Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Salt

"You know what would be funny?" asked Twilight, looking out the window.

"I'm not sure this is the time to be worrying about being funny," Rainbow replied. "But no, I don't know. What is it?"

"If I got there late." Twilight looked at her own translucent reflection in the glass, and at Rainbow behind her, to catch her reaction.

"I'm afraid the humour is lost on me on that one," said Rainbow.

"Not too late," Twilight continued. "Just a little late. Just enough to bother her, but not enough to compromise the whole thing. I'm not sure how long I'd have, definitely between a few seconds and a bit over a minute. I wouldn't push it longer than that regardless, but it would be fun to see how far I can go with it."

"That would be fun?" Rainbow looked intently at the back of Twilight's head. "Maybe I can kinda see it, but I'm still not convinced."

"It would be highlighting her own hypocrisy. She only cares about the rules as a way to force me to fight her and have external pressure on me through the citizens' expectations, but she'd never allow them to prevent our actual confrontation." Twilight returned to focusing on what was outside the window and not on the half reflections on it. "Of course I can easily imagine what she'd do after enough time passed would be to proclaim herself the winner and start hurting others to force me to show up."

"Which is why you have to show up," Rainbow said. "But I get the part about annoying her. Don't know how worth it it would be, that's up to you to decide."

"You know, if it was just about me and her I'd never show up." Twilight turned away from the window and began to pace around the room. "If I didn't care about what would happen to everyone else, or if I knew nothing could happen to anyone else, I would leave her waiting forever. I'd run away, disappear, live my life somewhere else. It would drive her mad. More so than probably anything else I could do, though I hope what she'll feel when I defeat her today might compare. I know it will be quite the satisfaction to wipe the grin off her face, especially should I get to use the floor to do it."

"You seem pretty confident," Rainbow noted.

"I am." Twilight turned towards her. She looked her in the eyes.

Rainbow held her gaze. "Are you sure your plans are going to work?"

"No," Twilight said. "But I think it's very likely they will, and very unlikely that they might not because of things being worse than anticipated, rather than better. And if things go much worse than I thought they could, I still trust my ability to figure out something on the fly and come out on top." She smiled.

Rainbow smiled too. "Good luck, Twilight."

"Thank you," Twilight said. "Hopefully I won't need it."

Comments

[Speckle]

You can do it, Twilight!