Raindrops stared angrily at the two colts who sat across from her in the living room of her house. For their part, Snips and Snails at least had the decency to look guilty after disrupting Raindrops’s valuable valuable novel reading time.
“At least they burst through my door when they did without knocking” Raindrops thought to herself. “My book was just about to get to the juicy part. If they had shown up five minutes later, they might have-”
Raindrops shook her head, banishing that line of thinking very quickly before finally speaking to her brother and her brother’s friend. “Ok Snails, what was so important that you had to rush right home? I thought you said this morning that you were going to be home late so you and Snips could look at bugs.” And leave me in peace on my day off while mom and dad are at work, so I could actually read a good story or two.
Snails smiles nervously before speaking very carefully. “...We were hoping you could be Miss Cheerilee’s very special somepony.”
The pegasus mare could only stare at her unicorn brother, her mind trying to will the universe itself to make what she had just heard be something else. Realizing that, short of Princess Luna’s direct intervention, such a thing could not happen, she decided to ask the obvious question. “...why?”
Snips answered before his friend had a chance. “Well Miss Cheerilee is a cool teacher, but she doesn’t have a date to take to the Grand Galloping Gala, and in fact she doesn’t even have a very special somepony! I mean, I thought that Trixie would be a better choice, but Snails here thought you were the best option, so here we are! So could you please be Miss Cheerilee’s very special somepony?”
“....no.” Raindrops said flatly after about a millisecond of thought. Snips looked as if he was ready to give up and leave, but Snails met Raindrops with a stare made of pure determination. Raindrops didn’t know why, but the stare filled her with a feeling of foreboding dread.
“I’ll tell mom and dad what actually happened to their Neighponese vase” Snails said simply, with a tone that suggested this was not up for negotiation.
Raindrops eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.” Raindrops said, her voice shaking as she recalled the incident.
Snails only met his sister with the same stare he had been holding since he first brought up the vase.
Brother and sister looked each other in the eye, both unblinking, while Snips could only look on, silently cheering for his friend’s success.
Sighing in defeat, Raindrops announced, “I’ll go brush my mane and get some flowers.” Before walking upstairs to her room.
Snips could only stare surprised at Snails. “...I didn’t think that would actually work!”
Snails nodded solemnly. “That’s how you make deals.”
“.....but hey, whatever happened to when you tried to make a deal with Miss Cheerilee to no longer assign homework?”
“....I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“...does this have to do with that one day you walked out of school with a giant pile of paper and textbooks?”
“...I don’t wanna talk about it.”