By
Keen Gift and Turquoise Dreamer, with an end note by Gagoochi
~+~
It was a rather sunny morning in Canterlot, and with nothing else to do, a pair of dark blue unicorns walked down a street. One of them, the one with a white-tie jacket looked around, settling his eyes on his buddy.
“So, how long are you staying, Blue?” asked the younger one finally; his friend laughed a bit and sighed.
“The whole semester actually,” he replied as they approached a restaurant, “I am doing a small course beginning next week.” With that, they went inside the exotic restaurant tucked away in a corner.
“Welcome to the Tasty Treat!” A friendly voice called, “Do you have anypony else joining you?” A young waitress asked.
“Not really,” quickly replied Blue Valiance; Soon enough they were seated, not really noticing somepony walking in.
The bell on the door jingled as a turquoise Earth Pony with a beige hat on her head walked into the restaurant.
“Turquoise Dreamer, I really think Pinkie was right about this place--just smell how amazing it is!” A tiny glass pony seated in Dreamer’s saddle bag declared with a generous sniff, “Too bad I can’t really eat--but I’m sure you will love it!”
“Welcome to the Tasty Treat! Are you expecting anypony?” The waitress asked again with a smile.
“Oh no, I… actually… I’m with them,” Dreamer replied as she pointed to the pair of dark blue Unicorn students.
“Oh, of course!” The waitress led her to them, glad to be of service.
“We are with who?” Tinsel Quill questioned.
“I see Keen and one of his friends up ahead--why not surprise them?” Dreamer explained quietly.
“Oh, okay,” Tinsel agreed with a smirk on her glass features, her blue eyes lighting up with a playful glow.
Keen had not noticed her, and kept chatting away with his friend in their native Asturconish until the waiter arrived with Dreamer. Surprised, he smiled at her, while Blue's eyes darted from her to Keen and back again.
After a few seconds, Blue chuckled and settled into his seat.
“No sabía que había conseguido novia,” He said in a teasing tone
Keen laughed a bit at it, blushing slightly.
“Nah, Ella es solo una amiga…” He said before both young stallions laughed.
“Blue Valiance, this is Turquoise Dreamer, Dreamer, this is Blue Valiance,” Blue nodded and looked at her.
“Nice to meet you!"
“Nice to meet you too, Blue! Keen mentioned you, and I think it’s about time we met,” Dreamer answered with a grin as she tipped her hat to him.
“Hey, what about me?” A tiny voice squeaked from Dreamer’s saddle bag.
“Right” Said Keen with a chuckle “And she,” he said, motioning towards the tiny glass pony, “is Tinsel Quill; wherever Dreamer goes, she goes.”
Blue just nodded and studied them,
“Nice to meet you too I guess” He said, surprised about the talking glass pony thing.
Dreamer turned so that her side was facing the table, letting Tinsel quill slide out of the saddle bag and onto the table surface. Her tiny glass hooves made a tinkling sound as she walked over to Blue to look at him better; the purple smoothie inside her sloshed with every step while her straw swayed with the movement.
“You haven’t seen a Bubble Butt Pony before, have you?” Tinsel Quill asked while Dreamer took a seat near Keen.
“Not really, there are not too many like you in Trotomia,” He said, managing to sound with a Trottingham accent; Which caused Keen to chuckle at him.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Tinsel Quill chuckled as she trotted over to Dreamer and sat in front of her politely, “We Bubble Butts are supposed to help the Big Ponies like you, but sadly, there aren’t too many of us out there… I guess.”
“But you are very helpful,” Dreamer pointed out with a grin.
“Yup! That’s our job; we live to serve!” Tinsel piped up as she fluffed the whipped cream on her head with one of her hooves happily, “I still wish I had real Unicorn magic like you guys--I can just barely move a pencil and do minor tricks. Yeah, not too useful in the Unicorn magic department, I’m afraid. I’m a great grammar checker though!”
Considering her talking habits, that was most ironic.
The bell jingled again, and none of them paid attention as a Lilac-colored mare entered… Shrugging it off as a trick of his imagination, Keen looked at them.
“So… How are things with the book?” He asked curiously, Blue raised an eyebrow, a bit confused.
“It’s top secret,” Tinsel Quill answered with a raised hoof, “You’ll have to wait until it’s published,” and she added a wink, which was hard to see since she was transparent… except for the blue of her iris.
With a chuckle, Dreamer added, “It’s going great! I am taking the manuscript to a publisher today--we had an arrangement already. Remember those guys that printed my small book of poetry? Same ponies, and they are totally ready for my collection of short stories!”
Blue just nodded at that, not really sure about what to say, Keen giggled.
“That’s awesome! I can’t wait for it” He said.
Dreamer beamed while Tinsel clapped her hooves gleefully.
Soon enough, the waitress returned, ready to take their orders.
“I think I shall try the curry soup,” Dreamer ordered.
“I can’t eat so just ignore me,” Tinsel Quill explained with a wave.
The Waitress froze, noticing Tinsel for the first time. After a blink or two, she regained her composure, and turned to Keen and Blue to get their orders.
“Actually… make it three curry soups,” Said Blue with a smile; Keen nodded as he tried to avoid looking in the direction of a nearby table, causing Blue to raise an eyebrow.
As the waitress left, Dreamer noted that Keen was… looking? No, not looking. Nope, he was looking. Or was he?
“Keen, whatcha lookin’ at?” Dreamer probed as she took a sip from her glass of water that was not Tinsel Quill.
“Ah? Nada, It’s nothing,” He said with a shrug, hoping to be wrong. Blue of course, took the effort to look in the same direction and then at Keen, a small grin on his face.
“You know,” Dreamer began, trying to not sound too curious, “Among the Zarfaim, if the Scriptures have a certain word repeated, it means it is really important--especially if it’s repeated in the same sentence… so… if we were Zarfaim… technically… the fact that you said, ‘nothing’ twice signifies that it was really something…” and she took a sip of water, “You know... Just saying.”
Blue smiled at her, surprised that she knew obscure trivia about Zarfaim language.
“Yeah, she’s a Zarfaim nerd,” Tinsel Quill joked with a sassy wave of one of her glass forelegs.
“Hey! I can’t help it if I like a certain culture,” Dreamer defended as she licked the whipped cream off Tinsel Quill’s head.
“Hey! You know that annoys me!” Tinsel Quill chided her.
“Well now we are even,” Dreamer teased. At that, the two friends chuckled.
“Ah! You have us figured, Goyim,” Said Blue jokingly before laughing along with Keen who soon explained,“Well, I might not have told you, but Blue here is a Zarfaim.”
“Really?” Dreamer lilted as she straightened up, “Oh, I’ve met so many nice Zarfaim! It’s great to meet another one!”
“Nerd,” Tinsel Quill teased with a wave of her hoof.
“Oh hush,” Dreamer shushed with a wave of her own, huge hoof.
“Okay I admit it: I like Zarfaim too, but she takes it to a whole other level,” Tinsel Quill pointed out with an overdramatic eye-roll.
“Do not! It’s not like I live, eat and sleep Zarfaim thoughts,” Dreamer parried with a grin.
“Yeah, thank Celestia for that,” Tinsel Quill sighed jokingly with an overdramatic hoof to her face in relief.
Somewhat happy about the change in topic, Keen nodded with, “Ha! Parece que saldra de aqui cuadrado Sr. Blue” He said, causing them both to laugh.
Turquoise Dreamer laughed, but in her head she was saying, They are joking about me, aren’t they? I know it. Eh, oh well… darn, I shoulda worn more clothes… not modest like this… technically not… but… Zarfaim… dress more… Dark forest! I hope he doesn’t think me indecent. I’m not an Indecent Goy, am I? No, just normal, right?
Of course, Blue, was more thinking along the lines of, Well, Nice Friend there, but I see you’re not over it just yet Keen…
Soon the soup arrived, filling the table with the warm, exotic aroma of the spices contained inside. Instantly everypony’s mouth watered. In fact, Tinsel Quill’s would have watered, if it wasn’t glass.
“Say… Next weekend at that Konlyan Restaurant nearby?” Asked Keen after the waitress was gone again.
“You mean meet up like here?” Dreamer clarified, “Well… I think my calendar is empty,” and she turned to Tinsel, who nodded and fluffed the whipped cream that grew back on her head, which let Dreamer answer with, “Yeah! Totally! What time?”
“What about lunch time?” Asked Blue, who had somehow ended up in a blind date for dinner that day; Keen chuckled, knowing what it was about and nodded.
“Perfect!” Dreamer declared, and Tinsel Quill clapped her hooves approvingly.
Keen smiled and as they began to eat he turned towards Blue…
“Está aqui, cierto?”
“Si…”
Keen sighed and looked at his drink, thinking as he took a sip, hoping that from the table across he hadn’t been noticed, he returned to his soup
“Creo que Thinker nos ama Sr. Blue.”
“Eso parece Sr. Gift.”
Raising his glass, Keen decided that he could let himself have a foolish moment and chuckled, “Za Slepoy Lyuvob.”
“Sure! What you said!” Dreamer agreed with a laugh before taking another sip of water.
“Only around Keen Gift can you hear Asturconish, Equestrian and Konlyan within three minutes of each other,” Tinsel noted with another fluff of her whipped cream.
“Prost!” soon completed Blue with a smile, as Keen chuckled “Oh, hush You,” wanting to disappear when he saw that he had been spotted.
“And now Germane,” Tinsel announced teasingly, “Let’s just throw in some Zebrican too, why not? How about Ancient Gryphon as well?”
At that Dreamer couldn’t help but laugh with a touch of a snort. Blue and Keen were also laughing at that. Of course, the small commotion in that table had been noticed, and Keen’s laughter died down upon noticing a certain smile. After a few more moments the others stopped laughing and went back to devouring their amazing soup. As they ate, Blue and Keen looked at each other from time to time, Keen wondering what to do, and Blue with a somewhat amused expression.
“Uhm, Keen Gift? What’s up?” Tinsel asked with a tilt of her head.
“Huh?” Dreamer stopped slurping on her soup for a wee bit to notice that something was wrong with Keen again and added, “What is it?”
“I-I’m fine, really” He smiled at them, not sure about how to put it without gathering more unwanted attention from a nearby table.
“¿Seguro?”
“Ni lo intentes Blue,” He said with a small sigh.
“What? What?” Dreamer asked, getting worried and wishing she was bilingual, if not trilingual. Really, one had to be a polyglot around these ponies.
Blue just looked at her, and discreetly motioned for her to look to the table to her left; Keen sighed in defeat and shrugged before going back to his soup.
Studying the table, Dreamer noticed it was a mare and her friends, and then it clicked in her mind.
“Oh… that’s her, isn’t it?” Dreamer whispered as she leaned towards Keen.
Blue just nodded at that while Keen remained quiet. Unsure of what to say, Dreamer took a generous drink of water, licking her lips afterwards to tame the spicy feeling growing in her mouth. Tinsel, on the other hoof, was totally willing to say something.
“So… you gonna talk to her or just sit here and mope?”
Keen just shrugged at that. “Maybe? I don’t really know."
“Well… I would like to meet her, you know,” Dreamer offered, recognizing that Keen really just needed a good excuse to talk to her.
Slowly the gears began to turn for Keen Gift; Blue just shrugged. “No me molestaria eso… hace rato que no nos vemos," Blue told him.
With that in mind, Keen nodded.
“Fine… I’ll just wait a bit… ”
On one hoof, he did not want to interrupt anything… On the other, he really needed to calm down before trying anything… Besides, he was still hesitating.
Quickly Dreamer finished her soup and her glass of water, carefully putting it down on the table and flagging down the waitress.
“Oh! Here, have more water! I am so sorry,” The waitress apologized, filling all the glasses at the table except for Tinsel Quill.
“No worries, we just gotta wash down the curry,” Dreamer explained before gulping down more water. With that, the waitress smiled in relief and went to tend to her other customers.
Keen nodded as he finished his soup, and after a while, Blue had done the same.
“Um… you guys go ahead, I… I think I have an idea,” Said Keen with a slight blush, “I’ll meet you outside in a while.”
Blue just chuckled and patted him on the back. “Buena suerte entonces,” He said with a grin.
Standing up and gathering her things, Dreamer sighed, “All right--but I seriously do wanna meet her!”
Bending over, she let Tinsel Quill climb onto her hat and then left money on the table to pay for her food, as well as a generous tip for the waitress.
Keen smiled at that and looked at Dreamer. “You will… I hope,” He chuckled and walked over to said table as Blue started making his way out.
Tinsel waved at Keen encouragingly as Dreamer walked out with Blue.
Outside of the restaurant, Dreamer asked Blue, “So… which classes are you taking with Keen--I know he mentioned, but I forgot.”
“Oh, one or two classes in the semester course, mostly about International trade law,” replied Blue before Keen arrived, rather happy.
“I can see it went well,” Dreamer noted.
Indeed, it had gone well. The friends discussed various things before they all had to return to their affairs, and it appeared that they would stay friends--whether they be close to each other or far away.
Then, suddenly, a yellow unicorn ran into the restaurant. “Hey guys, I’m he- Oh… They left already.” She sadly sighed.
“Hey, cheer up Spirit, we’ll see them next time!” Piped a squeaky voice from above. A small transparent pony was sitting on the unicorn’s head.
“Yeah, I guess so… I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner. The traffic was SO CRAZY!” Spirit whined.
“Well maybe next time you should call instead of trying to surprise them.” Offered the small pony.
“PSSSSSHHHH!!!! Why would I EVER do THAT when I can show up out of nowhere, like the wiiiiind!” The little glass pony just stared at her friend in disbelief.
“Anyways, I guess I’ll just leave if nopony else is here.” Spirit sighed again, slumping out the door, tears in her once hopeful and energetic eyes.