“...and now,” Pinkie said, lifting a saucepan from the stovetop, “we pour it out and let it dry overnight!” She trotted towards the metal trays waiting on the center counter. Candy syrup swirled in the pan like molten sunflowers.
“Wait,” Twilight said. “You forgot to add the flavoring.”
“I don’t! You do.”
“Okay.” Twilight looked around Sugarcube Corner’s kitchen. Utensils hung above their heads from hooks all around the center counter. There were huge bin racks full of spices, shelves stacked with pots, sacks, and boxes. “Where is it?”
Pinkie giggled. “In your mind!”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “You mean… your candies are all the same, except for the coloring?”
“Yup!”
Twilight horn-grabbed a cluster of finished candies from the drying racks and popped a purple one into her mouth. She sucked on it skeptically, her eyebrows rolling in a display of almost violent concentration. “But… it tastes like grape!”
Pinky nodded. “‘Coz purple means grape!”
Twilight shook her head. “Pinkie. I’m a mare of science. I’m not swayed by appearances.”
Pinkie shrugged. “You should take it up with yourself, then.”
“What?”
“Here,” Pinkie said. “Take my hoof. Now close your eyes unless you like to scream.”
Twilight closed her eyes. Pinkie screamed.
Twilight opened her eyes in time to see Pinkie finishing her scream, her mouth wide open in delight.
“Wait a minute…” Twilight began.
“Oh, you do like to scream? Me too! Sorry, we’re already here. You can scream on the way back.”
Twilight looked around, then screamed.
“Or now’s okay too, I guess,” Pinkie said.
They stood in a dusty office. All the walls, and all the walls of all the corridors leading off in all directions, were covered with tiny cubbyholes full of scrolls and slips of paper. In the middle of the room was a large wooden desk with a scroll unrolled across it, and at the desk sat… Twilight. She was wearing bifocals and staring at herself-Twilight in irritation.
“S—sorry,” herself-Twilight stammered.
Bifocals Twilight rolled her eyes before turning back to the scroll, which she’d evidently been studying. She stamped it with one of a dozen or so rubber stamps lined up along the back edge of her desk, slid it into a little cylindrical glass case, and snapped the case shut. Then she put the whole thing into a pneumatic tube and pushed a button. There was a muffled whoosh, and case and scroll disappeared.
Twilight clapped her front hooves together. “Ooh, I’ve always wanted one of those! I’ll get one, too, if I ever think of a use for it.”
“Go ahead. Ask her about the candy,” Pinkie said.
“Excuse… me,” Twilight called to herself.
Bifocals Twilight looked up and began quietly tapping a quill against an inkwell, the way herself-Twilight did when she was being admirably patient with somepony irritating.
Twilight floated forward the brightly-colored candies, which were still following alongside in her magic field. “These shouldn’t taste different. They’re the same except for color.”
Bifocals Twilight sniffed at the candies. “I thought I already collated those sensations,” she said, more to herself than to her other self. She stood up and hurried over to the wall of cubbyholes, stopping in front of one labelled TASTES LIKE SUGAR. “I’m sure I put them right here. Where…” She glanced at the neighboring cubbyholes, many of which were brightly colored. “Aha!” Her horn lit, and slips of paper began streaming out of the colored cubbyholes and into SUGAR.
Twilight chewed a few more of the candies thoughtfully. She smiled at Pinkie. “See! They do taste the same! That’s so much better.”
“Is it really?” Pinkie asked.
Bifocals Twilight’s attention was distracted by a bright white cubbyhole marked “BRILLIANT”. She yanked out a yellow sheet of paper, marked in double columns, stared at it a moment, and grunted.
“What’s this doing here? This is no good at all.” The paper floated into another cubbyhole, a dingy grey one much lower down, and she returned to her desk.
“Well,” Twilight said, “I’m glad we got that business with the candy straightened out.”
“Right,” Bifocals Twilight said without looking up. Another scroll arrived in the pneumatic tube. She pulled it out, glanced at it, then stamped it and sent it off somewhere.
“I suppose we’d better leave you to your work.”
“Yes, I just decided that.”
“Oh. Um. Thanks.”
“You were thinking about supervising me.” Bifocals Twilight slid her bifocals down just enough to peer over them. “You should know that would lead to an infinite recursion.”
“Of course. Sorry.”
Just as Twilight was beginning to think that maybe a little infinite recursion wouldn’t hurt, another Twilight trotted out from one of the corridors. This one was just a filly, with a pink ribbon in her mane.
“Oh, look at you!” Pinkie squealed. “You’re adorable!”
“Thanks?” grown-up, non-bifocals-wearing Twilight said.
The filly ignored them, hurrying over to the grey cubbyhole. She snorted indignantly, pulling the same paper out that Bifocals Twilight had just put there. Only then she turned toward them.
“She keeps filing Marleau-Pointy under IDIOTIC NONSENSE!” She floated the paper up back under BRILLIANT.
“Oh,” Twilight said. “I often have mixed feelings about him myself.” She scratched her head. “But, you know, I think you’re right. There is something brilliant about him.”
Filly Twilight clapped her forehooves together a moment and looked off distantly. “He’s so dreamy.”
“Wait, what?”
But now the filly was poking her nose into the brightly-colored cubbyholes and frowning. She pulled out the stack of papers Bifocals Twilight had just put under TASTES LIKE SUGAR.
“Hey!” Twilight said. “What are you doing?”
“Orange means orange. Purple means grape. Red means cherry. Everypony knows that,” the filly said, as the sheets all flew off to different cubbyholes.
Twilight pulled another hoofful of candies out of her saddlebags and swallowed them one-by-one. She groaned. “Now they taste different again!”
“Yay!” Pinkie said. “Thanks, filly Twilight!”
“No, Pinkie, it’s not great. They shouldn’t taste different. That filly has to be stopped!”
“Ooh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. She does most of the work around here.”
“Miss!” Twilight waved at the clerk. “Miss Me! This filly is messing up your filing!”
The clerk peered at Twilight. “What filly?”
“She can’t see her!” Pinkie stage-whispered to Twilight. “She’s sub-conscious!”
“This filly!” she said, pointing. “Me! Us! Her!”
“I don’t see any filly,” the clerk said, looking straight at the filly, who was yanking something out of FOR THE COMMON RABBLE.
Twilight trotted closer to peer over her younger self’s shoulder. “Ugh!” she said when she was close enough to read the title. “Not Kylie Maneneigh!”
The filly slid the scroll in under WORKS OF GENIUS.
“... though ‘Horsing Around’ is kind of catchy...”
A rolled-up paper floating in the air beside Twilight tapped her on the shoulder just as her mane hair was beginning to spring out in coils.
“Excuse me,” Bifocals Twilight said from her desk.
“Sorry!” Twilight took a step back. The paper unrolled and slid neatly into a cubbyhole behind where she’d been standing.
Twilight lowered her voice and leaned toward Pinkie. “Pinkie, this is not okay! I didn’t spent years studying the most rigorous ideas and methodologies of ponykind, learning to find the edge cases of every hypothesis and test them empirically, eating at least three grams of omega-3 fatty acids every day, and getting so addicted to coffee that the district manager of Maxwell Horse still sends me a Hearths-warming card each year, just for six-year-old me to sneak in and re-arrange my thoughts! This is not okay at all!”
“Then why are you grinning that happy grin?” Pinkie asked.
”It’s not a happy grin!” Twilight said, grinning.
“That’s not what that mirror behind you says.”
Twilight turned to look behind her.
Pinkie inspected the cubbyhole the last paper had slid into. A label over it said “NOT OKAY”. Left of it was another cubbyhole with the label “OKAY”.
“What mirror?” Twilight asked.
Pinkie pulled the paper out from NOT OKAY and slid it into OKAY.
“Silly me! I guess it was just your other self over there. Not a mirror at all!”
Twilight groaned. “Pinkie. The point is...” She blinked. “Were we arguing about something?”
“I wasn’t! Wanna go back now?”
Twilight took one last look around her as the other Twilights moved papers to and fro.
“Okay,” she said.
Flim sighed. "Such a beautiful night."
"You couldn't have spoken more truly, brother-of-mine," Flam agreed. "See how the moon hangs over the marsh."
Both brothers turned their heads, which poked barely above the waterline, out towards the light. They were two dim, grey blotches in the shadows. They paused, listening to the chorus of the spring peepers. In fact it would have been hard to hear anything else.
"Inspiring."
"Breath-taking."
"And a cool mud bath is the perfect end to such an invigorating day," Flim said.
"I agree one-hundred percent."
"I hardly even notice the mosquitoes," Flim said.
"Certainly not."
Flam lifted a muddy hoof out of the water to scratch his nose, then sneezed.
"That was quite a party," Flim said.
"And for the good of science and ponykind!" Flam added.
"Yes, brother, our little soirée will enable ponies across Equestria to throw harder, louder, more-brightly colored parties!"
"An act equal parts charitable and hedonistic!" Flam said.
"And to think I'd never heard of a Party-Endurance-Testing Party before today," Flim said.
"Those two mares are certainly a formidable combination when they set their mind to something," Flam said.
"Indeed," Flim agreed. "One could hardly say which of the two is the more formidable."
Flam's right eye twitched.
"The pink one fired a confetti cannon in my face," Flim said. "Possibly two."
"Simultaneously and repeatedly," Flam agreed. "I think I've gone deaf in my left ear."
"She has a smile so broad I've seen ones like it before only in dreams," Flim said.
"I know exactly what you mean."
"But usually with sharper teeth."
"Just so," Flim agreed. "The purple one was quite cross when I shook my blood-sugar monitor off."
"I think I'm still sitting on mine."
Both brothers turned their heads up towards the arc of moonlit sky, delineated by the underside of the small bridge just a few hoofspans over their head.
"Do you think they're still up there?" Flim asked.
Flam looked up at the floorboards over his head, and shuddered.
"Not that it matters," Flim added.
"Of course not," Flam agreed.
"I'm perfectly content to sit here for a while longer, brother-of-mine."
Flam nodded. "On... on..." He sneezed.
"On such a beautiful night," Flim agreed.
Twilight horn-pulled a sheet of parchment off the roll and pinned it to her desk with one small black stone at each corner. Just one more, she thought. You can do this.
She looked back over her left shoulder at Pinkie. Pinkie smiled back at her.
She looked back at the empty page, gritted her teeth, and began to write.
Dear Miss Hooffin Mouth,
It is with regret that I must inform you
Something moved in the edge of her vision. The quill snapped in her horngrip. She turned around again.
A bird had flown past the window. Over her shoulder, Pinkie smiled back at her.
She pulled a new quill out of a pile in one of the desk’s cubbyholes, dipped it in the inkwell, then continued:
… that, although ice sculptures are indeed beautiful and a longstanding Crystal Pony tradition,
“Now?” Pinkie asked.
Twilight's nose twitched. The second quill snapped. A hair sprung out sideways from her mane.
“No, Pinkie, not now.”
Twilight pulled another new quill out of the same pile in one of the desk’s cubbyholes, dipped it in the inkwell, then continued:
… they have never worked out at the Summer Sun Celebration,
“Now?” Pinkie trilled.
The third quill trembled, but did not snap. It floated gently to a horizontal position and rested there. Twilight took a deep breath.
“No, Pinkie. Not now.”
She turned back to the paper.
… owing to the summer sun.
Sincerely,
She stopped, and looked back over her shoulder. Pinkie smiled back at her.
Sincerely, Princess Twilight Sparkle
Twilight dropped the quill quickly onto the blotter, as if it were hot.
“NOW?” Pinkie shouted, her muzzle suddenly at Twilight’s ear.
Twilight leaned back and to her right, out of the way. “Yes, Pinkie. Now.” She looked away as a pink blur pounced on the freshly-written letter.
Next time, Twilight thought, I’ll just lick the stamps myself.
Author's Note
