The Romance of Invention

“What?” asked Chrome with a stupid look on his face as all sorts of different thoughts raced through his mind. Several of them breaching into the not very appropriate territory either; he shook his head and tried to clear them out while he blushed pink.

“No-nothing like that idiot!” Rainbow yelled at him as a blush welled up into her face as well. “I had been thinking since you came out to dinner with us, and what you had been talking about. The way you described the stars really got to me. I can’t get it out of my head and I was hoping you should show me the way you see the stars with your telescope?” she finally concluded as she looked at him with determination. She shifted her face into a fierce to look tell him via expression to cut out those funny thoughts.

“Well I don’t remember anyone asking me that one before; but it sounds like it would be fun so why not?” He smiled at the though.

“So why did you need the measurements on my head again?” she asked with a worried looking grin on her face as she tried to pry the information out of him even while she was starting to get really curious about it.

“Oh that,” Chrome grinned slightly and a teasing grin appeared on his face. “You’ll just have to wait and see,” he chuckled as he started to lead her inside.

“Just as long as it’s not the crazy mad scientist kind of surprise, maybe I’m here to make sure you don’t actually have a secret lab in my basement huh? Maybe I’m a spy” she said as she snuck ahead of him and peered around the living room curiously with a bright grin on her face. She didn’t find much besides a partially hidden mess behind the couch though and reappeared shortly there afterwards looking disappointed.

“Heh, good luck finding it even if I was; what kind of mad scientist would I be if I left it out in the open for you to find? Anyways come on stop goofing around it’s up to this way. What is it you do by the way Rainbow, we only really talked about me when we were out to dinner. I mean I know you do the weather patrol, but it seemed with the way you’re always zooming around and pulling tricks that’s not what you’re looking to do long term.” He stopped partway up the stairs to wait for her and watched her curiously while he waited for her response.

“I told you when we first met remember? Fastest pegasus alive and future best member of The Wonderbolts!” she exclaimed loudly as she jumped up several stairs at a time then flapped her wings dramatically as she puffed out her chest proudly.

“Oh, that was serious? I thought that was just part of your introductory bravado, the great and wonderful Rainbow Dash and all that.” He grinned as he remembered how grandiose she was acting when they first met.

“Hey now, I didn’t lie about any of that! I won the best young flier competition; I even saved three Wonderbolts’ lives and did a Sonic Rainboom in the process. Done anything like that recently? Didn’t think so, anyways it was completely AWESOME there’s no other pony as fast as me; and I will join the Wonderbolts just you wait.” She dashed up the rest of the stairs and skidded around in front of him with a challenging look on her face. She even crouched down and flexed her wings like she might speed off into the air just to prove it to him.

“Okay okay I believe you just don’t go crashing yourself into any more trees okay? That was pretty tough to get you out you know.” He grinned as he lead her into the observatory and checked everything quickly to make sure everything was still in order, before he moved over towards the telescope and started to fiddle with all the settings.

Rainbow just let out a quiet “hmph!” and flushed red in embarrassment over remembering the incident. For once she couldn’t actually think up an adequate retort.

“Hmm you okay Rainbow?” he turned back with a slight grin “I figured that you would have a snappy response for that.” He chuckled with a teasing grin and used his magic to turn some cranks on the wall. The dome on the roof and the telescope both started to slowly orient themselves towards a completely different section of the sky. The whole while he was doing this he kept glancing down at the console in front of the telescope to refer to the readout of the coordinates he was facing.

“Geez, I thought you were the shy quiet type, I wasn’t ready for all that sarcasm. Don’t make me show you up, you know I can,” said a slightly ruffled looking Rainbow Dash. Chrome actually stopped what he was doing in response and looked back at Rainbow with a slightly worried look on his face.

“Umm did I go too far? I’m sorry I was just joking around, I do tend to tease my friends a bit once I get to know them a little bit more…” Chrome said as his voice trailed off as he reverted to a meeker tone of voice looking genuinely afraid that he might have hurt her feelings with his joke. After a short moment he tilted his head back up towards Rainbow only to see her fighting back a giggle.

“Oh man, you’re just way too easy.” She said then burst into a laugh as she saw his reaction to her act.

“Oh, ha ha if you’re still planning on showing me up though you should probably wait; you know until after I give you your surprise. It might actually help with that a bit.” He grinned slightly knowing she was already really curious about the measurements of her head earlier. He returned to setting up the telescope peeking through it to look for something in particular.

“Argh! What is it already? You’re driving me nuts!” yelled Rainbow as she ruffled her wings impatiently and threw her hooves up into the air with a frustrated look on her face.

“Not much of a surprise if I tell you is it? Besides I haven’t even made it yet, I hope you’ll like it though. Incidentally while we’re on that topic what colors do you like?” He chuckled some more while he adjusted the telescope still apparently trying to find something in particular as he kept pausing between adjustments to look through the eyepiece. He kept peeking back at Rainbow and chuckled quietly at her reactions; he did his best to make a show of taking a long time with the adjustments as well trying to make her even more curious in general.

“You’re driving me crazy Chrome!” She yelled as she put her hooves up on her head and shook it slowly.  “Fine, okay okay I’ll wait but they’re Wonderbolts colors of course! Blue and yellow, I suppose you’re not going to tell me what that’s for either?” she asked with a quiet sigh.

“Nope! You’ll just have to wait, and wonder.” He said with a triumphant grin then continued to chuckle to himself while he fiddled with the telescope having fun poking at Rainbow’s curiosity.

“Ugh, sooo mean,” she complained while trying to put on her best pout as she apparently decided to change tactics. She continued to bristle with impatience “Aren’t you done toying with that thing yet?”

“It’s sensitive equipment you’ll just have to wait,” he grinned and checked it a few more times before he finally stepped back and let her move towards the eyepiece. “Okay take a look.”

Rainbow put her eye up to the telescope curiously then suddenly fell completely silent for a long moment her wings frozen halfway through folding back to her sides.

“Oh my Celestia…” she said finally after a long silence.

“Luna,” corrected Chrome with a quiet snicker.

“What?” Rainbow turned away from the telescope and looked at him like he was talking crazy.

“Luna, you know it’s Luna night; so you should say ‘Oh my Luna’ not Celestia. That’s rather inconsiderate you know. She worked so hard making the night sky the way it is; she even turned into Nightmare Moon because no pony seemed to appreciate it. Now Luna is back and you’re crediting Celestia for the night sky. Pretty cold Rainbow… pretty cold, do you want her to go back to Nightmare Moon? Because you’re just being plain mean, you should give her the respect she deserves.” He said with a grin the entire time trying not to laugh while he went through the tongue and cheek admonishment.

Rainbow just rolled her eyes and looked back into the telescope falling silent again for a long while as she just stared at the night sky through the telescope. She even stayed quiet for much longer than Chrome initially though would have been possible after his first few encounters with her.

“This is amazing Chrome, I can see why you enjoy looking at the stars so much…” she said quietly still clearly in awe of the sights before her. Chrome waited for her to finally back away and then went back to adjusting the telescope as he turned the whole contraption around looking for something else to show her.

“It’s completely different seeing it like this isn’t it? Even compared to other telescopes, it’s just wonderful but I can’t really figure anything out on how to share it. Obviously I can’t invite every pony into my house and show them one at a time, the books Twilight had weren’t really very helpful either. Most of them were just full of basic information that I already knew.” He sighed quietly and stepped back again so Rainbow could look again.

“Mmm,” mumbled Rainbow quietly as she looked through the telescope again with her face awash in wonder. She gazed up at the night sky completely unable to comprehend the difference that she was seeing. Chrome couldn’t help but chuckle quietly at the difference he was seeing in the mare. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting her reaction to be but after seeing her so quiet and contemplative for once he had to admit she was a hell of a lot cuter like this. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw her not showing off, flexing her wings, or even bragging wildly about how awesome she was for once.

Rainbow in the meantime just whispered “Luna…” quietly under her breath as she continued to gaze at the stars and then suddenly stepped back with her head erect and turned back to look at him with an odd like on her face.

“Why don’t you just take a picture?” she asked simply while she watched him curiously trying to gauge his reaction carefully.

“What?” Chrome blinked slowly not quite understanding what she was trying to get at.

“You know with a camera? Click click? Why can’t you just put a camera up to it and take a picture? That way you could should every pony what it is you see… through this.” She gestured over at the telescope with her hoof. “It wouldn’t quite be the same I mean, since you can’t really see them twinkle…” She stopped again and looked through the telescope for another moment unable to contain herself. “But I’ve seen some really awesome pictures before so why not with this?”

Chrome just stood there for a long moment with a look on his face like she had just slapped him across the room. He just continued to stand there and blinked a few times very slowly while the thoughts seemed to slowly filter through his mind. His eyes didn’t even appear to be in focus as Rainbow looked at him closer with a slightly concerned look on her face.

“Chrome? Chrooome? Celestia to Chrome… Helllooooo? Any pony home!?” Rainbow reached out with her hoof and pushed gently on his nose so that he had to stumble and catch himself starting back into the realm of the living.

“Oh, yeah sorry my mind was kind of racing; I can’t believe I never thought of something that simple. How do you keep doing that Rainbow?” He shook his head quickly and tried to clear it of all the crazy ideas that were bouncing around. Finally he just turned back to the telescope and just focused in on trying to find Rainbow something else interesting to look at while he mumbled under his breath about how stupid he was to never think of that.

“So I take it you like the idea then?” she laughed quietly at his reaction and just stood there looking at her hoof impatiently while he kept adjusting the telescope.

“Yeah it’s amazing at how simple it is! You’re brilliant you know that? Obviously it wouldn’t be as simple as you say. I would need to get a custom lens that will fit the viewfinder, and probably even a custom shutter mechanism as well. I would probably have to stay open for quite a long time, and I’d have to play around with just how long and maybe some different film types…” He continued to mumble under his breath about all the different things he could try out in order to take a good picture of the stars even as he stepped away from the telescope again and let Rainbow get a good look at a different star cluster.

Rainbow finally stepped back from the telescope a good while later only to see Chrome still mumbling excitedly to himself. She let out a quiet laugh and just stood there for a moment waiting for him to come out of his inner monologue with surprising patience.

“Look Chrome, I should be going I have to get up and clear out the clouds first thing tomorrow. Thanks for doing this for me it was completely awesome and I had fun. So I’ll leave you alone to ramble on about the photographs okay? It really was fun though we should do it again some other time.” She added while she looked amused at his excitement still.

“Okay Rainbow, thanks for stopping by it was fun.” Chrome finally said after a short pause his mind still covered in a haze as he walked down to the doorway with her and showed her out. After she was gone he stopped in the doorway and just sat down on the step to just stare up at the sky for a long time. He looked out at the stars his mind still racing with ideas for a long while then finally made his way back inside.

“Okay everything else aside, I am definitely finishing that gift for Rainbow first thing in the morning.” He resolved to himself while he climbed the stairs and made his way into bed.