Shipshape's World

by Twigai

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Discord, Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Main 6, Romance, Princess Luna, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 26276

Shipshape, the Matchmaker, isn't real. That's what they say. But when you're in his world, there's only one way out - everypony needs a date. Shipshape knows you better than you know yourself, and Ponyville is about to learn that lesson.

(Note: Shipshape's World is meant as a comical pony 'shipping' farce. One source of inspiration for this story was the card game Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder (TSSSF), by the lovely folks at Horrible People Games. As of this writing, I'm told neither Horrible People nor their horribly wonderful game are long for the world. I'll be sorry to see them go. Perhaps this story can hang around as a testament, but feel free to take this story about as seriously as you would take the game upon which it found inspiration.) --9/7/2015

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date..."

Shipshape isn't real. That's what everypony says.

Equestria is a land filled with history. Some stories are true. Some are legendary. Some are myths, and still others are mere pranks. Shipshape, the Matchmaker, is as much a tall tale as the Headless Horse - stare into a mirror, invoke his name five times, and you'll see an image of your very special somepony. Innocent playtime for giggling fillies or daring colts. To think any more of it is to invite a chuckle when you're young, and a condescending harumph when you're old enough to know better. There are some ponies however, who curse his name. The truth can set you free - but it can also crush your soul.

Some will win, and some will break even, but Sir Arthur Eddington's third rule applies - you can't quit the game.

Shipshape isn't real. But he knows you better than you know yourself.

Published 2015-09-07 22:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-07 22:40:02 UTC

1 - An Old Nag's Tale

“The time has come,” the Weanling said, “To talk of many things: of hooves and ships and healthy flax, of princesses and flings. And why the stars are silly sots, and whether mares have wings.”

-Lewis Canter, from ‘Through the Saddle Rack’, 1872

“Ah don’t buy it,” Applebloom shook her head vehemently. “It’s just an old nag’s tale.”

“It’s true!” Sweetie Belle insisted for the third time that evening, “And I can even prove it!”

Scootaloo just shrugged and sat back on her haunches, thinking it best to stay out of the heated debate for now. A contented smile touched her lips, though she was quite certain her fellow Crusaders hadn’t noticed. It probably wasn’t the best time to admit it, but sometimes she liked watching her friends contend with each other over trifles like this. The night air was carrying a warm spring breeze through the open window of Applebloom’s bedroom that smelled of freshly hewn grass and hay – Scootaloo closed her eyes and flexed her wings, imagining herself being carried away on that very breeze to soar with the current above the clouds.

“—ain’t!” Applebloom bapped the mattress with her hoof, huddled in a circle with the other two fillies on her bed. The three of them were draped in the extra sheets and quilts they had been provided to engage in sleepover activities. Only the light of the full, clear moon poured through the window; softly gracing everything it touched with its luminous presence. “An’ an know whut yer ‘proof’ is gonna be. Th’ last time you tried to prove sumthin’, we all ended up wastin’ nearly all of Nightmare Night sittin’ in the back forty waitin’ for ‘The Great Apple’ to show up!”

“The Great Apple is real!” Sweetie Belle scoffed. “On Nightmare Night, he rises from the apple orchard and flies around, bringing toys to all the good colts and fillies!”

“Then why didn’t we get any toys?” Scootaloo finally inserted herself into the conversation. “We nearly missed out on candy that night. It was scary and I never saw a thing.”

“Because the orchard wasn’t sincere enough!” Rarity’s little sister shot back. “Or we weren’t sincere enough! Or…or…” Her brows furrowed, and she soon found herself tapping her chin with a hoof and staring at the ceiling. “Or…or however that goes. But he’s real!”

“Nope,” Applebloom folded her forelegs and let out a sharp huff. “Ain’t real. Besides, this one yer talkin’ about now? That ain’t how the story goes at all. Ah heard this one just like th’rest of y’all did, when ah was barely out of diapers. Shipshape wasn’t a pony. He was a griffon hero who saved his people from disaster, led them to the Promised Land, and…uh…” she faltered, “…founded Griffonstone, or sumthin’.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

Scootaloo waited for her companions to raise questioning brows before she continued. When their attention was firmly on her, she drew her lips back into the most coy, sinister smile she could and narrowed her eyes. “I heard that Shipshape was a pony who died from fatigue trying to get away from the Headless Horse. He galloped all over Equestria for weeks, and when he couldn’t run anymore he collapsed into a mirror that a peddler was selling, shattered it, and now,” she paused for effect, “If you stare into a mirror at night and say ‘Shipshape, Shipshape, can’t escape’ five times, you’ll see an image of his tortured face running for his life, and the Headless Horse will come for you!”

The silence lasted just long enough for Scootaloo to start feeling smug. Until her friends broke out laughing.

“Aw c’mon Scootaloo,” Applebloom guffawed merrily, “it’s alraight! We know yer afraid of the Headless Horse! Y’don’t have to make some story up just to air out yer fears.”

“W-what!?” Scootaloo sputtered, “I…I’m totally not! A-and I totally wasn’t!”

But it was no use. The young pegasus knew it was all in good fun, but the barbed laughter still managed to get under her skin. She gritted her teeth. “F-fine! Then let’s go try it Sweetie Belle’s way right now! Then we’ll see who’s scared!”

Applebloom sprawled out on a feathery pillow, her grin wide. “So whut yer tellin’ me is, you want to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, say ‘Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date’ five times, and wait until an image of yer very special somepony appears? Seriously?”

“It really will happen!” Sweetie Belle repeated her by now tiring mantra. She slid off the bed and stood as tall as her filly legs would allow, thrusting out her chest. “And why would it be scary?”

“I’d rather it showed us a picture of what our cutie marks are going to look like,” Scootaloo observed. “A-and well…well it could be scary. I mean seeing a face in the mirror that doesn’t belong to anypony in the room is kinda freaky no matter who it is, right?”

“I think yer just yellow,” Applebloom bemusedly accused. Scootaloo slid of the bed and took up the exact same bold pose as the unicorn Cutie Mark Crusader.

“I’m not scared! I’m just as ready as any of the rest of you! You’re the one still lounging on the bed Applebloom, and who are you calling yellow, anyway?”

“A’raight, a’raight,” the earth filly shrugged, sliding off the bed. She stifled a yawn. “Whutever. But can we just do this real quick and then go t’bed? Ah wanted to stay up late, but trying to earn our cutie marks with every single piece of sports equipment at school’s got me plumb tuckered out.”

“Oh yeah, uh…how’s your eye?” Sweetie Belle blushed, recalling the events of the afternoon. Applebloom blinked hard a few times.

“Let’s not talk about that raight now.”

The door opened by itself before any of them could reach it. Applejack stood on the other side, looking haggard from a day in the fields. Without her hat, she smiled wearily at the fillies and batted unintentional bedroom eyes at them.

“Ah know yer havin’ fun,” Applejack began, “but it’s time fer all good fillies to hit the hay. Everypony’s gettin’ themselves washed up for bed, so y’all git to it too, ‘kay?”

Noticing the look of dismay in her friends’ faces, Applebloom spoke up, “We were…just gonna do that, sis!”

Applejack cocked an eyebrow and glanced between the three of them. “All three of ya at once?”

“Sure!” Applebloom took to shoving her friends out the door and past the confused, sleepy eyes of her elder sibling. “It’s uh…how we do it in school!”

The remaining crusaders nodded their heads in rapid succession. Applejack eyed them all again, but eventually just shrugged. “Don’t play with th’ bubble bath again. Y’all know what happened th’ last time.”

“We won’t!” The three sang in unison, the bathroom door swiftly shutting behind them. Applejack watched the door until it clicked in place before turning on her hooves to check up on a few things around the house before bed.

“…school sure ain’t the way ah remember it no more,” she muttered.

* * * * *

It took nearly five minutes for the three filles to organize themselves on the bathroom’s single stepstool such that they could all look into the mirror at the same time. They traded a few jabs about one another’s size and made a three-headed monster joke before Scootaloo finally cleared the air.

“So are we gonna do this or what?”

“Ah’m just here to prove this ain’t nuthin’ but a bag of rotten black crabapples,” Applebloom shrugged. “This is Sweetie Belle’s thing. She should do it.”

Sweetie Belle stared at her reflection until a stinging sensation in her eyes reminded her to blink. “Scootaloo should do it. She was the one that was scared.”

Scootaloo blanched. “What? No way! Applebloom should do it! She was the…the one that…the one that doesn’t believe in it!”

“So that means y’do believe in it after all?” Applebloom grinned.

“Of course not!” Scootaloo barked, her ears flicking in annoyance. “Just…you were the one who was all ‘it’s not real, it’s not real, blah blah blah’! You’re probably terrified and are just trying to hide it! Don’t you want to know who your very special somepony is?”

The color in the young farmpony’s cheeks deepened. “Ah ain’t got no very special somepony! Maybe you’re the one that wants to know!”

Sweetie Belle held up a hoof. “Hey, hey! Let’s just all do it at the same time, okay? We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, right? We can handle anything if we do it together!”

Invoking the special title that bound them all together as friends silenced further argument. Holding onto one another, the three touched their cheeks together and fixed their reflections with a confident stare. In unison they began their chant.

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."

"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."

The clacking noise the stepstool made as it fell over echoed throughout the empty bathroom. A warm summer breeze wafted in from somewhere up in the starry night.

2 - Where the Heart is

It could not be called ‘Ponyville’.

It had the grass. It had the trees. It had the streets, the homes, the businesses, and the rolling hills in the distance. It had everything Ponyville should have, but it chilled the bones of the Cutie Mark Crusaders all the same as they attempted to poke at bushes and rocks.

“Mah hoof just goes raight on through it!” Applebloom commented for the third time as she watched her foreleg pass through an empty produce cart. It was right there in front of her, and it was so real – right down to a rusty nail sticking out of a weathered board on one side. But whenever she tried to touch it, she felt nothing – her hoof simply passed through the air, as if there were nothing there to touch in the first place.

“This one too!” Scootaloo called as she stuck her head through the wall of a house. She looked at Sweetie Belle, who was trying in vain to kick a bag of phantasmal oats behind the house, and realized she could still see a hazy, slightly distorted image of her friend right through the walls of the structure.

“Well, ah’ll tell ya what it ain’t,” Applebloom replied, “It ain’t no image of a very special somepony. How did we get outside, an’ all the way in town, just like that? An’ why can’t we touch nothin’? And where is everypony?”

Sweetie Belle felt two pairs of eyes on her coat. She turned to meet them, her brow peaked with worry.

“I…I don’t know! This isn’t what was supposed to happen!” The young unicorn stammered. Desperate for some way to explain everything to her friends, she feigned a derisive snort and started down one of the roads out of town. “Let’s just go back to the farm. We’re probably all just dreaming or something. Maybe when we get back where we’re supposed to be we’ll wake up or something.”

With no better ideas, the remaining crusaders fell in behind their current leader. The three of them trotted down an eerily empty version of their hometown. They were grateful for the bright glow of the moon to see by, but that didn’t make it any less the middle of the night, and didn’t make the incorporeal mockeries of tangible items all around them any more real. Heads darting in every direction, their chorus of chattering teeth and quivering flanks was halted when the line abruptly stopped, and the fillies ended up in a tangled heap of legs and tails in the dirt.

“Hey—whut gives!?” Applebloom yelped and flailed from underneath her companions. “Whut’s goin’ on!? Why’d y’all stop!? Is sumthin’ gonna eat us? Ah know sumthin’s gonna eat us! Ah just know it!”

Sweetie Belle scrambled to her hooves and waved her forelegs dramatically at her companions, who were now hugging one another and squealing with incoherent fright. “No, no! Relax! It’s just this!” With that, she reached out and prodded her hoof at the empty path before them.

It was faint, but something was definitely impeding Sweetie Belle’s progress. The remaining crusaders, curiosity overcoming their fear, stepped up and prodded the empty path out of town as well. When they touched the nothing that was there, the air around their hooves rippled, revealing a very faint, transparent latticework of pale blue energy. Their eyes rolled up and out, following the strange phenomenon. The energy field was in the shape of a dome, and appeared to encompass the entire town.

“What…what is it?” Scootaloo asked nopony in particular, staring at the sky in shocked awe.

“A-ah dunno,” Applebloom whimpered, her ears drooping, “but ah don’t like it one bit. Let’s…let’s try another path.”

A short trip around town confirmed their fearful observations – the baffling ‘wall’ did indeed block all escape from the phantom Ponyville. No attempt to force through or dig under it worked – even standing on one another’s backs and trying to leap up higher resulted in nothing but another collapsed pile of wounded filly pride.

Sweetie Belle, her eyes on the now eerily peaceful night horizon, rubbed her hooves together nervously. She jolted when she felt a sharp pain in her flank, and whirled to find Scootaloo standing there, a bit of her pale grey coat in the winged filly’s teeth.

“What are you doing?”

Scootaloo spat out her friend and shrugged sheepishly. “Pinching you? This is probably a dream, right?”

“Pinch yourself then! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

Applebloom winced after bapping herself in the cheek several times with a hoof. “Ain’t…ain’t no dream, ah don’t think. Whut…do we do now?”

The three scared Cutie Mark Crusaders huddled in the middle of the street for a time, trying to look in every direction at once. They nearly died of fright when all their ears swiveled towards a crashing noise and a yelping sound outside their field of vision. All three pairs of eyes met.

“It…it sounded like somepony got hurt,” Scootaloo commented. “We should…we should go see what happened.”

“I-it’s not scary,” Sweetie Belle continued the justification, “it wasn’t a roar, just a yell. We…we really should go see.”

None of the fillies moved until Applebloom finally chimed in. “We’re all…Cutie Mark Crusaders. We ain’t afraid of nothing. A-and maybe we’ll even get our cutie marks in…uh…ghostbusting?”

Together, they investigated.

3 - Bucking Magic

A wave of relief washed over the Cutie Mark Crusaders when the moonlight revealed a wholesome helping of Apple family, served in a haphazard pile down an alleyway. Applejack, her hat cast into the dirt, was writhing and mumbling under a respective heap of Big McIntosh, Granny Smith, and cousin Braeburn, who had been visiting from Appleoosa.

“—offa me!” Applejack choked. “Y’all had too many apple fritters after dinner! I cain’t breathe under here! An’ who went and tracked a buncha dirt into the house!?”

One by one, the fallen Apples dusted themselves off and got their bearings. They were set upon by the three terrified fillies almost instantly. The young crusaders tried to tell their tale, but the words congealed into a writhing mass of babbling about the Headless Horse, apple orchards in the middle of the night, and a number of accusations as to whose fault it all was. Applejack gathered the fillies around her and put on a reassuring smile.

“Now now, don’tcha fret none,” she cooed, “whutever’s goin’ on, big sis’ll have it all cleared up in two shakes of yer tails. Never you worry.”

“Hey cuz?” Braeburn, who was standing near the perimeter of the thatched magic wall, reared up and smacked it with more force than any of the crusaders could muster on their own. “Ah think the young’uns may have been onto something. Looks like this thing’s got us lassoed into town tighter’n a hogtyin’.”

Applejack frowned and turned to Big Mac, who had his face stuffed in an incorporeal café table like an ostrich. “How ‘bout all the stuff around here? Anything that ain’t…well…not really there?”

“Eeenope.”

The Element of Honesty straightened her hat and spat on her hooves, rubbing them together. “Well, I ain’t gonna take bein’ shut in like cattle lyin’ down. Ain’t no wall was ever made that could stand up against Bucky McGillicutty an’ Kicks McGee. Ah’ll have us back home ‘fore the rooster’s even up!” Stretching her aptly named hind legs one at a time, Applejack approached the wall, spun around, reared up, and delivered a blow solid enough to buck the apples off the largest tree in Sweet Apple Acres, all at once.

Nothing happened. All eyes fell on the hapless apple farmer.

“That wus just…a warmup,” Applejack betrayed a moment of uncertainty before rearing back again, this time tight enough to snap out a blow that would split a smaller apple tree clean in half. “Y’all get ready to mosey on back to yer beds!”

Applejack found herself lying on her side in the dirt moments after the slamming noise finished reverberating in everypony’s ears. She rubbed her hind legs and winced, waving off offers of help and looking as embarrassed as she felt.

“Ah’m a’raight. Sorry everypony. Ah must be tired from the day’s haul or sumthin’. I guess mebbe this here wall is—”

Before Applejack could finish her thought she was smooshed into the dust again, this time with a muzzle full of something soft and violet. Choking on the half breath she had left, she grabbed at the foreign substance that was dominating her vision and pulled at it from below until she could free her nostrils and replenish her lungs.

“Whut th—??” Coughing once again, she batted the dust out of her lashes and gazed up to see what had unceremoniously assaulted her from above. Her eyes widened.

“…Twilight?”

“Applejack?” The form atop the orange farm-mare, now given shape and name, stared right back down at her, looking no less bewildered. “What’s going on? I was just brushing my mane out before bed, and…” Twilight glanced around, “Apple family? Girls? How did I get outside?”

Applejack blew out a snort at Twilight’s rump. “If y’all wouldn’t mind endin’ yer time as the fourth pony to appear out of the sky and crush me t’night, ah’ll tell ya all we know.”

Sheepishly Twilight removed herself from her friend and helped the felled Apple back to her hooves. When the tale was recanted for the second time that night, Twilight furrowed her brow in thought and examined her hoof as it passed straight through a set of storm doors.

“Incorporeal substances…probably a magical barrier…and you’re saying all of you were getting ready for bed at the time this happened?”

The assemblage nodded.

“That can’t be a coincidence,” Twilight went on. She glanced at the three fillies, who were all trying to keep from looking any adult in the eye. “I don’t know how you girls did it, but somehow whatever effect you activated must have pulled us all straight through our mirrors to…” she glanced at the wall above, “…wherever this is. The effect must not be localized either, since it brought me here as much as it did all of you.”

“W-we didn’t mean it!” Sweetie Belle squealed, wrapping her forelegs around both of her friends and dragging them in to ensure the blame was shared. “This isn’t what’s supposed to happen when you call for Shipshape!”

Twilight adopted a typically inquisitive expression. “…and that’s another thing. What’s this ‘shipshape’ thing you all keep mentioning? I admit there are a couple of Equestrian legends even I probably don’t know, but you’re all going on as if it’s the most common thing, and I don’t recall ever having read about any of this before.”

Applejack raised a brow. “…ya ain’t never heard of Shipshape?”

Twilight shook her head.

“Shipshape?” Applejack repeated. “Very special someponies? Th’kinda thing colts and fillies tease each other with?”

“You just told me it was new to you too,” Twilight riposted.

“W’ll sure it is,” Applejack replied, an expression of vague pity on her face. “Ah mean, all this gettin’ sucked through mirrors and some ghost town and whatnot. But everypony what’s anypony knows ‘bout the whole ‘shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’ in front of the mirror and see your very special somepony’s face thing. Ah mean…y’have to have at least heard of it.”

“Ah heard of it!” Applebloom called out, raising her hoof high. “Just I thought it went different. But ah did hear about it, sure.”

Twilight’s stare was as hollow as the tree she used to live in. She turned to the assemblage. “You’ve all heard of this too?”

“…eeeyup.”

Braeburn, who was still poking at the rippling thatched wall with a hoof, blushed slightly. “C’mon now, everypony played around with that when we were small. But nuthin’ ever really happens. Sure’n not all this.”

“Wait a second,” Sweetie Belle perked up. “Applejack, what did you just say?”

“‘Shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’, sugarcube. Why?”

The crusaders cast glances at one another. Applebloom spoke first.

“Ah thought it was everypony needs a date.”

Applejack snerked out a breath. “Aw, don’tcha all fret girls. It don’t matter how ya said it. It’s just a silly old nursery rhyme.” Pausing, she glanced at Twilight, who was lost in self-depreciating mutterings regarding her ignorance. “…it don’t matter how they said it, raight?”

“How should I know?” The violet alicorn rolled her eyes dramatically. “Apparently I’m the most in the dark pony here. If it’s some sort of magic incantation I guess that’s possible, but—”

The burst of nigh-maniacal cackling that rattled through the quiet town instantly disrupted everypony’s thoughts and forced their attention towards the old green nag, who had been until now peculiarly quiet. Granny Smith was alive with glee so uncharacteristic, it sent chills down the spines of all the observers.

“Yew young’uns’re so busy chasin’ yer tails that y’ain’t never gonna have yerselves a good time!”

“Good time?” Twilight repeated, “Granny Smith, what do you mean?”

Twilight’s inquiry was met by another chorus of laughter that sounded like appleseeds being shaken up in a tin can. “Aw, they done changed the words a coon’s age ago ‘cause they thought us young’uns were up t’no good, but Shipshape’s still Shipshape! Ah ain’t never heard it said th’raight way since yer auntie Applesauce, Apple Rose ‘n me wuz prowlin’ fer stallions! Hoo-wee!”

“Prowlin’ fer—” Applejack touched the brim of her cap, just to have something solid to hold onto in this illusory landscape. “Granny, whut’re you sayin’? You know whut’s goin’ on?”

“A’course ah know!” Granny Smith, despite her frail figure, was dancing in place to a hoe-down only she could hear. “This here’s Shipshape! Ah ain’t shipshaped since the back forty were all saplings, an’ mind you me, everypony’s gettin’ a date! Wooo!”

Applejack was planning to ask her grandmother if she knew a way out of the strange echo of Ponyville, but she lost the ability to form words when the nag grabbed Braeburn, spun the hapless stallion around, and planted a kiss so romantic on his lips that both Applejack and Twilight felt the need to shield the eyes of the fillies. When Granny Smith finally came up for air, Braeburn collapsed into a twitching mass in the dirt.

“Yee-haw!” The old nag announced, “That there’s sweetern’ a ripe gala! C’mon colt! Let’s show ‘em what Shipshape’s all about!” With purely adrenaline-infused strength, Granny Smith hefted the shocked, white-eyed form of the Appleoosan up on his knees and forcibly locked her lips with his a second time. The poor stallion could do nothing but flail helplessly.

POOF

In that instant, both excitable nag and mortified stallion simply popped out of existence. Applejack broke the full minute of shocked silence that ensued.

“Whut…whut just happened?”

Applebloom’s jaw was practically in the dirt. Her words were nothing but internal monologue given voice. “…mah granny just kissed mah cousin…an’ that weren’t no ‘hey how ya been’ sorta kiss…”

Twilight felt eyes on her. “What…?” She stammered, trying to cover the blush on her cheeks. “D-don’t ask me!”

“Well,” Applejack pointed out in exasperation, “ye’re usually the one we all turn to when some weirdo thing happens that nopony else can explain. And whut just happened t’mah granny and mah cousin is a dern weirdo thing, that ah sure as the apples on mah rump cain’t explain at all!”

“I-I told you I don’t know!” Twilight took a calming breath and placed a hoof on her chest. “Look, just…let’s all just calm down. There has to be a perfectly rational reason for what’s going on here, and what we just saw. I’m sure there is. If we just think it over.”

Applejack imposed herself between Twilight and the gossiping fillies, who were already throwing around every theory from voodoo to alien abduction. She lowered her voice. “Better think fast, Twi. Far as I can tell we cain’t touch a single thing here, an’ that means we cain’t eat or drink a single thing here, neither. And that wall out there is as solid as a herd of stampeding buffalo on the Appleoosan plain, whether or not y’can see raight through it.”

“I know,” Twilight responded, her perturbed gaze going back and forth between the eldest remaining Apples. “I’ll…think of something.”

The moon hung high. The air was unsettlingly still.

4 - How to Kiss a Platonic Platypus

One by one they came. Ponies of all shapes and sizes, all creeds and trots of life. Most were from Ponyville, but some of the Equestrians who materialized a few feet above the ground and found themselves deposited in the dirt hailed from Canterlot or beyond. All had the same story – primping for bed, checking themselves before an evening get together…whatever the reason, it always had to do with a mirror.

Twilight Sparkle found herself hammering at the strange latticework ‘wall’ with everything from magical finesse to brute force, but nothing she did had any effect. Panting, she slid down on her haunches and soon found a small white teacup thrust before her eyes.

“Oh, Twilight,” a familiar voice offered softly, “That looks really hard. Are you okay? Do you need a drink?”

Twilight’s droopy eyelids suddenly snapped back to full attention. “Fluttershy? You have water?”

“O-oh, well…no,” the yellow pegasus admitted. “I just happened to be holding the cup when I passed by the mirror in the upstairs hallway. But, you know, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Twilight tried to cover the depth of emotion behind her sigh with a soft smile and a simple nod. She glanced down the street and realized just how rapidly this new ‘town’ was filling with ponies. Ponies that were going to starve if she didn’t think of a way out of this place.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight ventured. “Have you ever heard of Shipshape?”

“Oh, of course!” The softspoken mare brightened. With a voice like the tinkling of breezy wings, a she gleefully sang, “‘Shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’. Silly old rhyme.” Looking suddenly quite embarrassed, Fluttershy leaned into Twilight’s ear and whispered, “You know…I tried it once. All by myself when I was a filly. Don’t tell anypony, okay? I didn’t see anything because my brother came into the bathroom right after, and I never got up the courage to try it again.”

“You don’t say?” Twilight murmured sarcastically.

“Twilight, are we…going to be okay?”

Ponyville’s resident princess fluttered her wings and hung the reassuring, royal smile she’d been practicing on her cheeks. “Of course we are. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.”

“Hey Twilight!”

A bluish blur came streaking in from above, quickly solidifying into the form of Rainbow Dash. The cyan mare characteristically wasted no time. “Hey, have you figured this one out or what? Everypony’s getting restless. Mayor Mare’s starting to put together some weird Lord of the Flies command structure or something. They’re prolly gonna go native on us if we stay like this much longer.”

Twilight closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her hooves. “I’m doing the best I can! Until maybe an hour ago I had no idea what ‘shipshape’ even was, and since then I’ve been pulled through a mirror right before bed after a long day, deposited in a ghost town with no food and a magic barrier to deal with, and now everypony’s expecting me to just fix whatever this is for them.”

“W-well,” Fluttershy commented, “you are the local princess, after all.”

“Wait,” Rainbow Dash laughed, clutching her belly, “you don’t know what shipshape is? You’ve got to be kidding! You’re pulling my wing!”

“No,” Twilight repeated for at least the tenth time that night, “I never heard of ‘shipshape’ before, okay? I guess it’s just not as common a thing as you all thi—”

“Ah never mind,” Rainbow Dash cut in, “anyway, you’re being summoned.” Dash was, as always, hovering a few inches off the ground. Twilight often wondered if the cyan mare had a thing about getting her hooves dirty.

Twilight’s ears drooped. “I know the mayor wants answers, but can you tell her—”

“Not the mayor,” Dash grinned, “A higher power. You, me, Fluttershy, Applejack…you know who else. Let’s go!”

Taking wing with her two companions, Twilight could hardly believe the sight before her eyes in the ‘town’ square. The crowd was keeping a respectful distance, but the moment her hooves touched the dirt, Twilight was trotting along with a newfound confidence.

“Princess Celestia! Princess Luna! You’re here too?”

The Princess of the Sun, who had been conferring with her darker sister, turned to greet her star pupil. “Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is good to see you as always.”

Twilight was thrown off by the easy greeting. She glanced uncertainly between the two matriarchs and reminded herself, as she often had to, not to bow. “I…wish it could be under better circumstances.” She began to launch into an explanation of everything that had happened since the incident with her bathroom mirror – embellishing her own attempts to remedy the situation only slightly – until Celestia held up a hoof.

“You needn’t fear, my student. It’s only Shipshape.”

“Nopony shall be harmed,” Luna added, “However, the evening is likely to become…interesting, before the moon retires.”

“Shipshape is an ancient legend,” Celestia began, “but the keywords required to activate it only fell out of the vernacular approximately sixty years ago. What you see all around you is Shipshape’s world, which takes the form of the home village or dwelling of the pony who summoned it. There is no known escape, save one.”

“And that is?” Twilight practically begged.

Luna managed a blush – a feat for a pony of her coloring. “Shipshape shapes…ships. Relationships. Shipshape knows only one thing, but that is the thing Shipshape knows absolutely. The identity of your…perfect match. Everypony who needs a date gets one, as it were.”

Celestia continued the explanation, her mane sparkling in the moonlight. “‘Shipshaping’ was once very popular with the youth of Equestria. The practice fell from grace under the hooves of concerned parents who couldn’t keep tabs on what went on in Shipshape’s world, and a modified form of the incantation with no effect was created, thus reducing Shipshape to the status of little more than a legend. Young Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo invoked the correct incantation without realizing what would occur, and thus could not control the power of the ship. Left unchecked, it will eventually spread to every mirror in Equestria, and continue to pull ponies to this world.” Celestia glanced upwards thoughtfully, “As I recall all it takes to remove Shipshape’s influence from a mirror is to soap it down and let it sit for approximately one hour, but modern ponies would not know to do this.

Twilight sighed with relief. “So what do we do? How do we get everypony home? A counterspell? A monster hiding somewhere that needs to be defeated?”

The sisters glanced at one another and traded amused smiles. Celestia spoke up. “I believe that is what my sister was trying to convey before. There is only one way to escape Shipshape’s world, and it is a fairly simple one – go with the flow. Allow yourself to be ‘shipped’ to another pony, and much like Granny Smith, you will be sent home in the blink of an eye.”

“Oh!!” Pinkie Pie, who had been patiently listening in with the other element bearers for as long as she could stand, could no longer contain her enthusiasm. “So you mean all I have to do is kiss somepony and I can go home?” Without further ado, she grabbed Rainbow Dash, dipped her, and planted a sensual kiss on her lips that was enough to make even Rarity blush.

“Mmnf! H-hey!” The cyan pegasus flailed, “Cut that out! It’s totally not cool!”

Pinkie, Dash still firmly in her grasp, glanced down at herself. “What? Why am I still here? I was having frosting dreams! FROSTING DREAMS!! Do you not understand how important frosting dreams are!?” With every complaint, she went back and forth between shaking Rainbow Dash violently and launching another kiss sortie all over her cheeks.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,” Celestia noted. “The gesture is meaningless if it’s not with your match, even if you don’t necessarily realize your bond with them yet.”

“But I love everypony!” Pinkie insisted.

“It’s not that kind of love, dear,” Rarity, who was still in her fluffy white, monogrammed nightrobe commented. “They’re referring to love that’s somewhat less…platonic.”

“What!?” Pinkie dropped a yelping Rainbow Dash in a heap, “That’s silly! I’ve never kissed a platypus before!”

“N-no dear, I said platoni—aack!”

Pinkie was atop her new quarry in the turning of a second, pressing Rarity’s back and her spotless nightrobe into the dirt. She touched muzzles with the fashionista and bore a stare into her. “Have YOU ever kissed a platypus? Don’t lie to me! I know.”

Rarity couldn’t get a word in edgewise before the partypony atop her was peppering her cheeks, muzzle, lips, and eyelids with butterfly kisses. Every half a dozen or so smooches Pinkie looked at the assembled trio of royalty, who merely shook their heads in unison. With that, she leapt away from her prey and bounced into the crowd like a cannonball – pouncing, pinning, and otherwise assaulting random ponies with the taste of her cotton-candy lips. Squeals and cries of terror caused stallions and mares alike to scatter in all directions.

“Pinkie stop!” Twilight cried in vain against the din, “You’re causing a panic!!”

Every few seconds Pinkie’s mussed mane and manic eyes popped up from somewhere in the crowd. Celestia and Luna, unmoving, simply shook their heads at her every time. When the terrified crowd disbursed, Pinkie could be seen pinning a terrified lavender pegasus colt under her hooves and staring down at him like a shrew in an eagle’s talons.

“P-please don’t hurt me…” The colt whimpered.

“Oh come ON!” Pinkie complained, “I kissed everypony in town like a hundred million thousand bajillion-zillion times! You can’t possibly tell me my very special somepony isn’t here! Well, I guess maybe they might not be here yet, so maybe if I just wait around…but I don’t wanna wait around because I was having dreams about frosting, even though I was standing in front of the mirror at the time…wait what was I doing in front of the mirror anyway? Oh right, I was doing that. Maybe we’d better not talk about that. I mean I was thinking about frosting after all so it’s completely understandable, but, hey wait, where’s my somepony!? I’m telling you I love everypony, so really this should be easy!”

“They have to feel the same way! Even if they don’t realize it yet…” Twilight glanced at the other princesses for confirmation, “…right?” The bringers of night and day merely nodded their assent.

“Anypony can be my somepony!” Pinkie complained. “Everypony loves me! YOU love me—” She mooshed her muzzle into the muzzle of the shocked colt beneath her. “Kiss me! If I have to put the sugar before the frosting then that’s just what has to happen! Frosting…frosting…nnnngggahhhh…”

Drool spattering on his cheeks, the unknown colt was about to scream for his life, until a blue hoof shot out from nowhere and cupped Pinkie’s chin, pulling her away from her victim. The moment he could move even just an inch, the lavender colt shimmied to his hooves and galloped crying straight through a bunch of illusory homes and businesses. Pinkie, her attention now on the owner of the hoof, could only stare blankly, saliva running down her chin.

“F-f…frostiiinnngg…” Pinkie muttered, stupefied.

The hoof caressed Pinkie’s cheek lovingly. “Shhhh,” its owner cooed, “there’s plenty of time for frosting. Let’s go home now.”

Pinkie Pie, moaning about candy and balloons, slipped into Mrs. Cake’s sturdy embrace. The latter bent over her charge and pressed her lips slowly home.

POOF

Applejack, trying her best to let whatever happens in Sugarcube Corner, stay in Sugarcube Corner, trotted up beside the blank statue that was Mr. Cake and gave him a manly, sympathetic pat on the withers. “Guess you an’ th’missus got some talkin’ to do, huh.”

“Wha—?” Mr. Cake’s face was red from maneline to halfway down his neck. “O-oh! Right! I uh…sure do need to have a talk with the missus, don’t I? I’m just so…” he waved his hooves about dramatically, “upset! And confused! A-and…betrayed! Yes, betrayed! That’s it! I’ll have a talk with both of those feisty mares—I mean, my wife and our roomma—live in—uh…friend who lives with us just as soon as all of this is cleared up!”

“Ah…bet ya will,” Applejack raised an eyebrow. Before the nervous Cake patriarch could take his leave, the apple mare pointed at a particular scene nearby. Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake, the toddler foals of the cake family, were cooing incomprehensibly at one another. The two grinned, pecked each other, and summarily popped away into nothingness.

This time, Mr. Cake’s expression was truly one of shock. Applejack snerked. “That there’s gonna be a hoof-full in about thirteen years. Cain’t say I envy ya.”

Twilight was helping Rarity back to her hooves. “Are you alright?”

Rarity sharply threw up a hoof. “My robe is a mess, and I don’t think I have the will to hear about my mane right now, so I’d rather you not even tell me. And I do think, dear, that we must see about informing the masses who weren’t close enough to overhear exactly what is going on, before they assume that Pinkie Pie has finally gone off the deep end and is hiding in every bush waiting to love them all to death.”

“Right! Let’s go!” Twilight, a spring in her hoof, was on the job. After a few steps however, she noticed nopony was by her side. She turned. “Rarity?”

Rarity hadn’t moved. She was staring despondently at the dirt beneath her hooves. Her snow white coat did nothing to hide the deep blush playing about her cheeks. Twilight obliviously headed back in her direction.

“Are you sick? Do you need to lie down?”

“Seriously Twilight?” Rainbow Dash, who was suddenly hovering beside them, looked exasperated. “You’ve never seen that look in a mare’s eye before? Heck even I know what that look means, and I hate mushy stuff!”

Twilight’s expression betrayed her ignorance. Rarity glanced away. Rainbow Dash guffawed.

“Duh! That was her first kiss!”

“N-no it wasn’t!” A mortified Rarity snapped back into the conversation. “Wh-why…why I’ll have you know I was knocking them dead in high school! I was the cream of the crop! The upper of the crust! I was marvelous!!”

“That was your first kiss,” Rainbow Dash insisted dryly, folding her forelegs. “And it was with a sugar-crazed, ballistic Pinkie Pie. She bleeds cotton-candy, and I really do not want to know what she was doing with frosting and a mirror before she showed up here.”

“No, no!” Rarity had her foreleg on her forehead and took several steps away from the group, her eyes rolling up. “I refuse to accept it! My prince will come for me one day, and he will be the one to have my first kiss! I am pure as the driven snow! Untainted! Above reproach! Smelling of—”

“Taffy and boysenberry blast cupcakes,” Dash interrupted.

“…lilac and midsummer’s rain! That simply did not happen! None of you saw it! Erase it from your memories!”

The remaining element bearers traded glances and rubbed at the back of their heads. Rarity swooned, but Applejack caught her before she hit the dirt again.

“Woahhh there, nelly.” Applejack carefully laid the unconscious, dramatic unicorn down. “Gonna break yerself if y’keep that up, and we ain’t got no couches ‘round these parts.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight whirled accusingly on the pegasus. “That wasn’t very nice. You were clearly embarrassing her.”

“Ehhhh…” Rainbow Dash hesitated, but finally nodded and managed to force her grin down. “I guess you’re right. I’ll apologize to her later. Meanwhile we gotta get outta here, right?”

Considering turnabout to be fair play, Twilight raised a brow. “That we do. So tell me, how are you planning to get out of here? Did you forget when you were tormenting Rarity that Pinkie kissed you more than she kissed her?”

“Guh, don’t remind me,” Dash rubbed her mouth sloppily with the back of her hoof.

“So?” Twilight repeated. “Why don’t you tell us all how you’re going to do it? You can’t just fly away, and we’ve already established that no amount of brute force or style and finesse are going to get us through the barrier, assuming the ‘world’ outside this town isn’t just an illusion to begin with.”

“Me?” Dash shot back haughtily, tousling her colorful mane with a whip of her head. “Everypony loves me. I’m awesome! I’ll let some lucky fanpony nuzzle with my hoof or something, and I’ll be back in the sky in no time! Only trouble is picking somepony out from the swooning masses that’ll be trying to swarm me when the time comes.”

Dash felt a tug on her tail. She glanced behind her and looked down, only to find Fluttershy patiently waiting. The Element of Kindness held a hoof to her lips and coughed, clearing her throat.

“I haven’t fed angel or the chickens yet tonight,” Fluttershy mentioned, almost inaudibly. Dash gave her a confused look.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Fluttershy’s expression hardened, so subtly that it was difficult to notice. “The animals need food. They’re probably hungry, lonely, scared, and wondering where I went. I need to go home, right now.”

Dash only shrugged. “You heard about the way out just as much as I did. Pucker up and start looking around.” She chuckled, “Actually I really have to wonder how that’s going to work out for you.”

“Down.” Fluttershy said flatly, her polite smile evaporating.

“Huh?”

“Down,” Fluttershy repeated, pointing at the soft dirt. “Bad pony. Down this instant.”

Rainbow Dash paled. Her head dipped down to the level of her shoulders. Behind her, she could feel the eyes of her friends, carving her back up like a roast. Her voice was just above a whisper. “Fluttershy, that…that’s private. Now’s not the time. I can’t even pull any shade clouds in like this.”

“Are you a bad pony?” Fluttershy persisted. Her stare was volcanic and glacial all at the same time – it flowed through every synapse in Rainbow Dash’s brain, softening her mind with warmth as it cooled the fire in her veins with ice.

“N-no but—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Fluttershy cut in, pointing again. “Down.”

Rainbow Dash, her heart pounding, threw a murderous glance at Twilight and Applejack. “T-turn around.”

“Whut?” Applejack looked on. “Why?”

“Just turn around!” Dash snarled. Shrugging at one another, the alicorn and the earth pony did an about face. Dash glanced at the sky, thinking she’d try to force the barrier after all, but the moment Fluttershy caught her in those eyes again, she faltered. Softly, the uppity cyan pegasus lowered herself into the dirt, folded her wings in tightly, and lay on her stomach and chin. Fluttershy took flight just long enough to land on Dash’s back, straddling her and effectively binding her wings down with her hind legs. She reached down and nuzzled Dash’s mane with her cheek.

“There now, I knew you were my good little pony.” Fluttershy cooed. “Good little ponies should never fly away, no no no~”

“N-no…” Dash whimpered, her eyes shut tightly.

Fluttershy was running her hooves through Dash’s shock of colorful mane. “Dear me, you’re in need of grooming. Mommy will fix you all up, but we need to go back home first, okay? You’ll help mommy and come home with her too, won’t you?”

“Y…yeah…”

“Hmm? What’s that my little pony?”

“Y—” Dash’s voice was lighter than a cloud. “…yes mommy.”

“Oh!” Fluttershy, smiling like a spring day, laid upon her pony-pillow and kissed the top of its head. “How lovely! It’s time to go now. Say bye-bye, okay?”

“…bye,” Dash muttered to nopony in particular.

Twilight and Applejack were staring at the side of a building, their ears both swiveled as far behind them as they would go. They each tried to glance over their shoulders, but each stopped when they saw the other one trying to do the same thing.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight gasped softly, “I mean i-it’s totally none of my business, but…right out in the open? A-and…Rainbow Dash?”

“Ponies what act all high-falutin’ are just big softies when they let their guards down,” Applejack explained. “It’s exhaustin’ bein’ in control of yerself allatime. As for Fluttershy, ah ain’t never seen nuthin’ scarier than gettin’ in her way when it’s feeding time fer the animals.”

As they listened to more of the exchange, the two befuddled ponies caught one another’s wandering eyes two more times before Twilight spoke up.

“N-no, this…this is private. We should respect their privacy.”

“Ah got Rarity’s compact.”

“Oo, lemme see.”

Fluttershy slid around the side of Dash’s head, raised her chin with a hoof, and coyly made the two entwined pegasi disappear.

5 - Thine Nuptials

“Citizens!” Luna announced. “Commoners! Rejoice this day, for your sovereign has decreed that one among thee shall be called upon to receive the honor of our illustrious companionship!”

The princess of the night wandered through the crowd, her back straight and her chin held high. Princess Cadance, who had arrived sometime prior with her husband, leaned into Celestia, her voice at a whisper.

“I’m surprised she’s going for this. I don’t mean to be rude, but I always thought Princess Luna would hold onto the ancient idea that royalty can only be with royalty.”

Celestia cocked her head to the side and watched ponies cower before her sister’s presence. “She did. And we tried. It…didn’t work, as you can see.” Blushing brightly, Celestia moved the topic along. “I explained to my sister that this might be a good opportunity for her to…better relate to our subjects. She appears to have taken the idea to heart.”

“You!” Luna barked at Big McIntosh, “Thou art a fine, strapping example of stallionhood! Thou shalt produce exemplary, hardworking stock! We bid you to brush with the lips of thine princess!” Luna threw back her head and cackled. Somehow, a flash of lightning shot across the sky. With a hearty ‘eeenope’, Big Mac was kicking up dust and barreling through the semi-existent town hall. Luna scoffed.

“So be it, but thou dost not know what thou art missing! You then!” She turned on an already cringing young unicorn stallion. “Join with your princess and go down in history as a consort of royalty!”

Half a dozen terrified escapes later, Luna trotted back over to her sister, Cadance, Twilight and Shining Armor, her head hung as low as she would allow common ponies to see. “Why is this not working? Is it because of the royal voice? Have we not made our intentions clear?”

“The cackling might not have been the best idea,” Twilight observed.

“Cackling?” Luna repeated, bewildered. “We were not cackling. We were sharing in the joy our subjects must inevitably be experiencing, since one of their number shall be chosen by us.

Cadance touched a hoof to her forehead and sighed. “Are we really going to be able to do this? Defending Equestria from an invasion or settling a political dispute is one thing, but I feel like I’ve been dropped in a locked room and told I can’t leave until I kiss somepony.”

“That’s pretty much exactly what this is,” Twilight mused. She offered her old foalsitter a reassuring smile. “But you have nothing to worry about, right?”

“That’s right Twiley, she doesn’t.” Shining Armor nuzzled his beloved wife, “The only reason we haven’t left yet is we thought it would be good for us to stay and help reassure the others.”

Twilight favored her brother with an appreciative grin. At least one relationship around here made sense to her. She scanned the masses of ponies mulling about around town. For the most part they were thinking logically about this, and a good number of them had already gotten up the nerve to experiment. Something about having her brother around made Twilight feel more secure. She hadn’t had any luck escaping herself yet, but then, she hadn’t really tried. And why bother trying? She already knew there was only one pony who could truly capture her heart. But…was it scandalous? Was it asking too much? No…no it wasn’t any of that. Twilight was a princess. And so, it was only proper for her to take after her brother and his wife, and stay behind for a while, to help…organize things. Her time would come later. She had it all figured out.

“Twilight Sparkle?” Celestia inquired.

“Huh? Y-yes!?”

“My student, you were staring at me. Are you well?”

“Staring? Who was staring?” Twilight laughed dryly, “Not me! No not staring ever! What would I be staring at?” Celestia raised a brow, and Twilight felt her heart pounding in her chest. She forced herself to form words.

“P-princess Celestia,” Twilight began, her ears drooping and her voice small, “I…I just wanted to say, I know this is sort of sudden and maybe you won’t understand…or maybe you will, I don’t know, just…I wanted to say…”

Twilight mentally berated herself. There would never be a more perfect time! Why couldn’t she say it? She took in a deep breath and steeled herself, but when she opened her mouth again, her voice was overridden by a sudden shout from nearby. All of the royalty turned as one to look upon an altercation occurring two streets over. Twilight sighed. Illusory or not, this was still Ponyville, and she was responsible for it.

“I’ll, uhm…I’ll go see what’s wrong,” The princess of friendship reluctantly offered. Forgetting that she could simply trot right through the buildings, she took wing and headed towards a small crowd of ponies at the mouth of an alley.

“Back!!” A wine-colored earth mare brandishing a heavy textbook growled at an assemblage of other mares. “You get back! He’s mine, and you can’t have him!”

“You can’t hog him for yourself!” A sun-yellow unicorn replied from the crowd. “I walk by the farm every day on my way home from work, and all I think about is getting a chance to see him working the fields! It was meant to be, I tell you!”

“I’ve written him a hundred love-letters!” A lime-green earth mare called out. “I never sent any of them, but that’s not the point! He’s the only stallion for me!”

“I have a shrine to him in my bedroom!” Another mare cried. “He’s the first thing I see every morning and the last image I have before bed every night! He’s mine!

Twilight nearly got a cheek full of arithmetic problems the moment she landed. “Cherilee? Big Mac? What’s all this about?”

Big McIntosh, cowering behind the school teacher despite his girth, only shrugged and shook his head. Cherilee swatted at every leg that tried to reach past her.

“You don’t understand!” Cherilee panted, “I spend every day of my life around colts and fillies, and all of you expect me to just teach them day in and day out, like some sort of machine! What about teacher!? When does teacher get to be happy? I’m a mare too you know, and I have needs!! My biological clock is ticking just like anypony’s! You leave my very special somepony alone!”

Twilight approached Cherilee slowly, watching for any sudden movement. “Now, now, let’s all just calm down, okay? If you’d just give me the textbook, we could—h-hey!”

The Princess of Friendship ducked just in time to let the textbook sail in an arc over her head. “Cherliee, please! This isn’t like you! Be reasonable!” She narrowed her eyes and was about to berate the schoolmare again, but the look in Cherliee’s maudlin eyes killed the words before they could come out. Tears were streaming down the wine-colored mare’s cheeks. Twilight instantly felt ashamed. She’d imagined there would be some difficulties in Shipshape’s world, but she hadn’t considered the feelings of other ponies. She took a calming breath, stepped back, and tried again.

“Cherilee, please. This hasn’t been easy for anypony, I understand that. But we’re all just going to have to…take one for the team, you know?”

“T-take,” Cherilee sputtered, still brandishing the textbook. “take one for—”

For a moment it looked as if the love-starved mare was going to strike again, but her manic expression suddenly split into a smile that bisected her muzzle nearly up to her ears.

“O-of course!! Why didn’t I think of that before!?” Tossing the book aside, Cherilee whirled on Big Mac, who was regarding the throng of mares at the mouth of the alley with all the trepidation of a trapped lemur. Twilight didn’t like the look in the school teacher’s eye. Was the poor mare really that lonely? When Big Mac glanced in Cherilee’s direction, he found himself akin to a large red deer caught in her headlights.

“Oh schmoopy-bear,” She cooed, approaching one slow step at a time. “you didn’t forget about us, did you? My cuddle-wuddle-moogy-woogy-sweetie-kins? I know this isn’t really the ideal way, but at least we get to find out what we already know – that we’re very special someponies! One little kiss is all it ta-akes~”

Big Mac edged away from the approaching muzzle until he was half-materialized into a building. When Cadance, Luna, and Shining Armor finally pushed their way through the crowd to inquire about the commotion, the big apple farmer fixed all of them, including Twilight, with a pleading glance.

“You’re…probably going to have to kiss her if you want her to stop,” Twilight observed.

“I agree,” Cadance added. “Kiss her before she hurts herself or some other pony.”

“Ah, of course,” Luna commented. “Thou art certainly requesting privacy with which to consummate thine nuptials. Regrettable – thou wouldst have made a fine concubine. Pay no heed to your sovereign’s illustrious presence. Proceed.”

Big Mac took a breath. He watched the feminine muzzle looming closer and closer – memories of the love potion fiasco behind his hesitation. He knew they were right. With the last breath he could manage before those lips touched home, he closed his eyes and murmured a single word: “Eeyup.”

The kiss never came. Instead, his ears picked up a shuffling noise. Convinced that the mares had taken to blows over him, the draft stallion’s eyes popped open just as Cherilee let out a yelp and collapsed flat on her back in the dirt. She had, of all things, a lavender filly standing prominently on her chest.

Diamond Tiara’s grin was about as menacing as one of her stature could manage. “Miss Cherilee.”

Cherilee deadpanned, raising a brow. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Diamond Tiara, but your teacher is not in the mood for games right now.”

“Games?” The haughty filly laughed. “I don’t play games. I’ll make this plain. You have power over me. I don’t like it when ponies have power over me. Now I finally have a chance to even the odds. You’re coming home with me tonight.”

A moment of silence passed before the assembled ponies burst out laughing. Only the princesses traded glances. Cadance and Luna in turn passed their looks on to Twilight, as if to ask what exactly fillies in Ponyville are being taught these days. Nudged to action, Twilight spoke up.

“Diamond Tiara,” She smiled softly, “Come on now. Your teacher has had a difficult night. Now really isn’t the best time to be—”

“It’s the perfect time!” Diamond Tiara scrunched up her nose and posed over her teacher like a wolf over a fresh kill. “My daddy knows when to take advantage of an opportunity, and so do I! I should be the one in control!”

“Young lady,” Cherliee rumbled. “Get off of me this instant. I won’t have behavior like this from students in my class.”

“Ohh yes you will,” The filly grinned. She leaned down next to Cherilee’s ear and whispered softer than anypony else could hear.

“I saw the photos.”

Cherilee blanched and went stiffer than death itself. “You…did?”

Diamond Tiara nodded.

“Th-that…! That’s impossible! You’re just saying that to get under my coat! You don’t even know where they are!”

“Third drawer of your desk. Under the paperweight with the snowflakes inside it, in a folder marked ‘boring sciency-stuff that my students will hate’. I borrowed the negatives. I hope you don’t mind. You really shouldn’t leave something like that lying around for anypony to find. Why, if somepony with less scruples were to come along…”

“…you’re bluffing,” Cherilee challenged.

“Am I?” Again Diamond Tiara bent down to her teacher’s ear. Whatever she whispered, it made the schoolmare’s eyes open wide. “But don’t worry, I won’t say a word. So long as you come home with me tonight.”

Twilight had one brow raised nearly past her bangs. “Ummmm…I don’t know what’s going on here, but Diamond Tiara, could you please get off your teacher? You’re causing a scene.”

With a soft shushing noise, Diamond Tiara brushed lips with a no longer resisting Cherliee.

POOF

Silence. Silence and staring.

“We…did not anticipate that event on the horizon,” Luna commented. “Or, how you say…we ‘did not see that one coming’. We offer our condolences.”

The silence persisted until a mare from the crowd called out, “Big Mac’s free!”

Twilight quickly interposed herself between the apple draft pony and the oncoming horde. “Everypony please! We can discuss this in a rational manner!”

Luna loomed beside the smaller and less terrifying princess. Her presence was, thankfully, at least enough to keep Twilight from being squashed flat by the stampede of mares. “Twilight Sparkle, dost thou require our assistance?”

“Now would be an excellent time for that cackling!” Twilight shouted over the confusion.

Luna cleared her throat, looking slightly embarrassed. “Never fear. Shipshape is always right. The pairing was somewhat bizarre, but it shall work out in the end.”

Twilight was absorbed with pushing back the zombielike, groping hooves with her magic. “Everypony keeps telling me that. I still don’t understand why I’m the only pony who doesn’t know anything about this.”

Luna swallowed. “Forgive us Twilight Sparkle for our…uncouthness, but we believe the reasoning behind that conclusion is…well.” The mistress of the night faltered. “How shall we say…thou art somewhat…prudish.”

“Prudish?” Twilight, after being smacked on the cheeks half a dozen times, lit her horn and erected a proper barrier against Big Mac’s suitors. “…prudish? Me?”

“Indeed.” Luna said simply.

Twilight gaped.

“I…I don’t think I can handle this anymore,” Cadance sighed deeply, her ears drooping and her eyes fixed on the maniacal love crowd on the other side of the magic barrier. “Shining, darling…I’m sorry but, can we go now?”

Shining Armor looked between his sister and his wife. He hesitated until Twilight favored him with a nudge, a wink, and a promise that everything would be okay. “Well…alright dear, if it’ll make you feel better.” He began looking around, “We can try to find someplace more private if you’d like…”

A springtime smile lit Cadance’s features. “There’s no need for that. It’s just a kiss, and it’s not like our love is some big secret. I don’t think anypony will mind.” Casually, he brushed her husband’s cheek and touched her lips to his.

She held the kiss.

Longer.

A little longer.

Cadance opened her eyes and looked around. When her eyes snapped back to her lover, there was something frantic in them that hadn’t been there before. “Shining…why are we still here? Tell me why we’re still here!”

Shining Armor, feeling his sister’s eyes on him as much as his wife’s, cleared his throat, his eyes darting around. “I, uh…that is…”

Cadance was tapping her hoof. “That is what?”

“You…you know you’re the only mare for me.”

Cadance smiled. Well of course she knew that. She shook her head, “Of course, I know that. I’m sorry. I guess this whole ‘Shipshape’ thing just has me flustered. I’m sorry.”

The glint in Shining’s eyes was as dashing as the day she fell for him. “Maybe we’re just not getting through to this ‘Shipshape’ joker. Let’s try that again, huh?”

Shining Armor put his forelegs around his wife just as he detected a large reddish blur swooping at him from out of the corner of his eye. Military training kicked in and he moved to riposte the blow, until he realized he was about to impale Big McIntosh on his horn. Scrambling to redirect his counterattack, he caught a quick glimpse of a few mares who had finally thought to just trot through the buildings and around Twilight’s barrier, ignoring the shape of the ‘alley’. They’d tripped the poor earth stallion as he was backing away and sent him hurtling towards Cadance’s lover. There was yelping. There was shouting. In the commotion, Big Mac bowled Shining Armor over and, quite by accident, graced the other stallion with his lips.

POOF

Cadance groped thin air with her forelegs, nearly falling over from the sudden lack of support. The Apple stallion was gone. So was her husband. As the disappointed mare crowd let out a collective moan and began to disperse, Cadance found her lips moving, but no words were coming out. Twilight was by her side, eyes like saucers at the stallion-shaped impression in the dirt.

“That…uh…that…” Twilight sputtered, patting the dumbfounded leader of the Crystal Empire on the withers. “That…had to be a mistake. Just…try not to read into it too much.”

Princess Luna, her midnight mane floating in endless waves, shook her head tactlessly. “Shipshape is never incorrect. We are sorry for your loss. If it is any consolation, know that this can only lead to happiness for the both of them.”

“I…he…we…” Cadance wobbled on her hooves as if she were about to faint. “B-but…but…this…is this why he keeps telling me he has a headache every night…?”

“Every night?” Twilight pondered. “…owch.”

Luna put her foreleg around Cadance’s quivering shoulders and began leading the poor princess away. “We attempted to explain this to our sister before, but inbreeding is the right and privilege of royalty. We see that we were, in fact, correct all the while. The night is yet young. Come, let us give thanks to the sun and the moon, and share in our birthrights together.”

Twilight cantered to catch up to the pair; Cadance was simply being led around by Luna like a little lost lamb. “Inbree—wait, what? Princess Luna, how is that even possible with you and…??” She found she could only finish her thought by pointing dramatically at Cadance.

Luna’s horn began to glow. “Inbreeding is magic, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Adieu.” With that, she bent the pink alicorn backwards in her grasp, and kissed her tenderly by the light of the moon. Cadance let out a befuddled murmur, closed her eyes, and parted her lips, her tension and control slipping away.

POOF

Twilight Sparkle was alone. Again.

6 - The Harmonious Muffin Equation

“It has to be some kind of holographic projection…or perhaps a shared mental image of some kind? Or a mass hallucination! The detail is incredible, I’d scarce believe I couldn’t just pick up one of these crullers and stuff myself silly!”

Dr. Hooves passed his foreleg around inside a bistro display case. Derpy watched him bemusedly, but placed a hoof on her growling stomach. One eye rolled heavenward, while the other dipped towards the dirt. She often wondered what it was like for ponies who could only see in one direction at a time. The thought of it was so…limiting. They sometimes gave her funny looks when they found her hanging upside down from a tree branch in the park. If they only knew.

“Doc,” the grey pegasus eyed the display case and gave voice to her feelings, “I’m hungry. I was having muffins in the bathtub when everything went POOF—” she waved her forelegs dramatically, “and now everypony’s staying up too late and I don’t have any muffins anymore. Can we go home now?”

Hooves raised his brow at the slight reflection of his companion in the ‘glass’ display case without turning his head. “Ah…yes well,” he faltered, “Apparently the paranormal entity responsible for this rip in spacetime is somewhat difficult to thwart without a ritual appeasement involving—you eat muffins in the bathtub?”

“Doesn’t everypony?” Derpy replied smartly. “I really like the blueberry ones. Except when they get soggy. I eat ‘em fast.”

“I…see. Well then,” Hooves turned, “Escape may not be evident yet, but such an environment is a rare opportunity for scientific study! Let us investigate that haberdashery across the street next!”

The Doctor made to gallop, but let out a yelp and just as quickly rushed to keep from trampling the two ponies that suddenly appeared under his hoof. Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon, wrapped in one another’s legs, were rolling down the street like an overturned garbage can. Their lips were locked tightly, and Hooves could still hear the smacking noises from twenty paces away as they rolled on.

“Fascinating,” the good doctor commented. “And with less than a two percent grade. How do they maintain perpetual locomotion I wonder? It bears further study.”

Derpy tilted her head and blinked. “When two ponies love each other very much, anything is possible, isn’t it Doc?”

Hooves smoothed his chaste mane with a hoof and regarded his companion. “My dear that’s…really quite profound. Perhaps you’re right.”

Derpy grinned and fluttered her wings. “I like strawberries!”

“Indeed!” Hooves replied, the spring returning to his step. He made to cross the street again, but this time the rumbling of his own stomach gave him pause. “Strawberries, perhaps…would be agreeable at present. I wonder if would could procure a few from somewhere.”

“Didn’t you have any muffins in the bathtub tonight Doc? You can have some of mine when we get back if you want. They might be a little soggy by now though. I eat ‘em fast.”

“Perhaps it would be best if…we didn’t discuss food.” Hooves caught himself when he saw Derpy’s expression saddening. “Not that I don’t appreciate the generous offer! We’ve much more to see and do!”

“You can’t do science stuff on an empty stomach,” Derpy observed. “We should go home.”

Hooves was watching a small collection of mares on the street corner. They were gossiping about every stallion that passed by, giggling, and daring each other to stop one and kiss him. When one of them caught the doctor’s wandering eye, he offered her a toothy smile he often practiced in the mirror at night. The mare blew a silvery bang out of her eye, snerked, and started whispering to her friends. They all glanced at Hooves, laughed, and trotted away.

“I believe I shall…be here for some time yet I’m afraid,” Hooves sighed. “This whole ‘shipping’ concept is not my area of expertise.” There was a nuzzle at his neck, and he felt a wash of warm breath over his jugular.

“Aw, don’t worry about that Doc,” Derpy cooed, rubbing her cheek into his nape. “It’s not so hard. You just gotta kiss somepony!”

“I…have yet to experience such an event.”

Derpy frowned. “You never kissed a pony before? Gee, that’s sorta sad.” The bubbly mare paused, wrapped in thought, until an idea hit her and the lightbulb went on full force. “I think you’re sweet. You wanna kiss me?”

Hooves paused. His cheeks felt faintly warm, and he found that for the first time, he couldn’t look his friend in whichever eye happened to be pointing at him at the time. “I beg your pardon?”

“Kiss me, silly!” Derpy repeated, flexing her wings and swishing her moon-yellow tail. “It’ll be fun! And then we can go home and have muffins in the bathtub together! They might be a little soggy though. I eat ‘em fast.”

“W-well I, that is, I…” Chuckling like a wallflower school-colt, he watched as Derpy’s other eye rolled down to greet him. He certainly could not deny her simplistic charms. “The pursuit of science and mathematics,” he said, trying in vain to change the subject “is a noble vocation, but…a somewhat unattractive one in a world dominated by the convenience of magic. Despite the affect that may or may not have on my…social standing, it is my belief that—did you say in the bathtub…together?”

“Uh-huh!” Derpy nodded rapidly. “And then we can do a sleepover! My bed’s pretty big!”

“Your…your bed,” Hooves found himself tugging at his collar. Variables and equations were like pink elephants on parade before his eyes. He considered them, tracing them from end to end like a proper mathematician, until they congealed into a gooey mass of sugary-sweet warmth in his mind, leaving behind nothing but a heart wreathing his feminine friend’s face. He smiled stupidly.

“I…I accept!” He began playing with his mane again, as if preparing himself for a high school dance. “How shall we…how shall we proceed?”

“You’re silly, Doc!” Derpy crept close enough to boop her analytic friend’s muzzle with her own. “It’s easy! You just purse your lips and you touch the other pony’s with them. Oh, and you should probably smile too.”

Doctor Hooves tried to purse his lips while smiling at the same time. All four of his attempts ended in failure. Derpy giggled at him again and let her eyes go crossed as she touched her lips to his.

A moment later, the two found themselves standing in the exact same spot, on the exact same street. Hooves didn’t open his eyes until he heard the sound of giggling from a passing group of ponies. Pulling back a bit, he glanced around to ensure that the night sky, the illusory buildings, and the thatched magic dome were all still there. He made to comment on the lack of change, but his voice was stolen by the look of his simple friend; her wings were stretched out, her eyes were closed, her lips were still pursed, and her tail was swishing hypnotically. Embarrassed, Hooves cleared his throat twice, finally opting for speech when his companion showed no signs of recognition.

“I believe…” he ventured, “that our theoretical hypothesis is just that. Merely a theory.” Crestfallen, he found himself glancing at his hooves, his mind curiously devoid of facts and figures. Derpy only giggled and nudged him again.

Don’t worry Doc. You’re still two bits and a bale of hay to me!”

Hooves touched his own cheek and smiled softly. “Y-you’re right!” He stood tall, his mind once again coming alive with analysis. “There are more ponies in the stable! Come! Let us seek them out while learning all we can, for learning is indeed the spice of life!”

His passion renewed, the doctor crossed the street at a gallop, hungry more for study than stable. He began inspecting a small ethereal garden outside a house, when his ears swiveled in the direction of something that didn’t belong. Given pause, he raised his head and followed the sound. Derpy had to stop short, and nearly smacked into his rump.

“Here now,” Hooves remarked. “Do you hear that? I do believe it sounds like…music?”

“Ooo,” Derpy commented, “it sounds pretty!”

“Fascinating…let us investigate!”

With only hazy images through the building at the corner to guide them, the two rounded a bend and encountered two mares in the street. One, a white unicorn with a shock of blue mane and sporting curiously inappropriate thick sunglasses at night, was beatboxing and tapping out a rhythm in the dirt. The other, a grey earth pony with a well-groomed raven mane, was playing, of all things, a cello.

“You know,” the musical grey pony paused, “while I acquiesce that this worked well at the wedding and I wholeheartedly support your idea of helping to make our fellows feel at peace through music, I hesitate to consider spitting and kicking up clumps of dust to qualify as an appropriate means by which to soothe the savage beast.”

The white unicorn only shrugged and spat out another series of surprisingly rhythmic beats. The grey earth mare sighed.

“I can’t ever get you to be quiet at home, and now that we’re in this situation you have nothing to say? Honestly.”

Hooves, ever curious, inserted himself into the conversation. “Excuse me madam, but may I inquire as to how you came across such a…tangible affectation?”

Octavia turned her attention abruptly towards Hooves and removed her bow from the strings. “I didn’t ‘come across’ it. It’s my personal instrument. I was playing it in the living room at the time, and we recently acquired a mirror for the mantle. And then all this,” she pointed the bow at the domed barrier above, “nonsense has taken me from my practice. Honestly. The idea that I would ‘ship’ myself just because some old nursery rhyme demands it.”

Vinyl Scratch broke up her rhythm just long enough to loudly kiss her own hoof a few times and blow it at Octavia. She grinned; her expression strengthening when the classical pony shrunk a bit.

“D-don’t talk to other ponies about that,” Octavia blushed, “I still say it’s your fault it didn’t work. A-and besides,” Octavia was glancing at Hooves and Derpy out of the corner of her eye, “I could just as easily tell a them ponies what you tried shortly after we arrived here. Rutabagas are not intended for such purposes.”

Vinyl’s shades slipped down and she peered at everypony from overtop of them, blushing in her own right.

“Yes yes, never mind that,” Hooves interjected. “May I say that the rhyme and meter of that piece was particularly compelling.”

Octavia raised a brow and huffed proudly. “I…well, thank you. It was, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed!” the doctor grinned, suddenly confident. “Tell me, are you familiar with the concept of mathematical theory as applied to music?”

Octavia blinked and flicked an ear. “Music has no axiomatic foundation in modern mathematics.”

The good doctor’s jaw nearly phased through the sidewalk. Variables and equations were again like pink elephants on parade before his eyes. He considered them, tracing them from end to end like a proper mathematician, until they congealed into a gooey mass of sugary-sweet warmth in his mind, leaving behind nothing but a heart wreathing the musical mare’s face. He smiled stupidly.

“Ah, but mathematics is the basis of sound, my dear! The attempt to structure and communicate new ways of composing and hearing music has led to musical applications of set theory, abstract algebra and number theory. Some composers have incorporated the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers into their work. Why, I myself have even composed a melody or two when inspiration strikes!”

Derpy was examining other ponies wandering the street while at the same time staring up at the moon. “Wow Doc, that’s heavy. The last time you talked like that, you asked me for 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, but I dunno what a gigawatt is.”

“Weight has nothing to do with it!” Hooves declared. He broke Octavia’s personal space bubble and touched her on the shoulder. “Please! I insist that we engage in the concept known as ‘jamming’!”

“You…you what?” Octavia, taken aback, withered under Hooves’s piercing gaze and dapper smile. “You can’t be serious. You don’t even have an instrument.” Vinyl opened her mouth, but Octavia pointed her bow accusingly at the electronic mare. “No spitting!”

Vinyl Scratch stuck her lower lip out and sat back. Derpy patted her on the head and engaged her in a one-sided conversation about the Equestrian postal service.

“Ah, but I do!” Hooves went on. “Believe it or not, I was actually quite the young vocalist back in my Manehatten East Bend Colts’ Choir days. Here then, here,” he cleared his throat dramatically and stood up tall. “Da da da DUM da da DUM dat da dat DAH! Dum dum da da da da dat da DAT da!”

Vinyl cringed. Derpy winced. Octavia beamed.

“Why, with form and structure like that, perhaps…” The grey earth mare touched her bow to the strings of her cello and strung out a melody to match the intensely logical collection of random notes the doctor had put forth. Her tune was more like actual music, but it somehow complimented the strange concoction of mathematical sound.”

“Great whickering stallions!” Hooves cried, rearing up and kicking the air with his forelegs. “It’s like an equation of pure sound!” Desperately he tried to catch up with the runaway freight train that was his mind, “Square the roots, carry the fours, sine the cosines, and….AND—!”

They played. Some ponies tapped along. Some covered their ears. Many however, would remember the bizarre pentameter for years to come; its perfect poise, its romantic yet powerful logicality, and its romantic, incalculable, algebraic grace were the stuff of Ponyville legend.

Octavia sawed away with all the tenacity of a Georgian devil. “Doctor! I demand we collaborate on an album!”

With Astaire in his hooves and an old Casablancan grin on his lips, Doctor Hooves slid up next to his instrumental accompaniment, took her in his arms unabashedly, met her eyes with the unfathomable depths of his own, and forgot all about his days as a fly on the wall or his four left hooves. Quelled, she could only touch the tip of her nose with his and let out her passion in a series of heaving breaths.

“Allons-y!” Hooves cried just before burying himself into his second ever kiss.

POOF

Disappointed, the ponies who had gathered to view the piece of musical history departed until nopony was left on the side street except Vinyl Scratch and Derpy. The inexplicable sound of cricketsong, which may or may not have even been real, met with a soft breeze that scattered dust down the street.

“Gee, that was kinda pretty,” Derpy mused. One of her eyes caught the pensive look on Vinyl’s face – the unicorn was just lying in the dirt, her chin supported in her hooves, watching the spot where her friend disappeared. With a huff and a scattering of dust, the grey pegasus plopped thoughtfully down on her rump beside the other pony.

“You tease her sometimes, huh?”

Vinyl nodded.

“And she teases you.”

Vinyl nodded again.

“But you really kinda like her, huh.”

The unicorn nodded a third time. She looked up at Derpy from behind her sunglasses. Honest, exposed magenta eyes seemed a little distant. For a time, the two just sat there, silently musing on their predicament by the light of the high moon.

“Do you like muffins?” Derpy finally inquired, her lazy eye drifting off in another direction. “I like the blueberry ones the best. When I get home I’m gonna finish the ones I left in the tub. Muffins taste better in the tub. They get soggy though. I eat ‘em fast.”

Vinyl laid there, and said nothing. Derpy smiled a silly smile.

“You want some too? You can come over if you want to. You seem nice.”

The unicorn let out a small sigh.

“You know what? I really like electronic music. And strawberries.”

Derpy found herself flat on her back so fast, she couldn’t say which one of her eyes was getting a view of the stars. The other, however, was filled with the grinning visage of the white unicorn with the shock of blue mane, who was now firmly above; her hooves planted to either side of Derpy’s head.

A pair of sunglasses with purple lenses clattered to the ground. Vinyl Scratch waggled her eyebrows.

POOF

7 - You'll Do

Sweetie Belle wasn’t exactly sure, but she could swear the moon hadn’t moved in hours. It was still hanging right at the peak of its journey across the sky, as if it had stalled out or just refused to go on. She couldn’t help but empathize.

“Whut’s the matter, Sweetie Belle?” Applebloom tilted her head quizzically. “Yer face is so long it looks like it’s gonna slip right offa ya like melted ice cream or sumthin’.”

“Thanks for that image I didn’t need,” Scootaloo commented sarcastically.

“This is all my fault,” Sweetie Belle lamented, hanging her head. “I should never have even brought Shipshape up in the first place. Now everypony is stuck here until they admit stuff they might not feel comfortable admitting.”

“It’s not your fault,” Scootaloo tried to smile, but the sudden approach of an object she couldn’t identify obliged her to flutter her stubby wings and kick herself out of the way. The three crusaders watched two mares – a unicorn and an earth pony, tangled in each other’s legs and smooching wildly, roll down the street. Applebloom kicked at the dirt, testing the grade.

“How d’you s’pose they do that?” The farm filly observed.

Scootaloo blushed. “Geez, somepony get a room or something.”

“Cain’t. Ain’t none of them are real.” Applebloom’s heart warmed a bit as she noticed her comment bringing a smile to Sweetie Belle’s lips.

“Really it’s more like this is all my fault,” Scootaloo sighed, “I should have left well enough alone.” She looked as if she had more to say, but instead, the little orange filly lifted her eyes to the sky and fixated on the moon, just watching it hang there for a time.

“Bit fer yer thoughts?” Applebloom nudged. “You okay?”

Scootaloo didn’t reply. It wasn’t the most dejected expression the remaining crusaders had ever seen from their friend, but something in the eyes of the pegasus gave away that more was on her mind then she was letting on.

“Rainbow Dash, huh.” Sweetie Belle surmised. Scootaloo’s ears went up and the color in her cheeks deepened.

“What about Rainbow Dash!? I didn’t say a word about Rainbow Dash!!”

Applebloom giggled a bit, “Like ya ever needed to before.”

“It comes through loud and clear!” Sweetie Belle declared loudly. “Everypony at school knows!”

Scootaloo glanced in every direction and tried to pull her head down into her neck like a turtle. “Kn-knows what!? There’s nothing to know!” She bit her lip and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper, mortified by even a simple oblivious glance from a few passersby. “Rainbow Dash and the Headless Horse…a-am I really that easy to read?”

“Uh-huh!” Both her companions sang together. When Scootaloo didn’t chime in on the ribbing, Applebloom frowned, trotted over, and touched her shoulder.

“We’re only funnin’. Ah’m sorry it didn’t work out for ya.”

Scootaloo tried to shrug her feelings off. “She’s like the most awesomest flyer in all Equestria, and I’m just a blank flank filly that can’t even get air for ten seconds. She probably never saw me like that anyway.”

“Ah think she cares a lot about you,” Applebloom countered. “Yer like her little sis that she ain’t never had. And its normal that pegasi our age cain’t fly, ain’t it?”

“Mister Cake’s son can fly and he’s like a month old,” Sweetie Belle commented. Applebloom shot the unicorn filly a ‘you’re not helping’ glance, and she backpeddled. “B-but I’m sure he’s like a savant or something! Totally not normal! He’ll probably grow up with all sorts of social problems, and be like Rain Pony or something, and he’ll just hang around all day eating muffins in the bathtub and making spooky sounds, and…and…and I’m gonna stop talking now.”

“What about you?” Scootaloo glanced up at Applebloom. “Who’s your very special somepony?” Before Applebloom could open her mouth, the pegasus straightened and was on the offensive. “And don’t even tell me you don’t have one! It’s only fair I get to know if you both know, and I’m not kissing anypony at all around here until you both go first, so I’ll find out one way or another! I heard Princess Celestia talking to Princess Twilight earlier, an’ she said if you really don’t have a very special somepony, Shipshape can’t take you. So even if you don’t know who it is yet, you’ve got to have one, or else you wouldn’t be here!”

“Whut?” Applebloom balked, “You are not gonna wait fer us t’kiss somepony an’ see who it is! I’ma gonna do that!”

“No way!” Sweetie Belle cut in. “That’s what I was gonna do! Stop stealing my ideas!”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders spent the next few minutes bickering and posturing at one another. Passing ponies, many in the arms of another and just enjoying the night air, chuckled and moved on with ‘ah youth’ on their lips.

“I bet it’s you and Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo accused her Earth pony friend jokingly. “Applebloom and Sweetie, in the Everfree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

Sweetie Belle gasped. “N-no it’s not! See!?” Caught up in the heat of the moment, the unicorn nabbed the Apple filly’s cheeks in both her hooves and planted a firm peck right on the tip of her muzzle. Applebloom wrenched away and wiped at her nose, blushing furiously.

“Eww! Cut it out! There, ya see? It ain’t neither us!”

“Ohhhh yeah?” Scootaloo sang, a sly grin turning up the corners of her lips. “I heard you’ve gotta kiss them on the lips for it to count. You’re totally hiding something.”

“Maybe you’re the one hiding something!” Sweetie Belle returned. “You kiss Applebloom on the lips and we’ll see what happens then!”

Applebloom flailed her forelegs and sputtered. “Hey! Why’s everypony only kissin’ me!? If you wanna kiss somepony so bad then y’all kiss!”

Scootaloo could feel the heat caressing her from maneline to collarbone, but she didn’t back down. She couldn’t back down. Rainbow Dash would never fly away from a challenge. Scootaloo nabbed Applebloom, spun her around, and cupped her cheeks exactly the same way Sweetie Belle had a moment before. However, suddenly coming eye-to-eye with her friend in such an intimate way made her hesitate.

“Do it! Do it!” Sweetie Belle chanted, gleefully bucking at the air. Applebloom averted her eyes down to the street and fluttered her lashes, stiffening.

“It’s just for fun,” Scootaloo encouraged softly. “Let’s show her up and get back to figuring out how we’re all gonna get out of here crusader-style, huh?”

Applebloom swallowed through a thick lump in her throat that hadn’t been there a moment ago and offered a lopsided smile. “Yeah, uh…sure. Crusader style. Ain’t nuthin’ Cutie Mark Crusaders cain’t handle!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Giggling, the fillies rubbed noses and gave each other an innocent, playful peck. Sweetie Belle shut her eyes and hopped up in the air twice, swishing her tail merrily. For the first time since the trip through the mirror, she didn’t feel either scared or ashamed. She was acting as bold as she could, but the truth was, this was all too much for her. She didn’t want to find her very special somepony…not yet, anyway. It was enough to just be a Cutie Mark Crusader, playing with her friends. Together, even in a place like this, they could all—

POOF

Sweetie Belle’s eyes snapped open. She was alone.

“…what? Applebloom? Scootaloo? Girls…?” The lone crusader glanced up and down the street and into the middle of buildings. She galloped around, poking her head into groups of ponies and checking the magic dome for any holes large enough for a filly to fit through. When she’d nearly exhausted herself, she wandered into the middle of the street and plopped down on her rump, her tail flopping in the dust.

“B-but,” she whimpered, “…what about me?”

For a time the unicorn filly just lay there in the street. Her ears spun like satellite dishes, picking up transmissions from all around her. The chirping of crickets and the rustling of leaves may not have been real, but the pleasant and even romantic conversations seemed like they were the only topic on everypony’s lips. Sweetie Belle gritted her teeth. Didn’t it even bother anypony that they were trapped in some weird magic bubble thingy, where nothing was real, there was no food to eat, and escape meant either smooching some random pony or admitting feelings you didn’t want anypony to know you have? How could everypony just go along with it?

Why did her friends go home without her?

Sweetie Belle felt like crying, and maybe she would have, if not for the sudden appearance of a daisy only inches from the tip of her muzzle. She went cross-eyed staring at the thing – wondering how the flower could just float in midair like that. And then she caught its…scent? She reached out, prodded at it, and realized her hoof wasn’t going right through it.

It was real. And there was a purple, scaly fist attached to it.

“Here.” Spike, Twilight’s infant dragon assistant, was standing in the street offering the little flower. “I got a couple more. You look like you could use it more than me.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes up to meet the visage of the little dragon without moving the rest of her body. “How’d you do that? Nothing here’s real.”

Spike smiled a toothy, sheepish grin. “I was watering the vase in sixth bathroom down the east hall. Twilight thought it was silly to keep flowers in there ‘cause there’s like fourteen bathrooms in the palace we don’t even use, but I thought it was a nice touch. It’s a really thin vase. Y’gotta take the flowers out to pour water in it.”

Sweetie Belle lit her horn. An aura of pale green energy surrounded the flower and slipped it gently from Spike’s grasp. She nearly dropped it three times, but with an easy pace and a little time, the unicorn managed to magically thread the daisy through her mane, around her left ear. When she glanced back and found the dragon still openly staring at her, she felt her face warm up.

“Gee thanks, that was really nice of you Spike.” She eyed him for a moment, and she wondered…maybe? She’d never really thought about Spike that way before, and she still wasn’t sure, but she’d heard the part of Shipshape’s story that claimed you might not even know your somepony – or somecreature, when you see them “Uh, so hey, um…”

“Sure, no sweat.” Spike’s eyes lit up, “Hey, is your sister around?”

The lone crusader’s bubble burst. Right. She should have seen that one coming a mile away. She shook her head and sighed. “Nope. Haven’t seen her in hours. For all I know she found her very special somepony by now. Since, you know, like everypony’s looking for one.”

“What…?” Spike’s smile wilted faster than the flowers in his grasp could droop. He shook his head sharply and snerked a breath through his nose so hard that Sweetie Belle could see embers fly from his nostrils. “Nahhhhh! She’s totally still here! She has to be!” He glanced both ways down the street, “So where do you think I can find her? I wanted to…you know…give her these flowers ‘cause she’s…such a nice friend. And all.”

Sweetie Belle got to her hooves, looking droll. “Uh-huh. How would I know?”

“Well, you know,” Spike began walking around the little white pony in a circle, stopping every few paces to examine a new street. He never once paused to look at her. “You’re her sister, so you ponies have like a sisterly bond or something, don’t you? So you know where she is and what she’s thinking, and when one of you gets hurt the other one feels it, like bad guys in comic books, right?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Sweetie Belle mused sarcastically. “She likes fancy clothes, fainting, and talking to herself like she’s the entire upper crust of Canterlot when she thinks I’m asleep at night. She always talks about how her prince, a tall white steed, is going to come for her someday. I don’t know what a ‘steed’ is, but she’s prob’ly looking for him right now.”

“A tall white steed!?” Spike was beside himself. “No way am I gonna let a tall white steed beat me to my date with dest—I mean to spending quality time with your sist—I mean to giving these totally platonic flowers to my friend to show her how much of a friend I am and how much I appreciate her friendship as a friend!!”

Sweetie Belle giggled. Spike was a little silly…and a little gluttonous…and a little greedy…and a couple other things, but his devotion and loyalty were admirable. “Spike, you know you have to kiss somepony to get out of here, right?”

The little dragon stiffened. “…yeah, so?”

“So have you been…I dunno…uh…” she’d meant to tease him, but the words were proving difficult. “experimenting?”

The filly and the dragon stared dumbly at one another for a long moment. Spike opened his eyes wide...and scrunched his noise.

“With you? Eww, no. You’re just a kid.”

Sweetie’s mousey expression boiled over, and she thought about all those ‘other’ things that Spike was. “I never said anything about ME! And look who’s talking! You’re just a baby!”

Spike waved his claw dismissively and was already walking away, “You’re just not my type, that’s all. Sorry.”

Sweetie Belle thought about being alone again. Rather than continuing to complain, she scrambled to fall in with the little dragon on his quest. “Hey, wait up! Where are you going, anyway?”

“This is a copy of Ponyville, right? Then there has to be a Carousel Boutique.”

Spike’s gait was purposeful; his stare resolute. This was his chance – his one chance, and by Celestia, he wasn’t going to flub it. Ignoring greetings from several ponies, he plodded on towards his destination, pausing only to check the flowers in his fist and proudly smooth back his crest. Confidence began setting in, and his eyes narrowed with the bit of cunning that always seeped into his brain whenever he had an plan. There was no better time, and really, all he needed to do was be brave enough for one kiss. Just one. Shipshape would do the rest. Shipshape was always right. Even if you didn’t know it yourself.

It didn’t take the dragon long to find his quarry, but the murky, distorted image behind the transparent copy of Rarity’s home and business showed something he wasn’t expecting. There were four shapes moving about. Stopping Sweetie Belle with a wave of his arm, he paused in the street to examine them. One of them was white, and moved about on four legs the way a pony would. The other three were various shades of muddy browns and greys. Either they were rearing up a lot, or they were bipedal. The darker shapes surrounded the white one and loomed over it.

Spike’s eyes went wide, and the worst possible images filtered into his mind. In the turning of a second he was off, adrenaline carrying him at a healthy speed even for a pony with twice as many legs.

“Hey!” Sweetie Belle struggled to keep up. “What’s the matter!?”

“She’s in trouble!” Spike cried out, the breeze he was creating throwing his words back at her. “Somebody’s attacking her! We gotta help!!”

Spike narrowed his eyes. His breaths began to gain weight, and with each one he could feel the fire in his belly yearning to be set free. As he charged straight through the wall of the boutique, he took a deep breath, intending to fry whatever sorry creature would dare accost his lady fair. Sweetie Belle, confused and frightened, followed behind just because she didn’t want to be left alone in the street. The dragon was so tiny she could barely hide behind him, but his sheer determination was inspiring.

When they emerged from the other side of the building, the image before them stopped them both in their tracks. Rarity, the matron of the Carousel Boutique, regarded them from her position sitting atop a diamond dog, who was on all fours.

“Oh, Spike dear. You’re here too, hm?” She nodded at them both. “And Sweetie Belle! Well, how are you and your friends getting along tonight?”

Two more diamond dogs were flanking the unicorn mare. One of them was trying in vain to fan her with his jacket tied between his arms, while the other was fumbling to brush her tail with his bare paws. Rarity eyed them each in turn. “You there! You call this a breeze? I’m practically suffocating. And you! I could do a better grooming job with echolocation!”

“Yes Miss Rarity!” Both of them barked in unison. Rarity nudged the one beneath her with a hind hoof.

“I can most certainly say that this is the most lumpy living couch I have ever had the misfortune to rest upon. Why, I could end up with cramps! Be a dear and take care of that for me, won’t you?”

“Yes Miss Rarity!” The third dog replied before cavorting his body at what looked like a considerably painful angle.

Spike, his flowers drooping all by themselves again, held a hoof over Sweetie Belle’s eyes. Sweetie Belle, stiff as a board, held her foreleg over Spike’s eyes.

Rarity smiled and turned her attention back to her little sister and the dragon. “Better. Oh dear, what’s the matter with the two of you? Dust in your eyes? There’s far too much of that around here. If you ask me, somepony should find this ‘Shipshape’ and suggest he hire a housekeeper!”

“Sis?” Sweetie Belle finally ventured. “What’s all this…?”

“This?” Rarity looked oblivious until she bothered to notice the dogs again. “Ah, this? Oh don’t mind them, dear. They’re just trying to make me feel better after I was so rudely accosted and deprived of my first ki—” She cleared her throat, “…well. Let’s just say I’ve had a rough night.” She gave the dogs bedroom eyes, “But you three are my precious little puppies, now aren’t you?”

Rarity reached out and tickled the jacket-waving dog under the chin with the tip of her hoof. He panted, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling until all three of them raised their heads to bay at the moon. Thoroughly pampered, Rarity reclined on her living ottoman and glanced up at the stars. “I must say, this isn’t at all as bad as I thought at first. They have a bit of an odor, but I’m sure that’s nothing a good shampooing couldn’t take care of.” She reached out and tested some of the fabric that was being used as a makeshift fan, and made a face. “Mm…satin baldrics, powdered wigs…perhaps some hose and pantaloons. Yes, they might just even be worth keeping around!”

“They can’t stay in my room!” Sweetie Belle interjected. Rarity only laughed.

“Oh of course not dear, I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ll build a dog house in the yard. Behind the boutique, of course. It hardly matters anymore. I’m damaged goods and my prince isn’t going to come for me, so I might as well make due.”

“What?” Sweetie Belle reached out to her sister, suddenly wondering about the elder unicorn’s odd behavior. “Sis, are you okay…?”

“Yes Miss Rarity!” The diamond dogs shouted together, cutting off the little filly’s inquiry. Sweetie Belle made a gagging face. She turned to Spike to share her feelings on the whole idea, but he was nowhere to be found. Glancing around, she finally caught him walking away, his head down and his tail dragging. The flowers were scattered in the dirt. Suddenly feeling more indignant than sympathetic, Sweetie whirled on her big sister with the intention of chastising her for the little dragon’s feelings, but—

POOF

They were gone. All four of them. Sweetie Belle felt bile rising in her throat.

“…she totally did NOT just…with all three of…that’s so gross.”

Trying in vain to banish the image from her mind and wondering what could have prompted her sister to make such an image a reality, the little unicorn caught up with the baby dragon, who was sitting in the dirt near the boutique with his chin in his claws. She sat down beside him and put on her best happy filly face.

“Cheer up,” Sweetie ventured. “So my sister’s got some, um…problems lately. Don’t take it personally. It’s just…” words failed her, “…it’s just Shipshape, right?”

Spike didn’t move, and didn’t speak. Sweetie Belle got back to her hooves. A moment later, Spike found himself staring at a single daisy, floating in a green aura about six inches from his nose. Nearly going cross-eyed, he plucked the dirty, partially smooshed flower from midair and glanced up.

“There’s more ponies in the stable!” Sweetie Belle smiled merrily. “Don’t give up!”

Spike, a neutral expression on his face, stood up. His gaze passed back and forth between the flower and the filly enough times that Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to try to offer some other words of encouragement, but the dragon pinched her lips shut between his thumb and forefinger. Before she could protest he simply let go, but now his face was inches from hers and his wide gaze was hard to avoid. She shrank.

“Are you, um…are you okay?”

Spike replied by grabbing both of Sweetie Belle’s cheeks, pulling on them, and letting go until they snapped back in place. Before she could even say ‘ow’ he was prying her eyelid back with one claw while smoothing her maneline away with the other. Sweetie was beginning to wonder if the poking and prodding was some sort of bizarre dragon mating ritual until it altogether ceased. Spike spoke, but he didn’t appear to be addressing anypony in particular.

“Hmm…little eyeshadow, some mane dye, an hour with a curling iron…maybe some stencils on the flank,” he shrugged, grinning to himself. “Yeah, you’ll do. Sisters and all that.”

Sweetie Belle didn’t have time to flail before the not-entirely-coherent dragon caught her in his arms and planted one on her.

POOF

Sweetie Belle had long thought about what her first kiss was going to be like. This wasn’t what she had in mind.

8 - Prudish Chaos Cake

Twilight fluttered her wings and lifted herself off the ground just in time to keep from being bowled over by a pair of mares that were rolling down the street, locked in one another’s legs and smooching like mad. When she landed again, she tapped the dirt with a hoof and examined it.

“…how do they do that?” She mused aloud.

She didn’t have much time to consider the question. At once she was set upon by a group of ponies who were peppering her with questions and problems. ‘Why did this happen?’ ‘Is Shipshape really real?’ ‘I don’t wanna tell he/she I like them this way.’ ‘I kissed my lover but didn’t go home, why?’ Twilight held up a hoof.

“Now now, wait a minute…one at a time, one at a time—”

She tried in vain to maintain order, but the crowed surged forward and surrounded her, begging their princess for guidance. After trying to address all of their concerns at once, her fight or flight response kicked in and she took to the air, sailing several streets over and not coming down until she was certain there were enough hazy buildings between her and the mob to mask her image. She checked to make sure the street was empty, and let out a deflating sigh.

Comfortable that she was alone but ashamed that she ran away, Twilight vented while kicking up a cloud of dust. “Why me? I don’t know anything about how all this works. Princess Celestia is still here. Why don’t they go to her? Every time there’s a threat of some kind it’s always some ancient legend that just happens to not be anywhere in the books I’ve been studying all my life. Is Equestrian history really that poorly recorded? Or am I just…am I just…” She paused and slipped down to her rump in the dust, staring up at that moon that hadn’t moved in hours. “…am I just a prude?”

“Bit for your thoughts?” A voice spoke up. Twilight snapped her eyes open and looked around, but the street was still deserted. “Of course I’ll be requiring change,” the voice continued. “On second thought, you should be paying me for the privilege.”

Twilight’s ears perked. She knew that voice well enough, but it was the last one she was expecting to hear. She lit her horn like a torch, but a second later she felt it wink out like a doused candle. Cross-eyed, she looked up to find a three-inch-tall draconequus standing on her head. Discord’s paw, preposterously large at its normal size, had her horn pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

“Discord!” Twilight growled. “This is all your fault, isn’t it? Ow, hey!”

Discord stamped around in Twilight’s mane. “Really, do you use conditioner? Do you even wash this thing? I mean I can understand a bit of fashionable B.O. now and then, but this is just – oh my, I think I just found some dandruff.”

“Off my head!” Twilight rumbled, shaking her head violently.

“Now now!” Discord was suddenly floating a few feet in front of Twilight. “You youngsters just don’t know what kind of damage you can do to your brains by moshing like that. Though I suppose you’d be immune.”

“Fix this!” Twilight declared. “Fix it now!”

“Ohhh no you don’t, mon princesse!” Discord vanished – when he reappeared again, he was his normal size. He was wearing a black and red charro suit, complete with a garishly tassled sombrero and a trumpet in his paw. “I had nothing to do with this. For real this time! I’m here to mariachi!!”

With that, Discord blew out a screeching cacophony of dissonance on his horn that was enough to force Twilight to cover her ears with her hooves. She shut her eyes tightly and screamed for him to stop until the noise abruptly ceased. Surprised at the sudden compliance, she opened her eyes and yelped when she found herself floating in midair, Discord’s eyes mere inches from her own.

“I suppose we’d better get this over with.” The chaotic creature sighed. Twilight opened her mouth to demand to be let down, but the moment she parted her lips, he sprayed her throat with an aerosol can of mouthwash he produced from nowhere and claimed her lips with his own in a vicelike embrace. Wide-eyed and flailing, Twilight hung like that for half a minute before Discord cancelled whatever magical hold he had on her, and she collapsed on her back in the dirt.

Discord snapped his fingers. “Nuts. Well, I suppose that’s exactly what I should have expected. I appreciate your feelings for me princess, but it would never work. I hope you’ll understand.”

Twilight didn’t know what was worse; the pain along her spine, or the damnable blush on her cheeks. She righted herself with magic instead of getting up manually, just to show off her own power. When the purple aura around her faded she narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t—I would never! Not with you!”

“Oh really?” The draconequus replied. “That’s not what Fluttershy said.”

“…she said what?”

“Who said what?”

“Fluttershy.”

“Who?”

“Fluttershy! The yellow pony!”

“What pony?”

“The yellow pony!!”

“Ohhhhh, yes!” Discord banished his garish outfit and was suddenly behind Twilight, whispering into her ear. “…did you like my tongue? I brush it twice a day you know. You can borrow it sometime if you like.”

“ACK!” Twilight doubled over at the very thought, coughing and spitting at the ground.

Discord leaned up against an illusory building without falling through it and checked a wristwatch he wasn’t wearing, while letting out a number of dramatically deep, clearly bored sighs. “Must you be so dramatic? You weren’t that bad. It was good for me too. You really should brush more, though.”

Twilight went right back on the warpath. “Discord, listen to me,” She rubbed one temple and tried to will her headache to go away, “Everypony is trapped in some weird pocket dimension, we are rapidly running out of princesses, and I’m running out of explanations! You’ve had your fun, so can you please just knock it off already?”

Discord frowned and placed a paw on his chest. “Mon princesse, you wound me! Surely the Princess of Friendship knows how to catch more parasprites with honey, doesn’t she?”

Twilight deadpanned. “Can you pretty, pretty please knock it off?”

Discord made a ‘gimmie’ gesture with one paw.

“Pretty, pretty please with…” Twilight gritted her teeth, “…with sugar on top?”

Discord grinned.

“Discord, please,” Twilight took a deep breath and tried her very best to smile, “pretty, pretty please, I would personally very much appreciate it and be very grateful if you would kindly consider putting an end to the…‘fun’ for the evening?”

Discord shrugged. “Can’t. Already told you it’s not my fault.”

“Then why did you make me ask you like that!?”

Discord stuck his claw in his ear and pulled out a Dictaphone. He pressed a button on it and closed his eyes, bopping to an imaginary beat as Twilight’s sweet words played back. “This is my favorite single! Why, I’ll listen to it when I’m out mowing the swimming pool or looking for the two white picket fences inside my cat yard. They’re such scoundrels, you know. And pointy!”

Twilight started walking away. Discord fell in with her, floating upside down over her head.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not princess, but the truth is, I’m just as much a prisoner here as you are. Why, I used to play this game all the time with the less uptight ponies of yesteryear before it fell out of fashion. Ah, but I was quite the Casanova back then! Why you should have seen my harem! Let me tell you about them, there was Hot to Trot - oh was she a hottie; Excitebike was a barrel of laughs…oh, and how could I forget Taster’s Choice! Oh my, but she had the most lovely—”

Twilight held her hoof up sharply. Discord huffed.

“Fine, be that way. Everypony knows you’re just a prude anyway.”

“I am not a prude!” Twilight exclaimed. “Even I can’t be expected to know about every single legend in all of Equestrian history!”

“And yet you’re the only one that doesn’t know this one,” Discord pointed out. “Now, where’s Fluttershy? Fun’s fun, but I left the stove on and I’d prefer the house not to be a solid block of ice when I get home. It would be the third time this week, you know.”

Twilight harumphed. “She’s gone.”

Discord seemed to falter. “…gone? Gone where?”

“Home, I guess,” Twilight managed to make the gesture of shrugging her shoulders look sloppy and insulting. “I guess she was sufficiently ‘shipped’ enough to get out of here. She left with—”

“…that annoying little flax seed snorting sycophant with the dred-mane,” Discord interrupted, grinding his teeth.

“Actually no, it wasn’t Treehugger. Fluttershy left with—”

Discord snapped his fingers; Twilight felt her jaw abruptly and painfully shut. “Enough!” The draconequus growled. “I don’t even want to know. Suffice to say a certain pegasus and I will be having a little poneo-a-poneo chat when this is all over.”

Twilight raised a brow. For a moment she almost felt sorry for the chaotic being. Almost. “Discord, I know Fluttershy is your friend, but I don’t really think she feels that way about—”

“And what about you?” Discord cut the purple princess off a third time. “Where’s your steed in shining armor? Too busy with Shining Armor? I saw that earlier, you know. Never knew your brother’s tail swung that way, but I suppose it’s not unexpected. I mean look at the female influences the poor colt had growing up.”

Twilight blushed again, but she didn’t dignify the comment with a response.

“Oh?” Discord floated smugly, “Griffon got your tongue? Or maybe you wish one did? Where are you off to, anyway?”

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight stated matter-of-factly. “If anypony knows what to do next, it’s her.”

“If anypony knows what to d—!!” Discord repeated the words but couldn’t finish the thought. “Look around you, Uptight Sparkle!” Twilight was obliged to stop in her tracks when a hapless green stallion and a butternut-colored mare both appeared floating in front of her.

“When two ponies love each other very much,” Discord instructed, “they do the four-legged mambo! The mane mamma-jamma! They learn cutie mark capoeira and christen everything in the forest until they can’t take it anymore!” The draconequus waggled his finger. The two confused ponies flew into each other, their lips mooshed together, and they vanished. Discord went on, “And then POOF! That, Twilight Poppins, is what to do next! So why not make a good example for your ‘subjects’ and find yourself a nice stallion! Or a nice mare! Or that little purple slave you make carry your books all over town! Surely he must have Stockhoof Syndrome by now!”

Twilight, refusing to play the game, resumed her course towards the center of town. Discord was silent for so long she thought she was rid of him, but he was right there watching her when she finally looked up again.

“…is there something on my face?” The princess queried. Discord emitted a grin Twilight was sure Pinkie Pie would have been proud of.

“Why yes my dear, there is. And it all makes sense now!” Cackling, he did a somersault in midair while Twilight poked obliviously at her own cheeks. “How could I not have seen it before? The deference, the bowing and scraping, the ‘dear Princess Celestia’ letters, that photo you keep under your pillow—don’t think I don’t know about that—the feigned ‘noble’ decision to lay around here and rot because you think it’s somehow good for morale, it just makes perfect sense! Somepony’s hot for teacher!!”

Twilight’s blood ran cold and her eyes were like tea saucers. “I am not!!”

Discord’s jaundiced eyes were suddenly taking up Twilight’s entire field of vision. He kept his accusation going. “You want the pesky omnipotent being of pure chaos to go away because you don’t want anypony to see that you’re about to go admit your feelings to your Mistress, and throw yourself on the mercy of her bedchamber. And you’re absolutely terrified that she might say no, or if she does say yes, that Shipshape won’t give your happy nuptials his blessing. Don’t deny it—” Discord stuck his head through Twilight’s flank, clear to the other side, “Because I can see right through you!”

Twilight shut her eyes so tight she felt a tear welling up in one of them. She bolted away from the taunting draconequus, who sang after her:

“You’re not a prude at all! You’re a closet stalker! Admit it and you’ll be happier~!”

Twilight galloped with her eyes closed until she inevitably struck another solid pony and was cast off balance. Landing hard in the dirt, she opened her eyes to find a pale yellow hoof held out to her. She took it, pulled herself up, and was already apologizing before identifying her benefactor.

“Well, I’ll be!” The voice attached to the hoof exclaimed, “Look here brother! We’re in the very presence of royalty!”

“So I see, brother!” Another familiar, lanky unicorn replied. “And she’s just in time, too! Now princess, you wouldn’t mind if we bent your ears for just one little moment, would you?”

Twilight shook the shock out of her static-charged brain and got her bearings. She knew the Flim Flam brothers well enough, but she was surprised to find Aloe and Lotus, the proprietors of the Ponyville Day Spa, on each brother’s foreleg. Flim traced a rectangular picture in the air with his hoof, and the brothers went on without waiting for Twilight to acknowledge them, liberally completing one another’s sentences.

“Before you say anything at all princess, may I say that it’s a pleasure—”

“—an honor!”

“—a privilege to bask in your royal presence, for lowly—”

“—honest!”

“—salesponies like us! Why, I was just this minute discussing a brand new—”

“—stupendous!”

“—business proposition with my brother and these two lovely young mares here. What does this place need more than anything else, you say?”

Twilight looked blank. “A disclaimer?”

“A disclaimer she says!” Flam laughed and slapped his brother’s shoulder. “Very astute, very astute, but no! What this dusty old dimension needs is pure and simple as the muzzles on our lovely marefriend’s faces! License!”

Twilight wasn’t in the mood for this, and not all of her cylinders were firing. She stared uncomprehendingly. “License?”

“I’m glad you agree!” Flim declared. Flam reared up, holding his forelegs akimbo in the air and staring up as if he were reading from a giant marquee.

“FlimFlam’s Sensational Shapeshipping Special Somepony Day Spa!” Doesn’t that have a lovely sound to it, brother?”

“Indeed it does, brother! Why, ponies from far and wide will be captivated by our class! Beguiled by our boldness! And hypnotized by the histrionic hooficures, fabulous facials, and magnificent, melodious massages of our brand new business partners, Miss Aloe and Miss Lotus! Tell ‘er girls – all about those big, big plans!”

Aloe touched her cheek with a hoof and smiled eagerly. “Zis could be exactly vat de spa needs, you know?” She sighed deeply, “Eet is so romantic I am havink ze shivers just thinking of eet!”

“Yes, yes!” Lotus chimed in. “Eet vill be ze one-stop experience! Ze pony can get ze’re very favorite spa experience and be matched with ze’re very special somepony all at ze same time!

“And all we need—” Flim produced a cocktail napkin from under his hat and unfolded it. It was almost completely covered in hastily scrawled, questionable legalese. “Is the hoofprint of an honored, cherished—”

“—and beloved!”

“—princess, declaring an exclusive copyright on Shipshape’s summoning catch phrase!

Twilight raised her weary brow. “Seriously?”

“No? You drive a hard bargain your highness,” Flim continued, “but you’re one hundred percent correct!”

Flam added, “We will most certainly and graciously agree to donate point zero three two percent of all profits to the Equestrian National Orphaned Foals Fund, and another point zero five—”

“—zero zero five, brother—”

“—zero zero five percent to a special fund dedicated to the infrastructure of the great municipality of Ponyville! Why we’ll give till it hurts! We’ll bleed bits from our very veins! Be pillars of the community! Scions of—”

“Hold it, hold it!” Twilight cut the proposal off and levitated the cocktail napkin close enough to read. She scanned it with her eyes and practically choked. “The exclusive right to all bathing facilities in the entire town? A heavily enforced copyright on every single word in the summoning phrase?” She peered at the brothers from overtop the napkin. “You do realize the words ‘everypony’, ‘need’, and ‘a’ are in the phrase, right? And what’s this about financial Manifest Destiny throughout Equestria?”

“Minor details!” Flam announced energetically, nabbing the napkin and stuffing it under his hat. “They’ll all be ironed out before you know it!”

“We’ll consult our legal team and get back to you!” Flim cut in, tugging nervously at his collar. “Have your people call our people and we’ll do lunch!”

Twilight dismissed the whole idea mentally. She didn’t have time for this. Her head hurt, her nerves were up, and she was not a prude. She was going to find Princess Celestia, and then everything would be okay. Everything.

“Why Princess,” Flim spoke up, “You’re looking a bit under the withers.”

Flam produced a bottle from the pocket of his jacket. “Care for a bottle of FlimFlam’s Miracle Curative Tonic? We’ll even give you a special discount, in appreciation for your consideration of our previous proposal!”

“You’re still trying to sell that stuff?” Twilight waved the bottle off. “I’m sorry, but I need to go. I need to find Princess Celestia.”

Aloe frowned and tightened her grip on Flim. “Princess Celestia? Oh, Princess Twilight, zee princess eez gone. Did you not know?”

Twilight had to keep herself from staggering under the force of the words as they struck her. “G-gone…? Where…?”

“Back to zee…home, no?” Lotus replied, trading shrugs with the other spa pony.

The violet alicorn felt her lower lip quivering. She didn’t want to ask, but she had to know. “With who?”

“Mister Cake, of course.” Aloe replied as if it were nothing. Twilight could barely form words.

“M-mister…Mister…what!? B-but…but why??”

Flam tilted his head. “Why not? Everypony knows Princess Celestia loves cake!”

Laughing merrily, the brothers and the spa ponies trotted away, chatting about the future while leaving a decrepit princess, lost in the past, withering on her knees. Twilight didn’t bother looking up when Discord’s voice faded in.

“You still owe me that bit I wasted on your thoughts, princess.”

“Discord,” Twilight’s voice was shaky, “I’m really not in the mood. Go find yourself somepony and go back home.”

Discord hesitated for some time. When he spoke again, his voice was oddly reserved. “Been there, done that. Didn’t get the t-shirt, I’m afraid.”

“That’s because the only pony that could love you is yourself,” Twilight rumbled. It wasn’t a very nice thing to say, she knew that – but it made her feel a little better all the same. Until Discord laughed, at least.

“But of course! Why didn’t I think of that before!?”

Twilight looked up to find a total of four Discords – one of them had a collar, tie and a microphone, while the other three were sitting on floating stools in rapt attention.

“Bachelor number one!” The first Discord declared, examining a set of index cards. “If you’re rubber and I’m glue, how would you keep us from bouncing off of each other?”

The second Discord crossed his legs and scratched his chin. “I’d be glue, of course! Anything for you, you hot buttered chunk of chaos, you!”

“A fine answer!” The first Discord declared. “Bachelor number two! How much would could a woodchuck chuck if we were taking a long walk on the beach under a romantic sunset?”

The third Discord, wearing shades with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth, slicked back his mane with a claw he had converted into a comb, clicked his tongue, and pointed slyly at his counterpart. “I’d be crusin’ the miracle mile with you, sugar honey!”

“Magnificent reply!” The first Discord thundered. “Bachelor number three! What would you say if I told you that the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of our love?”

The fourth Discord, clad in nothing less than a nineteenth-century southern belle’s gown, smiled bashfully. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

“The I’s have it!” The first Discord proclaimed. Casting the cards over his shoulder, he floated over to his counterparts at speed and gathered them all up in his arms. “Gimmie some sugar, you sexy beasts!”

POOF

Twilight rolled her eyes at the empty space where all the Discords were. “Of course,” is all she said, before hanging her head and meandering away. Alone again.

9 - Love Knows No Sentience

Applejack yelped and leapt out of the way just before a rolling object nearly flattened her into the dirt. She squinted at the minty and cream-colored blob of mares, wrapped in one another’s legs and smooching like it was going out of style.

“Y’all know if that ain’t worked by now it ain’t gonna, raight!?” She called after them. As they rolled away, she stamped at the ground and traced their relatively flat path with her eyes. “…how d’they do that, anyway?” She wondered aloud.

“Applejack! Applejack!” A panicked voice called. Instantly on high alert for trouble, the apple farmer whirled around and readied herself. She hesitated when she found a lone Princess Twilight galloping towards her, wide-eyed and breathing heavily.

“Twi?” Applejack’s emerald orbs filled with concern, “whut’sa matter? Y’all look like y’been spooked by th’spirit of mah old great-grand pappy or sumthin’.”

Twilight stopped short of running into the solid earth pony. She flooded her lungs with needed oxygen before trying to speak, but the words came out labored anyway. “They…they’re gone! All gone!”

“Gone?” Applejack rubbed the side of her cheek with a hoof. “Who’s gone?”

“All our friends!” The exasperated alicorn replied. Applejack’s worried expression bled into a look that resembled pity.

“Ah know that Twi,” The farmpony replied carefully. “Ah been here the whole time, same as you.”

“Doesn’t that bother you!?”

Applejack touched her chin and glanced at the stars in thought. “Well, ah suppose ah’m a little concerned fer mah granny’s heart, mah cousin’s chastity, th’skeletons in my bruther’s closet, and since ah cain’t find Applebloom around nowheres ah’m prob’ly gonna have to have a little chat with her later, but ah ain’t really the worse for wear otherwise.” She tried offering her friend a smile. “Ah was worried when we first got here, but ah trust Princess Celestia and she explained whut all is happenin’. Ain’t nopony gonna git hurt or nuthin’, save fer mebbe a little heartache here and there.”

“B-but,” Twilight blubbered, “what about you? You know what you’re going to have to do to get out of here, right?”

“Eeyup.”

“And you’re not…upset? Or at least a little confused, or concerned, or embarrassed?”

“Eenope,” Applejack replied smartly. “But you sure are.”

Twilight found herself unable to look her friend in the eye. She dug her hoof into the dirt and felt her ears drooping. “It’s that obvious, isn’t it.”

Applejack nodded and placed a comforting hoof on her friend’s withers. “Try not t’think so hard about it, Twi. Ain’t nuthin’ what happens here is really gonna hurt nopony, raight?”

“Maybe not physically,” Twilight replied, “but what about emotionally? What about my brother and Princess Cadance, or Mr. and Mrs. Cake?”

“Ahm…”Applejack cleared her throat, “…pretty sure the Cakes are gonna be just fine, sugarcube. Cain’t say fer sure about their next generation, though.” She shrugged. “Ah don’t have all th’answers Twilight, but if whut they say about Shipshape is true, mebbe its better we all find out about it now, hm?”

“Maybe…” Twilight considered that line of reasoning, but a nacent thought shook her back to the present. “What about you though? The streets are starting to get pretty empty. I’ve heard Shipshape can’t take you if you really don’t have a very special somepony, but that doesn’t mean your somepony is necessarily here, right?”

“Aw,” the Element of Honesty chuckled and shook her head, “Don’tcha worry yer horn grey ‘bout that. Ah’ll be fine. Mah very special somepony’s already here.”

Twilight blushed. “You…have a very special somepony?”

Applejack raised a brow and frowned. “Ah’m here, ain’t ah? Whut, did you s’pose ah ain’t got nuthin’ in mah life other’n buckin’ fer apples from the time the cock crows to when th’stars come out?”

Twilight suddenly felt embarrassed. “I’m…really sorry Applejack, but I guess maybe I did sort of think something like that. I guess I’ve just never really seen your romantic side, but you’re right, you’re a pony like anypony else. I’m sorry for making baseless assumptions.”

“Naw,” Applejack chuckled as she tilted her hat to a few remaining passersby. “Ain’t no harm done.”

Twilight, happy for her friend, finally managed a more genuine smile. “So who’s the lucky stallion?”

Applejack was still nodding at passing ponies. She didn’t turn around. “Uh…well…”

Twilight tilted her head and flicked an ear. “Who’s the lucky mare, then?”

Applejack’s waving hoof moved to scratch at the back of her neck. “Well, ah…y’see…”

Twilight looked oblivious. “…Spike?”

“Whut!?” Applejack’s eyes widened and she whirled around. “Izzat where yer mind goes as soon as you don’t get a straight answer? I admit the little feller’s a sweetie’n all, but he ain’t exactly Apple family material, if’n y’know what ah mean!”

“Okay, okay,” Twilight held up her hooves and giggled a bit. “But you aren’t giving me much to go on. Are we still even talking about a pony, here?”

Applejack hesitated. When she finally did open her mouth to reply, the attention of both mares was drawn off the conversation and onto the galloping approach of a pegasus stallion who was calling out the apple farmer’s name.

“Miss Applejack!” The bluish-white coated stallion panted. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Applejack raised her brow and squinted at the stallion, as if trying to place him. “…ah know you, raight?”

Twilight had no such recognition problems, but her face was a mask of wary concern. “Soarin? I didn’t realize you were here. Is everything okay?”

Soarin the wonderbolt, in all his glory, looked as though he was about to lay some grave news about a monster attack on the two mares. To Twilight’s surprise, he instead broke into a soft, sheepish smile and lowered himself to his knees, gazing up at Applejack.

“Oh, everything’s just fine, now.” Soarin beamed.

“Come again?” The orange earth mare queried. She pulled up one foreleg as if to take a step back, but Soarin grabbed her hoof in both of his and held her fast enough that she’d have to kick him to get away. With no cause to hurt the oddly-behaving stallion, she was obliged to hear him out.

“I love your pie!” Soarin cried out.

“Mah…” Applejack finally blushed. “…mah pie, y’say.”

“Y-your apple pie!” The pegasus quickly corrected. “I might not look it, but I’m a connoisseur of pie! Your pie has got to be the most delicious pie I’ve ever tasted! It’s really an incredible pie!”

“Her…” Twilight blushed even deeper. “Her apple pie.”

“What? Yes! Of course!!” Soarin cried. “I can’t stop thinking about it – about you! I w-was wondering if…you’d consider…” he swallowed and tried again, “…you know, with me.”

Twilight made an ‘oh’ shape with her lips. Stepping away politely, she couldn’t help but smile. Applejack was a solid, honest, dependable, reliable friend – one she’d always been proud to know. The hardworking farmer never talked about things like this, but she had as much of a heart beating in her chest as any other pony. Twilight was determined to not let her own dour mood mess with Applejack’s blossoming relationship.

“I’ll…I’ll leave you two alone.” Twilight grinned. She threw one last glance at the two burgeoning lovebirds and was about to go, until Applejack, sporting an uncharacteristically demure expression, spoke.

“Well that…” The apple farmer yanked very gently at her hoof, giving up when she encountered some resistance just to save the wonderbolt’s feelings. “that’s sure nice of ya, an’ ah really do appreciate it, but, well…ah’m afraid ah cain’t take ya up on it.”

Soarin’s ears dipped down to his cheeks, and his expression cracked like fine china after a firm bucking. “O-oh. But…but—”

“Now,” Applejack smiled and finally managed to get her hoof away from the crushed stallion. “don’t take it th’wrong way. Yer a fine catch an’ a good pony.” She put a hoof over her heart and closed her eyes. “It’s just that mah heart b’longs to another.”

Soarin got back up to his hooves. Deeply embarrassed, he ran his hoof through his mane and resisted the urge to flutter his wings and retreat to the sky. “I just thought…I heard Shipshape tells you things you didn’t even know about yourself, so…well maybe…”

Applejack shook her head and smiled. “Oh, there ain’t no need fer that. There ain’t no doubt in mah mind.”

Twilight raised a brow. “Applejack, no offense, but how can you be so certain? I’m sure a lot of ponies were sure who their very special somepony was before tonight, and now they’re having to re-evaluate their entire thought process.” The princess’s natural curiosity had by now overwhelmed her sense of tact. “And who is this pony, anyway? There’s almost nopony left here. Maybe it would be a good idea to…you know…go ahead and let them know how you feel?”

Applejack held up her hoof and made a sharp shushing noise. She looked around, swiveled her ears, and sniffed the air for so long that the two other ponies tried doing the same, but they detected nothing out of the ordinary. “Shhhh!” Applejack hissed. “Y’all smell that?”

Twilight and Soarin shared a blank look. The princess put their feelings into words. “No? What are we supposed to be hearing? Or…smelling?”

Applejack nearly skipped on her hooves as she began trotting away. “That there’s a scent that beats fresh apple fritters on Sunday mornin’! He’s here! Ah knew he’d come!”

The pegasus and the alicorn shared another uncomprehending glance. Wordlessly they both fell in with the enchanted apple farmer. Neither of them had ever seen her act like this before, and discerning the object of her affection was at the forefront of both their minds.

The trio snaked through the enchanted streets. They could have simply walked straight through anything in their way, but like most other ponies who suddenly found themselves in this place, they still had a natural inkling to see walls as walls, illusory or not. Applejack’s snout emitted a constant snuffling noise – she never once turned to even recognize the presence of her followers. The princess and the wonderbolt peered in every direction, but could make out little through the hazy structures apart from the colorful images of what few ponies remained in Shipshape’s world. When Twilight was about to break the silence and ask if everything was okay, Applejack stopped so short the other two ponies nearly ran into her. The smile on the stoic, dependable apple farmer’s face was so full of fillylike innocence that Twilight almost didn’t want to spoil whatever elation brought it on by speaking.

“Aw,” Applejack sniffed, “now ain’t that just a sight fer sore eyes? Ah knew if’n ah waited long enough, you’d come fer me!”

Applejack took off down the block so fast her hat blew off – and she didn’t even stop to collect it. Twilight and Soarin followed her with their eyes, but stopped in their tracks when they saw where she was headed. The orange mare slowed her gallop to a trot, then a canter…and came to a stop right before a very solid, very real, apple tree. She then proceeded to just stand there, her tail swishing like a puppy, staring up at the sight before her. The pegasus and the alicorn finally followed, the former picking up the fallen Stetson cap in his mouth, while the latter spoke.

“Applejack…? What’s going on?”

When Applejack finally turned, Twilight was surprised to find tears on the surehooved farmer’s cheeks. “Ah told ye I was sure, an’ dern if’n ah wasn’t raight!” Her head snapped back, and, closing the rest of the distance, she nuzzled the rough bark of the apple tree with her cheek like a lover. “Oh, ah admit it. Ah really wuz a little bit worried. Just a little. But in mah heart ah knew y’all would come fer me. Mah tall white steed.”

Soarin’s jaw relaxed involuntarily until the hat fell out of his mouth. Twilight blanched.

“Tall white…? Applejack?” Twilight observed. “That’s a tree.”

“T’aint just any tree,” Applejack insisted, still nuzzling the unpleasantly rough wood. “He’s mah Bloomberg. Gone since the day he went on to live in Appleoosa. Ah ain’t never fergot him a single day, an’ it was a heartfelt goodbye, but he was needed elsewhere. An’ now he’s come back to me. Just like he promised.”

It took Twilight about eight seconds to realize she was gaping at this scene as if it were a train wreck. “Alright wait a minute, just…just wait a minute!” She blinked hard and shook her head, pausing in her words just long enough to glance again and confirm what she was seeing. “First of all, that’s a tree. Trees don’t make promises. Trees don’t talk. Secondly, how did that tree even get here? It’s a…it’s a tree for Celestia’s sake!”

Applejack sniffled and laid her head on a low-hanging branch. “Ah got him a mirror for his birthday last month. So…so he’d always be able to see himself an’ know what a wonderful thing he was doin’, even though it meant we hadda be so far apart!”

“Thirdly,” Twilight went on, “Are you trying to tell us that your very special somepony is…is a tree? I know you like apple farming Applejack, but…a tree?”

Applejack had her forelegs wrapped around the trunk of the apple tree. “D-don’t judge our love! Ah know y’all think it’s strange, but y’don’t know him the way ah do! Why, ah met him when ah was knee-high to a wagon wheel and he wasn’t much more than a sapling. Ah didn’t need friends after school or nuthin’, so long as ah had his branches to lay under. Why, the long talks, the frolicking in the fields—”

“Frolicking in the fields?” Twilight scrunched her muzzle, “Really?”

Applejack mooshed her cheek into the tree and stroked it with her hoof, “…an’ all those special nights t’gether after everypony had gone t’bed…”

Soarin cleared his throat. Twilight blushed.

“Applejack, listen,” She ventured, “nopony’s trying to judge you, just…we’re talking about a tree, here. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you…I dunno, need to get out more?”

Applejack, who had by now wrapped a thin, flexible branch halfway around her body, scowled. “Don’t b’lieve our love is true, huh?”

“It’s not that. I believe you’re…um…in love with this tree, but…we’ve all been under a lot of stress tonight. Soarin cares about you, and so do I. It’s okay to admit you’re just as frazzled about being here as we are.” Grasping at straws, a thought hit her. Shipshape knows what you yourself may not. She considered the apple farmer again, giving her a long once over, before taking a breath. “I’ll help you. You can kiss me—”

“Ah’ll prove it!” Applejack insisted. With heat on her cheeks, the matron of Sweet Apple Acres pressed herself up against the only solid flora in all Shipshape’s world. She took its rough surface in between her lips with a familiarity that suggested it wasn’t her first time. The lewdness with which she rubbed up against the tree was tempered only by the innocence in her tender visage. Her expression was, the remaining ponies had to admit, the most romantic one they’d seen the whole night through.

POOF

And they were gone. In the silence of the night, Twilight coughed and watched a sudden, small breeze scatter the impression the tree had made in the dirt and erase it from existence.

“A tree…” Twilight heard Soarin’s voice from behind over her shoulder. “I got shown up by a tree…”

Twilight, her brow heavy again, glanced at him sarcastically. “How do you think I feel? I got shown up by Devil’s Food.” Noting his defeated expression, she softened. “Where are the other wonderbolts? You seem like a nice stallion. Honestly I would have thought Fleetfoot, or maybe Spitfire—”

Without speaking or raising his head, Soarin pointed upwards. Twilight traced the trajectory of his hoof until her eye fell upon the floating forms of the very two ponies she’d just mentioned. Decked out in their performance jumpsuits, they were wrapped together in a gravity-defying embrace that couldn’t possibly be thought of as platonic. Twilight watched them caress each other’s jawlines, lean in, and make one another disappear.

“…oh.”

Twilight took wing just long enough to get a bird’s eye view of the phantasmal Ponyville. Her eye didn’t pass over the form of a single pony, princess, dog, or draconequus. Only the quiet town and the silent, patient dark were left – kissed by the light of a neverending moon. She returned to the earth to find Soarin in the same place she had left him moments before.

“So…” The Princess of Friendship muttered.

“…so.”

“Nice night, huh?”

Soarin glanced at the moon and coughed. “Guess so, yeah.”

The two might have played at uncomfortable conversation and half-glances for hours, if not for the curious timing of their stomachs, which growled in unison. The sound broke up the glacier that stood between them and elicited a small mutual chuckle. Soarin spoke first.

“I uh…skipped dinner. I wanted to work on my agility trials a bit longer and I was just too tired to bother eating.”

“I ate light,” Twilight commented just before her stomach rumbled again. “Apparently too light.”

Soarin glanced around at the empty town, which suddenly felt a little more foreboding. “I sure could go for some apple pie right now. What are we gonna do if we can’t get out of here?”

“We’ll be alright,” Twilight commented. She lit her horn just for effect and elaborated. “I’ve been working on a spell that sustains the body in survival situations. I’d intended it for things like search and rescue missions in larger groups. With only two of us, it will probably work better and last a lot longer.”

“Oh,” was all Soarin said. Twilight made an anti-climactic face the pegasus didn’t seem to notice. He was busy looking around at things he’d already seen many times, as if he were expecting an exit to simply open up out of nowhere. She studied him for a moment. He wasn’t bad looking. He had fame and was probably well off, and certainly enough mares were swooning over his posters all over Equestria. Twilight had always been far more interested in books than aerial acrobatics, but she found herself squinting at him and wondering. Was this what Shipshape had in mind? Or was the night not yet over?

“Hey, you don’t think—?”

They were both looking at one another now, and each noticed the other had uttered the same words, at the same time. They found themselves glancing away again. Twilight’s stomach rumbled, and her mind was suddenly on hayburgers. Indignity crept into her thoughts. She was tired of this whole night. Tired of being embarrassed, tired of being left alone, and tired of the sense of loss. Everypony seemed to be having fun too, and that wounded her all the more. Why did she have to be the only one not to know what was going on? Why did she have to be the wallflower? Why did she have to be the pony that didn’t get a date?

Narrowing her eyes, she marched right over to the hapless stallion and took out her frustrations on his lips, pinching his cheeks hard between her hooves first. The force of the kiss was like a blow. Soarin tried to pull away at first, but she was a princess, and he resolved that she knew what she was doing. After all, Princess Twilight was kinda cute.

Twilight pulled back. The ponies stared at one another. The shipping moon persisted.

Now what?

Epilogue - Take a Letter

Ponyville.

The village it had always been. The same sunny skies. The same gentle breezes. Where everypony knows your name, and every street vendor and maintenance worker greets you with a smile.

And yet, a little different.

Applebloom and Scootaloo sat at a sidewalk café. Both their eyes were on the blueberry oat parfait, with a dollop of chocolate-drizzled vanilla ice cream on top that sat in the center of their table. The confection bore two straws – each one stared down a Cutie Mark Crusader, daring the little ponies to draw near.

“…s’gonna melt,” Applebloom observed.

“So take a drink,” Scootaloo replied.

“…you first.”

Scootaloo drew near to the closest straw, but just as quickly fled. “Maybe we should have ordered two. We’ve got enough bits for it.”

The apple filly blushed. “Ah…dun wanna do that.”

“Yeah,” the orange filly with the shock of purple mane admitted. “Me either.”

Instinctively understanding one another’s expressions, they ignored the hot blush assailing them and drew from their respective straws simultaneously. Their cheeks brushed together. They were still unable to make eye contact, but each managed a demure smile.

“Awwwwww!”

At the tolling of the abrupt sound, the crusaders shot back to their own sides of the table so fast they nearly fell out of their chairs. Scootaloo whistled. Applebloom hummed and stared at the clear blue sky.

“Aw c’mon,” Sweetie Belle, who was suddenly standing before their table, grinned energetically. “You were both totally cute! Don’t let me stop you!”

“Y-you didn’t see a thing!” Scootaloo insisted.

Applebloom tilted her head and stared at the unicorn filly. Her jaw dropped. “H-hey! When did y’get yer cutie mark!?”

Scootaloo’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes were on Sweetie Belle in a flash and she was already off her stool to inspect the filly’s flank. She let the tense breath out by blowing on her own bangs. “Relax Applebloom. It’s not a real cutie mark.”

“H-how do you know!?” Sweetie Belle responded defensively. Scootaloo poked her friend’s flank and came back with a blue spot on the tip of her hoof.

“It’s Rarity’s cutie mark. And the paint is running.”

“Oh.” Sweetie Belle acquiesced. Nopony needed to ask why the filly had her big sister’s cutie mark stenciled onto her side. Nor did they ask why the curl to her mane was different, and why she was wearing eyeshadow.

“How’s all that…working out for you?” Scootaloo ventured. Sweetie Belle smiled wanly.

“It’s actually pretty fun! I get to roleplay a lot, and I even got my own room at the palace! ‘Cause, you know…they don’t use most of them anyway.”

“Whut about the boutique?” Applebloom inquired. The unicorn filly glanced nervously away.

“I uh…sleep there sometimes?” Sweetie Belle covered her mouth and coughed. “Sis just bought a carriage that looks like it was made from a giant pumpkin with three yokes attached to it, and she’s been wearing glass slippers everywhere she goes. Can we talk about something else?”

Before the trio could broach a new topic, they were nearly blown off the sidewalk by a rainbow-hued streak that strafed just above their table. Scootaloo brightened and cupped her hooves to her muzzle.

“Rainbow Dash! Hey Rainbow Dash! Down here!”

The colorful blur rounded the Ponyville town hall and zipped back towards the café, stopping on a bit mere hooves before colliding with the crusaders’ table. Rainbow Dash, looking barely even winded, grinned brightly.

“Hey squirt, girls! How ya all doing?”

The fillies shared pleasantries with Ponyville’s resident high-flyer. Scootaloo was the first to pick a subject.

“Wow, you’re pretty energetic today,” she observed from the older pegasus. “Even more than usual. What’s up?”

“Aww, I dunno,” Dash shook her head, flicking her mane and allowing the sun to reflect in the object she was wearing around her neck. “I guess I’m just feeling kinda loose and free, ya know? Everypony seems to have that going on lately.”

The fillies took the cue, their eyes moving to study the affectation Dash was wearing. A shimmering, translucent pink crystal in the shape of a butterfly was attached to the pegasus’s neck by a stylish purple leather collar, complete with a tiny lock to one side. The crusaders tilted their heads as one. Dash went on for a moment or two about her cloudbusting business for the day and her general prowess, but stopped short when she noticed the fillies staring.

“What?” Dash swallowed, looking down. She cleared her throat. “It’s a friendship bracelet, okay? Don’t assume stuff!”

Applebloom could barely contain a giggle. “Y’sure are brave, Rainbow Dash. You should be proud of yerself.”

Sweetie Belle wasn’t listening to Dash’s sputtering excuses for the bit of finery she was wearing. The filly had her eye on Vinyl Scratch, who was trotting down the lane, bopping to the beat of her headphones as usual. The mare was levitating a wet blueberry muffin with her magic, which she was readily chewing on. Sweetie Belle counted at least a baker’s dozen worth of hickeys all over the white mare’s body before embarrassment forced her to look away.

“What about you, Applebloom?” Dash forcibly changed the subject. “How’s the farm doing this past couple weeks?”

The little farm filly scratched her neck, her eyes darting around. “Well, uh…a’raight…ah guess? Granny’s got more giddy in her up than ah think I ever saw b’fore, but ah ain’t seen hide nor hair of mah cousin since we all got back from that Shipshape thing. Granny said he went back to Appleoosa but…he didn’t say g’bye or nuthin’. Oh!” She suddenly grinned and sat up tall, proudly puffing her chest out. “Guess who’s been gettin’ more responsibility on th’ farm lately, hmm? Ah’m watchin’ the house, doin’ more chores – they’re even teachin’ me to buck mah own apples the grown up way!”

Rainbow Dash grinned, “Yeah, huh? That’s awesome! Good for you.”

“Ah know, raight!?” Applebloom said excitedly. “They need me there, whut with mah big bruther ‘n big sisser tradin’ time to take all those trips to Canterlot an’ Appleoosa! It’s like they ain’t never even both home at the same time no more, so ah get to show how grown up ah am all the time!”

Dash scrunched her muzzle, raised a brow, and glanced at Scootaloo, who could only shrug. “…right yeah, I’m glad that’s working out for you. Anyway. Has anypony seen Twilight?”

The three fillies glanced at each other and shrugged. “No,” Sweetie Belle spoke up. “Why?”

“Fluttershy wants to borrow another one of her books about wild bird calls,” the cyan pegasus answered smugly, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she found all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders staring at her. “What? I’m just doing her a favor! She…she has…uh…chickens to feed! All day long! Chickens are a lot of upkeep, you know!?”

Dash heard the sound of a turkey call coming from behind her, and whirled just long enough to find Pinkie Pie bouncing along down the street.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Pinkie shouted at anypony who turned to look at her, “I have the most stupendous fantabulous awesomeoneous cantankerankerlous stupendioso with cherries and whipped cream and root beer and every color of rock candy that ever existed anywhere ever in the whole wide world news! There’s gonna be another little Cake soon! Isn’t that the most stupeniographic logitechnical wonderactical superdupero—”

“Hey Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash called out, “Is it Missus Cake’s, yours, or Princess Celestia’s?”

“I have NO idea!!” Pinkie cackled madly and hopped down a side street.

“I was…kidding…” Dash gaped, and then shook her head. “N-never mind that. Did you girls soap all your mirrors like you were supposed to?”

The crusaders nodded in unison. Dash turned her attention to the Palace of Friendship. Her eyes, half closed by the sun, took in the fluttering banners from the gilded towers. It was the same building it always had been, but something just seemed…less inviting about it, these last three weeks. Quite the contrary to the village in which it resided, which seemed alive with the glow of revelation and contentment.

* * * *

The moon never moved. It wasn’t right for the moon to never move. Nothing ever moved. Nothing ever changed. Oh, ponies came and ponies went – sometimes even other creatures came and went. The Princess of Friendship even saw changelings come and go from time to time. But nothing was ever really different. She didn’t understand it. She couldn’t do anything about it. It fit into her little world of order like a square peg in a round hole. She couldn’t control it, but she was not a prude. Oh no – no, no, no. She was not. She’d proved that. And she was about to report her findings.

“Spike?” Twilight removed the Stetson hat on her head just long enough to shakily rub her hoof through her frizzled mane and called out, “Take a letter.”

“…bwuh…?”

Beneath the purple princess, her throne muttered incoherently. The creature under there, a pegasus who was loyal to the recognized royalty of Equestria, was riddled with hickey-shaped welts. His everything hurt, but in some places he was so numb he wasn’t even certain if he was still a stallion. He burbled, and a violet hind hoof nudged him in the ribs.

“Take a letter,” Princess Twilight, a maniacal look in her eye, repeated. Soarin began pawing at the dirt with his hoof. He didn’t even realize that he was grinning like a puppy.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Happy birthday! I bet you didn’t think I would remember, but I did. I have a calendar, you know. I’m always prepared for anything. So of course I would always have a calendar and always remember important days.

Soarin glanced wordlessly at the incomprehensible hoof-scrawlings in the dirt nearby.

I was wondering what you might like for your birthday, and then I remembered how much you like cake. I’m sorry it isn’t ready yet, but I’m having Pinkie Pie and Missus Cake create the biggest, best, most lovely cake for your birthday even as we speak. It looks wonderful and is fit for royalty. Missus Cup Cake has such lovely foals, you know? Sometimes I wonder how she got them.

Soarin opened his mouth, thought the better of it, and shut it again.

I would like to say that I learned a very important lesson about the magic of friendship, but since I am the Princess of Friendship, I really didn’t learn anything. I already know everything there is to know about friendship. I really do. Because I’m your studious and faithful student. Friendship is when ponies kiss, so I kiss everypony that arrives here. Some of them are scared at first, but I make them understand how important friendship is. Because I know, and I have everything under control.

“I don’t think ‘shipping’ means—” Soarin got another kick in his ribs for his trouble and went back to scrawling.

I have so many friends now. I’m very happy. I tell my new friends all about the fun I have every day, and I make sure to tell them the special magic words they can use so that we can all see each other again. They think I’m telling them how to close the portal instead. I know, that sounds dishonest, but don’t worry, it’s really not. I’m the Princess of Friendship. I know all about friendship, and since friendship is magic, that logically means I know what’s best for everypony. Isn’t that amazing how that works out? Maybe I did learn a valuable lesson about the magic of friendship after all. It’s that friendship is me. Everypony should be like me. So that we all have friendship in our hearts. Just like always, I’m your faithful student, and I understand everything. Everything. Everything.

Soarin lost track of how many times he tried to scribble the word ‘everything’ alongside the random collection of irrigation pathways he’d created in the loose dust. Twilight examined the post-apocalyptic hieroglyphics, smiled approvingly, and patted the pegasus on the head. She even fed him one of the apples that had fallen out of the bag of the hapless mare they’d kiss-assaulted last Tuesday. There had been lots of running and screaming until the mare’s proper ship showed up – a typical day. As he fed, the wonderbolt thought about the odd, salty taste of changelings, and how griffons had a tendency to nip. He wondered who would come to visit next, and what they would taste like. He smiled at the stores of provisions, tools, materials, and entertainment items dropped by visitors, and thought about what the new castle was going to look like.

The moon grinned.

* * * *

“The most studious pony was never found. It could be that she still lives her prudish life there, but from that day on, mother ponies would tell their foals that if they did not do as they were told, the Princess would kiss them. Such was Shipshape’s monument, and perhaps it would not have displeased him.”

-Richard Apples, from ‘Watertrough Down’, 1978