Wanderlust: Equestrian Nights, Part II

"Umm, well..." Water falters for a moment, looking at the hopeful coffee pony. "Just for a bit, because we need to get going..." Soft says, levitating a few cups in front of her.

Steam Twins

The unicorn takes on an exasperated look. "Hmph. Then I'm going to ask you to get off my line. You can wait your turn like everyone else."

"Oh come on, we're helping move the line along!" "Yeah, look I've already got these." Soft sets down two cups of coffee. Meanwhile, Water uses it as a distraction to pull out a few bits, and stash the coffee she made behind her wing, out of sight.

---

Stealth:17+4=21

Steam Twins

The unicorn points towards the door. "Out."

"Alright fine, if you prefer no help at all. Jerk." Water exits the counter, and Soft sighs and puts all the cups back where they were (but leaves the two she made on the counter), and follows her sister out. Once outside, Water walks up to Taffy and whispers "I have your coffee, let's go before anypony gets suspicious."

Crystalite wrote:"Wandering Eye was involved in the defense of Ponyville, along with his new-at-the-time marefriends, and the blue unicorn - Bubbling Spring is his name. Now, I wasn't there at the time, but evidently he was able to pick up a magical scan on one of the attackers, paired it with several observations, and concluded that a collective consciousness existed between the different attackers," Discord continues to explain, taking a sip of mug from a coffee. "Yesterday afternoon Bubbling Spring was able to confirm this through one such member, as well as several other pieces of valuable information about this collective. They call themselves the Herdmind," he says, pausing to take another sip, drinking some of the handle, leaving it somehow floating next to his hand. "Still with me?"

Scorch nods, focusing more on the conversation at hand and less on the mug...

"...Suspicious?" Spring frowns, expecting something far worse than the reality.

Steam Twins

"Why would anypony get suspicious? ...And how did you get it so fast?"

The grey and brown stallion from earlier overhears, and pipes up. "Yeah, how did you get it so quickly!?"

As luck would have it, the pony behind him overhears, and pokes her head around. "Wait, you already got yours?" Glowing Lantern asks, looking rather haggard and surprised.

The pony in front of Taffy turns out to be a purple unicorn, who turns around slowly to look. "If you already have it, why are you in line?"

---

Scorch

"Now, I'll be going over the rest of what we know during the meeting: I'm getting into the parts where I don't know if everyone knows, and I would prefer to wait tell all," he says, stopping to finish his mug, leaving the coffee on the table.

"So. I've told you all the basics. Would you like to return that favor, and tell me about something?"

Scorch

"Excellent. I would like to know more about Wandering Nightmare," he says, picking up the coffee and sipping it out of his claw.

Water looks around, and then tries to give the coffee to Taffy. "Uh... we called ahead. We had this ordered already. Yeah. Just picked it up, and now we can go." Soft's horn is glowing, tugging at Taffy to pull her along. "Besides, one less pony to wait on, right? We'll just be going."

Scorch's expression becomes sullen. Outside of Wandering, he's never really had a discussion about the nightmare. It's mostly been a locked secret between the two. He plays around with his tongue in his mouth before simply replying "What's there to know? It's just some dark magic in Wandering's head, and when we find a way to get rid of it, it'll be gone. Simple."

"Agreed." Bubbling Spring says, helping Soft's magic with his own as he hastens to avoid the potential mob of early morning passive-aggression.

Steam Twins

"... 'Call ahead?'"

The grey and brown stallion gives you a puzzled look. "You can't do that... Can you?"

"You couldn't when I worked there," Glowing Lantern adds helpfully.

By now, the news that somepony already got their coffee has spread down the line, and much murmuring is taking place...

---

Scorch

"Shame," Discord says quietly. "If I had more details I could conceivably help with that... Oh well. I assume that Wandering Eye would want that." He looks across the top of his coffee at you, almost as if waiting for something...

Scorch's head snaps to attention. "Don't joke about this Discord," Scorch replies, "If you've got any ideas, I need to hear about it."

Scorch

"Oh, just any ideas?"  Discord asks playfully. "Shall I tell you about the orbiting slide? Or perhaps the Orchestra of Chaos? I have ideas all the time. If you want ideas relevant to you, I need relevant information to base them off of."

Scorch growls at being played around with. "If you wanted information, wouldn't you be better off asking Wandering? He knows more about his own condition than I do."

Ponies didn't actually riot over morning coffee, did they? "Step 1: Upgrade your business plan. Step 2: Advertise it!" Bubbles says, trying his hardest to sound like an upbeat advertisement and not a dumbfounded bystander to whatever farce these ponies were about to perpetrate. "Starting today, you can drop off your coffee order the night before, and when morning comes around they'll be have it ready in your name!"

Scorch

"Hmmm... Well, I haven't had the opportunity yet, I admit. But perhaps he's awake by now... Shall we go check?"

---

Steam Twins, Bubbling Spring

The various ponies start looking at each other as the murmuring continues. Reserving coffee the previous day? What a splendid idea! Why had nopony thought of this before? We'll have to try it this evening for sure.

"Huh. Well, that was thoughtful of you," Taffy Stretch says appreciatively. "I guess we can head back now, can't we?"

Scorch nods, and leads the way, moving to the room Wandering was staying in, and knocks...

Water, who was gearing up to make a desperate last-ditch effort to placate the other ponies, relaxes as Bubbling calms them down. "Uh, yeah, it's a cool idea they had. Anyway, yeah, let's get going." She says, and Soft quietly leads Taffy away from the line. "Good idea," she says to Bubbling after they've cleared the line. "Yeah, way better than what I was gonna do."

"I'm curious, what was your plan?" Spring asks, still shocked that his had worked at all.

"Tell them that if they're unhappy with their service, they should go complain at the counter." Soft rolls her eyes. "And then if that failed, scream 'Look out, it's Nightmare Moon!' and then run." Soft facehooves.

"That is a...presumptuous plan." Spring's need to further comment is cut off by their return to the inn. Or at least, he hopes as much. There was still a trip up the stairs to work with...

Wandering Eye opens his eyes. He doesn't yawn - he doesn't generally do that, except deliberately - but if ever there were a time to do it, it would be now. He felt... odd. He wondered how well-rested he was. Actually, he wasn't sure of a whole lot. His head pounded a little, and at the same time it also felt rather... empty. And heavy. And weird, like various things were swimming around in it. He wasn't even sure which way was up. He tilted his head to the side. Hmm, well, at least he could tell which way was up. It was a start.

He was in the middle of wondering if his general conked-out state was the result of something Nightmare drank, simple lack of sleep, or a general effect of Nightmare's possession. Actually, all of those fell under the "effects of Nightmare's possession" category, but he liked being specific. He hadn't quite articulated that fact by the time he distinguished the knocking at the door from his own internal sensations. He got up, made his way over to the door, and opened it. His eyes slowly trailed up Scorch's body, utterly unfocused until he looked at Scorch's eyes. "Ah, Scorch, good to see you. What happened last night? What time is it? Why do I get the feeling I said something I wouldn't have said under normal circumstances? I don't feel entirely myself..."