In Sweetie Belle’s room, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were sitting around the board for a trivia board game. On her fourth try, Apple Bloom picked up the dice and rolled them.

“Another ten?” Sweetie Belle said.

“Fuck you,” Scootaloo said. Her parents had never been hard on her for swearing, having died before she could talk very well.

“Not mah fault.” She put a white plastic token in the centre of the board. “Gimme a red question.”

Sweetie Belle drew a card. “Who won the 2008 Pferdlander Air Crown?”

“Er. Lightnin’brand?”

“No. Scootaloo?”

“Peregrine Velocitywings.”

“That’s right. Go for the triple?”

“Nope.” Scootaloo took the token and the dice.

“You got your subject,” Apple Bloom said, “Don’ look smug.”

“You’ve been looking pretty smug behind your thirty-six chips and three green discs.”

“Yeah, but that’s a good reason.”

Someone knocked the door, presumably Rarity.

“It’s unlocked,” Sweetie Belle said.

Rarity opened the door, levitating a bowl of roseberries, which looked like cranberries but tasted like being force-fed sugar with the occasional drop of fruit juice, the source of many “salt for sugar”-type jokes in Equestria’s area of the continent. “I finished cleaning the roseberries.”

“Put ‘em here,” Apple Bloom said, tapping a spot on the floor between her and Scootaloo. Rarity set the bowl down. “Is that all you want?”

“Yeah,” they all said in unison.

“All right.” She closed the door and left.

“Let’s do this,” Scootaloo said. She rolled a seven and put a token in. “Let’s go for orange.”

Apple Bloom picked up a card. “What was the last country to criminalahse unlahcensed soapbox races down public roads?”

“That sounds like something Mackia would forget to do.”

“Nope. Sweetie Belle?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lower Mbelo.”

The token stayed on the board and Scootaloo passed the dice to Sweetie Belle. She put a token on the board and rolled six. “Green.”

“Uh uzhin’ a cube,” Apple Bloom said through a few roseberries. She put a blue wooden cube the size of a die into the game’s box.

Sweetie Belle stamped on the floor. “That’s bullshit. You just want to fuck me over.”

“Ah’m good at green.”

“You’re not that good. You’d get more tokens on average by not using it.”

“Yeah, but whah take a risk when Ah’m this far ahead? And there’s no use keepin’ it to the end anyway.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “The one time I finally do okay at this game, you have to be a dick to me....”

Scootaloo picked up a card. “How many legs does an Equestrian micropede—”

“622,” Apple Bloom said.

“Yep.”

Sweetie Belle crossed her forelegs. “I knew that one too.”

“Do the triple?”

“Ah ain’t a micropede expert.” She took the two tokens on the board and took another from the box. “Mah turn, Sweetie.”

Fifteen turns later, Apple Bloom had an unassailable lead with her forty-five chips and two golden crosses, thereby winning. As the unicorn, Sweetie Belle was tasked with cleaning the game up.

“And now Apple Bloom’s cross,” Sweetie Belle said, “And the one she stole from me when Scootaloo clearly would’ve been a strategically better decision....”

“The northern board was in sky mode,” Scootaloo said.

“So?”

“We know how you play in sky mode.”

“Exactly. I got punished for having a smart reputation.”

“You mean the opposite,” Apple Bloom said. “It’s the raht decision for you to play risky when you’re such an idiot you just have to hope you get a good run ah questions instead ah, y’know, knowin’ stuff and not relahin’ on skah boosts.”

“You go for sky boosts often enough.”

“Yeah, Ah do ‘em with mah good subjects lahke a normal pony ‘stead ah doin’ it every turn ‘cause one ah these days you’ll win.”

“So you agree with me that I do better strategies than Scootaloo.”

“‘Cause she has prahde. When Scootaloo wins, it’s ‘cause she knows more questions than me, not some desperate risky strategy. She don’t even wanna win off a few skah boosts at the end.”

“I may get more out of winning certain ways,” Scootaloo said, “But if I’m four chips behind on the final turn, I’m not not going to sky boost because it’s ‘cheap’.”

There were now two roseberries left in the bowl.

“Er...” Sweetie Belle said. “I wanna take a berry, but....”

“But the game’s over?” Apple Bloom said.

“No, literally.”

The other two looked in the bowl.

“Well, Ah’m not even hungry,” Apple Bloom said.

“Oh,” Scootaloo said. “I was secretly hoping something dramatic would happen.”

“Nahce ‘secret’.”

“Okay, the game’s packed up,” Sweetie Belle said. “What do we do now?”

No answer was quickly reached, making the de facto answer “just talk”. And so the rest of the night went without anything unusual or memorable, although the opinions Sweetie Belle expressed were somewhat more cynical than usual. Next Chapter: Chapter 15: Verse 10 Estimated time remaining: 17 Hours, 37 Minutes