Trial and Error

by RainbowlightSparkledash

The Error

Twilight Sparkle slowly walked into the library, her hooves dragging across the ground and her eyelids heavy. The satchel strapped to her side dropped to the ground and several pieces of paper flew from the unfastened pockets and scattered across the room. She sighed, exhausted but determined to finish her research on the birth of different pony species. She sat in front of a huge presentation board that she had put up beside her desk and looked over the birth tallies once more and gave a satisfied nod. Her horn began to glow a bright magenta as she used her magic to move her satchel over to her. She lifted the flap with a tired hoof, however the motion was too quick and sent more pieces of paper spiralling through the air. The Alicorn groaned in frustration and ground her teeth together in frustration. She heard a pitter-patter of little feet on the floor and whipped her eyes towards the source of the sound. Spike slowly waddled into the room, firmly holding onto the paper that had flown from the bag earlier. The already irritated Twilight growled, knowing that the pieces of paper would have to be organised into the pile again. She snatched away the papers and turned from him quickly to sort through all of the results she had collected. The baby dragon cautiously approached Twilight.

“Umm, Twilight. Don’t you think you should take a break?”

Twilight glared at him and shook her head no, slamming the results from her interview with the Cakes on the floor with a loud thump. Spike gulped.

“No Spike, it’s really important that I finish this as soon as possible!”

Her assistant sighed, knowing she was never going to stop mid-research project. He nodded silently and left Twilight alone to her work. Twilight spread out the sheets from her interview with the Cake family. Hmm, she thought to herself, so Mrs Cake’s parents were both Earth ponies, but her grandfather was a Unicorn. That would explain Pumpkin’s species. Excellent. Right, Mr Cake’s parents were both Pegasi, which means that Pegasi genes are strong in him. Where is the Earth pony origin in him- Ah! His grandfather was an Earth pony. Interesting… Twilight was lost in her studies, scratching her head occasionally when trying to piece together different pieces of data. A small smile would settle on her face when things became clear, but this would quickly become a frown when she got confused again. Oh no! I forgot to ask about their great, great, great, GREAT grandparents! Twilight thought, utterly exasperated. She put the research notes back in the pile and sighed heavily.

Once she had marked these results onto her chart and tally, she stood back, rubbing her eyes with her hooves. She flipped her mane out of her eyes and grinned. Yes, it was all coming together now! She’d be finished in no time! She let her gaze wonder to the picture of her and Rainbow Dash at the Apple Fair in Appleloosa last Hearts and Hooves day. The whole group had planned to go but Fluttershy was nursing Angel back to health, Rarity had important deadlines to meet for Sapphire Shores, Applejack was going on a road-trip with Granny Smith and Pinkie Pie was throwing the ‘super-mega-ultra-fun-Pinkie-love-party’ in Ponyville, so Rainbow and Twilight went alone. They had an amazing time, going on Ferris Wheels and making candy apples together. Twilight shook away the memories which currently served as mere distraction and went back to work, however she couldn’t stop smiling at the thought of their day out. Twilight sighed again, losing herself in her research notes. No more than seconds after her next study session began, a familiar sky-blue, rainbow-maned Pegasus gracefully flew through the open window and landed beside her. She nudged Twilight’s cheek with her nose and plonked herself down.

“Hey Twi, you weren’t at Pinkie’s birthday eve eve eve party, so I was worried. It was awesome by the way- What is all this?”

Twilight let out a laugh and began to talk her friend through the results and the research she was conducting. Eventually, the stubborn mare scoffed and hopped onto her hooves again, her attention already leaving Twilight’s research and wandering elsewhere. Shrugging a little, Twilight turned back to her notes, writing more numbers on her tally and more lines on her graph. Rainbow rolled her eyes and snatched away her data sheet.

“Rainbow!”

Rainbow Dash giggled and flew around the library, holding the paper tightly. Twilight groaned and flew after her, trying in vain to cut her off as she darted around, sending paper flying in all directions. Twilight landed on the ground again and stomped her hooves in frustration.

“Come on Rainbow, give it back!”

Dash took no notice, wanting her friend to take a rest from her boring studies. She flew towards the window, landing on the frame and began to wave the piece of paper around. She had a goofy grin plastered on her face and was laughing, however the unusually serious glare on Twilight’s face brought her laughter to a halt. Rainbow rolled her eyes and flew back down to the ground, reluctantly holding the paper out to Twilight who snatched it away without thanks and got back to her work. Rainbow paused for thought, trying to figure out a way to drag her Egg-Headed friend away from her crummy work. Eventually, she thought to try something different.

“Rainbow, maybe you should go, I can meet you when I’m do- Rainbow?”

She noticed that Rainbow was staring intently between the research results and the graph. Her eyes glittered at one point, which made Twilight smile. Seeing that the fun-loving, lazy pony was seemingly keen about her research excited the young princess and she giddily hopped over to her friend’s side. She began to babble a bit, pointing her hoof at certain parts of the graph and at the little diagrams she had drawn at the side of the main data, however a gentle shush from the Pegasus beside her silenced her. Eventually, she spoke up again.

“Rainbow, what’s the matter?”

“Hmm…”

The mare was being uncharacteristically quiet and it kind of bothered Twilight. She frowned and joined Dash in looking at the results and the graph, though she could swear she felt a certain pair of magenta eyes staring her up and down and it made her blush furiously and her stomach flutter. The two were completely silent, which, for Rainbow Dash, was shockingly rare. She felt a hoof brush her own and started to quiver. The numbers and letters on the board started to merge together and she found it difficult to concentrate. Should could’ve sworn that she heard a snicker come from the blue Pegasus but she closed her eyes tight and tried to ignore it. She straightened up and coughed to hide her embarrassment and sighed again. Her face was burning and her knees were weak as her mind spiralled, but she tried to concentrate on the origins of Pinkie Pie’s Pegasus grandmother, Surprise. She noticed that Rainbow was leaning on her and felt a shiver run through her. The butterflies in her stomach where flapping around erratically now and she was a million shades of red. Twilight found her gaze falling on Rainbow Dash, whose mane and tail looked tidier and shinier than usual and her coat look glossy and radiant. Knowing she was being stared at, Rainbow Dash spoke up, an almost smug look on her face.

“…What?”

Twilight continued to stare at her, face brushed pink and eyes soft. She suddenly found Rainbow Dash right in her face, mere inches away from her own face. She was sure her head was going to explode and her heartbeat was going a million times a second and her breaths were just as fast. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, but they flew open upon hearing Rainbow call her name.

“… Twi.”

Still blushing furiously, the Alicorn managed to stutter a whispery, shaky response.

“Y-Yes, Rainbow?”

Rainbow moved closer still, the minty tickle of her breaths reaching Twilight’s nostrils. A smug smile settled on her face, setting off warning bells for the Princess of Friendship. Regardless, her face was still on fire and her mouth was quivering at the corners.

“You got part of the graph wrong. Working too hard, Egg-Head?”

“Huh?!”

Rainbow moved away, laughing at her friend, who was still in a maelstrom of confusion, blushing and stuttering, stamping her hooves on the ground in flustered frustration. Rainbow wiped tears from her eyes and continued to giggle.

“What did you think I was gonna do, kiss ya? Bwahahaha!”

Her signature laugh filled the room and while Twilight’s frustration began to settle, her embarrassments didn’t shift at all. She tried to stutter a response, but her tongue just wouldn’t co-operate. She tried to calm herself and spoke.

“N-No! I'm just s-surprised I got it wrong, that's all! Wait- How do you know?!”

Dash giggled to herself and gave Twilight time to settle herself down before continuing.

“Aww c'mon, look at the results! Even I knew that one, Twi!”

Twilight flicked her mane out of her face and sighed, while Dash stuck her tongue out at her and continued to laugh to herself. The purple mare frowned.

“Well, everypony makes mistakes…”

Once her laughter had subsided, Dash stepped towards her friend again and pecked her cheek gently, leaving a spot of scarlet on her cheek. Twilight managed to contain herself this time and simply smiled. Rainbow Dash put her wing around her and pulled her closer.

“Aww, don’t be embarrassed, Twi! Y’know I care about you!”

Twilight blushed again but retained her frown, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“Rainbow? Are you… Flirting with me?”

Rainbow Dash snickered and nuzzled her cheek as she had done previously.

“You’re the brains here, Twi.”

“I don’t know, Dash, you’re pretty clever too.”

Dash grinned at Twilight, her eyes soft and her face tinged pink.

“Not as clever as you, Egg-Head.” She whispered before cuddling up to her again.

Comments

[Rainboomer97]

nice story make some more just for me please???

[Zeyon The Green]

Well that was confusing... Was she talking about the problem Twilight was on or something else?

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5195845 Could you please be more specific? During which part of the story?

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5194919 Of course. Anything that you'd particularly like to see?

[Twilight_Scratch]

But what did Twilight get wrong? I must know!

[Cryosite]

First off, thank you for contributing to best ship.

Unlike many stories, I think your cover description is pretty good. It actually gives me a rough idea of what the story is and made me want to read more. You didn't put a bunch of distracting and useless stuff like a lot of people do. Just the story. Great job on that, I mean it.

As far as the plot goes, it works fine for a quick little slice of life bit. Twilight is overworked, self-inflicted for sure, and Rainbow comes to the rescue. There are some hints at some attraction that are reasonably subtle, which was surprising in an enjoyable way.

The problem is, that you have to pause and reread what is going on several times in order to make any of that out. I wasn't really looking for grammar errors, and none were so bad that they leapt out at me if there are any. But the passing is so ridiculously fast that we have no real chance to let any part of the scene sink in.

Take the brief but with Spike. You have him tagged as an important part of the story but he has no lines and does nothing important for the story at all. You could cut all mention of him from the story and it would change nothing. You could go two ways to improve this. The easy way would be to take his tag off the story. You would probably still want to edit the story a bit to improve it, but this route keeps your existing story as-is. The other route would be to give Spike a significant role. Perhaps write a bit of dialog between them. Have him either try to get Twi to take a break as he plays the role of occasional wisdom when she gets slightly nutty, or have him go oblivious assistant mode, and feed her obsession with her project. You have at least three different choices there that, if worked into your existing story, could lead to a lot of improvement.

Then you have the project itself. Expand on it. Let us spend some time with slightly crazy, tired, and focused Twilight. She's a fun character to read about, so write about her. The project doesn't sound super interesting, but it does sound like something Twilight would study. Give us one of her pages of notes;perhaps have her reading some details about the Cakes being earth ponies and having a unicorn and a pegasus children. Surely she would interview them about their parents and grandparents as far back as she could, as well as sibling, aunts and uncles, and even cousins, nephews and nieces.

When Rainbow shows up, things get even more confusing, compounded by the too-fast pacing. Rather than be the sort of conflict that would be expected, Twilight immediately sets her work aside and suggests a break herself. I guess technically Rainbow showing up prompted Twilight, but this isn't what we were led to believe was going to happen.

Having Rainbow be interested in helping Twilight is an interesting touch, but it is a little out of character. It would work a lot better if you didn't the time selling it. As a suggestion on how to do this, I would expect Twilight to at least at first be resistant to doing her research. Rainbow would try a few things to get her to stop, the first few ideas fail, so she tries something unexpected. Having her offer to help would not only be more believable in that context, it would make for a lengthier scene, and slow the pace down as is desperately needed.

Now, I'm not all that sure what you were trying to convey exactly by having Twilight make a mistake and have Rainbow point it out. This is mostly because you were so vague with it and rushed through everything that it was hard to really follow. Bit continuing on with my suggestions so far, having Rainbow point out some little mistake could be how she finally gets Twi to realize she needs a break, and she admits defeat.

The near-kiss teasing was cute, and Twilight developing slight feelings for Rainbow was subtly done as I suggested before. I'd keep that and work it into the new version of the story, and see if you can build up to it a bit more. Other little things like the nose-to-cheek affectionate greeting were also good. Try to work more little things like that into the extended interaction. They can serve both as distractions that Rainbow would do on purpose to get Twilight to mess up, and would send signals to Twilight (perhaps wrong) that Rainbow is flirting with her which drives her into more worry mode.

Overall, needs to be longer. Even if you like none of my suggestions, at least so something to slow the story down. Take your time with the scene, the characters, and what they're doing, saying, and thinking.

[Zeyon The Green]

5195960
When Dash said she was wrong was it the problem that Twilight was working on or their relationship?

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5200231 It says that Dash is staring at her written work, so it's something in Twilight's research notes that is wrong.

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5196900 Best ship indeed. :') Thank you so much for these tips, you've helped me massively with this piece. I have updated it and added loads of new stuff. Hopefully it's better now. Please don't hesitate to give me more tips, I appreciate them immensely.

[Zeyon The Green]

5200903

Jeez I read it like five times and I didn't get it. I must have been tired.

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5203777 Don't worry about it. I re-wrote it recently, so it should all be much clearer.

[Onyx Songsinger]

Pinkie Pie’s Pegasus grandmother, Surprise

Love the reference

[RainbowlightSparkledash]

5219091 Aha, I'm glad you noticed. :3 She's probably my favourite of the pre-designs for the mane six, followed closely by Firefly, who I hope to write about soon. I ship Surprise and Firefly haha.

[ZGuy0fSci]

Over from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeQXUFQOp-M&feature=em-uploademail and Goomba Brony's reading.

Gotta say as someone that gets sick of "Mane 6" Ship-spam fics, this was finally one I'd call GOOD for a change.

I just get so sick of all the same old and over-reused crud, so having something that's actually written good for a change was a well needed breath of fresh air. I thank you for that, along with my note left to Goombasa on his vid/reading of it.

*(was actually cute & likable, rather than just being "gay for the hey of it" like so many)

(lolz)

Stay awesome. >_<)'7

[Sirflysalot]

okay
this was a thing
its not bad
i just don't get it
i mean i understand
but why?

...what ever have a thumbs up

[Fritzy]

Liking the title ;)