"Can't believe it: she's late!" Waffle blurted out, tapping her chin. "Should we text her?"
The rest of the start-up crew stood outside Spectral's row house, with copious amounts of beanies and scarves and gloves on top of stuffy business suits, as leather shoes scrunched against the snow.
"Like I said, we could just take my car," said Spectral, already walking to his third-hand car.
But headlights flashed their way. Sunset's car rolled into view; her car window lowered, and a beaming Sunset shouted, "Hiya! Ready for the convention?"
"You seem readier than us!" Cosmic replied, then looked past to the passenger seat. "Starlight?"
"Yup!" And she splayed her forelegs forward. "I'll be your moral support! And some last-minute insights if you need them!"
At the convention center's cafeteria, Sunset and Starlight munched on snacks. Guests kept chatting with them during the break, especially the unicorn among them. Theorems were tossed here and there; a news reporter rolled in with camera and microphone shoved onto her muzzle, politely asking for her thoughts on Earth's magic-fueled future.
"You think this'll work out?" Starlight finally asked Sunset after a minute of peace and quiet.
"I don't think so." Sunset eyed the booth across them. It boasted of a crystal-powered home security system, divided into easily packable modules. "Hey, those guys are pretty much advertising portable magic shields."
"It's just an area of effect, though," Starlight said. "A weak one at that. They still need cameras, alarms... but I guess everyone really wants to save on bills?"
"While importing expensive resources from the Crystal Empire?" Sunset said. "How will you recoup the taxes? I should've consulted, like, half the participants here!"
Their laughter rang past several tables. Some looked their way, ties and fancy watches stopping to pay attention to the pair as they calmed down.
"Whether they get the grant or not, though, Sunset, it's nice that you'll still take them out for coffee."
"Yeah." She took her hands off her food. "I have to admit, they won't be the same. Twilight and her friends carried me through a difficult stage of my life, a forged-in-fire sort of friendship. Not to lambast the whole process—I'm sure it's difficult for college students—but this feels... mundane. In comparison. It's not like we're saving the world."
Starlight then placed a hoof on her hand. "But at least they'll be here when your old friends can't be. And who knows?" She lifted Sunset's hand and attention toward their start-up; they had foregone break time, now tuning their prototype and adjusting their pitch. "You've helped them a lot, and you'll do wonderfully with them if you stick with their project... but they'll be blown away by just having somepony with them once in a while. Perhaps a friend that can change their worlds, hmm?"
Sunset snorted. "You're sounding more like Twilight every day."
"Hah! Tell me about it. But I'm not wrong, am I?"
~~~
At the café, coffee flowed like a river, paired with sweet rolls and buttered biscuits. To the toast's clinks of steaming hot cups, they laughed.
"...maybe we really should've explained the costs of transportation and logistics more," Cosmic continued much later on, holding onto his pastry. "They want to scale it up, but making factories in the Everfree is a PR disaster waiting to happen."
"Hey, at least they know us now," Spectral said, waving his coffee around. "We've sown interest in what we can do. All we need is action. Just one of them putting in the funds is enough progress! Don't you think, Sunset?"
Sunset tapped her cup. "Yeah, I do. Plus, really, you'd be going in circles, Cosmic, if you dwell on that for too long. I used to know someone who got... nervous a lot, sometimes. On things like magic."
Cosmic blushed. "Heh. Thanks for the reminder, Sunset."
"And thanks for the coffee and free waffles!" Waffle said, raising her forkful of food.
"Thanks to you, too," said Starlight. "Being an entrepreneur isn't exactly a safe bet, high risk and high reward and all that. And it's not over, right?"
"Not by a long shot!" replied a pleasant Spectral. "We still got a lot of help from the accelerator, and if people don't want this prototype, we hide a bit, brainstorm, then find something else they want. Failure's not the end of the world."
"Unlike the real thing once you get out of college," Sunset said before taking in a healthy sip. "I can see it in their eyes. Those investors and your college went easy on you. For every successful rags-to-riches college dropout story you get, you get ten more who couldn't make the cut. Can you be ready to stomach that?"
He bit his lip. "We'll think about it. But we've got a good thing going, got some momentum. If that fails, we can partner up with a couple others from back in the convention."
"Mm-hmm. You’ve got boundless determination, I can tell you that." Then, Sunset pushed her coffee aside. "With or without me, I know you can turn that good thing into something wonderful."
"But Equestria's talked a lot about friendship,” Waffle cut in. “Having a friend from the other side's a big boon that way, don't you think?" But she leaned in, inches away from her. "But really, you're so sweet! I don't wanna move on from you. We all don't."
Sunset shot finger guns at her. "That makes two of us. I still don't wanna move on from you. All of you." Before the other two could ask, "I live here anyway, so we can hang out for more coffee, talk things out, business or no. I know a couple of other ponies I can bring over."
"Yeah, but Starlight's pretty cool already," Cosmic said, nudging the mare on the withers. "She knows a lot about advanced magic like time travel."
"We're not having that as an icebreaker."
But a pair of brows went up for Sunset. "If the people want it, Starlight, you have to give it to them."
"Then can we also talk about demons and your ill-advised plan to conquer Equestria with teenaged zombies? Sounds very interesting to me."
And they all laughed, prompting the whole café to look their way. A few more smiles popped up, as easygoing jazz music seemed to grow louder and cozier.
Finally, a few boxes floated onto the table. "Oh," Sunset began, "by the way, this was Starlight's idea! The idea of two friends, actually. We've got a few presents. Consider them our belated Yuletide gifts to you all..."