Wait... What?
by AribanDeTyral
What is.... I don't...
As the sun blazed down through the thin clouds, the light that finally reached her mane was softened and gentle. It was slightly over-casted, but that didn't seem to dampen Twilight's day one bit. In fact, she was a bit grateful for it. The past few days had been extremely hot for being so early in spring. It was a nice change when the weather teams decided to bring in a little cloud cover. It made the morning a bit cooler than it would otherwise have been. But even if it had been gloomy and storming, it likely wouldn't have given Twilight any cause to stay inside. Her mood was just too bright today.
Because today, her big brother was visiting! It had seemed like so long since she had seen Shinning Armor and Cadence, and Twilight had been abuzz ever since the letter had arrived. Cadence had decided that she had spent too long in the frozen north of the Crystal Empire, and now that things had settled down and were going smoothly there, she wanted to go out and get back in touch with the ponies of Equestria. And their first stop was Ponyville!
Twilight couldn't help but give a little skip to her step as she thought about that. She wasn't just excited to see her brother and sister-in-law. She wanted to hear all about what has been happening in the Crystal Empire since she was last there. How were things with the crystal ponies different from the ponies elsewhere? What was it like eating crystal food for so long? Did everything have to be made out of crystal, even the beds? As she trotted along, these and a million other questions filled the unicorn's mind.
And today she was going to ask them all! Well, as many as she could fit in at least. When Shinning Armor and Cadence had arrived the night before, she hadn't had time to ask anything. It had been a long and very tiring train ride to Ponyville, and the couple had wanted to find a place to stay and get some rest. Twilight had insisted that they could just stay at the library with her, but Princess Cadence was adamant that they find their own hotel to stay in. Twilight had been a bit crestfallen at that, but Cadence had been so sweet about it. She said they didn't want to impose, and that it just wouldn't feel right to make the unicorn handle their accommodations. Not when they could easily pay for the best hotel in town.
And so now, after a night's rest and a short trot through town, Twilight found herself at the front door to the hotel where her brother and former foal-sitter were staying.
"Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" Twilight squeed as she made her way up the stairs and down the hall towards the room. Just the night before, she had helped her family carry their luggage down this same hall, so she knew well which room they were in. "We're going to go out to eat, and catch up on things, and talk about what stories we..."
As the door to the hotel room swung open, pushed by Twilight's magic, her words died clinging to her lips. The room was well furnished, but not very large. Ponyville didn't have very many large hotels, so most rooms were pretty small without separate bedrooms. So the second thing Twilight noticed was the large, spacious bed. The first thing she noticed, however...
"Tw-Twiliy! UNGH!"
Twilight's left eye twitched, and her lips moved without a sound as she took in the sight in front of her.
"You... You're sure, UNF, early!"
Twilight could hear her brother's words. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she maybe even registered what he was saying. But at that moment, the only sense of her's that seemed to be functioning at full capacity was her sight. And right then, a part of Twilight wished dearly that she had been struck blind.
"You know you, AHHH! You should have knocked, GHAA!" And with that, Shinning Armor had to stuff a pillow into his mouth as he felt himself being pushed harder and harder into the mattress. Twilight couldn't look away as her brother's sides rose and fell with his labored breathing, his face wincing each time he was ground into the sheets. She watched as Shinning Armor's teeth bit into that pillow harder, trying to muffle the strange, vulgar sounds that kept wanting to escape him.
For her part, Cadence had been mostly silent. It didn't even seem that she had fully noticed Twilight was there. The pink princess's face was screwed up into a grimace of effort and concentration. And it sure seemed as if she was putting a lot of effort into things. Her wings were flared, flapping in time to the motions of herself and her husband. Her flanks tensed and flexed, driven with as much physical power as an alicorn could safely muster. Her tail whipped each time her rump fell downwards, causing a horrible, ringing #SLAP# each time.
That sound just echoed in Twilight's ears, bouncing around the inside of her skull each time she saw Cadence and her brother crash into one another. It was, to her mind, like a train wreck. Something so shocking she just couldn't look away, no matter how badly she wanted to. And still the princess said nothing aside from the grunts and snorts of her exertion. But that wet smacking was the only thing that Twilight's ears seemed to register.
SLAP
SLAP
SLAP
SLAP
SLAP
Finally, she could take no more of it. With a panicked cry, her hooves once again found their strength, and Twilight vaulted nearly end over end as she bolted from the hotel room.
"Tw-Twiliy! Wait-UNGHHAA!" Shinning Armor had chanced to pull that pillow from his mouth, hoping to maybe stop his sister from flying off the handle over this. His reward for the attempt was to feel the full force of his spouse coming down upon him, making him regret his attempt to split his attention between family members.
One overturned linen cart and a confused bellhop later, Twilight found herself again in the street. Except this time she was quickly galloping her way along, rather than the pleasant trot that had brought her to such a horrendous sight. She had no idea just what it was she had witnessed, but she knew one thing for sure. She had to get as far away from that scene as she possibly could.
She had no idea where she ended up running to. Twilight hadn't even payed any attention to which direction she was heading in when she ran out of the hotel. All she was worried about was getting as far away from that sight as possible. As the unicorn's panicked mind started to calm down, and her hooves slowed to a more sedate pace, Twilight slowly took in her surroundings.
After a few moments, it dawned on her that she had nearly ran all the way out of town. In the distance, she could see the cobbled streets giving way to dirt roads as the buildings disappeared and the expanse of fields and trees too dominance over the landscape. With a sigh, Twilight started to rationalize just what it was she had seen.
She should have known better than to just walk in on her brother and the princess. They were a married couple, after all. Grown ponies in love. It should have occurred to her that they could possibly be doing things they wouldn't want the unicorn to see them doing. But still, that would have been bad enough. What Twilight saw, on the other hoof, was something entirely different! There were some things a pony just never assumed were possible. And seeing Cadence doing THAT to her brother, it was something Twilight indeed never thought was possible.
"Well howdy there, Twilight!"
Twilight's attention was pull from her own thoughts by the familiar drawl of a certain farm pony. Looking over, she saw the orange form of Applejack stepping out from a stand of trees not too far off from the road.
"Whut brings ya out this way?" Applejack said with a earnest smile. Twilight felt more of her previous panic slipping away as her friend drew closer. The company of a good friend was enough to calm her frazzled nerves, and right now Twilight was looking forward to a little less excitement than what her day had started out with.
"Hello, Applejack." Twilight said with a little sigh, slowly she let a smile pull at her lips as she made her way over to sit at the side of the road. "I just... Well, let's just say you wouldn't believe me even if I told you what happened."
With a tilt of her head, Applejack walked over to the unicorn. The farm pony plopped herself down next to her friend in the soft grass, a hoof reaching up to tilt her hat towards the sun to shade her eyes as she regarded the slight blush still tinting Twilight's cheeks.
"Why don't ya give meh a try then? Ah bet it ain't that bad."
Twilight's blush just deepened as she heard that. Just how could she explain to her friend what she had seen? She was having a hard enough time explaining it to herself. With a sigh, Twilight shook her head. She should probably say something, but what?
"Well, you know about Shinning Armor and Cadence coming to visit Ponyville, right?"
"A'corse Ah do!" Applejack said with a bright smile. "Ya'll been talkin 'bout it fer days now."
"Yeah, well, I went by to see them this morning." Twilight shifted nervously a bit.
"Ah figured ya would. How're they doing any'who?"
"Well, they're doing very good. I guess maybe you could say they're doing a little TOO good..." Twilight said with a small, nervous laugh.
"Ah don't follow ya." Applejack answered with a confused look.
"What I mean is, I sort of walked in on them." Twilight swallowed, trying to keep her agitated nerves from getting the better of her. "While they were... You know..."
It took a few moments for her meaning to dawn on Applejack. The orange mare's eyes widened for a moment, then she smiled, a slight blush coming to her own cheeks as the full weight of it settled in.
"Ohh... Ah see." She started, then leaned closer to her friend, resting a hoof upon Twilight's shoulder. "Taint nuffin wrong with that, sugacube. Perfectly natural fer two ponies in love."
"No!" Twilight started, a bit louder than she had intended. "It's not what they were doing, it was how they were doing it!"
"Come a'gin?" Applejack asked.
"I mean.. Cadence was-"
"Applejaaaack!"
The loud, squeaky voice from behind cut off Twilight's train of thought. Her ears perked up at the voice from behind. Applejack's ears did the same, and the blush on her cheeks deepened.
"I was getting cold waiting for you to come back!"
As one, the two friends turned to see who it was that had walked up on them, one in curiosity, the other in sheepish apprehension. What Twilight saw made her stomach turn into a hard lump in her throat.
Standing there, between a couple trees amidst the tall grass, was none other than the little pegasus filly Scootaloo. It had been quite some time since Twilight had seen the energetic little filly. But right now, she looked anything but full of energy. In fact, she looked full of something quite different. Her sides bulged outwards, as did her belly. It looked as if the little pegasus had swallowed a beach ball. But from the way she was carrying the extra bulk, Twilight could tell that Scootaloo wasn't simply overweight.
Twilight could feel a nervous tick pulling at her upper lip as she watched Scootaloo waddle over, the filly leaning heavily against Applejack's side. For her part, the farm pony could do little more than blush with embarrassment as the filly started to nuzzle affectionately at her. For the second time today, Twilight was starting to wish her eyes would stop working, as she found no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't look away.
"What're you two talking about anyway?" Scootaloo asked as Twilight watched the very young filly snuggling against her very adult friend's side.
"Like Ah said, Twi," Applejack said, an embarrassed chuckle escaping her lips, "Perfectly natural."
Slowly, with one hoof then another, Twilight started to back away, pushing herself up from her sitting position. A couple more steps along, and she turned suddenly, a small cloud of dust kicked up as she went as fast as she could down the dirt road back towards town.
As she trotted through town, Twilight kept looking back over her shoulder, as if 'crazy' was a physical thing that could be following her around. Thankfully, there was no eldrich god of chaos, nor malignant cloud of weird following the pony. At least none that she could see. But still, that gave her little comfort after not one, but two very odd, very disturbing encounters today.
First she had walked in on her brother doing... Well, he wasn't actually doing anything. It was what was being done TO him that Twilight had found so disturbing. She couldn't believe that her brother would ever be willing to do something like that. Not to mention that Princess Cadence would even be capable of doing it!
And then there was Applejack and Scootaloo. Twilight wasn't exactly sure just what was going on with those two, but whatever it was, she didn't like it anymore than what was happening with her brother. Just the look of that little filly's condition. The way Applejack blushed as she smiled. How Scootaloo snuggled contentedly up against the farm pony. Twilight felt a shiver run up her back at the thought. Even if those two were doing... Things. How the hoof did Scootaloo get like that anyway?
With a sigh, Twilight took a moment to look around at the ponies going about their daily lives. Everything seemed so normal right now. Nothing strange was going on. In fact, you couldn't tell that anything weird had happened from looking at every pony else in town. But Twilight knew she hadn't imagined what she saw. Something was wrong with Applejack and her brother. But she had no idea what it could be.
Shaking her head, Twilight decided that she needed to find somepony she could talk to. Somepony who, hopefully, could also see that things were going very wrong. Taking a moment to gain her bearings, she realized just which part of Ponyville she was in. Conveniently, Twilight knew just where to go to find a mare proper enough to realize that things were amiss. With a not to reassure herself, Twilight headed for Carousel Boutique
It didn't take her long to reach her friend's home, though with all the running about that Twilight had been doing, the day was wearing through into the afternoon already. But still, there were more important things to worry about than how late it was getting.
Author's Note
This is just something that popped into my head one morning, and I had to start writing it to get it out before it did any more damage XD
And no, I won't be explaining a damned thing!
