"How nice of you to stop for breakfast," Twilight said, placing down a plate of pancakes before the unicorn. "You usually leave so quickly."
"Well, today is a special day, after everything that happened yesterday." He meant the battle, but also the way he'd passed out drunk on a couch in the castle after opening yet another bottle. Twilight had found him already awake and cleaned, and he would have to privately thank whoever had seen to that and to scrubbing away the traces of the mess he'd made. "How come you're back? I thought you'd stay in the Empire."
"I will go back there later today," Twilight said while sitting down. "I just came to get some equipment I'll need. Then I found you and I realised how I hungry I was, and I figured I could stay here a little for breakfast."
The Sun was still low on the horizon, its light entering through the windows almost horizontally. The kitchen was surprisingly rather bare, in contrast with the sheer exuberance of the living crystal it was built out of. If he hadn't had much more pressing matters to account for, he would have dedicated time to studying the nature of that building. It fascinated him, as did most other things in that world that were so alien to the one he'd lived in.
Although, he knew, there would have been other issues regardless. He was painfully aware of that, and he knew the castle wouldn't just magically empty itself of inhabitants even without the laboratory there. He did suppose that sticking to exclusively staying inside the building could mitigate the problem, but he didn't know for sure. He'd almost gone for a walk outside the evening before, or maybe he had, he couldn't remember quite right things past a certain point. Maybe his memories came from earlier than that, and he hadn't noticed them before.
Regardless of what had actually happened, his thoughts still compelled him to ask something before Twilight inevitably brought the conversation onto some actually important topic. "There's a filly who lives here in town, a little orange pegasus with a purple mane, isn't there? She goes around with a scooter."
Twilight frowned, more in surprise than botherment. "Scootaloo, yeah. Why? Did something happen with her?"
"Scootaloo." The stallion tasted her name on his lips. He shook his head at Twilight. "No, nothing bad, I just happened to see her and she caught my eye. If I can ask, if it's not being too indiscreet, what is with her wings? They, you know..." He didn't finish the sentence, instead he began to eat his pancakes.
"Oh. You've noticed too." Twilight also cut herself a piece of pancakes, then she frowned and looked at the table. Lighting her horn, she opened a cupboard and levitated a jug of apple juice out, alongside a pair of glasses from a nearby drawer. "I've never properly looked into it, I'm not an expert in medicine, but I have talked with her friends about it."