All That Sparkles

“Well, this has been an interesting two weeks,” Shining Armor said with a sigh. “Mom had a kid, I gained a new... sister-niece, Twilight had a mental breakdown, and our Changeling Tolerance Camp lessons got some practical usage! I think they’re working, I hardly ate Solitaire at all!”

“Yes, well, you could have stood to have eaten her just a little bit more,” Cadance grumbled, flipping a page in the Canterlot Times best seller Fatlas Chubbed.

Shining looked at his wife, lips pursed and brow furrowed. “I... I think we should have you go for another round or three of that Anti-Racism one.”

Cadance rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m just glad that things are finally winding down.” She gave Shining a sultry smile. “You know... we haven’t had proper alone time in ages...”

Shining grinned. “Well, I don’t see any incestious child being born right now. Maybe I can... arrange us a bit of duel solitary.”

At the mention of the word “solitary”, Cadance’s puss soured, but it quickly reverted to normal once she saw her husband’s bedroom eyes. With a giggle, she smiled at Shining and said “Oh, you know I can never resist a lay with my favorite husband, Shiny.”

Shining Armor chuckled nervously. “You mean your only husband, r-right?”

“Yeah, sure.” Cadance shrugged, and licked her lips. “So, are you ready to give me the ride of my life, my handsome stallion?”

Shining smiled deviously. “Oh, you know it, sweetheart.”

Cadance shifted in her place, her hoof rubbing against Shining’s side. “You ready to rut me senseless with some hot, steamy, consensual sex?”

Shining’s ears perked up, and he gave his wife a smile. “Oh, and how!”

Cadance slid up on top of Shining, her legs straddling the stallion’s hips. “Are you ready to get fucking freaky in the missionary position?”

Shining licked his lips, his whole body quivering in excitement. “You bet I am!”

Cadance let out a throaty moan, sliding herself up so that her crotch pressed against Shining’s length. “You ready to get freaky under the covers?”

Shining nodded vigorously, and levitated a nearby handkerchief to wipe down his brow.

“You ready to go downtown with the lights off?” Cadance’s voice was no more than a sultry whisper as she lifted herself up, and sank down on Shining’s erection. Shining let out a small squeak as his male meat drilled through Cadance’s crust and down through her vaginal mantel, hellbent on finding her solid-metal core comprised mostly of nickel and iron.

“Are you going to ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DESTROY ME for the purpose of procreation?” Cadance yelled, slamming her hips down against Shining, her husband’s cock buried deep inside her.

“Woah, hold up!” Shining Armor strained, and with a feat of enormous straight, lifted his wife’s fat ass off of him. Shining Armor whipped his dick so fast out of her it was like Cadance’s vagina was an anthill full of glass and sandpaper.

“Honey, what the fuck? You know that’s not my fetish!” Shining complained, his cock throbbing in annoyance before it wilted like a vase of yesterday’s posies.

“B-But...” Cadance said, pouting and looking at her husband with puppy dog eyes. “I just wanted to try out our limits... push beyond, you know? It’s always a good idea to press the envelop of love.”

“Well, you can return that shit straight to sender, because I’m not having any of that,” Shining said, rolling over in the bed, the blankets falling to the side. “Not now, anyway, what with Twilight’s whole fiasco with the kid.”

As if on cue, the door to their room swung open, and Twilight Velvet trotted in, Glimmer resting peacefully on her back. “Oh good, you’re both here! This makes things so much easier.”

Shining Armor shrieked shrilly, and covered himself up with the blankets quickly. “M-Mom! What are you—this is Cadance and my private time!”

“You guys can go back to fucking later,” Velvet said dismissively. “I’ve got important issues to discuss with you two.”

Cadance sighed, and eyed Velvet. “Such harsh language around the foal you’re using.”

“Eh, I swore around the other two when they were this young as well; they don’t remember it.”

“What are you here to talk about, mom?” Shining asked, blushing deeply and sinking under the covers as to further hide his shame.

“Family matters. That includes you too, Cadance,” Velvet said, sitting down and levitated Glimmer into her arms, rocking the foal gently in her forelegs. Glimmer gurgled, and batter her mother/grandmother’s mane with a tiny hoof.

“Aw,” Shining said, smiling at his sisterniece. “She’s adorable!”

“Yes, and if everything goes as planned, you’ll have tons of time to spend with her!” Velvet said, pressing her hoof against Glimmer’s and smiling down at her.

“‘Everything goes as planned’?” Cadance asked, arching an eyebrow. “Why is it that every day you sound more and more like a psychopath?”

“Logical progression,” Velvet said. “Now, when Twilight gets here...”

“Um, mom? I hate it break it to you, but Twilight HATES you right now,” Shining said, grimacing and looking down at the headboard. “There’s no way in hell she’s showing up here to do anything with you. In fact, she sent me a letter stating that she planned on staying back in Ponyville for a good, long time.”

“Oh, I know,” Velvet said, puffing her lips out as she played with Glimmer, who rewarded her with a gummy smile. “I’ve been going through your mail.”

“What?” Shining Armor cried indignantly.

“Yeah, see, this is really red-flag territory for being a psychopath,” Cadance said.

Velvet shot her daughter-in-law a dirty glance. “You sound just like my therapist.”

“Uh...”

Velvet was no longer paying Cadance any mind, and was instead had turned her gaze back on Glimmer, giving her a big grin. “Oh, and speaking of going through your mail, Shining: I’m sure Twilight's going to come here because I sent her a letter addressed from you saying that you are in urgent need of help.”

“How did you—” Shining began, before his mother cut him off with a devious smile.

“Oh, honey, you don’t get to where I am without learning how to forge your husband’s, family members’, best friends’, in-laws, and close legal consultants’ signatures and writing.”

“See, you keep stacking more evidence up against you on my whole ‘psychopath’ theory,” Cadance said. “And I’m not even like, fishing for information or interrogating you. This is all being revealed through idle conversation. I was wondering why I was subscribed to ‘Nubile Slave Colts Monthly’, though, so I guess that solves THAT mystery...”

This was immediately followed by an awkward silence.

“Mom?” Shining asked, breaking the veil tentatively. “Why did you sign up for a subscription to ‘Nubile Slave Colts Monthly’ under Cadance’s name?”

Fortunately for Velvet, she did not have to answer that, for the door opened right at that very moment, and in walked a somewhat exasperated Twilight Sparkle.

“Hey, Shining! I got your—” Twilight stopped in mid sentence when she saw her mother sitting in the room, cradling Glimmer, and immediately turned 180 degrees and walked out of the room.

Velvet sighed, and set Glimmer down on the floor, who immediately shoved her whole hoof in her mouth. “Twilight, come back here...”

Twilight ignored her mother, before Shining called out to her. “Twilight... you came all the way out here. At least here mom out.”

“Yeah, under false pretenses!” Twilight shouted, hairs in her mane beginning to prickle, a sure sign of imminent hysterics. “Shining, I don’t want anything to do with this psychotic mare—”

“Aha!” Cadence said with glee. “I’m NOT the only one who thinks that!”

“—that I had the misfortune to call my mother for most of my life!” Twilight finished. “She copied your writing style and penmanship just to get me here. Yours! Why are you defending her?”

“He’s probably just trying to brown nose me,” Velvet said, sparing Shining a glance one usually gives a bug that you’ve decided is just shy of being repulsive enough to smash. “Flattery gets you everywhere, I admit...”

Shining’s lips turned up in a hopeful smile.

“...you’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Shining’s smile faltered slightly before attention was driven away from him by Twilight letting out a long sigh. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll hear you out, mother, but trust me...” She looked at Shining, a pang of sympathy striking her. “It’s not for your sake.”

Velvet smiled coyly. “Well then, my dear Twilight... have a seat.”

In moments, the ponies were seated on the couch that was positioned next to the bed Cadence and Shining shared. TWilight sat herself on one end of the couch, pushing herself as hard as she could so that she could put as much distance between herself and her mother as possible, who sat on the other side of the couch. Cadence sat next to Twilight, and Shining between her and his mother.

“Now then, I think we should go over a few recent developments that occurred while you were off in Ponyville dodging your responsibilities,” Velvet said, bouncing Glimmer up and down a bit in her lap.

“Oh, real attractive, mom,” Twilight said, sarcasm so heavy in her voice that it ran from her words into a nearby potted plant, killing it. “Just insult me right off the bat.”

“It wasn’t an insult, it’s an accurate descriptor of what you were doing,” Velvet stated matter-of-fact. “Did you have any intent of returning from Ponyville to raise your child?”

Twilight began to sweat nervously, and Velvet smiled smugly.

“I thought so. Now, Twilight, there’s no shame in making mistakes; as long as you own up to them, they don’t become a larger problem, and the sooner they can be resolved. I should know; I raised you that way.”

Twilight sighed, and stared down at her hooves. “F-Fine. I wasn’t, okay? But do you have any idea what you dumped on me? I couldn’t deal with that kind of thing! Being partially responsible for my parent’s failed marriage, a foal I had with my MOTHER... not to mention having to deal with all those feelings that came flooding back after I repressed them when we first had se-eh-eh...” Twilight trailed off when she saw Shining and Cadence staring intently at her.

“Go on...” Shining said, motioning with his hoof.

“Don’t be afraid to describe it in disgustingly obscene detail,” Cadence added.

Twilight’s mouth fell slightly agape, and her eyes narrowed, blinking once. “Anyway... it was a lot for me to deal with, mother. Remember how I went into a damn coma after I first found out?”

“And who got you out of that coma?” Velvet asked.

“W-Well, you did,” Twilight admitted. “But I wouldn’t have been in the coma in the first place if you hadn’t HAD A CHILD WITH ME!”

Glimmer’s face screwed up, and she let out a sharp mewl before beginning to cry.

“See, now, Twilight, you’ve caused your daughter to cry!” Velvet exclaimed with a sigh. “You don’t want her earliest memories to be of you shouting, do you?”

“Nice try, mother, memories don’t fully develop this early,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Can we please get on with this?”

“Yes, I agree,” came a voice from the doorway. “I think the shorter this talk is, the better for everypony involved.”

All four ponies looked up to the doorway in unison. Twilight gasped quietly. “Princess—!”

Princess Celestia smiled. “Hello, Princess Twilight. Hello, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining.” Her eyes hovered over Twilight Velvet. “And hello, Velvet.” Celestia’s voice took on a decidedly icy tone when she spoke Velvet’s name.

“Princess! Wh-What are you doing here? That is to say, not that I don’t want you here—” Twilight fumbled over her words until Celestia rose a wing to Twilight’s muzzle.

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Celestia said, smiling softly at her. “I am simply here to oversee the meeting between you and your mother. I want to ensure things are kept... civil, due to the animosity between you two at the moment.” She gave Velvet a hard look. “And to make sure that everything that was previously discussed between us is brought up in this meeting.”

Velvet sighed. “Do you really think I would cheat you out of this, Princess?”

“I’m not sure what I can think with you, anymore.”

“Fair point,” Velvet said. She turned back to Twilight. “The Princess and I discussed certain matters pertaining to you during our little meeting. Matters that involve you.”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? And just what were those matters?”

“Romantic matters,” Velvet said. “Specifically between the two of us.”

“‘Us’ being between your mother and I,” Celestia said. “We are both vying for your affections, Twilight. I wish it were any other way...”

Twilight sighed, and stood up. “Well, that’s it.”

“What are you doing?” Shining asked, his expression a mix of mild amusement and horror.

“I must have accidentally fallen through a portal into a crazy soap opera dimension. Not only did I impregnate my mother, and not ONLY is she trying to con me into having some sort of relationship with her...” Twilight took a deep breath, shaking slightly. “My Princess and former teacher wants me to engage in a relationship with her. The only logical conclusion is that in my forays into dark and dangerous arts, I fell through into this terrifying place.”

Twilight paused, breathing heavily. “I should really stop doing coke before I fuck with dark magic.”

Velvet and Celestia exchanged glances. “Twilight,” Celestia said. “I know this is a bit much for you too take in—”

“I’m sorry Princess,” Twilight said. “But I can’t be privy to this madness. Not anymore.”

Twilight slowly trotted to the door, but just as she was about to leave, something happened inside of her bulbous brain. The thoughts and the electrical impulses that whizzed and whirred inside her thinkmeat reached critical levels, and something inside of the Princess’s delicate brain snapped.

“Guh,” Twilight said intelligently, before slumping over, twitching on the floor.

“Oh fuck!” Cadance said, while Shining and Celestia both cringed. “What happened to her?”

“Well, I’ll be,” Velvet said with a small smile. “That old gypsy pony was right!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Velvet sighed. “Let me explain...”

“Oh no,” Cadance said, rubbing her forehead with a hoof. “We’re not going to have a flashback, are we? Those things always give me a headache...”

“It was twenty years ago yesterday...”

“Dammit!”

Twilight Velvet and Shining Armor were walking down the streets of Lower Canterlot, the calls of ponies buying and selling various goods thick in the air. A very young Twilight Sparkle was strapped into a small sling that hugged her mother’s side.

“Fresh roasted oats!” shouted a mare from beside a stall where the delicious smell of roasted oats wafted.

“Spyglasses! Sextants! Charts! Watches! Everything you need for exploring!” shouted another.

“Premium pots!” shouted a stallion from the stall next to them. “Paisley Peat’s Premium Pots!”

A green colt with red eyes emerged from a nearby house, smoke pouring out of it. “Did you say premium pot?”

Paisley Peat scowled. “You know damn well I didn’t! Get back in your cellar!”

“Yes, father...”

Shining clamped his mother’s tail in his mouth, and tugged it gently. “Can we get some roasted oats, momma?”

“I’m sorry Shining, not right now,” Velvet said, casting a glance over at Paisley Peat, who was struggling to shove a large crate over a trapdoor inside of his home.

As they walked past an exceptionally crowded stall, a strange cloud of thick, grey smoke rose from underneath the table. Velvet recoiled slightly, and with a burst of her horn, created a small shield around her and Twilight. Unfortunately, this redirected a substantial amount of the smoke in Shining’s direction, which quickly overwhelmed the foal. Shining collapsed on the ground, coughing and wheezing weakly.

From the depths of the smoke, a figure crept, hunched over and wobbling, as if one of its legs were shorter than the other. As the smoke cleared, it revealed an wrinkled old beige pony with a mat of grey hair for a mane tied up in a loose bun. Around her neck was a pile of moth-eaten, faded pink cloth that one might generously refer to as a scarf. Bangles and beads adorned her ears and stuck precariously out of the cloth around her neck. She wore a ratty cloak over a full-body dress, which was the same color as the scarf. Upon closer inspection, moths fluttered about the cloth, landing for a moment to feed, and then taking flight into the smoke.

“I’m not wearing anything valuable!” Velvet yelled. “Go away!”

The old mare opened her mouth, and a small hissing noise followed by what could only be described as the sound of an elder stallion’s bowels emptying escaped as she spoke.

“Fooolish mare... you have stepped into my stall, and you have knocked over my pots! My precious pots that I made by hoof! Now you must pay the priiice...”

She hacked and cackled. “Of DOUBLE the amount they were worth!” She held out a gnarled hoof. “That’ll be ten thousand bits.”

“What?” Velvet exclaimed. She looked over at the stall, and saw three pots, unharmed, each with a sticker that read “Paisley Peat’s Premium Pots” slapped somewhere on them. She turned back to the gypsy mare and raised an eyebrow.

The copious amount of wrinkles above the mare’s eyes rose together in a disgusting wave of flesh, and she quickly bucked her stand, causing the wood to crumble and the pots to fall to the ground, shattering upon impact.

“Now pay up!” the gypsy demanded.

Velvet sighed, and turned to walk away. “Look, I’m sorry, I really don’t have time to do this—”

She stopped as she felt something tug her tail. She turned her head around and looked down to see the gypsy had clamped it with her mouth, a single grey tooth visible.

“Euagh!” Velvet kicked her back hoof up instinctually, causing the gypsy to fly back onto her haunches, relinquishing Velvet’s tail. Velvet watched in disgusted horror as saliva dripped down her hairs, seeping into her tail.

The gypsy’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened, this time a green mist seeping from it, and her nostrils. For a moment, Velvet assumed that the gypsy had extremely bad halitosis, but that was before she began to speak.

“Twilight Amadeus Velvet!” The gypsy’s voice was deeper now, and it boomed all around Velvet and her children. “I curse you! I curse you for not paying for my pots—”

“I watched you break them!” Velvet yelled, indignant. “Also, you stole those!”

“I CURSE YOU FOR NOT PAYING FOR MY POTS,” the gypsy repeated, louder this time. “And for breaking my oral contact with your tail!” Her milky eyes glazed over. “Your sweet, luscious tail...”

Velvet blanched, and vomited directly into Shining, who was just beginning to recover from the smoke. Shining squealed, and fell over again, moaning.

“Yes, Twilight Amadeus Velvet,” the gypsy said, rubbing her hooves together. “I curse you! I curse you to love only the one you cannot ever hope to be with! I curse you to descend into sociopathy, then psychopathy, have a brief respite in narcissism, THEN DESCEND BACK INTO PSYCHOPATHY! And when the one you love but can never hope to be with betrays you, she will be overwhelmed and struck to the ground with righteous indignation!”

Velvet yawned. “Are you finished?”

“NO!” the gypsy bellowed. “I CURSE YOU, TWILIGHT VELVET!” She cleared her throat, and the green mist ceased its flow from her mouth and nose. “There, now I am finished.”

Velvet sighed, and rolled her eyes.. “A curse? Really? Do you think I’m a little foal or—AH!”

Velvet blinked, the sudden sunlight blinding her. The smoke had vanished, and so had the stall, the remnants of the pots, and Shining Armor.

Velvet groaned. “Dammit!”

“I always assumed she was just lying in order to distract me while she stole Shining!” Velvet said with a little laugh. “Who knew? That old hag’s curse was real!”

Shining, Celestia, and Cadance all stared at Velvet in horror.

“W-Wait,” Shining said, pale as a ghost, although that wasn’t much different from his usual coat color. “I was kidnapped by a gypsy?”

“Relax, Shining, you showed up on our doorstep ten months later,” Velvet said. “Apparently you whined too much. Ain’t that the truth...”

“Did you even LOOK for me?”

Velvet chuckled. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, honey: would YOU look for you?”

“B-But...” Shining gripped his cheeks, dragging them down as he grimaced in horror. “What did they DO to me?”

“Calm down, you sissy, they returned you unharmed! Mostly, anyway...”

“MOSTLY?”

“Well, they took your molars. Don’t know why’d they need them...”

Shining made a small squeaking noise, and tongued the back of his gums. “You told me I was born without them!”

Velvet groaned. “Well, I couldn’t very well tell you the truth, could I? Not after I payed that wizard all those bits to erase your memory of the past ten months after you returned!”

Shining moaned, swooning, before falling off the couch, onto his face, where he joined his sister on the floor.

The two Princesses beside Velvet exchanged glances of horror. The three sat in an awkward silence for a few moments, before Cadance mustered up the courage to speak.

“Your middle name is ‘Amadeus’?”

***

Twilight Sparkle awoke to a bucket of cold water being splashed upon her face.

“Gah!” she grunted, and looked around wildly, her mane flopping against her face. “Please, no! I’ll give you the children! Just don’t take my books!”

“Twilight?” Princess Cadance said, looking down at her in concern. “Are you okay? You’re in Canterlot Palace, it’s alright...”

Twilight sighed, shivering due to her newly acquired dampness. “Oh, thank Celestia, it’s just you.”

“You’re welcome,” Celestia said, smiling.

“You know,” Twilight said, looking around at everypony (except for Shining, who was still passed out on the floor). “While I was out, I thought a lot. About this whole mess that I’m in now.”

She took a deep breath. “And you know what? Let’s do it. I’ll humor you guys. I’ll enter a relationship with one of you.”

Celestia and Velvet smiled at each other.

“That’s wonderful!” Princess Celestia said, her grin broadening.

“You’ve been so kind to me, Princess,” Twilight said. “You’ve supported me throughout the roughest parts of my life, including this one... you were always there for me to fall back on in my youth when I was left alone, estranged from my peers. I-It seems only logical that now that you are no longer my teacher, and that I occupy a place in the hierarchy of the country so close to yours that I... consider a relationship with you.”

Celestia beamed as though she were the sun itself.

Twilight turned to her mother, and heaved a sigh so large that Velvet could smell what her daughter had eaten for breakfast.

Mmm... eggs benedict...

“Mom, I know that we’ve had our differences over... close to a year now. But no matter how I revisited it in my shattered, tweaking mind while I was there spasming on the floor, I could never seem to find anything in my life that you’ve done concerning me that wasn’t out of love. And I twitched and jerked on the—”

“Woah, hold on,” Cadance interrupted. “The gypsy said that you’d do that whole seizure thing when you first betrayed your mother. How is it that you never did anything to betray your mother before? Didn’t you betray her tons of times before? For instance, right after she gave birth to Glimmer? I already ran the love numbers on this thing, it wasn’t about betraying love.”

“What’d you expect? She was a gypsy,” Velvet said, rolling her eyes. “Her curses are about as shoddy as her attempts to extort bits from me. Worked out in my favor this time, though, couldn’t have asked for better timing on when the curse would hit.”

Cadance nodded, comprehension dawning on her face. Twilight sighed, a hoof clasped to her brow.

“Ugh... I’ll ask about this whole gypsy nonsense later.” She took a deep breath, lowered her hoof, and turned back to face her mother. “Anyway, mom, as I was jitching and twerking on the floor, I was finally able to understand why you did what you had to when we first, uh, had ‘relations’, and why you did everything after that. Everything! From divorcing dad, however cruel it was, to maintaining the illusion that it was his child, however cruel that was.”

Velvet’s breath caught in her throat. “You do?” she asked, completely taken aback.

“Yes,” Twilight said, her face displaying the emotional roster of a collander. “It’s because you’re a psychopath. A complete and utter psychopath, with the exception of being able to love me, and essentially, only me.”

“Gypsy,” Velvet and the two non-crepuscular Princesses said in unison.

“Right, whatever this is about a gypsy that you all are going on about,” Twilight said. “Anyway, mom... what I’m trying to say is... I realize that you need love too. And that maybe, just maybe, since I seem to be the only able to, I could give it to you.”

Velvet squealed loudly, hugging her daughter tightly, nuzzling her wet mane. “Oh, Twilight! That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear!”

Velvet turned her head upward to look at the ceiling, smiling widely. “Thank you, gypsy bitch...”

Somewhere near Stalliongrad...

“Look what you’ve done!” a frail, nearly ancient mare screamed with the vigor of one at least fifty years her junior. “You’ve sliced my poor Schmuck's left hoof completely in half! I demand compensation for his medical bills and the trauma you’ve forced on us!”

A stallion, around his mid thirties, lay on the ground, writhing in agony, his hoof cleaved clean down the middle, hot blood pouring down his limb. “Mamma...” he whimpered, a single tears sliding down his unwashed cheek. “Why?”

A large stallion wearing a beaten iron helmet, his coat thicker than a turnip and blacker than his heart sneered down at the elderly mare. “I vatched you cleave your son’s hoof. Very brutal. Colder than my mother’s borsch. Very Stalliongradian of you. No rubits for you!”

The elderly gypsy sneered, reaching for the very blade in which she had used to instigate the con. As she reared up, blade between her teeth, she felt a strange feeling well up inside her, like someone had replaced her gnarled, nearly useless kidneys with balls of yarn.

“Wh-What’s this?” she gasped, the blade slipping from between her teeth and crumpling against the tough Stalliongrad earth. “C-Could it be?”

The gypsy stared down her her hooves as a thin grey coloration began to form on them. “No! Somepony has genuinely thanked me! They’ve received true benefit from my actions!”

“So?” the large stallion with the hemet asked.

“Foool!” she crowed. “Do you have any idea what that does to a gypsy?”

With that, she let out a deafening scream as the coloration enveloped her, her entire body and the three strands of string that the moths had not eaten yet hardening and cracking slightly as she turned to stone.

The helmeted stallion and the gypsy’s son both stared in awe at the new statue. They did not have long to stare, however, as the thick grey cloud cover that perpetually blanketed the Stalliongrad skies broke open for just a moment, and a dazzling ray of sunlight shot down, striking the stone gypsy. She trembled, and within a second, shattered into dust and chunks of rock.

One such chunk, a rather large piece, caught the gypsy’s son right between the eyes.

The helmeted stallion stared down at the bleeding gypsy. “I vould help, but that is not Stalliongradian vay.” He tossed down what looked like another rock next to the gypsy. “Here. Take thees turnip to get you through troubled times.”

With that, he trotted away.

The gypsy’s son lay there, gibbering as blood pooled beneath him. A single tear mixed in with the blood pouring fresh from his forehead.

“Mamma... why?”

“This only leaves one issue,” Twilight said, detaching from her mother, who had been clinging to her like a stubborn dingleberry. “I can’t very well be with both of you, can I?”

“That... is an issue of some concern,” Princess Celestia said, frowning.

“Not to worry!” Cadance said, smiling smugly and reaching down towards Shining, who had just started to come to. “I’ve got you covered! We’ll just consult The Book Of Love!”

“The who ah wha?” Shining grumbled, before widening his eyes very quickly as he felt his wife lift his tail. “Oh dear sweet Celestia! NOT THE BOOK OF LOVE!”

Shining let out a high pitched howl as Cadance plunged her hoof into his supple anus, rooting around in his resilient rectum. Shining bit his lip, his eyes watering as he pawed the floor weekly with his hooves.

“I know it’s in there somewhere...” Cadance mused, sticking her tongue out as she plundered Shining’s pony pooter for the precious pages. She was almost up in a fully limb’s length when she finally lit up, extracting a large tome roughly about the size of an encyclopedia from her husband’s battered butthole. She dropped the book almost immediately, its weight obviously too much for her to bear.

Shining whimpered. Cadance looked at the mildly revolted faces of the other three mares in the room, and laughed. “Oh, don’t worry! We found out on our wedding night that Shining has a REALLY loose rectum! Hell, there's even secret, fleshy compartments in there! The Book Of Love is too precious for me to trust anywhere else, so I sled it inside of the deepest one I could find, to make sure it was shielded from Shiny’s bodily functions.”

“Disgusting,” Velvet remarked cheerfully. “Now, could you go ahead and read the book so we can sort this out?”

“Read The Book of Love?” Shining moaned. “Aw, do we have to? The Book of Love is long and boring!” He gestured to the huge volume that his wife had extracted from his ponut. “Nopony can even LIFT the damn thing!”

“It’s a mine of useful information, Shining,” Cadance said, heaving the cover open with an enormous feat of strength. “It’s full of chart, and facts, and figures... hell, even instructions on dancing!”

Shining smiled, a new strength running through his body. “But you know, honey...” Shining stood up on his hind legs, one of his forehooves pressed against his chest. He opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and belted, “BUT I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I... I LOVE IT WHEN YOU READ TO ME—”

Princess Cadance clocked Shining in the back of the head with her hoof. “We’re not allowed to do that bit. Shut up and help me read the book.”

Shining sat down, rubbing the back of his head with a hoof and sighing. The two flipped through the pages, muttering as they went along.

“Heart shaped boxes! No, what good would that do...”

“Flowers! Yes, flow—no, let’s not be stupid...”

“Wedding rings? Woah, easy there, tiger, that’s for a bit later!”

Twilight snorted. “I very much doubt that I’m getting married anytime soon.”

Cadance and Shining exchanged a glance before breaking down into hysterical laughter. Cadance slumped over The Book Of Love, gasping for breath while Shining leaned on her, clutching his sides and howling with mirth.

“Ah...” Cadance moaned at last, wiping a tear from her eye, while Twilight glared down at her. “That’s good stuff.” She shoved Shining off of her, and flipped another page in The Book Of Love.

“Of course!” she exclaimed, pointing towards a diagram about midway down the page. “That’s it! In the event of two ponies vying for the same lover with both equal and just reason, a bit may be flipped to choose who is worthy of being the partner!”

Cadance looked around. “Does anyone have a bit on hoof? Oh, nevermind—”

There was a loud schlork!, and Shining released a high-pitched whinny. A single sparkling bit levitated in the air next to Cadance.

“Heads or tails?” she asked Velvet and Celestia.

“Heads,” Velvet said.

“I suppose I am left with tails,” Celestia conceded. Cadance nodded, and turned the coin on its side, letting it go from the magical aura. The coin spun in the air, landing on the tile with a small clang. The bit bounced a few times, before landing and spinning so quickly it looked like a golden blur.

When it finally stopped, everypony gathered around it to see the results.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Twilight groaned.

The coin had landed perfectly on its side, precariously balancing in the space between two tiles.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way of dating them and choosing yourself,” Cadance said, looking up from the coin at Twilight. “Which, admittedly, should have been our first choice of action, anyway.”

Twilight sighed and sank to the floor, her head hung in her hooves.