Ambient hummed happily to himself, his head filled with visions of a smiling and happy Miss Bonbon wearing a chocolate-stained cooking apron, while a pair of loving foals sang heartsongs around their doting parents. He was about to caution himself to have reasonable expectations and not become too attached to uncertain outcomes when a blur of purple with twitching eyes and unkempt mane suddenly filled his vision.
"Princess!" he exclaimed, bowing deeply. "I apologize if I've not been to the castle yet. I've only just finished establishing the leyline conduit. None of the safety protocols are in place yet, and it seemed best to have that finished before your inspection."
Twilight glanced over a checklist produced after many hours of poring over an unexepectedly enthusiastic letter from Cadance. With a telekinetic grip, she brought a quill into play.
"'Initial contact,' check."
"Oh dear," Ambient apologized, "I haven't properly introduced myself, have I? My name is Ambient Star. We've exchanged some letters, if you'll recall, regarding a teleportation experiment? The one you expressed interest in?"
"'Procure name and background information on target..." Twilight recalled that Cadance had been very firm on this point: it was absolutely crucial to know the name of a pony before engaging in any sort of carnal activity with them. Not that she had any such intentions, of course, but clearly if she was to coach Bonbon on asking this gentlecolt on a date, she should gather as much information as possible to properly prepare her for all contingencies, right?
"Check."
Ambient blinked a few times, beginning to suspect that perhaps something was not quite right. He'd only been in the company of a princess three times before in his life. The first, on the campus of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns when the eponymous Princess gave a welcoming speech during his first year, and again a second time when that same princess returned to speak to his much smaller graduating class. And the third time while being rescued by her younger sister from a most unpleasant dream he'd rather forget. With such a limited sample group, he realized he was sorely lacking data from which to come to a reliably scientific conclusion about the behavior of princesses, but based on the limited data he did have, the behavior of this princess was not at all consistent with his expectations. In fact, she was rather beginning to remind him of the dream that the second princess in his experience pool had rescued him from.
"I'm sorry Princess, but are you quite alright?"
"'Establish emotional rapport,' and 'generate a sense of personal interest.' Check, and check."
Twilight was delighted. It had scarcely been a minute, and despite having not even spoken to Ambient yet she'd already checked off four of the forty seven boxes on her checklist. Doing some quick math in her head, she concluded that at her current rate of progress, if she had any intention of asking him on a date, she'd be able to do so in roughly another eleven minutes. Clearly, not speaking was working very well as a strategy, so perhaps it would be best to continue?
Unnerved by the way her bloodshot eyes stared expectantly back and forth between him and the checklist, Ambient began to slowly back away while putting up as disarming a smile as he could manage.
"Hmm," Twilight pondered to herself. "'Become comfortable together even during moments of silence.' That's not supposed to happen until after checkboxes twelve and twenty-two but maybe it's because we're doing so well. Check."
"Well," Ambient chuckled nervously. "I can see you're a busy mare, and I do still have those safety protocols to finish. So I'll just be on my way, then."
Turning and bursting into a full gallop, he made it all of two body lengths before the Royal Canterlot Voice brought him to his knees.
"WAIT!" Princess Twilight commanded. He could not help but obey.
Twilight was perplexed by his sudden change in behavior. Hadn't she been doing extremely well? Granted, she was no expert on dating but she was fairly certain that a stallion running away in terror wasn't a good sign. At least, Cadance hadn't said anything about it. Surely having jumped ahead to the 'be comfortable together in silence' step on her checklist hadn't destroyed all her progress?
Twilight glanced over at the stallion groveling at her feet in terror. On the bright side he didn't seem to be going anywhere, so she at least had time to figure this out. There was one particular item on her checklist that seemed to bottleneck most of the remaining steps. Maybe if she could unlock that one, the situation could still be recovered.
"Find a common interest," Twilight mumbled.
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm supposed to find a common interest we have," she explained, digging through her supplementary notes. "A hobby, or past-time, similar professional interests, or...Cadance did say that a similar sense of aesthetics could work in a pinch. I don't suppose your favorite color is purple?"
"No," Ambient replied, still shaking. "But I am a magical researcher, and you are the Princess of Magic, aren't you?"
Twilight grudgingly ticked off the checkbox next to 'learn to listen to each other.'
"I think I am," she hesitantly agreed. "Honestly, I've never been entirely clear on that. Castle correspondence comes addressed to 'Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship.' But Friendship is Magic, so I suppose I'm the Princess of Magic by proxy?"
"Well, you did seem very interested in my project," Ambient's ears flattened. "At least I thought so."
"Wait," Twilight frowned. "You're that Ambient Stars? The one with that ingenious plan to use leylines as teleportation conduits to overcome the square of distance energy requirements?"
"Well," Ambient blushed, "I don't if it's genius, really, but-"
"Of course it is!" she clapped her hooves giddily. "I can't believe I'm finally meeting you! Where's your array? How far into the enchanting process are you? Has the primary beacon been stabilized yet? We have so much to talk about!"
Twilight pulled Ambient under a wing as they walked together back to his laboratory on the outskirts of town, oblivious to the several pieces of parchment bearing both checked and unchecked checkboxes which were left forgotten on the ground behind them, and then scattered by the wind.