//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Cheering up, or at least trying to. // Story: Chibi Flan's Foalsitter 2 A new Foalsitter // by Lucky Star Kona-chan //------------------------------// Spike was a little worried when Twilight didn’t come back the day before. Fortunately, Flan came to tell him she was going to spend the night at her place. He planned on visiting later, after he finished sweeping the floor. He missed spending time with Flan, but for now he was just waiting for Twilight to come back. "....When did Flan get her own house?” he found himself asking nopony in particular, broom temporarily forgotten. Talk about your delayed reactions. Spike just shrugged, deciding to get to whole story when he went over to visit. It was then that the doors to the castle swung open with a -bang- and Twilight galloped past him, in the direction to her room, with tears on her eyes. “That can’t be good,” eyes wide, Spike went after her. The second she passed the threshold, Twilight locked herself in her room, practically diving atop her bed, sobbing. ‘H-how did this happen?’ She buried her face in her pillow, Flan's reaction continuing to replay itself over and over in her mind. ‘Why did I lose my temper there? Flan… I didn’t think about her at all… what is wrong with me? How could I done that to her… I could’ve handled that situation in a better way…’ She heard knocking at her door, interrupting her internal self-torture, “Twilight, what happened?” “Leave me alone Spike!” Twilight cried. “....If that’s really what you want, I’ll do it Twilight, but if something is wrong, you know that you can talk to me, right?” “Sorry Spike…” “Don’t worry, I’ll be cleaning the library if you need me.” As she heard the sound of footsteps grow fainter and fainter, Twilight finally lifted her face off her pillow. ‘Thank you, Spike,’ Twilight felt a little better knowing that somepony was here for her right now, ‘I’ll let him know what happened after I organize my thoughts. I just hope he won’t be too upset with me.’ Meanwhile, Trixie stood outside Flan’s new room. She had seen Flan cry and she knew she'd never get used to it. She felt like a stake was being driven through her heart, repeatedly. And that just made her even angrier at Twilight. ‘How dare that mare make Trixie’s little Flan cry,' it took the blue unicorn a minute or two to wipe the scowl off her face, 'now is not the time for that. Flan needs Trixie.’ Trying to hide her anger behind a determined stare, Trixie knocked on the door. When she got no answer, she tried the knob and, surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Slowly Trixie made her way to the bed side, where she saw the curled up form of her little vampire under the covers. “Flan?” Flan’s form twitched slightly, slowly crawling out just enough to poke her head out of the covers and look at Trixie. It was heartbreaking for Trixie to look at that face, the tears coming out of those pure scarlet eyes, the sobbing and just her sad expression in itself. Trixie stared back with a light blush and quivering lips, but not for the reason you would think. ‘S-she’s so cute! I want to hug her so much!’ She then nearly slapped herself, ‘What am I thinking!? I have to cheer her up! But she’s so cute!’ “Ahhh! What is wrong with me!?” Trixie grabbed her head in exasperation, ruffling her mane before settling down. Flan just stared at her. Trixie lifted her head to look at Flan for a moment, then adopted a determined stare and quickly darted out of the room...just to come back almost a minute after with her magician outfit on. ‘I hope this works.’ Trixie cleared her throat. “Behold! As the Great and Powerful Trixie attempts the greatest acts ever seeing by pony eyes!” Trixie proceeded to do a variety of tricks, but due to her nervousness and simple lack of planning, every single one ended up terrible. While juggling, she tossed one of the balls so high that it bounced on the ceiling and hit her in the head. When she tried a card trick, she shuffled them wrong and all the cards fell on the carpet. Finally, when she tried to spawn flowers on her hat, only for smoke to come out. With each consecutive failure, her mood was worsened bit by bit; with the last trick failing, she threw her hat to the side, and then sat on her rump looking down in shame. Flan looked at her, sympathetically, and got out from under the covers. Hopping off the bed, she slowly made her way closer to Trixie, which is when she noticed the sobs. “Flan, I’m sorry,” Trixie said suddenly, “I…I can’t even do this right…” She covered her teary eyes with her hooves. “T…Twilight was right… I don’t have what it takes to take care of you.” Shortly after, she felt something stroking her head, and looked up to see Flan in front of her with a sad smile. She was the one stroking her mane and also had her hat on the free hand. “Twixie, Twixie good, don’t cwy?” Flan made the effort of saying that in her current voice. “Heh heh, you’re adorable Flan, thank you…” Trixie smiled back, “thank you so much…” Trixie then hugged her little vampire, who took advantage of this and put Trixie’s hat on its rightful place. Flan then rubbed Trixie’s back to make her feel better. This continued for a couple more minutes before they let go of one another, both calmed down. “Heh, Trixie was supposed to make you feel better, Flan, but you made Trixie feel better instead,” a hint of disappointment could be heard in Trixie’s voice. But Flan shook her head while smiling. Then wrote something on her chalkboard and showed it to Trixie: “That’s not true. You made me feel better. You just tripped a little here and there. Thank you Trixie.” Trixie giggled, “Trixie is not that good but thank you, Flan.” Flan gave her a thumbs up. Then a round of knocking came to the door. “Uuu!” Flan said to whoever was on the door. “Starlight, if that’s you, she said ‘come in’” Trixie translated, perfectly. Starlight was indeed outside the door, but Rainbow was the one who entered first. “Wait, Trixie you can understand Flan now?” Rainbow asked in disbelief. Just now, Trixie noticed that as well, “I…I did understand her… but how?” Starlight turned to the pony who understood Flan first, “Rainbow Dash, what happened when you were able to understand her for the first time?” Rainbow went stock still before saying, hurriedly, “I…I don’t remember.” Seeing as how she was suddenly sweating, Trixie and Starlight stared at her, suspiciously. But before any weird conclusion would be made, Flan showed the two of them her chalkboard, “We were playing and Rainbow was practicing one of her aerial stunts, then…” A panicked Rainbow Dash snatched the chalkboard from Flan’s hands and erased what was written with her fetlock. “Hey! Trixie wanted to read that!” Trixie complained. Starlight had managed to read the whole thing, but kept silent because apparently that was a big deal for Rainbow. Still she had her muzzle scrunched by the silliness alone. “Flan! Don’t go telling ponies about that!” Rainbow was flustered. Flan waved a dismissive hand in her direction, as Trixie kept complaining. Applejack, after looking for Rainbow the whole morning without success, decided to go to Twilight’s castle in search for Flan. She was a little surprised when she found Twilight and Spike leaving the castle, Spike being with this look of annoyance. After asking what happened, Spike explained everything and Twilight, recognizing the look in Applejack's eyes, tried to escape...only to be wrapped by a wild rope, tying her up in a way that prevented movement. Twilight felt a weird sense of déjà vu coming over her. Midday Ponyville was greeted with a peculiar view: Princess Twilight tied up and being dragged by her friend Applejack. “Applejack, Spike. Stop this! I’m not ready yet!” They ignored her. “Nope, yer not escaping this one Twilight," Applejack shook her head, Spike mimicking the motion from atop her back, "ya’ll going to apologize ta them right now, no excuses." In her worried state, Twilight forgot she could use magic, but then again, she’s not the brightest pony ever when it comes to stress.