The Chronicler Comes to Town

Twilight observed the strange "family", as Dry Quill put it. Three unicorns, one of which was a filly, and a zebra. "They seem like a nice group," she said, which was really the only thing to say.

Dry Quill smiled and turned to the group, "Well, I'm sure you've all had a long journey, so come on inside and I'll help you guys unpack." The others started entering the house, with Dry Quill behind them. "Oh, and Twilight," he said, "you're welcome to join us and look around." He then stepped through the door to his house.

Twilight then remembered something as he went in, "Dry Quill, wait!" she almost said aloud.

"Surprise!" Twilight heard a crowd yell from inside accompanied by a monotone scream from Brain Storm. She walked in and saw that Pinkie had done it again, as in a time-defying party set up all around the previously barren setting of the front room. This was apparently the room where the store would be set up, with shelves along the sides and counter with a display case near the back. But instead of wares and trinkets, the shelves were filled with treats and some breakfast and lunch foods. There was an extra-wide banner setting along the ceiling that read, "Welcome DRY QUILL BRAIN STORM ZAKURU DEW DROP!" She saw that ponies were gathered around the newcomers. Dry Quill was talking it up with basically everyone while Dew Drop looked around excitedly. Meanwhile, Brain Storm stood off to the side in continued surprise at the intrusion and Zakuru was drinking some punch, only to choke on it when he tilted the glass back too far. It was at this time she was able to finally observe their cutie marks. Brain Storm had a shining light-bulb, Zakuru had some strange Zebric glyph as usual, and Dew Drop had yet to find hers. When she picked out Dry Quill from the crowd, she could barely see it at first for some reason, but it eventually focused somewhat expectantly into a quill and notably old looking book.

"Dew Drop, don't touch that!" Twilight heard Dry Quill shout as she walked towards him. He leapt over the crowd and rushed to take away a cup from Dew Drop as she was about to drink from it.

"What's wrong daddy?" Dew Drop asked, tilting her head.

Dry Quill tentatively set the cup back on the table, the punch of which hadn't been touched and would not be touched for the remainder of the party. "This isn't punch," he said, "it's, ah–"

"It's a cleaning agent for after the party. Drink it and you'll die," Brain Storm called (or rather just said loudly), having finally snapped out of his trance. A few surrounding ponies looked at him with mild discomfort, but soon paid him no mind.

Dry Quill gave him a look and sighed. "Yes, thank you Brain Storm." He turned back to Dew Drop. "Alrighty Dew, go along now," he told her. He then walked over to Twilight. "I suppose this wasn't entirely a surprise," he said, gesturing to the party.

"Oh?" said Twilight with a tilt of her head.

Dry Quill scratched the back of his head, "I may have overheard Pinkie over there–" he gestured to said mare, "–excitedly babble about using my roof hatch to get in." He chuckled softly, "I'm fine with it, really, but I can tell how Brain Storm is taking it all." They both looked over to where Brain Storm was now watching Pinkie Pie make balloon fractals. "She's really going to be a brain-full for him, I can tell you that."

Twilight spaced out for a second as she thought of a certain incident for what seemed like a long time ago. "Trust me," she said with a smirk, "I know."

After calming down from the intrusion, Brain Storm observed the crowd with his usual disinterest, only taking note of who would most likely be interested in his products and services. Not enough intellectuals here, he thought, though the purple one might provide good conversation. As his eyes scanned over each pony, he took in their looks and apparent personalities and stored them to memory: white mare, blue and light blue mane; lighter brown stallion, dark brown mane; orange mare, yellow mane; pink mare, pink mane; yellow mar–

Something didn't seem quite right with that one; he tried looking her over again and got the same disruption, like an interruption to his thought process. He looked at her one more time and this time observed her face, as she had turned a little towards his general direction. This time, the disruption was stronger and he felt a strange something in his stomach, but disregarded it and continued to mentally document the crowd, though he reminded himself to remember this anomaly. When he had finally taken account of everypony present, he retreated to the back of the house to deploy the other half of the structure.

In all, the welcome party lasted three hours, by which time everyone had to go back to their lives. Zakuru was sweeping idly and Dry Quill filed out some papers. Brain Storm organized the shelves, having started to stock them at least a half-hour before the party ended. Twilight and her friends were traditionally the last to go.

As they left, Twilight asked her friends, "So girls, what do you think of our new residents?"

Applejack shrugged, "they seem fine enough." She could tell they were some of "them learned folk" as Granny Smith would put it, and so didn't interest her as much.

"Brain Storm," said Rainbow Dash, "his talking reminds me of, I don't know, the schoolbooks I had to read in flying school." She then put on a blank expression, "Hello. I. Am. Brain. Storm. Err, err, errrrr," she said, twitching as she did so. The rest of the girls shared a guilty laugh which quickly died down.

"Well, I must say that Dry Quill fellow is quite the charmer," Rarity said. "I mean did you hear the way he spoke? Such... manner. And single too, I think."

They slowly turned to Pinkie, who had been hopping along caught up in whatever daydreams she had at the moment. She suddenly snapped to attention, "Oh, he doesn't have a wife or anything like that," she said cheerfully. Her cheerfulness was unique, as the rest of them took talking so openly about such personal matters as awkward.

Fluttershy changed the subject, "Brain Storm had some nice automatic bird feeders; I think I'll buy one."

"Wasn't he looking at you kind of funny?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I don't know, in what way?"

"He was staring at you for a bit, but not in a romantic way," Rainbow said, then shrugged. "He actually looked confused. Do you know him?"

"I don't think so," she said.

"So Twilight," Rarity said, "you know what we think of them, what do you think of him ?"

Twilight started to feel warm in the face, "Don't you mean 'them'?"

"Come on now," said Rarity, "it is quite obvious that you and Dry Quill have taken a bit of a liking to each other. Rainbow Dash here tells us that you two talked all evening yesterday."

Twilight raided an eyebrow, "Alright, so he had some interesting things to talk about," she said defensively.

Rarity laughed, "No need to get offended, I was only poking fun." She then smirked, "Don't worry, we won't try to force a relationship between you two."

"Right Rarity?" Rainbow Dash hinted.

"I was only trying to help." She replied.

"I'm just saying that just because I'm not as... up-front as you, doesn't mean I can't– you know what, let's not bring that up."

"Agreed"

Twilight giggled to herself as she listened to the exchange and remembered the incident, then noticed that they had walked well past her castle. "Alright girls, see you later." They replied with their own goodbyes and went their separate ways. Twilight went back to her castle, made her way through the sparse halls, then went upstairs, where she found Spike hoisting the alarm clock back onto the wall. "Are you sure you've got that Spike?" she asked.

"Yeah," he grunted as he strained to hang the clock on the high mount, "I've got this."

An enchanted bell rung as the first visitors to the library arrived, so Twilight left Spike (who would eventually resort to using a stool) and went to answer it.