//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Coffee and appetizers and problems 
// Story: Princess Luna’s Unconvincing Disguise 
// by SockPuppet 
//------------------------------//

The next day, Rosie and I walked to the Little Griffonstone neighborhood of Canterlot and arrived at Sir Caffeine’s Coffee and Music around 4:30, and settled in to wait. Despite the name, it was more of a pub known for good coffee, good Griffon and Pony food, and cheap beer. We sat in a booth with our back to the wall, watching the front door, waiting. We were the only customers, so the griffon waiter didn't hassle us to order.

One minute after five o'clock, we heard her voice behind us. Rosie and I both jumped. 

"My friends!" Merlot said. 

Merlot slid into the booth, next to me. "Apologies. I had to teleport, so I came in via the mare's room." Still was still stomping around in a walking boot, I saw, but the bandages under it were bloodless today. 

"Merlot!" Rosie said. "So good to see you. And congratulations! Doctoral candidate—feels awesome, doesn't it?"

Merlot closed her eyes—which were still blackened, and her face was still full of stitches, but the bandage was off her ear—and smiled, and she actually purred. The basso rumble from her large torso shook the bench we sat on. "I have earned many things in my life, but far, far too many more have been given to me, undeserved. I am pleased to hold a title that came from my own sweat."

"What do you mean, undeserved?" I asked.

Merlot's eyes opened and focused on me. The scary brilliance burned through again and I fought to keep eye contact. "My titles are from quirks of ancestry, and gifts are given me to curry favor. You are both intelligent ponies. Easily the top thousandth of a percent of Equestrians, or you would not be allowed in the front door of Royal University's maths department. You've observed and puzzled out my four companions, correct?"

Rosie said, "The bodyguards?"

"Aye. Alas, I hide it as well as I can, but I am of the landed aristocracy, the bluest of blue blood, as you no doubt guessed. My clan matriarch requires I be accompanied by professionals, although I can take care of myself—I teach fencing and hoof-to-hoof combat! And never mind my magic.”

“I bet you attended Celestia’s School,” I said.

“Incorrect. Returning to my bodyguards, the forms must be observed, in the matriarch's eyes. She is actually more worried about the pony who assaults me, than she worries about me. My clan’s reputation would be sullied if I accidentally killed a harmless kook again. I suffer magical incontinence at times. The results can be ugly. Regardless, I teleported to the mare's restroom of this place to escape my guards. I estimate forty-five minutes before they track me down. They know my regular haunts. Let us enjoy that time. WAITER!"

I looked at Rosie and she smirked back at me. Clan matriarch, indeed!

The griffon came to the table and took our orders for coffee (Merlot) and tea (Rosie and I). Merlot ordered an appetizer of split, battered, and deep-fried onion, and instructed the waiter, "No meat or grease, please. Pony-style vegan preparation."

The griffon said, "Yes, Madam Merlot," and headed for the kitchen. So: she was enough of a regular the waiter knew her name. 

Merlot continued, "I cannot abide meat or animal products. I eat dairy and eggs for protein, but under protest. They know to use an egg-free batter for my onion. I was not born in Equestria, and before I... came here... as a filly, there was a period of lean winters where I had to choose between meat or death by starvation. Obviously, I am alive, so you can infer what I chose. Never again."

"Then why did you pick a griffon restaurant?" I asked.

"The food is actually quite good, and griffons make coffee with more attention to water temperature, total dissolved solids, and pH than ponies. Good coffee is worth a careful reminder to the waiter. I have discovered that we recovering alcoholics drink much coffee—you should see the coffee pot deplete at the meetings I attend."

"Hey, Merlot?" Rosie said, her ears wiliting. "I'm sorry I suggested we go bar crawling and get puking drunk again. I didn't know you were, you know, pulling the wagon."

The waiter returned, a tray on his outstretched wing. I noticed griffon wings look rather different up-close compared to pony wings. Now that I'd been dating Rosie for four weeks and was such a pony-wing expert, myself.

He put mugs in front of each of us, and carafes of coffee and tea down. "Your onion's been breaded, and it's frying in fresh peanut oil. No eggs, meat, or fish."

Merlot bowed her head and flicked her ears. "My thanks, Glenwood Griffon."

"Leave your usual tip and it'll be even, Madam Merlot." He walked off.

"You're a good tipper, huh?" I asked.

Merlot shrugged. "I reiterate my point: you two are very smart ponies. I shall not waste our precious time in false modesty. Money is as free as air to me. So I try to be a nice pony. I was not always such, previously."

"Well, thanks for offering to treat us tonight, regardless," Rosie said.

"You're most welcome! As I said, I pursue my doctorate mainly to meet ponies closer to my own age."

"Would you be offended if I asked how old you are?" Rosie said.

Merlot's ears flattened. "Despite the enchanted identification card I possessed when we went bar-crawling a few months back... I am nineteen."

I whistled, unconsciously. I was coming up on twenty-nine, and I was typical for a PhD graduate! Given the virtuosity with which she had presented her prelim the afternoon before, she was obviously less than a year from completing her dissertation.

A PhD at twenty? I said, "I knew you were smart, but dang."

She blushed, and the reddening of her already merlot-colored face, underneath the bruises and black eyes and stitches, was horrible to behold.

The griffon approached, with three plates, three forks, and a serving tray that bore a sizzling split-open, breaded, and deep-fried onion.

"It's hotter than the fires of the Dragonlands," he said. "Now that I've warned you, you can't sue."

Ahhh, Griffon customer service. Gotta love it.

A group of colts came in, wearing Canterlot State colors and scarves, and plopped into a booth across from us. One of them levitated a bit into a jukebox and the magic started up, playing some tunes. They ordered pitchers of beer from the griffon. 

Merlot scooped fully half the appetizer onto her plate. "Be most cautious. This culinary atrocity is the most calorically dense appetizer in Canterlot. It has tricked better ponies than us into obesity."

Rosie and I each scooped some of the snack onto our plates. Merlot shook malt vinegar onto hers. "Salt, fat, heat, and now acid," she said, offering the bottle. I took the vinegar in my magic and shook it onto my onion. Rosie shook her head no when I offered the vinegar.

"Wow!" Rosie said after her first bite. "That is rich. Merlot, how do you stay thin?"

She chuckled. "My problem is staying heavy enough. I exercise compulsively. My... clan matriarch often orders me to sit and eat, lest I stunt my growth. Those of our... family... grow well into their twenties. I wear this cloak in public, a personal quirk, but my ribs show when I am unclothed. Especially now that I have ceased consuming alcohol and its empty calories."

"What do you do for work?" I asked.

Merlot quirked her eyebrows. "Would you believe me if I said I was a secretary?"

"Nope," I replied.

"Would you believe me if I said I was Princess Luna's executive assistant and aide de camp?"

"That sounds more credible," Rosie said, with a side-eye at me. "What's Luna like?" 

Merlot's face turned dark. She scowled. "Despicable. The worst pony in Equestria. I enjoy my occasional interactions with Celestia, however. I see Twilight and Cadance seldom, but they are most wonderful ponies, and dedicated public servants, as well."

I said, "I don't believe you. Princess Luna is wonderful."

"You've met her face-to-face?" Merlot asked, then levitated another forkful of appetizer to her mouth.

"Well, no, but the newspapers—"

"You read the wrong papers," Merlot said. "Luna is an alcoholic, a fop, and sexually loose. She has rutted almost every male on the palace staff. Were it not for Celestia’s most strict injunctions, she would have rutted the guards, too. I hate Luna. The Canterlot Sun describes the details more accurately. Celestia, for reasons unknown, loves her sister and keeps the other newspapers on the party line."

"Then why do you work for Luna?" Rosie asked.

"One must do what is required of one's station and birth," she said. "I often envy you of the freeholding and bourgeois classes. Your lives are less constrained than us of the aristocracy."

"My dad's a wounded Guard veteran," I said. "He'll often mention that Luna came into his dreams the previous night. His PTSD is a lot better since Luna returned from the moon and started dispelling nightmares."

"'Tis nothing but her duty and penance for her crimes," Merlot said. "I deal with Luna for my day... night... job. Please, let me think of being out on a Friday night with my friends, instead of her! How did you two become romantically involved? Tell me the story but censor any smutty details."

More groups of college foals came in. Friday night in Little Griffonstone is the place the older high-schoolers and the college kids go to hang out. The coffee shop/pub filled up, the noise swelled as different groups fed the jukebox bits, and the griffon waiter carried a continuous shuttle of beer pitchers to the other tables.

We chatted with Merlot, telling her about our four-week-long courtship, and I described my six years in Tröttingen.

She regaled us with a story of teaching three Guard officers some advanced fencing with live steel. Because, she explained, her frame is too large for standard armor, she had received the cuts on her face and leg. She claimed the black eyes were "unexplained and surprising, indeed."

The coffee shop-pub was getting louder as more kids crowded in. I was glad we'd staked out a booth in the back corner.

"Why maths?" I asked Merlot. "You're obviously good at it, but you're smarter than me, and I'm very, very, very smart. You could have pursued any subject."

She popped the last bit of onion from her plate into her mouth and chewed, eyes narrowed in thought behind her glasses. "I am a talented magician. The University President said I teleported nearly one thousand times during my preliminary exam. I do not remember that, but I have no doubt it is true."

Rosie and I nodded our heads.

Merlot continued, "Inborn talent with magic is one thing, and I overflow with it. If one can tune a spell, tweak it, make it as balanced as a gyroscope and as polished as a diamond... one can punch far above one's own weight, magically, no matter how talented one is. Proof Pudding, your younger sister, or perhaps she is a close cousin, attends Celestia's school. You know all this."

I frowned, "How do you know my sister?"

"Luna visits and occasionally teaches. I accompany. Little Raisin's surname is also Pudding, and her coloration is identical to yours. Magic is, ultimately, a branch of applied maths. I study to make my magic more strong. I sometimes use my magic for the health of Equestria, or the betterment of Ponykind. I wish to have as much skill as possible when the inevitable day comes that I can contribute to the realm. That, and I like math. It is pure and unsullied, a product of nature, a fundamental part of the universe, not made by pony hooves."

"That’s not something I ever thought of," Rosie said. "Magic is a branch of math?"

"Opposite sides of the coin, if you wish," Merlot said. "All metaphors fail eventually. Have you done weather work, Rosie?"

"I got drafted to help break up the hurricane three years back."

"You, and every able-bodied pegasus for five hundred miles. Have you experienced that a tiny shift in your weight or change in your angle when bucking a cloud can greatly enhance, or inhibit, the ease with which it is dispatched?"

Rosie quirked an eyebrow. "How does a unicorn know so much about cloud bucking?"

"Rainbow Dash became drunk and talkative once while visiting Luna. I was in attendance."

Rosie said, "But okay, I think I understand what you mean.”

We heard shouting, and two of the groups of college colts flipped over a table, and squared off. Canterlot State blue and gold to our left, Polytechnic red and gray to the right. 

The unicorns levitated out switchblades and the earth ponies and pegasi slipped on brass hooves.

"Confound it," Merlot said. "My clan matriarch will staple my flank to my bodyguards’ foreheads when she hears about this."