//------------------------------// // 64 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// A week later… A slightly moping Twilight sat at the table eating her breakfast pudding; it was a creative workaround for her inability to cook normally. She was good at making pudding, so she was going to make pudding for breakfast and eat it. Eggs, potatoes and ketchup mashed into the form of some well cooked pudding. The end results didn’t taste bad at all; it might have been an acquired taste though. She was considering the options for lunch and dinner type puddings as well. The oddest thing she could make was bread pudding and she always made it perfectly. “Hey mom, have you seen Tress this morning?” Barb wanted to spend some time with her big sister figure. “Try the basement.” Twilight wasn’t trying to be inattentive of Barb; it’s just that the newspaper had some slightly depressing news. Cadence wasn’t given too heavy a sentence and she certainly didn’t get off easily either, the princess certainly made sure she wasn’t living in luxury when she basically incarcerated herself. Twilight was surprised Cadence even forced a kangaroo court based trial against herself or that such a thing was even possible, the newspaper even tried and failed to explain the logic behind how it even worked. “Ah, she’s working on something interesting then?” Barb left the kitchen for the living room and into the basement where her mom and Tress tended to play around with chemicals in a well ventilated room. Tress owned the left half of the basement for her business ventures and Twilight owned the right for her random experiments. Barb came upon the sight of Tress pouring a beaker full of orange fluids into a container, followed by a flask full of blue fluids and after a second the mare added some green leaves into the container which slowly dissolved into the resulting mishmash. Tress grabbed a spoon with a green tentacle from her tail and used it to stir around the green viscous material that formed in the glass cylinder, pulling the spoon out she looked it over and then sniffed it. After a moment Tress smiled lifting her goggles up and clapped her hooves together to rub them in a victorious manner. “Hey Tress, what are you working on?” Barb could only begin to guess what kind of thing Tress had up her mad scientist sleeves, sure she couldn’t replicate things from her world but she was good at making some pretty weird stuff in this one. The white lab coat she was wearing really added to the ambiance of the basement laboratories. “Something rather boring I assure you. Otherwise I believe I have an idea that might help Twilight out of her funk by the shock value alone, she’s been moping when we’re not working and I’m annoyed enough to do what I’m planning. Go get breakfast ready for me while I go take a short bath.” Tress stood up and shucked her lab coat onto a rack before trotting up the stairs for the bathroom. She had a particularly small lazy smile playing across her face as she took the container with the strange substance with her. “So was she working on anything interesting?” It was a loaded question and Twilight knew it, Tress always had done some rather inventive stuff with the spare time she had. Tress certainly had her Tresses business working pretty well and she mainly sold products to Bonbon, Rarity and Octavia plus quite a few other ponies that really liked what she was producing. “I have no idea what it was mom; she said it was boring. I think she really doesn’t like that you’re moping so much.” Barb set about cooking breakfast for Tress; even she had to admit that her mom was thinking about this one subject too hard. “I have to admit that even I’m beginning to get annoyed.” “I’m sorry Barb, but I think I’m almost over it… I think.” Twilight knew she shouldn’t have held onto these emotions for so long and had to just let things go. Eventually Tress finished her bath and ate breakfast. Afterwards while Twilight was going over the list of possible jobs they could do today Tress took out a pack of gum. She started pulling out sticks of gum and began tossing them into her mouth. After a moment of chewing she laid her mane on the table before her and pulled the large wad of gum, then stretched it out between her hooves while looking at Twilight waiting for her to take notice of what she was about to do. “Tress why did you just chew all that gum and… uh Twilight, I think Tress might have just gone crazy. Like Mane-iac crazy.” Barb saw an evil smile and a determined look in the crystal blue eyes of the pink coated mare. Even Barb could see what Tress intended to do with the wad of stretched bubblegum held above a pile of her own light blue hair sitting on the table. “What are you talking about Barb? Tress… what are you doing with that gum?” Twilight noticed her friends hooves ever so slightly started to lower the gum to her mane. “Tress please don’t do what I think you’re about to do, you’ll never get it out if you do. You’re mane is so beautiful Tress please don’t. Tress, why are you doing this? Stop, no don’t!” “Well you said stop and then not to stop, so I’ll listen to you.” There was a squelch sound as Tress slapped the gum soundly down on top of her mane with a bright vibrant smile, as if she were proud of the act. Twilight was sure to forget about Cadence for a while especially with what she had just done. Tress knew Twilight loved hair and playing with it, well why not draw attention away from her worries with something that would be more horrific to her then getting a princess to put herself in jail? Twilight had odd priorities when things were quieter around them. “Tress, why did you do that? Do you even realize how much of your mane I’d have to cut off to even get it all out? I loved working with your mane Tress, how could you do that to yourself and me!” Twilight started crying, so much beautiful mane ruined by a pile of gum her friend chewed and then crazily slapped down onto it on purpose. Of the things she knew, Tress’s powers didn’t make her mane impervious to gum even if it made her impervious to ever having a frizzy mane. Unicorns have long had problems with getting gum out of manes and tails, even with magic it was next to impossible without shaving off some hair, hopefully she could figure out a way to save most of her friends’ mane. “Well I had to do something shocking to snap you out of all that moping; you can’t go on for the rest of your life constantly going over what ifs.” Tress had a good reason for not being particularly worried that there was now gum in her mane, it was the reason her mane was sitting on the table and not hanging freely. She had managed to get Twilight’s attention in a very profound way, Twilight didn’t mind hair being covered in mud or anything else as long as the damage wasn’t permanent and could be washed off or fixed easily. Gum was a little bit much, but it would definitely make Twilight take immediate notice. “That seems kind of a rather extreme thing to do Tress, how are you going to get the gum out?” Barb received Tress’s answer as just a continued smile and light shrug. “She can’t possibly get it out. Tress I know I’ve been moping too much lately, but did you seriously have to go and destroy your mane like that to get my attention!” Twilight was getting hysterical and all Tress did was lean back, crossed her hooves over her chest and quirked an eyebrow. Tress oddly made sure a portion of her mane stayed lying on the table, but Twilight was in too much shock to really pay attention to how Tress was acting about all of this. “You’re hair would only be four inches long by the time I’m done with it from the mass of gum you just dropped down into it! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” “That is a rather unfair assumption that my mane actually needs cutting Twilight, I think it’s perfectly fine the way it is. I’d like to keep my mane long thank you.” Tress wondered if this was torturous enough for her friend to get her mind out of the gutter she placed it in. Nothing was as shocking as doing something like this in front of Twilight. Tress loved her own mane too and like having it brushed and combed, as such this was the perfect situation to snap Twilight out of her funk. She kept her tone calm and even. “Besides even if you did need to cut it I could just grow it back with my powers, but I will refuse to do that on the principle that you don't need to do a single thing to my mane as it is now.” “Tress there is gum in your hair, even the top stylists’ ponies in the world would have problem getting all of that stuff out and that’s even with the aid of unicorn magic. How can you sit there and imply that it doesn’t need cutting?” Twilight was staring at her friend as if she had gone completely mad, then again she most likely had. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” Tress stood up and as soon as her hair left the table the gum just slid out of her hair not leaving a single tendril of sticky pink chewed goo in her mane. She watched as Twilight’s mane frazzled and her right eye started twitching in disbelief. “H-how did you…” Twilight was struck speechless; the gum just slid right out of her mane without a fuss and none of it was stuck in there. Even Barb was just staring blankly at what she had just seen, the fact that the gum just flopped of her mane and onto the table without any resistance at all. “Tell me, does my mane still need cutting?” Tress asked sweetly, knowing she just pulled a jerk move on Twilight to get her mind completely off of Cadence. She still had her evil genius side after all and the emphasis was more to the genius part. “No, it looks completely fine.” All Twilight could really do was try to force her mind to reboot. “How come it didn’t get stuck in your mane, is it a new power of yours that you just discovered?” “Nope, just a product I’ve finished testing extensively and I made a recent batch just to get your attention.” Lazily a portion of Tress’s mane turned green, it grabbed the gum and tossed it into the nearby trash can before returning to normal. “I call it The Ever Clean Cleanser. Like I would truly ruin my mane on purpose, it’s one of my better features and I love how you take care of it.” Twilight blushed slightly at the praise and somewhat in indignant anger; Tress had really scared her as she did not relish the idea of having to fix a gum damaged mane. Tress did have a point about being able to grow it back, but it would have still upset Twilight greatly if she had to trash her friend’s mane first. Still though, Tress had made one miraculous product and Twilight didn’t even know exactly what it did. “Wow, what does it do exactly?” Barb had always thought gum was impossible to get out hair unless you removed it. “It gives six total hours of protection from sticky substances; it can only come in the smell of mint which is not negotiable. Recently Zecora approved for sales and Tress tested. Six hours is the maximum and any change in the consistency to the formula’s main ingredient will cause strange side effects. A stronger consistency tends to make things more slippery as if you were on ice without the skates for it, that will leave you stuck slip sliding around for hours. Less consistency leaves you feeling like you’re covered in oil even after you wipe it off and isn’t as effective and doesn’t last nearly as long either, at least that was just five minutes of feeling uncomfortable.” It was a creation Tress was certainly proud of having invented, her skills in alchemic mixtures was as strong as ever or it wouldn’t have been her special talent at all. “Accidentally swallowing some of it will not even hurt you and it’ll help get rid of the substances already stuck to your coat, mane or tail as well.” “That’s amazing Tress! How did you even come up with something like this? Well aside from it being your special talent and all.” This was a miracle cure for ponies who worked with sticky or staining substances all day long. “This will definitely help us out with Bonbon’s request for one of us to aid her in the candy shop and I bet she’d appreciate having some of it for herself.” “See I’m already cheering her up already Barb, even if it means I have to be a complete jerk to get her to be happy and upbeat!” One wonders if Tress should actually be so proud of being a jerk. “Yeah I’m certainly taking Bonbon’s request today and I actually came up with this from spending so much time around you and all the messy situations you keep getting me into.” “Tress I may not like how you presented this to me and you are very much a jerk, but you wouldn’t be my friend if you weren’t a little Mane-iacal every now and then.” Twilight had to give Tress credit where it was due, as that had been a scary thing to watch her do. Tress had certainly earned her entire attention span with that stunt that caused her heart to jump up her throat. She wished Tress hadn’t even threatened and then carried out what was seemingly leading to the massive destruction of her lovely locks in that demonstration. “Hey, didn’t you say what you were doing was unimportant?” Barb asked clearly confused about why Tress said that earlier if that was what the stuff she made does, it sounded plenty interesting. “I didn’t say it was unimportant, I just said it was boring. After you’ve mixed up the same general formula so many times it gets dull and way too easy to go through the motions.” Tress felt something wrapping around her mane and she saw Twilight snuggling her hair. She sighed contently and then just rolled her eyes while snorting derisively. At least Twilight was feeling better now and was even smiling.