“You feel better now?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.

“Yes, surprisingly. I feel like I should be panicking right now.”

“Honestly, first you forget our first night together and then you scream in horror. I'm not feeling very flattered right now.”

Twilight chucked, “Sorry Rainbow, it's just a lot to process.”

“That it is. If somepony told me last week that my best friend would turn into a stallion and rut me to Elysium and back, I would have laughed in their face. But Twilight, never let somepony say you're not awesome.” Rainbow glomped the stallion and squeed in joy. “Best heat ever.”

“Oh, oestrus.” Twilight's eyes widened as her irises shrunk to pinpricks, “I'm so, so sorry Rainbow, I'm an bad, awful, terrible, dreadful, atrocious, abominable, unspeakable friend. I violated your trust and exploited you at your greatest time of weakness. There is nothing I could repay you for what I have taken from you and if you don't want to be my friend anymore, I understand.” Twilight looked down, tears streaming down his face.

Rainbow sighed, and grabbed Twilight's chin, lifting his muzzle so she was staring directly in his eyes “Look at me Twilight. Do I look like a mare who feels like she has been taken advantage of?”

“No, but ...”

“No buts Twilight. I wanted this, more than you could imagine, more than I could imagine.”

“But ...”

“What did I say, Twilight, no buts. If anything it's me who should be sorry. If I hadn't been flying through the castle faster than I could see, I wouldn't have crashed into you and this would have never happened” In truth Rainbow mostly blamed Cloudchaser, but that hardly seemed to be the thing to say. It's not like she held too much malice for the mare who had facilitated such a wonderful night. Anyways, as much as Rainbow loathed it, Cloudchaser was a member of her weather team, and using your subordinates as scapegoats just wasn't on. It was the fastest way to loose any trust and loyalty they had for you.

“But...”

“No buts.”

“Rainbow, stop interrupting me, please. You were in your oestrus cycle; I knew that and I still couldn't stop myself from taking advantage of you. I don't deserve to be your friend.”

Rainbow sighed and rolled her eyes “Exactly, I was in heat. You're the egghead, tell me what a mare in heat does to stallions.”

“The pheromones released by a mare during her oestrus cycle cause stallions to experience a number of typical symptoms: increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased sexual desire, increased endurance, decreased inhibition and judgement impairment. Such symptoms are most prevalent in full grown stallions with limited exposure to mares and in some extreme cases can result in a complete loss inhibition and judgement.”

“And you have to be the most extreme case I know; I mean – unless you have something you want to tell me – you couldn't have been a stallion for more than a week. Hay, you didn't even need Stallion Up to preform, and that's unheard of.”

“It has been about sixty hours since I became a stallion.”

“See, you shouldn't beat yourself over something that wasn't in your control.”

“That's just it. I am a royal alicorn; I can't afford to lose control like that. If I can't even control myself, how can I even hope to rule.”

“Everypony does things that they aren't proud of, even the coolest pegasus in all of Equestria has done some things that she regrets.”

“Yeah, Fluttershy was rather ashamed of the whole Iron Will incident”

Rainbow didn't know whether to be relieved that Twilight seemed to have regained his sense of humour or angry that he had insulted her. “Oh, so I'm just your second choice then? I'm insulted.”

Unfortunately Rainbow's joke was poorly received, as Twilight looked down dejectedly. “I'm sorry Rainbow, I'm a bad friend, it's all my fault this happened; please don't hate me.”

“Ugh, stupid, stupid Rainbow, why don't you think before you open your mouth?” Rainbow berated herself before moving beside Twilight and putting her wing over the crestfallen alicorn. “Twilight, that was a joke. I don't blame you for any of this, and even if I did, I would never hate you. Before you came into my life and brought the six of us together, I had no friends – well there was Fluttershy, but I hadn't talked to her in five years and didn't even know she lived here – I was just the arrogant big city pegasus in the small earth pony town. The worst part was that I didn't even believe that I needed any friends; I was just one young mare who had no better dream in life than to be famous.”

“Yes, but, but, I took advantage of you”

“No we slept together while we were both hornier than Spitfire in the Wonderbolts' change room.”

Twilight looked at the mare questioningly.

“Trust me, you don't want to know” Rainbow visibly shuddered “I think I'm still traumatized from walking in on that.”

...

“What I was saying is that last night was consensual on both sides – for a given amount of consent – and there is no reason to beat yourself up about it.”

“But, statistically, friendships usually die after two friends engage in sexual intercourse with each other. It becomes to awkward to continue.”

“Seriously Twilight, Discord couldn't keep us apart for long, we were Elements of Harmony. Anyways we don't have to just stay friends.” Rainbow nuzzled the stallion beside her.

“Ugh, Rainbow, that proposal has even more going against it. Almost no romantic relations that start with coitus survive more than a month and most romantic relations between long term friends not only break up rather quickly, but usually ruin the friendship they had before.”

“Seriously, Twilight, buck statistics; they only apply to average ponies, and we aren't average. You're the former Element of Magic, an alicorn and you have crazy powerful magic, and I'm the former Element of Loyalty, the fastest pegasus in Equestria and I can break the sound barrier, which many ponies still believe is impossible.”

“But statistics never lie.”

“I'm bucking tired of this.” Rainbow grabbed Twilight's face with her hooves and looked straight into the alicorn's eyes “I'm terrible at expressing my feelings, but last night was the best bucking night of my life, and I'm insulted that you belittle and blame yourself for things that are not your fault.” Rainbow pulled the shocked stallion into a powerful romantic kiss that showed deeper feeling than she would have ever believed she would feel.

As Theory watched the horrific scene before her, she wondered whether she was the only sane pony to ever step foot within the labyrinthine tunnels of the Twilight Manor (well, mostly sane). She had never seen a kitchen in such a poor state in her life, and doubted one had even come close in the history of ponykind. The stove was on fire, the toaster smashed beyond recognition, batter (and numerous other unrecognizable fluids) was everywhere (they had even managed to spill it inside the fridge) and most terrifyingly, one spill had completely eaten through the solid granite counter-tops.

When her older sister had told her that she was marrying into a noble house, Theory had imagined a large manor in the centre of Canterlot filled with rich arrogant prudes who were more concerned with appearance than substance. It would be impossible to describe exactly how surprised Theory had been when she actually met the Twilights, an entire house of borderline lunatics that took pride in doing everything completely different than everypony else, many things that were taboo for the rest of ponykind were accepted and often expected within House Twilight.

Theory winced as yet another kitchen appliance exploded. She decided that it would be in her best interest to vacate the premises and search for waffles elsewhere.

Theory snuck quietly into Sparkle's room, eyes on the stolen goods that had been left carelessly unguarded as the thief held the prince in passionate embrace. Theory approached the plate of golden brown deliciousness without a sound.

Unfortunately, in the moments preceding the liberation of the light fluffy waffles the unicorn locked eyes with the pegasus.

Rainbow broke the kiss involuntarily launching herself backwards into a wall with a scream.

Twilight slowly turned around and stared the unicorn mare in the eye. “Theory, what are you doing in my room?” Twilight's voice was calm but menacing.

“Waffles?” Theory's nervous answer sounded more like a question than anything else.

Twilight swiftly brought a hoof to his face. “So you sneak into my bedroom, invading my private sanctum and scare poor Rainbow into a wall because you wanted waffles?” Twilight looked at the plate of waffles that had been untouched since Rainbow had brought them into the room. “Here I was thinking you were the sane one.”

Theory didn't answer, rather Rainbow chose that moment to enter the conversation “I wasn't scared, I just wasn't expecting one of your weird cousins to walk in on us.”

“You will need to get used to other mares, otherwise you probably shouldn't be with a Twilight. Anyways I'm not actually related to him by blood, and my sister married her father, so even if I was, I would be her aunt not cousin.”

“What? Doesn't that mean that you're related.”

“No, my sister is not her mother, so there isn't any blood relation there.” Theory said before turning to Twilight. “Am I right to guess that you failed to mention the Twilight family structure to your friends.”

“Wait, Twilight told me last night about the Twilights being polygamists.”

“I did?”

“You told me everything.” Rainbow paused “Well, not everything, I still don't know why you have fangs.”

“Oh, that's easy. The Twilights are part vampire.”

“Theory!”

“Part vampire? Do you mean vampire fruit bats, like that time with Flutterbat?”

Twilight sighed, “Theory, you can't go around blurting things out like that.” Twilight turned to Rainbow, “And no, not vampire fruit bats, actual vampires.”

“Wait, do you mean 'undead blood-sucking creatures of the night' vampires, because I thought those were fictional.”

“Yes, and they weren't. And they weren't technically undead either, they just had their mortal soul sucked out and replaced with a congealed mass of blood and shadow magic.”

Rainbow gagged in disgust, throwing up in her mouth, “They had their soul sucked out? Who would do that? And how are you descended from such soulless abominations”

“'Soulless abominations' or not, the vampire fiefdoms represent a truly unique and utterly fascinating culture. Did you know that House Twilight has the only known collection of vampire artifacts. For example, we have a goblet that, when filled with the blood of a victim and then drunk, will transfer the very lifeforce from the victim to the drinker. It is believed that the goblet, and others like it, were used by the Vampire Lords in order to obtain a kind of quasi-immortality. It is truly a shame they had to be so thoroughly annihilated.”

“Thank you, Theory, for your exposition.” Twilight rolled his eyes, and turned to Rainbow “Sorry, Rainbow, Theory here is fairly excitable and doesn't understand the concept of tact.”

“Hay, it's not my fault you ponies are completely without a sense of curiosity”

Twilight ignored Theory, “But to answer your questions: yes they were ponies with their soul sucked out, and while we have no idea where the first vampires came from, or how they were created, they 'reproduced' ...” Twilight scowled in disgust, “... by sucking all of the blood out of a victim and then replacing it with their own blood.”

“That is all horrific. But how are you descended from them?”

“It turns out that despite lacking a soul, vampires are fully capable of producing children with normal ponies. Those children, known as dhampir, maintain both a mortal soul and a many of the abilities of vampires.”

“And you are descended from these dhampir?”

“Yes, it's a bit of a long story, but many dhampir ended up revolted against the Vampire Lords, and many of those revolting dhampir ended up joining of the Orders Stalwart.”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense. But why did I never notice them before?”

“Eh, vampires have a weak normality field, targeting their inequine features. It's hard to notice a vampire's fangs unless you know they're a vampire, The same goes for dhampir. Anyways, I didn't even have fangs until I became an alicorn, the blood is very thin in the family, it's been more than a thousand years after all. In fact before I became an alicorn, my little sister was the only one in the family with actual fangs.

“Your little sister?”

“Little Twilight Twinkle, she's adorable if quite unruly.”

“So you are descended from vampires and have little sister, how many secrets do you have?”

Theory started laughing, “If there's anything I have learned in my time with this loony bin of a noble house, it's that it's secrets all the way down. Did you know that the Twilight House Guard is the number one bounty-hunting organization in Equestria.”

“It actually makes quite a a bit of sense that you grew fangs when ascending, your Divinity probably recognized the vampire magic as a distinct tribe's magic and enhanced to the point that it was roughly equivalent to your other tribes of magic.”

“Ignoring me are we? Well, did you know that House Twilight is the only pony house with a seat in the Griffon Empire's Senate due to our exceptional continuing contribution to the empire's defence against the rebellion?”

“Divinity? What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, right, you were taught by Princess Celestia; she always liked to pretend that she isn't a goddess. Divinity is the unique alicorn magic that allows you to be simultaneously a unicorn, pegasus and earth pony while giving you special influence over your Sphere of Influence.”

“Oh, you mean alicorn magic.” Twilight paused, “Wait did you just imply I am a god?!”

“I mean, you are. The living pony god of magic or friendship probably. Or magic and friendship.” Rainbow put her hoof to her chin, “Or maybe even sex. We should probably try a few tantric rituals, I'm sure you could learn a few nice ones.”

“Hmph, well let's see you ignore this.” Theory took a deep breath, “Did you know that Sparkle here was expelled from no less than eleven different elementary magic schools before she became Princess Celestia's personal student?”

Rainbow's eyes widened, “Wait Twilight, is that true?”

Twilight sighed, “Theory, why do you do this. Yes, it's true. I was a horrible little filly when I was young, and it didn't help that my mother is psychotic and only encouraged my bad behaviour. I did quite a few things that I am not proud of and Celestia had to spend my whole first year as her student on ethics and moral philosophy.”

“She led a coup against her school and then tried to secede from Equestria.”

Rainbow laughed, “Wow, I would never have guessed you were such a rebel, you always seemed so straitlaced.”

“Twilight was like a completely different filly before Celestia got to her. It's honestly fortunate that we didn't know about changelings at the time or we would have suspected that she had been replaced by one. That couldn't have ended well, the Twilights were already paranoid enough.”

Rainbow winced, “Yeah, bucking changelings. What are they even good for.”

“Hay, one of my best friends is a changeling.”

“Wut?”

Twilight snorted, “I didn't know you did friends, Theory.”

“Fine, one of my casual acquaintances is a changeling. Not like you're one to speak; I remember a certain little filly who was even more antisocial than I am.”

“I say again, wut?”

“That was before I learned that friendship was an essential component of shooting a 'harmony beam cannon' at dark gods.”

“So your friends are just a weapon to you, you're a cold son of a bitch, Twilight Sparkle. I like that.”

Twilight rolled his eyes and deadpanned, “Ha, ha, Theory, you're so funny.”

“Okay, what is all of this about being friends with changelings!?” Rainbow shouted, “they're like the enemy of ponykind or something.”

Theory rolled her eyes, “Only one changeling hive was responsible for invading Equestria, and they're all dead. Several hives have outright allied with House Twilight and Princess Lepidoptera is practically one of us already.”

“Seriously?”

Twilight sighed, “Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate that Chrysalis's invasion soured our relationship with the entire species; the changeling can be strange, but they're not generally malicious. But at least the war gave the militaristic factions of House Twilight something to do other than concocting ridiculous plots and spiralling further into paranoia. And as Theory said, we even made some friends in the Badlands.”

'War, what war?” Rainbow's eyes widened, “Wait, are you implying that you invaded the Badlands!?”

“Yep, invading the wedding of Sir Shining Armour was a grave insult to the house and changeling hives don't dismantle themselves,” Theory chirped happily, “Anyways, Chrysalis was not very well liked in her homeland so it wasn't terribly hard to rally a coalition of hives against her.” Theory paused, “I did say it's secrets all the way down with the Twilights.”

“Honestly, it isn't even that strange as far as major noble houses go, nopony is going to go to war under Celestia's eye. So the houses take their conflicts elsewhere and regularly engage in proxy wars.” Twilight explained, “I know of at least four noble houses that support the rebellion in the Griffon Empire. And that is nothing compared to the mess that was made in Yakistan, thank Celestia House Twilight never got involved in that conflict.”

“If anything, House Twilight is honourable about our wars. We don't start wars unless attacked, only get involved in existing conflicts when it's requested of us and fight our wars ourselves instead of hiring shady mercenaries under the table.” Theory scoffed, “Honestly there have been times where different members of the same house would support different sides of the same conflict; you would never catch House Twilight doing that”

“Are you saying that the many wars outside Equestria are due noble houses interfering?”

Twilight sighed, “Not all of them, not even most of them. But at least a few of them are started by some house or another, and that just shouldn't be acceptable. Of course it's always using mercenary armies paid through a deniable middlemare, and woe befall you if you accuse them of such.”

“Wow,” Rainbow paused, “And Celestia just lets this happen?”

“If Princess Celestia knew about this she would certainly put a stop to it, but the noble houses have had a thousand years to perfect their secrecy. When I tried to explain the evidence to her, the only thing I got was a lecture about believing in 'conspiracy theories', how I shouldn't throw around such strong accusation and how they couldn't possibly hide something that big from her.”

“That seems pretty in character for Celestia, she always saw the best in ponies and was extremely slow to accuse her ponies of wrongdoing. In fact, all investigation, criminal prosecution and espionage ended up being handled by Luna. It was one of many reasons Luna was the less popular Princess.”

“Wow, you talk about the Princesses like you know them.” Theory laughed.

“I do?” Rainbow asked in confusion.

“Yeah.”

...

Twilight broke the silence, “Rainbow?”

“Yes?”

“Many of the things we've spoken about, both last night and this morning, are fairly sensitive.”

“You don't want your secrets spread around.”

“You can't tell any of the girls what I just told you. I don't think they would be nearly as understanding as you have been.”

“Okay, sure Twilight, I will keep your suspiciously secret secrets secret, probably.”

Twilight narrowed his eyes at her.

“What? You don't trust my word?”

“Rainbow, that was one of the weakest promises I have ever heard.”

“Okay, fine.” Rainbow took a dramatic pose, “I, Rainbow Dash, swear upon the Element of Loyalty that I wilt tell no soul what thou, Prince Twilight Sparkle, hast told me today. If I break this oath, may all brand me traitor 'til the end of time itself”

Twilight just stared with his mouth open as Theory laughter caused her to choke on a waffle that she was eating. Rainbow had a flare for the dramatic, but the archaic Equish made the whole thing so absurd.

“Was that promise strong enough for you?”

“It wasn't what I was expecting. But, sure it will suffice.”

“Twilight, oh Twilight, wherefore art thou Twilight?” Theory quipped between laughs.

Rainbow narrowed her eyes at Theory “What's up with her, and why is she asking stupid questions?”

“She's making a crack at you for using archaic Equish in that oath by mangling a Shakespeare quote.”

“Ah, Shakespeare, I was never much for theatre, but I do remember his plays being the talk of Equestria whenever one came out.” Rainbow tilted her head slightly at Twilight,”And, what do you mean by 'archaic Equish'?”

Twilight mouthed 'when they came out; to himself, “Well you said 'wilt' 'thou' and 'hast', in fact you spoke very much like how Luna speaks, just without the royal we.”

“Really, that's weird, I remember speaking normal Equish” Rainbow rubbed her forehead with a hoof.

“Yes, that is extremely particular, have you been spending ...” Twilight blushed as he was cut off by a massive growl from his stomach. “We'll talk about this later, right now I'm hungry.”

And so the plate of waffles ended it's epic journey satisfying the hunger of a pegasus, a unicorn and an an alicorn.

Here's the redone chapter 12. Quite a lot has changed in this chapter.

Sorry for being slow with this chapter, I haven't really been able to focus well these last couple weeks. Especially considering winter hit pretty hard in the last week of November here and decided not to believe in the outside for that week.

Been busy trying to look for a job or something and finally managed to apply to EI (after 3 weeks waiting for a code that I don't actually need and probably won't ever come).

Thanks for reading my story.