Another book was set down, and a new one placed on her lectern. Twilight sighed as she read the title out loud. "Knots and Ropes Explored." It was, of course, another book on bondage. Try as she might to investigate her new interest, she couldn't stop thinking of Fluttershy the whole time the mare had been off on her date with Thunderlane.

Now she knew Fluttershy was back in Ponyville—at her home—and so Twilight had to go and settle things. Putting her favorite bookmark right at the start of the book, Twilight Sparkle closed the naughty tome and made her way to where she had put the present.

Twilight levitated the wrapped book up and checked the paper around it, and the big pink ribbon. Affixing a smile to her face, Twilight made her way out of her castle, and across town to where her friend's house sat. Fluttershy was outside, scrubbing animals clean. "Hi Fluttershy." She trotted up, feeling none of the warmth that she wished she would feel with her friend.

Nothing could banish the happiness from Fluttershy, particularly after having spent the morning playing with Thunderlane. "Hi Twilight." It took a few moments for her to remember why Twilight would be at her home, then the memory of what happened came back. Fluttershy was once again bound to the table, fastened and gagged, and completely unable to tell her friend to stop. All she could do was make her gesture, and Twilight wasn't noticing it.

"We need to talk." Twilight was about to say more, and stopped. "No, I need to talk. I did something very bad, Fluttershy, and I am so sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you, but I was—"

"You were being you. Caught up in the moment, doing something very new and exciting." Fluttershy experienced the revelation of her insight as she spoke it. "I think we need some tea, and biscuits."

Twilight stopped and thought about Fluttershy's words, and found in them a gem of insight. Following the pegasus' lead, she headed inside her friend's home behind Fluttershy.

Routine helped keep Fluttershy's thoughts from the panic that had come back with the memory. While she brewed the tea, she spoke of other things. "I accept that you were too excited, and in the moment, but I think what it did means we can't… I can't put myself in your hooves like that again." A warmth flowed through Fluttershy as she stated her feelings, and she realized that the finality of it closed a door she wanted to stay closed.

Blushing, Twilight shook her head. "No!" She surprised herself at the vehemence of her exclamation. "I don't want… but I want to have fun still…" Each time she trailed off without any furthering of the conversation, Twilight Sparkle got frustrated. "I don't want to hurt you again."

"More than me." Fluttershy considered using the stare for a moment, to show Twilight just how it felt to be trapped so badly. The idea fled as soon as it existed. "I don't want you to do that to anypony ever again. Play with them, but don't hurt them."

Twilight nodded. "I am studying right now so—"

"No, you need a mentor." Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. "And Princess Celestia is not the right one for this." Grinning a little, Fluttershy brought her tea service to the table, and set a plate of biscuits before her friend. "I will send her a letter, hopefully she can come soon enough."

"O-Okay Fluttershy." Twilight drew in her breath, and focused on her words. "I promise to study under the mentor you provide, and do everything I can to let them guide me in the ways… in the ways of the bedroom."

Twilight stared in disbelief. Fluttershy was standing at the front door of her castle, with Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Twilight's sister-in-law, Cadance. "C-Cadance?" She shook her head. "Fluttershy, you can't believe I would—"

"You promised." Fluttershy leveled her gaze—but not her stare—at Twilight and held her friend's eyes. "You promised me that you would do everything you could to learn these things properly, under the tutor I choose." Fluttershy looked away from Twilight, gazing up to Cadance's face and smiling. "And Princess Cadance is the princess of love."

"Twilight, can I speak?" Cadance wore a bemused grin at having to ask permission, but it was Twilight's castle after all. "Fluttershy explained what happened, and I think it was about time somepony had that talk with you."

The world shook around Twilight, and she rolled her eyes at the offer. "No offense, but Mom already had that—"

"No Twilight." Cadance rolled her eyes. "There really is no other way to put this. I am a dominant, and have been for quite a while." She watched her fellow princess "power down."

"You're a…" Twilight managed to get some words out, but otherwise she wasn't really thinking at all. Her brain had just received a fact so huge, with so many implications, that she couldn't work on it all at once. My brother must be a sub, was the first thing Twilight got from the concept. As she chipped away at the idea, more little thoughts came and went, settling in Twilight's mind for her to stumble upon later. "You're a dominant."

Twilight blinked and came to. She realized she was sitting at the dining table in the big dining hall, with Fluttershy and Cadance chatting away.

"You are just like your brother when you do that." Cadance smiled at Twilight and winked to Fluttershy. "Now, what do you know about bondage play?" It was such an honest question, it wasn't more than a single sentence, but she knew the kind of answer it would need.

Blushing hotly, Twilight Sparkle looked between Cadance and Fluttershy, then towards the kitchen.

"Spike is over at the Apple's farm, playing some game with Discord and Big Mac." Cadance filled in the answer to the implied question. "And Starlight Glimmer is in the library with Trixie Lulamoon."

There were no other avenues Twilight could think of to forestall telling Cadance everything. "Safewords are the most important part; the subservient has full control over what happens." Cadance was smiling to her, and nodding. "That is why I am doing this. I broke that rule with Fluttershy…"

"That is very serious, Twilight." Cadance looked to Fluttershy, rather than her new student. "What happened?"

"I was bound up, and gagged." The fear wasn't as hot anymore, time spent with Rainbow and Thunderlane were slowly smoothing out that memory, and Fluttershy found herself able to talk about it. "And Twilight was told my safegesture. She got so excited to be playing in that way, she forgot to watch for it."

"I see." The situation was complicated, as far as Cadance could see. Twilight had broken an agreement that was an absolute, but she hadn't done it on purpose. "Then the first thing I will ask of you, my student, is that you not gag your pets for at least a year, until you are more experienced in normal play."

Twilight was ready to be told she would not be allowed to top ever again, and the reasonableness of Cadance's rule caught her off balance. "I…" Her brain slowly shifted her sister-in-law from "friend and family" to "teacher," and it didn't feel uncomfortable for her. "Yes, Princess Cadance." She smiled to Cadance, and from the corner of her eye she saw Fluttershy smiling too.

"The second rule will be…" Cadance lit her horn and tested out the new spell she had been learning. Teleporting across the room, she reached a wing out at the doorway and pulled Starlight Glimmer into the room. "It seems you were not quite so busy upstairs." Cadance's snout twitched at an odd scent in the air.

Starlight's eyes were like saucers. "Trixie was done with her magic lesson early and wanted to get some rest before tomorrow and I was only listening for a little bit and I don't know what is going on but—"

"Shh, you probably know more than you should already." Cadance pointed to the table. "Come and join us, and explain what you learned."

Fluttershy's games with Thunderlane were now a well documented fact in the rumor mill of Ponyville, Twilight's involvement in them was not, and that is what confused Starlight. "I just heard that Twilight isn't meant to gag her pets… you have pets?"

Twilight shook her head. "No!"

"Not yet." Cadance corrected Twilight quickly. "We need to find the right pony, or ponies. It need not be somepony that you love, but attraction would be a good start." Lifting a hoof to her chin, Cadance examined her husband's sister. "I am heterosexual." Cadance smiled. "I only play with stallions." She gestured to Fluttershy next, hoping against hope that the pegasus would continue."

"Oh! Um…" Fluttershy blushed. "I am bisexual. I thought I only liked stallions, but Rainbow Dash taught me some new… things…" Her voice got softer and softer as she talked, until it trailed off completely.

When Cadance gestured to her next, Starlight blushed furiously. "I… I like mares and stallions too, stallions more than mares." She looked squarely, along with everypony else, at Twilight.

Twilight blinked a few times, and had a few false starts, where she opened her mouth, but closed it again when her brain didn't deliver the words on time. "Oh gosh, I have never thought about it before…"

"You like playing with mares." Fluttershy grinned a little.

"I like stallions too, although my one time with one wasn't very, very exciting. He was gentle, and nice…" Twilight trailed off, remembering her time as a human with Flash Sentry. At first he was barely able to touch her, nervous first-timer that she was had to try to remind him that she wouldn't break easily.

" 'Soft, gentle, nice…' " Cadance tapped the table with her hoof as she said each word. "Is that what you like from a stallion, Twilight?" The startled look Twilight shot back was just what Cadance figured. "I am going to put you down as bisexual as well, for now."

"Bisexual…" Twilight rolled the word around in her mouth. She thought of a mare in bondage, and felt herself warm up, but when she mentally shifted the mare into a stallion she felt no lessening of the excitement. "I think that fits me."

"Good. Now another alignment. Fluttershy tells me you like to bind ponies up and play with them, but do you like to be bound as well? Would you let Thunderlane wrap you in tight straps and screw you silly for an hour without saying a—" Cadance finally stopped, the expression of distaste on Twilight's face said it all. "So a dominant only."

Starlight was stunned. She had heard of ponies playing "odd games" before, but now things really started to come into focus. Twilight Sparkle, her teacher on all matters friendship-related, was not only into mares, but was focused on bondage. And now, looking at Fluttershy, she saw a very fancy-looking collar around her throat with a tag hanging from it. Stamped on the tag was a number, zero-eighty-three.

"I-I think so." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "I have been reading up on it, and I think I really like the idea of using both straps and ropes!" With her favorite topic delved into, Twilight was full-steam-ahead. "I was reading a book on suspension bondage, and it…" She finally trailed off when she realized everypony was just looking at her with various expressions on their faces. Fluttershy looked intrigued. Cadance looked amused. Starlight looked hungry.

Cadance's smile was for more than just her student's vim, she noticed the scent of a mare's arousal quite strongly now, and because of the position she had guided Starlight into earlier, she could tell it was Twilight's own student, or ex-student as the case seemed to be lately. "Twilight, how are Starlight's friendship lessons going?"

"Oh we are beyond that." Twilight was thankful for the shift in the conversation's topic. "She even taught me some things about friendship." She turned to look at Starlight, and felt a moment of confusion at the longing look she was being given.

"Do I really have to point this out?" Cadance turned to Fluttershy. "Do I?"

"No, Your Highness." Fluttershy grinned from ear to ear, and sipped at the last of her tea. "Anypony could see that Starlight is just as interested in this as Twilight is."

"What?!" Twilight and Starlight broke the stare they had been sharing to look at Fluttershy.

"That's crazy!" Twilight blushed bright red. "I couldn't… not with… Starlight is my friend!"

"Yeah!" Starlight shifted on her seat a little. "I could never like… well, admit to liking…" She was intimately aware of how hot she was feeling, and the strange look Twilight was giving her. "I might… just a little…"

"Would you like to try it out, with supervision?" The nod Cadance got back from Starlight was so fast it made her smile widen further. On her flanks, Cadance's cutie mark flickered just once, sending a warm pulse through the mare.

Starlight, her head still slowly nodding, turned to Twilight, and lost all focus. "I don't even know what to do, what to call you, what to—" She was silenced by a "legs and wings" hug from her friend and former mentor.

Twilight hugged Starlight.

"You don't call her anything different unless you are playing a game, and before you try that I am going to have to explain a lot of things." Cadance warmed to her task, particularly with two very new-to-the-scene mares.

Author's Notes:

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

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