//------------------------------// // Mmmm... Caramel! // Story: Twilight Sparkle Intellectually Consumes a Bar of Chocolate // by Twiface //------------------------------// After a long day of studying, Twilight Sparkle deserved a much-needed rest. After making sure that Spike was sound asleep in the other room, Twilight retreated into her study and slouched down into her computer chair for a ‘quick’ late night bout of internet browsing before bed. With the simple tap of the spacebar, the screen on her laptop roared to light in all of its glory. Opening Google Chrome, she went immediately to her favorite fanfiction website to view her notifications. This occupied her for about five minutes since her internet connection was kind of slow and she wasn’t a high-profile user. This left her with 45 minutes of allocated ‘net time’ before her schedule sent her to bed. On a normal day, she would have wasted the remainder of her time on the site’s forums, trolling people or commenting on stupid threads with titles like, ‘Is this the Krusty Krab?’ and ‘: Rainbowkiss :.’ But tonight was a special night. A night she had been looking forward to all week. A night for a special treat. First Twilight opened a new tab in Chrome and went to Youtube, where she put on a video called ‘Song of Unhealing 10 Hours’ to establish a relaxing atmosphere to enhance the experience. Then, looking around to make sure that nopony (or dragon) else was there, Twiface lowered a forehoof below the desk, then carefully slid out her bar. It was only an average-sized bar as far as bars went, but what it lacked in length it would surely make up in content. Twilight looked over the bar’s wrapper and examined its features. Its upper half brandished the words ‘Cadbury Dairy Milk,’ and on the bottom the words ‘Caramello Milk Chocolate & Creamy Caramel.’ In the middle stood an enlarged computer generated image of a square of chocolate with one of its corners broken off. From the interior of the square flowed a thick yellowy liquid. “I’m looking forward to have that creamy liquid oozing into my mouth,” thought Twilight. Twilight then noticed a small printing of the Equestrian Diarchy’s official coat of arms on the very bottom of the wrapper. Below it read the words: By appointment to their majesties the Princeses Cocoa and chocolate Manufacturers Cadbury EQ LTD., Trottingham Twilight had seen this statement before on chocolate labels, but despite having been a princess for more than a year, had never until now considered herself as one of the few ponies in Equestria with their very own personal chocolate supplier. “Just for me,…” thought Twilight full of desire, “All for me…” Twilight figured that she had spent enough time staring at the jacket. After all, the real prize was on the inside. But as she turned the bar over, her eyes were drawn immediately towards the nutrition facts, and then to the ingredients list. During her youth, somepony had told her that if a food contained any ingredient that she could not pronounce the name of, then it was probably unsafe to eat. Being the smart filly that she was, Twilight knew that the unpronounceable ingredients the adult was referring to must have been the chemical sweeteners and preservatives that are so commonly added to food products. Even though the adult in question did not follow their own rule, Twilight superstitiously followed this rule, and thus read the ingredients of the chocolate bar aloud for her own safety. “Ingredients:,” began Twilight, “Milk Chocolate (sugar; milk; cocoa butter; chocolate; lactose; soy lecithin; PGPR, Emulsifier; natural and artificial flavor); corn syrup; invert sugar, milk fat;. Contains 2% or less of: nonfat milk; sodium bicarbonate; salt; artificial flavor.” Given that anyone with a solid understanding of the rules of pronunciation in the Equestrian language, most of us can pronounce each and every one of those words. Perhaps if the manufacturer had specified what ‘natural and artificial flavors’ they were using, we would probably get tripped up, but because Twilight is a super genius, she could pronounce the name of any chemical and thus eat whatever she wanted to. Getting this formality out of the way, Twilight proceeded to tear open the wrapper with her telekinesis. Then, returning the bar to its obverse plane, Twilight was greeted by a bar of eighteen squares of chocolate arranged in three columns of six squares each. Twilight retrieved a ruler and measured the squares: about 2.5 centimeters on each side, or roughly an inch. Given that the company had been around for quite some time, Twilight assumed that the dimensions of the squares had been set some time before the adoption of the metric system over all of Equestria with the exception of redneck backwater communities such as Ponyville. Twilight turned the bar so that it faced her horizontally, then broke it into two halves. Then she proceeded to break each of these halves into thirds, and then finally breaking these into thirds again until each square was broken free of the others. She was now left with eighteen squares of chocolate with a caramel center. “Look at how the creamy liquid oozes from the seams,” Thought Twilight regarding the caramel. Indeed, it did ooze from the edges of the individual squares, from some greater than others. Twilight decided to start with the ooziest square of all, the one on which the top broke off during the separation process. “Mmmm…” Thought Twilight as she wrapped her tongue around the square. She pressed the square to the roof of the mouth, where it slowly and steadily melted into chocolatey bliss. Twilight then turned her thoughts to observing the chocolate itself. She took another square, this time a corner one, and bit off its corner. Rapidly macerating it with her front incisors, she contemplated its flavor and texture accordingly. She prolonged the investigation by biting off the remaining edges of the square, biting off as little caramel as possible to ensure that her observation of the chocolate itself would go unhindered. Then, once all four sides were eaten and only the caramel squeezed between two sheets of chocolate remained, Twilight plopped the remainder in her mouth and chewed. “It’s actually sort of bland on its own.” Twilight took the other corner squares and repeated the process. “I can definitely taste the milkiness.” And then she plopped another square in for good measure. “The juice certainly helps.” And then another, which she chewed whole. “And they certainly taste better together.” And then another, “But it still doesn’t taste all that sweet.” And another, “A little bit tangy…” And another, “And super, super sticky...” And another, “But I still don’t see why Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy like it so much…” And another, “And I’ll have to agree with Applejack…” And another, “Hershey’s is definitely richer.” And another, “And with Pinkie…” And another, “That Ghirardelli’s is even more so.” And another, “And then Rarity always gets them from the most exotic of places…” And another, “It’s almost out now…” And then finally the last one. “But still… it’s better than nothing.” At last, Twilight had finished her bar. She threw the wrapper into the trash, then proceeded to lick her telekinesis field because it was covered in caramel. “It certainly leaves an aftertaste.” Then, flicking her tongue around her mouth, she found its movement impaired by the thick goo sticking to its walls. “And now I need to rinse out my mouth.” Which she immediately set off to do. Twilight left the room, leaving the Youtube video still playing on her computer. There was still more than nine hours left before the video would be over, so it would continue to play. The video itself was nothing more than a loop of a photo of the Caramel, a light brown stallion dressed in a green robe and cap, wearing a creepy grin. Unfortunately, Caramel would never be able to retake that photo, for he had tragically drowned shortly after the photo was taken. Emanating from Caramel were strange symbols of a rough design yet great detail. But unbeknownst to Twilight, the spirit of Caramel still roamed the Earth, and tonight, alive and well within the depths of Twilight’s hard drive after having downloaded himself there, he had seen and heard everything.