On the Social Philosophy of Intimate Relationships
The projector whirred down to a stop, leaving the formerly very noisy room in dead silence.
It might behoove an observer to note that the room, itself, was not exactly small. By the standards of the building it was located in, it didn't take much space, but the fact remained that other rooms which served the same purpose were generally only a quarter of the size. The gilded double doors had been locked during the presentation, to preserve some manner of privacy. The windows, too, had their curtains drawn to prevent any flying passersby from looking in. A desk sat against every wall, each unobtrusively holding small collections of paperwork, photos, knicknacks, and assorted quills. The fire in the hearth crackled, the only sound for the moment.
Assembled in the center of the room was an odd collection of objects. Most notably, a large portable screen stood in front of the now completely inert projector. Arranged behind it were three round plush pillows, all within reach of a single massive bowl of mostly untouched popcorn. Resting upon each of the pillows was a creature with four hoofed legs, two feathered wings, a single spiraling horn, a mane dripping down their neck, and a tail made almost entirely of similarly colored hair. While their outline was similar, however, their chromatic patterns were each very distinct.
The smallest of them, tensely clutching the center pillow, boasted a lavender coat and a precisely groomed deep blue mane with a single pinkish magenta highlight. Her violet eyes were narrowed almost to pinpricks, one of them twitching every now and again. Emblazoned on each flank was a six-pointed magenta star, overlapping a similarly formed structure in white and surrounded by five tiny sparkles.
To her right, the middle-sized creature chewed contemplatively, the pale blue eyeshadow she wore visible on her half-lidded azure eyes. Unlike her smaller companion, this one was notably relaxed; her midnight blue form nestled deeper into her pillow as she tapped her chin with one of of her silver-clad hooves. Also unlike her smaller compatriot, she wore a basic form of jewelry; a simple onyx peytral emblazoned with a white crescent guarded her chest, while a match unmarked tiara rested upon her ethereally flowing, star-filled mane. Her rump was covered in a black splotch and speckles, but atop that was a crescent that matched the one she wore around her neck.
The largest of the three sat to the left, her milk-white coat a stark contrast to the darker colors of the other two. Like the middle one, she wore hoof-shoes and jewelry, but hers were far more ostentatious; all made from gold, the peytral and tiara larger with ornate patterns, both having a marquise-cut amethyst embedded in the center. On her flanks were a pair of stylized, eight-pointed suns. Her mane and tail flowed in the air like the cloud of a rainstorm, light pinks and greens and blues meshing and melding in a dazzling array. One strand of her mane wrapped to cover an eye, but the other was fully visible; purple, and narrowed in suspicion.
She was also the first one to break the silence. "...of all the things for Cadence to send us..."
"It does make sense, sister." The blue one ruffled her wings. "Her talent is, in fact, the strengthening and maintenance of relationships. She would be the pony to discuss this particular matter."
"It's not the discussion that annoys me, Luna. It's the display." The tall one gestured at the blank screen. "She could have made her point without demonstration."
"Celestia, did you not once yourself claim that leadership by example was amongst the best qualities a pony could strive for?"
"That is completely different."
The smallest of the trio finally managed to say something. Granted, "Iiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeaaa..." was not exactly a word in the language of the hooffolk she was a member of, but like all languages there was some leniency when it came to the transmission of raw emotion.
Luna raised an eyebrow at the soft, shrill sound. "Twilight Sparkle, are you having some sort of fit?"
"I... They... Film..." It was a testament to the power of this mare's mind that she was even able to form words so soon after what she had been through, even if they weren't structured in any manner whatsoever.
Celestia sighed. "Twilight, would you be willing to consent to a memory-erasure spell?"
"YES PLEASE." Twilight's gaze snapped to the taller mare, her mouth spreading out into a manic grin. "RIGHT NOW PLEASE."
Luna frowned, scooping up some of the popcorn in her horn's glowing telekinesis and throwing it at her sister. "Tia, please. That's wrong and you know it."
In an instant the violet mare had spun her gaze to her, her grin replaced by a shocked jaw drop. "Luna, I just saw a filmed instance of my brother having sex!"
"So? I've seen Celestia consummate some of her marriages, and that was long before we had even the most basic of cameras."
This time, the shocked jaw dropped expression was turned on the tallest one, who at the very least had the decency to blush ever so faintly. "Luna, we've stopped publicly consummating noble marriages. The practice ended... eight or something centuries ago, I believe."
"Truly?" Luna tilted her head. "How odd. How does one confirm consummation then?"
"Generally, they don't."
"Hmm. That would explain some of the frustrated dreams I have encountered..."
"Can I just say, I want that memory erasure spell more now?" Twilight asked.
Celestia nodded. "Very well. Just give me a--"
"I'm afraid, trauma or no, that will have to be postponed."
Once again, Twilight turned her gaze on Luna, but this time she managed to show some anger. "What?!"
"A princess of Equestria has asked for a criticism of one of her proposed works by the other princesses of Equestria. While I suppose my sister and myself could be considered sufficient in that regard, the fact remains that you are a princess of Equestria, you have seen the proposed work, and ergo you have a responsibility to comment from a knowledgeable standpoint." Luna nodded to her sister. "In addition, your viewpoint as both a relative of the subject matter and a modern scholar would be valuable counterpoints to our own interpretations."
Twilight Sparkle, for those unfamiliar with her, had an extremely excellent education under Celesta atop her already prodigious mental facilities, which often resulted in her being able to formulate entire lectures on unexpected subjects in the space of time it took an ordinary pony to blink. Her lectures were not only famous, they had in fact been instrumental in patching damaged relationships, restoring other ponies' relative sanity, and saving the world on multiple occasions. Twilight's words were among the most precise, well forged, and powerful weapons in her arsenal, second only to her magic and the powers of Friendship itself. And in this moment, Twilight Sparkle was struck completely speechless.
So she did the best thing she could think of; turn to another pony to argue for her.
Celestia looked at the pleading face of her student. She looked at the stern gaze her sister was giving her. She looked at the screen for a long, quiet moment.
And then, she sagged. "As much as I hate to admit it... Luna is right, Twilight."
The purple pony let out a tiny whine of betrayal and hurt.
"If it helps, don't think of them and Cadance and Shining Armor," Luna suggested. "Think of them as two changelings that pretended to be Cadance and Shining Armor."
Twilight buried her face in her pillow with a tiny whimper.
"...or does that make the situation worse?" the darker pony mused. "I'm sorry, you were rather shaken up by the wedding, weren't you. I wasn't thinking."
After a moment, Twilight bent her neck just enough that she wasn't speaking into the pillow. "Let's just... let's just get this whole critique over with, so I can have my memory wiped."
Celestia extended one of her wings, gently patting the smaller mare.
"Very well." Luna nodded firmly. "First of all: the core message. How to treat one's mate, I believe it was?"
"Sexual partner," Celestia corrected. "There really wasn't much explanation on when to have sex."
Twilight pushed her head up, taking a deep and shuddering breath. "Well... she... they made it clear that giving consent was crucial, so the when is sort of irrelevant. And the whole... no pressuring thing at the beginning, that was... good..."
"True, the point of initiation was covered relatively simply but firmly. A good start. What intrigues me more is her core conceit," Luna said, reaching for another telekinetic scoop of popcorn. "'The body is the temple of the soul, and sex is the most intimate of worships.' It's rather poetically worded, but I believe I understand what she meant."
"Indeed. The treatment of sex as respect for personality rather than appearance is something that is... quite honestly usually lacking in these sorts of films." Celestia sighed. "It's become rather problematic in our culture as a whole, actually."
"I..." Twilight swallowed. "I think that's not what she meant. What she was saying was that sex was more... the pony, that is, you find another pony truly attractive as a sum of their parts--What I mean is, um... different ponies find different things attractive? No, that's not right..."
"Proper sex can only be had if the partners are having sex with each other. Not each other's bodies. Is that what you're trying to say?"
Twilight nodded in relief. "Yes. Thanks, Luna, I'm... honestly, I think I'm asexual, so thinking about this sort of thing is hard for me even without--" She winced. "Without--without the--I'm hyperventilating, I can't even calm myself because she's the one that taught me how to do that--"
Luna stretched out her wing, rustling under her sister's extended feathers and rubbing Twilight's back as she hummed a slow tune.
After a moment, the purple pony relaxed. "Oh... okay, I... I'm calm now. I am, really. I..." She blushed. "Like I said, this is hard."
Celestia smiled gently. "Should we skip over Cadance's description of the erogenous zones, then?"
"...N...No." Twilight screwed her eyes shut. "A...As much as I don't want to talk about it, that was... also important. The full analysis and explanation, the way she talked about tending to the partner's... entire body, instead of just their... um... genitalia, that's important. It really reinforces her point of sex not being an end goal in a relationship."
"I find that any relationship with an end goal is not a relationship at all," Celestia mused. "But, yes, too often I see ponies staring at rumps without taking in any of the attached... pony."
Luna huffed a small laugh. "You were always more attracted to the ears, anyway, weren't you?" She gave Twilight a sly smile. "This mare is the biggest reason that stallions no longer merely mount mares, she always had to keep their faces in sight--"
Twilight folded her ears back and shut her eyes. "One one two three five eight, thirteen twenty-one thirty-four fifty-five eighty-nine one-hundred-forty-four..."
The blue mare rose an eyebrow, giving Celestia a worried look. "Did I take it too far?"
"She's trying to push back her worries," her sister explained. "Sometimes she'd do this before a test."
"...four-thousand-one-hundred-eighty-one six-thousand-seven-hundred-sixty-five ten-thousand-nine-hundred-forty-six seventeen-thousand-seven-hundred-eleven twenty-eight-thousand-six-hundred-fifty-seven forty-six-thousand-three-hundred-sixty-eight." Twilight, at last, let out a slow sigh. "Okay. Okay, I can get through this, I can critique this... film. And then Celestia can wipe my memory of this entire night so I never have to think about it again."
Celestia nodded, giving her sister a mock glare with a blush. "I can promise that. So... the techniques demonstrated. They were... I don't want to say basic, since Cadance made it a point to emphasize her treatment of Shining Armor's whole body and vice versa, but they were very... inexpensive, easy to learn?"
"Mmm, yes. Not nearly as elaborate as some of the situations I find running through the dreamscape." Luna held up a hoof. "Before either of you ask, I'm not counting the clearly fanciful situations."
She paused for a moment, then shrugged. "And since you're going to forget this anyway, you should know one of your friends actually has pretty lascivious dreams about you."
"What?! WHO?!"
Luna opened her mouth, paused, then shook her head. "Actually, I've said too much already."
Celestia cleared her throat. "Ahem. Twilight... the critique?"
"Um, I... have no idea how to discuss the techniques. I don't know if they were good or bad or what." The purple pony blushed. "I think by that time my brain had... checked out."
"I'm honestly rather surprised," Luna commented. "Even in this rather... repressed age, and even with your scholarly bent, I would have assumed that you would have at least done some reading during puberty."
Twilight shook her head. "No, I... I didn't care. I wanted to be the best student I could be, and... yeah, I really didn't care." She frowned. "I think I missed a lot of cues, actually."
"Well, what's done is done," Celestia managed. "I... I'm sorry if I caused you to not pursue that particular need--"
"It's fine! Really! Like I said, I'm probably asexual." She glanced at her wings and sighed. "Not like I could experiment now, anyway... Nopony would be brave enough to even try."
"Your brother tried with Cadance," Luna pointed out. "And as we've just seen, he succeeded completely."
Twilight frowned. "Yes, thank you for that encouraging little tidbit."
"To be honest, the only flaw was the poor production quality," Luna continued obliviously. "It was obvious that they were holding the camera telekinetically, and since they were speaking while having sexual relations there were constant, shall we say, interruptions that got in the way of their actual message. All in all, I'd suggest redoing it with a professional camera operator and a voice-over instead."
Celestia frowned. "While I can... appreciate the intent behind this little project, I'm honestly rather hesitant to have it mass replicated and spread throughout Equestria. The fact of the matter is the press would have a field day with this, and... well... to be honest, I just can't see how she even thinks this is acceptable. This is... I'm afraid that I can't actually support this, although I certainly won't stop her if she insists on seeing this through..."
Twilight frowned. "...Actually... I can see why Cadance would make this statement in... this way. The type of ponies looking for... well, let's face it, pornography, they're exactly the kind of ponies that need to hear this kind of message. This gets their attention, at the least, and... maybe they'll actually learn something. If this is the start of a series, even..." She shuddered. "I don't like it. I really don't like it. But... it's a good enough idea that I have to put my hoof forward."
The tallest pony rose an eyebrow. "I'm... surprised. I would have thought you'd be adamantly against this."
"No, it's not a bad idea. I'm adamantly against me watching this, or even knowing about it." Twilight gave her a pleading look. "Speaking of which...?"
Celestia gave Luna a look, receiving a nod in return. "Alright. Hold still."
In but a moment, the deed was done. Twilight blinked for a moment, looking around in confusion. "Um... Princess Celestia? Luna...? What's going on?"
"We watched a pornographic film involving your brother and sister-in-law and you requested a memory wipe," Luna deadpanned.
Twilight blinked... and cracked up. "Hahaha, funny! Right, very funny. Seriously, what's going on? The last thing I remember is opening the door--"
Celestia sighed. "Twilight, believe me... it's better if you don't think about it."
Author's Note
You know, originally I wanted to write the video, but that was actually too hard for me. SO I WROTE THIS INSTEAD!
