Twilight Sparkle shuffled through a box of interesting trinkets in Rarity’s attic. She scavenged through, cataloguing each item in her head, and placed them in their appropriate box. Rarity remained to the side, watching in case Twilight would find something that she did not want to be kept in storage.
“Twilight, deary, are you sure you don’t want me to help?” Rarity questioned.
“No, thank you, Rarity. You need a break. Just go sit down for a while. I can handle it.”
“I just don’t want you putting things away that don’t belong, Twilight.”
“I won’t, Rarity. If I see something that looks important then I’ll come to you and ask about it. Okay?”
Rarity looked at Twilight for a moment and nodded in reluctant submission. “I’ll be downstairs in my bedroom if you need me. I’ll be reading.”
Twilight nodded with a smile and turned her attention back to the boxes of items. “Just one question: what in general should be thrown away?”
“Any kind of old fabrics that have become wrinkled or any games that I still have from my fillyhood.” Rarity was beginning to question whether asking Twilight for help had been a good idea. After all, she did ask what was needed to be thrown away.
“Okay. I got from here.”
Rarity stepped down the stairs to the attic and sighed.
+++
“Excuse me, Rarity?” Twilight Sparkle said, knocking on the door to Rarity’s bedroom.
“Come in, dear. Is there something wrong?”
“No, but,” Twilight started as she pushed open the door, “I was wondering about this game that I found.” Twilight placed a rectangular, cardboard box in front of Rarity and said, “This looks like an interesting game. What is it?”
“You’ve never played Monopony?” Rarity asked curiously.
“Well, I’ve heard of it, but is it fun?”
“Sometimes. Other times it’s just annoying and other times it’s the most amazing time of your life.”
Twilight gave a ponderous look and said, “Can we play it at tomorrow night’s sleepover? I’m sure its something everypony would love to play.”
“Of course, dear, and for your labor in helping me clean my attic, you can keep it and I’ll make you your dress for the gala.”
“Oh, thank you, Rarity!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Your welcome, and how much more do you have to do up there?”
“Oh, I’m finished. I separated garbage from valuables and valuables from things you might need. If you don’t mind, would you come up and check it for me?”
Rarity nodded and stood up from her bed and followed Twilight to the attic yet again. She thought for a moment about the game Twilight had showed her and could place a memory to it. She couldn’t remember, though, but she felt that it was a bad idea to let her friends play it.
She shrugged off the feeling and smiled. Oh what could happen?
+++
Applejack sat closest to the window next to Twilight’s bed and looked around at her friends Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. She began to ponder where Rarity and Twilight had gone and what was taking them so long. Surely getting a board game wouldn’t be such a problem.
The door shot open and Rarity and Twilight came running in hysterically and soaked from head to toe. A rectangular shape could be identified through a small plastic bag being carried by Twilight’s magic.
“We’re sorry,” Twilight said, gasping for breath. “It started raining.”
Applejack turned around to look at the window and saw the sun being blocked by gray clouds and falling water droplets that pelted the ground and sides of the library.
“It’s okay, Twili’!” Applejack stated in her typical accent. She set her hat aside and grabbed a towel from the nearby closet and wrapped it around Twilight. She went back and got one for Rarity as well.
“Thank you, Applejack,” Rarity replied.
“Yeah, thank you, AJ.”
The ponies all gathered around the large table that Twilight had brought up to her room from the library section specifically for them to play their game.
“Why didn’t we just play downstairs?” Rainbow Dash asked, finally noticing that the table had come from the library.
“This game has a lot of small pieces,” Twilight started as she pulled the game out of the plastic bag, “and we get a lot of children in the library sometimes. If we lose one of the pieces, I don’t want one of the children getting hurt because of it.”
Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “I knew that.”
Twilight handed the board game box over to Rarity who said, “I’m sure that most of you have played this game before, but Twilight hasn’t, so I will have to go over some of the basic rules.”
“What game is it? Is it a fun game?! Is it Chutes and Alligators!? I love that game!”
“No, Pinkie,” Rarity started politely. “We’re playing Monopony.”
“I like that game…” Fluttershy whispered. “Me and Angel Bunny used to play it all the time until he got mad at me and threw it away.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow at Fluttershy’s comment. “I wasn’t aware that Angel could be so angry at a game.”
“He usually isn’t,” Fluttershy started softly, “but I think he might’ve just had a bad day.”
The ponies all nodded and looked towards the game as Rarity began to pull it apart and set it up with her magic.
“The rules, Twilight, are simple. We each take turns rolling a pair of dice and whatever it lands on is the number of spaces we move around the board. If at anytime you land on a square that hasn’t been bought by anypony else, you may buy it for yourself.” Twilight nodded, capturing each word in her mind. “If you can get all locations of a certain color, you can start to build houses on any of the squares of that color. Now this part usually varies from group to group, but for this game we’re going to go with four. If you can put four houses on one square, you can put a hotel which gives you a lot more money when someone lands on it.”
“So how do I make money?” Twilight asked curiously, enthralled by the game in front of her. It was fascinating to look at and learn about. It was incorporating two of her best subjects: mathematics and economics. Plus, the paper money was cute. “Surely we earn more money to buy things?”
“Why, of course, dear. If somepony lands on one of your properties, then they have to give you the entitled amount of money.”
Twilight smiled happily, clapping her hooves together eagerly. “I can’t wait to start. Can I be this?” She picked up a green, hollow rectangle.
“That’s a hotel, sugarcube,” Applejack pointed out. “That’s why there’s a lot of them.”
“Oh yeah. Sorry. How about this?”
“Sure,” Rainbow Dash said, cockily, “you can be the Bag of Bits, and I’ll be the boat.”
Rarity took the thimble, Applejack took the hat, and Pinkie Pie took the dog, squealing happily, “I love being the puppy! It’s soooo cute!”
Fluttershy looked at the remaining pieces and scratched her head in thought. Typically, she was the dog and it had become her lucky charm when she played, but she couldn’t ask Pinkie for it. That would be rude.
“I guess I’ll take the horseshoe.”
Everypony placed their pieces on the squared labeled “Go” and Rarity handed the two die to Twilight, who fumbled them for a moment.
“I think it’s only fair that Twilight be allowed to go first, since this is her first time playing.”
Twilight smiled at Rarity and looked around at her friends, all nodding in agreement. She took the dice in her hooves and shook them around for a mere moment or two and tossed the to the board. She yipped in delight as she moved her piece six times.
Rarity listened to the thudding sound of the piece against the cardboard, each step it took echoing in her ears loudly until it stopped on its final step…
But the echo could be heard by everypony as the game began.