Complicated Relations

“She’s my wife,” Shining explained. “I tell her everything.”

The purple pony’s lower jaw had apparently filed for divorce from its upper half. “You mean ‘everything’ as in...?”

“I told her that you and I have been having sex for years.”

It certainly appeared to be a permanent separation. “...and...?”

“She said that our relationship is unusual, but as long as it’s loving and respectful, it’s not wrong.”

“And... now that you’re married...?”

“She said that what we have is beautiful and worth holding onto for as long as we both want it. She doesn’t see you as competition or a threat. She thinks that the sexual aspect of our relationship makes our bond special, and she would feel terrible if we were forced to give it up on her account. It would go against what she truly wants, which is for both of us to love each other and be happy.”

The two halves of Twilight’s jaw slowly reconciled. “Actually...” she said, staring intensely at the floor in front of her hooves, “that does sound a lot like Cadance.”

Suddenly her features knotted in anger.

“Then explain what she was doing peeping at us!”

The white unicorn took on a milder version of his sister’s frown. “That’s what I’m going to find out.” He moved to the doorway, and looked back. “You want to come with me? Talk to her yourself?”

Twilight blinked several times. Her brain had decided it was a particularly good time for Reshelving Day.

“I’ll... take that as a ‘no’. I’ll be right back.”

The stallion left the room, and after a few moments the sound of a distant conversation could be heard. The young pony’s ears perked up at this. She strained, but though she recognised the voices as those of Cadance and Shining Armor, their words weren’t clear enough to make out. She took a few steps closer to the exit, and turned her head sideways.

It was just enough.

“...sure to tell Twilight that I’m sorry,” the alicorn’s voice said, and was followed by a sigh. “But there is one good thing that came out of me seeing you two like that.”

“Oh?” Shining Armor’s voice inquired.

“Now I can be sure... I’m not jealous.” There was a smile audible in her tone.

A pause. Theoretically, one long enough for a kiss and a meaningful stare.

“Now get back to her!”

Shining re-entered the bedroom to see his sister standing exactly where he had left her, staring blankly straight ahead and rubbing the quickly rising bump on her head.

“Celestia got called away on some kind of urgent business and sent Cadance home early,” the stallion explained, gaining a skeptical look from his sibling. “She came in, heard something going on in the bedroom, and got... well... curious.”

Twilight switched the eyebrow she was arching from right to left.

“She says she’s sorry,” he offered.

“Hmm,” Twilight countered eloquently.

“So... do you want to keep going?”

“...What.”

“Well, our... activities got interrupted.” Shining smiled hopefully. “I was thinking you might want to finish what we started.”

Twilight’s jaw was having some marital problems again. “You can’t be serious.”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine.” The white pony rubbed his neck, the smile still on his face. “Just, you know, if you’re feeling up for it... there’s nothing stopping us.”

“I can’t believe this!” she all-but-shouted as she began to advance on him, “You tell Cadance our biggest secret that we’ve kept for years, you don’t bother to mention to me that you told her, you scare me half to death making me think my life is over, you make me hit my head which is probably going to hurt for days, you act like the whole thing’s a big joke, and you expect that I’ll want to get back in bed with you?!”

She had backed the courageous Captain of the Royal Guard into a corner by this point, and his tail was quite literally between his legs.

“Well,” he said with a chuckle that did a halfway-passable job of hiding the terror in his voice, “do you want to?”

Five minutes later, lying atop her brother, Twilight moaned in pleasure.