"Well, the Gala might not have been the most enjoyable experience, but at least we managed to get some pleasantness out of it at the end," Rarity remarked.
Applejack chuckled. "Eyup! Ah reckon there's nothin' better than bein' with friends. We shoulda done that from the start!"
"Heh, careful, AJ. Don't want Spike to say 'I told you so' for a second time tonight!" Rainbow countered.
A quick giggle from Pinkie. "Hey, when he's right, he's right."
"Maybe future Galas might be better?" Fluttershy suggested.
Twilight smiled to her. "We can only hope. I don't want to think of it as something that's always going to be unpleasant for us," she finished. She glanced around, seeing all of her friends with her back at her home in the Golden Oak. At present, they were all resting on large pillows, all around a small table with a few snacks. Night had fallen long ago, but they'd thankfully managed to make it back into Ponyville for this little get-together. Twilight was grateful of course, and as she levitated a nearby marshmallow into her mouth, she smiled to them all.
"Alright! Hot chocolate coming through!" Spike announced as he entered in from the kitchen. Setting the drinks down, he watched as the gathered mares all took theirs, then he went for the small cup, his own, and sighed with contentment after taking that first delicious sip. "Ah! Much better!" He then took his place right next to Twilight, who gave him a friendly pat on the head, before speaking up to her. "So, think you can make a sleepover that isn't a disaster this time?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Oh Spike, I've only had one sleepover with an incident before."
An arched eyebrow from the small dragon. "Yeah, and it ended up with a tree in your bedroom."
Rarity and Applejack coughed nervously next to one another, causing a smirk on Spike's part, but it was Applejack who eventually broke the silence between them all. " Well, ah reckon this'll go better than Rarity's plan ta get herself hitched at least."
Though mildly irritated at having that particular matter brought up, Rarity eventually giggled. "Well, you're not wrong. Honestly, I've no idea why I fell for such an arrogant stallion in the first place."
Rainbow smirked at her. "Big name in all the magazines with pretty pictures of him?"
Rarity blinked, then blushed. "Oh...yes...that."
There was a laugh all around, ended when Pinkie leaned right in towards Rarity. "Oooooh! Can you imagine if you'd actually kissed the guy tonight? Like a fairy tale?"
Rarity shuddered. "Oh my no! Having that unpleasant Prince grant me his lips and then learn he was terrible? No thank you!"
Twilight too giggled. "Still, it would have been an interesting 'first kiss' story to tell ponies later on, right?"
Rarity started to look a little embarrassed all of a sudden. "Well...it wouldn't have actually been my first."
And just like that, all was silent, as Rarity became the absolute centre of attention. "Wait...what?" Spike remarked, half horrified at the revelation he'd just learned.
Rarity sighed shortly afterwards. "Oh yes, I fear it's true. My first kiss was quite some time ago. Alas, it was not with anypony who turned out to be the love of my life. So disappointing."
With curiosity growing for all of them, they scooted their pillows closer to her. "So who was it?" Twilight eagerly asked.
Seeing that she wasn't going to be able to convince them not to ask further, Rarity brushed aside some of her mane before finally explaining. "Alright. I was quite young at the time, only a year or two after getting my cutie mark. I was still in the early days of my experience with making dresses. So much so that I needed some help. There was this young colt, and he'd volunteer to help me after class."
Applejack's eyes widened. "Wait a minute...wasn't that the colt who moved away a while back? Um, what was it, Oak something?"
Rarity nodded to him. "Oaky. Yes, that was him. He was just as enthusiastic about it as I was. And one afternoon, while working on one outfit in particular, we got to exchanging ideas. We were both rather into it, and passions for our craft flared, and...well...before we knew it we were kissing."
A chorus of "dawww" broke out, and as Rarity rolled her eyes, Twilight smiled to her. "That sounds so sweet, finding such young love like that."
Rarity looked to the side, fondly remembering the moment. "Yes, it was nice. Embarrassing at the time, to be sure, but nice all the same. Although, as Applejack pointed out, he moved away some time after. But nothing really happened between us after the kiss, it was just a feeling in the moment." She smiled to all her other friends. "We did keep in touch for a while, and I hear he's doing quite well for himself over in Manehattan."
Pinkie grinned, reaching over and patting her on the shoulder. "That's so sweet, Rarity. But it's hard, isn't it? When you find somepony special as a kid and then it doesn't work out?"
Rarity nodded in agreement, then started to look back to her, a knowing smile creeping onto her lips. "I say, Pinkie. You wouldn't be suggesting that you have such an experience, are you?"
Pinkie giggled, not hesitating to confirm that in the slightest. "Yep! It was after I moved here to Ponyville. I was making friends left, right and centre, and there wasn't a pony in town I hadn't thrown a party for after a month of living here."
Rainbow chuckled. "Yeah, you were quite an exciting new arrival alright."
Pinkie squealed with delight over the remark, but got back on with her story. "Anyways, I was making this super-fun birthday party for Muffins, the local trainee mailmare, and near the end she and her friends decided they wanted to play a game of spin-the-bottle."
Spike nudged Twilight in the side. "I think I see where this is going." An eye-roll from Twilight was his response.
And Pinkie too seemed to have heard him, as she smiled widely to him shortly afterwards. "Oh yeah, they invited me to play, and on the first spin I was paired up with Muffins. Didn't even wait, I just leapt over there and wham, my lips on hers!" She giggled. "Said it was the best present she'd had all day!" Then she shrugged her shoulders. "But it was just a kiss, and we decided to stay friends afterwards."
Rainbow glanced to the side. "Note to self, ask Muffins what it was like to kiss Pinkie during the next weather patrol." The others had unfortunately heard her on that one, and so it wasn't long before Rainbow now had everypony's eyes on her. But it seemed as though she was prepared for this, as she gave a quick shrug to it. "Let me guess, my turn?" They all nodded to her, with the exception of Fluttershy, who blushed and looked away. Rainbow saw her, and started to look less confident than she did before. "You know...maybe it's best if I don't talk about it."
Rarity scoffed. "Come now, Rainbow! Why so shy all of a sudden?"
Rainbow frowned to her. "Look, it's not just my story here, okay? It's also talking about...other ponies. And maybe those other ponies don't want this stuff out there."
The others looked to her with confusion, but before Rainbow could go further, she was distracted by a soft hoof on her shoulder. Turning, she saw that it was Fluttershy, who smiled sweetly to her. "It's alright. You can tell them."
Rainbow stared at her, surprised. "You...you mean it?"
Fluttershy nodded. "I appreciate what you were trying to do, but I'm fine with having them hear it."
"Having us hear what?" Spike asked.
After looking to each other for a while, both Rainbow and Fluttershy smiled, then turned to face the rest of them, Rainbow sighing. "Well...my first kiss was with...her." She gestured to the side, to Fluttershy, who blushed a little before meekly waving to her friends.
Mouths were agape for some time, which was to be expected, and when it was over, Applejack looked over to Rainbow. "Explain please."
And explain she did. "Okay, we were both pretty young at the time, and it was just after Fluttershy came back to Cloudsdale after her big fall. You know, the one after my first sonic rainboom?" After the others nodded to show they remembered, Rainbow continued. "Anyway, we were having a sleepover, and I was talking it up, you know, about my win in the race and all? And we were basically talking about how annoying all those colts were back then."
Fluttershy nodded, then added her own voice to the story. "Um, and then I said I was worried about what it would mean if my first kiss was with a colt like that, since some of our friends were talking about their own firsts at the time."
Rainbow chuckled. "And then I went 'nuh-uh' and said she deserved a good first kiss. And...yeah, I kinda just kissed her then and there."
Fluttershy giggled. "It was nice."
Rainbow nudged her in the side. "Better than what our classmates would've given you anyway."
The two laughed together, and Twilight smiled to them both. "That sounds nice. But just so I know, you two aren't a couple right now, right?"
Fluttershy shook her head. "No. It was a kiss, but we wanted to stay friends after that."
"And we always will be," Rainbow added, patting Fluttershy on the shoulder.
There were smiles all around, but after a time, Applejack took off her hat and set it aside before speaking up. "Ah'm guessin' y'all want me ta go next?" As she saw the nods to that, she chuckled, then got on with her story. "Well, it weren't too fancy. Ah saw mah Ma an' Pa kissin' one day, so ah jus' got a little curious bout it. So the next day, durin' recess at school, ah went up ta this colt ah knew an'...well...jus' kissed him."
Rainbow looked to her, surprised, but also rather impressed. "Wait....just out of the blue?"
Applejack blushed. "Yeah. He was jus' as surprised. Mah folks had ta talk ta me bout doin' it with jus' any colt like that, an' in all honesty, ah haven't kissed since."
Rarity almost looked disappointed. "Well, here's hoping your first next kiss has a bit more romance to it."
Applejack arched an eyebrow to her, but laughed with her shortly afterwards. Then, inevitably, it became the turn of Twilight to have everypony look at her. She tapped her chin for a moment before thinking on it, a nostalgic smile coming to her. "Well, it was just before I got accepted into Princess Celestia's school. I was studying in the park with some other fillies and colts, and after a while some of them stopped talking about magic and started talking about kissing. One of them had seen their parents...or was it an older sister? Anyway, they'd seen it and they became curious about it." She glanced to Applejack. "Kinda like with you."
Applejack smiled smugly. "Glad ta know it weren't jus' me then!"
Twilight continued after smiling back to her. "Then, one of the colts, who was right next to me, he stares at me with a blush for a while and then just leaned in and kissed me. Just a quick one, mind you. I don't think it lasted more than a couple of seconds, but yeah, that was my first kiss."
Rarity squealed over that. "Oooooh! How adorable! And what happened to that young colt afterwards?"
Twilight shrugged. "Oh, nothing came of it, and I wasn't really all that interested in him. It was a shock, sure, but it kinda just passed for me." A quick giggle from her. "Anyways, I think he just chose me for that because he felt he had to, because from what I hear, it isn't mares he ended up being interested in after that." There was clear understanding from the group after that, as they all nodded to one another, leading to another shrug from Twilight. "Hey, he knew what he liked, and I wasn't it."
A pause, as all the mares, now realising that they'd all told their respective stories, settled down for a bit. "Well, this was certainly interesting," Rarity remarked.
Twilight giggled, looking down to Spike beside her. "Although, there is one story that hasn't been told yet."
Spike's eyes widened, and he looked to her desperately. "No! You wouldn't!"
Twilight smirked. "Oh, I totally would!"
Pinkie clapped her hooves together. "Oh! What does little Spike have to say about kisses then?" she asked slyly.
All of them were looking at him now, and after gulping, he slumped his shoulders. "Well, about a year before me and Twilight moved here to Ponyville, I had a birthday party. Our friends were all there and....um..." He nervously poked his claws together. "After I'd gotten my present, one of them, Minuette, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek."
Rarity let out a fake gasp. "Oh my! How scandalous!" she declared in that usual and deliberately dramatic way of hers.
Spike covered his face, his blush growing ever greater. "Uuuuuuuuuugh! My secret shame!"
The others all laughed together, and soon even Twilight and Spike joined in. With the young dragon feeling better, he looed up as Twilight held him close. "Don't worry, Spike, your secret's safe with us! As are all of our stories tonight, right?"
The others all nodded, silently agreeing to that, and then Rainbow cackled, leaning in to whisper to Rarity. "Unless a certain gossip decides to spread it around, eh Rarity?"
Rarity, ever the classy mare, looked away from her, though maintained her sly look. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Rainbow."
