It was a normal, early winter evening in Ponyville. The blackness of night hung like a curtain over the town, shrouding the thin layer of snow covering the ground. The only sound of any noticeable volume was the wind, which slowly blew over the ground and around the sharp corners of the town’s buildings and created a quiet, howling noise.
The whole environment, cold weather and all, was the perfect setup for the sleepover going on at Ponyville Castle. Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Starlight Glimmer were all snuggled up with blankets, pillows and sleeping bags in a small circle in the den, which provided a great view of the cold night outside. It was the sort of scene that filled ponies with joy and comfort.
“Alright, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, pointing an accusing hoof. “I choose you! Truth or dare!?”
Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes, her pink and violet mane tossing a bit with the action as she shook her head in mock disbelief. “I am certainly not taking a dare from you, Rainbow Dash.”
“So a truth, then?”
“Is there another logical possibility?” Twilight replied with a hint of a scowl on her muzzle.
Rainbow Dash just ignored her and continued on. “Alright then missy, how many stallions have you kissed?”
A chorus of ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aahs’ resounded from the others present in the circle, along with a few giggles and a single, shy gasp.
Twilight’s eyelids fell. Combined with her stoic expression, her face made it quite clear that she was unamused. “Haha. Asking a question you already know the answer to, just to embarrass me…The answer is none.”
Rainbow Dash let out a mocking hack of a laugh. “HA! What a loser, am I right, guys?” She craned her neck around, just waiting for others to chime in with haughty derision.
Only and awkward silence followed and it soon became clear that Rainbow Dash did not have any allied support to count on. She continued to dart her gaze around the circle in the vain hope that somepony else would put in their two cents.
A log in the fireplace creaked and let out a soft pop.
“Don’t worry about it, sugarcube,” offered Applejack, tilting her head as she looked at Twilight. “I ain’t never kissed no stallions either! Too focused on the farm to be concerned about any of that, I suppose.” She offered Twilight a supporting, sad smile. “It’ll happen for us when the time is right, don’t you worry!”
Twilight crinkled her eyes, letting a soft smile curl up the sides of her muzzle in spite of Applejack’s use of a triple negative. “Thanks, Applejack.”
Rainbow Dash just burst out into another fit of uncontrollable hacks, this time rolling around on the floor in her sleeping bag. Eventually she calmed herself enough to take in a deep breath. “HA! Figures that AJ would join you in LOSERTOWN, Twilight!” She continued to snicker under the victims’ laser glares.
“Come on, Rainbow Dash,” scolded Starlight Glimmer. “That’s not necessary, and kind of hurtful. I mean, I haven’t kissed anypony either.”
Rainbow Dash stopped laughing and her ears perked up. “W-wait…I thought you and Trixie were like… a thing?”
Starlight Glimmer rolled her eyes and snorted. “Har-de-har-har. The classic ‘Starlight is gay’ joke. Almost as funny as the last three-thousand and forty-six times you’ve told it.”
“You haven’t kissed ANYPONY!?” gasped Pinkie, her hooves squishing her own cheeks together in surprise. “Not even when you had a village of slaves that you could conform to your will and bend to serve your every pleasure!?”
Starlight’s muzzle scrunched up as a blush spread across her face and her pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. “Well…No,” she began, moving her gaze to the floor. “I was too occupied with equality and maintaining control to think about that kind of stuff…”
“You seriously haven’t kissed Trixie?” Rainbow Dash asked again.
“NO!” Starlight screamed, the blood vessels in her neck and face briefly becoming quite visible. “I HAVEN’T, AND I DON’T PLAN TO, BECAUSE I’M NOT A LESBIAN, RAINBOW DASH!” She spat the last words with accusatory emphasis.
A few more seconds of silence followed.
“But, I thought you didn’t invite her to these sleepovers because you-“
“One more word, Rainbow Dash,” Starlight seethed, “and I swear…”
Eventually, Twilight’s scientific curiosity grew to the size where it could no longer be contained by the haze of anger centered in the circle, and she cleared her throat to dispel it before she spoke. “So, actually curious here…who here HAS kissed a stallion?”
Everypony cast their gazes slowly around the circle, curious to see if anypony was giving a clue as to their answer.
Soon, patience was lost and names began to be spoken. “Pinkie Pie?”
“Nooooooooooooope,” she replied with a characteristic, beaming smile.
“Fluttershy?”
“Oh, goodness no…”
“Oh! Rarity! Of course you have!”
With a flip of her hair, Rarity cleared her throat with a practiced elegance. “Well, darling, I suppose that’s not entirely true,” she told the group, sheepishly rubbing one front hoof with the other even as her expression remained stoic. “While I have fantasized about the moment many times and had a number of dates with potential suitors, none of them have seemed to…well…end in good fashion.”
A nervous silence came over the group of friends once again as they eyed each other with fear, suspicion, and relief. Twilight finalized their thoughts. “So…I guess just Rainbow Dash, then?”
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash asked, jerking her head up as she heard her name. “Oh! Oh yeah, I’ve kissed like, tons of stallions. I mean, I’m super attractive, so I’ve had to bat them off me all my life, but it’s gotten, like, really, super bad ever since I became a Wonderbolt. Yeah…I kiss like, a dozen a day, at least.”
“You kiss twelve stallions a day?” Twilight asked with a hint of revulsion.
“Wait, a dozen means twelve?” Rainbow Dash asked in return, cocking her head in confusion.
Fluttershy studied her friend for a moment before her eyes lit up. She let out a soft sigh. “Oh…So you haven’t kissed anypony either…”
Rainbow Dash’s face caught fire in an angry blush and she whipped her head around to face Fluttershy. She opened her mouth to release a fiery torrent of a response, but soon closed it without saying anything.
It was quiet once more. The log popped a little louder this time.
“I guess Shining Armor used to kiss me on the cheek to say goodnight,” Twilight mused.
“Oh! Oh!” Pinkie cried, waving a light green pajama-covered hoof in the air. “I kiss Gummy all the time!”
“And while we’re at it, plenty of the fine stallions I’ve been on rendezvous with were puckering up for a kiss when I slammed the door in their face, so those have to be tallied as well.”
“Guys,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “None of those things count. I mean, what’s next? Do Fluttershy’s animals count?”
Applejack and Starlight nodded in solemn agreement with Rainbow Dash’s judgment, which was a first for them both.
“How could this possibly happen?” Twilight asked, suddenly befuddled. “We are some of the prettiest, most adorable, and most famous mares in all of Equestria, and we’ve never kissed anypony!?”
“Aw, come on now sugarcube! It’s perfectly normal for mares our age to not have experienced that yet!”
“There’s a mare from my class at Celestia’s school that’s getting married,” Twilight deadpanned back. “…Next week.”
“You know what?” Starlight Glimmer chimed in. “So what? What does it matter? We’ll get our first kisses someday!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “We just need to find somepony that we’re really good friends with!”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
“And that we trust, and care about,” Twilight added.
“He doesn’t even have to be the best looking,” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “Although, you know, he shouldn’t be ugly either.”
“A guy wh-who we know is sweet,” Fluttershy timidly added.
“A stallion who would do anything for me…I mean, for the pony in question,” Rarity posited.
“The best part is, it doesn’t even have to be somepony we’re in love with,” Starlight added. “Just a male that we all trust and care about. It might be better to have practice before we kiss somepony we have a crush on, anyway.”
“Oh girls~,” a melodic voice called from the foyer outside. The door was pushed inward, revealing a small dragon in a pink-trimmed apron carrying a heavy, overflowing tray of goodies. “I wanted to show you all how much I trust and care about you all,” Spike said sweetly, placing the tray down and wiping his not-ugly face with a scaled arm. “Obviously we’ve been really good friends forever, and I’d do anything for you guys! So I made you a few pots of fresh tea with accompanying cream, sugar, lemon, and honey, as well as an assortment of freshly baked treats!”
Spike looked at his friends with an expectant smile as they all began to appraise him with great interest.
“Heeeeeeeey,” Pinkie Pie drawled as her eyes lit up with a new idea. “Rainbow Dash, you’re in charge of who counts! Does Spike count?”
“Do I count for what?” Spike replied, looking a little confused.
“…Spike, could you give us just a minute?” Twilight asked him as soon as Rainbow Dash had nodded in affirmation.
“Oh, uh, sure, do you want me to wait outside?”
“Yes, I think that would be ideal.”
Spike turned around and pushed open the gold-trimmed doors to the foyer, closing them softly behind him. Soon the room had erupted into incomprehensible shouting, startling Spike and sending him scurrying a few feet away from the door. “Geez,” he mumbled. “I wonder what they’re talking about. I hope I’m not in trouble.”
“I’m just saying,” Starlight yelled to bring her voice above the fray, “that I was the one who rallied us out of that oncoming depression in the first place! I think I should get it!”
“What are you talking about!?” Rainbow Dash screamed. “I am the cornerstone of this group, I should get first dibs!”
“CORNERSTONE?” Starlight screeched back. “YOU JUST CALLED ME A LESBIAN!”
“Um…Maybe since I have the worst chance at kissing anypony else…I think…that maybe I should go first?”
“Maybe,” Rarity called shrilly from the other side of the group, “it should be the mare who he loves and who has a good deal of affection for him in return?”
“Or instead of somepony who uses him, maybe somepony HONEST and hard-working,” Applejack spat back.
“NONE OF YOU ARE KISSING HIM!” Twilight shouted, halting the debate in its tracks. “I have known him most of my life, and he and I have a deep bond which can NEVER be severed. So none of you are allowed to kiss him. Before I do.”
“Oh, that makes a lot of sense, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her mane nervously. “I’ll go tell Spike the good news!” She shot up from her spot and smacked into the door frame, beating up her body considerably, as it was far too light to open the door.
“Oooh! Ooooh! Me next!” Pinkie screamed with joy, smacking into the door. Confronted with the density of a baker pony, the door swung open slowly and a stream of ponies poured out.
“SPIKE!” they all called, seemingly as one.
“Uh…yes?” he asked, taking an inadvertent step backwards.
“How ‘bout a kiss?” Applejack asked as she scurried out of the pile, having hog-tied Pinkie Pie with her lasso.
“A…what?”
“Spike, just kiss me right now before this becomes this whole, big thing,” Twilight ordered, but offered an outstretched hoof in promise of an accompanying warm hug.
“What!?”
“Mine!” Rarity leapt over the pile and tackled Applejack into the ground, pressing her head against the crystal flooring as she hungrily eyed Spike. Teal magic soon took hold of her tail and dragged her back into the pile.
Spike ran.
Spike dove into the darkest, most overlooked closet in the castle and hugged his knees tightly to his chest as he heard the party’s hooves clomp around the area in search of him.
“I think he went that way!”
“Then why are you going that way? Nice try, featherbrain!”
Two sets of wingbeats passed the closet and went down the hallway, only to be replaced by an even more ominous noise.
“Tchtchtchtchtchtch, here Spikey Spikey,” Fluttershy cooed as her muzzle swept back and forth low over the floor like some sort of horrific metal detector. Spike sucked in a breath and held it as he saw her stick her muzzle in the crack under the door. “Tchtchtchtchtch,” she repeated, waiting a moment before withdrawing her muzzle and moving down the hallway with her rhythmic call.
“That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” Spike wheezed as he began to rock back and forth.
Suddenly, the door opened and closed exceedingly quickly, startling Spike. He felt a new presence in the room with him, but was unable to recognize who it was due to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness. “Who…who’s there!?” he hissed, still scared of being found by anypony else.
“Relax, Spike,” Starlight Glimmer’s voice answered. She lit her horn dimly a moment later, casting undulating teal patterns in the shadows on the wall. “It’s just me. I’m not going to kiss you.”
Spike exhaled loudly. “What a relief.”
Starlight frowned. “Not exactly what somepony wants to hear in response to that, but, alright.”
“How did you find me in here?” Spike questioned her with some suspicion.
“It’s your crying closet, right? I figured you’d be here.”
“And how did you know this was my crying closet!?”
“Because it’s also my crying closet.”
“Ah…So, what sort of horrible spell has taken them over this time?” Spike asked. “Let me guess: this is all a sick joke from Discord, just because he rolled four critical failures in our last O & O session?”
“Uh, no, actually,” Starlight replied, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “Turns out none of us have had our first kiss yet, and it kinda became a big competitive thing, and…y’know.”
“…No. I most certainly do not know.”
“Everypony is in a race to kiss you first, since you’re the only male in convenient range.”
Spike sighed. “Just great. What a joyous occasion.”
“It’s just childish to force a kiss,” Starlight snorted. “Thankfully, there is a solution; since everypony is only doing this for competition’s sake, as soon as one pony kisses you the rest will give up! So-“
Spike snapped his fingers. “I just need to kiss Rarity!”
“Exactly!” Starlight nodded in agreement. “We just need to-wait, say that again?”
“I have to kiss Rarity!” Spike said, hopping up from the floor. “And then everypony will stop with this madness! I don’t know what I was thinking, since kissing her would be worth having to suffer through it with everypony else too…But kissing just Rarity? Even better! Thanks, Starlight,” he said, opening the door and slinking out.
“Yeah,” Starlight huffed, alone in the darkness. “Because THAT’S what I meant…”
Spike ducked his head back behind the thick, opaque column as Pinkie Pie pronked past him, taking a turn which thankfully led her away from him. Scanning the hallway for any signs of Rainbow Dash, he executed a textbook-style dodge roll across the hallway and took shelter behind a column. “Gotta find Rarity,” he breathed. “Find Rarity, and this will all be over…and I’ll finally be able to wow her with my amazing kissing skills.”
He heard some deep country hoots, followed by an impassioned riposte, from upstairs in the meeting room. “She’s upstairs,” he smiled. “But it sounds like Applejack is there too…”
“Oh, hi there Spike,” Fluttershy whispered.
Spike’s body froze. He turned his head (very, very slowly) to the right until he could just make out some pink mane in his peripheral vision. With great pain, Spike turned his head forward and forced himself to march away, making a monotonous beeline for the stairs and away from the stationary pegasus only a foot or two behind him.
He heard hoofsteps behind him, followed by what sounded like the cooing of an owl. He increased his pace, and the hoofsteps did as well, the call morphing into some sort of deranged, high-pitched cawing. What on earth was she doing? Trying to tame him like some sort of animal?
The cawing got louder, and Spike felt his eyelids beginning to droop. Fluttershy was really soft and nice. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to give her a big hug and kiss. His willpower began to falter and his steps grew ever slower as he struggled to remember why he was running away.
“Fluttershy, darling, has your schizophrenia caught up with you again!?” Spike could hear Rarity ask bitterly from upstairs. His heart filled with a newfound hope. If he could just make it up the stairs without Fluttershy pouncing on him-
“Ah bet she’s found ‘im! Out of the way Rarity!” Applejack ordered. The command was followed immediately by a yelp from Rarity and a crash, which drained all of Spike’s newfound hope away just as quickly as it came. Caught between Applejack’s thundering hooves and Fluttershy’s siren song, he darted down the staircase instead, away from his goal.
He almost ran right into Rainbow Dash, who was barely able to break in mid-flight before a very painful collision. Immediately, her magenta eyes sparkled with determination. “There you are!” she exclaimed before beating her wings to shoot after him.
Spike was able to reverse course to return to the landing, where he broke Rainbow Dash’s pursuit by diving and sliding under Fluttershy’s hooves. The two pegasi collided, sending them skidding across the floor and into Twilight’s hooves, who fell on her face from the impact. Pinkie jumped over the pile of ponies, quickly approaching Spike as Applejack, followed closely by Rarity and further back by Starlight, tumbled down the stairs after him.
He whipped his head around to think up an escape plan. The hallway behind him was too short to escape down with any reasonable chance of success, but thankfully his quick maneuvering had cleared the stairs downward, and without a second thought he darted toward them and back to the first floor.
Hanging an immediate left, Spike scampered toward the kitchen and the labyrinth of associated rooms and service tunnels. He knew them like the back of his claw, and there was no place where he stood a better chance escaping than there.
He skidded up to the door and pushed. He was met with stiff resistance and a horrifying clicking sound. “Oh no,” he breathed. “No…”
“Hah!” he heard Twilight cry as she emerged from the stairs as the lead of the pony peloton. “He fell for the old magic lock trick!”
Spike’s heart jumped up to his throat. He quickly scanned the entire environment, but couldn’t for the life of him find an escape route.
Slowly, the pack advanced on him, although they did seem more preoccupied with struggling against each other than coming after him. At the time, it appeared that either Applejack, Twilight, or Rainbow Dash would be the first to kiss him, as they had clear approach vectors. Spike frantically searched for Rarity in a plan to cast himself at her as a last-ditch effort, but much to his dismay found her engaged in a particularly pathetic slap-fight with Fluttershy at the back of the group.
Spike cowered and covered his face with his arm. “Alright, just make it quick!” he begged, trembling against the door.
“ENOUGH!” Starlight Glimmer screamed.
On hearing her shout, the group halted in place and turned to face her with shock and defense plastered on their faces.
Starlight muscled her way to the front of the group, slowly and deliberately. She frowned at each and every pony in turn before beginning to speak. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves!” she scolded. “Look at you, fighting like this. You’re best friends!”
Twilight and Applejack shared a guilty glance. Rarity and Fluttershy, who were on their back hooves as a consequence of their very feminine style of fighting, both returned to all fours to hear what else Starlight had to say. Fluttershy’s blush in particular was rather overwhelming as the impact of her recent actions finally hit her.
Spike peeked out from under his arm, and could see Starlight’s tail begin to take up more of his vision as she backed towards him.
“And what about poor Spike?” Starlight asked, placing a comforting hoof on Spike’s head crest and patting him a few times. “He didn’t ask for any of this. Look at him! Does he look like he’s happy about all this?”
Some quiet mumbling was heard from the group, along with a lot of embarrassed hoof-scuffing.
“But that’s not even all!” she continued. “This would all be forgivable if you were doing this out of infatuation; but you weren’t! This whole thing was some sort of sick competition between you, where you just USED Spike without any regard for his feelings. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be in your horseshoes, but you need to stop this now if you still value Spike’s friendship, and start treating him like an individual who deserves respect and independence.”
Some sighing was heard, followed by some embarrassed, mumbled apologies and shameful glances.
“It’s okay guys,” Spike said, waving a claw dismissively. “It’s all good. You know I’d never stop being your friend.”
“See guys, now everything’s back to normal,” Starlight said, leaning down and planting her lips firmly on Spike’s for several seconds before pulling away and covering her mouth with a hoof. “Tastes like you had a few of those treats before you brought them to us, Spike,” she giggled.
Every other mouth in the room dropped and hung open as Starlight nonchalantly continued on.
“Okay, now let’s all go back and hang out with the knowledge that I got my first kiss before any of you,” Starlight chirped, trotting by the group and around the corner back to the den.
After a few more seconds of stunned silence, Applejack threw her hat on the floor. “DAGNABIT! She bamboozled us!”
“I can’t believe it! I actually apologized! That’s the last time I take anypony else’s feelings into consideration,” Rainbow Dash grumbled as she began lazily flying after Starlight.
The rest of the group slowly turned and began trudging in the same direction, issuing their own lamentations along the way.
Spike could have sworn that he heard Rarity hiss “hussy” as she walked back with the rest of her friends, but was entirely unable to internalize it. Instead, he followed along, a blank expression on his face as his eyes stared forward through the others, focusing on nothing and yet everything.
Eventually, Starlight dropped back and began to walk alongside him. “Hey, Spike. Are you doing alright?”
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you were okay.”
“Oh,” he replied, shaking his head to expedite his return from the astral plane, “Yeah, I guess,” he sighed.
“I’m sorry, you know. I got a little carried away.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I got worked up over nothing.”
“Well, still, for whatever it’s worth…”
He patted Starlight on the back. “Don’t worry Starlight. Besides, out of all of them, I’m glad it was you.”
“Really?” she asked him, feeling a surge of self-confidence.
“Well, actually you’re a distant but clear second…behind Rarity.”
Starlight’s ears fell and her muzzle scrunched up before a frown took over her visage. “Thanks again, Spike.” She shook the displeased look off her face, knowing that she had no justification for getting offended. Opening the door to the den, she turned her head back to give Spike a sweet smile. “I just hope I was able to give you a good first kiss,” she told him with a wink.
“Oh, that wasn’t my first kiss,” Spike replied casually. “I kissed Trixie about a month ago.”
“…What?”
“What?”
Before Starlight could respond, Twilight barged back out through the door, her rapid movement causing her tail to smack Starlight in the face. Starlight yelped before the door was kicked closed by alicorn strength. “Talk. Now.”
Spike stumbled along down the hallway as Twilight used her magic to drag him along by his ear frill. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Twilight! Ahh! What do you want?”
She released him but looked at him with simmering fury. “You could have just kissed me, Spike! I believe I said, ‘Just kiss me right now before this becomes this whole, big thing’, and you know what? You didn’t kiss me, and it became a whole, big thing!”
“But-“
“Uhp uhp uhp!” Twilight silenced him, holding up a hoof. “No talking! You are in trouble, not me! Tomorrow, you are going to clean the whole library top to bottom! And when you’re done, you’re going to willingly give me a kiss with a smile on your face!”
“What!?” choked Spike in abject horror. “Why!?”
“Because second place is better than nothing! Plus, you’ve made me question the entire way that I raised you! I thought I gave you enough hugs and nuzzles, but evidently we have a lot of affection therapy to work through.”
“Twiiiilliiiiiggggght,” Spike whined in objection.
“Not another word, or so help me I will use tongue tomorrow!” With that, Twilight turned tail, marched back into the den, and slammed the door behind her.
The mood in the den was eerily silent.
“Soooooo,” Pinkie Pie said, clopping her hooves together. “That was a lot less fun than I thought it was going to be.”
There was some mumbled agreement from among those present.
“Maybe we should just like, never bring the subject of kissing up again?” Rainbow Dash offered. “I mean, at least until I kiss somepony.”
“No exceptions allowed,” Twilight told Rainbow, bringing out a notepad and a quill with her magic as she settled onto the couch next to Rarity. “It’s going on the ‘banned conversations’ list along with ‘Princess Celestia’s butt’, ‘necromancy’, ‘Doe v. Wade’, ‘getting into the drug business’, and ‘developing rabbits for use as a bioweapon’.
“Oh, that was a bad one,” Fluttershy winced, recalling the hordes of rabbits Angel had led in a blood-soaked revolution on the streets of Fillydelphia.
“I am curious though,” Rainbow Dash cut in. “Like, how well do we do with stallions overall? We’ve totally like, at least cuddled with them, right?”
“You mean like hugs?”
“No,” Rainbow Dash frowned back at Pinkie Pie. “Like, actual cuddling.”
Applejack stuck her tongue out in concentration as she racked her brain.
Twilight closed one eye as she wondered whether or not dancing with a boy as a different species in another universe counted.
Starlight Glimmer moved away from the fire and looked at her hooves.
Fluttershy let out a timid ‘meep’.
Rainbow Dash scanned the crowd vigilantly.
Rarity pouted in a dignified fashion.
Pinkie Pie scratched her ear with a back hoof and sneezed.
“Spike, darling!” Rarity beckoned. “Could you come back in here for a moment? We need to speak with you!”
“…No!” his voice echoed from across the castle.
“SPIIIIIIIKE!” Twilight nagged with a practiced elegance, “GET YOUR WORTHLESS BUTT IN HERE!”
“…Not a chance!”
“I’ll go get him,” Rarity said, hopping down from the couch with a flip of her mane. “He just needs a lady’s touch, is all.”
“No no,” Rainbow Dash protested, flying over to her. “I’ll go get him. You take a seat.”
Fluttershy began a slow army crawl toward the door.
“FREE-FOR-ALL!” Pinkie screamed, jumping on the table and knocking over the plate of meticulously organized treats before bowling over the ponies assembled and throwing open the door.
The rest followed hot on her hooves, a pack on the trail of its prey.
Author's Note
Hope you all enjoyed this break from the flood of incest stories on the front page. If any of you are headed to Trotcon this year, I highly encourage you to check out my blog post, here, on the subject.
