Now here was Glimmer Wing's place, and it looked more like a cave than a house. There was a door, sure, but not many ponies lived in the outskirts of Ponyville, near the rolling hills and grasslands and places that ground-hogs liked to call home. But there were windows, and a garden, and some friendly-looking pink and blue flowers, and so even if this wasn't the right place, or, if it was, at least you could make it to the front door before claiming things got too difficult. How bad could two overly protective bat-pone-parents be, anyway?

When you knocked, the door stayed shut for a while. You could hear muffled whispering and scuffling around behind it, but waited about thirty seconds before the wooden frame finally cracked open and a single, illuminated eye peered at you from the surrounding darkness.

"Password?" it hissed, showing off a glint of fangs that gleamed underneath its eye.

"Uh, password? I don't remember hearing anything about—"

"Oh, Daddy, just let him through. I told you he was going to be here soon anyway."

"Shush. If he doesn't have the password, you know I can't let him in."

"Daddy, you must made up the password yesterday! And this is the only time you've used it since!"

"I can't be expected to think of everything around here! Just because I'm trying to be responsible for the well-being and common welfare of my household, just because I'm concerned about the untoward attentions of some wrinkly pink monkey thing... all of a sudden I'm irrational. Is that it?"

"Daddy, just open the door!"

"Fine, but we're replacing this with a different test. Let's see how he does hanging from the perches, probably won't even last a minute..."

The gruff, grumbling voice faltered away as the door opened, and a familiar face greeted you, surrounded by two others, mostly sets of leering eyes, that followed your every move as you stepped inside and wiped your shoes on the entrance-mat.

"Hello," you said, giving a short bow to the presumed father and mother of your almost-of-age heart-throb. The looks from one generation to the next were similar, a sort of melted together concoction you could piece together from the two constituent halves. Dad was gruff and grumbly, a bit of a white beard and the look of someone who split logs for fun. The mother was more wispy, almost ethereal, gliding and hovering behind her family like a shadow, occasionally chuckling and murmuring her approval or disapproval in the shadows, knowing only the most important bits would creep out into the light. Matching blue coats, silver mane on the mother, pitch-black on the dad, with hints of white and grey that had begun to grow in. He stared at you the entire time you took your shoes off, and as you stood there awkwardly, waiting to know what to say.

"So," the father said before you could crack the conversation. "What's your interest in my underage daughter?"

"Daddy!" Glimmer Wing batted at her father's shoulder with a hoof, but the gruff bat-pony remained unmoved.

"Uh, well," you said, already feeling a gallon of sweat dumped out over your head like a cooler full of Gatorade. "We're friends, uh, we met at a party, and kind of got to know each other from there..."

"You haven't been nibbling from the forbidden fruit, have you, dear?" Glimmer Wing's mother was behind you, her voice creeping up like a whisper from dead air. You jumped a little as you spun around, and found yourself wondering if the way Glimmer Wing's mother lowered her eyebrows and drank you in was anything the same as the way Glimmer Wing did before she pounced and forced you to keep her from biting your neck.

"Uh," you said, sweating even more, if that was possible. "Not, really, as such, uh, we haven't—"

"Bat-ponies come from tradition," the father said. He gave you a hard slap on the back, which, despite threatening to knock loose a few of your teeth, made you feel like maybe there was some progress to be made after all. He even grinned at you, showing off one chipped fang, the other missing. "You think you can hang with the family tradition?" He leered up at you, squinting, enough to make you feel like you might evaporate if you moved in the wrong direction too quickly.

"Well... I'm definitely willing to give it a shot. Glimmer Wing means a lot to me."

"Ha!" The father laughed and spit, the saliva landing somewhere in the direction of the other room, which looked to be a kitchen from the dim remaining light and hanging pots and pans visible from around the corner. "We'll just see about that."

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves as well," the mother bat-pony said, slinking her way out from behind you and coiling around her husband like a boa. "My name is Constant Echo," she said, holding out a hoof, and you took and shook it as formally as you could manage, even though that came out a bit awkward and shaky at the end. At least she smiled at you, both fangs perfectly intact and filed to a point.

"My husband's name is Grim Light... but you can call him 'Grimmy' if you want. If he likes you, that is." She smirked.

Grim Light glared with a sour expression, indicating he was not likely to be open to the use of a nickname at any point in the near future.

The room was oddly quiet for a bit. You looked over at Glimmer Wing, and she looked back at you with a desperate, hopeful expression, but didn't seem to know what to say or do next.

"Shall we get started with the sniff test then?" Grim Light eventually said. He'd rustled up a few smoke supplies from a dresser drawer near an old rocking chair, and was spreading them out on the table and beginning to roll up some leaves into a sheet of paper. Less than a minute later and the leaves were rolled up, wrapped and ready to light. Grim Light studied the smoke for a moment, then picked up a dark, ebony lighter, and flicked it once, guiding the flame to the tip of his makeshift cigarette. A few puffs and he blew out a large cloud of smoke, which wafted over the room and began to filter into the light like wisps of smog on a cold morning.

You managed not to cough, though you did have to squint and wave your hand to blow away a bit of the smoke. Somehow it seemed like coughing would be a sign of weakness. Were bat-ponies particularly well-known for their ability to tolerate second-hand intoxicants? Who knows. Who knows anything about bat-ponies anyway?

Well, you would, in a bit.

"Why don't you follow us to the back-room," Constant Echo said quietly. "Then we can get started on things right away." She gestured down the hall through the kitchen, presumably to somewhere more spacious and private to find out what kind of tests Glimmer Wing's parents really had in mind. Grim Light kept giving you shifty looks out of the corner of his eyes, which you did your best to pretend not to notice.

The room she lead you to was darker than the others, almost pitch-black. A single, dim lamp lit it from the center, and when Constant Echo and Grim Light reached the lamp, they flicked it off, bathing you and Glimmer Wing and the entire room in an impenetrable darkness.

The darkness sat like that, for a moment, swallowing up the furniture and occupants of the room.

"Now," Grim Light said, his voice steady and instructive. "You can do it with your eyes open or shut, won't make much difference... let's see how your sense of smell works, boy."

It felt easier to close your eyes. A sniff test? They were asking you to sniff? They did know a human's nose is a lot less powerful by proportion to fragrances than a dog's, right? Although, maybe in Equestria scents worked a little differently...

Sniff. Nothing so far. Better try again.

Sniff. Sniff sniff.

Smells a bit like cinnamon, actually.

Sniff.

No, wait, there's vanilla at the end... maybe like an ice cream, a cookie dough sort of thing?

Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.

Don't jump to conclusions, better to take your time and give a carefully considered but incorrect answer than act like you know everything and then fall flat on your ass. Remember that one, it might be useful later.

You stuck out your tongue between your teeth to test the air, see if it would add anything. Miraculously, it seemed to, because now you could almost taste the scent, and the regions of your brain responsible for storing pieces of memory by priority were mixing together, digging through the archives, trying to come up with the name at the end of a giant, perfumed Rolodex.

But something didn't seem right. I mean, besides the ever-present darkness and two bat-pony-parents watching you to see if you could find your way in the dark through smell alone.

It felt like two smells at once.

Eyes still closed, you reached a hand up in front of your face. One hoof extended, holding something soft and crunchy. Another hoof extended, and something much more delicate, you almost didn't want to touch it for fear of crushing it with your hand. This is as wild a guess as anything, but if you don't swing the bat, you can't hit the ball...

"Cookies & cream ice cream," you finally said, then paused. "On top of a fresh rose... a damp, fresh rose, I think." Sniff sniff. Sniff. "I think I can smell the dew."

A moment of silence passed. Both smells remained unmoving.

Then the light snapped on, and Grim Light was grinning, a small, crumpled biscuit in one hand, the undamaged rose in the other.

"The ol' 'double-smell trick'... god job, boy, though you were a bit off on the first one. Cookie, at least!" Grim Light laughed and crumpled up the bits of the cookie in his off hoof, then set the rose in its vase down on a nearby table.

Glimmer Wing beamed at you, though she tried to hide it behind her parents' backs. More or less like your entire relationship so far, come to think of it.

"Test number two is a bit less tricky, but maybe a little more directly challenging... you doin' okay so far, sport? Ain't no shame in givin' up." Grim Light raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, daring you to throw in the white towel.

"I'm good," you said, nodding and swallowing the lump in your throat and meaning it. "Let's move on."

Grim Light hid his smirk, but Constant Echo's was obvious even from the far side of the room.

"Very well," Grim Light said, grumbling a little. "Echo will do this one. It's important to taste-test before getting yourself into a sticky situation."

Taste test?

Are they going to lick you now?

Constant Echo seemed to notice the expression on your face, and moved towards you with a reassuring smile.

"Nothing to be worried about," she said, her voice gentle and cushiony like a throw-pillow. "Just a little check to make sure you're not carrying anything 'unpleasant', shall we say..." She leaned closer to you, and you closed your eyes, readying yourself for the sensation of a prickly tongue lapping across your skin...

Until she bit you.

"Ow!"

Well, when somepony bites you, you say 'ow'. It's just the done thing.

It hurt, a little. Not too much.

When you looked down, Constant Echo had pulled her head away from your arm, and there were two pinprick, bleeding points left behind from her fangs. A little bit of blood dribbled off the pointy teeth and onto her chin, and she wiped it up with her hoof and licked it up, smiling devilishly as she cleaned the last bits of red from her shiny white palette.

"Very good," she said with a smile. "A bit of an earthy aroma, and a tinge of saffron... yes, very good. No problems there at all." Constant Echo licked her lips, and for a moment gave you a look that made you wonder if the 'pervert' gene is transmitted matrilineally. Glimmer Wing seemed to notice, and her smirk was even bigger, and more of a tease, with her tongue stuck out between her lips. Focusing was difficult already, especially when you could just pick Glimmer Wing up and run out the door with her if you really wanted...

No. Stay. Bat-pony preferences. You could do this.

"We're almost done," Glimmer Wing whispered to you between rooms. She bumped up against you a little, taking care not to touch noticeably in front of her parents, but still flicking you a little with her tail and giving you a glimpse underneath her skirt. Was her estimation about her season one hundred percent accurate, or were there little fibby-squiggles at the edges of that as well?

"Here," Grim Light said simply when you got to the room. There were perches on the ceiling, and the image of the family hanging upside down on their way to sleep jumped into your head as soon as you entered. There wasn't much instruction necessary—though, how exactly a human-shaped thing is designed to approach a bat-pony sleeping area is anyone's guess. You could get on the thing, at least. Then came the upside down part. The 'hanging by your feet in front of your almost-bat-pony-girlfriend's parents'.

Not too bad, as a matter of fact. You felt kind of like you could have done it all night.

Grim Light seemed to be the one holding on the longest. He waited and waited, even when his wife had tapped him on the shoulder and whispered into his ear, even when Glimmer Wing began to look pleadingly at him from behind your back, whimpering even loud enough that you heard it.

But your face didn't change. Nor did your feet. You were stuck, upside down, and you happened to like it, thank you, very much, until somepony needed you to move.

After about fifteen minutes, even Grim Light had to cave in. He'd let you in to his cave, and now he had to let you in somewhere else too.

"Well done," he said. He approached the perch and offered you a hoof, which you took, making it much easier to get dow, as a matter-of-fact. He shook your hand when he was done helping you down, and Constant Echo did the same, though her hold was much more demure, and she blushed when you leaned down and planted a kiss on her hoof.

"Such a gentlepony," she said, smiling at her husband. "Perhaps our daughter knows how to make good choices for herself after all, hmm?"

Grim Light grunted and rolled his eyes.

"Can't blame an old pony for being too careful. Never hurts to be on the safe side, I always say."

"You usually swear more than that when you say it though, Daddy," Glimmer Wing chipped in helpfully. Her father glared, but then broke into a grin, and the two laughed and shared a hug.

"You're all grown up now, eh kid?" Grim Light said, holding his daughter tightly. "Not gonna need your old man anymore soon."

"I'll always need you around, Daddy," Glimmer Wing said. She nuzzled into her father's neck and squeezed him extra hard. "Just 'cause I'm growing up doesn't mean I'm not still your little filly."

Grim Light rubbed her head with his hoof and tousled her mane. When the hug had finished, he nudged Glimmer Wing in the chest softly, pushing her in your direction. Glimmer Wing gasped, then went wide-eyed, then mouthed 'really?', and finally ran over, jumping into your arms, the first hug the two of you got to share in front of anypony.

There didn't feel anything about it besides that it was. It's harder to describe a hug than it is to hug someone. Just go do that, and maybe this part will ring a little truer. Go on. Get up and do it. Give yourself a hug if no one else is around. Hug your cat or your pillow or your stuffed animal. And if you have to cry, that's okay too.

When you want to, you can read more about what happened with Glimmer Wing. When her parents smiled and led the two of you to the bedroom, then left, still smiling, their hooves locked together. What happened when Glimmer Wing grinned at you, and closed the door, and flashed a single, shining fang in the bedroom light.

You want to hear about that part?

That's why we saved it for last.