It was a calm Saturday afternoon, and the warmth of the sun outside her window melted through the glass in the crystal tree castle’s library. Twilight Sparkle was lounging in her favorite red chair in the massive circular library, immersed in a wonderfully thick book.
Everything was going fine in the day. Twilight’s recent castle tenant had agreed to clean the castle with Spike, the princesses had not written anything to her for over a week, and the Cutie Map had laid silent. There was finally, absolutely, nothing to do.
It was something that was hard for a pony like Twilight to admit, but when everything on her schedule was done and over with, she enjoyed not having anything particularly pressing to do. More often than not she found time and life slipping away from her one day at a time. It was one thing to do things in life; it was another to actually live. And she did, after all, admire books as literary masterpieces that were essential to read. These little breaks in time were the perfect opportunity to do what she wanted to do.
And so Twilight bathed in the light behind her from the open window, getting through Les Miser Stables in the comfort that this was her time to enjoy it. She didn’t notice the reflective light off the crystals holding up the room’s ceiling. She didn’t notice the moth that had flown in and was resting on the floor. The story was simply so immersive that it made her become Pone Valpone, and feel all of the troubles he was seeing and experiencing.
Across the library was a pair of elaborately carved double doors leading out to the rest of the castle. The entire room was quiet and still.
And suddenly those doors banged open to the sides with a tremendous boom, revealing an orange stallion on his hind legs holding the doors out to the sides with both his forelegs. The instant he banged them open, he inhaled deeply, bent over, and yelled, “TWILIGHT!”
Les Miser Stables flew out of Twilight’s hooves as Twilight jumped in place and scooched backwards in her chair until she hit the wall. “AAAAUUUGH!”
“TWILIGHT!” the orange pegasus bellowed again, collapsing to the floor and ruffling his hooves through his warmly-colored mane. He carried with him the smell of cleaning chemicals and dispensable oxidized gloves. “THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO ASK YOU!”
“What?!” Twilight irritably demanded out of him, leaning against the backrest for all she was worth. “What is it, Firestorm?!”
“I-NEED-TO-ASK-YOU-SOME-THING!” Firestorm replied in broken sentences as he slid himself across the floor on his stomach using his hind legs. He bonked his head against the foot of a reading table and slid directly under it until only his head poked out from under the opposite side. His tri-colored yellow, orange, and crimson mane was lying flat on the floor as he gazed at Twilight like a dog with his large yellow eyes. “And this time, it’s important! It-it-it-it’s really! IMPORTANT!”
“What is it you need to ask me?” Twilight replied with an increasing feeling of dread.
“I swear, Twilight! It isn’t another question about the chicken crossing the road, I swear it! I swear on my balls!”
“You never asked me a question about the chicken crossing the ro-” Twilight started.
“ENOUGH!” he grandly announced, holding up a hoof. He slid out from underneath the table and scooted, on his back now, until his head bonked the foot of Twilight’s velvet seat. “That doesn't matter! What matters, Twilei-yeei-yee-ight, is what I have to ask you!”
“You haven't even told me!” Twilight yelled at him, standing up on her couch and staring over the seat into his yellow eyes. “Are you going to tell me?”
“I’ll do it now.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Now?”
“Now.”
Twilight was highly doubtful of that; this was Firestorm here, after all. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else in that mind of yours you’d like to get out?”
“Now.”
“Now is the time, Firestorm. If there’s any-”
Firestorm flipped up in the air using his wings and zoomed so close to Twilight their noses almost touched. “NNNNNNOOOWWW!”
“Yeesh!” Twilight pushed Firestorm off of her lap with her hind legs, and he wheeled in the air mindlessly. “Get to the point! Did something actually important happen?”
Firestorm righted himself in the air and hovered there with his wings. “Something important came up, Sparks! I came to ask you about it!”
“Are you sure it was so important that you came in like that?”
“Sparks. I wouldn’t have done barged in so dramatically if I didn’t have a very good reason for it.”
“Well, um...what was it?” Twilight asked with legitimate concern now. “Did one of the toilets leak water and flood the second floor again? Did Fluttershy forget to keep one of the bears on a leash and now it’s in the castle?” Her face grew increasingly concerned as she went on. “Did Discord appear out of nowhere and wreak havoc somewhere? Do the Princesses need me to correct some world-altering event?” She gave a little gasp. “Maybe I...forgot something on my schedule!” She crouched as if about to launch from the couch like a firework.
“What?” Firestorm shook his head incredulously and put both his hooves on her shoulders to steady the bookworm. “Gurl, you’re not the type to forget anything! You think I’d come to you with so stupid a problem as forgetting that you don’t forget about anything?”
Twilight gazed at him with evident ire.
“Okay, that was a little weirdly worded. Wittle weirdly worded.” He waved aside an invisible fly. “But nah. I came to ask you something truly important.” He leaned in closer to her, stared her in the eyes, and put both of his hooves on the side of her face. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then asked, “Are you bread?”
Twilight’s intellectual mind fizzed out like a broken light. “Ah...What?!”
“Are. You. Bread?”
Twilight pushed Firestorm away after another prolonged moment of awkwardness.
“No, you see, I need to know,” Firestorm defended himself, stumbling back like a drunken sailor. “I need to be absolutalutalutely serious before I decide to rub margarine all over you.”
The conversation was getting increasingly physically draining on Twilight’s mental capacity to comprehend the pegasus. Twilight felt like he had hit her skull with a sledgehammer.
Over and over and over again.
“Now, I really am bread,” Firestorm continued nonchalantly, as if he was ordering dinner. “I was bred by my dad. Are you telling me that you weren’t bred at all when you were younger? If you weren’t bred, how are you even here?”
Twilight gave a mix between a groan and a sigh, and slumped on her seat until her back was flat on the cushion.
“You see, I ran across the past tense of breed and I decided to make a pun on it.” Firestorm puffed out his chest like he had won the Best Young Fliers Competition. “I’m a clever boy! I’m the bestestest...est boy ever!” He affixed Twilight with puppy eyes. “Do I get a treat?”
“Firestorm?”
“Yes?”
“Get out.”
“Anything for my landlady,” he replied evenly. Bowing grandly, he exited the room backwards. He backed into the door and reeled a little, then shifted to the side and backed away again through the doorway. He gently shut the doors together without making a sound.
Twilight took a bit of time to just lie there, halfway off the sofa cushion, reflecting on the nature of the pegasus whom she had decided to provide lodging in the castle. He certainly wasn’t the worst thing to happen to her recently, but he was definitely the most bizzare.
A creak came from the library doors, and Firestorm poked his curious head through the crack. “The cookies are on the top shelf, right?”
Twilight, lying on the cushion, nodded tiredly with a hoof over her face.
“Thanks,” he said softly. He pawed at the ground with a single hoof. “You’re the best, Twilight. Thanks for letting me stay.”
He gently shut the door again.
It was a little thing, such a little thing, but as he left, Twilight felt a twinge of joy at his words. It was better than saying she was terrible, at least. And Firestorm definitely did do his job enough to deserve a cookie or two. Twilight gave a genuine smile.
One final message from Firestorm vibrated through the crack. “Pone Valpone dies at the end!”
Twilight popped her dilated eyes open with a shocked and dismayed doink.
Firestorm would get no cookies tonight.