Something Halloween

"Cute," Anon was saying. "Not bad. I don't think Jobs ever wore a sweater with the Apple logo on the back, but it kinda works."

Twilight twirled around a little to show off her complete costume. She had thought of the thing early enough that she was able to order in all the items. Suri had been more than happy for the business. In any case, the pullover was easy and the logo was just a bit of stitch-work. The jeans were a bit trickier for a pony, but between two smart mares they had somehow pulled it off.

The hardest thing, Twilight had found, were the glasses. She contacted Greg, the guy who had been kind enough to make frames for Silver Spoon, and he had obliged with something really close to what Jobs wore. He even got the circular 'lenses' right! They weren't actual lenses, just a bit of plexiglass, but the illusion was pretty good. Twilight was quite proud of the result.

"Thanks! Now it's your turn!"

Anon didn't argue and went into the bedroom to change. Meanwhile, Twilight carefully removed the glasses and then proceeded to undress. She folded the clothes up and left them on the coffee table for now. While she waited for Anon to come display his Sherlock Holmes costume, the mare picked up her laptop and woke it up. Anon's idea had some merit and she had been running a few analyses on the partial reversal spell. It would take a ton of hoofwork to finish, but she wanted to get started just in case Celestia wasn't able to find another copy of the book.

A general shape of it was starting to form in her mind, but it was far from complete. Still, the progress was encouraging. At least this time she didn't have to run it on a public cloud, so it didn't cost a whole lot. Her ears lowered at the thought; Anon still sometimes chided her about that.

"Hmm..."

She was so engrossed in the work that she didn't hear Anon come in from the bedroom and stop behind the couch. The first she noticed him was when the man leaned on the backrest and put his hands around her withers.

"I still can't make heads or tails of that stuff," he commented.

He hadn't really tried to learn, thinking that a human simply wouldn't be capable of magic. Twilight would have liked to try teaching him, but they were both busy with their lives and the project had kind of taken the back seat. Maybe she should revive it one of these days? It would give them more things to do together, which meant time to spend with one another...

For now, she just pointed out some critical bits with the mouse cursor. "It's basically just a matter of reversing the effects of the original spell. Normally you do that by casting the same spell backwards, but most of this is mind magic and that's a bit more tricky." She switched the display to the original spell she had scanned, so that she didn't have to carry the book around all the time. "See here? This is just a clever mix of other spells. That right there is a modified healing spell to keep my muscles rested, over there is the same thing, except targeting my hormones, and this over here-"

The mare sighed and her ears lowered. "I should have made the effort to understand it before using it. It's some kind of a trick with mind magic to convince my brain I don't need sleep. And then there's this..."

"That looks... different."

Despite the gravity of the situation Twilight felt proud of the Anon for spotting it.

"Good! I think this is because not sleeping means your brain doesn't process and categorize memory, so the spell has to change that processing to happen while you're awake. But at the same time it shouldn't make you dream while you're awake. Until I understand how this part works I can't risk trying to undo it..."

Anon leaned further down and gave her cheek a very pleasant kiss. "Is that why you're using the computers?"

Twilight nodded. "I'm having the algorithms change the spell into different variations - hopefully in another form it'll be easier to figure out."

The kisses continued, along her cheek and down her muzzle. The mare leaned back to give Anon easier access. "Mmm, that's nice..."

"I don't doubt you'll figure it out. Had any more... visions lately?"

There Twilight had some good news. She shook her head. "No. The lady outside hasn't appeared again. We haven't really gone anywhere, so maybe that's helping."

"You can skip the office party if you don't have it worked out. It's not really mandatory for us to be there. I can make an appearance, you know, for morale's sake, but I can tell them you're not feeling well."

It would even be kinda true, but the proposition made Twilight frown. "No, no. I worked too hard on this costume not to go! Besides, I wanna see what Legal is going to do. Darlene said they're doing a theme this year." She looked up at Anon's face, even if it was upside down from her perspective. "I'm going Anon. If there's a vision or two at the party I'll just ignore it. I think I'm only seeing stuff from the past, so I'll know by the clothes."

Something clicked and Twilight gasped. "That's what happened with that guy the other day!"

"Huh? What guy?"

She blushed a little when she remembered she hadn't told Anon anything about that, but in her defense it hadn't seemed all that relevant.

"A few days ago I saw an old-fashioned guy on the street and someone just ran through him! I thought it was some kind of reflection or air lensing or something weird like that, but maybe it was one of these visions!"

"Could be. So this has been happening longer than we thought. Is that important?"

The mare shrugged. "Probably not," she said, "but at least now I have an explanation for that. I spit out my coffee all over the window!"

They both chuckled at that. "Well, what do you think of my costume then?" Anon asked and Twilight remembered why he had gone in the bedroom. She quickly floated the laptop back to the coffee table and twirled around on the couch to get a better look.

Anon walked around to give her a full view, placing the finishing touches - the signature deerstalker hat and the fake calabash tobacco pipe.

The mare took it all in. The pants were unremarkable, just a pair of Anon's normal everyday pants, but the coat was period-appropriate, the hat was spot on and the magnifying glass in his coat pocket was a nice touch. She got a glimpse of that as Anon moved. It was a clever idea not to portray it so blatantly, but make people work to spot it. It went with the whole 'detective' theme.

"Not bad! I like it!"

"Yeah? Anything I missed? Is it accurate, do you think?"

Twilight floated her laptop back and did a quick image search. She compared the results with Anon, ignoring the Cumberbatch ones, of course. Maybe she could talk him to do that next year. She did find that particular actor quite good-looking. Not to mention his accent!

Twilight realized she was smiling more at her imagination than at the actual costume Anon was wearing. Good thing he couldn't tell. She had to think back to remember his question.

"Yeah, looks like you got it all. Nice job!"

"Okay, I'm gonna go take all of this off. You coming to bed?"

She was about to say no, but she changed her mind. The spell will still be waiting for her when Anon was asleep. "Actually, yes. I could use some down time..." Snuggles should never be refused, the mare reminded herself.