Chapter 12

“Get” *smack* “Yourself” *smack* “Together” Rainbow punctuated her words with light blows to the screaming stallion.

“Ugh” Rainbow shoved her hoof into the alicorn's mouth “Now, Twilight, please, for the love of Celestia, STOP SCREAMING!”

Once the prince's muffled scream stopped the pegasus removed her hoof from her friend's mouth.

“I'm so sorry Rainbow, I'm an bad, awful, terrible, dreadful, atrocious, abominable, unspeakable friend. I violated your trust and exploited you at your greatest time of weakness. There is nothing I could repay you for what I have taken from you and if you don't want to be my friend anymore, I understand.” Twilight broke into a wretched sobbing mess.

“Twilight, It's me who should be sorry. If I hadn't been flying through the castle faster than I could see, I wouldn't have crashed into you and this would have never happened” In truth Rainbow mostly blamed Cloudchaser, but that hardly seemed to be the thing to say. In addition, as much as Rainbow loathed it, Cloudchaser was still a member of her weather team, and using your subordinates as scapegoats was the fastest way to loose any trust and loyalty they had for you.

“No, you were in your oestrus cycle; I knew that and I still couldn't stop myself from taking advantage of you. I don't deserve to be your friend.”

Rainbow sighed and rolled her eyes “Exactly, I was in heat. You're the egghead, tell me what a mare in heat does to stallions.”

“The pheromones released by a mare during her oestrus cycle cause stallions to experience a number of typical symptoms: increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased sexual desire, increased endurance, decreased inhibition and judgement impairment. Such symptoms are most prevalent in full grown stallions with limited exposure to mares and in some extreme cases can result in a complete loss inhibition and judgement.”

“And you have to be the most extreme case I know; I mean – unless you have something you want to tell me – you couldn't have been a stallion for more than a week.”

“It has been about sixty hours since I became a stallion”

“See, you shouldn't beat yourself over something that wasn't in your control.”

“That's just it. I am a royal alicorn; I can't afford to lose control like that. If I can't even control myself, how can I even hope to rule.”

“Everypony does things that they aren't proud of, even the coolest pegasus in all of Equestria has done some things that she regrets.”

“Yeah, Fluttershy was rather ashamed of the whole Iron Will incident”

Rainbow didn't know whether to be relieved that Twilight seemed to have regained his sense of humour or angry that he had insulted her. “Oh, so I'm just your second choice then? I'm insulted.”

Unfortunately Rainbow's joke was poorly received, as Twilight broke into miserable sobs. “I'm so, so sorry Rainbow, I'm a bad friend, it's all my fault this happened; please, please, don't hate me.”

“Ugh, stupid, stupid Rainbow, why don't you think before you open your mouth?” Rainbow berated herself before moving beside Twilight and putting her wing over the sobbing alicorn. “Twilight, that was a joke, a really bad joke, but still a joke. I don't blame you for any of this, and even if I did, I would never hate you. Before you came into my life and brought the six of us together, I had no friends – well there was Fluttershy, but I hadn't talked to her in five years and didn't even know she lived here – I was just the arrogant big city pegasus in the small earth pony town. The worst part was that I didn't even believe that I needed any friends; I was just one young mare who had no better dream in life than to be famous.”

“Yes, but, but, I took advantage of you”

“No we slept together while we were both hornier than Spitfire in the Wonderbolts' change room.”

Twilight looked at the mare questioningly.

“Trust me, you don't want to know” Rainbow visibly shuddered “I think I'm still traumatized from walking in on that.”

...

“What I was saying is that last night was consensual on both sides – for a given amount of consent – and there is no reason to beat yourself up about it.”

“But, statistically, friendships usually die after two friends engage in sexual intercourse with each other. It becomes to awkward to continue.”

“Seriously Twilight, Discord couldn't keep us apart for long, we're Elements of Harmony. Anyways we don't have to just stay friends.” Rainbow nuzzled the stallion beside her.

“Ugh, Rainbow, that proposal has even more going against it. Almost no romantic relations that start with coitus survive more than a month and most romantic relations between long term friends not only break up rather quickly, but usually ruin the friendship they had before.”

“Seriously, Twilight, buck statistics; they only apply to average ponies, and we aren't average. You're the Element of Magic, an alicorn and you have crazy powerful magic, and I'm the Element of Loyalty, the fastest pegasus in Equestria and I can break the sound barrier, which many ponies still believe is impossible.”

“But statistics never lie.”

“I'm bucking tired of this.” Rainbow grabbed Twilight's face with her hooves and looked straight into the alicorn's eyes “I'm terrible at expressing my feelings, but last night was the best bucking night of my life, and I'm insulted that you belittle and blame yourself for things that are not your fault.” Rainbow pulled the shocked stallion into a powerful romantic kiss that showed deeper feeling than she would have ever believed she would feel.

As Theory watched the horrific scene before her, she wondered whether she was the only sane pony to ever step foot within the labyrinthine tunnels of the Twilight Manor (well, mostly sane). She had never seen a kitchen in such a poor state in her life, and doubted one had ever even come close. The stove was on fire, the toaster smashed beyond recognition, batter (and numerous other unrecognizable fluids) was everywhere (they had even managed to spill it inside the fridge) and most terrifyingly, one spill had completely eaten through the solid granite counter-tops.

When her older sister had told her that she was marrying into a noble house, Theory had imagined a large manor in the centre of Canterlot filled with rich arrogant prudes who were more concerned with appearance than substance. It would be impossible to describe exactly how surprised Theory had been when she actually met the Twilights, an entire house of borderline lunatics that took pride in doing everything completely different than everypony else, many things that were taboo for the rest of ponykind were accepted and often expected within House Twilight.

Theory winced as yet another kitchen appliance exploded. She decided that it would be in her best interest to vacate the premises and search for waffles elsewhere.

Theory snuck quietly into Sparkle's room, eyes on the stolen goods that had been left carelessly unguarded as the thief held the prince in passionate embrace. Theory approached the plate of golden brown deliciousness without a sound.

Unfortunately, in the moments preceding the liberation of the light fluffy waffles the unicorn locked eyes with the pegasus.

Rainbow broke the kiss involuntarily launching herself backwards into a wall with a scream.

Twilight slowly turned around and stared the unicorn mare in the eye. “Theory, what are you doing in my room?” Twilight's voice was calm but menacing.

“Waffles?” Theory's nervous answer sounded more like a question than anything else.

Twilight swiftly brought a hoof to his face. “So you sneak into my bedroom, invading my private sanctum and scare poor Rainbow into a wall because you wanted waffles?” Twilight looked at the plate of waffles that had been untouched since Rainbow had brought them into the room. “Here I was thinking you were the sane one.”

Theory didn't answer, rather Rainbow chose that moment to enter the conversation “I wasn't scared, I just wasn't expecting one of your weird cousins to walk in on us.”

“You will need to get used to other mares, otherwise you probably shouldn't be with a Twilight. Anyways I'm not actually related to him by blood, and my sister married her father, so even if I was, I would be her aunt not cousin.”

“What? Doesn't that mean that you're related.”

“No, my sister is not her mother, so there isn't any blood relation there.” Theory said before turning to Twilight. “Am I right to guess that you failed to mention the Twilight family structure to your friends.”

“No I just went up to all of them and said 'hello girls, I just wanted to tell you that I am a member of an eight-hundred year old polygamous omnivorous house that is so insane that it is part of the psycho-therapist guild's creed to stay as far away from us as physically possible'.” Twilight said with harsh sarcasm “Yes that would have gone over just fine.”

“Huh? Whatcha talking about Twilight?” Rainbow was wearing a rather confused face.

“Do you know what a herd is Rainbow?”

“Um, yeah everypony knows that. One stallion dating several mares in ancient times, they were outlawed a long time ago because many ponies thought it gave the stallions too much power over their mares.”

Now it was Twilight's turn to be confused; who had told her friend such lies and misinformation? Herds and polygamy had not been illegalized (Mostly due to a number of extremely long and well fought legal battles by the Twilights) and the part about stallions made no sense whatsoever; usually the leader of the herd was a mare. In fact the reason that herds disappeared was because many of the powerful noblemares decided they didn't want to share a stallion and many mares just followed their lead (regardless of how little sense it made with the gender balance skewed as it was (and still is)). “Herds came to a peak between 800 and 900 years ago during what was known as the Equestrian Dark Ages due to the harsh living conditions and the gender imbalance; they started to disappear between 600 and 700 years ago as most of the nobility decided to choose monogamy for various reasons and almost completely disappeared between 300 and 400 years ago. However, polygamy was never made illegal and there are still a few families that still practice it across Equestria.”

“Uh huh.”

“The reason I brought this up is because Twilight House is one of those families”

“You mean that you come from a family where they have herds?”

“We don't call it that, but yes. For example my father is married to three mares, my mother and Theory's sister being two of them.” Twilight waited for Rainbow to respond in disgust, saying how vile and unnatural the very thought of having multiple spouses was.

“That's so ... hot” Rainbow said before pulling Twilight into another passionate kiss, this time not caring if anypony was watching.

Once the kiss was broken Twilight spoke up. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Yeah?”

“You can't tell any of the girls what I just told you. I don't know how they would react.”

“Okay, Twilight, I promise”

Twilight narrowed his eyes at her.

“What? You don't trust my word?”

“Rainbow, that was one of the weakest promises I have ever heard.”

“Okay, fine.” Rainbow took a dramatic pose, “I, Rainbow Dash, swear upon the Element of Loyalty that I wilt tell no soul what thou, Prince Twilight Sparkle, hast told me today. If I break this oath, may all brand me traitor 'til the end of time itself”

Twilight just stared with his mouth open as Theory laughter caused her to choke on a waffle that she was eating. Rainbow had a flare for the dramatic, but the archaic Equish made the whole thing so absurd.

“Was that promise strong enough for you?”

“It wasn't what I was expecting but I think it will do.”

“Twilight, oh Twilight, wherefore art thou Twilight?” Theory broke into hysterical laughter.

Rainbow narrowed her eyes at Theory “What's up with her, and why is she asking stupid questions?”

“She's making a crack at you for using archaic Equish in that oath by mangling a Shakespeare quote.”

“What do you mean by 'archaic Equish'?” Rainbow tilted her head slightly at Twilight.

“Well you said 'wilt' 'thou' and 'hast', in fact you spoke very much like how Luna speaks if you ignore to royal we.”

“Really, that's weird, I remember speaking normal Equish” Rainbow rubbed her forehead with a hoof.

“Yes, that is extremely particular, have you been spending ...” Twilight blushed as he was cut off by a massive growl from his stomach. “We'll talk about this later, right now I'm hungry.”

And so the plate of waffles ended it's epic journey satisfying the hunger of a pegasus, a unicorn and an an alicorn.