Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend… Literally
The Best Laid Plans… or is it the other way around?
“Twilight, I’m warning you. Either answer me or… I’ll send a letter to Princess Celestia! Without checking the spelling!”
Spike was getting tired of calling through the thick locked crystal door, but kept it up rather than just chew a hole through it. Again.
Threatening to send an unedited letter was his last and most desperate gambit, which by Spike’s reckoning, he had only needed to resort to three times over the years. Admittedly, this time she had not incited a riot with a cloth doll, but there had been a lot of cloth in the supplies Twilight had him carry into her laboratory, as well as some deranged cackling from from behind the door over the last few days.
There had not been any lightning, which Spike viewed as a good sign, but there was a thunderstorm scheduled for the afternoon, so he was trying to hurry up before she got any ideas.
“Just a minute, Spike! I’ve only got one last stitch. There!” The door clicked and swung open, showing the inevitable result of one alicorn princess-level experiment that Spike knew he was going to be cleaning up for most of the next week, and… something else.
“You made a plushie,” said Spike, looking at the pony-sized pegasus doll. “That’s all?”
Admittedly, it was a fairly good doll, with neat stitching and proper stuffing so it stood up. Even the wings had been put together with a great deal of care, and seemed as if they could be extended in the way a pegasus would fly. He really did not like the shade of blue-green she had picked, but since Twilight had gotten the cloth from Rarity, Spike thought he could get used to it. Plus, it was not radiating the blinding magical aura of a Want-It-Need-It spell, or any other signs that Twilight had gone around the bend in the direction of world domination or evil.
In fact, the huge plushie looked oddly normal, in a weird way, with a dopey, happy expression and ever-so-slightly crossed eyes. On a scale of one to ten on the Weird-o-Meter, it was probably a four at best, or a two when adjusted for Ponyville standards.
It was a little upsetting to the young dragon that Twilight considered his own company insufficient, and that she had decided to make a plushie to stand around while she worked, but Spike thought about it for a few moments. Other than possibly making a little more dusting around the castle, it might distract Twilight enough for Spike to spend a little more time with Rarity which was a good thing. It did bring up one point, though.
“You know, I bet if you told Rarity, she would have made it for you.”
“Him,” corrected Twilight. “He’s the perfect practice romantic companion. I was thinking after my last date—”
“The one where you set him on fire, or the one where he dove through the restaurant window?” asked Spike.
“Spike!” Twilight nibbled on her bottom lip. “The one with fire. Anyway, I figured the reason my dates keep going wrong is because I don’t have any practice. So…” She waved a hoof at the doll. “Ta-da!”
“You’ve been hanging around Trixie too much,” said Spike. “Besides, how is a doll supposed to help you get dates?”
“Not get dates, Spike. Make the dates more romantic so I’m not scaring off any more stallions. I think I’m getting a reputation,” she added with a slightly nervous fidget. “Anyway, Nimbus here is fully fireproof, so that won’t happen again. And scratchproof,” she added. “Just in case. Also lightning-resistant, acid-resistant, there’s an anti-raveling charm built-in, and the cloth won’t fade at all in the sun for years.”
“Now I think you’ve been hanging around Starlight Glimmer too much,” he groused. “Still, it’s good to be prepared,” said Spike, walking up closer to the doll to get a look at his wings. “So why did you decide to call him Nimbus?”
“Because that’s my name,” said the doll.
It took the two of them an hour to get Spike out from under the bed.
- - Ω - -
“Twilight, darling?” Rarity nosed open the castle door and looked around the empty hallway. “Spikie has the most improbable story, and I was wondering…”
The hallway was lacking in ponies — either the flesh and blood variety or any other — and Rarity turned her disbelieving gaze on the little dragon to her side.
“He’s gotta be lurking around here somewhere, Rarity!” Spike peeked out from under Rarity’s good saucepan lid, which he was using as a shield. “Maybe the dark magic of his creation has already corrupted Twilight into a being of eternal nightmare!” He paused, and glanced upwards at Rarity’s skeptical expression. “That’s not to say dark magic is all bad. I mean just because you were corrupted by Nightmare once on the moon.⁽*⁾ Oh, and that book. Um…” Spike paused, obviously trying to think of other embarrassing examples, but Rarity just rolled her eyes.
(*) IDW comics, Issue 5-8
“Spike, do try to focus. I find it difficult to believe that our Twilight has gone, how did you put it?”
“Loco in the coconuts, one page short of a book report—”
“Yes, I know,” said Rarity rather rapidly while walking. “But this is Twilight Sparkle we are talking about. Our friend. I know she’s rather… um… clueless when it comes to young stallions. And she might have accidently set one on fire.”
“Two,” said Spike. “Three, if you count the one I swear she did intentionally.”
After rolling her eyes, Rarity opened the door to the crystal table room to find her friend and the pony-sized doll were next to the map, looking down at it. “Ah, there you are, darling.”
“Rarity!” called out Twilight. “Come in. I was just getting Nimbus familiar with the castle and surrounding area so we can determine where he should take me for our first date.”
“Date.” There was just the smallest of hesitations in Rarity’s stride while she looked between her friend and the plushie, interrupted when the doll looked back at her from where it had been studying the crystal map.
What stunning eyes, although they really need to be restitched for symmetry. A nice shade of gold, most likely from the thread she borrowed, and quite lifelike. Oh, I need to say something about this… date concept.
“Between you and… what exactly is this again?”
“A Type Six semi-autonomous cloth golem with full fractal sensory integration and hierarchical learning enchantments,” recited Twilight with a squeal. “Isn’t he wonderful?”
“Well.” Rarity considered her words and the inscrutable observation of the cloth doll. “It certainly does seem like a more… interesting companion than when you attended the Statistician’s Ball in Manehattan with Mister Slipstick.”
“We were totally incompatible,” said Twilight rapidly. “He prefers degrees while I know that radians are the only true measure of angular velocity. Nimbus is nothing like that. His personality is made up of my own memories and experiences, so he’s going to be the perfect date. Say something witty, Nimbus.”
“Something witty, Nimbus,” said the doll in a mischievous tone. The doll moved and spoke in such a lifelike manner that Rarity was convinced that his stitched golden eyes had even twinkled just for a moment. She jumped back despite herself, and judging by Spike’s shriek and the rapid patter of dragon feet behind her, the feeling of surprise was mutual.
Well, almost mutual.
“Back, you fiend! Back into the pits of Tartarus which spawned you!” Spike came running past, waving one of the silver soup ladles which Rarity had generously gifted to the castle for special occasions, since crystal castles that magically spring up from the ground were notably lacking in proper place settings. The little dragon gave an impressive leap, landing on top of the doll and swinging wildly with his bare claws, because the soup ladle had been plucked from his grasp at the last moment by Twilight’s magic.
“Spike, please stop that. Spike? Spike!” Twilight waved the ladle at the dragon. “You could have bent this, or even broken it.”
“Tickles!” giggled the doll, rolling around on the floor with Spike pummeling him. “Stop it! Please!”
“Um… Twilight?” Rarity took an abrupt step backwards to avoid the ongoing one-sided fight. “Aren’t you concerned about Nimbus? Or Spike?”
“He’s scratchproof,” said Twilight, preening a little. “And he’s all cloth so he can’t hurt Spike.”
“Oh.” Rarity watched as Spike, seeming having grown tired of his ineffective scratching, began to bounce up and down on the fallen doll’s chest. “I see. Um… As I recall, you mentioned something about taking Nimbus out on a date?”
“Oh, yes! Since my previous stallion interactions have been a little less than optimal—” Rarity withheld comment by the smallest of margins “—I decided to make an assistant, kind of a training aide. This way I’ll be ready for the next stallion who comes along and tries to sweep me off my hooves. So, what do you think?”
Since Rarity had already attempted several times over the last week to find a suitable stallion to ‘sweep’ her friend off her hooves, so to say, and had discovered that Twilight’s reputation had swept, mopped and vacuumed ahead of her by a substantial margin, she was in a bit of a pickle. Thankfully, she was not the Element of Honesty, and had certain options excluded to at least one of her other friends. Also thankfully, there was at least one obvious flaw in her friend’s chain of logic, making the doll she had created less of an Equestria-shaking problem and more of a quirky oddity.
“Twilight,” started Rarity in a very calm tone of voice, much like when she was attempting to coax Opalescence off a high shelf, “since you created the doll—”
“Type Six semi-autonomous cloth golem,” corrected Twilight.
“Ah… yes. Since you created the golem and the magical commands it is following, how do you expect it to teach you how to be romantic on a date? After all, you said that’s something which you don’t know, and therefore could not include in its programming.”
“That’s the best part!” Twilight produced a stack of books with little colored sticky labels in them. “I used a subset of the library to accumulate all of the romantic knowledge Nimbus is going to need in order to guide us through some of the more common dating pitfalls. You know, first dates, romantic dinners, shared public occasions, meeting parents, which of course I’ll only be able to do half of since I didn’t create parents for him. Do you think that would be a good idea?”
Rarity’s head filled with a mental picture of Princess Twilight Sparkle showing up in Canterlot to a fancy dress party with three stuffed dolls at her side and the subsequent city-wide screaming and panic that would follow. Or worse, the dramatic reaction that Twilight’s parents would have when she showed up with her creations. “Ah… no.”
“Or you could stitch together parents for him, and I could enchant—”
“No, Twilight.” Rarity took a deep breath. “Certainly you can see the problems with taking your… date out in public. Why don’t we go out for a nice cup of tea in town, and talk about it while Spike is—” Rarity glanced sideways at where Spike had gradually transitioned from attempting to stomp the doll, to seeing how high he could bounce “—otherwise occupied.”
“Actually…” Twilight’s ears drooped and she looked at Spike proudly sitting on top of his defeated opponent after one final, epic bounce. “You have a point, Rarity.”
“Good.” Rarity arranged her mane before considering the triumphant dragon and the defeated doll, which was still panting for ‘breath’ after its failed tickling defense. One thing that Rarity had to admit was that Twilight Sparkle really threw herself into whatever project she was working on. The stitching and make of the doll was exquisite, nearly as high a quality as Rarity would have been able to do with sufficient time and materials, and to create such a high-order cloth golem bespoke of the incredible amount of magical talent that the whole town had grown to expect. Or dread, depending on the situation.
“I should waterproof him first,” said Twilight. “Otherwise, he would get soggy if he gets wet, and I don’t know how long it would take to dry him out afterwards.”
The problem is that Twilight can be such a ditz sometimes.
“I’ll just leave you two alone for a while, then.” Rarity strode for the door, trying to keep her rapid departure ladylike and majestic instead of a retreat for reinforcements. “You know, so you and your… date can get prepared.”
First comment reserved for the author. Sometimes, even princesses have problems finding Mister Right. Thankfully, Twilight Sparkle has a laboratory.
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Seven chapters, starting.... now.
THE POWER OF CELESTIA COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CELESTIA COMPELS YOU!
We can always count on you, Twilight.
Oh man, this is gonna be gooooooood.
I'm kind of wondering if some of the stallions she attempted to date might see her out in public with Nimbus and see her acting like the ideal date toward him, then start feeling bad about themselves.
...Or think she's absolutely bonkers.
...Probably the latter.
This reminds me of one of your shorts from your “writing practice” compilation... specifically the one involving Cheerilee getting some “hooves on fun” with a robot pony the CMC (minus their cutie marks) made that Twilight brought to life after ensuring that it was *ahem* anatomically correct.
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Meanwhile, Discord is setting up a lounge chair just outside of Ponyville, having a seat as he whips out a (literal bath) tub of blue and pink polka-dotted tapioca flavored popcorn, sitting back and munching the snack as he says to himself with quiet—yet manic—glee, “And here. We. Go.”
This is beautiful. I was looking forward to this.
Ah, this promises to be quite the ride. Goes right into the Tracking folder.
Well. The Radio Times informs me (through spiel about a documentary) that there are a crowd of gentleman trying to create a similar sort of thing right now (reading between the lines, something akin to a sex doll with a computer brain like a furby or something only presumably more advanced). So maybe Twilight is just ahead of the curve...
Though in Twilight's case, one can't help but feel that curve is going to be gracefully and sedately off a cliff...
You misquoted the old saying. Actually, it's "The best plans of mice and men to get laid often go astray. "
And so it begins. This promises to be quite the event indeed. Eagerly looking forward to what follows from this... though I get the feeling that Twilight's parents wouldn't be nearly as shocked as Rarity thinks.
Twilight should remember the ancient wise saying, "Hooves are there to keep your legs from fraying at the ends."
For anyone interested, the artist of that cover art is actually on Fimfiction frequently. Her name is Little Tigress if you want to check her out.
this can only end two ways, twilight is SO bad at dating that she drives away nimbus and twilight go's full on stalker mode and chases after him, or she finds a flesh and blood colt friend and nimbus go's crazy with jealousy (or they could naturally fall in love but let's be honest what are the odds of THAT happening?)
Dear god, this is going to be a glorious train wreck, isn’t it?
i'm curious as to whether existence problems with come up for nimbus. like "do i have a soul?", " what will happen to me when you don't need me anymore?".
also "Why are you jealous of my dating others, i was made to date"
Just imagine the amazing cuddles she will get from him! XD
This is going to be wonderful.
I can’t believe no one has yet referred to this:
It even stars John Malkovich and John Malkovich!
8590014 Yep! Back around August 4 or so, I saw a Little Tigress picture posted to I think it was Art for Fanfiction? It was like being hit my a Freight Muse, because the whole story just dropped into my head at once. So I got permission to use the pic, and started work. So only 4 months for 7 chapters, not bad at all considering the rest of the stuff I was working on.
I guess I'm mostly terrified that there is a sex tag? I mean...what?
8590520 Just PG-13 Without the sex tags, I can't do jokes like this:
After one bright light that made the castle glitter brighter than the sun outside, Twilight swept a hoof in the direction of Nimbus. “See, he’s charged up and ready to go.”
Starlight Glimmer paused and looked underneath the subject of their discussion.
“Not in that way,” hissed Twilight. “He’s going to help me with my romantic inexpertise. I’ll worry about… that aspect of dating later. Perverts,” she finished with a low grumble.
I fully concur with all of Spike's reactions this chapter.
Okay, I'll bite, let's see how badly this ends for everypony...
(before reading story) “Ooh, an artificial life story!”
(after reading) “Not a robot. 0 out of 10, downvoted, unfollowed, cancelled FiMfic account, leaving internet forever, what a rip...”
I kid of course. This looks great, Georg, and I look forward to the next installment!
8584790
"From my heart and from my hoof, why don't ponies get the truth, my intentions...?"
"WEIRD!"
"OOOO!"
Kindness Laughter Honesty,
Loyal Generosity and some chaos from my hoof we'll make:
WEIRD MAGIC!
Things we've never thought before!
Behind vaults and more!
Apples and imagination
WEIRD MAGIC!
Not what Sweetie Belle would do
making dreams come true
Pretty wings sharp horn
WEIRD MAGIC!
"It's alive..."
"ALIVE!!!!"
This can only end in tears...
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The question is, whose tears?
Oh hey it's posted. This was great fun to work on, thanks for the experience Georg!
"Twilight-Creator, does this unit have a soul?"
This is gonna be fun.
By the way, does Nimbus' facial embroidery move to simulate expressions, like blinking and 'opening' his mouth, or does he always have an unwavering, soul-eating smile on his face? I know Rarity sees that he moves and speaks in a lifelike manner, but I'm not sure if it's just limited to body language.
Also, based on the sex tag... he's going to get Twilight pregnant, isn't he?
Edit: Ah, just saw your comment regarding the tag. Oh well...
8590863 Not every story I write with Twilight Sparkle and a love interesting results in... um... Just a sec.
(goes back and checks)
Ahem. As I was saying...
Oh my goodness this looks cute, I love the premise. Looking forward to Twilight developing some kind of happy relationship with Nimbus. Especially because I'm also in a romantic relationship with a Twilight plush <3
8590873 Ah well. Would've been hilarious to see everypony's reaction to her foals. Especially if this takes place in the same continuity as My Brother, the Tooth and My Niece, the Star. Those pranks are probably responsible for Twilight's... difficulties in holding down a date.
8590976 It does bring new meaning to the phrase "Making a baby."
"Honey, I think they mislabeled these wires. I've got five red ones and only four black ones that are supposed to splice into his hunger center here in the central torso."
Heh, I can already imagine Rarity's conversation with Twilight about this...
8591024 "That's really sad," said Rarity. "Did you get anything at all out of your little visit?"
"Well..." Twilight nodded slowly with a growing smile. "I get to foalsit on alternate Thursdays. As long as I give her back."
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true.
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Everyone's tears.
8590577 Can't believe I didn't get her linked into that first recommendation comment. Fixing now.
Nexus Six?
So what you're saying is, it's impossible to get rid of him the moment something goes wrong.
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Good thing it's not a Nexus Seven. The trouble just a couple of those created when they got loose…
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Spoken like someone that's never heard of nuclear energy. Or sonic, for that matter.
8591553 Or simply squashing it under a rock and draining whatever it's using for a magic power source.
I haven't read this yet but I can feel the alicorn of love face hoofing so hard it transcends dimensions .
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Aw, thanks, Georg, that’s so sweet! You didn’t have to do that, but it is appreciated.
And hey, new chapter is out!
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You could also just put it in a box, it doesn't seem that strong at all. That and it is a large doll, meaning it can punch\buck for crap. Moral of the story is that if something were to go wrong, they just need Sunbutt to come sit on it.
It could have been much much worse:
Slipstick stared into Twilight's eyes from across the dinner table at The Sunflower Grove; an establishment so exclusive that royalty was put on a 4 week waiting list; Candace had pulled a few strings and called in some favours to secure Twilight a reservation for her very first date.
Most ponies never associated love with tensor algebra, but Slipstick was an accomplished disciple of the Masters and knew the classics by heart. He recited a sonnet in his velvet tenor that was sure to impress his date:
"Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
"Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
"In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
"I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.
"For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Bools or Euler,
Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,
Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell?
"Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
"Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine!
the product of our scalars is defined!
Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind
Cuts capers like a happy haversine.
"I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such a2 cos(2) φ !"
(cf.)
Twlight's cheeks flushed as she fanned herself with her hoof.
"Is that The Perfumed Garden of Linear Algebra I hear? Why Mr. Slipsick, are you trying to seduce your Princess?"
Slipstick stared back with a sultry smirk and a smouldering, hooded gaze more commonly associated with top-shelf romance novel covers. But this was so achingly, longingly real and not an idle fantasy.
"Do you feel seduced, my Princess?"
"Oh ho~! What say we go back to my castle for a Study Session?"
"Study session?"
"Mmhmm~ I have the complete unabridged collection of Sutra Mathematica"
"The Perfumed Garden of Linear Algebra?" asked Slipstick, hardly believing his ears.
Twilight nodded. "A first edition printing. I also have Bound and Derived: Sensuously Steamy Set Studies, Ergodic Confessions of Riemannian Manifolds. I even," Twilight dropped her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper, "have The Joys of Tantric Differential Analysis. The one with all the lemmas~" she added with a wink.
Slipstick's eyes nearly bugged out of his head in disbelieving shock. No mare, especially one of Twilight's intelligence, stature, and stature, had ever been interested in him and shared his passions. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, struggling to remain decent.
Twilight say his reaction and decided to go for the kill. She leaned across the table and whispered huskily into Sipstick's ear, her warm breath causing his ear to twitch.
"I even have the fifth volume we could read together. The full, unedited version with Haversine's Last Theorem~"
Slipsick closed his eyes and bit down on his lower lip in an effort to suppress a groan. He almost lost control and started enumerating Galois fields of prime order at the dinner table. In public!
"Wow! Just...wow." He took a few calming breaths to regain his composure.
"Wait..." Slipstick cocked his head to the side. "I thought the fifth volume was forbidden?"
Twilight giggled behind her hoof and ruffled her wings. "Princess, remember? I have access to all sorts of things~! So how about it? Interested in doing some research?"
The corporation of Slipstick held an emergency quorum. Hormones did not even review the proposal before hastily voting "yay" on general principle. Brain gave it a cursory, perfunctory glance, tossed it aside and whole-heartedly supported Hormones' motion in a rare show of consensus. Verdict reached and motion unanimously passed, Slipstick blinked and rapidly nodded his head "yes" as he doofily grinned like a teen-aged colt at the end of prom.
"Oh yes! Very much yes! I haven't been this excited since I was invited a keynote speaker to the Truth of Tau: Purging Pi's Patriarchal Past conference."
"Wat."
"Yeah! Tau. I seek to free my fellow ponies from the old, outdated notions of Pi and show them the one true freedom in Tau!"
Twilight flashed a searing, actinic white in rage as her mane and tail erupted in flame.
"GET. OUT."
RAAAAAGH
RADIANS ARE NOT A UNIT OF VELOCITY OF ANY KIND AND NEITHER ARE DEGREES
THAT WOULD BE DEGREES OR RADIANS PER UNIT OF TIME
THEY ARE UNITS OF ANGULAR MEASUREMENT
THIS IS IMPORTANT WHEN THEY ARE USED AS UNITS TO MEASURE NERDINESS
MY CAPS LOCK IS STUCK
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Did you just write a short story as a comment? Or was this a quote from another?
Because that is just great! That’s cannon material, even the dirty talk because children wouldn’t get it. Heck, some adults probably wouldn’t get it. Leave it up to twilight to turn math problems into a sex thing