A Family Reunion

Twilight opened her eyes with the sunlight streaming in through the window, she looked at the clock, it read a little after a quarter after nine. She slowly closed her eyes again, after the initial shock of meeting Dry Quill, she realized that there were many strange things about him, such as his word choice when he referred to his "origins", or the fact that he called himself "The Chronicler" one time, but never mentioned it again. Was that some sort of title? His sign did identify him as a record keeper, but that would suggest a small collection of local records. Also, how come she wasn't able to see his cutie mark? Twilight rubbed her head, all those thoughts had kept her up for the better part of the night and had made her sleep deprived. "Spike," she called rather loudly, "can you get me some of that pick-me-up tea?" She then heard a yelp and a thud, and looked down to see that Spike was still in bed, or at least had been until her yelling startled him awake and caused him to leap out of his bed and onto the floor.

"Ow," she heard him say.

"Sorry," said Twilight as she rolled out of bed and went over to untangle Spike from his sheets.

"It's kinda my fault," said Spike, "I should've been up–" he looked at the clock "–sixteen minutes ago. What happened to the alarm?"

"I don't know," said Twilight as she picked up the clock and shook it around. She heard a clinking noise as she did so. "I think it's broken." She levitated it in front of her as they walked down the stairs to the personal kitchen.

Spike tapped his chin as he prepared the tea Twilight requested. "Can you get somepony to fix it, like Time Turner?"

Twilight sighed as she observed the broken device, "I guess, but Time Turner is out of town a lot, and I hear rumors that he isn't really a clock-maker. Actually, I'm not sure what he does exactly." Suddenly she had an idea, "Wait, that other pony that is moving in..."

"Brain Storm?" said Spike.

"Yes, him," said Twilight, "he sounds like an inventor of sorts, maybe he can fix the clock."

"Ready," Spike said a few minutes later as he brought over the tea. "By the way, do you know when the others are coming?"

Twilight widened her eyes and nearly did a spit take. "Oh Celestia! I forgot that they were coming this morning! What time is it now? Wait, you don't need to answer that." She looked at the partially-working clock: "9:50" it said. She calmed down, "I probably won't miss their arrival. Still, we should start on our way soon." After they had their fill of breakfast, they went down to Sugarcube corner.

Dry Quill stretched as he swung his rear legs over the side of his bed and hopped off, landing without a sound, and forgetting that such stealth was unneeded as the others were not here yet. He wondered if the others were arriving on time, he was confident they were, but he would check the communicator to be sure. He looked around his bedroom to get his bearings; he hadn't had a chance to check everything last night before he crashed in bed, what with that whole extended conversation with Twilight. The room was as he remembered it, slightly smaller than a regular bedroom with the bed in the corner and a dresser to the side of it. There was a window that looked out of the front of the building and wall-mounted shelves going all around that held items secured by physical binding spells; he would have to remember to remove those later. He walked over to the opposite corner and pulled out several drawers, checking the contents of each as he did so. He finally found what he wanted, a slab of wood and metal with a yellow gem at each corner, and put it on a table. "Hello?" He spoke to the slab, "Brain Storm? Come in Brain Storm."

The gems glowed and a screen showing a slate blue face with a dark green mane appeared, "Hello Quill," said Brain Storm in his usual drone, "we will be there within the hour. How are you?"

"I'm fine, the first part of the house deployed without a hitch, though I must say it attracted quite a bit of attention. How are the others?"

Dry Quill thought he saw the corner of Storm's mouth twitch up, but it returned to its usual blank expression. He said, "The little one is still asleep but stirring, and Zakuru has decided to walk alongside the power-carriage, which is functioning at favorable capacity. Anything else you would like to know?"

"That will be all Storm, see you here. Oh, and try to at least smile when you get here; we want to make a positive first impression you know."

Brain Storm did smile just a little, "I'll do my best Quill, and you try not to charm every single mare present before we get there." Only Dry Quill was able to catch the very subtle humorous undertone in his voice.

Dry Quill chuckled, "How about we worry about you getting just one for once."

Brain Storm nodded and terminated the connection, leaving the slab looking unremarkable once again. Dry Quill knew that Brain Storm would go straight to his experiments as soon as he could, cooped up in his lab surrounded by gadgets and beakers. The usual. He went downstairs to eat breakfast but then realized the kitchen was in the other half of the house. Sighing, he stepped outside into the warming morning air. The sky was cloudy, a warning to the rain scheduled later that day on the town bulletin. He walked over to Sugarcube Corner, figuring he would eat breakfast there.

Twilight walked at a slow pace towards Sugarcube Corner while Spike trailed her with the clock, she then spotted a blue blur flying overhead, eventually descending in a lazy glide towards her. "Hey Twilight," said Rainbow Dash as she hovered nearby, "where 'ya going?"

"Hello Rainbow Dash, I'm going to Dry Quill's place to greet the rest of his group." Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash gave a mock look of adoration, "Oh, you mean your coltfriend?

Twilight's face turned crimson, "Rainbow Dash! Don't say that!"

Rainbow Dash kept going, "You should've seen yourselves talking about nerd stuff all evening. It was sooooo cute!"

Twilight rolled her eyes, "Alright Rainbow Dash knock it off; go back to drawing Daring Doo as a stallion that you repeatedly rescue from certain peril."

It was Rainbow Dash's turn to turn red, "How– how did you know about that?" her voice cracked.

Twilight grinned, "You left some drawings in between the pages of one of the books you returned, which are actually quite good I might add. Spike can go get them for you if you want them ba–"

"NO!" Rainbow Dash yelled, then looked around, "I mean no, that's alright, keep them– burn them. Please." She gave a nervous laugh and rocketed off, looking back to Twilight briefly as she did so. Twilight heard Rainbow Dash say "I'll deny everything!" She smiled and shook her head and continued on.

Twilight turned to Spike, "Alright number one assistant, what does the clock say?" she said

Spike grunted and hefted the clock display up to his head, "Ten twenty-eight."

"Good," said Twilight. A few minutes later they arrived at the deployable house, but Dry Quill wasn't there. "Hello?" said Twilight. She looked over to Spike; he just shrugged. She then observed the front of the door; there was a sign to the right of the frame that said, "If no one is home, press the button." Indeed, there was a small box-shaped object below the sign that had a button embedded in it, with words below engraved, "summon". After observing it for a few seconds, she reached out to press it.

"Hello," said a monotone voice. Twilight jumped and turned around, there stood a slate blue unicorn stallion with a tangled green mane and pale yellow eyes. He seemed to have a blank stare, but was still looking at her somehow. "Use of the summon button will be unnecessary; I am here."

Twilight blinked a couple of times, "Oh, um, ok. Could I ask for your name?"

"I am Brain Storm," he replied again in a drone. He then made a stiff bow, returning to his previous neutral pose

Twilight momentarily gave a look that only said "What the hay?", but nodded, "Nice to meet you, though Dry Quill has told me about you a little. Do you know where he is?"

Brain Storm tilted his head a bit and raised an eyebrow, resulting in the most animate expression Twilight has seen out of him, "That information is unknown to me, but it is likely that he will return here from his present location shortly."

"So," said Twilight, "are the others coming?"

"I came ahead to analyze the area where we would make our residence; the others should be here in little time."

"While we wait," said Spike, "could you look at this clock?" The clock was not light, Spike needed an excuse to get rid of it.

"Let me see," said Brain Storm. He took the clock, shook it, and opened the back door to look inside. He made a little "Mm hmm" sound and walked into his house with the clock following him in levitation. Twilight and Spike looked at each other as they heard a few objects jangle around inside. After a couple of minutes, Brain Storm came back out with the clock. "Here," he said as he handed it back, "it should work now."

"Oh, um, thank you." Twilight said. She set the alarm to the current time, and was rewarded with the loud ringing of the alarm, causing a few strange looks to go her way.

"Brain Storm!" said a voice. The three looked over to see Dry Quill running over, a cupcake in his hoof. "How are you? How was the trip? Did you get bored?" He suddenly started laughing at the latter phrase; Twilight looked over and saw Brain Storm slowly shaking his head with his eyes closed, a slight smirk on his face.

"Good, good, and no" said Brain Storm, once again back to his usual face. He then eyed the object in Quill's hoof, "I see you are having cupcakes for breakfast."

Dry Quill looked at the pastry, "Hm? Oh no, this was a complimentary gift from Pinkie Pie, that crazy pink pony that works at Sugarcube Corner. I had an otherwise perfectly balanced breakfast mind you." He looked around, "Where are the others?"

Brain Storm recited his previous line, "The others should be here in little time."

"Good. Good." Said Dry Quill. The conversation decided to die right there and then, so the next eighteen seconds were spent just standing there with nothing to say. During that time, a dog barked in the distance, three clouds appeared in the sky, and thick black smoke momentarily emitted from Sugarcube Corner.

Twilight, now increasingly uncomfortable, looked over to Dry Quill, who looked back and smiled, then went back to occupying himself with whatever thoughts he had running through his head (which unknown to Twilight, involved the complicated plot of a book he was writing). The awkward silence was broken by a familiar rumbling in the distance, causing the group to turn towards its source. A few seconds later, a large carriage rounded the corner and rolled towards them. The most notable characteristic of the carriage besides its size was that no one was pulling it, not to mention the zebra riding in a compartment on the front holding a large ring that extended into the carriage. The zebra waved as the carriage rumbled around them, stopping behind the house, and then the rumbling stopped. He then walked to the front of the house.

"Hello there Dry Quill, how was my driving skill?" He said.

"Hello Zakuru. Fine I must say; we may even not have to adjust the position for attachment." Dry Quill said.

"Highly unlikely," said Brain Storm, "we will definitely have to adjust its position at least a little in order to ensure–"

Dry Quill cut him off, "Alright, we get it." He cleared his throat, "Twilight, this is Zakuru. Zakuru, this is Twilight, local princess and source of quite interesting conversation."

Zakuru bowed politely to Twilight, "An honor to meet you Princess. Zakuru at your service."

Twilight nodded back, then had her attention brought to a high-pitched noise.

"Daddy!" said a aquamarine filly scrambling out from behind the house. She then tackled Dry Quill, who let himself fall to the ground with her on top of him, both laughing as they did so.

Twilight's head suddenly swam with the implications of this development. She wasn't sure why, but it worried her. Nevertheless, she brought her attention back to the bonding moment.

"Hi there sweetie," He said after pushing her off and lowering his head to her height, "how was the trip?" he said softly. He then found himself being hugged tightly around the neck by the filly.

"I missed you," she said, burying her head into his mane. After a few moments she let go. "Zakuru was fun to listen to, but he got boring. I tried talking to Brain Storm, but he was really confusing and tried teaching me about–" she scrunched up her face, "–reverse osmosis I think."

Dry Quill gave Brain Storm a look, who replied, "I think it is important that foals know about advanced filtering techniques."

Dry Quill shrugged and ruffled Dew Drop's mane, "Well I'm glad to see you here. Dew Drop, this is–"

But Dew Drop had already run up to the princess, "Would you know where my mommy is?"

Twilight became flustered at this, but tried to smile warmly, "Pardon?"

Dry Quill gave a classic nervous laugh and pulled back Dew Drop, mouthing "later" to Twilight as he did so. "No Dew Drop, the princess doesn't know where your mommy is."

Dew Drop deflated a bit, "Oh, okay." She then looked at Dry Quill, "She's pretty though, right daddy?"

"Sure, sweetie," Dry Quill said as he glanced over to Twilight. "She is pretty," he nearly whispered, then once again cleared his throat. "Well Twilight, this is my rag-tag family. So, what do you think?"

Author's Note

Well the gang's all here, let the... stuff happen. To do list: Spike gets suspicious, CMC get involved, more cute little interaction moments while keepin' it real, Brain Storm might... (now that would be telling).

It's finally here! I have been very busy doing this and that (you know, summer vacation) and will be gone for another week after this. But I will definitely get on this story and others when I get back.