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by barbeque

A Game - TwiPie

“Hey Twilight, whatcha doing?” Pinkie inquired.

Since a few weeks, the pink pony could be found a considerable higher amount of time in the library than she used to. She was always interested in - and sometimes, easily distracted by - just about everything, but Twilight had learned that underneath that bubbly surface was a mare that could be serious if she put herself to it. Which wasn’t often. And now, as Twilight was lazily reading a thick book on a rainy afternoon, she couldn’t tell if this was going to be another prank, or if Pinkie was legitimately interested in what she was reading. Probably not, given that it wasn’t about balloons, confetti, cannons, or anything else even remotely related to parties.

One thing was for sure though; because it was raining, the chances of this being a prank thought up by Pinkie and Rainbow Dash were almost nil. Pinkie still hung out a lot with her other friends. In fact, as the pink pony put it one day, because she and Twilight were now a thing, that didn’t mean she could hang out less with her other friends anymore. She hung out with them just as much as she did before, just hung out more with Twilight, that was all.

It had been a bit of a slow day though. The rain outside meant that, except for Fluttershy picking up a novel earlier that day - which was ironically called Before the rain given that it was just starting to drip when she left the library - there had been no visitors. Pinkie had busied herself by reading one of the newest books, Partying for Foals, until she slammed it close at last, discovering that there was nothing in it that she didn’t already knew.

And the rain meant that she couldn’t really go outside - well she could of course, except that she would get totally wet and muddy and then when she would come back all the books would be really wet and that was no fun at all - so she was getting bored pretty quickly. Going into Twilight’s kitchen to bake some cupcakes also wouldn’t really do much. She’d already done that this afternoon. Twice.

Twilight, seeing herself as the more sensible - and less random - of the two, deadpanned, “I’m reading a book.”

From the corner of her eye, she could make her pet owl make a face that spoke ‘Oh, really?’ She once looked it up in a book; apparently it was some sort of popular meme a while back. She wasn’t sure whether Pinkie had gotten the idea from a book or had come up with it by herself, because one does not simply ask Pinkie Pie where she gets her ideas from. Better yet, one does not even think about asking Pinkie where she gets her ideas from.

“No you’re not,” said Pinkie. “Perhaps you were reading a book before I asked you what you were doing but then you looked up from what you were doing to answer me so when you said what you were doing you weren’t actually doing what you were doing anymore and-”

Twilight quieted her babbling marefriend by pressing a hoof to her lips, and said, “Yes, that’s what I meant to say. Now, you wanted to ask me something?”

“Oh, yeah, wanna play a game?”

Twilight would rather continue on reading in her book. But Pinkie had been pretty ‘normal’ for most of the afternoon, and Pinkie was also a very social pony, but since it had been raining quite a lot, hadn’t had a chance to burn off some excess energy outside. Simply put, the pink pony just wanted to do something together now. And truth be told, studying could get a bit boring sometimes, although she never said that out aloud.

“Well, sure. Anything you want to play in particular?”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to play that thing with the black and white squares on a board with a lot of different pieces. What was it called again? Cheeky? Classy? No. Hmmm....”

“You mean chess?”

“If that’s what it’s called. That’s a funny name. Reminds me of cheese. Oh, we should totally do a cheese fondue some day!”

“Right. Chess it is then.”

For a pony who had never played chess before, Pinkie was surprisingly good at it. Admittedly, Twilight had never played it much before either, but had read quite some books on the subject, explaining things about tactics and opening moves.

But Pinkie’s style matched none of the patterns mentioned in any book, and moves that seemed utterly random at first had Twilight in a corner a couple of turns later. And just when Twilight thought she was getting the upper hoof, the pink pony would do an unexpected move and the tables were - figuratively - turned again.

What was supposed to be just a simple game between two friends on a rainy afternoon, grew quickly into a simple but very fanatic game between two friends on a rainy afternoon, with Twilight carefully thinking about each move she made, and Pinkie seemingly not thinking about it at all.

In the end, the random moves were too much for Twilight to handle. She could come up with this great strategy for the next turns, even taking into account Pinkie’s randomness, and even then the pink mare managed to surprise her. She was just about to congratulate Pinkie with her little victory, when Pinkie seemed to be able to read her thoughts and stopped her short.

“No don’t say it Twilight!” she shouted.

“Say what?” said Twilight, not quite understanding what could be a problem.

“What you’re about to say!”

“What’s wrong with saying the game was a good one, even if I lost it?”

“NOOOOOOOOO now I lost a game as well! Oh well, at least we’re even again.”

Author's Note:

Well, that quickly got a little bit random there at the end.