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]

"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!"

[allcomplete]

"Mm-hm. I'd been going about it the wrong way and then I just - backed up and reexamined the problem and then it was easy."

[ipso_amore]

"That happens sometimes."

[allcomplete]

"Mm-hm. I was very pleased with myself."

[ipso_amore]

"I think that's a common feature of ponies getting their cutie marks!"

[allcomplete]

"Have you ever wondered why so many ponies have names and cutie marks that are alike?" Clarity says. "I mean, not everypony, you don't, but my parents didn't know that much about me when they named me - Bell isn't even a family name - and then poof."

[ipso_amore]

"I wonder that a lot," she says. "My two basic theories are that ponies' personalities tend to turn out to match their names, or that cutie marks are predetermined and what somepony's parents name them is somehow influenced by what their cutie mark is going to be. But I've never seen any strong evidence for one or the other particularly."

[allcomplete]

"Yeah, it's pretty much got to be one or the other, or maybe a 'sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, sometimes neither' situation. I'm tempted to guess that in my case it's the name matching the predetermined cutie mark, because if I were being steered to match 'Clarity Bell' I'd probably be the musician people tend to mistake me for."

[ipso_amore]

"But on the other hand, if you start out with a personality that might not have that much to do with your name and get steered toward something that fits, you could end up with things that fit oddly. Like 'Clarity Bell' for a clear thinker."