clock class, and I can dismiss my nine o’clock group a little early.”
Adjusting the straps of her backpack, Twilight shook her head. “You don’t have to do that, Dad. I’m not sure they’d even let you in—schools have some very strict rules these days about visitors.”
“They can make an exception if I demand it, Twilight. As your father, I am completely within my rights to be present at any meeting between you and the administration. If you want me here, Principal Cinch will just have to understand.”
Twilight leaned in to hug him. “I’ll be okay, Dad...but...thanks. The offer means a lot to me.”
Night Light returned the hug with considerable strength. “Alright, but if you change your mind, text me. I’ll leave my phone on. I love you, sweetheart. And...try to have a good breakfast with your friend?”
“I love you too, Dad,” Twilight said as she straightened back up and grabbed the bag of breakfast goodies. “I’ll message you and Mom after the meeting too, to let you know how it goes.”
She watched for a moment as her father drove off, then turned to head inside. Twilight had arrived early enough that the main building of the school was mostly empty—though she could hear the noise from the cafeteria when she stepped inside the main doors, telling her breakfast was in full swing for the students who boarded at the school. The dark haired teen gripped her bag tighter, feeling the distant murmur of noise and the immediate silence of the hall as a heavy, oppressive blanket that made her skin crawl and her lungs struggle to pull in a full breath. Her steps quickened, lavender fingers of her free hand going to the lanyard tucked into her shirt so her fingers could grip the warm, familiar metal of Sunset’s gift, the pattern of bumps and notches satisfying her need to have something in her hands to fidget with.
Touching the key helped, but the feeling followed her all the way to her lab, and on more than one occasion she felt like she was being watched, despite being alone in the hall. You’re being ridiculous, Twilight, she scolded herself. The hallway is just empty and quiet—though it might be good to get some EMF readings of this part of the school. A sense of disquiet can be triggered by unshielded cabling or excessively high field readings, resulting in what some psychologists refer to as ‘fear cages.’ Clearly, her imagination was just acting up, especially after a trying and stressful weekend.
All the same, it was with a sense of relief that she got herself into her lab and shut the rest of the world out. Twilight sank into her chair, taking a minute to just focus on her breathing, running her fingers over the key again and again, the pattern of the movement comforting her as much as the breathing exercise did. Despite how ludicrous it sounded when she thought about it too hard, sometimes the teen would swear that it was as if Sunset had left a little bit of herself in the key, and that when she focused just right, she would catch a hint of it.
Sunset’s wry voice echoed in her mind as if to prove the point. “And right now, you need to breathe, Sparky. You’ve got a friend joining you for breakfast, remember. Might want to get that ready.”
Right. Breakfast with Wallflower, since it was the other girl’s birthday—Twilight wasn’t certain exactly how old she was, but she assumed the answer was “at least seventeen” since Wallflower had made references to owning and driving a car since last spring. She began unpacking the bag of food, a batch of small sized lemon and lavender muffins that her mother had helped her make, along with a hot thermos of tea. The dark haired girl was fairly certain she’d remembered the items correctly from one of Wallflower’s occasional stories about her grandmother. She arranged the muffins on a plate, carefully coating the top of each one in the special glaze, and then sprinkled the tops just like her mother’s detailed instructions had indicated she should with what the paper called “a mixture of lemon zest and lavender buds.”
Twilight placed a very nice bit of actual lavender flowers on the edge of the plate like a chef might use a bit of parsley, before setting to work with the pair of teacups she’d brought. Last to go on the desk was a neatly wrapped rectangular present with a perfect bow on top—her mother had done that part, since Twilight was mostly thumbs at arts and crafts. Now all she needed was...
The door opened, admitting the dour faced, green skinned girl, trailed by mocking laughter. She slammed the door, hard, making Twilight wince. “Wallflower?” she hesitated to say anything else, unsure of if her curiosity would make things worse or better.
"Twilight," the girl said tonelessly. Reaching up behind her back, and pulling away a sheet of paper that had apparently been taped there. She studied whatever had been there for a moment, before viciously crumpling it, and dropping it in the trash can. "Monday, huh? What a brilliant day. Really."
Wringing her hands nervously, Twilight tried to offer support. “They won’t come in here, at least....” Her eyes flicked to the food, wondering if Wallflower would still be interested in the treats. “Um...did you still want to eat breakfast with me?”
Wallflower’s gaze seemed to look through her for a long moment, before she curled her lips into something approaching a smile. “Sure, Twilight. Breakfast would be...an improvement.” Pushing lank hair back from her face with one hand, she turned to dump her bookbag at the table she generally used, only to freeze at the sight of the plate of muffins, eyes going wide.
“I...hope I got it right,” Twilight ventured, carefully pouring steaming Earl Grey tea into the teacups. “From your stories? About your grandmother?”
For just the briefest second, Twilight thought her friend’s lower lip might’ve trembled. “Oh...” she murmured, sinking into the chair with none of her usual snappy sarcasm. “You...you remembered...?”
She nodded, perhaps a touch too enthusiastically. “My friend Sunset helped me pick out the right kind of tea—she said something about it being an afternoon blend, but I couldn’t remember if you’d mentioned your grandmother making something different in the mornings, so I decided to stick to the one I knew you’d talked about.” She scooted her chair over to the table with the food. “Mom helped me find the right recipe and make the muffins, and we even used lavender from our garden. Mom grows a bunch of flowers and herbs back there as a sort of hobby, and every year she dries a bunch of stuff that she grew.”
Brown eyes seemed to drink in every tiny little detail. “...oh...real teacups too... and you even found sugared violets? I...never mentioned those...”
Twilight toyed with the key around her neck. “I...can’t actually take credit for those. They were a suggestion from Sunset, and she gave me some that she made for herself. Said that she thought it might be a nice touch.” She bit her lip. “Did I do okay? I wanted to do something nice for your birthday, Wallflower, since it's just us, and I realized last week that I haven’t always been the most observant of friends...I don’t want you to think that I’m a bad friend or that you don’t matter, because you do...I’m...I’m just not always the best at noticing things or people when I get sucked into my work.”
Wallflower looked away from the food to Twilight, a real smile tugging at her lips for the first time in a while. “...this is...” She paused to take a deep breath. “I can’t imagine anything I’d’ve enjoyed more. Thank you, Twilight.”
That helped quiet some of the anxious murmuring in the back of her mind, and Twilight tucked the key back inside her shirt. With a deep breath and a shaky smile she offered the wrapped package. “I hope you like this too. I...um...” she sighed. “I know I don’t have the best record with picking out gifts, so I asked Sunset for help. I wanted to get you something you would actually like. She told me to think about things I knew were important to you, things that make you happy...”
Green skinned hands took the present, and began to undo the wrapping, revealing a book. The cover was adorned with images of flowers and greenery, and the title proclaimed it a Comprehensive Guide to Flower Language in elegant font. Wallflower turned it over in her hands, her expression shifting to one that suggested she was intrigued, prompting Twilight to elaborate. “I know you have an interest in botany and horticulture, and that you spend a lot of time in the greenhouse...I...thought maybe you would like a book that talks about the different meanings and symbolism behind a wide variety of plants.”
Wallflower thumbed through the book, stopping when she got to the page where Twilight had stuck a bookmark she had thought her friend might like—the design of vines and flowers matched the book’s cover. She took a moment to read what was there, only to shut the book with care so she could rub at her eyes. Twilight was surprised to find her friend fighting tears, and she felt her worries spike. Perhaps the book had been a poor choice? “Wallflower? If...if you don’t like it, that’s okay. You can just tell me.”
“Like it? Twilight...” The other teen shook her head. “I love it. This is already the best birthday I’ve had since I was five years old. You...” her voice dropped to a whisper. “You remembered me. You did nice things for me, because you wanted to.” Bitterness crept in. “That doesn’t happen to me. People don’t see me—they barely remember my name, not that it’s much of one. It’s a stupid name: the flower that no one plants, that no one would notice even if someone did.”
Wincing, Twilight felt even more guilty for her tendency to get caught up in her work. “I...I do notice, Wallflower, and I promise, the moments I forget have nothing to do with you. It’s...it’s my brain, and I can’t always help it. My dad calls it a form of tunnel vision.” She fought the need to fish the key back out of her shirt, settling for wringing her hands for the moment, wanting to help pull her friend from this...dark mood that she seemed to be heading for. “....Mom actually has some wallflowers growing in our backyard in one of the flowerbeds. When I was a kid, Cady told me they were magic flowers because they have all different colored flowers growing from the same stem—my brother even convinced me they were a unicorn’s favorite snack when I was four, and that it was the flowers that made unicorns any color other than white.” Twilight dimly realized she was rambling and sought to rein herself in. “I know different now, obviously—unicorns and magic aren’t real, and there’s actually a very scientific explanation behind the flowers, which I’m guessing you already know because plants are your thing...but it doesn’t make them any less pretty or neat to look at!”
There was a stunned silence from Wallflower as a shy smile turned the corners of her mouth up. “You really think that?” she asked, looking a bit overwhelmed. Her cheeks darkened slightly. “No one besides my grandma has ever said something nice like that about my name...and she’s biased, since she was the one who named me.”
"I wouldn't say something I didn't mean, Wallflower." Twilight responded, feeling more than a little awkward. The dark haired girl wasn’t used to anyone other than Sunset reacting this way to her words, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “I hate it when people do that to me, because I have a hard time picking up on the duplicity. It ultimately makes social interactions so much more complicated than they need to be."
Wallflower chuckled dryly, setting her book to the side away from the food. "Does it ever." A small smile as she took a sip of her tea, brown eyes closing for a moment in obvious enjoyment.
Twilight took the opportunity to help herself to one of the muffins, her stomach reminding her with an irritable grumble that she needed to eat. The silence that stretched between them was comfortable for the moment, a far cry from the awkward ones the week before.
Halfway through a second muffin, Wallflower arched a brow curiously at her. “So...unicorn food, huh?”
Cheeks hot, Twilight ducked her head in embarrassment. “In my defense, I was four years old, and Shining had never lied to me before. I believed everything he told me.”
The green haired girl shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Every little girl goes through a stage where she believes in unicorns and fairy tales...hell...I can’t say I’d be too upset if they were to suddenly become real now. Imagine being able to fix all your problems with a wave of a wand or snap of your fingers or whatever wizards do.” Her smile became a smirk. “We could turn Suri and Sour Sweet into toads—then their outsides would match their winning personalities.”
Twilight couldn't help but snicker at the mental image of two of their worst tormentors being turned into warty, big eyed amphibians. "I completely support the idea of such a fate for the two of them, even if it was only for a limited duration." A small part of her—the part that chafed and loathed the mocking and taunts, that wanted to lash out in response to the little cruelties the other students inflicted—had a rather vindictive thought. "Put a twist in the magic that defines exactly what part of the prince they'd have to kiss, to break the spell.”
It took Wallflower a moment to register what she'd said, before her friend started laughing uncontrollably, "Yes, oh yes! Oh my god, that's brilliant Twilight!"
Much to her surprise, Twilight found herself enjoying the ensuing conversation as they finished breakfast. It was different from her normal attempts at socializing, lacking the stilted, one sided nature over topics of academia that she was familiar with. Wallflower led their talk onto other subjects that she might have normally ignored, even in her talks with Sunset Shimmer—like discussing some of their schoolmates and teachers. She knew Wallflower leaned towards sarcastic, but she gained a new understanding on just how much of an acid tongue the green haired girl possessed.
As barbed as some of the remarks were, however, some of them were both painfully accurate and exceptionally funny examples of word play. She laughed at yet another observation about Sugarcoat’s mannerisms, finding herself with a wondering thought flitting through her mind. Was this what Sunset felt like with her friends, this easy fun and good humor even when the conversation had nothing to do with her own interests? If they acted like that, then it was no wonder that Sunset enjoyed the time she spent with them. It even served to keep some of the anxiety about her meeting at bay, at least for a while.
The two of them were still chuckling over Wallflower’s latest quip when the first warning bell sounded, causing Twilight’s eyes to seek out the clock. Her good mood vanished just as quickly as it had come—it was that much closer to her meeting with Cinch, and while she didn’t have a first period class like Wallflower, she did have a second period gym class that seemed to host all of the people who had decided “tormenting Twilight Sparkle” was a competitive sport they were all determined to win at. It also meant making the terrible, embarrassing trip through the locker room—even though she changed in the bathroom stalls and did everything she could to avoid needing to shower after gym.
Wallflower’s voice faded as Twilight found herself getting lost in her own thoughts. She was aware that the other girl was still talking, but the words were little more than a background buzzing compared to the internal noise that was making her chest feel tight. Twilight was never more acutely aware of her own sexuality than when she kept her eyes firmly on her shoes in a room full of nearly naked bodies, some of them more than a little damp from a shower. Some part of her felt like she was doing something wrong, just by being present in the locker room at all, and the thought that someone might figure out the reason for her discomfort was a fear she couldn’t escape from. Combined with the presence of people like Sour Sweet, Suri, and Upper Crust in the same gym class meant that she was simultaneously wishing the day was already over and that it had never arrived.
A hand on her arm made her jump, reflexively falling into a defensive stance, hands up to protect herself. Wallflower Blush lurched away from her. “Whoa! Twilight relax! Its just me!”
“Sorry,” Twilight responded, cheeks hot. “I got a little caught up in my own head.”
The green haired head nodded. “I could tell—you had this expression on your face like someone poured soda into one of your chemistry projects.” Her head tilted. “Gym today?”
“Right before my scheduled meeting with Principal Cinch,” the bookworm responded, raising her fist in a mockery of enthusiasm. “Hooray.”
Wallflower grimaced in sympathy, before giving her a sidelong look. “Could you...I don’t know...have a conveniently timed ‘research breakthrough’ that just has to be investigated immediately or you risk losing valuable data? I’d bet if you can come up with something convincing to show the harpy for it, she’ll give you a pass on cutting class one time in your entire academic career.”
Horror made Twilight’s face twist up unpleasantly. “Wallflower!” she yelped, scandalized. “You’re talking about skipping class! I can’t do that!”
Her friend rolled her eyes. “Twilight, you’ve said yourself that these project meetings with Cinch are important and they stress you out, because they’re worth so much of your grade for the year in...two courses for you? Math and science, right? We’re always hearing about how our grades and actions here at school will shape our future ‘reputations,’” Wallflower pointed out flatly, fingers making air quotes. “Don’t let a bunch of spoiled brats who wanna spend gym class getting under your skin ruin that—the future of Twilight Sparkle is way more important than anything that pack of mean spirited jerks will ever amount to, even if you added them all together. If skipping one time will make sure you come out where you belong, then you should.”
Twilight found herself truly mulling the words over in her mind for a minute, but in the end, she shook her head. “I can’t skip, Wallflower. Its wrong, and even though I hate it, skipping would throw off my whole schedule. I would be worse off between that and the constant fear of getting in trouble for breaking the rules.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t really manage it. “Thanks for trying though. Will I see you at lunch? If my meeting goes well, I’ll probably be working, but it’s your birthday, and I can take a break for a little bit if you want?”
“Sure. I was gonna spend lunch in the greenhouse, but...here would be nice too. Good luck with gym.” Wallflower packed her new book away in her backpack. “And Twilight? Again...thanks for making this birthday not suck.”