WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 3:43 PM
I can’t feel my fingers. Or my feet. Or my eyes. All I can feel are Twilight’s hands on my shoulders, shaking me back into reality.
“Stay with me, Shimmer!” she says.
“No, no.” I limply shake my head. “Just let me die!”
“I have ice cream.”
“What flavor?”
“Pistachio.” She holds up a cup of green ice cream, emblazoned with the flashy Equestria Land logo. “With chopped nuts.”
I sniffle and nod. “I do like pistachio…”
She smiles, sits down on the bench next to me, and hands me the pistachio cup. I try to take it from her, but I can’t move my stiffened, bandaged fingers without jolts of pain shooting through my hands. When she sees me wince, she sighs and balances her own ice cream (Double Chocolate Chunk, as usual) on her knees.
“You’re lucky I’m nice,” she says, grabbing my ice cream with her magic. She scoops up a chunk of pistachio — all with her magic, no spoon involved — and levitates it towards me.
It takes a moment for me to move past the shock and open my mouth. She gingerly floats the ice cream past my lips and rests it on my tongue. Her magic is warm, and it pulses inside of my mouth like an ethereal heartbeat.
I can’t help but blush. Hell, I can barely look at her. “This might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” I say as I wipe my mouth.
“Uh-huh.” She takes a bite of her own ice cream, totally plain-faced. “I hope I’m making the Princess proud with my Friendship Skills.”
I open my mouth again and take another pistachio scoop. “Sorry I couldn’t win you that stuffed parakeet,” I say through a full mouth. “I bet you had a cool name picked out for it and everything.”
She shakes her head. “No, I was too busy running the numbers to think of one. The best I came up with was ‘Harold.’”
“I like Harold.”
“Eh. I guess it’s more creative than the stuffed dog I just named ‘Spike II.’”
I giggle. “I bet Timber could have won it, rigged or not.”
Twi snorts and shoots me a grin. “Is that all you think we do? Just go to carnivals and win all the stuffed animals?”
“Maybe! I mean, you don’t tell me about anything else,” I say with a shrug.
The entire sentence hasn’t even left my mouth and already I’m cursing myself. Twilight’s smile disappears faster than it came. I swear I see her hold on my ice cream flicker for a moment.
I cringe away. “That sounded bitchier than I meant it to be. Sorry.”
She takes a bite of ice cream, and then slowly swallows, and then asks, “How bitchy did you mean it to be?”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Twilight swear before. I’m not touching her, but that stabs into my gut like a burning needle.
“Not at all,” I say in a tiny voice. More excuses bubble in my throat, but I feel like someone’s glued my lips together.
She nods. And she keeps eating. By herself.
Clenching my fists hurts like hell, but I do it anyway. I’m pissed off — at Twilight, at Timber, and at myself. Twi says she’s in love with this dude. But whenever I bring him up, her mood goes downhill. He’s the common denominator.
Or am I?
Back at Camp Everfree, Twi said that Timber could be a safe place for her, away from the magic and mayhem and everything else I’ve brought here. Maybe that’s it: The reason she loves Timber is that he’s not me. And every time I bring him up, that gets ruined.
I’m content to keep cursing myself. But then Twilight startles me awake.
“Do you really want to hear about our relationship?” she asks, staring at the ground. She’s just as plain-faced as before, but her voice has the slightest quiver.
“Yeah.” I sit up straighter, unclench my fists even though it’s torture. “For real.”
“What, do you think I’m going to lie?”
That quiver sharpened into an arrow. I frown. “No, of course not! I trust you.”
Hands on her lap, she clutches and wrinkles her skirt. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m being so defensive.”
“Is everything okay?”
“That’s why it’s weird: Everything’s fine! Great, even. We go out, and we talk, and we joke, and we kiss. Things are totally normal. It’s just”—she looks into the air for something invisible—“stressful. It takes a lot of work. And sometimes, talking about it makes me tired. You know.”
Do I? “What’s hard about it?”
“Little things. Like, he lives an hour away by car and two hours away by bus. And I can’t drive, so he has to come here. So every time we hang out or go on a date, I have to make it special. It needs to be worth the effort.”
“You’re worth the effort.” I scoot closer and try to offer her a smile. “Aren’t you?”
If she appreciates it, I can’t tell. “That’s true,” she says, but her words are lifeless.
My first instinct is to shit talk Timber — no dude is worth this sort of stress. But she loves him. I think. So that would just piss her off more.
But the seconds are ticking by. And she’s upset. And I need to help her. And I’m opening my mouth without a plan. So my second instinct will have to do.
“It won’t always be like that.” I’m shooting from the hip, making up each word on the fly. “You could learn to drive. Or once we graduate next year, you could move in together.”
“Yeah.” She takes a bite of ice cream. Still not looking at me. “Next year.”
Goddess above. I’m so smooth. So helpful.
Before I can apologize, she perks up again like none of this ever happened. Just like she did at the arcade and Barnyard Bargains.
“Like I said: Little things.” She smiles, scoops up my ice cream, and feeds me again. “But every relationship has its bumps. The important thing is that Timber and I are doing great.”
“And is he still cool?” This is the first time she’s opened up about their relationship — I might as well scrounge for whatever scraps of info I can get. “Like, he treats you okay?”
“Of course!” She adjusts her glasses. “I mean, he—he’s great! Really. He’s been such a fantastic first boyfriend, especially for a relationship dunce like me.”
I want to scold her for the self-depreciation, but I hold my tongue. “Good. The most important thing is that you’re happy.”
She chuckles. “You sound like my mom.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. She’s a smart woman.”
“I’ll tell her you said that.” Twilight feeds me the last dollop of ice cream, then stands up. “Come on. We should get to sound check before Rarity goes on a rampage.”
I hold up my ruined fingers. “I dunno if I can even hold a guitar, let alone shred.”
“Don’t worry. If that new song Rainbow Dash sent you is anything to go by, she’s fast enough to play both guitars now.”
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Careful Twi, that implies second and later boyfriends. Bit of a slip?
11656288 She got annoyed with Sunset for using similar phrasing a chapter or two ago.
Obviously, this “Dumps Reminder” character is a hack, failing to keep characterization straight.
Twilight seems to have accepted that her time with Timber is limited. The question is why. And whether she'll ever share that reasoning with anyone else.
Careful Twiggles, the cracks are starting to show.
You certain are Sci Twi.
I actually know a fanmade comic where that happened.
I find that hard to believe.
I do.
Long distance relationship can be hard. It makes sense why Sci Twi is feeling this.
This chapter gave me doubts about my last thoughts on Timber. For reference, I noticed Twilight’s behavior was similar to my own relationships where I was the one being abused. Naturally, looking at that and her reactions, I came to the conclusion that Timber isn’t as cool as we thought he was. Intentionally or unintentionally, I felt he had abused Twilight in some way. But now, I don’t know for certain.
I definitely think Twilight is still hiding something, in fear of what others may think of her or tell her how she should feel. It truly, really could be she just doesn’t think she’s being a good girlfriend. But I still think something is going in with Timber, I got a huge feeling in my gut.
I think Twi is in the relationship because she thinks she's supposed to be in one, not because she wants to be in one. She likes Timber but not as much as she thinks she does and not in the way she thinks she does. She just doesn't realize the difference yet.
Distance is hard, but you are under no obligation to always make it special. Especially if he is pushing for more than you are ready to give.
Wait, what happened to her fingers? Was the guitar part was that bad?
11677435
This is supposed to take place during the Rollercoaster of Friendship special, where Twi and Sunset spend so long trying to win a rigged carnival game that Sunset hurts her fingers: