Alto made Sweet Treat’s shop his regular hangout in the days after their first meeting, much to Maple’s delight.
Though his experiments had been banned by order of Auntie Sweet Treat—Maple had to pull out his very best dose of big, teary eyes and endearing pouting face to help wheedle her down from tossing the pegasus out by his tail and barring him until she replaced the table he’d ruined—Alto didn’t seem to take too much of an issue. Well, he did grumble just a tad about it, but he always seemed to stop just short.
“Must have been the excess charge,” he mumbled for the umpteenth time as Maple set a plate of dandelions and sunflowers and warm butter before him. Alto sat slouched in his chair, his hooves crossed over his chest. “Now I have to find another place to try it since Aunt Skydancer won’t let me do my work in the house! Stupid thunderhead ruined a perfectly good hypothesis …”
Maple could never claim to understand much of science, but he was pretty sure one wasn’t supposed to blame the subject for the experiment going awry. Still, he let Alto grumble as he walked around the table, passing out dishes to patrons and refilling drinks, before he turned to smile at the moody pegasus. “I’m hurt you don’t want my pancakes again,” he said with a mild pout, both to tease and test Alto’s resolve. “Did I mess them up yesterday?”
Alto’s eyes flitted up to meet his. They didn’t so much as linger on his quivering bottom lip, nor did they show a hint of hesitation. “I enjoyed your pancakes greatly, however,” he said in the same clinical tone Maple might expect Sweet Treat to direct command he change oven temperature, “if I dine consistently on pancakes, I will put on weight. Putting on weight will mean that I will have to expend more energy to keep myself aloft when I fly, which would mean that gathering clouds for my experiments would be more difficult than necessary …”
The smile on the young Enchanter’s face grew as he listened. Maple bit down on the insides of his cheeks, desperately trying to hide any outward sign of mirth that might betray his little ruse.
It was a bit mean, yes, winding Alto up in such a way, but he could hardly be faulted. When Alto was focused, he just looked so darn handsome. The way his brows knitted together as he straightened up in his seat and rested one hoof on the table, while the other gesticulated wildly as he made his point forced an effort worthy of Queen Morrigan herself to resist the urge to dot his nose with a kiss.
“… And thus, if you factor in my need to be quick on my hooves in case an experiment goes wrong, as you have very well been a part of,” Alto continued, “adding weight, even if I do so enjoy your pancakes, is not to my benefit. So, regrettably, I must decline. Additionally, if we factor in that constantly eating the same thing over and over again will inevitably lead to the meal becoming less special …”
Maple’s façade fell at that point. He let out a snort, then a merry chitter, which he tried to hide behind his tray. His amber eyes danced with mirth.
Alto stopped in mid sentence. He blinked twice, then narrowed his eyes. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”
“Just a bit,” Maple admitted as a grin stretched across his cheeks. “You could have just said that you were watching your weight, or that you wanted to try something else today. Normally, everyone tries to sputter and tell me that they love my pancakes when I pull that face.”
“In my defense, I was attempting to be informative, and illustrate that I do, in fact, enjoy your pancakes.”
“Enough that you want to eat them every day?” the Enchanter wheedled, drawing close so he could rub shoulders with Alto.
This time, Alto did sputter before he managed to speak again. “I—I wouldn’t say—I do enjoy them, but again, as stated, eating them too often will no doubt …” he trailed off, his brows furrowed as he noticed the toothy grin Maple was struggling to hide behind the tray. He set his jaw. “You know, most ponies just tease me about my name, not my dining choices.”
Maple lowered his tray and let out a chittering laugh. “You’re in a changeling village, Alto,” he replied. “We’re a bit more creative than that with our teasing.”
“Aspire, Esalen, and all of my cousin’s friends tease her by calling her Doodle,” Alto countered.
“They tease her with a nickname, not her real name. And that’s not much of a bother for her these days from what I’ve seen. Now it’s more that she and Aspire are simply lovedrunk for one another.” At Alto’s blank stare, Maple coughed and corrected himself. “Head over hooves? Over the moon?”
Alto hummed an affirmation and nodded. “I see. It sounds like something we say in Cloudsdale.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Cloud nine reserved for two.” He paused a beat, then added, “Or more than two, I suppose, if such a thing happens.”
Maple could think of more than a few in Respite alone who would qualify for the latter, but he set it aside for now. “Well, we find more things to tease our pony friends about here,” he said casually, watching out of the corner of his eye to check Alto’s reaction. “Some of them even learn to tease back, but, of course, that just makes the game … sweeter.”
The pegasus hummed again. “I see. I’ve never been one for that sort of thing.”
Not even phased! Maple nearly dropped his tray and stepped away to see if Alto might give some sort of tell, a little twitch of his lips or crinkle at the edges of his eyes. Anything that might hint he knew from Sure Stroke how to play and was just turning things around.
Nothing. His face yielded nothing but clinical explanation and a casual air as if he’d been talking about the weather. Or, rather, his flight over. The weather might just make those eyes of molten gold light up.
Alto then took a bite of his breakfast. His ears twitched and wings fluffed. “These are quite good,” he said softly. “Fresh, I presume?”
“Always,” Maple replied with a note of pride in his voice.
“I see.” A small smile tugged at periwinkle lips as Alto took another bite. “It shows. I don’t think we ever had flowers so fresh in the Altocumulus Terrace. Thank you.”
A fuzzy feeling filled Maple’s chest. He bit his lip and looked away to hide his flushed carapace, mumbling, “You’re welcome. I’m glad you enjoy it.”
Alto hummed in reply, his mouth still full, then set about making quick work of his meal. Maple scarcely had the chance to make a quick circuit to check on drink refills before the pegasus called him over once more.
Ears twitching, Maple turned to face him. “Yes? Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing? You were busy.” The pegasus’s handsome face was creased in a bemused frown. “I was asking what time you would be finished working today.”
“Uh …” Really, there wasn’t a set time after the late morning rush. And even then, there were Peppermint and Spearmint if he wanted to take some time off.
Not like they didn’t owe him several times over for their own flights of whim—especially Spearmint, given how often he loved to go frolic with Shady Glen. Which, to be perfectly blunt, Maple couldn’t blame him for in the slightest.
Alto took his silence as prompting to go on, “I’m going to attempt my thunderhead experiment again. I wanted to invite you to participate. Or watch, rather. I’m not actually certain how you would participate unless the specimen is uncooperative.” His brows furrowed deeper. “Again.”
It took no small amount of self-control not to buzz. “You’re sure?” Maple asked, fighting to keep his excitement tempered. “I don’t want to be a distraction.”
“You’ll hardly be a distraction.” Periwinkle lips tugged into a small smile full of warmth. His fuzzy ears gave the slightest of wiggles. “You’re my friend.”
His self-control failed. With a happy buzz and a musical chitter rolling in the back of his throat, Maple bobbed his head so fast his hat nearly toppled off his fluffy copper mane. “I’d love to!”
Alto had chosen a little spot by the lake to run a second attempt at his thunderhead and liquid rainbow experiment. A rather smart choice, in Maple’s opinion, if this attempt went the same as the first.
It also meant that they weren’t taking risks with anyone’s house. Auntie Sweet’s ire was more than enough for Maple’s taste, he had no intent of being the focus of the Wood brothers’ or, love forbid, Creamy and Frosty. Not to mention the terrible twins themselves, even if they lived on the outskirts of the village.
Alto came trotting up to one of the old wooden tables lining the lakeside with a pair of saddlebags slung across his back. The pouches were filled to the brim, testing the integrity of the seams.
Tilting his head, Maple eyed his pegasus friend as he gently set his bags down on the table and began pulling out phials, a long, thin tubes, a jar of something that looked like liquid prism rolling and swirling within itself—liquid rainbow, no doubt—and a small beaker containing what looked to be a near-black ball of angrily sparking fluff.
His gaze lingered on the little piece of thunderhead. Perhaps his own eyes were fooling him, but this particular cloud looked far more active than the previous one.
A spark danced across the face of the beaker. “Uh, are you sure using this one is a good idea, Alto?” Maple asked, taking a leery step back from the table.
“What do you mean?” Golden eyes flitted to Maple, then tracked his gaze to the sparking thunderhead just in time for a tiny rumble of thunder to shake the beaker. He gave a nonchalant shrug of his wings. “It’ll be fine, Maple. It’s supposed to be live like this. How would I conduct the experiment if it were dormant or spent?”
‘Safely’ came to mind, but Maple kept it to himself. Instead, he edged around the side of the table so he could stand closer to Alto. For observational purposes. Aloud, he said, “If you say so, I suppose. I don’t know nearly as much about weather magic as a pegasus.”
One periwinkle ear flicked. “The average pegasus doesn’t know a whole lot about weather magic either, so don’t worry about that. To most of us, it’s just a thing we can do that others can’t.” Pausing in thought, the turned to glance at Maple. “Similar to a changeling’s shapeshifting in that way, though not nearly so …” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Well, perhaps if there were a changeling study seminar, I wouldn’t have been so bored during my electives.”
Again, Maple felt his cheeks flush. Another image of his parents bemoaning their little hatchling allowing himself to be so lovedrunk on a pony that he’d been enchanted himself flashed before his eyes.
Alto continued on, “Is there such a thing here, by the way?”
“Huh?” Maple blinked. “Is there a what?”
“Is there some sort of seminar or lessons on changelings so I might learn about those I’ll be living around for the foreseeable future? Or am I on the proverbial learning curve?” He turned to measure out a few droplets of liquid rainbow, then lifted the stopper off of the thunderhead’s beaker and poured the sample straight into the cloud. Dull black fluff flashed a myriad of colors before it turned a shade that rivaled Maple’s carapace. A second rumble of thunder made Maple’s joints itch. “Sure Stroke mentioned a bit of a struggle to learn herself, but, if I could be forgiven for saying so, my dear cousin was never really one for study unless the subject was of particular interest to her.”
“She was a poor student?”
Alto shook his head. “Not necessarily. She is an exceptional student if the subject interests her, anything else is a bit of a struggle, but she can pick it up in the end.”
Nodding absentmindedly, Maple glanced at the little thunderhead trapped in the beaker. Sparks of red, green, yellow, blue, and even purple jumped from within the blackened fluff, jolting and singeing the glass every several seconds. There was a little flash of white lightning and a rumble of thunder with each, and every bolt and grumble made the beaker jounce and skid a millimeter across the table. But with it came something far different from the first time.
Droplets of strange, viscous goop dribbled from the cloud like tree sap. For a moment, Maple thought it to be a dull gray, then he took a closer look and noticed a hint of light glowing from within—the same wash of colors that swirled and rolled about within the phial.
The goop began to collect and congeal in the center of the beaker, then slowly billowed and filled out like dough in a hot oven. Or a bubble.
He took a big step back. “Alto,” he said nervously, “is it supposed to do that?”
Confused, Alto turned to look at his experiment. His ears stood ramrod straight and wings flared out wide with a rustling noise. “Oh! I’ve seen this before!” With an excited grin, he dove into his saddlebags and fetched his notebook and pencil so he could furiously scribble down a few notes.
“You have?” Of course he had. Maple fixed the angry little cloud with a flat look and tilted his head to one side.
“Yes! Twice before!” Scribble, scribble, scribble danced the pencil across the page. “I did this same experiment a year ago in lab! We were testing to see how pure liquid rainbow would react to a jolt of electricity—of course, we were using diluted rainbow at the time, because the real stuff could be volatile if not used right.”
“Okay … so, it’s supposed to make that gooey … stuff?”
“It wasn’t gooey last time, but it did drizzle a bit.” Alto stopped writing in favor of looking at the contents of his beaker. “It sort of made a little bubble then popped, coloring the glass for a while. We couldn’t get it off unless we used rubbing alcohol.”
That was enough to send alarm bells ringing in Maple’s head. There was something about the way Alto described his past experiment and the current one that weren’t quite adding up. After a few seconds, it clicked.
Right about the time he noticed another flash of colors from within the bubbling blob of goop. This one brighter than before.
“Alto?”
“Yeah?”
Maple took another step back. “Please tell me that was diluted rainbow.”
With a snort, Alto turned to fix him with a stern look. “What’re you so afraid of? It’s just a little color changing mess! Have a sense of adventure! I told you I nicked a few beakers from the Rainbow Fountain, they don’t dilute that stuff!”
“That’s not an answer to my question! Did you dilute this batch?”
“What’s the big deal?” He rolled his eyes and turned back to observe the beaker. “So I’m using the pure stuff like last time, don’t worry about it. I went over my calculations and used the proper measurement to factor in the explosion from last time. This time you’ll see the experiment is completely …” he trailed off as one of the bubbles popped.
Maple wasn’t entirely sure what Alto saw, but he did get to watch those soft, periwinkle ears pin back against his head.
“Oh, pluck my feathers, not this again,” Alto whined.
A clap of thunder made Maple duck and cover his ears. The sound of glass popping and a strange squelch akin to batter splattering against the immaculately clean walls of Auntie Sweet’s kitchen—or, in this case, against a certain handsome pegasus’s face.
Slowly, Maple uncovered his face so he could look up and check on Alto.
A delightful cocktail of emotions bubbled within his chest—a blend of curiosity and worry mixed with the slightest hint of self-satisfaction at how right he’d been, seasoned with a dash of amusement that would almost certainly taste like warm cinnamon bread if he could but steal a hint from one of the villages.
Then he promptly toppled over onto his back, kicking his hooves in the air as he dissolved into peals of chittering mirth. “Y-You! Pfffft—hahahaha! You look like you jumped in a rainbow bath!” he cried between bouts of laughter.
Alto snorted a cloud of smoke, following its trail with a glare before turning his ire upon Maple. “It’s not funny!” he retorted despite the hint of a twitch at the corners of his mouth. He ran a hoof down his snout, trailing a blend of reds, blues, and yellows to the tip of his nose, then froze and let out a groan. “This stuff spreads everywhere! It’s gonna take forever to get this out!”
Maple doubled over, clutching his belly. “St-Stop!” he cried, his wings buzzing. “Oh, stop! My sides! Oh, my carapace is going to crack!”
A sharp intake of breath and angry snort made his ears perk up, a chitter died in the back of his throat. Maple blinked his eyes free of mirthful tears and looked up to find Alto rising from his seat, wings flared wide in challenge, flinging tendrils of sticky goop across the table, and one hoof held before him as if balancing a plate.
A dollop of rainbow goop trailed prismatic liquid down his wrist.
“Alto …” Maple scooted back, his smile turned nervous. “Alto, I was only teasing.”
“I’ve heard tell that the villagers here believe in turnabout as fair play,” Alto said slowly as he stalked toward the cowering Enchanter. “So, please, understand that I’m not angry, Maple. This is exactly that. Turnabout.”
Yelping, Maple leapt to his hooves and made to dash off as fast as his hooves could carry him.
Alto pounced upon him before he could even rise to his hooves, dragging him down the the ground with a deft twist of his shoulders and sitting on his waist to block any attempt to roll or buck.
“No! Alto, wait! I’m sorry!” Maple flailed his forelegs in vain. “I’ll make you cake! Muffins! Anything you want! Don’t you put that on my carapace!”
The pegasus batted his hooves away with a wicked grin. His hoof shot forward and pressed against Maple’s nose. Slowly, torturously, he began to spread it over Maple’s smooth cheeks, his snout, his chin, even up to his forehead.
Oh! If his parents could see him now! Pinned and tormented by his own crush! And his beautiful carapace, his handsome, chubby face, coated in sticky rainbow goop.
Maple covered his face, a keening whine escaped the back of his throat. “Nooooooooooooo!”
Gentle hooves gripped his wrists and pried forelegs away from his face, to reveal the grinning pegasus. Alto leaned down so they were nose to nose and waggled his ears. “You should see your face,” Alto sang his own taunt back at him. “You look like you jumped in a rainbow bath.”
Whining again, Maple tried to turn away. “Why couldn’t you just take the deal? Now I look horrible! Rainbow doesn’t go with black carapace!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Alto rolled his eyes, then bumped their noses together. “You look just fine. Colorful, for a change, but handsome. Like always.”
Maple froze stiff. He swiveled an ear toward Alto. “R-Really?”
“Yes. You ridiculous changeling.” With a heavy sigh, Alto stood up and gestured toward the mess on the table. “I don’t suppose you’d mind helping me clean this up?”
The words had scarcely left his lips before Maple was on his hooves and at Alto’s side, a dopey smile spread across rainbow-stained cheeks. At that moment, Alto could have commanded him to guzzle misery and chew on lemons, and no objections would have been raised. Why should any be?
Alto thought he was handsome.