The Slipped Case

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Comedy
Length: 11007

In which Rainbow initially fails to understand the collectibles market, and then winds up understanding it a little too well.

You can never tell when something will become collectible. A coloring mistake in the printing, part of a stamp's artwork gets rotated by ninety degrees, and otherwise-sane ponies are shelling out thousands of bits for the honor of owning something which no longer has a practical use. But not every mistake qualifies, and so Twilight has to directly teach Rainbow the differences: some errors are just that.

The education on how to defraud the public through creating your own collectibles, however, was completely unintentional.

(Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.)

Published 2019-03-30 23:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2019-03-30 23:40:02 UTC

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There was an argument to be made for Rainbow mostly learning by osmosis, at least for those ponies who believed she was capable of learning at all.

The latter wasn't a particularly kind perspective, although it was an extremely frequent one: after all, in Ponyville, the definition of insanity was 'Rainbow Dash trying the same failed stunt over and over again while still believing that somehow, she isn't going to crash this time.' It was a behavior pattern which didn't exactly make the locals think highly of her intelligence, and most of the population saw Rainbow's learning curve as something which had permanently flatlined.

It was a common opinion in Ponyville -- but it wasn't accurate. When Rainbow came across a topic she was truly interested in (flying, Wonderbolts history, tortoise care), she would actively devote hours to study until she had either mastered every last detail of the subject or had reached the point where study had become boring and she felt she could effectively fill in the gaps: after all, once you had the basics, the rest wasn't lying to yourself so much as conjecture. And with other categories... well, it was true that any extended lecture (forty seconds, with an option to downgrade) on a non-awesome subject had the potential to either directly send Rainbow into a nap or make her very visibly yawn in a cross between heckling and threat. But even with such topics, bringing up the same subject four moons later just might make her say 'Yeah, that's the one which can't catch fire, right?' -- and that was with a roomful of witnesses who would swear she had been snoring through the entire first time. It had reached the point where the local gossips would very carefully check all known napping spots before proceeding and since there was no way to be sure Rainbow was completely asleep, their only choice was to guarantee she was fully awake: the unintelligent would decide hoof and horn pokes sufficed. It generally led to a grumbling pegasus flapping off to find another comfortable perch as the gossipers conducted their discussion while trying to speak through soaked (and optionally, recently electrified) manefall.

You just never knew with Rainbow: whether she was listening, how closely, or if she'd taken the right information in. The last part was especially tricky, because Rainbow didn't think the same way as other ponies -- and no matter what that same segment of the populace believed, that didn't work out to 'not at all'. Yes, it was often fair to say that the pegasus often relied more on instinct than thought: instinct was just faster. But when thought took place, when a mind devoted to directing movement started working on organizing theories... it was like the stunts. Rainbow came at things from angles nopony else had ever considered, and that meant a few of the results could be truly spectacular.

But you couldn't know. There was no way to tell what was going through the sleek head or worse, becoming lodged in exactly the wrong spot. Because there was typically a choice of two possible results when Rainbow began to truly think, and it meant ponies with some experience would ask her to repeat recently-heard information back to them. Several times, while hoping that no internal echoes had begun to distort the original sounds.

There were generally two possible results, and most of her friends knew that. To some extent, they were careful, because they had to be. There was a choice of two results, and the one thing you could say about the crashes was that they were even more spectacular.

But this time it started with Twilight, who often had the same problem from the overthinking direction. And why did anypony need to worry about caution when lecturing was just so much fun?

It was unusual to have Rainbow hovering around the library on a winter day before the doors officially opened or, in this case, actively within the tree and circling the recently-delivered boxes like a vulture who hadn't eaten for three days and was waiting for the too-slow specimen below to just die already.

The overhead commentary, however, was completely normal.

"Come on already..." Halfway between I-want-you-to-hear-this mutter and desperate order.

"I'm working on it, Rainbow," Twilight sighed. The less-experienced wings flared, and the new alicorn managed to get just enough altitude for a corona-held blade to slice down the next line of packing tape: some of the boxes were a little taller than she was, and her tutor in all things airborne had insisted that Twilight use the opportunity for practice. "I just don't know which box it is, not when all of the publishers issue the new releases on the same day of the week and half of the company logos and packing lists wound up on the bottom. If you could just give me a minute to rotate some of these --"

But the streamlined body had already redirected its path, and that meant the next words were barked into Twilight's left ear. "Less talking! More opening! She's probably already trapped by blades and flames and magic and maybe another slow-drop ceiling with arrows shooting down from the top! She doesn't need to be stuck in stupid cardboard too!"

Twilight confined the wince to the corner of her left eye, managed to keep the sigh internal while reinforcing the silent chant of I am doing a favor for a friend and I love her enough to put up with this. "Maybe it's this box," she helpfully tried.

"That's what you said ten boxes ago!"

Somehow. It was almost possible to hear imaginary teeth grind. I somehow love her enough to put up with this.

It was a rather basic (if slightly risky) favor. There were times when the relationship between publishers and libraries became awkward: after all, a book which was on a public lending shelf could be borrowed and enjoyed a hundred times, and that number of readings would represent one sold copy. It was a fact which made a few of the larger publishing houses regard libraries in the same way a particularly aggressive shark might regard a remora who came with its own parasites.

But the palace had said that libraries were (somehow) necessary, and so an accommodation had been reached. Twilight had a license which allowed her to use her budget for ordering directly from the publishers, at a significant discount: the restrictions were that she would purchase no more than she needed and could only sell volumes which had reached the natural end of their shelf life, at the remaindered price. And technically speaking, every copy she ordered was supposed to be for library use: scholarly journals about magic study which were only read by her had to be paid for the same way.

Rainbow, however, was her friend -- and furthermore, was a friend who had demonstrated some impressive bad luck when it came to getting into the extremely long lines on Release Day: it was something where the pegasus generally got to regard her typical cider wait position as a distinct improvement. And so Twilight had allowed Rainbow access to the private catalog and a chance to order one extra copy, which would soon be moving towards a shelf in the clouds.

It was doing a favor for a friend, although it was an under-the-table one: the publishers really didn't look favorably upon even the most minor abuses of that license. It was assisting Rainbow with her finances, because the pegasus didn't have a budget so much as a biweekly series of mostly-frivolous expenditures which inevitably had her dropping by a friend's house at dinnertime to mooch a meal: something which happened because she had once again run out of bits on the night before the next pay voucher. But realistically, it was also either that or having to treat a single volume as having been permanently checked out.

Hot pegasus breath was now wafting the fringe of Twilight's ears.

Please let it be this box...

It was.

"Got it!" Twilight declared, and did so without even having seen the cover yet: she'd politely requested that one copy be wrapped in parcel paper, and the publisher had likely assumed it was the one meant for the window display. "Here's yours, Rainbow! You can get started right now!"

"Finally!" Rainbow crowed. "Float it up already!" (The pinkish light of Twilight's corona lanced in the parcel's direction, surrounded and began to lift.) "If I'm stuck at home tonight because I can't afford a movie until tomorrow, then at least give me something worth missing a movie for! Besides, six moons of waiting is long enough! Honestly, how can something which take three days to read need fifty-six times that just to write? If I just wrote down some of my dreams about Daring Do, I know I'd have something together in mphbout shrix pchsays!"

"Book in mouth, Rainbow," Twilight patiently reminded her, already looking forward to roughly three minutes of peace: the usual delay before Rainbow began openly commenting on the text or in this case, calling out spoilers.

"Phright." The pegasus retreated to the sturdy top of the International Atlases bookcase, and Twilight listened as teeth went to work on bindings, doing so with exceptional care. Rainbow had picked up a few lessons from Twilight along the way and when it came to the publications of A.K. Yearling, both mares regarded first printings as being something very close to sacred.

"And I don't want to know the details," Twilight hopelessly reminded her, already knowing that the only thing saving her from a full reveal on the ending was the fact that Rainbow's reading speed was fairly average. "We're opening in an hour: I'm barely going to be able to finish checking all these in and get them set up on the shelves." Her field surrounded the second of the reserved copies, sent it to her desk where the sticker reading From The Personal Shelves Of Twilight Sparkle was already waiting to claim it. (When you resided in a library and dealt with patrons who treated your living space as just one more public area, a degree of marking was necessary. And winter meant she generally found at least two ponies per moon doing their reading under her blankets.) "That doesn't even leave enough time for checking the copyright notice --"

"-- huh."

As Rainbow's vocalizations went, it was an oddly thoughtful one. There was a certain wonder laced into the sound, along with a surprising amount of patience. And if Twilight had possessed any concept as to what that single syllable would lead to, she would have thrown her friend out the window right there.

"Something wrong?" She wasn't precognitive, but there wasn't a Bearer for whom Rainbow being patient didn't serve as an automatic alert.

"There's no dust jacket," Rainbow evenly stated. "The art was printed directly onto the front cover."

"Oh?" Well, that explained a few details about the photography for the catalog entry. It sounded like Balikhun Books was finally catching up to the herd --

"-- I'm gonna need," Rainbow softly decided, "one of those hollow thick glass blocks. The kind you keep some of the special books in. An enchanted one would be better. Actually, if you've got a few minutes, I can wait while you enchant it. Or if you need to learn those spells, I can just come back -- tonight? Is tonight too soon? But I can give you at least an hour, especially since I have to stick around that long and check another copy out --"

Utterly confused, "-- Rainbow?"

And now the excitement was starting to visibly grow, ears and tail perking as wings began to rustle. "Twilight, didn't you hear me? There's no dust jacket! They printed the art on the front cover! It's an error copy! Who knows how many of those got out there? If it's anything like that one micro-run on Canon #7, then we've got to protect it fast!" Thinking quickly, "Actually, light fades ink colors after a while, right? I'm gonna need some opaque glass --"

And the sigh stopped everything.

"Twilight?" The pegasus was staring down at her now. "Look, I know you're probably disappointed because it wasn't you, but you can totally grade the quality and sign your name to --"

Softly, and not without a certain gentleness. "-- Rainbow... look at the books."

The sleek mare looked.

Twenty-eight copies (plus one on the desk) had been removed from the box. Every one of them accurately claimed to be Canon #13, all were waiting for their readers, and none of them had dust jackets.

It took a second before Rainbow's expression began to collapse, and a heartbeat before desperate hope shored it up again. "So we got an entire run? What's the next hoofstep? Finding out how many escaped, right? I know it's more than the fourteen on #7, but if we somehow wound up with the lot..."

The second sigh hadn't sacrificed any of the effectiveness from the first, and Rainbow stopped again.

"A lot of publishers," Twilight quietly said, "don't use dust jackets for library copies, Rainbow. Because the books see so much use. A single careful reader, in a home which knows how to take care of their books... a dust jacket could just about last forever. But in here, where ponies take the books home and read them under the blankets because they're sick, they read while they're eating --" the little alicorn shuddered "-- medicine grass-stained teeth are biting the covers, and they're nosing over to the next page while their snouts are leaking. Library books can go through a lot. So the majority of publishers print library copy art directly onto the cover. Balikhun Books was one of the last to give us dust jackets, and now they've stopped. Every library in the world is going to get this kind of edition: the only change is going to be the language the books are printed in. It's not an error copy, Rainbow. It's a normal one. And --" one last sigh "-- I'm sorry. I wasn't paying enough attention to the catalog when I ordered. If you want one with a dust jacket, I'm sure the publisher will let me exchange it, or they might just send an extra slipcover." With a faint smile, "They're actually really nice about that sort of thing, as long as my license is good."

"Oh," Rainbow dejectedly replied: the fallen tones of a pony who'd been swooping down towards what had, from great altitude, seemed to be a wild carrot patch and found it resolving itself into orange construction cones a split-second after it would have been possible to avoid the wheelbarrow. "So it's not like E7."

E7: the bane of the Daring Do collector's existence. There had been a mistake made on one of the press plates, something where the error had effectively swapped out the monster's name for that of Saddle Arabia's current leadership. Rather than risk offending the notoriously touchy nation by letting the electrocution scene stand as miswritten, the publisher had hastily pulled back all of the mistakes -- all but fourteen, which had already been loaded into boxes destined for various parts of the continent. Ponies with an E7 tended to keep it under heavy guard, and the ones whose identities were known had also been preemptively disinvited from all diplomatic dinners. (Since it was Saddle Arabia, this was considered to be one of the side benefits.) Fourteen copies had escaped -- but only nine owners had been identified, and the numerical gap kept certain ponies hoping...

Gently, "No. I am sorry, Rainbow."

The pegasus slowly flapped down, landed on Twilight's left, the sleek head downcast with eyes half-closed.

"I don't really get collectibles stuff anyway," her friend quietly admitted (and it was so rare, to hear Rainbow admit to not knowing about something). "Not for books. Wonderbolts stuff, yeah. Old show tickets and uniforms, some of the early broadsides that went on the public notice boards -- I know how that works. But books are just weird. I know first printings are good because they're first, and first is always best. But I don't get the rest of it. For E7 to cost so much because of one word..."

Twilight briefly looked at the myriad of still-full boxes which had been scattered around the library floor, some of which were blocking aisles. Thought about the amount of work she still had ahead of her, and how much those labors were about to be delayed.

But a friend had just asked her for education. And teaching meant getting the chance to lecture.

"Actually, Rainbow... it's a lot like your Wonderbolts pieces."

Cyan ears went straight up.

"Really?"

Twilight proudly nodded. "Well, first there's scarcity of supply versus demand, and you've already figured that out. It's not just enough to have only a few of something: ponies have to want it. More ponies than items. There's only a few of those broadside posters surviving, right? In good shape, anyway. Because they were on notice boards, so they were hit by rain and wind and Sun. How many ponies took one down right after they went up, just in case they wound up meaning something?"

"...not many," Rainbow slowly replied. "Barely any. So it's a limited supply. Except that somepony could print off replicas --"

"-- but they'd have to match the paper exactly," Twilight pointed out. "Including the age, and there's spells which detect that. And when there aren't spells, there's watermarks. If you didn't have the paper from the same mill, the same pulp... they change their watermarks a little every year, Rainbow. And when it's books, a few publishers have their own. Not many, though."

The pegasus nodded, and that was all. She didn't interrupt. She didn't comment. She just listened, and that was too precious for Twilight to give up.

"Also, it's the Wonderbolts!" Twilight enthused. "They're famous!" (There were days when she still wasn't entirely sure why.) "So sometimes it's about who did it in the first place! Now with Ms. Yearling, the early books had really small first printings: she didn't become famous until Canon #3, remember? So again, supply isn't matching the current demand. And did you know she auctioned off two of the quills she wrote #1 with for charity? They fetched thousands of bits each, because she owned them! And they were authenticated: directly from her to the auction house, with her tooth marks in them -- proof they'd been hers! Nopony would have gotten that much for ordinary quills which could have come from anypony! So with that one uniform you have, the one Triple Twist wore..." A smile, and a prompting nod.

"...it's valuable because I can prove he wore it," Rainbow carefully filled in. "Because I have documentation. Otherwise, it could just be from a costume shop. So sometime it's not just what the book is, but who owned it?"

Twilight had to think about that one. "Sometimes. I know certain private library collections are valuable, and if you can prove a piece was the property of somepony famous, that can make a difference. But it isn't always easy to prove, Rainbow. And then --" not making any effort to hid her distaste -- "there's ornamentation. Like the Gilded Rosebook."

Rainbow curiously tilted her head, waited for clarification. Twilight had her friend's complete attention. She could count the number of times that had happened on her hooves with space left over.

"Oh," Twilight softly groaned. "Right. Well, there was this really rich pony who couldn't write, but she was so rich that everypony was afraid to tell her. She was paying for a vanity publishing. And she wanted her covers and pages to be gold-edged. Make the book look better than the words ever could. But she took it seriously, and that meant she didn't want gold paint or gilding: she wanted gold. The metal. Which, when you don't have much of it, is really soft, Rainbow. And she wanted pure gold: it's incredibly dense, but it's still soft. It's why coin collectors value uncirculated bits the most: even when it isn't pure gold, all the little tooth impressions do some damage to the art. So when she had a thin coating of gold, anypony opening the book or who managed to read past Page Three was doing some damage. She thought the best way around that was to add more gold..."

A frustrated head shake, and Twilight briefly closed her eyes as a shield against the sheer stupidity of it all.

Finally, "So what happened?"

"There's four copies, which was all she could make before bankrupting her estate," Twilight exasperatedly declared. "And since the author died three centuries ago and didn't work from notes, nopony can stand to find out how the story ends."

"It's that bad?"

"The parts ponies were able to read were pretty bad," Twilight admitted. "But it's more that nopony can get any deeper than Page Ninety without straining their neck."

Rainbow snorted, and it wasn't derisive: just pure amusement. "Yeah. Okay, I'm starting to get it. So it's the scarcity stuff, same as with the Wonderbolts. Proof that it's real, and proof of ownership goes into that. And sometimes it's just what's on it. Plus age, because the older something is, the more chances it had to get hurt and that makes pristine ones rarer." Another head tilt. "Right?"

Twilight smiled. "You've got it. And ponies collect all kinds of things, Rainbow. Books, coins -- anything where they have an interest. Rarity said there's even ponies who preserve newspapers and magazines if their favorite celebrity was mentioned in them."

"Celebrity..." Rainbow softly repeated. "Yeah. Like Silver Screen. Who's got a new movie in the cinema tonight, and I can't afford to go... I swear, Spike sees more movies than I do... yeah -- Spike..."

There were times when the librarian was still a little slow to pick up on social cues, and so her second response was "Maybe that endtable could have waited until next week?" Which was almost instantly followed by a nearly-desperate "Rainbow, I didn't -- I mean, I can't go to a movie tonight and Silver Screen just grunts most of his dialogue, plus he keeps playing the same part over and over under different names -- actually, I guess if you like that part, it's fine, but... um... maybe we..." A deep gulp. "...could see it... together... tomorrow? I mean, it's only seven reels. Ponies have survived worse. I think. I mean, technically, I guess Discord was worse, except that when it comes to the scripts, I keep looking at the writing credits for his --"

(The first, purely internal response, had been blocked by several years of hard-won Ponyville lessons: Spike has an allowance and a budget. You have a salary and an impulse control problem.)

"-- Twilight?"

Oh, thank Sun. Sometimes the only way to keep from digging yourself any deeper was for somepony else to take control of the backhoe. "What?"

"I'm gonna go get started on the book," Rainbow told her. "And stuff. I've got stuff to do. Non-reading stuff. Because you kind of gave me a lot to think about just now. I mean that. I feel... like I really learned something. And not scroll-something: let Spike sleep. Just something." Thoughtfully, "But I may drop in and talk to him later. Tomorrow, probably. Okay?"

"Okay," Twilight decided with open relief. "See you later, Rainbow. And I'm glad you --"

"-- just before we hit the movie and since you invited me, you're buying the tickets! You and me and Silver Screen! It's just about a triple date! Except, you know, if he ever comes to town, he's totally mine. See ya!"

Wings flared, and that meant Twilight spent the usual two minutes cleaning up after the backblast of wind, plus an extra three total hours of scattered work time in trying to figure out how she was going to get through seven reels of watching a former name-changed athlete who felt grunts substituted for dialogue and used catchphrases in place of character development. And that was added to shelving the new books, updating the card catalog, dealing with the inevitable first day gallop on the Daring Do novel from ponies who, despite her three moons of very public advance notice, still insisted that they'd never seen anything about a waiting list...

It meant she didn't think about the remainder of their talk all that much, and it would be a long time before memory provided the glint which had been in Rainbow's eyes.

The library was Twilight's domain: just about nopony disputed that. (The exception was the mayor, during every budget meeting). It was where she had control. A precious place of peace, where the organization was hers, the reorganization was also hers, and the re-reorganization wasn't going to be Spike's because that was when he generally threw up his arms in frustration and marched out of the tree.

It was her domain. It just happened to also be a public one, and that meant spending a lot of time in keeping things Just So. And when there were thousands of books to track, dozens of late fee notices sent out every moon, trying to deal with patrons who were unable to locate their own tails and so felt the perfect place to file a reference book was under the sink... it was a lot of work.

She was highly organized: maintaining any real degree of control over the tree required that. But there were forms to fill out and catalogs to consult. Repair bills had to be paid to the book restoration shop, exactly on time. (Spike had to carry the actual books and payments, as Twilight was banned from the facility. Ponies whose livelihoods had come to depend on their spellcasting bringing texts back to her exacting requirements were slightly reluctant to let her get within what they perceived as copying range.) The dusting process was effectively eternal. And when you kicked in visits to and by friends, the daily chaos which had apparently only become inherent to Ponyville existence on the day she'd moved in, and the intermittent interruptions of the missions...

Twilight did her best to keep control, especially in the only place she truly considered to be her realm. But when dealing with the stratified strangeness of her life, it was possible for details to slip. Aspects which were only recognized when looking back, after it was already too late.

Rainbow dropping in and privately speaking to Spike more frequently than usual? Why was that worthy of notice? Rainbow had been known to engage Spike's services just because a pony so dedicated to speed didn't want to deal with the travel time of outgoing mail: her biggest complaint about transport flame was that packages couldn't be pulled in. Besides, they got along fairly well: he was the youngest in the group and mentally, she was the... well, technically, Pinkie was the one most in touch with her inner filly, but Rainbow was the mare who still felt that entity needed to pick up most of the checks.

It was slightly stranger to have Spike start playing an active part on Release Day. The boxes were delivered early: most of the shipments arrived before Sun was raised, all the better to let shops and libraries have their displays ready at the moment of opening. It was too early for a little dragon to be up, and so Twilight generally let him sleep through it -- but he'd just volunteered, and had done so simply through showing up. He signed for the shipments (although he had to sign Twilight's name) and took inventory of the contents. He was suddenly the only one counting the boxes as they came off the cart, and the fact that Twilight was still responsible for relaying them inside meant she wasn't watching the process. But it made sense, really: he counted, a box came down, she brought it inside... it was more efficient than simply waiting for them all to be unloaded. And of course the boxes which entered the library perfectly equaled the total which had come off the cart. The fact that he had the perfect opportunity to place a few out of sight never crossed Twilight's mind, because it had no reason to make the journey. He was helping her, and an increased level of assistance was always welcome.

And he had always been the one to bring in the mail, at least on those days when he wasn't serving as a different kind of delivery system. He sorted it before the envelopes ever reached her, and if a number were visibly being carried away in his hands... well, that was just his mail, wasn't it? There were aspects of library operation where Spike took an active claw: in particular, the most frustrating missing book accounts were often turned over to him because while a dragon flaring his nostrils on the doorstep might offend, an alicorn showing up with a rage-spiking horn corona tended to make the front page. Additionally, it was possible that he'd found a quill companion in a distant part of the world, and Twilight was hardly going to interfere with any newfound interest he might have found in simple correspondence.

Missions came and went. There were also more normal hours when she was outside the tree: friends, daily business, simply stepping outside to enjoy a little well-regulated chill. And in a structure where patrons wandered everywhere except the well-protected basement, treated her rooms as theirs... well, there was a reason why she had those stickers inside the front covers of her personal tomes. Discovering that her shelves had been lightly disturbed during her absence was just part of the routine, and the relief which came from finding nothing missing caused her to overlook that things had been lightly disturbed. Over and over.

Payments had to be made. (Quite a bit of that was to publishers.) And really, why couldn't Spike write up the vouchers? All Twilight had to do was sign them, something she generally did without bothering to look at them first. And if it seemed as if she was signing more vouchers than ever -- well, it was winter, and the typical causes of book repair had seen a major spike in mucus drippings while adding the annual stains from hot chocolate, plus now the ponies reading under her blankets were occasionally found in pairs. (It would slow down for a little while after the Wrap-Up, only to be replaced with newly-grown fruit stains.) It was just the season, or so she told herself before rushing off to the next mission. And Spike taking on additional paperwork duties (of his own free will!) freed part of her schedule for visiting friends, magic studies, and the re-re-reorganization in which he wasn't going to be any part of the process anyway. He could go outside and play during those times, maybe do a little shopping for himself. He'd certainly earned that, and Twilight had even begun to consider a small increase in his allowance.

However, when viewed in retrospect, one potential clue simply hadn't been there: Spike had been spending no more than that allowance would permit. Aiding and abetting had its almost-immediate rewards, but he knew how to budget -- and might have also been subconsciously aware that a rather good way to draw attention was through flashing cash. Besides, from his perspective, it was just another kind of Rainbow stunt, and that meant he couldn't act immediately, not when there was such a time-honored procedure to follow.

You watched.
You held your breath as you waited to see if it would succeed or fail.
You didn't commit your reaction until it was over.
And then you went to the crash site and looked for interesting pieces of debris.

Spike brought in the mail. He opened envelopes. But he didn't read through every page of the trade magazines, and so the whole thing officially began to fall apart a few minutes ahead of the inevitable.

Twilight did read every part of the trades, and she often began at the back. The last pages were where the classifieds were kept: ponies who'd decided to sell off their collections would announce it to those most likely to buy. Microseconds could be the difference between first offer and second, and that was with having Spike on her side: far too often, she would finish closer to the middle of the pack. She sometimes swore that the other librarians had to be cheating, and did so with no recognition of irony.

"There's a couple of boxes," Spike told her, heading for the door again. "I'll bring those in with the letters."

Twilight, camped away from the chill behind her desk, distractedly nodded. "Go ahead." Her corona was already turning pages. "Nothing, nothing -- oh, come on: he's been 'going out of business forever' for the last eight moons -- oh. That's a new one..." But the fresh entry didn't trigger a surge of excitement as fantasies of Hardcovers Yet To Come cantered across her inner stage. Instead, she frowned.

"Something good?" Spike called back.

"Who can tell?" Twilight frustratedly replied. "And I quote, Spike: 'Rare collectible editions for sale. One-of-a-kind issuings and authenticated celebrity ownership. Send a three-bit stamp plus two bits S&N fee for our catalog.' And then there's some small print. I'm going to need the magnifying glass for that one."

The sound of a box abruptly being fumbled by startled claws was lost in her own soft snort.

"A stamp plus a shipping-and-nosing fee," Twilight grumbled. "And no hints as to what's in the catalog! Oh, I know what's going on here."

"...you do?" She also missed the little tremble in his voice.

A nod of dark satisfaction joined with the extant frustration: the emotional alchemy instantly doubled her discontent. "Yeah. The catalog probably fits on a one-sheet, and it's all books nopony really wants. The profit is in the fee. You just hope enough ponies ask to cover the advertising space and bring back a profit. And if you actually sell a book once a year..." She slowly shook her head. "And will you look at this? I just spotted the address, Spike!" Which had required a considerable amount of squinting. "They're local! I should trot over there and --"

"-- here's your mail!" A pair of boxes were slammed onto the desktop, along with a sheaf of envelopes which hadn't been sorted as carefully as they should have been. "Can I go out for a while?"

This frown was one of concern. "Not unless you bundle up first. It's really cold this morning. That's already kept all our early patrons home, and they're ponies. With fur. You aren't, and you know what the cold does to you. Especially with all the really deep snowdrifts out there. If you step on one and sink in..." He was already shivering, and that was just from having brought in the mail.

With desperation, something Twilight interpreted as There's A Game Starting And I Don't Get To Be In Goal Unless I'm There First, "I'll be okay for a short trip. I'm just going over to --"

"-- heavy coat. Boots. Mittens. Pants. Fully dressed, in front of me. And then you can go out."

One last protest. "Twilight --"

-- she simply looked at him and seconds later, claws scrabbled for the ramp.

Thanks for the lesson, Fluttershy. Well, the trip to the supposed bookseller (whose address looked vaguely familiar) would have to wait, because the classifieds held nothing interesting and she'd just seen the sending address on one of the boxes: something which led to an instant resorting of priorities.

"Did you see this, Spike?" she called out to the upper level, and then had to repeat herself: the initial words had become lost in the sounds of a scaly sapient dressing himself very quickly. "My copy of The Melancholy Of Every Donkey Who Ever Lived finally came in! Ooooh, this is going right on my personal shelf! After I put the sticker in." Her corona lanced for the proper drawer. "And maybe write down a warning. On the sticker, because the spell means I can personally remove that, completely harmlessly, any time, and it's easier than writing on the page." More thoughtfully, "Plus an analysis of why donkey literature is so depressing is pretty depressing all by itself. Did you know donkeys have a joke about this book?" And as was typical for the species, it was a fairly dark one. "If you can read this once without wanting to die, you're probably going to be okay. But if you can read it twice in a row without stopping, you're probably Princess Celestia --"

Which was when her corona automatically went into the open drawer. And under normal circumstances, she didn't even have to look: she knew where the stickers were. Surround and lift the top one. That was all.

Instead, a thin bubble grasped nothing, then regretfully lifted a narrow slice of air.

Twilight frowned. Stared down into the drawer.

"When did I run out of stickers?"

By way of response, a left boot was jammed on with indecent haste.

"I didn't think I'd been getting that many personal copies," Twilight groused. "I should have had lots left." And lightly shrugged. "Well, write up a voucher for the print shop when you get back, and I'll keep the book somewhere safe until then. So let's see. This other box is just some protective glass for that one first edition. Envelopes... oh, I'd better open this one first: it's from Balikhun, and it says Urgent." With open hope, "Maybe it's advance notice on Canon #14."

The right boot went on with enough force to leave the tips of walking claws sticking out of fresh rents.

"They wouldn't use a red envelope for just anything," Twilight reasoned, and opened the envelope at the same moment her assistant gave up on the ramp and raced for the balcony doors. "So let's see --"

There were ways in which it was almost impossible to be a part of Rainbow's life without sharing in a few crashes, and so the resulting scream didn't quite drown out the sound of ill-advised impact. It meant that after her quills had finished flinging themselves around the library and the remnants of the desk had been extracted from the ceiling, Twilight knew exactly where Spike was.

Eventually, she went outside and pulled him out of the impact silhouette he'd left in the snowdrift. And the price of being allowed to sit in the fireplace was telling her everything.

She generally didn't visit the cloud house all that often, at least not at its own altitude. While she'd still been a unicorn... well, even with the cloudwalking spell mastered, self-levitation was one of those things which you either figured out quickly or reflected upon while sliding down the recently-impacted wall: it meant somepony had to carry her. And after the change, with the up/down aspects of flight coming along, it meant visiting Rainbow's house. Standing on ground level and calling up generally provided enough distance to keep ponies safe from whatever was still going wrong in the kitchen.

Twilight had lived in Ponyville long enough to have most of the streets memorized. But when it came to the vapor homes, she had the same blind spot as just about everypony else. You just didn't think of a molded cloud as having a street address: you perceived it as being above the street. She could navigate to Rainbow's residence on instinct, but deliberately associating it with a ground-level location was a mental leap straight down.

But the cloud house had an official street address. After all, not every postpony was capable of reaching the front door, and packages had to be left somewhere.

Twilight silently noted the number of envelopes stuffed into the recently not-quite-upgraded-enough mailbox, along with the three boxes viciously labeled as Returns. (The latter were partially trapped within snow, as Rainbow saw no need to clear any path which she wasn't personally using.) She kept looking at them until she could see something other than white, and then she spread her wings.

She was sure several of the fountains near the entrance were new. Rainbow had a well-known weakness for fountains and besides, none of the old ones had played music.

It was about ten in the morning and because it was Rainbow, that meant it was naptime: a state which normally left Twilight desperately searching all of Ponyville for a hint of prismatic tail. But it was also winter, and the pegasus liked to sleep in warm spots. Multiple years of residency had seen the weather coordinator unceremoniously kicked from the rafters of roughly half the shops: the remainder had taken a page from their visitor's ill-considered book and sprinkled the wood with itching powder. It was something which narrowed Rainbow's snowfall sleeping spots considerably, and it meant Twilight only had to ring the bell eight times before the yawn reached the general vicinity of the door.

"Oh," Rainbow blearily tried, shaking her head a little in an attempt to center both vision and disheveled mane. "You're up. I mean, you're up here. You usually don't --" and then the pegasus woke up all at once, a sudden surge of adrenaline substituting for intelligence. "-- unless it's important! Where's the mission? I can be ready to go before you finish telling me --"

"-- here's your mail," Twilight coldly cut her off. Several envelopes and boxes floated forward. The largest, due to either misplaced aim or subconscious intent, began to rudely poke Rainbow's sternum.

"Oh," the pegasus tried again. "Um. ...thanks?"

"I'm just glad it reached you," the librarian too-calmly said. "It's not as if you told anypony that you'd changed your name to Editions Unlimited."

"Oh." (Third time did not pay for all.) "That." More quickly, "So how did you find out? Because I was totally gonna tell you, but I asked Spike not to say anything until we really got some speed up. I figured that was spring, but what with the way the orders are starting to come in -- oh, you've got returns?" She stomped a forehoof as wings rustled with irritation. "Customers, right? If patrons are anything like this, I don't know how you stand it!"

Twilight stood silently upon the cloud. Vapor was beginning to darken under her hooves.

Rainbow failed to notice. "So you wanna come in? Oh, I almost forgot to ask. What's in your saddlebags? They look really full."

"Stuff," Twilight finally told her, feeling using one of Rainbow's favorite words would just void the subject.

It didn't work immediately. "Stuff?"

"Stuff for later."

"Oh." Rainbow shrugged. "Anyway, come on in. We're letting all the heat out."

"That's new," Twilight steadily noted as Rainbow led the way. It was amazing, really, just how steady her voice was. Having taken all of the anger and compressed it into a diamond-hard spear before ramming it into her burgeoning desire for vengeance was doing a lot to keep everything pinned in place.

"It was way past time for a new couch," Rainbow offered. "Especially when there's itching powder everywhere and it just takes too long to reach the bedroom. And Davenport told me this one was 'perfectly suitable for naps.'" She snorted. "And with the business going, I've actually got a use for the stupid quills --"

"-- and that's new too."

"Yeah. I've wanted one of those for ages. Want to try it out? It takes a little while to get used to the vibrations, but once they reach the center of your hooves --"

"-- and that."

Twilight still missed the occasional social cue. Rainbow had ongoing issues with undertones.

"I might check out an art book," the pegasus offered. "If you've got a cool one."

A stark "Really."

"Yeah. I really want to know why more ponies aren't painting Wonderbolts on black velvet. So this is about the collectibles?" Rainbow turned, and the surest sign of inner tone-deafness was the wideness of her smile. "Because you totally gave me the idea! I was just waiting for the right moment, and part of that was seeing if it worked first. But of course it worked, because I'm me. Want to try that couch out? Just don't fall asleep on me while I'm lecturing! Not even for revenge, because it's not like mine could ever be boring..."

Twilight slowly made her way over to the couch. It took a while, especially with the multiple detours required to avoid obstacles.

"Sorry about having books all over the place," Rainbow offered.

Yes.
Yes, you will be.

"Do you want to take off your saddlebags?" the homeowner asked.

"No."

The alicorn settled in. The pegasus took a moment to get her thoughts into some kind of order, because even mental stunts were performed in a given progression and despite all previous evidence, she was always convinced that the next one would succeed.

"So you want to hear how it started?"

Twilight silently nodded.

"Well, I've gotta admit," Rainbow declared in a voice which held two truly rare things: as much as 0.0001% bashfulness and a tiny recognition of previous faults, "it took a while to really get started, you know. First, I needed bits, and that meant I couldn't spend much. For two whole weeks. I think even Applejack was starting to wonder why I kept dropping by for dinner. And lunch." Thoughtfully, "Breakfast was probably where I pushed it. I should have totally slept over every night if I was gonna justify breakfast. But anyway, I put some bits together, and then I talked to Spike some more." Proudly, "He told me where to put most of the advertising. Sure, there were some magazines which he said we shouldn't risk, but I figured he meant we didn't need to go in on them early. I booked some space in those a couple of weeks ago."

"Spike," Twilight said, because she'd already heard so much from him and so his name was temporarily safe to say.

"Yeah. Honestly, Twilight? I never could have done it without him. And he didn't even want to try it at first! But then I told him about the money..."

Twilight silently reflected on dragon greed. Then she mentally summoned an image of Spike's allowance, compared it to the minimal salary for a librarian's assistant, and did so three and a half years too late.

"The money," she repeated, already wondering how she was ever going to assemble the backdated funds.

"But we had a rough startup," Rainbow admitted. "The ornamentation stuff didn't work out." She nodded to the Return boxes, which Twilight's corona had unceremoniously deposited in one of the few spaces without books. "I did some reading, and I found out about illuminated texts. You know about those, right? The ones where some of the letters are more like paintings? And Spike said that it would count as transformative content." With a small frown, "I think that means when you change something enough, the original creator can't put you on a witness stand any more. Anyway, we tried a few of those." She nodded to one column of significantly-battered books. "They pretty much all came back."

Twilight's corona, which had been known to ignite under the force of morbid curiosity, lifted the top volume and flipped a few pages.

"That's an interesting otter," she eventually decided.

Rainbow frowned. "It's a pelican."

"Really?"

The frown got deeper. "Maybe you need the art book."

"Maybe," Twilight softly proposed, "books should be printed on black velvet."

"With white lettering, right? You know, that would be really cool --"

"-- so ornamentation didn't work," Twilight mercilessly cut her off.

"Not when Spike couldn't get enough gems out of Rarity's storeroom." She snorted. "Ever try sewing a gem onto paper? And then the books wouldn't even close! Anyway, then we tried watermarks. Well, I did. I didn't even tell Spike about that part. And I didn't ship anything there. I never even put one in the catalog."

I am going to regret asking.
I know that.
The answer can't do anything but hurt.

"Why?"

Rainbow trotted over to one of the many identical columns, picked up a book with her teeth, then flew over to the nearest wall and stuck her head inside it for two minutes.

"Watermarked," she announced after spitting the dripping book onto the floor.

I was right.

"Oh," Twilight said, and vowed an additional portion of vengeance on the sogcover's behalf.

"I guess it's a unique one," Rainbow shrugged. "But I tried it a bunch of times and I still didn't come up with anything worth paying for. So I guess that brings us to what we did try, right?" She smiled. "And it totally caught on! Not as fast as I would have liked and maybe those deluxe season tickets are a little out of reach after the money split, but it's a nice little sideline! Because I was thinking about everything you said, and I was comparing it to my own Wonderbolts stuff. How it's scarcity and being able to prove the original owner. You remember that, right?" With the typical lack of awareness, "You've got to remember the cool stuff you say, especially since there isn't that much of it."

"Scarcity and previous ownership," Twilight repeated, mostly because it was all she trusted herself to vocalize.

"Yeah! Because I'm not Ms. Yearling and I don't work for the publisher. So I can't create a Daring Do story and say it's from her and just had a really low print run. That's lying. Same for printing my own versions of books and putting a deliberate error in to make it collectible. That's fraud. And sure -- " as her voice dropped low into conspiracy "-- we all know where some really rare books are, don't we? And how to get them. But that's theft! No matter how much some of your stuff is worth without your knowing it -- seriously, did you ever look it up? You sleep in a silver mine, Twilight! And the stuff in the palace, which you could get access to... well, mostly get access, after that whole time thing..."

The alicorn forced herself to wait until the glint of pure draconian greed vanished from pegasus eyes.

"But it's stealing," Rainbow concluded. "It's your boring stuff, and if the Princess has kept hers that long without kicking all that dull out, she probably wants to keep on keeping it. So all that was left was scarcity and ownership by a celebrity. And I started thinking..."

She proudly flew to another column of books, aimed her ears to indicate the top volume and excitedly nodded to Twilight.

"Do it!" Rainbow encouraged. "See for yourself! It's brilliant! And I was right, Twilight! Ponies paid for it! Ponies are still paying! You brought up the mail, I bet half of those are orders -- just look!"

Twilight, who had already been told what she would see and, in the spirit of a pony whose cart had been stuck in a rubbernecking delay for so long as to transmute irritation into an all-consuming desire to have the about-to-be-witnessed accident somehow be worth it, opened the book and silently regarded what rested inside the front cover.

From The Personal Shelves Of Twilight Sparkle

"You use the same printer every time!" Rainbow enthused. "There's only one source for the stickers, and I can prove that! And the books come directly from your shelf! Whenever you were out of the library and I could get a few minutes with Spike, we would take pictures! So we had proof of that too! We had a real collectible, because an alicorn is a celebrity and there's ponies who collect Princess stuff! Anything to do with Princesses!"

Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't --

"Anything?"

Confidentially, "Would you believe that after I sent one pony a book, she wrote back and asked if I could sell her some of your tail strands?"

-- stop asking --

"Really."

"Yeah!" Thoughtfully, "I guess that's extra rare for alicorn stuff collectors. I mean, how would you even get any from the palace? Does anypony even know how to cut light? And how would you ship it? -- anyway, she was really interested. But it wasn't like I could just ask you, and I sure wasn't gonna try and cut it while you were sleeping."

"Thank. You," mostly emerged: part of the letters got snagged on gritted teeth along the way.

"So I just asked Spike to search your bed every morning for a really good one. We couldn't use anything from the basement: he had a lot of swept-up stuff, but every time you lose part of your tail to an experiment, it's too burnt to sell."

Spike had failed to mention that detail, and so Twilight assigned a ten percent penalty fee to the backdating.

"And there were requests for other things. I got two ponies who wanted hoof shavings." Magenta eyes rolled. "And I went through the entire four-page This Is A Magical Crisis: Please Help letter and I still don't understand the mystical significance of alicorn nose hair."

Make that twenty-five percent.

"I wanted to sell other stuff," Rainbow added, and this tone was lightly mournful. "From the rest of us. Some of mine, too. Like the world's best stable sale. But it turns out you're the only one most ponies know about." A little more hastily, "But there are Bearer collectors! It's just that alicorn ones have been around for centuries and you're the new release, so they don't have anything much from you yet! They were desperate! And Bearer collectors are just getting started. But once I get a little more of a mailing list together --"

"-- so that's why you had the small print," Twilight asked. "Specializing in Bearer collectibles and Princess Twilight's personal items."

"Yeah! -- wait, that came out in small print? I knew I should have asked for a copy of the proofing on that last ad!"

I know what you did.
I just need to hear you say it.

"You were selling my books, though," Twilight softly told the pony who was somehow still her friend, at least for the next two minutes. "My books. And you said you wouldn't steal from me. From any of us. And I'm not missing any volumes. So how did you do that?"

Rainbow's smile widened.

"Your stickers say 'From The Personal Shelves.' So when you were out of the tree, I put books on your shelves and left them there for a few minutes. Spike took the extra pictures, and then I took them down and put the sticker on!"

"Oh," Twilight replied, and her gaze openly moved to Rainbow's flanks.

"...what?"

And still not a partial section of apple. "Just thinking. It's... an interesting way to think about it. So that clears up the shelving issue. But how am I the owner?"

"Well, we had to get the new books from somewhere!" Rainbow crowed. "And since paying full retail cut into the profit margins too much, Spike and I just ordered directly from the publishers, using your account! Because the order came in under your name, you were the owner of record! A perfect paperwork trail, Twilight!" Beaming now, "Applejack isn't this honest! And there's another reason I didn't tell you about this until now! I was waiting until the sales hit a number, and they got there yesterday! But I already did the skywork on arranging for your --" and abruptly stopped.

The stunt had succeeded. Spectacularly so. And yet somehow, the ground had started to loom large within inner sight.

"Rainbow," Twilight softly said.

"-- your eyes," the pegasus tried, unaware that her legs were trying to go into reverse, "are getting kind of white right now --"

Even more quietly, "-- do you see this?" The spiking corona opened the lid of the alicorn's left saddlebag, extracted the top item and closed it again before Rainbow could get a glimpse of what had been underneath. "This is a letter from Balikhun Books. It says they won't honor my license any more. Because they know about Ponyville, Rainbow. They know how many ponies live here. How many volumes the library holds. And you just kept ordering the same books, because the first copy sold, so why would having more be bad? Twenty-eight copies of the newest Daring Do novel -- that's about right for our town. And sometimes there's extra demand for a story. I don't think they would have become suspicious until it passed sixty. But a hundred and forty, Rainbow -- they decided I was probably reselling. So they suspended my account."

Rainbow blinked, and did so at the same moment her twitching tail hit a stack of books.

"So we'll start with another company --"

"-- and the one thing which all the publication houses will talk to each other about," Twilight softly broke in, "is a librarian who's abusing the system. I probably have another seventeen letters arriving within the next week, and they'll all say the same thing. I'm blacklisted, Rainbow. Because you blacklisted me. I won't be able to order anything at the discount, and my budget doesn't cover full retail either."

Desperately, so desperately as to have none of that desperation buried under bravado, "Twilight -- take a breath. Take ten. Think about your eyes --"

"-- no access to new releases," Twilight said as she calmly got off the couch, "means that eventually, the library dies. So yes, Rainbow, I know what my eyes are like right now. But I've had some time to think about it, and I'm pretty sure there's still a chance to fix everything. Will you help me?"

"Yeah!" declared the pegasus who had just been told there was still a faint hope of pulling up before impact. "Anything you --"

"Good," Twilight peacefully stated. "Because that's what the saddlebags are for."

Both lids opened.

"So that's the story, sir," Twilight wearily told the head of Balikhun Books. "All of it. But I swear I didn't know anything about it until recently, and I'm sorry it took so long to tell you --" the urge to yawn was irresistible, and the embarrassment which followed was automatic "-- sorry. I've just been repeating this. A lot. And I'm still trying to figure out how to fix some of it. I can return the extras, but some ponies will want to keep their books. I can't do anything about that. I just.. I'm just sorry, sir. I really am."

The old stallion looked from one mare to the other, and eventually went back to Twilight.

"It won't happen again," the librarian pleaded. "I promise. And I wanted to ask personally, just because I needed to hear any denial instead of reading it. Will you please honor my license again? Please..."

Delrey Balikhun sighed.

"How many publishers have you visited so far, young lady?" the old stallion quietly asked.

"You're the sixteenth." With yet more embarrassment, "You're all in the same part of the city and we started at the far end of the street. We weren't putting you off or anything. I'm sorry --"

"-- you're sorry," the old publisher said, "for something which isn't your fault."

He looked at both mares again. This time, his eyes lingered on the motionless pegasus for a while.

"How many houses," he eventually asked, "tried to extract a promise from you in return for resuming sales to your branch? I'm thinking something along the lines of 'your eventual biography will be published through us'."

"All of them."

He nodded. "Good. The competition is thinking clearly. And how many did you say 'yes' to?"

"None," the alicorn quietly admitted. "I just write journal articles sometimes. Maybe I'll try the rest when I'm ready. And until I think I'm ready, I don't want to promise anypony I'll try."

"And how many agreed to renew your honors anyway?"

"Um..."

The old stallion sighed. The scent of yellowed paper drifted through the well-worn, freshly pinkish-tinged office.

"I imagine a few of those who agreed to restore your buying privileges did so because they said, to your face, that they felt you were truly contrite," he finally told them. "While most of them were actually thinking 'this may not the best time to offend an alicorn' and planning to review the effectiveness of their sales department's automatic cutoff line. I'll do you the favor of being honest: for me, it's a bit of both. Your license will be honored, Ms. Sparkle. Please place us among the eventual competition for your publishing honors."

Twilight deeply, gratefully dipped her forelegs into a curtsy. Rainbow, as with every other stop, didn't.

"And your friend is sorry?"

"She is," Twilight said. "Very sorry. Sir."

"Are you?" the old stallion asked of the pegasus.

Rainbow nodded. Completing the movement took about half a minute, along with a lot of straining.

"Very well," he told them. "See yourselves out. So I presume you are currently sixteen for sixteen, with two to go?"

"Yes," Twilight exhaled, and began to turn. "Thank you, sir." After a moment of thought, Rainbow began to turn too.

"And after your final stop," the publisher inquired, "you will untie the ropes from your friend and release her from the bubble?"

"Maybe her jaw," the librarian admitted, her corona bringing the prisoner along. "I'm still thinking about the rest. Good night, sir."

Rainbow's first words of freedom turned out to be "I got you a book."

Twilight looked at her from across the train's center aisle. "Really?"

"You gave me the idea," Rainbow stated -- then worked her jaw a few times, loosening it up. "So I put aside some of the profits for you. It was going to be a surprise. And then I thought about all of those times you've talked about books and books and books until everypony was asleep and then I just remembered this name. Bradiant."

Twilight blinked. Then, for lack of a better reaction, she did it again.

"Bradiant's Thaumatological Bestiary? The definitive guide to the magic of monsters? Rainbow, he only got ten copies off his personal press before the crestfire broke into his house and destroyed the plates --"

"-- yeah! You've always wanted one, but you couldn't afford it." She frowned. "I think. I was really tired at that part. Anyway, I went through a bunch of old shops in Canterlot. It took forever. Like three whole afternoons! But one of them had the right connections and it's not like all that many other ponies want to know about that sort of thing, so the price was just really bad. It shipped two days ago, and I think it'll be at the tree before the end of the week."

And all she had was "...thank you," while knowing it wasn't enough.

"We're friends," Rainbow reminded her. "Friends get gifts for each other. Even when those gifts are dumb and boring."

"I'll have you know," Twilight volleyed back as Sun began to dip in the sky, "that one of the other nine copies is owned by A.K. Yearling."

"...really?"

"How did you think she got all the details for Daring Do And The Gauntlet Of Fangs?"

"Cool! Can I see your copy?"

"Eventually," Twilight decided. "Just give me some more time."

The train clacked along. It was easy to hear, when they had the car all to themselves. The other passengers had shown a certain reluctance to sit in their general area.

"And I didn't order them," Rainbow finally continued. "But I was thinking about getting us all uniforms."

Blinks were now completely inadequate.

"Uniforms."

"Yeah! Because, you know, most ponies who think about the Bearers only know you. And I thought, what shows somepony's a Wonderbolt faster than the uniform? Assuming it isn't just a stupid costume shop purchase. So themed uniforms, and then everypony knows it's us! But I didn't order them because Rarity would never forgive me if I didn't give her a chance at the first design." With resignation, "Even though that means peeling a bunch of gems off."

"I don't think uniforms really suit us --"

"-- and we were going to need a lot of them. Like, hundreds. Each. So gems wouldn't work anyway."

The steamstack vented.

"Hundreds," Twilight eventually managed, mostly because the venting had only helped the train.

"Sure!" Grinning, "We just have to wear them once each. In front of witnesses. Like the flags which fly over the palace? The ones which the Princesses sell to raise money for charity? They're only up there for a single cycle, to keep the supply going! And then once I put our used uniforms on the collectibles market..."

A good fraction of a gallop passed while Twilight said nothing, mostly because it seemed there was nothing which could be said. But after she realized that Rainbow had been waiting on her for far too long, a syllable managed to emerge.

"No."

"But --"

"NO."

Ponyville was starting to become visible in the distance.

"Fine."

Twilight nodded.

"Even though it's a great idea."

No response.

"And thanks for untying my mouth."

Another nod.

"So about untying my wings and not parading me through Ponyville for the second --"

I love her enough to put up with this.
Most of the time.

"-- no."

And Twilight carried her friend home.