Destinies

by Sharp Quill

6. Unexpected Circumstances

A large, white van was parked on the side of the road, a few dozen feet past the entrance to the apartment’s parking lot. As Meg signaled to turn, a rear door of the van opened from the inside, revealing an interior full of electronic gear and several persons. While she made the turn, a man wearing a suit and tie left the van, closed the door, and walked towards the front of the van. This can’t be good.

Meg continued driving towards her assigned parking spot. She turned her head to get a side view of the van and saw that it had no markings. The man was walking purposefully towards a nondescript sedan parked in front of the van, on top of which she could now see various antennas. She lost sight of them after making another right turn.

She parked the car and shut it off, but stayed inside. The odds were good Twilight was inside their home. Since the ponies first visited last weekend, Twilight had been coming back every day, both to take measurements on that doll and to learn more about humanity. What should she say about that van?

They had been assured that the doll could not be located via non-magical technology, yet that van was parked there. Meg was willing to bet that she would find federal license plates on both the van and that car.

But if she told Twilight, she might go out there to… do something. Meg could not imagine anything good coming from such an encounter. It could be just a coincidence. If they were tracking that doll, and they’ve already come this close, then why weren’t they knocking on her door? How do I know they aren’t?

She couldn’t stay in the car forever. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, opened the door, and got out. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, much less someone interested in talking to her. A quick walk from out under the carport and she could see her front door. Everything looked normal.

She chanced a walk down the driveway to get another look at that van. Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the intersection. Steeling herself, she walked as nonchalantly as possible across the driveway while looking towards the street. The van was gone, as was the car in front of it. Even if that van was investigating the mysterious interference, it and others like it would have been driving all over the place gathering data. It was not that unlikely one of them would have come close to them. And as Twilight had predicted, they apparently didn’t notice they were practically on top of the source of the magic flow.

Now relieved there was nothing to worry about, Meg walked back to the apartment. Upon letting herself in, she went straight to the office. As she half-expected, Twilight was there, reading a book, but a new pony was there, too, also reading a book.

“Applejack?”

Both mares looked up at Meg. Applejack put her book down and got up onto her hooves. Adjusting her Stetson, she said, “You must be Meg. Pleased ta meet ya!”

“Uh, hi,” Meg awkwardly replied. “I wasn’t expecting you.” She also hadn’t expected to find her reading a book, but just because the cartoon always showed Twilight doing the reading didn’t mean other ponies couldn’t read. Meg took a quick glance at the book. It was the promotional travel guide, full of glossy pictures, that she and Steve had bought a few months ago to plan their recent trip to Hawaii. How could Applejack hold it and turn the pages without a unicorn’s telekinesis?

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” apologized Twilight, disrupting Meg’s thoughts.

“It’s okay,” Meg hastily assured them.

“Where’s Steve?”

“He’s stuck in meetings tonight with visiting scientists from… very far away.” If she mentioned Europe, she’d be spending the next half-hour answering questions about that. Meg had learned it was best not to give the inquisitive pony any unnecessary excuses to seek additional knowledge.

Meg looked at the earth pony. Why was Applejack here? Did she want to see the cartoon herself? That seemed improbable; by some unspoken agreement none of them had mentioned it since last weekend. “What brings you here?”

“Ah’ve heard so much about you and yer fancy machines, and Ah wanted to see for mahself.”

Okay, didn’t see that coming. “Uh, sure, no problem.”

A hard smile graced the orange mare’s face. “Ah also figured Ah’d do somethin’ that Rainbow Dash couldn’t do: find out how high and fast those flyin’ machines of yers can go.”

Rainbow Dash tried to follow a jumbo jet? Silly question. “What went wrong?” She didn’t get hurt, did she?

“She ran out of magic and was forced to return to Equestria,” Twilight replied.

“Eeyup, really upset her too.”

Because the same thing would happen if she tried again, Meg realized. It was a competition Rainbow Dash could never win. That would upset her. But this just begged the question. “So how do you intend to find out? I hate to point out the obvious, but you don’t have wings.”

Applejack gave her an evil grin. “Ah don’t need wings ta ask ya how fast and high those things can fly.”

Meg slowly broke out in a big smile as it dawned on her what Applejack was getting at. Nothing had stopped Rainbow Dash from asking her first—other than her pride. Twilight already had a quill and notepad out, ready to write down her answer.

“Ahem,” Meg said, clearing her throat. “The big airplanes fly five to seven miles above the ground at a speed of five to six hundred miles an hour. They can go thousands of miles before needing to land.”

Twilight wasn’t writing. She stared at Meg with wide eyes. “Isn’t the air too thin to breath that high up?”

I take it pegasi can’t fly that high. “The cabin is pressurized,” Meg explained. “Planes fly that high because the air is so thin. It cuts way down on air friction.” She decided not to mention supersonic aircraft or spaceships.

“I see.” Twilight began furiously writing.

“Hah!” Applejack said, as she stamped a hoof. “Wait till I tell Dash!” Twilight smirked as she continued writing.

I wish I could be there to see that. As Meg waited for Twilight to finish writing her notes, she took a look at the book she was reading. You’ve got to be kidding me. It wasn’t one of her husband’s physics books, but one of her own programming books, one covering the latest version of C++. How could she even begin to comprehend that?

One Twilight had finished jotting down her notes, Meg asked her. “Does that book make any sense to you?”

The alicorn looked up at her, a small frown on her face. “Not really,” she confessed. “I get that this is how you tell a computer how to do something, but I don’t see how you would use this to get a computer to do the things I’ve seen them do. Nor can I figure out how a machine could interpret this stuff, so that it would do those things.”

So Twilight’s genius was not infinite. Somehow that made Meg feel better. “It involves many, many layers of abstraction, taking years to master. I happen to be reasonably talented at it; I guess it would be my cutie mark if humans had cutie marks.”

“Humans ain’t got cutie marks at all?” asked Applejack, that last statement having caught her interest.

“Nope, not in any form whatsoever.” Meg tried to keep it a simple statement of fact, knowing the importance ponies attach to cutie marks. Applejack seemed to accept it as no more than a curious fact.

Twilight was eager to get the conversation back on topic. “Could you show me a simple example of a program?”

Meg sat down at the desk and woke the computer up. “This is rather clichéd, but it does the job.” Twilight went airborne so she could watch over Meg’s shoulder as she launched a text editor, typed in a “hello world!” program, saved it to a file, switched to a command line, compiled it, then ran it. The program outputted “hello world!” and terminated. She ran the program a few more times, each time with the same result. “It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”

After a few seconds of silence, Meg turned around to look at Twilight. She found the alicorn staring intently at the screen, a hoof tapping her chin. The nearby flapping wings did little more than stir the air. Behind them, Applejack was back to reading the travel guide, turing a page with a hoof. Yes, it was magic, but giving a name to something you can’t understand doesn’t make it understood.

At least they were so cute doing it; but then, ponies were cute doing pretty much anything. If the adults were this cute…

“That may be simple,” Twilight said, after pondering what she saw, “but I bet everything happening behind the scenes to let you enter and run that program is anything but simple.”

Meg thought that was quite insightful of her. “Yeah, it’s hideously complicated. Tens of millions of lines of code written by thousands of people over many years.” Then there’s the hardware, but Meg didn’t want to spend all night explaining stuff. She knew where this was going to go, and she was already thinking of ways to narrow the scope.

Twilight stopped tapping her chin when she heard those numbers. She turned to look at Meg. “Could you show me what you’re working on?”

“Sure, just a sec.” What she had on this computer was a bit out of date, but it wasn’t worth the trouble to update it—or explain how she did it. She launched the simulation program.

“It’s incomplete, but the purpose is to predict what the detector will see when it encounters gravitational waves from various possible astronomical sources. That way, the design can be optimized before it’s built, and once it’s operational we can determine what it’s ‘seeing’—assuming, of course, that the simulation and the physics it’s based on were accurate.”

Meg entered the parameters for a simulation and started it. “This is one possible scenario: two black holes in close orbit around each other.” On the screen was displayed a dense grid distorted by two large masses circling each other, with waves propagating away from them towards infinity. “The kinetic energy and angular momentum of their orbits are radiating away, causing them to decay until…” A few seconds later the two masses merged into one, producing exceptionally powerful waves.

She turned around to look at Twilight again. “Just so you understand the process of developing software, I didn’t actually write most of this. I’m reusing code written by others, putting them together in new ways with additional code I wrote.”

Twilight gave her a smile. “That doesn’t sound all that different from how complicated spells are created.”

Magic as a kind of software? I guess that sorta makes sense. Maybe. What “hardware” does it run on?

“Do you think this can be adapted to do magical fields?”

Meg blinked. “Excuse me?”

Twilight tried to rephrase the question. “Is it possible for a magical field to be simulated like this? On a computer?”

Meg didn’t have the faintest idea if that was possible. What the heck was a magical field and how could it be simulated, even in principle? All she could do was tell Twilight what she needed to know to answer that herself.

“Anything can be simulated on a computer, so long as it can be described by mathematical equations.”

In response to that, Twilight drifted backwards away from Meg, then lazily did circles around the room. Meg found it interesting that she didn’t get a simple “yes” or “no” immediately. What was there to think about? Either it was described by equations or it wasn’t.

After a minute of pondering, Twilight stopped her circling and faced Meg, a joyless look on her face. “It is, but they’re quite complicated with non-linear interactions. The calculations required for even a simple simulation would probably overwhelm your computer.”

Did Twilight really know how powerful computers were? Meg had her doubts. “You think a billion numerical calculations a second is nowhere near fast enough?”

The alicorn stopped flapping for a split second. “A b-billion?” Applejack looked up, even her curiosity being piqued.

Meg shrugged. “This isn’t a very fast computer,” she deadpanned.

“I, uh… I see.” Twilight briefly looked at Applejack, who nodded in return. “That should be fast enough, I think.”

Meg had the unshakable feeling she was just subjected to a lie detector test. Is that why Applejack was really here? That wasn’t the reason she gave, and she can’t lie to save her life—supposedly—but then the given reason wasn’t false, just incomplete. Or maybe it was Twilight’s reason for her being here.

The next hour was spent giving Twilight a crash course in finite element analysis and simulation, helping her understand the forms the equations needed to have and the various ways the computed values could be insightfully displayed. She absorbed the knowledge like the proverbial sponge. Meg could easily see how she became—and remained—Celestia’s personal student.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Twilight wanted to visit for most of the day, but Meg had to veto that because she would be babysitting her niece. The ponies could come by in the evening.

---

The doorbell rang. Meg walked over to the front door and look through the peephole. Seeing her brother Matt and sister-in-law Lori, she opened the door, and her niece Susie, an eight-year-old girl, ran in.

“We’ll be back around four to pick her up,” Matt said. They turned to leave and Meg closed the door. Susie was already on the sofa, waiting for her to turn on the TV.

“I wanna see the one where they all get their cutie marks,” Susie declared.

Matt didn’t have a problem with his daughter watching the cartoon; she was its intended audience. He just couldn’t understand why an adult, like his sister, would be infatuated with it.

“That would be season one, episode twenty three, The Cutie Mark Chronicles.” Meg proceeded to turn everything on, get things set up, and start the episode playing.

She sat down on the sofa next to Susie and watched with her as the Crusaders attempted to earn their cutie marks zip-lining. Everything went wrong when the line broke, sending them all plunging to the ground.

“No way!” said Scootaloo.

Huh? Meg felt something wasn’t quite right.

“This ain’t possible!” said Apple Bloom.

Oh Celestia, anything but that!

“I think they heard us,” said Sweetie Belle.

Meg looked at where those voices were coming from, which wasn’t the TV, and saw three fillies standing there on the floor next to the sofa. She hit the pause button and face palmed. Why are they here? There’s no way Twilight sanctioned this. How did they even— She’s seen enough episodes to know better. Susie was going to notice them any second now. It was inevitable.

Meg removed her palm from her face and addressed them. “I really don’t understand why you three haven’t got your cutie marks yet for getting into trouble, because you all certainly have a talent for it.”

“That’s not the first time we’ve heard that, you know,” retorted Sweetie Belle.

Susie was on the floor staring at them, inching closer. The Crusaders inched backwards. “Susie, leave them alone.”

“How can they be real?” she protested.

“Long story, honey.” This was going to be a long day. “Go sit down.” Reluctantly, the little girl did so.

“Look on the bright side,” Meg told the fillies. “At least you’re not covered in tree sap.” That didn’t cheer them up. It was dawning on them they might be in over their heads, and it was a safe bet nopony else knew they were here.

“You should return home right now, before anypony notices you’re missing. I won’t tell anypony if you leave now.”

They just stood there for a few seconds, uneasily looking at each other. “How do we do that?” asked Sweetie Bell, looking up at her with weapons-grade puppy eyes.

Are you kidding me?! “I’m… not sure. I’ve seen the others click their rear hooves three times. Try that.”

Susie exploded with excitement. “Others? Who else was here!”

“Not now, Susie,” Meg scolded, to her instant regret. Why today?

The ponies all did as she suggested, but nothing happens. Of course not. “I guess you’re all stuck here for now.”

“Doncha mean forever?” said Apple Bloom resignedly, her impossibly cute pink bow sagging in sympathy.

Meg dreaded what she was about to say, but she had no choice. “Twilight will be here tonight; she’ll know what to do.”

Susie went ballistic. “Twilight’s coming? Can I stay and see her? Please!”

How am I going to fix this? “I’m sorry, but you can’t stay that late.” Susie sulked, folding her arms.

The Crusaders were ambivalent about hearing Twilight’s name. It meant they would get home, but it also meant this adventure of theirs won’t remain their secret.

Apple Bloom trotted over to the TV. “Ah remember all that. It happened a few years ago.” She turned to Meg, pointing at the screen. “How?” she demanded to know.

Meg turned the TV off. “We don’t know.”

Sweetie Belle joined her fellow Crusader. “Does Twilight know about this?”

“Believe me, she does.” The unicorn filly continued glaring at her. “No, she doesn’t know how either.”

Here it comes…

Scootaloo walked up to the other two. “We should try to solve it ourselves! Maybe we’ll earn our cutie marks!”

“Yeah!” said Sweetie Belle enthusiastically.

Yep, so predictable. If only there was some way to contact Twilight or even Rainbow Dash or Applejack. Hell, she’d take Pinkie Pie. Hello! Pinkie Pie! Can you hear me?! Who knew what that pony could do.

“Can we see more?” Apple Bloom asked, referring to the TV.

Ugh… what will Twilight think of all this? Not that it’s my fault they got here somehow.

“I don’t think the other ponies would approve. You can talk to Twilight about that.”

Apple Bloom tried to persuade her with cuteness, staring at her with puppy eyes. Too bad I know that trick. “Sorry.”

“I can’t watch it either?” asked Susie.

“Not while they’re here.”

“Why not? They know what’s gonna happen. They’re in it!”

The Crusaders were getting their hopes up again.

Meg sighed. “It’s not that simple. Trust me. I have reason to believe Twilight will be unhappy with me if I let them watch it, and you don’t want that to happen, now do you?”

“No…”

She addressed the Crusaders once again. “Quite honestly, I think Twilight will be unhappy that you know it exists, that you are even here, but she can deal with that later.” She leaned her head back on the sofa and closed her eyes. “We need to pass the time somehow. Any suggestions?”

“Could you tell us your cutie mark story?” Scootaloo asked.

Shoulda seen that coming. At least she didn’t ask to see it. “Believe it or not, we don’t have cutie marks.”

Their eyes went wide. “Then how do you know when you’ve found your special talent?” asked Sweetie Belle.

Did they really need a cutie mark to tell them what they’re good at? They should know because they’re good at it! “Do you think Rainbow Dash needed a cutie mark to know her special talent was flying? Or Twilight that hers was magic?”

Sweetie Belle was pouting. “At least they know what their talent is.”

Apple Bloom added, “We’ve tried so hard ta find ours.”

“I wish I had some advice to give you, honest, but I don’t,” Meg said. “I guess you just have to be patient and keep looking.” Their cutie mark issues weren’t going to be solved here and now. “How about a different subject?”

The yellow filly cautiously approached her. “Could we look at yer… whatever you got instead of hooves?”

“Sure.”

They leaped onto the sofa and she held out her hands for their inspection. Susie, fortunately, stayed on her side of the sofa. It felt odd to have her fingers manipulated by hooves, as they clearly weren’t doing it by pure physical contact alone. Must be the magic that lets them do stuff like turning the pages of a book.

“Is this what Twilight had when she went through that mirror?” asked Scootaloo.

Does this mean Equestria Girls happened too? It would explain Twilight’s partial familiarity with the human world. Is the mirror how they came here? But then why were they still ponies? “I guess so, but you’d have to ask her. Is it okay if I touch you with my hands?”

But before any of them could answer, Rainbow Dash flew in from the office. “You three have a lot of explaining to do. Go home right now!” She hovered, glaring at them.

Needless to say, they didn’t. They were also too afraid to admit they didn’t know how. Their silence wasn’t improving Rainbow Dash’s mood. Then the hovering pegasus noticed Susie gawking at her. “Oh hay.”

“Come with me into the office,” Meg calmly said, as she stood up. “We need to talk.”

They went to the office, and once inside Meg closed the door. Rainbow was hovering so they were face to face. “Don’t over-react to what I’m about to say, but they don’t know how to go home.” Rainbow Dash did start to over-react but quickly got herself under control. “You can tell them how, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s quite simple: click your rear hooves three times while thinking there’s no place like home.”

Meg blinked. It was so obvious in hindsight. And who in Equestria could possibly be that familiar with human culture? Only one of them could create a spell. “Let me guess. Discord came up with that.”

Now Rainbow Dash blinked. “Uh… yeah. What tipped you off?”

“We can discuss that later. First let’s deal with the Crusaders. I didn’t know they were here until it was too late. I’m babysitting my niece and she saw them, obviously, but it’s worse…” Oh, how will she react? Why couldn’t it have been Twilight? “They saw a few minutes of the cartoon”—angrily, but she quickly tried to reassure her—”nothing they didn’t already know, they just saw themselves, but the point is they know it exists.”

“Nnngh…” She then sighed, slouching in mid-air. “It’s not your fault they’re here. But I want to see what they saw.”

A perfectly reasonable request. “Of course.”

Meg opened the door and they returned to the living room.

“Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, follow me.” They nervously followed Rainbow Dash back into the office.

“Are they in trouble?” asked Susie, fearing for them.

“Yes, they weren’t supposed to come here. They’re going back to Equestria now.”

“Have you been to Equestria?”

Meg sat down next to her. “No, I haven’t.”

“But it’s real?”

“It’s real, all of it. But you must keep it a secret.”

Rainbow Dash flew back from the office. “They’re gone. They’ve Pinkie Promised not to tell anypony what they saw here.” She looked awkwardly at Susie. “I guess introductions are in order…”

“I’m Susie. You’re Rainbow Dash!”

“The one and only!” she said, slightly forced.

“Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll replay the episode.” Meg turned the TV back on, revealing the playback still paused on the opening theme song.

The pegasus landed on the sofa on the other side of Susie and got comfortable, laying down on her belly.

Meg resumed playback from the beginning and Rainbow Dash watched as the Crusaders tried zip-lining, failed, then decided to seek out her cutie mark story. She chuckled as Scootaloo tried to hint at who she had in mind while the other two kept getting it wrong. The opening theme played and Meg paused it again.

“That’s what they saw. It’s apparently accurate; at least, they didn’t point out any inaccuracies.”

“No surprise there,” she sighed. “Seems harmless enough. I did tell them my cutie mark story. Is that in this episode?”

“Yes, all six of you. It actually shows you getting your cutie mark.”

“Really? I’d like to see the rest of it.”

Rainbow Dash watched the remainder of the episode with interest, especially as she wasn’t present in most of the scenes. She snickered when Twilight turned her parents into potted plants. Meg got the impression Twilight never mentioned that, if she even remembered it. Rainbow paid the most attention to her own cutie mark story flashback. For the most part, she remained silent until it was over.

“Heh. I forgot she used to write those letters on friendship to Princess Celestia. It’s been a while now.” She suddenly leaped into the air. “That’s not cool!” she exclaimed indignantly.

What just happened? Meg looked in their direction and saw the pegasus hovering, glaring at Susie, and Susie pulling back her hand.

“I’m sorry,” the little girl said.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. “You can’t pet Rainbow Dash,” Meg told her. “Promise?”

“Her mane is so beautiful.”

Meg looked at the pegasus, who stopped glaring but remained hovering. “Yes, but petting it makes her less cool, and that makes her less awesome, and you wouldn’t want Rainbow Dash to be less awesome, do you?” The owner of that mane rolled her eyes.

Susie thought about it. “I promise,” she said unhappily.

“Don’t be sad,” Meg consoled her. “You just watched Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark story with Rainbow Dash herself!”

The pegasus landed on the sofa—a little bit further away from the girl. “That all happened,” she told Susie, trying to make amends. “Wasn’t I awesome?”

Her frown turned into a smile. “Uh huh.”

“I need to talk to Rainbow Dash privately for a minute. We’ll be right back.” Meg started off to the office. The pegasus went airborne and followed. Once inside she closed the door.

Rainbow Dash got down to business. “Okay, so what tipped you off?”

Meg began explaining. “That spell came from a very famous movie that was made over seventy years ago. I can show it to you if you want. From the cartoon it’s obvious that Discord has quite a bit of knowledge about our world. This is just another example.”

“That’s interesting, considering he claims he can’t exist here.” Something else was gnawing at her. “Sure, I’d like to see it, but why would you know of spells like that if you don’t have magic?”

An interesting question, actually. “We may not have actual magic, but we do have the concept of magic and it’s present in some of our fictional works.” Like a certain cartoon. Meg opened the door. “I’ll start the movie.”

They went back to the living room. Meg got out their 70th anniversary Emerald Edition The Wizard of Oz blu-ray and put it into the player. “The relevant scene is at the end, but if you have a few hours to spare you can watch the whole movie.”

Rainbow Dash considered her options. “I was gonna explore outside for a while, but this looks more important. Let’s watch it all.” She landed on the sofa and got comfortable.

“We’re going to watch The Wizard of Oz with Rainbow Dash,” she told Susie.

---

Rainbow Dash saw her first human movie. Much like many Equestrian movies, it resembled a Bridleway play. Everything obviously took place on sets with many painted backdrops. It even had people breaking out into song for no reason, but at least they were good songs; one was about rainbows. That tornado showed how important pegasi were; that could never happen on her watch. Their notions of magic were absurd—using a broom to fly?—but they didn’t know any better, so that could be forgiven. A pony version of this story would do quite well in Equestria, she thought.

And she saw the no place like home scene.

The similarity was undeniable, but what did it mean? It was hardly evidence that Discord had betrayed them yet again, or that he intended to. It wasn’t exactly a secret that he knew something about this realm. It might even explain his bizarre sense of humor.

---

“I’ll let Twilight know. She might want to see it herself. I dunno what to make of it.” Rainbow Dash went airborne. “It’s time for me to go home.” She was about to use the spell first used by Dorothy when Meg stopped her.

“Before you go, there’s a question I’d like to ask.” She led her back to the office. Once inside, she said, “It’s about Scootaloo. I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer it.”

Rainbow Dash looked hesitant, but said, “Go on.”

“In the show, it’s never revealed who her parents or siblings are. There’s a lot of speculation about that in our world. What’s her situation?”

Rainbow Dash scowled at her as she took her time uncharacteristically thinking about what to say before she said it. Meg suddenly realized Rainbow Dash was the last pony she should have asked about Scootaloo.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s none of your business.” Rainbow Dash had said it with a level voice, but that only seemed to make it worse. Before she could say anything, Rainbow Dash was gone.

Comments

[Grim The Pony Reaper]

God dangit Rainbow Dash! Now you've peaked my interest!

[Rokas]

A very interesting story. I like it muchly, even if it's a bit forced in some spots.

Also ponies with realistic proportions = win.

[Sharp Quill]

5483304

I'll happily accept all compliments.

Could you give an example of something forced? There were a few scenes I struggled with, but it would be nice to confirm those were what you're thinking of.

Re realistic proportions: that’s part of keeping it “real.” I really don’t think cartoon proportions and ponies in the real world mix. Never mind the eyes, the heads are so large it’s a wonder they don’t tip over.

[Verequus]

70<span class="s1">^th</span>

Import fail?

[Sharp Quill]

6071265 I guess so. I'm surprised no one had pointed it out months ago. Fixed.

[Axel van Daeren]

5483891
This is the first story I can remember that makes an explicit point about the proportions being realistic. I'm having a fun time trying to imagine it.

[batran]

Idk about how the crusaders magically appearing nonchalantly but eh

[Frazzle2Dazzle]

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s none of your business.” Rainbow Dash had said it with a level voice, but that only seemed to make it worse. Before she could say anything, Rainbow Dash was gone.

And that's all we need to know. Ah, the evil villain in me is whooping with joy at the emotional backlash and vulnerability, while the hero wants to punch the villain in the face. The villain's winning.

[iloveportalz0r]

It wasn’t one of her husband’s physics books, but one of her own programming books, one covering the latest version of C++.

Mind you don't contaminate her with C++'s diseased ideas

Must be the magic that let’s them do stuff like turning the pages of a book.

*lets