Romp

Twilight sighed as she placed the last of a set of new books on the bottom-most shelves of her castle’s library. She was thankful Princess Celestia had forwarded some new reading material over the previous weeks, alleviating some of the boredom that came with a Cutie Map that seemed inherently unable to offer her a mission.

One of the biggest issues that came with not having regular duties, royal or otherwise, was having too much time to think. And that thought alone seemed almost laughable. How could anypony complain about having too much time to think? That’s ridiculous!

Or, so she initially believed. Against all preconceived notions, she had learned over the weeks that down-time did not always equate to productivity – not even for someone as productive as herself. Instead, much of her time was spent idly skimming through books read some half-dozen times already. And such a bland task left her all too often ruminating on subjects unrelated to the works she perused.

Subjects that were far darker than she cared to admit.

After shoving the final book in place with a grunt, Twilight stood to her full height and stretched her neck, closing her eyes as she soaked in the minor comfort. Peering across the vacant library, she considered what was next on her agenda. Cleaning? Organizing? Maybe she could go ahead and pick out one of the books she just finished sorting.

Yeah, the rest of the castle could wait. After all, given the weeks upon weeks of literally nothing to do every hour of every day of every single week, the place had stayed spotless. Empty. Boring. Dimly lit by—

“Twilight!”

Twilight jolted at the shout of a raspy voice echoing from the hall outside.

“C-coming!” Shaking her head clear of the rambling thoughts, she trotted out into the hall to find Rainbow Dash, shaking herself dry from what appeared to be a storm pouring outside from a nearby stained-glass window.

With a flick of her tail, Rainbow grinned, eyeing the puddle she was now standing in. “Sorry about that. Just got finished with weather duty and figured I’d come hang for a bit. You busy?”

Twilight shook her head as she lit her horn, drying the puddle into vapor. “Not at all. I’m not even sure I know what ‘busy’ means anymore.”

Rainbow tilted her head through the evaporating mist. “Whadya mean?”

Turning to trot back into the library, Twilight said, “It just seems like ever since the Cutie Map appeared, there’s been nothing to do around here. I mean, you and Pinkie got to visit Griffinstone, and now Rarity and Applejack are off to Manehattan.” She stopped within the threshold, looking back at Rainbow. “But what about me?”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “What about Fluttershy?”

Twilight blinked. With a sheepish grin, she turned to a nearby chair. “Good point.”

Rainbow hovered over to an adjacent chair and plopped down, fluffing her wings dry. “Well hey, if you’re just bored or whatever, let’s figure out something to do! I mean, I’m done for the day, so…”

“Well…” Twilight’s ears folded back. “Much as I like rainy days, I really would like to go out somewhere and do something, especially since Spike’s asleep. It’d just be nice to get out of this castle for a bit.”

“Yeah, um…” Rainbow ran a hoof through the back of her damp mane. “Afraid this one’s gonna last a while. Ponyville needs a few days’ rain to get all the plants and stuff back into shape. We had to put it off for a bit when we ran low on rain clouds the other week.”

Twilight smirked at the pegasus. “The weather factory still recovering from last winter?”

“Eheh, uh, y-yeah.” Rainbow looked away with a smug expression. “Something like that.”

Twilight giggled before looking over the rest of the library. With another sigh, she slumped in her seat. “Honestly, I’m not sure what there is to do. There’s really not much here other than a bunch of books – and I know you’re not interested in those.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Sorry, I’m all read up on the latest Daring Do, too.”

Twilight nodded. Tapping a hoof to her chin, she mulled over the few options she could think of available to them that Rainbow might like.

Which didn’t take long. In all honesty, she really couldn’t think of anything.

There had only been a few times in the past where the two had spent time together alone. Aside from the occasional adventure or flight lesson, Twilight’s experience with Rainbow one-on-one was still rather limited. It was a thought that occurred to her as both surprising and sad in the moment. Where she found it easy to relate in one fashion or another with her other friends, Rainbow had always been the wild card – quite literally.

Twilight was never one to delve into the more exciting aspects of life like Rainbow. To her, the best place to exercise one’s desire for thrill was through imagination, namely books. It was a safe outlet, as well as a flexible one. Where real-life adventures like battling an Ursa Minor or taking on a tyrannical overlord crystal pony had a finite number of possible outcomes, a good story – and likewise, a good imagination – allows for countless ways to capture excitement. Not to mention nopony actually gets hurt.

“Well,” Rainbow spoke after a bit, “do you have any, like, cool spells or something you could use?”

Twilight tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “Maybe you know some kinda spell that’d be fun to use. You're the one who knows that sort of stuff. You tell me.”

“Hmm…” Furrowing her brow, Twilight racked her brain for anything related to magic that might appeal to Rainbow. Knowing the mare, it would have to be something engaging and competitive – that much she was certain of. And that meant it also had to be something they could both partake in at the same time. But what would she enjoy that Rainbow might as well?

Maybe something to do with storytelling? Rainbow certainly likes the Daring Do novels. Perhaps she could find a spell that would immerse them into a synthetic world? Those weren’t all that uncommon from what she understood.

On instinct, Twilight clambered off her seat and walked up to the wall of books surrounding the room. She remembered where she learned the spell that allowed her to jump into Moondancer's book. A rather silly trick that would be fun for maybe a minute, she figured there might be some more interesting spells by the same author.

As Twilight grabbed a smaller tome in her magic from one of the top shelves, Rainbow tilted her head. “Think of something?”

“Maybe.” Twilight levitated the tome with her back to the chair. Once comfortable, she opened the book for both of them to read. “This was one of my favorite spell-books as a filly. It's one of the few I had back then that allowed you to actually transform a living creature into something else.”

“Huh. Sounds kinda neat.” Rainbow narrowed her eyes at the finely crafted lines of arcane spells. “Looks like gibberish to me, though.”

“Well of course,” Twilight said with a giggle. “This book is written in middle-Equestrian, but it contains spells that work off the imaginations of ponies. You can do all sorts of amazing things with some of these spells, like become one with the ink of a book.”

Rainbow scrunched her muzzle. “Why would somepony want to do that?”

Twilight smirked, though she kept her focus on the book afloat. “It came in handy once.”

For the next minute, Twilight silently perused the book, looking for something that might be exciting enough for Rainbow, and entertaining enough for herself. She flipped to one page in particular and noticed the parchment seemed thicker than usual. Squinting a little with the effort, she finessed her magic along the edges of the page and found that two had stuck together. She carefully lay the pages flat, then leaned forward to examine the lines.

Her eyes widened when she realized that all her time as a filly, she had never once read this spell. “How did I miss this?” she whispered in awe.

“Hm?” Rainbow looked between Twilight and the book. “You mean, you've never seen this page before?”

“No… no, I haven't.” A tiny smile crept upon the alicorn's muzzle as she relished the influx of new information, blending with a touch of nostalgia.

But as she continued to read the spell, her smile faltered. The spell was, for all intents and purposes, designed to allow a pony to dive directly into the visual, audible, and haptic elements of a pony’s imagination. And strangely enough, that was exactly what she was looking for. “No way…”

Rainbow bit her lip, fidgeting her wings. “Well? C'mon! Is it any good?”

“Y-yes, I… I think we can use this.” Skimming a couple more lines, she collected her thoughts and looked at Rainbow. “Have you ever wanted to make your dreams come to life?”

Rainbow blinked. “You mean, kinda like when we helped Luna with the Tantibus?”

“Something like that, yes.” Twilight smiled with eager eyes. “This spell allows two ponies to dive into a sort of 'dream-like' realm shared between each other. While it's not exactly dream-related magic, it does allow the spellcaster and one other pony to immerse themselves into the world of either pony's imagination. No one can get hurt in the process, but the sensations you experience seem completely real while you're in their imagination.”

That seemed to catch Rainbow's attention. Her eyes widened with a smile of her own. “Whoa. You mean we could, like, make our own Daring Do adventures?!”

“Yes!” Twilight chirped with a bounce. “Imagine it! Anything we could think of, we could do as if it were really happening!” She glanced over at the floating tome and added, “While the spell doesn't last beyond a few minutes, it appears to be relatively easy to use.” She turned back to Rainbow with an arched eyebrow. “Sound like fun?”

Rainbow reared back in her seat and threw her hooves in the air. “Totally! Awesome-amazing Daring Do originals coming right up! Hah!”

With a firm thud, Twilight closed the tome and levitated it to a writing nook. Climbing off her seat, she said, “Alright, since this will be my first time casting this spell, it might be a bit rough at first. Plus, we need to choose who's going to lead the imagination first.”

“Ooh, let me go first,” Rainbow said as she stood up. “I seriously got all sorts of awesome ideas for a Daring Do and the Crystal Gauntlet spinoff.”

Twilight chuckled, lifting a hoof in protest. “Now hang on, who was it that introduced you to those novels in the first place?”

“Awh, c'mon,” Rainbow whined with a pout, “does that even matter?”

“Well, no.” Stifling a giggle with a hoof, she said, “Alright, look, I promise after a test-run, I’ll let you try out your idea. Fair enough?”

Rainbow scoffed, hanging her head in defeat. “Fine, whatever. So, what boring idea do you want to go with?”

Twilight huffed, turning to the center of the room. “I'm not that boring… well, maybe here recently, but that's not my fault!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow drawled as she cantered beside her. “I bet you're not even into anything cool other than Daring Do, are ya?”

“Of course I am! As a matter of fact, I… u-um…”

“See? That's, like, the only thing you ever mention. Cool as she is, there’s still other stuff that—”

Rainbow paused. Blinking, she watched as Twilight's ears drooped, her eyes averted with a strange, scared look to them.

“Twilight?” She took a step forward. “Hey. I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your—”

“No.” Twilight lifted a hoof. “It's… actually not that at all.”

Rainbow tilted her head curiously.

For a moment, Twilight stood, mulling over a certain idea in her mind. It was something she had never expressed interest in to anypony other than herself. And even then, when she first discovered her desire, she had all but drowned the prospect under a mountain of intellectual pursuits out of both embarrassment and fear. It was the one and only thing she could think of that pulled at her primal instincts – sometimes at night, and always during intense bouts of boredom. It was also the one thing she never intended to reveal to others.

And yet, it might be just exciting enough for Rainbow.

Drawing a deep breath, Twilight lifted her head and looked at the mare. “What do you think of monsters?”

“Monsters?” Rainbow repeated, staring at Twilight with a confused expression.

“Yes, monsters. Or actually, a specific kind.”

“Uh… okay?” Rainbow smirked. “You mean timberwolves, ursas, wh–”

“Giants,” Twilight muttered, staring nervously into her friend’s magenta eyes.

Rainbow blinked. “You mean… giant ponies? Like, from old horror stories and stuff?”

“More or less.” Sighing, Twilight sat in the center of the library’s rug, facing Rainbow. “It's one of the few 'scary' things I guess you could say that I actually… you know… sort of…”

“Dig?” Rainbow said with a flat expression.

Twilight gulped. “Uh, y-yeah. I guess you could… yeah.” Clearing her throat, she continued. “Would you be interested in maybe… fighting against a giant pony, or…?”

“Well, when you put it in a lame way like that…” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “But no. That sounds… uh, cool I guess. I had no idea you were into anything like that.” With a shrug, she added, “Isn’t exactly what I would call scary, but it does sound like a challenge. And I'm always up for that.”

“Oh.” Twilight exhaled, releasing a bit of tension. “That's great! I mean, I was afraid the idea would seem silly, but—”

“Hey, look.” Rainbow walked up to Twilight and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “I know I get onto you about the egghead stuff all the time, but really? I think some of your ideas are pretty cool. I mean, you were the one who got me into Daring Do after all.”

Twilight giggled softly and smiled. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash. That actually means a lot.”

“No sweat.” Dropping her hoof to the floor, Rainbow grinned. “So, let's kick some giant pony tail, then!”

“Oh, well, actually,” Twilight started nonchalantly, “I was kind of thinking one of us could play the giant pony, and the other could be the combatant!”

Rainbow's expression faltered. “Uh… er, w-wait. You mean… you want one of us to…?”

Hoofing at the rug beneath them with her eyes turned down, Twilight muttered, “Well, I was hoping maybe… I could play the big pony?”

Rainbow blinked.

Rainbow stared.

Then Rainbow cackled.

“Baaahahahaha!” The pegasus fell flat on her back against the rug, clutching at her stomach with her hooves. “Okay, I take it back, I take it back! That's gotta be the lamest thing I've ever heard! Twilight? Fight me?!” Rainbow continued in a fit of laughter before she added, “That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said! I mean, giant pony or not, there’s no way you could ever—”

“I wouldn't talk down to me if I were you,” a voice suddenly boomed from all around.

Rainbow's raspy voice shattered in her throat. She watched Twilight's horn burn with a violet, violent glow, before the pegasus was enshrouded by her towering shadow.