Chapter the Twentieth, or “The Morning After”
I cringe as I feel a giant mass of muscle shift beside me. “Oh… so I see you’re up!” I laugh nervously, my voice squeaking a little.
“Eeyup,” he replies.
I turn around to see that his face was no less than an inch or two away from mine. “So… How are you doing there, Big Mac?” I ask, deeply terrified.
“Fine,” he drawls, keeping his deadpan stare. “A bit ticked, Ah suppose.”
Rarity draws herself up to her full height. “Now Mackintosh, you know very well that Applejack’s a grown woman!” she says reprovingly. “She can make her own decisions and doesn’t need you to watch over her like some misguided guardian!”
He chuckles. “Ah know,” he smirks. “Ah just wanted tah see him squirm a bit.”
“So you aren’t going to kill me?” I ask nervously.
“Naw, it’s alright!” he assures me with a small smile. “She’s smart enough tah pick out her men!”
I sigh in relief. “So we’re cool?”
“We’re cool,” he chuckles.
We all lay there awkwardly for a few minutes before I break the silence. “So, what happened to Fluttershy?”
“Sleepin’,” he grunts, pointing behind him. “She always falls asleep after this kinda’ thing.”
I look over him to see that my roommate had curled herself into a ball and had a little smile on her face. “Aw, she’s adorable!” I chuckle.
Mac looks to her with a loving glance. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she?” he says fondly, moving a strand of pink hair from her face.
“Hello?! What am I, chopped liver?!” Rarity asked crossly.
I laugh a little at this. “Are you jealous of your friend, Lady Rarity?” I tease.
She makes the cutest pouty face I’d ever seen. “No, but I enjoy have a few handsome gentlemen fawning over me too, you know!”
I turn to her and give her a leer. “Well, I don’t know about Mac, but I’ll gladly fawn over you,” I growl playfully.
Mac makes a vomiting sound. “Oh please, you two get a room,” he chuckles.
I turn to him with a raised eyebrow. “Were you not here a few minutes ago?” I ask incredulously.
“Mackintosh is always a bit iffy with these sorts of things,” Rarity giggles, leaning over my shoulder. “It took Fluttershy HOURS to convince him to go for our first round!”
“Really?” I ask, surprised. “Huh. Never would have guessed.”
“Well, Ah am,” he says sorely. “These kinda things ain’t mah cup of tea, and if it weren’t for Fluttershy, we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation.”
I turn to Rarity. “Is that what he’s really thinking?” I ask.
She gives me a rueful smile. “I honestly don’t know,” she admits. “I’ve never had a psychic bond with Mackintosh, seeing as he never… CONCENTRATES on me.”
She explains this with a slight shade of bitterness in her smile. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, right?” I chuckle.
“Actually, I’d better get going,” she says sheepishly. “Sweetie will be asking awkward question’s if I’m not there to see her off to school.” She leans over to me and kisses my cheek. “Good-bye, darling,” she says fondly, and she gets out of bed and goes into the other room, her clothes levitating behind her with a blue aura surrounding them.
I turn to Mackintosh. “Well, seeing as I no longer have any purpose here, I might as well get going too, so-”
“Actually, Ah’d like for y’all to stay a bit,” he interrupts, shifting towards me.
I feel a cold fear grip my innards. “Please don’t take my booty,” I plead in a pathetic voice. “It’s so tight and well-formed and it took a long time to get this way!”
He lets out a hearty chuckle. “You wish,” he smirks. “Nah, Ah just wanna talk.”
I give him a look. “Then can we please do this in a slightly less homosexual way? Preferably over breakfast?”
He pauses for a moment. “Ah reckon that’d be better,” he admits before getting up from the bed, wrapped in covers. “Pass me those boxers, will ya?”
I turn to find a pair of green and red shorts right next to where my face was lying a few seconds ago. I hold it as far away from me as possible. “Oh God, please tell me those aren't what you had on earlier,” I groan.
“Aw, shut up, ya big ninny,” he smirks as he grabs them from my hand. “See ya in the kitchen in a few.” And with that, he strides out of the room, leaving me and Fluttershy alone.
I sigh and turn to Fluttershy, who’s still sleeping with an angelic peace on her face. Maybe rock bottom isn’t so bad after all, I think as I fondly ruffle her pink hair.
She sighs sweetly and murmurs something I couldn’t quite pick up. “Later, Shy,” I smile as I get up from the bed and search for my clothes.
A few minutes later…
I walk in to find Big Mac fully dressed, sipping a cup of coffee thoughtfully with a pad of notebook paper sitting beside him. When he sees me, he nods toward the seat in front of him. “Y’all want some coffee?” he asks.
I grin as I turn to the cabinet and get myself my own coffee capsule from the box. “I’ve got it, thanks. Anyways, I thought this was MY apartment?”
He chuckles. “Sorry. Force o’ habit. Anyways, Ah suppose y’all be wantin’ a bit of an explanation?”
I pop open my capsule into a mug full of water. Within seconds, the powder causes the water to turn a dark brown and heat up. “Look, it’s Fluttershy’s apartment too. You guys can do whatever you want as long as you keep the noise down!”
“That wasn’t what Ah was talkin’ about,” he says quietly, sipping his coffee. “Ah’m talkin’ ‘bout your business with Miss Sparkler.”
I choke on my hot coffee. “What did you just say?!” I gasp, feeling my throat burn.
He chuckles. “Believe it or not, Ah ain’t just a dumb hick,” he grins. “Ah can tell when someone’s been travelin’ with Sparkler! Ah AM pretty surprised y’all managed tah survive my spell, though. First time Ah tested it, Ah nearly blew up the guinea pig!”
I stare at him incredulously. “What do you mean, YOUR spell! You can’t even perform magic!”
He gives me a smirk. “That don’t mean Ah’m an idiot, though. Ah was once professor of magical theory at Celestia’s School fer Gifted Unicorns!”
“Ok, something isn’t adding up: How can you TEACH magical theory if you can’t PERFORM magic?!”
He takes the pad of notebook paper and shows me a string of complex math problems. “It’s all numbers, if ya think about it,” he explains, pointing a finger at a specific formula. “Y’all know what this is?”
I stare at the line of numbers before shaking my head. “I can’t tell,” I admit sheepishly. “I know it has something to do with physics, though!”
He grins. “Close. It’s the formula fer sustainable telekinesis.”
I do a double take as try to see where the string of symbols and numbers would equal making an object float in the air. After a scrutinizing a bit, I shake my head and give up. “That explains the teaching part, I suppose… But how could you invent a spell?”
He flips the page, showing me an infinitely more complicated equation. “This is the formula fer chronic teleportation, or as Sparkler puts it, ‘time jumpin’,” he says with a little smirk. “Ah was tha one who wrote it.”
I stare at him, trying to imagine him crunched up behind a desk, working out math problems. “So if YOU were the one who made it, and you’ve already got it on paper, why not use it now to reverse all of the crap that’s gone on before?”
He chuckles. “Three reasons, mainly: One, Sparkler made sure there were a few mistakes in tha formula that I wouldn’t be able tah find so that Ah wouldn’t go blabbin’ about it till it was tha right time. Ah’m not gonna risk someone getting’ hurt cause of mah spell, so Ah’ll leave it be fer a while. Two,” he continues, holding up the appropriate amount of fingers, “we’re in a different dimension, so adapting tha spell to hop between dimensions would take ‘bout ten years, and that’s not countin’ going back in time as well. Finally, three: Can’t risk messin’ up tha time line at all. Any change that hasn’t been accounted for could have MASSIVE consequences.”
“Well, I feel stupid for not thinking about the last one,” I mutter under my breath.
He nods sagely. “Eeyup.”
“Anyways,” I continue, “how’d you meet Sparkler in the first place?”
“It was kinda an accident, believe it or not,” he grins ruefully. “Ah was workin’ on tha farm, barely outta foal-hood, when Ah saw this big blue box crash into tha orchard! Ah went out to investigate, and Ah find this beautiful mare with purple fur and a purple mane, babbling to herself how she hadn’t been a pony in ages. She takes one look at me and tackles me into a hug, cryin’ and tellin’ me how much she missed me and a bunch of nonsense. Ah went travelin with her fer about two weeks in her box, and Ah managed to get back home three minutes earlier! Ah’ve looked at things differently since then,” he sighs reminiscently.
“And you still remember all this?!” I ask, amazed.
“Ya don’t forget someone like Sparkler,” he grins. “She’s like fire and ice and rage… like night and a storm in tha middle of tha sun… Plus, she helped me find mah Special Skill!”
I raise an eyebrow. “Kicking the shit out of apple trees?”
He smirks and crumples up an empty sheet of paper from his pad. He throws it with a casual flick, causing it to ricochet off the walls all over the room before landing squarely into the trashcans. “Ah don’t think Ah’d ever get an interest in physics if it weren’t fer Sparkler,” he chuckles. “Ah was a bit simple minded back then, ya see.”
I stare in amazement at the spectacular shot. “You’ve got to show me how to throw like that some time,” I say in amazement.
“Maybe,” he smiles. “Now, why don’t ya tell me what happened between you and Sparkler?”
I grin and tell him my story. When I finish, it’s he that has the look of amazement on his face. “Ya’ll two KISSED?!” he says incredulously.
“Please, you think any woman can resist me?,” I say with a smug smirk.
He runs his hand through his scruffy reddish-blonde hair. “So if she knew ya, and she had such strong feelins right off tha bat… She has tah be someone who’s livin here right now!” he declares.
I nod. “That’s what I was thinking. The problem is that I can’t think of anyone at all!”
Mac stays quiet for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Well, there might be someone,” he says slowly.
My eyes widen in surprise. “Who do you think it could be?”
He thinks a little more, but then shakes his head. “Nah, that wouldn’t work at all…”
I start feeling a surge of impatience. “Just spit it out already, you dumb hick!”
He gives me a look of slight resentment but goes on. “Well, Ah think it might just be Miss Twilight…”
I give him a look of utmost disbelief. “TWIGHLIGHT SPARKLE?!” I say incredulously.
He winces slightly. “Sisters, Sebastian, not so loud,” he groans, rubbing his ears “Anyways, Ah’m just sayin’, it’d make sense. Both of ‘em have purple hair, can use magic, and are pretty damn smart. It could be worth a thought or two.”
I try to visualize the two women in my head before shaking my head. “Can’t be,” I say dismissively. “Sparkler’s human form looks completely different from Twilight’s.”
Mac raises his eyebrows. “How so?”
“Well, Twi’s shorter, her skin’s darker, and she carries herself differently. Plus, Sparkler’s impulsive, has rapid mood swings, and is a lot more emotional than Twi,’ I explain, counting off the differences with my fingers.
“Well, there’s that,” Mac admits. “But knowin’ Miss Twi, it wouldn’t be so hard for her future self to invent some sort of disguise spell. Maybe she didn’t want to interrupt the timeline, so she changed herself before travelin’ in the TARDIS.”
I shrug. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, huh?”
Mac nods. “Eeyup.”
We both sit there for a while, sipping our coffees. I decide to break the silence. “So are we friends?” I ask bluntly.
He pauses and thinks it over. “Ah guess so,” he says unsurely.
“I mean, we barely hang out,” I continue, putting down my coffee, “and the only reason you come here so often is because Fluttershy lives here.”
He nods. “Eeyup. Still, Shy seems to like ya, so Ah guess ya can’t be all that bad…”
“Oh come on, Fluttershy could like anyone,” I point out.
He chuckles. “Yeah, Ah guess so… Still, ya don’t seem too bad from what Ah’ve heard talkin to ya, so maybe we are friends.”
Awkward silence takes over again as we both run out of things to say. “Well, Ah best check on Fluttershy,” Mac says to no one in particular.
I nod. “I probably should go to Twi’s for a while to see how she’s doing. It’s almost time for us to go to work, after all.”
“Eeyup. See ya later,” he says, turning to go to Fluttershy’s room.
“Later,” I wave halfheartedly, going out the apartment door to find my probably hung-over secretary.