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The Birds, the Bees and Weak at the Knees2,630 words
And They Facehooved Into the Night, OR: "It's Like This," said Luna2,186 words
Ponish Whispers at Twilight's Expense, OR: That's What She Said!2,914 words
And a Vodka for the Princess, OR: On second thoughts, better leave the bottle1,724 words

The Birds, the Bees and Weak at the Knees

"What a glorious day!"

Twilight, along with her closest friend, confidant and general factotum, Spike, was out enjoying a morning walk amidst all the splendour that Spring had to offer. The daffodils were yellow, the blossom was pink, and the grass was green - so no change there then. It was a warm, sunny, delightful day, and all of nature seemed to be out and about making the most of it.

As they meandered at a suitably languid pace through Windigo Wood, they came upon a narrow, ancient bridge over a babbling beck, the sound of which the two of them found to be most pleasant. They paused for a while, watching the fish swimming lazily beneath them, the squirrels leaping from branch to swaying branch, and a pair of white rabbits cavorted playfully on the patch of bare earth by the water's edge.

In fact, they seemed to be having a rather more 'playful' time than Spike had at first realised, and he glanced away, blushing at their lapine shamelessness, instead choosing to focus his attention on the gentle swaying of the trees which stretched off into the distance in every direction.

But Twilight, to Spike's surprise, continued watching the lustful rabbits, merely smiling in an absentminded, mildly confused sort of way. "I wonder why they're doing that?" she murmured. "It doesn't look very comfortable."

Raising an eyebrow questioningly, in a manner which even Applejack would have been forced to admit was exemplary, Spike coughed self-consciously. "Hmm! Yes, well. . . perhaps we'd better leave them to it?"

Frowning uncertainly, Twilight seemed not to hear him, instead cocking her head to the side and gazing in undisguised confusion and curiosity at the wanton display of feckless licentiousness being performed a few feet in front of her.

Spike, beginning to feel a little confused himself now, though at Twilight's reactions to the scene rather than the actions of the rabbits themselves, coughed again. "Hmm! Twilight? Shall we carry on walking?"

"Eh? What?" Twilight, still engrossed in watching the lascivious rabbits, seemed hardly to have heard him.

The dragon was starting to feel thoroughly confused now, and more than a little concerned. "Twilight, are you alright?" he asked. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather continue our walk? It would probably be more. . . polite if we left them to it."

"What? I mean, if you like. But why? They're only playing - though it does look rather uncomfortable, and they're making such odd noises. . ."

Wincing as his ears picked up the breathless, eager panting sounds emanating from beneath the bridge, Spike implored, "Please, Twilight! Let's just - let's just leave, alright?"

Finally, the Princess stepped away from the parapet of the bridge and, with one last look at the indecent actions of the two other creatures present, rejoined Spike, whose face wore an expression of immeasurable relief.

This relief was short-lived, however, as Twilight next words confirmed his worst suspicions about her apparent lack of understanding. "I wonder what they were doing? I've seen it somewhere before - I wonder where? Oh! I know," she announced, evidently quite pleased with her phenomenal powers of recall, "I saw my parents doing something which looked just like that when I was a filly - and they were making all the same noises, too!"

Pleased to have cleared that mystery up, Twilight entirely failed to notice the growing look of horror which was spreading across Spike's face. It was some moments before he could bring himself to speak, and when he finally managed to, his words came out as nothing more than a slight rasping sound. "Wh-what. . ?" he scratched, before clearing his throat again. "What?"

"What d'you mean, Spike? What what?" Twilight chuckled merrily at her own half-pun.

"Do you mean to tell me," Spike continued, speaking very slowly as though asking a particularly slow eight year old for their take on the current political climate and what it might mean for Equestrian/Yak relations, "Do you mean to say that you have no idea what those rabbits were doing?"

Twilight looked worried. "I thought - I thought they were playing," she stammered. "Weren't they?"

Spike facepalmed painfully. Oh, for Celestia's sake! he thought, before running both hands through his spines in a subconscious attempt to get a grasp on the situation. "They weren't playing, Twilight," he told her.

"Oh. . ." Twilight glanced away into the trees as though searching for inspiration. "What were they doing, then?"

Spike took a deep breath. He someday hoped to have children of his own, if he ever met a suitable female dragon - female dragons being few and far between, especially this far from the border with their native country, Spike was well aware that it might be a long time before such an opportunity rose, but as dragons live for many hundreds of years, he was prepared to wait - and knew full well that, eventually, he'd probably have to have 'the Talk' with them. But never, in his wildest dreams (nightmares?), had he expected to have to give the Talk to Twilight, of all ponies. Twilight, who had such an encyclopaedic knowledge of almost everything!

With these thoughts rushing through his mind, Spike sighed heavily. It looked like it was up to him to fill this gap in Twilight's understanding, a gap which should have been filled a long time ago. "You see," he began, before trailing off again. No - there's a better way of explaining this.

"Do you know where foals come from, Twilight?" he asked, almost nonchalantly.

The Princess seemed relieved to be given a question she could answer; "Oh, yes!" she replied eagerly. "They grow them in hospitals, and when a mare and a stallion want one, they go to the hospital to get one! I don't know how much they cost, though," she added as an afterthought.

Spike facepalmed again; he'd hadn't realised it was quite this bad. "I'm afraid that's not quite right," he announced. It looked like he was going to have to start with the basics.

He took another deep breath. "You know, Twilight, what the difference is between a mare and stallion, don't you?"

Twilight nodded again. "Yup! A mare is smaller and has filly parts, while a stallion is larger and has colt parts!"

She's still using the foalish names for them! Spike exclaimed internally. Outwardly, however, he just smiled encouragingly. "Yes, that's right. And do you know what those parts are for?"

Twilight frowned in thought; this was evidently something which had never occurred to her to ask before. "Well, those parts of a pony are for the passing of urine. Aren't they?" she added, as though cognisant that there was probably something else going on that she was about to made aware of.

"Yes, that's part of it," Spike acknowledged. "But do you know why mares and stallions have different types of. . . private parts?" he inquired.

"Er. . . not really," Twilight admitted.

"Right." Spike wasn't quite sure how best to proceed, but decided that at the very least he must teach Twilight the proper names for what they were discussing. "Firstly, they're not called 'filly parts' and 'colt parts'. On a mare, what's visible on the outside is called her 'vulva', which leads to her 'vagina'" - Spike felt intensely uncomfortable now - "And on a stallion the main visible part is the 'penis'. Have you heard those terms before?"

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle, trying to recall whether or not she had heard these strange new words previously. "I don't think so," she replied at last.

Ye gads! Spike thought. Doesn't she know any of this? "Are you sure you've not read them before? In a book, maybe?" he prompted.

Twilight shook her head. "I'm quite sure."

Still wondering how she might have missed this vital information, Spike puzzled for a moment. Then he remembered that for many years Twilight's sole tutor had been Celestia, who was there primarily to teach magic, and so perhaps the private anatomy of ponies was not something that had ever come up in conversation.

"Okay," he continued, "I think we're getting somewhere."

He paused again, considering. "You're probably wondering how all of this relates to where foals come from."

He waited for Twilight to nod in agreement, then continued. "Well, I'm afraid it isn't as simple as just going to the hospital and buying a new filly or colt. You can't just get one on the market, or anything like that. Have you never wondered why foals tend to look a lot like their parents?"

"I thought it was just because they'd chosen the filly or colt that looked most like them. . ." Twilight murmured, her voiced trailing off as she realised how absurd that sounded.

"Well, I'm afraid it's not quite like that. You see," Spike swallowed, "A foal looks like his or her parents because it's made from genetic information contained within the mare and the stallion."

He paused, allowing time for this to sink in. When Twilight nodded, half-understandingly, he carried on. "When all the information is there, a foal grows inside the mare, until it's old enough to be born."

"WHAT?" Twilight's astonished shout rang out across the forest, scaring the squirrels back to their dreys, the foxes to their earths, and setting the rooks in the trees above wheeling and cawing angrily over the treetops. "A foal can't grow inside a mare, that's crazy!"

Oh boy, though Spike, beginning to regret taking this subject on - perhaps he should've left it to somepony with more experience. "I know it sounds impossible," he reassured her, "But trust me, it's true."

"But, but -"

As the newly enlightened mare seemed to be in great danger of hyperventilating, Spike made an attempt to calm her down. "Hey, it's alright, Twi," she said calmly, "It's perfectly natural. It happens to all ponies, and most other mammals too. It's what ponies mean when they talk about being 'pregnant'."

Twilight shut her eyes, and Spike could see she was counting silently to ten. After a moment, and with her breathing returning to normal again, she asked the question which Spike had been dreading. "But how," she wondered, "How does the foal get - how does it start growing inside the mare?"

"In other words, how does a mare get pregnant?" Spike paraphrased, playing for time.

Hurriedly, he ran through all of the possible ways of getting out of having to answer this most intimate of questions. He could run away - but Twilight would just teleport him back. He could pretend to have a heart attack. He could have a real heart attack - or maybe he could somehow just change the subject and hope she never, ever asked him to explain any of this to her ever again?

But in his heart Spike knew these options weren't plausible, especially the change-the-subject idea: Twilight could be jolly stubborn if she wanted the answer to something. So he took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and said, "Well - you know the private parts I was telling you about before?"

"The vulva, the vagina and the penis?" Twilight asked, seemingly totally at ease with these terms as though this conversation were about nothing more demanding than whether or not doughnuts should have hundreds-and-thousands on them or not.

"Er - yes, that's right." Spike was beginning to feel very uncomfortable round about now. "Well - to make a foal, there must information from both parents, the stallion as well as the mare. So for a mare to become pregnant - to conceive," he explained, "The stallion must transfer some of his genetic information to the mare."

Twilight nodded; so far this all seemed fairly understandable. "And how does he do that?" she asked innocently.

Spike gulped. "Well - you see - the stallion has to - he has to put his penis inside the vagina of the mare."

Twilight stopped dead, her eyes open wide. "But that's where the pee comes out!" she exclaimed. "Eww!"

Despite his discomfort, Spike couldn't help but feel amused at his friend's naïveté. "It's not just pee that can come out of the stallion's - er - penis," he added hastily. "There's another - er - liquid as well, which can come out of. . . there."

Still with a comically horrified expression on her face, Twilight stared at him silently; hurriedly, Spike continued, "This other liquid is called - hmm! - 'semen'. And it contains all the information from the stallion necessary to make a foal."

Her mind evidently still reeling from this influx of astounding knowledge, the Princess stammered, "B-but why? W-why would anypony do that?"

"Well, there are two reasons, really," Spike told her. "The obvious reason is to - er - to make a foal."

"And what's the other reason?"

Never in his life had Spike felt so supremely uncomfortable; trying to explain the whys and wherefores of sex to a pony who was, for all intents and purposes, a sister to him, whilst all the while attempting to hide his own member, which was hardening rapidly in response to the 'stimulating' conversation, was far and away the most difficult thing he had ever had to do. "Well," - he hesitated - "The other reason is that it - it feels pretty good. Very good, in fact."

Twilight frowned. "Wait - so you're telling me that having a stallion's penis inside her vagina feels good for a mare?"

"Yup," Spike answered briefly, "That's about the size of it."

His impromptu student glanced away into the middle distance, as though struggling to process and store this new information. "You say it feels good," she said at last. "How good?"

Sweet mother of Luna! Spike groaned to himself. "Well," he hastened to explain, "I'm not a mare, so I can't answer for mares directly. But for a stallion it's the best feeling ever, and I think it's the same for mares. Y'know," he added, "If you do it right."

"But - but then, why don't ponies do it all the time?"

Spiked blushed at the thought of ponies engaging in wanton sex on the streets of Ponyville. "Well, it's a very, very private thing to do. Ponies only have sex - that's what it's called - when they know each other very well indeed, and they love each other. In a romantic way," he added quickly, lest she start suggesting anything problematic.

"Oh. . ."

Spike sighed, relieved at the temporary respite as Twilight digested this latest snippet of information. He looked around at the trees around him, and felt intensely thankful that this conversation had occurred in a lonely, remote part of the countryside surrounding Ponyville, rather than in the village itself - the conversation was awkward enough as it was, without other ponies listening in!

Twilight still said nothing, and Spike felt he'd better explain one last, vital point to her. "You do understand, don't you Twilight, that everything I've just told you is very private? You should never ask anypony about any of this, especially as you're still rather a. . . rather a novice, at this sort of thing."

Twilight nodded, the unfocussed look in her eye making Spike wonder what she was thinking about. By now the two of them were approaching the edge of the wood, and the industrious, friendly sounds of a market town in springtime could be heard floating towards them on the gentle breeze.

As they left the forest, blinking rapidly as their eyes accustomed to the dramatic increase in light levels now that the trees were no longer shielding them from the majority of the sunlight, Twilight finally seemed to have collected her thoughts enough to ask one, last question - a question which set Spike's spines on edge: "So if you need two ponies, a mare and a stallion, to get that good feeling," she queried, "Why do I sometimes see you stroking your colt parts - sorry, I mean penis - with your claws?"

And then, Spike fainted.

Author's Note:

Just a daft one-shot that occurred to me over breakfast! Twilight seems so. . . 'innocent', in a lot of ways, that this sort of conversation probably did occur at some point (poor Spike!).