I still can’t believe that Lyra muscled in on our date like that. Granted, Twilight said that it was okay, but that was probably just because Lyra was so bossy. Still, I wasn’t going to argue against Twilight coming out of her comfort zone.
She was really trying hard for me. She was still getting used to being so open about her hopes, dreams and struggles with me. For the first couple of days, I did all the talking, telling her all of my embarrassing moments and other stories that I would have liked to keep hidden. I had been hoping that showing myself to her, warts and all, would help her realize that she had nothing to fear about being open with me.
And it worked. She had gradually started to tell me more personal details about her life. Granted, most of it wasn’t very interesting or was flat out boring, and other times she would start going on about her research, but at least she had stopped using that project of hers as an excuse to flee from me when she got too overwhelmed by how emotionally intimate we were getting.
I think part of that was me knowing about her condition. According to her, I was the first time she had told somepony who wasn’t a doctor or family about it.
Actually, now that I think about it, I do have a question about that…
“Hey, Twi, does anypony else know about—“
THUMP.
Oh, look, Lyra just walked into the side of the restaurant. That was hilarious.
“Rainbow, stop giggling! It’s not polite,” Twilight said, looking annoyed.
“Sorry, Twi, but I think she deserved that a little.”
“Listen, I know you’re still a bit upset that Lyra and Bon Bon will be joining us, but could you try to stay civil, at the very least?”
“I’ll do my best, as so long a Bon Bon does,” I said, knowing there was little chance of that earth pony keeping her rude mouth shut.
No, Bon Bon and I don’t get along too well. She hates my guts for some reason, and is not shy about telling me so. And I may have a tiny problem about shooting my own insults back at her…
“I suppose that that is the best I can hope for. Come on, they just went in,” Twilight said, trotting inside without waiting for me.
I rushed to join her.
The inside of the restaurant wasn’t very crowded. Well, I guess that’s what happens when you charge as much as they do for a single meal. And I suppose that helps with the service and waiting time, not having a lot of orders.
“Wow,” said Lyra, who had somehow managed to sneak up behind me despite going in first. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to actually look at this place, instead of just playing my lyre. I don’t remember it being this… extravagant.”
“Yeah, and it is a bit over the top,” I said.
“Those mean the same thing, featherbrain,” said a particularly snide voice from behind me.
I spun around, and sure enough, Bon Bon was standing there, an insufferable smirk on her face. I really wanted to say something, anything, to wipe that stupid smile off of her smug jerk face, but I was drawing a blank.
Luckily, Lyra did that for me. “Bonnie,” she said, “remember how I said that you can be a bit of a jerk? You’re doing that right now.”
Bon Bon looked as if she had been caught passing notes in class. “But… but she started it!”
Lyra tilted her head. “How?” she asked.
“Umm…”
“Hah, serves you right!” I said, basking in the glow of a victory that I hadn’t even need to lift a feather to get.
“Rainbow, now you’re being rude,” Twilight said, looking at me in disappointed way.
“Oh, um… sorry, Bon Bon.”
Saying that felt like I was trying to swallow something slimy, but it was worth it to stay in Twilight’s good books.
Bon Bon was silent for a moment, until Lyra nudged her in the barrel. “Oh, um, I’m sorry too…” she said, and the look on her face suggested that it was just as unpleasant for her to say that as it had been for me.
“Now then, let’s get seated!” Lyra exclaimed, clapping her hooves together like Twilight sometimes does.
“Very well, madam, right this way,” said the waiter who must have been hovering around us until this moment, but I had somehow failed to notice.
As we walked to our table, I took a look around at the place. I was right, it was over the top. It was kind of dark in here, but even then I could see the giant painting on the ceiling past the gold plated chandelier. The mural looked like a replica of the one from that famous church, the one with Celestia reaching out a hoof to an earth pony that was somehow up in the clouds.
When we got to the table itself, I had to stop myself from letting out a snort of laughter. The table itself had very complex patterns on the top of it, all done in small gold wiring under a coat of varnish. It may have been expected of such a high class place to be a bit fancy, but this looked like they were just doing it to desperately try to impress.
Not that you could tell from the look on Twilight’s face. She seemed completely unfazed by the ‘splendor’ around us. I guess that growing up in a place like Canterlot will numb a pony to things like this.
Lyra didn’t look to surprised either, despite her earlier comment. I guess that she plays in enough places like this to have seen it all before. Her jerk of a marefriend, however, was gawking at every little detail.
“Water will be here for you shortly, madams,” the waiter said as we took our seats around the table. He quickly scurried away, and we all turned to look at one another.
The silence that followed was unbearably awkward.
Finally, Lyra broke the ice. “So, Twilight, what have you been up to? I’ve heard some interesting noises coming from the library recently. In fact, a little while ago I heard somepony yell that you were on fire.”
Twilight chuckled sheepishly and shot me a glance. I, meanwhile was trying to hold my laughter. I had completely forgotten about that little incident, with everything that had followed.
“Oh, that was nothing, just a small accident with wizard’s fire. It was—“ Twilight began, before somepony else cut her off.
“Wait, fire? Was anypony hurt?” Bon Bon asked. Huh, I guess she does have a heart. She sounded genuinely worried.
“Don’t worry, Bonnie, wizard’s fire is just a harmless little magical trick. Nopony was ever in any danger, right Twilight?” Lyra said, before Twilight had a chance to say anything.
“Erm, right. Considering all the things that I was working with at the time, the fire was probably the best thing that I could have spilled on myself. Anything else would have been painful in addition to embarrassing,” Twilight said.
“Well, that’s what wizard’s fire is for, right? A harmless and safe way to test how a magical charge effects an object,” Lyra said, chuckling.
“Right. Still embarrassing, though,” Twilight said, shaking her head with a smile on her face. “Still,” she continued, “I’m surprised that you know so much about an obscure concept like that. I wasn’t aware that wizard’s fire was well known outside of academic circles.”
“Well, I did go to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, just like you,” Lyra said.
“Really? I never saw you! What year were you in?” Twilight asked, looking excited.
“Um… same as you… I even invited you to several parties…” Lyra said, looking awkward all of the sudden.
Twilight shrunk back too. “Oh, I’m sorry for not remembering…”
And just like that, the whole conversation frosted over again. Lovely.
Luckily, the waiter was there with our water to make the awkward go away.
“The water is free, correct, waiter?” Bon Bon asked.
“As so long as you are ordering an actual meal, my lady,” the waiter replied, his tone indicating that he may have had trouble with such a thing happening in the past.
And as he passed out the menus, I couldn’t blame whatever pony had decided to chicken out at the sight of the costs. I had had food here once before, but I had made the mistake of ordering without looking at the costs. I ended up doing the dishes for a week.
I know it was Twilight’s turn to pay, but still, I was going to owe her big.
Judging from the look on Bon Bon’s face, I wasn’t the only on a little shell-shocked at the prices. I idly wonder who was going to be paying out of the two of them, or if they were going to split it. After all, I know that Lyra makes a fair amount of bits from her concerts, and Bon Bon owns her own shop.
Wait, does that pay more or less than my position as weather pony?
“Anyways, Twilight, what were you doing with that wizards fire? Running some sort of experiment, I take it?” Bon Bon asked.
Oh, no. Please don’t get her started, Bon Bon. Don’t get me wrong, I love Twilight, but I find few things more boring than Twilight talking science. It was like having a different language shouted at you, without all the fun of charades that inevitably followed.
“Well, I was using it to test both the magical absorption and stress resistance of various crystals. I—“ Twilight began, but to my surprise Lyra cut her off.
“Wait a second, Twilight, I don’t understand.” Thank you, Lyra! Now I don’t have to tell Twilight that nopony can understand what she is saying
“Wouldn’t it be better to dunk it in kappa’s water to test stress resistance? It has a bit more punch than the fire does,” Lyra said.
Oh. Oh no.
“True, but that wouldn’t test the absorption. I need to know what a crystal’s stress resistance is while it is absorbing magic.” Twilight said, her eyes lighting up.
“Really? Does it change? Sorry, I don’t work with crystals much, more cloth.” Lyra said back.
“Oh, yes, some change their resistance dramatically while absorbing energy. Quartz, for example, changes from a resistance of 10.7 to…”
I tuned them out. I had a hard enough time listening to all that nonsense when it was just Twilight, but the two of them were talking so fast I could hardly make out what they were saying.
“Look what you started,” I hissed, looking at Bon Bon.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think that they would go all magical genius on us!” Bon Bon said, looking genuinely sorry.
“What did you think would happen when you asked Twilight about her research?”
“I was just trying to start a conversation, featherbrain! Would you rather us just sit here in silence?”
I glanced back at Twilight and Lyra, who were now scribbling numbers and equations on a napkin. “I think you succeeded. I don’t think we could get a word in edgewise even if we tried.”
Bon Bon grimaced. “I said I was sorry! What more do you want, featherbrain?”
“For Celestia’s sake, why do you keep calling me that? Would you like it if I called you a mud pony?” I shot back, having reached my snapping point for her rudeness.
“Why I keep calling you that? You really don’t remember, do you?” Bon Bon said, a rueful smirk on her face.
“Remember what?”
“You crashed into the side of my shop!”
“So?” I said, feeling just a tad defensive. “I do that to a lot of buildings. What make that time so special?”
“You knocked all of my product onto the floor!”
“So? We could have just picked it up.”
Bon Bon looked at me as if I was out of my mind. “Rainbow, I work with candy and fudge! It was the middle of summer! During a heat wave! Even if I could pick it up and put it back on the shelf after it touched the floor, most of it was half melted! And what the hay do you mean by we?”
“I did stick around to help, right?” I said. Oh, please don’t let me be the one in the wrong here.
“When has the great Rainbow Dash ever stuck around to help a pony that she inconvenienced? No, you didn’t stick around to help, and even if you had, your little stunt put me so far into the red that day that it wasn’t even funny.”
“I helped Twilight when I first met her!” I protested.
Bon Bon just stared at me.
“Fine! I messed up! Sorry!” I said as loudly as I could without making a scene.
“Thank you.” Bon Bon said, an insufferable smirk on her face.
“Hold up,” I interrupted, “you aren’t blameless either! You could have talked to me instead of just insulting me! I could have figured out some way to pay you back!”
“Like you actually would, featherbrain! You would have just laughed in my face!”
“And you know that how? Admit it, you just like an excuse to act like a jerk!”
“Listen, featherbrain—“
“Call me that one more time and—“
“ENOUGH!”
Bon Bon and I both whirled around and stared at Lyra.
Lyra looked mad. To be honest, I never had seen Lyra actually mad before. She was ether really peppy and happy, or kind of irritable when things weren’t going her way, but she was always quick to apologize to anypony she had snapped at. But now…
Right now she looked furious.
“Listen up, Rainbow, and you too, Bonnie. I know that I was just hoping to have a nice dinner and have all four of us get to know each other better, and I would bet good money that Twilight was hoping for the same thing.”
“That’s right!” Twilight said, looking just as angry as Lyra did.
“I was even hoping for the two of you to bury the hatchet, or, at the very least, be civil. Was that really too much to ask?” Lyra continued.
Bon Bon and I were both silent.
“Instead, what we get is a big argument as soon as Twilight and I start talking. If I hadn’t chimed in, how long do you think it would have taken for us to get thrown out? I know Twilight likes the food here, so how do you think she would feel if she got banned from the restaurant for your behavior? And Bonnie, you know that this restaurant is one of my best paying and most consistent jobs. Do you really want to jeopardize that for a pointless argument with Rainbow?” Lyra continued.
“Not really,” Bon Bon muttered.
“And Rainbow might have a bad habit of making messes and letting other ponies clean them up, but you know she would have made it up to you if you had just asked. Both of you are at fault, so I want both of you to apologize.” Lyra said.
Bon Bon and I looked at each other. “Sorry,” we both said at the same time.
Lyra instantly started grinning again. “Much better. Now, Twilight and I are going to resume our conversation, and I want you to say nice things to each other or nothing at all. Got it?”
“Yes,” said Bon Bon and I simultaneously.
“Thank you.” And with that, Lyra turned back to Twilight and they both started fussing over that napkin with all the scribbles on it.
I spent the rest of the dinner in silence, as did Bon Bon.
“Wow, I had no idea that Lyra was so well versed in magical theory!” Twilight said as we headed home. She was in a very good mood, having found somepony who could at least keep up with her when she started talking about her projects.
I, meanwhile, was miserable. “Yeah, good for her.”
“I know, right! It’s nice to finally have somepony to talk to!”
“What am I, chopped alfalfa?” I complained bitterly.
Twilight instantly stopped and wheeled around for face me, ears falling flat against her head. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant—“
“I know what you meant, I was just venting.”
“Oh, okay…”
I sighed. “Listen, Twilight, I love you and all, but never make me hang out with Bon Bon again.”
“I know that your argument was a bit unpleasant, but did you at least have a good time after that?” Twilight asked, oblivious to the look on my face.
I glared at her. “I didn’t say a word all dinner long.”
“You ordered dinner, didn’t you?”
My glare intensified.
“And I like to do that sometimes, just sit there and think,” Twilight continued, still oblivious.
“Twilight, you—“ I stopped myself before I yelled at her. It may be frustrating, but it is part of dating Twilight; dealing with her social skills, or, rather, her lack of them.
“Twilight,” I began again, more gently this time. “You may like it, but I don’t. Sitting still and doing nothing is about as far from something I like as possible.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Twilight said, looking downcast.
“No problem. Just try not to put me through that again.”
Twilight and I shared a warm smile.
“Well, this is unexpected,” said a new, very smug sounding voice. “Twilight Sparkle actually found somepony that likes to be with her. You must be the first pony she hasn’t just ignored.”
Twilight and I spun around to get a good look at this pony who had interrupted our moment.
She was a rather scrawny unicorn, with a red coat and brown mane. She had on some sort of vest with lots of pockets and a pair of glasses were perched on her muzzle. Her cutie mark was a drop of blood caught between two slides of glass.
But the thing that stuck out the most about her was the cruel sneer on her face.
“Um, hi. Er… do I know you?” Twilight asked, looking taken back at the sudden appearance of this odd unicorn.
“Oh, good old Twilight Sparkle doesn’t remember her old rival from school. Why am I not surprised?” said the new arrival.
She didn’t look too upset that Twilight didn’t remember her, in my humble opinion.
“Hey, you want to hear a good joke? How many Twilight Sparkles does it take to change a lighting crystal?” she asked, her grin somehow getting even bigger and meaner.
“We don’t want to hear—“ I began, before Twilight answered.
“It has to be one, because she couldn’t get anypony to help her even if she tried. I heard it before, and it wasn’t funny the first time,” Twilight said.
“Maybe not for you, but everypony else found it hysterical. Probably because it was true,” said the unicorn. “Well, now I’ve got to go, but just to let you know…” she paused before turning around and flicking her tail in Twilight's face causing Twilight to flinch.
If this unicorn didn’t leave now, I was going to hit her.
“That grant from the Canterlot Charity Society will be mine!” she yelled out as she walked away.
I watched her like a hawk until she vanished around a corner.
“Who the hay was that?” I asked Twilight.
“I honestly have no idea, and I don’t think it matters. C’mon, let’s go home.”
“Wait, you mean like together? Go home together, as in to your house, together?” I asked, not sure if I had heard her right.
“Yes, you can spend the night if you want,” Twilight said innocently.
“Really? You’re ready for that?” I asked, surprised.
“Ready for what? C’mon, if we hurry, we can have Spike help set up the guest bedroom.” she said, beginning to trot in the direction of her house.
I laughed. That was so typically Twilight. And I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
“What so funny?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just, thank you for putting me in a good mood,” I said.
“You’re welcome, I guess,” said Twilight, looking puzzled.
“Let’s go home,” I said, following her.
It took me a second to realize where I was when I woke up. Then I remembered where I was, in Twilight’s guest room.
It took me less than a second to realize what had woken me up in the middle of the night.
It took me even less time than that to jump over to the door to the room, where a sobbing Twilight Sparkle stood.
“Twilight, what’s wrong? Twilight?” I asked frantically, looking her up and down to make sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere. She looked perfectly fine, just a little scruffy.
Before I could say anything more, she wrapped me in a bone crushing hug. “You’re real, right?” she asked.
“Huh?” was all I could manage to say.
“You’re real, right? You and Rarity and Applejack and Fluttershy and Pinkie! Please tell me you’re all real!”
“Yes, yes, Twilight, we’re all real! As real as real can be!” I said, trying to calm her down.
She released the hug for a fraction of a second to look directly in my eyes.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said in-between sobs.
“I think you just had a bad dream, Twilight,” I said. “C’mon, let’s get you back to bed.”
“No!” she shouted, looking scared. “No, please, just stay with me here tonight. Please don’t leave me.”
“Okay, okay. I won’t leave you. I promise.” I said, meaning every word.
“Thank you,” she said again.
She collapsed to the floor, pulling me with her.
We stayed like that for the rest of the night. Twilight eventually fell asleep.
I was awake for the rest of the night, wondering what would happen in the morning.