Snow In Equestria

December 17, 2012

I shifted around a little in the darkness. I felt a hard surface below me and heard breathing of another pony close by. I opened my eyes painfully and shifted again. A sharp pain in my lower back manifested itself in an unpleasant way as I did. I took a sharp intake of breath.

I mumbled unintelligibly as I managed to lift my head up and saw a blue figure sitting in front of me. The magenta eyes gave away her identity before my field of vision widened and I saw the rest of her. I heard a voice to my side when I put my legs under me to make my position more comfortable.

“Are you awake, Snow?” Fluttershy asked softly. She was lying near me. My eyes were almost opened all the way and my sense of touch came back fully a couple moments later. I could tell that we were still in the chariot. Hopefully, we were safely on our way back to the castle.

“Yeah,” I replied weakly, “Where’s Discord?”

“He’s gone for now,” Celestia replied immediately. She was lying just on my other side, “Are you feeling alright?”

“I… I think so,” I muttered.

“Good,” Celestia replied delicately, “You were really brave back there,” she reminded me. The rest of the mane six nodded their heads in agreement.

“Uh, thanks,” I replied, closing my eyes and sighing as I remembered my irrevocable decision to decline Discord’s offer, “Will we be back to Canterlot soon?” I asked, looking up again.

“We’ve got about an hour left,” Celestia replied.

“Ugh… why don’t we have anything that goes faster than fifty miles per hour?” I whined, “We could get back in like ten minutes going five hundred.”

“Well, I’m sorry we don’t have anything faster than this,” Celestia chuckled. That was shortly followed by Dashie noticeably clearing her throat.

“Sorry… Miss Rainbow Dash,” Celestia deadpanned. Apparently, Dashie didn’t notice the insincerity of the comment and swelled with pride. Oh, well. I wasn’t going to ruin it for her. Instead, I tried to stand up.

It was shaky at first, and as I stood higher, a sharp pain came in my lower back and washed over me again. I immediately flopped back down with a noise of general discomfort. Discord was definitely not my favorite villain anymore. Congratulations, Nightmare Moon, you’ve been promoted.

“Be c-careful!” Fluttershy warned, rushing to my side, “You should rest,” she advised as she began stroking my mane.

“He’s not one of your wounded animals, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said irritably.

“Oh, s-sorry Snow,” she apologized, removing her hoof. That actually felt good, but I guess I didn’t really want to be seen as being treated like a ‘wounded animal,’ as Rainbow Dash so graciously put it.

“I’ll just go back to sleep,” I said dejectedly, resting my head on my front legs again.

“N-no,” Fluttershy said softly but urgently, “We should keep you awake in case you have a concussion or other head trauma. I… I mean, if th-that’s okay with you,” she added at the end with a squeak.

“No, Fluttershy. No it’s not. I’m going to sleep,” I repeated, closing my eyes for a second.

“Snow,” Celestia warned.

“Ugh… fine. Hey Twilight, you busy?” I asked as most of the mares broke up into smaller groups and talked amongst themselves.

“Uh, I guess not. Do you need something?” she asked, turning from her most recent conversational partner. She slowly trotted in my direction.

“I was just wondering if you would mind… maybe giving me another lesson,” I said softly, somewhat embarrassed.

“Of course,” she replied softly with a smile. Thank God these ponies are so nice.

I learned more about how to read during the remainder of the flight home. Fluttershy helped as well. Her patience was unbelievable and she made for a very good teacher, even if she didn’t understand many of the complicated concepts that Twilight did. Together, they did a pretty good job of helping me.

Already speaking a language fluently really helps when learning to read it, but because of the way this language worked, being part phonetic and part logographic, this was going to take some time.

For example, my name makes perfect sense. I just put together the characters that make up the sounds in my name, and cupcakes! There’s my name! However, in the word ‘hello,’ there is only one character. It makes no sound on its own, it just means ‘hello’. Spelling the word out phonetically would make no sense. I had no idea if they found this to be practical or not, but it made absolutely no sense to me.

Anyways, I made decent progress, and I think I managed to make better friends with Fluttershy in the process. Overall, it was a good experience.

Eventually, we arrived back at the castle. It was probably about eleven o’clock at night. Applejack and Dashie helped me out of the chariot, and I began to walk on my own again, slowly.

“I thought you’d have some sort of healing magic, Celestia,” I said as we walked back towards the throne room together.

“I do,” she said soberly. Most of the other ponies’ gazes shifted away from me, “I already did all I could. You were… in pretty horrible condition after discord hit you. I healed you as much as I could, and you should feel better soon,” Celestia promised.

I silently continued to walk with a new sense of fear embedded into my heart.

December 18, 2012

It was fairly late by the time we got back that night, so I went straight to Celestia’s room for some rest.

Again, by the time I woke, Celestia was still asleep. My back barely hurt at all this morning, which was good. I noticed quickly just how efficient Celestia’s healing magic was.

Also, I had figured out by now that Luna and Celestia take turns staying up late and waking up early to be present in the throne room. So since Celestia stayed up late last night, she got to sleep in today. I decided to try to entertain myself until she woke, because I was afraid of running around in the castle without her to bail me out of any sort of trouble.

Anyways, some part of my brain deemed it a good idea to go try on Celestia’s regalia. The massive golden jewelry on the table next to Celestia’s bed was difficult to ignore, so next thing I knew, I was putting my head through what could most accurately be called a golden horse collar with a purple gem in the center-bottom.

Just some FYI: gold is very heavy. I don’t know why I continued to drag it off of the table once I had it around my neck, but as soon as the table wasn’t supporting it, my body had no chance of holding it up. The collar plummeted to the floor as if there wasn’t even a pony’s neck inside of it, and it brought me down just as fast.

Luckily, I kept my face from hitting the floor as it usually does, but I was still stuck in it. This was generally just an awful idea. I don’t know how I decided that that this was an acceptable thing to do while waiting.

Well, at least it shortened my wait by waking up Celestia with the thud it made when hitting the floor. She urgently peered over the side of the bed and stared at me silently for a few moments.

I looked back up at her the best I could from my awkward position on the floor, with my neck stuck through a heavy loop on the ground. Luckily for me, ponies have pretty muscular necks, so I was still able to breathe fairly easily.

After looking at each other for a couple seconds, she rolled over and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.

“Celestia?”

“Yes, Snow?” she asked politely, still turned away from me.

“Umm… do you think you could help me? I’m stuck and-…”

“Give me a few more minutes,” she cut me off tiredly before growing silent again.

I had no option but to yield, and so I waited about ten minutes on the floor, with my body squished uncomfortably onto the floor.

I tried in vain to free myself from the golden death trap, but I eventually had to wait for Celestia to slowly roll out of bed (and I swear she was trying to draw it out as long as possible) and use her magic to free me. However, this freedom didn’t come without a price. She walked towards the door instead of me and stepped out into the hallway.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised, holding back a snicker.

“No, wait, I-…!” She shut the door.

I’ll skip over my toils while she was gone and get to the part where she brought Luna back with her and they both laughed hysterically at the apparent spectacle that was me squirming under the impossible weight around my neck.

“Get it off!” I eventually yelled, continuously rolling around and trying to get my head unstuck.

Their laughter never faltered, but after a few more moments, Celestia lifted it off of me with her magic. I stood up for the first time in a while and approached the princesses, both of which looked in danger of laughter induced suffocation.

“Stop it, it’s not funny!” I reprimanded, but my efforts were fruitless.

“I… I c-can’t breathe!” Luna chortled, desperately sucking in air in between bursts of laughter.

I decided that I couldn’t do anything about it, so I waited for them to finish. It took about five minutes, but they stopped.

“What were you even doing?” Celestia asked, still smiling from the aftereffects of the laughter.

“I wanted to see what it’s like to wear all that jewelry,” I told her, “How can you even lift those? And you wear them around all day!” I said as she levitated the golden collar onto her own neck and held it up like it was nothing.

“I’m stronger than you are, Snow,” she pointed out plainly, levitating the rest of the regalia in her direction before adorning herself with them.

“Yeah, but-… Never mind. Just don’t tell anypony about this.”

“No promises,” Luna snickered, heading back out of the room with her sister.

I followed close behind until we reached the throne room.

“Is this all you do? Just sit in the throne room all day?” I asked, still a bit defensive from the prior incident.

“No, of course not,” Celestia replied, “I do spend a lot of time in here, though, I suppose.”

“Whatever. Are the mane six still here?”

“The what?” Celestia asked confusedly, ascending her throne. Luna stayed by my side.

“Oh, umm… I mean Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, et cetera,” I explained.

“Oh. They’re still in the palace, if that’s what you’re asking. Which reminds me, I should really check on Twilight’s progress,” she remembered as she descended her throne as quickly as she ascended it.

“Progress…?” I asked as I followed her out of the throne room. Celestia nodded to Luna on the way out to signal for her to take over for a few minutes.

“Last night, after you went to sleep, Twilight, Luna, and I worked on a solution to thwart Discord,” she elaborated. “We started on a ‘harmony magnet’, which should properly oppose that ‘disharmony necklace’ Discord has. We just have to make sure ours has a stronger form of magnetism.”

“Already?” I asked incredulously, “So Twilight’s been up all night?”

“I’m afraid so. She refused to sleep. Sometimes, I think Twilight is too good of a student,” she sighed.

Celestia turned into a doorway, through which I immediately followed, and walked into a large laboratory. It was like a full blown Dexter’s Laboratory, too.

Anyways, we soon found Twilight, about ready to pass out, tiredly standing in front of a rainbow-colored, emerald-cut gem.

The gem was propped up on a stand, smoking in a purple aura as if Twilight had just blasted it with some sort of magic.

“How are things going, Twilight?” Celestia asked softly. Even so, Twilight immediately jumped and spun around.

“Oh, it’s you, princess,” she said with a bow. I don’t think Twilight even noticed me, “I just made kind of a breakthrough, actually,” she said before yawning.

By the way, Twilight Sparkle yawning is on my list of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. It’s just like how a little puppy would yawn, but with a cute purple pony.

“I combined a love potion with the harmony attracting spell we worked on last night, and the love potion appears to be amplifying its effects almost ten-fold,” she continued before pausing to yawn again, “The original spell seems to work just fine, so I just need to keep finding ways to amplify its power until we can be sure that it’s stronger than Discords.”

“Very creative. Excellent work, Twilight. You should go rest now,” Celestia recommended.

“But I’m so close to… the gem is… uh… harmony…” And then she fell asleep. Right there, standing up, she was out like a light.

“Uh… I’ll take care of it… I guess,” I offered as I approached the sleeping Twilight, ready to catch her if she fell to one side or the other.

“Thanks, Snow. I should be getting back to my post,” Celestia replied. I slipped a wing under Twilight and rolled her on to my back. She was easy to carry. Apparently, ponies have some sort of mechanical advantage that allows them to carry large amount of weight on their back rather easily.

I took care of Twilight and then made my way outside to get some fresh air. The garden seemed like a nice place to go.

“H-hello, Snow.”

“Hi, Fluttershy. Watcha doin’ out here?” I asked.

I approached her as she sat under a tree, seemingly conversing with a few squirrels and a rabbit. As I got closer, Fluttershy hoofed the rabbit a large carrot and the squirrels scampered away.

“I’m just meeting some of the critters here at the castle. My first visit didn’t… g-go to well,” she confessed; although, I already knew that.

“Oh. You seem to be getting along with them just fine now,” I said, observing the rabbit as it slowly whittled down the carrot. I stepped under the relieving shade of the tree and sat down next Fluttershy.

“Yeah, it’s getting a lot better. I think I took the wrong approach last time,” she chuckled inwardly, “I really love animals,” she said as a few birds came and perched comfortably around her, each singing an upbeat tune.

“I think they love you too,” I laughed.

She laughed too and then we both fell silent. I enjoyed the nice weather for a few minutes. I wonder if they even have seasons here, considering the pegasi weather control. I would have enjoyed it for longer, but the sky was suddenly covered in a layer of dark, sickly-looking clouds. This was definitely not normal, even for Equestria.

“W-what’s happening?” Fluttershy asked urgently.

She cowered closer to me and the rabbit hopped off into a nearby shrub, leaving the carrot behind. Soon enough, I could hear a faint buzzing sound, like a cloud of locusts. After a few more moments, hundreds of insect like creatures came into view, raining from the sky like bullets with thin, rapidly beating wings.

“Changelings…” I said softly, staring up at the sky distantly. Fluttershy was in full recoil behind me at this point.

“Come on, Fluttershy,” I said adamantly as I pulled her by a hoof, “We have to get to Celestia.”

“O-okay,” she squeaked, following close behind me.

We made it about halfway to the castle before the first changeling fluttered down to the ground. A few more reached the ground as I galloped towards the door on the side of the castle. I was running at about the same speed as Fluttershy while at full speed… I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad.

“Watch out!” Fluttershy suddenly called from behind me.

I urgently whipped my head around and spotted a changeling hissing and charging at my left. I stood in front of Fluttershy protectively and swatted it away with a wing. It was surprisingly easy to knock it back ten feet or so and render it unconscious. Fluttershy let out an affrighted ‘eep’ as I made contact. I quickly pulled her hoof again and we ran towards the door.

A few changelings were making good progress towards us, but I kept running. I shoved Fluttershy into the doorway first, through which she ungracefully tumbled (I felt pretty bad about that), before I sprinted through after her.

A changeling caught me with a claw and left a nasty scratch a centimeter or two above my left eye before I slammed the door on its face, hopefully breaking its nose or something, and violently twisted the bolt lock. Thank God these doors had locks, because the ones within the castle certainly didn’t.

Fluttershy had already recovered by that time, so we sprinted back to the throne room, luckily seeing no signs of changelings on the way.

“Celestia! There are Changelings everywhere!” I yelled as I busted through the doors to the throne room.

“I know!” she yelled back, just before blasting three changelings out through an already broken window with her pink-colored magic.

She was fighting them off alongside Silvermane in the center of the room. Two guards were already unconscious in the corner of the room, seemingly dragged away from the heat of battle.

Several of the long, stained glass windows were shattered, acting as an easy entrance for the flying changelings. Fluttershy and I made our way to the center of the room. Fluttershy was shaking violently behind Celestia and I joined the resistance.

I easily swatted changeling after changeling into walls and out of windows with my wings, but every changeling we knocked out would quickly be replaced by two or three more.

Silvermane used her hind legs to knock them around, and Celestia was a fricken tank with her ridiculous magic. The changelings in general were rather weak and uncoordinated, but their sheer numbers easily made up for that.

Blood from the cut one of them gave me earlier was now running into my left eye, tinting the little vision I had left from it red. After figuring out some of the more efficient ways to use my wings against them, I began mowing changelings down at a little less than Celestia’s pace.

Silvermane then approached me, limping with one of her front hooves lifted off the ground. I kept battling the changelings, but turned some of my attention to her.

“Silvermane, are you okay?” I asked. She responded softly and I got closer to her. Suddenly, I heard a voice from my side.

“Snow, watch out!” Celestia called.

As its cover was blown, the changeling emulating an injured Silvermane changed back into one of the hissing demons and lunged for me.

I didn’t have time to get a wing or hoof on it, so it tackled me and we rolled about ten feet backwards. It hissed sadistically as I writhed underneath it, keeping it at a short distance with my two forelegs.

When it opened its mouth, it revealed several rows of glaringly sharp teeth, the back ones protruding outward like a massive lamprey, which was probably for intimidation. It would’ve worked, if it wasn’t for a polychromatic blur that knocked it out of the way.

I got up and swatted away more changelings that had accumulated while I was wrestling with the last one on the floor. The rainbow-colored blur quickly flew back towards me and landed by my side.

“Sup, Dashie?” I said casually before hammering a changeling into the floor with the bottom of my wing, which glowed yellow with every strike.

“Snow, are you alright?” she asked urgently, motioning towards my eye. The cut was definitely deep, but it was clean enough that it didn’t hurt too badly at the moment.

“Yeah, I’m fine. We should hurry with these and then go find the others.”

The battle ensued for a good ten more minutes before the changelings began to retreat. They flew out the windows, carrying their unconscious comrades with them. We were able to hold them off, for now.

I sat next to Rainbow Dash, rubbing my eye. The blood had started to dry, and it was becoming very uncomfortable, but at least the bleeding had stopped. Rainbow Dash and I were both panting from the battle, and soon Celestia trotted over to us with Silvermane.

“Snow, what happened to your eye?” Celestia asked urgently, quickly approaching.

“My eye isn’t hurt, it’s just a scratch above my eye. I’ll wash the blood off once we find the others,” I decided. As if on cue, Luna came into the throne room, with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity trailing behind her.

“Is everypony alright?” Luna asked in the loudest voice possible. I pretty sure that hurt worse than any of my injuries. Twilight walked through the door as well a moment later.

“Yes, sister. We’re all fine,” Celestia replied to Luna.

“What happened?” Twilight asked apprehensively, looking around at the damage done. She must’ve just woken up.

“Thank goodness you’re okay, Twi,” Applejack said to Twilight before Celestia informed her on the recent past events.

“That sounds awful,” Twilight responded softly, “I just woke up on a cushion on the floor of your private quarters, Princess. Was I moved there because of the changelings?”

“I don’t believe so,” Celestia replied confusedly, turning to me, “Snow said he would take care of you when you fell asleep in the lab.”

“I did,” I argued, still with one hoof over my eye, “I forgot where her room was, so I just put her on the cushion that I sleep on.”

“You sleep on a cushion on Celestia’s floor?” Rarity asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. It’s a very comfortable cushion,” I argued weakly.

“Not really,” Twilight grumbled, rolling her head around, “My neck is gonna be sore for the rest of the day.”

“More comfortable than most things I used to sleep on, then,” I corrected myself, “You ponies be cray.”

My Ebonics was not taken in good humor.

“The proper conjugation is ‘are’,” Twilight corrected me.

“Totes cray,” I mumbled to myself.

“Uhh… Where’s Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked suddenly. Everypony looked around the room urgently. I instantly spotted a shaking tapestry with a pony shaped object underneath it.

“I think I found her,” I chuckled, pointing a hoof at the shivering curtain. Twilight used her magic to lift the tapestry off, revealing a frightened but unhurt Fluttershy. She then turned her attention back to me, gasping when she seemingly noticed my eye for the first time.

“Snow, your eye is-…”

“Yes, I know! I am aware of the blood on my face!” I interrupted exasperatedly, “I’ll go wash it now.”

I washed out my eye and, with much nagging from Twilight and Fluttershy, put a bandage on the wound. Apparently, there were no such things as stitches in Equestria, so a bandage was all that we could do. I wasn’t particularly concerned about it, though. With the bleeding stopped, there wasn’t too much to worry about, besides infection, but they had magic for that.

“So, do you think Chrysalis is working with Discord?” I asked absentmindedly, fiddling with the bandage on my head.

“That’s one possibility. Or Chrysalis decided that now would be a good time to invade, since Discord was already here to distract us. And stop messing with that, you’ll open the wound back up,” Twilight scolded, “Anyways, when did you learn about Chrysalis and the changelings?”

“Uhh… Celestia told me,” I lied.

“Oh. Well, I need to go work on the harmony magnet. See you later, Snow.”

“See you, Twilight,” I replied as she left the room. That left me with the remaining five of the mane six.

“So, what now?” I asked, turning back to the group.

“You should probably take it easy, with your injury and all,” Fluttershy replied softly.

“Oh, come on Fluttershy, I-…”

And then it happened. Fluttershy got very close to me, her eyes as large dinner plates. She stared right through my eyes and straight into my soul.

It was one of the most utterly terrifying moments of my life. I couldn’t tear away from her gaze, and I felt a bead of sweat run slowly down my forehead.

It was the legendary stare.

I couldn’t believe it was real, but there was no denying it, since I witnessed it personally.

“I’ll… t-take it easy…”  I whimpered back hoarsely.

“Good,” she soothed in her normal, comforting voice. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking, so I sat down.

“We could, umm… play a game,” Applejack suggested. Her accent still fascinated me to no end. I guess I wasn’t quite jaded to it yet, “It’s gonna rain soon, so we might as well stay inside.”

“Good idea, Applejack,” Pinkie Pie approved gleefully.

I looked over at Rainbow Dash. She looked back but remained silent. I followed the five mares upstairs to some sort of lounge. I’m surprised I hadn’t run across this room before, because it seemed like a cool place to hang out. There were several comfortable chairs and couches, and books lined some of the walls. There was no television or anything, but it was a nice space nonetheless.

“Anypony have any ideas?” Rarity asked.

“Ooo, ooo! Truth or dare sounds fun, I’ll go first!” Pinkie Pie replied not so civilly.

Well, I guess we were playing truth or dare, then. I mean, I wasn’t about to argue with Pinkie Pie.

“Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed as everypony seated themselves on a white, circular shaped couch. I sat on one end and leaned against the armrest.

“Truth or dare?” she offered sinisterly. Rainbow Dash looked up and smiled slightly.

“Dare,” she replied fearlessly. She only remained in this mindset for a few seconds, though. Rainbow Dash just unknowingly opened up a world of opportunity for Pinkie Pie.

“You have to sit in Snow’s lap for the rest of the game,” she said with a devilish smile.

“What!?” both Rainbow Dash and I exclaimed in unison.

What the actual buck, Pinkie?

“You were never like this before I got here,” I stated absentmindedly. A few of the girls looked back at me inquisitively.

“What do ya mean, sugar?” Applejack asked inquisitively.

“Oh, um, nothing,” I replied immediately, “Just speculation.”

“Rules are rules, you have to do it!” Pinkie Pie cheered before Applejack could ask any more questions.

Rarity and Applejack gave me an apologetic look and Rainbow Dash stood up and sauntered over to me. Everypony else sat on their bellies with their legs tucked under them comfortably, but I leaned back on the couch and so Rainbow Dash could awkwardly climb up onto me and turn around, planting her rump right on my lap and leaning back on my torso. Her mane tickled my nose.

The blush on Rainbow Dash’s face was unmistakable, and I assumed it was even more evident on my white coat, if my entire body wasn’t glowing red at that point.

“Okay, my turn,” Rainbow Dash growled, “Pinkie Pie, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Pinkie Pie challenged with mock solemnity.

“Pinkie, go hold your head underwater for five minutes,” Dashie dared.

“Okie dokie lokie!”

Pinkie Pie bounded off somewhere else and soon came back with a large bucket of water. I was shocked when no pony stopped her, but I was even more surprised when Pinkie Pie actually carried out the dare… successfully. She didn’t come up for air once, and didn’t even seem out of breath when she surfaced again.

“That doesn’t even-…!” Rainbow Dash stammered, “Ahh!”

I let it be, and just went on with the game.

The game was rather normal for a little while. Besides Rainbow Dash sitting on me, anyways. I’m pretty sure she weighed more than me, which is not a good thing, and she was becoming rather heavy.

I couldn’t do anything about it, though. The only thing I could do at that point was call her fat, and I had enough sense to know that saying that wouldn’t go over well.

Rarity was dared to get her mane wet, which she whined about for several minutes before actually following through with it. And I asked Applejack if she has ever lied before.

Apparently, the element of honesty wasn’t as honest as we all thought. She recounted several times where she had to twist the truth; although, most of them were just white lies to help out a friend.

Generally, things went on like this until Celestia walked in. My blush had taken a while to fade, but both mine and Rainbow Dash’s came back in an instant as Celestia approached our group.

I expected Rainbow Dash to hop off, and I think she was about to, but she only shifted her hips around before deciding to stay. That only made it feel like my face was about to catch fire, and I’m sure the intensity of the blush was easily visible on my white coat.

“Hiya, Princess,” Pinkie Pie greeted her.

“Hello, Pinkie Pie. Do any of you know where Twilight is?” She asked, arching an eyebrow at me. I knew it was about the position I was in, and not the question she just asked. I shrugged helplessly and she blinked a few times before turning away from me.

“She’s w-working on the harmony magnet,” I told her, stammering a little.

“Thank you… Snow,” she replied awkwardly before turning to leave.

Rainbow Dash moved around embarrassedly again.

“That was a bit awkward,” I mumbled. Rainbow Dash, being the only one that heard me, nodded in agreement.

“My turn!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. Oh God, it was her turn again.

“Snow! Truth… or dare?” she rasped, dramatically drawing out the word ‘dare’.

“Uhh… dare, I guess.” Wrong choice ~!

“You have to make out with Dashie for ten seconds!” she declared.

There was a short pause before Rainbow Dash responded, "What is it with you making Snow and I do stuff?” she asked irritably.

“It’s just so fun to see you all flustered like this,” she replied happily. That only served to fluster her more, “And Snow is so cute when he blushes! He does that a lot around you, you know.”

I blushed at Pinkie’s statement. Rainbow Dash moved to climb off of me, but Pinkie stopped her.

“Nuh, uh! Can’t break the rules, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie reminded her. Rainbow Dash said nothing, but she leaned backwards and looked up at me. I held her up with my foreleg behind her neck. This was all part of Pinkie’s evil plan.

I leaned down slowly and our lips touched. An urging ululation rose from the group of ponies, the more distinctive voices including Rarity and Pinkie Pie. The kiss felt weird, and that made sense, considering the anatomy of a pony, although these ponies were quite different from the earthly ones. So much so that I probably shouldn’t even be comparing them, but my point is that the kiss felt different than anything I had ever done before.

We broke apart almost fifteen seconds later and I caught my breath. Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and sat up in my lap again.

“We’ve played this… game for a while. How about we do something else?” I asked pleadingly. Pinkie deflated a bit, but Applejack agreed.

“That sounds good, sugar cube. We should do somethin’ else, right Pinkie?” Pinkie didn’t have time to answer before there was a huge crack of thunder. Fluttershy squeaked and scooted right up against me. My heart hurt at her adorableness. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash took that time to climb off of me and go back to her own seat. I was then able to lie down normally, like everypony else.

“Calm down, Fluttershy darling,” Rarity soothed, “It was just thunder.”

Fluttershy almost recovered, but jumped and squeaked again when the door opened. It was Twilight, looking mostly unhappy. She shut the door and came to join us.

“What’s wrong, Twi?” Applejack asked worriedly.

“The princess is making me take a break so I don’t overwork myself,” she pouted, taking a spot next to Rainbow Dash on the circular couch.

“That sounds horrific,” I said, putting my hoof over my mouth in faux shock. She sighed.

“What are you all up to?” she asked, looking back up at everypony else.

“Well, we just finished watching Rainbow and Snow wrestle tongues,” Rarity told her disinterestedly. I cleared my throat softly and glanced in the opposite direction.

“It was truth or dare,” Rainbow Dash clarified.

“You were dared to do it for ten seconds,” Applejack chimed in, “You went for at least twenty.”

“Did not!” Rainbow Dash argued.

“I’m sorry I asked,” Twilight mumbled as Rarity and Applejack disputed with Rainbow Dash.

I glanced over at Fluttershy, who had been sitting there silently for the last thirty minutes. I felt kind of bad for her, she was obviously uncomfortable. Well, so was I, but it’s not like I could do anything about it. Eventually, Twilight made peace and voiced what was probably the best idea of the afternoon.

“It’s getting late. How about we go get something to eat and then get some rest. We never know what’s going to attack us next.”

“Sounds great,” I immediately agreed, standing up with everypony else and following Twilight out of the room.