Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I stirred the warm water with my magic until the grittiness of the sugar had disappeared, then tilted my head over and touched the tip of my ear to the water. Perfect temperature. I lifted a block of yeast with my magic and started crumbling it into the water.
Ravenwing turned a page in the binder, then tapped a hoof against the clear plastic sheet protector as she looked up at me. “Her mom is also named Twilight? That seems to be a ridiculously popular name.”
I pushed the pot of yeasty sugarwater across the counter, leaving it next to the oven where it wouldn’t cool down too quickly. “Well,” I said as I dumped a bag of flour into an enormous bowl, “there’s a beautiful overlook on the mountain above the city, called ‘Twilight Point.’ It’s a popular hiking destination for couples. Very private.”
I turned to look at Ravenwing. Her eyes were enormous saucers. She glanced down at the picture of Twilight’s parents and slowly moved her hoof away from the binder, then looked back up at me with her eyebrows pinched together. “Seriously?”
“No.” A grin crept across my face. “I just made that all up.”
I heard her harrumph. “You’re still a terrible pony.”
Clouds of dust rose from the bowl as I started stirring sugar into the flour. “If it was true, it’d be in the binder.”
At the sound of her gasp, I glanced over my shoulder. “Omigosh, is this her? She’s adorable!”
She must have found the photo of Twilight attempting to get into the cookie jar under the guidance of her older brother. Any second now, she’d ask…
“Wait. This looks like one of those old-fashioned photos. The instant kind.” She looked up at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw, her eyebrows twitching between pinched in confusion and raised in awe. “This isn’t a copy, or a scan. It’s the original. How long have you been stalking her?”
I glanced at the off-white foam collecting on top of the yeast water, then turned around and sat down on the floor, curling my indigo tail around my flank. “I had tea with Twilight Velvet a few times. I told her I was trying to meet everypony in town named Twilight.”
“Okay, but—” she tapped the photograph “—how did you get this picture?”
“Well, I swiped that out of one of the photo albums. It was just too cute. Also, potential blackmail material.” I narrowed my eyes. “Evidence of her dark criminal past.”
She held up the photo in her magic and frowned. “But won’t Twilight’s mom miss this picture? This is the kind of thing I’d want to keep if I was a mom.”
“I’m not a monster. There were two photos. This was the blurry one; it’d been stuck behind the good one.” I stood up and turned back to my work. “You know, I’m beginning to question your dedication to this whole not-revenge assault scheme you’re working on.”
She tucked the photo back in and turned the page. “How so?”
“Well,” I said as I poured the water into the dry ingredients, “you seem awfully concerned about your archenemy’s mother’s feelings. Also, calling your archenemy ‘adorable’ is going to make it difficult to crush her under your hooves later.”
“I… I never said she was my enemy.” I heard another page being flipped. “I don’t want to crush her, either. I care for all my subjects, even those who have wronged me.”
The wooden spoon stuck straight up as I paused my stirring long enough to turn around and raise a single eyebrow at her. “You seemed awfully confrontational when you showed up here this morning. ‘Vile pretender,’ I think, were your exact words.”
She squirmed against the floor.
I resumed mixing the dough. “I just feel like it’s going to be hard to pull off that level of vitriol after you’ve seen filly Twilight Sparkle stealing cookies from a cookie jar. What even is your plan, anyway?”
I heard her cape shift as she sat up straighter. There was that regal air again. She cleared her throat. “Once we have ascertained her location, we will create a distraction to bypass her formidable garrison of guard stallions, and then—”
“Whoa. Slow down there, Seabiscuit.” I turned around and hauled the massive dough bowl down to the floor so I could keep stirring with my magic. “We? You mean, like, the ‘Royal We?’”
She tapped her hooves together and smiled with only her teeth. “Well, ah, no. Just the normal we. You and I. You and the royal I. So, like, half of the we is royal. Just you and me, though.”
I spun back around and rolled my eyes in a single dramatic gesture. After years of practice, I’ve gotten pretty good at those. I ditched the spoon and started kneading the dough with my magic. The key to a good yeast donut is the chewiness, which comes from interlocking gluten molecules, which in turn happens during kneading.
“And what,” I said, consciously relaxing my jaw muscles and instead putting that energy into the dough, smashing it hard against the floured countertop, “makes you think I want to be part of your weird little coup attempt?”
I swore I could hear her soul deflate. “I, uh. Y-you’re my most loyal subject. You’re the only pony who’s ever helped me. I, um, I just thought that we could… together.”
This batch of donuts was going to be so chewy. So very, very chewy. I stopped kneading and took a deep breath. “I’m not your royal subject. Because you’re not a princess. You’re just… a weirdo in a costume.” I didn’t turn around, because I didn’t want to see the way I was sure she was looking at me. I did hear a sniffle, and that was bad enough. “The chocolate milk is starting to sour. Why don’t you take a shower upstairs in my apartment while I finish this batch of donuts. Leave your cape in the big sink by the stairwell. I don’t want sticky sour milk all over my home.”
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Awww, poor evil bad guy. I bet Sprinkle gonna get a new roomie though. Maybe a part time employee or something, lol.
Seriously? Stealing baby pictures with intent to blackmail? That's stupid, incompetent, pointlessly evil, and you're honestly stretching suspension of disbelief with the idea that a conversation with Twilight Velvet didn't immediately shift into a conversation with Twilight Sparkle.
Or are you claiming that this walking, talking pile of irrational belligerence somehow managed to not fly off the handle about being constantly mistaken for an alicorn princess to the mother of said alicorn princess? For what purpose? If she actually wanted to negatively impact Sparkle's life, she wouldn't still be running a donut store, she would have dressed up like an alicorn and spat in the face of every foreign dignitary she could find. And if she doesn't want anything to do with her, then why ever interact with anyone even remotely close to her?
8089931 I'm not sure you're reading the same story I'm looking at.
I'm enjoying this story.
8089956 A story about a massive jerk named Twilight Sprinkle who is perpetually frustrated that she's mistaken for Twilight Sparkle, yet does nothing to remedy this apart from casually abuse anyone who makes the mistake. Even though this chapter clearly indicates she's had ample opportunity to confront the problem at its source.
And also pointlessly steals baby pictures.
Not sure what I'm missing here.
8089972 It's the fake princess who stole the pictures, I think. Not Sprinkle.
8090238 It's a picture in Sprinkle's binder.
8089972
I'm pretty sure the blackmail part was a joke, as her first and foremost reason was because it was simply "too adorable."
As for tackling the problem, what is she supposed to say? "Hey, can you tell your daughter to come out and make a speech not to confuse us. I know she has wings and all, but ponies really are that blind."
That'd be way to awkward to ask for... at least, in my opinion.
8090258 I meant more in the sense of actually having an intelligent conversation with Twilight Sparkle and seeing if there is any possible solution to the problem, not necessarily "Tell the entire kingdom to stop being idiots".
8089972
Yeah, no. The rest of your criticism is reasonable, because it points out Sprinkle's pretty serious blind spot about this whole absurd mess. But that part of the chapter definitely came across as a sarcastic joke. "Evidence of her criminal past" that baby Sparkle was photographed trying to steal cookies from a cookie jar? No, she definitely wasn't serious when she said that bit.
8090331 Fine, how about "steals baby pictures for literally no reason"? Would that be better?
8090300
Yeah, I agree. That'd be the smart thing to do.
Ponies have never been the smartest creatures. They are like humans in the way that they will make a mistake and continue making the mistake, even when there is another way to make sure the mistake never happens again.
8090356 She's maybe a day's train ride away from fixing everything, on a bad day. Or a conversation with Twilight Velvet. Or a letter. Or literally any solution other than randomly assaulting ponies who make innocent mistakes because of widespread dyslexia.
8090367
In stories like these, the idea is that it's an AU where everything conspires to prevent the most obvious, sane, plausible, and logical solution which could solve everything in under an hour. One of those little universes where the law of comedy says "Okay no, I can't let this happen, I'm not finished laughing at this situation yet."
That said, I get the feeling this story'd be better as a one-shot. Taking it further changes it from 'law of comedy' to 'oh wait we're kinda serious, why hasn't [A] done (B) and solved this whole mess already...?', thus leading me to agree with your overall sentiment even if I wouldn't put the tone quite that way.
8090255 Oh. Guess I just misread.
8090523 You know what? You're right. Had this just been a simple one-shot that was more tightly composed, it would probably go over better, and I'd have less complaints with it.
And your point about suspension of disbelief and comedy precluding the obvious solution is a good one, though I'll respectfully argue that's a much more subjective problem, as everyone has a different point where the protagonist's actions become too ludicrous to just dismiss as 'because it's funny'.
8090356
8090367
I really don't think it's as great and obvious a solution as you make it out to be. It's not like we're talking about a lime green pegasus with an unfortunate name; half those ponies coming in probably saw her through the front window and improvised their entrance. And for the other half, ponies who can't tell a donut shop from a giant crystal
eyesorecastle won't be deterred by a public announcement either.On the other hoof approaching Sparkle on the matter would be likely to get Sprinkle days of friendship attempts by a slightly obsessive alicorn princess (or even worse, Pinkie Pie), something I think was stated in the first chapter she explicitly doesn't much care to have happen.
8090653 So it's better for her to just keep working at a donut shop where she's constantly miserable and lashing out at everyone, even telling her regular customers that she doesn't consider them anything close to her friends, rather than make an actual effort to fix her life?
8090665
She doesn't seem miserable to me. She's a happy little misequine (misanthrope, but for ponies) who turned an annoying situation into "dinner and a show". Or at least that's what it seems like to me. She's kind of like Twilight before her move to Ponyville, only that she's actually decent at social interaction as long as you don't mind the snark.
Of course, this is FIMfiction so I assume most readers are rooting for her to be shown The Magic Of Friendship acts there's a good chance that that's where the story is going.
Also, I imagine it's not necessarily a good idea to make friends with your customers just because they regularly buy at your shop. Friendly acquaintances, sure, but what kind of foundation for a friendship would that be (not to mention some of them are probably twice her age).
8090754 Dinner and a show that physically and mentally exasperates her, that she clearly resents, and that she loses money on by essentially giving away free samples. And that used to include hot coffee.
So happy. Much life satisfaction.
8090759
Like I said, she seems fine to me. And she wouldn't use the chocolate milk if she didn't a) like being a bit dramatic about it and b) know that she can handle the small financial cut. She sells them for a Bit per carton, and that's with profit margin.
Switching from hot coffee to harmless chocolate milk only seems to me like another sign of her going from seriously annoyed to half-annoyed-half-amused. If she was getting fed up with the constant advances she would've switched the other way... Or maybe she was just bluffing about the coffee part in the first place.
Now I want to see Twilight Velvet having to deal with 'villains' coming to Canterlot after her daughter.
And now I have the strangest feeling Celestia may actually know and be sponsoring Sprinkle in order for her to act as a bulwark for Sparkle, stonewalling and dissuading most 'villains' before they ever reach Ponyville.
This chapter started off really cute. I think Sprinkle is more adorable than Sparkle ever was.
8091041 trollestia at her best
Aww, Sprinkle made a friend!
Would love to see some shipping, but then that's because I'm a dirty, dirty shipper
8090339 Well, she *did* give a reason ("It was just too cute."), but as noted earlier, much of that paragraph was clearly a sarcastic joke. So we can't say she was serious about that part either. Which means we don't really have a solid grasp on her motives for this. So yeah, that is better.
Weird, tracking functionality isn't working for me on this story. Never had that happen before.
8094422 It's because I published the chapters while the story was unpublished. It won't send a notification twice for the same chapter. I've fixed the issue, and you should get notifications for all future chapters, starting with tomorrow's update of Chapter 4.
relevant pic:
http://muffinshire.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-s-First-Day-19-Cookie-Thieves-468003329
8096180
I immediately thought of that pic as well.
8096180
8096491
Said comic may or may not have been the inspiration for that polaroid.
I'm seeing the beginnings of a beautiful, if guilt-incited friendship.
yeah! making Friends
Interesting cute way of testing temperature.
8496618
What are you supposed to do? Stick your dirty disgusting hoof that you've been using to walk all day with, and that can't even feel temperature differences due to being a nail.
Or just use a thermometer.