A few weeks later…
Twilight was sitting at the table waiting for breakfast being cooked by Barb. Of the three beings that needed food in the house only Barb could cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tress could make breakfast and dinner easily and at least she didn’t have a problem with the food spontaneously rising up against her. They could actually eat normal meals, none of which would ever be made by Twilight. She couldn’t even make a sandwich without it’s olive eyes following them around the room.
Zecora had left a while ago and back for her home, she had made it there in a safely. Anyone that knew the name Sparkle was never truly safe to be near one. As such Twilight thought it was safer that the zebra walked home alone.
“Mail call everyone, Twilight your Mane Fancy magazine is in and your parents finally fixed the address issue.” Tress immediately let off of her grip from the magazine in question as it zipped over to Twilight to hover in front of her face so she could read the cover. “Barb you’re hot scoop magazine is in, I didn’t even know there was a magazine dedicated to ice cream advancements out there and last but not least, a letter for me?”
“Who’s it from Tress?” Twilight perked up curiously as she knew not many ponies would be writing to Tress, their friends in Ponyville knew where she lived and could visit anytime. There were very few ponies from Canterlot that even knew who she was. Her parents would have just sent them all a letter, which would require them to call in Fluttershy.
“It’s from Fleur.” Tress wouldn’t look her friend in the eyes; she knew there would be a searching look there.
“Well aren’t you going to read it? It might be important.” Twilight’s life certainly hadn’t gotten any more boring. The jobs she had taken on with Tress at her side were ridiculously normal with strange outcomes or completely absurd as all get out with normal outcomes, nothing was ever quite average with her.
Tress popped open the envelope and pulled out the letter inside, she quickly perused the message from Fleur. A slight blush crossed her face and she smiled, after a moment she gave of slight squeal in delight.
“Fleur is getting married!” Tress had an invite and to bring a few friends with her, she hoped Twilight would go with her. “I’m supposed to bring a few friends with me, so do you want to come?”
“That’s great Tress of course I would love to, but only if we can bring Barb along. Who is Fleur getting married to?” There was a noticeable silence as Twilight looked on at a concerned Tress.
“That’s just it, the letter doesn’t say. It just says that she needs me to show up in Canterlot. She wants me to be her brides’ mare.” Tress would gladly do that, now if only she had a clue as to whom her rather popular friend was marrying.
“You still haven’t told me how you two met you know, but it’s nice that she thinks of you as a very good friend for that position.” Twilight had an eye raised in an inquisitive manner, the purple unicorn turned to the food her daughter just placed before her.
“I know, she’ll probably tell you herself when we meet. Might as well get it all out into the open right now I guess. Once I learned that you were saving up some money for this house I decided to find a job, you wanted a nice place to call all your own and I wasn’t really doing much sitting around in the crazy house all day.” Tress thought back to that very day, her job search wasn’t going too well and she was wanting to aid Twilight to get the very house they were currently in. “I met Fleur when I stopped at a fast food restaurant, it was an odd place to see your role model and I decided to chat with her. She was wearing a rather paper thin disguise at the time and things kind of went from there. I introduced myself, she tried to write herself off as no pony important and slowly she eased up once I got her talking about random things.”
“Really, a fast food restaurant? I guess every pony has their tastes and if that’s what Fleur likes then good on her, I don’t think she really needs to hide it. Even I enjoy the occasional hay burger stuffers every now and then with an extra amount of grilled bean curd and ketchup. Unless there’s a problem with being seen eating food, I can’t see the reason why she would disguise herself unless she was avoiding photographers.” Twilight stuffed some fried eggs into her mouth; Barb was definitely getting better at cooking. She was probably the only Sparkle in existence that didn’t cook specialty foods and or monsters in a horrific manner. “Better send my parents a letter that we’ll be coming back to Canterlot sooner than I thought we would be. When’s the date she expects us to come?”
“Don’t tell her I told you anything about her eating habits when I introduce you to her. She wants us to come to her home in Canterlot within a month from now. Can you mark it on the calendar? Speaking of which how are we going to deal with Nightmare Moon? Don’t think I haven’t noticed the issue with getting me energy to fully transform.” If there was one thing Tress disliked about her powers, it was that they required large amounts of energy and she felt empty when they stopped working entirely.
“I’m working on it Tress, I could learn a lightning spell and just power you up myself.” It was a suggestion that Twilight thought over as she ate some buttered toast, quick toasted courtesy of the resident dragon. Magical lightning or shock spell weren’t hard to acquire, what was the problem was figuring out how to overpower them to feed Tress enough power to fuel hers.
“Twilight, you cast a random spell every single time you get spooked and just last week you forced Pinkie’s mane straight for four hours just because she wanted to surprise you with a prank. Are you sure you could learn that spell and not endanger lives by accident? I wouldn’t want that on our consciences.” Speaking of things on the conscience, Tress pet the fruitcake colored cat that hopped onto her lap and he purred happily. She had gotten used to the idea of owning an intelligent monster as a magically altered pet.
Tress named the cat Palatable as a tasteless joke and the little monster actually responded to that as its name, he responded to Pal just as well. Just because he was transformed into a cat didn’t make him any less dangerous, his hide was still as tough as it was when he was first made which was saying something. Apparently some properties from your original form carried over to the new one. At least the cat wasn’t growing to ridiculously large sizes and the only annoying thing it did nowadays was bring dead spaghetti monsters to their doorstep. It was strange to see a little cat bringing in edible food monsters twice its size, at least they always knew what to the feed the cat as its appetite certainly hadn’t changed.
“Maybe it’s a risk I can take… look at it this way Tress; it’s going to be really hard to get your powers back to full otherwise.” Twilight looked to the side to see Barb still reading her magazine on the advances in ice cream flavors, stopping once in a while to eat the grilled cheese sandwich she made for herself. Smart was reading her Mane Fancy magazine and Tress was still looking at the letter in her hoof as she forked up her apple syrup covered pancakes.
“Twilight, you are not learning a spell like that. I can’t risk you becoming a sad sack because of some horrific accident and knowing our luck, something like that will inevitably happen if you do decide to learn it anyway.” There was no other way Tress was going to change her stance on this one, Twilight didn’t like violence and here she was asking if she should learn a spell for Tress’s sake. Her friend was selfless a lot of the time and it was a bit annoying, but she wouldn’t be Twilight if she wasn’t always trying to aid some pony. It was her main passion in life after all, that and friendship.
“Well think of the medical applications, what if some ponies heart stopped and they needed a good jolt? What if you get horribly injured and I have to heal you? This spell could really accelerate the process and you could have the power to become Mane-iac whenever you wished!” Twilight knew there was risk, but there were also great things she could do with a spell like that.
If Twilight could just keep it within a safe tolerance range, she could stun and or paralyze ponies looking for a fight without hurting them too much. On the other hoof Twilight knew she was magically inclined and could just as well fry a friend by accident as much as just giving them a light static jolt. Tress mattered to her a lot and their friendship was one of the things on the top of the list of things she cherished more than anything else. Barb was the absolute top of the list and Twilight had yet to bring up the possible issues the little dragon may be facing later on in her life.
“Twilight, maybe we can discuss this another time? What do we got going on today?” Surprisingly business was booming for them, Tress didn’t think that so many ponies had that many problems. Ponyville was surprisingly a hotspot for crazy things to happen and it wasn’t all just Twilight being in town either.
Being paid five bits to listen to a pony with issues helped the pony get a lot off their chest and a pegasus pony named Bulk Biceps was one such weird pony that needed to get a lot off of his chest. Tress would have sworn the guy was Saddle Rager when she first saw him and he had confidence issues due to having been born with really tiny wings. He liked cheering excitedly and working out to make up for lacking in certain areas, his nickname was snowflake and it suited his personality. Maybe Tress could eventually help find him a nice stallion.
“You’re right Tress; we got some stuff to do today. Rarity wants us to model dresses for her, she’ll pay us handsomely and in the over the top generous way she usually does. So how do you feel about standing around all day?” Twilight wasn’t doing all these jobs or taking them without talking to Tress about them first. Her friends’ opinion mattered when it came to work.
“I’m going to pass on that today, got anything more sporty? I need some exercise; I swear Pinkie Pie is trying to put more weight on me.” The mentioned pink pony fell onto of Tress knocking her out of her chair and to the floor. “Darn it all Pinkie, I didn’t mean that you were literally falling on me!”
“I know, but it’s still funny that I did and have I got a job for you two!” Pinkie popped up and waited for Tress to get seated again as they apparently hadn’t finished breakfast yet.
“Can we immediately deny her on the principle that she just came into our house unannounced?” Tress asked immediately with a sharp tone.
“I’m Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie announced loudly for every pony in the room while throwing out a blast of confetti flinging her hooves into the air. “There I’m announced now, so I can tell you my job request right?”
“She needs to tell us what she wants us to do first before I can deny her Tress. I make it a point to hear out every job offer we get; as long as Pinkie can compensate us I’m willing to hear her out. We just might end up doing it.” Even if it made her face hoof, Twilight would hear out the party pony. Rainbow Dash was annoying on the principle of ignorance, though she has been getting better lately. Pinkie was annoying on the principle of her hyperactive nature. It wasn’t just during parties; she was like this all the time.
“That’s what she said, oh yeah! I think that would actually be sweet of you two.” Pinkie exclaimed in a cheery over the top manner, both Tress and Twilight looked at her oddly. After a moment Twilight face hoofed again when she realized how suggestive her last comment sounded.
“Before Twilight get’s a migraine, can you tell us what you want Pinkie?” Tress will never face hoof and Pinkie was the only pony that could get her close to doing that. Rainbow was being much easier to handle as they were getting too used to her being around.
“Right, I want you two to help me build a super duper amazing do it yourself modifiable welcome wagon! The instructions are all confusing and in a funny written language I don’t quite understand and I know two of the smarty smartest smart ponies I’ve ever met that could help me.” Pinkie only knew that if she was to make this unaided, she might build it wrong or not how she wanted it to work. She did do a lot of silly things at times and she wanted this wagon to be just right.
“Sounds simple enough to me, I’m okay with this.” Tress silently wondered if it was a bad idea to help Pinkie with anything.
“Yeah, we can help you do that Pinkie.” It sounded as equally simple to Twilight and thus far they were pretty well off in bits. They could do Rarity’s request at any given time when they were doing poorly in funds.