It was happening again. The princes-
Rarity
-was staring at her again. She looked as if she was trying to figure out some riddle, but Twilight had not given her one in several days.
Perhaps she was trying to come up with her own?
Maybe Twilight did something wrong and she's trying to think of the right way to explain it to her.
Twilight hated it when she needs to have something simple explained to her. She was a sphinx of knowledge.
But.. the way her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, it didn't seem like other times. She's been subject to the prin-RARITY's attention before. When they first met, when they had that first big talk.
But this look was still different. The fur on the back of her neck involuntarily started to rise. It made her feel uneasy.
They both made to speak at the same time, snapping their jaws shut at the sound of the other's voice.
Twilight bowed her head forward slightly, letting Rarity go first.
"Twilight, dear…"
A piece of ice dropped into the pit of her stomach. Even the tone of her voice was off.
"...may I ask a small… favor of you?"
Is she going to ask her to wear a bag on her head? Or the dreaded cone of shame from the doctor's office??
"O-of course Prarity. What do you need?"
A single eyebrow raised at the name slip, like a guillotine, but the blade never dropped. She moved on as if I she did not hear it, even though she certainly did.
"Can you come over here please? I would like to see something. A little check, that's all."
OH NO DID SHE HAVE FLEAS AND NOT REALIZE IT
WHY DOES HER NECK ITCH NOW ALL OF THE SUDDEN
BY THE GODS
Despite her internal panic, she manages to walk over to the pony princess in a mostly calm manner.
"Sit, please." She did as asked, a fuzzy ear twitches.
Rarity lifts her hoof up between them, so the frog is facing up. "Give me your paw, if you would."
Her tail is next to flick and twitch, betraying her anxiety over the situation. Hesitantly, she raises her paw up and places it on her wife-to-be's outstretched limb. She pays extra mind to keeping her claws sheathed.
Oh no, is Rarity going to trim her claws?? Had she scratched the couch by accident??
Rarity places her other hoof on top of her paw, patting it gently.
Then with agonizing slowness she turns the paw over, exposing the pads underneath to them both.
Rarity gasps. Twilight flinches.
Any moment now. Just like back home. The shouting is going to begin. She had done something wrong, she was sure of it, and was mere moments away from punishment.
She just wished the princess would hurry up! The suspense is more agony than the pain wi-
"BEANS!"
What?
"What?"
The exclamation was enough to jar the young sphinx out of her thoughts, owlishly eyeing the other royal.
"YOU HAVE BEANS!" She nearly shouted in jubilation.
To say Twilight was confused would be a crime. Perplexed. Flabbergasted. Utterly and completely lost.
"I'm not holding any beans.. Food stays in the kitchen, princess."
"NO TWILIGHT. THESE!" She prods at the soft pads of her paw.
"Those are my toes? That's my paw?"
"No Twilight these are beans! I need.. I need to find Fluttershy!"
Rarity shoots to her hooves, racing out of the common room.
"Stay right there I'll be right back! Fluttershy? Fluttershy!"
Rainbow Dash, who had been guarding the door when Rarity burst past, cast Twilight a questioning look. Twilight mirrored it with one of her own and shrugged. The guard gave chase, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts and her soft paws.
She may never understand ponies. Not ever.
It took nearly ten minutes before curiosity got the better of her, forcing her to relocate to the library. Rarity was inevitably going to get sidetracked, as she always did, so the young sphinx had some time to research. The library was also the first place Rarity would look if she could not find her.
So she went about gathering a small carload of books, from cooking recipes to the delightfully unfiltered History of Beans collection that the castle library had in its entirety for some reason.
An unknowable amount of time later, the hurried voices of Rarity and Lady Fluttershy flitted through the library doors. Twilight had taken the time to find a secluded spot, to buy herself as much time to figure this out as she could, but Rarity was wise to her tricks nowadays. It would not be long.
Their voices drifted between the stacks.
"See Fluttershy? I told you she was getting better. I asked her to stay there and she did not. She wasn't too scared of me to go against my wishes. It's refreshing to have her get so comfortable about me."
"It is a big change from when she first arrived. She's such a dear when you get to know her a little. So gentle and graceful and polite."
"Hooves to yourself, that's my fiance you are practically drooling over." Rarity chided teasingly.
"Eeep!"
Hearing Rarity refer to her in such away made her chest tighten and flutter at the same time.
"Aha! See? I told you this was where we would find her. In amongst the tombs, reading some dreadfully boring drivel, no doubt. The...Do's and Don'ts of Chili? Oh. Darling, we must get you into something more thrilling. I know of a splendid tale my mother used to read to me, about a princess in a library and a dashing seamstress.."
"Um.. so why did you bring me here again?"
Fluttershy's soft voice somehow manages to snap her friend back on track
"YES. RIGHT. Fluttershy this is the greatest. Possible! THING!"
She grabs Twilight's paw, pulling it forward.
"BEHOLD!"
With a flourish, she turns the paw over and exposes the underside to the world once more.
Twilight watches intently.
Fluttershy gasps a single dreadful word at a volume previously thought impossible for her to reach.
"BEANS!"
Her wife-to-be giggled, nodding her head emphatically.
"I know! Isn't it marvelous?"
Twilight has transcended past confused now, to some other state of mental disarray that does not have an appropriate term in modern language.
All of her research amounted to nothing. No possible explanation for the behavior of her friends. Not in the history of beans, or their use, or even cross-referenced to sphinx.
She had hoped Lady Fluttershy would provide some explanation, but it seems that whatever has afflicted the princess has affected her as well.
"Those… those are my toes…"
Fluttershy looked up from the paw she was nuzzling, as if noticing whom it was attached to for the first time. Hopefully she will explain her actions..
"No Twilight…" her voice was gravely serious.
The ice in Twilight's gut returned, double the size.
"...these are beans."
With both of her front paws being mercilessly nuzzled and squished and no escape in sight, Twilight gave up. When Rainbow Dash finally tracked them down, she found Twilight reading a book propped up on the arm of the couch she was laying on. Both front paws and now one of her back ones were occupied by the other two regal mares, whispering and giggling and having a grand old time.
The guard offered a silent prayer for the sanity of her charges. May it return someday.