A bead of sweat found its way trickling down the side of Twilight's forehead. Its irritating grip on her coat tugged her on with each slight turn. The silence loomed over the mare as the fearless drop was tugged all the way down the side of her head before settling. Finally, she made her decision. "Got any....threes?"
Cadence smirked.
Oh no!
"Graze." The alicorn replied, haughty at Twilight's failed guess. "Got any...um....nines?"
"Cadance, this is stupid."
"Well I'm sorry I didn't have a deck of cards on me when that bug sent me down here!"
The magician and the princess laid on their backs next to each other observing the reflections of the gems around them. It had been a few hours since Twilight was sent down at this point, and it was starting to take its toll on the young pony.
"Hey Cadance?"
"Yes, Twilight?"
"I'm hungry."
The bride-to-be looked over at the little pony complaining to her with a raised eyebrow. "How long have you been down here, now?"
Twilight's brow furrowed. "I don't know, about six hours I think?"
"Yeah. Imagine how I feel."
She tried. The purple mare concentrated hard on trying to imagine how famished her old foalsitter must be, but she was unable; she was missing a key data point!
"Well, how long have you been down here?"
Cadance rolled around on the ground, groaning unhappily almost like a little filly, before slumping back down. "I dunno. It was right after Shining put up that barrier around Canterlot."
Twilight jumped to her hooves and gasped. "Cadance! That was four days ago!"
For her part, Cadance just sighed. Twilight's surprised expression fell back to boredom and she let herself fall down onto her stomach, facing the alicorn. Minutes passed in silence, allowing Cadance to drift off a little until Twilight spoke again.
"I'm so hungry, I could eat three daisy sandwiches."
Cadance chuckled. "I'm so hungry, I could eat the plate those sandwiches are served on."
"I'm so hungry, I could eat the table the plate is on."
"Oh yeah? Well I'm so hungry, I could eat your brother!"
Twilight growled. "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!"
"TWILIGHT!"
The unicorn in question nearly parted with her fur at how hard she jumped. "Y-yes?"
Cadance was glaring at her with her disappointed-foalsitters' glare. "You shouldn't talk about your mother that way."
"YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!"
Cadance rose to a defensive stance. "Yes, I do believe I did. Whatcha gon' do 'bout it, filly?"
The purple blur hit Cadance so fast she couldn't react before she was on the ground rolling in laughter. When she was a filly, Twilight had plenty of opportunities to figure out her foalsitter's ticklish points. Now she was using the knowledge to its fullest. This continued until the two were completely out of breath, both from laughing.
The pair laid next to each other like before, minutes passing in silence.
"So, Twilight," Cadance rolled over to face the unicorn, speaking in a playful tone wearing a half-lidded expression, "got your eyes on anypony?"
Twilight sat up, flush-faced. "w-what?"
"Got your eyes on any cute colts?" Cadance laughed a little at the purple mare's sputtering.
"No!"
Her quick and embarrassed reaction was adorably hilarious. Adoralarious. "So it's a filly then? I guess I could see a cute little bookworm like you swinging that way-"
"N-NO! What does that eve-"
"Oh MY, Twilight! Not a colt and not a filly?" She circled the smaller pony like a shark around prey. "I NEVER thought that YOU of all ponies would be into..." Cadance was doing all she could not to burst out laughing as she moved in close to Twilight's face, which by now was radiating heat from the blood rushing into her cheeks, and whispered:
"...interspecies."
Twilight gave a flustered half-scream, half-yell and shoved Cadance away from her. "You're awful, Cadance!"
Cadance bounced around Twilight, chanting "Didn't deny it! Didn't deny it!"
As she came back around the front of the younger mare, she noticed Twilight wasn't laughing. In fact, she looked on the verge of tears. Cadance gasped and immediately wrapped her up in a hug. "Twilight I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I was just teasing..."
"...it's okay. That's not it, Cadance."
The alicorn of love drew back and looked Twilight in the eyes with a sympathetic look. "Then what's wrong, Twilight?"
"The teasing and bouncing reminded me of one of my friends...I want to go back to the surface, Cadance."
They re-embraced. "Me too, Twilight. This hole sucks."
