“That’s strange...” Twilight trailed off as she rotated the book mid-air with her magic, peering at the tightly packed pages protected perfectly by a hardcover shell. Thinking back, she distinctly remembered setting a bookmark within these pages the previous afternoon after a joint-reading session with Rainbow. Glancing to the side, she queried Rainbow with her standard inquisitive look of possible suspicion but received no further confirmation other than a small shrug and a smile.
Accepting the loss, she settled down on a cushion and opened the book in front of her. Nudging it a little to the right with her magic, she waited for Rainbow to get comfortable on the cushion next to her.
“So.” Twilight paused and considered a very small possibility in the back of her mind. Her bookmarks only seemed to disappear when Rainbow Dash was reading with her, not that any pony else read with her, but the pattern was there. “Since the bookmark is missing, again.” Twilight paused for emphasis, and noted the the sudden tensing of the pony next to her. “Where should we start reading again? From the beginning?”
“Yeah! Let’s read it from the beginning!” Rainbow chipped in immediately.
“Or,” Twilight floated a small notepad over. “We could just start from the chapter I jotted down the last time you were here, since so many of my bookmarks have been disappearing.”
“Oh.” Rainbow’s volume dropped noticeably, her apparent enthusiasm quenched by the cold harsh reality of organizational note taking.
A long pause swirled between them.
Twilight glanced over to Rainbow, but Rainbow was looking away, her ears flopped down against her skull. Clearly, the pegasus was uncomfortable in the sudden swelling of silence.
Scooting a little closer to Rainbow, Twilight opened the book slowly to the chapter they left off at last time. “You know, Rainbow. You don’t have to leave when we’re done reading.”
“Really?” Rainbow’s ears perked up as she turned to face Twilight.
“Of course. After all, you’ve stayed later all the other times my bookmark has gone missing and we ended up reading a little more than usual. How about you stay for dinner afterwards? Spike always makes too much food anyways.”
“That’d be awesome!” Rainbow grinned ear to ear.
Twilight’s heart thumped hard in her chest. A happy sensation of a suspicion confirmed.