Twilight toggled on the floor lamp beside her escritoire, as the descent of the evening sun had left the natural lighting of her study wanting. The Golden Oak was quiet, with Spike cooking dinner and Trixie tinkering with some broken magical gadget his master had left him, which he referred to as a ‘tepaphone’ (or something to that effect); so the mare had repaired upstairs to get a little reading done. It was a difficult decision (or, at least, she pretended it was), to choose between academic research or reading solely for pleasure, but she ultimately chose the latter — with her reasoning being that she wouldn’t have had enough time to undertake serious research, as dinner would’ve been ready in an-hour-at-most.
That hour-at-most chanced to expire only seconds after the lamp cast its light on the last paragraph of the chapter Twilight was reading, and Spike’s dopey voice rang out from the kitchen below, telling everypony that dinner was ready. She half-heartedly answered that she would be down in just a moment, and tried to hurry through the final sentences without tainting the atmosphere that built up to them.
Then the book was closed, the lamp extinguished, and the door shut behind Twilight as she trotted down the stairs to greet Spike sat alone at the dining table. The whelp’s scaly head was teetering on his propped-up arm, looking bored as he waited for the last ‘guest’ to arrive. One of Trixie’s less offensive but more occurrent habits was refusing to appear for meals unless Twilight herself went to fetch him. This began when he first started living in the Golden Oak, but unlike most his other annoying peccadillos, never subsided.
“I’ll go get him,” sighed Twilight, before turning to step down the stairs toward the basement.
“Sure thing,” said Spike, the words echoing down the stairs and in Twilight’s thoughts as she easily navigated the machines and workstations that littered the basement. She opened the door to Trixie’s quarters, without knocking, to find him looming over some deconstructed apparatus, which might have resembled an antique projector. He had written a few pages worth of notes, all in cipher, about the thing, and set out seven-or-so broken or besmirched squares of translucent colored paper which seemed to fit into the device.
“Do you know of any merchants in town that sell dyed, diaphanous vellum?” Trixie monotonously asked, eyeing the lenses in a conical piece protruding from the anterior of the apparatus. “Because I really don’t want to use cloth for the-”
“Dinner’s ready, Trixie. Come on. You can play with your old gizmos later,” Twilight hooked a hoof around his foreleg and tugged, cajoling him up from the floor and to his hooves.
“And the oil you use to keep the wick burning is also important, and it has to be pure — unadulterated; and I don’t know if anypony in town sells oils without… accelerants or whatever,” the stallion mumbled, slowly standing up. “I could always make the oils myself, but… I rather wouldn’t. I’m lazy like that, you know.”
“I know, sweetie. Spike’s waiting for us,” Twilight and Trixie egressed the room and trotted up the stairs, the stallion’s mind quickly returning from wherever his tinkering had made it wander.
Seeing the two unicorns emerge, Spike sat up and smirked, readying himself to recite a self-congratulatory rodomontade about the dishes he had prepared — something he usually did when he unveiled a new recipe. Twilight sat at her regular seat, already affecting a proud grin in anticipation of the dragon’s boasting. Trixie clumsily settled onto his own cushioned seat, using the same glassy-eyed, aloof expression that he had worn in the basement to look over the spread on the dining table.
The main course looked to be a glowingly aurulent vegetable casserole, and this was offset by the leftovers of a roasted butternut squash from the night before. Trixie, as usual, was the first to serve himself a few small helpings of each dish, and Twilight did the same for herself and Spike.
While Trixie looked up and silently incanted his magician’s prayer over the meal, Spike eased into his sibilatory bragging over his culinary acumen, saying, “I know it looks like it was hard to make — my, uh, ‘vegetable strata’ is what we chefs call it — but it’s actually pretty simple, if you know what you’re doing, like I do.”
The street lamps outside could be seen to magically flicker on, their warm jasmine light cascading through the glazed glass windows. A firm breeze rustled the branches of the Golden Oak.
Twilight and Trixie had both begun to eat by now, and Spike’s own serving was getting cold as he continued, “See, all I did was take a couple red and yellow papers and, uh, ‘julienned’ them (that’s a chef’s word, which means I sliced them really thin); and after that I minced some garlic, and sliced an onion with some of the squash I didn’t roast yesterday.”
While Spike spiraled into recounting his profound skill in cooking simple dishes, Twilight gradually and unconsciously tuned him out, instead focusing her attention on the stallion across the table. Trixie was quietly, delicately eating scant forkfuls of squash when he caught sight of her staring, then he smiled as he shyly locked eyes with her, before diffidently casting his gaze back down at his plate. It was in these small moments that Twilight was allowed to behold one of the great secrets of the world — something nopony else could see.
Beneath the rosy, painted veneer of a magic-addled antiquarian or occultist, beyond the imposture of a tyrannical warlock, and far removed from the ever present put-on of an egomaniacal superstar was the true Trixie — Twilight’s Trixie.
Just a few feet away.
“Trixie?” called the filly.
“Yes, Twilight?” answered the colt, sitting up from where he was reclining in the sunny garden behind Twily’s parents’ house.
“Could you hand me that bottle out of the bag, there? I think the dragon is hungry, now,” asked Twily, pointing one forehoof at a bag full of babysitting paraphernalia, and scooping up the infant dragon with the other.
“Of course. The full one, right?” Trixie levitated a bottle brimming with some off-white substance over to his little filly friend.
“Yep. Thank you,” Twily uncapped the bottle and gently placed the nipple in the dragonling’s mouth. Between gasps for air, the creature eagerly drank the concoction.
“You said Celestia gave you this stuff?” Trixie closed the bag and stepped over to Twily, looking over her shoulder at the nursing dragon.
“Mhm, and this formula. It’s got protein, and calcium — and other nutrients — with a lot of crushed-up gemstones.” She set the dragon down on a pillow they’d brought out into the garden, as it had grasped the bottle with its nubby claws and could nurse itself. “The book she gave me said mother dragons make this ‘milk’ in their throat, like doves; and they feed their babies like birds do, too.”
“Then how does it know how to suck the ‘milk’ from a bottle?” asked Trixie as he laid down on the silky, blue Canterlot grass.
Bemusement flashed across Twily’s features as she glanced back at the suckling dragon. A moment passed, then she giggled, saying, “I don’t know.” Then she joined the colt on the ground, laying on her back to watch the clouds sail the sky.
“When are you going to give it a real name, instead of calling it ‘dragon’?” asked Trixie, rolling over so he could also look up.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how dragon names are supposed to sound,” she answered.
“You could give it a pony name,” he suggested.
“Yeah, I guess I could.”
“Like ‘Leopold’ or ‘Fabio’.”
“Uh,” Twily looked incredulously at her friend. “Maybe a modern pony name would be better.”
“Well, if you want. It’s your dragon,” Trixie answered, and the metal gate to the garden could be heard squealing open.
Princess Cadance and her boyfriend, Twily’s big brother Shining Armor came trotting through into the back garden, smiling at one another and looking a little surprised to see the two children already there.
“Hi Twily, hi Trixie!” Cadance greeted, beaming with love for the two schoolponies as she trotted up to the baby dragon. “I heard Celestia gave you a new responsibility, Twily,” the alicorn joked, nuzzling the filly. “Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.
“It’s a boy,” answered Twily, proudly.
“Speaking of boys,” Shining Armor interjected, slyly smirking at Trixie as he slowly approached the colt. “I thought I told you to stop hanging around my sister,” he jokingly threatened, before snatching Trixie into his forelegs and giving the colt a vicious noogie.
“Stop! Stop! I hate this!” Trixie screamed, thrashing against Shining Armor’s restraining embrace.
“Let him go! It’s not funny!” Twily shouted at her brother, who was laughing at the ordeal.
“Shining Armor, you stop that right now!” Cadance said sternly, cradling the baby dragon, who seemed frightened by the loud noises.
“Twilight?” asked Spike.
“Huh? I’m sorry, what?” answered Twilight, looking over at the little chef.
“Can you taste the oregano? Or did I use too much?” asked Spike, repeating himself.
“Oh, no, it tastes perfect, Spike. You did a very good job,” Twilight used her magic to levitate another slice of strata onto her plate.
“I told you, Trixie. Maybe there’s just something wrong with your tastebuds,” Spike was vindicated.
“You’re right: they’re too refined for this… this tripe,” Trixie turned up his nose and pushed his plate away, only half-jokingly.
“Oh, come on, Trixie,” Twilight tried to console the stallion. “He was just joking. Eat the rest of your meal,” she goaded. “Spike, didn’t you have something to ask Trixie? About the clock?” she smirked, sipping from the glass of tea Spike had placed when he set the table.
“Oh, yeah. Hey Trixie,” Spike leaned forward. “Twilight and I had a disagreement about-”
“I agree with Twilight,” answered Trixie, and Spike looked annoyed. The dragon looked even more annoyed when he heard Twilight’s stifled giggling across the table.