6. Wake up. It’s Eight O’Clock.
Her Royal Morning Coffee
Wake up. It’s Eight O’Clock.
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
It was an extraordinary morning for Dry Roast, and with Ponyville being the way it was, that was saying something. His sleep was refreshing, the walk to the store through the sparkling night was invigorating, and everything just seemed to be going his way for a change. He opened the store a few minutes early, warming up the coffee machinery and popping the first frozen bits of cookie dough into the oven for some fresh biscotti, then gave in to his desire to whistle while getting all the rest of the multitude of things ready for his first customer. Applejack probably would not be showing up for almost two hours, and Twilight was most probably never coming to the store again, so he had a long period of idle dreaming scheduled this morning while standing at the front door to his store and gazing up into the night sky.
“Can’t believe I was making that big of a deal over nothing,” he muttered to himself while wiping down the tables. “She’s a princess. She probably has more than six impossible things happen to her before breakfast.”
The bright and cheerful ding of the front door made him look up from wiping the tables, a little surprised at having a customer this early in the morning. Then, after the identity of his nighttime visitor soaked in a little, it made much more sense.
“Good morning, Princess Luna,” called out Dry Roast while scurrying back behind the counter. “What can I get you?”
Still feeling pretty good about his life, Dry Roast considered getting a sign for his wall. ‘Luna Approved’ perhaps. Maybe even designate a booth as her favorite with moon-themed cushions for ambiance. The customers would love it.
Two out of four princesses prefer our coffee. I could get napkins printed.
Luna made a show of examining the price board before ordering a medium caramel frappuccino, although she went for two pumps of frap roast and a quick squirt of chocolate for a change instead of the affogato flavoring from last time. It took little time to mix her order up, sliding it over to the counter with a flair and a smile for the beautiful princess who had the most fetching hint of a sly smile while just standing there and watching him work.
“That’ll be sixteen bits plus tip,” said Dry automatically before remembering the last time she visited without paying. In all odds, a princess in Canterlot did not have to carry bits with them, and Luna had most likely not actually purchased anything with her own money since… well, they had invented the bit.
“Or I could let you run a tab,” he added in a hurry, trying to sound relaxed and casual.
Luna lifted one eyebrow fractionally and pointed to an old sign behind the counter that he had inherited from the previous owner. “Thy store specifies no credit,” she stated in the most authoritative voice. “And I have no bits upon me. Whatever shall I do?”
“Think of it as a gift,” said Dry.
“The law forbids princesses from accepting gifts except on state and diplomatic occasions,” countered Princess Luna. “They could be used as leverage to obtain unfair advantage with the Crown.”
“Then I was thinking of doing some advertising,” said Dry just as smooth as he could. “Your endorsement of my product could be used to cover your tab.”
“I would need to sample your… product first,” said Luna. She lifted the coffee in her magic and took a sip, not seeming to notice the wave of sparkles traveling down her mane in a frothy ripple of starfire afterward. She lifted her head up from the cup, her nose twitched, and she smiled. A piece of paper from behind the counter took flight in her magic, and a short time later, the announcement corkboard on the wall of the coffee shop bore a new sign.
The coffee here is quite good. —Luna
“Let me get you a cookie before you go.” Dry scurried into the kitchen and pulled a hot tray out of the oven with his magic, extracting one semisolid cookie and floating it over in the direction of the dark princess. “Be careful, it’s hot.”
In return, Luna regarded him from under lowered lashes. “You know I still cannot pay.”
“I still owe you for the sign,” countered Dry Roast.
“How much would you be indebted to me?”
Dry Roast shrugged. “Depends on how much traffic it brings to the store. Certainly more than just one coffee and a cookie.”
Luna took a sniff of the hovering cookie and breathed, “Remarkable.” Then she took a bite and promptly grabbed for her coffee again. “Hot! Hot!” After a few bites and slurps, she added ‘and cookies’ to the sign, then turned to Dry Roast.
“So, how hath you and young Twilight arranged thy relationship?”
Dry’s heart skipped a beat, but he tried to continue acting casual while he wiped down the counter. “We don’t have a relationship. I probably won’t see her ever again. She said she’s going to start chaining herself to her bed.”
There was an ominous thud at the door, quite unlike any other thud Dry Roast had heard before.
He turned to look, even though he was afraid of what he was going to see.
He was right.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was leaning against the outside of the Java Le Choza door with a bed chained to one leg. Something in her mind was working, because the bed was floating in her magic behind her, but that amount of concentration seemed to be preventing her from actually opening the door and coming inside while towing the giant chunk of bedroom furniture behind her.
“Oh,” said Dry Roast. There was a word that he wanted to use next, but since Princess Luna was in the room, he decided to only internalize it.
Luna gave a little gasp and held a hoof to her mouth. “Oh, my.”
“Oh, my what?” asked Dry Roast, momentarily distracted from the sight of Twilight Sparkle pressed face-first against the outside door and leaving little trails of drool down the glass.
“Never mind,” said Luna abruptly. “The dreams of another are private.”
Dry Roast took a second look at the drooling princess. “You don’t mean she’s dreaming about me, do you?”
Hearing no response, Dry Roast looked around the coffee shop only to find his first princess customer of the morning had vanished. Unfortunately, the second one was still there.
He considered locking the door. Or moving. Or locking the door and moving.
Against his better judgement, he went over and opened the door up a crack instead. “Yes, Princess Twilight?” he asked in a quiet whisper.
“Merglempth thslagumpth umputh mit chocolate.”
“Got it!” Dry darted back inside the shop, grateful that nopony else was up at this hour to see what was going on. He mixed and stirred as quickly as possible, as well as adding two hot cookies in a bag for whatever nibbling she intended on later. Taking the order back to the door, he held it out and whispered, “Here you go. To go. So you can go—”
Twilight Sparkle’s magic formed around the coffee and the bag while she floated over a small pile of bits, but when Dry tried to move back into the store with them, he found out he was being held also. She took a deep breath out of the steam rising from her coffee and moved right up to powerfully pin him against the door, but locked her lips to his with a graceful delicacy and power that brought his heart into a hammering crescendo.
Once done with the much longer breathy kiss, the floating bed behind Twilight Sparkle settled down onto the ground and she slipped back under the covers, only with Dry Roast trapped under one alicorn-strength foreleg. To be honest, he really was not able to fight her embrace and might have blown over in a stiff breeze, but he did struggle a little for the sake of appearances. Then Twilight snuggled down with him held close in all four limbs and both wings, nibbling on his ear while floating the cup over to a rather large cup holder on the side of the bed.
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
The approach of dawn to Ponyville also brought Applejack on her traditional visit to Java Le Choza, only this time she stopped outside of the door instead of just going inside like usual.
She had to. There was something blocking her path. A bed. And in that bed, there were two someponies.
Dry Roast peeked out from under an imprisoning purple foreleg and mouthed a silent, “Help!”
Twilight Sparkle merely shifted in her sleep and nuzzled the damp ear of her prisoner.
Applejack stood stock-still for a long time, looking back and forth between the two of them, and then up into the sky as if to see if there was a multicolored tail draped off the side of a nearby cloud that would explain the situation. She looked so much like she wanted to say something particularly witty or sarcastic, but after a while she just shook her head and whispered, “Ah ain’t askin’ how you managed this. Ah don’t wanna know. Nope. Not going to ask.”
After pushing the bed a short distance away from the door, Applejack slipped inside the coffee shop. Then after a minute or two, she came back out with a hefty bag of coffee beans wrapped up in a tablecloth. It did not really look like an answer to his problem at first, but she hefted up the bag of beans, and on the count of three, swapped the bag for Dry Roast just as slick as Daring Do would have. Twilight Sparkle gave out a little whine in her sleep, but after clutching the bag more firmly and taking a quick sip from her coffee, she settled back into a snoring slumber.
Once the two of them were fairly certain Twilight was not going to wake up, Applejack nudged Dry Roast with a shoulder. “You looks jealous of that bag of beans.”
“Just a little ashamed at being so easy to replace. Um.” He looked up at the castle in the distance, then back down at the huge bed. Applejack lowered her head and rooted underneath the bed until she had it up on her back.
“I’ll carry. You balance it and make sure nuttin’ and nopony falls off, okay?”
It sounded like a good deal to him. Dry Roast could never have carried the hefty bed even a fraction of the way back to the Castle of Friendship on his own, and Applejack would have most certainly would not have been able to balance the heavy load all by herself. And, thankfully, there were no other ponies up that near to dawn, even though Dry Roast felt fairly positive that Princess Luna was watching from a distance and laughing.
It took a while, but once they got the immense bed and the occupant put back where they belonged, the two of them took a moment to just stand and catch their breath in the bedroom while watching Twilight Sparkle sleep.
“This isn’t creepy, is it?” whispered Dry Roast. It seemed to be a little excessive to be whispering, because the bed had thumped into several objects on the way back to its present location and Twilight Sparkle had not even twitched. Still, Dry was trying to err on the side of caution.
“Naa,” said Applejack. “She’s just so cute when she’s sleepin’ like that. A little like a kitten curled up around a toy mouse. And with a cup holder on her bed,” she added when Twilight took another sip of her coffee. “Weird but wonderful, that’s our Twilight.”
Once they had gotten outside of the bedroom, Dry Roast turned in the direction of the front door and started briskly striding to his escape, but stopped after a few paces and looked back. “Wrong way?”
“Wrong way,” confirmed Applejack. “Ah swear, this place needs a piece of cheese at the end.”
“Spike likes it.” Dry Roast took a moment to look around, both in the hopes of identifying some landmarks in case he ever had to find his way out again and to admire the sheer radiant beauty of the crystalline palace. “It must be like living inside of a piece of candy for him.”
“Twi tried to map it out once on a stack of graph paper,” said Applejack with a chuckle as they walked. “It didn’t end well.”
“I’m just glad she didn’t chain herself to the castle,” said Dry Roast in a vain attempt at humor. “Can you imagine her showing up outside my door dragging a few thousand tons of crystal behind her?”
Applejack laughed. “Yeah, I can.”
Dry Roast paused and looked over at Applejack. “I was making a joke.”
“You was?”
“Skip it.” Dry sighed and picked up his pace. “I better get back to… I left the shop unlocked!”
“You still ain’t got used to Ponyville yet, has ya?” Applejack picked up the pace too, holding the castle door and catching back up afterward. “You’re probably just gonna find a stack of bits on the counter and a little less coffee.”
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
He did find more bits and less coffee when he returned to the store, but he also found something else, in particular, a familiar dark alicorn behind the counter. Luna was smiling and taking orders while Rarity was making a good attempt at working the equipment, although she gave out a gasp of relief when Dry Roast showed up and swapped positions with him almost instantly.
In short order, Dry managed to get the few customers waiting in line all properly caffeinated, then turned to the next item on his list, intending on getting in the first word. He did not.
“This has been a most enjoyable experience, Dry Roast. Have you need of an additional assistant?”
Dry Roast considered the offer for a long time before raising the obvious objection. “You already have a job.”
“Oh! Yes, one moment please.” Luna promptly trotted outside and lit up her horn, lowering the moon behind the horizon. In perfect synchronization, the sun rose up and bathed Ponyville in brilliant morning light, perhaps a minute or two later than usual, but it showed that at least Princess Celestia was on schedule.
Once she had returned to her position behind the counter and put her apron back on, Luna regarded Dry Roast with a blinding smile. “This is far more interesting. It shall be most enjoyable to discover the way our relationship with the common folk of the town proceeds.” She touched the breast pocket of her apron, monogrammed with an ornate ‘R’ as well as Luna’s name. “We hath even procured raiment of the proper style for our employment.”
The sinking sensation that Dry Roast had been experiencing on and off for over a year so far made itself known again. There was getting in too deep, and there was descending into the molten core of Equestria with nothing to protect yourself but asbestos underwear. This was rapidly approaching a third definition of the term.
“Are you sure you’re not just doing this to snoop on Twilight Sparkle’s visits here?” he asked cautiously.
“Nay, of course not,” proclaimed Luna. “There is also an employee discount!”
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
Dry Roast decided to take Luna at her Royal Word. He skipped the preliminary job interview, got her a copy of the employee paperwork to complete whenever she had time, and went through training on the coffee equipment. There was more involved in the job than she expected, from the complicated widgets needed for every order, the ovens, flavor pumps and such. She marveled at the containers of pumpkin spice, white chocolate, caramel, sorghum, hazelnut and vanilla, seeming to make a mental list to try each of them in turn, and was fascinated to see how the rules and regulations of Canterlot actually applied once they got out to the companies they were supposed to regulate. Despite being ‘out of the country’ for many centuries, Dry was impressed at the speed at which she had acclimated to the modern era and the genuine warmth she showed when greeting the morning non-royal customers, many of whom did not even realize there was a princess behind the counter.
During the fairly calm pre-lunch lull, he finally had a chance to talk for a time with Luna about non-work things, and was surprised by her first observation.
“What a strange dialect of Equestrian these rural ponies speak.”
“The Starbuckers franchise insisted on all of the names for the products, but I did some additional signage,” said Dry, pointing to the small-medium-large-princess signs over the foam cups all snug in their racks. “They’re a little groggy in the morning to speak fluent Starbuckian.”
“Nay, the language which the citizens use when they place their order,” said Luna. “Sometimes they barely open their lips, and yet you can ascertain their desires with great perfection from the slightest of gestures and grunts.”
It was a gentle stroke across his ego that Dry could not help but preen a little at. “That’s from practice. My cutie mark is in alchemy—” he gestured at the simmering beaker on his flank “—but I’ve gotten pretty good at picking up little shifts in colors and textures in potions, as well as the atrocious hoofwriting of ancient alchemy texts from back in college. It translates fairly well into reading the intent and emotions of ponies.”
The front door of Java Le Choza slammed open so viciously that Dry Roast was a little surprised the glass did not shatter. The tiny little bell was ripped free of its housing and flew somewhere in the store trailed by its normal cheerful little jingle, but what really caught Dry Roast’s attention was the sight of Princess Twilight Sparkle standing in the open doorway, smoldering in more ways than one.
“For example,” continued Dry Roast’s mouth even though his brain had seized up, “she’s boiling mad.”
“You,” growled Twilight while stalking forward, one unstoppable step at a time with monomaniacal focus in his direction. She stopped in front of the counter and brought out a familiar bag of coffee beans in her magic, holding it to one side like it was full of a distasteful substance that deserved being disposed of, much like a certain coffee shop owner.
“There you are,” snarled Twilight through gritted teeth. “Did Rainbow Dash put you up to this, or did you come up with it all on your own?”
“Wha—”
Obviously, Dry Roast had mistaken Princess Twilight Sparkle’s question for one that required an answer, because she lifted the hefty bag of beans, slamming it down so hard on the counter that every window in the store rattled. Dry could have sworn he could smell the beans inside roasting, and he was a little… well, more than a little afraid he would be next.
“I found this in my bed this morning! Do you think it’s funny, sneaking into my castle, into my bedroom?”
“I wasn’t in your— actually we were there for just a little bit, but when Applejack found us in bed together—”
Dry Roast did not even see the bag of beans move before it hit him in the face, but he did hear the front door of the coffee shop slam while he was picking himself off the floor of the back room. He waggled his jaw, determined that nothing seemed to be broken other than the little bell from the door, and once he was sure he was not going to get slugged with a giant bag of coffee beans again, he staggered up off the floor.
Luna, who had been suspiciously quiet during the whole ordeal and who Dry really suspected of just having tucked away a camera, looked down at him with sympathetic (and twinkling) eyes.
“She shall return.”
“Thanks for the warning,” mumbled Dry, checking his jaw for loose teeth. He looked up and cocked his head to one side, thinking about the statement before asking the obvious question. “Why?”
“You did speak of the Element of Honesty. No doubt young Twilight is traveling to her friend to confront her with the evidence of your mutual treachery.”
It made sense, but only partially. “And she’s coming back here, why?”
“The Element of Honesty shall no doubt tell her the truth. That you had no sexual desires upon her shapely body, only the wish to return your sleeping princess to her castle before the populace of Ponyville didst spy the two of you entwined within a passionate embrace in her bed.”
Dry Roast felt a sudden wave of intense embarrassment sweep over him from the quiet murmuring going on among his morning customers. He looked out at the tables where everypony was intently studying the floor, walls, newspapers, or anything they could possibly look at other than in his direction.
“Oops,” said Luna, covering her mouth with a hoof.
After clearing his suddenly dry throat, Dry announced to the whole store, “Princess Twilight Sparkle tied herself to her bed to keep from sleepwalking. It didn’t work. Applejack and I dragged her and her bed back to the castle. That’s all. I have a witness.”
Lyra lifted one hoof. “I heard the phrase ‘passionate embrace.’”
“Can you hear the phrase, ‘Free coffee all week’ instead?” countered Dry.
“I went to school with Twilight,” said Lyra.
“Your point?”
The unicorn musician looked around the room. “Twilight doesn’t know, but we ran a pool. It was just a few of us at first, but it grew the longer she was in school and the Princess’ student.”
“I don’t think I like where this is headed,” muttered Dry.
“I do,” said Luna.
A few ponies in the coffee shop murmured agreement, along with one quiet “Yeah!”
Dry Roast fought off the urge to hit himself in the face with one hoof.
Lyra continued just as if her contribution to the discussion was wanted. “So what I need to know, since I’m running the pool, is the date of your first kiss.”
“Never!” blurted out Dry Roast, then after a moment to consider the depths of that misstatement, he backpedaled to a much more accurate but still embarrassing, “She has to be awake for it to count, right Princess Luna?”
Instead of instantly responding in the negative as he wanted, Princess Luna seemed to take the question with due consideration and a glance outside. “Truely, since the sun is up, this question is the domain of my sister. I shall go seek her counci—”
“Wait!” Dry Roast waved a hoof. “They happened at night, so it’s your domain. Don’t get Princess Celestia involved in this. Please don’t.”
Still seeming as if she were getting far too much entertainment out of his embarrassment, Luna nodded. “Verily, you are correct. I shall pass judgement upon this wager.”
She tapped one hoof on the coffee shop counter as if she were using a gavel to call court to order. “Since it is obvious that the conditions of the pool would not be met if a young stallion were to steal a kiss from Princess Twilight Sparkle while she was sleeping, any kiss made during the inverse situation would only logically be an invalid condition to award the wager.” Luna cast a cool glance across the customers in the store, all of whom were generally nodding except for one in the back who lifted up a hoof.
“Is there still time to buy into the pool?”
In the end, Princess Twilight Sparkle did not return to the store that day, despite Luna’s eager expectations. It was probably for the better.
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Yeah, AJ didn’t think that bag of beans trick quite through.
And 3, 2, 1...
Hey man, go for it.
... You're plotting something.
That's quite the endorsement.
... That's IMPRESSIVE.
That's, fair.
Well. This is happening.
I've had those moments.
Or a magical map that's dispensed to newcomers that appears near them and follows them with a convenient tracking "You are here" marker.
Wow...
Probably.
... You have PRINCESS LUNA working in your coffee shop. Alright then. Dry Roast wins at life.
She's PARTIALLY doing it to snoop.
HAH!
Huh. Sweet.
RUN.
She's having fun.
Oops nothing, that was on purpose.
I love this, this is fucking amazing.
Oh she is. And so am I.
I figured he's just give her decaf.
OH.
Luna as a coffee shop employee, I wonder if she has to pay taxes on her earnings...
i.imgur.com/3Q6GJ5s.jpg
Ahhh, physical violence against the object of one's affection. Hilarious when committed by a female against a male, cause for a 'Trigger Warning' if inverted.
Please don't take that as a criticism. I'm just being snarky. This story is great!
Poor, poor Dry. I suspect he's going to need at least two more analogies to describe just how far over his head he is before this is all over...
8694931
Humor, at its core, is inherently psychopathic.
Something is funny because what it appears to be is redefined as not being that thing because of the thing's context, introducing a sense of shock at a supra-instinctive level, at the point were our concioys and subconcious perceptions mingle and error-check eachother, and this layer inherently seperates the humorous thing from being included into empathic calculations until after the fact.
This is not a bad thing, but it is an automatic thing, which is processed through much the same areas as trauma-induced responses. Humans are not supposed to be aware of this actively conciously, because it can lead to people purposefully crossing signals and turning positive into negative and negative into positive.
Hmmm so Twilight basically pulls such all-nighters that when she falls asleep, she falls so far that she falls all the way through sleep and out the other side, and her mind self-defensively sleepwalks to the nearest coffee shop so she can arouse herself back up to normal sleep?
8695495
The Queen of England doesn't have to pay taxes, but she actually does to show solidarity. I would imagine the sovereigns of Equestria are likewise exempt, but could pay taxes if they so wished.
Yes
*yawns*
Damn you. Are you uploading these later and later to see how nocturnal you can make me? I will not be denied my midnight giggles, even if they have to take place at 1am.
Thank you.
Forget Princess Luna Approved, she approves so damn much that she's working there! Just for the employee discount!
And... that's it. Only for the employee discount. Nothing more. Absolutely has nothing to do with her employer's love life. Aaaaaaaaabsolutely not...
Oh, lord, his poor jaw... the guy just got sapped.
I'm (mostly) liking Luna in this, I can see her having the 'not my problem, but certainly worth the entertainment value') take on the lot of this.
I wonder if she had popcorn up on that cloud of hers...
As hilarious as this is, I can't shake the feeling that the idiot ball phenomenon might be slowly infecting the characters. A heck of a lot of this drama can be avoided or at least addressed if Dry just had the presence of mind to bring a camera or something. It doesn't help that everypony else seems content to just throw him under the (admittedly adorable) bus and watch him squirm.
Something needs to move the plot along, and soon.
Don't get me wrong, I love the scenes and the interactions between Dry and Twilight, but circumstances are starting to look a tad contrived in order to preserve this dynamic between them.
I get the feeling that, by the end of this, Twilight's going to be at DenCon 1.
"I did NOT walk in and kiss him!"
"Twilight, half the town saw it happen. A third of the town snapped photos. It's in the paper. The story in the paper is even addressed to you with 'Yes, this did happen, Princess Twilight'. Princess Luna was even standing there watching it happen. This is pretty much the textbook definition of happening having happened to happen."
"NO! IT DID NOT!"
"Discord's made recordings. There are books in alternate universes about it. This conversation is even being punched up on a glowing fancy-fangled typewriter thingie. Some alternate universe person/pony/creature's probably reading it and mimicking your voice of denial even as I say this. Werid as that is."
"Twilight it has..."
You have an absolutely wonderful knack for digging your characters into a hole and then managing to get them to dig even deeper. I'm enjoying the scenes with Luna far more in this chapter (she came off a bit too severe before) and yes AJ certainly did not think the bag through, but it's okay as Luna stated, she'll let her know exactly what happened.
8695529
I read that as admitting that snooping on Twilight wasn't the only reason she was working there, she also got an employee discount as well. Luna is a very honest Princess.
When Twilight is that angry, she needs an double mocha espresso and a Porg plushie.
Wait... I can already see where this is-
Oh for goodness sake!
8695510
There is no Queen of England, because there is no Kingdom of England
8695500
I believe Mel Brooks summed it up this way,
Tragedy is when I stub my toe, humour is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
8695602
precisely!
loving this story. Though this chapter AJ's accent seems thicker than it has been
8695598
Not since 1707 at any rate.
And now I want to see an Equestrian royal summit at Milliways.
Huh. Dry really is a barista-alchemist. Wasn't expecting that.
In any case, I can only hope that repeated exposure to alicorns will let Dry's brain fire on more cylinders around Twilight in the future. He'll need all the help he can get. As for Twilight herself, she's rapidly running out of alternate explanations. The heart wants what the heart wants, no matter what the mind chains it to.
Also, I have the weirdest sense that Moondancer will end up winning the first kiss pool. Don't ask me why. I guess I just really like the mental image of her reaction.
"He's smart, he's well-read, and he makes amazing coffee?"
"Yes, but he's—"
"Twilight, that is literally the stallion of my dreams. If you hadn't already claimed him, I'd have sealed him in a pocket dimension just to have him to myself."
"I haven't claimed anything!"
"So he's available?"
mmm
Luna working at a coffee shop reminds me of this story.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/262768/the-night-princess-and-the-graveyard-shift
The new coffee shop logo? A particular princess pony getting out of bed. For coffee.
8695499 Yeah, written with inverted genders, I'd have to change a lot.
8695500 "Humor, at its core, is inherently psychopathic." - so is love.
8695503 That's exactly the mental image I have of alicorn sleep. They're so deep into sleep that they're active.
8695518 I've got 'em all lined up and punch publish on my phone when I wake up in the morning. (Kansas)
8695529 Nothing to do at all with the employee's love life. Nope. Nothing at all. Heck, I could have taken the whole fic into the 'M' direction at this point:
Luna lifted one eyebrow fractionally and pointed to an old sign behind the counter that he had inherited from the previous owner. “Thy store specifies no credit,” she stated in the most authoritative voice. “And I have no bits upon me. Whatever shall I do?”
8695540 I love idiot balls. Probably because I'm inside them too much.
8695615 It's really tough to write AJ in a consistent fashion.
8695646 Yeah, there seems to be a competition building for Mr. Roast.
8695647 Yep, loved those two.
8695668
Which is why it really ought to be eliminated from all our psyches post haste.
I cannot believe the alarming piece of rumor hasn't reached Cadance yet! Let alone the Big Bro... or even more, her desperate parents!
8695674 Wait for it...
8695670 Whoa, let's not get ahead of our selves. A little insanity is a good thing. Makes for the propagation of the species, don't you know. And other things. Nice things.
8695684
Eh, the species is on its way out over the next century or two. And good riddance.
The amount of unintended innuendo in that sentence make this golden.
8695668
I actually thought the same thing when I first read that line.
...We're terrible people, aren't we?
8695785 It makes you wonder a little about where Luna has been getting her ideas about how to adjust to the modern world.
"Oh, yes Celly. I found a most wonderful trove of films hidden in Princess Cadence's old rooms in the castle, and they have been most instructive. It's just... I'm not certain how modern stallions came to be so well... equipped. And how such stallions wandered into the fields of pizza delivery, plumbing, and pool maintenance."
8695792
...
This. This should be canon.
we know that Twilight mumbles incomprehensibly, but will we get any "put the hay in the apple and eat the candle" nonsensical babbling in this story?
I just woke up, went to make coffee, pulled up Fimfic on my phone and what else do I see but this story had gotten a new chapter. My day is complete.
8695668
Written with inverted genders, the story would've been a lot shorter: There would have been one kiss, and then... Twilight, I guess, would have been roommates with Jailbird.
Twi is going to be so embarrassed about so many things. Dragging a bed, pulling a pony into said bed with her... etc.
8695646
Oh dear. I now have this image of Twilight tearing through dimensions to find him and bring him back to his shop to get her coffee. In her sleep, of course.
8695893 Hm. As an experiment, I should try this.
8695929 Queen Chrysalis gloated, looking down at the fairly tall unicorn stallion her minions had dragged in front of her throne. "Oh, how wonderful," she cackled. "This time, I have that accursed alicorn right where I want her. Tell me, little niblet, what will your bookish lover do once she finds out I've captured you?"
Dry Roast shrugged. "Celebrate, I suppose. At least until night."
"What?" Chrysalis recoiled, then leaned forward with an angry hiss. "What happens at night?"
"Wonderful things," murmured Dry Roast.
We all do Luna, we all do
Is that an investigation, or does he need to be even more concerned?
I like the idea of the castle being some sort of unmappable multidimensional place where unmentionable things are done to the rules of physics (or whatever passes for them with magic around) even before its occupant starts experimenting. My guess is that its map is one of those graphs that can't be drawn without crossing the lines...
Have you been reading Discworld? Pinkie's coffee exists. It's called Klatchian coffee, and drinking it causes you to become so sober that you understand the true horrors of the world as it destroys the natural alcohol that your brain produces to keep you sane. Watch Commander Vimes has some fun experiences with it.
Poor Dry Roast is in way over his head huh. I'm actually kinda of curious what other character will involved or become interested in this entire crazy situation Tempest, Discord, Starlight, etc.
"I'm Princess Luna, and this is my favorite coffee shop in Ponyville."
Oh look, it's Twilight's bed. And Twilight.
Oh my god. Goddess.
Nice plan, Applejack! Truly the most dependable pony in Ponyville.
Wow, now that's phrasing.
img00.deviantart.net/2bb4/i/2018/023/1/3/the_serving_six__royal_sisters_cafe_by_omny87-dc0ypss.jpg
8696022
Arcane maybe to Starbucks plebs who can't tell they're being fraudulently sold hot goat piss mixed with birch ash. It's all a big prank Seattle pulled on the rest of the world and many have yet to get the joke. Try visiting a true center of coffee culture like the original Dunn Bros. Coffee on Grand Ave. in St. Paul.
Or maybe Anodyne in Milwaukee. Or Jittery Joes in Macon, GA. Love that place.
Damn, there was a place near Sister Bay, WI that I can't remember the name of. Cozy downstairs seating. Dimly lit. Great coffee and tuna melt.
"Luna: Princess of Coffee" has usurped Gaming Princess Luna as my fave headcanon for best princess.
8695943
As a peer reviewer, I encourage this.
If Dry Roast ever has the presence of mind, he could ask Luna for a favor: casting a spell ("A small spell--his exact words were 'as small possible!'") on Twilight so that she can remember her own dreams the next morning.
As to switching genders.... I've seen it argued that the tsundere is an inherently flawed archetype. Such a character, who says "no" but means "yes," who may deliver a beatdown only because she doesn't really know what she wants, can send a bad message with slight mishandling... or even no mishandling.
Darn if I'm not enjoying this, though.
I am loving this. Also loving the daily updates