Words over Cups and Spring Rolls
“…and if the other stallion can continue, that is savoir faire!”
The other mares at the table laughed as Octavia finished her story, toasting them with her ale and taking a gentle sip. As the laughter faded, Rarity sipped her wine, contented. It was a beautiful autumn day, one of the last in the year, and perfect for an impromptu luncheon with friends. Granted, Pinkie was working, Fluttershy had been healing some poor beast or other, and Rainbow had weather duties.
But not only had Twilight and Applejack both been available, but so had Vinyl and Octavia. Rarity and Octavia had fallen out of touch since school, and had only recently become re-acquainted, to both ponies’ delight. Getting to actually sit and chat with Octavia and her lady was a rare treat these days; between Pon-3’s various professional engagements and Octavia’s playing in the Canterlot Philharmonic, the couple positively coveted their time together. So such an opportunity was not to be missed. Besides, Rarity still didn’t know the DJ half as well as she would have liked.
“You know, spring has come and gone yet again,” Rarity winked at her. “Winter is nearly here. And the question still remains: when? I’ve all but finished the design for Octavia’s gown, though I can’t quite decide what look would best compliment your particular style. And of course, the two should complement one another.”
Vinyl grinned, one elbow hanging from the back of her chair. “Hey, man, don’t sweat it. I’m inscrutable.”
“There’s no great hurry, anyway,” Octavia assured the fashionista. “We’re not getting formally married for a while yet.”
Rarity cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? How long?”
The cellist shrugged with a secret smile. “Who can say?”
Applejack looked from one to another. “Okay, not wantin’ ta pry, but I’m curious.”
“We’re still looking for our third,” Vinyl supplied
“So, you’re going to have one wedding for the three of you,” said Twilight. “I guess that makes sense. Otherwise, you’d need either two more weddings…”
“…or have a lopsided ritual,” Octavia nodded. “Exactly.”
Rarity, meanwhile, was staring into space over her wineglass. “Three complimentary gowns,” she considered. “Hmm.” She started allowing the possibilities to tumble across her mind, like rapids across jewels and precious stones.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Octavia pointed out. “We don’t know who it’ll be yet, after all.”
Applejack nodded. “Well, if it’s a fella, be easier gettin’ foals. If ya want ‘em,” she added.
“It will indeed,” nodded Octavia.
“How many you wantin’? One apiece, or more?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, you ever need help, there’s plenty a’space fer littles ta run around at Sweet Apple Acres,” Applejack offered. “An’ we all love foals.”
The cellist melted. “Aw, why, Applejack, that’s so sweet. Thank you. But really, you should talk to Vinyl about that.”
Rarity’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
Octavia nodded, serene. “Oh, yes. She’ll be doing all the labor, after all. I’m just going to be the wine mom.”
It was at that point that Twilight half-choked on her cider, desperately trying not to do a spit take.
Rarity rose partway out of her chair, concerned. “Darling, are you alright?”
“Oh, man! Is she okay?”
“I think she is,” Octavia observed. “Applejack’s got her.”
“No… I’m fine… just down…” More coughs. “…the wrong pipe…”
“Don’t try to talk, now. Just get’cher breath back.”
Eventually, amidst Octavia and Rarity’s concerns, Vinyl’s laughter, and Applejack’s patting her on the back with an occasional “easy there, hon,” peace was restored to Twilight’s respiratory system.
“Sorry about that,” chuckled Vinyl, shaking her head. “But dude, you gotta admit, it was pretty funny.”
Twilight grinned. “It was. That’s one of the things that kept me coughing.”
“Well then,” said Octavia, raising her glass, “here’s to the healing power of laughter.”
“To laughter!” they toasted.
After drinking, Twilight cocked her head. “So, um. Back to an earlier subject…”
Vinyl grinned. “Breathing?”
“Before that,” Twilight returned good-naturedly. “I was wondering if I could ask you guys something… potentially personal.”
“Ooo,” said Vinyl, leaning forward. “This sounds genuinely interesting and thought provoking. I am so in.”
“Likewise,” said Octavia, finishing her glass.
“Great. So, anyway, you guys are looking for a third. But, I’ve read that relationships with an odd number of ponies are harder to maintain. Especially trios. Isn’t there always the danger of somepony feeling left out?”
Octavia’s look was teasing. “Why Twilight. Are you offering to even us out?”
Vinyl shook her head as she finished her beer. “Don’t let her con you,” she said. “She snores.”
Hooves on her hips, Octavia gave an exasperated sound, staring at her marefriend open-mouthed in mock outrage. The table again broke out in laughter. By the time it had subsided, food had arrived, along with more drinks. Applejack and Twilight continued to nurse theirs, while Octavia contentedly poured more ale into her glass.
“Okay, to answer that, yeah.” Vinyl leaned on Octavia a little, who smiled and returned the gesture. “Poly is harder in general. I mean, you’ve gotta keep communication open, constantly. And anypony lies, pretty much about anything, and it starts fallin’ apart.”
“And while a triangle is ideal in architecture, it is singularly demanding in relationships,” Octavia acknowledged. “It requires constant attention to one another’s emotional well-being. But we’re up to the challenge.”
“Right now, we’re semi-open,” Vinyl added. “But when we find our third, we may close up. I mean, okay, we definitely will at first, until we get everything solid. But we may stay a closed circle, even after that. It just depends on how the relationships work, what everypony’s needs are.”
Twilight nodded. “Interesting. So, if you don’t mind my asking, what if you find a couple instead?”
“Oh, well, you know,” winked Vinyl. “We’d never break up the set.”
Octavia rolled her eyes as she sat straighter on her seat, placing several spring rolls on her plate. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I so am. And you so incorrige me.”
She sighed. “Guilty. Here, have a spring roll.”
“A spring roll? Aw, babe, you do love me.”
Octavia returned her smile. “Always.”
For several minutes there was companionable silence between the five of them as they dined. Eventually, Octavia broke the silence, addressing Twilight.
“So, may I ask you a potentially personal question?”
Twilight blinked. “Sure.”
“If you don’t mind my asking – and please, feel free to decline if this gets too personal – but you’d mentioned you’d been reading about polyamorous relationships?”
Twilight nodded. “Relationships in general, really. A little after the Grand Galloping Gala, I kind of looked around and realized that this was something I hadn’t really studied before. I’d been studying friendship for almost a year, but relationships, romance, the rest of it… I hadn’t even glanced at. And there isn’t very much about polyamory that I’ve been able to find.”
She rolled her eyes. “Almost nothing, actually. Like, one book. That mentions it in one chapter.”
Twilight waited for the inevitable good-natured tease, either from Vinyl or Octavia, but none came. They just nodded.
“There isn’t much,” Octavia agreed. “A lot of ponies, when they talk about poly, they basically mean either having an open relationship, or swinging. A committed relationship between multiple partners is different from either one.”
“It can contain either one, or both,” added Vinyl. “Like any other relationship. But, like any other relationship, that can make things even harder.”
Twilight nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. Listen, I don’t suppose you can you suggest a source? Even just an author? I could try to order something, start some proper research…”
But Octavia was shaking her head. “Not really. Sorry, but I’ve never read anything about it, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve got my folks’ old copy of More Joy of Having Congress, but that’s been out of print for, like, ever,” said Vinyl. “You live in the library, is that what you’ve got?”
Twilight sighed. “Yup. And it’s pretty sparse.” Then she frowned. “But, wait a minute. If you’ve never done research yourselves, then how…?”
Vinyl smiled. “Octavia’s folks are poly.”
Twilight blinked. “Oh.”
Applejack brought her mug up to her mouth to hide her smile. Here it comes…
There was a delighted gasp. “But then, that makes you a primary source!” exclaimed a suddenly animated Twilight. “You could write a book yourself! You both could!”
While the musicians stared in horror, she went on, becoming more excited by the second, “Just think! You could interview your parents, catalogue your own experiences, maybe even do some field studies if you know other poly households…”
Yep, time to break in. “Twi…”
“This is so exciting! And the fact that you were raised in a polyamorous household gives you a unique viewpoint into a little-understood field, not to mention that your own relationship allows for added insight as to the different styles of relationships within the genre…”
“Twi…”
“Actually, is ‘genre’ the appropriate term to use in cataloguing relationships? Would idiom be better—no, that’s for linguistics…”
”Twi!”
Twilight blinked. “What?”
“Ain’t but one researcher at the table, hon. An’ I’m talkin’ to her.”
Twilight blinked again. She looked at Vinyl and Octavia, then at Applejack, and back to Vinyl and Octavia. Then she looked down, a little sheepishly.
“Sorry. New field of study. I guess I got carried away.”
Vinyl nodded. “I can dig it.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Indeed. She gets the same way about her ‘wubs.’”
Twilight cocked her head. “Wubs? Isn’t that a form of sonic frequency modulation?”
Vinyl nodded. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it, sure. But when you come right down to it, it’s all about that bass, man…”
In moments, the two unicorns were deep in a discussion of sonics, reverberations, and various spells and materials that might be tried to make Vinyl’s equipment even more versatile than it already was. Twilight started happily jotting down notes on a napkin, and the two of them were shoulder-to-shoulder, planning out a series of experiments involving siren wood and variations on some of Starswirl’s vocal amplification enchantments.
Applejack and Octavia looked at one another across the table, shook their heads, and gave identical helpless shrugs.
“Well, they’re gone,” Applejack observed.
Octavia shook her head in mock regret. “I knew it was a mistake the moment I mentioned it.”
Time passed. Food and drink vanished. The earth ponies watched the unicorns continue to geek out with some amusement.
“They gotta come up fer air sometime,” Applejack said at last.
Octavia chuckled. “An interesting theory. Do you want to put it to the test?”
Applejack considered this. “Prob’ly not,” she decided.
Together they rose and walked over to the unicorns.
“…so, utilizing Frazer’s Theory of Sympathy against the harmonics, you could potentially eliminate feedback completely, regardless of environment…”
“Yeah, but that’d shift against the higher octaves’ need for greater amplification. You’d need more than just the wood then, you’d need something directional…”
“Hm. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe we could balance that out with…”
“Ladies?” Applejack interrupted. “It’s gettin’ a bit dark out.”
Vinyl’s head whipped around to see the vanishing light through the windows. “Oh, yeah. I got a gig in a little bit.”
“Perhaps this could be continued tomorrow,” Octavia went on. “Twilight, do you have plans?”
“Um, let me check what they are.” A thought brought Twilight’s’ schedule before her, held in a violet glow. “I’m free after six o’clock. What about you guys?”
“I have practice, but I believe Vinyl is free.”
The white unicorn nodded, smiling. “Yeah, most likely. Hit me up, we’ll pick up where we left off.”
Twilight grinned. “Great! I’ll look up a few things in the meantime, I think there’s a few books I can bring over for us to peruse.”
“Yeah, I gotta get, myself,” Applejack nodded.
“Walk you home?” Twilight asked.
“Sure.”
“Be just a second.”
“No hurry.”
Final arrangements were made, and soon ponies were heading their separate ways. Twilight and Applejack left together, and Vinyl took off at a comfortable canter for the club where she was performing.
And then there were two.
“So,” Octavia observed. “You’ve been very quiet this evening,”
Rarity shrugged a little, swirling the red wine in her glass. “I’ve been enjoying watching you all hit it off so well. Sometimes it behooves one to simply enjoy one’s friends enjoying themselves.”
Octavia sighed. “Rarity, this is me.”
When her friend didn’t answer, she went on, “Twilight Sparkle is Princess Celestia’s prize student for several reasons, and not just because she – and you – have been instrumental in saving Equestria. She is possibly the most adorkably bookish person in all the realm. She and Applejack have been getting very close these last few months. And now, she’s researching relationships.”
“Are you concerned that I’m jealous?”
Octavia scooted closer. “Of course not; I know you better than that. I just want to be sure you’re alright, that’s all.”
Rarity took another sip, set her glass down. “I appreciate your concern, darling, but I’m perfectly fine. Yes, Applejack and I, at one time… we explored the possibilities. But the lives we want for ourselves, they’re too different. It would never have worked, and we both acknowledged that.
“Applejack loves her family’s old farm with all her heart. It’s part of who she is, and she’ll never leave. But my future is in the city. One day, I’ll have boutiques in Manehattan, Canterlot, all over Equestria.”
She looked down into her glass. “I could never see that dream fulfilled living on a farm. I confess, I don’t know how things will turn out between Applejack and Twilight… but that hardly matters. What matters is that two of my dearest friends are happy.”
Octavia’s voice was soft. “And yourself?”
A mischievous gleam entered Rarity’s eye. “Well, I’m between SOs at the moment, so I can’t quite compare myself with the rest of you in terms of sheer glow…”
Here Octavia blushed, and Rarity went on, “But I’m happy, and I’m doing well. Winter is due in two days, and the air is crisp and cool and smells pleasantly of autumn leaves. I have fine wine, I have my business, and I have caring friends like you.”
They both smiled at each other as she finished, “So, if asked, I would have to conclude that life has been very good to me indeed.”
The two hugged.
“I should go,” Octavia said. “I promised Vinyl I’d be there for her gig tonight.”
“Go on, dear. And make sure to tell me when you find your third.” She winked. “Genius doesn’t happen overnight, you know.”
Octavia gave a final hug. “It can with you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
The cellist passed through the doors into the outside world. And then there was one.
Rarity looked into her wine glass.
“Oh, Rarity,” she sighed. “Rarity, you idiot.”
Then she drained the glass, and ordered another.
Author's Note
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This timeline continues in Lessons for the Teacher.
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And for those of you who have already read Cupid Mark Crusaders, now you know what would have happened if the CMCs hadn’t come home early from summer camp. And if you haven’t yet, please feel free to check it out for a glimpse into my other what-if continuity, Sunset Rising. (Once you reach the blog post, scroll down.) 
And, of course, the seminal story that starts it all begins here.
