Truth or Dare

Truth or Dare
Chapter Three

You just finish washing the dishes in the sink in the living quarters of the library. I guess I’ll have to sneak these dishes back to Sugar Cube Corner later tonight on my way home, you muse with a shrug. Your thoughts slowly start to wander as you walk back towards the main desk, gently settling the plates into the emptier of the two saddlebags and setting the empty picnic basket on the floor, hiding it for Fluttershy.

Why would they not want anypony to know they passed by? The question floats around in your mind as you start to wander around the library. You pick out a book on advanced spells and float it over to the desk. They all have reasons to drop by, I guess, but they could just as easily see me tomorrow and thank me for holding down the fort… You chuckle to yourself. Of course, I’d probably starve if Fluttershy showed up tomorrow with lunch…

The tinkling bell grabs your attention again, though it’s immediately silenced. Surprised, you look up to see Twilight.

“What in Celestia’s name are you doing here?” you say incredulously. “You’re supposed to be at your own party! Somepony’s going to notice if you’re gone!”

“I know, I know!” she exclaims. “I just…” She glances around nervously. “I just…wanted to see how you were doing, that’s all!”

You give her a serious look. “Twilight, how many times have I looked after the library while you and Spike went off to do something or other?”

“Plenty of times,” she replies, “but…”

“And despite your constant need to check up on the library, how many times have you actually come to see how things are running?”

She looks away, ashamed. “None.”

You shake your head as you walk around the main desk and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Twilight, you worry too much. Everything’s going smoothly. I’ve looked after the library before. You can trust me.”

Tears start to form in her eyes. “It’s not that. I do trust you, it’s, just, well…” She looks up at you. “You don’t resent me for making you do this for me, do you? I’m grateful, really I am, but I feel bad that you’re here just…”

You sigh with a small smile and shake your head, putting a gentle hoof to her lips. “Twilight, if you recall, I offered to watch over the place while you went out with your friends and had fun. Spike will agree with me that you need to get out more.” You dry her tears with a hoof and gently nudge her towards the door. “You better get back to your own birthday party before somepony notices you’re gone.”

As she’s halfway through the open door, she turns to you and opens her mouth to speak.

You raise a hoof. “No one will know you were here,” you say, anticipating her request. “Just go on and get back to your party. Have fun, okay? I’ll be fine.”

With a reluctant but heartwarming smile, she calls forth a bit of magic, and in an instant, she disappears. You shake your head. What is the deal with everypony today, you think to yourself. Walking back to the main desk, you resume reading.

*-----*-----*-----*-----*

It’s been a half-hour since Twilight passed by, and you walk towards the window by the front door to see the sun slowly moving towards the horizon.

“Hmm, it’s almost time for dinner,” you say as you hear a sweeping noise approach you. You turn to see a broom that you’re absently controlling sweeping a small pile of dust and dirt on the floor towards the door. You turn the knob with your teeth and open the door as the broom sweeps the pile of dust out of the library.

“Let’s see,” you begin, looking about the library, seeing the broom float in out of the corner of your vision. “I swept the floors, dusted the shelves, made sure that I didn’t leave any dishes in her sink…”

“Hidilly-hodilly, odilly!”

You jump in surprise and fall forward.

“Oh, you dolty-colty!” a familiar bright, cheerful voice says, followed immediately by a snort and merry laughter. You get up to see Pinkie Pie wearing a sky blue party hat with yellow polka dots on it, long yellow streamers sticking out of the top. Bits of confetti litter her hair and in front of her hooves is a box tied with twine.

“Pinkie Pie, what are you doing here?”

“We just had the cake for Twilight!” she replies, oblivious to your disbelief. “It was an ultra-yummy triple-layer chocolate cake! Uh-huh! And it had white icing on it with light blue trim! Yeah! And it had chocolate fudge in between the layers of cake! It was soooo yummy! You had to have been there!”

You can’t help but smile at Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie, you know I had to be here so Twilight could come to the party.”

She nods eagerly, seemingly anticipating your argument. “Uh-huh! Uh-huh! Uh-huh! I know, I know! That’s why I came by! I saved a slice of cake for you! I wanted to save you a slice for later, but then I thought, ‘This cake is so yummy, everypony’s going to want to eat a piece right away!’ So I cut a nice big piece of cake for you! Uh-huh! And I was gonna hide it, and then I thought, ‘I should go to the library and give you the cake before somepony finds it and decides to eat it all up!’ So I asked Mrs. Cake to put it in a box and I snuck away all sneaky-like and I came here to deliver it to you!”

With a slightly awkward smile, you pick the box up with your teeth by the twine holding it and place it on the main desk.

“Thanks, Pinkie Pie. I was starting to crave something sweet, anyway.”

Her smile widens. “I thought you would!” She nods excitedly. She suddenly stops, standing completely still, when her right ear twitched violently before covering her eye. “I gotta go! I think somepony’s looking for me.” She touches her nose to yours. “You gotta keep that slice of cake the most secretest secret ever, okey-dokey-lokey?”

“Why?” you ask, too surprised by Pinkie Pie’s over-the-top, in-your-face demeanor to not be surprised.

She conks you playfully on the head twice with her hoof. “You dolty-colty! If anypony asks where you got the cake from, they’ll know it’s from Twilight’s birthday party, and they’ll know I brought it!”

“But why…?”

Your question falls on deaf ears as Pinkie Pie jovially bounces out of the library, seemingly without a care in the world. Staring out the door at her form as she disappears into Ponyville proper, you shake your head, as if a hurricane just whirled around inside your brain.

Deciding to keep Pinkie Pie’s being at the library a secret, you take one end of the twine holding the box closed and pull, the knot on the top of the box unraveling. Suddenly, the lid of the box pops open with a small shower of confetti and the toot of a small party horn. You peer inside to see a nicely-sized portion of the promised triple-layer chocolate cake. Your mouth starts to water at the sight.

“Oh, stallion, that looks amazing,” you say as you tuck in.

*-----*-----*-----*-----*

“Celestia’s flowing mane,” you mutter to yourself as you put the freshly cleaned plate that held the cake into the saddlebag with the other empty dishes. “This is getting heavy. The way things are going I might as well leave this here and lug it all back tomorrow…”

The tinkling of the bell rings in your ears as your muzzle is in your saddlebag. You look up, not surprised at all to see Applejack.

“Hey,” you say with a small smile, fighting the temptation to roll your eyes. Her gaze darts to the windows nervously. “What brings you here?”

She smiles shyly. “Well, there’s a bit of dancin’ and snackin’ goin’ on, and Ah noticed that there was only one piece of apple pie left,” she replies. She sets her saddlebags down and picks out a box from the top of one of them. “Ah managed ta sneak away when Pinkie Pie called up a conga line.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

She nods and laughs, a little more calmed down. “Heh heh, yeah. Twilight’s jaw dropped like someone dropped a bushel of apples onto it!”

You both laugh, though you can still feel a bit of weight in the air between the two of you. As you levitate the box and place it onto the main desk, you glance at her out of the corner of your eye and see her fidgeting. She never fidgets, you muse to yourself. She’s normally just up front and honest about everything.

“Applejack, you all right?” you ask as you turn around to face her.

She looks down at the floor, idly brushing the floor with a hoof. “Ah…” She deflates momentarily before meeting your gaze. “Ah can’t tell ya t'keep mah bein’ here a secret, what with me bein’ the Element of Honesty an’ all, but Ah just don’t want anypony, especially th’ others, t'find out Ah was here.” She looks down at the floor again. “Ah hates keepin’ secrets, ‘specially from th’ others.”

You shake your head. It really wasn’t any surprise that even Applejack wanted to keep her being here a secret (for whatever reason), but you could tell it was hard for her to ask. As she said, she was the Element of Honesty.

“Don’t worry about it, Applejack,” you say solemnly as you give her a smile as you raise a hoof. “Pony’s honor.”

A small spark of relief lights up in her eyes as she walks up to you. “Thanks,” she says as she raises her forelegs up and pulls you into a hug. She squeezes a little tighter, nuzzling her muzzle into the side of your neck. “It means a lot t’ me.” She releases you from her embrace and holds you at foreleg’s length, her smile full of relief and sincerity. As she lowers her forelegs again and moves towards the front door, she hesitates and turns back to you. “Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Yer not…yer not involved with Twilight, are ya?”

That was up front, you think. “Oh! Well, actually, I’ve been kinda wondering that for myself.” You give her a toothy smile and an awkward laugh. “I just don’t mind working at the library from time to time. We’ve gone out to lunch once or twice, but other than that, we really haven’t done anything.”

“Oh,” she says, looking down at the ground. “If y’aren’t, ya think there’s a chance, well…”

You perk up at the suddenness of the question. Applejack? Really? It’s not that you find the thought unsettling, but you’ve just never thought to visualize yourself with somepony so strong-willed and independent, let alone somepony as pretty as Applejack. Big Mac’s a big help in that, Ah’ll tell you whut, you think to yourself.

“I…” You don’t want to let her down, but you’re pretty sure she could tell if you tried to lie your way out of it. “I can’t say for certain, Applejack. I’d have to straighten out my feelings with Twilight first.”

“Ah understand,” she says quietly. Just when you think she’s about to run off, she turns to you and kisses you on the nose. “Ah’m glad y’answered honestly.” A small spark of mischief glints in her eye as she winks at you. “I’d have ta make ya taste mah horseshoes real violent-like if ya hurt Twlight’s feelin’s.” Your eyes go wide at her casually uttered threat before she grins and trots off.

“Enjoy yer pie!” she calls out.

Once again, you’re left staring out into Ponyville proper slack-jawed. You shake your head, gathering your thoughts as you close the door to the library. You make your way back to the main desk and open the box, no party-related fanfare popping out at you this time. A plate with a rather large slice of warm apple pie is all that’s in it, and the aroma gets your mouth watering.

One thing’s for sure, you think to yourself as you start to tuck into the pie, I didn’t have to worry too much about food today.

*-----*-----*-----*-----*

The cuckoo clock on the wall chimes nine times as you look up from your book. You use your magic to close the book and send it floating back to its place. You yawn and crane your neck, wondering where the time went. Huh, you think to yourself, I just realized that it’s been two hours since anypony’s come by. You shrug to yourself. Oh well, time to close up. I suppose I can just wait here for Twilight and Spike to get back. You roll your shoulders briefly before heading towards the front door to switch the sign to ‘Closed’.

The sound of laughter sounds in your ears and begins to get closer and louder. As you open the door, you see Twilight and the others, Spike asleep on her back with a lampshade on his head.

“Oh!” you say, surprised. “Perfect timing! I was just about to close up.”

Twilight nods, a bright smile on her face. “Thank you. Really, thank you. I’m glad that you did this for me.”

You wave away her thanks as you feel heat rise in your cheeks. “Ahh, it was nothing.” You glance at Spike. “Tired out, huh?”

“He really tore up the dance floor,” Rainbow Dash says with a laugh. “You should have been there! It was awesome!”

You smile, but you feel a sudden pang of regret for not making it to the party. No! you think to yourself suddenly. It was Twilight’s party! You had to be at the library, otherwise it never would have happened!

“I’ll just put Spike to bed,” Twilight says as she enters the library and trots up the stairs to their bedroom.

“I’m glad you guys managed to get this thing together for Twilight,” you say as you walk to your saddlebags. Remembering her present, you open one bag and use your magic to levitate her gift, setting it on the main desk. “I should get going, though. She’s probably tired and wants to get some rest.”

“Now where’d’ja get that idea?” Applejack asks. You look at her, confused.

“What?”

“She said that she was going to put Spike to bed,” Rarity corrects you. “She actually has other plans for you.”

“What?” you ask flatly.

“You helped Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie get me out of the library for my birthday,” Twilight says as she steps down the stairs. You turn at the sound of her voice. “You didn’t get to go to my party, so the others and I thought to bring a little bit of my party to you.”

“Whaa…?” you manage to say as Pinkie Pie snaps a sky blue party hat with green polka dots on your head. Rarity gets a box out from her saddlebag as Rainbow Dash sets her saddlebags on the floor, opens one, and begins to take out bottles of sarsaparilla.

“You heard the filly!” Pinkie Pie says loudly. “Leeeeet’s party!”