//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Twilight Holmes: The Mystery of Basil Bones // by bats //------------------------------// Twilight knocked on the door, which opened so quickly she almost rapped on Fluttershy’s head. “Ah! Fluttershy. Hi.” “Oh, good, it’s you. Did you find anything out? Do … do you know who was in my house last night?” Twilight turned a critical eye over her face. She had bags under her eyes, and a few locks of her mane were out of place. Twilight forced a smile. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” Fluttershy’s pupils shrank. “Yet. I have some clues, though, and a few ideas that might be true. Is …” Twilight bit her lip and squinted in thought. “Francesca! Is Francesca still here? And awake?” “She went back to sleep, but I can wake her up again, she said it would be okay if I did. Oh! Sorry.” Fluttershy opened the door wider and stepped back from the threshold to let Twilight in. “I know I’m probably overreacting, it’s just that I’ve never had somepony break into my house before.” She slunk further into the room ahead of Twilight, looking around at all of her things, as if she’d find something out of place. She stopped suddenly and straightened. “Unless I have and just didn’t know. Oh, no …” Twilight cleared her throat, making Fluttershy jump. “I think it’s too early to jump to conclusions, I’m not sure that anypony did break into your house. Francesca said that she thought it might be one of the other animals, didn’t she?” “She did, but I’ve talked to all of the animals now, and none of the others say they were in the kitchen last night. She was the only one that noticed anything, too.” “Well, you get wild animals that come inside every once in a while, right?” Fluttershy frowned and tapped her chin, and Twilight saw some of the tension melt away from her shoulders. “That’s true, a lot of little birds and forest critters stop in if they’re too cold or hungry.” “See? It might have been one of them!” Twilight’s face slackened and her eyes went out of focus. “It might have been one of them …” She shook her head. “A-anyway, that’s something we can ask Francesca.” She set a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. Fluttershy flinched at her touch, and she pulled away. “I’m sorry, are you okay?” “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … I’m …” Fluttershy stopped and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “I’m really scared, Twilight. I know you probably think I’m being silly. We’ve gone off on adventures and have done so many dangerous things. I’ve faced down a dragon. I shouldn’t be scared of somepony who came into my house and took some dishes I can’t even use, somepony who might not even exist.” She held Twilight’s gaze and searched her face. “Do you really think it was just an animal looking for something to eat?” Twilight returned her gaze and slowly touched her shoulder again. “It could be. I think in a lot of ways it makes more sense if that were the case. But … I’m not going to lie to you and say that I know for sure that nopony broke in. That might have been what happened. And I don’t think it’s overreacting to be upset by that.” Fluttershy swallowed and nodded. “I can say that if somepony did break in and we figure out who, they’re going to have a lot to answer for. Even if all they did was take a tiny set of dishes and hide them in a strange place. Nopony in town will put up with somepony breaking into your house and making you feel unsafe.” Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy nodded again, standing up a little taller. “Thank you, Twilight. I know I’m making a bigger deal out of it than I should.” “I’m not sure that you are. Ponyville is a safe town, we all know each other here, the only time anypony ‘breaks in’ anywhere is because they had too much to drink and went into the wrong house.” Fluttershy raised an eyebrow and Twilight smirked. “You’ll have to ask Rainbow about that, it’s her story to tell. It’s Big Mactintosh’s story to tell, too, but I imagine his version is very different. He’s not used to Rainbow’s snoring.” Fluttershy giggled and hid her mouth. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll go wake up Francesca and bring her inside; she’s up in the bat house in the yard.” She opened the back door and paused, glancing back at Twilight, her posture more relaxed. “Thank you, Twilight.” Twilight smiled and turned towards Fluttershy’s couch to sit down. Angel stared back at her from the cushion. “Oh! There you are.” Angel thumped his foot three times and crossed his forelegs over his chest. “Wow, Angel, if looks could kill.” His mouth twitched open, showing a tooth that seemed far too sharp for a rabbit to have. “Okay, okay, I kept my promise!” She opened her saddlebag and floated a tied-up bunch of carrots over to the couch. Angel eyed them critically, his legs still crossed. Twilight didn’t know why she was sweating. Finally, he relented, nodding once and dragging the carrots off the couch and up towards the stairs. Twilight let out the breath she seemed to be holding. The back door opened again and Fluttershy came in with a tiny brown bat hanging upside down from her foreleg. “Twilight, this is Francesca. Francesca, this is my good friend Twilight Sparkle. She was hoping we could ask you a few questions about last night again, if that’s okay with you.” Francesca let out a wide yawn and stretched out her wings, then wrapped herself up again. “Hi, Francesca,” Twilight said, commanding the voice in her head that was screaming about how weird it was to talk to a bat to sit down and shut up. “Fluttershy told me that you saw something in the kitchen last night. Could you tell us exactly what happened?” Francesca turned towards Fluttershy and made a series of clicks and squeaks. Fluttershy nodded along, then said, “She says that she woke up a little late last night and came inside through the open window, because she wanted to get a drink of water before going out hunting. When she came in, the house was mostly dark, but there was a light on in the kitchen. At first she thought she was alone and went straight to the water bottle.” Fluttershy pointed out a large jug hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the living room opposite the kitchen. Twilight walked over to the jug, which she guessed must have been the container from a water cooler hooked up to a gravity-stopper drip tube, like the water bottle for a hamster cage, only ten times bigger. She turned towards the room. From the angle, she could see only a small portion of the inside of the kitchen, about a foot and a half wide section of the corner cabinet and the backsplash behind the counter. “Hmm.” She looked back at the bottle and to the window right next to it. “Is that the window she came in from?” Francesca nodded. “Okay. What happened next?” After Francesca stopped making bat noises, Fluttershy said, “She says that after she got her drink and started to leave, she noticed a shadow on the wall in the kitchen and heard some sounds. The sounds weren’t loud or anything, so she thought it must be me or maybe a different animal getting something to eat, and she flew back out of the window.” Fluttershy stopped, and Francesca squeaked again. “…And she says that there were a lot of moths around last night and she gave herself a tummy ache, but I’m not sure if that’s really important right now.” Twilight rubbed her chin. “So you came in from this window, got a drink, and left through the same window, and didn’t go anywhere else in the house?” Francesca nodded again and Twilight narrowed her eyes in thought. “Since you said that you thought it might be Fluttershy in the kitchen, does that mean you could tell what size whoever in the kitchen was? And they were definitely pony-sized?” Francesca stayed quiet, and Twilight saw her scratch her chin with the thumb claw of her wing. She turned to Fluttershy and squeaked. “… She doesn’t know. The shadow looked like they might be big, but it wasn’t very clear.” Francesca went on, and Fluttershy’s eyes widened, then relaxed. When she continued, her tone carried a hint of relief. “The sounds they were making were very quiet, so she thought it was me or maybe an animal her size, like a birdie or maybe something as big as a gopher. She didn’t think it sounded like a pony in there, just me specifically.” Twilight smiled and shook her head. “This is why Rainbow says you’re too quiet. Now, let’s see …” She walked over to the kitchen and looked around for a moment, trying to solidify the mental picture of the night before. “Which light was on in the kitchen? Do you know?” After a pause, Fluttershy said, “She says she doesn’t know what you mean. Hold on.” She walked with Francesca into the kitchen. “See, sweetie? That glass dome up on the ceiling is the main light, and then there are little lights under the cabinets. Do you know which lights were on?” Francesca shook her head and clicked a few times. “She doesn’t know. I don’t think she has anything to compare it to.” Twilight frowned in thought. “Was it a very bright light?” Before Francesca could say anything, Fluttershy answered, “All lights are pretty bright for bats.” “Hmm …” Twilight smiled. “I have an idea. Go and stand over by the water bottle.” She turned around and grasped the curtains with her magic, pulling them shut, then went out and did the same in the living room, leaving the house dark. It wasn’t half as dark as it would be in the middle of the night, but she felt confident as she clicked on the overhead light in the kitchen. “Did it look more like this?” She clicked it off and turned on the under-cabinet lights. “Or this?” There was a pause. “… Could you switch them again?” Grinning, Twilight flipped the lights back and forth a few times. “Francesca says she isn’t sure, but she doesn’t think it was the main light because it comes out too far into the living room.” “I thought so,” Twilight murmured, turning off the overhead and leaving on the cabinet lights. She began pacing around the room, watching the far corner, which she knew as the only spot that Fluttershy and Francesca could see from near the water bottle. She stopped in the middle of the floor. “Can you see my shadow in there at all?” “No, not right now.” “Hmm … not surprising,” She muttered to herself. The overhead light was powerful enough to cast a shadow off of anything in the room, but most shadows wouldn’t reach far enough outwards for Francesca to have seen it. The shadow’s source would have to have been very close to the door, or very close to the light. Both of which were possible, but Twilight had suspected the cabinet lights when she’d asked Francesca. She moved to the far end of the room, to the cabinets next to the sink. She smiled again and waved her hoof in front of the light. “Ooh! Now I can see you … Yes, Francesca says the shadow looked just like that.” Twilight nodded sharply and walked out of the kitchen. “Okay, I think that’s all we need to ask Francesca. Thank you very much, it was really helpful.” Francesca yawned and wrapped herself up tightly in her wings. “I’ll be right back, let me just take her back to bed.” Fluttershy went outside and Twilight walked around reopening all the curtains. She opened the last one up over the sink and stayed staring at the counter’s backsplash. Fluttershy came back in. “So … do you think it was an animal?” Twilight sighed. “Sorry, but … I’m not sure. I don’t think it wasn’t an animal, it’s just …” She turned and waved her hoof in the air. “This is what I was doing when you could see the shadows. See where I am?” She stepped back, revealing the counterspace, including the drain rack for dishes right next to the sink. Fluttershy nodded. “Right where the tea set must have been.” “Francesca must have been here right when the theft was taking place. The shadow could have been from a bird, or a gopher, or … or, I don’t know, any sort of animal up on the counter, moving around in the light.” She waved her hoof again. “Or it could have been a pony moving something around on the counter. And how much noise do you think a tiny tea set would make while somepony was stealing it and trying to not wake you up?” Fluttershy’s shoulders sunk. “Yeah, you’re right, Twilight. I guess we don’t really know anything more than we did at the start.” “We do know one thing that’s really important,” Twilight said, letting herself relax and smile. “We know that whoever—or whatever—took the tea set had a physical body.” “So … we know it wasn’t a ghost?” Fluttershy asked, straightening up and giving Twilight a puzzled look. “Were we worried it might be a ghost? Are ghosts real?” “Not a ghost. Just something that could manipulate objects without actually being here through magic.” Fluttershy’s confusion deepened, and Twilight turned towards the sink. She hefted the draining rack in her magic. “Like, say, if a unicorn levitated the tea set from outside your window, or used a summoning spell from pretty much anywhere in Equestria, if they knew exactly what they were wanting to take.” She grinned to herself. “Or if a creature made of chaos wanted to play a game,” she muttered quietly. “Looks like you’re right where you’re supposed to be.” “I guess that’s true,” Fluttershy said. “Just the tea set would be too small to make much of a shadow if it was floating on its own, they would need to have moved the draining rack, too.” Twilight’s smile turned into a frown. “And magic is bright and colorful, so it wouldn’t have made a shadow, it would have been a colored light. Well, most magic.” Twilight’s frown deepened. “What do you mean by ‘most’ magic?” “Oh, well, I was just thinking about it, and I remembered that I have seen magic that didn’t have any light around it.” Twilight froze and pressed her mouth into a thin line. “… Discord’s magic.” “Yes, exactly. But it couldn’t be him. I mean … how could it?” “Yes … how could it …” She stared off into space for a moment, then lifted her head. “Fluttershy, when you woke up this morning and noticed the tea set was missing … were there any acorns in the kitchen that you noticed?” “Acorns? Huh?” “You know, acorns. That looked like somepony left them on the counter, maybe even in the dish rack.” She tapped her chin. “You know, there were some on the counter, three I think. Sometimes the woodland critters like to leave them here as presents, so they didn’t seem out of place. Why?” Twilight grimaced. “Twilight?” She sighed and rubbed her eye. “Nothing, it’s just … I had a hunch, and when I came here I was hoping I could disprove it, and I just thought I did disprove it, and now I’m not sure anymore. The good news is, I guess, that if the hunch is true, it would mean that nopony broke into your house.” “That would be good news. Is … is there bad news?” Twilight forced a grin and shook her head. “Not really. It just means that if I want to disprove it, I’m going to have to make this really long day even longer.” She straightened her saddlebag on her back and opened one of the flaps. “Would it be okay for me to borrow a piece from that tea set? I’ll bring it back to you later, I just need it to test something.” “Oh, of course, Twilight.” Fluttershy flew up to one of the overhead cabinets. “Does it matter which piece?” “No, anything from it, and the less fragile the better, I don’t want to break anything on accident.” Fluttershy retrieved the tiny serving tray made of metal, which Twilight slid inside her saddlebag. “Perfect, thank you.” She walked out into the living room. “Now, regardless of what I find out from this piece or anything else along the way, there are a few other things I think we can know for sure after having talked to Francesca.” Fluttershy perked up and raised an eyebrow. “There are? It didn’t really seem like there was that much to learn, no matter how much Francesca wanted to help.” “I’m at a slight advantage to you with information from spending the morning looking into the things that Basil Bones has had a hoof in. I don’t have all the pieces yet, but what happened to you and your tea set fits in with a pattern of other things that have been happening. And if that’s true, it means that the theft here was done for no other reason than to stage the … thing that happened at the water fountain this morning.” Fluttershy’s cheeks colored and she coughed. “Y-yes, that thing.” “What I mean is, your tea set was only stolen so that Basil Bones would find it. Why, I’m not sure yet, but considering the rest of the pattern, I’m reasonably confident that the reason wasn’t to embarrass you or make you feel unsafe. I couldn’t say for sure why you were chosen yet. It might have been random chance.” A pang of anger gripped her chest for a moment. “Or it might be because you were one of the six of us who was there when the world almost ended.” Fluttershy shrunk into her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not following you.” Nodding, Twilight scratched her neck. “I don’t know that I’m following me, either. The important thing to take away, I think, is that the theft is part of the pattern, and the pattern is for small, mostly insignificant thefts that happen randomly to random ponies who are somewhere nearby to Basil Bones. You’ve already been targeted once, and I think it’s unlikely you’ll be targeted again. Whoever is doing these things and why they’re doing them would be nice to know and I hope I can find out, but from what I can tell, I don’t think you need to worry about something like it happening another time to you.” Fluttershy’s expression switched back to confusion. “So in other words … it’s over?” “For you? I think so, yes. Whatever was in your house last night won’t be back again. It won’t have a reason to. You can put this behind you.” She let out a breath and slumped in relief. “That’s really good to hear. All I wanted was to put it behind me from the beginning.” “Well, you should be safe in doing that. I could be wrong, but I really don’t think I am. This wasn’t about you or your things, it was just part of a con game of some sort. Or maybe something else.” She gave a pained smile. “When … if I find out for sure, I’ll let you know, but for now, I’m going to leave you alone and let you put it behind you.” Fluttershy smiled and stepped up to give Twilight a hug. “Thank you, Twilight, I really appreciate everything.” “Of course.” She hugged her friend back and then turned towards the door and sighed. “Now I guess I need to go to Canterlot.” Fluttershy opened the door. “Really? Why? What’s going on in Canterlot that has to do with this?” “Hopefully it’s nothing.” She stepped outside and looked off towards Ponyville and the train station. “It’s just part of what I said earlier about eliminating the explanations that are impossible. And this one is something really impossible.” She waved goodbye and set off. Rainbow Dash’s stomach growled loud enough to wake her up. She groaned and rolled over on the cloud, burying her face in the fluffiness. She gurgled again, huffed, and sprung up. “That nap sucked,” she muttered. “Skipping lunch was a mistake.” She gave the ground a sour glare and scanned the crowds of ponies milling around. She considered going home and poking around her kitchen, but that would mean she’d have to actually make something to eat, so that was a no go. After making sure there was no sign of purple or green in the crowds, she dropped down from the sky. She landed in the town square and headed off through the central shops, until the sign for the Hay Burger caught her eye. “If today’s a day of stupid stuff, getting a gross, awesome burger is the best stupid idea,” she told herself. With a grin, she stepped up and put her hoof on the door. “Hey, Rainbow Dash!” She winced. “Ugh, what now?” She swung her head around towards the call and saw Scootaloo waving from her scooter. She reluctantly raised her hoof in reply. “Oh man, they’re gonna want me to go after Basil again, aren’t they?” she grumbled, but as Scootaloo drew closer she didn’t see Sweetie or Apple Bloom. “Hey, Scoots, what’s up?” “Nothing much.” She skidded to a halt in front of Rainbow. “Sweetie and AB around?” “Nah. We were gonna go do something cool, but they wanted to keep talking about that guy forever.” She rolled her eyes. “I told ‘em I had to go home for a bit. That guy’s boring, and thinking about stuff the way Twilight does makes my head hurt.” Rainbow grinned. “I know, right? Well, have fun, Scoots, I’m gonna go grab something to eat.” She turned around and pushed the door open. “Um, Rainbow? C … could I talk to you about something?” Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up at Scootaloo’s complete shift in tone. She looked back and saw Scootaloo’s expression, twisted up with a mixture of emotions, with worry and embarrassment winning out the most often. “Uhh, sure, kid. What’s up?” “It’s…um…” Somepony left the Hay Burger through the door Rainbow was propping open and slipped past them. “Uh, could we sit down somewhere? Somewhere not surrounded by ponies? “Good thinking, let me grab something to eat first, then we’ll go sit somewhere outside.” Scootaloo nodded without looking up from the ground. “You, uh, want some fries?” “Okay.” Rainbow headed into the Hay Burger with Scootaloo behind her. As she ordered some food and waited for it, Scootaloo stayed quiet and skittish, and a growing sense of panic over what sort of conversation she was about to have washed over her in waves. When she got her food after what felt like years, Rainbow headed back outside and found a bench to sit at, away from everypony else. “Here, Scoots.” She pushed over a bag of fries and pulled out her burger. “So what’s going on? Something bugging you?” Scootaloo munched on a fry and stared at the ground for a moment. “… Um, so … Twilight’s your, uh, girlfriend, right?” Rainbow blinked. Whatever the conversation was, it couldn’t be as serious as she was afraid it would be, and the worry unraveled itself from her stomach. “Uh, yeah, she’s my girlfriend.” She remembered she was hungry and took a big bite of her lunch. “Why?” “What, uh…what do you do with her?” Rainbow choked on her burger. Coughing and sputtering, she forced out, “Whuh?” “You know…girlfriend stuff. What girlfriend stuff do you do with her? How’s it work?” Rainbow felt her face warm up and her pulse in her ears. “We, uh, well …” She cleared her throat looked at her burger again, before setting it down on the bag. “… We, y’know, do, like, normal girlfriend stuff, I guess …” Scootaloo groaned and set her fries down. “What’s ‘normal girlfriend stuff’?” “What’s this about, Scoots?” “I just wanna know what I’m supposed to do with Sweetie Belle!” she snapped, then eeped and flushed, looking away. “Sweetie’s my girlfriend, I think.” “… You think?” “I mean, I’m pretty sure.” She picked her fries back up and stuck one in her mouth. “Like, I’m … ninety percent sure if you asked her if I was her girlfriend, she’d say yes, and, like, I’m pretty sure she’s happy about that?” She shoved down another couple of fries. “And, like, I’m kinda happy that she’s happy about that, so I guess that makes us girlfriends? But that probably makes me a bad girlfriend, because I have no idea what I’m doing.” Rainbow’s eyebrows felt like they’d gone up above her mane line. She cleared her throat and took another bite of her burger. “Mmkay,” she said around the mouthful. “D’you wanna be girlfriends with her?” “I guess? I dunno! What’s ‘being girlfriends’ mean?” She sighed and poked her fries back and forth. “Like, with grownups, girlfriends move in together and get married and stuff, and, like, that’s cool and all, but that’s what grownups do, and it feels like it’d be dumb to be worried about doing that right now. Right?” She looked to Rainbow, her eyes searching for validation. Rainbow forced down the bite in her mouth and coughed. “Yeah, Scoots, it’s way too early for you to be thinking about that sort of stuff.” Breathing out a sigh of relief, Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah, see, that’s what I thought. But, like, it isn’t weird that Sweetie’s my girlfriend now, is it? I know we’re not the only two in my class, and a lot of the other girls want special someponies even if they don’t have one, so it seems like it’s normal.” Rainbow nodded and took another bite before answering. “Yeah, it’s pretty normal. I had my first girlfriend in junior speedsters when I was about your age, I dunno when exactly.” “Well … what do girlfriends do?” She crumpled up the fry wrapper and scrunched it into the take out bag. “I know kissing. Me and Sweetie do that sometimes, but it feels weird doing that when Apple Bloom’s around. And Sweetie always wants to walk pushed up against me, or lay her head on my shoulder, and that’s also weird with AB there. I feel like we’re supposed to be doing stuff alone, but AB’s always around and I don’t wanna make her feel left out. And if I did have time with just Sweetie, I don’t know what I should do with her, and I don’t wanna just, like, spend an afternoon doing nothing but kissing, that seems like it’d be boring.” Rainbow grinned and turned away. “Won’t seem so boring in a couple years,” she muttered to herself as she polished off the last of her burger. She straightened up and scratched her cheek in thought. “Okay, well … first off, tell me, Scoots, do you like kissing her, or having her head on your shoulder? I mean when nopony else is around, just the two of you.” “Yeah, I guess.” “You guess?” “I mean … yeah, I do. It’s nice. It makes me feel …” She kicked her hind legs back and forth off the side of the bench. “I dunno. Kinda goofy? Fun goofy. Sorta like at the very top of a jump off a ramp when everything’s floaty.” Rainbow nodded in appreciation. “All right. Well … I think you’ve got the right idea feeling weird about stuff when Apple Bloom’s there, because I’d bet if she’d end up feeling left out, even if she was spending time with the two of you, if you were spending all that time kissing and hugging and junk. Being a third wheel sucks.” Scootaloo nodded. “Okay.” “But it also kinda sucks to have a girlfriend who doesn’t want to spend time with you and pushes you away whenever you try to get close.” Scootaloo crumpled in on herself and looked at the ground, letting out a low whine. “I knew I was being a bad girlfriend …” Rainbow winced and turned away to mutter under her breath, “Twi should be doing this, she’d be better at it.” She ran a hoof through her mane. “You’re not being a bad girlfriend. You’re just, sorta, not being a girlfriend right now. And that’s okay, you’ve been busy telling me you don’t know what you’re doing, and I bet you Sweetie doesn’t really know what she’s doing either. You’ve got plenty of time to figure this stuff out before anypony would say you’re doing a bad job.” She nodded without looking up. “Now. About what special someponies do together.” Scootaloo straightened and turned to Rainbow with interest. “They go on dates.” Groaning, Scootaloo wrinkled her snout. “You mean like getting all dressed up and going to fancy restaurants where they play violin and you just stare at each other? Those look so boring.” Rainbow chuckled and shook her head. “You think that I’m doing boring stuff like that with Twi? … Okay, I mean, I have, because Twi wants to do stuff like that sometimes, but that’s just one type of date.” “Well, what are other types?” “It’s mostly just, like, hanging out and stuff. Special someponies do normal friend things, like go watch movies, eat lunch together, go to cool places, play games, drink milkshakes, you know?” “But I do stuff like that with Sweetie all the time.” “Yeah, but Apple Bloom’s there with you, right? That makes it not a date, unless she has a boyfriend or girlfriend who’s also there, but that’s a different thing. Me and Twi hang out with our other friends all the time, but we spend a lot of time together just the two of us, too. And…okay, sometimes that’s just us hanging out, but we go on dates, too, and sometimes the just-hanging-out time counts as date time.” “I’m lost.” Rainbow sighed. “Me, too. Look, that sorta stuff you get a feel for after you’ve been dating somepony for a while and you can just tell when something is just hanging out time, or if it’s a date. Right now, what you gotta do is just go on some actual dates with Sweetie Belle. Doesn’t have to be a fancy date, so don’t think about it like those scenes in movies, just think about it like you’re taking Sweetie someplace that she likes and having a good time with her.” Scootaloo shifted her weight back and forth on the bench. “Without Apple Bloom?” Rainbow frowned and leaned back, rubbing her mouth in thought. “… I’m trying to remember what dating was like for me when I was your age, but I didn’t have friends like the three of you have. I mean, I had friends, but not the same way …” She shrugged and shook her head. “I think the thing you really gotta think about is, if you want to be girlfriends with Sweetie Belle, you’re gonna have to make time without Apple Bloom if you’re gonna make it work. And that probably sucks and you don’t want to ask her to butt out. You’re gonna have to figure out if you don’t want to do that more than you want to be Sweetie’s girlfriend.” Scootaloo groaned and sunk down to her stomach on the bench. “But that means making one of them sad and I don’t want to make either of them sad.” “You don’t know that.” Rainbow scooted around to sit sideways on the bench and face Scootaloo directly. “I know Apple Bloom can get a little nuts sometimes if she’s worried about something, but it’s not like you’re gonna march up to her and tell her you don’t want to be friends with her anymore. You’d just be telling her that you and Sweetie are gonna go on dates sometimes but that you still want to hang out and do your crusading junk together. She’ll probably get it, and would only be sad if you and Sweetie did start not hanging out with her anymore.” “I guess that’s true,” Scootaloo mumbled. “And the other thing is you don’t know how Sweetie feels about all of this, either. She might not want to leave Apple Bloom out of stuff any more than you do. And maybe that means you’ll both want to hold off on being girlfriends for now and just be friends, or maybe she’ll be happy with, like, a date once a month or so. Or once a week. Or whatever. It’s not like you gotta go on dates every day or anything.” At Scootaloo’s expression, Rainbow fidgeted uncomfortably. “… I probably should have said that sooner.” She coughed. “Anyway, I bet that you can totally work stuff out so that nopony’s sad, because you know that neither AB or Sweetie want anypony else to be sad, too.” Scootaloo sat up. “Yeah, you’re right.” “All you gotta do is talk to Sweetie. That’s a really important part of being a girlfriend and doing it right, you gotta talk stuff out when something’s bothering you. You can’t just …” Rainbow trailed off and stared out into space. “… Hide from everything.” “I guess I do need to just talk to them. That can be kinda scary, though. Well, not scary, but, y’know, not really all that easy.” “I do know.” She grimaced and felt her stomach squirm. Maybe the gross, delicious burger was a worse idea than she thought. “… I gotta go talk to Twilight.” “Right now?” Rainbow’s wings twitched. “Sorry, was there something else you needed to talk about?” “Not that, it’s just … you got burger sauce all over your face.” Rainbow blinked. She looked down at her hooves, which were smeared red up to her fetlocks. She touched her face and felt herself stick together. She probably had sauce in her mane, too. Scootaloo swallowed a snicker and she grinned. “All right, I gotta go take a shower, and then talk to Twilight.” She hopped up off the bench. “Good looking out for me, squirt.” “Any time! And thanks for listening to me, I feel better now.” “Glad I could help.” Rainbow offered a hoof-bump, which Scootaloo hesitated in returning. Afterwards she wiped her leg off on the empty bag. “See ya around.” Rainbow leapt into the air and headed off in the direction of her house and a warm shower. Her nerves leveled out a little, thankful for the good excuse to delay things a while, but she knew she couldn’t delay them forever. She couldn’t be giving any sort of dating advice to anypony if she did. “Maybe I can run into Basil on the way and hit him with something, that’d make me feel better.” Fortunately for him and unfortunately for her, she got home without seeing a trace of a white mane or a green coat.