Crystal, Velvet, and Horsey were all nestled onto pillows that were placed in a circle on Crystal's bedroom floor so that they could face one another. The arrangement made it easier to hold a conversation, but more importantly, it made it easier to share the large bowl of popcorn set between them. The lights were dimmed to add a dramatic flair to their late-night conversation.
"It was pretty heartbreaking," Horsey admitted with a heavy sigh. "He said I'm a good friend." Her ears drooped. "Just a friend!"
Velvet winced. "Ouch." She tossed a few pieces of popcorn into her mouth. "You've been put in a friendship zone. That is really hard to get out of, especially when a stallion puts a mare there."
"But you shouldn't give up hope!" Crystal tried to reassure her, shooting a quick glare at Velvet.
Horsey shook her head. "It's my fault. I was doing really well in the LARP club. Too well, I think. Now they see me as one of the stallions." She slapped a hoof to her forehead and groaned. "I shouldn't have tried so hard! I should have just been a little damsel so he'd see me as a mare."
"Well—" Crystal rubbed her hooves together. "We could always try to put together a situation where he would have to see you that way."
Velvet nodded. "Yes! If you just, say, stumble and hurt your—"
Crystal raised a hoof, stopping her mid-sentence. "No, no, we don't want him to think she's weak," she said with a growing smile. "What we have to do is make sure Horsey gets the part of Julimare for the play. 16-Bit will see her on stage and held by another stallion. Then he'll realize his feelings when he becomes jealous and rush the stage to snatch her away!"
Horsey frowned, her brow furrowed. "Crystal, that kind of stuff only happens in your stories."
Crystal stuck out her lower lip in a pout. "It could happen in real life, too." She crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Okay, what's your great idea, then?"
Horsey pondered for a moment then shook her head. "I guess I don't have a better idea, but I'm pretty sure it won't work." She smiled. "And I need to get used to being in the spotlight anyway if I want to be on the runway."
"Hurray!" Velvet clapped her hooves together. "At least one of us has to get a special somepony. Otherwise, that is just really, really sad." She looked at Crystal just in time to see her blushing and gasped. "Crystal?!"
Crystal jerked her head to the side, raising a hoof to hide her face. "What?"
"You're blushing!" Velvet pointed at her.
Horsey pointed as well. "You are! Oh my Celestia!"
"What happened?!" Velvet grinned. She scooted closer to cuddle up against Crystal. "Tell us! Come on, tell us!"
Crystal laughed as she was nearly cuddled off the pillow and onto the floor. "All right, all right! There's not much to tell." She waved a hoof at Velvet to shoo her back to her own pillow. "There's a stallion in my writing club, Midnight Poem."
"Oh, just his name alone is attractive," Horsey cooed.
"He's never really talked to me before—"
Velvet raised a hoof to her cheek and squealed, "How cute! He's shy!"
"—but I think he may have flirted with me."
Horsey and Velvet squealed with excitement, looking at each other with big grins and then back at her. Crystal laughed and waved her hooves.
"But he hasn't talked to me since, so maybe I was just reading too much into things!" She sighed, lowering her hooves back down, her gaze falling with them. "Or maybe I said the wrong thing and chased him off. I'm not sure, to be honest."
"Well, did you flirt back?" Velvet asked.
Crystal fidgeted uncomfortably, not meeting their gazes. "I might have been too confused at the time to flirt."
"Come on!" Horsey buried her face in her hooves and laughed. "How can you, the sole expert on romance in the room, be confused?!"
"I mean, well, it's like you said." With a sigh, Crystal crossed her forelegs and dropped her head down to rest on them, staring forlornly at the bowl of popcorn. "This is real life. My stories are just stories, nothing more."
"So you are just going to assume that a stallion can't be interested in you for whatever stupid reason?" Velvet reached out and lightly swatted the back of Crystal's head. "You are more hopeless than romantic!"
Horsey pulled the bowl of popcorn closer to herself and munched on some while she pondered their situation. "What are you going to do?" she finally asked. "Wait, first of all, do you even like him?"
Crystal shrugged. She flopped over onto her side and stretched out all of her legs, giving a low, whining groan. Her legs dropped down and she curled them close to herself. "I don't know!" She closed her eyes and buried half of her face into her pillow. "I mean, it didn't feel like love at first sight or anything. My heart only skipped one beat! Just one! Sure, I blushed, but I just didn't feel any magic. How can I know if there's no magic?"
"What about Violet Bloom?" Velvet pulled the popcorn bowl over to her side of the circle. "She didn't fall in love with her stallion at first sight."
"True." Crystal rubbed her hoof against her leg. "It was a lot of fun to write that special moment when she realized that Charming Nectar was her one true love. Maybe I just have to give Midnight Poem a chance."
Horsey squealed. "That takes care of me and you!" She turned on Velvet with the narrow-eyed look of a hungry predator. "What about you? After all, you're the most popular of the three of us. Are you really going to tell us you don't have anypony after your heart?"
Velvet scrunched up her nose, shaking her head. "Nope! I'm not really interested in a special somepony. It just won't work out long term." Crystal and Horsey looked at her with sympathy and she laughed, waved away their concerns, and continued, "And I'm okay with that! Who wants to wait around while I'm touring with a ballet company?" She puffed out her chest. "I have my eyes on the Royal Ballet of Equestria, you know."
Crystal looked at her with slightly widened eyes. "Really? You need to start tryouts now, then! I've heard it takes years to get a spot in their company."
"I've been practicing under Shimmering Waltz, so I think I have a good head start." Velvet shrugged.
"Who's that?" Horsey asked, grabbing the popcorn bowl.
"Only the first ever prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet of Equestria!" Crystal exclaimed, her eyes glittering. "I didn't know she was your teacher! Oh, that absolutely improves your odds!"
Both Horsey and Velvet gave her a look, the latter asking, "How did you know that?"
Crystal grinned sheepishly. "After you discovered you wanted to be a ballerina at Nightmare Night, I did a lot of research so I could make sure we'd still have something to talk about."
"Really?" Velvet flushed. "You did? For me?"
"Of course! I figured you'd be learning ballerina stuff, so I didn't want to get left behind."
Horsey gave a playful pout. "Is that so? What about me?"
Crystal turned her head and looked at her with a serious expression. "Breezy Ribbon, Veiled Orchid, and Sunset Radiance."
Velvet glanced between the two. "Who are they?"
"Wow!" Horsey stared at Crystal with a distinctly impressed look on her face and in her voice. "They're all models that my dad's boutique sponsored."
Crystal nodded. "Breezy Ribbon was famous for her signature thousand-yard stare that nopony could look away from. Veiled Orchid came over from Saddle Arabia and enchanted Canterlot with her exotic fashion. Sunset Radiance was controversial because she was a little overweight, but she had the most unique eyes."
The other two applauded her effortless recital while Crystal sat up on her haunches and bowed.
"Thank you, thank you," she said in a haughty tone as she curled back up on her pillow. "You don't have to say it. I'll say it." She raised her nose in the air. "I'm a much better friend than both of you."
Horsey laughed. "So just because we don't know any famous authors we're not good friends?"
"Oh, I didn't say that. You did!" Crystal winked.
"Or maybe you're not a good friend, you're just crazy." Velvet rolled her eyes, giggling.
"Whatever." Crystal laughed, raising a piece of popcorn and bringing it to her waiting mouth. "You two just don't understand me."
A companionable silence fell on the girls as they shared the popcorn, each musing their own situations. Finally, Crystal cleared her throat.
"So, we're all good friends that can share secrets, right? All three of us?"
Horsey and Velvet nodded, both looking a little curious. Horsey tilted her head while Velvet leaned in.
Crystal fidgeted on her pillow. "I bought something. But both of you have to promise not to tell anypony about this. Ever." When the mares crossed their hooves over their chests, she opened her mouth, then closed it. The start of a blush heated up her cheeks. "Well, um—"
"What?" Velvet grinned. "You're blushing again! What is it now?!"
Horsey gasped. "You can't just leave us hanging like this!"
Crystal's whole face grew hot, but she stood up and trotted over to the chest of drawers. "I thought it looked really cute in the magazine so I ordered it, but…" She trailed off as she retrieved something black and pink from one of the drawers she pulled out. With her back to the other two, she took a deep breath, then turned around. When she held up the item in her hooves, both of them gasped.
"Is that—lingerie?!" Horsey exclaimed.
Sure enough, Crystal was holding up a pair of black, lacy undergarments with little pink ribbons tied into bows on the sides. Her face was bright red as she quickly explained, "It looked really different on the model! I honestly thought it was sleepwear for warm nights or something!"
Horsey's face was similarly red and she looked at a loss for words. Velvet, on the other hoof, doubled over with laughter.
"Oh—my—Celestia!" Velvet managed between gasps for air.
"It's not that funny," Crystal mumbled. "What am I supposed to do with them? It'd be a waste to throw them out, but I can't wear them!" She clutched the undergarments to her chest almost protectively. She had paid a fair amount of bits for them, after all.
Velvet sat up, clutching her sides. She got her wits about her just long enough to wheeze, "You—You could wear them—to school. I'm sure—Midnight Poem—would flirt with you then!" She burst into laughter again.
If it were possible for Crystal's face to get any redder, it would have. She picked up her pillow and threw it at Velvet. It hit her right in the face, knocking her over onto her back.
Horsey gasped. "Crystal!" A grin crawled onto her lips and she stepped off her own pillow to pick it up and throw it at Crystal.
Crystal caught the pillow before it hit her face and returned it with the same force back to Horsey. By that point, Velvet was upright again and holding a pillow with both hooves. With a playful heft, she swung the pillow around and smacked Crystal upside the head with it. Startled squeals and surprised laughter filled the air while pillows were flung around as weapons and raised as shields.
Eventually, when one of the pillows ripped open and feathers scattered all about, the mares fell to the floor in such a fit of giggles that the battle came to a forced draw.
Once they were able to breathe again, Crystal and Horsey used their magic to gather up the feathers while Velvet plucked a few out of the bowl of popcorn.
"I guess it's true what they say, huh?" Velvet commented from where she sat, watching the feathers magically collect into a pile.
"What's that?" Crystal and Horsey asked at nearly the same time and giggled at their unison.
"I think it'd be pretty clear from how that was like, the best time we've ever had." Velvet flicked a piece of popcorn at Crystal and grinned. "Mares do just want to have fun."
While Crystal groaned and put a hoof to her forehead, Horsey picked up her pillow and threw it at Velvet, knocking her over as they all laughed once more.