Unfortunately, Twilight had to redo her schedule because of a minor oversight which she hadn’t predicted occurring during our lunch date. After all, Tia got us kicked out before we actually finished the meal. Not exactly a problem for me, but the real ponies of the group need food. It was a minor inconvenience of course. Thanks to the twenty-four hour operation of the castle and its kitchens, the girls had plenty to eat. We didn’t even need to get anyone back into them since Luna got up around one and had a late lunch with Celestia, or breakfast according to her internal clock. After the date and the rather small blowup Twilight had, we ended up eating separately.
Then it was off to Twilight’s old tower for my lunch, which left the girls in the napping mood. But I learned from my mistakes, and the second time around I wasn’t stupid enough to put them on empty before being on the receiving end of their attentions in our little threeway.
It was…well, Twilight was as good as ever. The girl had really knew how to use her tongue on another mare. Dash was…
Okay, Rainbow wasn’t what I’d call the best lover. But I blamed my opinion on my Dash worship setting my expectations too high. On the up side, she knew how to excite my wings better than Twilight and we could get her moaning easily enough. But when it came to being on the receiving end of her attentions between my legs…her hesitation kicked in. Combined with her inexperience, it left me wanting more in the bad way. Which led to me faking it to preserve her ego.
I knew practice would solve both her problems, but until then, I was going to have to lie to my Dashie about how good she was in bed to spare her ego. It was a necessary evil.
Once the girls were out cold, I found myself pressed against the two mares as they snoozed away, unable to get up thanks to the fact Twilight had a death grip on my left pony-arm, and Dash had collapsed right on top of my chest to lightly snore in my face. Her not making a loud noise made me want to kick myself. It was a sign I might have been a bit too greedy when it came to feeding on her love.
Laying as I was with my girls, I found myself wishing I had fingers. Hooves were usable substitute as long as I didn’t need to tie a knot, but they were just lacking in the gentle touch department. All I could do with my free foreleg was reach up and put it around my Rainbow’s neck when I really wanted to run my hand through her mess of hair. Sure ponies were intelligent, but they were way too cute not to want to pet every now and then. Especially with Sunset around to run her fingers through a mane or two.
And of course, left alone with my thoughts and staring at relationship wheel number three, with Tia being four, doubts about more than just me and Twilight giving a go at it creeped up into my head again. All it would take was me siding with Dash when she and Twilight had an argument, or Twilight backing up Celestia against me the next time she planned without her brain and the battle lines would be drawn. We’d fight, pick sides, separate, and have someone to help feed the animosity.
“Am I doing the right thing here?” I asked the unconscious mare on top of me as she blew air from her nostrils into my face. “With us, I mean?”
“I try to shake it off but…something about this just feels wrong,” I told her before moving my fetlock across the back of her neck. “I’m not really…I don’t know. Twilight, and now you, and Celestia." I tried to put my random thoughts into words as best I could. "Twilight…well, we’ve been together and it works, and you…are we just forcing you into this? I know you wouldn’t be here with us if you didn’t feel something, and I know you feel something, trust me…I Smell it. But, is it gonna stay that way, or are we all heading for a disaster?”
“And Tia…”
My thoughts on her, I couldn’t even talk about. Celestia was just too…different for me to guess about when it came to her thoughts on anything. And when it came to her, mine were a mix of lust, admiration, pity, fear and disdain towards the goddess. Just because she was practically perfect in every way didn’t mean I was willing to suck her horn and call it ice cream. But at the same time, I wanted her. Good God did I I want the solar princess's posterior, and everything beneath that waving tail of hers.
So with nothing else to do, I watched Rainbow’s adorable face as she continued to just push air in and out for a few minutes. Then boredom finally hit and I went into my changeling sleep trance thingy that wasn’t really sleep. I needed to get some work done in the way of checking up on Sunset and play phone tag to have a quick conversation and make a request of her. Then I had to make sure she had a few changelings to get her to the castle, spied on Celestia a little bit as she made preparations for Summer Wrap-up across Equestria, delivered a changeling message to Celestia, read a few messages from all over the place, and had some other changelings do a quick flyby to make sure the rest of the girls were doing okay.
While having my minions act as guards from a distance was a little too much like stalking for Twilight to allow, I could at least have the hive do some checks every few hours. Equestria might have been a perfect land of ponies, but there was no use taking chances with the safety of my friends.
A few hours later, the girls woke up so I could play with their bodies some more. But a few ear tugs with my mouth and one too many flank rubs got me kicked out of bed by the two of them so Rainbow could properly preen Twilight’s wings and clean up. We talked a bit about nothing while she did all the feather pulling, showered off our afternoon sex mess, packed up our dresses, and then headed to the train station to ship Rainbow back to Ponyville with our stuff.
Of course by then, Twilight had remembered something important that she wanted to talk about, and the train was running late.
Yes, even in the magical land of Equestria couldn’t make trains run on time. Sure they could raise the sun, manipulate the weather, and run nature, but even the power of ponies had its limits. Usually it was due to cargo problems. Since ponies shipped everything over rails, a single engine pulled as much weight as it possibly could instead of just hauling ponies. This was especially true of stuff going to and fro from the Crystal Empire.
“So let me get this straight,” Twilight said while we stood waiting several feet apart from the crowd of ponies that had given what they thought were a pair of alicorns plenty of space. “Human females usually test their prospective mates with tests involving riddles, misdirection, encoded phrases and actions that usually mean the exact opposite of what they’re actually saying, and battles to the death?”
Twilight’s whole body was tense as I looked at her, and she shook her head. “The more I hear about your type of humans, the less I like them,” she mumbled before looking over to me. “Although, it would explain a hay of a lot about you that I just chalked up to being a changeling.” Then a frown crossed her face. “And raises some more questions.”
I cleared my throat to help with the unease. “Well, the last one really doesn’t happen that much anymore outside of the occasional knife fight between two stupid human stallions with more balls than brains.”
Rainbow let out a snort. “Your old species is stupid. I mean, what kind of pony would make somepony else jump through hoops and risk their lives just to give some kind of proof-and why are you two looking at me like that?” she asked as me and Twilight gave her a pair of knowing smirks.
“Well, Tank-”
“That was totally different!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Besides, I picked the last place finisher anyway!”
I kissed my pegasus on her cheek and drew her in close with my wing. “And I learned my lesson from you,” I told her before Rainbow looked over to me, and I got to plant another one on her lips. The light touch of her tongue on my lips had me part my teeth so we could go beyond some schoolyard interaction.
We got about three seconds worth of tongue before Twilight stepped up. “Okay you two. Enough of the show,” she said to break us up, then nodded ahead. “Besides, the train is almost here.”
Both me and Rainbow looked out across the bit of undeveloped landscape that Canterlot had, and I saw the smoke climbing into the sky a second before the train rounded its last turn towards Canterlot.
Despite its goofy title and oddity of the cars, the Friendship Express was a pretty nice ride. It wasn’t exactly up to the Harry Potter standards of private rooms and other junk like a platform with three-quarters, but the ponies spent their magic where it counted. They made sure the damn thing didn’t break down and provided an impossibly smooth trip. So smooth Rarity had managed to sleep on one, and I knew how picky she was about every little thing.
And speaking of the she-devil, whether by some Equestrian Coincidence, or Twilight managing to calculate where the car she was in based on Rarity and her brother’s habits, the rolling box that came to a stop right in front of us was a little bit fancier the ones around it, and had a tingle of magic about it that said it was a private car with protection magic. Then opened to let out a pair of white unicorns.
Rarity was as immaculate as ever. The unicorn didn’t just have a wonderful figure, but a face to match and her mane just made her look all the more sexy. What made it all even more horrible was that with Celestia starting to jump on the relationship we were trying out, Rarity was probably next on my list for pony to be best friends with. Just like Twilight, Rainbow, and Tia had been at one time or another.
If things didn’t work out for her with the Crystal Empire couple and she came running to me for comfort...I really didn’t want to have to add Rarity to the harem. Hell, I didn’t even want a harem in the first place. Stupid Celestia.
Then there was Rarity’s...companion.
As much as I hated to admit it, Shining Armor made me feel even worse. He was hot, the perfect female sexual fantasy hot that I really didn’t want to admit to anyone. Years in the royal guard had given the normally nerdy unicorn tribe member a perfect physique that just screamed sexy. Although thankfully, knowing someone was sexy and finding them attractive were two completely different things. I mean, a guy could acknowledge another guy’s good looks.
Right?
“Twily what’re you doing here?” he asked in happy surprise before they trotted up to each other and embraced.
“Going to school, same thing you’re doing here BBBFF,” she replied with a bright smile before it became a little embarrassed. “Plus some other stuff with my…fillyfriends.” She tripped over the word, and I was just the tiniest bit glad even Twilight couldn’t just run around shouting ‘I’m sleeping with two ponies at the same time’ to anyone that passed by. It made my unease just a bit more manageable.
Before the awkwardness could go up a few notches, another pony with a bright pink coat stepped out of the train and smiled at the smaller alicorn. “Oh please Twilight, you’re not the only pony here with a potential special somepony,” Cadence told her little sister-in-law before she walked up to stand next to a slightly embarrassed Rarity.
Cadence’s presence threw my train of thought for a loop. Shining, I had been expecting. Rarity had been a definite maybe. But Cadence being at the train station was both a little discombobulating, but reassuring at the same time.
If she was going to go with me and Twilight to the princess’s parents’ house I mean. For all I knew, the three of them had really it it off, and she was just in Canterlot to drop Shining off, then take her paramour to Ponyville for a pounding of the sexual kind before she swung back home in the direction of the Crystal Empire.
My thought’s along those lines also made my curiosity skyrocket. I gave the smallest unicorn there a greedy smile. “You do know this means we’re going to have to hear all about it,” I said to the Gossip Queen of Ponyville.
“Well darling, we’ve got an hour before the train finishes unloading and I know a wonderful little coffee shop that’s near here ,” she said before looking over to Cadence. “If that’s okay with you.”
The Alicorn of Love smiled and threw a wing around the smaller unicorn that drew Rarity in close as Cadence looked down on what I was pretty damn sure counted as her new girlfriend. “Let’s go brag about our feelings.”
Barely five minutes after we left the train station, I sat down in a nice little coffee house that also offered various cakes. More importantly though, it looked absolutely NOTHING like a Starbucks. Twilight got the left setting on our side, Dash took the middle, and I got the far right. While waiting, we played footsies with our tails and used them to slap each other or caress Dash’s ass out of sight from the other party. On the other side of our little rectangle of a table, Shiny got sandwiched between his girls.
“Well darlings, I won’t bore you with any of the details about my journey to the Crystal Palace, but…I will say that the Crystal Empire is becoming a bit of the tourist…” Rarity paused and looked over to Cadence.
“Trap?” I supplied.
Cadence gave me a good-natured frown. “Hey! Tourism is good for everypony! It increases business, lets ponies spread friendship, and...” she said before a smirk appeared on her face. “And don’t think I don’t know about your little tourist attraction in the Everfree Forest.”
I tensed a little at that one.
Technically speaking, the Red Light Grove wasn’t a Ponyville tourist attraction, especially since there was now a little train stop near where the rails split between Appleloosa and Dodge City. Still, it did bring plenty of business to my little town in the way of foot traffic since trains only stopped there once a day and anybody needing to stay overnight had to go to my little hamlet. It was also the only place the changeling escorts would let them exit the forest.
But that wasn’t what made me nervous about Cadence mentioning my sex business.
Cadence was the Alicorn of Love. My little enterprise had nothing to do with love. It was about lust, self-delusion, impossible desires, empty sex, and some other junk that made it about as far from the pure and giving emotion as you could get without any actual violence or hatred involved.
“So um…what exactly do you think of it?” I asked nervously.
After she made me sweat bullets for a few seconds, Cadence let out a little shrug. “I took a look at it. While I’m not too thrilled about the overall idea, I can see it serves a purpose,” she replied before a little smile crossed her face and she looked over to Rarity. “At least it did before we decided to expand the idea of marriage to include more than two ponies. But something tells me that as the number of herds increase, your…businesses that provides a little relief to mares in need of a stallion’s attention will start to go down. Still, everypony knows the pony their being with isn’t really the pony they want. Plus…it is helpful to talk to a pony about problems when you know they’re not going to go spreading it around.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know, that actually sounded like you…” The total idea of Cadence visiting a whorehouse just...made me pause. My mouth stopped moving for a moment in shock. “You’ve actually um…been with a changeling?”
Shining Armor’s head jerked around to look at the pink pony. “C-Cadence?” he asked while his Scent gave off a definite horrified vibe.
For her part, Cadence rolled her eyes. “Oh please Shiny, I didn’t sleep with it. We just talked,” she said in an annoyed tone before becoming thoughtful. “To be honest, I could see some real benefits to having a changeling confessional. You might want to look into the idea."
That made it my turn to get all confused again. “A what?”
And Cadence’s weird words weren’t the only reason I got all mind boggled. I knew every single pony that was ever with my changelings, and Cadence sure as hell wasn’t one of them! Although, I had no intention of asking her for specifics, and I supposed it could have been really easy for her to just use a few spells to disguise herself, so…it really wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It was just...weird.
I mean, the Alicorn of Love...going to a brothel.
Totally weird.
“Just a little idea I had while talking to a changeling,” she replied while her face got a bit whimsical. “Confessing one's feelings to another pony is one of the hardest things a pony can do. It could really help other ponies work to overcome their shyness by letting them practice, or maybe working out a plan to declare love!”
I blinked once. “Huh. And here I thought you’d be a proponent of the secret identity love letter confessional and meet-up strategy.” It was pretty anime, but...hell, it was better than speed dating.
Cadence tilted her head. “The what?”
“It’s just this stupid thing that some humans do in movies and junk,” I told her with a shrug of indifference. “When the guy doesn’t know if the girl is even interested in having a relationship, he writes her a romantic letter telling her why he likes her and asks her to meet him somewhere private if she would be interested in going out on a date.”
The ponies at the table were silent, and even their Scents became muted. As for me, I got the weird feeling that I had just said something very stupid.
And then Cadence spoke up. “That…that’s…brilliant!” she finished as she looked down at the table and bobbed her head back and forth, as if she was examining some huge, invisible blueprint. “You could tell a pony everything you wanted to say complete uninterrupted and without any bias tainting the mare’s view. Plus, if the answer is no, the letter can remain anonymous as not to put in of strain on a friendship!”
“Yes well,” Rarity spoke up in an annoyed tone. “Thank you so much for giving me this brilliant strategy after its not of any use.”
Shining Armor gave off a nervous laugh. “Well, I really doubt we would have responded well to a letter Rarity.”
My curiosity peaked, and I looked back to the female unicorn of the marshmallow coloration. “So, I take it from the wing hugs you three are a…uh…”
“Triple,” Cadence said before she cleared her throat. “Or...um...well, Auntie never did work out the multiple partner lingo. So...trio, triple...that sounds good, right? I’m still trying to come up with something more natural sounding, but that'll do for now I suppose."
Rainbow laughed a little. “So how’d you land your princess Rarity?”
“Well…” the unicorn looked to the other two ponies and blushed for a moment before she looked down at the table. “I must admit to a bit of…subterfuge. When it comes to how I gained royal attentions.”
Shining Armor rolled his eyes. “Oh please. I’ll take what you did over how all the crystal nobility was beating down our doors to try and sneak into our good graces,” he said before looking over to her. “And um...sorry again about what happened when you came for tea.”
“That little fit I threw didn’t help much,” Cadence added with a blush.
“Full story please,” I spoke up.
Rarity cleared her throat. “Well, I’ll spare you my arrival in the Crystal Empire, and it didn’t take long to get an audience with Shining Armor and Cadence once they knew who I was.”
“I was happy to have it,” Cadence said right on top of her, half to me and half to Rarity. “Ever since this whole herding thing came out, so many crystal ponies had been approaching me in the hopes of tying me and Shiny to the court by marriage.” Her face turned sour as her Scent, and I had a feeling she liked suitors about as much as Odysseus’s wife did. “Ugh! As if I of all ponies couldn’t see the love they had in their hearts only revolved around the Empire, and that was the best of them! Every time I think of those…social climbers, I just want to tear my mane out!”
Rarity drew in on herself, and Cadence jerked upward with a start before she looked over to her…whatever Rarity was to the alicorn. “Sorry,” the unicorn mumbled.
I looked back and forth between the two. “Let me guess…she said the same thing to you?” I asked Rarity.
“No,” Shining answered for her before putting a reassuring foreleg around Rarity and looking over to me. “It was worse, and longer, and louder, and involved Cadence throwing things.”
Cadence let out a snort. “Well you don’t throw aside love for…political gain!” she said before stamping her hoof into the carpeted ground. The earth pony in her must have been greedy, because the whole table shook at the punctuated pronouncement. As Rarity winced again, Cadence looked over to her with a frown. “And don’t give me that withdrawal! You’re nothing like them!” she snapped. “You want a prince because they exemplify everything that’s good about ponies!”
I couldn’t help it. Blueblood’s face clawed its way into my mind, and I had to fight the urge to retch. Out of all the male ponies in Equestria, I hated him the most.
“Well, most of them anyway,” Cadence went on before her face went from dark to disgusted. “My...cousin can go jump in a river. That pony wouldn’t know how to be a prince if they wrote a how to book about it made especially for dummies.”
“Good to see you haven’t changed,” I snarked, which made Cadence look up at me with a confused expression on her face. I had learned the first time I really met Cadence that belittling the thing called love around her was tantamount to suicide. Then I looked back at the non-raging members of the group. “So what happened after Cadence got done ragging on the crystal nobles?”
Rarity gulped, and Cadence blushed, which left Shining to take hold of the conversation. “Well when she was done going on and on about how they only wanted to start a herd because we were royalty,” Armor began before he glanced over to his less colorful girl, “Rarity was just about on the verge of tears.”
I narrowed my eyes at the ice cream colored princess pony as she shrunk in on herself, and wondered where I’d be hiding her body. Sure, Rarity was a drama queen that went into tears at the smallest thing, but if that pink bitch broke my potentially new best friend’s heart and sent her careening into the ticking time bomb that was the incredibly convoluted relationship between me, two alicorns and a pegasus…because, you know…it happened to the other three mares…I was going to murder her.
“I-I wouldn’t go that far darling, I was just a little…disappointed,” Rarity said. “”Of course it took Cadence two whole seconds to discern what was going on when she finally looked in my direction.” The unicorn sighed and shook her head. “I still don’t know to feel elated, a little embarrassed I was that easy to read.”
Cadence giggled and looked over to Rarity. “Alicorn of Love, remember?”
As the two girls shared a look, I saw had Twilight turned her attention to her brother. “So how did you feel about all this Shiny?”
“Well the whole idea was a little weird at first, I think,” he replied. “Not to mention scary.”
I frowned at the unicorn in confusion. “Scary?”
He cleared his throat and kept his eyes from meeting mine while Cadence put on a satisfied smile. “Look, I don’t know how it is between you and Twilight, and I really don’t want to know, but…um…”
“Go ahead and brag about your wife dear, you know how much I love it when you do that,” Cadence told him as her wing reached out to wrap around his back. Then, when Shining continued to be silent, Cadence looked over to us. “What my husband is afraid of saying is-”
Shining let out a little whine. “Cadence is…um…kind of insatiable,” he said before looking down at the table. “There, I said it. Please don’t go into details.”
“Yeah, Twilight’s just about the same way,” Rainbow replied. “Hay, if it wasn’t for that love feeding thing Fae does, I don’t think she’d ever go down when we’re in bed.”
“GAH! Please! I don’t want to know!” Shining exclaimed as he covered his ears. “She’s my sister!”
Cadence giggled. “You married an alicorn sweetie. Weren’t you listening when Auntie warned you we can be a bit…hungry in bed once we find our beloved?” she said with a smile that made her look like a wolf staring at a piece of meat.
An insane amount of fear passed through me at that moment, and I really considered the possibility of mind controlling Celestia to fall out of love with the idea of her, Rainbow, Twilight and me. After all, Twilight was already a handful in bed and even though she had gotten used to the her awakened sexual urges… Well…if I was reading between the lines correctly and all alicorns had some kind of triple libido that gave them the equivalent of a constant need for sex that might as well of been a constant heat without the babymaking to go with it, and Tia was coming off a thousand-year dry spell… I was suddenly feeling a need to introduce Celestia to Futurama. Specifically, that one episode with the Amazon planet that condemned all the men to death by snu-snu.
The spirit might be willing, and full of magic, but the flesh was still soft and squishy.
I cleared my throat and found a particularly interesting piece of wall to look at. “And so um…then what happened?” I asked before a horrid thought occurred to me.
According to the story Cadence and Shining Armor told me about how they met and started dating, the smoking hot pink princess had decided they were getting married and living in a crystal palace all of five seconds after deciding Shiny was ‘adorable’. Her words there, not mine. So I couldn’t see Rarity not coming back a member of Cadence’s little herd if they were on the train together. Herd as in family member...or at least engaged.
“Well, like we said, Cadence saw through to the root of my distress,” Rarity went on. “When she looked me up and down, and after a rather short interrogation, I found myself dragged off to dinner. We talked, we laughed, there were some tears, and, well…it was a nice evening all around. Not as glamorous as I imagined, but…it was nice.”
Twilight’s Scent was a confused mix of elation and depression as she apparently felt the same as me. I didn’t think either of us knew what to think. Rarity describing a date with royals as ’nice’ was like someone giving the best day of their life only an ‘okay’ rating. “So is that good, or bad?” the purple alicorn asked.
“I have to admit, it didn’t quite meet my expectations,” she said, drawing a glare from her significant others. Then Rarity broke out into a smile. “Oh! But then there was the ball that these two took me to the next night and, Sweet Celestia, Twilight, I was simply swept off my hooves! It was everything the Grand Galloping Gala should have been and more!”
As Rarity literally swooned over and onto Shining Armor’s shoulder, which got a huge blush out of him while Cadence giggled. “I have to admit, the way you handled those nobles and everything, if I was anypony else I’d be wanting to marry you on the spot. I’m terrible at all that social stuff.”
“And how was that?” I asked.
Shining sighed and shook his head. “Well, like we said, the crystal nobility has been trying to get in with us since this whole thing began. Mostly by throwing all these extravagant parties,” he said with a roll of his eyes to show what he thought of them. “So when she arrived at the party between me and Cadence-”
“Still a little uneasy coming between the two of you,” Rarity added.
“Oh would you stop going on about that?” Cadence told her before her smile became a very predatory grin and she leaned over to show Rarity her teeth. “And I didn’t hear any complaints last night when you were between us. Unless you count all those cute little cries we got from having my lips around your horn while Shiny was filling you up.”
The magic holding up Twilight’s teacup that was full of coffee vanished, letting the thing fall to the ground below as every mouth on my side of the table dropped. On the other side of the table, Rarity’s eyes went wide while Shining blushed, and Cadence returned to sitting straight up in her chair with a wiggle of her butt. Really didn’t need my nose to know what she was thinking at that moment.
All of a sudden, I think I understood just where Twilight got the idea to have sex so soon when we were sort of dating. “You mean you guys did it like…the very first night?”
It was odd to say the least by any species’ standards. While humans did it for fun, ponies that had sex just for the physical thrill on any long-lasting basis were a minority. After the wild teenage years passed, they typically reserved the whole thing for more emotional based attachments. Basically, adult ponies didn’t have sex, they made love.
Cadence rolled her eyes. “Oh please Fae, I may be the expert on love, but even I don’t work that fast,” she said before her smile became less hungry. “But by the time we were on our way home from the ball, I had more than enough time to take Rarity’s measure and decide I liked what I saw.”
And thus, she shut me up too.
“So um…Rarity,” Rainbow spoke up while me and Twilight just stared at Cadence’s smiling face. “Is it true you can feel it vibrate inside you when you do it on a train?”
“Gaaaaaaa,” the unicorn replied.
On the other side of their group, Cadence giggled while I gave her a glare for putting Rarity on the spot like that. “Well, first you have to disable the stabilization magic for the train car, but afterwards…Rainbow, you haven’t lived until you’ve joined the rails club.”
I saw Twilight’s hair untwinge a little bit at Cadence’s words. Shining Armor’s coat just went completely red, and Rarity looked like she wished we were somewhere that served coffee in a glass big enough to hide behind while the pink pony princess and Rainbow Dash continued a very technical conversation that had me realizing something about the ice cream pony that would probably have me coming to her for advice on certain subjects in the near future.
Cadence was the Alicorn of Love.
She was expert on the subject.
In every possible meaning of the word.
We left the coffeehouse with a furious amount of blushing and...maybe a few new things to try out when the three of us got back to Ponyville. However, I would never be able to look at another unicorn’s horn without thinking about things that were just too wrong to speak of ever again.
“So, does she try to be that embarrassing with every pony you meet, or is it just Cadence’s hidden talent?” I asked Shining Armor as we made our way back to the train at the rear of the group towards the end of the train’s stopover hour.
Shining blushed. “Cadence is very…vocal about relationships,” he told me with a little smile. “To her, love isn’t something to be hidden away. It needs to be shouted to the world. Doesn’t matter what you want to talk about, if it has anything to do with love, she’s super enthusiastic.”
I little bit of unease crept up in my gut, and for some reason I kept picturing Celestia instead of the other pony with the white coat I was supposed to be talking about. “And um…you know, you never really told us how you feel about this whole thing,” I said before clearing my throat a looking away for a minute. “Just between us guys.”
Shining Armor raised an eyebrow at me.
The look made me retaliate with a annoyed one. “You know what I mean,” I grumbled as I frowned back at him. Then, I looked over to Rarity. “I just…look, I don’t want to see Rarity get hurt because you’re all rushing into this. Me and Twilight did and…I nearly crushed her heart because of it.” Just thinking about how me and her almost never really got together made my chest hurt.
“Well, if you really want to know…” Shining began.
I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, I do. All the details too.”
The unicorn sighed. “To be honest, I didn’t think it was going to work at first. With Cadence, it took a whole five seconds for her to decide,” he said before I gave him an eyebrow raise to which he just nodded. “Yes, it happened that fast for her, she just talked with Rarity over dinner the night before the ball and looked her over. And by the time we had walked her back to her room in the castle, and I was giving her a pretty uneasy goodbye, Cadence kissed Rarity on the lips in a way that left my mouth hanging open and the smaller mare panting on the floor so much I had to carry her into the apartment we set up for her.”
As Shining face turned red, I Smelled his lust jump up at the memory and smiled. “It looked that good huh?”
Shining cleared his throat a looked down at the ground. “You said details so…um…” he took a deep breath and gulped it down. “Cadence picked Rarity up in her hooves, pressed her up against the wall with her winged folded out, and I swear she had her tongue down that mare’s throat. It was probably the hottest thing I had ever seen until she teased Rarity’s horn on the way to Canterlot.”
That…pissed me off actually. A lot. My unease vanished, to be replaced by a bit of slow boil rage. “You mean you’re only doing this because you like watching Cadence and Rarity go at it?” I demanded with a low tone inside my snarling mouth.
It went beyond the reservations I had about the whole polygamy thing. Mine was based off the inevitable jealousy that was bound to sprout up…among humans anyway; ponies were an unknown on that front at the moment. But Shining… if he was just in it for the view. My estimation of Armor would take a fatal nose dive. Followed quickly by the stallion himself.
“What?” he asked before his expression became a disgusted frown. “No! Ugh! I can’t believe you’d think something like that.”
As the unicorn stopped grumbling, I went to a three hood trot to point at him with a hoof. “But you just said-”
Shining rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the first night things were like that. But trust me, nopony works as fast as Cadence does,” he said before sighing. “I don’t really get it, but…she can somehow see where a relationship might lead right from the get go. The rest of us aren’t so lucky with how quickly our revelation comes.”
“Revelation?” I asked.
“You know, when a pony gets hit with that spark that tells them there’s something between the pony they’re looking at and themselves?” he asked while giving me an odd look, like not knowing about such a thing was completely foreign to him.
It was a pretty gay way to describe becoming enamored with someone, but...I’d heard worse.
From Twilight.
So I nodded. Yeah, it was a bit flowery for my taste, but even guy ponies were pretty into that stuff. Even Twilight had explained it in such a way. Hell, she even had two little revelation moments with me. Once, when I was parading around as Flash Sentry when she thought I died, and the second when she was captive in the Empire. Also, when she thought I was dead.
It was a rather disturbing pattern really.
“When it happened for me, we were at that stupid party in the Crystal Empire that Duke Swanky was throwing in the Crystal Princess’s honor, so of course Cadence had to show up. It was just a thinly veiled attempt to get under her tail, but after that little debacle last week, everypony had an excuse to throw a we were aren’t food for a demonic storm creature party.”
Shining chuckled a bit and shook his head. “If those ponies actually knew how much Cadence hated those parties, they never would have known making her come to one was pretty much a deal killer for any kind of romantic mood. But Rarity was as excited as a foal in a candy shop and…it was pretty infectious,” he said as a smile crossed his lips. “And she apparently packed for the fancy parties too. She had this pink gown that wasn’t quite the color of Cadence’s coat with some sapphires on it with little bits of white around the bottom.”
My mouth struggled to open because I needed to inform Shining of the proper name for the parts of a dress, but…I was talking to Shining as a guy and tailoring knowledge was more of a gray area when it came to gender, so I kept my trap shut.
“When I saw her, everything just lined up perfectly and the last bits of sunlight came through the Crystal Palace to make her whole thing sparkle. And I’ll admit, she was beautiful,” Shining said. “But I’m not some colt that just cases after tail because its attached to a nice flank.” He cleared his throat. “At least, not anymore.”
“Okay,” I said before giving him a slight nod to tell the unicorn to go on.
Shining took in a deep breath. “She was a home at the party. In a good way I mean,” he said before looking over to me. “Do you know how to talk to crystal nobles?”
“No.” The only higher-up I had talked to outside the royal circle was Blueblood, whose royal title didn’t count for nothing far as I was concerned. And my preferred way of speaking to him involved my hoof and his face.
“I don’t either,” he went on. “Did the whole guard routine for a couple of years and ended up at the Gala once, but that’s a whole different world. You talk normal to a crystal noble, and she’ll just stare at you like you’re an idiot, or think you mean the exact opposite thing you’re saying. It’s like there’s some rule that says when somepony’s being straight with you, it’s all a lie. I swear, it’s like they speak a completely different language with about a million innuendos and hidden meanings when they’re not trying to insult you. It’s like a stupid game to them or something. Like it proves their intellectual superiority.
“But Rarity does. It’s apparently the latest fad in Canterlot,” he said with a smile on his face. “By the time she was done introducing herself around the ballroom, every noble there was either blushing in embarrassment, was stammering apologies to Cadence, or just decided to leave early. It was the best party I went to in the Crystal Empire since we took over there.”
Once again, I found myself giving Shining a measuring look. “And that’s why you’re trying to get with her? Because she can talk to a buck of stuck-up snobs?”
Armor shook his head before his voice took on an uneasy tone. “Not really. What happened was…well…after the party…Rarity decided to call the whole thing off.”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“Surprised me too, and Cadence just about had a brain aneurism when we were taking our carriage back the palace,” Shining replied. “And well, that’s when it hit me. I never really gave the whole thing much thought about the three of us because ever since Celestia proposed her change, the crystal ponies had been beating down our door, and Cadence had been fighting them off. But no matter what she did, not a single one of them respected our wishes and walked away. Even the few decent ones...which were pretty few.
“Rarity did. It hurt her, but she did it, and…she didn’t cry or anything. She just got out of the carriage and went to her room without us. And then all of a sudden, I was feeling pretty lousy about the whole thing. She’s one of my little sister’s best friends, a hero, a mare who takes care of her own little sister for nearly half a week, and she lives in Ponyville instead of Canterlot because the ponies of that town are the ones she loves. And I just…blew her off because of so many other ponies wanting to be with me for personal gain.”
We reached the train platform, and Shining just kept talking.
“Of course I didn’t know about half of this until Cadence dragged me onto the Express and let Rarity ride in our car as an apology for everything not working out before we spent the day together, locked in a little box of a room just talking and, and…um…well, Cadence already bragged about how that ended,” Shining said with a blush. “I swear, she’s as bad as Celestia sometimes.”
I frowned as he knocked my newest waifu, but didn’t say anything about it. I was the only one allowed to call Tia manipulative.
“Maybe its because I’m a lot older than when I met Cadence, so I didn’t get any of that usual stuff that makes it impossible to talk around mares and that slowed everything down, but…well, Rarity’s pretty special too,” he admitted.
“Why thank you darling, it’s nice to know you care so much,” a Canterlot accented voice cut into the conversation.
Shining flinched, and then looked up at the three mares staring at him. “Uh…how long have you all been here?”
“Since you got here,” Cadence told him with a little smile before it turned into a frown of barely constrained fury. “And what do you mean you didn’t even give Rarity a chance at first? She came to us so frazzled I was afraid she was going to have a nervous breakdown when we brought her into our sitting room! Her admiration for both you and me so obvious she was practically carrying a sign! And you didn’t even try to give her a chance until after she thought it was hopeless?” The pink pony sniffed and turned her nose up at her husband. “I can’t believe a married such a close-hearted stallion.”
I stepped away from Armor and fluttered my way over to Twilight just to give her an ‘I’m not with him’ vibe, actually a little happy for once that I was a girl. That way, I could avoid any male seeking anger missiles that the rest of the girls were fixing to let loose.
Shining just sighed and walked up to Cadence. “Oh come on Cadence,” he whined. “That was…did you honestly expect me to be interested in another mare right off the bat? I’ve got you-I mean, we’ve got each other!” He laughed a little while the Alicorn of Love gave him a little frown. “Did you really want me to have a wandering eye for all the time we’ve been married?”
The lack of fireworks made me sigh as Cadence started to get all understanding and reluctantly began talking with her husband about, and then with the third member in their relationship.
But on the other hand, it was nice to know I wasn’t the only (sort of) male to be having hesitant thoughts about this whole one guy lots of girls thing. A little weirded out that the pony who agreed with me was also a dude since there was supposed to be this male caveman instinct to bang anything I saw, but…I would take what I could get.
After that, we said our goodbyes to Rainbow and Rarity, kisses were exchanged and the girlfriends headed back home.
It was nearly five thirty by the time me, Shiny, Twilight and Cadence got to the less than extravagant house two members of the royalty of Equestria had grown up in. Of course, my questions as to why they still had such a small house when their kids were running empires and saving continents just got me a weird look from Twilight.
Shining was a bit more vocal in his reasoning. “You think I want my mother to live in the Crystal Palace? Even Cadence doesn’t have enough love to have her mother-in-law live with her under the same roof.”
The pink alicorn sighed and lowered her head. “It’s sad, but true.”
“Well at least we can finally put an end to all that grandfoal talk,” Twilight said, obviously relieved.
Even though it was mean of me, I had to interject a little bit of doom and gloom into their utopian futures. “Well for you at least,” I said to her. “If your mom is anything like human parents, Shiny’s gonna have to start giving your mom due dates the second he tells every pony.”
Armor looked down at the street. “I’d like to argue, but you’re probably right,” he said with a shake of his head. “That’s why I’m going to gauge her reaction to the whole herding thing first before I even start to talk about Rarity.”
Twilight giggled. “Don’t worry BBBFF, we’ll act as the test subjects for that too if you want,” she assured him as the alicorn opened the door with her magic and led us in without even a knock. Once inside, she called out. “Hey Mom, Dad, it’s Twilight and Shiny.”
“Twilight!” I heard the male voice that was much too high in pitch to be Nightlight. A second later, a purple dragon came running out from the back and latched on to the alicorn with enough force to actually make her stumble back. “You came. You really came!”
After putting a foreleg around the smaller creature, Twilight let out a tiny laugh, which made Spike look up at her. “Well of course I came Spike. Why wouldn’t I?” she said before tightening the hug. “I’ve missed you so much. We’ve written back and forth every day, but it’s just not the same.”
I had to admit, even though the little shit had nearly gotten Sunset killed with his paranoid crap and tried to turn Ponyville against me, a little part, a very little miniscule half of an atom of me was just a little bit glad he was seeing Twilight again. For his sake anyway. The feeling that I got from seeing Twilight happy about it far surpassed my joy for Spike.
She had been able to push the dragon issue to the side for most of the week as long as she had something else to focus on. But whenever someone brought it up, I could Smell the hurt inside her bubble to the surface.
The little dragon looked up at her with a huge smile. “Are we going home tonight? Or are we going to stay here until tomorrow and leave on the morning train? Or fly back?”
Twilight froze and the atmosphere changed from one of joy to a tense one, and I followed suit. She looked down at the dragon, and her smile slipped into a concerned line. “Spike, you are home. I just came for a visit.”
After seeing the death of hope on the dragon’s face, I leaned over to Shining Armor. “Uh…maybe we should, um…take a tour of the house?” Twilight and Spike needed time to work out their thing. I was just a distraction…and needed to get the hell out of there.
“But you said you were coming for me in your letters!” Spike whined.
“Coming to see you Spike,” Twilight corrected him. “Coming for a visit. Not…not what you...what you want.” The last word caused a droop of her ears, and I winced at the purple princess’s pain that assaulted my nose.
On the outside of the little drama, Shining nodded. “Good idea. Come on Cadence, let’s go say hi to Mom and Dad.”
The pink alicorn shared a worried look with the purple then motioned us forward before looking back to Twilight again for a second. “You going to be okay?”
Twilight nodded and said, “Yes.” The building Scent of depression spoke otherwise, but…I really had no idea what I could do to help her in that particular situation. Best thing for me to do was avoid the emotional explosion, and pick up the pieces when it was over.
Of course that meant abandoning her while Spike was giving the alicorn puppy dog eyes, and I locked gazes with Twilight for a moment, unsure of what to do. Sure the best thing to do would be to get the hell out of dodge, but…that almost meant leaving Twilight to the mercy’s of an emotional dragon.
It was only when she smiled at me and nodded that I could unstick my hooves from the floor and go forward with the others.
“But Twilight-” Spike got out before we turned a corner into the dining room and I managed to tune the dragon out with the help of what I saw. On the other side of the area, across a little counter of a bar that was behind the dining table, Twilight’s parents were busy fixing dinner.
The father was tossing a salad with his magic while the mother was working on what looked like some kind of pasta with broccoli, cheese, and maybe a few other green things that made me glad I didn’t eat food. With the talking going on in the other room, and the wooden floor of the dining room beneath us, we didn’t even need to announce ourselves before Twilight Velvet looked over. “Shiny, Cadence, and…um, Fairy, isn’t it?”
If I hadn’t been a changeling, I wouldn’t of noticed anything. But since I was a bug pony that could read the emotions of other creatures with a kind of psychic sniffer, the sweet Scent of a lingering fear that I could only call nervousness filled my invisible nose. But since it wasn’t outright panic like last time, I couldn't feel all indigent. Take what you can get and all that. “That’s right,” I told her. “Well, my full name is Omnifarious, but…that’s such a mouthful one of my friends helped me shorten it. I prefer Fae though, if you don’t mind.”
A quick eye movement was shared between the two unicorns, and they smiled back at me with grins. I had to wonder just how real they were. “So um…where’s Spike?”
“Living room with Twilight,” Shining said as he inclined his head in that general direction.
Velvet and Nightlight shared a hesitant look, and then the stallion let out a little cough. “Yes well, um…Omnifarious, was it? Is it true that you’re…mentally a stallion?” he asked.
Whether by celestial intervention, memory of our first encounter, or just something Spike had told them, I didn’t care. Being thought of as a girl by the majority of Equestria might have been…manageable thanks to repeated exposure to the concept, the fact that the man had remembered to at least ask about calling me a guy put him a little closer to my good graces.
So I smiled and nodded. “That’s right, even if I don’t sound or look like it.”
“How about you and I have a word or two in my office, shall we?”
Not seeing any harm, and pretty certain if the fearful pony had set any traps to destroy the evil monster that was trying to steal his daughter from him, I could shrug off what a damn astronomer could cobble together up easily enough, I followed Nightlight through a back exit that led to a little sitting room behind the living room before I went into a hall containing a few bedrooms as well as a bathroom. Nightlight’s office was at the very back. Most likely, it was a former bedroom that had been converted into his personal workspace.
For once, I wasn’t put off by the wall to wall bookshelves. Which was more like a wall of bookshelves, although they weren’t filled to the brim with just books. There were a few other knickknacks, pictures of the family, a little decor that was more nerdish man cave than anything else. I saw an astrolabe on one shelf, a miniature telescope on another, a plaque here and there for some astrology things. It looked a lot like I would have expected Twilight to decorate the castle if she ever got around to it.
And like any office, there was a nice big desk made of what I guessed to be mahogany, polished up nicely with a very expensive-looking chair behind it, and a pair of less than comfortable chairs out in front. Real, made for humanoid creature chairs, not the ones that ponies usually employed. The one behind the desk had enough room for Nightlight to sit doggy-style, but I was left with uncomfortable thing that left me in the Lyra position.
It made me wonder what that crazy mare got into during her youth that she actually wanted to sit all slouched.
Of course the atmosphere did a little for the man’s mood. His office was his…happy place more than likely. At least as close to it he could get in the house anyway. But…it only helped a little, and the small room probably did more harm to Nightlight’s mind than good.
After all, I was a changeling in unicorn transformation magic form. One of the two big side effects of being a fake alicorn was that my pheromone production was constantly on at a level that just screamed ‘you want me’ when it came to males. Mares too apparently, but it either didn’t affect them as much, or girls were just better at hiding their feelings than boys when it came to stuff that made them horny.
But alone, in a little room with nothing but musty old books and junk with us…I was just hoping Nightlight really loved his wife. For some reason, ponies that fell in love were very resistant to my unintentional charms. I didn’t know if it was cultural, biological, or maybe even some kind of magical thing, I just knew I could stand in front of Mr Cake for a long time, and the only thing he would do is take a break afterwards to full his Cupcake’s oven up.
“Please, sit down,” the man told me before I did so and he opened a compartment on his side of the table. “Drink?”
I shook my head. “I only drink water.”
Nightlight nodded. “Oh come on now, it’s only cider,” he said before his horn lit up, and I was treated to the sound of a drawer closing after a small bottle of the stuff floated up with a pair of small glasses that landed on the table. “A least one drink. It’s the good stuff, with added salt.”
Since I had no idea the significance of cider manufacturing, the comment meant little to me. It looked like I would be needing to ask Applejack about it when we got back to Ponyville. “No thanks,” I repeated.
A bit of disappointment entered his Scent, and I sighed. “I’m sorry, I just don’t drink. It’s nothing against you,” I told him. “But thank you for the offer.” I also didn’t want to see if changelings got drunk of a single sip of the stuff to end up looking like a jackass for the rest of the night.
I was here to try and get along with Twilight’s family. Not scare them off.
Light sighed, but nodded and some of his nervousness whisked away. Then he spoke again when he should have just kept his damn mouth shut. “So…you’re dating my daughter.”
I tried to. I really, really tried to.
But…no I couldn’t do the whole cliché father with a shotgun polishing thing. I knew Equestria ran on the damn things alongside about a million tropes, but I drew the line at the whole daddy male dominance chest beating thing that demanded I kowtow to him. Plus, it was really hard to think of a guy as the alpha male when his power level ranked about three hundred to my nine thousand plus. Despite the fact that he was the father of Twilight Sparkle, Nightlight wasn’t anything special as far as unicorns went. And then of course there was his Scent. Scouter reading aside, it was pretty hard to be afraid of a guy that Smelled about ready to have a heart attack. Although the fact that it didn’t show it made me a little impressed by his composure.
So I grabbed onto that to keep a little bit of respect for him. That, and the fact he had agreed to let me come into his house for dinner and try to let us all get along. He was trying. So I could too. “I love your daughter with everything that I am,” I told him evenly. “I’ve loved her for months, and I’ve cared about her for even longer than that.”
The dark blue unicorn cleared his throat in an uneasy way. “I see.”
“And she loves me,” I went on before he could get to some prepared question like my job prospects or some stupid shit like that. “Even more than I love her.” Which was true. She had been fine with me wanting to try for Rainbow Dash and actually took the initiative on the whole thing. I was still a little apprehensive about Tia, and if any of them wanted to try for a guy…no, I wasn’t even going to go there.
The strength of Nightlight’s fear increased, and I frowned at the odd reaction as he spoke. “I see.” After the unicorn took a swig of his darker than usual cider and gulped it down, the glass wavered in the air for a few seconds before it hit the desk. “Phew, needed that for this,” Nightlight told me before he looked over to me and took a deep breath. “I would like to say I’m sorry for what happened when we first met.”
The sudden change in conversation threw me for a bit of a loop. Out of all the reasons I had been expecting to be called into Nightlight’s office to discuss things, that had not been one of them. A little male posturing and shotgun polishing, sure. Poisoned cider wasn’t out of the question either after the Empire debacle. An apology was…nowhere near the top ten scenarios of what I had been expecting.
It threw me off. Pretty bad. “I…um…thank you,” I said to him before that annoying little voice in the back of my head reminded me that if the other side was offering their hand, I needed to reach out a little too. Damn ponies were really making that crap stick. “And I am sorry that I frightened you. To be honest, I’ve lived in Ponyville for so long, I forgot that most ponies out there are still pretty afraid of changelings.”
It was a bit of a lie, but…one he needed to hear to help smooth things over.
I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t want to be something that comes between Twilight and her parents,” I told him. “That’s-”
“WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP BRINGING THAT UP SPIKE?”
“BECAUSE YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE!”
I blinked at the muffled voice of Twilight Sparkle and Spike that even managed to pierce the walls in the back of the hall room me and the old man were in. The loud and pained shriek of a question made me feel like someone had stabbed a knife through my heart, and I looked back towards the door. “Um…how about we talk later at dinner?”
Not even waiting for the reply, I bounded up and out of the uncomfortable chair before I ran through the main hall in time to see a door to my left slam close. I found Twilight in the middle of the floor sitting down on her ass. The girl’s hind legs were spread out to either side, and her wings twitched when I reached her.
“Twilight, are you okay? I…what...what happened?”
Twilight sat there for a moment, and then her whole body shook. She slumped forward a second before attempting to draw in a deep breath, and another, and then another. I just barely made out the tears falling from her eyes on their way to the floor.
There was no decision of whether to comfort my purple pony or go after the monster that made her cry. I was just over to Twilight’s side as fast as I could reposition myself, although a bought of unfamiliarity had me unsure of what to do next. I didn’t comfort ponies just sitting in the middle of the floor all that often.
Twilight set the course of action for me. The girl just latched onto my body, and I stumbled back before we reached the edge of a couch. After I got us both up in it, she just went limp in my forelegs, deeply drawing in breaths as she fought down what was probably a massive panic attack. I pulled her up against my chest to rest right under my chin.
“He said…he said…I didn’t love him anymore,” the alicorn told me in a weak voice.
I kissed the mare on the forehead and held her closely while I whispered into the pony’s ear some basic anti-brat tantrum stuff. “You know that’s not true Twilight, he’s just a little upset.”
She didn’t respond, and I just held my girl and looked up as Nightlight caught up with me. Velvet, Shining and Cadence had already been in the room, more than close enough to get there before I did, but… The half a dozen different reasons why they didn’t do anything ran through my mind, which went from having to put down the food to one of them tripping on the wooden floor before I pushed it aside. I didn’t care why they had been late, just standing there stunned when I showed up, or whatever the hell had been going on while I had been too busy with Twilight’s distress to notice.
Time passed.
It felt like an hour, but it was probably a great deal less. I think Shining Armor went to try and talk to the dragon at one point, but I heard Spike shouting at him to go away in a muffled voice. The end result was the prince came back in the living room where the rest of us were sitting. We were joined by the rest of the family before then of course, but Twilight was unresponsive to them. Hell, she barely responded to me. But any attempt for me to get up was met by the mare latching onto me even tighter, so there I lay with my girlfriend grabbing me like a life preserver for several minutes.
For awhile, I thought about having someone go fetch Celestia. I was way out of my depth in the whole sibling thing, but…hell, Velvet and Nightlight didn’t even know about Dash and Rarity, dropping the bomb about just having a date with the national deity would only add more emotional problems to a bad situation.
“Why would he say something like that?” she finally asked in a whisper. “Does he really think that? Why would he think that?”
The pain in her voice stabbed at my heart, and I just held the little pony all the tighter before kissing her on the top of her head again. “He’s just a little upset Twilight,” I tried to reassure her again.
“No he…Spike, he…” Twilight trailed off between pants as her breath continued to go from quick and even to steady at an excruciatingly slow pace.
I found myself faced with a myriad of actions. But since just marching in and shoving the child’s face into what he had just done wasn’t really an option with the rest of the ponies around, and he had to survive the process of whatever I did do, I simply continued to hold onto Twilight.
Another bundle of minutes passed. Some of the family talked to Twilight, and Twilight responded a little half-heartedly. I got the basic rundown from Cadence though. She sat next to us on the couch and explained everything when I asked what happened and Twilight clammed up.
“Well you saw how they hugged before we…left them alone,” she began. I was never more grateful for an alicorn that was comfortable with her pegasus-level hearing. It was useful for so many more things than just talking to other fliers in gale force winds. “I think I heard Spike telling Twilight what he had been up to, and then he asked if they were taking the train home tonight, or waiting until tomorrow. Just went out and asked it again.”
Twilight sucked in a breath. “He thinks…he thinks I’m here to take him back to Ponyville,” she told me softly. “Why…why would he think that? Why would he-I never told him that in my letters.”
As I held my little pony, I wished my disregard for privacy had been strong enough to ignore Twilight’s back when it had mattered and that I had taken a peek at her correspondence before any of the messages were sent. I spied on everyone else’s mail after all. But no, I had to go and do the respectable thing like some kind of idiot. Now, Twilight was hurting and I was feeling like crap. That was what being the gentleman had gotten me.
My own problems aside, the question was, did Spike simply misinterpret what Twilight wrote, or did someone else offer him false hope? Of course the likely suspects were the two adults in his life. Which made me wonder if they just told the kid what he wanted to hear to try and cheer him up rather than trying to get him adjusted to Canterlot. And...as much as I hated to admit it...if that was the way things were going to work in Velvet’s house...Spike staying with them probably wasn’t the best of ideas. Little piece of shit or not...he was important to Twilight and needed to be taken care of properly.
So...I was pretty sure Celestia could do something with him to straighten things out. Quick hand off to her, problem solved.
Sure Sunset had been kind of...egomaniacal, and Twilight was a little on the crazy side, but...third time’s the charm, right?
But from the looks of things...the ponies wouldn’t be suggesting any solutions. Hell, the fucking soldier in the room let himself get run off by the child, and the alicorns were girls. Which meant it was up to me.
“Cadence?” I spoke up towards the pink pony. “Can you take Twilight?” I’m going to go talk to Spike.” And of course, the blood circulating in my body decreased as Twilight held on to me even tighter.
Shining Armor let out a nervous groan. “Uh look, let’s just give them a minute and-”
I spoke up right over him. “He’s had plenty,” I said with a frown on my face a sharp tone in my voice that stabbed his protest to death. “Now would some pony please help me with Twilight? Way I’m feeling right now, my magic isn’t going to be anywhere near gentle if I have to get her off with my horn.”
If anyone caught the very bad play on words, they didn’t say anything.
And I was too focused on telling a little lizard what for to be embarrassed.
Unfortunately, only a little help from Cadence came in the way of a supporting hoof on Twilight. So I was stuck in the living room couch for at least fifteen more minutes while the pink pony coaxed the princess of the purple mane off of me.
No support personnel came with me, of course. Being the responsible and involved parents they were, Velvet and Nightlight found something else to busy themselves with. Dinner and work, respectively. Thankfully, Shining and Cadence stayed in the living room but, they got a pass. Never would have been able to get Twilight off without them.
I gotta say, I hate children on my best of days. Not the ones that are actually capable of thought, the ones in their mid to late teens. No, I’m talking about the little brats that think Spongebob Squarepants has a level of intelligence they should aspire to match. And yeah, teenagers can be that stupid too, but…that’s a point for another time. The point I had on my mind was: I hated kids; and for the exact reason that I was going to have to be dealing with Spike. Their super emotional, completely illogical minds that just did stuff and asked questions never.
Sure, Spike was in his early teens but…either thanks to dragon genetics or the fact he was locked up in a tower for most of his life, I put the majority of his maturity and common sense levels around that of the CMC. As in the little girls that had tried to get lion taming cutie marks when the circus came to town. Sans adult supervision of course. What made it even worse with Spike was that he had followed Twilight Sparkle around for his entire life. This made him smart, smart enough to fool some people into thinking he was mature for his age, when the exact opposite was probably more true. And a high level of intelligence added to a low level of maturity was a bad combination. It gave a kid the knowledge to do something, but not the wisdom to know when to do it.
Case in point: insults. A smart kid like Spike knew exactly was to say in that situation he was just in talking to Twilight. There was no telling Twilight how much he hated her, or something else she could write off as heat of the moment. He nailed the very point she was questioning herself, and left her to just drowned in pity and self-doubt.
Considering his mental age, I doubted the little monster even gave a shit about what he did to her by not bothering to care. Kids had some pretty powerful mental blinders when consequences weren’t shoved in their faces after all. By just running off before Twilight could break down all the way, Spike had managed to avoid the guilt of his actions. And it pissed me off to no end. That little bastard needed to be crouched over and in tears because of what he had just done to Twilight.
Thankfully, there was no need for property damage because the door wasn’t locked, and yielded to my magic as I nudged it open softly enough not to damage the thing.
I poked my head into the kid’s room, and kind of immediately wished I didn’t. It looked like any other child’s room I’d ever seen, which wasn’t many. There was a bed that had plenty of room for him to grow into, more closet space than he’d need until adulthood, and a little nightstand by his bed with a pair of pictures on it. One of them was of all the girls standing together with him, and the other was of Twilight’s family. There was space enough between them for a third, which I located quickly enough.
The little lizard was looking at a third picture in his hands, or claws, with the saddest expression I had ever seen him wearing. It wasn’t the panicked sadness he had back in the Crystal Empire when Twilight was giving him the news of his determined relocation. That had passed, the reality had sunk in and what had come about was a true, hopeless depression.
The more emotionally logical part of my brain shouted ‘GOOD! FUCK HIM!’ he hurt Twilight, and deserved all the pain he got in return. But…
...if I listened to that logic, I probably would have been ruling the world alongside Chrysalis, or already have knocked her off the throne and crowned myself king while I magicked the mane six into my love slaves and stole ownership of the heavens from the sisters before I turned them into my personal maids.
So...as much as I really...REALLY hated to admit it, there was something else that kind of shouted even louder in my ear was the proverbial angel on my shoulder going ‘YOU DID THIS’. It was the same thing that made me feel like crap and panic when I kind of told Twilight Sparkle she couldn’t be friends with her friends after first coming to Ponyville. And without the raging fury of a hurt Sunset to make that little voice shut the hell up, all I saw was a little boy about to be crying over a photograph that was probably pretty Twilight-centric.
So I took in a breath and opened the door all the way.
The door creaked, and Spike looked up with a jerk. When he saw me standing on the other end of the door, the boy froze, and gulped. “Um…h-hello.” Still in pony-mode, I had no idea what he was feeling, and didn’t really want to. It would only help the sympathy case the little bastard was building.
One thing that was real useful about having a female voice was that I could just cut back on the volume a little bit and go from Nightmare Moon regal to Princess Luna gentle pretty easily. With that and a little decrease in volume, I hoped I came across as a little non-threatening. “Hello Spike,” I said while bowing my head just a little to try and assume as much of a ‘I’m not going to kill you’ stance as I could.
Then, thanks to his little tear-jerking routine that was fighting against my need to bash his head in, I remembered my manners. “Can I come in?”
“Um…O-Kay,” he said in a similarly quiet tone.
I had to fight not to sigh at the nervousness in his voice, or shout at him that I wasn’t evil. But I made it to his bedside and looked around for a bit at the rather spartan room. Nothing else stuck out at me besides a box in his closet with some comic books. Then I looked back at the boy. “Can we talk?”
“Sure,” Spike replied without much strength while he kept looking at the picture in his claws.
Which of course made even more of my anger towards him drain away.
“This um…” I said before putting my hoof on the covered mattress. “Nice bed. Bet it beats that little basket Twilight had you sleeping in, huh?”
Spike sighed and hung his head even more. “It’s Twilight’s. I always slept in the basket,” he said before his eyes became half-lidded. “I miss my basket.”
Ouch, I thought while I felt the little dragon try and jerk some of my tears from their proverbial sockets. After that little exchange, I decided not to go with the meaningless small talk. “So how you holding up?” I asked. “Can’t be that bad. Bet it was great to see all your friends again.”
“Not really,” he mumbled before he looked back at the picture in his claws.
Curiosity getting the best of me, I sat up a little straighter and looked to see what frozen moment in time had demanded his attention. In the picture, Twilight was standing next to Spike, dressed in a pointy hat with bells on it and matching robe while Spike was in a purple suit that kind of made it look like a dragon was eating him. “Nightmare Night, right?”
He nodded, but said nothing.
“You had a lot of fun that night, huh?”
He nodded again.
I sighed, and decided to throw out the small talk that had a little bit of a point to it as well. “Spike, can I talk to you for a second? Really talk to you,” I went on while meeting him eye to eye. That usually got kid’s attention, and sometimes even made them take the subject seriously. Considering just what subject I was about to go over, I doubted that I would have problems with the second reason of the phrase.
“Okay,” he said in that same half-squeak of a voice that just made him look as young as…well…Sweetie Belle.
I took a deep breath and braced myself for whatever the hell the stupid lizard was going to say in his defense while I talked. “Do you know why Twilight did what she did by sending you here, I mean?”
The little dragon’s hesitant look went back to the depressed one that he had been wearing when I first walked in. “Because Sunset got hurt, and-”
“Actually…not really,” I said with a inward frown as I listened to my own words. It kind of pissed me off that had just been the fuel of the emotions behind the reason Spike got exiled from Ponyville with, but not the real reason. And yeah, I may have sort of guided Twilight towards her decision by pointing out a little problem Spike had in half a dozen different ways, but it still didn’t have anything to do with all that trouble that happened in the Empire at its core.
“The reason Twilight sent you away is because you…” I stopped as what I was about to say entered my head. I couldn’t say, because you saw her going out with someone else that wasn’t you, and panicked. “You overreacted, like…remember when she cast that Want it Need it Spell? Or when she tried to stop time?”
Spike looked at me for a few seconds, and then nodded.
“Well, she was afraid you’d end up like that if you stayed with her for too long,” I told him. Which…wasn’t exactly true. He had already reached an irrational level of paranoia involving me. “If for different reasons. For Twilight, it was how she can’t keep thinking every little thing is going to go horribly wrong. For you…well…among other things, it’s not being around Twilight.”
Thankfully, the boy’s face was human enough for me to read some of his emotions with my eyes. Unfortunately, what I read said he was even sadder than he had been a few seconds ago, sad and hurt. “But…that’s…Twilight…I’ve always been with Twilight! Ever since she hatched me!”
I cringed a bit at that little reminder towards the momma-Twilight belief and looked out the bedroom window to the nice and peaceful sky above for a second or two. The nice calm sky that didn’t look at all like a crying child. But that didn’t last long, and I had to look back at the little lizard that kind of looked like a child on the verge of tears. It reminded me why I didn’t like dealing with kids below the age of sixteen. “Well…you weren’t for a week, and nothing really bad happened to you, did it? Besides the sadness thing, I mean.”
“But I…I…” Spike took in a breath through his nose that sounded like a sniffle. “Not…really.”
Spike flinched when I reached up to put my foreleg over his shoulder and around his back. A slight trembling in the boy’s body didn’t help me keep my composure any, but I managed not to start whispering an apology to shut that growing nagging in the back of my mind up. “So that means you can probably take another week, right?”
The trembling increased, and I was just glad I was a pony so I had zero chance of picking anything up when it came to what he was feeling. “I…well…um…yes, but… I don’t want to be here anymore! I want to go home!”
As Spike’s little whiney voice that was just spoken loud enough to be classified a squeak reached my ears, I cringed to as my body told me to just hug the damn lizard.
And...well…
…
I couldn’t take it.
Even after what Spike had done. Even after all the stupid bulllshit and crap that he had tried to pull...I actually felt sorry for the little bastard despite my best efforts.
He made Twilight cry, he tried to turn the girls against me, he nearly got Sunset killed, and tried to set Twilight up with Flashy Sentry, but… all that shit had happened a week ago, and while I could carry a grudge as well as most humans...without some sort of constant reminder to keep the flame of righteous fury stoked, they had kind of died down to embers.
So, My willpower took another kick in the balls, and…well…
I caved.
Yeah, I caved.
I wasn’t perfect.
There was only so much crying child even I could take.
I reached my limit, and I caved.
“Okay.”
“Wh-What?” Spike stuttered as he looked up at me.
I let out a grating sigh. “I said okay, we’ll...get you back to Ponyville.”
“But…but Twilight said…she said she wasn’t here to take me back.”
I gave him a little smile. “Maybe not when we first came here, but…” I took in a deep breath, and thought for a few seconds about what to say next. “Spike, can I talk to you like an adult for a second?”
Hesitation entered his expression, and I could almost see some little shiny light of hope enter his eyes as he looked over to me. “W-What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m not going to sugar-coat what I’m about to say,” I told him with a serious expression. “And it also means you’re not going to freak out about what I’m going to say, okay?”
Spike nodded.
“Okay, first off… Twilight was right when she said you have a problem,” I told him before waiting to see if he started to deny it or anything. When Spike didn’t…well, I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign. He was listening, but he was pretty…bla about everything too. No willpower to resist and all that. “Now, I’m not stupid. I know you think I’m taking Twilight away from you,” I said before pausing a second for dramatic effect. “And to some extent, you’re right.”
Spike tensed. His eyes widened, but…he still didn’t say anything.
I cleared my throat and licked my lips before removing my foreleg. “But not in the way that I’m mind controlling her, or stealing away all her love. Which I’m not by the way. Changeling feeding doesn’t really work like that. Twilight loves you just as much as she did the day you two moved to Ponyville. You can’t steal love. The pony who loves just makes more to fill demand.
“But I am taking up her time, just like Applejack and Rainbow, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie do. There’s only so many hours in the day. It’s like…remember when Pinkie cloned herself? Same problem,” I went on as soon as he nodded. “And I’ll admit, some of the things we did, we could have included you if we had thought about it, others…not so much.” The sex thing being a big one. “Twilight’s growing up and branching out, and unlike with your friends, the way she’s branching out with me isn’t something she can share with…family.” Considering we were in a potentially fatal four-way relationship, I wasn’t about to go with others, we were sharing plenty with others in that way. “And that’s something you’re going to have to accept if you come back.”
The little dragon took in a tight breath. “But…”
When nothing else came I gave the child a little smile. “And you need to be branching out too Spike,” I told him as gently as I could. “Foals, or uh, hatchlings your age, you need to have a few of your own interests. That’s what Twilight was doing by sending you here, she was trying to give you reason to find some of those things without the distraction that her presence provides.”
“But I just want to be with her,” he whined. “Why can’t I just stay with Twilight? What’s so bad about that?”
I turned my body a bit to face him completely and moved my hooves around to grab his shoulder while I kept up the soft voice with a little effort. “Being with Twilight isn’t a problem in itself. But when you just want to be with her, then it becomes an issue,” I explained. “You become greedy for her attention and her praise, and you try and take something that can only be given freely. Then you get all afraid that not getting as much attention means pretty soon Twilight isn’t going to be giving you any at all. You try and get rid of the competition, you make enemies of creatures that aren’t out to get you. And when you try and do that, bad things happen. That’s what Twilight was trying to fix. Understand?”
Spike just nodded.
“So all we have to do is convince her your problem is really fixed,” I told him simply before becoming a bit more thoughtful. “Or at least that you're on the road to recovery.”
That actually got a bit more of a reaction out of him than everything else I said combined. The little spark of hope in the dragon’s eyes lit up a bit, and he took in a few quick breaths. Going by human reactions I had seen in my life, the boy was getting a…panicked hope. It was like his brain was telling him there was something too good to be true and he shouldn’t trust it, while at the same time saying salvation had arrived. “H-How do we-”
My hoof came up to stop Spike from talking. “Now hold on a second,” I told him. “Even if we can talk Twilight into doing this, and you come back to Ponyville, it’s not going to make everything just go back to normal. Twilight’s sleeping with me in Everfree Castle now, and you’ll have to move in there too.”
I saw the lump travel down Spike’s throat, but he didn’t say anything while I went on. “You’ll get your own room, right down the hall from the one me and Twilight share,” I said, not seeing the point of glossing over that little fact. The subject of herding, the four of us girls could address with the kid when we were together. “And while it’s completely up to Twilight if you’ll be helping her with her magic and all that, the cleaning, the library, the…well, I think the girls would like your cooking better than that of a species with no taste buds. But everything else, the changelings will take care of it so you can do whatever it is you want to do.”
Spike frowned a little, and tilted his head. “But I don’t want to do anything else.”
“That’s the point of having you do other things,” I told him while finding the need to restrain my voice and not clench my teeth. “You need to branch out. You need to…well…find what you’re good at. Every pony likes getting a pat on the head for a job well done, but that isn’t the only thing that should motivate you Spike.”
The dragon looked down at the ground for a second and clasped his hands together. “Twilight said something like that to me once…I think.”
Of course I knew that, having spied on Tia while the whole thing was going down. But I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell him that. Hell, I could even use it.
“See Spike?” I asked. “That proves it. Yeah, I’m plenty upset with you, but when it comes down to it, I only want to help you here. Even though you tried to turn a whole town against me and actually succeeded in doing it with the Crystal Empire.” A low blow, but the longer I was around the kid, the less his depression really affected me.
“…sorry,” he said with a flinch. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”
Neither do drunk drivers when they plow into kids riding their bikes, but it still happens, my inner jackass said before I cleaned the thought up a bit. “You may have not have meant to start the proverbial fire Spike, but Sunset still got burned because of it,” I told him. “Being mindful of your actions and what could come of them, that’s part of what growing up is too. But don’t beat yourself up over it, just make sure not to do it again. That’s all you can really do…and an apology never hurts either.”
Spike just nodded, and then licked his lips. “Um…about talking Twilight into taking me back to Ponyville. How’re we going to-”
“Oh we’re not going to talk her into doing it,” I told Spike before letting my mouth curve upwards in a smirk. “Honestly, that mare is so stubborn I doubt she’d listen. Am I right?”
A tiny laugh came from the dragon’s mouth. “Sometimes.”
I messed with the top of the kid’s head for a second in a way that would have destroyed any hairdo if there had been hair up there, and gave him a little brighter smile. “We’re going to convince her you’re ready to come back. There’s a difference,” I explained before I put my serious face on again. “Of course, this means your going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”
Despite the inhuman nature of the boy’s face, I could tell he was mulling it over. The hesitation kind of pissed me off a little, but…I didn’t let it get to me that much. After all, for all Spike knew I could just be setting him up so he’d never get to be with Twilight again.
It was an impossibility, but not in his little mind I guess since he actually had to think about it for a few seconds.
“I can,” he said after a moment.
“Then here’s what we do.”
I was a little surprised to find the hallway empty of ponies when I came out of Spike’s room with the dragon on my back. On the way to the living room, he shifted around uncomfortably and I tried to ignore the second creature to ever ride me while the ghost of my humanity screamed in protest at the whole thing.
Apparently, the parents had once again decided to grace Twilight with their presence, because I heard Velvet’s voice and saw Nightlight the second I came into the hall. “Just saying Shiny-honey, a seamstress seems a little…below your new station,” the mare told her son hesitantly.
As the words registered with my brain and I worked out that they had to have been talking about Rarity.
I looked back to Spike while using my long mane to hide it. While I never had much problems with most of the…ideas about which pony would go well with the others, which could pretty much be any combination that ran between Apple-Pie to Twi-Dash thanks to the close bonds all the girls shared, the whole Sparity idea was just… a thirteen-year-old kid dating or doing it with a woman in her mid twenties.
It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t cute. It was criminal. Literally, put Rarity in jail as a sex offender criminal. Greedy dragon growth hormone or no. Big did not mean old.
But I sure as hell didn’t want the little kid knowing Rarity had decided to run off with Shining while he was in such a delicate state. So before Spike’s little dragon ears let reality crush his heart, I cleared my throat and announced my presence rather loudly. “Hey every pony, look who decided to join us for dinner!” I practically shouted over Velvet’s conversation.
Towards the back of the room, I saw Twilight pick her head up off Cadence, and look over to where the two of us were. “Spike?”
I heard the dragon gulp before he jumped off me, using my hair like some kind of vine that made me grunt and nearly vaporize him on principle. Then he slowly walked up to the pony that was sitting down, and looked up to her. “Twilight…I, um…I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said those…things. I know, I know you still love me. It’s just I…I…”
Thankfully the kid didn’t say anything more before Twilight started talking, and I found something else to concentrate on while things got too ‘I’m sorry for making it sound like I was saying something else in my letters’ to ‘I’m sorry I bla’ and ‘I’m sorry I bla bla’ and ‘sorry bla bla bla’ and so on.
By the time they were done, there were hugs between the two, and Velvet said dinner was getting cold.
So we sat down and started eating. By some act of God, none of the adults decided to bring up Rarity. Although because Velvet had been in the death throes of her protests, or because some of the assembled equines had a brain underneath their ears, I neither knew nor cared.
When the conversation about work, how the Crystal Empire was, and all the nothing happening in Ponyville hit a lull, I looked over to the dragon. “So Spike, how do you like it here in Canterlot?”
“It’s okay,” he said without much fire. “It’s just…you know…not as fun as Ponyville.”
I fake frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
He sighed. “There’s just nothing to do here, ya know. No adventures or anything. And all my Canterlot friends are busy doing…Canterlot stuff. Unicorn schools and apprenticeships in jobs their cutie marks are good for.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You know Spike, Ponyville wasn’t all that adventurous either. How many times did you complain there wasn’t enough to do when we first moved there?”
“But that was before I knew everypony,” the dragon replied with a bit more emotion than he had been talking to me.
The brake in the script had me grit my teeth for a second. “But um…Canterlot isn't that bad, right? I mean…you survived the week. World didn’t end, right?”
Spike sighed and slumped in his chair a little. “Yeah.”
“And Twilight came to visit, right?” I went on.
“Yeah,” he agreed before looking over to the princess. “And, I-I’m sorry Twilight. I-I shouldn’t have said all those things.”
A soft smile preceded the alicorn’s words. “You already apologized Spike. And I shouldn’t have yelled at you either. I’m sorry for…panicking like I did.”
Spike shook his head furiously. “No I-I shouldn’t have thought you were going to take me…b-back with you.”
Damn it Spike, don’t you fucking lose it now, I mentally commanded the lizard that had no way to hear me. If he started blubbering again about how he wanted to go home, I was pretty sure that Twilight would just seize up and start going on and on about how he needed to stay in Canterlot, and away from her.
So, with my brilliant plan hinging on an emotionally unstable youth, I decided to try something else called playing it by ear. I looked over to the purple pony sitting next to me. “Twilight, can I talk to you alone for a second?” I asked quickly. “In the back yard?”
One hesitant agreement and a teleport later, and I stumbled around to get my bearings on the grass since I went from sitting on a cushion with my tail all sprawled out to...having blades of grass poking me in my privates. Once I had regained my composure, I looked to the purple pony and cut straight to heart of the matter. “Twilight, we need to take Spike back to Ponyville with us.”
“What?” Twilight exclaimed as her eyes went wide and the little moment of sibling-love hesitation she had been experiencing the tail end of was burnt away. “No, Fairy, don’t you remember? Spike, he…it’s bad for him to be around me. I…remember all those things you said he did, and I talked to the other girls, and…if Spike comes back and lives with me, he’ll-he’ll just-”
I put a hoof on her shoulder to get the princess’s attention. “Twilight. You know how humans don’t have magic, so we really get hung up on the how things work?”
Twilight nodded.
“Well, because of that, we…get hung up on also has to do with thought processes, why the mind does what it does,” I went on after I ordered my thoughts a bit. “You follow me?”
The alicorn’s expression slowly turned to a disbelieving frown. “Sort of, but…what does that have to do with Spike? He’s not a human, you don’t know anything about his brain chemistry.”
“Not the brain,” I told her, “the mind. There’s a difference. It’s like…the brain is how things work the way they do, but the mind is why you think the way you do. And while there are some differences, I don’t think Spike’s mind is all the different from a young human boy’s.” He was sure as hell a lot closer than that of a pony’s from what I could see. Equestrian culture had removed them from humanity when it came to a lot of the selfishness and shortsighted things human kids tended to do.
Twilight nodded slowly. “Okay, I think I follow you. But…what does this have to do with Spike?”
I took in a deep breath and did my best to order my thoughts. “I think one of the core problems Spike is facing is this thing we call separation anxiety,” I told her. “Now, there are some more things too, but…with this one, its an intense fear that Spike is going to be separated from the pony that he loves the most. That’s you.”
“We already knew that though,” she told me, and I realized I had made a bit of a mistake starting my explanation in such a way.
So I shook my head. “Yeah, but it goes beyond just a fear of separation,” I told her. “There’s also a…nameless fear that makes Spike think something bad is going to happen to him, or to you, if your apart for a long period of time.
“And like I said, it’s just one of several problems, a lot of which I’m in no way qualified to mess with.” I had only taught a high school class on psychology a lifetime ago for crying out loud, I was in no way a doctor. “But I do know that going from a world filling presence like he used to have with you to just one day a week isn’t a good idea when it comes to dealing with this.”
Twilight was silent as I finished. Her Scent was a confusing mix of fear, anger, happiness, and maybe half a dozen other Smells. But her lips weren’t as moving. She just…looked at me.
It was…pretty damn unnerving, really.
I broke eye contact and cleared my throat. “Look, um…I know it’s not my place to tell you how to raise your-”
“Y-You’re saying you think it’s okay to take Spike home?” Twilight asked softly. “That it won’t hurt him?”
I looked back at Twilight, and gulped at her hopeful face. “If we...do it right,” I said before sighing. “Look, sorry. Like I said, it’s your call but…I’m here to help you…if you want me too.”
As the dragon looked up at Twilight with tears in his eyes, I was hoping I wasn’t making a really big mistake and shooting myself in the foot thanks to a moment of pity for the kid. If something bad came from this…I wasn’t going to be living with myself very well.
“Now there are going to be some changes Spike,” Twilight told the hopeful dragon.
He quickly nodded. “I know Twilight! I know! We live in the castle now, and I need to apologize to Sunset, and…and um…”
“Not this weekend,” Twilight said, cutting him off. “But every weekend afterwards, you’ll be spending it here in Canterlot. So schedule things to do with your friends then, okay?” she asked.
Spike nodded. “Anything you want Twilight!”
I winced at his choice of words, and Twilight stomped her hoof into the carpeted ground of their living room. “No Spike!” she nearly shouted. “This isn’t about what I want, or even what you want. This is about what you need! Understand?”
It took him a few seconds, but Spike slowly nodded.
“I…I know you need me Spike,” Twilight went on. “At least, for now you do. But you also need to find your own way and…I’ll help you with that, like Celestia helped me, remember?”
As Spike did the smart thing and simply nodded again, I let out a tired sigh, and looked up at the clock. “Hey Twilight, we need to hurry over to the school if we want to make it in time for class.”
No tardy freak-out followed, but Twilight did visibly tense as she glanced up at the clock, and then turned her attention back to Spike. “Okay, um…Spike?”
“Yes?”
“We’re going to be staying here tonight, but leaving on the first train for Ponyville tomorrow morning,” Twilight told him. “So I want you packed and ready to go. There’s also some other things I need to tell you, but they can wait till tomorrow morning, okay?”
Spike nodded very enthusiastically. “Okay Twilight! And I’m sure it’ll be fine. I can, I can deal with anything you need me too.”
The boy’s final words before we said our goodbyes made me wince. There was no way him coming home like that was going to end well. But I had already set the avalanche in motion.