• Published 24th Aug 2020
  • 282 Views, 22 Comments

"What Are You Doing? Buy This Book Now!" - Strawberry Sunrise



An innocuous book purchase sends Twilight on a series of random adventures.

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At the Bottom of a Well

When Twilight woke up, she was at the bottom of the well. Or at least she assumed that was where she must be. Luckily, she had somehow managed to not sustain any injuries other than the bump on her head from where she had banged it.

She lit up the area with her magic and realized that she couldn’t see the top of the well anymore. “Wow, this well must be deeper than I thought,” she thought. Mentally shrugging, she started flying up, figuring that she’d get to a point where the top could be seen eventually. Suddenly, she banged her head again. Looking up, she realized she had hit some kind of ceiling. There was no hole above her.

“What? Where am I?” Twilight wondered. Apparently she was no longer in the well, but she was certainly in some kind of underground cavern.

“Hey, the pony is awake,” said a voice from somewhere in the distance. Suddenly several gems all over the walls of the cavern lit up and she it was clear that she was in a gem mine. A Diamond Dog was in the distance looking at her.

“Why am I here?” Twilight asked.

“We found you at the bottom of a well and noticed that your head was injured,” the Diamond Dog said. “So we thought we’d take care of you until you were better.” Twilight noticed for the first time that the back of her head had been wrapped in a bandage.

“Well…thank you,” Twilight said.

“No problem,” the Diamond Dog said. “After our last encounter with ponies all those years ago, we decided to be nicer. Being mean and trying to make ponies do what we wanted didn’t really get us anywhere, so we turned over a new leaf.” A couple other Diamond Dogs joined them from elsewhere.

“Wait, are you the Diamond Dogs that kidnapped Rarity a long time ago?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, we’re those Diamond Dogs,” the Diamond Dogs said. “Tell her ‘sorry’ the next time you see her, alright?”

“Sure,” Twilight said. “Thanks again. But wait, how did you find me at the bottom of the well?”

“Oh, our gem cavern goes right through that well,” one of them said. “It’s been dry for a long time and we happened to dig through it a few months ago.”

“Cool,” Twilight said. “Now how do I get out of here?”

“Aren’t you going to repay us first?” one of the Diamond Dogs said.

“What?” Twilight said.

“We helped you. Now you’re going to help us find some gems, right?” the Diamond Dog who had just spoken said.

“I mean…I guess I could,” Twilight said, realizing again that she had forgotten that she could just teleport away whenever she wanted to. She didn’t really like that they seemed to be trying to extort her, but she was grateful that they had tried to help, even if they did hope to get something out of it.

Twilight cast a gem-finding spell, setting it for only the biggest gems – at least 63-carat – and set off through the cavern. Several twists and turns later and one big blast to the wall and she had uncovered the jackpot. The cavern she had found was full of a massive number of huge gems. “Here you go!” she said. “But please don’t take all of them. Rarity would probably like to have some of these, too.”

“Wow,” one of the Diamond Dogs said. They hadn’t expected to get that good of a haul from Twilight. Maybe just a few gems at best. “Sure, we can share with Rarity.”

“Great!” Twilight said. “Well, anyway, I’ve got to go now.”

“Here, take this,” one of the Diamond Dogs said. “I think we owe you something now.” He was holding a copy of “What Are You Doing? Buy This Book Now!” by Flimmy McFlammerson.

“Wow, thanks!” Twilight said. Even though she knew she was going to get a new copy from the publishing company soon, she still loved getting books. And getting this copy now meant that she could read it that much sooner. She took it gratefully.

“Yeah, we found it at the bottom of the well, too. Somecreature must have dropped it,” one of the Diamond Dogs said. “I can’t read, but I thought you might like it since you like books.”

“Wait, how did you know that?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, I just heard through the grapevine that you used to live in a library,” the Diamond Dog who had just spoken said.

“Well, it’s true! I did used to live in a library!” Twilight said, and smiled. Then her smile fell. She was still sad that the Golden Oaks Library was gone, even all this time later. But then she smiled again. She still had lots of happy memories of it, and those could never be taken away from her. Or at least, she hoped they would never be taken away from her. Memory-erasing spells were a thing. Little did she know that they would be used on her later on. But not yet.

“Anyway, see you later!” Twilight said. “Remember to share those gems with Rarity!”

“We will!” the Diamond Dogs said in unison. And Twilight teleported back to the surface.