“Okay, dude, seriously, do you mind?” Odd asked as he made dinner.
Card tore his eyes away from his book long enough to roll them. He turned to face Odd and took a few over-exaggerated breaths. “That better?” he asked, turning back to his book.
“It was, but now you’ve stopped again!”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Tron said as he set the circular table, using his talents to make sure everypony got exactly 51.4 degrees of space. “How are you so bothered by the sound of someone not breathing, anyway?”
“It’s just not right! Like, how would you feel if you pressed your hoof against something, and you couldn’t feel what it was?” Odd shot a miffed face at his friend before refocusing on the food.
“Fairly normal, considering how often I wear gloves.”
Brick Bones moved to stop the conversation before his best friends spent the whole evening sniping at each other. “Odd, are you done yet?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just send it over.”
Brick summoned up his shield and levitated it over to Odd. Odd began setting the plates of food and glasses of drink down onto it, but found that he only had enough room to fit six.
“Yo, Bones.” Odd gestured at the full shield.
“Oh sorry.” Brick made it a little bigger and Odd was able to fit the last plate onto it.
“That’s all of them.”
Brick made a noise signaling that he had heard, and slowly levitated the fully laden shield over to the table. He began putting each item at the place of the pony who had requested it, until he reached a point where he couldn’t tell.
“Hey Odd?” Brick asked.
“Yeah?” Odd said as he washed his hooves.
“Which meat is yours?”
“The one that’s more red.”
“Thanks.” He put the red meat at Odd’s place, just between himself and Silver, and placed the slightly charred one at Shade’s place, not quite directly across. “Is that everything?”
“Yeah,” Tron said, “Call them in.”
Brick picked up the whistle on the table and put it to his lips. He took in a deep breath and-
“Wait, wait, wait wait wait!” Odd hastily wiped his hooves and dashed over to the table, picking up the earplugs he had placed on his chair. He put the earplugs in. “Okay, now go.”
Brick blew the whistle, producing a very loud, high-pitched sound that swept through the open doorways of Everfree Manor, also known as the House of Card.
“About time,” Shade said as he, Silver, and Guile all appeared in the doorway of the main kitchen, Morrogar gliding over their heads to perch on the back of Shade’s chair.
There were a couple of minutes of silence, broken only by the sound of silverware scraping against plates, while the six stallions, and one colt, silenced their stomachs. Once their hunger was satisfied, and they were eating purely for pleasure, conversation was once more an option.
“So Bones, how’s work been?” Tron asked. “Still working the night shift?”
“Yep. That’s where all the action is after all,” Brick said. “And it’s not like I have much to do for mosta the day. What about you? Still lecturing?”
“Yeah. But Doc’s been trying to get me to accept a teaching position. Don’t know if I’ll take it, I really enjoy having so much free time,” Tron said with a smirk.
“Yeah, I hear you. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Oh, screw both of you!” Odd said to his best friends, a baleful expression on his face, before turning his attention back to his rare steak.
“Look on the bright side,” Brick said, “You’ve only got a year and a half left.”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, then you have to spend the summer studying for the bar,” Tron pointed out.
Odd groaned and buried his face in his hooves. “What is wrong with you? What possesed to you put yourself through this hell twice?”
“I thought we’ve established that I’m a huge masochist?” Tron said jokingly.
“There’s masochistic and then there’s deranged!”
“You’re yelling,” Card said quietly.
“Seriously, did your teachers teach differently or something,” Odd’s voice was rising with each word as he got more excited, His mouth opening wider and wider, revealing his sharp fangs. “Were you getting b-”
“Silver, if you would?”
Silver grabbed Odd’s abandoned steak knife, the blade still glistening with the juices of the meat. With one swift motion he plunged it hilt-deep into Odd’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Odd said in an annoyed tone of voice, cutting off his rant. He turned around to face Silver.
“Thank you Silver.”
“You are welcome, my lord,” Silver responded.
Card looked like he was going to protest Silver calling him that, but decided that it would take more time than it was worth. He went back to his book.
Odd groaned and looked at the blade in his shoulder. He grabbed the hilt and slowly took it out, blood vessels repairing themselves, cells reattaching as soon as the metal was out of their way. By the time the knife was pulled completely free, all that was left was a minute gash that quickly healed over. “I wasn’t done with this yet!” he said to Silver, gesturing at the half of his steak that remained, sadly, still in one piece.
Silver ignored him, returning his attention to his salad.
Odd sighed in defeat. “Hey Tron, would you mind?” He gestured with the bloody knife at the kitchen sink.
Tron took the knife from his friend and, with a swift glance behind him to get the position of the sink, lobbed it in.
“Thanks. Steak knives are in the top left, right?”
Card nodded.
Odd unraveled a small amount of his golden chain and cracked it twice, once to open the drawer, and once to take a knife out and pull it to his hoof. With that finished he went back to cutting up his meat.
The whole time the group had been sitting and eating, Morrogar had been moving. He flew from Shade’s chair, to Silver’s, to Guile’s, to Shade’s, to Guile’s, and Odd finally took notice.
“That thing is an ADHD,” he muttered.
Most of the ponies ignored him, but Guile was young, and foolish. “What’s an-”
Tron’s eyes widened and he began quickly motioning that the colt should shut up, but to no avail.
“-ADHD?” he asked.
Odd brightened considerably. “It’s an-”
“Boooooo,” Tron said.
“Oh come on, I haven’t even said it yet!”
Tron sighed. “Fine, go ahead.”
“It’s an Attention Deficit Hyperactive Dragon!” Odd said this with an unbelievably disproportionate amount of pride.
Tron groaned and slapped his hoof against his face. “Boooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
“Oh come on, that one wasn’t so bad,” Brick said.
“There, you see! Bones thinks I’m funny!”
Brick didn’t have the heart to correct his friend.
“So Guile,” Shade said as he fed pieces of his steak to Morrogar with his wing, “Anything interesting happen?”
“Uhm, actually, yes, uh, I’ve been meaning to tell you about that, actually.” Guile focused his gaze on his food, “You see, uh, when I got hungry, in town I mean, uhm, I found this little bakery and went inside. I met this filly named Silver Spoon and-”
“Way to go!” Shade slapped Guile on the back, “Not even around mares for a full day and you’ve already got them taking you home!”
“Wh- what?!” Guile nearly fell off of his chair in shock. “No, no, that’s not what happened at all. We went bowling and then I asked her to come to the New Year’s party, is all.”
“Good for you,” Silver said to Guile before fixing his sight on Shade. “How could you think Guile would do that with a filly he just met? He respects them far too much to do something like that.”
Guile decided against responding and just drank his soda.
“What does respect have to do with it?” Shade asked. “I respect my one-night stands. After all, they were all impressive enough to be deemed worthy of me.” Shade pointed to his chest with his wing and put on a smile that managed to somehow be both arrogant and confused. “Give it a week and Guile’ll’ve had every mare at or around his age in the town.”
Guile nearly spit out his drink, but caught himself and forced a swallow. “I'm thirteen!” he said to Shade.
“And I was joking, and now that we're done stating the blindingly obvious you should probably ask Card if it's okay that you've invited another pony to his party.”
“Yes, it was quite rude of you to not ask permission of the one whose party it is,” Silver said.
Guile groaned, knowing that he would be punished in some way for it later. “So, Dr. Card, do you mind?”
Card made a noise in the negative.
“Oh good, because I’m bringing along a couple of ponies too,” Shade said. “This mare, Rarity, and her little sister.”
“And I invited that family Bones’s friends with,” Odd said. “Thought he would enjoy celebrating with them, considering how long it’s been.”
“Well that was really good of you, Odd,” Brick said in his quiet way.
Tron scoffed. “Yeah, sure. I can think of five other reasons. Green eyes, ponytail, nice legs, freckles, and even a cute little drawl.”
“Hey,” Odd said in protest, “I would’ve done it even if Applejack wasn’t one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”
“You know, she’s pretty much my little sister. Am I obligated to kill him now?” Brick mused.
“Please!” Shade said, a little over-eagerly.
Silver swatted at him. “No.”
“Wait, when did you meet Applejack?” Odd asked Tron.
“Card gave me a call a while back and she was there. Speaking of which, Doc isn’t going to be able to make it back for New Year’s, so I invited Mrs. Whooves and Dinky over.”
Card gave an exasperated sigh, but still didn’t protest or take his eyes off the book.
“Oh yeah, I forgot you went to go visit them. How was it?” Odd asked.
“Pretty standard, you know the drill. Hugs, catching up, all that stuff. The oven was broken, and she let me fix it. It only took me half an hour.”
Odd grinned cheekily. “At the end of which it could reach one thousand degrees, only used half of the energy it used too, and had an attached automatic shotgun, machine gun turret, and seven layers of heavy artillery, I’m sure.”
Tron rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Oh please, I do have some restraint.”
“So, what, you kept it to three layers?”
Tron paused for a moment and then furiously finished off his food, waiting for the blood to leave his cheeks.
“I really hope you fixed that,” Brick said.
“Of course I did. It’s not like I put that all there intentionally.”
“I would hate to see what you would make if you were trying to make a deadly washing machine,” Odd said.
“Well I would probably attach a cannon, maybe install a…” Tron trailed off into mutters, his eyes focusing on a blank spot of the table as he slowly started to spin Odd’s steak knife around in his hoof.
“Tron, if you start carving blueprints into my table, I will throw you in the dungeon,” Card said.
Tron noticed what he was doing and put the knife down.
“Okay, is everyone done?” Card asked.
The rest all made noises of affirmation.
“Okay, great. You,” he gestured at Guile, Shade, and Silver, “Clean up.”
“Of course, my lord.” Silver got up and started moving dishes to the sink.
“Wait, you were able to put my charm on everything else in this place, but you missed the dishes?” Shade asked, not moving from his seat.
“Well, if I put it on the dishes, and they go back into the cupboard, what do you think happens to all of the food that’s on them,” Card condescended at Shade.
Shade began putting all of the dishes away along with Silver.
When that was finished, Card brought them all into the living room.
“Now, did I tell you all the rules?” he asked.
“Yes,” Silver answered. “Don’t go into any door that doesn’t open on the first try. Don’t tear up the tape connecting the rooms. If we get lost, it’s our faults and you’ll come get us when you feel like it. Our rooms have our marks on them.”
“Very good, Silver.” Card nodded in approval. “However!” he suddenly burst out as he rushed behind the couch, the very same couch that held the convulsing Rainbow Dash. He stretched his forelegs out in front of him in a protective manner. “There is still one very important rule left! There is to be no sex, on this couch. I really like it, and I don’t want it messed up.” With that, Card leapt over the couch and walked off to his room.
“...Well, I’m heading to bed,” Odd said.
“Yeah, me too,” Brick said.
“I think I’ll check out the lab he said was in my room,” Tron said.
With that, the three of them left.
Guile tried to speak, “You know what, I think I should-”
“Training,” Silver and Shade said in unison, Silver pulling out a map and heading down the path to the training room with Shade close behind.
Guile sighed and followed them, readying himself for whatever punishment his brother had planned on top of his usual ninety minute workout.