Lessons in quirks

by Mike84

Chapter XVIII

With a strange mixture of a sigh and a yawn Twilight sat up in her bed. After the eventful previous day she would have appreciated a somewhat calmer sleep than the odd dream had provided. Nevertheless she was rested enough to get up. Stretching her legs and wings she cast a look out of the window. At least she hadn't overslept. The sun had just risen so she didn't expect any of her friends, with the possible exception of Applejack, to be out on the green already. Spike was still snoring in his cot and Twilight decided to leave him be. After the rough waking call of the previous day and his help with Pinkie's party Twilight felt that her number one assistant deserved the rare chance to sleep in. She would leave him a note on where to find her and an invitation to join them if he wanted to. Twilight put an assortment of picnic-suited foodstuff into a basket, grabbed its handle with her teeth and was about to descend the stairs to leave the library through the main entrance when suddenly she hesitated.

She remembered a part of her dream that she couldn't quite deny to have made some sense. Rainbow Dash's admonishment about not practicing her wings could have come right from her real self and if she did say it, she would have a good point. Twilight sighed, but turned and instead of descending the stairs she walked up to the viewing balcony. The sun had risen completely by now and on the meadow Twilight could see a spot of color. A quick look through the telescope confirmed her suspicion that Applejack was already there, having spread out a blanket on the grass. She also saw Frank and Fluttershy too was already approaching to join them. Twilight climbed onto the railing of the balcony, still holding the basket with her teeth, spread her wings, jumped and started to flap.

Flying still was a mixed sensation for her. On the one hoof there was the sensation of being able to get just anywhere and the animating feeling of the head wind on her face and in her mane. On the other hoof Twilight still felt like she was only remotely in control of where she was heading and of whether or not she would actually stay airborne.

"Hey, Twilight! Nice to see you up here!"
Twilight hadn't seen or heard Rainbow Dash approach, being utterly focused on staying up in the air. When she was so unexpectedly addressed she gave a startled cry, dropped the basket and started flapping frantically to avoid falling right after it.
"Stay up!" Rainbow called, diving down, catching the basket and using it to catch what contents of it had fallen separately.
"I'll take care of this", Rainbow said as she flew back up, flying backwards in front of Twilight and holding the basket with her forehooves. Neither flying backwards, nor holding anything in her hooves while flying was an art that Twilight had mastered yet. Once she had tried to levitate something along while she was flying, but this had distracted her so much that the result had been a painfully rough and utterly unintended crash landing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, Twilight", Rainbow said, "And nice job on getting out of the fluttering fit again."
"Good morning, Rainbow", Twilight panted, her heart still racing from the surge of adrenalin the near fall had given her.
"You know, if you want to, we can train flying any time. When getting into a fluttering fit while you still have some room below the best thing to do is to just spread your wings and not to flap at all to stabilize. Though I think this time it wouldn't have helped for lack of height."
"I really think I am going to get back to your offer, Rainbow. Thank you."
Rainbow Dash was beaming at her.

Still flying backwards and holding the basket in her forehooves, she descended and took an elegant backwards landing right beside the blanket Applejack had spread out on the grass. Having known Rainbow Dash for quite a while now and seen many of her amazing flying feats, Twilight still didn't understand how this pegasus could perform such a precision landing without even looking where she was flying or how high she was. Her own regular landing was not nearly as elegant as Rainbow's but neither was it particularly rough.

After an exchange of good mornings with everypony, Twilight's look fell on Frank's saddle-bags which were standing beside the blanket which Applejack had put on the ground. The bags looked less bulgy now, probably because they no longer contained the tent which stood just a short walk away. The lid of one the bags had been opened revealing for it to be made of wood on the inside. The lid was folded open along several hinges to form a desktop which, propped up against and hooked to the opened lid of the second bag, made for a makeshift escritoire. At the upper and lower end of the desktop two hinged strips of wood fixed the sheet of paper on it so it would not be blown away by the wind or otherwise slip away.

Some lines were written on the paper but in a script so tiny it was difficult to read it. A quill, the very one which Discord had given Frank the previous day, was resting on the desktop weighed down by a flat stone.
"I took down some notes this morning", Frank said who had noticed Twilight's look. "Yesterday evening I was too tired for it and there wasn't much light for it anyway."
"Early riser as I said", Applejack laughed. "Already he was sittin' here scribbling away when Ah came over here."
"So Ah was", Frank confirmed now with his Applejack accent. "And mighty surprised Ah was to see y'all, but pleasant surprise it was to be sure. Thank y'all for this here picnic."

Fluttershy gave Frank a look of utter surprise while Rainbow Dash burst into laughter. Apparently neither of the two had heard Frank's adoption of Applejack's accent before.
"Can you talk like Pinkie Pie too?" Rainbow Dash asked when she had calmed down.
"No more than I could fly like you", Frank conceded, straightening his spectacles.
Twilight took notice that both lenses were of clear, uncolored glass again, as she had expected and as Discord had promised.

"You tried your new quill?" Twilight asked Frank and the suspicion she had expressed the previous day about gifts from Discord resounded in her voice.
"Oh yes!" Frank said enthusiastically, not minding Twilight's skeptical undertone. "It is actually quite a special quill!"
"Special quill?" Twilight was eyeing the writing utensil as if she expected for it to jump out from under the stone to stab somepony any moment.
Frank picked up the quill hooved it to Twilight, put a sheet of paper on top of the one already resting there and said: "Write something!"
"Okay...", Twilight reluctantly agreed. "Where is an inkwell?"
"Never mind. Just write!"
Twilight curled her lips a little. While she appreciated not being princessed by Frank, she was a little piqued at being ordered like that. But she put the quill on the paper and wrote:
Twilight Sparkle

Where the quill touched the paper it wrote in neat lines as if it had just the right amount of ink on it. No blots, no scratching and no notable change in the amount of ink that the quill seemed to release. Twilight shook the quill in a way that would in case of a regular dipped quill have caused blotting on the paper, but there was not the tiniest unwanted spot to be found.
"When I tried to dip the quill this morning it just wouldn't break the surface of the ink in the well. I thought that it was a joke of Discord. But then I discovered it wrote without being dipped. I completed two whole pages without without ever dipping it into any ink!"

Twilight was impressed. This would require some kind of magic she didn't know or at least couldn't think of spontaneously and admittedly, this was rather useful. Her suspicions however were not dispelled.
"You still want to be careful. Maybe the text will disappear after a while or maybe it will take the ink away from other scrolls or books or anything like that."
"Twilight", Fluttershy intervened quietly. "I was not sure about this quill after you left yesterday and I did ask Discord about it. He promised that this quill would not hurt Frank's or anypony else's writing or cause any other harm."

Twilight thought about this promise for a moment looking for loopholes in the formulation. Remembering Discord's question of the previous day, she asked:
"What about what somepony may write who is not actually a pony?"
"I told him, Twilight, that I would be really very disappointed in him if his quill did cause any harm whatsoever."
Twilight nodded slowly. It was probably the best kind of security that could be expected from Discord. Given that it was probably in his power to switch every quill of Ponyville into an autonomously flying dart with the snipping of a finger, there was probably not much more to ask for.

"Where is he now?" Twilight asked her eyes wandering tellingly towards Fluttershy's mane.
Twilight scolded herself for this when she saw the hurt look on Fluttershy's face as she shook her head answering the unspoken question.
"Wherever Discord is when he is not here. I do not know."
When none of the others paid any attention Fluttershy whispered: "He asked to come along, but I told him no and asked him to leave us alone this morning."
Twilight nodded and gave Fluttershy an understanding smile. She knew very well how difficult it was for her friend to deny anypony a request, most of all a friend, even if said friend happened to be the master of chaos himself.

"There comes Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash said, pointing in the direction of the town. Twilight had by now grown rather used to expect the unusual when Pinkie Pie was involved. The sight of her hopping along like a bouncing ball all the while balancing a tray of cupcakes on her head without any of the cakes falling off in utter defiance of the laws of inertia, gravity and probability still remained something that could have come right from her confusing dream. Though Frank couldn't know about her dream of course, his expression gave away that he was thinking along similar lines.

"And there's Rarity too", Applejack said.
Rarity trudged along not nearly as energetic as Pinkie Pie. She looked in fact somewhat tired but put on a cheerful smile as she spotted them.
After the greetings they all settled down and brought out what food they had brought along. At this point Frank raised the desktop lid to rummage through the bag underneath it. Rarity seemed to take particular interest in the lid and its functions.

Finally Frank brought forth a small jute sack. As he looked over the variety of sandwiches, cookies, cakes, the teapot and small stove which Rarity had brought along and all the other treats spread out over the blanket he suddenly hesitated. He looked rather uncomfortable and blushed.
"Well...", he mumbled, "...they're not much. I didn't know... they are a few days old by now too. But they are a bit of a specialty in Fillydelphia. You can get them everywhere there and maybe you want to try..."
He reached into the jute sack and brought forth several large salted pretzels. They looked a little squashed but Frank held one out with a brave smile while his face took on a color ever more resembling that of the tomato slices that could be found on the sandwiches which Fluttershy had contributed.

"Now that's very kind of you, Frankie, but you're invited and...", Applejack began, but Rarity silenced her with an inconspicuous nudge.
"Oh this is lovely, Frank", she said. Twilight was not the only one to notice that it was the first time that Rarity had used his first name rather than referring to him as Mr. Blanket. "I have always wanted to try Fillydelphia soft pretzels!"
She took the squashed pretzel from Frank's hoof and took a bite closing her eyes and made every impression of thoroughly enjoying the treat.

"If ever you come to Fillydelphia you really want to try fresh ones", said Frank whose face gradually returned to its normal color. The others too each took a pretzel now.
Twilight took a bite and almost choked. Squeezed to unusual density and mostly dried up in the summer heat this pretzel was hardly the delight which Rarity's brave performance had suggested it to be. Twilight hastily took a sip from the cup of tea Rarity had just served her and she nodded her gratitude to Frank with the best smile she could muster. As Rarity poured tea into Applejack's cup she took a short glimpse at Frank, verifying that he didn't wear his hat and was distracted by talking to Pinkie Pie whose enjoyment of the pretzel seemed quite genuine. Applejack hadn't taken a bite from hers yet.
"Be honest about this one...", Rarity whispered with a kind smile and a glimpse at Applejack's pretzel, "...and I'll have to pour out the tea-pot over your head, darling."

Author's Note:

Last edited on December 9th 2015.