Author's Note
I am a horrible, horrible person.
Wait, what?!
Twilight tilted her head as she opened the door to her castle, and saw not one, but all five of her friends were waiting on the other side. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise, what brings you all here, together, at the exact same time?"
"Well, I don't know sugar cube, I thought you would'a known," Applejack said with a tip of her hat. See'n as ya sent Pinkie fer me."
"Yeah, I got an invite too," Rainbow Dash said as she held up an envelope. "Says you wanted us all here for something."
"Wait wait wait, I didn't invite anypony over. I was busy all day organizing the new library, I just now stopped because Spike said dinner was ready. Pinkie, what's going on?" She looked at her friends, and noticed that one of them was suddenly absent from the cluster. "Pinkie?" She stood frozen for a moment before she sighed to herself and stepped aside. Well, it seems innocent enough. After all it's just your friends. "Come on in girls, make yourselves at home. I've gotta find Spike and see if there's enough food for you all."
Now, in the Official Guide to the Multiverse, there are several truths that can be said about many things. And on friends, one fact has been found to withstand the test of time, space, planes of existence, and species. And that is, if one has friends that are coming over to visit, they are going to want something out of you. Be it a loan of some sort, a glass of water, a cup of sugar, or just a piece of your time. Now if this book were to exist, it would also quite possibly mention that letting more than three friends in your house is a horrible idea, unless you can afford it, because odds are that you will find that your shelves will be missing several key things before they leave.
Twilight Sparkle however did not know this, because the guide to the multiverse does not exist, at least not in her version of what can be perceived as reality. However, rest assured that the universe where that book does exist, is a very cold place indeed, where Twilight Sparkle is instead known as Unicorn 427-T, and is a model member of the state, and has no desire to have friends sponge off of her. However, being that this Twilight does not have that book, she soon found her foyer being mobbed, politely, by her friends.
"Alright, make yourselves at home, I'll bring you to the kitchen in a few minutes," Twilight said with a slight strain to her smile. She then quickly galloped off to the next room over, then galloped down the hall, then turned right into another hall, then panted and wheezed for a few moments before cursing the enormity of her new home, then finally stumbled into the kitchen before collapsing on the floor. "Spike," she said before going into a coughing fit. "We have guests."
"Oh they came? Good, I was starting to think they'd never show," Spike said with a smile as he stirred something in a giant pot. "Hey Pinkie, mind passing me the pepper before you pull the spinach puffs out of the oven?"
"Okie-dokie!" Pinkie chirped before bouncing over with the pepper. She quickly tossed it to Spike before continuing on to the oven and pulling a tray of the aforementioned puffs out. Once she laid them out to cool on a rack she quickly pulled the pad she was using to protect her mouth out and waved it back and forth over the puffs. "Hey you wanna try one Twilight? Just be careful, they're hot!"
Twilight felt a twitch of her nerves as she tried to suppress a sarcastic comment, only for it to fly out into the open. "No kidding, you just pulled them out of the oven."
"I know right?" Pinkie said, oblivious once again to what sarcasm was as she began humming to herself and made her way over to a cake and began to apply a delicate amount of frosting to it, and a liberal amount of frosting to her tongue.
Twilight felt her forehoof raise to hit herself in the forehead, and stopped it quickly as other gears in her brain began to click into place. She then zoomed quickly over to Spike, and nearly knocked him off of his stool. "YOU! Why did you invite everypony here? Why didn't you tell me? I'm not prepared for company right now!" She then lightly smacked herself with her wings to show the dust she'd coated herself in while working on the library to drive the point home.
"Well, I know that," Spike replied as he began to nervously bend and twist his tail in his claws. "But you've been kinda grouchy lately, and you haven't seen anypony for almost two weeks outside of the occasional food run. So I thought bringing your friends over would cheer up."
"And I helped," Pinkie said proudly before pulling ever manner of drink out from Twilight's fridge. "See, he suggested to me that I come over for a bit, but then I asked if I should bring anypony else, and he said he was planning on inviting them over for tea as well, but then I said, tea? Since when were we reduced to a cup of tea and that's it status?"
"You haven't been reduced to any-" Twilight started to say, only for Pinkie to continue her ramble.
"Spike said that nopony's been reduced to nothing, but then I said, what if we have a big ol' party at your place? And he was all, 'I don't think that's a good idea,' and then I said, yeah your right. But what about a SLUMBER PARTY! And I invited everypony over so you won't be lonely anymore, because now you're surrounded by all your friends!"
Twilight Sparkle, who is most definitely not Unicorn 247-T, felt the sudden urge to unleash her powers to banish Pinkie to the Phantom Zone. It is a most terrible place, where upon becoming trapped within, you instantly become noting more than a moving flat image of yourself, trapped for all time to beat against the window as you spin through space. However, Twilight Sparkle stopped herself, not because she suddenly didn't want to. But rather, because she was sure that Pinkie Pie could simply break through any metaphysical and hypothetical trans-dimensional wall. So instead, she gave a guttural grunt, and turned around.
"I was fine Pinkie, just trying to get everything organized in this Mother Forsakenly huge castle." She then let out a much softer sigh as a smile spread across her face. "But, I suppose a night in with the girls would be nice. I'll be with the others, meet me at the library."
Pinkie of course smiled as she added a copious amount of pepper to a scone before scarfing it down. "Mmmm, shyeah, see chu soo!"
Twilight spun around and faced the wide set of double doors leading back out to the halls. Alright, you got this, just a couple of stretches before you go for another run. She leaned forward and stretched as far as her front hooves could go before hearing a sickening pop. Oooh, that felt good, but was probably bad. After shaking off the stretch, she soon took off galloping to find out where her friends had gotten themselves to.
She had not gone too far in her gallop before running into Fluttershy, who was slowly making her way towards the kitchen, which of course meant that Twilight had almost run right into her. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you coming, are you alright?"
Fluttershy, of course did not answer immediately, but instead tried to get the unfathomably large amount of adrenaline that suddenly found it's way into her system out. "Uh, I think so," she finally answered. "You just startled me is all." She paused for a few moments as Twilight continued to the foyer at a now slightly reduced pace so her friend could keep up with her. "Hey, umm, what's the rush? If you don't mind my asking."
Twilight Sparkle, at this moment should have realized how fortunate she is for living in this version of reality, instead of the one where The Official Guide to the Multiverse did exist, for in that dimension, at this very moment, Unicorn 247-T was in the middle of an interrogation, only she was the one being interrogated. The inquisitor, was none other than Pegasus 872-F, and she was a cruel pegasus that was quite fond of tearing down unicorns that horde illegal books. However, since this isn't that universe, once again Twilight failed to see how a small twist of fate could have meant that instead of a cowering shy pony trotting next to her, she could instead be dealing with the raw end of a whip from the same mare.
"Oh, well there's been a change of plans, so I need everypony to meet in the library instead of the dining room," Twilight said, oblivious once more to the fact that Fluttershy could have grown up to be a power hungry tyrannical ranking officer instead of a shy introvert. "But I need to make sure that everypony is still there, then I gotta fix the area so it will be comfortable for us all, and..."
"Maybe you should calm down," Fluttershy said with a sweet smile. "I'll help Spike and Pinkie Pie with making the library comfortable, but I think I saw Rarity head to the throne room before I left."
Twilight didn't give a direct verbal response in either this instance, or in the alternate dimensions. As a result, in our world Fluttershy understood and went in one direction, while Twilight went to another. But in the other dimension, Pegasus 827-F gave Unicorn 247-T a rather forceful hit across the muzzle before apologizing and offering her a bandage.
On her way to the throne room, she only had to stop for air twice and passed out from exhaustion once before finding Rarity and Applejack near one of the walls to the side. "Now Applejack, be gentle as you can to the walls when you buck them, we don't need the crystal to shatter."
"Consarn it Rarity, I know how to buck a tree, but them crystal apples just ain't comin' down!" She then gave the wall a few more selective hits before taking off her hat and fanning herself with it. "Why can't ya just pluck a few of them down with yer magic?"
Rarity was about to give an answer, somewhere along the lines of either, 'I didn't think of it,' or 'Because you wanted one too.' However, that was when Twilight gave off a sound that was somewhere between clearing her throat and gasping for breath. "And what do you think you're doing?"
The two mares jumped suddenly, and both looked as if they were caught with hooves in the cookie jar. "Oh, Twilight, darling, what are you doing here? In your house, that you live in."
Twilight felt a groan starting to escape her, but managed to quiet it down with the promise of a time out for herself in the shouting space. "Oh, nothing much, I just wanted to tell you that we're meeting in the library." She then looked around the room a little bit, and noticed somepony was still absent. "Hey, have you seen Rainbow Dash?"
The two mares looked at each other for a second before they started nudging each other. Finally, after a forceful shove with her magic, Applejack stumbled forward to give an answer. "Uhh, well, you see Twi, she kinda went off on her own a while ago."
Twilight looked at her as if she was expecting more, but when nothing more came, she slammed a hoof down in frustration, causing a pair of the crystal apples to fall on both of her friends withers. "Okay, fine. It's alright, just, go to the library. And take those apples with you!" She then stomped off to try to find the AWOL pegasus.
After two flights of stairs, a pause for a glass of water, three moments to catch her breath, a moment of giving up and using her wings, and another moment of full DILLIGAF where she began to use magic to teleport from room to room, she finally decided to give up on the search for Rainbow Dash and went outside to her shouting space. Or as Spike called it, the Twilight Zone.
It was a most intriguing room, made entirely of the purest, most clear of crystals in such an odd shape, that one would have never seen it amid the many crystal branches that made up her tree. Here, she was perfectly hidden from the world, unless you flew from above. However, this was her one space where she could make as much noise as she wanted, and not be heard. Not to mention that she had a fairly nice telescope there, and would spend hours on end star gazing here until she felt calm.
However, it was shouting she came here to do, and that was just what she did, and after finally finding herself unable to gasp out another call of frustration, she sighed deeply, and looked out into the branches around the room. "Why did I even agree to this? I should just give up and meet the rest of the girls in the library." She was about to do just that, when she suddenly spotted a familiar shade of blue lounging in the branches.
There, wedged neatly between the clear walls of the Twilight Zone, and the branch she was laying on, was Rainbow Dash, currently polishing the wall with her own saliva and face as she snored peacefully. "Unbelievable," Twilight muttered to herself as her horn began to charge with a spell. In a quick flash of light, both she and her pegasus friend were instantly transported to the library, where everypony else was waiting. "Sorry I'm late girls, this one is surprisingly hard to find," she said as she levitated the still snoozing Dash before them. "So, who's up for a game?"
A few hours later, the sextet was laughing uncontrollably as another pillow flew across the room and beaned Rarity in the face. She glared around the room to find the culprit, but only saw Fluttershy before another pillow hit her. The laughs went on for a few minutes before Dash introduced the room to her, parlous pillow barrage from above. Efectively putting everypony out of the mood for that particular game.
"Okay," Twilight said with a smile, "what next?"
"I don't know," Applejack said with a smile. "I think it's time we slow down though, Spike's already passed out and I don't think he'd like all this racket." To emphasis her point, she waved a hoof over to a giant pile of pillows, that carefully hid away the snoozing dragon. "Maybe we could just talk?"
Everypony nodded in agreement as Rainbow Dash, now powered from her nap and charged from the fight, lowered the lights and cast a beam from a lamp over her face. "Would you like me to tell you the tale of, the shadow mare?" she said in her best spooky voice.
"Um, no thank you," Fluttershy squeaked from a corner of the room. "Maybe we can talk about something else?"
"Hmm," Twilight wasn't sure about where to take things, but she had a good idea where to start. She reached out with her magic, and was just about to pull out her copy of, A Thousand and One Conversations You Could Have Had At That Party, if you'd only read this book, when Rarity said, "Did you see Cherry Berry today? She was out in town with two strange stallions."
"Wait a minute," Rainbow Dash said with a tilt of her head. "You mean the mare that runs the fruit stand?"
"Oh, so apples aren't a fruit now?" Applejack said with a raise of her eyebrow."
"I think she meant the other fruit stand," Fluttershy said with an easy smile.
"Well I think that's beside the point," Twilight said with a face that stood somewhere between annoyed and amused. "Go on Rarity, what else is there to the story?"
"Oh that's it really," the unicorn said with a flip of her mane. "It's just that I saw her talking to a pair of strange stallions."
A few moments of silence decided to run through the room as everypony stared at Rarity in disappointment. As usual, it took Applejack to break the ice by saying what was on everyone's mind. "Uh, Rarity, that doesn't exactly sound like your usual gossip."
"Ap-eh-doo-whah?" Rarity stuttered out with as much indignity as she could muster. "As if I would stoop so low as to actually talk about something as, something as blase as gossip?" She exaggerated her anger for a moment as she stomped away from her comfortable pillows, and flomped down onto the makeshift mattress she made in one corner. "What do you expect from me? Some trashy talk about who's seeing who on the side?"
"Well, yeah!" Rainbow Dash said with a smile. "I mean, it's all in good clean fun, it's not like you're gonna tell us that somepony has a thing for changelings, or gets switched on by watching ponies eat."
Rarity was about to respond, but when she turned around, there was something that sounded almost like a whisper of wind. That was when the room went into an uproar suddenly. She was unsure of how to take it as everypony began looking at each other suspiciously, and shouts began firing all over the place. "Well, if you want smut so much, why don't you read one of Twilight's more private books?"
"Rarity, now's not the time for, wait how do you know about my," Twilight then shook her head and pointed across the room at the still arguing ponies. "You didn't hear that just now?"
"Hear what darling?" Rarity intoned with a flicker of her ears as she tried to decipher the words mincing together from the three going at each other. Finally she was able to really tune in, and was able to piece something together from it.
"You must have said that," Rainbow Dash said with a frown, after all, you two sound exactly the same sometimes!" Dash accused wildly.
"Nuhuh," Pinkie dejected as she pointed at Fluttershy. "I know that it was her, I was right next to her when she said it!"
"But there's no way that she would," Applejack said with a frown. "It must be one of your tricks Rainbow!"
"But I didn't!" The pegasus shouted in defiance. "It's gotta be Pinkie, it sounds like one of her pranks to say something like that."
"I might have found it funny, but there's no way that I actually did-"
"QUIET!"
Everypony froze and turned to Twilight as she snorted in anger. Once the situation calmed down, she looked over her friends with a deep frown. "Look, it doesn't matter any more. One of you put it out there," she shot a glance at Rainbow Dash before continuing. "And somepony answered, either it be on accident, or as a joke. Now, who said 'that's my fetish'?"
Silence rang for what felt like forever, and Twilight felt an eye twitch. She was getting ready to call it a night and just send everypony home at this point, when a yellow hoof slowly rose into the air. "Me," Fluttershy squeaked from behind the wings covering her face.
"Fluttershy dear," Rarity said with a comforting smile. "There's no need to say that, I mean, we know you wouldn't ever-"
"No," she spoke again, but slightly louder than before. "It really was, but I don't know why, it just flew out of me!"
Everypony was kind of silent as an air of awkwardness began to settle in like a LosPegasus smog. Finally, after a few coughs from the different mares, Rainbow Dash felt an itch, and she knew it would kill her if she didn't ask the question on her mind. "So, you like to watch ponies eat?"
Even as Twilight, Applejack and Rarity began slapping Dash a few times each to shut her up, Fluttershy reacted immediately. "What? No!" she said with a raised hoof while backing away slightly.
"So, you're into changelings then? Pinkie Pie asked with a tilt of her head. Fluttershy didn't answer, but began to show a deep shade of red on her cheeks as she sunk lower and lower to the ground.
"Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, I have half a mind to just send you home," Twilight said with a deep frown. "Can't you see that you're hurting her feelings?" She then pointed at where Fluttershy should be, only to find an empty spot on the ground.
She, Applejack, Pinkie and Dash looked around the room, only to find her in Rarty's embrace. "Don't be so embarrassed dear," Rarity said in a soothing voice. "Everypony has that one thing they're into. No matter how, unorthodox. There's no need to be ashamed, if changelings are what you, er, fantasize about, then that's alright." She then glared daggers at the rest of the room and said, "Right everypony?"
There was a chorus of confirmation and love for their friend as the other four came up and gave Fluttershy a hug with Rarity. "Don't feel so bad Flutters," Pinkie said with a smile. "I mean, did you know that I like cake?"
Everypony looked at her in an unimpressed manner as Applejack took the moment to state the obvious. "Uh, that's not a surprise ya know. I mean, you eat it practically every day."
"No no no no no," Pinkie said with a wave of her hoof. "I mean, I like cake. I mean, when I have a stallion over, I like to use the cake. A lot, we eat it, and we smear it in each other's faces, and right before he gets me to-"
"Whoa! Hold up," Rainbow said as she jammed a hoof over Pinkies mouth to stop the flow. "I think we get it at this point." Satisfied with Pinkie's knowing nod, she flapped away to the shelf she was using as a perch earlier when the conversation had first started. "So, I guess if it makes you feel better, I can go next," she said with a smile.
"Let me guess, you're into mares or inanimate objects like ocean liners and kitchen sinks." Applejack deadpanned, and a round of giggles broke out in the room from everypony, including Fluttershy.
"Psh, as if," she said with a flick of her tail. "Now I ain't been with anypony yet, but sometimes I like to think about doing it with some of the Wonderbolts every once in a while. You know what I mean?"
"Stallions or mares?" Pinkie asked as she held a magazine in each hoof, one with Spitfire, the other with Soarin.
"Psh," she said with a bob of her head. "As if you'd like to know." And with that she crossed her forelegs across her barrel and sat back. "You're turn Applejack!
Applejack looked at Rainbow Dash as if she had just grown a second head, or that she had come from another world. "Clearly y'all need some kinda check up from th' neck up," Applejack spat sarcastically. "What in the tar is wrong with y'all? I mean, fer starters, Rainbow, that's not a fetish, that's more like a fantasy."
"She's right you know," Rarity said with a smile that could only be described best as, 'saucy'. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with indulging on the occasional fantasy about that stallion or, I suppose mare that you could never have. But a fetish is so much more, how should I put it?"
"Deviant?" Twilight suggested with a shrug.
"I think you're getting side tracked from the issue," Dash said with a frown as she hovered above the room. "Can't you see that Applejack's just distracted us from getting an answer from her?"
"Ah, um," Applejack stumbled for a moment before adjusting her hat. "I ain't doin' no such thing here Rainbow, I just wanted you to confess before you push it on to somepony else is all." She finished by lowering her hat into a more forward position, shading her eyes from the room so nopony could see that she was scanning everypony to see if they believed her.
Naturally, that meant that everypony saw through her lies, as if there were a big neon sign pointing out this fact for the world to know. Of course, no sign was needed, because Applejack couldn't lie, not even if it meant the ERS was going to raise her taxes for it.
"Right then," Twilight said with a frown. "I guess since somepony," she paused to glare at Rainbow Dash. "Brought up my books, I don't have to say anything." She was just about to leave it at that, and change the subject for the evening when something unusual happened.
Now, once again we must go back to the Official Guide to the Multiverse, for it is said in one of it's rather numerous chapters, that there is no such thing as irony, or even coincidence and luck. There is, however, extreme cases of bad or good happenstance, and ponies, other peoples, or even the powers that be, are almost always trying to in one way or another, 'get a rise' out of you. The moment that that somepony shouted, "Applejack's into anthro!" happened to be one of those moments.
It was within a matter of micro seconds, that Twilight managed to calmly turn to tell Rainbow Dash off, saw Applejack's face, realized that what was said was true by the look on the apple farmer's face, and finally, have Twilight's jaw come unhinged with shock at the implications this had. "What?"
The farm pony took a step back from the group as she felt a heat rise to her cheeks, and an involentary chuckle escaped her throat. "I have no idea what that word even means, antro. Who said that? I mean, what'sat supposed to be? It's an eastern word, right? From that island off east of Draconia? Japony? Right?"
"No silly, the ponies in Japony like tentacles!" Pinkie said in what was way too happy a voice to even mention what goes on between the pages of any hentai magazine. Rarity was at this moment, grateful that she had somehow, managed to not be caught in the middle of taking a bite or drink of something. Otherwise, odds were against her that she'd be able to keep from doing a spit take.
"Ah-ha-ha, okay, I think that this has gone on long enough. Why don't we change the subject?" Rarity suggested with a smile as she started to pull magazines out of one of her bags. "I have some lovely fashion tips in this issue of Manehatten Mare Monthly, and I've been dying to try them on somepony."
The distraction, of course, was too good to be true. Meaning, in short, that it didn't work. Rarity kept her smile plastered on her face as she held out a magazine with her magic, and started to take a step forward. "So, who want's to try the new chic sleek mane style? It's all the rage."
Nopony responded to that. Instead, it was Fluttershy that took initiative. "Rarity, do you read hentai?"
If every awkward feeling moment in this room were to be described as a bomb going off in the room, then by now, this final one would have flattened the rest of Ponyville to the ground. Rarity's eye twitched slightly and a single strand of her mane sprung out of place. "Why, whatever do you mean darling? I just think that this conversation is dragging on far too long, and-"
"I KNEW IT!" Rainbow shouted with laughter. "Miss prissy pony there is into the dirtiest stuff of us all! So, what is it that does it for you, the tentacles, or is it the hard core stuff with multiple stallions and one mare tied to a chair?"
"How would you know about that miss 'I've only fantasized about the wonderbolts'!" Rarity shot back.
"Yeah, well at least I'm not into screwing animals!" Rainbow Dash said as she pointed a hoof vaugly at Applejack.
"HEY!" Applejack and Flutershy both defended at once before looking at each other and blushing. "I'm not into animals that way, I would never," Fluttershy started to mutter out, only to get drowned out by Applejack's more boisterous commentary.
"I ain't into animals, I didn't ever say that I was! And besides, I only like how they look if they were sentient,"
"I thought you said you didn't know what antro was," Pinkie Pie said with a smirk as she passed Applejack an image of a rather raunchy looking wolf.
"I did, I mean, I don't know, I mean, give me that!" She snatched the wolf picture out of Pinkie's hooves and chucked it into a nearby fireplace to burn to ash.
The chaos that ensued began to grow as the six mares started to throw insults back and forth at each other. Everything was being weaponized in verbal combat, from crazy Japony's hentai between Dash and Rarity, to the food smushing and antro between Pinkie and Applejack, and every so often the four would switch around to one another or try to get Twilight involved in the mix.
Fluttershy meanwhile sat huddled in the corner of the room, tears silently streaming down her face as her mind raced at a thousand miles a minute. Why did I say that? If I just kept my big mouth shut, my friends wouldn't be fighting. All your fault Fluttershy, you useless stupid pony. No, I shouldn't talk to myself like, oh who am I kidding, it's all my fault!
The noise got louder as Rainbow assaulted Rarity's bag of magazines, and pulled out an issue tucked way in the back. "Well lookie here everypony! I told you Rarity was into the kinky stuff! But no, you wanted to," That was when she saw the image of a particularly intense bondage scene, with a full grown dragon being involved with an earth pony. It didn't take long for her wings to stiffen up and send the pegasus crashing down to the middle of the room.
"Give me that back!" Rarity demanded as she snatched the issue away from Rainbow Dash with her magic. "I don't go snooping through your personal belongings, do I?!" She then tucked it away into her bag and looked at Rainbow Dash with a deep frown. "And what makes you think your so innocent, huh? Or did you just get a double wing cramp?"
"Will you guys please be quiet?" The voice was quiet, and half awake when the question was asked. But everypony froze anyway at the distinctly young male voice that called out to them from the doorway. "It's two thirty in the morning, and all I can hear is that you ponies are way too interested in what you each want to do."
The diminutive dragon then entered the room and the six remained frozen to their spots as he walked passed them, eyes half open and barely registering what was going on. "I don't care what you all want to do, just go ahead and do it, so long as you aren't hurting anypony, and you like doing it, that's your business and nopony else's."
He then stopped at the book shelf, and looked it over for a moment before picking out a tome and turning around. "Now I don't care if you want to keep arguing about what you want to do, just figure it out already and get on with it, I'm trying to sleep!" With that, he left the room and slammed the doors behind him, still as oblivious as ever to what a fetish, or for that matter what even sex is, and believing that he'd been spot on the money that they were fighting over what they like to do, instead of what they like to 'do'.
The silence reigned supreme over the room, like a maniacle sound eating tyrant it stayed throughout. Nopony spoke, or moved, or even breathed for that matter for a few more moments as they made sure that Spike was well and truly gone. Finally, Applejack asked something rather important. "Uh, Twi? How far away is Spike's room from this one?"
Twilight shuffled her hooves for a few moments as she calculated the distance, then how to accurately get the point across to her friends. She finally settled on a simple measurement. "The far end of the castle from here."
"And how can he hear us so well?"
"Good acoustics," Spike answered from somewhere down the hall before the sound of a shutting door and a toilet flushing could be heard by the girls.
A sudden look of shock spread across everypony's face as the implications of the new information lead to."Okay, there's no need to panic," Twilight said with shaky confidence. "It's not like anypony outside heard us." She then looked out the window to emphesize her point, only to turn a rather putrid shade of green.
"Just give it to me straight Twi," Applejack said as she held her hat over her heart. "How many ponies?"
Twilight edged away from the window as the glow of firelight began to softly seep in, as if hundereds of ponies were marching their way to the castle with a torch in hoof to light the way. Suddenly a rock with a rather nasty note shattered the window and landed in the center of the room with a dull thump. Everypony screamed slightly and backed away from the window.
Twilight looked around sheepishly as her friends looked to her for answers. "Uhh, I can fix this."
Dear ~~Princess~~ Celestia.
Sorry, I keep forgetting not to use your title. Anyway, I learned a very valuable lesson last night, in fact, several of them. One of them is to never not expect company when you have friends. Friends are more than likely going to want to come over when you least expect it, and that's fine. Another lesson that I learned is that everypony has secrets, not just the ones that everypony likes to talk about when they think nopny is looking. But secrets that involve what they love to do behind closed doors, and share with nopony. Sometimes not even with their special somepony. I also learned that I should quite possibly look into getting some sound proofing done form my new home.
Lastly, I learned that it's always a good idea to keep a memory wipe spell on hoof to erase the last thirty minutes when the entire population of your town learns these secrets in the middle of the night because your castle broadcasts sound like a giant phonograph horn.
Your faithful friend,
Twilight Sparkle.
Princess Celestia looked over the letter once again and couldn't help but giggle. "So, little Twilight learned that a princess and her company shouldn't have these secrets brought out in public." She smiled as she rolled it up and placed the letter onto a pedestal marked, year four friendship letters. It was, of course, very much alone. "Maybe I can combine that one with the ones I got last year instead. Like a combo-deal to save space."
Of course, nopony answered her as she thought out loud, and she was pleased for it. She then did a double take to make sure, for sure, that nopony was around before she walked to the farthest end of the room. She looked over her shoulder once again, and did a triple check that the door, and windows were indeed locked. She then slid open a hidden compartment in the wall and gave a dirty smile. "Oh it's been a while hasn't it? Come to mama."
Nopony knows for sure what kind of toys or magazines the princess keeps in that compartment, or even where to find it if they were invited to do so. But the stuff within, is said to be legendary.
It had been a few weeks since the sleep over incident, as Twilight liked to call it, and things had finally leveled off to normal. Or rather, as close to normal as things can get after such a night.
Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had gone about their lives as if nothing had ever happened, mere hours after that night had ended, prefering to never speak of it again, but of course, such an event can never be fully undone. For despite Twilight's best efforts to undo the memory of their conversation on the ponies of the town, there was still damage control left to be done.
Specifically, it was Fluttershy. Despite the fact that everything was agreed as said and done, she was the only one that left the incident that seemed to be truly worse for the wear, and had spent the entirety of her time locked away at home. In fact, she had only been coming out to care for the animals, or get supplies for the house.
It was a full three weeks since that night, and despite several attempts on Twilight's behalf, Fluttershy still refused to leave home, or see any of her friends at all. And despite Twilight's best attempts to visit daily, she still had trouble with not only Fluttershy, but her own home as well. "Spike, can you hear me now?"
"What?" Spike called from the grass outside. "Can you speak up? I can't barely hear you!"
Satisfied with her results, Twilight nodded and finished the sound dulling spell on the room she was in. "I think that will keep things a little more private," she said with a small smile. She then trotted over to the window and looked down at Spike.
He looked around to the left and right for a few seconds before shuffling closer to an exposed crystal root. "Hmm, just a nibble, I doubt anypony would notice," he muttered to himself before unhinging his jaws to wrap around the circumference of the root.
"SPIKE! What have I told you about eating our house?!" She chided from the open window.
Spike at least had the decency to look ashamed as he backed off from the root and twisted his tail nervously with his claws. "To not to," he mumbled just loud enough for the princess to hear him from the window.
"Well, stay there, I'm coming down," she called out before shutting the window. Spike looked back at the root, and was tempted to once again take a bite, when one of the smaller twigs of the crystal tree decided to instead fall on him. It didn't hurt much, but it was just heavy enough to spite him for trying to eat the tree.
Twilight meanwhile, was busy gathering up a few well needed supplies. Her notepad was needed for certain, as well as quills, and those would be worthless without ink. She decided to grab a few books from her room for extra measure. Including, but not limited to, a copy of Mental Anguish and How to Deal With It. Once her bags were filled, she checked herself over once more and left for the front doors in time to see Spike eating the fallen twig. "What did I just get finished telling you?"
Spike froze, and stared at Twilight for a few seconds, neither of them moving. Finally, he slowly sucked the rest of the crystal twig into his mouth and swallowed it whole. "I have no idea what you are talking about," he said in a very flat and robotic tone of voice.
"Of course you don't," Twilight said with a frown before heading down the road. "Come along Spike, I think it's time that we handled Fluttershy properly."
Fluttershy was busy when Twilight arrived on her front door. In fact, she'd been busy for quite some time now. What with, well, that wasn't important to her at all. She was at this time however, busy drinking her way to the bottom of a bottle of wine, as if the answer to why she felt so bad would be down there. The problem was that it wasn't there, nor in the last case of bottles she'd been through the past few weeks.
Not to say that she'd been drunk the entire time since she'd left the morning after the sleep over incident, but if she were to be honest with herself, she should have known that two bottles of wine a day was probably not the answer to her problems. Just a way to feel numb for a while before it wore off, then she would start again.
So, naturally when she discovered that Twilight Sparkle was at her front door for her daily visit, the first thing she did was slam the door before making a desperate last second attempt at cleaning up the bottles scattered on the floor. "Fluttershy, please let me in, we need to talk."
"No," she called softly. "I mean, uh, not yet! I'm not decent!"
Twilight looked at the shut door and tilted her head at it in confusion. "Uh, Fluttershy, we almost never wear clothes."
Fluttershy cursed silently under her breath, then noticed what she had just done before doing so again because she had done so, then apologized to herself for speaking in such a way. "Uhh, just a moment, I need to clear a space," she then picked up the last bottle and shoved it into the crate it came from. "For you to sit at, I mean." She quickly whipped a tablecloth out of her closet and lay it atop the crate, making it look like a small side table between the couch and chair. "Alright, come in."
Twilight used her magic to open the door, and saw that the place was, immaculate as a place with a thousand plus animals coming and going from it can possibly be. Meaning, it looked good, but smelled like a litter box and cheep room spray. "Hey," Twilight said as she tried to push the smell to the back of her mind and ignore it. "I uh, just wanted to check up on you. We haven't seen you at all since that night."
"Oh that night," Fluttershy said as her ears went back in embarrassment. "Yes, umm, well, I've been busy."
Twilight looked around, and noticed that many of the animals that were usually occupying the living room, were in fact either curled up in the small huts placed around the room, or missing entirely. "Busy with..." Twilight lead on, but Fluttershy failed to follow. "What?"
Fluttershy was still buzzing slightly from the wine, but with fresh fear from the social call coursing through her veins, that feeling was quickly becoming a distant memory. "Busy with..." she stopped to think of an answer. "Thinking."
The air between the two of them began to grow thicker, and Twilight coughed a little into her hoof before sitting down in one of the chairs. "Soo, Spike's outside." Twilight said as Fluttershy walked past her. She was planning on saying more, but that was when she noticed the sweet, pungent smell of cheep wine on Fluttershy's breath. "He'll be a while," she continued cautiously. "Because I told him to distribute some food out to the animals."
"Oh, oh my," Fluttershy said with a frown as she plopped hard into the sofa. "I thought I fed them today."
Meanwhile, just out back from the cottage, Spike was surrounded by all manner of animal as he tried to desperately pass out food. "By Celestia, please back away! You're all staring at me so, weirdly!" The weird stare from the animals was of course, from the fact that Fluttershy's been locked in her house for three days, leaving the animals to fend for themselves, and they felt as if they would starve if help hadn't arrived, and they were mere moments away from drawing lots to see who would be given up to the predatory animals to keep them from going mad with hunger.
Twilight's ear twitched involuntarily as she pulled her books and supplies out of her saddlebags. Well, I'm sorry to see that nopony else has come out to see you lately," she said with a frown before laying everything on the floor in front of her. "And I know what you are doing here alone."
Fluttershy began to tremble as magic began to glow around the crate, and sweat began to pour down her face. "Please don't," Fluttershy said with a small sob. "You don't know what I'm going through!"
Twilight stopped her action, and gave her friend a comforting look. "Fluttershy, it's not healthy for you to be like this." She quickly used her magic to wrap her hair into a bun and started to write some notes down in her pad. "Please, why don't you tell me about how you feel. After all, I am a licensed-"
"Unlicensed," Fluttershy interrupted.
"Professional psychologist," Twilight continued as if she did not hear her friend.
"You've read one book." Fluttershy said with a frown.
"Well, yes," Twilight admitted sheepishly. "But you are my friend, and as the Princess of Friendship it's my duty to help!"
Fluttershy sighed softly before lying down on the couch and closed her eyes. "Well, where should I start?"
Twilight didn't spend much time to think it over, and gave the best answer she could. "Well, how about you start with telling me how you feel?"
"Well," Fluttershy started, "I guess I feel depressed, and have since that night a few weeks ago." She looked at her hoof for a few moments as she continued to speak. She wasn't sure why, but she simply just did, perhaps out of boredom. "After the fight between everypony, I just didn't want to talk to anyone that night, and I felt it was my fault."
"And, do you still feel that way?" Twilight asked as she jotted down a few notes.
"Of course I do!" She practically shouted the answer before curling up into herself on the couch. "If I hadn't opened my mouth, nopony would have had to go into that conversation. I don't even know why I had to say that's my fetish to Rainbow Dash's remark! I just, did!"
Twilight frowned to herself as she wrote something down. "But why do you feel so guilty?" She asked with a tilt of her head. "Most anypony has had one or two social faux pas. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Twilight, I don't think this is working."
Twilight looked at Fluttershy with a deep frown and gave off a sigh. "Look, I've been trying my best to help you out for the last few weeks, but nothing seems to be working."
"That's not true," Fluttershy commented with a sad, half smile. "I stopped crying all the time last week."
"That's, true," Twilight resigned to that fact before scooting the chair closer to the couch. "But everypony misses you in town, and you can't just stay here all the time."
"But my big mouth caused us to fight," Fluttershy lamented as tears began to pour down her cheeks. "I just want everypony to forget about it." She continued to cry as Twilight sat awkwardly by her, unsure of what to say or do.
"Fluttershy, please, let's get you out of the house for a bit. We'll go get some salad at the restaurant, or maybe you can help Rarity with, something."
"We're going to Rarity's?" Spike said as he stuck his head into the window, only for Twilight to give the dragon a dark look that sent him shrinking back out quickly.
Twilight quickly slammed the window shut after him and looked at her friend with compassion. "Look, it's all going to be alright, you've got friends, and no matter what you are into, there's no harm in it. Remember what was said once by Starswirl the Bearded. 'Do what thou will, so much as it doth no harm unto others.'"
Fluttershy gave a sniffle before wiping her eyes and nose with a hoof, and giving a timid smile. "Really? So what you are trying to say is, that it's okay to want to do, those things in my," she stopped and blushed furiously as the latent effects of the wine caused her to burst into a fit of giggles.
Twilight nodded and stood to pull Fluttershy to her hooves. "Yes, nopony would care what you did and who it was with, just so long as you were happy and didn't hurt anypony. But right now, you are just hurting yourself, and I don't approve." She then punctuated her point by lifting the crate of wine and showing it to her friend. "Let's get rid of this stuff and get you something to eat, you look like you need it."
Fluttershy looked like a wreck, with tear soaked face and a matted coat, but behind the mess, there was now a small glimmer of confidence. "You're right, let's go out."
And as the two friends left, grabbing Spike from the tree he'd been hiding in, they set off to go and start a new beginning for Fluttershy. One where, she didn't have to be ashamed of what she was interested in, and one where it didn't matter that all her friends knew. Just so long as she didn't hurt anypony, and that included herself.
It wasn't like a great cure-all, where it was all over and done, but rather, the biggest and best step towards a never ending goal. And to the two friends, it was reason enough to feel good. And Spike was there too.
Not too far away from the pair of ponies that had just made a breakthrough, another pegasus was having an issue of her own. Despite her outstanding outward attitude to the whole thing, there was still one problem that she was facing. Sweet Celestia, what have I become?
Rarity stood beside her with a grin that was somewhere between dirty, proud, and ashamed as they stood before what had to have been the ultimate of pornographic paraphernalia. "You like, no?"
Somewhere in the midst of the piles of dirty magazines and novels, something loudly began to buzz. "What in the name of Celestia is that?"
Rarity blushed and quickly scanned the room with her magic to find the source. "Well, it's either something very personal that has just gone off, or my anti-sister alarm for this room."
It was almost as if in an answer, a call came up from several floors below. "Rarity, Mom sent me over to stay for the weekend!" Rainbow Dash looked as if she were going to explode, when Rarity just gave a shrug and flipped a switch, and on command, the neat rows of pornographic images from around the world quietly slid away as sewing equipment covered them up. "Rarity, where are you?!"
"I'm in the attic dear!" Rarity called out with a sure voice. "I was just showing Rainbow Dash some of the equipment I use!"
Silence was their only response for several moments as the pair retreated from the attic, and Rarity closed and locked a heavy steel door in place. "As you can fathom, I would rather not let most anypony see such things are in my possession, but you did ask."
Rainbow nodded as she noticed how dry her mouth was. She attempted to get her saliva to work again, but to no avail. "I just, wow, uh," she stopped as she felt embarrasement rise to her face. "So, I did want to borrow,"
"Out of the question," Rarity sharply said with a look of steel in her eyes. "A ladies private things never leave her house once purchased." She then gave a sly grin as they reached the bottom step. "But I suppose I could give you a few things that I don't need anymore, nothing too personal of course, that's just simply foul."
Rainbow Dash had the good graces to nod, but that was as far as she could manage to do as the thought of the posters she saw filled her head. Oh man, I just... What have I become? Asking my friend for porn...
The two of them finally reached the guest bedroom where Sweetie Belle was already making a wreck of things by hanging up a new poster on the wall, using chewed bubblegum to hold it up. And while Rainbow Dash stood numb beside her friend, Rarity was quick to act like nothing was wrong as she went into the big sister routine without missing a beat. "Sweetie Belle, what have I told you about using gum to hang pictures?!"
It was late in the evening by the time Twilight had got home from hanging out with Fluttershy. Spike had long ago given up the ghost of being awake, and was passed out on her back when they got home from dropping Fluttershy off at her cottage. They had a pretty good time, and it seemed as if the worst was behind them.
Despite the lateness of it all, she wasn't the least bit tired. In fact, quite the opposite, and once she had sent Spike to bed, she began browsing around her library. She fiddled about with the organization of the books for a moment before settling on a copy of International Laws, for Eqeustrian Royalty.
She was just starting to get comfortable, when her mind began to wander. There's something that still doesn't add up about that night. But what? Think, I went to talk to Rarity, somepony said something, talk of fetishes, and Fluttershy admits she said it. But that doesn't sound like her at all! What doesn't add up?
She looked over the room, and saw that there was little evidence at all that the slumber party had even taken place there, other than that in one corner she had hastily stuffed the bedding they have had used into a closet, and they were still sticking out slightly. She groaned at having missed something so slight, and yet so obvious that she quickly jammed the items back in before shutting the door to a satisfying click. Now where was I, ah yes, when visiting a foreign country, one must abide to the laws of the land, for your title is not worth the same value once leaving Equestrian borders, unless you happen to be the symbol of a celestial object.
A clacking sound suddenly pulled her out of the book, and her ear twitched, she looked around and saw that nothing was out of place, and that Spike was still snoozing in the corner of the library. That lazy dragon, doesn't he have a room? She got up and went over to the small pile of pillows and blankets, and began to pull at them. "Come on Spike, I know you like to be around me, but I got you your own room now, so you don't have to sleep in the-" she stopped cold when she realized the problem.
Spike couldn't be there, because she had put him into the other room, not only that, just before everything had happened at the incident, the main reason for the halt to everything, and how they realized their voices carried across town was because Spike came into the room. So who, or what was under the pile of blankets?
Twilight stood back, and grabbed the edge of the blanket in her magic, suddenly afraid that whatever was under the blankets would bite. With a sharp quickness she yanked, and gasped at what she saw.
There, beneith the blankets, and sitting quietly on floor before her was a very strong radio, and it was broadcasting live to who-knows where. "What was that sound," a voice cackled out of the speaker. "We've been discovered, abort!" And with that, there was a sudden popping sound as the machine sparked with a small self destruct device before Twilight could react and trace the signal.
It didn't take a genius to put it all together, however, Twilight was a genius, and she got what happened much quicker than you or I or even an alternate universe version of herself. That radio, it must have actually said that line to feed us into a frenzy, so somepony was spying on me, but hasn't used the information yet from that night. But who was it, and what were they after?
As Twilight puzzled, she tried to search the machine for clues, but found very little, other than that the device was clearly expensive, and whoever owned it, either had money to burn, or thought that the ends would eventually pay off the means. Panic began to set in, and Twilight was quick to leave the room to get to the bottom of this.
Meanwhile, several miles out of town, a pony cursed under his breath as he threw a pair of headphones across the room. "Well that's just great, thousands of bits right down the toilet and for what? To learn that our new princess is a nerd with friends that don't know how to deal with something as stupid as a fetish!"
"Don't you fret Long Distance," a mare said behind him with a silky voice. "We have plenty, and through the right channels, we can still make a proffit out of this fiasco." She then pulled open a notebook and began to search through it, marking down the names of the ponies before she grinned at the right one. "Ah, here we go. Call up this one, he's due for a favor."
Long Distance looked at the name and screwed his face with disgust. "Him? But that's the film maker! What good is he gonna do?"
"You lack imagination," the mare said as she walked away from the radio. "Keep an open ear on the others, I'm sure she will discover the rest of the equipment we've laid in the other homes soon enough, and when she does, it will be too late."
Long Distance rolled his eyes at the obvious villain sounding line his partner just delivered and stood up. "Right, so let's get Fractured Flicker in here, I'm sure he'll know what to do."
Author's Note
Oh yes, there was more, much more! Okay, not MUCH, but enough to wrap up a plot hole I had left in the last chapter, and, well, mostly I felt bad for Fluttershy, and I wanted to show that at least somepony was trying to help.
As for Rainbow Dash... there is no help. She's gone too far and probably will never recover from the wonderful world of porn. At least, not all the way.
