//------------------------------// // 33 Visiting friends // Story: For science - Book three // by Znegil //------------------------------// As I woke up the day after Hearth's Warming Eve, I had a huge grin on my face. This was in part because of the wonderful evening we all have had together, my beautiful purple marefriend and fiancee who had her hooves wrapped around my waist made for the rest. I softly stroked her mane and she was humming happily because of it. After a few minutes, I carefully slipped out of her embrace; her hooves searched around for something to grab on but she relaxed when she found our pillow and wrapped herself around it. I sneaked to the window and looked over the snow-covered Ponyville while Celestia's sun was just rising above the horizon. The streets were surprisingly empty, normally at this time there were already a few ponies crowding the narrow streets, but I guessed everypony was sleeping in because of yesterday's holiday. ‘Not the worst place to end up.’, I thought smiling. Things had turned out far better than I had ever expected, even though I had to make some sacrifices along the way. Silently I went down to the kitchen and started to mix some batter for pancakes, it was the least I could do after what our friends had prepared yesterday. Since I had pretty good control of my magical hand by now, preparing the pancakes for all of us had been a breeze and in no time the first few were out of the pan. Lured by the smell everypony slowly shuffled into the room, like a horde of pancake-zombies. “My favorite food made by my favorite mare.”, Twilight remarked grinning before she kissed me. … I had decided to visit Fluttershy and Dashie this afternoon. Since they already had known about my planned proposal, I thought it would be best to inform them first how it went. Fluttershy's cottage seemed so peacefully in the snowy landscape, at the same time it looked very warm and inviting. After walking through the snow for such a long time I couldn't wait to get inside and having one of her hot and tasty teas. *Knock Knock* It wasn't surprising to see Rainbow opening the door for me, but she looked quite surprised when she saw me. “What happened? You look like a cow.”, she commented bluntly. “I will explain to both of you in a minute, as soon as I got some nice tea to warm…” “Wait…”, she interrupted me. “Does that mean you're udders produce milk now? Can I maybe try a little? I could…” “RAINBOW!!!” Fluttershy had screamed so loud, some snow from her roof came down in a little avalanche, I was able to evade it just in time. “Let her in and behave yourself!”, the yellow pegasus rebuked her marefriend and slapped her rear hard. Dashie was a bit startled and quickly made room for me to enter. I was surprised Fluttershy had her under such control. I made a short explanation on how I ended up with my new skin features before I got to the reason I visited them in the first place. “... and she said yes!”, I ended my story. “Amazing! Congrats!”, Dashie shouted. Fluttershy got so excited she hovered a few feet above the ground. “That's wonderful news. We have so much preparation to do before our wedding.” “We're planning for spring, right?”, I asked. “Yes, I want to be surrounded by flowers and my lovely animal friends.”, Fluttershy explained. “Sounds good to me.”, I replied. “Is there something Twilight and I should do right now?” The yellow pegasus thought about this for a moment. “We have plenty of time for most of the things, but we already talked to Rarity about our wedding dresses, so maybe you should do that as well. I'm sure she will find a way to make all of our ideas into something harmonious.” “And you should tell Pinkie as well so she can plan an even bigger party.”, Rainbow added. … It was late afternoon when I knocked on the door of Rarity's Boutique. “Come in, the door is open!”, she shouted. I entered the shop and found Rarity was working on a dress on one of the display dummies. “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, where everything is…”, she started and turned to face me. “Aaahhh!” *Thud* She fainted on the spot. I carefully picked her up and put her on a nearby couch. I softly patted her cheek to wake her. “What… where…”, she slowly came to her senses and jump a little as she opened her eyes and saw me. “Oh darling, what has happened to your face?” “Is it that bad?”, I asked. She hesitated for a few seconds. “Of course not.”, she answered with a fake smile. “It's just a bit unusual and I haven't seen anything like this before.” Once again I explained the black blobs roaming my skin, after this story I finally was able to talk about much happier news. “I asked Twilight to marry me and she said ‘Yes’.”, I told her. “That's wonderful news, I'm so happy for both of you. After all you have been through, you deserve to have some happy moments together, I'm looking forward to this wonderful occasion.” “We're planning to have a double wedding with Dashie and Fluttershy and were hoping you could design our dresses as well.” Her eyes lit up as she heard this. “Oh yes! That's a great idea, I will find some great ways to make your dresses compliment each other. There are some designs I saw in the fashion magazine you have brought me that would be suitable for something like this. Come with me, I show you what I mean and we can make some rough sketches…” … Just before I was able to knock on the door of Ponyville’s particular passionate pink party pony Pinkie Pie’s, it swung open and she bounced into me. “Hihi. You look funny today.”, she commented as she looked up to me and grinned. I very much preferred her reaction over Rarity's. “Hi Pinkie. Well, that has to be my look from now on, it's a side effect of the way Chrysalis saved me when I was about to die.” She looked worried, so I stroked her candy cotton mane for a moment. “But that's not why I came to visit you.”, I continued. “We have to make Rainbow and Fluttershy's wedding party a bit bigger than planned because I will marry Twilight on this day as well.” Her grin got so wide I expected it to pop off her face any moment. “A-SUPER-DUPER-DOUBLE-WEDDING-PARTY!!”, she shouted and began to bounce so high she nearly reached the roof. I waited a few seconds until she reached my level again. “Well, I guess all of Ponyville knows about it now.”, I remarked smiling. “Could you tell us how many bits you will need for everything?” She immediately stopped bouncing. “That's my present for you, I never take bits for throwing a party.” “Never? But you're preparing parties all the time, where do you get all the money to do this?” “That's the first time someone asked me about it.”, she replied and started to look away from me. “Well… what's the answer?”, I inquired. “I… I… have to prepare another party right now.”, she said and started to run away fast enough to leave a pink trail behind her. “We talk about the party’s details another time!”, she shouted from afar. I was used to her being strange, but her behavior today was well beyond that. ‘Fine, at least all needed for the preparations know about it now.’, I thought smiling. Spring couldn't come fast enough.