Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

I own nothing. All characters, settings and other belong to their respective owners. This is purely a fan-work with no intent towards profit, slander or harm towards the characters, settings or other, or their respective owners. If the respective owners feel that this fan-work in any way, shape or form threatens or besmirches their property, please let me know so that it be can be removed asap.

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Merry Christmas.

My right arm is in a pressure-bandage because I got stung five times and I swelled up so much the skin split, so I had to go get it wrapped to prevent further splitting with more needles sticking out of my arm than I care to recall, and then they painted the entire arm with enough anti-fungal and anti-bacterial agents to turn my skin neon-orange.

Don't even get me started on the pain-killers being effectively non-functional. So here's the next chapter because typing left-handed when you're a rightie to tide you people over till the swelling goes down.

CHAPTER 59

Twilight held Spike, comforting the small Drake as he cried into her neck, her own eyes red with tears and the after-effects of yesterday’s ‘test’, while Luna stood over Rarity’s bed, her horn aglow with magic as she probed the comatose Unicorn’s mind.

“Nothing. Not a trace, a speck, a whiff of the Nightmare Spirit, the same as when I saw her during the argument over her guilt in the cake debacle. Even if her … claim … that the Nightmare Spirit had become embedded into her subconscious self was true, I would have sensed something.” Luna said after several long minutes, her expression one of fatigue and concern. “One does not undergo such a traumatic fusion without showing some signs, both physical and spiritual, and unincarnate spirits like the Nightmares have a very specific astral ‘scent’ that is impossible to hide in such close proximity, let alone the physical transformation such a joining would have unleashed. Her psyche is traumatized, but not in fashion that a foreign entity intergrating into it would cause.”

“Then it was just a … a bad dream she had?” Spike asked in a raw voice, peering out from under Twilight’s short mane, red eyes roving over the immobilized Rarity before returning to Luna’s face. Desperate, mournful eyes that made Luna feel the press of guilt even stronger than she had before.

“More like a psychotic episode.” The Lunar Princess sighed and backed away from the former Bearer of Generosity, and turning her face away from the young Drake’s gaze. “I can personally attest to the … the word is wrong, there is no word in modern Equish that has the right meaning, but this is the best translation I can use. I can attest to the efficiency of the Elements in bringing one’s mind crashing down when they withdraw from a Bearer. If the visions you saw during the argument were simply the final straw, Twilight, then it is entirely likely that Lady Rarity has been suffering minor clashes with her Element for months at the very least, and having Generosity rip itself out of her psyche during a moment of extreme stress has taken those internal flaws and turned them into a mental crevasse. And once she slipped into the dream-scape, her conscious mind has fallen into this crevasse and fractured.”

“So is this a permanent change, or is there hope?” The young Drake pressed Luna for answers.

“I do not know. On one hoof, this could be an isolated incident since she was only bound to a single Element of Harmony while I was bound to three, and she will recover with aid to be the Pony you both know and love. On the other hoof … this could simply be the tip of the ice-berg of what Lady Rarity will face before the conclusion of her troubles.” Luna gazed at the comatose Unicorn again and shook her head before moving towards her lover and the young Drake, wrapping a wing around the smaller Alicorn and a hoof around the much young, crying dragon. “I will ask my flock assigned here to retreat from Lady Rarity for a short while, most of the Guards I will array around the town to act as sentries, but Moonbeam and two Night Guard will be assigned to Lady Rarity’s side at all times to … to protect her from Ponyville’s more … intolerable inhabitants, as well as herself should she suffer another psychotic episode.”

“I will also ask my sister if she can send one of Happy Place’s co-workers down to Ponyville to oversee Lady Rarity’s counselling for the immediate future. I … think it might be best if Lady Rarity is allowed to remain in a place she knows well and feels safe to be confined in during these trying times, rather than being whisked away to a foreign place where she has no control and is surrounded by strangers.”

“That’s … all we can do right now, I guess.” Twilight sighed after a few moments of quiet in the room, broken only by Rarity’s deep breathing and Spikes sniffling. “We keep her happy, we keep her safe, we wait till the experts tell us what to do next and take baby steps until Rarity’s able to walk on her own.”

It felt like the longest walk of Twilight’s life as she and Luna left the boutique, convincing Spike that leaving him with Rarity in her current state would put both of them at risk should her grip on reality slip again, and informing the Thestral Flock of the change in plans, the long, slow walk back to the library giving Twilight plenty of unwanted thinking time.

Yesterday, everything was fine. Well, chaotic and stressful, but for a day in Ponyville, that’s not exactly a surprise. But this … we’ve not faced anything like this! Even when Discord turned our Harmony into Disharmony, we were altered but still ourselves, just the very worst versions of ourselves. Yet now Rarity is …

Twilight didn’t want to finish that thought. She felt as if doing so would make the horrors Rarity was enduring now somehow … more real.

Yet all I’ll do if I pursue that line of thinking is just avoid my own pain, while Rarity can’t escape her own. Some ‘Princess of Friendship’ I am, huh.

The newest Alicorn told herself it was just the strain of trying to navigate Ponyville in the gloom of the late night sky, covered with clouds that had come swooping in from the Everfree Forest sometime during the night, that was causing her eyes to water. Spike would probably break down on the spot if she gave in and started crying as well, and she needed to be strong for Spike right now.

And Faust only knew what the Elements might do to her friends, especially with Twilight’s Ascension still in the very beginning of its changes, if she somehow failed both Friendship and Generosity and they decided to up and switch hosts again. Or worse still, if the rejection altered her Ascension, and she became the Alicorn of Madness and Despair, or something worse still.

Is that what’s going to happen? My friends ‘slip up’, their Elements abandoned them and latch onto me, and I spend the rest of their lives caring for my closest friends who have been broken because they didn’t meet up to some arbitrary, impossible divine standard? An eternity walking a mental tightrope, hoping the Elements don’t drive me insane from trying to live up to their unreasonable expectations, or drive me insane when I fail and they rip themselves out of my psyche and shatter my mind in turn?

The presence of Magic, that absurdly subtle spiritual weight that had only been so recently revealed to her, began to make itself known, throbbing with what Twilight could only describe as sympathy and sorrow in the back of her mind, while Generosity sulked even further back and spat out feelings of anger and a strange sense of justification, and the two Elements exchanged bickering flashes of emotions too fast and too alien for Twilight to grasp between one another, giving Twilight the mother of all headaches on-top of the lingering pain her first real binge with alcohol as her mind began to fill up with the argument between the two Elements.

And you two! Stop that! This is my head, and I’ve enough going on without you two starting a fight inside my brain! Equis doesn’t need an insane Alicorn with absolute dominion over magic running around!

Magic gave a burst of soothing light in the back of Twilight’s mind, somehow grabbed Generosity, who was very unhappy about it from the way the new ‘hitch-hiker’ in Twilight’s head seethed with anger, and then the two Elements just … vanished. Which was, in itself, very disturbing. If the Elements could just obscure themselves from Twilight’s mind, even when she was now consciously aware of their presence, that meant they could be watching her at any moment, or subtly controlling her without any warning whatsoever. If they hadn’t been doing that to her and her friends already.

Does that mean Magic was watching as Luna and I … aaaaaaaah! I have a pervy fragment of Creation in my head! What else has it been watching since I became a Bearer! Does it watch me when I go to the toilet! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Apparently whatever veil Magic had used to hide itself and the other Element while they argued in Twilight’s mind was not entirely fool-proof, because now Twilight caught snatches of hysterical amusement and frantic bursts of apology and denial from … somewhere in her head. Which while momentarily amusing still did nothing to calm Twilight’s anxiety about having two more minds occupying the back of her head!

“At least nothing worse can await us tomorrow …” Twilight moaned out loud as they finally came within sight of her library, her sanctuary.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trixie itched.

It wasn’t something like fleas on her coat, or an irritant on her skin. No, it was the presence of another one of her kind, several of them no less, triggering instincts and biological processes that Trixie had hoped a life of wandering the roads of Equestria, away from her kith and kin, would have minimized the chances of encountering and made it easier for her to track down the rare few Scrolls of Weeaboo that had made their way to Equestria over the centuries, and engineer a retro-spell from the original Curse that had made the Spear-Maidens in the first place.

Unfortunately, the Cutiemark Crusaders were the most obvious, and agonizing source. Sadly just a few months too young for Trixie to sate her urges with, and she could agonizingly hear them giggling to each other from the other side of the guest-bedroom door, the scent of their arousal like a fog of musk that clawed away Trixie’s already-flagging willpower. There was at least one more of her kind somewhere within Ponyville, Trixie’s body had sensed them each and every time she had come to Ponyville, but her previous actions, and the attitude of the townsfolk towards her, had hardly been conductive to a courtship, however short-lived.

Cleaning up the Crusaders’ ‘residue’ in the bathroom had been a torture in and of itself, but the fact that Trixie had been unable to take her own matters in hoof, so to speak, and then had left puttering around the house after the Thestrals had come and roused Spike, Princess Luna and Mistress Twilight so late at night that the chaos had thrown Trixie into stubborn wakefulness, and trying to clean the library to find something to do with her hooves had eventually led to her listening on the other side of the door as the three young mares played with each other in bed.

Apparently they had either forgotten, or chosen to ignore, her warnings about the, for lack of a better term, extreme fertility that Weeaboo’s Curse had inflicted upon them. Hopefully young Sweetie Belle had remembered the contraception spell, but Trixie had been able to keep a small amount of her ‘morning tea’ despite the long journey to Ponyville. Not having anything but the clothes on her back had also done wonders for keeping her supply intact, as it was rather hard to brew tea when one didn’t even have a kettle.

Would that they were a few months older … Trixie cursed mentally and groaned as the wave of musk from the other side of the door grew fresher, along with two voices giving vent to happy moans, and the third a soft sound of surprise. How much relief could she gain from joining with three of her kind at once? I would greatly enjoy showing them all the tricks I have picked up over the years, and I dare say they’d be quick, eager students if the gusto they’ve shown today is any indication.

Yet Mistress Twilight would despise me, if not for taking three underage Ponies, however ready, under her roof, then for possibly exposing them to whatever lingering curse-magic that Sunset Shimmer has embedded in me.

And that conjured memories that did little to cool Trixie’s already raging libido. Sunset Shimmer had been so lost and alone when she shuffled into Featherbrook, and Trixie had merely thought the other Unicorn’s story of a ‘relic’ accidentally transforming her as perfectly believable, given what Trixie herself had suffered at the malignant will of the alicorn amulet, and Trixie had been more than willing to share her research with Sunset, to remove Weeaboo's curse from them both and finally make them 'normal' Mares.

Pleasant days studying the scroll she had recovered with Sunset at her side, and even more pleasant nights as Trixie taught Sunset how to care for her new body, and how to sate the cravings their proximity to one another caused within both Mares. Sunset had been a clumsy, awkward but ultimately giving lover, at least at first, and Trixie had been more than happy to share her time and her bed with the new ‘sister’ of their strange little curse.

It had made waking up to find Sunset trying to sneak out of Trixie’s wagon with the Spell-Scroll in the dark of the pre-dawn all the more cutting. And the duel over the scroll had trapped them in those abominable magical outfits for weeks, and forced Trixie and Sunset to remain trapped together, unable to escape one another, nor the wretched impulses caused by staying so close to one of their own kind caused to bubble up uncontrollably. What had been an act of giving freely had instead turned into a contest to see who could take more from the other, and just thinking about what she had done to Sunset, and what Sunset had done to Trixie, made the show-mare sick to her stomach even as her body throbbed with the memories.

And yet, that was possibly some of the best sex you ever had, Trixie. The blue show-mare though to herself bitterly as she slunk away from the door, an effort that took all of her willpower as the soft voices of the trio on the other side of the door became throatier and louder, the slap of flesh on flesh and the soft thump of the bed-head banging against the wooden wall all painted a picture of three little fools lost in their own hormones and the effects of Weeaboo’s Curse.

It had been magnificent sex, if Trixie was truly honest with herself. Sunset had been a willing student and inventive in her own right once she had come to see some of the benefits of her new state of being, but there had been a edge of cruelty, a need to be the ‘top’ that had unnerved Trixie at times, a sense of danger that Trixie had just hoof-waved away as the other Mare being consumed with the intoxication of the new pleasure she could experience, but the travel from Gryphon territory back to Equestria, a long trip to begin with when one did not have access to wings and had to negotiate the many switch-back trails to get back to Pony territory, and the trains that criss-crossed the country, had shown Trixie the truth once the two former-lovers had been forced by the accidents caused during their duel to remain by each other’s side.

Sunset liked being dominant, craved it even, and she liked pain, both receiving it and even more so when dishing it out. And if Sunset Shimmer truly was a fiend and not just physically warped by whatever magical item she had come into contact with, then Trixie held a great and terrible fear for her future.

In the chaos between Mistress Twilight undoing the mess of spells that had trapped Sunset Shimmer and Trixie together for weeks and the horrible moment when the Canterlot Magi had slapped the infernal golden collar around her neck in the wake of the succuponi’s rampage, Trixie had cast spells determined to check her body for injuries and for ‘accidents’, given that she and Sunset had been repeatedly blowing load after load inside each other constantly for almost a month, and hermaphrodites were notorious for being able to fall pregnant at any time of year, where normal Ponies had to wait for the ‘spring madness’, or use fertility spells and potions to trigger an estrus outside of their normal breeding period.

And Trixie’s worst fears had been realized: She was pregnant, and if she was, then Sunset Shimmer was likely in the same boat. And if Sunset was truly a Demon, then their children could also be fiendish in turn.

Yet if she told anypony, they would likely attempt to abort the children to preserve the rest of Equestria. Whatever else Trixie might have been or had become, she would not, could not destroy an innocent life, especially life that had sprung from her own loins, it had been her family’s creed for as long as the living members could remember, to take pains to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but to never destroy those lives that did manage to take root inside a Lulamoon or one of their partners. Surely the Princesses could find a way to purge the demonic traits of the children as they would cure Trixie … and maybe Sunset Shimmer too.

What if … Sunset could be cured, not just of her demonic nature, but her hate, her rage? Trixie pondered that thought as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking to the kitchen, and then the entrance to the basement, thinking hard.

There was little love lost between the two after their travel to find Twilight, and while the sex had been mind-blowing, in every sense of the word, Trixie knew that both Sunset and herself would need significant help to be able to reconnect like they once had … and maybe that was for the best. Trixie had no intention of playing second-fiddle to anypony but Mistress Twilight, and Sunset Shimmer showed a disturbing preference for violence and cruelty that would only warp a Foal’s mind into a similar twisted outlook on life.

If Sunset was pregnant like Trixie was. If the Princesses could cure whatever fiendish traits the children had inherited from their mothers. If the Princesses would grant Trixie full custody of the children, and not force Sunset and Trixie to share custody, a fate that the blue show-mare shuddered as she remembered how many times Sunset’s teeth had left marks in Trixie’s skin, not in lust or passion, but dominance and knowing attempts to inflict pain and fear.

Whatever happens, I will not allow anypony, anything, to harm you. Trixie promised, placing a fore-hoof to her belly before heading towards the kitchen to brew up a pot of ‘morning tea’ for the Crusaders. Not even Mistress Twilight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“More tea?” Discord asked, pouring a stream of hot tea from an upside-down tea-pot into an equally physics-defying cup, the liquid splashing up into the cup and billowing aromatic steam around and up the upturned rim.

“Mmmm, thank you, Discord.” Celestia smiled, taking the cup with her magic and deftly flipping it right-side up before the liquid could spill out, then held a wing outstretched for Discord to sit next to her, an offer the serpentine chimera took gleefully, the two beings wrapping a wing around one another and settling down to watch the evening news.

Which seemed to consist of nothing but Stump, Murdock and the Muck Rakers trying desperately to spin everything Celestia had said this morning into the most negative, incompetent drivel they could.

It was actually cute, once one took a certain emotional distance from whom they were trying to defame, but Celestia took it in stride, and Discord, once he got over an urge to go deliver the offending parties to a small corner of the Chaos Realm he liked to call ‘the-think-about-what-you’ve-done-before-I-call-Cthuluh-over-to-discuss-it-with-you corner’, the two settled down to watch what Celestia had dubbed ‘the duck-shoot hour’.

“Shocking information that Princess Celestia has been putting all Ponykind at risk to appease the lesser races …”

“Aaaaand filing speciest charges against Channel 47 … again” Princess Celestia scratched the time and news-anchor’s name down on a pad as Disco summoned a pair of bingo-cards and waited till Celestia was free before handing it off to her.

“First person to call ‘bingo’ gets to eat the last tub of ice-cream.” The Chaos-God offered, chortling as Celestia gave him an evil look and accepted the card, and the challenge, with a wicked smile.

Flicking to the next channel, they were greeted by a poorly dubbed-over video of Celestia, with the voice-actor, who sounded nothing at all like Celestia, began shouting inane slogans that the time for the Ponies of Equestria to take control of the country back from her filled the air.

“Good Faust, do they think I honest sound like I’ve been figged?” The Solar Princess spat out a mouthful of tea and then began chortling. “While I am slightly concerned Ponies who’ve never actually heard me speak might believe this, the fact they didn’t even match up what she’s saying to the movements of my mouth should clue most Ponies in.”

“You know, I’d ask what figging is, but quite frankly, it sounds horrible and even I have things I’d rather not know.” Discord mumbled, flicking the channel over again, and both immortals blinked, slowly, as a florid, red-faced Unicorn who looked like he’d lived off donuts and cream-cheese since he’d been weaned off the teat sat in-front of a picture of Celestia’s face that had been marred with a red circle with a strike through it, and was screaming about how Celestia was destroying the moral fabric of the country with her ‘lax’ attitude to the immigrants ‘streaming’ into the country and her refusal to stand down from power.

“Aaaaand another front-page advertisement in the Canterlot Gazette pointing out our intake of refugees and immigrants is actually slowing down, because I’ve been helping the other nations of the world achieve stability and peace and thus there’s no need for people to try to illegally enter from most of our neighbouring countries?”

“I think I’ve actually got ‘gibbering, fear-mongering idiot’ on my bingo-card here, somewhere …”

Click

“… and amidst terrifying revelations that Princess Celestia has been gambling with the fate of the nation because ‘war is terrible’, the questions that we have to ask: Should she stand down for this gross negligence, and how can we be sure she will not turn the power of the sun against us to cling to her tyrannical seat of power!”

“Oh my me …” Discord muttered, and pressed the remote again.

Click

“Gold armor? What, was she thinking? A mare with her colouration should only wear a little gold, an accent, not a suit of the damn stuff!”

“Agreed, and it is high time the Ponies of Canterlot saw where their taxes are going. For shame!”

“My armor is forged from celestial metal not found on this world. Literally. It is in all the history books, confirmed by the best metallurgists of this era and countless others. It just looks gold-like.” Celestia sighed and put a hoof to her head. “What next, they’ll complain the armor makes my butt look big?”

“And did you see what the haunch-plates did for her rear? Setting unrealistic standards of beauty for our easily-influenced fillies is hardly befitting a supposedly motherly monarch!”

“…. Another channel?”

“Please.”

Click

“And on the latest news …”

“Oh dear Faust, no …”

“It appears all is not well with Princess Luna and Princess Twilight down in Ponyville! Highly-placed sources have indicated that there may be some sort of internal dispute amongst the Elements of Harmony and …”

“Bearers, you halfwits. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.” Celestia grated before taking a soothing sip of tea while Discord rubbed her back. “I’ll have to check on that tomorrow, I know Luna asked for a flock of her Thestrals, but I assumed she just wanted to provide some Guards that listened for her orders first.”

“And we have this exclusive footage of a Unicorn, presumed to be one Rarity Belle, being carried out of the Golden Oaks Library in a full-body cast, where Princess Twilight lives as an example to all of our Royals, living on a government wage and working a nine-to-five job like the rest of us, and apparently where Rarity Belle was involved in an altercation with another Element of Harmony.”

Discord had the high honor of actually witnessing the Divine Overlord of Ponykind utter ‘fuck’ in a very blunt and emphatic tone.

“ …whose identity we cannot confirm at this stage due to the photographer being distracted by a sonic boom, the side-effects of Wonderbolt-in-Training Rainbow Dash’s famous Sonic Rainboom maneuver, which she repeatedly performs over the Everfree Forest, our sources claim, to hone her unique technique. Also, our reporters in the field were able to catch a very rare and oddly public example of a mating-ritual between a female Timberwolf and a very, very large Alpha male of her kind. Experts are confused over why the female seemed unable to walk properly, or why she was so resistant to the male’s approaches, but some are saying it may be a sign of …”

Click

“Are we going to Ponyville tomorrow?” Discord asked softly as the television switched over to yet another channel, thankfully one not streaming distorted news right into their faces.

“Discreetly. Since Dawn-Ray is in technical command after Rosebush’s … display this afternoon, I can tell my little Ponies I am in talks with my experts about finding other potential trans-dimensional ‘holes’ in Equestria.”

“What actually happened to Rosebush? I liked her, a bit more fire and a little more sass in her than in your former Captain of the Guard.”

“She and Cadence have … issues with one another that I had hoped they would be mature enough to deal with by now, but sadly not. And it appears that Chrysalis’s blood-oath to ‘do no harm’ does not also extend to ‘do not sass the volatile super-solider with the fact you boned her ex-boyfriend while wearing the face of the mare that stole him away in the first place, and point out you rocked his world every night for months on end’.” Celestia sighed again and snuggled up against Discord, half smiling, half pouting. “Pity. I really did like the furniture in the red-rooms, cherry-wood is hard to come by these days.”

“Ah, and this would tie into the whole ‘emotions and possessiveness’ angle with … sex and things. I’m beginning to understand why there’s so many Stallions who go monogamous despite the fact that Equestria would gladly see them boning Mares left and right just to keep the population up. I wonder if that makes the ones who do canter from Mare to Mare either very brave, or pitifully suicidal.”

“Herds are more common in the outer rims of Equestria, but there are still quite a few Herds within Canterlot. Prince Blueblood, my … nephew … has quite a large Herd. They’re not always devoted to sex and reproduction, some Herds form simply because the Ponies, and others, involved simply live together platonically, and ‘help’ on another with the Mares’ estruses in Spring.”

“Oh hush, I’m new to all of … this. Still ... I’m surprised you don’t have a Herd.”

Celestia spat her tea again, this time with enough force to turn the liquid into a fine spray that misted into the air.

“Good Faust, no, don't you put that evil on me, Discord! Apart from the fact I don’t like other Mares ‘that way’, consider that Equestria suffers a shortage of Stallions. If I gathered a ‘Herd’ of Stallions around me, imagine the nightmare over who the father would be of any children, who had fathered the next Prince- or Princess-heir apparent of the Solar Throne! Or the outrage from the Mares out there who are struggling to find a male partner, let alone a Stallion to give them foals!” The solar Princess chuckled weakly, going rather pale under her white coat. “I might be an Immortal, but getting annually lynched by outraged, hormonal Mares during spring and summer would most definitely, as the current generation says, suck mightily.”

“Well, you do suck, but I wouldn’t use the term ‘mightily’ to describe it …” Discord offered nonchalantly, and received a throw-pillow to the face for his efforts.

“Oh hush, or I’ll show you mightily suckage.” Celestia retorted, blushing herself now as she levitated the last tub of ice-cream onto another throw-pillow, rested the whole affair on her lap and conjured a spoon, stabbing deep into the triple-chocolate swirl and offering the treat to Discord, whose mis-matched eyes widened in surprised delight before he accepted the offering, the two Immortals snuggling together on the couch, the television quickly forgotten.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“THERE IT IS AGAIN!” Cadence bellowed, sitting bolt-upright on the couch, her face obscured being a sleeping mask.

From across the room, the door to the master bedroom opened and a pillow awash in Shining Armor’s purple-red magic was hurled at her, knocking her sleeping mask askew.

“Go to sleep!”

“But honey, I can feel such strong love-magic … or would you prefer if I called them ‘Love-Love Waves’, Shiney?”

Shining Armor’s response was a strangled, angry noise that no equine throat should have been able to produce, followed by a literal barrage of pillows flying out of the master bedroom until the only thing that was visible of Princess Cadence was the very tip of her horn, penetrating through a dainty silk pillow.

Well, at least I’ll have something soft to sleep on. Cadence mused as she arranged the pillows into a suitable mattress and tried to go to focus on the source of the love she could feel in the air, but it remained at once both hauntingly familiar but too … omnipresent to get a proper lock-on for Cadence's senses to determine who, or from what direction, the waves of love were coming from. Definitely not that bug-bitch, Chrysalis, but who then?

I’ll have to ask Aunty Celestia if there’s any juicy gossip about love-birds in the castle tomorrow morning before we leave for Ponyville.