//------------------------------//
// 2 - Fooled Me 
// Story: Starlight, Star Bright 
// by BlackWater 
//------------------------------//








Welcome home, Twilight,” Starlight smirked from the purple pony's throne.
Twilight just dropped her bags by the door and rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Starlight,” she replied with exasperation. Her new marefriend of only three days had been exhaustingly smug.
Without waiting for any cue, Starlight teleported off the chair. She reappeared next to Twilight, who she was instantly giving a shoulder massage. “You look tired? Yak delegates still keeping you on edge? I know their visit was unexpected-”
“I'm fine,” Twilight answered all too quickly. “We should get to studying that selective shielding spell before sundown.”
Starlight kept up with the princess as she walked to the castle's study. Once they were inside, she decided to argue the point. “You sure about that, dear? You look far too stressed to properly focus. I know just the thing to help you relax and all you have to do is lie back and-”
“No,” Twilight spun on the unicorn and put a hoof to her chest. “We've been through this, Starlight. I'm new to this relationship thing and I still can't believe I went through with it in the first place. I want to take it slow.”
“What made you think I meant otherwise?” Starlight pouted her lips.
“Don't act innocent, dear,” Twilight squinted at her marefriend. “All you've wanted since I said 'yes' is to shove me against the headboard and-”
“Ooooh!” Starlight lit up with glee. “Sounds like you really do want it!”
Twilight's cheeks puffed up and she shook with frustration. “You're impossible to have a conversation with!”
Starlight's lips turned down. “Maybe if you didn't treat everything like a time bomb waiting to happen. Always slow and methodical. Well, the reason I beat you was because I was willing to take risks!”
“Risk is fine but you go too far,” Twilight argued back. “You're reckless. What if the risk becomes too much?”
“Afraid of losing me, Twily?” Starlight raised a brow and then managed to get her smirk back. She was rather good at regaining her smugness on a whim. “Because I assure you that you can't get rid of me no matter how hard you try.”
Twilight's rebuttal caught in her own mouth. True, Starlight's reckless self-confidence and outright arrogance annoyed her to death. But that deep dedication she flaunted casually was something Twilight was beginning more and more to realize was a basic component of her character. Twilight believed it too. She just didn't want to admit to Starlight that she trusted her on it because the girl was already insufferable enough and admitting anything would likely make it worse.
Suddenly both of them were teleported into Twilight's bedroom. Starlight's horn glowed from the spell and her hooves pinned the princess below her onto the soft properly made sheets of the bed. “Just keep putting it off,” Starlight taunted. “I won't wait forever. I'll take you in your sleep if I have to.”
“That's rape!” Twilight shuddered.
Starlight rolled her eyes. “Do you want to be intimate with me someday?”
“Yes,” Twilight answered almost in a whisper.
“Consent.”
“Hey!”
Starlight shrugged and then laid down so they were embracing on the bed as they often did in the later hours of the night. She nuzzled the mare's cheek and whispered sweet nothings in her ear while caressing her sides.
Twilight barely managed to get out two words before her body began losing all of the day's tension. She knew she couldn't fight the mare, so she tried another way. “Stop playing with my feelings.”
“I'm just helping you relax like I told you earlier,” Starlight whispered back. “Besides, even if you don't trust me to, I wouldn't push you farther than you wanted to go. I know that with enough time you won't doubt me.”
It was as Starlight's hooves moved to rub and caress the cutie mark on Twilight's flanks that a certain someone almost barged in. He cracked the door open only a bit before realizing what he was walking into and then silently retreated before being noticed.
“I did not see that,” Spike told himself again and again as he walked out of the castle in shock. “I did not see that. I did not see that. Who am I kidding? Twilight's a fillyfooler!”









“What's a fillyfooler?” Applebloom asked her family while they were all at the table for dinner.
Applejack spit out her drink. Big Mac blinked. Granny Smith just laughed manically. Maybe it had something to do with her old age, but she did so enjoy watching Applejack squirm to answer.
“Well, uh, you see,” Applejack stumbled along. “There's a, uh, no, um, you know how, no, uh, love?”
“What now?” Applebloom frowned.
“Two ponies,” Applejack tried to straighten herself out. “Two ponies fall in love. When those two ponies happen to be...female...sometimes they might be called fillyfoolers.”
Applebloom remained confused. “But why that? I mean filly-foolin'? What's the foolin' for? If they're really in love then nopony's gettin' fooled.”
Applejack really didn't want to answer that. She had heard the term herself some time ago from the city. She knew it could have negative connotations but then there was a mare couple right in Ponyville that used the term as if it were describing a fresh apple or bale of hay. The other explanation that came to mind was perhaps worse. “Fooling” in the sense of an intimate act.
Thankfully, Big Mac took the moment to offer his two bits of wisdom. “Might take some history books to find that one out.”
“Where'd you even hear that word anyhow?” Applejack had to ask before taking another sip from her glass.
The filly replied just as Applejack took another drink. “I overheard Spike. He was talking about Twilight.”
Applejack spit out her drink again.









“Twilight's a fillyfooler?!” Rarity looked ready to faint. Her couch was nearby, which was why Applejack was surprised she did not use it. They were in her boutique, so she was twice as likely to. “Oh goodness. Oh my!”
“I came here to ask if it were true,” Applejack was deadpan. She believed it was the best way to handle the drama queen. “I figured you seem to know most of who's what around here. What with being a gossiper and all. So it's not true then?”
“No! I mean yes!” Rarity looked around in an excited daze. “It makes perfect sense now. I knew there was a reason she chose the red scarf over the green one!”
“Huh?” Applejack's eye ticked.
“It was last year in Canterlot, darling,” Rarity looked back to Applejack as if she were offended the country mare didn't remember so important an event. “We were in Fifth's Boutique on Mane Street. It was snowing outside. Light flurries. She chose the red scarf for her Hearth's Warming outfit. It had hoof-woven tassels.”
Applejack's brows were a flat line. “Where's this goin'?”
“Yeah, I don't get it either,” Rainbow Dash added in.
Both the Earth pony and unicorn jumped at the unexpected voice. They looked up to see Rainbow perched on a high shelf near the ceiling. At some point she had slipped through a window.
“My boutique is not a shelter for rude arrogant pegasi,” Rarity bit out. She clearly was not pleased with other ponies butting into a conversation she deemed private.
“Yeah?” Rainbow smirked. “Tell that to your dresses.”
It was a tad off for an insult, but it worked well enough on the fashionista. Applejack made the mistake of snorting before she could hold back the rest of her laugh.
“Out! Out!” Rarity shrieked at both of them and drove them out with fabric flailing about in her magical grasp.
The farmer and weather pony only stopped running once they were well out and away from the boutique. It was nearly the countryside, which was testament to why they had been the best two ponies in last year's Running of the Leaves.
“Well, that was a short visit. More so than usual,” Rainbow joked to her apple-bucking friend. She trotted beside her rather than fly as she normally did. “I guess your 'news' put her on edge, huh?”
“It's not news,” Applejack denied. “Well, maybe. I don't know. I'd ask Twilight herself but it just seems a might personal, y'know?”
“What? Liking mares is personal?” Rainbow began to grin and nudged her friend. “I just thought it was a tea kind of thing.”
“What kind of what now?” Applejack furrowed her brows.
“Did somepony mention tea?” another voice called out to them.
“Oh, for pony's sake,” Applejack nearly facehoofed.
They had unintentionally been passing Fluttershy's cottage. It was just Applejack's luck that Fluttershy could overhear the word “tea” a thousand hooves away. It was one of her favorite activities, after all.
“Is somepony having a tea party?” the shy pegasus asked as she happily fluttered her way over to them, landing gently next to Rainbow Dash. The three of them were now standing on the road just before the mare's nature-nestled cottage.
“Applejack thinks Twilight's a fillyfooler,” Rainbow told the mare, half-lidded for some odd reason.
“No!” Applejack lost her calm. She didn't want to go around town letting everypony know she thought Twilight might be a fillyfooler. Though she had gone to Rarity and might even now be engaging in it herself, she hated gossip. She preferred minding her own business on her farm. But now here she was getting mixed up in what was likely to become a mess she'd be blamed for.
“Oh, that's just lovely,” Fluttershy nearly cooed. “It would be so nice to have a special somepony. Who's the lucky mare?”
“I don't know!” Applejack tried to clarify. “Look, if we find Spike then maybe I can have my answer and get back to Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Heeeeey,” Rainbow droned out, becoming very suspicious. “Now that I think of it, why is this so important for you to find out? You don't usually get into this kind of thing.”
Applejack saw Fluttershy lean expectantly around Rainbow Dash. She gulped and then knew she would never be able to lie. She just didn't have it in her. “Bet.”
“Bet?” Fluttershy echoed softly.
“I bet with Big Mac. A hundred bits Twilight's not a fillyfooler,” Applejack finally covered her face with her hat.
“Should have consulted me before putting down on that one,” Rainbow crossed her forlegs in self-assurance.
“How's that?” Applejack grumbled.
“I could have told you years ago.”
“You knew Twilight liked mares that long ago?” Fluttershy asked in awe.
Rainbow shrugged. “Well, duh. I always know when somepony is checking out what I have to offer. Twilight used to drill holes into my flank with her eyes. Almost thought she'd ask me out or something.”
“If you'll both excuse me,” Applejack hung her head low and started walking off in depression, “I've got to start working off my debt.”









“Stop it,” Twilight grouched. Her voice had steadily lost its calm and serene tone.
She was in the study, standing with Starlight before a large glass dome. They were supposed to be magically controlling a difficult plant-growing spell that required the finely-tuned climate of the dome's interior. It was hot and humid in there, but it seemed a certain unicorn was trying to heat things up outside of the dome as well.
“We've already solved the matrix complications, Twily,” Starlight rolled her eyes and proceeded to caress Twilight's wings and flanks.
“Are you going to keep calling me that?”
“Twily Twily Twily~”
The alicorn gritted her teeth. She would have felt great warmth in her heart if she knew Starlight was being sincere. Well, actually she knew she was being sincere. It was just the teasing and the arrogance that ground on her nerves and made her realize once more she had been too quick to accept the mare as a significant other. Had it been the heat of the moment that forced her to say yes?
Starlight rubbed her face against Twilight's pink and white stars. “Cutie marks are so nice, aren't they? Unique...exciting...warm...”
“Argh!” Twilight gave up, collapsed the spell, and turned so quickly that she nearly smacked the other mare. “I know you have an abnormal inclination to physical intimacy but that can't be the sole basis of our relationship! And what if Spike sees?”
“So?”
“I don't want him to know yet! I thought I told you to keep it a secret. You kept it a secret, right?” Twilight turned nervous. She gripped the unicorn's shoulders hard.
Starlight didn't lose a micron of her confidence. “If he knows then it's by nothing I'm directly responsible for.”
Twilight squinted. “What kind of answer is that?”
Before Starlight had to go through the laborious process of explaining herself to her marefriend, company crashed through the window. Shards went everywhere, once again leading Twilight to wonder how the pegasus doing the crashing was able to remain unscathed.
“Rainbow!” Twilight let go of Starlight and approached the blue mare, who was still on her back on the floor. She simultaneously used her magic to clean up the glass and fix the window. “How many times have I told you?! You could get hurt!”
“Just thought I'd drop in and give you my congratulations,” Rainbow twirled up into her usual hover and pointed at Twilight. A sly grin was on her face.
“For what?” Twilight became annoyed once more for a whole new reason.
“For getting bank before me,” Rainbow declared as if it were yesterday's news already. “I've got half the town lining up for me and yet you ring in before I do. Not bad.”
Twilight was perplexed just long enough for Starlight to snicker her understanding of Rainbow's lingo.
“What-?”
“No need to be shy,” Rainbow wrapped a hoof around her friend's shoulder. “Pinkie Pie throws great New Marefriend parties. You weren't in Ponyville back when she threw one for Lyra and Bon Bon.”
“How?!” Twilight panicked, trying to understand how Rainbow Dash knew about their relationship already.
“I'm just awesome like that,” Rainbow tilted her nose up and crossed her hooves in supreme self-confidence.