All it does is spin around a bit!
It looked exactly the same as it had yesterday. Four cubical bricks stuck together in an “L” shape. It rotated, now and then, but always floated a few feet off the ground.
Twilight looked exactly the same as she had yesterday. Her mane was unkempt, quills floated around her face, and the beginnings of bags had formed under her eyes. The purple of her coat had made them hard to see, but they looked much more noticeable today.
The piece of parchment in front of her certainly did not look like it had yesterday. It had grown stupidly long. Parts of it looped around a nearby house, through an alleyway, and then back over to Twilight.
“Twi, didja hear anything I just said?” Applejack asked.
“Of course I did.” Twilight made another mark on her parchment.
“So you’re going to leave this brick thing alone and get some sleep?”
“Of course not.”
“Ya’ve been here for days, Twi! It can’t be healthy!”
Twilight chuckled. Her eyes didn’t move away from the block. It rotated again and she made another mark on the parchment. “Oh, Applejack. I appreciate your concern, really. But a little bit of missing sleep is hardly a big deal. I’ve done it before. All academic discoveries take sacrifice.” Another rotation, another note. “Why, just think what sort of accomplishments are waiting in this block. I could be the next Starswirl the Bearded. Or the next Zefram Cochreign. Or, uhm, the next…” She paused. Her eyes flicked away from the block for just a moment. “Grass…Paper.”
“See, you just made that one up!”
“No, I didn’t. My brain is perfectly cromulent. Grass Paper invented the grass paper.” Twilight yawned, forced her eyes to stay on the floating brick.
“Well, if it’s so important, why not have somepony else help ya?” Applejack glanced around. The town square looked deserted. Once word had gotten around that another one of Twilight’s experiments had appeared near town hall, everyone had started giving it a wide berth. “I mean, there’s nopony around now, but we could find someone to help out.”
“Don’t be silly, AJ. This is my groundbreaking discovery, I should be the pony to stick with it.”
Applejack sighed loudly. This was going even worse than yesterday.
“Wow, she’s still here.”
Applejack looked up. Rainbow Dash hovered above the block.
“Did you come here to help me, or just to gawk?” Applejack asked.
“Aha, neither! I came here on official news delivery stuff!”
“What?”
“They told me to tell Twi that another one of those shapes popped up near Fluttershy’s.”
Twilight back straightened. “What?”
“‘They’ who?” Applejack asked.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “You know, They. The ponies with the, the thing.”
“How unhelpful.” Applejack turned her head back to Twilight. Twilight had already grabbed a bundle of parchment and run off down Mane Street. More parchment and quills trailed after her, and there might have been a green spine poking out of one of the bundles of paper.
“Well, maybe now that she’s gone you can help me with this thing—” Applejack looked back up, but she only saw a vacant patch of sky. “Of course,” she muttered.
Applejack scanned the town square again. “Uh, hey, you!”
An earth pony with a bright orange vest turned around. “What?”
“Are you working on the Town Hall restoration?”
The pony took a slow sip of her coffee. “Maybe, why?”
Applejack pointed a hoof at the floating stack of bricks. “Could you maybe do something with this? I’d rather my friend didn’t obsess over it for a month, y’know.”
The pony squinted at the block for a moment. “Isn’t that the demon cube everypony has been talking about? I was wondering why nopony else was taking their break here.”
“It ain’t demonic.”
“But it is magic.” The pony took another sip of her coffee. “It’s floatin’.”
“Yeah, okay, it’s floatin’. It won’t explode or nothin’, probably.”
“Eh, I dunno. We got plenty of bricks already.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Fine, I c’n see where this is goin’.” She pulled off her hat and fished her bitbag out of it. “How much?”
The mare took another sip of coffee. The slow, slurpy noises echoed in the deserted square. “How much you got?”
It definitely looked like a hexagon. Unlike the L-block, it rotated constantly. It also changed colors, slowly and smoothly transitioning from white to blue to pink and back again. Every so often it would change direction and rotate the other way. Like the L-block, it floated a few feet off the ground.
Twilight had already begun scribbling feverishly on a fresh piece of parchment. Out of the corner of her eye, Applejack saw a pegasus pupil poking out of one of Fluttershy’s windows.
“Another one?” Applejack muttered.
“I know! Isn’t it great? I bet there’s all sorts of amazing achievements and discoveries and challenges waiting in this one too!”
“Twi, are you even listenin’ to yourself? It’s just a spinnin’ ring!”
“Don’t worry, Applejack. I’ll be sure to mention you in my dissertation. Everypony needs to know about this incredible discovery. Now please go somewhere else. Why, you could even go read up on Flax Clipper, prove to you I’m definitely not sleep-deprived.” The hexagon changed direction again, and Twilight scribbled another note. “Oh yeah, that’s good. Counter-clockwise.”
“Ugh, this is pointless. Maybe Fluttershy could talk some sense inta ya…”
“Hey, this thing looks pretty cool.” Rainbow Dash leaned down towards the hexagon. “What’s it do?”
“You again. Are you here ta help, now, or just to gawk?” Applejack asked.
“Aha, neither! I came here to tell you guys that the town hall collapsed again!”
“What? Why?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Eh, something about a demonic brick. They put it in and half the wall disappeared. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“Could you be any more unhelpful?” Applejack asked. She tried very hard not to grit her teeth, and for a few moments she put up an admirable effort.
“Hey, I can’t help it that I’m the fastest news deliverer in town! You want accuracy, wait till tomorrow for the Herald, I don’t got time for that.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “Rarity said I was the epitome of journalism when I told her.”
“Wait.” Twilight’s ear flicked, and she looked up from her paper. “Demonic brick?” She spun around. “What did you do, AJ?”
“Nothin’!” Applejack glanced to the side. “Well, mostly nothin’. I bribed a construction worker to get rid of the brick thing. I didn’t think anythin’ that bad would happen.”
Twilight opened her mouth, raised a hoof. Her complaint was interrupted by a loud, piercing yawn. She turned back to the hexagon. “It’s fine. We still have this, this hexagon. That other thing was getting boring anyway. Maybe the two are connected, somehow.”
“Oh no, I’m gonna get rid of this thing right now!” Applejack stomped forward, and extended a hoof towards the floating ring. She briefly heard Twilight protest, but her hoof had already touched the edge of it.
The hexagon froze. The blend of colors slowed, and the ring began to spin listlessly.
“You broke it!”
Applejack glanced to the side. “Uhm, maybe it was like that already?”
Twilight pushed Applejack to the side. “It’s fine, I can get it spinning again. It’ll be a challenge, but that’s what these things are for. As long as nopony—”
The hexagon vanished.
Twilight spun around. “Applejack, what is wrong with you?! That thing could've taught us something! It'd could've been a tie to a foreign culture, an ambassador of new ideas and information!”
“But all it did was spin around a bit!”
“Lots of important endeavors are simplistic!”
“But it was just a bunch of shapes!”
Twilight raised a hoof, but she was interrupted by yet another piercing, prolonged yawn. “Maybe, maybe I should deal with this tomorrow. I need to, do that thing, with the bed.” She turned to Fluttershy’s cottage. “Won’t make it to library.” She trotted off up the pathway, and the sound of a door opening and panicked ministration echoed through the forest.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her neck. “So, uh, did we learn anything?”
“I guess not,” Applejack said. “A bunch of stuff happened and none of it meant anything.”
Dash shrugged. “Oh well. At least we weren’t bored all day, right?”
