Or a Reasonable Facsimile Thereof
Over the years, Spike liked to think that he'd become pretty much of an expert on belly rumbles.
The gurgling when he ate too much ice cream, for instance, had a whole different tone from the churning when he ate too much amethyst. The happy little growls when he smelled cinnamon rolls could hardly compare to the joyful groans that ratcheted through his middle at the scent of Pinkie's freshly baked, raspberry-jelly-filled donuts. And the grumble when he missed lunch completely because he was running around hoping Twilight wasn't going to tear the whole castle apart looking for a misplaced book—
That was a sort of rumble that he didn't like at all.
He had no one to blame but himself, too. If he'd been thinking, he never would've mentioned at breakfast that he was having trouble with his old narrow shower. "Every time I turn around to grab the scrubbing pumice, these darn wings smack into the hot water handle and shut it off! What, am I supposed to be cold-blooded all of a sudden?"
And the look that began simmering in Twilight's eyes, well, Spike had seen that look a lot, living with crazy ponies his whole life. "The Alchemy of Architecture!" she announced, jumping up from the table even though she'd barely touched her pancakes.
That got him blinking. "The who of what now?"
She was doing a little dance. "Burns Brightly's forty-volume set on magical construction techniques! Derpy just delivered the whole collection yesterday, but I haven't had a chance to do anything more than put the set on display in the new books section! Volume twenty-nine's all about thaumaturgically manipulating crystalline structures: the author spent a year researching it in the archives of the Crystal Empire! We'll be able to grow you a bigger shower! Oh, this is gonna be so great!" And she popped away with a breeze that smelled like lavender and maple syrup.
Resigning himself to a morning of standing by sweating while Twilight experimented with weird magic, Spike sucked down his pancakes—and most of hers, too, since, well, they'd get all cold and soggy sitting there, right? Then with a discreet belch, he jogged out into the hall and around the corner to the library.
Twilight was standing in front of the new books section with her wings splayed, her ears folded, and her wide eyes locked on a shelf that displayed a bunch of big, fat, hard-bound books Spike hadn't seen before. Her eyes seemed to be locked especially on the gap between the book with the number twenty-eight on its spine and the one with the number thirty. "Spike!" she shouted, and it was so loud, it felt like a spike, too, crashing through his ears and into his brain.
He couldn't stop a wince. "I'm right here, y'know."
"But volume twenty-nine isn't!" She spun, her scent souring. "I know I saw it yesterday, and I've been really, really, really looking forward to slipping open its dust jacket and running my horn over its arcane details!"
"Hmmm." And because he'd been living with this particular crazy pony longer than any others... "Maybe you were sleep-reading again last night?"
Her wings and ears both perked, and she leaped into a hover. "You check every hallway between here and my room, and I'll shake all my blankets out!"
Of course they didn't find it—the obvious things never worked, Spike had noticed a long time ago—and noon drifted past with them only having dug into every corner and crevice of the castle's first story. Grimacing at the regular "missed lunch" rumbles his stomach was giving off, he trudged up the stairs and wished he'd kept his big snout shut.
At the top of the stairway, though, his belly clenched in its biggest, most special sort of gurgle. Like usual, he barely had time to look away and call, "Twilight?" before he was heaving out a chunk of green fire with a scroll inside it.
"My book?" Twilight shot down the hallway toward him like an arrow, but when she saw the scroll in his claws, she dropped to a screeching halt on the crystal floor. "That's not my book. Unless—" Her face literally lit up, the purple glow of her horn snatching the message. "Maybe Celestia borrowed it!"
"Really?" Spike folded his arms. "That's your first guess?"
But she was already unrolling the note, her eyes moving from side to side and down the page. "It's...a weeding invitation? Oh, no, wait: it says 'wedding.'" She scowled. "The royal calligrapher really needs to cut down on the curlicues and focus more on legibility when he—"
"Twilight?" Reaching over, Spike gently tapped a claw against the back of the paper. "Who's getting married?"
"Hmmm? Oh, it's—" With a gasp, she leaped into the air, her legs sticking out in all four directions. "'Princess Celestia and Princess Luna cordially invite you to celebrate their joyful matrimonial unions with Flim and Flam, the Flimflam Brothers'!"
"Whoa." Spike wanted to say that that sounded sudden, but, well, when Shiny and Cadance had gotten married, Twilight had only gotten their invitations a couple days beforehand, too. Sure, Chrysalis and her whole invasion thing might've had something to do with that, but maybe all pony weddings happened really quickly. So instead of just saying it, he turned it into a question. "Does that seem sudden to you?"
Twilight's wings were buzzing behind her like a hummingbird's. "It seems impossible to me! I mean, more than impossible! It's...it's—" Her mane frizzled with static electricity. "I need a thesaurus!" And she disappeared with a pop that smelled like grape soda that had been left out in the sun for way too long.
Which pretty much answered his question. Spreading his own wings, Spike swooped down the stairwell. In front of the library's reference desk, Twilight had seven or eight big books open and swirling around her like moons. "It's ridiculous!" she shouted. "Awkward! Difficult! Inconceivable!" She gasped, every bit of purple glow vanishing, and the books thudded to the floor. "Conceive! You don't suppose those villains got Luna and Celestia—?" Slapping a hoof over her snout, she stared at him in a way that made Spike wonder if he'd missed licking off some of the whipped cream he'd discovered clinging to the side of his nose an hour or two ago.
He patted his face just in case—he could really have used a little whipped cream about then—but Twilight was already turning away, her magic scooping up the books and sliding them back onto their shelves. "Never mind!" she announced. "We've got to stay calm, Spike! I mean, it's no use flying into a panic until we've investigated what's going on, right?"
Spike opened his mouth to suggest that they skip the panicking for once and just do the investigating, but Twilight spun in place again, her horn flaring and gravity going haywire, everything smelling like a thunderstorm had just sprung up. Fortunately, Spike's stomach barely had time to start complaining before solid ground slid up under his claws, and he blinked at the light of a bright blue afternoon shining off the marble walls of Canterlot Tower.
Even more fortunately, the Royal Guard had maintained the Twilight Sparkle Protocols that Shining Armor had put in place more than a decade ago. A pair of soldiers stepped up at once to escort the two of them directly into Celestia's western antechamber with the promise that Her Highness would be along shortly. Just being in the palace seemed to calm Twilight a little: her left eyelid had stopped twitching, at least, and her wings didn't look so much like fists full of claws all clenched and ready to crack somepony across the jaw.
Slipping quickly into his role as number one assistant, Spike got Twilight settled at the table under the big stained-glass window, poured her a cup of tea from the service that was always sitting there hot and fully loaded with little sandwiches, crumpets, scones, and that terrific sweet lemon spread that Spike always wanted to just eat with a spoon even though Twilight wouldn't let him. The scent of it got his belly grumbling even now, but he knew that he wouldn't get any snacks at all unless her kept her calm. "You know it's gotta be some kinda mistake, Twilight," he said in his most soothing tone. "There's no way Celestia and Luna would—"
"Twilight!" rang out a voice overflowing with joy, and the double doors they'd come through a moment before burst open, Princess Celestia trotting in as perkily as Spike had ever seen her—and since she was pretty much perkiness incarnate, that was saying something. She was high-stepping like a showpony, her mane bouncing more than flowing, her head bobbing like she was hearing her favorite music ever. "I'm so glad you could come! Look who's here, Pookums!"
Her horn, Spike saw then, was glowing, and behind her as she danced through the doorway floated a ball of light with a pony reclining inside it. The pony wore a fancy purple robe and about the smuggest expression Spike had ever seen. Also, it was one of the Flimflam Brothers: Spike had never been quite sure which of them was which, but this was the one without the mustache.
Next to Spike, Twilight had gone as still as a statue, her mouth hanging open and her eyes bulging wide.
"Well, well, well," said whichever of the brothers it was, his expression somehow getting even smugger. "If it isn't Equestria's fifth-favorite princess."
Celestia giggled, a sound that made Spike think of tiny silver bells. "Oh, now, Flimsy!" The light from her horn reached back to close the doors. "I showed you the results of that survey in strictest confidence!"
"That you did, my sweet." Flim—or at least Spike assumed it was Flim from the nickname—rolled out of the ball of light onto the carpet beside Celestia and looked up at her. "Can you ever forgive me?"
A smile stretched over Celestia's muzzle like a cat in a sunbeam. "I can forgive you anything," she more purred than said. Lowering her head, she touched her lips to his, and—
Now Spike knew about kisses. Twilight still kissed him goodnight when he went to bed even though he was starting to think he might be getting too old for stuff like that. Rarity blew these little air kisses that he always imagined he could see swooping and swirling toward him like butterflies. Pinkie hugged and kissed ponies all the time, hopping from one to the next while doing musical numbers even.
But when Celestia's lips met Flim's, one of her big wings coming around to caress his neck, his whole body rising up on the tips of his hooves, her whole body moving forward like she wanted to pull him up inside of herself, parts of Spike started heating and tingling, and the gurgle in his belly was like nothing he'd ever—
"Hey, hey, hey!" Something purple slammed down in front of him, Twilight landing with a thud that shook the room, her wings spreading out to cut off his view of whatever was happening between Celestia and Flim. "Impressionable child over here!
"Twilight!" Spike's face was heating up now, though he wasn't quite sure what exactly he was embarrassed about.
"You're right," Celestia's voice said, and when Twilight folded herself out of the way, Celestia and Flim were just standing next to each other—though Celestia had one wing the size of a down comforter resting across Flim's back. "I'm sorry, Twilight. It's just... Oh, I haven't felt like this in centuries!"
A twitch scuttled over Flim's face, and the smile he turned toward Celestia didn't seem quite as smug anymore. "And yet, my love, you'll always be younger than springtime."
That silvery giggle bubbled up from Celestia again. "You see? He knows all the songs and poems that've been dedicated to me throughout the ages, and he doesn't even mind that everything he says from now on will be judged against the words of the greatest writers in Equestrian history!" She bent her neck and nuzzled the top of his head. "He's just that confident!"
Flim's face twitched again, and Spike was about to ask if he was okay when a louder, more boisterous voice from somewhere shouted, "Twilight Sparkle!" A bubble of shadow puffed up beside Flim, and Luna appeared. "Sister said she would be sending you your invitation this afternoon, and I knew you'd wish to hasten here that you might offer us your congratulations!"
Spike blinked. Luna was wearing a mask that looked kind of like an aviator's helmet even though Nightmare Night wasn't for another five months, and when she lowered her wings, he could see a pony stretched across her back, a unicorn stallion with a bushy red mustache. All he seemed to be wearing was a saddle with full bridle and bit, and—
"Luna!" Twilight sprang in front of Spike again, that purple wall of feathers bursting up, her ears folded so low, they almost disappeared into her mane. "Spike's right here, y'know!"
"Ah. My apologies." More shadows fluttered against the ceiling, and when Twilight stepped out of the way, Luna had on her regular silver shoes and crescent moon chestplate. Flam stood between her and Flim—well, the one with the mustache stood between her and the one without the mustache; besides, he was more leaning against Luna than standing—and he was now wearing a fancy purple robe like his brother was. He was kind of drooping, too, but that made sense, Spike decided. If he was keeping Luna's schedule, he was supposed to be sleeping at this time of the day.
Not that Luna seemed tired at all, but, well, she'd had a lot longer to get used to the night shift, he supposed.
"And so!" Luna was going on. "Now that we are all garbed appropriately, has Sister asked you yet to do us the honor of performing the ceremony?"
"What?" When Twilight's wings shot out this time, they looked like they were made of porcupine quills instead of feathers.
Luna's big laugh echoed around the room. "You were correct, Sister! The offer has rendered her speechless!"
"Indeed." Despite all the weirdness, Celestia's voice still made Spike think of a quiet summer dawn. "But it would mean so much to me, Twilight, if you could officiate."
Twilight had frozen again, and Spike's stomach had tightened up so much, he imagined his belly would clank if he flicked a claw against it. This couldn't be changelings again: they were good guys now except Chrysalis, and she couldn't be playing both Flim and Flam, could she? He'd never heard Thorax or Ocellus say anything about being able to split themselves in two like that...
Before he could decide which of his questions he wanted to ask, Celestia was shaking herself. "But I have mid-afternoon meetings to attend, and I know Luna must prepare herself for the evening transfer. Perhaps, Twilight, you could talk with the boys and see what ideas they might have for the ceremony?" She sidled sideways into Flim, her shoulder nudging his withers and staggering him into Flam, still slumped against Luna. "Luna and I have participated in so many weddings, after all—hundreds of thousands of them, I'd venture to say—that I can't wait to see what special things my little Flimsy has planned for me."
"Yes," Luna said, and when she narrowed her eyes to smile down at Flam, she looked so much like Nightmare Moon, Spike couldn't help swallowing. "I also cannot wait for our special things, my love."
"What?" Twilight shouted a second time. Spike's belly had stopped making any noise at all, something that hardly ever happened, and both brothers' regular custard-yellow hides had paled till they were practically the color of eggshells.
Of the group of them, Flim recovered first. "Of course," he said, his ears moving up and down like he wanted them to go one way and they wanted to go the other. "In fact, my darling, if Princess Twilight's willing, why don't Flam and I accompany her back to her castle in Ponyville?" When he leaned to nudge Celestia, his shoulder met her leg just above the knee, and she didn't move at all. "That way," he went on, and Spike thought his voice trembled some, "there'll be no chance for you or your dear sister to accidentally overhear what we're planning."
Celestia's horn started to glow. "So considerate," she murmured. A fold of her magic ruffled Flim's mane, then the golden light whisked across the room to open the doors. "Come, Luna. We'll see the boys later."
"Yes," Luna said again, but this time, she held out the 's' at the end till she sounded like one of Fluttershy's snakes. She stroked her wing along Flam's back, and Spike could only blink when he shivered: maybe Spike didn't know what was going on, but he knew for a fact that the princesses' wings were really soft and warm. "I'll likely be on duty when you return, my love, but I shall most assuredly see you in your dreams." She pulled away from him, and the way he tottered in place, Spike was a little surprised he didn't fall over.
Luna joined Celestia in the doorway, and the two more drifted out of the room than walked. The doors swung shut, and Twilight shouted, "What?" for the third time.
"Well," Spike began, ready to fill her in on the few details he'd managed to piece together.
But she was wheeling to face the Flimflam Brothers instead, her forelegs spread, her head lowered, and her teeth bared. "What've you done to them?" she growled, and Spike was pretty sure that that was the first time he'd ever thought of her as growling.
"Please!" Flam dropped to his rear set of knees, his front hoofs coming up to meet below his chin. "You've got to—!"
"Shhh!" Flim jumped over and pressed his own front hooves over Flam's mustache. "We can't talk here!" His eyes darted back and forth in their sockets before stopping to focus forward on Twilight. "But," he went on in a harsh whisper, "if you'll take us to your palace as I suggested, we can hopefully get started on remedying the unfortunate situation we all find ourselves in."
Twilight kicked at the carpet and snorted like the Ponyville bulls sometimes did when they were playing around in front of the cows in Applejack's fields. "I think a little char-broiling might remedy two of my most unfortunate situations once and for all!"
Flim's eyes narrowed. "After the display you've just witnessed, perhaps you can imagine how your mentor and her sister might respond to you frying their fiancés." He drooped then, too. "Please, Your Highness. We—" He swallowed so hard, Spike could hear the gulp from across the room. "We need your help."
Silence settled over them. Spike looked back and forth between Twilight, still with her head lowered and her teeth showing, and the brothers, wilting like pumpkin vines after the pumpkins had been cut off. He was about to suggest that some scones with lemon spread might help everypony think when Twilight gave another stomp and snort, fired up her horn, and with a burst of magic that made Spike's eyes water like those terrific, wrinkly, dark-red peppers Applejack grew out behind her tomatoes, they were all sitting at a table in Twilight's library.
"Fine," she said, but the tightness in her voice told Spike that she didn't think it was fine at all. "Can we get you anything? Tea? Sandwiches? Cookies?"
Spike's stomach leaped in approval, but Flim was shaking his head. "No time," he said, his horn coming to wobbly life. His magic pulled open the front of his robe, and a pink, heart-shaped stone covered with gold and silver filigree came floating out, the gold and silver threads twining into a thin chain hanging from it. "This is the Amorcord Amulet, and you've got to find a way to turn it off!"
Blowing out a breath—this, he knew how to handle—Spike headed for the magical reference stacks. "I'll get both volumes of Amulets and Artifacts."
"Thanks, Spike," he heard Twilight say. He glanced back to see that she'd taken the amulet in her own magic and was squinting at it. "Tell me everything, you two." Her head came up with a jerk. "But no snappy patter song! Just tell me!"
Flim groaned and covered his face with his hooves. "I haven't been able to get out a song in four days!" His hooves dropped, and he looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach. "I mean, I knew as Prince-Consort, I'd have ponies hanging on my every word—I was rather counting on that when it came to convincing the Royal Gaming Commission to call off its audit of our casino's books! But the Canterlot elite expect the pony wooing Princess Celestia to be Cowtullus, Spear Shaker, and Filbert and Puddle Jump all rolled into one! I can't compete with the entirety of Equestrian literature! I open my mouth, and everything just...dries up..."
Another bit of silence stretched, Spike pulling the two books off the shelf. As he turned and started back to where he'd left the ponies, though, he heard Twilight ask, "Royal Gaming Commission?"
"Ah. Yes." Flim cleared his throat. "We'd been having a little trouble with them and were trying to come up with a solution. That was when Flam's research discovered that we had this amulet in our possession."
Flam groaned this time, the first sound Spike thought he'd made since they gotten to Twilight's castle. "I'll never open another musty old tome as long as I live!"
While Twilight bristled, Spike grinned and thumped the two big books down on the table. "You were saying?" Twilight asked, her voice and scent both sour.
The brothers winced, but Flam went on. "We occasionally have deadbeats who cut out without paying their hotel bills, and so we of course confiscate whatever baggage they leave behind." He gestured to the amulet. "That was concealed in the false bottom of a suitcase abandoned by some sketchy-looking stallion with permanent three-day stubble and a heavy accent. He left behind a crate of books, too, and in one of them, it said that this thing is—"
"The Amorcord Amulet." Twilight had been rifling through her books while Flam had talked, and now she flipped one open to a page that showed a picture of the heart-shaped stone. "'This amulet,'" she read, squinting at the small print, "'will compel any alicorn to fall under a spell of undying love with the bearer.'" Her jaw dropped, and her head jerked up again to stare at the brothers.
Flim rolled his eyes. "Our book says the spell works once per bearer and only binds the first unaffected alicorn the bearer sees, Princess. So you're safe."
Wiping sudden sweat from her forehead, Twilight puffed out a breath, but Spike found himself thinking about what she'd just read. "But wait," he said, scratching the side of his head. "I mean, for, like, a thousand years, there was only one alicorn in the whole world, wasn't there?" He shrugged. "It seems a little crazy that Princess Celestia would just let this thing float around out there if it'd make her fall in love with any low-life who comes along." He arched an eyeridge at the brothers.
They didn't even give him dirty looks. "It's a curse," Flam muttered, leaning further and further over till his head was resting on the table. "The first day was fabulous, but then..." He shivered again.
That got Flim nodding. "Celestia and Luna often appear together at dawn on a balcony on the east side of Canterlot Tower so the citizenry can see them cooperating to lower the night and raise the day. Flam and I found a spot in the crowd on the street below with the amulet's chain wrapped around each of our forehooves, and sure enough, as soon as the sun was up, a troop of guards found us and said that the princesses would like to see us. But after the first rush of, uhh—" His gaze darted over to Spike. "Getting to know each other, shall we say, nothing's worked out at all!"
Flam stirred. "I try to bring up the Gaming Commission, and Luna says, 'Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about that.' And then she...she—" He made a choking noise.
"And worst of all?" Flim waved a hoof. "Celestia says that, once the four of us are married, they'll own half the casino and can convert it into a government-run, non-profit entertainment venue! Non-profit!" His snout wrinkled. "It makes me feel dirty just saying the word! So please, Princess!" He leaned forward and tapped the open book. "You've got to find some loophole in here! You've got to!"
"Hmmm..." Twilight was turning the amulet over and over in her magic. "The spell on this is very old and very strange. It's as if—" She squinted one eye at the stone, and a little silver spark popped up from it. "Huh. Well, that's not— That shouldn't—" Blinking, she shifted her attention to the book.
Finally! "Listen," Spike said, his stomach grouchily reminding him that he still hadn't had any lunch or any tea or any scones or any of the lemon spread. "Once she gets into a research project, she can sit here for hours. So how 'bout I get us all some sandwiches, and we can—"
"That's it!" Twilight crowed, slamming her front hooves down on the table with a crash like a bowling ball falling from the top shelf of a closet. Spike winced at the memory: he'd kept his bowling ball on the bottom shelf of his closet ever since then...
"Yes." Reaching into the cloud of her magic, Twilight tangled the amulet's chain around her fetlock and pulled it out to dangle in front of her. "It's a tricky little enchantment, but I'm pretty sure I know how to cancel it."
The brothers were staring at her like she was a whole box of Pinkie's raspberry-filled jelly donuts, a thought that got Spike's insides rumbling again.
Nopony seemed to notice, Twilight setting the amulet down on the open book. "It talks a lot in here about 'undying love.' Does your book use that phrase? Never 'endless love' or 'eternal love' or anything like that? Always 'undying love'?"
Blinking, Flim just stared, but Flam sat forward. "Yes! The word was even underlined, if I'm recalling correctly."
Twilight nodded. "It's a word that shows up in every study I've ever read of alicorn physiology, too. Not 'immortal' or 'indestructible,' but 'undying.'" A little tightness came into her voice. "We don't die during the normal course of events, you see, but we can be killed with the application of sufficient force." She puffed out a breath and glanced back and forth between Flim and Flam. "It's the same, I'm betting, with the love this amulet creates. It won't die, but it can be killed."
Both brothers' brows were wrinkling. "But," Flim asked, "how do you kill love?"
"In this case?" Twilight pushed the amulet across the table toward them. "With the truth. You tell the princesses what you did and why you did it."
Flim's jaw dropped. "Are you insane?"
And Flam's mustache bristled. "They'd grind us into paste!"
The half-lidded gaze Twilight fixed on Flam was as cold as any Spike had ever seen. "As opposed to what's happening to you now?" She shifted the gaze to Flim. "Or are you resigned to losing your casino and never opening your mouth in public ever again?"
For a moment, the whole room froze. Then the brothers seemed to deflate, and they gave the tiniest possible nods.
"All right!" Twilight picked up the amulet in her magic and gestured to the book. "If you'll take that, please, Spike, we'll be on our way!"
Spike jumped over and grabbed the book just as everything went all purple and weightless and corn-fritter-scented around him. Then he was standing once more in the courtyard of Canterlot Tower with the three unicorns. "Guards?" Twilight said to the two marching toward them—the same two, Spike realized, who'd dealt with them earlier in the afternoon. "We'll need to see both Celestia and Luna in the western antechamber as quickly as possible, please."
The guards both nodded, and one went off while the other led them back to the room where this had all started. The tea set had been restocked, a fact that Spike's belly let him know about in no uncertain terms, but neither Twilight or the brothers seemed interested, Twilight sitting to one side of the room with a stern frown and the amulet floating in her magic while Flim and Flam sort of huddled together on the other side of the room with their heads bowed.
This turned out to be the most uncomfortable of all the silences Spike had been through today, and he was just about to put down the book and head for the scones and lemon spread regardless when the doors burst open, Celestia and Luna trotting in. "Pookums!" Celestia squealed, and Luna's breathily whispered "My love..." started those weird rumblings in Spike's stomach again.
"Hold it." Twilight stepped between the sisters and the brothers, everything about her still stern and frowning. "Spike, could you open the book to the correct page, please, leave it on the floor there, and then go close the doors?"
Being the perfect assistant, Spike did, Celestia asking, "Twilight? What...what—?"
"Flim and Flam," Twilight said, the cloud of her magic stretching the amulet over to them, "have something to tell you." The purple sparkles vanished, and the amulet fell to the carpet in front of the brothers with a thud.
Which forced Spike to change his mind as he turned away from the doors: this silence was the most uncomfortable one so far.
Then Flim cleared his throat. "It isn't that we don't respect you as our princesses—"
"Respect?" Flam straightened slightly. "'Revere' might be a better word, don't you think, brother of mine?"
"Indeed!" Flim's ears perked, and Spike was sure he heard a banjo and tuba start playing somewhere. "In fact, our adoration can scarcely be described! Your poised coordination could never be denied!"
Flam slid in right on tempo. "Esteem and pure devotion our princesses are owed, but personal emotion unworthily bestowed?"
"In short," said Flim.
"In short," said Flam.
"Enough!" shouted Twilight. She stomped her hoof, and the music cut off mid-note. "Just tell them!"
The princesses were staring, their wide eyes flicking from the book to the amulet to the brothers and back again.
"We, uhh..." Flim swallowed, his eyes also very wide, but they were fixed unmoving on Celestia's face. "We used the Amorcord Amulet. To make you...uhh..."
"Fall in love with us." A drop of sweat ran down the top of Flam's snout. "So we could head off an inquiry into...uhh..."
"Our assorted business practices." The hoof Flim held up shook a little. "So while we certainly do have feelings for you, they...uhh..."
"Would perhaps best be defined as 'patriotic.'" Flam's smile was shaky, too. "But I'm sure we can still be...friends?"
Once again, Spike had to change his mind about the most uncomfortable silence of the day. The low rumble that began shaking the room, though, broke the silence pretty well, Celestia and Luna's lips pulling back to show more teeth than Spike thought ponies actually had. "Get out," Celestia growled without unclenching any of those teeth, and Spike barely had time to pull the doors open before the Flimflam Brothers shot through them and were gone down the hallway outside.
Pushing the doors closed, Spike shook his head. But when he turned, he didn't see Twilight consoling a teary-eyed Celestia and Luna. In fact, the two sisters were sitting around the tea set pouring cups and putting lemon spread on scones while Twilight glared at them and shouted, "What exactly was that all about?"
Luna tossed her mane. "Whatever do you mean, Twilight Sparkle?"
"This!" Twilight picked up the amulet and the book in her magic. "A cursory examination showed me that the love spell is designed to last exactly twelve hours! But you kept the Flimflams here for four days! So I figured you were trying to teach them a lesson or something, and I brought them back here to play out that last little scene of it, but—" She shook the amulet and the book at Celestia and Luna. "What? And where? And how? And why? And—"
"Oh, Twilight." Celestia sipped her tea. "A little harmless fun, I assure you."
Twilight gaped some more. Spike blinked at her, then opened his mouth to ask the other princesses what was going on.
But a curl of Celestia's magic was reaching out and taking the amulet from Twilight. "I put this together thirteen or fourteen centuries ago as a birthday gift for my dear sister and dropped it off in disguise at one of Canterlot's shadiest pawn shops while whispering a slightly edited version of its secrets to the proprietor." She nodded to the book. "That way, it was sure to fall into only the vilest of hooves, and, well, Luna does so like the bad ponies."
The smile Luna gave then still had too many teeth. "One of the several matters about which I incessantly complained before my ill-fated attempt to take over the world was my lack of social life. Or rather, the lack of spontaneity, danger, sweet madness, and grotesque salaciousness in certain private aspects of my social life."
Another leap brought Twilight to Spike's side, her feathers tickling his ears as she held her wings up to his head. "For a general audience, please?" she said through what sounded like gritted teeth.
"Of course." Luna bowed slightly. "Sister informed me of the amulet's intended effects, and I could hardly wait for some villain to spring it upon me. And when it did appear around the thick neck of a most deliciously despicable stallion calling himself Rawhide..." She shivered and sighed. "In deference to those present, I shall only say that Sister's magic worked perfectly, and I was swept into a maelstrom of fervent, throbbing emotion that—"
Soft warmth enveloped Spike's ears, blocking out every sound except for Twilight yelling, "Luna!"
Luna blinked, her mouth moving and her shoulders shrugging. Spike batted Twilight's wings away in time to hear her say, "—a growing lad, Twilight. He'll soon enough learn about—"
"No." Now it sounded like Twilight's teeth were grinding. "Just...no."
Spike turned to glare at her and ask just what the hay she thought she was doing—of course Luna liked things that were sort of weird and gross! She was in charge of Nightmare Night!
But Luna interrupted him: "Very well," she said, her voice muffled. Spike looked back at the table, and she was finishing off a scone dripping with lemon spread. "Further bowdlerizing my narrative, however, brings it largely to an end. The amulet would resurface at random intervals to bring these Lotharios and would-be conquerors into my life for a day or three." She licked her lips. "Depending upon their stamina, of course."
The gurgle in Spike's belly confused him again: it had something to do with hunger, of course, but he wasn't sure it had anything to do with the food...
Celestia was nodding. "After Luna and I had our falling out, I felt so lonely that I expanded the amulet's parameters to affect me as well. Twelve hours of pure love every century or two..." She sighed. "And I was able to redeem most of the villains after returning to my senses." Shrugging, she raised her scone. "The struggle was always most invigorating."
"So wait." Twilight had the book floating open in front of her and was just peering over the top of it. "When it says 'any alicorn' in here, does that include...me?"
Luna, sipping her tea, coughed it back out her nose, and Celestia held up a hoof quickly. "Gracious, no! Just Luna and myself." A smile spread over her lips. "But we could certainly add you if you'd like."
"Thank you, but that won't be necessary!" Behind the book, Twilight had turned the color of an overripe plum.
Dabbing a napkin at her snout, Luna made a clicking noise with her tongue. "I would urge you to reconsider. Most of the villains we attract with it are true adversaries. Even this Flam so recently departed." She heaved a long sigh. "Such mustache rides..."
"Okay!" Twilight flashed to Spike's side, the book suddenly wrapping around his head. "We'll just leave the amulet with you and be on our way!" The carpet vanished beneath his claws for an instant, the air filled with a heat as muggy as an August afternoon, and when he looked down, it was the library floor under him.
Twilight shouted, "Okay!" again. The book pulled away, and Spike blinked at her, her grin too broad and an awful lot of white around eyes. "Now that that's over," she went on, her voice pretty much the opposite of little silver bells, "we never have to talk about it again, all right? All right!"
Spike started to ask why she was being so weird about this—so Celestia and Luna had played a trick on Flim and Flam: big deal—but Starlight's voice from off to his right stopped him. "I'm guessing I don't want to know?" she asked.
"No, you do not," Twilight said, emphasizing each word.
Glancing over, Spike saw Starlight smiling from the new book shelf, her horn glowing as she slid a book back into a gap. "Well, they say a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and I sure wouldn't want anything dangerous to—"
"Hey!" A flap of her wings carried Twilight to Starlight's side. "Is that—? You had volume 29 of The Alchemy of Architecture?"
Starlight's grin faltered. "Ah. I forgot to check it out, didn't I?"
Twilight huffed a breath through her nostrils. "All material transactions must be properly recorded before said materials are allowed to leave the library." It was rule number three, Spike knew: she'd drilled them into his head since the old Golden Oaks days...
"I'm sorry." And Starlight actually looked sorry for maybe half a second before her grin sprang back into place. "I was just so excited to try these techniques!"
That brought Twilight's ears back up. "They worked, then?"
"It was incredible!" Starlight bounced in place. "And now that I've got a balcony on my room, I won't have to squeeze out through the window for my midnight assignations with Trixie!"
"That's great!" Twilight started bouncing, too, but stopped in mid-air, her wings splaying. "Your midnight what?"
Sighing, Spike turned and headed for the door. He'd pretty much had enough crazy ponies for one day, so maybe Gallus or Ocellus or somecreature might be up for a late lunch/early dinner.
His stomach rumbled at the thought, but a new part of that rumble made him think he'd ask Smolder instead...
