The Food Barn

by Kuairu

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Slice of Life, Comedy
Length: 5581

Hello, and welcome to the Food Barn, where we have $2 burgers, $1 fries, and $5 tickets to see a story about 8 strange characters and their ever-changing lives. Now remember, there are no quickies allowed out back, and the tapwater explodes. Enjoy!

While some ponies prefer the railroads as their main road of transportation, others prefer to simply hoof it out and travel by road. Luckily, the Equestrian Highway system is up to date, with multiple roads you can take to your destination.

At an intersection connecting to four major cities, Baltimare, Manehatten, Canterlot, and Fillydelphia, along with a fifth leading towards Ponyville, there lies a small area of three buildings. It is meant as a rest stop for those traveling to any of the 5 destinations. There is a small motel, for those who wish to stop in the night, and a restroom area for those needing a quick break.

Then there is a third building, with a painted sign on the roof, aptly named "The Food Barn". It is for any hungry individual who has some bits left to spare to buy some good quality food. In here, we meet our famed heroes.

Well, famed as in meaning there are the central characters here. If any of them were famous heroes, they would certainly not be stuck inside a fast-food restaurant, being happy play toys to the Universe, as the Food Barn is no stranger to weird, crazy, and insanely amusing events.

So let us delve down into the mystery of the strange and insane adventures of a hapless manager and his crazy employees, as life goes on in the restaurant known as The Food Barn.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-06-30 20:40:10 UTC

And so it begins...

Fry Cook was a very simple pony. He stood at an average height, with a bright orange coat and long yellow hair, like floppy fries. A short stubble of a beard went around the lower half of his muzzle, but he never bothered to shave it, as it never grew out for some reason. He never had any problems growing up. He had a loving family, and a good education and childhood to be a respectable and understanding citizen. Of course he was a simple pony.

He's a fry cook, for Celestia's sake.

He is the main cook and manager of the Food Barn, but if it was up to him, he would have named the restaurant more creatively, instead of something called "the Food Barn". Instead, he was promoted to the position by the last manager. Sadly, he was promoted as a gift from that last manager's last will and testament. No one knows how he died, but they say it involved the fry cook, twelve eggs, and a half cooked chicken.

For the fry cook, he knew all was true, but the half cooked chicken was actually just a griffon who was angry and got careless. Can't say the guy had it coming to him too, according to Fry Cook.

Fry manages the place well, at least in the financial and satisfaction aspect of the restaurant. It would be an easy job too, if Fry didn't have the strangest group of employees to ever be working together in small business.

"Hey, Fry?" A small grey pony head appeared in the doorway of Fry's dusty office. It held a musty, but proud air to it. A long line of paintings of past managers were seen along the wall adjacent to the doorway, showing the average eye that the restaurant has lasted for quite a long time, which is why a proud feeling lingered; to Fry though, it lingered like a bad smell.

"Yes, Miss Frost, what is it?" The orange pony asked. Fry looked to the door with a stern gaze, an emotion he had quickly mastered and made it his personal look a long time ago.

The full body of the grey earth pony in question appeared. A long, silvery white mane and tail highlighted a soft grey and neatly trimmed coat. She was also small in stature. So small, she could easily be mistaken as a teenager, even though she was twenty three, a year older than her co-workers. It did not help that she had had a youthful face to go with her almost winter incarnate colors.

"Coach gave that tap water you told us not to use to a customer..." Frost seemed to shrink at each passing word, turning her into a smaller pony, now looking like a foal.

Fry sighed loudly. "And did it explode again?"

"Y-Yes?", Frost said, returning to her normal size seeing that Fry Cook wasn't going to yell at her.

"How bad is it?" Fry asked.

A yelp was heard along with a yell of "MY BACK IS ON FIIIIIRE!"

Fry recognized the voice of the yell. "Not even stopping at breaking the laws of physics by turning water into fire, huh? NOW WE JUST MAKE IT EXPLODE!" Fry exclaimed. Frost shank into an almost baby foal size now. "I... I'm sorry Frost. I shouldn't have yelled at you. You're the only one here that hasn't caused anything out of line. Go grab a bucket of water and help with cleanup. I'll start writing the reparation check." Fry soothed Frost, who grew again back to her normal size. She left with only a meep of acknowledgement to Fry Cook.

Fry spun his chair back into his desk.  He felt sad for yelling at Frost for something she didn't do. She really was the only one that had been honest with him in the last two years since he hired her. Everyone else has caused him grief at least one day or another.

He could think of the one that caused him grief on more than one day.

But now that was in the past. And the past always makes him ponder. He was not fond of pondering. He slid out the drawer underneath the left side of the desk and pulled out a checkbook. Clicking a pen, he held the writing utensil in his mouth and starting writing when he realized something that made him drop the pen with his mouth agape.

"FROST! MAKE SURE YOU DON'T USE THE..." A resounding boom reached his ears, as his moment of fear was realized.

"...Cursed tap. Tepoti..." Fry ran out the door of the office, leaving a spinning chair and half finished checkbook.

~

"I am terribly sorry, Mr. Rich, for that commotion." Fry calmed down the victim, a gentlecolt from Canterlot, who was on his way back to his current residence in Ponyville.

"Ah, it's no matter Fry. I know an angry unicorn's curse when I see one," replied the pony with a short laugh. "We've been friends for some time, I know that there is always something wrong going on at this establishment."

Fry considered himself lucky that the victim was a close friend who would understand why water apparently wasn't fire-retardant in the Food Barn.

"I can make a reparation check if you want, Mr. Rich."

"Oh that would be a convenience if you don't mind, but I must ask, why not get a unicorn to repair the water curse?"

"Trust me when I say paying the consequences is better than fixing the problem," Fry seethed with a growl. He remembered the last bill that came when he ordered a mechanic to come fix one of the stalls at the motel.

"Well, I guess we all have to cope with our problems. Well, I must be off. Thank you for the check, although I wish some other things would have been damaged, so I wouldn't have to take so much from you!" Mr. Rich laughed.

Filthy Rich left the restaurant, a bit weary but none the less unharmed. The same could not be said for the Barn.

As expected, a wooden Barn should have some burn marks from the explosion. While the restaurant was reinforced with metal beams, it was still the Barn that was raised all those years ago when it was made for a small town. That town has left, but the restaurant survived thanks in part to the newly constructed roads at the time. Fry scanned the room if anything was out of place. The Barn looked like any other barn you would find. A red interior with space in the middle for tables, with the stalls acting as booths. As the Food Barn was a family establishment, or they hoped to be, according to Fry, some children were running around the tables. At this time though, they still were crying at the explosion that occurred a few minutes ago. Fry never tolerated crying, so he ordered the patrons to try and calm their kids down, to mixed success.

It will have to do, Fry thought, as he walked next to a sobbing, but now silent filly as she rested in her father's arms.

"Well, nothing major broke, so Sparks will be able to fix the damage," another earth pony appeared next to Fry. This one was a cream color coat, but with blue dyed hair.

"Jax, you're the new kid, so you need to learn. Sparks is not the skilled mechanic you think he is," Fry replied.

"Believe me, I realized that after this whole thing. But this is comparably nothing, so he might actually not screw up this time."

Sigh, this kid won't learn the easy way, Fry thought.

"By the way, where is Serridge? I haven't seen him since the incident," Fry asked.

"I saw him going into the motel with another mare," Jax replied.

"Sigh. Is that whore ever going to say no one day?"

"I don't think so, Fry," Jax replied with an amused laugh at the insult.

"Well whatever the case, I'm calling a company meeting."

"We're not even a company..."

"Whatever. Get everyone to come to my office in the hour," Fry ordered as he closed the door to his office, shutting out the crying and squalling of the restaurant.

One day, Fry contemplated, one day I will go crazy. Ko'êroite...

The Two Tricksters

Bright, sunny days were common for the Food Barn. The Pegasi that needed to maintain weather in Ponyville usually used the clouds that came into the vicinity of the restaurant. Whenever it rains though, Fry likes for everyone to wear some clothing underneath the regular green apron that was the restaurant's uniform, so they can stay warm, as the Barn does tend to be as cold as an ice box on rainy days.

Today was one such day. To make it worse though, the slight rain became a howling thunderstorm. Even though the Barn was built to withstand even tough tornadoes, every crick and crack echoed into the empty restaurant, save one pony.

Jax stood by his register with a notebook. He liked to keep a journal to himself, just in case he had amnesia and needed something to help him remember. At least, that's what he told anyone who asked.

To his own reason, he planned on using it as memoirs for an autobiography he was sure he would make when he was older. He counted it as a "rich retirement plan", so he would be content with wealth when he was older.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in his life that was worth reading about in an autobiography. The only major thing interesting to put down right now was the incident with the exploding water, which he was in the middle of writing about.

He glanced out the window near his register to see the extent of the storm. Everywhere he looked, he saw torrential pouring of rain. He was now just waiting for the inevitable~

Crack!

Ah, there it is! Jax thought to himself, content that he was safe inside from the storm, away from the rain and the lightning that was now starting outside. Jax went back to finish his entry into his journal when something caught his eye. He looked back at the window to see that the glass had cracked into veins, and he could see the veins more clearly with each second.

Suddenly, the veins glowed with an intense light that nearly blinded Jax, it took him a second to register in his brain that lightning had struck the window somehow. He covered his eyes to try and shield them from the light. Then, his ears picked up a sound that sounded like glass shattering.

Oh no.

Jax looked back to see the window had shattered, the glass falling onto the Barn floor near a stall that was still under repair from the water incident. Instantly he could hear the howling winds and the torrential rain hitting the floor of the the Barn.

Acting on instinct, he reached out for something big to cover up the window. His right front hoof hooked onto a wooden panel that was being cut up for the stall. He shoved it up against the window. The panel was too big, but at least it kept the rain from coming into the Barn.

“Help! Everypony, get in here!” Jax shouted, as he pushed for dear life as the rain and the wind pounded harder on the panel. It didn't help that the wet floor below him was starting to make him slip.

“What happened?” Fry rushed out of his office in a panic, at first thinking that Jax had just broken something. But when he saw him with his forehooves up against a wooden panel where a window used to be, and his back legs squirming against a slippery floor, trying to get a steady hoof hold on the ground, Fry galloped to the break room right next to his office and opened the door.

Inside the break room, there was nothing much then 4 bland grey-painted walls and some lockers. The lockers were where the employees would hang their work aprons and store anything else they had that day. Some newspapers were splayed wildly across the floor near the corner of the room. Fry looked up to see some of the Barn’s crew reading the items and scattering the pages whenever they were finished reading an article. He grinded his teeth in frustration.

“Coach! Sparks! Frost! Get off your lazy flanks and help Jax!” Fry yelled. Instantly the three in question stood up and alert, out of the daze of reading the newspapers they had now sprawled across the floor.

“Serridge, clean this mess up!” Fry barked out at the fourth one. The pony in question, a white pegasus with a mint color mane, complained.

“Aw, boss, why me?”

“You were supposed to be around when the incident happened. Consider this your reprimand,” Fry seethed through his teeth, his anger still showing at the fact one of his employees complained.

“If you guys could hurry it up, I would be really happy!” Jax yelled through the door. Fry looked to his right to see the other three still standing near him.

“What are you three doing?! Get moving!” Fry ordered, sending the four ponies to their respective areas. “Serridge, if they ask, I went to find Icarus. I’m going to see if she knows anything about the storm.”

“Sigh. Got it boss,” Serridge replied, bending his neck to pick up all the pages of newspapers scattered. Serridge guaranteed to himself that his neck wasn't going to feel well for the next few hours.

Back at the register, Frost was helping Jax prop up the panel, but her small stature wasn't much help.

“What happened!?” Frost yelled out amidst the howling winds that were echoing in the Barn.

“I don’t know! One minute, I was trying to keep a record on my notebook about the incident with the water, and the next minute the window exploded!” Jax replied.

“That’s not possible though! Glass cannot combust without a cause!” yelled Sparks. Sparks was a unicorn with a lightning bolt for a cutie mark and a brown coat color not unlike that of a charred corpse. His assertion that he used to be of a cream color further proved that suspicion. His mane was blond and spiky, the only remnant of his past coat color. If you would see a picture of him when he was younger, you would say he looked like a living lightning bolt.

“It was struck by lightning then!” yelled a now angry Jax, who was starting to lose his hoof hold against the rain and wind. He swore that with each passing second, the weather grew exponentially worse. Coach, a deep brown earth pony with a short and straight mane, came up to help Jax and Frost by also pushing on the panel. The combined strength of three of them was still not enough to give Jax some reprieve.

“But that’s not possible either! Lightning needs a ground to stabilize its impact! Simple glass raised above the ground shouldn't be hit! If anything, the top of the Barn should have been struck!” Sparks yelled back. Luckily for the Barn, Sparks had installed some safety measures against weather before. It was part of the reason why he was hired, along with some other reasons.

“Sparks, I don’t need an argument, I need~”

All three ponies holding up the panel suddenly toppled over, as a strong gust of wind blasted through the window, breaking the panel into several pieces.

Or so they thought. The rising pegasus in the corner of the room changed their theory though.

“Oh man Puck, come see the looks on their faces!” laughed the pegasus, a scawny looking pony with a sky-blue coat and deep blue mane, with hints of yellow dye in his hair giving off a vibe that screamed “Show off”. A unicorn who was grey-coated with long purple hair that matched his eyes with a ragged cloak peered in through the window to see the four employees utterly confused and terrified, not understanding anything that was going on. Jumping inside, the four saw the unicorn having a saddlebag strapped to his back.

“Oh man, we really got them good this time, didn’t we Anansi?” laughed the unicorn known as Puck.

“What’s going on here!? Icarus said there wasn’t supposed to be any rain today, so Jax, you better explain how~” Fry bursted through the door from the break room to see one of the Food Barn’s most hated customers and another stranger laughing at four of his employees.

“Hey Fry! Long time no see, huh?” laughed Puck.

“Puck,” Fry darkly muttered. This young unicorn loved to cause havoc to the Food Barn. Puck was responsible for putting the exploding water curse on the tapwater. “Puck, I suggest you stop laughing and fix this mess you caused.”

“Or what, Fry? You’ll give me a lecture?” Puck sneered at the manager.

“I will hurt you.”

That quickly silenced both laughing ponies in the room. Jax could now see that it was a cloudy day, but no rain was falling. He suspected that the two ponies that had been laughing had been manipulating the weather against him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Fry. Let’s not get, uh, hasty there…” Puck started backing up to the corner near the window. Fry glared before he marched up close to Puck, enough to breathe on him. Puck desperately looked to Anansi, and the pegasus did take a few steps before he was pushed back by the glares of the employees, now up and ready to show the two that they weren't happy with what they did to them. He remarked to himself that Frost looked adorable trying to give him the death stare, but didn't dare utter anything to the other three’s more menacing stares.

“Fix this mess, and fix the water, before I break your spine...” Fry darkly uttered to Puck. Puck knew that Fry was a keeper of his word, and never would bluff, so the fact that Fry was now willing to break him in half told Puck how screwed he was here.

“Hey, buddy...c..c...calm down here! I, uh, have this.” Puck meagerly pulled from his saddlebag and showed a small talisman to Fry, who inspected it with only his eyes. “Give this to your unicorn, have him perform, uh, a repair spell on the water and, uh, it should be, heh heh, good to go!”

“And what of the window?” Fry grabbed the talisman and hoofed it over to Sparks.

“Like I said, ahem, a repair spell should do the trick.” Regaining his composure, Puck gave a knowing look to Anansi, before casting a spell of light that temporarily disoriented Fry and the employees. When he stopped spinning, Fry could see that both ponies ran away, a small blood trail on the window sill giving him the implication that the tried to jump through the window.

“Sigh. Those two always have to give me a hard time...” Fry thought to himself as he picked up a broom and started sweeping, as the rest of his employees were still spinning in circles from the spell.

The Motel

The rain was still falling when Fry Cook decided to close early, seeing as how no pony would want to be out in this weather. After cleaning up the mess Puck and his accomplice Anansi made, the employees of Food Barn proceeded to head outside, with some rain jackets to cover them.

On the right side of the motel, there were a couple rooms reserved for the employees. One of the perks of working at the Barn was having your own place to call home near the restaurant. Jax had used this to his advantage, wasting no time in moving out from his previous house to his own dormitory in the motel. Of course, the more employees, the more they had to share rooms.

Jax had to share a room with Sparks, whom he was at first adverse, but grew to like the burnt crisp of pony sleeping on the opposite side of his room.

Coach had to share rooms with Icarus, while Frost, Serridge, and Fry had their own respective rooms. All of their doors opened up to a hallway that ended at a little lobby, close to the central lobby where customers could check in and out. It was Icarus's job to handle the motel.

"Anypony come in?" Fry asked as the group of soaking employees came through the door, dripping onto the rather expensive looking carpet. Fry never cared much about it though, much to the chagrin of Icarus.

"No, but the family that came in yesterday checked out. We're completely cleaned out now," replied Icarus, a Pegasus with a white coat and silky light blue hair. She wore pointed glasses as a little fashion statement, but anyone she was close to would say her eyes see just fine. Her feathers were the one thing that stood out against her. By herself, she looked fine, but compared to other Pegasi around her, and you'd see she had noticeably less feathers.

"Sigh, any problems they report?" Fry had learned a long time of running the motel that someone always will complain about every minute detail in one group. It's why he hated extended families staying over.

"Surprisingly not, I think the rooms we gave them are the best ones we have, so I'm keeping tabs on the keys now." Icarus adjusted her glasses onto her forehead, giving a curious look to some papers she held in her hoof.

"Good thinking. My nerves are already wrecked for today, I don't need any complaint reports to ruin them more," Fry sighed. The other employees had taken off their coats and were entering the staff lobby. Fry only walked up to the front desk. "Anything else?"

"Well, I talked to my fellow weather Pegasi, and they said the weather is going to be this way for the next two days. What happened at the barn?" Icarus asked, now putting down the glasses she wore on the desk.

"It's that unicorn Puck again, and that Pegasus he had with him when he put the curse on the tapwater. By the way, put on my work list that I need to fix that problem with this," Fry hoofed over a small talisman onto the desk, Icarus giving it a curious scowl before writing something a yellow sheet of paper. She grabbed the paper with her mouth and pulled out a small drawer, dropping it inside before closing the drawer.

"Done. Did you find out who that Pegasus was, by any chance?" Icarus asked.

"Jax said he heard the name 'Anansi' given to him. Do you know him?" Fry asked.

"Anansi, Anansi..., can't say I have Fry. Sorry. Though by what you said about his mane, it sounds like he's definitely from Cloudsdale."

"Mane?" Fry asked. "What do manes have to do with being from Cloudsdale?

"It has to do with Pegasi, actually. Most, if not all, Cloudsdale pegasi have strange manes, while those of different cities have what you would think as regular manes. Those pegasi are called ground-walkers, though the term is used as an insult in Cloudsdale these days. A Pegasus mane is symbolic. It shows others their ranking."

"But then, what about you? And the other pegasi?" Fry asked.

"Despite my brother, Serridge, I can't fly, as you know, because I don't have enough plumage to use like a bird. It's why our father named me  Icarus as a sick joke. You know the legend?"

"A unicorn builds a contraption that is supposed to make them fly, but instead his 'wings' burn up and he falls to his death?" Fry flinched at this thought. "I know it."

"Well, we ground-walkers decide not to cut and dye our hair, as we have no need. Why would we want to change ourselves for something we wouldn't or couldn't be a part of in the first place? So I wandered around after being ousted from my home in Cloudsdale, grew up from my teenage years in Manehatten, reunited with my brother, and set out to find a job and a home." Icarus sighed to herself as she grabbed a folder before exiting the front desk.

"And a few weeks later, you guys ended here with me," Fry muttered.

"Oh please, Fry, it's not like I hate you or this place. The others are nice and we're all friends."

"What about your brother though? I know he's been irritated with his work."

"Eh, he's a Cloudsdale Pegasus, remember? Of course he's going to be jumpy."

"I'm worried for him you know. One of these days, he's going to find some girl that's going to promise him everything, and he'll leave you. He'll leave us. I never knew a stallion that could be a slut, you know," Fry muttered.

"That's why I'm here, Fry: to make sure he doesn't try anything stupid like that," Icarus chuckled.

"Is it possible the light air in Cloudsdale dents the Pegasus brain?" Fry asked. The two were now walking towards the lobby after Fry locked the front doors, closing the establishment. There was a ringer just in case any unlucky pony came by. The rain was now pounding at a more consistent pace, so the chances weren't high that was going to happen.

"There is a study going on, as far as I know, but it mysteriously keeps getting tampered. I wouldn't be surprised if it was true though." Both ponies shared a laugh, Fry's usual stern demeanor gone and a rare smile formed on his face as he and Icarus entered the staff lobby.

Inside was a pool table, a couch, a radio set near the couch, and some magazines on top of a table in the center of the room. Some beanbag chairs were in one corner of the room, though for the life of him, Fry never could find them comfy as much as his employees did. A small bar area stood in another corner of the lobby, filled with a couple glass cups and a small sink nearby to complete it. The walls had a wooden finish to them, making the lobby feel cozy and lively.

Coach was talking to Jax and Serridge on the couch, while Frost was reading a book sitting on one of the beanbags. Sparks was busy tinkering with some metallic object on the bar table.

"So I give him the water, and BOOM! The cup explodes in his hoof. He gets scared so he jumps back, and then it explodes again! Bigger this time!" Coach relayed the story of the water incident to Jax and Serridge. Jax missed it because he was inspecting something at the rest rooms on orders, while Serridge was busy with some mare at the motel.

"Remind me again how water is able to explode, let alone able to explode twice?" While Serridge had been in the Barn at the time when Puck had cursed the tap water, Jax had been hired a few days after. So he was skeptical of the incident, only knowing it was true because he had to clean up the evidence.

"Magic, my dear Jax! It is a blessing and a curse, given to us by some higher power lost to time, as a cruel prank!" Sparks exclaimed from the bar, using his magic to add some ball on top of the strange contraption he was making.

"Whatcha' working on there, Sparky?" Coach asked.

"I am not entirely sure, mi'lady, but it shall be built for some form of selfish desire, mainly to help me with small everyday chores. I hope."

"Mi'lady? Who are you talking to Sparks, Coach or Frost?" Jax exclaimed.

"Coach, of course! Why do you ask?" Sparks gave an inquisitive look to Jax, who looked confused before his eyes widened in realization.

"Wait, Coach...you're a girl?!" Jax yelled out loud. The whole lobby looked at Jax with a stern and curious gaze.

"Uh, yeah. Couldn't you tell from my voice and physique?" Coach asked.

"No! I thought you were just small and had been hit in the balls before I got here! And what mare has the name Coach!?"

"What pony is named Coach? That's just a moniker I use."

"But then, what's your real name?" Jax asked.

"To be honest, I've forgotten it. Haven't been using it in a long time, to be fair."

"But then where did you get the name Coach?" Jax asked. Serridge was now over at the beanbags looking through a magazine from the table.

"I used to volunteer at a rec center. The ponies there just started calling me Coach to the point that I wouldn't even hear my name anymore."

"In Fillydelphia, riiiiight?" Icarus had now sat down on the couch next to Coach, a sly smile on her face.

"I've told you before, Icarus, the rumour that Fillydelphian males are good-looking is not true," Coach sighed.

"Then who is this 'Razorshine' you were talking about in your sleep?" Icarus retorted, with an even bigger smile. At that, a small blush appeared on Coach's cheeks.

"He... he's nobody..." Coach muttered.

"Really now? 'Oh Razor, even though you're 17, I still love you with my heart!'" Icarus dramatized Coach's voice, letting out a fake snore to add to the fact that Coach was actively sleeping when she uttered the sentence. "How old were you when you met Razor?"

"I was 21. And I didn't know him outside of his time when he helped me coach some kiss~KIDS!" Coach stammered, becoming more flustered each second as the conversation went on. Icarus only smiled more.

"And then who's Latchkey? And Wildfire? And then interestingly, who's Flower?" Now Coach was beet red, and extremely flustered, not even able to complete a single word and just uttering incoherent sounds. Jax and Serridge couldn't help but start laughing hard, while Sparks still focused on his project.

"Duh..erk...why are you even here?! I thought you went to your room!" Coach finally exclaimed.

"I needed your brush. I can't find mine," Icarus stated, after she and the others calmed down from laughing.

"How come? You usually put it in your day pack from when you were hired," Coach asked. Her regular color was slowly returning to her face, but her cheeks still felt warm.

"I left it somewhere, and now I can't find it."

Right on cue, a small blast resonated in the room, and everypony turned their heads to the source to see Sparks with a layer of soot encompassing his muzzle, and his eyes shut.

"Drat, I must have set the wrong enchantment frecuency..." Sparks muttered to himself.

"You okay there, Sparks?" Icarus asked.

"Oh, it's nothing terrible really. Science is built of failures, mind you," Sparks coughed.

"Science? What does science have to do with you?" Jax asked.

"I studied in the school of Configuration. That means I enchant and build machines. I hope one day I can create a machine that will allow non-magic users to experiance the joys that we unicorns have!"

"I thought that most unicorns only wanted magic to themselves," Jax stated.

"Bah! Stubborn ones they are! They don't see that magic and science can work together!" Sparks exclaimed, throwing his hooves in the air and knocking over his contraption onto the floor. "Ah well. I suppose I'll work on it tomarrow, seeing as it is my day off."

"Along with everypony else," Fry stated, walking from the hallway that led to everypony's rooms.

"How come, boss?" Serridge asked.

"Icarus told me that the rain is going to stay for the next few days. The Barn is not opening tomarrow."

"I'm going in, Icarus.  I'll see you guys later," Coach said as she rose from the coach and started walking to her room that she shared with Icarus.

"Yawn. I guess I'll turn in too. You staying , Sparks?" Jax asked.

"Well I can't let little miss Frost here to clean up my mess, can I?" Sparks replied, glancing in Frost's direction. There she was now sleeping in a spread-eagled state on the beanbags, the book she was reading on top of her snoring muzzle.

"Aww, she looks precious!" Icarus whispered as she leaned in to get a closer look at Frost.

"Pssst. Frost? Wake up," Fry walked over and tapped the book on her muzzle, eliciting a short snort from Frost before she half-opened her eyes.

"Wha..." Frost looked at Fry half-liddedly.

"C'mon, go to your room to sleep. You remember what happened last time."

"Merp... I don't wanna..." Frost turned her back to Fry, snuggling into the beanbag. A small snore from her told him that she started sleeping again. Carefully, Fry slid his head under Frost's body, having her now hanging sideways on his back. He walked quietly as he went into the hallway with the limp Frost, Icarus silently giggling at the sight.

"Jax, I'll be heading to Ponyville tomarrow, to see if I can get a camera. That was perfect!" Icarus squeed. Jax could only roll his eyes as he, Icarus, and later Sparks and Serridge went into their rooms, and slept into the pitter-patter of the soft rain now falling on the three buildings in the middle of nowhere, at the intersection that connected Equestria.