Shining Armour, a white unicorn decked in full guard armour with a long messy blue mane, matching eyes, and a Cutie Mark of a star studded shield, tilted his head to one side in puzzlement.
It was a few weeks off from Hearth's Warming, so, in an effort to get that nosy neighbour Brown Nose to stop insulting him for not celebrating the holiday more visibly, he had hung an ornamental wreath on the door.
That was now gone.
Instead, a plank of wood had been hammered into the front door with “QuESt” foalishly painted onto it.
He leaned in to inspect the nails, and found that they had in fact punctured the door.
Only one idiot would have done that.
“Flash,” Shining growled as his brow furrowed in annoyance.
His beloved and soon-to-be-reprimanded colt friend Flash Sentry was in for the tongue lashing of the century.
And not the fun one.
He gripped the door handle with his magenta magic and stepped through into what could be generously described as one pony trying their best.
Poster boards of poorly coloured stone bricks were plastered all over the living room and along the wall leading up to the second floor. Sconces made of black construction paper filled with glow sticks and red paper flames were glued to said boards. Several styrofoam orbs painted in swirling colours were hung from the ceiling by pieces of string, one of which fell off and rolled across the rug laden floors.
Glitter was also used liberally on all decorations and Shining was not looking forward to having it in his fur for the next six months.
In the centre of the room where the couch and living room table was supposed to be — presumably stashed either in the basement, or, if Flash was being particularly silly, the backyard in the snow — was a standup cardboard puppet theater.
Shining peaked behind the theater from his position at the door and noticed the wag of a short blue tail and a Cutie Mark of a shield with a lightning bolt through it on the rump of a massive orange pony.
He didn’t need to see the rest of said pony to know he had a pair of wings, a messy swept back mane, cheerful blue eyes, and a dopey grin on his face.
That was just standard for Flash Sentry.
There were a few options before Shining Armour. He could put the kibosh on this immediately and have everything cleaned up in short order, or he could see through whatever ridiculous thing Flash had set up.
The answer was easy of course.
Shining didn’t date Flash Sentry because he was rational.
After storing his armour properly in a nearby closet, Shining trotted to the front of the puppet theater and spied a plush cushion set in front presumably for himself.
A pamphlet was taped to the front of the theater and, with a burst of magic from his horn, brought it up to his face to read it.
It was a crudely drawn image of Flash in a poorly drawn princess outfit leaning back with one hoof to his head in a dramatic fashion. Scrawled in a similar font to the door were the words “saY hArK To bEGiN!”
He smiled warmly. Despite the rather poor quality, Flash was clearly putting in an effort to do… something.
Shining cleared his throat. “Hark!” he said in the deeper tone he uses when commanding the Royal Guard as Captain.
The theater shook. “Oh my gosh, that was hot,” Flash muttered as Shining smirked. “I-I mean well met! Art thou ready, Lady… wait… Sir Knight to take on a quest most arduous?”
A light giggle followed after a repeated mumbling of ‘sir’.
“Yes, mysterious voice, I am ready to take on this epic quest.”
The theater shook a few more times until a hoof appeared covered by a wool purple and white striped stocking. It was decorated with a conical wizard hat atop a massive bush of white wool with a matching beard, two googly eyes, pipe cleaner arms, and a long cloak made of some star patterned cloth material.
Shining didn’t need that stocking anyways.
“Most excellent, Sir Knight,” the ‘puppet’ said, completely out of sync to its voice and in an exaggerated wheezing voice. “We require your aid in saving our fair but super ripped Princess Bolt Butt from the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush!”
Two puppets joined the first on a second hoof and a wing.
The first was a sloppily orange painted paper bag with crudely drawn abs on it, obscenely glittered googly eyes, two poorly constructed foam wings, pipe cleaner arms, and a cheap silver tiara.
The second was a purple painted paper bag with thick markered black eyebrows over the googly eyes, foam wings, a pipe cleaner horn with matching arms, and a miniature book lying on top of its head.
It took all of Shining’s willpower to not burst out laughing at the obvious inserts they were meant to portray.
“Ah, well this Book Horse is clearly a fearsome foe. What must I do to save the fair Princess — snrk — Bolt Butt?”
“Thou must make the most feared meal of the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush.” Shining could hear the grin on Flash’s face. “Cheesy quesadillas in the tiled chamber of delicious stuff!” A dramatic pause. “Then thou must recover an ancient tome from the library of nerd paraphenelly… paraphenool… paracopbra… darnit. STUFF. The library of nerd stuff!”
“Understood, I shall begin my quest posthaste.”
“Yes! No!” More shaking occurred. “It’s dangerous to go alone, so take this, Sir Knight!”
There was a thud and a mumbled ‘ow’ from behind the theater. Several more failed attempts followed, with a range of mumbled curses made behind the theater, before a sword constructed of toilet paper rolls was thrown through the opening of the theater and near Shining.
He picked up the makeshift sword in his magic and noticed “ShInINg bLAde” scrawled across it. Though loath to admit it aloud, he loved it.
“Now that you are armed with the mythic blade, onwards to your first quest!”
The puppets all disappeared and a blur of orange raced out from behind the theater and dove into the kitchen. A crash and a loud curse followed shortly after.
Shining shook his head, took up his sword in his magic and followed after his loveable goofball.
Inside the kitchen, Shining found more of Flash’s arts and crafts. Paper spiders and cobwebs were plastered haphazardly on black construction paper over cabinets, drawers, and walls.
The central dining table was covered by a black table cloth painted with more cobwebs and spiders. A heating plate — A round black slate with various knobs gifted to them by Shining’s mother — dominated the center of the table on a raised heat proof stand. Corked glass bottles of various ingredients labeled with silly names surrounded the plate as well as a stack of tortillas marked as ‘parchment paper’.
A hoof poked out from under the table with another paper bag puppet. This one had a mass of black curly wool on its head, a chef’s hat atop that, two large paper horns on either side of its head, googly eyes, styrofoam balls for arms, and crude set of what Shining presumed were muscles drawn on the puppet’s body.
“Welcome, Knight dawg to the Minos Cauldron!” the puppet greeted in an intense and very fake Minotauran accent.
The puppet then bunched its styrofoam arms up in a show of what Shining presumed was flexing. A googly eye fell off.
Shining fought to keep his face neutral, but found a wide grin sneaking its way onto his face nonetheless.
“Well met,” Shining greeted in his pretend knight voice. “With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”
“I am the crusher of weak willed schlubs, but you, brave and super hot knight, may call me AB CRUNCHER.” The last words were punctuated by another flex.
The second googly eye fell off.
“Well, Ab Cruncher, it seems my colt friend has an interesting theme going on with some of these puppets. Anything he’d like to tell me?”
“No, he does not. I mean, he’s not here,” the puppet quickly corrected. “But if he were here, he would tell his colt friend that there are no themes and would ask if his colt friend would be open to some new ideas later. Totally innocent non-buff colt friend related things.”
Shining shook his head and sat his rump before the table. “So, we’re here to make the food feared by the book horse?”
“The Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush,” the puppet corrected.
“Right, sorry. The Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush.” Shining smirked. “Still salty over Twilight hogging all my attention last Thanksgiving?”
“I am but a mere puppet that has never met whomever this ‘Twilight Sparkle’ is, but she sounds like a colt friend cuddle stealer, which is honestly a most grievous offense and I do not blame certain colt friends for being mad about it.”
“Right, salty as the ocean, I see.” He heard a snort under the table. “So, how are we doing this then, Ab Cruncher?”
“You must follow the ancient recipe passed down through centuries of Sentry lineage.” The puppet disappeared under the table for a moment before returning with a slip of gray painted cardboard. “Here you are brave Sir Knight dawg.”
A glance at the ‘ancient recipe’ noted several ‘magical’ ingredients under the header of “KaSEaDeEa”.
“That’s not how you spell ‘quesadilla’,” Shining said.
“What? Yes, it is!” The puppet said indignantly. “I mean — ahem — it’s spelled like that because it's in, um, old Minotauran!” An awkward pause followed. “For purposes of future record keeping, how do you spell it?”
“First off, Minotaurans don’t use the same alphabet as us, they use an ancient script that predates the founding of Equestria, so, good effort. Secondly, it’s spelled ‘q-u-e-s-a-d-i-l-l-a’.”
“There’s a Q?” A loud cough. “I mean, you have solved my first puzzle! The puzzle of the misspelled word. Now, you must begin the cooking of the feared food to defeat the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush.”
Shining activated the heating plate using his magic. The plate hummed to life and began to emit a warm orange glow.
A quick cross reference of the recipe with the various ingredients confirmed the similarities and Shining began assembling the quesadillas with a bemused smirk on his face.
First, he laid down some parchment paper (tortilla) on the heating plate, then stacked on kelpie mane (lettuce), exotic red dragon eyes (peppers), shredded mandrake root (onions), fungus (mushrooms), vampire hearts (tomatoes), zombie guts (salsa), manticore cheese (gross), a second piece of parchment paper (tortilla), and finally topped with a second heavy pile of more manticore cheese (still gross).
He waited until one side turned a crispy brown before flipping it over, and dumping on another heaping pile of cheese. After another few minutes, Shining moved the completed food to a nearby empty plate.
His stomach growled in sympathy at the delicious smells of the quesadillas as he remembered that he hadn’t eaten since lunch.
“Okay, Ab Cruncher.” Shining sighed as he reluctantly tore his gaze away from the food. “I’ve made the quesadillas to defeat the book horse.”
“The Tyrannical Book of Shush,” the puppet corrected.
He rolled his eyes. “The Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush. Am I ready to continue my quest?”
“Not yet, Sir Knight. Though, you have created a fine entree worthy of defeating the diabolical menace, there is another task you must complete here. But first, allow me to hold onto this for later.”
A puppet free hoof appeared at the edge of the table and groped along the surface. Once it came upon the filled plate, the hoof grabbed the object and dragged it over the edge and under the table.
“Now for your second task here, Sir Knight. Open. The. Fridge,” the puppet said with gravitas.
“Hurrah,” Shining said with as much enthusiasm as he could whilst ignoring the protestations of his stomach.
A pull of the hoof opened the fridge door to reveal a large bowl of his favourite fruits and veggies drizzled with what appeared to be a sweet sauce he was fond of.
“Every Knight needs to have a break to feast between quests! Especially ones that have had a long day of work already. Now, eat, be merry! When you are ready, enter the library of nerd stuff.”
Shining turned to thank the puppet and by extension his colt friend, but noticed that the puppet was missing and Flash had scuttled off towards the study.
With a warm smile, he set his food on the table and began to chomp away all the while being reminded of why he loved his goofball.
Shining stepped into his and Flash’s joint study, though, ‘study’ was a bit of a misnomer. It was more accurate to call it a ‘nerd cave’. He had a lot of hobbies that required ample shelving and, over the course of several years, he had managed to drag Flash down to his level. Albeit with different interests than him.
The entire room was dominated by two very opposed sides of geekdom. The left was for him. Shelves heavily laden with tabletop and board games. Miniatures, rulebooks, monster manuals, and everything in between. His prized possession being a set of paladin armour hanging on a nearby mannequin.
And, if anypony asked, no it is not a well painted and polished set of old Royal Guard Armour that he had taken from work when it was being thrown away. That would be both somewhat illegal and sad. Mostly the latter.
The right side was for Flash and had enough horror paraphernalia to rival even the most rabid of fans. Games, tabletop, “haunted” items — he will one day manage to incinerate that creepy doll — and enough books to give his sister a run for her bits.
The whole thing covered everything from undead to eldritch, werewolves to vampires. Nothing was underrepresented on those shelves.
There was also Flash’s bin of monster repellants on the bottom shelf filled with ‘sun blessed’ water, several buckets of salt, iron fillings, and several weapons Shining was pretty sure were potentially illegal.
He never had the heart to throw them out though, since Flash always pulled out the pout, which frankly was weapons grade and could convince Shining of anything.
For now, he was focused on the puppet theater setup similar to the living room that was across from him and just in front of the room’s only window. The cardboard was painted with a stack of books and covered in crude construction paper made creepy crawlies.
A quick search found a laid out cushion, and a short jaunt found him sitting in it.
As the previous times before, a puppet appeared. This one was a black painted styrofoam ball on a wooden stick surrounded by glued-on pipe cleaners and a single massive googly eye in the center.
“Welcome, Sir Knight!” Flash said in a booming voice. “I am the beholder of the library of nerd stuff because that is what beholders do.”
“Not really,” Shining replied. “They mostly just hang out in caverns and start gangs.”
“Well, uh, look I don’t know. I’m very smart and like books, so I run a library. Anyways, why do you come?”
Shining chuckled. “I am here for an ancient tome to defeat the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush.”
“Ah, yes, the book ‘Dating Tips for Weird Introverted Weirdos’.”
“I’m not sure how that would work as my sister is married to Cadance.” Shining tapped his chin with a hoof. “Though, knowing Cadance she probably has been trying to convince Twilight to start a herd.”
“That may be, but she is still a terrible pony that steals cuddles from other stallions’ super hot colt friends and definitely doesn’t have better game than Flash Sentry,” the puppet intoned. “To gain the book you seek, you must answer questions only one amazing colt friend, er, knight could answer.”
Shining smirked. “Seeing as I’m both an amazing knight and colt friend, I assure you that I am more than capable of this challenge beholder of the library of nerd stuff.”
“We shall see. First question!” the beholder flailed its pipe cleaner arms. “What does one do when one orange pegasus overdoes it on his horror reading and spooks himself into the ceiling rafters?”
“Make a fresh cup of cocoa using real chocolate, milk and three marshmallows. Place the drink and one mango on a nearby table. Waft up the smell of both items using a fan then barrage pegasus with kisses once landed.”
“Correct!” the puppet flailed. “What is one orange pegasus’s favourite place to be?”
Shining gave a lecherous grin. “The fun one or the fun one?”
“The n-normal fun one,” the puppet flustered.
“Then it’s the puppet theater downtown especially around Nightmare Night when they do the puppet horror moonlit marathon. Mainly because they always do a showing of ‘The Great Burning of Puppet City’. One orange pegasus enjoys the rampant use of pyrotechnics.”
“Correct!” the puppet announced.
“The other spot is right under-”
“Shining!”
“-my chin. Why are you yelling?” Shining tilted his head. “I was just going to note that you like to lay on top of me and nuzzle me at the base of my neck.”
There was a prolonged bout of silence.
“Oh!” Shining raised a hoof. “Did you perhaps mean that you like to have your muzzle resting just under my-”
“Next question!” the puppet proclaimed.
“Oh, already?” Shining grinned widely. “But I hadn’t finished my answer.”
“NEXT QUESTION!” the puppet interrupted. “What character was played by one orange pegasus in the tabletop campaign known as ‘Doom Squad’?”
“A paladin that worshiped Murphy the god of unexpected consequences. An absolute trainwreck of a character that Spike one hundred percent abused as DM to his devious little heart. I still don’t know how we made it through that campaign.”
“Correct! Now for the Pentelment… Penultit… Penpulpit… second last question!” Shining snorted. “What was the most important date that one Shining Armour took one orange pegasus on?”
Shining mulled over his response. “The one where we were interrupted and called in to handle a massive monster attack on the capitol. We were halfway through dinner when we got the call. Spent the night evacuating citizens and providing backup to emergency medical staff.” Shining smiled. “You, sorry, one orange pegasus told me later that night it convinced him that I was ‘the one’ for him.”
There was a long silence.
“Flash?” Shining inquired.
“Correct!” the puppet exclaimed. “There is now only one question left.”
“Oh, nice. Thought it was going to be five. A tabletop player always knows to expect that. So, what’s the last question?”
“Well, firstly your book.” A very pink book with the aforementioned title was slid from one side of the puppet theater to Shining. “You only needed to answer three of the questions correctly to pass.”
“Sweet, glad I’m nailing this. Always love a perfect score. Though, if I’ve already gotten what I needed, why are we doing the final question then?”
“For fun!” the puppet flailed.
Shining grinned. “Alright, sure. I’m down. What’s the question?”
“Open the book.”
He opened the book with a bemused smile to be met with a large cut out in the center. Resting in the opening was an earring of amber set in a silver stud with a lightning bolt carved into the gemstone. A small array of tiny orange feathers were fanned out along the outer edges.
“Would you marry me?” Flash asked in his usual voice.
Shining was struck speechless.
“Well, anyways, Sir Knight, you have completed this quest,” Flash said through the puppet.
Shining whipped his head up. “Wait, no, Flash! Did you just-”
“Congratulations on your progress, but you’re running out of time and you still have to save Princess Bolt Butt. They are being held captive up the stairs of ‘WoOoOoOh’, past the hallway of ‘ran out of ideas’, and directly into the lair of the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush. Good luck, Sir Knight!”
The puppet fell to the floor in front of the puppet theater as Shining watched Flash launch himself out the window and up to presumably their bedroom.
He sat in silence before his brain finally processed what happened and spurred him into action.
SCrambling to his hooves, Shining grabbed the book containing the earring and raced after his colt friend.
Shining barely glanced at the decorations along the stairwell as he raced up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom. He took quick note of the fake stone pillars on either side of the door and the plate nailed to the front that read “tHe SHusH cAve.”
One shove opened the door and revealed to him an interesting sight.
Their bedroom was fairly standard primarily due to Shining and Flash’s military background. One king sized bed — Shining wasn’t a small unicorn by any stretch of the imagination and Flash was twice his size — two matching bedside tables usually with a book on each, and a closed closet.
Now, however, the bed was flooded with pillows, the ceiling had liberal application of glow in the dark ‘spooky’ stickers, and the bed was encircled by what Shining thought were gray painted styrofoam blocks.
On the bed was Flash dressed in striped blue and white stockings, a conical princess hat, and a blouse three sizes too small for his chest, withers, forelegs, and basically everything about the massive pegasus.
Between him and Shining was a bean bag decorated with googly eyes, two large angry eyebrows of felt, a mane and beard of purple dyed wool, foam wings, and a cardboard horn.
He was very unsure whether he should be mad that Flash messed up their room, offended by the very unflattering depiction of his sister, take a picture of said unflattering depiction to rub in Twilight’s face, ask about the earring, or be distracted by the straining of all of the fabric Flash was wearing over his ripped physique.
It was a very conflicted cocktail of emotions and, if he was honest about it, the blouse was keeping most of his attention.
“Hark, brave Knight,” Flash said. “You have come to rescue me, Princess Bolt Butt, from the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush. I have fed them the feared food item, now you must defeat the evil sorceress!”
Every time Flash moved it caused the blouse to strain ever closer to ripping in two. It took all of Shining’s incredible focus and militaristic discipline to respond.
“Buh?” he said.
Flash blinked. “Um, Shining? You’re supposed to slay the Tyrannical Book Horse of Shush. You know with your sword?”
“Right, the sword. To, uh, slay you, I mean the Book Horse! En garde you foul...” Shining searched for the sword only to remember he had left it behind downstairs. “Oh, for- Okay, enough of this.”
Shining formed a shield with his magic just in front of the bean bag then released a force of magic through the shield to punt it through the open window across the room.
“Shining!” Flash frowned. “You were supposed to slay the book horse with your sword, fail, then open the book to scare them off.”
“I know, sorry Flash.”
Flash pouted which caused Shining to flinch. “But, Shining,” Flash whined. “I wanted you to have fun and slaying the monster was supposed to be the final battle. The big finish!”
“Flash, I assure you, I really did enjoy myself. This was fun.” Flash gave a big grin. “But you are cleaning all of this up later.” Flash’s grin turned to a frown. “I cannot believe how much a mess you’ve made of our house.”
Flash rubbed the back of his head with a wing. “Sorry, Shining, I just wanted to make sure everything was special today.”
“So you could propose to me?”
Flash’s face flushed. “Yeah, that. You really liked tabletop and you’re supposed to go all out for proposals so I thought a mini house wide campaign would be big enough for you.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry I screwed that up.”
Shining trotted the short distance to Flash and gave him a deep kiss on the lips. It was a long intimate moment just between them that he hoped communicated how he felt.
When they parted, Shining stared at his beloved with an expression of pure adoration.
“You didn’t screw up, Love. I was just surprised when you proposed out of the blue to me like that. Why didn’t you wait until now?”
“I got impatient,” Flash mumbled. “You were showing all the reasons I loved you and my feelings just kind of overwhelmed me in the moment.”
“Aw, what a goofy pegasus you are.” Shining gave Flash a peck on the cheek.
“I was going for ‘sexy princess’ today,” Flash grumped.
“Oh, Flash. Let be clear you nailed that and we will be dealing with that very shortly because that blouse is driving me nuts.” Shining playfully nipped at the hem to a cherry red Flash. “But first, we need to address that loose end.”
“You mean my proposal?” Flash hunched his shoulders. “I’m sorry for springing that on you, Shining. You don’t need to answer now. I really should have—”
Shining interrupted with a quick kiss on Flash’s lips. “I’ll marry you.”
A cautious grin crossed Flash's face. “Y-you will?”
“Yes.” Shining touched his snout to Flash’s. “I love you, Flash.”
“I love you too, Shining.”
They both gave each other another deep kiss before Shining gently pushed Flash back onto the bed, and planted himself firmly overtop of him.
“Now,” Shining said in his Captain’s voice. “Your Knight desires his reward for a quest complete, Princess Bolt Butt.”
Flash squirmed happily underneath him. “Oh, well, of course, Sir Knight.” Flash bit his lip. “Also, can you keep that voice for the evening, it’s really doing it for me.”
Shining smirked. “But of course, Princess.”
“I don’t suppose you’d also be willing to put on that sexy armour you bought as a joke at the Ogres and Oubliettes convention a few months back?”
“You put on the corset I bought for you for our last anniversary, and consider it done. For now though, my pegasus appears to be neglected.” Shining gave Flash another kiss. “I love everything about you, my beloved fiance.”
Flash gave a beaming smile. “And I you, beloved.”