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// 2: One Thousand Paces to Sugarcube Corner [Romance] 
// Story: Thirty Days, Thirty Twilights 
// by Esle Ynopemos 
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((Prompt: The last five hundred steps.))

It was a thousand paces precisely from the library to Sugarcube Corner. Twilight Sparkle knew; she had counted. This was one of the things she paid attention to.

Some ponies thought that Twilight did not pay attention at all. Her muzzle was always buried in her books, they said, and she did not notice anything beyond them. But the fact was, Twilight noticed a great many things. Learning, in all of its forms, was her highest calling. While books held great value to this end, she made a point to notice patterns and learn from all things around her.

Twilight noticed, for instance, when a friend started using a different smile when looking at her than she did for anypony else. She noticed when that friend began spending more time in the library than she previously had, doing a poor job of pretending she was browsing the non-fiction section and ultimately checking out a book that she would return the next day, unread. Twilight noticed the subtle change in pitch her friend's voice took when speaking to or about her, as well as the slightly nervous bounce she adopted in Twilight's presence.

To say there was something strange going on with Pinkie Pie did not quite capture the pattern Twilight had noticed in her. There was always something strange about Pinkie Pie. It was the natural state of Pinkie Pie to be strange. But recent weeks had seen a strangeness in Pinkie that did not seem quite so... Pinkie... in its strangeness. It was a subtler sort of oddity than Twilight was used to seeing in her friend, and the more she thought about it, the less it fit. There was very little that was ever subtle about Pinkie Pie. Pinkie was party cannons and confetti and ten-piece bands. Finding something more nuanced than all that... well, it didn't exactly make Twilight nervous, per se—which was unusual in itself, as many things about Pinkie made Twilight at least a little bit nervous, at least out of concern for public safety and order—but it was a puzzle nonetheless.

If there was one thing Twilight could not abide, it was leaving a puzzle unsolved. So, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, after tidying up and closing the library, Twilight Sparkle took the thousand steps from her home to Sugarcube Corner to get to the bottom of the mystery.

As in all investigations, she took an organized approach. Hypothesis, test, result, repeat. Her first hypothesis: Pinkie's behavior had something to do with Twilight specifically. Test: observe Pinkie's interactions with other ponies. Result: as suspected, Pinkie behaved... well, not normal, but normal by Pinkie standards, and only changed when interacting with Twilight herself.

Repeat. Twilight's new hypothesis made her a little uneasy. If Pinkie changed her demeanor around her, that meant that there was something different now in their relationship. Therefore the next thing to test was whether this change was for the better, or... Twilight dared not think of the alternative. She wanted to call off the experiment now, before she revealed the unthinkable. But the mystery was yet unsolved, and as much as she feared the answer, Twilight had to know.

Test. There was little she could think to test this now other than to directly ask Pinkie what was going on. Perhaps she could find some safer side variables that would allow her to stick to the safety of notepads and glass tubes, but she would not make any forward progress until she approached her and said the words.

“Pinkie... you've been acting differently lately. Is there something wrong?”

Result. Pinkie froze, her eyes wide. She quickly covered her shock with a wide grin. “Of course not, silly! Nothing's wrong at all!” A moment passed, and her gaze sank to the floor. “Actually...” she said, scuffling a hoof on the tiles, “maybe something might be really, really right...”

With whispers and blushes and more than a few giggles, the puzzle was solved. No, that wasn't quite right; truthfully, the puzzle was just beginning. It was one thousand paces from Sugarcube Corner back to the library. Skipping with light hooves, it only took Twilight half that many to get there.