Rainbow Dash wants to get Twilight to loosen up. What better way is there than getting her to go on a surprise date?
Twilight goes with Rainbow to watch her race in Cloudsdale only to suddenly find herself being 'wooed' by Thunderlane.
Saw the cover art and decided to make a story around it with permission from Ravenpuff
9/6/14 Featured! I don't really know the meaning of this. I was going for a minimum length little thing because I saw the cover pic. Then it gets featured. Maybe it means I can die peacefully now. Except people want me to write more. Dunno what to do with my life anymore.
Many suggestions later. *Dramatic sigh* I suppose I'll switch this to incomplete. :)
“Wait here for me, I’ll be right back!” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight Sparkle as she took off, zipping towards some mystery destination. Probably for some sort of last minute preparations, Twilight assumed.
The two of them were in Cloudsdale. Rainbow had opted in to fly in a minor race and had invited her friends to come watch. Ironically, only the new princess had an open schedule. None of their other friends had the time to spare for a trip to Cloudsdale on a one day notice.
And so she sat on the cloud, wrapped her tail around her right side and waited. I hope she gets back soon. We only have twenty minutes before she is disqualified for tardiness! She got antsy and fidgeted in place until she heard somepony clear their throat.
“Mmmhm!” Came the proud announcement of phlegm removal. Twilight turned her head to look behind her.
There stood a rather large black pegasus with a mohawk style mane with broad stripes of white and sky-blue. He had a short tail and a cutiemark with a thunder cloud and a yellow lightning bolt. He looked quite nervous and a little bit familiar.
He did nothing for a moment before he stood up straight, puffed his chest out and stared out at infinity. Then he began to strut around in a rather goofy manner.
What…? Twilight was rather shocked at the strange display as the mystery pegasus awkwardly maneuvered himself in front of her. For some unknown reason, she felt the beginnings of a blush and her wings filled with tension trying to push them open.
He took his time as he walked around her right side in a manner that displayed his well developed muscles. Twilight, in spite of her confusion, found herself enjoying the sight of the pegasus parading around her. She realized how loudly her heart was beating and absentmindedly raised her left hoof to her chest.
When he had arrived at a point directly in front of her, he spun to face her and lowered his head to the cloud they were on and stuck his rump into the air and spread his wings. She bit her lower lip as her eyes were greeted with a pair of big, strong, firm, and well preened wings.
Twilight belated realized that her own rather oversized wings were spread in a similar manner but the discovery slipped out of her mind as she stared at the display.
After a beat he spoke, “Art thou wooed yet, milady?”
All she could do was emit an un-princess-like squeak.
Just then, Rainbow Dash flew out of nowhere and put her forelegs around the shoulders of both them, all the while shining a world class devious grin. She hovered as she pushed them towards the stadium. “Hey you two, we have a race to go to. Twilight, why don’t you sit with Thunderlane here while you watch, okay? Okay. See ya!”
At that, she flew off to wherever she had to go as Thunderlane and the mentally impaired princess found their way to a cloud platform to watch the race. Only then did she manage to escape the daze she had been floating in.
As her senses came back to her, she realized that she was sitting rather close to Thunderlane.
“Um, so…” She trailed off as she realized that she could feel his heartbeat which was hammering away faster than hers was. Twilight, being as completely unprepared as she was, said the first thing that came to her mind, “I, uh, I like your wings!”
She blushed again as the words came out completely differently from the way she wanted. In other words, she practically yelled them. She immediately tried to find something else to talk about to deal with the awkwardness.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She asked in a slightly shrill tone.
“Um,” he responded, “I was around when we were practicing for tornado day, and… I went to the Wonderbolts Academy at the same time that Dash did.” He paused. “I-I like your wings too.” His voiced cracked with embarrassment.
Twilight giggled behind a hoof as the beginning of the race was announced. Before long the racers were off and Rainbow Dash was in an ever growing lead.
Twilight watched the race, but her attention was on Thunderlane whom she kept sneaking glances at for the duration. Before she knew it, the race was over and Rainbow had first place. She hardly noticed.
The two of them had exited the stadium and both of them were trying to find ways to pick up their conversation when Rainbow suddenly returned and began directing them the same way that she had before. “Hey you two, how’s it going? Did you like the race? I’m starved, let’s get something to eat!” She took a few heavy breaths. She noticed that Twilight had a distant, concentrated look on her face. “Twilight.”
“What?”
“Stop thinking about books.”
“How did you-”
Rainbow cut her off, “Your name is Twilight Sparkle. Isn't that evidence enough?”
Twilight fell silent. She mentally admitted that she had been thinking about books. She was regretting the fact that she hadn’t read anything on dating or romance. She also wondered how she became so predictable.
They arrived at some restaurant when suddenly Rainbow chimed in again, “Oh, a contrived distraction just came up. I’ll have to have the two of you go on without me.”
Rainbow’s use of the word contrived threw Twilight off balance as she and Thunderlane were directed to a table. They sat down and looked at the menus. Twilight had a hard time reading the blurry words. She was instead focusing on trying to cope with the situation. She also realized that again she was alone with Thunderlane.
They each managed to order something. Twilight suddenly missed having a menu to hide behind.
Thunderlane was the first to break the ice. “So, what’s it like to be a princess?”
“Well, it’s a lot of work and it can be exhausting but it’s worth it.”
Rainbow Dash watched the two ponies through a window from a distance. She smiled as they began to talk more actively after Thunderlane finally got over his nerves.
She laughed to herself. All according to plan. Planning the trip around Twilight’s schedule, having her other friends make up excuses to not go, everything.
Satisfied, she flew off to get something to eat. Racing is a lot of work.
Twilight Sparkle was having a bad day, or maybe a bad month would be more accurate. That’s not to say that she didn’t like being the Princess of Friendship but that didn’t mean that it didn’t have its own load of headaches that were surely part of the job description. Ironically enough, knowing the title is not the same as knowing what a Princess of Friendship does.
Settling minor disputes between individuals and groups in the name of ‘friendship’ is both the most intuitive idea, and the most absurd. There are simply too many ponies and nopony would ever take their disagreements to a royal office to get them settled, and one would simply not have a castle with a throne if they were supposed to hunt down the issues themselves.
No, a Princess of Friendship does not actually deal with friendship, but diplomacy. This is okay too. Twilight and her friends rarely had to do something major like meet with foreign leadership, but they did see a minor dignitary or two once every few months and had the occasional trade agreement sent their way which they looked over and passed to the relevant corporations and bureaucrats. Twilight would usually have several of her friends present and things would go smoothly, but the last source of work was where the trouble came from.
Local disputes where international laws came into play. Twilight saw a lot of issues where one non-Equestrian species would wrong another, different species on Equestrian soil who would then try to go through the Equestrian legal system to solve their problems. Far too often, the issue was laid at her hooves. She could, of course, refuse anything that she deemed to be unworthy of her attention, but she would have none of that.
Currently, Twilight was looking over a case where a pair of minotaurs had assaulted a gryphon shipping warehouse to steal ‘a precious historical artifact’ which was in fact a tube made of a strange steel alloy with a worn down mechanism on one end. The conflict resulted in arrests for all involved.
All of this left Twilight to research all the circumstances and laws pertaining to the event, and that was only the seventh case that day. Twilight really was an excellent choice for being the one to deal with things like this, being extremely knowledgeable with a straight moral compass and when word got out, a huge number of these cases were directed towards her instead of the regular courts. It was driving her into the ground.
And her friends could tell.
“It’s been what, two or three weeks since everypony started sending her all that stuff? We really need to find a way to pull her out of it!”
“I know darling and I really am trying to think of something, but she has once again fallen into an obsession with her work. Even Spike refuses to leave her side.”
Rainbow dash fumed. She needed to find some way to help Twilight get over her workaholism, and being the Element of Loyalty made her feel especially obligated to at least do something. She just needed to think.
Rainbow plopped down onto her haunches where she stood, in the open streets of Ponyville, and stared at the empty space ahead of her with her most serious thinking face. Rarity’s response to this never made it to her conscious thoughts, which were occupied by schemes to get Twilight to take it easy.
After a while of fruitless contemplation, something finally did manage to insert itself into her consciousness.
“C’mon, I can do this. I’ve asked plenty of others before, why am I getting cold hooves now? Oh, right, she’s a princess.” Rainbow’s ear twitched. She looked up at the clouds above her. “I can probably take her to a nice restaurant in Cloudsdale, but how will I get her there?”
Rainbow grinned. The solution to her problem had presented itself.
Rainbow flew up and landed in front of Thunderlane, who jumped at her arrival.
“Oh, hello Rainbow. How things are? I mean how are things?”
Still grinning, Rainbow leaned forward and spoke, “Hello Thunderlane. I have a proposition for you…”
“C’mon Twilight, it’ll be fun! You know that you could use a break and the paperwork doesn’t care either way.”
“But this is important! The regular system might take weeks to deal with this, and in the meantime the gryphon and minotaurs will be in an Equestrian detention center! I can’t enjoy myself at their expense can I?”
“They are getting fed three meals a day! Besides, it’s unfair to everypony else for their case to get done so fast. You are letting criminals off easy at your expanse.”
“It’s expense.” Twilight meekly corrected her friend.
“Whatever! Are you going to come or not?”
Twilight hesitated for a moment before letting her body sag in defeat. “Fine Rainbow. What was it that you wanted to do?”
Rainbow relaxed her body and smiled her winning smile in spite of Twilight’s dour attitude. “Tomorrow we are going to fly to Cloudsdale, I am going to fly in a quick race and you are going to watch. Then we get something to eat and come home. Simple as that.”
“Alright Rainbow. Can I get back to this now?” Twilight was already back in her chair.
“Yes, Twilight. You do your boring stuff. I’m gonna go get ready.”
Rainbow walked out of Twilight’s office and closed the door behind her. Twilight sighed and pulled the current case back in front of her. She already knew that it would take a while, even for her, to resolve.
“It’s not boring,” she said to the empty room. This is fun right? She thought. I like doing this… okay I don’t really like it but it’s important, right? She sighed again. Maybe Rainbow was ri-.
“Hey Twilight!”
Twilight flinched at Rainbow’s sudden return. She was poking her head through the door.
“U-um, yes Rainbow?”
“Can I borrow a book?”
“Go ahead Rainbow.”
“Thanks, see you tomorrow!” She said before speeding away again.
Twilight shook her head and went back to work.
“Alright Thundy, she agreed and I have exactly what you need to get her attention.”
The dark stallion sighed in relief before looking at what Dash was talking about and sniggering. “Suprise! It’s a book!” He laughed to himself. “Are you sure I shouldn’t wear a book costume? That might work even better. Don’t you think Dash?”
“Har har,” she deadpanned. “Look, do you want my help or not?”
Thunderlane froze before nodding rapidly.
“Good. What you’re going to do is read this book and do what it says. I want you to give it your all. Tomorrow I’m going to wake you up with the sun and see if you’re up to snuff. If you pass then you are going to fly to Cloudsdale ahead of us. I’ll give you the rest of the plan tomorrow. Okay?” She punctuated her last statement by forcefully hoofing the book into Thunderlane’s chest to which he reflexively raised a hoof to hold it.
Rainbow leaned close to him, her hoof still pressing the book into his chest. “You won’t disappoint will you?” Rainbow asked with dark tones in her voice.
“No Dash!” Thunderlane quickly responded. His voice sounding slightly strangled.
“Good!” She said with sudden joviality. “And good luck!” With that she flew off.
Thunderlane took that moment to take some deep breaths before looking at the book she was so serious about.
“The Ancient Pegasus Mating Dance and You.” Thunderlane stared at it for a moment before shouting, “Are you kidding me?!”
