the ticket master

[allcomplete]

Clarity writes up the events of the defeat and reform of Nightmare Moon, including the fact that her crown is apparently continuing to exist, and makes two copies - the original in personal notebook stash, one tucked into the back of "The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide", and one sent to Princess Celestia via mailing spell with the suggestion that it could be published in its own volume especially if either Princess would care to add notes on the parts Clarity didn't personally witness.

And she sets about settling into Ponyville.

She learns her way around - here's where she can buy carrots and bunched dandelions and clover sprouts; here's where she can get a case for her crown and cases for everpony else's necklace so they don't have to wear them or leave them lying around loose; here's a shortcut between Guiding's house and the tower the twins live in together. This is when this little town wakes up in the morning and this is when everything closes at night. This is what her friends do all day: Cherry Cordial farms and looks after critters. Brightblaze tinkers with gadgets kind of singlemindedly (though she also flies). Silver Streak plays violin and and reads and wanders around looking at things. Guiding Star does fortune-telling for spare bits and belongs to a dance group and volunteers for anything going on in town that could use amateur decorating (Joy is often with her when she does this). Joy also wanders around being sociable and helpful and cooks, itinerantly, for anypony who'll spare him kitchen space.

And Clarity learns the organizational system of the library, with Blueberry's considerable help, and she studies and explores.

And when she's been in residence for just shy of a week, she gets a letter from the Princess, which contains six tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. Aww, that's thoughtful. Clarity's never been before.

She goes out to see which of her friends she'll run into first if she takes a meandering path through town.

Comments

[ipso_amore]

"You can go look at the trees anytime you want when they're not bearing ripe fruit. When they are bearing ripe fruit, I'd rather you help harvest if you're going to be on the field at all. But if you want to buy some zap-apples to magically poke, or even grow your own zap-apple trees somewhere that's not the main zap-apple field so you can experiment on them in peace, I won't stop you."

[allcomplete]

"Oh, are they relatively easy to grow? I'm not, except literally speaking, very green-hoofed."

[ipso_amore]

"You put some seeds in the ground and the next day you have a tree. The only reason most ponies don't have their very own zap-apple trees is because they're inconvenient to have close to your house or in public areas - too zappy."

[allcomplete]

"When they're bearing, or all the time?"

[ipso_amore]

"Particularly when the apples appear, but they've been known to zap things at other times too, if you bump into them too hard or if there's lightning nearby."

[allcomplete]

"Could I grow a little one in a pot and keep it under a wire basket?"

[ipso_amore]

"You can try! But I don't know if the seed'll sprout a smaller tree just because you put it in a pot. It might not, and then you'd have a broken pot and a full-sized zap-apple tree to haul away."

[allcomplete]

"Sounds inconvenient. Can I try sprouting one in a pot in the field of them, and then if it's huge all I have to do is make sure it's sitting neatly in the ground?"

[ipso_amore]

"Sure. I'll set aside some seeds from the next harvest for experiments."

[allcomplete]

"Yay!"

[ipso_amore]

Cordy giggles.

[allcomplete]

"I'm very fond of magic. It's not quite my literal special talent, but it's close enough that I can almost pretend that it is."

[ipso_amore]

"What is your literal special talent?"

[allcomplete]

"It's sort of hard to put into words - I usually sum it up as 'clear thinking', and the next question is 'why a bell', and my standard answer to that is 'clear as a bell'."

[ipso_amore]

"Gotcha. Matching talents to cutie marks is kind of a hobby of mine," she says.

[allcomplete]

"What's yours, why a spiderweb?"

[ipso_amore]

"I always have trouble explaining it, which might be part of the reason for the hobby," she says. "But it's about - interconnectedness. The most obvious part is being able to understand and talk to any kind of creature that can communicate at all. But that's just the surface, the practical effects. I think my special talent might really be... not quite 'making friends', but something close to that."

[allcomplete]

"You are good at making friends."

[ipso_amore]

"It's one of my favourite things!"

[allcomplete]

"Were you befriending somepony when you got your cutie mark?"

[ipso_amore]

"Actually, I was heading off a stampede of terrified squirrels."

[allcomplete]

"...Huh."

[ipso_amore]

"I did make friends with some of them," she adds. "After I got them calmed down and fed them some cherries."

[allcomplete]

Clarity giggles. "I got mine when I was working on my final exam at the School for Gifted Unicorns."

[ipso_amore]

"Nice!"