The Note Book

SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH

"Aargh..."

SCRUNCH SCRUNCH SCRUNCH

Moonlight pierced the window of Rainbow's cloud house like a needle through silk, illuminating a certain cyan Pegasus as she crushed yet another piece of parchment into a small ball. Her eyes were bloodshot, her was a mane was a frazzled mess, and her mouth was set into an irritated frown.

Rainbow Dash's prolonged sigh was hopelessly lost amongst the dull rattling of rain against her desk-side window, as she threw another failed attempt at literature over her shoulder, landing it perfectly atop a towering mountain of discarded paper, ink and trails of thought.

"This is stupid," she mumbled bitterly, resting her head in her shaky hooves, her prismatic mane falling over her face like a tattered veil. "What am I even doing? It's, like..." She raised her head to spot the moon, silently peeking at her from betwixt the curtain of darkened clouds, its eyebrow silently and constantly raised in a fashion not unlike judgement.

She blinked at it for a few seconds.

"Three? Three in the morning. I've been awake for... Aargh!"

In a sudden fit of run-down anger, she threw her quill against the window pane, causing it to bounce off uselessly, disappear behind the desk and disappear into the dust and shadows. Done now with her attempt at writing for tonight, she took a moment to indulge in one of her favorite pastimes for when she was hopelessly bored.

Racing the rain.

First, she would start at the top of the window and choose two raindrops, preferably ones that were close together, but not as close to each other that they would happen to collide mid journey. Next, she would watch them to see which one would reach the bottom of the window first, silently cheering for her favorite raindrop and booing when it was overtaken by it's rival. It was a game she had loved to play since she was just a little filly.

It was at about halfway down the pane when the two chosen raindrops came dangerously close to colliding, and it was only then when Rainbow, for some odd reason, wished for them to collide. Then, just as they were millimeters apart, a third rogue raindrop swooped in and collided with the rival, knocking the two off course. Thus, ruining both the competition and Dash's already sour mood.

Rainbow Dash sighed once more and looked over to her empty bed, it's sheets sprawled haphazardly over it's frame from hours upon hours of tossing and turning, and it's pillows slightly damp with broken fantasies and heavy emotions.

sparing a moment to take a long, deep breath, bolster her mood and steel her resolve, Rainbow withdrew another piece of parchment from the imposing pile next to her and dipped a nearby quill into a pot of ink, briefly hovering it over the paper before scribbling out a few short words.

"Dear Twilight Sparkle..."

This was going to be a long, long night.

Dash awoke to the morning sun, pleasantly waving to her as it crawled over the horizon, bathing the skies in warm shades of oranges and pinks. She shook her head in some vain attempt to shift her vibrant mane out of her vision. Yawning, she brought a hoof up to her head to push the unruly hair out of the way and tuck it behind her ear.

The realization slowly sunk in that she had fallen asleep at her desk and not in her bed, which she noted was still in quite a state. Trailing her eyes across the room, she also noticed the large pile of scrunched up letter attempts behind her, and all the differently coloured quills scattered all over the floor.

Then, it dawned on her. She slowly lowered her gaze to meet with her makeshift pillow. A completed letter sat before her, slightly smudged on the right side with her signature at the end trailing off to the margin. She eyed it warily before shrugging, picking it up and reading it through.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

Hey, egghead! How's it hanging? I hope this note doesn't interrupt that little reading mode thingy you have going on sometimes cus I kinda wanna tell you something important to me... And hopefully to you too. And I don't want you reading this while your all grumpy or in a bad mood so do me a solid and put this letter down now if you are. Cheers.

You good? Good.

Anyway, I kinda have a teeny tiny crush on you.

Yeah, I know. Sudden, right? Jeez, Rary'd flip if she found out about that. She'd probably burn my ear off with stuff like 'tact' or 'decorum', whatever they mean.

But that's the thing. It was sudden for me too.

One day I just... I start noticing how beautiful you are. Like it was the most blindingly obvious thing in the world, but I was looking the other way for four or five odd years. I start noticing how cute you are when you get angry with me for crashing into your house or messing with your notes. I start noticing your perfect smile or your perfect hair or your perfect eyes. And sometimes, I start noticing how boring the world is without you around to make it better.

You make the world fun, Twilight. When you're around, I don't feel like I need to impress anyone or do tricks or build walls around me, y'know? I just want to sit by the fireplace and read books with you when it's cold or yell at the air conditioner with you when it's warm.

This isn't love though. I'm not as naive as to jump to something like that. But, it could be. If we worked for it.

And I get it. This is kinda cowardly of me, coating my heart in ink instead of presenting it to you myself, in all its messed up, broken glory. But I'm scared, Twi. I'm terrified, and I don't want to be hurt again. And we both know I'm not that good with words anyway. The best I'd probably do would be shouting a bunch of gibberish at you and spontaneously bursting into flames and tears at the same time.

But, another way to look at it would be: 'It's kinda sweet, knowing my reading pattern to the T and successfully predicting exactly when I'd open the book with the note in, thoughtfully placing it at the end of a chapter so I wouldn't be cross with the interruption. In it's own, slightly creepy way.'

And FYI, you should be reading this right after your 'after-dinner-read'. Make of that what you will.

Point is, I'm just asking for a chance. We'll take it as slow as you want and although I can't promise I won't mess up, I can promise that I will put my all into this.

I'm gonna be busy for the next week down in Canterlot, collaborating with the weather teams up there so it'll give you some time to think about it. And, if by some random chance, you do want to try this, I'll be waiting at Le Canter at seven, Friday.

Yours truly,

Rainbow Dash

Rainbow sighed as she rubbed her muzzle. This was a bad idea, and she knew it, but it was the safest way. With steeled nerves and heavy heart, she sealed the letter within a pale blue envelope and tucked it under her wing.