//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Solutions at the dinner table // Story: Walking on Clouds // by Kapuchu //------------------------------// I wonder what all that was about? A certain rainbow maned pegasus mused to herself, as she laid her head back on the small cloud she used as a pillow. She wanted me to teach her about friendship, ‘cause I’ve been friends with ‘Shy for so long, but... why me? I’d have thought Fluttershy would be more likely to give her the ‘lecture’ she wants. Oh well. She let out a small shrug, derailing that particular train of thought. With a small grunt the cyan pegasus got out of bed and headed for the kitchen. On her way, she passed the living room where Tank, the tortoise, was walking around, playing with a ball. If him pushing it with his head could even be called playing. “Come on, Tank. Dinner time.” Rainbow Dash called to him and continued out to the kitchen, where she poured some reptile chew in his bowl. The tortoise himself slowly came trudging out, one eternity-long step after the other. Rainbow would’ve facehoofed if it wasn’t because she loved him so much. He was the only one she had ever actually loved. A frown quickly replaced the smile she had adorned her face just moments ago. Twilight Sparkle, personal protegé of the solar diarch Princess Celestia herself, sat by her desk, looking down at a piece of blank paper. A quill was held aloft in her signature purple aura. She had been sitting like that for two hours since she got back from Rainbow’s, and she still hadn’t been able to get get anything written on the report for her mentor. Sure, she had given herself four days to work on the report, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t start with a hypothesis of sorts, right? All she had was Rainbow’s statement that she just spent time with Fluttershy and that’s why they were such old good friends. So far, all she had written was a more formal copy of what Dash had said, a simple reproduction of the cyan mare’s words. She sighed and trotted over to the window, no point in standing there and glaring down at the paper. It would do her about as much good when it came to the report as just idly spending time with her friends would. A light bulb went off inside Twilight’s head. “Spend time with my friends! That’s it! Rainbow said that she just spent time with Fluttershy, and that was how they became such good friends! I just need to be together with one of my friends for a while, so that I can learn how to be as good friends as Rainbow is with Fluttershy!” The unicorn was nearly ecstatic at this point. She had finally found the solution to her problem; spend time with one of her friends for an extended period of time. There was just one problem. “Who should I spend time with? And I can’t very well just drop by and say ‘Hi! I want to spend time with you. Mind if I stay here with you for no reason?’ No... I need a reason.” The lilac unicorn started pacing her room, muttering to herself, while Spike watched from a sideline, not daring to interrupt. He knew how his caretaker was when she was thinking. Three words summed it up nicely; Do not interrupt. Instead, he set about making something to eat. One look out of the window, or at the clock if you didn’t want to count the time from the position of the sun, revealed that it was close to dinner time. “So... What should I make today? I could make some alfalfa soup for Twilight, I’m sure she’d like that. But for me...” He rubbed his scaly chin with a claw, thinking over his options. A few moments later, and he snapped his fingers, having decided what he wanted. He hopped up on the kitchen table and opened one of the upper cupboards, peering inside. He smiled and chuckled as he reached out for a large bowl in the back. It was filled with several delicious gems; emeralds, sapphires, rubies, malachites, even- “Topaz! Yeah, I think I’m taking a topaz for dinner. Topaz and-uuh...” His draconic features scrunched up in thought, a dozen different recipes racing through his head. How did he want his topaz? It was an incredibly solid gemstone and would be a tough chew, even for him. Eventually, he just shrugged and took out the large topaz, put the bowl back into the cupboard, closed it and jumped down. He’d take a couple slices of bread and then just eat them together with the orange gem. “Twilight! Dinner’s ready!” He called after roughly twenty minutes when the soup was finished. “So... What did you find out?” Spike inquired, munching on a piece of bread as the lilac unicorn sat down on the chair opposite him. Judging by the look of her face, she’d at least made some progress with the whole ‘report to the princess’ thing. Twilight looked up from her soup with a thoughtful frown creasing her brows. “Well, I did plan on visiting each of my friends in turn to see who I should spend some time with. I could just pick one at random and then just spend time with them like that, but I’m afraid it won’t work like that.” She sighed, took a spoonful of soup and continued. “I managed to compile a list of pros and cons for each of them, and they were all almost equal! Same number of pros and cons for each of them.” She lowered her head onto the table in frustration, careful to avoid hitting the bowl of soup. “Applejack is dependable, honest, earth bound-- no pun intended. But she’s stubborn as a mule, borderline work-a-holic, and not very talkative. Fluttershy is kind, compassionate, and a good listener, but she’s incredibly shy, too scared to offend someone so she doesn’t voice her own opinions, and too indecisive.” “Then there’s Pinkie Pie. She’s fun to be around, very talkative, and you can always count on her to keep a secret, provided that you make her a promise first. But...” She let out a barely audible groan as she had to list yet another set of cons. “She’s far too hyperactive and will tire you out in no time, it’s nigh on impossible to get a word in edgewise when talking to her, not to mention that she can get so annoying after a short while. Rarity; She’s a good listener and talkative as well, so long as it doesn’t involve getting dirty, you can have an amazing time with her, and let’s not forget that she’s the best there is if you need advice concerning appearance or something else. “Her downsides? She’s a bit too prissy and focuses too much on being ‘lady-like’.” “Hey!” Spike exclaimed indignantly, slightly offended at having his crush insulted by Twilight pointing out her flaws. Twilight chose to simply ignore his outburst and kept going. “If you want to do something with her, it will never amount to much more than gossiping or dress-up. The big winner being her vanity. Sure, she’s pretty --beautiful even-- but it gets a little too much when she has to spend ten minutes in front of the mirror because a single hair is out of place.” She sighed, finally reaching the last of them. “And then there’s Rainbow Dash. She's probably the most complex of them all. She's lazy beyond comparison, but a really hard worker when it's called for. She's also a braggart but has the skills to back it up... most of the time anyway, and when she doesn't she possesses a determination to achieve said skills. She's reckless and rarely thinks before acting, but the biggest flaw she has, I think, is that she has a very hard time sharing her insecurities. I'd really wish that's something she'd share more of.” The unicorn finally picked her head up from the table and continued to eat her soup, a thoughtful frown the only constant feature on her face. “What do you think I should do?” The lilac unicorn asked after a few moments, watching her assistant over the rim of her spoon with an expectant look on her face. “Well...” Spike began, scratching his chin with the still living half of the topaz. His eyes had trailed towards the ceiling and his free hand idly tapped against the table. “You could try to visit them one after the other. Start with, say, Rarity? Then go for Fluttershy, and then just wing it?” He suggested with a small shrug, taking another bite from his topaz. Twilight sat there staring into the soup, as if it held the answers to all the answers in the universe, including the question she was currently mulling over; how was she going to solve this problem with that report to the princess? Was it really as simple as Spike said? Could she just spend a few hours or so with each of them, and then decide who she would try and spend time with to ‘learn the lesson’, and enable her to write that report to Celestia? It couldn’t hurt to try. “My only fear is that the rest of the girls will feel like I’m ignoring them.” Twilight muttered with uncertainty in her voice. “I don’t want them to think I’m favouring one over the other.” Spike reached over and carefully laid a hand on Twilight’s hoof comfortingly. “Twilight, they’re your friends. They won’t think less of you even if you choose to be with one of them a little more than the other. It’s perfectly natural! It’s like how I prefer emeralds rather than sapphires.” A smile spread across Twilight’s lips. Those were surprisingly wise words from her number one assistant. He was usually a little bit dense, but he couldn’t help it. His mind was still mostly that of a child so it was excused... Sometimes. “Thank you, Spike. I’ll make sure to remember that. Who do you think I should visit first?” “Rarity, I’d say.” He suggested with a smile that quickly turned dreamy as his thoughts drifted to the purple maned mare that held his fancy. Twilight only smiled a little knowing smile, practically able to see the hearts in his eyes. A few minutes later and they had finished their dinner. Spike was doing the dishes and Twilight returned to her writing desk. She had a few things to plan out.