Celestia, Harmony, and Lancelot were in Celestia's study getting tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala ready for the lucky ponies invited. The normally clean study was left messy with several scrolls and gala tickets scattered across the room. Most of them had already been sent out, though there still remained a few scrolls with their pair of tickets that had yet to be sent.

"So, whose tickets are next to be sent out?" Lancelot asked.

"Let's see. Next up is Twilight Sparkle's tickets," Celestia answered upon seeing what was present on the list of invited ponies. "Oh, this is kind of exciting. Twilight has never gone to the gala before. She just was too busy with her studies. Now, however, she is bound to want to go now that she is more open. I'll do the honors of sending out her tickets and scroll."

Celestia proceeded to gather up two tickets into a scroll. Afterwards, she proceeded to cast a spell that burned the scroll, though instead of turning to ash, the paper instead proceeded to be teleported away in a puff of smoke through Spike to Twilight.

"Did you just send two tickets to your student, Aunt Celestia?" Harmony asked.

"Yes, I did. Everyone gets one ticket and one guest when the gala comes around," Celestia confirmed. "Why do you ask?"

"I ask because, from what I remember, Twilight supposedly has five friends, six if you count Spike," Harmony explained.

"She does. However, not everyone will want to go to the gala. I don't want anypony to feel pressured into going. Besides, if she does want more tickets all she has to do is ask."

"You do realize that virtually everypony wants to go to the gala, right? It is the biggest party of the year," Harmony explained her thought process.

"Judging from what happens in the cartoons, there is a good chance that all of Twilight's friends will want to go to the gala," Lancelot guessed.

"Following that, they will selfishly abuse their friendship in order to try and get a ticket to the gala, not caring that they are hurting Twilight in the process," Harmony said pessimistically.

"How would they abuse their friendship?" Celestia, confused as to this terrible line of thinking.

"Give unwanted favors and attention, playing the friend card, stuff like that," Harmony simply stated. "It's impressive that you still consider friendship to be a good thing all things considered," Harmony snarked.

"Isn't that a little pessimistic?" asked Celestia with a little worry in her voice.

"What's your point?" Harmony asked in turn while shrugging.

"OK, I think it's time we return to work, right Princess Celestia?" Lancelot tried to take the conversation off of the route it was currently on.

At this, the pair of princesses agreed and started to continue sending letters to the lucky ponies who had gotten to go to the gala.

Later that night

Harmony and Lancelot were playing the Equestrian version of old maid called old mare and they were getting really competitive about it. At the side of them was a chalkboard with tally marks of their scores. The score was ten to eight and Harmony was in the lead. Just then, Celestia came in with a letter from Twilight with Luna following after, appearing to be larger than before.

"Now, let's see what Twilight wrote for her first letter on friendship," Celestia wondered, as she opened up the scroll. To her confusion, both of Twilight's tickets were in the scroll. "Let me see. ' Dear Princess Celestia, I've learned that one of the joys of friendship is sharing your blessings, but when there's not enough blessings to go around, having more than your friends can make you feel pretty awful. So, though I appreciate the invitation, I will be returning both tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. If my friends can't all go, I don't wanna go either.'"

"Called it," both Harmony and Lancelot responded, feeling validated in being right.

After giving them both an annoyed look, Celestia wrote a response to Twilight and it said 'My faithful student, Twilight, Why didn't you just say so in the first place?' With it she also placed six tickets into the scroll. In an instant, she caused the scroll and tickets to disappear in a puff of smoke and be sent to Twilight.

"There. That should fix everything," Celestia said in relief.

"Um, Princess Celestia? What about Spike? Lance asked, making sure that the young dragon wasn't forgotten.

Celestia quickly realized her error and wrote another message that said 'And one for you, Spike.' Said message was quickly sent to Spike with a ticket placed within it. "Now after all that is cleared up, what have you learned?" Celestia asked from her niece.

"That it is a great idea to give enough for only a few ponies instead of for everypony?" At this, Celestia shot Harmony a glare. In response, Harmony then cynically said, "Don't have anything special or your friends will pester you about it."

"Lancelot, do you have any views on the lesson?" Celestia asked.

"Sure. I think that friends can feel bad if you don't have enough for everyone and that it is good to share what you have in spite of this," Lancelot interpreted.

"Good work. Don't worry Harmony. Maybe after a few more lessons you will interpret the letters in a less cynical way," Celestia reassured. "Now, it is getting late. It would be best for you both to head to bed soon. Pleasant dreams." At this, Celestia left the room. Luna, meanwhile, had something to say to the duo, particularly Lancelot.

"I have noticed something interesting about you, Lancelot. You appear to have an illusionary field surrounding you. I am unsure where it came from, but it clearly has been around you for some time. I can undo the field surrounding you if you wish," Luna offered.

Lancelot agreed, "Sure. I am pretty curious what that means."

Luna proceeded to cast a spell that removed the illusionary field. After the field was gone, Lancelot suddenly transformed from a pegasus into a mysterious winged creature.

"Whoa, this is cool. What am I?" Lancelot asked.

"You appear to be a hippogriff, Lancelot. I don't know why you are one, but you are considered an ally to Equestria, so do not worry about how others will view you," Luna responded. "Well, I have work to do. I will see you both later."

Everyone headed to their respective rooms, with Harmony and Lancelot going to bed and Luna starting her job checking on ponies' dreams.

The next morning, Celestia was shocked to see that Lancelot was a hippogriff, but was ultimately accepting of it.

It was a week since Twilight's first letter when the next one came. Keith was drawing and Lancelot was being his life model. Celestia came in with the next letter. "Let's see what the next letter has to say. 'Dear Princess Celestia, My friend Applejack is the best friend a pony could ever have, and she's always there to help anypony. The only trouble is, when she needs help, she finds it hard to accept it, so while friendship is about giving of ourselves to friends, it's also about accepting what our friends have to offer. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.'

"So what did you learn from this letter?" asked Celestia.

"Sounds like she is a workaholic to me," Harmony bluntly stated, not really caring about the letter, even if the message was a good one to keep in mind.

Celestia was not really happy with this answer, having hoped that Harmony would at least be willing to listen in to the letter. Clearly, it would take a long time before Harmony would be more willing to be open with the idea of friendship and other ponies, if at all.