Twilight rolled over, mashing her cheek into a small puddle of drool on the pillow. “Bwuh…?” She sat up and wiped off her face, stifling a yawn. Through rustling leaves outside, yellow and orange sunlight filtered into the room. She stayed there in the bed for a few moments, blinking and rubbing her face. Rainbow Dash had gone. The sleeping pads were all empty and folded neatly, along with most of the blankets. In the guest bed some feet away, Pinkie Pie lay diagonally across the entire surface, limbs splayed out and tongue flopped onto her cheek. She let out a snort and her hind leg twitched. How does Pinkie sleep like that?
Making as little noise as possible, Twilight headed to the attached little fillies’ room before making her way over to the hallway. Something smelled deliciously like spinach, and the smell only strengthened as she approached and entered the dining room. The kitchen and dining room had an open floor plan, with only a low wall dividing a cluster of stoves, ovens, a copious amount of counter space, and a large walk-in pantry from the dining area, which held a medium-sized table and a few reading chairs. The table seemed dwarfishly small in the middle of the high-ceilinged, wide room. Rarity was lounging in a fluffy chair towards the end of the table, flipping through a magazine. “Good morning, Twilight! It appears that you slept quite well, judging by the state of your mane!”
Twilight ran a hoof through her own mane, then noticed that Rarity’s coiffure was as stylish and perfect as ever. “Yes, I did sleep pretty well, after… Are you cooking some breakfast? I love spinach!”
Rarity got up and walked towards the kitchen area. “Oh yes, I just whipped up a quick quiche, it should be nearly done. Sadly I think only you, Pinkie and I are here, the others had to run to their various duties I assume, but we will have more than enough to eat.” Her horn lit with a light blue aura, grasping and opening an oven door. She bent down to peer inside, then lifted a pan out and onto a hot pad. “Listen, dear, I want to apologize for my rude behavior last night. I should not have been so huffish.”
Twilight followed her over. “Your behavior? You mean during the game? I didn’t think you were being rude, no need to apologize,” she said.
Rarity smiled at her. “You are very gracious. But I know I need to control my theatrics every once in a while. It’s just… Applejack knows exactly how to get under my skin and make me act rather – dramatically.” She placed her hoof on her forehead and sighed. “She’ll come around to apologize sooner or later. I’ll have to apologize to her too, but not before.”
“How are things going between you two? If your fights are like what happened last night, it seems like it can’t be bad.”
Rarity picked up a knife in her magic and started slicing the quiche into squares. “Our relationship is faring much better than before, I really can’t complain. She’s as stubborn as a mule, but so am I when it comes to a lot of things. We bicker so much like an old married couple, you’d never guess how long we’ve actually been dating...”
Twilight chuckled. “Well I’m happy that it’s working out between the two of you.” Rarity smiled and finished placing two squares of quiche onto plates, carefully setting a sprig of parsley on each one. She floated one over to Twilight, who grabbed it with her own magic, and the pair walked over to the dining room table. As they started taking their first bites of quiche, Twilight spoke. “So Rarity, did you notice anything… unusual this morning when you woke up?”
Rarity set down her fork and dabbed at her mouth with a cloth. “Whatever do you mean, Twilight? Hmm, I woke up and noticed that Rainbow Dash and Applejack had left, probably to get to work, and Fluttershy was folding the blankets, such a dear. Besides poor Spike not being here, I don’t think anything was out of the ordinary.” She looked over at Twilight. “Should I have noticed something?”
Twilight froze, feeling heat rush to her face. “N-no! I mean, it does seem strange without Spike. I must just be missing him more than I realized. I can’t wait ‘til he gets back from Canterlot.” She smiled, perhaps a little widely. Well, I’m not exactly lying…
“You have something here,” Rarity pulled back her top lip and pointed to one of her own teeth.
Twilight cocked her head. “Huh? Oh!” She ran her tongue under her lips a few times. “Did I get it?” She bared her teeth.
Rarity leaned forward. “Yes, all better. Now, Twilight, you know I’m always here for you if you need anything. Even if it’s just someone to talk to. Why don’t you come to the boutique this afternoon, and we can drink some tea?” She forked a few more small pieces of quiche into her mouth.
“That sounds great. I’ll just need to remember to put it on my schedule, since Spike isn’t around, hehe.” Twilight finished the last bites of her breakfast. “Oh wait, I’m supposed to go see – Rainbow – and watch her practice some stunts this afternoon. Sorry, I forgot. I might have time after that, though.”
“You’re watching her fly? How nice. My, it’s been ages since I’ve had time to see her practice myself. But the work never stops piling up, you know…” She smiled wanly.
Pinkie Pie rolled into the dining room, her mane much puffier than usual. Twilight and Rarity stared at her. “What year is it?!”
Twilight turned to look at a clock high up on the wall. “Uh, if you mean the time, it’s half past-“
“Oh I’m gonna be late! Mrs. Cake is gonna kill me! I needed to start mixing syrup an hour ago! You take the syrup, the butter, the stuff, the water, and don’t forget the salt! Then comes the whip, whip, stir, stir, pull, pull, pull, and you’ve got yummy taffy treats!” She licked her lips, then paused. “Or, was it whip, stir, whip, stir, pull, pull, pull…? Oh wait! Stir, whip, pull, whip, stir, stir… whip?” Pinkie continued to talk, while her legs flailed about in the appropriate hoof motions to describe whipping, stirring, and pulling.
Twilight began, “Uh, I think you’re getting ahead of y-”
Pinkie zipped around the table and grabbed onto Twilights withers with both hooves, sticking her muzzle right next to Twilight’s. “Twilight! I’ve got to go back! You’ve got to send me back to the past one hour ago! Pretty please?” She wrinkled her lower lip and her wide blue eyes seemed to sparkle with barely-restrained tears.
Twilight recoiled a few inches. “I don’t want to mess with time spells ever again, Pinkie. It’s far too dangerous! But I could just teleport you to Sugarcube Corner?”
Pinkie rubbed her jaw for a moment. “Nah, I’ll just go by myself. Thanks, though!” She turned around and trotted behind a large chair in the corner of the room until she was obscured from view.
After a beat, Rarity laughed, “I’ll never get used to how she does that.”
“And I’ll never understand how she does it,” Twilight added.
Pinkie poked her head out from behind the chair. “Uh, seems like there’s a little traffic jam! Either that or some sort of anti-disapparition enchantment on the castle. Probably that one, there’s so much magic in here it makes my head spin! Can you teleport me?” She skipped over to Twilight again.
Twilight nodded, lit her horn, and screwed her eyes shut for a few moments, until a bright, dazzling white light appeared a few feet in front of Pinkie, expanding outward into a twisting, bright circle. The counter and cash register in Sugarcube Corner were visible suspended in the middle of the circle, shining in a blue light. “What did you mean by the anti-appara-whatsit enchantment, Pinkie?” she said.
“Can’t talk, gotta go, thanks bye!” Pinkie leapt forward, pulling her legs to her body before vanishing into the circle. The circle contracted until it was a dot once more, and vanished.
“Quite a spectacular spell, Twilight! I don’t think I’ve seen you cast that one before,” Rarity said. She gathered up the soiled plates and utensils, floating them over towards a sink next to the ovens. “If it’s not too much to ask, could you cast it for me too? I do have some orders I’d like to start sooner rather than later.”
“Sure thing,” Twilight said, before lighting her horn and producing a similar circle of light, in which the table from Rarity’s kitchen could be seen. “Thanks for cooking breakfast, Rarity! You’re a much better chef than I am.”
“My pleasure, dear, and if you have some time this afternoon, do stop by,” Rarity said. She lit her horn, floating a few suitcases from the hallway into the room and then through the circle of light. They passed through the barrier, appearing to fall onto the floor on the other side. Rarity walked over towards the circle, seemingly entranced by the ribbons of twisting light. “So… shiny…” she mumbled. She put a hoof through the center, as if testing the temperature of a pool of water, before walking through and vanishing together with the circle of light.
Twilight looked around at the empty room and groaned, letting her face fall onto her hooves on the table. She got up and headed out of the dining room into the hallway, and opened the top drawer in a small desk next to the wall. She pulled out a long piece of parchment, which was covered in printed boxes and lines. “Emergency checklist: check!” Pulling out a quill and inkpot, she began to scribble on the parchment, only pausing every now and then to chew on the end of the quill, which already looked quite frazzled.
Later that day, Twilight looked up and found herself surrounded by beakers and glass instruments of all shapes and sizes, most of them filled with colorful, frothing liquids. She was in a large room filled with stainless-steel benches and machinery, made dark by blinds covering all the windows high up on the walls. A buzzing alarm sounded somewhere in the darkness, making her jump. “Oh yes! I remember setting that…” Twilight looked around for an escape from her glass cage, poking a large glass cylinder filled with a black liquid. Eh, don’t wanna move that one. She spread her wings, then retracted them as they threatened to knock over a fragile titration system. The alarm continued to sound. “Whatever,” she mumbled, grabbing a nearby notebook and vanishing in a flash of lavender light.
She reappeared in a deserted corner of the room and pressed her body to the wall, edging along it towards the source of the noise. “Horn, activate,” she said. Her horn lit up, and a tight beam of light illuminated her path next to the wall. With several more shuffling steps her beam of light found an egg timer buzzing on the ground, which was quickly engulfed in a lavender aura and silenced. Twilight vanished again.
“Ah!” She screamed, having appeared in her own bedroom. Sunlight streamed through a skylight onto her tightly-scrunched eyes, which she covered with a hoof. She fumbled around with her other front hoof, scooting forward towards the doorway. Slowly, she managed to crack her eyes open, opening them all the way by the time she was in the hallway. After opening a closet just outside the bedroom, she wrapped a magenta scarf around her neck. She lit her horn for a moment, then shook her head and let the aura die out, instead turning to trot down the hallway. She retrieved a sealed inkpot and quill from a desk, placing them and the notebook into a saddlebag which she tossed onto her back. Then, she pushed open the castle doors and stepped out into the cool air of the outside world, breathing in deep.
After coughing a few times, Twilight headed away from the castle at a leisurely pace, following a cobbled path that skirted around the Ponyville market and continued towards the Everfree forest. There were quite a few ponies out; Twilight saw them flitting between the market stalls, many carrying large packs full of purchased groceries. On the other side of the market square, she could see a long line in front of Applejack’s cart, which was brimming with apples and also bits. Twilight smiled.
The number of houses on either side of the path diminished, until Twilight only passed a residence, and usually an attached vegetable garden, every once in a while. Eventually, once the land had given way to tall grasses and groves of trees, the path forked into two, one leading over a bridge and towards a large cottage which seemed to be surrounded by herds of rabbits. Quite the fluffle over there. Twilight took the other path that followed along the stream, heading into more forested areas. She swiveled her ears, listening to the intermittent calls of birds in the trees all around her and the gentle churning of the water. That sound is actually caused by small bubbles vibrating and popping after being formed in the water.
The path cut away from the stream after a while, and then faded into an overgrown, leaf-covered gravel path that split into many different directions. Twilight took the one that headed straight into the meadow, and after a while she came to a familiar tree at the edge of a clearing. She went up to the base of it and kicked leaves out of the way before sitting on the cool grass. She pulled out her quill, inkpot, and notebook, flipped to the middle and began to write some very long words into the margins, filling nearly every square inch of the page.
It wasn’t much longer until the sound of hooves touching down in the leaves directed Twilight’s attention out of the notebook and towards a cyan pegasus, now posing and flipping her mane several feet in front of the tree. “Hey Twi’, glad you came. I see you brought your books with you.” She grinned.
“This is just a notebook, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said. “My lab notebook. I’m working on perfecting a source of unlimited light. It’s very close! I just need to account for some impurities that royally mess everything up…” She glanced down at the notebook again, adding a few extra dots and letters to the script.
Rainbow Dash coughed into her hoof, making a noise that sounded suspiciously like egghead. “That’s really cool and all, yeah,” she said.
After a moment, Twilight stopped writing in the notebook but kept her gaze downward. “Hey Rainbow, I was wondering-”
“Wait a sec, Twi’,” Dash cut in. “I didn’t get a chance to show off yet. I’ve been doing a new workout for the last few weeks. How do you think my flanks look?”
Twilight looked up. “Your flanks? Oh, Celestia-” Rainbow had turned around and tensed her hind legs, giving Twilight a view of her muscular haunches, and looking back at her with something of a sultry smirk. Twilight smiled weakly and fought to keep any blood from rushing to her face. “They’re, uh, very nice, Rainbow. I can tell you’ve been working out.”
“Thanks. Yeah, I’ve been following this new workout video called ‘Devastation’. It’s called that cuz it’s what I’ll do to all the stallions at the clubs when I show up. Devastate ‘em.” She flicked her tail like a whip.
A frown flitted across Twilight’s muzzle. “That sounds like a tough workout routine.” She paused. “Wait, when’s the last time you even went to these supposed clubs, Rainbow?”
“Uh, like just a few months ago. Maybe it was last year. But it was totally awesome, and now I’m super ready to strut my stuff again. And impress some hot guys.”
Twilight chuckled, albeit feebly. “Just the guys? I’m sure you’d impress a lot of mares, too?”
Dash looked at Twilight with an unreadable expression for a moment, then grinned. “Well, of course, and there’s nothing wrong with a few extra admirers. Plenty eye candy here to go around.”
“You said it, hehe.” Twilight felt her wings rustle slightly, but ignored the sensation. She let out a breath. “So, um, I think I’m ready for a break from my research. You have my full attention, Rainbow Dash.”
“Glad to hear it. Hold on to your scarf, it’s about to get a little wild here.” Rainbow turned around and sauntered away, swishing her tail, before sweeping her wings downward and lifting straight up into the air, swirling the leaves in her wake.