//------------------------------// // Chap. 15 - Love is Ice Cream // Story: Genealogy - (or the Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi) // by Georg //------------------------------// Genealogy - (or The Mating Habits of Nocturnes Pegasi) Love is Ice Cream Lickety Split’s Olde Fashioned Ice Cream. It was a nice sign over the front door. Lickety had spent over three hundred bits to purchase a custom paint job that was enchanted to light up and sparkle, guaranteed to bring in customers for miles. Guaranteed by the Flim-Flam Sign Company, of course. After the first coat of sparkly paint had worn off in a light spring shower, giving a fine coat of sparkles to his doorstep, and the illuminating enchantment had proven to only work in direct sunlight, Lickety Split had defied the fates and thrown open the doors to his shop, awaiting the hordes of customers all thirsty for his delicious ice-cream. It was his special talent, after all. After the first week, he began to wish his special talent was advertising. After the first month, Income and Expenses were conducting daily battles across his accounting ledgers. Equal amounts of red and black ink were spilled, casualties were dragged off to the recycling box, wounded ledger sheets were carefully placed in binders to recover from their horrible wounds. Income was losing. The last battle lines were drawn, the final golden soldiers had been thrown into the fray, but the outcome was inevitable. He might as well— “Proprietor! You there, are you the owner of this frozen iced creme establishment?” The tall indigo mare who strode boldly through the front door of his shop held a fractured portion of his sign in a solid indigo magical field. She placed it with a solid thump on the counter and frowned in a fierce and unyielding manner. Before she could say anything else, Twilight Sparkle came galloping through the door and shouted. “Princess Luna, you can’t just break off a chunk of his sign because of his spelling!” “It is an affront to the Equestrian tongue! My studies have shown the spelling of this word has been changed several centuries ago, but yet it...” Lickety Split was not listening, as the sudden entry of Princess Luna, Diarch of Equestria, Princess of the Moon and Night, Keeper of the Stars and Planets, Matriarch of Dreams and Ruler of Shadows into his humble ice cream shop had engaged what could loosely be called a circuit breaker in his brain. Sudden Exposure to Royalty Syndrome was a more common reaction than not among ponies. The ancient tradition of announcing the entry of the Princesses with great fanfare (and trumpets, if available) had been developed less for the sheer pageantry of the event, and more a warning for ponies of lesser constitutions to brace themselves or flee the room. Princess Luna held to the tradition while in Canterlot with no small amount of internalized humor, but for this visit she had left her Royal Guard Herald(*) behind, for various reasons. Still, the Princess of the Night had experienced the behavior before, and had a foolproof method of dealing with it. “I do believe he is stuck. Do not fret, for my sister has shown me a quite reliable method of restoring him to normal function.” “NowaitpleasePrincess!” Laminia darted forward over the top of the growing crowd of Office of Correspondence unicorns and associated ponies who had begun to file into the ice cream shop behind their Princess. Landing behind the counter with a sharp ringing of steel shoes on tile, she hooked one foreleg over the semi-comatose pony and dragged him into the back room. The awkward silence that filled the store was broken by a few muffled slapping noises as well as what could have been “oh for the love of Celestia put your tongue back in your mouth” coming from the back room, but after a few tense minutes, both ponies returned. The blonde-maned pony stumbled up to stand wide-eyed behind the ice cream counter and looked at Princess Luna with somewhat less terror, or at least with it diluted by being spread around two targets. “Now what do we say?” asked Laminia quietly, while standing next to him on the side farthest from Luna, as if to brace him against a strong wind or prevent a panic-induced flight. “Ask her nicely what kind of ice cream she wants and you’ll let me live? I mean—” Lickety Split straightened up and his eyes got really large. “Welcome to my store would you like some ice cream we have all the flavors listed on the sign behind me in cones and cups we’re very glad you visited and hope you have a pleasant day in Ponyville.” “Very good,” said Laminia with a smile as she released her hold on something the customers could not see, but which made Lickety look suddenly less pained. “What a large number of alfalfa flavors you have,” mused Princess Luna as she studied the ice cream tubs behind the counter. “The Chocolate Chip Mocha Fudge Ripple, does it have any alfalfa in it?” “No Ma’am! I mean no, Your Highness!” corrected Lickety Split with a sideways glance at the Royal Hoofmaiden. “Good. Two scoops in a dish will suffice, I believe. Laminia, are you going to join us.” By Luna’s tone, it was not a question. “Yes, Your Highness. I just need to wash my hooves first.” Leaning close to Lickety Split, she whispered, “I’ll pay for all of their ice cream this evening after the Princess goes home.” She eyed the Office of Correspondence unicorns starting to line up in front of the counter and added, “All of them.” After all, if she was going to accept this as punishment, she might as well go for broke, in more ways than one. * * * Lickety Split had originally thought his ice cream shop had been optimistically large. Certainly his balance sheet had told him so, many times, and in large red numbers. Now he found himself in the happy situation of looking out into the packed room filled with happy ponies each with a minimum of two scoops, and the extras who spilled out into the street and who were even taking up seats from the fancy next-door Prench restaurant. The Princess of the Night, along with her terrifying Hoofmaiden and some other ponies were quite comfortably mashed into his largest booth, chatting back and forth while armed with all kinds of his most exotic ice cream creations, although he thought it a bit strange that all rest of the formal-looking unicorns had stuck quite firmly to variations of vanilla. Now that the rush was over, his three little self-volunteered ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Scoopers’ plus dragon had all migrated themselves (thankfully) away to a booth with their friends and strangely enough a few unarmored Royal Guards, giving him a blessed moment just to catch his breath and mentally count bits. Even a faint little tune seemed to be coming from nowhere, making his hooves dance just a bit behind the counter and—Oh no. * * * While wedged into a booth at the ice cream shop, Laminia could not help but think of her times sleeping in a heap in her family’s overcramped bedroom. It seemed as if every pony who had ever been associated with the Book project was either packed into the ice cream shop, or lounging around outside in the evening sun, certainly all together a heap far larger than even her family’s epic size. She took an absent-minded bite of her Alfalfa Caramel Crunch and chewed vigorously, attempting to drown out the discussion ongoing between Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rusty and Princess Luna. It worked about as well as one of Pumpernickel’s ideas, because the Princess could have made herself heard in the middle of a thunderstorm. “No, Twilight Sparkle, I do not think my sister would approve.” *crunch* *crunch* *crunch* “I am not certain, Twilight Sparkle. You shall have to ask her.” *crunch* *crunch* *crunch* “Nay, there is no stallion who catches my eye except—“ *CRUNCH* *CRUNCH* “I said Twilight Sparkle has a question for you, my loyal Hoofmaiden!” “What?” Without the determined crunching, the ice cream shop sounded curiously quiet. Suspiciously quiet even. “Do you think Pumpernickel is in love with you?” The purple unicorn had an intense look, as if there were a great many questions stacked up behind those eyes just waiting to explode out into the world. “Well. I think. Well.” She stopped and tried not to think of the times she had kicked him in the head, or when she had accidently almost electrocuted him with the thundercloud. “He’s just dumb enough to think so. Maybe.” Twilight stood up from the table with a little twirl, spinning in place and holding one foreleg against her chest as music began to build somewhere behind her. “How do you know, he loves you?” (1) she sang, in a beautiful soft voice that somehow brought the entire ice cream shop to total silence. With a sudden shock, Laminia realized several of the unicorns from the Office of Correspondence were holding little paper cards which appeared to have lyrics written on them. She quickly turned to her father and stopped in shock as Rusty, Rarity and Luna all quickly concealed their own cards behind a hoof. “How do you know, he cares?” sang Twilight as the music began to swell behind her. A loud knocking at the shop door broke through the music as a thin grey pony in a three-piece suit and narrow glasses leaned inside and cleared his throat. “Miss Sparkle? I’m sorry to interrupt your number, but I have an injunction here.” “Drat!” Twilight Sparkle lifted the arm on a concealed record player with a quick burst of magic, cutting the music off abruptly. “Sorry everypony. Just let me get this cleared up first.” The purple unicorn hustled over to the front door and held a fiercely whispered conversation with the legal pony of which only snippets could be heard back at the table. “...but it’s just an interlude...” “...can’t I just pay the license fee after...” “...a montage is not an interlude, they’re completely....” Laminia turned back to Luna and huffed in exasperation. “She was going to set me up for a musical number?” “Oh, darling! Please,” said Rarity with a dismissive wave. “It’s the least we can do for you and your coltfriend. Pinkie Pie argued for a full parade complete with synchronized dancing and fireworks, but we managed to talk her down to a romantic musical interlude.” “Oh.” The Night Pegasus sat quietly in stunned silence. “She should have known to pay the license fees for the song first,” said Princess Luna with a note of regret. “I was so looking forward to one of your town’s traditional entertainments. Also her timing was considerably off, because Pumpernickel was supposed to be here before it started. I wonder what is keeping him.” A deep respect for his remaining sanity. Laminia coughed and got up from the table. “Excuse me, Your Highness. I will make a quick trip over to the library and get him. He probably just has his tail stuck in a door again.” The Nocturne mare scurried out of the shop as Twilight trudged back to the table and plunked back down into her seat. She buried her nose in her Alfalfa Mint ice cream cone and took a giant bite before grumbling, “No luck.” Oh, Twilight,” said Rarity with a sigh and a small lady-like nibble of her own Vanilla White Chocolate Chip. “You really should have let Pinkie Pie handle it this time. She is the expert, after all.” ----- For Laminia, her attempt at escape from the ice cream shop quickly became a nightmare. First the lawyer met her at the doorway with an apology for disrupting her ‘treat,’ but she quickly managed to divert him to the counter with the offer of free ice cream. Then Pinkie Pie and three other ponies carrying trumpets and guitars and wearing giant sombreros caught her before she could get down the steps. An offer of free ice cream worked to get them to go away also. Finally as she reached the bottom step, she almost ran directly into a pony that caught her completely by surprise. “Hello there, young mare,” said the female zebra with a smile. Laminia was set back on her hooves with shock. She had heard of Zebras before, and even seen one at a distance in the castle a year ago, but that was a far cry from having one inches away from her nose. The zebra bore herself almost as regally as Luna, with thick golden rings about her neck and one ankle, and a single large golden hoop earring in each ear that seemed somehow to balance the effect. Gold made a very good contrast with her dark coat and white stripes, making Lamina toy briefly with the mental image of Luna in gold before shaking her head. The moon’s silver fit the Princess of the Night much better. Laminia opened her mouth to excuse herself and start running. After all, the zebra probably had other business, and she wanted to get to the library. “Please ex—“ ”I expect you to learn the arts of grace, beauty, and court behavior...” “—cuse me, my name is Laminia. Might I help you this afternoon?” Laminia set her face in the most helpful smile she could manage and tried not to look like she wanted to be elsewhere, thinking of Princess Luna just inside the shop. “I am named Zecora, from the forest Everfree It is potions I make, from leaf, bark and tree You are the dark pony, designer of dress Twilight Sparkle has spoken of skills you possess It is she that I seek, the town’s trusted librarian.” The zebra looked behind her at the ice cream shop and the crowd of curious unicorns looking out the window. “May I ask what the Princess and all those are carrying?” Laminia looked back into the store and could see how the Office of Correspondence unicorns had all shied out of line of sight between her and Princess Luna, who looked at them both with a patient royal smile. Setup! , said some small portion of her mind, and she turned back to the conversation with sadistic glee. “It is my punishment, I fear, for behavior most bad My actions and words have made many mad They are all eating ice cream, for which I have paid Please join them, my treat! While I go and get—Pumpernickel from the library.” A sparkle seemed to dance in the Zebra’s eyes and a broad grin covered her face. “Thank you, fine pony with coat made of night I accept your offer, it seems very right Hurry off on your task, to the library fly I’ll await your return, while this ice cream I try.” Zecora turned away and trotted through the doors of the ice cream shop, parting the unicorns in her path. Laminia turned and trotted in the other direction as fast as she could, while muttering to herself about her treacherous mind and just where that darned last verse had almost gone. (*) Both the title and the name of Herald currently belonged to a fairly old unicorn in the Royal Guard, whose special talent was the loud and distinct projection of his voice. Unfortunately that talent did not extend to making his voice pleasant, which was one of the reasons Princess Luna had left him back in Canterlot with the rest of the Royal Presentation Office. Plus the trumpets always gave her a headache. (1) That’s How You Know from the movie “Enchanted”, Copyright Walt Disney Corporation, please don’t sue me.