Are You Smarter than a Unicorn?
There was nothing to organize.
Russell looked about his new surroundings – the same library they had started in, perchance – and realized, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that there was nothing for him to do. The library was already in tip-top shape.
"Clean, isn't it?" Twilight noticed. She was standing next to him, trying to help the hedgehog get settled into his new home-away-from-home, and smiling with almost an eerie kind of sense. "Spike tries to get it dusted every hour or so."
"You mean you make me get it done every hour or so," came a call from the other room where Spike was talking with the other pet that was staying in the library, Vinnie; the lavender unicorn sighed and used her magenta magic to slam the door shut.
"B-but…" the hedgehog stuttered, staring up at Twilight with huge green eyes. "There's nothing to clean or organize at all."
"And that's just how it's intended to be. Everything has to be in tip-top shape in my library!" With a large burst of magenta magic the unicorn teleported up to the second flight of stairs, where she yelled, "You can have Spike's bed and he'll sleep in my extra one!"
His head still reeling, Russell began the long scamper up the wooden stairs.
He hadn't wanted to do this – really, he didn't want to still. But to save Blythe the trouble, it had to be worth it, right? …right?
Russell didn't trust Twilight. Ever since she had just appeared out of nowhere…just magicked them back to the library with seemingly no trouble whatsoever, and then turned Blythe into a pegasus…he didn't like this new world. Everything was strange, unfamiliar. The hedgehog preferred to be where he knew what everything was, and, preferably, could organize it.
He finally reached the top of the stairs, panting slightly, and placed one paw on his knee and the other up on his chest. Climbing stairs had never been quite so difficult before, not when they were actually made for pets his size, give or take a few inches.
Twilight sat waiting for him atop her bed, smiling, violet eyes twinkling. "There you are! I was wondering when you would get up here. That's your bed, right over there." The unicorn pointed at a small, circular shaped cushion in an ovoid-like basket that rather reminded Russell of his bed back at Littlest. The blanket atop it was decked out in stars, and the colors were varying shades of shimmering blue. The hedgehog had to admit it did look rather comfortable.
Russell clambered into the bed, slipping beneath the covers and letting out a sigh of contentment. It was comfortable.
"Vinnie can sleep there too," Twilight said, laughing a little at his obvious bliss. "Unless he wants to stick around with Spike in my guest bed. I usually only use that one for slumber parties, though."
The hedgehog nodded, a little bit awkwardly. He now had no idea what to say, and clearly Twilight was waiting for some sort of response. He wouldn't have been surprised if she felt as out-of-place in this conversation as he did.
They sat there for a few minutes, Twilight smiling (which was quite obviously fake and forced, but Russell was nice and didn't point that out) and the hedgehog reclining in his new bed, unsure of quite what to say.
Finally Twilight broke the silence. "So…where did you live before you were kind of…you know, transported here?"
It was a question that arose several memories that Russell didn't quite want to talk about just yet; he placed his palm to his forehead as if he had a searing pain and looked away. "With my owners, but I spent most of the day in Littlest Pet Shop daycare, where Blythe works."
Twilight nodded. "Do all of the pets go there?"
"Yes." A pang shot through Russell, and he flinched, looking at the ground. He wished he was in that big comfy chair at Littlest, not in this enclosed library filled with talking horses…"I was always the smartest…no one else usually touched a book, let alone read one."
"You like to read?" The unicorn's head shot up; her violet eyes were now looking at him with a bright, curious interest. She even sat straighter up on her bead, leaning slightly forward to hear the next answer.
Russell felt partially self-conscious as he nodded slowly. "Y-yeah. I read all the time…I'm the only one who has any common sense in that place." The hedgehog rolled his green eyes.
"Do you, now?" Twilight sat straight up, still staring at him with amazed eyes. "You like trivia?"
Russell nodded, wondering where this conversation was going.
The unicorn clapped her hooves and leapt out of her bed, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, wonderful! We can have some fun, then!" Aiming her voice down at the room below, she screamed, "SPIKE! AND VINNIE! COME UPSTAIRS NOW, WON'T YOU? RUSSELL AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME FUN!"
Some grumbles came from the lower floor, and the slam of the door was heard as Spike, Vinnie perched atop his head, slowly clambered up the stairs. "What is it, Twi? I was just showing Vinnie the books on dancing."
"They're awesome." The gecko leapt off of the dragon's head and began to do something that looked like it could be a mix of the tango, the foxtrot, or perhaps he had simply stubbed his toe. "Look – I'm so much better at dancing now."
Russell bobbed his head, awkwardness in his voice as he echoed dryly and sarcastically, "So much better."
Twilight observed the gecko with a bit of something that looked like mixed confusion and disgust, but quickly wiped the expression off of her face. "Anywho…"
The hedgehog and gecko both flinched, and Spike looked at them curiously. "What?"
"N-nothing," Russell stuttered, while Vinnie said nervously, "Go on, Twilight…"
The lavender unicorn looked at them strangely before continuing. "Anywho, Russell and I are going to have a little trivia match, and you two—" here she pointed at Vinnie and Spike, "—are going to be our announcers."
"A trivia match?" Russell yelped. Twilight only winked at him once before levitating several books over and stacking them up in Spike's claws; overwhelmed, the baby dragon stumbled backwards and nearly fell off the stairs before managing to right himself in time.
"Just read us some questions from there – those are Jade Singer's Book of Strange and Incredible Facts you May or May Not have Known Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5," the unicorn recited proudly, without even having to see the title. "They're her first work besides fantasy."
Spike shrugged and started to open one of the books, when Twilight yelped. "Wait a minute!" As the bewildered baby dragon stared at her in astonishment, she levitated over two buttons and a large blank piece of paper, and then grinned. "Okay, ready. Oh, and Vinnie, can you write—" here she whispered something that Russell couldn't hear in the gecko's ear, "—on that sheet of paper."
Vinnie looked a little daunted by the task, but he saluted nervously. "Y-yes, Ma'm!" With that, he snatched the nearest quill and began to make long, swooping lines on the paper.
"Now, first question," Spike said, flipping through the book airily. "Roughly how old was Star Swirl the Bearded when he created his first spel—Twilight, who's going to know these thin—?"
BEEP!
"One could say that he was roughly middle aged, in his late twenties or early thirties, but Jade personally believes – as well as I – that he was roughly twenty-nine years old when he created his first spell, which was the simple teleportation spell that has allowed unicorns to disappear and reappear from place to place for years on end."
Russell stared in astonishment at Twilight, who grinned proudly, her nose up in the air in a slightly snotty way, although he doubted that she meant it to be a rude gesture. "H-h-how…?"
"That was word for word, except for the 'as well as I' part," Spike stammered, staring at Vinnie, who had stopped his work to look at the unicorn he had previously called a 'genius horse.' Now Russell was beginning to see what he had meant.
"Twi, that's not fair!" the baby dragon finally said in outrage. "Russell isn't even from this world – how is he supposed to know about Star Swirl?"
Twilight looked over at the hedgehog, who was staring at her with baffled green eyes. Russell wasn't quite sure she realized quite how unfair she was being – using facts only from her world and all. "Alright," she said at last, in a slightly more subdued voice. "Spike, go to Volume Thr—"
"No, how about I pick the book?" Spike butted in. "You've probably memorized all of the ones that are pure facts. How about a book about a subject you don't touch often? Animals, perhaps?" Upon saying this, the baby dragon pulled a book with a brightly illustrated cover out of the shelf – Russell squinted to see that it read Animals of Equestria and Beyond on it.
"A-animals?" Twilight stuttered nervously. "But what about magic, or books, or friendship?"
"Animals it is," the dragon announced, grinning, and flipped to the nearest page. "Let's see here…what is the average lifespan of a female spider monkey?"
Russell felt his heart pound; quickly, he slammed down his paw on the button. BEEP! "That would be 20 to 25 years…roughly." He looked at the ground, sighing, knowing his own lifespan was much shorter than that of his friends (well, most of them).
Spike nodded. "One point goes to Russell!"
"Yeah, Rusty!" Vinnie cheered, still doing his work.
Twilight rolled her eyes, a challenging look appearing. "Okay, next question."
The baby dragon grinned; he was clearly enjoying this, noted Russell. "Let's see here…" Flipping through the book, Spike's green eyes lit up. "Ah-ha! What kind of owl is stocky, medium-sized, with pale brown and grey streaks?"
BEEP!
"Would that be the…" Twilight looked up at the ceiling; Russell could almost see the gears turning in her mind. "…Tawny Owl?"
"Cooooorect!" Spike scribbled down a tally mark on a sheet of parchment and flipped to the next page of the book. "This one might be a toughie…how many eyelids do cats have…?"
BEEP! "Six!" Twilight announced proudly, but the baby dragon grimaced and continued his question.
"…on each eye, not total?"
The unicorn did a facehoof, and Russell, though he had no knowledge of the number of eyelids a cat had before, simply divided the number she had used by two and had his answer. BEEP!
"Russell?" Spike looked at him expectantly, a smile on his face.
"…three?" the hedgehog said, a hint of question lingering on his tone. The dragon grinned and nodded, making Twilight facehoof again and mumble something unintelligible.
Vinnie gave Russell a thumbs-up, making the final motions with the quill on the parchment as he did so; glancing at his work he groaned and grabbed a wet towel, smearing the ink slightly as he did so. "Note to self: no writing while looking anywhere other than down."
Choosing to ignore this, Spike turned to the now eager contestants and proclaimed in his best announcer voice, "Oookay, ladies and gentlemen, unicorns and pets! Aaare you ready for this question?"
"Yes!" Twi and Russell burst out at the same time, Russell even leaning forward with green eyes ablaze, the suspense killing him.
"Fill in the blank: When a phoenix 'dies' it is reborn from the…"
BEEP!
"Ashes!" Twilight burst out proudly. Russell grit his teeth; there weren't any phoenixes in their world, but Blythe had told them stories of the mystical birds and he felt that he should have known that, or answered it sooner.
"Good, Twi!" Spike didn't seem impressed, which was probably because he had known the unicorn all of his life and was used to her spouting out random facts like this. "Now…this will be the last question…and we're at a tie!" Switching back into his 'announcer voice' he proclaimed loudly, "WHO WILL WIN? RUSSELL "RUSTY" THE HEDGEHOG OR TWILIGHT "TWI" SPARKLE?"
"I vote Russell!" Vinnie piped up from his spot next to the dragon.
"Interesting, Vinnie, for I place my vote on Twilight!" Spike grinned. "Now, this question will be a tough one! How many years can a tortoise live?"
Tough? Russell thought inwardly. Olive told us all about her lifespan! I doubt Twilight knows any tortoises... Completely confident, the hedgehog slammed his paw on the button…
…at the same moment Twilight did. Neither of them noticing this fact, they both screamed at the same time, completely caught up in the exhilaration, "100 to 150 years!"
Spike laughed out loud. "Well, well, well! How interesting! It appears that…we have a tie! There is no real winner of this episode!" The baby dragon high-fived the gecko, who smiled as he finished the last few strokes of his sign. "Guess we were both correct, Vinnie!"
"A tie?" Russell burst out in a very un-Russell like way. He couldn't help it. He felt he hadn't been caught up in that much fun in weeks! And in this strange, pony-inhabited place!
"Good act, Russell." Twilight's eyes gleamed as she levitated the books back into their proper placing. "That was pretty fun."
"Rematch later on?" the hedgehog asked, grinning.
"For sure! But now, I have to go put these buttons back downstairs. You can rest for a minute – I know that got me worked up!" Humming, Twilight trotted downstairs, Spike on her heels.
Russell grinned and slowly walked over to Vinnie, all of his earlier discomfort forgotten. "What're you working on?"
"A banner for our new traditional game show," the gecko said eagerly, raising his arms as he gestured to the writing he had been working on. "See, it'll be our tradition now, Twilight says! That rematch – it'll be the first of many, I shouldn't wonder!"
The hedgehog eyed the banner, and laughed out loud to see the words, which were so funny and perfect that he couldn't help but smile.
THE END
Author's Note
Takes place during the events of "Chapter 10: History Lesson".
