Twilight Sparkle was having a very strange dream.

She dreamed that she sat on a riverbank, happily losing herself in a light study of theoretical gravitational physics. Twilight was nearly halfway through the book when she was promptly slapped in the mouth with salmon.

For some reason, this left Twilight quite confused.

No sooner had the dream begun to progress again that she was slapped in the mouth with a salmon; or at least, what she guessed was salmon. Attempting to ignore the oddity and return to her book, Twilight was then beaten around the head with an assortment of other wildlife, such as a chicken, a frog, and even a very upset gazelle.

Twilight yawned tiredly, popping her neck and dragging herself wearily out of bed for the sake of an early breakfast. She smacked her lips, an odd taste right on the back of her tongue. Traversing the stairs of her library home and beginning the search for orange juice, Twilight chugged nearly half a glass of the citrus liquid before she gagged.

Careful not to drop the glass, she hacked and coughed into her elbow, unable to remove the taste from her mouth. She shook her head wildly, yanked to alertness by the strange taste. Blinking in confusion, she glared heavily at the orange juice carton and inspected it carefully, even going so far as to give it a suspicious sniff.

It didn’t smell any different from normal. Perhaps it had only been that one drink.

Again attempting to take a drink to clear her throat, Twilight instantly recognized the same taste from the orange juice and promptly dumped it down the sink.

Silently fuming and wondering if Spike had perhaps done something foul to the carton as a prank, Twilight began digging for a new glass entirely for fresh water.

“Spike?” she called to wake the young drake, glass of crystal clear water levitating beside her. “Spike, get your flank in here right now!”

She heard a muffled groan before the small purple dragon began heaving himself down the stairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“C’mon, Twi,” he stifled a heavy yawn. “The sun’s barely up. What are you miffed about this time?”

“It isn’t funny, Spike,” Twilight glowered at him.

He blinked in dull confusion, meeting her stare.

“I’m not laughing,” he deadpanned. “I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you don’t,” the unicorn frowned deeply, lifting up the carton of orange juice. “What did you do to it this time?”

“Implying that I would ever taint perfectly good orange juice,” Spike snorted, pouring himself a glass of it and drinking it right in front of her. Oddly, he did not display a single emotion aside from mild agitation at being woken early.

“… Give me that back,” Twilight furrowed her brows, taking another sniff of the carton before drinking from it.

She immediately regretted doing so, as the taste came back in full the moment the liquid passed her lips.

Twilight spat the whole mouthful at Spike, who wasn’t fortunate enough to sidestep the orange fountain.

“Blech!” she shook her head violently, scraping her tongue with one hoof and struggling to wash the taste out with the water.

“You’re telling me!” Spike scowled angrily at her, shaking himself dry. “Say it, don’t spray it!”

Twilight did not hear him, however, as she promptly coated him with the water sprayed from her mouth.

“Oh, come on!”

“What the hay?” Twilight choked, eyes nearly bugging out of her head. She was positive that the water was fine – or at least, it was supposed to be. It had the same distinctly salty, dirty taste as the orange juice did!

Twilight reared around, digging viciously through the cabinets in search of something else to taste.

“Bread!” she snapped in panic to the (now quite furious) Spike. “Bread, get me some bread!”

“Why, gonna spit that on me, too?” he growled.

Twilight located the loaf of bread without much difficulty, and immediately jammed a slice in her mouth. Spike ducked in terror, but she only spit the soggy piece back into her hoof.

“Yuck. That’s what I thought,” she mused quietly. “My taste buds appear to have been radically altered, Spike.”

“That’s why you gave me a sticky shower?” he cocked an eyebrow.

Twilight flushed, said “Spike, don’t ever say that again.”

“Why not?”

“Be-because,” she struggled awkwardly. “It’s, um… well, it just doesn’t mean something very nice. I need a specific book from the shelf; two left, three up, if you wouldn’t mind…”

Spike went nowhere.

“Now I’m really curious,” he wiped his face again for good measure, and crossed his arms across his chest. “What exactly are you tasting that I’m not?”

“Everything taste like di- I mean, I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth!” Twilight blushed even more deeply.

“Did you fall asleep with something in your mouth?” Spike asked innocently, forcing an entire plethora of very lewd images to dance through Twilight’s mind.

“I’m pretty certain not,” she coughed uneasily into her hoof, her cheeks now burning.

“Are you sure?” he tottered off. “Because I’ve done that before, couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth the next morning.”

Twilight then seemed to undergo a small seizure, because her face contorted into about forty different expressions within the span of four seconds.

Most of which involved mollified terror and wild sniggering.

“I really need to find out why I can’t get the taste of co- this particular taste out of my mouth,” she rushed out all in one breath.

“Maybe you could try brushing your teeth once in a while,” Spike deadpanned again.

“Book!” she snapped with a red face, marching past him. “I need to find A Study of Stallions, as quickly as possible.”

“You mean that one with all the nasty diagrams?” Spike asked.

“They aren’t nasty, Spike,” Twilight corrected him as she began searching the shelves and clambered onto the stepladder, automatically smacking her lips again in futile attempt to clear her mouth from the taste. “They’re anatomically accurate.”

“Just with more words than the magazine under your bed, right?”

Twilight nearly fell off the stepladder.

“W-how did you know about those?” she teetered back and forth, books completely forgotten in her abject horror.

“Oh, yeah. I saw those when Big Mac first started coming over while you were sleeping and stuffing your mouth with his great big sweaty –.”

Twilight fell off the stepladder.

“… Socks.”

Author's Notes:

Merry Christmas!