Nothing's More Important

A few minor explosions and learning where the shower was in case of fur-related fire incidents later, Justin seemed pleased enough that both wives understood the bare minimum of how each thing worked. Best of all, the end result of their tinkering was one of Justin's favorite treats. They each had a bowl of ice cream, created with the power of alchemy. Seated around the table to nibble at their chilled treats, Justin looked to them both.

"So that's how alchemy works. How different is it?"

Amelia was more than a little distraught about her newfound lack of eyebrows, while Alice was in perfect shape… more a testament to the werewolf’s healing factor than any success at avoiding fiery doom. “Well, any laboratory I’ve ever worked in has had a much better safety record, for one!” Amelia declared. “Though the emergency showers are just as important… you know, we should get a proper emergency eye-washing station set up, too… this feels very important to me now.”

“This isn’t exactly the first time you’ve lost your eyebrows, Amelia,” Alice calmly pointed out. “Also, I’m pretty sure humans don’t use fire or explosions in their ice cream making process. So that’s a pretty big difference.”

He tilted his head and giggled a little. "Oh sure, you can make ice cream without those things, but this way was more fun, and educational." He wobbled a hoof. "Next time you can make it without me and show off your skill." He licked his spoon with a soft sound of delight. "Well, it's our lab now, I guess, so if you want to work on it, I'm up for that."

“Alright, let me show you some of my skills,” Amelia declared, before setting to work. It was a challenge, needing to improvise a bit with the Equestrian equipment and materials, but she thought back to her college days. And over the course of a couple of hours she managed to combine all of the ingredients she needed to make a Dr. Pepper clone, a syrupy sweet prune-based mix combined into carbonated water. Somehow not a single thing exploded… in fact it was almost downright boring to watch. But the end result was a sugar beverage for all to enjoy, that tickled the nose with its bubbliness. “Tada!”

Alice woke up at the announcement, having drifted off somewhere along the way. “Huh, whah?”

It may have been boring to the average pony, but Justin's eyes were riveted on her as she worked. Every combination, every method. Carbonated water? He hadn't expected that. Oh look at her stir! Look at her mix! Each step was a little thing for him to catalog with wonder. "What does this do?" He reached for the creation, bringing it close to sniff before he turned violently away and sneezed, bubbles right up his nose.

“It combines the sugars naturally occurring in the prunes, with the caffeine naturally occurring in the tea leaves, to make a beverage that increases alertness and energy in the short term. And more importantly, it’s tasty. At least if I did it right.. here goes,” Amelia answered before giving it a try. “Aaahh. Yes. A tad bit too much carbonation, but otherwise perfect.”

His tongue reached out, touching its tip against the fluid and slurping it in like a dog might before he seemed to wash it around his snout curiously. "Fascinating… Hmm, I'm not sure the bubbles would ever catch on," said nobody ever after they got popular.

“Well, ponies don’t have the same taste as humans, I’m sure, so it might not. But we can always try offering it to a few and see if they like it,” Amelia suggested. “If it does catch on, it could certainly help with our money troubles.”

“Not if it takes you that long to make one batch,” Alice countered, struggling a bit to pour her cup into her muzzle without spilling.

Justin started counting on his hooves, tapping left to right and right to left as he looked around the room, appearing to be trying to work through something. "We could… maybe. I like the way this could work out." He flashed a bright smile. "We should offer it as an exclusive thing. Rich ponies forgive a lot if it's exclusive enough, and they pay more."

“Well, let’s see if it catches on with ponies first.. maybe try a few adjustments, different flavors. Like… ponies really like carrots and apples?” Amelia asked. “Once we have our recipe down, I can work on streamlining the process, and we can make it a lot faster. Prototypes always take longer to make.”

The concepts being used seemed foreign to Justin. He started gathering up bowls though, partially filled as they were with melted ice cream. "Why would you be in a rush to make a lot of it? Things are nice when they aren't everywhere anyway."

“Well… if I’m only going to make a little bit here and there, I’d like it to be streamlined so I don’t have to spend a lot of my time on it. And if I’m going to make a lot of it, I need it to be streamlined so that I can make enough for everypony,” Amelia said. “Either way, this is fine for a first go at it, a little experiment. We’ll just have to see if we can make a recipe that’ll catch on and decide from there whether to make a career of it, or just a hobby.”

“Everypony?” Alice said quirking a brow. “Don’t you mean ‘everybody’?”

Justin tilted his head. "No, it's everypony normally." He tapped his chin. "I guess there are perks to being the dominant species, um, you know, funny thing. I never even thought about that before." He left the lab, carrying the plates balanced on his back. "Let's go to market and see how much it'd be to get you a supply of the ingredients.

“Here in Equestria, land of the ponies, it’s everypony, anypony, somepony, etc.” Amelia confirmed. “At least I knew that much from the show…”

“That’s just weird and makes no sense,” Alice objected, shaking her head. “Whatever… here, let me help with that.” She helped open the front door for Justin, and get the dishes into the sink for Amelia to deal with later.

“Oh! And next time I’ll have to show you how to make an ice cream float,” Amelia said. “So let’s get the ingredients for the ice cream as well. Vanilla flavor is generally the best for that.”

Justin tilted his head. "I have a good supply of vanilla beans already. Oh! Did I show you my garden? It's not a very big one, but--" He was already gone, dishes deposited and hurrying out the door, leading the two to his garden. "Ta da!" It was about five rows wide and neatly laid out, each labeled neatly with what flower or veggie or fruit waited within.

“I can help you expand the garden,” Alice offered. “I’m really good at digging! And good with plants, you know. Oh! You’ll have to show me where the edge of our territory is, so I don’t go past it.”

“You’re not going to ‘mark’ it are you?” Amelia asked skeptically.

“Of course! Oh… maybe wait for nightfall,” Alice answered, glancing around at the townsponies who were oblivious to the conversation. “But it is very important.”

Justin raised a brow at that. Mark? "Oh, you mean how much land I can use?" He tapped the ground. "I never really had a problem with it before, so long as I didn't make anything ugly or too close to anypony else's stuff. I guess if somepony got really greedy, there'd be a fuss about it, but that's what the mayor's for. You should meet her, she's a nice mare."

“Okay, so… hmm. Halfway to each of your neighbors, left and right… not past the road in the front. Far enough back to make it about a square?” Alice speculated looking around. “I’ll mark it off later, and then start expanding the garden. Do they sell seeds in the market?”

Why was his life in fast forward lately? Justin nodded quickly. "Um, sure." He looked towards the 'road' that was little more than a footpath that wove past his house. "Seeds are kind of seasonal. It's easier to order those from far away, but kinda pricey. Even better is if you have a friend with the plant you want and get some of theirs.

“That’s a good idea,” Alice agreed. “And of course we can use the seeds from our own plants for the next time around… Anyways, it’ll be my little project over the next year or so. As eager as I am to begin, growing things always takes time.”

Amelia gave Justin’s rump a nice firm pat. “Alright then. To the market. Lead the way, my stallion.~”

The trip to the market was a pleasant one. Barely any clouds were scheduled for the day, and the sun was pleasantly warm, not turned up too hot. Birds flittered about, and a few times Alice managed to call a few over for an oddly musical conversation, though the birds insisted on ‘talking’ from the safety of nearby tree branches.

The ponies didn’t react as strongly to the unusual mares as they had before, word having already saturated the small town, though they seemed to trigger whispered exchanges in the distance all around them.

Justin did his best to pay them as little mind as possible, which all seemed fine in theory, but his eyes and ears strayed towards those whispered conversations as he went. "Sunny Petal usually has a few seeds, usually of pretty things, but sometimes more useful things. I swear she just wants to see pretty flowers on everyone's windowsill."

“Hmm. Do ponies eat flowers?” Amelia wondered as they walked. “They do in the show, but I keep assuming I’ll find some details are wrong as we go. And a flower-based soda flavor wouldn’t appeal to humans but might just hit the spot for pony customers.”

“Are you still on about that? Alright, I guess it makes sense to coordinate, with me growing whatever you’re going to make your drinks out of,” Alice conceded. “Is that Sunny Petal?” she asked, dipping her head toward a nearby mare with a sunflower for a cutie mark.

The aforementioned mare caught her name and finished her whispered conversation with a unicorn mare bearing an image of a lyre on her flank and a matching instrument tied to her back. The unicorn, High Note, tended to come and go, bringing music and news from one small town to another.

"Hello, High, Sunny. I've brought a new customer for you, Sunny." He gestured to his… interesting partner. "These lovely ladies have set their eyes on my garden and want to expand it, and we're hoping you have a nice batch of seeds for us today." As for the other question, his mind whirred gently in thought, but he didn't directly answer.

“Oh, sure thing! Let me show you my wares!” the flower mare said cheerfully as she led the way to her little shop. She had plenty of grown flowers for sale as well, but led them past to the collection of seed packets she had been preparing.

“Nice to finally see the talk of the town with my own eyes,” High Note commented to Justin, even as her eyes kept trained on the alien ‘mares’. “Where did you ever find these two?”

"I'm not sure you'd believe me even if I told you." He smiled at her and sat down, letting his wives go on without him to peruse the selection. "But it was definitely destiny that led us together. Not even one day and already things are just… clicking."

“Well, I’m no stranger to unbelievable stories,” High Note said, “and any one that involves finding those two is sure to be out of the ordinary. So… share? Please? Bonus points if it involves true love.” She giggled happily.

He joined her in the giggle, though his had a hint of nervousness. "Oh, well… I kind of got pulled away." He considered a moment. "It was a little filly. I was her dying wish, kind of... Kind of a sad way to get there. She wasn't a pony filly, she was like her." He pointed at his human mate. "She wanted a pony, like me, so she got me."

“Pulled away?” High Note inquired. “What do you mean? Pulled away where?”

Amelia glanced back, wondering why she was being pointed at, but couldn’t hear the conversation so she returned to her own conversation with Sunny Petal, who was pointing out several lovely varieties of flowers.

He lifted his shoulders. "They could tell you more about it than I ever could. It was a place without ponies, at least like us. That much I gathered… The girl was… was… Oh you're not going to believe me at all, but she was a ghost. She was a ghost and I was her final wish." The fact of that clearly still had an impact on Justin, as he began to shiver a little with the retelling.

“A ghost? Really? Where did you find a ghost? Or did she just come knocking at your door? “ High asked. She didn’t sound as dismissive as some would be.

Alice seemed to be quite animatedly engaged with Sunny, both getting quite excited about something.

Justin pointed out towards the fateful forest. "I was out doing some gathering, or I was trying, and she found me there. I couldn't even tell you exactly how it worked, but I ended up in her world, in a great big fire of all things! I thought I might choke to death in all the smoke, but I managed to save somepony, only he wasn't a pony at all."

“In the Ghost Haunt Woods? I’m not sure if that makes your story more or less believable,” High Note pondered. “Doesn’t matter, this story has everything! So you saved somepony from a fire… you said he, so it wasn’t one of these two. Right? They are female, right?” They didn’t have any of the normal tells, though she probably would have spotted something if Alice were male.

He bobbed his head quickly. "Of course they are," says the defensive husband. "I found a safe place to lay down a moment and catch my breath with that guy, then here comes Miss Wolf and scares us both almost to death. He ran off, and she got me." He flashed a sudden smile. "I never got away."

“Oh? I’d better start taking notes.~” the unicorn mare said with a laugh, quickly drawing quill and scroll to start jotting things down. “You don’t seem to mind, so I’m taking it she wasn’t too mean about it… what about the other one?”

He shook his head quickly. "She wasn't mean, just a little scary at first. She's a very nice person." He tapped his chin softly. "You should talk to them though. I feel weird talking about them like they're not right there." A little smile spread on his snout. "I'll say I love them both so very much, and even if they aren't ponies, they love me back."

“Alright, I think I’ll do that. Thanks for the story though! Can’t wait to put it to music…” she mused as she trotted off to try to interview the mysterious foreigners. Things had apparently devolved to small talk anyways, so she quickly nosed her way in and started talking to Justin’s mares eagerly.