Scraps #5

Once upon a time, I attempted to write outside my comfort zone:

Twilight wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t look like she was even maybe-kinda-sorta thinking about smiling, and definitely not about laughing. Her pretty purple eyes were squinty and not-sparkly, and her soft, soft lips were squished into a grumpy line. No smiles there, no siree. Actually, if anything . . . Twilight looked mad. At her.

“I spent all morning organizing those books, Pinkie!” shouted Twilight, stamping a hoof.

“I’m super sorry, Twilight,” said Pinkie Pie, and she meant it with every ounce of her being. “It was an accident.”

“An accident that could’ve been avoided if you didn’t go around pranking ponies all the time! Especially ponies who are trying to finish important reports for Princess Celestia and don’t need their carefully sorted reference materials being knocked all over the room!”

“I’m sorry,” said Pinkie again, meaning it even more this time. “I didn’t think—”

“I noticed,” muttered Twilight.

Pinkie flinched. She knew she deserved that, but it still hurt. “It’s just that you’ve been so busy in here all week, and I wanted to say hi.”

“You couldn’t have walked in through the door like a normal pony?”

“I wanted to surprise you, Twilight. I wanted to make you smile.” Pinkie tried to smile, too, but she couldn’t do it, not with her beautiful, grumpy unicorn glowering at her with those beautiful, grumpy eyes.

“Well, you succeeded with the surprise part,” said Twilight. “Now could you please leave me alone? I have a lot of work to do.” Without another word, she turned to the fallen books and scrolls and began to magically restack them. Even the glow around her horn seemed buzzy and angry.

Pinkie stared at Twilight, trying to think of something to say to cheer her up, to make that scrunchy tension in her withers go away, but she got the feeling that Twilight didn’t want to hear any more. “I’m sorry,” she said at last.