Twilight sighed. The sound of Pinkie Pie’s feet as she hopped up and down behind her made it all too obvious she was following her.“What is it?”
Pinkie bounced over her friend and plopped in front of her. “Wanna hang out tonight?”
“That’s it?” Twilight said with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry but I don’t see why you would bother taking this long and following me to ask me that.”
“Yeah,” said Pinkie rubbing the back of her head, “Mac and me, or is it me and Mac?”
“Mac and I,” Twilight assisted
“Yeah that. Anyway Mac and me haven’t gone on a double date yet and we thought it would be fun. And I gotta make it up to Wishful Thinking for messing up his house any soooo, two birds with one stone right?”
Twilight’s realization caused her to bite back her rage at her friend’s inference again. “I don’t have interest in Wishful like that,” she growled.
“Ah come on,” said Pinkie, “I know you haven’t had a date yet in your life. You already kissed this guy, and it’s a double date so you can just treat it as going out with friends if you don’t wanna be lovey dovey. It’s a win no matter how you look at it. Plus you’d be helping me out as a friend.” She added some puppy dog look to this last word. “Pleeeeeeaase.”
Pinkie’s logic was sound and she was making that face no one had resisted. Even Big Macintosh who had seen this face countless times fell for it. “On one condition,” It came out of her mouth faster than she could control. “We have to make it a real group thing. We invite Rarity too.”
Twilight couldn’t take her little brother with them. Spike needed to really consider whatever it was he had done to Rarity. She wanted to believe in her brother sure, it was why she didn’t judge him to his face when he announced being into a school filly when he was still on break from his magic classes. But the fact he had done that to one of her best friends still didn’t gel with her.
Pinkie nodded, “of course. But why is Rarity upset anyway?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” answer the lavender unicorn. “We better go talk to her about this first.”
Rarity washed her face and did her best to make herself presentable. Her own emotions did take president, but with Sweetie Belle coming over more often she needed to make sure she had the money to visit the spas, feed her sister and herself, and stock her materials. Granted more orders were coming in ever since Twilight’s birthday party a few months back, but it would do her no good if she didn’t complete said orders on time since the business world isn’t kind to those who were unable to deliver on their word.
She took a deep breath. She had sent Sweetie Belle away as she entered her bathroom and she suspected the child was still lurking in her workplace not allowing herself to leave Rarity in such a state. Rarity liked that about her sister, it was one of the few things they had in common. But with Sweetie’s luck she would never get her work done and she hoped her sister would leave when seeing she was at least attempting to get over her heartbreak.
As she thought, Sweetie Belle was standing outside the bathroom when she got out. “I know,” Rarity told her sister, “I look horrid.”
“No,” Sweetie said simply and turned to leave her sister. “You sure you’re going to be alright?”
“I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said rubbing her cheeks against her sister. “Now go on. You need to have fun and I need to get to work or else I will have to spend the next three days pulling all nighters to finish.”
As Sweetie left, Twilight and Pinkie came in through the opening door. “Help her out please,” she said to them as she galloped off. Pinkie, who had been fully informed of what happed to Rarity by now nodded at the filly and went off to talk to Rarity. Twilight stopped her and the two watched as Rarity got into her zone and worked on her newest dress.
Wishful’s laugh echoed through the house. Spike rolled his eyes and let him finish as he held his sides and started banging the table. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“You said it was serious,” said Wishful between snorts as he tried to control himself.
“I am serious.” Spike put as much of a forceful tone to show this as he could and Wishful finally stopped.
“Okay,” said Wishful standing himself up and doing his best to calm his laughs, which wasn’t working. “That just raises more *snort* questions. Seems the more we find out about this version of our lives the more confusing it is.”
“Actually this one isn’t so confusing,” said Spike nonchalantly. “I was just telling you so that you may help me figure out what to do next.”
“That I can do,” The Dragon Pegasus, “When you *Pbbfflliitt* explain how that makes sense to you.”
“Well remember the story I told you the other day?” Spike’s friend nodded and he continued, “Well that was also the day I was reminded not to let greed control me. It was likely that if I wasn’t destroying half of Ponyville I would not have kept to it so well.”
“Still not following SD,” said Wishful.
“She’s one of the richest ponies in town. It is likely this version of me who never had the problems that stood in the way of me dating Rarity, never learned this. So while ‘I’ was a perfect gentlecolt and everything Rarity would want, I was still me besides that.”
Wishful finished finally controlling himself, “Meaning you went after this filly because you could get more stuff and money and thus two timed because this version of you still have to follow the rules of your wish till this point. Well this is most troubling.” Then he grabbed the copy of “The Dragon King” he was reading with his wing claws and started skimming.
“Hey,” shouted Spike making a green flame show up between Wishful’s face and the book without burning either.
Wishful jumped back, “What was that for?”
“I came to you for help!” shouted Spike, apparently having a slight mood enhancement from his hormones before controlling himself again with heavy breaths. Still being a baby dragon at the time he had yet to grow into having this happen to him slowly and wasn’t able to cope as well as a normal teenager, which is saying something considering the average teen. You know what, he was normal never mind.
“As it so happens I was helping you, but even if I wasn’t it would be counterproductive to my goal of undoing this wish anyway.” He trotted over to the dropped book and picked it up saying, “I remember reading a chapter concerning something similar in this story. Give me a moment and I’ll get back to you on it.”
Spike sat and waited as Wishful quickly skimmed the book. After some time Wishful smiled and exclaimed, “Ah ha. I knew it was in here. The main character Celinbum ends up with two dragon prospects for a wife but can only choose one. However the one that is less off leaves on her own thinking she isn’t worth her love’s affections.”
“So what happens?” asked Spike interested.
“She was right,” Wishful said simply.
“What?”
“Celinbum marries for money and the kingdom lives happily ever after. They never meet again and Celinbum is okay with this because he likes gems more than lovers. Guess the pony author is in that camp that makes generalizations on dragons.”
“How the moon was that supposed to help!?”
“It doesn’t,” replied Wishful with a manic grin. “I just really wanted to relate this to something.”
“Of course,” said the unicorn teen. “You decide to revert back to being a troll when I need to know how to break it off with Diamond Tiara and get Rarity back.”
Wishful raised an eyebrow, “you didn’t break it off with that filly already?”
“Well I didn’t have time to think about it,” said Spike. “I was too much in shock to say anything and then she goes and kisses me. MY first kiss. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have that thrown on you?”
Wishful gave him a bewildered look, “you saw me have the same problem only a few hours ago. Geez, you’re worse than my little sister.”
Now it was time for Spike to be confused, “You have a little sister?”
“Sure,” said Wishful putting down the book, “She and my mom moved to Fillydelphia after our parents divorced and Dad got his job in Cloudsdale.”
“Don’t you mean Canterlot?”
“No, I didn’t move to Canterlot till…” Wishful’s thoughts trailed off as he tried to remember. Somehow it wasn’t as cloudy now. “…till I granted my father’s wish.”
Before he could go more into this, Pinkie Pie burst into the room with Twilight. “Hey Wishful Thinking, that is your name right?” She then started talking even faster and faster. “Do you prefer Wishful or Thinking, or WT? OOO WT makes you sound like a big time producer. Mine just sounds like a disease. PDP, yuck, so you can call me Pinkie. Anyway….”
Neither of the Stallions could figure out what the heck Pinkie Pie said after that. She seemed to go on and on about something involving Wishful and some other ponies like a party. The only thing that was clear was her attitude changing as she spotted Spike. Definitely negative.
Thinking he got the gist of it Wishful agreed but asked, “How am I supposed to leave here anyway? I mean Twilight’s good but it’s not like she can make one of these all over town like Shining Armor.”
“I can give you a bubble for yourself if I look it up,” said Twilight. “Rainbow told me how your dad did it for you all the time. If a regular unicorn can make magic good enough for containing whatever it is, than I should be able to pull it off without any issue once I know what I’m looking at.”
“Alright…” said Wishful a little confused, “So where are we going.”
“The Mareiott,” said Pinkie. “It’s not really my style but I wanna try something so Rarity can feel comfortable.”
“Sounds good,” said Wishful faking through it, “But what about Spike then?”
“He’ll need time to think about what to do next,” said Twilight staring at her little brother.
“But I have,” said Spike, “I’m getting Rarity back and fixing everything.”
“Oh nononono,” said Pinkie, “That is too soon. Let her have this night out with us tomorrow first. Some space can work wonders sometimes. If you go in there now she’ll just reject you again for stirring up her feelings without getting a chance to see what it is like to go out without you.”
“I agree,” said Twilight, “Besides you have been falling behind in your summer studies. I’ll have to tutor you all day tomorrow and leave homework to do while we’re out.”
“Ah come on Twilight,” said Spike with a groan.
“No buts. See you tomorrow Pinkie.”
Pinkie let herself out as Twilight shut the door behind her with magic. Wishful lamented the fact he couldn’t do that kind of magic anymore without blowing his once a day use if the winking didn’t count which it likely did.
“So,” said Wishful both trying to keep things from being awkward and keeping Twilight and Spike from having a meaningless fight. “Where should I sleep?”