“Ugh! Where is he?”

Twilight completed her one hundred twenty-seventh lap pacing around the Cutie Map. Starlight Glimmer looked up from the stacks of accreditation paperwork she had to fill before the beginning of each new semester, rolling her eyes before she looked back down at her workload. Twilight hadn’t even noticed that she had been sitting in her throne the whole time, for Celestia’s sake.

“Twilight, unless you are training early for The Running of the Leaves, I don’t think your snit is going to make Spike arrive any sooner.” Starlight giggled as Twilight drew herself up short, shaking her head briefly to clear it. “Wasn’t there something you wanted my help with before you departed for Fillydelphia this afternoon?” She waved her hoof vaguely in the air. “Y’know, something to do with all of the lab equipment you moved up here last night?”

“Oh. Right.”

Starlight surveyed the mess of various arcane and mundane electrical instruments before her eyes finally rested on a calorimeter with a scorch mark on its surface. “And aren’t you supposed to put burning hot things inside of a calorimeter, and not a calorimeter inside something burning?”

“Oh, hah hah.” Twilight looked back at the lab equipment with a sigh. Starlight wondered if the scorch mark had something to do with her now re-growing tail. She knew it had been practically burnt off, but neither Twilight or Spike were divulging how exactly that had happened. Some ancient secrets were best left forgotten.

“I guess you’re right.” Twilight walked over and began to organize some of her notes on the lab table. “I did want you to take a break from your semester prep to give me some input on this magical experiment. I’m just used to Spike being a little more punctual about his assignments and it’s throwing me off.”