Chapter 32: The Incredibly Fairytale Dating Experience of Pegasi and Pretty Pony Princesses

The pony version of Olive Garden was a hell of a lot ritzier than the human one. Golden plates and several fancy paintings adorned the walls, while the ground had a carpet as well as the pillows with backs that ponies used as chairs for each of the tables. Celestia got us in with a reservation under the name Aurora Blast, and I found myself needing something to take my mind off some of the odd looks the other ponies were giving her as we made our way to a table that wasn’t quite in the center of the restaurant, but close enough so that everyone got a good look at Tia.

Usually I would have just confronted whoever gave one of the girls a dirty look, but I’ll admit that I had no idea if a few of the frowns Tia attracted was because of her less than magnifique dress, or because of some minor pony racism that was a leftover from the Pegasus Union taking unicorn jobs coming into play.

While Tia ignored it and Rainbow…well, I guess she didn’t notice, I Smelled Twilight start to become more and more nervous. But I only think the atmosphere was a little to blame for Twilight’s growing anxiety.

We had talked and partied with Celestia plenty of times before, but the carriage ride had really taken the relationship to a new level. I think it was starting to sink in just what that meant to me, and…Twilight too of course.

The pink pegasus in front of us was just an illusion, a disguise Tia had thrown on. In reality, Celestia was a giant of a pony that was twice our size, three times our weight, and God only knew our superior in age. She was a goddess in every sense of the word.

Just how in the hell were we supposed to…satisfy someone like that?

I could date her, that was a proven fact…kind of. I’d been doing it every night on my terms. But in Equestria, Celestia would be on her home turf, in her natural form, and in a far more dominating presence someone with a single foot height advantage. The only way dream Tia would have come close to real Celestia is if she suddenly added three feet, and was able to use her godlike powers.

All of a sudden, the sexual fantasies that may have accidentally popped into my head since Tia showed me what looked good on a pony seemed…rather impossible. But then those were quickly replaced by images of all three of us covering the goddess body and taking care of various tasks in a one VS threesome type orgy.

So instead of comforting anyone that was giving us an odd look, and to keep from trying to decide between me and Rainbow who would get Celestia’s mouth and lower lips while Twilight took care of her horn, I engaged in some small talk with Twilight to help take care of some growing curiosity for me, and the growing nervousness that the alicorn was carrying. I had to keep the date going as smooth as I could for her after all. “So, what’s up with us going to places called Garden on these four pony dates?”

Twilight looked over to me in confusion for a few seconds, and then realization dawned on her face. “Oh right, sometimes I forget you’re from…out of town,” she replied, using out little code for talking about my origins before she fell into the all too familiar tone involving explanations. “Gardens are names given to the best restaurant in the township or city. Usually after getting this title, they change their name to reflect their most popular dish.”

I frowned. “But…olives?”

Tia fell back a bit and flanked me. “They’re imported from the Griffon Empire. To be honest, I think the name was chosen because olive dishes cost the most, rather than taste the best.”

Images of me feeding Tia said black spheres with my magic while she lounged on an expensive couch and wore some Roman robes came to mind…with Rainbow and Twilight being the ones to give her sexual satisfaction.

“Is something wrong Omnifarious?” the goddess asked gently.

In my mind, I moved on to laying on top of the giant alicorn, passing the food from mouth to mouth, using our tongues as the means of conveyance. It took a shake of my head to banish the image. “N-Nothing! Everything’s great! Just great.”

As long as I could keep my mind on task, my dress would be left dry and everything would be fine.

For some reason, Tia’s Scent became all amused as she smiled at me, and I got the distinct impression she knew I was lying. There was also the weird feeling that she might have even known what I was thinking but…that was probably just me being hopeful.

And paranoid.

On second thought, it was just me being paranoid.

We took our seats a minute later, with Rainbow on my left, Twilight on my right, and Tia sat across from me wearing a little smile while she was gazed on in turn by Twilight with a look that said the little alicorn was already picking out their wedding venue.

Our waitress lowered a paper in the middle of the table while each of us were given menus. “We have a full selection of cider for you to chose from.”

Hearing that bit of good news Rainbow reached forward and snatched the cider list out of the air. “Yoink,” she said before taking a look and smiling. “Hey, they got Sweet Apple Acres cider, we’ve got to get some of this!”

Tia nodded rather enthusiastically, and once the order had been placed, the waitress headed off to fetch Rainbow’s booze while we were left to look through our menus and make some small talk.

“Well Omnifarious, it seems you're adjusting well to your situation,” the goddess sitting across from me said with a smile on her face that I would almost call lustful.

I put down my menu. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tia’s smile widened to a grin. “For all the complaints I hear at night, you do look rather lovely in your dress, and your mane is done up wonderfully,” she complimented. “Did Rarity help you?”

“Nah, Rarity’s over in the Crystal Empire,” Rainbow spoke up from behind cover as I saw her flipping through her menu and frowning at it. “Fae did that all herself with magic. Dress, hair, and gems.”

I gave a glower to Dash, but her menu probably blocked it. “Yeah well, this is important to…every pony so…” I left the rest unsaid. “Trust me, if I could be here as a guy, I would.”

“I see,” Celestia said with a ton of thoughtfulness in her tone.

“I’m sorry.” The odd apology got both my attention and Celestia’s, and we looked over to Twilight. “It’s just with Sunset and everything else, I haven’t had much time to work on a gender transformation spell that perfectly balances your magic with a normal pony’s.”

Some regret creeped into Tia’s Scent, and I felt just about as bad when I looked over to Twilight. “Hey um…it’s okay Twilight,” I told her.

Well, it wasn’t really alright, but I knew she hated to be reminded of that less than little failure. As for me, the situation was...manageable. Humans are nothing if not adaptable. If I could get used to four legs and using my mouth like a hand, I could...deal with a certain chromosome configuration.

Celestia also nodded. “Do not feel so badly Twilight, the species transformation spell I reworked was ready made, what you are attempting is unknown territory. You are wise to be cautious. Remember when I showed you the battlefield where Luna and Celestia fought Discord the first time. It shows you the dangers of mixing magic haphazardly.”

That got a frown from me and as I looked over to Twilight, some anger built up in my mind. “You’ve already seen it?” That place had been on some of my top places to see in Equestria! “Since when?” I asked.

“Since you moved to Ponyville,” Twilight replied. “I asked Princess Celestia for help, and she showed me the battlefield where her and Discord’s magic mixed, turning his unstable transformations into something more permanent.” A look of disgust crossed the alicorn’s features and revulsion filled her Scent. “Trust me Fae, it’s not a place you want to visit. The land is twisted, the air smells like a bathroom, and when the wind blows there’s a weird shrieking sound.”

With Twilight’s distress, I let the matter drop and looked down at the menu. “So um…what tastes good here?” I asked.

Tia’s Scent took on a bit of a gleeful Smell, and she looked over to Twilight with a smile. “Well, I would probably go with the name and try something with olives,” she said before her excitement increased. “But as for an appetizer, I do enjoy asparagus, don’t you Twilight?”

From her place beside me, Twilight blanched and I could Smell more than a bit of revulsion creep back past the excitement and nervousness being with Celestia was causing. “Um…asparagus?” she asked.

I had to hold in a bit of laughter while Twilight gulped down her digestive unease.

The alicorn in question hated the stuff. During our last trip to Canterlot, she had decided to try something new and experienced a…violent reversal of the digestive process upon eating some of the vegetable. And of course, I had told Tia about Twilight’s least favorite food. Didn’t really think Celestia enjoyed the thing that much either.

“I-I think we should select a main dish first,” Twilight stammered before her tone fell into the range she used when quoting something. “The appetizers should compliment the meal.” Then Twilight ducked behind her menu to hide from Tia’s gaze.

We talked about food for awhile, with Rainbow joining in to complain that everything she saw looked way too fancy, was too long to pronounce, included ingredients she had no idea about, or looked way too expensive even with Tia paying for everything. From the looks of things, she had just picked something a random and was looking at desserts in the back pages of the menu.

Tia…wasn’t as comical as I thought she would be without magic to move things around. She didn’t even look hampered as she opened the protected papers like a normal person and scanned the various dishes with her eyes like she had done it plenty of times before. She must have been practicing or something, because when I slipped into a disappointed frown, she just smiled back at me with a kind of ‘HA-HA!’ look.

Twilight decided not to ask Celestia what she should have for lunch during the whole time we read through everything.

I just looked through the foods for anything crunchy. Being a changeling meant that I couldn’t taste anything, or even had a need for food. Even the unicorn transformation magic that make me look like an alicorn hadn’t changed that. On the rare instances that I did eat, texture was the only thing I could really enjoy. Well, that and temperature.

When the waitress came back with a couple of waters and four empty wine glasses, the pegasus frowned as a large bottle filled with nearly transparent liquid dropped onto the table courtesy of some unicorn magic.

“What’s that?” Rainbow grumbled.

The unicorn frowned, and I detected some annoyance as she replied. “Sweet Apple Acres sparkling cider,” our waitress explained.

Disappointment showed on Rainbow’s face, and she slumped forward enough to nearly touch the table with her chin. “But that’s sissy cider,” she whined before looking at the label closely. “Shoulda known in a place like this. Least its not soft.”

The waitress frowned at the pegasus, then cleared her throat. “Your orders?”

Despite her mood, Rainbow was the first to order. “Oat burger and hay fries.”

Everyone at the table froze, and I could have sworn that half of the restaurant’s patrons turned to look at us. At first I thought Rainbow was just being herself, ordering something that any place that served food was bound to have despite it not being on the menu, but I looked into the back of the miniature book and there was a small section dedicated to ‘American foods’ and other non-delicate things that gave you a single bite of food with a thirty dollar price tag.

Twilight cleared her throat and leaned across the table. “Um Rainbow…you aren’t supposed to-”

“I’ll have the same,” Tia announced before she folded the menu up in her hooves and placed it in the center of the table.

The purple alicorn reared her head away from the table in obvious surprise. I picked up plenty confusion entering her scent to replace worry and a bit of anger, and then that was washed away by a calm, and…excitement? The last one threw me into a Twilight level of confusion.

“Me too!” she exclaimed before glancing over to Celestia for a few seconds and giving off a feeling of oddly placed pride.

I caved to peer pressure and did the same while taking a second to look around at the audience we had gained with our orders. Thanks to be being seated practically in the middle of the place, it almost felt like every eye in the room was looking at us thanks to the odd faux pas that had just been committed. Although, exactly what the hell it was…well, okay I might have had some idea.

What with the restaurants we were in being the top of the exclusive restaurants, in the most snobbish city in Equestria, it wasn’t hard for me to think they had to get some ‘commoners’ coming in every now and again to sample the high-class food. The fact that us commoners just came in and ordered the lowest brow of food possible, well that probably got the attention of all the ponies that were going out of their way to look down their noses at us.

And at that point, a little bit of my apprehension disappeared. While I was going along with Celestia’s plans rather than try and stir up trouble in the group, which would cause some tension between her and Twilight, I knew something of Tia’s plan was going to blow up in her face and probably burn a building or two down.

Until I got the ‘we’re better than you’ song and dance from the ponies around our table, all of whom looked to be unicorns, I was feeling a bit of pity for anyone caught up in the crossfire when Tia’s plans came crashing down. But still, after their visible response, I was more than a little apathetic at the Grand Galloping Gala guests.

“And would you like anything else?” the waitress asked.

Twilight practically jumped up as she responded with a little too much energy. “No we’re good! Perfectly fine! Got all of what we need right here!”

As the waitress left us in peace, Tia gave Twilight a measuring look, as if she was trying to judge something.

I decided to back Twilight by making some conversation. “So um…Twilight, how is the whole magic mirror thing going?” I asked.

Despite my rather extensive collection of magical artifacts that Tia and Luna had me keeping an eye on, I still didn’t know jack about anything pertaining to the workings of mystical doodads. Twilight and Sunset had a much better grasp of the things, even if Twilight could be the only one working on them.

“Good and bad,” she said with a little hesitation. “I…well…the transformation magic must be tied to the other end of the portal, so me being able to deconstruct it without access to the other end is…unlikely.”

A small smile appeared on her face, and Twilight let out a tiny laugh. “But at the same time…working with Sunset. I have to wonder what it would have been like if she had stayed and…been around when I was a student.”

Across from me, Celestia’s emotions fell into a bit of a melancholy. “If she…if I had managed to show Sunset the error of her ways. I imagine she would have been the one teaching you about friendship Twilight. Instead of…well, the other way around.”

Twilight’s mood dropped a little as well, and looked over to Rainbow Dash to silently plead for some help while the alicorn spoke. “I should have brought her back with me the first time.”

“Hey whoa!” Rainbow exclaimed before she reached over to rip off the cork on her bottle of cider with her mouth. “Enough of that. We’re on a date, so come on and let’s drink up, tell some funny stories, and all that. Sunset’s back home now, and Twilight’s already shown she’s got more brains than Starswirl- and hey Tia, how come we don’t have a traveling show of awesomeness like he does?”

As a glass of cider slid under the pink apparent pegasus’s nose, Celestia let out a little laugh and looked over to Rainbow. “A museum hmm? I would like to remind you of all those windows made in the honor of you and your friends Rainbow Dash. The only things that bears Starswirl’s name in Canterlot Castle are a few bookshelves nopony cares to look at, present company excluded.”

And then the goddess of the sun in mortal form, or maybe disguise, casually took a drink of her cider.

Horror, panic, surprise, and disbelief assaulted my psychic nose, all of it coming from Twilight as Celestia knocked back her drink before the purple alicorn spoke. “Pr-Prin…Tia! W-What’re you…but-wha?”

The goddess turned to look at Twilight with what I could Smell was genuine confusion before she passed a glass of the light golden liquid to Twilight. “Is something wrong?”

“Y-You drink hard cider?” Twilight stuttered in in some kind of shocked horror that leaned more towards the S than the H.

Tia rolled her eyes. “While I’m hardly an alcoholic, I don’t run away from the from it.”

Twilight looked down at the glass as if Celestia had offered her a cup with iocane powder in it. Nervousness built up in her Scent bordering on panic, and I could practically hear her going ‘what do I do?’ over and over again in her mind as she gazed at the thing.

Then she looked up at us. “I’ll be right back,” Twilight said before she stood off her pony seat and grabbed the wineglass to bring it up and knock the whole thing back. Then, she headed off towards the restroom in a rush.

I looked back at Celestia with a frown. “Did you plan this too?” I asked evenly. The comment about asparagus, Celestia and I had worked out and made it an appetizer so Twilight wouldn’t ruin her main course, and could simply turn it down after ordering it.

“No way!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I didn’t even know Twilight didn’t do hard cider! She was in line during Cider Season like everypony else.” Then Dash cleared her throat and looked away. “But uh…I don’t think she was around after five…when AJ and the others started working on the hard apple cider trees.”

My inner world builder demanded to know just how the hell they had alcoholic apples, but…with how Twilight had run off…

“I think I’m going to go check on her,” I told the other two before getting up.

“Hey Cele-uh, Tia, can I ask you something?” Rainbow said while I headed towards the bathroom. I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the conversation.

A quick right before I hit the entrance and another turn to send me down the corridor got me into the little fillies room. What with Canterlot being a major city, the interior of the bathroom looked pretty much like a human one. There were sinks built into the wall, and plenty of stalls where the pony toilets were kept separate from each other, all of which would have left a human feeling very…nature-ish if they had to be used by her. Twilight had her forelegs up on the row of sinks. From the looks and sound of things…her rather obvious plan to grab the cider and run somewhere to spit it out had obvious hit a snag.

“I swallowed it! I can’t believe I swallowed it!” she exclaimed in a panic before clutching her head with her hooves. “Ahhh! I can already feel my brain cells dying!”

She was actually so distracted, I didn’t think Twilight noticed me until I put a wing across her back and spoke into her ear. “Okay, calm down beautiful,” I told her before giving the panicking purple pony princess a peck on the cheek. “You’re cuter when you’re stressed, but not by that much.”

Twilight reacted with a little jerk of her head that turned it in my direction. “Shh!” she, well shushed me. “I have to make sure everything’s intact. Okay, my name is Twilight Sparkle, I was born on-”

I stopped the impromptu systems scan with a kiss on her lips, and held on while she tried to talk for a few more seconds before I managed to wrestle Twilight’s tongue into submission. Which, unfortunately, forced the alicorn into a retreat that broke the kiss. “F-Fairy!”

“What?” I asked with a coy smile and more than a bit of lust. “I thought you liked it when we kissed.” I added another peck to her lips, then worked my way down the side of Twilight’s neck. “And I missed breakfast.”

“This isn’t helping me relax!” Twilight exclaimed.

I smiled. “But you’re not panicking anymore,” I told her with a smile.

Twilight whined. “No, now I’m just…oh buck, now I’m thinking of you and…yep, there’s Celestia.”

A frown crossed my face. “No Rainbow?” All our…whatever the hell we were deserved to have all of us in Twilight’s little sexual fantasy.

“She’s off to the side recovering. Thought she could handle Celestia on her own and got worn out too quickly,” Twilight explained evenly. My girlfriend’s sexual fantasies were quite…inclusive. To be honest, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the whole thing hadn’t been running in the back of her head since Tia kissed Rainbow back in the carriage.

I giggled and finished working my way down Twilight’s neck, something that took a lot longer than it would have on a human. Then I got face to face with her again. “But you’re not thinking about the alcohol anymore?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “No.”

“And if you’re running all your simulations,” I said, using the name Twilight like to call her little clop fantasies. “Then that big, gorgeous brain of yours must be working just fine.”

Twilight let out a good-natured sigh and smirked. “Point taken.”

“And if you’re still going over just how we’re gonna get along in bed,” I went on, kind of curious about how Twilight’s assessment of the situation was. She was a lot more grounded than me in the fantasy department. “You still must think us getting together is more than just a little possible.”

A frown appeared on Twilight’s face. “I never said we weren’t!” she exclaimed before letting out a little grunt. “Okay, yes. I’m a little nervous, but…this is Ce-Tia! She’s…I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a filly! And yes, I may have given it up for a time, but-”

Another kiss on the nose stopped Twilight. “I know Twilight, you told me, remember?” I reminded her. “To be honest…you’re the reason I said yes to her.”

Twilight blinked. “What?”

“Listen,” I told her evenly. “I like Tia. She’s beautiful and kind, and a million other things. She’s a solid ten in every way I can think of, but…it’s like with you and Rainbow. I’m giving her a chance, for you. Do you know what that means?”

Twilight gulped. “You mean you don’t-”

I cut her off before she could finish. “It means I’m not nearly as nervous about this as you are.” Which was true, more or less. Sexually frustrated as pictures of giant pony princesses did the horizontal danced in my head, but I wasn’t as nervous as Twilight. “And I’m sitting right next to you. So if you need help, I’m here, and calm, and ready to do my part get the girl, okay?”

For a minute, I was afraid I said something wrong when I Smelled Twilight’s fear go up. “But…you don’t like…Celestia?”

“I love you, and I love Rainbow,” I told her while looking into the mare’s eyes. “But I just like Celestia. And maybe that will change. That’s what dating is for, right?”

Twilight took a few seconds, and then nodded. “Right. You’re right. Can’t believe I didn’t remember that. Well, the two of you do spend time asleep together, but I can’t imagine she’s done anything without proper human hormones. Just got to go on some dates, and then we can test all my pleasurable hypothesis!”

I had to force myself not to groan. Only Twilight could turn ‘sex fantasy’ into something completely unsexy.

“Now come on. Let’s go back before Rainbow drinks too much and…um, Fae? You’re the transformation expert, right?”

“More or less,” I replied, a little confused.

“Well, I know that the spell Tia is using is mostly…cosmetic, but…it has decreased her weight and…um…” Twilight paused longer than her usual ‘I’m trying to think of the right word here’ pause. Then she let out a little laugh, and shook her head. “Oh what am I thinking? She’d never let something like that happen.”

I head went a little off kilter as confusion started to weigh it down. “Twilight?”

The alicorn gave me a peck on the lips. “Thanks for coming after me. Now let’ get back to the others, okay?”

“-of course nopony actually called it the Sonic Rainboom back then. We went with the Aurora Blast,” the disguised goddess finished as Twi and I made it back to our table. “Done spitting out your cider Twilight?”

Twilight winced before she sat down. “Was I that obvious?”

I could tell by her Scent and smile that Tia wanted to laugh, but managed to hold off and just smiled. “Yes.”

“What was up with that anyway?” Rainbow asked.

“It was something my parents always told me,” she explained before continuing in a bad male imitation voice. “Twilight, alcohol kills brain cells, and you want to stay Celestia’s top student, right? If you drink hard cider, you’ll never be smart enough to keep up. Then she’ll have to expel you, and we’ll have to put you up for adoption, because who wants a former failed student of Celes-tia…” The alicorn stopped talking as the pink pony’s expression became grim. “W-Well um…besides you, I mean.”

As Tia took in a breath, I could Smell some of her anger slowly dissipate, and she put a smile back on her face. Although I could still Smell the anger coming from her, I sincerely doubted any of it was directed at Twilight. “Did your parents always use such…motivation?” she asked gently.

I’m guessing yes, I thought to myself. It would explain how the purple pony constantly catastrophized every problem she went into a panic over. And when I thought about it, her parents were a little on the worst case scenario side of things themselves when it came to predictions on how things would turn out. After all, changeling appears surrounded by family, and they think Shining and Twilight are being mind controlled.

“Pretty much, why?” she asked in confusion.

Before an answer came from the startled pink alicorn with the hidden horn, Rainbow let out a laugh. “Probably better than my mom and dad,” she piped in. “They were like, really super encouraging and all, but it was always… Rainbow, there’s first place, and the first place loser. Now what’re you gonna be?”

Although she said it with a snicker, my blood ran cold at that little bit of information. If Twilight’s parents really were ‘failure equals death’ and Rainbow’s had the ‘winning is the only thing that matters’ type, then it was no wonder they turned out the way they did.

But despite the rather terrifying beginning, those little comments opened up the flood of childhood stories that weren’t actually all that bad. Like any normal date, we went around the table, swapping silly stories about ourselves. Although the level of we had familiarity meant we weren’t all that concerned with embarrassment. Even Rainbow Dash...mostly.

Thankfully, Twilight managed to turn down the hard cider the second time around, and Celestia apologized for making her feel threatened as we started our round robin of storytelling.

Twilight told us all about her own little Cutie Mark Crusade, and her attempts to get a monster trapper cutie mark that ended with her and Shining Armor hightailing it out of a spooky cave before they even saw anything. Others had us laughing, but I just wanted to latch onto Twilight and hug the girl they sounded so adorable.

By the time she was done, I was looking over to the older goddess of our group. “Hey Tia, you sure the furthest in time we can go back is a couple of days? I kinda want to see how cute Twilight was as a filly.”

While my little alicorn blushed, Celestia rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Seven days is the limit,” she said. “Discord claimed he could go longer, but he just has this box that only creates an illusion to make ponies think they’ve gone back in time. And his view of the past is a rather twisted one I’m afraid.”

As the images that little statement brought to mind nearly killed my good mood, Celestia’s mouth curved upwards in a delightfully evil smile. “But I do know the recipe for a potion that will allow one who drinks it to view the past as if they were there, and even gives them a vision of what they want to see. I could make you one…with your permission of course Twilight.”

Twilight’s smile faded, and a nervous grin appeared. “You know how to make a potion of past visions too?” she asked before giving an uneasy laugh. “Can I just say that…well, remember that book that went mysteriously missing from the Canterlot Library when I was nine? Um...storm gremlins didn’t make a raincloud inside my house to ruin it.”

Rainbow’s stories were mostly about how she did back in flight camp, or in a Jr Speedsters race, with only a little information on her family. I wanted to ask her about Gilda, and how they met, but…it really wasn’t the best time for that kind of thing.

And then of course there was Tia’s stories about just what the hell a young goddess did when she was left unattended by her parents that were never around. Some of them were rehashes of stuff I had heard before, but others…

“Well of course I had to invade the Lunar Republic,” she said after another drink. “The economic conditions of the Solar Empire just wouldn’t do, so I gathered my army and attacked.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean economic conditions?”

Celestia giggled. “Well, when we were younger, Luna created a spell that allowed her to find gemstones with her magic, and we’d make crowns out of them with some twigs and such we found laying around the woods a few miles away. Of course hers were always bigger, and one day when we were playing princesses, I decided I wanted the bigger crown, and made my subjects into a army to attack her.” The smile slipped just a little as Celestia let out a sigh as she shook her head. “Stupid rabbits turned against me the second Luna gave them her pouty face,” she finished.

“You tried to take your little sister’s crown because it was bigger?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.

The goddess let out a defensive whine. “Well I was the older one. Besides, I was just going to take a few so they’d be equal,” she said while shifting her gaze around the table. “And I was ten! Foals are allowed to do stupid things when they just hit double digits.”

I snickered at Tia’s little story about how she and Luna used to play at being princesses, ruling over the animals they played with like they were subjects. Apparently, the younger sister had a bit of Fluttershy in her, because Tia said she was the one who always got the animals to do what they were told better than Celestia.

As we got done laughing at the currently pink sort-of pegasus, Rainbow looked over to me. “Okay Fae you’re turn. Tell us…um…what did you use to do when you were…you know, a monkey.”

Twilight’s breath caught, and she looked across the table and I had to reach over and grab her hoof to keep her from doing anything more while I wrestled with my own emotions about something I didn’t want to go into with her.

See, while I had family and everything that back on Earth, I didn’t really miss them all that much. I mean, there was a day or two way back when I was in the hive where that kind of mattered to me but…the need for survival, a bit of changeling influence, and some other more immediate problems needed my attention.

When everything was said and done with Chrysalis, the lies I had to tell to Twilight to keep her from thinking I was nuts allowed me to make it seem like I didn’t want to talk about my home out of missing it. The truth was…well…I didn’t really miss being human, or my family, or anything about Earth. I had moved on without even realizing it.

So I just gave Twilight a reassuring smile and looked over to Rainbow Dash. “Well I had a ton of little jobs over the years, but for the most part I either worked on my fathers ranch raising race horses, and later became a teacher,” I explained while an odd feeling of horror settled over me as a rather personal revelation hit. While my father had been a rancher, my mother had been a teacher.

Basically, I had become both my parents. It was…kind of disturbing really.

Of course, Dash’s ears perked up at the mention of racing horses, and she wasn’t about to let the currently little pony goddess of the sun get her turn at our round robin of questions and stories until she dragged every little detail out of me.

By the time she was done, Rainbow was…less than impressed.

“So wait a second,” she said, raising her hoofs. “Basically, you’ve got a bunch of little Sunset Shimmers riding around on Saddle Arabians and slapping them in the plot to make them go faster because they don’t want to, unless they do, but then they have to be held back? That sounds pretty stupid.”

“Until the final few yards,” Twilight added. “It’s like the Running of the Leaves when I placed fifth Rainbow. Everypony tired themselves out and I just overtook them with a steady pace, followed by a dash at the end.” She blinked and let out a little laugh. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Rainbow let out a little laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Just remember, this years gonna be different.”

Twilight snickered. “True, my new earth pony stamina and strength just may let me beat everypony,” she said before Rainbow’s expression turned to a frown, and Twilight winced a little. “Or maybe get third. You and Applejack are the odds on favorites, as long as you don’t try and fight each other again.”

I cleared my throat. “And what am I? Shredded wheat?”

“You’re barely three months old,” Twilight countered with a smile. “And there’s an age limit to the race.”

Celestia let out a little laugh. “Then perhaps I should join in the fun then.”

I froze, and so did the girls next to me.

Rainbow got her mouth working first. “Y-You?”

“Did you forget that Fall is my most favorite season? Or that I love…well, flying is more my thing, but a race on the ground sounds just as appealing,” Tia told her. “I’d have to go in disguise though.”

Worry coated Rainbow’s scent like a think coat. “Um…Tia. That’s um…oh ponyfeathers.”

Tia sighed. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about how I’ll take a loss,” she asked before a tiny smirk appeared on her face. “Or is it the possibility of defeat that makes you concerned?”

“…maybe both?”

The fake pegasus rolled her eyes, and then gave Rainbow a gentle smile. “Rainbow, my legs will be just as long as yours, and considering how much I sit around, I very much doubt you’ll be having any competition from me.”

Which I didn’t buy for a second. Disguised or not, Tia’s ‘Aurora Blast’ body was in peak physical condition, and she still had the power of a goddess fueling her magic. With pegasus reaction time and earth pony strength on top of stamina, she’d crush Rainbow Dash in a footrace.

Our food arrived at what had to be about three times as long as it should have taken to cook, and I was glad for the break in the conversation. Although the dread of what was to follow made me wonder if it was worse to have Rainbow start doubting herself over an upcoming race, or Twilight break down as Tia displayed the worst table manners possible…not that Twilight was a paragon of those either.

Still, I sat back and waited for Tia and Dash to start tossing fries back and forth, compete in how much food they could shove in their mouth a once, and maybe even start a drinking contest once we got our third bottle of cider.

And I waited.

And waited.

And…continued to wait as the girls…exercised a surprising amount of table manners insofar as the food. Even Twilight managed not to squirt ketchup everywhere when she bit into the smooshed together bunch of fried oats held aloft by her magic.

The conversations, with the laughter, smiles, and Rainbow’s penchant for talking loudly when she got excited before taking into the air and acting out some of her stories towards the end got us plenty of glares and a few mumbles. I caught a few ‘peasants’ and ‘sky farmer’ comments, which actually kind of made me wish Rainbow and Celestia had started a food fight or something so I could have nailed a few unicorns with fancy flaming side dishes that we being brought in to some tables.

Obviously, the Olive Garden catered to the one percent of the one percent, and I guessed they didn’t much like the fact Canterlot had been put back under pegasus weather jurisdiction.

Halfway done with her food, Tia looked up to me and smiled. It wasn’t her normal understanding smile of kindness, there was a bit of a…want to it, and I got the weird feeling that she was either checking me out, or fantasizing about having me for dessert. “Is there something wrong Omnifarious?”

I forced myself to un-tense, and looked down at my food while Twilight and Dash raided my fries, then back up to Tia. “N-No. It’s just um…your turn for a story Tia.”

And so our lunch continued as Celestia started going on about the time she raced Commander Hurricane (who I was surprised to find out was male) and ended up running into a griffon, literally. After the concussion wore off, she and Luna learned that with the founding of Equestria, the griffons considered the old pegasi borders null and void, so Luna and Tia had to renegotiate where the lines on the map were to be drawn, and bribed the griffon leader to keep the old pegasi borders intact.

“So who won the race?” Rainbow asked as she finished off the last of the fourth bottle of cider.

Celestia giggled a little. “Don’t remember. To be honest, it almost always depended on who managed to get in front first.”

I frowned. “What did that have to do with anything?”

The smile on Celestia’s face became a bit more lustful. “Well, the pegasi were more athletic back then, and Hurricane was the fastest one alive. He had such sweet flanks, and if I could get him excited during a race...well, the view from underneath wasn’t too bad either.”

I groaned at the response, and looked over to Celestia’s empty wineglass. I was pretty sure she wasn’t drunk but…the transformed goddess had to have been feeling a buzz. She drank about twice as much as Rainbow had, and although the sparkling cider was apparently of less alcoholic content than the brewsAJ made from the apples in the western orchard from being watered down and some other stuff, she could apparently still be affected by it.

“Okay, here’s a question,” I said. “Let’s say this all works out.” Which I was starting to have every confidence it might.

I mean, Twilight had already made her choice insofar as me. She had apparently had a little revelation about Rainbow sometime during the other day, no idea when or why though. Plus, she was even more into Tia than I had been into Rainbow when I showed up in Equestria. On top of which, she was a pony, they were big into the whole love and sharing thing.

Dash might not have been crazy about any of us but…I had seen her lean on Celestia during the ride over in the emotional sense, and she wasn’t the type of pony that shared a bed with others just for the hell of it. For a girl as sensitive as her, with that wall of brashness she put up to hide it, what she had might have been better than the base of fangasming her girlfriends had built our relationships on.

As for me, I was still a little crazy for Dashie, and my emotions for Twilight were rooted pretty deep. Tia…well, I could certainly sleep with the hottest pony in town, and I had…a certain affection towards the goddess. But I didn’t think I’d call it love, at least in the romantic sense.

But Twilight wanted to be with her, and Celestia…damn her, wanted to be with…us, then I was up for trying.

And Tia…

Lonely goddess looking for a cheap few decade fling?

Delusional pony that thought she saw something that wasn’t there?

Girl that fell for the new kid on the block because he was just new?

I really didn’t have a clue. But if she wanted it, I wasn’t going to say no to the goddess that was twice my size and God only knows how much stronger. Plus, I didn’t know how to say no to ponies. Especially ponies I liked.

“If we all do this family herding thing…I know we can’t all just move so…sleeping arrangements.”

Tia laughed and reached out to grab Twi and Dash’s hooves. “Well not that I’ve been thinking about it, but I suppose one on my left, another on my right for my wings to hold, with the third held safely in my forelegs,” she said before the hungry look returned. “Unless of course you mean the other kind of sleeping, in which case, I think there’s still enough of me to go around for the three of you.”

I gulped and looked over to the bottle of cider again. Oh please God don’t tell me she’s one of those types of drunks.

Twilight blushed. “A-Actually Tia, I’ve run some scenarios in my head, and the three of us w-would be able to satisfy you in all possible ways…at once.”

“Y-you’re kidding me, right?” Rainbow asked. “You’ve actually-”

“The math is sound!” Twilight exclaimed. “With…Tia’s natural size, there’s enough room for one of us to lay on top of her and engage in oral interaction while another pony is under her tail and-”

I hit my head on the table. “I meant sleeping arrangements as in where!” I corrected before I found my horn had impaled the table at an odd angle. “We can’t fly to Canterlot every night, and-”

“Oh that” Tia let out a snort. “I’ll just teleport over to your castle come time for Luna to take control of the court,” Celestia assured me. “I’m already planning to mark it as a personal destination. So there won’t be any trouble.” She let out a little giggle. “Any other little problems?”

I heard a click of a hoof against a glass, and saw Rainbow swipe the bottle from the table before she put the thing to her lips to apparently drain the thing of its last drop. There was a pop of lips disengaging from glass, and the empty cider bottle hit the table. “We’re out of cider and, just a second,” the pegasus replied before I heard her take a deep breath and… URRRP! Oh, there we go. Okay, stomach ache solved.”

“Well it’s about time,” Tia said.

“R-RAINBOW!” And if the belch from the pegasus wasn’t what caused pretty much every patron, waiter, and whatever else was left in the restaurant to turn their attention towards us, Twilight’s shouting did. “I-I can’t believe you just…this…you just…THAT in front of-”

The table raddled with the strike of a hoof before I heard Celestia’s voice. “Indeed! THIS is how to really compliment your food Rainbow Dash!”

“What? No wait! That was a real-”

What followed wasn’t something I could really classify as a sound.

Sounds were heard.

Loud sounds could even be felt.

The Royal Canterlot Voice was…experienced.

It was a deafening…something that put all the sound tests they used to have at movie theaters, giant alien spaceships that communicated through music, fog horns, sirens, and that guy at the office that always yelled crap to shame.

My eardrums exploded as the world shook and I was pelted with shards of shattered glass while my hair was undone from it’s magically made do before my body got thrown back into the wall.

But on the bright side, my horn was dislodged from the table.

Amidst the ringing in my ears and swirling in my brain that discombobulated me into a helpless bystander, I saw Tia giggling like a schoolgirl at her little joke while several waitresses and waiters yelled at her, or at least that’s what I thought from how their mouths were moving. I couldn’t actually hear anything. Then, while I was still recovering, some jackass grabbed my tail with magic, and I found myself being dragged out of the restaurant to cushion everyone else’s landing.

And so, after Rainbow landed on my back, Tia hit one of my wings, and Twilight’s butt pushed my nose into the ground, I let out a moan and waited for any sense of hearing to return.

When it did, Rainbow was the first to complain. “Tiiiiiia, I said we weren’t going to do any of that other stuff! Twilight said no to the appetizers. Remember the plan?”

The oblivious alicorn looked over to the pegasus. “What?”

Tia giggled some more at Twilight’s question and rolled over onto her back before looking over to the other alicorn. “Hehehe, oh that. Yeah, I may have had this little plan to stop you from kissing my plot anymore,” she said while having her front hooves in the air as of peddling a bike, or playing with an invisible ball of string. Then she stopped, and smiled.

“W-What?” Twilight asked as her expression dropped to a confused look of shock and maybe a bit of hurt.

“Well not really kissing my plot,” she said before rolling onto her stomach and adopting a sensual smirk. “I might like that.” Another giggle shattered her smile, and Tia laid back down on her side. “Buuuut, yeah. You always copying me and thinking I’m perfect, reeeeealy annoying! So I made a test!”

Then she looked back up at Twilight with a frown. “Honestly, do you think I’d wear something like this…thing?” Celestia asked before shaking her while head around to move her little braids. “Or put my mane up like this?”

Twilight froze, her mouth half hanging open.

As we waited for the recovery, Celestia let her head fall back onto the ground, and I frowned at her. “Tia, are you drunk?”

The disguised alicorn frowned at me for a moment. “Please, Anon...I mean, Onin...Omimifaricus! I’m just a little…woozy. Think my hard cider resistance charm is wearing off.”

“But…you…that was all for Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed, coming out of her stunned state.

Obviously growing even more out of it by the second, Tia looked over to the purple pony like she was even more crazy than we knew her to be. “Huh?”

“That-it…you… You did all of that for Rainbow Dash!” she repeated.

I looked over to Rainbow, who looked back over to Twilight with a frown. “Uh, not really Twilight, and we kinda stopped the whole thing when you went to the bathroom.”

“Cause you made me,” Celestia grumbled before letting out a drunk hiccup, and moaning. “And that’s what I want in a fillyfriend! Somepony to tell me no!”

“But you wore that awful dress to make Rainbow feel better about her looks!” Twilight went on. “And then you kissed her and complimented her flanks, and the burgers, you ordered an oat burger too to make her feel not so isolated, and the…um…stories…”

Celestia let out a rather pathetic moan, and started to stand up, only to stumble forward until I ran forward to catch and steady her, bracing myself against the side she was leaning on, and putting my wing around her back to keep her on me while her head stretched forward and went kind of wobbly. I didn’t know if the nuzzle that followed was her just being affectionate, or if it was the alcohol.

“Mmmm, coat’s so soft.”

“Let’s go home Tia, you’re drunk.”

The pony in question let out a breath of air through her closed lips. “Feh, I can fix that,” she said before her horn lit up.

The glow of magic apparently attracted Twilight’s attention. “Is that a purging-NO WAIT!” Twilight shouted before Tia proved she could cast spells even when slightly plastered, and…

Well, it was a purging spell, cast on an alicorn that had just eaten and drank several bottles of wine

A second later, the alicorn took one step back to brace herself I guess, and…I had little bits of oat burger in my wings, and the back of my dress was no longer white.

Never before was I so happy about the changeling’s transformation ability to just burn off anything I was wearing into non-existence. So, I wasn’t all that mad at Celestia when she sobered up real fast to see my body dripping with pretty pink pony princess puke.

Twilight on the other hand…

“Can’t believe you! That was the most insensitive, insane, inane, idiotic idea I’ve ever encountered!” she shouted wildly at the once again bright white giant alicorn as we sat in Celestia’s personal tea room.

While the ride back had been eerily silent, with me sitting next to Tia while Twi and Dash had the other bench. The whole time, the purple princess had been quiet, glaring at the one that still had the pink coat since the carriage was nowhere near big enough for a pony of Celestia’s real stature.

But once we had gotten out and gone to Celestia’s rooms for a chocolate cake that was just sitting there waiting for us, Twilight proved she had been doing more than just sitting still in the carriage with a twitching eye while Dash nuzzled her.

Now, she sat flanked by her girlfriend and currently insect pony that could have fit the girl or boy sexual definition, sort of, and glared at Celestia so hard I thought the sun goddess was going to burst into flames.

“I mean Dash, I understand,” Twilight said before she glanced over to the pegasus for a second, and then to me. “And Fairy…well…okay, she makes jokes about how…stupid your ideas are, but I know deep down she’d do anything for you the second you asked. But you…it…why didn’t you just talk to me?”

All in all, I didn’t really agree with Twilight’s assessment of my character, and the way she asked that last question, its restrained whine and hurt in her eyes…the fact I helped with it made me want to groan in distress.

Celestia wasn’t having any of it though. She frowned right back at Twilight. “I did, Several Times! I’ve called us equals, told you not to call me princess, tossed away my crown for our parties, and showed you myself at my most sensitive,” she replied with a bit of fire. “But you still just want to see Princess Celestia! You still trip over your own hooves, trying to please some picture perfect pony!”

“AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?” Twilight shouted right back at her before she took a deep breath and let out a long sigh.

“I want to hear what you really think about things Twilight,” Celestia told her.

Twilight frowned back at Celestia. “You said you made that dress yourself! I was trying to spare your feelings!”

“At the cost of what everypony else thinks of me?” she asked.

A roll of the eyes preceded Twilight’s response. “Oh please, as if you’ve ever cared what somepony else thinks of you,” she replied before looking down at the table and frowning. “Well…outside of us, I mean. Or do you not even care what I think?”

“Of course I care what you think, when you tell me the truth! And yet you didn’t give me an honest opinion,” Celestia said evenly.

“And you knew I wasn’t being honest!” Twilight countered as she pointed a hoof at Celestia. “If you wanted honesty, you could have just said, be honest!”

Then both the alicorns glared at each other for a minute, sighed at the same time, and then lowered their heads. I took the opening.

“Fine, Tia was acting stupid and Twilight was sucking up to her in the worst way, we get it. Lessons learned and all that,” I said before I looked over to Twilight. “So, is that it?”

Twilight looked over to me with a frown. “I’m not finished with her yet, and don’t even think I’ve started on the two of you!” she said while her eyes darted back and forth between the two of us with a slight movement of her head.

Hey,” Rainbow said. “What happened to the whole understanding part?”

The alicorn looked back to the pegasus and let out a low groan. “Well…um…just because I understand, doesn’t mean I can’t be angry at you for a few more minutes!”

It took some effort, but I held my ground and kept my voice steady. “I mean, is that it when it comes to our dating Celestia?” I asked before cutting off my psychic sense of Smell not a moment too soon.

Tia looked up at us with wide eyes and a look caught somewhere between fear and hurt.

Rainbow tensed.

As for Twilight, she might as well have been a little purple clone of the giant pony. Their expressions were almost completely similar.

“What?” both of the alicorns said at the same time.

I sighed and slumped. “Oh come on Twilight, you spent the whole ride back just being silent and thinking to yourself. You’ve already made up your mind if you want to go out with her again,” I said. “All this is just…venting. It’s...well...if you want to give up on the whole thing...okay. But if you don’t…I don’t want the two of you to say something you can’t take back.”

Twilight looked at me for a few seconds, and then over to Celestia. “And what if I do want to give up the whole thing?” she asked with a frown.

On the other side of the table, Celestia…wilted. Her ears went down, and the goddesses wings drooped. “W-Wait, Twilight. I…that is to say…”

“Now what? Now you don’t want to hear what I really think?” she went on. Well guess what!”

Twilight took a deep breath, and her body trembled for a few seconds while Tia braced herself. Then, the pretty purple pony princess spoke.

“I HAD A WONDERFUL TIME!” she shouted in a voice that was full of anger before she deflated and looked down at the table.

“I mean…okay, I am a little angry at your…plan, and the part where you tried to make me eat asparagus, but…when we were just talking, and the dress, and the kissing Rainbow, and…well, you didn’t know I don’t drink hard cider…and you were kind of drunk towards the end, so…I’m more angry about the fact that there was a test than I am about anything else,” she said before looking back up at Celestia. “I’m pretty new to this whole relationship thing, but even I know you’re not supposed to do that to your potential special somepony.”

I let out a sigh before looking down at the table and shook my head. “If only.”

“Wait,” Rainbow spoke up. “This whole test thing is normal for humans?”

While I picked my head up to look at Rainbow, Twilight crossed her forearms and frowned at the table again. “Buck, now I really can’t be mad at you if this is some sort of human cultural thing. But you’re giving me a rundown of human courting rituals when we get home!”

I wisely kept my mouth shut. If a misconception got me off the hook,they more power to the thing.

Celestia cleared her throat. “So um…does this mean…” she left the rest unsaid.

We three ponies of what I guessed was Twilight’s dating herd shared a look.

Then our purple pony princess turned her attention back to Celestia. “I want to try again…in a few weeks at least. That way, I can get this bad taste out of my mouth,” she said. “So, I say yes. IF you treat it like a normal date!” Twilight told her. “No tests, no secret agenda, no surprises. Just. A. Date!”

Rainbow took to the air as she gave her answer “YES!”

And then the pegasus found us all looking at her before she slowly lowered herself back onto the ground, and blushed. “I mean uh…it’s cool. And like Twilight said, just the four of us hanging out doing stuff.”

I looked over at the girls as all eyes in the room turned on me. “Why am I always the last pony you ask about this stuff?” I grumbled. Being the last asked made all the weight just crush down on me…and what can I say? I caved. “Yeah fine, sure. We’ll have another date in two weeks or so.”

Celestia let out a long breath I didn’t even know she was holding, and bowed her head. “Thank you.”

“Well it’s not you never gave me a dozen second chances,” Twilight grumbled before her expression softened. “And like I said, I really did have a wonderful time.”

Rainbow cleared her throat. “Um, so now…goodbye kiss time?”

“Do lunch dates even get that?” I asked.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Well of course they do,” she said before smiling at me. There was a bit of...darkness to it though. “Now get up there Fae, and plant a nice long one on our potential fillyfriend’s lips.”

I looked over to the pony with the mouth big enough to envelop half my face with her lips. “Um…maybe I should let-”

“Oh no,” Twilight went on. “No shapeshifting! If Celestia’s going to date a changeling, then she can kiss the real you too.”

It took me about two seconds to see what Twilight was really planning, although I was afraid Dash’s evil grin might give something away to Celestia. See, changeling saliva kind of tasted like…well, Rainbow compared it rotten this and disgusting that once, but I didn’t know how right she was since I doubted she ever actually ate anything so bad as refried parasprite poop. Or if it really existed at all.

But my fears were unfounded. It seemed Celestia was actually looking kind of nervous about the whole thing. I could actually see the faint hints of a blush appearing on her cheeks. She was way too distracted by that to notice. “Well um…if you don’t really want to…”

“It’s a requirement for a successful date!” Twilight Sparkle declared as I was swept up in her back and brought nose to nose with Celestia. “Now kiss!”

“AHHHH! EVEN MOUTHWASH DOES NOTHING TO REMOVE THE TAINT!”

I frowned at Twilight’s giggling over Celestia’s horrified, if muffled cries from within her apartment as she tried to cover up the taste my tongue left in her mouth. “So how long does that stuff last?” I asked Tyrant Sparkle.

“About ten minutes,” Rainbow answered for her before she looked over my once again ponified back to Twilight. “So uh, what’re we doing for the rest of the day?”

The alicorn smiled, and then pulled out a checklist from underneath her wing. “Well, I was thinking we’d feed Fae, then a nap of course, and then you could take the train back to Ponyville when it pulls in from the Crystal Empire while Fae and I meet my brother. And maybe Rarity,” she said before slowing in her canter while looking up at the ceiling. “I really hope that went well for them and Cadence.”

Rainbow nodded. “Right, those class things you girls do. Yeah, count me out of those,” she said before looking back at us. “But what’s your brother doing in town?”

“Oh Fae and I are meeting with Spike and my…parents,” Twilight mumbled before she looked over to Rainbow in horror. “Oh Rainbow I’m so sorry! I just…I had this planned out before we started dating and-and then I got wrapped up with Spike, and Celestia saying…stuff. I…I…”

A hoof went in front of me and touched Twilight’s nose. “Chillax Twilight,” she said. “I remember all the grumbling from the first time you tried to introduce those three to each other. Celestia only knows what they’ll do if you bring home another fillyfriend home. I can wait until next time.”

Twilight’s apologetic look was replaced by a loving one. “Thank you Rainbow,” she said before looking down at the ground. “To be honest, I’m excited, and nervous and a million other things all at the same time.”

“Oh come on Twilight,” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes. “After everything we’ve been through, what’s the worst that could happen?”

The apocalyptic words of doom brought me to a halt, and I glared at Rainbow’s sweet ass as she and Twilight passed me and kept the conversation going. You bitch! YOU’VE DOOMED US ALL!

Author's Notes:

Next Chapter, we learn what Rarity and Spike have been up to.