Twilight impatiently drummed her fingers against the table, lifting her face-down phone from the table to check the time again.

Her expression hardened into a scowl as started to fidget in her chair. She felt the urge to get up and perhaps go looking for Rainbow Dash, who was now (Twilight checked the clock again) twelve entire minutes late to their chess tutoring session, but doing so would mean sacrificing the prime library real estate she had.

Everyone knew that the best spot was the table behind the fantasy section; the window was perfectly shaded past 3pm so the sun never got in your eyes or reflected painfully off white pages, but remained light enough that you never had to strain your eyes to read, like the tables behind the history section. As soon as she got up, some other study group would bag it and she’d have to go elsewhere.

Thus, she was forced to remain seated, anxiously opening and closing the book she’d been reading that day, not wanting to get too invested just in case Dash chose that exact moment to show up.

Gosh, did punctuality mean nothing anymore? Where was this cruel society going, if youths lost the importance of attending appointments on time? Not to mention the fact that it was also just plain rude, and Twilight was paying by the hour. That was important too.

Twelve minutes ticked to fifteen. Twilight started to wonder if perhaps the fault lied with her. Maybe she got the time wrong.

Then she giggled to herself. She never got the time wrong.

Maybe Dash got run over by some kid on a bike on the way over. Even though Principal Celestia had a whole assembly about waiting to get past the school gates before starting your cycle home, scarcely anyone respected that rule. Twilight had nearly gotten herself plowed down by a BMX-riding psycho while lost in a book all too many times to not speak on the matter from experience.

Fifteen minutes loomed into twenty, and Twilight started to consider just packing up.

She sighed, then started to put the pieces she’d set up away into the portable chess set she’d brought from home. That’s what she got for trusting someone like Rainbow.

She had been foolish for assuming that seeing her breakdown would be enough to form some sort of… maybe bond wasn’t quite the right word, but… she thought she’d at least respect Twilight enough to actually attend their session.

Right as Twilight closed the box, Dash tossed her bag into the seat opposite, clearly out of breath.

“Shit, sorry—are you packing up already?”

Twilight leered at her. “You’re—” she looked back down at her phone. “Twenty-three minutes tardy!”

“My momma says you’re not allowed to call me that word.”

“Do you think punctuality is some sort of joke? I hope you know I’m docking your rate for this.”

Dash grimaced. “That’s fair, but I had a good reason.”

“Which is…?”

Dash took out her phone, glanced at the screen, then put it away, taking her sweet time to answer as she sat down.

“Pinkie Pie isn’t answering her phone, so I went down to her house to try and see if she was just sick or something, but she wasn’t there. The trip took me longer than I thought it would… so I was late.” She bowed her head exaggeratedly. “Accept my sincerest apologies, your highness.”

She pouted, but Twilight’s expression softened slightly. “Is she… okay?”

“She’s fine,” Dash scowled. “She sent me a GIF of a cat doing a handstand so I know she’s alive. She just skipped detention because she can somehow get away with just about anything that I get shit for but, that’s Pinkie for ya. She works in mysterious ways.”

“What, like Santa Claus?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“Exactly like Santa Claus. Now you’re getting it, egghead.”

“Would you stop calling me names?”

“Nah, I think I like egghead. Your head’s kinda shaped like one. Maybe the pressure from your gigantic brain is like…” Dash made a slight motion with her hands. “Pushing the skull upwards.”

“I am this close to deciding this session isn’t worth it.”

“Hey, hey, let’s not get hasty there! I was just messing with you.”

“Fine! Then I’ll give you an awful nickname too! Let’s see, how about… featherbrain!”

“See, that’s just rude, Twilight,” Dash exclaimed, putting her hand to her chest as if wounded. “I thought we had a truce!”

“Egghead is worse than featherbrain!”

“Nerd logic,” Dash sighed, then shook her head. “Whatever, just get the chess set back out. You like… know where the pieces go, right?”

Twilight gave her a look that briefly reminded Dash of a scorned cat being denied wet food.

Once the pieces were set up, Dash reclined in her chair and gave Twilight a bored look.

“Welp, let’s see what you got then. You can be white. Show me your go-to opening.”

Twilight obeyed, advancing the king’s pawn by two squares. She didn’t want to admit it, and would probably die before that ever happened, but the familiar need for approval was bubbling up her throat, making her want to… impress Dash, at least a bit.

Dash may have been an asshole on the best days, but whilst sitting in the seat opposite Twilight, she was a teacher.

The games trudged on and, although Twilight knew she had every main line memorized perfectly, she was still getting checkmated in every. Single. One. At some point, it stopped feeling like a game, and more like Twilight hitching herself up on a punching bag for Dash to take swings at.

Somewhere after 5-0, Twilight realized during a pause that Dash wasn't looking at the board, but rather at her.

Her eyes were narrowed for a moment, scrutinizing.

“You play like a bot.”

“I do not!”

“Do too.”

“Why, just because I follow openings that have been established for centuries, I’m a robot, now?”

Something in Twilight briefly stung. It was not the first time she’d been likened to a machine. It was rarely every positive.

“You're frickin’ pathological. You need, like, psychiatric intervention or something for your need to get a gold star.”

“Can you just play the next move already?”

“You sure you want me to? You wouldn't rather I just give you an A plus for effort?”

“You're insufferable and I'd rather you just do what I'm paying you to do.”

Dash smirked, then shrugged, and slid her queen forward.

“Check,” she announced.

Twilight gnawed at the inside of her cheeks, but begrudgingly shifted her king out of the way behind the line of pawns on his side.

Seeing this, Dash promptly snapped up the pawn Twilight had left hanging.

“Check.”

Twilight's king was meekly pushed further into the hidey-hole Dash's ruthless assault was forcing him into, leaving the white bishop free for the taking.

With the pile of pieces on Dash's side of the board quickly growing, Twilight let out a disgruntled huff.

“You're so focused on memorizing the lines you're not reacting to any unconventional move.”

Dash’s bishop came out and with that, the game came to an anticlimactic end.

“Checkmate,” she announced. “Damn, you like…suck suck.”

She picked up Twilight’s king, then flicked it across the table, sending the poor piece tumbling into Twilight’s lap.

Upon replacing him to his former position, Twilight pouted. “Insulting me isn't conducive to a healthy learning environment.”

“Sucking so bad you make me want to watch grandmaster games for therapy isn't conductive to a healthy teaching environment.”

“Conducive.”

“Use all the big words you want, egghead, you still suck.”

Dash glanced at her watch, then promptly stood up. “That's time!”

“What? But I hardly learned anything!”

“Well, I learned a lot about your game style. I can tailor some sort of plan now… or something.”

Twilight glared at Dash as she started to pack her things up. “The next tournament for the team is in two weeks, how are you exactly going to teach me anything if all our lessons are just going to involve you crushing me then leaving?”

“I'm crushing you with purpose,” Dash argued, then patted Twilight on the head, prompting the other girl to swat the hand away as if it were an irritating mosquito just begging to be crushed between two books. “Same time tomorrow?”

Twilight's expression didn't waver, but she begrudgingly nodded.

“Same time tomorrow.”

Dash started to leave, when Twilight called out to her, causing her to backtrack and see Twilight tripping over her chair to get up.

“Wait! Give me your phone.”

“No offense, but that's a terrible way to mug someone. No shiv or anything.”

“To put my number in, featherbrain. If you're late again, I need to be able to reach you.”

Dash said something about just joking, but Twilight was unfazed, looking at her expectantly.

Sighing, Dash handed the device over.

“I better not get any calls informing me you subscribed me to Geek Weekly.”

Twilight typed her number in and labeled the contact simply with her name. Upon getting her phone back, Dash typed something else in, then cheekily turned the screen around, showing Twilight the new contact name of ‘Egghead Prime.’

Before she could pluck the phone away, Dash ran away from Twilight.

When she was out of view, Twilight's phone buzzed with a new message.

Unknown Contact: you better name my contact something cool

Rolling her eyes, Twilight started to make a profile for her new… Not friend, really. New mentor.

She hesitated when typing the name in, then smiled, plugging in ‘Featherbrain.’

Among Twilight's scarce contacts, all named things like ‘Shining Armor, brother’, ‘Twinkle Rain, lab partner’ and ‘Diamond Smile, Dentist Office’, Dash stood out.

That felt… It felt different. Annoying.

Annoying was the understatement of the century, as it turned out.

If Twilight's expansive vocabulary contained any curse words, she'd be firing them all off in a line like a general sending soldiers into battle.

Scratch that, she'd be packing them into grenades and sending them down a conveyor belt right into that stupid rainbow-coloured menace’s throat.

How dare she stand Twilight up!

After waiting for thirty-three whole minutes, Twilight was just about ready to swing her backpack at Dash’s face the next time she saw her, which would surely be a lethal attack, considering the dense compendiums and textbooks she carted around on the daily.

Sure, she’d been late to all of their sessions thus far, rounding out to seven in total, now, but they’d all been forgivable. As promised, Twilight had docked Dash’s payout, but even with the renegotiated rate (the result of Twilight’s parents failing to see her new tutor’s credentials), the money alone should have been incentive enough for timeliness. At least she had shown up those seven times.

But now? Now she hadn’t even shown her sorry face to give the half-hearted excuses Twilight was getting used to hearing. Not even a text! Her phone was going straight to voicemail!

Well, Twilight was nothing if not relentlessly determined. Nothing if not at least 30% more petty than the average ticked-off academic.

That was why she found herself on the bus, glaring determinedly at the map displayed across her phone screen.

The messenger application Dash had forced her to install was about to be her downfall, for it also contained a location tracker that gave you live updates to the geographical position of those in your contacts list.

Honestly, Twilight knew her chess mentor was remarkably dense for someone who could apparently keep up with their grandmaster father (according to the boast-lord’s own accounts, anyhow), but did she not care about her safety at all?

Actually, that was turning out in Twilight’s favor. For Dash was certainly in danger, based on the series of violent imagery she was the unfortunate victim in that moment.

The ear-lashing Twilight would unleash…

She was so peeved that she didn’t even remember to say thanks to the bus driver as she hopped off, marching forward with her nose pressed to the map, muttering to herself as she did so.

By now, an entire hour and a half had passed since their tutoring session was due to start, and October’s early sunset cast an approaching sheen of navy across the sky. Twilight had never really been out after dark before, but that certainly wasn’t going to stop her now.

The streetlamps around her flickered to life all at once, bathing the stone path towards Canterlot’s riverside in a marigold glow. If she hadn’t been so vexed, maybe Twilight would have paused to admire how pretty the scenery was, perfect when paired with the crisp autumn air.

She marched all the way up a set of metal stairs to the stone walls lining the descending slopes, against which Starswirl river gently lapped, not stopping until her eyes lifted from the phone screen to see a lone figure perched upon the concrete some distance away.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shrieked like a cat about to claw someone’s eyes out, causing the figure to startle and sit upright.

She broke into a sprint and prepared a mental order of attacks that would never come to fruition as she ground to a halt in front of her target, hands clenched angrily at her sides.

Of course, she would never really hit Dash.

She’d probably get hit back, or worse, Dash would dodge from years of mastering a variety of sports and Twilight would end up falling flat on her face.

Dash stared at Twilight, looking her up and down for a moment, before turning back towards the river. Across the water lie the next town over, the docks lit whilst a cargo ship approached.

There was a beat.

“Well?” Twilight asked, indignantly. “Isn’t there anything you’d like to say to me? Another excuse, perhaps?”

Dash didn’t say anything for a moment, merely lifted her hand to her mouth and took a drag of what Twilight saw was a cigarette.

Exhaling, she finally turned back around and fixed Twilight with an unreadable look.

“Sorry.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say for skipping our tutoring session without warning?”

“What do you want me to say? You can dock my pay again.”

“Oh, you best believe I’m going to do just that! I have half a mind to fire you!”

“Do it then. What difference does it make?”

At this, Twilight’s mind stuttered to a standstill.

“What?”

“What do you even want?” Rainbow fully turned herself around, disgruntled, kicking her legs over the wall. “How did you even find me?”

Suddenly feeling… quite foolish, Twilight raised her phone. “Your…uhm, EqMessenger map’s on.”

“So you tracked me? Wow, sociopath much? What, came to yell at me? Fight me maybe? Well, I hate to break it to you, egghead, but I could splay you out on the tarmac in ten seconds flat.”

Something wasn’t quite right here. This wasn’t… this didn’t feel like the normal teasing Twilight had grown accustomed to.

Over the past week, she’d quickly learned that her initial assessment of Dash’s personality was perhaps tainted by her own cynicism. It wasn’t that she was necessarily the biggest jerk in the school; she just kind of spoke like that to people. Even to her own friends, who just laughed it off and japed back with similar retorts of their own.

Twilight had watched the way Rainbow interacted with her friend group since their truce was established - not in a creepy way of anything, just casual observation. In the way you start to notice things once they’ve initially been drawn to your attention. Like when the word of the day you’d never even heard of suddenly enters everyone else’s lexicon overnight.

Dash felt different. She felt… prickly.

Twilight wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Turning around and going home seemed even more stupid than just demanding an explanation now, which was a daft plan from the beginning. Maybe Rainbow was rubbing off on her.

Twilight picked at her nails. “Are you… okay?”

Scowling, Dash turned back around to her previous position, face once again obscured from the other girl’s vision. “Why are you even asking? Like you even care.”

Did she even care? Maybe. She wouldn’t be asking if she didn’t.

Upon saying as much, Dash still refused to turn back around.

“I don’t know. Because it’s the normal social thing to do?”

“Look at me. When have I ever done something because it’s the normal social thing to do?”

This earned her a glance and a slight, half-hearted smirk.

Taking that as an invitation, Twilight awkwardly lifted herself up onto the wall, sitting herself down beside Dash. Neither of them spoke for what felt like forever, until Twilight’s attention fell back on the cigarette.

“You smoke?”

Dash glanced down at the rolled up paper in her hand. “It’s lavender.”

“Not tobacco?”

“Nah. I used to, for a little bit, because my cool uncle did, but Fluttershy started freaking out that I’d get lung cancer and die young, so she made me switch to lavender. Said it would calm me down.”

“You know that smoking is still bad for you, right? Even if it’s lavender.”

“I know. But it puts her mind at ease and, well, I guess it smells better.”

They fell back into silence, the only voice between them belonging to the lull of the river.

“So…are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Okay?” Twilight reiterated.

Dash hummed, then leaned back against the wall. “Do you?”

“Do I…what?”

“Care?”

“I mean…”

“Or are you just here because I skipped your stupid chess lesson?”

Pursing her lips, Twilight thought about her answer. “I’m here, aren’t I? And I’m not… yelling at you for skipping.”

“Wow, I’m so touched by your sacrifice, egghead.”

Twilight weakly punched Dash’s arm, as she’d seen Dash do to others.

“Argh! I’m wounded!”

“There’s no way that hurt!”

“Owie! I’m bleeding out! Someone call the doctor!”

“When I get my doctorate, I’m diagnosing you formally with Idiot Syndrome.”

This caused Dash to fall silent again, and she lifted her knees to her chest. Twilight was hit with the sense that she’d touched upon a nerve.

That scarcely made sense; Twilight had insulted Dash’s intelligence on a number of occasions, and it had never seemed to offend her before. What was different about today?

The lack of any sort of conversation was starting to turn awkward, and Twilight was about to wonder if she should perhaps leave her begrudging mentor to her own miserable devices, when Dash lifted her head.

“Did you bring your chess set?”

Twilight remembered she was still wearing her school backpack. “I did. Why?”

“Well, get it out, then. Might as well get some practice in.”

“Really? Now?”

“Yeah. Consider it on me. Don’t have to pay me or nothing.”

And so, they played a few games, the board set up between them on the concrete wall, sun slowly migrating towards the horizon like an egg yolk on a lopsided piece of toast.

Dash only chimed in occasionally, giving (ironically) the most useful advice she’d given to date, absent of any of her usual taunts and jeers. She even praised three of Twilight’s moves.

Finally, when it got too dark to focus properly on where the pieces were going, Dash kicked Twilight’s king over with her index finger.

“My parents found my report card today.”

“The one from last week?”

“Yeah.”

“I take it… it wasn’t great?”

“No, really? I’m out here moping because they were so proud and it was so good! They’re buying me a car as a reward. Proudest parents this side of the state.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a bad grade,” Twilight said, but the words sounded hollow even to her own ears.

“Seriously? Is there even the slightest part of you that agrees with that statement? I’m pretty sure it was you who shed physical tears that time she got an A minus on a chemistry test.”

Twilight blushed. “You… saw that?”

Dash rolled her eyes, so she tried again.

“I didn’t think you cared about grades. It’s not like you try. They’re clearly enough for you to stay on your teams, and you somehow managed to get into AP classes, didn’t you?”

Rainbow curled herself back up into a ball. “I do try,” she mumbled, somewhat indignant. “And the placement tests are… different.”

“If you gave it your best and it’s still enough for the-”

“They got worse. I’m failing like, four subjects. My parents are… they’re the most supportive parents in the world. And they- the way they looked at me. The way my mom sounded. I could tell they were…”

“Disappointed?” Twilight finished.

“Yeah.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

Twilight thought for a moment, then dragged her gaze down towards the water.

“You’re not… stupid, you know.”

“Does my brain know that?”

“You can’t be stupid if you manage to be this good at chess.”

“Chess is easy!” Dash cried, throwing her hands up into the air suddenly. “It’s all predicting moves. It’s easy once you learn the rules and remember it’s just a game. It’s a tiny little box where the pieces have only a certain way to move, and the strategy just… it just makes sense.

“I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, and it’s always been easy. I could always be the best. But studying? It’s all reading boring shit that I just can’t-” she huffed. “I just can’t get it to stick.”

“...Maybe I could help?”

Twilight was met with a pair of narrowed pink eyes.

“You’d help me?”

“You’re helping me.”

“For a price.”

“We could… call it a quid pro quo.”

“Eh?”

“Something for something. I tutor you, you tutor me.”

The dejected shell formerly known as Rainbow Dash mulled over the words, looking back down at the board, as if the pieces were doing anything more interesting than just sitting there.

“Just… think about it. Any time you want, you can… call me, and I’ll see if I have the time for a session.”

“...Maybe.”

The silence returned, and Dash suddenly sat up, looking at the brightly lit streetlamps standing stark against the darkness around them.

“Shit, what time is it?”

“Uh… 8pm.”

“You don’t have a curfew?”

Somewhat sheepishly, Twilight started to put away the chessboard. “I don’t think my parents ever thought I needed one.”

“God, you’re such a repressed nerd.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“I’m like this by choice.”

“That makes it even worse,” Dash countered, tossing the king she’d been fiddling with back into the box as Twilight clamped the lid shut.

“You live far from here?”

“The…uh… last bus left 25 minutes ago.”

Dash shook her head. “For a literal genius you sure can be pretty dumb.”

She hopped off the wall before Twilight could say anything else.

“Come on, I’ll give you a lift. Just tell me where to go, stalker.”

“...I would like that. Thank you.”

Author's Note

Thank you so much to everyone who commented! I honestly had the biggest jolt of happiness from reading them; they made my day!

I didn't really expect anyone to be too interested in this fic, it's just a silly idea I had whilst playing chess. I am cursed to forever conjoin my favorite subjects and BAM! Chess Sweats was born.

The arcs in this story will be entirely character-driven, with heavy focuses on emotional plots, with the beautiful sport of chess being the driving force behind the blossoming relationship between the two main leads. That was... kind of a cheesy way to phrase it, huh?