//------------------------------// // 4. Bring On The Night // Story: Her Royal Morning Coffee // by Georg //------------------------------// Her Royal Morning Coffee Bring On The Night Despite having been in Ponyville for most of two years, Dry Roast had never gone for a late-afternoon stroll through the famous Everfree Forest before.  After all, the forest had a certain reputation, and a pony in the forest supposedly had a lifespan similar to a cupcake around Pinkie Pie.  Still, if Fluttershy of all ponies suggested it, he had considered that the trip to Zecora the Zebra’s house must not have been that dangerous. Now that he was strolling at a rather brisk pace through the dark forest, he was having second thoughts.  After all, Fluttershy was the pony who supposedly had a grizzly bear for a pet, so what she considered perfectly safe could easily be very not-safe for a young and juicy stallion with enough meat on his bones to make steaks for several of the forest’s carnivorous denizens.  Even worse, the trip was stretching out into a far longer walk than he had anticipated, even to the point that he worried about having walked past the zebra’s forest house and— He blinked, looking at the carved wooden masks and glass flasks hanging from a low and intimidating tree.  It had to be Zecora’s house, because the path just flat ended in front of it, much as if the tree had a habit of luring young and tender stallions in from town and eating them.  Dry Roast swallowed once, looking to either side for perhaps a slightly less intimidating house tree, then back over his shoulder at the dark forest path he had taken to get this far. There was still quite a bit of afternoon left, so there was no real need for haste.  Even though it was fairly dark under the forest canopy.  And strange noises continued to float through the air. “Okay, so that’s Zecora’s house.  I suppose.  I’ll just wait out here—” The mournful howling of a timber wolf sounded, far away but still far too close. “—or in there,” finished Dry before a brisk dash over to the creepy house and a sharp knock on the door. And another, more rapid series of knocks while the howling seemed to come closer. “Ah,” sounded a voice from right behind Dry Roast’s ear, just as he had turned to look back over his shoulder, “so you are the stallion of Twilight’s desire.  Come in young one, and sit by my fire.” He turned abruptly, finding himself nose to nose with the striped zebra.  It was quite a shock, since he had only seen her across the street or other distance before.  At this close range, he could not help but notice the thick golden earrings and heavy neck rings, as well as a vaguely chemical odor wafting out of the doorway behind her that clashed something terrible with a familiar scent of alfalfa, most likely from the early dinner he could see sitting on a table behind her. “Pinkie wasn’t kidding when she said she told everypony,” said Dry Roast.  “Look, I don’t want to intrude on your meal, Miss Zecora.  I just needed a place to meet with Twilight for a few minutes and explain the situation.  Between us.”  He paused, trying to come up with a better description and failing badly.  “Whatever that is.” The zebra’s sparkling eyes were very distracting, giving Dry the impression that she knew a lot more about the situation than he was comfortable with telling her in the first place.  She cocked an eyebrow under a faint smirk before responding, “If you seek to avoid a royal hassle, why not meet Twilight in her castle?” “Because every pony in Ponyville would see, and they’d think we were—” Dry cut off abruptly and looked around the small room, just in case Twilight had arrived first  “—doing something,” he added in a lower voice. Zecora nodded.  “Come in, come in.  A quandary indeed, most handsome steed.  To not draw attention as you meet with your mare, you seek privacy, where ponies will not stare.” “Exactly,” said Dry.  “And in verse.  So, while we’re waiting on Twilight—” his eyes drifted sideways to look at the big iron pot which took up most of the center of the main room “—what are you doing?” “Brewing.” “No, no,” said Dry.  “I mean what’s in the pot?” “Be careful,” said Zecora as he reached out with one hoof, “it’s hot.” Obediently, Dry Roast returned to a spot out of reach from the simmering pot and tried to figure out why suddenly everything was rhyming even when the zebra was not talking.  “I’m sorry, Miss Zecora.  I know how upset I’d be if somebody wandered into my store and messed with my coffee equipment.” It seemed to be the correct response because the zebra chuckled under her breath and stirred the pot several times before speaking again.  “Do not feel sorry, but glad that you see.  Speak less of your faults, and more of coffee.” ~ ~ ☕ ~ ~ At first, Dry Roast thought his wait for Princess Twilight Sparkle was going to be boring, but it turned out Zecora was just as intrigued by the interplay of organic materials in liquid form as he was.  He wound up spending several hours talking with the friendly zebra, and exchanged enough brewing tips between them… well, it probably was a bad idea to try them out on his customers, and he suspected some of Zecora’s potions she made after today might keep ponies awake more than usual.  It was so interesting, in fact, that Dry Roast did not realize how close the sun was to setting, and nearly sprinted down the path to get back to Ponyville before dark. It made for a very short night’s sleep before the next morning. When Applejack came into the coffee shop at her usual time, she found Dry Roast yawning behind the counter with a hefty foam cup of coffee by his side.  He looked up, blinked twice, and gave a tired grunt.  “Oh, it’s you.” “You look terrible,” said Applejack.  “Were you and Twi up all—” “No!”  Dry Roast yawned and tried to focus.  “I mean… I didn’t see her yesterday.  Fluttershy volunteered to run a message over to her and I went to Zecora’s house so we could have a nice private meeting away from prying ears.  She didn’t show.”  He waved a hoof in a vague gesture out the window where a few Ponyville residents were undoubtedly stumbling around in the dark. Applejack did not seem to believe him, and snorted in derision.  “Well, of course she didn’t go out to Zecora’s.  Some oddball young colt who your friends say is a kissin’ you invites you out into the dark forest an’ you wonder why she didn’t show?  I’ve half a mind to just drag you over to the castle by one ear, if’n you ain’t got the beans to do it yourself.  An’ don’t gimmie that look like you’re wantin me to go over to Twi’s by myself this morning.  Ah got a whole day of apple sellin’ in front of me, and I ain’t gonna break it off just to go do what you ain’t got the nerve to do.” Dry Roast blinked a few times once the confusing words stopped.  “Huh?” Applejack sighed.  “Coffee.  Black.  And not as bitter as the one from yesterday.” “That I can do.”  Mixing up a coffee for the young mare did help Dry Roast focus, and this time he remembered to give the surreptitious half-squirt of apple syrup in the bottom of the foam cup.  He floated it out to Applejack with a yawn and took another drink out of his espresso magnum chocolate syrup combo to keep his edge up.  “Here you go.” “Thank’ee.”  The jingle of bits on the counter barely stopped before Applejack added, “So, are you gonna go talk to her today?” “No.”  He yawned.  “I’m beat. I got to bed late and didn’t sleep very well.  I kept dreaming that—” Dry Roast looked up with the cheerful ding of the front door bell, blinked several times, then used his magic to pinch his foreleg while looking back down at the ground.  “Sorry, AJ. I must have nodded off there for a second.” “Oh, hiya, Princess Luna,” said Applejack with a disturbingly cheerful air.  “What brings you ‘round these parts this morning?” Dry Roast looked up.  There was no danger of him sleeping now. The Princess of the Night stood silhouetted in the Java Le Choza doorway, her star-speckled mane nearly indistinguishable from the star-strewn night behind her and her tall statuesque form presiding over the rest of the customers.  Well, customer. Dry Roast had never seen Princess Luna before, although he had a vague recollection of several of his customers talking about her Nightmare Night visit.  Supposedly she was a ‘cool’ princess, completely recovered from her time as the terrifying Nightmare Moon and encouraging everypony in town to simply call her ‘Luna’ like some ordinary winged and horned commoner.  The expression on her face gave no indication of either beloved acceptance like her sister or malign gloating fury like the Nightmare, but concealed as much as it revealed.  Those cool teal eyes had only taken their calm gaze off Dry Roast for a moment while she acknowledged Applejack’s presence with a brief nod, then returned to his face while she strode purposefully forward into his shop, up to his counter, stood eye to eye in front of him, and spoke in a firm voice. “Good morning, proprietor.  I’ve heard some fascinating rumors about—” “They’re not true,” blurted out Dry Roast.  “Nothing about them is true.  All lies.” One eyebrow on Luna’s perfect face raised ever so slightly and she moved her nose down in order to give Dry Roast a long, skeptical look from beneath hooded eyelids.  “So, your coffee is not as good as we have heard?” “We sell coffee?” It was all he could think to say, although ‘think’ was probably not the right word.  Princess Luna shook her head slightly, then looked up at the price sheet on the wall.  It gave Dry Roast a brief moment to breathe, but his lungs resumed their paralyzed state when she turned back to look into his eyes. “One medium caramel frappuccino in a large cup with an extra pump of frap roast, double shot affogato, and caramel drizzle.” Dry just stood and stared. “Before moonset, please,” added Princess Luna, somehow sounding totally calm despite the hammering of Dry Roast’s heartbeat in his ears. With a sudden burst of motion, Dry Roast turned to the coffee machinery, taking refuge in the routine pouring and mixing as activities to prevent any additional mental thought.  By the time he had finished with the order, he was feeling a little more relaxed. Certainly Princess Luna had merely heard about his store from reputation, and Twilight Sparkle’s nocturnal jaunts had nothing to do with her visit. Fool. He slid the foam container onto the counter with a practiced flair and smile.  “That’ll be twelve bits please.” Princess Luna did not move, other than to continue staring into his eyes. After a brief moment to damp down his minor panic, Dry Roast gave the foam cup a little push in her direction.  “Unless you’ve forgotten your money, in which case I can put it on your tab.” Princess Luna did not seem to notice, but continued her evaluating stare. Once he was quite certain that the Princess of the Night was not going to speak first, Dry Roast hesitantly cleared his throat and asked, “What are you doing?” “I am endeavoring to understand why my friend considers you to be an enticing romantic suitor.” The foam container of coffee rose up in Princess Luna’s soft blue magic and she took a small sip, not taking her eyes off Dry Roast for a moment.  A glitter of twinkling stars ran down her neck while she raised one eyebrow, then took another, much longer drink.  “Other than your obvious skill.” Dry Roast remained silent, with his jaw clenched and sweat trickling down the back of his neck, but he nearly jumped out of his shoes when Applejack suggested, “You could just go ask her, Luna.” “No?” squeaked Dry Roast once he could breathe again, but it did not seem to stop the dark princess, who simply nodded and turned for the door with her coffee floating along beside her. “An admirable suggestion, friend Applejack.  Good morn, Dry Roast.” The jingle of the cheerful little bell over the door shocked Dry Roast out of his trance, and after a brief glance out of the large glass windows, he gave a brief prayer of thankfulness about how the citizens of the town were all curious and nosy during the day, but none of them just happened to be up at this hour to snoop around the store.  Despite the potential hit to his profits, Dry wished they all preferred to sleep in until after dawn was at least in the general vicinity. Taking a deep breath, Dry Roast moved to sweep the accustomed pile of bits into his cashbox, but stopped at the absence of the familiar weight. “She didn’t pay,” he murmured in shocked realization, looking down at the empty counter. “I’ve got it,” called Applejack, spilling the required bits down on the counter.  “Worth it at twice the price.  I just hope Princess Luna can wake up Twi.  She sleeps like a rock in the morning.” ~ ~ ☕ ~ ~ Through diligent effort and lessons learned at his meditation practice, Dry Roast had almost managed to get the image of the beautiful Princess Luna standing in the doorway of his coffee shop out of his mind by the time the morning sun had risen far up into the sky and business had calmed down to the pre-lunch lull. He should have known better. The cheerful ding of the doorbell preceded the same Princess of the Night as she strode through the waiting customers and into the store, only looking somewhat rumpled in the bright morning sunshine and carrying an unexpected burden in her magic.  It took a few moments for Dry Roast to recognize Princess Twilight Sparkle, mostly because he was used to seeing her right-side up instead of being carried by her tail like some sort of slumbering opossum, with her tangled mane draped around her face and her limbs waving aimlessly with every step Princess Luna took.  It seemed impossible for Twilight Sparkle to be sleeping in that intensely uncomfortable fashion, but her snores were unmistakable, and quite loud even though she was also sopping wet and dripping a small puddle on the tile floor. “Coffee,” said Princess Luna from in front of the counter, which shocked Dry Roast out of his stunned trance. “Huh?”  As responses went, it was somewhat lacking, but it was the only thing that came to Dry Roast’s empty mind. A look of minor irritation crossed Luna’s expressive face, but not anger.  Dry got the sudden feeling he really would not like the way she would look when enraged, or even slightly peeved. “My fellow Princess doth not wish to awaken and greet my sister’s glorious day, despite my most sincere efforts, including being dunked in the bathtub.  We wish thee to prepare her one of thy beverages so that she might awaken and be a much more suitable conversational partner.” “Oh,” said Dry Roast.  “Coffee.  Coming up.”  He stirred and poured while Twilight slumbered in her upside-down position with wings drooping almost to the ground.  It looked uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as Dry felt with the Royal Eye of Luna on him while he worked.  When done, he presented the smaller-than-he-was-used-to foam cup of frothy frappuccino (since it was her drink for Fridays), spiced and flavored roughly as she had normally requested, and stood back just in case. Luna took the coffee in her magic and waved the open container under the slumbering princess’ nose.  There was no response, even though she held it close enough to nearly dunk her nose into the liquid.  After floating the coffee away from the junior princess, Luna took a sniff for herself and a small sip, which made her ears perk up and a subdued wave of light flow down her flowing mane, ending in a few small flashes which could have been miniature supernovas. “It certainly seems sufficient to awaken her.”  She cast a curious look at Dry Roast, who felt compelled to reply. “Maybe if you weren't holding her by the tail?” Luna seemed to consider the question worthy and placed the slumbering princess on the tile floor of the coffee shop, where Twilight promptly curled up much like a cat with her head resting on her tail.  It made the surrounding customers, because there were a few still in the store, all give out a simultaneous ‘Dawwwww!’ of adoring contentedness.  The scene would have been unbearably cute even if Pinkie Pie had not immediately darted in the front door of the store.  She laid a series of orange cones around Twilight and put up a sign reading ‘Caution: Sleeping Princess,’ then winked at Dry and zipped out the door. Luna was baffled. Dry Roast shrugged.  “Pinkie Pie.” After taking a long breath, Luna looked back down at the sleeping princess, who had somehow or other managed to find a book somewhere to curl up around.  Luna shook her head and sighed.  “I don’t know how she does it.  She’s just so cute.” “Yeah,” agreed Dry Roast, but backtracked almost immediately afterward.  “Not that I like watching Princess Twilight sleep.  Or ever have.” “Perhaps I’m doing this wrong.”  Luna floated the small foam container over to Dry Roast.  “You try.” It did not seem very dangerous because Twilight Sparkle had not reacted at all to Luna’s attempt at caffeination, so Dry Roast moved around the counter, picked up the coffee, and held it up close to Twilight Sparkle’s nose. He really should have known better, or noticed the way her nose twitched. Princess Twilight’s horn lit up, and with all the magical strength of an alicorn princess, she grabbed both the coffee and Dry Roast in her magic.  Thankfully, she was able to tell which was which as she took a long drink out of the small foam cup and Dry Roast found himself unconsciously licking his lips over what he knew was coming next. And it did. Thankfully, he did not lose his balance when dragged into the passionate lip-lock, but the rest of the world seemed vague and fuzzy for a while, and it took a few breaths afterward for his breathing exercises to kick in.  Once he could see clearly again, he noticed the dry and empty foam cup rolling away from Twilight where she had curled back up, licking her lips and murmuring, “More.” He got up off the floor and returned to his station, taking the largest size of foam container and proceeding to mix, stir, and arrange until the new cup of coffee was just the way she liked it, then put the plastic lid on top and turned around. All of the customers, including Princess Luna, were all staring at him in various degrees of stunned amazement.  A few jaws were hanging open. “She likes the larger size,” he said before clamping his jaw closed on his leaky face and in particular his blabbering mouth.  This time he stayed safely on the correct side of the counter while floating the massive container of coffee down to the slumbering princess, who glommed onto it like a hungry foal attaching to a mother, all the way to the faint suckling noises she made between little snores. “It must have been a really late night,” explained Dry Roast rather weakly. “Sweet, sweet chocolate,” murmured Twilight in the resulting silence. With sudden awareness of his own dark and probably could be mistaken for chocolate colored mane, Dry Roast looked nervously around the store, while all of the eyes looking back in his direction most likely were thinking the same thought. Luna took a long pace forward and examined his mane in close detail, her tall form and long neck allowing the alicorn to reach across the counter far more than Dry Roast expected.  “Verily, it doth look somewhat like chocolate.”  She took a small and unsettling sniff under his quivering ear which caused goosepimples to run up and down his rump.  “The smell is not displeasing.” “I condition.  Local recipe.” With one last, longer sniff, Luna let out her breath in a sigh and moved her overly inquisitive nose back to the customer side of the counter.  “We shall take thy sleeping princess back to her crystal castle to await her fair prince’s awakening kiss.  Proprietor, thou shall attend us when thy duties are done for the day.” There was a faint shimmer of dark blue magic and both princesses vanished, although the faint scent of jasmine that had lingered around the Princess of the Night remained in the vicinity as if to ensure Dry Roast would not forget his upcoming summons.  He turned to the rest of the ponies in the coffee shop and attempted a confident smile. “Free coffee for life if none of you talk about this?” Every single pony shook their heads ‘no’ with great vigor, including a few that Dry thought were taking notes. “Oh, well.”  He shrugged.  “No harm trying.” And after work, I’m dying.