One of the few benefits of crying yourself to sleep is that it tends to make you sleep like a log. After a night of deep and dreamless sleep, Twilight awoke feeling refreshed and at peace. In her half awake state, she enjoyed the rays of late morning sunlight that streamed through her bedroom window and left a pleasant warmth on her face. She knew it was going to be a bright day, full of promise, with a beautiful bright blue sky. The kind that Dash loved to take advantage of.

And just like that, her peaceful state burst like a soap bubble as memories of the previous day came flooding back. The announcement, the love that had filled Dash's eyes whenever she looked at Applejack, the kiss, Applejack's evil cackle as she twirled her mustache. No, that last part didn't happen. Her memory was starting to embellish a bit. She was fairly certain the news hadn't been accompanied by an actual record scratch either, as the music had already been turned off.

Twilight turned and pulled the covers over her head to shield herself from the hideous burning rays of the sinister torture device that Celestia had surely created to punish her for some past transgression. She hid safely inside her linen cocoon, sealing herself off from the cruel world that had the indecency to keep going, completely indifferent to her suffering, instead of coming to an end. She didn't need it. She would form a new world in here. The glorious nation of sheetland that she would rule over as princess. Admittedly, it did have a problem with rapidly rising carbon dioxide levels. She would have to call a committee to look into the possibility of air holes.

After several hours, followed by severe political unrest from the proletariat of the stomach, she decided to temporarily reopen limited diplomatic channels with Equestria in order to get lunch. She didn't bother to glance in the mirror or brush her hair. She didn't plan on going anywhere or seeing anypony today.

After a simple daisy sandwich, her mood was slightly improved. Having beaten back the hunger that had come from skipping breakfast, her mood had crawled from abysmal all the way up to simply terrible. It dropped right back down again when she glanced over at the garbage can where she had deposited the soaked fireworks. The fireworks she spent nearly two weeks researching and developing as a labor of love. That she had praised as her most inspired and brilliant of ideas. That now lay in the bottom of a trash can among coffee grounds and Spike's claw clippings. After summoning a spade and checking outside, she levitated the remains of her work out of the trash and carried them with her out the door and around behind the library.

She knew nopony was going to look through her garbage. Even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize the purpose behind the soaked and misshapen packages of black powder. Still, she felt the need to hide the evidence. Evidence that she had ever been so foalish as to think this was a good idea. What had she been thinking?

She tore into the ground a bit more violently than necessary, until she had several small holes, each about two feet deep. Scattering the soggy packages among the holes, she shredded them a bit to further disguise their original forms before burying them. With the grass carefully pressed back into place, there was no sign of disturbance. Once torn to pieces, the fireworks had hardly displaced any earth at all. She gave a small sigh of relief, as if she were some kind of murderer who had just disposed of the bodies.

"Whatcha doin?"

Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin as she looked up to see Rainbow Dash hovering above her head. Every curse word in the unicorn's expansive vocabulary sped through her head on repeat. Under normal circumstances, the sight of Rainbow Dash would have brought joy, but these were hardly normal circumstances. Why hadn't she waited to do this at night?!

"GAH! How long have you been there?!"

"Just got here actually. Since you had to go home sick last night, I thought I'd drop by and check up on you today. Speaking of which, you still look pretty rough. What are you doing up and about out here?"

Part of Twilight was relieved that Dash hadn't seen anything incriminating. A second part was giddy that Dash cared enough to check up on her. A third part was aware of how disheveled she must still look. The rest of her was desperately trying to come up with an excuse to cover her flank and make the inquisitive pegasus go away.

"Actually, I am still pretty sick. I just came out here to gather some ingredients for tea." Eternally grateful for the wildflowers growing against the back wall of the library, she walked over and picked some. "Yep. Fluttershy is always going on about the benefits of herbal tea."

"Yuck. Well good luck with that smelly stuff. Anyway, I'm not doing anything today, so I was wondering if you needed any company since Spike is gone and I know you're all alone over here."

Dash wanted to spend time with her? Was offering to take care of her? Alone in her house? Yes!

"Oh no, I'm fine. Besides I'm probably terribly contagious right now."

What?! No! What are you doing traitorous lips?!

"Eh. I'll be careful. Besides, I'm not afraid of a few sniffles. It's no problem at all."

That was close. Now just say yes, head inside, and-

"No, really. I'll be okay. You should go spend some time with Applejack."

WHAT?!

"Nah. She's busy with her applebucking right now."

"Then you should go help her. I'm sure she'd appreciate it as a sweet romantic gesture."

STOP! WAIT! COME BACK DASH! DON'T GO!

It was too late. Rainbow Dash had already agreed, said goodbye, and was disappearing over the horizon. She had blown it spectacularly. Not only had she turned down an afternoon of Dash's undivided attention, something she would normally smack Celestia across the face for, she had subsequently sent her flying directly into Applejack's arms.

After bucking the side of the library as hard as she could in frustration, Twilight walked back inside. She made herself a second sandwich and a glass of water, and carried them up to her room. Setting them down next to her bed, she crawled back into her comfy cocoon. Diplomatic relations with the outside world had broken down and she was considering full sanctions.

Author's Notes:

Apologies for another criminally short, one scene chapter. I hate short chapters so I'm a massive hypocrite. It's just that it's going to be bit longer until my next update and I don't have the self-control to sit on this until then. I promise the next chapter, whenever it happens, will be larger. Not sure if people in general prefer quickly updating small chapters or more spread out larger ones. I prefer the latter, but as stated above, I'm a hypocrite with no self-control.