//------------------------------// // 54 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// The mess with the changelings had been resolved rather fast and they promised that they personally wouldn’t get involved with this wedding. Twilight and Tress would get back to the changelings later with more ideas how to maximize their love intake and or how to receive it without doing the general changeling thing. Twilight already thought up a good list of at least fifty or so things they could be doing aside from the general kidnapping victim scheme they usually did to live. The changelings looked the list over and agreed to try some of the stuff on it, they’d get back to her later about the results. She thought things would turn out for the better for the changelings if they stayed the course. As Twilight thought this she was staring at Ponyville in the distance and was happy about seeing her parents again after barely spending even a few weeks away from their care. With her were some of her new friends, Octavia, Vinyl and of course Rainbow Dash. They were all going to be camping out at her parents’ house, apparently her parents wouldn’t take no for an answer and would provide for every pony. Twilight knew this would be an attempt to show off her baby picture and for at least one of her parents to go through a mid life crisis on purpose while her friends were around just to embarrass her. She really wouldn’t put it past her parents to act up in a superiorly silly manner or be in the process of doing so by the time they got there. At least none of them would have to pay for hotel rooms and Twilight’s mother would be able to optimize her Fluttershy cuddle time. Who knew what her father would do, aside from have cookies prepared ahead of time. Not once would any pony, much less Twilight herself, question how her father could make so many different kinds of cookies from just regular vanilla cookie dough. Yawning Twilight decided to get in a nap and Barb snuggled into her side getting the same idea her mother did, they were soon out like a light. This left Tress to deal with their friends including a bored Rainbow. They were currently on a train for Canterlot. “I can understand Vinyl and Octavia going since they need the work, I also know Fluttershy would never get in anyone’s way and could possibly even enjoy the wedding, but why in the world are you coming too Rainbow?” Tress looked off to the side to see Twilight yawning and Barb resting her head in a cute position on her mother. Turning back to Rainbow she saw a somewhat eager look on her face. “You’re kidding right? The Wonder Bolts are in Canterlot and I might be able to see Spitfire!” Ah yes, Rainbow still had her dream to join the premiere flying team and it seemed it hadn’t been entirely crushed by Tress in her tirade a while ago. She still wanted to prove she had what it takes to be on the high flying paramilitary team and she was going to be awesome at it! “Of course it’s the Wonder Bolts and not the fact that it’s a friend of mine that’s getting married here. I’m surprised you’d even agree to wear a dress just to come along.” To Tress, the both of them did have some things in common. While Tress leaned more towards being feminine then Rainbow did, they both loved to roughhouse and Applejack knew how to get that competitive spirit flowing between the three of them. “Hey, if I have to wear girly stuff and junk to meet the Wonder Bolts then I don’t care if I’m stuffed into the most ridiculously frilly dress ever!” Rainbow declared proudly putting a hoof to her puffed out chest. “Better not let Rarity ever hear you say that then Dashie, too bad she had so much to do at home and couldn’t come.” Fluttershy mostly liked Rarity, except she tends to forcefully try to guilt ponies into wearing her fashion or even model for it. Otherwise Rarity was incredibly generous, the spa visits were heavenly and Octavia happily joined in when she had the free time. Fluttershy wasn’t sure if Rarity noticed that she like mares and would usually try to drag her uncomfortably into the topic of possibly dating Big Mac. She really didn’t have the heart to tell Rarity that she was gay and disappoint her obvious horrible romance novel based fantasies. She really thought Rainbow was the only pony in Ponyville that didn’t seem to know or catch on to that fact, even with Vinyl hinting at it several times in front of many other ponies. “Yikes… thanks for putting that mental image in my head Fluttershy. Rarity is a crazy mare and doesn’t care at all for awesome stuff like I do!” Rainbow shuddered and her wings got her flying in the middle of the train car, she did not want to be trapped in the boutique alone with Rarity at all. “Look if it actually comes to that Prism, I’ll bail you out of her prison of horrors and doilies!” Vinyl also wouldn’t want to be trapped with Rarity either. Apparently her spiked electric blue mane was an affront to the many things fabulous that Rarity stood for, she also disliked Vinyl’s trademark glasses. Even then Vinyl didn’t think Rarity was too horrible, just forceful like Octavia was and not in that really hot kind of way. “Well you could stand to be at least cleaned up once in a while Vinyl; goodness knows you might even look nice afterwards. Rarity could probably do wonders with you.” Octavia said as she worked her bow over her instrument creating a melody throughout the train car to ease tension and set a calm mood. Fluttershy and Rarity were nice close friends for Octavia to have and she really enjoyed being a part of Twilight’s rather large circle of friends. She didn’t mind getting down and dirty when things came to blows, but she preferred to do things prim and proper first before resulting to such boorish tactics. Boorish was the very definition of Rainbow and Vinyl’s half a brain working between them. “She is not messing with my coolness Octaves or Rainbows awesomeness for that matter. Hey, we’ll even form an alliance dedicated to doing radical crazy things!” Vinyl got a hoof bump and smile from Rainbow. “Now I’m beginning to think that following Twilight’s example is the best idea here.” Tress rolled her eyes and then leaned up against her sleeping friend and started to nod off. “Wake me up when we get there Fluttershy, also keep those two from destroying the train.” Fluttershy sighed, she just nodded to herself. Keeping the reins on the two mares of hazard didn’t sound too hard, especially with Octavia’s assistance. It wasn’t like they could destroy the train as Tress suggested they could, but she wouldn’t put it past the two to at least try it. Looking out the window they were a good distance away from Ponyville already and all of her animal friends should be fine with her little assistant Angel Bunny being in charge. That little rabbit took no guff from anyone but Fluttershy; she thought it was cute that he cared so much about her health and safety. An hour later the train came to a screeching halt and looking out the window from the sudden jolt out of her practicing, Octavia could see they were nowhere near Canterlot. She frowned in thought and immediately turned to the suddenly awake Rainbow. “Rainbow, can you fly out to see what’s going on and why we’ve stopped?” Octavia received a ridiculously looking salute and then Rainbow flew out the window. Octavia figured she was looking for a reason to stretch her wings and now was a good time as any. Octavia quickly shook Vinyl who was sleeping against her and drooling slightly. “Huh, what, where, are we there yet Octaves?” Vinyl had nodded off because of Octavia’s enchanting if drowsy sounding music. She’d still preferred the beat and tones of her speakers any day, even if some classical cello was food for the soul at times. “No and call it my intuition acting up, but I think we might be in danger soon. I want you to wake up Twilight carefully; we all know how badly she reacts to sudden shocks. I’ll wake Fluttershy.” Octavia ran a hoof through the shy mares’ mane, it felt like silk and she was adorable as she curled up into her touch. She felt really bad about waking her up. Octavia started gently tapping Fluttershy on the nose and the shy mare slowly blinked awake at the taps and was soon stretching out while spreading her gloriously cared for feathered wings. “Are we there?” Fluttershy asked innocently before looking out the window and realizing that the train had stopped and not in a station. She sighed at what she already knew the answer to. “Is something bad happening?” “We don’t know that for sure, it could be a huge boulder on the train tracks or that the bridge is out or something Squeakers.” Vinyl stood as far away from Twilight as she could and was wielding a small stick to lightly poke Twilight who continued to snooze. She poked Barb a few times, but she refused to wake up and snuggled deeper into her mother’s side. “That doesn’t sound too good, but at least no pony is hurt at the moment.” Fluttershy smiled at being informed, but it seemed to be like an unimportant reason to wake her up. “There’s something to poke holes in your theory Vinyl and I would like to bring it to your attention. Rainbow would have come back or be zipping around the sky right now if it was unimportant and that we were just delayed.” Octavia was looking out the open window for a rainbow colored streak against the sky. Rainbow wasn’t flying around or even present in the air, but within a minute the mare flew into the train car in a clear panic. “Guys we’ve got a seriously bad problem, we need to wake up Twilight like yesterday! She’d know what to do!” Rainbow realized what she just said and remembered that spooking Twilight awake would not be a bright idea, any pony that became friends with Twilight quickly learned not to set her off. She was on a list of ponies Rainbow Dash would never prank again. “Forget what I just said, wake her up carefully.” “Why, what’s wrong?” Fluttershy was busy waking up Tress with a light massage. After a moment Tress shot up completely awake and alert, she was immediately looking at Fluttershy with a blush. Fluttershy felt her cheeks heat up, nothing would wake Tress up faster than a few light touches in the right spots. “Would any of you classify a bunch of minotaur’s preparing to attack the train with another rockslide really bad? Because the first one has blocked the tracks and they’re preparing more rocks as we speak!” Rainbow could stall them, though she clearly doubted she could take them alone given how many there are and how physically powerful they looked. For once, Rainbow was actually using her brain and she could already see the surprised look on Tress’s face because of such fact. “Why would a bunch of minotaur's be attacking a passenger train?” Octavia mused out loud even as Fluttershy tried to gently ease Twilight into a conscious state like she did with Tress. “They could be after hostages to feed to their alien overlords.” Vinyl exclaimed excitedly waving her hooves wildly into the air before getting slapped across the face by Octavia. She rubbed her cheek with a hoof. “I swear Vinyl, you and your tabloid trash nonsense. This situation is serious, some pony has to do something and we have two trouble solving experts here. One of which would be very useful if she were awake.” She didn’t like getting angry with her friend, Octavia actually liked Vinyl a lot and now wasn’t the time to be joking around. “Huh… is that you Fluttershy? That feels nice, are we finally in Canterlot?” Twilight had been having such a nice dream too; she was happily in the land of beautiful manes only seconds ago. She woke up quickly when Fluttershy carefully whispered the problem into her ears and she sat up with wide eyes. “WHAT!” All the ponies cringed at the loudness of her voice, Tress hadn’t because she wasn’t currently there. Tress was standing on top of their train car looking at the cliff as some barely organized minotaur’s were rolling rocks into position. She looked down when she heard Twilight yell and was glad that nothing bad had magically happened as a result. “Twilight, it would be a good idea for you to get up here and figure something out.” Tress pulled her head away from the window and helped pull Twilight onto the top of the train to see what the problem was. “This has to happen when I was having a really good dream doesn’t it?” Twilight muttered in a slightly annoyed tone, she couldn’t take a simple nap on a passenger train. Looking up at the minotaur's she could already see they were about finished with their set up and they were about to set the boulders moving. “Get Vinyl up here Tress, I’m going to need her help with this. I don’t know what this is all about or why they are attacking us, but we’re inevitably going to find out.” “You called for help Sparky?” Vinyl was helped up by Tress and looked up at all the huge rocks on the edge of the cliffs above. Her happy go lucky tone took a serious turn to it. “What exactly do you need me to do?”