Kiwe and Snickers sat in Snickers’s room with Rarity standing in front of them. Rarity smiled weakly and cleared her throat. “Okay, my little prince, what I’m going to do is cast a spell on you. The spell is generally known as the want not-see not and is usually used on ponies when they reach their age of fertility. Now, it was suggested I cast it early and, while I’ve lamented doing just that, the reasoning is sound.”
“What’s it do?” Snickers asked.
“Well, because a pony can be easily aroused, the spell takes care of that. It basically affects your vision and senses to the opposite gender by dulling them so they’re not so… intense to your young minds.”
Snickers looked to Kiwe at his right and Sweetie sitting in the doorway, watching to see what happened for when she got the spell. “So, you’re just gonna magic my senses away? What if you do it wrong and I can’t taste anything until it wears off.”
Rarity laughed loudly and then covered her mouth with a forehoof and shook her head. “No, my darling little princie-wincey.”
Snickers glowered at Rarity. “Don’t call me that, mom.”
Rarity giggled at his comment, but moved on anyway. “Well, as I was saying; the spell only dulls the effects others have on you, not your actual senses. This spell includes three fail-safes and a cancel that even you can cast with the right words and focus of energy. Why, I think every adult in Ponyville has one, and several foals will be getting theirs next spring as well.
“Ah, yes; also, if you are uncomfortable with the spell, I have a dozen enchanted gems that I share with you. Each one lasts a constant month and has full effects of the other passive charms, so if you don’t use it while sleeping then you’ll have that many more hours to use a single gem. Isn’t that a fantastic spell? If only I’d thought of it sooner, I could sell them as well as my garments.”
Snickers raised his foreleg. “Mom? What’s this other effect you were talking about?”
Rarity’s cheeks tinged with a slight pinkish hue. “Well, it covers everypony’s reproductive orifices,” she said and then shot a glare at Snickers, “the mouth is not one of the classified places.”
Snickers snickered. “Darn, so close.”
“Hm, yes; let’s not even try to approach the topic you’re so fond for, lest you’ll be going to bed early. Okay, are you ready for the spell, or do you have any questions?”
Snickers looked to Kiwe and felt reassured from the nod his friend gave, then nodded to Rarity. Rarity waited a few seconds, just in case Snickers changed his mind, then she stood straight and inhaled deeply while complex thaumatic calculations ran through her head; ones she used every week since she was a new mare and had learned it from the school nurse, who was a close friend of the family’s.
‘One of the thing about small town life is everypony knows everypony somehow,’ Rarity mused in thought as the spell completed.
Snickers felt his knees shaking and moving under his own control was really difficult for him as he tried to back away from the glow sufficing his vision and filling his most popular five senses with an overwhelming sensation of kinesthesia. The light dimmed from Snickers’s eyes and he looked at Rarity.
“Well, darling? How do you feel, how does everything smell now?”
Snickers raised an eyebrow. “That’s the weirdest thing you-” he sniffed, then inhaled deeply with widening eyes. “Holy shit!” Snickers trotted around his room and sniffed like a dog at various places, huffing and snorting as he went and came across scents he didn’t notice until his snout was almost over them. “I can fucking smell like normal!
“Fuckin’ hot shit, this is amazing! Thanks, mom!” Snickers ran and leaped at Rarity, bumping her hard enough to stumble a step to the side as he tightly held her foreleg. He sniffed the air and his nose brought his muzzle to her coat, then he slowly inhaled and held his breath. “Mommy, you smell like happiness,” he said with the same breath, and them smiled.
Rarity’s heart melted and she stepped back so she could hug him with her other foreleg and pry him off her for a full hug that he deserved. “Oh, you’re so sweet and… just this once, I won’t have you put bits in the jar for swearing.”
Snickers hugged her back and basked in her warmth. “Yeah, I overpaid. I didn’t think this would be why I used some of it, though.”
Kiwe cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should see how he reacts to me, and if it goes quite well, then to your sister we should tell.”
Rarity kissed Snickers behind the ear and patted his withers to indicate an end to their affection. “Ah, yes, that does sound like a good idea. You do understand what may happen, right?” Kiwe nodded to Rarity’s question. “Very well… Snickers, would you mind smelling Kiwe?”
“Mom?! Okay, that’s the weirdest thing you’ve said all week.”
“Just smell him!” Sweetie shouted from just out of view, followed by an inaudible self deprecation. Sweetie walked into the room with her head low. “Sorry, everypony. I was spying ‘cause I was curious about why I had to wait and you all came in here together. I was worried somepony was in trouble.”
Rarity kindly tutted her sister and gave her a gentle hug. “You shouldn’t spy, but the door was wide open and the invitation didn’t exclude you; however, I should have given you the option to join us to learn about this. You saw what happened when he smelled me, right?”
“Well, I heard him say something and you were really sweet to him,” Sweetie admitted.
“Oh, well… Kiwe, should Snickers sample Sweetie Belle or you to experience his new senses?”
“Certainly me, I am more ready for the reaction it may have. Sweetie may yet be too attractive to his sense of smell and that is not something we can just see to tell.”
Rarity moved to stand a little more defensively between her sister and adopted son. “Very well; the point of smelling other ponies when the spell is first cast, Snickers, is to help train your brain to recognize those closest to you. When you are around the other fillies in your h… close group of friends, you should have these two with you.
“They can help control you when you get their scent and to prevent the other fillies or colts you meet and choose to make closer friendships with from coercing you into something you’re unwanting. Such as buying food from a market stand for a certain price, or sireing their foals.”
“Wow, mom! That’s a huge range of difference there!”
“Yes, and if you make friends with a stallion, he may use his close friendship with you to buy more food than you need. If you accept a mare as a friend and she doesn’t have a strong support system, she may leave her scent around you and where you enjoy one another’s company so you associate her with feeling safe or comfortable.
“It’s easier to be with a stallion that’s willing than it is to try to bribe him or just play to his baser instincts, after all.”
Snickers looked at Rarity, then Sweetie Belle, and the image of Scootaloo lying on her back where Kiwe was standing flashed in his mind. His body felt familiar feelings in certain places, so Snickers turned quickly to Kiwe and practically bounded to the colt. Snickers sniffed the air around Kiwe and leaned closer.
Kiwe leaned back a little from the encroaching colt. “Snickers, how do you feel?”
Snickers’s eye met Kiwe’s and the unicorn colt barely blocked the rising front kick Snickers had brought up. “Scootaloo’s mine, got it?”
Kiwe’s ear flicked and Snickers growled menacingly. Taking a step back, Snickers reared and balanced on his hind legs, moving his forelegs to his sides to maintain balance. Kiwe took a step back. “Brother, I have no wish to fight with you. If she’s willing, then she is yours and I hold no contest to your feelings to her.”
Snickers nickered and returned his four hooves to the carpeted floor. With a nicker, Snickers nodded and then stepped back gathering his senses again. “Wow… what the hell was that?” He asked, touching the side of his head.
“Common reaction among males, darling. Something about claiming mates and fighting for alpha rights; it’s actually something of a compliment you chose to confront and threaten to fight Kiwe over this filly you hold so dearly to your heart,” Rarity said wistfully.
Sweetie harumphed with a squeak. “It’s just Scootaloo, sis.”
Rarity’s expression fell. “Well, the future is still bright and your futures are still growing ahead of you. Snickers, would you mind doing this so I can get back to work and you three can play?”
Snickers rolled his eyes. “Sheesh, you’re more pushy than a filly with a bowling ball goin’ for the strike.” Snickers shook his head a little. “Too much time with Apple Bloom. Wait,” he stopped when Rarity moved to let him pass to smell her sister, “you owe me an apology, mom.”
“What? Why in the wide realm of Equestria should I apologize to you without good cause?”
“Because, the girls teased me and it’s your fault,” Snickers replied.
Sweetie whimpered and when Rarity looked back she knelt down to share the even with Rarity, both females glancing at Snickers every so often in the half minute it took for them to whisper.
Rarity stood up and flipped her mane. “Well, Sweetie Belle, I shan’t accuse him for having such marvelous taste in diction, however, I do believe he is owed one apology. So, to that, Snickers, I apologize for imprinting my vocabulary onto yours, darling.”
“Humph, fine, that’ll do for now, I suppose… see! I did it again,” Snickers pouted and stomped a forehoof on the floor cutely.
“Awe, you’re acting just like your mommy, aren’t you?” Rarity used her magic to pinch Snickers’s cheek and quickly released her spell when Snickers swatted at her magic, as though it would affect the spell.
“Quit it! I’m almost grown up, I’m not cute anymore. I’m rough and tough, okay?”
“Oh, look at you, affirming your dominance like a stallion already… hurry and finish so you can go play with your not-herd and friends.”
Snickers grumbled and passed Rarity and without waiting pressed his nose to Sweetie and inhaled deeply. Sweetie giggled and stepped back as Snickers pursued her. “Hey, quit it, Snickers! Your breath is hot.”
Snickers sat down and snorted. “There, now I got everypony and… woah… Sweetie smells really sweet and like,” Snickers hopped up and moved to Sweetie’s side and touched his to hers and nuzzled her. “Like I can be safe with her.”
Rarity touched her hooves to her chest. “Aww, that’s the sweetest reaction I could have hoped for. Now, for the final test…” Rarity had Snickers stay in place and had her sister stand beside her. Rarity whispered to Sweetie Belle and assured Sweetie of the safety of the last test. “Snickers, watch closely and no matter what, don’t look away until it’s over. Do you understand?”
“Kiwe,” Snickers asked, “is this gonna be okay?”
Kiwe nodded. “All will be fine as long as the spell worked as it should have, brother of mine.”
Snickers smiled at the colt and nodded. “Okay, I’m ready for whatever you’ve got for me. Hit me with your worst.” The girls turned around and at Rarity’s nod they flipped their tails aside. “Gah, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to see anything, I… wait,” he had averted his eyes and blocked the view with his forehoof, then dropped his hoof and looked again.
“Y-your lady bits… they’re gone?! What happened to them?” Snickers moved to Rarity in shock and without thinking reached to touch the blank white area her vulva was and, before she could stop him, his hoof passed through a veil and Rarity screamed, bucking back in reaction. Both hooves missed Snickers by a couple hairs.
She hopped forward and Kiwe fell over laughing at the scene. Rarity was blushing brighter by the split second with her eyes wide in embarrassment, surprise, fear, and shock. Snickers inhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d lost as he realized how close to returning to the hospital he just was.
Snickers looked at his hoof and noticed the shine it had gotten and realized where it had gone. “Ew! Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Gross, sick, I didn’t want anything to do with that place! Gross, mom! Why’d you let me do that?” He whined while crouching and doing his best to wipe his hoof off on the carpet.
Sweetie watched Snickers with her mouth agape. “Did you just poke my sister in her cat eye?”
“Sweetie Belle?!”
“What? That’s what it’s called!”
Kiwe guffawed and rolled over as the scene went on, a tear leaking from his eye.
Snickers whimpered at his hoof and then sniffed it. “Awe, that smell’s gonna be there for hours.”
“Snickers! How… how dare you put your hoof in my personal place without permission? No! Not without permission, ever! You shouldn’t have done… I should have…” Rarity lowered her tail and ears. “Oh, my. This is simply morifying, the worst possible moment of my life thus far. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that happening, I’ve never heard of such a horrid experience and now…”
“What was the point of that, mom?” Snickers said dejectedly.
Rarity looked at Snickers and took a deep breath. “Well, as you can see and notice, the spell covers the private areas of every pony and other creature that exposes themselves unwillingly. You should now know that it’s only an illusion to cover, not a removal, so please do not do that to anypony else.”
Rarity trotted to the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wash some things out and return to work to destress as well as create a new dress. I’ll listen for your call if any of you need me, and please gather some water for Kiwe, if he is ever done laughing, that is.”
“Yes, mom.” “Yes, Rarity.”
Sweetie laid down when Rarity left and watched Kiwe as his laughter died down. Snickers rested a forehoof on Sweet’s back and leaned down. “Why do you call it the cat’s eye?”
Sweetie looked askance at Snickers. “Because it looks like one, duh.” She shook her head. “Colts.”
Snickers ignored that comment and followed Sweetie’s gaze with a sigh. “You should probably talk with him instead of hinting what you hope will happen.”
Sweetie’s ear flicked. “But, what if he tells me to go away and never bother him again?”
Snickers shrugged. “Then you do what he asks until he’s ready, isn’t that the right thing to do?”
“But,” Sweetie said as Kiwe rolled to his belly and wiped his eyes, “he’s everything I could ever want in a stallion, I don’t think I could handle rejection from him.”
“You’ll do fine as you’ve got the rest of us, right?”
Sweetie sighed in resignation. “Fine, you do got a point. And, you got the colt view on that stuff…”
“‘Have’ a point,” Snickers corrected, grinning at the filly.
“Ugh! Does Everypony have to be a dang dictionary?!” Sweetie Belle got up, shoved past Snickers, and stomped from the room. “Dumb boys and smarty pants friends and the cutest colt in the world just has to fall into my life and…” Sweetie trailed off as she went down the hall, grumbling to herself.
Kiwe bumped Snickers’ shoulder. “What is happening with Sweetie Belle, she seems somewhat unwell.”
Snickers chuckled. “Nice to see you back from <LoL> land. Have a nice trip?”
“What is this land you speak of, Snickers?”
Snickers mentally groaned, but smiled externally. “Something from where I’m from, not a big deal. Just means a place where you... laugh a lot, I guess would be the translation. <Shit, I’ve really gotta write this down in a…>” Snickers chuckled to himself while Kiwe listened attentively, “<dictionary. But for language.> Hey, Kiwe? What’s a dictionary for language called?”
“You mean a translation book? Do you need one to help with your other language to Ponish, or perhaps you wish to create one for your family and friends to understand your words?”
“Yeah, that one,” Snickers said, turning to the doorway and leading Kiwe downstairs. “So, it’s not late and we’ve got a couple hours until you have to cook. Do you have anything you wanna do?”
“I have no plans on what to do, perhaps there is something with Diamond Tiara; with a heart so true.”
Snickers smirked and then looked aside to meet Kiwe’s eyes. “You know she’s totally into mares, right? You have as much chance of getting her to love you as you do training a fly to pull a wagon.” Kiwe blushed and Snickers grinned. “I don’t think I’ve seen you blush before! You do like her, don’t you?”
Kiwe brushed Snickers’s pointing hoof away from his direction with a little magic. “Bah, I may not have a chance, but there does not need to be any romance. To see her in evening shade and smell her mane by the local glade, her eyes sparkle in my mind at night. If only I could tell her, I feel all would be alright.”
Snickers moved quickly to cover Kiwe’s mouth and looked around the showroom, listening intently for several seconds before Kiwe moved to push Snickers a step back. “Okay, I don’t think any filly heard that. Kiwe, do you realize how much trouble I’ve made for myself by just mumbling that kinda sappy crap?
“Be careful of stating your feelings, fillies have a sense of when it’s gonna happen and then walk in at the worst time to hear what you say, just when it can apply to them and their feelings. I swear, if my mane wasn’t silver then it’d be grey from all the sexual stress and tension I’ve been under, mostly because of misunderstandings.”
Kiwe thought it over and nodded as his mind unwrapped the knowledge he’d been given and laid it out. “Huh, you may be right. Rather than to start a fight, I should think before I speak and make sure what I say is right.”
“Exactly. So, what can ya tell me about Zecora? She’s a potion maker in the Everfree and she used to be vilified, but there’s gotta be more to her than that, right?”
Kiwe nodded and led Snickers to a cozy reading nook of Rarity’s. With some magic, Kiwe moved the recent romance novels aside while glancing at a couple and sharing the titles with Snickers. They snickered and sat side by side, then Kiwe began to tell what little he did know about Zecora.
“She was a mystic in Zebrabwe, a nomadic tribe was her home. She had visions of dire times to come, eventually she was shun. Having to leave her family and life behind, she traveled the nations with a blight on her mind. She eventually reached the Everfree and made her home out of a tree.
“There she plans and awaits for a creature to arrive that can change many of fates. This creature she told to me stands on two legs and as is a tall as a tree. His skin bares no fur and his mind in ever in a whir, his mind is torn between paths of three and the one it’s gifted is the most vexing to be.
“Torn between two lives or more, he will win many personal battles and finally within a war. No pony, zebra, donkey, or dragon knows of this beast; but when it sets its mind to something, it will succeed at the least. It has no home to return to and no home to call its own, the only thing Zecora has seen is that it seeks to atone.”
Snickers swallowed loudly. “Um, atone for what?”
Kiwe shrugged. “She did not say, only that it wishes to atone for a mistake that it made one day.”
Snickers rested his chin on his steepled forehooves. “Well, that doesn’t tell me anything about anything.”
Kiwe chuckled and bumped his friend’s shoulder with his own. “Such is the way of the nomadic zebra mystic, brother. They don’t have many answers, only riddles within their rhymes. My mother was the daughter of a mystic and betrothed to a warrior’s son. It helped her to learn to fight and defend herself from everyone. When she met my father in passing their hearts became one, and my mother left her home and family to begin a new one. She is a zebra, my father a pony; as a result I am a zony. I can fight, but I choose to defend. For fighting for its own sake is a fast way to meet one’s end.”
Snickers sat up and leaned against Kiwe. “It seems I can fight now, too. I have a little help when I need it, and it tends to teach me what I need to know when I need it. Like, I didn’t know how to swim until I almost drowned, then there I am, treading water in the hottub.”
Kiwe looked at Snickers flatly. “You nearly drown in a hottub?”
“Well, it felt like I was gonna,” Snickers answered with a weak grin. “Sure, mom was there and we were in the spa, and the water was only deep enough so my hind hooves could touch the floor with my snout out of the water, but it was scary at first.”
“...”
“Hey, I could’a drowned if nopony was around and I didn’t think about getting to the side.”
“And the odds of that happening?” Kiwe pressed with a growing smile.
“Anyway,” Snickers deflected, “do you know anything else about this vision, or whatever, Zecora had? Maybe a name or where they’re from?”
“I already said all I can, the only way you can get more information is to ask the mare herself. She said she’d return in a couple days, you should write a list.”
Snickers sighed. “Oh, yeah. I have to meet Twilight tomorrow. She’s the town know it all and magical prodidgery.”
“‘Prodigy’, you mean?”
“Yeah, that. Hmm… maybe I should think of what to ask Zecora,” Snickers said quietly to himself.