//------------------------------// // Ch. 6 :: The Silence // Story: Truth or Dare // by Tirimsil //------------------------------// Discord had gone too far this time. As soon as they made it back home, she was going to give him a stern talking-to. She didn't care if it happened hundreds of years before she was born. Fluttershy was going to demand an explanation for Discord's indecent behavior! Twilight slammed a hoof down onto the floor. "Fluttershy!" she hollered. "Meep!" the yellow pegasus squeaked, and her outrage from the previous round's revelations was gone. What did she do? Was her face too angry? Was she thinking too loud? She stared at Twilight from under a wing. That was what wings were best for. She wasn't much of a flier, but she was a peerless hider. They were also pretty good for swimming, too. "Our turn! Our turn!" Twilight wiggled on her pillow. "Ask me! Come-on-come-on-come-on." She clapped her hooves together impatiently. She grabbed the cards with her magic, brought them over to herself, then seized them by hoof and slid them across the ground, bumping into Fluttershy's pillow. "O-oh, yes, of course, s-sorry..." Fluttershy mumbled, staring down at the cards. She was sure Twilight would want a Truth card, and would find some way to make it about facts. Facts were truths, after all. Right? Still, it wouldn't be polite to presume. When you presume, you put pressure on you and me. She gave a little lady cough. "U-um, Twilight, would you prefer --" "DARE!!!" Twilight roared. "Aiie!" Fluttershy cried. She didn't want to be unappreciative, but she wished her friends weren't quite so volatile. She was always confused by whether they were really happy or really angry. Especially with Rarity, you couldn't always tell. Fluttershy liked to think she could read ponies very well, but they were so much more confusing than animals. Animals had simple desires and usually expressed them very clearly. There was nothing simple about a pony... and as Applejack had demonstrated, even their basic biological needs were so much more stressful. Fluttershy would much rather clean up after dozens of animals than after one Applejack. She knew Twilight sometimes spoke before she thought and wanted to give her a chance to correct herself. Twilight hated being corrected, but she hated not being corrected even more. "... Um... Are you sure?" "Whattya mean am I sure?!" Twilight puffed. Fluttershy would really appreciate if she stopped screaming. "I'm from the block. C'mon, dare me! I dare you to dare me!" "What block's she from?" Dash asked. She spoke nice and calmly. Normally it was the other way around, and she was the yelling one and Twilight was the calm one. "Th' ones foals use ta learn them some letters," Applejack answered with a smirk. Fluttershy had already quietly drawn the card and looked it over without fanfare. She didn't like to cause a fuss. "I don't understand this card," she admitted, looking bashfully around over the top of the card in question. "It says, 'I dare you to stay completely quiet for one minute'. But even Pinkie Pie's been quiet for over a minute tonight..." "I was unconscious," Pinkie deadpanned. "Twice." "Oooh." Fluttershy said. "That's a very clever way to do it." And she sincerely meant that. If Fluttershy was a shirt, she would read: You say bimbo like it's a bad thing. She fished around in the box for a timer. "Oh, here it is. Okay, the timer starts..." Her heartrate rose a bit when she realized she wasn't sure how to start it. She fumbled with it rapidly, hoping to figure it out before anyone said anything. Eventually, it finally beeped, and the numbers started going. "Now?" she said uncertainly. Twilight bit her lip. Fluttershy was sure she thought that look on her face was serious. It reminded her of the first time Rainbow Dash had ever tried a lemon. (She'd tried to eat a whole one in one bite.) Fluttershy, to whom discouraging another pony was a foreign concept, was about to be horrendously confused. "She finna lose," Rainbow Dash spat in a strange tone that most of her friends had probably never heard. Fluttershy's ears perked up and she flashed back to a time long past. Was... Rainbow Dash using her Rainbow Dagger voice? ... Why? She usually pretends that never happened. "Maht kooooood," Applejack retorted in a heavily exaggerated version of her normal drawl. Applejack hated when her accent was mocked. Why was she making fun of herself? This was very strange. "We could provoke her thick ass..." Rainbow Dash suggested. Fluttershy blushed at the candid statement. Rainbow Dagger had been very flirtatious in speech, even if she was just as shy in love as normal Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy looked to the Princess in worry. Luna was staring at the foul-mouthed duo like they were aliens. "Are... you two alright..?" Oh dear. If the Princess dissociated too badly, she might even excuse herself. Dash looked at Luna with a wink and spoke a bit louder. "... buuuut she 'bout to pipe up irregardless." Fluttershy couldn't believe her language tonight! Dash then jerked her head towards Twilight, and Luna looked over. Twilight's eye was twitching. The Princess stared at her with her mouth slightly open, and blinked a few times. Then, suddenly, she gasped. "Oh!!" The Princess said, and tossed her mane. It was a good thing she understood what was going on, because Fluttershy absolutely did not. She tensed when she heard Rarity talking. "So liiiike," the high-class unicorn droned, somehow having found bubble gum to chew while talking, "do you guuuuys want some wateerrrr? 'cause like, I brang water..." She hadn't talked like that since Fluttershy had moved to Ponyville. Twilight glanced at her several times, red-faced and sweating. "Ee-it's hawter thun a pegasus's ass in a peppah payetch in heah, pitch me summa thayems," Applejack crooned slowly. Fluttershy hid her face. She wished everyone would stop talking about behinds. "FORSOOTH!" Luna shouted, tossing a wing upwards. "We wouldeth liketh thine watereth, Rarity!!" Oh no, whatever it was had infected the Princess too. Fluttershy hoped they weren't sick. Was she going to get sick, too? "Yo throat dry?" Dash queried. "I'm axin' 'cause mines is jacked up." Back then, she'd picked this kind of talk up from Gilda. Gilda was nice now, and really embarrassed when her past was brought up. She'd called herself the Big Boss B-word. She even... said the actual word! It was unthinkable. "Mine throat is driereth than the Ghastly Gorge," Luna announced, then paused. "... whiiich... 'twas carvedeth by Rockhoof... errr... a mere hundredeth moons ago!" Fluttershy jumped at the sound of Twilight on all fours, smacking the floor with one hoof. That's what Pinkie looked like when she tried to sample a rainbow at the Cloudsdale factory. Looking down at the timer, Fluttershy saw that the minute was nearly over. Thank goodness, maybe they would explain. But then Pinkie Pie cleared her throat. "Didja know there's no water in Saddle Arabia?" she chirped brightly. Then she added dismissively, "They never invented it." Pinkie Pie, you know that isn't true, Fluttershy thought to herself. Twilight slowly turned to stare at Pinkie, eyes bugging out. "Wooooow, literally?" Rarity asked. "Where'd you learn that, grrl?" "Oh!" Pinkie hopped on the spot and pointed at Twilight. "Twilight taught me!" "AAAAAAAARGH!" Twilight roared and jumped up out of her pillow. "I MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT!!!" Fluttershy stopped the timer, then curled defensively into her pillow, eyes shooting back and forth at the madmares around her. They were all pointing at Twilight with a smile. "Gotcha!" they all yelled. For the second time in 24 hours, Rainbow Dash yelped and jumped back as Twilight's face rocketed to a few inches in front of hers. "'Finna' is not a word! What even is that!!" the angry scholar demanded. "'Regardless' is already a negative! 'Mine' does not have an 's'! And what the heck do 'axin' and 'jacked up' mean?!" "G-geez," Rainbow Dash called from somewhere in the sunken depths of her pillow. Twilight had seemed very similar to their old teacher just now. Rainbow Dash must have had a subconscious fear. Twilight took a single hop to the right to go nose-to-nose with Applejack, who simply smiled back at her. "'Might could' is redundant and 'them' is already a plural!" she continued. She spun around to approach Rarity, who leaned back. "'Like' and 'literally' are superfluous NOTHING-words! 'Guys' is not an acceptable address for an all-female group! And the past tense of 'bring' is 'brought'!" "Meep," is all Rarity offered to counter. Twilight stepped over to the Princess and gave a perfect bow. "Your Majesty..." And then... she started yelling at her! "Old Ponish is not simply shoving 'eth' at the end of random! Words! And you should know that the Ghastly Gorge was originally the Ghastly Caverns, because they are older than you!" Luna just looked up at her with her neutral pout. Fluttershy was sure she would have leapt up to yell back. Luna was much louder, and won most arguments easily that way. But... she seemed to take it in stride. Twilight rushed to Pinkie Pie and jabbed a hoof at her. "You are... are simply full of it!!!" "Yeah~ I know~" Pinkie giggled. Pinkie was being a very bad girl and Fluttershy did not care for her attitude. "Wait," Rainbow Dash managed as she swam back out of her pillow, "What about --" "AND!!" Twilight spat, sending Rainbow Dash yelping back into the plush ocean, "And you... Rainbow Dash... don't even want to get..." She wiggled her economy-sized hips. "This booty... STAAARTEEED!!!" She must have been furious. She only wiggled her behind when she was really mad. Twilight collapsed as Rarity levitated a water bottle over to her. "Thank you for the water." Twilight panted. "I, erm," Rarity stammered, "I brought so many of these suspecting something like this might happen..." "Thank you for your proper grammar." Twilight wheezed. "I..." Fluttershy trembled. "I didn't know Twilight liked to talk so much..!" She looked all 'round. "Really." Dash returned. "Where've you been." To be fair, Fluttershy was being very polite with that one. Seeing that the wicked spell over everyone had vanished, Fluttershy sighed and decided to stick her neck out. She had obviously missed something very important and was about to embarrass herself. "Why did everyone start saying all of those strange things?" Fluttershy questioned. "Why Fluttershy!" Rarity gently admonished. "We dared her not to talk, and then tried to get her to talk. You see?" "Good job," Twilight moaned, face down in her pillow. Fluttershy supposed that was a good wording of what had just happened. She blinked. "I... I didn't realize we were supposed to stop someone from doing a Dare..." "... Well," Applejack considered, "When ya say it like that, it does sound purdy stupid." "Pretty." Twilight said into her pillow. "Now what you a dangum minute you ain't been said nothin' 'bout my talkery in a month o' Sundays and suddenly come yer turn it's an issue?!" Applejack spat out in a single breath. There was a pause. "Applejack, I love you," Twilight groaned wearily, and Applejack's eyes softened. "But sometimes you say things like whatever that was, and I just give up." Fluttershy sympathized completely. As far back as Rainbow Dagger, Fluttershy had spent most of her life giving up on understanding what was happening around her.