Her favorite food...

"I did forget," Intel said softly, "I want you to keep me remembering. Remembering that little things matter. Remembering that I shouldn't harm any pony. Remembering that progress has a cost."

He took another shuddering breath.

"I fear what I might become if I was isolated."

Shala nodded. Intel's awkward behavior in the past was making more sense now if this was what he was hiding from. It never occurred to her that they could relate, even if just a little. If the day ever came to exchange their stories....well it would be just a little easier.

"I'll help you remember....You help me forget" She said, thinking it would be something simple. But right now she was all ears for solutions without explanations. Something like this was too precious to her to simply bicker about. She had to have it.

"I want to not be afraid of....you know what anymore...That, and you can ask me for my magic, however it my help you." She said all too hopefully. Shala had such good intentions in mind, but everypony knew how good intentions could end.

"Yes...thank you," Intel said.

He laughed, though humour was in short supply. "This wasn't what you expected, was it? I apologise."

He looked up at the roof, thinking. As usual.

Shala smiled. As a matter of fact, she beamed. All her problems now had another pony involved that wanted to help her. She never could have imagined this. Her inner little filly had to come out for a moment.

"It's more than I could have hoped for, McFly." She rocked back and forth in her seat. Her eccentric behavior was almost unnerving. One would wonder if she was bipolar.

"You have done more for me than any pony has in a long time."

Intel twitched at the nickname, gave a short glare, then a resigning sigh. "Well, it's the least I can do, Tickyclock."

Sipping his wine, he looked around the house properly for the first time. It was distressingly neater than his.

"This town...this town was far more crazy than I thought it would be. I was expecting Ponyville to be boring and dull, but I have been proven wrong quite conivincingly."

Shala smiled, returning to her previous happy state she was at when she had entered her house earlier. She took the last few bits of her food before noting her rather ignored glass of wine. She took a quick sip of it, more out of the concept than a desire or need for it.

"So. What kind of stuff would you want out of me and my magic? I'm not very good with it. And..." She slowed down to consider her choice of words. "I feel like I might be able to try and get over some of the more difficult issues."

In honestly, Shala felt like her problems were not as monumental with someone like Intel around. Maybe she could try and be good at her talent for once in her life.

"We-ell," Intel mused, "We could find out if light actually moves or not? See what happens to a magic field if time is reversed through it? Try the eternal gift experiment? So many thought experiments, including the timepretzel hypothesis by Bursar the Bursar, which every pony said was insane, like he was, but no pony was able to disprove. There are so many things to try."

Intel thought for a second.

"There was a story of a pony who wanted to give his wife the perfect present before she died of something, so he searched high and low. Then one day a mysterious box appeared in his mailbox. It was what he was searching for. He wrapped it up gave it to his wife, they were happy, but then she dies. Years pass, and the pony just has the perfect gift on his table when he figures out a way to travel back in time. He does, bringing the perfect gift with him, and he puts it in a mailbox. Where it is picked up by a pony looking for the perfect gift to give to his wife..."

Shala blinked a few times to herself and absorbed what Intel had to say. Or at least tried. Half the experimental bits she did not even know about. But the bit about the story with the box...

"...My mother used to tell me that story...When i was a foal..." She said it gently, like a gentle chord was hit on a perfect harp. Previous tones about anything in her past was often a chorus of broken and out of tune instruments. "She...told me it was an important lesson to remember."

"A foal?" Intel asked. He had not heard of the story until he was well into his magical studies, learning about chronomancy. Most of the subject was talking about stable time loops and paradoxes, and Intel's initial interest waned after a few weeks for the reaon that no pony really knew what to do with it. The scenarios were interesting, but just thought experiments.

"What lesson were you meant to learn?"

Shala ran the memories through her head again. The moments her mother was there, next to her bed, comforting her. She bit her lip and relived the moment, hearing her words again with clarity as if it were yesterday.

"....She said its never too late. To change things. To make things right. To....help." The irony to her almost made her laugh. It would have been a sad helpless laugh. Instead, she stared off at the wall and bit her lip, withholding the urge to recite the time. She needed to say something else.

"....Why did you come to Ponyville? What are you wanting to...remember?" She said in a slightly emotionally strained voice.

Intel looked at Shala strangely, trying to resist saying something like 'If I knew, I wouldn't have to remember.' he said nothing, but he felt inexplicably tired. Trying to actually explain it in full was always tiring. What can he say but lies that almost kinda get at his intent, but never fully?

"A lot of things," he finally said. Then he fell silent.

He realised that he was being difficult, but it was a difficult set of circumstances. At least being a murderer was easy; you just killed the pony in front of you, and that was basically it. One can even trace the motive, means and opportunity. What can possibly be said about his state of being? He hadn't harmed anypony, at least none that he knew of, but why was it that he felt somehow worse?

There were a lot of things Shala was and was not. She was blunt. She was an alcoholic. She wasn't an intellect, as much as she tries to be. But she was definitely not one to let something just slide by. Intel's answer was anything but adequate.

"...And?" She said expectantly, looking to him. "That's a fancy way to give no answer." She sounded almost a little upset by his attempt to work around.

"If I could identify the problem, I would be working on the solution," he said, harsher than he intended, "But I'm missing something in my mind, and I do not know what it is."

He stared at his plate. "I just...couldn't find it, and I was sent away to regain it. I didn't want to travel too far from my city, so I ended up here. I think I can find what I searching for here, maybe I'm already in the process of doing so."

"Or maybe I'm just fooling myself."

Shala was a bit surprised to hear frustration from Intel. She had never heard him get angry ever. Now she could see firsthand how delicate and important this was to him.

"Intel...I'm sorry. Tell me more. Who sent you away?" She looked at the table, their plates about done on food. She rather this conversation carried on in a more comfortable place.

Shala got up from her seat and nosed at Intel to do so as well. "Lets get on the couch or something."

Intel nodded and stood up, motions jerky as if his movements were mechanized instead of natural. He looked anything but comfortable when he sat on the couch, in fact he looked downright unhappy.

"My parents did, I think. I...don't remember why. I want to go back. I really, really want to. But until I figure out why I'm here, I can't."

He shook his head. "I think it's to do with the AME. If I can only figure out how to get it running, in any way, I think I'll realise what I'm missing. Until then..." He shrugged.

Shala could feel the mood shifting with Intel. She thought to put some space between them, but with the depressing content of his words, she sat rump to rump with him.

"...Your parents sound like total dicks." Were the first words to come from Shala. They were likely not the finest choice of words, but they were the most honest to her feelings. "Well then somepony has to build that. And I think i would like to be able to understand that kinda stuff someday. I....fell out of school..." She let her eyes stray away at the mention of school.

"They're not like that!" Intel automatically protested, "They wouldn't do something like that without a good reason. They've always been ponies of reason. Always."

Even if that meant being impersonal.

Intel looked at the floor when he heard of Shala's educational situation. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "It must have been horrible. I think you would have been much happier if you did stay."

Shala let her gaze wonder even further away as the topic approached less than comfortable memories. "It..would have been nice...I was doing well until...then."

She winced, her bluntness getting back at her. Shala felt she put far too much emphasis on 'then'. She had to try and lead away from that.

"School...I was doing rather well." She trailed her words aimlessly.

If Elegance was here, she would have used her wit to come up with some quotable retort or saying or something that would've dragged the conversation out of the deep, deep pit that it had fallen into. He didn't want to probe further into Shala's memories, nor did he want to divulge some of his more...troubled ones.

"One thing I never got, though," he said suddenly after a long and dreadful silence, "In the story, where did the present actually come from? Was it actually made by anything? Or was it just something eternally going in that time loop, to be found and given forever and ever?"

Shala felt like she was looking over a cliff in that silence. While she looked like she normally did when starring off into space when she had a good drink at the bar, she was short of shaking with apprehension.

When it came to Intel speaking, she audibly let out a sigh, as if holding her breath. Several moments in, she thought about the question asked. She asked the same question too.

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[i]"Mama. Where did it come from? Where did the pony get the supwize?" The little foal asked her mother.

"Well...Ticky. Thats not an easy question...Everything starts somewhere. But this pony made it so special, that it became... reoccurring...Like a memory so special that you can't forget it. Explaining it is impossible, but lots of things are like that sweetie."

"Umm...Like love?" Tickyclock asked.

Her mother smiled and nuzzled her "Like love..."

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"I....Wish I could know." She sighed. "My mother tried, but she didn't have my kind of cutie mark, but she did know a lot about that kind of stuff." Shala thought it was a rather lame answer. She knew she could give a better one, give some theories of her own that she thought of over time, but for some reason, they did not come.

"'Perfect gifts', or objects eternally stuck in a time loop are only theoretical," Intel mused, "But if they do exist, that proves that existence really can last forever, and the 2nd law of Ambience holds. Existence endures everything. Chronomancy department really should work on that. Would really like to know if the rules of Ambimancy hold indefinitely."

Intel looked at Shala strangely. "If things hadn't gone the way they did, you would have been a fantastic chronomancer, I'm sure of it. They say they study time, but I haven't actually seen them do anything."

Shala actually had to smile at that. It soon became an outright grin. No pony had ever told her she might be good at something. Not since she parted ways at home. Memories came to her about the things her mother told her she would do someday. That she could grow up and be what she wanted, and about her cutie mark. Those memories didn't seem to painful to think about now.

"...No pony has told me I would be good at anything for a long time..." She said, sounding slightly regretful, but happy. Maybe she could try that test of his with the time loop objects.

"...Oh, listen at how sappy we're being," Intel sighed, "I'm sorry, I know this was supposed to be more cheerful. Just had to bring bad things up. One would think I should have talked about brighter things."

He looked to the ceiling. "They didn't think I would be much good at magic either. The Design family was never magically gifted, just good at figures and engineering. I didn't even want to go to Celestia's Magic School. But here I am. Degree in Advanced Magical Theory, thesis in Ambimancy. Such is life, I guess. I'm failing to think of cheerful things that wouldn't bore you! Elegance would be ashamed with me!"

He paused.

"I have told you about my little sister, right?"

Shala waved a hoof at Intel's concerns over the less than cheerful topics. "No, no. I am fine...I just...Never got to talk like this before. I would like to be good at these things you speak of." She spoke in a tone that was much more...sober than her usual self, like there was some sophistication in her head somewhere. It was progressively getting more evident as they talked. Whatever had suppressed it was having less an effect.

"My family...My mother was an earth pony....And my father...was...a unicorn. I don't know much about the history, but...My father bragged a lot..." She winced and turned away for a moment, moving her thoughts away in recoil.

"...Tell me about your sister."

Intel's expression brightened considerably. "Little Elegance. She's a classic. Unlike me, who got sidetracked into the pursuit of magic, she stuck to the building. And she is very good. She's more of an artistic architect, wanting to evoke emotions through her work than anything else. She designed the Memorial Monument in Canterlot, you know, a shrine to ponies fallen in warfare. And that's how she got her cutie mark." His tone was one of pride. "And she's a frequent member of the royal court, something I was never able to achieve. And she sends me letters."

Intel paused to think. "She doesn't know why I was sent away, either. She thinks I ran because work was getting to me..."