In which the title happens
To say that Twilight Sparkle was in a bad mood would be a gross understatement. To say that her day had gone poorly would also be a gross understatement (at least in her mind). As she walked down the quickly darkening streets of Ponyville, it would be more accurate to say that Twilight Sparkle was absolutely livid. Celestia's sun was slowly making its way past the horizon to where ever it hid during the night, coating the quiet town in, appropriately enough, twilight. The soft purple of the evening sky hovered over the homes and workplaces of many a pony that Twilight passed, as the bright orange cresting over the horizon crawled over the streets toward the slowly rising moon. In her current state, however, Ms. Sparkle failed to take note of any of the natural beauty which surrounded her, and was instead focused rather determinedly on the negative aspects of her small town life. Now, I assume, dear reader, that you are at least somewhat interested in what could have possibly put such a normally content mare in such a poor mood, and, being the author, I suppose I'll have to tell you.
Now, while the specific event which generated the deeply burning fury currently welling in our young bookworm occurred the morning of that very same day, it would not have been nearly as effective had it not been preceded by several other events. The first of these events was one that Ponyville had only experienced twice since Ms. Sparkle had arrived, and that was the arrival a new resident. This prospective homeowner was also from Canterlot, and was in fact a writer. He wasn't as famous or well-known as the writers of, say, the Daring Do series, but whenever one of his novels had managed to make it onto a critic's desk, it was well praised. Twilight Sparkle, being a connoisseur of all things paper and hardback, was immediately intrigued, and, after reading some of his work, infatuated. She and this imaginative stallion first spoke at Pinkie Pie's obligatory "Welcome to Ponyville" party purely by accident. Both had been reaching for the same cupcake and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately? No! Definitely unfortunate!) had bumped snouts. After laughing off the intimate contact, the two ponies quickly discovered how similar their interests were and their conversation lasted through the night. The topics ranged from the recent trends in novel(trashy romance novels were in, and that was a bad thing), to border disputes (The Griffon kingdom has plenty of land and doesn't need any more), to even psychology (no, making check lists for every task does not, contrary to Spike's beliefs, make you insane. Legally insane, that is). Somehow their talk managed to outlast the entire party, and only ended when Pinkie walked up to inform them that everyone had left. After a few quick goodbyes, they promised they would meet again sometime.
While this promise had initially seemed easy to Twilight, it turned out far harder to keep than she had predicted. True, Twilight had never truly been called shy, but she definitely wasn't the most outgoing mare. Especially with stallions. Especially especially when she liked the stallion. Especially especially especially when said stallion she liked was not only intelligent, kind, and shared common interests, but was also drop dead gorgeous with a stunning electric blue mane combed back in a reserved, classical manestyle and fur as white as snow in pristine condition obviously cared for lovingly but packaged with just enough ruggedness to preserve the perfect amount of masculinity, all of which amounted to Twilight melting into the floor whenever she saw his beautiful emerald eyes which looked deep into her soul while- and now she was rambling. No, he's a horrible pony and you hate him!, she mentally chastised herself. As she continued to think back over their acquaintanceship (What, did you think I was the one coming up with the colorful descriptions here?), her fiery rage slowly mellowed... before bursting into a ruthless inferno when she thought back to this morning! But we're getting ahead of ourselves now, aren't we Twilight? Let's think back to the next time you saw the object of your infatuation...
Celestia's early morning sun shone in through the uncovered windows of Ponyville's only library as the resident librarian slowly levitated some of her personal reading back into its proper place on the shelves. Spike was helping Rarity today, so Twilight was responsible for cleaning up her own messes, if only for a little while. As she did this, the bell above the library door rang and she turned to see the author of the very novel she had been replacing. Twilight's heart fluttered in her chest as the masterful artist entered her humble abode.
"Hello Twilight," he said in that musical voice of his. "I see you've been catching up on my work." He gestured a forehoof in the direction of the levitated book on Twilight's right. For a moment, Twilight was lost in his soul piercing green eyes (No! They're ugly! Horrible! Demon eyes!) until his words penetrated her trance.
"Huh? Oh! Yes, I've just been, uh, looking over some of your novels so that, um, we would have something to talk about. You know, next time we met?" Twilight replied nervously.
"Speaking of that," he said, not missing a beat. "You never did come see my new house. It's been a week since the party. I was beginning to think you didn't like me." Twilight was appalled to hear this, but she quickly hid it behind a mask of not-being-appalled. Or at least she tried. She wasn't doing a very convincing job.
"What? No! Of course not! You're great! Fantastic! (Oh no, am I coming on too strong? I'm coming on too strong!) I mean, uh, not that great. A bit pompous actually. (No, no! Don't insult him! Wait he's turning away! Do something!)" Before Twilight could continue her frantic stammering, the writer interrupted her.
"Damn... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound self-obsessed. I try to hide my ego, but sometimes it just slips out," he explained, now looking out the nearest window (He's not leaving, thank Celestia!). "I grew up in Canterlot, you know? All my life I was surround by all those narcissistic jerks flaunting everything they had, and I promised myself that if I ever became that wealthy or powerful I'd never be like them. But I guess I broke that promise." He sighed dejectedly.
"Oh no!" Twilight replied quickly (and a tad louder than necessary) "I was, uh... (Quick! Think of something, Sparkle, before he hates us!) just joking... You know? A friendly jab between... friends." She smiled nervously, mentally berating herself for getting into this situation in the first place.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. I'm terrible at getting those. Please forgive me," he pleaded. He's asking me to forgive him! ,Twilight thought, surprised (Never!).
"Of course!" She replied, once again calling up a little too much volume. "I, uh, have trouble with that too sometimes." Twilight smiled at him, this one a little more sincere. The author turned back to face her.
"You too? That's funny considering..."
After that day, Ponyville's newest resident began visiting the library daily, regularly engaging in idle chit-chat with its proprietor as she stared into his emerald pools like a love sick puppy (I wasn't that bad! Was I... ?) while he checked out various books, both fiction and non-fiction, all of which were apparently related to his newest project. Whenever Princess Celestia's favorite student would inquire as to what said project entailed he would reply with a secretive wink and a cheeky "Spoilers." And so it came to be that on today of all days (not that it was a particularly special day), Twilight had finally decided (read: worked up the nerve) to confess her affections. The following is the scene immediately after said reveal:
The silence hung in the air like a fat spider which just refused to let go of its last strand of webbing, wiggling around in a vain attempt to bring its hairy legs around its rotund form to pull itself up the single straining strand which just barely held it.
...
Well, maybe that isn't entirely accurate, but the point is, it was silent. The object of Twilight's affections stood dumbfounded before her in the center of Ponyville library, lower jaw hanging loosely and eyes the size of dinner plates. Well that's not good, Twilight thought, a grin still plastered on her face. Slowly, the stallion began to regain his composure. He desperately hoped that Twilight's assistant would walk in and interrupt this awkward moment, but there was no chance of that, unfortunately. He was, once again, preoccupied assisting the fashionista pony who worked down the street. His only option was to address the situation he now realized he had walked right into.
"I'm sorry," he said. With that, Twilight's heart sank. "I can't be in a relationship with you," he continued, trying to put it as gently as possible. Twilight's heart continued to sink. "I'm sorry if my visits seemed romantic, but I didn't mean to imply anything." Twilight's heart plummeted to the bottom of the ocean of sadness which had appeared very suddenly in her chest. "I like you Twilight, I really do, but I have a girlfriend in Canterlot." With that, Twilight's heart ripped straight through the floor of the ocean of sadness and quickly landed in hell, where the burning hellfires ignited a new-found rage inside of her. For decency's sake, I will not repeat what she said here, but, suffice to say, it would have left Fluttershy cowering in a corner and did in fact leave the poor novelist standing stunned. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to stand there stunned for very long, as he was quickly lifted in a purple aura and dumped on his ass on the welcome mat in front of the library.
After approximately an hour of sobbing into her pillow, which overlapped with half an hour of ignoring the profuse apologizing which echoed through the locked front door, Twilight decided that she didn't want to suffer alone. After wiping away the tears and touching herself up, Twilight made her way towards the nearest of her friends and one sure to share her sentiment: Rarity.
As our purple pony protagonist approached the front door of Carousal Boutique, she noticed with confusion that all of the lights inside were off. Her interest was piqued when she noticed that the sign on the front door was turned to read "Closed" when it was certainly normal business hours. Curiosity took over and Twilight cautiously cantered up to the nearest window and peered in. What she saw shocked her beyond words. The room was lit solely by candles. Red candles. On Rarity's signature couch lay the fashion pony herself, currently draped in what appeared to be red silk lingerie. That wasn't what shocked Twilight. Sure, it gave her pause, but what really shocked her was her number one assistant slowly approaching the sofa, eyes glazed over. Twilight ducked down under the window sill and planted her back firmly against the wall. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding in. Twilight quickly decided that she would seek comfort in the arms of her friends that weren't participating in activities which would scar her for life.
"Oh, Spike, thank you so much for helping me do this. It would be so difficult on my own, and I know the results wouldn't be any where near as satisfying. With something as important as this only perfection will do!"
"Oh, it's no problem, Rarity. I'm glad to help anyway I can!" Spike replied, lifting the camera up to his eye.
"You know," said Rarity, looking at a photograph levitating in front of her, "I was a little nervous when Fancy Pants asked me to model my new designs, but now that I'm seeing the pictures, he really was right."
"I don't know why you were nervous. Someone as beautiful as you has to be a great model. Pose." said Spike. Rarity turned towards the camera and put on a seductive smile. Spike shuddered, enjoying it far more than just professionally, before regaining his composure and taking the sultry photo.
Twilight hadn't had much luck with her other friends, but she was mostly just thankful she hadn't caught any of them in equally compromising positions. All of her so called 'friends' were busy, all doing their 'jobs' when they should have been helping her sulk!
Oh, a poor little bunny broke its leg. Who cares! I'm in emotional turmoil here!
Ah have tah buck appals. Fine! Go do your stupid manual labor! See if I care!
There's a storm brewing in the Everfree and me and the rest of the weather patrol need to get it under control. I bet that's just an excuse so you can go hang out with your stupid gay butt friends!
There's a super-duper-mega-extra-super-special-awesome order due at the end of the day and me and the Cakes gotta work super-duper-mega-extra-super-special-awesome hard to get everything done! You know what Pinkie? You probably couldn't help me anyway! And your parties stink!
It was that unfortunate series of events that found Twilight Sparkle wandering the streets of Ponyville, absolutely livid, alone, after dark. What was less explicable was how Twilight had managed to find herself in the part of town that she did. As she looked around, Twilight couldn't for the life of figure out how she had not only passed up her home, but some how had trotted all the way to the other side of town. She retraced her steps very carefully before realizing that she had been so lost in her thoughts that she had also gotten lost literally (no small feat in a town like Ponyville). I must have taken a wrong turn back at Albuquerque street. Twilight's hoof firmly planted itself on her face as she realized what she had just thought. Geez, that's a terrible reference. At least I didn't say it aloud. After a few moments getting her bearings, Twilight's mental map informed her that the quickest route back to her treehouse (pun intended*) would be through a short series of alleyways. Confident in her ability not to get lost in the maze between buildings, Twilight fearlessly cantered into the deep, dark crevice between home and shopping center...
*Feel free to slap the author here
It had been 2 minutes and she was already lost. A single light illuminated the alley she currently occupied, but what it illuminated didn't help at all. To make matters worse, she was still incredibly angry. So much so that she might just have incinerated every building in the vicinity, if what happened next hadn't happened. Out of the darkness an into the pale yellow light stepped a pony. His face and the front of his body (including his forelegs) were covered in a ski mask and a sweater respectively, both of which were black. The most striking thing about this pony was the gun in his mouth. It looked to be a modern hoofgun (where that term came from, Twilight had no idea) and the end held a silencer. He held it in such a way that you could tell he was familiar with the weapon, and he had probably used it before. However, the nervous look in his eye betrayed that it was never in a situation quite like this. It took a moment for Twilight to process all of this, but once she did, the irony of it all nearly caused her to burst out laughing. Her, Twilight Sparkle, prized student of Princess Celestia, embodiment of the Element of Magic, savior of the nation-no, the planet- was being robbed at gunpoint. She couldn't hide the smirk that crossed her face.
"Gi- gif me ya money" the impromptu thief asked nervously around the gun.
"Or what?" replied Twilight, still smirking
"I- I'll shoot." he replied, once again stuttering. Twilight's smirk extended into a full blown grin.
"Go ahead." she said more cockily than she had ever spoken before.
"Wha- what?" The stallion replied, obviously confused.
"I said "shoot me"" Twilight elaborated in as condescending a tone as she had ever used. The stallion swallowed before bringing the gun's sights into alignment with Twilight's head. After a few moments, nothing happened. After a few more moments, nothing continued to happen.**
"Can't do it, huh?" Twilight said, still grinning. "Alright, then. I'll do it for you!" With that the gun was surrounded by a purple aura and yanked violently out of the stallion's mouth. Twilight brought the gun to hover about a foot to the upper right of her head. Her grin turned back into a smirk as she looked into the horrified stallion's eyes. Passingly, she noted his cutie mark, which he had somehow neglected to cover. It was three blue horse shoes, and the fur underneath was caramel colored.
"Stop it, you crazy mare!" he shouted as he leapt towards her.
With that, the gun went off.
**All rights for that joke belong to Douglas Adams. Please don't sue me.
Caramel looked up from where he had landed. He was directly at the mare's hooves. The bullet had embedded itself somewhere on the wall to his left (her right) having ricocheted off of the slowly fading aura that continued to surround the purple pony.
Contrary to popular belief, Twilight was very familiar with combat spells, both defensive and offensive. There was a very good reason she hadn't been bullied any time after magic kindergarten, and that reason was three charred bodies buried with the help of Celestia after a fierce punishment (And by charred, I meant first degree burns, and when I said buried I was referring medical law suits under mountains of legal jargon, and by fierce punishment I meant a stern talking too. Give the mare a break, it was her first time trying the fireball spell). Twilight looked into the scared stallion's eyes and finally saw a way to get rid of all that excess anger that had built up over the day. This, she thought, is going to be fun...
Twilight Sparkle emerged from the alley the next morning, feeling very, very happy. And tired. She had worn herself out over the course of the previous night, and was now ready for a nice long rest. Her newly cleared mind examined her thoughts from the previous day. Maybe I was a little hard on them, Twilight thought, I should really go apologize. And so what if he has a girlfriend? We can still be friends. I just hope he isn't too upset over how I acted...
Meanwhile, back in the alley, a white mouse with three blue horse shoes on its rear was desperately attempting to untie the knot in its tail...
