Soarin poked door and it creaked open. Sticking his head inside, his jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he took in the scene. The room was ENORMOUS, it didn't even look like it should be able to fit in as part of Dash's house. Shelves and shelves of books were everywhere, up to the ceiling, covering the walls in a mishmash of color. On the far side of the room were two golden swirling staircase that lead halfway up the wall to a balcony one ending on one side, the other on the other. On the balcony was another small wooden door with a golden plaque reading, 'Dashie's Room'.
Soarin walked into the library and quietly closed the door behind him. The sound echoed throughout the room as he slowly stepped towards the two grand swirling staircases. Making his way up to the balcony, he came face to face with Rainbow Dash, who had been tip-toeing out of her room. She bumped her muzzle into his and fell backwards on her rump.
"Oof!" she groaned, rubbing her eyes and lashing her tail. "What the..." Her eyes widened as the locked with Soarin's.
"Oh! Wow um, hi..." she said nervously. "I see you found my library."
"I didn't know you liked reading so much Dash." Soarin laughed.
"Yeah..." Rainbow replied, shifting her eyes around the room like she wanted to escape the situation. "Ever since I read 'Daring Do and The Sapphire Stone' I've been a total egghead."
"Have you shown any of this to, um, the purple pony?" asked Soarin.
"Who, Twilight? No, she would probably explode if I showed her half of this, and anyways she still has difficulty flying." Dash answered, "I don't really want to anyways because she would try to steal them all one by one." the rainbow maned pegasus laughed. "Do you like to read?" she questioned.
"Yeah, but normally I only read adventure stories." He replied. "Can I... Take a look around?"
"Oh totally!" said Rainbow Dash, flying a loop-the-loop in the air and landing on the balcony railing. She pushed a large ladder towards Soarin. "Here, use this to get to the high shelves. Have fun exploring!" And with that, she flew into her room with a book she had randomly grabbed off the shelf, blushing furiously, and shut the door loudly.
"Um, ok." said Soarin confused as to why she was so embarrassed about reading. He walked over to the ladder and started browsing the highest shelf. "'A Young Filly's Guide to Cutie Marks', 'Equestrian Travels', 'Horns, wings, and all magical things'..." he read each book title out loud as he traveled across the shelf, his voice bouncing around the room. Squinting, he traced his hoof along the book spines, slowly making his way across the room.
"A ha!" he exclaimed. "'Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone'. This must be good if it made Dash into an... an egghead." he cringed at his own choice of words. Soarin slid down the ladder with the book in his hoof, and trotted over to a comfortable looking leather couch in a corner of the room that had a cute little wooden bedside table and lamp next to it. His hooves clacked loudly on the polished wooden floor as he jumped up onto the couch, which had been stuffed with clouds to keep it afloat. Shimmying in the chair to get comfortable, he let out a sigh as he began to read.
***
Soarin yawned. He had spent the whole day in Dashie's library, reading page after page and losing track of time. The wonderbolt rubbed his face with a hoof, trying to knock the blur out of his eyes.
"Maybe I should go check on Dash." he thought to himself. The blue pegasus lifted his body off the couch and trotted over to the staircase, lazily dragging his hooves up the steps.
"Hey Dash..." he yawned, creaking open her door. "You've been up here reading all day, what are you-"
"TALLY HO!" Rainbow Dash yelled, tumbling down from a mountain of books onto Soarin. The green, blue, and purple parts of her hair were pulled back in a ponytail and she had a red bandana around her neck, along with an eyepatch and a cardboard sword in her mouth.
"Woah hi Soarin!" she said happily. "Wanna play with us?"
"Us?" he asked. Looking around Rainbow he saw an orange filly with magenta mane that looked like it had been brushed with a bush. Her head poked out from the mound of books and grinned.
"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed "Dash told me but i thought she was joking! Soarin the WONDERBOLT is here, in my house!" she jumped out of pile, giving a little fangirl squeal, then ran up to the stallion and hugged his leg.
"Oh hi!" answered Soarin. "You must be Scootaloo!"
Scoots let go of Soarin and backed away, her ears pinned back, mouth open, and eyes wide.
"You know my NAME?!" The orange pony jumped up in joy. "Oh my gosh this is so AWESOME! I have to go get the rest of the crusaders over here, this is amazing, oh wow I'll be right back!" Then the filly ran out of the room slamming the door behind her. Soarin turned to see Rainbow Dash laughing while facehoofing.
"Rest of the crusaders..?" the wonderbolt slowly asked.
Dash took a deep breath and let it out so she would stop laughing. "Yeah, Scoots has this little club with 3 other fillies. They call themselves the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders'. They run all over the place looking for their special talent so they can get their cutie marks."
Soarin sat down on the book pile. "So, who exactly is in this club?" he asked.
"Scoots, Babs-that's Applebloom's cousin, Applebloom, who is Applejack's sister, and Sweetiebelle, Rarity's sister. They are SO hard to keep occupied but really fun to play with all the same. And they destroy basically everything they touch. If they ever go into my mini art gallery I swear I'll-" Rainbow Dash made a strangling gesture with her hooves.
Soarin laughed. Seeing a pair of sunglasses sitting on her bedside table, Soarin snatched them and put them on, grinning. "They're mine now" he smirked. Spinning around as Dash tried to snatch them away as she giggled, he leaped into the air and-
WHUMP.
The pegasus plummeted to the ground, realizing his wing was broken and he still couldn't fly, and smacked his face against the ground in an almost cartoon-like manner.
"Like...A boss..." he wheezed, the breath knocked out of him.
Rainbow Dash laughed and grabbed the sunglasses from him, putting them on.
"I'm still 20% cooler."