An accidental meeting (Andifferous, TheQueenOfMars)

[TheQueenOfMars]

"Well, how did you move it? did you set it down in a certain way? did it bounce in the containers?" Ember would turn her head quizzically as she tried to think of any and all ways the reaction could have been set off. She was only momentarily interrupted when an eagle decided to perch on the shower curtain, emitting a shrill cry. "Oh!! what are you doing in here!?! Shoo! Shoo!!" Frowning, the unicorn would aim her horn at the bird as a burnt orange aura surrounded it, In a matter of seconds, the bird would poof someplace else and the bathroom would be fixed as if nothing had happened. "There! Much better!"

[Andifferous]

Dusty tried to think about how he moved things. pointing to a few of the pieces. "Well I moved these out first, then these...." he tried to walk through how he had moved the various components, though it was clear he wasn't entirely sure.

"I don't know if any of that helps with this or not." He said. He watched as she put put the pieces of the roof and ceiling back together. It didn't look like a perfect repair job, but then he didn't know how the magic worked. "So um... what now?"

[TheQueenOfMars]

"Holy mother of Celestia, that's it!" Ember would smile widely, once again hugging the pegasus with glee. "I had them placed in such a way that any fumes wouldn't react with one another, but when you moved them, they could actually react properly! Thank you so much! Now i know what to do for my next show!" The mare would trot around the pegasus happily before she stopped, remembering about the food she had made. "Oh, right! Dinner!"

[Andifferous]

Dusty nodded, only sort of following along with what she was saying. "Well alright then." He said, smiling a little, an 'I-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about" smile on his face. At the mention of food though, he nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we barely started eating." He chuckled, before heading back downstairs, This mare was certainly an odd pony, but hardly unpleasant. He was considering taking her up on her offer of a place to stay for the night, provided nothing else exploded...

[TheQueenOfMars]

As the two made their way downstairs, Razzle would greet them, staring with her head tilted as if to ask what in the world had gone on up there. However, with a gentle pet, the husky would go back to her normal husky business. Sitting down on the couch, Ember would pat the cushion next to her, hoping Dusty wasn't too shaken up to come and sit besides her. "So, tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living if I might ask" Ember would smile softly, trying to think of some way to move the topic along from random explosions.

[Andifferous]

The pegasus went to go grab his dinner first before joining her on the couch, keeping a bit of distance, but not enough to be rude. "Well..." he said between bites. "I um, really just do freelance whatever." He blushed a little. "Mostly courier stuff, or as a cross country guide... that sort of thing." he said with a shrug. "Not really too much else to say about myself though."

[TheQueenOfMars]

"You get to travel Equestria? Oh, you lucky stallion you." Ember would smile warmly, taking a bit of her food before following it with her drink. "I've dreamed of traveling all over Equestria doing firework shows," She would pause, looking down at the floor before giving a soft chuckle. "However I haven't gotten quite that good to travel far, so I stick to my shop not too far from here. It helps keep me occupied, and well, the colts and fillies seem to enjoy what I make..."

[Andifferous]

Dusty chuckled and blushed a little bit. "Yeah, I do like being able to travel around." he said with a nod. "I mean, doing it for money means it isn't really as fun as it sounds, but it is really great seeing all these wildly different places." he smiled, a bit. "It sounds like you seem to enjoy doing all of this here though, that's good, right?" he said. "Maybe you'll develop it enough to be able to travel with your shows to further places?"

[TheQueenOfMars]

"Heh, yeah...I have a few regular customers, but....I'm still not as good as some of the other ponies who run shows all over Equestria. At least they don't accidentally injure others. Who knows. Maybe one day, but I'm not really counting on it anytime soon." Ember would give a shrug, finishing up her dinner before she put things away in the kitchen. "Oh, feel free to use the room upstairs. I'm gonna try and tweak that experiment outside for a while. Make yourself at home, my place is yours pretty much." giving a soft smile, ember would head upstairs, grabbing various components and making her way outside to the bit of yard she had. Most of the grass was fresh as it had been previously charred due to constant explosions.

[Andifferous]

Dusty nodded. He sat out there to watch her for a bit, before realizing that she wasn't doing anything he really understood. At least nothing was exploding unexpectedly.

"I think I'm going to pack it in." he said, "I'm still a touch loopy from earlier and all that." He said giving her a smile and just a bit of a blush. Heading upstairs he was pleased to see that although the room was a bit of a mess with more scattered notes and bits of firework, the guest bed was still plenty useable. Without ceremony the pegasus flopped into the bed, asleep before he even hit the pillow.

[TheQueenOfMars]

The next morning would come unexpectedly however, with the sound of nearby explosions going off in rapid succession. Ember was still wide awake, having shrugged of sleeping to perfect the once failed experiment, the fruits of her labor now going off all around the house. "Dusty!!! DUSTY!!!! IT WORKED!!!!" If the explosions wouldn't have woken the pegasus up, the unicorn loudly cheering in his face surely would. Her eyes were wide, although twitching slightly from a lack of sleep as a wide grin was now plastered on her face along with a soft blush.

[Andifferous]

Dusty nearly fell out of bed from the surprise explosions going off all around the house. Ember's sudden, excited, and sleep deprived shouting right in his face finished the job, and the grey pegasus tumbled clumsily out of the bed. "Ack... what worked-oh the fireworks.... that's good." he said, trying to wake up as he lay there on the floor. With a grunt he pulled himself back to his feet and stretched, feeling his wings and back pop satisfyingly. "Ugh... did.... did you sleep at all last night?" he asked her, seeing her twitching, slightly bloodshot eyes.

[TheQueenOfMars]

"Huh? It's morning? Oh, guess I didn't...but who cares? The fireworks worked!" Ember would give a soft chuckle, practically collapsing onto her bed as she contently listened to the sounds of her creations going off around the house, the pale colours just barely noticeable in the morning sun. "I really owe it to you, Dusty....thanks a lot...I'm glad i met you. Oh, and how did you sleep by the way?" The unicorn would sit up, chuckling gently as she stared at the display outside her bedroom window. The lack of sleep was playing havoc with her mind, but she would push through, in an effort to not make things with Dusty any more awkward than they already had been.

[Andifferous]

"Well... You're welcome I suppose." he said, giving a bit of a smile. With a grunt he started going through his usual morning stretches, loosening up. He looked over to Ember, seeing her expression, and her thrill at the show outside. "I slept pretty well, thanks. I haven't had a decent bed in a while." Seeing how the tiredness was playing with her head he frowned a little. She's gonna fall over any minute now... he thought to himself.

[TheQueenOfMars]

Besides the display booming outside, silence would fill the room where the two ponies were. It would seem as if Ember had become lost in the show outside, but soon after the period of silence, a soft thud was heard as the medium-grey unicorn would flop over from exhaustion, lack of sleep and one heck of a caffeine crash, landing face first on the wood floor, with her hind quarters still somehow resting on the bed. A dreaming smile spread across the mare's face as she was already down for the count mid-fall. A wind-up clock on the bedside table would read that it was quarter to nine. Most ponies and creatures would be waking up this hour, and Ember would usually be one of them. During the excitement of her success last night, she had completely forgotten about opening shop today. The key-ring would lay beside the clock, untouched since yesterday afternoon when she closed.

[Andifferous]

Dusty watched in surprise as she indeed did fall over. Carefully he picked her up and pushed her properly into the bed before glancing outside. The show was slowly coming to a stop, the last few dull thuds going off before there was nothing but smoke and a few showers of sparks.

"Its a wonder this place is still standing." he said to nopony in particular. Still he felt a bit bad for her, thinking maybe he could help her out. Picking up the ring of keys, he trotted down stairs, wandering about her little shop for a bit, trying to familiarize himself with where things were. Then taking a deep breath and uttering a quiet prayer to Celestia for all of this to not go horribly wrong, he unlocked the front door to the little shop.

[TheQueenOfMars]

Much like the rest of Ember's house, the shop she kept downstairs was in a mild state of disarray, except with order forms flung about and displays of multiple different fireworks set up all around. Luckily for Dusty, Razzle would join him, barking at a piece of paper which had fallen on the ground. Upon being picked up it would appear to be a makeshift pricing guide for different items in the shop, hastily scribbled down with changes to the prices of some items made numerous times. Ember had called her shop delightful chaos, and chaos it was.

After a period of pure nothingness, the bell to the shop door would jingle as a family of earth ponies stepped in - A father, mother and a young colt whose eyes showed that same level of frightening excitement that Embers did at the sight of fireworks. Immediately the young colt would dash up to the counter, a wide smile on his face. [colour=#0000ff]"Oh man, oh man, there's so much stuff here!!! More than last time and.....waitasecond...you're not that pretty mare..." [/colour][colour=#4b0082]"Honey be nice..."[/colour] A soft chuckle came from the mother's lips as she stepped up to the counter, giving a nod. [colour=#4b0082]"Is Ember not here? It's my son's birthday and she had said that she would put together something special for him."[/colour]

Luckily, Ember had already completed said surprise, and had it shoved under the counter, wrapped up in fanciful wrapping complete with a bow. One might guess that this was for the young colt as it was 1) the only non-stock item in the shop and 2) the only birthday-related item.

[Andifferous]

Dusty gave his best smile to the family as the entered, nodding a polite greeting back to the parents. He tried his best to not worry about the colt dashing around the store like a maniac.

"Ember is a bit um, indisposed right now." he said to the mother. "She was up all night working on something, I'm just helping her out while she's sleeping it off." He looked over the paperwork, then around the counter before spying the package. "Ah this must be it!" he said smiling a little as he picked up the package and placed it on the counter. "Okay then. that will be um..." He looked over the paper, before naming the price Ember had written down, wincing a bit as he heard a crash from somewhere in the store as the colt had tried to climb one of the displays.

[TheQueenOfMars]

[colour=#4b0082]"Indisposed? But she had promised my son a demonstration if I remember correctly an- YOU GET DOWN FROM THERE THAT INSTANT MISTER OR WE WILL TURN AROUND WITHOUT YOUR PRESENT!!!" [/colour]The mare would give an embarassed smile to Dusty as she resumed what she had been saying. [colour=#4b0082]"Yes, she said she'd give a demonstration..is there a chance you could?"[/colour]

Meanwhile, the father was occupied trying to corral his son in as Razzle attempted to help. After a bit of time, the stallion was successful as the young colt would reluctantly plop down in the middle of the shop, still eager to get his birthday surprise.

[Andifferous]

"A-heh... Um, I could try." Dusty said hesitantly, a blush rising across his muzzle. Hastily he looked around, to see if Ember had left herself any sort of notes for this occasion. "I'm sorry she's not currently available... she had some sort of a breakthrough idea and spent most of the night developing it." he explained. "So now she's kind of sleeping off a night of hard work."

[TheQueenOfMars]

Unfortunately all that could be found besides the pricing guide was a large lighter and a hastily scribbled set of 'directions' reading:

[colour=#800000]STEP ONE: LIGHT THAT BAD BOY!

STEP TWO: RUN FOR COVER!

STEP THREE: AWESOMENESS. Possibly profit afterwards. = D[/colour]

Razzle on the other hand would look up at Dusty, tilting her head as if she expected sparks to magically appear from thin air. This was probably the case with Ember as she was a pyrotechnician as well as probable pyromaniac. Most of her customers that became regulars didn't pay much mind to the unicorn's quirks. As long as nobody was injured, they found her quite pleasant. A few moments of silence would pass as Razzle gave a slight bark and the young colt would look up at Dusty with that look of "i want something to blow up now" plastered over his face.

[Andifferous]

Dusty groaned a little at the note. "Well... alright lets see matches, matches..." he muttered, looking about for some matches to light the things with. He wasn't even sure if she used them at all, what with her magic. Finally he found a dusty forgotten old box of them under the counter. 'Alright, how about we go out to the...demonstration area." he said, leading the way outside. please let there be a demonstration area... He thought, before spotting the spot where she had been experimenting the night before. Close enough. Ok lets hope this goes alright...

He waited for the colt to pick out the one he wanted to see go off, before lighting it with one of the old matches and running to find cover.

[TheQueenOfMars]

As soon as it was lit, the fuse would begin burning down quickly, giving the family and Dusty just enough time to head for cover. Quickly, the fuse would burn down and down to nothing as the flame would soon disappear into the canister of the rocket. For a few seconds there was nothing but silence. It seemed as if the rocket had been one gigantic dud. Seeing this, the colt would frown and grumble about how this was the 'worst birthday ever'. Both mum and dad would frown as they looked at Dusty, trying to figure out what went wrong.

"Well, you're not using your magic, for one, you dork." Ember's voice would ring clear as day, albeit a bit quiet from still being tired. "These are special fireworks after all. They're meant to be used together....." Stepping forward, the mare would gather the lone rocket, placing it back with the bunch as she ushered everyone back to their safe spots. "Now, watch a pro do it." Grinning a tired, yet determined grin, the unicorn's horn would soon be surrounded by her signature burnt-orange aura as a quick zap would fly towards the bundle. As it did, Ember would take cover besides Dusty, watching in anticipation.

Like before there'd be a bit of a delay, but soon enough, the array of rockets would shoot high into the air, bursting and booming all over, lighting up the sky and even displaying a special "happy birthday" message to the young colt, whose eyes were seconds away from leaping off of his face.

[Andifferous]

Dusty watched the firework do... all of nothing. "Well... um..." Then came Ember's voice, calling to them. Oh-thank-Celestia! he thought, his relief palpable. He stood back and let her handle it, although something was nagging him.

"You sold fireworks that were magically activated to a family of earth ponies?" He whispered to her as the display went off. "Not that I'm criticizing or anything... just trying to figure out your motivation."

[TheQueenOfMars]

"Sold them? Theses weren't for sale! These are a gift, you dolt! Why do you think it was wrapped up in wrapping paper?" Ember would raise a brow, whispering back as she tried to contain her laughter. the sound of nearby explosions music to her ear as was the squeals of joy from the young colt as he would trot in circles excitedly. Smiling widely, the unicorn would watch as the show came to an end, proud to put a smile on someone's face once again.

Immediately afterwards, the young colt would give Ember a tight hug as the parents made their way into the shop to pick out some fireworks for back at home use. [colour=#000080]"Holy cow that was amazing!! You gotta teach me how to do that too!!! C'mon I won't tell my mum if you won't!!!"[/colour] [colour=#4b0082]"Don't try it honey, or you're grounded for a month!"[/colour] Hearing the mother call out would cause ember to chuckle as she rubbed the colt's mane gently. "Tell you what, feel free to hang around the shop sometimes. I can always use the company." She'd blush softly, glancing at Dusty as the three made their way inside.

Later that night it was time to close up shop once again as ember would be humming to herself, putting things away as best she could, making the already present mess a slighty more organized one. "Thanks for watching the shop for me, Dusty.....I still can't believe they bought him all those firecrackers....."