Twilight was slowly walking through the outer perimeter of the camp nestled within the canyon walls.
She let herself take in the various sights and sounds: cities of tents like a Bedouin selttlement; more permanent structures of corrugated tin and brick; a couple of small horses, camels and cows milling about; great big open fires, and what seemed to be the modest makings of a homegrown bazaar. Everybody at the camp, except for the American soldiers, seemed to be a pretty even mixture of men and women, as well as all kinds of people from around the world. To hear the symphony of different languages was a very interesting experience for Twilight; it was as if Ponyville was a secret little hidden capital of The UN, tucked away in a canyon in Ethiopia.
She noticed, however, with a heavy heart, that there were no signs of white lab coats or pocket protectors or heavy machinery anywhere in sight. The only things beyond the makeshift city were the animal pens (jokingly called “Old Ponyville”) and a short runway near the opening in the cliffs, complete with a lot of large aircraft under camouflage tarps at one end.
“Uh, mom,” she spoke up a long time after they had finally parked the jeep and laid away their gear in Velvet’s personal tent. “I don’t see your precious lab anywhere.”
“Oh, honey,” Velvet grinned. “That’s not in Ponyville! That’s going to all be in Equestria when we get there.”
“I’m sorry- Equestria?”
Velvet grinned. “Oh, Twilight, you’re going to love the old country. It’s as if you were made for it… I would explain more, but I don’t think you’ll believe me unless you see it for yourself.”
“Try me,” Twilight did her best deadpan.
Velvet scoffed. “Hey, I know you. You wouldn’t want me to spoil this for you. Unfortunately, we arrived a little late due to the sandstorm, so we won’t be able to fly in until tomorrow morning. Trust me, you don’t want to do The Eye of the Alicorn run at night, sweetie.”
Twilight was about to ask what that even meant when a voice rang out, calling “Dr. Sparks! Dr. Sparks!”
Both Twilights turned around out of instinct to see a young man running up to meet them. He didn’t even seem old enough to buy cigarettes- a short, scrawny boy, really, with fading green dyed hair, green eyes and a big, toothy smile. He was dressed in tan khakis that looked like they came out of a catalogue. He also had a pocket protector.
Velvet smiled. “Spike!”
Spike ran up to her and gave her a hug. “Good to see ya again, doc! It was getting boring just taking to all the animals wandering around here.”
Velvet laughed, and then turned to Twilight. “Spike, I want you to meet my daughter, Dr. Twilight Sparkle. She’s named after me!”
Spike snickered. “So, does that make you Velvet the Second, then?”
Twilight just looked at him in an extremely tired way. Spike stopped laughing when Velvet gestured wildly behind her daughter’s back.
“Um, ahem, Dr. Sparkle it is, too… I guess.”
“Just call me Twilight… ‘Spike’ is it?”
“Yeah. My name’s actually Sebastian Dragunov, but everyone around here calls me ‘Spike’… I just let ‘em,” he shuffled his feet, “do you think that makes me sound tougher?”
Twilight found that adorable as hell and giggled, tousling his green hair; he was a whole lot shorter than her, after all. “Sure Spike, whatever floats your boat, buddy.”
“Spike here is my best lab technician and my personal assistant at Canterlot,” Velvet grinned, “however, since I will be helping a friend of mine on a smaller project for a while, I want Spike to help you get adjusted while you’re here, honey.”
Spike started to blush. “Hey, are you sure you don’t need anybody to proofread those translations again for you?”
Velvet chuckled. “No, Spike, not this time.”
“Ok… but if you guys need someone- “
Velvet gave Twilight a glance that she knew to mean “don’t ask me now”, so she didn’t.
“Spike, why don’t you take Twilight to get fitted with an eggo by Pinkie and checked out by Doctor ‘Shy?” Velvet suggested.
Spike snapped to a salute. “Right away, Dr. Sparks! Milady,” he bowed and pointed the way for Twilight.
Twilight smiled, and then said sarcastically to Velvet as she left, “My own personal postgrad manservant… thank you again, mommy dearest.”
“Looooooove you, sweetheart!” Velvet sang.
*************************************************************************************************
Twilight and Spike found Pinkie’s service shop (of sorts) on one end of the homegrown bazaar, in one of those sturdier brick and corrugate tin roof buildings. As they walked forward, a very professional looking sign lit up; it was shocking pink and literally read “Sugar³ Corner… 3.0” on it with balloons and a cartoon of what looked like an equally pink tiny pony with a pink, fluffy cotton candy mane and big, blue Japanese cartoon eyes.
When they walked towards the door, the sign suddenly activated and played what sounded like digital polka as the pink pony became animated and greeted them in a high- pitched song, playing an impossible number of instruments.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome, a fine welcome to you!
Welcome, welcome, welcome, I say how dooooooo…. Youuuuuu……”
Twilight and Spike both cocked their heads at the sign, which had suddenly glitched out and froze up.
Twilight snorted. “Well, that was anticlimactic.”
“I’ll say.”
“Hi!” The same pink pony voice spoke from the door inches in front of them.
“Argh!” both Spike and Twilight shouted and jumped away.
Facing them was a young woman, between the ages of Spike and Twilight, who was in every single way the physical embodiment of that pink singing little pony on the sign. She was a very tiny, mousy in fact, girl with dark brown, frizzy hair that seemed to indicate that she liked to sleep on a pile of party balloons. She was dressed in civilian clothes, and had the same bright blue eyes as the pony on the sign, as well as a grin that seemed wider than Time itself.
She snorted as she chuckled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya! Was it fun for ya too though, was it? Huh- huh- huh?”
Twilight looked uneasily at Spike, who nearly sighed. He had the same “don’t ask me now” face as her mother often had.
“Um…. Are you the shop owner, by any chance?”
“Wow, you’re good at guessing games, maybe we should play Guess Who sometimes!!!” the tiny girl squealed as she bounced up and down. “Ooooh ooooh, or Monopoly! Or Xbox!!! My name’s Pinkie Pie! What can I do for you?”
Twilight didn’t think she caught every fragment of information from when Pinkie opened her mouth to, much later, when it finally closed. She shook her head and pushed on.
“Hi, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m kinda new to Ponyville. I hear I need something called an eggo?”
“Ohhhhhh are you hungry, too?” Pinkie put her hands on her hips. “Don’t you just find that soooo annoying? Oooh! Oooh! I make my own mocha- infused pancakes, do you want some?! I call them “breakfast option #567” and I’ve even developed a special chocolate- flavored maple syrup to go along with ‘em!”
All the time she spent talking, Spike had his hand to the bridge of his nose and was grumbling about something. Finally, he spoke up, saying “no, no, Pinkie, I think she just needs an EGO.”
Pinkie, already leaning on the side of her shop as she usually did when she subconsciously prepared herself for the strain of her extended soliloquies (or “Pinkie Time” as she referred to them), stopped talking about breakfast foods and snapped to attention. “Ohhhhhhhhhh,” she rolled her eyes, smiling, “Well, why didn’t cha just say so? Come on in!”
They walked on in. The place was pretty starkly furnished except for a couple items: some couches, chairs, a lot of wires and computer equipment, some hard drives, some monitors, some technological equipment Twilight surprisingly couldn’t readily identify, of unknown origin and manufacture, and lastly a lot of pink coloring and vintage My Little Pony® dolls and assorted paraphernalia.
“Well… that explains the sign,” Twilight mumbled.
“Oooooh, are you a fan too? Are ya- are ya???” Pinkie squealed. “I know it’s kind of an old show, waaaaay before I was born, but I just luuuuuuuuurve My Little Pony®!!! Sometimes, when the animals congest the streets really, really badly, and it starts to smell really, really ripe, I hold conversations with all of them… it’s almost like I’m on the show, too!”
That sounds kinda disturbing, Twilight silently mused.
“Sooooo,” Pinkie grinned at them from her counter, “Welcome to Sugar² Corner, ‘Home of The Original EGO & Pinkie’s Original Chocolate Maple Mocha Pancakes’. Pinkamena Diane Pie, at your service,” she pronounced her name with a slow, mocking regal flourish, “… may I take your order?”
“Um…” Twilight stammered.
“One EGO, please,” Spike finished for her.
“Certainly!” Pinkie squealed. “What size?”
Spike looked at Twilight, and then at Pinkie. “I don’t think she’s been sized yet.”
“Oooh! Let’s get that done now, missy!” Pinkie leaped across the counter and led Twilight to the couch. “Let’s size you up!!!”
“Um, guys…” Twilight replied, “…you do know that hazing is illegal, right?”
“Relax…” Spike smiled, and then started to explain for her. “EGO, or ‘eggo’, stands for Emitter, General, Organizer. It’s like a cross between a holographic projector and a wrist- mounted personal computer. I’ll show you…”
Spike rolled up his left sleeve and revealed a thick band covering the top of his left forearm. It was made up of a smooth, nearly plastic material that reflected a bright purple. Running along the device was a thin grid of something bright, green and kind of metallic. He brought his right hand towards his left forearm and the green grid glowed blue from under it; suddenly, various pictures and what looked like browsers filled the air surrounding the top of his forearm, and Twilight gasped in surprise.
“Wooooah…” she breathed. “I definitely need one of those!”
“Well, then, let’s get a- crack- a lackin’, then!” Pinkie shouted. “One sizing, coming up!”
And with that she started to attach little electrodes to Twilight’s head.
Twilight became worried. “Uh, Spike…”
“Don’t worry, this is absolutely normal sizing procedure… even without Pinkie Pie.”
She looked back at her assistant. “…Ok.”
Pinkie never stopped randomly singing and humming the entire time she was plugging things onto Twilight’s skull. “Alright, so say we need to connect your nervous system to anything from your ‘leggo my eggo’ unit to the very mainframe of Canterlot itself,” she finally started to explain to Twilight. “This means that we need to do a “sizing”; what this does is measure the level of synchronicity that you have with the software in order to be able to accurately calculate your data processing rate, and adjust for any personal neurochemical specifications.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Twilight replied.
“Yeah… doesn’t it?” Pinkie sighed, as if the realization of such in itself bored her. “But not for long, baby cakes!!! I’m guessing you’re going where I’m going tomorrow… Canterlot, right? Right? Oh, please tell me that I’m right, oh please, please, please…”
“You’re right,” Twilight laughed nervously.
“Yes! I win! And you know what that means? It means I owe myself exactly 28 and 1/8th cookies!” Pinkie pumped her fist in victory. “Ok, so a normal synchronization rate is somewhere between 22% to like 44.5%. You should end up somewhere between there!”
Pinkie tapped some holographic keys on her eggo and the little things on Twilight’s head started lighting up and beeping.
“Ok, looks good. Initializing a program run- through… ok, we’re getting a rating already…” Pinkie was watching a complicated series of images on her computer monitors.
Twilight looked around nervously. She never liked taking tests, even though she was thoroughly determined to thrive on them.
“Ok, 16%... 19%.... 23%, we have minimum necessary synchronization…”
Twilight blew a sigh of relief. She would make the curve.
“27%.... 31%... 34%.... 37%.... wowsers, Twilight, you’re really synchronizin’!”
Twilight watched the screens with curiosity.
“39%... 40%... um, 42%? 46%? 59%?” Pinkie’s usual bubbliness died down. “Wait, this can’t be right…”
“What’s wrong?” a tinge of worry started to creep into Twilight’s voice.
“Didn’t you say it would be between 22% and 44.5%?” Spike asked.
“I’ve done thousands of sizings, this can’t be possible,” Pinkie wondered as the charts continued to climb. “Nobody’s ever had this high a synchronization rating, ever! Like, nobody. And I designed the freaky- tiki- deaky system!”
“Is that bad?” Twilight inquired.
“Huh?” Pinkie turned around to her before looking back at the computers. “No, it’s not dangerous or anything, it’s just…” the computer beeped and Pinkie read the data collected. “Well, for starters, your score here…”
“What’s my final score?” Twilight inquired cautiously.
“…A 118.2% synchronization rating.” Pinkie looked at her.
Spike looked at Pinkie. “Wait, isn’t that impossible?”
“It should be,” Pinkie licked her lips and pondered it over. “Otherwise, I’ll have to redesign the system… well anyways,” she looked back at Twilight, clapping her hands, “I think you’ll like what I have in store for you!”
She went into a small closet in the back before coming back out with a nondescript brown box. It was long and thin, the size of an eggo. On the box, Pinkie had written (in what Twilight firmly believed was hot pink crayon): “Experiment #626- EGO”
Pinkie opened it to reveal a brand new, white EGO, one with a much lighter, wavier and thinner shape than the old clunky gauntlet. On the top were two rows of three emitters each. She handed it to Twilight and, after strapping it on, Pinkie instructed: “Touch it!”
Twilight touched the eggo with her other hand and suddenly all six emitters swiveled to life and lit up. Every one moved independently and emitted the same amount of information and graphics as the big single emitter on most eggos; Twilight felt bedazzled by all the sweet, sweet juicy science. The array was all too beautiful, with each emitter forming six points around a star- shaped central shut- off button area.
“This high- rating EGO is only suited for the most sensitive users in order to fully make use of its six independent holographic generators,” Pinkie explained. “I’ve been waiting to test it on someone, but I could never get anyone to use more than 2 emitters at once!”
Waves of emotions swept through Twilight Sparkle as she stared at the little holographic information- retrieving device with the sort of passion one usually reserved for one- night stands.
“Twilight, are you… ok?” Spike asked her after a while.
“Gurgle- ahem… does it… does it come in pink and purple?” was all she managed to get out.
Pinkie smiled wider than the pink pony on her sign and nodded jubilantly.
*************************************************************************************************
He was glorious. He was breathtakingly beautiful. He was everything that she had ever wanted in another person, for as long as she had known about and subsequently desired true romance.
Twilight was in love, and yes, she referred to her EGO by a masculine pronoun for a while.
“Twilight, you’ve been playing with that thing ever since we left the shop,” Spike watched as his supervisor navigated her way between two donkeys without even looking up from the flashing array of her custom pink and purple eggo emitters bringing up all kinds of wonderful graphics and information.
“Why. Would. You. Even. Look. Away???” Twilight breathed heavily as she layered full biographies of Winston Churchill and Lady Gaga over a detailed diagram of the Large Hadron Collider.
Spike just gave her a worried look. “Well, um, because we’re here?”
Twilight sighed and finally looked up. It was getting rather late, but Twilight and Spike had managed to make it to Doctor ‘Shy’s clinic. Like Pinkie’s service shop, it was located in a brick and tin shack. The sign outside was decidedly more primitive, just a simple plank of wood with a caduceus with light pink wings under a red cross on it. A few flowery designs and butterflies were painted around the main symbols.
They entered to find a slightly more traditionally furnished establishment. There were pink, green and yellow couches and pillows surrounding a wooden coffee table covered in the typical magazine titles you’d find at a doctor’s office. On the wall were several calming knickknacks, like a shelf full of lit scented candles, a Buddha statue, and some Chinese calligraphy scrolls and watercolor paintings. The opposite wall held one of those light up screens to pin up and examine X- Rays on. A table under that device held some more medical equipment, and again Twilight was surprised that she couldn’t recognize some of them. As the pair entered, the door touched against a wind chime, which tinkled soothingly.
“Um, just one moment, if you’d please,” a barely audible voice floated out from the single closet in the back.
“What’d she say?” Twilight looked at Spike quizzingly, who only shrugged.
“It can be hard to hear what she says sometimes.”
The closet door opened and, almost reluctantly, a young woman stepped out, smiling sheepishly to greet her new visitors. She was about Twilight’s age, with smooth, very pale skin, watery blue eyes, which were a little greener than Pinkie’s, and long, luscious cinnamon red hair that seemed to almost drape down to the floor. She had on the usual field clothing most women had on around Ponyville, a t- shirt and khaki shorts, but also wore a khaki vest whose pockets were filled with pens, little penlights, and a stethoscope.
“Um… hello…” she greeted, almost looking a little scared.
“Yes, hello,” Twilight smiled. “My name is Dr. Twilight Sparkle, I’m here to visit Canterlot for the first time, and they said I needed a check up. Are you Dr. ‘Shy?”
Spike gave Twilight a look as Dr. ‘Shy looked at the ground and blushed.
“W- well no, actually my name is D- Dr. Felicia Cherie. ‘Dr. Fluttershy’ is just a nickname everyone around here calls me. Because, well…”
Twilight understood immediately. “Oh… do you mind that everybody calls you that?”
Fluttershy just shrugged. “Um, well, it seems to keep them occupied, so I guess I’m happy about it.”
Spike and Twilight exchanged glances.
Nobody really said anything meaningful after that, for a while.
Much later, it was Fluttershy who surprisingly was the first to make small talk as she was nearly done with Twilight’s check up.
“Um, are you by any chance related to Dr. Velvet Sparkle? I really wouldn’t want to just assume, I mean-“ Fluttershy asked as she finished entering information into her pink and yellow eggo.
“Oh, yes, she’s my mother. We actually share the exact same name. She likes to be called Velvet, so everybody just calls me Twilight.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” Fluttershy remarked, oddly; it wasn’t as if her face betrayed that she didn’t think that information was interesting in the slightest; rather, she just seemed a tad bit depressed about it all.
“…Yeah.” was all Twilight could think to say.
She looked around trying to find something, anything, to continue the conversation. She then noticed some beautifully rendered paintings on the wall next to the calligraphy scrolls, paintings of the animals around Ponyville.
“Oh, did you do those yourself?”
Fluttershy blushed. “Yes. I really wanted to capture the beauty of the fauna around the camp.”
Spike wrinkled his nose. “Beauty? You ever smell that beautiful fauna?”
Fluttershy sighed happily, and then suddenly clasped hands with Spike. “Oh, yes! Why, isn’t it the most wonderful smell that you’ve ever smelled in your entire life?”
Spike turned to Twilight and gave her a “she’s clearly crazy” look.
“I take it you’re an animal enthusiast then?” Twilight asked.
Fluttershy turned around real manically, slightly scaring Twilight. She had a look in her eyes, a gleam really, and a great, big smile on her face.
“Oh yes, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! How can you not love them all in their cuddly- wuddly, slimy, majestic, ferociously man- eating glory?”
Twilight was actually trying to respond to that. “Um…”
“Wait, so why aren’t you a zoologist or something?” Spike frowned.
With that question, it was as if Fluttershy was suddenly pulled back down to Earth. The gleam faded, and she sighed heavily.
“I… I…” she looked up tearfully at the two of them. “I’m scared to death of animals… even as I am simultaneously in love with them.”
Wow, was all Twilight could think.
“I’m sorry, that sounds… terrible…” was all she said.
“Oh, it’s not your fault, but I do seriously appreciate the sentiment, anyway.” Fluttershy resumed her work as before.
Realizing how emotional she just was, Fluttershy looked up, blushing, with an attempted grin. “So, uh, what brings you to Canterlot? Business or pleasure?” her grin then faltered, and she shuffled her feet. “That was supposed to be a joke. I’m sorry.”
“Uh, hehehe, good one,” Twilight tried to reply, “well, I’m a physicist, but to be honest, nobody has told me what I’m even going to be doing inside Canterlot, so…”
Fluttershy gently smiled again. “Oh, well, it’s always a great big mystery to all of the new recruits who come to Ponyville. Don’t worry, once you make The Eye run and get into the city, I’m pretty sure you’ll have your hands busy in no time! At least, that’s how it was for me my first time in Canterlot. I’m actually heading back tomorrow, you know,” Fluttershy explained.
“Oh, you’re going back tomorrow?” Twilight asked. “I think I’m coming with you.”
Fluttershy tilted her head and stroked her hair nervously. “Oh, that’s nice! Of course, you’re sure to be on the plane with me, because they only attempt one Eye run a day. Um, it can be kind of… well…” she gulped. “…hair- raising.”
Twilight looked between Spike and Fluttershy. “What do you mean? What exactly is this Eye thing, anyways?”
Spike and Fluttershy glanced at each other. “The Eye of The Alicorn is a spacetime anomaly,” Spike went on, “it allows us to access The Ancient City of Canterlot. However, flying through it can be kinda turbulent and… tricky, to say the least.”
Twilight tried to process this information in the context of her already accumulated knowledge base, but she was finding this harder and harder to accomplish as the night wore on.
“Well then… let’s just hope we have a damn good pilot, right? Am I right?”
Spike grunted and rolled his eyes. Fluttershy half- smiled, made a coughing motion, and a little squeal last. “Oh! I almost forgot, Dr. Sparkle, I’ll need to take a small blood sample, um, if you don’t mind, that is.”
“Oh... Ok,” Twilight raised her arm and started rolling up her sleeve.
*************************************************************************************************
“Small blood sample?” Twilight was moving her arm back and forth at the elbow, but she had yet to regain feeling anywhere along it. “Small blood sample, my ass… that Dr. Fluttershy…”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much blood outside of a blood bank,” Spike snorted. “Or a Hong Kong crime drama.”
“Hahaha, you’re a walking comedy festival!” Twilight groaned in irritation. “Geez, I am starving. Probably gonna pass out from the lack of blood pressure. So, what’s good to eat around here, Spike?”
“Well, actually Dr. Sparkle told me that she wanted you to dine with her tonight in her tent. You’ll actually be sleeping there tonight, too.”
Twilight sighed. With all the meeting new people, she had totally forgot she had to see her mother again, sometime. It wasn’t as if she was dragging her feet in the face of the proposition, though.
Well, not really…
“Fine. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” she said farewell.
“Alright. It was nice to meet cha, Twilight. And hey! Don’t worry too much about The Eye, it’s a lot scarier looking than it actually is,” Spike tried to reassure her. “Plus, you know Fluttershy’s, afraid of, like… well, everything that could possibly exist in the universe…”
“Yeah, I kinda picked up on that.” Twilight chuckled. “Thanks, Spike, for everything today. You really were a big help. Goodnight!”
“’Night!” he smiled back as he walked to his tent. “See you bright and early tomorrow!”
Twilight slowly walked towards Velvet’s tent. As she got closer and closer to the entrance flap, she might have been dragging her feet a little. The night air was now very cold and blustery, and the stars were littering the firmaments up above. Inside the tent held a warm, fiery glow and very little noise, save for that alternative rock album her mother would always play over and over again when they were both younger. For just one second, it was almost as if they were all back; her, Shining, her father, her mother, all together in that tent on the veld of The Free State, on a family safari together. Years ago, before her mother left to go off and do God knows what God knows where…
Twilight stopped at the tent’s entrance. She realized that tomorrow, after all the years and the absences, all the promises and all the evasive answers during holiday dinners, when Twilight came home from college and Velvet just happened to be there, she would now know everything. She would finally know what her mother was doing. And finally, she, Twilight Sparkle, could pass judgment on her mother, could finally decide whether whatever world- saving research she had undertaken could seriously excuse all of the severely crappy mothering she had endured over the years. In other words, tomorrow would be a real red- letter day.
Twilight casually strolled into the tent, only to find Velvet snoring, fast asleep on her bunk, surrounded by sheets and sheets of paper with some sort of squiggly, fancy code written on it. A box of field rations and a handwritten note graced Twilight’s own bunk. Twilight picked up the note and began reading her mother’s characteristically bad handwriting:
“Honey:
Am working on something for a friend I will see in Canterlot tomorrow. I may be asleep when you come in, that sandstorm!, so please eat something for dinner and sleep early when you get in, we have a BIG day ahead of us tomorrow. I love you, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning, sweetheart.
XOXO,
Mom
PS: I got a little hungry and ate the last of the canned peaches. You know how I love the syrup. Sorry"
Twilight smirked. She remembered how on that safari all those years ago, Velvet had eaten all of the canned peaches on the first night as well.
Twilight dropped into her bunk and ripped open a meal packet. As she spooned the tasteless mush into her mouth, she stared up through the netted opening in the ceiling, revealed by an unzipped flap on the top meant to keep out the rain. It was a clear, starry desert night, but Twilight was sure that, in some clouds near the airfield at the edge of the canyon, she saw lightning. If there was thunder, it was lost beyond the constant cacophony of Ponyville winding down into the evening.
Twilight found that as she began to focus on the end of Velvet’s album playing, her arm regained feeling, and indeed she began to feel very heavy throughout her entire body. Before she fell asleep, a single, random thought ran through her mind: she was kinda going to work with her mother tomorrow. Not side by side, working together, but a real “Take Your Daughter to Work” kinda deal.
Sure is a first time for everything, she finally mused before the darkness and the alternative rock overcame her.