The Ponyville Library was a place of learning. Books on all subjects could be found within its walls and the unicorn librarian was more than willing to help anypony needing a specific book.
Not that anypony actually went to the library.
Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn librarian in question, had often wondered about the current state of affairs. 'Books are tools to bring light to the darkness of ignorance!', she would say to herself, most often when she was lay on her back in bed, throwing a hoof towards the ceiling and staring wistfully out of the window.
The truth was, the ponies of Ponyville did a good job at whatever it was that they did. The need for clarification on pertinent matters never seemed to arise, and if it did, you could be certain there was a local expert you could go to. In that regard, the Ponyville library lay mostly forgotten, becoming one large, book filled house for the studious unicorn mare and her dragon assistant.
Twilight Sparkle was currently taking advantage of this fact, lying on the floor in the middle of the front room, a Scrabble board before her. The board was currently free of tiles, but two racks had been set up, seven tiles resting on each. The side opposite Twilight was currently vacant, her opponent had gotten bored of how long it was taking for the lavender unicorn to set the game up.
“I'm ready!” Twilight shouted, patting the large dictionary next to her. She had refused to start the game until she found it.
“Thank goodness! Trixie cannot believe you made her wait over a matter so insignificant as Scrabble.” The azure mare appeared from a staircase in the back of the room, a towel wrapped around her mane and her coat still slightly damp. “There was time enough to shower before you had finished searching for that book.” She took her place behind the other rack of tiles, staring at them and not her opponent.
“I suppose I'll begin then shall I?” Twilight's horn glowed with a magenta light and all seven of her tiles flew onto the board and arranged themselves into a perfect line, spelling ILLEISM. “That makes nine points, but using all seven letter nets me an extra fifty, making fifty nine for me!” The lavender unicorn smiled widely.
Trixie merely stared, her lips unmoving from their frown, she raised one eyebrow suspiciously. “You seriously expect Trixie to let this slide? Two I and L tiles on your first turn, using all seven letters and spelling a word that ironically describes your opponent? Trixie demands we restart this game with new tiles!”
The lavender unicorns devious grin exploded into laughter. “You have to admit, Trixie, it was a little funny.”
“Your delay tactics won't work on me, Sparkle.” Trixie's horn glowed cerulean for a moment, all of the tiles floated into the velvet sack and were violently shaken before being put down again. Trixie replaced the letters on her and Twilight's tile rack and coughed once. “Now that we can start this game for real... Trixie shall go first.” She studied her letters for a few moments, using her magic to shuffle the tiles around in order to see them in different situations. Finally, she used her magic to lift all of the tiles from her rack.
“I'd like to see you beat this, Sparkle.” She laughed haughtily as she spelled out the word XARTHON across a random piece of the board. “That's seventeen points, factor in the Triple Word Score and that makes fifty-one points. Finally, add the extra fifty for all tiles used and that's one-hundred and one points.”
It was Twilight's turn to wear a suspicious frown. “Xarthon isn't a word Trixie, it's the name of a classical wizard.”
“Therefore a word,” Trixie replied confidently.
“Proper nouns aren't allowed. It's in the rules.” Twilight levitated a slip of paper, the word 'Rules' in big letters at the top. “Also, you have to play the first word through the centre tile.” She pointed to another one of the bullet-pointed rules. “Are you sure you've played this game before?”
“Of course Trixie has played Scrabble before, who do you take Trixie for?”
“You obviously didn't play it properly then. So because of that and because I'm such a nice pony, I'll let you have another go.” Twilight grinned happily.
Trixie narrowed her eyes before rolling them, her magic taking the N tile back and rearranging the letters in the centre of the board, spelling THORAX. “Thirty-two points for Trixie. It's not one-hundred and one, but it will do.” She replaced her letters with six from the bag and mumbled for Twilight to take her turn.
Twilight thought hard, wearing a reluctant frown, but she floated four tiles over to the board all the same, she spelled GLAZE, using the A in THORAX. “It's only fifteen points, but it's the best I've got.”
“Commendable effort, Sparkle, but this game is far too-” She laid out three tiles to spell EASY, using Twilight's E. She smiled before continuing. “An extra seven points for Trixie... oh wait, is that a Double Word Score? Why yes it is, that gives me fourteen points, totalling forty-six.”
As Trixie laughed, Twilight merely stared inquisitively at her. The azure unicorn didn't even notice for a few moments, but when their eyes locked, Twilight's gaze softened. “Trixie, I've been thinking. How does a pony who says that they've played Scrabble as much as you have, not know the rules?”
“What do you mean, of course Trixie knows the rules.”
“You tried to play a proper noun and tried play the word without going through the centre tile, those are two of the biggest rules.” Twilight furrowed her brow. “It's clear that you were sincere when you played the word as well, I could tell you weren't joking. I know what you're like when you joke.”
Trixie momentarily froze, somewhat at a loss for words, but she quickly caught herself, putting on a haughty expression. “It's a boring story, let's just continue with the game, okay?”
“No, Thursday night is spend time with Trixie night. It's in the schedule.” The lavender unicorn floated a large calendar over and shoved it in the azure mares face. The current date had the words 'Spend time with Trixie' pencilled into the box. “See. I want to spend time talking to Trixie about her Scrabble habits.”
Trixie took a deep breath before letting out a short, empty chuckle. “Scrabble habits, huh? Oddly fitting.”
–
The nuns at the convent didn't often let us fillies have any fun. “The Princess of the Night doesn't believe in fun.” they would say.
They did however, recognise how games could encourage the young mind to grow. The nuns weren't bad ponies, they never wanted to harm us in any way, they were just firm in their beliefs. Every now and then ponies would donate things to the 'poor little orphans' at the convent- games, clothes, that kind of junk. Stuff they didn't want their kids to have any more.
As the oldest, I was pretty much responsible for all of the other fillies, I would solve disputes, I would cheer them up with small performances and I would show them how to play the games that got donated to us.
One of these games was Scrabble, but all we had was the board and about half of the tiles. I remember one of the fillies crying because we couldn't spell her name with the tiles, the box didn't come with a V, so we just made do. We didn't have any rules either, so I made them up, I turned it into a spelling game where you had to make words to get more points. It was like real Scrabble, only a lot more chaotic.
The fillies really seemed to like that game, and because it was somewhat educational, the nuns didn't mind it either. They knew when to crack the whip, figuratively speaking of course, but they were pretty lenient.
One of the days, we got another Scrabble set with a lot more letter tiles, so we pooled them together and found that we had at least one of every letter now and more than our fair share of E tiles. There was another game though, a broken looking game of Battleships. The board was beyond saving, but we still had all of the pieces and that was what gave me an idea.
I'd create a new game, using the Battleship pieces, the Scrabble tiles and whatever else we had on hand. I ended up calling it Scrabbleships, not terribly creative, but I was only young. The basic premise was that you had to blow up your opponents ships with your own and you used a dice to move the ships from square to square. You had to roll the exact number to land on their square to successfully land an attack, but if you did, you destroyed their boat. However, you could use your turn to build Scrabble walls, protecting your boats and making it harder for your opponent to destroy you. You couldn't fire over Scrabble walls, but you could fire on them and destroy one of the tiles, allowing you passage through.
It was a really fun game and got rather exciting at times. There weren't many rules, mainly because I made the game for little fillies and I didn't want them to feel swamped in rules. I just wanted them to be able to pick up a dice, some boats and some tiles and have a good time with it.
I'd like to think that, despite not playing the official way, our own little game taught us that you can still learn the right lessons, even if you have the wrong pieces.
–
“That was a sweet story,” Twilight said sincerely, “I love hearing about your past. You're such a mysterious and private pony, which I suppose I can relate to... but I like that you're willing to share these things with me.”
“And I would prefer it if the details of my past were to stay hidden, mystery is a big part of the Great and Powerful Trixie's allure.” The azure mare took the towel from around her head and floated over a brush, pulling it through her mane casually.
“Oh right, it was my go wasn't it?” Twilight stared at her tiles, deep in thought.
The Great and Powerful Trixie however, she was staring at Twilight herself. The lavender unicorn was a strange pony and she had a number of quirks that made getting along with her rather difficult at times. Trixie thought that it was definitely worth it though, Twilight was a magnificent pony and an excellent Scrabble opponent.
When she wasn't being a stickler for the rules, that was.
