Tales of Equestria Girlsby Knight of the RavenChaptersBeautyMilkshakeCokeBeautyRarity cracked one eye open when her alarm clock rang. She stretched her sleepy body beneath her silk sheet, let out the most ladylike yawn she could muster and slowly sat up. She stretched further and arched her back, making several of her joints pop. She suppressed another, much louder yawn, switched her alarm off and finally got out of her bed. She walked drowsily to her personal bathroom and once she reached the sink, opened her mouth and removed the mouthguard protecting her upper teeth from sleep bruxism. She eyed the plastic piece covered with dried saliva with a slight scowl of disgust as she always did each other morning, and then picked up her toothbrush, poured some paste on the bristles and started cleaning both her teeth and her mouthguard. As she did so, she looked at herself in the mirror and scowled again as she spotted the thick, dark rings under her eyes. This would need much makeup to fix, but exceptionally, she wasn't going to put any on as soon as she was done cleaning her teeth. For she had felt the unmistakable pull of inspiration ever since she woke up, and she knew from personal experience that her muse was a fickle mistress who wouldn't hesitate to leave her hanging if she didn't give in to her advances. She rinsed her mouth along with her mouthguard and walked back to her bed with a spring in her step, then laid her mouthguard in its small box on her nightstand. Not even bothering to change out of her pajamas, she almost danced through the organized chaos littered across her bedroom to her work station and plopped herself on her chair. Her favorite painting hung above the station at head level, roughly the same width as her vanity table's mirror but slightly shorter. It depicted Freyja and a few of her shieldmaiden, all of them clothed chastely yet sensual. They basked in the sun in a conifer forest's clearing gifted with a spring of which water was crystal clear. Rarity smiled widely, the scene across from her spurring her inspiration to new heights. Her mind boiled with ideas roused from last night's research with Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash rarely slept in her home on her own; there usually were more of her friends when they had sleepovers, but she hadn't come to her house for one of those yesterday. Indeed, they had been charged with making a presentation on the history of the Eastern Romane Empire, from its birth through the Emperor Diocletian's decree to its death with the fall of Constantinople, so they'd decided to work together after school. They'd chosen Rarity's home because, honestly, she didn't trust her friend's bedroom to be remotely clean. Rainbow Dash had spent the night in her parents' guest room instead. They'd raided Canterlot High School's well-stocked library before going to her house, dividing up the tasks; she chose the books and Rainbow Dash carried them. She had taken particular care to select only books with several pictures, because she knew Rainbow Dash would never be able to get into them if they were nothing but walls of text. This kind act to her friend brought her an unexpected boon in the form of the inspiration pouring into her brain with reckless abandon. Those Eastern Romane armors and attires were simply fabulous! Of course, Rainbow Dash didn't pay attention to much of the information they gathered, except for the battles about which she was particularly enthusiastic, and that interest increased dramatically once they reached the introduction of gunpowder upon the battlefield. Rarity stopped drawing and laid her pencil to the side of her paper sheet. She then delicately took the sheet and raised it at eye level to admire the design she'd drawn while reminiscing the previous night. She was particularly proud of how she'd merged the lamellar structure of some of their armor with a long dress and she smiled to herself as more inspiration washed over her. The doorknob clicked and turned all of sudden and the door opened, revealing Rainbow Dash. "Rarity, can I use your shampoo? Your parents' cheap stuff is going to destroy my hair." Rarity shrieked and covered her face with both hands, making Rainbow Dash start and step clumsily backwards. Rainbow Dash raised her hands in front of her defensively. "Sorry Rarity, I didn't mean to startle yo-" "Don't look at me!" Brows furrowing, Rainbow Dash lowered her hands. "Uh?" Rarity's voice broke. "I look horrible without makeup!" Rainbow Dash blinked and gaped at her for a few seconds. "That's it?" she then asked incredulously. Her friend nodded with a slight sob, her face still hidden. "Oh for crying out loud," muttered Rainbow Dash as she dragged one hand down from her forehead to her chin. "Come on, Rarity." She threw a hand towards her work station. "Does the goddess you love so much use makeup?" Rarity finally uncovered her face and closed the distance to get in her face. "She's the ásynja of beauty, Rainbow Dash!" she retorted, her voice torn between hissing and screeching. "She doesn't need makeup!" She started hugging herself, facing away from her friend. Rainbow Dash crossed her arms. "Neither do you." "I-" Rarity closed her mouth. "What?" A surprisingly soft smile curled Rainbow Dash's lips up and she pulled Rarity's hands away from her shoulders before holding them in her own. Rarity blinked in confusion, but then her eyes widened drastically when Rainbow Dash closed the distance between them with a gentle peck on her lips. Rarity could hear her blood pound in her head as distinctly as her heart in her chest, and warmth filled that same chest along with her cheeks. "Rainbow...?" "You're beautiful without makeup," she replied simply after pulling away. Rarity could only stare at her in stunned silence. Rainbow Dash's cheeks then flushed ever so slightly as she gave a quiet, nervous chuckle and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. "So..." she eventually murmured, "can I use your shampoo?" She could only nod dumbly. "Thank you, Rarity," said Rainbow Dash in response before leaving the room and closing the door much less loudly as she usually did. Standing still for several minutes, Rarity eventually raised a hand and softly brushed her lips with her fingers as her heartbeat slowly decreased back to normal, though the warmth never left. Maybe she could go to school without makeup today. MilkshakeShining Armor ignored the short ringing of the welcome bell as he pushed open the double doors to the temple of spicy, greasy delight. He breathed in a lungful of air with a grin, but it turned into a loud yawn before he had exhaled entirely. He chuckled briefly once he was done. He didn't like looking exhausted, especially as late as noon; he was supposed to be a pinnacle of virility and endurance, but last night's activities had truly worn him out. Laughing quietly to himself once more, he closed the distance to the counter with a wave to the two friends sitting in their usual booth. He didn't even need to tell the clerk what he wished to order; she just nodded at him and yelled his name to the other clerk in the kitchen. Soon after he'd paid, she lay a combination that many would call a sin against the æsir of nachos and a taco onto his tray. He let out another yawn as he walked to their booth, earning a knowing smirk between his two friends. "My, my," one of them as his smirk grew said, "stayed up late?" Shining Armor's face looked like it might split in two because of his grin. "You know it," he replied as he sat down and lay his tray down on the table they shared. The other gave a hearty laugh. "Cadance really worked you out last night, didn't she?" His mirth was contagious and it was Shining Armor’s turn to smirk. "You have no idea." An unfamiliar voice from behind him cut off any additional laughter that might have been. "Actually, I have a pretty good idea." Shining Armor blinked, then snapped his neck to the side to see a teenaged girl propping her elbow on the backrest separating their booth and looking at him without looking much interested. He craned his neck further and shifted his torso to face her. She had light purple skin and her hair was trapped in two white, wavy pigtails. Pink eyes stared back at him from beneath orange glasses. He blinked again as he tried to remember where he had seen her before, and then recognized her as one of Crystal Prep Academy's top students; one of the few pupils within the entire school that Principal Cinch had ever bothered to praise. Another girl was seated in the chair opposite of her. Pink hair framed a white face that was distorted in absolute mortification and slightly darker pink eyes of which pupils were reduced to the size of pinpricks. "Sugarcoat," Fleur de Lys hissed as she dug her nails into the table, "what the fuck are you doing?" The other girl ignored her and waited for his reaction. "Uh..." Shining Armor muttered confusedly, "what are you talking about?" Sugarcoat propped her other arm on the backrest. "I know how tiring Dean Cadance can be." He blinked once more, oblivious to his two friends paling behind his back. "What." "We slept together;" she deadpanned as she fished a small, white piece of cloth out of her chest pocket with one hand. "Never bothered to count how many times though," she added as she took off her glasses and started cleaning the lenses. Confusion fled before the anger bubbling up inside Shining Armor's chest. "Why, you little..." It took all his willpower not to deck her in the face. "Cadance would never-" Sugarcoat's stare right into his eyes stopped him in his tracks. "Not sorry to break it to you," she said as she put her glasses back on, "but the whole school knows she has a heart-shaped birthmark right above her left buttock." His friends shared a guilty glance which he didn't notice, being too busy trying to work his lower jaw back into place. That wasn't the kind of information that was easy to learn, and if he recalled correctly, this aggravating girl was reputed to be brutally honest. That didn't mean he had to believe her. "This is total bullshit," he retorted with what little confidence he had left. Sugarcoat merely shrugged in response. "Ask around," she replied before turning back to her meal, ignoring her friend's twitching, bulged out eyes. ********** Arms and legs crossed, Principal Cinch tapped her foot impatiently on the floor as she sat in the middle of the auditorium's front row of chairs. Cadance sat beside her, sharing a look of confusion and worry with Twilight Sparkle, who sat next to her. Sugarcoat completed the four middle seats, looking a mixture of bored and unimpressed. "I hope you have a good reason for interrupting this afternoon's lessons, mister Armor," said Cinch with a tone that cooled the room by a few degrees. "All of this afternoon's lessons." Shining Armor gulped audibly as Cinch's eyes bore daggers right into him. He was used to talking to a full auditorium, but Cinch had a gift when it came to scaring the hell out of everyone in the school. "It's important," he muttered weakly to her away from the microphone. Cinch merely scowled. He didn't know if she was pissed for the reasons she outlined or because she was used to being on stage dishing out orders instead of waiting in the audience. Probably both, Shining Armor decided. She was kind of a bitch. He tapped on the microphone with his forefinger, making plenty of people in the room cringe or cover their ears as the scratching echoed piercingly throughout the auditorium. Sugarcoat instead just said "you're not supposed to do that." Shining Armor cleared his throat. "As you know, I've been dating Dean Cadance for a while..." A loud gasp escaped Twilight, spawning several mocking, condescending laughs that turned Cadance's smile into a frown and made him narrow his eyes slightly. Cinch spoke up before he could do the same. "Crystal Prep Academy isn't the place for a marriage proposal, mister Armor." Somewhat less insulting laughter followed her statement and his cheeks flushed considerably. "It's not that!" Cinch's skepticism was almost palpable. He looked away from her disapproving glare and cleared his throat again. "This is going to sound ridiculous and out of the blue, but..." His eyes drifted to his girlfriend. "Would all those who didn't sleep with Cadance mind raising their hand?" The room lapsed into a shocked silence, before a strangled screech that sounded only vaguely like "WHAT?" nearly shook the building's foundations as Cadance's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Cinch let out a groan, removed her glasses, closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Oh, for Forseti's sake." Twilight's mouth moved of its own accord as she tried to make the scene make sense. Eventually, she raised her hand timidly, still shell-shocked, while a thoroughly unimpressed Cinch mimicked her. The rest of the audience imitated them with various degrees of confidence, save for Cadance, who had started sweating profusely, and Sugarcoat, who crossed her arms and started munching noisily. Cadance then looked behind her and heaved a small sigh of relief, which didn't exactly reassure Shining Armor. He drummed the side of his chest with his free hand uneasily as he took in the whole room. Her sigh caught in her throat at Shining Armor's next words. "And please be as honest with me as you'd like me to be with you." The room fell silent once more as Cadance's head snapped back toward him and she blanched. The audience shared guilty looks before, one by one, everyone slowly lowered their hand with shame evident on their features. Everyone, but a scowling Cinch and a still stunned Twilight. Sugarcoat began munching louder. Shining Armor's shoulders slumped as surely as Cadance sunk into her chair, and he uttered a small, broken "oh" before dragging himself out of sight. Twilight jumped out of her seat and followed him off stage as Cadance laughed nervously and embarrassingly to herself. Cinch massaged both her temples with shut eyes with a long groan. "I'm going to have to bribe so many officials to keep this quiet..." she muttered darkly before leveling a glare that could send Fenrir packing at her subordinate. “This is coming out of your wage, young lady." Cadance sunk further into her seat. CokeSour Sweet groaned loudly as soon as she opened the library's door. All the computers were taken by fellow students. Again. That was the third time today alone. How was she supposed to make her report without access to internet? She resisted the urge to groan one more time when the librarian near the door told her to be quieter with a glare. Could she seriously be any more cliché and predictable? At least the other students of Crystal Prep Academy were using the computers for work. She was certain the tools over at CHS used them to play online video games, check their blogs for updates in the hopes to get likes to convince themselves they weren't utter losers or browse websites that had no business being visited in school. Sour Sweet didn't hear an older student squee "yeah, level up!" to himself and turned around to leave, only to bump into Dean Cadance. That was predictable and cliché too. After hearing her not entirely sincere apology, the dean spoke up. "What were you groaning about?" Sour Sweet scratched her ear before looking up at Cadance. "I've got a report for the end of the month and I've not been able to access a computer for three days." Cadance cocked an eyebrow as they started walking away from the library. "Don't you have a computer at home?" "I do," replied Sour Sweet with a little nod, "but I've been grounded for a month." Cadance's eyebrows shot up her forehead and she blinked. "That's the first time I've heard you being grounded. What happened?" Sour Sweet frowned as they turned a corner. "Mom insisted on cooking last week and I refused to eat more than one bite." The raised eyebrow returned. "She can't cook to save her life," stated Sour Sweet, resisting the urge to add she was certain she could cook to end lives. Cadance losing herself in confused blinking was entertaining, at least. Eventually, she took back control of her eyelids and said "I'll try to talk to her about it." Sour Sweet smiled genuinely for what felt like the first time since the week began. "That'd be nice." "As for your computer troubles, I'm sure I can convince Twilight to let you use hers. She's so far ahead of schedule I know she can afford the break." To say that this sentence put a damper on Sour Sweet's enthusiasm was an understatement would be an understatement in itself. Her eyes lit up and her lips broke into a grin. "Oh, I can't wait to visit out top student's nerd cave!" Her fake excitement vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "I bet she doesn't even need to work to get her good grades," she muttered bitterly in the same breath. Then she looked back at Cadance and her tongue shriveled in her mouth upon seeing her glare. No wonder Principal Uptight hired her, she could scare the wits out of students almost as well as she did. After Sour Sweet had swallowed the lump in her throat, Cadance said "I'll have you know Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students in this school." "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry ma'am," mumbled Sour Sweet miserably. ********** "'Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students,' huh?" Cadance laughed sheepishly. An unexpected sight had welcomed them when Cadance opened the laboratory's door; Twilight Sparkle sprawled over on her back on the floor with a dumb grin, and several empty Coca Cola bottles scattered across the room around her. The two liters variety, Sour Sweet noticed, impressed despite herself. She looked away from Twilight and her eyes drifted to the screen of the room's computer. It was frozen into an image of two tall white bars on each side and a dot of the same color between them. She stared on incredulously. Pong? She was seriously playing Pong? Who in the world still played that dinosaur of a game? "And she doesn't even feel the consequences," Cadance whispered sourly with a tint of longing. She started when she noticed Sour Sweet tilt her head at her. Cadance sighed. "She's been binge drinking coke for as long as I've known her." Sour Sweet's eyes widened. "And she's never have had as much of a cavity. Her enamel is in better shape than mine and I don't even do soda." She shook her head as Twilight let out a drunken giggle. "She never had issues falling asleep either." She crouched and picked up a bottle. "And these aren't the decaffeinated kind, in case you didn't notice." Cadance threw the bottle over her shoulder as she watched Sour Sweet look at Twilight's waist with a jealous frown. "And as you can tell, she doesn't pick up weight from all that drinking either. I don't think she even will get diabetes in spite of her blood probably being more sugar than hemoglobin." She paused. "And now I'm feeling bad because I'm actually wishing she had diabetes." Her shoulders sagged. "Freya, I'm the worst dean ever." Sour Sweet wasn't one to deal with someone feeling down, so instead she opted for a distraction; she gave a very slight kick to Twilight's ribs while muttering "lucky bitch." Twilight's only reaction was another drunken giggle. This apparently did the trick, because Cadance's sad mood disappeared. "Normally I'd scold you for insulting a fellow student," she started, and Sour Sweet found herself wishing she had kicked harder since she now understood the dean wasn't watching Twilight, "but you are right. She is a lucky bitch." Sour Sweet suppressed a squee as she added "make the dean swear" and the ever elusive "make the dean insult her own damn pet" to her impressive list of achievements.
BeautyRarity cracked one eye open when her alarm clock rang. She stretched her sleepy body beneath her silk sheet, let out the most ladylike yawn she could muster and slowly sat up. She stretched further and arched her back, making several of her joints pop. She suppressed another, much louder yawn, switched her alarm off and finally got out of her bed. She walked drowsily to her personal bathroom and once she reached the sink, opened her mouth and removed the mouthguard protecting her upper teeth from sleep bruxism. She eyed the plastic piece covered with dried saliva with a slight scowl of disgust as she always did each other morning, and then picked up her toothbrush, poured some paste on the bristles and started cleaning both her teeth and her mouthguard. As she did so, she looked at herself in the mirror and scowled again as she spotted the thick, dark rings under her eyes. This would need much makeup to fix, but exceptionally, she wasn't going to put any on as soon as she was done cleaning her teeth. For she had felt the unmistakable pull of inspiration ever since she woke up, and she knew from personal experience that her muse was a fickle mistress who wouldn't hesitate to leave her hanging if she didn't give in to her advances. She rinsed her mouth along with her mouthguard and walked back to her bed with a spring in her step, then laid her mouthguard in its small box on her nightstand. Not even bothering to change out of her pajamas, she almost danced through the organized chaos littered across her bedroom to her work station and plopped herself on her chair. Her favorite painting hung above the station at head level, roughly the same width as her vanity table's mirror but slightly shorter. It depicted Freyja and a few of her shieldmaiden, all of them clothed chastely yet sensual. They basked in the sun in a conifer forest's clearing gifted with a spring of which water was crystal clear. Rarity smiled widely, the scene across from her spurring her inspiration to new heights. Her mind boiled with ideas roused from last night's research with Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash rarely slept in her home on her own; there usually were more of her friends when they had sleepovers, but she hadn't come to her house for one of those yesterday. Indeed, they had been charged with making a presentation on the history of the Eastern Romane Empire, from its birth through the Emperor Diocletian's decree to its death with the fall of Constantinople, so they'd decided to work together after school. They'd chosen Rarity's home because, honestly, she didn't trust her friend's bedroom to be remotely clean. Rainbow Dash had spent the night in her parents' guest room instead. They'd raided Canterlot High School's well-stocked library before going to her house, dividing up the tasks; she chose the books and Rainbow Dash carried them. She had taken particular care to select only books with several pictures, because she knew Rainbow Dash would never be able to get into them if they were nothing but walls of text. This kind act to her friend brought her an unexpected boon in the form of the inspiration pouring into her brain with reckless abandon. Those Eastern Romane armors and attires were simply fabulous! Of course, Rainbow Dash didn't pay attention to much of the information they gathered, except for the battles about which she was particularly enthusiastic, and that interest increased dramatically once they reached the introduction of gunpowder upon the battlefield. Rarity stopped drawing and laid her pencil to the side of her paper sheet. She then delicately took the sheet and raised it at eye level to admire the design she'd drawn while reminiscing the previous night. She was particularly proud of how she'd merged the lamellar structure of some of their armor with a long dress and she smiled to herself as more inspiration washed over her. The doorknob clicked and turned all of sudden and the door opened, revealing Rainbow Dash. "Rarity, can I use your shampoo? Your parents' cheap stuff is going to destroy my hair." Rarity shrieked and covered her face with both hands, making Rainbow Dash start and step clumsily backwards. Rainbow Dash raised her hands in front of her defensively. "Sorry Rarity, I didn't mean to startle yo-" "Don't look at me!" Brows furrowing, Rainbow Dash lowered her hands. "Uh?" Rarity's voice broke. "I look horrible without makeup!" Rainbow Dash blinked and gaped at her for a few seconds. "That's it?" she then asked incredulously. Her friend nodded with a slight sob, her face still hidden. "Oh for crying out loud," muttered Rainbow Dash as she dragged one hand down from her forehead to her chin. "Come on, Rarity." She threw a hand towards her work station. "Does the goddess you love so much use makeup?" Rarity finally uncovered her face and closed the distance to get in her face. "She's the ásynja of beauty, Rainbow Dash!" she retorted, her voice torn between hissing and screeching. "She doesn't need makeup!" She started hugging herself, facing away from her friend. Rainbow Dash crossed her arms. "Neither do you." "I-" Rarity closed her mouth. "What?" A surprisingly soft smile curled Rainbow Dash's lips up and she pulled Rarity's hands away from her shoulders before holding them in her own. Rarity blinked in confusion, but then her eyes widened drastically when Rainbow Dash closed the distance between them with a gentle peck on her lips. Rarity could hear her blood pound in her head as distinctly as her heart in her chest, and warmth filled that same chest along with her cheeks. "Rainbow...?" "You're beautiful without makeup," she replied simply after pulling away. Rarity could only stare at her in stunned silence. Rainbow Dash's cheeks then flushed ever so slightly as she gave a quiet, nervous chuckle and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. "So..." she eventually murmured, "can I use your shampoo?" She could only nod dumbly. "Thank you, Rarity," said Rainbow Dash in response before leaving the room and closing the door much less loudly as she usually did. Standing still for several minutes, Rarity eventually raised a hand and softly brushed her lips with her fingers as her heartbeat slowly decreased back to normal, though the warmth never left. Maybe she could go to school without makeup today.
MilkshakeShining Armor ignored the short ringing of the welcome bell as he pushed open the double doors to the temple of spicy, greasy delight. He breathed in a lungful of air with a grin, but it turned into a loud yawn before he had exhaled entirely. He chuckled briefly once he was done. He didn't like looking exhausted, especially as late as noon; he was supposed to be a pinnacle of virility and endurance, but last night's activities had truly worn him out. Laughing quietly to himself once more, he closed the distance to the counter with a wave to the two friends sitting in their usual booth. He didn't even need to tell the clerk what he wished to order; she just nodded at him and yelled his name to the other clerk in the kitchen. Soon after he'd paid, she lay a combination that many would call a sin against the æsir of nachos and a taco onto his tray. He let out another yawn as he walked to their booth, earning a knowing smirk between his two friends. "My, my," one of them as his smirk grew said, "stayed up late?" Shining Armor's face looked like it might split in two because of his grin. "You know it," he replied as he sat down and lay his tray down on the table they shared. The other gave a hearty laugh. "Cadance really worked you out last night, didn't she?" His mirth was contagious and it was Shining Armor’s turn to smirk. "You have no idea." An unfamiliar voice from behind him cut off any additional laughter that might have been. "Actually, I have a pretty good idea." Shining Armor blinked, then snapped his neck to the side to see a teenaged girl propping her elbow on the backrest separating their booth and looking at him without looking much interested. He craned his neck further and shifted his torso to face her. She had light purple skin and her hair was trapped in two white, wavy pigtails. Pink eyes stared back at him from beneath orange glasses. He blinked again as he tried to remember where he had seen her before, and then recognized her as one of Crystal Prep Academy's top students; one of the few pupils within the entire school that Principal Cinch had ever bothered to praise. Another girl was seated in the chair opposite of her. Pink hair framed a white face that was distorted in absolute mortification and slightly darker pink eyes of which pupils were reduced to the size of pinpricks. "Sugarcoat," Fleur de Lys hissed as she dug her nails into the table, "what the fuck are you doing?" The other girl ignored her and waited for his reaction. "Uh..." Shining Armor muttered confusedly, "what are you talking about?" Sugarcoat propped her other arm on the backrest. "I know how tiring Dean Cadance can be." He blinked once more, oblivious to his two friends paling behind his back. "What." "We slept together;" she deadpanned as she fished a small, white piece of cloth out of her chest pocket with one hand. "Never bothered to count how many times though," she added as she took off her glasses and started cleaning the lenses. Confusion fled before the anger bubbling up inside Shining Armor's chest. "Why, you little..." It took all his willpower not to deck her in the face. "Cadance would never-" Sugarcoat's stare right into his eyes stopped him in his tracks. "Not sorry to break it to you," she said as she put her glasses back on, "but the whole school knows she has a heart-shaped birthmark right above her left buttock." His friends shared a guilty glance which he didn't notice, being too busy trying to work his lower jaw back into place. That wasn't the kind of information that was easy to learn, and if he recalled correctly, this aggravating girl was reputed to be brutally honest. That didn't mean he had to believe her. "This is total bullshit," he retorted with what little confidence he had left. Sugarcoat merely shrugged in response. "Ask around," she replied before turning back to her meal, ignoring her friend's twitching, bulged out eyes. ********** Arms and legs crossed, Principal Cinch tapped her foot impatiently on the floor as she sat in the middle of the auditorium's front row of chairs. Cadance sat beside her, sharing a look of confusion and worry with Twilight Sparkle, who sat next to her. Sugarcoat completed the four middle seats, looking a mixture of bored and unimpressed. "I hope you have a good reason for interrupting this afternoon's lessons, mister Armor," said Cinch with a tone that cooled the room by a few degrees. "All of this afternoon's lessons." Shining Armor gulped audibly as Cinch's eyes bore daggers right into him. He was used to talking to a full auditorium, but Cinch had a gift when it came to scaring the hell out of everyone in the school. "It's important," he muttered weakly to her away from the microphone. Cinch merely scowled. He didn't know if she was pissed for the reasons she outlined or because she was used to being on stage dishing out orders instead of waiting in the audience. Probably both, Shining Armor decided. She was kind of a bitch. He tapped on the microphone with his forefinger, making plenty of people in the room cringe or cover their ears as the scratching echoed piercingly throughout the auditorium. Sugarcoat instead just said "you're not supposed to do that." Shining Armor cleared his throat. "As you know, I've been dating Dean Cadance for a while..." A loud gasp escaped Twilight, spawning several mocking, condescending laughs that turned Cadance's smile into a frown and made him narrow his eyes slightly. Cinch spoke up before he could do the same. "Crystal Prep Academy isn't the place for a marriage proposal, mister Armor." Somewhat less insulting laughter followed her statement and his cheeks flushed considerably. "It's not that!" Cinch's skepticism was almost palpable. He looked away from her disapproving glare and cleared his throat again. "This is going to sound ridiculous and out of the blue, but..." His eyes drifted to his girlfriend. "Would all those who didn't sleep with Cadance mind raising their hand?" The room lapsed into a shocked silence, before a strangled screech that sounded only vaguely like "WHAT?" nearly shook the building's foundations as Cadance's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Cinch let out a groan, removed her glasses, closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Oh, for Forseti's sake." Twilight's mouth moved of its own accord as she tried to make the scene make sense. Eventually, she raised her hand timidly, still shell-shocked, while a thoroughly unimpressed Cinch mimicked her. The rest of the audience imitated them with various degrees of confidence, save for Cadance, who had started sweating profusely, and Sugarcoat, who crossed her arms and started munching noisily. Cadance then looked behind her and heaved a small sigh of relief, which didn't exactly reassure Shining Armor. He drummed the side of his chest with his free hand uneasily as he took in the whole room. Her sigh caught in her throat at Shining Armor's next words. "And please be as honest with me as you'd like me to be with you." The room fell silent once more as Cadance's head snapped back toward him and she blanched. The audience shared guilty looks before, one by one, everyone slowly lowered their hand with shame evident on their features. Everyone, but a scowling Cinch and a still stunned Twilight. Sugarcoat began munching louder. Shining Armor's shoulders slumped as surely as Cadance sunk into her chair, and he uttered a small, broken "oh" before dragging himself out of sight. Twilight jumped out of her seat and followed him off stage as Cadance laughed nervously and embarrassingly to herself. Cinch massaged both her temples with shut eyes with a long groan. "I'm going to have to bribe so many officials to keep this quiet..." she muttered darkly before leveling a glare that could send Fenrir packing at her subordinate. “This is coming out of your wage, young lady." Cadance sunk further into her seat.
CokeSour Sweet groaned loudly as soon as she opened the library's door. All the computers were taken by fellow students. Again. That was the third time today alone. How was she supposed to make her report without access to internet? She resisted the urge to groan one more time when the librarian near the door told her to be quieter with a glare. Could she seriously be any more cliché and predictable? At least the other students of Crystal Prep Academy were using the computers for work. She was certain the tools over at CHS used them to play online video games, check their blogs for updates in the hopes to get likes to convince themselves they weren't utter losers or browse websites that had no business being visited in school. Sour Sweet didn't hear an older student squee "yeah, level up!" to himself and turned around to leave, only to bump into Dean Cadance. That was predictable and cliché too. After hearing her not entirely sincere apology, the dean spoke up. "What were you groaning about?" Sour Sweet scratched her ear before looking up at Cadance. "I've got a report for the end of the month and I've not been able to access a computer for three days." Cadance cocked an eyebrow as they started walking away from the library. "Don't you have a computer at home?" "I do," replied Sour Sweet with a little nod, "but I've been grounded for a month." Cadance's eyebrows shot up her forehead and she blinked. "That's the first time I've heard you being grounded. What happened?" Sour Sweet frowned as they turned a corner. "Mom insisted on cooking last week and I refused to eat more than one bite." The raised eyebrow returned. "She can't cook to save her life," stated Sour Sweet, resisting the urge to add she was certain she could cook to end lives. Cadance losing herself in confused blinking was entertaining, at least. Eventually, she took back control of her eyelids and said "I'll try to talk to her about it." Sour Sweet smiled genuinely for what felt like the first time since the week began. "That'd be nice." "As for your computer troubles, I'm sure I can convince Twilight to let you use hers. She's so far ahead of schedule I know she can afford the break." To say that this sentence put a damper on Sour Sweet's enthusiasm was an understatement would be an understatement in itself. Her eyes lit up and her lips broke into a grin. "Oh, I can't wait to visit out top student's nerd cave!" Her fake excitement vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "I bet she doesn't even need to work to get her good grades," she muttered bitterly in the same breath. Then she looked back at Cadance and her tongue shriveled in her mouth upon seeing her glare. No wonder Principal Uptight hired her, she could scare the wits out of students almost as well as she did. After Sour Sweet had swallowed the lump in her throat, Cadance said "I'll have you know Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students in this school." "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry ma'am," mumbled Sour Sweet miserably. ********** "'Twilight works at least as hard as all the other students,' huh?" Cadance laughed sheepishly. An unexpected sight had welcomed them when Cadance opened the laboratory's door; Twilight Sparkle sprawled over on her back on the floor with a dumb grin, and several empty Coca Cola bottles scattered across the room around her. The two liters variety, Sour Sweet noticed, impressed despite herself. She looked away from Twilight and her eyes drifted to the screen of the room's computer. It was frozen into an image of two tall white bars on each side and a dot of the same color between them. She stared on incredulously. Pong? She was seriously playing Pong? Who in the world still played that dinosaur of a game? "And she doesn't even feel the consequences," Cadance whispered sourly with a tint of longing. She started when she noticed Sour Sweet tilt her head at her. Cadance sighed. "She's been binge drinking coke for as long as I've known her." Sour Sweet's eyes widened. "And she's never have had as much of a cavity. Her enamel is in better shape than mine and I don't even do soda." She shook her head as Twilight let out a drunken giggle. "She never had issues falling asleep either." She crouched and picked up a bottle. "And these aren't the decaffeinated kind, in case you didn't notice." Cadance threw the bottle over her shoulder as she watched Sour Sweet look at Twilight's waist with a jealous frown. "And as you can tell, she doesn't pick up weight from all that drinking either. I don't think she even will get diabetes in spite of her blood probably being more sugar than hemoglobin." She paused. "And now I'm feeling bad because I'm actually wishing she had diabetes." Her shoulders sagged. "Freya, I'm the worst dean ever." Sour Sweet wasn't one to deal with someone feeling down, so instead she opted for a distraction; she gave a very slight kick to Twilight's ribs while muttering "lucky bitch." Twilight's only reaction was another drunken giggle. This apparently did the trick, because Cadance's sad mood disappeared. "Normally I'd scold you for insulting a fellow student," she started, and Sour Sweet found herself wishing she had kicked harder since she now understood the dean wasn't watching Twilight, "but you are right. She is a lucky bitch." Sour Sweet suppressed a squee as she added "make the dean swear" and the ever elusive "make the dean insult her own damn pet" to her impressive list of achievements.
