Chapters “Yes you do.” Twilight said to some pony in response to an ulterior question. “So don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.”
The pony seemed satisfied with the answer and left the castle. The princess of friendship let out a sigh of relief and decided, as her she had reached the end of her schedule of the afternoon almost an hour in advance, that going to the spa sounded like a great idea. A good book too, but the spa had one huge advantage: she could ask Spike to accompany her. Both because she hadn’t had much occasions to spend time with the little dragon and because she still had to thank him for the last time he had saved the day. Or maybe the two last times…
She had lost counts. The point was, Spike was always there for her and she wanted to show him her gratitude. And the dragon’s love for book wasn’t exactly the same as her own… So the spa made more logical sense from the two options.
“Spike?” she shouted through the huge hallways of the castle.
One day, she would have to find a more proper and polite way to find each other. For a moment, Twilight wondered how the two royal sisters managed it in the Canterlot castle. Or Shining Armor for that matter. He was already unable to find Twilight in their little house back when they were little, so how he was able to find Cadence in the crystal palace was a mystery…
A loud noise, the sensation of an earthquake around her and a loud voice near her woke her up from her thinking.
“Twilight!”
“Oh, Spike.” the alicorn suddenly noticed. “I’m glad I found you.”
“Well, you found me five minutes ago, but you just kept on walking by shouting my name. Sometimes, you’re seriously going too deep into that brain of yours.”
“Yeah, my head hurts a bit…” Twilight admitted.
“That’s because I made you trip up with a trap to catch your attention.”
Twilight looked around, made a quick assessment of the situation, and then responded, while blushing:
“That does explain why I’m on the ground.”
Spike sighed and helped the princess get up. He liked her a lot, which is quite an understatement to say, but there were times he just couldn’t understand how weird she could act. He knew how to handle it though. Just as for Pinkie Pie: not asking was the best course of action.
“You wanted to see me?” the dragon asked, to change the subject. “Because I’m kind of busy right now.”
“You are? That’s too bad. I wanted to invite you to go to the spa with me. I thought you would appreciate a bit of relaxation.”
“I would have, but I’ve got something important to do right now.” Spike replied. “I’m making a sculpture of Rarity.”
Before the surprise and semi-incredulity of the alicorn, Spike took her through two corridors and three stairways all the way to another room where a pile of rocks was standing.
“It doesn’t look like much yet, but I’m working on it.”
It was indeed looking like someone had been relentlessly hitting the stones to form a huge pile of rubble and one rock shaped in something vaguely resembling an oval hoofball. It was, at least, the most resembling thing Twilight could associate with the shape.
“It looks… hum… great.” the alicorn told Spike.
“I know, right?” Spike proudly replied. “I still need to work on it, but once finished, it will look so great that Rarity will surely fall in love with it and in love with me.”
Given the current state of the sculpture, Twilight couldn’t give that plan much chances of success. And before she had realized it, her mouth had vocalized out loud what her mind was thinking:
“I don’t know if Rarity will like it as much as you think she will…”
She blamed herself for having let that thought slip away from her, even if she had just been giving her honest opinion. But Spike reacted way better than she could have expected. In fact, the dragon contented himself with a laugh.
“Yeah, sure, you would know better than me what Rarity likes or not.” he told the alicorn.
Twilight looked at the hoofball shaped rock, thought of the very refined and meticulous Rarity, and then decided she was right about her previous conclusion.
“Well, I happen to be one of her best friends.” she said, trying to avoid hurting the dragon’s confidence and achieve a draw in that little contest she had inadvertently begun.
“Come on.” Spike replied laughingly, very proud of his position in the contest. “I’ve learned everything that can be known about Rarity and you, you haven’t got a clue.”
“That’s not true!” Twilight defended herself as well as her perfect record of knowing stuff. “I know plenty of things about Rarity. Her eyes are blue, she is a fashion designer and her cat is named Opalescence.”
“Oh yeah?” Spike asked with a grin, ignoring the clues he was given to what was going on in front of his eyes. “Then tell me: what are her parent’s names?”
The words didn’t connect immediately in Twilight’s brain. It simply froze.
Rarity’s parents.
What weird words.
Twilight tried to focus. Rarity’s parents meant the parents of Rarity. That was one good step forwards in understanding what she was being asked. And still, it felt like it wasn’t enough by a long shot… What had Rarity’s parents name to do with knowing things about Rarity?
But then, the semantic link created itself in Twilight’s head and she recognized that, logically, Rarity was connected to her parents through kinship and were therefore important in Rarity’s world.
Twilight’s brain finally accepted to unfreeze, only because she had accepted the fact she had no idea what the name of the parents of one of her best friends were. And it horrified her.
“Rarity’s parents’ names…?” whispered Twilight.
“Yeah. Or you could maybe just tell what type of fabric she prefers to work with? Or the designer she looks up to the most? Or the couture technic she relies on when stressed?” Spike added, content to have cornered Twilight and ignoring the distress calls that the eyes of the alicorns were sending that should have warned him not to press the issue.
But of course, the dragon didn’t stop there. All he saw was that Twilight was at his mercy, unable to say a word and even more, he felt like she should have been able to answer at least one of his questions.
“Okay, here is a simpler one.” Spike said: “When is Rarity’s birthday?”
He could have asked a brick wall and obtained the exact same reaction. Silence and consternation.
“Do you even know what Rarity’s favorite color is?” the dragon asked again in one last desperate attempt, amazed by how little response he was obtaining, driving the nail in even further.
Twilight was unable to find that information anywhere in her memory. She was hopelessly browsing through all her academic records, all the physical principles she had learned, all the magical rules and every single friendship lesson, but no matter where she turned, she always had to face the fact she had no idea what Rarity’s favorite color was.
“Admit it: you know nothing Twilight Sparkle.” Spike said with an air of superiority he had always wished to display as it wasn’t everyday that he could claim to know something Twilight didn’t.
But then, and only then, way too late into the game, he noticed Twilight’s distress and understood he had made a huge mistake.
The alicorn was shivering with anxiety. Her eyes were twitching and she was munching her own tail.
“Twilight?” Spike asked, to assess the damages. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know anything about my best friend!” Twilight shouted in reply, grabbing Spike by the shoulders and shaking him frenzily.
“Maybe you should lay down. Let’s just go to the spa like you wanted to…” Spike tried.
In vain.
“What sort of friend am I?” Twilight asked, now ignoring her assistant. “I pretend to be their friend, but I’ve obviously never shown any interest in them. I was only caring about myself and now I couldn’t even tell their favorite colors or their birthday’s dates!”
Spike was about to react, but Twilight didn’t leave him any time to.
“I have to correct that right away. I'll lose them if they discover how little I know about them... I need you to tell me everything you know about Rarity in great details!”
“Who… me?” Spike asked, completely overwhelmed.
“No, you’re right. I need to go directly to the source!” Twilight decided, driven by her fears and the will to do something to correct her huge mistake.
She grabbed Spike and rushed outside of the castle to find Rarity with the intent to extract all the knowledge she needed in order to call herself a good friend.
Scientific approach one: interrogation
“Hellooooooo…” Twilight saluted Rarity with a tone that certainly wasn’t creepy at all.
“Oh… Hello Twilight.” Rarity replied, a bit startled by her alicorn friend. “I dare to ask, but is everything alright?”
Twilight flinched, then turned to Spike who was getting his breath back and whispered to him:
“I think she knows I don’t know!”
And then, Twilight turned back to Rarity, showing one giant smile going from her left ear to her right, and replied:
“Everything is fine. Nothing to worry about. Just fine. Perfect even. Never been better. Fine.”
An awkward silence ensued, during which Twilight quickly turned to Spike again, preventing him to intervene, and whispered to him again:
“I saved it. Everything is going according to plan.”
Spike sighed. If there was a plan, he had no idea what it was. And more than anything, he wanted to find a way to escape because he didn’t want Rarity to associate him with Twilight’s current state, but was unable to at the same time because he just couldn’t find it in him to leave Twilight alone. That was just the kind of dragon he was: loyal to the very end no matter what.
“So…” Rarity began, not sure what to think of the whole mess.
“Tell me your favorite color!” Twilight ordered, incapable of controlling herself.
“My favorite color?” Rarity asked in reply, having no idea what that question had to do with anything.
“Tell me everything!” Twilight demanded. “Who is your favorite designer, the names of your parents, the date of your birthday, who you have a crush on, how much sugar you put into your tea, your weight, every single thing you know about couture, if you wore braces, the names of your aunts and uncles, your academic records, their academic records, your age, the precise length of your mane, the median time you wake up in the morning, where you took every vacation you ever took, the dimensions of your cutie mark and how much time you need to digest two pounds of hay.”
Twilight only stopped because she was out of breath. As for Rarity, she was feeling completely and definitely lost. She had pretty much only heard the words “birthday”, “sugar” and “couture” and was therefore trying to find any logical connection between them without success.
“I… hum…” the white unicorn only said, to Twilight dissatisfaction.
It was clear the direct approach had failed. She would need a more subtle strategy if she were to succeed.
“Actually, I was just wondering what you were doing right now this instant and nothing else whatsoever.” Twilight quickly stated.
“Well, I was about to finish drawing my latest creation. I think it will turn to be quite an achievement if I might say so.” Rarity replied, happy to find another lighter subject to talk about.
“Can I watch you do it?” Twilight asked, taking the opportunity to observe her prey in her working environment.
“Huh… yes, I guess…” Rarity responded, not sure if she really wanted to, but even less sure if it was wise to refuse given Twilight’s strange behavior.
She went to her drawing board and, trying to ignore Twilight’s look over her shoulder and her breath against her neck, she drew a curve on the paper.
“Why did you draw it that way?” asked Twilight, putting her hoof on the curve and interrupting Rarity’s work.
“What?” Rarity asked.
“There were theoretically an infinity of ways you could have drawn it, but you chose that way between all the infinite possibilities. I’m just wondering what the factors influencing your decision were.” Twilight explained.
Her explanation made it even more difficult for Rarity to understand. Out of words, out of pretty much everything, with no other resource, the white unicorn just said:
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know?” Twilight repeated, suddenly back into her anxious frenzy. “Of course I know. Why would you think I don’t know? I’m a good friend, I know what I need to know. Me? Not knowing, this is outrageous.”
And then, feeling cornered as it was clear Rarity had found out what she was up to and was about to confront her about it, Twilight decided to escape. And for that, she needed a very clever well thought out plan.
“I… have to go.” the alicorn said, before trotting away in panic.
Rarity turned to Spike, and asked him what was wrong with Twilight, but the alicorn suddenly teleported near the dragon, made a sign that everything was alright, and then abducted the dragon with another teleportation, leaving a very puzzled Rarity behind.
The direct approach had failed, but Twilight wasn’t ready to throw the towel.
Scientific approach two: inquiry
Twilight had brought Spike with her behind a bush near the entrance of the carrousel boutique and both of them were now waiting there, observing the pony going in and out of the shop.
“So… what are we doing now?” Spike asked.
“Well, I’m glad you want to know.” Twilight replied without even looking at him, obsessed that she was with her current task of observing the shop’s entrance. “We almost got caught when asking Rarity directly, so we need a safer approach to gather information about her.”
“Which means?” Spike asked again, almost regretting to encourage her in her endeavor, but also really wanting to grasp an idea of what was going to happen.
“We will wait for Rarity to leave the boutique and then we will go in and collect data on the subject by observation, study and sampling.”
“You want to break in Rarity’s boutique?” Spike translated out loud.
He wasn’t given time to expand on the idea because Rarity had come out and closed the door and was leaving to regain her house. Twilight immediately moved, taking Spike with her, and came close to a window on the side.
“Alright.” she said. “Now all we need is to find a subtle, smart and discreet way to enter the boutique.”
Spike knew there was no way he could reason Twilight in her obsessive state, so he decided he should better play along to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself or do something that she could later regret. Therefore, he began examining the window to think of a way to open it in the most efficient and discreet manner.
A second later, a levitating stone surrounded with a purple aura passed on his side and crashed into the window.
“It’s open!” victoriously noticed Twilight, very proud of her work.
She entered the boutique, quickly followed by the dragon who was understanding things were even worse than he had imagined. Twilight began to search the place for stuff, as she was seemingly taking everything she was seeing as the most interesting clue ever.
A lamp was suddenly a very telling element on Rarity’s light management. Some dust behind the corner of a desk was a revelation on Rarity’s soul. Some of the clothes they found hidden in the back of the shop were giving a new way of thinking about Rarity’s work and interests. Baby’s clothes. Twilight felt she was getting closer and closer to her ultimate objective of knowing absolutely everything about her friend.
But still, she had been there for ten minutes and still hadn’t found out nearly as much as she had expected. She needed a more efficient and systematic approach. All she could think of though was to rely on some detective books she had read where the hero would find the crucial information in the suspect’s trash can.
She turned to Spike who immediately understood he wouldn’t like what was coming.
A minute later, they had both gone to the back of Rarity’s shop, had found the trash cans and had literally went into them to search for relevant information.
“I found a banana peel!” Twilight shouted in victory, showing her discovery to Spike over the edge of the trash can she was in.
“Great. Now you know a banana has been eaten in the Carousel boutique. Can we go home now?” the dragon asked, covered with smelling stuff he really didn’t want to know the nature of.
A violent light suddenly appeared, blinding both of them, as a very well-known voice made itself heard.
“Twilight? Spike?” Rarity asked. “What in Equestria are you doing in my trash cans?”
The white unicorn had heard the rock going through the window and, once her surprise and fear had worn off, had gone to find some guards to catch the intruders. The same guards that were now using a spell to blind the two culprits with a violent light.
Twilight panicked.
Not because she was going to be arrested for breaking into somepony else’s building, but because she couldn’t find another way to explain her behavior to Rarity than to admit she was a horrible friend. And that was something she couldn’t bear to do.
She needed a way out. She would have taken anything, no matter how insane or dangerous.
The maddest part of her brain got the message and, to happy to finally have a saying in how to do things, gave her a solution in the form of a spell she had once learned and never dared try using.
Twilight’s horn lit up in a violent flash that blinded Rarity for a second.
“So, is it over yet?” Spike asked, as he knew nothing about what had happened after the spell and as Twilight seemed to have completely simmered down and made peace with Rarity.
The alicorn and the white unicorn had been joined with their four other friends and had spent almost an entire day talking together, mostly about nothing, just having fun being together and coping with the emotions of the recent events.
Not they were all gone, the young dragon was merely wondering if he could consider things had come back to normal.
“Not really.” Twilight said. “But enough of the journey has been done for now.”
“So I can go finish the statue for Rarity now?” Spike asked.
“Could you please take note of a letter for princess Celestia first?”
The dragon obliged. Mostly because he liked writing the first words and had missed it lately.
“Dear princess Celestia…” Twilight began. “This last two days, I learned that friendship is way more than just knowing information about each other. I thought it was essential to be able to answer every question about my friends I could be asked, but friends won’t necessarily mind that you don’t know everything about them.
In other words, a pony isn't a better friend because he or she knows more than others about you.
I still feel I want to learn more about my friends, as I discovered they can hide way more than meets the eye, but it would be wrong to do it because I was forced to in order to keep my friends and certainly wrong to force them to reveal what they don’t want to.”
Spike finished writing, sent the letter and then turned to Twilight to say:
“You know, you could have just asked. I’ve learned that lesson years ago.”
“Really?” Twilight asked out of curiosity.
“Well, neither Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Lyra or Twinkleshine seemed to care that you couldn’t remember their name most of the time.”
“Oh… yeah…” Twilight blushed.
“I sometimes seriously wonder what it is with you that makes other ponies so forgiving. I want my friends to show some interest in me...” Spike added, more as a complain about how more complicated it was making their lives than as a serious remark.
All the dragon wanted was to go back to his work on the statue.
“By the way Spike, about Rarity…” Twilight began.
“Yes?” Spike replied.
Twilight balanced out the pro and con of telling Spike about Rarity’s secret and quickly understood her duty truly was to keep it quiet. Still, she could give him a clue.
“I just think you were right. You do know her very well. And something tells me she will enjoy that statue of yours.”
“Of course she will.” Spike replied, having no idea what the alicorn was talking about, as it was still way too vague for him, but certain of his future success.
The dragon went back to his pile of rubbles and, after all those events and agitation, Twilight finally headed to the spa where she relaxed, enjoyed having ponies taking care of her, discovered a hoofball magazine that she surprisingly found very entertaining to read.
She smiled: that part of her, just like Rarity, she would keep to herself.
THE END
Author's Note
I have no idea what this story is about anymore... I'm just glad I actually achieved to finish it (only took me seven and a half hours). Doesn't feel perfect, but I can't change it more than I've already done without destroying the coherence or having to rewrite the whole thing.
At least I can sort of write again. So... victory is mine.
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Scientific approach three: cheat and use magic
When Rarity opened her eyes, she realized she wasn’t at the back of her boutique anymore. She probably wasn’t in Ponyville anymore. She was in a gigantic library the kind of she had never seen before. Not in the capital city of Canterlot. Not even in the crystal empire. The architecture didn’t seem to make much sense and there were books piled everywhere in a huge mess. Thousands and thousands of books everywhere.
She opened one and gasped, as she already knew the content way too well for it to be a coincidence.
Twilight exulted. The spell had worked. Or at least, it seemed it had. She now was inside of Rarity’s mind and could freely access all the information she needed to become a very good friend. All she had to do was to read books and she was very good at that.
But as she was about to grab the first one, her body refused to obey. She still had a perfect control over it. Her movements were completely free. There was just a part of her that had rebelled against her will. A part of her that was stating she shouldn’t be there and that was refusing to have anything to do with it.
And Twilight knew she shouldn’t be there, in somepony’s else mind. She remembered why she had never tried the spell in the first place and suddenly grasping the measure of what she had done, she crawled onto herself.
But then, just in front of her nostrils, one book between all the others caught her attention. It was simply titled “Twilight Sparkle”.
This one, she might have a right to read.
She opened it.
Rarity couldn’t really understand where she was, even if all the books she had looked in had contained memories of hers. It was just a bit too much to accept for the unicorn. She knew, however, that it had to have something to do with Twilight and that the alicorn had to have come to that place at the same time as she had.
Following that logic, Rarity had decided to look for Twilight, calling her name, looking under piles of books and complaining over the dust some of them were covered with, as they were obviously not used often.
But as she was about to give up and just clean the place, she heard a noise coming from a place further away. Unable to identify it right away, she opted to rush towards it to find out if it could lead her to Twilight.
And in fact, there she was. The alicorn was curled up in a corner, against a pile of books. When she approached, Rarity heard her friend repeating “I’m so sorry”.
“Twilight? Where are we? What is going on?” Rarity asked, already knowing her friend wasn’t feeling alright.
“I’m so sorry Rarity. I did everything wrong. Every single thing.” the alicorn replied, still curled up. "I understand that you won't want to be my friend anymore..."
“I am really not sure that I understand what you are talking about dear…” Rarity said.
But Twilight suddenly turned back to her and confessed with tears in her eyes the big crime she was guilty of:
“I’m a terrible friend! I never considered important to learn anything about you and you know every important thing about me. You know what my favorite book is. You know the name of the first spell I ever cast. You know me almost better than I do and I can only show how selfish and self-centered I was. I’m so, so sorry!”
“Is that what you are worried about?” Rarity asked. “That I know more about you than you do about me?”
“Yes.” Twilight admitted with shame.
It was all over. Now Rarity knew what kind of “friend” Twilight truly was. And it was only a matter of minutes, if not seconds, before their friendship the alicorn cherished so much would end. And she had nopony else to blame but herself.
Twilight was feeling miserable.
And then she heard Rarity’s response which was as far away from what she had expected as she could have imagined:
“Twilight, dear, you are a great friend. Why in Equestria would you think otherwise because of mere details?”
The alicorn stopped crying from the surprise and the kindness of those words.
“Come on Twilight…” Rarity continued. “I know you, as you said, and that means I know you aren’t the type of pony that can easily remember personal information. You already have your head full with all those books you spend all your time studying. It’s quite alright.”
“But I don’t even know when your birthday is, or your favorite color…” Twilight explained, while realizing she might have overestimated the problem just a tiny bit.
“So what?” Rarity asked. “You think Rainbow Dash knows when our birthdays are? The only one you can be certain knows is Pinkie Pie and that’s her special talent.”
“But…” began Twilight, without really having anything to retort.
“But nothing.” said Rarity. “If you want to test your knowledge about me, let’s do it right here and now, so you’ll be fixed. I only have two questions.”
Twilight shivered. That was the big moment where she would fail. But she would face it with as much dignity as she could.
“First question.” Rarity began. “Do I want to be your friend?”
“Yes.” Twilight instinctively replied.
“So second question: why is it I want to be your friend?”
“I…” Twilight thought about it, but found no answer. “I don’t know…” she said, having failed like she knew she would.
But to her surprise, Rarity hugged her:
“It’s because I like you!” the white unicorn told her. “I simply like you. I like spending time with you, I trust you and I respect you. It’s all that matters to me.”
Hearing those words, Twilight broke into tears, joyful tears that took away all of the worries and fears she had accumulated during the day.
“That and we did successfully work together to defeat Nightmare Moon, Discord, king Sombra, queen Chrysalis and Tirek. Which is quite a good record I dare to say.” Rarity added with a smile.
Twilight smiled too. Being forgiven something she thought was unforgivable felt so good. She knew her friends were great, but not to this point. Good friends, true friends, best friends. The denomination was slowly gaining a new meaning.
“You know, maybe you should have become the princess of friendship…” Twilight suggested, actually taking the idea seriously.
“I admit, I wouldn’t mind the princess title” Rarity responded. “But I couldn’t give up sewing that easily. Also, being a princess seems to create way more stress than I could handle, judging by how worked up you’ve managed to get.”
She was referring to the total messes that were Twilight’s mane, tail and fur.
“Shall we go now?” Rarity asked. “This place isn’t really fit for ladies if you want my opinion.”
“Sure.” Twilight replied.
But she then stumbled on another book. A big one with a title she wouldn’t have expected to find in Rarity’s mind. Rarity saw it too and tried to quickly hide it.
“Is that book about hoofball?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, no, I mean it’s just some dusty old book, let’s forget about it.” Rarity replied.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to force myself into your private life like that…” Twilight said, realizing that it was exactly what she had done and why she had felt she shouldn’t be there. “It’s just that you never seemed to be the type of pony who would have an interest in hoofball.”
“Well…” Rarity slowly began, pondering if she should reveal her secrets or not. “I happened to have been quite the player back in the days, when my parents took me to Fillydelphia. I haven’t played in a long time, but I do sometimes remember how great it felt to play and run with everypony else. Quite barbaric, but fun.”
“I would never have guessed.” admitted Twilight.
“Also, the stallions playing professionally tend to be pretty good looking nowadays…” Rarity added with a smile and a wink. “But please keep this all a secret. I have a reputation to maintain.”
“You can trust me. I won’t say a word.” Twilight assured her.
“I know I can trust you dear.”
“I know you know…” Twilight whispered, blushing over that realization.
She cast her spell once again and both mares woke up in their respective body in two hospital beds where they had been brought after they had seemingly lost consciousness following Twilight’s spell.
