Cinnamon Swift didn’t fly often, but when she did, she certainly enjoyed it. It wasn’t that she was a bad flyer, or some nonsense like being afraid of heights—whoever heard of a pegasus who was afraid of heights, anyway? Rather, she didn’t fly very often because more often than not, her thoughts would drift in certain directions. Certain directions that really, really weren’t her fault!

Still, it was nearly impossible to fly when your wings stiffened up like boards.

After the fifth time she had crashed headfirst into the ground or cloud surface, Cinny had decided it was probably safer just to walk places. If Unicorns and Earth Ponies could do it, well, it was good enough for her! At least, that’s what she kept telling herself like a unicorn trying to cast a verbal spell.

Today, however, was special. Today, however, was a good day, and if her luck held, it was going to be a good, good night. A great night even! Hopefully she wouldn’t jinx it.

First, it was a super hot summer day, perfect flying weather for someone whose wings couldn’t always be called upon to remain totally flexible. Secondly, Canterlot University had finally coughed up the cash they were supposed to pay her for running their stupid cloud-based telescope. Which was good, because it meant the landlady wasn’t going to be giving her (as much of) the evil eye now that she could pay her rent.

But it was the third and fourth reasons on her List of Things To Be Excited About, that really made the day great; her novel was going to be published!

Cinnamon had received the news in the mail just that morning, along with her check from the University, and she couldn’t be happier. She had been trying to break into the publishing market for years now, ever since she had moved out of her parents' herd’s place and started living on her own—it made keeping the drafts secret easier, which was important because her parents weren’t exactly thrilled that she wrote erotic fiction. On more than one occasion, they had taken her work and burned it and everything! Burned it! The nerve!

It wasn’t her fault that erotica appealed to her so. Ever since she had started puberty, she had been more than a little bit interested in such things. She had always enjoyed writing and reading, of course, but once the hormones started flowing, she found herself pouring them into her works.

Unfortunately, the preoccupation meant that sometimes—

Cinny grimaced as her wings started to stiffen, and after a moment’s thought she managed to relax the muscles holding her airborne before she ended up planting herself in the Canterlot pavement. Perhaps flying wasn’t the best idea today after all. Especially not since she couldn't help but think about the fourth and final reason on her List; she had a hot date tonight.

If it wasn’t obvious, Cinny liked sex. 'Like' was probably an understatement, but that was more or less the truth. If anything, she didn’t get enough of it; but finding said sex wasn’t always easy. Most of her fellow classmates were either not interested in long term relationships, or they were already in herds that weren’t interested in accepting another member.

Originally, she had gone to Commander Hurricane’s University in Cloudsdale, but after her second year and eighth time accidently seriously injuring herself flying—it really shouldn’t be legal for those Hoofball players to wear such tight uniforms—she had decided it’d be way more safer at a University that didn’t expect them to fly everywhere. But by then most of her same year students had already paired up, leaving Cinnamon high and dry.

Or wet, she supposed.

That was neither here nor there. Cinnamon shook her head to get those thoughts back into their respective cubbies as she landed so she could focus on the task at hoof; getting a bloody flower.

Very few students bothered with that particular tradition, even if they’d pick it up later in life—Cinny certainly planned to do so, just like she had most certainly—and not at all let it slip her mind—to pick up a bunch of them for tonight. Among other important things, like a nice… hat. Or something.

Canterlot was a big city, and the flower district was just as big, taking up nearly four city blocks on the city’s west end. It was like stepping into huge meadow, and wherever Cinny turned and looked, there was more and more flowers.

A good chunk of the merchants sold flowers to eat—you could eat almost any of them, naturally—but some species were particularly tasty, especially when dipped in chocolate or spiced just so. However, those weren’t the type of flowers Cinnamon was looking for.

No, what she sought was going to be a lot more frustrating to find; a courtship flower. The flower had to match her coat almost perfectly, and she needed one for each member of her date’s herd, even if they wouldn’t be there.

Impressing stallions really wasn’t something she was used to doing, but really, it was his boss mare that needed impressing more than he did. Lucent was a much older, very handsome and sexy stallion, but he was also very easy going.

Star Sparkle, on the other hoof, wasn’t. Cinnamon suppressed a shiver of fear. She hadn’t taken any classes with her directly, but all her friends that did considered her to be one of the worst professors ever; she was oddly strict and apparently very abrasive. Once, it was rumoured, she made her teaching assistant gallop out of the room in tears.

Why Lucent would be caught up in the web of such a bitch, Cinny hadn’t a clue—she was totally floored when he mentioned her—not merely as a mare in his herd, but lead mare—when she had asked him out. She had known he was in a herd, of course, most stallions his age were, and normally she wouldn’t have even bothered if he hadn’t expressed such an interest in her.

This, she was sure, had nothing at all to do with the fact that she might have submitted a draft of one of her erotic novelles in place of a research paper one week. That… probably had nothing to do with it.

Still got her an A though.

Regardless, she had to find a bouquet of flowers that matched her coat, and within a few moments of searching, Cinny could tell it wasn’t going to be easy to do. While the ‘flowers for dating’ made up a significant portion of the Flower District, most of them were unfortunately geared towards Unicorns—typically cooler colours like paler blues and whites. Not only were there lots and lots of those flowers, there was also lots and lots of empty slots in the merchant’s charts and bins showing where flowers used to be—flowers she wouldn’t be surprised to find out matched her coat.

“Can I help you with something?”

Cinny nearly tripped over her own hooves as she spun around to face her speaker; an elderly looking unicorn stallion; old enough that his mane was as white as his coat; he smiled slightly as she flared her wings to keep from falling over, before taking his glasses off and wiping them on her apron. “I may be old, but I can tell a filly in a panic when I see one.” His smile got a bit wider. “Especially one who’s passed my booth three times already.”

Her first thought was; oh crap. Clearly she had already seen what there was to see, and her second thought was; maybe this pony could help her.

“Oh, er. Well, I’m looking for a… you know…” Cinnamon let her voice trail off as she stared at the stallion. He stared back and after a second she gestured vaguely to herself. “Colour same dating. I mean a flower that’s the same as—”

“Your coat, yes,” suddenly the Stallion’s smile was gone, replaced with what Cinny could only describe as ‘all business’. “Let’s see what we’ve got in stock.”

Checking the stock involved Cinny standing still while the flower merchant, whose name turned out to be Colourful Meadow, held up flowers one by one against her coat, checking to see how they’d match. They didn’t, not really. It didn’t help that her fur was a rather dull looking brown, so light that it was almost white, but not white enough that she could use white flowers. What a pain.

Naturally, it was also really boring—and more importantly—it meant her mind was free to wander. It wasn’t long before she started to recall a rather erotic scene from a Daring Do fanfic where she was enslaved and sold in a market by her luscious stallion captors; the feeling of being measured and weighted certainly seemed to same… which led to her wings stiffening and popping out from her flanks.

If Colourful Meadow noticed, he didn’t say anything, and after some relaxing thoughts about arc seconds, she was able to refold her wings against her side, just in time for the flower merchant to sigh dramatically.

“I’m afraid we don’t have anything that matches your coat in stock, Madame.”

“W-what?” Cinny hadn’t even considered that she might not be able to get the flowers—and she needed them too! They were very not optional! “I need them!”

“Well, there’s always a dye job—”

“Yes! Yes do that!” Cinnamon interrupted, bouncing from one hoof to another. If Coloured Meadows had heard her, he didn’t show any sign.

“But of course it’s substandard, in my opinion, you’d be better of waiting for a new shipment to come in. Or I could place a special order for you.”

“No time!” She protested, leaning in towards the stallion’s nose so he couldn’t ignore her. “Do the dye job! Do the dye job!”

“Okay okay, calm down,” the flower merchant said. He said other things too, but Cinny was too busy checking the nearest clock; one of the good things about living in Canterlot was that there were all kinds of clocks around; less good was the fact that her date time was rapidly approaching.

“… of course, it won’t be—Miss, where are you going? I can’t make up a dye without something to model it after!”

Cinny paused, freezing before she could break out into a full gallop over to the clothing district to get something worth wearing. But Colourful Meadows was right… after a second’s thought, she twisted and pulled one of her feathers out of her wing. It hurt like hell since she wasn’t moulting, but she ignored the pain and passed it to the stallion.

“Use this! I’ll be back soon!”

**

In the end, she was disappointed.

Not only were the flowers not really the right colour, she also paid through the nose for them.

By the time she returned from the clothing district with a new hat, which at least was nice looking she thought, all rainbowy and what not, she was very nearly late. She barely had time to grab the bundle of flowers and pay for them before galloping halfway across town to where Lucent lived. After all, she had to pick him up, if they were going on a date… him and his herdmates.

Finding the place was both harder than she had originally imagined; Cinny only had a vague sense of where Lucent lived, although she did have his address. However, it turned out Lucent lived in what could only be described as the fanciest district in Canterlot, where all the rich ponies lived. Cinnamon had known he was well off, but not this well off!

Regardless, she finally found the place with a few minutes to spare, just enough time to let her heart rate go down and for her to catch her breath. Of course, as soon as she knocked and no pony answered right away, her heart rate shot through the roof again and she found herself suddenly without a good breath in her lungs.

Then the door opened; it wasn’t Lucent, but it also wasn’t one of his mares either. She was dressed in what Cinny had really only seen in soft-core porn mags; a maid costume. For once, though, her body was too nervous to react at all, even when the mare gave her a cute little smile.

“Madamé Cinnamon Swift?” Cinny felt her throat close up. Oh my gosh she even has a Pranch accent. That’s so sexy! “You’re early. I’m afraid His Grace is not yet ready to receive you.”

“His what?” Cinny’s brain had decided, at this moment, to take a vacation to the South Seas.

“His Grace,” The Maid repeated, slowly but surely adopting an expression of ‘who the fuck is this mare’. “Duke de Smaragdvea.”

“Oh, er,” Cinnamon shrugged, “perhaps I’ve got the wrong place, I’m looking for a stallion named Lucent? Maybe he’s your neighbour?”

The Maid’s face was full on scowl now. “Yes, that is what those close to him call His Grace.” From her tone, Cinny got the feeling the Maid didn’t think she ought to be using that name when talking about him.

Also: he’s a Duke? Sweet Celestia’s rear! She thought those only existed in novels! Wait… Cinnamon’s brain froze up even more. Am I about to go on a date with a Duke? And his herd? Suddenly her colourful hat and poorly dyed flowers didn’t seem quite so acceptable.

“If you would please step inside? His Grace and his herd will be joining you soon.” The Maid’s voice, as sexy as it was, brooked no argument—not that Cinny had much of a chance or brain to formulate one.

The Maid hurried off to do… maidy stuff, while Cinnamon stood in the foyer and tried not to throw up. She had never been this nervous before; not ever. She had expected to be a bit worried about being rejected, of course, a mare who wasn’t was either Cadence herself or a emotionless whore. But there was an almost sort of unbelievable pressure occupying her mind, a very surreal one.

She never expected to date with somepony so high above her station.

Maybe you should run away, whispered a voice in her ear. Less shame that way.

Cinny found herself nodding, but wanted to hear a second opinion.

Did you see that Maid’s flank? Sweet Tartarus, I’d like to hit that!

Okay, so that voice wasn’t particularly helpful.

At least you’ll have something for your next novel, whispered a third voice, and Cinnamon snorted.

“That’s not very helpful now, is it?” she said out loud. In the empty rotunda, the room echoed vaguely, making it sound like she had shouted.

“Well I try to be,” Cinny grasped and spun on the spot—or tried to. This time she managed to trip over her own legs and landed face first on the floor. She wished ponies would stop sneaking up on her. Still, she scrambled up to her hooves within seconds, finding herself face to face with Lucent.

Unlike her, Lucent was a wonderful shade of midnight blue, and a more than a bit taller than her—not counting his horn or anything. Of course, his height wasn’t the only thing that was attractive about the stallion, he was well muscled and had nice flanks and… er… Cinny realized he was waiting for her to say something.

“Um, hi,” she said finally, “Or, uh, greetings, Your Grace? I guess?”

“Great, another social-climbing ass-kisser.” For the first time, Cinnamon realized that Lucent wasn’t alone… who else would be there, but his lead mare; Star Sparkle.

If Lucent was looking at her with a kindly, bemused, expression in his eyes, Star Sparkle was watching her with a similar expression—amused, but not exactly kind. Cinnamon got the feeling she was laughing at her on the inside… and it was probably only out of respect for her stallion that she wasn’t laughing at her to her face.

The two of them were the same age, more or less, at least to Cinny’s unpractised eye, although Star Sparkle was a pale pink rather than any shade of blue, not that it really mattered, since she clearly disliked her already. As Cinny stared back haplessly at her, Sparkle’s eyes narrowed, the sort of gaze that said she was pulling her apart bit by bit and determining her worth. Sort of like how Coloured Meadows had done… except where he had made her feel… sexy, Star Sparkle’s stare had a far more clinical angle to it and made her feel cold.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Lucent said, snapping Cinny out of her stupor. “You had no trouble finding the place?”

“Uh… no… no,” Cinny said, blinking like an idiot. Then she remembered the flowers. “Oh! Yes, uh, these are for you…”

She had put the flowers under one of her wings while she galloped through the city because she had managed to forget her saddlebags and now that she had them out in the open, she could tell they were worse for wear. Not only was the dye painfully mismatched as Cinny held them out towards the two ponies in her mouth, her sweat must have caused the dye to run and her feathers to smear it. No doubt she had a big orangey stain under her wing now.

The wait was excruciating, but after a second two auras flared into existence, each tugging a flower out and towards their aura’s owners. Lucent smiled at the flower for a second, before putting it behind his ear as was tradition whereas Star Sparkle examined the flower more critically—including giving it a lick—before shrugging and doing the same.

Okay, so first hurdle taken care of. Cinny puffed a sigh of relief, except she was still holding quite a few flowers. And she was sure Lucent had mentioned he had more than Star Sparkle in his herd. She wasn’t going crazy. She hoped.

“Uh, where… where is everypony else?” Cinny asked. Then she glanced around the room just to be sure; knowing her luck, they were already in the room hiding behind one of the potted plants or clinging to the ceiling or something. Thankfully, the coast was clear.

“They’re in the sitting room,” Lucent said, flicking his muzzle towards one of the rotunda’s doors that didn’t lead outside. Lucent then turned and headed for the indicated doorway. Cinnamon couldn’t help but watch him go—he had such nice flanks, after all—but then she realized she was about to be left behind, so she decide to admire them later.

Her first impression of the ‘Sitting Room’ was ‘very big and lots of stuff’. The room was easily bigger than her living room and kitchen, but it felt a lot smaller because of all the stuff laying around. There were chairs and sofas and tables of all sorts, and that was just the normal things. There were also statues and wooden thingers that Cinny had no idea what to call but was pretty sure they were more suited to some sort of Zanzebra tribe than the middle of a lushly carpeted sitting room in Canterlot. And the sea of stuff continued right up to the walls, which were also decorated with all kinds of strange things, like masks and spears and other things she couldn’t name.

Oh, there were also a bunch of ponies in the room too, those were probably important to mention too.

“Everypony, this is the mare I’ve been telling you about,” Lucent said as they approached, and everypony’s head turned to face them. Cinny only had a second to take in their faces before Lucent started to introduce everypony.

“This is Star Sparkle,” Lucent said, gesturing with his hoof, “Twilight Velvet,” Cinnamon’s impression of the pale purple unicorn was she looked an awful lot like Star Sparkle—except her smile was far more friendly and open than Star’s had been.

“This is Scintilla...” The mare had a green mane and tail too, like her own, and Cinny tried not grimace. Cinny dyed her mane to make her stand out in a crowd, and here this mare was stealing her thunder and—no wait… she didn’t dye her hair. Huh. Well it wasn’t Scintilla’s fault they had the same hair colour—she was sure the mare was nice and all.

“Glint Garnet...” Another stallion, not totally surprising, of course, but Cinny hadn’t been expecting him to look so handsome… her wings twitched slightly. She felt like she knew him, but she couldn’t place him at—

“Charmed,” Glint’s voice was both cultured and more than a little bit Bitish. Not to mention warm and kindly. The stallion actually got out of his seat and bent to kiss her hoof, like a gentlecolt. She couldn’t help but let out a nervous giggle.

“Thank you, Glint,” Lucent muttered under his breath—and it occurred to her she probably wasn’t supposed to hear that. Part of her chuckled—Pegasus hearing was very good, and if they weren’t used to being around one… that could make things interesting.

Cinny spent the next ten seconds thinking about donuts to keep her wings from knocking over a very expensive looking lamp.

“Where was I? Oh yes, Crystal Glimmer,” Lucent gestured to the lone earth pony of the group. Crystal’s smile wasn’t nearly as warm as the others, and Cinny got the impression she wasn’t too happy to see her. But at least it wasn’t the same sort of dislike that Star looked at her with. “and finally, we have my wife, Marquise Crincile.”

Wait, did he say wife? Cinny could count the number of ponies she knew who were married on one wingtip. Nopony got married. Well, that wasn’t true, some of them did, but Cinnamon always found weddings rather boring. Only natural, she supposed as—oh damnit.

Everypony was staring at her, probably waiting for her to say something.

“Um… hi?” Cinnamon tried to disarm them with a smile, which didn’t seem to work since they all were still looking at her like they were expecting something else—oh right! The flowers! “I brought flowers!”

Cinny grabbed the bouquet out from under her wing again, and started forward, intend on handing them out to the individual herdmates. Strictly speaking, they could probably still refuse her, but since Lucent and Star Sparkle had already accepted their flowers, it wasn’t likely.

Before she took more than a step, the bouquet was pulled out of her mouth by a painfully colourful rainbow of auras, one from the remaining four unicorns, who distributed them among themselves, as well as passing one to Crystal Glimmer. Within a few seconds, everypony in the room had a flower behind his or her ear—except Cinny of course. She hoped they wouldn’t notice how messed up they were getting. More importantly, she hoped the ponies wouldn’t sweat and end up with orangey-browny splotches on the sides of their heads. Cinny was almost certain that wasn’t fashionable. Either way though, they accepted them without hesitation. So that was a good sign.

Now she just had to woo a herd of ponies probably more than twice her age. No big deal…

“Well, uh… we should get going?” Cinny ruffled her wings nervously, and for the first time noticed that she was the only one wearing a hat. More importantly though, every other pony seemed to be dressed to the nines. Oh dear. Cinny thought. Dinner and a movie really didn’t seem enough anymore. But it’s not like she could afford much more.

“Are you telling us, or asking us?” Star quipped, and Cinny found herself staring at her, wondering what she meant.

“Uh… both?” Cinny said, “If… if that’s okay? Are you, uh, guys, ready?”

“Of course,” said Crincile. Like Glint’s, her voice was smooth and cultured. At least Cinny was pretty sure she was Crincile. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she could remember everypony’s name. “Where will we be going?”

“Uh… Dinner… and a movie,” Cinnamon tried not grimace as she waited for their reaction; she was beginning to suspect that everypony in the room was important in more than one way. They were probably expecting her to have tickets to an opera or the Grand Galloping Gala or something.

“Sounds fun!” Scintilla beamed, leaping to her hooves. “I haven’t been to the movies in ages.”

“How are we going to get there?” Star Sparkle asked in the tone of voice that suggested she already knew the answer. “I didn’t see any carriages out there.”

Oh crap. Of course they’d be expecting a carriage or something! Maybe she should have made a list of things to get before she had asked Lucent out. Oh well, no use complaining about it now. “Oh, well, err—”

“As you may have noticed, we can’t fly,” Star continued, cutting into Cinnamon’s thoughts before she could gather them into a coherent reply. “Or are you blind?”

“Star,” Lucent’s voice had a tone of warning in it that seemed at odds with Cinny’s mental image of the stallion being a gentle giant. Maybe that’s how he was able to deal with his lead? He could be rather domin— Cinnamon shook her head before that train of thoughts could leave the station.

“I guess I thought we’d walk,” She said before Star could interrupt her again. “I mean, well…” Cinny shrugged. “It’s a nice night out?” she added lamely.

“Ugh, walking?” Cinny hadn’t expected Crystal, of all ponies, to be the one to object. “Lucent can’t go around walking through Canterlot! It’s uncouth.”

“Well, I think it’s a marvellous idea, m’dear. A bit of exercise could do us all some good,” Glint said, leaning over and poking Star Sparkle in her barrel. “Especially you, Star, you’re starting to get a bit round.”

“I am not,” Star snapped, “You're a stallion; do you have any clue how hard it is to shed weight after you've had a foal? Let alone two of them? I think not."

Two foals? Sweet Celestia! Cinny didn’t realize Star had foals! Hopefully they weren’t too scarred growing up with a mare like Star for their mother.

“Well, I hope it’s not far.” Crincile asked, looking at Cinnamon with a questioning look.

“Oh, uh. No, it’s not far at all.” Well, if one considered the other side of the city ‘not far’. The restaurant was a bit closer, though, so it wasn’t like she was completely lying. Just… stretching the truth. She was getting the feeling she was going to be doing a lot more stretching of the truth before the night was over.

**

It was… interesting. Assuming one of the definitions of interesting was ‘stressful beyond all reason’.

Dinner provided to be the best part of the evening by Cinnamon’s estimation, and even that hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. The restaurant itself wasn’t a particularly bad place, at least in Cinny’s opinion, and she had eaten there a few times before, usually when celebrating some achievement or whatever with her friends or classmates. And it was certainly fancy compared to some places, but when they arrived Crystal Glimmer made it clear—sort of, anyway—that it wasn’t fancy enough. Obviously, it was too late to find another place, and Cinny really wasn’t sure she could afford anything better.

Thankfully, Lucent wasn’t nearly as put off as Crystal was and he was able to persuade her to give the place a chance. Star helped too. Well, sort of. Well, not really. Mostly she mocked the mare for being so stuck up, which Cinnamon couldn’t say was particularly helpful at all. Crincile seemed somewhat apprehensive about the place as well, and Cinnamon got the impression the mare rarely went places that weren’t the crème de la crème, or off the beaten path. But whereas Crystal required both gentle and not so gentle persuasion—and a couple of small kisses from Lucent—Crincile was more than willing to just follow her stallion’s lead.

Then came getting a seat; Glint insisted that they get table near the window, which proved to be a bit difficult since the restaurant didn’t have big enough tables to sit eight separate ponies that close to the window. Eventually, Cinny resorted to slipping the Maître d' a couple of bits to convince her to shove two of the smaller tables together. Once they were clear. Which took a while.

And those were the complications she wasn’t directly responsible for.

Cinny had thought, if she was going to be dating—and possibly becoming a part of—Lucent’s herd, she ought to get to know the rest of the mares… and Glint, who comprised it. Silly her, that was a bad idea.

It wasn’t that any one pony was particularly rude, or gave her the cold shoulder—although Crystal certainly seemed less than interested in her, and Star seemed to spend most of her time being cynical or rude. And she certainly learned a fair deal about everypony. The problem was, she couldn’t help but feel like she might have insulted—or at the very least hurt the feelings of—a couple of them with her questions.

Scintilla, for example, turned out to a banker, a fractional reserve banker, to be precise. A term Cinny had never heard of before, and Scintilla was more than happy to explain. As it turned out, it was a big complicated thing involving investing money in onions or carrots or something—she wasn’t totally sure, she might have half-zoned out after Scintilla started drawing a diagram on a napkin. When she found out that all banks did the fractional reserve thing, though, Cinnamon apparently had the poor sense to ask why they called themselves fractional reserve bankers if every banker was one. Scintilla had just given her a dirty look and decided to talk to Crystal instead.

Maybe they called themselves that because it made them sound cooler? ‘Fractional Reserve’ certainly sounded neat, maybe she’d used that as a character name in a future story…

Then, of course, there was the fiasco with the waiter. It really hadn’t been her fault—how was she supposed to know Glint would turn out to be a former model—especially one she had idolized and kept a scrapbook over when she was younger? Nopony could have predicted her wing would snap out and catch the poor waiter in a rather delicate area. Nopony at all.

It wasn’t all bad; Twilight Velvet and Crincile seemed nice enough, and of course there was Lucent too, he was very nice, and somehow managed to keep things from getting too out of control. Somehow. Nevertheless, by the time the eight of them stomped out the door and Cinny paid, she was glad to get out of there. After the restaurant, surely the movie would be easier to handle?

There was no such luck. Cinnamon had made the mistake of not picking out any film in advance for the herd and herself to watch. She had reasoned that since she didn’t really know Lucent’s tastes in film, it’d make sense to let him—and by extension the herd—pick when they got there. She had assumed they’d want to see the same movie. She assumed wrong.

Every mare wanted to go see a different movie, and try as she might, she couldn’t figure out how to persuade them to see any one movie without half the herd being pissed off at her. In the end she broke down and bought everypony their own ticket so they could each get to see what they wanted, and for the first time that night, everypony seemed to be happy about something she had done.

Naturally, that’s when she realized she was out of money and couldn’t afford to buy herself a ticket, which is how she found herself stretched out limply on a park bench opposite the theatre, waiting her dates out. The day had been warm, but now that night had rolled around, it was fairly chilly. Made her wish she had more than a hat.

Still, a pegasus’ pelt was pretty good at keeping out the cold, yet she didn’t want to get too comfortable, lest she fall asleep or something. Knowing her luck some blankflank foals would wander on by and she’d wake up with a pair of marker-glasses on her face. Or something.

It looked like the date had gone pretty much south though, which was a real shame. At least she still had her book-to-be-published to look forward to. Cinny still had to do a bunch of revisions for her editor. Still, she was getting published! She had begun to think she'd never make it. Of course, some small part of her found it irritating that her first published erotica novel was essentially fan fiction about the Elements of Harmony. Elements of Love, as she had titled it, was something she had thrown together one week after the Elements had gone and saved all of Equestria from Nightmare Moon’s… something. Cinny was a bit fuzzy on the details, but she was still grateful towards the Elements, even if she’d never meet them.

Regardless, anything related to the Elements was becoming very popular, and Cinnamon was a big enough filly to admit she fell for the fandom too, which was why she wrote the Elements of Love at all. But she hadn’t expected to publish it—she hadn’t even planned on submitting it, if a friend hadn’t suggested she do so—and it wasn’t her best work.

Or at least, she didn’t think it was.

But it would get her name out there, which meant when she sent the next manuscript in, publishers would look at her a bit less sceptically. And she’d get money. It was a win-win for her.

“Cinny?” Cinnamon looked up in time to see the silhouette of a unicorn stallion approaching from the theatre. She couldn’t help but smile as Lucent approached, despite how everything had gone—and was going so far—and scrambled to sit up. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, uh,” Cinny blushed, although whether he could see it in the darkness was another matter.

“I kind of thought you’d be joining me,” Lucent said as he sat down beside her, carefully brushing aside her limp wing. Cinny folded them up as she twisted to get a better view of the stallion’s face. “If you didn’t want to see a documentary, you could have just said so…” Lucent’s face took on a wry expression, “unless it was Star who’s putting you off?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Star had been one of the few ponies from Lucent’s herd who had actually gone to the same film as another member of the herd. Which was a bit off putting, Cinny had to admit, but she had already stomached Star for most of the evening, if she could have joined them, she wouldn’t have been too put off. Although she supposed it would have put a wet blanket on any opportunities to make out or whatever. “I… ran out of bits.” She felt her blush deepen, as Lucent’s eyes grew a bit wide with surprise. “For the ticket.”

“Oh,” Lucent considered her for a moment, although Cinny had no luck reading his expression. “You could have asked…”

Cinny shrugged and said nothing.

“Come on,” Lucent patted her foreleg and stood up, making as if he was going to head back into the theatre. “You’ve missed the part on the lunar rabbit, but there’s still at least an hour left and—” Lucent froze halfway out of his seat, “—or we could go see one of the other movies, if you’d prefer…”

“Thanks for the offer, Lucent, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cinnamon said with a sigh, and then hauled herself up onto her own hooves. “I mean, I fu—” maybe she shouldn’t be swearing at a duke, especially not after the fiasco of a night. “—bucked, rather, up pretty badly tonight, didn’t I? I think I’d rather just go home.”

Lucent frowned in the twilight cast by the theatre’s lights. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I know dealing with my herd can be… trying at times. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed myself.”

“Really?” Cinny felt a small flicker of hope in her chest. Maybe she was just being too hard on herself—though try as she might, she couldn’t think of a way she hadn’t screwed up the date. “But…”

“No buts,” Lucent shook his head. “If anything, I should be apologizing to you. My herd isn’t always the easiest to get along with.”

“They weren’t… uh, that bad…” Cinny lied through her teeth. Well, that was a bit much—she did like some of them, but she couldn’t say she’d necessarily seek them out if she had the choice.

“Uh huh,” Lucent’s smirk told her he wasn’t buying it, “I love each of them, Cinny, but I know they can be as difficult as mules, sometimes.”

“Then why do you—” Cinnamon flinched and her ears folded against the sides of her head. She kept fucking up, and any chance she might have had of being fucked in the other way was clearly dead. It was incredibly rude, and she didn’t have much to hide behind to excuse it. “S-sorry, Y-your grace.”

“I understand,” Lucent said with a chuckle—a chuckle! “Suffice to say, I have my reasons. Maybe one day I’ll explain them to you.” Lucent’s smile slipped a bit, and his eyes became slightly unfocused—an expression Cinnamon knew from her classes with the stallion that he was lost in thought. She almost poked him before he shook himself out of it. “But what about you? Do you still want to leave? I don’t mind paying so you can join us…”

“I don’t know…” Cinny began, and then Lucent kissed her.

It wasn’t a terribly great kiss, mostly because she hadn’t been expecting it, but it made her lips tingle and pretty much ensured she was going to be walking home tonight. Lucent eyed her outstretched wings with a bemused expression on his face—unicorn or not, he clearly knew about pegasus anatomy. That thought didn’t help the stiffness of her wings any either.

Her first instinct was to find a quiet bunch of shadows somewhere and, well…

Whoa girl, said the voice of Calm Reason in her ear, Remember what your mother said; if you want to bag a stallion, you've got to be patient, like fishing. Cinny found herself nodding in agreement, before she had to tune the Voice of Calm Reason out when it decided to jump off the cliff and go on a strained metaphor involving hooks, line, and fishing rods. This was partly because she didn't really know much about fishing, but mostly because she was pretty sure using a fishing rod in that fashion was anatomically impossible.

Plus the Royal Guard tended to be a bit uptight about that sort of thing.

“Uh…” Cinnamon shook her head, trying to clear it a bit and relax her painfully extended wings. “Uhhhh.”

“So…” Lucent glanced over his shoulder at the theatre, and the part of her brain that been insisting she go home and forget the night ever happened promptly decided to cross the floor and vote with the ‘Stick With It’ Party. Incidentally, and for completely unrelated reasons, the Party also decided to change their logo to that of a dark blue unicorn stallion during their annual meeting in her loins.

Cinny shook her head again, no more political fics for her.

“…the documentary?” the tone of his voice suggested Lucent had been talking for at least two sentences, all of which Cinny had missed and she hoped weren’t terribly important.

“Yes!” Cinny blinked then blushed, “I mean, uh, I guess so… it’d be rude to walk out on everypony and everything too—that is… if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Lucent’s flank brushed against hers as he headed towards the ticket office, making Cinny quiver—and smile. “And don’t mind Star.”

“Um, right.” Truthfully, she had momentarily forgotten that Star Sparkle would be waiting for them inside the theatre alongside what she was certain was going to be a very boring documentary. At least she’d have Lucent there. Then an idea bloomed in her mind, “do… do you think for the next date, it could be just the two of us?”

“I was just going to suggest that,” Lucent said as he paid for her ticket. Despite the fact that the film was half over, the ticket was still full price. What a rip off!

Cinnamon grinned and leaned against Lucent as she took her ticket from him. Maybe tonight wasn’t going to end so badly after all!

Now, if only she could get her wings to relax…

Author's Notes:

Hopefully there won't be too many spelling errors, but if you happen to notice them, feel free to point them out!

Update: 26/01/2014: changing the name of the Book from Elements of Excess to Elements of Love