"One week, oh my it is only one week…" Penny was pacing.
"The wedding? Why are you stressing over that now? Everything is planned, all set in stone." Stick looked up from where she had been studying on the bed. "All we could possibly do at this point is call it off and Penny?" Stick waited for the unicorn to look at her. "That is not happening."
It was exactly what Penny needed to hear. She walked over to the bed and lay down on it with a little wince while her belly settled. "It's all Night's fault, she infected me with a feeling of dread!" Leaning into Stick, Penny lay her head on the other mare's exposed belly. She wasn't quite sure why the drone liked to lay on her back but it made for great opportunities to snuggle.
Stick set her scroll down, letting her magic release it. She watched Penny, feeling waves of love from the mare. "How was your day?" Stick lowered one of her front legs down and rubbed Penny's cheek with it.
"Well…" Penny had her eyes closed, her jaw moving against Stick's carapace as she talked.
Penny walked into the classroom. She looked down at her notes and nodded. There were almost a dozen ponies, most just into adulthood, already inside and a few more followed her in. "I am taking over Professor Butter's class today, he is giving a lecture at a conference in Manehatten."
There were a few groans. While this certainly wasn't remedial mathematics, it also wasn't the most advanced either. "When will he be back… wait, aren't you a student?" A mare on one side made it sound almost like an accusation.
"I am, my name is Penny Farthing and although the professor has a whole mess of things he would like me to go over, I don't think we need to." Penny almost struggled with the pile of pages, all proper mathematics notes, but fake as a changeling's mane. She lifted them up and dumped them in a rubbish basket by the desk at the front of the lecture hall. A little cheer ran through the ponies. "So, what do we want to do, oh, how about we look at numbers, nothing clever or fancy…"
The students watched as she scrawled down the classic Fiboneighcci set, starting with two ones. "We did that." One pony called from behind Penny.
"Oh? You know all about it? Great, so we can forget these then." Penny brought out some shells and a few bits of greenery. "Since you know everything about it, can you tell me what it has to do with these?"
The ponies looked blankly at the items that were presented.
"Then you haven't done Fiboneighcci!" Penny laughed and turned back to the board. "Lets start simple, anypony want to come down and help me?"
A unicorn mare trotted up onto the stage, apparently she was the only pony wanting to be involved in it. At Penny's look they brightened a little. "Swirly Sundae, miss."
"Swirly, an apt name for this. I want you to draw me a small square please." Penny watched as the mare drew an exacting square on the board. "Okay, wonderful, another below it." Another was added. "Now, using the sides of those, I want a square exactly twice as large."
Penny saw confusion in not only Swirly's look but in the ponies watching.
"Now using the top of that big square, and one of the smaller ones, a three by three square, then beside those a five by five square. Can anypony tell me the relevance of these numbers?" A few hooves raised, Penny pointed at one.
"Their dimensions are the Fiboneighcci set?" Penny clopped her hooves together at the answer.
"Indeed, now lets add something interesting." Penny took up some chalk in her magic and started the spiral. The position she had placed the shell was intentional, most of the ponies in the class could see that the spiral she was tracing was the exact one on the shell. "Now, can anypony tell me what this apparently useless set of numbers has any purpose doing being part of how sea creatures make their shells?"
There was silence, the ponies looking dumbfounded.
"Isn't nature interesting?" Penny beamed and saw she had gotten the attention of quite a few ponies. "Now, lets move on to this?" She levitated the fern frond over and made sure all the class could see it. "Swirly, dear, you can sit-" Penny stopped, seeing the mare had been scrawling functions on the board and, had built the connection between the number set and the golden ratio. "Ah, we will be getting there soon, this is all one of the most fundamental building blocks of design in all types of life."
The mare beamed and trotted back to the audience.
"Okay, so we have our Fiboneighcci spiral, but where could that be?" Penny started the spell she had looked up precisely for this class. The frond started to shrink, the age of the plant rolling back. The spell was mostly used by florists but it was perfect for this. As the fern curled up there was a lot more surprised gasps from the ponies. "I take it we have all seen this now?" There were a lot of heads nodding, quills working in notebooks.
"What if I told you that plants, every plant, relies on these numbers? What if I said they are a fundamental building block of not just everything in this world, but other worlds? These numbers are a constant that solidifies life." Penny lifted out the drawing she had gotten Jenny to make of a tree for her. Setting it up on the little magical projector, it was suddenly huge on the wall behind her. "Please, somepony, come down and count as the branches split in this tree?"
There were, of course, a few who already saw it. They were scribbling furiously. A stallion walked down and looked up at the board. "You work your way from the bottom and tell me, at each split in the branches, how many there are just after that split." Penny prepared some chalk, moving it to just above the second one in the set she had already written.
"One." Penny beamed and wrote one.
"Uh, two." She added a two.
"Three…" Realization dawned and he looked from the rest of the numbers to the picture. "This is a drawing though."
"It is a drawing, I had a friend who does such drawings for textbooks make it for me. The tree is one in the school gardens just outside." Penny gestured out with a hoof to where it was obvious the tree she had gotten the picture of, stood.
"So why do plants do it?" The stallion pointed to the number series. "What is so special about it?"
"Because it is perfect. It is not just an interesting number series on its own, but it is effective in these instances because it is efficient. This branch, which if any of the groundskeepers ask I didn't take from that tree," Penny waited for the laugh from the ponies, "Lets look at it from the top down." Tilting the branch she revealed the spiral pattern to the placement of the leaves.
It didn't take her prompting, there were hooves in the air and quills scribbling already.
"You taught them about maths and plants?" Stick sounded surprised. "What was so cool about it, I mean, those things, you picked them because they match the numbers right?"
"Nope, that is why it is cool, all plants do that." Penny tilted her head. "Nature finds patterns, it uses them over and over so much that it finds the good ones. This is a very good pattern."
"Nerd." Stick said the word that she knew anypony else would take as an insult.
"Changeling." Penny kissed Stick's hoof when it came near her mouth again. "Thank you."
"What'd I do… I mean, uh, no problems!" Stick rubbed that hoof around her mate's snout, getting the mare to lick it after a few insisting pokes.
"You broke my bad mood and got me to relax." Penny closed her eyes, licking the hoof more, squirming her tongue into one of the little holes and getting a laugh from Stick. "Oh, ticklish are we?"
Stick was afraid, really afraid. "N-n-no!" But it was too late, Penny had found a weakness and before the drone could do anything, she exploited it, moving her bulk up and over Stick, pinning the changeling down and grabbing one hoof. "Please!"
But Penny wasn't going to stop, not when her lover's pleading sounded for all the world like she wanted to be tickled. Penny licked again and got a snorting giggle from the mare under her.
By the time Hay came in the pair were tickling each other, laughter and happy abandon run away with the pair. "I thought you were both studying?" The solar unicorn set her saddle bag down on the ground by the door.
"She started it!" Stick pointed a hoof at Penny who looked the very picture of innocence, right up until she licked the hoof again and Stick squealed with laughter.
"Oh Penny! I heard about your class today." Hay made her way over to the bed and climbed up beside the two giggling mares. "I heard you blew a few minds and have inspired more than one final project."
Penny was laughing thanks to Stick using her own mouth to lick the back of her rear-leg's knee. "Wait, what?" She turned and looked to Hay but couldn't stop the laughter bubbling up. "Stick! Stop!"
"Promise me again." The threat was not a real one for Penny, after all she couldn't say the last time she had made the deal with her lover had been bad. "Promise it or I tickle you until the morning of our wedding!"
"I… okay I promise!" Penny flopped and fell to the soft bed as the drone ceased the tickling. "Now, what was that, Hay? Sorry…"
"Your talk on mathematics stirred up a few minds. No less than three ponies immediately filed the plans for their senior projects after it." Hay leaned in and licked Penny's knee in just the spot Stick had. "What did you talk about?"
Penny's laughter stopped her from being able to reply, but she did manage to groan out between peals of giggles. "I… Fiboneighcci numbers… golden ratio…"
Hay stopped and leaned up to kiss the pregnant unicorn. "And what was so special about them?"
"Well, for one…" Penny was panting and had to pause a moment, "they are the design around which most plants grow. But there are other examples in nature where creatures use it."
The half changeling looked surprised. "You can prove that?"
Penny leaned up and kissed her. "I don't need to, I know it. Now it is up to a whole class of clever ponies to prove it for me."
Twilight lay on her bed, she had pilfered a tub of ice-cream that she knew Rarity used for this same reason and was sitting there gulping it down. But oddly, she didn't cry. "Why didn't I agree to date more? Why didn't I see she would move on?"
"Because love is blind?" Twilight's eyes flew up and she saw Rarity herself in the doorway. "Mind if I join you? I brought more." The unicorn was already advancing, three more tubs of ice-cream following her in. "Tell me what happened?"
Twilight did. She started with the naughty little playdates with Fast, their growing friendship and the realization that it could lead to more than just friendship.
"She sounds like a nice mare, so what happened to make you want cream, fudge, and caramel?" Rarity scooped out a big spoon of the cold delight and popped it in her mouth.
"I… I wasn't ready." Twilight's wings dipped down, her whole body-language spelling out her emotional drain. "I asked her if we could be friends only for a bit, while I get more… get more experience with 'more than friends'."
"Good choice, from what I understand the newest princess has a bit of a reputation." Rarity reached down and scraped another helping of the treat out. "But that wouldn't have you in this condition, what happened next dear?"
"She… she found another pony." Twilight gulped down another big scoop of ice-cream. "Slow Perfection. Penny said it was just a union to breed more drones for the hive, but then…"
Rarity reached a hoof up to rub Twilight's back a little.
"But then, Slow got in an argument with Stick-" Twilight was explaining how she had seen the hatching event but Rarity cut in.
"That darling? Oh I was speaking to her mother-in-law just the other day…" Rarity slowed down her segue as she saw Twilight had more to continue with.
"They were arguing over how much power Slow has, since he was 'just a breeder', Stick got him to admit he loves Fast… it was really…" Twilight rolled her hoof, fishing for a word.
"Cute? Delightful? Adorable?" Rarity tried to help.
Twilight shook her head. "He sounded in love, really in love. Fast went to him and told him she loved him too it… I left."
"First, darling, have some more of this heavenly stuff. Then you need to think of what you want to do." Rarity was fairly straightforward.
"What do you mean?" Twilight was already fulfilling the first part of Rarity's plan.
"Would a herd interest you? Do you like Slow Perfection and Fast Change…" Rarity stopped for a little giggle at the names. "Do you like them both enough that you would want to make this work?"
The aspect that her friend revealed shocked Twilight, she hadn't thought for a second that that was even an option.
"I think I have given you some food for thought… but please, don't take my ice-cream again. Come and ask me and we can eat it together." Rarity beamed at her friend and Twilight couldn't stop herself from smiling back.
"Yes, Rarity."