On the edge of the lapping water, Minuette laughed and clapped her hooves together. “It works! It really works! This is so awesome!”
Twinkleshine didn’t move.
“I have to admit I was really worried we wouldn’t make it, and when all those joggers blocked the way – oh my gosh! – I thought we were gonna lose it, or the stochastic detection device was off, but no! We DID it! We could… we could… oh, so awesome! We could change the future of window science forever!”
Twinkleshine would have loved to jump for joy, but she could not and would not move.
“I mean, look at it! Look at that window! It’s right over the reservoir, and my baby still picked it up! And-And we can get all kinds of readings in one go. None of this ‘stuck in a lab and hope it works in real life’ stuff. THIS… This, Twinkleshine, is magical!”
Finally, Twinkleshine decided to cut things short. “Minuette?” she whimpered.
“Yeah, bestest best friend a mare could ask for? What’s up?”
Twinkleshine swallowed. “Could-Could you please get this monkey off my head? Please?”
It rummaged through her locks again; she winced at each snagged hair. All around the reservoir, in the plane trees shading them and along the more exposed ridge of the far bank, monkeys leaped and danced and swarmed and did handstands and shrieked at each other. Gathered along the same bank, most of the wandering crowd had sat down and were cheering indiscriminately.
“Awwww,” she heard them say at two monkeys hugging.
“Sorry, Twinkleshine,” said Minuette, cringing. “I’ve tried. Every time I get close, it shows me its big canine teeth.”
Twinkleshine whimpered again.
“Nonono, don’t worry, don’t worry! I think this one likes you. Look, it’s grooming your mane. Monkeys groom their friends.”
Annoyance flashed through Twinkleshine. “How can I look at my mane?”
“Oh. Um… You could… check the reflection! The reservoir’s right there, so you could –”
“I’mnotmoving! Notaninch! OW!” Another hair parted company with her head.
Helpless, her eyes swivelled across the scene. There indeed was the window, shaped like an arch and rippling the air around it; the opposite bank shimmered as though submerged. She wordlessly sought help from the crowd further along, but many of them were gabbling and pointing. Of course, they thought it was a big joke, even as the monkeys clambered over them all and searched for something interesting to eat.
Minuette shrugged and her hooves blurred over the interface. “They must have come through from the other side.”
“What makes you say – OW!” Tears blurred her vision. “That?”
“They’re all wearing helmets. Odd, that. And they’ve got little lights on, look.”
She did; most of the helmet lights spun blue hues around the monkeys as they scampered about or accepted fruits or picked pockets. Under normal circumstances – i.e. those not involving a monkey weighing down her head and now twanging her horn – Twinkleshine might have agreed. But the next twang scattered her thoughts like a shoal of fish.
“Minuette, please…”
“Hold on.” Minuette rushed over to the crowd. At this distance, her words were hard to make out, but she came running back with an apple and levitated it before Twinkleshine’s horn. “Here, monkey, monkey, monkey. Monkey want a treat? Minuette got a treat. Softly, softly, little monkey…”
To her sweet relief, Twinkleshine felt the hands pressing into her neck as the monkey clambered down, and then it pressed into her right shoulder and leapt. The apple was gone and the monkey rushed back to its fellows.
Shivering, she smoothed down the ruined lumps of her mane. First priority after this, she was having three showers and a bath. Minimum.
More monkeys loped over on all fours, promptly leaping onto Minuette’s back and head to search, presumably for more hidden apples. She giggled.
“Aw! They’re so adorable! Why can’t the Pacifiers be this adorable?”
Shaking with hurt dignity, Twinkleshine glared at them and circled around her friend, ready to scurry away at the slightest hint of simian interest. “Minuette, don’t move. I’ll get another fruit.”
“It’s OK – ahahahaha! No don’t walk there! I’m ticklish! Hahahahaha! – I don’t mind.”
“But we’re serious researchers. We’ve just laid the groundwork for the development of fundamental analysis –”
“Aw, look! That one’s stolen some guy’s hat! He looks so funny!”
Twinkleshine hid behind the Lambda Likelihood Locator. “Minuette, be serious! They could be diseased or dirty! We don’t know anything about them! They should be rounded up and sent back!”
The machine pinged. Twinkleshine buried herself in the screen and the paper readout. Anything was better to her profession than watching Minuette make baby faces at one of those flea-ridden things.
Besides, and regardless of the monkeys, her mouth was dry and her limbs itched with the spreading tingle of nerves. Her mind was trying to sneak glances into the future, one filled with voices praising the joint effort of those magnificent mares, Minuette and Twinkleshine…
Numbers swelled to a gigantic size in her sight. Within her own mind, machinery of a far more mysterious and comforting sort slid into life.
“Minuette,” she said, imparting gravitas into every syllable. “Come look at what we’ve found.”
“I can’t move. You’ll have to tell me.”
“Oh, all right.” Twinkleshine’s lips curled for a moment. “Ahem. I’ve just compared the data we’ve gathered from this window so far with the fragmentary stuff we got from the other ones.”
“Ahahahaha! No! NO! I told you AHAHAHAHA I’m ticklish! – What, already? I thought we – ahaha! – agreed we weren’t going to use the old data.”
“Yes, but it’s suggestive at least. I think we’ve found a pattern.”
“A what?”
“A curve. It plots a curve in two dimensions. I-I-I’d need to gather more data for a strong comparison, but I, uh, think we have the makings of a theory. Hold on…”
Screeches broke out along the far bank. Twinkleshine threw herself around the machine so fast she almost toppled, but relaxed again when the monkeys rushed past and rejoined the troupe dancing with excitement. At least now Minuette was right by her side, holding up the rolls of paper.
“They’re spreading out,” said Twinkleshine. “Um…”
“It’s good,” Minuette said, “but too early to say. Hey, look at this one.”
“I know. I saw that reading earlier.”
“Well, look at the window itself, then.”
They did so. Stars sparkled beyond, but other than that – and the fact that it was a window into another universe, of course – nothing remarkable stood out.
“What is it?” said Twinkleshine.
“I think this might be bigger than the others.”
“Based on what? We didn’t get any exact measurements.”
“I dunno. Just a… Just a feeling.” Defiantly sticking out her chest, she added, “It looks bigger.”
“Oh, don’t be such an alarmist. My heart’s still in my mouth as it is.”
They watched the monkeys spreading out over the grass beyond the bank. Distant ponies stood up or stopped on the paths to watch the troupe coming towards them.
“Um,” said Minuette.
“You think we should…?” Twinkleshine elbowed her.
“Round them up? They’re cute and all, but you might have a point.”
Twinkleshine patted what was left of her curls, dreading at any moment to feel something other than the familiar soft pads of her own rich hairs.
“It’s… not our department,” she said.
“But who else will?”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t sign up for that new biology post.”
“Well, it’s our experiment. It’s kind of our responsibility, isn’t it?”
Twinkleshine shivered. “No, not in the slightest. We just measure the windows. After that, the Royal Guard can handle it. I’m not a zookeeper.”
“Well, neither are they,” said Minuette, frowning in puzzlement.
“Monkeys! And they make us look like jokes!” Twinkleshine turned her nose up and marched back to the machine. “Oh, I’m not going to interfere! I’ve got more important things to do than chase a gaggle of little imps like them.”
Along the paper, lines and squiggles whispered to her. They whispered of secrets only she was privy to. Deep in her chest, a younger Twinkleshine stirred and sniffed the air.
“Minuette?”
“Something interesting?” Minuette hurried over.
A moment’s hesitation. But why not? The thought occurred to her that, sooner or later, Twilight would sit before her and ask if the machine had worked, and the true words would creep up her own throat and leap out to be lost in a shuffle of paperwork and cafeteria discussions and then some lonely spot in the archives. Because someone else would have taken the good points, and then it was only a matter of time before she and Minuette were left behind again.
Plus, the data was so trivial. With it would go the sound of applause and the smell of fresh air and the giddy feeling of someone who was surrounded by admiring eyes…
Twinkleshine licked her lips. “We deserve a promotion for this, don’t we?”
“I’m just happy to be here,” said Minuette.
“To start here, perhaps. Where do we go from here? Skating along the surface, or soaring over mountains? I don’t want to get stuck in place, picking up after everyone else for life, Minuette. This… This…” She patted the paper. “This could be it. This IS it. This is finally, finally it.”
“You think so?”
Twinkleshine hugged the paper to her chest. She felt the hunger invading her thoughts…
“I know so.” Then she relaxed again. “Minuette, don’t tell Twilight.”
“Wha?”
“Don’t tell Twilight.” In a rush of words longing to escape from her chest, Twinkleshine went on. “I don’t want this to be just another Twilight scheme. Why don’t we show the world we can add something too? And you can perform many more wonders when you’ve gone from being a good scientist to being a great one.” Tenderly, she ran a tongue over the word “great”. “A great one,” she repeated lovingly.
Minuette gently patted her on the withers. “You are a great scientist. Of course you are! Why would you think any different?”
Because no one else says that! Only you! “You promise not to tell Twilight?”
The gentle patting stopped. “What? No, of course not!”
Twinkleshine blinked. “You can’t!”
“No! Obviously, we’ve got to tell her sometime. What’s wrong? Twilight’s our friend too.”
“I know that,” said Twinkleshine too quickly. She pawed at the grass.
“I don’t like it when you talk like that. All those secrets and things. You can’t tell me you don’t trust Twilight?”
Alas, she knew she could never tell her friend that. She chewed the inside of her mouth. Busying herself, she levitated notebook and pen.
“Where would I be without you, Minuette?” she said with a sigh.
“With me, or without me, I’m sure you’d still be a great scientist!”
She’s so certain. Shame drowned her. She didn’t dare lie to Minuette. No doubt her friend would absorb it and any later tearful confessions with an unbroken smile and a promise of future nights out, and what had Twinkleshine done to deserve any of that?
Hardening herself, she forced a grin onto her face. “Let’s just keep to the here and now, shall we? And here and now, good friend, I can safely say we stand on the edge of a vast ocean of knowledge NO GIVE ME THAT BACK!”
The monkey jumped onto the machine and waggled her notebook at her. Another snatched her pen and hightailed out of there.
“Return that pen this instant! NO DON’T MESS WITH THE MACHINE! Get off the dish! Minuette! Minuette! Do something!”
“They’re little scamps, aren’t they?” A flash. “One for the album.”
“You’re not helping! No! It’s pulling the pipes! Get off, you! That is NOT a plaything!”
On the open bank, the crowd laughed and broke into applause. More flashes followed. There might not be any world-swallowing black holes, but a monkey flipping through a notebook upside-down was still good material for a lunchtime chat.
Twinkleshine groaned. “Oh, I just know we’re gonna get blamed for this.”
She looked out across the grass. She stared. Slowly, she reached across and nudged Minuette, who gasped and started flashing her camera again.
Most of the monkeys scampered back towards them, howling and shrieking. Not far behind them came a white dot, and from what Twinkleshine could tell, it was making a beeline for them.
Both she and Minuette exchanged glances.
Ponies in the crowd burst out laughing as the troupe poured over the bank, plunged into the waters, paddled across to the window, and clambered back in. Every monkey screamed, having torn themselves away from some demonic nightmare, and they scrabbled and fought to overtake each other. The two unicorns didn’t look away until the last tail vanished among the stars.
“Well… erm…” Minuette’s gaze cast about for words. “At least we know Rarity’s around.”
Opal the cat sat down on the bank. She started licking her paws.
She ignored the watchers, who crowded around her and chatted amongst themselves. From what Twinkleshine could hear, they’d all thought it had been a good show from start to finish. Plenty of the foals tried to pat the cat, but Opal swiftly explained her no-touch policy to them, mostly in the sophisticated language of swipes and hisses.
“Er…” said Twinkleshine.
“Well…” said Minuette.
“That… solves that problem, at least…”
“It sure does.”
No wonder the monkeys had fled; like many cats, Opal was a small, furry creature that not-so-secretly dreamed of being a tiger. Both unicorns had been at the wrong end of a pair of angry claws at one point, and Twinkleshine suspected the tiny demon saw them as meals on hooves. The thought worried her, especially since Opal could smell fear and had an unerring instinct for targeting secret cat-haters.
They glanced at each other again, silently and wordlessly promising each other not to mention any of what they’d just seen. Instead, they turned back to the Lambda Likelihood Locator. At least the fleeing monkey had dropped the notebook, but no sign of the pen lay on the soil.
Minuette tapped the screen. “Lovely. It’s still going.”
“It hasn’t finished?”
“There must be loads of readings going on. We might be here for a little while.”
Whereupon the window suddenly vanished. Final ripples spread out and faded into the blue sky and surrounding trees and settling waters.
The interface stopped. Red turned to orange, which turned to green, which beeped once in a strangely tinny, happy way.
“Ah,” said Twinkleshine. “I guess not.”
“Hopefully, we got enough.” Minuette laughed and wrapped a warming forelimb around Twinkleshine, giving her a gentle shake. “Ha! Look at us! Professors Minuette and Twinkleshine, here we come! HahaHA! They won’t believe this when we get back!”
In the distance, more monkeys shrieked. Blue lights flashed through the treetops. Leaves crashed.
And Opal sauntered over and leaped onto Twinkleshine’s back, then onto her head. Claws raked at the hairs to get more comfortable. Gentle purring and a pressing tiny weight against her head suggested the cat was making a bed. When Opal wanted a bed, the bed was not in a position to argue, unless it wanted to become a scratching post or, worse, the next mouse.
Twinkleshine’s head slumped. More cameras flashed at her.
“N-No,” she whimpered. “They won’t believe any of this, will they?”
“Awwww,” said “Professor” Minuette. “She’s so cuh-yute! One for the album.”
“The best part,” said Lemon Hearts as they descended the steps, “is that we don’t just do one thing here.”
Fluttershy stumbled on a step. They’d passed through a few doors on the way to the inner sanctum, and it was dawning on her that the dome – huge though it was on the surface – had much in common with an iceberg.
Dimly, she remembered the talk she’d had at the museum before coming here. They’d said the place was a melting pot of ideas. They’d said this was an exciting time to live near the dome, which, compared with the dribbling candles of the city, was a firework. Ethereal. Beautiful. And – she now thought – best appreciated from a long way away.
“There’s all kinds of madness going on under this roof,” Lemon Hearts continued. “I’m telling ya, you think calling up a biologist is weird, you ain’t seen what we’ve already got.”
As they turned the corner to descend yet more steps, Fluttershy scurried to keep up. Lemon might speak in an easygoing way, but the way she walked didn’t make the going easy at all. She walked like many ponies cantered.
“What you’re gonna see next,” said Lemon, throwing a smirk over her shoulder, “is gonna be a real treat.”
She seems friendlier now she’s away from Twilight. Maybe friendly enough.
“Very nice,” she tried.
Lemon laughed. “No. Very nutty! Let’s take a look at Exhibit A, shall we?”
With the air of an explorer unveiling their latest caged wonder of the world, Lemon Hearts threw the double doors back and gestured to a window on their right.
“And here,” she said in hushed tones that didn’t match her evil grin, “we have the dedicated Amethystus staricus, truly a magnificent species. Note the dark coloration around her eyes, which indicate a lifetime of not getting enough sleep.”
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at her, grateful that her own pink mane hid that half of her expression, and peered inside.
It was Amethyst, the unicorn from the desk. She’d donned a visor to protect her face, and her horn glowed. Before her lay… Fluttershy stared, trying to fathom the thing… a giant cannon? No! There! Amid the complex of pipes and hatches and other odd metal bits, the glint of a diamond…
“Laser testing,” said Lemon with a shrug. “Of course, lasers need gemstones, and gemstones are her specialty. This ought to be good.”
Fluttershy cocked her head. Why is she aiming at paper…?
The stretched canvas burst into flame so suddenly she squeaked in shock.
“Yeah,” said Lemon cheerfully. “Turns out you’re not supposed to see red beams shooting out like in the comics. Real lasers don’t give off light sideways so we can see it. Ain’t it disappointing what reality can teach us, eh?”
At which point, Amethyst noticed them, scowled behind her visor, and lit up her horn again. The blinds snapped across the glass, making Fluttershy yelp and jump backwards.
“Aw,” said Lemon. “She is shy, isn’t she? Oh, and take my advice; every time you meet her, give her a great big hug and a soppy kiss. She loves that.”
Cackling, Lemon waved for her to follow. Fluttershy did so, on the basis that the less she dragged this out, the less painful it would be.
That unicorn saw me with Lemon. Oh, now she might think I was laughing at her too. Poor, poor Amethyst! I wish I could tell her I didn’t mean anything.
“Exhibit B, if you look to your right again.” Lemon stopped before another window. Unlike last time, the occupant of this one beamed and waved at them.
Fluttershy didn’t dare respond. She already had a list of faux pas she’d committed, and in her heart she feared the day when someone brought her to account for each and every one of them, because they all had witnesses.
Eventually, and – to Fluttershy’s surprise – all while blushing, Lemon waved back. “Hey…” she said, with much less swagger than before.
Beside the window, the door burst open, making Fluttershy jump.
“Lemon! Fluttershy! Come quick!” Lyra poked her head out. “You gotta hear this!”
“‘Hear’ this?” whispered Fluttershy.
“Oh, of course, Fluttershy: you wouldn’t know. Come in! Come in! I’ll show you!” Lyra’s head disappeared.
Even Lemon’s face creased with worry. “Uh… better go see what she wants.”
This room contained nothing more remarkable than a large screen and a console. Lyra adjusted a microphone on the dashboard.
“Say hello,” she said, bending and stretching her legs in readiness for excited jumping, “to the Tenor.”
Fluttershy peered closely at the screen. Then she glanced at Lyra, who was holding a pose and beaming at her in readiness for the applause.
Both the face and the pose fell. “You know?” said Lyra. “Tenor?”
Shrugging helplessly, Fluttershy turned her gaze to the microphone.
“She is new,” said Lemon.
“Ah, of course.” Lyra coughed. “Um. What you see before you is the, uh, latest and greatest in harmonics science. Yes! We’re always trying to find meaningful patterns in the data we collect, right? Well, this computer – this wonderful computer – can take those patterns and find out if they contain any complex patterns. Pitch and rhythm, consonance and dissonance, all that jazz.”
After a while, Fluttershy shrugged weakly.
“In short!” Lyra flicked a switch without looking. “Tenor finds the music in the multiverse! Behold!”
She screwed up her lips as though working something out.
“Be… hear? Belisten? Beheed?” She shrugged. “Be amazed! This is the sound of the fundamental forces of reality, in all their glory!”
She pressed a button.
About five seconds of screeching, wailing, teeth-grinding, ear-stinging –
“OW!” Fluttershy covered her ears with both wings.
The music stopped; Lyra had hit the button fast. “Ahahahaha… uh… it’s not… quite there yet. I haven’t found the right match between the stats and the sounds. But-But think of the possibilities! We could literally hear the music of the heavens with this thing!”
A few seconds later, Lemon slammed the door and waved Fluttershy on to the next room. Sadly, Fluttershy heard the groan of Lyra even through the glass.
“Poor Lyra,” she whispered.
“Loony bin,” said Lemon over her shoulder. “I said it wasn’t a metaphor. And she’s the queen loony.”
They passed many more windows. Unicorns wrote on blackboards. Unicorns modified large sticks and balls into a plethora of shapes. Unicorns stared at displays and projections and photographs and charts and – she could’ve sworn in one case – a puppet show.
How come we’re not stopping to talk about these?
“And the rest,” said Lemon dismissively; she slowed down to let Fluttershy draw up alongside. “If you ask me, a lot of it’s just glory-hunting. Throw a few Equiverse references onto your term paper, and you get insta-credit. Apparently.” To Fluttershy’s horror, she spat right there, right then, right on the corridor floor. “Bunch of bloodsuckers.”
Fluttershy hummed. Even this felt too dangerous; her chest throbbed with the warnings from her heart.
“So,” said Lemon, as though she hadn’t just proven she would shoot someone’s reputation through the head, “what brings you to this heckhole? The excitement? The sense of awe and wonder? A chance to score with the girls? Oops, sorry. Forget that last one. Not that I ain’t open-minded, but you’d be surprised how often that doesn’t happen around here.”
Please shut up. Fluttershy’s face was a bonfire. No one, she was certain to her bones, should make her feel that way.
“‘Fluttershy’, huh? Odd name for a pegasus.”
The burning flames roared along a new line of thought. “Not really,” said Fluttershy.
“Most of them have names like Cloudkicker and Thunderlane, don’t they?”
“No.”
“Oh… well, I suppose it suits you.”
“Yes. It does.”
Thankfully, Lemon kept silent for a while after that. The crease lines crept back onto her face. Perhaps she’d sensed the heat rushing out under those words.
By now, the corridor was curving round, determined to follow the curvature of the dome above ground. Double doors occasionally surged past on their left, and Fluttershy wondered if they led to more stairs, going further down into the depths of the planet. Her imagination showed her an underground city, hidden beneath the real one. Or maybe there were caves holding monstrous machines, each one as big as the biggest buildings under the sky.
“Not joshing you this time,” said Lemon, for the first time sounding as though she could keep her emotions in check. “Why did you join, if I may ask?”
Fluttershy watched the windows go by. Why wouldn’t I join? Everyone knows about the project –
Gulping, she cut that thought off. Too much like a glory-hunter.
She tried again. Because it’s fascinating. Because new species could be new friends. Because maybe, maybe then, I’ll make new friends who won’t whisper behind my back, or make animal noises when I walk out of the room, or… or tell me I’m “seriously starting to scare them now”. No! I’ve wrapped a cocoon around myself for far too long –
“It’s… new,” she said, and cursed herself for it.
Suspiciously, Lemon smiled sidelong at her. “Yeah. It is, ain’t it? Here, my stop’s coming up. Hold on a sec.”
They paused at the next doorway on their right. Oddly, this one had no windows: not on either side, and not on the door itself. Lemon fumbled with the padlock.
“Wh…?” breathed Fluttershy.
“I know where all the nooks and crannies are in this place,” said Lemon, pausing only to swear at the lock and make Fluttershy wince. “Those other unicorns will tell you they’ve seen things that’d make your jaw drop. Me? I’ve seen things that’d make your brains drop. I got the knowing of the layout, and the keys to every single room in this dome. Best of all, I’m the mare every department needs.”
She turned and winked at Fluttershy. “What am I?”
The padlock clicked. The door swung open. Hardly daring to breathe, Fluttershy peered over the smirking face to see what lay beyond…
One wheel was squeaking when the trolley rolled out. Buckets sloshed. Mops and brooms rattled in the holders.
“Huh?” said Fluttershy.
A cap landed on Lemon Hearts’ curls. “I also do maintenance and security shifts.”
“You’re… a janitor?”
Lemon patted the cap. “No, no, my dear. I’m not a janitor.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“I’m the janitor.”
“Ah.”
“Impressed?”
“Uh…”
“This place would fall apart without me, you know.”
“But…”
“And I have to clean up after a party. Though fair’s fair, I usually make the biggest messes.”
“But you… you…”
“It’s not that bad, you know. Janitoring’s a noble and ancient profession. Goes right back to serfdom, it does.”
“But you talked… to Twilight…”
Lemon kicked the door shut. “OK, look, I was a dropout and I needed the dough. You ever scrubbed a toilet for some ungrateful little PhD swot? I gotta get my fun where I can. Anyway, Twilight won’t dare sack me.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath. “You were talking to Twilight. The H-Head of the Equiverse project. And-And y-y-you were rude.”
“Yep!” said Lemon happily.
The enormity of the confession washed over Fluttershy until she staggered where she stood. “Oh my…”
“I notice you’re talking a lot more now. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
Too late, Fluttershy bit her lip. The corridor slowly began to spin around her. She breathed heavily.
“All right, all right! I’ll tell you what.” Hooves gripped her by the shoulders; Lemon’s wide eyes filled her vision. “I’ll show you where you’ll be working and you don’t hurl on the tiles. How’s that sound?”
“Working?” Fluttershy edged backwards, but those hooves had a grip like iron.
“Look, it was a bit much of me, fair enough. Let’s slow down a bit, shall we? Somewhere nice to settle in, and then we’ll go our separate ways. Come on. Follow me. We’ve almost done a full circle anyway.”
Already, Fluttershy’s chest squeezed itself with the effort of going on, while the shocks of the last few minutes battered her brain. Several doors further along, Lemon’s squeaking trolley stopped with another slosh of liquid.
“Home sweet home.” She pushed the door open, but her voice trembled a bit like glass about to slip out of a feeble grip. “Look? See how nice that is? Your very own room, right here in the dome. All for you. Hooray.”
Whether it was the tone of voice or simply her system getting to grips with current events, Fluttershy made her way into the room without the slightest trace of stagger.
Bare floorboards greeted her. Bare walls greeted her. Only the hanging bulb stopped the ceiling from being bare, but it greeted her all the same.
“Sorry about the smell,” said Lemon. “The last pony who used this room cleared it out. Tables, chairs, plastic board thingy: they took the lot. I was going to refurb it, but what with one thing or another…”
“That’s OK,” said Fluttershy, glancing from corner to corner. She sniffed, and caught the distinct scent of rat in the still air.
It’s perfect, she thought.
“I really am sorry.” Lemon backed away, wheel squeaking when Fluttershy turned to face her. “It’s the best we can do for now. I mean, sure I run the place all by myself, and those smarmy devils took all the best rooms, but… There you have it.”
Who knows? Maybe I AM going to make new friends here after all. “Any food?” she said.
Lemon stopped backing away. “Food? Oh, you mean the cafeteria. Sure. Right this way.”
They had to go upstairs again for this one. Fluttershy was disappointed; she’d hoped the cafeteria had been another subterranean marvel. Then again, none of the rooms had been marvels.
Fluttershy’s mind panicked. That was to say, she was sure they were a fine bunch of rooms, she wouldn’t say anything against them, only… only not quite marvels in the way she’d been thinking. She could be wrong, of course. Not her cup of tea, and all that. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
However, the cafeteria caught her breath. This wasn’t the crummy little room she’d gotten used to at St Meadow’s College, which was basically a wider part of the corridor with a counter on one side and a dozen chairs on the other. This was an emporium of hassocks and beanbags and hay bales and lounge chairs and benches and bar stools. Half the room was open, whereas the other half had cubicles; she flapped her wings to see over them, and spotted the thick glass partitions sealing many of them off.
“Whoa,” she murmured. Echoes of her “whoa” sang back, guided by the harmonics of the curved ceiling.
“Yeah,” said Lemon with a chuckle. “It takes newbies like that. Some bright spark had the idea of splitting the room for… what’re the terms now? Oh yeah, extraverts and introverts. Don’t ask me which is which. The open plan’s for the kinds who like to mingle. The closed rooms are for the kinds who like time to themselves. Kinda neat, considering we got all sorts here.”
And that counter… She could see the white tiles and hanging pans of the kitchens beyond. There were five-star restaurants that would love to have kitchens like those…
“Special treatment,” muttered Lemon in disgust. “When the whole world’s watching, you put on a show. They’re –” she spat again “– ‘celebrities’ now. Mind you, the old guard are pretty darn kooky.”
And they even had menus! Menus in a cafeteria! “Oh. Sorry. Kooky?”
“Twilight and the others. The ones who started it all. Yeah, don’t let Twilight’s ‘We’re all in this together’ shtick pull the wool over your eyes. She’s crazy ambitious. Mad over Celestia too. Figures: you take a pony who can’t even sack a lippy janitor ‘cause she’s scared of looking snobby, and then give her a whiff of royalty so she bends at the knees. Sickening, I call it.”
“Uh huh…” Fluttershy remembered the worried, desperate cheeriness from before. “She seems… nice.”
“Oh yes. Twilight’s good at seeming nice. Well, welcome to the team, brave pegasus.” Lemon slapped her on the withers, and Fluttershy bit her tongue at the thumping pain where she’d struck. “We’ll have you drooling over princesses within a week, I’m sure. Oh, and uh, one more thing…”
Rubbing her withers, Fluttershy looked pleadingly at her. “One more thing?”
“Yeah. Can you keep a secret?”
“Uh…”
“Terrific. Hold on.”
Lemon wheeled her trolley over to the counter and reached for something hidden behind it.
Meanwhile, Fluttershy dreamed of retreating to her room. The dome was full of too many ponies. Too many eyes to stare at her, too many mouths to mutter about her, too many brains to think horrible thoughts about her and her interests and her looks and the fact that she was excited to find there might be rats nearby. Far too many ponies she didn’t know. Blank slates, waiting to ambush her the moment she got far too comfortable or far too nice for her own good…
On the other hoof…
She stared at the cubicles, with their glass partitions. Someone here had thought about ponies who wanted to be left alone. Someone had thought about ponies like her. And Fluttershy very much wanted to find that someone, because this was the first cafeteria she’d ever found which actually had cubicles like that.
Oh, and the rest of the building was full of wonders too. No animals, sadly, but it had all looked very impressive in a sciency way. She hoped Lyra ever got her Tenor thing to work, if only because it had been so awkward when it hadn’t. Moreover, there were lots of sciences here. If she was lucky, there might be room for her kind, too.
A clink of bottles: Lemon rose up from behind the counter.
“Prime cider,” she said quickly. “Now don’t tell anyone a thing. I’ve got to get these out before Twilight starts her little puritan hunt. Hold the back entrance open, will ya?”