In retrospect, maybe Twilight Sparkle shouldn’t have snuck into Starlight Glimmer’s room while the latter was in town.
Sure, Starlight had asked her not to enter after they had set it up, but for some reason that made Twilight want to see it even more.
Perhaps Twilight should have taken the hint after she disabled the first arcane lock—and certainly after the twentieth.
But here she was now, sitting in Starlight’s room, just… appalled at what she was staring at. Truly, honestly appalled. She was at a loss for thought right now.
She certainly didn’t notice Starlight had entered the room until the latter shrieked, causing Twilight’s heart to leap into her throat and her head to swivel around, whereupon she saw Starlight with her eyes wide open and a hoof on her chest.
“Twilight, what are you doing in my room?” Starlight asked. “I specifically asked you not to come in!”
Twilight turned back to take in the sight of the room and groaned. “I can certainly see why now. All of these pictures of Spike…”
“Well,” Starlight said as she entered her quarters, “it’s certainly not finished—I have to take more photographs, then figure out which ones to collage together in order to create the perfect artwork to show my appreciation for Spike.”
“Starlight, these are all pictures of Spike sleeping.”
Starlight chuckled. “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I took them while he was awake, would it?”
“Starlight, that’s awful,” Twilight said as she shook her head. She looked around. “You know, other than the gross violation of privacy, these are pretty good pictures. I’d say you have some practice with this sort of thing, if I’m not mistaken.”
Starlight hummed as she pulled out a box from under her bed and rifled through it. “I’m glad you noticed. I used to do this sort of thing all the time.” She flashed a few photos in front of Twilight. “Which one do you think looks better?”
“U-uhm…”
Twilight blushed. “These are all highly inappropriate photographs to be taking of a baby dragon.”
“Well, it’s not like I have control over how he positions himself while he’s asleep,” Starlight said with a giggle. “Now, which one looks better?”
Twilight’s eyes danced between the two photographs of indecent sourcing, incredibly dismayed at her student’s poor life choices. Not that she hadn’t made questionable life choices before, having started a cult and almost destroying the world through timeline shenanigans, but this was beyond the pale. Far beyond the pale.
Twilight gulped. “Starlight, I don’t know how to politely tell you this, but this is―”
A sound like a baby dragon knocking on the threshold of Starlight’s room caused Twilight and Starlight to turn their heads to see Spike with an eyebrow raised and the corners of his mouth turned down. The two were frozen in place for completely different reasons as Spike entered the room slowly and took a practiced glance around the room, his viewing ending with his eyes landing on Starlight.
“What’s this?” he asked as he pointed at surreptitiously obtained photographs.
“It’s um,” Twilight said, “it’s―”
“Somewhere between exactly what it looks like and what it doesn’t look like,” Starlight interjected before a wide grin appeared on her face. “Now, what does it look like?”
Spike stroked his chin as he surveyed the myriad pictures of him in slumber posted around Starlight’s room, apparently deep in thought. “It looks like…”
“Now, Spike,” Twilight said, “I understand if you have trouble trusting Starlight after this.” She glared at Starlight, whose grin grew sheepish. “I certainly do.”
“Now, why would I have trouble trusting Starlight?” Spike asked as he continued to look at the photos. “It looks like she was trying to make a collage of me for me as a surprise, which would explain why they’re all of me sleeping.” He ambled towards Starlight and hugged her. “And this looks like a really nice surprise from a really nice friend.”
Sounds came out of Twilight’s throat as her jaw dropped, Starlight returning Spike’s hug in the meantime. “Gah… guh… eyurrhgh….”
“Spike, I’m so sorry that your surprise present was ruined!” Starlight said as she embraced Spike tightly. She then pulled away from him with her hooves on his shoulders and a smile on both of their faces. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Byyuh… eyurrr… fyeeeee…”
Spike chuckled. “Of course I can! But now maybe I can help you with my present by letting you take some sweet pics of me when awake,” he said as he flexed his bicep, “especially some of me showing off these babies!”
Twilight was beyond sounds at this point, resorting to yanking on her facial muscles with her hooves.
“Of course, Spike.” Starlight blushed. “Now your collage will be made to ord―”
“Okay, both of you shut up!”
Starlight and Spike snapped to face a very disturbed and disgruntled Twilight.
Twilight pointed at Starlight. “You! You… you shouldn’t be taking pictures of anyone while they’re sleeping!” Then she pointed at Spike. “And you! You should know better than to accept and encourage this… this maladaptive behavior!”
Starlight looked down, seemingly deep in thought, then looked back at Twilight. “But I thought it was okay to do anything to serve friendship.”
“Yeah, me too,” Spike said. “You always said that nothing is not allowed in the name of friendship, and Starlight’s my friend who’s doing something very nice for me,” he finished as he clung to her foreleg.
Twilight’s jaw clenched and her breathing grew shallower, and shallower, and shallower, and shallower―
And then stopped and she brought her forehooves to her chest, took a deep breath in, then released.
“Okay,” Twilight said, “I am going to go to Applejack’s place and drink. Heavily. There, I’ll forget that this conversation ever happened and I’ll come back to see a wonderful collage made for my best friend by my student, the latter who isn’t a creep and the former who doesn’t need a talk about boundaries.”
Twilight then left Starlight’s room and slammed the door behind her, shifting some of the dust which should have really been taken care of.
Starlight and Spike traded glances.
“Okay,” Spike said as he hopped onto Starlight’s bed, “take some pictures of me looking macho.”
Starlight grabbed the camera and started snapping photos. “Can do, buddy!”