Everypony knows the story of Nightmare Moon and her period of confinement upon the object of her namesake. What about what actually happened to her during her imprisonment?

And what's happening to her now?

Ever since he and Twilight Sparkle had first moved to Ponyville, Spike's had a crush on Rarity. At first he'd thought it was a secret - the big secret in his life - but he'd soon come to realize that the signs he had been displaying since day one were...really, really obvious. His first reaction had been mortification, followed by anger (after all, how could his friends have just let him act like that?!), but eventually he'd come to the conclusion that, sometimes, a friend within a circle just happens to develop a crush upon another friend, and that it's really no big deal.

But then something starts to nag at him: If Rarity's known about his feelings for some undetermined amount of time, how come she's spent all this time without even acknowledging that she does know? So, he decides to ask if he can come over for tea, with the intention of discussing these thoughts and feelings with her.

NOTE: Sex tag is for brief mentions of it during their conversation. There's no explicit talk, and it's not a recurring point of discussion.

Everypony knows Fluttershy as Fluttershy. She has the softest, sweetest, meekest little squeals of fearful shock whenever a leaf touches her, she often doesn't leave her property for days, and her animals hear her voice far more often than her pony friends do. Her friends don't really mind her quirks. After all, they all have their differences; it's part of why they work so well together!

But Fluttershy's "shyness" isn't just a character trait. She has something to tell them, and although mental health isn't a topic that's ever really come up amongst her closest friends, she's quite literally saved all of Equestria with them. Several times. Surely that must mean that they have a strong enough bond for her worst-case fantasies to be absolutely untrue and disproportionately bad?

What if Twilight Sparkle hadn't been such a pushover in The Ticket Master? What if she had been just a little bit more...spiteful?

Remember S1E3: The Ticket Master? It bothered the hell out of me that Twilight just let her so-called friends walk all over her like that, so...call this a dark humor catharsis fic.

EDIT: Featured on 08/14/2020 - Thank you so much!