The Little Curiosities

by Comma Typer

Meet the Sparkles

“About time I met the royal family, Twi!”

The unicorn snickers at the front step of her home. “Just because I live in a manor doesn’t mean I live like royalty, Timber!”

The Earth pony eyes her suspiciously. “There’s a Princess Twilight Sparkle across the portal, so it’s close enough.”

They laugh at that as they enter the Sparkle family home to hang out. Not to date. That’s what she insisted no matter what her friends said about it. Even Sunset wished Twilight well on her totally-not-a-date hang-out.

“So—” Timber blushes already “—it’s been, uh, six months. Sorry I couldn’t see you right after the whole magic ponifying thing. Had to literally weed out literal monsters from the camp and get it in working order.”

The tinkle of bells perk his ears up. Twilight levitates a pair of bowls for snacks, and Timber switches between her glowing horn and the glowing bowls, both in a raspberry glow. “Oh, wow! That’s so—“

“Cool, right? Rarely see unicorns at camp?”

“Yeah. Turns out we live in Earth pony country in the Everfree Forest. Whole family’s turned to Earth ponies, actually.” The bowls land on the table and the magic glows disappear. “So what’s it like, floating things around with unicorn magic?”

“Well, it’s not that ground-breaking. All it’s like is—“

“Oh, hello!”

They look up, seeing Twi’s dad walk in with a newspaper in his magic grip while writing neatly on the crossword—pencil also in his magic grip. Even his coffee cup floats in his magic. He puts both newspaper and coffee down on the table.

“Uh, um—“ Timber gulps “—hello, Twilight’s dad!”

“It’s Night Light,” he says. “And... hey, you must be the Timber Spruce my daughter’s gone googly-eyes over since the field trip! Wasn’t that Gaea Everfreee monster your sister?”

“Ah, yes, lots of people know my sister! She’s quite the personality! But they often forget that it was I who made sure the camp was safe and sound by saving Twilight here from a nasty fall off the docks!”

It’s met with a Twilight giggle. “It wasn’t even—“

“I’ve heard of that,” says Night Light with a nod. “You’re a brave fellow! Now I’d like to stay and chat, but I’ll see if I can make a thaumaturgical formula that will fill out the crosswords automatically.” With a wink at his daughter, “Thanks for the spell book!”

Timber leans back on his chair. “What?”

“Yup. Ever since my family all turned into unicorns, I decided I’d do more than just help them cope. You could say I’ve given them advanced magic lessons.”

“How advanced were these magic lessons of yours?”

Screams arise as a barrel shoots past them, flying like a rocket through the rooms.

Timber shakes his head. “Wait, was that your mom?!”

“Yeah! I helped devise a barrel-propulsion system that would scan any structure it is placed in and map waypoints across it so it can fly around without crashing into anything. It’s big enough to fit the whole family, but Mom’s having a hey day over it!”

Timber chuckles at the magical madness on display. “Uh, yeah. If you didn’t tell me, I thought your mom had become a witch, broom and all.”

“Oh, flying brooms?! Why didn’t I think of that? Ha-ha-hah! Oh Timber, you should join my experiments more often! I know I’m not all big on this crazy little thing called ‘common sense’ so, heh-heh...”

Twi turns around to see her brother standing by an open doorway, levitating a notes-filled scroll with his magic. “Oh hi, Shiny! This is Timber Spruce!”

And Timber looks at the muscular hunk of a stallion before him, gulping at his unreadable face. Musters up a cheerful, “Hi there!”

“I see,” is what Shining can manage. Looks down at his sister’s crush, analyzing him from head to hoof, reading the scroll for a second before looking back at him and slinking away, eyes still on him until the big brother disappears.

Timber looks back at Twi. “What’s that all about?”

Twi sighs. “Oh, you know how big brothers are even with my B.B.B.F.F.”

“Heh. He’s reading up on me, huh? At least he cares a lot for you, doesn’t want to see you hurt—“

“He wasn’t reading about you.”

Timber scratches the back of his head. “Then what is it?”

“A scroll on magic traps. I lent him that since he told me he wanted to protect the house against intruders and—oh, uh, um, oh no... I-I didn’t know he thought you’d be an intruder!”

Timber shows no sweat at all despite his nervous smile. “No problem! Give it time! Shining and I will be bros before you know it, right? Now about those imported oats I brought along...”

---

After a quick snack, they move upstairs. Hallways give way to less modern housing and more ivory walls. Even a couple faux stained-glass windows hung here and there.

“So you’re leading me to your mad scientist lab, huh? Because this looks more like a witch’s tower than a lab so far.”

“It’s because the builders of this house were the only medieval enthusiasts in the city. It wasn’t anyone’s house for a long time: switched hands between LARPing location and haunted house every once in a while. Was ‘till my parents bought it on the cheap and renovated it since no one else knew how to deal with this tower.”

“So your modern science lab is in some medieval ivory tower?”

“Why ask me when you can finally see for yourself?”

Twi unlocks the metal vault door with a hoof-scan. Seconds of gears and magic locks turning pass, and then: the lab.

The lab possesses the usual machinery along with standard science paraphernalia beaker tubes and graduated cylinders along with wires and computer screens spewing out gigabytes of data per second. However, there also lay newer, mystical additions: old dusty tomes bearing arcane symbols, scrolls boasting magic runes and other sigils, potions from enchanted plants, and kooky artifacts from dig sites across Equestria. A fancy old chandelier hung from the top, completing the lab’s schizophrenic aesthetic.

All the while, Spike takes notes and munches on a couple gems. He stands to attention at the ponies’ approach. “Hello there! Didn’t expect to see the both of you here!”

Timber ignores the ex-canine and stands in awe, turning in circles to capture the entire laboratory panorama. “Wh-what? But the lab pictures you sent me online—“

“Were from before the Change, silly! After the Change, it was simple: I turned into a unicorn, magic was a valid field to study in, and the next thing I knew, I was getting magic lessons and buying books and potions and magic equipment from Equestria en masse.”

“And… Spike too. Your talking dog.”

“Dragon,” Spike corrects. “Talking dragon.”

“Right. Little buddy, how’re you taking things?”

Spike shrugs. “Eh, it’s not too different. ‘Cept now, I can breathe fire and eat gems. Walking on two legs isn’t as hard as I thought. I mean, it’s so easy, you should try it!”

“It’s not that hard, you just—“ almost falls over trying to stand on two hooves. “Oh, hardy-har-har. Very funny, Spike.”

But the dragon scampers away to the beat of a disappointed Twi’s shaking head. “Who knew Spike was a prankster all this time?”

“Yeah, who knew? But at least I got a good impression of your family. They’re pretty cool.”

“That was a good impression?! Oh no, that’s just the start of it! You should come over tomorrow for our weekly O&O family sessions!”

“Let’s take it one step at a time and let today guide us!” but he blushes at how fast Twi’s taking it. “So... uh, where were we?”

Twilight giggles one more time, levitating a witch’s hat onto her head. “Peer research!”

Timber sighs. To himself, “So this is what a date with a sorceress feels like.”

Comments

[BestinDworld]

Twilight giggles one more time, levitating a witch’s hat onto her head. “Peer research!”

i see twilight has become great and powerfull

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Ah, overprotective brothers. Better be careful, Tim. No matter the dimension, Shining Armor is not a pony to be trifled with. He’ll have you running laps before too long.

[FanOfMostEverything]

I do love the idea of Twilight helping her family cope with the change by giving them a crash course in the new possibilities presented to them.

Twi unlocks the metal vault door with a hoof-scan.

That must have been a major nuisance to reprogram.
"Handprint not recognized."
"You don't say."

I turned into a unicorn, magic was a valid field to study in,

"Well, more of a valid field. Certainly a more widely accepted one, to say nothing of easing the supply bottleneck."
"You mean the hole in the universe?"
"Right. Supply bottleneck."

I do love seeing Sci-Twi go full mad thaumologist. Timber's taking it stride as best he can, bless him. I just hope Shining doesn't hear about the time his counterpart repulsed an invading army with a single spell. Might give him ideas...

[Comma Typer]

10444309
10444673
Again with this OTP talk? I'll fight the both of you with my ZephDash OTP!

10444319
Yeah, I did take much inspiration from the Mythbusters for this one. Used to be my favorite show when the Discovery Channel was what I watched every day.

10446317
Indeed! Not to mention that we get to see a Trixie version of Twilight Sparkle in the Nightmare Knights comics, so there's precedent too!

10446437
At least pre-transformation, the dark magic stuff always lands conveniently near the only other magic users Earth had to offer (which may bring up an idea: is dark magic attracted to light magic [or vice versa as is the case of Spring Breakdown] for some reason?) Now? Since magic's everywhere, dark magic can be anywhere too which would mean that... yeah, Earth really needs a dark magic awareness program.

Then cue the government-sponsored TackTube PSAs about not doing stupid stuff with dark magic. "If the book you're reading speaks of forbidden languages and spells fueled by hatred, dispose of it immediately."

10446347
10446456
It's probably worse for Timber than whoever may flirt with Princess Twilight Sparkle in the future. Over there, Twilight's a princess and Shining already has a wife and child along with Crystal Empire responsibilities. Here, Twilight's simply a teenage student (who pretty much indirectly started the Age of Magic on Earth but still) and Shining's probably taking up a job at his alma mater Crystal Prep so he's quite familiar with boys trying to hit on girls.

Also: theoretically, that's an additional five chapters there—a chapter each on how the Humane Seven (excluding Sunset and Twilight) are helping the family through the Change. The hardest to think of something good for is Pinkie and her family partly because she has the biggest (immediate) family out of them all and partly because I have to figure out how to juggle six characters in a short chapter without sounding like I'm missing something or cramming too much stuff in it.

[Venerable Ro]

“Yeah! I helped devise a barrel-propulsion system that would scan any structure it is placed in and map waypoints across it so it can fly around without crashing into anything. It’s big enough to fit the whole family, but Mom’s having a hey day over it!”

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You know that feeling when you see something you've never heard of before but now can't imagine doing without?