Chapter 8: I Become A Dating Show Contestant
So how did I get into a date with a neurotic alicorn that usually needs three days to plan and prepare for anything?
One Word: Cadence.
Since the princess was only in town for the day, and she wanted to get to know the stallion her little sister was so enamored with, Twilight decided to push up our dating time table since we’d have an expert on scene to consult with if anything went wrong.
Of course she also had to point out that the town only had one classy restaurant, and Twilight had been living in Ponyville long enough that she knew all the fun places to go. So planning a date was a little moot when only one option for dinner existed. Never mind the fact that we had just been to a party thrown by Pinkie Pie, and that could have easily counted as our fun activity.
Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Mom might have taken over the Crystal Empire while everypony’s back was turned and this was all just giving her time to cement her position and all that. So why the hell did I go along with this whole farce in the first place?
Well the world was going to fucking end tomorrow, so having one last day of Ponyville normalcy (my God there’s an oxymoronic term if I’ve never heard one) before everything hit the fan was better than better than cowering in my fucking house with the other changelings. Plus, I had a very powerful survival instinct, and keeping Twilight happy meant keeping Shining Armor off my back.
So, I had to get ready for my date…
“GIVE ME EVERY BUCKING DETAIL OF YOUR SERVICE RECORD YOU PIECE OF TRASH!”
Flash Sentry struggled in the grip of my horn as I pieced through his mind to bend it to my will. It wasn’t the best way of mind control, but it worked fast enough for what I needed. A few seconds later, I dropped him to the ground as the pegasus started mumbling out several details on his life and I began jotting them down on a piece of paper with my magic as fast as possible.
“Boss?” #666 spoke from behind me, “You seem a little…agitated.”
“Shut up, and see if Chrysalis has connected her conscious mind to the hive yet,” I told my minion. “I need an update about what’s going on in the Crystal Empire.”
As Beast turned to leave, #619 cleared her throat. “Highness…why are you attempting to garner unimportant details like this? We have had plenty of time to extract everything we need from the squad commander.”
“Because Shining Armor is going to be there,” I grumbled after Flash finished reciting all his accomplishments in Saddle Arabia. “Which means he’s going to do his best to make me look stupid in front of Twilight like any elder sibling would. He’s going to ask me questions about his area of expertise, being the military, and I need to show that I at least know something about how it works.” Ugh, why didn’t I focus on cementing my cover before jumping into magic?
Never mind the fact that magic was cool, and flashy, I really did learn how to teleport because of it…which I needed to learn in case my cover was blown like it was going to be tonight. So, I had made the right decision on in the end after all.
Two and a half hours later, I found myself sitting in my room studying parchment with every detail of Flash Sentry’s life, from his time in the royal guard at Canterlot until he spent a few months in Saddle Arabia, and then was transferred to the Crystal Empire.
I also remembered a simple fact from my college days: I sucked at last minute memorization. If I ever had to learn something, it took at least two days of reviewing and rewriting my notes to allow the repetition of information to sink in. Since that wasn’t an option, I hastily considered what else could be done to solve my information dilemma.
Two solutions came to mind. I could…
A: Kill Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, then replace them with my changeling minions and pretty much control every conversation during said date. I think I knew enough about them to pass the information to #666 and #619 without Twilight being aware of it if she asked a question that involved personal info. But, without proper preparation time, even my minions would have the personality of cardboard cutouts, making Twilight suspicious and eventually lead to our cover being blown.
B: Have my changeling minions come along in disguise as another couple and sit close enough to relay information to me. And, if they needed to, the changelings could cause a scene in the restaurant to divert attention away from me if Shinning managed to pin me with a question. If it really came down to it, some spilled food could even end the date that would turn into an interrogation.
“Dawn, Pathfinder,” I called out, “meet me downstairs, I have a job for the two of you.
“What about contacting the Queen?” the currently male changeling called out as I headed past his room towards the stairs.
I stopped and frowned at the question, then looked over to the changeling who currently looked like a unicorn. “You haven’t done it already?”
“No.”
Okay, so that makes it…what? Forty-eight hours without any contact plus today? I usually gave her an update on what was going on every two days. For Chrysalis to be out of contact that long it meant she was either embroiled in something that was taking all her attention, or…she was dead.
Hell, maybe I had finally caught a break and the Crystal Heart really did kill her when she tried to use it. …And maybe Sombrero was just a little misunderstood. There was no way in hell I was that lucky.
“We’ll try later again tonight then,” I assured the changeling. “Right now, I need both of you to give me your assistance.”
Thankfully, changelings were kind of brought up not to ask questions, and even more so around me because of the high body count associated with pissing me off. So the two of them followed me out the door without any fuss. Pushing my thoughts on the Crystal Empire aside, I set about the task of walking through the town as most of the shops were getting ready to close.
I was looking for a pair of ponies. The problem was…I had no idea just which particular pair of ponies I was looking for. The rumor mill in Ponyville was as strong as in any small human town, if not more so since ponies didn’t have the option to just log onto the internet for social interaction. Because of this, I couldn’t just have my minions copy any two ponies and bring them into a fancy restaurant that was a dating location. Ponies would talk about it, word would get around, and eventually, somepony would figure out that two ponies had been in two places at once.
The bigger problem was, I had very little information on just which ponies were together beyond the couples that dominated the fannon, which I’ll admit I spent a bit of time looking into by getting a tear, some holes, and a bit of burn damage on Flash’s dress uniform during my first few days in Ponyville, then asking Rarity for an emergency replacement. While she measured me, I had gained quite a bit of information from the town gossip that was later looked into.
Vinyl and Octavia were apparently, a couple, but it was a semi-long-distance relationship with Tavi living in Canterlot for most of the week, then coming down to Ponyville on weekends. Of course with only one of them being out of town tonight, that meant they were out of the running for a suitable cover.
Big Mac and Cheerilee where an option…sort of. Apparently the big stallion had been seen with the school marm from time to time, but not even Rarity knew if there was anything beyond simple friendship there. Unfortunately, my plan needed their presence at the restaurant to not make waves, which those two certainly would.
Cloud Kicker and…well… (insert pony name here since she was the town slut, as much as you could be in a community of just around 600 anyway), was kind of an option, but I had no idea if she actually dates, or just went around looking for sex. The one time she had tried hitting on me, I told her to buck off. Mares that slept around were not my thing. …because they were mares. As in not human.
Dr Whooves…didn’t exist. Or maybe he’d stored his Time Lord conciseness in one of his pocket watch things and was just going by Time Turner. Either way, the stallion wasn’t together with Derpy, so that couple wasn’t really an option either.
A mare closing up her stall for the coming night caught my eye, and I trotted over to her to strike up a friendly conversation. “Hey Bon-Bon!” I greeted the earth pony.
Of course Bon-Bon and Lyra were a couple, and one of the few I just had to get to know. After all, with half the fanfics out there focusing on Lyra’s human obsession to varying levels, it couldn’t just be some whimsical fancy or some strange way that a mare with a back condition sat, could it?
As it turned out, Lyra was the town crackpot. But her human obsession hadn’t started until after Twilight came back from the mirror and ending up giving a lecture at the library on the creatures there because of some comments made by both Twilight and her friends. Then, Lyra had become obsessed with the strange creatures, finding some ‘evidence’ of their existence in Equestria as bipeds despite the fact that made no sense whatsoever.
“Hello Flash,” she greeted in kind. “Sorry, but I just closed. Congratulations on the promotion by the way.”
I gave a nervous laugh. “Thanks,” I said before meeting her eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my minions responding to an unspoken command carried by my pheromones to make the mare in front of me become much more open to mental suggestions while I handled the visual and olfactory side of things. “Say Bon-Bon, is Lyra seeing anypony?”
The mare gave me a confused stare and cocked her head. “Um, yes. We’re together. I thought you’d have realized that by now. Why’d you ask?”
Faking a dejected groan, I gave my best mockery of disappointment. “I should have known, I mean considering how hot she is. Most unicorn’s are kind of scrawny, but she keeps in great shape. Just think about all her curves. Now I see why she does it, you’ve got to have a fit body if you want to keep up with an earth pony in the bedroom. I think it’s wonderful you two are so in love.”
For her part, Bon-Bon blinked, as if fighting off sleep while the pheromones I was pumping into her nostrils was starting to take effect. “Well, I…yes, she is very athletic.”
“And you’re quite a catch yourself,” I continued before looking over the mare’s shoulder at her well-developed flank. It had taken me a few days to realize that the equivalent to a human’s cup size in Equestria was the amount of padding a mare had on their plot. “Lyra must have some fun nights, burying her hooves in that flank of yours and her tongue in…well, you know.”
The earth pony wobbled, and let out a tiny moan…or maybe it was just a wordless conformation, I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure.
“So is it true what they say about unicorn horns?” I asked in a quiet tone. “Do they really get off on it when another pony plays with their horn?”
Bon-Bon continued to sway, her eyes barely open at all as she replied. “Y-Yes, at the base especially, when magic is flowing through it. Lyra loves it when I lick-”
“And that earth pony stamina of yours…how many hours can you keep her in bed for? All night?” I continued.
“Y-Yes,” she replied, fully in the sway of a changeling’s mind control.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want her? Do you want to take her in your legs and show her your inexhaustible love?”
“Yes!”
I leaned over to whisper in the mare’s ear. “Then do it. Tonight, when Lyra comes home, show her how much you love her. Be kind and sweet. Be romantic and loving, and then…take her and be as passionate as you can be with her. Make love to her all night long. Now go and let her feel the endless depths of your love tonight and don’t let her go until morning.”
A second later, I watched the mare whose mind was clouded with love and lust charged towards the small house she shared with the lime-green unicorn right behind her stand before knocking the door open and pointing a hoof at the quadruped sitting at the kitchen table in the back of their small cottage with a tray of sweets in the center. “YOU!”
“Ummm…hey Bonnie, listen, I know these are the candies you left to cool, but-”
“I am going to make you the most wonderful dinner of your life, then we’re going to have a night of such hot and passionate sex that Luna herself will hear and turn green with envy!”
Not needing to see or hear anymore, I ordered my minions to get a read on their auras before ordering Dawn to close the door, while Lyra drawled out a long “Ooooookay?”
Then we headed back so that I could get ready for my date and brief my minions on their parts before getting changed into my dress uniform. After all, tonight wasn’t about impressing Twilight, I didn’t need to do that more than I had. It was about getting on Cadence’s good side. Doing that with Shinning Armor was an impossibility.
When my currently unicorn minions finished dressing me, as I had no idea how to get some of the fancier buttons on my pony clothes done without telekinesis, I found myself staring the mirror. What the hell am I doing this for again? I wondered to myself. With night fallen, I should have been headed to the Everfree to visit the Tree of Harmony and then see if the Mirror Pool would suit my purposes. Instead, I was going to spend the night being grilled by Twilight’s brother! I had more important things to do than put effort into a fake relationship that had no impact on my long-term goals.
Hell, if Chrysalis really had made a move in the Crystal Empire, conquest or death, it didn’t matter. Either result made everything I was doing right now completely pointless!
But, there was always the chance that she had just decided to sit back as I had suggested. Which meant I would still be in Ponyville for three more weeks. I could spend three more weeks with Twilight and the others. But if I didn’t want those three weeks to be the most awkward weeks of my life, then I needed to go on this date and make a good impression.
So with my emergency plan in place and my worries shoved to the side, I headed to Hesperides Garden. It was the one fancy restaurant in Ponyville. However, the place specialized in (you guessed it) apple dishes, so I didn’t see how this was going to be much different than any other restaurant that served Ponyville’s staple crop. The fact I had no taste buds killed the attraction of eating anything expensive, no matter what it tasted like.
The place was your classic romantic/high-society restaurant. It had the fancy cloth napkins, actual silverware that was expected to be used instead of just the basic open mouth and insert food methods ponies usually went for. There was even a trio of live musicians that played romantic music to help the low lighting with the atmosphere.
I arrived at the place a good fifteen minutes early…and found the group I was with had been waiting at the table for a good five minutes before I even showed up. Another thing I noticed was what they were all wearing: which was absolutely nothing. Then there was me, in a dress uniform.
So now I not only looked like an idiot for showing up later than my date and keeping her waiting, but coming overdressed as well. Current score: 2-0 in favor of Shining Armor.
Twilight giggled. “Flash, what are you wearing?”
I cleared my throat and tried to hide my discomfort. Sure I had worn clothes for years, but going around naked for the better part of seven weeks had kind of made me get out of the swing of things. “Dress uniform,” I told her while adjusting my collar to allow at least a little airflow. “After I just got dumped in front of the princesses naked, I figured it would be better to try and make a good impression when I actually have some warning of what’s coming instead of…well, Pinkie Pie.”
“That’s cute,” Cadence said with a smirk that bordered on a smile. “Isn’t it dear?”
“Yeah,” Shining Armor said before his magic picked up his glass of water and he took a sip from the goblet styled cup.
The awkward silence stretched on for a moment, and I realized that the others were actually waiting for me to order. After I managed to get the damn menu open using nothing by my hooves, I looked over the prices and suppressed a wince. Even the most basic food cost three times what it would down the street, and I didn’t care how fresh the ingredients were, a simple salad should never cost the equivalent to twenty dollars in bits.
A few seconds after I just started looking, a tan unicorn with a pointy horn and tiny mustache walked over to our table. “Ah, the last of the guests, would you care to see our list of wines sir?”
“Just water for me, thanks,” I told the guy before ordering the aforementioned salad, whose smile disappeared a few fractions of a second too soon before he turned around to leave. Although the big clue to his assholeness was his anal attitude my extrasensory perception was picking up.
Once we were alone again, the interrogation began. I make no mistake, because that’s what it was. I was in a dark room, my seat positioned directly under the light, and I was surrounded by enemies.
“So Flash, how has Ponyville been treating you?” Shining Armor asked, trying to act all friendly with a smile that might have won me over if I were a girl. Okay, well I was a girl…sort of. But since I was a former guy who got turned into a girl, who turned herself back into a male of yet another species, his smiling guy power had no effect on me!
Current score: 2-0, I held the line! HA!
“Well, it’s…okay,” I said, trying to downplay the most awesome place in all of Equestria. I mean sure, I’d seen pictures of places that certainly looked cooler like a small town that had waterfalls made of fucking rainbows, but nothing had the quaint, homey, insanity that Ponyville possessed. “I’ve only really spent one day looking around for myself. All the others I’m just following Twilight around.”
I think I nailed it because, you know…that doesn’t sound like a stalker at all. Nope!
But since I knew playing defense all night was just going to get me gutted, as soon as I had answered Shining Armor’s question, I posed one of my own. “And how are things in the Crystal Empire?” I knew the answer…sort of, but it was a perfectly innocent question that any idiot with a tenth of a brain like Flash Sentry would act. I had to keep in character after all.
However, I instantly regretted it when I saw Cadence’s ever cheerful expression become a little down to only party hide the distress I could practically taste coming off her. “As well as can be expected,” she said. “Stormy Skies is just so stubborn and isn‘t listening to reason. What I don’t understand is, the weather spires of the Crystal Empire are powered by the innate magic of the crystal ponies, which comes from the Crystal Heart. They can’t be used anywhere else! But nopony seems to be able to understand that even when I tell it to them.”
Well of course not, you’re fighting sensational journalism with things like truth and honesty, I thought to myself. There was no way that crap could beat good old fashioned fear. Plus, I had noticed that ponies had a tendency to get a kind of mob-okay, herd mentality when it came to pretty much everything, and now that my herd was running wild, the chances of Cadence stopping it any time soon by herself was slim to none.
“Wait, you mean nopony can use the crystal spire’s magic anywhere else?” Twilight suddenly asked.
Cadence shook her head. “I’ve explained that to them, but…Stormy just says that its only that way for the moment. She whips herds into a frenzy with talk about soon as other unicorns start studying the magic of the empire, they’ll be able to figure everything out and duplicate it. But even if they do, that doesn’t mean they’ll have any way to power them. Every bit of the city’s magic revolves around the Crystal Heart.”
“That’s it!” Twilight exclaimed, making me jump a bit and all the ponies in the restaurant to look at our table. After she blushed from the attention gained by her outburst, the alicorn looked over to her sister with an excited smile. “What you need is an outsiders opinion! An outsider who’s an expert in magic, and has the best credentials. She could study the weather control system of the empire, and publish her findings. Then, you would have proof that this whole thing is just one big misunderstanding and everypony will be just fine.”
It took me all of two seconds once Twi said research and outsider to figure out she was talking about herself. My thoughts on the subject were something along the lines of, No, oh no, oh dear god no!
Shining Armor nodded at his sister’s idea with a knowing smirk. “And I suppose you have an idea for who this expert is?”
“Me of course,” Twilight proclaimed happily.
Okay, really need to stop this now, I told myself while doing my best to keep my expression neural despite the fact it felt like a horse had just kicked me in the gut. There was no way in hell I wanted Twi going anywhere near the Crystal Empire until I knew what was going on up there! “Twi-”
Before I could really start talking, our waiter decided to return with our food, and my drink of water, making me realize that we’d been talking about something other than me for the majority of our time, and the dickhead of a unicorn hadn’t bothered to bring me my drink until all the food was done.
At that point I was going to classify the guy as a unicorn supremacist. I knew they probably didn’t really exist, but it made wanting to beat him half to death easier, and anger was a nice go to emotion for changelings. We liked anger, it was a good, powerful emotion that let us kill shit. It also kept the whole panic of Twilight possibly going off to her death in check so that I could think about how to stop all of this.
“Can we get a straw?” Twilight asked, making the waiter reach into his pocketed apron and pulled one out before she placed in it my drink with her telekinesis.
“What?” I asked as innocently as I could when the waiter looked at me. I never did get used to drinking without my TK. Despite their gripping ability, hooves just weren’t as good as hands.
Thankfully, the time it had taken No Tip the waiter unicorn to pass out our food, I had thought of a good reason to keep Twilight from going to the Crystal Empire for her research project.
Unfortunately, Cadence took the opening my silence gave her. “So, you two must eat together all the time.”
Twilight let out a tiny musical laugh. “Every day, lunch and dinner,” she told the other alicorn before shifting her attention over to me out of the corner of her eyes. “It’s…nice.” I really didn’t know what was worse, that Cadence just implied we spent every day for the past week on a date, or Twilight describing it as nice.
As I looked down at my salad, with its greenery and tomatoes I wondered if I was expected to use the silverware in front of me, or just bend down to eat when I noticed something wrong, my sacs were full from Pinkie Pie’s party.
Of course before I could leave and empty them, something else had to go wrong. My backup finally arrived as I caught a whiff of changeling identification pheromones. While I was at first a little thankful for the two pseudo-ponies, that quickly turned to worry when Cadence opened her mouth again.
“Lyra! It’s been such a long time!”
Ummm…what? I asked myself before turning around.
As expected, #619 was standing there in Lyra’s from next to #666 in her Bon-Bon disguise with a blank expression on her face. “Yes.”
Oh come on, you can at least put some emotion into it! I shouted in my head. While changelings could usually mimic ponies to pass under light inspection, that took weeks of observation and sometimes even a little feeding to get their emotional responses right. Spur of the moment impersonations for most of us were like a bad actor who was reading directly from a script.
There was also another problem…
“You two know each other?” I squeaked. Why god, oh why couldn’t I have just gone with the Dr Whooves and Derpy pairing? There was no way in hell Derpy would have been able to afford a night on the town, so running into her double wouldn’t have been a problem, and the ditzy mare probably would have never even paid attention to the rumors about her and Time Turner.
Since ‘Lyra’ was the most intelligent of the half-wits I brought with me, she managed to keep her mouth shut as Cadence explained everything. “Yes, we met at Canterlot University and became good friends. She was…a bridesmaid at my wedding.”
That figures, I thought to myself before sending a signal to #619 as to put words in her mouth. “I’m on a date and would rather not discuss that little bit of trauma, thank you,” ‘Lyra’ told Cadence in a tone that pretty much translated to ‘FUCK OFF’ before she took her seat behind me.
The pink alicorn’s eyes widened at the actions of the changeling who she thought was a friend, then looked down to the plate of dressed up chopped apples in front of her. “Well, guess that explains why I haven’t seen her or the others since the wedding.”
“Nopony should act that way towards-”
“No Twilight, it’s alright,” Cadence told her. “I…”
I let out a sigh and shook my head. “Well it probably was a pretty traumatic experience,” I told her. Hell, I knew what a changeling would have to do to gain that kind of control over a pony, and it was quite invasive. “I mean…what the queen did to them and Prince Shining Armor, she was probably wearing your face the whole time it happened. How long did it take the Captain of the Royal Guard to get over it?”
Shining Armor cleared his throat and looked away from me. “Let’s just say we didn’t have the best of honeymoons.”
“And we’re supposed to deal with stuff like this,” I told her. I didn’t want to start just blabbing out specifics like ’we have training’ and crap since I didn’t actually know anything about that off the top of my head. “Lyra’s just a musician.”
With that, the conversation died off pretty quickly, although Twilight’s budding anger over her sister-in-law being snubbed was quickly put out. Then a few more moments passed in an awkward silence before I remembered what I was needing to do before the changeling’s came around.
But with them here, I had a bit of a better idea. ‘619 set up a sensory link with me’ I ordered through nonverbal communication before standing up. “Excuse me for a moment Highnesses.”
After getting a nod from the others, I took my leave and headed for the bathroom before finding an empty stall and taking a seat. Once I was alone, I closed my eyes and dipped back into a semi-conscious state to let the information the other changeling was sending me come to the forefront.
Although not as powerful as a true connection to the hive-mind, or as powerful as the connection monarch’s could share, the mental link I shared with #619 for the moment was useful for quick transfers of information when one drone needed to send information in real time.
So, I sat back and indulged my paranoia for a bit while watching what the other ponies were saying behind my back…
“So…what do you think?” Twilight asked as her wings fluttered a little.
I gulped as Cadence opened her mouth to begin. “He seems a little…”
“High strung,” Shining Armor finished.
Twilight slumped in her seat and sighed. “That’s because I think you’re making him nervous.”
The married couple looked at each other in confusion for a moment, then back to Twilight. Cadence was the one to speak what was probably on both their minds. “Really? Well, I guess he is acting a little differently than from what I remember of him in the Crystal Empire, but…I don’t see how we’re making him nervous. Shining?”
“Well don’t look at me, I’m not sending him any secret guy symbols for stay away from my sister,” he said as Twilight turned her attention to him with a raised eyebrow. “Hey, I know how hard it is to try and date a mare that’s next to untouchable. Twilight, I had to go and meet Celestia when Cadence brought me to her home. If anypony is going to give a stallion a break, it’s me! Especially after reading that letter you sent.”
As Twilight’s gaze shifted to the other alicorn, Cadence shrugged. “Sorry Twilight, but…he is my husband. That kind of beats-best-friend-sister-in-law. Plus, you were in pain. I would have come even if Celestia hadn’t sent me her message.”
Twilight let out a sigh and shook her head. “I know, it’s just…after I thought Flash was dead. Cadence, when we met in Ponyville, the things he said…it was like then I just knew he was special, and when he nearly drowned trying to save me…I just…I couldn’t breathe or anything! For days, it felt like my whole world just turned gray and lifeless. Just thinking about it makes me…me…”
“It’s okay Twily,” Shining assured her as he offered her a look of sympathy.
A few seconds later, the purple alicorn looked over to the pink one. “Cadence…am I in love?”
“Well, do you think you’re in love?” Cadence asked the mare in return. “What do you feel when you’re around him?”
Twilight took a moment to think, tapping her chin with her hoof. “Well…it’s hard to explain. The week we’ve been together…it’s just been amazing. Flash, he’s insightful and witty, he can talk about any subject like he knows all the related information. I’ve even discussed magical theory with him when it comes to teleportation, and he managed to keep up! We both love Equestrian History, and my friends all like him…especially Rainbow. And he…he has this…gift. It’s like he can look at a pony, and knows just what to say to make them not just feel better, but maybe even fix whatever they’ve got on their minds.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, or cushion with its back support I should say. “When he first came to Ponyville, I was having trouble, wrestling with what being a princess meant and, he helped me get over my biggest fear, that having these wings would isolate me from my friends. When that happened, it was like…I just looked into his eyes and just…knew. That’s why I was wondering if you had…detected anything between us.”
If she’d what? I wondered, getting a sinking feeling about what was coming. Cadence’s title wasn’t the Alicorn of Love for nothing. For awhile I had been half expecting her to just try and zap me and Twilight, then send us off to bed. Hell, considering how weird some things in Equestria worked, I had to wonder if she hadn’t done the same to Shining Armor when they first met.
I remembered that one scene with the fighting couple that she just hit with her love beam and turned them sappy again, but that kind of reeked of mind control. I mean, what the hell was the difference between that and getting a chick so drunk she didn’t know how to say no?
Cadence giggled. “It’s not like I have some kind of a love dowsing rod Twilight,” she told the other mare. “But…from what you’ve said and I’ve seen…he does care about you Twilight.”
“But does that mean he loves me back?” she asked.
The question made Cadence take in a deep breath. “Well…from what you said about your last outing, when you were in danger, Flash performed an action that could have very well ended his life without hesitation,” she said. “Then, when he escaped from that pyramid, instead of reporting to the nearest guard outpost or city as protocol dictates, he went looking for you. That’s pretty telling.”
I cut the link and moaned. What the hell was up with these ponies? Or hell, women in general? Just because I was nice to some chick and had an interest in the same things didn’t mean I was interested in them in that way.
Still, the bit of good news that came my way from that little invasion of privacy was enough to lighten the weight on my back.
So I went back to the dining room and got on with the date. After finding out Cadence and Shining weren’t there to grill me, they were ACTUALLY there to support Twilight, like she had pretty much told me they would be.
It was…okay, it was weird, for human terms anyway.
But then, I wasn’t dealing with humans, I was dealing with ponies; and I think that was the first time that little fact got through to me.
Humans, we’re idiots. We like to carry around our baggage for years and be all duplicitous. Ponies deal with their shit and shoot straight for the most part. Every now and then you’ll get an abnormality that does turn into a total douche, just bitches about life in general, or is a pathological liar. But for the most part, they’re better than us.
That’s why I’ve never seen Scootaloo being emo over her wings, and all the ponies I talked to about the stuff they’ve been carrying around since the coronation cheered up with just a single talking to. They deal with the possibility of a disability, or whatever is bothering them, and move on. It’s kind of odd to see that a population of mostly mares having more balls than a good percentage of male humans out there when it comes to really facing their problems.
Maybe it’s something biological. I know for damn sure changeling brain chemistry has affected the way I think about some things. That and the five fucking weeks I spent in the hive trying not to lose myself too much.
Now, as I was saying, the rest of the night went off pretty good and I think I made a nice impression with the elder siblings, getting their mark of approval. Because of that, I became a total dumbass and completely dropped my guard in regards to that karmic pendulum thing that my life in Equestria seems to run on.
Since things were going so well from the get go, there was no way in hell it could end on a high note.
Twilight stopped at the door to her library and turned to face me with that gentle smile on her face. “So…here we are.”
I cleared my throat and looked up at a firefly lamp hanging from one of the trees branches. Twilight’s nervousness was obviously spreading. “Yep.”
“So you want to…come inside?” she asked.
Not really thinking about it, I nodded. It would have been good not to be standing around in the middle of the grass street like a couple of idiots. “Okay.”
As we entered the library, I noticed a complete lack of light until Twilight used her magic to illuminate the place and she opened the door to her room before conjuring some candles to let us see in there as well. There was also a complete lack of reptiles, talking or snoring.
“Where’s Spike?”
“He’s looking after the Crusaders tonight,” Twilight told me before her gaze focused on my clothes. I honestly didn’t know who to pity more.
A second later, I could feel a tingle on my skin, and I looked over to the purple alicorn. “Uh, Twilight, what’re you doing?”
The alicorn didn’t respond for several seconds, then there was a flash of light, and I felt an odd draft. “Sorry, I had to concentrate and thought this would be quicker,” she said as my dress uniform floated over to the table in the middle of the main room.
“Oh…thanks,” I replied. It would have been a pain in the ass to get everything off without my horn, and changeling transformations tended to burn what we were wearing to ash in a bust of magical fire.
There was another awkward pause, as if Twilight was thinking about something. “So…you ready to go, then?”
I licked my lips. “Yeah, that’s um…yeah,” I said before moving closer to kiss the mare on the lips. She had been a good date, and deserved at least that much.
The next thing I knew, I was overtaken by a wave of vertigo that accompanied teleportation, and by the time my head had cleared, I found myself laying on Twilight’s bed, the princess covering me with her body.
I looked up to her in confusion, which apparently went unnoticed by the alicorn thanks to the fact candles were the only thing lighting her bedroom at the moment. “Twilight?”
Then, upon hearing the mare’s next words, everything fell into place.
“My research says the first time kind of hurts, so…be gentle. Please?”
And that place was a special kind of Hell where godlike purple ponies persisted in pursuing acts of procreation for pleasurable purposes.