private Signs of Change (1x1, Private)

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

@,
 

(Hope this is an adequate start: I've left it fairly open ended, and we can improvise from there if you like.)

 

Cinderblock.
 
'Okay Cinder, thirty-second time lucky... lets try this again.'
 
The house was clean: smoke free and pristine. It had been for a grand total of six hours - and Cinder had been explicitly told not to experiment and cause chaos... such was the plight of living with a friend. On that note though, he had gone away... and she wasn't planning on 'causing chaos' anyway!
 
The smallest drop of liquid ran down the glass vial and - after hanging stubbornly on the edge for a couple of seconds - fell cleanly into the clear liquid at the base of the second vial.
 
Cinder held her breath in shocked joy.
 
'It worked! I knew it would work! Hah! And they all thought...'
 
Mid mental celebration, a loud, soft 'Fwumph' sounded out as the world turned black with a burst of thick, black smoke which suddenly burst forth from the vial. The earth mare stood frozen in place.
 
"Oh... Huh. That's not supposed to happen."
 
...
 
She had been though this process before: far too many times to count. Blindly making her was to the door, she managed to get herself outside without incident (knowing the route by memory after bruising her shins the first few times) and sat heavily on the grass, wiping the aquamarine lenses in that covered her eyes with a blackened hoof and looking up at the house - smoke billowing from the door and windows in thick, black plumes. 
 
It would be fine... but it might take a few hours to stop. Then she would have to clean the place again... but such was the price of progress!

 

For now... she should probably find something to do.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Cinderscribe

[Rascal~ 657]

Sai was a unicorn today, or well she was a unicorn while in this town. She had always kept track about what version of her pony form that she took when in towns, so when she came back to them or something she wouldn't be caught out about how she was an earth pony last time, but then suddenly a unicorn.
And as a unicorn, Sai was practicing her magic by throwing small sticks at a point on a tree that was a little distant from her. She had seen another mare before in her travels throw darts with amazing speed and precision, and Sai wanted to at least try at the skill, which at the moment she was doing pretty well.  

Though she was suddenly distracted, as a black smudge started to take over the skies above her. Sai stopped throwing the sticks, and realised that it was smoke. She started to worry, but then calmed down. She had magic, if it were a fire she could always smother it with her power, and if it were a fire she should probably put it out. 
She followed the trail it gave in the sky, and soon she was at a house that had smoke coming out of window's and the front door, and had a mare standing out the front that looked like she just went through an explosion. 
So Sai yelled at her to see if she were alright. 
"Hey, you alright mate?"

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Cinderblock.

 

Cinder blinked. She paused for a moment before deciding that whatever voice she had just heard was probably directed at her - given her situation. Sure, the locals were used to the more-than-frequent disasters that she caused, but strangers tended to get a little... unnerved.

 

Wiping the lenses again, she looked around and jumped to her hooves - cantering towards the unicorn in question while waving a hoof anxiously as the bottles of chemicals and mixtures rattle slightly as they clinked together on the belt slung around her body.

 

"It's okay! It's okay! Don't worry, this happens all the time - don't panic! And uh..." She looked around nervously before turning back and grinning weakly. "I don't think anyone else saw... don't tell anypony... please?"

 

The plume of thick, black smoke rose steadily into the air - easily visible to anyone who might happen to look out of their window or even just look vaguely upwards while outside. It wasn't likely to have gone unnoticed.

 

"I... uh... yeah! nothing to worry about! Nice day, isn't it? I mean, if you kind of look kind of in that direction... all sunny and... y'know... not covered in smog..."

[Rascal~ 657]

Sai laughed and walked closer to the mare, she was telling to look in the other direction, but how she was doing it didn't discourage her and it actually quite funny. 

"Do you want any help? And don't worry, I wont be the one that'll tell them, most likely your evidence in the sky will."

Sai was laughing again, she was having heaps of fun with this mare and her situation, but was happy to give help to her. Cleaning up this mess would be horrible on someone's on, and how the mare was acting she was trying to accomplish just that. 

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Cinderblock.

 

Cinder wiped the lenses that covered her eyes with a hoof again, but at this point she was just making the dark smudges worse. Instead, she lifted them up into her forehead and blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted to the light.

 

"Oh, that... that would be really great actually. I mean, it'll be okay when the smoke stops but it always takes forever to get everything back how it was without magic..."

 

The ponies in town wouldn't mind. Well, they might not mind too much anyway - there hadn't been any actual explosions this time, which she counted as an improvement over last three or four attempts at any rate!

 

The earth mare shrugged, holding out a hoof in a friendly gesture to this new face who had offered to help. With every sudden movement, a sudden trail of grey dust clouded around her charcoal mane.

 

"I'm Cinder, by the way." She added with a grin.

[Rascal~ 657]

Sai laughed once again when she saw the smoke trail come from the mare as she moved, never had she seen a pony so covered in smoke and ash before, and the display was quite funny. 
Though she stretched out her own hoof to return the gesture, getting a little ash on her own white coat.

"I'm Sai. And where would you like me to start?"

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Cinderblock.

 

Cinder looked over the building with an appraising eye: it wasn't the worse it had ever looked by far - it certainly wouldn't be too much trouble to get sorted out before her friend returned... he would be in Canterlot for the next day or two at the very least.

 

"Well I guess we just give it a minute or two to settle down." She chirped with a grin - attempting to brush the blackened mark from Sai's coat and only making it worse in the process.

 

"Uh - it dusts right off, don't worry!" Grinned the inventor weakly. "Yes! Uhm... so! I can deal with the whole 'cleaning' thing I guess - wouldn't be fair to ask you to help with that as well... could you get those top windows open for me? I must have forgotten: I normally make sure they're all open before I start working on something like this... just in case, of course."

 

The dusty earth mare scratched at the ground with a hoof - eyes unfocusing for a moment as she phased out and got lost in though for a few seconds before she shook her head.

 

"Huh, I was so certain that I had it this time! It should have worked... Huh! Well, if at first you don't succeed - just keep guessing!"

[Rascal~ 657]

"Guessing may not be the best strategy when working on experiments, especially if they are the explosive kind. A more educated look into what measurements, what you using, what equipment you got, all that stuff does actually help with the none exploding results."

Sai was poking a little fun at Cinderblock while she opened the windows on the second floor with her magic. Her hoof was covered a bit in ash from her hoof shake with the mare that happened just then, but it left a pretty noticeable mark that Sai was noticing as she talked and used her magic at the same time. 
She tried to shake it off, though it didn't work like Cinderblock said it would. Sai didn't mind, it was just a bit of ash. 

[The Elusive Cinder 1,328]

Cinderblock.

 

"Thanks! It's hard to work with just hooves sometimes." Grinned the mare as the unicorn saw to the offending windows in question.

 

"Yeah... but where's the fun in that?" Cinder scowled a little before apparently forgetting what it was that she was actually scowling about and returning to her usual enthusiastic smile. "If we only did things that were already proven then we wouldn't ever discover new stuff! My way is the future!"

 

Almost as if to prove a point. A sudden cloud of smoke issues forth from one of the downstairs windows - promptly covering her once again in ash and causing her tan coat to become even darker and monochrome than before. Amber eyes sparkled with oblivious cheer out of the black cloud. "Uhm... 'The future' is a work in progress?"

 

She looked up towards the upper windows where a thin trail of smoke was now trailing off into the sky. Then back to the ground floor where the same was happening. The inside of the building wasnt damaged, so much as coated in a layer of... whatever it was that the black clouds were formed of.

 

"Uhh..."

 

Maybe she was being a little optimistic.

 

"You know, If I just see to a few rooms... the rest can wait: Scribe won't be back for days. Probably." She shrugged. "You hungry? I can fix us something up If I remembered to close off the kitchen... I think I did..."