There was no doubt about it, Twilight was pooped. Though her recent cruise with her family had, in the end, been a pleasant experience, it was, without question, a trying one as well. And as such, by the time she'd finally got back to Ponyville, she looked utterly exhausted. Letting out a sigh of relief, she looked on with a smile at the glittering form of her home, which looked beautiful against the backdrop of the rising sun behind it. Smiling to herself, Twilight trotted along the path towards it, carrying her saddle-bags upon her back, and, soon enough, found herself at her door. With her horn lighting up, she opened it, putting on a contented look as she took a single step inside.

"Spike! I'm ba-AAARRRGGGHHH!!!"

Without warning, she found herself yanked by her hoof by an alabaster blur of some kind, which darted her across the chamber, prompting her bags to fall off her back in the process. Before she had any idea what was going on, she was seated in her usual throne and, after taking a moment to recover, placed a hoof on the side of her head to try and stabilize herself.

"What the...Rarity?!"

Sure enough, it was indeed her fashionista friend, who looked at her with pure excited glee, like some giddy school-filly. It was as though she could hardly contain herself, and for a moment, she actually looked more like Pinkie Pie when she was asked to keep a secret. But, before Twilight could speak to her, she soon noticed that she was not the only one of her friends here. Indeed, all of them were here. Not just Spike, but also Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie and Starlight. Each of them looked at her with some degree of excitement or mischievousness which, naturally, led to a degree of concern for the young Princess.

"Um...hi?" she said meekly.

Rarity, once more, was the most active now, moving right up to her and looking her right in the eye.

"Well come on now, darling! We need details!"

Twilight looked to her with confusion.

"Details? Details about what?!"

Pinkie giggled.

"Oh, I think you know what we mean!"

Twilight turned to her with a frown.

"Clearly I don’t, Pinkie!"

Chuckling, Rainbow spoke up.

"Yeah, yeah, don't go playing innocent with us, Twilight."

Of course, Twilight had no inclination for this right now.

"Okay...will somepony please tell me what's going on?!"

After looking to one another with knowing smirks, the mares all turned to Starlight who, getting the signal, lit up her horn and began to levitate what appeared to be a newspaper of some sort over to Twilight's direction. Taking it in her own magic, the Princess of Friendship briefly looked at the title, before then looking to her friends with some incredulity.

"The Daily Shipper? Really? You all actually read this?"

Fluttershy, though looking a touch embarrassed, nodded a little.

"Well...it does have some interesting gossip here and there...not that I really pay that much attention."

She let out a nervous cough and looked away as Twilight looked to her with a raised eyebrow. But, the young alicorn instead got back to the business of finding out what, exactly, her friends had been talking about, and it wasn't long before her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. For there, plastered right on the front page, was a photograph of her giving a warm embrace to a young stallion with blue fur and a blonde mane. And above it was the main headline of the story; "New Lover for Princess Twilight?" Immediately, Twilight slammed the paper down on the table, her face breaking out into a massive blush, and she began to garble her words.

"But...but...but...how?! Why?!"

Rarity let out a happy squeal, moving her chair closer to Twilight's.

"Ooooh! Tell us everything, Twilight! What's his name? How did you meet? What's he like? What did your family think of him?"

But Twilight, having recovered from this shock, responded by placing a hoof squarely on Rarity's mouth, silencing her.

"Rarity, no matter what this paper has told you, I promise you, me and Star Tracker are not lovers!"

However, that remark merely seemed to fan Rarity's flames.

"Oh! Star Tracker! Stars joining together with the twilight of the day, it's perfect!"

Growling, Twilight used her magic to roll up the newspaper and started to pat it against Rarity's head in a somewhat mildly annoying manner.

"No! Bad Rarity! No matchmaking! No!"

Laughing at this display, Applejack leaned forward.

"Ah dunno, Twi. Y'all looked pretty sweet in that there picture."

Setting down the paper, and letting Rarity recover from her "attack", Twilight sighed and looked over to her farmer friend.

"Look...it's a long story. He meant well and...well...I might have felt the need to make things up to him after I hurt his hoof."

Letting out a cackle, Rainbow spoke up next.

"So, he's into rough stuff, eh? Kinky."

As one would expect, Twilight's blush returned.

"What?! No! It wasn't like that at all!"

Giggling slightly, Starlight was the next to add her voice to matters.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Twilight. Having a little bit of romance on a long cruise in hardly a controversial thing."

Twilight frowned at her student, but before she had a chance to refute that, the unicorn mare continued.

"Besides, you two seemed pretty close in all those other pictures."

Confused, Twilight's eyes widened again, and she started to take hold of the newspaper again and began flipping through the pages. Soon, she found what she was looking for, as there were yet more pictures of her and Star Tracker together. Of particular note was the centrepiece photo, which featured the two of them smiling to one another as Twilight was giving him the necklace with her cutie mark on it. Naturally, Twilight was mortified.

"What?! How...how did they get this picture?! Did they hide a camera in our room?!"

Leaning over, Rarity grinned widely at the photo.

"Awww! You're already giving each other gifts of jewellery? That's so romantic!"

Again, Twilight frowned to her, prompting the other mare to back away slightly, though still bearing that same grin as she did so. After letting out yet another sigh, Twilight looked to all of her other assembled friends.

"Look...I realise that all this might create some image of romance to you all, but I assure you, Star Tracker and I are just friends. There's no romance, no secret kissing beneath the moonlight. No other cliché lovey-dovey stuff. We're...just...friends."

Of course, that led to a degree of disappointment on the part of the other mares, but for the most part, they seemed to accept those words. However, it was at this point that Spike went through the all-too common occurrence of belching out a scroll, which landed safely in his claws, leading to some curiosity on Twilight's part.

"Who's it from, Spike?"

Unrolling the scroll, the young dragon began to read it out.

"Oh...it's from your Mom."

Smiling, Twilight pointed to him.

"Read it out."

Nodding, Spike did exactly that.

"Dear Twilight, thank you again for everything you did to make this cruise as fun as it was. We all appreciate everything you did, and I hope we can all get together in the near future. Hugs and kisses, Mom."

Twilight smiled, only to stop when Spike continued.

"Oh! And P.S. I'm sure Star Tracker also appreciated everything you did, especially after you..."

The drake paused, squinting his eyes, as if to make sure he'd actually read that passage properly, all while Twilight looked on nervously.

"W...what is it?"

Looking up, Spike bore the biggest smirk of all as he finished reading out the letter.

"...After you deicide to have him be...part of the family?"

Slowly, all eyes turned to Twilight, and each face bore a smirk just as big, if not bigger, than Spike's, all while Twilight started sweating nervously.

"Okay...I can explain!"

Sadly, she didn't get the chance, as there were squeals of joy all around, with Rarity especially rushing for the door of the castle.

"Eeeeee! I need to go and start designing your wedding dress!"

"WHAT?!" Twilight exclaimed.

The others soon followed.

"I know the perfect flowers for it!" Fluttershy added.

"Ah'll get the buffet ready!" Applejack chimed in.

"I'll bake the cake and send out the invitations!" Pinkie squealed.

"And I'll...well...I'll just smirk through the whole thing!" Rainbow finished.

Before Twilight could stop them, they were all rushing out, with her stopping at the door trying to call out to them.

"Wait! You need context! CONTEXT!!!"

But, it was too late, and all of them were now long gone. In the silence that followed, Twilight took a few calming breaths, only to then turn to look at Starlight.

"Starlight...sweetie? Does that paper happen to have the name of the one who took the pictures and wrote the story?"

Raising an eyebrow, Starlight took the paper and started reading through it.

"Um...yeah! Right here!"

Slowly, Twilight put on a smile of her own, with her left eye starting to twitch a little.

"That's very...very good to know."