There'll be no living with myself after this
A Second-Most Irregular Tea Party
by Present Perfect
The Dread King Lavan roared in fiery triumph as waves of his lava henchmen spread through the streets of Ponyville, burning everything they touched. Ponies too slow to escape the oncoming tide of magmatic destruction were sucked beneath it, crisping to cinders in an instant under the creep of formerly subterranean pyroclasm. At least there were no foals around to bear witness.
Lavan, the towering inferno who had ruled Subterranea for centuries, laughed, and more lava burbled from his gaping maw. Now the surface world would be theirs! These ponies were soft and easily burned! Nothing could stand in the way of him and his calefactory curmudgeons!
Nothing, that was, aside from a bunch more ponies who were kind of bigger than the rest and had horns and wings and stuff.
"Stop, fiend!" cried the one in front. She was white. "Before you stand the six--"
"Seven!" shouted the orange and purple one from the back.
The white one rolled her eyes. "The seven Alicorns of Harmony! Return to whatever fiendish place you came from, or prepare to face Harmony everlasting!"
"Yeah!" cried the rainbow one, who was clearly way too into this. "When we cram it up your keester!"
"Harmony everlasting involves big blasts of laser destructo-magic," the orange one with a hat clarified.
"This is your final warning!" cried the white one, who Lavan was beginning to realize was really dramatic. "Stand down or risk annihilation!"
The Dread King laughed some more, bidding his minions to dispatch with these puny interlopers. He had no cares for the ponies' posing as they made some kind of heart-shaped formation; his soldiers would deal with them forthwith.
"Generosity!"
"Honesty!"
"Loyalty!"
"Um, Kindness..."
"Laughter!"
"Trixie!"
"Pity!" finished the orange and purple one, who was smaller than the rest. She formed the point of the heart, as she was the only one who hadn't risen into the air.
There was a roar, and a beam of pure, uncut friendship lanced through the waves of lavamen, turning them to pathetic plops of pahoehoe in an instant.
Starlight Glimmer observed everything from a far hilltop. She had taken on a support role in the fight, ushering ponies to safety and setting up quick magical shields to divert lava flows while the alicorns did all the dirty work. She had done her job, and done it well; now, there was nothing more she could do save seethe.
It wasn't right to be jealous of your friends, but Starlight had been intensely jealous of Trixie ever since Trixie, and not Starlight, had become an alicorn.
Trixie, who didn't know the meaning of "clean up after yourself". Trixie, who though etiquette was something you could toke out of a bong. Trixie, whose definition of "property rights" included bathroom privileges in the building nearest to wherever her wagon was parked.
She wasn't really good with words, you see.
Trixie the loud. Trixie the crude. Trixie the obnoxious! Trixie the sweet. Trixie the funny. Trixie the beautiful...
Starlight sighed. It was hard to stay mad at her best friend and would-be lover. Given a choice and ten seconds, Starlight would always forgive her. But it didn't change the fact that Starlight -- and, again, not Trixie -- was the one who had sweated and slaved and had actual character growth for the last couple seasons. Starlight deserved this! It should have been her out there, risking life and limb for Equestria and her friends!
Though she found herself suddenly reconsidering this desire as the Dread King enacted his revenge and sprayed them all with boiling lava.
"Aaaa!" screamed Trixie and everyone else, as that was exactly the kind of lava they were being hosed down with. Had they not all been alicorns, they would have died a whole bunch. And so, the struggle for their lives, all of Ponyville and indeed, all of Equestria, was truly begun.
"I wonder what Twilight's doing right now." Pinkie Pie grunted as she wiped hot magma from her eyes. "We sure could use her help!"
So she looked below the scene break to find out.
Princess Twilight Sparkle kept her eyes on the abacus as she sipped from her teacup. Luna's bedchambers contained all manner of relics and knickknacks, but none were as wily as the beast of beads. Experience had taught her it could not be trusted.
She sipped at her tea again to calm herself down. She sighed. The tea was jasmine, because jasmine was the kind of tea everyone made when they wanted to look like they knew something about tea. As much as Twilight loved her marefriend, she had to admit Luna was precisely the type of pony who bought jasmine tea for precisely that reason.
Taking tea with Luna was, as Applejack might have put it in her simple but beautiful language, downright more terrifyin' than flapjacks under a hootenanny. Or likely something to that effect.
Luna drank tea, all right, but she didn't understand it. She had dozens of tea sets, most of them on the order of a thousand-plus years old and completely priceless, gifted to her by various dignitaries and nobles trying to win her favor over the ages. But when she sat down to use one, whether in an intimate setting such as this or a session of after-court politicking, Luna's approach to tea was startlingly utilitarian.
Boil the water.
Put the bag in the pot.
Steep for five minutes.
Pour.
No finesse, no panache, no flair. She lacked the ability to speak through her tea and tea sets, as She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could. She stood not on ceremony but on speed. Quite honestly, if Luna hadn't been Twilight's schmoopy-doopy-woodly-doo, she wouldn't have been able to stand taking any tea whatsoever with her, let alone an afternoon cup.
Greatest of all sins, however, was Luna's preference for coffee.
Twilight could never understand coffee. Her father had drunk the nasty stuff by the potful, a habit that her brother had also picked up. While under its influence, a pony would be perky, energized, and ready for anything, but approach them later in the day or -- heavens forbid -- in the first hours of morning, and the coffee drinker would be reduced to nothing more than a crass, disagreeable zombie. They would slouch to the countertop percolator for their morning pick-me-up, grumbling vague curses all the time, like somepony trying to shake off a drug addiction. Really, it was an addiction. Tea was a sometimes drink, a special treat for special occasions; coffee, once an unlucky pony had tasted of its forbidden nectar, was a prerogative.
Of course, Twilight could also never understand the hatred that simmered between supporters of coffee and tea. It was as though they were the only two sorts of beverages one could brew, and one was expected to find their side, take up arms, and oppose the other. It was silly.
Many soft drinks were brewed, after all. Oh sure, Twilight didn't much approve of them, being as they were sickeningly sweet. She wasn't five, nor did she really appreciate the bubbles. Such drinks, she could live without.
But there were other brewed beverages.
Like...
Like...
Beer.
Shudder.
Just the thought of beer made her gall rise.
So many horrible memories. So much white flank. The sex. The hangovers. Plus, Twilight was a mean drunk. She couldn't go back. She would never go back.
"Sweetums, art thou well?"
Twilight shook out of her stupor. Hearing that Early Modern Equestrian always got her knees knocking. And when the knees were knockin', don't come a--
Um...
Well, at least she wasn't narrating this out loud or anything.
"I'm fine, babe," she said, smiling what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Good." Luna returned the smile and slurped loudly at her tea.
Sweet incest mother, Luna slurped tea! She had zero respect for the drink, much in the way Twilight had zero respect for Spike. It was almost enough to make Twilight reconsider their mutual schmoopy-etc.-ness.
"'Tis thy turn," Luna added, motioning with her teacup at the board.
Ah yes. The chess. If there was one thing Luna had over her sister...
Well, Luna had a lot of things over her sister. Kinkier, better flanks, easier to reach for kissies, none of those weird hangups disguised as a preference for vanilla positions, better sense of style, younger, more vivacious, better with her tongue...
Twilight could go on.
The point was, Twilight loved the way Luna matched wits with her over the black and white squares. A game of chess with Luna was like a Daring Do adventure: always something new and unexpected, not to mention frequently dangerous. Switchblade knives hidden in a folding board were a bland parlor trick compared to all-night chess sessions with the Princess of the Night.
Take this board state, for example. It was fourth and down, with five yards to the goal, and Twilight had two pawns in the penalty box. Luna had a knight in timeout and another in the house, but she was up five runs to four, two men on deck, Wolverhampton nil. Twilight's last audible had failed to sink the three-pointer, so she was running out of options.
She wondered if Luna had yet considered a little thing called sudoku.
Twilight discounted the idea just as quickly. No, her best shot at this title was to punt, so she did, and gave a happy sigh as she watched the move play out. Nothing in the world compared to the mental, physical and spiritual workout that was playing chess with Luna.
She blushed now to think of the fit she'd thrown when Luna first introduced her to the real way to play chess. Twilight had assumed it was some sort of prank being played by her new marefriend, that at any moment, the rug would be pulled from under her, the rules would go back to being the familiar ones Twilight had grown up with, and they would share a hearty laugh and probably some sweaty horse sex.
But there had been no rug-pull. Twilight had teleported a dozen bottles of alcohol from the private stash of You-Know-Who into the room before Luna had been able to get her to come to her senses. The intense shame of having resorted to old coping methods burned even after these blissful months; that scene could have played out very differently had Twilight actually been able to imbibe.
Regardless, that had ultimately been a net positive for herself and Luna, the shared near-trauma bringing them closer together. It had also taught Twilight a very important lesson about her new paramour.
"Thou may play the dirty game, but thou shalt ne'er o'ertake the master! Haikiba!" Luna slapped her hoof down on the board, sending pieces flying through the air. Three pawns of varying colors skittered across the linoleum into the royal suite's bathroom and a bishop took up residence in the chandelier. Twilight's king impaled himself on her horn while the black queen landed in a goblet presented by the Crystal Empire to Luna to mark the occasion of her return from exile, belatedly. It made a dingle.
"Yahtzee!" Luna hooted, hooves in the air.
Princess Luna had not become Equestria's greatest chessmaster playing by the rules.
Twilight rolled her eyes and grinned. "You win again! I think..."
"'Twas a grand and glorious battle!" crowed Luna. "Our grandchildren's grandchildren shall sing songs about it!" She wrapped an arm around Twilight's neck and made a sweeping gesture with the other. "Ballads! Ballads everywhere!"
Rolling her eyes once more, Twilight gave Luna a peck on the cheek. "I don't think they will, babe."
"Oh, poo." Luna pouted and leaned against Twilight until, with a yelp, they both fell over. Their wings and legs tangled together as they giggled and stole kisses from one another.
Twilight laughed and smiled up at Luna fondly as the bigger princess loomed over her, a mischievous and predatory grin on her face. Sighing softly, Twilight caressed the side of Luna's face. Luna pressed against the hoof, taking it in hers and planting a light kiss on it.
"I'm in the mood for another game now," said Twilight in what she hoped was a suitably flirtatious tone.
Luna waggled her eyebrows. "What say we play 'The Naughty Princess and the Strapping Stral'?"
Twilight grinned wickedly. Her favorite!
"I'll steal your winegums, baby."
A flash from her horn, and her wings changed from purple feathers to dark grey veined leather. She flexed them and drew the little clawtips along Luna's side, eliciting a soft purr. Then she snapped one of them open, smacking Luna's cutie mark.
"Ooh!" Luna squealed. "Thou wicked Stral! Thou shalt have a spanking ere this night is over!"
"Ooh!" It was Twilight's turn to waggle her eyebrows. "I'll hold you to that a promise."
Hips swaying, Luna lead her to the bed. "It pleases me so that I can share these little fantasies with you, Twilight."
Twilight mmmed and pomfed onto the bed. "Thy Stral is ready and willing to do whatever her Princess wishes."
Luna grinned at her. "'Tis a good thing we aren't both into vore."
It was true, and Twilight was glad of it. The ever-watchful abacus presided over their lovemaking, as it always did. Twilight had no time to spend wondering what her friends were doing.
Applejack and Trixie screamed as Dread King Lavan lifted them into the air. Not only was he trying to crush them to a pulp, his skin was, y'know, made of lava, so it was real hot and burny.
"Put Trixie down!" cried Trixie. "You're ruining her mane!"
"More like ruinin' your entire you!" Applejack tried to shout, but it sounded more like somepony swallowing lava, which she was doing.
"Don't worry!" Scootaloo's oversized wings created a tremendous backdraft as she raced to the rescue on her scooter. "I'll save you!"
On that day, everyone in Ponyville learned a very important lesson. Scooters are ground vehicles. And when the floor is literally lava, driving a vehicle over the ground generally ends poorly. There were no survivors.
"Nooooo!" cried Rainbow Dash as she sank to her knees, weeping awesome tears of awesomeness. "Not Scootaloo! She was so young! And she still couldn't fly despite being an Alicorn of Harmony! Her life was nothing but irony-y-y-y!" Then she died too somehow.
Rarity squinted through the blood running over her eyes and lanced a beam of clear Generosity through the Dread King's wrists, severing both his hands and freeing the captured alicorns. He roared in pain and fury as they plummeted toward the fiery earth. They were saved at the last minute by the combined efforts of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who swooped low to deposit them at Rarity's side.
"I can't believe that worked," Rarity said, laughing as she stroked Applejack's face. "It was a lucky shot. I'd been aiming for the hand holding you."
Trixie's eyes widened. "Wait, what--"
Rarity turned suddenly and grasped Trixie's face with both hooves. "Oh, Trixie! Oh, Applejack! Both my loves! I could never choose between you! Woe, cruel fate, that you should both be brought to my side in such a state! Woe, that I could never tell you how I felt! Truly, we are ruined! If only Twilight Sparkle were here!"
"Actually, Trixie feels just fine, if you ignore the burning, seared flesh that now covers most of her body."
"Yeah," said Applejack, sitting up. "I could go another round or two myself."
"Oh." Rarity sat back and looked at them. A wave of lava overtook Sugarcube Corner, destroying it. "Well, if we're all going to die anyway, why not have a threesome?"
Applejack and Trixie exchanged a look, nodded, and then they did that.
In the distance, Starlight Glimmer watched the sweaty, gross horse sex with a tear in her eye and a yearning in her libido. That should have been her! She deserved to be not just an alicorn, but a sexy alicorn, who got to bang Trixie while the world burned! What she wouldn't give for just one more touch of that mare's fine magic! She would have even put up with having sex with Rarity.
That mare was awkwardly needy in every way imaginable.
At least Starlight could take comfort in the fact that this was the end for Ponyville, and she wouldn't be alive much longer to witness their disgusting union. Because it was the end, for everyone, not just for Ponyville, though it wasn't for the reasons she anticipated, i.e., a giant lava monster.
No, it was because My Little Pony: Pony Life™ had just aired, and it destroyed My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic™, plus all the fan music, fanart and fanfiction, not to mention the memories all its fans had of all the good times they shared together for nine years. Because that is a thing that can definitely happen.
The End™
Author's Note
I said I wasn't gonna write another sequel, but it should be well known by now not to trust me on things like that. Given how this one ends, though, I can't imagine there would be a fivequel... :V
My one regret is that I had no idea what "translating something into ding dongs" meant, so I couldn't include it as a joke. But I saved it in my notes just long enough to pass on to all of you!
On that note, thanks to iisaw and the other one for quick feedback! The rest of this is my fault. And Imposing Sovereigns II. V: Thanx 4 rede.
