“Yes you do.” Twilight said to some pony in response to an ulterior question. “So don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.”
The pony seemed satisfied with the answer and left the castle. The princess of friendship let out a sigh of relief and decided, as her she had reached the end of her schedule of the afternoon almost an hour in advance, that going to the spa sounded like a great idea. A good book too, but the spa had one huge advantage: she could ask Spike to accompany her. Both because she hadn’t had much occasions to spend time with the little dragon and because she still had to thank him for the last time he had saved the day. Or maybe the two last times…
She had lost counts. The point was, Spike was always there for her and she wanted to show him her gratitude. And the dragon’s love for book wasn’t exactly the same as her own… So the spa made more logical sense from the two options.
“Spike?” she shouted through the huge hallways of the castle.
One day, she would have to find a more proper and polite way to find each other. For a moment, Twilight wondered how the two royal sisters managed it in the Canterlot castle. Or Shining Armor for that matter. He was already unable to find Twilight in their little house back when they were little, so how he was able to find Cadence in the crystal palace was a mystery…
A loud noise, the sensation of an earthquake around her and a loud voice near her woke her up from her thinking.
“Twilight!”
“Oh, Spike.” the alicorn suddenly noticed. “I’m glad I found you.”
“Well, you found me five minutes ago, but you just kept on walking by shouting my name. Sometimes, you’re seriously going too deep into that brain of yours.”
“Yeah, my head hurts a bit…” Twilight admitted.
“That’s because I made you trip up with a trap to catch your attention.”
Twilight looked around, made a quick assessment of the situation, and then responded, while blushing:
“That does explain why I’m on the ground.”
Spike sighed and helped the princess get up. He liked her a lot, which is quite an understatement to say, but there were times he just couldn’t understand how weird she could act. He knew how to handle it though. Just as for Pinkie Pie: not asking was the best course of action.
“You wanted to see me?” the dragon asked, to change the subject. “Because I’m kind of busy right now.”
“You are? That’s too bad. I wanted to invite you to go to the spa with me. I thought you would appreciate a bit of relaxation.”
“I would have, but I’ve got something important to do right now.” Spike replied. “I’m making a sculpture of Rarity.”
Before the surprise and semi-incredulity of the alicorn, Spike took her through two corridors and three stairways all the way to another room where a pile of rocks was standing.
“It doesn’t look like much yet, but I’m working on it.”
It was indeed looking like someone had been relentlessly hitting the stones to form a huge pile of rubble and one rock shaped in something vaguely resembling an oval hoofball. It was, at least, the most resembling thing Twilight could associate with the shape.
“It looks… hum… great.” the alicorn told Spike.
“I know, right?” Spike proudly replied. “I still need to work on it, but once finished, it will look so great that Rarity will surely fall in love with it and in love with me.”
Given the current state of the sculpture, Twilight couldn’t give that plan much chances of success. And before she had realized it, her mouth had vocalized out loud what her mind was thinking:
“I don’t know if Rarity will like it as much as you think she will…”
She blamed herself for having let that thought slip away from her, even if she had just been giving her honest opinion. But Spike reacted way better than she could have expected. In fact, the dragon contented himself with a laugh.
“Yeah, sure, you would know better than me what Rarity likes or not.” he told the alicorn.
Twilight looked at the hoofball shaped rock, thought of the very refined and meticulous Rarity, and then decided she was right about her previous conclusion.
“Well, I happen to be one of her best friends.” she said, trying to avoid hurting the dragon’s confidence and achieve a draw in that little contest she had inadvertently begun.
“Come on.” Spike replied laughingly, very proud of his position in the contest. “I’ve learned everything that can be known about Rarity and you, you haven’t got a clue.”
“That’s not true!” Twilight defended herself as well as her perfect record of knowing stuff. “I know plenty of things about Rarity. Her eyes are blue, she is a fashion designer and her cat is named Opalescence.”
“Oh yeah?” Spike asked with a grin, ignoring the clues he was given to what was going on in front of his eyes. “Then tell me: what are her parent’s names?”
The words didn’t connect immediately in Twilight’s brain. It simply froze.
Rarity’s parents.
What weird words.
Twilight tried to focus. Rarity’s parents meant the parents of Rarity. That was one good step forwards in understanding what she was being asked. And still, it felt like it wasn’t enough by a long shot… What had Rarity’s parents name to do with knowing things about Rarity?
But then, the semantic link created itself in Twilight’s head and she recognized that, logically, Rarity was connected to her parents through kinship and were therefore important in Rarity’s world.
Twilight’s brain finally accepted to unfreeze, only because she had accepted the fact she had no idea what the name of the parents of one of her best friends were. And it horrified her.
“Rarity’s parents’ names…?” whispered Twilight.
“Yeah. Or you could maybe just tell what type of fabric she prefers to work with? Or the designer she looks up to the most? Or the couture technic she relies on when stressed?” Spike added, content to have cornered Twilight and ignoring the distress calls that the eyes of the alicorns were sending that should have warned him not to press the issue.
But of course, the dragon didn’t stop there. All he saw was that Twilight was at his mercy, unable to say a word and even more, he felt like she should have been able to answer at least one of his questions.
“Okay, here is a simpler one.” Spike said: “When is Rarity’s birthday?”
He could have asked a brick wall and obtained the exact same reaction. Silence and consternation.
“Do you even know what Rarity’s favorite color is?” the dragon asked again in one last desperate attempt, amazed by how little response he was obtaining, driving the nail in even further.
Twilight was unable to find that information anywhere in her memory. She was hopelessly browsing through all her academic records, all the physical principles she had learned, all the magical rules and every single friendship lesson, but no matter where she turned, she always had to face the fact she had no idea what Rarity’s favorite color was.
“Admit it: you know nothing Twilight Sparkle.” Spike said with an air of superiority he had always wished to display as it wasn’t everyday that he could claim to know something Twilight didn’t.
But then, and only then, way too late into the game, he noticed Twilight’s distress and understood he had made a huge mistake.
The alicorn was shivering with anxiety. Her eyes were twitching and she was munching her own tail.
“Twilight?” Spike asked, to assess the damages. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know anything about my best friend!” Twilight shouted in reply, grabbing Spike by the shoulders and shaking him frenzily.
“Maybe you should lay down. Let’s just go to the spa like you wanted to…” Spike tried.
In vain.
“What sort of friend am I?” Twilight asked, now ignoring her assistant. “I pretend to be their friend, but I’ve obviously never shown any interest in them. I was only caring about myself and now I couldn’t even tell their favorite colors or their birthday’s dates!”
Spike was about to react, but Twilight didn’t leave him any time to.
“I have to correct that right away. I'll lose them if they discover how little I know about them... I need you to tell me everything you know about Rarity in great details!”
“Who… me?” Spike asked, completely overwhelmed.
“No, you’re right. I need to go directly to the source!” Twilight decided, driven by her fears and the will to do something to correct her huge mistake.
She grabbed Spike and rushed outside of the castle to find Rarity with the intent to extract all the knowledge she needed in order to call herself a good friend.