Author's Note
The idea behind this one was quite simple: there's a [insert stereotype here] human in Ponyville, and not everybody likes it. He gushes over cute things and has the notion that he can just waltz up to any pony and scratch them behind the ears without consent. Twilight Sparkle gets her friends together to try and come up with a way to let him know this is not okay.
I also just love dialogue. I wanted to recapture the kind of banter the Mane Six had that they kind of lost after S3 with Twilight's ascension. The story structure would have given each girl their own dedicated chapter, following their perspective of their most memorable moments with our handsy human, broken by brief philosophical discussions over the ethics of cuteness. I only got as far as the introduction.
I think part of what killed my interest in developing this further is the understanding that this story needed those character perspectives as context for the group discussion the girls were having, and I just didn't want to write those. I just wanted to write the girls and their banter, which would not be able to stand on its own. So this story never went anywhere.
The Pet, Chapter 1
There’s a human in Ponyville, and for some reason it likes to grab anypony and everypony it gets close enough to touch. Confounded, annoyed, and even a little disturbed, no one is quite sure how to handle the situation. Twilight Sparkle gets her friends together in attempt to find a solution to their problem and, furthermore, contemplate the ethical dilemma at hand.
Twilight Sparkle stuck her head out the front door of the library, scanning the nearby streets for anything out of the ordinary. Granted, what she learned to be ordinary around here wouldn’t fit anyone’s definition of the word, but even Ponyville was pleasantly calm at times. Such as today, for example, but given the nature of the town’s most recent member, such serenity worried her.
She quietly drew her head in and shut the front door, making doubly sure it was properly locked. A small sigh escaped her as she returned to a round table set up in the middle of the library’s main room, with a number of plush cushions surrounding it and some water glasses on top. Only one seat was available to her and she quickly took it, joining the conversation of her friends.
“I don’t get what that has to do with anything,” Rarity said, frowning.
Pinkie Pie slammed her hooves on the table from across. “It has everything to do with anything!” she cried. “Sandwiches need to be cut into triangles, not squares! This is the fundamental principle that all sliced bread-based foods are founded upon!”
Spike inched away from her however slightly. “Sorry, Pinkie Pie,” he said, unsure of whether or not he should remove the plate from the table. “I just thought everypony would want some snacks. I wasn’t really thinking about how I should cut them.”
She leaned into him and furrowed her brow. “See to it that this never happens again,” she hissed, then swiped one of the sandwiches off the plate. She slowly returned to herself, frowning the whole while she ate.
Twilight found herself sitting right beside Spike and gave him a kind pat on the back. “I’m sure we can discuss the ethics of geometry later if we really want to,” she said, “but that’s not why I asked you all to come meet me today.”
“I figured,” Applejack said.
Rarity gave a small nod and took a sip from her glass. She motioned with her hoof next to Applejack and said, “It’s about that human, isn’t it?”
Twilight nodded back. “He’s... turning out to be quite a problem, as I’m sure you’re all aware.”
Fluttershy looked at her. “You want to get rid of him?”
“No,” Twilight was quick to say, turning to her side. “No. At least... no. But a lot of ponies think he’s a nuisance, and one way or another, I want to figure out a way to get him to stop being one.”
“Why?” Rainbow Dash piped up, seated between Applejack and Pinkie Pie. The former gave her a sidelong glance and the latter was too focused angrily eating her sandwich. She added, “I mean, what’s the problem?”
“You don’t think there’s a problem?” Applejack asked her. “What with his tendency to just walk up and start touching ponies out of the blue? Like we’re all just cats and dogs okay with being scratched?”
Rainbow Dash just shrugged, and she received an even more questioning look.
Rarity tossed her mane back. “I think it’s endearing, actually,” she said. “It can definitely be a bit much, I’ll give you that. But after a lady spends so much time making herself presentable and look her best every morning, it certainly feels great to be noticed for all that hard work.”
Spike made a sound that was stuck between a whimper and an aggravated sigh.
“Okay, so it looks like there’s some conflicting opinions,” Twilight mused. She produced a notepad and a pencil, and looked over towards Rarity.
“I’m not saying there isn’t a problem,” Rarity reiterated, “just that I occasionally appreciate the attention, is all. He does have the most uncanny ability to appear at the most inconvenient times, and I suppose he can be a bit clingy. I mean, take the other day, for instance!”
Derpy and Carrot Top go on an Epic Quest to Save the Word, Prologue
Author's Note
This was shameless Chris bait. Or at least it began as such.
This story was going to be a further development of my minific Insufficient Postage, wherein some character(s) do something utterly minimal and boring, but with sweeping ramifications. I think Derpy and Carrot Top are cute together, and I also liked the silly idea I used in my minific of a missing postage stamp causing the end of the world. So the premise was nailed.
The story would have followed Derpy delivering some MacGuffin from Twilight to Cadance. Carrot Top would have been at her side to give Derpy someone to bounce off of and keep her grounded, because Earth Ponies can't fly. They ultimately would have simply walked into the Crystal Empire while the world completely falls apart around them and deliver the MacGuffin to Cadance. Then the princess would basically flip a switch and the apocalypse would be averted.
Why I never went anywhere with this beyond the prologue, I will honestly never fully understand. The idea is absolute gold. I might come back to it later when I have other, more pressing real-life and horse-fic matters tended to. But for the time being this story exists in limbo, and I simply felt it was a damn shame that glorious prologue was never shared with anyone. So here you go.
Derpy and Carrot Top go on an Epic Quest to Save the Word, Prologue
“So, Rarity,” Twilight said, “why don’t you explain to me again how this happened?”
“Well...” Rarity clicked her tongue. “About a week ago, last Monday if I recall, I was running some afternoon errands and happened to trip over what I thought was a giant ruby just laying in the middle of the road.” A small smile appeared on her face and she quickly pushed it away. “But upon closer inspection, I didn’t know what it was other than some sort of crystal. And it was so oddly shaped and had this unique shade of red to it, I was undecided on whether or not I wanted to use it in an upcoming fashion line. So I took it home and put on my dresser to deal with later. Then you came over that evening, and—”
“I quickly realized it was King Sombra’s disembodied horn,” Twilight finished for her, deadpan. “I get that. I told you to just not touch it and maybe sleep in your guest room until I finished my research on how to handle this.”
“And I did just that!” Rarity said aghast, throwing a hoof over her chest.
“Then how’d it end up inside your safe?”
“Ah, well, that’s a different story,” Rarity muttered, looking away.
“We’re all ears,” Applejack said.
Rarity shot her a look, dragging out a pause before saying, “Sweetie Belle had her friends over a few nights ago for a sleepover, and they tried to get their cutie marks in animal care, and by giving Opalescence a bath.” She shivered. “The poor dear was having none of it, so she ran, and those three ran after her. One thing led to another and they ended up knocking it onto the floor. I’ll have you know I did not want to touch that thing in any way whatsoever, so I got a broom and dustpan with the intent of just sweeping it up, and that’s when, well, it ate my dustpan.”
“Sombra’s horn ate your dustpan,” Twilight repeated.
“Not literally,” Rarity said, waggling a hoof in the air dismissively. “But it was a gift from my mother when I first moved out of her place. It had these small encrusted gemstones all over it, and as soon as I picked up that... horn, with it, all those gems melted away and a swirling ball of black gas just appeared around the base of the horn! And it had eyes! Why, I’d never been so scared in my life!”
“I heard the screams from Sugarcube Corner,” Pinkie Pie quipped.
“Anyways, I also had my safe open at the time,” Rarity said, motioning to the small black box bolted into the far corner of her bedroom. “I was just doing some reorganization, and I have this big diamond in there—a gift, from a distant friend of mine. For better or for worse, I guess, Sombra was attracted to it? I just watched in shock at what looked like a red railroad spike with a little black head just floated over and into the safe. Thinking quickly, I sealed it while he was still in there, but now I’m afraid to even stand around it!”
“So Sombra eats gems and grows bigger?” Applejack asked nobody in particular. “That’s troubling.”
“It shouldn’t complicate things,” Twilight admitted, ruffling her wings in discomfort. “I wasn’t able to find much information about him other than what we already know, and even then, that isn’t much. Spike’s helping the princesses with a project in Canterlot, but I did send a letter to Princess Cadance in the Crystal Empire asking for assistance. I know she’s busy right now, so I don’t expect her to come help personally, but I hope she’ll be able to offer some insight in her reply, or even a means of stopping him more effectively since it’s obvious he isn’t as ‘defeated’ as we first thought.”
“When should you be hearing back from her?” Rarity asked.
“The first thing I did was send that letter out,” Twilight said. “I should be getting a response today, actually.”
“Then shouldn’t you be at your place to accept your mail?”
“Taken care of,” Twilight said with a nod. “Rainbow Dash is there. She’ll pick it up as soon as the mailpony drops it off and get to us here asap.”
Fluttershy stared at the safe out of the corner of her eye. “Shouldn’t we wait until we get Cadance’s letter, though? I’d probably be a lot safer that way, don’t you think?”
Twilight shook her head. “The least amount of time we let him plan an escape, the better. But the small corner of Rarity’s bedroom doesn’t really give us much room to work with, regardless of what Cadance’s instructions might be.” She lifted the large, empty fish tank she had brought. “We need to get him trapped inside something more manageable. That’s why I’ve called for all of you to come help, because this definitely won’t be easy.”
“Just don’t make too big of a mess of my room,” Rarity said worryingly, slowly turning her gaze around and into a threatening glare.
Pinkie Pie seemed to recoil. “Hey, this wasn’t my idea!” she snapped, clutching the large umbrella standing beside her tightly. “Twilight said I need this to, uh...”
“To corral Sombra in case he tries to fly away,” Twilight answered.
“Just be careful, please...” Rarity said.
“It’s a precautionary measure. I don’t think she’ll be needing to use it that much,” Twilight said. “Applejack’s going to be baiting him to me so I can trap him.”
“Yup!” Applejack said. She had a rope held between her teeth and she jerked her head, and a bright-blue gemstone tied to the other end expertly flicked through the air before landing right at the base of her hooves. “I got this big juicy diamond here for him. Or, at least, I think he’d find it juicy. I dunno.”
“That’s a sapphire, not a diamond,” Rarity corrected, and she couldn’t help but stare at it. “And wherever did you find it? The cut is gorgeous and it looks absolutely stunning!”
“Oh, I just reached into your jewelry box and plucked the fanciest one I could find.”
“Applejack!” she barked.
“Well, obviously you haven’t been using it if you forgot it was yours!” Applejack remarked.
“Girls, please!” Twilight shouted. “Focus! We all need to work together on this!”
Rarity sighed. “Alright, fine. Just tell us what we need to do.”
“That safe is bolted into the wall, right?” she asked, and got a nod in return. “Right. So our only real option is to open the safe and catch him. I don’t know how strong he is, so Pinkie Pie, I need you to guard the door and windows with your umbrella in case he tries to escape.”
“On it!” Pinkie Pie said with a salute. She turned and leapt towards the bedroom door, only to drift lazily back to the floor as she held onto the opened umbrella like a parasail, giggling.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Applejack? As soon as that safe door opens, I need you to get that sapphire in Sombra’s face. But once he starts going after it, don’t let him have it.”
“You can count on me,” Applejack said with a nod, adjusting the hat on her head.
“I am,” Twilight said, and she turned to her side. “But just in case, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy squeaked and jumped, almost losing her grip on the small butterfly net in her hooves.
Twilight kept her face completely straight. “Go up near the ceiling and be ready. You need to be able to drop on Sombra at any moment should he get by the rest of us, alright?”
“Right,” Fluttershy said sternly, but her voice cracked at the end. She gripped the butterfly net tightly and flew up above the rest of the group.
Twilight exhaled deeply and glanced to Rarity, which was the only command her friend needed to see. Rarity gulped and slowly walked over to the safe, bending down and lighting her horn to undo the safe’s complex combination lock. After a couple of seconds there was a deafening clang as the tumblers released, and with a little bit of magic on the handle, she gave everypony in the room a final, wary look. Twilight nodded and lifted the fish tank in front of her face, and Rarity shut her eyes and opened the door.
Applejack snapped her head and threw the sapphire at the safe as Rarity squealed and jumped aside, but she was too late to catch King Sombra as he came rocketing out at the very second. A swirling black ball of gas trailed behind his horn as it pierced the air, making a beeline straight for the bedroom door. Twilight yelped and threw the fish tank high to intercept, but she just barely missed him.
Pinkie Pie leapt into the air, aiming her umbrella like a javelin before springing it open right in front of Sombra. The ball of gas smacked into the umbrella and rebounded off the ceiling, missing Fluttershy as she dove for cover, and right into the Applejack’s path. She twisted around and sent the sapphire up to meet him, but Sombra unexpectedly made a sharp turn before he could see the gem and shot for the far window, flying right over Rarity’s bed.
Rarity was standing on her bed when this happened and screamed again, diving out of the way as Twilight jumped after Sombra and swung with the fish tank. She missed again, and Pinkie Pie once more came in at the last moment and deflected Sombra off course before he could reach the windows.
Applejack snarled and threw the sapphire a third time, and this time Sombra’s eye snapped to it. He made a sharp right turn after it, and with a grunt of satisfaction, Applejack jerked her head from side to side, whipping the sapphire away and around the room. While she could expertly spin the rope as to not hit anything in the room, Sombra was more clumsy, and he slammed carelessly against the various furniture in his pursuit. Meanwhile Fluttershy buzzed around above randomly, her eyes clenched shut, and her hooves swinging the butterfly net wildly beneath her.
“Applejack!” Rarity yelled from under her bed after Sombra had knocked a lamp to the floor. “Watch what you’re doing!”
“Can it!” Applejack barked, her eyes focused upwards. “Twilight!”
“I’m here!” Twilight yelled, flying into the path of the sapphire with the fish tank held into front of her chest. Applejack snapped her head again and yanked back the sapphire, causing Sombra to again overshoot and slam bodily into the fish tank. The collision knocked the wind out of Twilight and she twirled, but she was able to keep herself aloft and kicked off the nearest wall. She dropped to the floor and slammed the fish tank upside down against the ground, laying on top of it and gasping for air.
“Ha! Gotcha!” Applejack said, absentmindedly pulling back on the sapphire a final time. She didn’t at all notice Rarity jump to catch it before it could hit the ground, nor did she see the utterly frustrated look she was receiving. She cantered up to Twilight and said, “That went by quicker than I thought it would, honestly.”
“Easy!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed in agreement, floating down beside them on the umbrella.
“Could’ve been done with a little more finesse,” Rarity mumbled, replacing the lamp that had fallen. “But I suppose all that matters is that that is finally dealt with,” she added, pointing back to the fish tank.
Twilight was able to pull herself upright upon it, but it still felt like she was breathing through a straw. Nonetheless, she kept her weight onto the fish tank, preventing Sombra from escaping. Two beady eyes glowered from the black stub of smoke attached to the base of the horn, showering the ponies with silent curses as Sombra plinked around against the translucent walls of his newfound prison.
Applejack tapped the side of it, and this only seemed to further infuriate Sombra. “The feller certainly doesn’t look too happy.”
“I’d be worried if he wasn’t,” Rarity mused. She looked towards the ceiling and said, “Fluttershy, dear! It’s all over! You can come down now!”
Fluttershy opened her eyes, just in time to catch herself from flying into a wall. She glanced down at her butterfly net and asked, “Did I get him?”
“Nah, but you were a sure help regardless,” Applejack said. She glanced out of the corner of her eye. “Unlike somepony...”
Rarity brought a hoof to her chest and gasped. “How dare you imply I did nothing to contribute to King Sombra’s recapture!” She scoffed.
“That was a lot of running and screaming you were doing.”
Rarity gnashed her teeth. “Applejack...”
“It’s okay, Rarity,” Fluttershy said, landing right beside her. “I didn’t do much either.”
Before Rarity could decide how to respond to that—if at all—Pinkie Pie asked, “What now?”
“Now,” Twilight said, her breathing becoming level, “we wait for Rainbow Dash. She should be here any minute now.”
“I sure hope so,” Applejack said, forming a slight frown as she continued to watch Sombra. “You sure that thing’s strong enough to hold him?”
“Positive,” Twilight replied, patting the overturned underside of the fish tank. “The glass in here is made from a special blend of calcium carbonate. It makes it incredibly strong, and I made sure to buy the fish tank with the thickest walls there was.”
“Calcium carbonate?” Pinkie Pie tilted her head. “You mean limestone?”
“I think so?” Twilight said.
“Limestone?” Rarity asked aloud. A second passed and she finally settled on an expression to show: deep concern. “Twilight,” she pressed, “Glass where pristine transparency is the most desirable trait—such as a fish tank—isn’t made from limestone. They’re made from flint glass.”
Applejack blew a raspberry. “I really don’t think we need a lesson on specifics right now, Rarity.”
She was promptly ignored. Rarity took a weary step towards a confused Twilight and said, “Flint glass is made from lead. Specifically, lead crystal.”
Twilight sat there puzzled for a second, the synapses of her mind firing together repeatedly, before they shorted out and she finally understood what Rarity was telling her, and more importantly, her critical error. Her eyes went wide and crossed, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and her heart did a nosedive into the pit of her stomach. She poked her head down just in time to catch the glass wall of the fish tank fizzle and melt, and the ball of smoke inside grew. She blinked at it, and it blinked back at her, and then the fish tank toppled over like a domino, taking her with it.
Twilight sprawled out on the floor completely absent minded and Rarity screamed, retreating to the sanctuary of the space beneath her bed. Applejack jumped over to try and wrestle the fish tank away, but she fell back with an audible pop! and when she righted herself, saw she was only holding the plastic base. The glass continued to melt until nothing remained, the vapors coalescing with the rest of Sombra’s form. He now looked like the ghost a newborn unicorn foal, with a horn the entire length of his body sprouting out of his forehead.
Sombra made a run for the door and Pinkie Pie jumped at him with her umbrella, but was too slow to get in front and stop him. The umbrella sprung open uselessly, and Sombra spared the ponies in the room a fleeting glance, taking in the joy of their shocked and defeated faces.
He suddenly got a face full of net and crashed bodily into the floor.
Fluttershy yelped, her grip on her butterfly net set like stone, and Sombra dragged her to the floor in a disoriented heap. Applejack was already on her hooves and as soon as they crashed, she had Sombra by the net as well. Pinkie Pie quickly joined the fray, and together they held down Sombra as he tried desperately to lift off the floor. The glare in his eyes was back like never before, and he hissed curses at the ponies who’d foiled his escape yet again.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, a determined smile set across her face.
Then, all of a sudden, the bedroom windows blew open and the three ponies were tackled to the floor.
Rainbow Dash poked her head up from the pile of bodies, holding a book-sized box aloft. “Got it!” she declared.
“You got him?” Rarity asked, her head poking out from underneath her bed hopefully.
Rainbow Dash glanced at her. “Him?” she asked dumbly, looking between her and the box. She placed an ear against the box and shook it experimentally. “Cadance didn’t put any air holes in it,” she answered, a bit of worry in her tone.
“I think she meant Sombra,” Twilight said, finally coming out of her stupor. She rose unsteadily and glanced around. “We have him, right?”
Fluttershy looked at her broken butterfly net in despair.
The door to Rarity’s bedroom hung limply open.
Pinkie Pie slammed a hoof into the floor. “I knew we should have closed that!” she declared.
War Of The Words, Chapters 1-2
Author's Note
This story was simply stress relief.
This story would have gone out to all you editors and proofreaders. You know who you are. You know why I would have wanted this to exist.
Unfortunately, after what you see here, my stress had been relieved, and I felt no immediate desire to come back to this. So it sits, gathering dust.
War Of The Words, Chapters 1-2
“Experiences...” Twilight mumbled, staring down at a piece of paper placed on her desk. She frowned. “Being the captain of the Ponyville weather team for six years ‘strate’, the best of class during flight camp as a filly, winning the best young fliers competition... being ‘awesomerific’?”
She pinched the bridge of her snout and slowly shook her head. Withholding a sigh, she glanced deadpan to the edge of the desk where Rainbow Dash stood, a happy and expectant smile on her face. They stared at each other for a second in silence before Twilight returned to the paper, rolling her eyes like they were the heaviest weights she’d ever born.
“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It’s... thin, to say the least,” Twilight said, skimming over the rest of the paper, which accounted for about a short paragraph’s worth of material. She placed a hoof on it and pushed it away. “I agreed to help you with your application for the Wonderbolts Academy, but I can’t really do anything when you’re lacking so much content.”
Rainbow Dash tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you need to tell me more,” Twilight said, rolling her hoof. “You point out a lot of what you’ve done, like any good application should. I’ll give you that. But you don’t give any explanation as to why these things you’ve done have any merit, let alone why the Wonderbolts should accept you.”
“I saved their lives!”
“And you say that,” Twilight said with a nod, before frowning back at the paper. She read, “‘Reference: I saved your lives’. But that’s not even a reference!”
Rainbow Dash offered a hoof and gave her a skeptical look. “Don’t you think they should get what I’m referencing?”
Twilight’s hoof met the space between her eyes for the second time in as many minutes. Her mind wandered for a kind response but none of the words she found were gentle. Instead, and only after the slight throbbing on the side of her head ceased, she had an idea.
“Look,” she said, doing her best to sound polite, “I must admit I’ve never actually had to write an application before, so maybe I’m not the best pony to help you.” She paused, searching for the right words. “My expertise has more to do with linguistics: grammar, syntax, and all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to actually writing an application, I think you’d be better off asking someone else.”
Rainbow Dash took a small step back, unsure how to react to the smartest pony she knew telling her she wasn’t smart enough to help her. Or at least, that’s what she thought she heard. Confused, she asked, “Can’t you do that edit stuff now and fix my application for me?”
Twilight didn’t need to think for a second. “No,” she said, “not really. Like I said, you need more content here for me to really be of use. Just looking at it as is, I can tell you they won’t accept it, and all I can do right now is correct a few misspellings and that really isn’t much. That, and that ‘awesomerific’ isn’t a real word, either.”
Rainbow Dash’s ears fell back. “Aw, I liked that one.”
“You can’t just make up words,” Twilight explained. “But that’s beside the point. You simply need to say more about yourself in your application. Do that, and I’d be more than happy to give it a look before you mail it out.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t look too convinced. She gave her friend a curious look and said, “Well, if you can’t help me write this, then do you know who will?”
Twilight stole a quick glance out a nearby window, at a small rooftop in the distance poking above all the others. She hummed. “Rarity’s probably written applications before,” she said with a soft smile. “Why don’t you go see what she can do? She might actually have an example or two for you to reference.”
“Alright...” Rainbow Dash said, giving a perplexed look to the piece of paper as it floated through the air, rolled up, and was placed snugly under her wing. “Thanks, I guess.”
“And do come back after you’re done!” Twilight was quick to say. “I’d still love to help you out with the proofreading and editing. I’m not sure Rarity’s the most capable pony in that respect,” she added, blowing a small raspberry.
Rainbow Dash snickered. “Alright,” she said, smiling and turning away. “I’ll go do that now. See you tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow!” Twilight said, waving after her as she left the room. She continued to do this until she heard the sound of hoofsteps grow fainter and fainter, until they disappeared with the muffled sound of the library’s front door slamming shut.
Her breath trickled out of her and she returned to her desk, deflated and perplexed. Rainbow Dash had picked up a serious knack for reading over the past year, so it made sense for her to have had some understanding of what it meant to write; it wasn’t like she was needing to write a story or anything. Just a simple application. But that wasn’t the case, apparently, and Twilight mulled over this by resting her chin on the tabletop.
She certainly wasn’t going to write the application for Rainbow Dash herself. Twilight frowned again, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t tell her friend to just completely rewrite it, like what really needed to be done. Oh well, Rarity did have a tactful sense of bluntness she lacked, anyways. She always knew what to say. Twilight was confident Rarity would be able to at least set Rainbow Dash’s application on a straight enough path, then she’d be the one to even it out.
“Awesome experiences...” Twilight mumbled, glaring down at the piece of paper on her desk. Her confused frown quickly deepened. “Being the awesocaptain of Ponyville’s awesoweather team for six awesome years, the awesombest of the awesomest class at the awesoflight camp as an awesofilly, awesomely winning the awesombest young awesoflyers awesome competition... and being ‘awesomerific.’”
Twilight turned her head.
Rainbow Dash looked back at her with a smile. “Well?”
“I...” Twilight tried to find her words and glanced back at the paper, which provided her with nothing. “I don’t even know,” she said. She gave her friend a concerned look and said, “I thought you were going to Rarity’s for help with this?”
“I did!” Rainbow Dash’s ears fell back. “Why, is it still not good enough?”
“Not good enough?” Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry, but it’s worse than your earlier draft! How’d you even come up with this?”
“It was Rarity’s idea,” Rainbow Dash quipped. “She agreed with me that I am awesome, and she said that I should get that awesomeness across into my application.”
Twilight sighed. “I don’t think she meant that literally.”
“No, she did,” Rainbow Dash said, dismissing her. “I told her I invented the word ‘awesomerific’ and she thought that was a nice touch.” Smiling, she added, “She thought that was really cool, as a matter of fact. So she helped me come up with a few more. Awesomister, awesom-eer, awesome-awesome, which is like double the awesome...”
“Wait, what?” Twilight stared. “Rarity actually... buh, what?!”
“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said with a smile. “Oh, and you were right. She did have an old résumé I could use for a reference, which was awesome.” She paused. “Awésumé.” She laughed. “This is fun! Who knew words could be so cool? Well, you, I guess. I see now why you live in a library of all places.”
