A History of Cooking (and Other Beginnings)
The concept of fire goes very well with the concept of screaming.
Take, for example, when fire is added to a possession, place or pony. The result is usually a scream whose length varies depending on what had been set alight.
Therefore, when the flames danced around the long marble columns of Princess Celestia’s Grand Castle Dining Hall, wrapping itself around chairs, tables, and such, and quickly extinguishing the lives of a half dozen wait and kitchen staff, the screams sounded like a veritable orchestra of highs, lows, longs, and shorts, all punctuated by a couple of well-placed yelps.
Far more than wax dripped to the ground in sordid puddles as the blaze reached temperatures in excess of the degree needed to melt far more than wax. The entire room started to resemble some sort of odd soup that would never be served at any respectable restaurant, because serving liquid metal mixed with the charred remains of overly dedicated castle workers is a good way to get a bad review.
Princess Celestia meandered outside of the Grand Castle Dining Hall, pacing in the middle of the Grand Castle Hallway, tapping her hooves together as she gave this situation quite an amount of due consideration.
Her sister, ruler of the night, strode beside.
The larger of the sisters spoke up first.
“I’m just not sure what happened,” Celestia wondered.
Princess Luna quickly looked down to a clipboard, scanning through pages and pages of write ups in a few scant seconds.
“The initial report from the Canterlot Royal Fire Brigade is in,” she said.
“And what determination?” Celestia asked.
“It is most definitely fire,” Luna said.
“Ah. I see.” Celestia nodded, a sad look upon her face. “As I suspected.”
“The death count is in, as well.”
Celestia steeled herself. “Give me the numbers.”
“Nine. One chef de cuisine, her sous chef, one entremetier, one grillardin, one garde manger, one patissier, two commis chefs under training, and Dave.” Luna looked up from her clipboard. “The guard.”
“Oh,” Celestia replied, gravel in her throat. “Oh, that’s absolutely terrible.”
“However, there is a silver lining,” Luna continued. “All the kitchen porters seem to have escaped.”
A small motion caught Luna's eyes. Peeking out from behind a smoke-belching door there was a pony, heavily-clad in yellow fire-resistant material, waving at them with a due amount of urgency and alarm
Luna’s eyes snapped back. “Sister, I have some unfortunate news.”
“Oh! I don’t want to know. I really don’t,” Celestia fretted, turning and heading down the Grand Castle hallway, headed towards the Grand Castle Throne Room. “I simply can’t take this news. I am beside myself!”
As she walked, Luna fell into quick lock-step, as they passed a number of stretchers, busy fireponies, and frantic guardspegasi.
A single tear rolled down Celestia’s cheek, a sign of her breaking heart and fractured soul.
“There there, my sister,” Luna said. “There there.”
“Oh, but why must this happen so? Each and every time?” Celestia lamented.
“Sister, perhaps I might share a story with you,” Luna held out a hoof for emphasis. “A story told to me by a very wise pony named Buzzy Bobble once very long ago. For you see, there was once a small parasprite whose name was Pipo.”
“Pipo the parasprite.” Celestia repeated.
“That is correct.” Luna bowed her head, closing her eyes to fully recall the story. “Pipo needed to cross a turgid, windy valley. However, its tiny little wings were unsuited to battle the heavy, gale-force draughts. However, as fortune would befall, as fortune does, there was an eagle nearby.”
“Did the eagle have a name?” Celestia asked, leaning in closer.
“No. But it could understand parasprite. So, when Pipo asked the eagle if it could take it over to the other side, the eagle understood the request.”
Celestia nodded.
“However, the eagle was aware of the parasprite’s ravenous ways. And it was, naturally, both hesitant and apprehensive. The parasprite said, however, that it was crossing in order to feast on a herd of cows that were on the other side of the ravine, and if it attempted to succumb to its nature, then why, the two of them would die.
“So the eagle agreed to this logic and allowed the parasprite to clasp onto its feathers as it flew across the ravine. But do you know what happened, my dear Celestia?”
“What? What?” Celestia held her hooves up to her face.
“The parasprite succumbed to its nature, and decided to eat the eagle. They both died in the ravine that day.”
A soft ‘oooooh’ escaped Celestia’s lips as she nodded in understanding.
Luna’s eyes flicked open, her opulent tale complete. “I believe now you understand the point that I am trying to illustrate. I had already mentioned the key concepts twice during the story itself, and it is quite a simple story. For babies. But perhaps it is time for you to realise that you, my dear sister, are unable to escape your true nature.”
Celestia sighed. It indeed was something she had to realise, deep down. “I suppose you’re right, my dear sister. I am, indeed, quite bad at cooking.”
“No, Celestia.” Luna shook her head. “You are terrible.”
Celestia held up a hoof. She continued to keep her eyes closed as she drew in a lungful of smoke. “I know. I know. But please. Look.”
A small black disc floated into view. Atop it — a small, round, crusty brick, pocked with small holes and about the shape of a potato.
Luna leaned in, looking down the length of her nose at the strange object. She wrinkled her snoot at the smell.
Luna leaned back up. “I beg your pardon?”
“At the very least, is this not a vast, vast improvement over last week?” Celestia asked, hopefully.
Luna looked once again at the thing on the serving dish. Its stench gathered around it in an odd, green ethereal glow that seemed to slough off its surface. It seemed to leak out onto the plate, turning it black and shiny. “I am hesitant to call this a vast, vast anything, especially considering I do not know what it is yet.”
“Can… can you really not tell?” Celestia asked, brow dropping in mild consternation.
Luna met Celestia’s eyes, giving her a blank, expressionless gaze that looked like it came from across the room.
“Well… I know that interesting plating is somewhere down the line, but perhaps I’ve gone ahead of myself?” Celestia wondered aloud. “The colour is quite nice, is it not?”
“Sister, interesting plating is usually done intentionally and with forethought, not as a result of chemical reactions. What is it?”
“It is a fried egg.” Celestia declared, raising the plate. “Can it not be seen?”
The egg crackled as it rolled around unevenly on its craterous surface, baking in the atmospheric heat of a rather sultry Grand Castle Hallway.
“I believe it is customary, in the cooking of eggs.” Luna pointed out. “To take it out of the shell first.”
“Oh,” Celestia said, “is that so…? The recipe didn’t specify. It merely indicated to cook the eggs over medium heat in a little oil in a pan.”
“It is definitely something that needn’t be said.” Luna said dryly.
“Well, now I know. Do you see? Improvement.”
“Yes. Improvement.” Luna muttered, eyes chasing a new team of fireponies rushing past the couple as they dragged in yet another set of hoses. “Perhaps you might consider allowing the new kitchen staff to cook food for you, once we hire some.”
“Yes, well.” Celestia rolled her hoof in the air, bobbing her head sideways. “But cooking is a skill that, eventually, we all must learn, is it not?”
“I suppose. But you have not really progressed at a sufficient speed, and we simply can’t keep replacing the kitchen every morning.”
“Well… but that means…” Celestia’s eyes widened ever so slightly as a thought crowbarred its way in. “I must approach this from a different angle!”
“Oh dear.”
“First, I must do some research! So worry not. We’ll…” Celestia chuckled with an odd mix of guilt and hope, holding up the plate, “... crack this one yet!”
Two fireponies carrying a stretcher ran out of the door. Under it was a small mound of quivering jellied flesh.
“Mmm!” Celestia smiled.
a HISTORY of COOKING
(and other beginnings)
Twilight peeled her face off her bed, which that night consisted of a small pile of drool-encrusted leaflets and a number of research books. They were, in fact, quite comfortable once one got used to it, and Twilight always had the vain hope that she could absorb knowledge through her skin while she slept anyway.
Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she pushed aside the books, as faded words and blurry music started to trickle back into her ears. A somewhat familiar tune; she turned, smacking her lips, to face the blaring opening to Captain Pussoirpant’s Pec-tacular Morning Muscle Slideshow.
It was a children’s program. For children.
It had become something of a pattern, recently, for Twilight to wake up to the sing-song sounds of the Pussoirpant Show. Although it had started syndication relatively recently, it quickly became a treehouse staple, and received high ratings across the board, according to the television reports that Twilight studied quite dedicatedly.
Spike gazed upon the laughing and cavorting glistening dunklehunks with widened eyes, fully taking in the clever character arcs and internalizing the great moral lessons held within, like any good children’s program necessarily contains. He lay on his stomach, propping his chin in his hands, bobbing along to the glorificous tickle-trunk theme.
“Oh, hey, Twi,” Spike said, looking over his shoulder. “Mornin’.”
“Oh my, golly gee,” Twi burped. “What time is it? How long was I asleep?”
“Captain Pussoirpants says it’s glabor-o-clock,” Spike said.
“Pardon?”
“Nine thirty-two.”
“Right. Just in time for breakfast.”
“S is for smacking!” came the fuzzy, distorted voice of a small furry multicoloured rock from the show, “Never smack your life partners! It’s not polite!”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “That’s the main one, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Spike affirmed. “That’s the main glistening dunklehunk, Mister Weegles. Aw, I didn’t think you cared, Twilight!”
“I don’t, really,” Twilight admitted, shrugging indifferently. “But you watch it often. One picks stuff up after a while.”
“That’s cool too. Mister Weegles says that ninety percent of the things we know in life is actually stuff we just pick up and regurgitate without understanding meaning or context!”
“That’s oddly pragmatic.” Twilight tilted her head.
“Uh huh!” Spike chimed.
“What even are those things, anyway?” Twilight gestured, taking a closer look at the mossy pear-like characters that wibbled and wobbled randomly over the screen.
“Glistening dunklehunks,” Spike replied.
“I see. And they are...”
“Glistening dunklehunks.”
“Right. I see.”
“And remember,” The television said, “don’t throw your dirty, dirty trash into the ocean! Mmm, dirty! The planet’s dying, folks!”
The program flashed a small artistic interpretation of a puppet dolphin choking on some felt soda cans.
Twilight sighed, looking down and then, for a brief moment, back to her bed.
Reality.
“What’s up, Twi?” Spike said, rolling around.
“Hm?” Twi’s focus shot back to the room. “Hm?”
“Come on, Twi. What’s bothering you?”
“I’ll have to ask you one day how you can tell.” Twi twisted a smile through a large dose of weariness.
“You know how Superpony can sense his dumb girlfriend like halfway around the world when she’s in trouble?”
“No, but I do believe I get the gist.”
“Yeah. I’m like that, but with your internal melancholy.”
“Right.” Twilight nodded meagerly. “Well, the moment that even Captain Pussoirpants addresses the issue, I am suddenly made aware the issue is far more dire than I had previously assumed.”
“Oh, you mean about the environmental stuff going on?” Spike asked.
“Indeed.”
“Yeah, well, Captain Pussoirpants is very up to date. As far as the saturday shows go, it’s very aware of current sociological and geopolitical topics.”
Twilight frowned quizzically. “I never knew that such vocabulary was in your purview.”
“I dunno,” Spike shrugged. “Ninety percent of them I just repeat without knowing context or meaning.”
“Well, good job. You used them quite right. Remember it for next time,” Twilight affirmed. “Anyway, back to task now. Just keep watching your outlook-positive children’s programming. I have some really important work to take care of today.”
“You got it, Twilight! Let me know if you need anything!”
“Indeed,” Twilight said.
“Remember, killing dolphins is pretty bad! Let’s sing the killing dolphin song!” the telly went.
No sooner had Twilight spread out her looseleaf, pinned articles on the wall, prepared her inks and quills, neatly organized all relevant reference books on her large study desk in subject to alphabetical order, laminated her maps, and mentally recalled all historical events related to the current tragedy in mind, a process that took a mere three hours, than Princess Celestia arrived.
She appeared, like a phantom, sliding in through the window, simply because Princesses didn’t really need to use doors.
On a wafting magical wind she rode, the very force of magic itself keeping her aloft, whipping the air within the library into a frenzy, sending anything not nailed down into a whirling dervish of papers and reference materials.
So at least the articles were safe.
Finally, she landed. Shortly after, so did Twilight.
Celestia took in a deep breath. She liked to take in the air of anywhere she went to, really get stuck in there, even though it smelled like the odd combination of mold and bleach.
Then she opened her eyes.
“Oh, Twilight, you’ve fallen!” she exclaimed, pulling the purple beanbag’s head out from under a pile of encyclopedias. “Oh dear, what ever happened?”
“Oof,” Twilight grundled, scrabbling to her legs.
“I see. That’s quite unfortunate. But anyway,” Celestia trilled, “you weren’t working on anything today, were you? I am in dire need of assistance, my dear little froglet.”
“Hurgh,” Twilight said, rubbing her face. “What? Oh. Princess. Hi. I didn’t hear you come in. By the way, I would appreciate not being called a froglet. I feel we have reached the point where we no longer need to use formal titles with each other. Just ‘Twilight’ is fine.”
“Quite so. So, are you doing anything at the moment?”
“Oh… ah… yes, Princess.” Twilight dusted her front from bookdust. “I’m investigating that strange rash of abrupt climate changes that’s going around.”
“Ah, yes. I am familiar. A lot of dire reports have been coming in lately.”
“Well, I have some news.” Twilight gave a sharp, quick nod.
“Good. Please do tell.”
“Equestria will be destroyed on Thursday.”
“I… see.” Celestia said.
“Maybe friday, at the most. Estimation is not a true science.” Twilight reminded the princess.
“Of course.” Princess Celestia coughed. “Would you know what is, perhaps, causing all of this?”
“Indeed. I have been observing and noting trends in the past few months; especially anything moving on the upward,” Twilight explained, digging out the current edition of The Young Pony’s Desk Reference to Recent Trends from beneath a mound of detritus. “And one of the things that has been trending in the last half-year, along with frumpleberry smear face cream, ice-cream on french fries, and collectable desk toys in the shape of small outhouses, is the tendency for the youth of today to dispose their waste in rivers and lakes instead of clearly marked trash receptacles.”
“They’re littering in rivers?”
“Not just that. The disposables get swept into the ocean. And in turn, it is causing these weather anomalies to bloom across the state.”
Celestia’s eyes trailed upward, falling upon some of the articles that were pinned up here and there. They seemed to agree with the assertment.
“I’m not sure I understand how the two are linked, Twilight. Please, do indulge an old mare and her proclivities to misapprehension.”
Twilight cleared her throat of dust and beetles, and pointed to a slightly shredded map in the corner of the room. “Well, as you can see, this is a chart from last year that indicates the average weather patterns across Equestria, the greater Griffon territories, Seapony puddles, and some places I’ve marked with an ‘x’ to indicate possible locations for where the Changelings might be hiding, but we’re not really sure if they’re there or not.”
Celestia nodded. She understood.
“And over here.” Twilight gestured to a map that was currently attempting to peel itself off a ceiling beam. “We have this year’s weather patterns. If you note, the lines are even more wubbly than normal, and all the colours are dark and ominous, indicating a great deal of alarm and panic amongst the people.”
“I see. The lines.” Celestia noted, holding up her hoof to the chart.
“And after having carefully considered all 839 upward trends of this past half-year, this one seems to suggest the most correlation — both rain and river-dumping have to do with water, and both of their lines in their respective graphs sort of wiggle the same way.”
“Well, it is certainly very hard to argue against that sort of logic,” Celestia said, concerned. “Well, couldn’t the Pegasi do anything?”
“Well, you see, that’s the rub. These weather changes have been growing more and more abrupt and also more and more intense as time goes on.” Twilight tapped her temple, deep in thought. “Eventually, even the Pegasi will be unable to stem the storm.
“So with your permission,” Twilight continued, “I wish to launch an operation so that we may prevent the world from destroying itself under extinction-level weather anomalies.”
“Indeed. Well, of course, you have my permission. I’m sure you were already aware that you needn’t have asked?”
“Indeed, I had,” Twilight confirmed. “I was asking out of formality. I will be leaving, within the day, after I have reorganized my notes from this odd rash of localized wind that happened to sweep through my library at the most inopportune moment. I dare say it is related to the goings-on across Equestria.”
“Quite so. But before you leave, I will need you to help me. I came to you today for a reason, my dearest water bear.”
“Hm. Will it take long? I would hate to be like a student who has to turn her mentor down for subjectively important but piously questionable reasons, but I fear I am in that precise spot at this very moment. Also, just ‘Twilight’ is fine.”
“Perhaps an hour, maybe two.”
“Mm.” Twilight let her eyes flick to one side as she gave it a great deal of thought. “Well, it is a week and a bit away until the end of the world, so I suppose there would be no harm in a few hours’ delay.”
“Oh, goodie!” Celestia clapped. “Wonderful. I have a simple, simple request.”
“Yes, please.” Twilight said, pulling out a quill and notebook in order to take notes.
Notes were, as always, the very foundation upon which the building of understanding lay, and Twilight would be remiss not to take down every single thing Celestia said, lest she forget.
“Please, do not mind me taking notes,” Twilight explained. “For notes are, as always, the very foundation upon which the building of understanding lies, and I would be remiss not to take down every single thing that you say, lest I forget.”
“I would like you to teach me how to make toast,” Celestia requested.
The notebook flipped close, a small cloud of ink particles billowing out the sides.
“Absolutely not, Princess. I am afraid I must turn you down, as much as it hurts me and pains me, to the point where every night I shall sleep in the agony of wondering what it must feel like to have been betrayed by me in such a fashion.” Twilight took a breath. “Well, you may leave now.”
“Oh, but…” Celestia tremored, her metal spats clanking against her hooves as she quivered in lamentability.
“Princess, with all due respect.” Twilight frowned. “But you’re…”
Celestia felt her haunches droop as her eyelids gained ten pounds of weight apiece.
“... you’re kind of terrible at it,” Twilight finished.
“Oh, but please!”
“No,” Twilight stated. “I simply must put my hoof down.”
Twilight demonstrated, lifting one leg up and then placing it back down gently, making sure that Celestia was watching closely, as demonstrations necessarily required.
Celestia sighed; it was a powerful, brash demonstration that sent the message across quite entirely.
“Tell me why?” Celestia said, looking back up at Twilight’s eyes, giving her her most lamentable look, the one that she reserved for when she was trying to win out newborn puppies.
Twilight shut her eyes as a defense against the incursion. “Princess. The very truth is, I simply do not believe that I am able to help you. Not at all.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because a thousand of the kingdom’s finest chefs, patissiers, cuisiniers and hash slingers could not before, and they are far, far more knowledgeable than I am in this field.”
“Yes, but they didn’t have the secret to good instruction, did they?” Celestia pleaded.
Twilight pried an eye open, cocking her head to the side. She curled her lip in skepticism over the very thought that somepony else knew more about instruction than she.
“And what, pray tell, is the secret to good instruction?” she asked, testily. “Do not begrudge me for being skeptical that somepony else knows more about instruction than I.”
Princess Celestia huffed her chest, taking in a deep, long breath, leaning forward and resting on her hunched shoulders.
“Love.”
Twilight opened her eyes fully. She pursed her lips as she considered this bit of information.
“Indeed,” Twilight said, “love is, in fact, the secret to good instruction. And as we both know, I have recently found the molecule responsible for love, and therefore can definitively prove this to be true in a quantifiable manner. Well played.”
“So you see?”
Twilight sighed. “Very well, Princess. But please, do not make me regret this.”
Celestia brightened up, beaming suddenly into the room, as a warm, ethereal glow encased her as a sign of her pleasant turnabout. “Of course, my little owlet washroom. But why would I ever make you regret anything?”
“Please. ‘Twilight’ is fine. This way to the kitchen.” Twilight gestured.
Rainbow Dash was, as far as ponies went, very very stupid.
If Twilight Sparkle were to describe her, she would call her one of limited coruscations, for example, or perhaps she of economical perspicacity.
This would have come across a great disservice to Rainbow Dash, for she had neither the time nor the patience to traverse the landscape of sophisticated insults.
By the time Rainbow Dash had gone to the library, fought with the librarian, found the necessary book required to find out what those words meant, and left without paying her long overdue fines for The Collected Works of Buzzy Bobble: A Parasprite Picturebook for Toddlers, well, she simply wouldn’t have cared any longer.
Therefore she found it much more polite to be called very very stupid, as being very very stupid was something that she understood, accepted, and had internalized as early as a week after birth. It was the best way to go, for a pony like her, because above all, she could live happily.
And in very very stupid ways.
Therefore it was quite a conundrum for her, on that day, when she had to break out of her comfort zone, not due to being called stupid in a smart way, but rather because there was some sort of conflict she had to resolve, forcing her to be smart in a rather stupid way indeed.
There was a seed cloud, hovering in the sky, out of its jurisdiction and certainly not issued by the proper authorities.
A seed cloud was, as every good pegasus knew, a little titchy baby puffball that would one day grow up big and strong and rain itself over a field or mountain or wherever it had been deployed.
The density of a seed cloud was directly related to how big it would eventually get when fully grown. This particular one was so dense that it looked like someone had cut a vaguely cloud-shaped hole out of the sky that led to a pitch black cave. It anchored itself into the sky like flies to a glue trap, and however Rainbow tried, she could not even get it to wobble.
Rainbow had already gone through the list of things to do when coming across a stray seed cloud, from the basic dislodging with a crowbar to the more advanced, yet underhanded, technique of tempting it away from the area with it promises of low-rent housing and stable employment over arid land, but none of them worked.
Not even when Rainbow had the flash of inspiration that led her to attempt to cuddle it gently in the hopes that gentleness and sweetness would be able to reach it instead of violence and yelling, of which she had already done a lot.
Ultimately, she was left at the point where her unchallenging mind had run out of ideas both smart and stupid.
“Well, heck,” she said.
This particular seed cloud was hovering above a convergent point in a river system slightly off Rambling Rock Ridge, far to the East of Ponyville.
It was a location that made Rainbow perspire.
Despite the limitations of what she did know, Rainbow was quite aware of the outcome of weather occurring in specific ways at specific locations, and this was one of those combinations which would result in quite a lot of trouble and inconvenience in the form of violent floods and destruction.
And this particular cloud was ripe.
Rainbow stared off into the distance. It was a good forty-five minutes flight back to Ponyville, even at her speed, and her fall-back plan of complaining to Twilight and having her come up with a solution was not something she felt was feasible at the time, given how the seed cloud could mature at any moment.
“Oh dear,” Rainbow said to herself. “Oboy.”
So deep was she in rapt concentration, in the attempt to figure out, for a start, what her next move was, that she only noticed the sharp jagged rock at the moment it struck her in the forehead.
“Ow!” Rainbow yelled out, hoof flying to the middle of her face. “That actually really kind of hurt! Like, for real!”
The rock cascaded off, ping-ponging away.
Pulling her hoof away, she noticed a crimson smear, streaked across the edge of her leg like a bawdy oil stain.
Narrowing her eyes, she pulled into herself in an alert position, wings increasing in flits-per-second in anxious anticipation of a following attack, which in fact, did decide to come from a separate direction altogether.
This time, the rock grazed past a leg. And it did so only through the virtue of Rainbow jiddering and juddering around like a wind-up toy that was built with far too many springs in.
The pegasus swung round in an instant, as the rock sailed off by her.
“Hey! Stop that!” Rainbow yelled. “Stop that this instant!”
It was then that a head popped up from behind a tree far away and below Rainbow. It was a fuzzy one, due to the distance, and belonged to a very indistinguishable pony.
“No!” the indistinguishable head yelled.
“Wait, what?” Rainbow yelled back. “What? Who are you? I demand that you tell me who you are right now and also why you are throwing rocks at me!”
The pony of indistinguishable features disappeared below the treeline.
“Hey! Wait!” Rainbow yelled, glaring at the tree. It was instinct that kicked in that made Rainbow start for the trees, but an equal amount of instinct that held her back, skidding her in place as her eyes darted worriedly back to the seed cloud.
The rather indistinguishable head popped out from behind a slightly different conifer.
“No!” it yelled out angrily for the second time. Almost as soon as the head retreated back to its bastion of lush foliage did a third stone fling itself through the branches, once again, with eerie accuracy, at Dash’s head.
“I’m about to attack you again,” came the very indistinguishable voice of the indistinguishable pony as it bounced around within a great dense selection of growth. “One last time!”
Preparation, as some might say, is an important part of success.
Dash, fortunately, was prepared for this third and final attack.
Dash, however, was mistaken about a rather fundamental rule of occurrences — just because something happens twice in a row with similar circumstances, it does not guarantee that it will happen again. Especially if it is foretold by an indistinguishable pony who hasn’t specifically proved its trustworthiness.
Dash turned around, and narrowed her eyes to pinpricks, which was as narrow as they would go before she passed out from the strain.
She braced for the slinging of a sharply tuned object.
Something else, different albeit equally sharp, came flying at her instead.
“Hey! You’re ugly!” yelled the indistinguishable voice. “Yeah!”
“Excuse me?” Dash tested. “I challenge you to come to my face and say it to my face, right here! In front of my face!”
“No! You’re too ugly!” the voice echoed across the forests. “I could barely stand to be that close to you than I could tolerate standing next to five unwashed hedgehogs! And I very much hate hedgehogs!”
“Now, that is very rude of you! Extremely so! Hurry up and throw your rock! But be warned that I will dodge it,” Rainbow warned, “because I am Rainbow Dash, and the fastest flier in Equestria, and also quite good at dodging things!”
“No, I’ve changed my mind!”
Rainbow frowned. “What?”
“I’ve changed my mind, you very ugly pegasus!”
Rainbow’s eyes started defocusing. “But you said! You said you would!”
“Now listen, let me explain what ‘changing your mind’ means! I was going to throw a rock, and now I have decided not to throw a rock any longer! It’s not very difficult! Are you, perhaps, very very stupid?”
“Yes! Yes I am!” Dash retorted.
“Good! Then I can consider my attack a success!”
“I do not understand!” Dash called out. “Could you catch me up, please?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple! You see, it was me who set up that seed cloud over there, and from my observations of your actions in the past half an hour, I have determined two important things about you!”
“Oh yeah? And what are those, buster?” Dash asked, throwing her arms into her hips, slightly offended at the accusation of having important things known about her.
“Well, that you are a pony of minimal faculty, and that you have duties related to weather control!”
“Well.. sure! That’s right!” agreed Dash.
“And you see, I would rather you not interfere with my plans, and therefore, I concocted a rather brilliant three-pronged attack plan in which I would come out victorious in the event that we had to altercate!”
“Well, I don’t—”
“My plan was very simple! First, I threw a rock to get your attention! And then, I threw another rock slightly off to make you believe that you had dodged it under your own power! And then, you made a mistake, sorely!”
Rainbow yelled: “I did?” which was quite an odd thing to be yelling, but she did so anyway.
“Yes! You see, you expected for me to throw a third rock, but instead I did not, and turned to goad you and spend quite a lot of time on a lengthy explanation of my entire plan! But fear not, because this had all been in service of one thing!”
“And what is that?” Dash cried, at tenterhooks.
“To waste your time!” The voice concluded. “Well, goodbye!”
And with that, the pony of indistinguishable features disappeared into a crown of trees with a pop.
“Oh,” muttered Dash, as her very slow brain attempted to catch up with the very fast patter of the pony of indistinguishable features.
She looked sideways at the seed cloud.
“Ooohhhhhhhhh,” Dash said.
“Pop”, said the cloud.
“Alright. Now, if you would, please lower the slice of bread by zero-point-five centimeters exactly,” Twilight instructed.
Princess Celestia nodded.
They stood in the middle of Twilight’s kitchen, a small hide-away offshooting from the corner of the library. It was, as the rest of her house, sufficiently stocked with whatever was needed and a few things more beside, just in case Twilight might need it later.
A cavalcade of used utensils and gadgets lined a countertop, all marching down a marble street adorned with dozens of soggy pieces of bread.
Princess Celestia and Twilight stood astride a small metal box, above which hovered a slice of mulberry-bort brown maple twistloaf enwrapped in throbbing white magic.
Princess Celestia lowered the bread by zero-point-five centimeters exactly.
The bread would still not enter the toaster.
“Mmm,” Twilight hummed, peering closer at the configuration, examining it slowly. “I see the problem here.”
“What is it?” Celestia said, as the bread started to crumple against the top of the bread-cooking device.
“The bread ought to be perpendicular to the slot. However, what you have done is attempt to push it into the metal parts. That simply will not do.” Twilight shook her head slowly, rapping the side of the implement. “I believe this method of cooking toast is currently beyond your capabilities. We shall attempt a different approach.”
Princess Celestia collapsed in lament.
“But we have already gone through so many methods!” Celestia pounded her hooves onto the ground. “Will I never be able to cook toast? Will I never be able to administer a simple application of heat to a thin slice of previously cooked wheat-based colloidal gel? Will I never be able to make soft things crispity crunch?”
Twilight’s eyebrows dropped for a moment, pulling back as a tinge of some ambiguous emotion foundered through her.
“Well. No. I do believe that…” Twilight paused for a short, fortifying breath. “I do believe that one day, you will. With a little perseverance, and even more practice. Anypony can achieve their wildest dreams.”
She laid a leg upon Celestia’s back. “There, now.”
“Oh.” Celestia pulled herself back to her hooves, rubbing pity dirt off her face and straightening out her tiara. “Coming from you, that is such a comfort, my dear little hot-cross fleaball.”
“Thank you. And ‘Twilight’ is fine. Please.”
“Very good then,” Celestia said, having recovered from her trying time. “What method shall we try next?”
Twilight scanned the rest of her tools and gadgetry, muttering to herself. “I am hesitant to involve fire at this moment, due to my pre-existing knowledge of certain events that have occurred in your castle.”
“Of course. I completely understand.”
“But I feel that we may not have much other choice. We have exhausted nearly all other methods of making toast, including the safest method of staring at it very intensely until it gets embarrassed enough to heat up, and the nu-gryphonian haute style of spinning it at speeds in excess of eight million rounds per minute until it lightly chars due to air friction.”
“Oh, but… but I couldn’t,” Celestia stammered.
“Hm. Well, we do have one, final, non-fire-related cooking method. However, it is for plebians and charlatans.” Twilight stroked her chin in thought. “I would not want you to assume that I was suggesting you as such if I were to recommend this cooking method.”
“Not at all. I am aware of where my talents lie.” Celestia nodded in understanding. “I would never hold it against you.”
Twilight sighed, and then blinked, walking over to a small box with a glass door, handle, and a variety of knobs. “Very well. Please. Would you tell me if you know what this device is?”
“Yes, I believe this is known as an oven, is it not?” Celestia offered.
“Correct. Very good, Princess. Five stars. Now,” Twilight said, unable to hide the curling up of the side of her mouth in foul disgust, “this oven is the cooking tool of choice for layabouts and clowns. It is a box in which you place things and merely wait. There is no finesse. There is no actualization. It is the coward’s cooking device.”
“Please correct me if I am wrong, but does your friend Pinkie Pie not use ovens nearly exclusively?” Princess Celestia inquired.
“Yes.” Twilight nodded. “Yes she does. Anyway, the method is simple. Turn the temperature dial up to two thousand Griffonheit. Then, turn the timer dial up to six minutes. Place one piece of plain, white bread upon the metal rack in the middle of the forsaken device one minute after the oven has started. Next… well. Do you know what we do next?”
“Please. Do tell me.”
“We wait.” Twilight said, spitting the word out. “I understand the very thought of it must raise a burning despair deep within your tenderloins but we must do what we must do.”
Princess Celestia blinked. “Okay. I think I understand. Shall I begin?”
“Please proceed in the manner I have just indicated,” Twilight stated, stepping aside.
“Alright, first we turn the temperature dial…” Celestia reached out.
There is a concept known as Cosmic Irony that is the antagonist to the stability of many a pony’s life.
It can be described as Coincidence getting a bit cheeky; the sort that makes itself apparent at the worst possible time.
Take, for example, the patient who leaves hospital after six months in painful and painstaking rehabilitation from a car accident who suddenly is hit by a bus and dies.
Take, for example, the stallion who wins fifty thousand bits at the casino, only to find that a new house costs fifty-one thousand bits after he lost his old one in a strange, freak river flooding.
Take, for example, Princess Celestia, who had barely touched the dial of an oven when a strange blue fireball shot out of the sky, crashed through the roof of a treehouse, and embedded itself into a loaf of bread.
“Oh, no! Fire!” Princess Celestia explained.
However, the galaxy is sometimes kind, and lets it be known that Cosmic Irony sometimes works both ways.
“Oh! Yes! Toast!” Princess Celestia exclaimed. She held up the compounded amalgamation of burning, wretched Rainbow Dash and smouldering bread chunkles.
“Ah. Very good, Princess Celestia. It appears you are successful,” Twilight said, examining the final result closely, “even if your methodology is somewhat impractical and also unexpected. Perhaps we should extinguish my friend.”
“Oh,” Celestia noted. “That is your friend, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Please, allow me to run her under a tap,” Twilight said, floating her over to the sink.
“Well, then I must say, I can’t possibly take credit for this bit of broiling brilliance,” Celestia admitted, considering the quickly charing bread. “Really, I will not take claim for what is all of Rainbow’s hard work.”
“That is fine, and honourable,” Twilight said, as she rolled out a damp Rainbow Dash on her countertop. “Hmm.”
“What is it?”
“It appears that Rainbow here has suffered some kind of injury. Her forehead is bleeding — no doubt caused by a large, sharp rock striking her at some speed and force. She also has a few mild bruises — no doubt caused by a great hard item slamming itself into her face as it expanded suddenly and without warning. And she also has some obtuse burns no doubt caused by…”
A moment passed.
“What?” Celestia asked, eventually.
“This is odd,” Twilight said. “These burns have traces of magic in them. I surmise that she caught on fire at the very moment you touched the oven dial. So perhaps you did indeed cook that toast after all.”
“No, Twilight.” Celestia shut her eyes and shook her head. “I either do it by myself or not at all. I will not allow myself to be aided to victory when my achievement involves not only physical aptitude but also personal conquest.”
“Very good, Celestia. There’s the spirit. Now…” Twilight turned back to Dash. “I suppose we should wake her. Clearly something terrible has happened and waking her will be the first step in our investigation.”
“Very good. “Celestia gestured. “Wake the injured pegasus.”
“I shall.”
Twilight tapped Dash on the chest, lightly, twice, with the tip of her hoof.
“Oh!” Dash exclaimed, shooting upright, looking around, eyes darting to Twilight. “I’m not dead! And I’m in a kitchen. I’m in your kitchen? I am.”
“Yes, you are. How life finds opportune ways to connect old friends,” Twilight mused.
“And I’m not dead! It seems very important that I am not dead!” Dash emphasized.
“This is correct,” Twilight agreed, tilting her head to the side. “I would comment on the fortune of you being alive at this point, but unfortunately I have no frame of reference of the manner in which you sustained your injuries, and thusly can not in good faith congratulate you for surviving.”
Twilight placed a hoof over her chin.
“But allow me to give you a cursory examination nevertheless. Please, can you tell me who you are and what you are doing here?”
“My name is Rainbow P. Dash and I don’t know anything.”
“Correct. Mental faculties seem to be within normal ranges for Dash. Now, please tell me, does anything hurt?”
“Yes. Everything. Everything hurts.”
“Correct. Physical sensitivity seem to be within normal ranges for Dash.” Twilight turned to the Princess. “She is well.”
“Good news.” Celestia heaved out a sigh of relief. “However, I feel it necessary that we should find out what caused this.”
“I agree.” Twilight turned back to Dash. “Dash. What caused this?”
“Oh, well, you see. There was a cloud.”
Twilight nodded. This was getting considerably intriguing. She even allowed her heart rate to raise two points per minute at the excitement of it all.
“Out there.” Dash pointed out the hole she caused. “At Rambling Rock Ridge, near the edge of the forest, where the rivers meet and become one river.”
Twilight and Celestia turned and peered out the hole.
They turned back.
“Somepony set up a seed cloud!” Dash waved her legs around in a successful imitation of a windmill. “That cad left it there, dense and hard, right above the fork in the river. I couldn’t move it no matter how much I tried. And that dastard threw a rock at me, and it hurt! And then he taunted me, and I hated it! And then the seed cloud blew up and then it hurt again.”
“That is an unfortunate story,” Celestia said. “I am very sorry for the two times you were hurt throughout it, my child. Shall I heal you with a specially formulated series of little kisses?”
“Uh… that’s fine, Princess. Thank you anyway.”
“Oh.” Celestia stepped back. “But it’s a very efficient series of little healing kisses. We’ve developed it in a laboratory.”
“Princess, any pony in Equestria would love to receive your series of little healing kisses, but I am afraid that time is of the essence.” Twilight stepped in. “There appears to be some sort of urgent situation.”
“Yeah, I’ll say! And what I’ll say is this,” Dash told them. “That seed cloud is going to flood the river and make it overflow. There is a small town downstream which is going to be affected terribly by the water. They might be okay with a little water, but a lot of water? Ponies drown in water, you know? They drown!”
“Yes, that is a primary function of water — to drown people.” Twilight agreed. “I see the direness of the situation, Rainbow. Thank you for choosing this kitchen to land in in order to expedite the explanation. By the way, you said that the criminal behind this had taunted you. Did you get a good look at how he or she looked like?”
“I did not. It was a pony of indistinguishable features.”
“Hm. I see.” Twilight turned to Celestia. “I believe we should be on the alert for any pony that has indistinguishable features. I am sure we will run into the pony again before long.”
“Yes, that seems likely,” agreed Princess Celestia.
“Now, I suppose the one final thing for us to do is to stop this large amount of water,” Twilight determined, “but not before I consider and ponder the fact that this seems to be an incident that is eerily related to the very world-ending event that I had been investigating before I set it aside to teach you how to make toast.”
“It is rather spooky,” Celestia admitted.
“Look at me,” Twilight said. “I’m shaking.”
“Shall we?” Celestia asked, sweeping her horn. “I will do the honours.”
“Please,” Twilight said. “Before the fear grips me.”
“Where are we going?” Dash asked.
They disappeared.
They appeared.
Walls are built for the specific purpose of stopping things. They stop ponies from getting into other ponies’ private gardens. They stop wandering eyes from trespassing into changing rooms. They prevent people from entering their homes in those rare circumstances when a pony has forgotten to install a door or windows.
Therefore, it is normally very disconcerting and troubling to see a wall moving towards you, as the logic falls apart as you think about it. What will stop, you question yourself, and is it really a wall any longer if it no longer stays next to the place it is trying to guard? And then before you know it, you are swept up and taken away to places unknown, as we are not privy to the thoughts and motivations of moving walls.
Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash were all very disconcerted and troubled to see a giant wall made of water racing toward them. It splintered trees and crumbled rocks as it shuffled quickly towards the village of Alluvilla, which it would also dismantle accordingly, carrying the remnants off like mere playthings in the hooves of a child.
The three ponies reacted accordingly.
“Oh dear,” Twilight said. “They’re all about to be killed horribly by a large amount of water.”
“We need to do something,” Princess Celestia cautioned.
Rainbow Dash stayed silent, pondering the nature of moving walls.
“In times like these, one must fall back upon the words of the great philosopher Star Swirl the Bearded.” Twilight meditated. “Who once said that the path to true enlightenment lies in the attempt and not in the reaching.”
“I’m afraid that might not help us in this situation, Twilight,” Celestia noted.
“Yes. I do see. Perhaps then.” Twilight raised her hoof. “We must fall back upon the words of the other great philosopher, parasprite storybook author Buzzy Bobble, who once said that when you see a fire, put, put, put it out. Put, put, put it out.”
“A very good and wise saying, Twilight, but I do not see how that will help us either.”
“Put, put, put it out!” echoed Rainbow. “I remember that one.”
“Yes.” Twilight said, nodding to herself, as her eyes defocused slightly. Her head tilted downward as she pondered this perplexing puzzle.
Her head snapped back up.
“I’ve got it,” she declared.
“Please, share your idea.”
“Put, put, put it out,” Twilight repeated. “If there’s a fire, you must put it out with water. But if there’s water…”
Twilight raised a hoof to indicate the giant, turgid wall of water that was now closer than it had been a while ago.
“Princess. You must do something that you have never done before in your life,” Twilight stated. “You must be the one to save us.”
Celestia’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ as she leaned back in mild surprise. “What is that? And why me? I’m awfully uninclined to saving people. I feel like this is something that you are far more accustomed to.”
“No, Princess. This time is has to be you. You have to do it.”
“Do what?”
Twilight nodded decidedly.
“Make toast.”
In every tale, there is always a good time to end the story, and a bad time to end the story.
A good time to end a story would be, for example, when the main conflict has been sufficiently resolved and all dangling plot threads have been addressed in a satisfying way.
A bad time to end a story would be, for example, just before any of that happens, thereby leaving mysteries and unknowns up to future consideration.
It is lucky, then, that this is not the kind of story that will ever leave mysteries and unknowns up to future consideration, and with that in mind, Twilight thrust the most dangerous of tools into the magical grasp of a timidly anxious Princess Celestia.
“Are you sure about this?” Princess Celestia asked.
“Yes. You are ready, even if you are not. But first, please allow me to tutor you using proper procedure, for if not, then what is any of this for. Are you aware of what this tool is called?”
Celestia nodded. “It is a frying pan.”
“Correct. You place it upon?”
Celestia pointed. “The portable stove.”
“Correct. Very good. Five stars.” Twilight pulled out a little notebook upon which she affixed a small banana-shaped decal. “And that earns you a sticker. Now, the frying pan cooks by conducting heat from the fire of the stove into the metal of the pan, transferring it to the food placed upon in.”
“The key to proper frying is temperature control. Every food has its own upper limit of heat. Once that limit is reached, the food will start to burn.” Twilight motioned towards the ingredient. “Foods like bread belong in the soft and burnable category. This means that your fire has to be…?”
“Low!” Dash called out, raising her hoof.
“Dash!” Twilight chided, “We do not answer without first being called upon! How will Princess Celestia learn if you feed her all the answers?”
“I’m sorry,” Dash said, shrinking into her chest.
“It’s okay.” Twilight softened her voice. “As long as you have learned. Now, Princess Celestia, did you catch all that?”
“Yes. Low heat for easily burnable foods.”
“Good. Now, we heat the pan, gently, over a fire set to low. Do you see the knob on the portable stove?” Twilight twisted her hoof around, demonstrating the action expertly. “Push it down and turn it until it clicks. That clicking you hear is the sound of the starter, which sends out small sparks to ignite the gas that you release via the mechanic of button depression.”
Celestia did so. The machine clicked, it clacked, and it went ‘thwomph’ as the burner set alight in a miniature blaze of triumph.
“Oh! It happened! Just as you said!” Celestia cheered.
“Very good. Five stars. Now please, turn the flame to low by moving the dial in the counter direction.”
Celestia did so.
“Hey, uh, guys?” Dash said. “The giant large amount of water is getting kind of close.”
“Fret not. The next part shall be fast. We merely have to wait a minute for the pan to heat up.”
“Twilight? I don’t think we have time for that!” Dash yelled.
“Now, Dash. Listen,” Twilight said calmly, as Celestia fretted and futted over by the stove. “Please. Trust me. Do you know what the secret to good instruction is?”
“Yeah, duh. It’s love. Everypony knows that you discovered the molecule responsible for it, and therefore can prove in a quantifiable manner that it is.” Dash huffed.
“Correct. Five Stars. From my experiments, I have found that there is one thing that affects love molecules quite vigorously, causing an exponential power gain. Do you know what that is?”
“Well… no. I don’t know. You idiot.”
“It is time, Dash. Time makes love stronger.”
“Oh.”
“Therefore, we wait.” Twilight scrunched her face into indomitable determination. “We wait a further twenty-seven seconds for the pan to heat up to its full potential. We wait like like a good-for-nothing laggard at an oven.”
“I understand, Twilight. I really do.” Dash’s voice took on a concerned air. “But that wall of large water is just about over twenty-seven seconds away before it hits us right in the parts and stuff.”
“I have faith, Dash. I hope you will too.”
The two of them turned, slowly, to regard the roaring wave that barked and snapped at them as it crushed more and more forest underfoot.
Celestia continued to stare at the pan, captivated by the glorious sight of partial accomplishment.
The seconds ticked down.
The wave was upon them.
Like a dog nipping at the heels of a milkmare, speckles of water flecked against their faces.
And that was when Twilight turned to Celestia, and with one word, determined the end of the story.
“Now.”
The bread dropped, flopping over and over, twirling and dancing into the heated pan.
And then, it sizzled.
It sizzled.
And sizzled.
Dash coughed. “Is something supposed to h—”
An explosion can be a thing of great sorrow, and a thing of great cheer.
There are times when an explosion will cause a great deal of irritation and discomfort in one’s life, where, for example, if a water pipe exploded, causing you to have to divert your morning drive to the bagel store, or, for example, your aunt’s head exploded, causing you to have to go to a funeral where there certainly are no bagels.
However, there are times where an explosion will cause great celebration and relief, where, for example, the last few meters of rock were blown up to finish a great tunnel that would ease the travel woes of many mountainous ponies, or, for example, the pony who murdered your aunt was exploded as a form of punishment in an odd eye-for-an-eye based judicial system.
There are rare cases where explosions cause neither of these reactions, because it is very difficult to understand what happened. This was the experience of three ponies, plus another two hundred or so who were until a moment ago running around in panic in a little village down the path. If you were to ask any single one of them what had happened, they would have described the event the same way.
There was a flash of light, brighter than the sun and colder than the gibberfrosts of Glandswort Canyon, and a sort of absence of sound, sort of like an explosion occurred, but in opposite.
And suddenly, the wall of water was on fire.
It burned, sucking inward on itself, flames torrenting over it as it consumed the large water in all of its girth and froth.
And as fast as the water raced, desperately reaching out to the village in a last ditch attempt to flood, the fire finally burned it out, and there was nothing left but a small splash that landed at the hooves of Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia and Rainbow Dash.
For a few final moments, it slithered and dampened, and then it was gone with a wisp and puff of smoke.
The three ponies looked back up.
“You’ve saved us all,” Twilight said, looking at Princess Celestia. “Four stars.”
“Four?”
“I had to deduct a star because you burnt the toast,” she explained, motioning to the slag of metal that used to be a portable cooker.
“Oh. Very well,” Princess Celestia said. “It pulls my average up to zero stars, so I shall happily accept it.”
“Yes. A good outcome, nevertheless.” Twilight assessed. “We appear to have made something good out of your shortcomings, I have found out more information about the spate of weather issues plaguing our fair country, and we have prevented the drownings of two hundred or so anonymous ponies.”
Rainbow Dash just stood there, a slightly perturbed look on her face. “Uh…”
“Yes, Rainbow?”
“What now?”
“Well, we’ve resolved this problem.” Twilight nodded.
“Yeah.”
“And I believe most of our issues have been satisfactorily wrapped up.”
“Yeah.”
“Except for one. I thoroughly expected to run into the pony with indistinguishable features again, and—”
Twilight looked down as a small glint appeared in the place where the final puddle once was.
“Oh. It’s a thing,” she said, picking it up and drawing it closer. “What is this?”
Princess Celestia and Rainbow Dash leaned in.
“That’s a bit of cloud,” Rainbow said. “It must be a piece from the seed cloud that blew up.”
“I see. But what’s this here? There’s a small patch on it.”
“A patch?” Celestia asked.
“A patch. Look. There’s writing on it.”
She turned it around. In heavy cursive, written in quill and exuding of sinister function, were the letters P.G.P.G.
“But what does that mean?” Dash asked.
“It means it’s a bad time to end our story,” Twilight said furrowing her brow. “There appears to be mystery and unknowns up for future consideration.”
“Indeed, there is,” Celestia agreed. “We best get to it then, my little cankletank.”
“Yes. We shall.” Twilight nodded. “And, seriously. Please. ‘Twilight’ is fine.”
TO BE CONTINUED
in
~ a HISTORY of COOKING ~