“C-can we start from the beginning?” Starlight barely managed to stammer out. She tried desperately to smile wider, but she felt just how plastic it must have looked.

The other mare, sitting across Starlight’s desk in the headmare’s office, only raised her eyebrow.

“I mean—what I’m trying to say is…” Starlight chewed her words thoughtfully, like a cow. Not that she was comparing herself to a cow. Not that there was anything [i]wrong[/i] about being a cow, because that’d be prejudiced.

She swallowed and set her train of thought gently back on its tracks.

“I want to ask why you’re interested in attending Princess Twilight’s School of Friendship,” she managed, in her most professional voice.

“I want to...  make friends,” said Tempest Shadow. Or, Fizzlepop, was it?

The mauve unicorn (whose name Starlight couldn’t [i]quite[/i] decide on yet) kept her voice low, wary and cautious. But she sounded sincere.

“The School of Friendship is primarily geared towards… um… the academic needs of [i]younger[/i] creatures,” Starlight said, testing the waters.

“I know. I don’t care,” said the other mare, beginning to scowl.

Starlight quickly backpaddled out of the waters, which had proven themselves to be shark-infested.

Tempest—because [i]nopony[/i] in their right mind could call that towering, stormy, [i]muscular[/i] figure a name like ‘Fizzlepop’—didn’t even seem to notice Starlight’s involuntary wince. Or, maybe she did, but she didn’t show it.

Starlight briefly shot Phyllis a glance, for moral support. It had taken a [i]lot[/i] of paperwork to get the little potted plant registered as an emotional support creature, but it was worth it. The cute red collar with the official designation really did give Phyllis a sense of character. It meshed well with her green-ish tones of, well, green.

Starlight blinked. Because Tempest was still looking at her.

“I’m just, uh, afraid that this would not be the best fit for you,” she said, her voice as desperately placating as she could manage. “Maybe an environment where you could interact with your peers would work out a little better.”

“I have no peers,” said Tempest. Her scarred face twisted up, in an ugly way. “I have no coworkers. I have no acquaintances. And I have. [i]No[/i]. Friends.”

The last few sentences came out in an almost uncontrolled burst. Starlight saw just a bit of [i]something[/i] etched in Fizzlepop’s face for a hundredth of a moment, before the mask of Tempest slammed back into place.

“Hence,” said Tempest, as though explaining it to a foal, “I need to go to school. I need to [i]learn[/i].”

Starlight felt her brow furrow, almost involuntarily. What Tempest said had flipped on the ‘school headmare’ switch in Starlight’s mind, and a ramshackle collection of heavily used mental machinery began to come to life.

“What is it that you want to learn here?” asked Starlight, with a genuinely easy grace that surprised her so much she had to fight to keep it off her face.

“I want to learn…. how to talk to ponies.” Tempest spoke some of her words through gritted teeth. “I want to learn how to belong. I want to learn how to fit in. I [i]don’t[/i] fit in. I’m broken.”

The last sentence was spoken as though she were simply talking about a piece of armor or an  arcsword. It was punctuated with a subconscious glance up towards her forehead.

The wheels in Starlight’s subconcious were still turning. And after a score of equations, the sum that the mental machines spat out arrived in her conscious awareness with surprisingly finality.

“I see,” she said. “And I understand.”

Starlight reached out with her magic—oh god, was that being insensitive??—and opened one of the drawers in her desk. There were many drawers in her desk, because she liked drawers. But the contents of [i]this[/i] one, she saved for occasions like this.

“Hold out your hoof for me, please,” she said while she retrieved what she was looking for.

Tempest did an excellent job of keeping the confusion off of her face. She stood, straightened, and presented her hoof like a weapon.

Starlight picked up a little sphere of polished steel, no bigger than a golf ball, and carefully brought it closer walking on unsure hooves as she came to Tempest, as though she were carrying a flask of volatile reagents.

“Take a hold of this. But be careful. It’s easy to drop,” she said, with a gentle wink.

This time, Tempest couldn’t keep the perplexion from showing. Her eyes pinched at the sides, and her lips curled the slightest bit to one side. Because that little metal ball couldn’t weigh more than a pound at most.

When Starlight passed the ball into Tempest’s hoof, the former soldier’s eyes immediately wided.

The ball lurched to one side, and Tempest snapped her other hoof down on it to stop it from rolling away.

Tempest’s entire balance wobbled for a moment, and then she found equilibrium, and Starlight saw her form relax.

“Tricky, isn’t it?” said Starlight, smiling.

“It…. doesn’t fall straight down,” said Fizzlepop, a wash of wonder in her voice.

“Yep!” Starlight nodded, eagerly. “Its center of gravity is about three feet outside of its mass. And it gets pulled towards whatever direction it happens to be pointed at. It’ll even roll up a wall, if you aim it right.”

“What is it?” asked Fizzlepop. The large mare carefully took a hoof away from the ball, so she could bend over close and get a better look at it.

“It’s a lump of Discordian steel,” said Starlight. “During Discord’s previous escapades, he used to break a lot of physics. There are a lot of little bits of space and matter still lingering around that just won’t come all the way back together, even after he stopped being, um, evil.”

Tempest passed the ball from one hoof to the other. It was a strange sight, seeing somepony hold an object from the side rather than from the bottom.

“Discordian objects tend to be really handy, because they don’t need constant enchantments to retain their properties. This particular little guy used to be a counterweight for the Friendship Castle’s indoor water pumps. Apparently, magical trees don’t sprout out the ground with enough internal room for indoor plumbing, so the engineers had to get creative.”

Starlight cleared her throat for the next bit, because it was the important part.

“This little ball of steel is useful,” she said, “because it’s broken. It’s never going to be like any other metal ball there ever was, or there ever will be. It [i]can’t[/i] ever be like all the rest of the steel in the world.”

For a stretched out moment, Tempest was absolutely motionless, with that confused scowl still frozen on her features.

Just enough time passed in awkward silence for Starlight to start panicking on the inside.

[i]Was this whole demonstration too foalish? Did Tempest think she was being condescending?[/i]

Oh, moon-damn it, Starlight swore she would [i]never[/i] switch on headmare-mode again in the presence of another adult as long as she ever lived!

Just when she was about to snatch the ball back and profusely apologize, Fizzlepop’s eyes pinched at the sides.

“But it still has a place, doesn’t it?” said Fizzlepop, eyes almost wet. 

It took a moment for Starlight to realize that Fizzlepop was replying to Starlight’s previous sentence. But when it did, something in Starlight’s chest absolutely [i]glowed[/i] with Harmony.

“It’ll always have a place, somewhere,” she said. "And it doesn't need to be like the others."