KillerWoW - Thank you good sir. And here is the next chapter for you.

HYBRID BATTLESHIP INFINITY210 - I always have fun reading your reviews! Though I will say that sleeping is all Blake will be doing for awhile yet, though I'm getting ready to write the chapter that changes that.

frytrix - Oh, don't worry, I've noticed the lack of Derpy, Lyra and Vinyl and have already taken measures to change that. As for her being in the herd... well, you'll just have to read and find out ;)

A/N - And here we are folks, that double-update I promised so long ago! I Finally got that DMV mess taken care of too, so now I can finally ride without restriction... again. I'd like to give a shout out to my reader Fallenwolfe who deployed the day after I posted the last chapter, I'd like to thank him and every member of the armed forces for what they do; you guys are awesome! As always, follow/favorite, review, and enjoy!

I woke up early the next morning as was quickly becoming the norm for me, to find myself wrapped up in the hooves of a still-sleeping Twilight, a small smile gracing her pretty face. I slowly reached up and gently brushed her cheek with the back of my fingers, causing her smile to grow slightly as she snuggled in closer to me. I decided to forgo the breakfast portion of my morning routine in favor of spending more time with the cuddly mare next to me. Even though we weren't dating, I could tell she preferred having someone to sleep next to, which I didn't blame her for.

Eventually though, I knew I had to get up, not because I was bored, but because I didn't want to stray too far from my morning routine. I gently began untangling myself from Twilight's grasping hooves. My progress was painstakingly slow, but it eventually paid off as I managed to free myself from my bed-mate's embrace, admittedly with some regret and a longing to return to it.

Twilight's smile shifted into a frown as her sleeping mind noticed my absence. I crept over to her side of the small bed and planted a gentle kiss on her temple, causing her smile to return. I crept out of my room into the main area of the loft and proceeded to continue my routine, making a point to skip breakfast for the moment, wanting to have it with the purple librarian still asleep in the bed we had shared that night.

After my routine was complete, I set about preparing the second surprise I had devised for who had become one of my closest friends in this magical new world I found myself in. Soon enough, I heard the telltale sounds of movement upstairs, telling me that Twilight was awake, as it was still too early for Spike to be up.

Not long after, I heard the bookish mare at the top of the stairs. I peeked around the doorway of the kitchen to greet her. "Good morning sleepy-head!" I called cheerfully.

Twilight blinked down at me with bleary eyes and yawned widely. "Blake? What are you doing?" She asked as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

I grinned. "Making breakfast for us, I'm making pancakes, hash browns, toast and jam, and fried daisies, with a nice, cold glass of milk to wash it all down. Oh, and tea too!" Twilight seemed to wake up somewhat as I rattled off the list of breakfast foods I was preparing.

Twilight muttered to herself as she groggily descended the stairs. "I didn't know you drank tea Blake." She said with another yawn as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

I turned to her. "I love tea, my grandma and I would sit down and drink a cup every day, and I'm making my favorite for us today." I said in the same cheery tone.

My friend perked up at this. "Ooh, what kind is it? Lavender? No, I don't smell any… maybe that ginseng tea Fluttershy likes? No, it smells off. What kind is it?" Twilight asked, finally giving up on guessing.

I chuckled lightly. "You'll see, go sit at the table and I'll bring everything out soon. You have great timing by the way, I'm almost done." I told her with a smile.

She returned the smile and turned around to do as I had asked. Shortly thereafter, I walked out into the main room, a tray with the food in one hand and a tray with the drinks in the other. As I set the tray with the food down, Twilight took a big whiff of it, a large grin creasing her face. "Mmm, that smells wonderful!" I couldn't help but smile at making her say that twice in as many meals. "What did you make the pancakes from though, they don't smell like hay flour."

"I used regular wheat flour, I didn't know what the hay flour was for and I didn't want to use it in case it had a special use, plus wheat flour is what humans use for our pancakes to begin with."

Twilight nodded in understanding. "I see… so what are these black dots in them then?"

"Chocolate chips." I answered simply, causing her jaw to almost hit the table.

"That sounds delicious! Why didn't I ever think of that?" She exclaimed as she wiped a bit of drool from her mouth.

I grimaced inwardly. "Probably because ponies aren't as gluttonous as humans." I blurted.

Twilight gave me a strange look. "You're not gluttonous Blake. While you do make meals with a lot of variety, that's not necessarily a sign of gluttony." She said, trying to reassure me.

I sighed. "Twi, do you know what the leading health problem on my world is?" She shook her head, indicating that she didn't. "It's obesity. And yet, there are millions of people on Earth that are starving. People who can afford it eat and eat and eat without ever giving a thought to those who can't. There's a lot that humans could learn from your culture, if only they were willing to listen…"

Twilight seemed to shrink somewhat in sadness. "That's terrible… but I can tell that you're not like that, you don't do any of the things you've told me that humans do, so stop lumping yourself in with the rest of your race!" She exclaimed firmly, but not unkindly.

I sighed, knowing she was right. "Sorry Twi, I guess I just can't help but see how much better your society is than ours. Now, why don't we sit down and enjoy our meal before it gets cold?" I said, offering a small smile.

She nodded and smiled back at me. "That sounds good. You can tell me more about this tea of yours too." She sounded happy to both get off our previous topic as well as to be learning something new.

We sat down and began to enjoy our breakfast. "I'll warn you now, that tea is pretty spiced up, you'll probably want some of the special milk I've prepared and maybe even a little sugar." I said as I gestured to the two items while preparing my own cup with said ingredients.

Twilight however, was absorbed in studying the new drink, shifting between looking at it, smelling it, even dipping a hoof in it. She eventually raised the cup to her lips and took a small test sip. She pulled a face as she struggled to swallow the spiced brown liquid. "Whoa, you weren't kidding, what all's in this?" She asked once she had finally managed to down her trial sip.

I chuckled. Well, it's called Chai tea, and it's a type of tea from a country called India on Earth, it uses any black tea as a base, and has cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, which was kind of hard to find by the way, ginger, cloves, and fennel seed added to spice it up. The milk has fresh vanilla in it to make it somewhat sweet, and the tea is traditionally taken with both the sugar and milk. It's really quite good once they've mellowed it out some."

Twilight spent a moment looking between her teacup and the two condiments I had set out for it. Eventually, she looked up to me. "Would you mind fixing it for me? I'll watch how much you add and make my own adjustments from there, if necessary."

I reached over the table and gently took the teacup. "Sure Twi, I'd be glad to, just let me know what you think." I said as I added the extra ingredients to the tea.

When I was done, I handed the tea back to my breakfast mate, who took it in her magic with a grateful smile. I tried not to stare at her as she took another sip of the new concoction. As soon as the warm, now light brown liquid hit her tongue, a large smile began spreading across her face. "This is amazing Blake! I've never tasted anything like it before!" A pink blush then crept its way onto her cheeks. "Would… would you mind making this more often?"

I grinned widely, glad she enjoyed my second surprise. "I'd love to Twi, I'll even teach you how to make it if you'd like, that way you can make it even if I'm not around for whatever reason."

Twilight nodded, still with that big smile on her face. "I would love that, it's always fun to learn something new!"

I chuckled at her enthusiasm. "It's settled then, after breakfast, I'll teach you how to make Chai tea."

After that, our conversation lulled into the occasional pleasant small talk as we enjoyed the rest of our breakfast, free of any more unhappy topics. After breakfast was finished, Twilight and I took the dishes into the kitchen and washed them. Then, true to my word, I went about teaching her how to make my favorite tea, which was little more than combining all the right amounts of the different ingredients; this was easiest to do in large quantities, though I advised her that it would lose freshness relatively quickly due to the nature of some of said ingredients.

As we finished cleaning the utensils we'd used to prepare the various spices that went into the new tea, Twilight spoke up. "So Blake, do you have any plans for the day?"

I shrugged. "Not much, I was just going to go around and get things ready for that challenge."

She nodded. "That's right, I almost forgot about that. So what exactly is this 'challenge' anyway?"

"It's just what I said last night; we're each going to try to build a better wall than the other. Specifically, we're building a wall that's three meters square and thirty centimeters deep. The goal is to see which wall is harder to destroy under controlled conditions."

Twilight nodded again. "I see. And what brought this about?"

I shrugged again. "I saw that crew knocking down a wall that was laughably weak by modern human construction standards, and I told the foreman as much; he didn't like that, so he challenged me to do better. Princess Luna overheard and offered to fund the challenge, probably because she wants to see me show that hot-head up. It's no big deal though, like I said before, I could make a stronger wall in my sleep, given the right materials. That's what I'm going to do today, order those materials."

She nodded again. "Uh huh… well, if you don't mind, I think I'll stay here, there are a few things I need to catch up on."

I gave her a nod of my own as I headed to the door. "Sure thing Twi, I doubt I'll be long making my orders, though I might do a bit of grocery shopping afterwards." Twilight simply smiled and waved as I walked out the library's front door.

I pulled the map that I got from the mayor's office out of my back pocket. This map had been a life saver in finding my way to new places in Ponyville. My first stop was the local brick mason to order the mixture of concrete that I needed, assuming they could either get it or make it.

I walked up to the main gate of the small masonry, looking around at the various piles of finished bricks laying around the yard, waiting to be sold. I walked through the small yard to the only building on the property and stepped through the open door.

There was a very plain-looking earth pony stallion sitting behind a small desk reading a newspaper. He had a light tan coat and a light brown mane, overall he was very nondescript. He looked up as I entered and seemed to appraise me for a moment. "Well hello there Pilgrim, what can I do for ya?" Why does this guy sound like John Wayne?

"I need a specific mix of concrete, and I need it to be ready before Friday" I told the plain stallion.

I walked over to his desk. "Do you have paper and something to write with I could borrow for a minute?"

The stallion nodded and reached into a drawer with his mouth and pulled out the requested objects, handing me a piece of parchment and a pencil. I took them with a nod in thanks before leaning over the desk and starting my work.

The John Wayne sounding stallion watched as I began jotting down and working out some fairly complex equations as I worked to find the exact mixture I would need. I noticed his eyebrow quirk up as I began to fill the parchment with my equations. Once I was done, I tore off the bottom quarter of the parchment, being all that was free of the complex equations I had run through to obtain not only the proper ratios, but the quantities of the dry mixture I would need.

I jotted down the results of my efforts and handed them to the stallion, who took it and inspected it for a long moment before looking up to me. "This'll be a tall order, but I think I can get you the mixture you need. I gotta warn ya though, this'll cost ya pretty."

I waved my hand dismissively. "Don't worry about that, this is for a… project that the princesses are funding, so you can send the bill to them."

The stallion nodded, seeming unimpressed by the fact that this was for the princesses. "Well alright then Pilgrim, I'll have this ready for you as soon as I can, is there someplace I can reach you when it's ready?"

I nodded as I turned to go. "Yeah, you can get ahold of me at the Golden Oaks Library near the center of town."

The nameless stallion went back to reviewing the information I had given him as I left his office, then the lot.

My next stop was the local blacksmith, which again would probably have taken me hours to find without my trusty map. The place was pretty stereotypical of a "ye olde" blacksmith shop, causing me to wonder if they would be capable of handling my request. Once again I walked into the building and was greeted by the sight of rust red earth pony with a bubblegum pink mane pounding away at a shapeless piece of metal, holding the hammer it the crook of his wrist. I walked over beside the pony and cleared my throat softly to get his attention.

The pony's ear swiveled in my direction, indicating that he had heard me. After a few more swings, the pony turned to face me. I hid the initial shock as I realized that the pony was a mare, not a stallion as I had first thought. "Well hello there, my name is Hammer Hoof, and I own and operate this smithy, how may I help you?" The mare recited in a tone that was both more cheery and feminine than her profession would indicate. Now that she was facing me, I noticed that she had olive green eyes that were slightly slanted.

"Hi Hammer Hoof, I'm Blake." I replied politely. "I need a very specific order filled out before Friday if possible, but first, do you have paper and a writing utensil I could borrow?"

She smiled at me and motioned with her head. "Sure thing Blake, follow me right over here."

Hammer Hoof led me to a small side room that contained a desk as well as several filing cabinets; the walls were decorated with several charts that were covered in notes and shorthand that I didn't immediately understand, though I doubted that Hammer hoof had any trouble. She reached into a side drawer of the desk much as the mason had and pulled out much the same objects. I took them from her with a 'thank you' and set about once again putting my engineering and mathematical knowledge through its paces as I determined exactly what I would need.

Around halfway through this set of equations, I was forced to ask for a second sheet as I had filled out the entirety of both sides of the first piece. Hammer Hoof watched with an awed expression as I powered through the complex math that had been pounded into my head through years of study and application.

Once I was finished, I again asked for another sheet of paper and used it to jot down the necessary information, including a simple sketch denoting the desired surface texture of the metal bars I would be ordering, which were essentially rebar and would be used to strengthen my wall section. I handed the paper to her, and she studied it for several minutes before whistling. "This is gonna be one hay of a strong metal if this is right. Might I ask what it's for?"

"It's for a special project for the princesses. Oh, they want you to send them the bill by the way. Since it's their project, they'll be funding it."

Hammer Hoof nodded. "Sure… it'll be a stretch, but I don't see why I can't get this done in time. Making sixteen of these rods will be a challenge, it should be fun!"

With that, I bid Hammer Hoof farewell, having left my contact information, namely my address, on the sheet of paper I had given her, and headed for home.

I was walking, humming a tune to myself, when I heard a strange, repetitive sound next to me. I looked over to see none other than Pinkie Pie bouncing next to me, that strange sound happening in time with her bouncing. I followed Twilight's advice and ignored it, chalking it up as "Pinkie being Pinkie". I smiled over at my energetic pink friend. "Heya Pinkie, what's up?"

She smiled impossibly broadly at my greeting. "Hiya Blakey! I was at Twilight's house earlier and she told me that you made some yummy food for both dinner and breakfast! I didn't know you were an awesome cook; can you bake too? It'd be super amazing if you could, I'd love to see what kinds of yummy treats your home has!" She spouted with her seemingly infinite lung capacity.

I smirked at the cheerful pink mare. "I'm sure I could come up with a treat or two you'd enjoy." I said with a wink.

Her grin somehow got even bigger, causing me to worry that her face might split, while also reminding me of the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland. "That sounds superfantabulous! Follow me to Sugarcube Corner and we can bake some together!"

Before I could make a reply, Pinkie had taken my hand in her hoof and was hopping her way merrily towards our new destination, somehow managing to keep my hand steady as she did so.

Before long, we were walking through the doors of the bakery. Pinkie then led us past the counter and back into the kitchen area. I looked around at the surprisingly large preparation area, noticing that it had everything from large ovens to proofing cabinets to a walk-in refrigerator. It baffled me how they could have technology like this but not a better understanding of proper wall construction.

Pinkie pranced into the middle of the shops kitchen and turned to face me. "Okie dokie loki Blake! Let's get started!"

I felt refreshed with her enthusiasm and walked into the kitchen to begin making my first contribution to Equestria's baked goods selection. "Ok Pinkie, the first thing we need is an unfrosted cake."

The hyperactive mare zipped to a table that had a single layer of a cake resting on it for no particular reason. She then zipped back in front of me; both actions were so quick I could barely follow her. "Here we are, one unfrosted cake! What's next?"

I had to stop myself from grinning evilly as I imagined her reaction to the next step. "Well now Pinkie, we're going to smash it!"

Her sky blue eyes widened in horror. "WHAT!? You can't smash this poor, defenseless little cake! I won't let you!" She shouted as she huddled over the cake defensively.

I laughed at her antics, the first full-fledged laugh I'd had since even before I came to this place. "Oh, don't worry Pinkie, we're not going to waste it, we're going to… repurpose it." I said as I patted her on her fluffy head.

She seemed to ease up somewhat, but was still eyeing me warily. "What do you mean?" She asked with unusual calmness.

"I mean, we're going to crumble it up, combine it with a few other things, and make something new and tasty with it."

Her posture relaxed and she relinquished her hold on the contested confection. "Oh, ok! What are we standing around for? Let's get to it!" She exclaimed, having regained her usual bubbliness.

After around an hour of prep work and waiting, the new pastry was coming together and taking shape. Pinkie eyed the tray that the end result of our labors was resting on. "What are these? They're just little balls of gooey cake mixed with some other stuff."

"You'll see in a minute, we're almost done." I replied as I came back to that part of the kitchen carrying a few wooden kebab sticks I had found in the storage room.

After quickly cutting them to length and removing the sharp point, I began sticking the sticks into the little mystery balls. After I had done that, I carried the tray over to a double-boiler I had set up earlier with swirled white and dark chocolate melted inside. Pinkie Pie watched me intently the entire time, obviously unsure of what I was doing.

I grabbed one of the little balls by its stick and quickly dipped it in the swirled chocolate and gave it a light twirl, pulling it out quickly so it didn't have a chance to heat up.

It was now coated in a shell of swirled chocolate, and I set it down on a separate rack topped with parchment paper to cool slightly. Pinkie Pie dashed over to the confection and stared at in wide-eyed wonder, a trail of drool threatening to spill its way onto the floor. I suppressed a laugh at her current predicament. "It's ok Pinkie, you can have a taste." I told her as I pulled the second and third confections out of the chocolate.

Pinkie wasted no time, with her tongue darting out like a chameleon's to snatch up the pastry, stick and all, and draw it with lightning speed into her awaiting maw. She chewed the small chocolate-coated ball for a moment with a myriad of "mmm" sounds before swallowing and spitting out the stick. "Ptoo! That was amazing! Where'd you learn to bake like that?!"

I waved a hand dismissively. "I told you, my grandma taught me everything I know about cooking. I'm glad you like them though, they're called cake pops by the way."

The instant I set the next two cake pops onto the tray, Pinkie snatched it up. "I gotta show these to mister and missus cake! She exclaimed as she dashed through the door towards the front of the store.

Since I no longer had a pan to place new cake pops on, I followed the pink mare. I found her standing in front of a pair of earth ponies, a mare and a stallion, whom I presumed to be the Cakes. The mare of the two was slightly plump and a baby blue color with a two-tone pink and swirly mane that looked more like it belonged on top of a cupcake than on a pony's head. The stallion had a pale orange coat with a deeper orange mane, his tail being semi short-cropped and his mane cut short and spiky. He also had a significant under-bite. They seemed to have just finished a bite of the cake pops that Pinkie had absconded with and were both smiling brightly. It was at this point that they seemed to notice me.

"Hello, you must be Blake, Pinkie's told us a lot about you!" The mare said cheerily. "Oh goodness, where are my manners? I'm Cup Cake, and this is my husband, Carrot. It's lovely to meet you."

I gave a short bow to the two. "It's nice to meet you too. I take it from the looks on your faces a moment ago that you liked the cake pops Pinkie and I made?" I asked.

Cup nodded her head. "We did. Would you be willing to sell us the recipe?"

"No." I said flatly, shaking my head.