Author's Note
My entry to the Everfree Northwest 2016 Iron Authors competition (Got honorable mention!)
I'm flattered, but...
Twilight Sparkle was many things. She was a princess of Equestria, a representative of an Element of Harmony, and a friend. But before all of that, she was a scholar and a scientist. She reminded herself of this and took a calming breath before grasping the extremely volatile chemical mixture in her magical aura, lifting it up slowly from the table. She had been working for weeks developing this particular formula. Based around the primary reactant in the poison joke flower, the mixture was particularly difficult to both mix and handle, requiring ingredients that were both difficult to obtain, and notoriously unpredictable when mishandled. She levitated the bright blue reagent over to the rest of the bubbling mixture. All she had left to do was slowly pour the elixir into the beaker before her, and hope that her chemical formulas had not failed her. Ever so slowly, she tilted the test tube, inching the mixture closer and closer to the opening. The silence surrounding her was nearly deafening as her heart pounded in her ears.
The door behind her opened not with a click, but with a bang, exploding inwards and smacking the ornate oaken doors against the hard crystal walls of the alicorns laboratory.
“TWILIGHT!”
“Gah!” Twilight shrieked out in surprise, releasing the test tube from her magical grasp and dropping all its contents into the now frothing pink mixture. Twilight’s eyes widened, and her pupils constricted to pinpricks as she resigned herself to whatever fate awaited her on the other side.
*BOOM*
Twilight’s eye was twitching. It was a stress induced tic that she found almost as annoying as her now pearl white coat coloration. Glancing upward, she was glad that at least her mane had been spared from the potion’s antics this time. ‘Small miracles’, she reminded herself. From behind her, she heard giggles that quickly built grew to full on laughter emanating from behind her, the culprit of the disruption revealing herself to be the bubbly pink earth pony, Pinkie Pie. This being the third time this month that she found herself sporting a new coat color, Twilight failed to see the humor that Pinkie did. Grumbling to herself as she roughly shoved the now inert mixture to the side, she turned around to give the fiercest glare she could muster at the pony now rolling around in stitches on the floor.
“Pinkie!” Twilight's shout slowed Pinkie’s laughter, but did nothing to limit her natural enthusiasm for whatever it was Pinkie did. “I was in the middle of a very important experiment! Didn’t Spike tell you not to come in? He was supposed to be guarding the door for me!” The alabaster alicorn continued.
Not minding in the least at her reprimand, Pinkie replied, “Oh, he looked busy with his comic book reading, and I didn’t really want to bother him.” At this, the drake who was supposedly guarding the door peaked his head around the corner to look in the room, before snorting back laughter at the sight of Twilight’s newest makeover and retreating back to the relative safety of his post outside the door.
Twilight took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down slightly. If she could get rid of Pinkie quickly enough, maybe she’d have time to write up the proper requisition forms to resupply her now depleted experiment stock. “What did you need Pinkie.” She leveled, bringing up a hoof to massage the bridge of her nose.
Suddenly remembering that she had actually visited her bookish friend for an actual reason, Pinkie shouted, “Twilight! Oh my gosh, I had the greatest idea ever! Well, maybe not EVER since sliced bread is actually pretty darn cool, but definitely the greatest idea I’ve ever had since I made these!” From out of nowhere she pulled a tray of steaming hot cupcakes, apparently fresh out of the oven. Sparing a sideways glance to a filing cabinet marked ‘Pinkie Pie’s Dimensional Neglect’ in the corner of the room, Twilight decided to ignore her question of where her friend had been hiding the clearly steaming hot tray. “I was baking cupcakes earlier when I had the most wonderfulest of wonderful ideas! I always love baking cupcakes, but it seems like I can never bake enough for everypony! So as I was baking this morning I thought what if I could make my bestest most favoritest cupcakes in the world and just copy them into more cupcakes! It would be like the mirror pool thing but a bajillion times more delicious! So I came over to ask you if you knew any spells or things that can duplicate baked goods! We could make all the cupcakes we’d ever need! They’d be copycat cupcakes! Double deliciousness! Triple treats! Facsimile foodstuffs!”
“Pinkie, I don’t think facsimile is the appropriate term for that context…” Twilight attempted to interject before finding herself cut off as a spotlight appeared out of nowhere, showcasing Pinkie on what appeared to be a box of soap. Once again, Twilight fought back the now increasing urge to take notes on her friends insistence upon breaking the laws of reality.
“Just imagine it Twilight! We could make the perfect batch of cupcakes EVERY SINGLE TIME! Ponies from all across Equestria could share in the love and yumminess that I bake into every single batch, and they wouldn’t even have to wait for them to come out of the oven! Not to mention the increase in profitability inherent in a reduction of both raw ingredient intake costs and most of our overhead relative to Sugarcube Corner’s average throughput. It’ll be…” Pinkie paused.
Twilight waited patiently for her friend to continue. It took her a few seconds to realize she was pausing for dramatic flair, and a few more after that for Pinkie to continue. Twilight took the moment to clear her throat.
“THE FUTURE OF BAKING!” Pinkie shouted, jumping up and spreading her hooves wide while a large smile was plastered on her face, revealing her exuberant enthusiasm for what Pinkie clearly thought was her greatest idea of the past 12 hours.
Twilight blinked once more, before realizing that she had originally been asked a question. One that, fortunately for her, did not require much thought.
“No.” Twilight replied before turning around to collect additional requisition forms, not seeing Pinkie visibly deflate behind her.
“Aww, but why? Can’t you do it? You’re like, the most super magical pony ever!” Pinkie pleaded.
Twilight replied without even turning around, “It’s not that I can’t, Pinkie, it’s that I won’t. That sort of replication could cause a major economic backlash to the baking industry, not to mention the hit that local and regional farms could suffer if I started mass producing baked goods.”
Pinkie Pie huffed, and stomped off, determined not to give up on her idea, but not sure how to convince Twilight of her vision.
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as her eye twitch finally subsided upon hearing the hooffalls leading outside of the lab, and began to idly wonder how she was going to turn her coat back to it’s proper color.
~~~
The doorbell to Carousel Boutique chimed as Twilight Sparkle walked inside her friend’s shop. Lacking the proper products in her own home, she hoped Rarity might be able to help her restore her coat to its previous and proper color.
A melodious voice chimed in from the back, “Just a minute! I’ll be right with you!”
Twilight didn’t have to wait long before the fashionista entered from the back room, chanting her traditional greeting phrase, “Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything is chic, unique, and magnifique!” Twilight wondered if it didn’t count as more of a mantra by this point.
Clearly concerned more with her entrance than seeing who had arrived, Rarity cantered in with her head held high, and her eyes closed in what was clearly an effort to look more elegant. A part of Twilight hated herself for not moving the ball of yarn that Opal had batted into Rarity’s path. It was the same part that she was desperately trying to prevent from laughing out loud when Rarity tripped over the ball and fell muzzle first into the boutique’s floor.
As Twilight helped her friend up, a rose blush blossomed across Rarity’s ivory fur, as the diva apologized for her ‘unladylike behavior’ before finally noticing Twilight.
Rarity stood still, blinking occasionally while processing the sight before her before commenting on her friends situation.
“Honestly, Twilight, I’m flattered, but if I’m honest, white really isn’t your color.” Rarity deadpanned.
Rolling her eyes heavily, Twilight shot back in exasperation, “It was just an experiment gone wrong. Pinkie Pie showed up.” Nodding in understanding, Rarity let Twilight continue. “I think the poison joke extract might be partially responsible, but the normal cure just wasn’t working. Do you have any coat dye?”
“I’m sorry dear, but I’m afraid I don’t. Purple isn’t really a common color for coat dye’s, and I’m afraid I just don’t have any on hand right now.” Rarity sighed. “Perhaps you could try asking Aloe and Lotus at the Ponyville Spa?” She added helpfully.
Before Twilight could respond, the conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud rumble in the distance. Both ponies frantically glanced out the window in the direction of The Castle of Friendship, which appeared to be the source of the commotion. The floor beneath them rumbled and shook as their eyes both widened. Twilight quickly shot out of the boutique, flying as quickly as she could towards her new home.
~~~
Upon arriving at her castle, Twilight was greeted by the sharp chiming of smashing windows, as some sort of substance began spewing out of every window on the first and second floors like a fountain. Upon closer inspection, they appeared to be cupcakes. Twilight grit her teeth as she felt her eye twitch start up once more.
Teleporting to her lab, the alicorn princess heard peals of maddening laughter coming from Pinkie Pie, who was standing atop a platform composed of the spare requisition forms Twilight had printed out earlier. Before her, shooting out cupcakes rapid fire was her custom built magical document replication device. Twilight cringed as she noted the tray of cupcakes that had been forcibly shoved in the intake slot on her machine.
Finally noticing her friend, Pinkie immediately snapped out of her fit of maniacal laughter and trotted over to her stunned friend.
“Oh, hiya Twilight! I know you said you didn’t want to help me with my experiment, but I had an idea for the future, and, well, who would stand in the way of progress, am I right? But I remember you saying no, and something about something else, I wasn’t really paying attention, so I decided to try it on my own! Then I came here to ask you if you could help me with my idea, and I found this neat machine that copies things! So I put a bunch of cupcakes in it and hit all the buttons! It’s really fun!”
Twilight continued to stand there with her jaw hanging open, not understanding how Pinkie had managed to reconfigure the transmogrifiers to process non-parchment based materials. She had just enough presence of mind to lightly tap the stop button on the machine, with just enough force to punch a rather large hole through the entire machine as well as part of the floor below. Twilight chalked that one up to being distracted by her eye twitch.
Before Twilight had the chance to unload a rather bad day’s worth of frustrations upon her blissfully bubbly friend, Twilight felt a surge of magical energy apparate within the room, accompanied by a flash of golden light.
Celestia stood in all her regal glory, surveying the icing and cake smattered room, before addressing Twilight.
“Twilight, that machine you built me? I believe it may have some...issues. It’s not that I don’t like cake, but I don’t think cupcakes are the most appropriate use of taxpayer bits. And while I appreciate you taking an interest in the economic health of Equestria, Princesses are not immune to the anti-monopoly decrees of...” Celestia trailed off when she caught sight of the new coloration of the youngest princess standing before her. After a few seconds, Celestia closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose.
“Twilight, I’m flattered but frankly, white isn’t your color.”
