Spike was used to making Twilight breakfast. He'd cooked for her mostly because he understood she had important work, and knew she couldn't take the time to invest into kitchen work—which was why he was surprised to find her in the castle's kitchen that morning. "Uh, Twilight?"
"Good morning Spike! Would you like an omelet? Extra-cheesy!" Twilight was already whisking some eggs in a mixing bowl while a steel pan was heating on the stove. "I've got some of those crushed rubies you like."
All worry and all confusion over Twilight being in the kitchen were lost as Spike's vision narrowed down to the jar of powdered red joy Spike spotted. Completely distracted, he failed to notice Twilight's technique of swirling the egg in the pan quickly, but he did see when she dumped cheese and a generous helping of ruby dust into the middle and rolled the omelet up.
"There we go, Spike, just like we used to have in Canterlot. One Prench omelet!" The advantages of magic over utensils was night and day for a unicorn like Twilight. With the barest whisper of magic she heated the plate and lifted the hot omelet from the pan and onto it. "Now for a cheesy one for me!"
Twilight cooked up a second omelet, adding twice as much cheese as she had in Spike's. Rolling it up, she dropped it on a plate and added a little extra pepper to the top—just how she liked it.
Then she cooked a second, dumped it on a second plate, and headed out to the dining room with both. Floating one of the omelets over to Bored, Twilight attacked her own with a fork and much gusto.
"Thanks!" Bored chirped a little in excitement as he ate—and ate. The love Twilight had for basically everything in life was plenty enough so that one changeling could keep fed metaphysically, though his more chemical hunger drove him to attack the egg and cheese breakfast.
Twilight, shivering in delight at the dual feeling of eating cheese and experiencing a changeling feeding off her, ate her omelet entirely too quickly. "Do you have any plans for today, Bored? I heard Thorax is still interested in you joining the new—"
"Nope. No way, no how. Turning into one of them is not going to happen. Err, so long as you're still okay with me staying here?" Mild concern grew in Bored, as it always did when he asked this question.
Friendship often came with troubles and friction. Friends could cause problems with other friends, friends might ask more than you can give, or friends might have a problem that causes you problems, but Twilight had never had a single issue with Bored for one good reason—the changeling did any task given and never complained.
The odd sensation of his feeding had become so common it was normal to Twilight now. She shrugged her shoulders and used her magic to float a jug of water and some glasses over. "Bored, you are perfectly fine. I don't even think anypony knows you're here half the time—despite you not bothering with a disguise."
"Ponies see what they want to see. Besides, changelings work in the pizza shop." Bored ate a little more of his omelet, savoring the stringy cheese when he resumed eating it.
The day progressed much as most did. Twilight left to teach at the School of Friendship, Spike set about cleaning the castle, and Bored tried his very best to do nothing at all, but he was bad at it. That is, Bored was very bad at being bored. He cleaned. He polished. He even swept.
By the time Twilight Sparkle got home each evening, she would find the castle spotless and clean, with a happy dragon and changeling chatting (usually about comic books). Tonight, however, there was a pony sitting with her mutual non-intimate cohabitors.
"Hi, Twilight!" Lyra Heartstrings said. "I was just talking with the guys here. Did you see that new place open in Ponyville?"
Lyra had been Twilight's dealer since that time at the pizza shop—she had all the Gouda stuff.
"New place?" Twilight asked. "What kind of new place?"
With a pomf sound, Lyra teleported to right beside Twilight and put one foreleg over her shoulder while the other gestured off into the imaginative distance. "Imagine it, Twilight, rich tomato sauces, spicy salsa, soft tortilla, and the most amazing cheeses! Oaxaca, queso, cotija…"
Twilight followed the pointing leg, her mind sinking into the happy place she always went when cheese was on the menu. "Can you teleport me there right now?"
"You know I can't teleport more than myself, Twilight, I—" Lyra got no further.
"Then what are you waiting for? Come on!" Turning, Twilight aimed herself for the front door of the castle (which was down two flights of stairs and around several corners) and teleported through every wall, door, and floor on the way to it. She didn't even notice that Spike had barely secured purchase on her back.
Of course Twilight teleported directly back when she realized neither Lyra nor Bored had followed her. "Come on! Come on! Come on!" This time she did the job properly and teleported all four of them to the front door. "So, uh, where is this place? Also, what are those cheeses you mentioned?"
"Those are the finest Mexicolt white cheeses, and they're called El Queso. I watched them opening up today and figured you'd want to make it a cheese night." Lyra began making her way toward town, aiming vaguely in the direction of said new restaurant.
The whole way Twilight kept prodding Lyra with questions about the food that Lyra deflected with the simple expedient of not having eaten there yet. When they turned the corner and beheld El Queso, however, Twilight finally went silent.
The shop was wide and low—or seeming so. There was no huge roof or sign on top, just a flickering magic light in the window with a yellow sideways D.
"What's that?" Twilight asked, pointing with her foreleg at the D.
"That is a taco. They're filled with refried beans, salsa, and—and they're amazing. Come on!" Lyra charged toward the front door and only stopped once she'd used her magic to open the front doors. "Princess Twilight Sparkle is coming!"
Diners and waitresses alike turned to look with great expectation on their faces. When they saw Twilight step inside, her wings flared out to the sides with the excitement she felt at trying something new and cheesy, they all cheered.
"I'll get you a table right avay!"
Twilight froze for a second and did a double-take at their waitress. "Lotus Bloom? You work here?"
"Oh my yes, Your Highness. The spa is only open during the day, and it's nice to make zome extra bits. Please, follow me." Lotus pranced across the restaurant, showing off her familiarity with Twilight. "Right here we have four seats."
Taking her seat, Twilight immediately grabbed up one of the menus from the table and started looking through it.
"I vould recommend a starter plate of nachos to share," Lotus Blossom said.
Twilight's head snapped around. "Does it have cheese on it?"
"Mmhmm!"
"One each, then. And you don't happen to have any gems to sprinkle on one?" Twilight asked.
"I'll zee what I can do."
Lyra waited for Lotus to leave before leaning across the table. "You normally share nachos, Twilight."
Twilight shook her head and gestured around to the restaurant at large. "Not today! Today is nacho day!"
Lotus Blossom only seemed gone a few moments before she returned with a large tray on her back. The plates she set down before each of the four were loaded with tortilla chips as well as organic spreads of red, green, and the most amazing gooey white cheese—at least, that's how Twilight viewed them.
Barely remembering she had magic, Twilight reached out for cutlery, only to find none. "Uh, don't we get a knife and fork?" As she asked, however, Lyra gave her a demonstration of how to eat nachos.
Not hesitating, Twilight picked up the most sturdy-looking chip and used it to scoop up a healthy portion of salsa, guacamole, and extra cheese. The moment the combination of flavors hit her tongue, Twilight let out a deeply satisfied whinny. "What—is—this?"
"Looks pretty standard—if good—fare, for Mexicolt. Corn tortilla chips, tomato salsa, guacamole, melted cheese." Lyra levitated another chip, examining the ratios of the toppings and popped it in her mouth.
Ponies, on the whole, had extremely efficient metabolisms. So effective, in fact, that it often left them with more energy than they knew what to do with. Fortunately for said ponies, they all had magic. An earth pony could burn off magic with physical labor or just by giving a little kick to the grass and plants around their hooves. A pegasus could afford to be more lazy with their flight—trusting their magic to pick up the slack. Unicorns, however, tended to get hyperactive until they literally burned off energy with their magic.
All this usually meant, however, that a unicorn would become more and more hyperactive with calorie intake—which is why both Lyra and Twilight were almost bouncing in their seats by the time they finished their nachos.
"More!" Lyra and Twilight both said together, then giggled like fillies.
"More nachos? Or would you like zomething else?" Lotus Blossom took Twilight and Lyra's plates away, but left Spike and Bored to theirs—they were only about a third finished. "We have some excellent quesadillas."
Twilight was catapulted back in time. Back to when she was just a filly and her parents had ordered something different for dinner. It had landed on her head—matted her mane so much her mother had to cut it out. To this day she only remembered the name of it vaguely, but this was the thing.
"Are you alright, Twilight?" Lyra asked. "I don't think I've seen something spook you that much since you went hoof-to-hoof with Tirek." She turned to Lotus. "We'll have two each. Followed up with two soft-shell tacos each."
Breaking from her private world of terror, Twilight stared across the table at Lyra. "What are—those things she mentioned?"
Catching on fast was a requirement for ponies who spent more than a few years in Ponyville, and Lyra liked to think she'd learned well enough to catch onto a Twilight-Moment. "They are soft tortillas with cheese and salsa in them. We'll probably get some more guacamole to dunk them in while we eat them."
"W-When I was a filly I had a case of—a quesadilla fall into my mane. I couldn't remember that I remembered, but I remembered when she said the name of it. I guess I blocked it out. Huh. Well, I guess at least it didn't leave me with a lingering fear of cheese for the rest of my life that only ballooned into a massive, constant nightmare." Twilight looked over at Lyra and they shared a little nod. "Those nachos were pretty good."
"Have you ever noticed," Bored said to Spike, "How ponies tend to have these strange and irrational fears that just seem to spring out of nowhere and then, like, are gone a week later?"
"You get used to it. Last week it was ladybugs, of all things." Spike ran his nacho through a thick glob of emerald and jade filled guacamole and scooped it up to his mouth. "Mmmf. Dif plaf if goof!"
Twilight was distracted from rebuking Spike by a plate set before her. It contained two of her foalhood nightmares and two softer looking tortillas with a mix of toppings in them. "Th-Thank you!" Her eyes were fixed on the quesadillas.
Carefully, Twilight Sparkle used her magic to lift her ancient foe up and examine it. Swallowing hard, she turned it so she had its profile and bit into the firm shell. Cheese and tomato exploded across her palate, and Twilight's pupils widened until they practically filled her eye-sockets. "Ohmygoodness!"
Lyra hadn't a hope of keeping up with Twilight, but she could tell her friend was over her fear of all things quesadilla. The first and second were gone in moments, and Lyra could see Twilight looking at her own with hungry eyes. "Swap you a taco for a quesadilla."
The ease with which Lyra made the deal triggered some alarm to ring in Twilight's head. Not since the last time she'd met Flim and Flam had she picked up on so obvious a bad deal. "Let me try a taco first."
Twilight had avoided Taco Tuesday at Canterlot High. It had basically never been the right moment to attend and try them, but she suddenly regretted that. The tacos were rich and spicy, with a different kind of cheese sprinkled into them that made her want to fly into the kitchen and kiss whoever had cooked the delectable dish. "No."
"Eh. It was worth a try," Lyra said and started on her second quesadilla. "How have you been doing, Bored? Leaving your hive must have been a shock. What's life like in the castle?"
"So boring. I got bored of being bored and started helping Spike." Despite his bored-squared state, Bored was living the dream. "But hey, Anything less than a houndred-hour work week is a plus for a changeling. Also, literally a feast."
"Good food?" Lyra asked.
"Food and love. So much of both I have to keep using magic to avoid becoming a fat bug." Proving his point, Bored used his own telekinesis to pick up the last chip of his nachos and chase around the last of the toppings on the plate before crunching it between his sharp fangs.
Twilight was full. Not just full, she was bloated. The fiery salsa still lingered on her tongue while her metabolism buzzed away to convert the stored fats and sugars into rich magic. "It's good having another friend around, and he's a great help. Remember when Chrysalis tried to sneak in posing as a photographer the other day?"
"Remember? I can't wait until I can forget it. I couldn't believe she'd try to sneak in while Twilight and her friends were getting ready for their camping trip." Bored burped, the love of ponies for good food was all around him, and for the first time in days he didn't even have to think about feeding—he absorbed their love by osmosis.
"That alone justifies letting you stay in the castle, Bored. Come on, I'm going to pay and we can head home." Twilight stood up and stretched. She fairly buzzed with magic potential. "Do you want to crash the night, Lyra?"
"Huh? Might be a good idea. Bonny's never keen on my coming home after I've had Mexicolt. Let's just say tomorrow's going to be an interesting experience for all of us." Grabbing a napkin with her magic, Lyra quickly scrawled a note to Sweetie Drops on it and sent it home with her magic.
"Wait. What do you mean by an 'interesting experience'?" Twilight asked, worry starting to fill her.
"You'll see. With how you were putting away all this spicy food—you'll definitely see."
Author's Note
Sorry this one took so long to come out. I just had a bunch of other stuff, and then more stuff, and yet different kinds of stuff that needed doing, and then this got delayed beyond all reason. Well, my patrons voted to give me a day to do something I wanted, so I did this. Enjoy!
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