Oh, Spoony 4: The Voyage Home
“Any luck yet, darling?” Rarity asked, for the fifth time in an hour. She swerved to avoid something unsavory looking in the middle of the path, tip-hoofing in horror.
Twilight stopped abruptly, silently counting backwards from ten in Zebrican. She loved Rarity just as much as any of her other friends, but three hours hiking together with no buffer, and no escape, could be a bit trying. Once calm, she obliged Rarity’s latest request by lighting her horn. Her eyes glowed with the same lilac hue as she swiveled her head in the rough direction Ponyville lay in.
“No, we’re not close enough yet for me to get a range, still just a bearing. We seem to be swinging around a bit as well. The town is more towards the northeast now than it was twenty minutes ago.” Twilight’s horn continued to glow as she picked up a stick and drew some diagrams in the dirt, grumbling to herself a bit.
Rarity’s ears drooped. “I am sorry, darling. I didn’t expect to do so outrageously poorly on my first teleportation attempt.” She sank down onto the path, heedless of the dirt on her white coat for once, and rested her chin on her hooves, sniffling softly. “My poor darling Fluttershy must be worried sick by now.”
“No, I’m sorry, Rarity.” Twilight sighed and sat down next to her, putting a wing gently over Rarity’s back to comfort her. “You did really well, all things considered. We didn’t get charred or singed at all, and you did achieve a very impressive distance.”
Twilight let Rarity rest for a bit until her sniffles subsided. “I suppose we should get going. Fluttershy is waiting for you, and Spike’s been acting pretty odd, I’m not sure if Cheerilee is up to that challenge just yet.”
As Rarity and Twilight stood up, preparing to move on, the third member of their impromptu adventuring party popped out of the bushes alongside the path.
“Hey girls, come quick! I got back from scouting and just up ahead, there’s a spoon in the road!” Pinkie squealed out and dashed off again along the path.
“Pinkie! Don’t you mean a fork in the road?!” Twilight called after her, turning to look at Rarity with a shrug. Rarity seemed equally perplexed.
“Nope, it’s a spoon! Come see!” Pinkie’s voice called back from behind a stand of trees that the path curved around.
Confused and curious in equal measure, Twilight and Rarity trotted down the path to catch up with Pinkie. To their everlasting amazement, Pinkie had been telling the unvarnished truth. Right in the middle of the path, its handle end stuck straight in the dirt, was a plain steel dessert spoon. It was a bit tarnished and dull, as if it had been sitting there for some time, but there was no denying that at one time, it would have made a fine eating utensil for any creature able to wield it.
Silence reigned while three pairs of eyes simply stared at the oddly placed utensil. Rarity’s expression was pained, remembering her recent experiences with spoons and the lack thereof. Fluttershy’s wing dexterity turned out to be more than sufficient to use spoons effectively, but she could not shake off the memory of her own disastrous attempt to eat without utensils.
A sudden giggle split the still air as Pinkie bounded forward, a hoof outstretched, intent on giving the strange spoon a flick. Before she could touch it, however, Twilight’s purple aura of magic grabbed her bodily and froze her in midair. Pinkie was returned to her place beside Rarity and Twilight as the latter pony seized the spoon with her magic and gently pulled it free of the dirt.
“Aww…” Pinkie moaned sadly. “How come you get to play with the spoon and I don’t?”
“I’m sorry Pinkie, but this is just really odd.” Twilight turned the spoon slowly before her eyes, looking over the surface for clues to its origin. “A lone spoon out in the middle of nowhere? That seems like something worth investigating.”
“Um, Twilight, dear, what about getting back to Ponyville?” Rarity bit her lip, hoping beyond hope to dissuade Twilight from stopping for an impromptu scouting expedition.
“I don’t see any claw marks, but they could be covered up by the rust.” Twilight mused, completely missing or ignoring Rarity’s plea. “Most spoon using cultures would leave marks on the metal, unless they were very careful.” She spoke mainly to herself, but Pinkie seemed to be listening raptly to the recitation of utensil lore.
“Diamond dogs, griffons, Spike has scratched up almost all of my spoons. Cheerilee and I found him in bed hugging a spoon and nursing a stomach ache the other morning. That was extremely odd...” Twilight trailed off with a grimace. “We need more clues, let’s scout around for some other signs.”
Pinkie squealed and bounced excitedly before moving off down the road, nose to the ground, tail in the air, like a dog on a fresh scent. Twilight spread her wings and took off, hovering close to the ground and moving away in a retreating spiral search curve.
Rarity lay down sadly in the middle of the road once again, looking up at the sun slowly falling from the sky, tears clouding her vision. Twilight’s attention was, as usual, impossible to grasp once she had locked onto a mystery. Pinkie, of course, was treating it like a beloved game.
As she lay her head down on her forehooves, she briefly considered helping in the hope that it would speed things along and get them moving toward home again that much sooner. However, for a dirt road, which she would probably later regret laying on, it was rather comfortable. Rarity closed her eyes and folded her ears against her head, trying to block out the excited chatter of her friends a short distance away. She turned her mind to pleasant thoughts of her darling Fluttershy, and hoped that this impromptu archeological expedition would not take too long.