//------------------------------// // 32 Presents // Story: For science - Book three // by Znegil //------------------------------// “Look what I got! Look what I got!”, Twilight shouted happily as she stormed into the library pointing towards her horn, I entered behind her in a much calmer pace. Lavender, Chrysalis, Lyra and Bon Bon were sitting next to a tree decorated in green, red and gold while Spike came from the kitchen carrying a plate of cookies. They all were quite surprised by my marefriend’s ambush-like appearance, but after a few seconds, Lyra was the first one to speak up: “You're getting married?! That's so awesome!” Congratulations from everyone else followed swiftly except Chrysalis who was unnaturally quiet. “I'm so sorry for my stupid prank before, I shouldn't have done that.”, she finally excused to us. Twilight didn't even seem to notice while she was bouncing happily on the spot. “It's okay, I know you didn't want to have the outcome that happened.”, I replied. “Sometimes things just spiral out of control.” I looked over to my grinning fiancée. “Isn't there something you want to apologize for as well?”, I asked her since she didn't react at all. She stopped bouncing and looked confused for a moment. “Oh, right. I'm sorry that I tried to kill you, good thing you ducked my attack or else you would have likely been disintegrated.”, she told Chryssi in her super happy voice and was still grinning… which had a very creepy effect. “... Okay.”, was all Chrysalis was able to reply after some seconds, I felt her emotions, the shock that Twilight actually had wanted her to die a few hours before. “Well with this out of our way, let's celebrate Hearth's Warming Eve… and our engagement.”, I resolved the situation and pushed my fiancée towards the tree. …. We had such a nice time together and exchanged stories from when we were little and how we experienced the holidays back then. It felt good to be with friends and all their positive emotions had a huge impact on me, I noticed Chrysalis was silently purring from time to time. I was surprised no one was mentioning the black blobs on my skin, but I guessed Chryssi had told them before. “Can we exchange presents now?”, Lyra asked impatiently. “After dinner.”, Lavender replied to her. “We don't want all this great food go for waste.” Our changeling friend entered the kitchen and exited it only moments later with several plates levitating behind her. We sat down at the beautifully decorated table and I checked out all the different meals. There were some items that looked quite foreign to me, I guessed these had been made by Chrysalis, but everything smelled incredible. Lyra reached for a golden-brown potato casserole, but Bon Bon pinned down her hoof. “We want to thank you all for inviting us to you Hearth's Warming Eve celebration.”, Bon Bon addressed us. “It's been a while since we celebrated with so many nice friends.” It warmed my heart to hear this… this celebration put me in a surprisingly nostalgic mood. “It a pleasure to have you here.”, I replied. “But I really have to thank Lavender and Chrysalis for preparing such a wonderful event. I'm happy to call you all my friends.” “It was a pleasure preparing this for all of us.”, Lavender spoke up. “Considering what you did for us, the least we could…” “Could we please start eating? I'm about to starve.”, Lyra interrupted and received a death-glare from her marefriend. I just laughed. “Right, let's eat while it's still hot.” … After some quiet minutes where everypony was enjoying the delicious food in front of us, I decided to be a bit more adventurous and tried something of the strange things Chrysalis had made. I cut off a slice and put it on my plate. The outer part looked like red jelly while there was a strange blue foam in the middle. While I carefully inspected its texture with my fork, I noticed my changeling friend was watching me with a huge grin. Determined not to show how unsure I felt about it, I carved off a big piece and ate it. It was a strange but delicious mix of flavors I couldn't quite identify… I ate everything on my plate within seconds. “What is this made from?”, I asked curiously. Still smiling she replied: “Believe me, you'll enjoy it more if I don't tell you.” Because of this ominous answer of her my brain went wild with possible ideas what she could have done, but only a moment later I realized that this had been her intention. I decided not to worry about it and ignored my fears, instead I sliced myself another portion and went on eating it while she looked at me in surprise. It only took a few more minutes before Lyra got fidgety again. “Can we exchange our presents now?”, she asked. ‘She sometimes really behaves like a spoiled child’, I thought. I looked to Spike who patiently sat in his chair and waited. Since everypony seemed to have finished their meals I decided to give in. “Sure, let's do that. I already have given mine but I'm interested to see what you have for each other.” She started jumping in joy and hopped around her marefriend. “Can I have mine first?” Bon Bon rolled her eyes and trotted over to her saddlebags. She came back with a beautiful wrapped medium sized present and presented it to Lyra. She didn't waste any time and ripped off the paper to see what's underneath. Her eyes started glistening as she held up a large book. “The special extended edition of Featherstone’s ‘Myths and Legends’!”, she shouted happily and hug-tackled Bon Bon. “Thank you so much, honey! Where did you find it?” “When I visited the ‘sugar and sweets’-fair this summer, I talked to some of my colleagues about it. I asked them to look out for it when they would return home and one of them did find it in Vanhoover and mailed it to me.” “Thank you sooooooo much.”, Lyra told her before she drew her into a loving kiss. My assistant then used her magic to levitate her present to Bon Bon in front of her. It wasn't as nicely wrapped than the one she had received, but I don't think anypony would have expected her to invest so much time for just the presentation. “For you, my love.”, she addressed her marefriend while she was hugging the book she had received. Bon Bon took it out of the golden magic aura and carefully unwrapped it. She opened the lid of the box she found underneath… and immediately slammed it on top of the box only a second later. Her face turned hot pink and I felt the shame that was radiating from her. “Don't you like it? Would you like it to be another color?”, Lyra asked concerned. “I do like it very much.”, the earth pony replied with a shy smile. “I just think you should have given this to me at home… privately.” “Oooohhh…”, Lyra finally started to understand, like always she had difficulties understanding what made others uncomfortable. Twilight filled the following silence by giving Spike his present. “Here, for my number one assistant.” Spike did his best to hide the disappointment he felt when he looked at the clearly book-shaped present. He unwrapped it and stared at the book he found inside. “80 Tips to improve your organizing.”, he read out loud. “It's the special edition with additional spreadsheets at the end.”, Twilight explained with honest excitement. “Open it, I put a special bookmark inside.”, I added. Spike looked inside and he instantly showed a huge grin. “A coupon for ten mega-monster sundaes at Sugarcube Corner! Thank you so much.” “And it has a beautiful table of contents…”, Twilight mumbled clearly disappointed about his reaction. Meanwhile, Chrysalis was unpacking her present from Lavender. “What is this?”, I asked when she unrolled some strange equipment from a pouch. “Professional clay sculpting equipment.”, Chryssi explained. “It's one of my favorite hobbies, I love how I can shape it in every form I can imagine… just like I can do with my own body. Thank you, my love.” She offered Lavender a present in return and looked surprisingly nervous while doing it. After she had opened it we all stared at… a strange mostly oval… golden thingy. “What is it?”, Lavender put all our thoughts into words while she turned it with her magic to look at it from all sides. “These are the gilded remains of the egg I've hatched from.”, her marefriend explained. “It's a tradition that every changeling receives their egg once they are old enough to work in their designated role. It's a reminder where we came from and what we have become since we have hatched.” “That's a very personal and unique gift.”, Lavender replied while she looked about 70% sure to be happy about it. “Also a very potent magical poison can be produced from such an egg which is extremely effective against the one who has hatched from it… so please keep it in a very safe place.”, Chryssi added nervously. “Thank you so much for trusting me with something this important.”, her marefriend told her before drawing her into a long kiss. Spike really wasn't happy about all this kissing but decided to concentrate on his coupons instead. “So at last, there is my present for you.”, Twilight announced. “Of course nothing can compare to the ring and the promise you've given to me, nevertheless I have something special for you as well. But you have to follow me outside to see it.” Surprised and quite curious I followed her to the back door while she levitated my coat and scarf towards me. We all stepped outside in the snowy space between the library and my lab. Since the two buildings blocked out a big part of Ponyville's lights, we had an excellent view of the night sky. “Your present is up there.”, Twilight pointed to the sky and smiled. I searched the sky but saw nothing but stars, confused I looked at my marefriend again. Twily chuckled. “Let me explain. You know Luna arranges the night sky, it looks different every night. But there are a few stars with a fixed position which shine in their spots while all the rest changes. Luna has put them there so we can remember certain important figures in our history.” Twilight's horn started to glow and she used her magic like an oversized laser-pointer. “For example these two…”, she drew a circle around two bright, light blue stars. “These are to remember the princesses parents.” She circled a silver star. “This one is for Star Swirl the Bearded, a unicorn with immense magical ability and power.” She circled a slightly orange star a bit further west. “And this is for remembering Stella, the hero of Equestria. She gave everything to protect this world, even against her own race.” I looked at her in surprise, it was hard to believe they really did that for me. “How?”, was all I could ask. “Well since you told me your name means star, I got this idea and talked to Luna about it. With all the things you did for this world, she immediately agreed. Now the star ‘Stella - Protector of Equestria’ will be up there until the end of time, the star maps have already been updated.” I embraced her and cried for minutes.