Matthias sat lazily in his room clicking away on his computer as his music played over the speakers nearby. His homework was long since finished, and now the only thing that demanded his time was a kid in Kentucky who claimed to be better than him at Call of Duty, and had apparently had fucked his mother the previous night. True, he could have just as easily gone and played with Rainbow Dash in the other room, but then he ran the risk of continuing to lose to the rainbow-maned pony that was obviously cheating.

Upon finishing his match, he set the controller down and stretched his arms over his head, contemplating on how he was going to spend yet another weekend of his time, and while he enjoyed playing video games with a cheating Pegasus, that enjoyment would only last so long before he was bored with that too. Suddenly, a knock came from the closed door behind him, making him turn to see the familiar form of Twilight in the doorway.

“Hey Matt, how are you?” she asked coming in and walking over to her side of the room, retrieving a small book from her night stand. “Enjoying your Friday as usual?”

“About as much as I can these days,” He joked. “What are you up to?”

“You know, brushing up on history,” She said walking over and plopping her saddle bags on her bed removing a large brown book before plopping down on the mattress returning to the spot in her book she had left off.

“Where are you in our marvelous history?”

“About to begin the second world war,” She stated, not taking her eyes off the page, “Is there any reason in particular why you humans are so violent?”

“Eh, personally I blame our ancestors and the need to prove their cocks were much bigger than everyone else’s in the world. By the way has Hitler invaded Poland yet?”

“Wait, that happens? Don’t say another word, I want to read this for myself!” She said, her eyes now flying across the pages.

Matthias smiled to himself realizing the kind of power he now had over the bookworm at the moment (even if it was basic knowledge he remembered from high school). “That was a great chapter, but I’m going to warn you -- the holocaust gets pretty dark.”

“Stop spoiling history! I want to find this out for myself,” She said almost yelling covering her ears with her hooves.

“Alright, I won’t mention the Russians taking Berlin.” Suddenly, Matthias felt himself surrounded by an all too familiar pink aura and the room around him dissipated before he suddenly found himself just outside his room, the door slamming behind him. “Spoiler alert: Hitler kills himself!” he yelled through the door for good measure.

Mike scratched his arms uneasily as he approached the campus restaurant with Lyra walking beside him; a small smile decorated her face. “Nervous?” She asked looking up towards the human.

“Can I be honest?” Mike said. “A little bit.”

Lyra chuckled. “Hey don’t worry big guy, I promise I won’t bite until you give me permission.”  Mike laughed matching her caring gaze with one of his own.

“So what’s on the agenda for tonight, if I may ask?”

“Well I was thinking we would be able to eat a nice dinner and then maybe go out and look at the stars. If that’s okay with you of course.”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

A green aura appeared over the door handle and Mike found himself ushered in by the mint green unicorn. Lyra approached the stand where a brown mare stood behind the host’s stand talking to a human leaned over to meet her at eye level and dressed in the traditional waiter gear staring into his eyes with an unmistakable smile decorating both their faces. The mare looked towards the new patrons before she leaned in towards the human and lightly pecked his cheek before the two of them returned to working. Mike couldn’t help but look at the restaurant’s other patrons; consisting of many other couples some human, some ponies, and even some cross-species.

“Hello, welcome to Felicia’s Temptations, do you have reservations?” The mare asked.

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and say you’re courting that human right?” Lyra stated with a raised eye brow.

“Yeah, for about two weeks now.” She admitted. “You aren’t one of those traditionalists who hate cross species relationships are you?”

Lyra chuckled as she gestured to the human behind her. “I’m trying to get with tall dark and handsome back there so I’m all for you.”

“Thanks, you wouldn’t believe how much ridicule we get from some of the other students. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lyra Heartstrings and the human who looks like someone’s distracting him with a laser pointer is Mike.”

Hearing his name Mike looked back to the two mares talking before he waved slightly. “Hey.” He greeted with a small wave making his date laugh.

The brown mare looked to the screen in front of her tracing down the names as her eyes squinted to better look at the small names. “Jackson… Tankian…. Marley…. Ah here we go Heartstrings, party of two right?”

“That’s us!” Lyra smiled.

“Perfect! If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your table.” She stated, leading them further into the packed restaurant to the back where a table waited open and ready to be serviced. “Here is your seat, and your waiter will be with you shortly. Oh, and you guys are cute together, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.” The mare grinned at the two before returning to the front of the restaurant.

“So, she seemed nice.” Mike stated, sitting down across from his date, picking up his menu and looking over the selections. Each item was marked with either a hand or horseshoe, depending on which dish appealed to the patron in mind.

As the two sat and enjoyed their meals, Mike couldn’t help but think back to what the hostess had said about cross species couples and how they were ridiculed for being different. He looked to his date who smiled happily as she caught him staring. How could anyone hate something that just seemed as normal as any other normal couple; I mean it wasn’t like he was going out with an un-sentient horse that ate grass and would neigh every so often without saying any other words. Surely they could see that… right?

“So wait, you’re tellin’ me he’s never been on a date Dash?” Applejack stated

“Nope.”

“Never been intimate with no pony.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Has he even ever kissed a mare?”

“Girl.” Dash corrected. “And as far as I know, no.”

Applejack leaned back against the couch taken aback at what Dash had just told her about their human roommate. “What do you think it is then?”

“Probably just too shy. I mean have you seen him interacting with a mare?”

“No.”

“Exactly! Probably too shy to even approach a girl from his own species, not to mention his face when I came onto him.”

“Y’mean when you acted like you were going to rape him.”

“Hey, Rainbow Dash always gets the stallion she wants.” She said with a wink.

“Didn’t get Matthias though, Miss Rapebow Dash.” Applejack stated with raised eyebrows.

“Are you saying I couldn’t?” Rainbow stated, raising her voice.

“I’m sayin’ that Twilight and Fluttershy have seen more’a that boy’s body than you have, and Twilight’s not exactly tryin’ to stay single, if you catch my drift.”

“Please, Twilight wouldn’t know romance if it came up and slapped her flank.”

“I dunno. Dash. Twilight may be a lot of things but if she puts her mind to it, that mare can do whatever she wants, includin’ getting the attention of a certain human she’s been examining.”

“Is she even interested in him?”

“She hasn’t exactly been hidin’ that blush during her examinations there sugar cube, if anything I think she’s falling for him without her even knowin’.”

“Are you saying she has a better chance than me?”

“Gettin’ a tad defensive Dash, you sayin’ you like Matthias a bit?”

Immediately Dash felt a blush on her cheeks to which she looked away to try and hide it. “Well he certainly isn’t the worst looking human on campus, not that I’ve been curious to see what they’re like.” Applejack let out a small laugh at this.

“Oh don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what equipment those humans are packing!”

“Well…” Applejack stated turning away to hide the blush now on her face.

“Yeah, I thought so, and don’t think I haven’t seen you looking at Matthias either. You aren’t that subtle, AJ.”

“You ain’t that subtle yourself Rainbow. I’ve seen how you’ve been peekin’ in on Twilights little examinations lately. See something you might like in there Dash?”

“You trying to suggest something!?”

“I say let’s make a bet. First to go on a date with Matthias wins, loser has to do anything the winner says for a day.”

“C’mon AJ kick it up a notch, first one to kiss him.”

“Fine, but it has to last longer than fifteen seconds.”

“Deal!” Dash stated bumping hooves with the orange earth pony.

“So tonight was… something.” Mike stated with a small laugh earning a small chuckle from the unicorn.

“Yeah but in all honesty I really enjoyed myself.”

“Yeah me too, even though the meat was undercooked.”

“And the entertainment was ‘lacking’.” Lyra added.

“That isn’t the term I’d use.”

“Okay, they sucked.” The two immediately began laughing as they scooted a little closer to each other.

From the time the two had entered the restaurant, the night hadn’t gone exactly as they had planned. From a terrible meal to a mediocre entertainer, this wasn’t the night that they had planned on. Admittedly the best part of the night had been the moment they were sharing now; laying in the grass close to each other as they looked up at the clear night sky, but one thing still bothered Lyra.

“So Mike, I have to ask, do you have any regrets about tonight?” she asked.

“Apart from three bathroom trips within the same hour?”

“You know what I mean. Are you okay with dating a pony?”

Mike scooted closer now touching the pony as he wrapped an arm around the mint green unicorn giving her a little hug as he did so. “I am, as long as you’re okay with dating a human.”

“But what about all the ridicule that cross-species couples have been getting? Aren’t you worried about all that?”

“Lyra, as long as you’re happy with me, they can say what they want. They won’t know what they’re missing.”

Lyra almost felt tears well up in her eyes as she leaned up and lightly kissed the human on the cheek. “Thanks Mike, you’re going to be a great colt friend.”

Mike instantly blushed, scooting over to wrap his arms around the green mare holding her close to his chest while she wrapped her hooves around the human nuzzling his chest as she placed her ear over his heart, listening to its beat before it lulled her to sleep.