//------------------------------// // An Informal Study of Romance // Story: An Informal Study of Romance // by Jondor //------------------------------// “Twiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiight!” Pinkie yelled at the top of her lungs, bouncing her way down the street quite exuberantly. “Come quick, Twilight! It’s happening!” Pinkie skidded to a stop in front of her confused friend and gleefully bounced on the spot, hitting the ground so hard that she was actually wearing a divot in the cobblestone street. Twilight reared and grabbed ahold of Pinkie with her forehooves. This did not entirely stop her from bouncing, but did put an end to the wanton destruction of public property. “Pink—ie—stop—bounc—ing—please!” Twilight stammered out, her rear hooves leaving the ground slightly on each upstroke of her springy friend, then thudding back onto the street under gravity’s harsh pull. Twilight lost her balance as Pinkie came to a sudden stop, and she sprawled on the hard ground, legs and wings askew. “Now, what in Celestia’s name are you talking about, Pinkie?” Twilight grumbled as Pinkie helped her back to her hooves and brushed the dirt off of her coat. “AJ and Dashie!” Pinkie’s eyes sparkled and her muzzle split into the widest of wide grins. “Come on, we can’t miss this!” Twilight let out a squawk and flopped to the ground again as she found herself being dragged bodily alongside Pinkie, her tail clenched firmly in the vice-like pink jaw of her friend. Her dock howled in protest as she frantically scrambled to regain an upright position. She found the feat quite impossible until Pinkie finally stopped at their destination in the town square. She barely registered the crowd of ponies gathered round in a circle as she stood back up. Another squawk, of surprise this time, left her throat when she found herself flung onto Pinkie’s back and launched in the air. Twilight gripped Pinkie’s barrel tight with all four legs while the bucking pink bronco under her bounced high, attempting to get them both a better view over the gathered crowd. After a half dozen bounces, Twilight felt that her skull could not take much more hammering and she instinctively spread her wings to join the crowd of pegasi hovering over the scene, Pinkie still clasped firmly in her grip. “Ooh, that’s much better, Twilight. Thanks!” Pinkie gave Twilight’s chest a nuzzle with the back of her head and turned her full attention on the two ponies at the center of the crowd. Twilight’s heart beat faster, sending a rush of blood to her face, but her attention quickly shifted to the exchange between Applejack and Rainbow Dash below. “Alright, sugarcube. I challenge you to a hoofwrassle, best two out of three. You win, you get to pick where we have dinner, an’ I’ll pick you up an’ pay; I win, I pick the chow an’ you pick me up an’ pay.” Applejack’s soft voice was surprisingly clear over the din of the crowd. “You’re on!” came Dash’s excited reply. The crowd gained in size as the two ponies below locked hooves on a nearby tree stump. An odd thing to find in a public space, except that Twilight recognized it as the remains of a tree broken by a storm the last winter. After being sanded and polished to smoothness by some of the town’s craftsponies, Twilight herself had cast the spell to protect it from the ravages of weather, insects, and time, rendering it an all-natural outdoor table. The perfect venue for chess, checkers, or in this case, an intense, impromptu hoofwrestling contest. When Twilight snapped out of her contemplation, she noticed Dash hovering around the ring of ponies, evidently celebrating her victory, while Applejack calmly rubbed her shoulder and elbow. For a moment, she thought the spectacle was over and her musing had caused her to miss the entire contest. However, Dash quickly returned to the stump for another round. She had no idea how long the first round had lasted, or whether the one she was watching now was the second or the third. Judging by the reaction of the crowd when AJ forced Dash’s hoof down, however, her friends were both evenly matched and now tied for points. Pinkie, in particular, was cheering and squirming so much that Twilight had to tighten her grip to avoid dropping her. The warm sensation of another pony held in her hooves, with their coats brushing together was only making that squirmy, yet somehow pleasant, sensation in her gut grow stronger. Applejack gave a polite wave of thanks around the ring of ponies who cheered for her, while giving her foreleg another rubdown. Dash mirrored the rubbing of her own leg before the two locked hooves once again. Twilight watched intently as the final, tie-breaking round stretched on and on, neither pony gaining any ground for long moments. Finally, she gasped along with the rest of the crowd and clutched Pinkie closer to her chest as the orange hoof began to push the blue toward the polished wood. The entire crowd erupted in cheering as soon as Dash’s hoof hit the stump. Applejack paid them no mind, instead leaning in to speak privately to Rainbow. As she did so, Twilight again caught that flash of emerald behind straw blond, exactly as she had three weeks ago. With her attention focused solely on Applejack’s piercing gaze, Twilight failed to notice the crowd of ponies exchanging bits, including Pinkie herself collecting quite a sizeable sum from Raindrops. “You can put me down now, silly filly,” Pinkie giggled, shaking Twilight out of her trance. “Right. Sorry, Pinkie.” Her gaze lingered in the direction of Applejack’s retreating form, then turned to watch Dash flying off toward a cloudbank. Twilight’s wings beat slower, lowering herself and Pinkie back to the cobblestones, finally placing the other two ponies out of her sight. Pinkie wiggled free and hopped the last foot to the ground, using the momentum to bounce around Twilight in a happy, if erratic, circle. “That was so exciting! Did you see the way AJ went right up to Dashie and said ‘You, me, tonight, seven.’?” Pinkie mimicked Applejack’s southern drawl, then let out a squeal. “I can’t believe AJ’s being so bold! I totally thought for sure Dashie would be the one.” Twilight shook her head. “AJ must have gotten tired of waiting. She said she would make a move if Dash didn’t.” Twilight cupped her chin with a hoof. “I do wonder what exactly she has planned…” Twilight trailed off; Applejack hadn’t spent much time looking for ideas at the library, but she had asked Twilight to keep things to herself. As soon as she closed her mouth, she found her vision suddenly full of pink, white, and blue. “We can find out!” Pinkie’s bright blue eyes sparkled, filling more and more of Twilight’s vision as she leaned in close. “Bring one of your black catsuits and meet me at Sweet Apple Acres tonight. We’re gonna go spying.” The clock tower in town could be heard to strike seven as two ponies in black catsuits crouched behind a clump of bushes outside the Apples’ farmhouse. Twinkling blue eyes, and a pink muzzle poked out of one, looking excited and a touch worried. Somber violet eyes, and a lavender muzzle poked out of the other, looking both apprehensive and curious. A lavender horn and twitching lavender wings poking out of roughly cut holes rounded off the visible portions of the second pony. “I can’t believe Dashie’s late. AJ’s going to be really sad if she doesn’t show up,” Pinkie muttered, eyes darting from sky to ground, eager to spot her target. “Can you imagine the party I’d have to throw to cheer her—” she stopped abruptly as her ear flopped, her knee twitched, and her eye fluttered. ”There she is!” Pinkie cried, pointing a black fabric-covered hoof down the road. After a moment, she lifted it to her chin. “My pinkie sense must be going haywire. Rainbow’s not in the sky, but she is beautiful,” she muttered, stars in her eyes. “Pinkie, are you sure we should be spying on them like this? I’m starting to have second thoughts about this.” Twilight leaned close to whisper through the fabric covering Pinkie’s ear as Dash strolled past them on her way to the front door, completely oblivious to their presence. Twilight noticed that she was neatly brushed and groomed and did in fact look quite beautiful. Before Pinkie could answer, the door opened, and Applejack stepped out. The scowl that momentarily stretched across her muzzle became a grin. “You’re a little late, but I’ll forgive ya fer bein’ so hot.” Applejack raised a hoof to toy with Rainbow’s mane. “Yer mane looks nice tonight.” Pinkie stifled a giggle as Dash’s wings shot up and out. It was obvious they had been carefully preened. Twilight watched in rapt, but silent, contemplation. Her mind was busy reviewing everything she’d heard at the party and the conversation afterwards, trying to piece together Applejack’s probable strategy. She was broken out of her thoughts when her eyes seemed to lock together with Applejack’s as the latter looked up from checking out her date. Twilight was certain she was hidden, both by the bushes and the relative darkness, but she was also fairly certain in that moment that Applejack knew right where she was. “Wings are lookin’ great too.” Applejack grinned and turned toward town, her tail brushing against Dash’s outstretched wings, while the latter pony remained frozen to the spot. “Well, come on sugarcube, this date ain’t gonna go on itself.” Twilight’s own wings twitched as she stared at Dash’s wayward appendages. Pinkie waited until Dash and AJ were out of sight before she popped out of the bush, bouncing excitedly. “I’m so going to have to remember that one next time I date a pegasus!” Pinkie demonstrated by flicking the end of her poofy tail against one of Twilight’s folded wings as the latter stumbled free of the bush. Both of her wings responded to the touch by shooting straight out, tall and proud. “P-Pinkie!” Twilight stammered, her lavender muzzle turning a bright scarlet. “Hehe, oops! Sorry, Twi!” Pinkie giggled at Twilight’s predicament while the latter fought to fold her wings back by her sides. “You’re almost as excitable as Dashie! Come on, we gotta hurry and catch up!” Wasting no time, Pinkie bounced off down the dark road, toward town. Twilight groaned and followed as fast as she could on hoof, her wings still defiant and outstretched. By the time they reached the town proper, Twilight had her wings under control, and her muzzle had resumed its usual color. She stopped short, nearly crashing into Pinkie. The latter pony was pointing a hoof down the street, having spotted AJ and Dash stepping into Mare’s Country Kitchen, the all-night, all-you-can-eat-buffet restaurant in town. “We’ll need a disguise.” Pinkie noted, while sliding out of her catsuit. Twilight unsuited herself, too dazed to argue that they had already been wearing disguises, and found a pink hoof pressing something onto her formerly bare muzzle. Pinkie stuffed the suits into a nearby flower cart, left unattended by a street vendor, and produced a hoof mirror from her mane. She scooted up next to Twilight so they could check their new disguises. Pinkie had outfitted her upper lip with a curly black handlebar mustache, and her left eye with a gleaming gold monocle. Twilight’s muzzle now sported a prench-cut mustache and goatee that matched her mane and tail, even down to the off-center pink and purple stripes. “Perfect!” Pinkie grinned from behind the fake facial hair, rubbing her forehooves together. “Pinkie! I don’t think this is going to—Ack!” Twilight let out a squawk, she’d been making that sound quite a lot today, as Pinkie’s head butted into her rump, shoving her toward the restaurant. Her scrambling hooves slid across the cobblestones like they were made of ice, and she found herself unavoidably setting hoof inside the building. Pinkie scampered ahead as soon as her co-conspirator had been shoved inside. Despite the perfect disguises, Twilight couldn’t help noticing that Pinkie stayed low to the ground, ducking behind booths while looking for a seat outside their quarry’s field of vision. Twilight let out a low groan and did likewise, her curiosity to know just what AJ was up to driving her forward against her common sense. Still wearing their crude disguises, they took up seats in a corner booth, not far away from Applejack and Rainbow Dash, but mostly screened from their table by a tall stand of decorative plantlife. Both ponies pressed their muzzles up to, and partway through, the mass of vines and flowers, each searching for a hole they could spy through without being seen. Twilight could hear Pinkie giggling quietly beside her, and immediately knew why when she caught a glimpse of their marks. Dash was animatedly flying a slice of pizza around, evidently describing some kind of aerial trick. She finished her explanation by pumping both hooves in the air in apparent triumph, the slice of pizza still in her grasp. “Sounds impressive, sugarcube. Mind if I come watch sometime?” Applejack’s voice was audible, if a bit muffled by their makeshift duck blind. She seemed to shift a little in her seat and Dash let out an entirely uncharacteristic squeak. “I’ve only p.. pulled it off once so far. Uh... Usually I just end up hitting the water,” Dash stammered out, the hoof holding her pizza slice shaking a bit. Twilight’s eyes were glued to the big mushroom which was not at all securely glued to the pizza. She watched the mushroom in apparent slow motion as it slid and fell, stretching a strand of cheese behind until it snapped. The mushroom tumbled end over end, moved earthward by the inexorable force of gravity, and plummeted squarely into Dash’s water glass. The rational part of Twilight’s brain decided that it must have been a particularly dense mushroom to cause a splash big enough to soak Dash’s face. The romantic part of her brain cried out in solidarity with Dash’s plight, and hoped Applejack would be compassionate. Twilight’s ears flattened against her head, hearing AJ chucking at Dash, but her expression softened when Applejack leaned in with a smile to dry Dash’s face with a napkin. “Still worth watching, even if ya get all soaked,” Applejack murmured before leaning in closer to whisper right into Dash’s ear. Whatever AJ said next was too quiet for Twilight to hear, but her attention was stolen away by something else. Not just one, but both of Applejack’s deep emerald eyes were staring straight into her own from under her soft, golden bangs. She felt sure that the only part of herself barely visible through the thick plantlife was her own eyes, yet there was no denying that Applejack had definitely noticed her this time. Twilight only vaguely registered the loud squeak of Dash’s wings against the vinyl of her seat back as AJ’s whispered words had caused the latter pony’s wings to extend rigidly once again. She became aware that her eye contact with Applejack had caused the same to happen to her when she fell back into her seat and winced as her own taut wings hit the seat. Pinkie fell back into her own seat next to Twilight, full of giggles. “This is too funny!” she squealed, trying in vain to keep her voice down. “AJ is putting the moves on Dashie so hard! I gotta get her to teach me some of this!” Twilight buried her heated muzzle in her hooves and tried to think about cold showers and icebergs, but instead just ended up seeing two beautiful green eyes staring into her soul. Her thoughts passed over each time those eyes had locked with hers, finally settling on the first time, three weeks ago in her room. Her mind began to move beyond mere sight. She could almost feel Applejack’s warm body, the memory of hugging her close that night bubbling to the surface. Her mind’s eye closed for a moment and suddenly, instead of hugging Applejack, she was muzzle to muzzle with Rainbow Dash. Staring straight into the phantom image of those bright raspberry eyes, she could feel Dash’s four legs all wrapped around her once again. Her thoughts shifted once more and now Pinkie had wrapped her up in a ribcracker, and all she could see in her mind was pink, white and blue. All of her senses were so inwardly focused that she failed to notice a passing unicorn slip a sack of bits to Pinkie, and an earth pony collect a smaller sum from her moments later. Twilight only returned to reality when she felt Pinkie poking her gently in the ribs. “Come on, Twi! They’re leaving and we gotta follow them. AJ said something about another date!” Pinkie hopped frantically beside the table, pointing a hoof out the door. Twilight was so befuddled, she couldn’t even be sure if it was a supernumerary hoof or not. Twilight was only vaguely aware of the return trip to Sweet Apple Acres. Pinkie had suggested flying after being unable to locate the cart she’d stashed their cast off catsuits in. Between the weariness of her legs and limber state of her wings, the small part of Twilight’s mind actually paying attention to the world agreed. Pinkie delightedly hopped up for a pony-back ride, her hind legs squeezing Twilight’s barrel softly, while her forehooves rested on her withers. Several minutes later, Pinkie guided Twilight to a soft landing in the apple tree nearest the Apple family’s front door. Neither Applejack nor Rainbow seemed to notice the soft rustling in the tree. Dash’s wings were up again, and all of their attention seemed focused on each other. “I’ll come pick you up Friday and you can pick what to do, but it’s still your turn to pay, remember.” Applejack practically purred at Dash. “Right, yeah. I won’t forget, AJ.” Twilight blushed a bit as she watched Applejack lean in and kiss Dash on the cheek. Her coat prickled pleasantly as she felt Pinkie shaking with glee, still perched on her back. “Night, sugarcube. See ya later.” Applejack strode back into the house, and after a few moments of staring somewhat blankly at the door, Dash finally trotted away, looking nearly as dazed as Twilight herself felt. Twilight’s gaze followed Dash’s retreating form until she was lost in the darkness. Once Dash was well out of sight and earshot, Pinkie hopped down from the tree, branch by branch, and bid Twilight goodnight, saying that she had some business to attend to, and promising to meet up again on Friday. Twilight watched Pinkie scamper off and follow Rainbow’s path before she took to the air again, gliding toward the library without much conscious thought. Twilight dwelt on the confusing melange of emotions coursing through her head. She squirmed pleasantly, thinking about Pinkie riding on her back, or vice-versa. Her heart beat faster and thumped audibly, remembering Applejack touching, nuzzling, and especially kissing Rainbow. To make things worse, her mind kept flicking between images of Applejack, Dash, and Pinkie, each smiling softly at her. Three pairs of eyes clouded her vision, and three sets of encircling legs made her coat stand on end. “Hey, Twilight. You’re back late,” Spike remarked as she absently trotted into the library. “Uh, what’s that on your face?” The absurdity of the question finally snapped her out of her reverie. Twilight sharply realized that amid everything that had happened since the restaurant, she had been, and still was, wearing that ridiculous fake facial hair. A deep groan gurgled out of her throat as she tossed the flimsy disguise aside and walked slowly to her bed.