//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7: Discoveries Both Malignant and Benign 
// Story: Pessimism and Sarcasm 
// by Jerec the Ascendant 
//------------------------------//


Pessimism and Sarcasm


Chapter 7


Discoveries Both Malignant and Benign


Stupid habits. Why do I always wake up early, even if I want to sleep in? I open my eyes to be greeted by a dark room. My body says it's around six o’clock. It’s an evil thing, not allowing me to sleep. I get up, grab my laptop, and head out once again to the spot that I've basically claimed on the main floor.

With a yawn and a stretch, I set my laptop on the table and sit down. Flipping it open and turning it on I wait for my desktop to load, and as soon as it’s finished I decide it’s time to wake my brain up with a little bit of strategy. So with a quick double-click on Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors, away I go. About fifteen minutes into the game I notice the sunrise, and only a few minutes after that I hear the telltale clip-clop of Twilight getting up. Finally, I'm able to know what's going on both in-game and in real life. Well, real life, relatively speaking. Though, I don't mind if she sees this game; at least it's not like yesterday with Mass Effect. Sure enough, between the music and the sounds of the game, I find Twilight peering over my shoulder quite quickly.

"Ooh, what's this one?"

"This is called Age of Empires; it's a strategy game about controlling, well, an Empire. You’re given resources to conquer the opposing empires but you also have to defend the allied empires. It's all based on the medieval ages of my world." I’m playing on the map 'Arena' as the Chinese, because the Chu-Ko-Nu are awesome. Deal with it. At the moment, I’m at the village, constructing more buildings and getting more villagers to gather resources, but then comes the minor mistake of going back to my scout and giving him a new area to explore.

"Wow, this is amazing. Hey, what is that pony doing there?" She gestures to a cavalry unit, her face confused and clearly not pleased.

"It's not a pony, that's a horse. We have horses in my world, along with ponies, but they aren't...uhm, how should I explain this? Well, where I'm from humans are the only sapient species on the planet." She seems okay with that explanation, but looks at me like she has more questions. "You aren't taking this quite as badly as I thought, given your being a pony."

Her expression goes from questioning to stern. "Actually, no, I don't like that your species has done that to horses and ponies, but-"  She suddenly becomes very excited. "I never thought I'd be able to learn about these game things and your history at the same time! Hold on, I need to go get some parchment, some ink, and a quill!" With that, she zips off. If she thinks this is good, maybe I should introduce her to Civilization IV. Wait, bad idea. I wouldn't get my PC back until she finished copying every word down. That would take forever.

So I keep going, creating additional units, exploring, and expanding the reaches of my empire. She gets back and immediately there are more questions. "What does that one do? What are the weapons they are using? What materials are the buildings constructed with?" 

After a few more questions, I can't take it anymore.

"Here, how about instead of asking me about this stuff, I let you find out from the section meant just for that in the game." I resign from that game and go to the history section of the game. Twilight is more than thrilled, though she looks at me sheepishly, embarrassed that she had caused me some minor irritation. I let her know that it’s okay, and tell her to go ahead and explore the history that Ensemble had gathered and summarized.

I take to looking at some of the library’s books as Twilight goes into study mode looking at the AoE history section. Having to read pony books instead of playing games...this is not helping my depression! I don't find anything really interesting to me at the moment, though I do manage to find the book that Twilight read in the first episode, but I skip over it. I walk back over to my spot. Twilight’s still sitting there, eyes locked on the screen. Every so often the mouse moves to scroll the page or change the topic. I circle behind her and look at the topic she's just moved to. Cavalry; oh, this can only end so well. 

As she reads, Twilight raises her hind leg and starts to scratch her ear. Doing that, she reminds me of my dog back at home, and before I know what’s going on I’m already scratching the back of her head.

"Hey, what are you...oh my…” She sighs, stretching out her ears and curling her neck under my fingers. “That feels so good." She lets out a shiver of delight.

Wait, what am I doing?! Immediately I pull my hand away. As soon as I do, though, Twilight looks up at me, her lip pouted and her eyes screaming for more.

Oh no! What have I done?!