//------------------------------// // 22: Three’s Company // Story: Principal of Equestria // by MareDoVVell //------------------------------// The tension was broken a moment later as Tempest stepped the rest of the way through the door, lightly chuckling. “Relax Princess, I was just messing with you.” She offered casually, gently punching Twilight in the shoulder with a hoof. “Either name is fine in private, but Fizzlepop Berrytwist just doesn’t have the right intimidating ring to it for a glorified bodyguard.” Shining growled a bit at what he perceived as another shot at the honor of his profession, but he was mostly ignored. “Tempest Shadow huh?” Sunset mumbled, giving the unicorn a suspicious appraisal. “Sunset Shimmer." she offered curtly. "Gotta say I’m not sure how I feel about some pony other than me teasing my marefriend.” She added, a hint of a protective challenge in her voice. Tempest reeled back as if struck by the words, slumping a bit as her muzzle flushed. “M-marefriend? I…didn’t realize she was…uh…taken.” she mumbled, sounding pained. At hearing this, Twilight gave a light gasp, holding a hoof to her mouth. “Oh, Fizzlepop, I’m so sorry, I had no idea you felt that way!” Tempest didn’t respond at first, her gaze glued to the floor, and she seemed to be trembling lightly. “Pffffffft….snrk….” And then she threw her head back and laughed, sounding like she could barely breathe. “Ohohohohaaaa….by the storm! You should see your f-f-face hahahaha!” “Whuh-What!?” Twilight wheezed, her eyes wide, then she noticed Tempest wasn’t the only one laughing. Just behind her, Sunset seemed to have both hooves clamped over her muzzle as she struggled to contain herself. “I…hah…hahaha…I take it back! You can mess with her all you want, that was too perfect!” Sunset gasped, looking like she was struggling to stay upright. “Oh you can both just go buck yourselves!’ Twilight hissed through gritted teeth, her face bright red with both fury and embarrassment. “Heh…haha…I’m sorry Twi, the opportunity was just too good.” Tempest gave a final giggle before managing to compose herself. “You’re cute and all, hell so is this new marefriend I’ve never met before…” she admitted, giving them both a half-lidded smirk. “But you’re not my type, I like em a bit older if I’m honest” “Laugh it up you big jerk.” Twilight grumbled. “I should throw you in the dungeons where you belong.” Tempest rolled her eyes playfully. “Oh don’t be like that, I brought you a present and everything.” At that, she screwed her eyes closed in concentration as blue sparks shot erratically from her cracked horn. A moment later the same sparks violently catapulted a wrapped package from her saddle bag, which she deftly snatched from the air with a hoof and offered it to Twilight. “Oooh you found it!” Twilight squealed happily, eagerly taking the package in her magic and unwrapping it, her frustration with the unicorn entirely forgotten. Sunset meanwhile was starring at Tempest’s horn, a hoof scratching pensively at her chin. “Can I help you?” Tempest asked after noticing, her tone sounding both tired and a little annoyed. Sunset shrugged. “Was just thinking it’s pretty neat you can still do some magic after losing part of your horn. You wouldn’t know it looking at me but most of the time I don’t have mine at all, and can only do magic in some very specific and weird situations. Plus the whole crazy sparks thing looks cool.” Tempest’s eyes went wide and she blinked slowly, before a large smile cracked across her muzzle. “Hey boss, I like her, well done.” “Eh she’s ok.” Twilight muttered distractedly, only half-listening as she pulled the final bit of wrapping off the object Tempest had given her. “Gee thanks babe.” Sunset said dryly, before the object in Twilight’s magic caught her eye. “Is…is that what I think it is?” “Hmmm, this? Just some kind of magic hand mirror supposedly.” Twilight answered with a small shrug as she examined it. “Legend has it there’s a bunch of them that all do different things, but they all sounded vaguely dangerous. One of them even grants wishes, but in like a twisted, monkey’s paw kinda way, but I don’t think that’s this particular mirror.” Sunset stared at Twilight for a moment, then down to the mirror, then back at Twilight. “Uh, sweetheart, you don’t think that thing looks, I don’t know, a little familiar?” Twilight looked up at Sunset for a moment with a confused expression, before looking back down at the hand mirror to examine it more closely. At a glance it was a rudimentary hand mirror, if a rather ornate one, with a frame made of some kind of opaque purple stone, decorated intermittently with raspberry colored gems. “Uh…not really?” Twilight answered, looking back up at Sunset, who was giving her an amused frown. Sunset opened her mouth to point out the obvious, but Tempest beat her to the punch. “Well I’m not sure about you guys, but on my way back I kept thinking it looks a lot like that big dumb mirror contraption you keep in the library.” Twilight's eyes snapped from Tempest back down to the hand mirror, looking ready to pop out of her skull and bounce around the room, her mouth hanging open in a silent scream of realization. Sunset sidled up next to her, gently pushing a hoof under her chin to close her mouth. "Alright so I think it's safe to assume it's related to the portal mirror, but do you know what it does?" After a short delay, Twilight gave herself a shake and returned to some sense of normalcy. "Ummm, no I don't, at least not yet, but I'm sure we can figure it out, and with any luck this might just let us reopen the portal." Sunset grinned excitedly, both at the prospect of fixing her mistake, and at what came next. "Well in that case, I say let's head back to Ponyville, cozy up in what I can only assume is an extensive magical laboratory that you've got set up somewhere in the castle, and get our scientific method on!" Rather than respond verbally, Twilight seemed to visibly shiver, before tackling her marefriend to the floor and mashing their muzzles together. "Meep...mmm...hmmm...T-twi?..." Sunset gasped, quickly losing her train of thought. "Mmmf...yes...l-let's do that...that thing you said...but bedroom first." Twilight purred, sinking her teeth into Sunset's neck just as her horn flared and the pair disappeared with a crack. "...Alright then..." Tempest mumbled, staring at the empty spot on the floor that had been previously occupied by a squirming pile of ponies. "You'll have to excuse them Ms. Shadow." Came the melodious voice of Princess Celestia from behind her. "They seem to be quite taken with each other. Do you need transportation back to Ponyville? I'd be happy to teleport you, or summon a chariot if you'd prefer the scenic route." "Oh that's alright Princess, I don't mind finding my own way ba..." Tempest stopped short as she turned around, her eyes snapping towards the jet black creature standing next to the Princess. "Your Majesty, lookout! It's a changeling!!!" "Oh, I'm sorry, you haven't met...huh..." Princess Celestia managed just in time to watch Tempest charge, violently ramming the stub of her horn into Chrysalis' neck, before sidestepping behind her and putting her in a headlock in order to reverse suplex the changeling Queen into the ground. "I...hrrk...like this one..." Chrysalis gurgled, Tempest's foreleg still wrapped tightly around her neck. Princess Celestia sighed wistfully. "Of course you do dear...I wonder if I can get her to give the rest of the Guard a lesson to hoof-to-hoof combat..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “So let me get this straight,” Cadence said, tapping her hoof on the table between them. “This all started because Chrysalis asked you out?” She still intended to wring a more detailed and far more embarrassing version of the story out of Twilight later, but there was no reason she couldn’t get an abbreviated version from her new friend. Celestia shrugged, squirming a little to try and get comfortable on the pillow she was seated on. Cadence had led her off to a secluded little room for what felt only a little bit like an interrogation. “Well I wouldn’t say it all started there, pretty sure Sunset and Twilight have been carrying a torch for each other for a while now if I had to guess, but the rest of it, yeah pretty much.” “Hmmm, well the best-laid plans of mice and ponies often go awry, as they say.” Cadence mused with a tired sigh. “I had so many fantastically convoluted plans to try and get Twilight with one of her friends eventually, y’know once she figured out that she was gay. How was I supposed to plan for a girl from another dimension? That’s just ridiculous!” She added, either unaware of the irony of that statement, or more likely, willfully ignoring it. “You’re really into this matchmaking thing huh?” Celestia asked with a raised brow. “Princess of Love, it comes with the territory.” Cadence explained simply. “Oh right, Luna mentioned that before. It’s just a little weird, you seem pretty different from the Cady I know back home. She’s a lot more, well, introverted I guess, definitely not the type to try and craft romances.” Celestia admitted without thinking. A sly smile immediately crept across Cadence’s face. “Hmmmm, well she can’t be too different, I was a lot like that too, until I found love myself. I imagine we have more in common than you expect…for example only letting people call us Cady when we’ve been…intimate.” Celestia felt her whole body lock up at that, her face burning as she remembered this Cadence wasn’t aware of her previous indiscretions. Cadence held a hoof to her mouth as she giggled. “Nailed it!…Literally it would seem. Now I see why they all thought you might be able to distract me.” Leaning forward she gave Celestia a sultry smirk. “How was I?” Celestia leaned back as far as she could, pressing her hooves against the edge of the table as sweat beaded around her horn and her face grew even redder. “I…uh…” “That good huh?” Cadence asked, before pulling back from the flustered unicorn and giggling. “Well then maybe we could revisit this conversation if things don’t work out between you and Tempest.” She went on with a playful wink. “Provided we ask my husband’s permission that is, though I’m sure he’d be agreeable, especially if he was allowed to participate.” Celestia’s eyes went wide at that, especially as a small voice in the back of her head admitted that Twilight’s brother had looked reasonably cute based on the few glimpses of him she’d caught from afar in the throne room. “Hhhhh…hhabba…” She mumbled, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle underneath the table. Stifling another giggle, Cadence lit her horn, pulling a manilla folder seemingly from nowhere, marked T. Shadow/F. Berrytwist on the tab in flowery pink lettering. “Anyways, on to the business at hand.” She said as she began rifling through the various pages within. “I can’t say I know Tempest particularly well, considering she only started working for Twilight recently, and living on the other side of the country makes frequent visits a bit difficult, but from what I’ve gathered I think you’d have a decent shot, though I may need some more information about you to be sure.” She went on, her tone turning less flirty and more professional. “You act a bit like Auntie Celestia, but…also not at all. Oh and there’s the slight hitch that I’m not sure if Tempest likes mares or not.” Celestia didn’t answer, instead just making inaudible noises as images of pink and white ponies danced through her head. She must have heard some of what Cadence had said though, as the pink and white ponies in her fantasy were suddenly joined by a third, dark purple pony, causing her to wobble a bit in her seat. Cadence glanced up, about to ask if Celestia was ok, but was interrupted as a door opened behind where Celestia was seated. “You girls doing alright in here?” Shining asked as he walked into the room, giving his wife a smile. He had decided to abandon the throne room after being untied, everypony had been ignoring him anyways. Stepping up to the side of the table he noticed the somewhat indecent smile on Celestia’s face, causing him to aim a playful eye roll at Cadence. “You two haven’t been up to anything inappropriate have you?” This seemed to finally snap Celestia out of her daze, causing her to leap up to all fours with a guilty shriek, her tail reflexively clamping down over her rear end. “NOT WITHOUT PERMISSION!”