//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Royal innocence // Story: Twilight & Spike Give Two Alicorn Princesses "The Talk" // by ThePinkedWonder //------------------------------// “Okay, Twilight. You can’t keep delaying this. Spike is a strong, mature dragon who the Crystal Empire calls a hero, so he can handle a simple talk...right? Besides...” Twilight Sparkle traipsed down the hallways of her crystal castle, heading for Spike’s bedroom.  Jitters from nerves ravaged her insides. Her hoofsteps on the cold floor had never sounded so loud, even if they actually weren’t.  What was her deal? It was long overdue for Twilight to have a dreaded conversation with Spike about the birds and the bees. While the two considered each other siblings, Twilight also viewed herself, sort of, as Spike’s mother – she technically hatched his egg. Therefore, it was on her to give him “the talk”. Sounds like fun. Not for Twilight though. The alicorn continued to will herself to suck it up, be a mare, and perform her job as Spike’s de facto mother, all the way to Spike’s closed bedroom door. Upon reaching the unusually menacing door, Twilight’s ears flopped sideways. She gulped, called forth more of her courage, and meekly knocked. “Spike, are you in there?” “Yep, I’m here.” “Can I come in? But if you’re busy, I can leave.” “You can come in. I’m just reading Power Ponies comics." It would be BS if Twilight denied that she was hoping Spike would have told her “no” and to buzz off. Since her inner coward wasn’t appeased, Twilight’s horn glowed magenta and the door creaked open. Spike was lying on his bed, holding a copy of a “Power Ponies” comic book in his claws. A half-filled cup of his favorite juice rested beside his bed. He lifted his head toward Twilight and asked, “Twi? What’s wrong?” “N-nothing’s wrong.” Twilight forced her suddenly sluggish hooves through the doorway. Fighting weak wobbles from her legs, she staggered across Spike’s room and lay beside his bed. “I just wanted to talk to you.” “Okay.” Spike laid his comic beside him and sat up. Twilight had his full attention. ‘Here we go,’ Twilight thought, then asked out loud, “Spike, how long have we known each other?” “Uh...my whole life and most of yours? Weren’t you the one that hatched me?” “Oh, right.” Twilight facehoofed. ‘Why didn’t I rehearse what I’d say?’ It wasn’t the time to stay buried in thoughts, so Twilight smacked her cheek with a forehoof and knocked her attention out of her thoughts. “S-sorry, I was a little preoccupied.” She fidgeted her wings as she added, “But never mind that. Do...*gulp*...you remember when you were asking me where foals come from?” “I do. Every time I did, you broke out in a sweat, said you forgot about or had to do something, and ran or flew off.” Spike chuckled at the memories. “You even crashed the time you tried to fly away before you were used to your wings.” “Yeah…I did. I still have a bump from that crash.” Twilight tapped the back of her head, where the small bump from her shameful escape hid under her mane. “But now, I...n-need to finally tell you.” “Oh, I know,” Spike said nonchalantly. Despite her unexpected good luck, its shock sparked Twilight’s mouth to widen and her ears to stand up. “You do?! How?!” Spike stretched his arms in the air and yawned. “After I tried to ask you last month, I went to Rainbow and Fluttershy and they told me.” “What?! Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy told you?!” “Yep. They said foals are created soon after a mare and stallion bang, then the mare gives birth to her foals eleven months later. They think it works that way for dragons too, but they lay eggs after sex, but mares don’t lay eggs.” The shock from this turn of events faltering, the corners of Twilight’s lips drooped in a frown. “Wait, ‘bang’? What does that mean?” “It means 'to have sex’, according to Rainbow, because Fluttershy didn’t call it ‘bang’.” Spike rubbed his chin. “Though, Fluttershy did struggle to get words out when she explained how sex worked and how foals are born. Her face was red the whole time, but I don’t know why telling me was so hard on her.” “I didn’t know some ponies used ‘bang’ as another word for...that, but whatever. I’m just glad you know where foals come from.” Twilight leaned forward and wrapped her forelegs around Spike in a hug, which he returned. Her hug was from both affection and utter relief of being off the hook. “Still, I’m sorry for not telling you myself.” “It’s cool.” Twilight and Spike broke their hug. The former’s Cutie Mark and the latter’s spikes on his head glowed. “Huh?” Spike pointed toward Twilight’s Cutie Mark. “Twi, your Cutie Mark is glowing!” “And your spikes are too! The map must be calling us!” The pair hurried out of the room and sprinted down the hallways. Twilight flew open a door to the throne room with her magic, and she and Spike dashed inside and toward the Cutie Map. A holographic image of Twilight’s Cutie Mark and Spike’s head circled each other over a section of the map displaying Canterlot Castle. “Hey, look at that!” Twilight smiled and motioned a hoof toward her plot device map. “This is the first time it has only called us.” “Heh, about time it sent Equestria’s best duo to solve a friendship problem. I did nothing wrong today, so I can’t be the cause this ti–wait.” Spike stared closer to where the image of his face and Twilight’s Cutie Mark danced over. ”Odd. Didn’t Starlight get called to the royal palace not long ago?” “Yeah.” A wave of panic struck Twilight, inducing a fearful gasp. “Wait, don’t tell me Celestia and Luna are fighting again. Oh, I knew I should have stayed with Starlight, but I wanted to show I trusted her! Why didn’t I–” Spike covered Twilight’s mouth with his claws. He knew what could happen if he failed to quell the incoming freak-out immediately. “Easy, Twi. Let’s just check things out first. It might not have anything to do with the Princesses.” Twilight and Spike departed the castle and boarded the Friendship Express to Canterlot. In Canterlot Castle’s throne room... “I see,” Princess Celestia said, leaning down to Spike’s spikes, which (in addition to Twilight’s Cutie Mark) had ceased glowing during their trip. She strode back and stood beside Princess Luna. “I haven’t noticed any problems, and the...issue between Luna and me is resolved and we are closer than ever.” Princess Luna commented, “Are you certain the map summoned you here, not somewhere else in Canterlot?” Twilight laid a hoof under her chin. “I’m pretty sure it did. Whenever the map sent me or my friends somewhere, whoever was having the friendship problem wasn’t always apparent right away. Maybe if Spike and I stick around, we’ll find a clue?” Celestia nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a fine idea to me. Feel free to explore the castle and see if you can find anything wrong, and Luna and I can also keep our eyes peeled.” A male guard stepped into the room. “My apologies, your Majesties, but I have a minor issue to report.” “What is it?” Celestia asked. “A few ponies are spreading conspiracy theories of you and Princess Luna secretly having foals, as well as claiming Princess Luna being sent to the moon was fake news. However, we are working to deal with them as we speak.” Celestia and Luna stared at each other. Giggles burst out from both. “That is crazy,” Luna said. “Of course I, or rather Nightmare Moon, was banished to the moon, and I have yet to even lay my first egg. You have not laid any either, right, Sister?” “No, but I have sometimes made jokes and pulled small pranks to help ponies feel more at ease around me. It could be that some ponies are being a little...overzealous in taking my lead.” The guard gave a weak gasp. “Wait, you two can lay eggs?” “Yes. Alicorns can lay eggs after cuddling long enough with a stallion,” Celestia answered. “Foals hatch from eggs, after all.” Twilight’s mouth widened. Did she hear right? The guard backed out of the throne room without speaking a word. This just got interesting. “Um...what was that about cuddling and alicorns laying eggs?” Twilight asked in a high-pitched voice. “I said alicorns can lay eggs after cuddling with a stallion, just like all mares,” Celestia calmly responded. She did hear right. One of Twilight’s eyelids twitched, then her body froze. Twilight.exe had stopped working. “Uh, Twi?” Spike poked Twilight’s chest.  “...” “Twilight?” “...” “Equestria to Princess Twilight Sparkle!” “...” Spike pulled the motionless alicorn’s head down to him and whispered in her ear. Pure energy triggered Twilight’s eyes to bulge and her wings to spread out. “No! So help me, Spike, if you tell our friends about my crush on–oh. I must have frozen. Thanks for snapping me out of it.” Twilight.exe rattled her head to fully reboot herself and folded her wings. Celestia pointed out, “You always freeze if you feel something unbelievable happened. Do you think mares can’t lay eggs or that foals don’t come from them?” “Oh, what kind of question is that, Sister?” Luna tittered. “Twilight has practically read every book in existence, so of course she knows about the method ponies reproduce.” “Y-yes, I…” Twilight slowly turned to Spike. Arteries branched out in her eyes. “Spike, can you, uh, help me check something?” “Sure.” Twilight dashed out of the room with Spike following. In the hallway, Twilight whispered, “Spike, did you hear them say mares lay eggs and that it happens after cuddling a stallion?” He nodded. “Yep.” “How is it even remotely possible that two ponies who are over one thousand years old think that?” Twilight asked with her hooves up in frustration. “There’s ‘crazy’, ‘very crazy’, ‘Starlight’s plans crazy’, and then there’s this!” “It’s odd that Equestria’s two oldest ponies are wrong about how foals are born. But if they are” –Spike pointed a claw at Twilight– ”why don’t you tell Celestia and Luna about sex and how foals are really born?” Twilight’s eyes dilated from the words, and she fought to keep herself working. Giving a full-grown mare, much less Princess Celestia, “the talk”? “W-well,” Twilight stuttered while grimacing, “I-I...suppose I could, but I can’t, especially not to Princess Celestia! She’s like my second mother!” “What’s the big deal?” Spiked asked with an oblivious frown. “You’re only talking about sex and the details of foalbirth.” “It’s...uh…” Twilight spoke through gritted teeth, a drop of sweat running down her face. She quit trying to clarify her stance and explained through un-gritted teeth, “I guess you’re too young to understand or it’s the dragon in you. Let’s just say it’d feel too weird!” “But what if this is the friendship problem we gotta solve?” “Then I should have the map sent for repairs to ensure it still knows what ‘friendship’ is.” “Wouldn’t fixing it be your job as the Princess of Friendship? Anyway, what are we going to do?” More drops of sweat flowed down Twilight’s face. She yearned to turn tail and retreat to Ponyville, but this was a friendship problem, kind of. Pride as the Princess of Friendship clamped on the fear that begged Twilight to flee shamelessly – she had work to do. She closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. “I’ll tell them. I guess the map thought I couldn’t handle this on my own.” “I doubt it thinks that little of you, if it can think.” “No, it was at least right to send you with me; I might have lost my nerve and ran back to Ponyville if I were alone for this.” She forced a smile. “Do you have my flank?” Spike smiled supportively and winked. “Flank, gotten.” Her smile deepened, filling with some more confidence. She should handle this kind of talk without Spike, given his age. Unfortunately, the wimp in her was reluctant to go back in solo if she didn’t have to, despite the mare’s status as a multi-time heroine of Equestria. “Thanks. Let’s go.” With Twilight’s knees buckling from nerves, Twilight and Spike walked back into the throne room. The two shockingly innocent Princesses had remained where they were. “Are you two finished with whatever you needed to check?” Celestia asked. “Uh, yes, yes we are,” Twilight answered, speaking faster than she intended to. Speaking at her normal speed, she asked, “Um, Princess Celestia, before Spike and I left, you said that alicorns, like all mares, lay eggs?” “That is correct.” Twilight scraped a hoof against the floor, as if she were attempting to scratch away the tenseness of this situation. “I have read many books about it, and I know I don’t have my own foals, yet. However, while our ovaries do produce eggs, I’m certain that no mare can lay them. Remember, Flurry Heart didn’t hatch from one.” Celestia stared upward in thought, rubbing her cheek with a hoof. “I did wonder about that, but it is quite possible Flurry hatched before we saw her.” “But Shining Armor or Cadance would have mentioned that Cadance laid an egg. Plus, I've seen newly born foals in hospitals, and I’ve never seen a single sign of eggs.” Luna asked, “Then in that case, how do you believe foals are born?” “Y-you see,” Twilight began as she fiddled with her wings, “they develop inside a mare’s body, and she gives birth to them live.” “Strange.” The elder royal sister looked toward her younger sibling. “Sister, have you heard anything about this?” Luna shook her head. “No. I learned all I know about the matter from you.” “I see.” Celestia turned her head back to Twilight, eyes conflicted on if what she was hearing was really the truth. “Twilight, I will admit that I am a little...hesitant to believe this, but you do sound sincere about your claim. If you are indeed correct, then after a stallion and mare cuddle, their foal just somehow ends up inside the mare’s body?” “Uh...foals don’t come from cuddling either,” Twilight answered meekly. “Well, where do they arise from if not through cuddling?” Celestia pointed at Twilight, or rather at the sweat starting to rain down her forehead. “And, perhaps you should see one of our doctors. It is not humid, but you are sweating quite badly.” “N-no, it’s okay. I was...working out before the map called me, but my workout’s effects are only showing now, but I’ll be fine.” The big liar who had rarely exercised in her life wiped her forehead, rubbing off some of the perspiration her anxiety was pumping out. “But anyway, w-when a mare and stallion want to have foals, they have...s-s-se–” “Sex,” Spike calmly said. “Wait, Spike, I got this. I am already having you do more than you should.” Twilight pondered what to further add. Alas, “nothing” was her brain’s wonderful answer, coaxing her to fiddle with her wings again. “Yes, a mare and stallion have...what Spike said.” “Sex?” Luna asked with a baffled frown. “It feels as if I should, but I do not believe I have ever heard of this ‘sex’.”  “I haven’t either, but then again, it is easy to forget things at our age.” Celestia giggled. “We are lucky that we can still remember what we have for breakfast, usually. Twilight, in case Luna and I simply forgot, tell us more about sex.” “Have you ever had it?” Luna asked. “Does it feel good?” A whimper escaped Twilight’s lips, even if she couldn’t escape. ‘I should have let Starlight tear Starswirl the Bearded’s scroll in the past.’  Her internal semi-joke over, Twilight answered, “I have never personally experienced sex, yet, but sex is when a stallion puts h-h-his...um...*inaudible*...inside a mare.” Celestia raised a hoof beside her ear. “I am afraid I didn’t hear what you said a stallion puts in a mare, and where does it go? Inside the mare’s mouth?” ”NO!!” Twilight’s eyes justifiably bulged, again. Her wings flared out at such a speed, it fired out a harmless shockwave, which blew into and flapped the ponies’ manes. “Not in the mare’s mouth! Gross!” “So he places his whatever somewhere else, like the mare’s anus?” Luna asked. “Because that doesn’t–” “No! Not there either!” Twilight took a deep breath and blew out some stress. Her eyes shrank to normal size, at least for now, and she relaxed her wings. “He puts his...h-his...” Spike groaned and facepalmed. “All right, that’s enough. Twilight, since you can’t tell them, I will, or we might be here all day. I’m getting hungry.” “But you can’t–” Spike covered his claws over Twilight’s mouth. “But I am.”  With hunger making him the alpha of the fabled Twilight-Spike duo, Spike uncovered Twilight’s mouth and faced the other two alicorns present. “Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, sex is when a stallion sticks his *censored* into a mare’s *censored* and *censored*. After sex is over, his sperm swims toward the mare’s eggs inside her body and fertilizes them. The fertilized eggs slowly grow into foals inside the mare’s womb, then after eleven months, the mare enters labor and pushes out her fully-formed foals through her *censored* and is born.” Twilight’s bottom lip dropped to the floor. Spike explained everything as if it were an average, “E” rated fact. ‘I should reevaluate my life when I’m back home.’ Celestia and Luna blinked twice, eyes fixated on the dragon. Awkwardness camped out in the impromptu sex ed class. “Wow, really?” Celestia asked, finally breaking the silence. “Y-y-yes, really,” Twilight replied as her bottom lip shot up to its normal spot. “I...couldn’t have said it better myself.” “That is hard to believe. I knew there was much I didn’t understand when I returned from the moon, like how we speak now, but I thought I understood how ponies reproduce.” Luna glanced at Celestia and sighed dejectedly. “Are our memory really that bad now?” “Perhaps I should ask some guards if they have heard of sex or experienced it themselves. Some of them are fathers, so surely–” “N-no!” Twilight shouted with her pupils shrunken. “Sex is a...sensitive topic, so you really shouldn’t ask ponies about their...sex lives. Hospitals are where foals are usually born, so if you’d rather hear a doctor tell you, maybe one at a hospital could tell you?” “I see. Sister, how about we pay a visit to Canterlot Hospital?” “Yes, let’s.” Celestia and Luna strode past Twilight and Spike and out their throne room’s door. Alone with Spike, Twilight moaned and wiped the remaining moisture off her forehead. She stared at her Cutie Mark, which was, mercifully, glowing. Spike’s spikes joined the glow party. “We did it, Spike, and I hope we never have to solve a friendship problem like that again. After we get you something to eat, let's return to Ponyville. I need to drink some cider.” Twilight and Spike left Canterlot castle. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder if some cruel trick was played on her. Yet she was a friendly, sympathetic pony who loved helping others, and would lay down her life to protect her friends or Equestria. Who would want that benevolent Princess to endure such embarrassment? Meanwhile, in a chaotic pocket dimension... Inside a lone house's living room floating in the strange void resided a possible answer to that earlier question: Discord, the legendary Lord of Chaos and Equestrian Heavyweight Champion of trolling. He rested in an upside-down floating chair; a bubble made from his chaotic magic, displaying a flipped image of Canterlot Castle’s throne room, was by a wall in front of him. “It looks like ‘The Sweaty Twilight Sparkle & Spike Show’ is over. I just wish Equis-cable wasn't so expensive.” Discord shoved a pawful of popcorn into his mouth, which was in a floating red bag that was also flipped. “It was well-worth giving those two a...push to Canterlot for the show to air.” He looked beside him where Fluttershy, Equestria’s most feared pony (when enraged), was in a second upside-down chair. “Right, Fluttershy? You cook up the craziest ideas when you’re bored.” “I don’t know. I’m starting to have second thoughts about my plan, even if...” the unexpectedly devious mastermind said with a guilty frown, although it looked like a smile due to her topsy-turvy position. Memories – and anger – of her and Rainbow Dash giving Spike “the talk” a month ago forced out a scowl. “Okay, I still can’t believe I had to tell Spike the…*shudder*...details about pony reproduction. It was Twilight’s job to hold that conversation with him, but she kept running from it!” “Yesss, who knew Twilight could be such a scaredy pony when it comes to having talks and quesadillas?” Discord took another big gulp of popcorn. Fluttershy’s scowl waned, and her remorseful expression revealed itself again. “But, be that as it may, we might have gone too far by changing Princess Celestia’s and Princess Luna’s memories of how foals are born. You promised to change their memories back, but I should have thought of something that only affected Twilight.” “Oh, Sunbutt and Moonbutt are great sports, so they’ll be just fine about our fun.” Discord snapped his claw, and the bubble displaying Canterlot Castle’s throne room poofed out of existence. ”But, since the show is over, I should return you to your cottage, then restore Sunbutt’s and Moonbutt’s memories before they make foals out of themselves. Pun very much intended.” “Well, they do have a sense of humor, especially Princess Celestia, or 'Sunbutt'.” Fluttershy giggled, her hoof covering her mouth. She’d never admit to her friends that she loved her “special friend’s” nicknames for the royal sisters. “Thanks for helping me.” “Thank you for letting me help the fun way: with a hint of chaos.” Discord snapped a claw, and Fluttershy was teleported out of Discord's pocket dimension and to her cottage. Now alone, he snapped a claw again. A bubble showing an image of Canterlot Hospital poofed where the previous bubble had been. Celestia and Luna were nearing the hospital’s door. “Actually, I’ll wait a bit before giving back their memories about the birds and the bees. Their show might not air again. In fact...I think I should just pop over there and watch it live.”