Nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Twilight contemplated ringing the doorbell again.

This…was the right house, right? Her sleep-deprived brain hadn't misled her down some stranger's street, had it?

She checked the address that Dash had sent for the fifth time, glancing again at the gilded number nailed into the wooden red door.

Before she could pull up Dash's contact to call her, the door swung open and Twilight was met with a grinning (albeit slightly out of breath) face.

“Twi! Hey, sorry for the wait, I was setting up snacks upstairs. Get in.”

Before she could say anything, she was yanked over the threshold.

She started taking her shoes off, before it finally registered what Dash had called her.

“Twi?”

“The gas station was out of nutritional paste or whatever it is nerds eat, so I got a mix of stuff because I don't know what you like.”

“I get a nickname?”

“Huh? Oh— what, does it bother you?”

“No, no! I didn't say that,” Twilight quickly said, flapping a hand. “It’s just that your names for me are usually…”

Dash started to climb the stairs, but turned around to flash Twilight and amused look.

“Nerd? Egghead? Poindexter? Nerdtron Prime? Bighead Boots the First? Massive-Brain-in-the-Ass? Queen of—”

“I get it! I get it!”

Dash laughed, and though she fixed her with a pointed glare in retort, Twilight couldn't muster up much spite in the act.

Recently, she was starting to find that she kind of liked it when Dash laughed.

It was a raspy sound, but it had a melody to it. Like an electric guitar. It was…fizzy. She laughed like that even when Twilight was mean to her back.

It was an odd dynamic.

“So…you coming? My room's just up here.”

Twilight shook herself from her thoughts and followed. As she did so, she couldn't help looking around.

There were a lot of photos of Dash on the walls. She was clearly loved here, or, at the very least, had her achievements prized.

It wasn't hard to see where she got her ego from.

“Your house is…nice,” she remarked, lagging behind slightly as she appraised a framed photo of a child Rainbow Dash being hoisted atop an older man's shoulders, beaming as brightly as the shine on the trophy she held above her head.

“Urgh, stop looking at those!” Dash cringed, covering the photo with her hands. “My parents are the worst.”

Twilight snorted. “Why, because they're proud of you?”

“Of course not, I'm the goddamn greatest!”

“Then why?”

“Because they're soooooo embarrassing!”

Twilight batted away Dash’s hand to look at the photo again.

“Is that your dad?”

“The one and only. Oh! He said he'd call me when he's off work. So until then, you're stuck with just me. Now hurry your scrawny ass up and stop gawking at the pictures!”

She jogged the rest of the way up and Twilight followed, finally reaching Dash’s bedroom.

Twilight didn't know what she'd been expecting, but this certainly wasn't it.

Rainbow flopped down on a large double bed or, actually, was that a California king?

The walls were painted a pale blue, decked out with rainbow-streaked banners and a myriad of posters toting various video games characters, movies and some kind of sports team called the Wonderbolts.

The lights were partially obscured by fake clouds attached to the ceiling, with colorful paper stars suspended on sparkly strings. It was strangely artistic, casting the room in a bluish glow that reflected prettily off a windchime decorated with glass beads.

If Twilight hadn't noticed the basketball net hung up above a laundry basket, the ceiling alone could have convinced her the room belonged to some kind of Pinterest girl.

“Your room is…really…” Twilight started, looking around.

“Totally radical?”

“Actually, yeah,” she hummed, distractedly analyzing every poster in turn.

When she looked back at Rainbow, she saw her looking back at her with a smile on her face.

“What?”

“Nothing. You're just weirdly cute when you're not in angsty nerd mode.”

Twilight let out an affronted noise as she sat down on the bed next to her. “I am not an angsty nerd.”

“You totally are,” Dash snorted, sitting up and poking Twilight on the forehead, unphased when she received a smack in response.

“If anyone's angsty, it's you,” Twilight smirked, jerking her head at a My Chemical Romance poster.

“Hey! I have layers.”

“Like an onion.”

“Like a planet.”

“Because your brain is smooth and round?”

“Nah. ‘Cos I'm hot like a molten core, baby,” Dash said, flicking up two fingers guns.

“Urgh, now that's embarrassing behavior,” Twilight laughed, reaching over to her backpack to pull out her books. “Now, shall we start on chess or your study first? Have you had a chance to look at the plan I made for you?”

“Woah, that's a hefty stack,” Dash grimaced. “You planning on clobbering me with those?”

“Only if you get a question wrong.”

“There's gonna be questions? If you’re planning a pop quiz just do me a favor and put me out of my misery now.”

“I guess that's a no on looking at the plan, then. I clearly laid out the end-of-topic tests,” Twilight said, slightly irritated.

“Of course you did. And I did look at the plan, actually!”

Dash reached over to her bedside table to grab a stack of paper.

“See? I read it last night. I even highlighted and all that nerdy crap.”

The initial annoyance quickly dissipated, replaced by a quiet surprise. It was replaced with bemusement when she saw that only the first page had ink on it.

“Okay, I started highlighting,” Dash said sheepishly.

They decided to begin with Biology.

About an hour went by of painstaking study, during which Dash let out a groan of frustration and/or boredom roughly every four minutes or so.

Tutoring someone like Rainbow was an experience that Twilight could only compare to what she assumed it must be like to pull teeth, one by one, out of the mouth of a living, screaming victim.

She managed to get distracted by just about everything, fiddling with pens, doodling in the margins of her notes, and even folding a diagram of a neuron into a paper swan when Twilight was busy explaining the dopaminergic pathways.

She glanced over at the crude drawing Dash had started and grimaced.

“What…is that?”

“That is Trixie Lulamoon being launched from a trebuchet into a volcano. See, that's me and the Wonderbolts throwing a party at the base.”

“How…creative.”

“Can we take a break already? It's been like, hours.”

“It's been…” Twilight checked her phone. “Fifty seven minutes.”

“Urgh.”

“Fine, I suppose a break can't hurt. I can only stomach you finding just about any excuse to get distracted for so long before I start to question my life choices.

“When's your dad due off work?”

Dash picked up her phone and rolled over onto her stomach, crushing Twilight's textbook in the process.

“Uh…nothing yet. His hours are weird. On-call paramedic and all.”

“Your dad's a paramedic?”

“Yeah. Why? That surprising?”

“A bit. I wouldn't have thought that a grandmaster would… go for a job like that.”

“I mean, he was a medic in the army. That's actually where he first learned to play. When he left he started to play in tournaments, climbed the ranks, wrote books, yadda yadda. I guess he missed the action or something.”

“Interesting…” Twilight hummed thoughtfully.

There was a moment of silence, after which Dash rolled over on her back and stared up at Twilight.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Of course I am. Why?”

“I dunno. You just look kinda… tired. Maybe you could use a break.”

“I'm fine. I just haven't been sleeping well lately.”

“Dude, you look like you haven't been sleeping at all.”

“Do you know how much time it takes to keep up my level of study? There's the normal lessons, going over those lessons, reading ahead, extra credits, chess, extra—”

“Extra headache. Jeez. Do you have any time to relax?”

“I'm getting really sick and tired of everyone being so concerned about my stress levels and sleep! If one more person tells me to-”

“Chill, Twi. I'm not your mom.”

Twilight huffed.

Dash seemed to consider something for a moment, before her face broke out in a grin and she picked up her phone.

Twilight was initially uninterested, opting to go over the next block of revision she had planned, until the device held in Dash’s hands started going off with a profuse barrage of message notifications.

“Who needs to reach you that badly?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, no one,” Dash answered, but Twilight was starting to feel the oddest sense of foreboding at the conspiratorial look on her face.

Then, Twilight's own phone went off. Checking the incoming notification, she frowned.

“Why did…Pinkie Pie just add me on EqMess?”

Suddenly, Dash darted forward and plucked the phone from her hands, tossing it in one smooth arc to a beanbag situated some distance away.

“Hey! What was that for—”

“Let's play chess!” Dash exclaimed. “For a period of approximately half an hour!”

“Approximately. That's a big word for you.”

“The next big word from me will be assault, with a pillow, specifically,if you don't stop being annoying, egghead.”

“What are you up to?”

“Do you wanna play or not? I actually have an idea on how to help you get better.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at Dash, but the prospect of further training before the tournament was appealing.

Going against her better judgement, Twilight relented, and let Dash get out her chess board.

She couldn’t help but marvel at the board as they lowered themselves to the floor and set it up between them. It was a true masterpiece of woodwork, with evenly polished squares with alternating ivory and black, covered in a sheen of resin with some kind of shimmer embedded.

The real attention-grabbers were the pieces though, of course. They were made of light blue resin, elegant shapes with white clouds swirled throughout. Dash even shut the lights off to demonstrate they were glow-in-the-dark!

Of course she’d have such a flashy set.

“So, what’s your idea?”

Dash grabbed a notebook from her bedside drawer and flicked it open, gesturing for Twilight to keep making moves. She stayed silent as they played, only pausing periodically to scribble something down.

Once the game concluded in a checkmate, obviously to Dash’s win, she ripped the page out and passed it to Twilight.

The girl held it in her hands and squinted at the bright red D+ circled at the top of the page.

“You gave me a D?” she exclaimed, affronted.

“With a plus!”

Twilight muttered out an inaudible insult, this being the first D she’d ever received in her life, as she looked over the rest of the page.

“I annotated every move you made, highlighted the blunders and inaccuracies, and explained how you messed up.”

Twilight tilted her head at Dash, raising an eyebrow.

A bashful expression crossed the other girl’s face as she rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, I thought about how to motivate you, and what you were actually good at. Like, schoolwork and stuff. And I’ve seen you tweak out when you get a 97 instead of 100 in class.

“And chess analysis engines give you accuracy ratings, but I thought you might, I don’t know, benefit from it being in a more familiar format. Like a test.”

“This is actually… you put some actual thought into this, didn’t you?”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised!”

“I guess I just didn’t think that you…” Twilight focused on her capsized king to avoid making eye contact. “Cared that much about if I got it or not.”

Truthfully, part of her thought that Dash revelled to an extent over how much better than Twilight she was at the game and didn’t want to disrupt that balance. She hated herself for it, but another part of her assumed that because it’s what she would have felt if their positions were switched. Superiority is a hard power to give up.

“What? Of course I care. It’s just hard to relate to how you learn, since everything comes so easy to you. Apart from chess, apparently.”

“This is… really thoughtful, Dash. Oddly insightful.”

She looked over the page and thought back to her previous moves. Memorising them was the simple part, and in retrospect, she kicked herself for the obvious mistakes she’d been making all along.

“Let’s play again,” she announced, and Dash grinned.

For the next three games they played, Dash delivered a report, with a grade at the top. She cheered every time Twilight corrected a bad habit she kept falling into, and as cheesy as her hollering and encouragement was, it felt oddly good.

They were about to start another game, when the doorbell rang.

“Who could that be at this hour?” Twilight asked, glancing at the bedroom door as Dash got up.

Then, she saw the grin on her face, and the sense of foreboding returned tenfold.

“Oh, just the Party Squad.”

“The what?”

Dash grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, dragging her all the way downstairs before releasing her to throw open the door.

Twilight looked on in horror as a pink hurricane emerged from a swell of balloons, tossing confetti as it tackled Dash with speed that should be impossible for a human to achieve.

“Did someone order the best slumber party in the entire history of slumber parties!?”

Dash caught her friend and winced as a balloon hit her in the face. “Pinkie, I said cool and lowkey. What about the entire party store screams cool and lowkey to you?”

“She said she needed to grab one thing, we swear. She was only unsupervised for a minute!” another voice chimed from the doorway.

Twilight’s horror only grew as she watched an entire crowd swarm into Rainbow’s house. The voice came from a girl with red and orange streaked hair she didn’t recognise, accompanied by Fluttershy, who Twilight knew from her classes. To her further surprise, Rarity and Applejack, her two new acquaintances from her latest restroom crying session, were there too. They were all clutching duffel bags and rucksacks, with Pinkie’s bags bulging threateningly at the door.

“Dash, what’s going on?” Twilight asked through gritted teeth, dodging Pinkie Pie as she tried to make a lunge at her for a hug too.

Dash, thankfully, picked Pinkie up by her waist, hauling her away as she shot Twilight an unapologetic smile. She wasn’t even pretending to be abashed!

“Listen, Twi. You look like you seriously need to kick back and relax a little. And I thought to myself, since you’re sleeping over already and—”

“I agreed to studying, not… not a wild midnight shindig!”

“Oh, Rainbow… you didn’t tell her we were coming?” Fluttershy whispered at Dash’s side, so quiet that her voice was almost entirely drowned out by Pinkie’s squealing. She was eyeing Twilight so nervously you’d think she was afraid of being bitten.

“Well, that’s just great. No wonder the poor sugarcube looks like we ambushed her,” Applejack said, cuffing Dash over the back of her head.

“Ow! Just look at her! The nerd could use some actual fun!”

“I brought my ka-a-a-a-araoke machiiiiiine!” Pinkie sang. “And face masks, and Monopoly, and Monopoly Deal, and Uno, and cookies, and—”

She was silenced when Rarity clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Darling, I love you, but I don’t think you’re helping.”

“Dash, can I speak to you in private?”

Finally looking like she gained some humility, Dash dipped her head and nodded, taking Twilight around the hall to a spacious kitchen.

When they were alone, Twilight rounded on her.

“I was prepared for a quiet night of getting some actual work done, Rainbow Dash, not—”

“Oh damn, pulling out the government name and everything. Are you mad at me?”

“Of course I’m mad at you! You dropped this on me completely unprepared!”

Dash scowled, but eventually let out a slight sigh when she caught Twilight’s twitching eye and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Look, I don’t actually know for sure that my dad’s even gonna get back to tonight. There’s been some pile-up on the highway and my mom’s out on some spa retreat, and you seriously need to loosen up a little.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to mother me? Huh? What happened to that?”

“Okay, okay, I admit, maybe inviting them here without asking you first was a bit of a dick move…”

“A bit?!”

“But in my defence I only invited Pinkie and Fluttershy! I didn’t know they were gonna grab the extended friend group.”

“Uh huh,” Twilight hissed, unimpressed. “I’m going home.”

“No, wait, Twi!” Dash grabbed her arm. “It’s not— Okay, I know I went about it wrong, but… hearing you talk about everything you had going on, I mean, jeez, just listening made my head hurt. And when I came over in the middle of the night, you were still studying even then. And, well, you like hanging out with me, right?”

“I’m starting to reconsider ever speaking to you again, you…you… blaggard!”

“...Blaggard?”

“Like a scoundrel, but worse!”

“Wow, you’re so mad you’re turning into a pirate.”

“I’m serious, here, Dash!”

Rainbow pouted, then rolled her eyes. “Fine, you don’t have to stay. I know that there’s all sorts of research to suggest spending too much time in social settings is like, really bad for your brain ‘n all.”

“Actually, research suggests that socializing strengthens neural connections and improves attention and memory.”

“Hah! I got you! I knew that because when I play Sims 3, they get cranky when their social need goes down!”

Damn her!

“I tricked you with a classic egghead trap. You can’t resist correcting me. Now you can’t say no, ‘cos it’s good for your brain bits to leave your hovel and socialize and you know it.”

Twilight crossed her arms, thinking deeply. Then, she let out a strained noise of annoyance.

“Grr, fine! But if anything happens that I don’t like, I'm taking a cab home! You’re so lucky you’re my only chess tutor.”

Dash let out an uncharacteristically high-pitched noise and scooped Twilight up in a hug.

“That’s the spirit!”

“Put me down!”

“Oops, my bad,” Dash said, then backed away. Twilight glared at her, before her gaze was pulled back to the kitchen doorway by someone clearing their throat.

“Uh, Pinkie’s setting up her karaoke machine in your living room. She’s starting to unplug stuff and—”

“Oh, shit!” Dash sped off, leaving Twilight alone with the girl she hadn’t recognised before.

Slightly awkwardly, the girl cleared her throat.

“Uh, hi. I’ve seen you around but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken.” She extended a hand. “I’m Sunset Shimmer.”

Twilight pursed her lips, but dutifully shook her hand.

“I’m—”

“Twilight Sparkle. I know. Rainbow won’t shut up about you,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes with a smirk. “Sorry about the whole… uh, ambushing you thing. I take it you’re not one for parties?”

“Not… quite.”

“Well, I promise we won't bite! Actually, Rarity might if you rip a silk scarf. Learned that one the hard way.”

“I… really?”

Sunset fluttered her hands in the imitation of a spooky gesture, then started to leave the kitchen.

“Fashion girls go crazy. You never know. Now, come on, we need to make sure Pinkie doesn’t set another speaker on fire.”

The slumber party began with an arbitrary setting-up of a pillow fort, which Pinkie insisted was necessary for Twilight’s first actual slumber party. She’d tried to argue that sleepovers with Cadence counted, but everyone shot her such a pitiful look that she backed down without much protest.

The couch functioned as a foundation, with dining chairs set up on either side to hold up a thick roof constructed from every blanket they could find. Dash’s hefty hoard of pillows was dragged downstairs with all the manpower they had, arranged into cushy walls and seating.

Despite Dash’s insistence in front of Twilight that they didn’t exist, Fluttershy and Pinkie dived into her closet to pull out a small squad of stuffed animals that were apparently necessary guests. Twilight had held a plush bunny up at her, a temporary smugness that lasted all the way up until Dash yanked it from her grip and bopped her over the head with it, her face bright red.

The snacks Rainbow had upstairs were brought down too, as well as apparently the entire snack aisle from Pinkie’s backpack.

“Let’s play Monopoly first,” Sunset said, which earned a small snort from Rarity.

“With this power-hungry landlord?” she said, jerking her head at Applejack. “Absolutely not.”

“What?” Applejack exclaimed, affronted. “I’m perfectly normal during Monopoly!”

“I don’t like the person you become when you have the power to charge me rent.”

“I ain’t ever play the game like how it ain’t meant to be played.”

“Monopoly Deal, then?” Fluttershy meekly offered. “The games don’t last as long so…”

“No time to get too heated,” Sunset finished helpfully.

This turned out to be a very wrong assessment.

Twilight had played Monopoly with her brother and Cadence before, many years ago, and she knew the game’s reputation as breaking apart families but the card game alternative was new territory for her.

She could never have predicted that, with the cards spread out between them, the girls around her would become rabid animals.

She quickly grasped that there were two cards capable of shattering friendships; the Dealbreaker (a card that granted the wielder the ability to steal an entire set of properties from another) and the ‘Just Say No’ card (which could cancel out any action played against the holder, such as the Dealbreaker or any other property-stealing cards).

With two decks in play to account for their group size, all it took was an unlucky deal for things to descend into madness.

Dash slammed down the purple Dealbreaker and reached a triumphant hand over to Applejack’s completed blue set.

“Up-pup-pup, not so fast, sugar pea,” Applejack grinned. “I say no.”

Dash pretended to look momentarily shocked, batting her eyelashes as if she hadn’t seen that coming. “Oh no! My plans have been foiled! Or… that’s what I would say, if I didn’t have…” she wiggled her eyebrows, then played a second purple card. “Another dealbreaker!”

Applejack stared at the card, her shit-eating grin unphased. Seeing her lack of irritation, Dash narrowed her eyes.

“I say no.”

“You can’t say no, I just played another—”

“I say no!” she repeated, then produced another blue card.

“Oh, ho ho ho…” Dash cackled. “You’ve really forced my hand now!” she exclaimed, then produced a third purple soldier to go after Applejack’s precious properties.

Her triumph lasted all of three seconds, before the stack of activated cards received another Just Say No from Applejack’s hand.

“Fine! Then I play a Sly Deal and I’ll take one of your greens!”

“Ya can’t do that! You can only play three cards during your turn!”

“Nuh uh, ‘cos the Just Say No resets the count.”

“Like hell it does!”

“It does!”

“I’m checking the darned rule card—”

Applejack reached for the aforementioned rule cards but didn’t get very far, because Dash lunged for them after a panicked look crossed her face and proceeded to stuff them in Pinkie’s mouth.

“Pinkie, don’t—!” Applejack shrieked, but it was too late. Pinkie chewed and swallowed with a solid gulp. “Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

The squabbling degenerated until Dash and Applejack started setting terms for taking their disagreement outside. Thankfully before it could escalate, someone got the bright (and obvious, but Twilight was far too new to the group to feel comfortable voicing her opinion in the troglodyte screaming match) idea to simply look up the rules online, and peace was restored, albeit to Dash’s audible annoyance.

It didn’t last long, however, because Fluttershy meekly played the final Dealbreaker, stole Applejack’s blue set, and won the game.

After that, the activities continued.

They played a round of Risk and somewhere halfway through, Twilight started to join in with the arguing, surprising herself when she found that same sort of amusement in the act as when she exchanged digs with Rainbow.

Next, they moved onto ‘pampering’ as insisted upon by Rarity.

Dash and Applejack conveniently tried to excuse themselves to the bathroom at the same time, but Rarity was clearly experienced to this ruse and shot them daggers so intense that any more spite behind them and they’d stab through into the physical plane.

Twilight didn’t really know what ‘pampering’ would entail, but her aversion to the concept skyrocketed when Rarity extracted seven sets of face masks, hand masks, foot masks, and pre-sliced cucumbers, as well as a UV lamp and what had to be an entire salon’s worth of nail polish.

After a puny effort to claim she’d forgotten something upstairs that she really needed was quickly shot down by Dash (“If I don’t get to avoid this, neither do you, egghead!”), Twilight was left examining a fresh set of sparkly purple nails and unwillingly admitting that she felt kind of… pretty.

Then, they baked cookies in Dash’s kitchen and played another round of Uno to delegate clean-up duty.

Pinkie Pie, for all her messiness, was blessed by some supernatural baking ability. The batter just by itself was the best dessert Twilight had ever tasted, and a task she’d previously declared entirely unnecessary (anything involving lengthy cooking processes) was made oddly enjoyable by laughing and joking and just talking with the people around her.

Then, it was time to retreat to the pillow fort in front of the TV.

Dash handed Twilight the remote and smirked.

“You’ve survived this long, so… just don’t put on something too geeky.”

Twilight scrolled through the options on all three streaming services at her disposal, listening to the various entertainment opinions being freely tossed around from the backseat commentary around her.

“We’re not watching any of the Buddies films, Fluttershy.”

“But the little puppies are so cute…”

“You cry at anything with a dog in the cast!” Dash said. “Those are meant to be comedies, too!”

“She cries at anything with an animal in it, and I think being so in-touch with your emotions is a darling trait. Don’t listen to that brute, Fluttershy!” Rarity said, placing a hand on Fluttershy’s head, which the other girl rested on her shoulder with a smile.

“They made movies of the Daring Do books?” Twilight asked, pausing her scrolling to hover over the live action image of the titular character clutching a sapphire statue as she hung from a rope above an alligator’s open maw, just like on the cover of the first novel.

“Oh no, now you’ve got her started…” Sunset groaned.

“Got who—”

Twilight didn’t even have to finish her question to get an answer, which came in the form of a deafening squeal from her side.

“You like Daring Do!?”

Twilight recoiled as Dash leapt over to her, clutching her by the shoulders with a look that could only be described as manic.

“I mean… I’ve read the series,” she started, surprised that Dash of all people liked to read for fun.

Truthfully, she’d devoured the series, cover to cover, several times. Fantasy was one of her guilty pleasures. It technically counted as productivity if she engaged in reading as a leisure activity, since she was still absorbing written content and expanding her vocabulary in the process.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh! What’s your favourite book? Mine’s obviously Daring Do and the Abyss of Despair because come on, that’s where the action goes from cool to radical and where Ahuizotl steals the Goggles of Divinity and really becomes a threat when he gains future sight, and—”

Twilight scoffed. “Are you kidding? Abyss of Despair was okay and all but Ahuizotl was already a threat when the reader learns during Rosetta’s chapters in Daring Do and the Treasure of Saddle Madre that his species is capable of regeneration, thus rendering his defeat in the Riddle of the Phoenix moot. The dramatic irony is enough to make Daring Do and the Forgotten Temple the best, purely because we know Daring’s walking straight into his trap!”

“There’s…two of them,” Fluttershy quipped.

They continued to go back and forth until someone eventually cleared their throat and drew their attention back to the TV screen, which had gone into sleep mode because of how long they spent yapping.

Twilight blushed, and after some deliberation, settled on the Daring Do movie, earning her a delighted cheer from Rainbow.

“Was this your plan all along, Rainbow?” Sunset smirked. “Get Twilight to pick Daring Do to get around the ‘Dash is banned from making us rewatch any of A.K. Yearling’s works’ rule.”

“No, she made the choice naturally. It’s not my fault Twi’s the only other one with taste in this damn house!”

As they sat back to watch the movie, Twilight realized she’d been smiling an awful lot throughout the night so far, and she kind of didn’t hate that. She hadn’t thought of studying for longer than she could remember.

Several movies and a handful of sitcom episodes later, people started to nod off and it was decided they should all probably get some shut-eye.

Everyone curled up in sleeping bags and duvets and pillows, said good night, and the lights went off.

Despite the fun she’d surprisingly had, in the darkness, Twilight’s unease returned.

Applejack and Pinkie snored some distance away from her, but that wasn’t what was keeping her up.

She could admit that spending some time doing something meaninglessly enjoyable was good for her.

She felt better.

But she couldn’t sleep.

She counted sheep, tried progressive muscle relaxation, struggled to empty her mind; she went the full nine yards.

In the blackness of the living room, behind the even darker nothingness under her eyelids, Twilight’s mind came alive with worries about the chess tournament.

She was making progress, sure, but was it enough?

She started to think about her study plan, unable to put aside the itching thought that she was now slightly behind at being ahead, which was basically the same thing as being behind behind when it came to being in front of everyone else.

She thought about her parents, how they’d react if she didn’t get into a good college.

She thought about how all of the hours upon hours of work she’d put in thus far would go to waste.

She thought about how much she’d hate herself if she failed.

She thought about so many things that she couldn’t even remember why she felt so comfortable going to sleep, when there was so much she could be doing to be extra, to be more than she was.

Her body moved two steps ahead of her brain as she slid out from under the covers, trying not to make too much noise as she crept back upstairs to where she knew her backpack and books were.

Twilight didn’t know how long she sat there, alone, reading through her own notes, adding some more from another open book under Dash’s desk lamp, before someone groaned behind her.

“Do not tell me you’re seriously sneaking off in the middle of the night to read.”

She turned, though the act was thoroughly unneeded to know who stood in the doorway.

Guiltily, like she’d been caught committing a crime, Twilight looked up at Dash.

“I… couldn’t sleep?” she offered.

Dash frowned at her sleepily, rubbing at one of her eyes as they adjusted to the stark brightness from the lamp, before entering the room and creaking the door shut behind her.

She glanced at the ritual circle of books spread out around her friend with an expression that Twilight had seen on too many faces for it to be anything foreign. Worry.

Dash sat down in front of her, crossing her legs, and tugged the pen and notebook from her hands.

“I’m fine, Dash,” Twilight preemptively said. “This is just what I do.”

“Come back downstairs. Everyone else is sleeping.”

“You can go, I’m staying here.”

“God, you hardcore nerds are insufferable.”

Twilight didn’t respond, eyes shifting back to the books around.

“Why do you… why do you do all of this?”

“Huh?”

Dash sighed, taking a moment to think before rephrasing her question. “Why do you push yourself so hard? Even when it’s clearly not good for you?”

“Because I have to get into a good college.”

“You’re already gonna get into a good college. You’re the best in our year.”

“I have to get into the best college. There’s only so many best spots and…”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you have to get into the best college?”

“Because I just… I just do.”

“I get wanting to be the best. Trust me, I get it. But this isn’t… I don’t… I don’t know how to say it.”

“Then just go back downstairs and leave me alone.”

Dash pursed her lips. “Not unless you’re coming with.”

“I told you, I can’t sleep. I thought you weren’t going to—”

“I’m not mothering you. I’m your friend.”

“I don’t get why you are,” Twilight said, before she could stop herself or even wonder about what that statement meant.

It hung in the air, the loudest thing to possibly pierce through the silence that descended, ugly and small and dangerously deep.

“Are you asking me why I like you? Seriously?”

Twilight avoided Dash’s gaze.

“I’m not— I mean, I was never nice to you or anything. I paid you to teach me chess. I know we’re doing a trade thing now but… I mean… I’m not fun like Pinkie or Applejack or Rarity or anyone else you’re friends with. I don’t… have interesting hobbies. I don’t do spontaneous things or go out and do stuff or anything that could possibly make you interested in wanting to spend time with me.”

“I… it started as paying me, yeah. But do you really think I couldn’t find another tutor if I really wanted my grades up?... God, are you really gonna make me say it?”

Twilight finally looked up at her, eyes imploring.

“Sure, you’re not… loudly fun. But I like being with you. It’s not in the obvious way like Pinkie, but you’re… urgh, this is so cheesy…”

“You don’t have to—”

“Shut up, egghead. I’m finding the words.” Dash let out an exasperated exhale. “Do you really think you’re not cool to be around? You’re funny, you’re smart, and yeah you can be a real smartass sometimes but when you’re not trying so hard to be better than everyone, you’re… sparkly.”

“Sparkly?” The phrasing was so absurd that Twilight snorted.

“Fine! I take it back, sit here and wallow,” Dash huffed and made a show of getting up to leave.

“Wait!” Twilight grabbed her hand, tugging her back down. “I’ll shut up. I promise. Keep going.”

Rainbow glared at her, but when Twilight didn’t retract her hand, any genuine irritation vanished.

“You kind of remind me of the night sky. That kind of sparkly.”

“You know, stars don’t actually twinkle. It’s just an illusion, caused by light refraction when the Earth’s atmosphere distorts the stars’ light based on their varying temperatures and densities. It’s called atmospheric scintillation.”

“All I’m hearing is that science says they’re sparkly.”

Twilight giggled, despite herself.

During the silence that settled, Dash moved herself so she leaned against her desk by Twilight’s side.

There were another few moments before Twilight spoke again.

“I can’t sleep because I keep thinking about what’ll happen if I fail. I can’t explain why, but when I think about doing less than beyond perfect, I feel like… like something bad’s about to happen. Like the world’s about to end.”

She didn’t know why she kept talking. It was like once she started, the lid on her overflowing thoughts refused to clamp back down.

“I started just being good at school. Then people added their expectations, and I kept doing extra credit, and then it just kept growing, until everything that used to be good enough just felt like something I’d already lapped.

“Like if I stop outdoing myself, I’ll just start going backwards, falling down.”

She turned her head against where she’d dropped it back against the desk to see Dash was staring at her.

“If you fall, you just get back up.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I know it’s not. If it was, you’d have thought of it already. I’m not saying I get what you’re going through or anything but… if you’re already so far ahead maybe… don’t go backwards but… stay where you are.”

“If I rest for too long, something will… I just can’t.”

“Nah.”

“Nah? You can’t just say nah to that.”

“Things will always come along to ruin your plans. Things will always come up to delay where you think you should be. You just need to learn to be okay with that crap, and learn to keep going even after slowing down. Sometimes you have to slow down to go faster.”

“That makes…no sense.”

“Maybe I’m just sooooo wise that my words are so smart that you’re just not on my level.”

“Or maybe you’re not making any sense because you woke up in the middle of the night,” Twilight smiled.

“Rich coming from you.”

“I’m used to this. If I started sleeping well I’m sure my body would go into shock and have no idea what to do with itself.”

“You didn’t expect me to be better at chess than you, right?”

“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”

“But you didn’t, right?”

“I… didn’t.”

“So maybe there’s something else that I know that you don’t. Maybe I’m right that it’ll be okay if you rest. Don’t go backwards just… stay still.”

“I don’t…”

“Just try. Sit here with me and just do nothing. For a bit. See if the world crashes down. If like, half an hour passes and it was the worst thing ever, I promise I’ll leave you alone for tonight.”

“Are you going to use this chess thing as a trump card against me every single time you think I’m wrong about something?”

“I’m keeping a tally of every time I’m righter about something than you as a backlog.”

Twilight thought for a moment. Her head hurt.

The room was quiet.

“I’ll set a timer,” Dash offered.

Finally, Twilight relented.

“Half an hour.”

Dash grinned, then went to fetch a blanket they hadn’t found a place for in the pillow fort from her bed as well as a cushion that she propped behind their heads.

“Just sit here with me and do nothing.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “It’s impossible to do nothing.”

“Then close your eyes and… and I’ll talk about, uh… Daring Do. And you listen.”

“Typical,” Twilight said, but let her eyes close.

Her voice hushed, Dash started to ramble about her opinions on the movie version and inaccuracies to the novel.

It was strange.

For as loud and rough she could be, between them in that moment, her words were hushed, deliberately and strangely gentle.

Twilight held on, listening for as long as she could, before she started to drift off.

‘I’ll wake up in half an hour…’ she thought, her brow smoothing over.

Dash kept talking until Twilight couldn’t hear her anymore, and when the alarm sounded, it rang for a minute before automatically shutting off.

No one was awake to hear it ring.

Author's Note

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter! I had a lot more planned for the sleepover scene, but in the end, I decided to keep it shorter because I really wanted to write the last scene.

I wrote a lot of myself in with Twilight's worries about the unexplainable urge to constantly achieve something. It's exhausting not being able to explain exactly why you have to excel at everything to feel any sort of worth in yourself, but I feel this version of Twilight would feel exactly that.

Dash seems like she'd certainly relate to the need to be the best, but even in the show, she knows when it's important to rest. She pushes herself as hard as possible to train towards her goals, but she's also always napping and having fun and though it may look like laziness or being overly carefree from the outside, recognizing the importance of rest and when to take a break is often undervalued, I think. Taking breaks, even if it feels like slacking, ironically gets you closer to your goals than if you pushed through and burnt out before achieving anything at all.