Tiaras and Parasols

by Starpony999

Gadgets and Gizmos

Diamond Tiara and Sweetie Belle trotted along the path back into town. They kept their eyes out for other ponies who they could ask, or at least they pretended to. The first pony the duo passed was none other than the most meticulous of weather ponies: Twilight Swish. The purple mare easily held two jobs, librarian and weather pony, yet she still found time to annoy the fur off anypony susceptible to one of her random fact listings. The current victim of fact listing was none other than Feather Weight, a well-known crush of Scootaloo's. Diamond Tiara didn't give herself much time to think as she quickly apologized to Sweetie before running off in the direction of the two pegasi.

"—carrots, grass, daisies, petun-". Twilight rattled off to the colt in front of her.

"Hey, Twilight." Diamond interrupted, waving her hoof in greeting. As Twilight's attention turned, Feather took the chance to dash away, leaving behind but a cloud of dust.

"Oh, hi Diamond Tiara!" The friendly pony greeted. "How are you enjoying your book on cutiemarks by Strawberry Star?"

Diamond cringed at hearing that name. Star was the author of the book she currently had checked out, and it would be embarassing for anypony else, especially Sweetie, who was no more than a few paces behind Diamond, to know that she had that book out. The white filly might be able to deduce that Diamond didn't actually know what her talent meant. "Yeah, it's...good. Full of--knowledge." Di replied.

That was the moment Sweetie decided to canter up. She glared fiercely at Diamond before turning to Twilight. "Twilight, how'd you get your cutiemark?" When the filly saw the look her partner was giving her she added, "What? It's not like we're going to learn any less."

Diamond had no chance to respond because Twilight immediately launched into her story of her cutiemark: "My cutie mark? I got my cutiemark when I realized I could share flying wth my family. You see, my mom and dad are both unicorns, so they never could go on flys, nor could they come to any of my flying derbies."

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One day, my parents took me to a Magnabolts convention. I overheard dad complaining about the Starswirl the Bearded show being closed, but my mom was apt to shush him.

"Hush now dear. Maybe this could be our chance to bond with Swish." Twilight Velvet explained, sliding over another flyer not unlike the one her husband held in his magical grasp. "The group exhibits different kinds of magics: including pegasi and unicorn!"

"I suppose you are right." Night Light sighed, putting down his own pamphlet and picking up the one his wife passed him. "Hot Air Balloons, huh, interesting."

I wasn't eavesdropping, I swear. They were just in the other room. I over heard them. Ahem.Anyways, the Magnabolts were amazing. They created these astounding inventions no one had even heard of before! My favorite was the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 2000, that was the second best cider I've ever had. I actually got to meet the creators of it.

"Well lookie what we got here, brothers of mine. It's the same in every town...." A tall, yellow, unicorn stallion started to a tune, speaking along with the beat of the cider machine. Another, almost identical, stallion joined him in other lines, with a third and fourth stallion joining on other verses, although these latter two were far from identical. The third stallion was a (decidedly fast) pegasus and the fourth was a solid hoofed earthpony.

"...Care to step into the modern world and put the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy to the test?" The heartsong came to an end as the pegasus stallion handed filly Twilight Swish a frothing cup of fresh apple cider. She looked to her mom and dad for permission. When she received two nods, she took a small sip to taste before a wide smile spread across her face and she swiftly drank the rest.

She turned toward her dad, and, despite his lack of interest in machines, asked him, "How can they make such good cider without getting their hooves dirty?"

Wait a second, you mean to tell me that there is a pair of unicorns who can make better cider than Mrs. Smith?

Well, that was a long time ago, way before I even knew of Ponyville, much less tasted the Apples's prized cider. I did know, however, that good food was that of earth pony work.

My curiosity got the best of me and somehow found my way into the inner workings of the '2000.' I got stuck, but failed to notice my predicament as I was aptly admiring the automobile. My parents later told me they had been searching the crowd frantically for half an hour before Flam found them and told them where I was. Flim's the one who found me though.

"You know, I'm pretty sure we could make this machine even faster." The clean-shaven unicorn said, glancing back at his brother as he made his way towards the Cider Squeezy.

"Don't forget the quality!" The mustached salespony replied. "If we sacrifice quality for quantity, we might end up sickening people. Remember 'Baked Bads'?"

The first brother shivered. "Let's not mention that again. I don't think I can stomach the thought of it." He turned toward the machine again. His horn lit up in a lime green color as he opened a side door so that he could begin fiddling with the many parts that made up the 'Cider Squeezy.' His eyes widened and he audibly gasped as he noticed something out of place. He turned around, calling out to his twin as he attempted to keep his voice even. "Flam, there's not supposed to be a purple pegasus filly in here, is there."

Flam looked up in surprise. "No, wh-....". He trailed off, surprised at the fact that there actually was a filly inside his family's machine. He lit up his horn to create a magic field around the tinkering filly. He pulled her out, setting her gently on the ground. Unfortunately, the moment the purple pegasus was on the ground, she took off towards the largest exhibit of the Magnabolts: the hot air balloon.

Flam sighed and looked at his brother. "You keep an eye on the filly, and I'll go find her parents." After receiving a nod of agreement, Flam trotted out of the hall and toward the 'Lost Foals' section.

Flim, on the other hoof, trotted toward the bright filly. She was actually flying in the balloon part of the machine.

"Little filly, will you please come down?" The tall unicorn asked. He wasn't as talented with his telekinesis as his brother was, and certainly not on a moving pony.

The foal looked downwards at the stallion, but did not seem to have any desire to comply.

"I'll show you how it works if you come down." He offered, having noticed certain parts the filly had had in her hooves earlier. That combined with her intense stare as she surveyed the balloon indicated that she was into mechanics. There was no cutiemark to confirm such an assumption, but it was better than nothing.

The filly looked downward once more. She seemed to want to come down, but she was hesitant. She gave the balloon one more quick fly around then floated down onto the yellow pony's back.

Flim had to twist his head around to look at the young pegasus, but that didn't stop him from explaining everything about the balloon to her. He was just finishing talking about the purpose of the balloon when an explosion of lightning and rainbow caused the balloons to rise into the sky. Flim, being ever so afraid of heights, did his part to grasp the side of the basket. Filly Twilight flew into the balloon area once more. She tinkered with the oil lamp until it slowly lowered it to the ground.

Just as the balloon landed, two very worried-looking parents came up to the contraption.

Flim turned around to face the pair as Twilight landed on his back once more. He cleared his face of fear and began to levitate the filly off his back. Chuckling, he asked, "This is your child, I presume?"

Twilight Velvet and Night Light nodded in tandem, both sighing in relief.

"Thank you very much for watching her while your brother fetched us." The mare said, expressing her gratitude.

"We're so sorry. I hope she didn't break anything."

Chuckling once more, Flim replied, "No she didn't. But she may have just fixed something." He glanced over at the balloon. "And if that's the case, you little filly here is quite the genius."

"In fact," Flam stood next to his brother. "I'd say she got a knack for it." He pointed to pegasus' previously blank flank, where there was now a pink hot air balloon.

Twilight Swish looked at her flank and began jumping on her father's back in joy. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!"

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"And that's the story of how I got free cider for a year." Full-grown Twilight finished, licking her lips. "Sometime I should tell you about my cutiemark."

"Ummmm..." Diamond Tiara stammered, not catching the twinkle in the pegasus' eye.

Sweetie Belle caught sight of Rainbow Zap walking down Mane Street, and took advantage of the situation. "Thanks so much, Twilight, but we really should continue! We're going to go speak with Rainbow Zap now, bye!" At this point, Sweetie was already pushing her puzzled project partner down the street towards the blue mare.

"That was close." Sweetie murmured when they were far enough away.

Diamond did not reply, her brain zooming at a thousand miles an hour trying to comprehend what the purple pegasus said. There was something that seemed to be connected between the two cutiemark stories. Then there was that odd part of her brain noting the way the pink hot air balloon surrounded by fluffy clouds somehow went together with her purple. A cloud of white blurred in Diamond's vision, but she didn't acknowledge it. She was too busy focusing on the stories. Suddenly a shout brought her back to reality.

"DI!"

"What?!"

"You were in a daze. Now hurry! If we're fast enough, we might be able to catch Rainbow Zap." The pink-and-purple-haired unicorn raced off in the direction where she had last seen the multi-hued earth pony.

The other unicorn filly shook her head as she galloped to catch up with the first. "Rainbow Zap? Isn't she Applebloom's sister?"

Fierce emeralds glared into Dimond's scared eyes. "Yeah. Got a problem with that?"

"N-no. Not at all."

"Good. Now let's go! We're almost to the apple farm."

Sweetie put on more speed as if she were desperate to see another pony. Diamond had a hard time keeping up, and a part of her wondered if Sweetie was running away from her instead of just towards Rainbow Zap. Whatever the case, if she really wished to see somepony else, she might as well considered her wish granted, for in their path now stood two filly pegasi. One was orange with fashionably ragged magenta hair, the other was grey with ponytailed silver hair.

Diamond only managed to see a glimpse of orange before coming to screeching stop at the hooves of the pegasi. She backed up as she shook her head of dirt. She lifted her head, made eye contact with the orange filly, and regretted it immediately. She was greeted with a menacing smile and a condescending voice.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Comments

[Comickook]

Excellent job on this latest chapter. Loved the spin on Twi's backstory (particularly the bit of Suspiciously Specific Denial concerning Twilight's parents, Twilight's actual first meeting with the Brothers [along with the admission that this was long before she moved to or even heard of Ponyville] and how she helped the Brothers fix one of their machines). And, yeah, the little bit of randomness at the end of the story DEFINITELY added some humor to the mix. And, now, Sweetie and Diamond are going to the farm, where they will not only most likely find Rainbow Zap AND Apple Jet, but probably also do some chatting with Apple Bloom.

In general, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places.