Twilight had come home to find Spike reading a comic book in the main room of the library. A quick check of the home revealed nothing really wrong, and Spike managed to keep a detailed, if somewhat unprofessional, list of books that were currently checked out. She spent the rest of the day with Rarity, both of them swapping tales from their childhood.
The days crawled on afterwards, each one spent with at least one of her friends. They were great, but… she noticed something.
Rainbow Dash seemed to not be coping with Pinkie Pie all too well. The mare was very high energy, and Twilight understood why Rainbow Dash was getting exasperated, but Pinkie was still her friend. She knew it would come to a head soon when she found out Rainbow Dash was going out of her way to avoid the party pony. She considered intervening, but in the end she decided against it. Rainbow Dash needed to learn to accept that her friends weren't all like her.
Later, she discovered they had collaborated on a prank against Spike, having apparently fixed whatever rift may have been forming. They had scared him with a crack of thunder, leading to him having to deal with the hiccups. He took it well, and Twilight was proud of him for it, but she decided to draw the line. They had no idea just what could have happened.
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“Why’d you want to talk to us, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked, hovering near the ceiling of the library. Pinkie Pie was actually on the ceiling next to her, utilizing some suction cups on her hooves to mimic sitting next to her friend.
Twilight herself floated up to them and frowned at them. “Spike told me about the prank you two played on him earlier today,” she started, only for Rainbow to interrupt.
She let out an aggrieved sigh. “Did we hurt his feelings? He laughed it off, so I thought he didn’t mind.” She stopped at Twilight's quelling glare, suddenly aware that Twilight was faster, stronger, and more capable of twisting the ones who tormented her charge into literal knots.
After a moment, Twilight let up. “First of all, Spike was chuckling about it all the way home, and I’m very proud of him for taking it as well as he had. Second,” she paused, considering how to phrase this. “Second… I don’t think either of you really thought about the consequences of your prank.”
Rainbow quirked an eyebrow. “Consequences? It was a prank, harmless and everything.” She paused, then flinched. “Barring potentially important scrolls that is. Sorry about that, by the way. Didn’t know he could do that.”
Twilight nodded with a small smile. “Apology accepted, and that was part of what I meant. My worry, however, wasn’t about the scrolls.” Her expression firmed up. “Spike is a dragon,” she said slowly. “A baby dragon, at that. What would you have done if you had scared him so badly that he reacted by trying to breathe fire on you?”
Rainbow smiled confidently. “I would have dodged it, of course! No slow flame breath can hit me!” she boasted.
Twilight nodded. “Sure, true… And the houses behind you? The wooden houses?”
Rainbow paused, and you could see the mental calculation in her head as she slowly realized what that meant. Pinkie’s expression also drooped, realizing her prank could have been harmful if something went wrong.
Twilight nodded again. “Exactly. I have nothing against pranks, and in fact encourage them. They certainly can spice up an otherwise dull day… but if those pranks have the potential to cause a house fire, or multiple, then it stops being a prank, and starts being a criminal act.” She levitated a scroll bearing the Royal Insignia. “The Princess was confused about why exactly thirty-four scrolls worth of cataloguing and notes for the library suddenly appeared over her head. She also took it well once I explained the situation, sending them back through Spike, but she also wanted me to make sure you knew what you were doing.”
She levitated another scroll, this one open and blank, to them. “I want you two to think about pranks, the fun you can have with them… and where you should draw the line. I also want you to think long and hard about a set of rules to follow when pranking, to prevent things like the situation I described. Then I want you to write it down in this scroll and bring it back to me.”
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie glanced at each other. “Uh… why? We know better now, so what’s the point?” Rainbow asked. She screwed up her face. “And yuck. No thanks. I’m not doing homework.”
Rainbow and Pinkie gulped when Twilight smiled at them. It was not kind. “You will do it. Because if you don’t, I will show you what happens when you anger the guardian of a baby dragon.” She leaned forward, making her eyes glow red, while still smiling. For good effect she used and illusion spell to make her eyes be shadowed over, leaving nothing but the red glow. “I will show you the mare that got into a prank war with Princess Celestia and lost by a technicality, and I will show you the younger sister of the Captain of the Royal Guard, who only loses wargames against him two out of five times.” And suddenly she was smiling cheerfully, as if she hadn’t just scared the ever loving crap out her friends. “So save the both of us the hassle, and do the homework.”
“Yes’m,” Rainbow and Pinkie both squeaked, grabbing the scroll and leaving the library as fast as they could.
Twilight gave a refreshing sigh, before falling to giggles. “Heheheh! I haven’t done that since Blueblood called Spike my slave. It’s fun to let go once in a while.”
Needless to say, the returned scroll was well written and detailed a set of rules one should follow when pranking. Twilight was impressed by the research the two friends must have done to come up with such a comprehensive list. She also felt a bit bad about scaring them like that, but really, the old adage is true.
Don’t meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and go well with ketchup. Twilight may not be a dragon, but it was her job to care for one.