“So what do you think Cheery?” Into the room walked the purple pony followed by a completely refreshed Bonbon, her mane was styled to how she wanted it to look and she was happy with Twilight’s work.
Cheerillee looked up from her cup of tea and blushed slightly at the happiness Bonbon was giving off, if she wasn’t already interested in Big Mac and didn’t know she was straight she would probably give Bonbon a wolf whistle. Moving of their own accord, Cheerilee pursed her lips and she gave exactly the whistle she didn’t think she wanted to do.
“Wow, she’s that good Cheer? You’d only do that kind of whistle for a certain stallion.” Chuckling Bonbon ran a hoof through her mane as she laughed at her friends blushing face. She really wished the single teacher would stop tap dancing around the issue and ask the gentle stallion out already.
“Looks like she got you your old mane style perfectly, then she went and made your mane shine beautifully. I think you did really well with her Twilight.” The teacher noted how Twilight looked embarrassed and slightly flustered.
“I try, so how much tea did you make?” All too soon, Twilight found herself sitting down and having a nice cup of tea with two new friends. Today was really beginning to get Twilight paranoid, what was the big disaster that would befall her today? This tea was so relaxing she’d swear it’d lead her into a false sense of security; as such she tried to stay completely tense. She failed at that and started relaxing as they started discussing random topics about what goes on around Ponyville.
“What time is it?” Looking around for a clock Twilight sat up twitch her ears about for a ticking sound and listening for turning gears. Bonbon got out of her seat and made her way into the other room.
“It’s about twelve, why?” Her voice oscillated slightly and it was a little awkward. Bonbon had gotten over her vocal issues a long time ago and many other ponies were used to her having a different voice every other day.
“It’s about time for us to get going to lunch then, my best friend is going to bring the other ponies she’s befriending on the job with her and we’re going to make a big thing of it.” Their circle of friends was expanding exponentially since they came to Ponyville and Twilight now had so many ponies to talk to on a daily basis. She’d never be bored and she’d always have ponies to converse and do things with.
“Give me a moment to get some stuff in order and I’ll join you. It sounds like a nice outing.” Bonbon went about picking up empty cups and the teapot Cheerilee used, she started humming to herself and even that sounded odd to listen to.
Once they got going, they were off towards the café to meet up for a big friendly lunch. Twilight still felt like things had time to go wrong but she wasn’t as worried about it.
“So what’s your friend like, I haven’t exactly met her yet.” Now that she thought of it, Cheerilee knew Bonbon probably hadn’t either.
“Well, she’s beautiful and could make a living as a supermodel. Otherwise she’s just like any other pony and a really good friend to have, though sometimes she has her quirks. I sometimes think her personality is on some indefinable hair trigger at which point she just explodes with charisma.” Twilight smirked at that, yeah her friend had a really nice mane. Speaking of charisma she thought it was time to broach an odd topic. “So, do either of you think Celestia is perfect?”
“Not really.” Both ponies froze as they looked to each other then back to Twilight. They had responded at the same time and Bonbon had made it sound like an echo when her voice matched Cheerilee’s exactly for the seconds it took to speak those words.
“Well it’s a proven fact that no pony is perfect, not even the two princesses we currently have in Equestria. Not to say that they can’t be wise or knowledgeable and something to look to for direction. However looking up to some pony as young as Princess Cadence is kind of foolhardy and until she grows up more and gains some wisdom I don’t see the appeal in why ponies prostrate themselves to her as well as they do to Celestia. Celestia has actually earned her respect for sitting a throne for hundreds of years alone and without any strong lasting companionship. Those two can’t share every pony’s ideals and they have to at least have their own in the grand scheme of things.” As a teacher Cheerilee had to remain unbiased even in mention of Celestia, she may have been a powerful being but she was not perfect. She respected knowledge and those who use it correctly.
After hearing Cheery explain her point, Twilight turned to Bonbon as they continued their slow gaits. Cheery was a logical pony and a good teacher, she wasn’t even wary of speaking ill of the large pony if it was the truth.
“She may be doing her best and she may be a nice pony, but she’s still a politician. Despite the fact that she may have always done right by every pony in the world for years upon years, she still may at one time or another have her own selfish desires in mind when she does stuff.” She really never had given it to much hard thinking as Bonbon didn’t like nobles and their political games, she decided to elaborate a little deeper into what she was thinking. “At some point in her thousand years of existence she has had to kill something at least once in cold blood, she’s fought in wars and despite how she is nowadays she can immediately media blackout anything she doesn’t like. She’s not the end all of power in Equestria, but she’s politically powerful enough to hide so many skeletons in her closet that they will never see the light of day. Celestia could even actively outlive them to the point that the skeletons no longer mattered. If she’s to have her way, she could kill us all if she wanted to considering she controls the sun. Is it any wonder so many ponies walk on eggshells when she comes to Ponyville every once in a while? She frequents every pony town, city, village and settlement at least once to try and stay connected, but ponies are always making sure she’s disconnected because they are always bowing to her whims either on the fear of death or because she comes off as motherly. Is she beautiful? The answer is yes unless she’s magically making herself appear like that. Is she perfect? Not even close to it and she has flaws that she tries to hide behind that sad veneer of a simple cheerful smile on her face.”
“Yeah, I guess those are both good explanations along with the reasoning behind them.” Twilight was mortified by the idea, but now that she thought of it Celestia had to have a reason to open just a school for gifted powerful unicorns. She didn’t open a school for gifted pegasi or earth ponies to help them with their natural skills, it was only unicorns. For a being that was supposedly impartial this was rather suspect and the only reason why she’d consider any of this is because Cheerilee brought up the use of dragon eggs in tests and examinations as barbaric. There’s life in the eggs and to possibly end them by accident or on purpose for some sort of test was a horrible thought. Fillies and colts might have accidentally killed some dragons’ babies all just to find out if they were especially talented at magic. She was giving Barb a big hug the next time she saw her.
They really gave Twilight fuel for some thought provoking stuff as they approached the restaurant. To think that it was a candy maker and a teacher of all ponies that thought of most of this stuff. Twilight saw Tress approaching and smiled at seeing her.
Twilight blinked as she was witness to Tress flipping her mane as an explosion went off behind her and she smiled at Twilight. Twilight could feel her pupils expanding at the beauty of the pose that Tress just took on with the explosion lighting her form so well. Twilight could feel her heart rate speed up at the entrancing scene before her, looking behind her she could see both Cheery and Bonbon were also awed into submission as Tress trotted up to her.
Slowly the two other ponies behind Tress that had turned to look at the explosion quickly caught up with her once they noticed she had kept moving. They came to a stop at her side as she spoke.
“How are things going with you so far?” An amused Tress thought it was funny to see those looks on their faces.
“Oh, uh… fine… just fine Tress. Cheery, Bonbon, this is my best friend Tress Ravel.” Twilight held out a hoof for them to introduce themselves.
“Twilight wasn’t kidding; you do explode with charisma as if on a hair trigger.” Bonbon stepped up and shook hooves with Tress as she let out a bark of laughter.
“That’s a good one Twilight.” Shaking her head, Tress walked for the restaurant while all the ponies grouped together to get to know one another. She looked back to see Lyra was positively red in the face and Bonbon apparently recognized her. She really needed to help the lyre player out as she was having problems speaking to her supposed love. Twilight did good work with Bonbon’s mane, it positively shined and Tress was almost jealous if she didn’t know it was her shampoo that helped it look that way.
“Yes, how can I help you?” The ever familiar stallion waiter of the café saw a large party of six ponies before him, some of which he recognized from before. He was happy to serve the nice mares again and they apparently brought a lot of friends too.
“I’d like a table for eight as we might be getting two more to our party, if you could please get a table set up for us. You know, I never did get your name the last time we were here.” The stallion smiled at Twilight and nodded as he wrote something down on a piece of paper and set about getting the mares their table.
“I’m Savoir Fare, it’s my pleasure to meet you and serve your party madam.” While Savoir was busy talking to Twilight about a table, a pegasus flew up behind Tress and tapped her with a hoof getting her attention.
“Huh, oh it’s you. I’m guessing we’re still not getting your name until the party huh.” The blonde pegasus shrugged at Tress and held out a bag filled with bits and a note from Time Turner that said she did a good job. The grey coated pegasus with the seven bubbles for a cutie mark saluted to Tress and immediately flew off.
After getting Twilight’s attention as they were led inside, Tress hoofed her all the bits. She exclaimed that they came from Time Turner. Twilight accepted them with a disbelieving look that they were actually paid one hundred bits for the exploding trash can thing so soon.
The six of them sat down and they all perused the menu, while they did this an earth pony that looked like the unicorn Savoir came up to them.
“Would you like to order your drinks now or do you want to wait for seven more minutes? Also I’m Savoir Fare’s brother Savor Faire. We tend to confuse ponies often so if he introduces himself then I’m going to introduce myself as well.” He quickly took down their drink orders and he went off to go get them.
“Hey Octaves, I see you’ve met Rave Lady and Sparky!” Vinyl chuckled as Octavia almost jumped out of her seat to turn an angry glare on her. She quickly sat down and got her own drink order in as Savoir brought their drinks.
No other pony came and they ordered their food. Twilight was at least expecting one of their other friends to want in on this, but apparently none of them was at or passing by the Café. Eventually they were nearly finished eating and chatting about various topics such as music, books and food when things finally decided to go horribly wrong. Twilight and Tress were soon proven that they had a right to be paranoid.
Outside the café two ponies seated at the outdoor tables were calmly eating. Well at least Trixie was trying to eat calmly; Pinkie was like a black hole where food ceased to exist. Pinkie stopped eating and she started shuddering garnering Trixie's immediate notice.
“Trixie has to know, did your Pinkie Sense just go off Pinkie?” Trixie asked getting a bit worried. She had learned the lesson rather fast that if Pinkie says something is going to happen, then it inevitably will.
“Yeah, my knee just went all pinchy. I also felt chills travel down my back and my tail is twitching. It’s such a bright and wonderful day, why would a giant monster want to suddenly attack from out of nowhere?” Pinkie got a contemplative look on her face; do monsters actually want to start attacking in broad daylight? Well it was probably a nice day for a monster attack and the monster must have been pretty bored of attacking things at night. So was a monster attacking in broad daylight more scary then one at night?
Trixie noticed a shadow forming on the ground nearby and looked up; she quickly dove for Pinkie Pie in the hopes to get her out of the way of the monster coming down on top of them and the café.