Librarian for a Day
By Ianpiersonjdavis
While it was nice to have the day off and do whatever she wanted, it got boring after doing everything on her check list.
Rainbow Dash had taken a nap, practiced all of her moves for the next time she met up with the Wonderbolts, fed Tank, and finished reading the latest Daring Do book.
At that point, she decided to check in with all of her friends, first dropping by Sweet Apple Acres. AppleJack had greeted her, but informed her that she and Big Macintosh had finished all of their errands for the day. This seemed impossible, considering how early it was and if it weren't for the fact that she was the Element of Honesty-Rainbow Dash would've sworn that was a load of pony feathers.
She then visited Pinkie Pie at Sugar Cube Corner to see if she was up for some pranking but, they were inexplicably overrun by customers and had more orders to fill than they could possibly keep up with. The only reason she didn't offer to help was because she was terrible at baking and she knew Pinkie was just too nice to say it to her face-she'd even seen her eat cupcakes that were burned to a crisp, once!
That only left three of her friends left to hang out with and all of their jobs were boring as Tartarus, how could they even stand everything being so calm and quiet all the time?
The Pegasus walked into the Carousel Boutique to see those statues that Rarity always put clothes on-she knew that they had another name, but really didn't care enough to try and remember what it was. And while she would never admit it, those things really kind of creeped her out-especially the ones with faces. Always sitting there, judging her and thinking she'd never make it into a Wonderbolts. Who did they think they were?
What made them so much more special than everypony else and-
"Can I help you, Rainbow Dash?" came the voice of a familiar unicorn fashionista, snapping her out of her back to reality.
"Huh? Oh, yeah...Is there like anything for me to do here?" she asked.
"Do?" Rarity repeated, cocking an eyebrow from behind her designer glasses. "Like modeling for some new dresses I've made?"
Inwardly Rainbow sighed, she must have been even more bored than she originally thought since before her mind could even register her friends words what slipped out was an immediate "Yes."
"While I do appreciate the gesture, I'm afraid I'm quite busy today working on many fabulous materials-'in the zone'-as it were, and not to be rude Rainbow Dash, but if you're not a customer then I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."
Almost immediately, Dash turned around and headed out the door. Secretly, she was kind of relieved-after all the last time she helped Rarity model a dress it was an ordeal, making her wear the stupidest, ugliest hat anypony had ever seen and she was forced to stand still for hours. Besides, she had a reputation to keep and if somepony walked in on her wearing something like that, she'd never able to live it down or be accepted in to the Wonderbolts.
Actually, now that she thought about it, all the things Rarity asked her to do-or not to do at the time in hindsight made her wonder if Rarity was really her friend or actually secretly her most bitter, hateful enemy out to sabotage her by turning her into a clone of herself.
While granted, that was highly unlikely-often, she wondered and sometimes she also bolted-so wouldn't have made perfect since for her to be allowed to join the Wonderbolts?
Fluttershy was a great friend and all but, taking care of animals sounded more like work than a good time. Besides, she was almost certain that Fluttershy's pet bunny Angel was secretly a cult leader devoted to raising a legion of the dead in a crusade to turn the all of the ponies in Equestria into slaves, forced to serve their oppressive bunny overlords. That raising the dead part did sound kind of cool, though.
She mentally scratched Fluttershy off the list of possible options to hang out with, since Angel could barely communicate with her without having to go through an entire game of charades for even the simplest needs and wants. So, Equestria was safe for the time being and there was no real need for Rainbow to create a panic-although, it may have been wise to send a letter to Celestia just in case. She was the most loyal after all.
All that left was Twilight at the library...
===
Helping out at the library seemed totally lame and boring, but Dash was out of options so she reluctantly agreed.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, spotting an uptight-looking Earth Pony with a grey body and a black mane wearing a pink bow-tie.
The mare looked startled.
"Can I help you with something?" asked Rainbow.
"Oh yes, you see I'm looking for an autobiography of a late, great classical musician that I've rather admired." she explained.
"Sounds boring." Dash replied, apathetically.
Octavia was visibly shocked by the rude attitude of the Pegasus before her.
"Now if you want something really cool, you should read about the history of the Wonderbolts! Or Spitfire's autobiography-she's the leader of the Wonderbolts-"
"Those ruffians!?" she exclaimed, "Show-offs like that wouldn't know musical talent if it bit them in their flank, them and their-their 'rock and-or roll' music."
Rainbow Dash just stood there glaring daggers at Octavia for a few long moments.
"Get out of my store." she breathed, her words dripping with venom.
"But, what about my-"
"Get out."
Unsatisfied, yet unwilling to challenge the hot-headed Pegasus, Octavia slowly cantered over to the door and exited the library as Twilight came in.
"Did you get eveything you need ma'am?" she asked, helpfully.
Instead of responding, the musician merely ignored her and headed back into Ponyville.
"What was that all about?" Twilight asked.
"Oh, just some Tartarus raising customer-don't worry, Twi. I took care of her before she could do any real damage."
"Damage?" she repeated, skeptically.
"Yeah, the stuff she said about the Wonderbolts was unbelievable-we can't have somepony in here like that corrupting the minds of our customers!" Dash exclaimed.
"Rainbow..." Twilight sighed.
"What?"
"You can't just throw customers out on the street just because you don't agree with them!" the unicorn lectured.
"Why not?" Dash challenged, hovering in the air with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
"I guess, I'm just going to have to stay here and show you how it's done." she sighed.
===
An hour later, after Twilight explained in excruciating detail the fine art of being a librarian she took off for another errand to run.
The next customer to enter was a white mare with a crazy blue mane with a streak of lighter blue running through it. She was wearing a pair of purple tinted shades. Actually, Rainbow thought she recognized this mare-wasn't she the DJ at Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding?
Vinyl Scratch casually moved over to one of the bookshelves, her head bobbing up and down to the beats coming from the headphones she had on. Using her unicorn magic, she levitated a book from a shelf that was second from the top and began reading it.
"Hey! Hey! HEY!" Dash shouted, practically screaming in the unicorn's ear.
"Huh?" Vinyl pushed the earphone on that side back with a hoof before looking up from the book and up at Rainbow Dash. "Oh, hey man. 'Sup?"
"What are you deaf?"
"Working on it." she replied, grinning.
"Well, I hate to break it to you but, this is a library and other ponies can't always concentrate on reading while there's music blasting through here."
"Oh, sorry man." she apologized, turning the volume down.
"Alright, just don't let it happen again-or you're gonna get me in trouble." Dash replied, in a tone that reminded Vinyl of a young filly that was afraid that her parents would catch her with her hoof stuck in the cookie jar.
As she looked around, she noticed that while she was talking to the DJ several more ponies had entered.
"Where are they all coming from?" she muttered under her breath.
She was startled to see that when she spun around she came face to face with a grey pegasus pony, hovering upside-down with crossed eyes and a blonde mane.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash! Are you working here today?" she shouted excitedly.
"Derpy!" she exclaimed in a harsh whisper. "Keep your voice down this is a library!"
"Oh." The grey Pegasus put her hooves over her mouth, before speaking again, this time in a whisper. "Sorry, Rainbow Dash."
Dash didn't mean to sound mean, she just didn't want to get in trouble with Twilight again-but, the expression on Derpy's face made her feel bad all the same.
"It's okay, just try to keep your voice down when you're in here from now on-alright?"
"Okay."
"So, what do you need?"
"I want to read a book about bubbles." she replied, pointing at her Cutie Mark for emphasis.
"Bubbles?" Dash repeated.
Derpy nodded vigorously.
In all honesty, she didn't know if there was a book about bubbles specifically in all of Equestria-let alone Twilight's library. But, then again, some ponies seemed to write about really strange things like Cupcakes and the Rainbow Factory-which seemed boring to her, but whatever. Some ponies like weird things.
Besides, Twilight was such an egghead that she had to have a book like that somewhere, right?
According to Twilight, she told her before she left that all of the books in the library were organized in alphabetical order so Rainbow flew over to the second shelf simply labeled 'B' following the titles on the spines with her hoof, until reaching the bottom shelf where the book sat.
Pulling it out, she looked at the cover of the book-on it, was an image of bubbles floating that were strikingly similar to Derpy's Cutie Mark and the title simply read; 'Bubbles'.
"Well, that's conveniant." Rainbow said to nopony in particular.
"Here ya go!" Rainbow Dash announced triumphantly while holding the book out for Derpy.
"You found it!" she exclaimed, her wings fluttering in excitement. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash!"
After Derpy left, Dash couldn't help but wonder what people found so appealing about that 'Cupcakes' book, after all it was probably just filled with stupid cupcake recipes-maybe it was just because some ponies were rattled more easily than others, but to her it still seemed ridiculous.
And 'Rainbow Factory'? Seriously, rainbows seemed a lot less interesting to her after she found out how they were made. And somepony wrote an entire book about it? Boring.
Weren't there any good horror stories around to give her ideas for the next time she went camping?
She still got a weird vibe from them though, like they didn't belong there and were only meant to be in some other plain of existence. They were probably just remnants from Discord's reing of terror on Ponyville. With a shrug, she just figured it wasn't her problem and went back to work harassing the library's visitors.
===
"Hey!" Dash exclaimed, seeing the stallion have a coughing fit while reading a book.
He had a light brown coat with a darker mane and the image of an hourglass on his flank.
"You cough on it, you buy it!"
"I'm sorry?" he asked.
"Yeah, you should be-coming in here just to spread whatever sick disease or plague you've got to ruin our business? You've got some nerve."
"What?"
"Yeah, that's right I'm onto you-you've been trying to run me out of town since day one."
"NO!" he exclaimed. "You see, I can travel through time and-"
Rainbow rolled her eyes at this lame excuse for a sob story, great. Not only was this guy a jerk, he was also totally nuts.
"What's going on?" came Twilight's voice from the doorway.
"Twi," Dash pointed an accusing hoof at Dr. Whooves. "This crazy hobo is trying to spread disease through time and kill everypony so we'll go out of business!"
"Ma'am. I can assure you that I have no ill-will towards you or friend or whatever it is she's babbling on about-but, if you just let me explain..."
Twilight nodded, and gestured for the stallion to follow her away from Rainbow Dash.
"What a jerk!" she grumbled, "First, he gets me in trouble and now he's trying to put Twilight under some sort of mind control!"
===
Rainbow Dash awoke with a start, covered from head to hoof in a cold sweat-that had to be the stupidest dream she ever had-and that was saying something, it was right up there with the one she had where her friends became somepony named 'Mare Do Well' and publicly humiliated her in front of everypony.
She got up to get a drink of water to see that both Spike and Twilight were still asleep upstairs. Looking at the pencil and sheets of paper she'd worked on in the few hours prior she muttered to herself, "No more Wonderbolt fanfics for you, Rainbow." before drinking from the glass and crumpling up all of the pages between her hooves.
THE END
Author's Note
Well, here it is: my sad, pathetic attempt at comedy.
