//------------------------------// // The Proposal // Story: Starlit Romance // by Test4Echo //------------------------------// "Oh, okay. Here's a good one." Starlight Glimmer smirked as she pulled out a card from the latest edition of Knowledge Hunt: Equestria and Beyond. She looked over the card's question a couple of times, humming to herself, and eyed her rival who was sitting across the small wooden table. Sunburst watched her expectantly, a few beads of sweat beginning to break out on his brow as she continued to taunt him by glancing at the card, opening her mouth, gazing at him, and closing her mouth. Currently he had the lead with four of the six sections he needed to win, and he was aiming to take his fifth after this question. Clearing her throat just to torment him a bit more, she finally continued, "Famous ponies in psychology. Which pony. In 943 ALB." She purposely broke her sentences just to drag it out and see him squirm more. “Come on, Starlight!” he protested, doing his best to remain seated. He began fiddling with his spectacles as Starlight snickered and kept her mouth shut. Finally, after she let her pause continue for a few more seconds, she continued, "Proposed. The concept of individuation. Which is.” She cleared her throat and put on a fake Germane accent, “‘The development of the psychological individual from the collective psychology?’” She grinned. Sunburst had always dedicated his studies and knowledge more to the hard sciences. The soft sciences were her specialty. It was once a useful skill: knowing how to poke and prod ponies in just the right way to get them to do what she wanted. Now she knew that it was just a way to lord some kind of knowledge over Sunburst. Sunburst began mumbling to himself, clearly thinking the question over. "Sweet Celestia, he's so adorable when he's stuck," Starlight mused, propping her head on her right fetlock and watching him struggle to find an answer. A slightly whimsical smile crossed her features, a smile that was suddenly dashed when he answered. "Oh, I know! It was, it was Curl the Younger!" he exclaimed, clapping his hooves together excitedly. He raised his eyebrows expectantly at Starlight. "I'll be taking that fifth triangle now, please." He flexed his hoof and flashed her a cocky grin. "Ugh!" Starlight groaned, planting her face onto the table and levitating over the yellow triangle. It slid into his piece with a soft click. Looking up, she morosely switched her gaze between Sunburst's piece and her own. She'd only managed to get two triangles so far. She cursed her luck and inability to answer anything related to sports. "How does he know so much about sportsball or whatever it's called?" she thought, sighing inwardly as defeat slowly approached her. It was the beginning of summer, and since she was now the headmare of the School of Friendship, that left her with a lot of free time to kill. Sure, she had to start working on syllabi for the new school year come autumn, but she could bang that out in a week. It's not like Twilight ever spent much time thinking about the lesson plan for the year when she was headmare. As Sunburst still had responsibilities in the Crystal Empire—he was the official Crystaller of Flurry Heart, after all—he was wrapping up everything that he could do in Ponyville before departing this weekend. Actually, convincing him to not leave sooner was hard enough, and Starlight had to promise all kinds of sciencey things to do to occupy his time. Playing a game of Knowledge Hunt was one of the last things she could think of. "—arlight!" she heard Sunburst shout, which shook her from her thoughts. Raising an eyebrow, he looked at her with tightened lips. “You there?” Starlight chuckled, scratching the back of her neck slightly. "Is it time for the next question?" she asked. Almost instinctively, she took a card from the deck. Shaking his head, his horn lit up with a golden glow which formed around her card, and he said, "It's your turn. I just went ahead and answered the next question I got myself. I, I got it wrong. Trust me." Softly, he smiled and continued, "And don't worry, you still have a chance at beating the master!" Mirth practically oozed out of his voice, but Starlight just rolled her eyes and grabbed the dice and shook them in her magic. She rolled a three. "Oh, Celestia damn it!" she cried, moving her piece three spaces. Once again, she landed on her mortal adversary. "One day I'll convince Twilight to outlaw all sports, then we'll see who gets the last laugh!" She glowered at the sports square, wishing that it would burst into flame and end this embarrassing string of failures. Sunburst precisely levitated a card from the front of the deck and looked at the question. He glanced up at Starlight and then back down at the card. Up at Starlight, then at the card. Starlight began sweating a bit. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn she was being interrogated. As he continued switching his gaze back and forth, brows slowly climbing in consternation, she finally snapped, "Oh, just tell me the question!" At the sight of Sunburst's shocked face, she blushed and meekly added, "Please." "O-okay." After a few more seconds, he finally began, "What is, is the most basic rule of sportsmareship in the game, hoofball?" Under his breath, he muttered, "It's like they knew you'd play, Glimmy." Scrunching her brow in thought, Starlight finally answered, "Uh... three strikes and you're out." She watched as Sunburst remained silent for a moment. "Horse apples, I bucked it up again, didn't I?" With a smile, Sunburst chuckled and slid the card to the back of the deck and said, "Correct." "What?! No way! I actually got a sports question right?! Wooo!" Punching the air with a hoof, she grabbed the dice again and rolled. She rolled a seven. It landed on another sports square. "Oh, come on!" she huffed. Unfortunately, she wasn't as lucky this time. After Sunburst rolled and landed on his square, Starlight grabbed another card with her magic and searched for the correct question category. She eyed Sunburst for a minute. He watched her back, slowly raising an eyebrow. "What?" he asked. Looking up, he inquired, "Is there something in my mane?" "Oh, it's nothing! Honest!" Starlight spat out with a nervous laugh. "I just thought I saw some giant, pony-eating spiders coming up behind you. But there's definitely none of those around here! Nope, definitely didn't botch a spell trying to make normal house spiders a better force to deal with annoying insects!" Sunburst blinked. "What?" Blushing behind the card a bit, Starlight cursed herself. "Just ask him out, Starlight! You've been friends since you were foals! What's the worst he could say?" She opened her mouth, intending to do just that. Instead she just monotonically asked the question, to which he almost instantly knew the answer. Groaning, she faceplanted the table again. “Good job, Starlight. Great way to ask him on a date!” Briefly, she kept her face connected with the table. Rubbing the back of her head, she peered up and watched him continue his move. "Okay, maybe I should just show increased interest? He’ll get it then!," she thought. However, nothing good came to her mind, except... "Hey Sunburst," she began, instantly regretting opening her mouth before she had planned what to say. "Hmm?" he answered, looking up after moving his piece to the final square. "Do, uh, do you have a marefriend, back in the Crystal Empire?" A few beads of sweat broke out under her mane. "Stupid! Why would you ask that! Oh, sweet Celestia please kill me." She visualized light streaming down through the roof of Twilight’s old castle, focusing into a deadly point right on her position. If that was possible, it’d suit her just fine. "Nope," Sunburst innocently replied. For emphasis, he gave a quick shake of his head, flinging a few bits of dandruff here and there. Starlight mused that he needed to wash his mane more, although then it wouldn't smell like him anymore. Not that she secretly tried sniffing his mane on occasion when he was close, definitely not. "I just haven't, well, I just haven't had the time," he continued, putting down his game piece. Resting his forehooves on the table and tilting his head slightly in confusion, he asked, "Why do you want to know?" He accidentally knocked off his piece and bent down to retrieve it. "No reason! You just don't talk about living in the Crystal Empire much outside of what Flurry Heart is up to," she replied. She grabbed a card from the deck and prepared to read the question, but before she did, she added, "I was just curious. You know, as a good friend and all." "Right." He slowly nodded his head. The game continued on in silence for another minute after Sunburst answered. “Uh,” she stammered as she read from the card, “what was the event of ancient Equestria that led to the holiday, Hearth’s Warm—Oh, come on!” Furiously, she slammed a hoof on the table and growled, “Who writes this stuff?” “This game is approved by the EEA.” Sunburst smirked. “The answer is the banishment of the Windigos from Equestria, by the way.” With that, he took the dice again and rolled. Resting her chin on the table, Starlight watched him as he lifted his piece and gingerly moved it across the board. The soft clacking of the game piece sounded like pounding drums in Starlight’s ears. Her right eye twitched occasionally while he moved. She turned her head and sighed, staring at one of the bookcases in the library. Eventually, she heard Sunburst clear his throat and realized that he was waiting for her to read him another question. Pushing herself back up, she weakly grinned and took a card with her magic. Holding the card in front of her face, she silently read the question before asking, "Hey, Sunburst, have any mares ever asked you, you know, out?" She nervously bit her lip, although, unfortunately for her, the cues were hidden by the card in her grip. "Not that I remember," Sunburst replied, tapping a hoof against his bearded chin. The action caused his spectacles to slide down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them back up with said hoof. "Oh my Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and Cadance, if he does that again, I'm going to have to kill him. With love," she thought. A faint blush formed on her cheeks for a few seconds before she distracted herself with her turn. Sports. Again. "Buck me," she groused. Once again, the room in Twilight's castle descended into silence after Starlight answered incorrectly again, to no surprise. Sunburst rolled for his next move. To Starlight, the spacious library of the castle, which served so many functions, from study, to library, to discount bookstore which she'd never tell Twilight about, felt inexplicably small right now. She glared at the floor for a few seconds before hardening her gaze instead on an old tome. It was probably hundreds of years old and harmed nopony, but, really, it did deserve the eye thrashing it was receiving. "Why is it so hard to just ask that dork—admittedly a cute dork—out?" Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth to ask. She asked a question, though not the one she wanted to. "Hey Sunburst, are there any mares that you're interested in right now? Any cute crystal ponies, one of the other professors or school faculty perhaps?" In her mind, she smacked her hoof against her face so hard that it knocked her clear into next week. However, at this question, Sunburst did blush a bit and look away. He cleared his throat and said, "W-well, there is this, there is this one mare that interests me," he began. "Yes?" Starlight drawled, raising an eyebrow to try and act like she wasn't inwardly about to explode from excitement. This was it! He was definitely going to ask her out now, saving her the effort of doing it herself. "Well, she's really cute, and very smart, too. But, well, she's, she's uh, kinda busy with so many other things right now in her life, and I don't really want to make it even busier," he finished, knocking a hoof against the table pathetically. "Ugh! Do I have to do everything myself?!" Starlight screamed internally. Her face wore a rather unimpressed frown, although Sunburst was too busy looking at the floor to notice it at the moment. By the time he had recomposed himself, Starlight was visibly back to being herself. Being a counsellor and then a headmare did pay off in some ways. Sunburst grabbed the dice for his next move and the game continued. For a few minutes, an awkward atmosphere settled in the room, only to be broken by the occasional trivia question. Unsurprisingly, Sunburst continued his streak of correct answers. Gazing around, hoping for anything that could potentially rescue her from the awkwardfest she was going to unleash, Starlight sighed. There was nothing. Among the towering bookshelves of the library, there would be nothing to help her. While the busts near the entrance may have been of famous ponies, they were lifeless and could not aid her. The singed wooden horse head from Twilight’s old home watched her with its blackened, sooty eye, but it could not rescue her. There was no hope. She was doomed. Her eyes rested finally on another book, this time a fairly new one, that was in the Self-help section of the library. Why Twilight needed one of those, she didn't know, but whatever. 101 Ways to JUST DO IT! by Shia "Bulk" Biceps. "Real subtle there, fate. Or Discord, or Twilight, or whoever." Slowly she steeled herself for what she was going to say. "Sunburst, I really like you, and I was wondering if you'd like to go out on a date with me before you leave for the Crystal Empire?" was what she was going to ask. Instead, she screamed, "Just go out on a date with me already!" A couple of veins bulged on her neck and another tightened across the bridge of her nose as she glowered at him. Sunburst blinked once. Twice. He grabbed his spectacles with his magic and righted them back on his nose. "What?" he asked. "Uh." Starlight gulped and chuckled nervously. Heart pounding in her ears, she contemplated her next statement very carefully. For all of three seconds. "I really like you and honestly want to kiss you, but I don't want to do that yet, because we aren't dating. Would you go on a date with me?" she blathered out. When Sunburst stared at her, mouth wide and cheeks turning pink, she coughed a couple of times and laughed softly. "What?" Sunburst asked again. "Crap."