Twilight woke to the sound of a mare screaming in ecstasy, definitely not what she expected the first sound of a new day to be. She had a feeling she would regret this but she went out, in her sky blue bathrobe, onto the balcony to witness the sight of Shining Armor sexually pounding a pegasus that looked suspiciously like Cadance. After a harder look at the mare’s face, she realized that it was this world’s version of Cadance, and said mare had a look on her that said she was enjoying the moment. Just where had Twilight and Pinkie ended up? Twilight also realized the manor from which all the commotion was coming from was Blueblood’s old mansion.

“I’m trying to get some actual sleep,” Twilight yelled at the two, “the least you could all do is keep the dead waking noises until after noon,” she was being sarcastic, but it seemed that what she said was similar to what her alternate would say.

“Sorry about that, sis,” Shining yelled back, “this one is always frisky and kinky in the morning.”

“Aren’t you two married,” Twilight shot back reflexively without thinking, “you would think you would find something a bit more private.”

“Nope,” Cadance responded back, she really did sound like her alternate self, but at the same time not, “I was feeling an exhibitionist kink this morning. As for the married part, maybe we should have ourselves an official wedding, it might make things more fun. After all,” she sensually played with Shining’s chest and groin, much to Twilight’s surprised annoyance, “I have been with you the longest.”

Unlike the other mares she had seen in this world, Cadance’s bust actually looked smaller. Of course, she wasn’t an alicorn either; chances were her cutie mark would be different as well. She had a silver band on her left arm but due to the angle Twilight couldn’t make out any of what her mark in this world was like. Compounding the problem was the fact she couldn’t tell what kind of armband Shining Armor had due to the way the light reflected off the metal when it came into view for her.

Twilight gave a grunt of disgust and headed down to the study, the place had four bathrooms but she wasn’t in the mood for using any of them at the moment, and she really needed to find out what the bands meant.

The moment she arrived in the study she spotted Spike reading a book with a red cover and gold floral patterns but she couldn’t see any lettering to indicate the author or title, he was in a sky blue business suit with an indigo shirt and violet tie, all of which had a green flame pattern on them. “Oh, Spike,” said Twilight in surprise, “I wasn’t expecting you this early in the morning.”

“I know,” said Spike as he approached, “I like to do some unscheduled visits to make sure you’re all in the best health and spirits. I heard your little exchange with your brother, never a dull moment with that one.” He then closed the book and set it down on a side table next to the chair he was in before approaching Twilight, “Yes, robes really do suit you best,” he brought his nose in close and took a deep whiff of her, “and you have bathed yet, nothing out of the ordinary there.” He brought his brought his nose to her neck and took another sniff of her neck, which caused Twilight to feel a sense of sexual excitement for some reason, “I wish I could spend more time ‘playing’ with you, but I have things that require my attention and presence today. But rest assured, we’ll have some more extended fun when I’m not so busy.” With that, he departed.

A few minutes after he left, Twilight let out a sigh of relief and started searching the study for anything on the bands or collars, something on both would be the most welcome. After about a half hour of searching the stacks, Twilight finally found what she was looking for.

___________________________________

Pinkie woke up with her usual vigor, seemed she had also slept in her apron. She quickly tossed it off and into a hamper next to the bed, a basket that was in danger of overflowing despite being filled with a single type of clothing, she would probably have to do something about that later. Pinkie then checked her closet intended for nothing but clothing; there was nothing but aprons in it. Looks like this world’s version of Pinkie either really liked going around in just an apron, which was definitely a possibility, or she was under a similar attire restriction to Twilight.

Looking through the collection, Pinkie found the aprons were actually broken up into four groupings. Work/Casual, Formal (how an apron could be formal with nothing else to accentuate it was only really known to Pinkie), Business Casual (once again, something not a whole lot of folks could pick up on), and erotic. Pinkie grabbed a cornflower blue apron from the Work section and went to the restroom to wash up and to towel off before she tied it on then headed down to open up, she wondered why she didn’t have any employees in this place. The notes she had read by the other Pinkie stated she was still looking into finding the right ponies for the job, she also specifically stated she wanted to keep dragons out of the equation.

Almost as soon as she opened the door a beige colored earth pony in what looked like barely legal bikini got crossed with green lace lingerie with a brass band on her arm rushed in and said, “I’m in a bit of a rush, I really need a job and place to stay or they’ll…” Pinkie’s gaze rested on the mare’s DDD-Cup breasts for a moment; she remembered the Sweetie Drops from home only having D-Cup breasts.

“Calm down there,” said Pinkie, “Sweetie Drops, right?” The mare nodded, “I’m glad you’re answering the call out for help here, I could definitely use it. Please show me your mark,” the mare blinked a bit before reorienting herself so the mark on the band was showing to Pinkie. Unlike the Sweetie Drops she knew back home, this mare had five pieces of candy that were all in green wrappers shaped like a bow with a pink stripe through them. “Your talent is making sweets, correct?”

“Candy, in particular,” said Sweetie Drops, “I’ve been here for a few years now, but for some reason, I was ejected from my old job without warning or a statement why.”

“The business was probably going out or were forced to fire her because of something someone said,” muttered Pinkie, “tell you what, Sweetie, I’ll leave you in the kitchen on your own for a bit and if you can impress me with whatever you make, with as little a mess as possible, I’ll give you the job.” Pinkie would also leave a note for the other Pinkie to tell her about the new hire. “Also, this is party shop, that means we need to have preparations of all kinds for as many different kinds and sorts of parties there are.” Pinkie took a good look Sweetie Drops as the mare made her way into the kitchen, the mare’s pastel blue and pink mane and tail did have a nice aesthetic to them, and her rear wasn’t bad to look at either.

___________________________________

As far as Twilight could tell, the armbands indicated the position and level of importance to the dragon the pony was. Iron and Steel were reserved for ponies in the gladiatorial arenas, iron for the low-rankers and steel for the high-rankers. Bronze was used to indicate a pony in a transition period from lower echelons to higher ones; chances are Spike had unintentionally extended the waiting period for Twilight and Pinkie. Brass, Tin, and Pewter were for lower ranking ponies and Copper was the generally higher ranking ponies. Silver and Gold were reserved for the equivalent of Canterlot’s elite, mostly, with Platinum being reserved the ponies the dragon considered most important of all, the elite among the elite in the dragon’s opinion.

Twilight was surprised it had taken her so long to find the book, half of that time was finding the rankings section of her super library of a home. Of course, the real surprise came when she found that Celestia and Luna did exist in this world and were still alicorns, but due to the immense rarity of alicorns they were reserved for the Dragonlord only, any dragons found in possession of an alicorn were to hand the alicorn over to the Dragonlord immediately. Celestia and Luna were both just a little under two thousand years old, which meant they appeared in what should have Equestria a thousand years after the dragon clans conquered the region and broke into territories.

From what she could tell, Spike was trying to bring as many territories as possible under a single banner, basically turn the whole region into a nation unto itself like what Equestria was. Of course, she couldn’t be sure on account of Spike’s records were thoroughly out of date and he didn’t seem to to be any kind of rush to fix that.

Author's Note

So yeah, more confirmation this is a bit different than what Twilight and Pinkie are used to seeing.