"Miss Sweetie Belle, your word is: Ro-bot."
This wasn't that hard. Of course, it was only an early round. Sweetie still had some doubts about the word, though.
"Robot. Could you define it please?"
"Ro-bot. A machine that looks like an equine being and performs various complex acts of an equine being, whose lack of capacity for pony emotions is often emphasized."
"Erm, sentence?" Sweetie Belle was almost sure of the word, but she wanted to hear it again.
"Robots are perfect. Robots are the future. You bleed. You are not a ro-bot."
She cleared her throat. "Robot. R, O, B, O, T. Robot."
The announcer pony hit an approving buzzer in time with the small applause and the surge of ecstacy that shot through the small unicorn filly. "That is correct."
Final round. Whoever made the first mistake now would have to take second place and let the other win all.
Sweetie was more than a bit nervous. On the other hoof, coming second would still be an incredible achievement for her. She was fine with whatever happened. That didn't really help her nerves.
"What a match, fillies and gentlecolts. Only two contestants remain. Miss Sweetie Belle from Ponyville and miss Dawn Light, coming from the very castle we're in right now. Who is going to claim this competition?"
Sweetie swallowed. So far, things had gone okay for her, as she was not yet eliminated, but the filly she was going up against was tough. Clever as she was, you could think that she was Twilight's daughter and twice as bookish as her supposed mother.
"Your word is: Dumm-kopf."
The gray filly pondered on the word for a second before going through the usual routine. "Hmm... definition please?"
"Dumm-kopf. A very stupid individual."
"Colony slang..." She muttered away from the microphone. "Can you put it into a sentence?"
"Your previous competors were all dumm-kopf-s"
Dawn Light blinked once. "Dummkopf. D, U, M M, K, O, P F. Dummkopf."
Buzzer. Sweetie's hopes of an easy victory were crushed by that simple noise.
"Perfect. Miss Sweetie Belle, your turn. Alright, your word is: Ma-nip-u-lat-ed."
Sweetie Belle had barely heard that word before. Her chances quickly fell. "Uh, definition please?"
"Sure. Changed by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose."
Letters started to clump together before Sweetie's inner eye, but they were unclear and not enough to form the full word. "Can I have that in a sentence?"
"This contest is ma-nip-u-lat-ed."
She felt confident enough to try it now. "Manipulated. M A N, N I P, U L A, T E D. Um, manipulated."
The audience moaned in disappointment, the voices of Rarity and Twilight loudest among them. With much self-discipline, Sweetie Belle managed to keep her composure and give her victorious opponent empty congratulations.
The announcer was heard again, but he sounded extremely far away to Sweetie Belle.
"Congratulations, Dawn Light. We'll work on sending you the Daring Do collection you've just won. Oh, and for little miss Sweetie Belle..."
Sweetie's ears perked up and she was drawn back into the full reality for a moment.
"You don't get anything because you lost. Go home now."
Such pointless rudeness made Sweetie want to do just that. Fighting a lost battle against her upcoming emotions, Sweetie Belle charged off the podium towards her friends and her sister.
Surprisingly, Rarity didn't actively take the role of comforting Sweetie Belle. Instead, Twilight was the main speaker in the conversation, with Spike occasionally speaking in, his true motivations unknown to two of the three unicorns present.
"Don't take it too bad. You came for some entertainment, you got that, now you can forget the embarassment and go back to life."
Sweetie kicked up a small cloud of dirt before answering, her head hanging low and her voice sounding extremely demotivated. "Yeah, I suppose I will."
"Come on. I want to see a smile on that cute little face you have. Besides... you do realise I have every Daring Do book in my library, right? Spike'll be able to get them for you."
She was still a bit disappointed in herself for losing the contest, but hearing that she could enjoy what she would have won anyway brightened Sweetie's mood a bit.
"Oh, yeah, that'd be really nice of you."
Spike put an arm over Sweetie Belle's shoulders, a gesture which was almost impossible for ponies to perform while walking, but fairly easy for him since he was bipedal.
"You almost got 'em. Even if you had gotten eliminated in the first round, you'd still have beaten everypony else in my opinion."
Rarity's eyes met Twilight's over the young ones, their movements suggesting that they should watch the two more closely. Twilight responded by rolling her eyes, as if to say: "Don't bother."
As they were approaching a small house with a balcony sticking out about fifteen feet above the ground and a photograph of a mare with a lit candle in front of it, Twilight quickly pushed the other three into an alley, passing the house by the side instead of directly going in front of it.
When Sweetie Belle asked for the reason of their detour, Twilight spluttered something about this being a shortcut to the train station.
Sweetie Belle crawled into her bed. The day had been long and tiring for her. Fortunately, she could sleep in if she wanted as the next day would be a Sunday.
As she got comfortable, she found something waiting for her, still cold despite lying under the blanket for some time due to inability to produce own body warmth.
The sharp edges slightly poked Sweetie Belle, but the gaps in its pattern tickled her.
Sleepy as she was, Sweetie didn't feel like talking much. "Ah, it's you again. Have a good night, Mareiam."