Truth or Dare

Truth or Dare
by
SFC Ponycron

Author's Note: 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' is owned by Lauren Faust, Hasbro, and Studio B (at least, I think that's all of them). I make no money off this story.

“Hey!”

You look up from the book floating in front of you and come face to face with the largest and brightest pair of slate-blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Startled, you back away, the book flying high over your head. You stumble and topple backwards, the book landing over your face.

Pinkie Pie’s snort and subsequent laughter fills your ears, and it’s quickly joined with another familiar laugh. Peeking out from underneath the pages, you see Rainbow Dash laughing as heartily as her pink friend.

“Hey,” you say awkwardly as you use your magic to lift the book from your head and get back to your feet, dusting off your forelegs. You put the book into one of the saddlebags at your sides. “What’s up?”

“Listen-listen-listen!” Pinkie Pie starts, going into her trademark excited rapid-fire speech. “Listen! Twilight Sparkle’s birthday is tomorrow and we wanted to make it a surprise one! Yeah! And we wanted to take her to Sugar Cube Corner and make sure all the lights are out, and then we’ll drag her in there when it’s dark, and she’ll be all ‘What the hay is going on?’, and then we’d switch the lights on and all of her friends will be all ‘SURPRISE’!” She nods eagerly, her head bobbing quickly like a diving board after somepony just jumped from it. “Yeah! And it would be completely awesome with tons of cake and streamers and hot sauce and sarsaparilla and—”

A blue hoof promptly shoved into Pinkie’s mouth by an unsurprised Rainbow Dash interrupts Pinkie Pie’s rant. “Yeah, it’s Twilight Sparkle’s birthday tomorrow, and we want to surprise her.” She pulls her hoof out of Pinkie Pie’s mouth. “The thing is, we’re trying to cover all the bases so that there’s no way she can get out of this.” The blue pegasus glances away from you, a slight frown on her face. “Look, I know you’ve helped her out a lot since you’ve moved into Ponyville, and I know she’d want you to be there, but I know she’s going to pull the whole ‘the library can’t be closed’ routine. That’s where you come in.”

“You want me to watch over the library for the day?” you ask. “I can try, but you know Twilight…”

“So do you,” Rainbow Dash counters seriously, poking your chest with a hoof. “If anypony can find a way to get her to leave the library for any reason at all tomorrow, it’ll be you.”

You can see the challenge in her eyes and nod resolutely.

“All right, I’ll do it.”

“Awesome,” she says with her cocky grin. “We’re picking her up at lunch tomorrow.”

“I’ll be there well before that,” you say in agreement. “You guys go do what you need to. You won’t have to worry about me.”

With a smile, Dash takes off into the air and Pinkie Pie bounces away humming a tune to herself.

“Tomorrow’s Twilight Sparkle’s birthday, huh?” you ask yourself. “I wonder what I could get for her?”

• + + + +

It’s about fifteen minutes before noon as you walk into the library the following day. Twilight Sparkle and Spike are working diligently (no surprise) putting away some books that were returned shortly before closing the night before.

“Good morning, Spike,” you say as you nod in his direction. You turn to the lavender unicorn. “Twilight.”

“Oh! Hello! I wasn’t expecting you to drop by today,” she says a little uncertainly.

You grin and tilt your head questioningly. “And why would you think I wouldn’t come by today?”

You see her cheeks take on a rose tint. “Oh, well, no reason…” She smiles shyly. “I mean, you don’t come by everyday, and you were just here yesterday to borrow another one of those silly fantasy novels…”

“I happen to think that ‘The Night Pegasus’ trilogy is a really gripping read,” you say, feigning offence. “I can’t help that I like somewhat dark fiction.”

“I-I’m sorry!” she stammers suddenly, lowering her head. “I didn’t mean…”

You look at her with an unamused face. “Twilight, I was kidding.” You grin and shake your head.

“I’m sorry! I should have—”

You approach her and put one of your hooves on her shoulder. “Twilight, it’s fine, really.” You walk over to the main desk and set your saddlebags down. “You’re acting weird today. You okay?”

“She just doesn’t want word going around that today’s her—”

“Spike!” The tip of her horn glows briefly and all of a sudden a moustache appears out of thin air in front of Spike’s snout. Immediately the moustache ties itself in a knot around the dragon’s mouth.

“S-sorry,” she apologizes again. “A girl has her secrets, right?”

You nod as she gives you a toothy smile and an awkward chuckle.

“You know you can tell me anything if you need to get something off your chest, right?” You take a couple of steps closer to her. “I like to think that I’m a friend of yours, maybe not as close as Rainbow or Pinkie Pie or the others, but a friend.”

“You are!” she says. “You’re such a great help around here, especially when Spike manages to sneak off to spend some time with Rarity. And you do a great job of helping out the other ponies whenever Spike and I are called away.” She looks away, ashamed. “I just don’t like many ponies knowing about—”

The door is suddenly thrown open with Pinkie Pie bouncing in, Rainbow Dash walking in calmly close behind.

“Hiiiii, Twiiiiliiiight!” Pinkie Pie says in a singsong voice. “Rainbow Dash and I wanted to take you out for lunch!” You can’t help but laugh as Pinkie starts bouncing in circles around the surprised lavender pony. “Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm! We can go to the café and have salad and hay fries and milkshakes! Ooh! I love milkshakes!”

“Pinkie…” Rainbow Dash calls out, letting out a slightly exasperated sigh. Pinkie Pie stops in mid-air and turns to Rainbow Dash.

“Uh-huh?” All eyes are on the pink earth pony as she hovers in the air for a few more seconds before landing on her feet.

“We’re not going to get a table if we hang around too long,” the blue pegasus says. “Come on.” She turns around and starts to head for the door, stealing a glance at you and flicking her gaze to Twilight.

“It’s all right, Dash,” Twilight says feebly. “I can whip something up here for lunch.”

“Nuh-uh,” you counter, taking that as your cue. “You’re not staying here all day when your friends are offering to take you out to lunch.”

She turns to you, a surprised expression on her face. “No, really! I can’t close the library during the middle of the—”

You trot towards her and nudge her towards the door. “And you won’t,” you interrupt her. “I can watch over the library while you’re out.”

“That’s not really necessary…”

“It’ll be fine, Twilight!” you say reassuringly. “I was just going to spend the day reading anyway. Now go.” You point with your muzzle at Dash and Pinkie.

“I’ve got research—”

“Which can be done later,” you counter. “Just go, Twilight! I’ll be fine here!” You turn to Spike, who nods, and the two of you start pushing her towards Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. “Have fun!” As soon as Spike crosses the threshold, you slam the door and lock it, immediately summoning a chair to you and propping it underneath the doorknob. You look out the window by the door to see Spike hop onto Twilight’s back as Rainbow Dash flies above and behind the lavender unicorn and Pinkie Pie hops gleefully behind her. As soon as they’re a fair distance away, you nudge the chair away and send it back to its place, letting out an exasperated sigh. “The things one does around here to get a pony to spend time with friends…” you mutter to yourself as you look towards your saddlebags and use your teeth to move open one of them, revealing a present wrapped with plain yellow gift wrap and tied with red ribbon. You smile to yourself.

“I’ll give this to her as a surprise when she gets back from her party.” You turn towards the stack of books that she and Spike were working on and start looking through the titles, thinking of how to efficiently place the returned books back to their proper places.