Twilight teleported back to her castle, where Spike was waiting for her outside. At this point it was about five o’clock, and there was still a few hours of sunlight out, but many ponies were shutting down their shops for the night or going to get dinner. As soon as he saw his friend and walked over to her. He could tell from the look on her face that what he was about to be told wasn’t very good news. He still asked anyways, “How’d it go with Rainbow Dash?”
“Oh, you know,” Twilight started in an extremely sarcastic tone, “just the same as everypony else! Smiling, blushing, complementing, dreamy-eyed.” Twilight groaned loudly and put a hoof to her forehead in frustration, moving her head so that she was staring at the ground. “How is all this even happening? Discord is definitely behind this!”
“I don’t know, Twilight, I actually doubt it was him,” Spike said.
Twilight looked up bewildered at Spike, mouth agape in disbelief. “How could it not be him? This has him written all over it! He mind controlled everypony to suddenly be gushing over me, even Celestia!”
“Twilight?”
“I know he was reformed, but he still likes to pull his tricks, pranks, jokes...whatever!”
“Twilight?”
“When I see that lousy Draconequus next I’m gonna kick his snake tail thing so hard-“
“Twilight!”
The voice finally snapped her out of her blind rage and she looked in front of her to see the purple dragon with his claws on her shoulders. He often did this when Twilight went momentarily crazy, which happened less and less now but still could happen.
“I’m almost positive it wasn’t him!”
“How do you know?” Twilight asked with an eyebrow raise.
“Well, you know how me, him, and Big Mac, get together for guys night a lot? Well one time we were playing truth or dare and he totally told us that he had a crush on somepony else.”
“Discord has a crush?” Twilight asked, eyes wide.
“Yep, but I promised I wouldn’t say who it was. Anyways, my point is that he wouldn’t have wanted to put a spell on everypony because that would have made Fluttershy fall in love with you like it did.”
It took Spike a second and a knowing look from Twilight to realize that he had just revealed Discord’s crush. “Darn it! At least it wasn’t a pinkie promise, I guess.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and started walking toward the castle door with Spike following close behind. She used her magic to open the doors and they began to walk down the long hallway to the map room.
“I guess that would make sense, Spike,” Twilight said as they walked, “but I still think it might be him. Only extreme magic would be able to overcome Princess Celestia like that, and I happen to know that Discord has exactly that. For now, though, we need to find out what’s going on and why everypony is acting this way.”
“And why Discord and I don’t seem to be affected at all,” Spike chimed in.
“Yes, that to,” Twilight said as she opened the door to the map room, still lost in her thoughts. “We also need to find out...what in Equestria happened in this room!?”
The two friends looked around the room to see that it had been decorated to seem like a scene from a fancy restaurant. The map had been decorated with a ivory tablecloth with two red plates on top. In the middle there was a candle burning, and there were two wooden chairs lined up on either side of the “table.” Considering how big the map was it hardly looked like an appropriate dinner table, however it still looked rather charming.
Around the room were some purple flowers which Twilight instantly recognized as purple bellflowers, which were historically defined as the flower of...
“Uh oh,” Twilight murmured.
Love.
“Hi there Twilight,” a voice said from behind them. They turned around quickly to see Starlight Glimmer standing in a beautiful light blue dress with purple highlights that seemed to perfectly match her hair. She also wore a necklace of pearls that Twilight recognized as the beads she had been given when she helped to defeat the Changelings as gratitude.
“Uh, hey Starlight! What’s all this?” Twilight asked in a weak voice, already fearing the answer.
“Well, I thought I would surprise you with a dinner date to show you what a good special somepony I would be! After all, the most beautiful and special mare in all of Equestria deserves only the most beautiful and special of decorations.”
Twilight sighed and stepped forward, almost coming nose to nose with the other unicorn, whose face was super red.
“Listen, Starlight, this isn’t you,” Twilight started, “you aren’t attracted to mares and you don’t have any feelings for me. You aren’t thinking clearly.”
Starlight looked straight into her friend’s eyes, and Twilight hopes that it meant that she had gotten through to her. However, her expression didn’t show that of disappointment or rejection, but of determination and boldness.
“No, Twilight,” she began, “for the first time I am thinking clearly. I was blind this whole time to the beauty and kindness that you have, Twilight. I really, really like you, and I really want this to work so that I can hug, kiss, cuddle, and spend time with the most perfect unicorn in all of Equestria.”
Silence fell over the room as Twilight and Spike were both shocked by the declaration of love that Starlight had just gave, while the love struck unicorn anxiously awaited an answer, her eyes shining with excitement.
Spike then got an idea, but he needed time to pull it off, so he stepped forward and smiled at Starlight.
“This is amazing, Starlight, and I’m sure that Twilight would absolutely love to go on a date with you!”
Spike could have sworn he heard Twilight’s jaw hit the ground from behind him, but he kept his focus on the giddy unicorn in front of him. Before anypony else could say anything he continued.
“Let me just take Twilight to her room to help her get ready. You wait here, alright?”
Starlight almost jumped up in excitement before she ran over to Twilight and gave her a Pinkie Pie style bone crushing hug. “That sounds amazing,” she exclaimed before letting Twilight go. “See you in a few, cutie.“
She winked at the now stunned p purple alicorn before she walked over to the table, incorporating a little hip sway.
Spike turned to Twilight who looked like she was about to say something, so he quickly brought a hand to her mouth and started to lead her toward the hallway that led to her room.
“Alright, Starlight, she’ll be ready soon,” he stated, walking Twilight into the hallway and went a few doors down before relinquishing his grip on her mouth, which was immediately opened again.
“Spike,” she almost shouted, “what was that for! I don’t want to date her!”
“I only did it for some time to think,” Spike defended, “I didn’t think she would let you go so easily, especially after the speech. Because we don’t think it was Discord, and if it is we can confront him later, I thought we could go to that mini library in your room to see if we can find a solution to this mess.”
“Well we better find something, otherwise everypony will think I’m going to be dating my student.”
They walked a few more doors down before they found the one that led into Twilight’s bedroom, where Twilight opened the door with her magic and the princess and her number one assistant went over to a small bookcase in the corner of her room, where Twilight kept most of her personal reference books and any other books that she was currently reading.
Without hesitation, Twilight began to levitate all the books around her and started looking through each of them. The first was a big book on potions.
“Love potion,” she read, “a powerful potion that can make two ponies fall instantly in love with each other. No, I would have to be affected in order for it to work.”
She then turned to a book of powerful incantations. Want it, need it, an incantation which causes every creature to desire whatever it is cast on. Only a very powerful pony could cast that, and nopony has cast anything like that on me.”
She continued flipping through the books several more times, with Spike watching her from the side.
“Twily!”
Both Twilight and Spike froze as they heard the voice of Twilight’s “date.” Spike’s eyes darted from side to side as they quickly landed on the dress that Twilight had worn to her second Grand Galloping Gala. It was a light blue dress that was decorated with blue flowers at the bottom and an orange bow around the neck.
Without a second thought Spike rushes to it, grabbing it off the hanger so fast that he almost ripped it, and threw it at the alicorn.
“Spike!” Twilight exclaimed, “what are you doing?”
“I’ll stay and see if I can find an answer to everything,” he said in a whisper, “but you’re going to have go on the date with Starlight, otherwise she could get mad, or desperate, or both. And we know what can happen when that happens.”
Twilight opened her mouth to object when she heard Starlight’s voice down the hall.
“Twily,” the voice came again, “are you almost done? I can’t wait to see you again! I bet your so beautiful right now!”
Twilight then looked at Spike holding the dress, and then back at the door. It was true that she really didn’t want to go on this date, especially since she didn’t know what Starlight was planning, although Spike had a point. She didn’t know how powerful this was, and Starlight was capable of doing almost anything if she wanted to, and Twilight didn’t really want to know.
Twilight sighed, activated her horn, and got behind a changing curtain. “You better know what your doing, Spike.”
Spike gave a thumbs up and walked out of the room, where an excited unicorn was looking behind hoping to catch the first glimpse of her crush.
“Twilight’s almost done,” Spike said, before closing the door behind him, “she’s just changing into her dress, so she should be done soon.”
Starlight began blushing madly at the thought, seeming even I’m more eager than before. Spike noticed the expression and sighed, shaking his head.
“Good luck tonight, Twilight,” he thought, “You’ll need it.”