A Pressing Question

As she made her way through the Everfree Forest, Rarity occupied her time mentally reviewing important events for the upcoming weeks. First, she had a few commission deadlines to complete, then there was that super-deluxe spa treatment next Thursday, and that was it.

Wait, no, she thought, feeling a little embarrassed at forgetting. Father’s birthday is next week. I need to send him a present sometime before the weekend. 

Her communication with her parents was rather scarce, to be truthful. She loved them very dearly, but neither really had an interest in her work, and she certainly didn’t have an interest in the football games they loved to attend almost daily. The only exciting thing she had to tell them about was Twilight, and she’d rather not have her parents thinking her delusional just yet. 

Speaking of birthdays, she thought next, feeling even more embarrassed than before, I’ve never asked Twilight when her birthday is. 

Oh stars, what if she’d missed it already? No, surely Twilight would have said something if it had passed already, wouldn’t she? Her hoof reached to her pink necklace, and an even more horrifying thought plagued her. Dear princess, what if it was also next week? Rarity wouldn’t be prepared! Sure, it was appropriate to send her father a little trinket and a card, but Twilight? Twilight would deserve something special. One week wouldn’t be enough time at all!

“Twilight?” she called out when she reached the library, her nice walk having become a hurried trot. “Where are you?”

A distant voice replied, “Coming!”

Sure enough, to the sound of a crack, Twilight appeared before the unicorn. “Hello,” she said, offering Rarity a sweet smile, which made Rarity’s heart do a  reserved somersault, but never mind that. 

“Oh, darling! Thank goodness,” Rarity said urgently, putting her saddlebag on a table. “Twilight, quick, I have a very important question.”

“A question?” Twilight asked, brow furrowing. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, sorry, it’s not anything dire,” Rarity explained. “I simply…” She bit her lip. “Twilight, I’m so sorry I’ve never asked, but… when exactly is your birthday?”

Twilight blinked at her. “…My birthday?” She paused for almost an entire ten seconds before casually replying, “I don’t know. Regardless, I wanted to ask—”

“Hold on, wait!” Rarity interrupted, aghast. “What do you mean ‘you don’t know’? How can you not know your own birthday?”

Twilight shrugged. “I don’t.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “I don’t buy that for one second. You know everything—”

“True.”

“—and yet you expect me to believe you don’t know when your own birthday is?”

Once again, Twilight considered Rarity before playfully rolling her eyes. “Of course I know my birthday, Rarity. But my birthday was following a calendar system that no longer exists.” She raised her hoof to silence the unicorn just as said unicorn’s mouth had opened. “So, to be technically accurate, I do know when my birthday is, but I haven’t celebrated it in hundreds of years, and I don’t care enough about it to go through the process of translating it to modern calendars.” She shook her head. “I’d have to account for your calendars’ leap years, and the fact that Cadance and her descendants may have changed the length of what would be considered a full day, and—No, I have better things to do.”

Rarity deflated. “Oh. Well, that’s rather sad.”

Twilight shrugged. “Not to me.”

“But—” Rarity insisted. “Really? You haven’t celebrated it even once? I recognize you couldn’t really mark the passage of time, but maybe every so… I don’t know? Five hundred books read?”

Twilight looked at Rarity. 

Rarity looked back at her. 

Twilight smiled, and then said in a deadpan voice that really wasn’t necessary: “Oh my gosh. It’s my birthday, which I will celebrate alone in the library I’m trapped in for the foreseeable future. Woo.”

Rarity’s cheeks grew red as she looked away. “You didn’t have to say it like that,” she mumbled before looking back at the alicorn. “And you weren’t entirely alone! You’ve had your owls!”

The smile returned. “Owls who have no care for or even understand the concept of birthdays.” She giggled playfully, and Rarity’s blush was no longer due to embarrassment. “Why are you even interested in this?”

Rarity faltered. Why was she so embarrassed to say? This was ridiculous. It was a perfectly ordinary thing to want for a friend. Friend who you have a not insignificant crush on, but friend nevertheless. 

“If you must know,” she said, completely normally and nonchalantly, thank you very much, “I was interested in celebrating your birthday with you, is all.”

 Now it was Twilight’s turn to be surprised, tilting her head to the side. “Really?”

“Yes. You’re my friend, and I… Well, I’d like to do something special for you on a day that’s just for you,” Rarity said, which felt like a love confession, and she loathed that it did. 

Oh, how she had to reign in every fiber of her heart’s emotions when Twilight laughed, endeared.  

“Fine,” Twilight said, arching her eyebrow. “I don’t want to figure out my old birthday. It… It’s in the past. But. If you want, Rarity, I can pick a new date to be my birthday. Would that work?”

Rarity giggled, pleased. “I suppose that would work, yes.” She jumped up and down, excited like a filly. “So! When will it be?!”

“I have to pick it now?”

Rarity flashed her grin. “Obviously,” she said, and laughed at Twilight’s loud groan.

With a spark of magic, Twilight teleported her modern calendar over and started looking over the months and days, which she’d been diligently keeping up to date as best she could. She hummed loudly for a moment or two, deep in thought. 

“Okay, I have it. My birthday was exactly two weeks and three days ago. The 20th.”

Rarity frowned. “The 20th?” There was nothing special about that day that she could remember. “Why the 20th?”

“It felt appropriate. Special, I guess,” Twilight replied. 

“Special why?” Rarity pressed, and what a surprise when Twilight laughed, amused. 

“Rarity. Really?” she asked, teasing, and how intensely did Rarity’s heart pound, not just at Twilight’s grin, but at her words as a second pink necklace teleported next to her. “It’s the day we created these.”

“Oh,” Rarity said quietly, her hoof on her necklace. “How could I have forgotten?”

“How could you, indeed,” Twilight replied with a sly smirk, and Rarity felt like she could spend the rest of her days trying to make Twilight happy.