Twilight was making her way towards the dining room followed by her four mares. One of which lie over the back of Octavia still asleep. This was a normal thing for Vinyl though and gave none of them pause. Around this time of the day, the dining room was usually quite empty. This was perfect for Twilight’s entourage. However, they all froze when they opened the large doors to find Twilight’s fellow elements of harmony all sitting on one side of the table along with both of the royal pony sisters sitting on each far end. Luna waving sheepishly from the south end of the long table did little to help the atmosphere.
With the rising tensions, the first pony to speak was Trixie, who spoke, not to any of the ponies who were struck in silence but to the waiter who stood off to the side.
"Trixie will take some bourbon and a glass of Whiskey." The waiter jumped slightly in surprise before nodding and quickly making his way away from the tension heavy room.
With the tension slightly broken the five mares not yet seated, did so. Well, four of them did. Octavia dropped Vinyl on the pillow next to her. She tried to at least, but with a slight movement from the sleeping mare, Vinyl ended up on the floor next to the pillow. Even with a heavy impact of mare to floor, Vinyl still did not wake. After a small amount of time, a different servant came back with Trixie's drinks. Trixie passed the glass of whiskey to Octavia, eliciting a nod of thanks from the cellist.
Finally somepony else spoke. "So. Twilight. Are you going to introduce us to your friends?" Rarity asked, earning a scoff from Trixie.
"Trixie is no mere friend to Sparky." Trixie announced, earning a groan from Twilight.
Rainbow Dash, on the other side of the table could only mouth ‘Sparky?’ in confusion.
"Trixiiie! Why do you always call me that? You know how much it annoys me," Twilight whined.
"Because you're so cute when you’re annoyed," Trixie explained. Had Twilight been paying more attention, she would have noticed the two other conscious mares by her sides, nodding in agreement.
Heaving a sigh at the magician’s antics, Rarity was finally answered by Twilight. "Well. These-" Twilight began waving her hoof around to indicate the four mares she entered with as she had entered the room with. "-are my, heh, my marefriends." As she explained, her face turned a heavy shade of red.
All the other ponies in the room that did not have millennia of time to train their facial features had looks on their face with varying degrees of shock and surprise. Twilight could have sworn she saw a look of jealousy in the mix, but it disappeared so quickly that she figured she had simply be seeing things.
Shaking her head, Applejack spoke up, “Now, I may not know much about how things go around Canterlot but Ah’m pretty darn sure that’s not how it works. Least Ah’ve never heard of such a thing in the Apple family or Ponyville’s history.”
”Oh, but, um, herd relationships…” Fluttershy begun, only to trail off as she saw no pony was paying any attention to her.
“Aw, there’s nothing wrong with it! Silly Applejack. Most ponies only get one special somepony. Twilight has three! That’s like, triple the love!”
A cough from the other side of the table caught Pinkie’s attention. Looking over Pinkie saw a familiar looking grey earth pony pointing at the floor next to her.
Quickly, Pinkie looked under the table to see a sleeping mare that she definitely recognized. “Make that four,” Pinkie stated before looking straight at Twilight.
Twilight began to feel a bit awkward from the look Pinkie was giving her. At the least, she knew that Pinkie was happy but that large of a smile never meant too many good things.
“Twilight, you shoulda told me you were dating Scratchy!” With a gasp, Pinkie’s eyes went wider. “Now we have Scratchy and the party pony herself in one place!We could've set up such an awesome party together!"
Pinkie turned her head to the Princess’ so quickly that most of the ponies had to cringe, imagining the whiplash any normal pony would have gotten.
“Can we have a party for them!?” Pinkie asked, her eyes darting between the two princesses so quickly that they began to look less like eyes and more like blurry blue orbs. “Can we?! Can We?! Please?! I can take care of everything!” Pinkie begged with a pleading look on her face.
With a small chuckle, Celestia looked at the pink mare with a smile. “If Twilight and her herd agree to it, I shall even allow you to use the ballroom.”
If the constant jumping and rambling of plans was anything to go on, the pink party pony of Ponyville was definitely pleased by this.
With a laugh, less regal and more from the gut, Luna shook her head. “Yes, yes, Pinkie. I’m sure the party will be glorious. However, it will have to wait for a little bit. As I’m sure we are all very curious about all this,” Luna said sweeping her hoof towards Twilight.
Luna may have been privy to Twilight’s relationship, the different ways she and her mares slipped in and out of the castle at night and she herself may have been the one to place a sound proofing spell on the room some nights, but she didn’t know everything. She was quite curious about a few things. She also wanted to see how many times the new Princess would blush throughout her explanations.
Rainbow Dash was the next to speak, her voice relaying her confusion. “Wait, wait. What’s all this about a herd? I could swear I heard about that somewhere.”
Twilight, finally feeling as though she could get a word in, began to explain. “You probably heard about them in a history book back in flight school.”
“No wonder I didn’t remember. I hardly paid any attention to that class. I mean, why do I need to know about Commander Hurricane to fly?” Rainbow Dash said with a groan.
Frowning at the pegasi’s dislike of learning for the sake of learning, Twilight continued her explanation, “Yes. Well, way back when, ponies weren’t monogamous as all.” Noticing a look of confusion from the pegasus, Twilight clarified, “Ponies who are in a relationship with strictly two ponies are monogamous. Ponies in a relationship like mine are polyamorous.” Noticing a look of understanding come across Rainbow’s face, Twilight continued her earlier explanation as her frown dissipated, “Like I was saying most ponies then were polyamorous, having multiple partners. The ponies that all mated together were known as a herd.”
A heavy blush came over some of the assembled ponies. Realizing how the use of ‘mating’ in her explanation might be put to use with her own group she quickly clarified herself. “B-but that’s not necessarily how things are now. Our herd is an emotional bond, not a physical one.”
This explanation caused some of the blush on the cheeks of Twilight’s friends to dissipate.
“Oh please, Trixie knows you love what Trixie does to your horn.” With Trixie’s declaration, no pony was safe from the blush. Even the Princess’ couldn’t hold it off. Twilight’s blush was such a shade of red that Celestia made a mental note to add it to the spectrum of the sunset. She would call the shade ‘Red of Twilight’s Embarrassment’. The only two ponies not currently in slack-jawed silence were Pinkie and Octavia. While both were blushing heavily, they were also trying their best to stop the influx of giggles that were coming to them.
Realizing what she had just said in front of not only Twilight’s fellow Princess’ but all of her best friends, Trixie attempted to shrink herself away from the slack jawed expressions of the elements of harmony as well as Twilight’s intense glare but not before letting her pride speak. "Trixie does not regret what she said, she merely regrets who heard it."
“Yes. Fine. It’s both. Can we move on?” Twilight groaned out. As annoyed as she was by the embarrassing outburst Twilight was relieved to see the look of confusion had left Applejack’s face at some point and was now simply sporting the same slack-jawed look as the rest of her friends.
The number of awkward silences that happened on this day would have surely broken some equestrian record, had somepony been keeping track.
With the silence, Fluttershy took a chance to speak. “Um, Twilight?”
Startled out of her embarrassment-enhanced silence Twilight spoke slightly louder than she meant. “Yes?!” Seeing the yellow pegasus recoil from the volume Twilight internally scolded herself. “I’m sorry. How can I help you Fluttershy?”
Trying not to focus on all the eyes that were now on her Fluttershy began her question. “Well, it’s just that, herds were known for being promiscuous. Does that mean you’re all…”Fluttershy trailed off, finally feeling the weight of the eyes on her. “Never mind. It was a stupid question…”
It didn’t take long for Twilight’s mind to connect the dots and figure out what the pegasus was going to ask. “Oh! No, no, no. No, like I said we’re all connected emotionally and as Trixie pointed out there is physical attraction between us all as well. But, no. We all have each other and that’s more than enough,” Twilight explained, resulting in a chorus of ‘daw’s from her mares as well as nuzzles from each of them. Octavia happily taking two to make up for Vinyl. With a smile Twilight returned their nuzzles before turning back to Fluttershy. “It was a good question though, Fluttershy.”
Celestia smiled at the happiness she could see between Twilight and her mares. “So,” Celestia began, “Who’s the alpha?”
“A-alpha? Well, I don’t… I mean, we haven’t-“ Twilight stammered out. Only to be cut off by her mares.
“Shparkle,” Photo Finish announced.
“Sparky,” Trixie said with a nod toward Photo.
“Twi,” Octavia agreed as she poked Vinyl.
“Mmphight,” If Twilight didn’t know better, she would have thought that Vinyl had just called her the alpha in her sleep.
With her face yet again, red Twilight allowed a goofy smile to grace her face.
“Well it seems to be unanimous that you are the alpha, Twilight.” Celestia said with a chuckle. Twilight merely nodded, the goofy smile still stuck on her face. “Could you introduce us to your herd then Twilight? I’m sure we would all love to get to know them better,” Celestia asked with another small chuckle.
With an enthusiastic nod, Twilight answered. “I’d be happy to.”