Broken Peace
The curtains were drawn, the lights were dimmed, and Twilight Sparkle sat alone on the floor. She fidgeted slightly as she took an object in her magic and lifted it up to inspect. She'd done this countless times before, but it never lost its thrill. She took a few deep breaths as she carefully moved the object into position, brushing the edge of the opening as it passed. With another breath, she started to push with practiced precision. She slid it forward, shuddering when it finally came to rest next to the others of its kind.
Twilight was breathing heavily as she reached for another one and moved it into place, each one a different color. How many could she fit inside? She didn't know. She could calculate it if she really tried, but that would take away all of the excitement. It was one of her favorite activities, after all, and she wanted to savor every moment of it. Of course, she'd never have the guts to tell her friends just how much she loved it.
She paused as she held the last one up, unsure of whether or not there was enough space for one more. A bead of sweat slid down her forehead, but she was too focused to wipe it away. She wiggled the object around slightly, pushing aside the others like it just enough that one end could fit between them. She hesitated a moment, and then shoved hard, squealing with unbridled joy as the final book slid into place on the shelf.
She fell back from the wall of books, panting as she took in her work. She'd finally done it. The last one was a tight fit, but she'd reshelved all the books in the library. At long last, her reshelving day was complete.
She stared around at the rows upon rows of books that surrounded her, her mouth hanging open slightly as she let out a low moan. "It's all so... so organized," she squeaked, rolling over and stroking a hoof along a nearby row of books. "Mommie loves you," she cooed, petting the spines of her precious tomes, "don't you know?" She leaned in, scraping her coat against the wooden floor, and planted a little kiss against a copy of "White Tail Woods: A History."
"Don't tell the others, but you're one of my favorites." Twilight reached her muzzle toward the book again and slipped her tongue in between it and an old edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Equestria," taking in the taste of the leather-bound books.
Twilight's ears perked up as she heard a gasp, and she whipped around to find the source. Spike was standing at the bottom of the stairs, eyes fixed on her and his mouth forming a little "o." Twilight slowly got to her hooves, not taking her narrowed eyes off the dragon.
"Spike, what have I told you about bothering me during my reshelving time?" Twilight growled.
"Oh crap," he mumbled, turning and running back up the stairs.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Twilight grabbed Spike's tail in her magical grip, pulling him up and off the floor.
"I-I'm sorry, Twilight! Really! I didn't know you were reshelving today!"
"Lies!" Twilight hissed, bringing Spike right up to her face. "You know exactly when I reshelve my books!" She turned and trotted for the kitchen, levitating the little dragon behind her. "I think an hour might be enough remind you not to interrupt my business."
"Aw, come on, Twilight, I didn't even—"
The rest of Spike's sentence didn't reach Twilight's ears as she stuffed him into the freezer and slammed the door shut. She smiled to herself and made her way back into the library's main room with her muzzle held high. She knelt down in front of a shelf again, resting a hoof against the spines of her beloved books. "Now, where were we?"
Before she could resume, however, her backside was pelted with shattered glass as something smashed straight through her front window, ripping her curtains right off the wall and skidding to a halt across the floor. After a moment of struggling under the curtain, Rainbow Dash tossed it away and stood up.
"Hey, Twilight, I need your help!" Rainbow said as she brushed some glass from her mane with a wing.
Twilight groaned. "Rainbow, you asshole! Didn't you see that my window was closed?"
Dash nodded. "Duh, that's why I had to break it." She stuck her muzzle into her saddlebag as Twilight glared at her, and retrieved a little notebook. "I was writing something, and I kinda wanted—"
"You can write?" Twilight said in surprise.
Rainbow scowled. "Of course I can write! In fact, I'm writing a book." Rainbow crossed her forelegs as Twilight stared at her with a furrowed brow.
"What sort of book?" Twilight asked slowly, raising one eyebrow as she watched Rainbow for a response.
Dash pawed at the floor a little. "Um, well, it's uh, kinda...." Rainbow looked away toward some point on a wall. "Fanfiction."
"Oh," Twilight said, smiling. "What did you need help with, exactly?"
Rainbow looked back to her friend. "Wow, I kinda thought you were gonna make fun of me or something."
Twilight chuckled, saying, "Why would I make fun of you for writing fanfiction?"
"Because that's what I'd do if I found out you were doing something so geeky and lame," Rainbow replied, plopping the notepad down on a desk. "Can you take a look at this for me? It's not a whole lot, but I kinda wanted some feedback."
With a roll of her eyes, Twilight snatched up the notepad in her magic and held it up. Her eyes slowly moved from left to right and back again as she scanned the writing. She lifted up the page to check behind it, then flipped it all the way over. "This is shit."
Rainbow's ears flattened. "Um, did you read it all?"
Twilight rolled her eyes again and kept reading. After a good twenty minutes, she stated, "There, I read it all."
"And?"
"It's still shit," Twilight replied, turning away and holding out the notepad.
Dash took the notepad in her hooves, holding it to her chest. "Well, um, what's wrong with it?"
"Everything," Twilight breathed, turning her head toward Rainbow dramatically. "It's an obvious self-insert, the plot makes no sense whatsoever, things just happen for no explained reason and are never mentioned again, Daring acts totally out of character, and what the hell is up with the random sex scene when they're halfway through the pyramid?"
"I was kinda running out of stuff for them to do on their journey."
"So, you thought they should fuck, is that it?" Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Actually, I was gonna make them do it anyway at the end."
"Of course you were," Twilight said, a little smirk forming on her face. "On the subject of your dumb-as-shit ending, it comes completely out of nowhere. There's no foreshadowing, no set up, nothing. Suddenly, this dragon just comes out of nowhere and eats the villain. It's like you wrote yourself into a corner and couldn't think of any way to resolve the conflict, so you just pulled a solution out of your ass and slapped it on the page."
"Hey, I'll have you know that the dragon ending was always part of the story."
"So, your goal was always to have a nonsensical ending?"
Dash groaned, slapping a hoof to her face. "It makes total sense, Twilight. Were you not paying attention to the part about the prophecy with the Scales of Justice?"
"What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"
"The Scales of Justice? As in dragon scales? As in a scaly dragon that comes down and serves justice to those who defile the temple?"
Twilight opened her mouth, then shut it again as she stared in wide-eyed disbelief at Rainbow. After a moment, she was finally able to say, "Seriously? That's the foreshadowing for a dragon swooping in and eating somepony? How is anyone supposed to figure that out? It's so monumentally stupid, I think my I.Q. just dropped a few points from hearing it! You are a disgrace to all things writing!" Twilight snatched away the notepad and tossed it into the fireplace before turning her nose up with a satisfied smile.
Rainbow reached a hoof into the unlit and harmless fireplace to retrieve her notes, remarking, "I'm surprised you didn't bitch at me about the grammar."
"Actually, the grammar and spelling were pretty good, it's just that your plot is entirely incoherent and the whole thing is completely unbelievable within the canon of the Daring Do series." Twilight turned to Rainbow again. "None of that stuff would ever happen in a real Daring Do book."
Now it was Dash's turn to roll her eyes. "Duh, that's why it's fanfiction. If A.K. Yearling wrote stories like this, I wouldn't have to."
"That logic—isn't."
Rainbow opened her mouth, but then just closed it again as she scratched her head. Twilight could almost hear the rusty cogs in Rainbow's puny mind straining to comprehend what had just been said.
Twilight gave Dash a shove toward the door. "Now, why don't you go reread that Daring Do sex scene of yours and touch yourself inappropriately some more, hmm?"
"Pfft, it's perfectly appropriate if it's done to something sexy. It would only be inappropriate if I did it to something weird, like reshelving books."
"You take that back!" Twilight screeched, throwing herself at Rainbow in an indignant and sexually-frustrated rage. Rainbow simply sidestepped and let Twilight go right into the fireplace, which still wasn't lit.
"Shit, Twilight, what's your problem?"
At the exact moment that Twilight pulled her soot-covered mane from the fireplace, the ceiling caved in as a colossal, multicolored egg smashed down through the library's roof. Wooden splinters shot through the air as it crashed into the floor, embedding itself right next to Rainbow Dash. The pegasus simply looked over at the blue and orange egg, raising an eyebrow.
"Damn it," Twilight groaned, shaking the soot from her head, "not again."
"What the hell is this thing?" Dash asked, prodding it with a hoof.
"It's an easter egg, dumbass."
"Well, what the hell is it doing in your library?"
"Easter eggs are everywhere, these days. You haven't noticed?" The unicorn smirked. "Too busy with your muzzle buried in Fluttershy's—" but Twilight stopped suddenly, inhaling sharply as her face was assaulted with Rainbow's book of notes. She backed away, covering her furry face as blood began to stain her coat. "Oh, sweet Celestia!" she screamed. "The paper cuts!"
"I told you never to talk about that!" Rainbow scolded. "You promised never to mention it to anypony!"
"We're the only ones here!"
"I said anypony, and that includes me!"
Twilight suddenly stopped rubbing her paper cut-riddled face. "Wait a minute, why am I putting up with this shit?" And with that, Twilight Sparkle lit her horn and teleported Rainbow Dash out of the library and directly into Fluttershy's already-occupied bathtub. What that unexpected arrival caused is another story entirely, but it resulted in Angel never being able to look Fluttershy in the eyes again (or eat carrots).
"Much better." Twilight turned around, heading for the kitchen to clean out her numerous facial wounds, but she stopped abruptly as she caught sight of the purple dragon tip-toeing away from the open freezer. "Spike, you little shit weasel! What're you doing out of the fridge?"
Spike stopped dead. "I had to use the bathroom! If I did it in the freezer, it would've ruined all the food."
"That's no excuse," Twilight spat, grabbing the dragon by his head in her magic and holding him up to her face. "I think your disrespectful transgression deserves something extra special."
Spike's eyes went wide as Twilight turned and carried him across the room. "No, not that!"
With a series of clicks, Twilight undid the seven locks on the basement door. "Yes. That."
"Please, Twilight, not the basement!" Spike whimpered, shuddering in her magical grasp. "I'll stay in the freezer all night! I can hold it in!"
"Shut your bitching hole, you ungrateful whelp." Twilight tossed Spike through the door.
Spike could hear the door shut behind him before he'd even reached the basement floor. Seven locks clicked into place, and he curled up where he landed. Even though the air was warm down there, he was still shivering. His breathing grew shallow and rapid with trepidation.
Wet, disgusting squelching sounds soon reached his ears, the familiar noise giving him horrific flashbacks all by itself. A few squeaks preceded a heavy splat, and that was followed by squishy steps that steadily grew in volume until they were right next to the little dragon. Spike's unblinking eyes turned away from the massive jar in the corner, following the round puddles of goo that lead to the the source of the noises. The tall, gray-coated, yellow-maned, goo-covered stallion looked down at him with a smile that make Spike piss himself right on the spot.
"Jelly time."