Too frilly.
Change.
Not frilly enough.
Change.
Did this dress make her butt look big?
Undress.
Wait! Some guys liked girls with big butts.
Re-dress.
Was Soarin one of those guys?
The doorknob turned, causing Pinkie to flip vertically as her heart beat the top twenty love songs ever written, then collapsed and breathed into a paper bag to calm herself down as she catapulted down the steps before Maud had finished opening the door. “Did-you-see-him-what-did-he-say-was-he-excited-did-he-smile-did-he-smell-nice?”
Maud blinked, “Yes.”
Pinkie swooned, collapsing onto the couch in a fit of giggles. Soarin was the cutest, warmest, nicest, fastest, cutest, strongest, sweetest, cutest, funniest, cutest, cutest, cutest colt Pinkie had ever seen, and ever since she had seen him walk into their classroom for the first time she just knew she had to be his marefriend.
But she was shy!
Too shy to talk to him directly because whenever she just got close to him she froze on the outside, while on the inside she just curled up giggling to herself like a little filly. That’s why she’d asked her sister to help her.
Maud knew so much about dating; she’d been out with almost half of the boys in their class, and the other half were all lining up to be next. She was a real colt-killer; and all it had taken was Pinkie promising to do all of Maud’s chores for the next month, for her to agree to teach Pinkie everything she knew about getting a guy to like you.
“Calm down Pinkie” instructed Maud evenly, “Are you going to listen to what happened or not?” Pinkie sat bolt upright, her large watery eyes fixed unblinkingly on Maud, as her bottom lip trembling in anticipation. “I asked Soarin if he was doing anything today; he said no. I asked him if he would like to go out with you; he said yes.”
Pinkie panicked! She was actually going on a date with Soarin? What was she going to do? What if he didn’t like her? What if she did something silly that made him never want to talk to him again; or didn’t do anything silly and didn’t make him laugh? No, that wouldn’t happen; it couldn’t because, “We’re going to go and have the most romantic date ever and then we’re going to have another, and another, and fall in love and get married and have babies and-“
“No.” corrected Maud, “You’re not.”
Pinkie’s mane deflated into straight long locks, suddenly concealing razor blades underneath; “You mean?”
“There’s no way you’re ready to go out on a date by yourself.” Explained Maud, “That’s why I’m coming with you.”
“But…” stammered Pinkie, “Soarin is my date, we can’t both go out with him!”
“I’m bringing my own date. His name’s Sombra."
"You mean that weird unicorn who's always talking about that time travel spell he's working on?"
"Yes." Smiled Maud, "He’s nice. He’s into crystals, which are like rocks. I've been wanting to get to know him better since we've been paired as lab partners. It's nothing serious, but I asked him to come with us so you won't be going alone. They'll be here to pick us up at noon."
“Noon!?” shrieked Pinkie, her mane resuming its usual poofiness; “But it’s almost ten! That means I only have two hours to pick out the perfect dress!”
Maud grabbed the dress draped over the chair which she’d picked out for Pinkie last night, passed it to her and gave her a reassuring hug; “Relax Pinkie. You’ll do fine. He’ll love you.”
“Really!?”
“Sure,” Maud shrugged, “Why not?”
Pinkie broke into ecstatic giggles, “This is going to be the best date ever and with you there it will be even doubly amazing and I just know that nothing could ever possibly go wrong!”
“Yes.” Agreed Maud, “This will be fun.”
Soarin was coming!
Thump-thump-step! Thump-thump-step!
She could hear him coming down the hoofpath.
Thump-thump-step! Thump-thump-step!
Pinkie’s heart was beating in time with his hooves, which Pinkie felt proved that they were soul mates; but she couldn’t act overly eager, Maud had made that clear.
Knock-knock!
Pinkie stood up straight; and then calmly and ever so slowly walked to the front door, Maud watching in approval from the other room. She opened the door, calmly, to the face of the love of her life and shoved a paper bag into his chest; “I made you cookies.”
Soarin took the paper bag she offered him with gusto. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t have to; his smile as he tore off the seal and bit into the warm chocolate chip cookie was all the reward Pinkie needed as she trotted past him. Soarin finished off the cookie in a second bite and was about to reach for another when Maud came out of the house, closing the door behind her. “Why hello Maud.” He said, scooting over and holding the open bag out to her; “Would you like a cookie?”
“No.,” said Maud, walking past him; “I don’t like cookies.”
Soarin looked dumbfounded at her for several seconds; then dropped the bag in the dust and turned to follow Maud, “Really? I mean… me too! It’s amazing how much you and I have in common, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Maud continued to where Sombra was waiting impatiently to get a move on, and Soarin followed close behind. Pinkie’s gaze rested forlornly on her cookies? Had they really been that bad? She’d managed not to sample any when she made them because she knew once she sampled one she had a hard time not eating them all, and she wanted Soarin to have as many as he wanted. Maybe she’d used the salt instead of sugar like she had that one other time.
She hopped over and sampled her creations. They were great; except they weren’t because Soarin didn’t like them. Maybe she should have made him doughnuts instead? Pinkie turned and galloped to where the others were already heading towards the gate, and fell into step walking right beside Soarin.
“…So” began Sombra after a slightly awkward silence, “The school science fair is coming up next month, I was thinking maybe we could work together on a project.”
“Really? Like what?”
“I wasn’t talking to you Pinkie.” Said Sombra dryly.
“Were you talking to me?” asked Soarin.
“No.”
“What did you have in mind?” asked Maud.
“Right before I got transferred over, I was reading in the papers about how your father uncovered a vein of some of the purest cryptanium crystals anywhere in the world on your rock farm. Then a few weeks ago I was at Roseluck’s party and saw how your sister Limestone Pie had taken a shard of cryptanium to show around, and someone threw it in the bonfire to watch it explode.”
“So?”
“Well ignorant people like watching things blow up, and everyone knows that your farm is loaded with one of the most explosive substances in the world. It’s only a matter of time before someone sneaks over and finds a bigger piece of cryptanium and tries to ignite it… someone could get hurt.”
Maud stopped walking for a moment in silent contemplation, “What do you suggest?”
“We need to show the world, just how dangerous cryptanium crystals are. Two experts in geo-chemical magic, like ourselves, would be able to put on a safe demonstration of everything ‘not to do’ when using unstable explosives. We could make a bomb, set it off in a contained environment, and no one will ever use cryptanium irresponsibly again.”
“I am intrigued.”
“I’ve done some reading,” continued Sombra, “And the explosive force of cryptanium multiplies when combined with a finlerich crystal; with optimum force released being at twelve parts cryptanium for every one part finlerich. Now I happen to have a supply of two-pound finlerich crystals; so if you could just provide the cryptanium; we could make the bomb for our demonstration.
Now, of course, we do want our demonstration to be perfect, and seeing as how neither of us has ever worked with this much cryptanium before; I think that for the maximum effect we should do a few experiments before hoof, to make sure we’ve got the configuration right. I’d say four practice bombs should be appropriate so that’s about sixty pounds of cryptanium that we would need for our project.”
“One bomb that size would be enough to destroy the entire school.”
“We don’t have to have the bomb on the school” argued Sombra, “The place is surrounded by huge rock pillars, we could pick one a safe distance from the school and mine it before the science fair with a long fuse.”
Maud thought, “Rule four of the science fair states that all projects must be on the oval grounds, with all presenting students present with their project. The project you’re describing would be disqualified” Sombra cursed. “However,” continued Maud, “If we were to construct a cannon for our project, and make ammunition from cryptanium and finlerich crystals, the project would be valid and the blast would be far more concentrated than an open explosion, multiplying the impact of the demonstration as to why cryptanium is dangerous.”
Sombra drew a sharp breath, “So…. powerful would this cannon be?”
“The cannon could destroy just about anything: ponies, rocks, ponies in armor hiding behind rocks-“
“City walls?”
“Sure,” Maud shrugged, “Why not?”
“I like this idea.”
“It’s so interesting that my sister and her date are going to be working on a science project together.” suggested Pinkie to Soarin, “Maybe we could work on a project together; on flying! I could ride on your back, and feed you doughnuts as you did a nosedive, and we could see if you eat them faster or slower when you’re on the ground.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” muttered Sombra.
“However” continued Maud, “The weight of the cannon would make it difficult to carry. If made of granite; the minimum safe dimensions of the cannon to safely fire a round of cryptanium and finlerich crystals would be ten feet long and five feet in diameter, with a barrel eight feet long and one point five feet in diameter; making a total of one hundred seventy point seven four three cubic feet of granite, weighing fourteen point nine two tones. To move the cannon we would need to line its base with a strip of anti-gravitational dynamos, but that would be dangerous.”
“It is amazing you just figured all that out in your head.” Complimented Soarin, “And I think it’s even more interesting that the first thing you thought to make your cannon out of was granite. My pet rock Stoner is made of granite, and since his brain is made of solid rock he’s really good at thinking hard. You know I’ve seen you talking to your pet rock Boulder sometimes at lunch, maybe Stoner and Boulder could go on a playdate sometime?"
Maud stared at him blankly, “I do not ‘play’ with Boulder. I use him as a numeric device to help me study geo-chemical magic; by using his eighty-seven facets as reference points where I mentally leave information for future use.”
Soarin looked confused. He was so cute when he was confused, just like he was cute when he did everything else. Sombra got a quill and parchment out of his saddlebags, and began taking notes of his discussion with Maud; “Why would it be dangerous to use anti-gravitational dynamos to levitate the cannon?”
“In order to function, the AGD would need to be powered by a reverse physics generator which, even if it had an adequate power source built in, will drain the magic from every unicorn within a half-mile radius unless it has proper shielding.”
“Interesting… would this magic drain be temporary or permanent?”
“Short-term exposure to the reverse physics generator would be temporary but, depending on the strength of the generator, compared to the proximity, number, and power of the unicorns; permanent drain would begin in three to five hours. The unicorns would permanently lose their magic, and the reverse physics generator would be permanently charged with approximately one-third of the energy of the drained unicorn; which could then be used to power the AGD indefinitely or placed into another compatible machine.”
“Ya-ha.” Nodded Sombra scribbling down more notes, “Out of curiosity; would it be possible to shield unicorns individually; instead of insulating the entire reverse physics generator?”
“Yes. One horn ring made of tin studded evenly with three raveium crystals, twelve carrots or more, would protect the unicorn who wore it. There will be hundreds of unicorns at the fair; simply shielding the reverse physics generator will take less time, material and effort than making sufficient raveium rings for everyone, and won’t require the unnecessary waste of time distributing them on the day of the fair.”
“I agree.” Said Sombra, taking more notes, “If you work making the reverse physics generator itself, I’ll take responsibility for shielding it; just tell me how to do it.”
“It is a very delicate process” warned Maud, “Perhaps I should arrange the shielding.”
“No-no I’m sure I can manage it.” promised Sombra, “Don’t you worry, your pretty little head about it.”
“Then listen very closely. You will require thirty-two point five pounds of pure tin, eight twenty-carrot raveium crystals, thirty two fourteen-carrot elixterrin crystals, and sixteen six-carrot perwick crystals. You must be careful to-”
“Hey!” Sombra yanked hard with his magic, pulling his paper and quill away from Soarin who had tried grabbing the quill in his mouth. “What are you doing!?”
“I’m helping!” Insisted Soarin, “Maud said you needed to listen closely, and you’re not even looking at your notes when you take them, you could make a mistake!”
“I didn’t make a mistake.”
“Yea, well… someone else should still be taking notes in case you do!”
“Do you even know what a raveium crystal is?”
“Ummm….”
“I do!” volunteered Pinkie, “I know what a raveium crystal is! And I know how they work!”
For some reason, Soarin didn’t seem interested; he was too busy getting in an angry staring match with Sombra. “Fine.” Grunted Sombra, taking a second quill and parchment out of his saddlebags and throwing them to Soarin, “Take your stupid notes.” He turned back to Maud, “Now, what were you saying?”
Maud cleared her throat, “Whatever you do; you must be careful to use elixterrin crystals instead of jaddice. They look similar, but if you mix them up; the shielding to the reverse physics generator will not only fail, but instead will drain unicorn’s magic faster, and will create a nightmare vortex. Anyone who looks into it will be shown a vision of their worst fear.”
Sombra’s quill broke through the paper, then dipped back into the inkwell and circled over the last note twice, “We should totally do that as a second project.”
“Explain?”
“We can work together on two projects: the cryptanium cannon; and the nightmare vortex.”
“That would be illegal. Both against the laws of the science fair, and of the state; due to the international treaty signed in two hundred forty-four, outlawing the use of using magic to mind control any sentient creature except dragons.”
“… What?”
“The dragons were the only species who refused to send a representative to the international peace talks; therefore voiding them of any legal protection from the treaty. This means that if we built a nightmare vortex, we could only demonstrate it if we brought a dragon to the science fair. This would be difficult and dangerous, and would probably require mind controlling it to make sure it doesn’t go on a rampage.”
Sombra stopped writing, “You know… how to mind control… dragons?”
Maud blinked, “In theory… yes.”
Sombra snatched his spare quill and parchment away for Soarin and poised both quills with his magic to take down two sets of notes, “How?”
“After her husband left her, my great aunt Avalanche used her knowledge of geo-chemical magic to make a control collar for a one thousand thirty-five-year-old fire-breathing dragon to help manage her rock farm and to take care of the kids when she was away. The collar worked during the summer, but in winter the frost contracted the metal collar, disrupting the gem formation. The dragon was freed from her control, and it ate her.
When my extended family met to divide her inheritance, I found the journal she had used to design the control collar, and reworked her calculations, accounting for sub-zero temperatures, to help pass the time. I believe that adding a layer of reinforcing steel, and adding four additional raveium crystals, would render my great aunt’s design safely reliable.”
Something broke in Sombra’s face; it was a smile! Until now, whenever Pinkie had seen him he’d just seemed well… somber; but now he was laughing like he was really, really happy. He had a nice laugh; “We should… totally do this as a second project!”
“We are already making a cryptanium cannon capable of destroying a three thousand tone rock pillar from eight miles away, to demonstrate why cryptanium needs to be used responsibly.” Reminded Maud; “Why would we need a second project?”
“Extra credit.”
“Do we really need that much extra credit?”
“Well, not if winning a high school science fair was out only ambition, but I have my sights set on something higher.” He paused for a moment, probably to build suspense; “Representatives from all the major universities are going to be there. If we present two first projects, we would be guaranteed scholarships of the university of our choice.”
Maud thought, “Projects are meant to be educational to fellow classmates, particularly the younger grades. Using geo-chemical magic to mind control a dragon is something waaaaay more intense than most ponies should ever try to do. It would be irresponsible to encourage them to try.”
“We could use the dragon to demonstrate something other than how we were controlling it.”
“Like what?”
Sombra glanced sideways at Soarin, “… Flying.”
“Explain.”
“Some of the pegasi in the earliest classes are still learning how to fly. Older pegasi might be trying to teach them, but their wings would be moving too fast for the foals to be able to study the exact movements, especially with all those feathers getting in the way. Dragons have wings far bigger than pegasi and move much slower, but use all the same movements pegasi needs do. Having a controlled dragon do several slow flybys over the school would be an incredible learning opportunity for pegasi foals struggling with flight. Think of the children.”
Maud thought for a minute and then shrugged, “Fine” she agreed, “We can do two projects: the cryptanium cannon, and mind controlling a dragon.”
“YES!”
“Sounds like it’s going to be one heck of a science fair.” grinned Soarin.
“Of course it’s going to be a great science fair!” agreed Pinkie, “It’ll be a blast, or like a party; or like a blast of party that will start as soon as Maud and Sombra’s fire their cann-” BAM, inspiration struck, and for a fraction of a moment, Pinkie saw in her mind’s eye a device that could change the world of partying forever. But then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Pinkie Pie had gotten distracted when Soaring flexed his wings; they were hot.
“We have arrived at the lake.” Announced Maud, who without further comment, sat down on the lake shore and began to eat. The rest of them followed suit, though some of them faster and more eagerly than others. Maud was the first one to finish her food and then just sat there, looking intently at a rock she had picked up.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Whispered Sombra, “One hit from the cryptanium cannon we’re going to build, and the great rock pillars you can see on the horizon would be nothing more than a scattered field of dust and pebbles, no larger than the one you’re holding.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.” Corrected Maud; “I was composing a poem for the rock.”
“You write poetry?” asked Soarin fervently.
“I’ve written hundreds. They’re all about rocks.”
“Can I… can I hear some?”
Maud wasn’t exaggerating when she said she’d written hundreds. Four hundred and thirty-one to be exact, and she said all of them! Pinkie knew that Soarin was just being polite, asking her for another one over and over and over again; but sooner or later, Maud should have realized that she was just dragging the whole picnic down.
Pinkie spent most of the next two hours trying to give Maud subtly hints that the poem she was on now should be her last one, and the rest of her time trying to talk to Soarin, so he wouldn’t keep asking for another one; but he was doing such a good job at pretending Maud’s poetry was the best thing he’d ever heard so she wouldn’t be embarrassed, that he almost ignored her.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!
Sombra got tired of listening to the poems almost as quickly as Pinkie did, and sat back by himself reading over the notes he’d taken while talking to Maud; chuckling to himself. He must really be looking forward to this science fair.
Finally, Maud was finished; Soarin was sitting in a daze from trying to listen to too much poetry at once, and Sombra was standing up, impatiently brushing himself off; “You know Maud, We’ve got two major projects to work on, and only one month to do them in. Why don’t we leave Pinkie and Soarin together, and you can come with me to my house and we can start drawing up specific schematics for what we need; after that, I can show you my crystal collection, and we can choose which ones we’ll need.”
Maud looked over to Pinkie, who nodded and shrugged. “Sure; why not.”
Soarin waved goodbye and Pinkie scooted over next to him and waved goodbye too. At least they were doing something together. When Maud and Sombra had passed over the hill, both Soarin and Pinkie gave something like an audible sigh of calm. Soarin leaned back on the grass, smiling to himself.
“So,” said Pinkie; shyness and eagerness almost balancing each other out, “What do you want to do?”
“How about we just talk for a bit.” Suggested Soarin, “There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to ask you.”
“Like what?”
Soarin thought for a moment, organizing all of the incredibly romantic questions he was going to ask her until he picked out the one that was most important to him. He sat up, and looked at her with his dreamy eyes, “What kind of music does your sister like?”
Author's Note
After some contemplation, I've decided that this is canon for my universe.
The town is almost exclusively Earth Ponies, the only unicorn at school got picked on as a kid for looking like Sombra who enslaved earth ponies so he decided to troll everyone by dyeing his coat and mane, calling himself "Prince Sombra" and constantly talking about a time travel spell he was working on while pretending like he's never heard of the historical figure.
Maud had decided to troll him / play along by pretending she knows how to make weapons of mass destruction and mind control dragons. Maud wasn’t serious about the relationship but sometime later “Sombra” got very serious with Limestone Pie (the angry one) and they had at least one daughter named Basalt.
"Sombra" grew up to become a DJ at a goth nightclub in Canterlot under the stage name "Dark Lord" and has a rivalry with Vinyl Scratch. Basalt's magic is quite modest but her Aunt Pinkie pulled some strings with Headmistress Twilight to get her into Celestia's School for gifted unicorns. Her grades were poor but she had a thriving career as a drug pusher working for Dr. Caballeron's daughter and is madly/ blissfully in love with her fiance.
Then another mare named Mayonnaise Frisk comes on the scene, turns Basalt in for dealing which gets her kicked out of school and then steals her fiance away from her. Basalt starts running drugs out of her dad’s nightclub with a small gang of underlings and will be thrown into a violent rage at the mere mention of the word Mayonnaise. Then the real king Sombra stumbles on a crystal empire themed night club where the DJ pretends to be him. Fortunately Sombra has a sense of humor and thinks this is hilarious. Unfortunately his sense of humor is pretty dark.
