8

Huh. Okay, normally when I say things like “See you tomorrow”, what that really means is “week after this one, maybe.” Y’know – it’s reasonable. Things come up, other stuff gets on my schedule. Ponies forget, you know? It’s only equine.

So why am I actually here tomorrow? Like, tomorrow-tomorrow? Is it guilt? I mean, I kinda sorta thought about not doing this, but then I decided to actually go through with it – didn’t want to leave you hanging, right? Which would be the normal thing to do, except that you aren’t so much somepony else as you are just…the one that reads my letters. And I’m MORE attentive to this than I am normally?

Huh.

I sincerely hope you’re not trying to psychoanalyze this, because I’m pretty clueless, and if there is some deeper meeting than it’s lost on me.

Speaking of analysis, I figured I would play girl detective on this one. Ask a couple questions, do a little snooping, see if I could turn up some answers. Twilight was obviously the pony to try and gather some information on, ‘cause she for SURE knows something. Applejack, too.

But you know how boring trying to watch in on them is? Bo-RING. It’s like I go and talk to them about how I’m watching them, and they roll their eyes and walk away, and then they don’t even TRY to go off into some secret passageway to pour over their secret notes and have a good laugh at my expense. So no dice on that. Daring Do’s so lucky; stuff like that always crops up for and works out for her.

Logically speaking, though. Twilight has to know something about it. Twilight recognized the hoofwriting. I want to assume that Applejack knows something about it, too, but she could just be covering up for Twilight Sparkle because she’s too darned good at keeping secrets for her own good.

Rarity’s almost as annoyingly coy as Twilight is about the issue. She acts pretty coy in general, though, so I can’t tell whether she knows or if she’s just messing with me. Fluttershy would normally be the right pony to press about this, but given that Discord is Discord? No dice. I don’t want to even make him think that I’m trying to mess with her. Pinkie Pie would definitely have spilled the beans by now if she knew, because she’s terrible at keeping secrets – unless she PROMISED that she would keep it a secret, and if that’s the case then there’s no breaking a Pinkie Pie promise.

Then again, if she recognized it by the hoofwriting, it’s probably somepony she’s received letters from. Unfortunately, the only pony I know who she writes letters to is Princess Celestia, and it strikes me as a liiiiittle bit unlikely that you’re her, ~~Because she’s obviously got a crush on Twilight~~ because she’s thousands of years old and I doubt that sort of stuff interests her anymore. Besides, if you were her, what would I do? Ask her to her face? She’d probably laugh, or be mildly embarrassed.

Still, at least that’s a hypothesis. The best thing that I can do it to probably go through Twilight’s stuff – maybe she has some of her letters (or somepony else’s letters) lying around. At least it’s an idea.

Later,

-Rainbow Dash

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9

~~UGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~~

Of course she locks up her room when she’s away on business. As in, magic-force-field-stuff. I can’t really begrudge her on that, because if I were a princess I wouldn’t want ponies looking through my stuff, either. But that’s not what I’m ticked off at.

So I figure I’ll catch her when she’s in her room, right? Make like I want to borrow a book from her new library selection, then start ransacking her place while her back is turned. It’s not like she could catch me, anyway. Rainbow Dash, remember?

So I get in there, and I see a line of ponies trying to collect books and get autographs, and that sort of thing. I have to wait my turn - OF COURSE, IT’S NOT LIKE I’M HER BEST FRIEND OR ANYTHING, THANK YOU TWILIGHT – and by the time I get there I see she’s got a box by her little library registry. I ask her what’s in it, right?

And she tells me that it’s a list of slips from all the ponies who have checked out books – she gets their name down along with the book they borrowed, and has spike burn the slip when they give it back. To “preserve confidentiality”, or something like that.

So not only does she know who EVERYPONY’S signature is – ergo, what their hoofwriting looks like – but she doesn’t keep around copies of what anything looks like, so I can’t even go through her stuff. And of COURSE she probably has the sort of bookworm’s brain that lets her memorize EVERYTHING.

Of course, I asked her when she started the stupid system, and then she asked me when was the last time I was in the library to actually borrow a book like a normal pony, and whether I was going to actually borrow a book, and whether I had returned her copy of Daring Do and the Heart of Darkness, and blah blah blah.

And now she’s probably going to expect me to write a book report about it or something. It’s not like I wasn’t going to read it today, anyway, but come on.

You’re so frustrating, you know that? You can’t just tell me who you are? You can’t even talk to me about it – not even privately? I promise I won’t judge you. Pinkie Promise.

Still waiting for your answer,

-Rainbow Dash.

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10

Okay, first off, I wanted to apologize for last letter. I feel like I’m getting way too frustrated about the whole deal, seeing as the whole reason you’re just collecting my letters privately is because you’re too nervous to talk to me one on one. So what good would it do to scare you off?

Pretty much the exact opposite of what you wanted, I guess.

I still want to know who you are, but it can honestly wait. I’ve got a secret admirer – so what? That shouldn’t be uncommon for a pony like me. The best thing I can do is to take it in stride – accept it with good grace, treat you like an actual friend, talk to you and stuff. Right?

~~Well, Metaphorically talk to you, at any rate~~

But yeah. No more snooping, no more me being angry. I wouldn’t do that to Fluttershy, I won’t do it to you.

…Honestly, I think the reason I went a bit crazy there is because I was just still kind of worried about being…I dunno, “scammed” is the wrong word for it. Not trusting you because…~~I don’t want to be hurt by something I wouldn’t like to put my trust in?~~ No that’s not right either

Whatever, you get my point. Hopefully.

I’m kind of curious: do you feel the sort of nervousness that I do? Like, when I thought I was going to meet the Wonderbolts – I mean, especially Spitfire – don’t get me wrong, I was jump-up-and-down-giddy in the same way that a filly gets when they meet their hero of their dreams – or kind of like how the squirt looks at me, actually – but there’s still that sort of undercurrent, like “holy cow, what if they actually start talking to me?” Like, you feel like you’re not ready for it. Not just not wanting to disappoint them, I mean, but not being able to think that you could handle trying to not disappoint them?

And then the whole thing turns around into just this snarled mass of the kind of anxiety that isn’t so much scared as it is just feeling really, really weird. You know?

Or maybe I don’t. This is you, after all, not me.

You can probably already tell that I get nervous, too. I mean, maybe that’s something we have in common, if nothing else. But hey, if you’re brave enough to keep me writing to you like this, maybe you’re handling things better than I am?

Okay, this whole thing just kind of got surprisingly heavy, didn’t it? Did you want to have heavy conversations, or lighter ones? ~~Monologues, I mean~~

~~ugggh yet more Twilight-speak I really need to stop hanging around her~~

Actually, I’m not sure you’ll respond one way or another. Not after that one message, I mean. Just enough to get me to write, but not enough to reveal that much more about yourself, huh? So it really is just you being sort of shy. That’s okay. I understand.

ish. I mean, again, I’m not you, but.

I guess I’ll just write about whatever’s on my mind, then? Day by day. Maybe you just want to hear about my flying exercises or something, I don’t know.

Is that the sort of thing you like? Do you read sports stories? Am I kind of like a living sports story to you? The inspirational sort, I hope. Actually, what sort of stuff do you read? And should I read the same?

You know what – maybe I should actually go to the library. Twilight’s smug and annoying and too prone to using big words, but she probably knows if there will be other books that I might like. I mean, I love Daring Do stories, but I’m going to run out of them eventually, so might as well try something new? I mean, story of my life as of the past four years, but.

Hey, if you are in cahoots with her after all, recommend some things for me, okay? A second opinion might keep me from having to lug around some sort of thousand-page dictionary, and that’s probably the sort of thing she loves reading more than anything else.

Anyways, later.

-Rainbow Dash.

P.S. You should read Daring Do and the Heart of Darkness. It’s great.
P.P.S. Actually, every Daring Do book is great. You should read them.
P.P.P.S Seriously.

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