One Thousand Grains of Rice
"I'm counting off the seconds until you die," the domineering redhead said coldly. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five..."
Twilight believed her.
Fifteen minutes earlier, the small, dark girl had told the taller redhead, "I'm so glad you're willing to talk about changing your ways."
Sunset Shimmer unlocked the door into the deserted, half-dark cafeteria kitchen's back room. "For privacy. After you?"
Twilight went in first, and Sunset followed her. Metal shelves held industrial size packages of different food products, from applesauce to canned yams.
"Don't you see how much happier you would be, if you embraced the ways of friendship?" Twilight said cheerfully as she turned around. When she saw an eerie red glow in Sunset's eyes, Twilight's mouth went dry, and her throat seemed to constrict.
Sunset smiled cruelly. "Do go on."
"I...um..."
"How about this, Twilight? I'm curious how I seem, from your point of view. What do you think I want? What could my plans possibly be? What kind of person do you think I really am?"
"Um...misguided? I mean, lonely and sad?"
Sunset growled, "Guess the REAL reason I asked you to meet me here this afternoon." She locked the room's one door.
Twilight glanced up at the room's small, high windows. No way out, she thought.
"Come on, Twilight. Guess. I know you were a personal student of Princess Celestia, just like me. You surely have a brain in that head. Use it."
"I...um...I don't know."
Sunset snorted. "For as long as you keep trying hard to guess the reason, I won't kill you. Probably."
Something inside Twilight felt that her enemy really could and would take a life, if she wanted to. Twilight told herself she didn't have any logical evidence, but she still believed it, like a rabbit cornered by a predatory snake.
Maybe that feeling was a clue. But would Twilight ever figure out what it meant? While she lived?
Sunset's hand slammed the wall. "Answer me!"
"Ok." Twilight laughed nervously. "You...sow conflict wherever you go. Like how you sent a message to Pinkie Pie, pretending to be Rainbow Dash, insulting her party invitation. You like to lie and be dishonest, and you wrecked their friendship."
Sunset nodded. "Mmm-hmm. And does that really make sense to you?"
"Um...I guess so?"
Sunset shook her head. "You really ARE a fool. Do you think that's all it took? One nasty little note, and no one even tried to talk to each other ever again?"
Twilight looked up at the windows again. All the same size, all the same height, all facing the same direction.
All facing east.
Twilight wondered, why does that feel important somehow?
Sunset pulled a tube of sunblock out of her purse, a habit Twilight had noted before. She shook a glob out into her palm, and smeared it on all her exposed skin.
Sunset always seemed so cool and in control. Why would she have this ONE nervous habit?
"Um...you like to take good care of your skin?" Twilight ventured.
Sunset chuckled almost silently. "You really are a nerd, Twilight. Give you a puzzle, pose you a riddle, and you can't help but try to solve it, can you?"
Twilight blushed. She felt transparent. Easy to manipulate, easy to control.
If only she could get a handle like that on Sunset.
Maybe Sunset was vain. Could Twilight admire her fashion sense, as a sort of compliment? A way to find a little common ground? "Um...your sunglasses are really cool. Can I borrow them?"
Sunset frowned. "No."
"Ok, sorry. I just thought...if I could learn to be cool like you..."
"You're an idiot."
"I was trying to understand you!" Twilight pleaded. "I just wanted to--"
"Time's up!" Sunset said. She stepped towards Twilight, who flinched. As Twilight tried to turn and run, her shoulder rammed a tall rack of shelves, shoving a large bag of rice. The burlap sack scraped against a rough metal edge on the shelving unit and tore open, spilling out pounds and pounds of rice onto the floor.
Myths and Legends, Twilight thought. A book I read when I was looking for clues to Nightmare Moon.
Vamponies are dangerous, blood-sucking creatures. But they're hurt by sunlight, and...when they encounter a pile of beans or peas or rice, they have to stop and count each grain.
Sunset visibly struggled, but couldn't keep herself from looking down at the spilled rice. "You prissy little pony. But this will only stop me for a little while. As I count these grains of rice, I'm counting off the seconds until you die."
Twilight believed her.
Twilight huddled in the corner farthest from Sunset. She thought, Sunset picked this room because no one comes into the kitchen after school. But if I can stay alive until the cooks come to make breakfast...I think I can escape.
Not long after midnight, Sunset said, "Thirty eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty-three." Sunset's growing smile bared her highly developed canines. "And I'm done. Any last words?"
Twilight's left hand dug in her skirt pocket. At the very bottom, her fingers hit an obstacle, like little pieces of sand or gravel.
Rice. When the spilled rice had fallen on the floor, some had fallen into her pocket too. Her fingers dug deeper. Five hundred grains? A thousand grains? Even she didn't know how many her pocket held. Which was perfect. What she herself didn't know, she couldn't tell her interrogator, her captor, her Equestrian opposite and counterpart.
Twilight pulled a partial handful of rice out of her pocket, and threw it onto the first rice spill, between herself and Sunset Shimmer.
"How many are there now?" Twilight asked with a smile. "The new total, I mean."
Sunset Shimmer screamed wordlessly for a moment, until her new task pulled her eyes irresistibly towards the floor. "One. Two. Three..."
Twilight watched a clock on the wall, as she ran through a quick mental calculation of her own. Yes, she was certain. She would live to see the dawn.
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