142 Questions (Izzy)

[Hippo]

Izzy was busy licking her own face of residual pizza toppings and sauces when she noticed Sunny's immediate ask of what they were going to do next. In front of Izzy was the rest of her pineapple pizza. She would never know much about her appetite compared to other ponies, but she generally could put away a lot more food than earth ponies did, probably. And so for now, she was not yet finished indulging. For the life of her, she could not understand why Sunny seemed to want to go someplace else, unless of course it was because she was not as entertained by the food as she was.

 

Somewhere along the shifting of conversation, Izzy had pulled out of her memory bank the things she was asked that were only heard and understood by her subconscious in the seconds after Sunny asked where she wanted to go next. Izzy continued on that topic as if nothing had changed and time was an illusion. "Well, the art of tree-carving is something I developed over the years. The home I moved into used to be occupied by an old unicorn that had passed. She was creative like me, and taught me how to create things from nothing, and then later, she let me stay there for overnight and before I knew it, I was the only one living there. I do miss Ol' Miss Oaklee." Izzy looked up at Sunny and gave a humorous perplexed facial reaction. "You think unicorns just jigsaw their ways through trees? I only know how to cut down a tree with a magicless horn because I've learned the technique of tree weak spots. If I just used my horn to try and brute force a tree down, I'm sure my horn would be chipped and broken by now. Something like tree cutting requires the skill of a unicorn that has plenty of grace and finesse." Izzy levitated another pizza slice and the tore into it with her mouth, jerking side to side like a savage animal.

[SteelEagle]

Sunny hadn't heard much about this Miss Oaklee before but she seemed like a good mare. How could she not be, if she helped make sure that Izzy remained as great as she was? Sunny also wondered how her parents reacted to the events. How did they react when Izzy found her note from when they were fillies? She was lucky it reached her. Anypony else and it may not have worked, as fate had it. Sunny would never quit, but the repeated blows she had suffered had certainly sullied the dream enough that she didn't know how much longer it was worth trying in Maretime Bay. As importantly, tree carving.

 

This was interesting. Sunny was guilty of assuming that a unicorn's horn was simply sharp enough to pierce a tree, but she guessed that was silly. Otherwise they wouldn't really have much of a forest left. It did speak to something that other ponies hadn't really given Izzy credit for- her smarts. A lot of ponies looked at her as silly but a little dim, but it wasn't true- even as she showed her unicorn grace as she tore through her pizza. She was a smart mare. She knew a lot more than ponies gave her credit for- and her creativity was off the charts. You had to be smart to have that going for you. For now, she would just ignore the fact that Izzy bullrushed the topic.

 

"Does tree carving hurt at all when you're doing it right?" Sunny asked as she leaned back in her chair, nearly tipping over as she balanced on two of it's legs. "I would think it still does. Can you do it multiple times in a row or do you have be selective due to damage?" She pondered out loud before turning back to the real topic at hoof. "Miss Oaklee...she sounds like a great mare. You learned unicycling from her? Or did she help you improve it?" She asked, hoping to give her friend the time and space needed to reflect on a mare who had meant so much to her.

[Hippo]

Izzy stared at Sunny a moment. It seemed as though she was thinking about something, but after a while it wasn't obvious that Izzy was doing anything in particular that represented a typical response to the questions she was asked. But before Sunny would check in on her friend, Izzy snap back. "You know, it's only been a short time that I have been able to use my unicorn magic, and it already seems extremely old-timey to talk about the days of cutting down a tree with my horn. I honestly can't remember how much it hurt, but I can promise you this, it doesn't hurt at all now!"

 

Izzy took the last bite of her pizza and chewed and bopped her head around, and then swallowed. "She taught me to unicycle, sure! And I also showed her how to unicycle. Or... wait, was it the other way around. I think I saw her unicycling, and decided to unicycle myself, and she asked me how I was unicycling, and so I showed her, and then later she would show me the unicycled stuff she made..." Izzy stumped herself. "You know I don't actually remember when the first unicycle happened. It's like the idea of unicycling itself was unicycled." She giggled.

 

"Welp, I'm done. Is there somewhere else you wanted to go?" Izzy drank her water drink that was given to her and finished it.

[SteelEagle]

Sunny wasn't as sold on the idea that the whole horn-chopping a tree down like a jackhammer experience was as thoroughly passé as Izzy was suggesting with her response, but she didn't press it. Clearly the art of horn-carving and horn-chopping and other horn-as-tools moments in Bridlewood would need a further examination, because as excitable and amazing as Izzy Moonbow was, a pony's neck was still their neck and Sunny was convinced that if she tied that she'd end up in the hospital for a while. Izzy seemed to want to move on from it though, so she'd simply note the answer and allow for it. "Noted! One question more for the book," Sunny said with a smile as she set the chair down.

 

She then took her food mess to the trash along with Izzy's, and in short order the satisfied mares exited the pizza parlor without a primary goal in mind. As they did, Sunny thought about the unicycling-ception that was in play. "So if you uniclyed before her or she did it before you, were you the teacher or the student? If you unicycle a unicycle, is it in an infinitely repeating loop of unicycling? Or is time itself a construct of pony perception? Is unicycling even real...woah..." She paused. "Oaklee sounds really fun. It also explains why you live so far away from the rest of the unicorns in Bridlewood, too, which leads me to our next stop...Bridlewood! I want to spend some time there with you, to get a feel for the place."

[Hippo]

 

Izzy gasped, her looking around Maretime Bay with amusement interrupted by Sunny's suggestion on where she thinks that they should go next. "We should!" Izzy blankly stares at Sunny and then reconfigures an added response. "Like, right now?" Even Izzy wasn't sure if Sunny was implying the immediacy of her suggestion. There were a lot of things going on, and it seemed like there were several tasks that had priority, like cleaning up the city, making sure all the Canterlogic materials were thrown out, and other little things that could be important to a pony like Sunny, like for instance rebuilding the place where she lives. On the other hoof, Izzy admired Sunny's spontenaity, and she figured even with magic back to unicorn horns, the orange earth pony would still be willing to go on more adventures that the average Bridlewood citizen.

[SteelEagle]

Sunny nodded. She didn't feel particularly in need at the moment in town. Years and years of trying to push the ponies of this town to do the right thing had worked, and she wanted to revel in the spring and warmth of her new friendships. The Canterlogic materials and clean-up were their own responsibility, and the town's efficient public sanitation department (probably the only such department anypony considered efficient, sorry Hitch) would handle it. The same could be held for much of the city proper as well. If there was one thing that this city was highly effective at doing, it was cleaning up the messes it had made while panicking for no reason.

 

The only real new development was her home. The light house had suffered tremendous damage when Sprout had run his stupid robot into it. It was very, very, very dangerous to be around now. Thanks to the news of what happened spreading like wildfire however, more than a few construction companies had offered to help repair the place with funds generously donated by a group of ponies led by Sugar Moonlight. And once that was done, she had very big plans for that lighthouse- something a bit more crystally and brighter than before!

"Oh, I think we should do it right now. Like right now right now!"

[Hippo]

Izzy wasn't used to other taking the path of least resistance. Typically she had to encourage others to keep up with her spontaneity. "Alright, let's go right now!" She started walking towards the outskirts of town. "So what kinds of things are you wanting to learn about Bridlewood?"

[SteelEagle]

Sunny had to bury an excited neigh that tried to escape her as they made their way to the outskirts of town. She liked to plan things. Big planner- always trying to make a big impact with moves made to the largest number of ponies. But, well, she wasn't very good at it. It turned out that when she just followed her gut and flew by her fetlocks that she was much more successful, and she had all the evidence in the world of that staring at her with her bright, big, beautiful purple eyes. "I just have so many questions! How is it powered, how is it run, the traditions- I'm just so excited to learn all about a new city. It's just so-" she stopped in place and quickly tapped her hooves, "eeee, so exciting!"

[Hippo]

Sunny said the magic word. And as soon as she said it, Izzy's mind began racing of the things that could be related to it. She gasped before saying, "Traditions!? Oh we got lot's of those! Which one would you like to do? We got swimming in Bridlewood Lake during the first day of Spring, the biannual hill hike, old timey film festival, the treetop restaurant hop, the forest edge camping competition, the wooden tool make-off, the bright moon log toss, exotic berry-picking, pancake day, tea day, pie day, soda day, monthly book club, weekly book club, daily book club, hourly book club, staring at your neighbors dog, flower-picking, abstract gift-giving, balloon championships, the annual magic show, although that one might be discontinued, willow-counting, crystal shining, stone-rolling, leaf collecting, junk trading, trade junking, sculpture-hiding, the annual jinxy council, jinxy word dares, bush parades...

 

 

...cave-diving, art sharing, poetry night on Thursdays, upside-down tea parties, Wishiehoof, and the Ultimate Challenge at the Crystal Tea Room, oh but you know all about that one, don't you, heh." All of Izzy's listing was long enough to cover the time it took to walk to Bridlewood, as the two found themselves at the foot of the forest. Although this time, the signage that discouraged earth ponies and pegasi from entering had been taken down.

[SteelEagle]

Sunny's mind was not ready. She was simply a normal mare in a normal pony village. Her mind was bright and optimistic but it could never compete with the information overload that she was being showered with. Her mind burst wit names, flooded with ideas, crushed under the unrelenting weight of Bridlewood history. What was once Sunny Starscout was now a slave to the mountains of traditions that the unicorns of Bridlewood had and she was now being given the very gift of knowing. Woe betide any who tried to learn too much too quickly from the Moonbow, lest her positivity and love of Bridlewood send you gasping for air!

 

It was easy to get lost in the words, so much so that they were in Bridlewood by the time Izzy was done listing the traditions. She didn't know what to really say or what to start off with, but as she saw the sun was now almost entirely set she figured some traditions would be easier than others. "Izzy, how do you remember all of that? I nearly broke my hoof writing it down at first," she said as she looked back at her saddlebag, with her notebook having been left without listing everything Izzy had said. "What are some of your favorite night-time unicorn traditions?"

[Hippo]

Izzy was cheerfully bewildered by Sunny's inability to understand basic memory. "I remember it like I remember anything else. Like how you remember all those pony stories from long ago." Sunny seemed desperate to move onto a single thing instead of a platter of ideas, and Izzy could understand. "Night time tradition? Hm. Well, most unicorns do this thing in their homes at night where they lay down in bed and fall asleep." Izzy stares. "...but we also have custom ponycorn snack-making. Usually for sleepovers, but unicorns sometimes do it often even alone! And since I know we're both famished from walking all the way here, we might as well eat something." Izzy trotted into the forest towards her home, La Villa Izzy.

[SteelEagle]

Sunny supposed that was fair enough. She could rattle off stories from ancient Equestria to the extent that more than one time she had been left the last pony standing awake at the Brighthouse while recounting them. She would defend herself, but any attempt would be undercut by how hungry she was. And overwhelmed by an entire culture being revealed to her via one long, uninterrupted verbal attack on her poor memory center. She laughed. "Well, I guess we have the same tradition there, just laying down on your back and just allowing sleep to overtake you," she thought about it for a little bit, "though I won't say no to custom ponycorn making. Is ponycorn your favorite snack? Err, or the most popular snack, for all unicorns?" she said as they finished their trip and ended at La Villa Izzy.

[Hippo]

Izzy opened the door to her home. She knew Sunny had been here before, but she decided to present it like it was her first time again. Izzy loved her home. It was the place she was freest to express herself. She often held back her expressions when in public places, especially outside of Bridlewood, though most ponies may never notice her reluctance to be herself. Her home was also relatively presentable, which would suggest that having to share space with her would be easy.

 

The adornments inside her house were chaotic, but like all geniuses, she knew where everything was. "Make yourself at home while I go get the snacks. I'll set them up here in the share room." She snorted. "That's what I call the room where I share things with ponies." She trotted happily towards her pantry further into the villa. The share room was like a standard living room except for the finished and unfinished works of art on display.

[SteelEagle]

There was never a time like the first time you saw a new place but that rule never did seem to stick with izzy, who entertained Sunny with her flash and flair as she re-introduced Sunny to the most happening place in sll of Bridlewood. Izzy's home was eye-catchingly sporadic at first glance, though in time anypony who took care to pay attention would find all the ways that it perectly illustrated the bustling mare who called it home. Erratic, even sloppy? Perhaps. Wonderfully creative and expressive? Absolutely. But there was also a rhyme behind every placement, a reason behind every piece. It was presentable and easier to see that it was as normal as Izzy- which is to say not at all, in all and only the very best of ways. 

 

"Okay. To the share room I go," Sunny said with no hint of even the barest irony as she chewed on the idea that any room could be the share room, especially when you considered how easily Izzy seemed to be willing to share with pony kind. She did her best and chose the front room where most of her Izzy creations were, especially that all-in-one teaset had made its first appearance. She sat down near it and took a look at it, marveling at just how creative and yet how intricate it looked. Delicate even- she was pretty sure if anypony else other than Izzy touched it, tea cups would come flying out. Hot tea would pour and drown Sunny, and little tea cakes would float around her as she tried to swim. She decided it best not to destroy it, and laughed at her imagination as she waited for Izzy.

[Hippo]

Away from Sunny's line of sight, Izzy was banging pots and pans and making noise from her kitchen area. It stopped, and then a few moments later, Izzy walked out and put onto a table in the share room a bowl with corn kernels in it, and three smaller bowls all with different toppings in them. After setting the bowls down, she disappeared again, and started slowly shoving a large machine to the share room. This large machine looked like an oversized karaoke machine with a window. It was not immediately discernable what it was. It took all of Izzy's strength and energy to move the large object next to the table with the bowls. Once it was in position, Izzy exhaled a few times. "Alright, wooo. We're ready. Get yer creative hooves cloppin!"

[SteelEagle]

Sunny couldn't help but be excited about the possibilities as she saw the bowl and kernels and the toppings make their creatively expanded way to her. She didn't know exactly what the possibilities were necessarily, but she did full well know that they were exciting and probably delicious. She was hungry enough to have decided she would go with the works, damn whatever it was that her stomach said in response. What she couldn't understand, however, was the machine that Izzy brought out. What the hay in the bay was it? She let her creative hooves get creating with the ponycorn, though her eyes didn't leave the machine. "Wow, that looks very exciting! And this ponycorn is gonna be so good," She said happily before her ears dropped and she cocked her head. "What is it, exactly?" She paused a second. "If it is karaoke machine, you should probably take a breather first!"

[Hippo]

"Karaoke machine? Pfft! No, silly, my karaoke machine is twice the size of this, and it's upstairs. This is my popcorn machine. I got it at a yard sale last Spring. Took me five whole days to drag it here." Izzy grabbed the bowl of kernels that was right in front of Sunny and gave a strange look at her. Izzy knew all the rumors about earth pony intelligence were mostly debunked, but sometimes she had to wonder. "Pfft! Karaoke machine. You're a hoot, Sunny." Izzy poured all the corn into the top of the heating element of the machine and then turned it on, closing the device's door. "So after all the kernals pop, we can add several different flavors to it. We have red. We have blue. We have yellow. Which one is your favorite, Sunny?"

[SteelEagle]

Sunny felt a little silly. She was so enraptured by all the ways that Sunny operated that something as simple as a popcorn maker didn't register. Frankly, even a karaoke machine felt tame! "Haha, I guess it wouldn't have made much sense. I don't think you need a karaoke machine to start a song for us, anyway. I may be a hoot, but you're a holler," she said with an easy laugh before observing the popcorn machine. What color to pick? She didn't know what flavors they correlated to necessarily. Red, was that cheery? Licorice? What did cherry popcorn even taste like? Yellow just seemed like it wouldf be akin to normal popcorn. But blue? She couldn't even try to guess. If it was blueberry popcorn she'd lose her mind. She loved blueberries almost too much. "I don't know which is which, but I'll take the plunge with blue!"