Thirty-Minute Pony Stories

by Silvernis

237: Crooked and True

237: CROOKED AND TRUE

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“Rainbow Dash, it’s crooked,” grumbled Twilight. “Again. Why do you insist on messing it up every time I fix it?” Her horn glowed, and the simple wood frame shifted a little on the wall.

“’Cause you’re just looking at the frame,” said Rainbow with exaggerated patience, as if explaining something simple to an especially slow foal. “The picture’s crooked, so if you make the frame crooked, too, the picture looks right. See?” She reached over and nudged the frame the other way.

“But it’s still crooked.” Twilight magicked the frame back. “There. Now it’s level. Doesn’t that look better?”

Rainbow snorted and pushed it back again. “No. It looks better this way.”

“But it’s crooked,” repeated Twilight, stamping a hoof.

“Who cares? It’s better than everypony in the picture looking crooked.”

Spike sighed loudly from the other side of the library. “Can’t you just trim the photo a little so it sits straight?” asked the dragon, looking up from the stack of books he was sorting. “That way you can both be happy, and I won’t have to listen to this argument every day.”

“NO!” said both ponies at once, looking aghast at the very idea.

Spike scowled at them. “What, you like arguing about how crooked it should be?”

“Of course not,” said Twilight.

“Kinda,” said Rainbow, grinning. “Twi’s cute when she’s mad.”

Twilight harrumphed and tried to look cross, but she couldn’t suppress a giggle as Rainbow tenderly nuzzled her neck. Sighing, she leaned against Rainbow, and the pegasus put a wing over her.

“Seriously, though,” continued Rainbow, “it’s a special picture. I don’t wanna cut it, even to make it fit better.”

“And what exactly makes it so special?” asked Spike, walking over to look skeptically at the photograph. “Pinkie Pie took that one.”

Twilight smiled. “Exactly.”

“She set up the camera wrong and nearly knocked everypony over trying to get into the picture before it went off.”

“Yep,” said Rainbow.

“And she tried to drag the princesses into it.”

The unicorn and the pegasus both laughed. Rainbow’s wing squeezed Twilight a little closer.

“This is us, Spike,” said Twilight. She carefully floated the picture off the wall and held it close so the dragon could see it better. “The other photos are nice”—she waved a hoof at the half-dozen pictures in elegant gilt frames hanging on the wall—“but this one . . . it’s us. All of us.”

Rainbow nodded. “It’s real, ya know?”

Spike took the picture. It showed a park in Ponyville, with an untidy line of ponies standing on the grass. Twilight and Rainbow Dash were in the center, smiling goofily with their forelegs around each other as they showed off their matching necklaces. To their right stood Applejack and Rarity, the earth pony putting a recently-yanked-off hat back onto her head while the hat-yanking unicorn beamed and dabbed at one eye with a hanky. To their left were Fluttershy and Spike, both trying to smile while looking nervously at Pinkie Pie. The madly grinning earth pony appeared to be galloping in from the side of the photograph, trailed by a bemused Princess Luna and what looked suspiciously like a flowing tail and a rump bearing a familiar sun-shaped cutie mark. Stretched over everything was a large banner that read CONGRATS TWILIGHT & DASHIE! in Pinkie-painted letters.

Spike chuckled, then handed the photograph back to Twilight. “I guess that is a pretty special picture,” he admitted.

“It certainly is,” said Twilight. She hung it neatly back on the wall, then kissed Rainbow.

The pegasus kissed her back, then stuck out a hoof and tweaked the frame.

“You know it looks better this way,” she said, cackling as she flew out to the kitchen.

“Rainbow Dash!” shouted the unicorn. “It’s crooked!”

Author's Note:

Not my best, but I wanted to write something warm and fluffy after all those gloomy submissions.