The day was moving from afternoon into evening as she walked down the corridor, mumbling to herself. “Let’s see…three-oh-two, three-oh-four…there it is! 306!” Tomorrow morning was Twilight Sparkle’s first day at the Royal Canterlot Academy’s University for Gifted Young Ponies, or RCAUGYP for short. (Anypony who had not attended was always astounded at the ability of alumni to actually pronounce the school’s nickname, to the point that to many Communication majors it is considered the most useful skill they learned while in college.)
Twilight had just been given a tour of the campus, and was looking forward to falling onto her bed and going to sleep. While the walk around the university had been fairly illuminating, Ms. Sparkle had never been the most outdoorsy of ponies, and her hooves were crying out for an end to their torment. As she approached the door, she heard music from inside. “Oh, great, I forgot I had been assigned a dorm mate.” Compared to her quiet distaste for physical activity, her genuine loathing for socialization was well-known by her family. Still, she couldn’t exactly afford her own apartment, so this would have to do, for now at least.
As she opened the door, the faint music she had heard outside became a truly deafening roar of bass and beats. She turned to complain to the pony who was apparently the one she’d be spending the next semester living with, but found that the other mare was already turning the music down. “Oh, sorry about that!” she said in a bubbly voice. Then the pink mare literally bounced across the room and figuratively started shaking Twilight’s hoof with the speed of a jackhammer. “Hi! My name’s Pinkie Pie, and you’re my new roommate! Isn’t that amazing! We can talk all the time, and hang out every day, and we never ever have to be alone, ever!”
Twilight tried her best to avoid grinding her teeth together before replying, “Uh, okay. My name’s Twilight Sparkle. I’m going to go to bed now.” She walked over to the bed, hoping that Pinkie Pie would take the hint and leave her be. Twilight flopped onto the bottom bunk, and closed her eyes. At that moment, she couldn’t really recall a single time she had felt this at piece.
“Oh, is it bedtime already? That’s great, I love being top bunk!” With that, Pinkie jumped onto the higher of the two beds. (Yes, that is a vertical jump several times Pinkie’s own height. Despite the apparent contradiction between this event and basic physics, Twilight long ago chose not to bother studying it. She doubted her roommate would enjoy the experiments that would involve.)
Twilight sighed as loud as she could manage; throwing all the bile and frustration she could with the vocalization. “Listen, Ms. Pie, I get that you like to party and probably see college as a great way to spend a few years before doing whatever later, but I’m here to learn. If we’re going to be living together for the foreseeable future, you need to understand something: I am an introvert. I don’t enjoy spending my free time ‘hanging out’ with other ponies. So please, if you could manage it, would you leave me alone so I can get some sleep?”
There was a small pause, during which Twilight feared she might have hurt Pinkie’s feelings. She’d only meant to set the record with her, not be mean. But sometimes the fatigue and frustration of a day can affect stuff like that. “Oh, I understand that,” Pinkie said, a little slower than before. “I’m…not exactly a social butterfly either. I spent most of my childhood alone, and not by my own choice. When I got accepted to come here, I had hoped that I could finally make some friends; I wanted to start with you. But if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. I’ve gotten used to silence. It’s been there most of my life.”
Twilight really didn’t know how to respond to that. She’d expected her new roommate to be an annoying, vapid party girl. Instead, she was…interesting. “Pinkie, what’s your major?”
Pinkie Pie seemed to regain some of her perk with that. “Oh, it’s a funny story really. My parents both wanted me to go into geology because of our family business, but I was never really into that kinda stuff. I’m actually a lot fonder of Engineering. What are you studying?”
“I’m double majoring into Magical Studies and Physics. I’m can’t believe we’re both studying the same subject! Well, I mean, it’s almost the same subject. Why did you family want you to do Geology?”
And that’s how the conversation started. Twilight can’t really recall how late they stayed up that night, their talk jumping from subject to subject as they came up, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Who needs sleep when you have a friend?