If someone told Twilight she would end up in any sort of relationship with a disorganized mismatch of colors made pony, she'd have called them insane.
(A 10 minute challenge fic where I write the adventures of Student Twilight and normal Dash. Chapters will be ultra short and will be TwiDash. Eventually.)
No. Nope. There was no way that this could've happened. She refused.
"Uh... Miss? Unicorn lady?"
She had literally just re-shelved all of those. Every single one. It had taken her three days, days that the Princess had explicitly set aside for her own relaxation and freedom before the semester finals. And now, every single one of them was in a pile on the floor. Untidy. Unclean.
Spines bent, pages torn, covers scuffed.
"Uh.... hello?"
And it was all her fault.
"Still kinda in the bookshelf."
Twilight Sparkle took one final second for the information to properly sink in, before turning towards the chromatic monstrosity before opening her mouth to shout.
Dash couldn't believe this. She wasn't a librarian, she wasn't a janitor, and she certainly wasn't some prissy purple unicorn's servant.
Yet, here she was. Helping a purple beast made of pure evil re-shelve a entire tower's worth of books. Sure, she did knock them all over, but she had apologized! She totally didn't owe the unicorn any more than that.
Heck, she didn't even know why she was still here, adding book after book onto shelf after shelf.
Maybe it was because she actually felt a bit bad after making such a huge mess.
Maybe it was because the unicorn had been practically in tears before she blew up so spectacularly. (And almost literally.)
Or, maybe...
Just maybe...
It was because when she had tried to bolt, the unicorn had literally teleported her into the side of a wall, proving that any attempt of escape was impossible.
Yeah, that was probably it.
"Ugh, so... where does this one go?"
The purple unicorn, who's name she literally didn't even know yet, let out a huff.
"That's Starswirl's compendium, volume four. It goes in the magic section, by his other works."
That only made Dash sigh, and after a moment of trying to hold back a growl, she managed to cool off enough to sound at least a little civil.
"I don't know where that is."
Another huff, and a helpful arrow of glowing purple appeared from nothing, pointing toward a shelf a good fifty feet away.
"There."
Dash could only give a sigh, and move toward the shelf, mentally cursing the purple unicorn as she moved in the direction of the arrow.
For the life of her, Twilight couldn't figure out how this Pegasus functioned as a pony.
She couldn't sit still for two seconds, she barely understood the most basic of directions, and when she did somehow manage to find the correct place to put a book, she usually put it upside down or with the spine facing inward, making the whole concept of being organized by title, author, genre and serial number completely meaningless.
Heck, the only reason she didn't just banish her away at this point was simply because she didn't want that multicolored eyesore to feel like she could just go around and damage books as she pleased.
This was simply her duty, a task to aid books everywhere. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she would somehow manage to put at least an iota of understanding of proper book and library etiquette into this feathered monstrosity and save many future books from the abuse she was currently capable of.
Or, at least the pegasus would avoid her tower like the plague. Either option worked.
"Ah, come on, another Starswirl book? What kinda pony writes so much?!"
Twilight didn't even need to look to know which book her prisoner/laborer was referring to. She already shelved the rest of his works.
"It goes over by the first ladder, between the magic compendium series and his works on temporal reduction magics."
The mare, if she could even be considered one by her standard maturity level, grumbled and moved to place the book where it belonged. Hopefully it would be orientated right this time.
Dash would never forgive purple smart, because she finally crossed that line that could never be uncrossed.
She was learning.
With every book placed, with every cover dusted off and checked, Dash found herself noticing a pattern. She started to guess where the books could be, and where she could probably figure they would go in shelves. She noticed the numbers that were labeled on the sides of the spines, which was the correct term, oh Faust help her, and remembered where the other books sat.
She officially hated purple smart. She wanted her pound of flesh, she wanted her vengeance, and she wanted to at least get a snack break or something, because she was starving and she didn't even eat this morning before getting trapped in this hell of paper and ink.
There was absolutely nothing purple smart could do to make this up to her. She was her enemy for life.
"Twilight? Are you here?"
Dash's ear quirked a bit at the voice, but she paid it no mind. She knew where this book on magical fields went, which was already a frustrating enough activity, never mind having to see what other fresh hells that purple smart could dredge up from the depths of the abyss.
"Oh, Princess, I was just-"
"Oh my. I... Twilight... Did you make... a friend?"
Dash spun wildly around at that, and saw something she never expected in Purple Smart's entryway.
The Princess.
It was completely unexpected. Completely insane. Heck, it was so off that Dash actually bit the side of her cheek to see if she hadn't somehow fallen into a ink fueled delusional state. But no, she wasn't, and yes, that was the Princess.
"Uh, I-"
Purple smart, or apparently Twilight, seemed rather shocked herself, but less at the fact that the Princess was sitting in her doorway, and more that half the books in the tower seemed to be placed firmly on the floor.
"Twilight. I am so... proud of you."
Both Dash and Twilight responded at the same time in the exact same way.
And because of what? A menace that destroyed half her tower? Twilight would've objected, but she was still too stunned to say anything, finding herself trying to solve the puzzle that sat before her.
Unfortunately, the colored one recovered quicker.
“Uh, yeah! We’re totally friends!”
What. The. Buck.
Twilight would’ve objected, but the princess was far quicker than her currently befuddled mind could hope to match.
“To be honest, I was worried you’d waste your weekend off reorganizing your library.”
Twilight felt her eye twitch a little.
“Nah, we’re totally hanging out! My name's Rainbow Dash, by the way.”
Such lies, and to a Princess, no less.
But said princess apparently believed every word, because all she did was nod approvingly, like the idea of Twilight reorganizing and reshelving her books was a far inferior option that shouldn’t even be considered. It felt insulting, but it also felt like she had been secretly failing her teacher the entire time.
“So, what were you two doing?”
Rainbow Dash, a name that was both fitting and very similar to what she actually was, froze on the spot, and Twilight smirked internally. Yeah, she might have been failing her teacher and mentor without knowing it, but at least Rainbow Dash would sink alongside her.
“We were... gonna go see the wonderbolts show!”
And, like that, Dash pulled out a ticket from where Twilight suspected to be hell, because that was where she must have originated from.
“You find your Ticket, Twi?”
She was a demon.
“I, Uh, I-“
“You still can’t find it? We’re gonna be late!”
No, Twilight decided, she wasn’t a demon. She was the devil.
Twilight struggled to think of a coherent response, to deny or refuse, but all that came out was indignant stuttering.
“Fear not, Twilight. I can provide you with a ticket.”
And like that, the Princess unknowingly made it worse.
“Wha?!”
“That’s awesome! Thank ya!”
And the devil won. Just like that, Twilight was given an envelope the Princess summoned from the void before she was unceremoniously pushed out her tower/comfort zone by the ponification of evil herself.
Ok, that was a understatement. This was the worst plan. Seriously, what the hay had she been thinking?
Yeah, sure, she wanted out of the hell of books and ink, but she had been so desperate to leave and make it to her Wonderbolts show that she had not only lied to the Princess to her face, but even worse, she had brought her tormentor with her.
Against her will. She who could probably teleport her into a tree, or could probably use her for potions and get away with it because she was the Princess' student or daughter or lover or something.
So yeah, that was a party foul on her part. Maybe a bit more than that.
But even so... the tormentor hadn't called her out on her crap for some unknown reason, and was still following her like she actually wanted to go to the Wonderbolts show, walking at a slow pace behind her while Dash tried her hardest to not fly off like she was used to. Heck, maybe "Twilight" actually did want to go to the wonderbolts show. But that didn't mean that Dash herself was gonna make it to said show. At least intact.
She was totally dead. Yeah, she was fast, but speed meant little when the pony you were up against could literally pull you from the ether and smack you against a wall for knocking over a couple books.
So, when Twilight, the unicorn from hell, stopped in place a good half mile away from tower from where they left the princess, Dash steeled herself for at least a good whack.
"We're going the wrong way. The Colosseum is north of here."
Oh. Well, uh, In Dash's defense, she wasn't used to going through a city at ground level.
So, when Twilight turned around and started going north, Dash just awkwardly followed her.
Twilight was at a loss, for several conjoining reasons.
Such as why the Princess was so happy that she had made a "friend". Sure, she knew logically that her social life was nonexistent; even her biological parents and Spike had made mention of that. But that was irrelevant to her studies as a whole. She was a student of magic; not some future diplomat or potential leader. Social skills weren't something that was needed for her particular field beyond the occasional word toward lab assistants or other members of her field, and even then she just needed to be concise and clear, which was never a problem she had in the first place.
The second reason was why she was following her "friend" in the first place. She could easily just go back to the princess and tell her outright that she had no relation to the pony that had flown in and destroyed her tower in naught but in instant. She could confess that she did in fact spend her weekend reorganizing her books, and that would be that.
But instead, she was here. Walking down the street toward the massive sports center that she had only knew of in passing, going to see a Wonderbolts show that she had no interest in at the behest of a pony that she could only feel full blooded hate towards. Living a lie to the Princess, only because she didn't want to disappoint her further.
