The weekend began like any other in Ponyville; the locals were enjoying timeless fun with their multitudes of friends, taking part in the festivities that town tended to crank up on the weekends.
As for the Mane Six, Rainbow Dash was sleeping in as she did every weekend, Fluttershy was busy in early morning tending to the waking critters, Rarity was enjoying a relaxing morning bath, Applejack was harvesting apples, and Pinkie Pie had started babysitting the baby Cakes on Friday evening, because of their parents going on a three day trip.
Twilight, on the other hand, wasn't consumed in her normal weekend activity of almost-endless book reading. Instead, she was experimenting in what many of her friends knew as something she shouldn't have been doing on her spare time: attempting to bake a cake.
Normally, the bookish unicorn would have left the duty of baking a desert up to Pinkie Pie, as a commission, or at least she would have handed the task of baking to Spike. These choices proved to be out of the question though, because for once in her life,
"Spike, I highly recommend you take note, because today," Twilight looked down upon the various cooking items set out on the kitchen counter, and she smirked in over-confidence, "I am going to learn how to bake a cake!"
"Let's see how this turns out," Spike remarked. This made Twilight turn her ambitious behavior towards her priorities, and she upturned her muzzle.
"Oh, so you don't think I can bake a cake?" she jousted. "Look right here," she said, and levitated a grey book in front of the dragon's eyes, Spike taking hold of it.
The tome itself was a seemingly ancient cook book, as it was falling apart at its spine and old Equestrian script dotted the pages. The hard cover read 'The Equestrian Cook Book: Two Thousand Recipes for Your Taste'.
"Did you find this in an ancient temple?" Spike asked, only to have his remark met with Twilight's frowning face.
"Spike," Twilight said, trotting from one side of the kitchen to another to browse a storage cabinet, "this cook book is a classic, it dynamically describes even the most dangerous of recipes, from daffodil doughnuts to delicious delectables decorated with delightful designs."
Spike blinked, "Wow Twilight, I guess you're really up for the whole cooking thing," he said, while handing the large grey book back to the passing unicorn's magical grip, which she placed the book on the counter top.
"Yes, Spike, I am," Twilight said. "Thank you for noticing. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to begin this chore!"
Twilight placed a single fore hoof upon an open page of the cook book, and eyed the ingredients around her with such critical inspection as a real baker. "Okay now... first I need flower," she took note under her breath.
Her assistant was already leaving the kitchen, waltzing back towards the library's main floor. "Just don't burn down the kitchen like you did the last time you tried to cook breakfast," Spike poked while remembering how the sizzling wheat bacon Twilight attempted to cook a month ago had almost entirely destroyed the library's kitchen, had it not been for his own presence in the unicorn's mishap.
Twilight wasn't listening to whatever Spike had to say; she was practically shut out from the rest of the world, all focus on the cook book at hoof, and the mission of baking a cake to be done.
The kitchen was a mess. Puffs of white flour coated the counter top, butter was smeared across the walls in what seemed to be some impossible feat, and the eggs had been entirely crushed in an attempt of cracking all of them in half at once, to speed up the baking process.
If there was one thing Twilight had learned that day, it was that the cake blender was undoubtedly the most heinous and vile of all cooking tools, its arts of use only to be left to the most gifted of bakers.
Spike had entered the kitchen a couple of times just to keep an eye on the cooking unicorn, but did not have any words to directly share with her. All he hoped, actually, was that Twilight would finally give up her ambition in cooking, or else a whole library could be burned to the ground.
But Twilight wouldn't give up. She had already dedicated too much time this morning to an attempt at baking, which proved to bear fruitless results. A large amount of reading time had been wasted, and Twilight's humility was on the brink of surfacing.
Then again, Spike was right. The unicorn couldn't cook if the fate of all Equestria depended on it.
And then again, Twilight had an idea. A sparkle boomed from her horn, an act that resembled a light bulb clicking on. She looked back at Spike, who had now been taking a nap on the library floor.
Step One: Check.
"Now if only I could remember that spell," Twilight whispered to herself, careful not to wake her doubtful assistant. Twilight, in particular, was attempting to remember an old spell that Princess Celestia taught her, a spell that enabled a unicorn to almost instantly bake a simple cake.
Technically, Twilight was going to bake a cake. The fact that magic would be involved was just the little details.
Mustering up all of the spells relating to baking, Twilight took a step back from the mess of a cake-filled disaster. Her horn began to spark to life and a lavender aurora materialized around it.
The unicorn gritted her teeth as she directed her spell cast towards an empty cake plate, one that was supposed to be for her original pastry. The large circular plate began to glow in accordance to her horn, and fairly large bundles of magical energy began to flow towards the plate.
A spherical embryo of magic enveloped the plate, and it began to grow. Twilight, while gritting her teeth, grinned at her upcoming accomplishment.
Three hours had passed since the beginning of Twilight's endeavors, and it was now noon. Spike turned onto his side, his sleeping body struggling to stay comfortably on the hard library floor. The dragon had actually taken a nap in the first place because of the sleep that he lacked, that being that his usual routine of sleeping in on a Saturday morning being disrupted.
And then a large "boom" echoed from within the kitchen, jolting Spike awake with caution.
"Huh? Who's there!" the dragon cried, holding a teddy ursa in his claws as it resembled a jabbing weapon. Spike yawned after seeing that no one except for Twilight had been active in the library, "Oh, Twilight. Did you blow up the kitchen again?"
A snicker could be heard from the kitchen area, soon before a lavender unicorn emerged onto the library floor.
"I guess I'll take that as a no."
"I did it, Spike. Looks like I'm better at something more than intellectual tasks!" she boasted, "And you said I couldn't cook if all of Equestria depended on it!"
"I never said that," Spike pointed out, and stretched on his feet, semi-eager to take a gander at the product of what Twilight was referring to as the cake. That is until a terrible stench finally made its way unto the dragon.
"Eck, are you sure you didn't just explode a cake?"
Twilight frowned, "Oh, that's just... the smoke from the oven," she claimed, putting on a wide smile.
"Uh huh," Spike tilted his head so he could get a better view into the kitchen that continuously produced light grey fumes into the air. "Well can I see it?"
"Of course you can," a happy Twilight sang. "Just don't be too much o
