A Twinkle and a Sparkle

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

Prologue

A Twinkle and a Sparkle:

by Xzillerationer and Cuttincows

Prologue:

As I walked up to Moondancer’s magnificent mansion, I felt a small twinge of nervousness. I shook this off as what I was going to talk to her about, not with actually me being nervous with her. I had known her since magic kindergarten, when we would wait for the bell to ring to let us out of class, letting us hang out for a few short hours with our best friend, Twilight Sparkle.

Oh, speaking of Twilight, I kinda sorta have a crush on her. Okay, maybe fully. Hopefully Moondancer isn’t out with some colt again, or partying with Pinkie again, or whatever else she does when she’s not home. She’s probably at some party with both some colt and Pinkie Pie. Celestia, that mare can party. I’ll never forget my night with HER...back on subject! Twilight, the mare of my dreams, the girl I literally dream about, not that it’s weird or anything. I mean, don’t most people normally dream about their soul mates, not to imply I think Twilight is my soulmate. Well, she kinda is, but I don’t know if she feels the same way. Well, I do but, shoot, I’m rambling again.

Back to Moondancer, I took a steady breath, and knocked a couple times on her door. That was my code, the secret phrase I used whenever I had some super duper important to tell her that no other pony-save maybe Twilight-wait, definitely not Twilight. Anyways, it was a secret phrase word that I used, and she usually responded in a...unique way. Shambling to the door, as if she just hopped out of bed, which probably had some colt in it, but you couldn’t see it over the pile of toys that she used for...for lonely nights. She probably wouldn’t want me to tell you the gritty details, but you get the idea.

She came to the door, looking hung over. I sighed, a usual, considering it’s Wednesday. She drinks a lot. She just can’t lay off the Sweet Apple Cider. You could say that seaponies really like drinking water, but you could also say that Moondancer really likes drinking cider. Thank Luna for the day after spell, and thank Moondancer’s mother for birthing her as a unicorn capable of using this spell. I mean, her father was a pegasus, her grandfathers, both of them, were earth ponies, and I’m pretty sure she’s royalty to some degree. That would explain how she hasn’t worked a day in her life, or flunked out of magic school. Wait, buck, I’m getting off topic again.

She came to the door, and I did my secret knock, which consisted of me smacking the door with a rather large branch she precariously left on the railing. I’m still amazed that it never falls. Perhaps it was magic? Anyways, she slid open the door, and said to me, “I think you’re reminiscing again, you stood outside the door inquisitively for over ten minutes.” Oh shoot, I was.

I remembered what I came there for, and put on a nervous demeanor. Moondancer, instantly recognizing this, shot me a sly look, “Yes, Twinkleshine?” Realizing I’m going to have to reply, I try and beat it around the bush. “Oh, uh, you know. I came over for a friendly visit...” I was hopeless. She knows me far too well. She reached out her hoof, and pulled me forcefully through the door, slamming it behind us. She pushed me down into a chair, pulled one up for herself, and asked, “What exactly do you need my particular branch of expertise for today?”

Smiling casually, I had hoped to just avoid the topic altogether now that I’m here. I didn’t need to talk to her about it. I could just let it well up inside, gradually eat away at me. “Oh, well, I have this friend, and she’s got this colt problem.” I saw Moondancer smile all giddy like, and put her hoof on her chin and lean in. She’s getting something juicy out of me. “Uh huh, you sure this gal is into colts?” She did it. She pried it out of me. Oh god, it came spilling out of me, I bawled my eyes out, she even ran out of tissues! Okay, maybe not that much. It was more of a “Okayyesitsmepleasehelpmeimhorribleatthissocouldyouprettypleasehelpmewiththisonetinythingjustthisoneceforonlythisonetimeonly” kinda cry, and her hooves.

She gave her usually pretentious look, pouting, pretending to be lost in thought. Ha, Moondancer lost in thought. Good one, I’ll have to remember that one for later. Anyways, she finally gave in, and replied to me, “Oh, alright. Tell me her name.” I caved in, I told her. I told her how I always liked Twilight, even back when I just thought it was cooties. “Alright, have you considered my three step plan?” Moondancer asked me. I was stunned, how could I forget the three step plan?

Moondancer turned to me, and in her most serious voice, said “Step one: get a date.”

Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

I stood outside the Ponyville library. Oh, Celestia, the memories of the Canterlot library. In years past, with Twilight Sparkle, Moondancer, and I, we all played around in the library. Okay, Twilight mainly studied, and Moondancer mainly ‘partied’. I tried to stand around Twilight without it being too obvious. Good thing she’s such a diligent reader, she didn’t even notice when I tried complementing her mane. Cel, that mane is glorious. I really like her mane. It’s probably my favorite feature, aside from, oh, you know, everything. I could just sit there for hours, just counting the points on her cutie mark. I remember the day she caught me counting, and hit me with her book. She shouted something along the lines of “Why are you staring at my flank?!”. I was speechless, she was talking to me. This is what I had wanted since I realized I was a fillyfooler. While all my friends, basically Moondancer, were chasing random colts, I was here. In the library. Trying to seduce a mare that I was convinced thought of nothing but studying.

Then I realized she was staring me in the face, with a look of confusion on her face. “Hi. Can I help you?” Welp. “You were standing there for ten minutes, looking inquisitive.” Well, that cover’s blown. I manage to say hi, “Hi, Tw-Twilight. How’s it going?” Dear Princess Celestia, I stuttered. I was so embarrassed, especially in front of her, that I just wanted to run and hide in a bush, but I didn’t. I stood my ground.

“I’m doing pretty good,” she said. “However, the library isn’t open for another twenty minutes. What are you doing here?”

Gotta think of an excuse. Gotta think of an excuse, I though. “I’m uh, here to... borrow some shampoo?” I cringed inwardly at the transparency of the excuse. There’s absolutely no way that an intelligent pony like Twilight would fall for that miserable level of excuse.

“Oh, okay.” She said, gesturing through the open door into her library house. “Right this way.” Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, what do I do? She’s inviting me in! “What are you waiting for?” She asked. I might’ve been a little scared “Aren’t you here to borrow some shampoo?” Oh, right, the shampoo.

“What?! Shampoo? I don’t wash my mane!” Well, that was embarrassing. “I mean, of course I do!” Oh god I’m an idiot.

“Well, then, what are you here for, then?” Twilight looked at me like I was an idiot. She was probably tired. I hope. Celestia knows what she is capable of doing when she’s tired.

“I wanted to ask you a questian.” I accidentally pronounced the word question with an a, making it sound more like I was talking about a quest.

“Is that a question about a quest?”

“Yes.” I said, semi sarcastically. “I’m here to give you a quest to fight off the infamous Nightmare Moon-straight from the Princess Celestia herself!” From the Princess Celestia? What the actual buck is wrong with me? When I’m with anyone else, Moondancer for instance, I’m the quickest mare in Canterlot. Here, I’m worse than Luna at a cheese convention!

“Princess Luna has become Nightmare Moon again?” Twilight looked confused, like she had seen a ghostpony. She turned back into her house.“Luna?! Apparently you’re Nightmare Moon again!” she shouted into the depths of the house.

“Really? When did that happen? I was not informed of this.” Oh...oh my. It’s Princess Luna. Twilight is going to see through my lies! I mean, not that it’s a very deep lie, of course. You could easily see through it because if Luna, Princess Luna, I mean, was Nightmare Moon, it’d be nighttime! And nighttime means the sun would not be up, which it is. Oh, Celestia, your sun is beautiful. Ouch, stop staring into it! You look like an idiot, Twinkleshine! Oh god, don’t look away, she’ll know something is up! Oh, I’m so glad it’s daytime!

“Twinkleshine? Maybe you should stop staring at the sun, it’s bad for your vision.” Twilight said, rather bluntly. “Why don’t you come inside? You’re obviously not feeling well, you know, showing up at my door, standing outside for ten minutes, then staring at Celestia’s sun.” Oh, I guess now I have to come in! So I walked inside. And into the kitchen. She had two cups on the table, one for her, and one for Luna, it seemed. “So, you obviously don’t want to borrow my shampoo, and I suppose you’re not here to mow my lawn, are you?” It was only then I realized the library had no lawn.

“Yes. No, wait. No. What’s the correct answer?” I sounded like an idiot. Which I was.

Just then, I heard a bump. Was it my heart? Apparently not. “I’ll be right back, seems Spike is awake. Do you want to come in and collect your thoughts before you ask me whatever in Equestria you want to ask me?” Apparently Spike was sick.

“Um, no thanks. I’ll stay here and keep the Princess company.” Oh Luna, what would I say to the Princess?!

“Did I hear you praying to me?” Luna asked, startling me something terrible.

“Uhh....no? I don’t pray to anypony!” Oh Luna, not again!

“Are you saying I’m not a pony?” Luna had a growing look of intensity

“Umm... kind of? Please don’t send me to the Sun! Or Moon. I beg of you!”

Luna went from godlike fury, to a simple, extraordinarily pleasant smile. “Well, it’s nice to know that I can still instill fear in somepony besides Pipsqueak!” She let out a rather charming chuckle. “I was only joking, my little pony, I’d love to stay and converse with you while Twilight checks on her ailing Spike.” Her smile seemed, friendly.

My smile was weak and nervous. “Thank you, your majesty.” Oh Lord, this was it.

“No need for the formalities, we can talk here as equals.” I smiled, this was going to be easier than I thought. Twilight’s tail brushed me slightly as she passed, and I’m surprised Luna didn’t comment on the two tomatoes growing on my cheeks. “So, you’re Twinkleshine?”

“Yes,” Luna was about to reply, but I cut her off. I felt so dirty. “I’m sorry, Miss Luna, but I have something important to ask you.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“It’s the reason I came here in the first place, it’s about...another pony.” It was about Twilight, “So I’ll propose to you a question. Say you were a pony with fairly high confidence. Or, at least you tell yourself you do.” Luna looked at me skeptically, but allowed me to continue, “Except around one pony. Because you like him, but are too nervous to tell her. I mean him.” Luna nodded, seeing what Twinkleshine’s intention veiled underneath the question. “What would you do?”

Luna casually lowered herself down a little. “Well, first, I would meet that person alone.” She looked me right in the eye, “Then I would say I needed to talk to him, and sit down, and tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“I would tell him that I liked him. A lot. I would tell him as truthfully and sincerely what my true feelings are for him, and ask him if he feels the same way.” Luna was so kind, not the merciless horrorterror that the Foal Free Press makes her out to be. “Perhaps you could rehearse with me what you’re going to say, and then when Twilight comes back, she can help as well.” I visibly nervoused. I was so nervous I made up a word! That’s a good one, I’ll have to get them to accept it into the Oxpony Common Dictionary. Or not.

“Oh. Okay. You ready?” Luna nodded, “Alright. Dear Mr Pony, I like you. Do you like me back?” I nervoused in my pants. Except that I don’t wear pants. The awkwardness has been doubled.

“No, no. Too blunt. Try it more like this. Excuse me, Dear Mr Pony, if I may have your attention for a few brief moments. It has come to my attention that my thoughts you do consume an extraordinarily vast percentage of. Are these that I do have feelings mutual between us?” Luna took a second to let me absorb what she had said. “There,” she said. “Now, you may attempt a to practice on me.”

I thought back to all the time I dreamed about Twilight. How was I supposed to put all of these feelings into simple works? However, with the princess right in front of me, what I wanted to say seemed to flow much more freely than it had in front of Twilight. “Okay, Dear Mr Pony, my feelings for you are vast, and I would enjoy your extended company later this evening, if you would be so inclined.”

“No, no. That sounds like you’re propositioning him for sex!” Luna said, well, she was kinda right. “Not that your intention is necessarily far from that.” she gave me a wink. “Be more, sounding like a date, less like a flank call.”

“Oh, okay,” Alright, I think I could do that. “Well, I’ll try again.”

As I speak, however, Twilight walks into the room, “Okay, Spike should be set for now. what were you just talking to Luna about, may I ask?”

“Oh, uh.” I turned back towards Luna, who looked at me naïvely I then turned back to Twilight, took a deep breath, and began speaking. “Oh, uh, nothing really.”

Twilight looked at me a bit confused, but spoke up disregarding it really. “Oh, well, what did you want to ask me?” She looked so innocent, so pure. Her eyes sparkled with the intensity of Celestia’s sun, but it wasn’t blinding, well, in a way it was, it was beautiful. Beautiful like a glistening amethyst, my favorite jewel. Everytime I look into into her beautiful eyes-I’m saying beautiful too much. And getting off topic.

“I-uh-will you go out on a date with me?” Twilight’s pupils shrank, her jaw hung. I heard the very unique sound of a facehoof from somewhere behind me. Needless to say, I think that was my cue to leave. I was so nervous, I nervoused again. Wait, that isn’t a word! The silence seemed to stretch off into infinity.

Luna coughed, rather cutely I may add. “Well, thank you for the stay, Twilight; I’ll be sure to keep in contact. Twinkleshine, I’d love to take you to brunch one day. But, I must be off, important Royal Duties and the like.” Luna said. I also turned to leave, my ears flattening as I walked away without saying anything. As I was about to leave the room, however, Twilight stopped me with a gentle hoof on my shoulder.

“Sure. I’d love to.”

Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

“So, you completed the first step?” Moondancer said, sipping on a cup of tea.

“Y-ye- yehs.” I said, breathlessly from galloping over to her house as quick as I could after Twilight accepted my invitation.

“Well, that’s excellent. Why don’t you sit down, and we can talk about step two?”

I gratefully (but not quite gracefully) collapsed onto her musty old couch. I didn’t even care at this point what had been done previously to (or on) said couch, at least it was comfortable. On second thought, I think I might sit on the chair instead. Not that it necessarily was going to be much better, but there was less I could imagine happening in the the chair than on the couch. Well, maybe that’s why...nevermind. “Okay.”

Moondancer sipped her tea once again, looking surprisingly regal. “Due to the fact that it took you an entire minute to respond, I can infer that you were worrying yourself over the state of this room’s seating arrangement. Don’t worry- that chair’s perfectly fine.”

I sighed, and sank down deeper into the chair. Ponyfeathers, can she read my mind.

“Wait, there was that one time...” she burst out laughing, and I just felt my brain wrecking itself in disbelief. Sidenote, find better metaphors. “I was only joking!” She said, with the grin still prominent on her face. “Calm your hooves. Celestia! You take everything so literally!” she calmly sipped her tea once again. She placed the teacup down on the table in front of her, and assumed a serious face. Which for her is quite impressive. “Now then, to business.”

My eyes went wide, then I suppressed the thought. “What’s step two?”

She grinned.

I found myself standing outside of a Canterlot restaurant, staring nervously at the sign. She was probably inside somewhere. Anywhere. And the place was huge. I sighed nervously. Maybe I should just give up looking for her now. Run home, go bury my pillow and call up Luna. Surely she was awake at this hour.

“Twinkleshine! Over here!” Twilight looked...happy to see me. This was good. I think. I hope. It was.

I waved back, “Hi, Twilight. You look lovely in that dress!” she was wearing her dress, probably one that Rarity made her. Good thing Moondancer gave me that anti-nervousness spell. Else my knees would be wobbling like a tornado chaser. Note self: I still need to work on the metaphors. Maybe Luna could help?

“Thanks, so, we gonna go in?” Twilight must’ve noticed it. “You’ve been standing there inquisitively for at least ten minutes.” Ten minutes?! Ten minutes! How could I stand there for ten minutes!

“Yes.” The gold trimmed double doors opened with an audible whoosh into the body of the building, bringing with it the buzz of conversation and the delightful aroma of delicious food. The whole experience was being sharpened and magnified by my anticipation of the date. A waiter with a sharp looking suit ushered us into the only open table left in the restaurant, a balcony seat built inside the building, overlooking the rest of the establishment. It was weird for a restaurant. How many restaurants have you seated in a balcony that overlooks the rest of the restaurant? It was a beautiful view, over the rest of the dates and social gatherings. Oh Celestia, why does she have to be so beautiful. The good thing is if she catches me staring, it would be relatively normal, since we’re on a date, aren't we?

“So...is this your...first date?” Twilight asked me. My eyes went wide, hadn’t Moondancer said this was something you’re not supposed to talk about? I just smiled.

“Uh, yeah, I wasn’t exactly a very...uh, popular mare with the stallions.” My grin went wide as I tried to cover it up, “I guess tonight kinda explains why, heh heh.” That spell was starting to wear off now. Maybe it was a placebo? No, she would never do such a thing to me.

“No need to be nervous,” Twilight said noting my obvious failure to maintain my composure. “It’s just a casual get together. Sorry about that question,” Twilight let out a nervous chuckle that was all too familiar. “I don’t get asked out a lot.”

Now was my time to shine, she left herself wide open for a compliment, and by Celestia, I was going to give it to her, “Why? A filly like you, especially with how beautiful you are, should get asked out all the time!” I’m. So. Smooth.

Twilight blushes, “Thanks, I guess.” It was obvious she’d been asked out before, but I still had no idea if she’d ever actually accepted or not. Not that I was going to ask. Moondancer said that was definitely a faux pas. After looking up the word in the dictionary, I couldn’t agree more. I decided to change the subject.

“Have you ever been here before?” I asked casually, trying not to seem as if I was asking her about her dating history. Which I wasn’t.

“I’ve been here once before, but only with Spike. He wondered what this place was, so we had to check it out.” Spike, that was her assistant, the baby dragon, right? No competition there. I hoped.

“Is the food any good?” I asked naïvely, wishing she could provide me with the small talk I so desperately yearned.

“Well, we never really ate. Turns out they wouldn’t let dragons in. Or maybe it was just Spike, because he did kind or crush their old building Don’t worry, Princess Celestia paid for it. It wasn’t ENTIRELY my fault. And the new building looks nice, so I can’t see where the problem is.” She chuckled, she was comfortable around me. Buck yeah.

“Entirely? What’d you do?” My words and smile were the definition of casual.

“Oh, I might’ve cast a spell that matured him into a full fledged dragon for a day. Or a week.” She looked falsely nervous, a smile, teaming on her lips before she turned back and burst out laughing. I joined in shortly, we stopped when I noticed some of the other visitors shooting odd looks upwards at us.

“A week?” I cast a disbelieving look towards her I get up.

“Yeah, he was like that for a week. He rested just outside Canterlot, scared tourists out for years! Ah, good time.”

“I remember that, I was curious who’s dragon it was illegally parked there. Must’ve been one hay of a ticket.” In truth, I really did remember it. I had been working at a tourist agency at the time, and no one came in for almost three whole months. If it wasn’t a federally funded shop, it would’ve closed down.

“Got three points on my license.” She said, very suave, taking a casual sip of her water before bursting out laughing. “No, even if there was a dragon driving license, I know the Princess, so I don’t have to worry about it.”

“You know the Princess?” Of COURSE she knew the Princess. Who doesn’t these days.

“Yeah, I’m her protégée. I’ve been training with her since I was but a little filly.”

As I was about to reply, the waiterpony comes up, “What shall we be ordering tonight?”

“I’ll have a” Then Twilight said something I didn’t understand, nor could even begin to remember. Something Griffin, maybe?

I put down the menu which I had subconsciously picked up, “Uh, I’ll have a daisy salad.”

“Very well.” He quickly plucked the menus with magic, and I looked back towards Twilight.

Celestia, she looked beautiful. “So, how exactly did you make Spike so...massive?”

“Well, I remember it as if it were yesterday, really. I was in the library when I discovered a spell that lets you alter the biological age of the subject you’re casting it on. So, naturally, I tested it on Spike. I may have slightly overdone it, but, three mana crystals in one night will do that to you. My magic output was four times that of which it usually was. Unaware, I cast it on Spike. Well, it kinda worked. A lot more than intended, my tower was out of commision for weeks! I lost four books in the process. Four. whole. book. I mean, Princess Celestia returned them after a two month punishment of them being gone. She just barely let me into the Starswirl the Bearded section. Well, I waited a week for my magic to recover, and was in the hospital for three entire days.” Twilight smiled, lost in nostalgia. “Princess Celestia wouldn’t leave my side until I woke up. Coincidentally, that was also the week they banned mana crystals from recreational use.” Twilight chuckled at the memory, resting her head on one hoof. It had appeared she was looking deep into my eyes, myself doing the same. We had started leaning in towards each other when we were finally snapped out of the wonderful daze.

I was so lost in her tale, and her eyes, that neither of us noticed that the food had arrived until the waiterpony loudly cleared his throat. “Oh, thanks.” I said, as Twilight said the same.

“So,” I said, munching lazily on a daisy, “I guess learning from Celestia isn’t all sunshine and smiles.” I inwardly grimaced at the unintended horrible pun.

“Well, it is wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher, really.” My magic teacher had sucked apples. If it wasn’t for Moondancer giving me lessons after school, I wouldn’t be nearly as good as I was today. Not that I’m great, but I know a thing or two about illusions. Well, that’s what my cutie mark is for anyways. I do illusion magic, on stage I’m a very confident magician who wows crowds and entertains ponies. I also do parties. And I’m humble, I’ve not once let my position or ability go to my head. I perform, and then I leave. “What’s your cutie mark for?” Welp.

“I’m a magician, I do a lot of illusion magic.” I felt proud. Twilight, my friend, no, my MAREfriend, also had a cutie mark in magic.

“Oh, like Trixie?” My eyes widened, and I suddenly grew nervous. Luna damn it, Moondancer! Twilight, noticing my pupils dilating, replied. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it like that!” It was too late, I was already thinking it.

“Trixie was...” I let out a breath, not wanting to recall these horrible moments I had though I had put behind me. “We went to school together.” A single tear rolled down my cheek, dropping into my salad. “She wasn’t nice to me, I think because I was the only other one in the class with a specialty in illusion magic.” Luna damn it, I hadn’t thought about her in years. I trembled at the thought, but seeing Twilight’s utmost concern, I smiled.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. If you want to go home now, it’s okay.” She said that all so quickly.

“It’s okay. I need to eventually put it all behind me, talking about it will just make it faster.” I smiled, and put my hoof on hers, “It’s alright, really.”

“Actually,” Twilight said with a glint in her eye, “I have a story that might interest you. About a year and a half ago, Trixie decided to put on a show here in Ponyville. She made a foal out of everypony, and was generally a huge bitch. Pardon my Griffon. A few schoolponies, Snips and Snails, were so taken up on one of her little braggart tales of taming an ursa major that they decided to go find one and bring it to ponyville for her to defeat. To make a long story short, it was actually an ursa minor, and I ended up having to use a water silo as a giant milk bottle to stop it from destroying the town. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to stop it from crushing Trixie’s little wagon. We haven’t heard from her since.”

A smile gleamed across my face, “Really?” I even let out a laugh.

“Yeah, nopony knows where she went, but I heard she went and got a job bucking cherries.” She let out the most casual and beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. And a cute chuckle. “Can you believe that? Bucking cherries!”

By this point I was laughing too. Having been munching on the meal throughout both stories, we had both finished our food, and had hardly noticed the time. The restaurant was going to close soon, so we were being hurried out. “Wow, where did the night go?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Probably into the stories,” she smirked. “does that mean we have to go?” Her face drooped.

“Well, we have to leave the restaurant, but not go home.”

I reached to grab a few bits from my saddlebag, but Twilight stopped me. “It’s all my treat.” She put the bits on the table, and we wound our way through the restaurant body to the double doors.

“So, do we call it a night?” I asked, wondering what we were going to do next.

“I think so, I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. A very important letter.” Twilight trotted up to me, and gently kissed me on the cheek. Good thing it was dark so nopony could see how furiously I was blushing. As she was walking away, she turned her head back towards me, and I could barely move to look. “I can’t wait for the second date.”

I smiled the entire way home.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

“So, how did the first date go?” Moondancer asked. I should’ve mentioned; I’m at her house again. I went here the morning after my date with Twilight, to give her my ‘relationship report’. She was moderately impressed.

“Did you do anything after?” she asked, pouring herself her third cup of tea. I never did like that stuff.

“What do you mean, after? I wished her good night, and we left. What else was there to do?”

“Well there is...” she began, then decided not say what she was going to. “Nevermind. A silly filly like you wouldn’t understand.”

“I am old enough to talk about big pony stuff.” I said with a frown.

“I was just joking around,” she said. “I never said you were too young.”

“So, you’re going to tell me?” I said, getting slightly hopeful.

She took a brief sip from her teacup, and placed it on a small plate on the table in front of her. “I never said that.” she said with a slight smirk.

Well, I guess I’ll have to force it out of her. “You know, I came close to getting laid JUST last week.”

“Woah! Came close. Last week!” She looked me dead in the eye. “Know what, darling? I got laid ten minutes ago.”

I swallowed. I’ve been here for 15 minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a stallion walk out of the bathroom, see me, and sneak slowly back through the door. I didn’t question it.

“Listen, kiddo, I’m not going to tell you. You just don’t do that on the first date with a mare you really like. Especially with a mare like Twilight Sparkle.”

“Why not? I thought that...after stuff was fun.” In reality, I seriously had no idea what that meant. The after stuff. Even after I learnt of its nature, it still was the stuff of myths and legends in my small group of friends. That was, until Moondancer decided to crash one of our little D&D sessions. The rest is ancient history.

“Because it’s not what uptight ponies like you and Twilight do.” I blushed furiously.

“I’m not uptight!”

“Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got a lot of stallions that want a piece of that flank. And yours is apparently reserved for somepony who’s probably never going to use it.” I glanced towards my flank, not ever even considering a stallion. Well, except for one time, but that’ll never happen. Except if it does. Which is impossible.

“I’m not uptight!”

“Alright, listen, what you have to do now is snap her against a stone.”

“What!?” I seriously had no clue what she meant by that.

“You already hooked her in, now you make her stop squirming.”

“You’re not very good at metaphors.”

“What I meant was that you hooked her in, but you still need to make sure she stays! Or, at least, doesn’t dump you past the first date!”

I blushed, looked away, and bit my lip a little. “Well, she did kiss my cheek and say that she can’t wait for the second date...”

She spit her tea out. “By the Two! Why didn’t you tell me that! That changes everything!”

“What do you mean?”

“It means that she wants to continue this! She likes you enough to want you again!”

I smiled a little. “But if she likes me, why didn’t she ask me out before?”

“It’s more than likely that she didn’t know you really, so never really considered you. Then when you asked her out, she decided ‘what the hay’, and rolled with it.”

“Oh. Well, it’s still good, right?”

“Yes, very good.”

“So, you think I’ll be able to take her out on that second date?”

“Well, you still have to have the initiative to actually plan the date before getting your hopes up. Do you have any ideas?”

“Dinner went quite well last time. How about that again?”

“No, no, you need to have something a little different than that. Also, have you ever considered that maybe she’ll ask you to go on the date?”

“I really never thought of that.” I had, actually, assumed that since I was the one that asked her out in the first place, that therefore I would have to plan all the dates.

“Exactly. What we’re doing now is what we call, in my business, the waiting game.”

I bounced a red rubber ball against the wall of the room for the upteenth time. So bored. How could Moondancer ever even suggest something like this? Maybe I should be doing something constructive during this time, like trying to to study magic, or whatever else I do in my free time. What do I do in my free time? I spent several minutes mulling over this thought. There! Although I accomplished absolutely nothing, I succeeded in wasting time, leading up to, when was I expected to get a call from Twilight? Moondancer never really mentioned much in that regard. What if it took, FOR EVER?

I disregarded that thought as I walked over to my phone. I just realized I never gave Twilight my number. Well, phones really weren’t all that common yet in rural places like Ponyville. Hay, they still weren’t all that common in Canterlot. Celestia never really warmed up, no pun intended, to the idea of everypony having access to the same type of magic that every unicorn has, even if it was very limited in its scope. I guess she’s a bit old fashioned, which makes sense, due to her being thousands of years old and stuff. Either way, they’re here to stay, so she might as well get used to them.

I thought about who else I could call. Moondancer? No she said something about being busy. With a party. A super private, nopony at all invited party. I’m not quite sure what that meant. Maybe she was having a Me Party? Maybe she invited one pony and didn’t want anypony knowing? Surely she’d tell me, her best friend! I am her best friend, right? Right.

So, who else was there to call? There was Lyra. No, she’s in Fillydelphia on honeymoon with Bonbon. But there’s Carrot Top! No, forget it, she wouldn’t forgive me ever since that accident with the pumpkin catapult. How was I supposed to know that was her prized pumpkin patch? What about Derpy? She’s alwa-no. Luna? Does she even have a phone? What the hay, why not.

I picked up my phone, and dialed. ‘4’. I wondered what it would be like once we had to dial multiple numbers. I had no idea who I was calling, but a pony picked up. “Hello, Royal Palace, Princess Luna speaking.”

Well, I actually got it right. “Hi, your majesty, it’s me, Twinkleshine? We met at Twilight’s?”

I had to turn my speaker down at this bit. “YES! TWINKLESHINE!”

“Yes, your Majesty. You requested I keep in contact.”

“No need for the formality, Miss Shine, is it not perfectly acceptable for friends such as you and I to speak in a less formal tense than the common nobility? We are friends, right?”

Well, a Princess would make a nice friend. “Yes, Luna, I guess we are. It’s just that I find it slightly difficult to be informal with you with your, well, position of royalty.”

Luna chuckled softly “It is quite alright, I barely do anything anyways. I’ve managed to delegate the majority of my work towards the nobility. They weren’t exactly doing much other than going to formal ballroom dances and getting paid to make stupid flank decisions.”

“So, you don’t have anything to do right now?”

“Not now, not most days. Occasionally some things will come up that require my immediate presence.”

I smiled, maybe tonight wasn’t going to be as boring as I thought? “Perhaps we could hang out tonight, then?”

“Sure! Want to come over and hang out at the castle? Also, I don’t really understand this phrase hang out. Isn’t the phrase hang a bit morbid for a recreational setting?”

I stopped myself from facehoofing, despite the fact that Luna would be unable to see me through the phone. “That sounds like a plan, I’ll be over in a few!”

“I think you forgot to say minutes after few.” Luna said, a bit confused. “Oh, ah! It’s more commoner slang! I’ll see you in a few!” The phone clicked, and there was the default line-not-busy tone.

I thought of what I would would bring to go hang with with the princess of the night. Slumber party materials, perhaps? No, stupid idea. Either way, they probably have all of that in the castle, anyway. It is kind of a castle.

In the end, I decided only to bring a half full spellbook that I’d been working on, just in case I learned any cool tricks from one of Canterlot’s premier magic extraordinaires. Luna was right, this slang kind of is fun!

With all of that ready and done with, I began the brief trot over to Luna’s (and Celestia’s) castle. My mind wandered as it usually does as I walked. What would I talk about? What would I talk about with one of Equestria’s co-rulers? I gave the thought a rest. No use fretting over what I don’t know about. Wow, that was rather thoughtful of me, not badgering myself with useless worrying and nonsensical thoughts and endless ramblings and dear Luna I’m doing it again aren’t I. By disjointed thought chain was rudely interrupted by my walking straight into one of the white pegasi that always guard every entrance of the castle.

“Stop, citizen. What business do you have at the castle?” he said in a commanding voice, not quite unlike Luna’s infamous Canterlot Royal Voice, while blocking the door to the castle.

“I’m here to meet Luna.” I said cheerfully. “Could you tell her I’m here?” The guard looked extremely insulted.

“How dare you refer to the royal princess of the night sky and lunar celestial body in such an informal tone?!” He barked in my face. “If you have an appointment ratified by the princess commission to meet with her for a maximum of a twenty minute interval, you may use the main castle entrance, and wait your turn like everypony else.”

“Um, well, Luna just kind of said that I could come over for visit, so I just kind of came over.” I said, giving my best Fluttershy impression.

“Do you have evidence that this conversation ever transpired?” he asked, leaning forward slightly.

“Well, no.” I said, backing up against the wall behind me. “She kind of just invited me over on the phone.”

“If you do not have any method to prove that this is in fact true, I believe that you should be on your way.”

I was on the verge of turning tail and running at that point when the door slammed open, hitting the guard in front of me rather hard in the flank. I backed away, for some reason fearing impending retribution in case he thought I did it. To my surprise, out of the door came the only mare who could actually help me at this point- princess Luna. She was wearing some sort of headset over her left ear and a warm smile on her face, levitating a bag of what appeared to be barbeque potato chips along with her.

“Hey Hammer you’ve been out here a while.” Luna said, addressing the guard in front of of me. “Do you want something to eat?” She hovered over the bag to him as emphasis.

“Excuse me Princess Luna,” he said, rubbing his bruised flank with one of his wings, “but this mare here claims to have a informal meeting set up with you. Are you aware of these transactions?” Luna looked around Hammer, noticing me backed against the wall.

“Oh hello there. I didn’t expect you for around another hour.” Luna said.

“So you do know this mare?” Hammer said, slightly confused.

“This Mare has a name.” I said. “And her name is Twinkleshine.”

“I apologize, miss Shine.” the guard said, bowing slightly.

“Why does everypony think my last name is Shine?” I said to nopony in particular. “My name is one word. Twinkleshine. Even my marefriend gets it wrong!” Luna winced a little, then shrugged, and the Hammer looked a bit frantic.

“I’m apologize, miss Shine. I mean miss twinkle. I mean....” Hammer trailed off, and stared at his hooves as if they were suddenly the most interesting things in Equestria.

Luna glanced at him with a slight mischievous smile on her face. “I think that maybe you should take a five minute break.” she said to Hammer.

“Yes, Princess. Right away.” Hammer walked through the door, and disappeared around the corner.

We started the slow trot into Luna’s...room. She spoke up to me “Sorry about the guards, they’re always so high strung. We have, what, three murders a decade? Not to mention everypony loves us so we’ve never had any attempts on our lives.”

I found myself smiling for the first time since arriving. “It’s okay, Luna. Living in Canterlot all my life had really made me rather adept at...err...dealing with pesky guards like Hammer.”

Luna let out a rather unprincess like giggle. “I can tell you are rather skilled at illusion.”

“And how’d you guess that?”

“Because you sure fooled me.” She openly laughed, and, well, I did too.

When the laughter died down, we found ourselves outside her room. I decided to ask about her headset. “Luna, what’s that thing on your head for?”

“Oh, this?” she pointed to her headset. I nodded. “It’s a headset, for talking to ponies online, over Xmare Live.”

“Xmare Live?” I sort of was afraid to find out what exactly that was, but asked anyway.

“It’s an online gaming service. I...play a little.”

“Define a little.”

“Remember those ‘royal duties’?”

I nodded. “Well, my clan had a tournament, the top prize was 15,000 bits! A mighty fine chunk of change, if you ask me.”

“So I take it you won?” If she was a princess, why did she need money?

“Yes! I was so excited, I could hardly think of what to spend the money on!” She squeed, as she opened the door to her bedroom. “Then I realized I’m a princess and don’t need money. So I gave it to my clan leader for hosting costs of our clan page. They’re very expensive.”

I looked puzzled. “You mean you’re not the clan leader?”

“No, of course not. The clan is mainly based in Ponyville, I found it one day and joined.”

“Who’s your clan leader?”

“I don’t know exactly, but her username is gallowsActivator36. She seems very...aggressive, yet somehow soft spoken and bashful at the same time.”

I looked confused, that name sounded familiar. “Well, nice room you have here.” I took a good look at the room. For the most part, it was almost exactly what I would have imagined a princess’s room would have looked like. The princess sized bed (much better than king sized) was draped in the most extravagantly dark sheets, pristine with not a single wrinkle. There was a windowed door on the far side of the room leading to a decently sized balcony, with a perfect view of the moon hanging in balance above our heads. A second, slightly more average door lead into a large walk in dresser, and a third to a private bathroom, with what appeared to be bathtub of a size rivaling that of smaller swimming pools. The entire room was shined, polished, and entirely spotless, except for one corner. There, everything fell apart.

In the corner was a television screen, which had only been recently been introduced to Canterlot, of what looked to be around sixty inches. In front of it sat several faded bean bag chairs, worn with age into a permanent shape of what I could guess to be Luna’s flank. Around this chair was strewn chip bags, soda bottles, fried daisy sandwich wrappers, et cetera. On one of the bean bag chairs sat a slightly boomerang shaped device, that appeared to be a controller of some sort. At a closer look, I could read the inscription Xmare set into the controller. Oddly enough, I noticed the same inscription on a black box next to the enormous television.

“I’m guessing that’s your corner?” I said to Luna.

“Yes. Nopony touches The Corner, per my orders. Unless I say they can.” She finished with a wink.

I looked at her, not sure whether she was making a joke or trying to seduce me. Perhaps both? “Am I allowed in The Corner?” I made sure to capitalize The Corner in my head, apparently it was a proper noun.

“Yes, of course you are.” she said. “Also, I noticed that you found the Xmare. I’ve spent more time than princess like on that piece of Elysium.” Luna sighed, although I couldn’t tell if it was happy sigh or a sad sigh.

“So...what exactly is a Xmare? I know it’s used for some sort of games, but I’ve not heard much beyond what the advertisements at Walpony said.”

Luna’s face lit up. “You use the controller to control the games, like, you press this button and your character moves forward. Actually, it would be easier if we showed you.”

“Wait, what do you mean by we?”

“I’m sorry,” Luna said, surprisingly looking slightly ashamed of herself. “I slipped back into my old manner of speaking. I’ll try to limit that, but I do appreciate you telling me.”

With a brief flash of her magic, the whole system lit up. The television flashed to life, a brightness and intensity that obliterates the idea that any other television I’ve seen was “good”. The console sprung to life a moment later, with an odd vwoom noise. The controller seemed to spring to life as well, a small light in the center lighting up, indicating that it is player one. Luna’s horn glowed as she magically picked up the controller, and selected her profile. ‘LunarBiologist0’. Why would her username not be Princess Luna? I’m fairly certain that as a Princess she should be able to get whatever username she wants. I quickly abandoned the thought as she loaded up the game ‘Call of the Cutie: Kingdoms, Limited Collector’s Alpha Edition (With accompanying fully functional, match grade AR-2 assault rifle)’ What a long title. It loaded up with a fully rock and roll soundtrack, which felt...rather out of place for a picture of several rather cute mares running around shooting each other.

It was also very violent. “So...this is CoCK?”

Luna blushed at the acronym, “It’s perhaps not the best title, nor best game, but I enjoy it. Also, it is better not to pronounce the acronym as a single word.”

Looking around, I couldn’t find the ‘rifle’ that the title spoke of. “Where is the AR-2?”

Luna’s eyebrow raised at the statement, as if my question was weird. “Oh, it’s, somewhere. I don’t really care for violence.” She used her magic to tilt a small knob on the top of the controller to the left, moving her on-screen cursor over a button that said “PVP”. Doing something else with the controller that was too quick for me to make out, she popped up into some sort of lobby, with a list of several names. ‘iwanaurmom’ and ‘carnageandpie’ were two standouts. The game quickly loaded up, and went into a three dimensional model of what appeared to be...the Royal Throne Room after a megaspell blast.

“Oh, this is my favorite map!” Luna said, rather excited. “I had helped the level designer with it, so I know all the secrets!” Her ears drooped down a little. “Although I couldn’t show him all the secrets in the Throne Room due to it being...secret, I had helped create new secrets! Did you know there is now a passage to the bakery under Sister’s throne? Dear Sister got mighty angry and made me patch it up though.”

“The game lets you eat?”

“Oh, no no no, I meant in real life. I had it installed a little while ago in case I got hungry. Apparently, it was a huge security breach.”

“Really? Couldn’t you just have somepony bring it to you?”

“I could, but that was more fun. Oddly enough, it was also when Sister and I stopped getting along so great, and also, oddly enough, when I started gaming.” Her mood visibly drooped.

I had to do something, I couldn’t let her be...sad on me. What kind of guest makes a bucking PRINCESS get all droppy!? “Is there a way for me to play with you?” I asked, sitting down next to her on the beanbag chair.

“I apologize, but we only have one controller to use.” She appeared to lean towards sadness again. Suddenly, she seemed to brighten up. “However, I could have one of the guards trot over to a nearby GameMare to grab a second controller for you to use. What is your controller type preference?”

At my blank stare, she clarified, “Because there are three different races of ponies in Equestria, there is also three different controller types. There is the type easily operated by magic, such as the one I use.” with this, she shook the controller for emphasis. “There is also the type that is specially fitted for use of pegasi wings. Their grace also allows them to use them as basic hands. The clan leader prefers this type, but I believe this type may not be preferable for you.”

I glanced back, realizing once again that I’m a unicorn, not a pegasus. Some mares get all the luck. What was a hand, anyway? Was it something like a claw? Luna interrupted my rambling thoughts by continuing her lecture. “The third and final type is usable by all types of ponies, but is most often used by earth ponies. It is operated with the mouth, which is, from what I’ve heard, not delicate on the palate.”

“I think I’ll use a magic controlled one, thank you.” I said.

Princess Luna turned towards the chamber door. “GUARD!” she shouted in what I now know as the Royal Equestrian Voice. Almost immediately several guards rushed through the door, and hesitated when they saw no bodily harm was coming to Luna.

“Excuse me, but what seems to be the problem?” One of the guards asked. I recognized him from the castle entrance. Hammer, I believe his name was. “Is this mare bothering you?”

“Quite the opposite. Could one of you please head over to the local GameMare to pick up a deluxe magic operated Xmare controller for my distinguished guest?” At the sound of the request, all of the guards, save Hammer, took a large step back.

“Ah, I see you have volunteered, Hammer. I thought you were on your break, so this is quite kind of you.” Hammer took a hurried look around himself, realizing that he was several hoof lengths in front of his comrades. He sighed, saying “Yes, your highness. I shall be right back.” With that, he meandered out of the door, still with a slight limp from before. The other guards filed out behind him.

A/N: The Soon to Be Made Bonus Chapter ‘Hammer the Controls’ takes place here.

I looked back towards Luna, who had a smile on her face the size of the moon as she turned back towards the game station. “How long do you think it’ll be?”

“Oh, just a few minutes. The store, by my orders, isn’t very far away. I need to always have the latest games for My Royal Eyes to enjoy.”

I rolled my non royal, eyes then giggled a little. “Yes, your very royal eyes.”

Luna told me about the game for a little while. “Here, why don’t you play a match or two?” She hovered the controller over to me, which I took it awkwardly with my own magic. At first Luna informed me that I was holding it upside down. I fixed that mistake, accidentally joining a new multiplayer game. That was my second mistake. The character on screen was immediately hit dead on with a rocket, causing the cheesiest death animation I’ve ever seen. Seriously, she just flopped over dead. No Shakesponian enactment of death, no overly gory explosion. Nothing. Just. Fell. Over. How a game like this made any money was beyond me.

So I tried again. I loaded up the game, and chose the only weapon I’d actually heard of, the AR-2. I started playing, and walked forward. This felt good. The controls were surprising easy and quick to figure out. I turned the corner and found myself face to face with a zebra. He had a rather large tube sort of object in his hands. Later Luna told me that this was a rocket launcher. Weird. I ‘respawned’ and found myself outside the throne room. I meandered in, saw zebras, and shot. I must’ve hit them, because they fell over dead, with slightly better death animations then mine. This was fun.

“Way to go! You made your first kill! And a spawn camper, no less!” Luna said, almost shouting. I could hear the guards shifting nervously outside the door.

“Really?” Okay, this was a lot of fun. I continued down the hallway, and found myself standing next to the thrones. I looked around, and activated the throne. It slid out, and underneath was indeed the bakery. I hopped down, saw several zebras, and shot. I took them out swiftly. Apparently they didn’t see me coming, as afterwards I heard such pleasantries such as “buck you! Noob!” and “I bucked your mother, how does that make you feel you noob!” resonating from the rather impressive speaker system.

“What’s a noob, and what does it have to do with my mother?” I asked Luna, innocently.

“Err, it’s someone who’s not very good or new at a game.” she said. “Also, they have nothing to do with your mother. However, that is them giving you permission to shoot them in the face.”

I proceeded to do so for next few zebras I found, firing short, measured bursts to conserve ammunition. “WHO’S THE NOOB NOW?!” Luna shouted over her mic, causing me to inch away from her to keep any shred of my hearing.

“Ow... could you, maybe, not do that?” I asked through the sudden pain.

“Oh, I am sorry. By the way, are you sure you’ve never played this before? You appear to excel, at least against this cannon fodder.”

I started up again, running out of the bakery. I turned around to make sure the room was empty, and I saw five zebras, each armed impressive form of weaponry. I managed to take three of them out before one of them hit me with some sort of undermounted tube thingy on their gun.

“He used a noob tube!” Luna raged over the mic.

I continued playing for what felt like a few minutes, but was most likely actually more along the lines of hours, until I heard a feeble knock on the door. The door opened, revealing a badly bruised, cut up, and Luna-knows-what (actually, I don’t think she did) injuries. He also had in his mouth a perfectly immaculate controller built for a unicorn. Luna called for a medic pony before presenting the controller to me. Hammer gladly collapsed onto the portable cot, and was wheeled off into the depths of the castle.

“Here you go, my little pony.” Luna said, floating the controller over to me as if she was knighting me. “This is your first controller. May you take care of it, and may it guide it across you safely across many a battlefield.” I giggled at the joking formality of it all, and took the controller from her with my magic, our color auras mingling as I did so.

“I shall, your royal highness.” I said with a small mock bow. It was Luna’s turn to giggle, in a rather defined, princessly manner.

“And with no further ado, let the gaming begin!” Luna punctuated this by opening up a split screen game, cutting the enormous screen television into still rather impressive sized screens. This would be the first game of many.

A few games later I look to see a bright light on the horizon, okay, maybe it was more than a few. I’d stayed up all night! It was fun, and Luna was still wired. Maybe it was her superpony stamina that allowed her to game so much. Maybe it was the caffeine. I rub my eyes as I tell Luna. “It’s really getting...early...I have a gig soon so I have to go. I want to get some sleep.”

Luna frowned, “Well, you’re always welcome here. Even if we didn’t intend it, this was my first sleepover!” She giggles with excitement.

“Technically it’s an awakeover.”

“Oh! you’re right, heh, well, without any further ado, I bid you goodbye. Maybe we could do this again sometime soon?”

I smile and nod. “Yeah, I’d love to.” And see myself out of the castle.

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4:

Twilight had, after around a week of waiting, invited me to a casual lunch date. At least she considered it to be casual, compared to the fancy dinner we had gone to for our first date. I still wore a light sundress anyway, because I sort of wanted to wear something. I would feel, I guess, naked on a date without clothes. Go figure. Not that I normally wore clothes, or normally went on dates, but I also wanted to try to leave her with a good impression. Not that I needed to leave a good impression, seeing as I’m dating her and everything. Still better to be careful.

The majority of the date was just light chatting. We talked about our lives, how our weeks were going, jobs, friends, and our other friends. Eventually, the conversation fell flat, so we just sort of stuck to eating. She had a daisy sandwich. I had a roast daisy sandwich. I sort of wished I had gotten a fried daisy sandwich, but you can’t have your sandwich and eat it, too. So, anyways, Twilight spoke up, apparently having something to say.

“What do you think of our dating so far?” Twilight said, chewing on a daisy pedal that was falling off of the edge of her sandwich. Well, that question was out of the blue. Twilight must’ve noticed my off white fur somehow grow paler, because she rushed to elaborate on her comment.

“What I meant was, do you think we are a good enough couple that we could pull off a double date?” Twilight blushed, obviously aware that her question wasn’t an easy one. I sighed on the fact that she wasn’t asking what I thought she was, and I could almost feel the color disperse back into my fur.

“So, you’re asking me on a double date?” I was flattered, I’d never been on a double date before. Well, before her, I’d never been on a regular date either... so...“Wait, who else is going?”

“Whagh?” Twilight said, her single word rather obscured by a large mouthful of bread, daisies, and seven secret herbs and spices. A quick awkward grin and a swallow later, and she was able to talk once again. “Oh, Rainbow invited me on the double date. Apparently, she and Pinkie Pie are finally going out again after the Discord incident. The trials they faced due to Discord’s meddling put a rift in their relationship by causing Dash to lose her Element, Loyalty. It took Dash four months before Pinkie would talk to her again. They’ve been trying to fix that ever since.” Twilight ended the story on a somber note.

“Oh, well, at least they’re trying to fix it?” Twilight nodded, back to her usual cheery self. “Well, that does sound nice. Where and when is it?”

“It’s at the Canterlot Royal Cinema, at around,” she paused for a minute, then appeared to cast a spell. The spell grew, causing an over glow to appear over her horn. With a small pop, a glowing purple image of Celestia materialized next to the table.

“Excuse me, Princess Celestia, do you happen to know what time it is?” Twilight asked, an innocent smile on her face.

“It is precisely a quarter past four.” Celestia said in a voice that soothed all that could hear it. “Also,” she said, in a slightly hushed, irritated tone, “You have to stop using me as your private sundial? No matter how much I enjoy helping you in your studies, sometimes I am otherwise... occupied.”

“Aww, but you make such a good sundial, though!”

“Celly, who’s that?” A more gruff, masculine voice said from the background.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!” Celestia looked flushed, and turned back to Twilight. “Goodbye, Ms Sparkle. Farewell, my most faithful student.” And the illusion disintegrated into a fine mist.

Without missing a beat, Twilight said “In about three and a half hours.” Luna, she was so innocent. Maybe I should stop talking to Moondancer.... nah.

We decided to go to my house to wait, and other stuff. Not the kind of stuff Moondancer would do to wait, but we could watch TV. And stuff. Twilight brought several books with her, as she always does. And lists, on long scrolls. Sometimes, I think that she loves those lists more than me. Not that I know she actually loves me, well, not yet at least. Not implying that I think that we’ll last that long. Or that we’re going to break u-nevermind. . After a couple hours of dull sitcoms and the crinkling sounds of Twilight’s scrolls, the moment had arrived for us to head to the movies.

“So, how are we going to get in?” Rainbow Dash said, sucking on a slurpee.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, you remember that we are not only the Holders of the Elements, but that I have a direct connection to Princess Celestia herself?”

I chimed in. “I also have connections, albeit to Princess Luna, but still connections.”

Twilight shot me a look of confusion. “When did you get to know Princess Luna?”

I was about to answer when Pinkie Pie came back with the tickets. “Alrighty, everypony, who’s ready to see the movie!” Dear Princess Luna, how was she so energetic at this hour?

“Aww yeah!” Dash grabbed her ticket from Pinkie Pie, obviously still comfortable around her mare, while Pinkie....recoiled a bit from Dash, seeming to almost fear physical contact.

“Heh, yeah!” Pinkie seemed a little bummed out by this, oddly enough. I had never seen her this afraid of anything, she usually giggles at them, but her mane was even threatening to droop slightly.

Twilight appeared to take notice, waiting until Dash went inside before talking to her. “Pinkie, you okay?” Pinkie put on what I could tell as a false grin.

I didn’t get to hear the rest of it, they started walking in, and, Dear Celestia it was loud. I barely one step lower than a rave. Twilight said to me, “I told Pinkie to go ahead, she’ll be fine.”

I smiled, “Alright. Want any popcorn?” Twilight nodded. “Go on and get some seats, I’ll be right in.”

When I finally got into the theatre...it was louder. But, not from the noises outside, I couldn’t hear them even, the ponies who build this place have some strong magicks. The room was crowded, everypony who was anypony was here. I think I even saw Rarity! I found my way to my seats, and sat down next to Twilight. Dash and Pinkie were on the other side of her, although they rarely looked at each other. Dash seemed much more excited than Pinkie was.

We saw the movie ‘Gent Bucksalot in: The Filly that Clopped me’. The first impression of the Stallion lead was that he had horrible teeth. However, I didn’t see much of the movie except for that first impression due to the wonderful mare that was sitting next to me. Let’s just say she has, well, certain ways to distract a filly during a movie. Twilight was very vocal about the technical inaccuracies of the movie. There were a lot. Namely the explosions, and sex scenes. And more explosions. About halfway through the movie, I had to ask Twilight. “Twi, why is Pinkie being so quiet? Outside she was practically a battery!”

“I’m not really sure, I mean, they finally agreed to go out, and now they’re not saying a word?”

“Perhaps at dinner they’ll be more likely to talk?” Twilight shrugged, and the topic left off. About 30 minutes passed before I decided to make a move. And it was a smooth one. Smooth.

I noticed Twilight start to shiver a little, as well as one of the more...terrifying scenes came up. I decided to finally do it. Mare up, and do it. I had asked Twilight, “Hey, Twi, is it cold?” She looked at me with a little bit of confusion, before she recognized my hoof over the seat, and leaned into my shoulder, and I put my hoof around her.

Buck.

Yeah.

She sighed slightly, and we at least tried to enjoy a bit more of the movie. There’s also a reason I said “tried”, and not “succeeded”, you know. The movie was good, but not exactly what I would go out of my way to watch. However, Rainbow Dash was seeming to quite enjoy the explosions, and guns, and fillies, and filly action, so pretty much the entire movie. I thought I saw Pinkie crack a smile once twice at a few of the half flanked jokes, but for the rest she seemed to be on that edge of depression. Actually, now that I think about it, she was smiling more at Dash’s reactions than at the jokes themselves.

The rest of the movie was fairly uneventful, with Dash receiving glaring looks from the rest of the movie goers for her loud enjoyment of the movie, and Twilight snuggling in my shoulder. Once again, buck yeah. The curtains fell on a rather content audience (side note: They still use curtains?), and it had appeared Twilight fell asleep. On my shoulder. It was awesome.

I would’ve contemplated not waking her up, but the next show was starting, and we were being kicked out. So I gently woke her up, and she replied with a dreamy smile,“Spike, five more minutes.” Well, at least she’s comfortable with me. That’s good, I was sure of at least that. What I wasn’t quite sure of was the correct socially accurate way of waking her up. I was on the verge of just carrying her out of the theatre when she opened her eyes, and was almost surprised to see me. Not angry or scared, just surprised. But happy.

“Hey, Pinkie, you going to be okay?” I overheard Twilight say as we left the the theatre. Pinkie just shrugged. “Pinkie, if you don’t want to-”

“No, I do. It’s just, I’m kinda scared that Rainbow will...I dunno.” Pinkie said, her walk lacking her usual bounce.

“Afraid of what? Rainbow loves you! She’s not going to leave you after trying so hard to make up with you!” Twilight said.

“Are you sure, Twilight?” Pinkie said, looking up from her staring contest with the gravel walkway.

“Yes, before we came here Rainbow talked to me, and said how much she wanted you back. Trust me.” Twilight gave what must’ve been her most honest and heartfelt smile she could muster.

“Really?” That was a lie, actually, Twilight spent the day with me. It was awesome. I guess it’s the thought that counts. Also, now I know why Twilight isn’t the element of honesty.

“Of course she did.” Twilight lied smoothly through her teeth. Smooth. I should take some smoothness lessons from her sometime. “Now, go up ahead and talk to your mare, Pinkie. She’s waiting.”

Pinkie regained her usual bounce and mannerisms, somehow physically brightening up the entire area as she did so.She bounced on over to Dash, before pouncing on her, and landing with a kiss squarely on Dash’s mouth, the most basic signal that all is forgiven.

They started chatting, punctuating their words with quick smooches, although I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. What they were saying wasn’t actually all that important, I guess, only that they were now actually chatting, not just glaring at each other over boxes of popcorn.

It took all of my resolve to walk up to them and interrupt their happy reunion, but it was getting late, and we did have a dinner reservation.

“Are you ready to head to the restaurant yet?” I asked, glancing at the sun on the very precipice of the horizon.

“Uh, nah, I think we’ll pass on dinner. Pinkie and I have, uh, other plans.” Rainbow said, avoiding my eyes slightly.

“Yeah, Dashie and me have a whole lot of stuff to catch up on, like mmmph!” Pinkie said, her mouth rapidly covered by one of Rainbow Dash’s forehooves.

“Dashie and I!” Twilight shouted from where she was standing.

Rainbow Dash began leading Pinkie back down the road, leaving both of us together, and again alone.

“So, do you want to go to the restaurant anyway?” I asked Twilight as we continued to walk down the road.

“I’m not all the hungry, actually.” she said. “Maybe I ate just a little too much of the popcorn at that movie.” I briefly cursed the gods of buttery and salty deliciousness.

“So, I guess we’ll both head home?” I said, barely keeping the disappointment from dripping from my voice.

“Actually,” Twilight said, flashing another one of those glowing smiles, “I have a better idea.”

Twilight took my hoof, leading me gently through Canterlot to the castle. The guards, knowing us both, let us in without hassle. Hammer was particularly kind, stepping aside rather gingerly on his hooves. She led me through the majestic halls of Canterlot Castle, our hoof steps echoing through the empty halls like a single drop of water of a placid lake. The single candles barely broke the strangling darkness, causing me to edge closer to Twilight to protect me from the ghosts of fillyhood past. She rolled her eyes, and smiled, soldiering on through the passages and hallways that were so alien to me, yet so familiar to her. A final turn brought us to where Twilight was leading me all along: an extensive garden, with elaborate statues to break up the elaborate hedges and mazes.

The first statue I saw, oddly, looked quite a lot like the mare next to me. She seemed to see it too, because she blushed crimson through her lavender fur, and led me away quite quickly.

“That statue looked quite a bit like you.” I said, knowing she noticed that too.

“No, you must’ve been mistaken. Why would I have a statue?” She said. I could think of several reasons, not excluding the fact that her beautiful muzzle and perfect hair would look quite excellent in statue form, but I kept my opinion to myself. That was most likely a good thing, too, because the next statue we found was a more widely accepted reason why Twilight deserves to have a statue in her honor.

“This is Discord.” Twilight said, looking up at the statue of the dragonesque cringing away from some unknown attack with a look of nostalgia. The bad kind of nostalgia, I would guess.

“You mean that’s a statue of Discord.” I corrected her before I could stop myself. Definitely not smooth. Maybe I should ask Twilight for some lessons.

“No, I mean that actually is Discord.” Based on my expression of complete confusion, she decided to expand on that comment. “Discord was the god of eternal chaos, and was freed from his previous stone version, which didn’t look like he was cringing away, by a minor argument between a few local fillies. He escaped from his prison in a fit of rage against everything and everypony around him, namely, for some reason, me and my friends. Because The Princess had given up the Elements to us, he saw her as little more than a minor nuisance. Instead, he lead us in circles, leading us astray with illusions, white lies, and manipulation, causing are anger to turn from him to one another.” at this point, Twilight’s voice caught in her throat. I put my hoof over her shoulder, trying to ignore how soft her fur was against mine, and sat her down on the ornate stone bench in the shadow of the statute.

“You don’t have to finish the story if you don’t want to.” she put her head against my shoulder, trying to regulate her breathing back to normal.

“N- no, I think you should know this. Now that we’re, well, dating and all.” We shared a slightly strained smile, which seemed to cheer her up a bit. “He ended up splitting us all up in the hedge maze, and when we all were able to meet up, I was the only one of us who was still loyal to their Element. Applejack couldn’t stop lying, Rarity somehow was convinced that a large boulder was a diamond named Tom, Rainbow Dash was just about as disloyal as you can be, and Fluttershy...” she had to stop for a moment at this one, “Fluttershy changed from kindness to anger and hostility. She even dumped a bucket of water on my head as I was trying to save them all. Because they were all affected by Discord’s spell, all they remember is a haze, but because I was only affected for all of five minutes, I can still remember every. Single. Moment. As every single one of my friends, my best friends, fell into Discord’s spell. I was devastated. How could they turn on me in our time, no, Equestria’s time of need? After they turned back, all their memories of the events were blurry after they were affected by the spell, so they were all back to their usual selves. Except for me. Because I was the last to go, I could remember every. Single. Second.” she emphasized this by pounding her hoof on the edge of the bench. “How they were all the opposites of why I became friends with them in the first place. I had spent my entire foal hood with no friends, and therefore my biggest fear, beside having a late assignment, was rejection from the friends I worked so hard to get. Discord, being who he is, knew that, and saved me for last for that exact reason. How could he do something like that?!”

“You know, Twilight, I like you.” I was trying so hard to comfort her. I put my hoof around her shoulder, attempting to do just that. “I’ll never reject you. I don’t have some fancy monologue to give, I’m just saying it out loud. I’ll always care about you, I’ll always accept you. Besides, your friends are better than ever now! They all love you very much, and would help you with anything!”

Twilight looked up, and smiled. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Your friends all love you, Twilight. I-” I bit my lip. This was incredibly nerve wracking. Twilight put her head down, and smiled. “I love you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight looked up, a sincere smile on her lips. “I love you too, Twinkleshine.”

The entire area, the bench, the ground, and especially Twilight suddenly flashed into acute focus. I could feel the icy chill of the midnight breeze, and the stark contrast of the warm mare in my arms. I looked deep into her beautiful lavender eyes, enhanced by the sudden clarity of the moonlight, and could tell that she was doing the exact same thing to me. I could feel something well up deep inside my chest, almost as if my heart, or perhaps a horribly misplaced swarm of butterflies, was attempting to escape. What happened next didn’t at all surprise me, but did quite startle me. It was just for a single moment, but it felt like forever. Almost sooner than I would have liked, it was over.

Twilight looked up at me, her eyes gleaming under the moonlight. “I love you.” And, with that, her luminescent smile unfading, and lower her head, and folded into my embrace. “This night couldn’t get any better.”

“I could think of one way.” I grinned, and Twilight glared at me.

“Oh? How could this get any better?”

“By making it last forever.” Although it couldn’t actually last forever, I’d love it if it could. This has been the best night ever. I’m pretty certain it was Twilight’s too.

“Yeah, that’d work.” She said, as she snuggled in closer. “It’s getting late, and it’s such a long ride home...” Twilight said, putting on a frown.

“Why not stay with me tonight?” I pondered, I think I have an extra bed somewhere. If not, I suppose my couch is comfortable. It actually might be one of those couches that can turn into a bed. That would be useful, not to mention pretty neat.

“I guess I can, I’ll catch a train ride tomorrow.”

Twilight hugged me before standing up, and walked towards the entrance to the gardens with me in tow.

“Actually, do you want to stop somewhere before my house?” Twilight asked as we walked underneath the ornate iron public entrance gate. “I’m kind of hungry now. Maybe we actually should have gone to that restaurant after all.”

I glanced up at the moon, and estimated that it was around eleven thirty. “I don’t think there’ll any restaurant open at this time of night” I said, realizing my own hunger.

Twilight considered that for a moment, and then her face brightened with a sudden realization. “I know!” she said. “We don’t need a fancy restaurant. We’ll just go the local Walpony-Mart!” I non visibly shivered. Ever since Walpony-Mart went up, the local business was stifled. Though they have decent goods, and several bads, their anticompetitive pricing schemes stamp out local business. My favorite dress shop was one of the shops that was put out of business, not that I wore dresses all the time, mind you, or that I don’t like dresses. I wear tons of dresses, just not all the time. Well, actually not quite a ton, because that’d be heavy. Much more heavy than the combined weights of all of the dresses I’ve ever worn, mostly because I don’t wear many dresses. I wear some, but now I have to buy crappy dresses from Walpony-Mart. They’re like, 20 bits! I mean, sure, that’s cheaper than the 50 my old dress shop charged, but hey look we’re here. That was quick.

“So, do you have any idea where the food section is?” Twilight asked, peering down the neverending isles.

“I shook my my head. “I really have no idea.” I said. “Why don’t we split up and look for it\?”

Twilight nodded and headed over to the left, so I wandered over to the right. Wow, this store really does have everything. It has bowls, and plates, and horn shine, a toaster that also cooks eggs, disassembled hay carts, a highblood troll plushie, magic powered drill sets, Xmares, wait, they have Xmares?!

I knew I was supposed to be looking for food, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from that isle. I had to have one. I mean Luna had one, and I’m also apparently good at the games, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense to be good at something and not have it right? Also, the 300 bit price tag wasn’t all that bad; that was about the price of 15 of those dresses I never wear. Only two week’s worth of spending money. Oh, and I also had to buy Call of Cutie: Kingdoms! I love Call of Cutie: Kingdoms! Err, nevermind. I grabbed it, and headed towards the checkout counter.

I got in line at the only open checkout counter behind an elderly stallion who had decided that tonight would be the perfect night to buy several carts worth of items. While I was waiting for the tired employee to count up the price of all of his items, twice because he lost count, Twilight showed up from the food section.

“Hey, Twinkleshine.” she said, toting several kinds of snack cakes, chips, and other unhealthy munchable items with her levitation. “I got some hay chips and Littlepip cakes and dear Princess Celestia what is that?”

I grinned, not able to hide my soon to be purchase. “It’s” I froze a little. “Something.”

“What do you mean by something? Let me see it.”

“It’s...it’s my money.” I was ready to defend my soon to be purchase. I’ll just not buy as many 20 bit dresses I don’t wear anyways. Without looking away, I grabbed a bag of chips from the nearby shelves, and held it up with my magic. “I got snacks too.”

“I saw that.”

I put the chips down, defeated. “It was worth a try.”

“Twilight put a supporting hoof on my shoulder. “Twinkleshine, if that’s something that you want to buy, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not going to stop you, or judge you on your every little decision.”

I was stunned. I wasn’t used to anypony really supporting up my decisions, ever. What had I ever done to attract a mare as trusting and as wonderful as Twilight?

The stallion in front of us had finished purchasing his monthly hermit rations, so we moved to to purchase our snacks and game console.

“What exactly is that, anyway?” Twilight asked, poking the box with a snack cake. Boop.

“It’s an Xmare,” I explained, despite it being written in size 200 font on the side of the box.

“That’s a pretty large box for a bunch of dirty magazines, isn’t it?” Twilight said. I could swear that she also winked at me.

Blushing profusely, I stammered a reply. “N-no, it’s not like that, it’s more of” Twilight cut me off by placing a hoof over my mouth.

“Don’t worry” she said. “I have plenty of those back home, along with some books, and comic books, and also some,” she cut herself off this time, at my look of utter embarrassment and that we now had the cashier's full attention. She blushed herself in turn, realizing that she admitted more than she originally intended to. We quickly counted up the total cost of the items, threw a hefty bag of coins at the unfortunate cashier, and left the store. I wondered for a minute or two how Twilight could hold all the bits, and eventually decided that Twilight must have some sort of unicorn storage abstraction enchantment. Or something like that.

The trek to back my house was rather uneventful. However when we got in, it seemed rather...cold. We quickly rectified that issue by turning on the heat, and until it started working properly, sitting so close together on the couch that if we were any closer, we would be a single pony. Not that I want to be a single pony, that is. I rather like being with Twilight. During this time, I used my telekinesis to assemble the Xmare; easier said than done. It didn’t help that the entire time I had to endure Twilight’s heated accusations of what she believed the Xmare to be. Quite distracting. And I had the assembly instructions upside down the entire time.

I gasped with delight when I finally got the power cable in the right way, and the device booted up. Twilight quickly took the controls, and booted up the EquestriaFlix account.

“Whose account are you logging into?” I asked, slightly tired.

“Princess Celestia’s account.” Twilight said. “She almost never uses it, so she lets me use it pretty much whenever I want. It’s pretty nice, especially since she gets the full princess package they have of every single piece of video media ever produced and ever to be produced as soon as it’s released.” she began punching in the text for the username and password on a controller that was by no means designed for inputing text, muttering what she was typing throughout it all. “Alright.” she muttered. “Username: bestPrincess. Password: LUN41FYOUD4R3TOTRYTOH4CKMY3QU3STR14FL1X4CCOUNT1SW34RTOGOG1W1LLS3NDYOUTOTH3MOONFOR4THOUS4NDY34RS”

Typing the password took several attempts due to it being immediately converted into asterisks as it was typed. I nuzzled Twilight’s side slightly to prevent her from venting her frustration by throwing the controller through the wall, along with anything in the room that wasn’t nailed down. And some things that were nailed down. It also helped that her side was really soft.

“So, what are we going to watch?” I asked Twilight, my head sideways resting against her side.

“Why don’t you choose?” she said, floating the controller over to me. I lifted up my head so I could see the screen rightside up. I hit the option to see all shows and movies available to me, and after several seconds of stack overflow errors, turned the option off. I instead searched through the most popular shows.

“What about this one?” I asked, pointing out the movie “How To Train Your Dragonesque?”.

“Nah, I’ve seen more times than I’d care to admit. How about that show?” Twilight said, waving her hoof to the most popular show. “Lyra gives that one two thumbs up. Whatever thumbs are Wait, maybe they’re those opposable claws that Spike has.” I nodded, and selected the show, and we began to play the first episode. We snuggled down, and began to watch the majority of the first season of My Little Human: Friendship is Science. Although, we never did finish.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5:
gallowsActivator36 has started messaging lunarBiologist0:

GA: lunar, are you almost ready?
LB: I’m still waiting on my friend.
GA: The match begins in five minutes, she better not be late.
LB: She should be here soon...I hope...
GA: What’s wrong, lunar? You sound sad.
LB: I just hoped that she would be here to help us win.
GA: You know that’s not true, we can win by ourselves!

carnageAndPie has signed in. carnageAndPie has joined the chat.

CaP: Hey everypony!
GA: Hey, carny.
LB: Hey...
CaP: What’s wrong lunar?
LB: Nothing is wrong! I just wish my friend were here.
CaP: I’ll have to talk about that later! We have a match to win!

“Twilight, what should my username be?” I asked the mare in question. She responded with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll call Luna about it?”

“Perhaps. Give her a ring.”

I took out my phone, and dialed up Luna. 4. It’s so hard to remember sometimes. “Hey, Luna?”

“Twinkleshine! Where are you! The match begins in four minutes!”

“I can’t figure out my username. Should I just use Twinkleshine?”

“What?! No! Don’t use your real name!”

“Why not?”

“Because...you...I never thought of it.” She paused for a moment, Twilight shrugged. “Because if the stallions find out you’re a mare, you’ll be hit on nonstop.”

“Oh, okay. I think I have it figured out, I’ll be online in a moment.” I hung up the phone, and turned to Twilight. “I have an idea!”

shineTwinkle has joined the chat.

LA: ….really?

ST: Yeah, what’s wrong with it?

LA: Nothing.

GA: lunar, who’s this?

LA: My friend I’ve been telling you about.

ST: Fluttershy, is that you?

GA: Meep (>.<) /

ST: Twilight, stop talking through my mic!

LB: Twilight Sparkle?

ST: Oh, hey Luna.

ST: Twilight! Fine.

I glared at Twilight, she grinned back. “Sorry.” She offered me an apology hug. I may have taken it. I can’t resist the power of the hug. It’s my only weakness. That, and improper usage of its and it’s. Well, mostly. There’s another, but I won’t get into it right now.

LB: gallows? gallows?

GA: …

ST: Did I scare her away?

ST: Well, Fluttershy is really shy. It’s an interesting coincidence.

LB: Wait, she’s Fluttershy? gallows is the meanest, most brutal and ruthless player I’ve ever seen. She never loses a match.

GA: Meep

ST: Whoops. I guess I’ll just keep quiet.

LB: No, no, it’s okay. Hey, have you seen carnage?

CaP: Sorry everypony! I’m kinda busy at the moment! My headset must’ve gone out of range!

ST: What are you doing?

CaP: I’m taking care of toddlers.

ST: You have kids!? ಠ_ಠ

CaP: No, silly! They’re my landlords’! I just take care of them! They’re so adorable!

ST: Wow, they’re already toddlers?

CaP: Yeah! They grow up so fast!

ST: Luna, you’re being quiet.

LB: t-toddlers?

LB: I don’t like kids.

gallowsActivator36 has sent lunarBiologist0 a private message:

(P)GA: lunar, why did you invite Twilight? I didn’t want anypony to know who I was!

(P)LB: To be honest, I didn’t know you were Fluttershy.

(P)GA: Well, now the cat’s out of the bag...oh why was it in the bag at all? Such a cruel thing to do to a cat!

(P)LB: Well, does it feel any better knowing you’ve been playing with a princess?

(P)GA: Oh, I already knew that. For the first two weeks you used the Royal ‘we’.

(P)LB: Somepony else must still use the royal ‘we’ besides us. I mean, me.

(P)GA: Uh, Princess? I don’t think so. It was only you.

CaP: All done! Let’s game!

ST: Alright!

LB: I’m in. Fluttershy?

GA: Meep.

(P)LB: Fluttershy, get over yourself! We need this match to qualify for the tournament!

(P)GA: I-I’ll try.

GA: Okay, everypony, I’m game! Let’s go!

Boop. Boop. Beep! the screen flashed with activity; the game was on.

“Behind you!” Twilight shouted to me, despite the fact that we were in the same room. I saw the shadow of the enemy player sneaking up on me, knife drawn. I spun around on point, and unloaded most of my clip of ammunition through his face, and into an unlucky teammate of his that had decided that then was the perfect time to run around the corner. Sweet, first blood, double kill. Not a bad start of the match.

LB: Nice job!

CG: WHAT A BUCKING NOOB.

ST: Sour sport.

Behind the two unfortunate stallions was the spawn point for their team’s tank, interestingly enough only activated when their team is down by two kills. Score. I grabbed some of their ammo, smashed a fresh clip into my carbine, and hopped into the metal machine of rolling death.

ST: W0000000000000T!

LB: Calm down there, nothing to be excited abou- dear sister you have their tank!

ST: It has five pedals, but only four directions!

Once I got control of, well, the controls, I was good to go. It was too early in the match for any of them to bother to pack anything heavy enough to even scratch the tank. You should have seen their faces as their front line was crushed by their own tank. Literally crushed, I didn’t even have waste a single round, despite the fact that I somehow had infinite rounds. I couldn’t actually see their faces, actually, but I could sure as Celestia imagine them. And it was hilarious.

GA: We’re about to win! Just a few more kills!

ST: Hay yeah!

GA: Twinkle, look out for that mortar!

CG: You’re a mare?

ST: Oh dear Celestia no.

CG: Wanna go out?

ST: She’s taken.

CG: By who?!

ST: Me.

CG: You’re dating yourself? A bit narcissistic, don’t you think?

ST: No, my marefriend is sitting next to me.

ST: I’m surprised you know the meaning of that word.

CG: This is kinda confusing...

ST: Run.

I took Twilight’s advice just as CG’s mortar shell imbedded itself into the tank’s armor, causing an explosion that was entirely perfect for me to walk away from, gun blazing, picking off anypony who was dim enough to look at the exploding tank, resulting in their screens going white for a moment. Just long enough for me to land a shot squarely between their eyes. As the last near opponent fell, I caught his sniper rifle in midair (a terrible choice for close up combat, but considering the typical intelligence of the ponies that play this game, it didn’t surprise me), looked down the sight, adjusted for drop, and sent a single shot through the side of CG as he loaded his next shell. Game, set, and match.

I turned off the console, and Twilight and I went into my kitchen. Twilight glanced at the clock, and suddenly gasped. “It’s already noon! I told Spike I would be back 16 hours ago....”

“I’m sure he’s fine! Having a grand old time, getting into the ice cream!” I grin.

“But he’s probably worried sick! I’ll have to go to Celestia right away, and ask her to send Spike a letter informing him I’ll be late!”

“Well, you’re already late, so any damage is already done, so there’s no use worrying over it. Instead of going insane over letters, why not just head home and apologize in person?”

Twilight swallowed, and smiled. “Yeah, I guess I’ll do that.” And pecked a quick kiss. “That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Twilight started turning and went towards the door, I stopped her real quick.

“Hold on, filly, you’re coming with me to the game store first.” Twilight swallowed again, grinning. “I have one game, I intend on fixing this.”

“And how exactly do you plan on fixing that?”

“Well, there’s a GameMare near the castle, and I heard that it’s quite the nice walk to it.”

It was, actually. The GameMare gleamed with beauty, where fillies and colts can go to buy used games for not quite the full price. Thankfully, I had a few more bits than I had when I was younger, so I didn’t have to worry about counting out my bits for the latest copy of Wonderbolts Racing or Celestia Sim, but I also shouldn’t go overboard either. No matter how shiny the advertisements for the new Colts of War game looks. Although I’ve been thinking of picking up Ponycraft for a while...

We walked into the store, and immediately all eyes were on us, it helps that we’re two good looking mares walking into a store filled with teenage stallions. Well, I’m not quite sure about myself, but I was certain that the mare next to me was gorgeous. I snuck off, and half the eyes followed me. I quickly cast a minor perception field to make everyone look away. Not that I didn’t like the attention, I was just kinda...self conscious. I picked out a couple games, Ponycraft 2: Heart of the Changelings, and Cooking Mare. I really wanted to learn to cook, for Twilight, of course.

I found Twilight and lead her over to the counter to buy them, when everyone stopped looking at us, and stared at the door, everypony bowing down. I looked around in awe, when I saw Luna standing in the doorway, blushing and looking nervous, and still wearing a headset. I smiled. “As you were, everypony.” And with that, she started trotting in, and saw us. “Ah! Twinkleshine, Twilight Sparkle! It is good to see you both again!” Luna practically sprinted towards us.

“Hey, Luna.” I said towards her. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I’m just here to buy a new game, you know...” Luna looked over at Twilight. “Twilight! What are you doing here too?” She smiles towards her.

“Twinkle dragged me here. She said I had to help her pick out a new game.” She glared at me, I grinned. “Even though she didn’t even ask for my input.” She held her glare for a moment, before bursting into laughter. I joined in after a moment.

“To be fair you kinda went off on your own.” This wasn’t really a big store, though.

“I guess.” We both stood awkwardly, staring somewhere over each other’s shoulders until I turned back to the front counter. The nerdy colt standing behind it was trembling equally in fear of displeasing the all powerful Princess Luna, and in anger that we not only drove out all his other customers, but we were also taking our merry time. He ran a red scanner over my games, and threw them in a crumpled paper bag as I tossed a bag of Twilight’s bits onto the counter. He wasn’t even looking at us during the entire interaction, and I didn’t even see him count the bits. In retrospect I think I was actually a few bits short, but oh well, his loss.

As I left the counter to fawn over the plastic wrapped goodness that is new games, Luna approached the counter. “I would like these games, if you would not mind.” She said with a bit more force than was most likely necessary, but most likely not intentionally. She still had a bit of trouble with volume control at that point, I guess.

“Right away, your majesty.” The colt said, pulling out a pristine cloth bag, this one with the store’s logo embroidered on the side. “This will be on the house.”

Princess Luna royally face hoofed. “Why must you all demand on giving things to me for free?” she demanded. “I happen to have my own bits to buy what I want with, and that’s what I’m doing.” She levitated an ornate bit bag from her saddlebag, counted out a dozen or so bits, and placed them on the counter. She then pulled her bag of games gently from the grip of the terrified cashier, and turned to leave the store herself.

“So, what are you both doing after this?” Luna asked us as she got outside. “If you wish, you may both visit the castle.”

“Actually, what were we planning on doing?” Twilight said, turning to me. “You were rather vague on where we were going after the game store. And by vague, I don’t think you actually planned anything besides your own personal shopping trip for this morning.”

I thought for a second, and then remembered something I probably should’ve done a few days ago. “Actually,” I said, talking to both Twilight and Luna, “I think I have to see someone about something.” That someone was of course Moondancer, and the something was the steps Twilight and I had taken in our relationship recently. I wasn’t going to tell that to either of them, though, even with their matching utterly perplexed expressions. Trusting that leaving Twilight in Luna’s hooves wasn’t a completely horrible idea, I threw my bag of games into my own saddlebag, and stared off on a quick trot over to Moondancer’s house.

For once I was able to regain my (almost) complete attention after knocking on the door, and greeted Moondancer as she opened it. She actually looked presentable. Like, I would take her out in public, for once. We went inside, with her sitting in her favorite armchair and me sitting anywhere but the couch, and I began to tell her about everything that happened so far between me and Twilight.

“So, how much have you accomplished since we last spoke?” Moondancer asked, tapping her hooves together lightly.

“Well, we went on a double date with a couple of Twilight’s friends. When things tapered off,” Well, the other two ditched us. “we wandered into the statue garden and sat down under a statue, and then it happened.”

“What happened? You finally got the nerve and bucked her?” Moondancer said, sitting forward in her seat excitedly.

“No, of course not.” I said, waving my hoof dismissively at Moondancer’s antics.

“So you wouldn’t?”

I stuttered around for several seconds, attempting to refute her comment until Moondancer held up her hoof, silencing me. “I was just joking,” she said. “But seriously, would you?”

I looked at her blankly. “Well, if she wanted to, and we were both ready, I might I suppose. She is rather beautiful...” Well this just got awkward.

“So you would! Excellent!” Moondancer shouted, apparently waking a colt in the other room. Moondancer rubbed her hooves together, with a smile that could best be described as downright creepy. “Now then, about Step 2 of my patented Three Step Program.”

“Step 2?”

“Yeah, Step 2: Secure her love.” She said semicolon aloud. “It’s easy, really. Just spend a lot of time together, hang out, go on dates, and just be yourself. If she’s worth it, it’ll work out. Trust me, I put the Ponyville Shipping Service out of business with this system.”

“You mean shipping as in putting two ponies together?” I asked, interested.

“No, I just carried a bunch of stuff around for everypony. Of course I meant that!”

Well, for the first time it seemed Moondancer was trying to get me into a meaningful relationship, rather than getting me laid. I decided to take her advice, and after a little more conversation, I left, going to pursue Twilight to get her to go on a date with me!

This should be easy.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6:
I decided to ask Twilight on the date that Moondancer suggested I ask her on the next day at my house. Well, her being at my house was kind of sort of not quite an official date, but we were just mostly hanging out, swapping, ahem, stories about, well, stuff. I’ll just go with that.

Either way, we were both sitting on my couch that was at least pristine compared to Moondancer’s stained monstrosity, and I was attempting to style her mane into something that wasn’t the way she’d worn it every single other day of her life, with varying success.

“And done!” I said, levitating a mirror up to Twilight’s new mane.

“Oh wow! It’s beautiful!” Twilight replied, grasping the mirror in her magic and moving it around to see her new hairstyle. “What’s it called?”

“Well, I’ve heard it was called a ‘ponytail’ now and then. Lyra actually taught it to me, now that I think about it. It’s a bit odd, since we already have tails.” We both glanced back at our respective tails at that remark. Actually I looked at Twilights velvet violet tail, but I’m allowed to do that now, aren’t I?

“Well I think it looks great! Where did you learn to get this good?”

“Well, when I was younger I played with my prancy dolls a lot. And Moondancer always wanted to look good for the colts in school, so she kept asking me. I don’t know why.” I laughed a little.

“Well, obviously you’re good at it, I mean I love this look. I think I’ll do it more often.” I didn’t think that what I did with her hair was all that special or difficult, despite looking stunning on her, but I held my tongue.

“Well obviously I have to repay the favor!” Oh no. Oh Dear Princess Luna crying on the moon at night, no!

“I’m...okay. Really.”

“No, I insist!” Twilight said, getting up and leaning into me. I faked a smile, and, well, she could tell I was faking. Twilight was definitely in playful mood, and I was loving every minute of it.

“B-b-bu!” Twilight put a hoof on my mouth, this was happening. “Fine.” I said in a glance of playful anger.

Twilight smiled ecstatically, and clapped her hooves. Her bright mood was quite contagious, and quickly had me giggling along with her. I sat down on the floor, waiting relatively patiently as my girlfriend played with my hair. You know, there are many perks of having a girlfriend. Having her play with your mane, which is honestly really relaxing, is never really brought up. I layed back a bit, only to jolt upright in a bolt of sudden pain.

“Ooh, sorry, honey!” Twilight said, clearing the knot she’s made around my horn. Wait, she called me honey.

“Since when have I been your honey?” I asked, smirking.

“Since now. And please, stop fidgeting, it isn’t making this any easier.”

“Maybe you should be a bit more careful with your hooves.” I said, wincing as Twilight threatened to pull out a rather large chunk of my hair. We both giggled a little, and I leaned back, smiling. This apparently didn’t help with Twilight’s valiant efforts to complete my new hairdo, resulting in a . Well, she wasn’t finished just yet...

er once again pulling my hair a bit harder than my liking. Not that I like her pulling my mane, but, uh, well, you knew what I meant.

In the middle of this rather tear inducingly painful experience, Twilight thought it was, for some reason, the best time to ask me a question.

“So, do you think now would be a good time to ask me to meet your parents?”

“Well, we’re comfortable, relaxed, and I knew this was gonna be a pressing issue.”

Okay, I wasn’t exactly on bad terms with my parents, but my parents have always been...erm, not quite open minded. They were a bit against my experimenting of my younger day. That may have had something to do with my experiments involving creating a life sized illusion of a manticore in the living room, but I digress. That’s not to say they can’t change, it’s just...they wanted me to become a doctor, or a teacher, or some other job that’s held in high regard. Instead, I became an illusionist, and a damn fine one at that. Just ask Twilight.

“I suppose we could...” I said, looking down as to not show her how nervous I was.

“Why so nervous? I thought you were on good terms with your parents?”

“Well, I am, but they’re kinda...” I looked down a little.

“Oh. Not approving of...us?”

I immediately shot up at this. “No, not like, well, I’m sure they’re gonna be fine with you. I mean, you’re just kinda pretty much the best filly in all of Equestria! You’ve saved the world, twice! At least once intentionally!”

“Well I am pretty cool, I guess.”

I pulled her off the sofa, and onto the floor. After a quick peck, I told her. “Not guess, are.”

“Are?”

“Okay perhaps my wording was off a bit, but you know what I mean.”

We both giggled, realizing that our faces were a bit closer together than either of us had intended, so we decided to take advantage of that. Not that I was against that, though.

After a bit of discussion, checking our schedules, and quite a bit of distracting each other, we were able to finally decide on days to meet each other’s parents . A week of work left me unable to see Twilight much, so her meeting my parents was the first time I’d seen her this week.

“Twinkle?”

“Y-yes Twilight?”

“Are we going to go in? We’ve been staring at the door inquisitively for about ten minutes now. Again.”

Oh, right. “Sure.” We trotted up to the door, and knocked.

My mom opened the door, and proceeded to say. “My, Twinkleshine, what brings you here today?” My mom was a curious unicorn, she had a similar coloration to me. Her cutie mark, however, was in home decor. Because of that, my old house was filled with, well, decor, I guess. Nice looking decor, actually. It’s like she had a special talent in it. Really nice, despite the fact that I’m not quite sure what the word decor fully means. I loved living there with all my various knick and knacks and tiskets and taskets and trinkets and widgets.

“Is dad home?” My dad was another pony altogether. He was dark colored, and a unicorn. His special talent was...making home decor. He made them, my mom put them up. It’s like they were made for each other or something.

“Oh! That’s today, isn’t it? Yes, he’s home, why don’t you come in?” Apparently she didn’t notice Twilight, cowering behind my back. I swear, she can be such an introvert sometimes.

I nodded towards her, and we went into my living room, and sat down on my leftseat. My parents sat down on the couch, my mother holding an antique bone tea set in her hooves, despite the fact that she could just as easily levitate it over. She has a habit of doing things the old fashioned way, which might be one of the reasons I was reluctant of setting up this meeting in the first place. What if she decides to act on that old fashioned ritual of burying fillyfoolers alive just to hear them scream into the night. Mom told me that those colts at school were lying about that, but she could have had just been saying that to calm my nerves. That was around the time I had started to figure out my inclination towards mares, even if I didn’t want to admit it, even fully to myself.

Smiling brightly, my Mom sat down on a wooden chair across the table from where Twilight and I were seated, right next to my Dad in his recliner, and offhandedly commented “So, you wanted to introduce us to your special somepony?”

I stared down at my hoof, focusing all of the willpower I could to make it stop shaking like a leaf that sees the running of the leaves drawing near, and managed to vocalize “Uh, Yes. Mom, dad, meet...erm...”

“Twilight Sparkle.” the amazing mare next to me said brightly, holding out her hoof to my mother across the table. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you.”

A slight darkness clouded my mother’s face for a second. “That’s odd,” she said, “Twinkleshine’s not told us anything about you. Not that we talk much at all these day, with her off on her own chasing her dreams and whatnot.” She took a sip of her tea, and went to set it down on the table.

“Also, Twinkleshine, dear, do you think you could make the table not invisible for a moment? Although I do love you showing off your non dangerous magic spells, I would prefer to be able to tell where the table ends and the floor begins.”

I looked down at the table, and confirmed that it was, in fact, non opaque. I quickly ended the spell that I had not realized that I had cast,/ and mentally smacked myself for not keeping my magic under control. I should have remembered that occasionally cast minor illusions when nervous. Well, not always when I’m nervous. There was that one time during Thanksgiving a few years back that I unknowingly created an extraordinarily convincing illusion of a manticore right as Grandma carried in the main course, but all of us had unanimously agreed that not a single detail of what exactly had transpired that day would leave that room, therefore I can’t elaborate on the circumstances.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that.” I grinned and turned towards Twilight, then I glared at her to make her stop snickering. It’s not like SHE could turn the table invisible. Well, she probably could, but that’s not the point.

“It’s quite alright. I can understand, that you’d be incredibly nervous at your parents meeting your...marefriend.”

“I don’t know why you’re so nervous, Twinkleshine, I mean, you’re dating a mare that’s saved the world...twice!” My dad commented. He seemed happy, overjoyed that his prized daughter finally found someone in her life to make her happy. Although he had wanted grandkids. I suppose, with modern advances in magic, we actually could make a filly, although it would be a test tube filly. Not sure how he’d feel about that. Wow, that’d be a small pony. So that’s how they fit inside mares, wait, no, not good, if we have a kid it’s gonna have to come out of me. No thanks, isn’t it supposed to be painful? I guess I could let Twilight do that, then. But I don’t want her to go through pain! Maybe we shouldn’t have a filly.

My assumption that my dad would be un accepting in my lifestyle because of his wish for grandkids was utterly shattered by his next comment. “So, you two mares are officially dating as a fillyfooling couple?” He asked, somehow sitting even further back in his recliner. “Now that I think about it,” he mumbled, more to himself than anypony else, “that actually could be kinda hot...”

“Well, actuall-”

Twilight cut me off. “Yes, yes we are.”

“I wouldn’t think you would have to be told by me how hot you are, with little Shiny here to do that for me.” The look of sudden shock on Twilight’s face gave me the impression that she was answering his first statement, not his second.

The glare Mom gave him at that point must have resurfaced some of the repressed thanksgiving memories in his mind, because he actually stopped his train of thought where it was for once.

“So how long have you two been dating for?” My mom said, attempting to break the awkwardness before it could linger.

“A few months, guess.” I responded. Okay, maybe it was a little bit longer than that, but with Twilight, I’ve barely noticed the time fly by.

“About that, yeah.” Twilight said, looking over towards me, then back at my parents.

We continued on, and the mood lightened up throughout the day. Finally, later in the day my parents had to excuse themselves, they work the night shift at a local home decor shop. This left me and Twilight alone in my old house. I used to dream about bringing her here all the time, but could never get the courage to.

“So this is my old bedroom.” I said, leading Twilight into just that. I showed her my rock collection, my Wonderbolts themed bed, my Ultra Deluxe Nightmare Moon night light,which were quite inaccurate. I’m fairly sure Nightmare Moon wasn’t neon yellow.

Hopping onto my bed, Twilight said. “Today was interesting, though I did enjoy meeting your parents.”

I laid down carefully next to her, and snuggled over to her side. “It certainly was interesting.”

“Why so glum?”

I just thought today would’ve gone better”

Twilight cuddled up closer to me, and placed a kiss on my cheek. “Today went great! What didn’t go well?”

“Well, I don’t know I guess.”

“Well stop guessing then.” Twilight leaned in closer, I smiled.

“Alright. Suppose today went well, what do we do now? The day is over.”

“What spells do you know to make it dark?”

“A few, what do you have in mind?” I asked.

I cast a spell that snuffed out the candles illuminating the room as we locked lips. A sharp wave of euphoria wash over both of us, and the time slowly seemed to slip away. I couldn’t see Twilight, yet I saw everything. My other sense worked overtime to make up for the total darkness, my sense of touch feeling Twilight’s soft coat, my nose catching the the enticing scent of her strawberry shampoo. My sense of hearing the words that made it all worth it. “I love you, Twinkleshine.”

I“I love you too, Twilight Sparkle.”

Next thing I know I was woken up by a very maternal figure. “Get out of bed, Twinkleshine, time for breakfast.”

“M-mommy?” I asked, yawning a bit, cracking my neck.

“No, Twilight.”

“Also, I don’t need to see you two so close. I know I’ve caught you with worse, but at least those were illusions.” My mom said, with a smirk as she walked through the hallway, most likely going to bed after a long shift.

Twilight slumped into the her pillow, obviously trying to hide her blush, as my mom giggled off down the hallway. Struggling to hold in my smile, I patted Twilight on the shoulder. “Come on, it was just a joke.”

“Do your parents always make such inappropriate jokes?!” Twilight said to me indirectly through the pillow.

I thought thoughtfully for a moment. “Yeah, and I guess that explains why they never had a problem with me hanging out with Moondancer.” I never really thought about that, I mean, Moondancer isn’t exactly the pony you would want your star children to hang out with. She was a great friend and all, but she can be kinda...yeah.

“Well I guess that’s alright, I mean, they raised you perfect!” Twilight said, almost pouncing on me.

I laughed and continued. “Yeah, and well, I’m not so perfect, I might have that minor attent-OOH, I SMELL BLUEBERRY PANCAKES!”

Twilight burst into laughter. I looked at her with almost puppy dog eyes. “Go get some, I’ll be down in a minute, just gotta use the little filly’s room.”

I tackle hugged Twilight, gave her a quick hard kiss, then bounded down into my kitchen. Seeing my mom preparing us breakfast as though we were schoolfillies reminded me of my time...as a schoolfilly. I quickly hugged my mom and grabbed a couple pancakes with my magic, and sat down just as Twilight came into the room. “I take it she likes pancakes?” Twilight asked.

“Oh you have no idea, she cried the first time we didn’t have them for breakfast.” My mom replied, laughing.

“I can quit whenever I want!” was what I attempted to say through a mouthful of about five and a half round golden freshly cooked delicious blueberry pancakes.

“Sure you can, sweetie.” My mom cooed.

Twilight awkwardly sat down at the extra chair, and pulled the plate full of pancakes sitting in front of her closer to her, and therefore slightly further out of my grasp.

I looked at Twilight, then it hit me. “Hey, mom, didn’t Amethyst say she was dropping by this morning?”

“Oh yes, she said she was going to, but got held up.”

“Isn’t Amethyst your sister?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, but she lives in Ponyville so I don’t get to see her much.” I shrugged, she was my baby sister after all.

“So, Twilight, when am I going to meet your parents?” I asked as I finished my first round of pancakes.

“Eschuz muh?” Twilight said, it being her turn to be caught with a mouth completely full of gooey pancake goodness. She swallowed, and then tried again. “I thought we were just meeting your parents for now.”

“Yeah, but you got to meet my parents, so now I want to meet yours.” I said, absentmindedly fiddling with my fork as I waited for the next round of pancakes to finish cooking.

“Alright, how about next weekend?” she said, placing a quick kiss on my cheek after glancing to make sure both my parents were looking elsewhere. From the muffled sound of my mom’s laughter, I would guess that the check was anything but thorough.

“This is a bit weird.” I mumbled to myself as mom flipped the third perfect pancake onto a waiting dish.

“Excuse me?” Twilight said, leaning towards me to make sure she heard me correctly.

“Well, you’re sitting in Ammy’s seat.” with the look of confusion, I figured I would have to elaborate a bit. “My sister, Amethyst Star normally sits there, so I keep on glancing over to her seat and being surprised to see you. You have met Amethyst, haven’t you?”

“Well, I may have seen her here and there before, but I don’t think we have ever actually held a conversation.” Twilight said.

“I guess that’s something else for our to do list: Hang with Ammy.” The conversation was brought to a sudden but delicious end as my second plate of pancakes landed in front of me. Any other attempts at speaking were immediately doused with several gallons of maple syrup.

I found myself at Twilight’s old place the next weekend, with her in tow. Nothing of note really happened in that week, or at least nothing that I’d be willing to talk about, so I won’t go into it.

“Well, this is it.” Twilight said, standing in front of the door, looking slightly nervous. “Shall we go in?”

“Sure.” I said, as we walked up to the door stoop, and knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, as though he were waiting, Night Light, Twilight’s father, opened the door. “Twilight!” He said, noticing his daughter. “Come on in! Who’s your friend?”

As we walked through the hallway, Twilight spoke up. “This is Twinkleshine, I told you about her on the phone, dad, remember?”

“Oh yes, your mother couldn’t make it today, she got stalled at work.”

Oddly enough, Twilight’s mom, Twilight Velvet worked for Princess Celestia, although given her daughter’s position, it wasn’t that odd. She got stalled because of a boat load of extra paperwork. Apparently Canterlot had just made it legal to own a Changeling as a pet, but you needed a license to do so. And everypony wanted a pet changeling to call their own. Also, apparently there was a large court battle over exactly how many ponies can name their changeling “shifty”.

A stifling silence overcame us as we sat still in the room. I was on the left seat with Twilight, her dad was sitting on the couch. Desperate for something to break the silence, I decided to speak up. “So, Mr Light, this is a very nice left seat left.”

“Yeah, I remember reading all day on this when I was a filly. It was so comfortable.” Twilight perked up. “Also, you know it’s called a loveseat, not a left seat, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, wasn’t it?” I insisted, despite the scarlet blush creeping up my face saying otherwise. Thankfully, Night Light decided to change the topic. It couldn’t get any more embarrassing than this.

“So, despite what little Twiley there would have you believe, she sadly never visits unless she has a reason. So what is it this time?” Well, I guess it could get worse. Twilight saw my blush go from “light rose” to “DEAR PRINCESS CELESTIA WHY DID I EAT THAT PEPPER” level, and spoke for me.

“Let me be blunt.” Twilight said, taking a measured breath to prepare for what she was going to say next. “We’re together.”

“Well, that’s nice.” Night Light said, completely unphased.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, if you weren’t here together, how could you both be here at the same time?” he said, laughing at his own joke.

“No, we’re marefriends!”

“Of course, it’s always good to have strong ponies of the same gender as friends.”

“No, not like that. We’re dating!” Twilight seemed to get exasperated.

“Really? Congratulations!” Twilight smiled.

“You figured it out?”

“Well, yes, with the way you’ve been walking and talking, it wasn’t difficult to figure out that you’re dating a very special somepony. Who’re the lucky stallions?” He still wasn’t picking it up.

Twilight sighed. I took her hoof and told her this.“Hold on, honey, I have an idea. Mr Light, I am currently dating your daughter.” To finish it off I gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

“Oh, oh my.” Twilight’s dad said, almost disappointed.

Both of our smiles dropped as we heard Night Light say those three words. It wasn’t until he clarified for us that they came back. “I don’t see why I didn’t see it before, congratulations. I knew Twilight would find someone suited for her.” We both smiled. “So, Twinkleshine, what made you want to date Twilight here?”

I went even redder. I was the redderest. That isn’t even a word and I still managed it. “Oh, well, she seemed good at the time.” I put on a fake grin. Twilight smacked my shoulder, with a similar grin on her face, so I continued. “Well, to be blunt, she’s beautiful, smart, funny, and sweet.”

My listing off of positive adjectives was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. A white unicorn with white striped hair poked her head around the corner, looking slightly meekish. “I sure hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She said, slinking into the room.

“No, not at all.” Night Light said nonchalantly. “Our daughter was just telling me about how she’s a fillyfooler.”

“Oh, if that’s all.” She said, taking a seat next to Night Light on the threadbare couch. “From your reactions, one would think the changeling army was back or something of that nature. I’m Twilight’s mother, Twilight Velvet. May I assume that you are my daughter’s significant other?”

“Erm, yes. I’m Twinkleshine,” I smiled brightly, in both relief and reluctance. “I’ve been dating your daughter for a few months now.”

My suddenly extended hoof was met with another hoof, in a cordial hoofshake. “Nice to meet you, Twinkleshine.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” I said, following Twilight Velvet’s example of high diction.

Night Light mumbled something along the lines of “I can see the pleasure is all yours,” which was followed by a quick discreet kick from his wife under the table.

“So, Twilight, Twinkleshine,” Twilight Velvet said, being the good host by keeping an on topic and appropriate conversation going, “I know you two have been acquainted with each other for several years, but from what I saw, it was simply an occasional friendship. Would you care to tell us how did this turn of events transpired?”

“Well, I uh, well, I have always kinda sorta maybe mostly had a tiny crush on her.” My white coat was now the color of a freshly ripened tomato. I was stumbling around my words and producing a flurry of verbal diarrhea, which is about as bad as it sounds.

“What was that, Twinkle?” I cringed at Mrs Velvet’s improper usage of my name. Obviously picking up on how uncomfortable I was, she decided to change the topic. “So, Twinkleshine, what do you do for a living?”

“Well, I’m currently in between jobs, but I’m an entertainer. I perform shows and such. Right now I get my bits doing odd jobs and performing at parties, usually for fillies.” I pointed towards my cutie mark, showing off the three stars.

“Oh, you’re a performer? Like The Great and Powerful Trixie?”

At hearing her name, I visibly grew nervous. I started sweating, blushing, and cringing all at the same time. “Uh, yeah, but I’m so much better.”

“Oh? Would you care to demonstrate?”

I knew a few spells, I mean, more than your average unicorn. Mainly because my cutie mark is in magic. “Sure, I guess.”

I flared up my magic, and after a bright flash, all the furniture was invisible. All of it, even the coffee mugs. Wait, they’re not furniture. Whoops. Well, the coffee wasn’t invisible, so there ended up being a floating, well, not really floating, more sitting in an invisible cup, an invisible cup of liquid. Twilight Velvet continued to sip the coffee anyway, seemingly not at all caring that the cup was nonexistent. Another bright flash, and I stood up. “If you’ll join me outside, I have a monster to tame.”

We all walked outside to see a massive manticore. Several ponies were running away screaming, and a couple guards were even forming a barricade down the street. Twilight Sparkle prepared a magic spell, but I continued to walk forward as if monsters that could rip me apart with a glance were a daily occurrence for me. as her parents were cowered in the entrance of their home, I shot a blue bolt of pure magic at it. The bolt struck the beast in a searing slash across its chest, causing the manticore to rear up in agony, and take a swipe at me. I deftly left over the massive paw, and countered with another bolt from midair, this time burning a hole straight through its right wing, causing it to splay uselessly along its back. The beast attempted to pin me with a sudden roaring leap, but I easily caught it in midair with a levitation spell, holding the beast aloft for all to see. I focused another beam on my pinned midair opponent, this time focusing on strength and breadth of the bolt. The beam struck straight and true, covering the entire body of the manticore, allowing any onlooker to only see a bright white outline of the beast. Even that quickly vanished in the moment the beam was maintained, leaving only floating slightly glowing dust when the spell was terminated, which quickly dispersed into the wind. Twilight Sparkle looked somewhat confused.

“Wha-what!?” She said, looking, for want of a better word, utterly bamboozled. I smiled.

“It was an illusion, all controlled by me.”

Night Light clapped her hooves, grinning ear to ear. “Very good!” she glanced at her daughter, who had a very unamused look plastered across her face. “What? Raising you gave me a thorough appreciation for shows of magic.”

“Don’t worry.” I said, seeing her concern. “I had it fully under my control the whole time. It never could’ve hurt anypony. It was only a mere construct of light. The worst it could’ve done is give you a minor headache.”

“Yes, but what if it was real?” Twilight said, growing further upset. “All I saw was a beast that not only could’ve ripped you limb from limb, but also had managed to get this far into Canterlot proper without being stopped. Then I see you, the mare I care about the most, run in head first, heedless of the danger. To combat this monster.” Oh, no. I could see that she was on the verge of tears. That was never a good sign. Wasting no time, I trotted over to her, placing my head over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” I said, for once actually meaning it, unlike that time at thanksgiving, or when Grandma came over for a surprise visit, or, ahem, I’m getting a bit off track. “I shouldn’t have used that spell here, or without telling you. I thought that if I showed you and your parents how I was able to handle myself, you would both be utterly impressed. It seems that it created the opposite effect, making you more worried than ever. Will you accept my apology?”

“Of course I do.” Twilight said, embracing me back. “Just never do anything stupid like that against anything actually dangerous, okay?”

“Okay.”

Twilight Velvet took this moment to step out of the house. “Well, I know an impressive feat of magic, and that was quite the impressive feat of magic. Who else was impressed?” With that, she raised my hoof above our heads like a wrestling champion. The crowd that had gathered to watch my fight with the manticore all gave a hearty cheer, stamping their hooves on the ground in a frenzy.

“They do realize that was all an illusion, right?” I asked Twilight’s mom.

“No idea, but we can let you have the fame. Just go with it” Maybe Twilight’s mom wasn’t that bad after all? Twilight gave her another of her trademark thoroughly unimpressed glares.

Almost on cue, Princess Luna appeared in the night sky. I could barely see her, so I pointed it out to Twilight. “Look, It’s Princess Luna!”

Landing with a heavy thud, the Princess of the Night drew a sword with her magic. “Oh, hello Twinkleshine, hello Twilight Sparkle. I came because I heard there was a manticore that needed slaying.”

Both me and Twilight smiled. “Oh, no, my dear Twinkles took care of the nasty old manticore.”

I shot Twilight a glance. “Since when have you called me Twinkles?”

“Since now.”

“So, how didst thou vanquish the beast?” Luna asked, her classical accent edging into her voice.

“With magic.” I said as I started trotting away, a nod of my head for Twilight to follow behind.

“But how?” Luna yelled, flapping to catch up to us.

“It wasn’t real, it was an impressive illusion made by yours truly.” I grinned, finally able to have something to brag about.

“Ah, in that case I shall return to the castle. I still have...err, chores to catch up on.” Luna said, starting to fly way. Both Twilight and I gave parting waves to her.

Twilight said goodnight to her parents, and we started off towards my house. Not my parents house, my house. The one I own. You know what I mean.

About half way there, however, it started snowing a little. “Look, Twi, it’s snowing!” I commented.

“Woah, it’s beautiful!.” Twilight was obviously mesmerized, catching a snowflake in her hoof, smiling widely as it slowly melted, the crystalline features of the flake slowly dissolved into a puddle in her hoof.

“I’ve always loved snow, ever since I was a little filly. I used to play in it for hours, my parents had to literally drag me in from outside. Well, not literally. Okay, maybe once they did, but that was because I think I hurt myself and couldn’t walk in on my own. Oh, yeah, that’s why, I slipped and fell off my slide. I ended up breaking my leg, and I was bedridden for a week.” Twilight frowned at this. “I was okay shortly after, though, I’ve always been a fast healer. Oh look at that we’re here.”

“Wow, that was fast.” Twilight said.

“Yeah, so, I’m curious, why’d you say yes? I mean, back then you barely knew me, and I don’t really see what you’d see in me. I mean, you’re Princess Celestia’s personal student, and you’ve saved the world, what, three time?”

“Two times.” Twilight corrected me.

“You’ve saved the world two times, and here I am, a mare barely out of college with no job yet, and no shows lined up either.”

Twilight stared at me, deadpanned. She continuously opened her mouth to speak, then shut it, unable to figure out what to say. When she finally did speak, it was amazing. “Because I always did like you, I just, She sighed, I put my hoof around her to comfort her. “I never was able to build up the courage to ask you about it.” She grinned. “Though I never did find anypony quite like you, Twinkles.” I smiled, and nuzzled her, before giving h

Although I couldn’t see the moon I had a sneaking suspicion that it was late. I figured I might as well invite Twilight to stay the night. “Hey, Twilight, since it’s so late, wanna just sleep here?”

Though I could tell she was tired, she decided to put on a game. “Oh, like a slumber party?!” She grinned widely.

“Yes, a slumber party with less sleeping, and more making out.” I smiled too; this was fun!

“Sounds like fun!”

I quickly used my magic to undo the locking spell I had started placing on the door after I had lost my tenth consecutive key.

“So, when does the slumber party part start?” Twilight asked with a tilt of her head.

“Well, I don’t know.” I said in a lightly joking fashion. “How does right now sound?” My train of thought was rudely interrupted by my marefriend suddenly locking lips with me, her momentum pushing both of us through the opening door behind us. The enjoyable moment was ended several hours before either of us would want it to be by a light blue aura grabbing hold of the ajar door and closing it with an audible click.

"So you're having a slumber party and you didn't invite me? For shame, big sister." And that would be Amethyst Star. My sister.

"You kinda ruined the mood Ammy, you know that, right?" I sighed and stood up. I used my magic to turn the lights on to reveal a purple unicorn, her being the aforementioned Amethyst Star.

"I know, I just really though it was fun.” I sighed and helped Twilight up. “Anyways, I bring good news.”

With a less than enthused attitude, I decided to reply “What would that be?” while taking a seat on my loveseat, NOT leftseat, and inviting Twilight to join me.

“I got you a show. An important pony in Canterlot wanted to see an illusionist to perform, and I just happened to be there to tell him you were available.”

My eyes lit up with glee; this was my big chance, finally getting a real audience. If this went well, I would a HUGE chance of succeeding further down the road. “What?! When and where!?”

“Next Thursday, at the Canterlot Theatres. I’ve heard rumors that Princess Celestia may be attending.”

Twilight lit up too, and hugged me tightly. “Celestia is going? This is gonna be huge!”

“What about Princess Luna?” I asked, curious if she’d also be attending.

“I don’t know, but I could probably find out.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll ask her myself. Wait a minute, how the buck you even get in here in the first place?!”

“You act like I didn’t live with you for 18 years. I know all the spells you use to lock your doors, diaries, et cetera.” She laughed that evil evil laugh of hers, and trotted out the door, closing it behind her.

“She annoys the hay out of me at times, but she’s a good sister.” We both had a good laugh.

“All I have is a brother, and he annoys the everliving hay out of me at times too. But he’s alright.”

“Oh, yeah, I was at the wedding, remember?”

“Wait that was you? Wow, how’d you get invited to be a bridesmaid?”

“Oh, you know, since Princess Cadence was under control of the changeling, she just picked three random ponies. I happened to be one of them. Shame I sway so very easily under such powerful magic.” We both laughed for a good minute, letting the laughter taper off to the occasional giggle.

Scooting closer, I put my hoof around Twilight. “So, Ms. Sparkle, where were we?” I said, smiling as I flipped the lights off with my magic.

This was gonna be a good night.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

“Twilight, I told you to hold still!” I said, trying to hold down my fidgeting marefriend.

“I just don’t know what a maid outfit has to do with me being your assistant for the show.” she said, tugging at the offending articles.

“Science, that’s what.” I said, but finally allowing Twilight to take off the frilly black and white outfit.

Twilight smirked. “You just wanted to see me in a maid’s outfit.”

Without skipping a beat, I blushed and continued “Now, I think we should practice that one more time from the top.”

“Twinkles, we’ve practiced the show twenty seven and a half times over the last night, mostly because you couldn’t stop worrying that you'll mess up something or other in front of the crowd.”

“It’s more the princess I’m worried about.” I said into my hooves.

“Correction, in front of the princess. However, we’ve been practicing this for hours, and we done almost none of the things we were planning to get done last night!” She levitated a checklist in front of my face with only two check boxes: Go to Twilight’s house, which was checked off, and compare lists, which was not. I had trouble reading the second one with a straight face, and burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Twilight asked inquisitively, re rolling up her scroll and placing it in her saddlebag.

“Nuh, nothing, just, well, the second one, and, well, look at the time. Crap! Look at the time!” I took a double take at the clock on the wall. said 10:45 on the smiling owl clock face. Twilight really needs to get a new clock. “What time does the train leave?” I asked rather frantically.

“At 11 on the dot. We should really be going.” Twilight said, while levitating a scarf over herself and strapping her saddlebag on, walking briskly towards the door.

“How can you be calm at a time like this?” I asked, frantically pulling my cart back together and dragging it towards the door.

“I’m calm because you’re not. One of us has to be.” Twilight said, holding the door open for me, and giving me a hoof with my magic cart.

A brisk trot to the train station later, we found ourselves standing out on the cold platform. Apparently the train was not “on the dot” as Twilight said, and was running late. This wasn’t really a big deal because the show wasn’t until later tonight, we just wanted to be sure we got to Canterlot in enough time. I peered onto the tracks, and couldn’t see a train for, well, at all. “Excuse me, when is the train supposed to arrive?”

The conductor raised an eyebrow at me. “It is running approximately fifteen minutes behind, young miss.”

I smiled meekly. “Thank you.” I walked back over towards the bench Twilight was sitting, preparing to relay her the bad news. “It’s fifteen minutes behind, Twi.” She sighed.

“Not much we can do about it.”

“Maybe we could go inside and get some coffee or something?”

Twilight shrugged and stood up. Latching onto my cart, we walked over towards the nearby Ponybucks, and we both ordered a coffee. Sitting down at one of the tables, we stared out the windows in a rather awkward silence. Attempting to break the silence, I coughed. “So, what do you think of the show so far?”

“I thought the show was later on. Surely Amethyst didn’t go through all the trouble to help you impress just me.” Twilight giggled, heavily applying sarcasm with every word.

“Well you just saw the pre-show. The real show starts later.” I leaned in and nuzzled Twilight.

“The pre-show? I’d love to see how the real show goes.” I giggled. “Although I bet the real show will be wonderful! The best show in the world!”

“I don’t know about that, but I’ve heard it’s quite excellent.”

“From who?”

“Well, Princess Luna, I guess.” I said, while stirring some sugar into my coffee, “Although she did seem oddly excited at the prospect of me performing a show.”

“Ah, so you think she’ll be at the show with Celestia, then?” Twilight said, opting to leave the milk and sugar alone.

“I sure hope so! I’d love to have Luna watch me perform for you and all my fan-” I was cut off by the subtle sound of about a dozen pairs of pairs of hooves thudding heavily against wooden beams and steel rails, alongside a massive locomotive. Why they didn’t just use the train engine to pull the train is beyond me. Maybe they’re having trouble finding coal? Though couldn’t the unicorns just create some coal with their magic? Or deage some of the fancy diamonds to create large quantities coal?

“Sounds like the train is here, Twinks.”

“Yeah.” I looked down a little before perking back up. “Let’s go!”

We trotted on over to the platform, and, hovering our ridiculously over priced coffees, over everypony’s heads as to not spill them, and carefully made our way towards the train. I looked down towards my ticket. There was a little coupon on the back, reading redeemable for a free coffee. Well that’s not very useful. “Hey, Twi, do you have my ticket?”

Twilight looked up to me with the most beautiful, innocent eyes and said. “That is your ticket, the train station encourages you to buy tickets by giving prizes on the back. I heard some grey mare got to be the train operator for a day.”

“I won a free coffee, what’d you win?”

Twilight looked at her ticket, and used the edge of her hoof to scratch on the back of the ticket. “Damn, ripped it.” A quick burst of magic and the ticket was back to normal. “Ah, let’s see. A free upgrade to cabin status plus one.” Well, that’s oddly convenient, isn’t it? “Hmm... well, who should I bring?” She asked me, smiling playfully.

“Let’s go?” I scratched my head, this train was a bit...odd. Last month, there was huge uproar when a full train got misplaced. The event somehow involved the train, a rubber band, and several tons of muffins. The train was found a week later stuck up in a tree in the Canterlot Gardens.

Anyway, back to the present, I was being pulled along to excellent seats in a train, and who doesn’t love trains, by one of the most lovely mares I’d ever seen. What else could I want? Well, maybe a pancake. A blueberry pancake. Lathered with syrup. That would be wonderful, syrup from Pony Canada. What a weird name, Pony Canada. Is there like a Dragon Canada or a Zebra Canada? What about Sea Pony Canada? I bet their syrup is all watered down. At this point my train of thought was interrupted by Twilight guiding me around another pony couple I was about to walk into. I grinned, Twilight just smiled and we soon got to our seats. It was a decent ride, so the food cart came by. An orange earth pony waltzed in with a cart full of food. “Well howdy there, anythin’ off the trolley dearies?”

“Applejack?” Twilight gasped, what was her dear friend doing on the train like this.

“Well hay there Twi, what can Ah get for you?”

“Blueberry pancakes. Got any of those?” I asked, expectingly.

“We’ll, shoot, we’re plum out of blueberry pancakes. That lovely older couple behind you got the last stack. We’ve got plenty ah apple pancakes, though. Would you care for any?”

I stared at Twilight’s friend, then at the pancake, waffle, and french toast laden cart. I glanced at Twilight, who simply shrugged. I sighed, and nodded slowly. “I really wanted blueberry, but I guess apple couldn’t be that bad.” Applejack smiled, tossed me a plate of pancakes, and Twilight a plate of French toast.

“So Applejack, what are you doing working on the train?” Twilight attempted to ask through a mouth half full of French toast.

“Well, it being Winter and all, there really ain’t a lot to do around the farm. We have enough bits to get by, but Big Mac and I wanted a bit of our own spendin’ money. He got a job pullin’ this here train, and was able to secure me this job. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Yeah, it is, but it looks like those colts in front of us are rather hungry,” Twilight said. “Shouldn’t you be finishing your job, AJ?”

“Ah, a little half minute break isn’t gonna hurt anypony.” Applejack laughed a little. “Ah, but yer right. Probably should be headin’ back soon. See ya Twi, don’t be afraid to call me if y’all wanna buy anything else, ya hear?” She joked as she left the room.

We were left with our food, and Twilight seemed to have completely forgotten her magic for once and was sticking her muzzle into the plate, leaving me with my pancakes. Oh, yeah. Apple pancakes. I lifted the edge of the top pancakes, noticing that the apples were cooked all the way through the otherwise delicious delicacies. I let the pancake down before all of the syrup ran off onto the plate. Agh, why did it have to be apples? Not that there was anything wrong with apples themselves, per se, but I would have much preferred to try, say, strawberry pancakes, or peach pancakes. The idea of apples cooked into pancakes really didn’t seem a very appetizing idea. Did they peel the apples like apple pie, or they slice the, peel and all? How would that taste?

I sighed , and slowly levitated my flimsy plastic fork and knife into the air in front of me. I wouldn’t know if I like them until I try them. I stabbed my pancakes with the fork, noticing how a chunk of apple gave slightly more resistance. I hovered down the knife, slicing through the pancake. The golden crisp of the surface crunched underneath the knife, and then gave way to the fluffy white interior of the pancake, marbled with chunks of apple. By this time, Twilight had finished her meal, and was staring and me with maple syrup running down her face.

“I thought you liked pancakes.” she asked, attempting to wipe some of the sugary confection from her face. I would have helped her, with my tongue, but I was too busy staring at my pancake.

“One second.” I said. Well, it was now, or never. I now had an audience. I lifted the fork to my mouth, shut my eyes, and bit down. Shutting my eyes might have helped me not be able to see Twilight’s reaction to my expression, which I fully expected to be a grimace, but it did absolutely nothing to protect me from the veritable flavor explosion that assaulted the majority of my body, emanating from the single bite. There was the familiar taste I knew and love of classic pancakes I knew and loved, just like my mother makes, except somehow even better. The crispy edge of the baked masterpiece had just the right amount of crisp and crunch, with the distinct taste of the real butter that was used to coat the pan it was cooked in, not that fake stuff some use. It’s just not the same. The edge was just the right thickness as to not take away at all from the body of the pancake; it instead augmented it. The center itself was heaven brought to Equestria, given a nice suit, and given a job serving me pancakes. There was just the right amount of air in the fluff of the pancake to keep it from seeming dense, but not quite so much that they seemed insubstantial. The thickness of the pancake contributed to this effect, allowing me to take the largest amount in a single bite without cutting the stack down by too much.

Then there was the apples. They did have the peel on them, but were cooked in such a way that they weren’t mushed together, like apple pie; they still had the sharp crisp one would expect to get from a fresh picked apple in one of the best orchards in Equestria. The juice from the apples somehow wasn’t leaking from the apples into the rest of the pancake, allowing the maximum decadent apple flavor in the apple itself, giving it a sharp contrast from the fluffiness of the pancake around it. The sharp corners if the apples were actually a welcome surprise from the soft blueberries that I’d been used to eating, as they gave a sudden clarity to the situation that I was here, on the way to my mare friend's show, eating pancakes, and not in my parent’s kitchen. It was almost like eating the two foods separately, except the two sets of flavors and textures seem to resonate against each other, increasing the flavor exponentially.

Finally, there was the syrup that they were using. The syrup seemed to have been warmed evenly before being carefully draped over every delectable square inch of the crispy gossamer delicacies, leaving not a single section devote of its presence. It had slid down the side of the pancake as I had lifted it to my mouth, coating the side and some of the interior of the pancake with its sugary goodness, adding its flair to the smorgasbord of flavor already present. The syrup itself was some of the finest I’d ever tasted. The smooth flavor had the perfect balance between the luscious sugar and the trademark maple flavor. The slightly thick texture allowed to to stay on the pancake itself, but was somehow still thin enough to run across my tongue like the smoothest of satins.

I swallowed the bit, relishing the feel of it sliding into my stomach, sending a slight shiver through my body. I sighed slightly, content from the single bite, and then looked back down at my plate. I still had almost all of my pancakes left.

Twilight noticed the quantity of pancakes left, and asked “So, what do you think?”, her eyes looking at me questioningly.

“Eh, they’re all right.” I said, taking another bite. I startled a bit as a knock rang out from the cabin door, followed by a familiar face poking through with her food cart.

“I’m so sorry about the pancakes.” She said, looking straight at the feat of culinary perfection sitting in front of me. “I was so busy cooking everythin’ else, I forgot to cook the apples beforehand. Don’t you worry, though, because we have another batch coming out shortly, and there’s a stack with your name on it. So, if you’re wantin’ any more-” she was cut off mid sentence by me leaping across cabin and pinning her against the food stall.

“Never. Cook. The apples. Again” I said, staring straight into her eyes, punctuating each word with a light slam against the cart for good measure.

“Alright, I’m glad you’re likin’ the food, and I’ll keep your advice in mind, but would you care gettin’ offa me? I still have some work to do.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, sorry about that.” I said, stepping back.

“Seriously, Twilight should keep you on a leash or somethin’.” she muttered as I edged back into my seat, causing both Twilight and I to blush brightly at the mental image.

“I just love taking the train ride to Canterlot, the scenery going up the mountain is just stunningly beautiful!” Twilight said, with very poor timing, due to our entering a long cave of a tunnel, shadows wrapping the entire length of the train. “Well, what you can see at least.”

“Yeah, darkness, so beautiful!” We both giggled, just as the lights in the cabin flickered to life. “You’d think they’d leave the lights up to the riders, instead of having an obviously flawed system.” I continued, looking up at the barely functioning lights. With a flash of my horn, a small ball of light floated up to the top of the train car and shined out the poor excuse of a lamp, poorly mimicking the glow and warmth of Celestia’s sun.

“Huh, it looks like they finished the automated lamp spell.” Twilight chuckled. “I have an idea!”

Her horn briefly lit up, and sent a pulse of magical energy to my ‘lamp’. It quickly lit up even brighter, and caused us both to have to cover up the light for a moment with our hooves, before the light lowered down. The ball of light was gone, Twilight managing somehow to integrate it into the light fixture. “Wow, that’s really impressive!” Twilight blushed. “Although won’t they notice that something is up with the lightbulb?” I said, as we left the tunnel, rendering the sudden magic bulb rather useless.

Twilight’s sat upright in the realization that they would, in fact, notice. And probably blame it on them. “Oh, yeah, I’ll fix that.” She chuckled, a violet field of magic enveloping her horn as she cast a spell. After a moment of awkward silence, a brilliant white sphere about the size of an apple, which shone as though it were one of Luna’s stars, fell to the floor.

I looked at it confused. “What is that?”

“It’s a spell artifact. Magic spells and enchantments often artifact when they’re cancelled, creating unwanted ‘artifacts’. Though sometimes they do turn out to be rather beautiful.” Twilight said as she picked it up, examining it. “Sometimes they’re hot, although, this one seems to be rather dull.” The glow withered away, leaving a marble of condensed magic. “We have to be careful with this, though. They’re sometimes reactive.”

Again, more confusion. “Reactive?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. If it is energized, via a spell, or sometimes even kinetic energy, then BOOM! it explodes.” she stretched her hooves apart and fell backwards in her seat to emphasize her final statement.

“Hmm, alright.” I gestured for her to hand it to me, and I looked at it. The sphere was ever so slightly translucent, I could barely see inside. Though when I did get a good look at it, it was the most-second most-beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It looked as though an entire night sky had been shut inside it- thousands of little twinkles, sparkling into infinity. The white washed over it all as though it were covered in a massive sheet of soap, but the ball having the texture of smooth glass, smoother than that made by even a master glass blower. “So why aren’t these used for spell storage?”

“Because, as I said, they’re incredibly unstable. Although sometimes they are created with other, non destructive effects, such as storing memories.”

“Memories?”

“Yeah, they used to extract memories from ponies and store them in spheres like this one. Only artifacts are capable of storing them, oddly. Princess Celestia put her hoof down years ago when she found out they were being abused, as it can actually removes the memory from your mind.” Shouldn’t I have already known that? I went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, too! Then again, I never really learned in depth magic. I learned how make a light. And how to make that light blue. And how to make that blue light move. And how to turn it red half way through. Honestly I didn’t learn much, most of what I know came from experimentation while I was still in Ponyville for college.

“Woah, that’s scary.” I said, as we pulled into the train station. I saw a familiar looking mare on the platform, standing next to a slightly less familiar stallion. “Oh Luna she’s actually here.”

“What? Who is?”

As the train squealed to a slow stop, the mare waved at me, grinning from ear to ear. We exited the train, and walked up to the fuchsia mare. A tackle hug later, we were busily engaged in conversation.

“Nice to see you again, Twi. This is my coltfriend, Time Turner, though he’s often known as Doctor Whooves.”

“Or just ‘The Doctor’, if you wouldn’t mind.” He said, gazing happily at something in the distance not one of us could see.

“He does that sometimes, I just try to ignore him.” Amethyst said. Whooves glared at her, and she responded with a grin. “Anyways, I heard about the show from mom and dad, and I figured I’d go to see it.”

Horseapples. How could I forget to invite my parents?! “Are they coming?”

“You really think they’d miss it, especially since they’re their own bosses?”

“Yeah, most likely.”

“Well, they’re here anyway, front row and everything.” Oh no. “So don’t screw up, sis.”

“Twinkle, we should probably head to the theatre for the show, now.” Twilight said, gesturing to start moving.

“I’d love to finally see my big sister finally find her calling in life!” She said, the sarcasm literally dripping from her voice. No, not literally, that would be weird. I sighed.

“Just because you got your cutie mark first does not mean that you’re better than me!” Twilight looked at me with a slightly concerned look, and I brushed it off. “Let’s just get going already.”

“Well, okay.” Twilight said, turning with me to leave. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Time Turner. Nice seeing you again, Amethyst.”

“Likewise.”

As they wandered away, Amethyst following Whooves on a lopsided trail, Twilight asked me “How did she get here before us?”. I shrugged, and turned towards the theatre.

We began trotting towards the theatre, and since the show wasn’t for another little while, Amethyst and Time Turner went their own ways. Well, it was close, but I had to be there sooner than they did, since I was performing and all. Although, if I really wanted, I could show up a minute before I went. However, in that case I likely wouldn’t be invited to perform again, and even more so if I’m late. Especially with the Princesses supposedly coming, I couldn’t afford to be late. Therefore, I was showing up about an hour before I was due to go on. Plenty of time for make up and rehearsal. Though I didn’t really need much rehearsal because I was rehearsing all morning with Twilight. Still, a little practice won’t hurt in the slightest bit. Unless I practice it wrong, then I’ll end up performing wrong. Good thing I wasn’t practicing wrong.

As we walked into the reception hall, I was greeted by a sharply dressed white stallion. “I assume you’re Twinkleshine?” He said, the words rolling off his tongue like smooth velvet. “Welcome to Regality Theatre! My name is Alpha, and I’ll have the pleasure to be your guide today.” He placed a clipboard and an ornate fountain pen down if front of me. “If you wouldn’t mind, it’s our requirement that all performers sign these release forms to release the theatre from any and all liability for both you and your audience.”

I quickly signed the papers barely skimming the contents of them as my horn caused the pen to scratch out “Twinkleshine” in my substandard hornmanship. Before I knew it, we were whisked off to a quick tour of the theatre. “The main stage is over there, in the front; that’s where you’ll be performing. The dressing rooms are behind it, and behind the first door to the left; that’s where you’ll be preparing. The restaurant is out front, behind the ticket counter, which is where you’ll be eating lunch, most likely intermission. Finally there are the restrooms, where you’ll be...” Alpha paused mid sentence. “using them. In any event, this room is yours for today.” He said, pointing to a door that had a ‘Twinkleshine’, written in marker on cardboard sign hanging up. I nodded a polite thank you, too dazed by anything to vocalize a coherent sentence, and went inside.

Inside there was the usual: a full length mirror, a bed for brief napping, and a closet, empty of course. I didn’t find anything unusual in the room that I normally wouldn’t find. I looked around, and flopped unceremoniously onto the bed. I sat up, propping my head on my forehooves, and stared at Twilight. “So, it’s just about time to see how the rest of my life will turn out.” I covered my face with my hooves and flopped back down.

Twilight walked up next to the bed, and sat down on the ground. “Oh come on, don’t take it like that, you’ll do fine!”

“Yeah, but what if I don’t?” I asked Twilight, somewhat rhetorically, sitting up again. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous about something! Wait there was that one time... no, nevermind, not even close.”

Twilight nuzzled gently against my neck, trying to comfort me. “Oh come on, you’ve been this nervous before! Even more so! I don’t see anything in this room invisible.”

Then it hit me. Nothing was invisible. Well, at least if they were invisible I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t really that nervous, I guess. I’m really good at casting spells, well, illusion spells, and I wasn’t exactly going to blunder casting simple spells like that, especially after all of the practice I put in the get them down pat. Now, were I to try turning the whole audience into manticores, then I just might mess up, but if I created one that was under my control, I should be fine.

A loud ‘ATTENHUT!’ snapped me out of my soon-to-be daydream. “Oh, sounded like the Princesses’ royal guards. The Princesses are probably here. You stay here and get ready, I’ll go talk to them.” Twilight gave me a kiss-longer than a peck but still brief enough as to not waste time- just before going. “You’ll do fine, I promise.”

I felt good, this was going to be easy. Just a quick hour and a half show, then it’s a quick move to stardom. Oh dear Luna I’m not ready.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

There comes a point in every mare’s life when she must do something, even though she’s really, really nervous about it. For me, it was the show. Or the spiders. Nope, most definitely the show. I stood behind the curtains, about ready to go on stage to face my audience. I had peeked outside from around the corner of the curtain twice already, much to the dismay of the stage manager. I smiled meekly as he verbally patted me on the muzzle. The makeup team had already been to me, and also the effects crew. the reason the crew is here was beyond the life of me, but they were all set up anyhow. Everything was perfect. However, it was also early. The crowd was filled, each seat taken. An audience including the Princesses drew many ponies indeed, even though there was no confirmation they would actually attend; it was only rumored. All were well aware that there was at least 45 minutes until the show started. Unfortunately Twilight was sitting in the audience too, so I couldn’t talk to her. No backstage passes for first time shows, I guess.

I was very nervous, and so I didn’t really talk to any of the ponies in the back. I kinda just stood around the catering table, munching on donuts and donut accessories. Someone had suggested using a nerve spell, to calm me down, but I said no. I wanted this to be all me. It wasn’t really a show if I was on spells.

“1 minute to curtain!” A loud pony yelled. I presume if the audience could hear it they’d cheer. But, thanks to the sound dampener, no sound through either side. I could assume that there would be a low murmur, anticipating the show which was about to start, but I could only hope. I walked slowly but surely towards the middle of the stage, stopping in about the center, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized that I was holding. Oh dear Luna, I still wasn’t ready. Now or never I guess. I swallowed, and nodded to Alpha, who was standing by the edge of the curtain. He nodded back knowingly. With the slightest grinding noise, and the rustle of heavy fabric, the curtain slowly and dramatically opened. I could do this; I rehearsed this, I knew this.

My horn gleamed with my practiced incantations as the curtains swung fully open, showcasing the stage, signalling that the show had begun. I strutted forward confidently, my nervousness not forgotten, but simply swallowed and kept down for the moment, remaining as a hard ball anxiety somewhere in my lower gut. My horn glimmered with magic as I activated my first spell of the evening. A loud bang resonated throughout the theatre, and a puff of smoke swelled around me, enveloping me in a grey hug. A single ball of blue light flew up, arcing over the audience before bursting, harmlessly, over a surprised Princess Luna’s head. The leftover smoke from the first spell slowly began to spiral around me, creating a typhoon of technicolor fog around me. It suddenly cascaded into the tip of my horn, before bursting out as dazzling fireworks, exploding over the audience in spirals and stars. This was met by a thundering hoof pounding applause, the audience clearly enjoying my dramatic opening more than I thought they would.

“Welcome to my first ever show, thanks for coming everyone!” I said, trotting over to the microphone. The lights centered on me were dazzlingly bright, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. “Tonight I’ve got a wonderful show lined up for all of you, with tricks and spectacles to dazzle and amaze!” I watched out as the crowd roared, over excited to see my show. Wait, they were excited to see my show! I allowed myself a silent squee, and turned back to the audience, smiling. I proceed directly to my next trick, a glowing ember of light arcing from my horn, circling overhead, increasing in size as it ascended. As it reached the zenith of the arc a second ember branched out from the first, the two combining at the top to form a large, glowing red heart. The heart hovered over the crowd for a moment, then shattered, sending glowing shards across a swathe of the center of the audience, vanishing the moment they touched hide or hoof of the surprised ponies.

“Well, now that I have you all reared up, I might as well introduce myself. My name is Twinkleshine,” I said, amplifying my voice as to not require the mic. “and I will be your performer for the evening.” I smiled, the sphere of anxiety slowly being melt smaller and smaller by the warmth of providing joy to so many ponies. “I can see you all seemed to enjoy my first tricks,” I said, smiling warmly at the roaring confirmation I received, “and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Now are you ready to see some real magic?” I feigned deafness as a loud chorus of yeses echoed through the theatre. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. I said are you ready to see some magic?” The responding shout rebounded through the cavernous room, echoing several times back in forth between the far walls before finally dissipating against the fourth wall.

“All right.” I said, grinning ear to ear with anticipation along with many members of the crowd. “Let’s get this show on the road!” I followed up this statement with a swirl of my cape, coupled with a basic smoke spell combined with a short range teleport. Parlor tricks, but when coupled with the horn light diminishing gem, courtesy of Twilight Sparkle, I had learned to turn these minor effects into something seemingly impossible. The crowd collectively gasped as the cloak continued its swipe across space, minus its owner. Appearing in the back, I activated a dual animation and voice enchantment I had cast on my cloak. My whispers turned into fantastic roars from the now empty cloak. “An invisibility spell? No, that’s not it. Whatever could be the cause of my sudden disappearance?”

With a blink, a column of light, brilliant fire, and noise shot up, the white and red swirling together to form a furious beam of power. Just as the audience had time to turn back to witness it and gasp, there was a brief flash, and I was back on stage, my cloak settling back around my shoulders. “Now, that’s what I like to call my Brazen Barrage. Now, then,” I started pacing back and forth onstage, “I suppose you’re wondering what you’re all out here to see? A fantastic light show?” I began the casting of a spell, a particularly powerful one, though my light and sweat were masked by the dampening gem. “Maybe a hot mare onstage doing tricks, shaking her flank and whatnot?” My mind burned as I focused, all my energy into this grand trick. I’ll have plenty for later, but this one is a must do. “Certainly not your...” My horn flashed once, intentionally, as I roared out. “Your chairs.”

The audience let out a loud gasp as they collectively looked downwards, and saw the floor, their drinks and popcorn floating in mid air, several standing up in disbelief that their seats still existed. Up popped a drink, a small one mixed with several magic enhancements, crushed gems and the like. I floated it up and took a swig. “Very delicious, I’ll have to commend the chef. Speaking of ponies...”

“Her sleight of horn wasn’t sleight! It was incredibly laborious for her to do that trick!” I froze, I could recognize that voice no matter where I was. This couldn’t be happening, is she really that petty? I thought I got rid of her when I lived in Ponyville...but I continued on, despite several voices murmuring through the crowd, several of them pointing out the gem, still faintly glowing from absorbing the glow from the previous trick. Well, worst comes to worst, it was time to improvise. I dropped the gem, cancelling it’s horn glow dampening effects. A little extra effort, okay, a lot, but worth it to prove Trixie wrong.

“Now then, I’m going to need a member of the audience for this next trick.” I pretended to look around them, judging and considering each pony. Though, in the end, I decided upon the loveliest mare in the audience, my Twilight Sparkle. I could’ve sworn I heard Princess Luna say something, though. “Yes you! Lovely mare in the purple!” I watched as Twilight made her way through the crowd to the stage. “No problem, my good mare, let me.” I quickly cast a spell, and ‘teleporting her’(she actually teleported herself) up beside me. “Now, you may suffer from a few side effects from this trick...I’ll temporarily turn you into an orange!”

Extending my amplification onto Twilight, I feign ignorance. “Now, then, what’s your name?”

Suppressing a giggle, Twilight said gingerly. “Twilight Sparkle.” I think I heard Princess Celestia cheering.

Focusing for a moment, I cast a spell, and Twilight vanished in a burst of smoke, a small orange dropping to the stage. Summoning a decorative table set, I sat down at the table, not invisible, and floated the orange up to the plate. Remembering those four forced years of Mannerisms in school, I used utmost grace and fluidity as I sliced open the orange, eliciting a few cries from the audience, and took a bite of one slice. I chewed slowly and exaggerated my motions, then swallowed, eliciting several more gasp, along with a cry of “the horror, the horror!”. I nonchalantly spat a left over seed onto the stage. After a moment, it started shaking, and burst, Twilight appearing in a tower of seed shards. Twilight looked confused for a moment, then spit out a seed herself, and smiled. The audience burst into applause.

As I was about to say something, the shrill, loathsome voice shouted again. “She just teleported her away, and an orange in! It’s all fake!” I swallowed, not wanting to deal with her. I sighed, before casting a quick spell.

“Why don’t you come up here and prove how fake my magic is?” I shouted out over, in an unprecedented bout of confidence. “Sis, do you even cast?!” With the final remark, I stomped on the stage with my forehooves, eliciting a cheer from the audience.

I could hear her chuckle from across the room. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.” She mimed my teleportation spell perfectly, appearing in front of me in quite the intimidating gesture, surrounded by her own light effects, shimmering like fires above her. “And I’ve been at this game far longer than you have, little Twinkle.”

I was slightly confused by this. “No you haven’t. We’ve been at this the exact same amount of time. We went to magic school together. Remember?” As I said this, I launched several of my own light displays, shimmering the lightest blue light of fresh snow on Hearth's Warming Eve.

I noticed Princess Celestia begin to stand up out of the corner of my eye, looking as though she were about to do something to stop us, before being pulled back down into her seat by Princess Luna’s hoof, shaking her head slowly. Trixie, not intimidated by my display of magic, took a step back, and shot up a beam of light blue light. I responded with a pinkish white beam. The resident DJ, by the stage name of DJ-P0n3, chose this as an excellent time to spin up an upbeat techno track(‘Spin That Record’), somehow synchronizing the beat to the the flashes of our cantrips as we hurled the across the stage, now a veritable battleground. Props to her.

The spells that we were launching at each other were more showy and startling than anything, more for care of the audience than each other’s mortal well being. This went on for several minutes, with neither of us getting the upper hoof over the other for more than a second our eyes easily readjusting from the seizure inducing display from our own experimenting with similar incantations. As she shot a spiraling sparkle of a spell towards my ice beacon, which we had unspokenly chosen as targets in our contest, I thought I saw an opening on her own beacon. However, she had anticipated this, and lunged towards me directly, magic entirely forgotten to her, in an attempt to end it.

As she lunged, a slight magic glow, the deepest of royal purple in color, surrounded her hoof for but a moment, causing her to stumble, landing in front of me in a crumpled heap.

“Enough of this!” I boomed, my shout echoing past the fourth, fifth, and sixth wall, attempting to stay in my stage character, stomping the stage in front of me while discretely casting a spell as I did so. Shimmering blue and pink bars erupted from the stage floor, encasing Trixie, and lifting her above me, front and center on stage. As an afterthought, a shimmering bandana appeared around her muzzle, silencing her futile cries.

“Now, what should I do with this mare?” I asked the crowd in front of me, tapping the floorboard in front of me idly as I waited for the shouted answers to die down, several of which I myself wouldn’t repeat.

“Give her the Royal Treatment!” Princess Luna shouted over the din.

“I could do all of those,” I said, and, with an afterthought, added “well, most of those,”, causing a ripple of laughter through the crowd. “But do you know what I am going to do?” The crowd listened expectantly, Trixie’s eyes nearly popping from her skull with something I would almost call fear. “I’m going to set her free, and let her return to her seat. Her losing is more than enough punishment that what she deserves, despite what a few of you might think.” This elicited another, more scattered shimmer of laughter. “And with no further ado,” I said with a flourish of my cape, causing the bars to dissolve, depositing the frumpled mare into the aisle to limp dejectedly to her back row seat. “And it looks like my time is up, and though there were a few...annoyances, well, one toothpaste colored one, it was a wonderful time. I’m honestly very surprised at the huge turnout, no thanks to the presence of the Equestrian Royalty, and it was my honor to entertain you all. Goodnight!” I popped behind the curtain, before realizing it was still about noon. “I mean good bye! And have a great afternoon!”

I went back, but before I could go to my dressing room to relax, Twilight, who I now realized never left the stage, almost tackled me. “Wow you were amazing!”

I blushed, and said bashfully. “It was alright, Trixie kinda ruined the show, though...”

“Ruined the show!? You kicked her flank! That was more embarrassing than when I beat her!”

“Wait, you’ve fought Trixie before?”

“Yes, one time she came into Ponyville, and started showing off. No one really liked her after she proved arrogant and cared more about making a pretty light than making her audience entertained.”

I was stunned. I hadn’t even begun to think I was being an arrogant braggart. I wasn’t, was I? No, it could’ve have been. Not on my watch, at least. “Wow. All I did was embarrass her in front of thousands...” I frowned slightly.

“Yes, but she deserved it! Both times!” Twilight smiled, and picked up my chin. Neither of us noticed our second guest, however.

“Well, it seems we have some NEIGHsayers.” Trixie said, as I turned towards her. On stage I had confidence boosting spells, but here...I was worthless. I stared at her, a little bit of fear in my eyes. “It seems you took quite the enjoyment of trying to embarrass me on the stage.”

And none of us noticed the third guest in the hallway. A Royal visit was rather unexpected, but wholly welcome. I looked up and smiled. “Why, hello, Princess Luna.”

Trixie froze, staring in disbelief at the Royal deity standing behind her. Without turning around, her horn flashed, causing her body to disappear into nothingness, presumably teleporting away, leaving nothing but her hat. A moment later, a hoof reached out of a shimmering hole in the æther, grabbing the hat and taking it back into the hole. Luna’s horn quickly shimmered as she started talking. “I just sent her to the royal guard station. They won’t do anything bad to her, but it’ll scare her quite well.” She laughed, and we joined in. I trotted over and hung my neck over Luna’s shoulder in a hug. “You did a wonderful show, Twinkleshine, and a most admirable defeat against your rival.” Was she my rival? “Though I wouldn’t have been so...lenient, the way you handled that was quite fitting of you.”

“Thank you, Luna. I honestly didn’t expect such a huge crowd.”

Luna gave a hearty chuckle. “Come now, with my Sister and I? How could it not? People were beginning to wonder when we starting spending time together, Twinkleshine.”

I sensed that Luna had something else to say, but, didn’t really want to say it at this point in time. “Let’s head back to my dressing room, I’m quite tired...”

We had walked back to my dressing room, and made it inside when the full weight of today’s experience hit me. All the spells had worn off, all the confidence, the energy, and the magic potions were gone. As soon as I stepped inside, I nearly collapsed with fatigue. Luna and Twilight chuckled, and helped me into my bed. Twilight gave me a goodnight kiss before the two walked out, talking about...something. I can’t really remember what. I fell asleep quickly after that, as I had gotten very little sleep the night before, so I started dreaming really quickly. Man, I say quick a lot when I’m tired.

I was back in...high school? I looked around, there’s Moondancer, there’s Lyra, there’s Minuette, there’s Lemon Heart, and...there’s Trixie. There’s my teacher, Sunflowers, she was good, I guess. “Twinkleshine, what’s 2+2.” She couldn’t be serious.

“3.” I answered nonchalantly. Wait, 3? No, I meant 4! 3 Was only for very small values of 2! “3. I mean 3!” Wait, did, I say 3 again? “Celestia send it to the moon.” I muttered underneath my breath.

The teacher, whose actual name and face I still cannot recall clearly, turned to look directly at me with a head with the same size, shape, and coloration as that of Princess Celestia. With my dear old teacher’s body.

“Excuse me, what was that you said?” she said, standing up, looking, the room seeming to darken around her oddly expressionless, unmoving eyes.

“I- I was just-” I began, each word tumbling over each other like foals being let out to recess.

“Just what?” The entire room changed to pitch black, burning flames bursting into existence in her eyes. “Do you know what happened to the last pony who used my name in vain?”

“Um- they got sent to the moon?” My eyes were wide as saucepans as I thought what was going to happen to me.

She sat back, some light returning to her eyes. “No, but a good guess.” Her mouth grinned, revealing several rows of large, sharp teeth seldom seen in any species, let alone a pony. I’d never seen Celestia’s teeth in person, but still. “She got sent back to Magic Kindergarten.”

I turned around, and was shocked to see Twilight sitting at a desk several sizes too small for her to possibly sit in. The look of horror on her face was veiled by a mask of determination, most likely put up for my sake. “Don’t let her scare you. It’s not that bad.” she said, her muzzle staring down at her desk, staring in boredom at the problems before her, somehow even more basic than those I was already answering.

“Twinkleshine.” A voice said from behind and above me. “You need not to fear her. It is nothing but a dream.”

“Wha- what?” I said, turning around, seeing Princess Luna hovering above the oddly roofless schoolhouse on a cloud, munching idly on an apple. As I realized the truth she spoke, The Celestia monster in front collapsed in a screech and a pile of wormy apples.

“Also, I made pancakes.”

“Pancakes?!” I said, startling up straight in my bed, knocking the mare off of me.

“Ah, you’re up. I knew the pancakes bit would work.” the purple mare said, getting up gingerly from the floor. “You must have been having quite the dream. I couldn’t seem to wake you up, so I to resort to drastic measures.”

My ears drooped as I answered. “You you lied about the pancakes?” I asked dejectedly.

“Not at all!” Twilight said, her horn illuminating the rooms as she hovered a loaded plate of delicious pastries up to me. “This was the drastic measure.”

“Have I ever told you that I love you?” I said as I began scarfing down the pancakes, devouring each goey, blueberry laden bite.

“Uh, I think so...” Twilight said, although seeming not quite sure herself.

“Well, I do. Top notch pancakes, by the way!” I put down the plate down, got out of the bed, and enveloped Twilight in a brief embrace. As I did so, I could have sworn I had seen a shadow outside the window flutter away into the darkness of the night.