Gosling felt every yard of his guts clench tight while he huffed and puffed a few times, his head pressed against the heavy, ornate doors that opened into the ballroom. Specifically, they opened up onto the landing of the grand staircase, where Princess Celestia stood with Princess Twilight Sparkle. The gold inlaid into the door was cool against his ears while the wood was warm against his forehead. It was time to enter, to make a scene, to turn the room upside down. There was a crowd beyond this door, a ravenous entity waiting to consume him, to devour him, an organism unlike any other that feasted upon his equinality, his celebrity.
Now, as an entertainer, he had to put on a good show. His newly-restored wings were heavy, achy, and he had taken a mild painkiller that hadn’t dulled his senses—much. He was well prepared, eager, and even had an opener in mind—and not with his wife, Celestia, as some might expect, but with Twilight, because she was the focus of tonight’s shindig, and Gosling was going to work his magic to make tonight memorable. Tonight, he was the prizefighting cockerel put on display and it was his job to put on a good show.
For a moment, he tasted bile in his mouth and the pounding of his heart in his throat was almost unbearable, but Gosling recovered his senses with a smile. His head began to bob as he heard a sound that nopony else could hear, because he marched to the beat of his own drum. In the Sanguine Age, it was public executions. Then came bread and circuses. Now? Now, ponies wanted a fantastic gala, a grand spectacle, and Gosling was a thespian readying himself to take the stage. Every precious moment spent in Drama Club was now an asset.
Spreading his wings, Gosling nodded to the guard to open the door…
Feather-gunning while grinning like mad, Gosling flowed into the room and out onto the grand landing like champagne pouring into a flute. “Ladies,” he said, and then clucked his tongue. “Handsome gents,” he continued while bang-bang-banging away with his feather-guns, which ached something awful, but Gosling forced himself through the motions anyway. Giddy mares and fillies pranced in place while squealing, flashbulbs exploded, and there was a wall of brilliant blue-white light from the press section.
Any of those flashes going off might have been spells with Gosling as the target.
From the crowd there was a deafening roar that reverberated through the ballroom, a sound so terrific that it drowned out the popping of the flashbulbs for a moment. There was a magic to all of this, something intoxicating, something that made Gosling pop and fizzle inside like soda water. This was the greatest feeling in the world. At the bottom of the stairs, a mare fainted and another mare was fanning her with a beautiful fold-out wood and paper fan, a common trinket of the nobility.
Following his plan, he went right for Twilight Sparkle, which left Celestia quite confused. With a toothy rogue’s grin, he stepped around his wife, slipped his wing around Twilight Sparkle’s neck, and with Twilight making little whimpers of protest, he dragged her along with him to the edge of the landing, where he pulled her close with a wing-hug.
“Ladies and gentleponies,” he said in his smoothest, silkiest voice, which was amplified by magic and cut through the roar of the crowd with ease. “Tonight is a very special night indeed. Are all of you ready for some news?”
The crowd roared as expected, but Gosling wasn’t satisfied. Adding considerable volume to his voice, he tried again. “I said, ‘ARE ALL OF YOU READY FOR SOME NEWS!’”
This time, the crowd’s response was like a physical force and it rocked him on his hooves. He let it happen for a time, the tension built up in a most delicious, most delightful way, and he could feel Twilight trembling beside him. She was no doubt confused, scared, an introvert surrounded by wolves that wished to devourer her. Everything was going just as Gosling had hoped.
At the base of the stairs, a rainbow maned pegasus stomped her hooves while whistling.
Fully aware that the motion-picture cameras were rolling, recording every minute of this grand spectacle, Gosling proceeded with his cockamamie plan to out-troll his wife. She was old, wiley, and had experience, but he had youth, stupidity, and an extrovert’s charm. Being young and knowing everything in the way that young ponies knew, Gosling was gifted with a plethora of stupidity.
“I am pleased to announce,” Gosling began, “that with Celestia’s blessing, I have entered into a platonic relationship with Twilight Sparkle!”
For a moment, the resulting silence threatened to make Gosling’s ears implode, but then came a hoot of triumph from the rainbow-maned pegasus down at the base of the stairs, and then there was an avalanche, a cacophony of cheering that followed. Gosling’s ears spasmed as the furious sound almost became deafening.
Twilight sucked her cheeks in, causing her face to shrink, and her lips became a tiny, petite pucker while she froze against Gosling’s side. Her pupils seemed to constrict and dilate in time to some unknown rhythm, perhaps the frenzied beating of her heart. A glistening bead of sweat rolled down her temple, a glittering jewel in the bright lights, and from behind him, Gosling could only just barely hear Celestia’s barking laughter. He hoped that she was at least covering her face with her wing, so she wouldn’t spoil this magical moment.
To truly sell this sham, Gosling gave Twilight’s neck a squeeze with his wing, then lowered his head down and kissed her on the cheek, leaving her a blushing, squirming, stomping wreck in front of the cameras. He could feel her trembling, she shook with terrific force, and then Gosling’s ears perked when Twilight snorted. Holding her close, he could see Twilight chewing on her lip and he could hear her laughter fighting to escape it’s stubborn confines. Alas, poor Twilight was putting up a terrific, epic struggle to maintain her princessly composure while the crowd descended into mad hysterics.
Twilight was a trooper and she performed admirably.
“Have you set a date?” a reporter asked, shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard.
“Tonight!” Gosling replied. “From this moment forward. Forever!”
From behind him, there was a honk, a hoot, another honk, and more laughter. Gosling basked in the happiness of the crowd, feeling some strange energy that crackled through his very marrow. Twilight was almost crying and still struggling to hold in her explosive mirth. Gosling hoped that the crowd would think she was crying tears of joy, because this really sold the gag.
“WOOHOO, TWILIGHT!” The rainbow-maned pegasus hollered while pumping one hoof up into the air. “I GET TO BE A BRIDESMAID!”
This didn’t help poor Twilight, who made a snorgling sound deep within her throat and her face turned beet red. For a moment, the much smaller mare looked up at him, and Gosling could see the impishness in her eyes, a glorious sight to behold. Twilight had gone from an unwitting participant to a full-blown accomplice.
“Forever?” Gosling asked in a low voice, hoping that Twilight could still hear him.
And she responded with, “Forever.”
“Um… um… um… yay!”
“Louder!”
“Um, no.”
Looking down into the crowd, he saw a sunny, buttery yellow pegasus beside the rainbow-maned one and seeing how uncomfortable she appeared, he gave her his best warm smile. With his free wing—the one not wrapped around Twilight’s hot, sweaty neck—he waved at the shy pegasus hoping to make her feel special.
Too late, he realised the gesture was too much for the shy mare to bear when she fainted.
“Well…”—Gosling grinned, revealing as many brilliant pearly whites as possible—“with that out of the way I’d say it was time to get my hokey-pokey-pony-pokey on. I have a whole passel of future princesses and little princes to dance with. If you all would excuse me, I must be going. It’s been swell.” Clucking his tongue, he feather-gunned the crowd again, and reveled in the fact that they went wild.
The show had only just begun.
Thirty. Thirty little foals waited in line, which would be replaced with thirty more, then thirty more again, and so on, for a grand total of three-hundred one minute dances. Five hours of fun during a gala that was scheduled to last from three in the afternoon to six in the evening—but for Gosling, this would be the gala that would never end. The youngest would go first and the oldest last, which seemed reasonable, as the older foals stayed up later.
Adjusting his itchy sweater, Gosling then tossed his head back to get his mane out of his face and he prepared himself to project maximum charm. The first one in the line was a filly, who might have been about four or five years old—so young in fact that Gosling was certain that she had joined the school in the fall. Bespectacled, she had her seafoam green mane curled just for this occasion and everything about her suggested that she was terrified.
Seville was working the line, interviewing students as they waited, taking pictures, and being Seville. Gosling gave him a nod, received one in return, and then he grinned at the chaperone, a young mare trapped in the most awkward, most awful stages of the transition into adulthood. A nervous smile revealed braces, and not the nice sort of braces enjoyed by the wealthy and elite, no. These were clearly from the medieval era, and at some point had no doubt been used to extract a confession from somepony.
When he got the chance, Gosling knew that he needed to make the poor filly feel good about herself, because she looked miserable. Yep, she was getting a free dance tonight as a reward for all of her hard work. Turning his head, Gosling looked down at his first eager partner and smiled at her while making a gesture for her to come closer.
“You know the rules, right?”
“Yep!”
“Good, let’s dance.”
“What’s your name?” Gosling asked while he moved in a tight circle with the tiny filly.
“Spume,” she replied while trying to keep in step with Gosling.
“What’s that mean?”
“Ever seen the foamy stuff in the waves on the beach?”
Gosling nodded, treating the subject with all of the seriousness and solemnity that he could muster. Sometimes, a pony ended up with a rather peculiar name because of a parent’s quest to be original. The filly, though terrified and trembling, seemed to be having a nice time, even with a bad case of the jitters.
“This is my Hearth’s Warming gift,” the little filly said, sounding both shy and squeaky. “Now I can say I’ve danced with a prince. Thank you.”
“Oh, you are most welcome.” Gosling performed the most courtly bow he could muster and wondered how many times would he repeat this action tonight. When the bell dinged, he felt sharp pangs of guilt that this had to end. One minute didn’t seem very long at all and if this was a Hearth’s Warming gift… he hoped that there would be more. “Goodbye, Spume. Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
“You too!” she cried and then she pronked off, no doubt to find her friends and tell them about every magical second in detail.
Lifting his head, Gosling looked Seville in the eye and asked, “Hey yous, did yous get a good picture?”
“Of yer ugly mug? Not a chance, sourpuss.”
“Wiseguy.”
“I have you both in profile.” Seville’s eyebrow lifted. “Pretty good if I do say so myself.”
“Good… I hope this was special. It just feels so short.” Sighing, Gosling nodded, resigning himself to his fate. “Next!”
The colt seemed frozen in terror; his lower lip quivered, his eyes were glassy with fear, and his ears vibrated like a buzzy wind-up toy. He had to be shoved forward by the chaperone, and then the little unicorn just stood there while the music played. Precious seconds were already ticking away and Gosling fell into the routine.
“What’s your name?” Gosling kept his head as low as possible so he wouldn’t appear quite so threatening. When the colt failed to reply, Gosling continued with the small-talk. “This sweater I’m wearing, it’s a riot, ain’t it? Has your mom ever made you wear an awful sweater?”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the colt, followed by the faintest of nods.
“But you love your mom, so you do what she asks, right?” Gosling squinted a bit and hoped that he could coax something out of the poor dumbstruck colt.
Again, the colt nodded. He licked his lips, leaving behind glistening beads of saliva, and when he spoke, his voice was like a rusty hinge. “You’re my hero.”
“I am?” Gosling reached out and gave the timid colt a gentle touch with his hoof, placing it upon the little unicorn’s withers. “What’d I do to deserve that?”
At this, the colt began wheezing and stood immobilised. Gosling, all too aware that far too many precious seconds had passed, waited for the bell to ring while still hoping that the colt would say something, anything. Each second became more precious than the last and when the bell rang, Gosling’s ears drooped. He wondered if somehow, he could have done this better.
Gosling’s mouth opened to say something, some final parting words, but the colt was gone, bolting away as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Feeling dismal, Gosling watched him go for as long as he could get away with, which wasn’t long at all. A filly in a fancy dress with a truly terrible overbite pranced over and smiled up at him, expectant.
“Hello, what’s your name?”