by Fuzzyfurvert
***
Twilight blew her bangs out of her eyes as her cab pulled up into the guest drop-off semicircle in front of the hotel she was staying at with the girls for Mardi Gras. She paid the driver and climbed out into the quiet, muggy Louisiana night. The three strands of plastic beads around her neck clicked and rattled along with her movement, bouncing across her t-shirt covered chest.
Twilight looked down at them as the cab drove off to pick up other people looking to escape the still raging party that was going on in the French Quarter, several blocks away. She’d gone out late to hunt down a M.I.A. Pinkie Pie, when a text to her phone from AJ let her know that their friend had reappeared at the hotel room covered in more confetti and glitter than seemed possible. They’d even sent her a picture. Twilight had started back on foot at first, but the crowds and the unfamiliar territory soon made that next to impossible.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the loud music and revelry in the streets. Whatever the cause, it had an affect on her and before she’d managed to flag down a ride, she had the beads. Physical proof of overcoming her fears and self conscious nature. Evidence that she’d actually flashed her goods at the crowd of party goers. The first one was a flash in every sense, a blink-and-you-missed-it sort of thing.
The second one was longer, and won her a larger, more elaborate string of colored plastic spheres. The third was an experiment. At least that’s what I think it was. Did a more substantive flash equal bigger and better beads?
Twilight fingered the third set around her neck, walking through the automatic doors into the cooled lobby. That set of beads was metallic and had a larger circumference set on a thicker cord that hung down to her belly button. Initial results point to yes. I just wish I could have found my bra again afterwards.
She crossed her arms across her front as the AC cooled air in the lobby gave the strings of beads something to catch on through her flimsy t-shirt. Twilight nodded to the bored looking concierge behind the front desk, picking up her pace when she heard the elevator around the corner ahead ding. “Hey! Hold the door!”
Twilight broke into a sprint the last few yards, a pale hand holding the elevator door open for her to breathlessly skid to a stop through. She laughed, coughing into her hand before turning to her lift partner. “Hehe...thanks...these elevators are so slow and I’m all the way up on the fourteenth floor…”
“I know, I’m on the sixteenth—wait...Twilight Sparkle? Is that really you?”
Twilight blinked, her distracted mind catching up to her and processing just who her elevator savior was. She hadn’t seen her since the graduation ceremony some six weeks earlier. That last time, Principal Celestia was wearing the traditional cap and gown. Normally, her attire was a sensible suit with pants in light, neutral colors. Twilight could only think of a handful of times she’d seen the principal in a skirt in her four years at Canterlot High. Now she had a new occasion to add to that short list, wishing once again that she had the legs capable of pulling off that look half as well as her former principal.
The beads around Celestia's neck definitely weren’t usually a part of her standard dress.
Principal Celestia stared back at her with wide eyes, taking in the trinket-esque necklaces and the protruding evidence of her lack of a bra under her shirt. Twilight could see her mentally putting two and two together and then rejecting the result. She folded her arms across her front again, covering her chest a little more, and eyed the Mister T levels of necklaces the school administrator wore on top of her considerably more ample bust.
She cleared her throat once the elevator doors were firmly closed, entrapping the two of them alone for the next couple of minutes while it climbed the hotel floors. “Um...enjoying Mardi Gras?”
“I-I-I...I’m not here for that.” Celestia glanced down at her collection of cheap jewelry. “Administrator conference, actually. We...my sister and I...had a late dinner nearby.”
Twilight nodded, one eyebrow raising incredulously. “Pretty late for dinner.”
“Oh you know how it goes. We got to talking about...things.” The principal flushed and then stood a bit straighter, which only served to reinforce how short her tight skirt was. “What about you? Having fun before getting into your college studies?”
“I guess you could call it that. Pinkie really wanted to see Mardi Gras and we’re all over eighteen now…” Twilight shrugged, causing her beads to rattle again. “...I’m not sure how I even got these.”
“I’m not sure how I got these either.”
The elevator dinged for the fifth floor, the only sound as the two women studied each other evenly. When it chimed again for the sixth, they were grinning, Twilight’s arms comfortably at her sides, Celestia resting back against the opposite wall, one hand on her hip. By the time the seventh floor was announced, they were both laughing openly, their combined collection of necklaces clicking and clacking along with them.
When she had her breathing under control again, Twilight pointed at the beads Celestia was wearing. “That’s a pretty impressive collection, honestly.”
Celestia chuckled again and lifted a few in one hand. “Thank you, but the secret is this push-up bustier. All I had to do was open a couple of extra buttons on my jacket and I was getting them two at a time.”
Twilight looked down at her own chest. “I actually lost my bra after the third time. Thankfully it wasn’t the only one I brought for the trip.”
“That explains a few things.” Celestia smirked, crossing her arms under her bust and shaking her shoulders with tiny movements. “Be glad you’re still young, Twilight. A few more years and too much cake will leave you in sore need for proper support all the time, like me. But I can’t imagine how you managed to completely lose your bra!”
“It was an accident, I swear!” Twilight giggled, but she shook her head at the idea of ever being as stacked as the woman in front of her. That would take a miracle. Or surgery. Or both. She bit her lip though, as she looked over the types of beads Celestia had. “I know there isn’t really a codified set of rules to it...but I only got the metallic ones after I flashed the high beams. You’ve got...um...rather a lot of those.”
“Why, yes, I do.” Celestia replied flatly, her eyes searching the tiny space for something other than Twilight to focus on. The chime for the tenth floor sounded. “Give it a few more Mardi Gras and you’ll figure out how to do it without losing anything.”
Twilight nodded silently, blushing and stuffing her hands in her pockets. The eleventh floor ding came and went. The twelfth ding was followed by her gently clearing her throat.
Celestia looked up, idly plucking at the hem of her tight skirt, the action making her suddenly seem much younger. “Yes?”
Twilight slipped her three strings of beads up and over her head, clenching them in hand, before meeting Celestia’s eyes, her voice shaky and quiet. “I...uh...have three sets. Think I could trade you for...a demonstration of your...uh…technique? So I don’t lose any more bras, of course!” She added quickly.
The thirteenth floor chimed past with Celestia staring at the plastic necklaces, frozen in shocked thought.
The fourteenth floor finally arrived and the doors slid open. Twilight dropped her eyes, her hand with the beads lowering. “Nevermin—”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“If you want...to see my…” Celestia glanced down at herself, color flooding her neck and the little triangle of exposed flesh between the jacket’s collar. “...my technique, that would be an acceptable trade. Just not here. My room, perhaps?”
Twilight swallowed, a small smile appearing on her lips.
The elevator doors closed with yet another ding, the fourteenth floor hall just as empty as it was a minute ago.