A Life With Whom?

The Ponyville bookstore was crowded, to say the least. Ponies waited in line for the newly released Daring Do novel, The Search for the Stone Heart. Filled with rows of bookshelves, along with a multitude of loquacious and querulous ponies, it was a rather uncomfortable place to be in, and Rainbow Dash loathed being in a straight environment like this because her wings and joints got stiff from the lack of active movement. Luckily, she was next in line to get her copy of the novel.

Rumour had it that this novel would feature a small biography on A.K. Yearling, and how she came up with fantastic ideas for her novels, but Rainbow knew it was a mindless pretence that the fan base created to generate speculation. Rainbow and her friends were really the only ones who could expose the absolute truth about A.K Yearling, though it would be in their best interest if they didn’t.

When the stallion ahead of Rainbow branched off, she approached the counter, her smile widening at the pile of paperbacks on the floor, and said, “Pre-order for Rainbow Dash.”

The bookseller, a blue stallion with an unkempt beard, looked down at a piece of paper, scribbled with unorganized text and markings, and traced the list with his hoof until he got to the bottom. He glanced up at Rainbow and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t see your name on the list of pre-orders.”

Rainbow’s facial nuances twitched in confusion and vexation. “Can you repeat that again?”

“I don’t see the name of ‘Rainbow Dash’ on the list of pre-orders,” he said.

Rainbow’s euphoric smile had dwindled to a dissatisfied expression. “But how? I ordered it a month ago.”

“I don’t know. Another employee might’ve tossed it out. Didn't you get a receipt?”

“No, I didn’t,” Rainbow said, facehooving. “Check again.”

“Why?” he asked. “Your name isn’t on the list.”

“Just do it.”

“No, I won’t,” he said. “Are you going to purchase this book or not?”

“I didn’t bring any bits with me,” Rainbow said.

“Well, I’m sorry, but you can’t be holding up the line anymore if you can’t make a purchase. Now scram.”

“But, I….”

“You’re holding up the line,” the bookseller said, glaring. “Scram!”

“Hey, there’s no need to be rude,” Rainbow said.

“Next!” the bookseller said.

A faint grunt built up in Rainbow’s throat, and she said, “Just you watch, pal. You’ll get what’s comin to you.”

And with that, she stormed out of the bookstore.

§

A half an hour later, Rainbow could be found fluttering lowly above the cobblestoned streets of Ponyville near the city hall, where indecipherable loquacity resonated through the air. Rainbow paid zero attention to the outside world, for there was a fierce, internal battle that thundered inside her. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the imprudent look of the bookseller, heard his impertinent words echoing through her head, and remembered the audacity he had.

Great. Just great. Should have known he was a bozo.

Why didn’t you stand your ground with aggression? Tell him who’s the boss.

I did.

No, you didn’t. You gave into a humiliating defeat.

“Shut up!” Rainbow said aloud, stopping in her tracks, her furious voice travelling into the distance. The outburst of anger disrupted nearby ponies, and they stopped to stare at her, pondering whether or not she was addressing them. Some of them glared intensely at her for the cause of disturbance, whilst others had a genuine and sincere expression of concern.

Embarrassed by her eruption, Rainbow’s cheeks reddened, and a grin marked her face. “Hehe, sorry about that guys. Don’t mind me, I was just leaving.” Flaring her wings out, like an enraged dragon about to take charge, Rainbow lanced into the sky, leaving the perplexed ponies behind; and as her elevation increased, the sight of the entire town swam into Rainbow’s vision.

At the centre of Ponyville, the library stood reticently, away from the in-town distractions, despite it being surrounded by the tiny dots of individual entities that continued on with their daily lives.

Maybe Twilight has a copy of the new Daring Do book.

Making up her mind, she made her descent in order to visit the library in hopes that her friend had a copy of The Search for the Stone Heart.

§

The library was brightly lit by the sunlight beaming through the open shutters. In the main room, books covered the floor, nearby tables, and even wooden stools. Ever since the season of spring came into the Equestrian calendar for the year, Twilight thought it would be beneficial for her to do some significant spring cleaning, along with rearranging the books alphabetically; and although spring had come two weeks ago she fixated on getting everything perfect, resulting in multiple attempts to do so. Twilight, adjacent to Spike and near the bookshelves, stared intuitively at the pile of maddening books.

“Okay, Spike,” Twilight said, paying full attention them, not aware that Spike had slunk away. “You collect all the books that start with A so I can organize them together. Then we’ll do the same with the B’s and so on.” She looked where Spike had been less than a few seconds ago.

“Spike!”

“Yup?” Spike said, looking at Twilight from the windowsill. His hand was on his cheek, and his face depicted glum boredom. “Twilight, can't we just read the new Daring Do novel? I really wanna see what happens to Daring Do.”

“I already told you, Spike, we need to get our work done before we relax. Now, let’s get back to work.”

Spike leaped off the windowsill and said, “Fine.”

Being Twilight’s assistant for many years had its advantages, as far as Spike was concerned. The years of repetitive work in the library had trained him to do any library work without any impediments or bewilderment; but even then Spike had his off days if he didn’t get a good night's sleep. He gathered all the books with haste, then piled them up, one by one, until he had collected all the A’s.

“Here you are, Twilight. All the A’s,” he said next to the impressive stack.

“Thanks, Spike,” Twilight said. A purple aura surrounded the reading materials, and they started to orbit around her as if she were committing a force of dark wizardry and witchcraft with evil tomes. “Okay, now gather all the B’s.”

“Will do.” Through the disarranged and chaotic place, Spike piled up the books one by one, until a book within Twilight’s magical orbit accidentally hit Spike in the back of the head, knocking him off his feet. “Ouch! Be careful!”

“Sorry, Spike, it’s just that there are a lot of books that need to be put back precisely. You know how important it is to have an organized library.”

Spike recovered and got to his feet, continuing to pick up books with haste, and said, “I guess so. I still don’t know why we have to do this a third time.”

Twilight’s face reddened out of embarrassment. “You know how I am with my over-obsession with getting everything perfect.” A wide smile then marked her face.

“I guess so,” he said as soon as he picked up the last book that started with B. “All right, I’m done with the B’s now.”

“Great. Now onto the C’s.”

For the next ten minutes, with persistence and accuracy, Spike and Twilight managed to get to the S’s; and yet, throughout their juncture, there had been a peculiar doubt inside Twilight about the organization. But Spike assured her that everything would be fine, and that everything would be in place alphabetically. Twilight knew that she could get carried away aimlessly with things when the time called for it. And this was one of them.

As they continuously worked, a muffled creak resonated from a circular window, letting a light breeze in. In the window way, Rainbow’s head poked inside to see her friends working away on the shelves. Oddly enough, however, neither Twilight nor Spike took notice of Rainbow’s presence as, by the looks of it, their drudgery had consumed them entirely, draining them of their senses. On the contrary, Twilight had felt the breeze blow itself on her, but she didn’t take any notice.

Rainbow crept her way in by flying and said, “Busy much?”

When Twilight heard Rainbow’s voice, the orbital objects around her stopped, froze in time, and, after a brief second, crashed to the ground. This caught Spike off guard, resulting in him falling on the towering stack of paperbacks. Rainbow’s facial nuances altered to an abashed expression, jarred by the sight she had caused.

“Uh, sorry about that, Twi,” Rainbow said, quietly, not looking at Twilight’s eyes, feeling ashamed. She felt terrible for being the cause of disruption, and a sentimental part of her was apologetic and sincere, but Twilight sensed something aching within the pegasus.

“Dash, it’s okay,” Twilight said, her voice stopping midway in her sentence. “What’s up?”

“The better question is what the hay is going on in here?"

“Major spring cleaning,” Spike said, crawling out of the mountain of reading material. “I’m gonna take ten.” He left.

Twilight hinted a grin at Rainbow. “I was just, you know, doing some spring cleaning, as Spike said.” A nervous giggle came from her thereafter.

“Right, so listen, I have something to ask you.”

“What is it?”

Rainbow finally looked at her friend. “Do you have the new Daring Do book? I just came back from the store, and I got screwed over getting it. The salespony was a total bozo. He said I wasn’t on the order list, and then he told me to scram.”

“I’m sorry, Dash,” Twilight said. “Is that why you’re so upset? And to answer your question, I do have it.”

“It’s partly because of that, yeah. I should’ve told him off right there in the store, but I gave up too easily. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” Rainbow said, a faint, genuine smile marking her face, enough to convince Twilight that she was being honest. “Can I have it for tonight?”

“I promised Spike I’d read it to him as soon as we finish organizing the books here.” Twilight focused her attention to the chaotic mess. “And, as you can see, we still have a little while to go.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry for bothering you,” Rainbow said. “I’ll just be on my wa—”

“You’re welcome to join us later.”

Although Rainbow preferred to read by herself, given the amount of distractions in public or elsewhere, she liked to read with Twilight, despite her habit of turning back to previous pages for reciting. To Rainbow, the positive enthusiasm Twilight had for reading books made it almost impossible to say no to, because it was always humorous to see how Twilight would react to something unexpected, or how something absurd would be deemed as true. And, after all, Twilight, really had introduced her to the world of the entire Daring Do series.

Without any thoughts, Rainbow nudged Twilight’s cheek, making it redden, and said, “I’d love to, Twi.”

“Great,” Twilight said, returning the gesture. “Now, Spike and I have work to do, and—” Twilight’s speech was interrupted by the intervention of Rainbow’s hoof.

“I’m gonna stick around and help you two out,” Rainbow said, lowering her hoof. “After all, I did cause this mess.”

“Since when were you the one to take responsibility?”

“Are you kidding? I always take responsibility for my actions.”

“Right…you always are,” Twilight said, her tone sarcastic. “All right, let’s get to work now.”

Rainbow went to the scattered paperbacks, then she glanced at Twilight. “Where do we start?”

“Hold on. Spike!”

Within half a second, a small bodily form charged through the front door, and, to Rainbow’s astonishment, Spike stood in front of them, ready to resume the job. “Here,” he said as he, once again, started to pick up the fallen materials.

“Rainbow, could you move the scattered books to Spike, so he doesn’t have to go back and forth?” Twilight asked, her magic putting Spike’s recent pile into an orbit.

“I’m on it!” Rainbow quickly motioned to the distant array of books, but was cautious not to knock down Spike’s work. As she worked away, collecting them into a singular pile for Spike to get, an anomalous book, whose colour was brown and bound by binding rings, escaped from Rainbow’s grasp, and it fell to the ground, exposing its pages to the eye. Twilight didn’t seem to take notice of the eventful action as she was too occupied with the job at hoof. And neither did Spike.

The exposed pages were blank, but, for some reason, there was a vague oddity that made Rainbow curious as to why a blank notebook would be on the shelves, considering that the library was a public place. She picked it up and turned to previous pages, eventually revealing Twilight’s writing. The copy was dense and voluminous, but it was still legible regardless.

As Rainbow read the lines of cursive text, her mouth went agape, and the mind created this fantastic wonder of whether or not this entry was true since this was something least expected by Twilight.

Once Rainbow’s eyes met the folios, she closed the journal, and hid it in an open crevice beneath the bookshelf adjacent to her. A part of her wanted to pretend that she never discovered her friend’s personal secret, but another part of her wanted to learn more about it; and all she had to do was read another page of Twilight’s diary. Brutal temptation seized Rainbow’s mindset, but her loyalty and willpower quickly dispatched it before it made Rainbow do something she could regret.

I gotta talk to her about this later tonight. Hopefully she can tell me everything.

§

A while later, Spike and Twilight managed to complete their day’s work, with Rainbow’s help of course. Evening had taken its time into the day, and the sun continued its natural course to the horizon. Motes of light radiated through the windows, and they faintly illuminated an amber glow on the methodical shelves, the way Twilight liked it. All thee of them stared at their arduous work, relieved that they could finally read Daring Do, The Search for the Stone Heart.

“What are we waiting for?” Spike said, breaking the silence. “Let’s see what Daring Do gets herself into.”

“Hold on, Spike,” Twilight said. “Could you brew up some fruit punch before we start? I think we could all use a little drink after all that work.”

“Sure, I guess,” he said. “Be right back.” He left.

“Rainbow, come join me in the living room,” Twilight said, motioning to her friend. “Make yourself at home.”

Twilight was already walking over to the living room. Rainbow also started following her.

The living room was bright, illumed by the setting sun to the west, which certainly indulged Twilight to a beautiful vista everyday. Twilight took a seat on the silken cushions, as did Rainbow. A peculiar, yet obvious, motive inspired Rainbow to blurt out everything she had read earlier, but she didn’t seem too certain that this was the right place and time despite her aloneness with Twilight. Never had she thought that such a discovery would put an onerous pressure over her, but after reading the explicit entry in her friend’s diary it was enough to do just that. And despite the serious matter weighing the pegasus down, Rainbow snickered aloud, mostly out of nervousness than humour, but it quickly dwindled into suppressed tittering.

Twilight, levitating a book from a distant shelf, deviated her attention from thence and glanced at Rainbow. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Rainbow said. “Is that the book?”

“It certainly is. We just gotta wait for Spike before we can start. Anything you want to talk about before he gets here?”

Of course she asks that question.

Well, duh, it’s only the two of you right now. She’s making conversation.

Thank you, captain obvious.

Better say something, she’s looking right at you.

“Um,” Rainbow said under her breath. “How about them Ponyville Nex? They really know how to knock the ball out of the park, eh?”

“Not sure. I don’t follow the local sports,” Twilight said. “Besides, sports aren’t really my thing. Lately I’ve been writing a lot more than I have before.”

“About what?” Rainbow was curious as to what Twilight would say.

“Writing about something. Something that I’d rather not talk abou—”

“Okay, I made the punch, and I cut up some fruit,” Spike said as he placed the eatables on the coffee table. “Can we read it now?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight said, her gaze drifting away from Rainbow’s bodily form. Twilight opened the front cover, the spine making the most satisfying crack as she opened it, habitually skipping over the table of contents and author’s forward. Her eyes scrutinized the text awaiting to be read.

“For the last four days, I had been roaming the San Palomino Desert—by walking since a scorpion stung my wing leaving me unable to fly—seeking a temple named Aluzra, where, I believed, a primeval artifact lies inside one of the many chambers found within the temple. But this wasn’t an ordinary temple. Because this temple possessed a strange power to change its location sporadically, but only within the boundaries of the desert, making it almost impossible to find. And yet I had taken the risk of never returning home in search for this temple, because, I knew, I could get lost here, very easily.

“As I continued down my path, distant screeches of desert vultures startled me, and I knew what that meant: whenever there were scavengers somewhere, there was usually edible salvage for them to feed on. I rushed to the source of the sound, my hooves digging into the hot sand; every step burned my lower body, but my forceful determination wouldn’t let me give up that easily.

“After reaching the desert vultures, my eyes fixated on a dead, male corpse, that of a pony, being torn to shreds. My attention was so fixated on the corpse that I didn’t even realize what stood in front of me. A giant stone structure with a pointed roof, two towering pillars, and a long staircase leading to a wide entrance. Its condition was in ruin, but it appeared sturdy enough for exploration.

“I climbed the steps, one by one, until a thought came to my mind. That corpse didn’t just magically appear there. It was left for dead; and there could only be one explanation: Ahuizotl. His name was written all over this, even after putting him in ruin. I didn’t make that mistake again.

“End of chapter one.” Twilight closed the book without apparent reason to Spike, but Rainbow had a hint as to why she did what she did.

“Why’d you stop?” Spike asked. “Aren’t you gonna read more?”

“If it were up to me, Spike, I would read you this entire book. But right now, you need to go to bed. It’s late.”

“Wha…what?” He looked outside the nearby window, only to see the night sky, painted with stars, along with the luminous moon shining its light on the land. “How’d it get so late?”

“Time flies when your mind is in a book,” Twilight said, giggling. “We’ll read chapter two first thing in the morning. I promise.”
“Okay,” Spike said, his expression low.

“I wouldn’t want my number one assistant to be lacklustre tomorrow.” Twilight caressed Spike’s cheek with her own. “Now go on, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Twilight and Rainbow.” And off he went.

“I better head off, too,” Rainbow said, getting up to stretch her stiff joints.

What are you doing?

Going home?

Ask her about the diary.

Oh, right.

“Actually wait. I gotta ask you something, Twi.”

“What is it?”

“Come with me.”

§

A little while later, Twilight and Rainbow were in the main library section. There was little to no light inside, so Twilight lit the candles that were on her desk, ultimately illuming the place.

Once Rainbow’s eyes adjusted to the change, she made her way to the cubbyhole where she had hidden Twilight’s diary and pulled it out from its silence. Then she placed it on Twilight’s desk, right in front of her, and an instinctual pang of horror struck her at the sight.

“So, while I was helping you out today, I found this,” Rainbow said, opening to the first page. “Care to explain?”

“I, umm….” Twilight was in a lava pit, and all she wanted to do was run the other way and never come back. “It’s….” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m not gonna make this hard for you, Twi. Just be honest with me. I won’t hate you for it, and I won’t tell anypony else,” Rainbow said sinceriously. “I promise.”

An assured smile marked Twilight’s face, and she said, ”Everything that’s written in there is how I feel about you.”

“How long have you been keeping this a secret?”

“A little over a year,” Twilight said, her smile still intact.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rainbow asked, her expression slightly vexed. Her harsh tone was unintentional.

It was then when Twilight’s smile faded, and a dubious sigh crept past her lips, and she said, “Because I care about the friendship we have all too much for me to jeopardize it. And for what? Something that’ll probably never happen?

“Becoming friends with you and the girls was the best thing that happened to me. I can’t lose that. I didn’t tell you because I was scared to lose you.” A doleful mien marked her face, and her eyes, staring into Rainbow’s, began to water. “I hope you understand, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow was in a void, unable to speak or move, with an insufferable yet splendid quality that chilled through her body. She remembered the years she had spent with Twilight, as her friend, quite well, but never had there been a hint or sign of her friend having deep and erotic feelings toward her, not in the usual sense at least.

Twilight stood in front of Rainbow, her expression pleading for her comprehension. At that moment, Rainbow understood Twilight’s reasoning for not telling her: it wasn’t because Twilight was afraid that the pegasus would say no, leaving her hurt, but rather because she feared that it would ruin their friendship altogether.

Twilight cast around for something to say, wanting to tell Rainbow that she would understand if she didn’t want to be her friend anymore, considering the explicit entry that featured Rainbow as her mistress. She failed at producing the proper words, glanced down at the floor with tears streaking her cheek.

“Forget about my forgiveness.” Rainbow wiped the tears on Twilight’s face, and she raised Twilight’s chin so she could look at her friend. “I like you too, Twilight. So no more tears, Twi. Just happy thoughts. With me.”