Lily Glamerspear

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If anypony asked her, no, Lily Glamerspear wasn’t seeing anypony right now. And she didn't think she was ready for another relationship right now, either. Which wasn’t to say that she’d say "no" to every possible proposal, just that she might have to think about it for a bit.

A colt starts chatting her up at the bar? ‘Okay, why not?’

He invites her to the dance floor? ‘Yeah, sure; that's what we’re all here for, isn't it?’

Leans in close to her nape and lays a hoof on her plot? ‘Eh, maybe, if he's cute.’ But she’d have to keep an eye out that they didn’t go too far. Lily wouldn't want anybody getting too hoofsy with her out in public on Their Majesties' Royal Dance Floor.

And if the colt suggested they sneak off somewhere more private? Well… Just as long as she didn’t think he was about to slap a ring on her.

That said, getting felt up by a charming, handsome, well-dressed and well-mannered stallion would definitely help lift this evening up from the trash-pile that that two-silver-barred, down-dirty bastard Captain Mailedhoof had dropped her into. Lily was still fuming over the fact that he dumped her over, of all things, her association with batponies. And all before she could dump HIM! That was some top-shelf, hundred-proof, weapons-grade, pure, unadulterated, 24-karat bullsh-

"What are the two of you doing still sitting down? Come on, let's get out on the dance floor!" The Royal Engineer said as he arrived back at the table.

‘Wait, the Royal Engineer's arrived back at the table?’

Honour piped up before Lily could. "What? How come you're back? Where's Artemis?"

With a smile on his face, The Royal Engineer clapped his hands and then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "She went to find her ballroom partner from earlier. So let's go! Don't tell me the two of you are going to sit here all night?"

The thought had crossed Lily’s mind, but no, she did actually want to dance.

Honour was still stuck in the past. "She left you alone?"

‘This buckin' mare.’

Lily decided to interrupt and redirect, putting down her drink and getting to her hooves with a sly grin on her face. "Yeah, what's the matter, couldn't you find yourself a partner out there?"

Anon chuckled. "I found myself a pair of real royal beauties, sure. But Their Majesties said they needed to do the rounds before they could just dance with me all night."

Lily almost missed a step. He was dancing with not just one but BOTH Princesses? And after chatting up a third earlier in the night? Damn! Lily shook her head. "Three Princesses in one night? You sure don't waste any time!"

He started grooving in place a bit. "I guess I'm just making up for avoiding the dance floor Tuesday night. Or maybe it's the rum punch."

Their Majesties' Signature Cocktail for this year's Gala certainly did hit pretty hard. Lily had only been out drinking with the Royal Engineer once now, and he had seemed to hold his liquor fairly well, but she hadn’t exactly been keeping track of his alcohol intake so far tonight — not that it was her job to do that, at least not tonight. As she stepped over to join the still-boogieing colt, Lily gave a playful little shoulder-check into his hips. "All right, big guy, let's get out there and you can show me your moves."

He returned the hip-check against her flank, but pointed over at the brown pony with the new mane-do. "How about you, Honour?"

She shook her head, her recently-liberated flipped-up curls tossing to and fro. "Not now. Maybe in a bit. You two go."

The good Corporal seemed resigned to sit there all by her lonesome for the rest of the night. It was crazy, but Lily wasn’t her keeper; besides, she’d smoothed things over with her own partner, and the Royal Engineer put her dad in his place too, hadn’t he?

‘What's she got to mope around about, then?’

Anon nodded, too upbeat to display any potential disappointment at the moment. "Okay. But don't think I won't come back to get you later!" Grinning from ear to ear, and still bobbing and weaving to the beat, waggling his fingers in time with the music, he led Lily back towards the dance floor.

Coming up alongside him, she gave him another bump. "So, how many calling-cards have mares stuffed into your sash so far?"

He snorted. "Nothing yet, hah! Still on my case about hooking up at the Gala? Don't tell me Purity ran off to hunt someone down for me personally."

Now it was Lily’s turn to whinny. "Are you kidding? She left on her own big-game safari just seconds after you got up to dance with Artemis. I expect to see her prize trophy throwing up in our washroom tomorrow."

"Ah, I see..." The tall, tailcoat-wearing biped looked down at Lily with a sly smile. "...And what about yourself? Surely I won't be your only dance partner tonight? If Artemis has found herself a potential new beau and Purity is about to pair up, shouldn't you be on the prowl as well? Or are you already spoken for, like Honour?"

‘Oof. Talk about hitting you where it hurts right now.’

Lily kinda awkwardly chuckled. "Geez, Anon. Can't a lady have her secrets?"

He stopped for a moment, taken aback by her refusal, then shrugged. "Sorry. I just figured turnabout was fair play from earlier."

Sighing, Lily shot him a pained grimace. "It would be. It's just that I'm not in a happy place right now, relationship-wise, and the wounds are still a bit fresh."

The Royal Engineer arched his eyebrows sympathetically. "Oh, no, not you too? After Artemis had her own breakup a week ago Friday..."

Lily nodded. "Yeah. At least she's already well on the upswing. Plus, I mean — her heartbreak is way worse than mine. She'd been with Huckleberry since school." Waving a forehoof dismissively, she continued. "My break-up is of a barely three-week-old relationship. But it's about how it ended, ya know?"

Lowering his hands, Anon pushed back the sides of his coat and casually slipped his white-gloved fingers into his pockets. "I think I can imagine. Sorry to hear it. Do you need to talk?"

Shaking her head, Lily jabbed her same free hoof towards the dance floor. "Not right now, and maybe not for a while. But you don't have to worry about me, Anon. I've taken harder knock-downs than this, from better colts than him." Lowering her leg, she started up again, before turning back towards him. "...But, thanks... sir."

Lily’s Very Important Pony, who wasn't actually a pony, removed his hands from his pockets and lifted them up, presenting them to her palms-forward. "Hey, now — no formalities tonight, right?" With a grin, he stepped forward to join her. "Off to the dance-floor!"

The two of them continued to make their way through the crowds. It wasn’t as busy here amongst the dining tables as it was earlier during the main dinner service, or even during the quieter ballroom music. The DJ's amplified tunes were loud enough to force anypony who wanted to have anything like a real discourse to retreat far away from the ballroom. And as the music was no longer quite to the liking of the old blue-blooded fossils who ran Equestria, many of them had taken off as well, conversation or no. Yet there remained enough ponies to make it necessary to pick their way between tables and chairs to get around or through the crowd.

Along the way, Anon found the groove again, but when they were forced to politely stop and wait for a large party that was clearly leaving their table to depart, he piped up once more. "Okay, not trying to pry open fresh wounds here, but since you and Purity were laying into me on this topic earlier, I have to ask: what's your type? Or are you not in the mood for this stuff at all?"

That was a bit of a bombshell, considering Lily’s 'type' had just had a forceful rearrangement of the full-force-hoof-to-the-muzzle variety. Still, she supposed, after the needling she’d given Anon, maybe she owed him a quick info-dump.

‘And anyways, what's the harm?’

Inhaling, the unicorn shot him a sly glance. "Eh, I can swing it for you, boss. But let me start off by saying that you would've gotten a very different answer if you’d asked this a few days ago." Sitting back on her haunches, Lily flicked her bangs back with a forehoof. "Right now, I'm looking for a tamer kind of stallion, not some wild, unbroken buck; somepony with a good head on their shoulders, instead of one poised to go off like a rocket." She shrugged. "Physically, he doesn't have to be winning the Bronze Pony Triathlon, but I mean, I keep myself pretty fit, and he ought to keep himself pretty healthy too, even if he's maybe swinging a bit too lean or too thick.” Staring impolitely as the elderly group of ponies took their time donning their hats and coats and purses and feather boas and all sorts of other crap, Lily continued. "As for species? Honestly, I lean towards my own kind; nothing against the others, but their stallions just don't rustle me the way a handsome unicorn does."

Anon lifted an eyebrow. "You've dated a pegasus before, though?"

‘Ugh. Lieutenant Kilfeather, plot-hole extraordinaire.’

Lily nodded. "Yeah, I know. I mean, I wouldn't have seen myself falling for a fast-fighting flyboy, even back then, but I sure did..." Wrinkling up her muzzle a bit, she elaborated. "But with Val, it wasn't so much about the physical attraction — even though there was that too, I mean, he is pretty handsome, in a ladykiller kinda way — it was about the entourage; the celebrity. He'd just won the Grand Mêlée. He was on top of the world in the Royal Guard, him and his crew, and I was a wide-eyed Private who'd been granted permission to sit up there in the throne-room with them." With a snort, Lily began the end of the story. "Of course I didn't realize that to him I was just another in a long line of floozies, and he eventually treated me as such. I was young 'n' dumb, and if maybe I ain't the smartest mare around, I still learn from my mistakes. So I'm definitely not into doing anything like that ever again." A sigh escaped her lips, and her ears drooped down sideways. "Of course, having said all that I'll still probably go falling again for some hyper-aggressive ultra-stud who'll sweep me off my hooves and then inevitably break my heart taking advantage of me. Story of my life, really."

Anonymous looked down at her with concern. "It happens that often?"

As the group before them finally left and let them proceed, she answered. "...If I had a five-bit piece every time I got mistreated by an 'alpha stallion' who thought that me being theirs meant they could do whatever they wanted with me, I'd have ten bits, which isn't a lot, but it sucks that it's happened twice."

Continuing towards the dance floor, she glanced up at her tall companion. He looked a bit more subdued and deeper in thought.

‘What's on his mind?’

He couldn’t just be pondering her failed relationships.

‘Heh, is he thinking about mares for his own sake?’

Maybe she ought to have taken this approach earlier; instead of digging in and teasing him to open up, she should've bared her own tastes, desires, and experiences. Artemis, Lily was sure, would have been eventually more than happy to gush about what she found attractive with a bit of prodding. And Lily already knew what she'd say: big, strong, handsome, considerate, courageous, kind. All attributes that coincidentally matched the Royal Engineer. As for Purity, she might have looser standards, but Lily thought she would have freely chatted about them as well. Honour, though? Heck, that mare barely knew what she wanted, let alone seemed comfortable talking about it.

‘Still, three out of four guardsmares spilling their gossip-guts ain't bad.’

Chatter like that probably would have helped him get on-track with how things work around here. And speaking of how things worked, was the Royal Engineer still oblivious to Artemis' advances? Yeah, as a non-pony he hadn't noticed stuck-out tufts or wingboners or horn anteglow until Honour laid down the law to him, but surely he understood that there was some meaning to sharing an intimate close-held formal dance, or giving a kiss on the cheek, or a companion fetching him his meal? Like, that stuff had to be universal, yeah? A clever colt like him had to have an inkling at least, right?

Lily couldn’t help but wonder if she should spill some beans on that whole situation; help kick it along.

‘Maybe there's a tactful way to go about it.’

"Hey, Anon. You know what signs to look for when we're out on the dance floor, right?"

He lifted an eyebrow, raising his voice to be heard over the intensifying music. "Signs of what?"

Shooting him a sly grin, Lily nodded up ahead. "Of a mare checking you out, dummy! I'm your shield-bearer out there, ain't I?" Anon furrowed his brow, clearly unfamiliar with the unicorn expression for a friend who helped another in their pick-up game. "...You know, your wingmare?"

That got a snort and a grin out of him. The pegasus equivalent term was a lot-better known, she supposed. "Okay, 'wingmare'. Is that what I have to look out for? Signs I'm being checked out? So I can make the next move over to her — if she's my type, that is?"

‘He catches on quick.’

"Sure, why not? Most mares appreciate a little initiative." Lily pursed her lips and tilted her head. "Not to say you might not get chatted up yourself, like Little Miss Princess Purple back before dinner. Gotta keep your ears up for that, too."

She'd been cute, if a bit dweeby, but that dancing on-stage later with the MC?

Woof, and bow-wow too. Javelin: dodged.

The Royal Engineer waved a hand dismissively. "Ah, that was just a friendly talk. She's helping organize the event, and performing hostess duties."

As the two of them finally reached the edge of the dance floor and some room opened up, Lily gave him an elbow poke. "Sure, that's how it starts! Then she shows an interest, wants to hear you talk about yourself, smiles when you ask her about herself, maybe touches a hoof to your shoulder..." Lily tried to trail off suggestively, but it was too loud there to really do that.

Still, Anon seemed to get the gist. "Same as where I'm from, I guess. But is it mostly guys who take the biggest first step with ladies here, too?"

Finally finding her hooves free to dance, Lily started to bob and weave to the DJ's latest bass-heavy track before even thinking about answering her VIP. She closed her eyes for a moment and soaked the music in, feeling the beat throbbing in her chest just as much as she heard it in her ears.

‘Yeah, that's the good stuff. A proper speaker setup: no rattle, no pop, no fizzle or fuzz, just big bad BOOM 'n' BWUAAHH.’

Opening her eyes, Lily found Anon digging into the tunes as well, doing a basic left-left-right-right two-step. Okay, so he definitely didn’t have four left hooves, but she already knew that from how he did the Lipizzaner Waltz with Artemis. "It's usually colts approaching mares, yeah. Like, I dunno, eighty-twenty split? Depends on the situation, I guess."

Anon started to clap on the off-beats, rolling his shoulders as he swung.

‘All right, variations, so he's not just a bob-along-bozo.’

"So what am I looking for, here on the dance floor? Extended eye contact?"

Bobbing her plot, Lily started to swish her tail, warming up for executing a proper twirl later. "Sure. Stares, with a smile or a smolder or even a kissy-face, that's a good start. Maybe a mane flip, too, like this." The unicorn’s short bob mane-do wasn't exactly long enough for a proper flip, but she gave it her all, dipping her head down before throwing it back, and even shooting him a little come-hither tongue-pull across her upper teeth, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

Anonymous looked appropriately impressed with her maneuver. "That's quite the move. I don't think I could miss a sign like that."

Lily chuckled. "In my experience, the average colt could miss a brick hurled at their forehead."

He pointed a single finger at her, one hand at a time, flipping them back and forth with the beat. "Hey, I'm no average colt. But in my experience, the average girl — err, mare — thinks she's throwing bricks when she's barely blowing bubbles."

Eh, she could give him that. Lily had witnessed enough drunken failed attempts at flirting from her fellow members of the 'fairer' sex. Heck, she’d probably made all number of them herself, when she was younger, and especially back when she used to get a LOT drunker. Hypnotized by the beat, memories come flooding in of other depraved nights of liquor-fuelled debauchery.

Including a few with Kilfeather and company.

There was a pang of pain in her brow, and it wasn’t because anypony had tossed any bricks at her.

‘Damn.’

Lily Glamerspear was nowhere near old, but still, the safe stopping distance between 'pleasant buzz' and 'splitting headache' had noticeably shrunk since she’d graduated Private First Class.

‘It’s almost like rank is linked to alcohol tolerance.’

Total capacity isn't an issue; she’d seen cape-wearing Master Sergeants neatly stow away entire kegs in their barrel chests at the Royal Guard's Annual Ball. But finding that perfect midway spot was getting harder every year. And hard dancing isn't exactly conducive to feeling good after putting away as much drink as she had.

‘Only one solution for now, though: power through.’

Clenching her eyes shut, Lily rhythmically bounced her plot — first hard, then gradually backing off to just the right speed. The swishing feeling as her skirt rhythmically tugged on her croup told her she’d got it going on back there, and she slowly opened her eyes, turning her head slightly to admire her hoofiwork.

‘Yup, you're dancing a spinner, dancin' a spinner, it don't stop.’

Lily was turning a few heads around the floor — and why shouldn't she?

‘Spinning ain't easy, but somepony gotta do it. And at the moment that somepony is me.’

Facing back towards Anon, again with a satisfied look on her face, Lily found him doing his own rotational move, with his hands balled up into fists. With every other beat, his forearms swept out a pair of circles, while he swayed left and right, snapping his fingers and stomping his feet.

‘Damn, that's not bad. Freaking bipeds have it easy on the dance floor. Pegasi, too, since they can use their wings to rear back more easily. Well, a simple four-on-the-floor tailspin isn't all I can do. Time to take it to the next level.’

Carefully, Lily worked her forehooves back until all four of her hooves were gathered together. Then she walked her forehooves up the inside of her hind legs, squatting down slightly as she did so. It was a lot of work and hard balancing for somepony as sloshed as she was, and she was pretty sure she had ungracefully stuck out her tongue while concentrating, but she managed it.

‘Yeah that's right, everypony, two-hoofed tail-spinning!’

"Hahaha! Tailspin!"

Anonymous beamed a smile. "Oh-ee-yay! Spin it, you can win it!" But he wasn’t out of moves, either. Dispensing with the small arm swings, he started to bend his knees a bit, grinding down lower, before starting to swoop one arm while the other pumped.

‘Buck, that looks pretty good.’

By comparison, Lily was up there wobbling like a chicken.

‘Okay, spin time is over, the only way to top this colt is to go full biped.’

"Huurh!" Lily hopped up onto her hind hooves, abandoning the spin but keeping her hips moving with the beat. Closing her eyes and turning her head sideways, the unicorn slowly ran her forehooves up her flanks and then spread them high above her, swaying left and right. Her raised sandals weren't making it any easier, but at least they weren’t full pumps or stilettos.

Having achieved full extension, she opened her eyes again. Posed like that, her face almost came up to Anon's. Well, like, the top of his chest, at least. But that was almost the right height for slow-dancing together. No wonder Artemis, a considerably taller pony than Lily, was so happy dancing the Lipizzaner Waltz with him. There probably weren't a lot of stallions out there who could make an appropriately-matched couple paired with her and her earth-pony blooded 'heavy assault frame'. Which brought her back to the subject of maybe dropping a hint or two on Anon about Artemis’ attentions.

Before Lily could do that, though, the Royal Engineer showed her that his well of epic dance moves hadn't run dry, either. Showing up her mere extension, he started punching up into the sky, alternating hands across his body before drawing each back down, like he was snatching love-bricks out of the air and slipping them into his pocket. And all that was accompanied by lean-backs that would be impossible for a pony to pull off.

‘This buckin' colt. Gonna push me to the edge, huh?’

‘Okay, right! Time to show him how all the thirsty mares do it up in Manehattan, dead-ass.’

And Lily included herself in that category, back in the day.

Staying reared up on her hinds, she lowered her forehooves and started twirling them around each other in front of her. Stomping in time with the beat, she also turned in place until she was facing away from Anon.

And that's when Lily hit him with the 'thang'.

Throwing her forehooves up into the air once more, she bent over backwards so far she could actually look up at him upside-down. She had to take a step back to avoid toppling over, and she couldn't hold the pose for long, but that was the 'pee-yes-ee day reh-sis-tans,' as the Prench say. Then it was back down onto all fours, before she screwed up and ruined the whole show so far.

Anon nodded, a grin on his face. "Oh, so it's like that, huh?"

Lily shot him a sly smirk in-between steps. "Yeah. Put up or shut up, boss."

Lowering his hands, he chuckled, "Okay, but you asked for it."

As the song headed into a bridge, he paused his stepping and took a moment to adjust his cuffs and white bow tie. The instant the beat dropped, Anonymous launched into the fanciest footwork Lily had ever seen. Flapping his arms like they were wings, his feet stepped, stomped, and tapped so fast they were just a high-energy electric blur at the end of swaying knees. Lily had barely figured out what was going on before he switched it up, spinning his hands as before but shuffling sideways left and right without lifting his shoes off the floor.

‘What in the Tartar-damn—?’

Turning sideways in place, he bent his torso over, swinging his arms back and forth as he kicked the opposite foot almost straight back, exaggeratedly running in place.

‘B-B-Buckin'-huh? It's impossible!’

After a few bars like that, then he kicked it up another notch — or rather, dropped it down, flopping forward onto his hands and knees before dropping to the floor. Lily was stunned to see him ripple his whole body, flopping forward like a seal on the beach. And then he jumped back up, throwing both his arms and one foot one way and then the other.

It was the highest-energy dancing she’d ever seen! She couldn’t withstand being served this hard!

Lily’s heart sank when she saw he hadn't stopped, either, merely settling back into variations on the opening fancy footwork, still an impossible blur.

‘It's my first VIP shift all over again, with the trotting 'jog'!’

‘So much for becoming the star of the dance floor over here, I’m relegated to second fiddle.’

Lily was so stunned by this development that she couldn't do much more than a basic left-left-right-right two-step.

‘Well, maybe having Anon as the star won't be too bad. If he isn't interested in picking up a mare for himself, then that leaves the field open for me to crutch on him to attract someone of my own.’

The Royal Engineer went into some kind of private dance-trance, shutting his eyes as he worked through his routine.

‘Did Artemis seriously walk away from this?’

‘No way; she must have left to meet her formal-dance partner without having seen their VIP open up the taps.’

Anonymous paused his footsteps to start into a hips-and-knees-only groove, one hand on his head holding to a nonexistent top hat that he left back at the table half an hour ago.

‘Unf.’

Lily bit her lower lip. That was some serious body-pumping action. She wouldn't say 'no' to being on the receiving end of a little of that. Heck, she’d even take it backwards. Looking around, she saw that he was indeed getting more than a few interested glances.

‘Guh, but what about Artemis? She's my squaddie, and she called dibs on Anon.’

Yet the mare wasn’t there. She could've blown off that other partner if she'd wanted to; he probably wouldn't even have noticed. 'Say la vee', she supposed; Artemis made her choice. Now the Royal Engineer was in the crosshairs of a free-for-all. And as his loyal and faithful bodyguard, it was up to Lily to make sure he got nothing but the best.

She started to wiggle her plot once more, setting up for another spinarooni.

‘Okay, Lily, Operation Amorous-Attention-Attraction is a GO!’

‘Yeah, I’m spinnin', I’m spinnin', I’m spinnin.’

Anonymous opened his eyes, grooving in place as he watched her swish three-sixty. "I got something I've been wanting to do. Do you trust me?"

‘Buh?’

Lily went wide-eyed, still casually spinning her tail. "Uhh... Yeah?"

He nodded. "Okay, just keep doing what you're doing!"

‘What's he gonna — okay, he's next to me, squatting down, reaching one arm underneath my barrel and WHOA NELLY. I’m in the air!’

In one swift move, Anonymous, by Appointment to Their Majesties Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, The Royal Engineer of Equestria, hoisted Lily up onto his shoulder, and stood up, her tail spinning inches from his face as she faced backwards. Then he put his free hand in the air and twirled his finger. Then he started step-rotating in place as well.

‘Triple spin! It's a triple spin!’

‘Princess Celestia almighty, Princess Celestia almighty! As Celestia is my witness, he has torn this dance floor up in half!’

It was everything she’d ever drunkenly hoped and dreamed of doing, and Lily couldn't help but start to cry marely tears a little.

‘Buck, my mascara's gonna run — but chin up, Lily. The ponies gathered here, they'll all remember the night they witnessed the fabled triple spinarooni at the Grand Galloping Gala. They'll speak of this event in hushed whispers for years to come.’

Lily breathlessly whispered in-between sobs. "Just keep spinning. Just keep spinning."

Beneath her, Anonymous grunted. "Hah! I wasn't sure if this would work! Ready to go down?"

Lily would follow this stallion to Tartarus and back; at least, that's what she thought right then while the liquor was still in full effect.

Somewhat less elegantly than how he’d gotten her up in the first place, the Royal Engineer crouched down and helped Lily get her four hooves back onto solid ground again. It was all she could do just to keep spinning, managing to never drop even one rotation-per-minute.

That beautiful, handsome, powerful stallion got back up and resumed his simple opening two-hoofed two-step. "You OK? Let's take it easy for a bit and then see what else we can come up with, yeah?"

Lily was speechless; all she could do was nod with a dopey grin on her face.

‘Best night ever.’

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Suggested interlude music: Martin Solveig - '+1' (feat. Sam White) [2015]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRi_xo92VE

Next Chapter: Chapter 146 Estimated time remaining: 49 Minutes