The first thing Flash Sentry knew was softness.
And then he knew pain.
It was slight—more of a small discomfort—and it lingered deep beyond the tender warmth and delicious plushness like a lone buoy in the fog. And it was in his right butt cheek.
And yet, that wasn't what woke him. There was an itch on his lips, one that he wasn't aware had existed, but had been extinguished forthright by the application of something warm, tender, and loving. It was moreover the relief of that “itch” being scratched that drew him from his slumber, so that the minor irritation in his posterior drew closer to the surface of the waking moment, morphing into a persistent throbbing annoyance.
And then—upon the crest of entering a bright and living world—he heard voices piercing that very same fog, tickling his ears with their feminine gaiety.
“Oooh! Lookie-Lookie! He's starting to wakie-wakie! What did I tell you girls?! Huh? HUH?!”
“Well I'll be dipped. Maybe you WERE onto something, Pinkie.”
“This is absolutely fascinating! Quick! Someone mark the time down in my notes! 3:52pm on Saturday afternoon...”
“Shhhh! Just wait! Hee-hee-heeeeee! His eyes are opening!”
Sure enough, Flash Sentry's eyes fluttered open, blue and vibrant and searching. He was lying with his back down flat on the softest substance in the known universe, his hands crossed over his chest.
A series of wooden ceiling beams lingered just two feet from his face and chest.
His eyes narrowed.
“What...?”
As he breathed... as he spoke, he realized that his lips felt unbelievably glossy. Flash licked them, and he tasted virgin-sweet cherries.
“What... …?”
Something was weighing against his bangs. He brought a sleepy hand up, feeling the sharp metal points of a golden tiara. It was then that he realized a long pink sleeve of immaculate silk was daintily clinging to his wrist.
“What... … …?”
He tilted his crowned head up ever so slightly. In the dim light of whatever building he was in, he noticed that he was clad in the finest threads from head to toe. Finely-embroidered flower-pink silk formed a tight bodice that flared out in a lengthy skirt. He found it difficult to breathe: a testament to a narrow corset lingering beneath the finely-woven textures of roses and thorns that enshrouded his forced-hourglass figure. The collar was white, pronounced, and completed the whole ensemble: which turned out to be a fairly competent recreation of Princess Aurora's famous garment from Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Flash's toes twitched, and he realized that his feet were clad in ruby slippers. He moved his legs slightly—again, he felt the growingly sharp pain in his rear end. But—more than that—he heard an unmistakable chiff-chiff-chiffing sound with each movement of his lower limbs... which belied countless petticoats lingering beneath the skirt. As Flash's senses absorbed the enormity of the outfit his sleeping figure had been sarcophagus'd in, he realized that he had to have been wearing lace panties and a brassiere beneath it all to boot.
“What... … … …?”
The poor young man was running out of room to store all his ellipses, so it was good thing that Pinkie Pie spoke up from his immediate right.
“Good morning, Your Royal Highness!” she chirped, as bouncy and happy as ever.
Flash turned to look her way, blinking like the innocent cherub that he was.
“Okay... like... soooooo...” Pinkie Pie's upper torso was looming just beyond the edge of the bed like a muppet. Flash realized that she was standing atop a ladder. “...you know how you catch the hint that one of your best friends might actually have been a celebrity all this time and you're not certain exactly how to go about testing it?”
Flash took a deep breath—as afforded through the corset. He smelled lilacs and lavender. Was he wearing perfume? Again, he licked those lips, and asked the topmost important question lingering atop the plush absurdity of that moment.
“Why does my butt hurt?”
“So I kinda sorta may have gotten all of the girls in on this, and—I've got to say...!” Pinkie Pie grinned brightly enough to illuminate the whole place, revealing cobwebs and sawdust in the distance. “It's paid back big time! We're gonna have a coronation for youuuuuu!”
Before Flash could respond—
“Well...” A voice grunted, rising up towards the ceiling from the left side of the bed. “...first thing's first, Pinkie.”
Flash looked the other way, his tiara rattling.
Sunset Shimmer climbed up into view—standing on another ladder. She caught her breath and flipped through a clipboard full of notes. “We have to take into account the fact that Charming Experiments #1-33 prove inconclusive.”
“Yeah, but #34 worked, didn't it?!” Pinkie squeaked. “It says a lot about the first thirty-three but nothing about Flash!”
“Well, I suppose you do have a point there.” Sunset looked squarely at her former boyfriend and grew a small womany smile. “Good morning, Flash.”
He nodded back at her. “Why does my butt hurt?”
“You hear that?!” Pinkie Pie practically lunged across the bed—ladder tipping precariously—and shook Sunset's shoulders. “I said didja hear that?!?””
“Pinkie! Careful!” Sunset hissed, reaching back over Flash's dressed-up body to steady the both of them. “It's a long way down!”
“Why does my butt hurt?” the boi was practically whimpering by now.
“Ahem...” Pinkie grasped the edge of the bed like an excited kitten and smiled at him. “Specifically where on your tushie, Flashie?”
“Yes, Flash,” Sunset repeated in a serious monotone. “Please be precise. This is important.”
“I... uh...” He brought a useless hand down to the bustle of his silk-pink gown. “...I guess towards the right a bit...”
“'Towards the right' where?” Sunset's brow furrowed. “Closer towards the tailbone or the sphincter?”
“Is it deep cheek or shallow cheek?!?” Pinkie Pie squawked.
“I... uh...” Flash Sentry fidgeted, staring up at the ceiling beams again, pondering if perhaps the softness he was feeling against each nipple came from a series of girly-scented handkerchiefs stuffed into his bra. “I... guess it's closer towards the tailbone... but more to the right?”
“HAH!” Pinkie Pie practically burst, pointing a victorious finger at Sunset. “I KNEW it! Jot that down in your noteclypedialmanacitionariography!”
“Incredible...” Sunset Shimmer murmured, scribbling a pen across a sheet or two. “...and this was after only thirty-two hours.”
“Actually...” Footsteps. Twilight Sparkle climbed up another ladder beside Sunset. Adjusting her glasses, she plinked away at a calculator and stated: “...twenty-nine and a half hours.”
Sunset squinted at the other bedside girl. “How do you figure?”
“Well...” Twilight squinted back. “...the first two and a half hours were spent waiting for the chloroform in the scented candles to have their effect. Technically just the first hour and a half, if you think about it. The rest was spent in putting on gas masks and bringing him here to Applejack's barn.”
“You...” Flash grimaced, glancing back and forth between the three women. “...you gassed me?”
“Oh, and don't forget how long it took to carry him up to the top of this stack!” Pinkie Pie said. “Took me and Fluttershy all week to get the students from Canterlot High to sign the petition to lend us their mattresses! But only the feather-filled kind! Still... we did manage to get twenty of them in time for Operation Yankee Konked-Out!”
“Good thing you remembered to place the pea beneath the bottom mattress before we got him here,” Twilight said with a slight blush. “I can't believe I nearly forgot that variable.”
“Actually, it's an ice-cream sprinkle, remember?” Pinkie Pie said. “But we decided to name him 'Pea' in order to maintain the theme.” She smiled. “Good on Rarity to remind us that Flash is allergic to actual peas!”
“Peas?” Flash stammered.
“Helloooooo!” Pinkie Pie gawked at him. “Hans Christian Andersen??? Or 'Horse Cloppin' Andersaddle,' if we wish to translate it into poni poni poni.”
“I think he gets the point, Pinkie,” Sunset said.
“No I don't—” Flash mewled.
Pinkie lunged her smiling face against his nose, causing her ladder to rock again. “YOU'RE A PRINCESS YA GORGEOUS GOOFUS!” A wink. “You felt a single ice cream sprinkle through twenty rows of feather mattresses! So congratulations all around!”
“Uhhhhh...” Flash tilted his head over the side of the “bed”... and noticed that he was nearly thirty feet off the floor of a rustic old barn. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh...”
“What should I serve at the Coronation...?” Pinkie Pie tapped her chin. “...Hmmmmm... would orange sherbet be too plebeian for a 'Welcome Princess Flash Sentry' party? I mean, we all know he likes the stuff, but at some point a member of royalty has to play face for dignity's sake.”
“Did you hear back from Rarity?” Sunset asked, eyes brightening suddenly. “Is she almost finished with the ballgown?”
“Ballgown...?” Flash wheezed.
“Oh, you'll cry so many happy tears once you see it, Flashie! Your mascara will run!” Pinkie waved a girlish hand. “Maximum poof!”
“Hold on a second...” Twilight raised a finger, attracting the others' attention. “...we're forgetting about the extra variable.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiight!” Pinkie nodded, rocking playfully back and forth on her dangerously tall ladder. “The Charming Experiments!” She raspberried. “Plllbb! Inconclusive! Pea the Sprinkle has given us all we need to know!”
“But they're not inconclusive!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed. “Let us not forget that it took Number Thirty-Four to finally wake him up!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie nodded. “But only because you insisted!”
“Well...”
“And he didn't wake up immediately, Sci-Twi! It was about thirty seconds after Thirty-Four climbed down!”
“Well, to be fair...” Sunset Shimmer folded her arms. “We did use a lot of chloroform.”
“Hmmmmm...” Pinkie nodded. “True. True.”
“Wait a second...” Flash tried sitting up on the plush-plush stack of mattresses. Clang! His tiara rattled loudly against the barn's ceiling beam, so he laid back down, wheezing through his corset. “Thirty... Four...?”
“Oh... uh... yeah...” Twilight Sparkle blushed suddenly. “We needed to know conclusively that you were a princess. So it was Sunset's suggestion that we perform the Charming Experiments. And—for a while there—they didn't prove fruitful.”
“Uhhhh...”
“Here...” Twilight Sparkle fished through her skirt pocket, produced her cell phone, and fingered her way into the camera app. “I'll show you.” She held the thing out for Flash and the other two girls to see. “We started the first experiment on the fourth hour—”
The cell phone footage showed an unconscious Flash Sentry being dragged from the back of Fluttershy's car and towards Applejack's barn at night.
“No no.” Sunset shook her head. “That's too soon.”
“Oh. My apologies.” Twilight Sparkle swiped the phone. “So, in the fourth hour—”
A pair of lacy white panties were slowly being slid up Flash's nubile legs.
“Still too soon!” Pinkie sang.
“Gah!” Twilight gnashed her teeth, swiping several more times. “I need to tweak the sensitivity of this thing...” A corset was being tied behind the teenage boi's back. “No.” Perfume was being spritzed against his hairless chest and shoulders. “No.” Lipstick was being applied to his mouth by a snow-white hand (“Oh, he's absolutely GORGEOUS darlings!”) “Still no.”
“Maybe it's on the second Micro SD card—” Sunset began.
“Here it is!” Twilight triumphantly proclaimed. As she now held up the phone, it showed a handsome teenage beau climbing the ladder, standing next to Flash's prone figure, and leaning over to kiss him on the lips. “So... the Charming Experiment #1 was Thunderbass. After all, the two of you hung out religiously—even before you dated Sunset Shimmer. So we all figured... 'well, y'know...'”
Flash's face reddened.
Twilight flicked the screen, and another young man was climbing the ladder to kiss him. “We let Zephyr Breeze be #2. He found out from Fluttershy about the experiment, and—for whatever reason—he volunteered right away.” She flicked again. “Then Bulk Biceps was #3. We had to lend him three ladders just to get up to the top mattress.” Another flick. “With Curly Winds and Wiz Kid at #'s 4 and 5, we were starting to notice a pattern—or, dare I say—a lack of a pattern.”
“None of them were princely enough to wake you from your 'magical slumber!'” Pinkie Pie said with a pout.
“Soooooooo we got a bit desperate,” Twilight said, swiping several times. “That's why Big Macintosh was #6... and #12...” She squinted as she continued to flick through the files. “And #24. Wowsers... Big Mac really did volunteer a lot, didn't he?”
“Mmmmmmm...” Sunset leaned a smile against her palm. “Sure did.”
Flash reddened even more.
“So Rainbow Dash got the bright idea of calling in Shining Armor,” Twilight said with a bright grin. “We had to get permission from Cadance first. She seemed okay with it. Even filmed it from another ladder. See?” She held the phone closer to Flash, displaying a handsome pale figure leaning over, scooping the boi's past self up in two strong arms and frenching him. “Shining... uh... took his time at #33. About ten minutes, to be exact.”
“I clocked it at fifteen and twenty seconds,” Sunset said, licking her lips.
“Sure. Whatever.” Twilight sighed, flipping the phone off and staring lethargically across the mattress and petticoats. “I'm not particularly thrilled that #34 turned out to be the conclusive variable, but somehow it's not entirely surprising.”
“How could it be?!” Pinkie grinned. “I'm telling ya, Twi-Twi! He's the sole remaining prince of Everfree! Of course he'd be the one to wake Flashie from his slumber!”
“Uhhh...” Flash—red as a beet at this point—could only squirm. “...who?”
Just then, there echoed footsteps from a fourth ladder. A green head of hair rose into view, followed shortly by a tan smile and a jutting chin.
“Aaaaaaaaaand I'm back!” Timber Spruce devilishly purred. “And I brought lip balm this time! Soooooo...” He smoothed his bangs back, smiling slyly. “...shall we get rolling with #35? Or is it against the rules to go twice in a row?” A beat. He blinked at the thoroughly-conscious Flash. “Oh! She's... I mean he's awake.”
“Yes.” Twilight frowned, arms folded as tight as adamantine. “He is.”
“Huh...” Timber blinked again. “Imagine that.” Silence. “Whelp!” He climbed back down, clearing his throat. “Think I'll go back to... uh... helping Rarity and Fluttershy with the dress!”
The girls exchanged glances, then looked down at the occupant of the top mattress.
“Question, Flashie.” Pinkie smiled proudly. “Would you like your slippers made of glass or sequins?”
“I'll think about it.” He coughed, then glanced at Sunset. “Do you have any more of that chloroform?”
Author's Note
